Benjamin Jundanian

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Transcription

00:00 - 00:42
Gregory Jundanian (GJ): I'm not sure what format to follow because I'm thinking the essential question is, who are you and why? Right? So we could start anywhere. I'm interested, you’re a recent transplant to Whitinsville, but your grandmother and your father grew up here. I'd be interested in talking having you talk about sort of what being Armenian means to you if anything? Why don’t we just start with your name and your birthday.
00:43 - 00:49
Ben Jundianian (BJ): My name is Ben Jundanian, I’m 37 years old. My birthday is September 18^th, 1985.
00:50 - 00:53
GJ: And, when did you move to Whitinsville?
00:53 - 00:57
BJ: I moved to Whitinsville on November 1^st, 2022. So very recently.
00:58
GJ: The date today is…
00:59 - 01:10
BJ: The date today is December I would say, is it the, it’s January 9^th, not December, it's January 9^th. That’s what we here just, January 9^th, 2023.
01:11 - 01:15
GJ: Okay, so what are your earliest memories of your grandparents?
01:16 - 01:27
BJ: Earliest memories of grandparents would be, I remember always there was a long car ride because it was an hour from where my parents ended up living to here so I always remember like this long car ride.
01:28
GJ: And where was that they were living?
01:29 - 03:11
BJ: They were living in Methuen, Massachusetts. So, it was 1 hour and 10 minutes exactly because my Dad always drove the speed limit like all the time. So we would drive one hour and 10 minutes, and we had this crappy old red, like total maroon inside and out, minivan, like this Dodge minivan, and it was like it was that burgundy that was like from like…Every single piece of like vinyl inside it was maroon. It was just it was horrible color wise, (but) it was a great little car. But, so I just remember sitting in there and just looking around and having like the maroon cupholders everywhere, I'm talking like really young. And so we would drive back and forth and I remember it was always long drive and we'd get here and it was this like, it always felt like kind of going back in time. Because it was this old tiny town where everything was still really close by and this was like early 90s, so there was like really, like nothing, nothing really going on here and there wasn't really much going on you know where we're from, but like we were close to a highway so it was sort of bustling you know, it was like two minutes from our front door to the highway on ramp. Whereas here it's a 20 minute drive. There's like there was a lot of woods out here. It just sort of felt, and it still feels like just driving around now it still feels like this kind of middle of nowhere, like, kind of forgotten part of Massachusetts. So I remember like going to grandma's house, and it was I feel like it was always grandma's house instead of grandpa's house. You know, even though like Joe didn't pass away until I was, I’m pretty sure I was out of high school at that point. So I spent like almost all my adolescence with him alive but I feel like it was always grandma's house. She was like such a powerful like figure and he was such like a stoic like smiling in the background kind of guy.
03:12 - 03:38
BJ: So we would always go to grandma's house, it was usually Sunday after church. We’d leave like right away which meant my mom and my dad couldn't talk like after church. They would like chitchat with people in the parking lot all the time and so they weren't able to do that. So we would just pile in to the van and just shoot all the way down to Grandma and Grandpa’s and have like, you know, usually something out on the screen porch. Like, something cooked on probably the same grill. I don't think they upgraded grills in the past like 35 years. So and you’d eat out there on the little picnic tables.
03:39 - 04:32
BJ: There's still like little scratches on the walls from where we like carved our name like Grandma and Grandpa and stuff, a little wood burning. We bring a magnifying glass and like light stuff on fire in the backyard or she would pay us like in nickels pretty much to mow the lawn with the push mower, or the little one that's one handed and has like scissors. It's like scissors on a stick with wheels. Have you seen it out there? It's hanging in the garage still and I was playing with it like a couple days ago. It's like a weed whacker. It's literally scissors on a long stick and you just wheel it around and it snip snips snips. It’s the funniest little thing and still works perfectly. So, we would just do silly backyard chores or climb super high up the birch or the beech tree up front. And you know just little stuff, would go walk and run the track. Like it's really the neighborhood hasn’t doesn't feel like it's changed a lot so it's kind of cool like having grown up as a little kid here like on the weekends and then come back to like try and find like all the little adult things to do, I guess.
04:34
GJ: And have you found any little adult things to do?
04:36 - 05:39
BJ: There's just places we never went. Like, like, like all the places we could hike like we have dogs so now I know where all the little trails are and like what trails connect from this trail to this trail and like whose property you can kind of walk across to get to something else. Like we've every day I go out like three times to walk the dogs and I try not to just loop them around the neighborhood I try and like take them out somewhere and hike a little place. Like this morning we hiked like down Plummers Landing down the old like sort of towpath, then like cut into the pines and then popped out at like I think where my Dad said there used to be an airfield like over back behind the pines, on Plummer’s Landing. I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like there’s an airfield there. But that's what he but like I feel like there's like 15 stories he would tell as we drove like on the way from our house to here. He would tell like a bunch of stories as he passed. He’s like, oh, this is the place where blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah did blah, blah, blah. And so I feel like there was always he’d drive by there and be like oh the kids used to get drunk down at the airport down this way and he’d like point down, down into the woods. So, that's where I went hiking this morning.
05:40 - 05:48
GJ: And what do you remember of, you know, stories that maybe your Grandfather and Grandmother told you?
05:45 - 06:04
BJ: Oh man, I feel like there was like such a history of like repeated stories, like umm, like of uh of I don’t even know I think it was Grandpa’s father who came and was did who worked in the shoe factory. Or was it Grandma’s father?
6:01
GJ: Grandma’s.
6:02 - 6:37
BJ: Who worked in the shoe factory and like he came and didn’t know how to make shoes. He pretended he knew how to make shoes and he would do make them, they’d fire him. He would move to the next place and pretend to make shoes and he’d work for like two days and then they’d realize he didn’t know how to make shoes and they’d fire him and every time he like lied he got into it to make shoes. Hello dogs. Every time he would like lie and get into it to make shoes. Umm. Come here. Every time he would like, you know, figure lie to get into it and make shoes then like.
06:38 - 07:00
BJ: Yeah. And then uh, he would get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better and I feel like that was like a story that was told to me a lot as a little kid that kind of like fake it ‘til you make it sort of, you know, attitude of just like working hard and like you know, just sort of you know, nothing’s impossible. Somebody else can do it, I can do it sort of attitude. But that was the story. I just like that always sat with me like as a kid.
07:01 - 07:04
GJ: You know much about your great-grandparents?
07:04 - 07:56
BJ: Not about my great-grandparents. I know about like, I know about like Harry, Grandpa’s brother who died doing the bicycle delivery. Umm, I know a little bit about Grandpa’s past that’s like, you know scattered stories told to me by either like my own dad or not really by Grandpa himself. I feel like he was really quiet. He never really talked to me, like openly, you know, he would like tell me stuff every now and then but like he was always like pulling you aside and being like Ben, here is like an absolutism. Like you follow this, like don’t do this, do this, and then he would just like, that was it. And so, you know, at times I followed his advice, at times I didn’t, you know, but I feel like that’s, those are like he wouldn’t like come forward and like tell me a long story. He would just sort of be like here’s like sort of just a general thing you should follow.
07:56
GJ: Okay.
07:59
BJ: But, as we all know Grandma does most of the talking.
08:02 - 08:06
GJ: How about, how about on, how about Jan’s parents?
08:07 - 09:02
BJ: Now they live in Georgia, or they lived. My Grandfather passed away a couple years ago, but they lived in Georgia pretty much my entire life in like three different homes. And we would visit them on Christmas but I, like in her familys are Ehrenbergs. So it’s German. So I’m half German, half Armenian, but I’ve always identified more as Armenian. I feel like I’ve always looked more Armenian. I’ve had like the dark hair, the sort of looks of an Armenian. I’ve had like, you know, more of a closeness with this side of the family. Like I saw you and I saw, you know, Grandma and Grandpa and you know, I saw this side of the family a lot more I feel like, than the Ehrenberg side which is mostly like either living, you know, the Ehrenbergs are missionaries, so they were living either oversees, you know, in France or Spain. So it was like a very special occasion if either they came back or if we were able to like to afford to go visit them.
09:02
GJ: Was there a big difference culturally between the two
09:05
BJ: Between the two families?
09:05
GJ: Yes
09:06
BJ: Absolutely. I think.
09:04
GJ: What would you say they were?
09:09 - 10:22
BJ: The Ehrenberg side, then like I said they are missionaries, that their culture of that family is very like based around the church, and very based around like missions and Jesus and their religion as a whole like sort of was and is the defining characteristic of of that side of the family. And I feel like it was, like it still is if you go down there they’re you know, you’re going to the church service. You’re gonna go see their Church. You’re gonna go meet their church friends and like I feel like there’s a lot of like there’s a lot of like ceremony and like going to like and they love their Church. They’re deeply involved in their church and like their church community, their church family. They see everybody from their church frequently or their hosting people from their church. So there’s like there’s really no way everything is framed within the conversation of like, you know, church and upbringing, which isn’t not like a bad thing, but it’s just definitely a defining characteristic of you know that side of the family. Whereas this side I feel like the Armenian side is a little more like of what you’d call like a traditional family. Like you know, everybody has their own thing, you know, there’s religion in the family, but it’s not like the centerpiece. It feels like more of like a normal family.
10:24 - 10:41
BJ: But both are very tight, like tight-knit family groups. Like they have that in common. Like the families are close. They talk to each other a lot. Like everybody talks to everybody else. It seems like they all keep tabs on each other and visit each other and make efforts to see each other and that’s kind of on both sides. I feel like there’s a lot of like this closeness between both families.
10:42 - 10:49
GJ: Are there other lessons that you think, that you remember from Grandpa, or Grandma?
10:50 - 12:53
BJ: Oh man. Grandma is like, still pumping out lessons like, like you know, like three, three a day with a couple unsolicited ones squeezed in. Like you know, she kills it. She’s got all the, all the good lessons, all the great like, you know, when I was your age, this was proper. You shouldn’t do this. Like the absolutisms. Like, but I feel like her best lessons are always about like frugality, when somebody’s lived like over such a long span of time and seen so much stuff I think she’s also got sort of like an in between all of like her I feel like we always joke, she like self-radicalizing because she just doesn’t have the like media literacy of people of my generation who were taught sort of in school how to grow up around the Internet and how to cite sources, you know, how to figure out if what you’re reading, you know what part of it’s true and what part of it’s like, you know, she doesn’t really have that but if you pick around all that she has like really good, you know general like political like thought. You know she’s seen a lot and a lot of different things and a lot of different, you know, cycles of you know cycled all through, you know have run their course in the 98 years she’s been around so she’s got really great stories like dating after the Second World War, like talking about trying to date during the Second World War when everybody had flat feet and all the people that were home were like, just you know, the people that were too scared to go to war or like even too disfigured to go to war, you know, then when the war ended everybody came back it was all these hot boys around, like funny stories like that that like they’re just like, you know, treasures, from you know, your grandmother. So I love anytime we get her to open up about stories. We’ll play cards and just ask her, ask her random questions like just trying to get her talking about like food or I tried to figure out like when men stopped wearing hats all the time. Because like it had to be sometime around the 1920s when like you could go outside without a hat and it wasn’t like, you know, in a front to fashion. But, I don’t know just stuff like that like trying to figure out like how people lived almost 100 years ago. I feel like there’s not a great record of that. I’ll capture her.
12:53
GJ: Do you want me to hold her?
12:54
BJ: No I got her. She’s super easy to hold.
13:01
GJ: I mean one of the things is education that they, you know.
13:04 - 14:09
BJ: That is, that’s well I mean were just talking about that this morning, about the difference between like we have friends that, like have like just got their GEDs and friends who like went to you know, you can tell they went to four year college or they, you know, they went and got like their Master’s or their Doctorate and like, you know, for the most part like they’re all fairly, all the ones at least that we know, are all fairly accomplished in their own way. Like, you know, they all do alright and you know college was good for some and not good for others. Like I know, you know idiots who went to four year programs and I know brilliant kids that never went to college, but you can tell like in like the way they formulate arguments or you know, just discuss certain things like you can always tell like there’s like there’s a definite benefit to going to college and learning and like having higher learning and, you know, knowing how to have an argument and like, you know, like shore it up properly and you know do your research. So I feel like there’s a certain being able to go to college was a huge pro. You know, even if I went to art school, it’s still taught you how to do a bunch of things that I think, you know, would have taken me three times as long to learn on my own.
14:10 - 14:14
GJ: So, did you, you went to art school, were you always an artist? Here let me take him.
14:14 - 14:34
BJ: I really was, I was you know, my parents signed me up for like town soccer when I was a little kid and I spent most of my time on the sidelines doodling in like a little notepad. And so I think from like a very early age they realized I wasn't gonna be a star athlete. Even though I have the star athlete’s physique right here.
14:36
GJ: Yeah, well you were a rower.
14:37 - 15:21
BJ: I was a rower. I was a bike messenger after that. So I did do athletic things, but definitely not like team sports, so wasn't a team sports guy, I was very independent. You know, with art when I was a kid, I didn't want to you know, do soccer, I wanted to go skateboarding, ride BMX bikes, and you know the kids I hung out with were like into graffiti and into like, you know, all this other stuff that wasn’t like, you know, mainstream or generally acceptable. But nowadays, it's like everywhere in culture, like skateboarders are in the Olympics, you know, graffiti is in your favorite café, you know, there's like all of that stuff's kind of gone mainstream now, but when I was a kid, it was very uncool, you know, it was very antisocial, you know it was like you're seen as like a pariah. But that was sort of the world I grew up in drawing all the time. Like, you know, painting graffiti, doing all sorts of stuff like that.
15:23
GJ: And then you went to art school?
15:25
BJ: Yep, I went in my early twenties.
15:27
GJ: But you transferred to that school, right?
15:29
GJ: Where’d you start?
15:31 - 15:53
BJ: I did a year at a Christian University. I was an RPM. My parents are very, very religious, and they wanted me to go to a religious school and, you know, I didn't have any means of paying for college myself. So you know, I was like, an 18 year old working in a restaurant. And so I was like, definitely not gonna to try to get a loan. And so I was like yeah I’ll go to a Christian school, and that lasted for all of like, you know, literally like a semester and the second semester, I was just hanging on for dear life. It wasn't for me.
15:54 - 16:30
BJ: I'm not a, I'm not a religious person. I had faked it long enough like kind of, you know, in my own family and church, and having to like go to a school and be stuck in the middle of nowhere in Ohio did not work. So I pretty much dropped out of that and went to Northern Essex Community College for a couple of years, and where I did psychology, did two years of that and transferred to Mass Art. I'd met a friend who went to Mass Art and, you know, she kept on bringing me over there and everybody I met seemed to think that like, you know, I should probably just apply you know, and so I just put together an application on a whim and sort of sent it off and it got in and so I ended up going to Mass Art.
16:30
GJ: And what did you major in there?
16:32 - 17:13
BJ: Print making. So very like ancient and it's like the, you know it’s like majoring in Latin. It’s like everything in the world has, like technologies far outstripped printmaking, like nobody makes traditional prints anymore. So I was doodling with copperplate etchings like doing like what would essentially be like pen drawings but using like a 1500s like style like to do it so they have like this crazy, I don’t know, they were fun and it was an incredibly tiny little point you can make so you can make these really beautiful fine like detailed drawings with like, like I don’t know with this sort of like ancient sort of look and feel. The paper was heavy cotton rag paper, the ink was thick, like the drawings like had texture to them.
17:14 - 17:26
BJ: But it was still just like if you looked really close it was a silly little like stoner cartoon and like, I just did these really intense like religious paintings of like stoner cartoons really, you know, if you look really close at them, they're just kind of goofy and you know.
17:28 - 17:32
GJ: Then you started, then you graduated and you were doing bike messengering.
17:28 - 18:29
BJ: Yeah, I was still making art, but I was riding full-time as a bike messenger for about seven-eight years, just delivering packages day in and day out and then at the same time was still hanging out with like, you know, weird subcultures of like graffiti, bike messenger kids, still like doing art like in the punk art scene, like making like flyers and t-shirts and you know, band logos and stuff for people for like, you know, for you know, little bits of cash here and there. Trading drawings literally for drinks at the bar. Just like doing drawings on napkins and people will be like, I'll trade you for that and I'll just slide it across and get another beer and like just literally doing silly doodles of people's bikes and stuff. Just fun stuff. That translated eventually to somebody being like, hey, I'm opening a gallery like, do you want to paint a mural? And so I just painted a mural in my tiny, teeny little style on this huge gallery wall. And from there, people were just, were like, oh, you can paint murals? And so I just started painting a bunch of these really high detail, intense murals and it's like ten years later now.
18:30
BJ: And I'm still doing that.
18:31
GJ: And ten years later and you moved to Whitinsville.
18:33 - 18:36
BJ: Yeah, and ten years later, I'm kind of back where you know.
18:38
GJ: And where had you been living before that?
18:38 - 19:39
BJ: Woo, in a converted 36 foot long school bus, all over the country, mostly in  Asheville, North Carolina, Southern New Hampshire, Western Massachusetts like alternating kind of following the good seasons around. Before that we were house sitting and before that we lived in a pickup truck, a little Toyota traveling around the country. So definitely a lot of like bouncing around trying to like get out of the city and live like really cheaply. So we converted the old bus in 2017 and did five years of, you know, bouncing back and forth up the East Coast working for like I did a bunch of murals and art for a jujitsu gym in exchange for a place to stay, free internet, for free electrical, free jujitsu training for five years is, it was a pretty good trade and like Asheville is a really like nice kind of, you know, fun town to live in, a bunch of young kids, like a bunch of punks, like it was a good community to like hang out in, a good art community. So, it was a good place to sort of live cheap.
19:39
GJ: When you say we you mean you and Michaela?
19:41
BJ: Yes. Me and Michaella, my wife.
19:42
GJ: When did you meet Michaella?
19:43 - 19:48
BJ: I met her while I was a bike messenger in Boston, probably around 2012 or so.
19:49 - 20:09
BJ: She worked at a coffee shop and then she was a dog walker in downtown also. And so we would run into each other all the time. I first met her when she was working at the coffee shop. And we got married in 2018 after living in the, in like the little truck together all over the country then doing some weird house sittings stuff together. And then we ended up buying the bus together.
20:09
GJ: Then you moved to Whitinsville.
20:11 - 20:16
BJ: Then we moved to Whitinsville, so that’s the we of Whitinsville.
20:16
GJ: Why?
20:18 - 20:31
BJ: Well, I mean, we like, it's incredibly lucky to have somebody like Rose living downstairs, who’s… I mean to have your relatives alive is excellent. Like Michaela,she doesn't have any living grandparents now.
20:32 - 21:46
BJ: Her grandfather, her last living grandfather passed away this last year and to have like living grandparents is incredible. They're like, it's, to me, it's always like crazy. Every time I talk to you know, Grandma Rose how that like so many people have living grandparents and don't really communicate with them or I don't know. It makes me want to communicate even more with my other grandmother who I don't talk to nearly as much just because, you know, we didn't see each other as much growing up and didn't develop like as much of a friendship as like she has with some of the other cousins. But like, I just love the opportunity to be so close to somebody who's like got all this wealth of information. She's still fun and like kind of fearsome, and just like does her own thing. And I think like that was like the big push was that we would, you know, get to help her out. Make sure that she could still live independently and not need to because she had a couple of falls in the last year, and being able to like not see her have to like you know, give up this life. You know that she's definitely way too active and like mentally there to have to go to a home that would like, that would break I think all of our hearts. She's a maniac. She can't be caged. So it's good to like be able to give her like, you know, a few more years of that. You know.
21:46
GJ: What else would you like learn from her?
21:48 - 22:43
BJ: Oh my God, I don't even know. The question’s funny because it's like, you don't know what you don't know. It's like the Socrates thing. Like there's just so much she could definitely teach us. And like every time she says something new, you're always like, oh, yeah, I never thought about it like that or you just, I don’t know, just her perspective like on certain things like sort of keeps you honest. Like she, you know, she really doesn't like to go out to eat and she’ll like always make sure you eat before you go somewhere. She doesn't want you to have to go out to eat because she doesn't want you to spend any money. And like she will shop around like sales for everything. Like I'll take her grocery shopping, it’ll take us like three hours to get like twelve things because she has to get the cheapest, so we’ll drive from store to store to store and I know you've done this. But it's just it's funny to like see somebody living like, consistently this life. She's doesn’t she didn’t get to be this old, you know, or this independent by doing it the wrong way.
22:43 - 22:49
GJ: I think we went out to eat maybe two or three times.
22:49 - 22:52
BJ: That's what my Dad says, yeah. Like literally two or three times.
22:53 - 22:59
GJ: We went out to the to the Swiss Smorgasbord, where we could all you could eat. That’s where we ate in Framingham.
22:59
BJ: Well five kids. It's like that's intense. That's a lot of kids to feed.
23:02
GJ: Yeah.
23:03 - 23:39
BJ: I could understand not going out to eat. Like that's just, yeah. We went out to eat more when I was a kid but that wasn't, my dad still likes to go out to eat, probably because he didn't get to go out eat as much as a kid. But still like the level of restaurant was never like we never went out to eat somewhere fancy when I was growing up, ever. Like I’ve only started going out to eat at like nice restaurants like when I was paying for it so like you know because I like going out to eat at like a nice restaurant every now and then. But that was really my first experience with like going out to eat at nice restaurants. Was like I had to fund it, you know…
23:40
GJ: Well this is the…
23:41
BJ: Frugality is big in the family.
23:42 - 23:48
GJ: Yeah, well let me tie into what I was going to ask you. What lessons do you think your Dad learned being Armenian
23:48 - 25:22
BJ: I think again, frugality. Like that sort of idea of like, you know, and family. That's the other one I noticed because I think, there's a bunch of different as you grow older, you have friends from different cultures. You know, I have a Sicilian friend and she has very similar family experience, like a family that talks to each other, is really tight with each other. They're all involved with each other's lives and if one of them has something going on, everybody kind of knows about it. And then my wife's family is Irish. And their family dynamic is very different. And I mean, I know every family is different but in general my friends that are like from Irish descent are like oh yeah, you know, I see my uncle like every once in a while, I don't even know where he's living, like they just don't they don't have as close of a family tie I feel like as like this like as a culture that may you know that. I don't know about like generational trauma, like about like the Armenian Genocide and how that affects how everybody lives, but I have to know that. Or, I have to think that like, having a culture who's you know, been impacted so much by like, something like a genocide, I think it puts like this sort of community and love of family into everything. I meet Armenians who are just I've never seen you know, I've never seen like two Polish dudes be like oh my god you're Polish, me too, and then like bro down on the level of like when you when you meet a random Armenian person out in the wild of not Armenian town Whitinsville but like, when you meet one out in the wild and they find out you’re Armenian and suddenly, you know, they're telling you about this place they love to go eat and this bartender they know and you should try this over here and you should and I feel like I make Armenian friends whenever I meet them.
25:23 - 25:50
BJ: Where I don't feel like I don't see other people doing that like so I think there's a cool community to being Armenian. So, it's a special thing. And I think just like giving those opportunities like space to breathe and develop, like every time I have somebody come up and be like, oh, you want to like, you know like, I'm Armenian, duh duh duh, I’m like I'm gonna touch base with this person. I'm gonna actually keep talking to them and I don’t know, I try and like always give like those weird little Armenian interactions like you know, I water that seed.
25:51 -
GJ: Why do you think that is?
25:52 - 26:47
BJ: I think just for that same reason that that that like weird genocide reason of like, you know, the world tried to keep you down, your gonna come back a little stronger. Like, you everybody has like a shared experience even if it wasn't my experience or your experience. It was like the experience everybody's families had and passed down to them. Like we always grew up with those sort of stories always like I mean, we talked about stories from your grandparents. I didn't even really talk about like the, like the sort of, the shadow of the Genocide. You always hear about it. It comes up like casually like if something is oh, you find out like a certain car is made in Turkey. Everybody in the room gets like a little quiet. It's like ooh, and then we move on and just having that little half second of pause is like this weird shared, we all have like the Armenian Genocide secretly lingering on the back of our minds. So I think that that's like part of the community too. It’s like a bunch of people who all went through something even if they personally didn't go through it.
26:47 - 26:50
GJ: A community destroyed and a community created.
26:51 - 27:28
BJ: Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't be this like, what is it the diaspora; is that the word? Yeah, like there's they were scattered all over and every time you meet one they’re like yeah, we’re a go, we’re making it and I haven't been to Armenia yet. It's like on my bucket list of places to go. But I feel like it's just, I don’t know, it’s something that like, like I said, I feel Armenian. I don't really feel German. I'm happy but I really don't feel like a German you know, I've never felt the desire to go to Germany or learn German whereas I always have like a nagging I should learn Armenian sort of, I don't know or I love like yelling at Grandma in Armenian with like the five words I know. So…
27:30
GJ: She played cards a lot?
27:31 - 28:02
BJ: Yes. She's been, she's been having a rough couple of weeks. I figured her out. But yeah, we play Rummy like probably three nights a week. Maybe four, pretty much anytime she's up for it I'll go give her a game. Michaela will come down sometimes, but, you know, it's just a good chance to get her talking. She gets her card down and you get her talking and laughing and she'll won’t like, she’ll start saying stuff she wouldn't say otherwise. It's like Rummy is the equivalent of like, you know, giving her a couple of drinks. She starts getting real chatty.
28:03 - 28:13
BJ: So, she doesn't drink but she does play cards, and she's a gambler. You can like get her like get her chat and get her like you know, get her loose, get her kind of off balance. She'll say some real funny stuff.
28:13 - 28:18
GJ: Is there anything surprising when you moved in here that you found out about her?
28:19 - 29:11
BJ: Dude, she's way more with it than I thought. I mean, I always watched like, you know somebody like my Dad or like you or whatever trying to like argue with her at something and I've always just been like, dude she's way more sharp than I think anybody gives her credit for. You just sort of like watch how she’ll be picking up on things or she'd comment you'd be like she's all together like she's really there. Then you move here and you know, Mick moved like a flowerpot from like, somewhere dark and dank in the basement like eight feet over to somewhere else so she could put something down. Like 24 hours later, she was like, where's my flower pot you're like, first off, she knew where everything was and that she knows where every single thing is in this house. And like, you know, moving in she's been like on it. She's like, where’d you put this, like where's this like this used to be over here is it over here or like this is over here. Like I think you changed this. I think this might be, did you like drop this over? It's incredible the inventory she's done with this place and the fact that just the fact that she still has that brain capacity to like.
29:11
BJ: You know.
29:13
GJ: Yeah, she’s pretty sharp.
29:13 - 29:40
BJ: Keep track of all this stuff to like, you can't I mean if you want to get something past her you gotta whisper it because like otherwise, you're not gonna get anything past her like you say something like out loud that she can hear she understands what you're talking about. I think that was like kind of fun learning like how like it gave me like a lot of hope. I was kind of worried that like you know, we'd be living with like my grandma and like what I would see as being like a down, downward slope, but I feel like she's doing great she's like laughing and fun. She's like, she's really a spitfire.
29:41 - 29:53
BJ: You know, she she’s slapped me I think twice since I moved in, a lot of fun. You just get her, you get her like worked up and she, and you cross your eyes and she'll slap you because she doesn't like crossed eyes. She’s mad funny, so I’ve really enjoyed it.
29:54
GJ: Great. Is there anything you'd like? We probably can end the interview.
29:57
BJ: Oh, I don’t even know.
29:59
GJ: Is there anything you’d like to end it with, or?
30:00 - 30:13
BJ: Oh, I don’t know. I just hope I can actually bring something to Whitinsville instead of just like, you know, just move in and I'm just another Armenian in Whitinsville. Hopefully get to do something in the community. I love being part of the Arts Association. And we’ll see what happens.
30:13 - 30:25
GJ: You know, I was going to ask you, if there's something you could have said or could say, if you can ask Joe something now. Or, actually, Jan’s dad. Is there anything you'd ask?
30:26 - 31:24
BJ: I think I would just want to ask like, I just want to ask something that would be an open-ended story. Just get him talking about a story that meant something to him because I love hearing somebody tell a story that they like get animated about like one they're excited to tell you. Like when somebody comes in the door they're like oh my God, oh my God, I would want it to be like I wouldn't know exactly what the question was. For my other grandfather it would be to try and like the question or something about flying because that's like flying was his thing if he like, you know, his flying days, like when he was flying into like the jungle airstrips in Columbia. Those are the stories that like you can see his eyes light up and those are the epic stories of like, landing a plane where the radio is out, you know, like and you can see that he loves to tell that story. So I think I would ask Joe something that would get his eyes to light up like that, like a story about, I don’t know, it would be, I'd have to think about it a little more, but it's something that would be like a story that he desperately wanted to tell. So you could just like feed it tinder and it would just grow.
31:27 - 31:30
GJ: Yeah, and I don’t know that there were any stories that he was desperate to tell.
31:30 - 31:32
BJ: I, I, there has to be one and so I feel like…
31:33
GJ: I know there’s secrets and stuff that he sat on.
31:36 - 31:52
BJ: Yeah, and I mean, I never got even close to those. He was, you know, he was the not like the unsmiling grandfather but like he had like a wry smile, like a hmm like you had to really chase a smile out of him. He just was sitting there like you can tell he is watching everything that was going on and taking pretty copious notes. But…
31:56
GJ: Cool.
31:57
BJ: Yeah, no, he was a, I’m glad I got to spend like so much time around him.
32:01
GJ: Welcome to Whitinsville.
32:03
BJ: Yeah, thank you so much. It’s a fun opportunity to get to do this. Maybe we’ll film another one in ten years and we’ll see what I’ve gotta say.

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