Interview Two/ Andrea Krochalis by Sharon Mirtaheri November 24, 2007. Mirtaheri Home Salem Virginia.

 
CURRENT WORK:

 
AK: We’re both so talkative.
SM: OK. Here we go. We are at question twenty nine. Let’s see. In 2001 after 24 years you left your position at the city. What have you been doing since and can you tell us a little about Paw and Whiskers, your business.
AK: When I left my position in the city I left because I had just about thirty years for retirement and I was in a job where I wasn’t able to do what job that was intended for me to do, which was clinical supervision, and staff development. I did some research and developed a little newsletter. The reorganization was kind of a disappointment and so I decided I would be better off going out on my own. That was a pretty scary kind of thought and it also was just time to move on in my life. And so when I was sitting in the office and mulling this over and writing my letter of resignation I had a “pot percher” in one of my plants and it had paw and whisker on it. So I picked that up as the name for my business because I was leaving. I wanted to be leaving and go to something and I left to work with Roanoke Wildlife Rescue on writing grants for them and some program development with them. So that’s how it came about. Also that paws and whiskers are what animals use to be a sleuth to look for comparable to looking for fun and certainly looking for program ideas.
SM: So it was a metaphor?
AK: Yeah.
SM: Do you work from your home or an office and do you have any employees?
AK: Nope. I work from my home mostly. I sometimes work in the offices of non-profits that I may be writing for. And I just, am finishing a home office. I just moved into it over Thanksgiving. So that’s pretty exciting! And I have my computer out there. Moving a computer to a new home is a point of no return so that’s a commitment. And what I am putting together has moved some from working with animals to environmentally based projects. I also do mediation and collaborative process work. I am looking at taking all the environmental parts of things I have done since I retired and putting them together in a way to do grant writing and program development work, collaborate process, mediation around  environmental issues, environmental justice issues, social issues. It’s still some bread and butter money with grant writing. So it’s evolving.
SM: Can you tell me a little bit more about the Roanoke Wildlife Center, what it’s goals are and exactly what your involvement is in that organization?
AK: I don’t work with them any longer. I did when I first started the Paw and Whisker. They do wildlife rescue and rehabilitation and then release. So they work with local governments in terms of animal control for wildlife. They work with mammals. There is another center, I think up towards Waynesboro, that does birds and raptors and so on. So if there are injured deer, squirrel, skunk, possum, rabbit, that somebody called about or some animal had gotten hurt by their lawnmower or car or in their attic whatever, then wildlife rescue would pick the animal up or you would bring them to them and they would rehabilitate it medically. And they try to keep it as wild as possible so that the animal can be released into the area from which it came. Also they do some education in the schools and they have a few animals that were not able to be released and they use them in the education. It’s a nice little spot. It is in Roanoke County.
SM: And what is the Rail Solution and it’s goals and your involvement in the Rail Solution? Now that is something I don’t know anything about.
AK:  Rail Solution was started by Reece Shearer and many other folks. And it was started to push the idea of looking at freight on rails rather than more trucks, specifically more trucks on [interstate] 81. There has been a lot of discussion about expanding the truck lanes on 81 or expanding the highway on 81 and there were a lot of conflicting reasons to do that. Availability of federal funds and the need in Roanoke County for an extra loop around 419 which is the beltway kind of road. So there are a lot of competing interests in the behind the scenes issues of freight to rail. But there is a big movement to utilize the existing rail beds, maybe upgrade them to a high speed rail, so that freight could move either in containers or the entire truck back and [then] the drivers could go in a passenger car and then rather than increase truck traffic.

SM: That’s really good!
AK: It’s really more efficient and it’s more eco friendly. There is diesel fuel and it’s faster and less of it and so this group really…I was on the steering committee but not really in any of the leadership positions because I lack technical knowledge for that about rail but some of these folks know a tremendous amount. But the idea was to get many localities to sign off on their solutions: to say no, we prefer to expand the rails instead of 81. So in the 81 corridor in Virginia, that’s about 356 miles, we had 40 localities sign, give or take. It’s on the Rail Solution website and maybe more. Which I thought was pretty impressive.
SM: Yeah.
AK: So that, that idea over time has become more and more familiar to people and more and more acceptable to delegates. And Norfolk Southern and CSX have held back. Now they are interested in it because they own that property so it also would have to be a public/private partnership.  Railroads had not been eager to be regulated, historically.
SM: That is really interesting ‘cause 81 is becoming more and more of an issue.
AK: It is an issue. A distinct issue.
SM: Especially, out of four, the three Salem exits and two Roanoke exits there’s more fatalities in that stretch of the road than in all the north to south of 81. And they haven’t been able to figure out why right?
AK: Right. Well it’s congested. There are a lot of trucks. There’s a truck stop, a truck weighing station so there is a lot of on and off. There is also short term hauls as well as the long term hauls. Most of the hauls that go through our area are through trucks. They are not going to stop and get off on 581. But uhh… it’s an older highway. I don’t know why. I think also there is a flat stretch people can make up time.
SM: It’s not any hillier than the rest of 81? The trucks go down the hill and they pick up speed.
AK:  Well it’s hilly in so many places. I am thinking about the truck stop is in Salem. That is a flat stretch.
SM: Yeah. It is.
AK: I don’t know why.
SM: And also can you tell us a little bit about your research into integrated health care with Radford University.
AK: That was a project I did with a friend. It was just one project. She was fishing around for a grant for her doctoral work. And we were talking about rural health care and how people in rural areas have to travel further and that makes it cost more and they loose a lot of work time. Particularly if they are farmers. And they may be more reluctant to go to traditional health care in terms of justifying the down time and the expense. They have a tradition of folk remedies and home remedies. So we interviewed folks about that and I really designed the project for her. Just now she is running with it for her research project.
SM: That’s interesting considering I grew up in the country and Radford didn’t have a really decent hospital back then. And right next to where I grew up is the Carilion Regional Hospital now.
AK: Mm hum.
SM: So that really helps because that is where all the farmers go up in Pulaski County. It really services the entire Pulaski County.
AK Yeah. Well we were looking at what people do instead of going or before going or huh and its interesting because there is a lot more acceptance of non-traditional Western Medicine. And more acceptance of non-traditional, and folk, and herbal remedies.
SM: Yeah. Grandma used to be a big believer in poultices. Mustard poultices.
 
SECTION TWO: Community Service

SM: We have a whole section here [in her resume] of organizations that you have been involved with. What is TRUST?
AK: TRUST is still in operation. And it was originally called The Roanoke Valley Student Trouble Center or something. Some acronym that became TRUST. But the idea was that there were folks in schools and people in the community, they become much more community based; who needed information to change the kinds of decisions they were making or who needed short term assistance, like in a crisis situation such as  an emotional situation  like a suicidal episode. And didn’t have insurance, didn’t have a way to get it and would only get it if it were anonymous. So we started working with suicide prevention, substance abuse. One underlying theme was getting folks to realize you need to know what you are using if you are using. And umm… don’t just indiscriminatingly take whatever pills are on the table kind of thing. Also people sometimes needed overnight shelter or travel assistance. And it was a supportive service and a way to keep people on their own feet but given some support in crisis or in  in need. Not just emotional crisis but in actual need like traveling or maybe a need for information about how to get resources they might need longer term.
SM: And so TRUST is private, it’s not government funded or…?
AK: I don’t know if it gets any government funds now or not but it was started as a private non-profit. And there were lots of folks that were at Hollins who worked on it. Charlie Holland, and Mort McMillan, Tim Rodale. Gosh, I couldn't name them all. There were many.
SM: That’s great!  And is it located in the city of Roanoke?
AK: Yes it is.
SM: Do you know if they have a website?
AK: I don’t. No. They probably do. They do a lot of a…sheltering for travelers and short term; like 1-9 or 2-9 homeless now. At the time it was mostly crisis phone call or a drop in center.
SM: And what exactly does TRUST stand for do you know Andrea?
AK: It was the Roanoke Valley Student Trouble Center or something like that but I don’t think it stands for that now. It’s just how we got to the word TRUST.
SM: And RAPELINE?
AK: RAPELINE is now SARA. Which is the Sexual Assault Response Awareness. RAPELINE was started as a women’s collective and the project was that women would be available 24/7 by phone to victims of sexual assault. And that would mean someone calling in and saying: I need to talk to somebody, or I am at the hospital, or even the hospital calling to say that we have somebody that is really hysterical and we need somebody to sit with them for a while.
SM: WOW! [I had no idea there was such a service]
AK: So we , you would talk to the person or even or maybe go all the way through the court case with them. Similar to what CASA does with children.{CASA in Roanoke not at Hollins]. And it was a collective that ran for years and years. People would do the calls out of their home. They [victims] would call TRUST. It ran through TRUST and TRUST would call the RAPELINE volunteer and we would call the person back.  And then some of the people moved on and it was dwindling and we met with Mental Health [department of the city]. One of the professor’s wife’s [at Hollins] Mrs. Long, worked with Mental Health  for them to take it over. So it is now a program that’s part of the Emergency Services and Mental Health services: Blue Ridge Behavioral Health Care. Which is a good thing. At the time it was kind of an ego blow but. for me, because I was pretty much doing it single handedly but it is a good thing to have [it] institutionalized into a community service.
SM:  So it got incorporated into that other group?
AK: Yes..
SM: And VCRCA?
AK: Virginia Community Based Residential Care Association. That was a group, or may be still going on, of programs that received funds through the Juvenile Justice Service and provided services that were community based. Meaning generally non-secure custody  for adolescents and children in Virginia. There were short term or long term residential services, group homes, crisis centers and all the directors and staff of that, in that kind of facility, met under this umbrella. It was a professional organization.
SM: And just community members agreed to take in somebody?

AK: These were centers like Zachary’s and Youthhaven. It’s not now, but there was a Youthhaven… was the original group home in Virginia for boys in Roanoke and then there was one in Roanoke County for girls: Youthhaven Two. Sanctuary Crisis Center, and there was a system in Tidewater, Charlottesville, Richmond. You know, so there were a lot of group homes across the state that would keep children. The Crisis’s Centers would keep kids less than sixty days and would try to return them home, working out family issues and foster care plans that blew up or whatever. And then the longer term programs, some were court ordered, for adolescents who were acting out and not really in need of secure jail type custody or juvenile detention. And they might be there six months, nine months, a year. And some were longer term foster care placements but they were all group settings.
SM: This sounds familiar. I think they do it on campus even now. Women Unite, Take Back the Night?
AK: Yeah it’s a national group. I’m not sure if they are under another group but most campuses do have this program. And it’s a march that’s held at night and women march through town and I have gone to the one in Blacksburg many times. And that’s the slogan: “Women Unite, Take back the Night” meaning women have a right to be out on the streets at night. Its part of  the tee-shirt “clothesline project” where women that have been abused make different tee-shirts and hang their tee-shirts out on a close line…[they write messages to their abusers or to the world in general that they were abused and make statements of not deserving the abuse].
SM: They do that on campus.
AK: Yeah. All those kinds of awareness projects that are held once a year all across the country, [on] campuses, churches, communities, localities, whatever. 
So it’s like a demonstration project. A rally.
SM: I have seen the tee-shirts at Hollins on the porch. And it’s very effective. It’s pretty amazing actually!  Nature Conservancy?
AK: The Nature Conservancy is a private non-profit environmental organization. They are often referred to, somewhat sarcastically, as the real estate agent environmentalists. They buy land and protect it with deed easements and then they re-sell it. They do some other programs umm maintaining that land or taking out invasive species. They are based in Charlottesville, I think.
SM: Is it a state organization?
AK: No, it’s a national group but the Virginia chapter is based in Charlottesville.
SM: Because that’s I think what Joyce is working with for her thousand acres in Elliston.
AK: Yeah, they sometimes hold conservation easements, which is a separate process. You can put a conservation easement on your land if it’s so many acres and there are certain qualifications. And in the state of Virginia, Western Virginia Land Trust, Nature Conservancy and Virginia Outdoor Foundation hold those deed easements which means they enforce them as opposed to monitor them and check on them once a year. The Nature Conservancy now does some of that but they also have monitors; this is how I work with them. They have monitors for different sites of land that they’re holding and protecting. Especially if there is public access to the trails and so on and there’s one near where I live. So a lot of folks in the community are monitors there being that we take turns being there to answer questions [and] hand out program literature, whatever.
SM: What is the name of the ones there? Bent Mountain?
AK: Bottom Creek Gorge. I’ve done other work for them in other parts of the state that has been fun. Just to go and work on an environmental project as a volunteer. Sometimes they put you up sometimes they don’t. And you get to see really beautiful areas that way.
SM: And meet other people that are interested in the environment. That sounds fun, too. Blue Ridge Environmental Network?
AK: Blue Ridge Environmental Network is something that Bill Modika does. He is on the Sierra Club Board with me. The Roanoke one. He is a local realtor but he’s also very knowledgeable about water, conservation and then protecting water. And BREN is like an umbrella group to many local environmental organizations. It is an acronym for Blue Ridge Environmental Network.
 

SM: And the Bent Mountain Civic League? What do you guys do?
AK: Civic Leagues are traditionally the community organizations that communicate with local governing bodies. The Bent Mountain Civic League covers our area. The area in which I live; probably the zip code. And we do some things that are just fun. Like, we’ve done family picnics. We had a community picnic that  we’d roll out a flatbed [truck] and everybody would bring potluck and the Civic League would buy chicken and we’d barbeque it .And we just had a potluck dinner and an election which was pretty funny to have together. We handle issues passing information back and forth trying to get some services like cable TV or broadband, or high speed internet up on the mountain because we don’t have that. There is a little bit along 221 but most people don’t have access to it. And when I was president I did a long term battle to protect our fire and rescue squad which was all volunteer. And they, localities are generally moving to paid staff and we just wanted to keep our station open and to have paid staff when volunteers couldn’t do it. But to have them actually be on the mountain and know how to find people on the mountain.
SM:  Which is a huge problem in a really, really, really rural area.
AK: It is. It is..
SM: A lot of times the roads don’t even have signs to know how to get there.
AK: Yeah. And to be a volunteer for fire and rescue means you have the same training as professional firemen and rescue, paramedic or whatever. And so it’s a huge community service for these folks to do. So it’s like a community based organization that’s very local to where you live and there’s one in Raleigh Court, there’s one in Babcreek, there’s one everywhere. And it’s just the kind of neighborhood… well Neighborhood Watch is another type of group. They are more crime prevention. But it’s a neighborhood grapevine kind of thing as well as some activities.
SM: And you attend,or have members attend, the county council meetings?
AK: Yes, sometimes we do.
SM: To know what’s going on so they don’t seek things in behind your back.
AK: Right!
SM: H-O-S-T-S?  HOSTS.
AK: HOSTS is a program in the elementary schools. I just did that for one part of the time when I was working, where students who are struggling with reading will read aloud to someone. And then you might play a game about what you’ve read or have a snack with them or just give them a chance to practice their reading with somebody who is their special read-to-person.
SM: So it’s mentoring kind of.
AK: Kind of.
SM: That’s really cool. So is that in the whole Roanoke Valley or…
AK: I know it’s in Roanoke City.
SM:  Roanoke City. And I know the Sierra Club is a huge organization but I’m ashamed to admit it I really don’t know a lot about it. They send me things wanting money all the time but how....
AK: Yeah, it’s a national organization and it’s one of the biggies like Nature Conservancy or Environmental Defense, or Earth Justice, whatever.  Sierra Club is about preserving and protecting, exploring wilderness and they are a very structured organization. We have a local chapter in Roanoke. It is very hierarchical. It has about six hundred members. We meet monthly, the executive committee, it’s like a board. And we have a meeting every first Friday in conjunction with the environmental group at the Unitarian Church that’s like a presentation and a gathering and that’s been pretty successful. And then there are some other things. There is a conservation section that Chairman Branford does ”tour de cut", he calls it, where you can tour an area that will be logged in the National Forrest and an area that has been protected to see the comparison; to see what you would be loosing as part of the public land ownership. So there is conservation, there is recreation there’s… I was the chair for, or I guess I still am, for transportation and sprawl. And that was to look at issues around transportation and sprawl, meaning the expanding suburban, urban ring.
SM: And the picture I have on the web is connected to the Sierra Club?
AK: Yes, it is connected to our speaking out against developing another housing sub-division along Merriman Road behind the soccer fields there. And the idea was that we don’t do infill development where we go back into areas that have gaps in development and centralize it some and have connecting roads and then create a green line or green space so that you have some environmental protection. And just that people tend to sprawl out over little spots here and there which generates more driving and it’s also asking communities to plan around issues like: if you build three hundred homes here how many kids are going into the school systems, which schools are they going to, is there room? Can emergency vehicles get in these private roads that some developers still do? Can the traffic patterns support these, you know, say if you have four trips in and out every day per household do you need a traffic light? Who is going to pay for that? Can a road support it? “Cause they are putting in some of these six hundred level roads in Cotton Hill and Merriman and, you know, they’re “two-laners” that are really like, you know, a lane and a half. And can you spill out that much more traffic on it? What about fire and rescue response? Do we have enough staff? So on.
SM: They just want to make the money on the houses and not address the issues around it.
AK: And there is a lot of discussion about whether the developers should be contributing to some of the cost that their product  will put on communities like schools and libraries and fire and rescue.
SM: In Maryland the growth is so astronomical and so fast and they make them pay through the nose for it.

AK: Yeah. And they make a lot of profit. There’s some speculation. They may buy land and speculate that it will be a good sale later for development and if you sell at a commercial price you get more money. So it’s very tempting to say to a farmer we will buy your land and if he sells to a developer he’ll get more than if he sells it to another farmer or, or keep it in the family. It makes it very hard for small farmers to resist that pressure because it could be their retirement fund. 
SM: Right.
AK: It also eats up a lot of land that could be local farming.
SM: In Maryland there is one little area, north of where I lived in Gaithersburg that the county government has deemed an Agricultural Preserve. And what they do is they pay the farmers developmental rights.  So, that for every twenty five acres they give them money. Say a farmer has a hundred acres they’ll give them X amount of money for three developmental rights which means that there is only one house allowed on that hundred acres; that’s the original farmhouse. You can tear that one down and rebuild but you can’t build any thing else. And that passes with the deed, forever. [What I did not explain is that the ultra rich are the only ones that can afford to buy a hundred acres and they do and build huge mansions on them].
AK:  Right. The deed restrictions pass with the deed and stay on the deed but that’s why you need a group to enforce them, like Virginia Outdoor Foundation, to make sure that you don’t go back and find twenty houses there.
SM: Right.
AK:  And Maryland has actually the state that’s been a leader in Smart Growth.
SM: Really?
AK: Yeah, they really have. And that whole area of discussions: Smart Growth, purchase of development rights, and planned communities where you might have joint green space and houses that are kind of clustered, like clustered zoning, and the idea of zoning and comprehensive community plans should be hand in hand and should be real planning tools as opposed to always granting special use permits to violate the conditions that citizens bought into and expected when they bought property there.
SM: The one that’s the closest to us [when we lived in Gaithersburg] and is very famous is the Kentlands. They built it. It’s a city and it went up over night. It’s a cluster community there. Very famous. It ended up being where all the rich live. That wasn’t the original aim but…  Citizens for Smart Growth?
AK: That’s a local group that tends to be active around certain issues. That group has addressed the kinds of issues we were just talking about with Roanoke County and has even taken the county to court a couple of times. There are others. across the country.

SM:  Really?
AK:  Yeah, we didn’t win but  it does raise awareness and it does make the board more, I think, more conscientious about hearing citizens when they know that can happen.
SM: That’s interesting. Well are there some lawyers involved? I mean, how did you raise the funds to take it to court?
AK: Whew [audible sigh] …Well, see that’s the thing that the costs of going to court are extremely prohibitive. You are looking at paying someone about fifty thousand dollars to go through a court hearing and the county can just have their staff attorneys or a locality and citizens, maintaining their interest over time, I mean we did everything from fund raising events, yard sales, to umm asking for donations. I wrote a grant. You know it’s really hard to raise that much money unless you have some deep pockets who are willing to kick in a fair amount.
SM: That’s what’s happening in Elliston.[Intermodal Rail controversy].
AK: Um hum.
SM: There is a couple who have a lot of money and they are contributing to fight it
AK: Yeah.
SM: We discussed the Rail Solution. Jefferson Center?
AK: The Jefferson Center, downtown Roanoke, used to be a high school. It’s an actual building now and they do two things primarily. They have a Performance Hall that’s wonderful and it has great acoustics. I volunteer there sometimes just… gets me out to the performances. And, I also work for Apple Ridge Farm, one of my clients, and they’re in the Jefferson Center. And that’s the other part of what the Jeff does is  they rent to non-profit organizations at a reduced rate so that there are several offices in the building as well. And there are a couple of auditorium kinds of areas.
SM: And what does Apple Ridge Farm do?
AK: Apple Ridge Farm is a 501-C-3 non-profit and their mission is to work with children from poverty areas, particularly government housing, on academic skills, environmental standards of learning, and character development, outdoor enrichment experiences.
SM: Wow! [I am amazed at the amount of knowledge she has on non-profits in Roanoke Valley].
AK: Yeah. It’s a gorgeous place. It’s up in Floyd County.
SM: I had no idea! Really?
AK: They have a web site too. It’s <www.appleridge.org>.
SM: Oh, that’s great. So many amazing organizations. I had no idea.
AK: Mm hum.
SM: Virginia Forrest Watch?
AK: Yeah, I am on their board. Virginia Forrest Watch is an organization that looks at public and private forestry practices and tries to encourage what are called” best management practices” and also in private lands and also to protect public lands from becoming commercial logging sites. As well as to look at forest plans, which are like community plans for the George Washington and Jefferson Forests that are in Virginia. They ask are here ways to maintain forests do you know how do you deal with fires, how do you deal with worst first? Say taking out the worst logs first as opposed to taking out every old oak tree, and protecting old growth forests.
SM:  And the last one is Blue Ridge Permaculture Association.  I think I went to one of their meetings.
AK: This one that I am on their steering committee is in Charlottesville. It’s based in Charlottesville. There is some Permaculture around here. And Permaculture is a way of looking at your shelter, your gardening, your food, your land use, everything. To say, you know, this is a…an ecosystem, what kind of shape is it in right now, how has it been used, how does it need to be replenished?  I think it is like the concentric circles. Like, I have my number one area which would be my dwelling. If I were building that dwelling or  I’m going to live in it, I look at  how does the wind circulate? Do I have a natural windbreak? Or…I have this privet hedge that does that at my place and what’s right around my house? And what needs to be there? Maybe a kitchen garden, [or a] flower garden. So you’re looking at your land use and your shelter being in harmony with the natural patterns of the earth. What kind of energy does this, or energy source, does this piece of land lend itself to? Whether it be wind or solar as well as coal or electric. And then you might have uses that need to be further away, all the way out, to say, like your outer circle. It might be orchards or pastures or something that you don’t need to get to as often but, and that takes up more space. And as a perimeter with, maybe, adjoining properties. And you may have a vegetable garden somewhere in-between there that, you know, is just for home and you may have a commercial crop further out.
SM: And, and using those circles in a way that does not hurt the environment.
AK: That works with how your land is laid out. Where is it hilly, where is it flat, what has it been used for?  For instance my house sits on a hill. But when they built the house they …. There’s a north wind protection, which is a huge hedge, and on the Eastern side you can see that they took a niche out of a hillside to put the house in and it would be like a… it’s a rolling yard now, probably was more like a berm when they cut it, but the house has been there a hundred years so…  So the house is protected from getting weather that way. And the in the south there’s an orchard that’s now separate property. Then is the east there is access and it kind of rolls down to the road. So, you just look at wind patterns, water patterns, water run-off patterns, land use patterns, where your land might need rehabilitation. We just did things like redirecting run-off water by doing a natural swale. A swale is just a little cut you make in your land and it’s higher on one side so the water seeps into the ground and doesn’t roll down as fast. And you can plant trees or berry bushes and whatever. And it was fascinating. I did a certificate course in that. It was just really interesting because it makes you look at your land entirely differently. And we did beginning exercises like looking with "owl eyes" Owls, you know, have a rotating head and it’s kind of like a survey look. Ok, if you were to just to do a one-eighty or whatever of your land what would you see?  And then how does the land… what’s the slope, what direction is it facing? When I looked at my house I could see that they had put in a windbreak and they had made this protection on the east side and that then there were a kin zone too say. There were a lot of berry bushes and apple and walnut and trees planted.

SM: So they were doing it without really understanding what they were doing but they were smart enough to know  to cut down the heating bill they had to keep down the north wind.
AK: Yes. And the Appalachian people tended to build their structures in cluster form also. Their barns were not that far from the house. And so that you had your center activity and then you had land springing out from it. Like if you went out back of the barn and, you know, there might be plenty of room for pasture. And they talk about adobe building, you know you see straw bales and mud and cob building and they talk about,ways to irrigate naturally. It's just really interesting. It makes you, it made me at least, look at my land and land use differently. It was a great education.
SM: I’ve done a lot of research on that. On this property the water was poorly planned. They paved this road two years before we moved in and it all comes down the asphalt, right to one corner and we were getting in our basement.: If I had the money I would cut a grate in the asphalt that the water would drop and catch it in a rain water collection system.
AK: But you could do it with a swale too. Which is just get your shovel and build a trench say six feet wide and six inches deep. Not that deep and build up the side you want the water to be held against. And that water goes into the ground table.It has more time to be absorbed by the ground table and not come down hill into the basement. . It’s a Permaculture principle that the more you pave the more run-off you create. So there’s less ground to absorb it.
SM: You use the resources the best you can.
AK: Mm hum. And you use what’s there.
SM: Exactly. Well we could do it up at the top of the hill too. All the water off all the asphalt all the way up comes straight down and was coming straight down until. we tried to solve it.

AK: And you can redirect it.
SM: Yeah. I’d love, love to be able to catch it and put it in a big huge plastic thing and pump it for watering all my things.[My dream when I hit the lotto].
AK: Yeah. So that it goes down into the valley or something. But that was another thing we talked about rain water catchments and like using guttering systems for that. If you have a gutter that goes across and…, instead of having it go right down into your rain-barrel, you would have it go across and then you would’ve have a hole here [using hand pictures] so; the garage from your roof goes down the first time and the stuff… once that is filled up the water that is more clean will go into your rain barrel. Just all kinds of systems like that that are using what is right there.
SM: My Aunt, she puts oil barrels, that she got, under every gutter and that’s how she waters her entire garden in the summer ‘cause her well is really shallow. She doesn’t have enough of a well to…
AK: Mm hum. Well you can gravity feed those say from your roof to the little planting area you have from behind… from your deck rather to behind your house.  It’s just really interesting that simplicity is sometimes is the best solution.
SM: Uh huh. People just don’t think about it. We are so spoiled. We just turn on the tap.  (It's so exciting that we think alike!)
 
 
 
 
 
CONCLUDING QUESTIONS:

SM: OK. We have a few concluding questions. The first one is and these are some deep thought ones. I’m gonna throw them at you. What obstacles have you encountered in your life and career?
AK: [She laughs]
SM: We’re like totally changing directions here.
AK: Mm hum.
SM: Sorry about that.
AK:h… I was a scholarship student so there were, you know, [I was] the fourth child, there was a lack of financial resources. So I worked while I was in school. I think as a woman, when I was the first, I was one of the first department managers at that level of management in Roanoke City. Certainly there, I had a predecessor like Corrine Goth who broke a lot of glass ceiling floors. But there were very few women in the job I held and very few young women. I was twenty-six when that happened and so I had a boss that actually said to me: “It would be OK that you are so outspoken if you were a guy”. And he was really saying that in a way to share with me that he was struggling with this. It was still hard to be sympathetic ‘cause it just didn’t make sense to me. But I knew that’s how it felt. And at the time there were not women fire fighters and this was the early seventies and it just blows my mind that ... the whole idea of having a career outside the home because you choose to was a choice that women were pressured not to make. If you needed the money then it was kind of  like you suddenly fell off the middle class platform to working class or something. My mother’s belief was that she never should’ve had to work outside the home. And if she hadn’t had this, you know, more children meaning, particularly me, because my dad was sick when I was in high school, that, you know, that was my fault. And it wasn’t right. Her mother didn’t have to do that. Well, her mother was a teacher, but you know…  So, it was my mother’s … that comparison didn’t hold water for me. But, but it was different for me because I really was career oriented about wanting to do something. And I think that’s a shift in the culture that happened during the time that I was at Hollins and in high school and I would bet Hollins is much more career oriented than it was when I went there.  Much more preparing women for career just because they can make a valuable contribution, because it’s fulfilling and that it’s a woman’s choice to stay home with children or to work and be married and have children or be a single parent or adopt or whatever. I was on the beginning or the early stages of more choices being available to women and a lot of those choices had costs. That they might not have as many costs now in terms of social acceptance and in terms of labeling, stereotyping that kind of thing, backlash, for making some of those career choices. The career women were seen as a kind of a different breed. Pretty ridiculous but…
SM: Didn’t know their place.
AK: Right.
SM: Now did your mom… you mentioned that she got really angry in her later life and resentful. Was because she didn’t have the choice, she was in a position she had to work?
AK: Yeah, for a while she was in that position. And then she really enjoyed teaching but she resented that she had to. But, my mother had a lot of notions, as they say here, and a lot of resentment. And I'm not going to dwell on analyzing her. But  my concept of being a woman and hers are very different. It’s interesting that she valued achievement, educational achievement, publishing, that kind of thing  but I think that was more for status than it was as an employment thing. It was a very post World War Two immigrant thing. Her grandparents were immigrants; my father’s parents were immigrants so there was a lot of influence from the times as well.
SM: Even your activism…I mean, you hit dead center when the country was like, in a political upheaval and...
AK: Yeah. It was a great time to be an adolescent and an activist and an emerging adult. It was a great time. Although my mother was very active in things like women’s club, and the writer’s conference writing and she did community service that way. So it was a family value but umm the political bent that I took was not so much a family value.
SM: You took it a step further.
AK: Yeah, I would say that.
SM: Ok. What do you envision for your future?
AK: [A small chuckle].
SM: Because you are retired now. Wonderful retirement.
AK: Well, you know, I went to grad school at Virginia Tec and they changed their motto to “Reinventing the Future” and every time I hear that I laugh because I am reinventing my future. I didn’t choose to go into a private practice as a therapist and I chose to go back to some of my roots as a community organizer and to pick up on my interest about the environment and also to do a little bit with my land. And  that’s been a challenge because it’s been a real shift where some of my less developed interests have come to the floor and say “I can do this now.”  And, wanting to make a little bit of money and having to set up a whole different umm pattern for that. Not being employed and not having that safety net.  When I ran sanctuary I had a safety net of funding. I was the unnamed government official, you know, a kind of the bureaucrat. It’s my disguise I guess. But you know, I was a bureaucrat. I was good at it. And I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore. [She is laughing]  I feel good about the accomplishment of that center still being here and it being a functioning institution and I keep reminding myself that I am one of the last few folks probably, generation wise, that will be able to retire with benefits.
SM: Yeah, absolutely.
AK:  And that’s really something that people have to do on their own now and  that gives me a base from which to explore these interests and do some other kinds of things and it’s more of a challenge to do that without. And it has emerged over the last few years and I can see it emerging further to more mediation and collaborative process work as well as writing. And in the meantime I have had the chance to really learn some things. I know I talk about my dogs a lot but I never did any kind of training or agility work before so that’s been a real different relationship with animals. [She has been taking classes in animal behavior and training and enjoying it]. And looking around where I live I’ve realized that everybody has different relationships with animals. You know there are a lot of working animals up there. It’s a different way to have your eyes open; [a] different filter to look at where you live and how people interact with each other and the land. I guess I’m just a sociologist at heart too. I still like to look at groups and interactions.
SM: And it’s a whole different type of group that... I know that type very well because it’s where I’m from, you know,  it’s like they have never been out of the county and they go to work and they come home and that’s their life, I mean , you know…
AK: And there are some active family farms around me that are generational… intra-generational. And some old families that are… own a lot of land and live modestly but probably don’t have to. And then there are folks who, you know, like, I worked for the city, work for DEQ, work for state, work for whoever, realtors, whoever. I have a modest cottage but there are people with big houses. That hasn’t taken off as well.  I think we are somewhat protected by geography. Because we have a lot of fog and ice and so on. And that interaction in parts of Roanoke County, Floyd, Franklin, Catawba, some of the old family farms and the folks who have moved out there because they value having land and they are kind of  like gentlemen farmers or whatever or they just live there. Then there are folks like us that are somewhere in between and there is some passing of knowledge back and forth and it’s nice to have the opportunity to live in that kind of phenomenon where people are having dialogue like that. 
SM: To be in a position to go from one group to the other and be able to go back and forth too and fit in.
AK:. It’s the participant observer role.
SM:  It’s great. I told you when we were not taping that nine months after I retired I hit a brick wall. And  it’s hard!  I think it’s an American myth retirement.  My husband says that I am busier now than I ever was when I was working. He’s absolutely right!
AK: Mm hum.
SM: And it was also the way I defined myself!
AK: Right. Yeah, that was a big change for me.
SM: And I’m still doing it. I’m still struggling with it you know.  [I’m laughing that I’m struggling but I’m serious abut this].
AK: I think one of the things that we need to prepare for in retirement is there should be a grieving period. There is a loss of identity. And that made it really… that was a really hard struggle for me and it was kind of a family thing too in terms of worth by achievement and so on. And now it’s like, shifting my thinking my thinking to say this is… exploration and contribution and just participation and  …  its fun.
SM: And all the other things that you were interested in and never had to time do. You know for me I’m viewing it as a time to give back.
AK: Yeah, that too.
SM: I  worked two and three jobs for most of my career because I could never make enough money just doing hair. This four years is a me time. A selfish me time, but I deserve it. And then after that I view it as a time to give back.

AK: Absolutely. See, I think that’s something that Hollins does stand for that I respect, that women should take the time to develop themselves and their own  interests and their skills and decide how their going... it’s a choice as to how you want to lay out your role in community, family, work, whatever. But that you are worth investing in, I am worth investing in and I think that is one benefit of a liberal arts education that I have that I value. And that I have an absolute obligation and right to do that.
SM: Right.
AK: And you do too!
SM: And they often pick me for the panel [For Open House Days for prospective new Horizon students] and I think my perspective is a lot different than everybody else’s because the first thing I say is that “this four years is a gift to myself and I deserve it”. And I should have been able to do it at eighteen but I wasn’t but it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
AK: Right! Exactly! Mm hum.
SM: And I’m giving it to myself and you know I tell the people in the audience that you deserve to gift yourself an education.
AK:  Yes! I would agree with you.
SM: I think that every person on the planet that desires it should have it. I really feel strongly about that.  
AK: And it would be just as valuable for people who want to be electricians and plumbers as well as teachers or lawyers or corporate types.
SM: It doesn’t matter what you want to do but if you want that education you should be able to attain it.
AK: I think so too.
SM: She [ A foreign exchange student staying with us over the Thanksgiving holidays from Argentina] gets on a bus and goes two hours to school every day and two hours back at night.
AK: Whew!
SM: She wants it that bad; the young lady that’s spending Thanksgiving with me and you don’t see very many Americans willing to do something like that. But, that’s how bad she wants it.
.
SM: Is there anything you would have done differently looking back on your life? That’s an awful question isn’t it?
AK: Yeah! What would Bob Dylan say to that? She’s an artist, she don’t look back.
SM: Yeah. [I chuckle].
AK:  Sure! But I’ll go with Bob Dylan’s answer for the record. Sure there are things I would have done differently and let’s move on.
SM: Yeah. Oprah said she wouldn’t change a thing. It took everything that happened to her, good and bad, to get her to where she is. And she loves it. She’s accepted it. It’s made her who she is. And I sorta take the same stance about my childhood. It’s like, if I could have changed it would I? I don’t think. I wouldn’t be who I am if I changed it. I wish my mother had a little bit better life than she did.

AK: Mm hum.
SM: But, for myself I don’t think I would have changed it. We all learn from our mistakes and whatever. Ok. I had to get a little philosophical towards the end, you know. If you had any advice for young girls at Hollins about community service or work in social services what would that be?
AK: I am a supporter of requiring folks to do that. I grew up with the draft and I don’t support the draft or I’m not a supporter of military although I recognize that  people have to defend themselves. But I would like to see more community service like this thing AmeriCorp and that kind of thing. For people to have experiences that take them outside their comfort zone, outside their point of reference. And also, that helping to develop skills that are practical, saleable skills in the work force. So I would encourage it.
SM:. I think everybody should participate. If you were in a position of power in the world what changes would you make?
AK: [She laughs a lot]. Ah… umm…big pause...

SM: And while you’re thinking I’ll give you one of mine. I am in Spanish this semester. And I think that one of the travesties of our educational system in America is that we don’t require grade school and up to have a foreign language. If I could change that in the world I would change it. Because it gives a very lopsided view of everything for Americans. We expect everyone to speak our language instead of us trying to speak theirs.
AK: Yes. I think that’s part of why immigration is such an issue. That, you know, it’s only an issue with folks coming from Mexico not from Canada, because Canadians speak English and look like us so we don’t care if they come. And then there is that racist ethnocentric kind of problem based in reaction to immigration. I also think one thing I would do is tax the churches. And having been raised in the Catholic church I know they are the third largest landowner in the world. And they’re a corporate structure. They’re a business. They should be giving back. Umm I would also make them, you know, it has begun to happen that they are being [held] accountable for the ways they have treated children and women. I would certainly push for diplomacy not war. I would look at our medical and health care structure. I would undo a lot of the damage that [president] Bush has done to the administrative reach of the EPA and other organizations. I would look at government and say, you know, there are certain things that government should do that we’ve agreed they should do. But not that they should be a business front. And Bush tends to run the country like a corporate front and then all his cronies are doing the private enterprise behind. I think there should be a division between church and state. I also think there should be good public education. Good public health care. Good public transportation.
SM: That would be nice!
AK: Yeah. I mean when you pay taxes, to me, I pay for schools. I’m very willing to do that even if I don’t have a child. I’m very willing to do that. It’s for the common good. I think I would stress the “commons” like Bobby Kennedy used to say. You know the “commons” being what we all hold in common whether its land or education or protecting the environment.
SM: Have government to do all the things that one little person can’t do. That’s what I expect my government to do. What made you decide to take part in the Life History Project and how do you feel about participating in this project?
AK: Well I’m glad I’ve participated. It’s been really interesting. I’ve enjoyed my time with you. And I’ve enjoyed having to think through some of these answers and think about them later.I was corralled by [Professor] Costa while bagging vegetables at the CSA farm. She was talking about the project and I thought  about my  graduating  from Hollins in ’72. I hardly ever do go out there. This would be something to do as an alum and would be more interesting than selling Virginia homegrown peanuts or something and would be just an interesting project. And I was excited that Hollins now had a Women’s Studies Program and wanted to support that so… it just interested me. It’s kind of a full circle thing.
AK: Yes and you just attended your first event at Hollins recently right?  Did you go to Hollins for an alum event?  [I am remembering she told me from the first interview].
AK: Oh, I went to a reunion a few years ago.Yes.
SM: And that was your first time [back]?
AK: That’s true. Yes. I don’t remember which one it was, Twenty-five maybe or something but... It wasinteresting to go. I still felt…I kind of thought it was silly but…. I saw folks I hadn’t seen in a long time and I enjoyed that part of it. Umm..
SM: I think were gonna have to drag you there a little more often.
AK: Hum. [We both laugh]
 
 
 
 
Personal Questions

SM:I had a couple of personal questions. How did you learn about writing grants and was learning how to do this part of your formal education or something you learned outside of that?

AK: No. I learned it on the job. You know it’s the old “necessity is the mother of invention". I learned because we needed the money for the Sanctuary programs. And there was some mentoring involved with people, other people, who had written successful grants. And they would review what I wrote and coach and that kind of thing and say: “here is how I found this lead”. and then I had taken some courses that give you a little certificate in grant writing. And they’re helpful because you do learn your way around a typical proposal, like the sections of a proposal, in RFP [Request For Proposal], that kind of thing. And working for the city I picked up a lot because things are done by request for proposal.
SM: I’m gonna have to learn about if I’m gonna try to do “Angels with Scissors” national.
AK: Yeah.
SM: Did you read books on the subject??
AK: Yeah. And a lot of them are helpful and if you go to the Foundation Center at the Roanoke City main library. It is  is a  national grant writer’s resource. They give courses, they have libraries of books that you can look at on line. Some public libraries are little centers for them where you can get more resources through them and so on. Also about  foundations that give or what the trends are in foundation giving and philanthropy or grant writing It’s a helpful resource. Ok. I’ve come across some of that when I was doing research for this class at Hollins. Anything that you could  enlighten me on about the possibility of taking “Angels with Scissors” national?
AK: Well you don’t need my… you’re enlightened about it. Because you are the light behind it. I think the one thing I would share would be when you have your  vision for what it is you want to do that always has to stay, I think, in the fore of my  mind. For me it worked best that way. So I remembered why I was doing it and what my standards were and so on. And then to flexible beyond that. Start small, locally, and regionally, state, that kind of thing. Or affiliate it with a professional organization perhaps. There are probably lots of ways you could do it.
SM: I thought about that because we have a National Cosmetologist’s Association. They put out a monthly magazine.
AK: You could also do it as a service function of that national group perhaps. Because you could incorporate a 501-C3. Like Virginia Organizing Project holds the 501-3C  accounting, bookkeeping, tax status for small non-profits. And I’m sure that professional organizations would do that. It could become the service arm of National Cosmetologists.
SM: I think that is a very good possibility! The other thing is I know that if I do it it’s not mine. I am not doing it for it to be mine, you know.
AK: That is a very good perspective. You know as hard as it was to walk away from Sanctuary it, it was also easy. You know that contrast is there because part of  my success was...when… it’s like the thing Saul Alinsky used to say in “Revelry for Radicals” …
SM: This is a book?
AK: Yes. He was a famous organizer.  That “a good community organizer works herself out of a job” [quoting the book].  So, you know, you want to create a structure for energy or tasks to flow through and then you walk away.
SM: One of the things in our leadership class [Batten Leadership Program at Hollins] is that there are different kinds of leaders and I know that I want to be the person that can inspire people to do things. There is no way one person could run a national thing all by themselves like that. If I can just say here, this is what I did and it was really successful and it’s given my retirement some meaning. I envision that most of the people that would want to get involved are near retirement, not working maybe five crazy days a week. But that doesn’t mean other people that are working wouldn’t want to volunteer there but the actual organizing it in their area takes an immense amount of time.

AK: And see that’s a whole other topic that we don’t value the role of  our elders in America as I would hope we would.
SM: Yeah. Because, you know, I missed it. That’s why I started doing it to begin with it’s like this is something I am very good at and I’m missing that interaction with people, so, ok I don’t have to do it to make money. I am blessed I have a husband that can provide for me so let me see if I can use my energy to help people that actually need it. It’s actually even more rewarding. So if I can actually be the kind of leader that can bring the idea to the table, something they might not have thought about…
AK: Well you have a working model you know, and a lot of federal grants they’re looking for working models that can be replicated in other places and you have that. If you were to sit down and write out the business plan you know you probably have it.
SM: That is good to know! Ok. And other than that I‘ve just thought about going to hair shows, setting up a booth, and just talking to hairdressers that come in these … they’re like advanced educational shows in big cities. I would need money to travel to do that. I don’t want to be paid but I…
AK: You’re underwriting your costs.
SM:  I’m not in a financial position to pay for airfare and whatever to get there to do it either.
AK: You are underwriting your costs and when you get paid... there’s nothing wrong with that. Your time is valuable and you… any other kind of barter system might evoke a different response. Work is a barter system. I barter my time and skills for money or I barter it for vegetables or whatever…
AK: You’re the second person that’s told me that but initially I think I probably wouldn’t but it depends on how involved it gets.
AK: You know there is the trend that, or the group of believers who say, “ if people pay for it they value it more”. I don’t know if I always agree with that but…when people pay you they do value your time. So they keep appointments and stuff.
SM:  Right.
AK: If they have to pay you for each trip you make over there and they don’t show up and… I mean I bill people for that so… Because I want to make the point that, hay, if I drive an hour in and an hour out and I have to wait for you to meet with me, you are paying me to sit there and wait.
SM: And that’s basically what you do … you pay a hairdresser for her time.
AK: Right and you should. I also think, we could go on and on, but I think people that ride on garbage trucks should get paid a lot. I don’t want to do that.
SM: Yeah the jobs that we wouldn’t want should be the ones that get paid the most.
AK: Where there is danger, where there is unpleasantness.

SM: You’re teachers that are teaching your children and going to run the world when you’re old and need help, yes I agree!

AK: Are we done? [ What a trooper!].

SM: Yes. 

This was the last question I had for Andrea and we spent a total of four and a half hours on the two interviews. I want to THANK YOU ANDREA for you time and generosity in sharing so much valuable information with us and opening up you life for the purpose of helping those that will access this web site. THANK YOU!

 

...