 And welcome to On the Waterfront. My name is Melinda Moulton and I am your host. And today I have the wonderful looking forward to moment for the next half hour with a dear friend of mine, Mark Redmond, who is also the executive director of Spectrum Youth Center and the author of his new book called, which was just released by Onion River Press. And Mark has been making the rounds and talking to a lot of people about his book. But I really wanted to get him on my show and have him share with you basically his life and why he was called to the service that he's been called to. So Mark, thank you. Melinda, so great to see you. Thanks for having me back on. This is great. Absolutely. So first off, I want to start by saying that I've read the book and this is available at Phoenix Books. I'm assuming too that they is it on Amazon yet or you can get it on Amazon, but Jeff Bezos does not need your money. He doesn't. Thank you. So go to Phoenix Books. Go to Phoenix. Well, for those people who don't want to go, but you can order it from Phoenix and they will ship it to you. That's right. And there's an audio book I did, an e-book. It's all there. Shop Local at Phoenix Books. Why would I thank you for that? Got it. But I want to just say your style of writing, Mark, this is an epic book. It's your memoir. It takes the reader through your life and you end up in Burlington's spectrum. And what I love about this book and what I love about you is the style in which you write. It's snappy. You're a great storyteller and you move through a tremendous amount of time in your life in a very succinct and colorful way. And I had trouble putting it down. So I just want to say that before I move into my interview with you. I'm going to go to beaker mode. So I want you to do most of the speaking. Okay. So I want to ask you first off, Mark, what moved you to write this book? So interesting. I listened to a podcast with a Buddhist priest and Matthew Ricard is his name. And the podcast interviewer said, why did you write this book? And he said, I wrote this book to help people. That's the only reason to write a book. So I thought, well, someone asked me that. That's what I'm going to say. I wrote it to help people. But beyond that, you know, I've been doing the storytelling. I did the moth. I had a show on Broadway. I had a show at the Flynn. And so many times will in the afternoon show, someone would turn to me and say, when do we see these stories in print? They need to be in print. So that's where I got the idea for putting them in writing. And really, when the pandemic hit and everybody at Spectrum was commanded, including me to stay home. That gave me, you know, half an hour in the morning of not commuting and half an hour in the evening. So it was a spare hour. I should use that to write. So I call it my pandemic book because I really use that time to write this book. And it took me about a year, year and a half to do. So that's why I wrote it. That's not that's not a long time to write a book. So you obviously had this flowing in your in your being and to get it out on paper was you did it. Some of the stories I had written it from magazines. I've had a lot of them published in different magazines and newspapers, you know, and then a lot of the stories I told on stage. But as you know, it's you just don't take what you said on stage and plop it onto a piece of paper, right? It's a different medium. So a lot of it. So I was able to kind of get it done in a pretty quick time because I already had a lot of it written. So to my viewers who who are just tuned in, I'm talking to Mark Redmond who's the executive director of Spectrum Youth Center and his new memoir is called called. There you go. Who's on first? I'm on second or you're on third. Where are you? So I so I and I really encourage our readers to to contact Phoenix Books and get a copy of this book and read Mark's new book. Okay, so a lot of this book is steeped in your faith. So I'd like to ask you how has your faith guided this calling? That's such a great question. So yeah, I was born a Catholic, raised a Catholic, I still go to Catholic Church. I'm very involved in my parish. And I don't know, it's just such a core part of me. Another interviewer asked, he said, but you don't really push it on anybody. I'm like, no, I don't bring it up. Supposedly, yesterday was the Feast of St. Francis. And supposedly he said several centuries ago to his followers, go and preach the gospel, use words only if necessary. Meaning it's how you live your life, you know. And that to me is why my faith is important to me. To me, it is about helping the poor and feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless and visiting the prisoner, you know, and that's how you live your faith. So to me, that's how I interpret my religion and my faith. People can interpret their religion, their faith and how they want different ways. But for me, you know, even growing up, I can remember being in grade school, and there was a missionary priest who would visit our school. He was from what they called Biafra then. And he was talking about, you know, the families and children he was working with. So then when I was at college, I met someone who was walking from Guatemala to raise money to help people after an earthquake there. So I think all these things accumulated to really affect me and really to lead me to pursue a very different path, as you know, than the one I was on. You know, I was a finance major. I had a job on Madison Avenue. All my brothers work on Wall Street. They're really younger than me and retired because they made so much money. You know, so this was very different. And I really think it was my faith that really led me to go in this very different direction. And you challenged your faith a little bit in the book a little bit about where religion has gone and that your your religion really is a calling to serve those who are disenfranchised. I really, it causes me a lot of pain and suffering to see, you know, how Christianity has kind of been hijacked by the, what I would consider the right wing and even the white supremacist wing. And I often look at that and think, what, what Bible are they reading? I mean, is it? Or what Jesus are they following? Yeah, who are they following? Because I love that you get into that in your book. Yeah, I really couldn't help but not to. I'm like, this is not the person who I'm emulating, you know, I don't know who they are. But so I hope I'm right. I think I'm right. And I think history will prove that people like me are correct, you know, you are so right. You are so right. Thank you. So could you share with our viewers a bit of your struggles that you encountered along the way on this journey that helped you arrive to where you are today? Yeah, I would say, you know, there's one chapter in there where I write pretty openly. I went through a very serious depression, you know, after I got divorced. And that was really crushing and very, very surprising and kind of came on me very suddenly. And I have a whole chapter there. And that chapter, Melinda, has gotten a lot of attention, especially from men, you know, there's such a stigma in our society overall about mental health, especially from men. And I've gotten so many emails and messages from men or people who know men who are struggling with anxiety or depression and won't deal with it. So that was, you know, I was very fortunate. I got very good help. I went for professional help. I had a psychiatrist and I had a therapist and I went on medication and I came out of it. But I think that chapter alone, I think will help people. And, you know, we owe so much now to Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles and people like that, right? Who are saying, you know, it is okay to say I am suffering from mental illness right now and I need help. So that was certainly a struggle there. And then, you know, I write another chapter about I had a staff member get killed. I had a 19 year old boy high and crack cocaine who murdered one of my staff, who stabbed to death a 65 year old nun who was volunteering in a house we ran for homeless boys in the South Bronx. And, you know, I got the call in the middle of the night, you know, Sister Virginia is dead and I had to go up and the house was swarming with police. It was a major story in New York. And, you know, if just something like that happens, Melinda, you really start to question like why am I doing this? Am I wasting my time, you know? And I really started to believe these kids can't be helped. They don't want to be helped. I should go back to Madison Avenue or do something else. I am wasting my time, you know? And then I was asked to take over a home for homeless boys in Brooklyn in a very rough section. Williamsburg today is like all the prepsters, you know? And it was not like that in 1991. It was one of the highest murder centers in New York City. And first I declined. I said, I'm not interested. You know, I know who these kids are and they can't be helped. And the guy who recruited me kept asking, so I finally said, all right, I'll give it one more try. And I uncovered massive corruption where the staff were stealing food from the place, supposedly selling drugs to the homeless boys in the house. And I decided I was going to crack down on that. And as you read, it was a pitched battle between me and them. And I won. I won. We got rid of those people and we created one of the best programs in New York City for homeless teenagers. So that really was a turning point. But that was a struggle. I was going into work every day, Melinda, with a knot in my stomach wondering, you know, who's waiting? You know, what booby trap is out there? I even at one point, as you read, the only friend I had was the cook who warned me, these guys are out there physically hurt you now. Be careful. Be very, very careful. So that was a struggle too. But I persevered and really turned me around and led to where I am today in Burlington. So what kept you going when these things happened? What kept you going? You know, I think it was a couple of things. My parents, my Irish Catholic parents raised me to be a fighter. They raised me, you know? And I was that way, not physically fighting, but not to give up, you know? Not to shirk, you know, if someone's challenging you, you just don't back down, you know? So they raised me to be a fighter. And then I think, I felt like these kids, when you look at kids at 18, 19, 20, a lot of these kids have been screwed over most of their lives. They've been let down by their families, frankly, they've been let down by school systems. Most of the adults have let them down, you know? And they really believe by the age of 18 and 19, you can't trust adults. And I was like, I am not going to be just the next adult who lets these, it was all male, let's see his boys down. You know, I felt a moral obligation to stay in there and hang in there and try and do what was right and stand by these kids. And I think they respected that. I think they could see what I was going through. And I think that meant a lot to them. So I think it was a combination of both things. I was really raised to try and stay and fight for what's right. I think I still try and do that. I know you do that too. And we need more people in our country doing that. And so I think that was it. And just this belief that these kids really did deserve a decent place to live filled with people who cared. And that's what we achieved. Yeah, I know. That's up to you. To my viewers out there, I'm interviewing Mark Redman, who was the author of a new book called Called. And you can get your copy at Phoenix Books. You can call Phoenix Books and they'll send you a copy. I really encourage everyone to read this book. It's such an inspirational book. Now we're going to move on to a lighter subject, which is the story of how you met Mary Beth Christie. And it's such a wonderful story. And I know it's in the book, but Mary Beth is right here in Vermont with you and everybody knows Mary Beth and loves her. And this is a story that when you first told me, just touched my heart. And so I'd love my viewers to hear this story from your lips. Yeah, sure. I told it on stage at the Mawth and people love it. And it's basically, so, you know, I was married. I got married in my twenties. We married for 10 years. Marriage didn't work out. So, you know, I shared custody of our son. And a couple of years later, five or six years later, my brother called me and he had gone to his high school junior prom with Mary Beth in 1980, okay? So, like, 20 years has gone by. I can still remember him, like, leaving our house in my father's Cadillac and he had a puppy shirt and a tuxedo, you know, and he was taking Mary Beth Christie to the prom. And every couple of years, I'd say to him, hey, whatever happened to your prom date, you'd have a high school reunion and say, oh, she went to Notre Dame and oh, she's a TV reporter. So 20 years go by Melinda. And he's on a bike ride from Boston to New York, the AIDS ride. And he's in a park in Bridgeport, Connecticut with 3,000 cyclists. And who's the TV reporter covering the bike ride, Mary Beth Christie. And somehow, among the 3,000 people, they saw each other. And so, he called me after the ride, said, you'll never met him again. So I met on the ride, may I help prom date from 20 years ago. I said, I remember her. I'm sure she's married and children goes, no, she never got married. So I was like, wow, I'm just starting a job in Connecticut. I'd like to meet her. So he said, well, why don't you call her up? So I'm like, I'm not going to call her up. What am I? Hey, he wants an apartment with my brother 20 years ago. Do you want this? It's crazy. So anyway, he was like, we'll sue yourself. So I don't know, six more months go by. I'm trying to start a charter school, which I wrote about in Connecticut. There's a big hearing and the media is there. And I saw a female reporter. I went up and said, hey, you ever hear of a reporter named Mary Beth Christie? She goes, yeah, we work for the same network. She's in the next booth next to me. So I took my business car and I wrote, hi, you went to the prom with my brother 20 years ago. Thinking, right? Melinda, she's going to call me, right? No, no, that was dumb, dumb. So now another six months go by. And I'm reading the Catholic magazine and read it since I was in grade school. It's called Mary Knoll. It's about missionaries and Guatemala. Who's writing for this magazine? Mary Beth Christie has the byline on one of the stories. So I was like, this is crazy. This woman's name keeps popping up. So a few weeks later, a buddy of mine, a good friend of mine was a priest. He was a medical doctor. He'd worked in Tanzania with AIDS patients and he was a Mary Knoll priest. So I emailed him and said, hey, any chance you know this woman? So anyway, I said, yeah, I have a email address. So he gave me your email address. Of course I emailed, hi, you went to the prom with my brother 20 years ago. So we agreed. It was so funny. Back then there was no Facebook. So we emailed each other back and forth, back and forth. So finally she said, I feel like Meg Ryan in that movie, you've got mail. I mean, do you really exist? And can we please meet? I said, well, listen, I have a son. I'm a single parent. I have a teenage son, which for a lot of women was a deal breaker. And she said, that's okay. You know, no, no worry about that. So anyway, we met and we met on the street corner and a car was coming by and we went across the street and I didn't, I don't remember doing this, but I just kind of tucked my arm under her elbow, you know, as the car was coming. And she later told me that when I did that, this thought flashed in her mind, this is it. This is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. This is the person I'm going to marry, which is exactly what happened. We got married the next year. All right, it's such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing with us. Oh yeah, I love telling that story. Beautiful. So Mark, throughout your book, your dreams. Yes, profound effect on your and many of your decisions and where you could tell us a little bit about that, about your dreams. So it's so funny. I still pay attention. I wake up every morning, what did I dream last night? Most of the time I can't remember, but I was going for therapy and, you know, I was really desperate, Melinda. I was still very depressed. I was on medication. And at the end of one session, I turned to this guy and said, is there anything I'm doing everything, you know, possible to get out of this? What else should I be doing? And as I walked out the door, he said, yeah, see if you can remember your dreams and come back and tell me what your dreams are. And so I bought a little tape recorder and some many times I would wake up in the middle of the night, record the dream, go back to sleep, and then play at the next morning, you know. And the dreams helped me just tremendously. I tell people it's like free therapy. If you don't want to pay for therapy, just try and remember your dreams because they will really give you a lot of clues as to what is going on. So to this day, I have, you know, binders and binders, you know, I write these dreams down and I've actually made major decisions about my life. You know, when we were, you know, I got offered the job at Spectrum. I had a lot of misgivings, you know, about taking the job or not. I really did. And for a lot of reasons and I'll never, I've never forget I had this dream where I'm driving north and I'm in a business suit and I'm going to New England somewhere and there's a big banquet hall filled with people and the mayor of Stamford, Connecticut is there and he says, I want to introduce you this person, Mark Redmond. He's coming up here to do this very difficult job and he's going to need help and he doesn't know anyone who's going to help him. And one by one in this dream, people are, I'll help him. I'll help the whole, the whole audience. I'll help him. So I literally woke up, you know, and said to Mary Beth, I know this is a big risk. We have a newborn child. We're both going to quit our jobs. I think I should take this job and we should move to Vermont. So that dream really helped. And as I tell, when I meet people like you, I say, Hey, I didn't know you back then. That was you, Melinda Moulton, who was in that dream. You know, that was you, Rich Charon, who was in that dream. That was you, Holly Miller, who was in that dream. I didn't know you, but you were the people saying to me then, I will help Mark Redmond take on this very difficult task he's about to take on. And how, and how blessed are we in our community that you did take the job and you did come to Burlington because you've made such an incredible difference here. And so is my wife. Look, you know, Mary Beth's in the legislature now. She has done so much, you know, so we're so grateful that we, that we took the risk and came up, you know. Yes, we are too. Thank you for that. So I loved your mantra, at least we're still in the game. At least we're still in the game. So explain that a little bit to my viewers. So I gave his spectrum and the board was pretty open with me. You know, they said, we have a great program. It's a great organization. We do have some problems. You know, we have some financial problems. And, you know, the police hate us and business owners on Church Street want to close us down. Do you want the job? So I did take the job. And there are a lot of great things about Spectrum. My predecessor, Will Rowe, was a great man. But, you know, financially, it was literally Melinda, you know, and you probably know this because you've run businesses. It's literally, can we make payroll this week, you know? So I was running around getting second mortgages, second lines of credit, you know, just we had to lay people off. I had to close things down. It was terrible. And at one point, I remember before Thanksgiving, you know, we literally had no money. We literally realized we got to pay people on Friday, you know? And I remember we had a board president, Dale Randall, a great person. And he was on the front step. And I turned to him. I was like, what are we going to do? You know? And I remember he said, at least we're still in the game, you know? So like that was like, I just get repeating to myself, at least we're still in the game, at least we're. And we did. And you know, I'll never forget. Like right before Thanksgiving, I went over to see our banker. It used to be called Chittenden Bank, Brian Meyer. And I went in on Bended Knee. I was like, I know we owe you $100,000 on the first line of credit, but you can see we're sending you weekly reports. We're making cuts where, you know, but I got to pay people over Thanksgiving. Will you give me another $100,000 line of credit? Expecting he'd kick me out of his office. And he said, we'll do that. So I was a member. I went to the Cathedral Immaculate Conception right after. And I had down my knees. I was like, thank you, God. Thank you for Brian Meyer. Thank you for Chittenden Bank. We're always going to bank with Chittenden Bank from now on. So we worked it out. And over time, well, more and more people supported us. And we paid off the second lines of credit, then we paid off the first lines of credit, then we put off the second mortgages and, you know, now we have an endowment, you know, so we can actually pay people better. And you know, we've expanded, we have a warming shoulder, we're insane. Alvin's done so many wonderful, wonderful things that we've been able to do. But it was all because of, at least we're still in the game, right? You're still in the game. You're still in the game. Tell us a little bit about Act 74 and your efforts to get this passed in the legislature. That was yeah, when I interviewed for the job, there were some social workers on the interview team and they kept saying, we got to get these kids ready to be 18. Got to get them ready by 18. And I was like, what's the big deal about 18? Well, I said in Vermont, if you're in foster care and it's your 18th birthday, you have to leave your foster home or your group home. So I was like, you know, that's crazy in Connecticut, it's 23 in New York, it's 22. My own son is 17 at a prep school in New York City. If I said to him, hey, on your 18th birthday, you have to leave my house and support yourself. I don't think he'd make it. So anyway, I said, I hope you hire me for this job. But even if you don't, that needs to be changed. So they did hire me. And you know, I had a lot to do at Spectrum, but I really dove into this. And we passed the bill. It took four years, you know, and I always say gay, Simonton was key. There were certain people who were key to this. And she just got an honor too, which she deserves. So now it's 20. Yeah, what did she get? The Women's Fund? Is that it? I believe so. But now it's now it's 22. And it also helps kids with disabilities. Oh, yeah. I also raised all the kids to that level that now they get services until they're 22. So for that. Yes, thank you. And you know, Jim Douglas signed it. It was a team effort. Although when I heard Douglas was going to sign it, I said he's going to sign that bill at Spectrum. Because nobody did more than I am. I'm looking at my office, the picture of Jim Douglas signing that bill surrounded by our kids. Here's the picture of Jim. There is. Good for him. You can't be a sole warrior in any of these, you know, you have to get a team of people, you know, some kids save the night away. All these groups got together. That's how we pushed it over the line. So, Mark, something I want to talk to you about is the issue of trauma in these children. Yes. That's a lot of what's happening with these teens is that they were raised in an environment that creates trauma. And so talk to us a little bit about that and how you've helped these teens to deal with that and to move on and to have the lives that they now have. Share that with us, would you? Yeah, I mean, you are so right, Melinda. You know, when you really get to know these kids and learn a little bit about their story, trauma is so often at the root. They read the physically abused or neglected or sexually abused. Really terrible, terrible things. So we're lucky. We're on the front page of the free press last Friday, because we have a team of mental health and addiction counselors, and they are specifically trained in trauma. You know, everything we do now is trauma informed. There's certain types of therapy that they do, which are really used to help get underneath. We know that often underneath the addiction is some kind of trauma, right? So it's one thing to address the addiction, but unless we address the underlying trauma and what's driving this need for relief, you're not going to get that much success. So all of our staff are trained in that, and they are excellent. We're expanding, Melinda. We had maybe four mental health counselors four years ago. We're now up to 14. I'm going to convince our board, I hope this week to buy another building because I don't know where to put all of our counselors. We haven't spread out in different buildings. So I'm looking at a building on Pine Street, but you know, even with that, Melinda, we have 80 kids on our waiting list, you know, which is terrible. What does that mean, Mark, on your waiting list? What does it mean? The parents call or the pediatrician calls, this is youth suffering from anxiety disorder, eating disorder, and I'm like, we'll put them on the list and we're trying to hire more counselors and we'll get them in as quickly as we can. And I hate to do that. I hate to do that. So how many more counselors would you need to deal with the 80? We're hoping. I just ran into a new one in our kitchen. I was like, hey, you're new, right? Hi, I'm Mark Redmond. We're hiring them and of course you can't say they're a new counselor. Oh, here's 35 kids. We want you to start counseling, right? You have to build them up, build them up, ramp them up. So we're hoping by having that many that we'll be able to cut into that waiting list in the next couple of weeks and months. But I think the pandemic kind of unleashed, right, Melinda? A lot of our problems that were there anyway. Well, already in homelessness. Yeah, the homeless thing. Our warming shelter opens up on November 1st. We're struggling to hire staff just like everybody else is, right? So I may be, I've said, I'll chip in. I've done overnight. I'm not doing overnight. I'll come work for you, Mark Redmond. I know you will. I'll come work for you. Absolutely. I know you will. So to my viewers, we're talking to Mark Redmond whose new book is called Called and you can get it at Phoenix. Now we're coming sort of to the end of our time and I could talk to you for literally all day long. I know. Because I just absolutely adore you. But I want to ask, I really want you to share with our viewers one of my favorite businesses in all of Vermont, which is your detail works. And I take my car there and get my car detailed a couple of times a year. And I want you to share that you have created this profit making business to support the kids and teach them about business and to share that story. Would you please? Sure. So we did strategic planning about four years ago and it's easy when you plan like just to pat yourself on the back. So we're doing a great job. We have a jobs program for 20 years where our staff plays kids and jobs, city, market, healthy, living, construction companies, and they do a great job. But about only 40% of the youth stay in those jobs for as long as 90 days, which is the federal standard. So when I met with our staff and said, why do these kids bail out of jobs so quickly? They said they don't know how to show up on time. They don't know how to speak to a boss. They don't know how to work as part of a team. It's all the soft skills. So I said, well, a few kids who are succeeding, what's in the secret sauce there? They said a boss who understands who these kids are and how to handle them. But most bosses, they're not training this work, they're running a restaurant or whatever. So that's when we came up with the idea, well, we are trained in how to work with these kids. Why don't we be the boss? So why don't we start a business and hire our own youth? So we're all these entrepreneurs together from leadership, Champlain, all these dealer.com, all these companies. Hey, help us figure out what business to start and to do a business plan. So we landed on car detailing, and we call the Detail Works. It's up on Industrial Avenue and Avenue C. And there's seven kids up there right now today, and they have their uniforms and they have their badges and they get promotions, you know. And so we've gone, we measure what percent now make it to that 90 days. And instead of 40%, we're at 86%. So we've more than, and then we followed them all. And after they leave Detail Works, how are they doing in those jobs? So guess who's coming here three weeks from today? CBS News with Norah O'Donnell. They're coming up here on October 27th to do a story on Detail Works and to put it on the evening news and then with Gail King the next day. Well, send that out to me so I can get that up on. So that is outstanding. Well, one of the gifts that you have is to be able to get out there and put the message out. You do that so effectively and your book called is going to be, is it helping to do that as well, but you are a great promoter. And you're somebody who really gets out there and has no problem asking people for money. And your personality is really what has taken this organization to where it is today. And your staff and the teams that you serve. But I want to just, I would just want to, would you put out the phone number for people to call Detail Plus and also the website? So anybody who's watching this program, if you want to get your car detailed to call Detail Works and sign up and you can do it all online and you take your car and leave it and you pick it up at the end of the day or at noon and it's beautifully done. Yeah, good. That's good. Yeah. I mean the main website is SpectrumVT.org, right? So you can, it's all on there. You can do it on there. So you go to SpectrumVT.org and there's an area there on Detail Plus. There's also a phone number that you can call and set up an appointment. It's all there. It's so great. You've created a venture for this non-profit. It's wonderful. It's so great. And I go up there, you know, I kick the staff out and I bring pizza. I say to the kids, all right, I'm the big boss. What's bad? What's good? And universally, Melinda, they're like, we love it here. You can make a mistake and then you just don't get fired. You know, the staff listen to us. They code, you know, they love the staff. It's really great. And they love their clients. I mean, I go in and there's a big smile and it's like they're so proud of what they did. And is there anything we can do? I mean, I feel like I'm surrounded by friends. That's a wonderful way to put it. It's really true. So in closing, because we're coming close to the end of our show, which when we're done here, I'd like you to stay on. Don't hang up on me. I'd like to do a closing with you. There is this saying in your book, which I'd like you to expand upon. He held nothing back. That's right. He held nothing back. What context did I say that? It was towards the end of the book. It was towards the end of the book. And somebody said that to you was he held nothing back or somebody that you knew said, you know, he held nothing back. And I think if I were to, I love seeing that in the book, because if I were to describe you, I would say he's still in the game and held nothing back. I mean, people give asking me, you know, how old are you? How long are you gonna do this? I'm like, I'm 64. Joe Biden is 79. He's still at it. The Pope is 79. Patrick Lay, he is 80 years old, right? I mean, these people are still at it. So I still have a lot of energy. Doesn't even feel like a job to me. I wake up every day, you know, probably the way you feel about what you do. Like I can't wait to get in. I have no desire to leave it. And you're right. There is that saying he held nothing. Oh, right. A buddy of mine passed away. One of my best friends from college. And I gave the eulogy. And I said, oh, I said he left. He left it all on the field. He left it all in the field, which is a sports expression, meaning when you're out there in any sport, he and I played rugby. He gave his all. He never dogged it. Every bit of energy and effort he had, he spent on the field. And he not only did that on the rugby field, he did that in life. And I said that, you know, when I go, I hope somebody says that about me, you know, that Mark Redmond left it all on the field, whether it was at work or was at home, it was his family, his faith, whatever it was, he gave us all. So that's the way I try. I really do. I say a little prayer every day, you know, help me God to use this day well, not to grow complacent. Another saying I like is some fellow ran a company for years and he said, why were you successful? And he said, I never stopped trying to qualify for the job. And I thought that is so key, you know, because once you achieve a level of a success in anything, it's easy to start to dial it back. And I never want to do that, you know, and when I got to leave spectrum at some point, Melinda, I hope that people say, you know, he kept trying to qualify for the job, and he left it all on the field. And you held nothing back because I know you, I know he held nothing back is in this book because I wrote it down. But, you know, all those things really, in one little caps, you'll explain who you are as a human being. And I love the fact that during our interview, you never stop moving. And you are just one of these people that you're rolling around in that chair, perpetual motion. It's like, it's like, it's like the Mark Redmond dance. You're just, you know, loving what you do, and you're hugely successful. And thank you, thank you serve so many and the stories in your book called by Mark Redmond, you can get it at Phoenix. You talk a lot about the people you've served in their stories and also the people who helped you get where you are. So for that, Mark Redmond, I salute you and I honor you. And I love you. And I think you are an extraordinary human being. And to my viewers, thank you for tuning in. Go get Mark's book. It's so worth the read, and it's a quick read, and it's a beautiful read. And the stories will inspire you and transform you. So Mark, I'm going to put us back on the two of us so we can be together here. So thank you, God, that was fantastic. I'm crying over here. And you stay, you stay on right now. Okay, you don't go anywhere. Okay. To my viewers, thank you. I will see you soon and have a beautiful day and a wonderful autumn.