Educator and political candidate Kelli Hughes-Ham stops by the studio to discuss her career in Education, her life as an artist in the PNW, and her upcoming campaign for State Representative. Kelli has a robust history with many twists and turns that led her to seek political office. You will hear about her Chinook Indian connections, her position on teacher unions, and her opinion on the likelihood of Bigfoot existing in the Pacific Northwest wilderness.

You will even get to hear about the time that (as a student) I made a fool of myself in her classroom by accusing her of sabotaging my grade.

Some topics you will enjoy:

• Everything about education.
• Kelli's link to Captain Scarborough.
• The power of words to create and destroy.
• Censorship and content moderation.
• Corruption and money in politics.
• Kelli's academic path to becoming a teacher.
• The time Kelli took her family to the back gate Area 51 based on a hand-drawn map given to them by a stranger.
• And much more...

I really enjoyed getting to spend some time talking about important local issues with someone who really cares about this community. I hope you enjoy!

If you want to get more information or support Kelli Hughes-Ham in her campaign go to RunKelliRun.com.

Music Credits:

• Sipping on Martinis, Sum Wave.
• Surf Madness, Elliot Holmes.
• Still Fly, Revel Day.

Links:

• Patreon: Patreon.com/ramblebytheriver
• Website: Ramblebytheriver.com
• Business: ramblebytheriver@gmail.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.nesbitt.9619/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ramblebytheriver
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rambleriverpod
• Podcast host: Ramblebytheriver.captivate.fm

Kelli Hughes-Ham Links:

• Website: RunKelliRun.com
• Instagram
• Facebook

Copyright 2022 Ramble by the River LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

intro

Shout out to all my teachers out there. My wife included. Going back into the war zone. Getting ready to do it all again.

And shout out to all my students out there heading back to that birthplace of thought, the womb of ideas. Academia.

I was really like to going back to school at the end of the summer. I just like variety. I like change by the time, summer is over. I'm ready for it to be over. And then by the time schools. , wrapping up at the end of June. I'm ready for that too. I just like things to keep shifting.

I hope everybody out there is ready for summer to be over Penn, back to school, get your school clothes, get your pencil sharpened. It's time to learn.

A few weeks ago, I got contacted by a friend of mine who heard one of the episodes and was kind of offended by something I said about teachers.

I'm not going to get into what I said. It doesn't matter. It wasn't meant to be offensive. It was just a joke, but I, I made a comment about men being teachers and. Uh, joking about how. Men are dangerous. Men commit all the crimes and men. Or just generally creepier than women. And for that reason they should do other jobs.

That was a joke, 100% of joke. I was almost a teacher myself. I really love all teachers, not a problem with male teachers at all. I do have a problem with pedophiles that I do have a problem with. So if you're a pedophile. Don't become a teacher I'm against it. But as far as men being teachers all for it.

I have no ill will towards teachers whatsoever. Regardless of their gender or their sex.

So I just wanted to clear that up. Just in case there was any confusion because I'd hate for there to be confusion.

To me. Every week is teacher appreciation week.

Jeff Nesbitt: Our guest on the podcast today is in fact, a teacher. An art teacher. And, um, well, I'll get into that in a minute.

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My guest today is Kelli Hughes ham. Kelli is a longtime educator and artist. Uh, mom, a labor organizer and activist. A great conversationalist and she is running for state representative. Today you will get to hear us discuss a wide variety of topics surrounding education. The political divide currently growing in the United States.

And we get some of the captivating details of Kelli's ancestral history and the lower Columbia region.

Kelli was actually a teacher of mine in high school. And we did not get along. In fact, she was one of the few teachers that I would have said was. Straight up an enemy of mine after high school. Basically there was a mistake.

She did not have time for my shenanigans. And my shenanigans would not be ignored. I won't spoil it, but in the end there were some words exchanged, heated ones. And we decided that I should probably find another mentor for my senior project. And I did.

And that was the end of our relationship. Basically in my youth. A decade later, I'm dating a teacher from the same district and wouldn't, you know, it, Kelli still works there.

I'm not positive about this part, but I believe that Kelli warned Melissa about me. She told her I was bad news. A bad egg. A bad apple that was bound to spoil the whole bunch.

And may have always been. I was thrilled when I heard she was running for office. She's perfect for it. I genuinely believe that she'll be great at this job. She cares about people. She cares about issues in a very real way. She's educated. She does her research. She's going to be really good.

And as you'll soon, hear she's funny too.

After this conversation, I'm even more confident that she will be a great state representative. Anyway enough rambling for me.

All right guys. Get out there today and do some good in the world. Hug your kids. Tell your wife she's pretty spay and neuter your pets. And of course. Never stop rambling.

Without further ado, please enjoy this podcast with the sweet and salty Kelli Hughes ham.

Kelli Hughes-Ham

Jeff Nesbitt: that's a better spot.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Most sound checks, uh, end with an oh, fuck.

Jeff Nesbitt: The table's very light.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's a work in progress. I like the paint job. It is. Thank you. It's cool. Oh, did Kelsey do that? Kelsey did that.

Jeff Nesbitt: She's amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, it is exactly the logo it is. I center the graphic. Wow. Okay. All right. Sweet. Welcome to the show.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: thank you.

Jeff Nesbitt: Welcome to show everybody joining me today is Kelli. Hughes-Ham also known as Kelli Shimmel FIIG at certain times. Yep. And anything else?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Uh, miss shimmy, miss shimmy to a lot of your listeners, I think that's right.

So, yeah.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: running for office and, um, what's been cool about it is that I'm learning all sorts of things that I didn't know before, which has been a neat process, but I'm also wondering, you know, well, okay.

So I got into it because I don't think that anyone should run unopposed. Right. I mean, our democracy is founded on the very nature that you have people to choose from for your leaders. Right. Um, so I saw this guy was running unopposed, not a big fan of him. Um, so I contacted some people and said, is there anybody who's thinking of running?

So I'm glad that I'm running, I guess.

Jeff Nesbitt: So you started doing it out of obligation and you're realizing that this might be something you actually feel called to do and you feel like you're gonna be good at it. Yeah.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. I think I would really be good at it. Um, I like talking to people. Um, I like stories. I like hearing people's stories and I think that's a huge part of this is, um, you know, being at the legislature, you're essentially representing a big group of people.

And if you don't know who those people are, you can't represent 'em and that's what I'm hearing about the incumbent is that he really doesn't, um, want to do the work. He, he's kind of up the mind that. And I know a lot of people feel this way and it's for very complicated reasons that, um, government shouldn't work.

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, the anti-government part is kind of a bummer. It

Kelli Hughes-Ham: is a bummer and I get it. I do get it because government has failed on so many levels, um, being a teacher and you being married to a teacher, that's why it's funny.

And I get it. A lot of people in this area had really negative experiences with public schools.

Jeff Nesbitt: It depends on how you look at it really. Right. It does. I agree. But,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: um, but

Jeff Nesbitt: you get out out of it, what you put into it a lot of the time. Exactly.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: And that's the problem is though, you know, a lot of people who don't have anything to put into it, like maybe their family doesn't support them necessarily.

It's, it's really complicated. But then, you know, you see these kids that have a lot. Piled against them that do really well. Anyway, that's, that's be beside the point, but

Jeff Nesbitt: you know, that is a good, that's an interesting topic though. It is the fact that why is that? Why are those those kids that just, they have some kind of a, a drive grit.

Yeah, exactly. They just

It's just,

Jeff Nesbitt: it's almost like you need that perfect amount of resistance yeah. To push up against and build the right tools. Oh, she had it carry 'em through over to the next chapter. Totally. No. Without letting the old stuff break you exactly. It's a balancing act. Yeah, for sure. Really it's like balancing act and a juggling act at the same time.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. Very much juggling. Um, So anyway, systemic issues, um, you know, and seeing how teachers have kind of been, been treated the last few years. I mean, we've always kind of been treated that way, but I think what the COVID situation did for us is really exposed how teaching is really not. It's not an easy job.

Jeff Nesbitt: could never do that. Really. It's all hard.

I don't know that any of it's easy. Yeah. But I do know what you're talking about. I see a lot of empty intentions. Like mm-hmm, kinda like the hopes and prayers that people send after disasters, but, um, that's what teachers get for compensation a lot of the time. Yeah, we, oh wow. We clap for

Kelli Hughes-Ham: you. That's amazing.

You go outta your way to do things for

Jeff Nesbitt: kids. Not gonna pay you a livable wage everywhere in the country or anything like that. We're we're actually fairly lucky. Here we are. Great. And I think that's not like that everywhere.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: That's due to strong unions. Ask about that. Are you pro-union oh yeah, no, I've grown up.

Um, so he and my grandma, they picked blackberries and like sold fireworks that summer. Wow. To, to provide for the, they had four girls. So, um, yeah, I'm very, pro-union, I'm active in the union, which isn't always a fun job.

Jeff Nesbitt: Probably not all that often.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Is it fun? No, it's not fun, but it's important. Um, did they

Jeff Nesbitt: pay you extra for that?

I hope they pay you. No, no, there's no stipend for that. Oh my God, no one. Or you're running for office. You must actually care about stuff. I

Kelli Hughes-Ham: know. It's, it's really exhausting.

Jeff Nesbitt: That is a lot of work to do something like that. Just the mental, extra mental calories, your burden. Yeah. It's

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's I mean, we, we had a contract bargaining, um, happened this this spring and I think we're still kind of in the middle out of it.

So we gotta do it. Mm-hmm anyway, so, um, oh, I think the point I was trying to get to.

Jeff Nesbitt: I have a question that's burning burden. Okay. Go for it. I just want, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I heard you, uh, mention that your relatives were selling fireworks. Yeah. Does that mean there's some kind of a tribal

Cool. Um, yeah, it's not just the Chinook though. It's um, my lineage is pretty like it's crazy. Cuz you know, as a kid, I always knew that we were descended from indigenous people. I didn't realize it was the Chinook tribe, which having grown up in Chinook, how crazy that's amazing. Yeah, it really is. And it kind of describes that deep connection.

I've always felt toward this place and coming home to teach here and stuff. But um, apparently we also have, um, cots, so, um, I had a lot of ancestors that lived in the sch away Kath LA area. Um, I actually just talked to a gentleman whose mom, Julia Butler Hansen, who was a, um, Us representative from cath LA, um,

Jeff Nesbitt: of the Julia Butler Hansen wildlife rescue.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Exactly. Yes. I

Jeff Nesbitt: used to work out there. Did you really? Yeah. It's

Jeff Nesbitt: So I don't really know her whole story. What, so

Kelli Hughes-Ham: she was, so she was a state representative.

Um, and at that time I wanna say it was the 20th LD, you know, it gets, it gets messed up every 10 years. So, you know, the legislative districts. Um, so she was running, she ran for that office. I believe she served like 18 years. Um, and then I, I'm probably getting this wrong. Then JFK came out and like with his guys and convinced her to run for us.

Jeff Nesbitt: And she

Kelli Hughes-Ham: won, so, and she won. Yeah. And then did a bunch of time there too. I believe so. Yeah. So I'm, um, there's a book about her that I'm gonna be reading because I think I just found my new hero. Um, I really didn't know much about her, but apparently she knew my great grandma, Sarah Scarborough. So that's the interesting thing is, um, the, the indigenous stuff.

Jeff Nesbitt: Apparently, if you just wanna say 'em both, I'll look it up and then cut out the wrong one.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: awesome. Um, so he came out here on his ship and chief come calmly of the Chinook tribe. He was kind of their leader. Um, and especially like the guy that would meet like the trade ships and stuff.

Um, because the Chinook were very much a trading. Tribe. That's what they did. Um, he had a daughter named Pally who they actually changed her name to Ann Elizabeth, and they had a son together and they got married, not sure which order that was. It's really hard to find, um, documents as to that. Um, I always wonder what the nature of the relationship was initially.

Jeff Nesbitt: that's something I look, I, when I'm looking back through history, almost every time you look at a story, it, it, most of the major events happened with some very questionable moral act.

Yeah. From people that sometimes we celebrate it's, it's really hard to, to. To not do that and be kind of like a historical relativist and be like, well, you know what, that's the times that we're, they were operating in, you have no other choice. Otherwise we will go nowhere and we'll just spend the rest of eternity.

Just chastising ourselves for the sins of our

Kelli Hughes-Ham: fathers, mired and sadness. Yeah, exactly. No, it's you're right. I mean, it's important to look back and see that stuff and understand what caused things to happen the way they did. But at the same time, you also have to move forward with

Jeff Nesbitt: intention and not repeat mistakes.

I mean, assuming you get the job and you're, are you willing to put in the next 20 years, like doing that

Kelli Hughes-Ham: thing? Wow. Yeah. I'd like to do that. Um, and I've, it's something I've always, um, and I, I go back to my high school experience at O Ilwaco High School. You know, it wasn't the best place to be back then, you know, a lot of my friends who are LGBTQ IA community, they were not.

When I was there, um, it was a dangerous place to be if you were different. Um, you know, that experience didn't really give me a grounding of figuring out what I wanted to do. I went to school as a geology major. That's what I started out as rocks are dope though. Rocks are super dope. I love rocks. I could rock.

Jeff Nesbitt: after we cover the politics.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Good? Yes. Oh yeah. No, it's okay. I'll save my rock story from the, the Washington DC, are your kids into rocks? They're kind of into rocks, but in the same way that, you know, somebody who's really into something and then their kids are kind of again.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My love for rocks mushrooms. Plants. Yes, didn't really hit until I was a teenager. Isn't that crazy. I just liked to play with stuff. I didn't care about the details about it when I was a little kid, like, who cares? Yeah. This I'm already, I'm involved with this. I'm I'm kicking these mushrooms, you know, I'm climbing these trees.

I don't even know what you call them. Right. But then I, all of a sudden cared a lot. Yeah. And I just absorbed all of it. I, and I still

Kelli Hughes-Ham: love it. Well, and you growing up in this place, mm-hmm , I mean, we have such an incredibly diverse, well biodiversity around here and, you know, even out in my woods, I never know what mushrooms are gonna crop

Jeff Nesbitt: up every day.

That hillside is full of biodiversity. It's incredible. That's a great spot.

Mm. Um, and it was just like, this is here. This is, this is 30 feet from my front door. Yeah. You know, anyway, so I could, I

Jeff Nesbitt: do find that stuff. Amazing. Yeah. Uh, we get these mushrooms in our front yard by our, like, I think they're symbiotic with our Oak trees. Sure. Oak trees, I mean, um, and they look like a truffle, but I think it's like a false truffle.

There's like a really. Mushroom, uh, ball, it almost looks like a puff ball, but it grows like really close to the ground, really. And they're very hard and you cut 'em open and they're like black and dotted in the middle. They're kind of cool. Whoa. I throw 'em at trees and that's a lot of fun, but, uh, they explode and now we have a lot of them.

You're only helping out. You're the first step in nature. Reabsorbing that

Kelli Hughes-Ham: stuff. Yeah. I mean, what kicked him before, you know, you had elk coming through kicking them and

Jeff Nesbitt: exactly. Yeah. Just part of a bigger system exactly. Of kicking mushrooms is environmental awareness. And just, is there, do you have any kind of environmental arm to your platform?

Um, we have our, you know, granted, we don't really have hydroelectric power here in the LD, but we. We use it. Um, you know, you can't just yank out a dam without having a contingency plan for how to replace that. Sorry. Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: no, that's interrupted you, please go on. No, please interrupt. have you been following lake Mead and what's going on with lake Mead?

Yes,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: that is terrifying. It's super empty. And I've I visited there. I've been there twice. Um, the first time it was fine. This was back in, maybe it was my 21st birthday cuz my family does this thing where they take everybody to Vegas on their 21st birthday. Right. You know, family tradition. Um, so that would've been probably 97, um, full lake.

Beautiful. Went back about three years ago, lower. But now seeing the pictures now it's terrifying.

Yep. And they're all gonna leave and go north and east. Yes. And maybe Northeast even.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. It's crazy. Um, I mean, we, I think we've already seen a lot of climate change refugee. Coming up here with the influx of people from California who are look at the real estate, boom. Oh my gosh. It's huge. Um, you know, there was at one point, um, where I kind of considered wanting to move back to Chinook, you know, cuz that's where I grew up.

I love, I mean sidewalks, first of all. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: I mean, for as far as the peninsula goes, that's pretty bougie sidewalks are, I love

Kelli Hughes-Ham: the sidewalks. Super bougie. Yeah. They're great. Yeah. Yeah. And it was an awesome place to grow up. I mean, my brother and I basically, um, I have a brother that's about 15 months younger than I am.

Jeff Nesbitt: I wouldn't let my kids. Yeah. I remember going down there, uh, with my brother when we were probably.

Before we were 10. Yeah. And playing in all, we called 'em the tarpits but it was like the dredge spoils.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. The dredge spoils. My brother totally got stuck.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. So did mine in one

Kelli Hughes-Ham: did you just leave him there? No, I, I

Jeff Nesbitt: think I got him out. You helped him? I, I got him out. I don't remember that part of the story, but I, I did, yeah.

For Jake, but yeah, I remember. And then I, I forgot about it for years. And then I thought about it as, uh, an adult and I was like, that was a dream there's no, tarpits in Chinook. And then, uh, but it there's certain enough from time to time. That gets pretty tar pity out

Kelli Hughes-Ham: there. Yeah. When they're running the dredge it's, it's, it's dangerous.

Jeff Nesbitt: have you ever been out walking in the mud Flats in will PA bay.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: You know, I don't know. My grandparents had a house on the bay, about hundred 76th street. Okay. Um, beautiful place to grow up. I still kick myself that my family didn't buy the house. Um, although some really nice people live there now. Um, but

Jeff Nesbitt: you can feel like that about any house on the peninsula now.

Right? It's like, oh, why didn't I buy that 10 years ago? Seriously? Because they're all twice as much worth twice as much now

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's insane. Um, although my house, not so much, but, um, it's, it's appreciated a little bit, but manufactured homes don't get.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I don't know. I don't understand any of that. How that I don't either.

I just, it seems like those are built a lot better than they used to be. There's

Kelli Hughes-Ham: that thing's tight. Yeah. I bet like energy efficiency talk

Kelli Hughes-Ham: not great.

No, they were not a good thing. Yeah. Um, anyway, it's all over. Boy. Where was I?

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, uh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: COVID brain's a thing. Oh, for sure. It

Jeff Nesbitt: is totally a thing. I've had it for years. Yeah. I know we even got COVID

Kelli Hughes-Ham: no, it's funny how, um, anyway, no, we won't get into COVID but, um, we recovered about three days before we went on our, um, I don't know if you know, we, we did a two week Northeastern road trip.

Um, my family, so my, so Northeastern, where were you headed? We went to Philadelphia, flew in there, rented a car, drove up to Boston, have friends up there. So we stayed there for, for a few days, um, and then drove into New York, not my favorite place in the world. Gotta say. Um, and then into DC and we flew home from DC and wow.

Jeff Nesbitt: it's, it's hard to really hammer a vacation anymore when you don't know what, if you're gonna have to have the right mask requirements or yeah.

Have just deal with hassles that you didn't used to have to deal with. It's exactly. It's a little weirder than it used to be. It's still fun though. There's less people around it. Some stuff it's kinda

Kelli Hughes-Ham: cool. It was super fun. Yeah, actually, um, in, I found everybody in the cities to be delightful. I mean, really cool people.

Um, my only beef was with New York was, um, number one, it's terrifying driving in Manhattan. It looks like it. I'm gonna say that right now. I mean, I did it and, you know, built new connections in my brain. That's good. Stress does that. Um, but, um, the people were super nice, but it was just not enough space.

Jeff Nesbitt: No, it's making New York seem like it's not as good as the snob say it is. Yeah. Maybe I think that's the thing. That's really, I think what the deal is, who wants to stay in a tiny room in a loud place.

That sounds awful to

Kelli Hughes-Ham: me. Right. Yeah. And that's the thing is, you know, all of us, I think, got a little over stimulated and that was, you know, living in the woods does that to you, you have that sense of you have that, you know, I talked about room tone earlier. Your room tone is really low

Jeff Nesbitt: and it has nice little chirps and tweets in it.

Yes. And buzz is if you're lucky. Yes,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: exactly. So anyway, it was, it was important to do it. Um, I mean, seeing the statue of Liberty going to Ellis island was. Incredible. I had, that's pretty cool. No idea. Like the history of, well, not the history, but like what immigrants went through in order to be deemed okay.

Jeff Nesbitt: so I think those stories are so important because if we don't talk about 'em people forget how good we have it. We really have it. Good. I know I'm a white man, so I, of all people, I know I have it great, but I think everybody alive today has it a lot better than people have historically had it.

So it's it's yeah. It's good to have perspective about that stuff. And, um, definitely. I mean, it's good to also keep the ball rolling upwards, you know, trying to improve progress is sure. Always good, but yeah. Yeah. It's nice. Uh, nice to live in this day and age. There's some really great parts about

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it. I agree.

I think about, you know, some of the women in my family I've I come from a long line of, I. This is gonna be surprising outspoken women I know, right. Um, that have, I can't even imagine them being outspoken at a time when they couldn't even vote, you know, things like that. It would've been scary. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: cool. It is very cool. Yeah. Do you have specific platform points that you are running on?

Yeah,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: definitely. Um, well, the thing I was, I think I didn't even quite get to it. The, the education issue. Um, one thing I wanna change is the funding structure for education. Um, as you probably know, a lot of our money has to come from local sources, property taxes, um, bonds, levies things where we have to essentially go begging to people who are already strapped for cash mm-hmm , um, to fund public schools, especially in our area where it's a lot of retired people who, you

Uh, uh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I don't, it doesn't shock me as much anymore. Although a lot of them that I know are very staunch supporters of public schools, but then there's a

Jeff Nesbitt: whole bunch of people that that's why I'm shocked by it. Cuz I, I mean a lot of the older folks I know are like, Definitely supporters of, but I probably, because I know a lot of people through the schools, right.

That's right. Uh, I guess it depends on how, you know, people, but for sure. Um, it's just so shitty. I mean, we're living in a society here, guys. We live in

Kelli Hughes-Ham: a society. We're trying at least yeah. It's, it is interesting to me that, um, and I'm sure I know it gets blamed on, you know, the quote unquote boomers, but I gen X is this way too, being a gen Xer.

It that's an easy

Jeff Nesbitt: ideology. Yeah, it

Kelli Hughes-Ham: is. It's it's easy. Yeah. And you know, was that public schools that failed people that they didn't, I mean, cuz public schools are. See, I'm gonna get political here, which is good. Cuz I'm political political candidate. Um, schools are not designed to produce produce thinkers.

Jeff Nesbitt: Factory workers is what they're trying to

Kelli Hughes-Ham: make. Exactly. This is, um, public schools are to support capitalism. And, um,

Jeff Nesbitt: so is there a world for these, all these factory workers we're producing, where are they going? Where are they going?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Where are the factories?

Jeff Nesbitt: They're on fans only, or only fans, only fans.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I'm glad you didn't know it right off the tip of your tongue.

I'd be a little suspect. No, it's okay. although, you know, it's been tempting at times, you know, like,

The digital economy has become so important. Yes. And it, it just has a major influence in people's lives now. Yeah. Cause there's just so fewer places to make money. Yes. Like that aren't digital. Exactly. Even in education, a lot of that's digital now, too.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Right. yeah, very much. No, there, um, you know, of course I have my resume up on all the sites, just in case, you know?

Um, and most of the jobs that I get alerts for, cuz I have, you know, for artist illustrator as well as teacher, most of it right now is either, you know, like, um, user experience kind of stuff for, you know, video games, things like that. Or remote teaching positions. Mm-hmm , there's really, everything is moving to.

It's a lot of gig stuff too. It's a lot of contract work. It's not that's do

Jeff Nesbitt: you like that? I think that'd be nice. Right. Um, it

Jeff Nesbitt: so that's why a consultant fees are so absorbant

Kelli Hughes-Ham: exorbitant.

Yep. Cause they've gotta pay for benefits for their, yeah, it's crazy. Um, there's actually an initiative that, um, I don't know how much traction it's gotten, um, outside of like the Seattle area. I don't wanna be called a Seattle style Democrat. Um, because that's something that the other side likes to say a lot.

What do you think that means? I think what that means is that these people are more like they are. They're seeing, they're perceiving that the Dems care more about. Um, quote unquote, political correctness than anything else that they want to police language that they want to, um, you know, basically shove different viewpoints down people's throats.

Jeff Nesbitt: agree. That's yeah. That's, that's the part I hate about both of those groups. Yes. Is that is like, Hey, just let me do what I'm gonna do, please. Exactly. I'm not hurting anybody.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: No, I really don't care about, you know, I don't care what you think, you know, as long as you treat me with respect and acknowledge that your neighbor is just as important as you are.

Yes.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, and your beliefs are able to be whatever they want. Yeah. Unless they infringe on the ability of someone else to hold theirs. You're darn right. And that's a big, like, it should be a rule for yeah. Or how society works. And

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it, up until, you know, a couple months ago, I thought that that was gonna keep.

Happening, but it's, that's

Jeff Nesbitt: so confusing to me. It's so

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, it is. It really is. It's just it's so it just seems so antithetical to what our, our justice system is usually.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. It's antithetical to the, to the constitution.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I don't know. It sucks. It really sucks. Yeah. It I'm glad, I'm glad there's people working on that.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: well, the thing is, um, I didn't realize.

States rights, which is good, which is great federal. I mean, we're a, we're a, we are a de or a, um, democratic Republic. So we, I mean, the states are. It's a good thing. I mean, it's what makes the culture of each state very different. That's great. And that's what, you know, you have the ability to move to different states if you like that culture, but, and surprisingly, some people do.

Yeah. I know. No people still go

Jeff Nesbitt: to those places

Kelli Hughes-Ham: all the time. Yeah. Yeah, totally. But, um,

Jeff Nesbitt: Hm. The cultural divide is so huge though. It's really big. It's very strange. It's like two different countries and it's not, it's not, or west or north to south. No, it's, it's not even Republican Democrat. No, it's, it's like mixes of all those because, because.

Exactly. It's it's gotten outta

Kelli Hughes-Ham: hand. It's, it's kind of crazy. And then you throw in the, the images coming from the web telescope and then him making us feel even more. Oh boy. That's, that's pretty exciting. That is incredibly exciting. I just pic a picture of. Back in time. Right? Picture back in time. I mean, how close are we to figuring out like where the big bang origin?

Oh

Jeff Nesbitt: man. It's just, well, think of how close that is to time travel like physical. Yes. If we can see that place with our eyeballs, like we go there. Could we just travel there? Exactly.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It's no, it's incredible. Sorry. Science is something that's always been really important to me.

Jeff Nesbitt: Obviously rock. Oh, sorry. We derailed you from your education.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: That's you're talking about education. Oh yeah. See, I could, I could, the problem is with being a high school teacher is the kids. I'm not, I'm not totally susceptible to this, but kids getting you on bird walks, they call it. I

Jeff Nesbitt: would do that all day. Oh, you were great at that. I would

So there would have to be

Jeff Nesbitt: just like, no question time where like you gotta teach this thing. So no questions. Right. Cuz I have to answer them. Right? Like

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I guarantee you guys got page. Yeah, like totally going on. Bird walks. , Anyway, Well, and you guys have such a. Such a neat group of people that came out of that graduating class.

I think about you guys a lot stayed a lot of em stayed, but even though, even the ones that didn't, that went, they're doing amazing things, you know, it's really pretty cool. It is very cool.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Mm-hmm so

sorry. Ring lights. The, uh, the true, um, heroes of the COVID pandemic, I think. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Whoever's making some, just making the most money off

Kelli Hughes-Ham: of it. They got some money off of me. Pfizer. Yeah. your ring light people, right?

Jeff Nesbitt: I zoom. I actually bought stock in zoom. Oh, before the pandemic, you are kidding because of, uh, I heard him advertised on podcasts and I was on this Marine resource committee. Yeah. And.

Every every month or whatever the meeting was, they're talking about how we gotta, we gotta figure out how to do remote meetings. We gotta do it. And I was like, you guys have never heard of FaceTime. Let's just hold up a phone. like, it's not that hard. And then they're like, no, that will never work. We gotta get something else.

So you don't have huge upfront investment. You don't make a bunch of money. No, exactly. Um, yeah, it was, it was cool.

Jeff Nesbitt: okay. So I got my list. Okay. Um, I actually did have the rock hound thing on here cause I read that in your bio. Are you serious?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Oh man. I love rocks.

Jeff Nesbitt: Why did I take it? This angle? just keep

Kelli Hughes-Ham: spinning on you. I know. That's I have the same problem with my iPad. Okay.

Jeff Nesbitt: um, what, what do have we already said we were gonna go back

Kelli Hughes-Ham: to okay.

The school thing. Okay. Um, so the school funding, it comes down to, uh, we have to beg our communities basically to fund the schools locally, um, and in a rural area that doesn't work out so well because, um, you know, there are fewer property owners per capita kind of thing, but also, um, Another issue with it is the funding structure.

Um, or, you know, that way they at least have like a group of them working together, out here. We're single tens, you know? And when you only fund a 0.3 school counselor, where does the other six, whatever have to come from? And that has to come from the local taxes, local levies bonds, things like that. That frankly, at this point, communities are like enough.

Especially with the housing crisis, inflation inflation.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh my gosh. Property taxes

Kelli Hughes-Ham: go up. Yeah. I mean, and you're feeding a couple of you're feeding a teen and a tween in your house. Um, food has gone up a lot, so much

Jeff Nesbitt: gas. Oh man. Gas. I don't even have to start talking about that. Yeah. That is it's over $6.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Where does it end? No idea. Yeah. It's terrifying. I think I've said terrifying a lot.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I, I let's talk about some happy stuff.

Yeah. So

Kelli Hughes-Ham: yeah. Well, anyway, school funding, it's the thing is it, it can work if it comes down from the state. It's, you know, our state is a hotbed of innovation. We have Microsoft here. We have Boeing here in our state. We should

Jeff Nesbitt: have a very well funded

Kelli Hughes-Ham: education system. Yeah. We should have like one of the best funded education systems and granted the teacher pay.

Yeah. Um, cuz I didn't really feel that way when I first started teaching, I think I started teaching like at, I wanna say like 36,000 a year, which I mean that's not terrible. It's

Jeff Nesbitt: better than a lot of teachers get. Yeah. But it's still not enough. It's not enough.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Um, but now I'm, I'm making decent money and it's, you know, it allows, um, my family to do little things now and then like go on vacation and you know, my husband can then focus.

My husband's like an actor and writer and stuff, so he can focus more on that stuff and not so much on having to find a job with benefits and stuff. So.

Jeff Nesbitt: You know, it does seem like there's enough to go around. There is. Yeah. And there's enough people to fill most of the jobs that are needed to be filled and, you know, robots for the extras.

Exactly. It could work. We do. I do think it could work. I don't know how to do that. I'm glad that there's people like you who are gonna run for office and try to figure it

I like, um, I ask questions a lot and I think that's part of being a teacher. You learn how to it's it's be teaching is not about answering questions. It's about asking them honestly that's

Jeff Nesbitt: education in general academia in

Kelli Hughes-Ham: general. Yeah, exactly. It should be. Um, and I think that I would be really good at finding the people who.

Jeff Nesbitt: that mean?

Exactly.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: So I love my students. I, when I look out at my students, even the kids who are just cut ups and, you know, they all have such incredible gifts and they, whether or not they're supported by their family or not, they're all. I think now more than ever, they are totally themselves. There is not a lot of pretense nowadays with kids.

This gen Z kids are just allowed

Jeff Nesbitt: to be weird, let be themselves,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: they're allowed to be weird and be themselves. Exactly. And that is, that's been such a, a privilege to watch that kind of happen over my 18 years of teaching is, um, you know, do you consider yourself a millennial? I guess so. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: so riddled with anxiety. Yeah.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: This generation seriously. Yeah. Big time.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, I feel like the generation extras were, were pretty heavy on the anxiety too.

very, very, uh, critical parents. The generation before the boomers, boomers were harsh people. They're very harsh. Um, also very like jovial and they like, yeah, they were way more about like getting together in groups and doing stuff, cultural stuff together more than millennials. Millennials don't know how to gather.

They're not as good at it.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Gen Xers. Aren't that good at it either? Um, we are pretty, I mean, My husband and I are both gen Xers. He's he's like older gen X he's six years older than I am. So he is kind of, well, he was born in 69, so he has more of the seventies experience than I had. I'm definitely more of an eighties kid.

We would take off on our bikes in Chinook. I remember riding up to like Chinook river

Jeff Nesbitt: as how old is of a kid? Uh, probably 10. Yeah. That's

Kelli Hughes-Ham: crazy. Yeah. Right. You would never do that now. No, no, because it's terrifying out there. Yeah. Even though we had, you know, they would tell us stories of these biker gangs that would come into town.

The gypsy jokers they were called. And my grandma wrote a, who basically was born and raised here. She was terrified of them. I don't know why. What happened? Oh, the

Jeff Nesbitt: gypsy gypsy days are gypsy cruise. What was that called? Well, the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: gypsy jokers were the name of the, the biker gang.

Jeff Nesbitt: I saw an exhibit at the, the historical museum down in Ilwaco

yeah. About the gypsy. Something, I I'll put a ding in here. I'll ask Madeline. Hello Ram Fam, Its me Malcolm.

Motorcycle races on the beach reached a new level of intensity when the Gypsy Tour arrived in Long Beach in 1938. This motorcycle rally featured races and skill competitions such as jumps and "plank rides," which required the rider to drive along a row of planks laid end to end on the beach. The 1940 rally had a top speed of 109 miles per hour. The Chinook Observer estimated that two to three thousand motorcyclists came to the rally in 1949.

Weekend festivities ended with dances at the Long Beach Pavilion, Rine Hall, and Redman Hall. You could buy one ticket to get admission to all of the dances.

And that was the end of the Gypsy tour in Long Beach Washington.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah.

But, um, yeah, it was like a big, it was basically like the rod run the way rod run is now. Yeah. Where like the people for rod run come, but also so many other people just with, who are into cars. Right. Or have a hot rod, but they're not actually in the beach barons show.

Yeah. And, but it was like a whole peninsula event. And, uh, it was about these motorcycle. Races and tricks. And like these, these gypsy gang, the gypsy tours, I think, is what it was called. And then they eventually made a city ordinance that banned the gypsy tours and, uh, it ended, okay. I need to learn more

Kelli Hughes-Ham: about this.

It's really cool. Cause maybe it's fascinating, like vindicate my grandma a little bit, you know, that she's

Jeff Nesbitt: she's this place has such a cool

Jeff Nesbitt: and cause it's, it was built for fun. Yes. It was built to come to place to just kick back. Yes. Probably get drunk and party and, and just enjoy your family in the water and exactly be cold and wet a lot.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Which, you know, those of us that live here, that's pretty, I mean, that's kind of how we spend our time used to it. You do get used to it. And I gotta say, being on the east coast, in that 90 plus degree weather, it was really nice to come back home. Mm-hmm and just be cold and wet instead of hot.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It's so fresh.

Yeah. The air is so fresh here. It's different. That's what I always notice when I come back from anywhere inland. Yeah. Is that the air is like, there's like shit in it. Yeah. There's like the air out here is just like brand new air it's it's brand new

Kelli Hughes-Ham: air. It's like, what do they it's hyper oxygenated cuz of the weight.

Ionized, ionized,

Jeff Nesbitt: all those Gray's. Yeah. All the rain drops, pulling all that nastiness outta the air. It's it's a beautiful place to breathe. It is a

Kelli Hughes-Ham: beautiful place to breathe and

Jeff Nesbitt: it's like the first breath stepping out of PDX after you're coming back from a wherever doesn't matter, stinky places. So good.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: we're all on vitamin

Jeff Nesbitt: D. The light is what I crave more so than the heat. Like, I don't mind the, the rain when it's like tropical.

It's no problem at all. Yeah. I'm I'm generally damp anyway. Yeah. During the club. Yeah. It's not a problem, but it's, it's like the six hours of just halfass daylight that I get. I'm just like, Nope. Not gonna do it for me. I'm my body is slowly dying in this shit. I gotta get some more light. Um, it's terrible.

I can't stand it. Oh, I agree. I, I think about it. I spend so much time thinking about it and also talking about it on this podcast. how, how much, I just hate the darkness of the winters here. They're just so dark. I, my internal clock just like sometimes is just like, I'm gonna just hibernate. Yeah. Uh, where I, if I'm in here, cuz there, the windows are usually covered.

It's quiet. I'm like. Wait, is it PM or am right now, right?

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. I'll just put 'em all up out here.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Sponsor you outta this. Yeah. You could do little ad spot for 'em and you could, you could Hawk, sun lamps

Jeff Nesbitt: really in this climate, this would be a great place to sell these things.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Indeed. A lot of people don't know about 'em

Jeff Nesbitt: maybe make a note of that right now, or I will forget.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: no, they, I know they work. Um, I've just, they work.

Jeff Nesbitt: They're great. They're, they're expensive. Um, a lot of 'em are expensive, but you know, if more people buy 'em, they will become less expensive. Exactly. So that's and smart people will take 'em apart and figure out how to build 'em ourselves.

Exactly. Yeah. So we'll, we'll get cheaper ones. That's where you come in. So I hope so, but if you know, who can find the time to take apart electronics these days

I have so, so many passion projects that one's just like, not high on the list. Oh man.

I like to buy clothing, especially the clothing industry is. Awful for, you know, just what they put in the environment and everything. Oh yeah. Fast fashion, terrible. Um, so I try to buy most of my clothes secondhand. Oh. Like all that shit, except for Dan,

Jeff Nesbitt: they sell on Amazon. That's like, you know, okay. People just like buy three of 'em and throw two away.

If it doesn't, they don't like the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: colors seriously. Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. Um, but you know, I always have to walk through the craft section and the wood. Like they have the little wood, wood boxes and things. I love, I found an embroidery hoop. That's like two feet across. And I don't know when I'm gonna do that.

I don't, I, I don't know.

Jeff Nesbitt: But when you have the time, you're not gonna have the time to go to Joanne. Exactly.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: You got it. I've got it for when you need it. Yeah. So do you embroider? I do. Nice. I do embroider. Um, not as good as some people like Mattie there's some people who are incredible. Some people are like, they know all the knots and everything.

Jeff Nesbitt: You're a naturally artistic person. I am. So you probably have pretty good luck most of the time when you just jump in most, like when you go to a, a group art event, like you're going to a wine and do you know, whatever a paint by numbers of David Hasell off.

Oh, I you're all doing the same thing I crush at those. I,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I bet. Yeah. Yeah, no, I crush at those. And then I'm usually the bane of the existence of the teacher, because I'm like going off and doing whatever mm-hmm . Yeah, no, I, um, I felt bad. Don Des bit did one. Um, when the boys and girls club was doing fundraisers like that way, um, where he, he was lovely and you know, but I'm over here, he's doing like a star.

And star and moon kind of scene and everything. I'm over here, given my moon, this nasty face and things are growing off of my moon. I just felt really

For some reason, it's it's like me too. I don't, I really don't know what it is, but I like that stuff.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Me too. I, and that's interesting. My, my music tastes definitely, um, skewed toward the Les macab I'm a big fan of Canadian pop. I love pop.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Pop is great. I like

Kelli Hughes-Ham: girl music. Yeah. I like, I like music that makes me happy that there are some songs that I like that have kind of an anger to them, but, but I hiphop, yeah.

Hiphop, do you listen to hiphop? Yeah, I do listen to some, mostly the older stuff, you know, cuz I'm that was very angry. Yeah. Very like public enemy kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys with attitude. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, I love that stuff, because number one, I remember the issues of the time that they were speaking about, although they're still incredibly relevant now.

Um, they've

Kelli Hughes-Ham: nice false, so yeah. Yes. Yeah. Um, so anyway, yeah, music is, um, Why were we talking about

Jeff Nesbitt: music? I don't know. why not?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: No, I'm, I'm actually my husband and I are huge.

Oh, we were talking about art, art, art in general. Mm-hmm yeah. Um, no, the Macco, definitely. Um, for some reason I'm more drawn to kind of dark gray. I mean, just based upon where I grew up, I think it's just the, um, I've never been somebody who, you know, puts a lot of happy colors into their work and stuff because it's not something I connect to.

But then I see

Jeff Nesbitt: you have an American traditional, uh, with a, that looks like a custom design Swiss army knife for fish hook. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a colorful, pretty, uh, happy

Um, and it's, it's followed me everywhere and it makes, it's almost like my security object in a way, but also, you know, there are some things that are, you can't put in a Swiss army knife. So I kind of made my dream Swiss army knife. I've got, that's a great idea. The fish hook on it, cuz fishing is number one.

So on both sides of my family, I have these incredible ties to this area, those fishing route.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's such a real thing. It's very real. Like, I notice it so much in my son in Sawyer.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Right. Sawyer. He's in Alaska right now. Isn't he? Yeah. He's

I'm gonna apply it here. Yeah. Why not? Um, it's a bumper crop of salmon. yeah, that's great. But, um, yeah. And, but he's, since I've met him, like, I mean, I met him when he was seven. Yeah. And he, that's all he wants to talk about. Most of the time is, is boats and fish and fishing. And it's just like in his soul and it's, it's kind of beautiful because as he's getting older, he's learning to have less of it is just like little boy fascination and more of a reverence and respect for the craft.

Yeah. And it's really cool. I'm proud of him. That's neat. He should be. He's a neat kid. Yeah. He's, he's a very special kid. Yeah. And, uh, but yeah, I, I noticed that the fishing thing, it doesn't seem like he has a choice. It's just like, this is who I am drawn

Kelli Hughes-Ham: to it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's something to, um, not even just the fishing part of it.

Jeff Nesbitt: Me either.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: We live on a compass, we live on a compass. We have the ocean it's west. We have the river. It's pretty much south. I mean, it's, I know where I am at all

Jeff Nesbitt: times.

Yeah. I grew up on ocean park, so I had, I could hear the ocean at all times. Right. And I, I could see the bay, see the bay, so I'm like, okay, I know where to go. Yeah. And then you get yourself drop the big city or something. Yeah. So I have no idea.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: No. And luckily, most big cities have like a river mm-hmm that running through.

'em that the good ones, the good ones, you know? Um, but it's still just, it's incredibly disorienting. Um, and follow when we were back east, I like driving. Otherwise, if I don't, if I don't drive, I get car sick. Like even if I'm in the passenger seat, me too. So in my husband's he's cool with it. He like, he's, he's cool with me driving.

Jeff Nesbitt: that's why you don't have that because he, like, you can't waste it on something like work.

You gotta enjoy your

Kelli Hughes-Ham: life. Exactly. I remember, um, when I was a kid, um, I wouldn't go anywhere without my Walkman. My. Headphones Walkman. Um, let's see. I think my first album I bought was Huey Lewis in the news. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted you. You're definitely an eighties kid. Totally. An eighties kid. Um, and then the second one that I bought was the Ghostbuster soundtrack.

Huey

Jeff Nesbitt: Lewis was on that. Wasn't he? Yes, he was

Kelli Hughes-Ham: yeah. Oh wait, no, no, no, no. That was, uh, back to the future. He was on. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, anyway, no, that was Ray Parker Jr. Did the go don't no

Jeff Nesbitt: credit card ride trying such a good song. Is that, who is

Kelli Hughes-Ham: that Huey list? That's that's Huey Lewis and that's from the back of the future soundtrack.

Jeff Nesbitt: It was so weird when 2 20 15 hit and we're like, wait, what? This is the back. This is the future of back of the future. This is the future. And, and now we're past it. We're almost into like blade runner. Yeah. Yeah. What was that? 2049. I think it was, yeah, I've never even seen blade runner.

I just pulled that from the collective conscious. It's really

Kelli Hughes-Ham: good. It's really, um, like it's not for everybody, but I think you dig it it's slow is the problem. And, um, the new blade runner runner with Ryan Gosling in it was okay. But I really suggest you go back and watch the Harrison for

Jeff Nesbitt: oh yeah. Yeah.

He's great. And I like to start at the beginning of stuff. I like slow movies. Like that's the kind of stuff I, that you get to pick apart. And, but yeah, the catch 22 is I don't have time for any movies, let alone one that, that I have to sit for three hours and focus solely on that. I can't even work while I'm watching it.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: So one thing I have to do is, um, you know, I have an iPad that. I have all of the Adobe suite on it. I have, you know, drawing apps.

Do you have apple pencil? Yeah. I have an apple pencil. You must probably work a

Jeff Nesbitt: lot, then it's incredible. You can get so much done with that

Kelli Hughes-Ham: thing, but it also, it kind of stymies me in a way that I'm kind of like, Ugh, staring at screen while, and it's usually, while I'm watching something, I'll put something on in the background.

Um, because I don't know if it's undiagnosed ADHD or whatever. Um, like I have a son who's definitely ADHD. Um, but I have a really hard time just focusing on one thing. And getting something done. I have to have something else kind of going in the background. That's not going to draw my attention. Um, like, like friends is on in the

Jeff Nesbitt: background or something, right.

Jeff Nesbitt: the background, have you already watched it all the way through though? Oh yeah. It's a rerun for you. Yeah. Cause I think that part's important. Yeah. If it's new, if it's not it's new, not like can't do it.

Can't be novel stimuli or it can't be new

Kelli Hughes-Ham: suck you right in seriously. Yeah. No, it's um, it's really interesting though. It's like, um, and also having another person in the room that, that was, I

Jeff Nesbitt: was just gonna ask, does it work with a person? Yeah. That's called body doubling. Yes. Yeah. And

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's a thing and I didn't know that mm-hmm until, okay.

So I don't know if you look at TikTok at all a little bit. Yeah. So TikTok has a lot of people in my generation convinced that we all have ADHD

Jeff Nesbitt: and autism. Exactly. And a lot of you probably do.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: We probably do. Yeah, honestly.

Jeff Nesbitt: Well, cuz your parents probably did too. And, and whatever, that's just, it's been around.

Yeah. And, um, all the rest of us didn't get diagnosed because it was like, well, you figured out how to get by, but it's not a great life. No. To try to it's exhausting. Get by without being noticed.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah, totally. No. I mean, the masking that they talk about, it's like, oh, is that what I'm doing? Like constantly.

Um, and you know, the nice thing about working with teenagers is I don't feel like I have to mask as much. And I think that's why there are a lot of neuro divergent people that are drawn to teaching little kids and

Jeff Nesbitt: dogs too. Yeah, totally. Just be yourself. You can just be yourself.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah, this guy's cool.

Yeah. And they, they prefer it. Mm-hmm and they, they like it when you make mistakes because it gives them, you know, an idea. Oh, adults are humans too. And anyway, that's a

Jeff Nesbitt: bird line right there. And well, so many people talk down to kids and talk to 'em like, they're not, yes. Human beings. It's like, come on.

No. It's helpful when they're really young establishing those basic sounds, right? Like the, when you're emphasizing phonetics.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. And like which patterns and things

Jeff Nesbitt: just, but you can, you can really still talk to 'em on a very normal level. A lot of the time too. And it works, then they start talking quick.

Right? Like, not that that's even like, uh, like a situation you want, as opposed to them taking longer. All that's who cares?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It's not race. No. Like my oldest took a while to talk, but when he finally started talking, he was full sentences. Articulate his little brother though. Was he wanted to communicate with his big brother?

Yeah. So he talked a lot earlier and, but when his talking started, it wasn't as articulate. It was a little more, you know, he had trouble with those RS and stuff and, um,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Right. Exactly. And those thoughts came out and we were like, wow, who are you?

You

Jeff Nesbitt: know? Yeah. He's a unique kid. Both of your kids are very

Kelli Hughes-Ham: special. They're pretty unique. Um, I'm every day I kind of step back and look and, and say, am I doing them justice? You know, am I I've, I've really tried to let them become themselves. And what are they into right now? Um, oh boy. Um, the oldest is, he just got his first smartphone.

Ooh. Yeah. Um, but luckily, you know, he's not really interested in social media. He's, he's a gamer. So he is, um, like all into Pokemon go right now. Um, he went through like a, kind of a Japanese anime phase that he's like, mom, I'm not into that right now. I like, I pointed out somebody in DC that was wearing a Naruto jacket.

Jeff Nesbitt: hurt your feelings a little

Kelli Hughes-Ham: bit, you know, because I thought I knew my child,

Jeff Nesbitt: they just changed so fast. They changed incredibly fast. It's so weird when they start being embarrassed by you. Yeah. Um, like now

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's heartbreaking because up until then, you know, you're so cool before.

You're really cool. And I still am cool. Yeah, you stay cool. Yeah. But, but now I'm actually saying it, I'm saying, but I'm cool. You know, it's, which makes you not cool,

Jeff Nesbitt: but I knew it was all coming too. Like I, I understand human development. Yeah. And the fact that they're trying to establish their own identity.

And in order to do that, they have to identify with an adult role model and then separate from their exactly. Caregiver. Yeah. Like that's a crucial part of the process if you that's part of attachment, develop unhealthy attachments. Exactly. Yep. So, you know, I get it, but it still stings. Yeah. It still STS.

When like, could you drop me off just up here? Yeah. It's like, I could take you all the no, no, no.

Yeah. He, um, he,

Jeff Nesbitt: I get him on here and we'll talk about ants for two hours. Oh my God. He would love that. I they're incredible. They are, I'll let you keep going, but

Kelli Hughes-Ham: they're a window into, I mean, okay. So he got into ants and he researched, okay. If I wanna start my own colony, I need to go out and look of humans, um, of ants maybe both.

Yeah, exactly. He, um, researched how to find a queen. What you have to do is you have to look for, you know, um, An ant that has the wings, scars, where it is taken off its own wings. That means it's ready to, to, it has mated and it's ready to start laying

Jeff Nesbitt: eggs. Those big, scary winged ones are not my favorite.

They

I wanna catch him a queen. I'm like, cool, dude, go right ahead. And I'll be down with that kid on our front deck one day. He's like Rory, I think I found a queen and sure enough, it was a queen. And that's the queen that two years later, Rory has an aunt colony that he started. Yeah. That it's very small and you know, he's still kind of feeling it out, but he is really interested in like, it's, it's actually called ology, the study of ants specifically, not, uh, entomology mm-hmm , which is all insects, but to the point where he kind of wants to go into it, like granted he's going into eighth grade.

So who knows that could change.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: stuff.

Yes. I suggested to him that you could do a double major, you could do pharmacology and anthropology, which is kind of funny anthropology. That that's kind of funny. Yeah. Because it really is a window into, um, how human societies sometimes organize themselves. And sometimes don't, you know, it's, it's really cool.

So we found there's actually a school of pharmacology or a, a professor that's written books down at Stanford. And I am trying to convince him to write to her and be like, Hey, can I come visit your program? And cuz now he's like all he wants to go to Stanford. And here I am, you know, a public school teacher.

Okay. So yeah, let him know about that. I will. I think that be really fun. Yeah. And I also think it'd be pretty effective as a strategy for like also provide additional materials. Here's the thing I made about ants. Yeah,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: indeed. Oh, he would love that. That would be

Jeff Nesbitt: really cool. Thank you. I watched this video where they poured.

Liquid metal down an abandoned a, it was, they set

Kelli Hughes-Ham: abandoned. Oh, abandoned. I know. And that's the thing is it probably was. I, I wanna, you know,

Jeff Nesbitt: think of people as things are incredible. Amazing, incredible. Yes. I had no idea how, uh, not only just I picture just like random, a lot more randomness. Yeah. But it's very structured.

They're they're they're what are they even called? Colonies? Yeah. Are, uh, they have like a central tunnel with a bunch of offshoot tunnels and then bunch of chambers. Yeah. It's like a

Yeah. And they have, um, burial, they bury their dead. Yeah. And it. They have

Jeff Nesbitt: culture. They have culture, they pass down knowledge from generation to generation. Yes. It's, it's really crazy. And they, oh my God. Also just the biology of their physical form. Yeah. The fact that they can lift 10 times their strength.

I mean, they're incredible. Their strength is to pick up 10 times their body weight. Yeah. It's just, yeah. They're very neat creatures. Imagine if they were our size, they would be the masters of this planet. Oh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: they would absolutely be the masters of the planet. Yeah. And I think, I

Jeff Nesbitt: don't know if we'd off, if tomorrow.

Organism, maybe not every organism, it would get too complicated with all the bacteria and stuff, but everything bigger than, uh, a mouse suddenly became the same size. And it's just a battle. Royal. Do you think humans would come out on top? Nope. We have the technology.

It's I mean, the thing is

Jeff Nesbitt: octopuses and chimps would probably team up, get with the honey badgers and then we're doomed the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: moment I saw that video of that octopus walking on land. Yeah, that's kind of the point where I was like, oh, we we're in

Jeff Nesbitt: trouble. I just saw a thing that their, their back two tentacles are actually more considered legs because they're used to stand up and walk on two legs on the floor of the ocean.

Right? Yeah. I've seen this and they like pick, it looks like a bride picking up her dress. Like, should they pick up all the, their tentacles with two other tent and then just walk around. It's really crazy. Oh my gosh. Have you watched my octopus teacher?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I have not yet. I keep

Jeff Nesbitt: it's on my list. You should watch it.

And, uh, it start like at first he just sees it down there occasionally, and then it starts coming and seeing him daily and he builds a relationship with this creature. And it's, it's really cool. And I won't spoil the ending,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: but every kid who loves animals, isn't that like the dream to like make friends with a wild animal.

Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Having especially one as intelligent as that. Yeah. And that has that much character. Yeah. Like they have, I mean, it's hard to even fathom that because they don't have a human face. Right. Like that's where we get so much of our emotional communication. Yeah. I don't know how I would pick up on the cues, emotional cues of an octopus.

I barely can handle human. like I have to look at the face um, octopus would be tricky. Yeah. Would be tricky.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: But I mean, it's just like learning the new language, I guess, but I've, I would do it. I mean, if it were. To make friends with an animal. I would, yeah.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I wonder do we have, I don't think we have any in like the estuary. Probably

Jeff Nesbitt: not. Probably. You'd definitely just a couple miles that way. Oh, definitely out there in the Pacific for sure. The Pacific octopus. It's one of the, one of the good ones giant. One of the good ones. Have you seen that giant squid that has like a hundred foot tentacles?

It looks like the grim Reaper a bit scary, like a ghost, terrifying ghost creature of your nightmares. Yes. Have

Kelli Hughes-Ham: you ever heard of the term, the lasso phobia? No. It's the, it's the, the fear of deep dark water and not knowing what's under there. That sounds very human. It's very human. Exactly. Cuz we are, I mean, there are things like why are we scared of dark forests?

Why are we scared of dark water? It's like, that's where the monsters live. Exactly. So, um, but then thinking about those huge behemoths. LA leviathans, you know, yeah. Out that could be out there that we haven't seen yet. I mean, it's,

Jeff Nesbitt: do you think there are still,

And it talks about this kid who starts to notice incredible, um, like things washing up in Olympia, like things that have no business being in the Puget sound washing of like, or fish, like a giant squid, um, you know, and how, and it talks a lot about. We're starting to see things up here that we've never seen before, just because of the change in the ocean temperature and this is actually happening.

That's pretty small one. Yeah. That's pretty small. Exactly. But at the same time, it was just like, I cannot believe I'm looking at this. Um, so the very fact that things are changing in the ocean, I think we're gonna start to see more things that we haven't seen before because that ocean is incredibly vast.

Deep. Um, there's gotta be stuff out there that we haven't seen. It's just like space exploration. Yeah. How could there not be? How could there not be it's? I mean, just seeing the incredible biodiversity on land. It it's gotta exist in the sea

Jeff Nesbitt: too. What about Bigfoot? What's your, what's your official stance on Bigfoot?

He's. He's what

Jeff Nesbitt: but alien sure has. Yeah, dude. Oh, I don't even wanna talk about that. I'm tired of talking about it.

I can't, there's no answers, no one has

Kelli Hughes-Ham: answers. No, no one has answers. You know that my boys and I, um, on a road trip about three years ago, we actually, um, we were, um, in Nevada and we drove to the back gate of area 50. Because somebody at a little like alien gifts gift store gave me a hand drawn map. Oh my God.

To the back gate. Yeah. It's amazing. My oldest that would never happen. My oldest was terrified. I bet. Um, and my youngest he's like, yeah, let's do this. And I've got a picture of us, you know, at the back

Jeff Nesbitt: gate. Is that a good snapshot for their personalities?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah, totally. Oh yeah. We haven't even talked about the younger one.

Jeff Nesbitt: oh, well that is what wild is. Yeah, he is my definition.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: That's the wild card. Probably like, he's just naturally funny, like everything he does.

Um, he just, it's funny and he has timing and my husband is an actor, big comedy nerd. He is constantly just in awe of what Milo the youngest does. Um, but he's also incredibly like. He's a performer, but he's also, he feels really deeply. He is, um, I have my old soul and my old son oldest, I call Milo my young soul.

Like he's new mm-hmm and everything is new and fascinating.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, his, his feelers are exposed. Yes. He's more sensitive. Very much less stoic.

So I have to just sit there and you. Just be next to him when he is having those big feelings and not ask him a thousand questions. Exactly. And not try to solve everything. Yeah. Um, there are some times when I say to him, I don't think I can solve this problem for you. That's so

Jeff Nesbitt: liberating for a little kid.

Yeah. Because

Kelli Hughes-Ham: you know, that's how you trust me. Right. Um, so there are times when I can't help him, but I can be there at least to, you know, get the scotch tape if that's what you need to repair. The thing

Jeff Nesbitt: that just, sometimes it's really hard to find the end. It just, yeah. Stick. There you go. Round and round and round.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. Tape is a big thing in our house. At least it was for a while. I don't know. Not necessarily now. Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm a major fan of tape. I have lots of roles, different types, different types. Exactly. Don't let me started on glues. I'm a big

Jeff Nesbitt: right job.

There's so much dopamine in that statement. Yes. Just like when you have the perfect tool to accomplish exactly the task in the right. Most efficient way. It's just like it's art.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. Yes. My one of my grandmas, um, was she was a butter knife to fix everything. It's a good tool. Yeah. It's like the, the TV isn't tuned in get the butter knife.

Um, that's how

Jeff Nesbitt: we used to have to get, uh, videos into our VCR. We had to kept the butter knife on top. You'd have to cuz the something was broken. You'd have to put the butter knife on the tape and then push it under your hand. Kinda swim it in there. Slide it in and push it down with a knife. That's how you could get it in.

Yes.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. See that's the thing is, you know, TV VCR. Very expensive, common

Jeff Nesbitt: scale and generation X and uh, some millennials. But yeah, the kids these days, they don't know how to fix a VCR. No, they just, I mean like a VC,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: what VC, what exactly? we actually have a collection of V VHS tapes, cuz you ever

Kelli Hughes-Ham: garbage.

They look total like total, total garbage, but also it's, that's become an aesthetic mm-hmm um,

Jeff Nesbitt: there's filters on the, on the apps that make it look like an old VHS tape. Yes, I

Kelli Hughes-Ham: am a big fan of this is probably going to, you know, probably color me in several ways for people. Um, the Tim and Eric. Show yeah.

On adult swim, you know, mm-hmm, all of the branches off of that and stuff, but how they have turned that VHS aesthetic into a genre

Jeff Nesbitt: of kind of an MTV look also. Yeah. That,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: that era Barry and it's just, it's, it's funny watching it as a gen Xer who saw TV like that, but then my kids laugh at it too. Yeah. The, I only show 'em the appropriate stuff, but, um, cuz it's very inappropriate.

Um,

Sure. But I personally have very strong impulses to let my kids watch stuff. Mm-hmm that has lots of swear words in it. If, if there happens to be, if it's are artistically relevant. Yeah. Like if it is, if it is relevant to a good story, or if I think that even if it's just like really good comedy yeah.

That, that is gonna speak to them. Cuz most adult comedies comedies aren't going to, so I'm not gonna let them watch something that they Don. That aren't, they're not gonna connect with. Right. But if it's something that has like a good example is the water boy. Uh, I let my kids watch the water. Boy. That's great.

It had been years since I'd seen it and it, it held up. Yeah, it was very funny. And it had some parts where everybody in the room looks at me. Yeah. I'm just like, it's already on, I'm not gonna turn it off. Right. But I, I stand by it because I'm like, I want, I want them to have this cultural information and they're laughing so hard.

Yeah. Um, but now she, like kids are zoning out. Most of the time, I usually will just put on what I wanna listen to. Yeah. And I listen to good shit. So I want them to experience good music. Yes. And something like, um, Kendrick Lamar. Oh man. Very, very culturally relevant. Very, but kind of hard to listen to. I kinda hard.

And it's, it's poetry. It's beautiful

Kelli Hughes-Ham: poetry, Kendrick, Kendrick Lamar is amazing. Fantastic.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I don't know. I, me and Melissa went and saw him just while she was pregnant with Amelia. We were so old, so old. It felt bizarre. I was like, I really didn't expect this. I thought I was still quite hip.

Right. But it was just a bunch of kids. Yeah. And Travis, Scott was playing there too. This was before he started killing people at his concerts. Yeah. and, um, it was, uh, not that fun, actually. It was really, it was at the Tacoma do so that the sound is just terrible in there. No, that's not a good venue. Yeah.

But anyway, um, how, where do you, how do you, uh, manage that with your kids and, and consuming art

So there's this thing called code switching. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's basically a lot of, um, people of color do this, where they have to change how they communicate based upon the, um, wherever they are. Are they in school? They're working. Are they with their family? So it's like a whole nother language.

It is a whole nother language. Yeah. So why should my kids not learn how to code code, switch to where they, um, understand what is, and is not appropriate during certain times they've never gotten in trouble at school for cursing. Um, and I mean, I've kind of got a potty mouth, so it's better for them. I think to see.

Exactly. And I know a lot of people will argue well, but there are so many other words you could use instead. And I'm like, use those too. Use those too. Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, my kids have great vocabularies. It's just the way they are.

Jeff Nesbitt: And I also, I will beg to differ. I don't think there's a word that can replace.

Fuck. Oh my God's such a great

Kelli Hughes-Ham: word. It's a great word. It's I mean, it's, it's versatile. It's versatile. It's it's, it's several parts of speech in one. Yeah. I mean, and

Jeff Nesbitt: you can use it on a lot of different contexts too. Yeah, you can. I mean, it's usually, it's, it's more of a casual word, but you, you, you might see it at a business meeting.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: anywhere. No, I agree. Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: but you don't wanna see it in a classroom? Not necessarily, unless it's like a cool music history professor,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: or if it's your art teacher that, or art teacher forgets herself a little bit and art

Jeff Nesbitt: teachers can, can get away with a lot they have, they're allowed to be eccentric.

Yeah. And I kind of fight, at least they, Dan well, should be. I

Kelli Hughes-Ham: fight that stereotype a lot, but there are times when I really lean into it too. Yeah. It's probably got it's

Jeff Nesbitt: pros and

Kelli Hughes-Ham: cons. It's got it's pros and cons for sure. You know, you, you can definitely get away with wearing different things than your colleagues can.

Um, You know, you can get away with having different conversations with kids. Um, cuz you know, art is inherently about a human experience and when you it's expressive, it's expressive. And when you have that kind of culture in your classroom where you want kids to be able to express themselves, they're gonna express themselves, not just visually, but verbally and with each other

Jeff Nesbitt: and you kind of have to support that and foster that safe place environment.

Jeff Nesbitt: space, but I, I know I almost didn't say it because of that, but it it's a great, it's a great idea. Yeah. That there is because it's a very simple thing is you either feel safe or you don't.

Right. And it's, uh, it's really nice to feel safe.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It's really nice to feel safe. Yeah. And I think there are so few places anymore where people do feel safe that anytime we. Make more of those spaces for people. It's, it's a good thing.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. What are the parts of the stereotype that you don't like?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: well, the part of the stereotype of being flaky, um, you know, I seem to remember I screwed up on your grade that,

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, I

Jeff Nesbitt: know, wait, you actually, it really was a mistake.

It was totally a mistake. This just reframed that entire

Kelli Hughes-Ham: experience for me. No, cuz I had, I had forgotten, I think I forgot to put mark an article that you had turned in.

Jeff Nesbitt: I honestly didn't even look and see what it was. I just knew it was wrong. uh, I found, I saw my grade. I was like, well, this isn't right.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Get to the bottom of this very rationally, quite rationally. And I, by the time I got there though, I was, I was a little, I came in hot. Yeah. I'm sorry. We've had this discussion. We've we've had this, we've hashed this out. I don't care. Yeah. I'm not we're over it now and honestly resolved it.

But, uh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: as a high school teacher, I, that happens a lot. I mean, you just, you,

Jeff Nesbitt: um, I thought the world was against me at that point. Sure.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Because developmentally that's how a lot of teenagers feel at that point. Yeah.

Oh, I mean, look at this hair. Yeah. Like

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it's, don't even get me start on mine. Um, I'm trying to grow out kind of. Not successful haircut right now.

Jeff Nesbitt: I, I consider to bringing Clippers and having you give me a haircut on film just for, for views, cuz it's been so hot.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: My stepson did that on Twitch. My husband went and gave him, shaved his head on Twitch.

Mm-hmm for the

Jeff Nesbitt: views. That's how I'll get my next haircut. Yeah, there you go. uh, but yeah, what my point was, I, I didn't, I didn't wanna shed that persona completely sure. Because I wanted to be able to lean into it. Like you just said, like when it's true, cuz sometimes it is right. I am that type of person.

Oh, no, no, no, no. I was smoking weed at that time. I apologize. That's wrong. uh, yeah. Weed will message your memory also. But, um, this is true. Yeah. I don't remember where I was going with that. That's okay. I was a young buck and I was just trying to, you know, find my place in the world. And you're a kid. I, uh, I, I don't know where I thought that forcing my, uh, opinion into the, into the space was going to make a difference, but it, it that's, I never handle things like that anymore.

BU rush people and just be like, Hey, you did something.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I don't like exactly. I remember a couple of your classmates were sitting in the room at the time and they're just kind of like,

Jeff Nesbitt: I'd done it to them. they had, had seen it before. Um, I didn't. Yeah,

And, um, I don't know. Um, so Dave Tobin, our principal just, um, retired and one thing he has up on had up on the wall above the staff copier is, um, make them feel safe, make them feel loved. There's some other things, you know, talk to them, stuff like that. But at the very bottom, it says, and maybe learn something.

Jeff Nesbitt: Set the meet the lower needs first, right? Yeah. So that a lot of those things sound like things that you're having to do at home as a parent. Yes. Is there any kind of conflict there? How do you have enough left in the tank at the end of the day for your own kids?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It's a different tank, different tank.

One thing I've always been able to do is, is compartmentalize school and who I am at school feeling incredibly passionate about teaching, but also I, I work like hell while, while I'm there. I work really hard. I work through my planning period. Most of the time I'm working during lunch, so that at three 30, I can go home and, you know, as an experienced teacher, that's something I

Jeff Nesbitt: can do.

You're actually able to cut it off and do it. I am that's, that's really good.

Yeah. And excuse me, that was the best decision I could have made. Was wait to have kids. Um, I know that doesn't work out for everybody, but then once they came along, I had a better grounding in terms of, you know, before, before I had kids, I would spend a little extra time after school prepping for the next day and stuff.

But yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Jeff Nesbitt: I can do whatever I want. Your life is yours.

Now. I can come be a mom after school. And a lot of it is just. Coming home and being present, I guess this sounds really cheesy, but, um, that, that's the stuff that's usually

Jeff Nesbitt: the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: truest, right? It's, it's weird how it's just learning how to sit there with your kids on the floor and play with them and understand that the person you are at work, even if some kid cussed you out that day, you come home and you are a mom and this little person looks at you and sees you as mom.

So you are home I'm home. Yeah. And, um, and it's something I feel like I've really I've. I guess I would call that an accomplishment that I have pretty good work life

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It's, it's so hard. Um, especially as a teacher and granted, you know, I guess I have a little bit of a luxury as an art teacher that my grading is a little bit more, um, it's not subjective, cuz kids have to evaluate their own work.

You know, they have to actually turn in work, you know, to get a grade. Um, but like an English teacher who teaches English all day long and has all those essays to look at, um, I'm kind of glad I'm not teaching English next year. Yeah. Cause I won't have to, you know, grade all those essays. But um, so I guess as an art teacher, I have to acknowledge that I have the power to just work like heck when I'm there, get everything ready and then go home and go out in the woods and hunt for mushrooms with my kid.

Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: That sounds like a good life. It is a good life. Yeah. Are you worried? Jumping into a new career is gonna kind of put that in jeopardy

I actually decided on that before I started decided to run for, for legislator. Um, The reason I'm going back part-time is I kind of need to step away from the education world a little bit. Um, maybe let some other people take on the roles of, you know, organizing graduation and, um, doing honor society and all that stuff because my husband and I are actually, um, we're buying my aunt's bookstore in OACO.

So time enough books. Yeah, cool. That's my aunt's store. My kids have basically grown up in there. That's awesome. Yeah. And my husband, he works there. It's a great little store. It is a great little store and she has this incredible following of amazing people, but we also have visions of what we could turn it into.

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm about to say a bunch of 'em right on.

It sounds like you're trying to build community. Yeah. Like it with the bookstore, like a little space for art in the back like that we are as a, just as a species where it's so much in need of places to gather and places to connect that are physical. Um, and also just psychological. So many people have nobody to connect with and they, they get all their connection in basically freeze, dried form, like through the internet.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: engaging. It's not real I'm. And I'm gonna, I know a lot of people will say, but it is real.

Jeff Nesbitt: And like, it's, McDonald's though real it's food, you get to eat, but there there's no nutrients in there. Right?

Like you don't, you're not being fed the same way. Yes. It's still it'll keep you. But it isn't gonna make you thrive.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Exactly. So I, I envision that the bookstore becoming kind of that, that kind of space where people can gather where, you know, my aunt always had this vision of doing like Saturday morning, like, um, readings for kids to come at, like story time.

Mm-hmm . Um, but I also have, I know teenagers on our peninsula have a need for that kind of community. They don't have a place to go after school where they can just be themselves mm-hmm without somebody preaching to them. Yeah. Or, you know, it's. So I envision having that classroom space almost be like a gathering space for those kids that, you know,

Yeah. They're not the troublemakers. No,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: they're not. They're incredible. Um, I there's so many kids at Ilwaco right now that they may not be the best students. Some of them are. Hard students, you know, but they are incredibly innovative in just how they look at the world and school's not for them. Mm-hmm which sucks.

Yeah. Um, that's another, I, I, that's another thing completely, um, about what schools should be doing that.

Jeff Nesbitt: Could we talk about that a little bit and not, I mean, off, I wanna say off the record, but I'm definitely gonna still put it in the podcast. Sure. But, uh, just, I don't want to like talk of it in reference to like your political stance as a candidate, but just in like a, as a teacher, as a dreamer dreamer teacher and a dreamer, how could we make education?

Perfect. If money was no object,

Jeff Nesbitt: know, all the stuff that's not

Kelli Hughes-Ham: working.

Cut it. Just cut it. Um, just, a couple of friends in,

Jeff Nesbitt: but we got backfill with something better. Yeah. You can't just cut it and be

Kelli Hughes-Ham: gone. I know, you know, Sarah Taylor mm-hmm um, she and I are close we've, you know, went to preschool together basically. Um, but we, especially since COVID, we've both been of the mind of, let's just burn it all to the ground and then build it back and build it back.

Um, consciously of, do we need somebody doing this? Do we need a middleman constantly? You know, anyway.

Jeff Nesbitt: And

Kelli Hughes-Ham: from, at every level, at every level, exactly. Um, you know, teachers are, we

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. Oh my gosh, the janitors and the secretaries.

They run the place and you have to,

Jeff Nesbitt: and they stay for years and years. I do. It's incredible. Unlike, unlike teachers and administrators. No,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: they, they, they are the best measure of the culture of a building, I think. But education shouldn't just be, I mean, people are gonna say I'm a communist, but, um, I'm so anti-capitalist that because capitalism has kind of put its tens into everything, including education and that with bad incentives, bad incentives.

They don't act like freshmen in my class, or, sorry, not to say that acting like a freshman is bad. Um, but they're not as mature. Mm-hmm they don't, they haven't been around the big kids as much. So there's this amazing thing that happens when you have kids of multiple ages in a classroom, it can go south really easily.

I mean, it can get kind of scary if the seniors involved are not more of the mentor kind of quality, but when you watch kids work with each other, It's the most magical thing. And, um, you know, and then seeing older kids realize that younger kids have an opinion and vision. And

Jeff Nesbitt: so I see that back and forth is, is really, really effective for learning it's it really is compared to just lecture style where one person stands and everybody listens if they want.

Yeah. Or if they can. Yeah.

Um, you give them those skills, you expose them to artists, you know, show 'em stuff, and then you just give them extremely loose projects. And then they have to figure out how to solve those problems. Um, a lot of kids are like, Just tell me what to do. Yeah. You know? Cause they, that's what they're used to.

They're used to it and it's it's so it's disheartening, but it's also illuminating.

Jeff Nesbitt: I bet you have to really emphasize the fact that there are, it's hard to be wrong because that, I remember that feeling when I went to college. Cause I went from M Ilwaco to Humboldt state. Yeah. Which is a very open, like loosey goosey education system.

Yeah. And then we spent a month doing a final project that he didn't tell us what the project was. He's just like, you gotta, I don't even remember what the syllabus said, but it was something very loose, so loose that it seemed like a trick. I was like, how is this? My brain didn't know how to just run wild.

Yeah. Um, it was, I mean, it ended up being really fun. I actually found a piece that I made for that project. , just yesterday, when I was going through old and old box of art stuff from over the last 20 years. Cool. But, um, it was a picture of Dan Byerley. Do you remember him? I do remember Dan with a big fake mustache.

Like that's how I, if I'm given loose instructions, but like a problem to solve and a set of materials, like I, yes, please. I, my brain loves those kind of problems. Right. And I think a lot of kids are like that, but they're probably, I can imagine some resistance when they're initially like, wait, what? I'm, because they're not even turned their, brain's not even turned on.

They're like, just so used to just do it, hand me, you know, you hand me the problems I do and blah, blah, blah, the boring step by step. That is so uninspiring. Yeah. Like if, yeah, that's probably a really fun way to do it for the kids that it speaks to.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. And it, and it's also, I think it's good for the kids that it doesn't really speak to because they are going to be asked in their lives.

Jeff Nesbitt: asked just by life itself. Yeah. Like presented with problems all the time. All the time. Creativity is crucial.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It is. And it's, it's something that's I know that they're starting to like stem became steam.

I don't know if you need the acronym. Yeah. That arts, the arts are becoming more valued and I'm very fortunate to be in a state that has a state graduation requirement of an

Jeff Nesbitt: art credit skills in art are very, very closely tied with skills in mathematics. Yeah. Specifically music like the part of the brain that processes musical ability is directly opposite as the part that processes artistic ability on the other side of your brain.

Yes. It's pretty cool. And people who are good at both are really good at either one like the synergistic energy, like the way that both those skills. Play off of each other. Absolutely. Is really, really powerful. It is. And you feel it when you're doing, when like you're learning music and you start to realize like, oh, this is just math.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: one thing that I'm glad that I, that was kind of my thing in high school is, um, I wasn't really a visual artist. I didn't ever take a visual arts class when I was at OACO because I was a band kid.

And when you come up through the band program, at least back then it was really difficult to take an art class. Yeah. So, um, that's

Jeff Nesbitt: why I never took art. I was always in band too. Right. I've always loved art and I've, I've wondered in my adult life. Like why did I never, I never even felt like I had the option to take an class.

It

Kelli Hughes-Ham: was hard it's and it still is mm-hmm um, because you know, at OACO. If you wanna take like AP us government, it's offered once.

Jeff Nesbitt: If you're kid with a lot of skills and like a varied, varied interest, you get to pick which thing are you gonna be good at? Yep. You band, are you gonna lift weights? Exactly.

Like, oh

Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: They are. They're like really weird. One of the weirder groups, but they're so recognizable. Yes. And just in the, in the same way that theater kids are recognizable and it's not the same. No, like the choir kids, the band kids, and the theater kids, all kind of intermingled. There's some overlap between those groups, but they're distinct very, and, and I love those people.

Yeah. I, I married a theater kid, but they're, they're very, uh, special. Yeah. Like they're the ones, they're the movers and the shakers. Indeed. The ones who have enough courage to fully be themselves are the ones who end up changing the world. Yeah. Especially in

Kelli Hughes-Ham: entertainment. Oh, big. I think about, you know, some of the entertainers that I really enjoy.

Me too. I was born like a month, not even like two weeks before the first SNL debuted. And um, so it's, you know, I've grown up with it.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, I was born the year. The Simpsons came out. That's I feel like that about the Simpsons. Yeah, the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Simpsons that's

Jeff Nesbitt: thing for a lot of our generation. It is family generation X and millennials, cuz she's been going to I've my kids like it too.

Mine too. Yeah. I've watched it with Amelia, her whole life. It's a

Kelli Hughes-Ham: cartoon. It's a cartoon. And. Smart. Yeah. You know, and,

Jeff Nesbitt: and it's sweet sometimes. It's like, it's very sweet. It's sentimental. It's a good show. I agree. And also it's written by a time traveler, from what I hear dude. Oh. Have seen all the things they predicted Trump, Trump on the escalator.

Yeah. Um, to get me through the day. Yes. But it rarely fires up my like raises my hackles. Like no dude like that. This is actually legitimately creepy. Yeah. I couldn't make sense of it. Yeah. I didn't know how that was possible. Um, no, that,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: that was kind of terrifying.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. And that, those they're so rare, but the Simpsons has like 20 of them.

Yeah. It's crazy.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. I don't know what Matt Greening's got going on, but he's time traveler. He's gotta be. Yeah. Either that or he he's some sort of Noam of our

Jeff Nesbitt: time. Yeah. Which is also pretty, pretty, uh, likely. Yeah. Like those people are, I mean, we are all doing that a little bit, creating a simulation in our head, trying to map out the future to, you know, for self-interest.

Yeah. But some people are much, much better at it than others futurists. Exactly. The interest, the Rayber, uh, Matt groaning is one of them. Yeah, for

It is funny, not for him, but for other people. And I feel like there's a lot of artists that, you know, turn comedians that do that. Um, I think Dmitri Martin was okay. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of, he did that for a while. I haven't seen much of him lately, but

Jeff Nesbitt: no, he has kind of dropped off. But also, have you seen flight of the Concords?

Oh my God. I love that. That's another one. That's kind of dry like that. Yes. I, I watched the first two seasons of that. Uh, the first season, especially over and over and over. It was one of my, one of my like comfort blanket shows. It's such a good show. Um, and it is so funny and I, I like dissected it and was like, what exactly am I laughing?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: man. Have you seen our flag means death? No. Okay. It's a series that he is starring in that.

Um, I'm not sure which platform it's on. We don't have cable. So it's like, you have to choose. Okay. So what's Dawn. It's not NBC, it's

Jeff Nesbitt: not ABC. It's which streamer. Yeah. Which same with us. Yeah. I never know where and the algorithms don't send me the stuff I actually like, because they, they send me just what Melissa will wanna watch.

and, uh, I'm good. I'm good with it because that's all I get to watch anyway. Right, exactly. But, uh, so I miss a lot of shows that are kind of like quirky, uh, quirky shows. Yeah. Quirky, dark comedies is what I generally love. But,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: um, you should talk to my husband. Um, he is, um, what's incredible about him is I never have to really think about what I want to watch.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Of, of he's the library of Alexandria of media.

I don't know how he does it. Yeah, I don't, that's incredible. I think that there's probably more people sitting around every evening, um, spending, I bet we spend more time scrolling through looking for something to watch these days than we do actually watching shows. Yep. Or enjoying them.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Like there's too much.

I, I hate to say this because it's like saying there's too much art. There's almost too much media to

Jeff Nesbitt: consume. It's not the, we gotta figure out a better way to interface with it. Yeah. Too much noise. Not enough signal. Right? Like the algorithm is doing pretty well. TikTok is about the best, like giving you thing after thing, after thing, I don't

Kelli Hughes-Ham: know what it is.

You wanna that algorithm, but man, does it have me pegged?

Yeah. We'll just get sucked into those dopamine holes and totally live there. Yeah. And then before, you know, if that ever got ripped away, it's just like, who am I? What am holy shit? Yeah. What have I just been doing for the last 10 years? What

Kelli Hughes-Ham: are my interests? Yeah, I don't someone's I'm not being told with my interest summer.

I'm just a

Jeff Nesbitt: conduit for other people's information to pass through. Right. Like at that point, you, that thought is terrifying to me. Like to, to not be somebody who makes things like yes. Um, and I don't always make things, but that's why I started this podcast. Yeah, exactly. See, this is a way it's creative urge.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yes. It's it's

Jeff Nesbitt: strong. Yeah. And it's, it's just a, it's a desire to not want to, to, uh, disappear and never have changed. Anything wasted this opportunity to like, we're here, we're here. It's now it's, we're in it. Like, and it's so short do something. Yeah. It's.

Yeah. You know, you're a victim of it. I'm a victim of it. Well, you know, I you're

Jeff Nesbitt: a slave to it at the very least. Yeah. Kind

Kelli Hughes-Ham: of because you're, you're working for 'em and honestly, you know, a lot of teachers kind of, um, antagonize admin or superintendents, blah, blah, blah, which whatever, but it's like, no, but then they're working within the confines of another system and I can't change those systems from within.

So I mean, finding a way to change things is it's such, it's, it's human. Yeah. It's being born with a, a, this damn sense of justice, you know, it's, it's part of what I think makes people go into teaching, but also makes them want to, um, Point out what's wrong with teaching? I was

Jeff Nesbitt: just saying, makes 'em also wanna leave teaching.

Yeah. When they're like this isn't right. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: hard. And the pickins are pretty slim. Yeah. Like you work for the government, including teaching and, and like every post office, anything that's paid for by the government or you pick oysters or fish or work in hospitality.

There's not a lot else. Not. No, or yeah, I mean, other than, I mean, everyone needs plumbers, but yeah. We could use a few more, really.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: We need more cuz we have some retiring. Yeah. And, um, that's one thing that high school needs to do a better job of is preparing kids for the trades. Yeah. Um, that is something that I really do feel strongly about as you know, I am a career in tech, ed teacher.

Yeah. But

Jeff Nesbitt: that should be just like heavily advertised big time. So many kids that are not meant for a lot of career paths that they're being pushed towards. Yeah. Would benefit so much from that information. And they just don't even know. No, they don't know it it's like a foreign world to them. Yeah. Like

Kelli Hughes-Ham: job core.

Yeah. Job core is a killer program. Mm-hmm I mean, you come out of job Corps depending on cuz we have like, they have certain programs over at tongue point. You can go to another one in Idaho that has different programs. They feed you, train you. And by the time you're out, you have a huge certification that, yeah.

It

Jeff Nesbitt: seems like a huge benefit. It is. I remember thinking it was like juvenile hall. Me too. When I

Kelli Hughes-Ham: grew up. That was what it was. Ooh. That's where they send the bad kids. That's what it was presented like. Yeah. And that really makes me angry because what a waste. Yeah. Cuz now that I know about it, I'm.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh God. Big time. And I know that

Kelli Hughes-Ham: game.

Yeah. Um, I think we've gotten better at it now that we help kids kind of understand where they should start at least.

Jeff Nesbitt: Do you remember miss miss ki 80? Yes. Um, she worked there a while, I think. Yeah, she did. I had, I, she was the nicest lady. Oh, super nice. I had no fucking idea what her job was. No, I knew her.

Yeah. Like I saw her regularly. Yeah. I had no idea she was supposed to be helping me get to college. Yeah,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I know. Um, Sarah Taylor has been she's. I mean, granted, she just stepped down from it, but I'm, I'm not sure who's doing it next year. Oh, I

Jeff Nesbitt: imagine

The teachers were amazing. Um, they had so many different classes to choose from, but all of my friends had gone to U-Dub mm-hmm and this was back when it was really easy to get into U-Dub cuz I got in. Yeah, my grades were not great in high school. Cuz I had other priorities. I was a band kid. I liked yearbook and

Jeff Nesbitt: all that stuff.

My grades in high school. Weren't great either. Yeah. College is really when I kicked it into high gear and actually started re when I really tried hard, me too for the first time ever. Right. Because I was paying for it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you're here.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Why not? Exactly. Um, and I found more of my people.

Yeah. You know, it was huge. That's

Jeff Nesbitt: a big part of it too. Yeah. Huge. And you find safety in that? Yeah. Like just where like we're talking about, oh, you make a safe space by put surrounding yourself with people who, you know, are safe.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Exactly. . Yeah, so I spent a year at Clark. Um, I, um, got into UDub, cuz like I said, a bunch of my friends were there.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: go to. It is a cool school. It was really neat. And I had some of the best science classes I've ever had there. I had an oceanography class down in the oceanography lab. It was incredible. Probably one of the best in the country.

Oh my God. It was huge. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, maybe the world, they have some of the best programs in the world for some stuff they do. Yeah. Their crew program was the best in the world when I was there. Really? Yeah. They were fantastic. Yeah. They won the 36 Olympics with a bunch of sophomores. It's a good book boys in the boat.

Check it out.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah, I know that book. Yeah, that was, that was a Huskies right on mm-hmm um, so problem is though I spent a quarter there and my smallest class was 300 people. You know, lecture hall. Yes. You got to hang out with the TAs and learn from them and stuff. But I felt I was literally a number 9 5 2 7 4 1 4.

I can do this. Got to UDub. It was, it was too big. Yeah. And um, I decided that I wanted to go back to

Jeff Nesbitt: Clark. Was it the accountability, lack of accountability in the size of

Kelli Hughes-Ham: class? That's part of it. Yeah, because I definitely, like, we talked about the body doubling thing with ADHD that I need some sort of accountability.

And when I'm there by myself, um, I need to find a tribe of a tribe of people and it was really hard to do that. Yeah. So, so I came back to Clark, um, finished out the year there and then I moved home for a year. I moved here, I lived my sister. Um, I, I hope she forgives me for that, but , you know, cuz I

Jeff Nesbitt: was a lot of people do that that year.

That's generally an emotional time too.

Loved it. I was good at it. And then the artist that he's the late artist Royal Nebeker he, um, like he was teaching the design course at that time. And also a painting course that I took, but he suggested to me, he's like, you might wanna think about art school. And until that point I was like art school.

No one goes to art school. I'd always been told, don't become an artist. You're not gonna make any money and grant. It is hard to make money as an artist, but so you're just

Jeff Nesbitt: flipping through things. You've heard people say on TV. Yeah. Instead of having like the guidance of a person in your life telling you like, exactly.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: recognized your ability. Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of people recognized my ability, but, but then told you what to do with it. But yeah, exactly. Before then, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, what I neat hobby.

Yeah. You know, kind of thing. Um, but I also have a decent, sharp mind, so I felt like I could go to art school and the art school I chose. I was really glad that I chose it because it was more of a cerebral like challenge your ideas kind of place. In addition to giving you. I went to Pacific Northwest college of art in Portland, which, um, has been in a couple different buildings since I've been there.

But then I started taking other classes and realized, um, I had taken a class in photography at Clark and the only negative experience I had was one of the teachers there, who I think has, has passed away. Roger Baker. Um, he told me. At the end of the photography class, he's like, I don't think you should go into photography.

I don't think you grasp the technical end of it. And that pissed me

Jeff Nesbitt: off. Oh, that must have been a

Kelli Hughes-Ham: kind offensive too. Yeah. Very offensive. He was an old guy, old guy and that's was

Jeff Nesbitt: he trying to help? Like, I don't know. I, I never understand how, what people mean when they say that kind of thing. Yeah. It's like, how is this supposed to be helpful?

Right. But you can gimme your opinion. Like,

Jeff Nesbitt: technical aspects?

I did. I bet you focused extra hard on those. I did,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: man. I can make a black and white print that will make Ansel Adams cry, you know, it's it. I got. I got to the point where I was really, really good at it. And I also it's chemistry really like it's chemistry, it's totally chemistry. And it's also just mixing of light mm-hmm and understanding how light interacts with things and,

Jeff Nesbitt: um, which is physics.

Like that's, it's totally physics. That's some pretty, pretty, uh, yeah. Advanced science right there. It

Yeah, I'm gonna be an artist. Um, I was working for a graphics place at the time where I, I was fortunate to work there cuz it gave me a lot of computer [02:04:00] experience and stuff. Um, It actually led to my teaching assignment in CTE where I, I used those hours that I worked at graphics, but I just wasn't happy.

It wasn't something that was, oh man, this is gonna sound so privilegy, but it wasn't feeding my soul, you know?

Jeff Nesbitt: So what if you have privilege enough to, to get, to pursue your soul being fed? Who exactly I know, I know there's a lot of suffering people in the world that, but not all of them are gonna hold that against you.

I hope

Kelli Hughes-Ham: not. because it was really, I mean, I loved that job, but I didn't like doing other people's work. Like I didn't, um, you're a free thinker. I'm a free thinker and I'm also somebody who gets mad at people for making bad decisions. Mm-hmm so when, like we would have three versions of a logo for somebody to choose from to put yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, so you were like a Don Draper kind of? Yeah. Like you're like, no, this is the one. Yeah. Like you don't know what you're talking about. I'm the professional,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: right? Yeah. Oh man. If I could be a, a Don Draper, that'd be, or what was Elizabeth

Jeff Nesbitt: Moss's. Oh yeah. Peggy.

Peggy, thank you. She was really the best character. She was the brains. Yeah. No, Don Draper was really the villain. He was kind of, he was, he was the hero and the villain. Yeah. Yeah. And

Kelli Hughes-Ham: how he, it was a great show. He, oh my God's so good. And how he just kind of booked it out, booked out at the end mm-hmm and to, you know, doing yoga by the ocean.

Yeah. Anyway, great show it.

Jeff Nesbitt: It really was. Yeah. Um, but yeah. Anyway, sorry.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Real. So, no, that's okay. No, I trust me. I commute. So like my little brother and I, we communicate in movie lines, Uhhuh, and you know,

Jeff Nesbitt: sometimes I do that too. I love that. Yeah. Art that's like my whole

Kelli Hughes-Ham: teens. Yeah. Seriously. Art is, um, Even just movie references, TV references, they help give context.

And it's essentially this little, I've seen that place. It's incredible. It's right by their, um, water reclamation facility, which is incredible. Um, I didn't know. The air scrubbers were a thing. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I worked there. So I worked there in the education department and what I got to do was, um, host field trips for local schools, bringing their kids there.

That's

Jeff Nesbitt: why I know that place. I went on a field trip there with my daughter and her. Oh, my gosh, like three years

Kelli Hughes-Ham: ago. Oh, one of those interns that gave you the little, like, did she do the, um, did they have the salmon lifecycle

It was a big deal. So hot for a while. It really was. Everyone has fit fidget thinners or they just finished. Yes. Um, yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of any other references I could use here, but I'll just move on. Uh, but yeah, no, it was a great, it was really a fun field trip. That's I don't remember the, the most, most of it, it was, it's all kind of a blur now, but, uh, it was really fun.

I remember thinking this is a cool place.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: It was amazing. And I got to work under some really great environmental educators, um, who are not only gifted scientists, but they're also gifted teachers. So they that's a rare combo. It is a rare combo. They were incredible. Um, Bev Walker and Corey Samia, they were.

And then my favorite was most of the fourth graders would come in for the salmon life cycle. Oh cool. And so we would run through this, this whole thing of having them be the eggs and start out and, you know, hatch into Alvin and then, you know, what would happen to them? Oh, no mud just fell on you and you're smothered, you know, and then they'd go to the next thing where maybe a bear would, would dip in and eat the fingerlings that were anyway.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, just to kind of show how hard it is and how a few make it

Kelli Hughes-Ham: back. Yes. And how it's important to protect their habitat. Um, and through the process. doing that. I realized holy crap, teaching's really fun. And at that point, I didn't know if I wanted to do middle school or high school. I was, you know, kind of going between the two, um, cuz I'd worked with some sixth graders too.

And I actually really like sixth graders. They're not, that's a good age.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: left. Yeah. A little bit of innocence. Not much, but also just incredible sense of humor. Yeah. And that's, what's huge for me is if you can laugh with a group of kids, that's the best feeling in the world for them too.

Yeah, exactly. So at that point I was like, okay, cool. I think I wanna be a teacher. So I started looking around for programs that would, um, cuz I had an art degree. So I wanted a course go into art teaching. Um, but I also had enough English credits that I could get a supporting endorsement. So I had to find a program that would allow me to do those things.

And the closest one was university Puget sound. Tacoma good school, man. I loved it there. Um, I didn't realize how cool Tacoma was. Um, yeah, there are parts you don't go to. Oh yeah. But there are parts of every city you don't go to the good ones. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The ones with the culture. Mm-hmm, the ones that are fun.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: up on rust and way in Tacoma. Yeah. Um, I, it was a great program. It was a 15 month intensive master's degree program. Um, I didn't work during the time and I'm always grateful to my ex-husband Rick, that he supported me through that way to go, Rick.

Yeah, no, he did a good job. Um, no, no ill will there. Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: and no, I imagine you guys have a good relationship. You gotta you're co-parenting right. We're

Kelli Hughes-Ham: co-parenting and um, we both bring like unique gifts to it and it's, it's really cool. It's, you know, it's hard at first, but once you fall into a rhythm with things, um, like I have some friends that are going through, um, a separation right now with a young kid and it's yeah, it's really hard.

It's really hard. It's never gonna be easy. It's never gonna be easy. But once you get to the point where everybody kind of knows what's gonna happen so much

Kelli Hughes-Ham: is gonna be okay.

My kids have two incredible stepparents that bring their own unique gifts and experiences.

Jeff Nesbitt: And I think the myth of the evil stepparent that has been perpetuated by Disney forever yes. Is probably made for a lot of really tough, uh, family situations. Yeah. Where the kids are just automatically like, fuck this new parent.

I don't need, I have one of these already. Right. I don't need a replacement, evil stepmother. Yeah. Or stepfather. And, um, it's not real it's. I mean, there's a lot of good ones. A lot of good ones. Yeah. I agree.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. It's always gonna be hard, but it's never it. I never. At any point go that we may say that we made the wrong decision.

Jeff Nesbitt: union, evergreen, Columbia River, and

Kelli Hughes-Ham: no that's Vancouver, Columbia rivers in Vancouver.

It's um, oh, I thought you said Vancouver. Oh, sorry. Evergreen school district. Oh, okay. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. There's two school districts in Vancouver. One on the east side. I was on the east side,

Jeff Nesbitt: you know, is that the good side?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I don't think either is good or bad. Um, I

Jeff Nesbitt: Vancouver's pretty consistent. Like it doesn't have the socioeconomic pockets, like

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Portland does not so much.

Yeah. It's a bedroom community. Mm-hmm now I think a lot. It, it still has a pretty cool downtown area. That's become pretty gentrified though. And you know, as, as somebody who lived there in the nineties, You know, I can say that,

Jeff Nesbitt: but have you been to Portland lately? It's crazy how bad it's gotten. It's nuts.

It's it's been unidentified. Yeah. It's

Jeff Nesbitt: it's oh, that's a, that's a thing of, so to go back into the politics how do you balance, cuz I would assume that you're a liberal, just pretty liberal based on knowing you.

Yeah. And uh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: the nose ring helps, you know,

Jeff Nesbitt: the liberal, the liberal left has been portrayed in the last couple years as just being this extremist, like the Antifa people and all these just have gotten almost to a point where like, violence is acceptable as a way to solve problems. Right. And just things that are not traditional liberal views.

No. Do you think that we need to kind of pull it a little bit back towards the center? Um, not to, not to try to say that the Republicans have it right. Either. Right. But both, both the proud boys and Antifa, maybe we get rid of both of the, those extremes and maybe try to focus a little bit towards the middle.

Is, do you have any in inclination that that is the way to go? Or what, where do you stand on that spectrum?

It is scary who,

Jeff Nesbitt: um, just so I don't vote for 'em well, I mean,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: my opponent belongs to some pretty inflammatory Facebook groups really, and yeah, I, there's an article I can send you anyway. Yeah. I'll put a link and I've tried, I really wanna try not to run a smear campaign because I admire that. Um, I don't think it helps anybody and honestly, I don't think it really gets you any votes because the people who you're talking to are already voting for you.

You know, I am somebody who feels like people need help. And there is you, the problem with like charitable work and stuff is that people get to then choose who they help. Yeah. And that's problematic. So government's role should be stepping in and helping everyone, the most amount of people

Jeff Nesbitt: that logic makes sense to me.

Right. But yeah, cuz you, yeah, well, a lot of people too, when you get enough money, you use it to stop the bleeding kind of soak up some of that blood. Yep. Um, and then you help your friends, right? You don't always help the people who need it the

Kelli Hughes-Ham: most. No. Or the people who look like the kind of people you wanna help or the people that believe the

Jeff Nesbitt: same things that you do.

And, and it might, you might not be making those choices based on the way they look. But it just because of the circumstances that those aren't your friends, you're not, you're not hanging out with those people. Exactly. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: kind of corrupted in a lot of ways.

Oh my God. And it can be much better. Oh. So we don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water. No

Kelli Hughes-Ham: citizens United was the, I think one of the, the pivotal moments where things really changed in this country.

Jeff Nesbitt: So citizens United is that LLCs?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. That's the, um, the ability to form a superPAC. Oh, superpacs yeah.

Like corporates, corporate money in politics essentially is what it leads to it's capitalism. Okay. Getting the chance to have a say,

Jeff Nesbitt: was that in the two thousands? Yeah. Early two thousands or late nineties, late nineties, I think. And then more recently they've removed all restrictions on campaign donations.

Yeah. So you can, you can donate as much as you want. Super PACS.

It's it's incredibly bad.

Jeff Nesbitt: are you worried though, that if you make that your platform, that they will kill you?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Yeah. A little bit. Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: you should be that scares me a little bit. It scares

Kelli Hughes-Ham: me a little bit too. Um, although I have great neighbors who will never let anything happen to me. Um, you know, I also know how to shoot a gun.

My question is

Jeff Nesbitt: why, you know, why, why don't more people have this idea. It's so obvious that this is our main problem. I know you do, but it never gets through. No, it never becomes the platform that people are going.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Both sides of the aisle are benefiting from that. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: The most S people benefit

Kelli Hughes-Ham: the most are benefiting just as much as the Republicans are.

And the only reason why I declare myself a Democrat is because that then comes with endorsements from democratic groups, you know, while

Jeff Nesbitt: a lot. So you're not gonna get that a NRA NRA

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

I'm, I'm a gun toing

Kelli Hughes-Ham: liberal, right? Yes, exactly. I mean, out here, especially it's a moderate position. I'm trying to change what the idea of a rural Democrat looks like. Mm-hmm , um, you know, or a rural person, then we're the best we are

Jeff Nesbitt: the best. The rural moderates are like, oh my gosh, I I'm a Democrat, but I, I,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: you vote Democrat.

Yeah. You know, but you don't have to necessarily say I'm a Democrat. I mean, I am a Democrat in that, you know, My grandpa was, you know, I was raised a Democrat and that's just kind of, that was almost a cultural thing. Yeah. And

Jeff Nesbitt: most people stick with the party they were born into. Yes. Like I think it's like 75%.

It's crazy. It's very high. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, that's

Jeff Nesbitt: was CRA. That was so

Kelli Hughes-Ham: crazy. It was incredibly crazy. I, I still remember the day after it was announced that he won.

I was thinking, how did this happen? How the me too F did this happen?

Jeff Nesbitt: I kind of, I kind of got a little bit of, of joy out of the everyone's surprise and shock. Yes. That part, I just, the, the. The absurdist in me. I, I, I thought that was funny. Yes. Oh no. That's that me of the, of the lady crying, uh, like that, that one tickled my funny bone a little bit.

Yes. And it's not, cuz I wasn't happy. I was, I was upset too. I did not want this to happen, but I, I also didn't think Hillary was really all that much better or at

Kelli Hughes-Ham: all better. No, I won't even talk about the super delegates mm-hmm and how Bernie lost? Uh, I, oh, poor Bernie. I caucused for Bernie really? I caucused for Bernie that year.

Jeff Nesbitt: should to do.

Heand he, wasn't consistently just changing his views depending on what was culturally acceptable. He know exactly

Kelli Hughes-Ham: what Bernie feels. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Always, well, like just Hillary's views, changing on the gay rights, gay marriage, that kind of stuff. That was like the clearest indicator to me, period, that like, oh, this lady is kind of just full of

Kelli Hughes-Ham: shit.

And she was also a professional politician. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, and she didn't, that was

Jeff Nesbitt: actually what I liked about her. I was like, at least she'll, she'll carry it forward to the status quo. Right. Things won't just fall apart. Right. I thought things were gonna fall apart with Trump in, in a way they did.

It's unraveling. It was a house of cards. Yeah. And it's it. COVID fucked it up. Yes. Things have gotten real bad, big time and it seems like it's gonna be worse.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I, you know, one thing I've always tried to do as just a human being is hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And right now it's really hard to prepare for the worst because we don't even know.

It's like we talked about the, the news cycle that, you know, if Bigfoot were to be discovered, it would be, you know, third story down, honestly. Yeah. Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: if Christ came back tomorrow,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: nobody would believe it. Nobody believe it. And he'd probably be like, Uh, you all done screwed up? I'm

Jeff Nesbitt: out. Some group would kill 'em again, probably like before, too long.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: so callous. Yeah. Like we're callous over Des desensitized. Desensitized. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Um, and that's I guess.

Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. I think we change up though. I don't think we go back. Yeah. I think we go, we can't go back to something different. I don't wanna go back. I don't either.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: I don't wanna go back at all. I'm always, I've always kind of been a fan of change. Me too. Um, it keeps things interesting in my boring. This is something to react life, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It gives you something to react to. Changes are where art comes, you know, to call

Jeff Nesbitt: and from the ashes, the Phoenix

Kelli Hughes-Ham: will rise. No kidding. Yeah. So I'm kind of tired of walking through the ashes though, you know? Yeah. Come on Phoenix. Yeah. Where the hell's that feeling? Get with it. Yeah. Um, so

Jeff Nesbitt: I think it takes a long time, but I do, I do think it is inevitable.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: it just swings. Yep. Exactly. So I'm hoping to be on the upswing of the pendulum, you know, it's

Jeff Nesbitt: I think you have to be because it, yeah. How could this not be rock bottom?

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Like seriously? Well, every time we think it's rock bottom, it becomes more rock bottomer. Yes.

Jeff Nesbitt: You know, but there's gotta be an ultimate rock bottom. Yeah. Like as a culture and we'll, I, I think we've hit it. I really do. I feel like there has been more positive momentum. Recently. Yeah. Then again, we're just getting ready to start another presidential election cycle.

So who knows things are probably gonna get real tense again real soon,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: which feels exhausting to think about, yeah. I

Jeff Nesbitt: mean, buckle up. You're getting

I always wanna be involved, you know, school improvement teams and stuff. Um, because things deserve to be fixed.

Jeff Nesbitt: You care about the stuff that actually matters. I

Kelli Hughes-Ham: do. I try to. Yeah. And, um, And I think this is the best way to do it. And I don't know if this is going to result in a lot in the rest of my life being dedicated to politics necessarily, but it's to get cheesy again, it feels like a calling right now, even more so since Roe V Wade was overturned.

Um, because they're starting to tell us that well, okay, now that this is kicked down to states, state legislatures are more important than ever. Oh yeah. And so I'm like, oh boy, okay. No pressure.

They have a ton of money they don't have to, and they have a ton of people in, in very high positions of power now. Yeah, they do. Yeah. And it's, it's scary. And you

Kelli Hughes-Ham: know what Christian do it. Be it, walk it, you know? Sure.

Jeff Nesbitt: Cool. Go for it. Do

Kelli Hughes-Ham: the, do the good stuff. Don't I grew up Lutheran. I was the one kid in my family that, that wanted to walk up to Sunday school every, every Sunday.

Cuz I, I like the stories. Mm-hmm I wanted to hear the stories. The crafts church can be great. The snacks were awesome. The snacks are why I was there. They were the best. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, communion. I considered that a snack. Oh

Kelli Hughes-Ham: yeah, totally. Just little wafer. Yeah. Yeah. Although at, um, Chinook Lutheran, when I was going there, a ladies would take, um, turns actually baking a loaf of bread.

Jeff Nesbitt: I went to a church where they did that once it was great. They just handed the, the loaf of bread around you. Just tear off a chunk and they pass it on. I was pretty

Kelli Hughes-Ham: cool. Awesome. It was usually like a, like a, a finish like rib bread, kind of. Oh, nice. So good. The Lutherans they know, except Lutfi they really do know how

Jeff Nesbitt: to eat.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: the stank, but it's just, it's the texture for me. Oh,

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm textures. Everything. It's a jello. Oh, it's fish jello. No, no,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: hell no. I tried it once at the church and I, I think it was my godmother trying to like play a joke.

Yeah. You know, so she's gonna hate this kind of thing, but I

Jeff Nesbitt: like pickled fish, like pickled salmon. Me too. Oh,

Kelli Hughes-Ham: pickled salmon. Yeah. The guy who works with my dad, Bernie Wilson. He makes some amazing pickled salmon. I probably had his pickled. You probably have. I'm sure. He's probably given some to, to your step or dad law.

Sorry.

And help and like give some of your value and you're actually doing it. That's such a hard thing to do. It's so easy to just sit around and criticize or sit around and think about all the things that you'd like to do. But if you weren't so busy, but you're actually doing it. So I commend you. I, uh, I really admire what you're doing and whether, whether you win the seat or not, like you can't really lose because it, like you're doing something completely different.

You're shaking it up in your own life and it's gonna reach out and affect other people. You're setting such a great example for your children. I, and for other kids who you've taught, who are are watching, it's just, it's very cool Kelli. I'm, I'm proud of you. And I I'm, I really wanna help.

Kelli Hughes-Ham: Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Um, so I took that and I made that my

Jeff Nesbitt: kind of campaign thing. That's a perfect name. It's perfect. That's powerful. It's got a story and everything. Yep. Thank you everybody so much for tuning in. I'll talk to you next time. Bye.