"Well it sounds like an adventure"

"Well it sounds like an adventure"

"My youth was pretty busy"

[I am] David Ray Arrendale. I was born in Olathe Kansas2, which would be a suburb of Kansas City on the Kansas side. Back in the day I would be just like all the other neighbor kids where we would run out the house and would be gone for 12 hours. We would then come back for lunch for 15 minutes and run back out then till dark. That was the time period when nobody would be worried about stealing kids or worried about them. My youth was really busy, I was out for sports as you may have a hard time believing. I played football and threw shot put. I totally believe in athletics that people outta participate cuz you really do learn a lot more than just how to hit each other. You really do learn organization, and leadership, and discipline. Same kind of things you learn lots of really good lessons in boy scouts.  Boy scouts was a wonderful experience.  I learned how to be a better leader and build self confidence. How to take care of myself in the woods also I learned to be away from the house and the family. I did that and made my way up to senior patrol leader, then shifted and got involved with church. That then became my focus for 16 through 18. In high school I got involved with plays and speech and debate. And all of those skills actually became pretty helpful to my career as a teacher.

"It was an interesting family"

David's father working as a meat cutter

My father spent about half of his career working as a meat cutter in a grocery store, and the other half he made nitroglycerine3 for bombs for ammunitions for the war. He made weapon systems during the WWII, Vietnam, The Korean Conflict.  He made the types of bombs that my brother John would use when he flew Phantom 4s1 in Vietnam.  

My older brother John, a decorated combat pilot, who has since past, then an older sister named Patricia, then the next oldest would be brother Jim, then me. We had the oldest brother and sister who were about a year apart, then you go 10 years then you have my brother Jim, then another ten years and you have me. So, in a lot of ways I was an only child at home because of the age difference.  In many ways, the family dynamic was probably pretty traditional, got along well, umm its just that we didn't get to do a lot of things together just because we had a lot of difference in age.  I admired them a great deal, and in fact my brother John gave me the idea of education. I was one year too young to get into Vietnam war, so I would come from an identified military family and I could have went in the military and it would have been great. It just turned out I didn’t choose that course, but life went really good for my brother. He said that you could either work in the real world, or you can work in the unreal word.  And I said, "What's That?" He said, "Well, the world of the Military the clergy or education system all have their own value system they have their own calendar of events, and also they are insulated from the economy to the point that you don’t lose your jobs like you would if you were out in the real world like in factories or office buildings and such."  So he actually encouraged me to pursue working in higher education.  

The Arendale Family

“Don’t Ask Be Happy I Found You A Job”

I went to a regional college not to a big name college and it was called Emporia State University. It has about 6,000 students and was about 90 miles away from my town. It was perfect because it felt like I got away from home but on the weekends if you wanted mom's home cooking it was only about an hour and a half away.  I majored in history and I wanted to be a community college history teacher even though my advisor told me I never have the chance to ever teaching in a college because it is so difficult to get into community college just to teach. I didn't care that what I wanted to do so I ignored my advisor, loaded up all on my history courses, took also like double major in philosophy, a minor in speech communication. 

I was at spring break at during my last semester of my graduate program, got a called from my mentor professor at the University said "Arendale, I found you a job". I said "Well where is this?" He said, "Don't ask, I found a job". [I said] "Well how much does it pay?" [he said] "Don't ask, be happy I found a job". I said, "Yes Dr. Tory". So I started to commuting 3 and a half hours each way to teach a class twice a week at this community college the South Center Kansas. And then after doing that for a semester, they kept me on and I spent 7 yrs there and I spent 3 yrs at another small community college in Kansas, then I spent about a dozen years in Kansas City at the University Missouri Kansas City. And I been up here since 2002 and I plan to retire in 3 more years.

"Well it sounds like an adventure"

All of my friends were shocked that I moved up north because I was leaving behind a lot of family in Kansas City and friends. Mostly new people who work up here, actually, no offense but coming up to the cold north land is not normally what people do when they change jobs. And I was coming up here kind of on my own. I still knew a number of people and actually a couple of families kind of adopted me. We would go out and have meals together and go to movies, but I was like "Well it sounds like an adventure" and I knew people up here, they kinda recruited me and I came up. I teach a Global History class, basically the last 100 years. Primarily it’s first year students but also there is other students throughout the university that take it as an elective because it does the historical perspectives and it does cultural diversity and those are two of the gen ed requirements so most students say politely, “Well because it fulfills the gen-ed requirements.” And then they sometimes say the description looks a little bit different, it’s a little broader, they kind of like the word global.

"I actually do enjoy it up here"

Map of Fridley, MN compared to Minneapolis, Mn

Ever since I came, I lived up in Fridley Minnesota, which is about 25min to the north of here. Public transportation is really the highest in the twin-cities, sometimes [I] ride on the bus was some of the other students who usually shock and see me, and I said "Hey I ride the bus like you guys." I actually do enjoy it up here, the summers are beautiful compared to summer in Kansas City where it's hot and muggy all the time. Up here, you just simply put on 2 or 3 or 4 coats in the winter time. And you appreciate the changing seasons and actually I think really quite nice, I plan to retire and stay up here because it's comfortable. I can drive up north to where and get up to the north land of state, got a great healthcare, I mean literally on campus I can walk between to see my doctors, come back and go back in the class room. For me, my family here would be more in term of my friend network. I see people I get together with weekly bases, heavily invest into churches up here, I go to a Baptist church And any given weekend, there like 32,000 people show up, they have like 5 campuses distributed around the areas. Anyway, we try to find people who kinda like to go to church, if we think of traditional church is not the place to be.

“A defining moment for me”

I’m a diabetic and you know I’m kind of responsible for a number of complications I’ve gotten, but I learned to realize other people have tougher things in life. It’s real common for diabetics to have slightly anemic blood, it’s not deadly but I just keep an eye on it. So I’ve seen about every clinic over at the hospital. So anyway, he said, “I want you to go over to the… hematology clinic. Going there, I didn’t know that that is where all the cancer patients go. So, I walked in the doors and look around and people are missing limbs and people look close to death, and I’m getting really scared because it’s like why did the doctor send me here? And after that visit I understood oh, they are the best people about blood.
I did a follow up there, standing in line getting ready to check in, they wheel in a child in a little miniature bed. I would guess the child must of been maybe 8 years old.. Completely white complexion, almost like a china doll. No hair at all. Couldn’t tell whether that was a boy or a girl. And I was standing in line and I kind of locked eyes with the child for a few seconds. It sounds terribly dramatic, but before I locked eyes with, he or she broke away and then I realized, that child is probably not going to see Christmas. You just know that child is close to death. And you know, my problems kind of pale in comparison to what that child and what those parents must be going through. There’s an expression it’s called an epiphany, it's kind of like a turning point. I felt a lot better about me. I felt like other people have a much tougher than you’re going through. At least I can influence what’s happening with me, that child cannot influence anything. So for me, I kind of learned to have a different perspective on life because of that one day, that I try to really celebrate life as much as I can.

Footnotes:

1. The Phantom 4 was a fighter jet used in the Vietnam War.  Mainly for bombing runs and for gaining intel on enemy positions.
2. Olathe Kansas is a large suburb to the south and west of Kansas City
3. Nitroglycerine is a dense liquid, when heated it can become explosive.

Photo Credits:

• “Childhood image of David”, “Meat cutter store”, “Family picture” were provided by David Ray Arrendale himself.
• “Fridley Map” from Carefree Self Storage

Story Facilitators:

Jen Kempka

Cole McDevitt

Khang Le