John: My name is John; I'm 73 years old and I'm Spring Lake Village.
Janet: My name is Janet. I am 61 years old. I am from Hudsonville in Michigan. I live in a very conservative area and a lot of my friends are very conservative and it's hard for me to have conversations with them because they're so close to me and I thought this might be a good way to start that and understand better.
John: I have a different experience. I'm a little conservative and many of my friends are on the more liberal side. (Laughter) I feel like I'm ‘the other’ sometimes. And interestingly, Janet, I have now run for precinct delegate in the Republican party in my precinct here and have seen the other side of the coin. I've participated in some of the Ottawa County Republican stuff now and many of these people are part of the right of me. So, I can see where you're coming from there.
Janet: Where did you grow up, John?
John: I was born in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. At that time, it was a very small town. There were 5,000 people in town and Central Michigan College at that time. We had 5,000 students. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Now it's much different. In those days we had to go to Midland or Saginaw to even get to a McDonald's. Very little in Mount Pleasant. How about you? Where did you grow up?
Janet: Well, my dad was in the military, so I grew up all over. I was born actually in Massachusetts and spent some time in Alabama and then in Washington state. Then we spent six years in North Dakota and my dad was a Colonel in the Air Force and when he was in his 50s, they cycled him into Vietnam. So interestingly, when you are in the military and your spouse is sent overseas, we can't live on the base. So, my mom said, I'm not living in North Dakota. So, we went to Florida for a year and then spent a year in Georgia. And then my dad retired because they were going to send them back to Vietnam and he just thought he was too old to do that for a second time. So, I finished junior high and high school in Orchard Park, New York, and then came out to Michigan to go to Michigan State University. Moved to this area right out of college.
John: You've been all over. I went to U of M (University of Michigan) when I was 18, but I didn't stay. I wasn't ready for that. I'd gone to a military school for most of high school. Too big a switch from the military school to U of M and I went wild. I didn't settle down until I was 30 something and then I've got my degree as an adult at Muskegon Community College and then Grand Valley State University going to school at night.
Janet: I wish I had taken at least a year off. I was 17 when I left for college. What is your faith background? How or does it shape your life?
John: I was raised to Methodist. I didn't go to church for many years. And then in my 30s, I came back to the church. I started out in the Reformed Church. I liked it because they had a six o'clock PM service. I thought this was perfect for me. But then I learned that they wanted you to go to both services on Sunday. I went some more, and I moved to Muskegon and kind of fell away from that. Then I ended up coming back to the Presbyterian Church because they had an 11 o'clock service and they were good people and easy to go there and there was nothing really contrary to what I believed. I've been there since 1997 maybe. My late wife got dementia, I cared for her, and she passed about six years ago, and I ended up meeting my current spouse who had also cared for her late husband. So, she was a more regular church attender. She came to First Presbyterian, and we became more active. Church is a force for good in society and it's good for me and it's good for our society.
Janet: So, do you think it's shaped your life?
John: It's made me a better person. Yes. How about you, Janet?
Janet: I grew up in the Catholic religion. My dad was, staunch Catholic might not be the right word, but church every Sunday, Sunday school. Interestingly, they never got me confirmed, which I always thought was very odd. And I think it was because we were moving from state to state in that period. As a kid in the military, I really enjoyed church. I enjoyed it, it was a very community experience. The churches in the military, seven o'clock they were the Presbyterian church. At eight o'clock they were the Methodist church. At nine o'clock the Catholics came in. It was a very kind of easygoing, laid-back situation. When we finally settled in New York, it was a very old school Catholic church. And I really didn't like the church. As a teenager, I thought it was all about how much money they could raise. They didn't have a lot of extracurricular activities that I thought were helping the community. So, I really have never gone back to the church. I tried a little bit when my kids were younger, and I just never found a church that I was really comfortable with here. So, I feel like there's a higher power and I really, to your point, feel that we need to help our society. I try to do that outside of a church group. If I could find a church that I really felt like I was part of the community, that still carried all my beliefs I would probably go back to church, but I just haven't found that fit right now. What did you do?
John: I retired as I.T. manager of a manufacturing company. My career path was computer programming.
Janet: That's interesting. My husband and I raised my two boys. I worked as an operations manager at the Sara Lee and then Tyson factory. So I was, you know, working 60 hours, 70 hours a week. Traveled, and I had very little time. So, What I did, I spent with the boys. Now that I'm retired, have little bit more time to look around and maybe do some other stuff.
John: Retirement is good.
Janet: I'm enjoying it so far.
John: Me too. It's been good. I retired in 2016 while my late wife was still alive.
Janet: How did you meet your second wife?
John: My first wife did all the gardening and flowers and things like that. After she passed, the place was a wreck. I was a wreck. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and so hard. So, I tried some things in the yard and garden, and I had some failures. I should have listened better, but I didn’t. I went to a garden store and walked in and said, ‘I need help,’ and it was my wife who was there. We talked and she said, ‘well, I live not too far from there, I'll walk my dog by and come up with some recommendations.’ So, I circled back a few days later. She sold me some stuff, and I did what she said and got a lot of compliments. All the stuff lived. So, I didn't think anything more about it. I thought she was kind of cute, went on and through the summer, I was in grief counseling and in the fall there was a festival at the local Catholic church. I was going to go to that. But then I decided not to and just laid on the couch. The counselor said, ‘you got to get out.’ I thought back and I thought about Betsy and then okay, I couldn't remember her story at that point. See if she's still there or where she's at. I went back, but she wasn't there that day. I went back the next day. She wasn't there then either. I bought a bird feeder. I went back the next day. I didn't buy anything, but I milled around and then got in line when she was with the last person checking out. But they talked a long time and a line formed behind me. Nevertheless, I went ahead. Scared to death.
Janet: I bet. That takes a lot of bravery. It really does.
John: We talked, and I asked her, and she said, ‘I'm widowed.’ But I asked her if she wanted to go out for a cup of coffee. And she said, ‘I don't know, I have to think about it.’ I just got the heck out of there. Then she came walking her dog down the street. I was in the yard. We talked and then we went out for coffee. Then one thing led to another.
Janet: Nice.
John: Yeah.
Janet: John, can you describe briefly in your own words, your personal political values?
John: I kind of don't fit into a category, Janet. Recently, maybe a month or two ago, the Wall Street Journal had a questionnaire and a graph triangular in nature with three axes. And I answered all these questions, and I pointed to a spot on that graph near the upper vertices of the three triangles. It said I was pretty close to a libertarian. I’m conservative. Economically I’m for a strong defense, very tolerant socially and all I can think of right now. How about you, Janet?
Janet: I joke with one of my friends who's very conservative that she's a closet Democrat and she says I'm a closet Republican. I would say I'm fairly conservative fiscally. There's some things I strongly believe in social programs. You know, I feel like I grew up very blessed with, you know, my parents paid for my college. I didn't want for food or shelter or anything I really needed. So, I feel like as an adult who had a good job and, know, a nice home that It is my social responsibility because I had those privileges. A lot of people don't have those privileges. So, I think it's okay that we help that along. I don't think that socialism. I don't think that's…I don't think most people, if they had a choice would live on welfare. They're in a situation that put them there. I'm a social liberal. Did Betsy share your political views?
John: No, we have some interesting discussions on the more liberal side of some things. We're together on a lot of things, but not on other things, but we can talk about all these things.
Janet: That's good. So, is there anything about my bio that you're curious about?
John: Well, I think we're both worried about the deep divisions in our country. The lies that are spread. I see a lot of that from both extremes. How do you see it?
Janet: I do too. Yeah. My bias is on the liberal side. So, I think there is more spread on the other side, but I know, I mean, there's things that I really have to be careful to research when I see them pop up on a Facebook feed or hear them. It’s like, you know, I don’t think that makes a lot of sense. So, I really try hard to vet anything before I share it. But I don't know how to stop that because I don't know how to, that's probably my biggest concern is how do we stop people from sharing things that aren't true? Because if you hear something enough times, you start to incorporate it as, oh that must be true.
John: Just a little skepticism and credibility or lack thereof detector goes off, you think that's hard to believe. Can that be true? And then you look into it and yeah that's just something somebody made up that's getting passed along. It's been a pleasure, Janet, to talk to you.
Janet: It's been a pleasure talking to you too. I wish you luck in the delegates. Keep telling them what you think because it's important.
John: Well, I think it's a small voice, but just like the grain of sand, if you add enough of them, you have something. Pebbles in the backpack. Enough pebbles in the backpack, you're not going to be able to pick it up. That's my voice.