 Welcome to Celebrate Life. My name is Gary DeCarlas and I am in your house. The inspiration for this series is to show the amazing lives people live. Key word here is live. I hope to capture through interviewing many wonderful Vermonters and even a few people outside Vermont, some stories of their lives and experiences to our audience while they are still very much alive. Over the years, I have read too many obituaries that left me pondering. Why did I not have a chance to meet this person while they were alive? The goal of this program is to celebrate the lives of everyday Vermonters while they are still with us. Some people will be recognized by many viewers and lots of the people I plan to interview will be known by only a few close, intimate group of friends and family. I will guarantee that all the people who are interviewed will have fascinating stories to share with you. You see, I am of the notion that everyone has a story to tell. If you would like to be interviewed or know someone who you think would be like, would like to be interviewed, please contact the CC TV channel coordinator, Gordon Butterfield. This information will be posted at the end of the show. Also, if you find yourself wanting to follow up on this interview and have a question for the interview, we can write the CC TV channel coordinator with your question and he will reach out to the interviewer for a response. Make sure you also leave your contact information, telephone and email address. Thank you. Now, I would like to introduce you to Eddie Baker. I know Eddie as a man of many talents and qualities. He runs the addiction recovery channel on this same station. He's got a master's in social work. He's been a therapist for years and long-term recovery, strong advocate for stigma-busting, cares deeply about his fellow human being, concerned about racial justice and change for good. So welcome, Eddie. Glad to have you on the show. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Gary. I'm so excited to be here. I just loved your introduction. What a great concept to celebrate life and have people on your show that can share their lives and be examples for others, especially in this time where we're all a little bit, not a little bit, we're all very beleaguered as putting it mildly. So focusing on celebrating life, I think is a great idea. I want to congratulate you, Gary, from the bottom of my heart. And I want to also thank you from the same place for honoring me and asking me to be the guest on your maiden voyage, your inaugural show. Well, thank you. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I look forward to this time together for this interview. Now, all those things that I mentioned about you don't happen overnight. So if you would, take us back to Eddie Baker as a young boy and some of the foundational things that shaped your life to make you who you are today. Yeah, sure. I'll be happy to. And I mean, I was born in 1946, so a long time ago in the Bronx, New York. I have the same name as my father. My father's name is Edwin Baker. My father was a beautiful, simple, hardworking, honest man. He was a cab driver for many years. He was good to me. We did many things together. He was an avid kite flyer. He was a towel man. He would always focus on the towel was the most important part. He would get in trouble with my mom because he would use material from the house to make towels for kites. I can remember once at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx, it was by one of the bridges, the bridge that went over to Queens from the Bronx, where it was very windy there all the time and that's where we would go to fight. And our cord was very, very long. You could hardly see our kite. That's how high it was. He was a great kite flyer. And I can remember once where he had me holding the cord and then that tension between the force of that kite moving with the wind and you holding it down was just a little scary, but the fact that he trusted me and felt that I could do that was a beautiful memory. And that he took the time to be with you and do things like that. That sounds like a wonderful father, son type of thing. Oh, we collected coins, Gary. Back in those days in like the fifties, when we collected coins, you could go to the bank and get a couple of rolls of pennies or a couple of rolls of nickels or dimes and sift through them and find really collectible coins. Of course, they were still in circulation. We had a great coin collection. We had pennies, Indian head pennies, buffalo and nickels. What are the mercury dimes, Liberty quarters? We had a great coin collection. You know, that's one of my fondest memories of him. He came to all my baseball games. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. My mom, Agnes, my mom was an orphan. And back then in the early 1900s, you know, we didn't have child care laws. We didn't have child welfare laws the way we do today. She was brought up in an orphanage. And my mom always had a penchant and affinity for people who had less, for people who longed to be understood and longed to be loved and had less. She always had a big open heart because of her experience. My mom and my dad met dancing at Roseland. They were really, really good dancers. And so to answer your question, I mean, I had four siblings. My oldest brother, Bobby was 20 years my senior. My sister, Barbara was right behind him. My sister, Billy is 10 years my senior. I was very much the baby of the family. And I can just say that we never had money. My dad, you know, he didn't make a lot of money, but we always had a lot of good food. My mother was an Italian. She loved to cook Italian. And she loves to have people over for food. Where does that work? We were taught to be good. I was a good boy. I went to Catholic school. I did baptism, communion, confirmation. I was just good. I was a good kid. We had a normal family and I was a good kid. So that part of you that is very passionate about helping others in your life. I can hear it coming through your mother and your father and that foundation of love that you have. Yeah, yeah. You know, my mother was, she was very big in the 60s. She was big into civil rights. She was, I think, one of the initial people who was involved in orphans' rights during the 60s. There was a movement. And I don't think they got really far either, but she was involved in orphans' rights also. We were taught to love people. We lived in, you know, we didn't eradicate white supremacy, but we knew how to love people. We lived in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx and a white Italian neighborhood in the Bronx. And every once in a while, someone of color, either a black person, a black family, or a Hispanic Puerto Rican family would move into the neighborhood and they would get shunned by people. They would get shunned by people. This is no joke, but not by my family. No, we were about to reach out and that's what we did. The 60s were very difficult. I saw a bussing happen. Racism was, like violent racism was alive and well in the Bronx in the 60s. And we weren't a part of that. We stood up to that. Good for you, though. Good for your family. Do you have childhood heroes, Eddie, outside the family? You know, you want me to be honest with you? Like it's a little embarrassing. I like superheroes. I like, I would always, I would have superhero comic books, but Superman, now Superman on TV, you know, the full Superman series. Oh yeah. I would actually stand at attention in the Superman pose when they went through the truth, justice in the American way part. I really, that, that resonated. That's great. It really, that's great. That's just in the American way. It still resonates with me and it resonated very, very deeply as a little boy. Any dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up? Yeah, you know, I mean, that's an interesting question. I think about that sometimes now when I meditate because I did, I was a Christian boy and I do believe that I just wanted to do good. You know, so something having to do with the Christian faith was not out of the ballpark. Also, police work, protecting and serving, protecting and serving, what was definitely a little closer maybe to to something that I had an aspiration toward. Just doing good, doing good. It was all about doing good. So then you started growing up, you went to high school, you eventually to college it sounds like. Well, well, with my life, Gary, you know, my life is, you know, what happened in my life, we would call it today an early adverse experience or adverse childhood experience, a toxic experience that actually changed my brain and really kind of set me off on a self-destructive tangent for many years. My lovely father suddenly died when I was 13 years old. And this was, my entire family was devastated. And God bless them, you know, they didn't know what to do with me. I was just 13. That's a very fragile age. They didn't know how to talk to me. They didn't know about counseling. So as we read adverse childhood experience theory today, there's toxic stress that overwhelms the child and there's no adult to help them mediate that. Well, that was what happened to me. And as a result, I began, you know, really hitting the streets basically. I mean, there's no other way to put it. And, you know, discovering drugs, alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, stimulants, opioids, you know, all the drugs. And I'm one of those people where you hear about addiction as genetic risk factors and then environmental factors. Well, I had no genetic risk factors, but I had all environmental factors. That trauma really knocked me for a loop. And I developed an addiction, a full-blown addiction as a result that lasted from age 14. It began, you know, around 14 and lasted actually until I was 37 years old. So that really, you know, if we talk about my life, we have to talk about that. Because it shaped my life in a way that I was, I had no choice, I was powerless over it. So that's a good 20 some years, 23 years. 23 years. What was the pivotal, what changed things though? At 37, something happened. Well, you know, I like to think, Gary, that inside me, in my inner world, that there has always been, I like metaphors. I would just call it a flame. There's always been a flame. And it started in childhood to do good, to be good. And it was never extinguished. Even without the addiction, it was never extinguished. And it was almost extinguished. It was fully extinguished. For instance, when I was sentenced, I went to prison in Massachusetts and for drug related offenses. And in prison, I motivated to get my GED. That little flame told me there's something in here for you, I got my GED. I later on went to Fordham University and it was that GED that got me in. I decided to be a master's level social worker because I had been in therapy with one of my mentors, Millie Claiman. Millie, I was in therapy with Millie for seven years towards the end of my addiction. And she was a social worker and she appealed to that little flame. She resonated with me. And I decided that this would be my way to do good. I would be a social worker. And I got an undergraduate degree and a master's degree in social work. I was a fellow at Columbia University. But I was still in the grips of the disease. At that point, I wasn't using opioids or stimulants or drugs of that. I wasn't injecting drugs any longer, but I was drinking. And even while that was developing this last phase of alcoholism, which I finally ended in 1984 at the age of 37, that little flame was kind of driving me. I was doing my best with it. So I achieved degrees in social work. In 1984, I can just tell you this, that I was at an all-time low emotionally. And I ran into a group of people who there was no stigma. They saw me for who I was. They loved me and understood me and supported me because I was a person with addiction. Because I was a person with alcoholism. They embraced me and they saved my life. It was Vermonters in 1984 that literally saved my life. And since that point, there's a demarcation in my life. And it's July of 22nd, 1984, boom. That was when literally, I was 37 years old and I'm 74 now, it was exactly a half-way point. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that unconditional love that you got from a group of people for just embracing you for who you were and are, it allowed you to recapture that youthful Eddie who wanted to do good in the world and bring it right up to 37th birthday and moving forward. Exactly, exactly. And they became the father I never had or the father that I lost, I had, because I had one. While I lost the mother, the siblings, the family, they became everything to me. And they, I began to live there again. And it's been a wonderful journey. We can literally say my life is definitely half-full, if not more, you know, the empty part is over and behind me and more so, more so than that. And I'll get into that a little bit later about what it means to have that behind me. It's a very, very complicated story. And I don't mean to say too much or wind around too much, but this is my life, it was complicated. Absolutely, and the image I has is that that flame was on like a pilot light and now it's, and it just blew up, it's just big flame. And other, have you had some mentors along the road? 337, post-37, that really made things different for you in a good way. It was, it was a pre, it was Millie Klingman was the psychotherapist and there's a picture that I have of her. She's at my graduation and we're both full of joy. She really was my, one of my main mentors. She saved me. I can remember, I went to my first session with Millie and I was such a mess that she said, you know, we were in her therapy room. And she said, you know, I'm gonna end the session now. Why don't you come in here with me? She took me in her kitchen. She lived in the outthorpe, a beautiful, one of those buildings on the West, Upper West side of Manhattan, like the Dakota. She was wonderful. She said, you know, just come with me. And she took me in her kitchen and she gave me chicken soup and saltines and just fed me because I mean, she just, she just loved me. What can I say? And I spent seven years and, you know, she'll always be very, very special to me. I became a social worker because of Millie Klingman. Now in my recovery, I've had mainly men, mainly men, four or five men who have over the years sponsored me and been spiritual advisors to me and confidants to me who have really gotten to know me intimate and thoroughly. And some of them have passed away. Some of them I'm still friends with and they're my oldest friends. And they just taught me, I think how to be honest, how to strive to live a spiritual life and, you know, stay on a spiritual course and realize what's really important in life and not get distracted. And not, you know, it's so easy for someone with addiction to begin to forget and move backwards. And these mentors have made sure that I am well equipped to not move backwards. I like to think for me that each moment is a point of no return. I like to look at life as a continual moving forward. I look at each moment as a point of no return. And I believe deeply in preparation that life prepares me. Life prepares you. You may not know what for, but it's prepared you. And if you're sensitive to it, you'll be prepared for whatever the moment brings you. And it's like addiction prepares you for recovery. And recovery prepares you for helping others. You know, it just, I just have that. They taught me that, taught me that. I get the sense that you've been paying their counsel to you forward with many, many other people. I like to, you know, that really has been my life, Gary, for a very long time. To be a helper, to do good, to try to have empathy, compassion, to try to listen. I spent over 30 years listening to people, to try to listen to and understand them. And, you know, or for whatever kind of support I have or they need. I like to, I call it the alchemy, alchemy of the meaning. That if you look up alchemists in the dictionary, alchemists were sort of, you know, chemical wizards. You know, they were always striving to turn lead into gold, to do magic. And I think meaning does that. You know, we cannot change the past. We cannot reach back into the past and change it. But when we change the meaning of it, the leaden past becomes gold. And there's also like a redemptive power in helping people with it. When you can help someone with your past, no matter how tragic it was, no matter how terrible some of the things you did were, when you can tell them, I understand you, I've been where you are. I know they're no longer alone. So by infusing the past with meaning, you actually reach into it and you get just about as close to changing it as you can. And you help somebody with it. So that's been the guiding force of my life for a long time. That's been the guiding force of my life. Well said, Eddie. Yeah. You have a family. You have some children. You're married, happily married. I do. So how has all of this helped you be the father that you are and the husband that you are? Oh, what a great question. You know, my lovely wife, Ellen, the sweetest wife you could ever imagine. She's so sweet. I call her sweetie. My lovely wife. My lovely wife, sweetie. You know, she's irresistible, Gary. And she's like, managed to sort of bring the love out of me. She's irresistible. I love her. Along with that came, you know, growing and learning and being a good husband that these things are in us, but you know, we don't know it until they're brought out. She's brought this out in me. My own ability to love her more and more every day, really, and my own ability to be a good husband. And I would tell you that she's just wonderful. And I would tell you that my boys, Jed and Josie and my grandson, Cassidy, and my daughter-in-law, Kathy, my boys in particular have, and I had a lot of fear about being a father because of what happened to me. Yeah. I had a lot of fear about it, but somehow because I was in recovery, I got into recovery when they were two and one years old, thank goodness. I allowed them to do the same thing, or I allowed myself to learn how to be a father to them. And I have been a good father to them for their entire lives. That's great. And we're close today. We're so close today. It's such a joy. I really, I can't even... It's hard to put into words how much I love them and how much joy it is to be with them. We do a lot of things together. We're in contact all the time. It is, people live all over the place now, but we'll be seeing them this summer. Jed will be getting married. My oldest son, Jed, will be getting married next year. Josie and Kathy have one boy, my grandson, Cassidy, who we have a beautiful picture of Cassidy to put up too. And the joy of being a grandfather is just something that for many years, I didn't think this would ever happen. When I was in that dark place. Yeah, sure. So I didn't think these things would happen. I have to ask you a question. Have you gone kite flying with your boys? Yes, yes, yes. And Josie has gone with Cassidy too. Yes. Nice. Yes, for sure. Nice. And we will again. Good. So there's, you know, in many ways, your life's work is who you are. You're giving a lot to people all the time, receiving a lot from other people. Do you have any applications, things that you do just for you, things that are fun for you to do? Let me talk about life's work again for one minute because I think this is important. I was listening to an author yesterday. I don't have his name with me, but he was speaking about white supremacy and eloquently, eloquently, talking about, you know, the black experience in America. And he used a phrase that I had never really heard before, but it really put something in perspective for me. He used the phrase communal grief and he talked about how black Africans, descendants of enslaved Africans, you know, must experience this communal grief of the things that have happened to them over the past 400 years. And I heard that and I thought that it really explained a lot to me because in 2015, that this number, 28,647, there were 28,647 overdose fatalities in 2014. I learned about that in 2015. And Gary, I, though these are my people, people was, I experienced communal grief. I kid you not, I didn't know what it was when I experienced it and I don't talk about it, but it was the tsunami, an overwhelming, frightening tsunami of grief for those who were taken by addiction, for those who had no choice. And that moment, or you know, like I say, things, everything is preparation. I had been prepared for it, but that moment really set in my heart and in my soul the focus of my work to eliminate the stigma wrongly placed on people with substance use disorder. That it became like a burning singular, you know, focus. And the art show, the addiction recovery channel and a lot of the public speaking engagements that I'll do are all focused on that because for some reason I experienced communal grief and it wasn't, it was a gift, Gary. It wasn't something that I said, okay, now I'm gonna do this. It happened, it happened. Right. And that's actually as a Euro-American that that's not something that people who are of the same color who and I are experienced so much. You know, I think Native Americans, African Americans, many people experience that communal grief and with no outlet to help feel that in many ways. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, this particular author, I wish I could find his name, Resma, there it is, Resma Monacum, Resma Monacum. He wrote my grandmother's hands. You know, he talks about, you know, like for white people, the need to experience that communal grief also, that black people will need to experience. But he talked about like for a white person, we have to kind of excavate. We have to get down in there and remove things that are blocking it. Get down in there and like, you know, really reflect on who we are and that, you know, this whole idea of white and black is a fake social political construction that they're us and we're them, we're we're we. And that communal grief is our communal grief too. When we experienced, not only when we experienced it, then we can begin to move on to something new and new structure for our culture. So this is something that Eddie, me, I wanna do this. And I don't think it's going to be easy because of the layers, you know, that we've learned that are covering it. It's very, very difficult. But I would like to think that I'm committed at this point to moving forward in some clumsy way, you know, to accomplish that at some point. That's fantastic. And, you know, in the recovery community in a sense, may have a lens into this that others don't. But I think I'd like your idea that we are all, there is no division between white and black and Native American that one's grief is all of ours grief. And how do we put that together so that we can all heal together? Yeah, yeah. And when you begin to look at it and begin to read books, there's another book, White Privilege, that is very, in some sense it's easy reading, but in some sense it's very difficult reading. And then there's another one, how to be an anti-racist. There's a few publications around that just I'm reading them. I'm reading them. This is kind of an avenue that I'm going to be headed toward. And when you look at it, Gary, I mean, you know, you're kind of around the same age as me. We've seen things like what's happening today in America. We've seen the 60s. You know, we've seen voting rights and civil rights and Martin Luther King, Jr. We've seen this. We've seen starts to this and then we've seen, we've seen everything fall apart. People get complacent, done enough and back to business as usual. So this is another time when this is in our face and it's our opportunity to, I think, and this is about my life. I mean, this is what makes me me. I do believe that for me it's morally compelling. It is morally compelling and it must be done. I have to do it. I have to come to grips with this and do something about it. Moral and compelling. It's not politically correct. It's not politically expedient. It's not emotionally expedient. It's morally compelling. It goes down deep. It's right at the core of who you are and what you want to do with your life. Sounds like it. It is. Yep, good for you. Anything about your life to date, you want to share around wisdom, learn a nugget from an experience that can help others in the audience grow and learn from? It's an interesting question. You know, I do believe I've alluded to it before and I'll go into it a little bit and then I want to tell you about having fun, but I do believe it's not like a nugget of anything, but I do believe that everything is preparation. I think that everything is preparation. I think that maybe it has to do with age. Maybe my wisdom can only be accepted by old people. I don't know. It seems kind of difficult if you're young, but I do believe that everything is preparation and... In other words, everything in your life for this point is how prepared you to be who you are today. There's no bad experience. It's an experience that you've grown and learned from. I do believe that. I do believe that. And then along with that, we have a responsibility to kind of cultivate like an inner sensitivity toward, whatever the next experiences that we're being prepared to face. So we're prepared, but we have to also be aware of here, this coming at me now is what I'm being prepared for. You can miss opportunities to do things that are meaningful even though you've been prepared for them if you're not aware of the opportunity. And that's really only two of the three ingredients. The next ingredient is free will. So you're prepared, okay. You're sensitive, okay. You're aware now of the opportunity, but that third part, that third part. Now, when you exercise free will, is it going to be to accept the responsibility of responding to the opportunity you've been prepared for? That's crucial. And I think that's essential to understand that about ourselves as we face life that is coming at us. We have that free will. And that really kind of burrows down into who you are and how you want to perceive yourself and live your life. And I guess that's one of the things that I think about a lot. And I'm a thinker. I think about these things pretty often. And that's something that I guess is becoming clearer to me as I move along. And it's beautiful. It's just beautiful. And if you can hear there's something that is going to bring you to your best self in life, then what is really an improvement on that really? I mean, that's a beautiful thing to understand that we all have that. Yeah. We all have that. I get the sense too that when faced with that free will, for you a lot of times it's take action to do something that you have the freedom to say, I understand it, it's there. I'm not going to do anything about it, but that's not Eddie Baker. It is in certain areas. I feel like I have competence and something of merit to offer. And I try to stick with that. I just try to stick with that. I also, you know, I guess at this point I do get, I get a lot of doing something for nothing. I don't know how to say that. I just, I get a lot out of, I get a great spirit. I become more spiritually prosperous when I do something just to do it, just to do it. I'm doing it and the reward is in doing it. And that's new, that wasn't always that way. That's something new. And I guess that's what I mean. That's one of that, you know, I've been prepared for it. The opportunity is here and my free will is saying yes. That's a good example actually, yeah. That's great, that's great. All right, so what are those things that you love to do for Eddie Baker? My wife and I, my wife and I have spent quite a bit of time dancing. We were, you know, we don't go that much anymore, but, you know, years of our marriage we spent dancing, West Coast swing, a very funky dance. Oh, nice. We would go to events and clubs and honky-tonks and, you know, dance till early in the morning. And yeah, it's just one of the fondest memories of my life. My mom and dad were dancers, they met at Roseland. That's right, exactly. Yeah, and my sweetie and I, I tell you, we were pretty good dancers and we still are, but we just don't go that much anymore. And that was so much, I mean, talking about driving to Boston, flying to Georgia. Wow. Driving to Connecticut, New York, you know, I mean, all over Vermont. I mean, we used to go dancing all the time. We were just dancers. Competitive? Did you, was this competitive dancing? We competed, but not on a professional level. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yes, we competed, we got first place once in a competition and then we got second place once. Wow. And then third place a couple of times. So we were pretty accomplished West Coast swingers. We had a great time. That's fantastic. In fact, the inside of our wedding ring, the inscription on the inside of our wedding ring is their hearts of dancing. Oh, is it that? Wow. Perfect. Yeah. It is. And of course my children are one of my treasures in life, one of my joys in life. And you know, nothing beats that, doing things with them, traveling with them, you know, mountain biking, you know, eating, being together, you know, telling stories, laughing. We, that's always been a beautiful treasure and always, always will be. My, one of my, not one of my, my main number one hobby is mountain biking. I could be considered an avid mountain biker. I love mountain biking. Wow. Nice. Yeah. And where did you pick that up? But how did that happen? That happened about seven years ago. I think my son, Josie, took me out on a trail and something happened. I just liked it and started biking and I didn't even have a mountain bike and I would do it anyway. I got a little more interested in it. I got a bike. I got better at it. It's one of those skills where, I mean, it has everything. It's out there in nature. It's gorgeous. I mean, there are spiritual moments out there. You'll clear your mind out and you'll let things in. Beautiful thoughts, beautiful feelings. You're in touch with the here and now. You have to pay attention to the here and now when you're mountain biking where you can get rid of the hurt. So you kind of managed to sort of be here now. And plus it's great for your heart. It's great for your body. If you go enough, you can eat whatever you want. You can eat whatever you want and stay friendly if you're mountain biking. And plus, plus, if you like gadgets and high quality things, mountain bikes, there really is no limit to what can happen with a mountain bike. I mean, it's really a real deal. So it's one of my favorite things. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Now, I cook. I've been learning to cook. I cook a lot actually. I cook dinner a lot for my wife and I. I enjoy that tremendously. It's a really nice time. We have like almost every night. You know, we sit down, we make special time. We have a nice dinner together every night. That's wonderful. It's beautiful. A lot of them are cooked. And did you pick up some of that cooking from your mom? Well, yeah, you know, I think it's probably, you know, like kind of like an environmental, I love it. You know, my mom, probably genetic too. My mom, she, Gary, she would make spreads, you know, pasta and meatballs, sausages, bread, you know, vegetables, dessert. All kind of eggplant, parmesan, lasagna, all kinds of stuff. She'd make a lot of it. My job back then was I had the parmesan cheese with the grater. Oh, yeah, the grater. I would have to grate up a big mountain of parmesan cheese before everybody came over. And then she would have this huge pot on the stove simmering all day and she'd be spooning off whatever fat rose to the top, spooning it off, and there'd be meatballs in there and sausage in there. There's tomato sauce. And part of my reward for grating the parmesan cheese was I would get like a nice thick slice of freshly baked bread with that sauce on top of it before we ate. Wow. That was my thing. So if I got cooking from anybody, it's definitely from her. She would do something. That's wonderful. My goodness, a rich life. And then you and I would like to travel. We like to travel. You know, we've been to Thailand. We've been to Mexico. We've been to Italy. We spent quite a while in Italy. We had a trip last year scheduled for our 25th wedding anniversary. We were going to Italy for a couple of weeks and then over to Greece for our 25th anniversary. You know, it's a big deal. And because of COVID, we had to cancel it. And then we would be there right now. We had planned to go now or next week. It's still not right. So maybe next year. But we'll go on like local vacations. And one of the things, I mean, being somewhere beautiful and having breakfast made and all that is a lot of fun. But really, one of the main things, you know, independent of where we go is this idea of really paying absolute attention to each other. And, you know, no work, no business, no distraction. It's all about you and me. And we really get to really give each other the kind of attention that we like to get. Quality time to get. And you don't have to travel very far to do that. If you unplug yourself from all the stuff that goes on in the world. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good for you. For you. Well, Eddie, we're getting close to the end of the interview. Is there anything you would like to share, think of this great life that you've led to date? Share pearls of wisdom, parting thoughts. Anything you want to wrap this up in a way for the audience? And for you. And for you. I guess, I guess, you know, I've talked a lot. And thank you for being interested in me. I really appreciate that, Gary. And I hope that I hope that the viewers, you know, found some merit in my sharing my life. You know, I think I'm a firm believer in a beauty and meaning being in the eye and soul of the beholder. So I'm not going to close with, you know, something that, you know, wants to summarize where I want people to remember. Yeah, I just hope that that that I gave, I gave, I hope I gave the audience. I hope I gave the audience something. From my perspective, you gave the audience a lot, Eddie Baker. I really appreciate you making the time to do this. It's been wonderful to have you on my first show. You set a high bar for future guests. Thank you. Well, just in closing, I'd like to think that I've inspired you a little bit with my show. I'd like to think that. Absolutely. And then I want to pay homage to Margaret Harrington, also of our fearless little station here. Margaret had her own show. And Margaret invited me on to talk about the overdose of Christ a number of years ago. I think it was four years ago. And I was flattered to be on her show. I went on her show and I talked about the overdose crisis that she interviewed me. And after the show, Gary, she said, hey, hey, you know, I think maybe you could have your own show. And I had never, ever, had never, ever crossed my mind in a million years. But it was having been prepared for it. Prepared, yes. Tensitive to it. And then my will saying yes to it. So I see that in you, Gary. I see that in you. You know, it's the same exact process I see it in you. Absolutely. Thank you. And I have one last question for you. You grew up in the Bronx. Did you go to Yankee Stadium? I did. I know where Yankee Stadium is. Okay. Of course. Are you a Yankee fan? No. Oh my goodness. No. Who do you think, who do you think my family was fans of? We're nothing Yankees. The Mets. Willie Mays. Oh, okay. The Giants. Oh, the Giants. Oh my goodness. We were Giants fans. We just was the way it was. You know how it is in your apartment? Like we're Giants fans. We're watching the Giants fans. That's the way it was. Giants fans all the way. 100%. All right. What's the Yankee fan? Ellen's the Yankee fan. Good for her. All right. Thank you so much, Eddie Baker. Have a good day. Thank you, Gary. Thank you so much. Yep. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.