< Back Francine's Story In her interview with Carolyn, Francine reflects on her time in Denmark back when she was a junior in college. She looks back fondly at the many memories and life lessons of her host, Frau Nielsen. Fran reflects on how Frau Nielsen changed her young mind’s conception of what it means to be old. 00:00 / 04:08 ‘Kay, so the person I want to tell you about is Frau Nielsen. It’s funny Frau is like Mrs. or Miss or something [in Danish], but that’s what I always called her. I think her first name was Marie, but I never used it. And she was the person I lived with when I was a junior in college and went to Denmark for a year. And she had a big impact on the way I viewed the world and my life. I had dinner with Frau Nielsen and what I really remember is that we just had these incredibly interesting conversations every single night. And, in fact, I tried to study Danish and the problem was… sometimes I’d say to her, “Let’s just try to speak Danish”. But then, all we could say was, you know, “How are you?”. You know, we couldn’t say anything interesting, so we’d always go back to English, which she was quite good [at]. Although sometimes, she would mix in a German word ‘cause she also knew German. Carolyn: So next, question. What are the most, or some of the most, valued lessons that Frau Nielsen taught you while you were over there? Okay so, the first lesson for me was, I would call it anti-ageism because when I was 20-years-old, I was really ageist. And when I first got to Denmark, all the people that were going to house students were waiting at the train. And there were these young families with kids and everything, and that was my image of what I was hoping to have. Although I already knew [it would be Fraun], because she had written me a letter that she wasn’t [young]. And I saw this old woman standing there. You know, it’s kind of funny now, because she was 67, which is six years younger than I am now. I remember my heart sank, I just thought, “Oh why did I get a bad choice?” or whatever. And it was, I had such a fantastic year because of her. So I realized how absurd that was. But also, I had all kinds of stereotypes like I thought it was just an amazing thing that she could ride a bicycle. I mean she would ride a bike to the train station. Now that I’m seventy-three, I have a friend who goes on 100-mile bike rides like it’s nothing. And even when I was older, even when I got better after knowing her, at my wedding, I invited the mother of my husband’s best friend in college. The mother was probably in her sixties and we thought it was so impressive that she had made her way to our house all by herself [laughs]. I mean it’s just ridiculous [Carolyn laughs]. Anyways so, I mean I did get better in that I thought older people were worth knowing. But I still probably harbored a lot of stereotypes even into my thirties. Anyways, so that was the first lesson. The other thing was she was so intellectually alive, and always always trying to learn new things like taking courses… And the first week that I got there, she had a birthday party for herself and she had a bunch of friends over. They had this discussion about what was the best American novel and they asked me my opinion, which I felt completely unqualified to give. I mean I had an opinion, but what struck me was like how intellectual they all were. And they weren’t all college professors, I mean she was a teacher but it’;s not like they had… It’s not like their profession was predominantly intellectual professions. They just were intellectual. It's just really… something that I think about everyday, that I just want to keep learning. And I really learned that from her. Previous Next

Sasha talks about her relationship with her Aunt and how she inspired her to be strong, powerful, and resilient and to appreciate the values that they share. Sasha's Story Sasha talks about her relationship with her Aunt and how she inspired her to be strong, powerful, and resilient and to appreciate the values that they share. Scroll to listen Sasha's Story 00:00 / 01:36 The person I wanted to talk about was my aunt so my aunt is my mom's older sister of 9 years and shes probably the most inspirations person I have ever met in my entire life so she was a chef who lived in Manhatten New York and she was in such a male dominated career and a lot of the other family members that I have are men who are also chefs so she at thanksgiving she was always fighting people on who the best pie was and who made the best pie and who got to make the turkey cause she was just so confident and she she was never arrogant but she knew what she was good at and she knew that she could do better than most of my uncles and she did the reason that my aunt stuck out to me so much is because I think we are so similar and definitely growing up she was someone that I went to a lot for just challenges that I had in my life i think that we both grew up with a learning disability so to be able to talk to her about kind of the struggles and embarassments that I had in at that point it was 10 years in school but all that time and she was able to kind of give me confidence and i mean looking at her now she was so successful and I I was like I can do that then honestly being at UMass now like I think about her a lot when things are really hard and when i see myself I fortunately see a lot of her strong amazing qualities reflecting back so my aunt unfortunately passed in november of 2017 and I think that talking about her is something that I need to do more so this has been really helpful on all of our walks but because i think about her a lot but i think talking about it is a lot more helpful so i like what i see in myself when it reflect my aunt and i am glad that i had the opportunity to talk about her

Stephanie's Story In this story, Stephanie discusses one of her professors. Even if they didn’t always see eye-to-eye, Stephanie greatly valued their presence in her life, as well as their advice. Their mentorship will stay with her throughout her life. Scroll to Listen Stephanie's Story 00:00 / 02:28 Annabel: Well, is there one person in your life - maybe a professor at your school, or a relative back in Ghana, or a neighbor - is there anybody that you have looked up to that has had an enormous influence on you and choices you’ve made? Or career goals? Stephanie: Yeah, there is one person. I mean, to be honest, it was - like - she did pass away. She was a professor at UMass. She was a bio professor. I mean, she didn’t teach because she hated teaching. She was more focused on lab work, though, that was what she did. And she researched cancer and viruses, she was a virology professor, basically. Annabel: Oh, wow. Stephanie: Yeah, and - at the beginning, I didn’t like her. Cause, we just didn’t match. At the beginning I didn’t like her. And then, she kept forcing me to meet her, so then, I met her, and, yeah, we just started talking. I’m like, “Oh, okay! That’s an interesting perspective! Let me try this and see whether it works. And then, yeah, I just kept coming to her, and then we built that bond, of talking, and figuring out what I’m going to do in the future. And, yeah. But she basically was trying to force me to go to grad school. Annabel: Wow! Stephanie: Yeah, and be a scientist! And I’m like, “No! I don’t want to be a scientist!” But, let me see how this goes. I’m going to try your method and see whether it works - if it doesn’t we can think about something else. But yeah, I liked that about - every time I’d go to her, she’d give me the options. Like, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this. These are the steps you can do, these are the steps, dadadadada. This is what I did, and this is what you can do. But yeah, um, she unfortunately passed away. So I felt like it was kind of unfinished. Like, yeah, I feel like we didn’t finish talking about what we were supposed to talk about. Annabel: I assume that it has impacted your career goals. Stephanie: Yeah, definitely. I mean - I still don’t want to be a scientist. If she was here, she’d be like “ahahaha! Let’s see what happens in the future.” I still don’t want to be a scientist, but I am interested in viruses and virology, so we’ll see how it goes. Annabel: Wow.

< Back Rachel's Story Rachel describes how she started college being isolated, sick, and restricted during the pandemic, and how this ultimately led her to a community she’s now grateful for. 00:00 / 03:49 So back in March 2020, it was my senior year of high school. There is no more hanging out with friends. There's no more seeing family because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So that was pretty in itself shocking. But then when you throw it into transitioning in life in such an important time, it kind of just messes everything up. So you're trying to decide where you're gonna go to college, but also then trying to decide when you're gonna see your grandparents next. So it's just kind of crazy. It was first two weeks off of no school, and then we found out that we just weren't going back to school. On top of the whole world trying to figure it out, I'm also just an 18 year old girl trying to figure it out. So come to summertime, things are back to normal a little bit. I get excited because me and my future roommate pick our housing, and then we get an email the next day that we actually can't go to campus at all. I found out that I was going to be starting college from my dining room table. So then you have the debate with yourself, is life ever gonna be normal again? So I kind of just feel like stuck in place and stuck in a time that's just, like, so weird. I finished my first semester through the computer screen. Winter comes, we find out we can go to school and there is a glimmer of hope, which soon comes crashing down. We have to pick our housing again. Again, we're lucky enough we got rooms across the hall from each other. There is not a single soul on campus. Feels like a ghost town. And if you see UMass in the winter, it looks like a prison. And UMass was also like my last choice of schools I wanted to go to. So that, just all of this together was just a recipe for disaster in my eyes. I meet my roommate. We hit it off, we go to the dining hall for the first time and everything is in to-go boxes. Everyone's masked up. We bring our food back cause you're not allowed to sit in the dining hall. And we sit with these girls that we met on our floor. And the RA comes and screams at us because we aren't allowed to be together. We don't have our masks on even though we're eating. And it's just like, I remember in that moment, like fearing that I was not going to make a friend in college because it physically was not possible. And then three days into college, I got Covid and they sent us away to the housing that was furthest away from anywhere on campus, from civilization. Kids were asymptomatic and then there were kids in like drinking and partying, and then there were kids like me who were actually violently ill. Food was in the basement and we had to go down at a certain time. And if you didn't, if you were taking a nap and you missed when you were supposed to put your meals, then you didn't get to eat. College is hard for anyone. It's, it's a new thing being thrown in in that sense was just like, I did not know if it was for me. And it was just like a very condescending feeling of like, will the college thing happen to me? Like, will I be able to succeed? So after that, I get out of the quarantine building. It's one of our friends' birthdays, so we decide that we are going to make a cake. There's eight of us in a room, we don't have masks on. RA comes in, starts screaming, starts writing our names down, writing us up. This is our second right up, with your second right up, you get kicked off campus. I had to have a meeting with the dean of the school, all of us did, and fight to stay on campus. In the end, we made it through. The weather got nicer, everyone got covid the first week so we didn't have to test anymore, started to get more social, started to make more friends. And in the end, like I just am so grateful that I stuck through it. I give my friends a lot of credit too, because this is everyone's first experience until such a transitional point in their life. It's, it's talked about your whole life about how this is such an important stage of, like, growing. I think now I'm still so, I'm so grateful. Because if we moved in the first semester we were supposed to, we wouldn't have been in the building that we were in second semester, wouldn't have made the friends I have today. So, yeah, that's kind of just like how I didn't let such an obscure situation alter my experience of college. Previous Next

< Back Morgan's Story Morgan describes how the pandemic disrupted her Junior year of high school, but ultimately led her to new friendships, a major she loves, and a path towards a future in medicine inspired by her mom. 00:00 / 04:19 Interviewer: So I know you have talked about your time during the pandemic and there's been a lot of media about what's happened to young people during the pandemic. How was the pandemic for you when everything shut down? Morgan: It was right before my junior year softball season, and really all I was thinking about was missing out on that important season and one of my favorite things to do. I was kind of separated from some people I was with at the time, and I ended up reconnecting with my childhood best friends, and it was easy to go to a dog park with them six feet apart. When we were talking, I realized that they were all really focused on what they wanted to do in college. And we just seemed to get along like we were in middle school again. We spent the whole summer together, again, senior year when everything the restrictions lifted a little bit. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I looked at a new list of 10 colleges every week, just seeing the places they were applying and everything they wanted to do. Like, my best friend is in a doctorate program right now, that’s seven years long for occupational therapy. Just seeing someone, just in the same position as me with these goals and knowing exactly what she wanted to do really inspired me to figure out where I wanted to go. And UMass Amherst was the first school I ever toured. It was a pretty long process, because with the pandemic, you couldn't tour anywhere. When I say tour, I mean, my mom and I drove up here alone on a rainy day and we couldn't even get out of the car. We really just drove through campus. And I actually thought I did not wanna come here because I didn't get to see the nice parts of campus, because the nice parts here, you can't drive through. So I looked at a bunch of other schools. None of them really spoke to me. And I ended up coming back here in the Spring. I applied anyways, and I got in and I was able to actually walk around that time. I kind of fell in love with it. For my freshman year academically, I came in undecided. I got into the School of Public Health by accident. Since I was undecided, I just listed a bunch of different schools in no specific order. And I guess the one I put first was the one that my application went to. So I got into the School of Public Health and I had to take an intro public health class freshman year, because everyone here has to do that. And I just really fell in love with the interdisciplinary things going on in public health and it kind of just bridged all of my interest into one major. So my freshman year ended up declaring a public health major. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into the medical field. And that year I also had a single. It really just made me pick who I wanted to be with because I didn't have a roommate or certain people on my floor like kind of around all the time. I had to really pick my own friends.I walked into the dining hall freshman year and I saw a girl I went to high school with, which not many people from my high school go here cause I'm out of state. And she invited me to sit with her. And then these two girls sat down and I was wearing a shirt with one of my favorite musicians on it, and they complimented it. I saw a notification pop up on one of their phones for the hiking club at Umass. And I was actually interested in going to one of their meetings. And I got the same notification at the same time. So we both kind of looked up and smiled at each other and were like, oh, maybe we should go to that together. And now that girl is my best friend here now. After really putting myself out there and joining a research lab and TAing, doing some co-rec sports and things like that, I really found a community on campus. I think I just knew that that's what I wanted, and I did everything I could to build that here. Last summer, I got a job as a patient care technician after I got my certified nursing license. And I just really fell in love with patient care. It was just something that kind of came naturally to me. And I just really enjoyed putting a smile on people's faces and, you know, just being the person that was in the room with them all the time. I really am excited to be applying to medical schools next year. I hope to get into a program that's really good for primary care. I really looked up to my mom. She's just my rock. She's my best friend. And she is a pediatric dentist. So she kind of introduced me to the medical field growing up. That's one of the only careers I really knew about. Even though she worked full time, she was always driving me to all of my basketball games, my soccer games, you know. My dad was there too. Just something about having like a female role model my whole life. She's just very, very smart. Yeah. She's just a very well rounded person, just cause she's really good at academics and went far in that sense. She's still so funny and just a great person that everyone wants to be around. So I think just having that strong woman influence on my life, kind of made me think that that's what I wanna do with my life. I wanna have a really good career, and I just really prioritize being independent. Previous Next

< Back Katherine's Story Katherine talks about her family heritage and values and how that impacted her views on the world. She discusses how her upbringing and playing music with her siblings brings them closer together. Katherine also details how the values that she was raised with are still instilled in her and are instilled in her children as well. 00:00 / 04:28 My family of origin story comes from both my parents who told me the stories of how they grew up and their parents and grandparents. For my parents, their families were very important. Both of them came from English backgrounds and they were farmers. They raised cattle, they kept the sense of animals and planting even when we no longer lived on a farm, but it is important. That is part of my family theme and values is to be really connected to the land and animals. When we were growing up our values always had to do with good health, lots of exercise, and taking care of your pets before you took care of yourself. Who needed your support and help before you were doing your own thing? Values really had to do with honoring family and being totally transparent and honest about what was going on with you, being a good communicator that was kind of a core family value, and doing your best. I have 4 siblings, all about 2 years apart. It was very organized, our lives were very very organized, I guess you have to when you have a big family like that – my parents were both teachers so they expected us to have a certain routine to get up and make our beds, practice and do homework, we all had to keep track of what we were responsible for. We all played instruments, we all had to practice, my mom would start the egg timer for about an hour before we went to school, we had to practice our instruments. As we grew up and we left home, and we went to college and got jobs and got married and had our own children the relationship with all of them at the time have change over time. In that period, it was really important for our kids to know each other so that now as they are adults and they have families, they have cousins that they feel quite connected to which is kind of wonderful, we do a lot of sharing of our lives together. We all go to the same island in Maine in the summer, so 3 of my siblings built and also my family too we built our own little houses there, kind of near the log cabin so that more of us could be there at the same time. It’s a wonderful place for family gatherings and lunch picnics on the rocks, swimming in the quarries and biking around the island, lots of fun things we do together. I take my violin and my younger brother plays the cello, brings his cello, my sister is a singer, but she also plays the keyboard too. It's really fun to play together, we often say wouldn’t our mother be delighted because she's the one who made us practice, its paid off for her because we are still doing it. The basic values that I learned from them I think are still there, are still the core values, but we do keep connected, that’s important. We now passing on the cabin in Maine, the log cabin to our own children so that means the cousins will have to figure out how to work together to keep the boats in good shape and keep the cabins clean and enjoy that place with their children, with our grandchildren. It's kind of a multigenerational process in Maine and that’s where I keep connected to my sibling's. It has been fun as we met and talked to explore family a little but because that to me is the most important set of relationships certainly that I have and I think that most people have, my kids probably pass on the same values to their children too Things that they learned as they were growing up, they keep connected through each other, keeping connected and learning through each other is just really really important no matter what the ups and downs of one's life might be. Previous Next

< Back Betsy's Story Betsy talks with Brenda about a spontaneous trip that changed her life. She talks about her wonderful experiences and a noteworthy figure that she meets on this trip. Returning from her trip, she decides to pull inspiration from her time away when opening a small store in Northampton. 00:00 / 04:58 Previous Next

< Back David's Story, 2024 David shares stories of his experience with the start of the pride parade in Northampton, MA. 00:00 / 03:51 David: Yeah. I was around nineteen eighty or 81, I think, and I was only preferably involved with the the planning of the march. But I was involved with a a group of of gay men that, we formed it because at that time, the only local groups were either lesbian groups or UMass. Taylor: Mhmm. David: And it was college age. And this is an era of especially in Northampton, there was, like, sort of a separatist thing. A lot of lesbians, you know, did not wanna have anything to do with gay men. So, in our organization, we had people that wanted to be in this first March, but, a lot of them were social workers or teachers or you know, they even worked in local businesses. And at that time, they would lose their jobs if it was done. So, what they did, and we didn't think about what it would mean at the time, but these, people wore bags over their heads, you know, with the eyes cut out so they see where they're going. But that became like something that a lot of people remembered about that first March. And so, I haven't forgotten that. Then I remember the second year that we had it, there had been a number of death threats. And at that time, there was a feminist bookstore on one of the side streets downtown in North Hampton, and, they'd received, arson threats. And, so when we were, in our parade, at that time, we had to go, like, a certain route. We the jail the county jail still used to be in Northampton sort of downtown area. And so, we had to go by that, and we had to go by the police station. So, but I remember looking up and seeing police sharpshooters up on the buildings as we went by. That was pretty scary. Yeah. Taylor: That has to be scary. David: Yeah. And we had, the first number of years for the parade, we had what we called peacekeepers, and it was people that would march on either side of the parade to you know, in case there was gonna be some trouble or something. And, of course, there were police around and everything. But I remember that one of the local fundamentalist churches standing in front of or next to city hall holding up a coffin because this was during AIDS and everything too, and, you know, with signs and stuff like that. So that was the kind of stuff we had to put up with. Horrible. Taylor: Was your experience with the pride parade ultimately very positive? David: Yeah. It might be hard for some people, especially if they're not part of a group that is kinda marginalized, to feel the power of all that of being there. And then as the years went on, it sort of became an event that people knew was going to happen, you know, one of the first Saturdays in May. And so there would be some years, there were, like, tens of thousands of people Yeah. Downtown. So, it's just like this big celebration, and it was very empowering. Previous Next

Sean talks to his match about the differences between them and their values caused by the differences in their cultures and generations. He also discusses the impact of American values and how media and modern technology play a role in individualism. Sean's Story Sean talks to his match about the differences between them and their values caused by the differences in their cultures and generations. He also discusses the impact of American values and how media and modern technology play a role in individualism. Scroll to listen Sean's Story 00:00 / 03:24 I don't think the biggest difference between us, if I'm being honest, is our age. I think our difference is a lot of our upbringing. Which we talked a lot about the difference in how in Russia there is no concept of privacy, but to me privacy is one of my most fundamental things, one of the most fundamental concepts that America has is privacy, everyone I know is obsessed with it, every person I consider to be in a different generation from myself especially - my parents loves their privacy, it's just such a fundamental thing in America. I think that our cultural differences from you growing up in the Soviet Union are the big differences between us. But the older generation, if we are talking about the American generation, is so different from people like myself. I think the older American population is very very individualistic. I think at times, this is an experience I have with a lot of people in older generations. Their thought process is “me first, me first, me first.” it's a product of the society they grew up in. In America for society, the cold war was going on and America had to be the pinnacle of the top. How do you get to the top? - You work hard! That is where the health concept of pulling yourself by your bootstraps comes from in America, which I don’t really believe in. I just think the older generation just has this idea that individualism is more important than having a community or having different world views. I think that I see that a lot in my life that it is - well I need to help myself first before I can help anyone else first, I think that comes into the American economy, and I think the American economy is run by the older generation. It is not run by people my age, this individualism leads to a lot of dangerous concepts in America too. We look at the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the individualism that people didn't wear masks, it was their body, they didn't have to wear a mask - to hell with if they gave another person COVID, if they wanted to get COVID that was their prerogative. I think that that was such an awful and dangerous ideology and I think it led to a lot of divisions in the country based on that. The biggest difference between the generations is that my generation tends to have more of a holistic world view, we look at the world as a community rather than the older generation looking at themself first whereas my generation looks at other people first. I don't necessarily think that my generation is more compassionate or caring, I think my generation has access to resources that this generation didn't have growing up. In my generation, if I wanted to reach out to someone in Russia, or the Middle East or Europe, I could do that if I wanted to, I could. I think that comes with a lot of, I'm not so different from this other person. Social connectedness on social media and text comes with a lot of drawbacks, there are a lot of dangers to it. I think one of the best things it has done for my generation is connected the world and made the world a smaller place and shown people that we are more human and more alike than we thought we were. My upbringing really got this idea of “you are different from other people around the world, you are very very different” but then growing up I have had instagram twitter, everything at my fingertips and then I realize - oh no I'm not that different. We all had a lot of the same childhood experiences, we all lived in the same cultures and even if we didn't live in the same culture, you are still human and you still have this - I should still care about this person even though we are different and come from a different culture.

< Back Barbara S' Story, 2021 Barbara discusses a life changing event from her childhood and again, in her younger years that ultimately, led her to find her love for the Pioneer Valley. 00:00 / 03:10 Eden: “Was there a turning point in your life where you made a major life change that has brought you to where you are today?” Barbara: “Being 69 years old, there are quite a few but I think the one that brought me up here to the Pioneer Valley is the most changing for the positive… so the train is moving along and we jumped off with our backpacks but it was higher than I thought and it was gravel. Something felt wrong after that so to speed forward a little bit, from that Summer on I could not lie flat. Every once in a while I would have a spasm. I found myself in the mid-70s working and managed a news bookshop in New Haven, Connecticut called ‘whitlocks’. We were changing the whole format of the shop over and what I remember is there were these big old fashioned desks. We were trying to put one on top of the other to try to make more room and as I did this I felt something– all I can say is– go. I ended up in bed for five months. During that time, I had a lot of time to think and a lot of time to read all these books on natural history from the bookshop and I had decided to apply to go to college. I graduated in 1970 and hadn’t gone so I applied to a few places that had wildlife biology. UMass in Amherst accepted me quite quickly and gave me a scholarship for the first year. So I moved up here and I went up the highway and there’s a place where you can see the hills that’s actually a bit obscured by trees now but you can see it's the Holyoke Range and I love mountains. I belt at them and experience that feeling of coming home. It’s been wonderful living up here in the valley. 10 years I’ve been in Amherst and the last 35 years I’ve been on the other side of the river in Northampton. It was a good move for me, a very good move. And for the last 35 years I’ve been an antiquarian bookseller. That’s where it finds me now, I’ve been selling old books, old postcards, etc.. Eden: “That’s awesome!” Previous Next

Catherine Grella (21) talks with a friend, Susan Martins (77) about her close relationship with her two sisters, her childhood, and the family dynamics that have shaped her into the woman that she is today. Catherine's Story Catherine Grella (21) talks with a friend, Susan Martins (77) about her close relationship with her two sisters, her childhood, and the family dynamics that have shaped her into the woman that she is today. Scroll to listen Catherine's Story 00:00 / 04:51 The order of the siblings is that Abby is the firstborn. She is about two and a half years older than me, and then I am next. And then Sophia is my younger sister, and then my younger brother is Ben. Sofia is about two and a half years younger than me, too. So the spacing between us is like, pretty equal, which is good because it's so we've met us so close, and he's the only boy. Sophie and I did gymnastics together. I remember I told you about that. And sometimes we trained so hard at such a young age. We were so fascinated by gymnastics that we would go probably 13 to 15 hours a week. And when you're like nine or ten, that's a lot of commitment. Like, think a young gymnast body going 13 to 15 hours a week in training and running and doing strength and conditioning. And it built our bodies to be very strong, which is something I'm thankful for. But in a way, it took away part of our childhood because we didn't get to see friends as much. And we really became so close, and we became each other's best friends because of all that time we would spend in the gym together. But the one thing that I wanted to say was that when Sophie and I were younger, although we would go to gymnastics super late into the night, I think it was like we'd be getting out around 845, so we wouldn't be getting home until nine. And my whole entire family would wake up at 09:00 so that we could have family dinner every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. My poor father must have been so hungry by 09:00 Wednesday, Friday. But they did it because they loved us, and they did it because they thought that that was important for us to eat together. I'm really happy that they did that. And in so many of the ways that they made these accommodations in my life growing up, are ways that I want to incorporate into my own family when I have it, because they're really special. If you were to leave this interview for someone like, who would you leave it for? I would definitely leave this for my parents and just in honor of them and all they've done, in away, my mom and my dad always wanted to give us the things that they didn't have growing up. So my dad, when he was 40, he had to take up music lessons all by himself and learn how to play the guitar and learn how to play the piano. And he's so fantastic at it. He has that creative brain where he can hear a song on the radio and just play the chords on the piano. And it's so amazing. But that was all taught to him by himself. And he just thinks, how good could I have been if I was given this when I was young? So that was the philosophy he adopted when he enrolled us on piano lessons when we were in kindergarten, and they just never wanted to have any doubts of what our abilities could have been if we weren't given those tools. And I'm so thankful for that because I don't thank them enough, and I really, really should, but I should just sit down one day and say, thank you for always giving us all of the tools that you wanted us to have to be great in life and to find out what we loved. Even Sophie and Ben didn't stick with piano, but at least they were given that tool to explore. And the same thing with sports. I'm so thankful that there was never a sport that I brought up to my parents, and they turned it down and they said, no, you can't do soccer. You can't do this; you can't do that. They were always so willing to be accepting our interests and accommodate them in any way that they could and help us, and that was something so special. Of course, I leave this interview for my siblings too, for them to know all the ways that they impacted me in my life and will continue to impact me in my life. But a lot of it is for my parents too, because it's only when you get older that you really appreciate all of the ways to which they were such good parents. And at college, it's sad, but I think it's there were so many things about my childhood that I took for granted. And it's only when you're at college and you're not surrounded by your immediate family anymore that you realize the things that you miss.

< Back Owen's Story, 2022 Owen discusses how he went to college during the Vietnam War and what he learned from not only the education and the professors but also the people he attended the university with. 00:00 / 03:11 When I was 19, approximately, there was something going on called the Vietnam War and you probably studied it in ancient history or something like that, but for those of us who didn't really want to get out there and get shot at we had to find ways to not do that. And we also didn’t believe that war was necessary. So I was a part of a group of people, there were many many of us, who said no this was not a good idea, and the only way I could stay out was to go to college. So I went to college. Another thing that was big in my life is when I went into college was meeting different people from different parts of the world and more so different parts of the country but I did meet a few people from outside the US. And some people have big influences on you, some people have small influences on you and some people you just dont understand. Part of the not understanding is you just have to learn to accept people as they are. I would say the majority of kids that I was in classes with were white from middle class suburban cities around, middle class suburbs from large cities around the country. I went to school in St. Louis and I came from a suburb around Washington DC. There were so many people from so many other places that were similar to me, then I got to meet people who were different to me. I remember, one young woman came from Hawaii and she was native Hawaiian and that was cool. I had never met anyone from Hawaii before. One day it snowed, and she ran outside and she went absolutely berzerc running in between the snowflakes because she had read about it, seen it in movies, but she had never experienced snow before. And I thought, “Okay, this is cool.” You know, just trying to understand someone's frame of mind, especially when you grow up with snow. You know its like what's this snow. And this is like a life changing event for her. And I thought Okay, that’s cool. It is to be able to do that and not to judge someone based on things like that. And I grew up in a society where alot of people were not accepted as they were. Alot of minorities were looked down upon and legally discriminated against. You know that sort of has gone away but not entirely. There was no such thing as people who were openly gay, that just didn’t happen during that period of time. People did not date interracially. You know you never saw a white woman with ablack guy. It just didnt happen. So when you start meeting people that are different and meeting people that are a little outside your realm of experience you learn about them and learn to accept them. That was a huge thing for me. To transition from living with stereotypes which are reinforced by things like TV shows to getting to know people and understanding who the people were. And understanding a person as a person, not just put into a category- a stereotype. Part of going to school was that piece of education. Previous Next