An Army of Normal Folks - Erin Steele: When Seniors and Children Help Each Other (Pt 1)

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

When Erin Steele saw seniors light up around children, she had an idea for combining a senior living facility and a childcare center into one place! And there's all kinds of benefits for both generations by being with one another everyday. Meet The Heritage Home in Alma, Kansas.       Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And some of our seniors have cognitive deficits and so the kids are actually mentors to them. Are you kidding? So like our preschool class just a few weeks ago did an Easter egg where they had to match the colors and we have a lady that isn't able to do that anymore. And these preschoolers go and they're helping her. I mean it's like completely flipped but like that empathy and compassion and that's they don't question that because they know her and they know that she can no longer do that. They also know that she has a story where she used to be able to do that. Do you know what I mean? She used to be a teacher and-

Do you choke up when you watch that? Oh I do. I do a lot actually. How could you watch? Oh, I do. I do a lot. Yeah, actually. How could you not? To watch it come to it. It is. It is. And it's natural. It's very natural. Like a lot of those things I don't plan, they just happen.

And even in my sketchbooks, I didn't sketch those things. They just are when you put people together and they're actually building relationships, beautiful things happen. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband.

I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big

words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Pogs, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what Aaron Steele, the voice you just heard, has done. Erin is the founder of The Heritage Home, an intergenerational senior living facility and childcare center in Alma, Kansas, which basically means she's combined a nursing home and a childcare center into one place.

And there's all kinds of benefits for the seniors and for the kids being with one another every day. Which I cannot wait you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot-Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day she took a daily walk along the towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart. The police arrived in a heartbeat.

Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist, because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy.

Listen to Murder on the Towpat with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Bob Pippman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. On this week's episode of Math and Magic, I'm sitting down with the one and only Bobby Bones. We're exploring the power of audio. The word on the street then was, he's too country for pop. But then once I got to country, it was,

he's too pop for country. So I kind of never really had a place to fit in, he's too country for pop. But then once I got to country, it was he's too pop for country. So I kind of never really had a place to fit in, but that's exactly how and why I fit. I just embraced that. Like, yeah, I don't fit into one specific hole. I think that is what endeared me to listeners. That's why I'm here now,

because I talk to people that grew up like me, have sensibilities like me, and have loyalties like me. Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network,

hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eatereater founder Stephen Ronella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it

seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts

on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deep fake pornography This should be illegal, but what is this?

This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide I'm Margie Murphy and I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel.

I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes.

My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off.

Alive Again. A podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Aaron, still welcome to Memphis. Thank you. From where do you hail? I'm from Wamego, Kansas, which is kind of in between Topeka and Manhattan. I feel like we should do a hee-haw salute when we say Wamego, Kansas. Wamego, that's right.

How many folks live in Wamego, Kansas? I don't even know, maybe 5,000, somewhere around there. So how about smaller? How's flight in? Just flew in, right? Yep, just flew in. Just landed in a smaller house flight in just flew in right? Yep Just just landed in our fair. Yeah, that's right. So I've seen it all but yeah, yeah I'm glad I'll expect you up. Sometimes he makes guests take ubers or he is late He made it very easy on me. Did he yes. Yeah, he did. Maybe he's improving at his job. What do you think?

I was only the one time I heard I bought that car. Yeah, I'm working one month Yeah, that's what the guests and I, uh, remember I bought that car, stopped working one month in. That's when the guests and I had to Uber from the airport. Oh no. Yeah, it's because he bought a Hooptie that didn't work well. Car Max would never be as good. Quite embarrassing, really. Oh, I love it.

So Erin, who is Anita Morin? So I was actually telling him, I don't actually know her. I think she knows my brother that lives in Western Kansas. So here's what we got on April 17th of 2024, which means it took Alex a whole year to get you here. So nice job. Way to work on it quickly. Good job, Alex. The first note was just singing our praises, you goofball.

Read that first though, because it's good. Okay. March 27th, 2025. So, because it's good. Oh, okay. March 27th, 2025. So you jumped on it. Nice job, Alex. Yeah. Anita Maran is a listener, and she just said, thanks to the Micro Podcast for introducing us.

I was on Mike's podcast, or Mike was on mine. We were on both, but I don't know what she listed. And she said, I've become addicted to your podcast. So Anita, thank you for your addiction. I hope it's healthy. Then on March 27th, Anita said, I've become addicted to your podcast. So Anita, thank you for your addiction. I hope it's healthy. Then on March 27th, Anita said, I am attaching a video to this message about a woman who has started the heritage home

in a small town here in Kansas. I really don't know her, but her brother works for us. And we all know about the family and the heritage home. Her family is big. Boy, that's an understatement, we'll get to that in a minute, and they have a beautiful life story, one worth listening to, please enjoy.

And we watched that video and we said, yep, we gotta get air into Memphis. So that's for our listeners to kind of introduce how we know you. I think Jermaine to the story is certainly how you grew up. Why don't you take us to that chaos? It may not have been chaos, but when I read about it, I think it's chaos because that many people

in one household is insanity to me. For me, it was just normal. I grew up in a family, I was number 12 of 18. Yeah, okay. So, I mean, that's just, that was life for me. I didn't know any different, no twins. Same two parents. Same two parents, that's just that was life for me. I didn't know any different. No twins. Same two parents.

Same two parents. That's right. My mom wanted a dozen babies and my dad just really liked my mom and said, okay, whatever you want, honey. Eighteen. There's 18 kids. All right. When I read that and then watched the video of you and thought of it, how many bedrooms

were in your home? So, we had, well, the boys had like what we called a dormitory in the basement. So I mean, literally, it was a big, huge, open room that they just had beds and that was pretty much. If you were a senior in high school, you got your own room in the basement. So there was a, when you were a senior, you got your own room. And then the girls, we had three rooms upstairs that we shared. and then we had a study that we turned into a room. There was a bed and a living room. What did your father or mother do for, well, your mother had to have just raised children.

There's no way you work outside the home with 18 kids, is there? She pretty much did until she did start working when my youngest brother, well, actually my second to youngest brother was born. She started working, but my dad was a postmaster. And then my mom- I mean a good living. Sure. But how do you feed that many people?

Well, I don't know. My dad went to the store every single day for bread and milk. He would stop at the store after work. That is true. Yeah. And there were times you knew that we were waiting for a paycheck because we might have ham and beans for four days. But I mean, for the most part, they just did whatever they had to do.

My mom also did work. She would do like evenings and nights, you know what I mean, to kind of supplement or she that's how she paid for Christmas. I think on that web, I think on that video, there were pictures of you as a kid with some of your siblings. That had to have been, I mean you say for you it was what you knew so it was normal, but you had to have known, nobody else is one of 18,

but it looked like you guys were thick as thieves and just had a cool life together. We absolutely, I mean we were very close. We fought like normal siblings. I mean I had my moments that, like my sister that was four years younger than me, I hated her. You know, even when I was in high school and she was middle school. I mean, we had all those, but for the most part, we were very close and your best friends were your siblings. And it's still kind of that way. There was always someone to play with, always someone to do

something with, you know. What was the spread? What's the youngest of the oldest? Like when the youngest was one, how old was the oldest? Let's see, I think Jimmy's the oldest and he would have been, well he's 50, 56, 57, don't quote me on that, and Teagan's 30. 20, 26 years. She had one every year until me and then she started breastfeeding

and then it's every other year that until the last two are a little spread apart, but that is Unbelievable didn't anybody ever suggest your mom and dad to get a hobby Well, that was usually the joke growing up. That was usually what everybody said to me, you know But you know, I my was Catholic, my dad converted. So, you know, they had their beliefs that way, but my mom always wanted a dozen kids. And like I said, my mom pretty much got what she wanted

and my dad just said, okay. Did she drive a school bus? I mean, how in the world did she get around? We had a big stretch blue van and literally, I mean, it was, it was a stretch van and we'd just pile out, the high schooler would drop, you know, make all the stops at the schools and...

I bet, I bet people just died when they saw y'all coming. Yep, when we traveled we would sleep on the floorboards. That's old school. Yeah, I mean we didn't have, like, I was fine, my mom would hold one up front and there'd be several of us laying on the floorboards and like, yeah, it's just what we did. It seems to me growing up like that though, as Titan piled down on top of each other, you have to be with all the love and everything else that has to be inherent in a home like

that. You do have to develop a sense of understanding of the people next to you, some empathy and that kind of thing. I mean, am I grasping there or do you think that's right? Yeah, I absolutely think that's right. I think the biggest thing you learn is you can't be selfish. Nothing is really ever just about you. So you kind of learn at a very young age to give to others.

You know what I mean? You share everything. And if you don't, then there are 17 others that don't like you. I mean, you know, there was a time where you tried to hoard like cookies or things like that. But I mean, we, from a very young age, you shared everything you had. You didn't get everything you wanted. We passed on things.

That's just what we learned. And I think we all have those qualities as adults because of that. I think that's so healthy. It absolutely is. Like as a mom, I only have three children. So trying to teach those lessons to your kids when maybe they could have what they want. But we just learned it naturally. We didn't we didn't get everything we wanted. You know, there was a time I felt very jaded because of that, you

know, like during your selfish years, probably middle school, high school. But then now I'm like, oh my gosh, like I see how, how much that made me into the person I am now. I love that. Yeah, so we have four in four years. And I've always thought that was chaos until I heard your story. And now I know we're just pikers. But one of my things was even when my business started doing well, and certainly I wouldn't describe what we became as rich, but we started making a nice living and we bought a bigger

house with a couple of acres. That's a lot of grass and it was all landscaped. So it's a lot of grass, it's a lot of mulch, it's a lot of trimming. It's you know, Lisa loves ivy. So we had ivy all over the place, which is the biggest nightmare in the world because you have to cut it every week. A lot of edging.

I had four able-bodied human beings that can run a lawnmower and a weed eater and clipper and bend over and put crap in bags. And Sunday after church was yard day, period. That was it because Saturday kids were playing sports and all that and listen, after running a business coaching a football team, I assure you there were some Sundays after church,

I would have loved to have just sat down and had a beer and watched football or something, but that wasn't the deal. And I remember when Molly, who was my second child, was 11 or 12, that age, she comes around a corner dragging a hefty bag full of grass clippings and she is sweating and her face is red and her lips are pierced and she is angry as hell. And she looks at me in this nice neighborhood that I've moved my family and it says, why can't we just have a yard man

like normal people? And I said, honey, the very question is why we don't have a yard man. Now today, my grown children who are 30, 29, 28, 27, all tell me they will never have a yard man. The children will not have phones until they're 16. They will not have video games and they will go outside and skin their knees

and bust their lip and sweat and have those problems. Because as bad as they hated Lisa and me at that age, they now know that that was the very best way for them to grow up. They all plan on raising their children the same way. How do you raise yours? You know, I just put family first. I mean, that's kind of how I grew up.

And I think it was kind of natural. Like, we always did things together as a family, and my kids kind of have grown up that way, whether it's their cousins or their... And I think, yeah, work ethic is a huge, huge thing. Like, you know, we'll get into the business, but my kids literally helped us do everything in that to get it going.

They will kind of tease the first year we bought it, their phrase was, I can't, my mom bought a nursing home. We can't, we can't go on vacation, we can't this, we can't that, you know, but what they're learning from that experience is far greater than. One of the do's and don'ts of an interview is never ask a question you don't know the answer to because you might get thrown off guard. I did not know the answer to the question that I asked you just now,

but I absolutely suspected it given the way you grew up, what you're doing now, so it's not surprising, but I think it's beautiful. And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors, but first our next live interview in Memphis will be on June 12th with Father Mark Hanna. Father Mark and a team of four other civilians saved over 50 lives on 9-11, and the rest of his team died while trying to save more people. After 9-11, Mark became a Coptic priest and hence the Father title. It's part of our Lunch and Listen series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourse's Memphis Listing Lab.

And you can learn more and RSVP at fathermark.eventbrite.com. We hope to see you there. We'll be right back. I'm Soledad O'Brien and on my podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot MeyerMeyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day she took a daily walk along the towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart. The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black.

Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer, Dubby Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist, because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pippman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. On this week's episode of Math and Magic, I'm sitting down with the one and only Bobby Bones. We're exploring the power of audio. The word on the street then was, he's too country for pop. But then once I got to country, it was, he's too country for pop. But then once I got to country, it was he's too pop for country.

So I kind of never really had a place to fit in, but that's exactly how and why I fit. I just embraced that. Like yeah, I don't fit into one specific hole. I think that is what endeared me to listeners. That's why I'm here now because I talk to people that grew up like me, have sensibilities like me, and have loyalties like me. Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall

Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know.

To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple.

To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit,

and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos.

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle

against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levitown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levitown on Bloomberg's

Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So congratulations on your family. So what did you do? You left the family of 18 and you wanted to be in something and you did something else. Take me through that stage of life and all that. My youngest brother has Down syndrome, so I was very intrigued in special education. The last one? The last one. The very last one.

Which was he had some health conditions also and so the doctor said, no more, Shirley, no more cats than you can't, which is why she probably stopped, but otherwise. So he, I always kind of had a passion for that and so in high school, I kind of shadowed in a special ed classroom and did that and loved it and that's kind of what I thought I wanted to do. Special education. Uh-huh. Kind of go be a teacher. I was supposed to start case date and live with my sister, which maybe would have not been a great thing because we got into some trouble together. But nonetheless, I found out I was pregnant a couple weeks before I was supposed to start

case date. So I kind of changed trajectories. And then when I had my daughter, I remember kind of being like, well, I have my daughter and I watched my sister have a kid and I was like, I want to be, that's what I want to do. I want to be a nurse. And so I kind of changed what I, what my plan was and decided I want to be a nurse. And I wanted to be an OB nurse and I've never been an OB nurse, but that's, you know. And you married your sweetheart, yeah? Yes, yes, so my husband and I started dating

when we were junior and senior, who he happened to be my brother's best friend. Whoops. And not go over to his. How'd your brother take that? He went running. Yeah. And he didn't speak to us for about a month.

Really, is that right? But then he's our, you know, my daughter's godfather and he was my husband's best man, but he didn't take it very well at all. Yeah. So even in a family of 18, big brothers are still being big brothers. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And he was pretty protective anyway.

So, but yeah, so then... Where did your husband live, by the way? It was pretty close, right? He lived across the street from us. Well, that made it too convenient. It was a little too convenient, yeah. I mean. I mean when there's 18 people in this house

and only a couple over here, there's a pretty good place to go hang out. Absolutely, actually our first kiss, all of my siblings were hiding, I shouldn't say all of them, not all of them. There was a handful of my little sisters, they'll tell the story, they were sitting kind of behind the bushes like. There's no way all of your, not all of them. There was a handful of my little sisters, they'll tell the story, they were sitting kind of behind the bushes like.

There's no way all of your siblings hid behind a bush. There's not a bush big enough. There's no big enough bush to hide 17 siblings. True, true. So this is high school neighborhood sweetheart. Yep, so we got married then a year. Our daughter was 13 months old when we got married. Got it. He

got a job for Weststar. It's kind of an energy, he worked at a power plant and that kind of allowed me to go to school. And you became a nurse. I became a nurse, yeah. And I've, I kind of started, you know, along the track of MedSurg, which they kind of recommend, you know, get your experience. I've done a lot of different things, probably the most paralleled to what drew me to OB was like I was a hospice nurse for four years.

And I loved that, I was very passionate about it, which I kind of bring into what I do now. You know, hospice is, the idea is six months or less to live, but you know, for me, working with elderly, you know, you might get a year or two, you know, you you get to Yes, you get to spend their final days typically with them and hopefully make them meaningful not just six months So alright, so now let's let the listeners in on this you are the founder of heritage home

which is Something I've never read before and in all this slow down I'm gonna get there. Just you you sit over and hush Gosh just sit there and push buttons and make the sound right just alright you're the founder of heritage home an intergenerational senior living facility and Childcare Center and Alma, Kansas. So we're going to say that, okay, and just let that marinate. I'm going to say it again.

Intergenerational senior living facility and child care center in Alma, Kansas. Now, we'll just let that marinate. What? Who? Take us. So I, after hospice, I started kind of working in senior care, you know, so nursing, your traditional nursing homes, I worked in several of those. So you were the nurse in the nursing home. So I kind of started long term care, working in that field and really fell in love with that. Is that like assisted living or, take me,

help me because I don't know. There's like assisted living, then there's full health, there's like levels of senior living, right? Sure, yeah, absolutely. So explain those. So I worked in skilled nursing facility, which is, I mean, the highest level of a nursing home, your traditional nursing home,

what we probably all picture when you talk about a nursing home. I also worked in one that was very similar to assisted living. So I was the nursing supervisor at that one. And I did that during COVID. And of course, nursing homes kind of traditionally have a depressing feel. I grew up being scared of nursing homes. My grandma was my, well, my great grandma was in one and it was like smelly and scary

and everybody. I just, I just had like this stigma about it. I don't think anybody really likes walking in a nursing home. No, no, it's the smell, it's all the things. And so I kind of, which is interesting because then I ended up working in one, but during COVID, it was just so depressing. And you know, as a team, you're doing everything you can to kind of boost the morale in the facility. They're lonely, they're isolated, they're not seeing their family. And so, you know, we're spending all this money, all this resources trying to rack our brains to find things to make them happy. And we had a preschool come do an Easter egg hunt, which there's no contact.

I mean, that was when, you know, they could watch from the window, you know, we can't touch. Literally, they couldn't even get on the porch. No, it was literally we were inside watching out the window and these kids were just doing an Easter egg hunt. And the joy like that brought to them, I thought that's kind of the ticket. Like that's what we need to do. It's kids like you know that bring them joy. And so then I kind of, the idea kind of started to

evolve. And originally it was going to be, I was going to do a playground at my nursing home. I was like, I'm going to do my own and I'm going to do this. And then it kind of evolved into a childcare there where you can actually build relationships, not just watch kids play or actually interacting. Okay. Let's take a quick diversion because I think it's worth talking about. One, I talked to a guy today, three hours before meeting you, who said he was concerned about his grandmother dying of loneliness far before she died of anything that was a physical ailment that would actually take her life. He said, she is just sad.

How real is that in the nursing home world? Is that a one off or is that more times than not? Talk about that. I mean, I would say that's definitely, I mean, depression is like nursing homes. I mean, that is probably the number. Depression? Clinical depression? Yeah, absolutely. I think some of it is just for them, maybe this is the last, like this is all, you know, I move here and this is it. A lot of it is, you know, you're taking away everything they love and knew, their home, their, you

know, a lot of times you're selling their home. There's a lot of factors that play into that. But in general, it is very depressing for them to be in a nursing home and people are very lonely. Not everybody has people that visit them, unfortunately. And so, I have the intergenerational aspect, but also the care side of things, like really making it a family. So the idea is also my staff are very close to these elderly, like their family, like their grandkids. It's like a close small-knit community to where they love them and it's like a mutually, it's not just their caregiver, I guess. I've heard horror stories, often about kind of state-run type institutions, that the level

of care is substandard, but even worse than that that that there is often abuse in elderly care facilities and certainly talking about your facility and abuse oftentimes looks like just leaving someone to kind of rot for an extended period of time all the way up to not wanting to hear anybody gripe or want something. How real is that in elderly care around the country? I would say it's very real. I've never been a part of that or worked at a facility that that's happened or as far as I know, but I do think that is definitely... I mean, you're talking about people that

you're hiring an entry level position and paying them not very good money to do a very, very hard job. So to find good people to do that trustworthy, all of those things, it's hard. My brother-in-law Ben is a person with special needs. He has been in a number of different facilities and it dawned on me some years ago when you're paying a 21 year old not very well trained that they title nurses tech or whatever which actually requires almost no education and you're paying them 13 bucks an hour to deal with a very very challenging human being in a very very challenging environment. It's fraught with opportunity Absolutely. I mean it takes a very very special person to do that and do it well

Especially for that money like my biggest thing I say in every interview is you can't be doing this for the money You know, you have to have a greater purpose to do this work or a sign of work, you know We'll be right back. I'm Soledad O'Brien and on my podcast, Murder on the Toe Path, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot-Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day she took a daily walk along a towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart.

The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist, because what most people didn't know

is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, I'm Bob Pippman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. On this week's episode of Math and Magic, I'm sitting down with the one and only Bobby Bones. We're exploring the power of audio. The word on the street then was, he's too country for pop. But then once I got to country, it was he's too pop for country. So I kind of never really had a place to fit in, but that's exactly how and why I fit.

I just embraced that. Like, yeah, I don't fit into one specific hole. I think that is what endeared me to listeners. That's why I'm here now, because I talk to people that grew up like me, have sensibilities like me, and have loyalties like me. Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.

I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and MeatE meat eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know.

To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. And return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple, to find, explore,

and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeart Radio app, Apple

podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York.

But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope.

Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So the whole point I'm asking these questions is this. I'm 56. You know, a lot of people have heard my story, but my dad left home when I was young and I didn't grow up with a whole lot and had a fair amount of dysfunction in my house. I worked hard. I threw a paper route, I washed cars, man, I hustled up money anywhere I could

to have what some other kids just walked in the house that their parents gave. But that's cool too, because that defines who I am. I got married to a beautiful woman. I've had three gorgeous children. I have taught school and coach football for 11, graduated from that because these four kids were too expensive on that gum and then started a business and now employ 130 people and then this podcast and TV shows and movies.

I mean, I'm a failed human being like all of us are, but I have worked hard to live a decent life, just like you have, just like Alex has, just like Cassius. Alex is raising four kids. Cassius has this beautiful daughter. Everybody listening to us is doing the best they can. And you put in that time and you put in that effort. And despite your failings every day, you do really do try to be a decent human being and exact some measure of good change in your community. And then maybe you lose your spouse and you're in your 70s, early

80s and you've lost your life partner and you've paid your taxes. You've been a good community citizen. You've done all of the things you're supposed to do. And you find yourself in basically a dorm room. You also don't like the smell. Surrounded by people that you don't know that aren't your family. Hoping for maybe an hour a week of interaction with somebody who has your DNA and your highlight of your day

is probably some really average banana pudding at 530. I mean, to me, that's the reality of a lot of people in our country right now, the very people you've worked for and served. Is that a fair assessment? I think that's a fair assessment. That's also kind of what I feel compelled to do is to make that better for them. You can still have some enjoyment. You can still do some things. You can still, it doesn't have to be a sad thing. It can be life-giving and you know, all of those things. Which is why you're here, because what you're doing is incredibly special.

But absent you, I think, unfortunately, that's a reality for a lot of people who have given a ton to our society during their lives. And to me, that is just so desperately wrong. So when you hear the depression, that clinical depression is a big deal in nursing care facilities, well if you actually really take stock of it and put yourself in that position, I'm

56, I don't want to be there in 20 years at 76, but the truth is there are thousands of people in our country that at that very age, 20 years from where I'm sitting right now are in that very situation and they're depressed because they've led their lives properly. And the golden years are not supposed to be that, but for some they are. We do a shop talk on Fridays and I remember it wasn't long ago, I don't know which remember it was, I'm just popped in my head. But one of our listeners called in and challenged us to think about Just going to a nursing home once or twice a week and eating

Or hanging out just keeping somebody company and how fulfilling it is But more importantly if you'll shut up and listen What you might learn from those many many many years of experience and knowledge and wisdom that these people carry from having lived all their life, just because they're old doesn't mean they were any less effective at life than any of us listening right now. And they have still a lot to offer. And I think all of those things you were saying, you know, that you're – then you throw in that you're very vulnerable because you have to rely on someone else to take care of you. You can't do things for yourself and your health may be failing. You know, all of those things, so frustrating. So you're not only

in this facility, in this small room and all the things you kind of mentioned, but then your health is failing or you can no longer do things for yourself or maybe nobody can understand you because you have Parkinson's and you slur your words, you know what I mean? But you're exactly right. Parkinson's is not the person. And so kind of taking the disease out, yes, this person has way more to offer than just that to teach you if you sit and listen, just kind of what we do with the kids, their weight.

They had a full life, you know, and oftentimes the kids are very surprised. They were a basketball player, they were a football coach because they're in a wheelchair and maybe they can't do anything right now. And maybe they're even slumped over and you can't barely understand them, but they have a life story, you know, and it's not over and they can still share it. They also have a soul and a mind and so Yeah, and to be able to share that and relive that that's kind of part of the idea too because that brings them joy you know, that's that's who they want people to remember them as and so I Don't know you're driving around and an old folks home shuts down

you think I want that? What happened? No that is not. So I kind of I would kind of go home I worked you know in a few different places and they all had wonderful qualities but it just wasn't the essence of exactly the care I wanted to give and a lot of times in the corporate world, you can't make changes because, you know, they gotta go through this and this and this and this. And so I got very frustrated by that process. Even as a supervisor, you couldn't make those changes that I felt like needed to happen.

So I'd go home and my husband kept saying, you're just gonna do it yourself. Your husband is? Joe. Joe. So you go home and say, yo Joe, I ain't down with this. I got a better idea.

Well, probably about 5,000 times. And then maybe I whittled him down. It took a minute to say that. First he'd say you gotta do it yourself, you gotta do it yourself. And we did. He did say that? Yes.

Well, to his credit, good for him. Absolutely, so I, and I was like, no, I couldn't, like I was like, I don't think I can do that. Plus I'm a normal person. Plus, I mean, he owes you, he did mess around with his best friend's sister. So he owed you one, right? That's right, that's right.

He owes me a lot, let's be honest. Absolutely. No, he was probably the one that encouraged me more. You know, I- That's beautiful. I kept, I'm just a normal person. No, he was probably the one that encouraged me more. That's beautiful. I'm just a normal person. I can't run a business. I don't know the first thing about that.

You're a nurse with an idea. Yeah. And a husband and three children. Yeah. And we don't come from money. We don't have... Yeah, that's not everything we have to work for. Even if your father left a will, it was split 18 ways. There ain't much left.

Well, true story. That is very true. Everybody gets to go to Applebee's. That's about it. We got to go to McDonald's if we got A's. And we got to go, so if you got straight A's at semester, and then on your birthday, you got to go out to eat. I got to go to Wendy's for straight A's on her full card.

That's true. I was raised the same way. It was a big deal. It was a huge deal. And now my kids are like, we don't want to eat out. Yeah, yeah, losers, spoiled brats. I raised four of them too. It's terrible.

Yeah. Anyway, so during, you know, we kind of started looking to build one, but again, we're not. Boy, that's expensive to build a field. It's very expensive and then COVID, everything, prices. And we went to the bank a few times and it was like, we're never gonna be able to do this.

I am very faith driven, did a lot of praying. I had this journal that I would literally, I mean, I just kind of kept ideas to kind of keep me inspired. So I had this and I would write down things each night and be texting my sisters, oh, this is what I'm going to name it, you know, whatever, to kind of keep inspired. So this nursing home came up for sale. I had a good girlfriend that lives in Alma and she knew my dream and she said, you need to go look at it. The nursing home is closing. And I

said, that's not what I'm doing. That's not what I'm thinking. Nonetheless- How far is Alma from the other- It's like 13 miles from where I live. Your neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's a very small town, so it was very devastating. It was a corporate facility that was closing, but I was kind of resistant because that wasn't my idea. I was going to build this exactly what I wanted and da-da-da-da. But we went and my husband pretty much said, if you're going to do it, I think this is your shot. You know, financially, it was really the only opportunity. It's like a 26,000 square feet.

It had urinals on the floor and it smelled like a nursing home and it was very, very run down. But he's like, I think we could do it. This setup was kind of how it would work. How are you going to buy this thing? My father and mother-in-law graciously helped us and then my husband and I pretty much put everything we had into it.

And your kids scrubbing floors. Yeah, so they get to inherit everything. They look up at you red faced and say, mom, why can't we get a contractor like normal people? All the time. Pretty much every day. Too bad. I think they still are.

Good. Don't we have enough to hire somebody for that yet? And that concludes part one of my conversation with Aaron Steele. And you do not want to miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. Hi, I'm Bob Pitman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. On this week's episode of Math and Magic, I'm sitting down with the one and only Bobby

Bones. We're exploring the power of audio. Yeah, I don't fit into one specific hole. I think that is what endeared me to listeners. That's why I'm here now because I talk to people that grew up like me, have sensibilities like me, and have loyalties like me. Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope, about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes.

And returned. It's a miracle I was brought back. Alive Again, a podcast about the strength of the human spirit. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. Small but important ways, from tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding.

If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Listen to everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week starting May 16th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.