 Welcome to another show of Celebrate Life. My name is Gary DeCarlas and I'll be your host again today. The inspiration for this show really comes from two parts. One is having written my memoirs recently for my daughters and also having read countless obituaries and leaving them with the feeling of, boy, I wish I had gotten to know this person when they were alive. So this show is dedicated to introducing you to wonderful people from all walks of life who are very much alive and have wonderful stories to tell you of their life. And my feeling is that everyone has a story to tell. And so this show is dedicated to giving people the opportunity to share their story with you. If you're interested in being a guest on this show, please feel free to write me at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com. Or if you have a question for one of our guests, again, feel free to write me that question. I will get it to the guest. And again, at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com. Today I'm fortunate to have as our guest is Melinda Malton. Welcome, Melinda. Thank you so much. I was walking around, Gary, because I'm trying to make sure I've got my web access for you. I apologize if you lose me down here in the hinterlands of Vermont, but thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really thrilled to take you to my new show for CCTV. And I'm so glad to be your guest today. Thank you. Thank you very much. So Melinda, you have an amazing life from what I could see from the outside. And we've connected over the years in different ways, but certainly Main Street Landing, Union Station, as an entrepreneur, your commitment to social responsibility. I've always known you to be very sensitive to the nonprofit world and allowing them to rent space from you, your buildings, you're an amazing risk taker. You started that whole beautiful Main Street Landing building. And I had the, I know Bruce Seifer quite well. So I know he and you have connected, but that was a huge risk in all different ways. Did it, it's really given something tremendous to the community here. And I know you have a wonderful relationship with your husband. The love between you two is, it just permeates throughout the community. It's a wonderful thing for many other people. So anyhow, my opening question to you was how did you become the person that you are today and that you have been for this community that we toil in? Well, that's a big question. I don't know. I don't know how I became sort of the person the person that I am today. Here, Rick, come here. I want to just introduce you to Gary. This is my husband, Rick. So I have a lot to offer him. Hi, Rick. So I'm going to try to save the web bandwidth so I can do this interview. Cause I know that we could lose our web, we live way out here on the country. I would venture that I probably can credit it to a lot of things or discredit it to a lot of things. I'm not sure about that, but my childhood was, I lost my mom when I was 12 and I had to grow up really fast and find my way in life. And so in the process, you make the path that you can make. And I think sometimes children who lose their parents at an early age, they grow up really fast and they have to find a way. And so I've always been self-motivated and self-inspired. And I just think it's in my spirit. My father was a general contractor in Pennsylvania and he was a hard-working man. And I was very close to him. I used to go into the office with him. He'd work six, seven days a week and I'd go in on Saturdays and Sundays and I would help him with his construction business and do a lot of his calculating. When you had those big machines that you went like, I'll be proving the calculators. And he was a hard worker and he was driven and he built a lot of beautiful buildings down in the Lehigh Valley. And so he was a real inspiration to me growing up. But then I also had the support of my husband who for 51 years has been by my side and been a support that's allowed me as a woman to be able to really pursue a very challenging career. Because without him, two children, it would have been a struggle. And so I have to credit him for standing by me to give me the space to be able to do the work that I do. But so anyway, so I don't know where it comes from but it's inside me and we're in there. Well, we were all benefiting from it and that's for sure. Did you have brother and sisters? I did, yes, I have three siblings from my family and then my father remarried and had two of his own and two stepchildren. So yes, I have quite a few siblings and they're all over the country. So yeah. Okay. And I have two beautiful children and four beautiful grandchildren. So, and then I also wanna give credit to the people that I've worked for. I mean, Lisa Steel who owns Main Street Landing. I mean, she gave me this opportunity for 40 years to lead her company and to do the work that we do and she's entrusted me with this incredible challenge and work and she's been right with me helping me move this forward. And I think her trust and her joy in seeing us do this work has really been inspirational. And it wasn't, and you said that it was kind of a risk. Well, it was a risk, but it wasn't a risk because I think in our hearts, we knew that if we built a beautiful building and we did work that cared about our community that it would be successful. And today with COVID we sit at almost 100% occupancy. That's amazing. It's been a successful company for 40 years because I think we just always led with our heart and with love instead of greed and selfishness. So pays off, right? It does pay off, obviously. Yes. How did you two meet? You and Lisa. Well, I applied for a job back in 1983. I applied for a position of director of operations for a new development company on the Burlington waterfront and applied for a job. And at the time, she wasn't basically in the center of it all. And I interviewed for the position, I got the job. So we moseyed our way through the Alden plan and I met Lisa on occasion at events and stuff. And then that whole fell through. And I took a job in marketing with Lake Champlain chocolates. And about a year later, she called me and she said, hey, I got to do something with this company. And I really would love it if, and we were in touch all the time because we became really close friends. And I said, well, listen to Lisa. I said, I'll come back. I'll come back. If you and I take this on, I mean, let's do it, girlfriend. I mean, we can do better than anything. Let's just do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. So we renamed the company Main Street Landing. We reorganized our consultants. We hired a new accountant and a new law firm. And we downsized everything to a sustainable scale. And then we moved really into our social and environmental mission. And then we put a landing team of four architects who for two years put together a master plan for the property. And then it was time to build and we started building and here we are, you know, 40 years later. So yeah. Wow, that's amazing. You have a spirit about you. You're an optimist, aren't you? Well, I am. I have my moments. I mean, especially now, I've had my moments in the last few years where I've been a little bit dowry and cranky and consumed with sadness and trying to find the hope in my heart. But my hope is in our youth. I think we have a generation of human beings coming up that, I mean, we tried. I mean, Gary, come on. You got to be close to my age. How old are you, my friend? 71. Well, I am too. So you're born in 1950. Absolutely. What month? What month? When's your birthday? June. June. I'm in May. I'm a little older than you. There you go. So I'm a little older than you. But no, we, you know this. I mean, think of our generation in the sixties. I mean, we civil rights, women's rights, you know, free love, you know, the revolting against the war, you know, all the peace and love of the environment from the start, you know, birthday. Our generation was that generation. And here we are at 71. And we're looking around and going, I mean, I look around, I go, how did we fail these youngsters? How did we drop the ball? And it's very discouraging for me because I thought our generation could take it right to the, but, you know, but when you think about, you know, the election in 2000 and Al Gore, I mean, think of what our world would be if Al Gore had been our president. So you and I come from, I mean, we're born a month apart, we know what we had to do as that generation to make the change. We were only 17% of the entire populace of the country. 17% was the hippie movement. And we moved a lot, disability rights, all those voting rights, it all happened in our generation. Exactly, women's rights, yep. And these kids are gonna have to jump up and take the helm because we're dying. Yes, so you have kept the vision and the spirit of those times back in the 60s where there was a sense of we can have a different world if we put our focus on that, if we put our energy, if we put our careers and lives out there, you kept that through till today. Many others, you know, the lure of money, the lure of just other things in life pulled them away from that. And you can see that through our age group. But what, why, why did you stick with it? Why did you keep focused? Why did you keep moving forward on all those issues that we care so much about? Well, it was only 17% of our population. So we were a real minority. I mean, our revolution, the 60s revolution was a minority movement that changed, that just really took the 40s, 30s, 40s and 50s and just turned it on its head. But it was only 17%. Today we have 70% of our country believes in pretty much everything that you and I believe in. All of the gay rights, civil rights, women's rights, the environment, I mean, now 70% of the country is with us. And so moving this needle, if we can get through this voter suppression and some of this other stuff that's going on that could really destroy our democracy, we have a lot of hope in the next 20 or 30 years if we can get climate under control because that's the big issue. I mean, it's 120 degrees today in Italy. And if we can't get climate under control, then all of this is just, it doesn't matter because the human race, I need to say this to everybody in my audience, but I'm really, I want you to know if we don't get this under control, our species will cease to exist. We will no longer be on this plane. We are the largest food source on this planet right now. And a lot of things are gonna wanna take advantage of that including all these pathogens and things like that. But climate is the number one issue. If we can't get the world to change the way that we are living, then we will cease to exist in the next 100 years. So anyway. I agree. Yeah, no, you're right. So you wonder why? Why I keep doing this? I have, there are beautiful young human beings that have come into this world, not by their own choice. And they have to live on this planet. And I'll be gone, you and I will probably be gone in the next 20 or 30 years. What is it gonna look like for them in the year 2050 or 2060 if we're having temperatures of 120 in Italy right now? I mean, and so for that, I am more outraged. I mean, you remember the, they called them the, what were they called? The white panther, the white panthers. And we were like the old grandmothers back in the 60s were out there. Great panthers, right. The great panthers marching with us, right? Well, now you and I are the great panthers. And I am more emboldened and more passionate and more enthusiastic and really energized to make these changes happen. I do not wanna die and leave this planet the way it is. I would, I can't do that. So I'm actually more, more activated now than ever because we don't have time. Gary, we don't have time. Yeah, no, I agree with you. So Melinda, what would your advice be to a young person in their 20s about embarking on a career and life given what you just said and given what we know about the world today? Well, it's really hard for these young kids. You know, when Rick and I moved to Vermont and we bought this little piece of land with a little small little trust I got from my great-grandmother. We bought this little, little meadow up here. We got an FHA loan for $16,000 to build the Stone House. And it was a half a percent was the interest rate. So we paid $86 a month. Wow. We built a little Stone House that we could live in with our son. And it was $86 a month. Today, kids have their school loans. They're struggling with health insurance. A lot of kids have moved home to be there dealing with COVID. They're dealing with this economic crisis. I mean, we had a lot of things going on too, but these young kids today, so my advice would be, look, figure out what it is that you love. Is it the trades? Get into the trades. Right now we need people in the trades. Go to Vermont Tech. Go to Community College of Vermont. Get the training that you need to serve your community. And then figure out what you love to do and don't do what you think you should do. Do what you love to do and then figure out how to make it happen. Because if you love what you do, then you'll be successful. But these kids today, they've got a lot more things on their plate than we did. And they're trying to change that through the Build Back Better with Biden to help pay off kids' student loans and to give kids now two years of college. That's gonna help these kids. I can't imagine. Rick and I couldn't have done what we did if we didn't have that FHA loan. Yeah, yep, yep. Good point. So your dad played a key role early in your life, obviously with his work ethic, his caring, his skills. Where there are other people in your life that you look to, mentors, people that kind of opened up a path for you that if they weren't in your life, that wouldn't have happened. Well, certainly my husband. I mean, when I met Rick, he did yoga. And he was into the Yi Cheng and he was a spiritualist. And he was, I mean, I was straight compared to Rick. So he pulled me into all this wonderful, this whole life of spiritualism and- Grounded you, it sounds like, yeah. And also made me really focus on the earth, because I was from the city and he was a mountain man. And he loved being out in the outdoors. And so he's the one who really had me, I mean, my father also had a farm. So I did appreciate farming and agriculture. But I think Rick had a big impression. I mean, we met when I was 20 and I had my son when I was 22. And then my son, a little Eli, I mean, having a child so young and then when my daughter came along, she became like my mother that I never had. And so the people around me, Lisa Steele, I mean, Lisa was a huge influence. I mean, her love of nature and animals and humanity. I mean, she had a huge influence on me as well as being one of my dearest friends. And I think, you know, I think, you know, I mean, people like Robert Kennedy, I mean, the people I followed who were extraordinary minds, who cared about the right things. But they say now that we're kind of programmed from birth, whether we're gonna be those kind of sapiens or whether we're gonna be another kind of sapien. I mean, we're kind of like there. And if we have more, now they're saying if you have more neanderthal in you that you might be more of that, more tree hugging, caring sapien because neanderthals actually cared for their elderly and they cared for the disabled and they've seen that and so it's interesting that I think some of this is pre-programmed. And I would recommend the book, Sapiens to any of your viewers. Read it, it's thick. You can get it in audio and listen to it in your car. But if you wanna know about our human race and how we got from there to here, it's really a worth the read. Okay, well, thank you. So I noticed in the not the Union Station but your new building, newer building, that's an incredible environmental example of what a building could be. There's a lot of history of the lake and Burlington in there. Is that an interest of yours? Was that Lisa's interest or both of you? It really was my husband's interest. I mean, Rick's a historian. Yeah, it's Rick's. I mean, really Rick, Rick's a historian. He's a filmmaker. He's made historic films, documentaries. And when we started back 40 years ago, we wanted to do a history of the waterfront. So he collected over 900 images and put together a three slide projector show back when we had slide projectors, a slide projector show. And he would go around to town halls and show it to educate people about the history of the waterfront. And then about 10 years ago, he took all of those slides and they put it into a DVD, which we have on the history of the waterfront. And now it's on our website at MainStreetLanding.com. And it'll say the history of the Burlington waterfront and just click on it and you can watch it. It's 45 minutes long. I am the narrator. Rick put the images together and wrote the script. And it really was Rick's love of the history that took us in that direction. And by the way, Rick's has a photograph show on the second floor of the new building. It's 65 images of the history of the waterfront with little tags to tell you what it is. And Rick put that whole exhibit together. It's a permanent exhibit in that building. So it's really, I have to credit Rick Moulton for really digging deep into the history of the Burlington waterfront. Wow, thank you, Rick Moulton. I had no idea. Well, thank you, thank you, thank God. Come give me a little kiss. That was a great accolade, oh. I'm gonna go. Thank you, Jim. That's great. That's great. So where can we go from here? What anything about your life that you wanna share that might inform others about how to live their life? Well, I think what I wanna share with folks is number one, are we not really happy to be living in Vermont? I mean, let's talk about how lucky all of us and all of you watching this video, how fortunate we are to be in this extraordinary state where we have rain every night and sun in the morning. There's wonderful rainstorms that are keeping our rivers flowing. I mean, the Colorado River is drawing up. I mean, people in Arkansas are running out of water. I mean, Vermont, we've got our beautiful lakes and our streams and everything's green and lush. It's like, right, I mean, this year, it's been pretty extraordinary. It's like rain forest here and COVID. And let's look at that too. And all of you have to take credit for this. All of you, the 85% of Vermonters who have gotten vaccinated, patch yourself on the back. I mean, we live in a state where people really care about other people. So they're getting vaccinated and we're caring for each other. And so COVID is rising up a little bit. We're 118 cases, I think yesterday or something, but a lot of that has to do with tourism coming in. But I think we all need to take a moment and really be grateful that we all landed on this piece of the earth called Vermont where we have really smart legislators who are making legislative decisions, whether it's around paid leave, around climate, around women's issues that care about each other. And the climate's a beautiful place to be. So I want to encourage all of our young people who have left Vermont to please come back because we're all aging, we're an aging population and we need you. We need you to come back and start businesses and to be employed at the businesses that we have. And it's a beautiful place to live. You're not going to get a better education anywhere in the world than there is in Vermont. Our education system is phenomenal. And it's a gentle loving place to raise children or to just raise yourselves. And so I encourage all our youth who have left the state to please come back. Come back from California. It's you can't breathe out there, but you can breathe in Vermont, come on home. So I mean, I would love to share that with our folks. The other thing is follow your bliss. I mean, if you think, one of the things that I have a great, I did a great presentation for Adam Hergenrother's group. I forget what the name of his thing was that he did down at the film house, but I was one of the first presenters. And I called it the power of naivete. That so often I meet people who say, oh, and I'll say, well, why don't you do this? And they're like, well, you know, I didn't study it in school. I really don't know that much about it. And I don't know, but I'd be really good at that. And I'm like, but you would love to do that, wouldn't you? And they're like, yeah, well, you've just got it. You've just got to do it. So my advice to my viewers who are watching is don't feel like you have to know anything to do anything. If you have a passion for something and you want, and you want to do something, then you just, I don't use a Nike. Yeah, not going to go there, but you need to step into that space. If the door opens up and somebody offers you an opportunity and don't sit back and worry that you may not be able to do it or you don't have the edit, just step through. Because once you step through, there are people out there who can help you and you'll be able to do it as long as you have the passion and love for it. It's called the power of naivete. Do something you love, even if you don't know what you're doing, because eventually it'll all work out. Lisa and I, we weren't developers. We didn't know what we were doing, but we did it, and we made it up. And we made it up better than anyone else because we made it up with sensitivity, with sensitivity and with, you know. Yeah, why don't you take it? And we did it with sensitivity and we did it because we made it up in our minds. It was like, okay, we want to develop our property. What should we do? Oh, let's put together a team. Let's get together these four architects that we interviewed like many, many, many and came down to four. And for two years, we sat in a room and we shredded with these fabulous, these fabulous people. And then it was, okay, let's build. Well, if we're gonna build, let's make sure our windows open. Everybody said you can't have windows open in an office, but we're gonna, we have to have our windows open so you can get fresh air. And we just did what we felt was the right thing. We made it work. So the power of naivete, keep that running through your mind. Do what you love, do what you want to do, and don't worry about whether you know anything about it. You'll learn and you can do it. Just get out there and do it. Yep, that's great. That's something that's good for you. So I have a question for you. Have you ever thought about running for office? It comes up all the time, it comes up all the time. People ask me all the time. And my answer is, I wasn't, I haven't been able to get into the political arena because I had a job. And, you know, I had to get the kids to college and I had a job and it was a beautiful job. And so I didn't have time to be in politics. And now at the age that I am, I really want to have young people running our world. As much as I would love to get out there and lead the charge and make, I can do things from behind the scenes. I can write commentaries. I can do interviews like this. I can go down to the legislature and testify. I can bring a lot of people to the table. I can always get people to go have breakfast with me. People love to go down to skinny and have a good crepe with me. So I can get anybody to the table. I have my board service that I do. I'm on the ACLU of Vermont. I've been on a lot of boards over the years. I want to see young people running our world. This is their world. This is their future. Their vision of how they want to live and what they want the world to be. And I think some of us older people need to step aside and let the young people move in. These 30, 40-year-old, 50-year-old people need to be running our world and not a bunch of old hippies. I mean, we're just, they have all these new ideas. I mean, everything that's coming out of their brains is just, I mean, you and I struggle with, you know, the fire stick on our television. I mean, we're like, I mean, not that that's a bad thing, but you know, we need these young brains. Now, I want to share with you. I have a grandson who has autism and he's nonverbal and his name is Rowan. And he has an extraordinary mind. He can't speak. And he has a lot of, you know, a lot of struggles because of his autism. But at the end of the day, he's one of the most extraordinary poets and his mind is so beautiful. And so there's this piece of humanity that's coming into being of these extraordinary minds who we need to draw upon to help us fight our world. We, so for me, to be a politician and to be down in the legislature, plus I have a hard time sitting for a long time. I need to move. So for me to have been in a chamber for hours, I think I drive people crazy because I'd start singing or something. So we need young people to step up. So to all my viewers out there, all Gary's viewers, think about if you go to a merge, think how you can serve your community. Start with your school boards. Start with your select boards. Start with, be a cemetery trustee. See what's available in your town, run for public office in your town and then move your way up and become a leader and a political leader in the state to make the change that you want to see. Great. How, tell me about your children. What are they doing? Linda, what? Well, my son is a corporate attorney in Burlington. He's actually one of my tenants. And he does a lot of startup businesses. He helps a lot of my startup businesses and he really has a good clientele of socially responsible folks that he serves. And my daughter is director of the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. So she runs the Performing Arts Center and has for about 11 years now because she was an Emerson grad and she understands all the technical stuff about all the extraordinary cameras and production stuff and the like. I mean, that's her thing. So when I was, so 11 years ago, when we were really kicking this thing off, I was like, I had to have experts come in and design it and she was just ready, she was ready to get back into the working. And I said, would you come in and help me with this? And she just stepped right in and took it over and it's just increased the visibility and our sales and our rentals fourfold since that happened. So she's, that's what she does. Mariah Riggs, and she's the director of the Performing Arts Center. Fantastic. And we work together. Yeah, I've worked with her too. Now you've got Vermont Stage in your building and that's a wonderful coo. She did that. Mariah and Christine came together. It was just this like, that's the thing about Mariah too. And again, it's this generation. Is they just know how to, they just know how to communicate and how to come together and create these incredible systems of how to do things. And so she and Christine came together and we got Vermont Stage and we have, you know, we have a lot of folks who come back, you know, week after week and we're going to be opening hopefully in October. We're closed right now and Mariah's Tuesday night movie series is going to come back. And that Tuesday night movie series was her idea to bring film to folks who maybe, you know, who want to see good old films. And for a family now to go to a movie theater or back when they could, it would be a $50, $60 or deal if you had a couple of kids. And this is a free movie series every Tuesday night, fabulous movies from Gone with the Wind to, you know, one flew over the cuckoo's nest and great films. And all these community people come together, the old North End, the new North End, downtown. You know, we have a lot of homeless people who come in and they hang out and they all, you know, with the people who live in the big condos and everybody knows each other. We have this one homeless and it plays on the, we have a grand piano in the lobby and he comes in and he plays the beautiful pianist and he plays, he puts down all this stuff. He plays on the piano and everybody loves his music and everybody becomes one community. And then we pass a cup and we raise money for a nonprofit. So every month there's a new nonprofit and we can raise anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 bucks for a nonprofit. And they also are, they also are in the advertising and they also get to come again, stand up and speak right before them. So anyway, that's Mariah's Tuesday night and we're gonna be bringing that back hopefully in October. That's fantastic. That's wonderful. So what do you do for hobbies? What do you do, you know, outside of your work that's fulfilling to you? Well, things that I love to do. Well, you know, I love, I love golf. I mean, I joke, my husband, my son got me into golfing when he was in law school down at University of Virginia. He had me hit a ball and I hit it so far. And I have an aunt who's a good golfer. And my mother was a beautiful golfer. She died. And so I hit the ball so far. My son, for my birthday that year, my son got me a set of clubs. And so I go out and he coaches me and I love, and Rick and I like doing that together. We're not very good. We're about the same. It's the one thing that we kind of do that we're equal in. But I love being on this meadow and I love gardening and I love hiking and I love watching my birds fledge every spring time. And really my community service and my board service is the greatest joy. And being with my family and raising my grandkids and you know, I have four of them. And so they're all here. They're all right next to me nearby. So skiing, I love to ski. And really my, I think my activism is what is, what really keeps me the most connected to the world. Yeah. Is there anything that you haven't done yet that you want to do? Well, I did skydive about 25 years ago. I did. I went down to Addison by myself. My family wouldn't go with me. And I went up in this plane 11,000 feet and the sky was behind me. And we jumped out and the shoot opened. And then he said, I have to disengage this shoot because it's didn't open properly. And so there I am with these guys. And I was so excited because I was a cliff diver. For many, many years I was, I was a high cliff diver. And because my parents got divorced in Acapulco when I watched the cliff diver. So when I was eight years old, I said I'm going to be a cliff diver, which I am. But anyway, so jumping out of a plane didn't bother me. But the shoot didn't work. He let it go. Then he pulled the other one. It worked. We landed safely. No, it was amazing. It was amazing. And I really wanted to take it up. But when I took off the goggles, I had these big wrinkles, these big lines around my eyes, which lasted for like six months. And I said, well, I can't live with these wrinkle, these things around my eyes. So I never did it again. But I would love to take up skydiving, but I think my husband would have to time it down. I don't think he'd let me do it. But, and I've stopped cliff diving too, because it's not good for my hearing. But anyway, so what are the things that I like to do? I don't know. I think, I think really just keep trying to, to get the message out there for young people that they need to get out and make a difference. And if I can make a difference, I will. If I need to speak out. I just, oh, this is exciting. That I just started doing is I just became a member of the Williston Restorative Justice Center. And I'm on their executive committee. There's nine of us on the executive. There's about, there's about 60 volunteers. And I'm one of nine on their executive committee. And what we do is we do restorative justice, which means that we people out of jail. We keep them out away from having to go before a judge. We take them and the person that the crime was committed against and we bring them together. And we do restorative justice where there's restitution, there's forgiveness. And then we help the person who committed the crime to do the things that they need to do to become better people. And we've had some who have gone to law school who have really changed their lives and become really incredible people after they go through this process. So that's really a wonderful thing that I'm doing is working with the Williston Restorative Justice Center. Look it up. And it's, I think it's the way that our justice system needs to go. I don't think women should be in prison. I think they should be put at one of the schools that have shut down one of the colleges. And they should be, they should be allowed to go to school and have their children with them. And they should be allowed to be given a second chance in life. Women who do not commit violent crimes are often there because of the men that they lived with who were into whatever they were doing. The women get pulled into these systems. And I just don't think women should have to serve time in a prison if they haven't committed a violent crime. They should be in a beautiful place. And if you've ever been into the women's prison, which I have been, I've gone in and spoken, it is not a place for women and then taken away from their children and their families. So I really want to see a change in the way that we treat, that we provide justice. It should be about healing and about growth and restitution and caring and love. It should not be about punishment and shame. And I'm talking about the nonviolent crimes, you know, the dope crimes, the things like that. So anyway, that's something I'm really gonna jump into in a big way over the next few years. Good for you. Good for you. Thank you. You have a favorite quote or saying that you kind of live by? Well, I'm not a big religious person and I reckon I kind of consider ourselves kind of probably kind of Zen and Buddhist and, you know, but there's this one that I have up on my wall that says, try to, you know, be intimate with all things. So try to find a connection like with everything, you know, try to find a, even with, you know, when you're outside and, you know, you see a butterfly, I mean, try to connect with that in some way and everything. Whether it's a good meal or whatever, try as a human being to connect with everything in a way that's really meaningful and try not to be judgmental and try not to have high expectations where they shouldn't be. Allow people to be who they are and accept them for who they are. I mean, even today when we're so divided and you wanna have this, you have to understand where the other side's coming from and try to, you know, try to, try to, you know, be a better person with all that. So, especially now. I, you truly have a lust for life, Linda. Well, thank you, Gary. I, you know, I posted something on Facebook last spring, it was a red bud tree and it had beautiful flowers. You were, you wanted to know, you wrote to me, what is that tree? And I could, that intimacy that you're talking about is there for you and just about everything that you touch. And that's, it's a true gift and much appreciated. Well, thank you, my friend. Yeah, you bet. Anything you wanna say to the audience before we end our interview today? Well, I just wanna say that I wanna thank CCTV. This is CCTV and I, you know, Lauren Glenn and her whole staff, you know, they've been around for a long, long time and they're bringing to us local, local, local news and local people and the localism. Is it, let's, let's keep things local and buy local, go to your farmer's markets, support our local farmers who are giving us, I mean, the produce this year is phenomenal. Have you seen how high the corn is? My God. Yeah, yeah. And the, and support local. I mean, I know we all wanna go and shop online and stuff, but I do it too. But whenever I can, I try to shop local. So let's, let's get our arms around Vermont. We're a little haven here. We're a special little bubble on this planet and we need to protect each other and honor each other and love each other and support each other. So that's my, that's my message to you is, is love local. Love local. Thank you. And thank you for your time today and thank you for who you are and thank that husband, Rick too, who's over there on the side. It's been a great, thank you, Rick. You two are amazing people. Oh, I, I'm just lucky to be with this amazing girl. Thank you. Thank you. You lit up my life. That's great. Thank you, my friends. Well, thank you and have a great day. Stay cool, if you can. And honored we march. Thank you, my friend. You take care. All right. Okay. All right. Bye-bye.