 Welcome to Longmont Voices and Vision, a project of Longmont Public Media. In the midst of the darkest period in our lives, when we're bombarded 24 hours a day with news of the coronavirus and the human and economic carnage it's causing in our society. We're challenged to cope with our fears and anxieties, while remaining hopeful about what lies on the other side of this crisis. This project presents an opportunity for Longmont residents to share with others how they're adjusting to new realities of social distancing and the kind of future they hope to experience on the other side of the crisis. I'm Tim Waters, host of these conversations in a Longmont Public Media Volunteer. In this series, I'll be asking Longmont residents, many of them your friends and neighbors, three questions. What are you doing to get through this crisis? Even though we cannot be together right now, how are we staying connected to friends and families? And what's the future you are hoping to see and experience on the other side of this crisis? I hope you'll stay with this series and enjoy listening to your friends and neighbors and learn from them how they're getting through and what they're looking forward to in a new reality on the other side. Marta Lowchermann, thank you for your willingness to contribute to the Longmont Voices and Vision Project. Each of these interviews have started with us learning a little bit about who's being interviewed. So tell us about you. Sure, yeah, thanks Tim for the invitation. My name is Marta Lowchermann. I am a candidate right now for Boulder County Commissioner. My background, I was working previously as a resiliency specialist for the city of Longmont doing a project that really feels very familiar. And I think we'll come up in this conversation after the flood of 2013. Looking at barriers to access, I taught in St. Brain Valley School District. I'm a single mom. I've raised two kids in our open enrollment school district here in St. Brain. So a variety of hats in my career has been in housing as a housing advocate over the last 20 years. Really specifically supporting and creating access for monolingual Spanish speakers throughout our community, throughout the front range in the state of Colorado. Thank you for all the work that you do. You know, I'm going to ask you three questions. The first of these questions is in this context of an unprecedented, you know, moment in history where we are distanced from one another in ways that we'd never experienced before. And with the anxieties associated with this pandemic, how are you getting yourself through this, this moment in history. Yeah, I think it's an important question and I think one of the pieces that we've been talking about in community is really trying to allow people to be wherever they're at. And that really seems like just from having conversations with folks online is this up and down that we're all going through that, you know, today I feel great I feel like I can manage a schedule that I'm not sure what the schedule really is and, and other days, especially for me as a parent, you know, it's really, you know, we have all these different layers of our life and I feel like that's been a little exasperated because, you know, being a mother having two kids that have gone to school online now, who are in two different universities who have professors that are handling the online school in different ways, how do I support each one of them. And my own business who, you know, I'm considered a central business, but with real restrictions that are coming out and continue to evolve and change like we're all dealing with. And so I think that piece of really one being very forgiving of ourselves, not questioning why we are having a hard time when we're having a hard time. Why are we, you know, it feels, there's a lot of buzz out there online and I think that's something we need to be very cognizant of the pressure to see a lot of the memes I'm sure you have to about, you know, what's the new skill that you're working on hey why not why aren't you learning another language why aren't you doing and I in my house I you know told my son. Somebody out there is probably cleaning the garage out but I can guarantee you my garage will look the same after this. Because that's just not where my head is right now my head is how do I help community get through this and I know we're going to talk about that some but I'm just trying to accept that every day really does feel different and learning how to manage that is for me a challenge. We are, we've never experienced the isolation from friends and family members like we are experiencing now. How are you staying connected to the rents and family important people in your life. Sure, and I want to share a perspective that you may have already heard a little bit from other participants and maybe will, because for a lot of us. I have family that lives in South America. And so this walk between two worlds is an experience that myself and my kids have felt for years and it's very hard to go through a holiday without being part with your family. It's very hard to go through different situations in our lives and the way that technology works or doesn't work that sometimes you can't get a hold of a family member. Technology isn't working. And so I share that because this piece of isolation for a lot of us is elevated now. Seeing what's happening in our home countries, the significant gaps in the US is one issue. And then you look at the way that other countries around the world are also dealing with this pandemic. If the world are family members, if infected will not survive. So the isolation is on another level for us with family members outside of the US. And then we're also dealing with what you just talked about the isolation of being in our day to day lives, my life, because I'm involved in so many community activities. Because I'm currently was currently running a campaign where I was out talking with everybody. And what I finally realized, you know, three weeks of being in my house, you know, last week, it was kind of one of these moments of I'm an extrovert. I'm the one that's, that's always calling out, reaching out to friends reaching out to my co mothers. Let's have brunch. Let's have coffee. Hey, let's meet after work. And it took me a little while to realize, that's why some of this has been very hard for me so when you talk about that isolation, it's all these different levels and I think that's again part of trying to You'll, you'll never understand my walk. You'll never understand how I'm going today the same way I won't ever understand how today is for you, but for us to be more cognizant and open to the idea of this situation feels different for somebody else than it may for me. And I'd be open to just supporting them, not how I want to be supported, but how they might need to be supported and how do I become a listener in a completely different way while we're being isolated. Well, yeah, lots of different levels for everybody, but especially you're obviously very clear on what those are for you. The third question is based on the assumption that the world on the other side of this pandemic is likely to be different than it was before the pandemic. And there's a lot of discussion now about what the new normal will be. We don't know what that's going to be, but we're going to settle into a new normal. So right now the question for you is, what would you like to see as the new normal. What do you aspire to see and would you like to help create on the other side of this pandemic. Yeah, that's a big one. That's a big question. And, you know, I've been talking with folks in the sense of we really need to be cognizant that there won't be a new normal, because that ties us into having things be the same as they were and quite frankly, the previous way that things have been set up before wasn't working for a lot of folks in our community. And so for me, this is an opportunity for us to do business differently. It's an opportunity for us to really call out where the injustices are. It's an opportunity for us to truly put community members at the front of how we, how we plan, how we lead, how we make decisions. And I've been talking about this for a while in general, about the fact that we keep talking about in these in the state, you know, obviously nationwide about how we want to start addressing equity. And we have never lived in this country in an equitable world. We've never had an equitable to get to and so to have this opportunity now to really start looking at how would we do that. And it brings me back from, you know, my previous work, you know, being in the housing industry, being in the mortgage crisis, sitting with families who were dealing with foreclosure, who we were just trying to get to a foreclosure hotline for an example, who really were affected negatively by decisions made up at the top level in regards to housing kind of reactions to some of the mortgage crisis. We're working with folks in the flood and seeing in both of those situations, sectors of our community and it's, it's news today again, and the reality that people of color in this country, communities of color in this country people without wealth in this country have been left out of systems and access to resources and programming and just information. And we get time and time again, you know, every decade, more or less. And so this to me is the opportunity for us to force a change that will be better and so for me what does that mean it means that I'll continue to do the same work that I've been doing. For decades, to try and bring people who don't have access to resources to local government to agencies to institutions. I also think it's a really good opportunity for folks to look at the reason why we're doing what we're doing. And, you know, there's a lot of talk right now around pivoting and what does that mean in our small for our small businesses that for our businesses for institutions and to really challenge us to look outside of the box, because just to go back now. And look at the box that we've been using to make decisions is not going to support real change for this rebuild that we're going to be doing town by town and city by city county to the states and certainly in this country. There's some challenges there. Yeah, and I know you're up to them. And, and I know you're going to bring a bunch of us along with you in in response. So, Marta. Thank you so much again for lending your voice and your vision to this project. Take care yourself and your family and will our past will cross again soon when we're able to to move out of the state of home order and reconnect. Thanks. Hey, thanks for the work that you're doing. This is important conversation for us to start and really think about as we move ahead. So, great work. Thank you. Bye bye. Agatha Moia. Thank you so much for lending your voice in your vision to this long month voices and vision project to get a start to tell us a little bit about you. Yeah, sure. Of course. So my name is Agatha Moia, and I'm originally from New Mexico, and I've lived in Colorado and long for 45 years, I suppose. And I've been retired for two years, and I'm very happy to be immersed in my artwork right now. I'm an artist. And when I was in my working life, I lived, I worked mostly as a case worker social service career. And yeah, I've been really doing a lot of my artwork. Let me think what else about me. I'm married to my beautiful husband David I've got two children. I'm very anxious about them right now. They're grown. My son is a jewelry designer small business and my daughter works for nonprofit and they're both very anxious now. Is there anything else you want to know about me that just so we have an idea that just very brief someday when people are watching this they'll have they'll want to know who were you and and that kind of background that you bring to this so you know I'm going to ask you three questions. The first of those questions is that in this period of history where unprecedented for any of us where we are physically distanced from one another and and disconnected a lot of ways. How are you getting yourself through this period of time. Yeah. I can probably like everyone else I mean just staying really close contact with loved ones, you know, friend, Emily, children, and keep things in perspective, going for lots of walks, eating well, exercising, all those things. And let's see what else they're right down here wrote down all kinds of things. Actually, I do I'm spending more time out in nature and just doing more stargazing and really often to keep things in perspective to think that something bigger out there. Humanity has been through crisis like this before. This is one we're going to get through it. And this is for my husband he says stay in because this is for both of us who both sat down and wrote down some answers and he said you're staying on top of the news. And he likes to do that. For me it's overwhelming and after a while I need to disconnect but he wants to stay connected in that way. And you know what, I mean, I guess just keeping things in perspective not to go into panic mode and to be smart about things obviously follow the guidelines, you know, also distancing social distancing masks, everything. Don't, you know, don't take any risks. So given social distancing. I didn't need to cut you off that you have. That's fine. You're good. Given social distancing and the physical separation and stay at home orders. How are you keeping yourself connected to friends and family. Yeah, lots of phone calls. Zoom, which is. Yeah, come here to talk to somebody right. And, you know, text, email, all of those things. And then really, like with neighbors, you know, visiting across the way, you know, waving, and that's pretty much where staying connected. All right. My third question. As you know, the presumption here of this with the third question is that whatever lies on the other side of this pandemic and this isolation we're experiencing. Whatever the new normal we settled into whatever that becomes life is likely to be different than it was before the pandemic. So it's not too early for us to be thinking about what's our preferred future. What would you like to see on the other side of this pandemic. What would you like to move toward what would you like to help create as your preferred future. I like the way you said that how what would you like to help create that's that's poignant I like that piece of it. I'm sure it's big for everyone because we really need to think about what this is going to look like and you're absolutely. I think we're going to be different people the world is going to be different and I hope the way we see things are going to be different. That's crucial way we treat each other so I wrote down. Yes, I just wanted to say a little bit of how what this is caused I think and think for us. The planet mother nature. Really, I think in so many ways has hit the reset button and as forced us to pause. It has paused its healing, and it is forcing us to pause and rethink things how we are in the world how we are in the world how we're treating each other. So what we need what things are important with things are not all of those things so moving forward, I hope that people. Oh, come out of this, seeing themselves differently. How again how they are in the world how they're treating people. How they need to think do things differently. And, and really, really after taking stock of what's important what isn't that those relationships that they have are stronger, and that they have a, I guess, a healthier perspective of where they are the world around them. That's what I'm trying to say. And I would just I know I guess I would like to think and this is the part that you were talking about contributing to what you like is to building community and being involved in community. And, you know, and, and I guess I was running about, you know, rising above the rhetoric and the anger and the narratives that are out there and really being brave enough to say you know I want to do things differently, and I want to reach out to somebody who is different from me. And really listen more and judge less and be more empathetic more compassionate and just, you know, I guess my anxiety is I hope that we don't forget we don't forget this time because it is an opportunity to really stop and look and pay attention, and that we don't go back to things the way they were. And I suppose moving forward to I really thought about this is that I hope we move further away from social media, to be honest, you know, Facebook and Twitter and even TV, turn it off for heaven's sakes I mean we need the peace and quiet. And this is one thing I'm really relishing about this time as a silence. I am enjoying it so much and enjoying those really deep wonderful conversations. I guess I know this is, I hate to get political but the thing that I hope to experience is new leadership leadership whatever that looks like. And I'm not talking Republican Democrat I'm talking about. Oh I don't know somebody who's an adult who can think logically understands the Constitution, the beauty of this unique country all of those things that can take us to help us as a country to a better place. That's not so negative and so filled with anger. And that's what I'm hoping for. Agatha Moira. Thank you so much again for your contribution to this project. Yeah, thank you. Take care of yourself, your husband your family stay safe, and when we can, when we can re enter the world. I'll look forward to our past crossing again. Thank you. Thank you Tim thanks for everything that you do. Thank you. Rich in K Marsh. Thank you so much for lending your voices, and your vision, this long month voices and vision project. Each of these interviews we've started by learning a little bit about who's being interviewed so tell us about you. Hi, I'm K Marsh. I'm the wife of rich. I retired United Methodist Minister and now I'm working as a spiritual director with clients that see me online. So I don't even have to have an office anymore I just have an online presence. I'm also working as my husband's bookkeeper for the present. So that's what I'm about at this point. I'm rich Marsh I am a lawyer here in Longmont and have an active practice less active right now than it was a month ago but have an active practice in the business and real estate areas. So, we also have two daughters married grown and with their own families they're healthy we're glad for that. Well, in this, you know, I'm going to ask you three questions and going to preface it with in this unprecedented moment in human history, the kind of distancing physical distancing and physical separation and social distancing while experiencing. Everybody's trying to figure out how to kind of get through and get through and one piece as an individual as a family. How are you working your way through. How are you getting through this crisis. So, on the work side, I was doing a lot of zoom and similar platform meetings, even before this, but those have intensified. I had still on the law practice side I represent some organizations and businesses that have had some unique challenges but before them with payroll with meetings with insurance claims, which which has been interesting over the last month five six weeks. I am pretty good with two thirds of the order the order being work at home. I'm pretty good now with the at home part the work is working at home. It has required some adjustments and on the personal level, we find ourselves looking for great series, you know, premium channel series to binge and we are, if we're not experts at that we're really, really good. Yeah, you want to add to that. Sure. What I'm done is, as you know, as I've already said my spiritual direction practice, which is sort of pastoral counseling is mostly online is all online now anyway and so this is this continues. Yesterday I had three meetings online. Okay, and it was, it's really good. It's, it's a good way to go about it and I did that before the crisis and now I'm just doing it in the crisis. We also have set me up with the with QuickBooks on my computer. And that's, you know, channeled into Rich's office so now I can actually do this at home I can do, I can do his books at home. The other thing that we've done is be in touch with a variety of people doing welfare checks of them. Our next door neighbors, the couple of elected officials have asked me and others to do welfare checks of their constituents and I'm very happy to do that as a pastor that's, that's just right up my alley. And then we have been staining the fence, the brand new fence, and that takes more time and effort than anyone would know although today it's last couple days has been snowy so we're not staining a fence, but we've, we've been keeping quite busy. I, this is just a wrinkle of what I usually do, sort of a wrinkle in my usual routine now that I have not, not that I'm not working full time. Well, some of the response this question segues nicely into question number two. And that is how you stand connected to family and friends during this time of unprecedented isolation. Mainly email and phone calls with family. And friends. There are zoom meetings or Vimeo or, or Skype or FaceTime. But mainly phone calls more phone calls with our wider family members I have a brother and a sister. And I've been in touch with them more than I would have been before. I'll let Kay speak to her siblings. So that's been good. And as I mentioned earlier families are immediate nuclear family is healthy in fact one of our daughters in the Seattle area was tested. She was tested last week or recently and she tested negative for the virus. So that's those are, it's just, you know, we would normally be calling once every other week, maybe or maybe once a week. And now we're in touch much more frequently. Question number three in this interview. Wait, like, sorry, Kay. Okay, quickly. I'm in touch with just like rich my siblings. I'm talking to them more often than I'm used to and that they're used to but it just seems fine. And as I said, I'm, I'm doing well welfare checks of my neighbors, my little old lady neighbors and they're very lovely people. So I'm, I'm just, we're just, oh and I'm more in touch with my husband nowadays. This is amazing. Maybe good things are bad things I guess it's all good. That is good. And I'm not surprised. So the third question here is the assumption underlying the third question is that whatever was normal before this pandemic. The new normal is going to be different life won't be the same on the other side of this crisis. It's not too early to be thinking about what your preferred future is what would you like to see what would you like the new normal to be. What are you interested in helping to create as a new normal on the other side of this crisis. And the other side of this crisis I would like to see universal health care, because when one is sick, whether they have health insurance or not they're going to get they will pass whatever it is on to everybody else health insurance or not and that's terribly important. So I'd like to, I'd also like to see medical advances as a result of all of this. One of the things that I that is on my mind as I go we go through this is that I'm a survivor of the 1957 pandemic of Asian flu. And I contracted it when I went to kindergarten had very high fevers I still I still unfortunately remember the hallucinations I had at five years old when I had this Asian flu, and I passed it on to my mother. She got sick, got pneumonia and died. So this is this kind of pandemic stuff is very. This closer to home to me than I like to think about. So, and as a result of that 1957 pandemic they they took some looks at how they were doing medical things, and how they were, they didn't quarantine and I'm sure that has affected us today. I'm hopeful for the future for universal health care now. I'm fairly pessimistic about what's coming out of this before the pandemic. I was actively involved with groups and people seeking normalcy in a pre 2016 sense and have watched our institutions are processes are expectations of public behavior by our elected officials. Be degraded and abused and based. And so it wasn't normal before the pandemic and I through this election cycle don't see it getting anywhere close to normal. Again, I And so I am committed to continuing or resuming with that same fight, if I guess I can call that with that same effort as we move toward this this November's election. And I'm afraid I'm fairly focused on that and it's hard to see beyond. Well, but there's a focus and there is a there is a beyond out there, and we'll encounter encounter it together. I want to say again, how grateful I am that you contributed to this project. I want you to, to stay safe take care of your family and when we can come back outside our past will cross again. And Janie to. Tim. Richard Garcia. Thank you so much for lending your voice and your vision to this long month voices and vision project. We've started each of these interviews with learning a little bit about the interviewee so let's start by learning about Richard Garcia who are who are you tell us about you. Well, first of all, let me thank you. Thank you so much for your time for for doing this. I think it means a lot to all different segments of the community. But I'm going to try and be as brief as I can, my, with my background information. First, I want to make sure that people and people may not know this but I was born in Montevista Colorado, which is in the San Luis Valley. It's in the United States and also in the world for that matter. And it's a very poor valley. The major industry in the San Luis Valley is farming. And most of the farming is potatoes. And it's considered to be second to Idaho, as it relates to the growing of potatoes. In the San Luis Valley, you didn't have a lot of automation, a lot of the farm work you had to do by hand. And I can recall in my earlier years as I was growing up probably around nine, 10 years old. That's what I was supposed to do farm work picking potatoes. And that is hard work, man, you know, and but anyway, and then moving forward a little bit quicker. My mother was a single head of household. And she worked the potato producing industry, you know, where they sack the potatoes and they washed them and all and they shipped them out to places like King Super safe ways, etc. So she was doing that kind of work and it was hard work and it didn't pay a whole lot, you know, she was the breadwinner. Well, frequently we had to go into public assistance and get food stamps or, or even in those days it was not TANF. It was a FDC a to a family with the, what is it a FDC or dependent children, children. Yeah. And so, so we were on welfare. My time we're growing up. And then, and then she contracted cancer. I think she might have been, I'm going to say 3435 when she got cancer. And I was already like about maybe 14 years old. Yeah, so she got his altogether she huddled is all in one because our living quarters were three rooms. Okay, you have the kitchen. You had in two bedrooms, one of the bedrooms had oil. You know that you heated up the room with, with, with, with oil and kerosene oil. And, and that's where you took baths and all that stuff. Okay. So she huddled us in that middle room and she said, she told us the news, you know, and we didn't think about her, you know, we thought it was exciting that we were going to move to Denver. You know, and so we moved to Denver and, and the reason she had to move to, we had to move to Denver is because the hospitals in, in the San Luis Valley were not equipped to deal with cancer. And neither were the hospitals in Denver. I mean, you're talking about the 50s. And the only thing they knew how to do was to operate cut operating all of that. Okay, try to get cancer stuff out. I don't believe there was anything such as chemotherapy or any of that stuff that were available at that time. There might have been, but I can't remember. So anyway she passed away. All about a year after we moved to Denver. And then the family my grandmother took us over and move back month Vista. At that time I was already wet, so maybe 16 going on 17. And I started working the warehouses where she was working at when I got back home because we didn't have any income except for the income that I was able to provide. And then my grandmother then she got a FTC to the end of to provide for us. So that when I turned 17. The first thing I did was I joined the Navy. Only because I had to get out of the Valley and then I needed to find a way to continue supporting my, my, my brothers and sisters and my grandmother. So half of my measly little paycheck that I was getting in the Navy was given to her. Okay, so if you think if you can figure around those days it was like about maybe 45 bucks every two weeks or something like that. I don't get like about $20 or two weeks, you know, so I was, I was, my paycheck was cut in half. So that went on for four years. Then I got out of the Navy. And got to Denver and started dating my girlfriend, my childhood girlfriend again, and got married. I was what maybe 20, going on 21 when I got married, I wasn't 21 quite yet. So when I got married, I had to get permission to get married because I was still a minor. My wife, my first wife, she didn't have to get permission because she was a little bit younger than I was but her age for for being able to be on her own was 18 and guys had to be 21. Okay, so anyway we got married that going on. I had four children went back to live in Denver got jobs, etc, you know, and then I got this opportunity come and study at the University of Colorado. Through the educational opportunity programs. So I did that. And before I did that I had to go get my GD because I didn't have that. And I went and got my GD without studying I just took the test and past it. And began my career at the University of Colorado. I got a degree in four years, four years I went in 1970 graduate 1974. And I say four years because normally it takes about six years now for kids to get out of school when they get the higher end. So I got my degree in four years and I, my major was political science. So that's when all of this craziness started happening with me and my, my career and all of that. My first thing was to go to law school but then I started, I had kids in school so I got involved very much in education my kids. So everything shifted to education. I got my master's degree in education, you got a type D certificate teaching certificate, all of that stuff. Okay, just to give you just a little bit of background. And here we are now. I got two families, my first family with my first wife and then my second family that I've been married now with Teresa Garcia, going on four years. Okay, so you can. I got a child that's going to turn 40 here pretty quick. My other child, Lorena Garcia, who is turning 38 April 21, and she's running for the United States Senate. Yes, she is. Yeah. So, you know, the other day I told them I says, you know, I'm really proud of you all because who would have thought that a poor guy from very humble beginnings. High school dropout could have such a gifted family like I have, you know, Good genes flowing for that family. Yeah. Yeah. So, so after that, then I started getting involved a lot more in a lot of other things and, and was that have been appointed to a bunch of different committees. And currently I am on the state board of trustees for the community college system on the school board for Boulder Valley School District, that's an elected position, the state board trustee, an appointed position as appointed by Governor Paulus. And then prior to that I was serving on the what they called the P preschool 20 council, appointed by the governor ridder the first time and then governor hit the loop for the second time. And then I was also on the commission on higher education appointed by governor on. So, you know, so my first contact with governors was what was actually with Governor Romer. Governor Romer started looking at way back and I think 86 was looking at the summer of violence, and he created a task force called a fatherhood task force. And he applied to me to serve on that fatherhood task force. I've got all these different experiences and all of that, you know, and one of the things that I'm really, really proud of is by being the founder of the color of statewide parent coalition and working that coalition for 3080 years, finally retiring from that coalition from that nonprofit, but working much more around engaging and involving families in education of the children, especially Latino families, because there's a big gap there. Shoot. All right. That's a biographer biographical sketch of Richard Garcia. You know, I'm going to ask three questions. Okay, the first of these questions is in this time of of social isolation and physical distancing that that none of us at least in our lifetimes have ever experienced. How are you getting through this this time of isolation. Personally, yes. Yeah. Well, fortunately, I do have a partner. Okay, and we're both isolated within the same household. Fortunately, we both do the same work. Trying to help other families. Fortunately, I have the means to be able to have a computer. I have the means to be able to get online and have zoom conversations, etc. So, and then I have two dogs, and we go on walks frequently, my two little guys. And then I have a wonderful neighbor that sweeps my sidewalk that he was doing it a while ago. But, but yeah, I think being isolated, but having someone to be isolated with I think is really, really helpful. I can't imagine having to be isolated by myself. You know, without having anyone to talk to, or pets or someone, you know, to to be able to at least occupy my time. I think, I think the least dogs in American households are probably losing a lot of weight these days because they're being walked a lot more than they might have been in the past months or years. Yeah, yeah. That twice a day. Yeah. Richard, you you probably you've already kind of segwayed into my second question and that is how are you staying connected with family and friends. So if we can't be together physically, how you staying connected at least emotionally and and virtually. Well, it's usually virtually. Or by telephone. But I have a couple of very, very, not a couple I've got a lot of talented kids. I created family zoom meetings that we have where not just the kids get together, but the kids kids the grandkids and frequently the great grandkids can you imagine trying to get 40 people on the zoo meeting. And that means your, your own children, your children's children my grandkids and then my grandkids already have children of their own. Great grandkids. You know, and we do that we managed to do that, not all of them participate but many of them do. And we can stay on that zoom. I mean, easily an hour, and it goes by fast, you know where everybody's talking and, and all of that just now we're planning a birthday party for all the kids that were born in April. And we're going to be a zoom birthday party. And we're also planning on having virtual karaoke. But you know I just said them a text I says, someone's going to have to take the lead on that, because if not we're all going to be over singing. So that's, that's one way to keep in touch with the family and. And again, because I have the means to be able to do that. I thank the lucky stars I thank you for allowing me to have those means. Yeah, but on the other hand, I know families that don't have it, and in isolation. I mean, totally complete isolation. And on the other side of the pandemic and the are kind of stay at home order. It's, it's fair to assume I believe that whatever the new normal is, life is going to be different. Once we come out of this pandemic than it was before we went in. And what that new normal is is yet to be determined. So the last question in this interview is, what would you like to see what's your preferred future. What would you prefer to see on the other side of this and, and what's the future you're willing to help create. Well, I think we're learning a lot through this pandemic. I think good and bad. I think, but by and large I think most of it has been good. As it relates to how we treat each other how we interact with each other. I see a lot more respect across the board. As it relates to even taking a walk with your dogs and you see somebody walking. You're at least saying hi or waving. Even though you have to maintain your distance. He's a neighbor Randy. He was out the other day, who in his yard. And I was coming from the, the post office little boxes that we have in the neighborhood, and, and I had had, I had his mail so I handed his mail to him because it was put in my box by mistake. And I started talking. And what struck me at that time is that I think I talked to him more. Now, through this crisis that we have than I had before. I'm getting to know him better now than I had before. I'm getting to know my neighbors better now. And then the other thing that strikes me. The most effective is when I look outside. And I look at the skies I look at the mountains. You can see him beautiful, beautiful mountains, a beautiful blue sky, no pollution. None of that stuff. And I'm hoping that on the other side of this pandemic. There's some of these particular practices. We don't have to be driving our automobile automobiles as much as we, and we know that we know that now. I think there's a lot of people that can still continue working at home, and not have to go to an office I mean, after this they probably want to do that anymore but, but I'm hoping that maybe some of this. practices will stick with us. For those that can't. Now, on the other side of all of this, you have people that are not as fortunate. You have people that. Well, and I'm going to be real open here because I think it would be remiss if I didn't say this. The work that my wife and I do is with the immigrant community, the Latino immigrants in Boulder County. And we know that many of those particular families, at least for the adults for the parents, the kids are all us born citizens, but the adults are still undocumented. And we're finding now through this pandemic that many are not able to qualify for unemployment benefits. Because they're undocumented. Many cannot get the benefit of the stimulus packages that are being passed in Washington. Unemployed, they don't have any revenue coming into their homes, and they are devastated. And we do have. Thank God, a lot of good nonprofits in this community that are trying to do whatever they can to support these particular families. But that only goes so far. We managed to the engaged Latino parents Advancing Student Outcomes in Paso. Do a couple of wonderful donors to be able to provide rental assistance to the apostle families. For the month of April. Now, month of May, who knows, you know, because our families need the rental assistance, not not a $200 stipend to you know, because they need the full rental assistance and and many of them are their rents are like $1,500 a month. Some are in pain as much as $2,000 a month. Where are they going to get that. So that's the bad side of it. And I'm hoping that after all this is said and done, that maybe on the other side of the pandemic. And who knows how long that's going to take it by going to November, some people are predicting. But then we'll have another election. And I don't get political here at all. We'll have another election. And after that, we'll have enough political will to be able to do some really good comprehensive comprehensive immigration reform. So that these families are not suffering like this anymore. Richard, that is a noble aspiration. And I can, I can assure you that you are among others with those kinds of aspirations for a new normal on the other side of this pandemic. I appreciate your contribution to this project. Take care of yourself and your family. All those generations. Be safe, my friend. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. And you too. You be safe. And wear your mask when you go out. Will do. Talk to you soon.