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Lin Jones
36 Plays1 year ago
Lin Jones on WHY we're talking about what we're talking about!
From perspectives (based on experience) regarding Food to getting through Tragedy to being able to Adapt.
I think today’s conversation will give everyone a big dose of HOPE… all things ultimately work out.
Lin Jones' resume is long and impressive.
From registered nurse to co-owner & head chef in a restaurant to a full time Mom & caregiver to elderly family members to sound engineer for over 1,000 school presentations to co-author and now a Grandma to 8, Lin is living a full life.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to Russell Jones Speaks, where we explore big issues that matter to parents, grandparents, and kids. We tackle intergenerational issues. Everything that affects parents, grands, and children is on the table. That includes health and fitness, relationships, attitude, family unity, vision, adversity, God, and anything else that might arise. The goal is for you to take away something that you can use in your life immediately. My guest today is Lynn Jones.
00:01:06
Speaker
Her resume is long and impressive, from registered nurse to co-owner and head chef in a restaurant, to a full-time mom and caregiver to elderly family members, to sound engineer for over 1,000 school presentations, to co-author, and now a grandmother aide. Lynn has lived a full life. I'm sure there will be encouraging takeaways from our conversation. So welcome, Lynn. Good morning. Welcome from the other side of the house.
00:01:36
Speaker
Hey, here we go.
Lynn's Upbringing and Nursing Career
00:01:38
Speaker
So, uh, you know, we have to admit that we have been on this planet for at least 70 years. And I think I wanted to start this whole thing, um, just getting a little bit of background on you. Uh, you know, born and raised where just, just real quick. Like, uh, I know you're a Jersey girl. Yes. Um,
00:01:59
Speaker
I was born in Margaret Hay Hospital, same as you, Jersey City, New Jersey, which is right outside the Holland Tunnel, across the river from New York, Manhattan. Moved to the suburbs at three, grew up in a Polish Catholic, first generation American family, mother and father that loved us and cared for us, sister and two brothers. My grandmother lived with us for a while.
00:02:29
Speaker
And it was very functional. We were cared for. My parents were blue-collar workers, hard workers. Taught us a lot of things that, it wasn't a sit-down, one-on-one instruction, but things that, lessons that I realized later on, that they were the root, you know, teaching us some values and morals and hard work.
00:02:53
Speaker
certain examples, right? That's what you all need. So at some point, along the way, after your high school career, you make a decision to become a nurse. So just briefly, how did that come about? Because nursing is, you really, I don't know, you, that's tough occupation, at least in my mind. Well,
00:03:18
Speaker
It was not a very well thought-out decision. My parents, as wonderful as they were, they hadn't gone to college either one, so they didn't know a whole lot about
00:03:32
Speaker
teaching us and like what do you like what do you want to be and how can we you know facilitate that so I wandered around for you know about six months to a year after high school and then a friend said why don't you go to nursing school so and so went and she really did well and likes it and I thought for a very short minute and said well
00:03:53
Speaker
I would die living in a cubicle in an office, you know, five days a week for the rest of my life. I don't like paperwork, so okay, I'll be a nurse. I'll help with people, which is kind of a riot because it came back to bite me so many years later because it's all paperwork now. But it was a good decision. So you're rolling along, you got your career, and then there's that fateful moment when we meet.
Russell & Lynn's Relationship and Marriage
00:04:24
Speaker
So we were away on a camping trip upstate New York. I was with my friends from Seacaucus, New Jersey. You were with your friends from Rutherford or whatever, suburbs of Rutherford. And so we meet. And then
00:04:44
Speaker
something clicks. I'm not sure what I just remember the t shirt you were wearing, which said, Jersey tomatoes are the best. And for any of you young folks know a tomato was, I guess, a terminology that was used to describe a woman, a girl, a lady, back in the day, you know, and so Jersey tomatoes were the best. And somehow I got your
00:05:12
Speaker
contact information, your phone number, and we connect and everything, you know, is going to go along just lovely. You're finishing up your RN, you're an LPN nurse for a number of years, and you're finishing up your education. I kind of interrupted things after, a few months after we met, by crashing my Harley and needing extreme care for a long time. I was in the hospital for 30 days, it would have been longer than that,
00:05:43
Speaker
And so you were the one, the consistent one that came and looked after me, cared for me, did everything. And so then we get married, right? I mean, what was it? Just about exactly one year after we met, we end up we're tying the knot, as they say.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yes, we did. Memorial Day we met and it was the next Memorial Day that we got married. I made you come back the next day and propose again to make sure you really meant it. And it's been a wild ride since then. I think that we hit some of the highest highs and some of the lowest lows, but it was a good ride. Still is. So, I mean, it was just the wedding itself, right? We had
Venturing into Business Ownership
00:06:30
Speaker
my great-grandmother's car.
00:06:32
Speaker
was the limousine right in 1956. Dodge was a carnet four door, right? But it had wing windows. So even though no air conditioning and a couple of my buddies were on their Harleys to kind of lead the procession.
00:06:48
Speaker
And as you noted, right, the tuxedos that we had were kind of an off-white color. And the guys, some of the guys didn't have fenders, and it had rained a little bit the night before. So yeah, but that all got covered over in the photographs and stuff. It didn't matter, but it was kind of fun. And then we go to your aunt's property, aunt and uncle, up in Pine Island, New York, black dirt country.
00:07:17
Speaker
And, uh, I don't even know how that happened, but we ended up with a 12 hour wedding reception. Do you remember that? I do. And I don't, my cousin and her friends were, uh, did the catering and I have no idea how they pulled it off. There were two meals. There was lunch and there was dinner. It was, it was two bands, uh, a Polish band and, and, uh, a bluegrass country bluegrass band. It was, it was a wild time, which,
00:07:47
Speaker
how apropos that it should start that way and continue to be an out-of-the-box life together. And everybody, it seemed over the hours, was kind of disrobing from the official wedding attire. But I kind of remember at the end, it came down to me and your dad, got rest his soul. Both of us, it's still in our tuxedos and everything.
00:08:10
Speaker
But yeah, it was it was an interesting day and night. And I think you just reminded me recently, you know, we had booked some motel rooms close by for people in the wedding party that were staying overnight. And by the time there was a room for us, I thought. And by the time we, you know, got on the road ourselves, we make it to the honeymoon suite, but there was no honeymoon suite. All the rooms were taken up. You remember that?
00:08:39
Speaker
I do. Yes, I do. You had to call your friend, John Komorowski, who lived a few miles away in Warwick, New York and said, John, you don't have any place to sleep.
00:08:50
Speaker
Every bed, every bed has multiple bodies in it. So he said, all right, come on over. And we slept on his Castro convertible in his living room. It was- Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Castro as in like Cuba, as in communist as like, you know, bomb the United States Castro. Who's Castro? Castro convertible. It's a name brand. It was the first open up sleep sofa.
00:09:17
Speaker
Gotcha. All right. Did you say something about a cat? Oh, yeah. I was allergic to cats, and they had a cat. So it wasn't the most fun night together.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, but the next day was so cool because the next day, I don't know if it's Polish tradition, because I'm a kind of a mutan in terms of ethnic heritage, but you guys are all purebred Polish. So the next day,
00:09:49
Speaker
everybody regathers at the wedding site to help clean up and then and eat leftovers and you know however many kegs of beer are left I don't know but that it was kind of like the wedding after the wedding party party you know
00:10:05
Speaker
They call it, Polish people call it propovini, which means the wedding, the day after the wedding, the party after the party. So yes, we gathered there and you knew you had a Polish wife because you had kibasi for five meals in a row.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, cuz your aunt she had a smoker room Little hut thing else behind her store. Yeah her smokehouse and Yes, they'd made and smoked all their own Kombasios. That was pretty awesome. So So anyway, so between there and getting to the airport I think we went to the airport the next day to go away and I came up with this announcement Pronounce meant that I felt that I was unemployable I had you know
00:10:52
Speaker
my teaching certification, I had driven track the trailers. And I, for some reason, I picked that moment to announce to you that I was unemployable. And that we had a couple of dollars put aside, we could have probably gotten into a small house. But I was convinced that we should get into business together. Do you remember that?
00:11:18
Speaker
I do remember that, yes. I remember when you told me you were unemployable and I had to process that. It took me a little bit to process that. Like when I realized, holy crap, he's not kidding. He's telling the truth. And it wasn't that you were lazy, just that you have a problem with things not being done adequately. And apparently some of your bosses in the past
00:11:48
Speaker
You know, things didn't run really smoothly. So you were not lazy. You just always had a better way to do it. Yeah. Instead of sticking around and gaining seniority and giving my input, I was too anxious to move on. So anyway, I had a school teacher from high school who owned a bar and I figured, well,
00:12:14
Speaker
You know, I'd spent so much time, I mean, you know, there's a picture somewhere, we're gonna put it up at, again, some point, but people have seen the picture of the biker and the hippy chick, which was used to describe us in our early days. And I had spent so much time in bars, not bragging or proud or anything like that. But
00:12:33
Speaker
It just seemed like if you're on the other side of the bar, you'd be collecting the money instead of giving the money. And I figured, how hard could it be? And so my high school teacher kind of coached us into purchasing a bar. I was in Clifton, New Jersey. And he
00:12:51
Speaker
It was interesting because as soon as we got in, his bar went belly up, he went out of business. And we're like, wait a minute, we're getting business advice and their business just failed. So that was kind of a disconcerting moment. But anyway, so we get in and it was 1980. So anybody that doesn't remember, just look up Urban Cowboy, the movie John Travolta and
00:13:20
Speaker
There was a lady in it again. Debra Winger. Debra Winger, right. It was a monster movie. It was after his disco movies. And New York, the whole New York city went country for about four years. So the decision was made to go in that direction because you had kind of exposed me to more country than I was aware of. You had traveled a bit and
00:13:44
Speaker
You're up on all the outlaw country music that wasn't getting played on the AM radio in New York. You're familiar with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings and all the outlaw type country people.
00:14:00
Speaker
We start with that theme. The place was called the touch of country and I'm tending bar. It was an old German restaurant that we bought. So there was a huge kitchen in the back, but the bar was kind of far away from the kitchen. And so I'm trying to work the bar and bring out just simple bar food.
00:14:18
Speaker
You know from the kitchen and I wasn't very good at it. You had started your new career as an RN and Tell us a little bit about the phone calls you were getting it on the three to eleven shift So what was my first I had been an LPN for probably about six years went back went to school got my RN and I
00:14:42
Speaker
I was working in Beth Israel Hospital down in on Parker Avenue in Passaic, New Jersey. Great little hospital that is no longer there. It was an old fashioned, real old hospital. So I worked in their intensive care and it was not like the new units today where it's one big room and you could see everybody and the nurses station is usually right in the middle. This was a regular hallway and there were just special cameras in every room.
00:15:09
Speaker
So, I would go to work, and I'd be down the end of the hall in Passaic, New Jersey. There's some really rough areas to it, so we'd get gunshot wounds and stabbings. It was inner city. So, I'd be down the hall tending to someone who was probably bleeding to death or something, and one of the girls would yell from the station that, you know,
00:15:35
Speaker
He wants to know how long to cook the french fries and i would say hang up. Call the next night and say you know the phone ring and say you want to know how long to keep the chicken in the deep fry hang up on him.
00:15:49
Speaker
So I know you called, I think, every night, sometimes multiple times. And this is way before cell phones. This is the phone sitting at the nurse's station. I'm dialing from a rotary phone on the wall at the bar. And how do you boil water? I mean, it was that pathetic. But I've gotten a little bit better over the years.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I think then there was some potential it looked like that the business could be special. And so I started begging and pleading and knowing, you know,
00:16:28
Speaker
I had known you at that point, I'd only known you for a little over a year, but I knew that you could cook really good. We had had a couple of guests over and people over to visit our apartment and everything. I remember everybody always really enjoying the food you made, right?
00:16:50
Speaker
I thought I was such a great cook, but I was just a slow cook. I would have a glass of wine as I was cooking. So sometimes the food didn't come out till 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock in the evening. So by that time, everyone was starving.
00:17:05
Speaker
Of course I was a good cook. Great. Anything would have been good. Yeah, but okay. You're being a little too humble, I think. But however, so I talk you into putting your nursing career on hold and coming over and helping out. So here you are, never having run a kitchen. I mean, this is a big commercial kitchen.
00:17:28
Speaker
And so you just took it on and you said, OK, let's just do one thing at a time like burgers. And you would bring out how many samples of burgers. So whoever sitting at the bar got to taste and test and say, OK, I like this one. I don't like that one. And then we would do that. In fact, I have one of the old menus. Could be the last one. Does that show up on the screen? Pretty much. Half of it, yeah.
00:17:56
Speaker
Back it up that way. So, I mean, we had things, so just for some things, it was called Ma Jones' Kitchen, the place is called the touch of country. And so Ma Jones' Kitchen, and she had all kinds of specials. So one of them was nachos, salsa and chips, guacamole, quesadillas, enchiladas, burritos, tostadas, and then Ma's chili, chili dogs, Ma's special country burgers.
Embracing Health and Nutrition
00:18:25
Speaker
And then we also added in later the authentic buffalo wings and that's a whole story into itself we have to say that for another time deep fried mushrooms french fries super the day fresh salad sauteed mushrooms then there was a denver omelet grilled cheese we had all these things on this menu in everything.
00:18:44
Speaker
like you researched, but it was like the most basic type of research, you actually gave it to the people sitting at the bar, right? And okay, good, not good, good, not good. And came out with this awesome menu. And so I think that was, I want to circle back to that menu later on, because I think that
00:19:07
Speaker
food preparation and going to the farmers markets and connecting with all different people in the food industry that maybe, as normal consumers, you don't see that often. I just want to maybe come back to that. So anyway, so we're in the bar. We have live music three or four nights a week.
00:19:28
Speaker
You know, everybody's having a good time. We had the food, we had a grand opening where we got, I had appeared before the city on that one. We had a little bit of trouble with too many people and nobody could park for blocks around and everything.
00:19:47
Speaker
But other than that, then we started doing festivals. We would go up to a lake. We'd rent a lake for a day. And we'd get a couple thousand people. And it was just insane, but it was fun. It was good times, but totally exhausted all the time. And so you start hinting at this biological clock thing. That clock.
00:20:13
Speaker
And so it was around that time too that I got invited to a business meeting.
00:20:21
Speaker
And I had no business background other than I owned a bar, you know, just had to come up with the money. And, but, um, so I go to this business meeting, we both went and it turns out it's the Amway business. So for people who don't know Amway, uh, it's still around, but I think, you know, back then it was pretty much known as like a party type business, door to door selling type things. Right. Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah. So very clean. And so, uh,
00:20:50
Speaker
And normally I wouldn't have been interested, but we met two people. One was from my hometown, Fred Ponty, and then one was from your hometown, Tony Lee Folio, who ended up Ponty as well. And so we kind of figured,
00:21:07
Speaker
Well, if they're doing it, maybe it's legit because I knew them both from education and you knew them from, you know, you know, Tony Lee from growing up. So anyway, so we said, well, we'll sign up. It's part time. And it was a great opportunity for me to learn about people skills. Sorry about that. Getting out and doing and really doing business. And so so we start go to these meetings and
00:21:33
Speaker
I crack up all the time. I mean, you were always very social and outgoing. Unless I had a few drinks, I was not. And so going to these meetings sober was a little nerve wracking for me at the time. However, Freddie, who later on became Uncle Freddie, affectionately, and he would always come up to me
00:21:54
Speaker
And he'd give me this big hug. And now I'm a big gorilla. And he's not as tall as me. But he'd wrap his arms around me and give me a hug. And I would get so nervous about that because where I came from, guys hugging guys was not a thing. And so not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just yikes. But he was so encouraging. And he said, I love you, man. And I was like, what is that? Like now people say it.
00:22:24
Speaker
Back then it was like, wow, that's like cutting edge, you know, like, what's going on? So anyway, so we're going on with that. Still working. I don't even know how we had time. I mean, you jumped into that as well, right? You still, yeah, that was paperwork for sure. Yeah, a lot of paperwork. Yeah, inviting people and whatever. So a couple of months into it, Freddie announces that we got to go to Virginia.
00:22:52
Speaker
for this big Amway thing. All the people that made millions of dollars are going to be down there speaking and we got to go. So it was you or me, we couldn't both go because it was on a weekend and we're, you know, we're in a bar business. I mean, and we have entertainment booked and everything. So because I still couldn't cook and you could, you got elected to stay home. And I went with Uncle Freddie and so I go,
00:23:16
Speaker
Friday, Saturday, and I'm taking notes. I was learning a lot of stuff, but it was really good. And we're going back to our room on Saturday night, and Freddie announced to me, hey, there's a non-denominational Christian service tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.
00:23:35
Speaker
So I said, well, thanks for inviting me. But uncle Fred, I said, you know, Linda, we're in the bar business. Sundays traditionally is time to sleep in because we've had a rough week. We had a late night. We don't get home till sometimes the sun is coming up. And so, yeah, I appreciate the invitation. Plus, I had some bad, quote unquote, religious experiences in my in my younger days. And again, bad, according to me, you know, my immaturity and whatever.
00:24:03
Speaker
So I said, no, I appreciate the offer. So the next morning, of course, 9 o'clock in the morning, I don't know what hit me, but I could not even roll over. I couldn't fall asleep at
Personal Growth and Spiritual Journey
00:24:14
Speaker
all. So I go down, I wander down there. Everybody's talking, giving their testimony about the Lord and in their life and in their business and in their marriage and in their family.
00:24:23
Speaker
all stuff that I had never really connected. And I was just at a point where like, I might as well just give this a shot. So I go forward, do, you know, the sinner's prayer. And, you know, as soon as I can, I get out, I get on the phone, you know, pay phone again, I probably had to call collect up to New Jersey. And I said, Hey, you'll never guess what happened. I said, you know, I became a Christian. And your reaction was,
00:24:52
Speaker
Well, we've tried everything else. You might as well try Jesus. Okay. Yeah. And I was kind of surprised because we weren't really going down that road since we had met. But I guess we both kind of came to that realization that like, hmm, something else has to, so there must be something else. To life. Yes.
00:25:16
Speaker
So anyway, so we were kind of, again, moving towards, you know, family stuff and the Emily thing. And so now we decide to, some guys came in one day and they offered me some money. And so we sell the bar and we moved to the country, country in New Jersey, which, you know, for some people listening might not say, wait, New Jersey, you know, Newark airport, that's not country, but where we lived it was. And we were just really blessed to find that place.
00:25:46
Speaker
And so, you know, what's the lifestyle then, right? We go from apartment to living out in the woods, right? Do you have fond recollections of like moving into this place?
00:25:58
Speaker
I do. I do that. I loved our place. For a number of factors, we might still be there. But it was a great place to raise kids, to start out. My relatives and my mother's people were farmers. So being in the dirt was like, you know, that was my happy place. So it was a great experience. It was in the woods. There was a reservoir like a spit away.
00:26:27
Speaker
And the kids grew up romping in the woods, it was clean and relatively safe, if any place can be safe. Yes, great experiences there, yep. Started growing.
00:26:39
Speaker
We do. There is a picture somewhere of you actually laying in the garden in your pajamas at one point. I forget what that, that was about why the picture was taken, but it was totally you. That was because that was when our youngest son got into grounding and actually, actually I now believe that there's a lot to it. But at that point I was just being silly. I went out and you had just tilled it. I think so. It was all nice.
00:27:09
Speaker
and brown and flat, and I laid down with my pajamas on and a pillow in the middle of the dirt and sent it to him. It was kind of a joke, but there is a lot to what goes on, the energies in the Earth. Oh, for sure.
00:27:29
Speaker
I was driving trucks. Just as a stopgap, I went back to driving tractor trailers. And personal training had come into vogue. This is like 1984. So I started training some people part time. And so people ask about not just exercises, but also what to eat, supplements, and everything else.
00:27:56
Speaker
In the relatively early stages of that, although my mom was one of the original health nuts because of my poor health as a child myself, so I was familiar with a lot of these things, taking your vitamins and eating good food and what have you, but the definitions of that were a little bit vague.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, so we started just being a little bit more aware, I think, of that whole side of life. I think I got more distrusting of what was being sold in the stores.
00:28:35
Speaker
Both you know we just realize i mean if you eat something fresh out of the garden versus go to the store and buy it you know any kind of vegetable or fruit whatever i mean it's just the taste it tells you there's something else you know that you're missing just buying it from the store and so on.
00:28:52
Speaker
So we really started on a journey of being more health conscious. And I remember before we understood about tofu, remember buying these giant five-gallon pails of tofu and frying it up. The kids were like, oh, no, fried tofu. Remember that? I was like, uh.
00:29:12
Speaker
And then when I found out tofu, maybe the sourcing of it was not the best. So everybody was happy that we, you know, we just kept the buckets for storage or something like that. But, uh, and then, you know, you got involved with, uh, you know, getting really good quality meats whenever possible. Right. You remember that chicken chicken deal you had going? I do. Um, I do. Um, and that, by the way, that massive amounts of tofu, you,
00:29:37
Speaker
Do you remember why you started buying them in five-gallon buckets, the tofu? No. I was having some perimenopausal symptoms at one point, and tofu was soy. I was supposed to help that along. I sent you out for tofu, and you came back with a five-gallon bucket.
00:29:59
Speaker
Which should tell everybody exactly what I was like if you bought me a five gallon bucket. Oh, yeah But yeah, I did start researching Like you said your mother, you know between her
00:30:14
Speaker
knowledge about Adele Davis and Carlton Fredericks and, and my mom too. I mean, we ate fresh vegetables and fruits and meats and not a lot of garbage food. So we, we did, both of us have that in our background, but we wanted to take it to another level. So I grew what we could, you know, the garden in Rockaway was really big. So we grew what we could. And then I found a dry goods co-op, a woman in the next town was running.
00:30:43
Speaker
And I don't know how we found Gothel Road poultry farm in the first place in Wycoff, New Jersey. God bless you, Donald, if you ever hear this. But you could buy, you stopped there and you started bringing home chicken. It was real clean. They couldn't call it organic because the stipulations to be called that were really strict. No one within a certain radius could be using any kind of a chemical
00:31:12
Speaker
you know, on their property. So he Donaldin, I mean, Joe didn't call it organic. However, it was nice, clean, free range. Yeah. Free range. Yes. Non GMO. You know, it was excellent. So that kind of, um, uh, just went crazy. At one point I had probably, there was 24 other women that were involved and I would,
00:31:37
Speaker
calling an order, you know, like once every other month. And at first you used to bring it home, like, you know, thousands of pounds of chicken would sit on ice in the garage. And then at one point they started to deliver. So that was, we just found that we had to do a little work to eat as clean as we could. We weren't, you know, wealthy by any means, but
00:32:00
Speaker
We just found a way to find clean food. We had to go to, you know, one store for one thing, another store for another. We had the co-ops going on and, you know, we just worked it the best we could. Just the, the rule was. Tom Kowarski and the beef out in New Jersey with this.
00:32:19
Speaker
Tom, a Ukrainian farmer, used to tell me the only thing, the only difference between Polish and Ukrainian was that a Ukrainian was just a pollock with a job. So that was mean. Well, I never took offense. You know, it's like, I like humor. But anyway, Tom raised his own cows and said slaughter and
00:32:45
Speaker
would go out and a couple of us would chip in for half a cow and, you know, slept it on home. So we just, we found a way, you know, when it was difficult. And I think we evolved too, in terms of, I remember we were
00:33:03
Speaker
I don't remember what year it was, but it was somewhere in that timeframe. But we went to see this Dr. Ellis and he was a, he was like kind of the last, he was a nutrition guy, kind of on the cutting edge at that point. And so we made an appointment just to go and get evaluated by him. And I forget how far we had, I think that was in Pennsylvania. No, way south Jersey, I think, or maybe Pennsylvania anyway.
00:33:32
Speaker
But anyway, so we go there and we walk in and the doctor says, oh gee, you guys look in great shape. Usually I get people that are just, you know, one step before the grave or whatever. And we're like, yeah, but we don't feel good. And so, you know, he did a little survey on us and everything and did some testing and stuff. And it's like.
00:33:52
Speaker
you know, we were following the, at the time, the conventional wisdom, which isn't always wisdom, right, was, you know, heart healthy, low fat diet. And so we were doing, you know, really low fat, I don't remember, I didn't have egg yolks for like, I don't know how many years we didn't have an egg yolk. And, but then, you know, he said, no, no, no, that's, that's backwards. That's not, you know, that's not the way you eat. That's not the way, you know,
00:34:21
Speaker
life really is you know so we we jumped in and uh you know we actually on the way home we went we got eggs and bacon somewhere and um hold the bread though because well we can talk about that at some point too about um what's happened to all our food sources uh the way things are grown I think now we've we've
00:34:42
Speaker
We've just gotten to a point where I'm excited hearing about my niece up in West Virginia, regenerative farming, getting back to growing things and buying things local, providing. I think the good Lord, the Creator,
00:35:03
Speaker
of all things, I think I don't think we need to improve on the way he made things. But I think the world in terms, you know, if you if people say, well, you know, we need to feed more people or we so we have to, you know, make the grain grow without weeds or whatever, and we need to do this, we need to do that. And we need to
00:35:29
Speaker
all these different techniques that they use to get more production, I think a lot of it is more just profit-driven and it's really not health-driven. And I think so, you know, my thing right now is, and I'm dragging you along with me because we're together in this,
00:35:49
Speaker
is that everything is provided for in nature. And I think we can all benefit from it. But we've gotten so far from it. Even the basic cereals that we eat as a kid, now they're not healthy. They're not good for you. And we can look at the statistics on everything. But anyway, all that to say, I guess we're still, what are we, second generation health food nuts, I guess?
00:36:17
Speaker
But, but it's kind of paid off, right? I mean, you know, we talked about earlier, our age, I mean, thank God, I mean, I'm not, you know, no lifetime medications. You know, we're able to keep our weight, you know, reasonable. And I don't think we, I don't think we're wanting for anything, you know, it's not like we can't eat.
00:36:36
Speaker
Right. We do, uh, you know, the 80 20 thing used to talk to the parents about we're given our workshops. Right. I mean, yeah, you get it right 80% of the time and don't beat yourself up about the times you don't, but I think a lot of people just are not aware. They're just, they're just not aware, you know, if you, you know, you, you would say too, right. If you can't pronounce something on a label, well then don't buy, right. Donate it. Right. So, uh, then you talk to about.
00:37:05
Speaker
Didn't you go on a field trip or something to a laboratory once? You used to tell that story where stuff like beakers were like bubbling.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah, we did. On one of the field trips, we were in a lab, and people were pouring different compounds into these test tubes. And it was kind of crazy. And I really don't know how I made the connection. But at one point, I realized that some of that stuff, some of those chemicals were in our food. So that's what we were eating. So that made an impression on me.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, you know, it should make it on everybody, but I guess you have to trust at some point, but I'd rather trust a local farmer that's doing the regenerative thing, that's not using all kinds of horrible fertilizers.
00:37:59
Speaker
GM of grains and things like that. So, uh, but anyway, uh, yeah, we'll move on. So anyway, so we're, you know, we're rocking and rolling up in the country where we're getting things going. And, uh, we had a little girl and we first moved up there, Jane, and then we had a little boy.
00:38:16
Speaker
Super Bowl Sunday, 1987. We call him Petey, but it was Russell
Coping with Loss and Finding Hope
00:38:22
Speaker
Peter. And so then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he was 11 months old before Christmas that following year, there's a car crash. And Petey dies in the crash. You almost die in the crash. And everything changed, OK?
00:38:43
Speaker
You know, I was, we were both baby Christians, uh, like, okay, Lord, you know, what's going on? And it wasn't in that tone. I was like.
00:38:53
Speaker
crying out, yelling, whatever. You're still in the hospital when, and you weren't even aware that he was buried, because you're in intensive care for so many days. And so we, you know, we come through that, the physical part, which wasn't overnight, that took time.
00:39:16
Speaker
And I went through this whole thing where I had to have everything under control, right? I mean, it's kind of my nature anyway, but I had had this all under control. And the next thing I know, I had no control or anything. And so trying to, you know,
00:39:33
Speaker
take care of our daughter who was in the car at the same time, take care of you, you know, keep the house afloat, you know, what is just total chaos. And I, I don't know, I thought at one point, about a month or two into it, that I had it all together. And, but then my body started freaking out, like in my mind, I thought I had it together, but my body just started going crazy and all different types of symptoms. And that's, that's when they put me on medication, right for one day.
00:40:03
Speaker
And that didn't work out too well. Well, they didn't put you on medication for one day. They put you on medication. You just chose to stay on it for one day. All right. Okay. You got me on that one. That's exactly right. And so I really started researching then about grieving, loss, extreme stress like this was. And I came up with
00:40:32
Speaker
I think it was about 10 points. I put it in the sick and tired of being sick and tired book, um, daily things that I needed to do. But, but it, it, the reality was too, is that I had to give it a year. I think just researching and everything else. I mean, yeah, it's, it's not, you're not going to feel good. And, uh, and that's okay. It's normal. Um, but you can still do things. You can still make, make steps. You can do still develop habits that contribute to your healing.
00:41:02
Speaker
And, um, so like, that was my, my part of it when we were doing it together though. So what, like, what's your recollection? Cause you know, mom's perspective is always different than the dad's. Um, well, we were fortunate that, and it has always kind of been this way that when one of us is down, the other one is holding fast. So you got me through the, uh, you know, critical part in my physical healing and then.
00:41:32
Speaker
then you just fell apart yourself. But when you have an experience like that, I mean, you become shaped by your experiences, your choices. And during that time, we went to that nice people in that one church.
00:41:55
Speaker
that had a grieving parents group. And they were wonderful people. They were people that, you know, ministered to others through this grief-sharing group. However, we went once and
00:42:09
Speaker
met some nice people, but there were people there who were still grieving after like 10 years and 12 years. And I guess maybe they would tell their story to encourage others if they made it through, but it was still
00:42:26
Speaker
so emotionally charged for them. And we made a decision at that point that we weren't going to do that. It's like, yeah, we needed to recover. We needed time to process. And the whole experience shaped us in different ways. But we just decided that we were going to do something. We're going to do this healing and recovery a little bit different. And
00:42:51
Speaker
And we did. And you make a choice when you have something like that happen. You make a choice. You either lay down and die, or you get up and fight. And I remember that in that intense period of sorrow,
00:43:08
Speaker
The only people that were able to help me were people who had walked that road. I remember Tommy White just smiling, that great smile of his saying, it's going to be OK. And then I remember Peggy Lecce, a girl from high school, and she had lost two beautiful children.
00:43:29
Speaker
days apart. One was 11 and one was 12. It was from cystic fibrosis, which is a horrible thing. But she called me and said, you're going to feel OK. You are going to smile again. You're going to laugh again. It's going to be OK. And those were the people who gave me hope. And in turn, I'm always looking for the good in something. And that's what I got from that. Now, I'm able to look somebody in the eye and say, I know what you feel like.
00:43:59
Speaker
and it's going to be okay. You have to believe it's going to be okay. So that was my take. I think as we go through this life thing, I think that's part of, as you grow and grow in experiences, your empathy is going to help the next person.
00:44:23
Speaker
And everybody has stuff. Everybody has tragedies, disasters, sicknesses. Everybody does. It doesn't matter. Money cannot buy you out of all those sort of things in life because this is not heaven. This is definitely, we're going through trials and tribulations for sure every day. And so that, you know, you're able to come through it and then be
00:44:50
Speaker
a source for others. I mean, I think that's, that's the best you could, you could expect or hope for coming through a situation like that. So anyway, so then we go. Alright, so from being super mad and angry about God, and I go to, let's, let's just figure this out. We started doing something called God chasing, we're, we're going everywhere to find, you know, like peaceful things and leaning on God in different ways.
00:45:19
Speaker
Um, and we've been told that, uh, because of the nature of your injuries from the accident, that you weren't going to be able to have any more children. And, uh, surprise, surprise. I don't even, there was two more showed up. And, um, so that was, uh, I think, you know, watching you and seeing you, uh, you know, trying not to be quote unquote overprotective.
00:45:47
Speaker
But at the same time, like just being aware and just appreciating, not another chance, but just appreciating having your children with you. That was interesting to watch. I know we messed around with different schools, homeschooling. You were taking care of family members. I have this Holy Ghost experience in the early 90s. And I started doing these,
00:46:14
Speaker
presentations in schools, unbending and breaking and tearing things. And, you know, you were running the sound, you became the sound engineer, you know, we'd go into all these different places,
Relocating to South Carolina
00:46:25
Speaker
lugging all this equipment and, you know, introductions, you do, you know, some teaching, keeping everything together with that, as well as monitoring the kids at home when we're out. And then, you know, so over the years, I mean, it just kind of, you know, the years piled up, family,
00:46:43
Speaker
Happy times, not happy times, whatever. And then COVID hits. I fast forwarded pretty fast. And the family had scattered, not because of COVID, but everybody moved out of state in terms of our children for different reasons.
00:47:00
Speaker
opportunities and marriages and things like that. And we just kind of came to the realization that nobody was coming back because of taxes and real estate costs and traffic and whatever, they weren't coming back. And so, so we decided to move out in New Jersey, we ran down by my mom, who had moved to North Carolina, be there for a few months. And I'm getting kind of antsy because I'm like,
00:47:28
Speaker
you know, 67 years old, living with my mom. All right. And I know we were there for a reason. She had a stroke and you're, you know, you're caring for and everything. And, uh, you know, trying to be supportive, but, uh, me and a homeowner's association do not exactly go together. Plus our two big dogs, whatever. So, uh, we end up through another crazy chain of events. We end up in the deep South in South Carolina and
00:47:57
Speaker
I mean, what was your, I mean, have you like even reflected on that? We've only been here three years, but every time I say that, I remember like growing up as a kid, whatever the perception of the deep South was, like I just never imagined like living there. Did you, what was your, did you have a perspective? You traveled a lot more than I did when we were younger. Well, it was definitely time to move. Um,
00:48:26
Speaker
And we did love that house, but we wound up
00:48:31
Speaker
being able to keep it because we continued to work really, really hard and it was becoming a lot. So we did sell the house and it was kind of exciting. As stressful as it was because we had from the time I left my job till the day we walked up that driveway for the last time, we had four weeks to get rid of like 40 years worth of stuff.
00:48:58
Speaker
So that was a little bit stressful. But when we finally got it done, we walked up the driveway that last day, kind of holding each other up and didn't even look back. And we loved that house, but we were just so exhausted.
00:49:14
Speaker
But, you know, we get to North Carolina and it was kind of fun. Like I remember taking a picture of you driving the, you hold truck with a trailer and the car on the trailer and the dog in the, you know, passenger seat and I'm following you in, in my vehicle. Um, and it was kind of exciting. It was like an adventure. It's like, okay, where are we going? I don't know. So we were going, we're going to our new life though. But then when we.
00:49:40
Speaker
you know, got to South Carolina. You had wanted to live in South Carolina. You requested that we would live in a red state, and I didn't really care. So, you know, South Carolina. Well, we wanted to be near Christopher, too. Christopher and his family. My old Harold is good in his family. Yeah. Yeah. So, but it was, I mean, it's different, but it's good. It's, you know, the series of events that had gone on a few years preceding that move.
00:50:09
Speaker
It just was kind of all lined up, and this is what we were supposed to be doing. It was kind of part of the plan. So here we are, and South Carolina is beautiful and great people. I mean, we surrounded
Reflecting on the Journey
00:50:24
Speaker
us. I feel like we were just graciously plopped down in the middle of this great neighborhood with, you know, it's rural like ours was up home, but great neighbors and lots of soil to grow.
00:50:39
Speaker
a longer growing season. It's scary when you've done your whole life in one place and you pick up and move, but there's a time for change. There was a time for that. I know, but you had sisterhood, spiritual connections up north.
00:51:03
Speaker
just, you know, that you had developed over the years. And I guess, you know, during COVID, you know, those sessions you guys had. Zoom. Zoom sessions, right? Every week or two weeks, whatever.
00:51:20
Speaker
So that carried over when we moved. Physically, people couldn't be together, but you're still able to keep your connections up north. But then at the same time, all of a sudden, it was just unbelievable connections we started making down here. I mean, people were just outgoing, friendly, caring, great neighbors, great church family. It's just been amazing. But yeah.
00:51:50
Speaker
That's basically all I wanted to go through today, just giving people kind of an introduction to where we are, what we're all about. And so from perspectives based on experience regarding food, to getting through tragedy, to being able to adapt, I think today's conversation would, it should give everyone a big dose of hope. And all things ultimately do work out.
00:52:17
Speaker
And, uh, that's a wrap. I hope everyone enjoyed today's episode and, and you got some takeaways that you can use. Uh, you can reach Lynn, uh, probably out in the garden in the dirt. Um, at this point in the podcast, they usually give people's web pages and everything, but, uh, it's just, you know, drive by and, uh, travel is risk. Ask about the lady out in the dirt and you'll find, uh,
00:52:44
Speaker
And please share this with your friends. Uh, don't forget all my stuff at russelljonespeaks.com. If you're a parent or grandparent or mentor to attend a 15 year old, check out our 60 day transformational interactive video series, top secrets of success for kids and parents. And in the words of the inimitable Hulk Hogan, say your prayers, take your vitamins and you'll never go wrong. Then you can all go and make it a great day. Bye for now. Bye.