Category: Features

Famed for His Sweet Voice and Wholesome Values, Singer Pat Boone Is a True Force for Good

Post author By Kenneth LaFave
Post date April 13, 2023

Pat Boone in his sunny West Hollywood office. (John Fredricks)

“I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up,” the actor and singer Dean Martin once said.

Call it the “Pat Boone Effect.”

Example: In 1997, hard rock and heavy metal were at their peak. Their sound was the epitome of doom, their lyrics the essence of defeat. Enter an artist from the ’50s and early ’60s, with 38 Top 40 hits to his credit, a singer known for tuneful songs, sung in the smoothest possible way—the very antithesis of hard rock/heavy metal—Pat Boone.

(Courtesy of Pat Boone)

The album, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy,” featured Boone’s crooner vocal stylings against a lush background of big band saxophones and brass sections. A complete deconstruction of the hard rock/metal genre, “In a Metal Mood” uncovered surprising melodic richness in such unlikely sources as Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and Deep Purple. Boone’s version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” married the song’s opening guitar riff to a salvo of trumpets, while Boone’s heartfelt delivery gave new life to the dismal lyrics.

Heavy metal didn’t have a chance against the “Pat Boone Effect” and its founding creed: Everything, even the onset of the darkest conditions, can be resisted and tamed. The “Pat Boone Effect” continues today, as its namesake writes books, makes movies, and finds new songs to sing at the age of 88.

Boone (C) with “American Bandstand” host Dick Clark (L) and pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)

An Icon of the ’50s

Pat Boone was long ago a name to speak in the same breath as Elvis Presley. In the ’50s, the two of them vied for the top of the pop charts, with Boone often winning. A writer for Time Magazine extolled the young phenom dressed in white shoes in a 1956 article: “Pat Boone, 22, was just another hillbilly singer from Nashville 18 months ago. Today, nobody who hears him in person ever hears the first or last few robust notes—they are always drowned in squeals of bobby-sox delight.” In addition to recording those 38 Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1963 (13 of them gold singles), Boone acted in more than a dozen movies, including “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and the 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “State Fair.”

Along the way, he exemplified a pristine image of restraint and hard work. In a lecture to young people, Boone once warned that “kissing for fun is like lighting a lovely candle in a room full of dynamite.” Unwilling to exploit what he assumed was temporary fame, Boone got his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1958, the same year his biggest single hit, “Love Letters in the Sand,” came out, with the intent of becoming a teacher. But fame persisted, allowing him to marry his sweetheart, Shirley, who would be his wife for more than 60 years until her passing in 2020.

And then—the world stopped turning and commenced to spin in the opposite direction. In 1964, the year Boone turned 30, the British invasion brought the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to American shores, and in their wake, a striking change in the cultural weather.

Boone, Elvis Presley (C), and friends meet up while filming at the 20th Century Fox Studios for their movies “All Hands on Deck” and “Wild in the Country,” circa 1960. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)

“Drugs and promiscuous sex,” Boone answers immediately to the question, “What prompted the cultural changes of the mid- to late ’60s?” Whatever it was, the change meant that Boone’s milk-and-cookies image suddenly became yesterday’s newspapers. So he moved on, never changing his beliefs nor his singing style, and never judging the new wave (he called Alice Cooper and John Lennon friends), but persisting. He continued to perform and record, finding an audience just outside the one that surfed the mainstream, while tilting occasionally against contemporary culture in a semi-humorous mode that kept one second-guessing: Was he serious about those metal covers, or was that an elaborate joke to expose the thinness of the material? Boone never quite gave a straight answer.

Grounded in Faith

Boone’s latest enterprises, “If: The Eternal Choice We All Must Make,” a book-length essay on his lifelong spiritual beliefs, and “The Mulligan,” a faith-based movie that follows up on his recent acting appearances in other faith-based movies, confirm his dedication to the same values that first made him famous.

(Courtesy of Pat Boone)

“The word ‘if’ is of utmost importance. ‘If’ you believe. ‘If’ you choose. ‘If’ you act,” Boone said of his book’s theme. The book guides the reader in navigating choices that Boone insists “are not religious, but matters of life and death.” He said he felt compelled to write it. “I even designed the cover, which looks like the burned edges of a piece of paper, with the single word ‘if’ in the middle,” he added, to convey the feeling of urgency. The choices as answered in the book lead the reader to the Christian faith that Boone has held from childhood.

“The Mulligan” likewise explores his faith, from the standpoint of second chances: “A ‘mulligan’ in golf is a second chance, so why not a second chance in life to correct the mistakes we all make? It’s a gospel theme with a secular plot, set on a gorgeous golf course.” The film was released in select theaters in April 2022.

(John Fredricks)

Boone’s faith has led him to feel an urgent need to bring Christianity and Judaism together. “One of the biggest mistakes ever made was dividing the Bible into Old and New Testaments. It’s a single testament. One part needs the other.”

Boone’s regard for Judaism and his empathy for Israel once led to an especially demanding challenge. On Christmas Eve, 1960, Boone sat listening to the musical theme to “Exodus,” a film based on Leon Uris’s novel about the founding of the modern state of Israel. It wasn’t just for pleasure. The piece was wildly popular due to an instrumental version by the piano duo Ferrante and Teicher, but it had no lyrics, and without them its significance as a paean to Israel’s founding was blunted.

Several lyricists had tried and failed to fit meaningful words to composer Ernest Gold’s soaring melody. Now, the task was given to a popular singer with deeply Christian beliefs. Could he do it? Boone wasn’t even principally a songwriter. His biggest hits were written by other people: “April Love” was penned by a professional songwriting team for the 1957 movie of the same name; “Ain’t That a Shame” was a Fats Domino cover; and Boone’s biggest hit of all, “Love Letters in the Sand,” was a neglected ballad from 1931.

(Courtesy of Pat Boone)

“I sat listening to the music over and over and I told Shirl”—his nickname for his wife—“nothing was coming to mind. Then I just heard the first four words: ‘This land is mine.’ I grabbed a Christmas card on a nearby table and started to write.”

Finding the first four words opened up the floodgates of creativity. “God gave this land to me,” and the rest of the lyrics, crowded onto the back of the Christmas card.

(John Fredricks)

“It’s like a second national anthem in Israel,” Boone said. “The director of Yad Vashem,” which is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, “asked if I would will the original manuscript of the lyrics to them. I said, ‘You can have it now, but it’s on the back of a Christmas card.’ They were fine with that.”

A superstar in his 20s, and a persistent figure in entertainment ever since, Pat Boone goes on believing that the bad in the world can be, must be, overcome. The Pat Boone Effect could do the world a world of good.

From April Issue, Volume 3

Tags Elvis Presley, Pat Boone

Uncategorized Features

The Mighty Oak: Marine Chad Robichaux’s Story of Tragedy, War, and Healing

Post author By Dustin Bass
Post date April 13, 2023

(Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

On August 21, 2010, Chad Robichaux stood in the middle of the Toyota Center before thousands of cheering fans. He had just finished a fight for Strikeforce, the second-largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization at the time. The three judges submitted their scorecards. It was a split decision. After the third scorecard was read, he was still undefeated at 13–0.

From the outside looking in, Chad Robichaux seemed to have the world on a string. This moment in the octagon seemed the emblematic story of his life: enduring a hardscrabble childhood, joining the Marines and quickly rising to its special unit Force Recon, starting his own highly successful MMA gym, and now marching through his competitors one-by-one. But that was on the outside. That was the man on paper. It was not, however, the man himself.

Since World War II, the Robichaux family has given 84 years of service to the American military. His family has bled patriotism since before he was born, but the family has bled in other ways too.

“When my father came home from Vietnam, he was a train wreck and was until the day he died,” Robichaux said. “He was a very angry guy. A very violent guy. But the one thing that made him light up and made him proud was the fact that he was a United States Marine.”

Robichaux and his brother, who are a year apart, decided as teenagers to become Marines. They devoured books about 3rd and 4th Recon Companies and Special Forces in Vietnam. Robichaux said the very idea of becoming Marines helped them escape the dysfunction of their childhood.

But just one year into their decision, his brother was killed after an argument with their stepbrother. Though it was never discovered if the killing was accidental or intentional, it was ultimately the tragic product of a dysfunctional family. The tragedy drove his mother to pursue psychiatric help, though she would never recover. His father left to work overseas. At 15, Robichaux moved in with his older sister.

Robichaux with his commanding officer from USMC School of Infantry–West. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

The death of his brother hardened his resolve to become a Marine. As a high school athlete, he did his best to maintain his strength and conditioning, not for sports, but for his future in the military. He worked long hours while attending school. Pragmatically, though, he knew he was never going to graduate. At 17, he pleaded with his Marine recruiter to let him join the Marines earlier than usual. The recruiter eventually complied and helped Robichaux write a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps explaining his circumstances, with Robichaux pledging his loyalty to service, and also to get a GED, which he did. He would later attain a master’s degree in business. “I’m very fortunate looking back that I had that opportunity, took advantage of it, and made the best of my situation,” he said.

That situation took a turn on September 11, 2001. He had already been in the Marines for eight years and was a sergeant in the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. He was also married with children. “When I saw those planes fly into those buildings I knew my life was about to be different,” he recalled. “I wanted to go and serve. I wanted to go and make that wrong right for our country and for our national security.”

Over the course of four years, he would be deployed eight times to Afghanistan as part of the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Robichaux would find himself constantly in the heart of combat. He would witness not just the death of comrades and enemy soldiers, but the evil and cruelty of his enemies who relentlessly tortured and killed innocent civilians. He and his fellow soldiers would be tried by fire in the heat of battle and emerge closer and stronger together. The vulnerability of friendship in battle, however, would lead to emotional devastation, as he buried 15 friends, including his best friend of 10 years. “It’s hard for that not to shape you,” he said. “Either you grow from it or it crushes you. I think ultimately I grew from it. But in the interim, it crushed me.”

The Crushing

The crushing began with feelings of anger and frustration, but those emotional issues went unaddressed and soon developed into physiological symptoms of anxiety and stress. One of the physical symptoms Robichaux experienced was numbness. His arms would go numb. His face would go numb. He would experience severe panic attacks where he would feel like he was on the verge of asphyxiation.

Graduates of the Mighty Oak Foundation’s program are presented with rudis swords. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

He remained silent about his symptoms. He feared his peers would consider him weak and that if he admitted himself into the military’s mental health resources, it would compromise his security clearance and ultimately remove him from special forces. While he struggled with the ever-worsening symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tragedy struck when one of his teams was captured by the Taliban and killed. His shelter in Afghanistan was later blown up by a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) by the same Taliban members. “I kept trying to operate in that environment, but ultimately I had to speak up,” he said. “I was brought home, just as I feared, diagnosed with PTSD and removed from my job.”

He was given medicine to treat his symptoms, but he said the medicine turned him into a “zombie.” He added that he also felt immensely embarrassed and ashamed to have been removed from his duties.

Success at a Cost

His wife Kathy and his counselor advised him to get into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He began competing in the martial art and turned professional. He rose through the MMA ranks and won a world title, ultimately ranking 19th in the world for flyweight and 11th for bantamweight. His success and popularity led him to open a Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy that quickly blossomed to 1,000 students. “When I got on those mats, it took my mind off of Afghanistan and those bad memories,” he said. “I took something that could be good for me and I dove into it. I was successful at it, but in that success, I never got well.”

Robichaux said he still suffered from severe panic attacks and continued to struggle with the medicine prescribed by the Veterans Affairs system. His marriage quickly fell apart after an affair. “I was a completely toxic human being to my wife and kids,” he said.

Chad Robichaux successfully fought his inner demons with the support of his wife, Kathy. Here, the couple is photographed in Temecula, Calif. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

He and Kathy sold their house, and he moved into an apartment. While he turned to partying and competing in martial arts as means to cope with his PTSD, Kathy began attending a local church. “She began praying, ‘God, let me see Chad the way You see Chad. Let me love Chad the way You love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way You forgave Chad,” he said. “She was fighting for me spiritually.”

It was during this time that Robichaux won the Strikeforce fight at Toyota Center. When he returned home that night, he lay in bed contemplating his life. While the world viewed him as an unquestionable success, he knew the world was wrong. “This thought came over me that of all the people I had blamed for everything, I was the problem. I was the common denominator,” he remembered. “My family was so devastated and I thought that if I wasn’t in their lives, it would be better for them. Maybe they would be sad without me, but they would be better off.”

For several weeks, Robichaux began contemplating suicide, at times sitting in his closet holding a Glock in one hand and a family photo in the other. In one of those darkest moments, Kathy knocked on his door.

“I remember I was so mad that she had interrupted me killing myself—which sounds twisted—that I started yelling at her,” he said. “She’s not a very calm arguer, but in this moment she was, and she asked me a question that became this axis point in my life. She asked me ‘How can you do all of this—recon, MMA schools, training for fights, deployments—and when it comes to your family, you’ll quit.’ And she was right.”

Her words cut and echoed in Robichaux’s mind. To be called a quitter and to know it was true was enough to create a mind-shift, and he decided in that moment to work toward putting his life back together. He began formulating a plan. He had been living a life without accountability. The people who had been in his corner had only been telling him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.

The Path to Change

He asked Kathy if she knew anyone whom he might talk to about his plan and whom he could be accountable to. She mentioned a man from her church by the name of Steve Toth. He wasn’t a veteran or into MMA. But he was outside of Robichaux’s circle, and he was a brutally up-front person. When Robichaux slid a piece of paper over to him that outlined his plan to change his life, Toth didn’t even look at it. He simply slid it back over to him and told him he would fail if God was not in the plan. God was not. “There is probably nothing more powerful that I could have heard in that moment because I knew deep down inside I had tried everything,” he said.

Robichaux gives an interview on the Situation Report podcast. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

Robichaux said that for the next year, Toth discipled him, which is a Christian method of mentoring through accountability, biblical study, and prayer. He gave his life to spirituality and began healing the wounds he had suffered and those he had inflicted. He and his family reunited, and by one year’s end, he and Kathy had formed a nonprofit called Mighty Oaks Foundation to help veterans who struggle with many of the same issues he did. The foundation is based on Robichaux’s personal experience with what works in the healing process.

“I don’t think God did those things to me,” he said. “But He has the ability to protect me from those things, so why wouldn’t He? I think the answer is that He trusts at times with these situations. He trusted what I would do with this. And I’ve taken the hardships in my life to not just help me, but to help others.”

Since the organization was launched 12 years ago, Robichaux has spoken to nearly half a million active duty troops. He is only one of two speakers to speak at the Marine Corps boot camps. He has authored and co-authored eight books, the latest one about the rescue mission to save his interpreter in Afghanistan after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal. He has donated approximately 350,000 copies of his books to troops. He has spoken before Congress numerous times in support of faith-based approaches to dealing with PTSD. His foundation has established five ranch facilities around the country to help veterans suffering from PTSD. Approximately 4,500 have graduated from the program, including active duty military, veterans, first responders, and their spouses. These programs are conducted free of charge, with the number of graduates steadily increasing to about 1,000 per year. Mighty Oaks is now spreading its programs throughout the world with military allies.

A Proven Method

Robichaux and his team developed a method for helping veterans recover and heal, based on what is known in the military as “the four pillars of resilience.” Mighty Oaks Foundation focuses on a veteran’s mental, physical, social, and spiritual needs.

Robichaux speaks to students at a convocation for Liberty University in Virginia. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)

“I believe we are created to be holistic human beings. We cover at Mighty Oaks the spiritual side, but I don’t think that is all you need,” he said. “If you were only dealing with the spiritual side, you would have an imbalance. When I’m speaking to the troops, I point to their chairs and tell them that those four legs represent each of those pillars of resilience. If that chair has a weak leg it could probably remain standing, but the moment you sit on it, you’ll go crashing down. I think that’s our life. On the surface, we look like we have all four of those pillars, but if one of them is weak, as soon as the weight of life comes on it, we’ll come crashing down.”

Robichaux noted that it was his spiritual pillar that was weakest for him. He said it left a giant hole inside of him that he filled with hate, rage, anger, and bitterness, which allowed room for anxiety, depression, guilt, and hopelessness to engulf him. Robichaux’s rise from what he calls “a darkness” has enabled him to do what he has done for so long: serve. In a way, he still serves his country by serving his fellow countrymen, specifically those in the military.

“I don’t think I get the platform because of the successes I’ve had,” he said. “I think the platform I have is because I’ve been at the high and at the very low and I have felt the need to be honest about that.” He regrets that he didn’t have someone to show him how to be vulnerable when he was struggling. “I wish someone would have been that honest with me about their hardships and struggles because I know that would have helped me. I’m thankful I was allowed to endure those low points because it gives me an opportunity to speak to others.”

From April Issue, Volume 3

Tags Chad Robichaux, Mighty Oaks, United States Marine

Features

Adventures in Mule Packing

Post author By Annie Wu
Post date April 13, 2023

Mules are intuitive animals that can communicate with their human companions through nonverbal cues, Eyer said. (Natalie Rhea)

Out in the roughly 112 million acres of land that are designated as “wilderness areas” by the federal Wilderness Act of 1964, no motorized vehicles or “mechanical transport” are allowed to operate—not even a wheelbarrow. That’s where mule packer Chris Eyer comes in. Together with his pack of 10 to 15 hardworking animals, he helps to transport supplies for the U.S. Forest Service and outdoor guides who bring people out on wilderness trips. It was a lifelong dream: When he was about 14, he went on a mountaineering school trip to the Sierras in California, and he spotted a man with a pack of mules. That moment was seared into his mind and sparked a desire to one day embrace the Wild West archetype.

Along the way, Eyer served in the Marine Corps during the first Gulf War (“I had a strong sense of garden variety patriotism and a real love for freedom”), went to university, started an electrical contracting company, and began crafting saddles. The mule packing is mostly a volunteering endeavor born out of the love for the outdoors. He lives in a pocket of wilderness in Ovando, Montana, nestled in the northern Rocky Mountains, known as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (“I live in a spot where I can ride out my front door and go all the way to Canada”). Today, he sits on the board of directors for a foundation that maintains the wilderness complex and runs programs that bring people to explore the area.

Eyer’s great-grandfather had a homestead in the same area of Montana wilderness that he now explores. (Lianna Spooner)

Eyer spoke to American Essence about what mule packing entails and the deeper meaning behind connecting with nature.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

American Essence: What is a typical day like for you?

Chris Eyer: I would wake up at 5 a.m. I would have all of my loads already made. So everything would be all put together and wrapped up in what we call manties [tarps]. I make coffee and start to wrangle all my stocks, get them loaded up into the trailer, and I’d head to the trailhead. I drive up there, unload, and then I go through a process of brushing everyone, making sure everyone is sound and looking good, put pads on them, saddle them all, get them all ready to go. I take these heavy loads, which are usually about 75 to 90 pounds per side, so anywhere from 150 to 180 pounds per animal, which for them is really not heavy. We always keep it to less than 20 percent of their body weight. If everything goes really smoothly, I’ll be on the trail by 9 a.m. A typical day for me would be riding anywhere from 18 to 25 miles, at which point I would stop and drop all the loads. And then I would take all the saddles off. Then I would start the process of turning my stock loose for the night, so that they can graze and water all night unimpeded. I’m normally in bed asleep by 8:15. And then I wake up in the morning and do it all again, whether I come out empty or move heavy things to the next destination.

American Essence: Why do you do what you do?

Mr. Eyer: For most people who take part in this wilderness area, they’re highly transformative [experiences]. Facilitating that is something I’m really interested in. Being back in a place where you are no longer on the top of the food chain, you’re traveling through areas full of grizzly bears and wolves and all sorts of different hazards—that’s actually an experience that’s more accurate to who we are as humans. Staying warm, staying hydrated, being fed, doing some work—that’s actually a very root experience for humanity. And I think it’s something that in this world we currently live in, where we’re just absolutely laden with technology, and we have all this information at our fingertips—to be able to come off the top of the food chain, to be able to go into our public lands, that’s just a really important salve for the postmodern mind. It’s allowing yourself to take part in the moment-to-moment change that’s happening around you, and not in a way that’s resisting it.

Chris Eyer and his pack of mules travel through the Danaher Meadows in the Bob Marshall Wilderness region. (Lindsey Mulcare)

American Essence: What are the dramatic transformations you’ve seen in people?

Mr. Eyer: When you can watch people, especially people who are newer to the wilderness, develop a new relationship with themselves, and in particular, develop a new relationship with what it means to be afraid. We all have certain kinds of fears and anxieties: It might be about your job. It might be about your children, your future, your past, whatever it may be. But when you get down to the root of that emotion—which is easier to do when you are in the wilderness—you realize that all these different fears that you experience on a day-to-day basis are actually masks.

When you really are able to let go, you see yourself nested in a system, an ecosystem of relationships of which you are a part. In other words, you’re not back there dominating, or taking control of the wilderness, you’re actually taking part in the wilderness. You’ll begin to see that if it’s true that you are nested in a web of relationships, that to act any other way but compassionately towards all of the life that we’re surrounded by—would just be to act self-destructively.

Many people return [home] and talk about how they engage with work differently, they engage with their family differently, they see things for what’s really important: sustenance, but also community, connection, and being able to rely on individuals in the communities we’re involved in, wherever that might be.

(Elias Carlson)

American Essence: What’s the most hairy situation you’ve been in while mule packing?

Mr. Eyer: I can remember a pack trip I went on where I was leaving camp, it was in October, and there was a light snow. And earlier that morning, we’d seen one of the largest grizzly bears I’ve ever seen, he skirted the boundaries of our camp. And then a couple hours later, when we were leaving, he popped out of these willow bushes and spooked the whole pack string, and the whole pack string took off at a full gallop. I ended up holding my horse, but off of him, about 10 to 15 feet away from this giant grizzly bear, face to face. Thankfully, he wandered into camp, and was interested in exploring whether or not we’ve left any food behind and was not interested in attacking me. There’s just countless stories like that.

From April Issue, Volume 3

Tags Chris Eyer, mule packer

Features Why I Love America

An Immigrant’s Success Story: From Dirt Floors to Upscale Salon

Post author By Dino Laudati
Post date April 9, 2023

Dino Laudati, master haircolorist, pictured at his salon’s rooftop in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Pia Norris)

I am an immigrant. I grew up in poverty in post-World War II Italy. We had dirt floors and no running water or bathroom in the house, and we never knew where the next meal was coming from or what it would be. From the time I was 7, I worked at a gas station. I thank God that America gave me a chance to escape that life.

I came to America with my family when I was 16. I was upset about leaving my friends behind, but I had no choice. We lived in Springfield, Massachusetts: not a place I would have chosen, but much better than the place I left behind.

During my first month in Springfield, we experienced one of the worst snowstorms I had ever seen. While walking down the street on that Sunday, I noticed all the people—young and old—shoveling their driveways. Since I didn’t yet speak any English, I asked my friend to talk to the older people and find out if they would like us to shovel the snow for a couple of dollars. In 1968, $2 seemed like a lot of money. By the end of the day, when we stopped and counted all the money we had stuffed into various pockets, we discovered that we had made almost $30 apiece.

It was on that snowy Sunday that I became an American. In one short day in America, I made more than double what my father earned in a month doing construction seven days a week, 10 hours a day, in Italy.

Since that day, I did many jobs, both part-time and full-time, day or night. My father expected me to work a 40-hour-a-week job to help support the family: That meant I had to go to school during the day and work an eight-hour shift at night, usually from 10 o’clock to 6 o’clock in the morning. I worked in a match factory, a rubber boot factory, as a dishwasher, a janitor, and a hospital orderly. I did construction, framed paintings in an art gallery, and even sold vacuum cleaners from door to door. I was never out of work because America always offered an opportunity. Many times it was not what I wanted, but I did it anyway until something better came along.

Fortunately, I went to a trade high school where I took classes in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and auto mechanics. When my sister took cosmetology, I thought it would be interesting to join her—especially since I would be the only man surrounded by pretty girls. Even though my sister withdrew, I enjoyed it and the instructor took a special interest in me: I seemed to possess a natural talent. When I graduated, I received the cosmetology award and an award in English. I knew that I could embrace not just a job, but a career that offered unlimited opportunities. With a pair of scissors and a comb, I could go anywhere!

With five years’ experience as a hairstylist, I married my wife, and the next morning, we drove to Palm Beach, Florida. Two years later, at the age of 26, we opened our own salon. A few years later, we had the hottest and busiest salon in Palm Beach. We also had two sons.

I took to my knees and thanked God for my wife, my sons, and for the success of our salon. But most of all, I thanked him for America. These are some of the words I prayed:

Lord, thank you for giving me America as an adoptive mother, and please bless my new mother. She took me in her arms, accepted me as her own, and offered me the same dreams, the same freedom, and the same opportunities she offered her native sons, with no limits, no questions, and no discrimination. God bless America!

Tags immigrant success story

Features Arts & Letters House of Beauty Lifestyle

Alva Vanderbilt’s Marble House Became the Blueprint for Gilded Age Grandeur

Post author By Bob Kirchman
Post date April 4, 2023

(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

Quietly nestled along the Narraganset Bay, the Marble House was the first of the stone palaces to be built in Newport—transforming the quiet colony of wooden houses into a bastion of opulence. It would be called a “cottage,” in deference to the earlier shingle style summer residences. But in truth, this was a grand home “fit for a Queen.”

A French Affinity

Alva Erskine Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 17, 1853. She and her parents would spend summers in Newport, Rhode Island. During the Civil War, her family moved to Europe, and she attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Spending some of her formative years in the vicinity of Paris, young Alva became a Francophile (lover of all things French). She and her family eventually returned to America, living in New York. She married William Kissam Vanderbilt, a grandson of the patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr.

(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

Alva had built her “Petit Château” in New York with the help of architect Richard Morris Hunt. Now she engaged his services once more to create a “summer cottage” that would emulate the fine Beaux-Arts classicism she had admired in France. It would be the first truly grand classical mansion of Newport, Rhode Island. Hunt created for Alva a grand “temple for the arts,” as she called it. The design of Marble House was inspired by the Petit Trianon in Paris, a neoclassical style château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. Construction began on the house in 1888. It would be a present from her husband for her 39th birthday.

In the late 19th century, the estate reportedly cost $10–11 million to build. Seven million of that was for the marble—500,000 cubic feet of it.

The Gothic Room was designed to display Alva Vanderbilt’s collection of medieval and Renaissance decorative objects. The stone fireplace in the room was copied by Allard and Sons from a fireplace in the Jacques Coeur House in Bourges, France. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

Of Marble and Gild

Alva was known as a great entertainer, and she sought to build her own social status. For that reason, Alva collaborated with Hunt to create what became recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” If ever there was a ballroom that epitomized the Gilded Age, it would have to be the ballroom at Marble House.

The Ballroom was literally gilded: The elaborate architectural details of the room, first drawn by Hunt, are all covered with gold. Elaborate cornices, pilasters, archways, and panels of bas relief illustrating classical mythology are all covered with 22 karat gold. Above the relief is a 19th-century painting, in the style of the Italian Baroque painter Pietro da Cortona, of the Greek goddess Minerva.

Jules Allard and Sons, the noted Paris design firm, created the interiors for the house. The Stair Hall and its grand staircase, constructed of yellow Sienna marble, features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. Copied from a railing in the Palace of Versailles, the railing is signed by Allard.

Inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the grand staircase in the Foyer was constructed of yellow Sienna marble and features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

The Dining Room features pink Numidian marble, architectural details of gilded bronze on the walls and ceiling, and furniture of velvet fabric laced with metallic threads. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

The opulent Dining Room is walled in pink Numidian marble with architectural details of gilded bronze. Its fireplace is a replica of the Salon d’Hercule (Hercules Drawing Room) in Versailles. The library is in the Rococo style and features carved walnut bookcases by furniture maker Gilbert Cuel, who worked with Allard to create the room.

Alva had a collection of Medieval and Renaissance objects and artwork, for which the Gothic Room was built. In contrast to the rest of the house’s Louis XIV and Louis XV décor, this Gothic-revival sitting room is modeled after the interior of a house in Bourges, France (built between 1443 and 1451 for Jacques Coer, a prosperous merchant). The room’s chimney piece, of Caen limestone, is modeled after the one in the Bourges house. The foliate (leafy) cornice was also inspired by the gothic French interior, but in deference to Rhode Island’s seaside location, crabs and lobsters are worked into the foliage.

The private quarters upstairs, where the family lived, are finished in the style of Louis XIV. William and Alva had three children. William K. Jr. is known for promoting the young sport of automobile racing. His brother Harold was a skilled yachtsman, successfully defending the America’s Cup on three occasions. Consuelo, the daughter, became the 9th Duchess of Marlborough, marrying Charles Spencer Churchill in 1895.

The Grand Salon (also called the Gold Room) served as a ballroom and was recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” The Gold Room features gold gilt paneling over wooden walls carved to represent scenes from classical mythology, inspired by the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)

A Stage for Suffrage

Alva divorced William in March of 1895. She already owned Marble House since William had presented it to her as a birthday present and the deed was in her name. The next year she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, and she lived with him at Belcourt (another mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt in Newport) until his death in 1908. She then returned to Marble House and added an ornate teahouse, modeled after a 12th-century Song Dynasty temple in China. It sits at the foot of the Marble House lawn, above the Cliff Walk overlooking the ocean. The design was created by the sons of Richard Morris Hunt, who by that time had taken over their father’s firm.

It was here, and on Marble House’s rear terrace, that Alva began to hold rallies for a new passion. The woman who so ardently strove to bring her family into the realm of nobility now became a champion of women’s suffrage. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Alva lived to see the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote. Her daughter Consuelo had dissolved her marriage with the British Duke and was now living in Paris. Alva moved to France to be close to her and later died in Paris at the age of 80.

The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Picture of the National Woman’s Party at Mrs. Belmont’s house in Newport, R.I., 1914. Library of Congress. (Public domain)

From February Issue, Volume 3

Tags Alva Vanderbilt, Gilded Age, Marble House

A Love of Learning Features

Arizona Mom Creates Charter School Network to Help Students with Autism Thrive

Post author By Krista Thomas
Post date April 4, 2023

Arizona Autism Charter School uses behavior therapy techniques to help children communicate their needs. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

When Diana Diaz-Harrison strolls the halls of her schools, she is reminded on a daily basis why she loves education. She has always loved kids. It’s what drew her into the education field in the first place. Her earlier self as a bilingual teacher in California could not have imagined her present self as an innovative leader in education. Today, she is the founder of a specialized public charter school system—the first of its kind: the Arizona Autism Charter School (AZACS).

AZACS is unlike the typical public school institution. It is a tuition-free charter school based on a nonprofit educational model for Arizona’s non-neurotypical students who have been diagnosed with learning differences. These children are thriving in a non-traditional classroom setting within her network of charter schools geared toward children with autism in Arizona. According to Harrison, about 25 percent of students are not autistic; however, they might have a speech delay or cerebral palsy, or they are wheelchair-bound students.

(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

“It is hard to convince others about the growing trend of diverse student populations,” she stated. “These students need personalized learning, therapeutic services, and a small class model. And because there are so many diverse students, they need the services of AZACS.”

Harris first established a campus in 2014 for students in grades K to 5. Today, Harrison’s schools serve 725 students online and at three campuses in central Phoenix in grades K to 12. For post-secondary education, AZACS added a transition academy to assist students between 18 and 22 years old. Here, students can earn career and tech credits (CTE) while learning essential life skills and getting vocational training. And yet, spaces are continually being added to accommodate enrollment needs.

The work of AZACS attracted national recognition with Harrison winning the Yass Prize, an award established in 2021 to honor and support innovative alternatives in education. As the winner, AZACS will receive $1 million in prize money. Dubbed an education changemaker, Harrison has committed her passions, expertise, and tenacity in ways that improve the quality of life for many neurodiverse students in Arizona. “My goal is to help change the narrative, celebrate these students for what they can contribute to society. They are not a burden. We have to find the best ways to reach them,” she said.

The school is a tuition free charter school that aims to help children with autism explore their unique gifts. Below, Harrison at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s post-secondary program focused on workforce training. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

Fighting for Those Like Her Son

And reach them she does. Harrison’s own son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism when he was only 2 years old. She found it difficult to access personalized quality education at traditional public school institutions. Like many parents, she struggled to find an affordable private school that would work for her son. Soon after, Sammy had a transformative intervention through Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC), renowned for providing the best behavior therapy for autism. It was a game changer. “Sammy started verbalizing and engaging with people other than me and attended other activities in a group setting. I was excited about school, and then when all of those strategies were not available in public school, I was baffled as to why there was hesitation to implement therapies that work.”

Harrison realized what was possible and decided to do something about it: start her own school for autistic children. With an emphasis on behavior modeling, Harrison’s schools depend on a robust team of dedicated personnel and behavior analysts. “Sometimes autistic kids are defined by challenging behaviors, but they are so much more than that. There are therapies that can help them overcome. These students are so brilliant in terms of their ability to connect with others, their desire to do productive things in their community, and they love people,” Harrison said.

She explained that with a 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio, they are able to master foundational skills in reading and mathematics. Shaping behavior is also essential, such as learning how to sit in a chair, make a proper request, or raise a hand to ask for help. Identifying communication deficits or behavioral challenges using applied behavior analysis (ABA) teaches students to better understand themselves; and, according to Harrison, these techniques are drilled into children early so that they learn how to deal with self behaviors properly—which reinforces desirable behavior in the classroom. Instead of screaming in a group environment, students are given token cards that help them communicate their needs.

(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

“These kids need reinforcement with meaningful rewards to shape behavior. … Social emotional learning is what we do all along because kids need to feel comfortable and regulated,” Harrison said. The school’s next goal is to foster an environment for students to collaborate on projects. “They can tap into their interests to help them go into a deep dive,” she said. One such project was building a self-sustaining turtle habitat. Students researched what kind of tortoises would thrive in ideal conditions in their school environment, incorporating a variety of academic lessons. Not only is this way of learning meaningful and creative, but it’s also applicable to real-life passions on topics of interest to them.

Set Up for Success

Harrison endeavored to start a specialty school based on other schools in existence already: South Florida Autism Charter School helped her pilot the way, using a similar instructional model based on behavior therapy and a nonprofit structure. It proved successful. “It seems like we always outgrow ourselves due to need. We use a lottery process because we are the only charter in the state. We feel a huge responsibility to grow and keep up with demand and to help others start a similar school in their state,” Harrison said.

(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

Her winning pitch for the national prize means additional funding to continue AZACS’s innovative mission. Middle and high school students will have greater access to project-based learning modules through Woz ED. Apple’s co-founder started the company to partner with schools around the country, with the goal of providing cutting-edge STEM curriculum. Whether it is to learn coding, understand computers, or fly drones, the science program equips students with training to get them into the workforce quickly after graduation. “The kids are flourishing. We are preparing them for highly sought after tech careers which they are uniquely suited to work in these fields,” Harrison said.

Winning the Yass Prize means that planned expansion in other Arizonan communities can now take place. Additionally, Harrison is eager to help build similar autism charters in other cities around the country. She intends to create a type of playbook, partnering with South Florida Autism Charter School, to offer specialized training and access to a toolbox of materials to create specialty schools in communities all over America.

AZACS’s learning opportunities will be able to offer their students better earning power after they graduate and become productive members of society. “We are changing the narrative to see themselves as problem-solvers who contribute instead of seeing themselves as special education kids who are disabled. It is fascinating to see them flourish with their unique thinking patterns—to see what they can do.”

(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)

From March Issue, Volume 3

Tags Arizona Autism Charter School, AZACS, Diana Diaz-Harrison, Yass Prize

Features History

The Cherished Inheritance of the Adams Family Lineage: Education

Post author By Andrew Benson Brown
Post date April 4, 2023

Henry Adams (Public Domain)

If you ask what education means to people, most will think “school.” If they are jaded, “debt.” But for the first great American family, it was much more than this.

In his autobiography, “The Education of Henry Adams,” the author describes growing up within a celebrated lineage that, by his lifetime, had become a cultural institution. During his childhood, Henry wrote, he would often transition between the Boston home of his father Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln’s future ambassador to England during the Civil War, and the home of his grandfather John Quincy Adams, where he played in the former president’s library. Sitting at his writing table as “a boy of ten or twelve,” he proof-read the collected works of his great-grandfather John Adams that his father was preparing for publication. While practicing Latin grammar, he would listen to distinguished gentlemen, who represented “types of the past,” discuss politics. His education, he reflected, was “an eighteenth-century inheritance” that was “colonial” in atmosphere. While he always revered his forebears and felt they were right about everything, he observed that this learning style did not sufficiently prepare him “for his own time”—a modern age that was increasingly defined by technology, commerce, and empire.

Henry Adams is today considered one of America’s greatest historians. Given this, one would probably conclude that his education served him exceedingly well, even if he hoped to produce history rather than merely record it. The substance of his educational ideals was, when stripped of their luxurious trappings, very similar to that of our second and sixth presidents. Although this was precisely the problem for a young man growing up in a new industrial epoch, there is much to admire about this cultivated reverence for tradition. Values, unlike skill sets, do not become obsolete.

Graduation photo of Henry B. Adams from the Harvard College Class of 1858. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. (public domain)

A Father Teaches His Son

The wealth and privilege Henry Adams experienced was far removed from the boyhood circumstances of his most famous forefather three generations previously. John Adams was born in a simple farmhouse where the family’s only valuable possessions were three silver spoons. The key to his rise was education. Not only of the formal kind, but of character. John took inspiration from his descendants, “a line of virtuous, independent New England farmers.” When he complained of losing interest in his studies due to a churlish teacher at his schoolhouse, his father, a deacon, enrolled him in a private school. Later, the deacon sold 10 acres of land to pay for his son’s college fund.

John admired his father, striving to embody the qualities of sincerity and patriotism he instilled. He called the deacon “the honestest man” he ever knew and passed on these ideals to his own son, John Quincy Adams. While John was in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress, he instructed young “Johnny” through letters. Writing to Abigail on June 29, 1777, he said, “Let him be sure that he possesses the great virtue of temperance, justice, magnanimity, honor, and generosity, and with these added to his parts, he cannot fail to become a wise and great man.”

In letters to John Quincy during this same year, John advised his son to acquire “a taste for literature and a turn for business” that would allow for both subsistence and entertainment. Reading the historian Thucydides, preferably in the original Greek, would provide him with “the most solid instruction … to act on the stage of life,” whether that part be orator, statesman, or general. While John was away, Abigail constantly upheld her husband to John Quincy as an example of professional achievement and courage. She encouraged him to study the books in his father’s library and forbade him from being in “the company of rude children.”

For the Adamses, books were not just the means to a career, but a key to unlocking the sum of a person’s life. Education encompassed experience, conduct, and social ties. Like his grandson Henry, young John Quincy was sometimes unsure whether he would be able to live up to his ancestors’ example.

John Adams, second president of the United States from 1797–1801. Official presidential portrait of John Adams by John Trumbull, circa 1792–1793. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)

A Family Heritage

John instructed John Quincy more directly when taking him along on diplomatic missions in Europe. In Paris, John Quincy began keeping a daily journal at his father’s request, recording “objects that I see and characters that I converse with.” John Quincy observed his father staying up at all hours to assemble diplomatic reports and would later emulate this diligent work ethic.

He then accompanied John to Holland. At the age of 13, he “scored his first diplomatic triumph,” according to biographer Harlow Unger. The precocious young student, dazzling professors with his erudition at the University of Leiden, caught the eye of an important scholar and lawyer named Jean Luzac. John Quincy introduced Luzac to his father, then struggling to convince the Dutch government to give America financial assistance in its costly war with Britain. Luzac was impressed with the Adams family, advocated their cause of independence, and succeeded in securing crucial loans for the desperate young nation.

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States from 1825–1829. Official presidential portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1858. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)

During this time, John Adams encouraged his son to continue studying the great historians of antiquity: “In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue.” He closed his letter by emphasizing the importance of the heart’s authority over the mind: “The end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen. This will ever be the sum total of the advice of your affectionate Father.”

John Quincy, ever the obedient son, attended to both the wisdom of the distant past and his family heritage that enshrined it. While following in John’s footsteps as a diplomat, and later president, he would pass these values on to his own children.

The success, achievement, and public legacy of the Adams family has everything to do with this conception of education as a living inheritance. Writing over a century later, Henry Adams saw the role of learning as a lifelong endeavor that was difficult to justify through any specific practical or monetary measurement. But, he added, “the practical value of the universe has never been stated in dollars.”

(Public domain)

From March Issue, Volume 3

Tags Henry Adams, John Adams, John Quincy Adams

Features

The Speed of Sound and Civilization

Post author By Catherine Yang
Post date April 4, 2023

(Dai Bing)

Li Fan, an expert in baroque and early music, recently returned to playing the modern violin. It was a bigger adjustment than she expected, especially given her dynamic career in violin before taking up early music, and the experience prompted her to consider many things about the change of pace in music, culture, and life over the course of history.

“People [today] don’t have the heart to do a single, slow thing. In this mindset, we’ve lost some of the finer details. There’s a loss of sensitivity in this. We need more volume and power and speed to excite people,” Li said. “Now we need stronger sounds, bigger, brighter, and louder, more virtuosic. … I think this is very interesting.”

In the past few years, her career has in a way come full circle, her artistry deepened by a renewed understanding of tradition and faith.

Fated Encounter

After a decade of performing as a violinist in the orchestras of renowned ballet and opera companies in China, and recording numerous CD, radio, television, and film projects, Li turned her sights on Germany. Wanting to deepen her study of music, she went abroad. In a twist of fate, Li was introduced to early music and embraced it with open arms.

“What began as a fated encounter turned into a mission,” Li said.

Already 30, Li baffled administrators when she applied to German music conservatories. They would tell her that most of their incoming students were a mere 17 years of age and wondered what she was doing among them.

Li was accepted into a school, but was told that there weren’t enough teachers, so she would have to wait a semester before beginning classes. Homesick and tired of waiting, she decided to investigate whether there was some other class she could take.

“The first thing they asked me was how old I was,” Li said. She quipped that they must have found her old because they advised her to go learn old music. She was sent to the ancient music department where, finally, she was told to come back the next week and bring her instrument.

When Li returned, she was introduced to a whole new world of sound.

(Dai Bing)

Ancient Studies

“This instrument came to me, and I accepted it, studied it, understood it, its history and content, and appreciated the beauty of it,” Li said. She delved into not just early music, but also medieval art and culture.

“It’s very close to God—all the arts were about God,” she said.

During her studies in Germany, she took master classes with Ton Koopman, a conductor and renowned musicologist; John Holloway, a baroque violin expert; Anton Steck, a violinist and conductor; and Pedro Memelsdorff, a music director and musicologist specializing in medieval music.

She was a member of the Paradiso ensemble in Frankfurt and collaborated with La Stagione Frankfurt, the Free Dance Theater in Frankfurt, Maurice van Lieshout, Michael Schneider, the Mannheim court orchestra, and the Main Baroque Orchestra.

After graduating from the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany, Li furthered her postgraduate studies in historical interpretation with Petra Müllejans, the German violinist, conductor, and pedagogue renowned for her work in historical performance practice, and Li later became an assistant instructor for the professor’s master classes.

She also studied medieval and Renaissance music at the Schola Cantorum Brabantiae with Maurice van Lieshout and Rebecca Steward.

Li’s time in Europe was spent performing, in ensembles small and large, playing both old music and new premieres. She recorded a number of new CDs, including an album of Vivaldi’s works with the Capella Academia, and Telemann concertos with La Stagione Music Orchestra. She appeared in recorded live productions such as the DVD of Schauspiel Frankfurt’s 2009 Roter Ritter Parzival (Percival, the Red Knight). She became a founding member of ensembles Aquilla, La Pace, and the Allegris Quartett, touring in both Europe and Asia. Li was selected by the New Frankfurt Philharmonic to share the stage with artists including the beloved Andrea Bocelli and celebrity David Garrett.

“Then, returning to the modern violin—it just looked so fast,” Li said.

Reviving Tradition

Recently, Li accepted a position with the world-renowned Shen Yun Performing Arts. She was interested in both the company’s music and mission. A person of faith herself, she appreciated the fact that New York-based Shen Yun doesn’t shy away from faith and tradition.

“This is a very unique ensemble,” Li said. Though the instruments in Shen Yun’s orchestra are modern, and the music is newly written for each season, the music is traditional in composition from the standpoints of both the East and the West—ancient Chinese music arranged for a Western orchestra.

“We talk about reviving tradition—that’s not an easy thing, and not something you can just say casually. But we have to do it. We are doing it—in a way that is complex, harmonious,” she said. “The music is Chinese, and it’s not just pleasant to listen to, but also meaningful. It gives you a lot to think about. There is a story. … There is deeper meaning and a touch of the divine.”

In this space, Li felt she could take all the experiences gained in her life—the years spent playing music she felt was closest to God, the traditional Chinese culture she was steeped in during her upbringing—to fruition. In encountering Shen Yun, she gained a sense of mission.

“‘Reviving traditional culture,’ this phrase is something I think about all the time now, and it’s close to my heart. I’ve lived with early music for so many years in my career, and my upbringing was that of traditional culture,” Li said. “I felt I could really purely and simply focus on this mission.”

By this point in Li’s career, early music fit like a glove—a worn and comfortable one. She didn’t need to take up the modern violin again, whose metal strings and modern bow were sonic worlds apart from Li’s comfort zone. But Shen Yun’s mission so moved Li that she threw herself into practicing the violin again so as to achieve the level of world-class excellence required of the group’s artists.

During those first few months, Li felt like she was existing in a pressure cooker. But it was also a time that brought her a new understanding of faith, spirituality, and her art.

“I thought I had faith before—but it is truly strong now,” Li said.

(Dai Bing)

From Pressure, Diamonds

In encountering Shen Yun, Li also gained a renewed sense of faith.

Many of the artists in Shen Yun practice Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, as the founding artists had formed the company with a culture of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance—the three principles of the practice. It’s a spiritual, self-cultivation discipline that also includes five meditative exercises, including a sitting meditation.

So when Li met a member of Shen Yun for the first time, the idea that she could take up this spiritual discipline for herself was planted. In truth, Li’s husband also practiced Falun Gong, but in more than a decade of marriage, it wasn’t something Li had been interested in. His faith was his personal matter.

“For that first year or two, I did nothing but practice. But then I remember one day, I came in early, and before practice, I decided to meditate first,” Li said.

“Finally, I had some peace. And for some reason, the tears just came pouring out,” Li said. It was a turning point for Li’s resolve—in her mission, and her faith. And as she resolved to live her life by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, she gained a deeper understanding of art and music as well.

“Shen Yun evokes kindness in people. It prompts one to think about higher things, about what is true compassion and benevolence,” Li said. “True beauty and true goodness change hearts and minds.”

After a particular performance in Spain, Li remembered comments from an elderly woman who had been in the audience with her daughter. The woman’s husband had been a musician as well, and she was deeply moved by the music of the performance and spoke fervently to Li about the spirit of what they experienced.

“‘It was like we had given humanity a direction’—audiences will say things like this. They feel like they’ve obtained something greater than sensory enjoyment, but something that was positive for their spirit, that through cultivation of one’s character, one can have a better future,” Li said. “Of course, I’ve seen audiences who were moved before—but not like this.”

Li believes the art Shen Yun brings to audiences is the best, not because of the skills each member possesses, but because of the spirit they deliver to each and every viewer. Traditional culture is divinely inspired culture, and “what we’re bringing people is from from the divine, and that’s why it is the best,” she said.

From March Issue, Volume 3

Tags Li Fan, shen yun

Features

Sonya Curry on Teaching Her Kids Steph, Seth, and Sydel About the Importance of Faith and Family

Post author By Krista Thomas
Post date April 4, 2023

Sonya Curry, educator and proud mother of three successful children, Steph, Seth, and Sydel Curry. (Nathan Mays)

Sonya Curry likens her family to The Big Machine. Every member of the family plays a part in helping the household run at maximum efficiency, with chores and activities on schedule for each. So when her eldest son Stephen Curry—who would go on to become the basketball star Steph Curry—failed to do the dishes one week during his high school sophomore year, there was no question that he would not be allowed to go to basketball practice—despite it being before an important game. Curry told her son’s basketball coach that he would be missing practice, which, according to the coach’s rules, meant he would not be starting the next game.

“I reminded Stephen so many times to do the dishes that I realized he was starting to rely on me to manage him. That’s not going to work. I have to train my kids to manage themselves. That’s what this is about. Yes, everyone has to do their part to keep the Big Machine running. At the same time, they have to learn to be their own managers,” Curry wrote in her recent book, “Fierce Love: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Purpose.”

Sonya Curry and her son Steph Curry pose for a photo on the red carpet during a 2019 event in Oakland, Calif. (Kelly Sullivan/Stringer/Getty Images Entertainment)

Parenting for Curry meant having her children learn by making mistakes and learning that actions have consequences. Being the head of a private school in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she raised her three children, Steph, Seth, and Sydel, Curry knew that children must figure out the process themselves while parents guide them to the conclusion. Her approach is similar to the schooling philosophy she embraced as an educator: the Montessori method. Named after Italian educator Dr. Maria Montessori, the philosophy embraces a system of learning that measures success based on the creative potentiality of a child. According to Montessori, it would “activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”

Curry first enrolled her two sons at a Montessori school when they were 3 and 5 years old. She was immediately impressed with how her sons, with different personalities, thrived in the same classroom while developing separate groups of friends. One day, the owner of the school approached Curry and asked her if she would be interested in running the school’s new satellite program for toddlers and kindergarten. Curry, with a degree in family studies and child development, agreed. She set up the new school on a piece of farmland.

This, she recalled, was the defining moment that led to her career in education.

After more than two decades at the school, she retired in 2017 and devoted her time to writing her book. Curry feels compelled to reach out to parents with sage advice: how to parent with ultimate success according to each individual child and his or her gifts. The bigger picture for Curry now is encouraging other parents in their roles of nurturing their children. “Hopefully the book keeps people talking about what they are doing as parents, to find support, and to offer support to others as a community.”

Curry with her children and grandchildren. (Courtesy of Sonya Curry)

Education Journey

Her journey into the realm of teaching began at an early age. She had a natural gift for teaching. At the ripe age of 10, she taught lessons to several neighborhood children in the trailer park in which she lived. Whether it was math, spelling, or reading, she commanded the class and the children respected her—like a real teacher. One particular experience led Curry to witness how education could transform someone. A neighborhood teen named Philip had developmental disabilities and did not know how to read. Curry took the initiative to teach him. Seeing someone struggle, she was drawn to be that teacher or coach who encouraged success. In retrospect, Curry says this was the only career she dreamed about and opportunities just presented themselves throughout the course of her life.

When she got the opportunity to open her own Montessori school, she didn’t need the Montessori certification to be an administrator. “But it is really hard to lead teachers and parents authentically unless you have had the training,” she added. She enrolled in an intensive training program for nine straight weeks in Baltimore, Maryland. Though it was difficult leaving her children behind, this was her opportunity to learn the Montessori method. “In Montessori, teachers are guides who allow the unfolding of the child that God created. Create an environment where the child will learn and then take ownership of that learning. Here we don’t tell them what the answer is; instead, we encourage them to find the answers.”

Raising a Family

Curry places a heavy emphasis on faith and spirituality, such as by giving God the first part of the day through praying devotions. The family attends church on Sundays and participates in the church community.

Training successfully for spiritual growth also means talking openly about hardships. Instead of sweeping problems under the rug, parents should have important conversations with children about the kind of impact any decision will have on others, she said. “Learn to give yourself some grace, and give grace to other people—and then try to correct or make things right,” she said.

(Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers)

The Curry household frequently held family meetings to discuss schedules or hash out those tricky topics. Sometimes, the weekly meetings were replaced with a fun family outing. Family bonding is key for enduring difficult moments. She is grateful for them. “Fundamental life experiences are more about looking deeper under the surface so that you can glimpse down the road to the bigger picture.”

She recounts one such tough conversation when her daughter Sydel, at 14, wanted to attend a party where her crush was expected to show up. But the family rule was no dating until the age of 16. In an emotional outburst, Sydel told her she was the worst mother in the world. Curry then gave Sydel a choice. Could Sydel continue to live with her mother who respects her and protects her—or does she want to move out? It was a defining moment of parenting with fierce love. “Sydel needed to learn the valuable lesson of understanding her worth. She had to learn to protect her value because the world and other people aren’t going to,” Curry said.

Ultimately, Sydel apologized. Curry let her know that words are powerful and can hurt. It was a reconciling moment for the mother-daughter duo.

Curry says it’s inevitable for parents to make mistakes, but the key is to share openly with children about any challenges. (Nathan Mays)

Her children also taught her the importance of writing your own story—instead of listening to others tell you what your story should be. This teachable moment came with her middle son, Seth. At practice and in school, he would just go with the flow, wondering why he should put in extra effort. But Curry insisted that children should be challenged to do better, to do their very best. Despite her pleadings and many discussions with Seth, he would not take this to heart, until it came time for him to realize it on his own. Through high school and college, Seth learned to overcome the challenge of being in his brother’s shadow, and he came into his own through hard work. At Duke University, his basketball career thrived, and eventually, he made his way into the NBA. With Sydel too, Curry decided not to be pushy when she wanted to pursue volleyball and drop basketball—the known family sport—from her high school schedule. As Curry wrote in the book, “Make yourself the hero.”

Curry admits to not being a perfect parent. But she contends that that is part of the process. “My advice to parents is to give it 100 percent with intentionality every day. Nobody is going to do it perfectly,” she said.

From March Issue, Volume 3

Tags Feature 2, Sonya Curry

Features

Mike Rowe: America’s Favorite Apprentice

Post author By Channaly Philipp
Post date April 2, 2023

Mike Rowe, America’s perpetual apprentice, has been giving viewers a front-row seat to our country’s dirtiest jobs for nearly 20 years.

The episodes of his show, “Dirty Jobs,” are a veritable archive of the various icky substances in earthly existence—sludge, slime, gunk, and grime—that he’s either had to clean, wade through, extract, or pick away at, often in the dirtiest, hottest, and smelliest of conditions.

Encounters with the animal kingdom are a category unto themselves. Given the close degree of proximity, these engagements are unpredictable: Rowe has gotten bitten by some creatures—ostriches, catfish, snakes, sharks—and gotten up close and personal with others—such as beavers, which he’s had to sniff to determine their sex.

OK, there are clean jobs, too. The yuck factor may be absent, but cue in the petrifying situations, such as scuba diving to the ocean floor and releasing fish blood and guts for “Shark Week.” (Don’t worry, Rowe was wearing a stainless steel chain-mail suit—which helps, he found out, when you’re being shaken like a rag doll by a group of sharks.) Or what about when he walked up 24.5-inch-diameter cables on the “Mighty Mac” bridge in Michigan to change light bulbs atop its towers, 552 feet up, only to realize that he was no longer safely clipped in?

But the stunts are not the point. The premise of “Dirty Jobs,” with no actors, no scripts, and no second takes, is all about showing America what it’s like to do a job that’s needed, a job that’s hard, and often messing it up in the process. The show ran from 2003 to 2012 and returned for a season in 2022. In between, it has never stopped airing.

In all, Rowe has performed more than 350 jobs, learning under the tutelage of hardworking Americans and having fun in the process.

Rowe is lowered into a manhole to perform a maintenance job. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

Pop’s Wisdom

“Dirty Jobs,” as Rowe says, is ultimately a tribute to someone he was very close to: his grandfather, Carl Knobel.

Though he had only been schooled until the seventh grade, Knobel had built his own home and was a master electrician, plumber, steamfitter, pipe fitter, and welder—a master jack-of-all-trades.

“He saw great dignity in all jobs,” Rowe said. “He understood, intuitively I think, that we’re all connected to work, and the way we’re connected to where our food comes from, and where our energy comes from.”

Early on, Rowe was convinced he’d follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. He tried his hand at shop classes in high school, only to face an inconvenient reality: “I didn’t get the handy gene,” he explained.

His Pop gave him a dose of wisdom: “You can be a tradesman—just get a different toolbox, because what comes easily to me is not coming easily to you.”

So Rowe set off in a new direction—writing, singing, acting, and narrating. He belted out songs at the Baltimore Opera for years and worked the graveyard shift on the QVC home shopping network selling merchandise. He hosted an evening show on Channel 5 KPIX in San Francisco, a “cushy little job” that took him to downtown museums and Napa Valley wineries.

And then one day, his mom, Peggy Rowe, called.

She said, “Michael, your grandfather turned 90 years old today—and he’s not going to be around forever. And wouldn’t it be terrific if, before he died, he could turn on the television and see you doing something that looked like work?”

“It made me laugh because it was so true,” Rowe said.

Her message was delivered with love and humor, and Rowe, who was 42 at the time, decided to take it as a challenge.

Rowe goes deep into a Florida river to pour concrete, in order to preserve an old bridge. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

The next day, with TV crew in tow, he was back in action—this time in the sewers of San Francisco, profiling a sewage worker. The footage, he said, was “inappropriate” for his show, but he put it on the air anyway.

Then, something interesting happened. Letters started pouring in, with messages like this: “Hey, if you think that’s dirty, wait ’til you meet my brother, or my cousin or my dad or my uncle or my grandfather or my mom. Wait ’til you see what they do!”

That launched a regular segment, “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.”

Rowe’s grandfather got to see one episode of it.

“He was very nearly blind by the time he died. He was 91. So, he knew I had gone into this direction … and I’d like to think he approved. I’m pretty sure he did,” Rowe said.

‘Groundhog Day’ in a Sewer

The segment eventually led to “Dirty Jobs.”

The Discovery Channel show meant being on the road for much of the year, lots of showers, and even a change of attitude.

“I’ll tell you, honestly, I had to humble myself when my mom made her off-the-cuff suggestion I’d been impersonating a host for 15 years,” he said. “I was pretty good at hitting my mark and saying my line and creating the illusion of knowledge where it didn’t really exist, pretending to be an expert.”

Looking back, Rowe says during those early days when “Dirty Jobs” was on the air, it was jarring for audiences to see a guy who didn’t have the answers but was willing to “look under the rock” and bring viewers along.

“I stopped being a host; I started to become a guest. I stopped being an expert and started to be a full-time dilettante,” he said.

“And so, to the extent people might trust me, or at least give me the benefit of the doubt, I think it comes from the fact that they’ve seen me try and fail for 20 years, they’ve seen me crawl through a sewer. And when you see a guy covered with other people’s crap, you know, that guy’s not gonna lie to you.”

Rowe gets dirty while helping to turn waste lumber into biochar, which is often used as fertilizer. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

Challenging the Stigma

For the longest time, Rowe’s dream job was to host “The Daily Show.” He worked long and hard, with his eyes on the prize.

“They hired me twice to do that job. And each time, something went wrong—comically it just went wrong and didn’t work out.” He contemplated how close he had come. “But the truth is, looking back, not getting that gig was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Life had other plans for Rowe.

A few years into “Dirty Jobs,” the recession hit. People were asking where the good jobs had gone. And yet, Rowe knew, they were out there. On every job site where he set foot, he saw “Help Wanted” signs.

On Labor Day 2008, he launched the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which was essentially a PR campaign for the millions of unfilled jobs desperate for skilled workers. Over the years, the foundation has given $6.7 million in scholarships to nearly 1,500 people with a strong work ethic and the desire to pursue a career in the skilled trades.

Through his show, Rowe was showing the public what it was like to be a skilled trade worker: that in between going to work clean and coming home dirty, they brought pride and passion to their work; kept America connected with good roads and infrastructure, happy with indoor plumbing, and warm or cool depending on the season; and in the process, made a pretty good living, too.

Still, there’s the perception that dirty jobs are not jobs worth doing. As to how to change it, “that’s the million-dollar question,” Rowe said, “and if there were an easy answer, we wouldn’t have 11 million open jobs right now, and 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 not only not working, but affirmatively not looking for work.”

(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

To some extent, Rowe knows what doesn’t work: “Lectures, sermons, scoldings. Men my age standing on their porch, shaking their fist at the heavens, and complaining about Gen Z and millennials.”

“The real way to challenge these stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions is to hit them squarely on the head. You need to show people that you really can make six figures. You need to show people that a good plumber today can make as much as he or she wants, and you can set your own schedule,” he said.

(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

Now heading toward its 15th year, the foundation follows up with its scholarship recipients, documenting their successes, and Rowe shares their stories with nearly 6 million friends on social media.

“We can complain about the snowflake culture and the snowflake mentality, but we’re the clouds from which the snowflakes [came], and I think it’s incumbent on us baby boomers—the people who are my age—to hit the reset button. And we have to provide people with better examples of what success looks like.”

One example is Chloe Hudson, a welder at Joe Gibbs Aerospace in North Carolina. Her ambition in high school was to become a plastic surgeon, but a price tag of upwards of $350,000 was not appealing. Instead, she got a welding scholarship from mikeroweWORKS and now makes a six-figure salary.

“She’s living her best life,” Rowe said. “I talked to her the other day, and she’s like, ‘You know, I am kind of a plastic surgeon, except I’m not dealing with flesh and bone. I’m dealing with metal and steel and complicated compounds.’”

The road to prosperity doesn’t end at mastering a skill, either. For example, take a welder who hires an electrician, a plumber, and an HVAC worker. That becomes a $3 million mechanical contracting company—not bad for starting out with a $5,000 or $6,000 certificate.

Rowe added, “If you’ve mastered a useful skill, if you’re willing to think like an entrepreneur, and if you’re willing to go to where the work is—then I don’t think there’s ever been a better time in the history of the country to be looking for work, because the opportunities are everywhere.”

(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)

Mike Rowe Gives Relationship (and Job) Advice

Mike Rowe gives relationship advice—why not?

Years ago, Rowe wrote a Facebook post, which made the rounds online, about a good friend of his. This woman had been single her whole life and could not understand why. She was attractive and successful. Rowe suggested a dating service but she said no. He suggested she branch out across town, and try the museums, libraries, bars, and restaurants there. She declined again.

He said: “You’re not only looking for your soulmate; you’re looking for your soulmate in your own zip code. You’ve got a long list of qualifications: what they should look like, how much money they should make, how they should dress, where they should be from. So you just got all of these obstacles that you’ve put between yourself and the person who you believe can make you happy.

“And we do the same thing with work. We identify the job that’s going to make us happy, get the certification or degrees that we need, line up the interviews, etc., [but] we’ve got it backwards. We ask kids to imagine the job they want, long before they’re capable of doing that, and really, in many cases, before they have a good understanding of what their actual abilities are.”

Just as it happened to him, “you might realize that the thing you prepared yourself for is simply not the thing you’re going to do.”

“Everybody wants job satisfaction, and everybody wants happiness in their personal life, but if you start your quest with the notion that there’s a dream job, and you can’t be happy unless you get that job, it’s going to be a hard road—just as it’s going to be very difficult to find happiness in your personal life if you think there’s only one person on the planet walking around who’s capable of making you feel that way.”

Everyone Rowe met on “Dirty Jobs” was passionate, but few were doing the job they had in mind when they were young adults.

As Rowe says: “Don’t follow your passion—bring it with you.”

(Michael Segal)

From April Issue, Volume 3

Tags Dirty Jobs, highlight 1, Mike Rowe

Features Generation to Generation Giving Back

Innovative Program Teaches High Schoolers How to Build a House—and a Career

Post author By Annie Wu
Post date March 18, 2023

(Courtesy of unCommon Construction)

Learning how to apply the Pythagorean theorem while on a construction site, earning competitive wages per hour, all while working toward a matching scholarship that can be used for future tuition or employment needs—this is the model by which unCommon Construction hopes to encourage youth to explore a career in the trades, and break stereotypes about the industry.

Aaron Frumin, founder of the New Orleans-based after-school program for high school students, unexpectedly found his way into the construction industry. He went to a standard, four-year college after graduating high school, but he dropped out in his third year when he was unsatisfied with the education he was getting. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Frumin traveled there to help out as a Red Cross volunteer. He ended up working as a day laborer on a construction site, and he stayed in the city. “I was using my brain and I was using math skills and engineering principles and social skills. I was making good money. … No one would have ever thought of that career path for me,” Frumin said. He later went into teaching, and while working as a reading and social studies teacher in middle school, he realized the traditional classroom experience was not for him.

Aaron Frumin, founder of unCommon Construction, hopes the program can help dispel stereotypes about the construction industry and allow high schoolers to see it as a viable career. (Courtesy of unCommon Construction)

(Courtesy of unCommon Construction)

That’s when Frumin thought about a program that could make education more relevant to developing students’ real-life skills. “How can we have a real return on investment for them so that they have a little more skin in the game?” So in 2015, Frumin started unCommon Construction as a nonprofit that would hire students to build houses, with the employees being selected from partnering schools that would recommend highly motivated students to apply for the after-school program, while earning school credit and wages.

Students work 10 to 12 hours a week, with 6 to 8 hours on a job site and 2 to 4 hours in the classroom on “framing character”: learning career building and professional development skills, as well as receiving technical training. They spend most of their time in the field because “we want to treat young people like they have value, and that their time is valuable, and we’re not just doing worksheets that are easy for them to dismiss,” Frumin said.

At the same time, Frumin wants the program to develop skills in the students that will be helpful no matter what career they pursue in the future. “We put a very intentional emphasis in our alternative learning environment on the development and demonstration of soft skills,” Frumin said. That includes learning teamwork, ethics, problem-solving, communication, and professional attitudes.

(Courtesy of unCommon Construction)

The program operates much like a real-life construction company, with students completing the building of a house in a school year. The house is then sold on the market. When the house is purchased, the company matches their paycheck with a scholarship, which can be used during their first year after graduating high school—whether for tuition, school supplies, or paying expenses related to their future job, should they pursue a career right after graduating.

Frumin hopes the program can help eliminate the stigmas associated with the construction industry, such as that it’s a dirty job primarily for men or “the non-college material,” as Frumin put it. “Some young people who may be seen as college-bound, like I was, may never be presented with opportunities that help them become self-actualized members [of society],” Frumin said. “They’re held up or put down by a society that does or doesn’t value blue-collar jobs.”

Students earn wages, and when a house is sold on the market, the company puts “equity” toward their scholarships. (Courtesy of unCommon Construction)

But the fact of the matter is that the industry employs a great variety of professions. “Big construction companies still need lawyers, and they still need an accountant. They rely on emergency medical services, they have security positions, and they require insurance,” Frumin said.

It is time to value the construction industry, he added. “There’s a whole economy that surrounds our industry, and in fact, our industry makes up the backbone of the American economy. … We have to be part of changing the narrative for all the different people who are involved.”

From March Issue, Volume 3

Tags Aaron Frumin, unCommon Construction

Features Lifestyle

SoCal Couple Start Homestead in North Idaho to Grow Own Food, Raise 10 Kids in Traditional Lifestyle

Post author By Michael Wing
Post date February 14, 2023

The Thomas family. (Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

It was mainly for the well-being of their 10 children that Carolyn and Josh Thomas struck out to start their own family homestead 1,000 miles from their home.

Their life in Southern California had been all about chasing a check, climbing the ladder, and getting ahead. They were used to following the crowd.

It was when their first son was born and it came time for his first round of vaccines that the parents became concerned about their lifestyle.

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

“The doctor had told me that the nurse was going to come in and give the baby two shots,” Carolyn told The Epoch Times. “Well, when the nurse came in, she gave the baby three shots. And both Josh and I have this very clear memory of these three different shots.”

They didn’t think much of it at the time; they were just so used to deferring to what the authorities said.

“When we went home that night, he had a reaction to the vaccines,” Carolyn added. “It made us really wake up and start paying attention and decide that we needed to be in the driver’s seat of our life, and we needed to be making active decisions.”

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

So the family grew … and grew, and grew. In 2007, Josh and Carolyn made up their mind to purchase a tiny plot of land where they grew their own food; and they awakened to the wonders of what the earth can provide their family. It wasn’t much, but the learning process was essential for what came next.

“We started really learning about the skills of cooking from scratch, making our own bread at home, canning, dehydrating, and different types of preserving,” the mom said. “We wanted to give our children the gift of health and very robust, healthy bodies, and also have the skills of producing our own food and growing our own food. Because at that point, it just started to be way too expensive to buy the amount of food that we needed at the quality we wanted.”

In order to feed their family well, they eventually scaled up to a 20-acre property in Tennessee where they raised their own beef.

They finally bought their 40-acre plot in northern Idaho in 2018.

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

“The reality is, if you go right to a lot of acres, you won’t have the skills you need in order to actually use them properly or well,” Carolyn said. “You’ll probably get overwhelmed by the experience.”

Yet tough times were right around the corner. In their local area in 2014, employment was scarce, and Josh found himself without the income they needed to sustain their expanding family. Little did they realize that their sustenance lay right beneath their feet.

“We still wanted to eat high quality, nutrient dense, and organic food, but there was just no money to buy groceries at all,” Carolyn said. “And so we really took it to the next level and started growing a huge amount of our own produce, and all of our own meat and dairy, and the fruit for preserving it.

“It really was an important moment for us, as we learned how to do this on a scale that could actually take care of our family and feed ourselves and be self-sufficient if we needed to.”

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

By now, they knew what to do with the land and how to make the best use of it: The family established one large, main garden for growing their staple crops—such as potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, and garlic, as well as big rows of broccoli and cauliflower. Then there were the perennials—grapes and raspberries.

Adjacent to the house, there is the “cottage garden,” as Carolyn calls it, which is right outside the kitchen. Here, she grows her herbs for seasoning, lettuce and cherry tomatoes for a quick salad, and a few flowers.

Then there is an area out front they call “the forest garden” where they have their fruit trees and some wild edibles tucked here and there.

But beyond mere sustenance, life on the homestead has helped the children bloom—not just in terms of developing good health and natural immunity, but also in their character and confidence.

“It allows each member of our family to know that they’re valued and a valuable part of the family,” Carolyn said. “We all have what we call ‘morning chores’ and ‘evening chores,’ and everybody knows what they need to do in order to get all the basics done.”

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

Some will be out feeding the animals or rotating the livestock; others will milk the cows, bring in firewood in the winter, or work around the house.

“We find that the kids, when they’re very young, they want to help,” the mom said. “They want to be involved and they ask to be involved. So when we start giving them chores, when they’re two and three years old, they really want to do it because everyone around them is doing it too.”

There’s nothing more natural for a family than life on a homestead. It’s how people have been living for thousands of years.

It may seem novel to some city folk, but the Thomases are just getting reacquainted with what comes naturally. Far from being hooked up to their devices 24/7, or becoming lazy teenagers, all these young ones are early risers. In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have to tell their kids to stay in bed until 6 a.m. They homeschool their kids, and they are happy.

Getting off the grid (they’re not totally there yet; commodities like coffee, etc. are store-bought) was mainly a family lifestyle choice for the Thomases. But in the chaos of the world today—with inflation, looming food shortages, and other uncertainties—the family believes it’s the responsible thing to do. By learning how to be self-sufficient, Carolyn says, we become less dependent on the government and thus more free.

Homesteading might be a check against government overreach.

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

Besides chores, Josh and Carolyn are now sharing their journey and skills with others. Having started their own YouTube channel and family brand called Homesteading Family, they teach their skills by posting multiple videos per week.

In these, Carolyn has gotten into old-fashioned, traditional cooking. Having dusted off a classic 1700s recipe book, she has unearthed some hearty, wholesome treats like a wonderfully robust pumpkin pie as well as deliciously simple bread pudding, and much more.

Yet she knows not everyone has access to a 40-acre farm. Many of her viewers live in the big city, but there are still things they can do to be more self-sufficient.

“Learn how to cook from scratch, learn how to make better buying decisions, learn how to bulk buy food and store it, even if storing it means you’re putting it under a bed or in a closet somewhere,” she said. “A lot of people think of living a lifestyle that is prepared and more self-sufficient as something they should do in case the world falls apart, some big event, or something major that happens on a large scale.”

The reality is that our great grandmothers and grandfathers always lived a more prepared lifestyle.

“Historically, it’s the normal, wise thing to do, like the parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper,” she added. “Work when it’s work season and put up your food, and have what you need for the off seasons.”

(Courtesy of Carolyn Thomas)

From February Issue, Volume 3

Tags Family Homestead, North Idaho

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