Dad-interview

The interviewee talks about their earliest memories, their favorite memories, and how certain experiences have shaped them as a person. They discuss funny stories, their future plans, their childhood, favorite relatives, and their parents. They also talk about how they would like to be remembered and express pride in the person they are interviewing. I'm Alex Hetzel and I'm interviewing my dad what was your what is your earliest memory that you can remember? My dad's favorite memory of my dad's year, but after about 8 or 9 months we got engaged at Christmas time and eventually about a few months later we decided it wasn't going to work out the way we got it, we broke up a double in the playoff game when you're 12 years old, but he worked so hard, and this month they practiced so hard. How did that change you as a person? It was worth the bottom of the line, I've made a big effort in my life, I think I was never in a relationship before, so I was kind of afraid to get into a relationship, not only did you work yourself into a selective hit and spot of the order, but you did a lot of those in the game as well, so kicking a selective at the person I wanted to date. Are there any funny stories your family tells about you that come to mind? I always knew it was going to be a serious relationship, it changed me a lot and I think I gained a lot of confidence because I was in a serious relationship and I was waiting for them to get back from church and I couldn't connect with someone. We were trying to figure out how to get into the house and I was waiting to get into the house and I forgot my keys, so you kind of hide yourself out there, it was a window that was fairly high in the garage and I found one in the wrong time to open that. It took a lot of work, confidence in myself to get in there and I was very impressed that it was somebody else. Did you feel nervous breaking into the house? I felt like I had a lot to offer someone else in a relationship. No, not really. They're pretty far away from the street, their house is pretty far back from the street and there's quite a few trees in front of the house. My mom always said that if you have to find the right person, you have to be the right person. If you could interview anyone from your life, living or dead, not a celebrity, who would it be and why? I would say, probably my great uncle, because he fought in World War II and saw action in the Pacific and he used to tell stories. He used to tell stories about Japanese kamikaze pilots who were trying to fly into his boat and other boats that were nearby and praying that the machine gunners on the ships would shoot down the planes before they came and hit his ship and sunk his ship and killed everyone on board. I think he would be an interesting person to talk to. What would be the first thing that you would ask him? I think I would ask him about his experience as a soldier, as a sailor and how he felt about that and was he scared being on a ship in battle when planes were coming in and firing on his ship. What is your first memory of me? Was it when I was born? Do you remember? Yeah, I remember. When you were born, you came out and peed on the nurse. That's my first memory. I don't know how you put that in there. Maybe an early memory of you is when I walked into your room and you were always laying in your crib. I don't think you'd really been standing up. I thought you were standing up and holding the crib to hold yourself up, so you were kind of looking eye to eye, so that was a pretty big surprise. Yeah, I don't remember that. I was completely expecting you to be laying down at this time, and I walked in and you were standing up and looking at me like eye to eye, so it was really funny. Where do you think you will be in 10 years? 20 years. I don't know. I think I'm going to be around there in a day. I'm going to be 58 years old. I'm probably still going to be here working. I'm not sure. I might pick another. What about when you're 68? Retired? Maybe by then, yeah. I'll probably be retired. We may downsize our house, maybe buy a house by the beach or something. Downsize a smaller house maybe by the beach. Weather's nicer. What's that? I will be visiting, if it's by the beach, or if it's by anything. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Most of all my childhood life was in Richmond. I grew up on the south side of Richmond from kindergarten through the fourth grade. That was in the Nutterbrook area, and then moved over to the other part of the south side in the Beloit area, where I went to school from the fifth grade until I graduated, and actually into college. What was your childhood like? My childhood was not that different than yours, because I did a lot of sports. I played soccer and baseball and basketball and played golf and tennis and watched sports and went to the baseball field every Saturday with my dad and my brother and our dog, Cocker Spaniel. We watched every Saturday morning, and on the way home we'd get a Slurpee and a pack of baseball cards on the way home from the field every Saturday morning. That was fun. My dad was talking to his husband about it for me. How was your relationship with your brother? We had a good relationship. We were definitely pretty close as kids. We roomed together in college and then for another year or so after college. We found out we were a little bit different as we got older, but we still stayed in touch and still regularly talk and communicate and keep up with each other. Who were your favorite relatives growing up? Definitely my grandfather. I had one grandfather who died before I was born. My dad's dad, Grandpa Hetzel. I enjoyed getting to know him and admired him. He was a World War II veteran. He was also on a boat in World War II. He was actually heading to the Pacific when the war ended. He was someone of really high integrity and character. He had a great sense of humor. He was always telling stories and loved to tell jokes. He was a fun person to be around and really respected and admired by everyone in our family. I respected how he treated my grandmother. He really treated her like a queen and everyone really respected him for that and how he treated his wife. He really set the standard and the bar really high for how you treat a lady. I really respected him. I gave a eulogy for him at his funeral. Also, my grandmother on my mom's side, we called her Grandma Shu. I really liked her. She had a great sense of humor. She was really funny. We always said she was timeless because she could relate to anybody at any age. She was just connected with people. It was just fun to be around and really enjoyed being around people. Everyone in the family, my brother, we were both very close to her. We were really disappointed with that, but she passed away from cancer when she was about 84 or 85. What kind of cancer did she have? I think she had colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. I think two different types. She had a surgery and didn't recover from the surgery. Where did you and Mom meet? We met at a Halloween party in 2001. It was about a month. About a month and a half after 9-11. Mom was dressed up as a doctor. I asked if she was a nurse and she told me she was a doctor. That set the tone for our relationship pretty early. No. We had a lot in common. We both had master's degrees from DCU. We both owned houses at the time. We were both in a good place in our lives to meet somebody else. How old were you at the time? I was 25 and she was 28. Do you remember any song you would sing to me or my brother? I would definitely sing a lot of Christmas carols, Christmas songs. When it was Christmas season. I printed out a whole list of songs we used to sing. I was trying to think of what they were. They were like children's songs. I printed out a whole sheet. Before I had bedtime, I would sing to two of you and then I would sing songs that I liked too. We enjoyed that for a while. Do you have a specific song? Can you sing them now? On recording? No. What were your parents like? My mom was kind of the organized one. Kind of the rock of the family. My dad was more of the social person. He did social planning and planning items. My mom was kind of more behind the scenes. She would take care of all the bills and the details for the family. My mom was kind of more behind the scenes. She would take care of all the bills and the details for the family. My dad was really into sports. He supported me in that. He certainly encouraged me to get involved in sports. My mom supported me. She came to every single one of my sporting events. From the time I could play until I was an adult. How would you like to be remembered? How would you like to be remembered? How would you like to be remembered? Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who helped make a difference in other people's lives. Someone who was kind. I'm going to stop the recording. I guess I'd like to be remembered kind of like how I remember my grandfather. Someone with high integrity, great character. Someone who gave his time and effort to help other people and make other people smile. Are you proud of me? Well, yeah, I'm definitely proud of you. I think you embody a lot of everything. I hope that I hold in high esteem as far as character and an honor to treat people well. I think that's reflected in how many people like you and how many friends that you have and how many of your friends follow your lead and the things that you do and the activities that you get involved in. I don't think you talk badly about other people and you have high integrity and feel like you follow through on everything that you try to do. Your deed follows your word and I think that's really important. I think for you in particular, you're a hard worker. I think that serves you well in sports and life. Obviously getting into Virginia Tech was a big part of that. That's not something that was easy. It took a lot of hard work and dedication and effort. I like the fact that you're tough and never complain about anything. I think those are things that I'm proud of you for and I think will serve you well in life, for sure. How well you get along with people, how hard you work, in addition to obviously working hard and having skills and intelligence to begin with. Having all three of those things will serve you well in life. When did you first find out you'd be a parent? How did you feel? I felt like I hit the lottery. Mom and I were really excited. It's like having a lottery ticket but you can't cash it in for nine months. Mom and I were thrilled and enjoyed being involved in that process every step of the way. It was fun and exciting. Did you always know you wanted to be a parent? Yeah, I did. It's a big responsibility. It's something I didn't take lightly, for sure. Mom and I talked about having kids. I thought about why would I want a kid to have everything I need. I had a mom and a house and a job. It was kind of a question, like why do you need to have children? I think having a family and being able to pass things down to the kids and being able to share things with them, share good times with them and watching them grow up and having people around with the family. It's really fun and exciting. It's something people who don't do, I think, are really missing out on. How has being a parent changed you? I think I'm more selfless than I used to be. I like to think that I wasn't a selfless person, but certainly when you have kids, it's not just about you. It's about doing good things for your kids and being there for them. Their needs are more important than my needs. That's kind of how I feel about it. I think I give more than I used to. It's just an understanding. It's not so much about you. There's things that are more important than giving things to other people. How did you choose my name? So I think Mom and I came up with, I think Mom ended up deciding on three names that we both liked, or maybe that she liked. And then I think out of those three names, I think she let me choose one of those three. And then your middle name, of course, is my middle name as well, so I wanted to pass that along to you. We have the same middle name, spelled the same way. How did you choose Sean's name? I think in a similar fashion. The name Sean is a form of John, so that way you both have a part of my name in your name. That's how we came up with that. Did you get into trouble as a kid? Yeah, I definitely did sometimes. My brother and I fought a fair amount. He was three years older than me, so I had to be pretty scrappy. I gave as much as I got in those situations. I got in trouble some. He got in trouble more than I did because he was older and I usually had the sympathy vote from my parents, which was difficult for him. Yeah, I had friends in high school. We would sneak out of the house at night sometimes. My parents caught me a couple times sneaking out of the house and meeting my friends out and doing stuff we probably shouldn't have been doing at that age. Were there any consequences from your parents? Yeah, I'd get grounded. I wouldn't be allowed to go out for a weekend, the next weekend, or the weekend after that. They'd take my car keys away and I wouldn't be able to drive my car for a period of time. Did you have a nickname? I know I had a few nicknames. I'm not sure I could repeat all of them. Not ones that I chose, but probably the one I liked was at a college called Bulldog. I think that was my second job. I would get information from different people around the company, data and information that we needed to collect to put together reports. They called me Bulldog because I'd stay after it and stay on top of it. I kind of liked that nickname. Most of them I didn't like. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I don't know if I ever did have anything specific that I wanted to be. I really wanted to be a police officer or a fireman. When did you know you wanted to be an accountant? I think when I went to college and I chose business as my major and more specifically finance. I kind of knew that I wanted to go into accounting. I thought there would be plenty of jobs in those areas. My older brother had a friend who was in the business school at Virginia Tech. He got a job working for a bank and so I thought I could get a job. A similar job that I got was in accounting. I got a job working for a bank. I think I got a job working for a bank. I think I got a job working for a bank. He got a job working for a bank and so I thought I could get a job. A similar job that I ended up landing a job at the Federal Reserve. It was my first job which was considered fairly prestigious at the time. The Federal Reserve is very well respected so that really helped my career get off to a really good start. It was a really good start to have that on my resume my first few years of work. So if you went back in time you wouldn't change what you did for a living? No, I don't think so. I think I have good skills in that area. I think I was serving well. It was harder when I was younger because some of the work was what I would consider more like grunt work. More difficult, not as much fun and enjoyable as it is now. I'm more managing the work and managing people and managing projects. So that's a lot more fun than doing a lot of the detailed grunt work and leg work for projects which was what I was doing when I was younger. Did you enjoy school when you were a kid? Yeah, I did. I enjoyed school. I enjoyed reading. My mom read with me a lot. We read all the time. So I kind of felt confident and felt like I had to jump on my education because I read so much, so many books as a kid. When I got into school it went well. Like I said, I enjoyed reading. I won a couple of spelling bees. I won a lot of spelling bees that we had when I was in second, third, fourth grade. I won the school spelling bees when I was in second grade and then third grade. So I won several spelling bees back then. So that was something that I was pretty good at back then. Came pretty easily to me. Are you still friends with anyone from that time in your life? I can't really say that I have a text. What are your best memories of grade school or college? Or worst memories? Best memories of college? I would say at Virginia Tech I had friends and close friends and my roommates. We were all in the business school together. So we lived together and studied together. Took the same classes, a lot of the same classes together. So that was really fun. So we lived together and studied together. Took the same classes, a lot of the same classes together. So that was really fun. Do all that, be in the same classes and work together and help each other out in our classes. I think it kind of builds a network. Kind of a study group network at that time. I think that really helped me get through college and get solid grades to graduate. Were there any teachers who had a particularly strong influence on your life? Yeah, I think my math teacher when I was in the 6th grade and 8th grade, Mr. Leffler. He was a real neat, dynamic guy. He really loved math and was able to teach it to us. The passion he had for math really came out and I think it inspired me and motivated me to work hard and do a good job. Just because I knew how much he loved math and I never wanted to let him down on tests. I remember I did poorly on a test, like my first test in algebra and I remember he kind of gave me a pep talk. When I was in the 8th grade he told me that he'd seen me do poorly one time on a test and he'd always seen me work hard and come back and improve my grades. And he was right, I did. It motivated me and it's more than just being a teacher. He was someone who was a little bit more than that. Very passionate and really got to know his students and really seemed to care about them. That made a big difference and really made me want to work harder and do well. What was your first serious relationship and when? So that wasn't until I was, I think I was 24. Until I was 24 I was out of college and I dated someone who I worked with at the time at the Federal Reserve. And a couple months later I left that job and moved on to a different job that we dated for about a year. But after about 8 or 9 months we got engaged at Christmas time. We were engaged to get married. But eventually that relationship didn't last very long. But after about 8 or 9 months we got engaged at Christmas time. We were engaged to get married. But eventually that, a few months later we decided it wasn't going to work out and said that we broke up. And I think April of the following year and 6 months later I met Mom. How did that change you as a person? Yeah, that made a big difference in my life because I never had a serious relationship before. I was kind of afraid to get into a relationship and I was very selective anyway. So I didn't date a whole lot because I was so picky and selective about exactly the person I wanted to date. And so when I found that, I always knew it was going to be kind of a serious relationship because of that. But yeah, it changed me a lot because then I think I gained a lot of confidence because I was in a serious relationship. And then I knew I could connect with someone like that on a deeper level. It's kind of putting yourself out there that first time is really hard. So it took me a long time to be able to do that. But I think there's a lot of reasons for that. My personality is one. I had some health issues too with chronic sinus problems and asthma. I've never felt comfortable and confident enough in myself up until that point to really share my life with somebody. I don't think I was confident enough in myself to feel like I was ready to share my life with somebody else. But after I did take that jump and had a serious relationship, I did feel confident. I felt like I had a lot to offer someone else in a relationship to share my life with somebody else. So it made a huge difference in my life and my confidence and ability to connect with someone and be in a relationship with somebody else. My mom always said that to find the right person, you have to be the right person. So I think I finally felt like I am the right person. And so then I felt very comfortable in finding the right person at that point. Thank you for your time.