In this heartfelt episode, Angie Austin and Michelle Rahn dive into the beauty and complexity of intergenerational friendships. Angie shares how her unexpected bond with Michelle, who is about the same age as her mother, has enriched her life. They discuss the wisdom and insights that flow both ways when friendships cross age boundaries, sharing personal anecdotes that highlight the lessons learned over the years.
00:00:30 Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin
00:00:39 Introduction to Angie Austin and Michelle Rahn
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SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello there. Angie Austin here with The Good News along with Michelle Rahn. So excited about this interview. Welcome, my friend, Michelle Rahn.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, it’s always delightful to be with you, Tootsie Pops. This is great. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I am so excited that I actually brought this up to you because I just cherish our friendship. I’m almost going to cry.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ll back that up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Just the years that we’ve been friends. And, you know, you’re the same age about as my mom. And I wouldn’t have normally, like, started a friendship with someone the age of my mom. And you said to me when we became friends how you love these intergenerational friendships and how much we can learn from each other. And so I thought that might be a good topic.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I think that’s a wonderful topic. And I believe 120% that we need to be friends together. and have conversations and discussions and disagreements with all ages. I mean, that’s, we need, okay, my generation needs the younger generation, and the younger generation needs ours. I mean, it’s a gift. It’s a gift to have that. If we stay, well, we’ll keep talking about that. I have some ideas. So, yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I just, you know, over the years, you brought it up so many times, and most of our conversations have been, you know, about faith and family and love and forgiveness and, you know, lessons you’ve learned as a teacher over the years and as a mom and as a grandmother with five perfect grandchildren. Right. It makes me laugh whenever I say, how many do you have again? Oh, five perfect ones. Five perfect ones. It always makes me giggle when you say that. And you always say, make a good choice today. And I’ve said that to my children so many times over the years as I’ve learned that from you. Make a good choice today. And I did message Riley while I was out of town. And he’s 18. And he was going to a party of a girl that they like each other. And I said, a birthday party. And I said, now… Don’t ever feel any pressure to do anything you don’t want to do because I know that a lot of these kids drink and, you know, we hear all about the, you know, fentanyl slipped into something they think is a painkiller, this, that, and the other. And he wrote me back, like, super irritated. And it was really funny because, in fact, I’m going to see if I can find it because it was so funny that he… He’s such a good kid that he just assumes we should know, but he’s a good kid. And he wrote, Mom, I’m really not that stupid. Are you kidding me? Why would you even send a text like this? I am 18 years old and haven’t ever taken a sip of alcohol my whole entire life. No need to send me these kinds of texts. And I wrote back, I know. I wrote back. I know that I’m just being a mom. And he goes, OK, sorry, I got mad.
SPEAKER 06 :
But he really is between the two of you. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
He’s just such a good kid. He’s so responsible. And his business just got incorporated. He started it when he was 12 or 13. And he’s kept it up all these years. He never really took any time off. And now he’s a legend brands. And, you know, he’s got his LLC. And yeah, he is. He’s just really excited to go to business school, you know, next year. And, you know, we told him to, like, get our admissions, you know, a couple weeks ago or, you know, go pick up milk or don’t forget to get your sister’s at this time. And he does it all. You know, and my husband’s partner was like, your son’s getting your admissions today? Like, did you have to remind him? And Mark said, no, I just told him to do it this week. And he decided he’d get it, you know, done right away. And so he did it on two or three of our cars, you know. With your Porsche.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, because that’s a horrible chore. So I just think about the lessons I’ve learned from you. And one that I always think about is you told me once, I said, if you could change anything, you said you would have listened to Jesus more when you were younger, like raising your kids. Yeah. I always think, like, am I doing that? Like, I don’t think I’m doing that enough. And I always think back to you, like, certain things you’ve said to me are, like, glued in my brain. And because I respect you so much and there is that intergenerational thing, I do see your friendship as one of my more valuable friendships. Now, you and I aren’t texting constantly saying, like, Oh, what are you wearing today? And, oh, are you, you know, what’s going on with Bob? And is he better at hugging now than he was before? Or, you know, how is he feeling? Like, we don’t text like that. We have a real conversation once a week when we do our interview. We usually talk before or after. And I kind of lean on you when I’m having an issue.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, back at you. I mean, it works two ways. And God is so good to put people in our lives that… We each need each other. And I feel the same way about you, my dear friend. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, what in your childhood, and I kind of know this story because your mom was gone a lot and your dad had difficulties supporting the family. He had his own demons, but he was, you know, around, but not your mom worked a lot. Like you said, 60 hours a week.
SPEAKER 06 :
So 60 hours.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sometimes you’d come home and be alone, and I know you’d kind of like hang out on the steps now. What was the name of the man that would wait for you in Chit Chat?
SPEAKER 06 :
Mr. Rubenstein. Mr. Rubenstein.
SPEAKER 07 :
So tell us about that friendship and why it was so important to you.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, and I came home from school alone every day. My elementary, well, even into middle school, and we called it junior high. So we lived in the third floor apartment, and no elevator, so you walk up the stairs, and Mr. Rubenstein would always be on the porch next door. And please don’t think creepy. I mean, some people have said, oh, my gosh, that’s really creepy. And it wasn’t creepy at all. He just he would say to me, Mickey, how was your day? And I’d say, great. It was super. And he’d say, well, good. Go up and put your stuff away. And if you can come sing me a song. And I mean, it was it was the older generation watching out for the younger generation when my mom couldn’t be there. And of course, when I went upstairs to the apartment, first thing I had to do was call mom at work. Tell her I’m home and what I’m going to do and yada, yada. But I mean, it’s that kind of connection that we’ve we’ve just become so paranoid about. Why are they doing that? Or is that out of something weird or creepy? And it’s sad.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, it’s you know, it’s it’s I mean, you still have to have your wits about you. But obviously, over the years, you knew that you would then come down. You would come sing him a song and hang out or talk about your day. Right. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And he listened. He listened. And I think that’s such a key word. How many of us really listen? Because our schedule is so busy. And so even when we’re supposedly listening to our kids or listening to a neighbor that’s telling us something, we’re not looking at them. We’re not giving them our full attention. And I think that’s an art that we’ve kind of lost track of, so it has to be something we’re concentrating on, just like what you were talking about, spending time with Jesus and focusing on Him, and that doesn’t come easy. It is a habit that we need to build into, and I’m very thankful for the childhood that I had. It provided me, and my mom had She worked with all ages and her office would have given me the shirt off their back. I mean, my dad was a bartender and they would have done the same thing. I mean, it was. I didn’t know that. Yeah. Well, he was a salesman, but he was a bartender and he just. Yeah. Yeah. So it it was lots. And he was a bartender on. What people told me was the wrong side of the town, which I didn’t know that. It was on the other side of the tracks, but it never meant anything because Mom and I would go down there for fish fries on Friday night, and it was a great time. People were wonderful to us and to my dad and to my mom. You know, times… Times have gotten so critical of each other and judgmental, and I’m glad I grew up when I did.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I love that you also see your childhood. I like it. I will talk maybe more readily about things that weren’t quite as flowery or wonderful, and you kind of understood that maybe your dad, like my dad was an alcoholic, period, period.
SPEAKER 06 :
And daddy was an alcoholic. That was the problem.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I do think it’s an illness. And I think you saw it more as an illness, whereas, yeah, I see it as an illness too. But you don’t say negative things. I mean, you really, you know, you know he tried and that he just wasn’t capable of supporting the family like your mom was. And so she took on extra responsibilities and she truly was your role model. And when I think, and I love it that you, you’ll even, it’s funny because when you’re going to say something, you’ll go, Well, oh, and that’s just how it was. You know, you won’t say anything, you know. And so I love your positive outlook on, you know, your memories that you choose to focus on the best.
SPEAKER 06 :
But I don’t. But OK, I learned that from from my mentor of the mom. And I don’t ever want to come across as a total Pollyanna. And my mom was. I mean, she did. And so many times there were things that. She honestly, looking as I look back on it, but I didn’t see it at the time, she should have seen more clearly the problem that was going to come. But again, she was doing her best to keep her head up and supply. So I don’t know. I think there’s a balance. Again, relying on Jesus. As a child, I sure didn’t recognize that Daddy was… that it was a problem. I saw that he wasn’t here, but I also saw that he loved me. And when we were together, it was always attention to, and I’m an only child, to my mom and to me. And so that was a good experience. It was not a negative. in that respect.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, when you talk about the intergenerational friendships, and I think of yours as one of the great ones for me, but it made me think back to when I was 12 turning 13. I lived with an aunt in Georgia. My family was in Minnesota. My mom thought she was going to move down there near my aunt. And with that said, I personally think she had bipolar disorder. I don’t know that she was ever diagnosed, but She was violent when she was in certain stages and very controlling. And so that was the first time, even though my dad was violent with my mom and with my brothers, he never was with me. And so I had never experienced violence towards me until I lived with this aunt. And, you know, it wasn’t daily or anything like that. But like if I left laundry in the washer, like she grabbed me by the hair and threw me into the wall. Or once she made me take vitamins. And when I threw up, she made me eat the vitamins out of my vomit. Or she’s like, I mean, I mean, they’re horrible things to read. count. But then she’d be just delightful when she was feeling good, you know, and not in one of her despair, you know, sessions. Well, I would run to the next door neighbor, Phoebe. She knew that I was not in a good situation and she knew that it was abusive over there. So I couldn’t, you know, you got phone bills back then that said exactly who you called long distance on your home phone. And of course, there weren’t cell phones. So she would allow me to call my mom on her phone. And then she called my mom once and said, I really think you need to come get her. I don’t think this is a good situation. I think she’s in danger if she stays here. And I think I was there for like… A summer and a semester. So it was probably like eight months. And it was really pretty horrible because I wasn’t with my family at all. Just this aunt and her really mean, spoiled daughter, just the two of them. And so and I shared a room with the daughter temporarily until, you know, she got angry and kicked me out. And I went into some hoarder’s room where they put me. But it was not pleasant. And I was a straight A student. No. And I stayed a straight A student there because that was always my only escape. But this lady, Phoebe, she had cocker spaniels and she was single. She was a stewardess. And I just loved to go over there because she was so kind and would give me a snack or whatever. But I had to be careful because my aunt would be calling the house. And if I didn’t pick up the phone, I’d get punished. for being outside and her not knowing where I was because she was trying to control my every move. Well, I kept the diary, so she found out I was going over to Phoebe’s and using the phone because I mentioned it. But finally, after Phoebe’s call, my mom did come get me. So Phoebe actually did help me get rescued, and my mom never moved down there, which would have been the plan, which would have been horrible because she controlled my mom as well because they ended up living together later in life, and she was very abusive to my mother. So that would have been a horrible situation. for me to be in. So there you have it. So that was my, that was my Mr. Rubenstein. Phoebe was my Mr. Rubenstein.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thankfully she was there to provide for you.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I went back many, many years later and she was still in the same house and I got to see her and it was pretty cool. It was probably, I was probably in my probably thirties, I think maybe. around 30 anyway it was neat it was many years after you know because I was 12 or 13 when I 12 when I met her so it’s cool just to go back well I want people to be able to find you because you do a lot of speaking and you’d love to speak at someone’s event so how do they find you Michelle oh thank you michellearon.com and I appreciate that I’m speaking in December on Christmas cards what uh what they tell of us
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I love you, friend. Thank you. And I so am thankful for you, Angie. Thank you so much. And have a good week.
SPEAKER 07 :
You too.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Glendale, thanks for tuning in to KLTT, the mighty 670.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is an encore of an earlier program.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, welcome to the program. Angie Austin here along with Jackie Calloway. She is the author of a few books, but we’ve talked a lot about love that would not let me go, about getting a divorce after many years and then remarrying her husband and having a completely different, God-centered, wonderful marriage for many years. And Jackie’s joining us now. We’re going to talk a little bit about learning not to take offense. I like this topic, Jackie. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Landry. It’s good to be back.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I used to talk to my weatherman when I was learning how to be a weatherwoman, and I was working in the weather department at NBC in Los Angeles, and sometimes the traffic would hold me up, and I’d run a little bit late, and I’d rush in, and I would do the maps, you know, all the graphics for the weatherman at the time. And I was doing weekends soon after that, but I was kind of like, you know, helping him and in training. Anyway, to make a long story short, he was like a depressed person and often seemed like irritated, even though he’s so kind and so warm and so giving and the nicest to anyone who would call him or bump into him in the hallway because he was pretty famous in Los Angeles, still is, he just retired. Anyway, so to make a long story short, I’m like, are you upset with me? Are you irritated with me? Because he’d seem so grumpy. And I’ll never forget, he said, it’s not always about you, Angie. You know, like he had nothing to do with me many times. He just was this kind of sad, depressed person. In fact, once he told me that’s why he got divorced, because he just is a depressed person that likes to kind of be alone and is kind of sullen. And even though he was a comedian, it just didn’t work for him to be married. But I’ll never forget that, that it had nothing to do with me. It’s not always about you, Angie. So I think we… choose to take offense at things i know my mother is offended by everything and everyone’s out to get her and she’s the victim of everyone’s bad mood or their cruelty or their comment or whatever it may be and the one i laugh about most jackie is once the traffic guy you know the guy with the stop sign and he stops traffic to allow you know a construction to go on she’s got home and she said i know He specifically targeted me and stopped me. And I said, Mom, it’s because you drive slow and there was a break in the traffic, and that’s where they like to stop the traffic. It had nothing to do with you personally that he stopped your car. That’s how much he took offense at things that people did.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, and I think so many of us do. And that’s such a good lesson that you learned in Los Angeles, that it’s not always about you. And usually, even in different situations where you walk up on people and they’re just in a bad mood, it’s not necessarily about you. You just don’t know what people are going through.
SPEAKER 07 :
Isn’t that the truth?
SPEAKER 04 :
During the day, a waitress could be a little short with you or whatever. And I’ve learned to ask that person, are you having a good day? How’s your day going? And that kind of helps them drop their guard. And then I can maybe say something to them to give them a compliment or something. I really like your earrings or that’s a pretty blouse or something. And it kind of lets them drop their guard and see. that everything is not about them. But the Scripture says offenses will come, but you don’t have to choose to take them. That’s one thing that I have learned. And in learning that, it has helped me so much to deflect the different situations that we run into on a daily basis. And, you know, the word in the Greek, offend, it comes from the word skandalon. And that word originally refers to a part in which the bait is attached to the trap. and a lot of times we will the enemy will set the trap for us and we bite the bait sometimes someone can just say something that seems insensitive to you and if you bite the bait then you’re in the trap and i’ll give you an example okay In the old marriage, I had told my husband we had eaten dinner, and I felt a little queasy. And I told him, I said, I’m going to go lie down because I just don’t feel good. So I’m going to go upstairs and lie down. And as I was just about to put my foot on the first step, he said to me, are you going to leave all these dishes here? And I can remember the time when we would have gone around and around about that after me saying, didn’t I just tell you I don’t feel good? I’m going up here. You’re so insensitive. But no, I didn’t say that. I just paused for a moment and I said, Lord, I refused to take a sip. That’s really good. I said to my husband, after he had said, are you going to leave these tissues? I said, yes. And I went upstairs, and I got in the bed, and that was the end of that. And that, which could have been very offensive to me, because I refused it, It fell to the ground. It didn’t penetrate. You know, I didn’t get in my feelings.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love that you didn’t get in your feelings.
SPEAKER 04 :
I didn’t because we do so easily. But, you know, I was talking about how the Lord has me ministering, the older women ministering to the younger. Yes. And that’s a lesson that I learned at a pretty young age. that has helped me throughout my life. And as I go even into Walmart and someone is short with me or says something like, would you bring your stuff over here or whatever? And I’ll say to them, I’ll be glad to and smile because I refuse to take offense. It’s a trap. It’s a trap.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love this. I love this. I tend to have a little… I wouldn’t say I have a hot temper, but once I do get triggered, I’m super irritated. And I can’t remember what happened in the last few months where… I was irritated by something. But one of my kids was like, oh, mom, just let it go. And I thought, oh, I’ve got to be a good example to them. I can’t. Oh, I know what it was. We were in line for the school line, and I normally don’t take them. And the only way that I could get onto the road, because it was backed up for like six blocks, I had to get out of my neighborhood, maybe even further. Like, it was just backed up so far. The only way I could get onto the road was to… left turn into the outside lane. So I was in a left turn lane, but that’s the only way I could even enter because the intersection was blocked. And then I put my right blinker on to get into the middle lane so I could go to the school. And so when I did that in front of someone, there was space. She just laid on the horn thinking that I had just sped along in the left turn lane at the last minute, just snuck in in front of her when that wasn’t the case at all. I just couldn’t enter traffic. That was the only way I could get onto the road was to get into the left turn lane. It was the closest lane to me and it was empty. So anyway, to make a long story short, it super irritated me because I put my hands up in the air like, where am I supposed to go? And then all the kids in the car, because I was taking some neighbor kids, they all turned around and stared. And you could tell that… The kid with the mom was super embarrassed because we were going to be dropping off all these high school kids at the same time, right, by each other. And so I could tell her daughter was embarrassed that her mom had laid down the horn to me. But anyway, so my daughter’s like, oh, mom, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m like, where did she come from? expect me to go I don’t understand what I was supposed to do like I’m not doing anything wrong you know and so I apologized to one of the neighbor kids later I was like sorry I was so crabby this morning and she’s like that’s okay I know it’s really busy getting into the school line and you know but it’s just I was embarrassed that I got irritated in front of other kids that weren’t like my own kids you know and that I totally let it trigger me when I should have just waved at her like friendly like I’m not throwing my hands up in the air like what do you expect me to do
SPEAKER 04 :
It takes, you learn that, and it takes time to really do what you should do. And one of the things that I do when someone will cut me off or give me the finger or whatever, I’ve learned to bless them as they’re going down the road. I will say, Father, I thank you that I ask that you send the Lord of the harvest across their paths to minister to them the pure, unadulterated word of God, and that they will come to know you in the pardon of their sins. And that blesses me.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
To be able to, that word forgiveness, it means to let it drop, leave it, and let it go. And when you see somebody in a situation like that, refuse to take offense of the finger and, you know, the look and bless them. Scripture says pray for those who despitefully use us. I know everybody doesn’t, all of that doesn’t come to them in the heat of the moment. But if you really want to, you can learn to have that response and be an example of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I love that you say that it’s a trap, you know, to take offense and it puts us in a, and it has us acting in a very non-Jesus like manner, you know? And so, and to be a good example for my kids, it is a trap and that I don’t want to fall into that trap, particularly in front of them, because I want to be a good example. I don’t want them like correcting me like, oh, mom, let it go. It’s not that big of a deal. And I’m like, oh, great. My kids are more well-behaved than I am. But I I think about I still giggle at this example. My brother and I laugh at it still to this day that probably 30 years ago now we were at my aunt’s house and everybody was ordering Chinese food and my brother was getting ready to leave with one of my cousins. And he’s like, OK, we’re getting this, this, this and this. You know, do we have everything for everybody? And my mom, like decades later, said to my brother and I, well, that time we were at Aunt Pam’s and you were going to get Chinese food and no one even asked me what I wanted. And I was like, oh, my gosh. She knows how to play the professional victim. She took offense at that, and she’s hung on to that. It was like 20 years after, but she told us about it. So my brother and I, whenever she takes offense at something now, I’ll be like, again with the beef and broccoli, again with the sweet and sour pork, like just to him, right? Because we think it’s so ridiculous that you would hang on to something like that. And my brother’s like, oh, did you get what you wanted? She’s like, well, yes, I did. There were plenty of things for me to choose from. He’s like, well, what was the problem? Well, just that no one asked me. Well, how about you speak up and you, you know, but that’s becoming a victim, taking offense was a choice. She decided to fall in the trap and not say like, oh, hey, make sure you get brown rice or anything like that. You know, she wanted to be the victim in that moment. This was good for me, Jackie. I like this. I’m going to, I’ll remember this next time and I won’t fall into the trap. What’s your website, Jackie? How can people find you?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s recoveringfromcrisis.com. And I do counseling, and people can call the office at 303-307. 0707. Excellent. Yes, and we’ll continue this next week, Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I like this a lot. I’ll let you know if I was able to put this into play in my life and put faith into action. Thank you, Jackie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sounds good. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
