 Welcome to another show of Celebrate Life. My name is Garrity Carlos and I'll be your host today. This show is dedicated to the wonderful and amazing lives of people in all stations of life. I'm a firm believer that everyone has a story to tell. I'm also a firm believer that I'd rather hear your story when you're very much alive and well and thriving than to read it in an obituary. So this show is about just that, people telling their wonderful stories while they're very much an active participant in our communities. If you are interested in being on the show, please send me a note at celebrate life0747 at gmail.com or if you have a comment about this show or any prior show, feel free again to call me or email me at celebrate life0747 at gmail.com. Today, I am honored to have as our guest Ellen Baker. Good morning, Ellen. Good morning and I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Absolutely. It's great to have you here and be nice to spend some time with you today. Absolutely. So tell us about your life. Where did it start? Where did you grow up? I'm a New York City girl. I grew up in Manhattan in a housing development called Stuyvesantown, which, if anybody knows anything about New York City, part of it lives right on the East River. And when I was a little girl, I remember looking out my window at the East River and seeing all these big cruise ships coming in. And they often lit up my entire room and made all kinds of noise, but it was exciting. So I grew up in Manhattan. I went to public school in Manhattan. There were no school buses, so we walked. When I was little, I was driven. But we basically walked to school in some very interesting neighborhoods. So it was challenging at times. And there was also no lunch rooms. So we either had to bring our lunch or go home. So most of the time I would go home, basically eat my lunch in 10 minutes and then walk back to school. It was an old building with about four floors. There was no gym, so when we had our PE class, we had it on the roof where there was a lot of netting so that the balls wouldn't go over the roof. That was our physical education. Amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. Then I left the public school. And at that time in New York City, the middle schools and high schools were combined into one kind of into a middle school. But then they changed it as I was in school. So I went to a junior high school in another part of the city, which I also walked to. But at that point, and I think this is really kind of funny, but at that point, and it was a long time ago, I remember that pizza was 25 cents a slice and a soda was 25 cents and an ice cream was 25 cents. So my parents would give me a dollar and I would have two pieces of pizza, a soda and ice cream for lunch every day, which was great. So junior high school, we also had something in New York called special progress, SP. And if you qualified with your grades, you actually skipped seventh grade. So I skipped seventh grade and did just eighth grade was seven, eight, which meant that I was really young when I entered high school. And I entered high school, which was pretty far away. It was actually down near where the Twin Towers used to be. And there was no school buses. So I took public transportation and went to this school. This school was really a challenge. There were a lot of black and brown students there. And they were also those of us that came from Stuyvesantown who were predominantly white. And so there were gangs. There were gangs from different ethnic groups. And they weren't particularly happy with us because they saw Stuyvesantown as kind of an elite community. So it was a little bit frightening for the first two years of high school. My family decided that it was too frightening. And we actually moved. My mother was very nervous about it. She didn't do well with change. But my father said, nope, don't want my beautiful daughter going to this high school anymore. So we moved to Queens. And I completed high school in Queens, which of course was a completely different type of experience. So I don't know how much further you want me to go. I'm so about how different was it. What was different about it? Well, it was more suburban. We lived in an apartment. I always lived in apartments because my family did not have enough money to buy a house anywhere. And so this apartment was a little more spacious, not much, but a little more spacious. I always shared a room with my brother. And the school was probably a better academic situation. And it was closer to my house. And it felt safe. It felt a little safer. So that was what high school was all about. Yeah. A lot of times when people grow up in a local area, they don't take advantage of all the things that are around them. New York City obviously has museums and landmarks and historical. Did you, as a young child, did your folks get you out there? Some. Actually, I still have never been to the Statue of Liberty. Can you imagine coming from New York? But I did go to the Empire State Building often because my father worked in the Empire State Building on the 24th. And so once you were on 34th Street, there was there was a lot of hustle and bustle. I used to, at the time that I lived in New York City, it was pretty safe. And so we walked through all kinds of the Bowery and all kinds of neighborhoods, museums. No, we didn't do that. My family really wasn't. My parents just weren't interested in that kind of thing. We spent most what we really did was we spent most of the time with my extended family. I did go to the Bronx Zoo all the time because my grandparents lived across the street from it. Nice. And so my grandpa used to take us to the Bronx Zoo. I knew where every animal cage was. And I knew the Bronx Zoo like the back of my hand, which was really great. It was more about spending time with extended family. Aunt's, uncle's, cousins. So I finally went to the Twin Towers when I got older and I became a dancer with my husband and we danced at the top of the tower. Oh my goodness. Yes, we did. There was a ballroom there. It was an amazing. Wow. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. So I ended up doing a lot of the museums when my children got older and I would take them down to visit my parents and I would take them to museums and to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Headmaster Square Garden. Mm-hmm. Wow. Nice. Nice. Yeah. So you're a New York City girl, that's for sure. Yes. Definitely, definitely. When you were a little girl, what did you think you'd do when you grew up? What were some of your dreams? It's interesting. I was very, very kind of directed. When I went to elementary school, it was very traditional because that's how schools were then. When we went to school, all the desks were in a row and everybody opened up their math book to page 55 and everybody did the same thing. We didn't talk to each other, you know, you're not allowed to talk to anybody next to you. You had to do your own work. But when I got to fourth grade, I had the teacher who was my inspiration and I never veered from that career goal. Mrs. Silverman, I remember her. I remember what she looks like. She was amazing. She had us at tables instead of desks. She had us do cooperative projects. She had us stand and give verbal book reports. She invited guests in. She took us on field trips and I thought to myself, this is who I want to be. And from that day forward, I never, never changed my mind. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Isn't that something? Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And you were. You had a wonderful career as a teacher and we'll get to that a little bit later. Sure. Did you have any other people when you were young that inspired you to be who you are? You know, I had a friend in junior high school who was deaf. And at that point, you know, I kind of forgot since then, but I was really pretty proficient in American Sign Language. And what that did for me was to help me to understand how important it was to address all children's needs and to make sure that all children received the education that they needed. I also had several friends who had learning disabilities. And of course, at that time, they didn't really do a lot about it. But now, of course, special education is blossoming and there are lots of wonderful programs. And I think what happened for me living in Manhattan and going to a school where there was poverty and different ethnicities and lots of diversity and then also having friends who had challenges of different types, it kind of helped me to realize what kind of teacher I wanted to be. Those experiences are life-changing, aren't they? Sure are. Yeah. And New York provides such a kaleidoscope of experiences. I mean, just living there, the diversity, just the, it's a great city. Great. Sure is, sure is. So you graduated high school. Right. And go on. Okay, so I graduated from high school and unfortunately in my family, the belief and philosophy was that it wasn't important for girls to get an education because they were eventually gonna get married and be taken care of. And I was pretty spunky. And I said to my parents, as you well know, I said to my parents, I understand what you're saying and I understand you don't have money to send me to an out-of-town college. And they really didn't want to. I said, but I'm going to put myself through school. I wanna be a teacher, I wanna have a career. And so I worked at various clothing stores and other places. I babysat, I was a counselor over the summer and I was really good about, I had this bank account and I saved and saved and saved. And I ended up going to city college, the Queens, because I lived in Queens at that time, the Queens campus. And the city college, the tuition was really pretty reasonable and so I got some scholarships, some financial aid. And what I basically did was I got on the bus, drove that went right past my high school and very soon after that was my college campus. So I lived at home. I went to school. I worked all through college to continue to do it. I was a first-generation college student. And I went to Queens college and there is a funny story about Queens college. There was this, you'll love this. There was this guy, there was a big wall that it was just decorated and we all sat on the wall in between classes. It was just this big wall. And there was this kid that was always sitting on the wall playing the guitar. I thought to myself, does he ever go to classes? Who is he? It turned out that it was Paul, Paul Simon from Simon and Garfunkel. Oh my goodness. You met amazing. He was from Brooklyn. That's where he met Art Garfunkel but he went to school with me at Queens. Oh my goodness, that's amazing. Although I don't know if he ever went to school or graduated because he was always sitting on the wall playing the guitar. Amazing. So I went to college and I did become a teacher in New York. What did your parents do for work, Ellen? My dad did what a lot of other men of Jewish faith did for some reason, he worked in the Garmin Center. So he started out pushing carts around with dresses from place to place. And then he learned a great deal about the fabrics and the way things were constructed. And so he eventually worked for Burlington Mills and he was a claims adjuster, which so if something was wrong with the fabrics, they'd come to him. And so he was kind of like a lawyer without a law degree and he had to defend the company. My mom was, and he loved it by the way, my mom would stay at home mom until I got older and she worked for accounting as an account with, for accountants and what was amazing about her and this was really something. She was so incredible with numbers. And if he gave her a list of numbers, she would add them in her head faster than he could do it on his calculator. She had a way of adding numbers and she was never wrong. It was just incredible. I can't even tell you anytime you wanted to hear that she was never wrong. That's my mom. Did the Holocaust impact your family? It didn't directly impact my family, although one of my grandmothers, who I absolutely adored, was in hiding with her 11 brothers and sisters. But my other grandparents know they were already here. The way the Holocaust, it was very interesting. The way the Holocaust impacted me was, my family did not have a lot of money at all, but my parents saved up enough money for us to go to the Catskills every summer because it's so hot in New York. The place, the housing project that we lived in was not wired for air conditioning. We couldn't have air conditioning and they wanted to get us, my brother and I and themselves out of the city. So we used to go to the Catskills. My dad would work and then drive up for the weekends and we would stay in this little bungalow, we used to call them, I know in Vermont they call them camps, but it was like a small, very small place and we stayed there and we went for years. And I ended up having very, very dear friends from all over, but there was, somehow this place was divided into sections. It was the people on the hill, people in the valley and then there was a section called the refugees. And I don't know why they would call the refugees, but they all had tattoos from the camps, they were survivors. And I used to talk to them a little bit, but I was a little bit scared at that age. I was a little bit frightened of even hearing about it. And the only other thing was when I was married the first time my ex-husband's sister was married to a man whose parents were in the camps and were Holocaust survivors. So, and he is very adamant, a very kind of angry, a son of Holocaust survivors. So that's kind of, it's more impactful to me now. I've read many, many books, of personal accounts of people who have been in the camps. Yeah, yeah, hard not to be impacted by whether you're Jewish or not, to be honest with you. But well, thanks for sharing that. So you got a teaching job. Interesting teaching job. In New York City, what happened is there, there's a New York state license and a New York city license. So I got a New York state license, but in order to receive a New York city license, I had to accept the assignment that they gave me, the school that they gave me. I did not go out and interview. They said, you are teaching in the South Bronx and good luck. So I went to my school in the South Bronx, which was an old decrepit building. Again, in a black and brown neighborhood, really totally black and brown. I was handed my, at that time, they had these big metal boxes and inside were all the students' records. They didn't do anything digitally at that time. It was just this metal thing that you carried into your classroom. And I had 18 students, none of whom were white, all were black and brown. And at that time also, they classified students in classrooms by exponents. So if you had the class that was five one, then you had the most academically proficient students. And it went down from there. So they handed me my box and I had class five 11. Oh my goodness. And here I was, I had graduated from college at 20 because I did that SP thing. And I came out 20 years old with all these wonderful ideas of things that I was gonna do, that I learned. And I got to my classroom and it was like, whoa, you know, these kids, some of the Spanish kids barely spoke English. Some of the kids barely could read. Some of them were enormous, they had been left back. And my classroom was not even in the building. It was a quonset hut in the yard. The school was so overcrowded that they bought these leftover surplus quonset huts from the army or something. So I had this, I was in this metal, basically this metal box with these fifth graders. We didn't have a bathroom. So every time somebody wanted to go to the bathroom, they had to go to the main building. I was told to keep my door locked because there were things that, you know, roamed around the neighborhood. Anyway, I did that for two years. It was very hard because what I realized was that I did not understand these students. I didn't understand their life circumstances. I didn't understand where they came from. I didn't understand. And in order to really teach well, you have to have relationships with your students. And I tried, but it was really hard for me as a middle-class white woman to understand what these students were going through. There were a lot of what we called latchkey kids who went home and just took care of themselves. Their parents worked at night. It was very, it was an eye-opener. And it was not easy. I did a lot of crying. Well, I bet you did. And what did the schools support you and all the principal? It was so amazing. When I look back now, I think to myself, God, if I could go back there now, boy, could I do a great job? Because I know so much more and I'm so different in my approach. The principal would come by every once in a while and we had staff meetings once a month, but it was all about, you know, what they should serve in the lunchroom. I mean, it really, I didn't know. I didn't get a lot of support at all. It was rough. It was rough. I hung in there for two years. And after that, I went to work in a low-income housing project at a daycare center, but I did the kindergarten classroom because those daycare centers were open from 7.30 in the morning till 5 at night so that a lot of single moms could work. That was an interesting experience as well because all of the students were students of color, all the parents were of color, all the teachers were of color. I was the only white person who worked there and it was, I saw what discrimination looked like because it was during the time of the Black Panthers and, you know, of all the, of the Afros and the 60s. And the students loved me and I had long hair. They touched my hair because it was straight, you know, and they loved it and they were kindergartners. They didn't care what color. Right, exactly. But many of the parents would not look me in the eye when they came to get their kids. They would just grab them and go. Wow. Very, very interesting. It was an interesting experience for me. Wow. What that feels like, you know. Yeah, yeah. So these experiences must have been great in forming experiences for the future. Totally, totally. Because I, you know, we then decided, because through all this, I love New York City but there was a piece of me that loved the mountains and hiking and, you know, all that kind of thing and ultimately decided to move to Vermont in 1971. And I did take a lot of those experiences with me with a very, you know, clear understanding of how important it is to know your students, to truly know your students. How would you get, how would you do that? Ellen, how do you get to know your students in that deep way? Well, there's a lot of kinds of fun things that you can do, you know, little projects where they do illustrations of things they're good at. You know, I would have things like that or have them do, I used to have them each do like a square with their name and pictures of their family and places they've been and things they like and things they think they're good at. And I would put all the squares together and make it like a quilt, you know, and say that we are, you know, this is a quilt of who we are. And so it's a lot of observation. It's a lot of, you know, having morning meetings and talking to the students, you know, having them share about their life. And if you're lucky and you meet any of the parents, you know, if you have an open house and any of the parents come, you know, there's a lot of things that you can say, what would you like for your child? What do you think your child is good at? What are your child's interests when they're outside of school, things like that? You know, it's okay, yep, got it. So you moved to Vermont, where did you move to? So this wasn't very, also always interesting. Moved to a town called Stockbridge, outside of Bethel. South, you know, south, passed Randolph down that way. And we met these two other couples from New York. We went up there and we were looking for a piece of land. And we met these two other couples who were also looking for a piece of land through the realtor, I think. And there was a man, his name was Chapin Pratt. I don't think he's alive any longer. And he had bought a lot of land during the Depression and he had like land everywhere in Stockbridge. And what he was doing was selling off pieces of land. And he was basically selling a lot of the land to flat landers, that's what we called. And so we bought 12 acres of land on the, kind of on the side of a mountain. And Chapin Pratt's, what he would do is he had a crew of men and he would help us build log cabins. And so in Vermont, we built a log cabin from scratch. Wow. We had a jeep, we went into the woods, cut down the trees, took off the bark and then his crew would come in and kind of stack the logs because they knew what to do. They'd notch them and stack them. And then we had to learn how to do the wire laugh in between. And then we put the cement stuff and then we put creosote on the outside so the critters wouldn't eat our house. And we had this, and we had a beautiful log cabin that was built gradually. So we lived in a lean to during the summer then we lived in the basement until the house was ready for us to be inside. I had floors, I stained, I did whatever I could do with the little expertise that I had. We had a big stone fireplace. It was a beautiful, beautiful house. So I lived there for a number of years and worked at Sharon in Sharon, Vermont in a school house that had three classrooms and 60 children. It was a, nope, it was a one, two, three, four, five, six. I taught the three, four. And then I moved to Montpelier and I started teaching in Northfield for a few years. Then I went to Berlin which is where I finished my career. I worked in Berlin for 28 years but the majority of my time was spent teaching third and fourth grade, which I love. The same grades that the teacher that you were inspired to become a teacher was taught. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, yeah. I did, you know, when I first came to Vermont before I got my job, I did substitute in a one, two classroom but I just, I really love the third and fourth graders. So that's kind of where I settled and I ended up teaching public school for 35 years. Wow, 35. Gosh, the contrast between New York City teaching and Vermont, that, I mean, that's huge, right, right. So, well, a whole career teaching. What a wonderful gift to the world, my goodness. And that, but that didn't stop there. Then you carried on. Then I continued on. I actually, I did my masters here at Johnson State College and I got a master's degree in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis on gifted and talented, which we know you no longer use those words because they're kind of not exactly correct. But it was all about those children who were on the, you know, the upper end of the continuum, those who needed enrichment and I was very, very interested in that. And so- The five one kids versus the five 11 kids. Exactly. But also the gifted kids who are hard to identify, there are many, many gifted people who appear to have actually to be ADD or have behavior issues because they're bored and the school is not offering them what they need. And so I started a gifted and talented program in one of the schools that I worked in and I took these kids after school and I had speakers come in and different people and gave them enrichment. And so that was very important to me. And so I created a gifted and talented coordinator for that Berlin school, which I did for a while. And then we lost our funding. And I decided that I had been in the classroom many years and I wanted to leave the classroom when I still was upright and happy and had, you know, had a decent reputation, you know? And so I decided to send my resume to the University of Vermont thinking, well, you know, I can retire and maybe I can work part-time at the University of Vermont. Oh, maybe, cause I had a lot of student teachers in my classrooms. I hosted a lot of student teachers and I mentored them and I thought, I did that for what, 15 years maybe. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to be a supervisor for student teachers? Maybe I could just do that part-time at UVM. So they got my resume, called me and said, we need you. Nevermind this part-time stuff, we need you. We need you to come here because we want you to coordinate the elementary ed program. You have a lot of connections in the state. You've been in the field and this is the kind of person we want to work with elementary ed students. So they hired me and that was 15 years ago. And I started out as the program coordinator for the elementary ed program. I taught a lot of the courses. I worked in the field. And then the Dean who was there at the time thought she wanted to create a different position called director of educator licensure. So instead of just working with elementary ed, I ended up working with all the programs and all the students and helped them to obtain their license. I still taught because I said to her, I'll be the director but I'm not giving up teaching. And I didn't come here to be an administrator. So I continued to teach the course that I taught for the seniors, but I ended up working with the agency of education, working with early childhood, middle, secondary, PE, art music, all of those special ed and I helped them to successfully complete their program and then get their license. It's wonderful. All right, goodness. I know as a teacher you had summers that what did you do with those summers over the years? Okay, so when my kids were young, I didn't have my children in New York, but when I got to Vermont and when I had my kids, I only took, I didn't take very much time off. I took a year off with my first son and I took five months off with my second son because they begged me to come back. They couldn't find anybody to take my place, whatever. But when my kids were young, I thought a good thing for me to do would be to see if I could work in a camp. So I did for several years while they were young, I worked in sleepaway camps as director or assistant director and we ended up living at the camp, getting room and board and my kids went for free. And so they had something to do over the summer and I earned a little bit of money, not much, but it didn't matter. We got all our food, we got a place to live and my kids had a ball. So we went, one year was a horseback riding camp, another year was an archery camp, another year was just a general camp. So I did that for a number of years. And then, gosh, you know, like Gary, I'm trying to think what else I did. I think I had little jobs here and there, but as they got older, I needed to be around to drive them to camp and to do this and to that that played sports, so I really, and they didn't wanna go to sleepaway camp anymore, they wanted to be with their friends. So I did, you know, various little things, so just to keep myself busy and, but I spent a lot of time trucking them around here, there and everywhere. I bet. Now you mentioned dancing. Yeah. Tell us about dancing. So after I got divorced, I spent a lot of time in the gym because I needed to, you know, make sure I took care of myself and had all this excess energy. And one of the, and I used to take a step aerobics class and the step aerobics instructor said, you know, what would be fun? I wanna take you to Stowe because they have a line dancing night on Wednesday nights where they play country music and they do line dancing. And I thought, well, that's fun, you know, why not? So the whole class went to Stowe and I don't remember which place it was. My husband would remember, but I don't remember the name. And we started going there on Wednesday nights. And one Wednesday night, I was struggling with this line dance and this very handsome guy in jeans with a bandana hanging out of his pocket came over and said, let me help you. And so we started line dancing together. And then we started doing two steps together. And then we started going out to dinner together and we took a trip to New York because some of Eddie's relatives still live in New York. And we went to this club that was like this on the lower side, it was like this smoky, cool. They were playing jazz. It was just like a really cool place. And they were doing this dance called West Coast Swing which is just, it's not swing where, you know, the guy throws the woman around because there was no way we could handle that, but it was just this very, you know, just really cool dance that was that just, and they were dancing to this incredible music. And we said, okay, we're gonna learn this dance. That's it. We're gonna give up the whole country scene and we're gonna learn this dance. And so we bought a whole bunch of tapes and kind of self taught ourselves. And then we met, oh, this instructor, her name has slipped my mind. I can see her. Anyway, she said, why don't you go to some of these dance events and learn more about this dance? And so we did. We started going away on weekends. We started taking private lessons and we fell in love with the dance community and we fell in love with the dance and we got pretty good at it. And so we moved our way up from beginners to intermediates and we took private lessons with all these like national instructors and they were so cool. And then we would, at the weekends, we would take dance classes and privates during the day. Then we would take a nap and get up and start dancing at 10 o'clock at night until like two or three in the morning. Honestly, it was great. That's amazing. And we had a ball and then at the end of that dance career, we choreographed a routine ourselves and we performed it. We performed it at one of the dance events, which people do, you know, you enter these events and we performed together in front of 500 people in a ballroom. No kidding. Yes, we did. And did you end up marrying this person? Yes, I did. Oh, you did. This person, this was Eddie. This was Eddie. Eddie and I met dancing and we did it for 18 years. Wow. And ironically, you went to the Lower East Side to that club where you grew up. Yep, isn't that funny? Wow. Exactly what we did. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember that instructor's name, I can see her. But she was the one who kind of said, you know, if you want to learn more about this, is what you have to do. So we spent years going to these dance events and we actually entered some things called Jack and Jills and other. We have medals and little trophies and things like that. And it was, we still keep in touch with some of our instructors. It was a very special time for us. Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah. It's absolutely wonderful. My goodness. So life has been full, Elwin Baker. Yes. What else? Anything else you would like to share about your life? Probably should share about children and grandchildren. Please. Yeah. I have, it's interesting because it's a pretty male dominated family that I have. I have two children, Jeremy and Nate. Jeremy is 49. Nate is 44. Jeremy has two children, Gracie, who just turned five and Hayden who is two and a half. Nate has two boys, Carter who is 15 and Gavin who is 12. And then when Eddie and I got married, he has two sons. So when we were combining our families, we had four sons and four boys, you know, came home from college. It was quite interesting. So Eddie has two sons, Jed. Oh, help me with ages. I think Jed might be 43 and Josie is 41, but that may not be totally accurate, but they're in their early 40s. Jed just got married last April up here in Vermont. And Josie lives in California and has our other grandson, Cassidy, who is seven. Oh, nice. And they all do very interesting work. Jeremy does work with the environment. He works for a company called Wildlife Works. They help to help animals and they help to with carbon credits and reforestation. Nate is an entrepreneur and owns five restaurants. He's an actual old one. He had a Chinese Japanese restaurant in Lake George which I believe is sold. He has one in Killington and he has one in Stowe and then he also has a bike shop which also serves food in Stowe. So he has that. Yeah, I know Jed works for an online insurance company and Josie has Josie Baker Bread which he bakes bread in California, very successful. And he has, he's in like a coffee shop, you know, California is full of coffee shops and he does a bread and pastry thing and also has written books and has been on TV shows about his baking. Yeah, so they're all very interesting and extremely different. The personalities are very different. So it's interesting when they all get together. Often. Sure, sure. That's wonderful. Yeah. And how many of them are actually in Vermont? All of them except, no, sorry, two of them. Jeremy who has my two youngest grandchildren lives five minutes away here at Appletree Point. Nate lives in Castleton but Jed lives in Brooklyn and Josie lives in Oakland, California. Wow, isn't that something? Yeah. That's great. That's great. That's great. So do you have like quotes and inspirational things that you would share with the audience that really drive who you are and what would talk about that? Well, there's a couple of things. When they had my retirement celebration at UVM and they asked me to speak some words. I think one of the things that was very inspirational to me when I first came to UVM, I was a little bit intimidated by the fact that I was working with all these tenured people who had did research and had been in the university for years. And I have this one friend, Charlie, who's just like so down to earth and he was there. I also had met him years and years back when I did some work for the state of Vermont for education, but so I know I'm a long time. And when I first came, my name was different than when he first met me. And so when I came into the hallway on the fifth floor in Waterman, he came running down the hallway. Oh my God, Ellen, it's you, is it you? Are you the one who's gonna be taking this job? And I'm like, yes, it's me. But anyway, we would go to meetings and they would be using all these acronyms and talking about things. And I was like sitting next to Charlie saying, Charlie, can you translate? What does that mean? What does this mean? He was great. And he finally came into my office one day and he said, Ellen, I believe in you. And those words, I believe in you, were very similar to how I was as a teacher. I always wanted the students to know that I believed in them and I always thought they could succeed in one way or another, because after 35 years of teaching, I had students from all walks of life who were in all kinds of situations, some very sad. And I always felt that it was important for them to know that I was there for them, but I also believed in them. And when he said, I believe in you, I then took those words. And when I taught my college students who were so scared and worried about being a teacher and finishing school, and I said to them simply, I believe in you, you can do this. And I actually did a guest appearance in a class yesterday, the one I used to teach and the professor said, please come in. They're so nervous and I know you have a way of making them feel better. So I went in and I talked with them and we did a little activity and I said, just believe in yourself because we believe in you. You can do this, you can do this. So I think I believe in you, you can do this. Helped me in my professional life, in my personal life. I don't know if you're familiar with the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Yep. Those Four Agreements and I keep the book under my bed and every once in a while when I'm feeling like I need to look at the agreements. And I've read some of his other books too and some of his son's books but I believe in the Four Agreements. Be impeccable with your word. Don't make assumptions. Always do your best. What's the fourth one? Wait, wait, wait. I had it and I had, I rehearsed it. I thought I knew them all for sure but I'm gonna look right here. Okay, to make sure. Be impeccable with your word. Do not take anything personally. Don't make assumptions and always do your best. There are times when things are really challenging in your life and I just think it's important that you're true to your word. That you don't make assumptions about if people are saying things to you it may be because they're experiencing something may not have anything to do with you. Don't make assumptions that anything is gonna be a certain way because you never know and then just always do your best. And I think those Four Agreements have really helped me a lot in my life. That's wonderful. There are words of wisdom for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of life left in that body over there. What's next? So what's next is Eddie and I really do want to travel. We, I and we together have been very fortunate. I get, when I was younger I didn't go on an airplane until I was 40 years old. I mean, my parents, we didn't have, we drove wherever we were going. There was no airplane trips anywhere. And so I started traveling late in life. I have been to Japan with a group of teachers. I did a professional development for teachers in Thailand. Eddie and I have been to Mexico and Puerto Rico and Italy. And our goal really, and we go to Canada lots too because it's so close, our goal really in the next number of years while we can is to travel as much as possible to, many different types of places to do many different types of things. We're thinking about Portugal. We're thinking about Croatia. Those two places have been kind of on our radar. We did have a trip planned, unfortunately right before COVID hit. We were going to go to, cause we went to the Northern part of Italy. We wanted to go to the Southern part of Italy in Greece. I always have always wanted to go to Greece. So we're hoping to do those things. And I think there are some things in this country that I'd like to see. I mean, I did travel across, I traveled across country in 1969 in a Volkswagen Beetle with a cat. And we're in all of our country, but I didn't get a chance to stay in too many places. I did see the Grand Tetons and Crater Lake and the Rockies, but I really, there's a lot of national parks I've never been to. And Eddie and I are interested in doing some of that and maybe going to the Outer Banks. I mean, there's some things we'd really like to do. It's going to be a lot about traveling, spending as much time with kids and grandkids as we possibly can. Reading, relaxing. There's a lot, there's some crafts that I'd like to get back into. I do make some jewelry and I'd like to do pottery. And then I'm thinking about the type of volunteer work that I might like to do. I'm not sure if I want to do something in education or maybe, I'm also very involved in my husband's field, his substance abuse work. And so there is a place, which I know you're familiar with, Gary, in Johnson, Jenna's Promise. Yes, absolutely. I know that when I've been talking to the directors, they have talked about the fact that they would love to have somebody, because I'm not a social worker or a counselor, but somebody who would just talk to young women, just conversations with them. Working with college students for years, you might be great at that. So once I can just get settled, I'm gonna call them and see if there's some way that I could contribute to that. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. I know what I'm thinking. Wow. And put a nice trail from the Lower East Side over to Queens, up to Vermont and just keep going. This is wonderful life. Yeah, definitely is. Any awards that you've gotten over the years? Awards, well, that's interesting. I probably have, but gosh, I can think of what they are. I mean, I did graduate Sum Laude from college. I mean, I was on the Dean's List a lot in college. Oh, I did get an award when I graduated from college, an education award. I did get an education award. I had one of some of the highest grades in the education program as an undergrad. Other than that, well, yes, I did actually. It's sitting right here. I was nominated for, at UVM, they give these little kind of cool cubes. They're made out of, I don't know what this is made out of. They're granite, I think, anyway. But I got one for my service. Oh, look at that. That's nice. That was cool. And I did get like a brass apple after 30 years of service in the education field. I have little things like that. But the best award I think that you've gotten is what your students tell you about yourself. Oh my goodness. I have cards. I have saved cards from elementary students, from college students. I have a little glass thing that says best advisor, something like that, a little apple-shaped glass thing. And I have many, many just personal accolades from students that could go on and on about how they couldn't make it through. They never would have gotten their license. They're teaching now and it's all because of me and they want to be a teacher like me. So those kinds of informal but incredibly beautiful statements from students are what kept me going for 50 years. Did they keep in touch, Ellen? Do you have any? Oh, totally. Yeah. It's funny. My son and daughter-in-law were out of town because they do some work in Kinshasa in the Congo. And I took Gracie, my five-year-old, to her friend's birthday party. And the birthday party was in South Burlington. And I walked in and one of my former students was there with her five-year-old daughter at this birthday party. She came running over to me and gave me a big hug and said, Ellen, oh my God, and I'm a teacher now. And she went on and on and on. Oh, great. A lot of them have friended me on Facebook. They keep in touch through email. Some of them live around here. It's impossible for me to go to church street without seeing somebody that I've taught. In one way or another, you know? That's great. Yeah, it's constant. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, it's been great having you on the show. Is there anything you'd like to end with? I guess I would like to end with having worked with young students and then college students, I think that it's important to follow your dreams, to do what you really wanna do, to advocate for yourself when you need to, to believe in yourself and have faith in your abilities and to just enjoy life and have a great time and laugh and get out in the sunshine when there is any in Vermont. And just really enjoy your life as best as you can because it's a blessing. Yeah, sage wisdom. Thank you very much, Ellen Baker. You are welcome, Gary.