 happiness and hard times. My name is Ken Birtness and I'm coming to you from the North Shore out at Holly Eva. Today we have a very special program about making life changes while things get difficult or things get interesting. How we make those changes in those transitions and to do that and to help me are my good friends Gary and Cindy Quinn and they're both former residents, but now they're coming to us from Oregon. Welcome to the show guys. Thank you Ken it's nice to be here. Yeah I'd like to say it's nice by the shower and put on this here a lower shirt. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having us on Ken. You know I loved having my low-high shirt on when I went to the mainland because everybody would look at me and they'd be really impressed and they'd say oh you're from Hawaii? Gee you know tell me about Hawaii and so I just stopped wearing suits and ties and all that stuff no matter how formal the situation was. Basically you know like at a conference or something but I always got great reviews from a low-high shirt so I really enjoy that. Yeah you can't go wrong with a low-high shirt. That's true. You know I think a good place to start on this about making choices life choices and doing it joyfully. Is that first big? Well it's not actually the first choice but it's certainly one of the biggest that you'll make in a lifetime and that is making a choice and a movement from being single to being a duo to being married or partner into having that special person in your life. So maybe we could start the show with you guys talking a little bit about that how you got together and how you decided that you know what we're a couple we're a two-some. Okay I guess I'll start it off because Cindy said I should start it off which is good enough for me. I have been flying for we were both flight attendants and he was hired in 1970 with Pan Am. I was hired in 1978 and somewhere around early 1980 I had transferred to Hawaii for Los Angeles. So I walk into the Pan Am office after a long trip coming from Japan I believe and she was in the office talking to a supervisor she was in her Armani uniform and back to me and I thought see that uniform looks particularly attractive and I made the mistake of walking up next to her because I wanted to see what the rest of the uniform looked like and I looked over at her and she was just just took my breath away. So being a typical male that has his breathtaking opaque I looked at her and immediately said oh I couldn't speak. So having grown up in the Philippines for part of my youth I speak one of the dialects there and I assumed she was Filipino so I asked her in Filipino I said Filipino about and she looked at me and she gave me that look that women can give to a man kind of the head to toe look checking you out to see what kind of nutcase you are and she answered and said I look it but I don't speak at big boy and that was it I was I thought she's beautiful and she's turkey so it was a done deal for me but Cindy was coming off a relationship so she wasn't really interested in romance at the time I was so she just said can we be friends for quite a number of months and I said you know what if I have any hope of opening this door I'll just relent to being her friend and if that door should open up great if not at least all made a friend and after many months she finally wore down and after drugging her intensely and asking her to marry me she said yes she doesn't remember any of that of course of course because I was drugged out that's right so we we got married about a year after that and like many married couples we had our our challenges you know where do you put the spoon there's a salt pepper ball on the table where does it get put away you know the little things you bicker and fight and come to some type of agreement on but in any event not long after we were married to jump to that we got laid off we had just bought a home up in Hollywood not far from where you live and we got laid off and that was really our first big challenge we were just in our first year to a marriage so still in the honeymoon stage and um losing your job and having a mortgage was could have been really heavy but we decided to do a number of things one canceled all subscriptions all magazines didn't buy anything if we didn't need it didn't get in the car if we didn't need to go somewhere walk the food land get the exercise stop drinking all together no booze no fun went to a lot of baseball games with other laid off crew members and made the best of it and before too long we had our jobs back and life went on so i think like lucy told charlie brown one time if you worry and worry worry you've just wasted a good worry when things turn out right and they did i think having that challenge too uh so uh right after we got married was a real good indicator can i think when couples go through crisis right away not that they intend to but when they did come we learned a lot about each other and i remember when we lost our jobs for those three months gary said to me so do you do anything other than pour coffee on an airplane and i said i've got some skills i've got skills yeah you can pour tea as well but um the greatest uh thing i learned in those few years that we were married was you gotta have humor in a relationship and humor we have had for 42 years and i still think he's pretty weird but in a good way his mom always tells me you really married a weird person i said you raised him i have to re-raise him but we've had a lot of fun in our 42 years and i think flying together and working together living together that could have caused some issues but um because we were on the major big airplane we always worked at opposite ends of the cabin and but when we got to foreign countries we really got to play and that was that really solidified our relationship and we're so very grateful that we were able to work and live together yeah but we actually got paid to fly around the world and have fun together we worked hard to get to where we would have fun but uh it gave us a chance to have layovers in different countries with each other uh learn different things try different foods make different people it was it was a great career especially flying together with my beautiful spouse we had a good time on and off the plane that's terrific you know one of the things that we talked about before the show was that one of the challenges that we all face especially when we get older is the loss of loved ones and uh but that happens all the time in our life you know we lose contact with people we get into disagreements with our friends and for some reason we it seemed to be cut off from them and uh so a lot of friends are with us but a lot of friends we lose and losing a friend losing a loved one losing a relative is is really hard and i know you guys have gone through that yourselves and uh and i know some of the people that are watching that are going through that or have gone through that and uh could you tell us a little bit about how to how to do that very difficult change and do it with joy um when we lost when we lost our parents all four of them in 14 months it was very difficult because they were our best friends we um played with them very hard um and losing them all together in a year and a half really really you know took us back but what we did and i learned this in your class that when you go through a major loss take some time out for yourself to heal and so we did we took actually a whole year off uh we visited several different states we are blessed to have 52 nieces and nephews and we went around the united states and um offered our help in serving them and in the meantime didn't realize that taking that time off for us was a very healing healing season for us and yes it's painful to this day they've been gone for 11 12 years now but at the same time we recognize that's the cycle of life you know and we were so grateful that we took that time off for us to heal because when we came off of that healing journey we were ready for the next adventure and uh and to add to that we were just so blessed to be close to our parents um you know in life you meet people that for one reason or another don't get along with their parents um seriously don't like their parents or the parents don't like them for for whatever reason then i suppose philosophically speaking just because you're born into someone's house doesn't mean you should get along brothers sisters parents and whatnot but we were blessed that we did so we also tempered the loss by remembering how close we were to them how fortunate we were to have their influence in our lives and have them love us for so many years and then the you know the old saying about payback is a female dog i think would be the correct word um payback was not um to be able to care for our folks in their final months was was an absolute blessing in our lives uh to learn about giving back about some patience my my mom had pretty advanced Alzheimer's but we learned some of the tricks of dealing with that um much like dealing she did with us when we were kids if we were being naughty she would divert our attention to something else so when she was naughty or whatnot we would divert her and uh it was the best of times and only on one or two occasions the worst of times and those went away quickly so we we were blessed a thousand fold by that 14 month span and can i just interject one thought ken for those of you who are going through loss um we learned in that healing journey that when we were really missing them or hurting that day we would say to each other jump the fence and what we meant by that was jump the fence from morning to being so grateful that we had them for so long all the lessons they taught us and once we started sitting on that side of the fence of being grateful and thankful for the years that we had we could just feel our sadness lifting and that that helped us a lot because we did go through those days and i'm so grateful that we went through them together and we could use those buzzwords like i'm feeling kind of sad did it we'll jump the fence and then we'd start talking about the good times yeah jump the fence i think that's a great phrase i'm going to steal it and use it okay great it's a great phrase and a great description one of the things that i would add to what Cindy and Gary are talking about is that relationships uh that come from uh being relatives for instance like parents and children that we tend to think that that just happens and it's uh you know it just happens it comes out of the blue and you have perfect parents and perfect kids and that's just not the case and one of the things that i've always been impressed about with Cindy and Gary is that they do not take anything for granted they continually help they continually work at a relationship and the most successful parent-children relationship is where the parents have to work to understand what the kids are going through and how to really be with them and help them in through these hurdles that they're going through and the same thing goes for the kids they have to understand where their parents are coming from so each of them have to put themselves in the other person's shoes to a degree and if you learn that lesson when you're young and you can do that and this of course goes with friends and siblings and all the other people that are important to us but especially with parents and kids it makes life so much different and so much easier when we put when we work at it when we put our heart into it and we think about the other person in there whether they're a parent or a friend or a sibling or whatever so and my hat's off to both Cindy and Gary because that's what they do I know that because I was in the great position of really getting to know both these people differently you know a lot of couples that I've met I know them as a couple I meet them as a couple but with Gary Gary was my computer guru and he and I did lots of projects and he taught me lots of things about the computer about filming about videography which he's an expert in and we did some film compilations one of which is very appropriate to this show it was the joy of humor and laughter and Gary and I put that together and that was a great experience and what Cindy was one of the best students I've ever had uh not was she a good student but she came in and she brought joy to the class and she was the only student that not only brought joy and made everybody smile but she also brought us brownies every once in a while really made the class really I think that's called brown nosing but it doesn't it does the mouth and the taste buds and everything but even yeah even her brownies smell good but boy they were great to eat so so I had a great fortune of meeting in both of these in different ways and then spending time with them together and it's been a joy but these are people that don't take for granted the joys of life they work at bringing other people joy and they work at looking for joy in their life so can I just add one point to that like you were saying you know we all have choices I think that when you recognize that people are doing the very best they can in the moment that helps me a lot because sometimes we can get discouraged with people's behavior or whatever but when I remind myself they're doing the best that they know how for this moment then it seems so much less judgmental and so so much for accepting of the person because all of us are doing the best we absolutely know how we'll learn better for tomorrow but today I'm giving you my best and I think that that comforts me to know and takes the judgment out of anyone's behavior I think that's incredibly important uh and I like to reference to tomorrow because we're all we're all learning how to do it better and a lot of people's regrets are saying I could have done better well at the time you did the best you could and that's right and then you're learning from that as well so it's certainly been true in my life and most of the people that I know so thank you for that here are you yeah I was just gonna add Ken thank you um a lesson I learned early on was in high school I was chosen to be an American Field Service Scholar and I'd had four years of German so where are they gonna send me obviously Switzerland, Austria or Germany when I got the call this one night the lady says we're sending into the Philippines so I'm looking on the map by Cuba I didn't I didn't really know where I was and when I remember looking at the globes I couldn't I don't think they speak German way down here and I was disappointed um but I didn't want to show that of course because it was still quite an honor to be chosen to represent my school my country if you will my family and go live with another family for an entire year and um so it was rather interesting once I got there from almost day one there was a deja vu where I felt like I belonged I just fell in love with the country the people the food just everything about it but about three months into being there I was a bit discontent with the foster family I was with due to no fault of theirs they're an incredibly wonderful family so I asked our sponsor I said could I maybe consider changing families and she said well I'll tell you what this is two months into it she said I want you to give it another three to four weeks because three months is a very important transition time and I think you might find a change and sure enough as if by magic um by month three I was looking back what was I complaining about these people are fantastic and I remain relatively close to all of them for 50 plus years now so that's advice I've passed on to especially younger people that are oh I don't like college or I'm not happy with my teacher is it just hang in there and there's something about a 90 day period if you will or giving yourself a second chance that uh that was a lesson I'd never uh forgotten I sometimes forget to apply it but I've always remembered the lesson that's a great lesson that that is thank you for sharing that that's that's terrific um let's talk about uh since we're talking about uh different parts of the world um let's talk about your move from Hawaii um you know it's very difficult I think for people uh who come from the mainland and come here to Hawaii and decide to live here in Hawaii it's a big transition uh from the mainland our other areas of the world uh and it you know it we certainly could use that 90 days to really appreciate uh whoever transitioning to like you're saying but the other part is being in Hawaii such a long time like you guys were and then moving to the mainland which a lot of people do as well so we got both those different changes uh happening and uh I know that was hard for you because uh we had such wonderful times here in Hawaii and you love Hawaii as much as I do which is incredible and uh you made that transition so maybe we could talk about how we do that to make because that's a difficult transition to to change leave a place that you love so much and and then find a place that you also love which I know you do with Oregon so tell us about that we do send you want to start or yeah the main reason we made that move Ken was like we mentioned the loss of our four parents and we realized in our 60s that we didn't have a whole lot of time left to really connect with our siblings and all our siblings lived on the mainland and so we waited out and like you said as much as we hated to leave paradise we realized that this was necessary and so we transitioned over here to the mainland and we took that year just kind of looking for places to land and when Gary had said to me I found a place in Oregon and I said what do you know about Oregon he goes it starts with a no and I said okay I said I heard it rains a lot and it's cold and it goes well you know we have to give someplace a chance so we did um we saw a home on a hill made a bit on it on our year transition got back to Hawaii and the realtor called and said well welcome to Oregon and we're like uh oh this is it huh so we came back to the islands and packed all our stuff up and friends like yourself why Oregon why Oregon why not you know we just needed to land somewhere that we knew we could be closer to our siblings so that was the catalyst of us moving yes it was difficult and the change of weather and environment was uh very different for us but in the first year we sat out on our lanai and we looked out over the water and said we feel so blessed that Oregon called us we feel like Oregon did call us and we're really happy here of course we love going back to the islands and seeing our friends and family there but Oregon is home now and we're in close proximity to all our siblings and that that's huge for us now as we enter our 70s yeah it makes me recall some advice from a friend who um the airlines were laying off in Hawaii so they were looking for people to move to the mainland to relocate and he chose to do that and after a couple of years he called us one day and said uh you guys I'm happy to tell you there's life after Hawaii and I remember taken okay there's life after Hawaii good luck dude and I I couldn't believe he said that but um for those who may be watching this this show who find that life in Hawaii about the only drawback really to the islands certainly not the people certainly not the culture of the food the environment but the cost of living is stressful for a number of families with numerous jobs we we know that we've been there as well and that part of being on the mainland is it's a financial relief but it's also pretty darn fun here too and Hawaii is just a plane ride away still so we were fortunate to live there most of our lives Cindy for 40 years me for 38 years I believe and um life here on the mainland is awful good and uh here I'll show you a quick view of what we're forcing ourselves to look at today I don't know if you all can see that but uh after living on the north shore we had to get back on the water so we've got a lovely little two bedroom home reasonably affordable a little boat and we love our time fishing playing on the river cold weather one drawback only because the body's used to Oregon but the nose isn't you'll get the running nose I think too uh Ken um if we can speak to people our age and changing and uh transitioning in life we you I think we have to be willing to take risks you know and it's that risk taking not knowing what's at the other end um is so exciting because as we found leaving the islands after 40 years we're so grateful that we took that risk and I remember moving here and I was standing in line and the lady saw my Hawaii license plate and she goes you moved here recently and I said yes she goes from the islands I said yes we did she goes at your age age and when she said at my age I was 64 then I said oh I didn't know there was an age limit for moving that's rather interesting too but all through life we have to be willing to take those risks because we don't know what's on the other end but sometimes most the time it can be a very exciting adventure yep and this certainly was one uh it was rather cute when we first moved you know you're you're missing things in a move you need a colander you need a certain spoon or something see go the dollar store in the hardware store and you buy this stuff so I'm in the dollar store one day and lady behind me she sees my uh Hawaii visa car she's oh you from Hawaii and I go yeah I'll leave a huge goes oh I know a juice you've been a Hawaiian food truck and kind of like my friend earlier I'm like okay I'll look for the Hawaiian food truck here in Florence, Oregon and uh three weeks later I see this yellow taste of Hawaii food truck and sure enough some of the best Hawaiian food local food on the planet is right here in our town by a couple from Maui so we get our taste of Hawaii uh lots of people who wear a loha shirts and every once while it gets up to 72 degrees so it feels just like Hawaii that's terrific you know I've seen pictures of Gary and Cindy's houses and they they're really in the best of places I mean it's southwestern Oregon and they live close enough that they've got they can see the ocean from where they live on their on their top floor and they're right next to the river and I love rivers and very envious of their time on the river and I hope to talk them into coming back and sharing a little bit what it's like to live by a river and sail on it and you know and ride it and it's it's just a wonderful thing and keep the salmon hungry for you the fishing here is better than Hawaii that's an orange here great you know one thing that you know that really impressed me when Cindy talked about risk uh that's so very important whatever age you're at is that there comes opportunities for change and oftentimes change is risky but if you don't make the change if you don't take the risk you're really in danger of sitting back for the rest of your life and saying you know I should have tried that I should have done that that's a big regret that people have and when you make that choice and take that risk you can always make another choice down the line so you haven't done anything that's set in concrete but you've taken the risk and you've gone out and that's a wonderful thing to help people grow and enjoy life so that's terrific thank you for that story well listen isn't stagnation risky as well very life is risky and take it full on and one of our favorites uh I'll interject this real quick a song that I think virtually everybody knows and we've just sort of used it as a little philosophy in our part is uh row row row your boat gently down the screen and as Cindy would say tell anybody well if you're going to row your boat you got to get in it you got to engage in life you got to take responsibility for rowing your boat and it's your life and no one else can maneuver it you've got to get in the boat pick up the oars take responsibility and get going and gently down the stream I think sometimes we forget to give ourselves permission to be gentle with our decisions sometimes we make decisions in the moment and oh I should have thought of something else but just to be gentle with us because life is hard there's there are ups and downs there's stormy days there's smooth sailing days but we want to sail through life gently and be gentle with ourselves and the last three two verses are merely merely merely merely are you living a life filled with joy do you have like you said can I don't want to live with regrets I want to leave earth with joy in my heart laughter peace and to choose that every day I get to choose joy and some days when you don't feel like it you can't say I don't feel like it but today I choose joy and finally life is but a dream and we look at each other sometimes when we're floating down the river in our little boat we're like we're living the dream this is the best life that we can have and we have joy and peace and it's a dream that's come true for us and we've taken risks and yes there's been ups and downs and losses like you said in many transitions but at the same time we together can remind each other let's choose joy in all of absolutely yeah terrific you know we're out of time and I couldn't think of a better way to end I think you summed it up perfectly Cindy and I hope people that have watched this show can be ready to take some risks and not be afraid of change because there's a lot of joy ahead of people in their life and taking that risk and finding something new and something exciting as part of that so thank you thank you both for all you're sharing and I'm really hoping to talk you guys into coming back and doing another show with us there's lots of other topics that these two are very good at and they're always wonderful to share with you guys it's always makes me smile and happy so thank you for thank you thank you right back at your yes we love you guys aloha aloha kaka yaka kako Hawaii you got it you got it thanks to all the words we say in my islands maraming salamat po okay well thanks to all the people that think take away Jay and Hailey and Michael and Carol and that thanks for being supportive of us in our program and thanks to all of you for for listening and I hope you tune in in two weeks we're gonna have another show in a series of finding joy and humor and laughter so I hope you're with us then aloha if you liked this show why don't you give us a like or subscribe to our channel thanks so much