13: The Power of Positivity, Peace & Family (w/ Nana)

Alright, so this is the most important interview I’ll probably ever have. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Nana. Well, thank you for having me. This is unbelievably special.

I, I’m not sure. You know, usually I have trouble figuring out how to start, and this one’s even more difficult to figure out where to start in our journey together. You’ve known me longer than any guest ever will that I interview ever in the world and, and how important you are in my life.

It’s gonna be really hard not to cry in this one. I knew it. But you’re in town from Indiana, right? And it’s amazing that you’re able to come down and spend time with our family.

My cousin, my wife, my daughter, my friends, and my dad’s with us. So just giving people a little context of where we’re at here in beautiful, sunny Florida. But you’re from Indiana, right? And where you helped raise me.

And I kind of wanted to start there. I’m going to set some of the stage. Okay.

Because you have been a peacemaker. The things that stand out, because I can’t say it all, but there has never been a time where I’ve been over at your house or around you, and you’ve been negative. You have been the most positive person I can think of in my entire life through anything.

You have always been positive and happy and joyous, and I just, I wanted to start there because that is not easy to maintain sometimes. And you have. And how do you do it? I don’t know.

I guess I’ve always been that way from when I was very young, probably 1112, and I hated conflict, even at that age. And I. If there was ever any raised voices in our family, I would try to say please, you know, don’t, don’t talk loud, don’t yell, don’t, don’t, you know. And that’s just was.

And my brother, which was two years older than me, always said, judy, you’re the peacemaker of this family. And I guess I always was. It doesn’t surprise me at all.

Yeah. I hated conflict. I do too.

It’s so much easier not having it. Yeah. Yeah.

There’s so many more positive things to think about. Yeah. It’s a waste of energy.

Yeah. It’s hard not to, because life. But it just always stuck out.

There’s always things going on and still are, you know, like, for instance, my father, great man, not always the easiest to work with. And you were peaceful through those moments. Yeah, I try, but I love him raising three sons was not easy, but I did it.

Yeah. So you have three sons, you have three grandchildren, one great grandchild, which is mine. Right.

And a wonderful mother, grandmother, and now great grandma. Right. And I maybe want to start there.

Where, what’s your favorite part about being a mother? A grandma, great grandmother? You know, from growing up how every child, when you’re, what, maybe seven, eight, you’d say, oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I always told my mother I wanted to be a mother and that I didn’t want to be a nurse or, you know, whatever. I always just said I wanted to be a mother. And so that was my life’s ambition.

And luckily, I have three wonderful sons, and then from them I have you and my other granddaughters, and, of course, now the little nova, your daughter. So. But that’s, you know, I just, that’s all I ever wanted to be when I was growing up.

And you got it. So you’ve achieved your dream. Right.

And that was my dream. So how special. I’m so glad to hear that because I know, you know, you played tennis, you were a figure skater, a dancer.

Right. You know, you had a lot of other things going on, but the number one on your list. Mother.

Right. And I think anybody who would reflect on you would say the same thing. You’ve got a lot of other things and passions and hobbies, but motherhood is right there at the top.

Yep. And I was lucky enough to, when I had my first son, to be able to stay home, I didn’t have to work, and I was able to be at home. Mother.

Yeah. Which I felt very lucky cause not too many of my friends were able to do that. Yeah, absolutely.

In the early ages, you know, of their, when they were mothers, when they were, the babies were little, they had to work. Yeah. And I didn’t.

Grandpa was a hard worker. He was. And provided wealth so that I didn’t have to work, and that was really special.

But you provided in a lot of ways so that he could. Yeah. So it’s very symbiotic in that way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to start with your story with grandpa.

I call him grandpa Bill. It’s funny, I have nicknames for all of Nana, Marmar, pom pom, and then grandpa Bill just was grandpa Bill. Right.

More formal, and I liked that. And it speaks to who he is. He’s so sweet, and he has a formalness to him, and he can be tough and soft at the same time, and I always remember that about him.

Yes. Cause I got to know him well, and I know you know what I’m talking about here, where he was very strong and very vulnerable at the same time in that same moment. And that was the beauty of grandpa Bill.

But I want to know, how did you guys meet? Where did your story start? A blind date when I was 15. Wow. And it was a fix up.

He didn’t know he was going to have a date that night. Just a friend of his happened to run into him at a drive in, and he was just having a coke. And he had been working in his garage.

He had a dark room, and he was developing pictures that night, and he’d just gone over for a break. So this guy asked him, do you want a date tonight? And Bill said, oh, sure, why not? So they picked us up and he didn’t have time to clean up, and he was, needed a shave. And he had on blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

And I was not impressed when I saw him. So anyway, we actually went back to my house, and there were three couples, and we had a pool table in our basement. So the guys all immediately went to the pool table and us girls went into the family room and we talked and we ignored the guys.

And I really probably didn’t speak to bill more than 1520 words. And when it was time to leave, you know, they left. And the next day at school, my one girlfriend who had, you know, fixed us up, said he wanted another date.

And I said, no. And then she says, oh, please, he, you know, we’ll double date. But he’s the only one that has a car.

And she bugged me all day in school, and I finally said, okay, okay, I’ll go out. So when he picked me up that night, he was all dressed up and he had on a nice shirt and sweater and pants and a shave. And I thought, oh, he’s not so bad.

Yeah, he’s a hairy man, so the shave is important, right? Yes. And, you know, with his dark, you know, complexion and such and his dark hair. So he impressed me the second time, and then that was it.

Thanks to your friend. Who’s your friend? So we can shout her out. Well, I don’t know where she is at this point anymore.

Lost contact with her, but her name was Nancy. Thank you, Nancy. Yeah, otherwise a lot of people wouldn’t be here.

That’s right. And her persistence in trying to get me to go on a second date, that’s so awesome. And I was happy.

Finally. Afterwards, then we clicked. Yeah.

And I know that there was, you know, late nights, grandpa did a lot of things. He was very interested in technology. Yes, he was a salesman.

He had a sales heart. But it was interesting because, again, that softness to him, I think that’s his advantage to sales, is that he could be very serious but very personable at the exact same moment. I feel like I got some of that.

He also was very passionate about photography, and I know you stood by him a lot of nights in the dark room, as I used to say, very boring nights. But I would sit there on a stool and watch him develop pictures. We might be.

And it was in a garage at his parents house, so in the winter, it was a little chilly out there, and you would stick right by his side. I would sit there and watch him, and it might be, you know, two, 3 hours we’d be. And then he’d finally, you know, wrap it up for the evening.

But many, many nights did we spend in the dark room. Yeah. It’s almost like a lyric to a song.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. But, I mean, it means so much.

I’m picturing it now, and I’ve seen you guys interact over my life, and I can see you just being comfortable with each other in that moment, even in silences. Cause I would imagine you’re not talking the entire time. There’s moments of quiet where you’re just enjoying each other’s company.

Well, you know, you mentioned that, how he liked also electronics, and when we were first dating, he decided to build his own stereo, and he did the whole thing, all of the, you know, the equipment. What. I don’t know what you call the.

But he built them from kits, and then those were many nights watching him put these together. Yeah. And so, yeah, we had interesting dates.

Yeah, clearly. But it’s fitting for who he was and your supporting role. He’s the kind of guy who would read a manual front to back.

Yes. He gets a gadget. Oh, yeah.

He learns about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I learned just enough, and then I just go with it. He had technical books like crazy of everything. Yeah, well, you guys did a lot of stuff.

He owned some exotic cars and rally racing with porsches, flying planes. He clearly liked gadgets and engines. Things that ticked.

Yep. Where do you think that came from? I don’t know. Because it’s funny.

His parents weren’t anything like that. His father was a very quiet man and didn’t really have hobbies. He just worked.

Well, I think it all started when Bill was young, and he was not a well child, and so he couldn’t go out and play. Can you speak more to not being a well child? What happened? Well, he had a problem with his an enlarged spleen, and when he was five, he actually went to Mayo clinic. His mother took him there, and they said there wasn’t anything they could do for him, and they didn’t expect him to live very long, but his mother brought him back and just started making sure he had plenty of iron, and
she found a doctor.

He ended up thriving and doing well, but he was not a person that played sports because he was very underweight then, and he just didn’t. So he got interested in the photography and the electronics also. Magic was his hobby, so he did things like that and read a lot.

Makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah.

When you can’t do physical activity, you do all those other things. So he just, you know, was not into sports because he wasn’t able to play. Yeah, I know.

When the Internet started to kind of hit, I know that he was also fascinated with technology in that realm, too. He would be online and just learning late at night. Right, right.

Well, yeah, he loved the computer. Oh, my gosh. He would stay up all night just, you know, searching on the computer for things he was interested in.

Yeah. And he had a lot of interest. Yeah, he, you know, he got interested, of course, into guns.

He collected some guns and. And, of course, his flying and the course big on photography and. Yeah.

And. But he just. Yeah, he.

A lot of the quiet type of interests. Not physical. Yeah, well, I’ve played sports my whole life, but I feel very strongly about the pull of learning about technology and that side of things.

There’s a beauty to that. There’s a calmness to that also, figuring out how something works. I know my dad got it almost to a fault, you know, and it’s.

It’s kind of addicting in a way, when, especially when computers started to flourish, there’s no end, so he could just keep going. Yeah. Bill would always, you know, he had to get one of the, you know, the computer and everything, and I was scared to death to touch him because I thought they would lose every information he had put in if I touched it.

So I was not, you know, anything wanting to get near a computer. But later he taught me. Yeah, you do.

Well, but I’m not an expert, of course, anytime. But we did, you know, in our young years before we had children, we had, I, as you had mentioned, had different physical type of interests. You know, the dancing, the skating and things like that, tennis.

And when we got. Were dating, there was not I tried to get him into golf. He didnt like that.

And so he got me into shooting. And so at first I was leery of shooting a gun, but then we would go target shooting, and I became pretty good. Yeah, it’s fun, too.

Yeah. And did with, you know, with rifles and handguns and I did, I enjoyed it. Pretty, you know, it was pretty good.

You’re a good shot. Yeah. And I recently have gone back and, you know, my other son, Greg, he’s taken me a few times and he says, mom, you know, you should learn to shoot again.

And, you know, I can hit a target still. Oh, yeah. I was just about to ask how long has it been? But that’s great that he took you.

I didn’t know that. I just went probably four or five months ago. Oh, cool.

And he just wanted me to, you know, but it’s a lot different now because the guns are a lot stronger than when I first shot. Sure. You know, and I’m a lot older.

Right. But still a good shot. That’s great.

That’s fun that you’re still doing things like that. Yeah. As you get older, you have to change your things.

I couldn’t play tennis anymore because I hurt my shoulder. And so, of course, the years of ice skating and all that kind of stuff is long gone. But now I just enjoy, actually.

Well, I like to get on the computer, too, and so. And I’ve gotten a phone, which I refused to get many years ago. I mean, I had a little old flip phone.

Uh huh. I remember my husband wanted me to get like an iPhone, and I would not touch it. I said, no, I don’t want it.

I want it. So. But then you warmed up to it.

Yeah, now I have it. Yeah. And what else do you like to do during the day? Well, I had hate to admit it, but I sit and watch tv, but I don’t watch soap operas.

I like to actually love watching cooking shows. Absolutely. That makes so much sense.

Cause you’re an amazing cook. Thanks. I mean, we were gonna hit on that, but here we are.

Yeah, you have. So my wife, Hande, is turkish. And they say health to your hands.

They describe people who cook. They tell it about me because I think you have given me tasty hands. We have particular hands.

When you cook a meal, you can taste it. There’s something about it. Is it because you were always cooking meals for the, you know, the three kids and.

Yeah, when I was growing up, I really didn’t help much in the kitchen with my mother. I mean, I only remember when I was in high school, I think that the one time when I was dating my husband, and I wanted to have him over for dinner, and I wanted to fix the meal, and I had never done that before. And I can’t tell you today what I fixed.

I don’t remember. I was just about to ask. I know I fixed a cake for dessert.

Oh. And it was not a box cake. It was from scratch, of course.

But I don’t. I bet that probably I had fixed a steak or something, but I really don’t remember. But he liked the meal, and I just fixed it for he and I, and my parents left the house and let us have our meal alone.

Oh, that’s nice. But we were in high school still, so. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you’ve cooked. I wonder how many meals you’ve cooked.

Oh, gosh, I hate to think of how many in the age that I am now, because I’ve been cooking for, what, 60, 70 years? Yeah. So. But I love.

But I’ve had some disasters, of course, when I was first married. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, even one recent one, maybe it was a few years ago where other people were helping, but setting a glass thing on top of a hot stove, and it exploded. Yep. Yep.

That was not a smart thing. We didn’t know that the stovetop was on. Yeah.

And. Yep. We had macaroni and cheese all over the place.

And it’s a shame, because your macaroni and cheese is the best macaroni and cheese in the world. And I know people are like, Josh, of course you’re saying that. It’s your grandma, and you’re gonna say it, no.

If you. Everybody who has this Mac and cheese, it’s. It’s one of those things where you go, no, no, no.

You know, anybody who comes over doesn’t go, oh, that is the best macaroni cheese, or that is the best fried chicken. Or even down to your salad. Lemon, salt and olive oil.

Oh, that’s oil. That’s it. Perfect.

It’s perfect. Yep. And I don’t measure.

No, no. You just have to learn to taste as you’re making it on the lettuce and that. And tasting.

Yeah. Everybody. Some of my friends would say, well, what’s your recipe? And I don’t have a recipe.

It’s my taste. Yeah. That’s all.

Sure. Before we go too far away from. And Grandpa Bill will obviously be threaded through this conversation continually.

But before I forget, I wanted to know, what’s your favorite memory of grandpa? I know it’s a hard one. That’s a tough one. Yeah.

And if it’s two that stick out. But okay, this is one. You know, he loved cars.

And there was. He would come home with a new car without even saying anything to me. And our very first car, that.

Well, he had a convertible. When we. When he got out of high school, parents gave him a Ford convertible.

And so that was our first car when we got married. Unfortunately, when we were in college at Hanover, where he was finishing up school, the car caught fire. Whoa.

And we had been out actually shooting on the Ohio river, and we had just driven back into the campus, and all of a sudden, the engine started smoking. And he opens it and it’s fire. Well, luckily, the fire department was right next to us, so they put it out, but the car was done.

So anyway, his brother gave us his car that was another convertible. So we drove that for a few years. Well, then when we got our next car, he came home one day in a Porsche.

And it was a cute little car. Yeah. And it was fun to drive.

Oh, I bet. I love driving that car. So, anyway, that was great until we had.

Then he comes home another day with another Porsche. A second Porsche. And it’s a red car with chrome, everything.

The engine. It’s a show car. And I said, why do we need a show car? Well, it was just too pretty because.

And we couldn’t drive that car in the rain or anything because you didn’t want it to get dirty. We didn’t own that very long because it was impractical. Didn’t he have a Lamborghini at all points? Oh, yeah.

Well, he had a Lamborghini. He had a Aston Martin. Wow.

And it was just like James Bond drives. And. Yeah.

But then a Peugeot, that was probably the least favorite car. But then he had to get into a family car more. The Porsches, of course, went when we had children.

Yeah. I was waiting for it. That was gone.

And so was the Lamborghini. Yeah. So.

But I wish I would have been able to see it. But he had his toy. Those were his toys.

That and the airplane. And so. So the cars being a point of your favorite memory of him? Yeah, because it was so funny.

Because he would never say, judy, let’s go look at cars. You would just come home with a car. He would come home with a car, yeah.

And you still loved him. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, did you ever come home with something that you didn’t tell him about? Hey, here’s not any. On that level. On that level, no.

I would never have spent that kind of money without his. Okay. But he soon had to get me a car when I had kids.

Right. So. Right.

I remember he had a jeep. That’s the earliest car I remember. I always liked it.

Yeah, he did. Yeah. Practical.

But that was a practical car. And he drove that to work. Yeah.

The other thing is, you know, when. When he flew. When he was flying planes, you know, we first had a bonanza, which was a four seater, but when Greg, our youngest, came along, there was no room for him, so we had to upgrade.

And we had a twin engine that was a six seater. Now, this we owned with a couple other people. Right.

It was just. Not just ours. But then the crunch in the seventies hit of gas crunch.

You’re way too young to even probably know about it, but it’s when aviation fuel was almost impossible to afford. So, unfortunately, the plane sat in a hangar and we couldn’t. You know, it was.

You couldn’t hardly get gas for them. So we finally sold it, and that was our. The end of owning a plane.

Yeah, I was wondering if that was. Yeah, that was. That.

That’s tough. I mean, it’s already tough to own a plane as is. It’s good that you co owned it.

That’s so smart. But I also took flying lessons when we had the bonanza, because I didn’t want to ever be in a plane and have something happen to him and me learn at the last minute from some guy in a tower and teaching me how to land that plane. Absolutely.

So I took just enough lessons to handle the plane. So did you like flying? I liked it, yeah. But I never flew alone.

I never wanted to solo. That was not my interest at all. Did grandpa solo fly? Oh, yeah.

Cause he was a, you know, licensed pilot. We flew to, you know, the whole family to Florida and different places. Weekends, we would just get in the plane and go to maybe Louisville and have lunch and things like that.

That’s so cool. Yeah. That’s probably really special moments, because also, just alone in a plane, you’re above the world.

Yeah. Did you have any troubles up in the air or any romantic moments? No, we had some troubles. Oh, gosh.

Well, we were coming back. Well, we were going to Chicago one time, and it’s back when they used to have the Migs airport right on the water in Chicago. And we were flying in, and it’s, you know, Windy city is why Chicago’s called Windy City.

Cause off of the water, the wind, and we were landing, and the wind picked us up, and we couldn’t it just. We couldn’t land, so he had to do a go around, and that was the first time I’d ever been in the plane when we had to do a go around, and I was pretty nervous. Yeah.

And so they had to give us the okay to come around and try it again. And luckily, I told Bill, I says, I’m sticking my foot out to land this plane if you don’t do it. But, you know, he got it down good.

But the other time that we were also coming out of Chicago, and we took off from Midway, and it was snowing, and they said, oh, well, you’ll get up above such and such a height, and you’re fine. Well, we got up there, and it was a snowstorm still, and he didn’t have his instrument flying license yet. He was just visual.

He couldn’t see anything. Oh, my gosh. So we had to talk to the tower and tell them, and they said, well, we’ll make sure that nobody’s in your way.

And we got halfway to Indianapolis until we could see where we were going. Wow. That was a little scary.

Flying blind, literally. Yeah. Yeah.

And then we’ve discovered that the lights on the plane, the blinking lights had gone out. Oh, gosh. So they had to watch for us.

So we had a. When we came into Indianapolis, they cleared all the other planes, and we landed first. And you kissed the ground.

Yeah, practically. It’s so nice. You know, I try not to think about it when I, like, go overseas, because those are such long flights and you’re over water.

Right. But it’s like. It’s so nice, but so much can go wrong.

Right. But I always felt really comfortable in a small plane. Cause, like, this smoke plane, you can glide down.

Sure. Yeah. Was grandpa a good flyer? Oh, yeah.

Pilot. Yeah. I was never uncomfortable when he was piloting.

Yeah. Yeah. I can see him being a good pilot.

I wish he would have been able to fly me. Yeah. So I want to go back a little further and just kind of touch on your parents, your grandparents, you know, who owned orange groves, and a photographer out of Indianapolis.

So photography being a thread, or your father, who was a suit tailor in Indianapolis, maybe just talk about some of them. Well, my dad was Harry Oliver, and he. From the time.

Well, he started his own business, probably. Oh, gosh, I was probably about five, six years old, something like that. So it would have been in the mid forties.

And he carried that business through, through until he retired, which I think he shut the business down in the eighties. Somewhere in the 1980s, he was in business over 60 years. Wow.

But we always kidded he sold. He was a salesman, he was not a tailor. Uh huh.

And we always kidded that daddy wouldn’t even know how to sew a button on a suit because he was not a tailor. People would come in, his friends, and they’d say, oh, I’ve got a loose button. And he’d say, well, take it back to.

Cause he hired a tailor. Sure. You know, and he’d say, well, take it back to the tailor.

You’ll put it on. But daddy just was a salesman, and he measured them for suits, but he never. Right.

Yeah. Did you ever help him with that? I worked in the office. Okay.

From the time in high school. Yeah. Until actually when I got.

Was pregnant with my first child. Then that’s when I quit. Right.

Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.

And then, you know, so what about the orange groves? That was a great uncle that owned the Orange grove. Yeah. He had down in Florida, in indian river area, and he had quite a large orange grove.

I don’t know how many acres, but it was up. It was big, probably around here. Well, it’s in the middle of Florida.

The middle. Okay. Yeah, right in the very middle.

Okay. And so I remember when I was a kid, you know, going down and we would go in a few. A couple winters during the war or.

No, it was right after the war, because the war was over in 45, and I was only, what, three years old, four years old. But it was after the war and things were a little tight up here, and Daddy was struggling with his. He didn’t own his own business yet.

He would send my mother and my brother and I to Florida, and we would live with this uncle and aunt in Florida for the winter because it was cheaper for daddy to send us down there and he didn’t have to feed us and such because it was, you know, it was tight at that time. So we would live down there and go to school, and then we didn’t know that. Yeah.

We did that for about three years. Wow. Yeah.

That’s nice. You got to hang out in Florida. Yeah, yeah.

Kept that going. And it was interesting, you know, some interesting things back then. What’s one of the interesting thing that.

Well, I remember the first time I went to school, it was first grade, and, you know, they introduced me to the class, and when they found out that I was from the north, the teacher said, well, ask her any questions. And of course, have you ever seen snow? Cause none of them had ever seen snow. And they just thought it was the coolest thing in the world that I got to be where snow was.

I do miss snow. Yeah. There’s a quiet, calm peace.

Yeah. I just don’t like the cold. The other thing is, this was in Sebring, Florida, which was a very small town, and the children would mostly go to school barefoot.

You saved your shoes for church. Because, you know, most of them were children from the orange groves and such. And so they saved their good clothes and their shoes to go to church.

Wow. And that I. You know, and they would always look at me because I’m wearing shoes every time to school. Whoa.

Yeah. So it was sort of weird for me. It would kind of be nice to be free and just go to school with no shoes on.

But that wouldn’t fly these days. Yeah. No, but there, you know, that was the norm.

Yeah. You had mentioned the war. I wanna circle back to Grandpa, because I know that he didn’t necessarily go and serve, but he was involved.

Can you tell us a little bit about his involvement? Yeah. Well, he had to go in right after the Vietnam war was over, and so he went into the army reserves, and he ended up being in amash unit. And so he would have to do summer camps.

And he did that. I think he had to serve for something like 1015 years. I can’t remember exactly.

And he’d have to go to summer camp every summer for two weeks. They would go in a caravan. But once he got to be a lieutenant, he didn’t have to ride with the privates and all that, so he could drive himself to camp.

But they would go to up at Grayling, Michigan, and several times, and I know they went to Denver, Colorado. There was a camp there. I can’t remember the name of it, but anyway.

And I remember that he had to, during wartime, the drills that he would be responsible for going through the neighborhood. That was my father. Oh.

Oh, my father. I got my wires crossed. Yeah.

Can you speak about that? Yeah. When I was little, that was during the war. Right.

And I was three, maybe daddy was. He tried to join the army when the war broke out, but they. He had a bad back and they wouldn’t take him.

He was also very. Dad only stood about five two. And they said, well, he was too short, and he had a bad back.

So he was not accepted. And so anyway, he volunteered then to be what’s called an air raid warden. And back in the day, they actually had big spotlights.

Sirens would go out, and spotlights would be flashing up in the sky. That was like, as a test to see if there were enemy aircraft and the spotlights would catch them if they, you know, see them. And daddy’s job was to go through the neighborhood, and when they had a drill, everybody had to turn out their lights or you had blackout draperies.

Right. And he would walk through the neighborhood and make sure that you couldn’t see any lights from the road. And the only thing I remember, he wore a hard hat with some kind of an emblem that was probably whatever the air raid Borden signal was, and a flashlight.

And that was his job. That’s incredible to think about. You know, it’s scary to think about, but important.

Yeah. You’re making sure that people are as safe as they can be in a time like that. It’s intense because.

Yeah, when, when war broke out, I was only, what, three, so. Because when we went into war, you know. Yeah, I was just three.

Wow. So. And those are just a few things that I remember, you know, but I don’t remember everybody, you know, when the war ended and the celebrations, I don’t remember that.

Oh, really? Yeah. And everybody, I had some other friends that were, you know, my age, and they said, oh, they remembered it, but I didn’t, I didn’t remember that. Yeah.

That’s interesting. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, everybody was out celebrating and it just, I just don’t have that memory.

Well, maybe it’s because you’re always positive and happy that it was just another day. Yeah. You’re staying positive.

Yeah. So. But, yeah, that was interesting.

Hey, there. I’m Joy Rose, the founder of the Museum of Motherhood. We are aiming to be Florida’s top women’s museum, if not their only women’s museum, with a focus on women, mothers and families.

We invite you to join us during our hours, and please see more about mom on our website, www.mommuseum.org.

first fabulous and local. Please join us soon. Wow.

It’s hard to know, like, where to jump around. We’re jumping a little. But, you know, you’ve definitely had, clearly an endless devotion to your children.

Yes. Your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, your family. And I wanted to see if there’s a moment in your life that stands out as a favorite memory with your children.

Well, for me, any time that we’re all together and. Well, I would say recently when, just a, what, about a year and a half when I took the whole family down to Key west. Yeah, that was special, you know, I mean, and your wife was pregnant with your child, but the whole family.

I took all the children, dates, grandchildren, you know, everybody, the whole family. And we went down to Key west and stayed, what was it, about five or six weeks? It was a week, yeah. And we stayed in this one resort area, and I think we had a tremendous time together.

It was special. Yeah. We all kind of were.

Had different houses in this area, and it was so beautiful, and we just spent the whole time together. Right. And it was.

It was so much fun. Yeah, it was. And I really treasure that thought and that time.

Yeah. Because, I mean, we’ve, you know, with you, you know, you were in Florida then. My other son was in Florida, so it was.

It was a fun time to just the whole family. Yeah. What was there nine of us.

I think nine or ten girlfriends are the ones that aren’t married, and. Yeah, it was interesting. It was fun.

Yeah. We had a good time. But I love your answers that anytime you’re together with them, that’s.

You know, I feel that about Nova. I couldn’t even, right now, if someone asked me that question, it’s been 16 months in her life. I couldn’t pick one moment.

Yeah. It’s all of them together, and every day gets sweeter and sweeter, and so it’s really neat saying that. That, you know, one of the sweetest moments is one of the more recent, because there’s more people and more love to go around, more people to share in that.

I love family, and I love family to be together. Yeah, me, too. Yeah.

That’s what it’s all about, really. At the end of the day. Even friends like Jordan here, when I’m together with my friends, right, they’re my family, in a way, when I can’t be with my family, you know, it’s being together, that’s what the world is about and the connection.

And I love to travel. You know, I been lucky enough to travel quite a bit, but I used to have to practically drag my husband on a trip to Lee. He loved being at home.

Yeah, he did. He loved. You know, he would have spent every vacation just at home just doing nothing.

But I think that’s because he traveled a lot with his job. Sure. So he liked being a.

I wanted to go someplace, and so I would say, we’re going. Well, that’s good. That’s good.

Someone’s got to be the leader in that. Take initiative. But we did have a lot of trips to some really nice places with his companies when he worked, because he was always a top salesman, and he always was able to win the trips that they had.

And so we traveled a lot. What did he sell? Well, the first job, he worked for a company that sold packing for big machines. Besides, I’m talking about before, he worked for my father right out of college in the tailoring business.

But he used to work in high school in a photography store. And then he worked for a company, a japanese company that sold precision measuring instruments. It’s so fitting for him, I feel.

But they, both of the other companies would have trips for the top sales, and he always won. He was good at his job. Yeah, yeah.

So he was always one of the top sales. So we traveled quite a bit to Europe and other places. Where’s your favorite place that you’ve ever traveled to? Well, when he was alive, I probably would say the favorite, actually.

We went to Europe several times, but I enjoyed our 50th wedding anniversary, and we didn’t want to have a party. I said, I don’t care about a party. And I said, what about a cruise? And we take the children.

Now, all of the boys at that time were single, and we took our three sons and we went through the Caribbean and we had a cruise with them. And that was more memorable than any party. Didn’t care about parties.

That was not interesting to us. But you used to throw quite a few parties. Oh, yes.

Many, many times. Many years for a Christmas party. Till it got too big, got out of hand.

Yeah, it got ridiculous. Started off with probably 20 people. When it got to 80, we said, that’s enough.

That’s a lot to manage. It was. And so we finally, we just stopped.

It was enough. Too much. But the cruise, that’s the, that’s your favorite trip abroad.

And right when he was around. Yeah. Now lately the favorite was I went to Italy.

Yeah. And I’ve been took your dad and my youngest son, that was 18, 2018. Right.

And then I just went again this past year with my youngest son. You couldn’t get enough. You had to go back.

I would go again and again. I don’t think I’ll make it anymore because that’s a hard trip now with my age. But it’s a far away.

Yeah, the flight’s pretty tough, but I was lucky enough to be able to go first class. That’s the only way to go across the pond, as they say in first class. What’s your favorite place over there? What was your favorite memory of that trip? Loved Venice.

Yeah. Been there. Went both trips.

Went to Venice. Cause I adore Venice. Was it neat finally visiting there? Yeah.

When we landed the first time with your dad and Greg, when we got into the boat from the airport to go to the Venice to the island, I just said to them, I can’t believe I’m here, because you see it on the movies. Right. And it’s just something.

Oh, that looks so cool. But when you’re there, it is just unbelievable. Yeah.

And it’s so beautiful. But they got a lot of problems with the water. I mean, a lot of the lower levels of the buildings are.

Or water. Right. And it’s sinking.

It’s a bold move to build a city right at the water on pylons. It’s built on pylons. That’s amazing.

But when we were there. Yeah. There were areas we had, you know, that were with water.

Luckily, the year we were there, right after we had come back, they had had flooding in Italy, and there were people sitting in tables in restaurants, and the water was up to their knees. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, but I love Italy.

Yeah. Well, it’s, like, such a historic city. It’s, you know, a classic.

Yeah. The last trip, we went to the Amalfi coast, and that’s gorgeous. Yeah.

Beautiful. I’m glad that you got to experience that. Yes, I am, too.

That’s very special. And with your sons and son, you know, that’s. That’s very cool.

I wish I could have been there. I do, too. So.

You are unbelievably talented. You know, I started a business with the word creative in it, and I don’t know if it runs in our blood. I think it does.

But you have such a talent with your hands, both with cooking, but also creating that. You always have, throughout my life, have made such special things. The one thing that sticks out to me, I mean, you’ve made, like, custom dresses and dresses, even for my cousin’s dolls from special coats from your mother.

Mink coats. Yeah. But one thing stands out is the teddy bears from those coats.

I have it in my office, and it’s the most well crafted bear teddy bear I’ve ever seen. Every stitch you can tell was so carefully sewn and put. It was so well put together.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this question, but you’ve always just created such special things, and obviously, you care about family, so you want to make meaningful things for them. Maybe just speak about what pulls you to that or. Well, I think, too, it comes from.

My mother was very talented. Now, she was very talented. Well, I come from a family of artists, and, of course, the photographer, the Bretzmann, my mother’s side, her father and uncle were all very well known photographers and in Indianapolis.

And my great grandfather, he was one of the first photographers for the 500 miles race and the Indy 500. Yeah, the Indy 500. And he was their official photographer for many years.

Wow. This is back in the 1930s and forties. Different cars.

Yeah. So we have a lot of his photographs, a book. I read and we have a book.

And at the Indianapolis Horacle Society, did a whole display of the Bretzmann family and photographs about three or four years ago. But then also, there’s a lot of artists in the family now. I, unfortunately, didn’t get in painting the artistic talent for that.

I just never had the eye for it. But I did other things. I, you know, I made.

I sewed, I knitted, I did all kinds of things. And I also liked to write poetry. Really? This is new.

Yeah, it’s just for me. I’ve never published anything, but I’ve done some poetry and I’ve journaled, and I have made. With each one year, with all of my kids, I wrote a book that just told everything I could think about that from the time I was young, stories.

I’m a storyteller, and I just wrote all kinds of stories that I remembered and that I wanted them to remember. Yeah. That’s sort of the thing I really like.

Yeah, well, it’s clear when you see those things that you make, it’s not like I’m just gonna, like, jot it down. It’s. Your heart and soul are in those works, whatever it is.

A teddy bear, a journal. But back to your poetry. I didn’t know that.

And do you still have poems? That I have only a few. You know, it’s sort of weird. I would write a poem on a card or something, and I don’t know where those are.

You know, I remember when my parents, for Christmas one year, my husband and I had gone to England, and we had bought some Waterford crystal to have for their Christmas, and, of course, it had to be shipped back. Well, it didn’t make it in time for Christmas, so I. On the Christmas card, I wrote a poem to my parents that explained what they were getting and why it didn’t get there. But I don’t know where that card is.

I sort of hoped that motherhood kept it, but in. When going through her things, I found a bunch of cards, but I couldn’t find that one. But, you know, I’ve done other poems, but I’ve never written anything.

I think I have found a poem recently. Yeah. That I came across, and Greg said, mom, I want to keep this.

So he’s got it. I want to read that. I’ll have to copy it off and send it to you.

You don’t know it off the top of your head? No, it’s too long. Okay. Yeah.

It’s really interesting that this came up, because on New Year’s Eve, Hyundai, me and Nova went down to St. Pete to this. There was like a family arts festival that they do on New Year’s Eve. And there was this one booth.

And it’s a new business, but they have typewriters, and they’ll either write a poem for you, they’ll ask you some questions, or they turn the typewriter out and let you write a poem. And so I just. The other day.

It’s been a long time, because I used to like writing poetry. Yeah. And I wrote a poem.

Really? Yeah, and I’ll show it to you. I have it at the house. But it’s.

And that’s why I asked you just the other day, hey, do you. Do you have a typewriter? Yeah, I remember you asking me that. And I, you know, could none of us have the old typewriters.

We got rid of those, and now they probably are expensive to buy. I was looking there. Couple hundred.

Yeah. But it was. There was something so tangible and tactile about the process of typing on the typewriter.

I remember when I was a kid, I typed on a typewriter for a bit, and then the computers hit digitally. But when I was typing that poem, it was so nice because there’s no backspace. The only backspace is to go back and go over a letter that didn’t strike well enough.

Yeah. But I loved it because when I got an idea, I put it down. That’s that.

And I move forward. And there’s something special about that. Yeah.

And then they had the arm where you had to go to the next line and by hand you have to. Yeah, exactly. I did that.

I had to ask her, how do I do this again? Yeah. Yeah. I like the manual aspect of that.

Cause I’m in the digital realm so much. Yeah. And did you know, I don’t know if you know, like, records are making a comeback.

Yeah. So over compact discs, we’ve got a lot of vinyl records. Your grandfather, you know, my husband collected vinyl, and I’ve got hundreds.

Wow, that’s great that they’re in the family. Yeah. I remember putting one on one of the last christmases with him, and we listened to pink Floyd together on this.

Nice. He’s got that one. Yeah.

That was super special. So we have a bit more to go. There’s this fun spot in our interviews that we do called the rapid fire.

Okay. And essentially, I ask most every guest the same set of questions to kind of see the general consensus of these questions and also the differences between the different guests we have on. So I’m going to do that with you.

Okay. If you want to expand, it doesn’t have to be like a quick answer. If you want to expand on it, go for it.

Okay. If it can be quick, great. So to start, what is your biggest source of inspiration? Mmm.

That’s a tough one. I guess it’s probably just from family. I love to see what people progress and what they get interested in.

I mean, when you’re little, you know, yeah. You have sports and you have, you know, things like that. But I like it when they’re older and they’ve got an interest and each, of course, everybody is different now.

You, of course, have developed into so many interests besides, you know, I mean, you’re. You’re good at photography, you’re good at the computer, you know, and you. I mean, just.

I’m so proud of you and what you have accomplished and. But, you know, I mean, and the diversity of everybody’s. None of my kids are interested in the same thing, you know.

Okay. The oldest one, Scott, well, he always. I’ll say that he will hate me for this, but when he was young, he was the primper of the family.

And, I mean, his brothers would be screaming at him to get out of the bathroom because he’d be in there primping so much. You know, he. Every little hair had to be just in place and his clothes, he just had to have just so.

And he went through the era of, in high school, junior high and high school, of only wearing polo shirts. The Ralph Lauren. It had to be the Ralph Lauren.

And very preppy. Scott was very preppy. Okay.

Your dad, well, he had a lot of interest. He liked electronics, too. And he was always finding some gadgets at Christmas time.

We’d never know, mark, would we? What? We ended up getting more different kinds of flashlights from your father for Christmas. Flashlights? Flashlights. I don’t remember.

He could be a flashlight salesman. I don’t know why he isn’t. If there’s any kind of a new flashlight out, we get it for Christmas.

I mean, we used to, we used to laugh because we’d say, well, what kind of flashlight are we getting this year? But he was just fascinated with flashlights. And then gray, he was the youngest. And he was the sports kid.

And whatever he tackled, he excelled in. And, I mean, he loved, though, hockey and skiing, and now he’s into scuba diving. Now that he’s older, he says his bones can’t take the other sports anymore.

That’s a lot. And all of you kids have gotten into scuba from Greg. Yeah, yeah, we’re all divers.

Yeah. And he’s an instructor and he’s taught, I think, the whole family. And one of the granddaughters, the other one doesn’t want to do it, and I don’t want to ever do it.

It’s beautiful. A little scary. Yeah.

And he’s an actor as well. Yeah. He went through that period of going out to California and was actually in, you know, he had one speaking part once, but he worked a lot behind the cameras.

Yeah. And still does. And then in Colorado, he was.

He worked in. He was a ski patrol. Patrol, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’d be a pretty fun job. It seems fitting for him.

Yeah. But now he settled down in Indiana. I would have bet money on your source of inspiration being family.

So. Yeah. Everything.

Family’s everything. Yeah, absolutely. Truthfully, there’s nothing more important than family.

Yeah. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s the most important thing there is.

I think a lot of people would agree with you on that one. Yeah, I agree. Do you have a favorite book? You know, I’ve gone through a lot of different types of books.

I’ll start. When I was young, I was a ferocious reader because we didn’t have tv, and we didn’t get tv until I was around 13. So I read a lot.

And I, as a young, probably from eight, nine. Any story about a horse? Absolutely. I had to read.

I read every story that was out there. And so my parents always knew they could give me a book about a horse and I would devour it. Wow.

And the other, you know, one thing I really did love when I was younger, too, is little women. And Heidi, now, those are girls books, and I had beautiful books. My parents had given me of both of those books, and they are collectors books.

And I did a couple years ago, give each of my granddaughters one of those. And I don’t know that they’ve ever read them, but I told them, don’t ever get rid of them because they are from when I was young. And then as I got older, I. I just love mysteries and, you know.

James Patterson. Yeah. I knew that was coming.

Yep. I love reading his. And I would say he’s probably my favorite.

Do you have a favorite James Patterson book, specifically? Not really. It’s the series, you know, that he writes and about. Oh, God, I can’t even think of his name right now.

But, yeah, I like James Patterson. Yeah, the mysteries. Yeah, I like mysteries, too.

A good mystery. Same with tv shows. Figure out how people weave a story and come up with those ideas.

It’s fascinating. Oh, and everybody always kids me, because I still like to watch the old murder she wrote with Angela Lansbury classics. I think she was always just great.

And my kids would say, oh, mom, there’s always a murder. And I said, this little town she lives in, there are more murders than in a big city. There are more murders than people in it.

Right. Yeah, I just. I like mysteries.

Yeah. They’re just fun. Yeah.

We went to a movie. It was a few years ago down here. Knives out.

And that was fun to go to. We all enjoyed that. It’s kind of like a comedy mystery dialogue.

That’s the other thing I read back in, before zero Zero seven became famous, I was reading Ian Fleming books on James Bond. And it was, I think, when the first James Bond came out. And then all of a sudden, people heard about these books.

And I remember reading them in paperback, and I read. My mother and I, we were on a vacation. It was a time when we had to happen to come to Florida.

And we’re reading these books and we read every single one of them. I do love those. And I like the movies.

I still like to watch them. Oh, yeah. Even if they’re older, you know, I like to watch it.

They still hold up. Yeah. Yeah.

Fun to watch. How about your favorite musical artist or an album? Oh, right now it’s Andrea Pacelli. Okay.

In fact, Greg bought me tickets for my birthday. Really? I’m going to go see him in Indianapolis in April. Oh, how cool.

I can’t wait. Oh, I bet. Yeah.

I think he is just absolutely marvel. Yeah. Yeah.

I’ve listened to him as well from you. Yeah, I love his stuff. He’s so good.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to that. Yeah. And then second on the list is obviously PM Tiger, which we listened to last week.

Deserted. I showed her love 40. She goes, this is actually really good.

Well, I could understand the words. So many artists today, I can’t understand a word they’re saying. Yeah, well, they’re blasting so much music out so loud, they drown themselves out.

Or just yelling. I hate yelling. It’s funny because the last guest we had on, he loves metal.

The hardest metal you could think of. That’s what he loves. I lived through that with three sons, all through the stages of, with their stereos blasting hard metal stuff, and we finally bought them all earphones because we couldn’t stand it.

It was just awful. The medal today. Yeah.

That doesn’t even hold a candle to what is out now. You would be like, what is this? We don’t have to listen to that. But Jordan’s a great singer.

Yeah, he was good. I enjoyed that. How do you define success? Well, to me, success is first being happy with what you’re doing.

If you hate your job, you’ll never be successful. And too many people get in a rut with a job that they hate and are afraid to really get out there and find something and go for what they want to do. So I would say that, to me, in order to be successful, you have to love what you’re doing.

Love it. Yeah. That’s a very common answer.

Yeah, yeah, that was his answer when he was on the show. Yeah, yeah. It’s my answer.

That’s why I’m doing this. Right. Yeah, this is work, but it does not feel like it.

Well, sometimes, you know, you might not make the money that you could in a job you were doing previously. Definitely. But if you not happy in that job, why are you working hard? Yeah.

Then what’s it about? Just for money? Yeah. You know, and, yeah, you can’t be happy to have a job you hate. Yeah.

Then what’s the point? Yeah, what are you doing? Right? Yeah, you got one life and go for it. Yeah. Do what you want.

Absolutely. Well, I’ve been grateful that you and the rest of the people who’ve raised me, encouraged me to do what I love, and so I appreciate it. Thank you for that encouragement.

Well, we’re very proud of you. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. That means everything to me, so.

And we got the family name and this podcast and my business, you know, families strung through. Well, the Naimans are very proud. Well, I’m proud of everybody, too.

I’m proud of you. I have a couple more in the rapid fire. Okay, so what is your favorite era? I have to say, it has to be the fifties.

It’s when I was in, you know, high school and college and such. And I think that the fifties had the best music. I think that they had the coolest clothes.

I remember wearing a poodle skirt and a ponytail and a scarf around my neck, just like in Greece. Except our guys in my school did not wear blue jeans and t shirts. With a cigarette in their arm.

My school, the guys wore corduroy pants and button down shirts and sweaters. The girls wore either a poodle skirt and bobby socks, or they wore a slim skirt with a sweater set. Half the people listening won’t even know where poodle skirt is.

Ponytails. Yep. I had the coolest poodle skirt my mother made.

Awesome. A poodle skirt, for anybody doesn’t know, is a very full skirt. And you have an applique poodle on it.

Really? Yes, a poodle. A picture, you know, a poodle. Oh, you wear a picture of a poodle on your skirt.

That’s a poodle skirt. Wow. Yeah.

That’s usually were made out of felt, and then the appliques on the skirt were felt, and my mother made mine, and it had the. The dog had rhinestones on its collar, and, I mean, and it had little pom poms for the bottoms of its ears. And, I mean, they were really cool.

Wow. Yeah. But that’s what a pull is.

Well, now we know. Last one in rapid fire. What is your favorite memory of me? Oh, there’s so many, but I’m gonna pick.

When you won the award. When you were in college and we were invited to the dinner, and you were the only. I think you were freshman or a sophomore.

When you. I was a sophomore. Sophomore, and you were the only one that won the high awards.

It was a top ten. Top ten male student. Yes.

And that was a very proud moment. But the thinking that you were everybody else was juniors and seniors that were on that list, and you were the only sophomore. Yeah.

That. That made us super, super proud. Oh, cool.

Yeah, that was very special. It was extremely special for me because our family was all together, both sides together, enjoying that moment. And we have a picture that I have at home that’s on display, and it’s one of my favorite pictures in the world because it’s every.

All of us together in that moment. And that moment wouldn’t have happened without me getting that. And that’s really what matters most, is that picture.

Not the right. Not the award necessarily. Yeah.

Because both sides of the family didn’t get together. I mean, you know, I mean, we didn’t have much in common, and we just didn’t. But that was a special night.

It was. Yeah. Well, that means a lot.

It was. It was really special for me, and. Yeah.

Yeah. I think back on that, that’s. I’m.

I’m very glad. Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it? Does seem like a long time ago, but it, you know, but, yeah, that was a very special time. Yeah.

Oh, cool. I’m glad I can make you proud. That’s.

I feel complete. Well, you have. Well, that was rapid fire and we’re just.

You did great. You won. Okay, great.

That’s my prize. Dinner later today? Okay. Gotcha.

I just have a few questions to conclude. Kind of overarching questions. We’ve gotten into details.

We did the rapid fire, and so I just wanted to kind of COVID a little more ground, more general. Sure. What is the most exciting time you’ve had in your life? Well, you know, I know it’s an old cliche, but, you know, I’ve done a lot of things, but again, actually was getting married.

Yeah, I was very young. I was just 20. Your grandfather was 21.

And our parents, of course, thought we were way too young. Cause he hadn’t finished. He still had a year of college to go.

And I. We wanted to get married, and so we did. No one’s stopping you. No, they didn’t stop us.

But we had. We had a year. He had a year of college left down at Hanover, Indiana.

And we had a great time, you know, being married on a tiny little campus. The camp was probably 700 students at the time for the whole campus. So it was like going to high school because, I mean, you knew everybody, right? Yeah.

And so there were not very many married people at school in those days. They didn’t have married, you know, apartments or anything. And we lived in a little apartment above a second floor of a house that people had converted into an apartment.

And it was a tiny little place and it had really old furniture, but we loved every minute of it. I remember the first night we spent there, we went to bed and it was an old spring bed. Now, this is not box springs.

This is old springs that are exposed. And then a sin mattress on top. And the head and board were iron, these old iron.

And we got in there and. Oh, my God, it sunk in the middle and we ended up. We could not sleep on it.

We ended up pulling the mattress off and laying it on the floor. And we had to sleep on the floor because we could not sleep in that bed. But special moments in those times.

So we quickly called my parents and they had a new mattress in box Springs sent down to us because there was no place in it back there. There was no store to buy it. You couldn’t order it on Amazon? No, Amazon didn’t exist.

But we had to have it sent from Indianapolis down. But, yeah, that was fun. But we had a lot of fun, clearly.

I mean, we didn’t have two pennies to rub together, almost. I mean, Bill worked. He was in school, and so when he would bartend, there was a country club on the weekends, and he’d bartend, and he also did photography, and he would take all of the dance pictures, and he took wedding pictures, and he did baby pictures and whatever he could get so that we could have some money to live on.

But we didn’t mind. No. When you love each other, that’s all that matters.

Blissful to, you know, being poor. Yeah. And we were poor.

Sure. We would go home, and we would tell our parents, please, can we have steak? Because we couldn’t afford to eat steak. You know, it was always ground beef.

Even chicken was more expensive than ground beef back then. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And so, you know, we would get so sick of ground beef.

Well, then you went on to have Lamborghini and a plane. So you made it out on top. Yep.

Yep. And now you’re in a good position as well. Yeah.

Which is great. Right? Yeah. But it was fun.

Struggling. Yeah. There’s really special about.

I wouldn’t have given that time up for anything. Uh uh. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that. I think it’s also makes you who you are.

If you don’t understand what it’s like to not have that, then the value of money and things. Right. Don’t weigh the same.

Yeah. And we did not want to take hand me. We did not want to take anything from our parents.

We decided to get married young, and we were going to support ourselves. Yeah. I mean, his parents paid for his college, you know, but that.

The last year, we didn’t have to pay that for our own, but, you know, but we. Yeah, we did it on our own. That’s awesome.

So, yeah, you made yourselves and made a wonderful family and legacy, and we didn’t go out to eat or anything. You know, we couldn’t afford it. Yeah.

But it was fun. Yeah. I have one last question.

Sure. And this isn’t just for our family, although you could cater it to our family, but really, anybody listening? What’s your biggest piece of advice for when Nova can listen to this? When Nova’s children can listen to this. What’s your biggest piece of advice that you could leave us with? Well, sort of repeating myself, but first of all, do what you want to do.

That’ll make you happy. Don’t get into a job or especially, you know, any personal situation that will not make you happy. And if it does make you happy, get out of it.

You know, a job, whatever. Secondly, be kind to people. Be friends.

Be kind and negativity gets you nowhere. I think that if you can be happy and be just like people and, okay, you’re gonna go through a lot of heartaches that none of us are gonna get through this life without some really bad times. But you can get out of them and enjoy what you have and enjoy your friends and family.

That’s the big thing. There’s no better advice in my opinion. I hope.

I really, truly believe that. Yeah, if you don’t have the. You know, if you don’t love your family, you don’t have much.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll tell you, we have a lot because of that and because of you.

And I’m gonna try to keep this short because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this without crying. And I love you so much, Nana. I love you too.