Running Toward Second Chances - John David Graham : 175

What if the finish line you’ve been chasing keeps moving because life isn’t a race at all?

John David Graham joins us at 77 with a story that rewrites the rules on success, failure, and second chances. After years bouncing between jobs, counsellor, truck driver, fireman, contractor, journalist, even pastor, he and his wife bought a beat-up house, fixed it themselves, and opened the door to someone few communities welcome: a man coming home from prison.

That first “yes” sparked Good Samaritan Home, now a network of 21 houses across three counties, designed for low-risk reentry with real accountability and a clear path forward.

We dig into what actually helps people rebuild: safe, independent housing; steady local partnerships with parole. John explains why they focus on one clear promise, housing, while the community handles the rest, and how this approach saves public dollars compared with incarceration while increasing long-term stability.

He shares hard truths about change: not everyone is ready the first time, effort matters, and boundaries protect dignity. You’ll hear how small skills, applying for work, showing up, cooking your own meals, become major turning points when shame and isolation have been the norm.

Threaded through the episode is a powerful theme: hope as a habit. John’s debut novel brings that idea to life through a character born behind the starting line, a story many readers recognize as their own. We talk about family resilience, useful ageing, and the quiet heroics of curiosity, like his wife, in her late 70s, learning home repairs on YouTube and helping keep 21 houses running.

If you’ve ever felt behind, boxed in by labels, or unsure how to help, this conversation offers a map: start small, stay accountable, and keep going, one practical step at a time.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a nudge of hope, and leave a review to help others find stories that move them.

https://johndavidgraham.com/

Award-winning novel RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN.

Chapters

• 0:45 Meet John David Graham
• 1:19 Why Second Chances Matter
• 2:12 Family Roots And Drifting
• 4:26 Life As Marathon Not Sprint
• 7:02 Many Careers One Purpose
• 8:23 The First Shelter And Reggie
• 9:33 From One House To Twenty-One
• 11:08 Parole Partnerships And Funding
• 13:06 Why Work Outside Church Walls
• 15:07 Culture Shock And Safe Housing
• 16:22 Where And Why They Buy Homes
• 18:08 Mental Health Addiction And Accountability
• 20:06 Reentry Jobs And Real Barriers
• 21:54 Timeframes Rules And Boundaries
• 23:05 Writing A Novel About Hope
• 25:00 Falling Down And Finding Direction
• 26:30 Curiosity Family And Stability
• 28:05 Sequel Marketing And Learning New Tools
• 29:05 Legacy Grandkids And Passing The Pen
• 30:10 Infinite Chances And Small Redemptions
• 31:20 Breaking Labels And Becoming Stronger

Transcript

DanielaSm: 0:00

Hi, I'm the new left. Let's talk about what happens when the first line is when we realize that life was never meant to be a regular. This is a conversation about redefining useful aging and how hopeful becomes to have it through small practical choices. It is about setting chances, boundaries that protect dignity, and the quiet courage. It hates to say yes when most people turn away.

John David Graham: 0:41

Life is a marathon. It's about keeping on running.

DanielaSm: 0:45

My guest today is John David Graham. At 77, John brings a life story that refuses meat labels. He's been a counselor, truck driver, fireman, contractor, journalist, and a pastor. But more than any title, he is a builder of pathways forward. Let's enjoy his story. So welcome John to the show.

John David Graham: 1:08

I'm very glad to be here, Daniel. I look forward to this for several days just talking with you.

DanielaSm: 1:13

Yeah, me too. And I'm excited that you have a story for us. Tell me why you want to share your story.

John David Graham: 1:19

I'm 77 years old, which most people have are in retirement, but I uh I I don't even understand the word. So just two years ago I published my debut novel, and it was about second chances. It's a fiction story, and all I'm hearing back from readers was they identify with the story. They all feel like they need a second chance. And so I've been doing these podcasts to talk about, not my book necessarily, or even the work I do with men and women coming out of prison. I want to talk about second chances, because that's what I think everybody, particularly in this day and age where there's just so much anger, we all need to have hope.

DanielaSm: 2:00

Yes, and you said more than two chances.

John David Graham: 2:04

Yeah, actually I've had eight or nine chances, so I'm being polite.

DanielaSm: 2:09

Wonderful. And so when does your story start?

John David Graham: 2:12

Well, it's that's a good question. Uh think of it like Forrest Gump. Uh Forrest Gump started s uh uh when he was a young boy, but it led him to to all the way down to where he eventually married Jenny, and he seemed to have happiness with his son. All stories start with the the the the family were dealt in the beginning. And I I was dealt what in uh 1950s, 1960s family, working class, uh out of Pittsburgh. You go you go to the mill, you go to the bar at night, you come home, you don't talk, and uh that's your life. So we I call it living alone together. And I found that a lot of people grew up like that. They didn't communicate because we just didn't do that. And so we ended up drifting, and then the sixties came along, and that drifting took a very strange and ominous turn, where we we lost faith uh in all the things that we were given. We we lost faith in our our our family structure, we lost faith definitely in our government, and we even lost faith in our churches. We had a slogan called Never Trust Anybody Over Thirty. Looking back now, it's probably the dumbest thing we ever said. Because how can you learn if nobody's there to help you? And uh I I do all my writing in in San Antonio because it's a Hispanic community. And one thing I've I appreciate about Hispanic community is that uh the emphasis on la familia, the emphasis on tradition, the emphasis on community, I think is a missing element in much of our culture today. Well, a good example is uh what happened just last week with the uh assassination of Charlie Kirk, a young man who came from a strong family that seemed to just disappear from that family structure. He seemed to walk away from it, and look where he ended up disrupting thousands, if not millions, of lives. And maybe that's symptomatic of what we as a nation are going through, this disruption of uh all our structures, uh not just familiar structures, but necessary structures. That's where I came from.

DanielaSm: 4:26

Okay, so the story stars when the the story I want to share today is that I went to college.

John David Graham: 4:33

That's that and that would be when I was 18, back uh in 1966. And I thought you just go to college and when you come out, you'll you'll uh life is a sprint. You just run hard and you you get the perfect girlfriend or uh husband, wife, uh, you get the perfect job, you'll get the perfect family. But I've found a lot of us we're not perfect ourselves, we make mistakes, but what I found is that when you fall down, you get behind. And some people are given gifts at birth, like family, uh uh finances, uh maybe even education, that the rest of us don't have. So we we run behind everybody else. And these are the people that are identifying with what I've written. People who feel like they need a second and third chance because they keep falling down. So I've concluded that life is a marathon. It's about keeping on running.

DanielaSm: 5:31

I heard something similar from some spiritual person who says that life is just swimming without having a short at the other side. The swimming is our lessons and learning and learning and experiences, but there is really not a goal. We're just here to learn. You you say running instead of swimming, but I'm not sure if you think that there is a a line at the end or is there is not.

John David Graham: 5:54

Well, we we Westerners put everything in terms of uh a race. We have goals, and that that's nothing wrong with that. But the trouble with goals is we see ourselves as winners or losers. Uh it's like golfing. You technically you're playing against yourself, even though we make it into a competition. But you're simply out there trying to get your ball to the hole in a way that is relaxing, a way that you can enjoy. Instead, we make it into a competition so that if I don't beat you, I'm a loser. And we lose all the pleasure, all the enjoyment, all the relaxation with that. I think in life we do the same thing. We keep swimming towards that shoreline that keeps moving farther away. We're caught in a riptide and it's pulling us away from the shore. Sometimes we feel like we'll never reach the goal. There's nothing wrong with floating, is what I'm saying.

DanielaSm: 6:45

Yes. Maybe if we didn't know that there was short, we'd just swim and swim. Knowing that there have to be a short is what sometimes makes us frustrated, thinking, I'm not getting there. Why should I swim? Some other people will keep swimming and some other people maybe float for a while.

John David Graham: 7:02

I went through a series of careers because I didn't like some people would say I'm going into the family business. That was easy. My son said, I I want to be a policeman. So he he knew from high school on he wanted to be a policeman. So he's been 25 years as a policeman and done very well. But uh I never had that. So I went uh after college, I was a uh children's home counselor, I was a truck driver, I was a fireman, I was a building contractor, and then I was a journalist, and I even even was a Protestant minister for a while, thinking I could help people. But in all those things, I was just like a billiard ball going from uh one end to another end, not having any direction, and always trying to start over until at 53 years old I realized that there are many, many people who are in the same position as I am. They feel like they need to do something different, they need to start over. And you know, particularly when you start reaching up to 50, 60 years old and you haven't saved anything for retirement and you wonder what's going to happen to me. So what we did was we uh we bought an old house and fixed it up and used it as a homeless shelter. And then we brought people in who were in a worse state than us, and one at a time we offered temporary shelter.

DanielaSm: 8:31

You leave in the house as well?

John David Graham: 8:32

Initially we did.

DanielaSm: 8:34

Oh wow.

Speaker: 8:34

Because we had no money other than that. But here's the best part. We had a prison chaplain contact me, and he said, I have a man coming from prison, and he's low, low risk, but he he's homeless. Can you help him? So we took him into our home, and we live in a white community, we are a white family, and he was a black man coming from the city, so he was very nervous about coming to a white community. We had to learn his culture, he had to learn our culture. So it was a real lesson. That was twenty-four years ago, and he just called me just uh just last month, and he's been driving truck for a living over the road, he has a family and children, and he just wanted to let me know that he's doing well. That to me makes it all worthwhile. Here's the best part. We not only had this one man come, his name was Reggie, uh, but it was followed by more referrals and more referrals. And since that time, when we started 24 years ago, we now have 21 houses in our what's called not uh a nonprofit called Good Samaritan Home, and we have helped twenty-five hundred men and women coming out of prison restart their lives.

DanielaSm: 9:51

Wonderful. Let me see if I put it a bit together in order. So you had many, many different jobs. Some of the jobs needed to be trained or study, so the journalist being a firefighter. So did you do that or you just got jobs without education?

Speaker: 10:06

Some of the jobs required uh advanced education. So in Rossess, I was able to get a master's degree, and now I even have a doctorate degree. The idea was studying to better help me do certain works, but uh some of it was self-taught, like construction. I taught myself how to build houses and how to remodel houses. I was as comfortable working with a hammer and a saw as I was working with uh uh uh a computer and uh writing.

DanielaSm: 10:36

You study and you work at the same time?

Speaker: 10:38

Yes. Yeah, I I was uh I did my doctoral work while I was uh remodeling our house that we we use for the shelter, and while I was finishing uh or starting Good Samaritan Home. So it was a difficult process because I was wearing three hats at the same time. But if you're doing something you're passionate about, then it's not really work, is it?

DanielaSm: 10:58

So you did this while already you you already had the kids out of the house and you created this.

Speaker: 11:03

Yeah, the the latter part, the kids were out of the house. You're absolutely right. We did not start Good Samaritan Home with the kids around. They were they hadn't moved on to college. Uh I would not recommend what we did, uh, and absolutely with uh kids in the house.

DanielaSm: 11:16

But you always had a need for helping people.

Speaker: 11:19

Uh helping people where I could, because the story I'm finding, no matter what somebody has done, there seems to be a universal theme of I never had the family or the structure. I didn't know what to do. And some people just drifted like I did, and some people ended up in prison like some of our residents did. But we're all looking for the same structure, looking for home. That's what it comes down to. We're looking for a place where we feel safe. We want to make a difference in the time we're given, and some of us just don't know how. So I uh in the little time I've got now, I'm just trying to help other people who are looking for the same questions that I had, but maybe we can help them early on.

DanielaSm: 12:02

Okay. Do you study exactly what first?

Speaker: 12:05

Initially I studied psychology back way in the 70s. The trouble with psych uh much uh of liberal arts education is you you you get a degree, but it may not necessarily qualify you. My work as a fireman, I was trained on the job. You know, you you have what they call in-house training. Just like as a policeman, you have in-house training before you go on the street. So I was trained for that in that environment driving. You simply you get a truck, you drive it around the lot, you get a you get a set of keys, and you go drive the truck.

DanielaSm: 12:35

Well, you you have to get an extra license, then.

Speaker: 12:38

A CDL, but that's that's really not that hard.

DanielaSm: 12:40

I mean, you need to know a lot of physics to be able to turn the truck from one side to another.

Speaker: 12:46

Back in the 70s, let's put it this way, we were a lot more lenient than we are today.

DanielaSm: 12:51

Yes, I think that's true.

Speaker: 12:52

Some of the things I've done I probably couldn't do today because they were restrictions are greater.

DanielaSm: 12:57

Yes. Then you did the psychology degree and then you did a master's on the I did the master's when I was in my forties.

Speaker: 13:03

That was in theology because I was thinking that that would help me help people. That's where I did my time as a uh small church pastor, thinking that uh this is a way where you can you can actually devote your time to helping people.

DanielaSm: 13:19

So the theology means that you have then learned a lot about different religions.

Speaker: 13:24

Yes.

DanielaSm: 13:24

So did that change your mind in the way what you know what religious you were into like everything similar or or what what happened to you?

Speaker: 13:34

Uh I I I think what happens is that uh many times with religion in particular, we like to think if we can just tell people what we believe, they will agree with us and they will suddenly say, Well, you're right, I'll do whatever you ask. But I've found uh that uh we've got it all backwards. That instead of telling people, I think we should be simply listening to people. And what I learned through all my education is the less I say, the more people hear me. So uh that's why I I did my my doctorate work in uh mentoring, learning how to work directly with people. And uh the truth is I'm most comfortable talking to men and women who have come out of prison who are trying to restart their life because they're more they're more willing to try. And so many of us, we don't we don't want to be uncomfortable, and changing means I'm uncomfortable. But when you when you're homeless, you don't have many choices.

DanielaSm: 14:38

The majority are willing to change?

Speaker: 14:40

No, no, I would say the majority are not willing to change. I don't look for results. What I look for is I'm going to at least offer the opportunity. So my my uh my goals are very basic. Are you hungry? Are you homeless? I can help you with that temporarily. And while you're with me, I want you to be looking for a job so that you can get your own place. So I like to see it as a hand up, not a handout.

DanielaSm: 15:04

Okay. Did you build this shelter, your wife and you, or you and a group of friends?

Speaker: 15:08

We bought an old house. We in we go into inner city areas and we we find an old house and we we work uh and maintain that house. So now we have a staff of ten people.

DanielaSm: 15:19

But your wife was was agreeing with you to help.

Speaker: 15:21

Oh, not even a question. In fact, in fact, she my wife is my age, and she works harder than I do. Imagine seeing this woman who's well into her late 70s saying, Today I I recocked a bathroom, or today I patched a hole in the ceiling, or today I painted the living room walls. She works harder than any of my staff on maintaining our houses. Uh, the men and the women in the houses I'll refer to her as grandma. She's probably my best employee. And my hardest worker.

DanielaSm: 15:51

You bought this house reforbisvet, and then you decided, you know, people call you from the Yales and said, Can you have some people here?

Speaker: 16:00

Well, actually, we get referrals through the parole officer. So it it's not somebody we don't take direct referrals, and that's a safety factor. Uh and what it does is by working with the state parole department, that keeps us accountable to their standards. So we're we're not just doing it our own way. We are accountable, so we do a more responsible job that way.

DanielaSm: 16:22

What happens? Like so you you decided you you finished the home and then you had people come in and you offer them food and shelter, which you know it it is the basic and the most important things.

Speaker: 16:33

Yeah, we we've expanded now one house to another to another. So in all we have 21 different houses. So instead of having just one person, we might have 80 people in these houses on any given day. So uh the idea it's called independent housing, meaning that it it's not locked down, you're not in jail, uh, you're not required to be with us. But if you need a place, we're here to help you.

DanielaSm: 16:58

Okay. Then you started with one house and you you only had the money for for the house that you bought, and then you started buying more? Like you how how how do you have had income to to do this?

Speaker: 17:09

Well, uh well, the thing about being a nonprofit is that it's it's a legal entity where you're registered with the state and registered with the IRS. So it keeps you financially accountable. So we're able to a contract with the state of Ohio parole department, and uh it's it costs someone, it costs taxpayers $109 a day to put somebody in prison. So you take $109 a day times 365 days a year, and 50,000 people, that's a lot of money. But the research shows that the community is the best place for people to do low-risk persons to get back and rehabilitate. So it let's suppose you have a five-year sentence for a crime, and and the majority of crimes now are drug related. You suppose you have a five-year sentence, but you're released and you're homeless, but it costs the state $109 a day to keep you in prison. But if you're in the community and if you get a job, number one, there's no prison cost, and number two, you are uh you are actually earning and paying taxes, so you're contributing to the community. And if you have child support that you owe, you can begin to pay that. So not only does the state save money, but the s the cities and the local communities benefit. So everybody wins, so we are paid temporarily while they stay with us until they get their own place. And so the state saves you know sixty percent or seventy percent over what they would pay otherwise. So that pays our bills.

DanielaSm: 18:52

Okay. How is it that you came up with this idea that oh, maybe we should buy an old house and do a shelter?

Speaker: 18:59

Initially it was because I realized that I wanted to help people, but I couldn't do it in the formal church structure setting. There wasn't the openness to it. So I have found people often are slow to change, and sometimes ideas let let's take uh let's take civil rights, for example, in the 50s. People were very resistant to equality between the races. And so, like Dr. King said, sometimes you'd have to confront people and force them to change what he called love force, not violence, a nonviolent resistance to oppression. So what we've done is we've said to the community, because there was resistance to what we were doing. We've said that we're not going to stop doing what we're doing because it's the right thing to do, and it's actually better for the community, but we're going to do it in a way that you will see that this is good for the community. We couldn't do that in any other way but on our own. That's why we formed this nonprofit called Good Samaritan Home.

DanielaSm: 19:57

Okay. You say that you couldn't convince people. By do you study theology and the church or the concept of religion wasn't convincing enough or wasn't supportive enough? You decided I have to do something more because it's a bit of a drastic change what you decided to do. And also, even though I like to help, I find that would I have the knowledge or the the training to be able to handle people that have gone through situations that I have no idea. And how can I relate and how can I really help? Because you you at the beginning you were s sharing the house with them.

Speaker: 20:31

I can help doing what I can do, and that is simply offer safe place, housing. I don't do counseling, I offer housing. Let's put it in perspective. In in Los Angeles, uh uh several years ago, there I believe his name was Father Gregory. He he opened uh shelter for uh young people coming from the gang, and uh he worked with the gangs, he was an ordained priest, and he had a a great deal of resistance by some in the Catholic Church that what he was doing was uncomfortable, but eventually he was able to get the support of the church. But let's suppose that the church said, no, you can't do that. But he felt very compelled to do this work. He felt like this was uh the right thing to do. And luckily he didn't have to make that choice. We did. We could continue in the church and not do the passion that we felt we were called to do, compelled to do, or we could quit being a pastor in the church and do this on our own. So that's where we had to make that decision. We had to fund it ourselves.

DanielaSm: 21:38

I see. Wow, interesting. Okay, and so then you got the house, you got your first client, let's say, your first uh guess. How was that? What was going through your head?

Speaker: 21:47

Ah, well, it was obviously you have two cultures coming together, but it's a shock. Uh imagine uh when you come back from a vacation, it it's still a shock going to work the next day. Imagine you've been locked up in a uh six by twelve cell for five years where everything is dictated and and and you you bring in different cultures, a black white culture or uh a brown white culture. It's it's it's a shock. But it's over the years we've learned we've learned that uh we're not here to tell people what to do. We're here to offer them an opportunity to make the right decisions. And we offer one thing primarily safe housing.

DanielaSm: 22:24

But if they if they come and stay with you like this this young man did, are you having breakfast with them? Are you having conversations or you just don't see them at all?

Speaker: 22:33

In that case, when he was in our home, it was of course it was clearly different because it was much more involved. We stopped doing that, particularly once we bought the other houses. It was more like somebody was a neighbor. We don't have, say, dinner with our resident. They cook their own meals, they run their own schedule. We simply offer them a safe place.

DanielaSm: 22:54

Okay. So they have their own kitchen or they share kitchen?

Speaker: 22:58

A shared kitchen where you have two or three or four people in an apartment and they and they a boarding house.

DanielaSm: 23:04

Mm-hmm. So you have now 21 homes? Yeah. So once you have one, you said, Oh, this is working well, let's have more. And is all in the same county?

Speaker: 23:14

Uh three counties.

DanielaSm: 23:16

How do you choose those areas?

Speaker: 23:17

Uh well, a lot of it is availability. Uh, where can I find uh the the affordable housing? But actually m most of our houses are in the uh uh uh uh in the barrio uh because uh the houses are more affordable, the uh it's near the bus line for another thing. There's less resistance from the neighbors, and that's a big factor because if you go into an area that is suburban, number one, it'll cost you more, and number two, they will immediately say we don't want those people in our neighborhood. And politics gets really tough.

DanielaSm: 23:51

Yes, that's true. I mean, if if people have kids, then they will be concerned.

Speaker: 23:56

Real or imagined, you're absolutely right. Even though the data is very clear, greatest danger with most of the uh the child assaults don't occur from strangers, they occur from from known members of the family or of the church or of the school. So the the it's to say that somebody has to be a thousand feet away from a daycare statistically doesn't do any good because it's it's not the stranger assault that you have to worry about.

DanielaSm: 24:23

Do you see that the people that have come through your homes are all be getting help and then is helping them, or they have other struggles that sometimes they can't?

Speaker: 24:32

The majority of issues we deal with, majority of people who come to us, because number one, they've been in prison, but number two, they're coming out with no family to offer them housing. They're doubly isolated, but often they either have mental health or addiction issues. So I would say 60%, if not more, these issues to deal with. So they're connected with uh mental health resources or recovery reasons. We don't do that. We we we refer them. So it takes the community to do this.

DanielaSm: 25:01

Yes, of course, of course.

Speaker: 25:02

So uh that's why we have the caveat is we would we will help you temporarily, but we hold you accountable. You you're not here indefinitely, you're here for a short time. Are you looking for work? What are you doing to change your situation? And if you're not trying, then we can't help you, and then uh we we have to part ways. I don't take it personally.

DanielaSm: 25:25

It's hard to get a job when you're out of jail.

Speaker: 25:27

Very good point. Very good point.

DanielaSm: 25:29

Do they get help?

Speaker: 25:31

Uh well, we're fortunate in in the uh the Western Ohio region, that the city is called Dayton. They're very, very good. And Ohio itself is very progressive in dealing with re-entry issues. And uh what they do is uh they they have uh re-entry classes that's provided by the county, and for eight weeks they teach you how to get a job, and then they refer you to employers that are hiring. I would say that if someone is willing to try, there is work for everyone regardless of their penalty and their crime. But some people it takes one, two, and three times because they they don't even know how to even fill out a job application. Or they don't know that you can't call in sick because you overslept. You have to show up. If I were to say to you, Danielle, uh, if you'd never had a job, if I were to say to you, just get a job, that would be like saying, I would like you to speak uh French. Uh it it sounds good in theory, but I wouldn't know where to begin. So uh and that's what getting a job is like for some of our residents. It's a foreign language. So we have to take them one pay one step at a time. And we don't do that. We encourage, but the county has support services to help and refer. It takes all of us together.

DanielaSm: 26:53

Yeah. And how long would they are there they in your place then?

Speaker: 26:57

Uh upwards of a year.

DanielaSm: 26:59

Oh, okay. Well that's a long time.

Speaker: 27:01

Yeah. And some have stayed longer, many stay less.

DanielaSm: 27:04

That's pretty good. You're doing a really good cause. You're helping people. Most people don't do things like this. So out of these twenty-one homes that you have now, you decided to write a book?

Speaker: 27:15

Yes. I always wanted to write a book, but I had nothing to say.

DanielaSm: 27:18

Why do you always want to write a book?

Speaker: 27:20

Coming out of the sixties, uh, I guess we all wanted to be Jack Kerouac, get on the road and tell our story, but I had no training in writing a book. So I put that on the shelf and I had to take care of my family until I was sixty-five years old. And I sat down and said, I'm gonna tell the story, not of the work we're doing, but I'm gonna tell the story, a fictionalized story of second chances. And it's a story, uh I call it a Forrest Gump story of Daniel Robinson, who started from a family that was abusive and in poverty, and he spent his life trying to catch up with what he called normal people. He felt like he was running behind everybody else. What I'm finding from the readers is that they'll write back and they'll say, That was me. I felt that all my life. Daniel was my story. So I I feel that what I'm doing is I'm telling the story of second chances. I feel like I'm offering hope to some people. If they just keep trying, just keep running, they can reach their goal.

DanielaSm: 28:22

What what are the second chances for you? You don't seem to have had tried different jobs, but your life seems to have been pretty good.

Speaker: 28:30

Oh well, we're looking at it from today. But imagine uh 25 years ago when I was just lost my job, had to move out of the house that we were renting because I was at the church house. I was near homeless, we had no money, I had been through this series of changes, so the society would say that I was a failure, but I felt that I simply hadn't found where I fit. So I needed one more chance. That's what we tell people. Just one more chance, maybe all it takes. So that's what the story is about. Just keep trying one more time.

DanielaSm: 29:02

Exactly. The society says that we have to do this and we have to do that. And people get into these institutions that is just wrong because everybody has their own world inside and everybody has their own time and everybody has their own path. We are waking up from that that it doesn't have to be what society says, but maybe it's gonna take more more decades.

Speaker: 29:25

That's right. And and and if you go against the norm, if if you do something that's not according to the the society's rules, there's a price, and you may fall down and you may feel like you're being pushed backwards and you're rejected. But that's when you need to to keep trying. I I like to compare uh the story I've written to Titanic. Titanic, when you really look at the script, it's the bottom line is it's about lifeboat safety. It's about being sure you have enough lifeboats because stuff happens and there's all sorts of icebergs out there. If the Captain Smith had said to everybody, we're gonna have a a lecture on lifeboat safety, nobody would listen. But what happens? James Cameron made a movie and he put Jack and Rose as two outcast lovers, and he made this tremendous love story that we're still talking about today, but I guarantee you it's still about lifeboat safety. And so that's what my story's about. It's it's about second chances. But it's written about the emotional love story between Daniel and Kate, the one he finally meets.

DanielaSm: 30:29

I see. But it has nothing of true with you in there?

Speaker: 30:33

Oh, I suppose if you scratch the surface, you'll see some similarities. But it's not my story, it's nonfiction, but all fiction is rooted in some truth somewhere. Yes.

DanielaSm: 30:44

So all your studies, psychology, theology has helped you to become a bigger person.

Speaker: 30:51

Oh yeah. I I I I'm almost certain it's Hemingway who said that all of us are broken by life, but we can become stronger in the broken places. And I think that that's what's happened here. I I call them detours. I made a lot of mistakes, but they all came together to make Good Samaritan Home and this novel something that will benefit the community. It's made me stronger, and I hopefully it can make the community stronger too.

DanielaSm: 31:17

So your wife was with you. I mean, obviously you've been together for a long time, but forty-eight years. But she never was upset or never saw you as a failure.

Speaker: 31:26

Yeah, I actually I give her the credit because anybody else, uh any a normal woman, would have left me long ago. In fact, when we were dating, her friends told her not to marry me because they thought that I was gonna be a bad influence on her, shall we say. I like to send them cards every anniversary to remind them we're still together.

DanielaSm: 31:46

Yes, of course. And what about your kids? Do you think that make them stronger, that make you hate you, they make you love you and respect you more? What what happened to them?

Speaker: 31:56

Well, I would say, no, it we still have relationships, obviously, with the kids and the grandkids in particular. They see what we're doing and they respect it. It's in fact, my son is a policeman, he'll he'll say, I arrest them and you bring them home. So but I I I do believe that because of all my changes, because to get from point A to point Z took a lot of changes. They want very much to have a much more stable life. So my son has been in the same job for 20 years, my daughter's been in the same job for 20 years, they've been in the same houses for that long. They have a much more structured and stable life. And I believe it's the direct result because I brought them up with more moving and more instability. Yes, interesting. They they balance my yin and yang.

DanielaSm: 32:42

Yes, uh, and I it could be also that they are the opposite of you, not necessarily because of the circumstances, you know, that personality they have is just more stable. Some people that have jobs like the policeman or the doctors, they know that they all their life that's what they're gonna be. While other people, like example me, I could not do one job all my life. Uh I couldn't I couldn't do that.

Speaker: 33:06

Now, see, I agree with you. I understand the term is be curious, and you never know that that next job might be something you really love. Just for example, there was a television show called 1923 with Harrison Ford that's being filmed, and they were looking for a walk-on actor. So I put my name in. I called them up, I said, You need somebody, and so they they hired me for a day's gig. I'll never be an actor, but it looked like fun. My kids would never, never do something like that. They're not as curious as I am, shall we say.

DanielaSm: 33:37

That's funny. So you are an actor too. I remember you mentioned that when we met the first time.

Speaker: 33:42

I'm not a good one, trust me. And they cut my scene anyway, so it doesn't matter.

DanielaSm: 33:48

But you had the experience, which is the fun part.

Speaker: 33:52

That's the fun part. It's uh buying a lottery ticket. Uh i i if you buy a lottery ticket, there's a one in ten million chance you'll win. But if you don't buy a ticket, there's no chance.

DanielaSm: 34:02

Yeah, no chance. Yes, that's true. That's true. That's true. Wonderful. And so uh 21 homes, what uh what is next? Are you gonna have more? Are you gonna write more books? What is the next step for you?

Speaker: 34:15

Uh I'm uh started on this this the uh sequel called Requiem. Uh it's a follow-up. The uh publishing running as fast as I can. It's been a lot of work. I've had to learn how to speak TikTok, how to learn how to speak LinkedIn and and Facebook. I've had to learn how to get 20 minutes worth of data into 30 seconds. Uh so writing is fun. So I'm back to writing again.

DanielaSm: 34:37

And why a sequel?

Speaker: 34:38

People kept asking what happened to Daniel and his family? I won't give the spoiler, but there was a traumatic event. What happened after that? I'm trying to fill in the blanks for the readers.

DanielaSm: 34:50

Wow, interesting. And your wife, does she also rise to write besides a handy a handy woman?

Speaker: 34:57

Actually, here's the funny part. She's not a writer and she's not a she doesn't enjoy reading as much, but what I'll find her doing is have her earbuds in and she's watching YouTube videos of how to patch a wall, how to fix a a crack in your uh in your tub wall, how to how to recock. She's she's learning things that she normally would have learned when she was twenty years old. But she's still trying to do periods. She's trying to do something new. And that's why everybody thinks she's half her age.

DanielaSm: 35:26

Yes, that's curious too.

Speaker: 35:28

Absolutely. Always be curious.

DanielaSm: 35:30

And how are your grandchildren?

Speaker: 35:32

My one granddaughter started college, and she's uh she's studying right now, of course, it'll change, but she's studying uh criminology. So that has to do with her father and her grandfather. But uh I've got another granddaughter who has a natural gift for writing. She's o only fifteen years old, but she never stops telling a story when she starts. She goes on and on and on. So I asked her uh to show me something she'd written for a class, and the story was actually pretty good. So she's gonna be my writer.

DanielaSm: 36:07

Uh-huh. That's kind of fun.

Speaker: 36:09

Yeah.

DanielaSm: 36:10

Maybe you can write a book together.

Speaker: 36:12

Uh actually uh I told her that uh if I don't finish this one, I want you to finish it for me.

DanielaSm: 36:17

Uh-huh. Why wouldn't you finish it?

Speaker: 36:19

Well, you never know. Yeah. I I at 77 I can't do everything. I two years ago I was climbing Mount Whitney in California. Uh now I don't think I could do that because I've found that uh sometimes our brain, our our mind, our our egos are writing checks that our body can't cash. So I I if I can finish this novel before I die, I'll be a happy man. Let's put it that way.

DanielaSm: 36:47

Yes, yes, you will. You will.

Speaker: 36:49

I call this novel Everyone's Story because I don't expect everybody to do the work we do, but I believe that everybody can identify with second chances, because in some respects we all in some way need a second chance. Yeah, it just very basic. If 50% of us are remarried, that's really a second chance. You're trying to find happiness in a family. And we all need that.

DanielaSm: 37:12

But I feel but John, I feel like second chances, but you do I mean the the when you say you deserve a check and second chance, it means like we are giving you the chance. That shouldn't be right. You should be able to know that you can have as many chances as you want independently for what other people think. But you you do have to also want to have the opportunity to have a second chance.

Speaker: 37:35

Give me an example.

DanielaSm: 37:37

Because a lot of people, I think, for example, they are crossed to the dark side and there is no second chances for that.

Speaker: 37:44

There are people, even until the day you die, you have an opportunity to at least turn around for the last few moments in your life. A good example of that is a Christmas carol, the Scrooge story. He lived his life selfishly until he was visited by the three ghosts of Christmas. And he turned his life around, and the conclusion is until the day he died, Mr. Scrooge lived every day as if it were Christmas. No matter what little time you have left, you you won't undo your past mistakes, but maybe you can help overcome some of them.

DanielaSm: 38:14

Yeah.

Speaker: 38:15

The best example I think is my wife was told in growing up in high school in the Catholic school that she wasn't smart enough. They the nuns didn't like her and they called her retarded. So when I married her, I encouraged her to go back to school and to go to college. And it took her twenty-eight years to get her associate's degree from college because she had to restudy and relearn and she had to work ten times harder. But she got her degree and she cried and she said, I'm not retarded. And I knew that, but she didn't know that.

DanielaSm: 38:48

Yes, of course. Yes, those uh teachers at that time. That's right. You know, they were always so encouraging. I had a my math teacher also told me that was I was dumb in front of everybody in the class. Maybe I'm not very good at math because I don't like it, and he didn't teach it well, but I'm good at finances and I know how to save money and how to do my stuff, which is the important thing.

Speaker: 39:08

Exactly, exactly. And sometimes adults, teachers, uh parents, you can do so much damage. Yeah. So undoing that damage sometimes