In this heartfelt episode of The Good News, Angie Austin sits down with Michelle Rahn to explore the beauty and importance of intergenerational friendships. Listen as they discuss how relationships between different ages can lead to invaluable lessons in faith, family, and personal growth. Michelle shares stories from her past, including the influence of a neighbor who played an integral role during her childhood and how these experiences shaped her views on friendship.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello there. Angie Austin here with The Good News along with Michelle Rahn. So excited about this interview. Welcome, my friend, Michelle Rahn.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, it’s always delightful to be with you, Tootsie Pops. This is great. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 04 :
I’ll back that up.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 04 :
Oh, I think that’s a wonderful topic. And I believe… 120 percent that we need to be friends and have conversations and discussions and disagreements with all ages. I mean, that’s we need. OK, my generation needs the younger generation and the younger generation needs ours. I mean, it’s it’s a gift. It’s a gift to have that. And. If we stay, well, we’ll keep talking about that. I have some ideas. So, yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I just, you know, over the years, you’ve 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. Wow. 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.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know.
SPEAKER 05 :
I wrote back. I know that I’m just being a mom. And he goes, OK, sorry, I got mad.
SPEAKER 04 :
But he really is. Between the two of you, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
He’s just such a good kid, and 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 Legend Brands, and he’s got his LLC. Great. 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, the hill.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, because that’s a horrible chore. So I just think about the lessons I’ve learned from you. And one that, you know, 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 04 :
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 05 :
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 around, but not – your mom worked a lot. Like you said, 60 hours a week, so – 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 04 :
Mr. Rubenstein. Mr. Rubenstein.
SPEAKER 05 :
So tell us about that friendship and why it was so important to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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 just become so paranoid about. Why are they doing that? Or is that out of something? weird or creepy. And it’s sad.
SPEAKER 05 :
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?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. And he listened. He listened. And there’s, 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 have gotten so critical of each other and judgmental and I’m glad I grew up when I did.
SPEAKER 05 :
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.
SPEAKER 04 :
And Daddy was an alcoholic. That was the problem.
SPEAKER 05 :
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, 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 04 :
But I don’t, but okay. I learned that from, from my mentor of the mom. Um, 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, 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 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 experience. in that respect.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 his aunt. And it wasn’t daily or anything like that. But if I left laundry in the washer, 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. I mean, they’re horrible things to recount. But then she’d be just delightful when she was feeling good and not in one of her despair 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. Like, 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 um 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 um it it was not pleasant and I was a straight-a student 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. you know for like being outside and not you know and her not knowing where 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 you know on my but finally after phoebe’s call my mom did you know come get me so uh phoebe actually did help me get rescued my mom never moved down there which would have been the plan you know which would have been horrible um 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 Mr. Rubenstein. Phoebe was my Mr. Rubenstein.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thankfully, she was there to provide for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 30s, 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?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, thank you, MichelleARon.com, and I appreciate that. I’m speaking in December on Christmas cards, what they tell of us. 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 05 :
You too.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Lamar is listening to the Mighty 670 KLT Denver.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to the Good News with Angie Austin and Grace Fox. Grace is the author of the book we’re talking about today is Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. Welcome back, Grace.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks for having me again, Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
I picked your devotional on, I like this devotion on community because I think this time of year is we’re heading towards Christmas and some people are lonely. I just think community and a lot of, you know, companies have their company Christmas parties now and there’s a big sense of community. But I liked the example you used of traveling. So tell us about this devotion.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. So my husband and I have traveled a lot in the past from ministry. And so we Sometimes we take road trips, sometimes we fly, but on road trips we take turns driving because one will get tired and often when I drive, Gene reads out loud to me and that helps me stay awake and it’s fun just reading a book together like that. And in airports, we never leave our bags unattended. You’re just not supposed to do that, right? So if I have to go use the washroom or just take a walk to stretch my legs, Gene stays with my stuff and I do the same for him when he needs to just get up and walk around a little bit and We help each other out. So sometimes in the past when I’ve had shoulder, sore shoulder issues, you know, it’s been hard for me to put the bags in the overhead compartment. But that’s not a problem for him. And I have my special way of keeping all the important papers straight in my backpack. And so I look after the boarding passes and we we help each other out that way. And it works very well as a team.
SPEAKER 05 :
Isn’t that funny? We end up splitting so many duties. And as you know, with your kids and now grandkids and with my husband and the kids, we just have certain things I just assume he’s going to do, like all car care, oil changes, that’s his. All dental appointments, all everything. Um, you know, like, uh, physicals, that’s all mine, you know, calling on certain bills or whatever. That’s usually me paying all the bills. That’s him. And I, same thing with like, when I travel with him, he always puts my, he’s six, six. So he always puts my bags up. And then when I’m not with him, sometimes I have to ask a guy to help me cause I’m five feet tall. And if it’s a heavier bag, I can’t, it’s very difficult for me to get up. And so it’s funny, the driving thing, like I can’t really fall asleep when I’m a passenger because I feel it’s my sole responsibility to keep the driver awake. But it is really nice to have that partner or teammate. That’s what I tell a lot of young people. The great thing about getting married is you’re a team. You know, you’re no longer, you know, navigating life alone. on your own per se that you’ve got a team. And so I do think that’s neat the way you make that part of community. And many of us see community not just as like a spouse or best friend. I just traveled with a best friend. So that was super fun too. And it was weird too. It was so weird, Grace, because I’m normally… I make every single plan. I book the hotel. I come up with every event we’re going to do. I navigate to the event. I buy the tickets for the event. And my girlfriend’s a bit of a control freak, so she did all that. And it was really like someone was taking me on vacation. Like, I didn’t have to do anything. It was so weird.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s great. You could just kick back then in that new part of community and put your feet up and enjoy the ride, I guess.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was so foreign. I told her, I’m like, wow, this is unusual to have like, you know, because I put it in my navigation. She goes, no, I’ve got it. I’ll put it on my phone because she had it like, you know, on a holder so she could look at it while she was driving. And so I didn’t even have to do that. My husband, he just waits for me to tell him which lane to get in, you know, etc. It’s like he’s kind of spoiled that way, you know. But when I think about community, I do definitely think about this time of year how so many people need us that, you know, are alone and might be more lonely this time of year. My brother passed away this time of year, so I know it. I didn’t realize what a hard time it was for my brother, who’s the closest in age to him. They’d grown up together and they were toddlers together. And then my little brother and I came along like five or six years later. So those two, you know, went to school together and did high school together and everything. And then the two younger ones, we did more together. So he said he doesn’t decorate. He just told someone. They were like, oh, Christmas is at the end. He goes, well, I don’t decorate anymore. We had my brother’s service on Christmas Eve, and he said, I don’t really enjoy Christmas anymore. I had no idea. I mean, this was like 25 years ago that he passed away. I had no idea he didn’t celebrate Christmas like that anymore because of our brother. So there are a lot of people like… my brother, and seniors especially, that they really need community this time of year?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I see that down in the marina where we live because there are a lot of single men especially living in the marina because it’s just cheaper to live on a boat than try to live in a city in Vancouver. It’s so high. Rent is so high here, so a boat is much cheaper. So they live down here, but some of them, most of them are apart from their spouse. They’re either separated or they’re divorced, and And a lot of them are on their own. And so for a community, at Christmas time, when we first moved in here, I baked cookies for them all. And I went to the dollar store and I bought those little Christmassy-looking cellophane bags, little gift bags, and I stuffed them full of cookies. And I’ve done that every year since. And so I just go from boat to boat with a great big tray. When they’re all baked and all done up, a great big tray of these packages and then either I will go or Gina and I will go together and just knock on the halls and give them each a package of cookies. And we are friends year-round. You know, I’m not just doing that once a year, a nice thing. But, you know, I try to build community year-round. But this is just the one thing that I can do at Christmas when so many are on their own. And it is a very lonely time. I’m very glad that you brought that up because those of us who have family members around and – We might have our traditions that we’ve grown up with and we still embrace. We look towards Christmas and it’s a great time, but we forget about those people who don’t have someone nearby or maybe an older couple and all their kids are grown and gone and they live so far away they can’t come home for Christmas or singles that are on their own. And this is the time to really bring them in. We can bring them into our homes and practice hospitality and
SPEAKER 05 :
just serve them that way and and be kind that’s the way to build community i love the um i love the um you know little get-togethers that you host for in the marina and the things you do because there are so many people who you know may be lonely and how i love it how you say you knock on the hole And I’ll never forget the time you said when your kids were little, there was this crabby couple down the road that you were kind of afraid of and that you made them gingerbread. All the neighbors, you made gingerbread cookies. And just tell that little snippet again because I don’t know, that really hit me. And I know you’ve told me three or four times, but it’s a super cool story.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so we lived on this little dirt road with about six or eight houses on it. And we were at the far end, but the couple that lived at the top of the road um he was a very grouchy man and you know we never really got to know her because you couldn’t get close to them because he was so unhappy but this one christmas we uh went and delivered cookies like that to our neighbor’s homes and we sang we wish you a merry christmas and and we got up to their door we thought should we do it okay yeah let’s do it let’s do it so knocked on the door and and she came to the door so we gave her the cookies and we sang we wish you a merry christmas And she said, thank you. Close the door. So we turned around, started walking away. And all of a sudden, she called us. So she’d opened the door again after we started walking. And she called us back. She said to us, you will never know what this meant to me. And she said that her husband had died about two weeks before. And nobody on the road knew it. They didn’t have a funeral. I mean, they didn’t have any friends. And so, you know, he died. She buried him. And that was the end of that. And then she started to cry. And she just said how much… our little act of kindness meant to her during that Christmas season. And I never forgot that either because I thought, how hard is it to bake cookies and take them to your neighbor? That’s just one little random act of kindness we can do to help people know that they’re being thought about. People need that.
SPEAKER 05 :
And think of someone like that that may be lonely because through no fault of her own that he may have kept other people away. Maybe they don’t have kids. And then she’s all by herself. I have one aunt who is kind of alone like that. And I usually send her something. I already sent it. And she called to thank us. And it means a lot to her. And she’ll come sometimes for Thanksgiving. It’s hard for her to travel now. But I know that her being alone… And it’s her preference. She doesn’t want to live with anyone else. She doesn’t want to live with my mother. She’d prefer to be alone. That doesn’t mean they don’t get lonely. My stepmom lives alone as well. And that’s the way she wants it. She does not even like anybody staying overnight. She’s very hermit-like. But she does, you know, get lonely still. And she’ll do lunches with friends. And she always reaches out to me. We communicate via text like several times a week and share our pet pictures, etc., And she just wrote to me and said she’d sent the kids gifts and my gift already. And here it is this early. And she’s thinking of us because she has no children. She just had my dad. And now she has two cats. So these people that they may be alone now. and want to live alone, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get lonely. And there’s so many seniors that feel lonely. I have a hard time sometimes because our society says, don’t talk to people that you don’t know. But I was with a friend recently, and my mom also will talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime. And when I lived in LA, I’m like, Mom, there’s certain times where you don’t want to interact with people. Like if we’re in Venice and there are a lot of homeless people around and some of them are getting into it or something. Sometimes you just need to kind of keep your wits about you and mind your own business. But what I like about being around her and this friend of mine I was just with is they’re so friendly. And I think sometimes people… like to be engaged or for you to say a kind word like oh i love your elf tights or um you know i love it my mom had said that to someone at uh in the line at the grocery store oh i love your elf tights and then they ended up buying her groceries that day you know maybe 25 worth and then i remember my dad he and my my stepmom i mean real hermits like they’re on several acres on a bluff next to the Mississippi River. And even though he was a professor and she’s an adjunct professor, so they do interact with some people, they had this metal gate that was chained and padlocked. They want no one coming to their home. They want no one coming on their property. But he had an acquaintance buy his breakfast at a truck stop, and my dad was in tears about it, just that this man had bought him breakfast. It touched his heart so much he started crying. I don’t know. I just think we think people want to be left alone. But I think sometimes they’re really lonely and they don’t know how. And that woman certainly didn’t know how to reach out and, you know, to her neighbors when you guys came to the door. And it’s kind of scary sometimes to approach people and provide that community and that love and that support. And we might get rejected. But I think we have to sometimes take that risk to, you know, follow God’s plan for us and do what’s right, you know, to be a community and to fellowship with others.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. I like what you said, just take the risk. We can try, and all they can do is say no. And we don’t have to take that as a personal rejection. It’s just maybe that’s the way they just want to be, you know? Or they have some deep, deep hurts that have caused them to put a wall up around their heart, and they don’t want to let anybody in. And that’s not our responsibility to fix them, but we can reach out and at least try.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love it in your devotion. Again, we’re looking at Fresh Hope for today, Devotions for Joy and the Journey. And you’ve got a quote from Max Anders from What You Need to Know About the Church in 12 Lessons. And it says, quote, Belonging to a caring community that is linked to God gives us people to share both our joys and sorrows. Our joys are doubled and our sorrows are halved. I love that. Our joys are doubled and our sorrows are halved. That’s really cool.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is because we have somebody to share those things with, right? So when we are joyful and other people rejoice with us, the joy is doubled. But when we have a sorrow and we can share that with somebody else, they help carry the load. So the sorrow or the burden is halved.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that. The company I work for, I don’t go into the studio anymore. I do my show at home and then I interact with a couple of my friends, a producer and my girlfriend who runs one of the stations there. Anyway, they have a Christmas party and I don’t go often just because I’ve got the kids and sports and this, that and the other. But since she now has had this promotion and we interact with each other every day and we’ve known each other for 20 some odd years, she’s like, are you going? And I’m like, oh, you know what? I think I will. because it’s been so long since I’ve been able to see her and some of my friends at the station. So I’m really looking forward to that. GraceFox.com, always wonderful to have you on the program, Grace. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you, Angie. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
