Agatha and Ronald Taylor Oral History, 2022/02/22

Agatha Taylor

Self description:
“I’m 92. I live by myself with a little dog. I was born in Kingston; I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve lived in this house for almost 70 years.”

Some of the things we spoke about include:
Not feeling like day-to-day living changed that much with the pandemic, but missing things like coffee shops and shopping
COVID-19 and population control
The Bible, tithings, church; taking what the Good Lord dishes out; the world going to hell
Having groceries delivered by family members and getting drives to appointments
Family getting vaccinated
Wearing masks in the home
Having a daughter-in-law working in the ICU
Having lived with dogs for the last 60 years; currently living with a dog named Andy
Ontario COVID policies and Doug Ford
Preferring print media over TV or online news; enjoying reading the newspaper
Consulting healthcare professionals over the phone and in person
Feeling safe
Isolation accompanying aging
Trucker convoy in Ottawa
Putin, Russia, and the threat of war
The taking down of the statue of Sir John A. McDonald in Kingston after protests
The Spanish Flu
Not having been vaccinated as a child, first vaccine was for Polio
Neighbours with polio, hospitalization, media

Other cultural reference: The Hunt (2006) by Allison Brennen

After thoughts from Agatha Taylor: “man proposes and god disposes.” And “The God Lord only gives you so many days and when your time is up it’s up.”

Ronald Taylor
Self description:
“I’m 38 years old. I live in a place called Sudbury, Ontario. I’m a pilot. I fly for the government, I’ve flown for a few airlines. I’ve a house, a wife, and no kids yet, working on that. I figure I’m a generally all right person.”

Some of the things we discussed included:
Learning about the pandemic from YouTube
Having learned a lot about biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare in the military (2001; 2012)
Early adopter of masking from knowledge and experience working as a first responder; emergency medical responder in the Yukon; watching people die over and over when working in healthcare; confronting mortality
Violence and hate crimes
Being an air ambulance driver
Developing compassion and putting away differences in emergency circumstances
Hospitals delaying treatment for non-COVID related needs
Socialized healthcare; burn out in the Canadian healthcare system; high personnel turnover
Working in the Canadian arctic, Yukon; basically non-existent healthcare access in the Yukon; the importance of expediency in life-or-death circumstances and making decisions under pressure
Different comfort levels with risk during the pandemic and personal risk assessment
Driving a propane truck during the pandemic; observations about truckers; government treatment of truckers
Feeling lucky in comparison to peers
Not being able to travel to visit distant friends; having unvaccinated family members who can’t visit; wondering what is the difference between stopping an unvaccinated person from being on an airplane but letting them sit on a bus for long distance travel
Wife is a kindergarten teacher working with small children; having to work with unvaccinated children, but not being able to work with unvaccinated adults/colleagues; online teaching for kindergarteners; children masking
Wife’s Kindness Ninja project; teaching students to do random acts of kindness without expectations of reward; power hierarchies in education
Building a home and trying to have a child, the possibility of employment change
IVF, limits of health insurance in Canada; the cost of IVF without insurance
Micro-states and concerns about separatism in Canada; war in Europe
Feeling like the Conservative party and the Liberal party have flipped ideological positions
Increased militarization of the police; father was a police officer; police violence at the trucker convoy protests; guns
Mainstream news coverage in construct to livestreams of the trucker convoy
Pride at grandmother’s accomplishments over her lifetime
Trudeau’s invoking the Emergencies Act; potential long term legislative change
Political division without Canada over history, eg. Sir John A. MacDonald; biased media; historically situated ethics
Feeling like white Canadians have been painted as horrible people; Canadian racism
Pandemic weight gain and new health goals
The relationship between safety and autonomy
The importance of kindness

Cultural references: Porter Airlines, Kindness Ninjas, Instagram, Maclean’s Magazine, Elizabeth May, Queen’s University Homecoming Aberdeen Party

February 22, 2022 09

Kit Heintzman

Agatha Taylor

Ronald Taylor

Kit Heintzman

English Biography

English Government Federal

English Health & Wellness

English Home & Family Life

English Religion

mask

vaccine

aging

isolation

kindness

bible

Canada

Christian

church

convoy

dog

Doug Ford

family

groceries

isolation

Kingston

Ontario

pets

masking

newspaper

peace

Polio

Putin

sewing

Spanish Flu

telehealth

reading

religion

trucker

vaccination

war

death

First Responder

friends

gaming

guns

kindergarten

IVF

married

military

Ottawa

pilot

police

PPE

race

racism

Sudbury

teacher

Trudeau

Yukon

white

Canada

Over 60

Military

06/15/2022

12/04/2023

12/12/2023

02/22/2022

Kit Heintzman

Agatha Taylor

Ronald Taylor

Kingston

Ontario

Canada

Video

English

01:48:54

Kit Heintzman 00:04
Hello.

Agatha Taylor 00:05
Hello.

Kit Heintzman 00:07
Would you please start by stating your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Agatha Taylor 00:12
My name is Agatha Taylor. What do you want next?

Kit Heintzman 00:18
The date.

Agatha Taylor 00:19
Oh, oh, February the 22nd 2022.

Kit Heintzman 00:24
Yeah. And the time?

Agatha Taylor 00:27
What time is it Ronald? 8:33

Kit Heintzman 00:31
And where are you right now?

Agatha Taylor 00:33
Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Kit Heintzman 00:37
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly re released under a Creative Commons license attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Agatha Taylor 00:47
Yes.

Kit Heintzman 00:49
Would you please start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening to this what would you want them to know about you?

Agatha Taylor 00:56
I don't know. I'm 92 I live by myself with this a little dog and I guess I was born in Kingston all my life I lived in my house this house for almost 70 years okay.

Kit Heintzman 01:24
Oh, sorry. Please go on.

Agatha Taylor 01:26
I just said okay.

Kit Heintzman 01:29
What does the word pandemic mean to you?

Agatha Taylor 01:39
I can't think of the word I'd like to use one is upheaval, chaos that would be about the best word chaos.

Kit Heintzman 01:57
What was your day to day looking like before the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 02:05
Pretty much of the same as it is now except I can get a little bit more I can take the car and go out and if I wanted a coffee I could stop at the coffee shop if I if I whenever I wanted to do I could do now I'm very limited to what I can do.

Kit Heintzman 02:26
And going for coffee, what are some of the other things you miss doing?

Agatha Taylor 02:31
Fabrics.

Kit Heintzman 02:34
Tell me about the fabric store.

Agatha Taylor 02:36
I love, I sew this is the reason I love the fabric stores. I like feeling the fabrics.

Kit Heintzman 02:46
What kinds of things do you sell?

Agatha Taylor 02:47
Me mainly making gifts for my friends. Plus, I make [inaudible] all my kids pajamas. I still make I've been making them ever since my daughter is now 70 So when I've been making her pajamas, ever since she was a little girl, I'm still making them. How's that?

Kit Heintzman 03:16
Do you remember the first time you heard about the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 03:20
No.

Kit Heintzman 03:23
Do you remember any of your early impressions?

Agatha Taylor 03:31
I just thought I just thought it was going to probably like what happened is famed when they had the had the term pandemic in there. And I'm sorry, but I firmly think that because we've had no wars, we have to have something like this. Sorry to help eliminate the population. It just seems as if you read your Bible, it tells about all the wars to kill off people. And so we have to have wars too, when the world gets a little bit overpopulated so we have something that comes along that we really and truly do not like and it helps to eliminate the population and pare it down. Remember that same thinking or not but hey, that's the way it is.

Kit Heintzman 04:38
What does the Bible mean to you?

Agatha Taylor 04:39
The good book, it can teach us and it can take away It depends upon how we want to read it. And if we believe what it says or disbelieve.

Kit Heintzman 05:12
Would you tell me something about your relationship to religion or spirituality?

Agatha Taylor 05:26
I believe in the good book i i went to church up to a few years ago, but that was relationships in the Church changed and things happened. And so I can be just as good a person sitting at home on Sunday. And sitting in church listening to somebody that sometimes preaches over my head. And then I felt like, all of a sudden in church because he was not. I don't know. But I sat there thinking that playing the employee always sat there for doing was putting my collection on the plate. So now I just don't go, do I send my contribution and my tithing? Yes, I do. I still, I believe the church has to have this. And it's good for income tax. Sorry. Government has his piece. So he was

Kit Heintzman 06:43
There's nothing to apologize for in an oral history interview. So long as you're sharing, I'm really grateful to receive it. How have you, how have you been dealing with things during the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 07:04
With me, there's probably not a whole lot to deal with. As far as a shopping for food, let concern my daughter in law does. And then I write her a check for what she's bought for me. And when I need to go to an appointment, they take me. So other than that, except for me driving the car and going out by myself. Very little has changed.

Kit Heintzman 07:32
How have you been feeling about your safety?

Agatha Taylor 07:34
Fine, fine. And my, my family has all been not hasn't been vaccinated. They insisted that I was and they wear a mask when they come into my house. No, they don't. Do I demand that they wear a mask? No, I don't. The people that come in to help me? yes, they wear a mask. But not me. I don't know where the only time I wear a mask is when I go into a store.

Kit Heintzman 08:10
Tell me about your family asking you to get vaccinated.

Agatha Taylor 08:15
What do you mean?

Kit Heintzman 08:16
You had said that your family had insisted you get vaccinated?

Agatha Taylor 08:24
Yeah, well, I think. Yeah, they were worried they were worried that I might get sick. So they made the whole arrangements to get vaccinated. I didn't because really, and truly, I'm not very good computer. So this is a learning experience talking to you on this. He says, I guess that's what it is. But hey. So it was a case of they made all the arrangements and they took me and all I had to do was stick out my arm.

Kit Heintzman 09:03
How was it?

Agatha Taylor 09:06
I got a sore arm. Other than that, it was nothing to it.

Kit Heintzman 09:13
Tell me about the safety, your feeling and the decisions you've been making about not having masks in the home.

Agatha Taylor 09:22
About what?

Kit Heintzman 09:23
You had said that when you have family come to visit you in the home not having them wear masks. Talk to me about why that's why you made that decision.

Agatha Taylor 09:32
It wasn't a decision I made it was just they came and did they asked me if they want them to put a mask on. No, no my granddaughter comes down from Toronto. I haven't seen her since before Christmas now but every time that they came down from Toronto or when they came in, we mainly we would visit outside. But but when they come into my house, don't ask me way, but they always put a mask on them. When they went out of the house, they took them off. I thought it was funny. But I didn't say one way or the other. It was a piece of work. Oh, also my daughter, my daughter, my daughter in law works in the ICU at the hospital. So its a case of, was a more or less. When she says something, I'm more or less say, yes.

Kit Heintzman 10:38
What's it been like having a daughter working in emergency rooms at this time?

Agatha Taylor 10:42
Scary. Scary. For what's going on? I figure she's in real danger.

Kit Heintzman 11:05
Do you talk to her about that?

Agatha Taylor 11:08
No. Don't bring up any subjects. Unless she brings them up.

Kit Heintzman 11:21
I have a what seemed like a silly question. What's your dog's name?

11:24
Andy.

Kit Heintzman 11:26
Andy.

Agatha Taylor 11:27
And he's staying on my lap right now. under a blanket. He loves a warm blanket.

Kit Heintzman 11:33
What's it been like living with a dog for the last few years?

Agatha Taylor 11:38
I've lived with dogs for 60 years. It hasn't changed except that this is a little one. Most of the rest of the dogs have been big. But my daughter, my daughter said to me that when we got, when I got this fella, that he had to be short, less than up to my knees. And I don't think he comes halfway up to my knees. My grandson says he comes to my ankles. Little guy, and the reason why. And he is a rescue he is. Now I've only had three years. But he's now nine years old. I was bound in bed. But this time I would not get a young dog on the count of my age. Because I really dont want to have to say die. And somebody else would have to have my dog. And I didn't want to go back to the pound again. He's he's a good guy. And he makes me have to move. You have to put him out. You have to bring them in. Yeah. Love to do a lot of things with him. But so yes, he's been a blessing.

Kit Heintzman 12:51
Have you been paying much attention to what the news specific to Kingston has been like about the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 13:01
I actually, up until this last year, we've been pretty we were pretty lucky. The thing, thing was that the fellow that was chief doctor. He he put it in regulations and rules that actually we had nobody sick in our in our in our or in our institutions, which was good. But last year, not what hasn't been. We've had quite a few people sick we've had we've only we've I think we've had less than 10 die though, which which is really good. But I was glad to have some of the things that he did. But then Mr. Ford decided he needed them better than we did. So you went to Toronto, instead of staying here in Kingston.

Kit Heintzman 14:01
What happend to the work in Kingston after he left for Toronto?

Agatha Taylor 14:07
I don't know, I don't want the other virus came in from what I can gather. And it hit people differently than what the first one did. So it was a case of that. We got more people sick and also trauma and shut people down because their hospital was too full and had come into our hospital,

Kit Heintzman 14:37
Please go on.

Agatha Taylor 14:38
That's a fact of life.

Kit Heintzman 14:43
How have you been feeling about how Doug Ford has been handling the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 14:50
I think he's a piece of work. Did I vote for him? No. Would I vote for him? No. that tells you what I think of Doug, sorry. You asked!

Kit Heintzman 15:18
There's been a lot going on in the last two years of not just COVID but also politics and a lot of like a lot of stuff has been happening since 2020. And I'm wondering has like, what have you been paying attention to? What have you been noticing what's been sitting with you?

Agatha Taylor 15:45
I don't know. To me life is still just going on just the same as it was. I can rant and rave about whatever the heck I read. I read foreign newspapers. I do not watch I watched very little TV. So and as far as this putting the computer on I might put this on twice a week to clean up the stuff and look at all problem with it is some of our newspapers are not kept printing the grocery ads. So I can't read them if I dont go on the computer I can't read them.

Kit Heintzman 16:26
What are the newspapers you're reading?

Agatha Taylor 16:29
The Wind Standard which is a local write, the Toronto Star in the mail and the Post.

Kit Heintzman 16:41
And what kinds of things have you been reading about in there?

Agatha Taylor 16:46
Well, I really liked is. This is a crossword puzzles and the comics and the cartoons. I love them and I look at them first.

Kit Heintzman 17:00
What is the word health mean to you? What does the word health mean to you?

Agatha Taylor 17:06
Posts?

Ronald Taylor 17:07
Health.

Kit Heintzman 17:07
Health.

Ronald Taylor 17:09
Health.

Agatha Taylor 17:09
Health?

Ronald Taylor 17:10
Health.

Agatha Taylor 17:11
Health, I never think about it it's just something that hey you're either healthy or not so it's a case if you're sick or you're not. It's just a fact. I figure what the good Lord dishes out your take and it's one step at a time you get up in the morning. Do what you have to do and then when it's all finished you go to bed at night. That's where it goes day by day.

Kit Heintzman 17:43
Do you feel healthy? Do you feel healthy?

Agatha Taylor 17:48
Most days I do feel healthy.

Kit Heintzman 17:55
What's your access to medical care been like and when you need it?

Agatha Taylor 18:05
What would you say Ronald?

Ronald Taylor 18:06
I would say pretty good.

Agatha Taylor 18:07
Ronald says she started the doc during the first year the only time you didn't get to see the doctor all you got was a phone call. Now she's back seeing patients again because I saw her two weeks ago.

Kit Heintzman 18:29
What was the, did it feel different, doing the appointments by phone and going in to see her more recently?

Agatha Taylor 18:36
Yes because the thing is on the phone you don't think that's the questions that you do when you're when you see her in person.

Kit Heintzman 19:00
What does the word safety mean to you?

Agatha Taylor 19:07
Locking your door at night. I live in, I live on a street this one block long. There's only 10 houses I think 10 houses on my street as seen because I've lived here this long. Is very very quiet. So actually. I don't think I worry too much as far as don't even think about if you want the truth just just Yeah, lock the door at night and you unlock it in the morning and that's the way it goes.

Kit Heintzman 19:44
Do you have much of a community there in Kingston people you talk on the phone with people you might see at a dog park?

Agatha Taylor 19:53
No. It's got so, a lot of my friends have died on the account of my age. And so therefore it is hard to make new friends. And because the people that are moving in are so much younger that, yeah they talk to you but it's almost as if they haven't got time for you. Because they've got their own friends and they're trying to keep I forget they're trying to keep their friends as is and then my friends move or die. And so it's a fact of life.

Kit Heintzman 20:36
And you're still close with a lot of family right?

Agatha Taylor 20:40
Yes and no. Right, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family.

Kit Heintzman 20:48
That's right. How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Agatha Taylor 20:57
About the what?

Kit Heintzman 20:58
Immediate future.

Agatha Taylor 21:01
I think this world just gone to hell in a handbasket. I don't like what's happening as far as those truckers going down to Ottawa and that kind of crap. I think that's like, okay, you go make your case. Get out. Don't, don't stay there like they've done it just that was just utterly ridiculous.

Kit Heintzman 21:31
Would you tell whoever's listening to this one, would you tell whoever's listening to this later. What's the, what were the truckers in Ottawa for what was happening there?

Agatha Taylor 21:45
I really and truly don't know. They they said one thing that they did to me. They did something else. The if you're if you're going you state your case, and then you move on, and they didn't state their case and move on, then the as you call them, the ravel rousers jump in and stir up the pot and everything then is something different than what it started out to be. And therefore I don't know it's just it was it was just chaos, chaos.

Kit Heintzman 22:34
Is there anything more you would say about the world going to hell?

Agatha Taylor 22:44
I'd like to see Putin stay back in his own bloody country and not worry about the rest of the world and taking us over. And that's exactly what he's going to do.

Kit Heintzman 23:02
That sounds really scary.

Agatha Taylor 23:06
But he will start a war and we don't need another war I've lived through it and it's just a case of the it's scary to see your family on that walk to war some comeback, some do not.

Kit Heintzman 23:27
Is there anything you would share about your experiences of having lived through previous wars?

Agatha Taylor 23:33
No.

Kit Heintzman 23:39
What are some of the hopes for your longer term future if if there are any?

Agatha Taylor 23:47
I'd like to see peace. The problem with that is everybody thinks of peace as a different thing. When I might think of peace, what you might think of peace are all to all different things. So it's a case case of this when people say peace is, you hope you pray and that the world's going to be better than it actually is.

Kit Heintzman 24:19
When you say you want peace what what does that look like for you?

Agatha Taylor 24:23
No wars. And like these mobs, none of that that's that's crock. It's just that I can't describe it.

Kit Heintzman 24:45
Has there been much protesting in Kingston over the last few years that you know of?

Agatha Taylor 24:53
There was one and I really got ticked off because they took down the statue of St. John and John, this is about 20 or 30 people that they got their way. And they removed the statue. Sure, maybe he wasn't the greatest. Maybe he did things wrong, okay, we all do things. And it's just free. And you don't want to start taking down statues and start talking about people living dead in the sins of omission. It was, it was just it was just cry.

Kit Heintzman 25:46
How do you take care of yourself like what do you do for self care?

Agatha Taylor 25:53
What do you mean by that?

Kit Heintzman 25:54
I mean, if you're feeling glum, are there things you do to pick yourself back up?

Agatha Taylor 26:01
I read a book. I read a lot.

Kit Heintzman 26:09
What have you been reading?

Agatha Taylor 26:15
Right now I'm reading a book called The Hunt by Alison Brenneman. I realize it's a murder mystery, sometimes their love stories. Do I pay for my books? How I get them is my friend in New Brunswick. My best friend. Reece. She watches the books on my wrist. My daughter now lives in New Brunswick. So when my daughter comes to visit me, I get boxes of books. When I finished reading, I pass them off. So I have, I don't think I bought a book in 20 years. I just paid for [inaudible], but not my books.

Kit Heintzman 27:09
How has your family been doing throughout the pandemic?

Agatha Taylor 27:15
Because most of them arn't here. I don't see them. So I don't really know. Because my daughter being in New Brunswick, she was in more lockdown than me. And my granddaughter in in Toronto, her husband are both working from home. So the only one I've got here here is my son and my daughter in law and the kids.

Kit Heintzman 27:47
How have you been feeling about the lock downs? The lock downs?

Agatha Taylor 27:55
To me, to me, it hasn't made much difference. I don't go out to eat. I like the odd bit of theater, but there isn't a whole lot of it. And you have to have somebody to go with you. And so therefore, it really truly has made too much difference in my life on all.

Kit Heintzman 28:16
What do you want people in the humanities and social sciences to be doing right now? So that we can understand what's been happening over the last few years?

Agatha Taylor 28:27
I don't think they're going to do anything.

Kit Heintzman 28:33
What should they do?

Agatha Taylor 28:35
You know, something? I don't know. I really and truly that don't know. Because everybody thinks differently. So I don't know. I can't I can't give you an answer.

Kit Heintzman 28:51
I'd like you to imagine talking to some historian in the future. So someone 100 years from now is watching this. What would you tell them is important to you about getting remembered about this moment?

Agatha Taylor 29:06
That people were crazy. They really are, like fine we went through that Spanish flu and people died because there was no vaccinations to be had. And therefore gran granted. I havn't always, when I was a child, my grandmother did not vaccinate us. One of her kids got sick from it. And therefore when we came along because I live with my grandparents because my mother had died. And so it was a case of when it came time and they sent notes home from school at that stage of the game to be vaccinated. And my grandmother always said no. And actually, I never got vaccinated until polio. And that was really scary. It was really, really scary. And so, yes, I would tell people that they should get vaccinated. I realize there are a lot of people that are saying no. But they don't read history and realize what what has happened. And if [inaudible] should win, really and truly. Because the [inaudible], maybe killing off the population, because they're not getting vaccinated, and they don't realize what they're doing. Or maybe they think I don't know what I'm doing either.

Kit Heintzman 31:04
Can you tell me about the polio vaccination?

Agatha Taylor 31:17
It was scary. It was really scary. Polio. I don't remember too much about the vaccination. There was a friend, a friend, my neighbor across the street, her sister in law, got polio. And she never came out of the hospital. She lived there rest of her life. And that had to be 40/50 years, which was really terrible, you know what I mean? And also her daughter got it. Her daughter was not infected the way she was, like, she had to wear braces on her legs, and she had to walk with canes. And so the couple of people who already know that had polio, we're not really great. You're not I mean, the rest of us, well, we escaped.

Kit Heintzman 32:21
Can you compare sort of like, the way people were talking about polio, when it was happening to the way people are talking about COVID now?

Agatha Taylor 32:33
They didn't talk about it.

Kit Heintzman 32:35
They didn't talk about it.

Agatha Taylor 32:36
They didn't talk about it. It was just something that was there. And if you got it, you got it. And if you didn't get it, you were lucky. And that was about it.

Kit Heintzman 32:47
So people weren't writing about it in newspapers?

Agatha Taylor 32:50
Not to my knowledge. That's one newspaper that we got here. And it was all local news. Let me tell you very, very little of what went on outside the city.

Kit Heintzman 33:08
Did you decide to vaccinate your own children based on your experiences?

Agatha Taylor 33:12
No, I vaccinate. It didn't hurt me not to get vaccinated. The only thing I had were measles and chickenpox. So I was very, very fortunate in that place. When it came to my children, I vaccinated them.

Kit Heintzman 33:36
How do you feel about vaccines sort of more generally?

Agatha Taylor 33:39
I think we all have to have free choice as far as that's concerned. But I really think if it can help you, have it done. If it can't help you, then leave it alone.

Kit Heintzman 33:59
I think those are all of the questions that I have. But I would love to open some space. If there's anything you want to share. I'm so happy to listen and hear it.

Ronald Taylor 34:10
Anything else you want, anything else you want to say?

Agatha Taylor 34:21
No. No. Nothing else. Ronald.

Kit Heintzman 34:26
Thank you so very much for your time.

Agatha Taylor 34:29
You're more than welcome. And that was very, very nice talking to you.

Kit Heintzman 34:32
So nice speaking with you as well.

Agatha Taylor 34:34
Okay. You, you have a good day.

Kit Heintzman 34:36
You too.

Kit Heintzman 00:21
Would you please start by stating your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Ronald Taylor 00:26
My name is Ronald Taylor. It is February 22. And it is about nine o'clock in the morning and I am in Kingston, Ontario

Kit Heintzman 00:35
And it is 2022.

Ronald Taylor 00:36
It is 2022.

Kit Heintzman 00:38
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under Creative Commons License attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Ronald Taylor 00:48
Absolutely.

Kit Heintzman 00:49
Please start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening to this what would you want them to know about you?

Ronald Taylor 00:57
38 years old, I've lived in a place called Sudbury Ontario. I'm a, a pilot a fly for the government and I've flown for a few airlines. I have a house a wife. And no kids yet working on that. Yeah, I figure I'm a generally all right person. But when I got.

Kit Heintzman 01:25
What's the pandemic, what's the word pandemic come to mean to you?

Ronald Taylor 01:29
It means a virus that is slightly out of control. And the healthcare professionals need to, you know, look at more stringently or carefully. And like, I guess my Nana said, at the end of the day, it kind of turns into chaos, unfortunately. So yeah.

Kit Heintzman 01:53
Do you remember when you first heard about the pandemic?

Ronald Taylor 01:55
Yeah, I do. I was, in my basement, sitting around watching the old YouTube on my retirement job here. I do a little bit too much of that here in the wintertime sitting on the YouTube and they don't have to do the working. So you know, it was interesting to hear about it and whatnot. Initially, you know, I, I was taking a lot more aback by it because of being a you know, doing my paramedics type emergency responders stuff in the Yukon, also flying a medevac aircraft in the past, you know, it was a little bit concerned my stepmom, being a nurse, a bunch of friends who are doctors and whatnot. You know, also just being in the military, you learn about viral transmission, and how to keep yourself safe and all that stuff. So it was definitely a scary thing.

Kit Heintzman 02:44
I'd love to hear more about how your experiences both in the military, but also as a first responder helped shape your reaction in the beginning?

Ronald Taylor 02:54
Well, first, in the beginning with the military, the military had taught us a lot about nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. So, you know, to have that initial bit of training to, you know, what looked like could possibly have been biological warfare to start is definitely very nervous nerve racking, the army taught you a lot about how to wear personal protective equipment, how to dawn, and how to doff it to keep your hands clean, how to keep others safe. Just the general precautions and how to use the equipment to be in the environment, what not to do in the environments, and whatnot. Initially, I went down to the Hamilton area in March, and I actually wore an n95 from my time of, you know, being a first responder I had a stockpile of them from flying around near ambulance. So I wore those down there in Toronto, people looked at me very strangely. You know, because again, this is in the beginning phase, we didn't know what COVID was, we didn't know what COVID can do. And so I understood that, you know, there was a major difference between a face vascular respirator. And, you know, knowing that if nobody else is wearing a respirator or a face mask that, you know, I need to wear a respirator to keep myself safe in that situation. And Toronto had very high count numbers. And, you know, again, like I said, we knew nothing about it. And, you know, we were just together in our little RV together to go back home, maybe not so little. But, you know, we took our glamper back to home. And then, you know, people started talking about the masks and whatnot. And I was like, well, way ahead. Yeah. And, you know, I was very surprised at how long it took for the mask mandates to come in general. Masking seems to be a very poorly educated topic in our country. And you'll see in other countries and they you take the time to teach people how to use a mask and what's appropriate and what's not and when to also being a first responder, like when I drove an ambulance again, you're dealing with people that are sick all the time. It is part of where I lost some of my sympathy for the hospital system as to reducing capacity limits and whatnot, because that's their job. At the end of the day. We deal with sick people, when people are hurt when people are in need. If there's a major viral epidemic going on, what are you gonna do How can you how can you justify delaying treatment of somebody's life saving or you know, reproductive rights or whatnot over especially now what it has become not as virulent as they thought. It's not polio like my Nana said it's, you know, and as she said, you know, you didn't, again her experience has shaped some of that as well, because knowing what she's going through at all different plagues and pandemics and stuff like that, with significantly higher Arnott factors, you know, people not having a knee jerk reaction. Being a first responder as well. Also did give me some sympathy for the people who are in the first responder situation who are, you know, just getting burnt out. In general, there is a, we've critically underfunded our healthcare system, especially in North America for a long time, especially in Canada. You know, I mean, it takes so long to put people into the pipeline. But again, we can't lower standards to put people in there. But we need to, I mean, I think a pandemic really broke our healthcare system and showing our per capita ICU beds. You know, again, like working with doctors and stuff like that when I was in the ambulance business and whatnot, it was just a chronic. how do I say, it's like, a chronic chronic disconnect between the political arm of our government and the operational arm of our government. And when it comes to a health care, they want this, you know, socialized healthcare system. But, you know, if something as simple as this pandemic is going to break it so badly, then I think we really have some thinking to do in our country about our healthcare system.

Kit Heintzman 07:06
Would you say more about your experiences of health and healthcare infrastructure before the pandemic?

Ronald Taylor 07:14
I mean, generally, our healthcare system was still overburdened. I didn't have the need for a really great interaction with the system beforehand, other than working in it. I mean, there were ambulance delays in general. There are just it's not important because the ambulances weren't showing up as often for certain things. Yeah, I mean, just just general staffing shortages, just, you know, my stepmom would say that, you know, they can use more beds, where they were and whatnot. They need more doctors, they have a very high turnover in general anyway. And so the pandemic just exacerbated most of the things that were already wrong with the system and really pointed out the flaws.

Kit Heintzman 08:09
What years were you in the military?

Ronald Taylor 08:10
I joined the military in 2001. And then I rejoined it again, in 2012. I joined initially as an infantry soldier. They somehow told me I wasn't smart enough to be a pilot, so I sure fooled them. And so I went in our job description was to close with and destroy the enemy. And then I learned how to jump out of an airplane in the military. I got into the military became a pilot, and went back into the military in 2012, and up north as a pilot to work with the Canadian Rangers, which is the subcomponent of the primary reserve, which deals in northern locations where it's not feasible to have a military base. And normally, but not exclusively consists of Indians. Inuit said other status, matey and whatnot, but also other Canadian foe everyone's willing to everyone who is a citizen is able to join. And it's a very unique program that liaises with the Canadian Forces to allow soldiers to go up to the extreme cold in the remote locations and be able to survive and navigate within the local area. It's kind of like a local guide program.

Kit Heintzman 09:28
And what about what was the time period in your life where you were working as a first responder?

Ronald Taylor 09:33
So I worked as a first responder again during the same time I was in the Rangers in the Yukon. A lot of fill alot, had a lot of job, wore a lot of hats, I guess you could say. And then I lived up there, town of 800 people just on the north of 60 in a very unique location of Canada, where parts of BC are still within the jurisdiction of the Yukon, because there's BC is too far away. So I worked as the Emergency Medical Responder for the Yukon EMS system in parallel with being a pilot up in the Yukon and being the second in command of that military unit, spent a day a week working in a hotel and they also wrenched on airplanes and did a ski patrol. So ski patrolling was first responder on the Hill was a volunteer position and then put the EMR on the ambulance from 430 at the in the afternoon till 830 In the morning, if you call for an ambulance in Watson Lake I was the guy probably showing up and I did that for about a year and a half drove the ambulance also worked at the people in the back and it was a very humbling experience. Very interesting experience. As as well, I definitely think that it shaped my character a lot more than in the ways of a little more compassion, understanding that when people are in distress, also that, you know, people no matter what they think of you from other times when they're in distress if you're there to help them. I mean, they're not going to say, no, they need help. I mean, your small petty opinion or difference that you guys had in the town before. Well, I mean, I got a gunshot, we went, I'd like to go to the hospital, that kind of trumps that. So I found up there was a very unique world where people could kind of put away, you know, any kind of personal differences you may have had in the town. And when it came down to working together to, you know, help somebody out, we could, I mean, it wasn't perfect, but I think we did, we could.

Kit Heintzman 11:33
Say more about it being a humbling experience.

Ronald Taylor 11:37
I guess, seeing people die. I mean, seeing the completion of life in a way that you know, you never thought you would, I mean, I remember my first dead body. His name was Alan, he was 66. He went to the hospital. Basically, on his own way, we picked up in the ambulance, he was talking. He was an alcoholic. You know, we show up and we asked him, you know, hey, Alan, have you been drinking today? And he says, No, he picks up a wine bottle, takes a swig, grabs, beer can take another swig. I was like, hey, Alan, what's that? He's like, Well, that's nothing that's like, asked if he'd been drinking. And he's like, Well, that's not drinking. He's like you've never seen drinking. I was like, fair enough. And yeah, so we ended up taking him to the hospital. And then the nurses came to us is unfortunately in the hospital in Watson Lake it was the an older building that hadn't been updated and had no elevator in it. So they said that Alan was going to die in the next few days and that we were gonna have to come back and pick his body up and take it downstairs. Just yeah, just so humbling to see how it completes. You just get wrapped up, tossed on a bit digging downstairs, put in a cooler. That's it. Yeah, it was very humbling, for sure. And then it happened again, and again you know, when we had a guy get cut up to a whole bunch of pieces, because of his lifestyle choices. The guy used to help on a regular I mean, he lived in a small town, and he, unfortunately, in the world we live in he already had three strikes against him. He was black, he was gay and he lived in a small town. And it was tragic. Somebody took advantage of him. You know, we went saw him on the regular he was diabetic, drank a lot and then got involved with somebody I guess and then they didn't like what he was doing and we ended up murdering him cut him up to a whole bunch of pieces and throwing them away on a saw mill he learned how horrible people can be stupid people can be then you can also see just how easy it is just to make a simple mistake and end up totally fucked up the rest of your life I mean, it really shows you your mortality, and how fragile and precious life is at the end of the day. That it's a blessing to have your health it's a blessing to live beyond like my Nana has mean 92 and still living on your own.

Kit Heintzman 15:19
It sounds like you've seen a lot of death.

Ronald Taylor 15:30
Yeah, it started in I mean, that's one of my earliest memories is going to a funeral with my grandmother and seeing my I never knew him of course, but my grandmother, my great grandfather. And that's like yeah, I said, one of my earliest memories is a funeral of my great grandfather. When I went lived in a facility, I had a 16 year old. I guess you can call him roommate or whatever. hang himself. And then, in oh nine, my uncle drank himself to death, and then went up to the Yukon and got to go and participate in other people's life cycles.

Kit Heintzman 16:21
How would you compare health care access in the Yukon to Ontario?

Ronald Taylor 16:27
Healthcare in the Yukon, it's brutal, it's almost non existent. Had it not been for a trip that I was on with my past relationship. She turned out she had an ectopic pregnancy. Had we been in Watson lake, there would have been a high probability that she died. We were just in Whitehorse. She said she was feeling some abdominal pain and went to the hospital. And thankfully, they can do an ultrasound and they can do all of that stuff. And like living in Whitehorse, it's a town of 20,000. It's actually like living in a nice big city of more, but with all the access, and then you go to the communities, and it's it's terrible. I mean, you end up with nursing stations, nurses and extended practice, you end up with doctors that don't want to be there, you know, you get the odd doctor that might want to be there, and then he sticks around. But the only imaging technology at the Watson Lake hospital is an x ray machine, there is very little that you can do to stabilize somebody. You're 500 kilometers from the hospital. And the air ambulance is also located in Whitehorse, which means as what I flew air ambulance, it's a one hour call out, you get to the airplane, you have one hour to get airborne, that takes about an hour to get to Watson lake. So you're looking if in a good day, you're looking at two hours before an airplane can get back to the airport. And then you know, it takes about an hour to get you ready to get in the airplane, you have to be stable. When there are no helicopters to pick you up on the side of the road up there. It's using emergency medical responders such as myself, because there's no paramedic staff. So our scope, again, is extremely limited like I can, you know, if you're having an anaphylactic reaction, I can give the oxygen and raise your leg, I can't give you the epinephrine it's sitting there right knee and thing. And it could be two hours that I have to drive you in an ambulance. And I mean, at the end of the day, you would have just made the call and given the person the drug and taking the consequence because it would have saved their life. But you know, these were vast realities, you had to sit there and realize you had a limited scope. And you even had one limited practice. I know a lot of the times, just due to the proximity of the housing to the hospital in Watson lake. I didn't really sometimes do the blood pressure and the pulse and all of that stuff because it would take five or 10 minutes by the time I got that done and I could be at the hospital for three. So I could have the person with somebody who actually knew what they were doing with supplies in three minutes or I could sit there for 10 or 15 and fiddle fart around with stuff that you know it's gonna be better someone else more train takes care of it. I mean, it's it's a chronic problem anywhere in Canada outside of a major center. I mean there's not a trauma center between Sudbury and Sudbury's last trauma center until Winnipeg. So yeah, I mean, in the Yukon, it's just it's so far flung. You have I mean they call it a hospital. But I mean, that's just a name. It's just a building. It was nurses there is a doctor sometimes. So yeah, as a very, very frustrating place to access health care. They have to have a lot of agreements with their provinces and you have to drive and they give you like an allowance to drive there. Do you know that my former partner up there ended up having another pregnancy that ended up being a medivac as well. And they take her as far away as Vancouver. So that's a very long flight of the near them a very small airplane, which, again, you're not in an airplane with a doctor, you're in there with most nurse. So yeah, it's a very, very scary place to live in healthcare. I couldn't imagine going through the pandemic and having to get sick and be in town like Watson lake and then you're gonna go to Edmonton. You're gonna go to Vancouver. You're not gonna be anywhere near your family. They remove people from the town like mean, you didn't have a choice there. The facilities just weren't there. The airplane might not even go to the hospital in Whitehorse. It would just go direct Vancouver from Watson Lake and how do you as a A personal unlimited funds with limited access get down to see them. I mean, there's not always even a flight to some of these places you have to drive to Whitehorse, get a flight to Vancouver, find another way to get out of Vancouver. So very challenging

Kit Heintzman 20:59
What was your day to day looking like before the pandemic?

Ronald Taylor 21:05
I got out a lot more. I went and saw my friends, socialize more in general, I went out to restaurants more I went shopping more generally, other people were just more comfortable in general, I found that, you know, as much as I may be trying to get over it, other people are still kind of locked in. And their comfort levels aren't there. And I find that some people have gone too far in their comfort levels the other direction as well. So day to day, I mean, I would go to work, there was no protocols at work. There was no sign in sheet work. People were more friendly at the job, we could go and freely walk around and socialize with like the other engineers and like that, then all of a sudden, you know, the office workers, I mean, like you couldn't be anywhere you didn't need to be. I can just go into the office and access paperwork, you know, if I needed to, whereas now that's more challenging in my job, not being a job you can do remotely yet. Thankfully, hopefully, they'll just have you sitting on forever little joystick and me flying airplane from back here. But yeah, I mean, just generally also, because we go to a lot of small towns, you know, people in the small towns were already very cliquey, and now they seem more standoffish and being very much pick one side of the other. That was another thing too, even within the work is that some people would pick one side or the other. And it was kind of like, you know, it wasn't they were, even though they were advocating choice for themselves. They weren't trying to advocate choice for you. They were trying to make you feel like you were making the wrong decision. And I didn't quite understand that, you know, they believe that being choice, then let it be choice. So.

Kit Heintzman 23:04
And what's it, how have you been filling your time now?

Ronald Taylor 23:09
I watch a lot of YouTube, I play a lot of flight simulator. I mean, I have I mean, it's, it's fortunate, in some aspects, it was unfortunate that happened during the pandemic, that with my job change of having the compressed work year. So I finished work, if you call it that by September, and then from September until March, I am completely

Kit Heintzman 23:31
By September, which year? Sorry.

Ronald Taylor 23:33
Every year.

Kit Heintzman 23:34
Okay.

Ronald Taylor 23:35
Every year now. So I'm finished work and I don't have to go back, I don't have to report to the office. And so now that we have COVID, my first year, I got out and got a job, I drove a propane truck all winter long actually worked harder, doing that job that I did, doing my regular full time seasonal a regular job as a pilot. But when the pandemic hit, I decided that most of these jobs weren't worth the the wage extra because the wages being you know, 15 to 25 bucks an hour is not a lot of money, when if it affects my medical, and then I can't go back and earn the salary that I earn. And I mean, during the salary that I earned for the time that I actually put in a very lucky individual. So I had to sit there and understand that whilst I knew a lot of other people were going through this, they had it worse than I did, I still had my income, I still have my job, I still have my benefits. And my friends who are working for Porter, whatnot, they're line had shut down. And they were they weren't working at all they were being who are barely making any money. I had a friend who just bought a house, you know, like a $600,000 mortgage. And, you know, now he's down to like 2500 bucks a month as an income. So, you know, as much as I could complain, I also had to look at my peers and understand that they had a lot worse. And so in understanding that, I guess that's how I filled is able to fill my time and not be as upset but like I said it was a been a lot of flights simulators and a lot of watching the news, a lot of watching TV shows. Again, there's not as much going outside, especially because of the wintertime and COVID. I mean, go ride my tractor when I could. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, my friend that shrunk quite a bit. So, you know, we don't see people like we used to. So yeah, it's been very challenging to fill my time for sure.

Kit Heintzman 25:38
What do you like about riding the tractor?

Ronald Taylor 25:44
Ah simplicity I guess I remember reading some book from because I like to also dive into the history. In World War Two they said that the probably I'm paraphrasing, of course, that a good pilot came from a tractor driver. And I mean I can see some similarities to you operating a piece of equipment. And with the tractor is it's just, it's simple, it's you can just put it into gear and it just does its thing and you can just kind of sit there and relax and take in the large space that you have and trees, the birds and all that fun stuff the lake

Kit Heintzman 26:25
Tell me more about the social circles shrinking.

Ronald Taylor 26:28
I guess just more in the way of like when I come to when I when I because my social service being not really in Sudbury, I would travel to them. And the risk being, especially the time just too much to take I mean, going to Toronto, you know, what are you going to do go sit in someone's house. I mean, usually you go to Toronto, because there's stuff to go do in Toronto. And then you leave. You don't usually go to Toronto to do what you do and everywhere else and sit in someone's house. So yeah, I didn't didn't go out and see people, I haven't gone in, like I would have gone and visited my friends over the winter. And I know some people still travel. But I'm not as a pilot willing to go through the rigmarole of getting on an airplane and showing all of this paperwork and all of this health stuff. And it's just not for me. Let's just say so I mean, that's, I need to travel to see a lot of the people I know. And right now I can't do that. I also have my family that can't come and see me either, because they're not some of them arn't even vaccinated. And I I do think that that's kind of terrible that my brother can ride a bus to come and see me but can't ride a plane. And who could ask them to spend five days on a bus to come out to help me build a house. I think that's a very strange, especially being in the transportation world of saying, but sitting for five days on a bus is safer than sitting for three hours on an airplane. Just seems horrible. I got lucky. And because I have my own bus, I was able to actually still go see my mother a few years ago, and when the first year the pandemic and then my wife but we had our own space. So you know, but again, the bus is expensive to drive. So you know, I can't verify li spend you know, 15 1600 bucks to go visit shitty Terry. So, you know, that's not that's a waste of money. Yeah, so I guess that's just the biggest thing is because of the lack of the ability to travel that it just really confined to a few people. And then even when it comes to Kingston or something like that, you're a little more careful. Only now recently, I started to go with my friends here in Kingston, when I see them, they have gone to see Will and stuff like that.

Ronald Taylor 27:15
Tell me about some of the friends you've mentioned, Terry and Will and what it's meant to be able to see or not see them so often.

Ronald Taylor 29:02
It's just, you know, because of your friends, it's nice to keep the human connection, doing everything virtually or over a phone just it's impersonal. So to go out and see them. I mean, Terry bought himself a house finally. So, you know, he's actually got space to have people come over. I mean, now being back in Kingston Will still see WIll, you know, we don't see him wait as frequently but I went on so on maybe a week or two ago. But beforehand, you know, just just worried about going out visiting people because of the possibility and risks of my grandmother. So, yeah, it was just his risk management.

Kit Heintzman 29:49
How have you been sorting things into worth the risk and not worth the risk? Too risky? Not so risky?

Ronald Taylor 29:57
I don't think it's a very hard thing to to do it's a very internal process very unique to the individual, based on their life experiences and knowledge, wisdom, education. personal belief, I guess, I have just been trying to approach it in the way I was taught to approach things from, I guess, all throughout my training in the military in the ambulance, and as a pilot, I mean, as a pilot, Soldier and an amulet, you're a professional risk manager. So I feel that I feel a little more confident and sometimes overly so and to my own detriment, just due to the fact that I am a constant decision maker. But in that situation, I am going to make wrong decisions at times too. So I guess I've just tried to do the best I can, within my personal beliefs, and within the limited amount of training and knowledge that I have been given imparted to me by the experts. And I'm just trying to go with with that. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 31:08
You had mentioned at the beginning of the interview, that you are partnered, what's the partnership been like for you during the pandemic?

Ronald Taylor 31:16
My wife and I have a really great relationship. I'm always surprised sometimes it how well we get along how much she can tolerate me. But I mean, she's had it the hardest being a kindergarten teacher and working with small children. She's been afraid of the, you know, the risk factors. I mean, she understands the concept that a kid who's unvaccinated is no different than an adult who's unvaccinated. And she has been frustrated with that fact that, you know, they're forcing the teachers to get vaccinated, but they're not going to force the students. And she so she kind of doesn't like the narrative of, you know, you're getting vaccinate to protect somebody else, you're getting vaccinated to protect yourself. And she kind of is getting upset with that narrative of vaccines are meant to help everybody else and that you're a bad person if you don't get vaccinated, because all of these parents are still going home to their unvaccinated kid yet they won't go to work next to somebody who's unvaccinated. You know, my wife has no choice but to go work with people to run vaccinated, but you can't go to work without being vaccinated. You know, she thinks that you know, it's just the everybody else getting to pause for work. And her being, you know, kind of forced back in there, because parents, at the end of the day, don't want to take care of their children. I mean, we have seen to the pandemic, that the school system is so vital to the function of our society. And yet, you know, just like healthcare, also very disrespected systems. Again, I don't know, whether it be predominantly because they're, you know, female dominated or not, but it could be. It is actually a strange comparison to see, though, that teachers get paid more than the nurses do throughout this, which is, you know, I mean, I know, it's not the American standards of where people are just brutally paid no matter what. But in Canada, I mean, nurses are supposed to be a fairly well respected job, as well as teachers. But, you know, nurses have had a lot going on. The thanklessness of the parents, I guess, my wife has felt also trying to do kindergarten on a screen. The whole idea of the, you know, kindergarten is to get a kid out and socializing, it's the, there's no learning in kindergarten as much as the norm no learning by, I guess, by rote, or by, you know, trying to memorize numbers, it's learning how to live outside of your little comfort bubble. And that there are other rules, you have to follow that you have to share, you have to be nice, you have to be kind, you know, you have to do what you're told. Everything happens on a schedule type of thing. So putting a kid in front of a TV was a, you know, counterproductive is I mean, if you're going to do that you might want to spend in front of TV anyway. So that really stressed her out the excess amount of PPE that she'd have to wear as well. You know, again, saying the same thing about doctors and people in politics and whatnot. It's like, Why do I have to go in and take the risk for basically, you know, as much as she doesn't believe that she's a glorified babysitter. It kind of ends up being that, you know, like, if you don't have the kids leave the house, parents can't go to work. She finds that the masks and the goggles are very uncomfortable. And, you know, putting the masks on the kids like they're just eating them, they're on the floor. It's, you know, parents send them back with dirty masks. It's just it's been a bit of a nightmare and a hindrance. and glass as well. So she's been trying to balance the, you know, the online versus the being in class and while it's being online is, has an advantage of being in classes, a lot of advantages too, because those have to be so structured, right? It can be more organic and a kindergarten class, you can just sit there and let them go play. Whereas on a screen, you know, it was also very informative, you know, on a screen, did you get to see into the parents house, like I can see your background, you can see my background, and then you kind of see what was happening in the family sometimes. And when parents would say, Oh, my kid never does that. And you're like, really, I see that happening in the background right now. You know, she has, she has found it the most difficult. She has been. I don't know how she's managed to tolerate the fact that I haven't had to deal with this stuff in the same way that I've had the privilege over the last two years of each winter, just being able to say, I'm good, I'm not gonna go anywhere, I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to expose myself to any risk. And she has no choice. So she's been really good about that. She doesn't seem to be jaded about it. Yeah, it's I think it's hard for her just in general to comprehend the whole situation. And she's looking forward to it to being over. So I mean, it'll help with her projects, it'll help kids being able to go out and do things. I mean, she has her kindness ninjas project that she's still working on. And, I mean, that's really hard to do during a pandemic. Because you know, people are afraid of people right now, and especially little people running around. So hopefully, with the roadmap at the end of this that can start to pick up again, for her as well. It seems to bring her great joy to, you know, bring others joy. And, you know, when you're all locked up and cooped up, that's very challenging.

Kit Heintzman 31:16
What's a kindness ninja?

Ronald Taylor 36:53
So my wife explains it as having her children sneakily go out and do random acts of kindness and expect nothing in return. So she does this with her kindergarten class, which being ages three to about six years old. And then she has a little online website, she has a bit of an Instagram following. And then as she put stuff up for the kids to go and accomplish things. She's been featured in the board report several times, she's had several superintendent meetings over her project. Although her principal is extremely unsupportive of her project, she's had another staff member, you know, after when this kind of shit is going to end. She has been in the newspapers and on CTV, CBC. So she's been getting a lot of recognition. And she's been, you know, frustrated that you again throughout the pandemic that's made that more challenging plus the staff and her school are jealous because they didn't create something. I mean, she's the kindergarten teacher in the principal's who's the administrator, you know, she wants to try to take some credit for it. But, you know, doesn't really do anything about it, my wife got into Maclean's magazine and a little one paragraph in Maclean's magazine for her kindness project and bringing compassion to the whole world and whatnot. They just did an interview with the kids. Three years later, totally unscripted love to send you the link that you can watch the kids talk. But yeah, it was, you'd see what they were doing when they were in kindergarten. And I was in the cuts to three years later. And this person just does a random interview of the kid and talks about what a kindness Ninja is, and whatnot. So, yeah.

Kit Heintzman 38:42
What has been some of the issues on your mind over the last two years beyond COVID-19?

Ronald Taylor 38:52
The Roadmap moving on, you know, building a house right now trying to have a kid that kind of stuff. So yeah, just that. I mean, yeah, owning a piece of property. Figuring out, you know, all balance stuff. You know, finances in general, that'll be a big concern as the future goes on as things are raising in price. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to stay with the job that I currently have. I might have to transition back to the airlines just due to the pay scales. So yeah, I mean, that's really we're looking at the future hopefully just having a kid and living on our nice little house on the water in Sudbury, and we're going to own this little house here in Kingston, and kind of what's on our plate for after all of this.

Kit Heintzman 39:51
What's it been like thinking about building a family during the pandemic?

Ronald Taylor 39:56
It's been stressful. My wife isn't getting any younger. Unfortunately, when doctors make errors and whatnot, they aren't financially responsible for them, you are. And so their lack of work ethic, I guess you could say during some of this stuff with the pandemic, even though they're working at home, you know, stuff that my wife says that, you know, if she was doing her job, if she slacked off the way these people have that she'd be fired. So, it's been very stressful, because we have to do IVF, to do this thing becoming more common, and would have been funded. However, the doctor decided not to put us on the right lists, or didn't hook us up the right bill didn't tell us everything we needed to know. And now it's our responsible to pay for it. And I mean, it's very frustrating because this doctor is of a marginalized society and gets significant extra funding in this women's clinic. It's the only women's clinic in the north, and we trusted this person. And it's like, who cares? It's only 20 grand, what's 20 grand? What's 50 grand? I wipe my butt with that kind of money is what the way they talk. And it's like, well, we don't and thanks very much for making that error.

Kit Heintzman 41:16
Sounds really stressful.

Ronald Taylor 41:18
It is very stressful. It is the mean. Again, like I said, living in a system where we're supposed to have a very funded healthcare system. And where they say things are funded, they say you're on a list, and then you're not and then they're not responsible. It's sad, they have a cut off age. But they do. Let me say once you're 43 year old to be considered a candidate for IVF. And she was 41. And they said, you have a two year waiting list. So you're not going to it's not going to happen for you. So it's either you have the financial means to have a kid or you're not having one. And so at the end of the day, our kid will cost us $80,000. And that's just to have the kid.

Kit Heintzman 42:08
What have been some of the bigger political issues on your mind over the last few years?

Ronald Taylor 42:18
I tried to be apolitical in the aspect of picking a party or a viewpoint of choice. I tried to look at certain issues that the parties present. I also tried to look at the significant legislations that they may want to try to pass. I kind of personally don't like seeing one government hold power for more than one or two terms. It just allows them to push too much of a single side of the agenda through and in a country that's so multifaceted with so many different viewpoints. I mean, one of the largest countries in the world that isn't divided up into small subgroups. And this is what we're seeing in society right now is, especially in Europe, we're just seeing these continuations of extremely small microstates starting up very small groups of ethnic people want to just a bunch together and just be their own thing and want nothing to do with anybody else. We are definitely there to see pockets of this in Canada. And we do have a country that is more than capable of splitting up into multiple separate nations. The population is there and a lot of these places. I mean, there are countries out there with populations as low as 300,000. So be no problem for Alberta with 4 million people wanted to do their own thing. That's kind of been the thing that I've seen is the massive divide within our country, rather than what we used to. We used to understand that we were relatively different and accept our differences. And we could argue a little bit but then just get right back to it. You know, we're never going to get along in a free country, you're not going to be happy, you're going to be free to do what you want, and you're going to be blown up, people are going to be free to do what they want, and you're not going to like what they're going to do. So it's just it's been, it feels like in watching the news media today that I never supported the Conservative Party. In the past, I always saw the Conservative Party as the party that had the harshest views on things. They wanted the most censorship, the most segregation. And now it seems like this is flipped. It seems like the party growing and calling for the most extreme draconian legislation is the Liberal Party looking to be the most divisive is the Liberal Party now and it's it seems like they're justifying certain things as well. If we do it in the exact opposite way, then it's not bad. I think the thresholds for things aren't being met. I think that we're using our police in more of a militarized way all in a lot. I mean I see that in a lot in Canada, people are being sold this idea that laws protect you. Whereas they don't laws give you recourse when somebody else does something wrong, they don't stop people from doing things that are wrong. And I feel like our government continuously wants to put in more rules to try to stop people from doing things that are wrong that, you know, if you've already crossed the line to murder somebody, all the rest of that other stuff that you put in the way isn't really much of a roadblock. It's just words on paper, you're already gonna go that far. What are a whole bunch of other words on paper gonna do and I guess I have a unique perspective with my father being a police officer as well. So seeing that how often police officers were actually in danger, which was virtually never how often they actually had to use a firearm again, virtually never, my dad didn't even wear a bulletproof vest at work, it was such a safe job. Like an average of only two copies a year die to save her job. And I have. It seems like we're allowing today, people with certain positions and titles to get away with things because of that position and title, whereas people who don't have a position or a title or then kind of get the sledgehammer dropped on them. I mean, if you're a nurse at work, and someone assaults you, you've got no rights. But if you're a cop, you can just kill the person. So, you know, there's no real good balance between, you know, what makes a cop at work, but makes my father when he goes to work a more valuable citizen than anybody else. Why does my father have the right to go home more than anybody else does? You know, why is his decision at the end of the day, the decision? I mean, I don't think he's managed like that. Well, I don't think he's managed a lot of things that will, but yet at the end of the day so yeah, I mean, it's just it's very troubling to see. I think society is becoming very divided right now. And it's, it's truly tragic. And I think that, you know, they're trying to drive a wedge in a little bit more than they need to, and I think both sides are doing it. I think like when Anna said, when the people come out of the rabble rousers come out of the works, and they really want to make this division happen. And they've been wanting to do this for all the years since my Nana was a kid like she had to live to this division. It's very interesting, from her political point of view, I mean, she got a high school diploma in 1947, which is unheard of for a female back then. And I guess, see it from her point of view of seeing how much the world has changed. And when, you know, people judge people, and that's another thing is that, how are people going to judge us, in the future when we can't say anything to defend ourselves? Like, you know, most of us at the moment right now think we're doing the right thing. And I mean, even when I'm flying a plane, I don't sit there when you have a plane accident, it's kind of one of the things that I think is shaped by viewpoints is watching a lot of aircraft accidents, is that no captain of that moment thought, hey, you know what, this would be a really bad decision. So why didn't I do this? And so being as a person who has sat in the, in the moment in the hot seat where you're like, I have to make a decision I have to make that decision right now, is the decision I'm making. And I think it's the right decision. It might not be. But it's, it's a part of being human. I mean, we see it a lot in aviation accidents, when we see the humanity and how we, you know, in the most stressful situations, you can make a critical error that you had no idea you even made, or it seemed like a great idea at the time. And it's not. And so I do get concerned with the before you movement type of thing. I mean, you know, people got mad at this gentleman who married a 12 year old back in the day, but we can't talk to that 12 year old right now. I mean, kids were having kids at 14, 15, 16 My Nana was considered geriatric having her kid in her 20s So, you know, I feel like we're trying to hold people to account in ways that we shouldn't, and we're, we're cherry picking where we hold people accountable for and even there's a lot of people in life that have done a lot of bad things and we don't go destroy the pyramids as a monument to slavery. So we don't oppose the royal family even though they've you know, overseen genocide and they put my as my Nana said our sir Johnny into power. I just I get very concerned at the division that we're seeing I get concerned that watching like I said, this emergencies act being put in place with such a low threshold. I mean, what's going to happen next for another group another government gets in that's a shitty government and then they marginalize people. I mean, well, if all of a sudden we banned the right to abortion and a whole bunch of women go park the trucks on Parliament Hill that can be a national emergency. I sure as heck hope not.

Kit Heintzman 49:54
How do you understand the emergencies act?

Ronald Taylor 49:57
I understand the emergencies act as the predecessor into the War Measures Act. The War Measures Act last being implemented by Pierre Elliot Trudeau in the 1970s during the FLQ crisis, and even then seen as a very controversial move and actually ended up in the demise. I mean, the NDP, at that time even voted against the War Measures Act, which they voted for in favor of the emergencies act. This time. The War Measures Act, I think, when they invoke that, again, lowered the threshold so much that this is why we ended up with the emergencies act. And that has then further brought the threshold down as to when the government can come in and start to tell people what to do. The emergencies act is for a national emergency, not a street party in downtown Ottawa that has gone awry. Had the borders been blocked at every town been siege, and the people had guns everywhere, I would have understood the emergencies act, but with threshold right now of basically a protest. And you know, it's just I just see that anybody else you may have an opinion that isn't popular that goes to a protest or whatnot. I mean, we see the media supporting this as well, it seems that you watch the, you know, main Canadian broadcasters right now. It's the tone of support is incredible. And from a media group, it's not something that you expect to hear. I think that's definitely shown people that they've lost in common, like, how can the news media sit there not just report the facts, but support what's going on? It doesn't seem very unbiased, like it's supposed to be. I see that people will have completely lost faith in our banking institutions, because again, for simple little protest or making an online donation. I mean, what happens when Elizabeth May gets arrested next time, and the Green Party becomes, you know, a terrorist organization that you can't donate to? I mean, she got arrested for an unlawful protest. So, you know, I mean, that loose cannon there that said, the PP party there, he also got arrested recently. You know, what if they ended up turning the I mean, as much as I don't support the PPC party, what if they decided to make them an unlawful group and seize all the bank accounts? I mean, the gentleman that runs it, as much as I don't agree with his opinions, he wasn't elected. And he was a cabinet member. He was in charge of things he's recruited a former Premier who wrote are outside with a signatory on the charter. Yeah, I mean, the emergencies act is right now is proof that my opinion that the government has just lost control, that the federal and provincial governments don't cooperate. Ottawa is in the province of Ontario. But unfortunately, the province of Ontario is centered around Toronto, and anything outside of Toronto makes no matter to the rest of Ontario. Even though Ottawa is a Metro City, you know, with million people, it, it seems to be irrelevant, and that the provincial government likes to pass the buck on to the federal government and the municipal government there. I mean, like I'm looking at, I see the emergencies Act is that they've closed Ottawa down even worse than it was. And they say they're going to keep this going for ever. You know, you're able to watch people take videos of shop owners now of being threatened to have their windows smashed in by the police. And it's like, I bet you'd have not a single trucker walked up to that restaurant owner and said, If you don't open your door, I'm going to smash your windows. You know, watching or hearing about the police in their leaked messages. And again, growing with a police officer, not even remotely surprised by any of this. The fact that this is, you know, being put on social media is a revelation, but it's what they always did. The street justice was a thing. Police really do enjoy laying the boots to people for some reason, I think it attracts very messed up person. I think that, you know, as an individual, though, they're kind of trapped with the duty emergencies act, because they can, they could face severe penalties as well. If they don't do their job, which again, as a public servant myself, I could be forced into things like that. And I also don't like that idea. Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, the emergencies Act is a better piece of legislation in the War Measures Act was I think it was necessary, but I don't think it was necessary to be implemented in this time frame.

Kit Heintzman 54:37
How did you think police officers were handling things in Ottawa?

Ronald Taylor 54:41
I think they were handling it the way they always do. They go in with brute force. And they're a billy club, not a scalpel. And the police in society have been deemed to, for some reason always need to win. And therefore they have the legislation to allow them to always win. They come at you with a helmet and the club and that's okay. But if you raise your hand to them, they'll just shoot you. I think the use of the Mounted Patrol was very inappropriate. I think the deployment of the chemical weapons and the deterrent devices were also inappropriate. Being that Canadians are mostly compliant with the police officers. I think that, you know, this is a grand overreach with, you know, the amount of police officers that they brought in. I think that it's terrible to watch police officers justify injuring people. I think it's terrible, the police officers are getting joy out of injuring these people. But again, not surprised, they've always seen they've gotten joy out of hurting people seems to be a way that they there's an individual who's a police officer, and I find it has a very terrible effect on the human psyche, as much as a police officer may not think they're suffering from PTSD or whatnot, or that they can just compartmentalize, it's no big deal. It turns them into sometimes a very, I'm not saying all the time, not universally, but turns them into a horrible person. They don't see people as people, they call them meat wagons, you know, they call it chasing taillights on the highway. And I've worked I've had the pleasure or displeasure of, you know, working with the police as a first responder with the ambulance with the military. Also, just regular dealings with the police in general on the other side of the law. So for the most part, they're just they're individuals who, in my personal opinion, have a slight bit of a god complex in a way. And then at the end of the day, the situation is going to end their way and they don't care how they achieved that result. When once and once they're done to a certain point. If they can kill you, they're going to if they're just like, You know what, we've tried everything we can, we're done with this, like in Calgary the other day, I mean, my dad was a Calgary City police officer, and then he blew, police seem like they're cowards. Today, they're going to pull up their gun, and they're just going to shoot. And in a country where virtually nobody has a gun. And again, being able to talk to my dad saying, How many times have you seen a person with a gun? Almost never. Almost never. But every police officer walks around with the power to remove your life. So in Ottawa, I mean, again, I'm just not surprised. And I'm not surprised they want to be there. Because it's what they like to do. I mean, they like to put on their uniforms they're gonna put on they're gonna carry their assault rifles around. And, I mean, I think it makes them look childish and stupid in the Senate, in this society, when they have to walk around with their big bank stick here. You know, you don't need to walk around the silence and suppress again, being in the military, you don't need to walk around with that kind of weaponry. And the irony of our police walking around with these rifles, when our prime minister has stood up there and pointed that exact same rifle and said, This rifle has no place in civilized society. But our police have no problem walking around with them. You see them in the airport, walking around with these guns, and you're like, all you've done is brought a gun into a secure area. And all I gotta do is take it away from you. Thanks for doing that. It doesn't make people feel safer when there's a bunch of people walking around with guns, if you need a gun to defend yourself in the moment, sure, but just walking around and parading firearms everywhere, which seems to be what the police now do. It's I think it's insanity in that aspect. I don't think that you'll ever get people to want to do things or have respect, my grandmother tells about the very difference in policing, like somebody steal your garden hose, you can call the police officer and come and find out where your garden hose was. She grew up on Stevens Street and county street just down by Regis High School. And everybody knew the police officer in the area. He walked the street twice a day. They knew who he was, he was a good person, they go up and talk to him. He'd stop and play play with the kids, you know, come up and ask you how you're doing. He'd stop and have tea. You know, things like that. And it's just become this enforcement arm which they don't really care that they've sworn an oath. They're just they're told what to do. And that's what they do.

Kit Heintzman 59:12
You had mentioned that you've driven a petrol truck. How have you been, how have you been feeling about representations of the convoy?

Ronald Taylor 59:30
I mean, driving a truck is definitely a challenging job. Part of me, sees and understands that a lot of people who unfortunately end up in trucking aren't the cream of the crop, I guess you could say they're usually have a lower intelligence unfortunately. Simpler people. Like to be alone don't like their solitude. but have views that are rooted more in hearsay and rumor, then, in fact, looking that book up is not a good thing to them. But just because they're not educated in the traditional fashion, it doesn't mean that they're not smart. Because intelligence can be measured in many facets. I mean, they can rip an engine apart and put it back together. And you and I would have no idea what's going on with any little bit of that. So and they're a huge part of our economy. And we do kind of have to respect that. The fact that a person would go and do that job, I would, after doing that would never go do that job. There's no way I couldn't pay me enough. They are in their aspect of the border mandate, that was a little bit silly, because the USA already had a mandate. And so you know, you're not going to fight the American government, from Canada especially. So that was a little bit silly. I do understand that, you know, they wanted to see the end of all mandates. But again, the prime minister doesn't control a lot of that stuff. And unfortunately, they don't understand that. And so, I mean, I understood if people want to protest, they should have gone to protest. But, you know, parking on the street for three weeks. I mean, I have to sit there in the neutral balance, but I don't believe in anybody blocking anybody's route or ability to travel freely beyond what is reasonable. I understand that there is a level of reasonableness to blocking and impeding stuff like that, but there comes a time when normality has to return. So there, I'm disappointed the government at no point in time just said, You know what, because they're, you know, not the most intelligent, we go out there and say, hey, great job, guys. And you know, what, we've got a plan to get out of this pandemic, we'll be getting back to you about that they might have just trucked off. But, you know, to treat them and then marginalize them. And you know, yeah, I mean, you can't do that to any facet of society. If we did that. Anybody else they would be up in arms and whatnot, if this had been a Conservative government, those people kind of comments would have been, you know, seen as gaslighting and whatnot. Whereas with the liberals, I mean, it's they're just allowed to say whatever they want.

Kit Heintzman 1:02:29
What does the word health mean to you?

Ronald Taylor 1:02:32
Health means the ability to do your everyday tasks for the most part, unimpeded. means like decent quality of life. You know, you can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything to everything. Like with my grandmother, like, she's not rich, but just healthy enough. I mean, she's in her 90s now. So yeah, not being overweight, not having, you know, all of that good stuff.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:02
What are some of the things you want for your health and the health of people in your life?

Ronald Taylor 1:03:10
I'd like to lose a little bit of weight, get my blood pressure, a little more under control being a little bit chunky, chunky, after the past two years of sitting on my, my flabby flab. And my job also was a lot of sitting, as well. So I had actually made some goals before the pandemic to use the health facilities that we have at our office, but during the pandemic, they were closed. So that stagnated that. But yeah, I mean, in general, you know, I don't smoke, I don't drink very much. Just generally try to take care of myself. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:50
What does safety mean to you?

Ronald Taylor 1:03:55
Safety means that I'm not going to get injured. Basically. Safety is something that I have to be aware of at all times, it's platies is the concept that an individual has to apply in their day to day life to which applies with their comfort zone and their level of risk management. I feel that safety for me is being able to make my own decisions on what is safe and what is not. I mean, there is a limited amount of stuff that we enjoy from the nanny state. But there is some stuff that we would prefer to make on our own and I understand that you know, in today's world with the especially with the information that is out there, it's impossible for one person to know everything or to know the majority of anything. So I do understand a certain level of regulations and safety and standards in guidelines, standardization works in a lot of ways. But again, yes, safety has to be a personal thing at the end of the day. It's very, very, very personal. And something that at the end of the day, you're responsible for your own safety.

Kit Heintzman 1:05:19
Do you have predictions about what's going to happen with the emergencies act?

Ronald Taylor 1:05:24
I believe that it will stay, but I don't know if it'll pass the Senate. I hope it doesn't. I think that, as they've said, some of the rules, the financial stuff, they're going to try to make permanent with FINTRAC. I think it's a really terrible way to use cert Parliament again, for stuff like that. Again, legislation and forcing people into more compliance is just going to add more cost to things. People are Canada's a very small market in those kinds of crowdsourcing worlds. They can just say, You know what? We're not interested. Goodbye. So, yeah, I think the emergencies act will hang on for longer than 21 days, which will then be worse than the truckers protest with more of downtown Ottawa closed and more businesses suffering. I mean, it was sad to see the Rideau center closed, but that was a decision by a private corporation and without a government mandate. So they chose to close during the truckers protests, and now they're going to be forced to stay close for even longer. So I don't know. That's, I mean, I hope it gets voted down. There's a chance that it won't I hope that the court challenges take it down again, that he said the threshold is just That's my biggest concern. I guess the the emergency Act is that the threshold has been lowered so badly that the next time what there's an Aberdeen street party at Queen's, that an emergency? You know? Qreen's sort of thinks it is every year.

Kit Heintzman 1:06:57
How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Ronald Taylor 1:07:02
I mean, I think I'll be fine at the end of the day. Unless a major conflict really breaks out. But even then, like my grandmother, has told me that during the war, it wasn't, it wasn't that big of a difference over here. There were some things you just couldn't buy in a store without a coupon, like butter or whatnot. But she said it wasn't a major difference in her life. So I mean, I don't see that spilling over here. If there is any kind of conflict in Europe in that aspect. What I plan on going, No, I like the peace in the tranquility. I have too much on the go now for the upset I would really, my hopes for the future are that, you know, I still have running water and a flushing toilet and a nice place to live. And I can go to the grocery store and buy food. And I can sit down on my butt and watch TV and turn on the heat and you know, on the internet and talk to people like you. That's kind of what my hopes are for the future. Really. Do I think that's what's going to happen? And wow, I mean, I don't know. I didn't really think that the Russians guy would cross do the soft take over like he didn't Crimea crossed the line. I really didn't see that happening. So I wanted the saber rattling. But you know, I didn't see Justin, invoking emergency act. I didn't see him clearing the protesters out that quickly. And then aggressively. So. I don't know if my predictions are are super great in that aspect right now.

Kit Heintzman 1:08:31
You said that you've been watching a lot of TV. What have you been watching?

Ronald Taylor 1:08:36
Random, whatever, I will try to listen to anybody's opinion from both sides of the matter. I watched a lot of the live streams recently. I watched a lot of fact based stuff, YouTube. I watched tutorial videos on things. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:08:53
Live streams about what?

Ronald Taylor 1:08:55
I was watching the live streams on the people with at the protest in Ottawa. And, you know, it was definitely relatively calm until the police showed up. Seemed like again, people were just having an out of control, unwelcome street party that needed to go home. It's really how it felt. It did not like be in watching it, it did not feel like a national emergency. And that was I think a big shape is that the news stream just didn't cover it. They really focused on things. I mean, they pointed to somebody carrying a Nazi flag as if that was the worst thing in the world. And I mean, I'm pretty sure the context of that was that the person thought that well this is if you keep going into what your family's flag is going to look like. And just the other day I watched somebody carrying the former communist flag in the party, but that's no big deal. I mean, the communists have killed just as many or more people than the Nazis did. I mean, there are a lot of I mean, a flag is a flag and unfortunately, you know, Nazis took a Buddha symbol and messed it up. But you know, I think that really people played a lot of that stuff out of proportion, but the media, people again and are generally good people. And you can see the video of the guy of the Confederate flag being booed out of there. It's like get lost, and we don't, we don't support that here. I find even in the small towns that I've lived in that, you know, this extreme racism that they talk about just really doesn't exist. Like one of my friends, he's black and lives in the small town of Sioux Lookout, and owns like five houses there. Now, he's totally against the vaccine, he is encountered the police a million times. And at the end of the day, they're respectful there is there's no racism about it. And yeah, I mean, Canadians I think, are extremely welcoming, especially with the amount of times that I've gone into these northern communities and seen how welcoming Canadians are. It's it's an unfair thing. I believe that people paint Canadians as these horrible people. You know, I think we're a very, very open country in that aspect. And.

Kit Heintzman 1:10:58
what do you think people in the social sciences and humanities should be doing so that we can better understand the last two years?

Ronald Taylor 1:11:07
I think go out, gathering as much data as possible. I think at looking at past comparative events in life and history. How we can better plan for this in the future. How we can better understand human behavior. humans tend not to want to be very neutral, they tend to want to pick a camp, and they want to, they want to go into that camp until doesn't matter what they're gonna fight to the death, and they can't forget about confirmation bias. I think that's a big thing that a lot of people have a lot of complacency out there as well. That's just the way it is. And we'll just keep doing it that way. I know it's a very tough question.

Kit Heintzman 1:12:02
If you could talk to a historian about this moment, what would you ask them to remember about it, what stories would you tell them can't be forgotten?

Ronald Taylor 1:12:13
I would say everything at the end of the day, you can pull it up on the news media, we shouldn't really be forgetting any of this, we should look at all sides and all opinions and weigh out what looks to be the best. I think that it's like I said before, it's terrible to judge people when they can't speak and that at the end of the day, the generation before. For the most part, again, there are people that are bad and evil, but the average person isn't, and wasn't looking to be a horrible person. Even the people right now that I believe are doing the things that I don't like right now have the chance to change and shouldn't be held completely accountable for, you know, having a stupid opinion at one point in time. And I think that opinions are very fluid. And I think that opinions are a terrible way to run a country based on opinion only. Yeah, I would say that. You know, don't judge us unless you're ready to be judged as well.

Kit Heintzman 1:13:20
I want to thank you so much for your time and your answers. And at this point, I just want to open some space. If there's anything you'd like to say to anyone who's listening to this, please tell them.

Ronald Taylor 1:13:32
I think we all just need to get along. We should all be trying to do better for ourselves. I think that we should show compassion, neutrality. I think we should understand everybody's point of view and where they're coming from. And that not try to force that point of view on the people. You know, if somebody wants to be in their closet and be a total horrible person, it's kind of their choice in a free society. It really is. And we're never going to regulate the horribleness of humanity. It's never going to happen. We should definitely not attempt to continue to try to regulate people into being a good person because it'll just rebound. We need to educate, not regulate. We need to educate, not incarcerate. We just need to be kind to one another.

Kit Heintzman 1:14:30
Thank you so much.

Ronald Taylor 1:14:33
No problem.