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Okay, here's the next question. What lessons and values did your parents instill in you? What do you think is the most important life skill or value your parents taught you?

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Well, you may recall I said my dad, he was the one that really kind of drilled in, it was the language typing. I mean, we all had to learn to type. Now, typewriters, very different keyboard than a computer keyboard, but that was a good lesson to have was that. And I would say, you know, he just wanted us to have a good education and to be a rounded individual and to care for the world. And my mom was too, she wanted that as well.

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I think it was to be a good citizen of the world to do something for other people to think bigger than ourselves. And, you know, integrity was very important to my parents, honesty, integrity, truthfulness.

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They didn't tolerate any deception. And then a really big one was fun and laughter. That had to be a strong component in our life too. So I guess those are the things that that I think about what my parents tried to instill, what tried to live by and instill in all of us.

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How about you? Well, we had a pretty strict upbringing. And what we learned was, yeah, integrity, honesty, for sure, and hard work, hard work, hard work, hard work.

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If you weren't making progress, get a bigger hammer, get a longer lever, since my grandfather, Fowler, was an engineer, get a longer lever and you can pry. So it was a lot of pushing.

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My dad especially was good at science and math. And so he was very strong on keeping us moving forward. And if you were slacking, you knew your dad was right behind you and you're going to have to fess up.

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So first semester, after I was following your mother around at CU, I didn't do very well. I was working 20 hours a week in the dishroom to pay. I paid 50% of my way the whole time.

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So working in the dishroom making $1.15 an hour didn't go real far. But that's what I did. And then the summer I got construction jobs.

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After the first summer I worked at Penrose and then I had construction all the way through Vetscourt. Anyway, working hard, trying to be smart, get to a career, do your best.

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You skied a lot and my dad always said, "Keep your weight on your downhill ski," which is absolute fact. And be honest, tell the truth, work hard. That was pretty much the way, and interestingly enough, talking to my cousin Craig, whose mother was my mother's sister, he grew up in the springs and his dad was a prominent physician and he's a physician.

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And our upbringings are very similar. So we have fun talking about that every Christmas the three of us get together.

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You know, you think about what shaped our parents too and how they instilled that. And I think, you know, my dad, because his dad died when he was in his 20s, he had to support his mom and his sisters, took over his father's business, that you feel like, you know, he had to grow up really quickly.

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And I think, you know, some of, he knew that you had to work hard, but I never felt, I don't recall feeling them pressuring and pushing us and pushing us and pushing us.

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Now, my brothers might think otherwise, but I didn't feel that, but I guess I just felt like I wanted to do that. You know, I had my own internal drive, but it wasn't my mom and dad other than having, I guess you could say, the fact that he had the French verbs conjugated on sheets on the cupboard over our eating table and he'd drill us every night on those. Maybe that was his way of pushing us, but it wasn't other subjects.

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It was those French verbs. I don't remember when I switched to Spanish, if you put the Spanish verbs up there, but he had the French verbs up there. So, yeah.

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Mine, you know, both our dads were infantry. Both our dads went from France along the way. Now, Ralph came home early after the Battle of the Bulge, which you need to read Citizen Soldier and D-Day to understand a fair bit more about your grandfather's reading those two books really made a difference to me understanding my father.

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I think both of them had PTSD to some degree. And I know my dad, he had a fuse and if you guys probably don't remember it because you never saw it, but there was a fuse and he didn't put up with a lot of sass or, you know, in subordination or not getting it done.

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And after my first semester in Boulder, I didn't do well. I came home, he saw the grades, he said, "Now, here's the thing. You better have all Bs and As after one year or you're going to Pikes Peak Community College." And so I managed to do that even hustling your mother and working 20 hours.

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So I'll tell a story quickly that's a little unrelated to, I should have told it earlier. But yeah, the dads, that played a role in their lives.

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It did. My father was, you know, he was calm and nice, but if King Push came to shove, he was going to fight.

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His whole squad got killed but him in one day. And then he got wounded and he had taken some boots off a paratrooper because paratroopers had better boots.

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And this guy was dead. He didn't need his boots. So my dad took him. You know, that's what guys did.

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And he had a German pistol and was a different guy. He played, he had a mobile craps game. So colorful stuff. But yeah, he had a temper.

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Yeah. Some of that I think is genetic now to me, but some of it was forged.

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You do? You think it's genetic? I think it's somewhat genetic.

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But the other thing about my dad, you know, like Ralph's dad, his dad died when he was 11-ish. We talked about that.

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And so they both grew up in the Depression. With mothers as their heads of family.

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They had the family, three kids in her family, four boys in my grandma Fowler's family. And with that temper, my dad always said, you know, whatever you do, be the best at it.

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I don't care if you dig ditches because he dug ditches in college for public service. They didn't have backhoes. So be the best ditch digger.

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So your mom did Phi Beta Kappa and I was Phi Zeta in vet school, which was, I got in after the junior in the junior year because I was in the top 10 at that point.

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So the boot in my butt is what I call it. You know, you learn that and you just forge ahead.

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When I was in freshman year college, second semester, and it was spring, I got my only C. And I don't think my parents said anything to me about it.

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But I knew I had failed. I had failed them and I'd failed me.

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The C was in the silliest class of all. It was called Deviance and it was a big in the end, and Ken one 101.

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And I remember it was Ken 40, Ken 140. And I remember sitting out on the lawn in Kittridge and it was the day before the final.

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And I was just now opening the book. I had read anything about it.

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I hadn't done anything. And I then I thought it's just too nice out here.

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I'm not going to do anymore. You know, one of the questions.

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I might have played a role. Yeah, I think so.

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One of the questions on this test was what's the title of the book? I couldn't answer that question.

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And I'm sure I couldn't answer the question. I couldn't even believe that.

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Debbie, how could you have done this? And you know, that was a good wake up call for me.

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It was like, you can't just go, Debbie, you got to get after this. You still got to see.

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So I must have done better on some of those other questions and just figured it out. But I don't remember my parents being upset, but I felt upset.

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And and I feel like that's what they instilled in me that you didn't. You should have done that.

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You didn't need to do that. You are better than that.

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And you're here to learn and work and, you know, take some responsibility and accountability. And and so, you know, clearly in my senior year, I had mono and I was taking all those business courses and I got straight A's.

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So it that C in deviance, which should have been an automatic A. It's kind of like when I took geology, no geography, and I decided to take it past fail.

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Well, that's silly because I got an A. I didn't know how to, given that deviance situation, I didn't know how to modulate myself from just doing enough as your dad would say.

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I still had to put all my all in there and I should have taken it for the grade, but that's the way it was.

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So that's a little sidebar, but I guess it tells you what your parents that maybe they didn't say it, but you felt it the way they they modeled it for you, that that's what it taught us.

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And I'm glad for that. They didn't have to use the words always.

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They just demonstrated that in their lives. Are we even?

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Are we even on the subject? I know I keep messing with it.

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Try not to put your hand over the microphone. What lessons and values do you hope you instilled or will instill in your children?

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I guess the thing that we've learned from our parents are the same things that we hope we have instilled.

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And I reflect back that I don't know that we talked about it a lot with you. We didn't necessarily drop pearls of wisdom on your here's what, you know, we didn't necessarily talk specifically about it.

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Some of this, but maybe again by living that way, you saw that in us. And I don't know, that's kind of how I feel.

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Do you feel like we really? I think we weren't as, I mean, I know I wasn't a stern with the girls pretty much.

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But I think you all knew that there were expectations from the start. And you were all, you know, two bright smart parents and grandparents.

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So you were given God's gift of intellectual capacity. And that's a gift.

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Although I do feel like we try to-- --push you a little too hard.

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I actually, thinking back on, I think, I'll speak for me. I think I gave, I pushed you, Carols.

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And I didn't mean to do that-- In terms of swimming or in terms of school?

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Everything, everything probably. You know, I was probably the more stern person.

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And should have lightened up and had you learned, you know, more fun. Because I should have understood that you were smart enough to know and to learn about, again, taking accountability, responsibility, drive.

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You all had your own drive. Yeah, I don't think you pushed them too hard at all.

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We had, you know, they grew up knowing there was expectations of, you don't have to be the best, but you got to be above average.

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You've got to work to your potential. And that's what I-- That's really is work to your-- Because above average, we knew you were smart.

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You're all smart. So if you're not doing-- Taking advantage of your God-given gifts, Mother Nature's gifts, whatever you want, you got to use it-- Use your potential.

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Yeah. All my parent-teacher conferences, because I was so introverted as a kid, unlike my am now, was always talks too much in class, not working to potential.

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So we wanted to make sure you guys worked to potential. And I think-- I will comment that, you know, Kelly had a not working to potential on Penman shift.

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This is true. But I'm teasing.

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I'm teasing. We thought it was pretty funny.

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Yep. And you've all blossomed and done well.

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Sometimes I feel like it's-- You know, despite whatever we tried to pass on.

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We tried to just keep going down the road of life in a straight line. Yeah.

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And none of you got into problems. None of you got into drugs.

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You weren't drama people. You had some stuff that we didn't know about, that we hear about now, which I think that's funny.

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I do too. Bruce Lindstern, I've talked about that.

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That we just hope you don't kill yourselves along the way and you do well. And his kids did and you kids did.

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And we didn't-- We're blessed.

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We didn't want to use too tight a leash on you. But swimming, I think, taught you all three.

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You get what you get because that's what you did. There's no-- Nobody holding you back.

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Nobody got their hand on your head holding you down. You just got to go get it.

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And swimming, I still think is probably one of the most boring training sports of all time. Watching you guys for so many years at practice and then being a deck official, watching you swim, I'm constantly amazed you didn't all jump off a bridge.

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And it's just a grind. So you got used to the grind.

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Life is a grind. And you guys did a great job.

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Yep. [MUSIC]