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Mackenzie Gamble 0:00
You having a good morning?

Dan Durham 0:10
I'm having a great morning

Mackenzie Gamble 0:15
Good. [Inaudible] Okay, great. Ready to get the interview started?

Dan Durham 0:34
Sure.

Talia Carlson 0:35
So we're gonna introduce ourselves.

Mackenzie Gamble 0:38
Okay. I'm Mackenzie.

Talia Carlson 0:40
I'm Talia

Mackenzie Gamble 0:42
Dan introduce yourself.

Dan Durham 0:43
I'm Dan. I'm Mackenzie's Grandpa, Grandad, Papa.

Talia Carlson 0:50
Would you like to give us like some background information like where you grew up?

Dan Durham 0:53
I grew up on the phone. If you've ever heard of Stantonsburg or Saratoga, we were back in the middle between Saratoga and stanmer, about 10 miles from Wilson. We were, I was raised on a farm. And I farmed for with my dad until I was 23 years old. And we live so far, off of the main road that you had to pipe sunshine in. And if you've ever heard of being out in the country, now that was being out in the country, that's when that's where you could stand on your front porch, or stick your head out the door and holler and no one would hear you. Your closest neighbor was maybe a half a mile away. And not everyone farmed. Some people that live in the country like that, they did work in the city or around the city or in urban rural areas. I went to Stantonsburg Elementary School. And when I end up in, I went to Saratoga High School and Danna, we moved to Nash County when I was 17 years old, 18 years old, we moved to Nash County. And but we still farming but in the wintertime, I did construction work when I when I was not farming and I went and told my daddy and he just got so bad off. He was had arthritis really, really bad. And he just said I can't do this anymore. So this is when I quit farming too and I went to work with a steel work construction work and then I worked at a service station in Sharpsburg. And then when I left from the service station, I would work with Firestone and building the tire company and when he changed the name Bridgestone bought out Firestone. But they still had the Firestone brand. And I retired when I was 62 years old. And I'm still country, I still live in the country

Talia Carlson 3:59
After all these years

Dan Durham 4:02
After all these years, I'm still country. There's there city limits on both sides of me right down the road, but I'm still living in the country.

Mackenzie Gamble 4:15
Okay, that was was great. Um, okay, so the main interview question is think back about your life and the life challenges, have you or a family member had to face. Who were the family members and friendship may have may have helped them navigate the challenge, such as friends, family, neighbors, church or health care professionals.

Dan Durham 4:41
I would think I could go back. And we've never had really, really a whole lot of challenges. We didn't, we didn't grow up poor. Because we we didn't have that much money, much money. We raised what we ate hogs and how our neighbors helped us out to give out hog feed, and we didn't have money to buy hog feed, our neighbors that had a little extra helped us out. Church and family My dad had my dad developed bone cancer when he was about 66 years old. And the people around our neighborhood, helped my mama in the garden, get my mom up with my dad. And it was it was church and God. That's what we depended on.

Mackenzie Gamble 6:22
Did it ever did it ever seem like it was hard to lean on the church, when things got really bad?

Dan Durham 6:31
It's hard to lean on anyone when things get bad, but you know, people can see what's going on, and the challenges that you're facing. And some people just some people just do not like help from other people that when they get help from other people, they really appreciate it afterwards. And we were not the kind people that get didn't like help from other people. We were We were a very outgoing family. All have our family. It was a very outgoing family. And we appreciate it help from other people.

Talia Carlson 7:36
It's great. Um, so you talked about your dad having arthritis when he was struggling with that?How did that kind of affect your family?

Dan Durham 7:46
It really affected our family because we had to, we had work there was four boys in our family, no girls, and us boys had to take over what daddy couldn't do. And, and do what daddy could do. After we got out of school with an afternoon. I can remember when we got out of school in the afternoon, mom would say go ahead and get your homework it because you gave an EEG and nothing and I can remember staying in the field to 9 and 10 o'clock at night. And they would always make sure that those those trackers had headlights on and I had light home and backup. And he and I can I can also remember when my daddy he would he would try his best to get on your tractor and respond and using my knee will not let me stay on this tractor and right now getting in the same shape. And I had to depend on someone else to and I don't like it, but I have to I have to do it. Somebody's got to help me and I depend on that.

Talia Carlson 9:19
So who have you been like kind of depended on?

Dan Durham 9:22
Well now right now. We got to be garden. We got a huge garden. And is it we we should name that garden, two brothers and a cousin. The two brothers are twins. And and we have a garden together. And I depended on one of them. And one of those one of them helps me every day almost every day in the garden. He has he has a business to run. And he does his business work. And then he comes and helps me in the garden we have we have right now is back to 160 160 tomato sandwiches that we got growing in the garden there's about that many peppers, too. And I put out the tomato stakes, cages Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and next day it rained. We had that heavy rain and water yesterday morning and could walk into gardens depend on depend on them. I depend on her. I depend on her brother. Her brother helped me and his uncle my son just cut grass Saturday morning. Couldn't get her out there. She didn't work.

Talia Carlson 11:27
So it sounds like family is like really that

Dan Durham 11:29
family, our family. Our family is not as close now that that my dad's my dad has us deceased. And all of his brothers and sisters are deceased. So now its up to us, boys and girls to keep following with the family, family name and family traditions. One, one kind of like a one one tradition that we have is we have a we kind of lost it a we have a family reunion every year that we kind of lost at family family reunion after half of last uncle died. What kind of a launch day tradition for couple of years. But now we're getting it back. And we're hoping that other family members start coming back to it.

Mackenzie Gamble 12:36
So do you feel like if it wasn't for your family, you wouldn't be in the same place you are today.

Dan Durham 12:44
That is that that is somewhat true. But you had to you had to get it in your mind you have could you get after getting your mind set as to what you want to do and what you want to accomplish in life. And once you get that mindset, then you're done. You done with that.

Talia Carlson 13:09
Right

Dan Durham 13:09
You can't just you can't just sit back and say, Well, I don't have anybody to help me do this. And not gonna do it today. Maybe I'll have some water tomorrow. And tomorrow and you say the same thing. And your job and your job is not gonna get done until you get out there and put an effort into it.

Talia Carlson 13:38
That's very, very wise. Alright, well, do you have any more question? Mackenzie?

Mackenzie Gamble 13:46
Do you have any more questions?

Talia Carlson 13:48
Is there anything that you'd like to say just close this out? You got any?

Dan Durham 13:54
Well, I would. I would say that I hope yo as juniors coming up seniors next year. When you graduate. Don't stop right there. Extend your education, work and work while you're not in school. But don't let your work take away from your school. I have seen a lot of younger people say yeah, I want to go to college. And a they might go for a couple of semesters. That's too hard for me. I can't do that. And then where are they today? There picking up garbage or desk jobs that's needed. But it's not jobs that that you want to do. extend your education get a job that you like. They say that the the average person now changes jobs six times in their life. And I was very lucky. I didn't, I only change, I would say that I only changed jobs two times. And that was from construction work to the service station or service station to Firestone that was two job to two times without change jobs. I didn't change jobs when I was rock weed farm, and I just gotten out. I could still go and a garden. That's fine. And I've had a garden for many, many, many years. Many, many years. Extend your education. You're not I'm not gonna say that you won't accomplish anything by not going to school going to college, but you expand your education.

Talia Carlson 16:19
Right. Thank you so much for your time.

Mackenzie Gamble 16:20
Thank you.

Dan Durham 16:22
Thank you for having me.

Talia Carlson 16:23
Yeah, this was really nice.

Dan Durham 16:25
I really enjoyed this.