Episode 23: Kim Larson; Eight Kids, Nine Hours, Zero Quiet

A licensed daycare in a small town sounds simple until you hear what it actually demands: nine-hour days, strict ratios, constant trust from parents, and almost no margin for error. We sit down with Kim Larson, a longtime in-home child care provider in Haines, Alaska, to trace how she got here and why her work has quietly held up families for decades. From Kansas roots to growing up in Anchorage, Kim’s path is full of grit, humor, and the kind of consistency that kids and communities depend on.

Then the story turns. Kim walks us through the December 2020 storm and the Haines landslide that took her daughter Jenae. We talk about the chaos of those first hours, the community search, and the strange ways grief shows up later: songs that stop you cold, anniversaries you try to spend out of town, and the exhausting reality of living near reminders that never get fixed. Kim also shares how Jenae’s Playground came to life, turning love and loss into a space built for kids, joy, and memory.

We also get practical and political about the child care shortage in rural Alaska: why home-based care can be more reliable than a center, how staffing rules can shut programs down overnight, and how a federal food reimbursement program can fail the “last provider standing” because nobody will travel to do an inspection. If you care about child care, community resilience, disaster recovery, and what real support looks like after trauma, this conversation stays with you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Meeting Kim Larson

Speaker 0:01

Welcome to this episode of Doug has Questions. Today this is one that I've been wanting to get to for a while, and she finally said yes, because I finally asked her. It was hard, it was hard to ask because I knew you might be hesitant. But Kim Larson is here with us today. And so we're gonna get into her story, what brought her to Haynes, daycare, um, her family, and probably get a little trauma and grief in there as well.

Speaker 2 0:26

Let's do it.

Speaker 0:27

Let's do it. Yeah, thanks for joining us, Kim.

Speaker 2 0:29

Thanks for having me.

From Kansas To Anchorage

Speaker 0:30

So let as we do with everybody else. Start as a kid. Where'd Kim grow up?

Speaker 2 0:35

I grew I was born in Kansas, Hillsborough, Kansas, a small town, like 2,500 people. Maybe. No, I don't think there's that many.

Speaker 0:43

It's about the same size of Haynes.

Speaker 2 0:44

Yeah, I think it's a little smaller. A little smaller. Yeah. Um moved out of Hay uh Kansas when I was five years old. That's when I started following the Jayhawks in basketball. So I've been a Jayhawk fan forever. After that, we moved uh I have a brother and a sister. We moved up to Anchorage, followed some friends up there, drove the Alcan in a back of a truck camper. Great fun. I was five, so I don't remember a lot, but the well my sister tells me, she goes, Oh, we had a great time. Seeing who could stand up the longest in the back of the camper and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1:16

So you were towing the camper? Or was it the camper in the back of the truck? Yes. And you guys were in the back of there?

Speaker 2 1:23

Oh, yeah, those days you could ride in the back.

Speaker 1:25

I don't think you were supposed to then either. Oh really? But we did. But you did.

Speaker 2 1:29

Yeah, we're tr uh had a trailer pulling with all of our belongings, I guess, and we just decided to move to Anchorage, Alaska.

Speaker 1:37

So your parents are in the front. You three are you guys doing whatever you wanted in the back.

Speaker 2 1:41

Yep. I was the youngest, so I'm sure they were picking on me, but you know.

Speaker 1:46

So what did your parents move to Anchorage for? Was there a job opportunity?

Speaker 2 1:49

Uh we had some friends that moved up there. Uh-huh. You know, and my dad was a mechanic, and my mom, uh I'm not sure what my mom did then. But we she went up there and she started working for the state, and then my dad uh started working.

Speaker 2:02

What did she do for the state?

Speaker 2 2:03

Uh Department of Transportation. Okay. Like, yeah. And she uh was there, and then my dad was a mechanic, and he started actually at the same place my brother and nephew work now, Alaska. It's called Alaska Sales and Service as a mechanic. Yep. And then yeah, we grew up were there, and then I think when I was in third grade they got divorced, and we still all stayed in we stayed in Anchorage. Uh I stayed with my mom, my sister and I stayed with my mom, and my brother stayed with my dad. And then when I was in third grade. How old were you when they got divorced earlier? Third grade. Third grade, yeah.

Speaker 2:40

How how was that for you going through that adjustment?

Speaker 2 2:43

It was it was weird, you know, going to your parents, your other parents' house on the weekends, you know, and but it was good. Um it was okay. It was okay. Yeah. I mean, I remember we lived in uh a two-bedroom apartment, me and my mom and my sister, and it caught fire. And uh it was kind of a little like that first year you're so well I don't I think it was the first year we moved out of my dad's house.

Speaker 3:06

I think that's when it uh caught there's a little fire and yeah it so you you're just going through this experience of your parents splitting up and you're separating, then the place you're staying in catches fire.

Divorce, Fire, And Starting Over

The Girl Who Played Little League

Speaker 2 3:16

Yeah, I mean it wasn't bad. I think it was just a lot of smoke at the end. There's a lot going on at that age. Yeah, there was a lot going on, and uh then uh in that time my mom met my stepdad and he was great. His he basically raised me, you know, so and um yeah, so he and he worked for JC Penney's forever. Then uh I started playing baseball, you know. Well, I started playing softball. Actually, kind of a funny story. I was the first girl to play baseball in Anchorage, Little League Baseball. Really? They wouldn't let me play until my mom said, if you don't let her play, we're taking you to court.

Speaker 3 3:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:54

And so I ended up playing, I I was in four, I think I was fourth grade.

Speaker 3 3:58

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 3:59

What nine and ten-year-olds? Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I was uh I played base baseball, made the all-star team. What position did you play? I played shortstop and pitcher. Okay. I was the only girl in the whole league the first year.

Speaker 4:10

And uh made the even back then, even now, that's kind of rare that old girl is a pitcher.

Speaker 2 4:15

Yeah, yeah. And I was a left-handed shortstop.

Speaker 4:17

Left-handed shortstop. Which is odd. Pitcher in your first year, you made first base.

Speaker 2 4:21

Yeah, made the all-star team.

Speaker 4:23

All-star team, nice.

Speaker 2 4:24

Didn't go, decided to go with the family to Disneyland, Hawaii, and uh Seattle. So they were kind of mad.

Speaker 4:30

Because I wait a second, you you were gonna you sued us threatened to sue us to get her on there. We put her on the all-star team. You proved your point, and now you're bailing for the case.

Speaker 2 4:40

Yeah, I'd rather go to Disneyland anyway. Anyway, so yeah, so that was yeah, fourth grade. And uh when I was in sixth grade, we moved to uh my dad, Marv, my stepdad got transferred to Spokane, Washington. So I moved to Spokane uh my sixth grade year. Uh ended up in in Spokane, it's seventh, eighth, and ninth grade is junior high. Okay. It's kind of weird. And so uh eighth, seventh grade year I tried out for the varsity softball team, made it. All the seniors quit because they were like, why is this why are you guys letting a seventh grader play on the ninth grade team, you know? And so the coach was like, Oh well. So then they came back and they realized, you know, we had something good going. We we were really good.

Speaker 5:25

And then uh that that's always amazed me when people get frustrated when younger people, because it's like if they get to be the if they're the oldest that they're entitled to the spot. Right. It's like do you not want to win? Exactly. I think the idea is supposed to win. So whoever does it, doesn't matter what age, which gen let's put the ones that are gonna get us the win in there.

Speaker 2 5:44

Yep. I was actually gonna uh quit too because my coach was just running us like crazy, and she pulled me into her office and said, Don't quit. I'm running to get all the lazy kids out of here.

Speaker 5:53

Okay.

Speaker 2 5:54

You know, and I'm I'm like, okay, okay, I'll say how much longer because I might be one of the left. I know I talked to my my parents and they're like, Don't quit, don't do it. She's doing it, she's doing it so you can be in there, you know. And I'm like, okay. So we were there from uh what positions did you play? First base and left field. Okay. And then they realized the left-handed should play first base or left field instead of short stuff. Yeah. And uh played that summer, I played with a couple of uh women's teams and stuff. And I softball was good. I like softball. Played basketball, that's where I started playing basketball was in junior high. And you know, that was good. My eighth grade year, we moved. After my eighth grade year, we moved back to Anchorage. My dad was either gonna get transferred to New York and he didn't want me growing up in New York, so he go he grew he went back to Inc. We went back to Anchorage.

Speaker 6:43

And so I was still with JC Penney then?

Speaker 2 6:45

Oh, he quit JCPenney'cause because they were gonna be a good one. They're New York, he's like, yeah, yep, and he so he started working for one of our friends up there, and then actually, uh I think maybe a couple years later, not even a couple years maybe, he ended up back at JCPenney's. They wanted him back. And so he started working back at JC Penney's.

Speaker 7:01

In interim, what was he doing?

Speaker 2 7:03

He well, he worked for uh our friends, and it was uh it was laminate, like Mannington uh what's it called uh like wholesale sell uh sales. He sold like Mannington countertops. Oh okay. I think it was is it Mannington or well, I don't know.

Speaker 7:20

Oh but it was it was laminate material.

Speaker 2 7:22

Laminate material, yeah. Yep. And then uh that's when I uh freshman year I went to service high school and uh played basketball there. My as a freshman, we're the team that Sarah Palin beat to win the state school. To win the state team in your friends. You lost to Sarah Palin. I didn't I didn't play, but yeah, it was our team. Even in our books, it talks about service high school, so that was kind of that's always been kind of cool. Yeah. And then uh yeah, tenth grade year we were fourth in state. Junior year we were zero in state, and we didn't even make it to state, and uh my senior year we were state champions.

Speaker 7:57

So your senior year was eighty five. Eighty five, yep. Did you meet any of them while you're up there? Or just since it's going on at the same time?

Speaker 2 8:05

They were actually at my school. They won the championship at Service High State. At Service High School. And we were playing at UAA because we were 4A.

Speaker 8:11

Okay. And so that was before they did it all in the same venue.

Speaker 2 8:14

Yep, that's when UAA just had the little were the nothing like what they had now. And so the 4-A team played up and uh played there, and then yeah, I remember Sarah when uh talking to Sarah and she would say, Yeah, we played it, we were playing at your school. They won in double overtime, I think, that year. Yeah, yep, and it was funny because we looked through our year our scrapbooks and our names, you know, mine's Robinson in there, and uh and we were like, Oh my god, our names are in each other's scrapbooks. We didn't even know anybody, we didn't even know each other. So that was that was kind of a cool connection when I when I uh moved here.

Speaker 8:47

Yeah, because both her and Ashley.

Speaker 2 8:48

Ashley and Tiana, and and I'm not sure who else was on that team, but yeah, Mary Hurts was on there, Renee Swinton, Ralph's sister.

Speaker 8:56

Yeah, she's the one that made the free throws at the end of it. Yeah, she made a lot of a few clutch free throws towards the end there to win the game.

First Jobs And Becoming A Mom

Speaker 2 9:03

Yeah, and she and that uh Mary Hurts was on that team. Mary Hurts, yeah. Yeah. I'll have to go back and look at the names because I'll probably remember more of the names then, but yeah, it was it was kind of cool having that connection when I did finally move here. And then I walked at I worked at my first job was Godfather's pizza. I worked there for five and a half years. I started at like 320 an hour.

Speaker 9:25

So how how old were when you moved back up like in eighth grade? You started. Ninth grade you started.

Speaker 2 9:31

I think tenth grade I started uh in the summertime, my tenth grade year, just to get some little money going.

Speaker 9:36

I you got three what?

Speaker 2 9:37

Three I think it was three twenty or three forty an hour.

Speaker 9:40

You probably think that was big time. Oh, I was making it like oh I'm rolling it.

Speaker 2 9:44

Yeah, that was good. So I lived I worked there for five and a half years as I finished my school. I only worked on Sundays during basketball season. They made it I ended up work starting as a bus person and I ended up as a manager. I was uh I was even too young to serve beer, but I kind of served beer anyway. They can't put me in jail now.

Speaker 10:03

We're finding out all sorts of illegal things people did when they were younger on this show.

Speaker 2 10:07

Yeah, so I I it was fun. It was a good job, five and a half years there.

Speaker 10:11

And well, when you ended after five and a half, so you're what three twenty-five you said to start three fifteen?

Speaker 2 10:16

Five, I ended at fifteen bucks an hour.

Speaker 10:18

Yes that's pretty good increase over five and a half years.

Speaker 2 10:22

I know.

Speaker 10:23

Uh but still manager for 50 bucks an hour.

Speaker 2 10:25

Yeah, I was assistant manager because I couldn't be a manager, that's right, because I wasn't twenty-one. Because you were twenty-one. Yeah. And then yeah, not to yeah, five and a half years, and then I moved to Portland uh with my my parents got transferred to uh Beaverton, Oregon, and I was gonna go to school down there and I didn't go to school right away. And I went up and I worked at Godfather. They trans I got transferred basically, so I guess I worked more at Godfather Speed.

Speaker 10:52

So I worked at Where'd you get transferred to?

Speaker 2 10:54

Beaverton. I worked at uh in Beaverton. They didn't really transfer me because in in Beavert in uh Oregon they were uh what is it called when they're owned by individuals? A franchise. Yeah.

Speaker 11:04

And but then I was So the one in Anchorage was a company store? Yeah, there were three of them. That were company stores. Four of them, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2 11:10

And then uh went ended up in Beaverton for a couple of years.

Speaker 11:15

What were you gonna go to school for?

Speaker 2 11:16

I wanted to be a PE teacher and a basketball coach.

Speaker 11:19

Okay.

Speaker 2 11:19

Didn't happen.

Speaker 11:21

Why not?

Speaker 2 11:22

I don't know, 23 I had a kid.

Speaker 11:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:25

I had Jeremy, 23. So yeah.

Speaker 11:30

And then when did you move?

Speaker 2 11:32

Then then okay, then we I was in Bell Bellingham uh uh Beaverton. Uh huh. And then I moved uh to Juneau.

Speaker 11:41

Okay.

Speaker 2 11:42

And then I that's where I had Jeremy was in Juneau. Went uh actually went to school there for a few years too. I started at UAA, so when I was playing when I was at uh Godfathers, I'd go to school at UAA. Okay. Because my mom, uh my stepmom was a dean of dean a dean there at the University of Alaska, and so I got free school and nice taking school. I didn't dig, I didn't do a good job taking advantage of it. I think it's if you're not paying for it, it's just not it doesn't feel like something to be said about it. Yeah, you know, and so I didn't appreciate it, and I you know I don't regret it now, but a few years back I did regret that. Um yeah, they ended up in Juneau. Uh then we was in Juneau.

Speaker 12:25

Is Je nae was born in Juneau too?

Speaker 2 12:27

Juno Jenae was born in Juneau in 1997, yep. Okay. So then uh when she was eight months old, we moved here.

Speaker 12:34

So it's 97 you guys moved here?

Speaker 2 12:36

98.

Speaker 12:36

98, yep. I thought I thought it was earlier than that.

Speaker 2 12:39

1998.

Speaker 12:40

So I remember one of the first memories I remember of you guys here is uh you guys took me out fishing on your boat.

Speaker 2 12:45

Oh yeah.

Speaker 12:45

And everybody was decked out in like brand new Mustang Survival.

Speaker 2 12:49

Yeah, we got a brand new Bay liner. Yeah, but I worked, yeah, I used to work at Mustang.

Speaker 12:52

I used to work at Mustang Survival. Yes. And I'm like, damn, this is a pretty good setup. You got all nice life jackets and everything. This is a good boat to be on. Yeah, especially. I don't remember if we caught any fish though.

Speaker 2 13:02

No, probably not. But wasn't really good at catching fish.

Speaker 13:05

It was a good boat ride over there.

Moving To Haines And A New Need

Speaker 2 13:06

Yeah, it was nice. And then, yeah, I remember uh when I had Jenae, I was in June, I had already left Bellingham and stuff, and uh they sent me every age of life jackets for you know, yeah, which is which is pretty cool. So it was it was fun to work there, and then yeah, I ended up here in his did you start the daycare right away when you got to Haynes, or was that when Jenae got in um uh she was she was she was 10 months old when I started, so I started September 1998.

Speaker 13:38

Okay. September eight and Jeremy was how old? So he's seven-eight, he was seven or eight when I was a little bit more. Yeah, they're seven years apart.

Speaker 2 13:45

Okay, and so uh I started it because when we moved here, I'm like, I actually talked to m uh Michelle Ward and Mike, and they said we can offer, you know, they I was gonna go work over there. And they go, Michelle goes, you know what we really need is a daycare person in this town. Because Stephanie Pattison was gonna quit. Okay. And we there was only Gladys in town. And I'm like, oh, never even thought about doing that at all. And but I didn't want Jenae to go take Gladys's house Gladys's because I had a friend who died in a trailer fire.

Speaker 14:21

Oh, okay. And I'm like, not doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:24

So that's how that's the only reason I started doing daycare. Never had a uh thought that I would like to do daycare or anything. I'm just like, okay, I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 14:35

So So that's what 30 26 years.

Speaker 2 14:39

It's coming up on 28 years. 28 years. Sorry, my math is.

Speaker 14:45

My math isn't the best on Sundays.

Speaker 2 14:47

Yeah.

Speaker 14:47

Twenty-six years.

Speaker 2 14:49

28 almost. 28 and a half, yeah. I mean 27 and a half years.

Speaker 14:52

Yeah, 27 and a half years now.

Speaker 2 14:54

Yeah. It's been quite the run.

Building A Daycare That Lasts

Speaker 14:56

Well when you first started, were with all the regular to be a licensed daycare provider, was that a little overwhelming for you at the time?

Speaker 2 15:08

I think it was, but uh I I've always liked numbers. I've like, you know, uh dealing with m numbers and things like that. And it was it was a little hard at first, but it's a business. You know, I ran it as a business. I didn't run it as I'm watching kids. I ran it like, you know, I do my taxes, I you know, if I'm not making enough money, I raise my prices, you know, all that good stuff. And it's yeah, it's it it's hard. It was good that my kids understood what it was I was doing because you know, it took up their space, you know. They didn't want the daycare kids playing with their stuff, make sure it was in their room every day, you know. And just the time, you know, I was open nine and a half hours right a day.

Speaker 3 15:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:52

And it's a lot. It was a lot. I I actually I still can't believe I'm doing it, to be honest with you. Yeah. Because it's it's it's draining. But it's it's been worth it. It's been a great business.

Speaker 16:02

How how how many kids can you have at a time?

Speaker 2 16:04

I can have eight at a t at a time.

Speaker 16:07

Eight kids for nine and a half hours a day?

Speaker 2 16:09

Mm-hmm. Could you do it? No. Yeah. No. That's a thing.

Speaker 3 16:15

I couldn't. Yeah. No.

Speaker 2 16:16

But and then you can only yeah, you can only have they have regulations like you can only have three under 30 months at a time. Uh-huh. And um yeah, it was it's a long day.

Speaker 16:28

That is a long day.

Speaker 2 16:29

If you think about it, they're with me more than the time than their parents awake.

Speaker 16:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:34

You know?

unknown 16:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:35

Because they're in bed, what, by seven, eight o'clock?

Speaker 16:37

Probably.

Speaker 2 16:39

Yeah.

Speaker 16:39

So it's parents are getting them up, drop them off. And see, this is the thing this is the thing. When you're going back to you being a Kansas fan.

Speaker 1 16:47

Uh-huh.

Speaker 16:48

We've had this discussion before. I think you brainwash these kids because I you go over there and it's always all of them are like go Jayhawks. Yeah.

Speaker 4 16:55

Go Jayhawks. Go Jayhawks. I'm like, they wear shirts on Friday.

Speaker 16:59

That should not, there should be a law against that. There's I'm not a I'm not one for over-regulation, but that is it's great. You need to mix at least one day a month. It should like every third, the third Friday should be a go husky.

Speaker 2 17:14

Oh, they're almost a husky. Uh Connecticut girls, you're calling girls that are watching those now too. But yeah, they shows up on the TV and they know the Jayhawks, you know. And when I was in a game just uh a couple weeks ago in Arizona, my fat one of the families was watching me and they found me in the crowd. Did they? Yeah, and the kids were like, Gams, gams there, yeah.

Speaker 17:33

That didn't go so that game didn't go so before, did you?

Speaker 2 17:35

Yeah, that's not too much.

Speaker 17:35

I'm sorry, sorry to bring that part up.

Speaker 3 17:37

Yeah, that's not good.

Speaker 17:38

But yeah. They did find you in the ground.

Speaker 2 17:41

They found me in the gr uh in the game, and yeah, it's it's kind of fun. Because the kids the kids, if they want to learn how to dribble, we're teaching them that downstairs, you know.

Speaker 17:51

Okay. Yeah, I just, you know, it's it's hard to So you are a basketball coach.

unknown 17:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:56

I did, I did.

Speaker 17:57

At a certain level, you are a PE basketball coach with that.

Speaker 2 18:00

That's true. I guess I did I coached Jeremy a little bit in uh in that. And uh coached our freshman team and in the YMCA or Boys Girl Boys and Girls Club up in front in Anchorage. Yeah. My my senior year.

Speaker 18:15

How did the team do?

Speaker 2 18:16

Of course they won. I'm not gonna brag. I'm not a bragger. But yeah, and then yeah, I moved here and then the daycare started and uh got involved in Boy Scouts, you know, did that, went to venture took 19 kids to Australia, you know. Uh that was that was a good experience. It was fun. I don't think I would do it again with the kids, but you want to go back to Australia.

Speaker 18:42

I would totally go back to Australia. Maybe you and some friends, but leave the kids at home.

Why Child Care Is Still Scarce

Speaker 2 18:46

Yeah. But you know, it was it was fun. It was good. It was good. Yeah. The day yeah, the daycare. I I don't the problem in town right now, you know. I don't know if you want to talk about it.

Speaker 18:56

Yeah, I do, because that's that's a big thing for a lot of people trying to find daycare for their kids.

Speaker 2 19:01

It is a it is a big big thing.

Speaker 19:03

And uh so when when you started, Gladys was having how many kids?

Speaker 2 19:06

She could have eight too.

Speaker 19:07

She could have eight. Was there anybody else that was doing daycare at the end? At that time, no. It was just the two of you.

Speaker 2 19:12

Yeah.

Speaker 19:12

And so 16 kids had daycare. Right. Where did everybody else go at that time? Were they just at home? Were they some of it was preschool, some of it's in the summertime it was just in the head start, it's just you and Gladys.

Speaker 2 19:25

Yeah. Yeah. And then in the summertime, the preschool never was open during the summer, and neither was Head Start. It was just Yeah. And then there's never been more than uh two two uh home providers and the other places since I've been open.

Speaker 19:42

So it you're the only one now though, right? Are there any other home properties?

Speaker 2 19:45

I'm the only one that's licensed that is doing.

Speaker 19:47

You're the only one that's licensed. So what what do you attribute the that nobody else wants to get in to fill that other slot with the I don't know. Because it it you you've mentioned it it takes a toll.

Speaker 2 19:58

Yeah.

Speaker 19:58

It's it's it's hard work. This isn't something easy and it's not something that you're making millions of dollars at.

Speaker 1 20:06

No.

Speaker 20:07

But you're making a I'm assuming a comfortable living. You're paying your bills, you're able to do the trips and stuff that you want.

Speaker 3 20:13

Yep.

Speaker 20:14

Um ideas on why somebody else doesn't get into it now? Or is there been have there been because one of the things I keep thinking of is has it gotten over regulated by the state or the federal government from when you started to now? Has there been a big change in regulation?

Speaker 2 20:29

I mean, they've updated the regulations for sure, but I don't think there's been a big change. You know, there's you know, you have to have 24 hours of training a year. Uh there's safety of your house. They can come and do inspections on your house. As they should. As they yeah, exactly. I think one thing that's worked for me is that my daycare's downstairs. I don't have to see it, you know.

Speaker 20:50

Okay.

Speaker 2 20:51

And that's I mean, I have the space that it works.

Speaker 20:55

I can understand because you otherwise your work's there all the time.

Speaker 2 20:58

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 20:59

Even when the kids are gone, which isn't that often because you've got them there because that not only do they are the kids awake more at your house, but you have kids more at your house while you're awake than not on the days too. That means that goes both ways, right?

Speaker 2 21:13

Well, yeah. It's it's uh it's a hard job. And uh I really don't understand. I don't I don't understand why you I think it's more important for this town to try to get people to do home child care than the the center, the Chilkat Valley Preschool. Well, it's not really preschool. It's yeah, but they're it's a license center.

Speaker 21:35

They're trying to they're trying to adapt that and change that to So you think it's more beneficial to have the kids in a home setting rather than that? I do. What what are the reasons behind that?

Speaker 2 21:43

Oh the first reason is you don't have to have as many employees. It's just me. Like in twenty seven years, I've only called in sick four times in twenty seven years. And two of them two of them was I picked up Gable and took him out of the high chair and hurt my back. He was little then. Yeah, yeah. So that was two days right there. But um yeah, it's it's when you if they they need more people.

Speaker 22:09

So when it's outside the house, the staffing levels go up compared to in-home.

Speaker 2 22:12

Because they're a center, they have to have one.

Speaker 22:14

They're a center, they have to have one.

Speaker 2 22:15

Yeah, that's why I'm regulated at eight.

unknown 22:17

Okay.

Speaker 2 22:17

If they have a center, you can have up to I think it's twenty-four.

Speaker 22:20

Okay.

Speaker 2 22:21

But when they build a couple of things.

Speaker 22:22

But what what's the staff to child ratio then? Is it still one to eight or is it like one to six?

Speaker 2 22:29

One to what is it exactly? I couldn't give you the exact numbers on that one. But I think they can have at least eight infants. If they if they but then if one person calls and sick, they can't have any. Can't have any of them. Right? That's why I think it's more important than the be focusing on trying to get people to do it in their home.

Speaker 22:48

Do it in a home setting rather than their and not a nonprofit.

Speaker 2 22:51

I don't think the nonprofit is the way to go because you have people on the board there that uh they're there only when they're kids, you know, for two years and then they're off the board, right? And so the they can't the budget, they they don't the continuity and stuff long term. Right. Yeah, so the having the the nonprofit.

Speaker 23:08

You see that with a lot of the youth entities, like little league, stuff like that, because when you have parents that have a kid there, they're really invested. Yeah, and if they have a lot of kids, they're invested for a longer period of time. But if it's only one or two and they're close together, like you said, you got a couple years and then they're off to the next thing the kids are doing.

Speaker 2 23:26

Just like the venture scouts, and you know, nobody wanted to start that. Little league, you know, it was gone for a while there after we started that all up. Yeah, you know. It's just I I I mean there's money to make, especially after COVID, the state has been helping a lot in child care. Yeah. Yeah. They've come up with some good good little things to do.

Speaker 23:48

What do you do you think with CVP expanding their program, do you think it's gonna make it harder for somebody to want to start at home, or do you think there's still a place for somebody to start something at home?

Speaker 2 23:59

I guess it's more reliable. A home childcare, I think, is more reliable, my personal opinion. Because of the the staffing. Yeah. How are you gonna find people to work?

unknown 24:09

Right?

Speaker 24:10

So how how do we encourage somebody to start a business with I don't know. Uh because after 27 and a half years, you s you said earlier that you can't believe you're still doing this.

Speaker 2 24:23

Exactly.

Speaker 24:24

How much longer is Kim gonna be doing this?

Speaker 2 24:26

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not gonna put you onto a number, but it's not forever. I'm 59, so yeah, it's not gonna be forever.

Speaker 24:35

Right. There's gonna there is a finite time on there that that's gonna end.

Speaker 2 24:38

Right, yeah. It's that I haven't set a date or according to Tom, it was last year. Oh that's what he was telling people. Yeah. But yeah, I just I don't I don't know. I'm gonna one day I'm gonna wake up and say, hey, I'm done. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. I'll give my parents lots of notices and stuff though. I like my group I have now. It's a good group. And the thing with mine though, you know, I have nine kids, actually, infants on a wait list right now.

Speaker 25:06

Okay. And but you know So you could fill up another at home that just like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:11

Someone could be fully fully Yeah, you can only have three infants at a time.

Speaker 25:15

Okay, so there's nine infants out there, but you can you can only have three.

Speaker 2 25:18

Yeah, I can have only three under 30 months at a time. And people don't, you know, that people will get on a waiting list. I have people that haven't even had their kids yet on my waiting list. On the way. And they're like, okay, I have my kid. I'm like, well, I still don't have openings, right? Because they'll stay there. You know, I have a lot of kids that have stayed there from when they were four months old till when they're ten, you know. Okay.

Speaker 25:36

And so there's not a lot of space to So you'll take them too, that when they after they start going to kindergarten, after school and stuff, they come to your place. So if the parents are still working later, they're still at Kim's until you can have them.

Speaker 2 25:49

Um my license is to age twelve.

Speaker 25:52

To twelve.

Speaker 2 25:52

Yeah, zero to twelve. It's a big get bigger.

Speaker 25:56

That's that's yeah. Does that ever do do you ever think about it or does that cross your mind how much influence you have on these kids' life?

Speaker 2 26:04

You know how many kids in this town I've potty trained?

Speaker 26:06

Well, I'm I it's a lot. Triple spoon? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:10

Oh yeah.

Speaker 26:10

But that's what I'm doing. I'm just thinking that that yeah. That's got to me, I'm thinking that's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 26:16

It is.

Speaker 26:17

That there's all of these kids that those formative years are at Kim's.

Speaker 2 26:22

Yeah.

Speaker 26:23

And not only are they learning about the stinking Jayhawks.

Speaker 2 26:26

Right, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 26:29

But that, I mean, that's that's a big th big deal. It is a big deal, and it's you know, and I'm saying that because I know kids that have been through and they come out great.

Speaker 3 26:40

Right, yeah.

Speaker 26:40

I mean, I I'm not saying that you're doing a bad job. I think you do a great job with it.

Speaker 3 26:44

Right.

Speaker 26:44

But it's just thinking about that time period that you're having these very impressionable young minds, and the amount of time that you have with them during that formative part. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 26:57

Yeah, it's it is it is neat. Pretty cool and scary at the same time. When they start graduating, it's like, oh my gosh, that was that long ago, you know. I yeah, I just one of the things that's really uh I like I like to see is uh routine. You know, you get these, I have people that come over during the day and at one o'clock it's nap time. All of them say it's nap time, they go get their mats and they go lay down. Okay. And they're like, What? What is going on here? You know? It's just it's a routine. They see the other kids doing it, you know. Yeah. Eat your vegetables first. You know, it's just and I have parents will call me and they'll say, Can you tell my kid to go to the bathroom? Because they won't do it at home, but they'll do it at my house, you know. Yeah. And it's it's kind of it's kind of cool. You know, when you see them out in public, you know, it's when they come up to you, it's like, oh, sometimes it's like a little too much, but you know, it's it's kind of nice. It's cool.

Speaker 27:53

What was what was the first f the first time you had kids graduating? Was that almost like your own kids graduating?

Speaker 2 28:01

No. Uh uh uh let's see, who was the first ones I had?

Speaker 28:05

Because Jeremy had already graduated before your first ones, because he was seven when you got here, right?

Speaker 2 28:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let me see. Who was yeah, did I have a lot of things? I guess I think seven.

Speaker 28:14

I think that did you have some that were in his class after school or something?

Speaker 2 28:18

I remember I watched I watched oh Chris Ryan Olson. I think I watched him a couple days or Chris, Chris and them. But the first class was like Alicia. Okay. Alicia Young. Yeah. And uh yeah, and now having babies, getting married, and it's it's just whoa.

Speaker 28:37

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 28:37

It's crazy, you know, that it's it's been that long. It doesn't seem like that long.

Speaker 28:43

No.

Speaker 2 28:43

You know, I had uh TJ uh plowing my driveway this winter in a big huge loader, and he started at my place when I think he was five months old, you know. And he's like, whoa, don't be at my house. It's like I will, you know. But yeah, just you know, seeing them go off and do things is kind of cool.

Speaker 29:01

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great job. You don't have an off-year on graduation, you've got a connection with every graduating class.

Speaker 2 29:08

Yeah. I don't go to parties, I don't do any birthday parties. I just, you know, they'll invite me to parties. It's like I no, I'm like, I because it's that'd be a lot of parties.

Speaker 29:17

There'd be a lot of parties to go to.

Speaker 2 29:18

Yeah, and I don't want to do that. So it's it's it's been a great job for me. I was home for my kids.

Speaker 29:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:26

And uh when my act he, you know, he was gone a lot. And so just being home, not having to worry about it. And I don't think I there was a job in town, I could have been making the money I was making doing that, you know, at that time, or now even. So but uh yeah, it would be interesting to to see. You know, you just gotta I guess the house just has to have the space to do it and not make it. So like I think the state, the city just got a million dollars to help build a facility, I think, or something.

Speaker 29:57

I don't know the specifics of that.

Speaker 2 29:59

Or something. I don't know what this what's gonna happen with that.

Speaker 30:01

Yeah, as as you're talking about this, I know somebody that's been teaching kids for 30 years, he's gonna be retiring this spring. That he's got a house with two floors on it.

Speaker 2 30:12

Oh, it could be a second income. It could be a retirement.

Speaker 30:15

Could be a second income.

Speaker 2 30:16

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 30:17

We we should let we should let his wife know that I'll give her a call tonight. You've got a perfect thing for Sam to be up.

Speaker 2 30:25

I'll set her up. There we go.

Speaker 30:27

Yeah, yeah, she'd love that. That'll keep Sam busy.

Speaker 2 30:30

Oh yeah. I mean, I've been happy with it. I never thought, you know, I never thought I'd be doing it at all. And then I never thought I would actually still be doing it now.

Speaker 30:44

So And then um Jenae started helping you with the kids.

Speaker 2 30:50

Yeah, that's uh yeah, she started when she was 14, she could start helping me with the kids, and it was kind of cool because so when she turned 14, I could become a group home. And then as long as I didn't leave her in care, I could have more kids. So I could have 12 kids at that time.

Speaker 31:04

So you give four in the summer time. With Jenae helping you, you could get an extra four kids.

Speaker 2 31:10

I could get an extra four kids, and it was great for her because I'd pay her and she was there, and it was great. And then I think her junior year they changed it and they had to be 21. And I'm like, they're like, Are you gonna still stay a group home? I'm like, no, no, because there was no one in town that would work part-time that I really could trust at that, you know, to work with kids and show up, because if they didn't show up, that's parents like, you know, I knew Jenae was gonna show up every day. She didn't have a choice, and so uh they're going, You're gonna, I go, I'll just go back to the eight. And she's like, they're like, no, we need more people. I'm sorry. I go, I'm not gonna do it. And so after two years of me complaining about that, they went back to six, it could be sixteen. I think it's eighteen now. Okay, but it was, and I'm like, they're like, Are you gonna do a group home? I'm like, no, my daughter's she's off to college now. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 4 32:01

Still not doing it.

Speaker 2 32:02

They're like, What? We changed this for and I'm like, sorry, sorry, you ruined it. We had a good thing going and was helping four more families in town, and yeah, you just said, Yeah, so that was it.

Speaker 32:13

So, do you think that's where she got her love of kids and teaching?

Speaker 2 32:16

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she she always was with the kids.

Speaker 32:20

She was When did she start wanting to become a teacher?

Speaker 2 32:23

Um, I'll bet you when she was like seventh grade.

Speaker 32:26

Really?

Speaker 2 32:26

She talked about it, yeah.

Speaker 32:28

And did she always want to have because she ended up becoming the kindergarten teacher here?

Speaker 2 32:31

Right.

Speaker 32:31

And so did she always want to be like kindergarten first, second grade, or she she didn't she didn't really care.

Speaker 2 32:37

I think she wanted, you know, for kindergarten, first grade. She knew because she was very familiar with that age because of being at the house and stuff.

Speaker 3 32:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:44

And uh she knew how they learned that she knew, you know, she already had that experience from being in a house with kids since she was eight months old, you know. And that was, yeah. So she yeah, she was gonna go to the University of Alaska first, and then like two weeks before graduation, she's like, I think I want to go to the University of Idaho, and I'm like, let's do it. Mark Schlareth went there. And I he went to high school with me. Yeah, and I'm like, yeah, Sarah Palin went there. Like, let's do it. And so she's like, really? Yeah, I'm like, let's do it. So that's when she started that.

Speaker 33:20

So what what was the reason for her wanting to go to Idaho compared to UAA? Uh just to get out of town, just get out of a state.

Speaker 2 33:26

Yeah, just to get out of the state. She wanted to try something new, and this is kind of a funny story. She she picked University of Idaho because there was a Target there. Right?

Speaker 33:36

Well, it's important.

Speaker 2 33:37

Well, we got there. Guess what? There wasn't a Target. And she's like, Are you kidding me? So yeah, there was no Target there. There was a Walmart. But yeah, she's like, I can't believe it. She goes, they must have been gonna build one at one time. She saw on the end of the room.

Speaker 33:49

She saw something that there was a target there.

Speaker 2 33:51

Yeah, and that's yeah, she wanted to be by a Target. And yeah.

Speaker 33:54

And so where in Idaho is the University of Idaho. Moscow. Moscow.

Speaker 2 33:57

Yeah, Moscow.

Speaker 33:58

So that's really right across from Pullman. Yep. So yeah, that's that's trouble right there.

Speaker 2 34:03

And they, yeah. She was, yeah, she was mad.

Speaker 34:09

No target.

Speaker 2 34:10

Yeah. She didn't make she ended up making good friends there. And she had a, you know, was on the dean's list every year and did all of her stuff.

Speaker 34:19

And then she came back and did her student teaching in Haines.

Speaker 2 34:21

Yeah, yeah. She made it, yeah, she made it through college debt-free. She came back when she came back in the summertime. She had three jobs. She worked her butt off. And yeah, then she did her student teaching with uh Tracy Getchell.

Speaker 34:33

Yeah. And yeah, and then that was it, what was that like for you seeing your daughter going off, taking care of kids that were taken care of in the house, doing the student teaching? Was that a pretty cool moment?

Speaker 2 34:46

It was pretty cool. She was like, Oh, I know these kids, you know, that are in her class because they're not gonna be able to get away with anything because I know.

Speaker 34:52

I got the ones that are gonna be a little leader group here.

Speaker 2 34:55

What's it, second grade? Was it Tracy? I think Tracy was second grade. Yeah.

Speaker 34:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:58

And yeah, she she was she was very excited. And that was COVID, of course. Uh you know, and so uh it was it was pretty hard for her to get on student teaching right away because of all the um she had a because she was in Idaho, so she had to go through the state of Alaska and get on the you know, the all the paperwork through the state, the licensing quite cr uh credentials through the state and stuff. And she did it.

Speaker 35:24

And she and that's when that was spring of 2020? Yeah, she did. Was she back for January through May or when was it?

Speaker 2 35:34

Yeah, she came she came back at Christmas time because she knew her next semester she could uh student teach. They had it figured out that she could student teach. And so yeah, she was home from she's worked all summer, right? She came back at Christmas, finished schooling, and then uh student.

Speaker 35:48

But her stud her student teaching was January through May? Was it two the two quarters there? Yep. Okay.

Speaker 2 35:54

Yep, yep. And uh yeah, she'd go, you know, with her little lunchbox and stuff. I'm going to school. Like, have a great time. You know. Don't pick on the kids ever. Yeah, and then uh she I don't think she was thinking about even applying here, but Rami was teaching kindergarten. Yeah, and she wanted to move up to I think fifth grade. Yeah.

Speaker 3 36:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:16

And then yeah, so she's everyone was like, put your name in, put your name in. And it was COVID, so you know, and so she's like, Oh, okay. You know, she was very nervous, you know.

Speaker 36:27

She did a lot of uh practicing with Lilly, yeah, you know, and yeah, just and you had you guys you had Lilly's two daughters. The twins come through.

Speaker 2 36:37

Oh, yeah, they they were there. I think they started when they were six or seven months old.

Speaker 36:41

Yeah, so yeah, they had you you knew you guys had a good relationship there to begin with.

Speaker 2 36:45

Yep. Yeah, and so yeah, she did that, and Ace everyone who I talked to said she did a great job on the interview. I know she was set up in my hallway, and people were going, Where are you sitting? And she goes, Well, I have to be over here because the kids are downstairs. Someone else is in the living room, and so she's sitting in the room. She's in the hallway on Zoom.

Speaker 37:04

Oh, yeah, it's on Zoom because it's COVID, nothing was in person.

Speaker 2 37:07

Yeah. And they're like going, Where are you? Because they've all been to my house. And they're like, I'm in the hallway. Yeah. So she yeah, she did that, and she's so excited when she got that job.

Speaker 37:17

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 37:18

Yeah.

Speaker 37:19

No, I remember after she was she'd come in the store every once in a while. We'll walk around.

Speaker 2 37:23

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 37:24

But uh after she got that, I was like, Congratulations, you could just see.

Speaker 2 37:26

I mean, she was just she was pretty glowing, she loved it. Yep. She was very excited. And uh, well, that time, what was that? Oh, that time, by that time, she had our dog, Red. Yep. We had, you know, she wanted me to have uh puppies. Well, not me, but our dog. She wanted our dog to have puppies. I'm like, oh, are you gonna help me? And she's like, Yeah, I'm home, I can help you. I'm like, okay, so that's why we had pup, we had, you know, I think we had 12 puppies, and she was very excited to have her own dog because we had golden our whole her whole life growing up and stuff. And so yeah, she was living the living her dream. She met all of her goals, and yeah, doing good.

The 2020 Storm And Landslide

Speaker 38:09

That brings us to the hard part.

Speaker 2 38:10

Yeah. Let's do it.

Speaker 38:13

December December, December of 2020.

Speaker 1 38:16

Yeah.

Speaker 38:17

So we've got the big big storm in Haines.

Speaker 3 38:20

Yep.

Speaker 38:21

And uh I remember the night before I was up with my parents, we're making Christmas lefsa or something, doing something baking up with my mom's and coming down the hill and by Lapham's corner there. Oh, yeah. Just like water gushing out of the middle of the road. I'd never seen that. I was like, holy crap.

Speaker 3 38:39

Right.

Speaker 38:39

I got home and Sarah had uh she either called or texted me. I think she probably both and sending me pictures in front of Sam's house with a young brother.

Speaker 2 38:48

Oh, yeah, that was really bad. Yeah.

Speaker 38:50

And you know, Alekka and I were on the phone back and forth with messages because she was hearing stuff and trying to figure out what the plan was for the next day. And next morning, like Carol ann woke me up at 3, 3:30 in the morning with a phone call letting me know that the highway was washed out at two mile.

Speaker 1 39:07

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 39:08

Huh, I'm at two and a half miles. I don't think I've got to apparently I'm not gonna be driving to work today. And I think it was five o'clock that I walked in, and just the amount of water everywhere and stuff coming down. And then I was between the store, borough office, store borough office, and we were on a Zoom call. I was in the office with the EOC, and Al got up, somebody came over his shoulder, Al Giddings, fire chief, and they he left the room and came back, and that's when he told us there was a slide. When did you find out there'd been a slide?

Speaker 2 39:46

Well, let me back up a little bit. So the night before the slide, yeah, I remember I'm uh looking out my window, and I even he comes back every year on my Facebook memory. I I called it Piedad River because everybody Pie dad was coming down, and Kyle Fossman and Kate were walking down the road with their suitcase for say uh uh Steve to pick them up at the storage unit there. Okay, you know, and I posted that on Facebook and I had I had someone actually message me that night that said, get to Jenae's house. Yeah.

Speaker 40:23

Oh wow.

Speaker 2 40:24

Get your dogs and take them to Jenae's house because she was way up on Beach Road, you know.

Speaker 40:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:29

And I'm like, I'm good, I'm good. And they're like, just get to Jenae's house. They're like, I don't think I could get to Jenae's house, and I'm like, I'm fine. And then the next morning, because you know it was was it was that a Monday or Tuesday?

Speaker 40:45

Monday was the first night that you were talking about. Tuesday was the day that we had the slide.

Speaker 2 40:50

Uh I wake up and I go downstairs and my basement is pretty much flooded.

Speaker 40:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:54

And I'm like, oh God. So, and I'm supposed to have kids, right? But I got a hold of all of them because they couldn't make up my road. So, and I called the Sharnbroich's and I said, Hey, how's your basement? And they're like, Oh, we're good. And I'm like, That's because I caught it all for ya. And he goes, Terry goes, You want me to help you? And I'm like, Yeah, if you want, if you don't have anything else.

Speaker 41:14

Yeah, since I saved it from your basement.

Speaker 2 41:16

And so he came up and we had our shop vacuum and we were vacuuming up and uh about we're there for a while, about an hour probably before the slide Jenae called me. And she's like, How's the house? And I'm like, Well, we're all we're getting there, you know. And she goes, You want me to come and help? And I'm like, You can't get up the road. Right. I didn't I wasn't crying then, of course. Yeah, and I go, You can't just stay there. You can't get up the road, and yeah.

Speaker 41:46

I think at that point she couldn't have even gotten to Piedad.

Speaker 2 41:49

Well, she had gone to the grocery store pretty soon.

Speaker 41:51

Well, no, but when I was.

Speaker 2 41:51

Well, by Piedad, she couldn't have gone up my road. No.

Speaker 41:54

Well, she couldn't have even gotten to it because I remember when I walked in, the amount of water um at Floreski's air along that bend, I had to go on the high side, otherwise it would have been over my extra tufts.

Speaker 2 42:05

Oh, okay.

Speaker 42:08

They had the canoe in the trailer park down from there, but at Floreski's from North Sawmill, from there over to the driveway for the the church. Okay, potential church off on the up hillside there, that whole thing was flooded and coming over the top of the of the road when I went when I went to work at five o'clock in the morning. I don't know what time it got down enough where people were able to drive, but I remember I got to North Sawmill and there's a guy who was dark, I can't, I don't even remember who it was, but he was like, What's the road like? I was like, You're not you're not going to go. Because there at that time, uh like Cunningham's Creek, there's material that was totally blown out across the road. Um, they had a state loader that was working on that. Um, in front of Heinrich's, that small creek there between Hess's and them, there's blockage there when I walked in, and then the at the stream between my house and Hess's, the road was totally blocked with material coming off of that.

Speaker 3 43:05

Oh wow.

Speaker 43:05

Um, like a couple feet high. And some of these, it's like in the next mile, there's three places you're not gonna be able to get through, much less the water here that's gonna be too deep for you to drive through. So it's like turn around, go home. Like, well, I need to be up, I need to be up the road for work. It's go home and call them and tell them you can't make it today. Because if that's just the next mile, thinking about all the other places that have water coming across them that are potentially gonna be blocking between there Klukwan, he's like, I don't I don't think you're gonna make it. Yeah. Turn around. So yeah, now everybody was being just stay home.

Speaker 1 43:40

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 43:42

But so she so she was gonna she wanted to come over.

Speaker 2 43:44

She wanted to come and help us do our the basement, you know. And then yeah, I said, No, they're you know, the I don't think you can get here. And Terry goes, Yeah, don't even try. We got this under control and she goes, Okay, I'll just uh give work on my plans for the next week and stuff and uh and so then Uh I think it was about an hour, and then Terry uh he finally was he went home. He goes, I think I said, I think we're pretty good. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. And he went home, and then about maybe 20 minutes after that, my phone just started going crazy. My text, where's Jenae? Get Jenae off the mountain. Get Jenae off the mountain. Ashley was the first one who texted me.

Speaker 44:23

Okay.

Speaker 2 44:23

And then ever my phone was just Yeah.

Speaker 44:28

And you and you're trying to at that point.

Speaker 2 44:30

I'm like going, what the hell's going on? Because I couldn't see, you know.

Speaker 44:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:33

I had no idea what was going on. And they're just saying, get Jenae off the mountain. And I'm like, what's going on? You know, they nobody really said what was going on for a while. And then uh called. She says, and did she call or text? She said, you know, it just it just kept coming. People ask and I'm I have no idea what's because I couldn't leave, right?

Speaker 3 44:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 44:57

And then uh uh did I call the Sharnbroich's? Or they were outside and I said, There's something going on. I they don't know where Jenae we nobody can get a hold of Jenae. I just kept calling her, I was texting her, I was FaceTime, you know, just trying to make some connection with her. And if her phone would just go, no, no connection, you know. And uh then, let's see. That went on for a while, and then I remember Leslie Evenden was walking up the road or something, and I said, they I don't know where Jenae is, nobody can find her. And she's like, Oh, she's fine, she's fine, don't worry about it. And then I think Vangie came walked up the road or something. Oh, they lived above us at that time. And I was just like, I have no idea where Jenae is. I can't get a hold of her, there's something going on. And then I someone said there was a there was a landslide on Beach Road. And I'm like, oh shit. And so then um, yeah. I didn't it was just chaos, I didn't know what to do. And then Lilly came in, and I could see in her face that it wasn't good, you know. So that's what I basically knew, and then she told me, and then I see the Sharnbroich uh Terry and them came back up at that time, and we were all sitting there. I think Emma Reapal Mary, well, people that were on my street that could come, we were all there. And uh then I ended up staying that night at Lilly's house, you know. And I then I there's when I first saw the first picture on Facebook.

Speaker 46:42

So you you saw a picture that night of the slide?

Speaker 2 46:44

Yeah. That's like that Coast Guard picture of that helicopter took. That's the first picture I saw, and I'm like, oh my god. I hadn't yeah, because I had no idea, you know, you couldn't go anywhere, right?

Speaker 46:56

Yeah, and here in a slide, you don't have I don't think any of us knew exactly what to expect until we first saw the pictures.

Speaker 2 47:02

Yeah. I know uh Cesre had told me one time that from her place, uh Stacy, she was talking on the phone with Stacey Turner, and she told me that uh they got off the phone and then Stacy called her back and said, What the heck was that? And Cesre could see it.

Speaker 47:22

Really? Yeah, she could see it. I hadn't talked to her about that.

Speaker 2 47:25

She said it looked like a bomb went off like and it was just, you know, and then the wave came over, you know, all that. And uh yeah, that was so yeah, then after that, I stayed at Lilly's that house that night. They had fixed some of Piedad Road so my friends could get up the road.

Speaker 47:48

And so that that first night, everybody the the numbers were kind of going all over the place as far as how many people were missing. Yeah, they just seemed to fluctuate, but at the evening it was it was kind of they had it narrowed it down that it was David and Jenae were the only two people missing.

Speaker 2 48:07

Yeah. And I kept uh uh messaging with Libby, going, you know, because she doesn't she was in I think she was in Seattle or something.

Speaker 48:15

She was in there for training, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 48:17

And so we were messaging back and forth with each other, and um, yeah, just and then you know, Walker was on the other side of the slide.

Speaker 48:26

He had just stopped to see her because he was cleaning culverts because he was working for the borough.

Speaker 2 48:32

Yep. And he got through there. I mean, he was at the end, and I think Will had called him or something and said there was a slide, and then he started going back, and so yeah, there's that. And yeah, it was don't want to live through that again.

Speaker 48:53

Was was seeing Lilly, was that the first time you knew that she was gone? Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:01

Yeah. It was like a of all people, it was good that it was her, because I've known Lilly forever, you know, watching her kids and everything. And yeah, so it was yeah, she was the when I saw her walk her face when she walked in the door, I knew it wasn't good.

Speaker 49:16

So her husband's on the fire department.

Speaker 2 49:18

Yeah, and and DOT. DOT. Yeah, so I knew it I knew it wasn't good. And yeah. So yeah.

Speaker 49:29

So what was what what having that idea in the back of your head, and then everything that progressed over the next few days with Coast Guard here searching, everybody looking, your family, you had family came from out of town.

Speaker 2 49:48

They were here by Thursday, I think my first group of family came, and then Friday, I think the next group, the I know Sophia Armstrong was in Juneau during this, and she actually gave one of my family members a place on the ferry so they could make it up because the ferry was so full of search and rescue people coming up and stuff like that.

Speaker 50:04

And the ferry was unrestricted because of COVID, they couldn't have a full ferry coming up here.

Speaker 2 50:10

Yeah, so yeah, they it was I when I heard that there was Coast Guard, the she Coast Guard was out in the inlet looking and and everything, I was like, oh my god, this is a this is a pretty dang big deal, you know. And uh yeah, it was it was hard. And just to see how the community came together during all that, it was great. I mean, I was up I was updated twice, twice a day at least, you know. If I called, they someone would give me an update, but it wasn't that was enough. And just to have all the support, you know, had meals bringing my we ended up staying, because my house was pretty gross, uh, staying up at Vinny's. We had the his little Airbnb. Vinny Simpkins. Yeah, that's where we stayed. The my family stayed up there. And yeah, we just people coming in and the the support the town gave me during that time was I could never repay that. Yeah. It was it was pretty weird. Just even now I just I think back and I'm like, how the hell can you not see a yellow bus, Jenae's car, right?

Speaker 3 51:27

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 51:28

And there's no sign of him. You know? There's nothing.

Speaker 51:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:35

That bus was pretty, I mean, it wasn't a huge, it was, you know what kind of sized bus. And it was yellow.

Speaker 51:41

And it was yellow. Yeah. But then they found, like, didn't they find a Christmas Libby's, one of their Libby's Christmas ornaments down on Battery Point Beach. And it wasn't, it was fully intact.

Speaker 2 51:54

Yeah. They I I mean, there were some weird things. There was uh someone found the part, the top half of Jenae's freezer.

Speaker 3 52:04

Really?

Speaker 2 52:05

Yeah. And I don't I didn't know this for like two or three months, but they had brought it to full of stuff, brought it to the fairgrounds, and the fairgrounds called me and said, Hey, do you do you want this stuff? And I'm like, I don't think I do. Yeah, it was like the meat and yeah, everything. Like, no, you know, and you know, they found her a water bottle, they found she had a little pistol that uh Doug had gotten her, and they found that. They found her paddle board, a couple jackets, some shoes of hers, and yeah, just do you keep some of that?

Speaker 52:42

Oh, I do, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:44

Yep. Yep. Got a water bottle on my window seal. With the with the uh what are they what did they oh gosh. What did they make at school?

Speaker 52:58

Oh the stain stained glass.

Speaker 2 53:00

No, the uh little birds.

Speaker 4 53:01

Oh, the little origami? Yeah, the was it the cranes? The origami grains.

Community Search And Long Aftermath

Speaker 2 53:06

They made me one for my window sill, so I still have that hanging up in my windowsill at my house. And yeah, it was it was something. You know, I the governor called me, which is kind of was nice but weird. Uh just uh but they still haven't fixed my road. My road's still a mess.

Speaker 53:27

So that that that's on my list of things that I want to get to. Yeah. Is so you going through this whole ordeal and seeing everything, and I had a very limited experience because we're in the EOC the whole time. When I was I was going going there and it was dark, and I was going home and it was dark. I had most of the stuff I'm just seeing pictures of. Right. And the first time that I had any interaction with you or anybody in the family was when you guys came to the fire hall.

Speaker 2 54:03

When they called up the search. Yeah.

Speaker 54:05

That sucked.

Speaker 2 54:06

Yeah, that was bad.

Speaker 54:07

That was bad.

Speaker 2 54:08

Yeah, that was really bad. But I mean, just seeing all the people there that were searching and stuff, though, it's like wow. Wonder if this happens in bigger towns, you know.

Speaker 54:18

The the the the video that got me the most was it was after the first day, and I got home, and I think it was Melissa Gainey. Oh, the cars on Facebook with all the cars.

Speaker 2 54:28

Yeah. That was that was amazing.

Speaker 54:31

That hit hard.

Speaker 2 54:32

Yeah, it did.

Speaker 54:33

Because again, we're we're in this room the whole day. We got people coming in and out, and we're on the phone, we're talking to whoever. I had no idea that all those people were in the fire hall that day. Hadn't had no clue. There was a lot of cars, it went a long way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:52

And then just to see all the other damages, damage around town, like the house at Lutak, you know. Uh what was that? The Virgin's house.

Speaker 55:04

And there's a couple others that had some significant were at a loss, but the number from uh Sam's house. Yeah, Lemy's place. Lemy's place.

Speaker 2 55:12

Yeah, and it yeah, it just it was I couldn't believe it. I I mean I still shake my head, go, is this real, you know?

Speaker 55:22

Yeah. It doesn't feel like it, does it?

Speaker 2 55:26

No. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, and then sometimes it's like I always compare everything about was it before today or after today? You know. Yeah. But I mean I I was I went to Cesre a lot. She was great. Yeah. Maybe I should start going again.

Speaker 55:45

Yeah, but uh, yeah, I just there's there's never a bad time to spend time with Cesre. Yeah, she's an amazing person.

Speaker 2 55:51

She's great. I agree. But yeah, it's uh it's just something you don't want any anybody to go through.

Speaker 56:03

You know? And and that gets me to the road.

Speaker 3 56:06

Yeah.

Speaker 56:07

This is sick, it's this will be the sixth summer since the slide. And the hard thing for me to understand, it's not that big of a project.

Speaker 3 56:18

Yeah.

Speaker 56:18

But both Allen Road and Piedad still have not been fixed. Right. And every time I I don't go up Pied ad that often. Every time I go up to see my mom and dad, or just my mom now.

Speaker 2 56:31

Yeah.

Speaker 56:32

I think, and I can't imagine you're living on that road.

Speaker 2 56:35

And it's a worse right in front of my house.

Speaker 56:37

It's worse right in front of your house.

Speaker 2 56:38

Every freaking day I have to drive it.

Speaker 56:40

The daily, and there's people who go, oh no, it's not that bad, whatever. But for me, I look at it as this is just a daily trauma for you. Reliving that every time you're on that road. Yeah, and I have no idea why the state can't get off their ass and fix that.

Speaker 2 56:54

I don't either.

Speaker 56:55

I think it is absolutely asinine that in six years, and when you talk to them, it's like, well, we got this, we got this to do. Excuse me, shut the F up.

Speaker 1 57:07

Yeah.

Speaker 57:08

What you're doing to the people in this community by not fixing that and getting that taken care of is criminal. Yeah. That should those those things should be a highest priority for them to get done. They got it's FEMA fund. That's what I don't understand.

Speaker 4 57:23

They got the money from the feds to fix that.

Speaker 2 57:26

Do it. I even wrote the uh I got one of those blue cards in the mail that that you know it told me uh Alaska Road Recovery or something.

Speaker 4 57:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 57:35

Uh two years ago, I think it was. And I wrote them a letter and I said, I have to deal with that every day.

Speaker 4 57:40

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 57:41

And the lady was really nice about it and everything, but didn't go very far, I guess.

Speaker 57:47

Well, it's it's not just Haines.

Speaker 2 57:49

Yeah, it's everywhere.

Speaker 57:50

You look in Juneau, yeah, with the Mendenhall Valley, with the Mendenhall day, they get the buildup of the water, then end of July, first part of August, it floods. Right. So along the anybody along that river, they're they're coming up with all these temporary things.

Speaker 3 58:07

Yeah.

Speaker 58:07

And and I think our Alaska delegation with Senator Sullivan, Senator Murkowski, and Representative Begich is pushing hard to get because when they first came a couple years ago, they said, Yeah, it's gonna the Army Corps, yeah, it'll be 10 to 12 years to fix this.

Speaker 4 58:23

Turn up and get this fixed. Yeah, yeah. Don't temporarily fix it.

Speaker 58:27

You've got people that are living along this that I've talked to some people like, well, it's just for a short period of time each each summer. If you're actually in those houses, you're thinking about that year-round. Yeah. Is my house going to be next? Is this next year? What are we gonna be safe?

Speaker 3 58:41

Yep.

Speaker 58:42

And I think the barriers that they put in this last year seem like they're fairly effective, but they're still trying to do some more for this next year. I don't understand why we can't get things like this done quicker.

Speaker 2 58:57

Yeah.

Speaker 58:58

It really bothers me.

Speaker 2 58:59

Yeah, me too. I totally agree. I just to drive that road every day. And I even have my parents.

Speaker 59:07

And you're not the only I mean you're you're the only one up there that lost a daughter. Right. But you weren't the old you weren't the only person affected by the slide in this community. There's a ton of people that were displaced, that are still very anxious with a large rainstorm. There's a ton of people that that those roads are still a reminder to that every time every time they go up them. Yep. Fix them.

Speaker 2 59:30

Fix them. Yep. I don't, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 59:33

The boroughs got all their stuff done.

Speaker 2 59:34

Yeah, how is that?

Speaker 59:35

The borough got everything all the storm damage stuff, as far as I'm aware, the major roads and everything like that. There might be some culverts that still need. Yeah.

Speaker 2 59:47

How does the state not they don't get it? Get that done. Because they're not living it.

Speaker 4 59:53

They're not here to do it, you know.

Speaker 2 59:55

They shouldn't have to do it. They have the money.

Speaker 4 59:57

They shouldn't have they shouldn't have to live.

Speaker 59:58

And for me, it's just I want to talk to somebody at the state level. I want to have them on here and talk about it. It's like, explain to me where the problem is that we can't fix stuff like this.

Speaker 2 1:00:13

I had uh Andy iStory and I have talked a lot about childcare and stuff together. And uh I brought her up so she could see my place. And I one of the reasons I said, hey, just show the road. I wanted to show her the road. I'm like, this is the road I'm dealing with. She's like, Are you kidding? And I'm like, no. But you know, so she, you know, she was aware of it, and just I think the more people you just gotta keep talking about it, you know. And I've had a thing going on Facebook uh with all the people on Piedad. Call this number, call, you know, let's get we gotta get this road fixed, you know.

Speaker 1:00:45

Because it's all Do you know the number?

Speaker 2 1:00:47

Maybe we can get other people 1-800 state of Alaska roads. No, I don't know. But yeah, I have I have a everyone on the street, I think, got one of those cards like I got, and you can go online and check where we are, and it's supposed to be fixed this year according to the little thing that I have.

Speaker 1:01:02

Yeah, they originally it was supposed to be 25. Yeah, then I heard it's gonna be 26, but I talked to the people that are with the road construction companies in town.

Speaker 2 1:01:11

It hasn't been out to bid.

Speaker 1:01:12

It hasn't been put out to bid yet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:01:14

I and I, you know, I Matt and I have talked a few times, Matt, about it. He goes, I have said so much, I go, he goes, yeah, he goes, He's a major proponent to get that done.

Speaker 1:01:22

Get both of them done.

Speaker 2 1:01:23

And I'm just like, he's like, it's gotta come from someone else. It's gotta come from, you know. And I'm so that's when I did the whole thing of all the people on my street, let's, you know, write letters and get all this done, and didn't help as of yet. So hopefully by the end of the fall, but it's gotta go out to bid soon, you would think. Yeah, I you know, I try to email them like every six months. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. It's been about that time. Just uh put that in there.

Speaker 1:01:52

So I maybe maybe we should talk to the borough about putting forward a resolution and sending the resolution to the state, yeah, the DOT commissioner and the governor about listen, they can word it however they want to, but basically get off your F and asses and fix these roads. The trauma the ongoing trauma that is in our that you're still in our community by not fixing these.

Speaker 2 1:02:16

Yep. I agree. It's not a a fun thing to drive up every day, for sure.

Speaker 1:02:26

It's it's not a fun thing to drive, uh just anybody wanting to drive up it. Sure. But then you losing your daughter with the storm that caused the damage that six years later you're still driving on it.

Speaker 1 1:02:39

Yep.

Speaker 1:02:40

Ridiculous.

Speaker 1 1:02:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:42

And I know there's a lot of people that are pissed off at me because some of the decisions we made that kept people out of their houses and beach road for as long as they did. I know that it's government can move slowly. Yeah. And there's things that you make decisions and and it it changes the dynamics of what you can do and when you can do them based on the decision that you have, that you try to make on the at the time with the information you have. It's like this is the decision we have to make. Sure. And you've never beaten it. The consequences of that going forward uh can be very hard on people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:03:17

I remember uh when Roger was fixing the road up there, he uh he I went up, he took me across the slide area. That's the first time I uh went up there, and it was just it I was amazed about how much came down that hill, you know. Oh, it was I yeah, I I saw pictures, yeah.

Speaker 1:03:38

And it was it was a couple days after the slide, and we're we're in the EOC, and there's a lull where I didn't I wasn't doing anything, and I asked Carol ann Incident Commander, I said, Is it alright if I go ask the police department if I can go to the sli go look at the slide? I just want to see it in person. She's so they wrote a note please take Mayor Doug to the slide. And so I went to the I walked up over through the fire hall down, and I was like, Here's my note and Sergeant Dryden at the time was like, Well, I guess we gotta take you to the slide. So hopped in the car with him, and we went out to the to the edge of the slide there and kind of walked up on the first little bit of it. But that was very awe-inspiring with the amount of material that came down and the amount of and then just the drive out and the amount of timber that was along the beach line. The just the I don't know how many lineal feet of timber or cord, however you want to do it. There was a lot of timber in the water off of that.

Speaker 3 1:04:51

Right.

Speaker 1:04:51

I was just blown away by and this the size of material and the size of rocks.

Speaker 2 1:04:57

Yeah. That's it. Even the rock that's there right now. Yeah on the on the it's huge. It's huge. It's a huge rock.

Speaker 1:05:03

And then that next summer, the when they were working on doing the geologists were here doing the study on it and trying to set up all their measuring devices and everything, I had asked them if I could go out with them one day. And so I hiked up the slide with them up to the top. And what it's even crazier when you get to the top and you're looking down, and just as you're walking through, because some of these boulders that had that had obviously been moved and you're standing next to them, it's like the heck. Yeah. How water moved that? Yeah. I mean, water started the process, and it just all that going through is like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 1:05:43

And that house that's right next to the slide.

Speaker 1:05:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:05:47

Uh so lucky. Not not the one close to the road. Yeah, I don't know whose house that is, but it was so close. Even what's her name? Uh Colleen that was lived in the house next to the slide.

Speaker 1:06:04

Yeah, she had some video of the slide coming down past them.

Speaker 2 1:06:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1:06:07

I think it was the second one because it sounds like there was two. There's a major one and a smaller one. I think they got the video of the second one, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 2 1:06:14

Because she was the one who was giving me my injections of my knee. Oh really? Like uh a couple months later, I went in there and I mean she just told the lady to get out of the nurse's office and we just cried, you know? She goes, okay, let me shoot your knee now. And I'm like, okay. But yeah, she goes.

Speaker 1:06:32

She said, could you have done this before you're crying? I don't know if it's gonna be as steady as I needed you to be.

Speaker 2 1:06:37

But yeah, it was yeah, just her her story about it, and uh, yeah. I yeah.

Speaker 1:06:47

Do you do you go out there very much?

Speaker 2 1:06:49

I go up there once a week.

Speaker 1:06:50

Do you? Do you go sit on the patio that's a little bit more? In the summertime some I do, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:55

Usually I just drive up there.

Speaker 1:06:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:58

Yeah. I don't stay long. You know. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, you know. But I just yeah. She was just so happy, you know. Like she said she was 23 years old. Met all of her dreams already, you know. It's like I wish I could have said that at 23 years old, right?

Speaker 1:07:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:07:23

Yeah, just living, just doing everything she could. One of the things which was uh kind of cool, a couple a couple months after that, I had to talk with Jeremy. And he goes, My sister was 23 years old. And duh. Yeah, met all of her dreams already. And he goes, I need to get my shit together, right? And so that's when he went back to school. He went back, he uh he got his degree in communications and he went back to school and be uh now he's an airplane mechanic.

Speaker 1:07:58

Is he? Yeah, I didn't know.

Speaker 2 1:07:59

And he loves it. He yeah, he's making good money and he's yeah, he went to it was a one-year program at UAF. Monday through Friday for a year, and yeah, he did it and he's he's still playing in his band too. He is, yep, he's in a couple bands. And I'm gonna go up and see him in June again, and yeah, up in June. But yeah, he's doing great, you know, but for him to say that about his little sister, that was big. And that it took something like that to make him, you know, go back to school. So but yeah. He's a good boy, so yeah.

Speaker 1:08:41

Yeah. But I I've told several people this, but just I didn't have I saw Jenae and Jeremy growing up. Right. And you know, Jenae was in K my niece Kaylee's class, so I'd see them interacting and playing basketball together, and so I I got s some exposure to her more than other kids just because if they're in a family member's class, you kind of get to know them a little bit better. But most of my interactions were when she'd come into the store and talk to her. And there's sometimes that not always, but I'd just ask her how things were going. And like I said earlier, when she got the job to be the kindergarten teacher here, that what you could just tell that that was like the high point for her. Oh, yeah. She was just so excited to be able to be a factor in those kids' life.

Speaker 2 1:09:28

And uh what was it like 62 days or something is all, you know, that she was a teacher? Yeah, something like that. I'm not sure exactly on that, but yeah. She in COVID, during COVID, teaching kids with the mask on, you know, everything. She wasn't very happy with that. But you know, she yeah, it was a perfect opportunity for her to step in when, you know, there to how lucky is it that there was a job in this school that she went to school with, you know. I mean, she went to school at.

Speaker 1 1:10:02

You know.

Roads That Still Trigger Trauma

Speaker 1:10:03

So then the it wasn't long after the slide and you started coming up with the idea of how long was that where was that something right away that you're like, I need to do something to remember my daughter? And you came up with the playground?

Speaker 2 1:10:17

Yeah, it was uh she had come over a couple times, you know, and just saying the play, you know, the playground was there was terrible, you know, and it was the old play stuff that she played on when she was a kindergarten at the other school, you know. And she was like, This is terrible. The other kids have this nice playground, and the little kids just get a climbing thing and an old car, you know. And so uh, yeah, I just I I needed something to do, you know, to keep my mind off of it. And uh so I got my friends involved.

Speaker 1:10:55

And which you have a lot of friends. I do have a good friend. You have a very strong friend support group in Hanson.

Speaker 2 1:11:03

I do, I do. And uh so it was Nancy and uh I'm good, you know, Pam Sloper and her daughter Shelly was on the school board. Was she on the school board then? Maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah, but anyway, she's on the school board now. Yeah. And uh it was we were at, you know, we go to coffee on Saturdays and we just started talking about it, and then um we got Corrie involved when I didn't I didn't really know Corrie very well. Corrie Stickler, yeah, and uh I was up at the um Airbnb that Roger and them were building, and she was helping, we were putting, helping put furniture together, and I just and I knew she had background and design and all this stuff, and I go, would you be and she was pregnant with Nash. And I go, would you be interested in helping do this? And she was like, Well, what about she was like what about this person? What about this person? And I'm like, I go, I don't know, I don't even know what I want yet, you know. And uh so she finally said yes, and so it was it was me and Nancy and Corrie and Shelly, and we just it kept my mind on something. Yeah. And yeah.

Speaker 1:12:22

How much how much money do you guys raise for that?

Speaker 2 1:12:25

$735,000? Whoever thought a playground would cost that much, right?

Speaker 1:12:30

Well, regardless of that, I just think that in two and a half years. In two and a half years, yeah, the response, I think that just shows how much people love not only Jenae but also her mom.

Speaker 3 1:12:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1:12:44

That they want to make something happen. Right. They wanna they wanna do something like that. So I think just reaching that, yes, it's ridiculous to fall playground costs almost three-quarters of a million dollars.

Speaker 2 1:12:57

Right.

Speaker 1:12:57

I mean, I could see if it was like several acres, but that's if it wasn't at the school, it wouldn't have cost. If it wasn't at the school, it wouldn't have cost that much, yes.

Speaker 2 1:13:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1:13:05

But I think just the testament to how much not only the impact of you and Jenae, but also that whole event on the community. Oh, yeah. And the the way people saw that. Um it was pretty impressive.

Speaker 2 1:13:18

It was it was very, very cool. And the, you know, we just we started the GoFundMe first, is how we started it, and that's how we got our the person in Juneau Corso Design, I think was the name of the guy who reached out to us and said, We're we're pro bono some of this to help get it started. And you know, we gave him ideas. All the things we have there are things that Jenae liked. The you know, she worked for Fjordland you know, and the lighthouse was always a big thing for her and the whales. Uh she was always the whale, just outside stuff. She just wanted, you know, always so we just thought, let's try to see what we can come up with. And yeah, we took a lot of little drawings, things, a lot of going online looking at things to to do, and and and Shelly was a great grant writer. Yeah, she got us some good grants, and uh yeah, just them being there for me during that time. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:14:16

Was that in a way therapeutic for you? Oh, 100%.

Speaker 2 1:14:20

Have that uh work through and everything to keep yeah, it was it was I don't know, it like I said, it just took my mind off of everything else that was going on, you know. Yeah, it's finally done.

Speaker 1:14:35

And so it was was it 24 or 25 that you that was opened? Uh officially opened. I know it was December this last year that was officially named.

Speaker 2 1:14:44

Yeah, it was officially named this year, 24, summer 24, I think. 24, yeah.

Speaker 1:14:49

December of 24, so you know what if you can think of the borough has the deal that you gotta wait five years to reach out as already. Right, right, right. Yeah, you can't do anything. You can do whatever you can build whatever you want, but we can't name it.

Speaker 2 1:15:02

But I think a lot of people knew it was today's playground at the quick. Yeah, so I mean it it's it's just something, you know, the light was very important to me. And uh took a while to get that up and running, but it's it's working now.

Speaker 1:15:18

And the first time I I saw it, because I I go by there all the time. It's like what the heck? Because it hadn't been for a while, right? When they first installed it, the light wasn't on.

Speaker 2 1:15:28

Yeah, it was a solar thing and it just wasn't very powerful.

Speaker 1:15:30

Well, it wasn't very powerful, and then all of a sudden I started seeing it, I was like, that's what Kim was talking about.

Speaker 2 1:15:34

Yeah, they hooked it up to electricity finally, and yeah, it's it it's it's kind of cool to see that. And just the like when Carlos was doing, he put glow-in-the-dark stuff in the by the canoe on the in the rock and stuff, things that we didn't even think about that uh and just some of the people that have worked with them, a lot of the people that worked on the playground were in Jeremy's class.

Speaker 3 1:15:57

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:15:58

So yeah, it was kind of it was it was a surreal moment when it finally came. It was a big crowd. It was a big crowd. A lot of people there. My friend from Anchorage is the news, does the news up in Anchorage, and you know, they all came down and did that, and yeah, it's just well I've been out there, I go out there, well, I haven't been there this year yet, but I always go out there with my the blower and blow the sand back where it goes and everything. It's like, come on, kids. I have a couple of my daycare kids like uh will come home and they're like, they were throwing sand out of the sandbox. I'm like, what? Make sure you tell them to keep the sand in the sandbox, you know. And they're like, okay, you know. But yeah, it's kind of it's been a great little thing to keep my mind off of things, but I gotta think of something else now because I don't imagine that ever goes away.

Speaker 1:16:49

No.

Speaker 2 1:16:51

No, I d I don't go out as much as I used to for sure. Yeah. Just rather stay at home. Yeah. Is it because of people you will see or it's yeah, it's the people and just you know what's really hard is you know, first there was Zane and Matthew, of course.

Speaker 1:17:11

The year before. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:17:12

And to see how Jenae reacted to that.

Speaker 1:17:16

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:17:18

And uh just knowing that, you know, as soon as she found out, she went right to Autumn's house. Because she knew Autumn was so close to those kids. Like she got to Autumn's house before Autumn got there, I guess. And just to see the this how that class, oh for you know, Casey, first Casey got mauled by the bear. Yeah, you know, that was a year before that's summer before, right? I think so. And then uh then Matthew and Zane and now Jenae. It's it's a lot to deal with for the 10-year anniversary uh reunion this year. It's been 10 years since I graduated. They graduated 2016. Yeah, and just now to see uh people in her class are having kids, Kayley's getting married, you know, it's great, and I think, but it's hard, you know.

Speaker 1:18:15

That that that's tough with that duel because you're trying to be happy for them.

Speaker 2 1:18:19

Oh, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:18:20

I'm very happy, but it's like but it also brings back the things that you're not gonna get.

Speaker 2 1:18:24

I'm not gonna get, yeah. People having babies. You know, so you you know, it's like you're not trying to put on a front because you want to be happy for the person, right? But I'm not gonna get to experience those, you know. Those kind of things. And yeah, so that kind of is tough. But you make the best of what you can do, you know. One thing I can say is d don't get some friends like I have that have stuck with me. Because I mean I I haven't been the best person, I'm sure.

Speaker 1:18:59

Well like I said before, you you have an amazing friend group.

Speaker 1 1:19:07

I do. I do, yeah. I do.

Speaker 1:19:11

Even before the slide, you guys you always it seemed like I would never see one of you.

Speaker 1 1:19:17

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:19:18

It was always like three or four of you. It's always a group when I would see you guys out in town. It was never I would see Kim or I would see Nancy, unless you guys are shopping next door or something. But it's like anytime there's an activity in town, it's like there's a group of you guys that were doing things together. Right. And I was always kind of envious of that, to be honest with you.

Speaker 2 1:19:38

I mean, I I've always said even I mean, I am even friends with a lot of my friends from high school still, you know, and I went to a school that had tons, it was a huge school, and I just I friend hard, you know. I I I know that's kind of I know that's kind of weird to say, but you know, I I you know, if I like someone, I you know, I I'm I I feel like I'm the one who makes the initiative to keep in touch with everybody, you know. Like people are like, you're still friends? I'm like, yeah, you know, but I'm at the tip they haven't done anything to piss me off. Yeah, yeah, but now I'm I'm more of a person that's like since the whole the Jenae, it's like I I don't put in as much effort, I don't feel like with my friends than I used to.

Speaker 1:20:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:20:24

So it I don't think it's ever easy, you know.

Speaker 1:20:30

Well I I was having this conversation with somebody the other day, it was you you expect uh it sucks, but you expect and you're prepared if you lose your parents or older relatives, but your kids, yeah, you're supposed to outlive your kids.

Speaker 1 1:20:50

Yep.

Speaker 1:20:51

Right? Yeah. And I I think there's I don't know the psychology behind it, I don't know this, but I think it do I think it does hit hard. They say you're not supposed to compare grief, all that, but I I I think when we lose young people, it it hits harder.

Speaker 2 1:21:05

Yeah, especially young good people, you know. I mean, not that all you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:21:10

And I think that was the biggest thing with both David and Jenae is you saw these two young individuals that had so much promise, and in a in a in a lot of ways reached out to such a broad section of the community.

Speaker 1 1:21:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:21:26

That they all were always smiling, they were always smiling.

Speaker 1:21:29

They were always smiling, they're they're friends with. I I never saw it e I mean, either one of them, they'd be talking to all sorts of people, it's like, what do they have? They were right friends with everybody, right?

Speaker 1 1:21:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1:21:41

And you don't you don't see that a lot.

Speaker 3 1:21:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1:21:44

And so I think to have to lose both of them at the same time when you s everybody's just like, man, these are just such bright, shining examples of what we want people to be.

Speaker 2 1:21:58

Right. It's yeah. I so I I lost my mom, I I think it was 2012, and then I lost my dad the year before Jenae died, December 19th. Really?

Speaker 1:22:09

So you weren't even on the one-year anniversary.

Speaker 2 1:22:11

No, I wasn't even on the one-year anniversary, and then Matthew and Zane right after that. Yep. And then Jenae. And so it was just it was a lot to take in right there, you know, and uh yeah. It's something, you know, losing a kid is like you said, you're not supposed to outlive your kids, you know.

Speaker 1:22:35

Yeah. Have you have you ever thought of moving?

Speaker 2 1:22:39

Oh yeah, yeah. But I don't want to leave Jenae. Yeah, it's I know it's weird.

Speaker 1:22:44

No, it doesn't. I I figured that would be your answer. I I I was almost positive that would be your answer, but I didn't know if that had even crossed your mind that it's like, would this be easier if I was somewhere else?

Speaker 2 1:22:54

Yeah, because when uh Jenae, before Jenae went into high school, we were thinking about moving back to Anchorage. You know, and uh then she's like, Oh, you know, I got a good group of friends, and you know, let's just and I'm like, okay. So then after Jenae graduated, I was like, okay, maybe I should move now, you know. And then, yeah, now I mean it wasn't even hard for me to leave right after the slide. I went up to Anchorage with my friend uh and spent Christmas up there with her family, and that was even hard. Not being here for you know, and I I uh I'm usually not here on the second anymore. You know try to usually go to California to see my sister or up to Anchorage to see my friend. And uh yeah, it's just it's not where I want to be.

Speaker 1:23:50

So December of twenty four. I was in Hawaii. And it was and it it it uh it it wasn't anything that I've I've planned, but since I was a the after I wasn't mayor and didn't have to be here. Oh right. I don't I think 25 was the first time I've been here the other two years I was you were gone. It wasn't anything that I planned for that time or a reason, but I just had and I was I was on a beach in Hawaii and it it just hit me. I was like, this is this is December.

Speaker 2 1:24:28

Yeah. And I was in Hawaii one year for Christmas.

Speaker 1:24:32

I was just like still in silence for a long time. My girlfriend asked me what I told her, she's like she's kind of let me have some time there, but it was that yeah, was that the year I was in 24?

Speaker 2 1:24:45

Is that 24? I was in Hawaii then too.

Speaker 1:24:47

Were you?

Speaker 2 1:24:48

Yeah.

Speaker 4 1:24:48

Where were you?

Speaker 2 1:24:49

I was on I was in uh Kona. What the hell? Was it 24? Yeah.

Speaker 4 1:24:54

I was in Kona.

Speaker 2 1:24:55

Are you serious? No way! Was it 24 or 23 I went? I don't remember what year I went. I don't I'm not good with years at all. It might have been 23. The first year.

unknown 1:25:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1:25:08

That would be crazy if we were both in both. We could have cried together.

Speaker 2 1:25:11

We could have cried together. What were we thinking? It was when the volcano went off right before we got there. So maybe I think it was 23. I think I was there in 23. So you we're safe. We're safe? Yeah, we should have connected a little bit better there.

Speaker 1:25:24

But yeah.

Speaker 2 1:25:25

Have your travel agent talk to my travel agent to make sure we're yeah, it's just it's just easier to be away, you know. Especially with the the weather we had this December. It was bad too, you know. So I went down, I usually I went down to California for Thanksgiving. I just usually stay stay long for that. Yeah, that's how I usually do it.

Living With Grief Day By Day

Speaker 1:25:46

So, what would your advice be to somebody else going through losing a child? Is there anything you've learned about yourself for kind of the the process that it it obviously in from talking to you and and knowing you, I'm not gonna say it's getting any easier for you. It's gonna be yeah, it's gonna be hard for you. Um I'm never gonna say it's easier. Yeah, yeah. But are there some th other than leaving town at certain times, you know, having a strong friend group, what are the th what are the things that you lean on outside of that, or maybe that's enough to get through the day?

Speaker 2 1:26:30

There's uh I still talk about her all the time. Yeah, you know, it's still Jenae's bathroom at daycare. Is it still Jenae's room? Okay. Yeah. It's Jenae's bathroom. They use Jenae's bathroom, you know, and you know, uh one thing I could tell, you know, uh your friends is just keep going to the person. Go keep checking up on the person. You know. And they're gonna they want you to talk. I want people to talk about today. But I feel people think I'm gonna cry like a baby. And but it's okay to cry, you know. It is it's okay to cry.

Speaker 1:27:15

You said I'm gonna cry. So I said I probably am too. It's alright. Yeah. I think it'd be bad if we did this whole thing and neither one of us could.

Speaker 2 1:27:22

Well, that would be rap.

Speaker 1:27:23

Sam's crying too, so it's all well, it's the three of us, we're all doing this together.

Speaker 2 1:27:28

But it's just it's just, you know, how important, you know, get counseling, get, you know, go talk to someone, even if it's not a counselor, if you can find someone you can talk to and just relate to, and nobody's gonna get it 'cause no none of my friends have gone through what I've gone through. You know. It's just just make sure that you're there for the person. You know. There's sometimes that I won't answer texts, I won't call people. I just need time, you know.

Speaker 3 1:27:55

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 1:27:56

And that's and as a person that is mourning someone like that. then I feel guilty sometimes because I'm such a I'm a giving person, you know? And if I can't give the the the if I can't give the the love that I like to give someone or the friendship that I like to give someone then I feel guilty because and I don't know why that is but it's just I just just people just don't don't quit talking about the person even if it's hard because it's hard because you love someone so much.

Speaker 1:28:32

Right. Yeah the the uh thing that keeps coming back to me um and I some people that hear me talk about stuff that always you always come up with a movie or a song or something to explain things but the one that that hit me about losing somebody is the um Toby Keith song about uh Wayman Tisdale where it's it's uh I'm not crying I'm not crying for you I'm crying for me yeah and it's that thought that we know they're in a better place but god damn it it sucks that we can have them here with us.

Speaker 2 1:29:18

Exactly we want to be here yeah I'll I'll be I have songs will come on and I'm just like oh my god I just ball you know I'll be driving down the road and a song will come on and it's so stupid because they're my songs that I put on my playlist and it's like can be why but it's it's I listen to do they make you cry when you put them on the playlist too and you still put them on there? Yes it's just I when I listen to a song I really listen to the words and it's like it's it's totally different now because I used to not be like that but I'm I always am trying to see how this song can help me or make me feel better about what's going on or something you know it's just it's kind of it's it's odd but yeah you I'll put it on my playlist and I'll listen to it and it's like sometimes on when I go up there go up to uh pick Nancy up on Saturdays she's like what's wrong? You know and it's like uh let me back up a couple songs and you'll understand that song you know and just things like that that but I you know I've learned that it's okay to cry. You know it's nothing that's not gonna make you cry. You know even just like going to basketball games and stuff now is hard.

Speaker 1:30:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:30:35

You know and when that don't stop believing song comes on oh that's not on my playlist I would not think that would be on the that is not on my even like a couple months ago I was in Howser's and it played I got out of there so fast but you know just things like they come up the Yeah.

Speaker 1:30:57

I didn't even think about that because that was that was their song.

Speaker 2 1:31:01

That was the song Matthew and Jenae. Matthew and Jenae so that's kind of I don't I never listen to that song all the way through. Even when you're on Husky football game.

Speaker 1:31:12

Oh do they stop do they play that it's a sing it's a big sing along actually I think if I'm not mistaken when I went to the Wisconsin when I went to the Husky game at Wisconsin this last fall I think they played it and that's it's becoming big in stadiums where they're playing that as a sing-along great great so they just just FYI I'm gonna ask the playlist before I go to the game can I get the playlist before I go to the game that's gonna be a again it might be cathartic to be in a stadium with 7000 people all singing a song together. Yeah that might be cathartic for you.

Speaker 4 1:31:48

Yeah it was I wanted to or or you could be in a puddle of tears people looking at me going what the hell's wrong with her this game is so emotional.

Speaker 2 1:31:58

Yeah or so playing so well I just can't contain myself I went and saw a pink concert with my sister and her friend and my friend and she plays a song that had me had me down. Yeah yeah no and it's just but it happens and you I mean it's part of your life you know what do you do?

Speaker 1:32:17

I I think it would be better to have those triggers that are remember reminding you of her than to not have anything. Exactly yeah to have those and even if there's tears and sadness involved to have those constant reminders of your daughter yeah is amazing that you have those. Yes you so I I know you don't like uh this is gonna sound bad but I hope you keep having these moments of random tears and everything like that. Yeah I I hope you keep having because looking at it the way that what the reason I'm saying that and I think I know you are you already understand this but because that's reminding you of her. Right. And it's bringing back memories of her. Yeah and I think that's better to keep having as many of those as you can.

Speaker 2 1:32:59

Yep yeah and it's I mean there's just things that you think about it's like okay every year I post pictures of uh for her birthday you know things like that and it's like pretty soon I'm gonna be out of pictures you know who says you can't pitch them pi uh post them more than once well um new pictures I mean you know it's like yeah you know just things you don't think about you know but you just do what you gotta do to make through the day I think watching kids helps you know that's one of the reasons I'm probably still doing it because they they don't care if I cry you know if a song comes on they don't care if I cry you know and just their minds they don't know what's going on. They've had you know some of the kids will bring up Jenae you know and they're like oh she died in a landslide you know and not that I told them no but just they they remember they've heard and they'll see your pictures on the walls at home and stuff and then I have a huge picture of the playground in my hallway that I had done on metal. It's really cool. And they're like that's Jenae's playground you know and just uh and then the state I got a what's it called a from the state proclamation. Yeah I got a proclamation from the state which was pretty cool about the playground and childcare and uh yeah it was it's kind of cool so it's oh I have a little wall and I you know I had to uh who was it Lexi and Melissa and Corrie went to public market down in Juneau uh a couple years ago and they they got me something and it was it was it's on a plate it's a blue plate and it looks like it's stars all over it and there's a girl and her dog sitting there on the plate. And I go and they're like we thought of you. And yeah you know it's like oh my god it was it looks blonde hair just like today you know and it's you know it's pretty cool. But yeah that's my story. Stick it to it. Sticking to it. Yeah but it's all it's all it's gonna be okay because you know nighttime it's terrible you know because it's quiet you know just do the best you can do just just have a good support system you know and if you know someone reach out to them you know I think that's a hard thing for a lot of people it is for me to reach out to reach out to people because you don't know what to say right? Exactly and you don't you don't need to say anything just show up and watch a show with them you know just someone who's there you know just you know I talked to I remember Natalie Banassi came over you know she had just lost Mario uh when we were at the place and she said Jenae wouldn't want you to be sad. She wants you to live your life and it's true it's not working very well but you know you're still living your life yeah I'm still living my life but you know it's just things like that you know someone that has gone through but I'm going through and you know in contact with a lot of Jenae's friends still you know which is nice that you know they check in on her birthdays and you know things like that to see how I'm doing but when they start having babies in their class it's like oh that's tough that's a tough one man it's tough. Have you had any of them reserve a spot for their kid no not yet no is that gonna be yeah that'll be different different yeah but it's it's kind of cool that I could do it for them you know it's like uh uh uh just starting the whole process over again with kids with kids you know but have you had any kids with kids yet no oh no no no no I don't think so oh no no I haven't it should be it should be but a lot of kids don't live here that's what yeah that's what I was I was trying to think of kids that you might have had that have had kids but a lot of them are out of town yeah yeah yeah there's yeah so no that'll be that'll be if I'm still doing it then you know so that's something I've got on you what I am taking care of kids of kids oh at the store you are because I you know Sarah's kids we took care of them and now we got Tyler's Tyler's kids and Dylan's kids are on my list now so yeah I know you need to make a you need to make a home yep yep they're on the list yeah and it's it's so much easier when they turn 30 months yeah you know because then you can have five over than 30 months so yeah so that's true yeah so I'm ahead of you on daycare for kids under kids of kids.

Speaker 1:38:21

Kids of kids you are yeah I never lucky you I my as anybody that knows me knows my role is extremely limited. Oh all I do is I spend time with them when they're in a good mood. Oh there you go perfect when they start having bad times they go back to mom and dad. Yep they need diaper change they go back to work it's like that's not that's not your that's not my responsibility if they're in a good mood and they want to hang out with Uncle bring them to me.

Speaker 2 1:38:46

Yep.

Speaker 1:38:47

As soon as things start going sideways I would never be able to run a daycare because I'd be calling back you need to come get your kid. Oh yeah this isn't working for us right now.

Speaker 2 1:39:01

Can we change this up? You know I've never had to turn turn any kids down. I've never had to say oh I can't do this kid anymore.

Speaker 1:39:07

Yeah yeah but well I think it's I think it just shows the impact that you have yeah you know they've got that consistency consistency over the years so important that they know what the rules are that and and like you said before they they're watching the older kids that have been there this is the way things are done. And so it's just kind of comes across that that's what's expected.

Speaker 1 1:39:26

Right.

Speaker 2 1:39:27

Yeah it's yeah I mean it's if someone could get involved in it and you know run it as a business instead of a you know you're just what a babysitter you know it's it's I'm doing it as a single uh oh uh I can't say a single parent anymore. I guess I can still can't. Yeah you still can't but uh yeah it's I've made a good living in doing it. And I'm you know but think about it so I'm at I'm with them more than teachers are right yeah I work what 48 to 50 hours a week yeah you know it's it's a lot it's a lot and it's year round that time between one and three when they're sleeping is mighty good it's mighty good. Two hour naps.

The Broken Child Care Food Program

Speaker 1:40:10

Yeah two hour naps yeah so but shh decompress you think about the I mean these these parents are leaving the the most important thing in their life with you you know for nine nine hours a day you know and so they've got to trust you they've gotta you know you gotta build I have built relationships with all my parents you know but yeah well I think I I don't think I know over the time that you've been doing this that it it was fairly quickly that you had developed a reputation that you were doing a great job with the kids and which always has and have maintained that yeah throughout just like how do we clone you to get another one right in town to take some of that burden. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:41:01

And I you know there's I don't think the city should get involved unless we have the money to get involved.

Speaker 1:41:06

And I don't know what did you think of Assembly member Smith's donation?

Speaker 2 1:41:10

What did I think of it? I think he should have done some research before he gave him $10,000. Oh if you want to know the truth. Yeah play pens $1500 Why would you get paid pens for $1,500 cribs? You can get them at pack and plays for $99 at Amazon until you really know what what you're doing? Uh-huh why we spend that much money yeah so I would I uh I I wasn't I was like hmm great good for him I don't think that I don't think it was appropriate that he did it in the middle of assembly meeting though. Yeah yeah but you know they want to get money to him check their books. All I say is just check and see how they're running their business before giving him money. You know because I think that's important. You know having the word preschool on the in end of something and a nonprofit doesn't mean I don't know. I don't want to you know I don't want to get into that really open three days a week I'm gonna talk a little bit more about it. Open three days a week and you know it's it's not it's not it's not a thing for the community. It's not working for the community. And what started it all was when the preschool started not having kids is when Head starts to start taking more kids for free.

Speaker 1:42:30

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:42:30

And so that took away from the people having to pay at the preschool. The preschool right okay and that's what really set up this whole thing.

Speaker 1:42:38

It's kind of changed the dynamics of where everything was going. Yeah. So when they've been having some of these meetings about how to fix the I think the mayor of the borough's been coordinating some meetings on how to fix have they invited you to those meetings?

Speaker 2 1:42:51

Well uh not at first they didn't which was kind of odd but uh I've been to I've been to one I've been to one the other one they have during the day and it's like they're like you want to come and like I have eight kids here at two o'clock can I bring the kids can I bring the kids? Yeah.

Speaker 1:43:10

So I you guys want to come to my house?

Speaker 2 1:43:12

Right, right. And I mean a lot of the cities are giving uh childcare people money to help run. Juno does it you know I'm a I'm on the board with uh it's called Childhood Collective in Juno with used be AUIC I'm on their board and they're in charge of running the money from the state and to pay the providers and uh I think it's great if the city has the money. You know it's a great way to keep your costs down. But uh I if we don't have the money I don't think I don't think they should help. You may give them a loan or maybe something but uh yeah I just I don't think that's are you gonna give the restaurants money in town so we can get more restaurants in town? That keeps people in town too right having places to eat. It does you know and that's just that's just my it's a it's a it's a slippery slope.

Speaker 1:44:06

Um because you see you see not just in Haines but nationwide child care there what childcare housing costs so many costs are escalating and and everybody's looking for a quick answer or a quick solution. We just need to pass this legislation it'll fix it. We need to just give this a little bit of money and it'll fix it or and I think all of them are the the systems need a much deeper dive it's not just fix one thing.

Speaker 3 1:44:41

Right.

Speaker 1:44:42

I think it's been building over several decades of changes in how we operate as a society, changes in monetary policy a lot of different things build up and then all of a sudden you've got this cascading effect coming out coming out after it um but it uh everybody we always just want it's it's you want a quick fix. It's why when you see the infomercials on TV that if you get this tool you're gonna be in the best shape of your life. It's like it comes and it's like this big it comes and it's you're gonna you're gonna and you're gonna have rock saw you're gonna have the six pack abs in six weeks. You can do this and this it's like yeah no it's not gonna work they're gonna make a ton of money off of that but no it's not gonna work. Yeah one of the it's usually a longer it's a multifaceted sure program rather than just one little gadget it's like one piece of the puzzle $2999. Right. It's one piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 2 1:45:36

Yeah yeah one of the big things that really made me mad as since I've been doing childcare is the food program. Okay. Okay so for 25 years I was on the federal food program. You know I'd pay I serve a breakfast a snack a lunch and a snack every day to my kids and you have to turn in the menus you know what you're serving them and a tally sheet of what you who you served and all this stuff. And for 25 years 25 I guess been I don't know 24 maybe now this is yeah uh I was on that program. It was great you know they would pay it's a certain it's a per meal price that they pay they don't actually pay your actual cost. And uh they took me off of it right after COVID. And there because during COVID they did it by FaceTime. They could do it by FaceTime because they you have to tell them what time you're serving the meal so if you call if they called and you're not serving the meal you get docked that you don't get paid.

Speaker 1:46:32

You don't get paid for that meal.

Speaker 2 1:46:33

You don't get paid for that meal.

Speaker 1:46:34

And so you know so they would have people call in all the daycare would you get called every day or is it just no it's three times a year.

Speaker 2 1:46:40

Three times okay three times a year. Yeah it was how much did that cost to have people FaceTime and every day exactly so before that though they would have to do one announced visit and two unannounced visits I think so and when they came you had to be serving your meal which is yeah it's something you do. Right yeah and uh then after covet happened and they decided they couldn't do FaceTime anymore the sponsor in Anchorage said well we can't we can't uh do you anymore we can't come to Haynes it's too expensive for us to come to Frank to Haynes. So why was FaceTime no longer a exactly exactly that's what I said I said well there they were like because they uh they said during COVID it was such a different ironic thing that they could do it then but they couldn't continue doing it. But it was too expensive and the reason why because there was only one licensed childcare in town so since I was the only licensed childcare in town I was missing out like $15,000 a year because nobody else was licensed and they wouldn't send anybody here to do their three visits a year.

Speaker 1:47:46

But so the visits were just for the food program. So it worked for a couple years during COVID. The FaceTiming the FaceTiming but now the COVID's over and they don't have the money to send somebody they can't FaceTime which is free. Yeah it just takes somebody 10-15 minutes to do a FaceTime it wasn't even that long. It wasn't even that long yeah they see this I think I I don't think this bothers me it bothers a lot of people that it's something stupid is irrationale and it'd probably be something stupid on why Piedad hasn't been fixed yet. Right. It's probably going to be something and we're gonna look at this like seriously that's you guys' explanation for that yeah it's just nonsensical.

Speaker 2 1:48:24

So it was like after 24 years I get punished.

Speaker 1:48:28

So if we had another one they would send somebody here and you'd get your food money so it's even more reason we need to get somebody to start a or the preschool started serving meals. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:48:38

So and so I still do it. Yeah and so I'm out all that money yeah but the the city is the borough's kicking kicking in some money for you this year. This year well yeah yeah this last fiscal fiscal year right now. And uh so you know that's kind of nice but it's like I haven't raised my prices that much more. Yeah.

Speaker 1:49:01

You know and I'm still it's a big expense you know so this this program other It's weird because have you reached out so other other preschool licensed preschools or daycares like yourself are still getting the money from the state.

Speaker 2 1:49:19

From yeah and I've talked to Lisa Murkowski I've talked to Andy Stori about it I've talked to Jesse Kiehl about it I've talked to Dan Sullivan I've talked to everyone like Lisa Murkowski last year she went to my uh childhood collective people in Juneau and they said she even said is Kim getting paid for her food yet and they're like no she's not and you're like she's like are you kidding me? Yeah you know so it's out there I've emailed people I've talked to people personally I went into the talk to the legislators a couple times when I've been down in Juneau and they they just don't they don't understand why they can't do the FaceTime. And that now they're 'cause it's federal it's a federal program it's oh it's a federal so it's not a state program the state runs it

Speaker 1:50:00

It runs a federal program.

Speaker 2 1:50:01

And the federal government's like, well, you have to do at least one personal visit. And now it's probably never going to happen because of all the fraud in Minnesota on daycares, right? But yeah. But that was, you know, that's been a big expense.

Speaker 1:50:14

See, that's the problem. You've been doing it on the up and up.

Speaker 2 1:50:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1:50:17

Just think how much more money you would have made if you would have been doing it fraudulently.

Speaker 2 1:50:20

I know.

Speaker 1:50:22

You were you missed the boat.

Speaker 2 1:50:23

I missed it.

Speaker 1:50:24

You missed the boat.

Speaker 2 1:50:25

I missed the boat. But yeah, it just, I mean, it's it's sad. It's like Head Start has free meals. The school has free meals.

Speaker 1:50:32

Well, and the the So the here here's my issue on a lot of programs federally but run by the state. There is fraud in them.

Speaker 1 1:50:42

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:50:43

But instead of cat instead of making a pro in my opinion, I don't see there's a very strong proactive approach to trying to catch the people that are committing the fraud.

Speaker 3 1:50:52

Right.

Speaker 1:50:53

And so it's people that are doing it correctly that should be getting it that are hurt.

Speaker 3 1:50:58

Right.

Speaker 1:50:59

They don't get it. The people that are committing the fraud get more than they should. You're out because they don't have the funds to come to Haynes to verify or just do a FaceTime. Is there anybody in Skagway that's on the program?

Speaker 2 1:51:14

I don't think now. I don't think there is now.

Speaker 1:51:17

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:51:18

Yeah. And then because we're such rural areas, that's why it's cost them so much money to get here. They're saying but yeah.

Speaker 1:51:24

But the the same thing. If if they're in Juneau, I guarantee you that somebody's coming to Juneau to check.

Speaker 2 1:51:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1:51:30

Because there's more than one in Juneau.

Speaker 2 1:51:31

The program used to, the sponsor used to be in Juneau, but it wasn't my pro actually the people I uh the board, it wasn't feasible.

Speaker 1:51:38

There's usually a couple at least during the summer months, especially, you can get a round trip. You can go to Skagway, to Haines, and back to Juneau in one day. Just make the trip. It's a few hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 1:51:51

Or why can't the people that are inspecting the Head Start or the school come out? Come and inspect yours. Yeah. Have the same people. Yeah. But then, but then I just saw that the during the summer months you can get free meals that they're starting a thing, that you can get free meals if you're at the school.

Speaker 1:52:09

What? What?

Speaker 2 1:52:10

Yeah. You if you're if you're a student at the school, you can fill out a form and they'll send you a box of food every week. But not me. That's figuring eight kids a day. Yeah. Another thing that pisses me off. Piedad Road food program.

Speaker 1:52:30

And you shouldn't be pissed about both.

Speaker 2 1:52:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1:52:32

I agree with you. So they I'm I'm I was pissed about Piedad I didn't know about the food program. I'm not pissed off with you.

Speaker 2 1:52:37

Yeah. It's like, I wish I had a kid there just to get the meals. You know? Maybe my parents should bring me their meals they get. They should simply give me, I'd have all these boxes of food, you know. But yeah, it's kind of it doesn't make it doesn't make sense. Things that, you know, don't make sense. That you've you've done for 25 four years, 25 years, whatever it is, and they just take it away. You're like punished because you're the only one. Yeah.

Speaker 1:53:03

Well you in and that counterdicts everything because if you're the last person standing, you would think that they would want to help to make sure you're successful going forward.

Speaker 3 1:53:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1:53:12

So you because this is I'm assuming the people that run these programs have seen that this is an issue nationwide.

Speaker 3 1:53:20

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:53:21

That I mean, hello, why wouldn't you be going out of your way to support the programs that are out there before they go away, and then you got an even bigger problem.

Speaker 2 1:53:30

Right.

Speaker 1:53:30

They're just compounding the issue by being stupid.

Speaker 2 1:53:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1:53:35

Things that make you go, hmm. I I got your back.

unknown 1:53:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1:53:38

Yeah. We'll we'll we'll figure it out. We'll write and rave together.

Speaker 2 1:53:41

They they uh wrote a letter. I mean uh uh what's it called?

Speaker 1:53:45

Resolution from the assembly.

Speaker 2 1:53:46

For the food for the pro food program to get the our rep to do something. We'll see what happens. You know. I see I mean I you know, I don't I don't I don't want to be the one in Haynes to get money from the borough. I don't because I've done it for so long without needing money from the borough, right? But things like that, that was a state thing that I'm getting punished for, I think the borough did a good job stepping in, you know. But I don't want if the borough starts giving money to child care providers, I don't want people to go, well, Kim's getting some of our tax dollars. And and you know, that's if there's more licensed people in town, I would be okay with it. But being the only one, I'm like, I don't think it's right, you know.

Speaker 1:54:31

Well the I I think I I didn't have a problem with them helping you with that based on the situation.

Speaker 2 1:54:39

And the 13 letters all my parents from way back. Ashley wrote one.

Speaker 1:54:44

Just the fact that that this is a program that it doesn't make sense why you're not getting it.

Speaker 3 1:54:50

Right.

Speaker 1:54:50

And to to kind of help carry through while we can continue to fight the battle of why is this happening. Give us a legitimate and if they can come up with a legitimate excuse other than it cost too much money to go to Haynes when there's we've just listed like four or five different alternatives on how they could do this. Like the people that are already coming here and spend even if it's a different program, yeah, it's they should be certified if they can judge whether the other food programs are adequate. Yeah, how hard is it for them to f to judge if your food program is adequate and your feed? They should be able to look as like, yeah, all the kids are getting fed, and this is the food that they're getting. Yep, that matches what's on the sheet.

Speaker 2 1:55:29

Yep.

Speaker 1:55:30

I think I could confirm that for them.

Speaker 2 1:55:32

Come on, I probably could.

Speaker 1:55:34

I don't have the right credentials, but I couldn't.

Speaker 2 1:55:36

Someone wants to start a nonprofit in town just so they can do it. It's like we don't need any more non-profits.

Speaker 1:55:40

We don't need any more nonprofits.

Speaker 2 1:55:41

We don't need another nonprofit, you know. I had uh Diane Sly, do you remember her? She I recognize the name. Yeah, uh, she's passed now. But she actually came and would come and do it. Okay. And Kim Phillips did it one time. They got they just got under the people in Juneau and they just paid her uh, you know, which which is fine.

Speaker 1:56:02

Why can't they keep having Kim come do it? She's still in town.

Speaker 2 1:56:05

She's still here, yeah. But it's not in out of Juneau anymore, it's out of Anchorage, you know.

Speaker 1:56:10

Shouldn't make any difference.

Speaker 2 1:56:11

It shouldn't. Yeah. It's I mean, I feed them good meals too.

Speaker 1:56:15

We need to rattle some cages.

Speaker 2 1:56:17

Yeah. Yeah. But what do you do?

Speaker 1:56:21

You start watching kids. Just keep plugging along.

Speaker 2 1:56:25

Yeah. Every day.

Speaker 1:56:27

So there's a lot there's a lot of ships out there that you can't turn quickly. It takes a long time to turn them around.

Speaker 2 1:56:33

They can't get to my house because of Piedad roads. Yeah. They can't come inspect the food program because of Piedad road.

Speaker 1:56:39

Uh.

Speaker 2 1:56:40

But yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 1:56:42

I've I've been involved with government enough to know that it it does not always move at the speed it needs to move. There's and that for a lot of it, there's a reason for that. You don't want them to move on certain things, you don't want them to move too hastily because you want the public to be involved and things like that.

Speaker 2 1:56:58

Um is a dog moving fast enough for you? Sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 1:57:05

But something like this, there should be a quick fix for that. Exactly. That should not take that much.

Speaker 2 1:57:11

Yeah. Especially because of the need of childcare in t in all in the U.S. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's reasonable rates, you know, it's just I don't know. One thing, one thing that was when I paid off my house is when they stopped taking away the food program.

Speaker 1:57:30

They gotten in with the banks and it's a good thing. And it's like, oh, you got extra extra cash.

Speaker 2 1:57:33

I'm like, oh, that was my retirement money. I wanted to start putting more in my retirement.

Speaker 1:57:37

And it's like extra cash, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:57:39

Yeah. Because I think I raised my rates 50 bucks.

Speaker 1:57:42

Yeah. You can't buy 50 bucks an hour.

Speaker 2 1:57:45

Yeah. I wish. 50 bucks a month.

Speaker 1:57:47

A month.

Speaker 2 1:57:48

Yeah. You know, so it just We'll see. We'll see what happens. But yeah.

Speaker 1:57:56

Keep keep pounding on the doors. Hopefully eventually. Keep writing letters. Figure out a way to change that.

Speaker 2 1:58:03

Yeah. But maybe the legislation will do something and they all they all know. Everybody knows.

Speaker 1:58:10

Well, you're hitting all the people that can make something happen. That's what I'm saying. Just keep keep reminding them.

Speaker 2 1:58:14

Yeah. I even had my parents writing Lisa Murkowski and all those people just to my parents are like, we we don't want you to cl you know, we don't want you to close down, you know.

Speaker 1:58:27

Are they worried you're gonna move in with them and they're gonna have to take care of you and don't have a job over there?

Speaker 2 1:58:31

Exactly. Yeah, that's probably it.

Speaker 1:58:33

You need to keep her busy up there.

Speaker 2 1:58:35

Yeah, it just yeah, it just doesn't make sense. I don't know. There's things that you can't control, so you just let them slide away.

Speaker 1:58:44

Let them slide away.

Speaker 2 1:58:45

Yeah, it's weird because since Jenae I've let a lot more things slide away. Is that it's weird that Well, I don't think it is weird.

Speaker 1:58:53

I think I think that's that's natural that certain things probably don't have the same importance that they did before. That exactly that something that you might have been like, oh my god, this is really this has got to be at the top of the list. Now it might be like, you know.

Speaker 2 1:59:08

Number eight, way down there.

Speaker 1:59:09

It's yeah, it's just you just go I do you do you notice there's a lot of things that kind of reprioritized in your life?

Speaker 2 1:59:16

Yeah, oh yeah. Things that really would piss me off before, I could care less anymore. Yeah. You know. Yeah. You just whatever. You know, I've like I've I've had some people that uh haven't reached out and stuff like that. And I'm just like, I don't have time. You know. And it's like what do you what do you do? You know, it's like you have a whole different way of seeing things now. Like I said, their things aren't as important, you know.

Speaker 1:59:55

But what are what are the things that uh are their things that bring you joy now?

Speaker 2 2:00:07

Traveling.

unknown 2:00:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:00:08

Getting out of town. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Uh I take off a lot more time than I used to. Yeah. But I'm like, okay, if someone had a job for 27 years, wouldn't you take off, you could get more paid hours off anyway, right? More more weeks off a year, you know.

Speaker 2:00:26

That's the way I see it. I'm talking to a private business owner. Talking to somebody that has a really hard time taking time off.

Speaker 2 2:00:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2:00:33

It's not that I can't.

Speaker 2 2:00:34

Right.

Speaker 2:00:35

It's just that I I don't I don't know what I would do.

Speaker 2 2:00:38

Yeah, that's my thing now.

Speaker 2:00:39

I like to Where do I go?

Speaker 2 2:00:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2:00:42

I don't know.

Speaker 2 2:00:42

Yeah, like I went down to Arizona just for three weeks, three and a half weeks just the other day, uh a couple months ago. And just to yeah, it was it's good to get out. I like doing that. I haven't found a lot of joy though.

Speaker 2:00:55

I don't I based on the conversation, yeah. I think there's still a lot of a lot of grieving and a lot of sorrow there. But I don't know if there's just like random things that the playground was joy, you know?

Speaker 2 2:01:08

It kept my brain going.

Speaker 2:01:09

You know, your your time with your friends, yeah. I could probably bring you some joy. I don't know if there's just like random things that it's that you're just like brings a big smile to your face if you uncover something with Jenae that's a really great memory that makes you really really smile, or when you Jeremy's doing something and seeing Jeremy happy has been great.

Speaker 2 2:01:29

Yeah, he's really in a good spot right now. Because he wasn't he wasn't in a good spot either.

Speaker 1 2:01:35

So yeah. But yeah.

Speaker 2 2:01:43

Yeah. Yeah. And Jenae and I really bonded because after I got divorced, and Jeremy was already off at school, right? So it was just me and Jenae, you know. Okay. And so that was a big, you know, it was just us at home.

Speaker 3 2:01:59

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 2:02:00

And so we really, we really bonded there. That was some good bonding years. So like Jeremy was only child for a while because of the seven years difference. And then uh then Jenae had her time after after he left. And so yeah. It's kind of sometimes I just like shake my head going, what I still it's still not clicks all the time, you know, that it happened. And it's almost six years, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's just I don't know.

Speaker 2:02:38

I think that's I I think I'm not a trained professional, Kim. Yeah. Well, thank God. But I'm getting I'm guessing that's normal.

Speaker 3 2:02:46

Yeah, it's gotta be normal.

Speaker 2:02:47

I think that's yeah, I think that's the way it is. With we I mean, it was just October, the lost dad, and there's still times that I'll be going up to the house and want to turn right to go because I'd always he a lot of times he'd be laying in the bedroom or something, or he'd be working on puzzles in the back room, and I'd like catch myself trying to go to one of those rooms because you know, still gonna be like a routine.

Speaker 2 2:03:10

It's just a routine, yeah. It's yeah. Grief is a bad is a weird thing, you know.

Speaker 3 2:03:16

It is.

Speaker 2 2:03:16

And it's you know, it's even even losing my mom and my dad was so different than when I lost Jenae, you know. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 2:03:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:03:32

But it's not that I don't love him anymore, you know, or any less than I did Jenae. But like you said before, losing a kid. That's just it's not supposed to happen. You know.

Speaker 2:03:45

Well, that was one of the um when Cesre and Kelly would come talk to us at the EOC, you know, they were circling their them and Riley were at the public safety building pretty much that whole week. Right. You know, and they'd come and check in and give us little breaks and tips and stuff, and one of them, and I think it's one that they helped type up and we put on Facebook about comparison of grief. Yeah. You know, just there's if there's if I remember correctly what they're telling us is you have one mother that lost three kids and another mother just loses one. Are you supposed to agree are you supposed to be feel three times as sorry for the one that lost three compared to lost one? The the grief is the same. Yeah. You've lost.

Speaker 3 2:04:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2:04:28

You know, it's it's and it it's gonna feel different became based on the relationship you have with them and time with them. But even though it feels differently, it's still grief.

Speaker 3 2:04:40

Right.

Speaker 2:04:40

And I don't I don't think you any of us need to compare it.

Speaker 2 2:04:45

Right.

Speaker 2:04:45

It just and it helps. Kind of work through like you said, find find people that you can talk to about it. Yeah. Find people you know you can get a hug, or just just spend time and and reminisce about those people.

Speaker 2 2:04:59

Right, yeah.

Speaker 2:05:00

Have those fun stories.

Speaker 2 2:05:01

Yeah, that's the story, yeah. And just I have a couple videos of Jenae actually talking, you know. And then yeah. It's pretty cool, you know, just to hear her voice and stuff. I still have all of her messages on my phone.

Speaker 3 2:05:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:05:18

And every time I get a new phone, I'm like, don't erase my text messages, you know.

Speaker 4 2:05:24

I need those, I need all those money. All of those need to come over.

Speaker 2 2:05:26

I need all those text messages to come off. And then my last text tour was get the hell off that mountain. Was it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:05:35

Yeah. So day by day.

Speaker 2 2:05:45

As they say, you know, some days it's two days forward, and then three days back, you know. I cried a lot. I don't know. But any more questions?

Speaker 2:06:03

I what what's what are you gonna do when you retire?

Speaker 2 2:06:09

Oh gosh.

Speaker 2:06:09

Is that kind of I don't know. You I think you alluded it to her earlier that maybe one of the reasons you're still doing the child care is because it gives you something, gives you a purpose. It helps you deal with it, helps you deal with this. But is there gonna come do you do you see a time coming that you're just like, yeah, this is this is providing very this is proving very beneficial for me to have this outlet and to be taking care of these kids and to be providing the service to families that maybe that comes to an end and you just need to do something else? And have you have you thought about that?

Speaker 2 2:06:42

Um I have a friend that send me thinking, oh, exit strategy, exit strategy. Some of them are really funny, and some of them are like, oh, that'd be kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, and I think that's why I'm still doing it. Still doing it? Yeah, because I it it's making me a good living, you know, and it it helps having I think it helps with the ki having the kids there. You know, some days it's it's tough. But I think it's just a way to see like when Jenae was that age. You know, it just helps that way.

Speaker 2:07:20

Keep doing it as long as you can.

Speaker 2 2:07:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2:07:23

If it if it if it makes you a good living and it gives you some therapy at the same time.

Speaker 2 2:07:27

Yeah, and I can get out whenever I need to. Yeah. You know.

Speaker 2:07:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:07:33

So I'll just keep doing it.

Speaker 2:07:37

Well, I know I know a lot of people are very happy that you are the the the ones that you're able to get into you can't care, yeah, are very happy. Are more happy there than the other ones? The other ones might not be as happy with you that can't get their kids into you, but hopefully we can figure out a way to get somebody else to step up to the plate and start taking some kids as well.

Speaker 2 2:07:55

And yeah, because everybody, you know, when they ask me, they what made you do it? And it's like, I just didn't want Jenae in a uh mobile home. You know, that's the only reason I did it.

Speaker 2:08:09

I have a hard time in mobile homes. Yeah. Because of that, right after our fire at our house, we stayed in Jones's travel trailer, and the rain on the roof sounded like fire. Oh the bouncing off of it. And ever since then, anytime I'm in some in some travel trailer, mobile home, something like that, and it's raining, and yeah, I hear that. I just I'm very unsettled and anxious. It's it's not a comfortable thing for me.

Speaker 3 2:08:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2:08:33

So nothing against them. It's just it just makes it just makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 2:08:38

And I I yeah, that's same with me. It was just my friend was in a fire.

Speaker 2:08:44

Yep.

Speaker 2 2:08:44

And it's yeah, and it's weird how things like that's when I was in third grade. Yeah, I was young too when that happened.

Speaker 2:08:51

47 years ago. Yeah, and it's still 48 years ago, and it still freaks me out when I'm it's still something in the back of my mind that I'd so I've I've never had a camper, I've never had a trail, I've never had anything like that. I've never had a desire to, and I think it goes back to that. Yeah, it's crazy how those things that form when we're young stick with us for so long.

Speaker 2 2:09:11

Yeah, I used to have a thing that I hate backing up because we had a boat.

Speaker 2:09:16

Yeah, and backing the boat down the ramp was always such a stressful situation from with were you having some uh coaches that might have been that were not being very kind. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 2:09:33

And uh yeah, so I still backing up still is in my head, you know. I don't why do I have to back a trailer down, right?

Speaker 2:09:44

It it should be in my head more than it is when this is bad, but it just came to mind. Well, I was in high school, junior, senior, probably junior year. My dad had bought this big flatbed truck from um Harold Horton, I think, and steak truck, and I we're using it for all sorts of different things. And I it must have been my senior year because I had sold my pickup, so that's the truck that I was driving around town and stuff. I'd drive to school, and Ralph would come over to visit Sarah and you know, DeWitt's house with the big porch on the front and off the side. So Ralph a lot of times would park up behind there, and usually that's where we would back up. And so I was leaving the house. I was like, Ralph, are you parked up alongside the house? And he goes, Yep. I still back up and just don't get right into it. And then place the hood of his truck and everything because it was high enough and just put a crease in it. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 2:10:37

And then he even told you it was there.

Speaker 2:10:40

He told me it was there, and I was like, I'm surprised he still wanted to get married into our family. He's like, Man, I told my future brother-in-law that his truck was there and he still backed into me. What's he trying to tell me?

Speaker 4 2:10:50

Things like that. But it's one of those other I think it's like, God dang it, how stupid can you get?

Speaker 2:10:55

Right. But yeah, and asked, I asked, and he told me that it was there, and I still backed into it. That cost me a few hundred dollars to repair the hood.

Speaker 2 2:11:04

You got a good brother-in-law, so that's all worth it.

Speaker 2:11:06

I I yeah, I did get end up with a great brother-in-law, and I'm surprised based on what's going on.

Speaker 4 2:11:10

But you're putting it trashed. Was he bad?

Speaker 2:11:14

Uh, he he was he probably was. He didn't show it as much as I probably would have if somebody did that to me. He was looking back on it, he was much more gracious about it than I would have been at that point in my life.

Speaker 3 2:11:27

Oh. Yeah. Good for him.

Speaker 2:11:29

But yeah, we ordered another one, and I think his dad and him were able to put the hood on. It didn't, I don't think it did anything to the grill or anything like that. It was just the hood that had to be replaced.

Speaker 2 2:11:38

Did you have to paint it?

Speaker 2:11:39

So they had to get it painted and stuff. Yeah. Wow. But yeah.

Speaker 2 2:11:45

Things that stick in your head that are you're like, wow.

Speaker 2:11:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:11:49

Backing up a trailer. Who would have thought?

Speaker 2:11:52

I hadn't thought about that for years until you talk about, well, I got a back it up story that wasn't all that good. Yeah. Because if the first time that I have her backed a trailer up. A guy from Fairbanks would come down all the time in the summertime. He was a can't remember if he was at the high school or if he was at the college. We'd come down in the spring to go in June to go trolling for kings on the Chilkat side. I had just gotten my driver's license and he'd pull his bay liner down with his RV, but he didn't, with the old ramp out at Letnikof, he didn't want to back his the boat in with his RV. He wanted something with a little more power. So my dad would usually take the truck out there and back it in for him. And he came into the store. My dad was busy, said, Doug, haul his boat out there and put it in the water for him. I'm like, I haven't backed a trailer down before. I haven't done any of this. No, no, no, you'll be fine.

Speaker 4 2:12:44

It's hard. Well, this is somebody else's boat.

Speaker 2:12:49

It's this nice bay liner that he's got on there. The first time I'm back in a trailer, some the guy was really nice. I was like, this isn't even our family. This isn't like a small trailer, flatbed, or anything like this. Some guy's boat.

Speaker 3 2:13:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2:13:02

And he's worried to make sure. So I was just like white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Everything went fine. But then each year, I was the one that put his boat in.

Speaker 2 2:13:11

And the boat, yeah, after that. But I got a I did not enjoy that at all.

Speaker 2:13:15

The first time I got back, I was like, Dad, what the heck are you thinking? It was a good learning experience for you.

Speaker 2 2:13:18

Yeah, like three years ago, someone taught me instead of holding the steering wheel up here when you're backing down, down at the bottom. It's the same as yeah. I'm like, oh, good. So hopefully next time I back a boat down a ramp, I'll know how to do it.

Speaker 2:13:34

Maybe that's what we should do. We should get you a boat.

Speaker 2 2:13:35

Let's do it.

Speaker 2:13:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:13:37

God knows.

Speaker 2:13:37

Let's keep him a boat.

Speaker 2 2:13:38

Yeah, I could do daycare on a boat. Well, there's you can't kick it.

Speaker 2:13:43

The boat isn't 24-7. Or the daycare isn't 24-7. That's true. So that could be your stress reliever at night and on the weekends.

Speaker 3 2:13:50

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:13:51

Everybody that owns a boat will say, yeah, that's the perfect stress reliever. It's actually stress enhancer. Yeah, it's having a boat.

Speaker 2 2:13:57

The boat's a cheap part. It's all the stuff you have to get for the boat, right?

Speaker 2:14:00

Yes. Yeah, the downs, everything. Well, you can't. Well, actually, this year we can troll for kings. Oh, they have it.

Speaker 2 2:14:08

Wow. That has been a long time.

Speaker 2:14:09

It's been a long time. It's been at least 10 years.

Speaker 2 2:14:11

I did the derby for what 10 years, I think. I was in charge of the derby.

Speaker 2:14:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:14:15

Yeah. That's where. It's a long time. Glad it's opening up again.

Speaker 2:14:20

All right. We'll get we'll we'll work on getting Kim a boat. That'll be her moment of joy of cussing as she's trying to back her boat down to the launch.

Speaker 2 2:14:27

Oh, I think I was too much stress from that.

Speaker 2:14:34

I need a paddle boat so I don't have to back it out. Take your mind off everything else. You'd be focused on backing the boat trailer down. It'll tell Henry not to give you a slip at the so you have to back it down every time.

Speaker 2 2:14:45

And Henry would go, okay. Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good.

Speaker 2:14:49

Well it'll be our therapy for Kim. She's got a boat to back down.

Speaker 2 2:14:52

Cesre, I can't come to you.

Speaker 2:14:54

I can't come to you. I got to back the boat.

Speaker 2 2:14:55

I got the boat.

Speaker 2:14:56

If you want to come over, you can watch me back down. Let's go on the boat. We can have our therapy sessions.

Speaker 2 2:15:01

I took one of your reps out on the boat one time, I remember, and he gave me oakleys. Oh, yeah, the oakley guy. Yeah, the oakly guy. Yeah, he gave me some couple pairs of oakleys. I don't think he caught any fish on that boat either. So it was the fun it was fun though.

Speaker 2:15:13

Fun times. Yeah. You can go you can you can go out fishing and not catch something and still have a good time.

Speaker 2 2:15:19

Still have a good time. Yeah. That's true. Just to be out on the boat.

Boats, Crab Pots, And Closing Thoughts

Speaker 2:15:23

Just to be out outside. Yeah. Be out fishing.

Speaker 2 2:15:25

You know what I really don't like? I know this is going to sound weird, but I don't like it when I look when I'm up at the slide. And I see crab pots out there.

Speaker 3 2:15:34

Oh. I don't like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:15:37

Right there. I don't like that at all. I can understand that. I say a few bad words every once in a while. But yeah.

Speaker 2:15:43

See if you had a boat, you could pull the pots and you can dump them. You can dump them somewhere else.

Speaker 2 2:15:47

There you go. Good idea. Okay, let's get a boat.

Speaker 2:15:50

Let's get a boat. We're gonna know. If we do this, people are gonna know who took the pot. Yeah, who puts the pot. Even the trooper. They're like, oh my god. She said it on the video.

Speaker 2 2:15:59

We got proof. We can edit it out. We can thank you.

Speaker 2:16:02

We'll just get we'll have somebody else buy the boat and we'll just take their boat and go pull them.

Speaker 2 2:16:06

But you would think something like that wouldn't bother someone, but no, I can see I can totally see how. It's like, oh, there's crab pots out there. What the heck?

Speaker 2:16:14

Yeah, no, I can see how that would bother someone.

Speaker 2 2:16:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2:16:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:16:19

Yeah. That was maybe upsetting. And it's they're still there. Every year they're there. Every year they're there. They don't care. They don't care.

Speaker 2:16:26

Well, they probably don't know. Before the slide it was a good crabbing area. So um Yep.

Speaker 2 2:16:31

It's still probably a good crabbing area.

Speaker 2:16:33

Yeah. I don't think I don't think people think about that when they're setting a crab pot.

Speaker 2 2:16:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2:16:39

So if you know anyone who does, say hey, maybe maybe they'll watch this and they'll excuse me.

Speaker 2 2:16:44

If you're we'll see if there's yeah.

Speaker 2:16:46

When you go out there, there's a buffer now around that area.

Speaker 2 2:16:50

There's no crab potential around there. Yeah.

Speaker 2:16:52

Crab pot free zone.

Speaker 2 2:16:54

Are you gonna try to get Randy?

Speaker 2:16:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:16:57

That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. When he comes up this summer. Yeah, he'll be up this summer. Yeah. Oh, that'd be good.

Speaker 2:17:01

I'd like to have him sit down and I didn't I I never met him before the slide.

Speaker 3 2:17:07

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:17:08

I didn't I didn't know Randy before the slide.

Speaker 3 2:17:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2:17:11

Met him after. We were we were actually just taking a break at the uh from the EOC and just went outside the assembly chambers there and he was walking by and he had an Olerud's Market Center sweatshirt on.

Speaker 4 2:17:22

You're like, oh my sweatshirt.

Speaker 2:17:25

And then he introduced himself and uh yeah, and then he he sent me the last picture he had of David, which was he and he had been talking to him earlier that day and had Olerud's Market Center because he would work for a set sort of sweatshirt on in his picture, and it was the last picture he'd gotten from David.

Speaker 2 2:17:42

Oh that's cool. Yeah, the first time I met him was uh he came in with my family on the ferry terminal. Oh, on the ferry? Yeah, that's the first time we met at the ferry terminal. It was the first time I met him. Him and uh David's friend was with him. Yeah. So but yeah, it was yeah.

Speaker 2:18:00

Yeah, I was I reach out to Randy a f a few times a year, and it's we always connect when he's here. Oh yeah. Usually go out and sit on the deck there with him and kind of just look out there, look out at the space and just be in the space.

Speaker 2 2:18:14

Yeah. It's cool that he's built that little deck out there in the fire pit. I mean like I think I've been here one year. I was it one year or two years. And then we go and set the fire, we have a fire on the second out there, and we let off blue uh the lanards. We've done that a couple times. We did that huge lantern thing what six months after the slide happened. That was pretty cool. But yeah, yeah. I always try to do one on a birthday or something. Keep it going. You know. She loved to do them. We almost caught my aunt and uncle's house. The trees on fire in Kansas, because I guess they're illegal in Kansas. Well, that's probably that could be why. Yeah, and yeah, caught a tree on fire there. So that was yeah, that's kind of kind of a fun thing to a memory that we I try to keep doing.

Speaker 2:19:05

So yeah. Anything else?

Speaker 2 2:19:11

I think I'm good.

Speaker 2:19:12

You're good? Yeah, I'm good. I appreciate you joining us, Kim. Thank you, and sharing everything.

Speaker 3 2:19:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2:19:17

And I hope people I hope people out there that might be going through grief or trauma or something can learn a little something from you.

Speaker 2 2:19:26

And I won't charge them.

Speaker 2:19:28

You won't charge them? It's free. It's free, free advice. Yeah, if they need some advice. I and I'm not a professional at anything, yeah. So I can't charge them any. So anything it's and you get what you pay for.

Speaker 2 2:19:39

Exactly. Yeah. If it's bad for it, I you can pay anything for it. You don't have to pay anything for it, it's free. So it's all good. But yeah.

Speaker 2:19:47

But no, I th I think the way that you've handled everything um since the slide has just been with such grace and dignity and strength that I've just been really impressed with the way that you've carried on. I know, like I said, I know you got you got a lot of people behind you, but just because you have a lot of people behind you, there's you gotta have a lot of that personal strength yourself. And uh even before that, and especially just what you give to the community in so many ways over the years with your volunteer stuff and taking care of the kids. And um we're lucky we're lucky to have you in hand.

Speaker 2 2:20:34

Oh thank you.

Speaker 2:20:36

Glad you're here.

Speaker 2 2:20:37

Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it's you know, it's a different I put on a face. Uh you know, but it's still there.

Speaker 2:20:47

Oh, it's always gonna be there. It's always gonna be there.

Speaker 2 2:20:52

For sure. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Kim. Yes, yes, yes.