Bitchy History - Mother's Day Special

00:00:00.000 something that's you know kind of bitchy pretty bitchy bitchy i know it's just you know bitchy

00:00:07.700 well first of all you're a little bitchy that's that's next level bitchy welcome to bitchy history

00:00:14.460 the irreverent history podcast where one history professor gets to bitch about history and the

00:00:18.780 impact it has on the world today hi everybody welcome to the podcast uh it's not going to be

00:00:25.100 mother's day when you watch this episode because i'm not going to get the editing

00:00:28.960 done that fast, obviously. But it is Mother's Day as we are recording the episode. And as a result,

00:00:34.920 I've decided to have my mom on the podcast as a special guest. So this will be a new thing. I'm

00:00:40.760 also going to be doing the same thing with Father's Day. My dad's going to be on the show

00:00:44.000 for that month as well as a special guest. And I like to bring them on. I'm liking to bring them

00:00:50.480 on here because I've actually told lots of their stories and things like that to my students when

00:00:56.140 I teach history because it's really nice to illustrate, you know, real life, real life people

00:01:00.900 who've lived through real events, um, and how they affected them and things like that. Um, so I've

00:01:05.660 told lots of my mom's stories to my students, but I haven't actually told your stories to people on

00:01:10.640 the podcast really. Like, I don't know, there might be one or two of them that I vaguely mentioned,

00:01:14.420 uh, but I haven't, I haven't really gone in depth on them. So, and you know, who's, who better to

00:01:18.560 actually tell the story than you? So, uh, and I spent a lot of time, you know, in my community

00:01:23.160 History Project class last semester talking about interviewing your family and interviewing

00:01:28.300 people about their life stories and things like that. So yeah, so this is my mom. Hi. Hi, Meredith.

00:01:35.200 And I just want to say that I am very proud of the work that you do, of revealing things. And

00:01:43.220 I've got to say some of the most heroic heroes I can think of are whistleblowers. And Meredith

00:01:49.020 is a whistleblower of sorts she brings daylight to dark subjects and that need revealing and

00:01:55.680 i myself have been a moderate somewhat of a whistleblower in the past i can tell you some

00:02:01.560 of the stories and um i've been well my uh my own um mom and dad i have uh likened me to a bulldog

00:02:11.320 who gets a hold of something and never lets go so i uh i come from good stock good hearty stock

00:02:18.040 and Meredith does too.

00:02:19.100 Yeah, well, that's, you know,

00:02:20.200 I come below the title of the podcast

00:02:21.900 is Bitchy History

00:02:22.720 and I came by that naturally,

00:02:24.860 honestly, it's genetic.

00:02:26.120 And I approve.

00:02:27.080 Exactly, you approve of the title.

00:02:28.980 So, yeah, and like, you know,

00:02:30.200 it's like my friend,

00:02:31.340 my friend Tad,

00:02:32.740 who says that I have the personality online

00:02:34.980 of somebody swinging a baseball bat.

00:02:37.220 Well, sometimes it takes it.

00:02:38.500 I've got to do it.

00:02:39.260 I've got to say there's probably

00:02:40.780 ways to get people's attention

00:02:44.320 and get people's cooperation

00:02:45.440 and enlighten people

00:02:46.960 in kinder and gentler ways.

00:02:49.540 But I have not found that way.

00:02:51.820 And I have not found it to be so.

00:02:53.280 And I just have to

00:02:54.860 maybe scare people

00:02:57.840 sometimes by my

00:02:59.800 force of will.

00:03:01.480 Maybe men. I think men sometimes get

00:03:03.760 the ability. Well, yeah, but I think men get the ability

00:03:05.960 to try to be kind and gentle

00:03:07.920 when they try to change people's ideas.

00:03:09.540 But when women are kind and gentle, it's just like,

00:03:11.820 oh, well, we don't have to take them seriously.

00:03:13.240 That's a whole topic we can get into.

00:03:14.880 whole thing we'll get into. Yeah. So I was born a long time ago and I was a late bloomer.

00:03:23.080 I went to optometry school when I was around 32, which is kind of a late bloomer for those

00:03:30.640 kind of things. And so I was married, had a child, and I say that my optometry degree was my second

00:03:38.260 child and then Meredith was born the last year of the optometry school and I have some stories to

00:03:46.620 tell about optometry school being an older student they didn't like older students because we had more

00:03:52.640 opinions and we demanded some sort of respect when the other students were just so happy to be there

00:03:58.280 and they took any kind of abuse that they wanted to dish out and said please more and so I was in

00:04:05.160 And after Meredith was born, she was born at the beginning of my fourth year of optometry school.

00:04:11.240 That fourth year, they just piled things on us a lot.

00:04:14.920 We had lots of outside clinics.

00:04:16.740 I couldn't just sit in class, do homework, take notes, be in clinic in school.

00:04:21.460 But they sent us around the community doing work and to people's homes to do home exams and all kinds of things.

00:04:27.640 So, um, I was in a clinic and, um, at the end of the day, the, um, clinic professor walked me out, the, um, a supervisor we had walked me out.

00:04:40.520 And as I'm putting my equipment away in my car to go home, she says, Karen, you can't be a mom and an optometrist both.

00:04:48.340 You have to choose one.

00:04:50.600 You have to choose one.

00:04:52.040 And I'm like, I already have a baby and, you know, I'm nearly a teenager.

00:05:00.620 I have two children.

00:05:02.120 I already have this baby.

00:05:03.700 What are you trying to do?

00:05:05.400 So I went home and I was very depressed for a few days.

00:05:09.620 And then I got angry.

00:05:10.860 I got very, very angry.

00:05:12.440 I went into school and I told the dean, I said, do you know why I'm here?

00:05:17.960 Other people are here to make money.

00:05:19.460 They're here for whatever they can get out of life.

00:05:22.060 But I'm here to improve the life of my family.

00:05:26.020 And I will not go back to that clinic.

00:05:29.220 I will not talk to that teacher ever again.

00:05:32.240 And I will not be back in that clinic.

00:05:34.020 Nobody ever said to, like, male students, you can't be a dad and an optometrist at the same time.

00:05:38.220 Nobody would do that.

00:05:39.280 They did not bother the male students.

00:05:42.040 When they went on vacations, they went on ski trips, and they went on vacations.

00:05:46.340 They were married, and they had kids.

00:05:47.780 nobody ever bothered them at all believe me it's a pretty tight-knit group there was a

00:05:52.220 about 195 maybe it's pretty small school yeah and we uh we were in classes together a lot we knew

00:05:58.880 each other we talked you know we talked and and uh the men got by with whatever whatever and the

00:06:04.560 women were probably about 30 percent of the class were women um there was a small number of older

00:06:10.140 students like myself who had been in careers or had you know had a life before the optometry school

00:06:15.400 And we, you know, I don't know.

00:06:19.880 I think that's the way schools were back then, and they probably still are that way.

00:06:23.100 They think that the students are inferior, and they can, you know, you're there to learn and to be equipped into shape

00:06:29.040 and to be broken and remade into their image that they perceived they wanted to have.

00:06:34.280 And so they worked with me.

00:06:36.620 They adjusted my schedule, and I did graduate, and I didn't have to go back to that class anymore.

00:06:43.740 and but that was one of the things that you know I just had a come to Jesus

00:06:49.020 meeting with the Dean and I had several other occasions like that where I had to

00:06:55.060 get in their face and say no this isn't gonna happen this is rude and I remember

00:06:59.280 this is kind of funny so after you finish school graduate school I'm sure

00:07:03.800 some of you have had this experience they send you start sending you letters

00:07:06.920 inviting you to donate money to the school and I said kind of crack addict and I actually sent

00:07:15.300 them back a note and I said you know you fire a couple of teachers and I will give you money but

00:07:20.940 until I get notification that you fired them I will never give you a penny because of the abuse

00:07:26.260 that we suffered and I in particular suffered and anyway mean mean mean but I believe I changed

00:07:31.940 things in the class anyway yeah the class after mine the very next class we had in our in our

00:07:38.680 school they had this nice little program where you kind of put took the in the entering class

00:07:43.780 and next class like when I was in second year the new first year's coming in they assigned me

00:07:48.100 a student to kind of help and see if they needed help and show them the ropes and things like that

00:07:52.780 and um she had a baby and she had a baby so they gave you and so and you know what they had a little

00:07:59.820 place set aside for her where she could go in and lock the door and pump. She had, you know,

00:08:07.300 she had cooperation and they treated her nice as far as I know. And they, they never did that for

00:08:12.280 me. So I think that some of the experiences that we earlier students went through, um, did change

00:08:20.580 things. Now back then, I mentioned that we had about 30% probably were female, you know? And so

00:08:26.460 it went on every year, every year

00:08:28.580 that's happened, it's

00:08:30.520 gotten more and more females. Now, I

00:08:32.360 understand that it's almost 100% female

00:08:34.580 optometry schools. Wow, wow.

00:08:36.580 So,

00:08:37.420 they don't like that.

00:08:39.820 Yeah, because, so, you know,

00:08:42.360 there's lots of, like,

00:08:43.460 professional

00:08:45.540 organizations that you can join, or

00:08:48.160 things like that, that you can join when you're working

00:08:50.260 because if you're a lawyer, you can join

00:08:52.220 in the Bar Association, and you go to, like,

00:08:54.580 mixers, and you're involved with that kind of world. So optometry also has those, right? You

00:09:00.960 go to CE, continuing education, and stuff like that. But there's also, is it okay if I name

00:09:04.920 drop the website? Go ahead. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there's a, yeah, there's a website called

00:09:12.780 ODYR, which is basically a forum. I love it. It's great. Yeah, it's a great website. But

00:09:17.500 there's a lot of people, I know that a lot of people think that the internet would be a better

00:09:21.720 place if people had to put the real names on their ideas and the things that they say.

00:09:27.500 But you have to put your real names on this website, and I don't, it hasn't helped.

00:09:31.840 They verify that you're an actual optometrist where you went to school, and this is your

00:09:35.220 identity, and so all of us have our names attached.

00:09:37.820 Right, so you can look these people up, you can know where they work, where they, you

00:09:41.220 know, where they teach.

00:09:42.040 Some of them are teaching in optometry schools and things like that.

00:09:44.700 You know who they are, and they say the most unhinged crap all the time.

00:09:51.720 She's telling me about it all the time.

00:09:53.200 Anyway, yeah.

00:09:53.860 I was bringing it.

00:09:54.740 Meredith, Meredith.

00:09:55.460 This is what so-and-so said.

00:09:57.580 She knows the names.

00:09:58.140 I know the names now.

00:09:59.360 And I said, should I say anything?

00:10:01.220 Should I say anything?

00:10:01.920 Say what you want to, Mom.

00:10:03.220 Say it.

00:10:03.560 Say it.

00:10:04.180 Read this.

00:10:04.700 This is what I want to say.

00:10:05.660 Yeah, y'all go for it.

00:10:06.840 So a while back we had a thing.

00:10:11.680 I can't remember how it got started.

00:10:13.020 But the thing was that came out was that the men, the male optometrists were saying,

00:10:19.080 how do we get more, literally

00:10:20.980 the words exactly, how do we get

00:10:23.200 more men in optometry?

00:10:25.260 There's too many women. There's too many women.

00:10:27.220 They're taking over. We have to have

00:10:29.140 more, you know,

00:10:31.020 basically white men because it's only like

00:10:33.180 1% of optometrists are black anyway.

00:10:35.400 Right. I've heard.

00:10:36.500 The black optometrist has said that.

00:10:38.600 Yeah. And it's like

00:10:40.440 we need more

00:10:41.440 men and they're

00:10:44.580 always denigrating

00:10:46.820 women on, well they just

00:10:48.600 want off more time and they have time to they have to take time out for their kids and they

00:10:52.580 have to take time off and childbirth I mean it just ruins a practice when a woman has to take

00:10:56.940 off to any time at all for childbirth and it's like oh I get so angry I get so angry and I get

00:11:02.500 tired and I go on little sabbaticals from the website and then I come back I see something

00:11:09.920 that I absolutely have information that I you know first hand yeah information that will make

00:11:16.060 their lives more shall i say woke yeah maybe more woke and um and so i put it in there and

00:11:23.240 then i get attacked again they get mad and then i well remember i block them remember the thing

00:11:28.100 that that that was really crazy a while back that happened was when they put that new moderator

00:11:32.340 they but they got a new moderator for the forum uh and it was a woman and the response to her

00:11:40.080 coming on was wild she's not an optometrist she but she's been in the industry as long as

00:11:45.460 i've been an optometrist and she's worked in uh she's been editors of optometry journals and

00:11:50.180 things she's well respected well known she's done she's been around the block and she's a

00:11:55.460 a charming person she's she's much um friendlier and more happy-go-lucky than i am yeah and she

00:12:02.340 hasn't been she hasn't been quite as as jaded and i sent her a private message and and i said

00:12:08.660 boy, that came

00:12:10.280 unwound really fast.

00:12:12.660 Yeah, that went off the rails. That escalated

00:12:14.660 quickly. I mean, really.

00:12:16.340 Welcome, but, so you'd be tough

00:12:18.800 because I know you need to, Amanda.

00:12:20.340 Yeah, because they were, I mean, some of the stuff they were saying

00:12:22.180 was just, it was blatantly sexist. I mean, it was not even

00:12:24.220 just like, oh, we don't like her.

00:12:25.940 It was, we don't like her because she's a woman

00:12:28.020 and we don't want her having anything to say

00:12:30.300 about how the forum is run. How dare she?

00:12:32.140 How dare she be involved with this

00:12:34.180 when she's a woman? Ugh, terrible.

00:12:36.280 And they do the same stuff. Like you said,

00:12:38.340 there are a few black black optometrists on that forum too and they get the same like treatment

00:12:42.460 and it's the same thing of like oh there's too many there's too many people of color in optometry

00:12:46.340 school or there's too many and it's like too many women what is wrong yeah too many women especially

00:12:51.400 but what is wrong with you people that you are saying this stuff openly and i can't i've so

00:12:57.380 several times i've told you like is this person teaching at an optometry school and you're like

00:13:01.140 yes and i was like i think we need to write a letter like i don't think this person should be

00:13:05.480 allowed to teach. I've just got to say the ODWIRE community in general are the people who founded

00:13:12.180 it. It was an optometrist and his physician son who founded it. And they are wonderful. They're

00:13:18.740 wonderful. They're even-handed. They're wonderful. They're supportive. And they try to keep people

00:13:24.000 involved in what their purpose is, you know, like helping us deal with the problems of

00:13:30.980 optometry. Yeah, and like sharing real information about like how to deal. Like the other day,

00:13:34.680 you guys were having problems with an insurance company

00:13:36.400 and you guys shared the information with everybody else

00:13:38.820 so they would know what the insurance companies were doing.

00:13:41.240 It's good stuff, but

00:13:42.240 there's just a subset of people

00:13:44.400 on there that are just

00:13:46.060 toxic.

00:13:48.520 They're toxic dude bros.

00:13:50.840 That's what they are. I have a lot of them blocked.

00:13:53.320 Yeah, well, yeah.

00:13:55.140 But then they unblocked them

00:13:56.640 at one point, I think. Remember?

00:13:58.040 I remember you saying you had a guy blocked

00:14:00.280 and then they had booted him from the forum.

00:14:02.660 I said, how are you doing commenting on my statement?

00:14:03.600 Because I've got you blocked.

00:14:04.300 Right, because they blocked him, and I think they deleted him from the form entirely, and

00:14:07.320 then they let him back on, and he wasn't blocked anymore, so he was back on there with his

00:14:12.060 bullshit again, which is just, yeah, very frustrating, very, very frustrating.

00:14:15.380 Super Christians, yeah, that one in particular was a super Christian, which honestly gives

00:14:20.100 God a black eye, God and Jesus, both, black eyes, black eyes.

00:14:23.240 Like, like, what are you doing?

00:14:25.420 What are you doing?

00:14:26.240 You are a bad representation.

00:14:28.000 He's blocked, anyway.

00:14:29.480 Yeah, Christian, probably, I want to say, I don't remember that guy specifically, but

00:14:33.480 Christian nationalist vibes, I probably

00:14:35.840 he gives off. Initials JK,

00:14:37.680 which I feel is fitting.

00:14:39.540 Yeah, it's a big joke. He is a joke.

00:14:41.040 He is a joke.

00:14:43.400 But yeah, so if you have an optometrist whose

00:14:45.520 initials are JK, I don't know.

00:14:47.300 I'm just saying he might not be a great

00:14:49.560 guy. I'm not saying it's your JK,

00:14:51.960 but what is it about the

00:14:53.520 initials JK? JK Rowling also,

00:14:55.940 right?

00:14:57.280 Maybe the initials JK are just a

00:14:59.580 whole mess for everybody. I don't know.

00:15:02.100 Well, my name is Karen, so

00:15:03.460 yeah it's not fair though she's not like that like but but am i maybe well you are but not for

00:15:09.840 the way not in the way that like karens are like you don't go after people and like in grocery

00:15:15.640 stores or like checkouts or stuff like that i try to be very supportive to people when i do

00:15:21.580 a child's exam yeah i have in the back of my mind this kid and i tell the kids too i said

00:15:27.760 you don't want to close any doors in your life you want to be open to you know learn everything

00:15:32.280 you can in school you could be president someday sure you could be a surgeon someday you could be

00:15:37.980 you could do anything i want those kids to know and i'm going to help them see well yeah and i'm

00:15:42.680 gonna and and encourage them to just do the best they can in school and learn and and uh and and

00:15:48.680 you know i try to be supportive especially women who like me are late bloomers they're starting a

00:15:54.400 new project later in life and and they've got a little water under the bridge and i give them

00:15:59.620 advice from me. I tell them the story about optometry school. And I tell them, you know,

00:16:07.120 if you're having trouble in a subject, go to the teacher. Do all the homework, go to the teacher,

00:16:12.380 lay it out, and get help. You'll get help. Get help anywhere you can. I wish more college students

00:16:17.140 would do that. I just, I can't even. Last semester, it was like, you're failing the class,

00:16:22.000 and yet you've never come to my office hours even once. And I don't know what to do for you.

00:16:26.000 Well, I don't know.

00:16:27.840 But yeah, some people don't bother trying at all.

00:16:29.980 But yeah, unfortunately.

00:16:31.200 Especially the older ones.

00:16:31.800 I mean, there's a lot of like, they just really don't want you to be there.

00:16:35.240 I don't know why.

00:16:36.220 I don't want the old state students.

00:16:38.320 Well, I know.

00:16:38.680 I went to grad school later, too, because I finished my undergrad later.

00:16:42.800 And I mean, I was never treated that way by my professors.

00:16:45.920 Like, they never acted like I didn't belong there or anything like that.

00:16:49.800 That was never really the treatment.

00:16:51.040 Though, I mean, I guess my age didn't really enter into discussions very often.

00:16:55.220 They weren't really like being like, okay, these people are a normal age and these people aren't.

00:17:00.460 But I did feel like I could have an odd man out anyway, because it's like you had all this experience and life experience and things like that.

00:17:07.720 And then you're in class with students who are like 22, 23 years old.

00:17:11.640 And they're just like, what?

00:17:13.280 And I'm like, oh, God, you're such babies.

00:17:15.000 Like, you just don't know anything about the real world at all.

00:17:18.260 And I don't want to.

00:17:19.600 I feel like you blew a lot of minds in class discussions sometimes.

00:17:22.600 Yeah, I tried to.

00:17:23.660 Well, I mean, since I was in Europe.

00:17:24.820 In Europe, I did try to keep it cool because I didn't want to be the ugly American.

00:17:29.600 I didn't want to be the first American who's like, I'm going to give you my opinion on everything.

00:17:33.740 But sometimes I had to, right?

00:17:36.640 I had to enter in and explain it.

00:17:38.440 But, yeah, you've always got the wildest stories, the wildest ones.

00:17:42.540 So I'm trying to think what the one is that I – some of the ones I always tell my students.

00:17:46.020 That way you can kind of tell them and, you know.

00:17:48.840 I mean, always – one that always comes to mind is the library card story

00:17:53.760 because I always end up telling that story at some point.

00:17:56.460 So, yeah, the library card story.

00:17:58.940 Tell me the library card story because it's wild.

00:18:01.780 I was much younger then.

00:18:03.100 Let's say 24, 25 years old.

00:18:07.760 And I was married and pregnant.

00:18:10.940 And we had moved to another state, another town, another state.

00:18:14.720 And being a, you know.

00:18:18.240 I feel like it's important to know where it was, the state it was in,

00:18:21.440 because it is very prototypical for this.

00:18:23.200 This was Louisiana, so this should surprise, this story should surprise no one because they're always behind the times.

00:18:30.200 Yeah, and I'm going to write down a note for you to ask Dad some of the stories.

00:18:34.860 He was a teacher in public school in Louisiana.

00:18:38.220 I need to hear these stories, but they're his stories, not mine.

00:18:41.740 But anyway, I went to the library to get myself a library card.

00:18:46.300 I'm a, I won't say stay-at-home mom.

00:18:50.220 I wasn't a mom yet.

00:18:51.160 I was pregnant.

00:18:51.740 and um i wasn't working um and um went to the library to get a library card so i check out

00:18:59.040 books keep myself busy i've always been a big reader um and so i had uh they were going to give

00:19:05.340 me a a library card in my husband's name and i said excuse me i want a library card in my name

00:19:13.280 and they said well this is the way we do things and i said well you know i'm very happily married

00:19:19.600 But what if I died and he gets remarried?

00:19:23.700 Right.

00:19:23.940 Yeah.

00:19:24.180 And that remarried woman is going to have that same name.

00:19:27.960 That's not me.

00:19:29.420 That's his wife.

00:19:30.680 You're a human being.

00:19:31.880 I ought to have a library card in my own name.

00:19:34.860 And I don't know who won that battle.

00:19:36.760 That was a long time ago.

00:19:38.020 But it was just a ridiculous situation.

00:19:40.120 It's just ridiculous.

00:19:41.360 It's a ridiculous situation to be like, oh, you can't have it in your name.

00:19:44.660 I'm a real human person.

00:19:46.860 And this was years after.

00:19:48.140 It wasn't a credit card.

00:19:49.580 It wasn't a bank account.

00:19:51.180 It wasn't a car.

00:19:52.320 If it had been a credit card, you would have been able to sue them because this was after the Credit Equality Act.

00:19:57.800 Like, that was, like, 73, 74.

00:20:00.060 This was later than that.

00:20:02.100 A free, publicly supported lending library.

00:20:05.400 A free lending library.

00:20:06.460 I could not get a library card in my name.

00:20:07.920 And, like, what were they worried about?

00:20:09.600 You weren't going to be able to pay your library fines of 10 cents a day if you didn't?

00:20:13.920 Like, you could pay that with pocket change.

00:20:15.960 I think it was 2 cents back then.

00:20:17.640 Right.

00:20:17.880 It was two cents a day back then.

00:20:19.600 So it's like, what are they so worried about?

00:20:21.160 Oh, you're not going to be able to pay.

00:20:22.120 You don't have a job, so you're not going to be able to pay your fines.

00:20:24.440 Clearly, that wasn't money related.

00:20:26.220 It was just putting you in your place.

00:20:28.500 It was putting you in your place.

00:20:29.380 You don't have an identity.

00:20:31.080 You have given up your identity as a fully formed human being when you got married.

00:20:36.120 You don't have that anymore.

00:20:37.020 Because they also didn't do that.

00:20:38.020 So, like, if I had been a wife, they wouldn't have said that I, as a child, couldn't get a library card in my own name.

00:20:45.420 Maybe.

00:20:45.740 I don't think they would have said it has to be in your dad's name.

00:20:48.220 I can't remember those events.

00:20:48.680 I don't think so.

00:20:49.540 So it didn't inflame it and outrage me.

00:20:51.880 So it must have been normal by that time that you were getting your library card.

00:20:54.480 Must have been.

00:20:54.820 Because I remember getting a library card in my own name.

00:20:56.700 It was a children's card.

00:20:57.600 And there was like a limit on how many books you could take out.

00:20:59.500 Because that was it.

00:20:59.980 Yes, they were the best.

00:21:00.960 Even as a young mother, I'd take my kids for the story time or to look at all the books

00:21:05.760 and give you a chance to look at all the children's books and hang out in the children's section

00:21:09.760 and not be weird.

00:21:10.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:11.020 Because I love children's books and the illustrations and the stories.

00:21:14.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:14.260 It's beautiful.

00:21:15.000 And it's wonderful because then you get the opportunity also to have air conditioning, which we didn't always have.

00:21:21.220 We didn't always have.

00:21:22.260 That's not always been a thing.

00:21:24.600 Many times we've lived in very high places with no AC.

00:21:28.160 Or, you know, the electric was out or whatever.

00:21:30.380 We didn't have AC because of that.

00:21:31.620 And it was like, okay, we're going to go to the library today.

00:21:33.960 That's the new thing.

00:21:35.760 I've been thinking about that lately.

00:21:37.040 Because, you know, when the AC wasn't working, we had our air conditioner mess up a couple of weeks ago when we first started running it.

00:21:43.620 We just turned it on.

00:21:43.960 I first turned it on for the summer, and it wasn't working.

00:21:47.760 And I was like, oh, where am I going to go to get work done?

00:21:50.300 What am I going to do?

00:21:51.720 I'm going to have to go to, like, Starbucks, and I'm going to have to pay a bunch of money.

00:21:54.760 And I did end up going to Starbucks and buying, like, three or four lattes and sitting there and working.

00:21:59.520 But I realized afterwards, I was like, I could have gone to the freaking library.

00:22:02.580 The library is, like, four miles away.

00:22:04.480 I could have gone to the library and had free Wi-Fi and not paid anything for it.

00:22:08.080 Because I just forgot that libraries exist, apparently.

00:22:11.420 So that's the whole thing.

00:22:12.560 you know. I mean, I get all my books online now. The library sale, the used bookstores. The used

00:22:19.140 books, the big used books. The half price day. Yeah. That's where I get all my books now. I don't

00:22:24.220 actually go to the library anymore. Some wonderful books. I gotta try that out again soon. I think I

00:22:28.400 might get more work done at the library. It's possible. I might. I've got too many distractions

00:22:32.900 in this office. You might make more friends. You don't make more friends at home. I don't need more

00:22:38.580 friends. Just dog and cat, right? Just got you and the dog and the cat and dad, that's it. Where are they anyway?

00:22:44.340 Where are the dog and cat? The dog's right there. The cat's... She's in the garage. Causing trouble.

00:22:50.820 She chose to be. She likes the garage a lot these days, but... Yeah, she's... Yeah, so yeah,

00:22:56.080 the library card story always, like, blows my students' minds, I think. I remember telling...

00:23:01.180 I don't remember if I told that my first semester teaching my first crop of American

00:23:07.260 history students but and I think I think I did but I remember telling in my women's history class

00:23:11.640 because we were talking about the credit like the credit equality act in the 70s and I was like yeah

00:23:16.480 and that didn't even really solve the problem because you still have all these these different

00:23:20.420 states and different organizations that just genuinely did not view married women as fully

00:23:26.400 formed human beings for some reason like they just didn't see them and of course that goes back I've

00:23:31.720 done on the show I've done episodes in the past talking about the the different laws that actually

00:23:37.000 They did destroy women's personhood, you know, when they got married and things like that.

00:23:42.360 They didn't really have personhood as a married woman under British common law and things like that.

00:23:47.440 But it's so weird to think of that still being the case in America in the 20th century and that's still happening.

00:23:53.620 But, I mean, it's not like it's changed that much now.

00:23:57.180 Like we have discussed, and the things that we thought were solved have just opened up a whole new festuous thing, and we realize it never was solved.

00:24:10.880 Maybe it went underground for a while.

00:24:15.900 So recently, a news article popped up about, I think I might have told you about this, about a woman who was an optometrist.

00:24:24.320 optometrist, and she'd worked, she'd been an optometrist several years, and she'd worked at

00:24:29.100 this one clinic for four or five years, quite a long time, and she fell pregnant. Oh, no. Oh,

00:24:36.160 dear. So, um, she, uh, was also the kind of person, kind of like me, who says she's going to stand up

00:24:42.160 for the workers' rights and her rights, and that, that she was saying we need to restructure how

00:24:46.300 we pay the workers and optometrists, um, because, anyway, it was a pretty big clinic that had about

00:24:52.740 five or six optometrists I think and um so when she came back the first day back after having her

00:24:59.580 baby and she didn't they didn't pay her a penny I believe the story is they never didn't pay her a

00:25:05.320 penny of they just allowed her to be off and then she took vacation time and she was off a certain

00:25:11.600 amount of time and she financially arranged that she had enough money to live I mean she was married

00:25:17.860 to i presume and and um to pee off i don't know six months or something like that but anyway she

00:25:24.080 arranged it and she covered it for herself and they didn't pay her anything um no maternity leave

00:25:29.080 no maternity leave at all and then the very first day they canceled her a book of patients

00:25:34.240 they canceled her book of patients they brought her into the office and they fired her and they

00:25:39.740 fired her for um being disrespectful to the employees um so you know a non-event uh and uh

00:25:49.580 she was asking for time to pump breast milk some time at work a slightly reduced schedule for about

00:25:59.220 three days and then use some of her vacation days to have to have an extra like maybe work

00:26:05.000 four days a week for a couple more weeks.

00:26:07.160 So that she can keep, you know.

00:26:07.980 Just to kind of ease back into the schedule

00:26:10.300 after she's, you know, had a baby.

00:26:12.620 And...

00:26:13.060 Nothing ridiculous.

00:26:14.440 And so they fired her.

00:26:15.480 And so this is ongoing.

00:26:16.680 She's filed a lawsuit.

00:26:17.680 She got another job.

00:26:19.220 Things go on.

00:26:21.140 So, this was in 20...

00:26:24.580 I'm not sure when all this happened, 2022, maybe.

00:26:27.400 It was recent.

00:26:28.100 Yeah, it was very, very recent.

00:26:30.200 So, back when Meredith was a youngster,

00:26:33.820 she was about six years old I fell pregnant oh no babies huh well I always wanted like three

00:26:43.220 kids and she was she would she will be or she was my third yeah my third my um this one so I was

00:26:50.540 working for a um optical a pearl optical and when I got the job they knew I was pregnant and I said

00:27:01.660 and they were slightly concerned about it. I said, give me two weeks. After the baby's born,

00:27:07.000 give me two weeks. I'll be back at work. So two weeks I was back at work. They had replaced me.

00:27:14.860 They had replaced me. They just cut my schedule back to very, very minimal, minimal. I couldn't

00:27:22.500 afford food for my family. I couldn't afford milk. I couldn't afford what I needed for my family.

00:27:30.920 So, what did I do?

00:27:32.900 I got another job.

00:27:33.980 I got another job.

00:27:34.980 We moved houses.

00:27:35.880 We moved cities.

00:27:36.920 We moved to another city about 60 miles away.

00:27:39.940 And I kept going.

00:27:41.140 But that's the way we handled it back then.

00:27:42.880 But that's wrong, you know?

00:27:44.100 That's wrong to treat a woman that way.

00:27:45.200 And the way that they did that, I mean, like, honestly.

00:27:47.620 They could have told me.

00:27:48.600 They could have, yeah.

00:27:49.680 Well, they wouldn't have told you because, again, like, we were just talking about this the other night.

00:27:53.180 I was like, I'm pretty sure they did all of that very intentionally the way they did it because they wanted you to quit your job.

00:27:58.380 Because if you quit your job, you have less of a chance of filing a wrongful termination lawsuit over pregnancy.

00:28:04.420 Because that was, like, there had been laws passed by then.

00:28:07.660 That was, again, in the 70s, like, 70s and 80s, we saw, like, passage of laws for discrimination against pregnant women.

00:28:14.040 And if they had fired you right after, like, because, not hired you because you were pregnant, or fired you after you gave birth or anything like that, you could have sued them.

00:28:24.000 but they did which what's really sad about this is that i mean a lot of things are problematic

00:28:29.460 with it but one of the worst things about it is that somehow the businesses today are stupider

00:28:34.380 and how they handle wrong determination um close to 30 years ago yeah a good solid 25 plus years

00:28:43.240 ago yeah and and it's still happening it's still happening yeah it still happens and they were

00:28:47.520 just they were just incredibly more dumb about how to approach that with a modern situation than

00:28:52.700 they were then. Like they, they handled it in a way that tried to make sure that you couldn't

00:28:56.040 sue them, which. It's sad that the way that people will be treated as human beings has to be

00:29:02.660 legislated and that people just don't do it because it's the decent thing to do and the right

00:29:06.240 thing to be, the right way to be. And you came back after two weeks. I want to note. Two weeks.

00:29:11.080 Two weeks. Two weeks. And let me note, I'm going to note this. Okay. It was a 12 pound baby.

00:29:18.680 12 pounds. She was

00:29:20.800 12 pounds. And you didn't have an epidural

00:29:23.160 did you? I didn't have, it was natural

00:29:25.140 because I felt like that was the healthiest

00:29:27.160 way to give a child a start

00:29:29.380 in life. At the time

00:29:31.200 yeah. But at the time

00:29:32.300 I have changed my opinions on lots and lots

00:29:35.040 and lots of things and now it's kind of like

00:29:37.020 Well if you want the pain

00:29:37.940 If you need the drugs for whatever

00:29:40.440 situation that you have going on

00:29:43.220 One of the things that you were also really worried about

00:29:44.660 I remember you telling me once that you were worried about the epidural

00:29:46.780 because you were very paranoid about babies getting, like, switched or something like that.

00:29:50.380 I remember you saying you wanted to be conscious and alert and be like,

00:29:54.960 that's my baby, I've seen my baby, and I'm going to know if you switch my baby.

00:29:59.220 I memorized.

00:29:59.900 I memorized every child.

00:30:01.320 I said, I remember what this baby looks like.

00:30:03.220 You're not going to fool me.

00:30:03.920 So it wasn't even necessarily just about health.

00:30:05.720 It was like, I need to be sober and in the moment so I know that you don't try to switch my baby with somebody else.

00:30:11.200 Which, like, I want to say, oh, it's a little paranoid.

00:30:14.020 But, again, it happens.

00:30:15.660 It does happen.

00:30:16.780 So, I mean, it's not the worst, not the craziest paranoia you could have about a situation.

00:30:21.880 When Meredith was born.

00:30:23.080 Oh, so many stories.

00:30:24.040 So many stories I could tell.

00:30:25.280 Oh, God.

00:30:25.600 When Meredith was born, she was so, such a nice baby.

00:30:31.060 She was born in the middle of the day, not in the middle of the night.

00:30:34.960 I went through labor during the day.

00:30:37.220 You guys did have to drive several hours from home to the hospital.

00:30:41.040 but um but she was born and and I you know memorized her and then they're taking her off

00:30:48.620 to the nursery and I tell my husband go with her don't let you don't take your eyes off of her

00:30:52.660 stay with her keep an eye on her right there I'm fine leave me alone just go with her don't stay

00:30:58.300 with me I was very concerned I was very concerned that it was gonna be kidnapped or switched with

00:31:02.080 some other baby I don't know and obviously I was not you I'm always told that I sound like my mom

00:31:07.600 and when you guys see my dad and he comes on the show

00:31:09.800 I

00:31:10.900 it's obvious I'm related

00:31:13.180 we're honestly genetically

00:31:15.220 we've got a lot of facial similarities

00:31:17.660 like yeah every time I answer the phone

00:31:19.680 and somebody's expecting her

00:31:21.640 they think it's her like you know

00:31:23.560 but very similar voices

00:31:25.700 we have more time do you want more story

00:31:27.120 oh we can do way more yeah

00:31:28.780 so do you want the rest of the

00:31:31.320 birth of the third child's birth

00:31:34.060 the third child birth yeah yeah go ahead

00:31:35.760 let's do it. Here's some more story. So, you know, they replaced me with a male optometrist.

00:31:42.460 The male optometrist, a few years later, a few years later, I'm working at my job that I got

00:31:52.540 after I lost that job, and I hear some things, some very interesting things. So back then,

00:31:58.880 and today, we can have a DEA number. Just to write, like, narcotics prescriptions.

00:32:03.880 Right, narcotics.

00:32:04.720 So there's a lot of pain with eye things, and, you know, we could write a narcotic.

00:32:08.860 So this doctor had a DEA license, DEA number, and he was writing co-workers prescriptions

00:32:18.280 for narcotics, and they would take him to the pharmacy and fill them, and then bring

00:32:21.820 them back to him for his personal, I don't know what he did with him.

00:32:25.760 Personal use, it could have been a pill mill, but it probably was his own use.

00:32:28.720 So I just dialed the state board and give them a little, put a little bug in their ear.

00:32:35.440 And I said, this is what I heard.

00:32:37.080 I've got no proof.

00:32:37.900 I can tell you who told me and I can tell you who told them.

00:32:41.140 And it ought to be pretty easy for you to look into.

00:32:43.400 Well, yes, they followed him for quite a while.

00:32:45.600 He had to have drug treatment plans and he eventually lost his license.

00:32:50.800 Karma.

00:32:51.660 So one more little thing I can add to this is the optical,

00:32:57.900 company who fired me or pushed me out let's say effectively fired me at one point I got to tell

00:33:08.640 them the hell off I got to rip them up one side and down the other and it felt good so anyway

00:33:16.480 that is good that is very good yeah yeah so their doctor in this new town they had two opticals in

00:33:22.380 one in the new town where I was working and once in a while I do fill in for that doctor so I would

00:33:27.300 be in that office. You knew what was going on. Right, right next door to the ones who fired me.

00:33:31.360 And I just, for some reason, I can't remember the circumstances, but I went in

00:33:35.240 their office and told them off. Sometimes you've got to tell

00:33:39.200 people off. Sometimes you've got to. Maybe I shouldn't have, but it sure felt good.

00:33:43.360 So apparently I should have. They needed to know that people noticed.

00:33:47.300 Exactly, people noticed. And also, it's like that letter of resignation

00:33:51.420 that I wrote recently, where I was just like, I'm like, I'm going to, I could just write a standard

00:33:55.300 letter but i think i'm gonna just go into the details about why i'm quitting this job like

00:34:00.860 the details are like under pay and the lack of support and lack of like obviously you guys don't

00:34:06.220 give a shit about educational standards for students like you know all of those things i'm

00:34:09.840 like and i think that's that's probably why my head of my department won't respond to my emails

00:34:14.980 i don't think he's happy about that he didn't before anyway but still i think he's a little

00:34:19.540 bit had his feelings hurt just a little tiny bit take a lesson from me sometimes it's slow

00:34:24.280 incoming, but

00:34:25.900 you may get a chance to

00:34:27.560 person out face-to-face someday. It could happen.

00:34:30.500 It might. You know, it could happen.

00:34:32.080 Who knows? So I sound vindictive

00:34:34.380 and all, but really, I'm a very...

00:34:36.380 I think you have to be vindictive

00:34:38.260 sometimes. I try to be a nice...

00:34:40.800 You know what? I try to be

00:34:42.300 nice to the nice, and that doesn't say

00:34:44.380 a lot for my... There's not

00:34:46.300 that many people you can be nice to. But, you know,

00:34:48.140 some people just need to be brought up short because

00:34:50.300 they're being

00:34:50.900 not nice. They're being jerks.

00:34:54.280 and a lot of those people are men so let me say one more thing okay go ahead yeah okay one more

00:35:00.700 thing so all of my life I've um my parents supported me they they thought I was smart

00:35:07.960 they encouraged me to make good grades they were always my cheerleaders and I always thought I can

00:35:13.160 work hard and always make good grades I was good at making grades and um and I tried to be that way

00:35:17.900 and my job and my raising my kids and teaching them those same values work hard what does it

00:35:24.540 i've actually said this why does it matter if you have to work twice as hard for the same uh

00:35:28.820 same thing yeah return as a man okay i can work twice as hard i'm not good i can work twice as

00:35:35.880 hard until one day it just hit me even if you work twice as hard you're not going to get

00:35:42.200 anywhere you're not going to get anywhere you're not going to get the respect you're you shouldn't

00:35:46.760 have to work twice as hard and you're going to be disrespected for like the um the ideas about um

00:35:52.920 women taking off too much time for you know picking up their kids at school or child care

00:35:57.300 or if they've got a sick kid or having a baby for for finn god for finn um men also like they don't

00:36:05.020 like working 40 45 50 80 hours a week they don't like that a successful man gets to cut back on

00:36:12.660 that yeah but a woman who cuts back on some of these hours there's there's just lazy and a man

00:36:19.740 is successful for doing the same thing right and of course same place in life and so that's when i

00:36:25.280 became a little bit more militant yeah and i think we became militant at the same time we did i think

00:36:31.140 we really did i mean it was around 2016 it was the whole like everything there i mean i think a

00:36:35.220 little bit before that too but like leading in it's like 2016 and after it was like it's like

00:36:40.360 everyone sucks.

00:36:42.900 Why do we have to approve our worth when we're human beings and nobody,

00:36:47.960 yeah,

00:36:48.420 nobody,

00:36:48.940 you know,

00:36:49.220 like we shouldn't be treated this way.

00:36:50.700 And like,

00:36:51.300 when it comes down to it,

00:36:52.140 also people give crap to women about taking time off to take care of their

00:36:55.820 kids when they're sick or pick them up from school or do any of those things.

00:36:58.440 But I'm like,

00:36:59.160 okay,

00:36:59.880 but the other problem here is that men don't do those things,

00:37:04.300 right?

00:37:04.500 They don't,

00:37:04.980 they don't do it because they don't think that it's their job.

00:37:07.660 It's,

00:37:07.900 It is, even if they're both employed and both making money, and, you know, maybe even the wife's making more money than them, they still think that somehow that's mom's job.

00:37:16.540 Or a single dad?

00:37:17.580 A single dad?

00:37:18.400 Yeah.

00:37:18.800 They'll get their mom.

00:37:19.980 Right?

00:37:20.360 They'll get the grandma to come in and do it.

00:37:21.520 They'll get an aunt.

00:37:22.340 They'll get a sister to do that.

00:37:23.420 And they'll also get all the applause for being a single dad and taking care of their kids, you know.

00:37:30.520 But any dad who, you know, and if they do take off some time, they're like, oh, well, your wife's making you babysit?

00:37:37.640 Like, he's like, no, you're not babysitting.

00:37:39.980 It's your kid.

00:37:40.860 That's your responsibility to do.

00:37:43.220 Taking care of your child is not babysitting.

00:37:45.860 It's not.

00:37:47.060 So when I got married, I've been married one time and still married.

00:37:53.840 Still married.

00:37:54.320 It's not like one time and then she kicked him and then she buried him under the rose bushes.

00:37:58.200 No, he's still here.

00:37:58.960 That's my dad.

00:37:59.900 We're still married.

00:38:01.220 And I got married pretty young.

00:38:03.500 I think my parents were a little disappointed in me in there and in that.

00:38:06.260 But, you know, he was just the most different person, different male person I'd ever known.

00:38:12.080 He was like, and we did things together.

00:38:14.080 If we had yard work to do, we'd do it together.

00:38:16.060 If we had cooking to do, we'd do it together.

00:38:17.900 We did things together.

00:38:20.060 And, you know, he wasn't, he would, in fact, during optometry school, he did all the shopping.

00:38:26.400 He cooked every meal because I was studying and gone all the time.

00:38:29.140 He was the stay-at-home dad, really, yeah.

00:38:31.900 Well, and besides working when I was home.

00:38:34.060 Exactly, yeah.

00:38:34.560 Um, but, and then I think that's one reason you were late to the game of feminism, because

00:38:41.260 you thought it was all, it was all right.

00:38:43.320 That's what I told people before.

00:38:44.420 I was like, women, I was like, well, feminists must have something wrong because they're

00:38:48.220 always complaining about men and they're like, men don't pull their own weight and they treat

00:38:51.800 women so badly and they're doing all this.

00:38:53.620 But I don't see my dad doing that.

00:38:55.300 So men can't be that bad.

00:38:57.160 And then I entered the real world and I was like, holy shit.

00:39:00.600 No, no, this is just different.

00:39:03.400 My dad's just different.

00:39:04.320 he's built different and

00:39:06.020 there's something else going on here right there's a major

00:39:08.320 problem I remember you telling me once

00:39:10.260 that one of the reasons that you like I mean

00:39:12.340 obviously you've married him for a lot of reasons but like one of the

00:39:14.440 reasons was that you knew he wasn't expecting you to like

00:39:16.340 be his maid right

00:39:18.120 he wasn't gonna like expect you to like drop out of school

00:39:20.480 and start like doing his laundry

00:39:22.340 and cooking his meals and treating you like you're

00:39:24.440 you know a trad wife

00:39:26.760 he's

00:39:28.460 I

00:39:29.220 we met in college in

00:39:32.040 junior college

00:39:33.960 and um and so we had a few classes together the classes we weren't in together we had the same

00:39:40.620 teachers just at different times so um so we uh we're in English uh freshman English and

00:39:49.360 psychology together and so I kind of had my eye on him a little bit I had my eye on him a little bit

00:39:54.880 and then we had a test and he and I well he broke the curve and one other person broke the curve

00:40:03.800 And it was you. And it was me.

00:40:05.540 And he figured that out. And that's when he noticed.

00:40:08.520 He was like, oh, you're smart.

00:40:10.040 So that's a keeper, right? That's a keeper.

00:40:12.140 And he wasn't mad about it.

00:40:13.400 He wasn't like, oh, I'm like, I broke the ground.

00:40:16.060 And then this girl did too.

00:40:17.540 He was like, no, oh, she's smart. I like her.

00:40:19.860 It's a different response.

00:40:22.020 A bit of a different, and then you kind of stalked

00:40:23.900 him a little bit. I did.

00:40:25.180 Before it was called stalking,

00:40:27.800 I believe. Well, you weren't doing

00:40:29.920 it because you wanted to, like, murder him.

00:40:31.980 So, you know, I'm not I'm not sure even if it were called stalking, I would have done anything any differently.

00:40:37.220 But yeah, you got away with it, though.

00:40:39.740 I mean, you kind of you kind of threatened some girls off and intimidated them to leave them alone so you could have first pickings.

00:40:45.760 But, you know, there's nothing wrong with that.

00:40:47.680 You didn't like tie him up in your basement or anything.

00:40:50.160 So, you know, I was just around all the time.

00:40:53.200 I knew his schedule and I got when he got out of class, I always happened to be there.

00:40:56.620 Yeah.

00:40:57.560 I was passing by.

00:40:59.240 so it's like

00:41:00.800 it's kind of stalking

00:41:03.480 but he didn't mind it so it's not really

00:41:05.220 stalking right

00:41:06.500 it's cute then it's a rom-com

00:41:09.300 it's not

00:41:10.020 it's cute when it's done to a rom-com

00:41:12.780 not cute when it's done to a Criminal Minds episode

00:41:15.060 different context

00:41:16.440 and there is a shotgun involved

00:41:19.160 but I won't get into that

00:41:20.140 yeah there was that I'll have dad tell that story

00:41:22.760 yeah dad can tell us

00:41:23.800 I'll have him tell that when we do an episode

00:41:25.880 shotgun and teaching

00:41:28.100 And the teaching in Louisiana, yeah, we'll do those, yeah.

00:41:30.720 So one of the one things I wanted to do also is kind of ask you about some of the major kind of events that happened during, you know, major historical events that happened during your life.

00:41:39.880 Landing on the moon.

00:41:40.740 Landing on the moon, right?

00:41:42.580 JFK, like all that kind of stuff.

00:41:44.800 So I'll just ask you a few of these kind of like as like rapid questions.

00:41:48.900 What's your life?

00:41:49.540 Like what do you remember about him?

00:41:51.200 What do you, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:41:53.360 And how it affected you.

00:41:54.200 Well, it'll be, yeah, how it affected you.

00:41:55.540 So landing on the moon, what about that?

00:41:58.100 I was a kid, and I was sitting on the floor in the living room watching the black and white TV, and I was just like, I want to be an astronaut.

00:42:11.120 How can I be an astronaut?

00:42:12.780 What do I do to go through this?

00:42:15.180 This was great.

00:42:16.220 I was a big fan all through.

00:42:19.460 The space race started when I was a young, very young kid in elementary school.

00:42:25.640 I was probably middle school about the time.

00:42:27.400 yeah this landing on the moon happened or Neil Armstrong and and I was a big

00:42:32.280 fan I wrote plenty of term papers on on the rockets and yeah things like that

00:42:37.160 like it was a I was I loved it I know dad has that probably has more answers

00:42:41.440 for this one but like I'm gonna ask you about it anyway integration cuz you're

00:42:46.420 you're a little younger than dad but like you probably still remember some of

00:42:49.240 that yeah I I guess I grew up in a pretty ish when I was young pretty

00:42:56.680 whitish area probably. So you didn't notice it as much? Well in elementary school honestly I

00:43:04.620 didn't notice it. I didn't notice it. When I got into middle school our seventh grade I started

00:43:10.920 to an integrated school. So it was and we lived in a town with black people but I guess we divided

00:43:17.020 up by neighborhoods. Right. The local right lining and all of that. Yeah and and so and some of my

00:43:23.280 teachers were black, and I don't think it was a big, I didn't look at it as a big

00:43:27.340 deal. I didn't even. But I will say this, I mentioned this to you, we were

00:43:33.000 in classes, very, very large classes, but that we were kind of divided up by, I

00:43:39.440 guess, whatever. I didn't have SAT scores, but anyway, the scores, the scores and

00:43:45.460 all, and so maybe we wouldn't have very many black students in each class.

00:43:49.120 Because you were in the advanced classes. Yeah, so I, and for whatever

00:43:52.880 reason so any black students in there were fine they were i considered them my friends they were

00:43:58.660 you were all in the same playing field all the same level yeah we uh but we i didn't i don't

00:44:04.220 remember being maybe a little afraid in uh 1968 uh george wallace was running for president

00:44:15.060 a little like oh no i don't think that guy should be in charge of anything

00:44:20.940 you know i was just a kid in school so it didn't really affect me too much but i think

00:44:25.260 there's a little anxiety of like that guy tension there that guy shouldn't be president that's

00:44:29.740 that's a little concerning oh yeah and then you had to deal with 2016 so that's just i don't know

00:44:34.700 that probably was might be worse yeah i've got to say i i've got to say i don't think my uh

00:44:41.620 grandparents or my parents raised me showing me racism I'm not saying they

00:44:46.860 weren't racist but they didn't yeah they didn't teach it to me they didn't tell

00:44:51.280 me this is the way I had to be like they were more it was kind of whatever just

00:44:56.060 regular people and and they also weren't churchy people they weren't they didn't

00:45:00.820 go to church they weren't for whatever reason that is I didn't fit in at church

00:45:05.680 they didn't well I know my grandfather didn't go to church I know why he didn't

00:45:10.840 church he used to he knew all the hymns he was a great guy loved my grandpa very much my mother's

00:45:17.520 dad um he chewed tobacco on occasion they didn't like that they kicked him out they kicked him out

00:45:25.780 of church for chewing tobacco and after that he never as far as i know he never darkened the door

00:45:30.280 of another church until he had his funeral wow i mean that would i mean i can see why like they're

00:45:35.380 gonna judge me for what i do in my spirit i mean if he was like chewing tobacco and spitting it

00:45:39.160 into the pews. Sure. But like, he was, uh, he was honestly, yeah, he was a great guy. I knew no

00:45:45.800 problems with my grandpa of, uh, any bad things. He was a wonderful grandpa, you know, he'd take

00:45:52.020 his camp in and vision and whittle and he would just do, and he was a great guy. So I, I always,

00:46:01.860 I feel like a bad daughter because I always forget what year you were born. I don't want me to say it.

00:46:06.380 And you don't have to say that, but how much do you recall of JFK's assassination?

00:46:10.100 I was in elementary school.

00:46:11.240 Yeah, so you were pretty young.

00:46:12.220 I was trying to remember how, like, your age range, right?

00:46:14.220 You don't have to say when you were born.

00:46:15.440 I was in elementary school, and I went to school in Arkansas, and it was a, talk about

00:46:24.100 no air conditioning.

00:46:25.080 We went to school with no air conditioning, and I was on the second floor, and the windows

00:46:30.640 are always wide open when it's that time, you know, hot enough.

00:46:36.380 And I remember being there, and the news came in, and the teacher told us.

00:46:40.880 And it was very, like, I don't know what that means.

00:46:44.820 I don't know what just happened.

00:46:46.500 And one of the other students made some sort of crack.

00:46:49.620 I don't know.

00:46:50.540 Some sort of, like, some crack.

00:46:53.760 I don't know.

00:46:54.180 I can't even remember what it was.

00:46:55.260 But he was kind of like a class clown, I guess.

00:46:56.920 And the teacher shut him down so fast.

00:46:58.920 No, we're not doing that today.

00:47:00.160 and um so i don't really i i being a kid a child in arkansas i don't really it wasn't really a big

00:47:09.940 thing i mean yeah i mean it was big but you didn't affect it just comes in waves i mean because they

00:47:16.420 it's you know the anniversaries and things like that yeah you're never you're never done with it

00:47:21.740 you never are done with it and yeah you can't have certain realizations one thing i hate and i know

00:47:27.180 you hate it too. I know you hate it

00:47:29.260 too and this is one of the reasons you do what you

00:47:31.240 do is I hate

00:47:32.640 fictionalizing

00:47:34.900 real things and making

00:47:37.040 and telling lies and now the lies are more

00:47:39.160 important than history. It's like my long term

00:47:41.060 anger towards the Pocahontas movie.

00:47:43.240 I know there have been

00:47:44.180 documentaries, not documentaries, but movies and things

00:47:47.200 like that made about that period of time

00:47:49.180 and all and I just, I check and see

00:47:51.220 how true to history they are and I

00:47:53.100 refuse to watch them. Yeah. Watch this Oliver

00:47:55.140 Stone, JFK thing. Yeah.

00:47:56.960 I wouldn't watch it because I don't want to fill up my head with things that I might mistake.

00:48:02.200 Fake versions of events.

00:48:03.340 Yeah.

00:48:03.660 It might be more real to me than the real thing.

00:48:06.000 And I think that's so wrong for Disney or movies or anything.

00:48:10.020 They just need to be as true as they can to the details that people are going to remember and learn from.

00:48:15.120 Speaking of that, though, we did watch a while back.

00:48:17.120 And one of the other questions I was going to ask you is about Watergate and how you remember that.

00:48:20.920 Because we did watch the Lighthouse Plumbers together a little while ago.

00:48:24.720 Because it was really historically accurate.

00:48:26.800 it up yeah like that happened was that guy really listening to hitler speeches on record googling

00:48:32.580 it up and it was true it was very well done um watergate so you know my first election um that

00:48:41.900 i was able to vote in old enough to fight old enough to vote i was 18 ish in that age anyway

00:48:49.400 It was my first election to vote in.

00:48:51.500 I voted for Nixon.

00:48:53.920 Nixon was who I voted for.

00:48:56.160 I remember he came to town one time.

00:48:59.080 He came through town while he was on a plane.

00:49:02.460 And my dad, he loaded us into the car and said,

00:49:04.880 we're going to show up.

00:49:05.900 We're going to show up.

00:49:06.700 Because if he becomes president, he's going to remember that we had a big crowd out here.

00:49:12.000 And he's going to give us something.

00:49:13.620 He's going to give us some pork barrel stuff.

00:49:15.880 I guess.

00:49:16.700 And so I went.

00:49:18.440 I don't remember that.

00:49:19.400 And I remember getting ready and going to this.

00:49:21.940 I think your dad might have had a fundamental misunderstanding of how the

00:49:24.340 presidency works, but that's, but anyway, that's what we did.

00:49:27.680 I didn't do much stuff political when I was a kid with my parents,

00:49:31.680 but I remember going to a couple of speeches and stuff. But,

00:49:34.740 but then, you know, this happened, you know, the Watergate thing.

00:49:40.380 And, and you don't, you know, like now we don't get all the facts all at once.

00:49:44.300 And you always, you know,

00:49:45.600 you always want to get your leaders that you have trusted um a little bit of a benefit of the doubt

00:49:51.900 sometimes and and uh and maybe see things from their point of view and then when he um you know

00:49:58.880 stepped down and ford pardoned him and said well i guess that's reasonable i don't know i don't know

00:50:05.640 maybe maybe he must have done something wrong if he stepped down he must have really done it right

00:50:10.540 But what was he did?

00:50:11.780 He just covered up his line.

00:50:14.600 He just paid off a porn star.

00:50:16.860 No, wait.

00:50:17.320 Sorry, that's a different president.

00:50:18.980 It's a different one.

00:50:19.780 Oh, and we have a family tradition.

00:50:22.580 What's the family?

00:50:23.040 Every Thanksgiving.

00:50:24.080 Every Thanksgiving.

00:50:25.300 It is Nixon related.

00:50:26.940 It is Nixon related.

00:50:28.080 No, we don't say anything nice about Nixon.

00:50:30.640 No, we listen to Alice's Restaurant, the extended edition.

00:50:37.280 Because 18 minute and 30 second long was fine.

00:50:40.200 There's nothing wrong with that version, but

00:50:41.900 the 22-minute version

00:50:44.020 is superior. Alice's Restaurant, and

00:50:46.000 we love all of that, and

00:50:47.980 we listen to it

00:50:50.060 every time.

00:50:52.000 Nixon, I see some confusion

00:50:53.900 here between some of the young

00:50:56.040 people here. See, Nixon used to be the

00:50:57.940 President of the United States, and he used

00:51:00.100 to like to tape stuff.

00:51:03.480 Yeah, and so

00:51:04.000 way ahead of his time.

00:51:07.020 And everything was

00:51:08.000 fine. And so people started playing back

00:51:10.220 the tapes. Yeah. It's a great

00:51:11.900 You gotta listen to it. It's great. You got to listen to it.

00:51:14.380 Who knows? Maybe I'll edit this and

00:51:15.760 splice in a little clip. Add it

00:51:18.000 to your Thanksgiving

00:51:19.440 traditions. Right. Because it is about

00:51:21.620 Thanksgiving.

00:51:24.200 Sort of.

00:51:26.000 Kind of. It's also about the Vietnam War.

00:51:28.360 That's another one. Vietnam War.

00:51:30.060 Just recently I wrote

00:51:32.140 an article for my Substack about

00:51:33.800 comparing the current protests on campus to

00:51:36.160 Kent State and, like, some of the other reactions.

00:51:38.720 So, Simone, like, do you remember anything about the Kent State situation?

00:51:42.180 Yes, I do.

00:51:42.700 Yes, I do.

00:51:43.320 My dad, love my dad.

00:51:45.160 He supported me very much.

00:51:46.980 He never tried to put me down for being female.

00:51:50.260 He expected me to do my best all the time.

00:51:52.740 I love my dad.

00:51:53.500 But, but, at Kent State, when these people got murdered, well, got killed by the National Guard.

00:52:01.400 The National Guard, yeah.

00:52:02.560 And he said they shouldn't have been there.

00:52:04.980 They deserved it.

00:52:05.900 and I said no dad no we had so uh my dad likes to say that my mom and I could talk until the

00:52:13.040 world ended and apparently we can definitely talk until the recording space on my phone is full

00:52:17.780 so you missed the last like minute or so of wrap up oops thank you for tuning in to hear me bitch

00:52:24.020 about history if you're loving the show don't forget to subscribe and make sure to visit

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Bitchy History - May 13, 2024

Mother's Day Special

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