The Hangout Podcast - Episode 7 - Loren Anderson

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Hey Mind, how you doing? This is uh Cory Long and Christine Stanley again. And we're awesome to be back here. Yes. Yes, yeah. And uh, you know, we have a very um cool individual. Um, you know, he's a he's a he's a uh person that is uh been in this community for quite a few years, and uh he's uh he's uh he's a friend of mine. And I want to introduce Lauren Anderson. Well done. Welcome, Lauren. Welcome, Lauren. Hi guys. And uh Lauren, you know, um, you know, really the I guess the the the to how I got introduced to Lauren is uh he's a shriner and I'm a shriner. And uh every shriner is a mason, but not every mason is a shriner. Correct, correct. And uh, you know, uh Lauren has helped out uh immensely with the uh with the minute shrine club. Um he's uh were you a shriner uh back in Michigan? Yes, I was. Yep, yep. So you've been a shriner for quite a few years. Yep, yep. And uh, but before all that, before all the you know, um, you know, Lauren, you grew up here in North Dakota, correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

After I was we moved here in 1946. Okay. I was five years old.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, you were born out in California Cali.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Bakersfield, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Bakersfield, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I remember the Navy dirigibles blimpse. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Uh around the cities, around the coastal cities, had big cables hanging down from them to uh prevent the Japanese zeroes from dive bombing the coastal cities in California. It was amazing. We're talking about World War II. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Yeah, yes, yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Wow I was born five months before World War II was by uh May 12th, it was my birth date. December 7th was Pearl Harbor.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Okay, my mom was born in 41 too, right? Yep, June, yeah, okay. So Lauren, um you so you guys moved up here to North Dakota in, like you said, 1946, and you guys started farming then or my father bought two farms in 1946.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Okay. Because my mother was from here. Okay, that's a connection. I was wondering, okay. And she had two older sisters that were had already gone through nurses training and they were both nurses in California. And when she finished high school, they said, come on out here. Mind you, that was right after the that was a terrible drought in North Dakota, so that would have been like uh, you know So it wasn't just the dirty 30s that were bad.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

It was also came into the 20s and 30s, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah. So um, so everything was, you know, a disaster up here. The cows were eating thistles and whatever they could get. Okay. Yeah. So she went out to California. My father had immigrated from Sweden, and it stopped in Wyoming. He had two uncles out there from Sweden. There were both big ranchers out there. They both had big ranchers. Yeah. They both had a son, my father's age, so he had two cousins out there, his age. Oh, nice. And what happened is the Wood River Diversion Project came through, you know, like Garrison Dam in the 60s, late 50s, 60s. Um they took the his two uncles' ranches by eminent domain and flooded them in the Wood River Diversion Project. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

They were too old to start out and buy new ranches. So when the government bought them out, they both bought to uh homes in town. One moved to Casper, one moved to Riverton. And the three boys, my father and his two cousins, went to California to work. Okay. That was prior to World War to Yeah, World War II. Yep, yeah, yeah. Which wasn't World War II until well, World War I was not World War I until World War II. World War I was never called World War I, it was called the Great War. The Great War, yeah. Okay. And then after the war with Japan and Germany, uh, which were the majority from WW one to two. So they changed it from the Great War to World War I, World War II. Okay. That's how that came about. Okay. And there was no Air Force back then in World War II. It was the Army Air Corps. Army Air Corps. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

Wow. So no, I was gonna say so so you got got here at five years old then.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

And you remember, and I was fascinated. We had a team of horses, we had uh a horse-drawn lawnmower, we had the horse-drawn lawnmower.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

What is that about? Wait, what's that like? That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

It's a big mower with a seat on it and a big sickle bar, and the team of horses uh pulling.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

We need to bring that back out. Yeah, that's like fun. Right. Oh yeah. Oh my goodness. You ever you ever ride that? Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

That's it. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I drove a tractor when I was five years old. Oh my god. Yeah. I mean, things you could, you know, they catch you doing that today, right? You know, it's crazy what they won't let kids do today. But yeah, I drove tractors when I was five years old, believe it or not. It took all my strength to get a clutch ended to release my gosh, oh, okay. I couldn't drive a foot clutch factor, couldn't reach it. But a lever clutch I could drive, but I couldn't hook up and unhook implements, you know, it was too heavy. And so where were you farming out from for just north of here? It was rural Max Math. Rural mouth highway five. We had land on both sides of Highway 5. Okay. And then we also had a a smaller fire bump by Antler.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

But we had like uh In Antler, we're talking like just uh two or three miles from the Canadian border.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And uh Antler wasn't called Antler until 19. I would say Well, I'm not sure of the date, but I'd say probably 1912. Oh wow, in there some time because it used to be called Dockhand D-O-K-K-E-N. And Olaf Dockend was my mother's father. Okay. He founded the town of Dockund and opened a post office.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

And he would take a team of horses and uh depending on the season, uh, summertime it was a buggy and the web tablet, a sled, a sleigh, and uh pick up the mail. I think he's twice a week and bring it back to Dockett.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Um he finally decided farming was a lot more lucrative. Yeah. Started purchasing land and farming, and somebody else took over the post office. There was a creek up there on the Canadian border called Adler Creek. Okay. And eventually the settlement moved toward that creek.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

Like that makes sense. Yeah, they want to get closer to the water, supply water.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah. That makes sense. All towns or cities, if you look at them, they were by a river or whatever, by the ocean or by water. So anyway, it moved up there, and the name was changed to Antler, North Dakota. But I still have a state, official state map stating the town of Dock and Antler is on the map, its original map, it's Dock and BFA and Dock and Grandfather. Which was my grandfather's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

Yeah. That is so cool. Yeah. Because he established the post office, he was able to very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

That is very interesting. And there's still some concrete foundation left there. That's all there is.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

Oh my goodness. But you don't have any um like property up there anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Not anymore. Not anymore. Okay. Wow, what a fascinating story. Cool. That is cool. So, Lauren, uh, you know, you you farmed up there and then uh basically you graduate high school. Where'd you graduate from? Graduated from Max Mass High School. Max Mass High School, which is no longer there.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah. But just to note on the farm, I still in my safe deposit box, I still have a canceled check for $15,000 cash. Yeah. Or a check. Yeah. Yeah. But for $15,000, my father came up here never borrowed a penny to buy it, purchase that lab. And I still have the canceled check in my post office by uh by a security box, money box. Yeah. And it's from the 40s, of course. Yeah. And it's got the old little tiny perforations. They used to cancel checks with perforation brain.

SPEAKER_05 9:45

Oh, so it's got that feel on it.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

I mean, they would send them to Minneapolis or Chicago to cancel a check and then it's not written with there were no ballpoint pens back then.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

So was it like a feather tip of some sort?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

It was called an indelible pencil. Oh. Indelible pencil. And it wasn't lead, it was I don't know the material, but old old farmers always carried indelible pencils, or there were bib overalls and a checkbook. You tell a farmer he always had a checkbook in his bimbo rolls and indelible pencil. And many of them would, when they wrote a check, they would lick that lead activate it kind of. Because it was, yeah, it was a purple lead. But the reason they used it, it was called indelible pencil because you couldn't erase it. It was really hard.

SPEAKER_05 10:42

So once you signed it, you're done. It's signed. Yeah. It's done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

And I still have that check that's cool. I love that pencil. Yeah. And then, you know, from there, then uh I grew up uh in Garrison Dam was a big thing that happened in North Dakota when I was a child. Okay. I attended the last rodeo there was in Sanish, North Dakota.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

And my father made sure to go to that because he'd been in Wyoming and was, you know, real fond of rodeos, that kind of thing. Well, he made sure he took the family down to Sanish, see the last rodeo before the Davis. So who doesn't know what Sanish is? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

There's a reason that there's Newtowns called Newtown. It's because Sanish, they so the garrison diversion happened. Sanish is underwater. Sanish is underwater, so which would be roughly right around the uh, if I'm not mistaken, Lauren. Correct me if I'm wrong, but right around the uh Four Bears Casino area, correct?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

On this side of the river, yeah. On this side of the river. Well, when you look over the bridge to the right? Yeah. Yeah, before you get to the bridge, look down to the right. There's an outlook there. You can pull your car up.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

Uh-huh. Yeah, I've seen that.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

You look down at Sandy's. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

Yes. I remember you mentioned that before, but I didn't realize. So you went to the last rodeo there before they flooded it. What year was that then? That was like the 60s?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

50s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Okay. Yeah. So Lauren, uh, you you grew you grew up on the farm and then you you you tended the farm and then you graduated high school from uh Max Bass, right? Yes. And then what'd you do after that? Where'd you you ended up going to college and majoring in?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Majored in uh English and teaching education. Okay. My first degree.

SPEAKER_06 12:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

And uh so I went to college. I wanted a farm. Yeah. You wanted a farm?

SPEAKER_06 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Okay. I had a girlfriend. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to get married and take over the farm? Yeah. And my father informed me, yeah, sure, you can take over the farm. Come back here in four years with a bachelor's degree. Any any discipline you want. We had a degree in anything. See, that's for you, apparently. Right. You can have the farm. Yeah. Or you could take over the farm. Because my brother had already graduated at and moved. He'd uh gone out to well, he was working at the University of Minnesota at the time. So I thought, wow, I could farm. The uh story behind that is after my father's death, and both my parents were deceased uh due to doctor's mistakes. I probably shouldn't say that, but it's true. Yeah. And both of them told me, you know, that they'd made a mistake. And it was unheard of to sue a doctor back in the forties and fifties. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

But do you think it was a whirl thing too? Was it like lack of good care or was it?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Uh well, the doctor forgot to give him blood thitter, forgot to give him a cumulative after surgery. So my father died of numerous, numerous blood bloods.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

I get it.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

The country doctor that came out to our home to check my father uh went to the morgue with him. And uh he called me up. Um my mother's sister had come out to get her, and I didn't want to go into town. I wanted to stay on the farm and watch over things. And uh the phone rang and I ran in the house to answer the phone. It was the old country doctor, his name was Dr. Greed out of West Hope. And he said, Billy, my middle name is William, but as a kid they always called me Billy Anderson, Bill Anderson and uh the doctor called me up and said, Billy, your father was polluted with blood clots and it took me a long time to get over because I was still in high school. Yeah. It was a tragic, tragic death for me to lose my father at that age. Um I wanted to, you know, I was really disgusted with doctors for a long time. Thankfully, I survived it and grew out of it, but uh I had some tough years there. I really did. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

But uh so he fooled you into getting a for your degree.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So yeah, you get a foyer. My mother, after he passed away, my mother we'd laugh about that because she said he knew there was no way you were gonna come back and farm when you got a college degree. Right. Right. Oh, it's funny. And my father had only third-grade education, share a suite.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

So he knew that Lauren Anderson had it in him to get that degree.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

And then he wanted to make sure you were first generation then with college education.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Oh, brother, and then you.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah. Yep. So sometimes fooling is a good thing. Sometimes for the right reasons, maybe. For the right reasons, right, right. Yeah. Yep, yep. Well, it was a good push. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

So then what was next after the degree? What did you end up doing then?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Uh I taught for three years in Grad Forks, and I um had a professor who had been a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. And he recommended me for a institute there. There were sixty-eight of us, I think, from all over the United States.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

And uh was it a special program or something?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah. Nice. So uh he recommended me and I got contacted and I got a full scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_05 16:58

Wow, that's fantastic. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And uh everybody hated Pittsburgh, all my classmates there. I loved it.

unknown 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

It's a different type of town than North Dakota. I definitely say that.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

It had to me it had a lot more personality than um Philadelphia or Boston.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Was it a little bit more edgier, if you will, a little bit more like, you know. I don't know. There was the working class.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

The geography or yeah, it was a steel town. Steel to the late art town.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah, it's a labor town. So they did then you got the working class out there.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Oh there's rivers there. Yeah, and the and the and the landscape's a little different too. A little hilly, but not so much. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, and this very green. The three rivers, the uh Manon Gehila, the uh Ohio. Well, the Monongahila and uh what is the other river that comes into Pittsburgh, and they too form the Ohio River that goes on down to Ohio over to uh Mississippi. But yeah, it's there's a triangle there downtown called the Golden Triangle in Pittsburgh. But yeah, I really enjoyed Pittsburgh. Restaurants were tops in the world.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah. But um, and then I would come back and uh visit, and that's when I first started going to Medora was uh after high school and after I'd been at Pitt. Um you do a lot of work, volunteer work with Medora.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

I do now, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot. And we'll get into that. It's probably one of the things we're gonna wrap up with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh, but but uh so you're you're living in Pittsburgh, you are you you are you're going to school in Pittsburgh. Yep. Yep. And then you graduate from there again.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Graduate from Pitt, then I go to Chicago. Yeah. And uh I had some really interesting things happen in Chicago. I don't know if you I I started out at Joliet. Oh Joliet, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:07

That's outside of the main hub, yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah. And uh I had some um seems like I always got involved in really um how should I say things that needed straightening out or things that needed uh some help. So uh cleaning things up, I think. Yeah, cleaning things up. I think I'll have that. Yeah. The Juliet was another labor town. Okay, yeah. Right next to Frankfurt, Illinois, which is Frankfurt and Lockport. And uh those are right on the Chicago River. So which flows backwards. Okay, anyway, um the uh I was in the system there, it was called Julia Township High School and Community College. Okay. Instead of grades you know, one through twelve, they had one through fourteen. So uh Julia Township High School and Community College. Oh, I see, okay. Yeah at that time they were um I guess it's okay to talk about, they were uh when they expelled a student, if it was a white student, they got a written note from the superintendent. You have to bring your parents back within three days or you get an automatic expulsion.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

When they when they uh suspended a black student, you never got a written notice.

SPEAKER_04 20:51

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And after three days of suspension, they were expelled.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

They just expelled them.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

Wow. So the parents even had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

So you're talking about cleaning things up, Lauren. So then essentially what you're getting at is you want to explain the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

What happened? I found out about this because there were four deeds in that system. And I never seen four deeds for deeds for a high school and community college before. But they were all really rough on the on the black students except one dean. He was uh of German descent. And he and I became friends and he told me a lot of what was going on with the deeds. So I was in my office, I was a counselor. I was approached by uh three gentlemen, black gentlemen came to my office and really, really started harassing me verbally. Uh this in the 70s, sorry, the seventies. And yeah, there was a lot of racial tension around the civil rights movement was going on. Exactly. That's what Chicago or um well yeah, Chicago, but Detroit was burned. Pittsburgh was burned. Yeah, right at the heart of it. The X and I was University of Michigan was shut down by Black Action Movement. Right. Wow. Totally shut down. Um amazing. And this is exactly that time, 6970.

SPEAKER_05 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So these three gentlemen started really pushing me. And I thought, what are you blaming me for? You know, I'm the only friend you have. So they kept on and on. And finally I stood up at my desk. I slapped the desk. And boom, you know what? You I've seen you do it. And I was mad. Yeah. You know, I think I might have cussed. And I said, I'm the only friend you have here. Yeah. And uh blah, blah, blah, whatever. That's I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one guy looked at the other two and he started laughing. And he looked at the other two. He said, See, I told you they were testing me. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

All they were doing was testing me. That's crazy. Yeah. I love it though.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Because they wanted, they came to you because they they they saw something that hey, I think uh Mr. Anderson, being the counselor, could help them out with a situation going on. Exactly. Yeah, looking for help.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

So anyway, um they talked to me a little bit, and this is something like you'll hear from us or something. Sure. Anyway, they had a big boycott. All the black students, the black parents boycotted the school, they wouldn't let their kids come to school. They um they met downtown in City Hall. Yep. And they said, We're gonna sit here with our student with our children, but they're not going to school until we get this resolved. Well, they refused to talk to the superintendent because he was the one that was creating the problem. Right. So a police cruiser pulls up to the school and two policemen come to my office. Could you come with that spleen, Mr. Anderson? I said, now what?

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Oh my goodness. You didn't expect that, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah. So they explained to me, they said the blacks are assembled, they won't talk to the superintendent. They said they demanded to talk to you. Wow. So they escorted me downtown. Yeah. Escort me into the city hall, I guess for my safety or whatever, which I didn't need.

SPEAKER_06 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Because uh the blacks watched over my car wherever I parked downtown, man. Somebody was lost over and right, right, right. You're helping. You're helping. Yep. So anyway, I told him that I said, look, I'm a counselor. I can't solve your problems. I said we could talk about them. Yeah. Right. Yes. So anyway, uh I said you're the voice though. Yeah. Yes. I said you'd have to talk to the superintendent. So finally they agreed, and then uh the superintendent came down. A month after this happened. Yep. And I was under a lot of pressure. Sure. I I can only imagine. Yep. Uh a the deputy superintendent of public instruction from Springfield, Illinois came into my office. Mr. Anderson, you are not safe here. This Sunday, I want you to go to Arlington Heights and hand me a slip of paper with a gentleman's name and phone number. Right. He said, this Sunday you are to call this man. And what happened? They they tripled my salary and sent me up to Arlington Heights. Sure. And I was relieved and and felt very blessed. But I only stayed up there one year because then I had a scholarship to the University of Michigan for doctoral studies. So I stayed there one year and left. But it was quite a uh it was quite an experience in Joliet. I'll never forget it. Right. And word got around because I was dating a model from Chicago, and one of her girlfriends had a her father was uh warden of the Joliet, you know, there's a famous Joliet. Right. It and look the and Flu's brothers were from there, weren't they? Yeah. Yeah. So um my girlfriend, I guess, was telling her about this, and uh she said, Oh, my father heard about that there. They cleaned up the They cleaned up, yeah. They helped basically expose, if you will, there was something wrong there. Because they were going through the same thing in the prison. They said had the same kind of racial parameter. So that she said, Therefore, you were a petty man guy? She asked me about it. Yeah, and I hadn't even told her about it. She heard it from my girlfriend, sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

But anyway, it was I was extending the olive branch to be a good person, if you will. Essentially, what with they came to you and said, Hey, we got a problem here, and they and you helped them out, and you sh you you exposed it, if you will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I felt good about it because uh I didn't I grew up in North Dakota, and the actually the only black I had contact with was at University of North Dakota. We had a couple uh football players that blacks too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

But I didn't grow up in any kind of racial uh so you weren't even exposed to that experience until that more that pivotal moment right there. Exactly. That's see, that's it. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

You saw you didn't see the the color of people, you just you just saw the human.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Humanity, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's yeah. Wow, that's that's really important. So then you got a scholarship after that. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

It's your third university now. Third university. Third university. You all you want to do is work on a farm.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

You got the scholarship now to University of Michigan, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I had one to Pitt and then one to Michigan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Is that the is that the blue and yellow one? University of Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah. Wolverine.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Wolverine. So there we go. So you're a Wolverine. Do you want to tell us what kind of degree you got then?

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Well, I got a uh degree in uh basically psychology and business, and uh from there I went into teaching uh business. There was some interest in universities at the time, like there is in high schools now, of taking your experience into consideration if you admitted visits. And I hadn't by that time I owned several properties in Ann Arbor. I remember you telling me that you you owned a lot of uh rental properties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. And at that time, I don't know why, but uh well Donald Trump was big, uh Harry Helmsley in uh in New York City, Harry Helmsley was big. Uh the um Empire State Building. Yep, yep. Okay, and I use these examples in some of my classes. Uh people don't realize how complicated real estate can be, and the Empire State Building was built on leased land. On leased land. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Is that is that how does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Never even heard that before. It gets complicated. Prudential insurance company owned the land. Okay. Okay. Okay, and when the uh Harry Houndsley was a very successful real estate broker in New York City, along with uh Fred Trump, Donald Trump's mother. Okay. He was married to a lady who was a realtor. I believe Harry's first wife died, and he married Leona Helmsley. Well, yeah, she became Leona Helmsley, of course, but uh I forget her maiden name. But they got married, and she was a very uh, I want to say, I'll just be mild, ambitious radio. Yeah. And she developed a hotel chain called Harley Hotels. Okay. They own a mansion up in Connecticut that were just like Connecticut's a very uh wealthy state.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

It's very expensive to live there. I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Go to Connecticut and the Broadway actors. Connecticut is uh They hate to train into the city.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

They live up in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Exactly. Yep. And they stay out of the traffic, but traffic between Connecticut and Yeah. Gridlock. Don't. I was there recently. Not fun. I've never been there. It's unbelievable. I've got a story about that during that time. But uh Leona Helmsley uh started I don't know if she was competing with her husband with Harry, but Harry was getting old. And uh so she opened up this hotel change and owning this beautiful mansion, she would have a lot of landscape stuff delivered and building material delivered, and any remodeling she wanted to do in any room in her mansion would come from New York City and it would be billed to a hotel. Interesting, yeah. Which is illegal.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

Yep. And passing her personal work through the business.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Exactly. Yeah, gotcha. It wasn't there was no information out here. Like in New York, you get news that other parts of the world don't even pay attention. Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

Before the internet.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can look up Leona Helmsley, but she became world famous after she made the phrase only the little people pay taxes. Right. And the IRS happened to hear that and started doing some investigation. They thought, oh, Leona, you've uh charged this off. They investigated her mad, so you've charged this off to your hotels and this and that. And so I forget if she spent a little bit of time in prison or if she bought her way out of it. But um that came to kind of a bad end, and then Harry died.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

But uh So back to the the Empire State Building, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's essentially they were on leased land you were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was up uh you know, I think it that lease was up in 2014, I'm pretty sure the lease. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

This was like a hundred years lease or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Uh wasn't a hundred years, but uh something, something long.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

And Harry built that place, and it was built, you know, in a year and two two or three days.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

To hear that type of Yeah, with all the modern building materials, all the you know, huge machinery today. They could never build that building in a year today. Right. No. And like the Alaska Highway, they could never build that in a year like they had the 40s. Right. We we have grown to the point where we're choking ourselves in regulation, useless regulations, and you know, I'm for control when it is for the good of people, but when you use regulations to get money or gain control, or you know, especially control for people, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

Red tape, all that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

It's not good. It's corruption.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Yeah, leads to corruption. Yep. So back to the university, the Wolverines. Uh you end up getting a degree there, and then you end up teaching. And then from teaching, uh I believe you taught there for a couple years, right? Was it there?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Or yeah, more than that. Okay. Then I taught over at Eastern Michigan University also. Okay. I even taught a course at uh Ball State University.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Yeah, and uh these courses that you're teaching was is basically business management.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah. Right. Uh huh. Yep. Finance. Finance, okay. And some real estate. Yeah. I always tried to push my students, whatever students I dealt with. I was also department head, so I was in charge of 32 uh it was an A-Fire department. It's called A-Fire, Accounting, Finance, and Sure. Sure. We we dropped it, sure and so how many years would you say that you taught? Oh. Upwards of 15, I guess, and then 50? Uh 15. Fifteen. And then uh uh Tom Monaghan hired me to do uh Lee Tom Monahan, which is the owner of Domino's Pizza.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Owner of Domino's Pizza.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Oh, okay. Owned the Detroit Tigers, I believe, didn't he? He bought Detroit Tigers, yeah, and the second year he owned them, they won the World's Pedit. Right, right, right. He was an amazing guy.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yes. You want to tell us a little bit uh how you got into the the basically leasing for Domino's, right? Leasing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Um Tom bought the he started the company in Ipsility, Michigan with his brother. And he eventually bought out his brother with a used Volkswagen. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

So you knew Tom. And you you know Tom today still. Oh, I know Tom quite well. Right. Right. But uh uh he started the company at Ypsilanti, and people don't realize what the dominoes, you know. You can ask anybody, uh, what's on the domino? Oh. I don't know. Numbers dot uh no numbers, real numbers on there. Yeah. What's the meaning behind uh there's one dot, two dots. Yeah. Mr. Monaghan was pretty much raised by sisters and nuns. Right. Um and so he was raised Catholic. Uh he went into the Marines when he was when he was old enough to join the Marine Corps. And he rain remained uh Christian, Catholic throughout his uh life, he still is. And I gotta mention some things that he owes that people have no idea about. Um anyway, when Tom started Domino's pizza, it was it started to grow tremendously. And it was because they would deliver pizza to dormitories. Now there are two large universities in Ann Armor and Ipsilanti, the University of Michigan, which is what, I think now about 50,000. So it's the university. Like our town here is the bottom point. Yeah. Yeah. And then Eastern Michigan University, I taught there too. I think around 30,000?

SPEAKER_06 38:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

I'm not sure. Anyway, he he started delivering to both campuses, and just the students, you know, later nights lots of pizza. So um he came out with this 30 minutes or less delivery and three.

SPEAKER_04 38:37

That was his that was the beginning of the of that whole campaign.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Wow. And then it started growing, and then he started branching out and franchising. And um it just grew and grew and grew. And then in the 80s, 90s, I forget what year it was, but we put in 500 stores in one year.

SPEAKER_05 39:10

That's insane. That's not that's 100 more. No, no, no, no. That's the only other one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

You're right.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

That's explosion.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

And you worked on the contracts, correct? I just worked on lease, I had nothing to do with uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

The lease agreements, just the lease of the police. Yeah. And uh and this is the experience that you learned from, if you will, from uh you know teaching at at the university levels and all that stuff. You actually put put that into play in your yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Yeah, yeah. But that's that's a numbers game. I had to learn to deal with uh the people. The people that helped having that psychology degree that you talked about?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. Everywhere. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Uh I was terrified when Tom asked me to go to North to uh New York. New York said, Lauren, I want you to go to New York. Yeah. And he said I want again with the domino. Everything in Domino's pizza is 30, 33, 30, 30, all three thirties. Okay. Why? World headquarters. Okay. It used to be uh what was seven three uh I forget what the area code was because they changed it. But it was nine three oh three three three three was world headquartered. Or was it nine three oh three oh three oh? I think it was nine thirty thirty thirty was world headquarters. But like all the pizza stores now, if you go around, I don't care what country you're you're have, and uh Egypt, yeah, where we go to the domino's pizza store, you're gonna see threes in there. Threes in their source.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

And that's why hence the domino has one and two, so that's a three. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Holy Trinity. Holy Trinity. Father, son, and the Holy Ghost. People won't realize, but that's why Tom put the one and two on the dominoes. Every domino speech store in the world has one and two, three, the Holy Trinity. Nice. So he probably won't uh admit to it, but yeah, because he doesn't want to say to you, you're doing this for Catholics or something.

SPEAKER_04 41:26

So Yeah, no, not Chick-fil-A situation.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Well, it's all it started out as a very, very Christian organization. Sure. Uh now Tom started his own law school. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Oh, interesting. Where's that at?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Yeah, it's called Thomas More University Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

Oh, so it's in Michigan, okay, great.

unknown 41:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

And he started that. He owns um an organization called Ligatus, L E G A T U S, which is a start out as a group of lawyers worldwide. Because he's a lawyer, correct? No, no. No, he's not. No, no, he's not a lawyer. Uh no. And um it started out as a group of lawyers who would help students who got in any kind of uh infraction at public schools about the Bible or if they brought a Bible to class or wanted to pray, and the school told them they couldn't.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

So it was like religious, like like like uh what do they call it? Uh or something protection or protection or something, or kickback that like someone got her in trouble, like with with religious they would step up for and stand in and help out. Like kind of like pro bono kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Pro bono, if you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 42:46

Yeah, I get you I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah, yeah. And uh so he started that world organization. Uh he was always in very close contact with the Vatican. He owned his own jet, of course, his own airplanes, and he would uh oh, it's my phone. I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. Anyway, um, he also owned a little uh island up in northern Michigan. Oh entire island. Entire island, yeah. Uh unbelievable. And that was for the Detroit Tigers. Oh my goodness. But it was a wonderful vacation place, but he had homes built up there all for every Detroit Tiger.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Oh my goodness. Oh, it was so were you living in Michigan the whole time you were working with him, or were you like hike back to North Dakota? Did you ever get back to that farm, by the way? That's the question I've been wondering.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

My brother and I still have uh farm. We we sold some of it because uh uh my father was only 53 passed. Okay, yeah, quite young. And uh my mother was alone for seven years, we were both gone, and we, you know. But my mother was very so self-sufficient, uh self-reliant. Um she she grew up in North Dakota and she was used to work. She would tell me about cooking for treasures, you know, they were come with steam engine and trusting the tea. Yeah. And they had huge crews and they would cook for them on the farms. So she would always help out with everything. And she lived on the farm alone for seven years. She eventually remarried. And uh but when she was alone, I didn't want her to be responsible for all the land that my brother didn't either. So uh we sold off a little bit of land, and uh I wish we hadn't, but yeah, but so what what brought you but you come back to North Dakota after Michigan or would you come to North Dakota through Michigan?

SPEAKER_02 44:55

We lived in in the city for a while, right? New York City.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

I Tom wanted me to live well, he was gonna buy a a house there for me to stay at and uh By the way.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

What what borough or what where's the best pizza in New York City?

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Oh gosh, this is a load of question.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Well, New Yorkers, that's an interesting question because New Yorkers th I think the reason Tom asked me to go in there because he didn't want uh see I worked pretty much personally for Tom. Sure. Rather than the corporation. Right. Um You went in again if you went to his house. Well, the corporation was too uh uh big to penetrate New York. In other words, there was a lot of bomb or pop near the store for a big corporation to come in there. So when I went in, I was just doing one store at a time. Right. And although it was Domino's, it wasn't like huge corporate leasing people coming in there. So I would do one store at a time.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

He'd never give me any small town North Dakota. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

So uh which was good. Yeah, yeah. So I never got to push with the uh with the public that oh Domino's is coming to take it. Yeah, so it wasn't like yeah, no, it was very quiet, it wasn't stealthy, but sure. Under the radar. Yeah, yeah. So uh that's why I went there pretty much alone. And um I was really terrified. I thought, man, these people are gonna be really so hard to deal with. Yeah. Well, what happened? I was licensed as a broker at the time. So I had my own brokerage firm. When I was a professor, I owned my own brokerage firm, but I had four ladies that worked for me as sales agents, and they did more business than 20-person office. Wow. I was so proud of them because I had the finest young ladies that just uh believable work, work, work. And they all had families. They all had families to support, and they still worked like you wouldn't believe. So, and I gave them leads all the time from professors that wanted to sell their house. They knew I was a broker, so I would just call up my staff and say, hey, who wants to go and chase this one? Right, you know, so and then I would just come in for clothing, yeah. So um anyway, I would have to tell as a licensed broker, I would have to inform when I saw a property that I wanted lease in New York, I'd call up the number and speak to a landlord, and I would tell him, um, under law, under New York law and Michigan law, I have to inform you I'm a real estate broker. And I have to inform you to get a lawyer to deal with me. Now, I'd say, having said that, it's your option to get a l an attorney. I'd say, sir, you're probably better off to deal with me personally, but if you want to go through attorney, I've legally told you that I have to tell you. Sure. You prepped the conversation. Sure, right? So and when I told them that as soon as I told them they were better off dealing with me. No, I'll call mine 30. They thought I was trying to scab them. Sure. Yeah. And I meant from the Midwest point of view, from North Dakota, I was telling me of anything, yeah. So what happened? Yeah, I never dealt with the landlord. I dealt with the attorney. Yeah. Now the attorney thought, oh, this guy's from downloads, I'll show him. Oh take on that. So he wouldn't call me back with information. Yeah. So I'd, you know, go ahead and tell him, well, what's the price? Well, I'd never tell him the price. Uh what's the price? Market value. I'd do a market analysis. Right. Yeah. I'm gonna pay you, I'm gonna pay your landlord market price.

SPEAKER_05 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Well, what is that? I said, Oh, you know and I know. Tell your landlord what the market is. Well, he wasn't gonna spend it.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

It's interesting how that conversation started like that. You were doing the right thing, right? And you were coming from a different perspective and mindset, and then they had a chip on their shoulder saying, Oh, they're trying to like scam us. Yeah, which is interesting because New Yorkers are very always on guard. I've noticed I lived in New York for a few years when I went to school. It's very true. They're very on guard. They always think that there's someone trying to scam them from behind the sidelines. No, it's true. Right. And they're not, but but the interesting thing is that not all New Yorkers are like that, just business New Yorkers, I think. Some of them are a little bit more easygoing, they'll be more open. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

But that's the big city is like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. New York.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

But you know, you have to guard yourself if you're in a big city. There's a lot of scamming going on too.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Oh, there is, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

So anyway, I always well dealt with the attorney. And I knew how much they were belling their client.

SPEAKER_06 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

So they wouldn't call me with any information. So I'd be waiting a couple of bucks.

SPEAKER_04 50:34

And this is in the 80s, or what what year is this? Like the 80s, right? Yeah. 80s 90s, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

So by that time, I would have other locations to go out, the hand hurting from him. And I get some pressure from Domino's like, what's going on with this property? What's going on with that? Well, I haven't heard back from the attorney yet. And then I would feel like, oh, uh, they think I'm not uh prisoner and they don't understand what I'm doing here. So I finally just would let it ride. Right. And finally, when he got back to me, I wouldn't get back to him, but okay. You want to play the game, but Morgan on some other problem. Hey, yeah. Well, you sit for a couple days. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then when he called me up, hey, what's going on with this? What is not interested anymore? I said, Oh, I don't know. I'll have to call him and see. Here you go. I didn't have to call anybody. It was all me. Oh, yeah. Nobody told me what to do. Tom never.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

So you had a big booming 500 stores you open in one year.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

One year we opened. Yeah, five.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

And that is in New York? Worldwide. Worldwide. Wow, that's insane. That's not heard of anymore. Right, yeah, right. People don't open that many within a year. Maybe like if you're gonna be pull that many of this, like right now, I'd probably say take a couple years.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Right. Yeah. A couple years or even three max. So then moving from that, Lauren, um, after Domino's, you know, um, what were some uh other things that you've, you know, you you kind of moved back here, right? You moved back to to to North Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

I retired, moved back here in 2000. And within one year, well, first I worked with the uh Mayan State University. They wanted me to come in and do some help. President Char was president at the time. And the dean of the business school here had met me at some kind of meeting. And he was kind of impressed with my background from Michigan. Uh and oh, I left out. I'd been working with Governor Hovind and Governor Schaefer when Hovind was taking over from Schaefer. Sure. About the time I moved back down here, back here in uh 2000.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Wait, there is one little story. Didn't you partake in an early before the campaign made it big? I'm sorry, what is a Domino story? And we're both Gen Xers, her and I. So there was Domino's had a big campaign, Avoid the What? Well, Avoid the Nnoyed. Yes, that was huge. You knew about, I mean, you you were there at the table.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

There were, I think, were there eight or nine of us who were called in. And I was because I'd spent so much time working in New York City, they wanted me on the committee. And we were called in, and somebody came in, and we were asking, well, what's this about?

SPEAKER_04 53:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Right. You know, I want to know what it doing.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

It wasn't a marketing meeting, was it?

SPEAKER_01 53:40

They never labeled, they never told us what it was. We have a little presentation. So um we got in there, and this crazy character, you know, period of the one with the red with the with the ears.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

And at first, you honestly thought when when they actually approached that, I loved how humble you were about this. It's like, that's not gonna go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, and then the more I watched it, I thought, wait a minute, something caught my eye, and I thought, look, this is really gonna get people wondering. Sure. And I thought, hey, that's what we want to do. So we left there, and I would guess there were only two or three of us that eventually at the end of the discussions, we had more than one meeting.

SPEAKER_05 54:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

But at the end of everything, I was all for it. Yeah. I switched my mind completely from the first day. Sure. That's interesting. Yeah. Like there were a lot of people that did. Yeah. But there was enough uh support for it that they decided to go with it. I just loved it, you know, avoid the Who was your real competitor at that time?

SPEAKER_04 55:01

Was it Pizza Hut? Because Pizza Hut was, I thought, I think was really big.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Yeah, it was Mike Gilllich, who was a good friend with Tom out of the Mike is from Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:10

Everyone who's in the business with each other, they know each other, so I get it.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

So, but they were good friends in New York or in uh Detroit. Detroit, I mean. Yeah. Mike Gilllich was downtown Detroit. And who said it was Ann Arbor. Uh by the way, at World Headquarters in Ann Arbor, if you ever get a chance, go on the internet, look at World Headquarters. Okay. Before we get off this.

SPEAKER_05 55:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

I started talking about the university, it's called the law school. Uh-huh. Tom Bonahan's Thomas More. Thomas More. Thomas, you know, out of history, Thomas Moore. That's very cut. Yeah. Yeah. Uh okay, so it's Thomas More Law School, and they have lawyers all over the world. Wow. And uh the other thing he started was uh a academy for uh high school girls in Ann Arbor.

SPEAKER_05 56:04

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

And it started out at Ann Arbor was you know, Ann Arbor, and it's like Berkeley County. It's extremely liberal. So of course Tom was anti-Amorti. Pro-life. I shouldn't say anti-Amorti, I should say pro-life. Sorry, corrected myself. Pro-life. And uh the other political party in Ann Arbor, the ladies did not like his pro-life stats in um I've told you the name of the university and I forget it now. It just slips my mind all of a sudden. But he started that Girls Academy, and then with all these threatening uh uh political threats and the Ann Arbor news and everything, one day Tom called up his legal staff and said, How much will it cost to move my academy from Ann Arbor to Florida?

SPEAKER_05 57:19

And uh Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

I think they quoted him around 250 to 275,000 or something like that. Tom said, Move it.

SPEAKER_05 57:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

So today the it's a university that he owns in uh Florida.

SPEAKER_04 57:35

What part of Florida?

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Um Orlando.

SPEAKER_04 57:38

Orlando, okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

And so I'm sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_04 57:42

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

I'm just I'm uh so you you move back to North Dakota and you're helping the governors out, right? The transitions? Yeah. Yep, yep. Yep. So what so you you help them out?

SPEAKER_01 57:52

We did a big uh program here at Biden State University on international business. And uh that was during the time of uh when uh crop identity, which field, which data was planted, was there any chemical fertilizer on it? Was there any spray on it? Was there you know, that type of thing? And that all came from Sweden when Chernobyl's happened. A lady in Sweden had started this crop identification in northern Sweden, and she started because she was selling all her product to uh McDonald's.

SPEAKER_04 58:36

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

She was selling tomatoes, lettuce, uh-huh, everything, I think probably even beef, to McDonald's. So they knew exactly what property that came from, what data was harvested, what data was planted, right? Yeah. Was ever sprayed with the chemicals uh organic or what? So we had a meeting here with the uh agricultural community and Mrs. community and mined. And Governor Schaefer came down for that. Granted just came down and uh had him speak to us all, and uh it was a fantastic uh place we had. I brought in uh a uh Swedish friend of mine from uh uh who was at the time stationed at Ann Arbor from the Swedish government. He came and spoke, and then I had a professor from the university who came in and spoke to us, and that was probably 2004 or so. Yeah. And at the time I was on the uh board of directors of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce, and I served on that position with uh Marilyn Carlson Nelson, who owns the Nelson School of Business at Minneapolis. Carlson School of Business at University of Minnesota. And she owns 400 Radisson hotels. Right. She's still alive, but I used to sit next to her in board meeters because we she and I got along very well and and we attended board meetings together.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

So how long was your stint at uh MSU until when?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Uh that was oh, we had the uh small business development program. Right. We I ran that, I was director of that for Bayern State University.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

What's something you could give information to an entrepreneur on how they could basically maybe in in mine it here um to you know find the the the network, if you will, to start up a you know, um I I've talked to you briefly about this, you know, this last winter, um, quite in you know, quite a bit, but where can they go to in in mine it here to maybe talk to somebody about maybe potentially starting up a business?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

Well, entrepreneurship cannot be taught taught, I don't believe. Uh sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

If they have an idea of something of a business that they want to start, I guess is the better way to word it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:13

Like what would be the pathway?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Yeah, what would be the pathway? Okay, Christine, her pathway was literally um the the library.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

Yeah, her office was the library. I considered the library like an office because I had so much help. If I needed assistance with documents, I wasn't sure of like how to open them up or use them. I could print, you know, it was it was a very nice experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

I think that's you you just answered your own question. Sure. You went and did what you felt needed to be done. In my case, I cannot remember going out on a limb until I had some contact with somebody, and usually that contact appeared. There's an old saying, when a pupil is ready, the master will teacher will show up with an show up master. Yep, same idea. Yep. I guarantee you, if you are sincere and do your homework and prepare as though you're gonna start something, a master will appear. It is indelible, it is imprinted in my mind. I am no question.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

So the manifestation, if you will, the the the the created created asking questions, uh the shopping around, if you will, um, you know, getting to know people, and it intertwining all that stuff is essentially what you're saying. It's that the manifestation of building it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Exactly. It happened with my education. Uh uh, somebody appeared and raised a scholarship. Uh, that was done by a professor when I went to Michigan, it was the man who was uh deputy secretary of HCW. There used to be a department in the United States government called Department of HCW. It was health, education, and welfare. Those three were together. Okay. Yep. Now they're all separate. But back in uh President Johnson's date, this is when I was at Pitt, and his name was Dr. William Levi Cash. Bill Cash was a uh student who had gotten his PhD at the University of Michigan, I mean the GI Bill in the late 40s. He was a Second World War veteran. Okay. He was over in Paris during the when Paris was liberated. Um he and I became close friends after he left University of North Dakota. I think I only met him once or twice here at UND when I was a student. But um I met him, he came down and visited the University of Pittsburgh at our institute because Lyndon Johnson wanted some information on our classes. So they he sent him down as Deputy Secretary of Education uh Health Education Welfare. So I met him there at uh Pitt. And I was really, you know, I'm still a North Dakota farm boy. So I was intimidated. I thought, yeah, this guy is really important. Well, anyway, he sat down and talked to me. Okay. And he talked to me like a switch on the top of your hand. He was a black guy. Yep. Okay. I had no prejudice against black people. And we became very good friends.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

We kept in touch. I told him I was coming down to Washington, D.C. Let me know, because I had uh girlfriend down there at the time. We went to Washington, D.C. once a while on the weekends. Come on down. Let me know. Yeah. I'll never forget. He had a brand new Lincoln. And you know what his license plate number was? Oh cash. C-A-S-H with the dollar sign. Oh wow. Wow. And this is what you're this is Johnson's era. He drove me around Washington, D.C. Yeah. When the blacks had uh gathered around the Lincoln Pool in Washington, DC. And he drove me all around this. He was investigating and stuff. I spent I must have spent four or five hours with him driving around Washington, D. And he was very instrumental in me deciding what I was gonna. to do uh education wise and career wise and that type of thing. But the first guy who had been a professor at Pitt and this guy had gotten his uh Dr. Cash had gotten his doctorate at University of Michigan and he got his during you know really racial bad times. Yeah black students did go downtown. Ann Arbor has a street called Division Street. Mm-hmm And it's called Division for a reason yeah and the students did cross that line and go downtown they stayed on the university side of Division Street and when I came to Ann Arbor in nineteen seventy I bought a home there and I joined the Alliance Club which I became president of later and I was president of the year that uh space capsule went down you know the bad terrible accent whatever challenge.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:10

86?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

Yep yep just drive went in for a Lions Club meeting just got into the restaurant for the Lions Club meeting or the hotel and uh we heard about it right away. I remember watching it during a whole last year I would go to school school watching it.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:27

Yeah that's when they would like put that on TV for kids third or fourth grade. Yeah I was even doing Beckett maybe a second or third for me I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Anyway Ann Arbor had a uh a club with university officials and town business people it was called the town and gown gown club town club for the city and the gown club for you know for graduation where everybody wears the gown so it was a a town and gown club yeah that was a university uh so I was uh I'm in that club also and a lot of our people uh there were some older men like I am now that were in their 80s at the time that remembered meeting Henry Ford. Oh wow and I became very interested in that so traveled to their properties. Yeah I became uh just uh yeah it's unbelievable how Henry Ford had some he owned lands in Ann Arbor.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:29

But when I'm saying it sounds like you've had such quite a life not to like sum up your life this way but like you just we're gonna go to college.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

It's like it seems like it And he tricked you into it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Yeah he tricked you into it but it seems like you had so many pivotal things that you were not only a part of but even just I mean to be put into a place and situation like you were put into and you navigated from one place to another and then you just came back almost like did you imagine this how your life was going to like end up kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:03

Yeah there we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

So let's leave great segue what's the adventure that you're heading to right after this podcast well now I'm going to Medora North Dakota for presidential visit I have to be down there uh the 29th of June to July 6th and President Trump will be there July 1st now so in fact he's already got some equipment they've already ran it in tape market he's got helicopters get already right but uh and secret service people of course I think you're gonna do maybe a round of golf uh there's a question of whether we can get him out to the golf course or not right because there's a ribbon cutting ceremony for the library and three the yes pinnacle of wire yeah yeah that's f fascinating though but yeah but it wouldn't be nice for bully pulpit if he could come out here because that's where Bully Pulpit is named after Theodore Roosevelt's speech where he said the presidency is a bully pulpit for ideas. Sure meant it's a wonderful right yeah delivery place bully pulpit yeah yep yeah Theodore Roosevelt everything bully was yeah yeah yeah but uh which uh and when I first came back here one of the first things they got interested in other admin state university the business program that we did international business was Trails and Rails which National Park Service in Amtrak had developed a program called Trails and Rails where we had a case of uh instruments from the Lewis and Clark expedition uh from the National Park Service copies of the Sextant and uh monoculars and is it they and the artwork all the artwork that was done and the journals. Oh that's so neat carry that on the trade and then we would ride out to Bontata through Bontata this is on the Empire Builder correct on Amtrak yes so we'd leave here board in the morning at mine it go out spend the night in Bontata and catch trade number coming back eight and two eight. You know it's two the Empire builder is two trades.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Yeah eight and two eight yeah eight and two eight yeah you didn't from basically Amtrak from LA back to mine it one time.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:46

Yeah yeah so Amtrak's great up here we're so lucky we have that in our TA right my friend just came up from Miami. Wow yeah to Chicago and she went all the way to Seattle to Portland.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:57

Yeah yeah we're really lucky to have it right when I lived in Fargo I used to take the Amtrak back I used to jockey cars for a car dealer here.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:04

Yeah and you know that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and I and I do like the idea that you know the parks like partnered with them in that way to show that stuff because they're if you have them in the observation car and you can go and talk to them and see things. That is a really unique experience. A lot of people don't know that that's there. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

So you were part of that yeah I used to take Jerry Schlag we would take entertainers from uh North Dakota Cultural the arts would provide entertainment for us. Okay. And that's the trade and yeah yeah oh it was so fun and yeah the passengers loved it. Yeah right because in uh the thing that was so beautiful leaving here in the springtime in the summer when the flaxfields and canola fields would be in full bloom yep you had the Michigan Wolverines. Yeah the yellows and blue yeah well you'd see blue flax flax fields and yellow canola also I'd already tell the passengers now if you're from the University of Michigan this is that's awesome it's their special meeting to you here from U of M.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

Right yeah that's great a lot of fun with that yeah yeah but people would be astounded that basically we supply we supply 98% of the world's canola and canola oil it's raised here in North Dakota 90% of the nation's flax is raised here 60% of the nation's Durham and hard red spring think we're also the nation's uh biggest producer of of uh honey yeah yeah yep yep yep we raise over a fourth and sunflowers some I mean it's it's crazy yeah we I think we had uh 14 crops in the top 10% of the nation here wow right yeah people always look at Illinois Ohio or Iowa uh Nebraska it's North Dakota it really really raises a lot of crops for the nation well Lauren it's awesome having you on here thank you again my pleasure yeah oh yeah this was a great conversation I mean what a life I mean so or like at this point I mean it's not over I'm not saying anything but wow like yeah uh do you do any um side um business stuff anymore do you ever like do any mentorship or anything just for anybody listening if they would be interested in in speaking with you or anything like that uh or since I I left the SBA uh just privately I mean just you know I'll tell people uh where to go to it's a good uh good advice for anything like that. Okay. Maybe I'll reach out to you sometime too. Yeah absolutely yeah because you know I do love pizza.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

Right right right from farm boy to slinging pies.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

I'll tell you what's very true you you do homework somebody will appear out of the clear blue sky and they will take an interest in what you're thinking to help you out. Uh they're not gonna write you a check for $20,000 and say here but they're gonna discuss some ideas with you that you hadn't thought of here as a possibility that you really that you really benefit from. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:11

I love that yeah amazing well thank you for taking your time to share with us today your whole complete story about like everything because I I it's it's funny like I was telling this to Corey you know we have a few people on you just don't know what their stories are until they explain it and then you'll learn something about everything. And this is our longest podcast that we've had hour and group that's going on here but it's okay it's okay Lauren no no no no good we're good yeah yeah yeah no I no I love it and look again you have a lot to tell yeah and we and we have no problem with that that's what this is about just you know yeah yeah bridges the stories build bridges and so thank you for sharing that thank you Lauren thank you for your time well thank you also um my not and Corey yeah thank you uh this is another great episode um again I want to say thank you to American Express and Main Street America for the grants that help supply for this podcast and thank you for my not and all of our supporters follow us on Facebook and all of the places you can find podcasts yep Spotify Apple iTunes all of that stuff and um YouTube and all that fun stuff but thanks again guys we hope uh you learned something really unique and uh share with us anything else you want to hear about in the future okay by my notes in me and my y no tea now you see life ain't no ways that's what you dream is the way that you make those things reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:40

You see that's the magic in me