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Child of Deaf Adults, Paul Raci Brings a Lifetime of Experience to an Oscar-Nominated Role

Paul Raci, nominated for best actor in a supporting role for "Sound of Metal", at the EE British Academy Film Awards 2021 on April 11 in Los Angeles. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for ABA)

“I didn’t realize it at first, but it slowly dawned on me that I had been rehearsing for this role my entire life,” says actor, singer, and performer Paul Raci. “Being a CODA (child of deaf adults), my whole life has been spent working with the deaf community, especially my parents.”

“I only wish they could be here to see this,” said an emotional Raci.

Raci was recently nominated for an Academy Award in his role as Joe in the film “Sound of Metal”—a departure from his usual television spots here and there..

“I worried and wondered if I could handle a role of this magnitude,” says Raci of his role as Joe, the “late-deafened” Vietnam veteran and alcohol counselor.

But as Raci wrestled with the role, he realized his life’s story was Joe’s story.

“My father was born deaf and was a proud member of the NAD (National Association of the Deaf) as was my mother, who was deaf from about the age of 5. I saw the setbacks, the frustration, the taunting, and the bullying,” he said. As a child, I watched my mother, a most studious woman, who was an expert lip-reader. I mimicked many of her movements for the role. I myself suffer from bouts of tinnitus from my time in Vietnam, as did many of my brothers who worked on the flight deck with me. They gave us a piece of cardboard as hearing protection. Many of those guys are fully deaf now, so this role was me—it literally mirrored my life.”

The Role

Actor Riz Ahmed (“Shifty,” “Four Lions,” “Nightcrawler”) portrays a heroin-addicted heavy metal drummer who’s going deaf after refusing to protect his ears and who is struggling to keep “clean.” His girlfriend, portrayed by actress Olivia Cooke (“Thoroughbreds,” “Ready Player One”), fearing a relapse, sends him to a deaf-sober house. It’s at this point that Raci makes his entrance.

“Riz’s sponsor finds a deaf-sober house run strictly for the deaf community, which was founded by, and run by my character, a Vietnam vet who is deaf from the war and who is also an alcoholic,” Raci said. The script originally called for Raci’s character to have been an Iraqi war veteran, but in a request designed to help him give as authentic a portrayal as possible, Raci asked that the character mirror his real-life service in Vietnam. “It really made the part come alive for me.”

“I thought about my parents all through this,” Raci added. “And I thought about all the wonderful deaf people I had known growing up.”

“I just hope I honored them all,” he said.

Paul Raci, nominated for best actor in a supporting role for “Sound of Metal”, at the EE British Academy Film Awards 2021 on April 11 in Los Angeles. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for ABA)

Real People

Raci says that he is sensitive to the needs of the deaf community.

“I had to be the conduit for my dad. I saw the way hearing people treated him. My father always felt oppressed. I was the one who had to negotiate contracts, even as a little kid. If this role was that of a person fully deaf from birth, as my father had been, do you think that I could have given this same kind of performance? I couldn’t have taken that role, it would’t have been me. It wouldn’t have rung true,” he said. “But this was my life.”

Paul Raci explains the part of Joe. (Courtesy of Paul Raci)

You might think that a role which doesn’t spotlight the positive side of the deaf culture might have offended Raci. You’d be wrong.

“See, that’s the thing—that’s the thing that this movie is going to show you,” he said. “The world thinks about how deaf people are just the sweetest people. They’re so quiet. They wouldn’t rape anybody, they wouldn’t break a law … or smoke anything bad … or do drugs. But we’re people, like anyone else. And that’s what drew me to this role. These are real people. This shows you a recovery house with about 12 hardcore addicts who are deaf—and addicted,” he said.

Raci says he’d rarely seen the deaf portrayed as it was,warts and all, until he read this script.

“The deaf are addicts, they’re lawyers, they’re accountants, they’re good people and bad people,” he said.

(Courtesy of Amazon)

Raci’s Arrival

Raci is always looking for ways to introduce the deaf culture to new audiences, which is what attracted him to the band, “Hands of Doom,” a “Black Sabbath tribute band,” where he performs what the band calls “ASL (American Sign Language) Rock.”

Hands of Doom. (Courtesy of Paul Raci)

“I act out each song, and that really makes each song come alive, especially for the deaf community,” he said. The band has gained a strong following among the deaf community and Black Sabbath fans the world over. “I try and bring my experiences and my growing up with deaf parents, into every performance.”

Raci’s family has seen his band, and his turn in “Sound of Metal.” And they approve.

“My family has seen it, and they’re really happy with it. They knew it was real, and from the heart,” he said. “Especially the ending.”

While Raci has been acting for more than four decades, he says he’s been waiting for this role his entire life.

(Courtesy of Paul Raci)

“This role? Man, you have no idea. I’ve been acting for 40 years. I’ve got damned good acting chops. I came out here in 1989. I’ve done plenty of theater … but I’ve never gotten a big role in a movie, just bit parts. I’m 72 years old. I’ve been doing this 41 years.,” he said. They offered this part to Robert Duvall, but thankfully, he didn’t want to learning language.

They shopped it around. They wanted a “name” attached to it, and “Paul Raci” wasn’t a name.

“My agent, who’s also my wife, actually called them and begged them to look at my audition. She said, ‘Did you look at his audition?’ They said, ‘You know what? We’ve had so many people audition for this part … we’re just going to give it to a name.’ They said that. They actually said that!” said an incredulous Raci.

Not to be denied, Raci’s wife called the producers one last time and begged them to look at the screen test. She said, “Please, please, look at this tape, because this guy knows what he’s doing.”

Minutes later, Raci got the call every actor dreams of.

“They called me back five minutes later. The director said, we want to meet him right away.” Producers offered Raci the role right there on the spot.

“And now … if you’re a character actor too, you know, and so does every other day player in this town …I ’m going to be up for best supporting actor. Me! 41 years I’m doing this,” Raci said. “I’m being nominated for best supporting actor for this thing, because I kicked butt!”

“Everybody, and I mean everybody talks about the last scene. A few months ago, there was the press junket: I did 40 interviews of four minutes each: CNN, CBS, NBC, Phoenix stations, Minnesota, New York … and they were all asking, ‘How’d you do that…that last scene?’”

Raci credits director Darius Marder with allowing him to find the role within himself.

“Darius Marder, this was his first directing effort, although he wrote “Beyond the Pines,” and “Loot” and he was just awesome as a director. He’s sensitive, he’s wonderful, he’s smart. He let me do what I had to do. We talked about what he wanted from me. And after that last scene, I looked over and Darius was just weeping. I mean weeping. Riz and I laugh about it now … but it’s about two grown men being vulnerable. One reviewer in Toronto said, ‘I wanted to stop the movie because I wanted to see if the actors were ok.’”

The final scene should come with a “spoiler alert” to keep tissues handy. “I’ve had dozens of people ask me, ‘What about that last scene?’ One writer from The Chicago Tribune asked me about the last scene … he wanted to know how it was accomplished. He said, ‘You can’t teach that kind of acting can you?’ And I said, ‘No, no you can’t. I was made for this. Now, could I have done that scene 40 years ago? No. But now? That’s my whole life in that role … and it’s all in that last scene. Now people want to know where I’ve been,” he said with a laugh.

Where Paul Raci has been is waiting for a role like this his entire life. If the stars align and the portrayal is seen by enough of the right people, Raci knows exactly where he’ll be next: “The words ‘Academy Award winner Paul Raci,’ have a nice ring to them,” he said. “I like the sound of that.”

Paul Raci, nominated for best actor in a supporting role for “Sound of Metal”, at the EE British Academy Film Awards 2021 on April 11 in Los Angeles. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for ABA)

 

Categories
Arts & Letters Features

Why Music Reminds Us We Are Human, Even in the Darkest Places

Pianist and composer Eric Genuis has played nearly 1,000 concerts in prisons, including hundreds in youth prisons. (Kirsten Butler Photography)

There was a gang member who had been in prison all his life, who said he’d never once cried in all his years. He’d buried his mother, he’d buried his father, and he saw the door to his future close when he was sentenced to be locked up for decades, maybe the rest of his life. But then, in prison, he heard a chamber music concert, and he cried.

“This one man stood up after the show, covered in tattoos, the whole nine yards, and he said: ‘I’m overcome with emotion. I’ve had no control over my tears for the last two hours during the show. I’ve never cried in my life. Never. My mom died, my father died, I was sad but I never cried. What is it?'” said Eric Genuis, the composer of the music that man heard.

“I remember being really taken by this,” said Genuis, a pianist and composer. “Here’s a man who spent his whole life in prison, tried and convicted as a teen, and is now close to 60. Well, what is it? It’s the human heart.”

Genuis has seen countless such reactions. In Massachusetts, another prisoner said: “I’ve killed a lot of people in my life. After hearing this, I’ve had a higher encounter with my humanity. I’ll never hurt another person again.”

“Now, that was really beautiful, but why did a prisoner stand up in front of other prisoners and demonstrate a certain vulnerability? That’s a no-no, right? He comes up after the show and he starts talking about it: ‘This is how cold I became in life, I was able to do this and it didn’t affect me, I was able to do that,'” Genuis said.

“There was another man, 90 years old, in a walker. He said, ‘I’ve lived with the pain and suffering that I’ve caused when I was a 19-year-old man.”

“My concert invites deep emotion,” Genuis said. “But it’s the music that invites that. It’s not just me walking in and talking to them, and they feel comfortable with me. You’ve broken down a barrier—music is very disarming. It allows them to have an encounter with their own humanity, maybe things that have been buried forever that they’ve been invited to sort of resurrect and rethink and ponder and heal from.”

Early in his career, Genuis decided he would go wherever there was a demand for his music. He’s played private concerts for movie stars, and he’s played under a bridge for homeless veterans. His guiding philosophy is to write beautiful music, music that communicates hope, and he works tirelessly to bring it to other people because he has seen the need.

“There is something mysterious about beauty, and it’s why everybody should be immersed in beauty,” he said.

eric genuis
His guiding philosophy is to write beautiful music, music that communicates hope, and he works tirelessly to bring it to other people because he has seen the need. (Kirsten Butler Photography)

Starved of Beauty

For nearly three decades, Genuis brought his music to places without hope—rehab centers, prisons, inner-city schools—on his own time and out of his own pocket, using the proceeds from his regular concerts. A few years ago, Genuis realized that wouldn’t be enough and started his foundation Concerts for Hope to further the mission.

Genuis says he’s played nearly 1,000 concerts in prisons since he started. This meant he’s also played in hundreds of youth prisons.

In one room of 300 prisoners, all tried and convicted as teens with sentences of several decades, Genuis remembered a young gang leader who sat right up front. He wasn’t interested in being required to attend a classical concert, but when the music began, he became entranced by the violin.

“He put his hand over his heart, threw his head back, and said, ‘That is the most beautiful thing,'” Genuis said. “He said: ‘Why have I never heard that before?'”

“Now, we live in the age of the internet so this boy can hear anything he wants, whenever he wants. We as parents, and as adults, and as schoolteachers and educators, as church leaders—all the leaders of the community have access to this boy, and what did we give him? He knows everything about gangster rap,” he said. “But never did anyone introduce him to something that goes in and moves his heart and uplifts his humanity, and stirs the awe and wonder and creativity in life and elevates him, and realizes the beautiful dignity he has as a person. And that’s the effect of beauty.”

In the United States, there are about 2.3 million people in prison. Across the country, there are pockets of culture that revolve around prison. These young people tell Genuis no one would care if they went to prison; one told Genuis if he ever landed in prison, people would only ask him why it hadn’t happened earlier. He’s spoken to young adults about to get out of prison, asking about their plans, and they’ve told him that they’ll be back in prison in no time. And if they do some serious damage to a rival gang, maybe kill one of their members, it’ll elevate their status once they do get sent back to prison.

“They’re not cared for, nobody cares for this person,” Genuis said. “There’s this whole population that is forgotten, that is abandoned, that has no mentorship, no love, no guidance, nothing.”

He once met a 23-year-old who joked about getting sentenced to three lifetimes. Genuis asked, “Are you OK?” But the young man wasn’t at all bothered.

“It was so familiar to him, so non-devastating, so nonchalant, that I thought, a good part of the population doesn’t look at throwing their life away as devastating, because maybe emotionally and internally, they’ve thrown theirs away a long time ago,” he said. In these places of forgotten people and of no hope, people have forgotten their humanity, and it has little worth for them.

“So what I want to do is elevate, I want to go and bring them hope,” Genuis said. In December 2019, a young woman in South Carolina stood up after one of his prison concerts and said: ‘I’m at the lowest point in my life, I was here, I forgot what it was like to feel human. I feel human right now.’ So yes, beauty can uplift humanity.”

After she got out of prison, she wrote him a letter about her renewed hope and added, “This is a turning point.”

He said, “That’s what I want, I want to go and elevate people’s humanity, remind them of their humanity.”

After the pandemic, Genuis plans to focus more of his work on playing in schools and to set up a program called Project Detour for children, in hopes of changing the culture.

“I want to detour them from the idea that prison is just part of life,” Genuis said.

eric genuis
After the pandemic, Genuis plans to set up a program for children called Project Detour “to detour them from the idea that prison is just part of life,” he says.

To Elevate the Soul

Confucius said if one wants to know the morals of a nation, “the quality of its music will furnish the answer.” And Plato said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

“I believe these men were right,” Genuis said. “I believe music is a language that speaks to the heart, mind, and soul in ways words will never touch. Music and beauty have the ability—it is a language, it communicates—to elevate the mystery behind the person, to elevate that essence, to elevate that which animates them—the soul, if you will—but to elevate them and move them.”

“Music can create such awe and wonder in the imagination of people, so I think it is critical in the formation of our young to immerse them in beauty,” he said. There’s a place for fun music, too, Genuis added, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of beauty, which so many in our civilization are starved for.

In another life, Genuis might have stayed a physics teacher, happily on his way to retirement with a good pension by now.

“But when I was in class, I’d often be writing melodies, and then after class, I’d be in the library listening to Beethoven,” he said. Genuis is a talented pianist, but unlike most musicians who pursue music, he was driven to compose.

“I would just write and write and write,” he said. “I never thought I’d do this for a living, or that anyone would ever hear a performance, I’d just write for the sheer love of writing music.”

Genuis knew it was a gift. He believed he had been given this great thing, and it was meant to be shared, so he followed the audience. He found there was such a need for beautiful music and felt compelled to do it full time.

“It’s not about fame or any of that, it’s just about connecting with people. I started to play everywhere,” he said. Then he got invited to a prison, and thought, why not?

“And then when I saw broken people react so strongly, I thought, wow.”

Genuis has gone through a lot of trouble to bring his music to people.

A day’s schedule might begin with packing up from the evening concert at midnight, driving three hours to the next city over, where a prison has invited Genuis to perform, taking a nap mid-trip at a rest stop, going through prison security early in the morning to get all of his equipment in, playing three concerts at the prison and wrapping up by late afternoon, and then getting prepared for his evening concert in that city almost straight away.

“I’m in a lot of dark places in the world,” he said. “It’s very tough, I cannot tell you how many times at 3 a.m. in the morning I’m driving from one location to another, and I’m exhausted, and I think: ‘What am I doing? I should be home sleeping!’ And you start questioning everything. Is there purpose? What is this?”

But Genuis is positive by intention, and he says it really does come down to the music. He believes in it wholly.

“This is the greatest thing I have to offer, and I am going to move mountains to offer it.”

“Through this music, I was able to live what I really believe,” he said. “I feel like it has been a gift to me and my humanity to provide this, I feel very lucky. Life is short, and for a short window, I can share this music.”

When Genuis composes, he reaches for hope. It’s this combination of awe and wonder, like a child picking up a block and seeing a castle, he explained. “That’s hope, because the awe and wonder for life, ‘Oh I wonder what I can build with this Lego,’ leads to ‘Oh, I wonder what life has in store for me.”

“All this awe and wonder and hope, it’s humanity, it’s life. When that gets squashed in someone at 10 years old and nothing matters, like this 23-year-old [talking about his three life sentences], his hope was dead a long time ago,” Genuis said. But if you can show people hope, you can remind them of their humanity, and music—just ephemeral wavelengths—does it in a way words can’t.

“You bring them hope and you help them realize, you are human,” he said. “And even if you have to spend the rest of your life in prison, you can read books, you can discover things, you can always elevate your humanity. It may not turn into a big paying job but it can challenge you intellectually, it can challenge you spiritually, emotionally.”

“We all recognize beauty when we see it, and it’s not something you can discuss or you can describe or you can comment on. Really it’s a language beyond,” he said. “A language beyond words that reaches and connects with us and we know it.”

“When we’re in a vulnerable situation like suffering and pain and we have an encounter with something beautiful, and we’re not distracted with other things—if we’re happy and joyful and running around busy with other things, maybe beauty doesn’t really knock us between the eyes—but when we’re poised and we’re reflective and it sort of elevates us, we know it, and it’s sort of involuntary,” he said. “It’s not even controllable.”

“Like this boy [moved by the violin], if he is starved for beauty so much, so is everybody else. The question is, why aren’t we giving it to them? I go in and play at universities, they don’t even know what a cello is,” he said. “[Music] has always had an entertainment quality but it’s never just been what it’s supposed to be.”

“There is this whole world, like a cave full of diamonds, a whole world that we’ve not explored, in our children’s education … and the result of that is this boy puts his hand over his heart and says, ‘Why have I never been exposed to that?’ It’s like he was begging for his humanity. ‘Why have I not been able to feel like who I am?'”

After a concert Genuis gave at a PTSD clinic, a man who went from running fearlessly into battle to not being able to even set foot in a drugstore came up to Genuis and hugged him fiercely.

“He said: ‘I’ve done a lot of terrible things in war that I fear I’m going to have to pay for. I don’t feel like I can ever be forgiven or I can forgive myself. I don’t even remember what it’s like to feel human or to feel myself,'” Genuis said. “And then he says: ‘I remember who I am right now. I don’t want to let go. I fear if I let go, I’ll forget who I am again.'”

“It’s a story of suffering, but it’s a story of redemption. And who’s not in need of redemption? We all are, and we all should seek truth to do all we can to bring hope and to bring redemption to other people’s lives,” Genuis said.

Pianist and composer Eric Genuis on his world tour.  (Courtesy of Eric Genuis)
(Kirsten Butler Photography)
Categories
Features Giving Back

Backyard Heroes Honors Texas Military Veterans With BBQ Pergola, Pit and Patio

Just some of the Texas veterans and teachers whom Daniel Garza appreciates annually .(Daniel Garza /Facebook)

Daniel Garza often helps teachers and military veterans buy their first home. As a result, his real estate business has grown and now he’s committed to giving back.

Backyard Heroes is a monthly event in which military veterans submit their war service stories for publication on social media sites, such as Facebook. Military veterans with the winning story are gifted with a $12,000 barbecue accessory for their backyard.

“I wanted to give back to our Armed Forces because we’re losing some of our older veterans who are retired grandfathers and the whole purpose of the event is to recognize their service to our country,” said Garza.

So far, 200 stories have been submitted by email to Backyard Heroes for consideration and the first monthly award is expected to be announced before Labor Day.

“It’s sponsored by our construction company because we now do one hundred percent financing for veterans,” Garza said in an interview. “We have received some story submissions from younger veterans and also from the sisters and daughters of fallen veterans from the Korean War, World War 2, Vietnam and more recent wars as well.”

Every month, a veteran or if fallen, his or her family, will be honored at various Rio Grande Valley Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) posts based on their submitted story. Afterward, sponsors will help build in the veteran’s backyard a barbecue pit, a seating area for friends and family and a covered pergola to provide shade while grilling.

“Our labor is free and we’re getting the lumber at cost but we might have to build with metal because lumber is so expensive right now,” Garza added. “We got together with the veteran hospital and military recruiters. We’re all super excited.”

In addition to showing his appreciation to military veterans, Garza also highly favors teachers.
For the past five years, Garza has been organizing a teacher appreciation event for Thanksgiving in which teachers receive a complimentary turkey. Despite statewide COVID-19 restrictions last year, Garza’s GIVE for Teachers was a success.

“The teachers picked up cupcakes, turkeys, fixings and other goodies but it was all drive through,” he said. “There were 400 cars that came through the car lot.”

The Bert Ogden Fiesta Nissan dealership at 5001 S I69C in Edinburg hosted the 2020 event and Garza managed to raise enough money to gift a $1,000 check.

“Everybody’s a little bit more relaxed with the whole masking now and being in public,” he said. “I think we should be able to get back to our regularly scheduled GIVE for Teachers event in November.”

Garza had intended to host a wine tasting for teachers with a live jazz band every three months but the planned quarterly event has turned into just a giveaway.

“We haven’t been able to host any events for our teachers,” he said. “All we have been able to do is giveaways. We had a $1,000 giveaway, a $500 giveaway, gift cards and a couple of Cricket Arts and Craft Machines.”

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

This article was published in American Essence magazine.

Categories
Entrepreneurs Features

Turning Shutdowns Into Opportunity

Angela and Moe,longtime friends and co-founders of Sparrow Box.
Angela and Moe,longtime friends and co-founders of Sparrow Box. (Courtesy of Sparrow Box)

From the first hello, you can tell that Angela and Moe are go-getters ready to make things happen. Angela Knight and Maureen (Moe) Stone are both moms from Jupiter, Florida, who share a passion for their work and love for America. The friends have known each other and worked together for 15 years, first as partners in a successful charity, and then in event planning.

In March of 2020, not long after the onset in the states of COVID-19, Angela and Moe stepped out of quarantine, leaving their husbands at home, and drove to Liberty University to pick up Angela’s daughter’s belongings. Her daughter had come home for Spring Break, but was then not allowed to return to school. The ladies thought it would surely be a fun get-away road trip, but on the road they were shocked and devastated by the many, many failed businesses they saw along the way. ““The small southern towns seemed eerie with involuntary abandonment. It felt like a black and white episode of the Twilight Zone. Products were still on display inside the dark shops and upcoming sales and event signs of things that would not happen still littered the window,” said Angela. Moe added, “All these small businesses closed for so long, how will they ever come back from this?” They recognized that these weren’t just closed businesses, this scene was the destruction of the livelihood of hard-working Americans. For the next ten hours, they drove home brainstorming how they could do their small part to help their American community.

“We talked about what we wanted: to help others stay connected, feel loved and appreciated and fight the division that is plaguing our country. We talked about how to help these small businesses get going again once everything opened back up,” Angela said. Inspired by the diligent and joyful little sparrow, Angela and Moe chose Sparrow Box Company as the name of their endeavor to showcase hardworking American artisans and businesses. They’re businesses like Grey Ghost, a charming bakery in Charleston, South Carolina, where the friends had the opportunity to tour the bakery and hear from the founder the story of their journey of growth; and Willa’s Cookies, a mom-and-pop team; and Forest and Hyde, run by an entreprenurial young husband who had just bought a leather company to combine with his own.

Angela and Moe had previously worked at a nonprofit, Pink Purse, whose mission was to connect women with various causes, and in their seven years of work there were able to help 70 charities, organizations, and families. Taking their years of experience in marketing, communications, event planning, and design, the two friends sprinted out of the gate and are taking the gifting world by storm, connecting with a community of American vendors to create gifts that bring joy and beauty. It is important to them that they deal only with American-made products and that they are helping small businesses during these somewhat trying times.

Categories
Features Kindness in Action

A Company That Gives Back

When Professional Janitorial Services (PJS) Houston Operations Manager Jamie Flores learned an employee was struggling to fund her aging mother’s root canal and bridge due to a lack of dental insurance coverage, he immediately began to search for resources and landed on El Centro de Corazon (El Centro), which offers low or no cost urgent medical and dental care, ESL classes, and legal services.

“Everybody needs help and it’s okay to ask for help,” Flores said in an interview. “We want to continue to provide our employees with not only a good job that pays a fair wage but also with resources out there that they might not know about. The last I heard was that the mom did go to an appointment at El Centro de Corazon and is waiting to see the specialist.”

Co-founded by Brent Southwell, PJS Houston is a commercial janitorial company that maintains more than 300 accounts in about 40 million square feet of buildings with some 1,400 employees. Last year, PJS Houston donated $10,000 to the non profit, El Centro, which is located in East downtown Houston.

“It’s an organization that PJS not only supports financially but is also involved in their community outreach,” Flores said. “Occasionally, they need a tent, water, or oscillating fans and we can provide that to make sure their events are more successful for them.”

The next El Centro event is a food drive in September for families in need who have kids returning to school.

“We put out ads or we advertise about the event weeks before and place collection booths and containers throughout the city,” Flores said. “We like to partner up with buildings that we clean for and get permission from the property manager to set up not only collection boxes but also the signage. That makes it easier for us to know where the donation stations are, to go pick them up and deliver to Centro de Corazon.”

El Centro is just one charity that PJS Houston is committed to supporting.

Prior to the pandemic, the Houston Area Women’s Center on Waugh Drive, which caters to battered and abused women, hosted a toy drive that PJS Houston assisted with. Although the event was cancelled last year due to COVID-19, the toy drive will resume in October, according to Flores.

“In 2019, we had so much participation internally from our employees who donated toys that we didn’t have to go out and put collection boxes up,” he said.

Last year, Flores was one of 10 PJS Houston employees who participated in the Virtual Lemon Climb, which raised $6,000 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a financial hub for parents whose children have cancer to assist in securing expense money while they undergo treatment.

“Our involvement in these various organizations stems from us wanting to partner with our employees and not necessarily with a particular organization or cause but just our employees,” Flores said. “When we talk to our employees and learn about their situation, both socially and economically, they often reference their go-to organizations and we try to support those organizations.”

PJS Houston was connected with Alex’s Lemonade Stand through a janitorial customer whose 4-year-old cousin died of cancer lymphoma, “This client actually is a founding member for the Houston chapter of Alex’s Lemonade Stand,” Flores added. “It’s unfortunate that organizations like Alex’s Lemonade Stand exist but it’s also a great thing because it gives people relief in an already stressful situation.”

Juliette Fairley has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

Categories
Features Giving Back

Strengthening Family and Marriages

The Wolfenberger family. (Courtesy of the Wolfenbergers)

David and Mitsue Wolfenberger started a crab business on the coast of Washington in the 80s. They enjoyed small town life which provided a relatively protected environment in which to raise their family of seven children. But today, the Wolfenbergers are run a successful international nonprofit organization providing marriage education. In some ways, theirs is still the quintessential American story of family, hard work, and ingenuity.

“Our children worked alongside us in the crab business and in this way, developed good work habits and some skills. They washed totes, unloaded crabs from the boats and packed shipping crates. This is a demanding business, and since I had to be on the job full-time, my wife, whose first language is Japanese, homeschooled the children,” David said. “Our children’s flexible schedule provided us with opportunities to go on family camping trips and road trips during the off-season, when they weren’t working or getting an education.”

David and Mitsue’s own relationship had already planted a seed to grow something more. “From the time we were engaged and then married in 1982, Mitsue and I considered our relationship the most essential ingredient for the happiness of our family. My wife and I often had discussions with other couples who felt the same way. We wanted to do something to strengthen our own relationships, and help other married couples in our community, including our own married adult children,” David said. It was just discussion—until the crab business took off and they found success, and opportunity to pursue their passion.

David and Mitsue Wolfenberger. (Courtesy of the Wolfenbergers)

“We wondered where to begin,” David said. Then one day, the couple were spending time with their newlywed son and his wife, and their new daughter-in-law suggested they take on marriage enrichment education in their ministry. The very next day, David called a friend who had two decades of family therapy experience and asked him to come on board.

“We decided on two main objectives: revive marriages and train young people to conduct marriage enrichment programs. Three younger couples got involved and together they created the program we now call “Energize Retreats,” a two-day marriage enrichment program inspired by the teachings of Mark Gungor, a well-known marriage educator,” David said.

It was on one of these retreats that David had an “aha moment.” During one activity, husbands and wives met in separate groups.  When the subject of pornography came up, the room went silent and at first no one said a word. When the conversation finally commenced, David discovered that this was a huge and common behavior causing serious problems in the marriage relationship.

The Wolfenbergers realized that if they didn’t take on this issue, nobody else would, so they decided to make pornography awareness a new objective of their ministry. In order to effectively address the problem, more education was needed. David financed an intergenerational group of men to attend a Christian sponsored workshop on the addictive nature of pornography and its negative impact on marriages. This was a boost for the attendees to overcome their own issues and then learn how to help others through getting trained in mentorship. This group of brave men did just that and as a result, High Noon was given birth.

The mission of High Noon is to help us understand the harmful and addictive nature of pornography, especially for today’s young people who are inundated with inaccurate, harmful sexual triggers in social media and elsewhere. Some of us may not think it’s such a big deal, but when we hear first-hand about a person’s struggle, it becomes obvious how a porn habit has the potential to hijack future plans for everlasting love and well-being.

“I started watching porn mainly out of curiosity about sex. However, it quickly turned into something I would go to when I was bored or frustrated. Luckily, I never reached the point where I was watching porn everyday but if it had not been for the recovery process of High Noon I might have gotten to that point. I would say that pornography had a negative impact on my relationships, and made me think of sex in a way that is likely not ideal and is not about love. Because of porn, my concept of sexuality was all about the pleasure and intensity and not at all about the emotion or love that is so deep in sex. It affected the way I viewed others, relationships, and even affected my motivation to pursue a relationship that could result in marriage. When was I able to say to myself, enough is enough? When I entered into a serious relationship and was on track for marriage, I decided that I could not continue watching pornography. I realized that it felt like I was being disloyal to my partner and pornography affected the way I valued her. I wanted my first real sexual experience to be about the love I had for my partner rather than the desire I had for sexual pleasure. I knew that overcoming this struggle with porn was essential to creating a lasting relationship of real love.” (Anonymous from a participant in High Noon mentorship program)

High Noon has created workshops with curricula for young adults, couples, and families. In these programs, singles can grow their sexual integrity before marriage and develop the skills needed to overcome the temptation of pornography. Husbands and wives can listen to presentations and discuss what it takes to experience greater intimacy and build trust in the marriage relationship. Parents can learn how to guide their children into God’s plan for sexuality in age appropriate lesson plans in the “School of Love” curricula.

High Noon proves that the curse of internet pornography can be lifted when individuals recognize its negative, addictive influence on their lives and seek help. Its mentorship program has been very effective in helping men and women break free of porn. “What made the difference for me was that I was surrounded by others who wanted the same things I wanted,” one anonymous participant shared. Being part of a weekly check-in call system for eight months helped this person overcome the challenge. “Now life is awesome. I am living life on purpose and building my dream every day. I have a beautiful wife that I am free to love unabashedly with all of my heart. I do not have the useless negative distraction that porn is and can use all of my time focused on creating a life that I want. I have confidence in who I am; I know that I am now aligned with my integrity goals.”

It’s impressive to see how the ingenuity and courage of one couple has produced effective and far reaching programs for families here in this country and abroad. What began with two people has multiplied and contributed to thousands of healthier individuals and families.

Poppy Richie is a freelance writer and former teacher and administrator at the Principled Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She co-authored a K-12 Character Education curriculum, “Discovering the Real Me,” and contributed to online elementary-level science education curricula for various companies.

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Features Generation to Generation

The Marvelous Tradition of Fishing

Brian Molitor and his grandson Zeke. (Courtesy of Brian Molitor)

The river’s cool water swirled around the young boy’s legs as he slowly inched his way upstream, hoping to get within casting distance of the beautiful rainbow trout feeding in the gentle current. Next to the boy was his grandfather, carefully watching, guiding, and encouraging him as they drew nearer to the prize. Roughly 20 feet away, the boy began stripping line from the battered fly rod and made his first false casts toward the fish, clearly visible in the late afternoon sunlight. The homemade fly landed lightly on the surface four feet upstream from the trout and began its drift, twisting and turning as a natural insect would.

Magically, the boy watched as the trout rose to inhale the fly, and the battle was on. “You’ve got him, son,” the grandpa said calmly. “Don’t horse him. He’s a beauty.”

Less than a minute later, the rainbow trout was scooped up in the net and smiles graced the faces of both fishermen, one young and the other quite old. At the time, there were no smartphones with fancy cameras to capture the moment. But the human mind has a way of storing away important images for a long time. In this case, that image has lasted for six decades. You see, I was that boy, and standing by my side was my beloved Grandpa Henry.

Since that time, I’ve been blessed to fish for many species in different parts of the world. Dorado in Hawaii, cutthroat trout in the mountains of Colorado, halibut in Alaska, tarpon in Puerto Rico, barramundi in Australia, and more. My fishing companions have ranged from professional guides to good friends. One of my favorites was my daughter, Jeni, who inherited her great-grandfather’s love for the sport.

Brian Molitor with a catch. (Courtesy of Brian Molitor)

Over the years, I have learned that fishing is more than the pursuit of a trophy—much more. One of the greatest benefits of fishing is the natural environment in which it takes place. Whether river, lake, or ocean, the amount of life in the water is astounding. The incredibly diverse aquatic life; the flying birds; and the sights, smells, and sounds combine to simultaneously thrill and calm the senses, especially for those of us who have spent too much time being bombarded by car horns, ringing phones, text tones, and demanding television.

There’s another profound benefit from fishing that is all too rare in today’s hectic world: fellowship. While some prefer to fish alone, many find family and friends that share in the joys of the pursuit. Fishing with friends leads to laughs when things go wrong, celebration when things go right, and quiet moments of connecting souls together—souls that are often starved for something deeper than just a quick cup of coffee or drink at the end of the day.

Perhaps the best part of fishing is that it has a way of connecting generations in deep and profound ways. It has a mystifying power strong enough to cause young people to put down their phones, get off social media, and focus on something real for more than a few minutes. Even an afternoon fishing trip teaches important life lessons of planning, execution, patience, celebration, and more.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of introducing my 6-year-old grandson, Zeke, to fishing. Standing at the edge of the water, I taught him how to cast and then stood by as he tried and failed, tried and failed, and then tried and succeeded. When the trout hit his lure, I heard a voice from the past saying:

“You’ve got him, son.”

“Don’t horse him.”

“He’s a beauty.”

Once the trout was safely in hand, Zeke looked up with innocent eyes and smiled. “Grandpa, that was awesome! Can we catch another?” My great hope is that one day, Zeke will stand next to his grandson or granddaughter and watch as fishing becomes an important part of another generation.

Brian Molitor on a fishing trip with his grandson Zeke. (Courtesy of Brian Molitor)

Brian D. Molitor has been married for 37 years, with four children and five grandchildren.  He is CEO of Molitor International, an award-winning consultancy. Brian is also a filmmaker, author, and avid outdoorsman.

Categories
Features

For Family and Freedom

Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye outside their South Carolina home. (SAM)

Parting from his wife and two sons was the hardest thing Tiberiu Czentye had ever done—harder than the upcoming 40-mile trek that would end with him crawling on the ground as he tried to evade armed guards near the Romanian–Yugoslavian border, harder than what would be months of hard labor in a Yugoslavian prison after he was captured anyway, and harder than the two years he would spend as either prisoner or refugee while crossing five countries before he finally won his freedom. “Family—that is why I left; I escaped Romania for the future of my kids,” Czentye said. “The biggest, toughest, most painful moment of my life was when I turned off the lights and kissed my kids and my wife goodbye, because I did not know if I would ever see them again.”

Tiberiu’s wife, Sandra Czentye, and their two sons. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)

Even now, from the safety of his own home in a free country, when he speaks of it—when he remembers those goodbyes—he’s moved to tears. Czentye and his family lived in communist Romania, during the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. From the beginning of this plan, he was clear about his goal: America. There, his family would have freedom and the opportunity for a better life and future for generations to come. “I studied. Many people leave and they don’t know what they’re doing or why,” he said. “If I make this sacrifice, at least I want to leave my family in one safe place for many generations. So I studied: the population of the US, the economy, the states, the two parties, the political power, the military power, the power of the dollar and how strong is the economy, and all these things put together.”

America’s history as a country built by immigrants was crucial for Czentye. He was migrating for his sons’ futures, and he didn’t want to bring them all the way to a new country where they would be looked down upon—and that didn’t happen in America. “I bring them here for their futures, and to feel good, not to be hurt,” he said. “I had a very strong reason to risk my life.”

He knew he was risking his family’s future as well, but he had a strong feeling that he would make it—throughout his journey, he said he must have been blessed. Man alone can only do so much, he said, but perhaps God played a part too.

A young Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)

The Value of Human Dignity

Circumstances were bleak under Communist Party rule in 1989 socialist Romania, when Czentye set out on his mission to escape: schools were brainwashing centers, hard work was penalized, and his sons’ futures were almost certainly shaping up to be worse than his own. But Romanians didn’t always equate socialism with dictatorship—many people in the world still don’t. First, came the promises of free stuff, allowing socialism to take hold, Czentye said.

However, once the Communist Party had power, it quickly became clear that it couldn’t keep its promises. Then, the regime closed the borders, morphed into a dictatorship, and its unrealistic goals ended up impoverishing the nation. “Under these restrictions and these political things, there started to be a shortage of food, shortage of gas—shortage of almost everything,” Czentye said. “People were dying.”

That hit too close to home when his younger son got sick and ended up severely dehydrated. At the hospital, Czentye learned of a treatment for the virus, three daily doses of which could help his son to recover. But the medicine was produced outside of Romanian borders, and the regime refused to buy foreign pharmaceuticals. Upset, Czentye checked his son out of the hospital, despite widespread accusations that he was sentencing his boy to death. Instead, he hired a nurse and purchased the medicine on the black market—and his son got better. His enterprising spirit was clearly at odds with socialist culture.

Tiberiu Czentye in South Carolina on June 2, 2021. (SAM)

People in Romania had three options, he said: they could work hard and do their best while remaining unable to distinguish themselves or see the fruits of their labors, they could become lazy and collect the same pay as everyone else, or they could get out. The material side of things was only one concern.

Communist schooling, from kindergarten through college, focuses on brainwashing students while glorifying the Communist Party, Czentye explained. History is rewritten, all the media is state-run, private property disappears, and your movements are monitored and restricted. “Once they have power, they tell you what to do and how to do it,” he said. But there are always people like him, Czentye noted—people who want to make their own way and show their own worth.

In order for the regime to keep up its ruse, it doesn’t stop with lies and brainwashing. The secret police turn neighbors into informants, in a country where no one is allowed to criticize the party. “If somebody, just one neighbor, tells them, ‘Well, Tibi said that …’ in the morning they break down the door, take you from there, and you just disappear forever,” he said. That’s the worst part, he said: first, people turn on each other, society loses trust and faith in fellow humans, and people lose their dignity.

“People start to give you up. It starts to lose the quality and the value of the human being. I don’t want to say it because it’s not so fair, but they start to be more [like] animals, and just bend to the power.”

In contrast, family values were deeply ingrained for Czentye—growing up, he witnessed commitment between his grandparents and between his parents. As such, he didn’t just want a nicer life for himself: He wanted a future where his sons could flourish. Like his parents and grandparents had done before him, he wanted to lead by example and live out values worth imitating.

“That is why I left home, and left by myself. They have guns on the border and they used to shoot people—they don’t allow you to leave. I thought, ‘Please, they kill me, but they don’t kill my family,’” he said. From Czentye’s home in Timisoara, Romania, he crossed the border into Yugoslavia, where he was caught and sentenced to what amounted to slave labor, digging holes for electrical cables. After three months, he made his escape, traveling through Austria, through West Germany, and to the Netherlands, where he was placed in a refugee camp.

While in the Netherlands, Czentye sought political asylum in the United States and petitioned Romania to let his family visit him. The timing was fortunate—the regime had been overthrown and a new government was working to establish its legitimacy—and Czentye’s petition was granted. Being reunited with his family was unforgettable. He still remembers his trip to the airport, the suspense, and the first moment when he saw his family’s faces. With tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, Czentye was finally able to hug his loved ones again. It took a total of two years for Czentye to gain asylum, and in 1991, he moved to the United States.

“I had two luggages, two kids, my wife, and God,” Czentye said. He landed in Portland, Maine, where his family was entitled to a year of government assistance. After three weeks, he turned it down, and the family packed up and hopped on a Greyhound headed across the country. They had their eyes set on San Francisco, a hub of opportunity and industry.

The Czentyes in San Francisco in 1991. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)

His Grandchildren’s Future

In San Francisco, Czentye worked three jobs at once, taking neither vacation nor sick leave for five full years before starting his own business. But things in California—and many parts of America—have changed since then, he said. From 2007 to 2009, Czentye would spend time traveling up and down the Southeast, looking for a new place for his family. He found it in South Carolina, and after his youngest son graduated from college—both sons studied in California, one at UCLA and the other at Menlo College—they made the move cross-country. Still, even after seeing changes firsthand in California, Czentye was appalled when socialism became a popular movement in the United States.

“I was shocked. Shocked! And very upset,” said Czentye, who today is CEO of a digital archiving company and a happy grandfather of five. “I really believe it is my duty to share my story and tell these crazy guys who like socialism that it’s not like that.” Inspired to do more, he got involved in local politics and was recently elected executive committeeman for his county, and is looking for more opportunities to share the truth still.

However, Czentye acknowledges that it’s not all these young people’s faults that they’re endorsing socialism; rather, their parents may have failed them by not teaching them to mind their character. The schools may have also failed them by pushing them toward expensive degrees in oversaturated industries, racking up loans they now struggle to pay off. Even before Czentye set foot in America, he studied the culture, and from day one his wife and he were clear with their sons: Parents are the foremost teachers in life. Police and schoolteachers have roles to play as well, but those should never supersede parental guidance. He spoke openly about socialism, communism, what happened in Romania, and the follies of human nature.

Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye with their sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)

Czentye and his wife wanted to give their boys good lives, and they made clear their expectations: that the boys should use the good manners they were taught and strive for excellence—and they did, doing well in school and sports. Their sons are now raising their own families with these same traditional values. But Czentye saw that many of his sons’ friends in grade school weren’t brought up this way; without good values, a person’s character can slip, laziness creeps in, and the mentality of blaming others provides an easy out. These resentful souls take readily to socialism and its promise of free things, he warned.

A second warning sign, a tactic reminiscent of what Czentye experienced in Romania, is the divisive culture attempting to take hold in America. “The socialists, they work very hard to divide us: to divide us by nationalities, to divide us by blue-collar workers [versus] white-collar workers, if you are a member of a political party—all of these things,” he said. But Czentye believes that truth will prevail, and if people can recognize socialism for what it is, America can stay free.

“I’ve had the chance to go [traveling] in many countries since I’m here, and since I had my company, I went back to Europe, I was in South America, I was in China, I was in Africa, [and] Japan. I can tell you, America is not perfect, but it is the best,” he said. “And from here, I’m not going to run anymore. I’m going to fight and do what I can against socialism and for a free society.”

Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye outside their South Carolina home. (SAM)