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 Boot Camp to Building a Life: Mike Mickus's Journey Through Service and Family
What does it mean to truly find your way home? For Mike Mikus, the journey began on a 27-acre Michigan farm where he taught himself to repair engines by age 10, continued through the Marine Corps where mentorship transformed his life, and ultimately led to creating a home filled with love, resilience and purpose.
Mike's story begins with childhood isolation that fostered self-reliance and mechanical aptitude. When a confrontation with his father led to enlistment in the Marines at 17, Mike found himself transformed by boot camp discipline and the guidance of Sergeant Kennedy, a mentor who helped him advance rapidly to sergeant while mastering helicopter hydraulics. Through three Mediterranean cruises on naval vessels and rare experiences like becoming a "Golden Shellback" when crossing the equator at 0-0 coordinates, Mike's military service shaped his character without sending him into direct combat.
The heart of Mike's narrative emerges in his return to civilian life, where meeting his wife led to a three-month courtship and decades-long marriage. Together they built a family of four children while repeatedly renovating homes, creating tight-knit neighborhood communities, and weathering life's challenges. Perhaps most powerful is their triumph over his wife's stage four cancer diagnosis—a battle they won against tremendous odds, reinforcing their belief in focusing on what truly matters.
Now in retirement, Mike embodies the wisdom he's gained: "Nobody on their deathbed ever said they wished they worked more." His dedication to veterans' ministry work, fishing trips with friends, and cherished time with children and grandchildren reflects a life built on service, resilience, and the understanding that home isn't just where you live—it's the legacy of love you create along the way.
Today is Tuesday, april 29th. We're talking with Mike Mikus, who served in the United States Marine Corps. So good afternoon, mike Good afternoon. Great to have you here.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to start out real easy. Okay, when and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Dearborn, michigan, in 1959 at Oakwood Hospital.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you grow up in Dearborn then?
Speaker 2:No, I grew up in Belleborn then no, I grew up in belleville, michigan, um farm country. Yeah, so it was a different life being a kid no friends around, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:We're just 27 acres to play on. Wow. So how many like where was your nearest neighbor? It was between a little over a quarter mile away okay, so you really had to work if you wanted to meet the neighbors right didn't really have friends until you were 10 years old yeah when you could actually venture out a little bit. Well, what about brothers and sisters?
Speaker 2:Four sisters and one brother.
Speaker 1:Oh, good Lord.
Speaker 2:So there were six of us. Should have been nine of us all together, my mom had a few problems and would have been a big family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think six is a big family.
Speaker 2:It is, it is.
Speaker 1:Where'd you fall in the food chain there?
Speaker 2:uh, third okay, right in the middle of the pack so you were the middle kid yeah, one of them?
Speaker 1:do you have all those middle kid problems? Oh yeah oh yeah so. So um, were your brothers and sisters kind of close in age then?
Speaker 2:yeah, we were all pretty much. Uh, my oldest sister is right now 67 or 68, I'm sorry. My next sister down was 67, so I'm going to be 66 this year, and then my brother's two years younger than me, and then my other sister was three years younger, and then my last sister was probably about six years younger than me okay, so on your 27 acres were you guys each other's friends quite a bit we were to a point till they got sick of me.
Speaker 2:Right, you know I was kind of the brute of the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could say yeah, I can, I could see that would, so tell me a little bit of what was it like growing up on the farm. Talk, you know, maybe a little bit about your parents and all that it was sure.
Speaker 2:So we, like I say, we lived on 27 acres and there were no friends around. So you would find me any day after school or on the weekends out in the fields playing in the ditches, and that's what we did. You know, you go out in the back and make trails through the woods. The farm used to be a 27 acre strawberry farm. My grandparents lived next door, sold my parents three-quarters of an acre so we had the whole thing, but they did that for the longest time, making money on the side, until one day a truck came down the road and took out the fruit stand after they worked so hard to gain everything. But pretty much for us it was just playing in ditches and riding our bikes.
Speaker 2:My parents were. My mom didn't work. My dad worked for the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Times back in the day he was a district manager and pretty much we didn't see him. He worked nights, so my mom was the law enforcement in the house and if we were able to catch up with my dad a couple hours a night, that's what we had, you know. So a little bit different family life, wherever the kids had their dad stuff home all day with them around the weekends when we didn't really have that, because when he was sleeping we were in school and he'd get up and go to work yeah, yeah, my dad worked third shift at general motors.
Speaker 1:I get it. It's like they're there but they're not really there. So you guys are kind of other than your mom making sure no one got hurt. You were kind of left to your own devices yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little bit different than nowadays, I mean. I mean, literally, we would go outside at probably seven o'clock in the morning and if, if we were lucky, we'd come back in it's around something to eat and then head right back out again, come back when it was dark, we would stay outside so much that my parents said, when we were I can remember being little like seven, eight years old, six, seven, eight my mom telling me to get back in the shower and go scrub that dirt off. And it wasn't dirt, it was just how dark I was from being outside the sun all day. So that was uh, I can remember that vividly, wow.
Speaker 1:That's quite a tan, right, right, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, so you uh started going to school. Did you go to school in Belleville then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in Belleville. Then, yeah, I went to school in Belleville. Again, that was a tough one, because I went to a Catholic school and so all my friends went off and went to the regular grade elementary school and here I was being shipped off to another school so you didn't get to hang with them or you didn't even really know the kids in your neighborhood. Because of that fact you didn't go to school with them. So I did that probably until I think I was in sixth grade, and then that's when my life kind of busted open, because after sixth grade then you were old enough to where you could venture out. I would ride my bike and take off, but we lived on a major road, e-course Road. The speed limit was 50 mile an hour, going to Hydromatic right down the street. So it was scary but I don't know, I survived.
Speaker 1:I used to take E course road into um Taylor Yep Uh when I drilled out of Taylor. I know that area pretty well.
Speaker 2:We grew up right at the corner, pretty much a B course in Hagerty. Okay, yeah, right in that area.
Speaker 1:Surprisingly, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it used to be Chet's Bar on the corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only thing I remember down there is Tim Hortons, but I don't think that's there anymore either. Yeah, so sixth grade things kind of opened up for you then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I had free reign. Then you know I could go pretty much wherever I wanted to, and you know, then I would start riding down towards Haggerty Road and I started meeting all the kids in the neighborhood. Well, once I did that, you know they all had bikes and so we would hang out at each other's house and again, it was an open house policy. They'd come to our house, I'd go to their house and you know it wasn't even a knock anymore. You just go on in and see who's there, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and we had, like I said, we had 27 acres out back and we would all meet in the woods and so I had trails cut through and they had trails cut through from their side and we'd meet out there. They had horses, so we'd ride horses out there. Many bikes build jumps, forts, growls for the horses. And I mean, we were, we were still young, we probably should be having saws and stuff like that, but we were doing it oh yeah, well, in, in, you know the the jump, like the bike jumps that we used to make.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, kids today just don't get it no I'm sorry they don't you know we should.
Speaker 2:We probably should be missing arms and stuff for the stuff that we did probably shouldn't be sitting here. I'll tell you that right now that's a fact, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you did. You continue at catholic school and through all of school no, just for up until the sixth grade.
Speaker 2:And then they pulled me out Because at the time, you know, back then parents weren't making a whole lot of money and Catholic school was pretty expensive, especially with six kids. So the younger three lucked out, they got to go to regular school, for the most part after sixth grade. Then, like I say say, it all broke open. We were able to do pretty much what we wanted to. Then you start making friends and you know elementary schools and junior high and things like that.
Speaker 1:So it was pretty cool was it a pretty big change from from sixth grade not being in the catholic school to being in the in the public school very much, six very much because of the fact that we were taught by nuns.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I mean you could go to elementary school and the teacher would holler at you a little bit like that look at these knuckles, man.
Speaker 1:I used to get wrapped with the rulers you answered the question I was about to ask oh yeah, we had.
Speaker 2:We had sister mary poncho train. I can remember her for a fact that she used to look there and she, I'm so mad I could spit hot lava, you know, and if you didn't have your homework that was worth a whack with the ruler and I mean, it was brutal back then sister mary poncha train right.
Speaker 1:That sounds like something right out of serenade live I know you you think about that.
Speaker 2:That's something you read in a book. You can't make that stuff not at all.
Speaker 1:So you get into junior high and um, what kind of student were you?
Speaker 2:you know I was. I tell you I didn't like school, it's I mean I did. I did what I had to do to get through and I guess that probably really wasn't the right thing to do. I probably should have studied a little bit more. But you know, back then all you could think about, I want to get home, play and that kind of things. Uh, so I wouldn't say I was a bad student, but more than once a week I wouldn't go with my homework on it all that's did this phrase get used a lot.
Speaker 1:He has a lot of potential yeah, yeah, yep, yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Sure was I mean. But you know the things that I didn't learn in school, I think I learned at home. By the time I was 10 years old, I was tearing apart engines off of mowers and you know, with 27 acres, we probably mowed five acres total, and I was mowing grass by 10 by myself um, getting paid to mow the neighbor's yard, things of that nature. So I mean I could tear engines apart and by the time I was 12 I was changing oil in my parents cars and stuff like that. So I mean a lot of it and I think a lot of it was self-taught, because my dad wasn't really around, or he was, but not for us to utilize and I don't know if he could have did that stuff anyway. But I just learned, you know, reading books or looking at pictures, and okay, this is how you do it. I've made a few mistakes.
Speaker 1:That's how you learn.
Speaker 2:Mike Made messes and cleaned them up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you have like an aptitude for for motors and things that yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean reading a reading a book or looking at a book. I think I can see what's in the book and then go at and do the project. Yeah, you know. So I don't know pretty good, I guess.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's fun, I just, I like tinkering things and fixing things and putting things together so you, when you were in school that's still in the era where they had like shop classes and things like that right, yeah, was that where you excelled in school I think so because you know, most of once you hit high school and junior high, they had vocational tech and all those other things and most of my days were taken up with that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:I had welding classes, auto mechanics, uh, auto body, so I mean I was working on everybody's car. I had my car and they're working on it and so I don't know.
Speaker 1:I had buddies that needed help so I would go do it and I was kind of good at it, so it helped out you know, I remember years ago when my son got I think it was like his first or second car but uh, it needed brakes, and so we went out in the driveway and we put brakes on it and he was just amazed. I was like dude, like when I grew up, like you could just barely afford the car. Right, if you wanted stuff to work right, you had had to, you had to be the one to do it. So, um, it was kind of nice to teach him to do that stuff, but I, but I, it was just something I always did. So I didn't think that someone needed to learn this. You just know how to do it right right, and that that was me too.
Speaker 2:You know, by the time we started having kids and stuff, it was just, everything was second nature. Yeah, you know what do you mean. You know how to do that right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're gonna put a stereo in this car. Let me show you how that works exactly. No, I remember those days. So you, uh, you make it through school, uh, did you play any sports or anything like?
Speaker 2:that in school I was a motorhead. Yeah, yeah, all through school, I mean all of us. We were back in the year uh, you know, 77 was when I graduated, so 75, and we all had hot cars. You know, we had a, I had a 70 Cuda with a three 40. And of course you put the big tires on it and ladder bars and, um, all my friends had Camaros or Firebirds or chargers or something like that, and so that's kinda that's what we did. We, we would hang out with our cars. Um, we even had to the point where, when going to school, my nickname was Arer, because back then you didn't have cell phones, there was no way to get a hold of anybody, so we all put cb radios in our car.
Speaker 1:So you know, well, that was the time too right. That was when the cvs were yeah, because I was a little bit younger, but I remember going. Yeah, I mean we went to like cb coffee breaks, did all kinds of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we would contact each other in the morning on the way to school we going to school today or what we do.
Speaker 1:Well, the nice thing is, no one else can you know, no one can check your CB to see who you've been talking to, right?
Speaker 2:So that was, that was an interesting part in our, in our lives with the CBs and no phones and stuff. You know, lives with the cbs and no phones and stuff. You know your phone was hooked to the wall so everybody heard what you were saying, right and uh, so I was just nice and I mean every one of my friends had them so we could get a hold of anybody at any time now, did you have that home phone with like the 90 foot cord?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, so you go like all the way down in the basement you stretch it to 110 right I know, I remember and then we get all coiled up and ridiculous. Then your mom would be able to get off the phone exactly I remember those days. So you get through high school and you graduate. What's what's next?
Speaker 2:so during high school, um, I wouldn't say that me and my dad didn't really get along, because I really I could honestly say I probably really didn't know get along, because I really I can honestly say I probably really didn't know him, yeah, uh. So I told him one day. I said you know, think I'm going to go to college, just a community college or whatever. And he looked at me and he goes you're too stupid to go to college. And I went, hmm, okay, so that's the way this is going to roll. And thought about it for a little bit and within the next week or so this was probably in june, no, it was probably in february of 77, and that's when he said this to me and didn't know if he was joking or not. But it sticks with you, yeah, being being young, you know oh, that's your dad yep.
Speaker 2:So I went down, talked to my buddies and we were out and I said so what would you? What's your plans, what are you gonna do? He goes I don't know. He says I want to be a dog trainer. I go, where are you gonna get schooling for that at? He goes I was thinking about joining the military went. Hmm, sounds different. He goes I'm going to a meeting. You want to go? I went sure, let's go, you know.
Speaker 2:So we went down there and talked to the recruiters and haven't even talked to my parents yet, I was still 17. And so he's talking to him about his stuff and he goes. The recruiter looked at me and he goes what about you? And I go I'm just kind of here listening to see what you guys got to offer and all this stuff. And I says what do you like to do? He says well, I like working on motors and things of that nature. And I says I wouldn't mind working on airplanes or something of that. And he goes well, that's pretty cool, we got stuff like that that we could offer with you. Well, needless to say, by the time I left there, I was already signed up.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, you said, it gave your parents permission at this point, right.
Speaker 2:Right 17, no parents permission. He goes well, just take these papers home and get them filled out by your parents and we'll get you going as soon as you get out of high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And took the papers home and nope, they wouldn't sign them. Didn't want nothing to do with it. So, luckily enough, my birthday was july 30th and I graduated in may. Got out a little bit early so, but I was already signed up, so I was on delayed entry and all that and shipped out august wow so was there a reason why your parents weren't on board with this?
Speaker 1:I mean?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I really I know. I just maybe they figured I wouldn't follow through with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, but there is, once you're in there, man, you follow it through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's only two ways that's going to work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so funny story here with that. So we, we, you know we both signed up at the same time and we went down to Detroit and had our ASVAB tests, or whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1:Did you stay at the Mariner Hotel downtown? We were close enough, so we just drove.
Speaker 2:So we went through there and did all the testing and you signed the last documents that you needed to sign. So I had to sign up for delayed entry because my parents wouldn't sign for me. We come out of the meetings. And he went one way, I went another and I said I'll meet you back here towards the end of the day when we're all done and we go. Okay, we had to get physicals and all that stuff, yeah, and I was worried I got flat feet, so I was worried.
Speaker 2:Back then they took anybody, so you know. So we met up towards the end of the day and I said so when do you ship? He goes, yeah, I failed, I'm not going. And I went like what, what do you mean? You're not going? He goes yeah, I failed my test, so I don't get to go. And so there I was, all signed up, ready to go and nobody to go with. But wow, yeah, that was. It was kind of a shocker. You know you, you take it for, you take it to heart and you know you thought was good. And I don't know if you purposely failed him or what, if he got scared or whatever, but it wasn't no big deal.
Speaker 1:Well, and here you were, thinking that you were going to be the one that wasn't going to go right.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything turned around, yep. So you get into delayed entry and you're not really in delayed entry that long no, just about two months, I think at the time.
Speaker 2:And so then you know, basically they said all right, report detroit down here at such and such a time had my buddy drive me down, so my parents still wouldn't do it, and so they were still not on board with yes still not on board, wow, so went down there and he dropped me off and all right, see whenever you know yeah new camp was 13 weeks back then now, where did you go?
Speaker 1:san diego hollywood marine yeah, right right behind the airport there yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:We used to watch them. Planes take off every single day, just wishing you were on one of them.
Speaker 1:We can I got a funny story about that. I know this is your story, but I'll show you. So I went to basic training at the naval training center there it's Back's right up to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and we had this kid, probably like four weeks in. He just had enough and he jumped the fence because he was going to go run to the airport and fly home, right. But he jumped the fence right into Marine Corps boot camp Nice. They kept him for a couple of weeks Right and when they brought him back he was the best sailor ever. I'll bet that kept him for a couple of weeks right and when they brought him back he was the best sailor ever. That guy did everything he was supposed to do. But uh, yeah, yeah, it's kind of torture. You're out there because we used to watch you guys and and your boot camp was no joke. But then those stupid planes. You look at the planes all day long every day.
Speaker 2:You watch them planes take off, as you know. It's 90 degrees outside and we're shoveling snow, you know, because that's what they told us to do shovel the sidewalks off. It snowed last night.
Speaker 1:Okay, I guess whatever you say sir do what you do, what you say, yeah, so so I want to ask so, like when you got to basic training, was that somewhat of a culture shock for you? Or just like show up and you're like, yeah, here I am no, it's always.
Speaker 2:I think it was a culture shock for everybody. Yeah, because you're used to doing what you want and you know you're riding the bus and we got our long hair and all this stuff and you know you got your pack of smokes in your pocket, no, so you're sitting on the bus and it pulls up and there's not really nobody around right now and next thing, you know, here comes the drill instructors and they come marching out and they open up the door and just all hell breaks loose. You know they're screaming, they're hollering, get off the bus right now.
Speaker 2:Let's go, let's go, let's go. And so we all did it, and that was the start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't keep that long hair very long did you?
Speaker 2:No, no, probably we were waiting for our platoon to build, so we probably got to keep it for like three days and then we got enough people to build our platoon to an 1104 and uh, we got that, and then they marched us all right down and they go. You know, you sit down in a chair, so how do you want to cut leave?
Speaker 1:a little on the top a little off side.
Speaker 2:You know that they did just put the clip around and they buzz it right down to nothing and, yeah, you got that white head out there in the sun.
Speaker 1:How many guys cried? Anybody cry?
Speaker 2:I think probably we had a couple. Yeah, I don't remember, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Late seventies, people were pretty invested in their hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, mine was down to my shoulders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, have you had it that way since.
Speaker 2:No, okay.
Speaker 1:It. Okay. It's pretty much like it is right now Number three on the sides and clip the top a little bit. Once you get used to that, it's hard to get unused to it isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went this morning to get a haircut because it was over my ears. I just can't stand it, can't stand it.
Speaker 1:My wife likes long hair, I don't, so this is our compromise. I get it cut like every two to three weeks.
Speaker 2:I would three all over, but my wife doesn't care for me I was a high and tight guy.
Speaker 1:You know, right razor cut all that stuff. Sure sure loved it. So you, uh, you get to basic training and you're there for quite a while. Um, what was it? What was basic training like? Like once you kind of got into the group it was.
Speaker 2:You know, every day wasn't something new. That day we didn't figure on learning. Um, I'm not a runner, I don't like running, I don't like all that stuff. But you know we had five mile runs and you know they'd start you off with the one mile and then the three mile and a five mile, and then your force 15 mile marches, excuse me, and uh, I mean I I enjoyed it other than the running. So, like I said, I just don't run to this day. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Somebody's chasing me.
Speaker 2:But every day it was something new. I mean, you go out there and you fight with the pugil sticks or learning drill, and you know it's funny because most people show up to boot camp and they assign you drill instructors. And I mean I've talked to other people and their drill instructors. They had a sergeant, a couple corporals and things of that nature. We showed up and they told us okay, today you're going to get your permanent drill instructors for boot camp and we had five staff sergeants walk in and we're going holy crap, we're not supposed to have staff sergeants. You know, maybe one right that would lead you, but we had five staff sergeants show up and we just go.
Speaker 2:This can't be good, you know, and they were strict and they were well-worn in their, in their ways and it's their way of the highway, which of course it always is. And you know you would go to sleep at night and of course you laid in your bunk and attention was singing the military, you know the Marine Corps hymn Yep, yep and uh. You would wake up and we weren't allowed out of our racks at night. I mean this is still in a time they they were probably not supposed to touch you when you're, you know, for training and stuff. But we had a foot locker or a boot, a closet that they would take you in and tune you up a little bit.
Speaker 1:Give you a little wall-to-wall counseling?
Speaker 2:Yeah a little wall-to-wall counseling, right, yeah, I mean, I can remember some stories, but you'd wake up in the middle of the night and our drill instructors would leave their light on in their one office, because one person stayed with you in the barracks all night long, yeah, and he would be standing out just in the light, where the light's being cast out of his doorway, and he's doing all these karate moves and you're going. Man, I don't know, is this for real or is this just a scare tactic?
Speaker 2:you know probably a little bit of both right yeah, but he's, he scared us enough that we didn't screw up and we get out there. And you know, we want all. We want a couple of uh parades and stuff for our marching and all that stuff. And it just seems like if there was a time to get in trouble, I would find it, even in boot camp. And you know, we in marine corps I don't know what, I don't know if the army does it, but we have to slam our heels into the ground when you march. So that's just that's the cadence.
Speaker 2:You know you make that noise and so it wasn't uncommon for four or five people a week to have heel contusions, you know, bruised heels and things. So one day we were doing that and I'm going, man, my feet are killing me, because every night you'd have to stand on your footlocker and they'd rub their hands up and down your Achilles to see what's going on. And if you flinched you're going to sickbay. So I got put out and I don't know now, no marching duty for two days, two days off. So I was sitting in the barracks one day. You sat there and you could write letters or something like that, or clean the barracks. So I'm sitting in the barracks and I'm writing a letter, I got a pen in my hand and here come uh I think it was a second lieutenant or something in the corner, come around the corner and I'm like, oh man, this guy's got bars on his shoulder, you know now, what do you do?
Speaker 2:yeah, now what do you do?
Speaker 2:So I stood up and saluted and dressed myself and, needless to say, I had my pen still stuck in my hand as I was saluting him and he just looked at me and come over, got about six inches from my face and give me the once over up and down, and you know, after that it was pretty cool, but it seemed like I always ran into that same guy when we're in a run or something like that. And you know, at the point at the time I really didn't care for the guy because you know he got in my face and blah, blah, blah we're still pretty early into boot camp but it was like the point where you almost want to pummel a guy. You know, take him, take him out, and I'd see him somewhere we're on a run or march or something like that and I'd look and every time I looked off to the side he would catch me looking man, and next thing, you know he's at my drill instructor and putting my face in the dirt. Give me a hundred here, and you know.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I would get in trouble sometimes I think we all found trouble in boot camp right right. So when you got done with basic training, um did your family come out for graduation or anything? Were they like at least a little bit on board by now?
Speaker 2:no, wow, no. So we graduated and uh, I was in san diego again and uh, we went through the ceremonies and I pretty much jumped on a plane, flew back home. I was home probably for a week before I went to my a school and, uh, that's when you know, when you're graduating boot camp they're telling you all the things that you can do. This is what you signed up for, we're going to get you this, this, this and this. And then on the very last day they go yeah, that's really not available.
Speaker 2:You know, my recruiter lied to me Kind of story yeah, so, yeah, so I was at the last couple of days. He says so what do you want to do? I says I want, I signed up going, want to work on jets. And he goes well, we don't really have any openings right now for jets, but we got helicopters. And I go all right, helicopters are probably even a little bit better because you can go for rides in helicopters. It's kind of hard to get a ride in a jet, two seater or whatever. And so I said that's cool. And so we signed up for that and went home on leave for 10 for a week, I think it was and it was off to a school in Millington Tennessee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me a little bit, what was it like to come home after being in bootcamp?
Speaker 2:Cause you changed, but a lot of people don't Right when I, when I was in, when I, when I went into bootcamp if you can picture I don't know, maybe the nerdy kid with a squirrely voice, real high-pitched voice, going into the Marine Corps. That's how I went in and I came back with this voice.
Speaker 1:You came back, a man.
Speaker 2:And I think it's just all from the hollering and yelling and doing what they say. But everybody was surprised Whose voice is that when you walk in? But I don't even know that. I got picked up at the airport. Wow, tell you the truth, just kind of showed back up at home. I probably had one of my buddies pick me up, I don't really remember. But when I was in bootcamp the only thing I can say is that my dad would write, so you would look forward to those letters. He would write so you would look forward to those letters. He was the only one never got anything from my mom, but my dad would write me a letter, probably once, twice a week, and of course he would slip a piece of gum in there that the drill instructor would find and get an extra workout for that.
Speaker 1:Did you find that you learned something about your dad through those letters?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did, you know, and a lot more probably than I even knew. Growing up, you know, he would tell me stories and things like that and my dad was kind of a jokester and he was always making fun of things and you know the return address on it was Captain such and such, you know, and my drill instructor would look at it and explain this.
Speaker 1:Just trying to get you in trouble.
Speaker 2:Yep, trying to get me worked out a little bit, that's right. So came back a whole different person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you have a girl back home?
Speaker 2:Not really not at the time Dated a little bit, but me and the guys were too busy hanging out. There was no time for that yet.
Speaker 1:You got your priorities.
Speaker 2:Plus, we really didn't. I mean back then, I mean when I was in high school, I would work and do odd jobs. I worked at McDonald's for a while and I just really didn't cut it. But then you know, minimum wage we were working for two dollars an hour yeah you know, two dollars an hour. You work and you work for two weeks and they give you a check of 160 bucks and you go.
Speaker 2:All right, that's paying for gas yeah, you fill up your car and you go on your way yeah, you have a little bit to do stuff with, but yeah, so we really didn't have a whole lot of money to play with, so we would do odd stuff and get extra money to work on our cars and yeah things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you uh leave michigan. You head to millington, tennessee yeah so how was that? That was pretty good was that a navy school? Yes, okay I'm not saying that to pick on you no but I know that the marine corps and the navy do a lot of stuff together because we're part're part of the Navy, the best part.
Speaker 1:I want to tell you what I was told one time One of my Marine Corps friends. He was giving me a hard time and I said you know, if you look at your ID card, you're the Department of the Navy, right? He said, yeah, the men's department I've heard them all.
Speaker 2:So you get to millington, tennessee, so we get there and you know, we get all set up with our barracks and now it's getting. You know, you're still not sure what to expect, you know, but now it's. It's almost another relaxed atmosphere because we're in school now we're learning about what we can do and things of that nature, and so we do our school and I had my sister was going on a trip and so she brought my motorcycle down for me, towed it behind the car, and so at least I had a motorcycle on base and that at least gave me some ways to get around town. But I did well through the schools.
Speaker 2:I put a lot of effort into those schools. It's something I wanted to learn. So I don't know where I graduated in class, but it's pretty close, high up to the top and uh. So pretty much we got our choice of pick of where we wanted to go. You know, while I was there I took up remote control aircraft flying, oh, built my, built my first plane while I was on base, flew it one time and crashed it okay an expensive hobby right, expensive, but even still on base.
Speaker 2:We'd get off work, we'd get out of school and I'd head right over because they had automotive departments too and we'd all work on our cars and yeah, did they call them auto hobby shops back?
Speaker 1:yeah, sure did. Yeah, it's still I say back then I went into the military in 83, so it wasn't too far behind you, right? But yeah, the auto hobby shop was awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1:Every tool you could ever want.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's a fact.
Speaker 1:Now did you still have the Cuda?
Speaker 2:Nope, I had uh at the time. Then I had a 77 Chevy Monza which was a hatchback and it was a nice little car. It sat low, but of course we pulled it and put a v8 in it and, uh, it was souped up and I can lift the front tires off the ground about six inches, you know that monza was a great car because it was so light, but you could stuff a 350 in there with no problem easily, easily.
Speaker 2:So we did that and that's where we. You know, back when I was, I had that still when I was in high school and went through clutches about four or five a year. You know not that we were hard on them right, not to mention tires and everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what kind of bike did you have?
Speaker 2:it was just a little suzuki, it was a 400, yeah, um something I found a deal on, so I I bought it and it was just something to get around town and it was easy on fuel and it was fun. It was a nice little bike, loud, of course.
Speaker 1:So how long were you in Millington then? How long was your school?
Speaker 2:I think our school was, I think, six months. We did six months training in Millington and that was um, I went into the height, I went into hydraulics, okay, so it was all hydraulics, um, learning you know the different parts of helicopters, and it was cause it was all geared towards helicopters. They knew that's where I was going and, uh, learned all about that. And then pretty much graduation came and they said where do you want to go? I go what's open.
Speaker 2:And, of course, jacksonville, north carolina, new river air station okay you know, part of camp lejeune yeah same water yeah, my, my brother went to camp lejeune this whole story about that but yeah, yep, so, and I think, I mean I don't even think I went home after school, I went right to the, my duty station and that's where I served my time now did your dad continue writing to you while you were no?
Speaker 2:no, once pretty much I got out of boot camp then that was pretty much it. You know I would. I would call home every once in a while and get to talk to people and take my vacations when I could. And you know I used to ride that Suzuki excuse me, a little 400 and I'd take off from North Carolina and I'd ride it straight through to Michigan. Yeah, that's a long ride through the mountains and all that middle of the night freezing your butt off just to go home, but it was all worth it.
Speaker 1:There's nothing better than being on a bike, though. No home but it was all worth it. There's nothing better than being on a bike though no, it's as close to flying as you can get still be on the ground. Yep, that's fact. Yeah, loved it. So tell me about your duty. So you, um, this was the only duty station that you went to then that's where you served out the rest of your time, so tell me about that. What was that like?
Speaker 2:okay. So, um, with the scores that I had, I had pretty much a choice of what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it. He goes you want to work flight line, do you want to work different levels? And I go. So the choices are you can work flight line, you could do intermediate level maintenance or depot level maintenance. Depot level maintenance was someplace way off in the boondocks and I go, we're not going to do that, but intermediate level. Intermediate level maintenance sounded pretty good.
Speaker 2:So, basically, when they would fly the choppers and things would break, they would, if they couldn't repair them, they would bring them to our shop on base, which is just right next to all the hangers, and we would repair them. We had all the test equipment and, uh, we did everything from valves, pumps, struts, wheels, landing gear, the rotor assemblies. So it was just the next step up from what they could do on ground level. Right, and that was a lot of fun. Made a lot of friends there. You know, being there for the basically three years that I was there four years made a lot of friends and you see people come, you see people go and, of course, as soon as I get there, I met this one guy. His name's Sergeant Kennedy. It was RL Kennedy was his name and pretty much took me under his wing and became my mentor and changed my life. Yeah, talk to me about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wing and became my mentor and changed my life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so um if you need to take a breath, take a breath. Mike, that's okay, I can tell this guy meant a lot to you. Let me get some tissue no, I'm good okay, I'm just asking yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, of course we're spoiled young kids still, just, you know, no stripes on your arms. You know I went in a private and, yeah, you know, I met him and he's like you know, he catch me doing stuff and he didn't know that's not what we're supposed to be doing here. So, like I say, he took me under his wing. I met his family. Instead of hanging out at base, a lot of times I'd go hang out. He'd invite me to his place. He lived off base and just taught me the ins and outs. A lot of the guys that didn't have that. I mean, it was rough on them, it was really rough. But, like I say, he mentored me and brought me along through the whole thing, showed me how to get, how to gain rank, you know, which was a tough, tough to do in the marine corps, and uh. But I followed his rules, I followed his uh example and within two years I was sergeant. So, but every little, every little duty that you could sign up for, that was me. I signed up for it all.
Speaker 2:Um, within a year of being there, I became a collateral duty inspector. So any parts that were fixed had to be signed off on, to be put onto the helicopters, so it means we had to inspect them. So I went and I got all of that and uh, pretty much that states that you know you're willing to go fly in that shop for any time that they put these parts on, because they can come to your shop and go. We just put these on, let's go, yeah, you know. So you got all those guys hands in your life, your lives in your hand and that kind of thing. So yeah, without rob, without bob, um, I don't know if I would have had such a good time, because I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I really did again, it probably would have been easy to go down the wrong path if you didn't have the mentor right sure, because you get in the wrong group.
Speaker 2:You know you got the one guy that's in your shop that's been a private six times.
Speaker 1:That should should be telling you something right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he's about ready to get out. We just got busted again, but yeah, so that was, that was a good, that was a good duty there. I really enjoyed hanging out with them. While I was there, we had to go on Mediterranean cruises, okay, okay. So on our helicopter. So I was on, I did three. I did three med cruises. You know, I figured I'm going to do something. I might as well go see some of the world. So we did three Mediterranean cruises. I was on, uh, iwo Jima, the USS Guadalcanal and the USS Saipan.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar with all three of those I was, so I before I was in the army, I was in the Navy, okay, so I was in Norfolk for four years. Okay, those are all very familiar to me.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And so I mean you know my squadron would get assigned to go out and they would go, okay, so you're shipping out with them and I'd go, that's cool. So we would go out there and we'd do our thing on the ship and we'd come back from that cruise and you know, the next squadron's getting ready because they got a three-day delay or whatever, and they're getting ready and these guys are going. Man, I don't want to leave my family and all this stuff. And I go all right, let's go talk to your captain. So I'd walk over there and switch squadrons from one squadron to the next and ship out in three more days, go back out why not right?
Speaker 2:you're a young guy, you're not married, right, so right as well exactly so I would keep a little bit of spending cash for myself, and the rest of it was deposited in a bank account at home, you know. So it was kind of amazing because I mean, I've been all through the med, the whole med, from one end to the other, you know, um spain, portugal. We went up through the netherlands, uh greece, italy been in italy more times than I could imagine, the same with uh spain. So now my wife's trying to get me to go on cruises through there and I've been there it might be different.
Speaker 2:It might be different, but I'm sure it probably is still sure I can remember being in spain when they were having an uprising with Americans, and you know the shopkeepers and storekeepers, when the ship pulls in, that means money for them Because I mean, we're getting off with our pockets bulging and heading to bars and shops. And we all started walking down this one aisle alley and we came to an intersection alley and we came to an intersection. When we got to the intersection there were probably 500 spanish people with, uh, these bamboo rods, probably 12 foot bamboo rods, and they're just whipping them through the air. We're going all right. Well, there's only like 20 or 30 of us in this little group. We're going all right.
Speaker 2:So what do we do? Do we go through this or do we turn around and go back? You know, if we go through it, I'm sure there's going to be repercussions when we get back to the ship. And so we kind of stood there for a little bit and then out of a doorway, from a little place right next to it, out of a doorway, here come all the shop owners, and they had bigger sticks, you know, and they brushed everybody back and so they gave us our leeway and we could go spend our money. But a lot of good things I've seen in all these different countries and that was pretty cool. One of the cruises we did was a nine-month cruise. I forget what they called that one, but it was at the time when they had our hostages in Iran, and so we ended up going down through the canal and crossing over the equator. So, golden Shellback, we crossed at 0-0.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we went out of our way. We had a little bit of time, so the captain did that and we went out of our way and crossed at 0-0 to become Golden Shellbacks.
Speaker 1:And that's a little story right there yeah, tell me a little bit about that all right.
Speaker 2:So you have to go through an initiation, you know, with, uh, the kings of the sea and all these things, and I mean pretty much they. You're down to your skivvies on, crawling on the flight deck, you know, and it's, it's all rough stuff there and you're bleeding everywhere. They're hitting you with fire hoses and all these other things and putting you in water tanks and spraying hoses on you. But it was pretty cool. The best thing about it was the day before of the initiation you could get back at the people that you think are going to do stuff to you. We knew one of the guys that was participating.
Speaker 2:So about four of us got together and of course she was a CB. So we didn't know much about CVs back then. So we, we get this guy and I think five or six of us grab him. We had a hundred foot of rope and we tied this guy up and we wrapped him up. I don't know how he could even move a pinky he was. So we looked like a mummy and we grabbed him, we threw him into a closet and before we could get the door closed he was coming back out.
Speaker 1:We're going oh it's not a guy you want to mess with we tried to be friends after that.
Speaker 2:But he knew it was all in fun and yeah, you know, gave us a little bit of extra harassing during the initiations and stuff. But, like I say, you got to go with it, just flow with it. It was all good. People were complaining they can't do this to us and I go go with it already.
Speaker 1:Right, it's camaraderie. Yes, that's what I think.
Speaker 2:It's building a team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you have to kiss Neptune's belly?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, of course you did, and he would grab you by the back of the head and rub you right in there yeah, because he had like all kinds of grease and everything.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, disgusting the tubes.
Speaker 2:They take all the food from the chow hall that was left over and throw these tubes and you had to crawl through them. And pretty disgusting.
Speaker 1:It was fun yeah, it's a great time.
Speaker 2:I mean really yeah, it was yeah, yeah yeah, and were there?
Speaker 1:were there a lot of your fellow Marines that had gotten their shell back then? Or was this kind of a?
Speaker 2:You know, I don't think so. I think I was the only one. Maybe one other person in our shop, yeah, had a shell back and I think he was a. We're just a shell back, not a golden shell back at zero zero Cause that's pretty, I heard it's pretty uncommon to do that and for our captain to take us a little bit out of the way and do that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So on that mission, on that one right there I think it was Operation Eagle Claw we were just a support ship so we didn't get ribbons or nothing for it because we were on the outskirts of it, but our helicopters would fly and they'd land on another ship, but we were the support ship out there for the parts and we'd get parts and kind of send them back in there for that, and that was a pretty good one.
Speaker 2:Then we turned around from there and we went back, going back through and nixon was visiting, uh, and for some reason they ended up killing their president in Libya. So we had to get Nixon out of there. So our ship went over there and we evacuated Nixon, but during the process Libya put two planes in the air and shot at two of ours and so we splashed both of those, put those in the drink and then we all had shirts made up Libya Zero, usa Two, you know, and of course the captain would come over to speak or these shirts will not leave the ship and all this stuff so we don't cause other conflicts. But that was kind of interesting and that's pretty much the closest I ever got to any live conflict. I mean, we were locked and loaded on a ship with our, you know, in our hydraulic shops and things like that, just in case something happened, but never saw any actual fighting or combat yeah, well, I mean that's, you guys shot down two planes.
Speaker 1:I mean that's, that's not nothing right right, not nothing.
Speaker 2:You know, and I say I people say so, you didn't see combat, I go. You know, when I signed up I didn't know I wasn't going to see it right, right, you saw when you sign up.
Speaker 1:This is what people don't understand, so I I tell people this all the time is that if you served, then you're a veteran, right, you know? It's not about combat or anything like that, because you signed a blank check you don't know where you're going, you don't, you don't know what's going to happen right you know, and I mean when I was signing up.
Speaker 2:At the time we were just getting out of the draft and they were talking to put the draft back in right, and when my buddy started talking about going, I might as well, we're gonna probably get the get the call anyway all right, might as well go do it on your terms, right? Right and just do something that we want to do, versus, uh, being out there pounding the ground right, right.
Speaker 1:I mean you might get stuck in the marine corps or something, right, right? Exactly so did you do? How many cruises after that one then? I did a total of three okay, so you did two back to back yeah, two back to back.
Speaker 2:and then I think that even the last one I wasn't supposed to go on, but again, guys didn't want to leave their families and I was single, just doing nothing but drinking beer all night. So I'll go, you know so you might as well leave guys at home with their families. That didn't need to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm curious was was your friend Rob there? That's like this whole time then while you were we did two of the three cruises together. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so while you were, we did two of the three cruises together. Okay, yeah. So I mean that was fun and he's out. He already did one before me and so we would go out and he would show me different parts of italy and spain. And you know, they got the red light district to stay out of. Don't go there, but that's the first place we go, and never tell, never, ever ever tell someone in the military not to don't do this, don't go there. Okay, it must be good must be fun, right, we're going exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, he was with me pretty much the whole time. Um, I think six months before I got out of the service he was transferred to quantico and did president's duty.
Speaker 1:So so he was really squared away. Yeah, he was squirrelly yeah, did you keep in contact with him?
Speaker 2:you know, when I got out of the service, um, the first year was kind of a whirlwind and you kind of forget about certain things, kept in touch with a few people, um that I went back and that was the time I don't even we didn't have facebook, we had myspace or something, maybe oh yes, I don't know, and so trying to find somebody on that.
Speaker 2:You couldn't do it right, so it took me a while and I finally caught up with them, did you? Yeah, probably it was. I was probably out for 10 years. Uh-huh, you know, back in living life and, uh, I found him on facebook, I think it was, and then a whole new life started again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that must have been pretty amazing. Yep, all right, so you do your tours, you get on a couple of really good cruises, actually, right, and then so it's time for you to your enlistment's up. So did you come, assuming you came back to Michigan because you're sitting here now? So what happens? So you came back to Michigan cause you're sitting here now, um, so what happens?
Speaker 2:So I came back to Michigan, um, and just thinking, all right, what am I going to do for work now? So I figured out okay, well, I'm in hydraulics and I love hydraulics, so I'm going to go to school. I went to, I went to community college and I went for a robotics Cause that was the upcoming thing back then, robotics was and I was working at a mortgage company just to help me pay my bills, to get through college, and kind of went through the classes and a lot of math, I'm going, holy cow, what do you mean? I don't need this for hydraulics. I need a little bit. I don't need trigonometry and plane trig and all these other things. And so I went through and I got pretty much all the way through and then, when I was just about done with my bachelor's degree, they decided that they were going to drop all the courses for robotics. So I think I'm like six, six credits short of having a degree, wow, but don't need it now.
Speaker 2:So right, I mean so, anyway, I come back from, I came back from the service and went back home, got that job at the mortgage company just for something, and again, I think that was paying 675 an hour or something. Back then, yeah, big bucks, yeah, big money. Um, while I was working there, it working there. You imagine it's an office building and it's just full of women. Yeah, so you're scouting around looking.
Speaker 1:Because you're a guy and that's what we do. Right, that's what we do, let's just be honest.
Speaker 2:So I got my eye on this one girl and I'm watching her. I'm still a little bit shy. I don't know why I was shy, but was a little bit Finally got the nerve to talk to her and went and sat with her for lunch a couple times and decided I'm going to throw a Halloween party at my house, at our house. So I threw a Halloween party and invited her, and so that was really the first time at the party that we actually got to sit down and get comfortable with each other, talk to each other and stuff like that. Three months later we were engaged.
Speaker 1:That's pretty fast, Mike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you sound very shy to me. Yeah, that was pretty fast. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So were you living with some other folks, did you have roommates or something then?
Speaker 2:Actually, back then I moved back in with my parents.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Until I says I'm going to stay actually back. Then I moved back in with my parents. Okay, until I says I'm just gonna, I'm gonna stay here for just a little bit, get back on my feet. Yeah and uh, they were all right. They lived in nova. They moved when I was in the service, didn't tell me, sold all my stuff, gave it away a lot of times.
Speaker 1:They just changed the locks, but they just moved.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay pool table that I come home to was gone. Yeah, we left it with the house, but nice yeah, so pretty much. Anyway, anywhere there, um I met her, we had the halloween party. Um gave her the first kiss after the end of the night of the halloween party and we haven't been apart since that day that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:Yep, what was about her?
Speaker 2:She was just down to earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know comfortable. We could talk and we just got along great. You know, if there was things, you know you're going to go out with your friends tonight. I don't know what you want to do. You want to do something every night. For the first full year we saw each other every single day after work, other than even in work we hung out for until we got married. We got married in a Catholic church, so we had to know each other for a year.
Speaker 1:You had to take the classes? Yes, we did. Did you guys pass the test? Yes, we did. I'm just curious Yep.
Speaker 2:So we had to wait a year to get married, but we got married on to the day, october 29th. Wow, from the day that we met, had the party to the day we got, we walked down the aisle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you find your person, you just know them right, Right, you know and you talk.
Speaker 2:you talk to your kids and they're talking about, you know, getting serious after a year and you're going. I don't know, Are you serious?
Speaker 1:And then they look at you, go yeah, three months, right when you know you know yeah, three months, yeah, that was amazing.
Speaker 2:So you, so you get married, you're blessed in the church and then what, what, what's next? So after that I was I've already worked my way up through the company and and I took over, was pretty much running the supply department, supplies and stuff for the whole company, shipping stuff out. So we were making a little bit of money. I think when we got married our combined wages I think we were $16.59 for both of us, and you know people nowadays I wouldn't even get out of bed for that.
Speaker 1:No, you could go buy a cheeseburger for that much money, right? So this job that you took that was just going to kind of get you through is you've actually just excelled at it do you think? That some of the things you learned from Rob helped you be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at your job, because he pretty much he taught me everything that you do. Do it with all you got, and that's what I did. So I mean even starting out at the bottom of the guy pulling pens and paper and shipping them to places. Next thing, you know, I'm supervisor there and these big buildings, they all have cubicles that the people sit in. So I'm going well, what's that deal about how, who, who does these cubicles and things of that nature? And he goes, well, we have a little group that gets together and you know, we'll show you how to do it if you're interested.
Speaker 2:Well, the next thing, you know, I was running that crew, um, and we'd installed steel case office for toronto, grand rapids, um. So then, on the big moves, we would hire an outside company to come in and give us hands and we would work with them. And so I'm looking at these guys and I'm going well, you guys probably make better money than what I'm making here, and so I quit there and I went into work for contract interiors out of southfield and wasn't long. I was project manager, um, running crews and just excelling at it, and I loved it. So that was pretty good, um, and this all took place within a couple years of being married and stuff right you know, we got married.
Speaker 2:We bought a house in kensington hill, on trailer, up on the hill uh-huh, you know, right across from the lake, yeah, and we lived there for I don't know two, three years and from there she goes, I go. I think it's time to get out of here. You know, housing was at the point it was. It was affordable, but we were still scared. Um, interest rates were extremely crazy. So we found a house and at the time, houses, if you found a house, you better buy it now, because they were gone in eight hours, just the way it was. Um, so we went looking and we found a house out in union, like west bloomfield. It was a small 936 square foot house, three bedrooms. Barely had enough room for, you know, the two of us. But that's where we raised, we started off with four kids. Out of that house had a basement.
Speaker 1:Luckily, four kids, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So like we had a basement in it, uh-huh, um, and we fixed, I fixed it up completely, gutted it outside, inside, new furnaces, air conditioning and I mean, that was the first time I ever installed a furnace in my life and I go, I don't, I think I can do this Right Air conditioning. So from drywall to whatever didn't matter. So we bought that house and you're talking to my son, brandon. He's got pretty good memories of living on Maddox street. We had our four kids there and the the neighborhood had just flipped over from older people to all the younger people moving in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so everybody that lived there had little kids. You know we paid $40,000 for the first house, with a 14 or 15% interest rate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know okay, so this might be lost on people, but there was a time where if you got like 12, you were doing pretty good, you were doing good, yeah, yeah, you were doing good yeah you know we got spoiled for a lot of years with our three percent, two percent yeah.
Speaker 2:So we, we bought that house and you know we fixed it all up and the kids would, uh, they're, they're coming up in age and so I mean we got, we're pushing two strollers because our kids are all close in ages with four kids.
Speaker 1:So did you like have them one right after the other? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife always complained because she couldn't have a beer for six years.
Speaker 1:How about that beer tasted great, though after six years From start to finish Right.
Speaker 2:So I mean we had our group, our whole street. We would block off our street at both ends. It was probably equivalent to maybe two city blocks and it was paved, and so we would do what was called stroller blading and we all had strollers, because everybody had little kids and the parents would put on roller blades and the little bit older kids would have their own and we would push strollers up and down the streets all day and go around the subdivision that sounds like a great time it was it really was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had our block parties and all the kids became great friends and I think the kids even still hang out with some of the friends that they grew up with there I know brandon talks about them all yeah, like, yeah, like they're part of his family yes, he does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean we live there for I think everything's been 10 years so we lived at, we lived on maddox street for 10 years and then my wife's brother looked at her and she goes. You know there's a couple houses over here for sale in brighton. I'm going man brighton's one of them up and coming places. You know they call it the hub because you can get to Lansing, ann Arbor, flint and wherever it's a great location.
Speaker 2:Right and I'm going. I don't know, I don't know if we can afford that. And he says you go take a look and if you like it you let me know. So she runs out to Brighton, takes a look, visiting her brother. She goes the house is gorgeous, we're going on, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're done.
Speaker 2:So I went out and took a look at it and it had a nice lot. It was probably a half acre lot. Um house needed work. It was not run down but it was dated. You know talk? Dated in the seventies, you're talking 50s.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, you buy a house now dated like the 80s you're lucky if you didn't have a yellow toilet and refrigerator. You know I think it's harvest gold, yeah, something like that. So crazy, the avocado and the harvest gold yeah, yeah, so ended up buying that place.
Speaker 2:Um, so at the time now when we bought that place, where, where was I working For a while there? After I did the steel case, furniture and stuff, I went off on my own. Okay, because it was getting it was the childcare. What we paid for childcare back then. It's like now I don't know how people afford it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so I went off into business on my own. That way, I could pick the times when I wanted to work.
Speaker 1:I could do a lot of stuff at night and then I would I played mr mom, yeah, you know, during the day.
Speaker 2:Um so we did that. So what was your wife?
Speaker 1:doing. She was working at the mortgage company other other than being pregnant, right she was pregnant and keeping the insurance flowing, yeah god bless her right, right.
Speaker 2:And so I would do construction, have my own company. It was carpentry by Mike Mikus and I worked everywhere and I wouldn't say that I wasn't good at managing it. But you know, by the time you get done at the end of the year with taxes and everything I'm going. Why am I even doing this? I can just work for somebody and, you know, make the same amount of money and not have all the headaches. And so I think I was working for Donovan Construction at the time and she says you want to move to Brighton? Well, I was driving to Brighton anyway. It was kind of a bonus, right. So I started working for them and we bought the house out there.
Speaker 2:Funny fact is that every one of our kids, when they were born, I was in a cast. I was either had my arm in a cast, um. When I worked for Donovan construction we were raising a wall and a brace slip and hit me in the back of the leg and snap my Achilles, um. So I went down to the ground for that one. And then I had another broken wrist. So every one of our kids was in a cast.
Speaker 2:And so I'm at home with four kids crawling on my hands and knees, holding a baby in one arm, you know, dragging a foot along and right cast on it, and I don't know if you ever snapped an achilles tendon, but that's six to eight months on a cast, wow, you know. And I had my foot pointed straight down so they had to put a heel on my cast to make it a walking cast. Yeah, and it was a five and a half inch heel, and so then they took my other shoe and put a five and a half inch lift on it so I could at least walk. But yeah, that was all. That was a lot of fun too, raising kids and casts and arms and legs and was that just karma from your wife not being able to have beer?
Speaker 1:probably probably yeah, yeah, but you know what you're. It's funny they, because when I think about those times with my kids too, right, it doesn't matter because you're smiling like these are great times I don't okay, I have a cast on or what's going on. These are great times I get to be with my kids, yeah yeah, and so we, we moved out to brighton um ended up.
Speaker 2:Uh, kids walked to school if they wanted to. We had a junior high on one side, elementary school on the other side. One of barb's cousins moved in across the street from us and so now we had cousins that they were playing with and the kids had a great time. I mean, it turned into every bit of maddox street again because it was a kind of a closed off sub. There was no traffic through it, so the kids did whatever they wanted to. You know, at the same time where we were doing all of this, I was working for donovan construction, but me and my mom were building houses also oh, so you had like a side business going on.
Speaker 2:So my mom decided that she wanted to get in help help people that couldn't afford homes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So she started building these box homes, I guess you could say, and so I think we threw up five of them and she did that. And then they ended up moving to Tennessee. When we were living in Matt, on Matt or in Jane Street in Brighton, they moved down to Tennessee lake tansy to retire. I think they just wanted to get away from all the kids well, I could speak as a grandparent that I love having grandchildren. I do too, they wear you out?
Speaker 1:they do, they do. I got my granddaughter for a weekend one time. Yeah and uh. My son and his wife went back to alabama and that sunday I couldn't even get off the couch. I was like what the hell happened to me?
Speaker 2:right, right, so I don't even think I ever mentioned that. You know it was. We had brandon was the oldest, and we have my other son, justin, and then christopher after that, and then my daughter, lauren, and so proud of all of them, they're all doing great. Um, well, you know, brandon, military and um, with everything that he's got, runs four businesses out of his house, I think he is.
Speaker 1:He is one of the most and I'm not just saying this because you're his dad. I tell the people this all the time. He's like one of the most talented people I know I got it from me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that and people just love him like he. He somehow connected with my son because my son was in the army. Somehow they connected and and they're best buddies now and brandon got my son into um hockey, right, but. But, but brandon's very talented right, like I think that guy could just do anything that I'm gonna do this today and right, and when we get done, I'll show you some of his work. Yes, he's done some work for me. Okay, I'll show you what he's done. So, yeah, so Brandon, and then Brandon and Justin.
Speaker 2:Justin's a welder.
Speaker 2:Uh um, he works for Donovan construction out in Brighton and moved up through there and he does all their welding. They build houses on his big helical spheres and things that they have to sink in the swamps. Yeah, um, christopher, right now he's playing Mr Mom. He's playing Mr Mom, but he built, if you remember, back there Chevy put out the Copo Camaros. Yeah, so he was working at a shop that they would bring the Camaros in and Chris would do all the cutouts and reinforce the frames and weld all the stuff on them. And he's welding on these cars and then the people that are purchasing these cars would come in to look at them and they would have to bring chris and push him off to the side and they'd bring an older gentleman in there and do a little bit of welding. And, uh, because they didn't want to see an 18 year old kid welding on these, you know, two hundred thousand dollar cars, right, but he was good enough and that's what he did, and so that was pretty good that's a dream job yeah, he loved it.
Speaker 2:he loved it and they started having kids and the everything else came into play there. And Lauren, my daughter, she works, uh, where I was, where I worked at for a while. Cadillac asphalt is where I retired from.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, I think by the time we moved to Jane street, that's when I was switching jobs and my wife was switching jobs too. So in one year, you know, we bought a house, both of us switched jobs and we're going. I think we're crazy. I don't know what we're gonna do here if this doesn't work out it doesn't sound like the mickis family's afraid of change at all yeah, I mean, we both jumped in with both feet.
Speaker 2:Um, I started off at pretty much entry level in the asphalt business and uh with. And they said you know, if you, the highest you can go is running a plant. And so that's where I set my goals. But, mind you know, I was still making the same money as a plant operator because we were not union. I had a choice to go union or non-union. I elected to go non-union and manage my own money. But they said you know, within a year you could probably apply to run a plant. Well, two months later I had my own plant. So I was running the plant at night out in Clarkston Michigan, the Cadillac Asphalt.
Speaker 2:Back then it was Thompson-McCauley. So I did that and again put everything I had into it, became a plant operator and worked my way up the best highest. I could, had every award that you could get for running a plant, best in this, best in that. So one day I had a falling out with one of our bosses and he didn't like the answer I gave him. But again I come out of the service and I was no BS. You can't tell me that this is gray when it's either black or white and I. They would always try to play the gray line and I don't play that.
Speaker 1:No, some people can't handle the truth, that's right.
Speaker 2:So we got into it and they took my plant away after I think it was 15 years. I was there and they took my plant away and they go. We're going to make you a loader operator heavy equipment. I go, whatever you know, by that time I was already getting fed up with it and so I did that. And that was about the same time that we were switching jobs. You know, my wife was getting a new job. She worked for a fabricating company in Milford still does this day. She won't give it up. I don't know what's wrong with her. So I was doing that and it actually moved me closer to home because I was working out in Belleville at the time at Rossonville Road, and it switched me up here to Wix. I'm living in Brighton, I go, that's a no-brainer. That saves me 40 minutes a day just to get to work and I go.
Speaker 1:That's a no-brainer.
Speaker 2:That saves me 40 minutes a day just to get to work, especially in that traffic, right right. So that was a godsend there. And you know everybody at the plant thought I was coming over to spy on them, so they took me a while to work my way into the groove of those people, but it all worked out and stuck out the rest of my life there at the Cadillac asphalt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did you retire from there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when did you retire?
Speaker 2:In 2022.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've been. You've been out for about three years. You retired right on the same time I retired.
Speaker 2:Right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we were making all these changes. So we lived in the Jane street for about 10 years, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:So we lived in the Jane Street for about 10 years and my wife goes, my mom's thinking about selling their house. Well, my wife's dad passed away from cancer, so her mom moved out of the house, and then she had lunch with the neighbor. His wife just passed away and next thing you know they're getting married. Well, they moved into the house right next to where her mom lived, right, and she goes we're going to build a house next door. Do you guys want to buy this house? I'm going. Oh my god. Again, this is five acres and you know where's this money coming from right, was the house dated.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you got another project I got another project.
Speaker 2:Every house we bought, we got it completely and went right through yeah so this house was 1500 square feet, sat on five acres on a dead-end cul-de-sac right at the end of it. There's a runway right at the end of our street, so we had the little planes flying over all the time, which was kind of cool yeah, it's kind of cool watch.
Speaker 2:So we looked at the house and I'm going okay, it's nice house and you know they want a couple hundred thousand dollars for which is probably a deal, um, but it's not big enough for us with four kids, just can't do it. So I started drawing and I drew up blueprints and so the next thing, you know, we bought it. And so then we had, we bought it in thanks at thanksgiving and I go all right, we got to jump in both feet. You know, we had a home equity line of credit and blah, blah, blah, and so I drew up the plans and I added 1700 on the back of it. Okay, at the time brandon was 16 years old, justin was probably 15, chris was 14, and I go come on, guys, this is it. So I had him with sledgehammers busting the brick off the back of the house and you know the between the kids and my wife and I had help from one friend we built that whole addition onto that house. So the house is 3100 square foot ranch.
Speaker 2:So wow yeah, so it's long.
Speaker 1:You can throw a football in there 90 feet well, and you can live in it too, like as you get older. Right, you don't need to worry about it. There's no stairs, right, right, it's all ranch, no stairs.
Speaker 2:The biggest problem that we're having right now is with uh, the house is so big and my daughter-in-law my daughter, moved back in with us, but for the time there was just two of us and 3100 square feet. That's a lot of a lot of house and you couldn't shut off individual rooms because open floor plan. Of course we want open floor plan.
Speaker 1:There's a downside to that, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's got a what a 450, 500 square foot kitchen. So the 1,700 square foot consisted of a family room and two little offices, which were bedrooms at the time, but that's the whole thing. So it was huge. I mean, it's a great house to have the grandkids and party in. Yeah, you know, we have the room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's where you're at today, then, right yeah that's where we're at today.
Speaker 2:You know we've talked about do we want to sell? Do we want to downsize? And I go, you like it here, I love it. You know, we we back up to a swamp, probably a 20 acre swamp. Nothing but ducks and geese out there. I hunt back there for the geese and stuff. Uh, the grandkids can come over and do whatever they want ride, power wheels, motorcycles, it doesn't matter that kind of thing. So it's all good. So I don't think we're ever gonna probably die there nobody's gonna build back there.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah, so you can't do it. No, you're good. Yeah, you're good. Well, we have talked about a lot of stuff this afternoon. Is there anything that that you wanted to talk about that we haven't talked about?
Speaker 2:not really, I think.
Speaker 2:Uh, whoever listens to this in the future will get an idea who we are yeah you know, um, the only thing I can, probably I want I guess I should bring up when I was getting close to retirement it was around 2022 my wife was diagnosed stage four cancer lung cancer and so I went on FMLA from work and I took time off and tried to figure out what we were going to do with all of this. And we got her on a program and she went through treatments for I can't tell you, it was like a month on, or two months on, or whatever it was, and then a month off and we put her on some special things from the cannabis shops which I'm going to tell you. I solely believe in that, yeah. And she kept going back to the doctors and she started off with grapefruit sized tumors in her lung cavity and, uh, doctors are going. I don't know what you're doing, but everything's working out and you're, you're healing, you know. So within a year, she was cancer free that's a miracle stage four yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, what that's a miracle?
Speaker 2:what do you do? You know, yeah, so that kind of hit home that you know, yeah, we still got a road ahead of us to make sure everything is going well and keeping her healthy. But my work was really good with me at the time. I was taking time off. I'd get phone calls. This is what they told me. You need to get home right now. So I would.
Speaker 2:We did that for probably six months and I go this, this, this isn't working out with me doing all of this, so I think I'm gonna retire. And I just I was 62 at the time and I said when I turn 63 I'm gonna retire. And so she was already 100 cancer free at the time and and so knock on wood there and I go, we're going to start doing stuff. So just, you think of things you want to do. What I'm going to do, um, I'm going to go fishing. That's my, that's my pastime. I love to fish. You know fishing and hunting, but fishing is number one on the list. I think I've been down to Detroit a couple times already this year. We get limits of walleye.
Speaker 1:It's been a couple good days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been good. So, yeah, she's 100% cancer-free now. Back just last week she got her port taken out. She wanted to hold on to it. She goes I'm not taking it out because the minute I do something bad's going to happen. And I go no, you need to get rid of that. So she got rid of that. My daughter got pregnant and moved in with us during some of this time. She moved in like last year. So now we have a grandchild living with us. Lauren lives the alternative lifestyle, so she's married to another woman. Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, a lot of people I don't know. Lauren lives the alternative lifestyle, so she's married to another woman. Okay, Okay, A lot of people I don't know. Everybody can have their views about it. You're happy, you're happy. That's the way I look at it.
Speaker 1:You love who you love, and that's your daughter.
Speaker 2:That's it. Yeah, so they live with us and I get to spend time with the grandchild. And you know, last year her wife come home and she goes man, I've got these bruises showing up. Come to find out she had leukemia. Oh no, so she went through everyday treatments and that was rough. You know, my daughter's doing the best she can. We're trying to help out. And so that she went through treatments, help out, and uh, so that she went through treatments for, I think, six, eight months not going to look 100% clear right now. So she's, uh, they're, they're living life. Now that's great. She beat that. Um, both of my parents died from cancer, so that was kind of a. You know, I've seen what it does to them. We didn't want to go through that. Yeah, so no. So now everybody's doing good, living life the best we can and going from there.
Speaker 1:Sounds like you've had a lot of miracles in your life, right? Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, brandon talked about a little bit with you about Veterans Connected. Yeah, I became involved with Veterans Connected as soon as I retired, or maybe even a little bit before that, and that really opened my eyes. I mean, veterans Connected is a ministry group first and then we help veterans and just watching what God has done for our family yeah, I don't know. So you know, things go on and things break and I go, don't worry about it, we'll get it fixed. And then I run across somebody. I got a heart size of whatever you want to call them, because if I see somebody down, I'm going to help them out.
Speaker 2:And I go, I look at my wife. Can we afford to do this? She goes, she'll just look at me. She goes, it doesn't matter because it's coming back to us. And so that's the way we've looked at it and lived our life that way. And it's been amazing the last couple of years since, now that we're retired, we're living our best lives. We make more money now being retired than it was when I was working, and when she was working full time she went to work too. She's working two days now just to keep her sanity, to get out of the house, away from me, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember you saying she just can't get away from that place, right, and so she's going to do that and I go.
Speaker 2:You know, so the first time they give you a problem, they just walk away, that's it. You know you don't owe them nothing, right? So I mean, that's how we live right now. So I don't know. I'm just happy Our whole family gets along. All the kids talk to each other weekly and I talk, you know, brandon.
Speaker 1:I talked to Brandon four times this morning already, you know. Yeah, so my son calls me every day. He lives in alabama, right? I sent him a. I sent him this meme about how this person was talking about being an adult. But they need an adultier adult to help them, sure? And he texted me back. He said that's why I call you every day, right, right, exactly. That's a good feeling. Well, you know, it sounds like you've done the right things with your wife and with your family. Yeah, you've made good friends along the way. I love talking about your friend Rob, because no matter how successful we are, there's always somebody there that helped us. Right? We didn't get here on our own, you know, there was always someone who mentored us or said, hey, are you sure that's what you want to do, right? Or kind of moved us in the direction we needed to go.
Speaker 2:That's the fact. One quick note about him. Yeah, I ended up finally contacting him again and of course we all served at Lejeune Right and you know the cancer scares and everything there. I'm probably one of the only ones left out of anybody that I know that hasn't died from cancer. So knock on wood there. But I ended up getting a hold of Bob and I called him up and his wife's name was Chip and I called her mom and all that stuff and I called her up. I got a hold of her phone number and she answered the phone. Hello, and I go, is this Chip? She goes. Oh my God, you know she knew my voice right away. Who wouldn't, right?
Speaker 2:So I ended up going down and visiting him and they run on a streak of hard luck and Bob had cancer and so I ended up. We went on a trip, me and my wife and I go. We're going to make a round trip and we're going to go back through Pennsylvania because I got to go see Bob. So I went and saw Bob and uh, he was doing okay, but he I was going through treatments and stuff like that, and so then we went back home and I got a call that he was doing bad again. So I went back down and saw him another time and, uh, we talked, we talked nonstop, just sitting in his chair he was laying in a hospital bed and as we sat there we talked nonstop just bringing back up all the old stuff. And that was really good. I think it was good for both of us, you know. And then two days later I got to call Eddie Pastore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's kind of bittersweet right, right, because you did get to reconnect when you had that time. Yeah, but I think God put that Sure.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I'm very thankful for that time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Very nice, but he was too, yeah, yeah, as was his wife, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then she passed away. I kept in contact with her to see if I could do anything, keep helping them. I mean, I went down there a couple times and built things for him because he couldn't do it, and then she passed away about a year later. They were young man, they were young, Probably 50s. But oh well, that's my life in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:We've covered a lot. We did Nowhere near the three hours that Brandon and I spent together, but you can pick on him about that. Really, like we talked about earlier, before we started recording, I always ask the same question at the end, and that is when someone's listening to this story years from now what message do you want them to take away?
Speaker 2:I think you know you have to. You have to live life to its fullest and you're going to get things thrown at you that don't work out and you gotta, you gotta make the best. You know that from Brandon with his attitude. You gotta make the best of it. Um, I worked a lot being in the asphalt business and I was late off during the worked a lot being in the asphalt business. I was laid off during the winter times, but in the summertime I was never home and that was a sacrifice that I had to make. Is it worth it? I waited out, as my kids didn't want for anything. You know, brandon, all three boys played travel hockey and my daughter played travel soccer. Well, you know, you just start looking back into the early 80s. Well, what the money that I told you that we were making? It was 13 000 a year for them to play hockey, you know. So I mean, we sacrificed the things that we wanted. We went without as parents to give it to our kids, and it's good to do that.
Speaker 2:But the biggest thing I can say is that, uh, it never ran into anybody on their deathbed. They said it didn't work at all. You know, you've heard it, we all say it um, spend time with the family, um. Every time. Nobody's allowed to leave our house without saying I love you. You know, if you turn, if you turn to drive away, they're gonna pull you back out of the car. Didn't get the hug, you know. If they say love you and you don't respond, hello, you know what did. Did you hear me? You know. So make time for family, um, and just live life. That's all I can say. You know, don't put too much pressure on every, on any one thing, because tomorrow could all change and it has, that's true.
Speaker 1:It has All right. Well, thanks for taking time out this afternoon to sit here and talk with me and share your story with everyone. Really appreciate it, thank you. I wish my grandfather would have did it Someday. We'll figure out how to do that, right, right, thank you, thank you.
