Jim Clark Shares How Service And Skill-Building Shaped His Whole Life

A lot of people say they want a life story worth saving. Jim Clark lived one, and he tells it with the calm detail of someone who has actually done the work. Jim was born in West Virginia, moved west during the World War II shipbuilding years, and grew up near Portland and Vancouver with memories that feel both ordinary and disappearing fast: barracks housing, coal heat, country roads, and a community expanding in real time. 

Jim explains why he joined the United States Army when he did: not for glory, but for skills, structure, and a chance to build a different future. He walks us through basic training at Fort Ord, the reality of getting sick and pushing through, and the less-talked-about side of the military that keeps everything running, finance and administrative work that made sure troops got paid. That foundation follows him into civilian life, where he tries different trades, then builds a long career with the General Services Administration traveling to inspect and support federal buildings. 

Life keeps changing, including a move to Michigan that doesn’t save a marriage, and the slow work of rebuilding community and love. Jim also opens up about marathon running, what “hitting the wall” really feels like, and how he thinks about health and aging at 84. Retirement, for him, isn’t an ending. It’s boatbuilding, a solar-powered houseboat, new projects, and a clear purpose: stay positive and pass help forward to the people around you. 

If you value veteran stories, oral history, healthy aging, and practical wisdom about purpose, you’ll want to hear Jim’s full conversation. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review telling us what lesson you’re taking with you.

Transcript

From West Virginia To Washington

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Today is Thursday, April 16th, 2026. We're talking with Jim Clark, who served in the United States Army. So good afternoon, Jim. Hello. Thanks for taking time out of your day to talk with us. Sure, glad to. All right. Well, we'll start the questions fairly simple. When and where were you born?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I was born in Hanley, West Virginia.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Okay. And where is Hanley, West Virginia? I'm not familiar with that.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

It's not an it's not a big, very big town, but it's near Charleston. Okay. My dad was recruited in the for the building ships in Portland, Oregon. And that's how we got from West Virginia to actually Washington, and I spent most of my life in Washington State.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

And how old were you when you left West Virginia?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

About five.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Okay. Do you have any memories of being in West Virginia?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Uh very few. I know I don't have any memories of living there, but I have memories of going back and and uh had reunions about every other year. So Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

And uh so you your dad packed everything up and you moved to to Oregon. Did you have brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yes. Okay. I have I had two brothers and one sister.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

And one, I have one that's still alive, one brother that's alive.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Okay. And where did you fall in the in the pecking?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I was uh next to the youngest.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay. So kind of middle, but not really.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And so tell me, what was it like growing up uh in Portland?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Well, it was during the wartime, and we lived in uh some barracks actually that was created for people that worked building ships.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

You know, and actually it's Vancouver, Portland. It's right on the Columbia River. And so I just remember playing in coal bins, because that's how the houses were heated at that time. And then my dad bought one of the houses there and transported it down just down the road about a mile where he bought 10 acres of land and he was improving it on there.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

So you're there you are on 10 acres of land, and what was that? What was that like? Was there a lot to do for for you as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Uh well, we went to school, but I don't know if there was anything else other than that. I have a few memories of being in that place before we moved, uh-huh, you know, to our own place in that tenant building that they built, and there's a big auditorium that we had meals in, but I must have been, I don't think I was more than seems like a four or five, because I hadn't got I hadn't started school yet.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Well, speaking of school, so how was school for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

School's good.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, I felt comfortable there. And uh it wasn't very far I could walk to school. It was in the country, we were near uh Vancouver, Washington, so it was uh we were called we were actually in the country, no sidewalks, you know, yeah, just still paved roads all no dirt roads, but no sidewalks. Yeah, not many, not many uh dirt roads either.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Not like there is here.

unknown 3:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I traveled a lot to uh Charlotte and and the lake out there because they got a place and a lot of dirt roads out that way.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Oh yeah. That's cheaper. Yeah, that's the whole idea. Yeah, so uh you said it was a country school, so was it um was it like a K through 12 in one building or was it it was it bigger than that?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

No, it was bigger than that. We had uh, I think I went to a junior high, which was up through the ninth, ninth grade, eighth grade, something like that. And then we went on to uh high school and they just built I got uh junior high built over there, so I went over there for the last year before I went to high school, and high school was just on the same property.

unknown 4:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

You know, so uh like if we could see what we're gonna get into. And we also we also uh uh we were blessed by only you know having teachers for each grade. Right. Like if it was uh 10 years before that, they would probably had them, you know, that taught several grades at once. But it grew big enough to weren't to have uh so many teachers.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So did you play any sports or did you have any favorite subjects?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Well, I I liked sport the sports I liked was running, and I did that even on later on in life I ran marathons and a few things like that along the way, and so but those are bygone by now. I had both knees replaced, golly, about 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

And that was uh I'm very fortunate that I don't have to take any drugs. I don't take anything. I'm 84 years old, and so I'm pretty healthy. Yeah. No blood pressure, high blood pressure, you know, diabetes or nothing like that, heart problems. So I don't really have change changed my habit very much, except I just don't do uh as much as I did before, and I don't lift and carry things as much because my knees they will start hurting if I do that.

Enlisting And Basic Training At Ord

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So learn how to manage that. Uh-huh. So did you graduate from high school then?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Oh yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Um and then uh after graduation from high school, what'd you do after that?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Well, I think I just did jobs, labor jobs around the area that Vancouver and Portland, Oregon. And I went in about two years after high school. Okay. In the Army.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

All right. And and what prompted you to join the Army?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Well, I wanted to get up some kind of skills that I didn't have in high school because we didn't have a lot of choices in high school like you do in this high school now. You got auto body, you got everything you think of. We didn't have that. And so I thought it'd be a good way to get an education, get paid for it, and then I can get on with my life. I was anxious to get out of the house, out of my parents' rule. And I went in, I was about 20, I think, when I went in. So I was only a year or two after.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And and why the army?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

I didn't I have no reason. I don't have any, I didn't know anybody that, you know, uh-huh they retired from any of the services, so I had no influence there at all.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

You just said, I'm gonna join the army.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, well, all my other friends, that's who that's where we went, uh, that's where they went, you know, and uh we were all several of us went in together, so we got to say at least two basic together.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Right. Well, talk to me about that. So when did you leave for basic training?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

When did I leave?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, was it uh in the summer, the winter? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Uh yeah, it was in the fall. Okay. About December. I guess I we had to go to Fort Ord, which is California.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

And that's right on the coast. So it was miserable and wet. And I remember that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Fort Ord, California. So talk to me about when you first got there. What was that, what was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well, it was different. I was put on the you know, KP roster and it had it posted, but I was just my second day there. I never thought the look of there, and so I missed my first appointment, so then I got extra duty for that right when I got there. So it was okay. It was a lot of different people. You know, you meet people from all over the United States, right? And they had different habits and and uh it was easy to get along. It was nice to get to know different people from different places.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

And then how long? So how long was basic training at that time? Do you recall? Six weeks. Six weeks. Okay. So you're there for six weeks. Is there anything about basic training that really sticks out to you like when you think about it?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

No, it was it was pleasant. It was it was fun, but we were right on the coast and it rained a lot. I can remember that. I remember getting a cold in basic, and that wasn't too much fun then. You still had to do all the stuff you do if you're healthy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Okay.

Army Finance Work And Promotions

SPEAKER_00 8:51

I didn't have any issues there with the in the exercise programs they had.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

So And then what was your MOS in the Army? What what job did you do?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Actually, I don't remember the actual it was uh business administration, sort of, and I ended up going to a school uh that taught how to manage uh the stuff they are, you know, the stuff the army bought and also preparing pay vouchers. I actually ended up in a in a pay unit that we managed for the troops who went to the field. So we were we had dashed to do the same things that uh infantry did. We had to go out and play army and that stuff, but we still go back, and our regular job was just doing the pay vouchers, you know, by hand. Of course, in 1960, that's where it was.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

So that's what we primarily did after I got out of basic training.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Right. And w so where did you go for your advanced training then? For your business training?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Uh I went to Indianapolis, Indiana. That's where I went for the business end of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

And then where did you end up after that?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Hi. This is my wife Donna.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Hi. Hi, Bill?

unknown 10:07

You continue.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well, I went to uh uh Fort Benning, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

That's where I went for uh Basic. No, I was that's where I went to basic, was yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

No, that wasn't You went to Fort Ord for Basic?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

And then you went to Indianapolis for training.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

And then you ended up at Fort Benning then?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Is that No.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Oh, you don't you know it didn't work that way. Okay. That was primarily and after that I let's see, where was the first place to get I went okay, I went to Columbus, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

And I spent pretty much the other two and a half years I had left right there before Benning, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And uh I did uh did those sort of things just making payday work.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

You were making sure people got their paychecks.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Mm-hmm. Okay. I wanted I wanted to get a job that was different than being a laborer, uh-huh. A skill that I could go out, maybe work in the office uh type b business, in which I did, and I probably did more of that as I left the Army. Then I took took a job with uh U.S. government and I retired from the U.S. government GSA, and that's why I retired. And then I worked in several large cities in office work, and it was nice. It was good. I look back on it and it was fun. I had a good time. Traveled a lot, and they always lived best hotels we stayed in. Gave us$100 and some dollars a day for food at that time, you know, a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

It's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you um did so while you were in, did you, I'm sure you made friends. Do you still keep in contact with any of your friends from the military?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yes, I had a friend from uh, I actually went down and seeing him four years ago. He lives down in Phoenix. He was my uh one of the guys I worked with. That's about the only one I went to see of uh because nobody else, I didn't know anybody else once I got my final training in because I worked so far away from where I lived.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Actually it's called 15th Finance uh Department. And I I seen the that the company clerk had a good job. He had a Jeep to drive around all over the post. All he did is a, I don't know if you're familiar with the morning ports. That's about the only thing he had to type. That's how the government keeping track of who was there, you know, and who was on sick leave and all that stuff. And so I did that for the while I was in the army, which I didn't really work in making out pay vouchers, so but that was good. I got a good experience and kind of learned how everything worked, you know. Yeah. And so, and uh I got promoted real quickly, so it was it was just a good experience. I have a good experience in the in the army.

Finding A Career With GSA

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And then you so when you left the army, where did you go from there?

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Okay. I went back home in the state of Washington, and I worked for a a neighbor that had uh uh it was called Bucrest Nurseries. He had a nursery farm, 105 acres of growing seedlings for uh BMW and everybody else for the transplants trees because there's a lot of farming done in the industry. So I worked there kind of on and off, trying to find out what I wanted to do. And uh in the minute in the me in between that, between jobs, I would work to plumbing electric and outlets so I knew how to actually install about everything we sold. We sold everything that the house has in it.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Did that a couple times, just like the nursery, I've quit and worked a couple times. I went back to it. I was a nursery manager at one time, and so I just got some more experience still trying to find where I wanted to. And I worked construction, I did that out in the rain, and I didn't like that too much. Digging holes and uh putting in water line and sewer lines by this contractor. Uh and we worked in wintertime, it gets cold. We don't get the snow like uh we get here.

unknown 14:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

We're lucky to get snow. And if it stays on the ground, you know, a week or two, we're surprised. And I lived uh not too far from actually Seattle, and uh so I don't know what else I can tell you about other jobs that I had.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

When did you go to work for the government then?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Uh it was it was about two years after I got out of the army. I got out and was 64. Uh-huh. Yeah, I got I took a job in the local area where I lived. Uh-huh. And it was for GSA, and we and GSA does a lot of work. You don't know how as familiar you are with the what we did, but we uh rented and leased all federal buildings, courthouses, and building and uh court and uh motor stations.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

That's what we were in charge of. And I ended up doing all the inspecting of things that we have done there because I've worked at Plumin Electric and Art Fleet. I had a lot of variety. And uh I went into and become a GS grade person after that. Okay. And uh all I did was travel and inspect, I think I had about 67 buildings that I had to visit every every year. And so I traveled a lot. Traveled about 60 days a year. That's not a lot, but uh I haven't traveled since then, hardly. I've made a couple long trips, but uh driving, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

And where were you living when you started working for the government?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Same way where I in in c Vancouver, Washington. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

So how'd you end up in Michigan?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

I was married to a woman that I really sh uh we were married for about 12 years, I think, and things weren't going too well. And her parents lived in Lansing. She had a father here, two sisters, and a brother. They all lived here, and most of them lived in this park right here. Okay. And so I thought, well, uh I'd be willing to move back there to see if that'll improve our relationship. I didn't want a divorce. I wanted to stay married. But that didn't. I realized very quickly that that was a way that she wanted to get back here, and then I got a letter the first year I was back here from a lawyer. So my life changed again, and that uh I haven't gone back to Washington because I got to I just got uh used to all the people living in it in a small neighborhood where I got to know a lot of people and help a lot of people, and there's a lot of elderly people here that need help, and I kind of fit my need. And I think Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana is a lot prettier than the state of Michigan. That was the first question anybody asked me when they heard where I'm from. Why did you come to Michigan? Because the boy's pretty back there. But I did make a, I think we said we figured four years ago we made a 60-day road trip. Uh-huh. We left here, went down to Texas because I had a grandson down there. Then I went over to uh Phoenix. That's where the my only person I you know kept in touch with from uh earlier, then went up to Washington. I had that's where my family was. I got a brother in Spokane, so I went over to Spokane, then we went across uh Idaho and came back home to Michigan. That took us, we were gone 60 days, 10,000 miles.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

That's quite a vacation.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, and I never made, I never took a trip that long. Right. You know, and we had a camper, and so we just stayed in in uh parks and stuff and went to parks. We went to a lot of uh federal uh parks all over, especially down in Arizona and California and stayed and just seen a lot of the country where we were out. And we're getting ready now to do that same trip, except we're not gonna not gonna drive. We're gonna fly back then and rent a car and do all that and fly back. It just takes you know almost four days if you drove straight to get there.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

That's eight days, and I don't want to spend that and it's costly.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

It's a lot of driving.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

It is.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

So um when when did you get divorced then? What was that?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I was let's see about ten years ago.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Because I've been here twelve years.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

And daughter and I've been married seven years, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

So how did you meet your wife here?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

In church, in uh a life group that we we meet. That's how the church locally deals with it's about four thousand people or members there. That's how they can keep track of everybody and make sure everybody's needs are met and train them and so you meant Was it love at love at first sight? No, no, I won't say that. But we we're interested in each other, yeah, and it just worked out. We it got to a point where we were our relationship, we were planning to only get married a year from year from then, or a certain point.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

And then after months going by, we says, we don't have no reason to wait. So we got married. You know, we know each other about a year then, I think.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Now, do you have children then?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I have I have one son that lives in in Seattle, uh huh, or Vancouver, Washington. And she's and uh Donna has quite a few grandkids that just live here in this state.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Now, do you uh does your son have kids? Do you have grandkids?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, I got grandkids. My son actually is retiring this month.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Working for Boeing up in Washington. And uh then one of my grandsons we're gonna meet up when we go this this year in Montana because he's coming back from being in the Air Force over in Germany. He's you know I got two uh grandsons and they're both out of the service.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

And actually, uh some of them retired before their dad.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

So what's it what's it like to be old enough to watch your son retire?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

That's gotta be kind of it's amazing. It's more amazing than I got two grandsons. One is already retired last year, and the other one is getting pretty close. I think he's he's just come back from Germany, and I think he's goes to California for his last four or five years that he's gonna be in. It's really nice. I I've been a long ways away from him, you know. But my son, we lived in the same state most of our lives until I moved over here 12 years ago. So then I could see him quite often, but I did see him a lot. So yeah, I would like to have been closer. This is like all my my grandparents and my uncles and aunts and cousins. I don't know any of those people because I we left Washington when I was about four. I mean, left uh West Virginia about four. Right. And so most people back in West Virginia don't go to Washington for anything. I mean, this was in the 40s and 50s. Yeah you had to travel.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

That's a that's a long distance.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

And we made usually about every two or three years, we'd make a road trip and go back to the reunion. Then I would reconnect with a few of my cousins, but I didn't know any of 'em. And my grandfather and grandmother, I have memories of 'em, but not much because I didn't live there.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

So I I miss that because I see some families are real close and and uh I can see that would have been really nice.

Marathons The Wall And Aging Well

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah, it makes it difficult because I mean we c we have the ability to live anywhere and families tend to spread out as they're yeah yeah so we um you know you talked a little bit uh when we were talking earlier about uh you were a runner and you uh had run some marathons. Um can we talk a little bit about that? Because I don't like to drive 26 miles, I can't imagine running 26 miles. So um tell me about that. That I think that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Somewhere when I was getting close to 40, I didn't like the way I was gaining weight. So I thought, well, I'll start running. And I did run track in high school, you know. So I did like running because it it moved you to a place where you can think about things and you just run along and you all you can just kind of plan stuff, and and uh I ran into a bunch of my friends ran, so we had a group that were really close to runners, and we I ran the Portland marathon, I ran a Seattle marathon, and I think I ran Portland twice, but you get it's it's a lot of preparation to run a marathon. I mean, you don't you don't get out there and train a week or two, right? You know, then but you stay with it. We we ran a lot of other shorter races, of course, just for camaraderie and had like got to and had a lot had a lot of good time, a lot of good friends there. I don't have any except one that lives in Battleground. I try to see him every time I go over to that part of the world.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

But we had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Now, when I was so when I was in the army, um, you know, I I would run probably seven or eight miles a day. And I felt like there was a point where once you reach that point, you could just keep running. I mean, did you is that what you found when you were running marathons?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Like well, after you run marathons, there's not only thing that happens, you run farther, your body's eventually gonna deplete it of energy. And I I didn't know what that would have been like. Right. But I found out what that's like. Yeah. You know, because your body just shuts down, you just can't, you can't run, you can't walk, you hurt so bad. I still remember running a Seattle marathon where I wasn't didn't get the time of training and that I needed to have, and I knew it. So I had my wife meet me at the 10 mile, 15 mile, and right around that area to see if I'm ready if I can go farther. And the time I got to about the 20th mile, it hurt to walk.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

It hurt to walk, and it took about it hit the wall. I it took about a half an hour before I felt good again. And uh I realized I I didn't experience that before in any of my running.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You know, to take your body as far as the limit of it. But you're right, I could, when you're in marathons, you if you didn't run hard, you could probably run that all day long.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

You know, but you're out there run the marathon, you're trying to get the best time, and mine wasn't. I was probably 40 years old and I think I ran it in three hours and 40 minutes, but and I but I was encouraged to try to get better. Um, you know.

unknown 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

So that was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

What do you think was the highlight of your running career? Is there a point in there that you're really proud of?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Well, I could I usually outrun the high school kids. That I took with great pride in the races that I ran when I was 40. I could I was still still beating, you know, competitively. Yeah. Not nothing, you know, great, but I I got that satisfaction. And even now I'm 84, I don't have very many friends that can do what I do now.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

You know, I'm gonna manage everything, I'm healthy, and I still feel like God's gonna give me a hundred years, so I got another 14, 15 years to go.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

So yeah, you better take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, I've always been concerned about how what I ate.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

And uh to some extent, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I do exercise now. My wife exercises on Zoom with four of her sisters at her morning. So I started doing that now, so that's kind of fun for an hour or so because I got a point where, hey, my limbs are getting stiff, you know, and uh old people have a they lay you can tell they're old by the way they get out of the chairs, where they get up and start walking, or how they walk. And well, I'm starting to battle that because it seems like time just isn't in your favor, you know. You gotta do all these things that you did when you were your kid when they're fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

So youth is wasted on young people. That's what I've heard.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Oh yeah. Yeah, I always my friends you know in a life group, one of the life groups we go to are golfers.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

And uh I always I've always had to plan when somebody asks me, how come you don't play golf? I says, Well, I'll do that when I get old.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

You're just not there yet, right?

unknown 27:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I played golf once and I've realized I don't think I like this.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I can still remember standing and hit the ball this way. Well, the ball went that way. Cross the road. But anyway, I enjoy listening to their struggles and they're competitive. They're out there trying to, you know, improve their golf numbers that they take them to run certain golf courses, and they got all these experiences, what golf course they like, and you know, and that stuff, and that camaraderie and that, and a lot of people play golf, so that would be that would be fun, but I don't. I got a lot of things that I like to do, and I'm running out of time. I just gotta make sure that I, you know, can get to the end and still be walking.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Right, right. So so you've been retired for a while then, for a number of years.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Probably 50 years, let's see. I retired in uh 2001. That was the last year I worked, 2001. So 25 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Wow. So And what was what was that like for you? Because I mean you went right into that job out of the military. That was really kind of your life. Yeah. What was that like for what was retirement like for you?

Retirement Boatbuilding And Solar Houseboat

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Well, I had a lot of interest, so I did that like building boats. So I built I got a houseboat right now that we have built, all solar powered. It's on the lake, and built can canoes and kayaks and sailboats. I just had a lot of interest, so you know, I threw myself into that. I still ran, but not as much, not as far. But uh I never never took another job. I thought about, yeah, I don't know, I got these skills that I could get a job at work, but I didn't, you know, I had a good enough retirement that I didn't need to have work at all.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Right. So how did you get into boat building? That's an interesting uh skill.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

That's strange. My dad was a woodworker.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

But the only thing I remember working him is him yelling at me, and I ended up pulling nails because those days the lumber, you know, you'd get lumber and he'd buy a lot of stuff that's used, nails, I had to pull the nails. I learned a lot from him, and I thank, I thank God for him because I learned a lot, and I didn't even realize all I did was complain about it because, you know, I'd rather be doing other things, building things, you know, which we race bicycles and go-karts and all that kind of stuff. So but I just like boots. I like building them more than I like riding in them.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Right. You never you never built a boat in your basement that you couldn't get out, did you? No. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

I always I always had to build them in garages. Yeah. My garage most of the years was the double gar garage that everything's on wheels, all my saws, all my uh tools that I had, I could just I never parked a car in there. I could have enough room in there to build cabinets. I built cabinets for homes and did that when I got out. When I quit working, when I got retired, I had to do something, you know, and I just had a lot of habits that I liked, a lot of interests.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, Rick, right before I retired, someone said you gotta have a plan. Like you can't just retire. You gotta figure out what you're gonna do some experiment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah. Yeah, I knew I knew what I'd like to do. I'd still like to build boats, but I'm not sure. I might get one more built. I think I'll build me a rowing machine. I think I want to build one of those real narrow ones. I live with, I mean, I have a place on the lake, so I could I could go out there and I'm used to going out and rowing when I was in California. I built a sailboat and I'd go out and I could go out all day rowing, and I could go faster than people walking the sea source. I could cover a lot of territory and see a lot of things. That's what I liked about running. I'd run alleys and places where you normally wouldn't go. I like to see things that nobody else seen, so I'd do that in alleys and and on the places where there's water, I'd take my boat.

unknown 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

And I just go around and say, You seen all the cool stuff that nobody else sees. People's junk, I guess you.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Well, it's a great way to do it too.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yep. Now is that a picture of your houseboat behind you there?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Okay. So how how long did it take, how long does it would it take to build a boat?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Depends on big a boat.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

This is this is twenty-five feet long, uh-huh, but it was built on a uh pontoon boat, so I had I came down here to Michigan, I see all these pontoons sitting around in the weeds, you know, people buy boats all over the place. And uh I know how long it takes to build a wooden hole.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

It's just building a kayak that I built, you know, usually six months. That was just for that. But this this one I already had the pontoon, so all I could do is build a house on it. And I built this about about two, three, two or three years I had water.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Then I upgraded it, and it's all solar powered now. It's always the motor's electric, and it's always charged. For the last four years now, it's always been charged, so it's always ready to go regardless. I don't have to plug it in. This winner, I plugged it in just because it's where I have it parked now, it's uh a little shady, and then and it just got cold, so. But out in the water and uh on the lake, it'll be stayed charged all the time. So I didn't have to. At first, of course, I had a gas motor on it, and I replaced that. And I don't have to have the gas in a stink and all that stuff. I just go out there and turn the switch and go take it off.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Don't have to worry about running out of gas or anything.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

No, there's no gas in it.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I got propane in it, but that's about no, not I don't have any pro I don't have propane in the house, but I got in my trailer. Oh. So yeah. And I'm now getting to a point where I'm evaluating keeping the houseboat.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Just because it's on a lake, the taxes on the lake,$4,000, you know, in just a year, just for the taxes. And it takes a certain amount of maintenance on the boat. And you gotta put pull your dock in in the wintertime, put your dock in, and that costs me uh$400 every time it goes or comes. So I just I'd rather spend the money that I'm spending on that now, something you know, and something else. So I'm I actually talked to my wife today. I said, Well, next year I'm thinking about this, and we're gonna we're taking this trip back to Washington here in July. And uh I did want the boat in the water when I'm gone because all these things happen. I've had the dock turn over and float, I mean almost sink. And that was right after I bought the dock and had it been put in.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

And uh all kinds of things can happen. And my my neighbors are great, that's where I have it. They mow my grass for me if I don't get out there. They're just really great people. So, but uh, I think I could get by with out-the-house boat.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I'm just thinking that time to let that go. I I want to build a rowing machine. I've always wanted to do that, but I just never got to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

So you think that'll be next your next project then?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Yeah. How long do you think it'll take you to build that?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Oh, these things are so little. Uh-huh. These rowing machines, there'll be a oh gosh. Probably I could get it done probably in a couple months.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

But uh, because most of the apparatus, the ruin part of it's all metal and bolts into the boat. It takes a lot of stress to pull that. You but that boat is really thin. And uh it couldn't handle being, you know, having all the stress with an orange on it.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Now, do you um do you work from plans or do you just intuitively know how to do it?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

No, I I work for plans. I buy plans and go from there.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

You know. I don't think I've built any boat not from plans. I built a jet boat. I got pictures of that. And uh I just got a jet ski cut right about right above the boat, right below the motor mounts. And it was a piece about this long then, and I bought a plan for the boat, and I just molded that in in fiberglass when I fiberglass the boat. Yeah, you'd have to see a picture of it. It's beautiful, it was beautiful. Now, when I built it, like the 1950 uh crisscrass that had the mahogany. Yeah, I usually build a boat and this and the process that I use. Some of them I built, they call uh stickers, not stickers. I don't know. Little strip strippers is what it calls, a kayak that I had. Baltic is only made out of strips about one inch by a quarter. 18 feet. It doesn't weigh very much. That's a I built that sea kayak. I thought I could build that thing for a couple hundred dollars in about three months. Well, I ended up taking six months to building that thing. It's a learning experience. Right. What the heck, you know? You can't push it. I'm never in a hurry.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah, sometimes our plans don't exactly work out the way we think they're going to.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, well, I like those kind of things. That's why uh I built so many different kinds of boats. You know, some were fiberglass, and some were, like I said, a stripper. They just got made into strips. And this houseboat was just conventional. I went down to there's a uh sawmill and uh potterille. Yeah. A side of the freeway. Yep. I went down there and bought uh how many board feet? Seemed like 600 feet. And I got a picture of that delivered on my on uh in front of my garage, and I just had to cut so many three by threes, that was gonna be the walls and everything made out of that, and all the rest is just cut in three-quarter inch. And uh cedar, cedar doesn't rot, you know, it's good wood, bugs don't like it, and so it's held up really well. I've repainted about every two years, but that's the only thing I have to do to the outside. And it sets in a moist environment.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

You know, it sits on the lake or sits home during the winter time, and I'm glad I didn't have to house it. I didn't have a pool barn. That's what I was planning to do when I moved to Michigan, is have a pool barn, and but that didn't work out.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

So just do what you can do. Yeah, go outside and stayed outside now.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Ever since 2000 started 2016 or 15. But I didn't have to build a wooden hole. I just had to, I bought a pontoon boat that was had pontoons on it, and had a plywood, new plywood uh base put on it where the house was built on it. And uh I bought I had to buy another when I got it done, I weighed it, and uh I felt it was pretty close to being at the limit of what two pontoons would do. So I bought another pontoon boat, and it was four feet shorter than my pontoons, and so I put four pontoons under this thing. Uh and it's plants of learning experience. So yeah, you just do that. Now I gotta solve something I'm uh it's gaining uh it's it's lower in the water about three inches than it was four years ago. Yet it never has water in the pontoons. You know, I can bring it home and park it on a slab, and there's never any water on it. You can go. And somehow I don't know if maybe my cedar is uh picked up a little bit of moisture and that's where weight.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

So but that's all it's choices. Then I had a custom trailer made for it, so then I had to buy a truck to pull it. So it's just kind of a process you learn. You don't have anybody that you can go to, at least I did, that knew anything about it. And all my friends is my age. So some of the pictures that I had people help me.

unknown 41:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

You just gotta figure it out as you go.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

That's the only thing it is I I struggle with now is that I don't have anybody, friends that are my age, you know, that can do what I do. So I have to rely upon somebody 15 or 20 years younger than us to do it.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yeah, you gotta recruit some younger folks to to help out.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Take the muscle, yeah.

A Legacy Of Positivity And Service

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So we've talked about quite a bit this afternoon, everything from uh growing up in, or not growing up, but being born in West Virginia and then uh you know, moving and then ending up here in Michigan. Um fascinating. Like I I, you know, I've never met anyone that made their own boats. Um, so that's that's very interesting to me. Um, but as we kind of wrap up our conversation today, um, I do want to ask you one other question, and that is for anyone listening to this a hundred years from now, uh, when neither you nor I are here, unless there's some miracle of modern medicine that happens, um, what message would you like to leave for people?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Well, most of my life changed when I've become a Christian, but I won't go into that at all. But my life has just changed where I have uh I look at I look at my life, people took care of me. For some reason, I had friends that would go out of their way for me. And uh and that's what I feel like my purpose is now in life is to help other people become better people, you know, or fulfill their dreams. And uh so that's what I do. Okay. Now and uh I would like to just encourage everybody to be positive as you can. I look try to turn everything into a positive look because anything negative it's not healthy for you, just uh listen to, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

No, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Yeah. And I that was one of the reasons I wanted to do this too, because after you're gone, who knows? And all my files where I ran and racing races here and there, and all the pictures of the boats and and things that I had interest in, you know, it's gonna be gone. My grandsons are interested in some of that stuff, whether and you know, what their grandfathers did, but most I didn't live near them, so nobody could see them. I did have a few of my grandsons help me. I did do one thing when I uh after I got out of the retired, was uh build things. I'm I had to work, and I'd go to Army bases and and Air Force bases, which there's one in Seattle, and set up and sell my wares. And I did that. I built cabinets too, but did a lot of work. Just I'd like people to, you know, hopefully they learn why they're here earlier in life. And if they're not, you know, if they don't know why, that's that's a good starting point, is to, you know. And you can look at you can ask somebody to tell you, what do you think I'm here for? Because they'll they'll see things they don't you don't see.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

You know?

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

And uh and it seems like the older you get more. You reminisce when you think about wow. I had people, my supervisors always went out of their way. I was in the Army one year and I was in E4. You know, just blessed.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Then I ended up working in regional offices and uh got to travel, you know, beyond my experience, you know, that's so I I just say pass it on. I try to do that, and how I tip people how I care for people that need help. I got a neighbor down here that's um he'd been paralyzed from about the neck down for 39 years.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

My gosh.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

And he just had one of his legs, other leg that's not this uh uh already can't use, had it amputated amputated because he doesn't can't use some of those things, and it you know, they don't you your body doesn't like to hang on to anything, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

So, like today I ended up going over there and he's bedridden. For him to get out of bed, it takes two of us to get him out of bed in this wheelchair. So I'm handy, I'm glad I can do that. You know, I just like to be uh somebody that kind of shows the way how you should treat people and always be helpful, always be helpful and look for ways you can help it. I have a lady back here that won't talk to anybody, I've never talked to her, but uh I mowed my grass the first time. There's a strip between her house and ours all the way down here, and that's where the utilities run.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

So I usually mow all four, four, four or five houses down through here, and she came up to him with a big smile on her face. I said, Wow. That's what life's about.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Just being helpful and doing things that people don't expect. You know, so people have always treated me that way, and I never knew why. And my dad was really talented. He was a welder, he repaired radios, he farmed while he worked out. He'd he'd come home from he's a he was a welder in Portland. He'd come home, get his little tiller out, uh, you know, till dark.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

But that was his habit. He'd come from West Virginia where most people farmed, and that's where my ancestors farmed raised tobacco. You know, and they farmed, they lived in the gullies and hellows, they call them over back there. So I still I it was really a realization when I realized what my guy, what my dad, what I learned from my dad, and I didn't have a chance to tell him. I never treated him, you know, in a way that I would now.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

You know, because I really appreciate what he did. He would didn't talk very much, so I didn't learn much from him speaking to me, but I watched him woodwork, and that's how my love for woodworking is came from. So, and the boats came along too.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing all that with me today, and I'm glad I got to know you. Um, you know, I think when we see people, um, we don't know anything about them, but it this has been fascinating, and I think it will be a part of your legacy that when all of those other things are gone, this will still be here uh so that people can uh learn more about you and uh understand uh well thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk with me.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

It was a treat. You're good to talk to. Well, thank you. Thank you. You do a good job.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Thank you.