 Welcome to another show of Celebrate Life. My name is Gary DeCarlis and I'll be your host again today. The whole aim of this show is to capture life stories of Vermonters and some people from outside Vermont who have a story to tell. Behind this program is my reading over the years, many obituaries that I would finish and say to myself, gosh, I wish I got to know that person, what an amazing life story. Well, we're gonna celebrate life now while people are very much vibrant and alive and in their communities. And my belief is that everyone, literally everyone has a story to tell. So if you're interested, by the way, of being interviewed for this story, please contact me at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com or if you have a question for our guests, again, send me an email at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com and I'll make sure it gets over to our guest and you get a response. Today I'm honored to have as our guest, Roseanne Greco and welcome, Roseanne. Hi. Good to have you here today. Oh, it's great. So when I asked Roseanne about, you know, five words that describe her, she mentioned, environmentalist, caring, concern, committed and critical. So I guess my first question to you, Roseanne, is tell us about your life from wherever you wanna start to bring it up to today that allows us to understand those five words about you. Okay, so you started with the word environmentalist and I guess I now think of myself as sort of an environmental activist and that may go back to the, you know, by growing up on a rural area in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We lived, well, we were quite poor. I didn't know it at the time. I now know, looking back, we were pretty poor. But the poor in money, but now I realized so incredibly rich because of where we lived. And by that I mean, we were surrounded by fields and woods. I love animals. I've always loved animals. We had dogs, we had chickens, we had sheep, not a farm, but these were just horses. And that's, I had a horse or two along the way. But I think that's where, and I may have said this to you earlier, Gary, that I have a, I feel like I've got a soul connection to nature and it being from growing up in that kind of environment. Our house was very small. It was like a hundred year old house, but not a really nice hundred year old house. Pretty crappy, well, whatever. I mean, very poorly insulated. We didn't have a toilet that flushed. So I was outside a lot. And anyway, so that I think gets me to the, where I am now, looking back, which I hadn't ever really thought about till you just asked me that question. But feeling that connection and then growing up with the love of nature and animals to becoming more aware of what we're doing to this part of our soul. I mean, we are part of it. People talk about the environment as something outside ourselves. To where I am now, where my heart is literally breaking with the understanding of the destruction we're causing by the way we live and the choices we make. So that's, I guess, where I am now from where I was as far as environmental and talking. Tell you a bit about the other ones, because as you say this, and I guess we'll probably get into this, but because I just thought about this as you sent me some questions in advance and I was sort of thinking about it. I mentioned in those words committed. And by that I don't mean locked up, although I bet you there's some people who would like to do that to me. But it is more my upbringing. I was born and then two weeks later baptized Catholic and came from a very strong Catholic religious family taught by nuns all the way. I even probably talked about this. I even entered the convent and it was a nun for six and a half years until I was kicked out. But anyway, that's another story. But one of the things that the nuns taught us, they use the word perseverance, which I use the word commitment. And that is you are dedicated to something and you stick with it. I know I have been a thorn in many of person organization entities side because I sort of never give up. It's like, was that movie a butch casting a Sundance kid where they're being followed by the law, and they keep saying, who are those guys? Well, I am one of those guys. You know, I'm gonna stick with it anyway. So that's where the commitment part comes. Gotcha. And that's expressed itself as an adult. And I know your involvement in the South Burlington city council and we'll talk later probably about the F-35 and things like that, but for sure. Yeah, so how's more about that early life of yours? So very religious Catholic nature. Sounds like a very loving family. Go on. Well, if you want me to be honest. Absolutely. I will tell you the truth because I think the truth helps, you know, the whole set you're free, but I consider myself free from that. But it also telling my story gives permission for other people to tell their stories because they're in shame or stuff that's sometimes associated with negative stuff, you know, gets buried and then it never gets solved, you know? So, yeah, so I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1948 and my mother, my father at the time when I was born was a coal miner. And my mother, and I can't remember when I was born, but, you know, as I was growing up, she worked mostly in factories. She was a, you know, she did, they call it peace work. And so we're, I guess now we call it a very blue collar family and very, very religious. I have one brother who is about 14 months younger than I am. My mother and father had been married for 18 years before I was born. My mother is one of 11 children. My father is one of 14. My mother's German Catholic. My father was Italian Catholic, but it came from very big families and my mother wanted more children than her mother. So she was going for an even dozen. Well, she only ended up with two and we believe now with science it was probably some incompatibility, you know? But she tells me she had some sort of, I think she said an infection or something and they gave her a penicillin and right after she took the penicillin is when she conceived. Now that was 18 years of trying. Apparently they had a great time. My parents, I were loving toward each other. I never, there was never any kind of conflict but my father died when I had just turned nine years old. So I don't have a lot of history with my dad except that I know I adored him. I mean, I still have those kinds of feelings but my father, he was a coal miner as I said. And the coal mines in Scranton, Pennsylvania at the time were closing down because there were havens and mine fires and stuff. And so he was out of work. And so he would go on trips. He worked then in heavy construction. And I don't know exactly he may have been driving equipment or I don't know the specifics of it but he had to go out of the country. And I guess there were these projects. Here's another serendipitous kind of stuff. I knew he had to go out of the country. At this point, I'm like six or seven years old and he went to Iceland. And I knew that he'd gone for like a year and then he came back and apparently couldn't get a job in Scranton. It was very depressed at that time. And then he next went to a place called Ascension Island. And that was in the South Atlantic right off the Western coast of Africa. And it was on and he was there. He was going to be there I think for 18 months and then he was going to come home. But he collapsed in the bathroom and I'm now eight years old. And he was rushed to the nearest hospital which was in Rio de Janeiro. Wow. Because it was nothing on the continent of Africa and I'm across the Atlantic. Now, I tell you this because although I had just turned eight years old and he died, my birthday's the beginning of September. He died at the end of September. He had been gone already 18 months before that. And so even though he died, I lost my dad. I hadn't seen him for, I guess, you know, you do the math six and a half or whatever. Well, maybe seven, but math is not my strong suit. I'm great at a lot of things, but not math, but anyway. But I remember my, there were two of us, my mother and my brother, Joseph, like I said, a little younger than I am. I was daddy's girl and I remember hearing that and he joded on me. And he would, I remember, I was apparently a very, very picky eater. I have overcome that a lot. But they would have to try to feed me, you know? And he would come to school, we went to Catholic school and he would pick me up at lunch and drive me in a car and help me eat my sandwich in the car or something like that. So anyway, you know, all my stories are long stories. But I was so, so close to my father and then he died. And I was, I felt as if my parent was gone because my mother seemed to always favor my brother. And the reason I remember this is that she would say that she would, and I'm not fighting, but she would say that he paid too much attention. I was the first born, remember, after 18 years, I was the gift from God, which is why I got in the convent. That's another story. But anyway, and so I think my mother was trying to compensate for my brother who wasn't getting the attention I think that, you know, so when my dad died, I interpreted it as, I've lost my parent, and because I thought my mother, and you know, my mother and I were never close. And I think part of this feeling that she liked him better, she loved my father better, and I was alone. I had a pen for myself because my father, my aunt was gone. So that sort of shaped a lot I think what I turned out was like, I felt like I was on my own, you know? I didn't have to do it. Even as a young age, I felt like I'm alone in this world, missed my dad, and he was a wonderful man. And not just me saying this, but everybody who's ever said anything about my father praised him and kept saying he's the most wonderful man. He was so kind. My mother, I find I'm a lot like my mother who was very out there, you know, we would call it assertive, you know? She was a very, you know, forceful woman. She wasn't mean, but she was opinionated and loud. And my father, in fact, now that I'm thinking of this, my husband, I have this similar dynamic. But my father, according to what people, he was fine with that. Let her be the one that's out there. And my husband, my darling, darling husband, best man in the world, is the same way. He's a poison, but he's happy to be there. He has no limelight. He doesn't like the limelight and he takes all of my, oh God, that man's a saint, you know? Because I'm not easy to live with this. But my dad was that way. But anyway, it sort of shaped my independence and what I did the rest of my life. So I idolized the nuns. We were taught by an order. There's still an existence, it's just a Christian charity and their mother house in the United States in what they call the Eastern province. It was in a place called Mendham, New Jersey. We were in Scranton, but seeing the nuns, they were like a lot of children. They were my role models. They were in full habit. And they sort of were like ephemeral kind of thing. I mean, we didn't have any idea if there was a body underneath that, but everything was covered and they walked like they were float, you know, and they always seemed happy. And I wasn't, I mean, I recognize this now with the loss of my father and I turned to nature. I had a horse and dogs and cats and all that. And then I would, my mother, remember, I remember her telling me this one time. I would go out and I would cry and to be away because I never wanted to show my emotions even as a little kid to my mother. And she told me years and years later that she knew I was there because I'd come back and my eyes were all red. So the nuns were the ones that I sort of went to because my mother I didn't feel was there for me. Gotcha, yes. And so I want to be honest about what else, what happened next? So I was sexually abused by a male friend of the family that came in ostensibly to console my mother. I don't want to go into all the details, but he was bereft too because she dearly loved my father and to lose him like that. And he moved in and then sexually abused me. Yes, yeah, well, the reason I'm saying this is because it happened and because I didn't mention it, I didn't say one word about this. I said two words about this my entire life until I got to college. And the reason I didn't say anything initially was because I thought it was my fault. And I was, I think eight, I guess, maybe nine at the time. And I thought it was a sin. Well, in the Catholic, it was, well, as a child. But even as an eight-year-old, right, of course. How you, even into my young adulthood, I still had the feeling somehow I caused it. And I'm telling you, I mentioned it twice before I became, you know, free of it by saying, wait a minute, you know, I was an old girl. I told my mother and I forget exactly how, I remember, I remember the feeling. I remember sitting at the top of the steps. We had steps going up to the second floor, sort of rocking, knowing I had to tell her the reason I had to tell her was I was about to make what they call the sacrament of confirmation. Which usually happens about 12 or 13. And I knew that if I received the sacrament, it would not take because I had a mortal sin on my soul. And you only get the sacrament of confirmation once. And that is the only reason because I felt like I had to go to confession. Now, I had been to confession because we went to confession every week, you know, and I would talk about my brother and being mean to my brother. That was my standard sin, you know. But I was so afraid that the date for confirmation was coming up. And here I had this mortal sin on my soul and that I would never be confirmed. The sacrament would take effect. So I said to my mother and I remember, God, I remember it, finally walking down the steps and telling her, and I don't know what I said to her, but I said something, and I'm not gonna mention his name. He's probably a long dead. That I can't remember the words I used, you know, about him coming into my bed or. And my mother said to me, she would talk to the priest and see about getting me to confession. And apparently she did. And I went to the priest and I got, I don't even know what I said, I have no idea. I didn't even have words, you know. You know, the kind of stuff. And I confessed it, which then sort of reinforced in my head, I had committed a sin. I had to go to confession, you know. Right, right. But I actually thought the confession didn't take because I thought I didn't really say everything, you know. And I'm not talking graphic terms, I'm just saying I felt. So I found a church, I don't know how in the world I got to a church on my own and went into the confessional with a strange priest. And I guess it's because the priest in St. John's, the Baptist where I, you know, we belonged knew me, you know. Right. So I wanted to go to a stranger who didn't know me. Right. So that less embarrassment. But once again, he gave me a penance. And I remember it was the biggest penance I ever got. I think I had to say like 10 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers, which was a big penance. It's from me again. You got a Hail Mary or two, you know. Oh, right. Which thought, and he questioned me about, you know, something like, was I gonna do it again or something? It was, anyway, anyway. So that started me on life. And then that just reinforced this notion that it must have been your fault. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That nobody ever said, my goodness, Roseanne, this is terrible girl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's my rational bra. If I was telling somebody else or advising somebody else, oh my God, you know. Of course. You were a little girl. Exactly. My dad had just died. I was creating affection. I mean, I was missing my dad. This man is now in our life, and my mother liked him. You know? Yeah. You know, so in my rational adult, I'm talking to somebody else. Of course, this is so clear. Right. But as a little girl, and I carried that with me for years. Wow. And I'll let me sort of fast forward because I'll just end this part of the story. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't until I was in graduate school, and I eventually got a master's in counseling and guidance. And in one of the sessions, we were learning how to be counselors, and we were learning how to do group therapy. So we were in a group, all right? And one of the techniques we were learning was to put ourselves to think about something in our lives, put ourselves that we maybe were harmed or controversy or something, and rather than be the person ourselves, we were the person who was doing it to us. So we were like role playing. Right. Gotcha. And why I volunteer, but I have this habit of always raising my hand to volunteer stuff, I volunteered to do it. And I don't know if I was the first person or not, but I did. And the person I was putting myself in my role was not the man. It was my mother. Oh, interesting. And I had to play two roles. I was playing myself, and then I was in chairs, and then I was my mother. And so the therapist who was guiding this, she was saying, well, what do you want to say to your mother? And what I said without even as, why didn't you protect me? Of course. And then I realized after that, that that's why my mother and I were never close, because I felt like, first of all, I felt like she had to have known. I had no idea, because she and I never talked about it. After that first time, never. Never said a word about it, right? And so I had felt that she must have known. And why didn't she stop it? Or why did she leave me alone with him? Why did she let me go and let him come into bed at night with me? Right, right, right. Now I was an adult woman, I'm thinking, whoa. But our world is different now than it was then. But this is the part that was most telling for me and most freeing. One, when I did that, I realized that was the cause of my mother and I never, we were antagonistic. We were just never close. We never talked about anything meaningful. Right. Ever. Right. But after that session, there must have been five women in that class, young women, who came up to me and said, it happened to me too. And the class only had maybe 20, I'm thinking, 20 or 30 students. Yeah, I mean. And the fact, that was like, oh my God, it's not just me. I thought I was the one at fault and it only happened to me. And in a class that size to hear from, there must have been four or five women who all came around and said, not the exact same situation, but the exact same abuse as well. Yes, yes. So anyway, that closes that part out. Wow. I don't want to make light of it, but the point is these things are still happening. And- A huge percentage of women. And girls. Yep, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And we're embarrassed and ashamed to talk about it. People are doing it more because of the- Thank you for sharing, though, girl. Thank you for sharing me because I think when we started this, you said that in telling the story, it might help others be able to come to grips with a similar story. And I think you're absolutely right. Thank you for doing that. But I want to add something onto that. Go ahead. And that is, I have turned out, and I'm going to be, the nuns would hate this, but I have been very successful in my life. I think I am a very well-balanced, intelligent, caring, resourceful, independent, powerful leader. Yep. And I don't want the whole idea of victimhood. That's what's concerning because sometimes I think, oh, that kid was abused or that kid was neglected or that kid came from a family with drugs. And so they're doomed to write them off because they'll never make it. I am to toot my own horn when I, this is jumping into my next part of my life, but I joined the military and I rose to the rank of colonel at a time when there were very few women in the military, very few women. And the number of women who became colonel was so small, we almost knew each other. To show you, you can go from being a coal miner's daughter, to being a colonel, even though we have that kind of life experiences which most people would look at as, oh my God, that kid's never gonna make it. So it's what you do with those experiences that matters. And you're not a victim. Victim is probably the last word I would ever attach to you. A survivor and a doer. Well, you know what? It gave me, this is also interesting. I've had other experiences in my life where I was, some guy tried to rape me. I got away. In the military, I dealt with this, oh God, people were, guys were groping me and turned the lights off, coming to my house. But I don't know if it was the young, but I had done that before. And I wasn't gonna do it again. That's one thing I realized. So I was able to get out of all those situations unscathed because I had built, you know, it's the kind of thing if you don't have bad things happen to you or face hard times, you never develop the coping skills. There's something. If you live in a life of roses, when you face a hardship, you're gonna be unequipped to deal with it. So it empowered me later on when I met up against the similar stuff, you know? When in talking, there's an old quote, the grain of the sand that irritates the oyster creates the pearl. Yeah, yeah. And so some of those tough life experiences can be the thing that makes you special in the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we all want, yeah, yeah, so. So do you want me to just keep rambling? Sure, keep going. Yes, absolutely. Okay, let's get back to the nuns because they play a big part in my life. Right? Yes. And I started by saying, now you know why my childhood wasn't, you know, a bed of roses. So the nuns showed me another life. It was like, they were pure. Remember, I thought of myself as simple, painted, a loose woman, whatever it was, a kid. Little girl. But the nuns were, they were so, and they looked like their life was simple and carefree, I'm gonna say carefree, you know, but they were always happy. Well, not always, I got slapped a bit around, but that's what nuns did in those days. But I didn't have a lot of mean nuns. They were very caring. And I happened to be, and I am, very smart. And so I was always academically at the top of the class. Well, nuns love smart kids. Mm-hmm, yep. So I ended up being more often than not, teacher's pet kind of thing. So I idolized them. And so they, it doesn't happen anymore, but in those days, you could enter the convent right after eighth grade. Don't do it anymore. You actually went into the mother house and the mother house wasn't, like I said, Mendon, New Jersey and we lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And you lived in the mother house for the entire school year. It came home for the two or three months in the summertime and then went back. And we wore a uniform that looked more like a habit. It was the ugliest thing. Oh my God. If I find pictures of that, I will not send it to you. Yes. So I decided I wanted to go in and be a nun, which would have been right at, it's September after I graduated eighth grade. And my mother, of course, my father had died. And this, by the way, this guy, after I mentioned what had happened, just left the house. So my mother obviously must have came to the house. I never saw him again. So my mother, she had, back to the, she was married 18 years before I was born. She told me, when I said I wanted to be a nun and I wanted to go into the convent, she told me that she had made a promise to God that if she ever got pregnant, she would, I want to say offer up her child, but if her child wanted to enter religious life as a priest or a nun, you could give her child back to God. Yep, gotcha. Well, there you go. So rather than say no, you know, you're 11 years old, you're not gonna go into the convent. She remembered she promised God this and she's not gonna Welsh on that agreement, I guess. So she allowed me to go in the convent. And so I spent four years in the Malancrad convent still is in Mendon, New Jersey. Then, and I loved it, loved it. I, you know, in the Catholic tradition, they talk about having a vocation, which is a calling from God. Yes. How to do it. And usually vocations, although they've expanded them now, but it usually meant for the religious life as a religious woman or a priest. And so I always believed I have a vocation. To this day, I think I have a vocation, not just to be a nun, though. Yes, right. So I was in there for my four years of high school. And then after high school graduation, went home for the last summer, and then I entered the convent and it's when I was a candidate, then that's when you get the black long dress and that's called a candidate and then a postulant and a novice and a religious professor nun. So then I entered and I was in there for another two and a half. So it was almost six and a half, seven years. Second year novice, I won't go into the ranks of the nuns, which I didn't do well in, I did in the military. But after, I was six months away from taking first vows. So I had a full habit. The only skin on us was this. That's all you could see in our hand. That was the only thing you could see. We're all covered in black. We should have good skin. None should have good skin. But anyway, so I had gotten, this is a time if you, any Catholics, during the Ecumenical Council, when Pope John the 23rd, who was using the phrase, open the windows up. Let the light of the air in. Let's be outgoing as opposed to, we got the truth nobody else does. And there was a little bit of a freedom to talk about things. And they called them mistress of novices. They have seemed to change that term because they were like, mistress has another meaning. So now they call them directors of novices. But our mistress of novices went to Rome for something and we got a substitute for a few months. And the sister who came in, sister Mary Williams, she has passed away. She was a breath of fresh air literally because I won't make your name. So our mistress of novices had been mistress of novices for something like 17 years. And she had been in the walls of the mother house. She was very rigid, very strict, loved public humiliation. Oh my God, that was the thing, public humiliation. In the military, we were told to praise in public and criticize in private. In the convict, it was just the opposite. You criticized as a public and if you were good, you might have heard it in the behind closed doors. Yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. But anyway, so the mistress of novices was very, very stern and very, very strict. And when sister Mary William came in, we were starting to talk. She allowed us to talk, to ask questions. I thought, we're talking religious things, you know? Mm-hmm. So one of the things that they used to warn us about in the convent was something called particular friendship. Have you ever heard that phrase? No. Okay, most people haven't. I find it is something unique to the religious life. And we had no idea what it meant. We just knew from the day we walked in as freshmen in high school, we were to avoid particular friendships. They were the worst thing. We thought that meant you shouldn't have a close friend. We were always forbidden from pairing off two of us. And we thought it was because of Christian charity. Love everyone. You don't love one person more than you love another person. Gotcha, yep. You are kinder and nicer to the people you dislike than you are to the people you like. You avoid the people you like and you hang around with people you dislike. Well, that's sacrifice, that's mortification. That's giving credit in heaven. Makes for really not fun times. But I had formed a friendship which I knew was sort of forbidden. This is not sexual at all, by the way. I understand, yeah. But we only learned years later after we left the convent because I have organized reunions for those of us. There were 21 of us in my group that what they meant by particular friendship was lesbianism. We had no idea. None of us knew anything about sex. I mean, you know, kids, but they were concerned. And I could understand your environment with adolescent and teenage girls surrounded by girls. And they were so concerned about that that they drilled in this. Well, so I met a friend and we were talking about theology stuff, but I had said one of the virtues that nuns always told us was openness and honesty, which has gotten me into so much trouble in my life. I can't begin to tell you. But they said, that's what you have to be honest. You have to be open. That's a sign of true virtue. So I told the mistress that I like this other girl. And so we were forbidden to ever be together, ever talk. And then this new mistress came in and I told her but she said, well, she's in your older now. Remember, two and a half years had passed since we were kind of, and she said, you know, you're over, you're over, but sure, I think you can talk, you know? And so we did. So we were, you know, we're not paling off, you know? We're just talking about God and theology and ethics and that kind of stuff. And then the other mistress came back and open and honest. I wanted to share with her that, you know, well, that's it for a while. And so I got kicked out of the convent. Wow, that, that. Yes, she, after sharing that with her, being so open and honest, I don't know what she thought. No clue. And then all of a sudden she calls me in and says, she didn't think I had a vocation, you know? Wow. And at this point, I'm getting a little bolder, you know? And I said, I thought I did. So I remember, she said, well, we'll make a Novena. It's nine days of prayer, you know, sort of money back guarantee, you know, be nine days of Novena. You know, you'll, you'll get whatever you ask for. So she was going to ask the Holy Spirit whether I had a vocation and I was going to ask the Holy Spirit, well, our Holy Spirit's different. And because she was the mistress, her Holy Spirit said, I didn't, my Holy Spirit told me I did. Well, not a big, not a boom. I'm out of the convent. So anyway, that was. What was that like for you though? That to have your total life going in one direction and all of a sudden, yeah, that was probably, I'm trying to think there were three, as I look back on there's more, but there were some really horrible things in my life. The first was, well, my father dying and then the abuse and this was right up there because when she said, she told me, she didn't think I understood the vow of chastity, but she was right. Cause I had no clue what chastity was. Cause I had no clue. I mean, I knew what sex was obviously, but I didn't, I didn't know what lesbianism was anyway. But when I came out, I was, I think it was the time in my life where I felt like I wanted to die, like suicide was something I thought about. Because at that point I was like 21, 20 or 21. And I had not ever, had never been on a date, never had gone to a secular high school, never held a job. I'm back in the same house with my mother. Oh, and to make this even worse, I was told, directed by the mistress to write a letter to my mother to tell her, I wanted to come home because I didn't want to be a nun. And that was a lie. We're gonna have her write that. So that's the letter my mother got. And years later, and once again, we never talked about it. We never talked about why are you home? You know, it was many, many years later that, and I don't even know how it came up, where she said, and I don't know why I told her that it wasn't my decision to come home. It was the convent, you know, the nun's decision. And she said something like it never made sense. She said, because I had just seen you like six, we used to have visiting days and they were once, maybe three or four times a year where your parents could come and visit you for a few hours. And she said something like, well, you just see me when you were so happy. And then all of a sudden we get this letter saying you want to come home. So she suspected that that was not the truth. So anyway, so I got kicked out of the convent and it was horrible. And I went to work in a factory. I'm from Pennsylvania, you know, and that's what everybody did. No, my family had ever gone to college. My mother had stopped school after eighth grade. She never even went to high school. And my father I think went to high school, I'm not sure. So I was working in sort of factory-like situation and God, I always have such long-winded stories. But when I went to work in this place, I walked in and I saw a woman who had been in elementary school with me. Now there were only 17 in my class in elementary school. So we all knew each other. I think there were nine girls and eight boys or something. Anyway, and I saw the Judy there and I was like, oh, wow, now I hadn't seen her in a long time. But everybody knew where I was. I mean, everybody knew I went into the convict. So I'm in this like a steno pool. Kind of it was, I don't get the detail, but I mean, it was like an office-type situation, big open office-type situation. Yeah. And I'm making friends with the women, they're all women. And all of a sudden something changed. I would go into the ladies' room and all the women, those days women would go in the ladies' room and just sit and soak and gab and maybe smoke, I don't know. And I'd hear them and we'll open the door, hear them all talk and walk in and everything goes stone silent. Everybody's talking. And then I overheard somebody talking about a party they had had the previous weekend. And it was a party that was hosted, well, called by Judy. I know Judy since first grade. She had invited everybody in the office to her party except me. And so I was sort of like ostracized and it was because I was in the convict. Of course. And another woman came to me and told me when I caught wind of it. And I couldn't understand why I wasn't invited. I mean, I wasn't rabble rouser or anything like that. And she said, well, they think you're too holy to come to a party because you wouldn't fit in because they assumed that because I've been in a convict they couldn't talk. I don't know what they talked about, but they assumed I would be either wet blanket or whatever. Right, right, right. So it was because of that that I decided I can't stay here. I gotta do something. And so I went back to the sisters, the nuns who taught me and I asked advice, cause my mother couldn't help. And they suggested I go back to college. I had some college in the convent and that's what I did. And that's got me to New York state. So I didn't know how to apply to colleges. They helped me. All the colleges in Pennsylvania had closed. The admissions had already closed. New Jersey still had some. And so they helped me with the filling the forms out and getting into college. So that's got me to, now it's called Cain College, but you know, that's got me to New York state. And where I didn't meet you. Or you didn't meet me. That's right. Did you live in union? I went to cadets. Yeah, so what I did was, yeah. So I lived in with three, I didn't live on campus cause I couldn't afford it. So I would rent a bedroom. They would have these in the housing office. And I, so I found, this is wonderful. Well, two great experiences, one horrible experience, but I rented a room from Mrs. Parker. And she was a Jewish lady who kept kosher and here I am a Catholic girl. So I had to learn how to keep kosher. Oh my God. So I lived with Mrs. Parker. And then after I graduated, I moved in to a minister and his wife's house. He's a retired Protestant minister and he tried to rape me. I escaped. He ripped the clothes off me. So I was out there in the winter without stumbling, but I got out of the situation. But once again, I was blamed for it. I ran to the next door neighbors. I don't want to give the details, but I ran to the next door neighbors and they saw me and he'd ripped my shirt off and they helped. I don't even know where I went. I can't remember where I went that night. And then his wife came home and I don't know what story told. Probably I came onto him. I have no idea. But all of a sudden now I'm back into this house. But anyway, so it was shortly after that that I decided I was going nowhere. I had a bachelor's in psychology. I was still working as a secretary. I also had a second job. I was cleaning houses and babysitting. I just had a third job. And I realized that I needed to get an advanced degree if I was ever gonna not be a secretary or clean house. And so that's when the woman I was boarding with the time after I left the minister's house, I boarded with another Jewish woman who only passed away. She was in her mid-90s about two years ago and I missed assessment. Oh my God, I loved her. She was like another mother to me. And her children had, you know, she was divorced, her children were out of the house. And so I lived with her until I joined the Air Force. And she's the one that told me about the military paying for your, because I didn't know how to pay for your advanced degree. Yeah, if I hadn't been, and I always, I missed assessment. I invited her to my promotion party. I invited, she couldn't come because, but she came to my retirement when I retired. Nice. But anyway, so that's how I joined the Air Force because I wanted to get my master's degree. My goal was to be a clinical psychologist. I had taken psychology, majored in psychology in college, mainly cause I had no clue as to what to do. And psychology fascinated me. I mean, the more people was like... Yeah, yeah. And so I thought, wow, I'd love to do this. I'd love to be a, anyway. So, but I realized early on, you don't get a job with a woman in those days. This is in late sixties, early seventies, as a professional job with a bachelor's degree. Right, right. I had my bachelor's, I'd go on interviews, they'd ask me, can you fight? Literally. And so I, yeah, I'd be in a secretary. And so anyway, so this assessment said, well, the military pays for your advanced degree. So I thought, okay, I'll go in, get my master's degree. Get out, be a clinical psychologist. Yeah, well, that didn't work out, but it was even better. So I did get my master's degree. I have all my coursework for a PhD in international relations and arms control, but I never became a clinical psychologist. So... Wow. Yeah, so that takes me to my Air Force years. Yes, and I see that our time is becoming limited. So a couple of things. Juan, I'd like to hear a little bit about your Air Force career, but also when you think of your life today, are there words of wisdom, are there things that you could share to the audience that kind of encapsulates what you've learned about this thing we call life? Yes, I don't know where I heard this saying, but I remember it every desk I had whenever in the military you move around every three years, change jobs, but I had this phrase on my desk, and it was, if you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. And I don't know how, maybe it's a bit of genetics part of life experiences, but I have taken risks my entire life. I'm the one that, remember, I always raise my hand. You know, I'm the one that speaks up. I'm not shy. I oftentimes, I mean, you talk to people talk about planning your life. I never plan my life. I mean, it's sort of as if I just did things as they came and I took advantage, and I wasn't thinking that I was taking advantage of the opportunity. I just saw something that needed to be done or something that needed to be said, and I rarely ever thought of the consequences of doing that. But remember, well, remember, I just told you, you know, that by being open and honest and saying things, investing things, I had colossal failures. You know, I can't get out of the convent of doing that. I can tell you more. I mean, I got fired from jobs, you know. Yes, but there's an honesty with yourself through all that. Oh, yeah. I mean, you're, and you paid a price for being yourself, basically, Rosanne. Yeah, even, well, even in the military, I am pretty certain that if I had been less outspoken, because I would, I mean, I risked a whole bunch of crap in the military, you know, and mostly it was women's rights because we were like, we were ignored, missed, whatever. And I would say things, and I remember one time I said something to the general, well, a lot of things, but anyway, and he wouldn't prove me for some very high level jobs I was being considered for, you know, working in NATO and, you know, I mean, really high level jobs. I mean, I became the assistant to the vice president of the United States, Al Gore. But because I probably had a reputation of being outspoken, you know, and earlier I wasn't, I was never rude or mean, but I learned to temper and be more, you know, phrasing how I said things rather than just saying, you know, women are not heard here, or you don't promote women, you know, whatever. Right, right, right. So there was the good and the bad side, and that is when I said those things, I rarely, I hardly ever thought, even when I got to be a city councilor in Burlington, or the F-35, right? I didn't think, well, what could happen to me if I say this weapon system doesn't belong here, or this is never, right? And so I was often surprised, I shouldn't have been, but I was at the, you know, the bad things that then came towards, and they still do. I mean, you know, I got death threats, for goodness sake, when I fought against the F-35. That's never stopped me, I never learned, never learned. Well, I'm glad you never learned, Roseanne, Greco. You know, our time is up here today, but I'd like to have you come back, and to this some more down the road, would you be interested in doing that? Oh. There's more to tell, there's more of your story. Oh yeah, right, yeah. I got long, interesting, like twists and turns, but yes, I'd love to, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't know, everybody had, like you said, everybody has a story. Everybody has a story. You don't know what's there until somebody asks you, you know. That's right. Yeah. Is there any awards you've won over the years? Oh, God, yes, oh my God, yes. We can. Oh my God, I got a, I guess you put it in. Give me one. Rack full of medals, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna have you back. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for today. Oh, it's so great. Thank you for your life. Thank you for your interest in my life. Absolutely. Thanks, Gary. All right, you're welcome.