Episode Seventy-Four: The Interview - Mark Hawkins

Welcome to episode 74 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

In this interview,

I get to talk with Mark Hawkins,

Who is really kind of a man about town,

A raconteur,

Who has done many many things.

He's a musician,

He's an author,

He runs a Facebook group with 15,

000 members in Littleton,

Colorado.

He's done so many things and has such a diverse CV,

It's kind of hard to describe just who he is.

And this interview does talk about some of that stuff,

But it also talks about what it looks like when a person discovers their entire life is built on a lie,

That the person they thought they knew for the past 12 years is someone completely unexpected,

And what it looks like to have to completely rebuild and change one's life.

This interview is also about friendship,

About fellowship,

About love for those we consider family,

Even though they might not be biologically related.

It's about a community lifting up another human being and rebuilding them,

Reminding them who they are,

And setting them back on a path to healing and wholeness.

It's really a mind-blowing interview.

So now,

Episode 74 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

In the summer of 2017,

I had actually lived with the woman for a dozen years,

And I,

For a decade,

I lived with her in her home in Long Beach,

California.

She is a CPA,

Four-decade-long private practice CPA,

And one day she went missing out of the blue.

But then my first question is,

You know,

Mark,

Who are you as a human being if you were to go to a party and introducing yourself to people,

Or someone says,

Who are you,

Please tell me who you are,

How do you self-describe?

Like,

Who are you as a human being?

Today,

How much time do you have?

That question,

The answer to that question has changed,

And I don't know if it's changed or if it's come clearer into view.

I have learned that my calling in life is bringing people together,

Because within the last few years,

I really didn't know,

Maybe a few years ago,

I really didn't know who I was,

And it took a personal tragedy to happen that brought clarity.

I've been in therapy,

I'm in my third year of therapy now,

And that's helped.

You know,

I've worked for myself now for decades,

And you know,

This is like,

This is like Rebecca.

It may be like you.

What is clearer than ever before is that I've,

My calling in life,

I was put here to do this,

Is to keep people's chins up.

I'm not a matchmaker.

There's a difference between bringing people together.

I mean,

There is,

In Littleton,

Colorado,

You went to the Islip School of Theology,

I see.

So,

You know the area.

In Littleton,

A place where I left in 1984,

I think I could run for mayor right now and win,

From a thousand miles away.

I am a,

I am an administrator,

Moderator of a 15,

000 member Facebook group.

It's a nostalgic,

You know you grew up in Littleton,

If you remember,

It's the name of it.

15,

000 people.

Maybe this is a difficult question,

But what,

No such thing.

While moderating this Facebook page,

Managing it,

What is one of your favorite reminiscences that has been shared on that page of Littleton?

One of them has to do with,

We'll talk about geography here,

Or,

Or whatever,

Not,

You know,

Person,

Place,

Or thing,

Or whatever.

The High Line Canal in the Denver area is a famous,

Famous historical canal.

It's over 70 miles long,

And it was used for an irrigate,

For irrigation on the farmlands there.

It winds through Denver,

Winds through Littleton,

And I still have photos of me,

My good friend and unbelievable plein air watercolor artist in Pasadena,

California,

Joe Stoddard,

And a third person who is,

Whose last I knew of was down in Texas.

We're kids,

And we are floating down the High Line Canal in inner tubes,

And I have a photo of that.

Yep,

So that's,

Those are the kinds of things,

You know,

It's,

It is interesting.

I definitely are,

You know,

So you talk about that Facebook group,

That's that.

In kindergarten,

I'd almost flunked for many reasons.

I didn't know you could do that,

But I did.

My parents were called in,

They were gonna just whatever,

But it had to do with art,

And it had to do with Miss Phillips,

Who was my kindergarten teacher,

Highland Elementary in Littleton.

She passes out the large piece of construction paper,

The big ones,

And we're supposed to do something with that,

You know,

It's like you're in kindergarten,

Cut and paste,

You know,

The paste that I used to love the taste of.

I was so,

I was in a surly mood that day,

Apparently,

And I don't remember the day,

Obviously,

But I know enough about it to be able to tell a story.

Apparently,

I,

We had the assignment,

Art assignment,

I tore off,

Here's the big piece,

Here's the big piece of construction paper,

There it is,

Give me some paste,

There it is,

I wadded up the little piece,

I turned it in,

There it is,

Boom,

Walked away mad.

The teacher was so incensed,

Obviously,

You know,

So anyway,

I still have my report card from there,

It literally looks like I am never going to be able to ever pass kindergarten to go on to greater grades.

I commend you for rising above your kindergarten report card.

I was born in St.

Luke's Hospital in Denver,

Baptized Lutheran,

And I think I was baptized Lutheran because my mom's grandfather was a Lutheran minister,

But we went to a Methodist church when I was a kid.

We were one of these families we went because grandma and grandpa would think we should go,

And so mom and dad would take us,

And we were the Easter and Christmas type.

Well,

I mean,

Actually,

A lot of the people I interview have interesting journeys as far as their faith.

They start out as one,

Pretty specific,

And then they go questing for other religions,

And it's always really fascinating.

It's very rare for me to interview someone who starts off,

Let's say,

As Lutheran and is still a Lutheran.

In the summer of 2017,

I had actually lived with the woman for a dozen years,

And I,

For a decade,

I lived with her in her home in Long Beach,

California.

She is a CPA,

Four-decade long private practice CPA,

And one day she went missing out of the blue.

This is one of life events that literally everything started happening at once.

We lived in quite a prominent house in the Long Beach area on a corner where it's,

You know,

It's a well-known house,

And the next thing I know is we have the police at the corner,

We have people on the doorstep,

We've got all these different things happening at the same time that she's going missing.

This is like the Twilight Zone story.

I don't know what's happening,

But we can't find her,

Whatever,

And through my investigate,

I'm pretty good researcher,

I located her.

She was in Gallup,

New Mexico.

Now what she was doing at Gallup,

New Mexico,

Lord knows what.

My heart was sinking.

I just literally,

I had no idea what was going on.

I was able to reach her,

And she was clearly in a,

I didn't know this at the time,

I just knew things were way off,

But she was in a advanced state of paranoia.

She thought I was out to get her,

She thought I was out to get the people to get her,

And all that kind of stuff,

And go,

What is all this all about?

Okay,

The lady has snapped,

And it's all I could do,

Just keep her on the line.

I'm going to grab an Uber,

Get to the airport,

I'm gonna come,

I'm coming,

I'm coming to get you,

You know,

I'm gonna,

I need to be with you.

Got the last seat on the airplane to Albuquerque.

She said she'd meet me at the airport.

I didn't even know if that was gonna happen.

She ended up turning,

She showed up at the airport.

She looked like she had a pair of white pants on,

I'll never forget,

And it was like that,

That pair of white pants had been,

Was now turning into a pair of brown pants,

Black pants,

Whatever.

She looked a mess.

She drove to Santa Fe.

That's the only time she drove.

I took the wheel the rest of the way.

We ended up going on a trip through five states.

In the meanwhile,

I'm trying to talk to her.

I've also,

Now I'm a psychiatrist over not,

You know,

In a New York minute.

I also don't know whether the right thing to do is to pull into the police station,

Or to pull into the emergency room,

Or to pull in whatever.

You know,

All these things are filling my mind.

What's the right thing to do here?

And I just kept driving,

And I kept driving,

And we'd stay different places.

She didn't want to cross the state line back into California.

She'd try to sit there going,

Okay,

Why all this?

Why all this?

I'm going to cut through the chase.

I'm going to cut through the chase and go to the,

Several years later,

Okay?

She is now spending eight years in prison in Texas for running a Ponzi scheme.

The feds said that she was doing it since 1996.

My therapists have told me and schooled me in sociopathy.

Anytime,

You know,

If you know the story of Bernie Madoff,

This was that story to the T.

It's just not nearly as large and everything,

But it affects family.

It affects her clients,

People who lost money.

Same thing,

Client slash friends,

Interchangeable.

Our friends.

So overnight,

Basically,

And I don't want to sound like it's poor me,

Poor me,

Poor me,

But I literally,

I lost everything.

And I not only lost,

My family wasn't sensed with me.

My neighborhood wasn't happy with me.

And because guilt by association,

I mean,

It's just,

What are people going to think,

You know,

And all that kind of stuff.

I'd lost my home.

I'd lost my money,

Anything that I'd saved or whatever was now gone.

And I had at the age of 65,

It wasn't the best of timing to have to start all over.

This story is,

I don't think you were expecting it.

And it's a story of human perseverance.

It's a story of a group.

Excuse me.

It's a story of classmates.

Rebecca's one.

They're called angels.

I was homeless.

Basically,

I was in a state of shock.

I traded in a little smart car,

You know,

Those little smart cars,

Everybody thinks everybody's going to be killed in them the next day,

You know,

Whatever.

I love the smart car.

I trade,

It wasn't a good time to have a smart car.

I traded in for a van.

I started,

I went down the van life rabbit hole.

You talk about a rabbit hole,

Van life.

Now I'm leaving.

Now the house of cards has come down.

There's burning wreckage.

Carol had gone up to Oregon.

The federal government was allowing her to,

They took her passport,

Allowing her to leave.

She said,

I just don't want to don't want you around or whatever.

She's trying to remove herself from me and all that kind of stuff.

And I set out on my van trip and I went and visited a dozen classmates throughout the United States of America,

Invited me into their homes,

Invited me into their domains,

Into their whatever arms open.

I called it the healing tour.

I have a name for everything.

Rebecca was an angel,

Is an angel,

Will always be an angel.

I call these people angels.

Some of these people I didn't even know in high school and yet they had trust in me.

I wanted to ask a clarifying question.

So was Carol is different than your ex-wife?

Is that true?

Yes,

Carol.

Carol is,

Um,

We never married.

We came together and one thing led to the next.

And the next thing I know is that we're living together for,

You know,

A decade,

But we did,

We never did married.

We never married.

We both knew that we hadn't done too well in that department.

So Okay,

Got it.

And I think based on the earlier part of the story that you were telling me that you really had no idea she had this whole other life going on with this Ponzi scheme,

And not just me,

Her children,

Our friends,

Slash clients,

And whatever.

And yeah,

You know,

Here I am day after day,

We're sitting on the couch together for years,

Side by side,

You have absolutely no idea.

You know,

She's an eccentric person.

There's no doubt about she had some quirks to her.

We all have some quirks to us.

But there wasn't anything you know,

When you go in,

You don't say okay,

Now we found romance.

We found this and that now before I go any further,

May I check man,

Look at your financials,

Check your books,

May I,

You know,

So we had separate lives in a lot of different categories.

I mean,

You can't tell if these these people every now and then you're going to catch white lies,

You're going to catch lies,

You just send it going,

Ah,

Okay,

Well,

That's not good.

You know,

Hey,

We got to we got to be truthful here.

There's got to be a sense that there's got to be trust in any relationship or whatever that's going to happen.

And it's going to happen in any relationship.

But no,

They say that Carol concocted this thing.

And that she you know,

You'd have any read this,

Anybody that's familiar with the Bernie Madoff cases that they falsified the statements,

The investment statements that would go out to these people that are,

You know,

You're managing their money.

And I'm so curious,

Do you know why she did it was was it a compulsion?

Was it just to see if she could get away with it?

Was it she was bored and wanted to do something daring?

I'm just curious.

There is a 436 page book called Why They Do It Inside the Mind of reading backwards here,

A white collar criminal,

Why they do it.

That is that question you just asked is really the $64 million question.

Why,

In a way,

Of having to treat this as kind of going through all this,

All as if she has died.

And you go through the various stages of grief,

And stuff like that,

Because she's still very much living.

But you know,

The great parts of Carol,

The great things and I told her I said,

Look,

You know,

Your legacy will go down as the body of your work.

You'll be known for a number of things.

Unfortunately,

This last part is a pretty big thing.

I was in shock,

I was not well,

I really was not well.

And matter of fact,

I'm still bouncing back from that.

But from then on,

I really don't,

I really believe that there's a higher power that speaks through me every morning.

I'm in the bathroom,

I've got some essential oils or whatever,

I'll cross myself,

I'll go through my own routine,

I'm telling you every morning and talk.

I'm very careful nowadays,

I don't know if it's him or her,

Or,

You know,

The possum that was just outside,

It's really helped me.

You know,

My working title of my book,

And it is loosely titled Reunion,

I want to talk about the rising up,

Getting up off the floor from literally I did not have,

Yes,

I had a few dollars,

But not much.

And I mean,

Hardly anything.

I want that story to be told.

And the reason I'm able to do that is because who I am,

But also because of the spirituality involved.

Bob Dylan said on a 60 Minutes,

This was a very,

Very rare interview decades ago with Ed Bradley when Ed Bradley was still alive.

And Ed Bradley said,

Could you write those songs you did in the 60s today?

Dylan said,

No,

No.

And he looks at Ed and he said,

You try writing Darkness at the Break of Moon,

Eclipses both the Sun and Moon,

You know,

And when it just goes,

He starts going through,

How I can remember all this stuff is beyond me.

But he goes,

No,

No,

I could do that then.

I couldn't do that now.

But even he has said,

He doesn't write this stuff.

He's an instrument as well.

See,

At the time,

I had no idea what was going on.

I didn't know she committed any kind of crime.

I didn't know she was,

I didn't know what was going on.

And so why don't you want to cross the state lines?

Well,

To me,

To me,

It's because she was in this paranoia thing.

Somehow,

I was able to get her back into California and to go home.

But I got her across the state lines.

She would not park anywhere close to the house.

And we did actually would not even,

We wouldn't even live at the house for the first part.

We went over to a nearby hotel in Long Beach.

I finally got her back to go back to the house.

And wouldn't you know it,

The day we get back down there is more wraps at the door.

We were being served every other day by somebody.

And you know,

Boogeymen.

I mean,

Literally,

They're private investigators.

And I mean,

Some of the seedy stuff that are reserved for jokes in movies.

That literally these people exist because they're like bounty hunters.

I'm not sure who pays them or whatever,

Through all these things.

But I got the stories to match all of this kind of stuff.

Well,

It happened.

Something happened.

There's wraps at the door,

Whatever.

Now she's scared to death and we need to leave again and go flee.

I say it in these terms.

It's a figure of speech.

But she basically had an IV of vodka going through her in the last year.

I guess I'm not sure.

I don't know how somebody involved in doing what she did.

Quite frankly,

I don't know how they can make it through.

Part of it was that she literally,

She was an alcoholic.

She just literally was,

It was awful.

I'm so sorry about that.

I can't even imagine it.

You know,

You were in the middle of talking about,

I just want to say one thing before I say this other thing,

But I love the title Reunion.

I think it's so beautiful because it has so many levels of meaning as you were saying,

But also,

You know,

Through this,

Through this really unfortunate and life breaking experience that you had,

You were reunited with a power that's greater than yourself,

Which was another reunion.

And then potentially also reunited with yourself,

Who you are inside,

Who you were always meant to be.

And so I'm just,

You know,

Yeah,

I'm just hearing that and what you're telling me.

And I thought,

I never actually thought about that,

But that was beautiful.

I thought I'm like,

There's lots of layers of meaning here for this story.

It's really lovely.

I've got enough of them.

You just actually offered one I hadn't thought about.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Good,

Good.

But we were talking before,

Before the internet decided to not cooperate for a while.

You were just saying that you basically had begun a van life and you were,

I thought I was out to camp.

I never camped once.

And you decided to visit,

You know,

Have a road trip and visit all of these people.

And you were just talking about how this,

I think the miracle was in that,

You know,

Also connecting with these people.

So I'm sorry,

We got cut off in the middle of that.

So if you want to expand on that,

That would be wonderful.

Yes.

And I've had this thought actually since almost very early on though,

I'm thinking of this in thirds.

There's the crime,

There's the healing tour in which I flee the burning record wreckage and literally am now homeless.

And I go to visit these friends.

I have a term for that.

It's called the healing tour.

And then I,

So I take this trip and I learn this will bring me to tears.

This part,

You'd have to be me to understand this.

When you've just left truth and trust,

And now these people have enough trust in you,

Me,

Me to invite me,

Not just to have lunch,

To stay in their home.

And I can't say too much about this because to protect their privacy and to protect their,

But I will generically say I learned we all have stories.

It's not like,

You know,

It's a V8 moment.

I know we all have stories,

But this one was clobbered me over the head.

And I mean,

I mean,

Literally they confided in me,

Their trials and tribulations,

Somebody that they barely know.

But this healing tour part,

The third part of this was reunion.

Yes.

And that's a reunion itself.

My trip being on the road by myself solo,

Trying to get my head back together.

It was,

God,

So far gone.

And then experiencing what I loosely mentioned to you and what you astutely pointed out is there's a reunion there too.

I was thinking that it sounds like on this healing journey where you visited all these different people,

It sounds like each of them had a hand in putting you back together.

Everybody.

Everybody.

Everybody has played a role.

I use the word roles a lot.

I'm in this grand play that this higher being has,

In my opinion,

We all have this charted course.

If things don't work,

If I have failed miserably,

I don't get down on myself anymore.

That's what you did is you rebuilt your life and you kind of went out and you had your tribe and you were there for a while.

And profoundly,

Profoundly helped each other because as you said,

Those people that you visited with,

They had their own trials and tribulations.

Absolutely.

But still you were able to be there for each other,

Listen deeply,

And then begin that path of healing for each other.

And so I just love the story of you.

You're driving and something taps you on the back.

And that's what I love about this.

I love that you're there for each other.

And that's completely unexpected.

Maybe it was the great possum in the sky,

But still.

If this entity,

This higher being says,

You've got one more shot at things,

It would be the message would be of how my tribe,

My tribe,

And again,

They encircled the wagons around me to protect me as I was trying to figure things out because they knew I was gone.

They knew I was gone.

So that's the story.

If I had that one more shot is to tell that story,

Everybody is just so ingrained or so they love the whole crime story.

And which is sexy.

It's got sizzle.

It's got to,

You know,

It's got with all the elements of that going on.

And that's great.

And I think it's pretty exciting too.

It's that human resilience.

I have a job to do.

And that is to,

If I can make one person's day better,

I've done my job.

Thank you for listening to episode 74 of Bite Size Blessings.

It was truly such a powerful and heart healing conversation for me.

The idea that people from our pasts can band together,

Help us to heal and lift us up.

I need to thank Mark for being so vulnerable and so open about what's been happening in his life these past few years.

And I also need to thank the creators of the music used.

Music L.

Files,

Frank Schroeder,

Chilled Music,

Horst Hoffman,

Alex Productions,

And Sasha End.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Size Blessings website at bitesizedblessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to authors,

Musicians,

Artists,

And other items that will hopefully lift and brighten your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Mark.

Never give up.

No matter what challenges life throws at you,

No matter what kind of stuff you have to wade through.

Don't give up.

Find your tribe.

Find your community and ask for help.

There's no shame in asking for help.

People want to help.

So be like Mark.

Ask for help and truly,

Truly your relationships,

Your friendships,

They'll become deeper and more profound.

So ask for help.

That's what I'm asking this week.

And I'll see you next week.