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Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a podcast about business, parenting and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you intentional conversations on making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better. Recorded in Cookeville, TN, Kosta joins guests from all walks of life to bring fresh perspective and start your week with purpose. We're better together.
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For me, empowerment looks like taking full advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you. Again, with that mindset, I'm not going to let anyone stand in my way, I'm not going to let anyone hold me back. You might try but I'm going to find another way. So understand that that is within you. And don't let opportunities pass you by.
Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting, business, and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation on making your own path to success, challenging the status quo and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host Kosta Yepifantsev.
Hey y'all, it's Kosta today I'm here with my guest Lori Strode, counselor, Cookeville theatre company board member, and I am my ancestors wildest dream co creator, producer and director. Lori, we're honored to have you with us celebrating Black History Month and all the amazing ways you've encouraged diversity, unity and growth in this community. I'd like to start the episode with a dedication to your mom, who was the first black woman to graduate from the nursing program, she attended Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and one of the only women of color to work at plateau mental health during her tenure. How did having a role model like your mom shape you as a black woman and as a person overall?
Well, thank you for asking, and thank you for having me here. My mom was one of the strongest women I know that I've ever been around. But I will always say that I was blessed to have what I call a Holy Trinity.
I had my mom and two of my aunts that were very instrumental in in who I am. I always say any sweetness that I have was thanks to my aunt Hedy. She was just the kindest, sweetest person that you ever want to know.
She's never met a stranger. She always wanted to feed you. She wanted to love you. She noticed when you put your lipstick on, it made her so happy. I mean, she was so complimentary. I had another aunt that I grew up with and stayed with a lot on Shirley. And I likened her to Rosie the Riveter, she was tough, she was consistent, she got it done, she worked in a factory, she was home, she got us fed, she got a shower, she got us in bed, so you be consistent, you make a schedule, this needs to happen, then that shaped me. And then my mom was kind of all of that wrapped into one, they all had those pieces to them. But you know, obviously your mom is so you spend the most time with she was very no nonsense you get done, what needs to be done. If there's something that you set your mind to do, you do it, you don't make excuses about it. You don't blame this or that. It is within your power to do it. So you do it. And if you don't, you don't, you don't whine about it. And it's no one else's fault. You just do what needs to be done.
So with that foundation, feel very blessed and lucky to have those people pour into me, I would not be me without all of those people.
Being a minority isn't easy. And I know that that's a gross understatement. But I bring it up to say you're not only a woman, you're a black woman in a community where 85.7% of the population is white. You know what it's like to be different.
And you've taken that opportunity to empower others who are different, as a school counselor, a mentor, an advocate, a volunteer an artist, what is empowerment for black people and Cookeville really look like?
Now again, the opinions expressed here are just my own.
Yeah.
For me, empowerment looks like taking full advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you. Again, with that mindset, I'm not going to let anyone stand in my way. I'm not going to let anyone hold me back. You might try but I'm going to find another way. So understand that that is within you and don't let opportunities pass you by. I preach that to my students. I just think that At, you can be in do whatever you set your mind to be and do. And I say that because, again, like with my ancestors, wildest dreams, and we'll talk more about that, if all of those people went through all of the things that they went through to get to us into where we are today, and they, they weren't stopped, they didn't let anything stand in their way. We can do that too. And whatever the environment is, you bloom where you're planted, and you seize every opportunity in front of you, you don't let them pass you.
Are we making progress? Like, I mean, here's the thing. So obviously, the civil rights movement was in 1964. We've had a lot of things happen since then. And you know, you are, you're kind of in the ether of seeing what the next generation of kids are doing, which is essentially what the next generation of leaders are going to look like. So do you feel like we're making positive progress? Are we going in the right direction, in Cookeville, in terms of addressing kind of this racist rhetoric or some of the overt racism because when I talk to people, they all say, we're past that we're not racist? We're not racist anymore. We're good. We solve that problem. So I mean, just to hear your perspective on that,
Yeah, I think that's really kind of, I don't know, what an elementary viewpoint of that, but we'll get back to that, for me, where we are currently, you know, growing up, I was born in 1970. So I'm in public school right at 75.
Through, you know, at 81. I'm used to being the only one in a room, and it has never bothered me, or it didn't bother me. Up until a certain point, I was the only black person in my grade at Parkview Elementary. There were other black kids there, and I was related to them. But they were all in different grades.
And they all had more people in their grade, I was the only one somehow that wound up with no other person of color in my whole grade level until we went to seventh grade where other schools combined. But I loved school and school loved me, it never seemed to matter. I didn't feel like I was treated any differently. In fact, I felt very loved and cared for and nurtured in school, it was a safe place for me, you know, Parkview rockets, I had the again, I've been so blessed with such a good foundation and people pouring into me, I don't remember bad encounters, they it's great. And it was, it was really good. I'm sure there were a few racist kids who threw out some slurs. But it was so immediately taken care of by the teacher to my friends. So that was great. And then, you know, you grow up into the 80s. I feel like I was in kind of a sweet spot. As far as race relations, thinking we were post racial, all of those things, there was representation. My brothers were 11 and 13 years older than me.
So one was killed when I was younger, much younger, and the other was off at college. So a lot of times, I was by myself when I wasn't in my, with my cousins and came up during the TV dinner era. And so my mom would make my little TV dinner and I would sit in front of the TV and watch good times. I loved good times, because I'm growing up in rural Cookeville. We only had like four channels anyway.
And it's about a family in inner city, Chicago. So you would think there was nothing that connected us. But representation matters. They communicated with each other the way my family communicated their dialect, their you know, colloquialisms, if you will, or what I heard when I was with my family, so I could not get my little TV dinners. watchable, it's relatable. Even though the only thing that was relatable was race. That was it, I had nothing else in common. So fast forward to the 80s We're getting more representation in television.
And it's not just, you know, the struggle and black people doing bad because that part wasn't relatable to me. My mom was a nurse. My dad was a truck driver, my aunts and uncles all worked homeowners, all the things. So that part wasn't relatable. So when we get to the 80s, and you're getting Fresh Prince of Bel Air, you're getting the Cosby Show a different world, living single, all the representation and so you feel like we've kind of made it again, no social media, you don't necessarily know what's going on. So it felt good. I didn't feel like there was a space where I didn't belong. And I can't really say that now. And it's 30 years later, it should be a no On issue, right, the fact that it's still an issue is a huge issue, right? It's a big bro like we had come that far, you would think that 30 years into the future. We're done.
We're done with this. And we are so not done with this.
Yeah. If anything, it's like we've erased the last 30 years, you know?
Absolutely. I mean, obviously, you know, we don't have like, the K K. K, but in the same breath, I mean, we've got, you know, Nazis nowadays, and it's just that I hate to like just stereotype and just be so glib.
But it's just, when you realize and you being an African American, you see it firsthand, daily. So you, you know, you're caught, you're reminded, I mean, I wouldn't say daily, but you're reminded regularly, what it means to be a minority or a person of color. I didn't realize it until I did my internship at state legislature.
And I was like, oh, so weird, and pretty far back. Like we didn't make that as much progress as I actually thought we did. And I mean, to be reminded of a country that still has a racial issue, or that you're living and you're a citizen of a country with a racial issue, it is very disheartening, it's first, it's fascinating that we're even still having this issue 400 plus years later, but to know that we haven't made as much progress, as we assumed because in school, you're taught that there was civil rights, and then we had, you know, Martin Luther King, and and then that was it and problem solved. Exactly, check, check. Let's go, you know, and to find out that, oh, wait, no, we're nowhere close is.
It is a bit disheartening. And one of the things and doing the play and going back through the pieces that are there are pieces from the 80s. And from the 90s, that partially one of one of the pieces that I do is from the 90s is from a Thurgood Marshall speech, it talks about this topic of unity versus division.
And it says that we can't play ostrich. That's the term that he used regarding the danger of the division. And we can't continue to pretend that it's not an issue. We couldn't then we can't now because I think it was short sighted to think that a system that had been in place since 1619, since prior to America being a country itself, and then we leave that have a brief reconstruction, which just a brief period of time where it seemed like it was going to be okay, then went horribly wrong.
We have the Jim Crow era where it was literally sport to attend a lynching and you take home parts of the hair or body parts, that we go from such a brutal system to the Civil Rights Movement, which had its own brutality, we get to that piece of legislation and check that way of thinking those thoughts, those, you know, just prejudices aren't passed down. I think it gets less and less. And people get farther from that and realize, Wow, that was really horrible. But it has not disappeared. In researching for the play. And just I tried to do some, just to honor black history. On a personal level. I tried to read something different, something new each February just to just to honor that struggle. And this year, it has been cased by Isabel Wilkerson. And she goes through you know, some of the brutalities of of case systems not just in America, but in India, comparing the two and things like that. But one of the things that she talks about, you mentioned Nazis, and we make the assumption that, as Americans, we were 100% wholeheartedly against the Nazi Party, what they were doing, it was completely wrong, right. And it wasn't there was a lot of support in this country. And not only that, there were people around the table with Hitler.
One man in particular, I can't think of the name but he actually studied at the University of Arkansas, I think, and took back some of the premises of Jim Crow laws to form the Nuremberg papers. They were based on American Jim Crow laws. And some of them initially, they thought were too harsh. It was amazing to them, that they were able to keep this in place, simply because of race. And so they based lots of what like even the one drop rule where if you have one drop of Negro blood, then you're black.
They took that from Jim Crow laws. And then what makes it hard for me to digest and hard for me to take is then my personal uncles, my grandpa's siblings of my parents, people go and fight in this war, you know, to stop what was happening to the Jewish People which shouldn't have been happening, absolutely, I absolutely am glad that we went and fought for that. And came back to a country. First of all, that was the basis for kind of, to give them their jumpstart for what they were doing that go and fight in segregated battalions, and come back to the segregated south, where this story sticks with me and it just pings my heart. Every time I think about it, I have the most lovely uncle, he's 91. And he's the most fun, he still will play 18 rounds of golf. He's a retired teacher, he integrated so many schools. When he went to war, the bus went through Chattanooga to get wherever he was going.
And there wasn't a restaurant where he could stop to eat. It wounds my spirit. So because if you knew this man, he is the most gentle soul. He's funny, he's kind, he's taught, he's come out of his pocket for all children. And for someone to mistreat him just nearly does me and for him to have had to been subjected to that. So when I compare that to any struggle that my students have today, or that I might have, obviously, we have made gains, obviously, you cannot negate that. Yes, there have been gains. But I feel like we've kind of hit a wall in acknowledging that we still have a ways to go. And I don't like that because you can't move forward, if you hit a wall. If you don't acknowledge that there's a problem. I think the wall comes from just like it did with the Nazis. Let's pick a scapegoat. Let's produce propaganda and rhetoric that people who might be experiencing a struggle in their own lives can jump on and join and be a part of and make immigrants, the scapegoat indigenous people escape goat, black people, this somebody outside ourselves is what's causing this struggle instead of corporations. Yes, yes. Instead of corporations run at all.
Yeah.
You know, just moving the pieces and keeping everybody against each other.
One of the things that again, my elementary years, we're so happy, we did stone soup almost every year, better together, teamwork together, everyone achieves more up with people came to our school several times a year for an assembly, all of these things about team building in unity and diversity, and how much we can all learn from each other. A buzzword now that they've made so ugly is indoctrination. I do feel like I was indoctrinated with loving my fellow man, with wanting more for everyone around me, like, you know, together, everyone achieves more. Like, I don't know why that now seems like such a negative concept.
We talked about this earlier. But I think some of it just has to do with the fact that people are scared, because they've never suffered economically so much as they're suffering right now. And they and honestly, they haven't suffered this much in the last, I mean, 2008 was terrible. And, you know, the it's been, it's just been a rough like 20 years.
And I think they're terrified that if they don't have a strong man to protect the majority, which is his strategy, and the majority of people in the United States are white. And so they think, you know, we're gonna have to go behind, get behind this guy, whether we like them or not, and he's the one that's going to be able to keep us from getting our jobs shipped overseas, providing a platform for affirmative action by putting certain supreme justices and place that will revoke that removing religion as a tenant of the fundamentals of this country, but it's never written in the constitution. So I mean, I don't under quite understand why where we get that opponent, but regardless, it's just fear.
And fear breeds more fear, which breeds more fear. And so Intel, somebody can just let everybody know and I, and I don't want to necessarily get on a political tangent here, but I'll just I'll put a bow on it and we'll move on it when we get somebody on either side of the political aisle that provides the confidence to tell the entire country that it's going to be okay, that you can trust me and actually follows through then we can all breathe a sigh of relief like it's just like having like the right kind of principle like when you know, when you trust that leader, yes, you will feel better every day when you come into work, knowing that whatever problem comes your way somebody can solve it. We just don't have that right now. Right? We haven't had it for a while.
Let's talk about the next generation. You've worked as a counselor in the Putnam County School System for almost a decade and you've seen firsthand what Gen Z and now Gen Alpha want for their future. And your opinion, have we created a community where our next generation can grow personally and professionally?
I definitely feel like professionally, we are doing a good job speaking just from an educator standpoint, I don't think there have ever been more opportunities for our high school students than there are right now. And I even have relatively recent graduates of Cookeville high school, I have a 2014 graduate and the 2021 Graduate. Nice. I think for the 2021 Graduate, she had almost exponentially more opportunities for post secondary credits for internships for things like that. Then even the 2014 Graduate, her Cookeville High School, her Putnam County Schools education, set the foundation and put her on a platform to go to a private school in Washington, DC, she went to George Washington University, where most everyone there had been to private schools had all kinds of, you know, extra kind of support tutors this that. She went to public school in the Putnam County school system, took advantage of AP courses, International Baccalaureate courses, did really well on her tests, and was able to do that from our public school education. And that was in 2014.
Fast forward to when my youngest daughter, Iris graduated, she mentioned the other day, she was like, Whoa, I just have five more classes. I don't want to graduate early, I wanted a plan to stay. And I was like, well, you can you can work on a major, you can maybe even start some grad school classes. But you went into college with I think 12 to 15 hours of credit, and that's a semesters worth of credit. So many of our students are leaving with that now. We have a lot of opportunity part of it from our state, we've done a great job with dual enrollment grants, our students can get so much early post secondary credit, not just for the university path, but through T cat. We offer them so many opportunities to have credit hours toward T cat if they're wanting to go into welding or machine technology, nursing, things like that we can set them on the path much earlier. And for some kids, that's great.
It's just such an opportunity to take advantage of those higher level courses. So yeah, professionally, we are knocking it out of the park.
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On the professional notice, well like I think we were at the Vol State Gala this past week. And I think they said they can art they can take up to 10 free free courses at Vol State. And if I'm not mistaken, they're either starting a program or they've already started it where if you're a junior in high school, you can essentially go to Vol State and graduate with your associate's Middle College. Yes, exactly. Can you imagine?
No, I can't I love it.
I do too. Oh, absolutely. Because I think like one of the biggest roadblocks I guess for me was when I graduated, why didn't graduate high school get a GED. But regardless, one of the things that I did not want to do was go to college because I was like, I need to make money. And I need to make as much money as I can right now. So what do I need to do? What pipeline do I need to get in? And I did go back to school when I was 19 and online to the University of Alabama.
But I already had a job at that point making decent money in Nashville. And so I am so happy that I don't know who came up with the law. But you know, if it was governor Lee that had put it together, then kudos to him.
I'm so happy that we are telling kids look, you need to be ready.
Okay, so this isn't like let's get to 18 and then and then kind of skate on by and float in the atmosphere until you figure out what you want to do. It's like my Yeah, yeah, you gotta be ready and I love that You know, I'd love to see kids graduate with a bachelor's at a high school. Wouldn't that be amazing? You know, if they were equipped, well equipped enough to be able to do
Don't hold them back? Yeah, we and we do have an initiative, it's called being a ready graduate. And there are indicators that indicate that you're already grad. But that's what you're talking about. To your credit. Yeah, I feel like, as a country, as a state as a country, we can do better with fully educating our society, I feel like you invest in your people, you invest in your citizens, and you have someone with the intelligence, and the work ethic and the heart and the drive, to go to school to be a neurosurgeon, I don't think you should also have to take on mortgage size debt, if you have the drive, to go and be a veterinarian, and you have the intelligence and the wherewithal to do all those in turn three hours to sit through organic chemistry, and you want to serve our society, by taking care of our beloved animals, or our farm animals or things like that, your country, your state, should fully support that. And I feel like this is a move in that direction. Whether that was intentional or unintentional, I feel like this is a move in fully educating our society. And I'll take it, other industrialized countries manage this and they manage a health care system. And I know that's not what I'm here to talk about.
But I'm just saying, if we can make a step in those directions, yeah, let's take care of our people. Let's invest in our people for a brighter, more beautiful country, a brighter, more beautiful world. So. So
What do you think about personally, though?
I mean, do you feel like we're headed in the right direction with regards to the younger generations? Like? I mean, I know that one of the fastest growing demographics in the United States is interracial couples. And so I'm assuming that we're all kind of headed in that direction, and that this will just work itself out. And I guess it's kind of the ignorance that we're experiencing nowadays. Do you see the younger generations being in that aspect as well? Like, they're not? It's not like the pre civil rights days?
No, absolutely not?
No, it's nothing like that. I think that these children as far as racially, feel free to date, who they who they want, and I can be out of touch. And they may tell me tomorrow that, no, that's not the case. But I do feel like in that respect, they feel free to date, whomever they choose, worry, for my LBGT Q students, I want them to feel that freedom, right? You are who you are. We all are attracted to we're attracted to you. Imagine if someone was always telling you that was wrong, or you shouldn't be or you're, that's evil. That's this that that imagine? If you know, whoever it is that you love, someone was constantly telling you, you shouldn't you couldn't you're wrong. I want them to feel that they have the freedom to love who they choose. And it doesn't have to be a thing. It doesn't have to be an exception. It's just your person. It's just your person. You know? Yeah. So I hope that we're moving toward that.
In celebration for Black History Month, you've partnered with Cookeville Theatre Company and the Wesley Foundation to produce I am my ancestors wildest dream.
This is a follow up to last year's show of the same name honoring and uplifting black voices and stories. Will you tell us about the origins of this show and what it means to you personally?
Okay, the origins of the show. I don't know if you're familiar with Kathleen gilpatrick. But she's the president of the Cookeville Theatre Company, and she's directed and produced lots of shows here in Cookeville. And she's, she's amazing. She has a vision. She has a drive, she makes everyone around her better. She is a theatre queen.
And she approached me about doing a show for Black History Month. She said it's been 50 years or more since we've had an all black cast in Cookeville.
She worked with Marjorie Hargrove, and that was one of her mentors. And that was the last time we had had one it was actually at the Westley and a fun side note, Shane Lankford is one of just the magical stars of dreams to while end of dreams as well. And his mom participated in one of those performances at the Wesley and so I'm like, oh, that warms my heart. You're, you've been on the same stage are performing on the same stage. So Kathleen approached me about doing something and and I told her that Black History Month is typically it's hard for me it's always been a hard month I'll experience nightmares because you are just barraged with where we've come from you're barraged with the movie, movies about slavery about Jim Crow that images. It's so hard, I think for people to imagine who are in the minority population. But flip that and think about if it was you, who whose children were being sold away, who was whipped, who was beaten, and there was no recourse. Imagine if you see those images. And it was people who look like you. Imagine if you see dogs attacking people, and someone hitting poor, Sweet Little John Lewis, in the head, you know, just for voting rights. What if it looks like you will for me, all of those people look like me or someone I love. So Black History Month, really, it's dark outside, we're in the, you know, darkest days of winter, these images are coming forth. So it's very heavy, it's very, it's reverent.
It should be, we should pay homage I get it. But when she asked to do something, what I told her was what I feel like constantly gets lost in that and trying to talk about the achievements and the things is the joy. There was joy, during any phase that you pick out.
People were creating, they were loving, they were living whole total lives, in the context of what was going on. Or we wouldn't be here. Like there would be no me there would be no Lorraine there would be no Leroy, my mom, grandpa would not be here. If these folks didn't find a way to carve out a life and sing and dance and love and draw and write poetry, as it it, whatever we do, has to pay homage to the struggle, but it has to be celebratory. It has to be celebratory, Kathleen's the theatre person and so she'll pull out pieces that she thinks fit kind of that vision. And we just worked it out. And last year went over so well that we wanted to do it again. And this year, I think we brought back some of those pieces and really highlighted the struggle, yes has to be addressed. You have to honor that. But I think we've done a really good job this year of the joy of the celebration of the beauty that was created. And that is a part of the experience as well and just, I think gets overshadowed. And I don't like that. What's kind of the plotline of the of the show.
It's just vignettes. But if I had to give it a plotline, think of it as a photo album, you're looking at a living photo album, of snapshots of what was going on in the context of all of that, okay, songs were being created. You know, there's a poem about the depression, it's called The Ballad of Roosevelt.
And, you know, there's a struggle, but even that poem is beautiful. And it's funny, it's got some funny lines in it, which leads into once that's finished, it leads into the song summertime, which, again, very much in the context of a struggle, but such a beautiful song, and it's about love. It's about this baby's not gonna have to worry about anything with Mom and Daddy by IT side. And that is a part of our story as well, right? And so it's just, it's a little photo album. It's a living, breathing, moving photo album, snapshots of things going on in different eras during slavery, Jim Crow, the 70s that, and then not necessarily in a chronological order so much, but you'll you'll see, yeah, come see,
I know we've had like, kind of bounced around from like heavy topics to not heavy topics, but I just want to wrap up kind of the heavy stuff, and then ask you a few more questions about the show. And then and then wrap. Over and over. We've heard the word diversity kind of turned into a weapon, and this community in the state and in this country as well. Why do you think we're still so afraid of people that aren't exactly like us? And how can we change this mindset?
Those are good questions. It is so foreign to me, that that has turned into a bad thing, right? Because, again, my background isn't this and my background is Cookeville, Tennessee. It's Parkview Elementary School. I knew that I wanted to teach because of Carroll rinks. I loved that and love that woman with all my heart. You could see the similarities. You know, we were talking about programming earlier about representation matters. When there wasn't any black representation, I would always look for relatable themes. So I've always been taught, I feel like to look for what unites you. Just because someone's different doesn't mean there's nothing similar and you have nothing in common. So from my home life, my early elementary through middle school, I just feel like it's ingrained in me and I feel it gets ingrained in Those that I was in school with and things like that, to look for the similarities. And I don't know, I mean, I have an opinion over when that started breaking apart, and you don't want to look for similarities different is bad. I would love for just a crack to open back up where we see that there is more that unites us than divides us no matter who we are where we come from. Yeah,
I mean, if we go all in on diversity, equity and inclusion, what exactly is the negative recourse that people assume is going to happen? I
think and again, just an opinion that they feel like, by allowing this voice a seat at the table, you may be pushing them out, or pushing out another voice that is exactly like theirs, you know. So I feel like, again, it's fear based.
But if you do allow those seats at the table, and you do hear those perspectives, and you see what unite to, you know, just the common threads that we all have love a family love of community, what things we have in common. I have a love hate relationship with social media do I'm on it too much. I'm almost a retiree, I'm on Facebook too much. But the memes, you're like, oh, my gosh, that's YouTube. So I mean, I think even that will help to see there's more that unites us than divides us. So I don't know when diversity became a bad word, or why it's a bad thing. Think
about it like this from being in the public school system and seeing the younger generations firsthand.
So I was actually this morning listening to a podcast we did with Matt Billings. He was one of my students. Oh, nice. So And Matt, kind of, we had a question there about, you know, do you feel like the older generation is kind of staying standing in the hallway and kind of blocking it up so that the younger generation can get through and he said, Now, you know, I really haven't experienced that yet, I'm sure over time, you know, because he's had good mentors, he'll be given the opportunity to potentially be in that leadership role. But from my vantage point, when I look at the wider political landscape, and just the leadership environment that we have in our country, political business, education, whatever it might be, it does seem like it's kind of old, and kind of white. And so, you know, I think, I think what they're afraid of in terms of giving people and giving that representation and validity to that representation is, there's a lot of young people that are my, when I say young, I mean, like under 40, that are like, Hey, I don't want to associate myself with your whole heart, I want to associate myself with the future, not necessarily the grasping on to the past. And they're afraid that if they open that door, then it'll just start flooding through, and then all that negative ideology is gonna go out the window, and so they're gonna hold on to the very last straw, but so did Hitler. I mean, he didn't, he didn't go out until the very end until Berlin was invaded and on fire. So you just, you gotta, you gotta make sure to fire the final shot, and then you'll be okay.
Well, and I think to that in like, referencing the book, again, cast, it's just that this system persists a caste system here in in other countries, because it's almost like you can't be at a certain level unless there's someone under you. And until we eliminate that, and I don't know how to eliminate that, that any person is more or less than any other person. It's just hard to get past. It talks about in the book that just how we've been kind of manipulated through the ages to believe that every single person were 99.999%, genetically the same, but someone somewhere capitalized on that minut difference and said, this makes you less to create a cast as to create a caste system. And then the person who's just above that, at least as someone who's there, not this, and it sometimes is perpetuated in religious settings, if you look at different religions, some of that is kind of perpetuated there, you know, be content with the state you're in. And so that kind of gets in people's heads that maybe they shouldn't be treated better. I'm not knocking or listen, I was raised Southern Baptist.
It's complex.
It's a complex thing, I think and when you tie your lot in life to also your salvation, or whatever that's called in any other religion or like, if you're your reincarnation, if you are satisfied with your lot now and you do well, then that means you might be reincarnated as at the next level. It's hard and you can't argue with this faith.
I just want to live a happy life right now.
I'm not looking like a head had, and I'm not looking in that in the past, you know, I'm just wanting to have a successful life and I want other people around me to have a successful life. Yes. Yeah, I feel like somewhere the I feel like we almost live in the matrix because like, you know agents Smith says they tried to create a matrix in perfect harmony and it failed. And so they had to create suffering to make us I guess, like act as human beings and survive, but not to make it into a pond. But I feel like it's just kind of a construct, you know, I feel like, yeah, construct right. You know, Cookeville can be can be different. cookbook can be different. And we just solved on the podcast, the world,
the whole world.
Yes. The whole world can be done. Exactly. Yeah, we solved it right here this afternoon.
Before we go, I want to congratulate you on the continued success of I Am My ancestors wildest dream and all the incredible productions from Cookeville Theatre Company. What is the rest of the year look like? And how can we participate?
Oh, thank you for that the rest of the year looks great. And before I go to that, I just want to give another shout out to everyone who's had anything to do with this production. I mean, the cast is magical. They work hard, we work hard, we play hard. They have poured their heart and souls into this Shane Langford Saya, the dancers, they are absolutely magical, our vocalist, Regina pullulan. There's so many I shouldn't have started naming names, because I'll leave someone out. If you haven't seen it, please see it. There are three more days. It's incredible. And the heart of the people who pour into it because they believe in the message. And they believe in the importance of it again, honoring the past but celebrating. Listen, the first ancestors ancestors too could not happen without the incredible stage crew. That's another thing. It's an all black cast. But there aren't a lot of black people in Cookeville with theater experience, who know how to run the lights, we could not do what we're doing without the help of everyone in the community. And so again, together, everyone achieves more, we would have the actors, we would have the singers, but we wouldn't have any way to light them. There wouldn't be any sound, we need each other.
And together, we can create something so beautiful. This is just a microcosm of that it's a show. But think about if you take that energy into your everyday life, everyone's got gifts and talents. Don't push them away from the table because they look different or they sound different. Each individual has so much to offer. Stone Soup became delicious when everyone brought out their vegetable or their spice that they had to add to it. So that's the message.
And as far as how you guys can help us we have so much going on with Cookeville theatre company.
Our next production is going to be Fiddler on the Roof. Really?
Yeah, we're
doing gosh, I want to say it's great.
This will actually be at CPAC. Our theater home for Cookeville Theatre Company is Wesley but this production will be at CPAC. This summer. We typically do a big one, a big summer show at CPAC. But our other like smaller shows are at Wesley is a perfect venue for this but Fiddler will be at CPAC auditions are April 20.
Saturday, April 20. So they're coming up in anybody audition, just come in Audition. If you're interested in theater if you've done theater, join us if you haven't my first show when I met Kathy, I thought it would be fun to try out for doubt. She was doing doubt probably in I don't know 2010 I had never done anything. But it sounded like fun. I didn't know the commitment that theater was a 20 minute roll. Yeah, it was a lot.
But I fell in love got the bug and so audition start April 20 April 21 callbacks will be on the 21st. And the performances are June 14 15th 16th 20th 21st 22nd.
Rehearsals begin may 7, so it's coming up quickly. We are also planning to do something for hispanic heritage month in October. We're not sure what that's going to look like yet.
But one of the directors who jumped in She's new to town.
Absolutely love her name. Her name is Jennifer galgos. She graduated from AMDA. She's lived in Oregon, she's lived in Nicaragua. She's just she's a beautiful soul, a beautiful spirit. So I think she'll be helping us organize some things for Hispanic Heritage Month. So looking forward to that. So please come out. Join us donate.
If you have any skills. With theater we can we can always use you.
So we always like to end the show on a high note. Who is This run through whatever whatever this is if you know whatever the next chapter is next phase I have had a blessed experience in this life. I've had people pour into me and I've been able to in turn, pour into people. So I have so many people that make me better when we're together. Obviously, my children have caused me to learn and grow in different ways, looking things through different perspectives. individually. I'm better when I'm with each of them. And when we're all together, the strode girls are together collectively. I'm better. I have a significant other. I'm too old for a boyfriend. He's my honey. His name is Matthias Hamilton, and we even at our, you know, 50 plus age 53. He's 54. Even at our age, we challenge each other to be better. How can this be done differently? What could we do next? What's our next someone that makes you better when you're together?
chapter? What are you what are we getting into next? The support I have such good friends. I have family dinner night, every Sunday with the dolphins I mean, like I have so many good people in my corner, my nieces, my nephews, my cousins. So my whole tribe makes me better. I'm so fortunate
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