Daughter-Father Dance Podcast
Episode 10: Actions Speak Louder
TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Jenée Arthur: Hey everybody. Welcome back. Today, Dad and I chat about our topic sans religion.

Yep. You heard that right. I think this is one of the rare moments when Dad refrains from using religious nods to reinforce his own words of wisdom.

And in this case today, it's more about his actions.

I'm not sure if it's because of how overtly I dissed the existence of Satan in the last episode, or if there's simply are some subjects that aren't necessarily made more tasty with Gospel gravy.

But today Dad and I discuss the way he modeled for us four kids just how graceful it can be to make a decision, declare it, and then stick to it.

Also, I do hope you'll check out humanlibrary.org to see what they too are doing to help bridge the many divides of our human experience.

As I've mentioned humanlibrary.org is unlike a traditional library.

Instead of checking out books, you check out open book humans. That's right. Instead of reading about a particular subject, you check out a human and learn from. Human library.org intent is to provide a space to, as they say, “unjudge someone.”

[00:01:09] Gene Arthur: If you got bad habits, you've got to change that, right? People don't like change.

I don't really like change either, but the results of change are very beneficial for yourself, and for the ones that you love. A lot of people die from a very poor diet.

[00:01:27] Jenée Arthur: Well, Dad, you know, it's amazing cause I have friends and, you know, even family members, that laud you and Mom for how young you look. You're as spry and agile as some late fifties and 60-year -lds.

Some people are like, “Well—you Arthurs, you have that young gene.” But I also think it's because you and Mom, you instilled healthy lifestyle.

And we were all, all four of us kids, were also athletes. So that kind of contributed to the body movement and, you know, having great coaches like Tom Bates to say, “You don't drink soda pop because it's, you know, it ruins your synovial fluid in your joints and it has a whole gastro problem it creates” and things like that.

But do you think that if you were to say one thing like…my sister, she would say what you put in shows on the outside. Diet is really critical. Do you think personally that it's diet—or do you think it's water that's been your advantage?

[00:02:41] Jenée Arthur:[VOICEOVER] Now it's a huge bummer. And frankly, unfair that all of you listeners do not get to experience Dad’s THE BODY’S MANY CRIES FOR WATER lecture. It's famous!

He has influenced many friends and family members about just how thirsty our bodies truly are. But the recording got corrupted and it was unsalvageable for someone like me with novice audio skills. So I will summarize here this lecture that many of us have heard more times than we can count.

A medical doctor that was in prison in a concentration camp, wrote a book about the miraculous ways in which water heals the body—going as far as to say that people don't need pharmaceuticals in most cases, but that they're just thirsty.

Now Dad, via the information in this book ,goes on to explain in his lectures that the body has seven main reservoirs that correspond with seven systems of the body; things like digestive, circulatory skeletal—but Dad's main gist of this talk, which I am super hyper paraphrasing by the way, is to remind us to stay —as he calls it—hydrant.

We used to make fun of him for substituting ‘hydrated’ with ‘hydrant’. But now, if he tells the story and uses the correct terminology, it's just not the same.

So in essence, a big part of this episode is Dad having reinforced how critical it is to get good, clean drinking water into you for health and wellbeing.

[00:03:52] Gene Arthur: What God has given you the way he's given it to you. Basically, if we would eat more whole foods instead of processed packaged foods, we would benefit on the backend. Eating healthy I know costs more money, but eating unhealthy cost you more money in the long run from medications, disabilities, handicaps, lack of mobility, brain function…

[00:04:23] Jenée Arthur: Okay. We got it, Harland Pepper.

[00:04:25] Gene Arthur: It's common sense, really. To take care of your body for longevity purposes. I really don't think I look that youthful, but I have had others tell me that.

Your mom is a prime example of someone who has really aged well.She does retain her youthful gleam and her sparkle in her eyes and her smile.

And she does take care of her body because when somebody like your mother who has never smoked, who has never drank, never excessively overindulged in anything other than in kindness and worry and devotion—she's a remarkable. And that's why I believe she will be a long liver.

[00:05:17] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] The man with the vocabulary all his own.

[00:05:22] Gene Arthur: The jock part of our life was on both sides of the family that you children just absorbed your mom and I's attitude about being involved in sports— and basically all of the were jocks.

[00:05:41] Jenée Arthur: Yeah. We all excelled at one or many things.

You know, dad, I never knew Grandpa was a catcher. Remember I was a catcher and Gina was a pitcher?

[00:05:47] Gene Arthur: And you could peg that ball to second base and they wouldbe afraid to catch it because it would hurt their hands. That's a true story. You’d pick that ball from behind plate to second base to throw somebody out… they had to catch that ball and hang onto it. Or the guy would be safe.

[00:06:03] Gene Arthur: You had a good arm.

[00:06:07] Jenée Arthur: Yeah. And Gina had a good arm. She'd burn my glove. I'd cringe a lot of times and be uuughh.

[00:06:14] Gene Arthur: Didn't you participate in a pitch, kick and throw?

[00:06:18] Jenée Arthur: Well, yeah. Remember it was called ‘Pitch-Hit and Run. And you got me prepared for it. Remember we would pitch and I'd have to throw and I'd have to hit. You would time me—I'd run. But little did I know that we, when we got to Mill Creek park, it was all boys. I don't know if you knew that, but I had no idea and I had to compete against boys.

[00:06:40] Gene Arthur: Yeah. I knew it. I knew you could do it.

[00:06:42] Jenée Arthur: That is so awesome. Dad, you know, it also reminds me of your confidence in me as an athlete. I'll never forget when you were talking to John McColgan one time and I was throwing— actually a baseball.I think it wasn't a softball. It was a baseball. I was younger than when I played softball— and he's like, “Wow, she's got an arm.” And you, I remember you saying, “Oh, John, you should see her throw a spiral.”

And I didn't even know what a spiral was. I would throw the football with you, but I never knew I was throwing a spiral. I didn't know what that even meant.

And I thought, “Wow, I throw a spiral good.”

I had always had so much pride with how adept an athlete I was in your eyes.

[00:07:20] Gene Arthur: You had the hands to be able to throw a spiral because you could put your fingertips on the threads and still cradle it in the palm of your hand and then throw it over arm.

That's why that ball spiraled so well, you knew how to do that. Just where to put your fingers on the threads and how you released it.

[00:07:33] Jenée Arthur: Well you taught me that… I remember

[00:07:38] Gene Arthur: You were my Tom boy.

[00:07:43] Jenée Arthur: Well, it was your first born and your tomboy.

Well, that's cool. I like reminiscing about health and fitness.

You know, what's cool about it is all of us in the family, the happy half dozen of us— you, Mom, and the four of us kids, we're all relatively healthy.

I attribute that to a lot of things like we've been talking about, but I think I mostly attribute it to the commitment to that discipline. You know, I think growing up in our family as well, as Catholic school taught me a great amount of discipline.

You and Mom had a very disciplined, you know, oversight of us. But not in a way that was controlling. It was very free. But I think because it was emulated by you rather than forced upon us, you just lived your life discipline.; therefore, we did.

[00:08:32] Gene Arthur: When you're raising children and you are that way yourself, children copy what they see.

And it was easy for you guys to be obedient and trustworthy and all the attributes of a Boy Scout because you, you just saw the benefit in it. And reaped the rewards of it.

[00:08:53] Jenée Arthur: Yeah. It's funny you say that because I remember that one year. Remember when I lied to you and Mom about going to Teresa Weishar’s slumber party and you were so mad because I'd never lied to you before, and that was overt. Like it was a true out and out lie. It wasn't a tease lie. It wasn't a white lie. It was a lie.

And I remember for like a year, I mean, it, it, I don't know if it was really a year, but it was a long time. I knew you questioned whether you could trust what I said. And I remember how devastating that was to me to think that my dad couldn't believe me—kind of like I could tell you wavered on “are you telling me the truth?”

Because I had lied to you. It's interesting because, you didn't do any sort of punishment around that other than the level of disappointment you felt, and you were disappointed in me that I would choose to lie about something. I feel that all four of us (I can't speak for my brothers and my sister), but I know for myself disappointing you and Mom was probably the thing that kept us walking a straight line for the most part. It's not that we didn't do, you know, some crazy teenage things and, you know, cause we did and as adults we've, you know, visited those with you guys. But for the most part, I think it was, you know, one, I didn't want to do something that would get me kicked off some of the teams in terms of school, but the same thing applied in the family. I didn't want to do anything that was going to disappoint you and mom again, I don't think that's because you did anything to make us feel guilty or make us want to be that way. It's just because we did have some inherent love and loyalty.

Um, I think the big takeaway obviously is what we started with your consummate dedication and love for keeping reservoirs filled. And I mean, I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek because I know so many of my friends from the last, you know, 20 years+ who will still to this day comment about how, because Gene Arthur sat down with them and said, “You've got to stay hydrant,” they have a dedication to staying hydrated.

Okay. Now let's talk about your amazing ability to quit something that's not working for you.—cold turkey.

It was demonstrated to me and my siblings our entire lives. Um, we've got some pivotal like, um, highlights of, of those types of things. Like the time you quit coffee.

And I want you to talk about that because it's not only a fascinating thing that you are capable of like literally quitting smoking in an instant because your daughters want you to, that's pretty amazing. And I don't find many people in the world that have that capability— except for the four of us I think do because of you quitting [things] cold turkey.

[00:11:43] Gene Arthur: Well, you mentioned smoking and drinking coffee. I still remember the situation and why I stopped on both of them. You're right. The smoking was my two little girls looked at me with big crocodile, sad eyes and asked me, “Daddy, why are you smoking? It's not good for you.”

I realized that they're right. I knew it wasn't good for me when I was doing it, but I enjoyed doing it.

But I did. I just decided, you know, my daughters don't want me smoking. It's really not good. I'm not going to smoke. So with that, I just threw the pack in the trash and then…

Well, wait a minute. There's one thing your Mom thinks that I quit while I was driving the car. And you kids said something about smoking and I littered the street by throwing the package, the pack out the window.

[00:12:42] Jenée Arthur: Oh no, that's horrible.

[00:12:44] Gene Arthur: But I did quit cold Turkey. I never bought another pack of cigarettes and I don't know why the hell I haven't started smoking. I never smoked in school. I never smoked out of school. I started when I got in the Navy in bootcamp.

Now, so far as, uh, coffee, uh, I got sick. I can't remember what it was..if it was the flu. I had, I was bedridden and I had a temperature. I felt lousy. I couldn't keep something down. I missed several days of work.

Towards the end of that sickness, your mom. and I always made coffee every morning and the aroma, I could smell it, even in the bedrooms. For some reason, that smell of coffee made me nauseous.

And this is right after I was recovering from being sick with something. And if you remember as a little girl, my feet stunk pretty bad. To the point where I would get home, I would take my shoes off and put them outside. I contributed not drinking coffee (quitting drinking coffee cold turkey) as to why my feet to this day still don't stay.

[00:14:05] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] Yeah. And oh, Sweet Baby Jesus, can we move on to another subject now? The memories are excruciating.

[00:14:14] Gene Arthur: And your mother and I'm sure your brother Jerrod anyway—I don't think Jason was around yet. And, uh, your Mom they'll testify to how bad my feet used to stink. Matter of fact, Mom would buy me Dr. Shoals shoe inserts, but I think that I had an adverse effect of coffee.

[00:14:37] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] I can honestly say that I've yet to meet another human who attests to no longer having stinky feet due to giving up coffee. But this truly happened to my father. Thank God!

[00:14:48] Jenée Arthur: Julie and I remember those feet. I mean, it's, there's a supplement called Valerian Root that is helps people to sleep. I don't know if we've ever told you about it or if you've ever taken it, but somebody asked me on some Facebook survey or whatever it said, “What's your worst nightmare?” And it was getting stuck in a closet with an open bottle of Valerian Root (was what I put down) because it's so hideous smelling‚ and Dad! It smells like your feet.

[00:15:21] Gene Arthur: Oh, that's really bad.

[00:15:22] Jenée Arthur: It was so bad.

What's amazing though, Dad— is not just that this really strange connection between coffee and feed…is how, which I'm sure we're going to lose a lot of listeners on this one just talking about feet —is how amazingly you stop things.

Now I did not know that you had gotten sick prior to your quitting coffee. I thought that that that commitment to quit was very similar to when you quit smoking. And that was you just made a decision, “Oh, this makes my feet stink. I'm going to quit it.”

Those are two very difficult things to quit. cold turkey. People that drink coffee typically drink it because they kind of have to, or they'll get a headache otherwise or whatever. You've never had adverse effects of quitting things, cold turkey.

[00:16:14] Gene Arthur: Well, let me tell you what happened when I quit drinking coffee. When I went to confession to Father Miller, I was telling him about my shortness and my grouchiness with my family.

He asked me some questions about when did I notice that when did I start having that, that attitude with, with your mom or you children?

And I told him that, well, I had quit drinking coffee and he said, “Well, that's your problem. You're having withdrawal pains from the caffeine.”

And after I realized that I was able to deal with that, But I didn't even think about having withdrawal symptoms from caffeine. Never hearing it in my mind because I just drank coffee, never thinking that I'm going to be addicted to it.

But when he said that, then I realized, yeah, I was addicted to this caffeine. Well, that surprised me. I didn't realize that people suffer from withdrawal from not drinking coffee. And that's probably another good incentive—why I never, to this day, I don't drink.

[00:17:25] Jenée Arthur: I know! You never drank it again. And that's what's so fascinating about it, Dad.

That's so my point of making that point—you raised four children with a very similar perspective about ‘if something isn't working for us, we don't do it anymore.’

Now. I'm sure there's exceptions with that. All four of us could probably talk about exceptions. But what an amazing gift to give, you know, to model your kids albeit extreme, right? Like you're talking nicotine withdrawal and caffeine withdrawal. These are not easy things to quit cold turkey. And yet you, you modeled that for us.

So here again, in how you lived your life, unbeknownst to, you know, trying to may have any great grand effect on your children, you gave us a really amazing gift.

Hey, this doesn't work. I don't do it.

[00:18:19] Gene Arthur: Not do what you should not do, and to do what you should do.

[00:18:24] Jenée Arthur: Yeah. Well, yeah. That was a pretty a nice way to sum it up. That's what you taught us. I don't think you ever sat us down. You just did it by doing it yourself and modeling it.

Okay, Daddio— do you have any last words?

[00:18:38] Gene Arthur: When you quit doing something, it's either because it's not good for you or it's bad or it's illegal or it's wrong. I hope I don't have a whole lot more to say about that.

[00:18:50] Jenée Arthur (laughter): Okay. Touché. Touché, Papa.

I love you, Dad.

[00:18:54] Gene Arthur: I love you more.

[00:18:56] Jenée Arthur: Okay everybody—have a great week.

And remember to stay hydrant.

Thanks again for being here.

See you next time.

Division is Optional