My Mom - How To Raise 3 Kids As A Single Mother - Exclusive, Unseen Footage From Our Movie Reconnect

Full transcript: Brian Rose’s Mom on London Real

3:06 This is London Real. I’m Brian Rose. My guest today’s, let’s be honest, everybody would like to sit down and have a long conversation with their mom, and this was something that after eight years of asking, I was finally able to sit down with Betty Rose, the woman that raised me as a child, that brought me into this earth, and talked to her about everything in her life, from growing up as a young girl in Arizona, to marrying my father and moving to California, to then divorcing my father when I was seven years old, the trauma that I still struggle with, to becoming a woman who raised three children on her own, taking them all around the world, introducing them to cultures and places, and going on to be this incredible woman who still travels to this day to places like Antarctica, Iran, and North Korea.

4:03 Betty is just an incredible woman. She’s very private, but she allowed me into her home to tape this episode, and we weren’t really deep about really personal things. What the divorce was like for her, what it was like for me, how she raised her kids. She also goes through a lot of her ancestors and where they came from, what it was like growing up on a farm in Arizona, and how she looks at the future as she goes into her 70s. This was a special episode for me and I hope you really enjoy my episode with my mom.

4:36 All right, so we are here in La Jolla, California, with my mother, Betty Rose, and she’s been really generous and kind to take some time out and go through some old albums of my grandparents, great-grandparents, pictures of me as a munchkin, pictures of us growing up, and we’re just gonna go through these albums and talk to each other, and hopefully I can hear some stories about my mom growing up and what it was like, and my grandparents, and to hopefully get a little bit more of a feel of the Roses and the Ben and then also maybe a little bit about me in my childhood, so maybe I can understand me more and what I was like to deal with as a young boy, as a punk boy, and all that stuff. So, so welcome, and thanks, Mom, for doing it. Yeah, glad to be here.

5:29 You know, thank you, Sue. Okay, so where do we start? You have a lot of albums here. Yeah, we’re good at keeping records of things. Well, thank you.

5:40 It was somewhat delayed as I had told you I’d had these stored in a nice, actually beautiful, wood cedar box that my brother, Jim Benedict, Jimmy Benedict, had made in woodshop in seventh grade, and he made it for me, and it’s all cedar lined and all, and I had all my pictures just stowed in there for decades. So I won’t go through how the albums got made, but it was put together by someone else, and I’m grateful that I have those. So I think the story that I want to start with, my mother, who was from Chicago, and how did she get out to Phoenix, Arizona, to go to what is now Arizona State University?

6:27 She, it’s kind of a funny story in a way, because her mother was lived in Chicago. She invested in a few small houses and had some rentals, but she also liked to travel with this pretty radical group in those days in the 1920s and 30s called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. So it was this pretty radical group that went and spoke against alcohol and drinking. Well, when she was in, I know, which is a bit ironic. Yes, it is ironic, and we’ll talk about why.

7:03 This is my great-grandmother, this is your great-grandmother. And so what happened is when she got to Phoenix, she thought, this was beautiful. I mean, they call it the Valley of the Sun. It was clean. It was, you know, there was a desert, and for a few hours north there’s a forest and so she really, really wanted your grandmother Lois Smith to go to Arizona State College, which she did, and that’s quite a ways away from Chicago.

7:31 Yes, I mean, it would have been a train trip away, and you would not go home again till summer, which she would do, and then she, wait, she was a waitress at the BNC coffee shop at on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. She did that every summer because she had to help earn the money to go back to school it’s your mother. Okay, okay. Yeah, and so my great-grandmother had traveled out to Arizona along the temperance movement. Yeah, I’m gonna get people to stop drinking.

8:00 Yes, and this is before Prohibition, or right around. Well, it would have been after Prohibition, but you know, in those years hard drinking was a serious problem, especially in big cities like New York and all in those times, during the Depression. And that I’ve learned that from the Ken Burns series. I didn’t realize just how how much of a social problem it was. But there’s the humor in this story, is that Lois Smith, who became Lois Smith Benedict, came out and she had a scholarship from the WCTU to get her there, and she had to also work as she did ironing for 10 cents a shirt, and that’s how she earned her money.

8:48 Well, so your grandfather, Jim Benedict, was in the Aggie Club because he was always going to be a cattle man. So this club was going to have their picnic. Now these would be all guys that would either be going into cattle or farming, and so they dared him that he wouldn’t have enough nerve to call that cute girl Lois Smith and ask her to the Aggie picnic. So Acog. Oh yes, the girl from Big City.

9:14 Girl? Yeah, the big city girl. And he was never one to pass up a dare, so he went to the phone and called her, and she accepted. That’s how they met, and how they went to that picnic. All right, so they started dating after that, and he wanted to go to a film, a new film in Phoenix, and it was called The Gentleman from Arizona, and before the film started he leaned over and he asked, “Do you know a gentleman from Arizona?”

9:42 And she said, “I’ll tell you after the movie.” And so that was their way of saying keep your hands to yourself. Yes, I think so, being kind of saying, well, we’ll see how you act, you know, and then I’ll let you know the result afterwards. So they dated for the next two years. He was two years older, so he was graduating from University.

10:01 She had finished her sophomore year, and they decided to be married, which they were in 1942. But it called him to marry her. He had to pay off the WCTU loan, and Jim Benedict was a pretty big drinker, so he had no use for the WCTU, and yet he had to pay off the loan to have his bride. So those are a few of the funny stories. One other story he would tell us is after one year of dating he decided he better get to Chicago to meet the family.

10:36 They were pretty serious, and to do that he had to sell his best horse. And he never forgot it. He never forgot that he had to sell that horse for two hundred and fifty dollars for that train fare to Chicago. So of course it was all, all in good, good fun, because they married in Flagstaff, and their honeymoon was at the Grand Canyon. What, Grand Canyon?

10:58 Probably, man. Yes, and they had a long marriage, more than 50 years. It was a very happy and long marriage. And just going back like one generation further, what were some of the family values of the Benedicts, and then of, so, grandparents? So your father’s parents and then your mother’s parents, like, what kind of, what kind of families were they?

11:18 Well, first of all, I would say that they were very hard-working. I mean, there was no question, and that probably could be said about that generation. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, that’s, that was what you did, and agrarian careers was about all there were unless you were trained as a medical doctor or an attorney. You probably were a farmer or a rancher. There just weren’t a lot of companies or corporations that did hiring, so there was a lot of emphasis on hard work, always telling the truth, and if you said it, you did it.

12:00 When we talked about Jim Benedict, I’ll, I’ll tell you the stories of how he would do cattle deals and how there were no written contracts in those days. So I would say from those parents, that was, you know, that was what you found, and they always wanted a better life for their children. You know, treated people well, always welcomed everyone, any race, any ethnicity, were all welcome, always welcomed. That was the way we were taught in our home. So I know that that was what they learned in their homes.

12:35 Okay, and a man was his word. That’s right. If you, it, your word was good, and I’ll jump over to Jim Benedict because I’m, we’re gonna talk about him next. He would make these cattle deals on the phone with buyers in Texas, and if, honestly, there’s that saying that if your word wasn’t good you’d be run out of Dodge. That’s literally what would have happened if you did not honor your word, that you were going to ship a hundred head of cattle to Texas for this amount that they negotiated on the phone.

13:09 You know, one would have done business with you again, and that was, that was just the moral ethics of work in those days, and people honored it. They either honored it or they were run out of Dodge. Right, so if you were still around in those days, it meant, mmm-hmm, you had a history of, yes, standing by your word. Yes, and I felt that with your parents, and then the Roses as well. You know, farmers is, farmers, agrarian, there was just no BS, no nonsense.

13:40 If you said it, you did it. Yeah, and you, no exception, and you said there was a story in the late 1800s as well. No education. Yes, so what, that story? That was a tragedy on the Benedict side of the family that changed our life forever.

13:58 And so what happened was, all right, so Jim Benedict was born in 1919. He was one of five children, and his mother was Geffen Month Benedict, and his father was Oliver Avery Benedict. Now, Oliver Avery Benedict was from a dairy farm in upstate New York. How did he get to Arizona? It was a very interesting story.

14:25 He, so there was a man in Camp Verde, Arizona, which is where Grandpa was born and raised, and there was a man in that town named Boss Head, and he had a general store, and he knew this family in New York, and he wrote a letter to them saying, we’d like a nice strong boy to come out and work. That meant you took the train out, and it was forever. I mean, you basically moved. But the eldest son in the Benedict family was already betrothed to marry within a year, so they went to the second son, that was Oliver Avery Benedict.

14:59 He came out, he worked at the general store, and so that’s how the New York Benedicts came to be the Arizona Benedicts. Was that, and when he did that, my guess is that would have been also about late 1800s, or around, I would say between 1895 and 1902, something, right in there. And I do have more accurate records, in, you know, in my office, because one of Grandpa Benedict’s brothers, Uncle Joel, he was really the historian of our family. But anyway, he came out.

15:42 So, but the tragedy in our family that changed the, the view to education forever, because Oliver Avery Benedict was not educated. He probably went through a grade school education in those days, maybe he went through sixth grade, possibly eighth, but I doubt if there was much more, because those boys had to work on the dairy farm after that. And so anyway, but what happened together was that her, her mother and father, okay, you know, I should go back to her mother.

16:16 Her mother, which would, who would have been Grandpa Benedict’s grandmother in the 1860s, her family moved out permanently from Missouri, and you saw a lot of westward, westward ho in those days. Why? Because they had gold mines in Northern California, and they needed farming, they needed beef, they needed to have people settle these lands so that they could basically support the growing population in Northern California around the mines. And so what the government did was they said to these families from Missouri, if you’ll go out there in your covered wagons and take all your stock and everything, you can settle the land, and if you improve it over the next three years or four years, what does that mean?

17:06 You’ll build a kind of a house, it could be simple, you’ll fence it, you will have some irrigation, you’ll have some livestock, and then you can sell that cattle to people, then that would drive it up to the, the gold mining, which would have been in Northern California, and that became the only way that people of that generation could afford to have land. They couldn’t buy land. I mean, there just wasn’t a money economy. And the mid-, to really, in the mid-1800s, there just, it didn’t exist.

17:38 They give them the land. Yes, after a certain amount of time. Yes, so they would come out, which they did. They went to Cornville and Camp Verde, those areas, and they, it would be on a temporary basis until you could prove to the government that you had improved it. Now, I, what I would, I should do is read a book on exactly what, what were the stipulations?

18:03 I don’t know that, and it could have varied from state to state, but I just know in Arizona that that’s what brought them out. Now, my, my grandmother, who was named Harriet Loy, they called her Hattie, she was ten years old, so she would walk the entire way. Only people who went in the wagon or the stagecoach would be pregnant women or infants. Everyone had to walk, and her job was to pick up the dried cow pies, the way, because that would be your fuel for the night when you built your campfire and cooked your food.

18:38 The German is very to Arizona. Yes, and all of the adults would have as well, all children and adults, unless you were too small, and you’d get a break in this stage. And so it was, it was so they did that, and they improved the land, and then the land was deeded to them. So the federal government at that point would actually issue a deed, but there were these stipulations that had to be made, so that’s how they got to Arizona. Now, when Harriet Loy had, Eloy grew up, she raised two girls.

19:14 One was your great-grandmother, that would be Jim Benedict’s mother, Getha, and her sister. They were 18 months apart, and she she and her husband raised them. That was James Thomas Muntz. He and so your grandpa Benedict was named after him, James Thomas. They married, and he was a cattle man himself, but what he did was go and buy cattle, and then drive them home.

19:43 So he was gone for a few months at a time. He’d go to Oklahoma or Northern California or other areas and buy the cattle, and then drive them home. And so I actually have some letters of him to his wife, you know, how are the girls, and this and that. But here’s what happened. We, there was a tragic accident in the 1890s.

20:05 So Harriet Loy was five hours away. They were picking cherries with the two girls. They were seven and eight, that would be, that would be Jim Benedict’s mother and his aunt. And so James Thomas Muntz mounted his horse. They all wore, they all had rifles on their horse, because it was the days of the cattlemen, Shipman’s war, the cattlemen and the sheep men did not get along, because if sheep, they pull up all the roots.

20:37 If you’ve ever read anything about Yosemite, you’ll see that that really destroys the land. If cattle grazing just takes the tops, so they had a lot of fights about land and where you could open graze or not. And when James Thomas Muntz mounted his horse, his loaded gun accidentally went off and shot him dead. He was thirty years old. His wife was 27, with these two little girls.

21:05 So someone got word to her, and she got home, and there was no way for a woman of 27 years old without an education to earn a living. There was really no way, a proper living. I mean, you couldn’t be a bar girl or a dancer. It really wasn’t, you know, you were allowed to be brought up as a proper lady. So her brother moved in with her.

21:28 He was not married, and he moved in, and then he farmed the land. And the best that we can understand is that she raised those girls to get an education, that this would never happen to them. And the reason we know that is that this little town, Camp Verde, which is still not very big today, it’s one hour south of Flagstaff, Arizona. She decided that they would go once they graduated high school and migrated. My grandmother was, was 18 months older, so she got held out of school and waited for her sister, then they would go down to what is, is now Arizona State University, but in those days it was called Tempe Normal School.

22:16 So it was a teacher’s college, a two-year teachers college. So they were, if the girls were afraid of two things. Number one, that when they went to Flagstaff to take the examination, they wouldn’t pass. They didn’t know about how their high school education, and, you know, little rural Camp Verde, would measure up. That was number one.

22:36 And how would their dresses look with the rich crowd in Phoenix? Those would be the sons and daughters of politicians, doctors, lawyers, those people that would have far more money than they would, and so they passed their exams, and their mother went with them. And it would have been, there would have been no paved, or dirt roads, and it was a five-day journey from Flagstaff to Tempe, Arizona, which is basically the outskirts of Phoenix, and their uncle would have driven the buckboard down, and then their mother kept school for them for two years, and the girls went to school.

23:17 They graduated in 1904. They got their teachers’ degrees. They came back to Camp Verde, and they now had an income. That was how important education was. So they started teaching, both of them, and within a couple of years they each, meri, you know, met their future husbands and married, and that’s how she married all of her, Avery Benedict.

23:40 And so we, my cousin Harriet and I, it was named after our namesake. Right. We only figured that out in the last ten years that why we really came from very modest roots. How did this get shifted toward college education? It is important, and we really looked back, and we knew it was really because of that, that very sad and tragic incident in our family that we can thank, because all five children in your Grandpa’s family all got college degrees.

24:11 It was required. Was rare, very rare, and especially from Camp Verde. And they all went down to ASU, and the older two brothers, these would be your Grandpa Benedict’s brothers. One was the superintendent of a whole school district, Tempe School District. He worked his way up as a teacher, and then, and then did became superintendent, and the second brother, who became a Navy pilot during World War Two, he became a professor at ASU, and he was the first professor to film an ASU game, a football game in 1951.

24:49 I mean, cameras were very new in those days, and especially moving film, and he was the first to do that. Being he was even, you retired as a professor, there, always in photography and film. Then the next person was Lois. She was the only girl. There were four boys and one girl.

25:07 Lois became a teacher, and she taught in Jerome during the really wild days of the copper mine, and I mean, this was a place where I admire her, that she would be as a single woman there, because it was just a lot of hard-working copper miners that probably weren’t so nice, right? So she did that, and then there was like this 8-year gap, and then your grandpa was born, and two years later Uncle Sam, and they became the agriculture part. So your father went to university like all five of them did, so did Uncle Sam, two years younger, and he was really the entrepreneur of the family.

25:45 Your grandpa was the one who worked hard first, just working for a ranching outfit, and then he really liked cattle, and he ran a feedlot in Phoenix, and he saved up his $10,000, and with a partner he bought the feedlot, the Benedict, you know, feedlot in Casa Grande, Arizona, between Casa Grande and Stanfield, and that was their big move in 1950, ’54, that they would do that. And he owned it for a number of years, really, and then his brother came on board, Uncle Sam, and that Uncle Sam later bought it from him when he wanted to retire. Right?

26:28 And they became very big in the feed business. They did, and he, you know, he was, again, he ran 10,000 cattle in that feedlot, and again the buying and selling was all done on phone and all over the US, but because not only are you buying mostly from the western states, you’re also selling for those people that want to ship that to, for, they go to market the cattle, and then they’re made into beef products. So your grandfather was a very astute businessman.

27:01 I think he became probably the most successful of the five, if you really want to talk about business-wise. And years later, after he passed away, I met a man who had worked for the Forest Service for years and knew him because of the Barty ranch, which I’ll talk about in just a minute, and he said to me, you know, your father, I admired him as a businessman, because he once said to me, in life you need to know when to push forward and when to pull back, and pulling back is just as important as pushing forward, depending on what decisions you’re making, maybe how the economy is looking, what are your risks. He was not a risk taker.

27:41 He really wasn’t. He only invested in what he knew, which were cattle, grain, grain futures, feedlots, and ranches. That’s it. He never bought a stock or a bond in his life. Never would have.

27:53 So and what was Grandpa like? I mean, I know he got a hip injury when he was young. Yes. He got out of the war, and also kind of gave him a kind of a handicap. Yeah, he drove a buckboard to school in high school, and while that was for, organ-y, a wagon and the horse, you know, and that he outgrew that.

28:13 I mean, as an adult he really was fully ambulatory until years later in his 50s, and he had a stroke, but then even then, though, I mean, he never, he never complained. He just, he had his golf cart. So you probably remember when we’d go to October roundups, when they gather the cattle before they go to market. It’s always a big deal, cuz all the ranchers come and help to sort the calves. He was always in charge.

28:41 You know, Jim Benedict was a boss. You knew it even if he wasn’t in a golf cart, or whatever. So he had his sayings. He had a couple of funny sayings. He would say, “Camp Verde, where the road ends and the West begins, where men are men and women are damn glad of it.”

29:00 And they would always say, “Cash is cash is cash.” And do you remember how in his pocket he’d always keep, oh, like five hundred dollars, yeah, and then in $100 bills, right? And you’d always try to grab one. You know, and then, you know, so that, and he was always thinking in his mind about the next venture, the next whatever. But you know, he was very successful.

29:26 He loved his work. He only read cattle magazines, and anything about that. He didn’t really care much about anything else. You did some filming of him, you know, with a camera. Yeah, in Aston stories and grandma, and those were the first London Real episodes.

29:43 Yeah, they really were. It was interviewing him and grandma, and it was, yes, stories, yes, skinny-dipping, or grandma would tell stories about Chicago. And yeah, yeah, you’ve got those. You sent me those tapes. Yeah, and I was so glad you did that.

29:56 I, you know, I had had a good commission here at this company I work with, and I thought, well, we need a new TV, and why not get a camera? That you should describe what that recording box was used. So yeah, you would. This is after, after the divorce, so you were out there working again. You went into sales, you started doing well, and then you bought us a video camera and a VHS recorder, and to make movies you had to literally drag around this big brick, hanging, and then a big camera that would click in there, and then you could just press record and stop.

30:31 Yes, but we loved it, and I started making movies. Yes, it’s my cousins in Arizona on the ranch. Yeah, grandpa was in some of the movies. He was like the villain. Yes, and then we would always shoot videos, and yeah, and then I, I started interviewing them.

30:45 I must have known that, 10 years old, maybe something like that. Yeah, you were young. I, I would say that you were about that, because I know when I know yours, I worked there, and it was. But what was interesting about you, Brian, is that you right away had the vision of what this should be. You know, what you were already the director.

31:06 You know, you were already doing London Real. You just didn’t know it, and you would have the concept, and then you’d tell everyone their parts, and then they’d, your cousins in Flagstaff would act in it, or Eric would be a part of it. But you were definitely the director. But I mean, you did it in a nice way. You had the ideas.

31:24 So yeah, there’s one of those videos where you can hear after I cut, I’m like, little mud, kind of micromanaging in the background, like, all right, that was really good, but now we need to do it this way. And so yeah, I do know, I’m glad that was in there. Let me shift in the talent, like my cousin Vic, who was really a ham. And I was one of those, you did when we were at the lower headquarters, and we were on that swinging bridge. You have one of those on there, you know, which is, you know, it’s just, it’s a, all it is, is a walking bridge, with each side of the canyon has a rope, and that’s it.

31:57 Yeah, and then you did some parodies of Mister Rogers’ neighborhood. Yeah, and Vic acted it, but you directed it. You called it Mr. Rogers ghetto. Yes, that’s right. Yeah, I thought it was really amazing.

32:09 Yeah, I sent those to Jude and also Vicki Doll when I got those and upgraded them into CDs. I sent them to them too. Yeah, you had some good interviews of grandpa and grandma as well. You know, in Sedona I was amazed how good the audio was and how you got everything. It was fun.

32:26 Yeah, that was good, but I mean, really, I just gave you the cameras. I said, if you want to have fun with it, you know, I, you really took charge. It was all your ideas, so that was fun to see. And one time when I was at work, Jeff our neighbor came, and you guys cooked up to go into my closet. You got a red dress out, and he, saying like Madonna, he put the dress on.

32:54 Do you remember? And unfortunately that got erased. Okay, darn. Yeah, because sometimes it would get re-recorded over, but later I tried to find it, and it was like, I wish I had, because I think you showed it to me, but it got taped over. Yeah, we used to make videos.

33:12 The videos we still have. The Ninjas, I think, got saved, because you guys were running up the slope, because we had the slope, you know, on outside our front door. Then we had the slope of the next, and I remember seeing Jeff, like, okay, and then you were filming him anyway. What was Grandpa like as a father? Okay, yeah, okay.

33:31 So you know, he was very protective of us. He wanted Lois Benedict, his wife, to never have to work in her life. He was just adamant that she be the housewife and mother. He really was serious about that, so he got insurance policies that made sure that in the event of his demise, which never happened, that she would be cared for, and that was really a big thing for him. The other was he had a very strong work ethic.

34:04 Always. I mean, he was up at 4, out of the, out of the, especially in the summer, and they’d go an hour early because it was hot, and he’d go to work, and you know, come home at night, and he’d have us pull his boots off, right? You know, later, and that was always something we would do. And really, Grandma around the house, the kids, the everything else, which they were a great team. He needed her.

34:27 He really needed her, because he was focusing on the business. As far as with the kids, he was fun. I mean, he’d say those funny things. You know, he would joke. He would, when they had the castration of the calves, he’d bring those home and make his huevos.

34:49 Okay, so you know, you dip him in an egg batter, and then you roll them in flour, and then you fry them, and that was it. It was always a novelty. He says to that, I guess, on the farm. Yeah, right, right. He, he like you know, he liked his kids to be into things, you know, interesting, and and and, you know, Jimmy was kind of a kid who was just a little boy, like just trucks, and I think that I think that Jim Benedict was a little hard on him.

35:21 I think he was, say, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, he just, I think it’s just because he was a boy, he expected more. Oh, I don’t know why. I mean, when you’re kids, you should just be kids.

35:31 But yeah, it’s his only son, because I was first. Jimmy was two years later, and then when I was 11 and Jimmy was nine, Jude was born. We had already moved to Casa Grande then, because he had bought the feedlot, and so I think that was. But I, you know, I will say, though, that in the winter of my father’s life he really respected Jimmy. He really did.

36:01 Jimmy was one of these guys that could do anything. He loved tractors. He collected John Deere crack tractors. He had five vintage John Deere tractors they kept out at the ranch, and he could do anything he could do. He was a big gun reloader, which he did with your, with Tom Rose, and they were always best to friends.

36:23 So the Rose family and the Benedict family was, though, it was fun that way, because they were really best, difference in Flagstaff, Arizona, and he, his career was, he was at a, at NAU in Flagstaff, and he ran the paint department. So basically he was the head of that department, and that was his career. Yeah. What was your mom like? My mom was, she loved being a wife and a housewife.

36:50 Loved it. She loved cooking. She was a very good cook, and she loves sewing, which I think she was a little disappointed I didn’t get go into, is, you know, as much as she would have liked me to. But she was a really happy, upbeat person. She as I mentioned to you before, she was very interested in international news.

37:12 So she read Time and Newsweek cover to cover. She watched the news program. She talked about these players, and I remember her saying those names, Stalin and the Soviet Union, and you know, Korea, and all of that. And she also, there was something about her I wish I could ask her this question now, but we had to television, and if she thought when Jimmy and I were changing channels that it was a soap opera, she would run in there screaming. She hated soap operas.

37:46 She would never let us watch them. We had no interest anyway. I still don’t to this day, but I wish I could ask her why. Like, did she see them when she was young, or did she just hear about it? Well, she wouldn’t have seen him, cuz TV came in.

38:01 We had her first TV in 1951, so somehow she thought those were just too sleazy, and she didn’t want us watching them. That I just remember that she was very worldly, very worldly, and just a loving mom, really, there for us. I thought she really emotionally was very concerned, protected, and protective, interested, and, you know, so was, so was Jim Benedict. No, you know, so was my dad as well, but he was very busy in his work. I remember Grandma always had crafts for us and arts.

38:37 We’re gonna make this today. We’re gonna do this today. We’re gonna do, is she always had something going on. She would be up early in the morning cooking like crazy. I mean, she would cook for, you know, 100 ranch hands, yes, like during roundup, and so always upbeat.

38:53 Oh, he’s super cheerful. Everything was always okay. There was always a solution to everything, and yeah, my grandma. Yeah, there’s something funny that happened. She had a minor bird, you probably remember, and I think she had probably in her life a couple, but anyway, this myna bird would laugh like her because she was the one that was home all day, and so when it would laugh, it sounded like her, you know, and then whenever she, in, they’re very smart birds, so when she would talk it would have her voice.

39:22 So one day Grandpa’s brother came to the door, Uncle Sam, and he knocked on the back door. Nobody locked their doors in those days in Casa Grande, Arizona, and he knocked on the door and he heard Lois’s voice coming in, and he goes in, and she’s not there. You remember the house, you walk into the dining and kitchen area, and the living room are all there, and she’s not there, but she said come in, and so he called out Lois, and she was in the back bedrooms and came out.

39:55 She’s all, Sam, you’re here. And he said, well, you said come in, and she said no, that was the bird. So that really happened. Okay, she always had some little weird pets. She did.

40:07 She loved her dog. She had a whole history with dogs through the years, so it was fun. And so, are there any pictures in here we should, we’ll, so what you talked about, all of our knavery, that’s bananas’s picture, reading of your parents’ wedding. Here’s Jim with his shirt off. Yeah, a Tucson, Arizona.

40:24 Yep, and their wedding, their honeymoon, and then his years, you know, with the ranch. That’s just a quick story on the Barty ranch, when he worked as the foreman of a small cattle feedlot. The owner of that was a large vegetable farmer north of Phoenix named John Jacobsen. He mostly grew broccoli and carrots, and just a small feedlot. Well, we live there, and he asked the, asked your grandpa to help him find a cattle ranch in Arizona.

41:01 So they went all over the state, and they found the Barty, and they liked it, because although they only owned 800, or while John Jacobs bought it, he only owned 800 acres. It had 64,000 acres of forestland, and it was only five miles wide, but it was 20 miles long. So you had your upper headquarters, which was where we were at the Barty in the summer months for summer grazing, and then when winter came, the cattle had a natural drift pattern down to Sedona and Camp Verde, where you had grazing in the winter.

41:36 And so for open and natural grazing, you had a lot of feed for your cattle, and your worst fear is there’d be a drought, and you wouldn’t have enough water, because if you have to haul water, you’re not gonna make it. After John Jacobs died, his daughters came to my father and said we’d, you’d like to buy that ranch, and he said yeah, that’s the best cattle ranch in Arizona. So he bought it and had it for another 20 years. So it was a very, very nice story.

42:00 Yeah, I used to visit probably a few times a year. You used to put us on the plane in San Diego and then just send us. Yes, we were like munchkins, and then they would pick us up at the airport in Phoenix. Yeah, different time, right? Yes, and then we would go, and yeah, in the upright quarters and lower headquarters, we’d ride motorcycles, we’d build, you know, floats in the drinking ponds of the cattle, and we just run run around.

42:26 Yeah, and in October we’d almost all go over for the roundup. That was a big thing when we’d see all of cousins, and you know, yeah, and then in the spring, Easter, we’d have the Easter egg hunt at the lower headquarters. You would dress up in funny costumes. Yeah, yeah, got those pictures. Yes, but at least you got to go honey, sure, eggs yourself.

42:47 That was fun. Yeah, so that was pretty much their life. You know, they eventually sold the house in Casa Grande and the feedlot to his brother Sam, and then they moved up and built a house in Sedona, and that was nice because it was closer to the ranch, cooler weather, and that’s where they lived there, and that was what was right under that. And Grandpa, that’s a stroke when he was in his 50s. Oh yes, he did.

43:13 But you know, he, know what I loved about my mother is she totally empowered him. I mean, even when he was still in the hospital, when you call, she put him right on the phone, and he was always the decision-maker, and she was wonderful that way. She was such a supportive person that allowed him to always be the person he was, so even though he was in a wheelchair, he just kept going, kept going. I mean, you never, they’re in business as usual. You wake up in the morning and we get him in a golf cart, or get him up in the truck, and he would just keep doing business.

43:44 There was never any quit in him. No complaining, no, no complaining. He was always in charge, and everybody admired him. And yeah, he, you know, it was a good guy. Yeah, and the neighbors liked him, though, neighboring ranchers, the Forest Service really liked him, because he would improve the property, and some of the ranchers couldn’t do that because they’d inherited a land, so they were land rich and money poor.

44:08 But because Grandpa had worked hard and been careful with his funds, he could put build fences where they would like that to happen and keep the water reservoirs up. In that’s, okay, yes, they were they were great. They were great, great role models, and of course they still believed in education and made sure that we all went. And then, you know, it was that that came down from 1898, and to this day I still see all of the, the children of my generation seeking, seeking university.

44:44 I’m really grateful to, my at that time that would have been my great-grandmother that would have, starts, you know, suffered that loss and then changed that course for our family. So, because he, because her husband died, it kind of forced education on everybody. She did. Yeah, she, she felt that her daughters needed, they needed to have a career and a way to earn money. That day she didn’t want them to be in the situation she was in.

45:12 Okay, she was lucky. She had a brother, but you know, would they know, know I’m thankful to, who’s this cutie here? Oh yeah, that’s it. Yeah, that’s me, infant me. I’ll be there.

45:24 Oh, I guess probably. Yeah, what I guess, you’re the firstborn. Yes. So what was your childhood like? Well, I was very happy.

45:33 I mean, my brother came along really. He was just, he was a little bit like the, the space between you and Eric. You’re 22 months apart, and we were 21 months apart, so he came away, you know, so I had a little playmate. And in those days you could just run free around where you lived. I mean, we lived kind of all out on a ranch until I was 11, and then we moved to Casa Grande, and I was in a little city neighborhood, that was fun, cuz then I had neighbors to play with.

46:08 I didn’t have neighbors in Phoenix because we were on a ranch in the beginning. I didn’t learn to ride a bike till I was 11 or 12 and moved to Casa Grande, and another girl in the bottom blog taught me, so it was slot, it was fun. A lot of free, free play, and you know, loving parents, and okay, yeah. And then when it came time for you to go to college, what were your choices, and what happened? Yeah, so I looked at the universities in Arizona, and I chose the University of Arizona and Tucson, so I went there.

46:46 And at high school graduation is when, so, it, we were in a small high school. I think we had a hundred and 25 people in our graduating class, which, that doesn’t sound that small, but I mean, Casa Grande would, it was the same. Casa Grande was about 8,000 people in those days, and at that, at the time of high school graduation, well, in the last two years of high school I was involved with student politics. Like, I was the student body vice president. Your father was the student body president.

47:15 He was always gonna go to a technical university because he was very smart, and he loved technical everything, and so he was accepted at Caltech, and then I was accepted at the University of Arizona, and then we started dating at that time at the high school, you know, graduation, a graduation, after graduate, the time of graduation, and that summer he was home working, because he every summer he would come and work on the ranch to help earn some money, so we dated those two years. I was at the U of A, he was at Caltech, and then we married after our junior year, so then I transferred to Occidental College. I thought to myself, I could try UCLA or where, but Occidental was close to Caltech.

48:04 We had one car, you know, so Grandpa Rose bought him a used Corvette but for his hard work as a valedictorian of our class. That’s what he was. He was valedictorian. Yes, yes, and class president and everything. Really?

48:18 Oh yeah, yeah, he was class president, valedictorian, yeah, very smart. What did you like about my dad, his sense of humor? He was smart. I like that, but you always have to have someone who jokes. Yeah, like that.

48:34 He had aspirations, and you know, really hard, you know, a hard worker. Yeah, like that, and education mattered, obviously, right, to both our families. And he was kind of going places in that way. Yeah, yeah, he really was. I mean, even in our class I didn’t, I don’t remember that many in a cotton farming town that were going to universities outside of Arizona.

48:55 Okay, a few, not many. Most stayed at either NAU and Flagstaff, ASU in Tempe, or University of Arizona and Tucson, where I was. Alright, but I wanted a small college, too, you know. When I went to the U of A, it was 18,000 people. That doesn’t sound very big nowadays, but that was a lot, and there were a lot of regulations that felt restrictive.

49:22 It was very difficult to get classes. You had to really plan that and fight for them, and you, somebody’s had 400 in a class, even in those, those days. And I remember once somebody got caught cheating. They screamed and dragged him out of there, and the rest of the exam you’re just kind of like shaking, and I just thought, you know, I think I’ll apply to Occidental, because I’d heard a lot from your dad about Caltech honor code, no locks on the mailbox, says no locks on your dorm doors, and Occidental is like that too.

49:57 It was a great, it was a great transfer for me, because we had real professors, not TAs. It was very personalized, small classes, and there was honor code. I mean, we took all of our exams with no monitors there, and it was, it was really good. Yeah, okay, there’s a picture of you guys with the port, with the Corvette. Oh yeah, it’s a, adherence.

50:20 Yeah, it would be graduation. I’m not sure where that was. That / – yeah, probably a, listen, number, cheers. What, you know, Jim? Yeah, let’s go to albums.

50:30 All right. Yes, so here we go. This is, well, this is kind of the Rosa. I’m a little bit. Yeah, that’s me of course.

50:36 I got to drive it, because for what? Well, apart. Yes, and because the Caltech was closer, I would drop him off at school, and then drive on to Occidental, so that was a bonus. Maybe that’s why I married your father for that. Yeah, so, yeah, he, you’re gonna talk to your dad.

50:57 There it is. Yeah, 1961 Corvette. It had a red interior. Wow. It had a hardtop.

51:04 Okay, and I remember once we were, we were driving to school and a Corvette behind us, that was, I think, a little, a little newer. Actually, fender bender, doesn’t, was like, oh my gosh. Well, that man was so embarrassed. He took care of our everything. We didn’t have to.

51:25 You know, he was just, he didn’t want it to go through his insurance. So that was okay, but one day after I picked up your dad, it was, see, it was probably five miles to Caltech, then I would leave him, go through the canyon to Occidental, and go through my school, then pick him up. We were driving home, and because it’s low-slung, we went over a branch that actually caught some wire, and it was disabled. I mean, you know, it, it grabbed onto thing, and I guess we had, I don’t think we had triple-A in those days, but we had to, you know, call a tow truck.

51:57 I remember, and I was driving, so I was like, oh great. And this is the two of you at graduation. Yeah, his graduation, so that would have been ’64. Yes, and I graduated the same year, and then I was hired by LA schools, you know, Los Angeles School District. Okay, and then I taught third grade, and he, he did his master’s degree.

52:21 Okay, so we stayed, we just stayed in the same place. I mean, I lived in this mobile, yes, we, we, but we had this 40-foot mobile home that Grandma and Grandpa Rose bought for us, and we, you know, moved it there, and then we did this commuting every day. And yeah, before that in a mobile home. Yes, isn’t that funny? Yes, and I always remembered that, and then went very Benedict.

52:46 Yes, like you can have nice things, but you don’t, you don’t mind slumming it a little. No, that’s right. Alright, you don’t sleep, it on the floor. Yeah, right, exactly. We had a really funny thing that happened.

52:58 So all of his technical courses were way over my head. I’ve never been technical, and he said, well, I have this math exam tomorrow. I’m just gonna tell you out loud what I’m doing, and you know, then you’d write. He would write it in a blue book, right, and remember, everything’s honor code. So he’s going on and telling me this and that, which is, I mean, it’s just like dust over my head, right?

53:21 And I don’t know what made me do that, but at the very end he said, and then I divided this by that, and I said, shouldn’t you multiply that? Why? I said that I do not know. I did not comprehend any of it, and he’s like, well, I don’t know, let me look at that again. He’s like, oh my gosh, I guess I should.

53:39 And a week felt so guilty, because we, our schools were 100 code, and you know, this Luddite over here said something that MIT was meaningless, and yet it makes a difference. It’s like, well, we never said anything that, one slide. Yeah, one tragic memory that we had was the assassination of President Kennedy. It was the first semester I was there, in November, and we had no TV, and all our whole experience was just with the radio. And I remember I had just gotten out of a class at school.

54:18 It was 11:00 in the morning, and people were running, and I heard someone shout, the president has been shot. You know, as like, I first thought the president of Occidental College. I just couldn’t compute that, and then you know, very shortly we learned it was President Kennedy, and it was, they canceled classes, and it was midterm, see, November’s midterm. So I, you know, I went home. I don’t know how we ever, I would, we would have canceled classes early, but I have no idea how I would have communicated with your dad.

54:52 There were no mobile phones, but whatever reason we got back, and then both Cal Tech and Occidental, while all universities had to make a decisions, do do we have midterms or do we cancel them, because people were so distraught. How could you study? How could you, how could you really pay attention? I actually think they were. I actually don’t remember the decision, but I think they were cancelled.

55:17 I remember, I’m pretty sure they were cancelled, and it’s just that my reality of that was not visual, because we didn’t have a TV. And what was it, what was that like for that to happen and at the time? And why was that so? No, he was a shot, you know, he was new president. He had only been elected in 1961, I believe, because there was actually a book written about that, and it was kind of a big seller.

55:43 It was sort of like the campaign, and you know, he was considered kind of a golden boy, and you know, and young, and I hope for the future, and it didn’t matter if you voted for him or not. I mean, he was the President of the United States with this lovely young family, and now he’s been assassinated. I mean, it was just really tragic, and it was very depressing. I mean, even though I’m not prone to depression, it was like you really couldn’t keep your thoughts on your study.

56:13 So it happened. I believe, like, well, I don’t even remember if it was toward the end of the week, but they did cancel the midterms, and I’m not sure how they rescheduled. I don’t remember that. So we had good friends, Gary and Sally Clinard, and they were from Montana, and he came out of a farming background, and they had a TV. We had the hi-fi set that your dad made in high school, you know, the witch said that he’d kid, okay?

56:43 He made a Heathkit, a huge Heathkit, so that that’s how we had a radio, and all of that. So on a weekend where we didn’t have to study as much, they would come over and listen to music, and then once a month we would go over and watch television, like Get Smart. Okay, I know if you ever remember that. Yeah, Get Smart, and there was some kind of a detective program that had humor. I don’t remember it now, but, and once a month we would go to this buffet that cost like $7.99, that was our outing.

57:12 We were good at saving money. Yeah, right. Anyway, all right, and so what comes next? Yeah, well, anyway, so those were those years. Then we moved to Costa Mesa because your dad got a job in Irvine, and that was really, you know, he’d gotten his master’s degree.

57:29 He was an electrical engineer, and so we moved there, and I transferred. I had, I had taught three years in LA City Schools, own, I’m sorry, I taught only the one year in LA City Schools, and then I taught three years in the new unified Newport-Mesa, so it was close to Mesa, Newport Beach. We moved our trailer down. Oh, we had that another year and two. Then we sold it, and we bought a house, and then Eric was born at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, and then you were born there.

58:01 So at some point we’ll talk about you and your birth, and I don’t know, it’s, it’s time now. Are these, I know we’ve talked enough about the, well, you’ll know more about the Rose family from your dad probably. Yeah, no, I think we didn’t talk about me, I guess. Okay, yeah, let’s do it. Well, then let’s go to your pictures quickly, and so you were always gonna have kids.

58:24 Yes, yes, I, we, we really did want to have kids, but what was in sting is when, when we married, I was 19, I was turning 20 in three months, and then your dad was 20, and all of my friends said, oh, are you going to quit school now? Because in those days, a lot of the young girls would go to university to find a husband, and then they would quit school. I’m just, stay home, and I was so offended at that. I thought, will you meet with school? No, I’m good, to get my, you know, I’m gonna get my degree.

58:57 I’m gonna have a career. I’m gonna do all those things. So probably that’s thanks to my great-grandmother and her decisions, right? So that was, but I always remembered those, so silly questions, and you don’t hear those anymore now. So you did back then, and you had to stay on your game.

59:13 Oh yeah, I focused on what you wanted. Yes, of course, and there was never any doubt. I always knew I wanted a full degree, a career. I taught long enough to get a life credential, and then I’ll tell you a little bit more about why I didn’t teach when I went back to work. Okay, but so I had a couple of miscarriages, and so we know where Eric was born when I was 25, and her dad was 26, but I had had two miscarriages, so that was a relief.

59:45 And then those are no fun. No, no, no, it’s really, it was, it was really quite sad actually, and especially the second one, because I think I was really further along, not that far, but I was so, anyway, but I had a very good obstetrician at Hoag Memorial Hospital, really particular, and when you are gonna be born, what I learned from Eric is that all of my babies were born a little late, and so when the doctor would say well, you’re gonna be due here, I would always have a week or ten days, because I just, I always wanted natural childbirth, so I just didn’t, I didn’t want any, you know, any kind of setup where they would start the labor earlier. So when you are gonna be born, Dr. Invert, who is very, very good obstetrician and very particular, like, if one time I went into his office and a prior patient had left a you in the ashtray, and he was so he just immediately picked it up and disposed of it.

1:00:49 You know, he was just very precise, and I like that about him, and I also like to have a relationship with a doctor that I can trust, that doctor, and that’s who I want to deliver my baby. I just don’t want to go to anyone or anything. Well, after, so Eric was very late, and you know, he wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t, they wanted to induce labor, and I said, I’ll just wait a little longer, and wait a little longer. Well, finally after a while they said no, now we have to go ahead.

1:01:17 So just a little quickie on Eric, they induced his labor on the liftoff of Apollo 11, so we watched the liftoff, and then we went to the hospital. It’s kind of my liftoff, and then he was born, and then four days later they would keep us for days. In those days, grandma Benedict had flown over because she wanted to stay with us for a week and cook, and we drove into the garage just as the lunar lander was landing on the moon, and we had, you know, baby Eric, and we could not get out of the car till we could hear on the radio that it didn’t crash.

1:01:52 Then we went inside, and then they didn’t get out and walk on, you know, that was maybe 3:00 in the afternoon, and they didn’t walk till about 11:00 or 12:00 at night. So it was really surreal. So now, with your pregnancy, with my pregnancy with you, I decided that it would be good to take a Lamaze class, that if I could work through my contractions, and all, it would be really beneficial, and I was the latest thing as far as breathing, yes, this new way of giving birth.

1:02:21 Exactly. So we would learn as a couple together. Yes, together, and then as the labor contractions would rise, you would breathe faster and faster, and it really worked. I was amazed because I tend to be a bit of a skeptic in life anyway, you know. I think healthy skeptic.

1:02:39 I was a moment. I think so. Yeah, but I think it’s a good thing to have that, but it was like, so amazing, and we practiced, you know, we had to practice, because, you know, that was the way, so that when you got there you didn’t lose it or something. So I decided with you that it would be an all natural childbirth. It would be no, you know, no spinal injections or any of that.

1:03:02 That I would do that. I was pretty, and I was really excited, because it was kind of like, it was kind of like my task, you know, my, I’m gonna try this out, and this is what we’re gonna do. So of course you were late, but I fended off the doctors. And but the hardest thing was Dr. Invert was leaving for like five days, twos, let’s say, a medical convention. He said, well, you know, I’m gonna be gone here.

1:03:25 I know the baby’s not quite due, but I really think we should induce labor, and I said no, we’re not gonna induce labor. I’m sorry, I’ll, I really want you to deliver my baby, Brian, but I just have to take the chances, and actually, statistically, it was probably more on my winning side, because I’d already seen that you know Eric was later. I think I ovulate probably every five weeks, but doctors would never, they would never acknowledge that in those days.

1:03:54 Now they do, but they didn’t. Anyway, so I took my chances, and he got back, and then you were late, and so it was, I was out gardening, you know, cleaning up in the garden. I remember it was kind of fun digging the dirt, and went to bed that night. You’re like nine months pregnant in your gardening. Yes, right, then I mean, easygoing that, and you were so tossing and turning, and you know, and just weren’t settling down, moving, and this and that, and then I realized that I was in labor, you know, so I told your dad, and of course we had the little bag packed, and so I called the doctor, and they said, yeah, let’s go, and so we drove there.

1:04:38 It’s like a 20-minute drive from Costa Mesa to Newport Beach, where that is, and man, it was that, you know, the contractions were really coming fast and furious, close together, and I got there, and of course, you know, in those days, you know, the nurses there, they weren’t quite into Lamaze and all of that, and so she says, well, we need to give you a spinal, and it’s like, no, no, thank you. I tried to be as nice as I could and please call the doctor. He was on the way anyway, and so they were huffy and pretty huffy and puffy with me but I stood my ground, and then I really, your dad had not even gotten into the labor room.

1:05:19 He had he didn’t even have his green scrubs on, and I said, well, I’m gonna just go use the bathroom, and then I could, like, I could just feel that it was like, and the water hadn’t broken yet, but it was just like, I’m there, so I called down, and they came, and they basically wheeled me right to delivery. So you were like the easiest. I mean, it was intense, but you honestly, your labor was like two hours, two and a half, no more, and so when we got to delivery, and your dad gets to come in because he has the scrubs and everything, and it was really easy because I just had hardly any labor.

1:05:55 You were the fastest. Yeah, intense, but, but yeah, so you came out, everything was fine. Thankful, no, because I did that. I did the Lamaze. Okay, then when you go in there, what they do is they do give you a little shot and do an episiotomy so that you have a clean, you know, a clean exit there, and so, but honestly, no, actually, I have to tell you, they didn’t even do an injection, but because the baby’s head has so much pressure, you don’t feel anything.

1:06:25 Yeah, the nerve endings are there, they’re already because they’re tight to your head, so yeah, it was easy. You were there, and you were my biggest baby. 7:11. I was living on, yeah, seven pounds, 11 ounces, right? And the quickest de Lucas labor.

1:06:41 I mean, all of mine were pretty, pretty fast, but you were definitely the fastest, and you know, they held you up, and everybody was excited, and we knew, and yeah, and we chose your name because we liked, we liked the name Brian, and then we wanted to honor our Benedict family with your middle name, so that’s why you’re Brian Benedict Rose. It’s great name. Yeah, yes, and now my second son is Damon. Better, yeah, that was, that’s such an honor. Yeah, nice.

1:07:12 So it’s such an honor to move it into your generation, you know, the next generation. Yeah, having a really strong connection with Grandpa Benedict, your father, so it was kind of very fitting. He really liked you. He, he just, he took to you right away. I think he saw something in you, it was like him, you know, yet you have an entrepreneurial spirit.

1:07:32 You joke and have fun, but you’re, you’re very present, and he really favored you, you know, which is, you know, that’s, yeah, yeah, you know, I could just see that. He was supposed to do that. No, you know, but it was just your personality, you know, he really connected with you. You were a really easy baby because grandma Benedict was so supportive of breastfeeding. I totally breastfed you.

1:07:57 You never had a formula. You never had a rubber nipple in your mouth. You never had any of that. I wasn’t gonna do any supplements, and I can thank grandma Benedict for that. She was a very big influence in my life.

1:08:10 In fact, she was so much so that when she came over with Eric, it was like, kind of like, okay, he’s a little intense, but then as soon as I started being a mother, was like, oh yeah, that’s the healthiest way. I wanted really good health for you. All that was important to me. Okay, so you did that. You were definitely my most social child, always smiling and laughing, and you had to slow the way when I look at you.

1:08:36 You, oh, there were a lot of little times when you had your, like, your tongue out the side of your mouth. I just remembered, see, like that. Yeah, yeah, I remember that, and I remember your first bath. See, we took pictures of all that. Yeah, and you were, you’re great.

1:08:50 Yeah, you were, you’re easy. There you are with your little teeth. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, I said baby a lot of my son Damon, my second name, and he sometimes, when I see pictures of me, and he either smiie. There’s kind of a likeness, I think.

1:09:07 Yeah, thanks so, too. You know, you got some clothes out here and put those on your, himself, and look at you by the cattle truck. How are you there? Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, you had a, I have a really sweet picture of you at Grandpa Rose.

1:09:23 I think it’s, let me just see, it should be up here. There we are. These Easter uniforms, right? Yeah, I made those, and then this was with the five cousins in at the Bar D, and I made all those outfits for you. Look at all that dirt on your face.

1:09:39 Have fun, and you each had a puppy, and those puppies were Jude’s. I think, yeah, those were Jude’s puppies, because Grandma and Grandpa didn’t have that breed of dog. Grandma loved her dogs, but she didn’t have that breed. Okay, but let me see if I have that one of your grandpa. If not, and so then when I was two, you moved down to San Diego.

1:10:01 Yes, you, you turned two years old three days after we moved here, so we had a birthday party for you. We had a house with dirt. You know, we had no lon. Okay, yeah, and there’s, I’m sure there’s a picture of you and you and why we have to San Diego. Well, so your dad got this offer to head the electrical engineering department of a company here, and he first said no, because he had a good job in Irvine.

1:10:29 I was a stay-at-home mom. Now, with you kids, when, when Eric was born, then I, I stayed home. I did. I didn’t want to put you in, date daycare, because I was breastfeeding. I wanted to, you know, totally be available to you, that that was a wonderful thing that your dad supported me, and, and we agreed together, and I’m so glad, and so glad I had that opportunity for all three of you.

1:10:53 Really, it was, it was a, it was really important to me to be there full-time for you, for you all. Yeah, so he said he turned them down, so they upped the offer, so then we moved down. Okay, yeah, and anyway, it’s great. I mean, I love San Diego. I ever lay still here.

1:11:14 Oh yeah, exactly, exactly, and I have, and even though I now travel the world, and my leisure, thanks to Grandma Rose and, I mean, grandma Benedict and Grandpa Benedict for that one story I’ll tell you, but what I learned and Kenya, amazing story about something that was paralleled what he does. It’s like, I would never want to leave San Diego. Yeah, so I’m glad of that decision, so we came here. Why do you love San Diego? I love it for the climate, the clean climate, for that.

1:11:45 It still has a small-town mentality. When I do my business, that you got to see today, I, reputation still matter, and I can, you know, I I really love the loyalty that contractors have together, and just how, if you are ethical, it, that reputation gets out, and if you aren’t, it gets out. III guess, it’s, it’s not, I mean, it’s not scientific. Well, I like San Diego, but I still like that feel. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

1:12:20 All right, so you move down, and you move into the new house. Yes, at Calle Leticia 1637 Leticia, and they were building it, so we moved down in February, and it wasn’t we had to move into an apartment until it was ready, and May, three days before your birthday, so we moved in, all the flooring, everything was in, the appliances, and we still had dirt in the back. You know, in the back we had your birthday. Yeah, and that’s me at, yeah, okay, and that’s where we were, and it was a great neighborhood you know, with your kids there was a lot of free play.

1:12:58 I was safe, so you could go and play with the Dysart’s or the Powers, and yeah, we would just play football everywhere, and like nothing bad ever happened on Calle Leticia. It’s hard to explain how that’s just, you know, I used to take the bus to school and walk home and let myself in, and there was just everything was, you know, safe. That’s why I felt it. Yes, it’s largely still that way. I mean, I think then we decided because the Dysart’s were next door and their kids were similar in age, we would have a July 4th get-together, so we cooked that up where we had gunny sack races and potlucks, and we did that every July 4th.

1:13:40 No big party. Remember Lee? It’s the street party. Yeah, we decorated a bike. We had a bike parade, and we’d have 20 or 30 people come.

1:13:48 That was fun. Yeah, it felt like 200. Yeah, right, yeah, all right. And so then we grew up there. What happens next, Andrea?

1:13:56 Yes, and then four years later Andrea was born. Okay, yeah, now Claire, now Claire. Yeah, you know, she had a friend in her ballet class named Claire. She really liked the name. She says she renamed her, herself, myself.

1:14:12 That’s fine. Yeah, so now you got three kids. Was you were you always planning on having three kids? Yes, we, we plan to have all three of you. Yeah, and was three the number always in your head?

1:14:22 No, it’s just, okay, so you were born, and you were 22 months apart from Erik, and that was a handful. Yeah, and but I liked, I, I mean, I wanted it. I was full-time mom, but then I thought maybe we should have a little more space between, and I was hoping for a girl that time for the two of you. It didn’t matter, but I was happy when she came out with her big fluffy hair. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, that was it.

1:14:46 And then I thought, yeah, Treece good. Yeah, it’s Olaf, it was enough. Yeah, okay, yeah, and then how is that, what the three of us like, how was that being a mom with three kids? It was great. I mean, I really loved it.

1:15:00 I, we had a lot of neighborhood mothers and fathers, so we do things. Sandy Erickson, I would do things with her and her kids. We were very interested in education, so she and I volunteered at Pacific Beach Elementary, and we got a couple of programs there that they wouldn’t have had if there weren’t parents involved to get those from the basically the school system. So that was really fun to be involved. I really liked your teachers.

1:15:31 I like, good, well, we were good, education as we’ve talked about before, so I got to know your teachers, and I thought they were excellent. Then there was a point in your third, fourth grade, that I thought maybe the choices weren’t quite as good, so we went to a private school. Do you remember that? Yeah, and garden, and then we carpool with another family, and I, that’s what we did for the UH. I think two years.

1:15:58 I don’t think any more than three, and then the teachers were good again. Plus, then I gave you and Eric the option of looking ahead at junior high, High School, where they were coming up with math, science, computer science magnet schools. So what happened was, and I don’t know the background of why city school systems were ordered to integrate, basically perform integration. I don’t know why school districts got that, but that was the law, so it became an opportunity for the specialized schools, and it could be drama and the arts, or it could be math, science, computer science.

1:16:38 So I talked to Eric first, and then you, and said, you know, what would you like? You, we have a good neighborhood school, and we had had good teachers, good education, but it would be a sacrifice to go to a magnet school, because you, we’d be up at 5:30, we’d be on a bus at 6:30. You wouldn’t have sports after school or friends in that neighborhood. You’d have your own friends here that stayed, and I really made, had you make that decision, you and Eric make that decision, because I mean with me, I mean we talked about it.

1:17:12 This is what you would get, this is what you would lose, and then that you, you both decided to do that. All right, so you went and learned computers and science at these magnet schools. Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of changed the course of our life for sure. Yes, you were in gifted programs. You were tested when you were eight years old, and you both were very high on the charts, so that gave another way to have 18 kids in the class, and that was good.

1:17:41 I felt, to have that rather than 35. So not only were you at a math science magnet, you were with 18 kids. So okay, right, and then you were elevated to the, even, well, that was the higher status with 18. But what’s ironic, I remember, is when Eric went to Bell Junior High, there were 18 in his gifted class, and they were all white. I thought, I don’t know, okay, we’re integrating the school, but the class was still, you know, all Caucasian.

1:18:10 So but you know, I didn’t make the law. So, well, I was grateful for the education. Yeah, I really couldn’t have even bought that San Diego at that time. And I remember when you went to MIT, I asked you how you measured up to those kids who came out of the wealthy prep schools in New York and Boston, and you said, yeah, you’re, you, you’re felt your education prepared you as well, so I was glad to hear that. Yes, I worry, you know, when you chose MIT and Erik chose Stanford.

1:18:44 It was like, well, this will be the test to how good that was, you know, how good your education was in the sciences, especially. Yeah, and it was, and I was really proud of you, and you, you asked me to go to look at the schools with you, and that was really, that was really fun. You know, we went to Boston to see MIT. We went to Ithaca to see Cornell, and we went to Philadelphia to see you, Penn. Mm-hmm.

1:19:11 Yeah, and you knew, you knew it was gonna be MIT. Yeah, I knew. Yeah, I, I was amazed walking around Harvard Square, how old I felt with 18 colleges and universities being in the general area. It’s like, it’s like, askew, right? And remember there was a busker in the subway.

1:19:30 I remember you comment on that guy playing his guitar. I’m not sure we’d ever seen that, but the best thing was the MIT tour I took, and I told you that story. You want me to tell you? It’s real quick. Okay, so we go, we do this tour of MIT, and of course they have a rivalry with Harvard, because Harvard’s just down the block, and so this, this student, probably a grad student, told the story.

1:19:56 He said that when the city of Boston was building the Harvard Bridge, they came to MIT, and they came to Harvard, and they said, justify why we should name this bridge after your fine institution. So MIT sent all their engineers out there, their structural engineers and their civil engineers, and Harvard did a treatise on the historical importance of Harvard, you know, George Washington went here, and all these other famous people, and we think you should name it the Harvard bridge. So MIT found that it was structurally, I, I guess I would say, was a problem with the structure of it, and in their, in their mind, that it would fail within 50 years and have to be retrofitted.

1:20:43 So they said, that’s okay, I’m gonna go ahead and name it, name it the Harvard bridge, and sure enough, in 50 years it had to go through some kind of a reconstruction. So I never know what that story was, real or just, you know, made up by, in my TV. Yeah. And what was I like as a kid? Was I an idea?

1:21:03 What was I? Happy? It was okay. Yeah, so well, you, you know, you were very expressive, of course, and probably the biggest surprise was when you were 10 months old and you were in your highchair, and I washed your face with the washcloth after your food, you know, because you’d done the finger thing, and you were so angry that I was washing her face that you bit the washcloth, and it was like, well, where did this come from? So, so definitely, you had, you expressed your emotions, and you definitely, you know, made your presence known.

1:21:38 And I think as you got older, it was, there was, I mean, Nora, it’s normal for siblings to fight. Okay, I have siblings. I’m not, you know, I’m not from a single-parent family, a single child family, but it got more and more, I think, as you got toward 11, and I just thought maybe, you, it would benefit to have some counseling, and so there was this really cool guy, he was like a surfer guy, and I think you saw him for nine months or a year, and I think it really helped you to sort out.

1:22:12 I mean, it’s hard cuz you’re maturing, your emotional interiors changing. I mean, I saw it in each of you. I saw it, and Claire as well, and she kind of went through some depression in high school, and so I thought it helped a lot. So you know, there was some of that going on. You would kind of bang things on the walls and maybe not do your chores, later.

1:22:37 It got toward 14, and you got towards, or something, slam doors, and you know, kind of a, and I, like, like I say, a lot of that’s normal, but still, I, you know, it was hard for me. I was a-sayin’, Mom, right? And so I don’t know, you know, I’ve got to deal with that. So, can we talk about you becoming a single mom? Yeah, I will.

1:22:55 But yeah, I tried to go at, I felt we should go to a, you know, a counselor again. I thought it would be a good thing. I believe in counselors and counseling, I really do, but you wanted no part of it, and now we were 14, so you, I wasn’t gonna be able to convince you and your dad. All thought it was poppycock, so he never thought anything that I said was worth much, so there was no support there, so I was kind of stuck. So I read this book called The Strong-Willed Child, and I thought, I really need to sit down and talk to you and say, look, we have to work as a team, and we’ve got to share the chores, and we need to do these things.

1:23:34 By then we had a college student living with us, Bill Boxer, because I really needed somebody between 4 and 7 each day to pick you up. I was working, carpool, you to lessons, prepare the evening meal, do the grocery shopping, and I gave him free room and board, as you know, and I know he was such a part of our family. He was really a great part of our family. He really liked your kids. I think he was a good influence, but, but you know, and he was with us for like two and a half years, and that was great.

1:24:07 He remained a family friend, as you know, but I, I felt after reading this book that I needed to just talk with you. I wasn’t getting you support from your dad as far as how to work with you through these issues, and I was getting a bit much. You know, he wouldn’t just cooperate at all, and I mean, I don’t, we got to live together. So I just went into you, and I just said, this is Saturday morning, and this is when we need to do our once a week. It’s, you know, I’m not asking to be a slave, but it’s just the one hour to kind of make the beds and straighten up, and I think it was like 9:00 in the morning, and I said, you have two hours to do it, and do you understand that?

1:24:43 And you said yes, and I said, well, I want you to understand that you’re choosing to live here by doing the things that we each need to do on those Saturday mornings, and if you don’t, then you’re basically choosing not to live here, and I don’t know if you got that concept, but that’s the way I worded it, so of course you didn’t do it, and I went in at 11:00 and I said, well, you’ve made your choice. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done as a parent in my life, is to basically say it, you can’t, it just isn’t gonna happen here, just throw me out of the house. Well, I just said, you’ve made a decision to live elsewhere.

1:25:19 So what, I was a little shocked by that. I figured you were, I, I mean, I figured you, since you stonewalled me and didn’t do it, that you figured that I would just let it go, which I probably had done a lot of other times too, just to have, you know, just to have the household function, but I decided that that was going to be enough. It was, we were 14. There was no way to help you to get any kind of understanding on that, and without your dad’s support, I just didn’t know what else to do.

1:25:49 I, and he kind of minimized anything I ever said about anything, like I was a drama queen. I guess it’s not really my personality, but maybe defensively he had to do that. So okay, so I have to, that’s what I did. So there you were out on the driveway, remember, on the drive away, and I did suitcase packed. Mm-hmm, and I was just heartsick.

1:26:08 I didn’t, hard to do that, very hard. The hardest single thing I’ve done as a parent, yeah, because I really, I figured you’d call your dad, but I didn’t know that. Yeah, do your head right now, you had to do it. I know you forgive me. I totally forgive you.

1:26:27 How, a little punk ass. I needed that discipline, you know. Yeah, it’s hard. Do you think I do? You mean that was kind of seven years after the divorce?

1:26:38 Do you think I was had a lot of anger issues on the back of that? Do you think, I possibly, you know, only just a couple of years ago you told me something that I had never heard before, but kind of broke my heart, but I could understand it when we got the three of you together to tell you that we were going to be divorcing or separating. I don’t know how we said it, but because I don’t know that we had said we would divorce at that time, but Dad would be moving out.

1:27:11 You told me just a few years ago that you knew then that you would have to depend on yourself, and for me to think of a seven-year-old, it’s like, for me, the ultimate, you know, stay-at-home mother. I got that. That’s sad to me, because I never wanted you to. I mean, divorce has always hurt kids, but I, I really wanted to minimize it. It wasn’t my doing, it wasn’t my initiative, and here, yet here I am with you, and I really, really, really.

1:27:42 Two things. I didn’t want you to be hurt, and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to raise your younger sister because she was so much younger. I just didn’t want you to feel like you were the, the, the in-home built-in babysitter, and I, I went to great lengths to make sure that you had a childhood that was really important to me, and that’s why I hired a college student to move in, and it was, it was great, because he, it was, I couldn’t afford to buy, or pay a nanny, so they were, it was free.

1:28:10 I didn’t pay him anything. They got free room and board, which saved a lot, and they had a, card, they had a male figure too, and he, he was crazy, exactly. Yeah, it was. You did. He was a grad, he would know, he was a serious University student, yet he would hike with you in the canyons, and you know, and what was really amazing about Bill is that he knew how to, he really knew how to calm you down, and I, I noticed that he would say, I’d say, because you know you’d lose your temper, right?

1:28:42 It’s normal, but he would just put his arms around you like that and just kind of hold you in a, in a shoulder lock and tell you you just, your emotion just kind of went away, and then he would talk to you about it. And I said to Bill, whoa, where did you learn that? You know, I mean, that was amazing to me, because I never, I, I didn’t didn’t tell him that, and he came out of a very difficult home with a lot of abuse. Yeah, yeah. So, and each one of us had a different reaction to the divorce.

1:29:15 I mean, for me, and probably based on our personality and based on our age, it could be, I mean, you’re seven, and you told me that realization, which, you know, I, I mean, it makes me sad that, but you, I’m glad you were honest with me. It was nothing I could have done to change it. Eric just, I think, internalized it, but then when he was in college, he really wanted to ask his dad about it, and I said, you have a right to ask your dad, and your mom, you know, any deal tells you one.

1:29:46 It’s your lives, so he was afraid too, but I encouraged him to. I said, just, you know, you’re going to see him tomorrow. Ask him. He was home for a weekend or something, so he did. Yeah, he did.

1:29:56 You know, I said, keep doing it. Do you have that, you have a right to know, we’re a family. You’re the children, were the parents. We should always be able to ask our parents any question, so he did that, and I think Claire, it was the hardest on, why, because she, I mean, I don’t want to say it was any more difficult for her than all three of you. I, I just, I think it’s a, I think that it’s a tragedy for any child, but she was so sensitive that she just kept waking up in the night and crying for her dad over and over.

1:30:27 She gets sick at school. I’d go get her, and we take her to our pediatrician, who was such a great, you know, figure, and right away he can see it was psychosomatic, and he would say, ask her questions, and she really missed him and just couldn’t get over it emotionally. She was just distraught, and I’m saved for a long time, months, maybe a year, or even, and I call your dad and say, could you see her more often? Because he only saw you two times a month, and I said, just an occasional Wednesday, could you pick her up?

1:31:01 And he would for a while, but then you know, it would drift off, and that was how it affected her. So she woke up a lot in the night, and just came into my bed, and it was fine, you know, it was, cz for me, just have a little, just let her sleep with me. You know, and it was, you know, that was how she handled that. She also had some emotional concerns in high school and saw a counselor as well. I mean, I don’t, I’m not saying about the divorce, remember, she was only two at the time.

1:31:32 Okay. Uh-huh. She was quite a bit younger, or three. Yeah, you know, three, right? For me, you know, when I do these, the, some plant medicine ceremonies, in these ayahuasca ceremonies, like, most times it goes back to that, and at that moment, when I was seven and you told us about the divorce, and I think for some reason with my personality, I was just like, I kind of, I just built these walls all up up around me at that time.

1:32:00 It that was just like, so it was like, I think I did built these walls up, and then um, and then later I realized I had built them up, so I think it was just like, wow, how much later I mean, like, you know, I guess 30 years later or whatever when I did the sound, and I think I realized I was just trying to keep people out of my life so they wouldn’t hurt me. Yeah, right. So I think that’s what they’re all friends, potential girlfriends. Yeah, especially anybody that could hurt me.

1:32:33 Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yeah, anyone that would hurt you would be someone that would emotionally be close to you, someone that you liked or fell in love with, or you know, it would be a, then all of a sudden, a threat. Yeah, I think I would even sabotage relationships when I thought maybe I was getting too dependent on someone, because they might leave, and definitely had a few friendships that when they ever did something bad, I was like, oh yeah, that’s, that’s what I thought you would do, because I was just kind of in this, just ready to just have that justified.

1:33:05 No, mmm, just be like, oh yeah, as I expected, as I was taught my whole life, that opening up my heart to, song, he’s always gonna end in this kind of things, and that was how you and and and that was how you. Yeah, that was how you protected yourself by pushing people away and justifying it, and then you wouldn’t get hurt. Right. Oh, but then I also realized that kept me lonely and isolated, so when I looked in my life, I was this guy that would never, and that made me unhappy too.

1:33:33 So I built this wall that just made me unhappy, so I had to realize that I had to let people in my life, and yes, they could hurt me, but that’s the only way I can be happy and live. So that’s what Gaby was about in there, and now the boys, and yeah, sometimes I still think, like, they could all hurt me so much, but like, if something happened to them, but it’s like, now I understand that that’s the trade-off I have to make to live a real life. So but but it’s also really selfish of me to like blame that on you and dad and the divorce, because I mean, how are you feeling at the time?

1:34:10 I mean, what was it like for you? Yeah well, you can imagine. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I mean, I crashed and burned. I never, his parents and my parents were both married 50 years plus.

1:34:24 That was my reality. It’s like, this can’t be real. No, so yeah, it was really hard, really hard. Yeah, I would know. I was really just wrong.

1:34:34 I, yeah, it was, it was a really tough time. It was, I mean, it was almost surreal. It was just like, just can’t be real. I mean, this, I never honestly had never been around anyone who was divorced or had parents who were divorced. It’s just really, yeah.

1:34:56 So when I did confront your dad, you know, I was a mess. I was, I ran away. I found my, my stress behaviors to run away, that it was the first time. So I, we had a long talk, and I’m crying and all that, and I just said, I’m leaving. I don’t know when, if, what.

1:35:18 So I went to my friend Nancy and her husband Ray Kip, because they’re the only ones that I had known that had gone through something similar. They lived in University City and here in San Diego, and I, you know, I talked to them, and then I called Aryl and Alma, and I couldn’t hardly talk on the phone. I was crying. They didn’t even know what was wrong with me. I said, can I come, can I come up?

1:35:43 I won’t get there till 9:00 at night, and they said, yes, come up. What’s wrong? You can, you drive, yeah, and I, and so I went up there and I talked with him all night. They talked to, and so I talked to Ray and Nancy till 9:00, and then I went up there, and we, what, talked till 4:00 in the morning, and they were, they, they were so good. They, you know, I mean, and I, I had never let down my emotions to anyone like that, but I just, just said, your dad, I just don’t know if I can even come back, you know, or if, or when, or I mean, I just don’t know.

1:36:20 So, so, you know, I left Claire was still breastfeeding, because she was the late one, you know, and she’s the one that was the cuddly mama’s girl, and that morning when we got back up again, Errol said to me, you need to go back. He need to call Freeman and give him a chance, and I appreciated that that he said that, you know, and they, they were really, they were a really good anchor for me, because they know your dad well, and they also, you know, when you know, Errol was a wild guy in college. Alma didn’t even know if he was going to show up at the altar.

1:36:57 He was that, I mean, he was like off the wall, and yet look at the dedicated marriage they’ve had. I mean, he would go to the moon for her and back. So he said to me, I understand Freeman. I understand Freeman. You have to give him a chance, and I’m grateful for that, that he did.

1:37:17 Yeah, I am, I am, because he was right. I did, and I, I knew in my heart I couldn’t leave you kids. I mean, I was just, and uh, you know, I was just in the, the pit of despair, and I had to sort of get my head on and talk to people. Yeah, so you know, I came back, and you know, your dad, you, he really wanted both. He didn’t want to have to make a choice.

1:37:41 I, I knew that was true, but in our reality in those days, that just, that wouldn’t be something I could do. You know, I mean, I just wouldn’t be able to do that. It would need to be, it would have to be a relationship that was between two, or was just, you know, go those separate ways. I mean, other people can do it, maybe more in this modern era than then, but I didn’t feel that I could give or receive that kind of a threesome relationship on a permanent basis.

1:38:15 So I remember him saying, well, I haven’t made my decision yet, and he asked me, and he was going back to work, but by about four days later I could just feel it, you know, that he couldn’t turn away, and I remember I cried all night, and he’s just was just like shaking all night, and he’s like holding me. I haven’t decided. I said, I can feel it. You know, you have to live your own truth. And so we decided on a separation, and he wanted to move right into her house, but I said, well, the least you can do with the kids visiting is you can get an apartment here, and he got one, like, you know, down in PB for six months, and then, you know, did that, and till we just saw until he was sure.

1:39:02 Yeah, so that’s kind of where that was, and that’s when I learned that, I learned a little bit more. I never really had anything happen in my life like that, because of my own, you know, upbringing. That was never any issues like that, and that was when I really knew that I had to decide what was important to impart to my children other than being hardworking, educated, decent people, all of that, and that was the answer, that I really wanted you to have exposure outside of just American culture, and we could have short-term students in our home, and then I got that idea to go to Europe, that I had to run away, and I really found I really found that my stress behavior is healthy if I run away, and so your dad agreed to take Q3 for the month, and I went four to seven countries, I think I told you, in Europe, and it was phenomenal.

1:40:04 It was really good for me. I had a lot of time to think and opened up my world, and that’s where I met Rini, you know, Irene Ratcliffe, that hosted us later, at a bus stop. I met her, and then she became a friend of our family, and all those experiences, and the reason I’m in London right now. Yeah, I think so, that was, you know, I remember, I remember telling her that we had a budget of $40 a night, you know, in London, even in 1979. Now she went, couldn’t find anywhere, so she found this convent that would take adult, like, young girls, like college-age girls, to, from other countries that were learning English, and the Mother Superior saw us come in with these tall, teenage boys, an 18 and a 16 year old, and she kind of looked down her nose, you know, but we had $40 tonight.

1:40:56 We had our four cots, and then remember the night you went to the night club. Yeah, do you remember that? And then if they had an 11 o’clock curfew, and it was like 10:00 to 11:00, you know, and you weren’t back yet, and then I looked out the balcony, and all three of you, you know, Eric and Claire and I, on there, we were running, and so I think it was, clearer, said Brian, and then you knew it was our street, and you got in, and as soon as you got in I heard the doors go clang.

1:41:25 So that is fun, and so that trip, when you ran away and took a break, kind of, and you came back and you decided that, first of all, you weren’t gonna let, but this is what I saw as a kid. First of all, you were gonna be the greatest mom that ever lived, hey, you’re gonna expose us to all this international travel and international people, and then you obviously weren’t gonna say bad things about my dad. I mean, I was wrong. You both were always really good about no.

1:41:50 Yeah, I have to say that, and I give that credit to your dad too, because I’ve had that feeling. I, I don’t think he ever badmouthed me, and I would never badmouth him to you. He’s your father. He is, and always will be your father, you know, so just no way. So he did, you know, several things that were very good.

1:42:08 He always took you on your every other weekend, and I think he provided levity, and you know, did things with you all, I pretty sure, and he paid the child support on time, and, they, the spousal was limited because we hadn’t been married 20 years, so it was like for eight years, it’s like half the link. That was, I really needed that, I had not worked in nine years. I asked myself this question: if I use my life credential and go back and teach eight-year-olds, can I give my very best to my children at night?

1:42:43 And the answer was no. I can’t. I can’t be around thirty-five eight-year-olds and come home to my own. I can’t do that, so I knew I needed to go out and find a job with adults and make it happen. Mmm, that’s it.

1:42:56 So that, that was a realization, to give you the best. Then having a college student was a great decision, and then when I came home from that trip, I have a strong Christian faith, you know, that God really put it on my heart that I’d be repeating that trip with the three of you, and it was like, yeah, why not? So then that was fun, because we got to see oXXO dime and who was our student, and we got to stay with them. So it was seven years later you repeated the trip.

1:43:24 Yes, because that was us, and I was like a dream of yours. Yes, well, I mean, I, I told you God put that on my heart. It wasn’t my idea, but it was such an amazing experience for me, and really opened my, you just, just opened myself up to what do I want to impart with you. I’ve always believed in racial equality, economic equality, international equality. We’ll, let’s get out into the world, right?

1:43:53 And so there we go. We just, we did that, and it was great. And you know, by then you were living at your dad’s. Remember? Yeah, and I was really glad when you said you would go with us.

1:44:04 I was hoping in my heart you would, because remember, Grandpa Benedict wanted you to make amends with me. He wouldn’t talk with me. I understand you were angry at me. Okay, yeah, so he said, oh, come on, you know, they’re coming over for Easter. We’re gonna be at the ranch, and then somehow or other that trip was in there.

1:44:21 You were 16. You had been, you would have finished your sophomore year, because Eric had graduated. He was two years older, and he said you would go, and Grandpa kind of talked me into it. Well, he talked you into, even talk to him. Yeah, yeah, because we were, we were, yeah, because we were all going over to the Barty for Easter like we often did, and he wanted you to come, but, you know, because I was there, you weren’t really, you, you know, you were, we at me.

1:44:48 That’s understandable. I was, I, so angry. Well, because it was songwriting during you. Well, I, you know, children do that with their parents. Said just wait a few years, you have.

1:44:59 Okay, yeah, I mean, have you seen that in Gabby? Okay, we are just the closest target, and have personalities that are the same kind, both headstrong. Don’t know, do you maybe think we are? Maybe so. Maybe I just needed something to push back.

1:45:14 In your video, are you the only thing? They’re the only ones that was, you know, your dad. Your dad wasn’t safe because he’s your visiting parent. You need to keep, you know, you need to keep him and be nice, and you know, he’s the parent that isn’t gonna tell you to do your chores on Saturdays, or maybe he did, but you know what I mean? It’s normal.

1:45:32 It would be normal in my own family that it’d be the one that that was telling me to do things, that but I was the only kid that gave you such a hard time. Well, you know, you’ve had so many good things about you. You were easy. You’re smart. I mean, he never, you did your science fair projects.

1:45:50 Okay, it was 2:00 in the morning, but you know, we got him done. Yeah, your teachers liked you. You were always smiley and fun when you went to the magnet school, and with you were a minority. I love that. Yeah, that’s great.

1:46:05 You were a minority at this African-American and Hispanic school, and you’d learned rap, and you learned, what’s the other, you learned how to rap, and you learned how to break down stones. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, you did all that for us, and you know, even though we lived in a nice house in La Jolla. I hate elitism. I’ve always hated elitism, and I wanted no part of that.

1:46:31 Wait for you kids. No part of that. No way. We drive an older car, and we have a college student living in, because we can’t afford a nanny, and your mother works because we need to have to make ends meet, and all racial people are equal, and all economic levels of people are equal. I made that clear when we’d go into Mexico for our nice weekends, so that we would do, down, down for eating fish tacos and at the beach.

1:47:01 That was probably came out of my own parents and the Roses as well. They would have all been the same way. There, none of them that are pretentious, elitist, racist. And I’m grateful for that. I’m particularly grateful to my mother, because when I went to the U of A at 18 years old, in my dog and my dorm were girls from Chicago and New York, and I had never heard racism like that, and it was like, what?

1:47:27 And that was like, I appreciated my parents, because none of that. Nanna, Dad, was ever done. Yeah, yeah, so there you go. There you go. Better.

1:47:38 Yeah, well, I’m sorry, I’m such a pain in the butt. No, come on, I told you you were the most social. Thus my latest one. Oh my gosh, you know, just the Japanese people that we had. Remember we hosted the Japanese, the two postdoc men and their families, and they really liked you.

1:48:00 You’re always the fun one, the humorous one, and yeah, you’re good. I think what I’ve been doing the last seven years is like trying to, like, you know, connect with people, you know, after living so long part of my life disconnected, or just trying to get people away from me. Now I’m trying to, like, actively connect with people, you know, whether it’s my family or friends, or with the show, and so I’m trying to reverse all of the all the damage I did to myself, having that weird reaction to that event, you know.

1:48:30 So I think that’s what I’m doing now. Yeah, I’m also, I’m gonna stop telling myself this story that this thing happened to me when I was seven, because it also empowered me to go out there and aggressively do things, you know, so it gave me this, some self-reliance, because I was like, we filled out my applications for college. That was the theme, self-reliance. Mm-hmm, I think that came from the divorce. Yeah, you know, and then, and I’m, I never, I never lack for the, I’m the one thing I’m super grateful for is I never am like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do next, or I don’t feel like doing this to the extreme.

1:49:06 Like everything I do, I want to go all in, and I want to go big with it, and so I think that has to do with the way you raised me, and then even the divorce, and even the divorce. I agree. I, I think I, in a parallel way, have only discovered that in the last few years, that your dad’s changed to go a different direction. When his life was so freeing to me at the time, it was a tragedy, but when I look at it, my interests are so different than his, and his are all good.

1:49:41 I’m an invalid, and I have the greatest respect for his intelligence. His music, the things that he’s reading, his, you know, he’s a great thinker, but I love to go to Mexico, and he would not step, for he was afraid, and the first thing we did was go to Mexico. Alright, yeah, and I love to. I took a chicken bus through Central America for a month. I had no idea where I was gonna sleep the next night.

1:50:07 I loved that. I, I read it in a book, and I tell friends, and they’re like, you know, I’m not going with you. And then I, I really, I really, I love hiking in the Sierras and all of that, and it’s like I’m free now to do that, and I can go to over a hundred countries now, and I can, I can find out the basics of Chernobyl and talk to the people that were hurt there and see the circumstances in life that somehow my parents made a difference, that they raised me to have an interest in that.

1:50:39 And so that tragedy freed me to live a potential that I would have never been able to do or never allowed myself to do. I could have done it, but it wouldn’t in our era. Know that, if it would be, we’re a little freer, and your dad and my generation to do individual things than our parents, but still not as much as I’ve done, where I’ve traveled over 100 people of countries and gone away for three months, and you still are. Yeah, I love it. I love it so much.

1:51:10 You travel places that are, you, you traveled to North Korea and Iran and Chechnya and Antarctica. Yes, yeah. And I’m going on to Sudan and Pakistan in the few. Yeah, alright, but if, thanks to my parents. Yeah, right.

1:51:26 And the last quickie, I’ll tell you about my dad, is I was in Kenya, and we were at a game park, and this couple had bought the land in 1968. Grandpa bought the Barty in 1968. They left a sliver of the land for some giraffe and rhino. Yeah, there were, on the property, but the rest they did cattle ranching, and now we’re out looking at the wild game, and so I said to the leader, could I talk to the ranch manager? You do mind if I, you know, do that?

1:52:00 And oh no, so he spent an hour with me, and I said, well, tell me about your barani, their native cows. They’re like Brahma, and he said, yeah, that was with the owner in 1968. He, that’s what he had, but they didn’t breed that well, so they mixed him with a French cow, a Charolais, and I said, what? And he said, yes, and they got a lot more fertility, and I said, but my dad did the same thing at the Barty with a Simbra, with a Simmental. It’s another French cow, and it raised the fertility rate.

1:52:34 These men in the same era and the same kind of breeding were continents apart, and so Grandpa Benedict comes up for me as well. He, I asked him about their inoculation program, about all of the diseases they could get or not, and how they do it, do they brand, do they castrate? New, that you know, that’s all Grandpa Benedict. So eat, you will find your parents will be in your mind, both your father and your mother, you know, in some way, for a long time.

1:53:04 Yes, and it kind of, you know, it cut sparkles up. So yes, I do believe that the low points in our life, actually, if you are patient, become the opportunity for doors to open that most fit your journey, and you’re on that journey. I’m really proud. I’m really, really proud of you. And the other advice I have is to always be vigilant about people who aren’t real.

1:53:28 You’d ever know anyone, to, you know, their backside. We’ve talked about that before, and there’s a lot of narcissists up there, and it’s very damaging, so you’ve got to be careful about relationships where you kind of see those, and I think being vigilant in a positive way, and being, having a kind of a, so you’re skeptical. I think those are healthy traits. Yeah, it’s a complicated world now, and you must see that because you have such a variety of guests who come on your program.

1:54:02 You see, I’m sure you hear everything from the real to the, mmm, fantasy. Yeah, yeah, no. Where’s your future headed with your, well? I’m just gonna, I want to keep connecting, you know. I want to just undo all the things I did to myself and just try to find a way to connect with more people and to tell myself new stories, you know, to look at these moments in, though, I passed first of all as empowering moments, and then to stop looking at them and just move forward.

1:54:32 Yes, just try to give more and connect more and just give back, you know. That’s what I’m trying to do, but I think I didn’t do it for a long time for whatever reasons, and so now I’m just trying to do that. And yeah, some of these medicines seem to just give me a look into something I couldn’t really figure out on my own, even through therapy and stuff, and then they just gave me a look of, maybe this is why, and I’ve been starting to unpack it. It just helped me to understand myself a little better, and maybe then make myself be a little bit more vigilant and not react the way I used to react.

1:55:07 Like, “Oh, someone’s getting too close to you, you better get rid of them before they hurt you.” Like, that’s a horrible way to live life, and I don’t want to do that anymore, so I’m trying to. I always force myself to open my heart to people, and even though it could be hurt, I’m just thinking that’s the only way to live life. Yeah, so what do you think about these plant medicines and things that I take? What do you, what do you think about that?

1:55:29 Well, you know, I’ve always believed in healthy journeys, you know, that. So when Grandma Benedict had her stent. Well, they had no stents in those days for clogged arteries for women. They were too narrow, and she had her surgery, and then unfortunately she, they have an infection, and she died. Right?

1:55:51 I just, I look at I looked at my parents, and I, I looked at their lifestyles, and thought that it’s so important to keep your set point on your weight, and I’m really proud of you for keeping your, your body healthy, because without your container you have nothing. And now the latest news is saying that people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, if you’re not taking care of, especially cholesterol and high blood pressure, you have no choices. When you get to my age, it’s done, it’s already too late.

1:56:27 And so I’m really proud of you that you’ve kept your set point, because I don’t see very many people in my family that have, and there’s, there is no health future with that. So due to my mother, I started looking for an alternative because I had high cholesterol, high LDL. Switch was a shock to me because I’ve never been overweight, but I had it, and so through that journey I discovered being a vegan for five years, and then I was, did macrobiotic practice, which is basically similar, and it lowered my cholesterol, but then it would edge up.

1:57:00 But in, in working through that, I, I mean, I thank my parents. I mean, if my mother hadn’t, or my parents hadn’t had their poor health, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But then what I have learned, what I has been, is that I do, I’m take a Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering for ten years, but I had a kind of reaction to it. It’s what you hear about, the weakness in the arm. But then I worked with a lipidologist now, and it was through a visit to Cleveland Clinic where they said you have to take a tiny amount, and that I’ve lowered my LDLs 40%, so that, and keeping my set point on my weight and eating healthy, that works for me.

1:57:43 So for you to do the plant-based, well, I did that for nine years, and I loved it. I still mostly eat that way, so I, you know, I, I admire you for doing the journey. Most people can’t control their eating, so they, you know, it’s a moot point, but you are a seeker and you are, you do choose what you need. Now tell me the reason you do, because you already are healthy with, with your, your correct set point on your weight. Yeah, I mean, you know, this is always important to you and the Benedict family.

1:58:16 It has a history of obesity, and like you said with your parents, I mean, they could have lived a lot longer. They even known about diet and known about, but you said the container, but they didn’t really know about it, and I mean, they could’ve been around in another 20 years if they had. So you always really impressed that on us, and the more I learned, and once the more I also resolved my own demons, it was easier to do, you know, my own addictions and things like that.

1:58:43 So that’s helped me be really healthy now, healthiest I’ve ever been. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. But you’ve always, you’ve never been overweight. Yeah, it’s always kept your set point that you know, on that. And then, you know, I, I just love the journey you’re on.

1:58:59 I mean, because your body will tell you if you need more. Like, I remember after the first five years when I was vegan, I felt a little mmm, tired, kind of depleted, so I went to a nutritionist, and she said, I want you to go home right now and have one egg, and I did, and it was like, ah, yeah, this is nice. I don’t need to eat him very often, you know, once a week one egg, but it was, if my body was needing a little bit more in – yeah, we can make adjustments, but at least you’re a seeker, and you experiment and you ask yourself, you know, how am I feeling?

1:59:35 You measure that and you go forward. What I’m seeing in our family is that they give up their power over their health and their eating, and that’s sad to me. No, I don’t. There’s nothing I can really say to my nephews and nieces. You know, yeah, anyone.

1:59:56 So just to be your journey, yeah, yeah. But you know, I, I love your journey, and how in your interviews with people you’re so, you are very, you do emotionally connect with them, and you allow them to tell their truth and their story. There are interviewers that you see sometimes that override that or try to be in the, you know, the kind of number one position, and that never works. The person is listening to hear the guest. You bring them out, and you’re very good at that.

2:00:30 That’s what I try to do. Plus, also, I’m learning from them, and even if I disagree with them sometimes, I find five years later I actually completely agree with them. So I try to not judge. You try to listen and just listen and learn. You know, it doesn’t mean I have to do everything they say, but I don’t think my job is, to yeah, it’s to impress my point of view on people.

2:00:52 Yeah, you’re very tolerant, and it’s great. It’s what makes you a great host, is that you bring in this huge disparity of people that, you know, I mean, like the guy who had got you interested in doing the race. I mean, he’s a weird guy who’s been through a really tumultuous journey, and yet you’re very honoring of him and respectful. You let him say his truth, and it adds, it adds to your, it added to your film and it added to your own journey. So that takes a lot, and it takes a lot to be able to give people that much space.

2:01:27 Yeah, I guess I got it from, you know, I don’t know. What, that, no. Well, sometimes I think I’m not that dollar, I really. And what do you think of these psychedelics that I do, this ayahuasca? Well, I know you’ve done it three times, right?

2:01:42 I did last year in Costa Rica, and then, you know, about seven years ago was the first time I did it, and that’s when it showed me, you know, Brian at seven years old and all these things I had done and built these walls up, and I was crying there in the ceremony, but it was the first time I ever actually realized the patterns I was running based on this reaction to something that happened thirty some years earlier, and it was the first time I could consciously change those patterns, by moving in with Mariana and Gaby. Like, that was my first way of saying, okay, you could stop whining about the past and make a proactive change in your future by taking care of this little girl. Yeah, we needed a father figure to, but that was for me.

2:02:22 I’m curious what you think of them. Yeah, well, you’ve always been very open about it. Well, I mean, because I, I knew about it. You, well, you were open and plus I knew about it with from London Real. How do I feel about it?

2:02:38 Well, I’m always concerned about safety, you know, about mid something being overboard. But I mean, I raised you three to live your lives to the full and be free and accept what however you are, wherever you, you, I think you already know that. I don’t, I don’t put reins on, on any of you, and you’re each very individual and different. I think because I’ve gone on alternative routes, like a, you know, being vegan and when people thought I was pretty crazy, and, and macrobiotic practice.

2:03:16 I’m open to alternative looks at things. I mean, I really am. I, I think there’s value, and I think if we trust ourselves to measure and make a decision after each event, that’s the best we can ask of ourselves. Do I worry that you’ll have too strong a dose, and then it will impair you? Probably.

2:03:39 I do worry about that, especially when you went to Costa Rica, because I know you asked to have the, the stronger dose. You told us that. Yeah, so now, my mom, you know, so but how do you feel about your mom feeling that way? I mean, well, I appreciate. I always appreciate your point of view, so I, I know you’re always honest, and I really appreciate that.

2:03:59 So yeah, I totally understand that point of view and I totally give it credence, and I get it, and noted for sure. So, and yeah, you’re a mom as well. Yes, you’re right. We, we, I am out there to live life to the fullest, and sometimes I’ve gone a little too full, as you know, from Ironman. But also sometimes it gets me.

2:04:21 Well, yeah, and you know, it, you can’t ever look at it as a negative, because it got you to where you are now in this really rich time of your life. Yeah, I’m super grateful. Yeah. In Mariana and Gaby, err, I mean, Mariana, she’s gold in my eyes. You know, because she was a whole really big part of your, your healing.

2:04:42 Anyone would, you know, like about her. She saw she’s so caring and real. I mean, she’s, she’s just, she connects with people, and she’s genuinely interested, not only interest in you, but she’s very generous, you know? She’s just her hospitality, her, I loved how she has her friends when they go to Paris, and they are, you know, and they have their things like that, that she, she seems to have a very well-rounded life. She’s not just doing the mother drudgery, because I know that can be.

2:05:17 So yeah, I, I really like, I like everything about Gabby. I mean, Gabby and Mariana. Yeah, and to have a little one to raise right away, that was pretty brave of you. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh me, yeah. Well, Gabby came into my life the same age that, that, you know, divorce, seven.

2:05:35 So I kind of figured that out right away, and I was like, wow, you’re taking care of this girl whose parents have just separated and divorced after she was abducted, so I felt really like I had him responsibility there, and I felt great about that, and so she, she changed my life, she saved my life. Yeah, having to care for her, it was a big deal for me, and yeah, she really changed things for me. Yeah, in a big way. So yeah, that’s great, and you know, in raising her, I’ve noticed what you did for me.

2:06:05 So when she pushes back against me, I started to understand what you were doing for me. So I just want to say thanks, thanks mom, because by beans by being really strong with me and putting these rules down and being disciplined, it was I thought you were just being a jerk, but what you were doing was you were loving me, and so now I see that with Gabby when I do that and she pushes back, it’s like 20 years from now you’ll look back and say, oh, it shows love, because if you don’t give a s***, then you let me do whatever I want. But at the time it was, I was like, I was fighting with you, and I know I was.

2:06:40 I’m pretty nasty, and when I get into a fight, so are you. And so yeah, you know, you were, yeah, just an amazing mom, and I saw that, and from the camping trips, to the books we read, to the trips to Tokyo and Hong Kong, Europe, and seeing exchange students and the college students, and like, you gave me the greatest childhood ever. So, so thanks. It was fun. It was a fun journey, and again, you know, that all happened because of the divorce in my life.

2:07:09 It wouldn’t have happened. I can tell you it wouldn’t have happened. Yeah, so I’m grateful. I’m grateful that I had your kids, because I had to think about in reordering my life. I had to think about what do I want to impart to you, right?

2:07:23 So that was really great. Well, why not go to Japan and live for a month with a families? Yeah, yeah, and we went into the, we went into the restaurant you were serving in the Japanese restaurant. Yeah, that was so fun. So no, that would have happened if you hadn’t have been divorced.

2:07:42 No, I wouldn’t have had those experience. No way. We wouldn’t have taken the trip to Europe, probably. No. And I want a London.

2:07:48 There’d be no London Real, no. None of that. It would have been just a boring, you know, what would you call it, suburban upbringing in San Diego. I mean, I can just tell you that. I mean, we would have done fun things, but it wouldn’t have been any of those.

2:08:07 No, right, right. We can, you know, it’s really good what you’ve realized, and that, that I realize more in the last few years, is that loss is never anything that I ever anticipated in life. Loss, and the getting through the grief of loss, and the recovery of loss. And when you look back on your life, there’s a lot of loss at certain stages. Right?

2:08:33 And if I could go back and be my 30-year-old or 35-year-old parent and teach my children now about loss, I would say more about that, and how there are ways to empower yourselves and come out of it that look at it as an opportunity. It may not look like it now, but you’ll see that later. Yeah, so it, that’s what’s the, the vet messages that have come to me just in the last six months or a year. The value of loss and recovery, being vigilant, watching for people so that you know their backside before you commit to their front.

2:09:09 Those are kind of things that you just see in life that could be destructive if you’re not, if you know, if you’re not alert. Yeah, the powerful lessons. Mm-hmm. I know so many people that are still living in the trauma of the past, and it can, it fits the rest of the thirty years, their life, they’re living about, oh, that one time someone did this to me. And yeah, but like you said, if you can recover and learn and look forward.

2:09:36 Yeah, and it’s a whole different life. Exactly. I mean, mine’s completely 180 degrees different. I wouldn’t have invested in real estate. Well, why would I, bought a rental property?

2:09:47 I wouldn’t be traveling the world. I know none of that. And that’s all that’s the most exciting thing in my life now, except what my kids are doing. Boy, I get to visit in great places. I know the place.

2:10:00 Yeah, man. People ask me where do your kids live? I know London, Geneva, and Oakland, really, how to get there. So have you got a few hours? I’ll tell you right.

2:10:12 Yeah, yeah. It’s so anyway. I’m proud of you, and really, you know, all that you’ve achieved and allowed yourself to suffer. I mean, that was a lot. People would not have the strength to have gone through the healing that you have in the last ten years, so you should thank yourself too for that strength, strength of character.

2:10:36 Yeah, I mean, it’s okay from you. Yeah. All right, oh sorry, had to chase me all the way here to get this, get this job. Yeah, there’s, I’ve been working. I know, I know it was worth it.

2:10:50 It was worth it. So thanks, Mom. I love you so much. Thank you. One more hug.

2:10:56 Hey, you.