In today’s episode, we chat with retired teacher Elizabeth Gladden. After grieving the death of her husband, Elizabeth was inspired to go back to teaching as she craved the normalcy and routine of going back to school.
“There were some days when you think ‘I just can’t face the world.’ And I think that’s perfectly normal to have days like that,’” says Elizabeth while remembering what it was like in the months after her husband’s death while she was trying to get back to living her life.
Nevertheless, she persisted and is now able to chat with us about how to handle a grieving family member or friend, what retirement was like for her as a teacher, as well as…
The importance of keeping a structure
How keeping busy allows you to experience everything retirement has to offer
How she was able to securely retire
The 4 freedoms of retirement
And more
Listen now…
Transcript
John Curry: Hey folks, John Curry here and Jay Wolfe. Welcome to another episode of the Secure Retirement Podcast. Today I'm sitting across the table from this lovely lady named Beth Gladden. Beth, welcome to this podcast.
Elizabeth Gladden: Thank you. Good afternoon.
John: I am looking forward to this conversation because I know there's so many things that you can share and help other people out there. But would you first just tell us a bit about your background? Who is the real Beth Gladden?
The Real Beth Gladden
Beth: Well, I'll go way back. I grew up in Miami, born and raised native Floridian, and I attended Florida State University and Barry College in Miami. Got my teaching degree. I taught a couple of years in Miami, and also a few years in Broward County. And moved to Tallahassee in 1985. After a little while, found a teaching job here and loved it.
Teaching middle school, crazy as that sounds. I then went to work for the Department of Education for almost 10 years. And then a couple of years before retirement, I returned to teaching because I missed the kids. I missed that interaction every day. I think it keeps you young, keeps you on your toes. So I, that was my career. I retired when I was 62 And I am loving being retired.
John: That's great. Let's rewind for a second. From the standpoint of some people listening to this and they hear you say you had left to education to go back to teaching. They say Are you kidding me? At that point? You're going back into that jungle dealing with those kids?
Beth: I am going back to the craziness, yes. And I think people say that you have to be a little crazy to really enjoy teaching but I truly, truly loved it. I never wanted to be anything but a teacher.
John: What did you love about it?
Beth: I just love the interaction every day. And even though education is very structured in your, you know, the bell rings and, you know, things move on through the day, there's really no two days that are the same. You have differences every day. And that, just feeling that, okay, hopefully I did make a difference in somebody's life. And it's so wonderful when kids come back to see you after a few years. And usually, it's maybe the kids that you had a problem with, and they'll come back to see you and it's wonderful.
John: And now you're having a flashback to something else, something just hit me hard. I always wanted to be a school teacher because of a lady who was our biology teacher and you're not going to believe what her name was.
Beth: What was her name?
John: Beth Gladden. I just made that connection right now. And it was just like a cold chill hit me because there were three things I wanted to be. Because of Mrs. Gladden, I wanted to be a school teacher. Then later because of the influence of a Baptist minister, I wanted to be a minister. And then I wanted to be a trial lawyer. And Mrs. Blee out of TCC had me do these aptitude tests that veterans could do.
And she said you should go into sales. And I said no way. She said, Sure because now you're teaching, you're preaching, you're persuading. And she was right. And I went back many times and thanked her for that. But also the same thing with Mrs. Gladden over in Holmes County High School. It just hit me.
Beth: That's amazing.
John: Wow, I never made the connection. So when you moved up here, went to school and started teaching, tell us a bit more about your personal life. You got married.
Beth: I got married when I was 20 years old. I actually went to Florida State for two and a half years. During one of the summers, I met my husband down in Miami at a summer job. And we just decided we just could not be apart and we wanted to get married. So I did all this investigating into what other schools offered my degree and so forth. And so that's how I ended up at Barry College, which is now Barry University
John: Your husband was Barry also. What did he do?
Beth: He was, at the time, working for, it was called Retail Credit Company. Now it's Equifax. And he did insurance investigations and that type of work. And he was six years older than me. So he had already you know, he had finished college. He actually went to a year of law school, decided that wasn't for him and then ended up in the position where he was.
So when we met with me being still in school, I didn't, you know, I had a goal. I wanted to get my degree and, you know, wanted to teach. So we worked it out. And I look back now and I think I got married when I was 20 years old. And at the time, I did not think that was young. But now I think that's pretty young to get married. But we knew it was, that's what we wanted. And we went from there.
John: And it worked.
Beth: It worked. It worked. Absolutely.
John: Let's fast forward. We talked during lunch a little bit about his passing. Share with us what happened there and then I would like you to elaborate on some of the things we talked about earlier. Because so many people listening to this, they have lost a loved one because of cancer, heart attack something, and I just thought that what you shared with Jay in the earlier will be so helpful.
Beth: Okay. Barry had, he was 49, he had some bad family history. He had had rheumatic fever in the past. Perhaps not some good choices of smoking for part of his life. But he was rolling along. He was in a sort of a high-stress job, but he liked it. And he had a heart attack in January of 97. It was kind of what they called, at the time, a silent heart attack. Kind of not all the brutal symptoms or anything, but the damage had been caused.
And they decided not to do stance, not to do bypass, but instead to put him on medications. And at the time, the doctors were touting the medications as just miraculous. So he was on those medications. He was doing very, very well. He had cut back a little bit on his stress. Everything was rolling along just fine. And one night, I remember the week, It was in April because it was the day, it was that week that you have Secretary's Day, Office Administrators Day.
And we had gone out to dinner and we were both kind of on a, you know, watching weight, watching food very carefully. So we had this very nutritious dinner. And we came home. And I think I was in one room watching television. He loved to read. That was his de-stressor. He loved to read. So he would go into another room and read. And that night, he had a heart attack. Called 911. They came. By the time we got to the hospital, he was gone. At the time, my son was 17. He just happened to be home that night that that happened. So he was the one who actually called 911.
And that began days of just truly not even remembering everything. I have people to this day who will say Do you remember this? Do you remember you said that? No, I don't. Because I guess your brain just turns certain things off. When that happened, it, I felt like half of me had been removed. So if you've ever lost a spouse, that's what it's like. Half of you, it's just gone. You don't have that person anymore. It's indescribable and I don't think anyone knows what it's like unless you've been through it.
John: Let's talk about that. We were talking earlier about things that all of us have done. We mean well, but sometimes we say some stupid stuff. So I want to spend a moment on that because this could help a lot of people. And a very dear friend Marylin helped me with this. When people come up to you and they say I understand how you feel. You just touched on it right there.
What Someone Who’s Going Through a Hard Time Might Not Want to Hear
Beth: It's, the intent is always good. I believe people, they care about you. They want to comfort you. And honestly, I think the main trouble is people don't know what to say. They just don't know. So they'll say, I know how you feel. And at the time, you're in such emotional turmoil, you're thinking to yourself, No, you don't.
You don't know how I feel. But you also know, and I think it takes a little time and perspective, to get to the point of saying, you know what, they really cared. That's why they said that to me. But at the time, I didn't take it that way. And if you've ever been through a situation like this, people say all kinds of things to you, but with all with good intent. But you're thinking What? What?
John: So coach us on what we should consider saying, Beth.
Beth: My thought is and always have been, simply say I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I care about you. That all. You don't need to expound upon any sort of principle that, you know, that you think is the, this is the way it's supposed to be, when it's just
John: Like he's in a better place, this kind of stuff you hear, and like, I don't want to hear.
Beth: Right. No, because at the time, that does not help. It does not help just I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
John: I'm gonna add to that and that is don't start telling your story about your life. The person is already having enough stress. They don't need to hear about your friend or something you've experienced unless they welcome that.
Beth: Yes. Yeah. And I think you need to take signals from the grieving individual.
John: Explain that a little more.
Beth: I think you, you know, if they want you to talk about your situation, then I think they're probably going to ask, you know, did you go through this? Did you feel this way? Like, you know, things like that. Otherwise, I think you just keep your own story to yourself.
John: Right. I believe that you should ask. I did this last night at dinner with a lady whose husband died 14 months ago. I just asked her, I said, I can tell that's painful. Do you want to discuss that or not? She said I would love to talk about it because I don't have anyone to talk with. And I just listened. I bet she talked for 20 minutes. And she says, Oh, my, I've been dominating the conversation. I said I got two good ears. I bet I didn't say 10 words in 20 minutes. But she just all this was coming up.
Beth: Yes. But what a wonderful thing you did for her, though, because a lot of people, I've also found a lot of people don't want to hear about it. You know, it's a sad thing. A lot of people don't want to hear about it.
John: I say I haven't thought of that because of the work that Jay and I do. We're here every day helping people who have been through that. So I haven't thought about that. But I guess that's true, isn't it? Some people don't want to hear it.
Beth: Correct. And people are thinking, well don't dwell on that. You know, you need to just move on. It's like sometimes you need to dwell on it. You need to work through it before you can move on.
John: The closest I've come to that was when my brother committed suicide in 1982. We were close. That hurt. And people would say things, Some people would say things like, Well, you know, since he took his own life, you know, that's not good from a religious standpoint, all this stuff. I just wanted to just grab them by the throat and say, Are you kidding me? I'm hurting here. Leave me be. And the next closest I came to matching was our son was in a car accident and I flew back from California.
He was in ICU, could have died any moment. But I've never lost a spouse. And I have no clue how that would feel. I'm divorced. So I understand how it feels in the sense of not having that relationship the way it was. But I think you're right, though. I think is truly a matter of we are uncomfortable, therefore we don't know what to say. I've been doing this for 45 years. I've delivered many, many checks to men and women because their spouse has died. I still find it difficult.
And for me, I just have to say I am so sorry. What can I do to help? I had a guy one time, this was funny. He said, Do you really mean that? I said, Yes. He said, Would you please run to the cleaners and pick up the laundry for me? And I said which cleaners? And it was at Blue Ribbon. So I did. Yeah, and I'm thinking, that's an insignificant thing. But to him, it was a big deal.
Beth: It was a big deal. And I think sometimes when you say, call me if I can do anything, chances are people are not gonna call you. But if you say, you know what, I'm going to bring some lasagna over on Wednesday night, you know, for you, for your family, or I'm going to come pick you up and we're going to go get a cup of coffee tomorrow, it's better to do that because then, because that's human nature. You're just like I don't want to call. I don't want to impose, you know, I don't want to do that.
John: Marilyn, her name is Marilyn Stallworth in case you folks will listen to another podcast on this theme. She taught me that. She said, instead of saying Call me if I can do something, look and see if there's something you know needs to be done or could be done, and just do it. Or send a card later. She taught me a lot. She's been a friend of mine, and a client for, I don't know how long. Was probably 1980, 81, something like that. You learn a lot from people if you just listen to them.
Beth: Yes, you do. A lot.
John: Thank you for sharing that. I just think that that is such a story that we had two men in here three weeks, I think it was now, might have been two weeks ago. Both had lost their wives and most time it's the other way around. We see that the husband died first. In this case, both of the ladies had died first. So let's talk a little bit about the change that you had to go through, that I can't even imagine being 43 years old with a 17-year-old son, your husband dies. And you shared with us a little bit earlier about how you took some time off of work.
But yet you went back to work. That appealed to me because that's what I did when my brother died. I worked through the grief by getting, I worked harder. Harder than ever before, because I had to work through it. So talk a little bit about what was your motivation? Why did you go back when you were going back to deal with little kids again?
Beth: Well, I think I craved normalcy. Everything had been so abnormal for so many weeks and such turmoil and everything was upside down. And I craved normalcy. And for me, that was going back and being with my kids, and my classroom and dealing with them
John: And your teachers.
Beth: Yes, and my teacher network. And that's what I wanted to do. Even though, you know, people said it's too soon. You don't need to go back. But I really did need to go back and it turned out to be a good decision. And that first day back, you know, that was an emotional day. Lots of hurdles. And it's just, you know, okay, but once that day was over, okay, I'm back. It's normal, you know, or as the new normal I guess you could say, but certainly normal in my profession in my working world.
John: Let's dig deeper into that. I keep that heart-shaped pillow there to remind me of my heart surgery, triple bypass, June 10, 2008. And I remember the guy in the room next to mine was angry, he was cussing at the nurses and the doctor asked me he said, the guy next door had the same procedure you had. Almost identical. Would you mind inviting him to walk with you when you go down the hall? I said I'd be happy to. I stuck my head out the door and asked him to come to join me. Why would I do that? Blank blank blank cussing.
And it hit me just now because what you're saying so standpoint of you have a choice. You touched on this while we were having lunch, that you can be bitter. You can say, Why me? Woe is me. Or you can reach outside of yourself to other people. And that's a space that what I know about you by going back to school, helping the kids was your normal and it helped you tremendously to get back in that environment because you're around a positive influence instead of sitting at home and getting in this downward spiral.
Give Up or Push Forward: the Choice is Yours
Beth: Yes. Because I think you can, when you go through something like that you do have a choice. You know, are you going to continue on? And yeah, life is different. But you're going to move forward in a direction, hopefully that's going to be a positive thing. Or you can become reclusive. You can just kind of spiral down and keep yourself away from the rest of the world. And I think I'm just, I'm not naturally like that. And when you think about the choice that you have, to me, there was only one choice. And that was to, you know, keep going.
John: I wrote this down. There's a quote from earlier, you said you could curl up in a ball, or you could go out and enjoy your friends and your family.
Beth: Yeah. And I chose, I did not curl up at a ball, it would have been easy to do. And you know, there were some days when you think I just can't face the world. And I think that's perfectly normal to have days like that. But if you're constantly making progress toward this new life that you have, you know, I think that's the best outcome you can have from now.
John: Why did you retire so young? You retired at 62?
Beth: I did
John: You have plenty of energy still. Why did you retire?
Beth: Well, I started teaching and I was 21. And I went through Florida Retirement System and ended up in the drop program and so 62, that was it. And I was done. And I actually felt okay with that. I was, you know, they always say, you know when it's time to retire. And I wasn't, I was not one of the people who people were saying she should retire. You know, I didn't want to be one of those.
John: So you didn't want to stay too long is what you're saying.
Beth: Exactly. Didn't want to overstay my welcome. But I went out with a good feeling about my career. But I also acknowledge the need for new blood. Young, younger people, you know, come in and do your thing and be fantastic. And that's the next generation of educators.
John: So you created your succession plan. You know, one of the things that I've always been, I admire about teachers and I go back to teachers that have made a difference in my life in high school is the thousands of people, thousands of people that you indirectly, if not directly appeal to and help. Because directly with the students, but the things the choices they make later in life is 10s of thousands of people you've had an impact on.
Beth: Yes. And the really exciting thing for me is when I left teaching when I retired, the person who took my place had actually interned with me many years ago. She had taught for a while and then stopped to have her children and then was ready to enter the profession again.
John: So you hired your replacement.
Beth: I hired my replacement, which is why my principal said I had to do.
John: That is funny.
Beth: So that just thrilled me. It's like full circle, you know? So it's great.
John: I wonder how often that actually gets to happen where you know who's taking your place with your students. That's pretty cool.
Beth: It doesn't always happen. This was just a coincidence that just connected and, you know, I knew I was leaving and the young lady I'm talking about, she had been substituting where I'd been teaching. I didn't know she was subbing there. And she came and found me one afternoon and she said, You know, I'm thinking of getting back into teaching. And I'm like, You're kidding. Let me tell you. And it just all just worked.
John: In the military, we call that drafting and strong-arming Beth. Okay, so take me from the time you retired 62. You're, you just turned 66. You're still full of energy. So talk about what have you been doing these four years in retirement? And what do you see going forward, say for the next 10 years?
An Optimistic Look at Retirement
Beth: Well, I am thoroughly enjoying sleeping late Because I always had to get up so early when I taught. I love not having too much structure in my day but enough structure that, you know, on two days a week I'll go to a yoga class. Or on once we call, meet friends for lunch. And just so you have enough of a schedule, but I don't want to be overloaded. I don't, I want to feel the freedom of retirement.
John: Let's expand on that. Because a lot of people listening to this are going to be people who've retired recently and some who'd been retired for a long time. So some are going to be, wow, I don't know what to do. I have nothing to do. I'm sitting here in front of the television, getting frustrated with stuff. Then you have others who are like, I'm bored. I need to go find some interest. So let's talk about that for a moment. When you say enough activity that you're not bored but not too structured, can you elaborate on that some?
Beth: I'm the type of person where I don't have the need to be running and jumping and busy every second. I can be content reading a book.
John: That's a big word, by the way, content.
Beth: Yeah. And I can be content taking a walk around my neighborhood. I can be content taking a little day trip to the beach. And you have the freedom of doing that. I love it when you go to the dentist and they say, what time can you come in? I can come in anytime because I'm retired. And I love that. But I know some people need more.
And if you need more, there's a lot of things you can do. I mean, there's a lot of opportunities. There's volunteering, there's activities, you know, at senior centers and things like that. So it's kind of you make your own day. You make your own schedule. I'm not sure that one thing that works for one person will work for everyone. You have to sort of customize that.
John: Sure, because some people like to volunteer. Others a lot of go to the gym. They just, I'm thinking two guys right now, they love doing woodwork. They've got their little shops and they're doing all kinds of stuff. And that's fine.
Beth: So I think but you need to tailor it to yourself. You can't be like everybody else.
John: We were talking earlier, you said you like, you've done some travel, you'd like to do some more. Talk about that a little bit. Where are some of the places you'd like to go to?
Beth: I would like to go back to California, do the Napa Valley region. I'd like to see Chicago, I'd like to see Seattle, I'd like to see San Antonio Texas. Just, there's a lot of places in the United States that, or if I've been there, I went there as a kid. And I frankly probably took it for granted and didn't pay attention because I was little. But I would like to go back and just not really have a schedule. Not say okay, I have three days to see this place. You know, when you're retired, hopefully you have a little freedom there. I'm going to go here, I'm going to go there. You know, well let's extend it a day if we want. You know, it's just really nice to have that freedom.
John: Now, are you the kind of person that when you travel you like to go by yourself or you'd like to have tours? How do you do that?
Beth: I like to go with somebody and, you know, there's I do have, well, I have friends, still friends from college. I have my teacher network and, you know, going with them is fun. Sometimes a girls, you know, week to somewhere is a lot of fun. So, yeah, it's good. Friends are one of the most valuable things you can have.
John: Absolutely. Yeah. I'd say second only to family.
Beth: Yes. Yes.
John: Absolutely. So tell us about the story of where you were chaperone for kids in New York City. This kind of caught my ear. So tell me about that.
Beth: Well, I chaperoned twice. It was great. We loved it. We took the kids to shows. We went to the Empire State Building. But I was chaperoning a group and my little group was four or five students and we were in Times Square in New York City, and many of them had not really traveled much. So I was like, don't talk to anybody. You stick right with me. Do not wander off. And the whole trip was a lot of counting heads on the bus to make sure we had not left anyone. So it was interesting. I'd like to go back to New York as an adult. So I don't have to count heads every second and just do that. It would be fun.
John: All right. I thought that was an interesting story because I think we've all whether it be boy scouting, Girl Scouts, doing something you've had to count heads make sure you don't lose someone's kid. You're like, whoops. If it's my kid, maybe I wouldn't want to lose them. I don't know.
Beth: Exactly.
John: So talk about the future. What do you see is your future? You're not going to sit around do nothing, I know that.
Beth: No, I would like to travel some more, as we mentioned, I like what I'm doing now. I like, you know, taking the classes and I like reading and I like getting together with friends. And I would say, going back to content, I'm pretty content with my life right now. I downsized to a smaller new house three and a half years ago. I love it. I don't have yard maintenance. I'm not a yard girl so I don't garden or anything like that.
But there again, that's an option when you're retired. I think if life can stay sort of the way it is right now, my life, it would be great. I'm looking forward to eventually hopefully having grandchildren. I haven't experienced that yet. Looking forward to that. Hopefully, staying relatively healthy and, you know, able to enjoy things that go on and just, you know, feeling that life is good.
John: That sounds like a promising future. Do you ever feel the urge to go back into the workforce even on a part-time basis?
Beth: I don't really. Everybody says, Well, why don't you substitute teach? Well, frankly, those people that they deserve a whole lot more money than they make because substitute teaching is difficult and
John: Elaborate. Difficult, how do you mean that?
Beth: It's difficult because kids automatically challenge a substitute teacher. That's the way of the world. They do. However, if you can, and I know some people who've done this, if you can sub for one or two certain teachers when they're out at a certain school, the kids get to know you. And so that is a better kind of a deal. But I kind of, I'm not there yet. I know I'm not, I wouldn't rule it out for the future but right now, you know, I'm kind of good with where I am and what I'm doing.
John: Well, you're financially secure because you made good choices with your planning for retirement. So you have no pressure to have to work at all. So if you want to go to work, you're good because you truly want to. So we talked about earlier, put a purpose on a paycheck. So if it's something you enjoy doing go do it.
Otherwise, for me, I get people ask me almost every day now, are you retired? Or when would you retire? Why would I retire? I love what I'm doing. But I have the ability to take time off when I want to and plan ahead for stuff. But I, my deal as long as I'm healthy, and I'm relevant, and people want me, I'm gonna keep working, but I'm not going to work as much as I have in the past. Take time out and do the things I want to do, travel and things like that.
Plan Out What You Want Retirement to Look Like For You
Beth: I think you should work. I think people should work as long as they want to work, as long as they can work. If that's important to you and that makes your life good, then that's what you should do. Whereas, you know, everybody's different. I don't think you can do a blanket thing for anybody on retirement. Everybody is different.
John: I agree totally. I even ask people when they say I want to prepare for my retirement. Well, what does retirement look like? They struggle with that. I way well the first thing we'll do is let's talk about your vision of retirement. Because if you don't have something to retire to, you're not going to be happy in retirement. And the saddest thing I see as we'll have somebody come in, they're angry at work, can't stand to go to work and they're not really retiring to something.
They're retiring from something. And they're miserable. And I got news for you, if you're miserable at work, you're probably gonna be miserable in retirement because that's just inside you. And you got to find a way to substitute that anger or that frustration for something that gives you joy. If not, I don't think you're going to have a good retirement.
Beth: I agree. I agree. Fortunately, for me, in the last four, almost four and a half years, my elderly mother was also ill, and in a nursing home and she had very bad dementia. And so being retired enabled me to leave and go see her for a week. You know, she was down in South Florida. Whereas if I had been working, I wouldn't have been able to do that. So that helped me during that period of time. I felt like at least I could do that. I couldn't necessarily do a lot for her because of her condition, but I could be there. And that was important to me.
John: Very important. And you had the time to do it. I like to talk about four freedoms, time, freedom, money, freedom, relationship, freedom and location freedom. And if we can get our act together in all those areas, then we can be more content and more at peace and not feeling pressured or frustrated. Good. Alright. So I'm looking at the clock there. I can't believe this has been 31 minutes here. So what advice would you leave with the people that are listening from the standpoint of from your personal experiences, things that you've learned along the way, what advice would you offer us?
Beth: I think it's, I think you have to look at the future. You have to look at reality as far as your finances and things like that. You can't leave it to chance. And I was almost forced into looking to the future when I was quite a bit younger than retirement age because of the death of my husband. And really, that's how a lot of this started almost inadvertently planning for the future, which turned out to be very beneficial.I've received great advice on that. I think you can't wait. I think everybody's concerned at this age or close to retirement is am I going to be okay?
You know, do I have enough to get me through and so forth. And it adds a huge element of, I guess, serenity to life when you know that you're okay financially. You know, for the most part. I mean, you know, yes, things happen and so forth. But I, it sounds strange, but I almost feel fortunate that I went through some of these experiences in my early 40s because I might not be in as good of a situation as I am now had I not gone through that? That sounds a little strange.
John: I don't think it's strange at all. I think it's a situation where we learn more from the negative things if we stop and we become a good student. And it helps us redirect. It's just sad and tragic that you lost Barry the way you deal with this heart attack. But, you know, you said it earlier, and I don't think I wrote it down verbatim, but the gist of it you said, you have to be strong. You have to live life and go on.
Beth: Mm-hmm. That's it. You do.
John: And I think that all of us are going to have ups and downs in life. It's how we deal with them.
Beth: Right And that your day, there will be many days if you experience something like this or the loss of anyone or some sort of major life event, not every day is going to be wonderful. It isn't. I mean, life is not that way. But I think if you have an outlook that alright, this is a crummy day, but I'm gonna get through it and tomorrow's a new day and, you know, I'm gonna move on. It's almost a mindset that you have to acquire after going through some of this.
John: Yes. Your role as a teacher and loving the kids, one of the biggest things that made an impact on my life, I'm a Shriner, was going to one of the Shriner's hospitals down in Tampa. And walked in and you see these kids that have had amputations or kind of problems. And you're sitting there like oh my god, I feel so sorry for that person. And they've come right over to you and say Hey Mr. Shriner. How are you doing?
You know, thank you. And next thing you know, I'm down on my hands and knees playing with them. I left they're not sad, but full of energy, was proud of what we did and the fundraiser did because they were grateful. Yes, they had lost an arm or a leg or whatever. But you know what? They didn't give up. And every time I see those commercials looking for fundraising on television, my heart just wells because, you know, we all have problems.
They have big problems, but they don't let it keep them down. And then I see people when I go in honor flights, I see people in their 80s and 90s still going strong, it's just I love seeing that. So you get the two ends of the spectrum. The little kids and then there's older folk, that we can all learn from if we choose to. Or we can get angry with the world. Go suck our thumb, curl up in that ball, like you said and be angry.
Beth: Which is really not productive, and It's not a constructive use of energy. Negative energy is just, it's just not constructive.
John: No, it just tears us down. Beth, thank you so much for this. Beth Gladden, this has been delightful. Thank you so much.
Beth: You're welcome. Thank you.
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