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Retirement Reflections
Sharing resident stories from Canterfield
Hosted by: Lee Martin & Carol Giusty (Juice-tea)
Produced by: Patric E.K. Bundrum
Music by: Parkcore
Retirement Reflections
Disney, Comics, and Merchants, Oh My!
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Lee and Carol have an unusual interview with one of Canterfield's most unique residents, Bill Iverson. The trio discusses working at Walt Disney World, science-fiction, and the Society for Creative Anachronism (yes, we had to Google that)!
Welcome to Retirement Reflections Podcast, coming to you from the library of Canterfield of Kennesaw Independent Living. My name is Lee Martin. I'll be your co-host along with Carol Juicy. Our podcast producer is Patrick Bundru, who will oversee the entire life cycle of this podcast, which simply means if something goes wrong, it's going to be her fault. Carol, good afternoon. Lee, the same to you. I'm so sorry that I was a little bit late today, but again, I had to navigate the halls of Canterfield of Kennesaw. There were rollators, there were walkers. Well, we've got a special guest today. Did you notice every guest we have is special?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I have.
SPEAKER_01Now, my daughter, once upon a time, when she was quite young, I mentioned to some people, I said, This is our daughter, and she's so special. And she informed me real quick. She said, No, Daddy, I go to regular classes. She wasn't special ed. But our guest today is Bill Iverson. Hi, Bill. Hello. Hi, Bill. Bill is one of our neighbors here at Canterfield. Bill, we try to kind of go along the lines of seasons of life. When we were young, when we were adults, and then when we got so old and decrepit, we had to give up everything. Had to come here.
SPEAKER_03Can I just stop a minute? Please. Do you know what a suspicious look he's giving us right now? He's got this look on his face.
SPEAKER_01I think he's worried.
SPEAKER_03I think he is.
SPEAKER_01Well, let me assure you that if it's something that worries you tremendously, we probably can edit it out. No promises. But let's start out with who is Bill Iverson? Where'd he come from? What does Iverson mean? And tell us about yourself.
SPEAKER_02Well, for those that know me real well, they know that I was born in Ohio, but never actually got to see the state because I grew up in Michigan along with three brothers. Are you the youngest? No, I'm next to the oldest, actually. So you're the middle. One of the middle kids. Suffice to say that my oldest brother, Hal, is two years older than me. And then my next younger brother is Mark, and he's two years younger than me. And then, of course, the youngest is Chris, who is four years younger than me. Somehow they got us all evenly spaced out.
SPEAKER_01What about your educational background?
SPEAKER_02Well, all I remember for sure is that when I was growing up in a place called Wakusta, Michigan, and I think that that might have been named after an Indian tribe of some sort, I graduated from elementary school, and it was 1964. And Dad said, Guess what? We're moving to Florida. Oh my, what a difference. And 1964, for those of us who remember, was the year of the 1964 World's Fair in New York City, and also the year that the Beatles came over from England starting the British invasion.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I remember the Beatles, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and Dad gave us a treat because he said, guess what? On our way down to Florida, we're going to stop at New York City for the New York World's Fair, which actually was a bit of a disappointment because I thought that it was advertising disguised as entertainment.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02But then I got to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was not a disappointment. And I discovered that I actually had an aesthetic sense that I hadn't noticed that I had before. And how old were you? Oh, I'm not sure, 11 or 12, somewhere around there. Okay. And you discovered something about yourself. Yes, and about the world at large as well, because up until that point I had not been exposed to what they call fine art.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm sure in a little town in Michigan you would not have been exposed to too much.
SPEAKER_02Well, what can I say? Even in Grand Ledge and Glancing, which were the closest places to Wakusta, there wasn't that much fine art there either.
SPEAKER_01Well, back up a little bit. I've done some research here just as we were talking. The origin of his name is Scandinavian or Swedish or Danish or Norwegian. And the prefix of Iverson, son of, attached to a personal given name. The Old Norse origin was that of a tree or a bow, and broadly translated the name Iverson means bow warrior or archer. You didn't know that, did you?
SPEAKER_02No. All I knew was that it was the son of Ivor.
SPEAKER_01That's right. We don't know what Ivor means, but at least we got that part of it.
SPEAKER_02I know that a lot of Norwegians, when they came over to the United States, changed the spelling of their names somewhat. Apparently, originally Iverson was spelled S-E-N, but then coming to the United States, they changed it to S-O-N.
SPEAKER_03Bill, I'm going to go back a little bit to the 12-year-old boy that discovered that he had an aesthetic sense. Yes, it was amazing. And so what did you do with that? Had you been an artist before you even got to New York?
SPEAKER_02Or did you No, no, actually I had no interest in doing anything artistic before New York City.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02But when I arrived in Florida, I discovered that I wasn't particularly happy about kids my own age because it seemed to me that they were not particularly smart and rather uninteresting and actually rather crude. Wow. So I discovered that I preferred to read books than to associate with my peers. Okay.
SPEAKER_03You had another interest reading and literature.
SPEAKER_02Right. Okay. And while I was at school, because the classes were not quite as uh interesting as I wished they were, I did quite a lot of doodling. Oh, okay. And it was the doodling that I did with pencils or with pens that eventually developed into, I guess you could call it my art style.
SPEAKER_03So now you are a master doodle at about the age of 13, 14 years old. What kind of books were you interested in?
SPEAKER_01Oh I know the answer to this one. I heard it today.
SPEAKER_02Well, believe it or not, one of the things that really intrigued me was the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Oh, did you know that?
SPEAKER_01That one I didn't expect to hear. There was another one I was looking for.
SPEAKER_02What type of other literature? Oh, well, I discovered that I was rather interested in science fiction and fantasy. Really? Okay. And it was actually through science fiction that I developed an ongoing interest in the science, in fact. Very interesting.
SPEAKER_01I would have gone for the fiction and forgot the science.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, you still are an artist. And you've moved into literature. Literature, science fiction as your job.
SPEAKER_02Wow. You give me an example. Oh, I'm not sure. I I think there's one named Shelly. Shelley?
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. In fact, when I was wooing my wife, I used to quote romantic poetry to her, which probably helped persuade her to become my wife. Whoa.
SPEAKER_01But her name wasn't Shelly.
SPEAKER_02No, her name was not Shelly.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of not Shelley, but Marilyn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. How did you all meet? Well, actually, at the time that we met, I was working at Walt Disney World as a cashier. Of course, they called it sales host.
SPEAKER_03Sales host, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Even though it was in actuality merely a cashier. I was hired in 1978. And I'm pleased to say that at the time I was hired, the saying around Disney when it came to Disney policy is what would Walt have done? Now I'm afraid they don't really care what Walt would have done.
SPEAKER_01So did you meet Walt? No, I'm afraid he was dead before he was already gone. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. I'm afraid he smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much alcohol. Walt Disney did not drink alcohol.
SPEAKER_01We're not going to tell those stories.
SPEAKER_02I'm afraid he was not exactly pure as the driven snow.
SPEAKER_01Now, when you started at Disney, you were not a sales host.
SPEAKER_02No, when I started at Disney, I was in custodial. And I would not recommend Disney Custodial to anybody because for a year and a half, all I did for eight hours a day was empty very heavy garbage cans in the Magic Kingdom into something called an AVAC system. And for those unfamiliar with the AVAC system, imagine if you can, this huge tube that periodically develops a very strong vacuum. And what it does is it sucks all of the garbage to a central location. I have no idea where the central location was.
SPEAKER_01So your first year at Disney, we could say, how was the job? Well, it sucked. Yes, actually, you couldn't say that. Well, what did you learn from that? Was there a learning process?
SPEAKER_02Well, I learned that apparently I could handle back-breaking labor without complaining, and I could also handle doing the job without any supervision or encouragement from any fellow workers because essentially I was given my assignment and I worked for eight hours by myself. The only times that I saw my fellow employees was before and after work.
SPEAKER_01You remember how much it paid?
SPEAKER_02No, I don't, but I do know since I later became a member of the union that was represented at Disney, I learned that my labor was considered labor grade three, which was the same pay that the folks in retail got paid, and the same pay that the people that ran the rides got paid. Essentially, the majority of the people that worked at Disney.
SPEAKER_01How old were you when you started at Disney?
SPEAKER_02Let's see, I was born in 1951 and I got hired in 1978. Oh, I don't know. That's 10. Was I 20?
SPEAKER_0120 something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember your first job? Not at Disney, but your first job.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that I ever worked anywhere. Actually, my first job was a paper route in Delane, Florida. And essentially every morning I would get on my bicycle and go to the to the newspaper and get all of the papers that I was supposed to deliver. And the thing about a paper route is it's a contract job, not an hourly job. So I did not actually receive a wage. The way I got paid was from the people that I delivered the paper to.
SPEAKER_01Did you throw them up on the porch? Yes, I did. Were you good at it?
SPEAKER_03Okay. He's waving his finger at us. Well, you know.
SPEAKER_02Relatively, suffice to say that all of my brothers had paper routes at 1.2. It was the way my dad explained it is he said, around this house, you don't get an allowance.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_02You earned your living. And believe me, since the paper route, I had been learning my living ever since.
SPEAKER_01Now, we've had a guest before that would talk about the Italian family, and in his family, he said when the kids went out to a job, they brought their money home to dad, and then that's how that family survived. Is that the same culture in a in a Scandinavian family like yours?
SPEAKER_02No, not even close.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01So when you made the money, it was yours. Yes, it was. You could go out and buy bubblegum and cigars and comic books. Comic books. Yes, that was what I purchased.
SPEAKER_02And boy, did I purchase a lot of comic books. Unfortunately, my mom did not value comic books. And I can remember two occasions when she threw them away. Oh. And it was only much later when I was an adult, and we were looking at an issue of Newsweek. And wouldn't you know on the cover of Newsweek they were talking about how valuable those old comic books were.
SPEAKER_01Remember what was on the back of a comic book? That's where you could buy things like Jeep parts and machetes. And yeah, I mean, seriously, on the back of comic books, you know, I got a friend in Missouri where I grew up that was going to build his own Jeep because you could buy parts for it.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'd never heard that before.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it was crazy. I mean, that was just ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02What can I say? I I actually admired the artwork. So, what comic book was your favorite? Oh, it's hard to say. The Fantastic Four was a rather good one, and Spider-Man was rather good too. How about Wonder Woman?
SPEAKER_03That was that was mine.
SPEAKER_01It was mine was Archie.
SPEAKER_03Archie? Like Archie comics. Well either one of you, and I'm sure this is you're not going to remember, but Katie Keene. Well, you guys wouldn't remember.
SPEAKER_02I uh remember seeing those comic books, but I never purchased any of them.
SPEAKER_03Well, Katie Keene was my favorite, was Wonder Woman. So this is what a little girl looks like. Okay, well, different tastes, I'm sure. Comic books were an important part of our childhood.
SPEAKER_02They were well, not only that, but I think they might have even influenced my artwork as well. You're right. You're right. And of course, when the folks in the comic books discovered quantum mechanics, so did I.
SPEAKER_01We talked a while ago about you meeting Marilyn. How did your life change when you got married? Well Now remember, she's gonna hear this later on.
SPEAKER_02I realize that. And believe me, uh at the time that I met her, I had not been dating previously. I had other activities which I enjoyed immensely. One was the Society for Creative Anachronism. Excuse me. Yes, yes, say that again. The Society for Creative Anachronism, and it was a volunteer group that they had to do with extolling, shall we say, the fun aspects of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01He's all yours, Carol. I I'm at a loss for words.
SPEAKER_02And I actually developed a persona for the society, Leopold Drafenskold, who is a 15th-century Norwegian sea merchant. Now, when I'm sort of at a loss for words here because many people are familiar with the society, but believe it or not, back in the 60s, you know, when the hippies were doing they're a hippie thing, apparently there were some folks in California that created the Society for Creative Anachronism as entertainment. And don't look at me. I'm all yours. Believe it or not, we uh we would we would put on uh a show? Well an enactment. Well, not exactly enactments. I mean, granted, we did have warriors, I suppose you could say. I mean, after all, you know, there was there were tournaments and stuff like that during the Middle Ages, but in the society we don't use what you'd call live steel for any of our weapons. What we use are swords that are made out of rat-an wrapped in duct tape. So you can get bruised, but you can't get killed.
SPEAKER_03I want to just say, Bill, you are unique. I think both Lee and I have always known that you have a uniqueness about you. I'm going to kind of change the subject a little bit because we are totally.
SPEAKER_02Role-playing, okay. Yes. I think we're on safer ground here. You might have heard about it. Dungeons and Dragons, yeah. Yes, you know, you roll the twenty-sided dice to find out whether you actually kill the monster or if the monster kills you.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I'm handing this back to you, Lee, because I don't know anything. Yeah, I'm I'm going to shift gears. And do you have any pets?
SPEAKER_02Yes, we have we have one, a 17-year-old toy Pomeranian named Samson. Okay. And unfortunately, old age has not been particularly good for him because he's mostly blind and mostly deaf. And at the moment, he's suffering from something called sundowners. Oh. What happens in sundowners? They like to walk in circles when they have sundowners. They walk in circles and they whine to themselves. Sometimes they bark to themselves.
SPEAKER_01By definition, I think sundowners also is they are affected by light change. So when the evening comes, or it got its name, when evening comes, it it's more likely to manifest these things that he's talking about. I do know, and you and I talked about this the other day. You know, one of the medications that Samson is on is Gabapin. That's that's something that my wife takes for restless legs. And one of the symptoms, I guess, of sundowners also is kind of that jerking motion, you know, like a restless leg. You know, our pets are part of our family. We call them dogs, but they're not really. You know, we had to put one down when we first moved here, you know, and I've I've talked to people around here and how old their pets are. And I I told one of our ladies the other day I asked how old her dog was, and she told me, remember, we had Ruth last week.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01And Ruth today, uh, I think of the 24th is her birthday, and she'll be 101. Well, the lady told me about how old her dog was, and of course, you know, one year is seven years and dog years, and I said, Your dog's older than Ruth, you know. So, but pets are an important part of what goes on here. Our time is limited in what we do here, Bill. But if someone was listening to this podcast today that was not as uh mature as we are, and they were to say, Help me know how to make decisions in life so that I make the right decisions, what would you say to that person? Maybe even going back and say to yourself, you know, if this is how you should have made decisions, what would you say to them?
SPEAKER_02Probably to pay closer attention to what my parents told me. Because I seem to recollect when I was much, much younger, I was definitely lacking in wisdom. And the fact that I'd managed to reach the ripe age of 75, I think is more probably because of good luck than because of smart decisions on my part.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know what, though, Bill, talking to you today, and I've talked to you many times and heard you, you have a unique personality, and you also you're a very intelligent man. Oh, thank you. And you see things from a different prism than other people might. So your decision making probably would be you just kind of go along with what's happening to you. I don't think you make any great plans, you just kind of go along with uh circumstances in your life.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's a lot of truth to that. I've got to admit that when I was much younger, even though I had quite a good imagination, somehow I never spent any time imagining what life would be like when I was 75.
SPEAKER_01If you could change anything about the process of aging in your life, what would you have changed?
SPEAKER_02As you know, when COVID came along, it kind of interfered with people's social lives considerably.
SPEAKER_03Yes, it sure did.
SPEAKER_02And one thing that COVID did for me was it kind of took me from having a very active lifestyle, which I had been accustomed to, you know, what with Disney and everything. And suddenly there I was stuck at home, hardly associating with people at all, and not doing much of anything except maybe reading, watching TV, and talking to my wife. So I think if I would have changed anything, it would have been after COVID that I would have gotten back into a more active lifestyle. Because for those folks that know me, I'm ashamed to say that I am overweight and not as athletically fit as I would like to be. And if I were more athletically fit, I probably would have a lot less medical issues than I have. The most recent of which is called Venus Fit. I can't think what it's suffice to say it has something to do with the veins in your legs, not pushing the lymph back where it is supposed to, and it keeps messing up your legs. If I were more active, I might not have that problem.
SPEAKER_03I think there are many of us, and I'm included in there. Exercise was not one of my priorities in life, I have to say, but I was more of an artist, a reader, and I love people. And probably that COVID really did a job on all of us that were eaten.
SPEAKER_02I was a lot more active before COVID than I have been after COVID.
SPEAKER_01Well, our time is about come to an end. Now I'm going to give a project to all of us. We're all right-handed, correct? Are you right-handed?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And Carol, you're right-handed.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, this is the project for today. For the next time you sit down to do artwork, use your left hand.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Now, why am I saying that? I have no idea, but it sounded like a good thing to end our program with. So, Bill, thank you for being here. Carol, thank you for all the input that you gave us.
SPEAKER_03I want to just say this has been an unusual podcast today. I enjoyed it, and I truly did enjoy. You opened my mind to a whole new something I've never even heard of. And what did you call it again?
SPEAKER_02The Society for Creative Anachronism. I'm sure you can look it up on the You can't spell it. You could look it up on the I have no idea what anachronism is. Anachronism, that's something that is misplaced in time.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry, but this is like this podcast, Misplaced in Time. I know, but write that down. I can. I don't know how to spell it. How to spell anachronism? Yeah, spell it for me. Uh, you don't know either, do you? But but that's the name of the group. There's another group of people, and those are our listeners. And I'm going to look across the room and ask Patrick if she knows how many listeners we have. 300. Oh, 300. And now, if you're listening to us today, you can send in comments. Now, if you just really want to get personal and send something in, you can send it to bro Lee Martin at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_03Also, if any of you out there that are listening know how to spell. I want to spell an anism. An acronism, please call Lee and tell him. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, actually, it has an abbreviation, S C A. You could probably put that into the Google and it would come up, probably.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Say goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, Carol. Goodbye, Lee.
SPEAKER_00Hey there. Producer Patrick Bundram here. We now have a new exciting feature where you can send fan mail on our website. Access the message board on BuzzSprout by clicking the fan mail link on any episode. We appreciate your continued support, and we'll be back next week. As always, retirement reflections does not claim to give any advice, and the personal beliefs of hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the Canterfield community official policies. Thank you again for joining us.