Do I have any memories of recess as a kid. I have lots of memories of recess as a kid. Being out on the playground, on the monkey bars with my friends and watching all these kids that could do these flips. I was so jealous of them. It was, I remember one girl in third grade, Stacy, came off the bars to do a flip and hit another bar and busted her head wide open, blood went everywhere it was so gross. It was so weird. We're all like freaking out. But yeah, it was, I have, I don't think I ever got hurt, but like I said my friend got hurt, a lot of indoor recesses. You know, when I worked at the schools we tried to have what was called rainy day cart, so we had, every classroom had like $150 so the teachers could go buy rainy day stuff to have on a cart that’s specific to their room. California you don't get a lot of rainy days, but you do get some. So, but I have a lot of memories of you know, as a kid playing dodgeball in the gym, Red Rover, Red Rover that one but now you can't play either one of those games because they're too hazardous to kids, you know.

The first election I voted in, interesting story, let me tell you about my parents. When I was a young child. I lived out in the township, out in one of the townships and we voted actually went into a voting booth and would fill out a paper ballot and mark our ex on the ballot. And what my parents would do is bring me a sample ballot to -- to do my quote-unquote vote. So I was six years old in 1960 when President Kennedy was elected and my first ballot quote-unquote ballot was for President Kennedy. So as a child every year when my folks went to go vote they would bring me a sample ballot home. So I think, first of all that that was kind of cool and I just marvel at the – the -- the brilliance of my parents to get me involved in voting and to have me experience voting, and to get me really want to vote. I really wanted to vote, the Constitution allowed -- it was changed to allow eighteen-year-olds to vote. I was eighteen in 1972 and I cast my vote, my first ballot, my first vote for president. I cast for George McGovern, Senator McGovern. And that was, I don't know a fool's errand I guess but he -- he spoke to me I guess, you know through the media and stuff and I was interested in what he wanted to accomplish. After Bobby Kennedy died man, it was tough to get behind a candidate again and put all your hopes and dreams there. But, the first time I ever voted was just cool. I went out again out to the township hall and picked up my official ballot, finally after all these years, and walked into the actual voting booth. They have wooden voting booths that are still use out there. And put my paper down and put my ballot down rather, and marked my ex on the people I wanted to vote for and folded It up, however we were supposed to fold it and brought it out. And it was just the coolest thing that I ever could imagine to actually have an actual real ballot and so my -- my parents are pretty smart. They got me to want to vote twelve years before I was able to and they had me practice voting…

If you had a friend moving to Michigan from a warm place, how would you prepare them for a Michigan winter? Oh, man. When I was in high school we had an exchange student from Brazil. She was about half a year or a year older than me. She had never seen snow before. So we bought her a nice winter jacket. You know, they seem expensive at first, you know, two or three hundred bucks if you buy them new. That's an investment, that's – that’s keeping you warm. And of course gloves and hat, scarf, boots, the boots is another potentially pricey item, you know, it's up to your discretion how much you want to invest in that. But my, what did my exchange sister, I'm trying to remember what we called her. She called me and my sister host brother, host sister. We're the host family. I can't remember what we called her. Mostly just called her Carla. Exchange sister I guess is a good name. But yeah, she’d never seen or touched snow before she was really amused that when you breathe you can see the steam come out. She was very amused by that and I'm very amused by that. She didn't know that snow was cold. She touched the snow and she goes, "it's cold" and me and my sister just laugh. And you know, how would you know, there’s probably tons of stuff about Brazil that I’m clueless about. That's kind of the idea, you know.

What was the last time I pulled a prank? Who did you pull it in? What did you do? Me and my brother are really big at doing stupid stuff to each other, and doing stupid stuff to our sister. I don't know. I like to laugh. I like to make jokes. I like to be stupid. I don't know, we've done a lot of silly things in times. I remember my favorite -- one of my favorites honestly, this was years and years and years ago, but my mom is such a big lottery ticket haw-- I mean just fiend about these lottery tickets. She buys lottery tickets and scratch card, you know scratches. And we bought the fake lottery ticket for her, the one that said she won $10,000 and we gave it to her for her birthday. Oh my gosh, it was so funny, but it's almost so funny, it was mean. Cause she -- she was like jumping all over and she’s like “Oh my gosh. I can't believe it! I can't believe it!” She's like yelling at my step dad, telling my step dad. My step dad's not getting excited, he knew. And she was so excited and she yelling --  and finally she just stopped, she looked at my step dad and she’s like, “What's wrong with you? Why are you not like,” -- and she goes, “uh it's not real, right?” Cause if you turn it over it actually says something like where to collect and it'll say like in your dreams or something, but that was really funny, but it was really really mean I would never do that again. Because I mean right now with money everybody is so like tied so tightly about money that just to do something like that would be just right, down right cruel, but it was quite a funny thing that we did. It was very funny. So yeah.

The other thing around Nine Eleven that is pretty seared into my memory is you know the whole country shut down, but particularly New York City, the city that never sleeps, you know was pretty much brought to silence as people regrouped and try to figure out next steps and how to rebuild and what -- what they needed to do and as it happened my you know tourism pretty much stopped. But I found some flights that actually were discounted and hotel rates were discounted and they were encouraging people continue to come to New York City. So I convinced my mother-in-law and two sister-in-law’s to take a trip to New York City with me, in the middle of November. So this would have been about eight weeks, after 9/11, it was before Thanksgiving. So yeah, it was right in the middle of November. So eight weeks and we of course, when we were there the town came back to life and bounced back pretty quickly.  We saw a Broadway show Les Mis and we had tickets to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes Holiday Spectacular, which was indeed very very spectacular. And dinner out, Times Square, you know some museums the things that you would typically do.  But as we traveled around the city, which was hindered because there were some subway spots that were still closed due to damage from the buildings’ collapse. As we traveled around the city in cabs, you know, we talked to people or waitress at a restaurant and you know, what was your experience that day and everyone had a story about how they couldn't get home and the bridges were closed and transportation came to a halt and whether they were near the actual collapse of the Twin Towers or not. They -- they all had stories or stories of friends who were impacted or how or -- or even a life lost. The city had a, it had a, I don't know if it's right to say a cloud hanging over it. Certainly there was a Melancholy you felt with people as -- as you talked to them. And one of the things we did do was go to ground zero and of course it was hard to get there because the subway stations were closed, but we got as close as we could and -- and there…