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  • Transcripts
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  • Duration: 32 pages (transcript)
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  • Western Carolina University
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  • HL_MPML_Collins_Shuler_Shuler_2018-06-04_transcript

Shuler and Shuler 1 Interviewer: Chloe Collins Interviewees: Pam and Keith Shuler Interview Attendee: Elizabeth McRae Interview Date: June 4, 2018 Location Sylva, NC Length: 1:54:24 Chloe Collins: So you guys are fine with being recorded and everything? Pam Shuler: Oh sure. Keith Shuler: We are alright. CC: So which one of you guys wants to go first? KS: Ladies first. CC: So we’re just going to start from the beginning. So where exactly did you grow up in Jackson County? And where were your parents from? OK My parents were both from Sylva. My dad was an Allison and my mother was a Higdon. My mother’s parents’ farm actually is behind Fairview. They took part of his farm to build Fairview and actually his brother’s land is where the high school is. So, the two-story rock house back behind there, my cousin lived. So that’s my mother’s side of the family. My dad’s side of the family lived closer downtown but when my parents married in the 40’s, they moved to Charlotte and Gastonia and I was actually born down there in Charlotte. And I went to school in Belmont and Gastonia, but I spent every summer on my grandparents farm. Every holiday my mom and her siblings and… her parents were very close, and we had horses and ponies, so we brought them up every summer, just help my grandparents on the farm. And I fell in love with Sylva at a very young age. Never dated anyone at my high school. I only dated guys in Sylva. (laughter) I always said I wanted a mountain man, so my cousin introduced me to him (Mr. Shuler). CC: That’s cute PS: Yeah. So, we married in ’76. CC: So, did you have a lot of siblings? PS: Two sisters. I’m the youngest of three. Three girls. CC: And can you describe them? What were they like? PS: Yeah. Well we were all very, about two years apart. Very close. We always loved animals; horses and dogs and cats and guinea pigs. We had a menagerie. My parents loved animals too. We all kind of went into little different directions though. I was more drawn to staying in the rural areas. My older sister lives near Morganton and she does raise horses but she’s, it’s more of a professional type set up rather than just on a farm. She probably, she was a pre-veterinarian major and she probably would have gone on to finish but she married her college sweetheart at State. She went to North Carolina State and they moved, he was a little older than her, so they moved to New York and she didn’t finish her veterinary program but, she’s veterinarian to her own animals. Pretty much. (laughter) She has one daughter. And Shuler and Shuler 2 then my… She’s sixty-eight, I guess. And my middle sister is the one I hung out with a lot because she was two years older than me. And we were so polar opposites. I never had to make friends because I was Claudette’s sister. She was the Marilyn Monroe, blond hair, voluptuous figure, outgoing personality, miss extrovert. You know. (laughter) So I had a ball with her. (laughter) I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to make friends. Like I said, “Oh you’re Claudette’s sister.” So anyway, we had a lot of fun together and she lives in Lincolnton. She’s kind of a, I guess she got into more computers and business, but she and her husband were missionaries for a couple years in Kenya, in Africa, with the [Wycliffe Bible] translation program. And that was a real interesting experience for them. CC: Yeah, that sounds great. PS: They have one daughter as well. But neither one of them were interested in healthcare although my mom was interested was hoping one of us would be a veterinarian but that didn’t work out. (laughter) I started out as a pre-veterinarian major at Colorado State and then I realized that you really have to, you can’t explain things to animals at all. I like the preventative and I like to teach, and I like to… Sometimes you have to hurt animals in order to help them too and it’s a little… It was a difficult field for me to work in. I worked, At Colorado State you were paired with your advisor who was a veterinarian. You started working like day one. It was good but it showed me I didn’t want to do that. So, I came back here and actually worked as a CNA at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte and then decided I wanted to go into nursing. CC: So, I understand that your grandparents were really, like they aged really well. They aged until well over a hundred. PS: They did. Yes. CC: And they were really interested or invested into healthy living. Did that really effect your viewpoint on medicine? PS: You know my grandmother, my mother’s mother, she lived to be 101. She was very instrumental. She was born in 1890 (laughter). She started reading Prevention Magazine back in the sixties and Dr. Jonathan Wright, he’s an MD from Harvard. He had a lot of columns and it wasn’t just about, it was really more medically focused than it is now. And he told about the biochemistry of the body and how vitamins and minerals helped your body repair itself, to heal itself, to ward off infections, to respond appropriately to allergies and things like that and that just really fascinated me. And she took vitamins. Plus, they always had gardens and they raised their own chickens and cows and you know. They had their, they bought staples like coffee and sugar and flour, but they pretty much grew everything else and Keith’s grandparents did too. So we always had that format of cooking. We learned how to cook. We learned how to can. We learned how to grow food and prepare food. That was part of my upbringing but the prevention part. I started studying vitamins and minerals I remember in my pre-nursing classes and in my nursing classes any time I had to do a research paper I would usually do it on nutrition and how vitamins effected the body or maybe whatever interests that I had at the time. It was always usually about prevention or nutrition. So, she was really instrumental. CC: So, just to jump back for a second. You went to school here and then you went to school in Arkansas and then you went to school in California. What interested you about all these places and what made you change from one to another and what was similar and different about these places? Shuler and Shuler 3 PS: Well, when I started my nursing, program at Western, we had the clinical and hospital. Presbyterian hospital… Being a CNA gave me a little touch at the hospital but I really, it was more… Back then, this was in the early 70s, being a CNA was really more about comfort care for the patients. You would offer everyone a back rub. You would go in and talk to them in the evenings. You would make sure they were comfortable and take them on walks. You did a certain amount of the care, but it was more interaction and I really liked that. You really kind of talked to them about what they were doing when they went home and all. But when I was in nursing school I, caring for people in the hospital really immediately I realized it was a very important role for nurses, but I wanted to work on the other end of the spectrum. I didn’t really want to work with them when they were sick, acutely sick. I wanted to prevent the problems or when they got discharged and went home. That’s the nice thing about nursing. There’s such a spectrum and a really a circular pattern that you can work with. You can pick any, it’s a continuum too. I got through all my rotations in the hospitals, but my last rotation was at the health department and that’s where I fell in love. The very first day, this is home. (laughter) It felt right. You know? The day after graduation I started working at the Jackson County Health Department and I was in charge of the high-risk infants and so I visited all the new moms and driving up Caney Fork and Little Canada. It was just a dream job. Visiting the moms and helping them with their breastfeeding or if they had. Whatever kind of problems they were having, and I quickly knew, realized I needed to know more because when you’re out on your own with these young babies and with these moms, I needed medical skills in addition to nursing skills and that’s when I decided I wanted to go to for my nurse practitioner training. So, ’77 is when I graduated with my RN and then I immediately started looking at programs. And my mother was a guidance counselor and she was really wise and encouraging me to select a school that had a master’s in nursing because back then that wasn’t the common route. It was a certificate program. And she said you might want to teach. You might want to do administration and North Carolina only had one nurse practitioner program through Chapel Hill but your Masters was in public health not nursing. So Keith and I, we bought an old wrecked red van for $150. He rebuilt the engine Bondoed the body up and we saved up our vacation. He was in school too and our comp time or whatever we had. I applied to schools, University of Arkansas, University of Alabama several places that had a Masters. Went to the library and found all these schools that had the Masters and all. So anyway, we decided we were going to go on a nine-week camping trip out through the United States and stop off and interview at these colleges. So that’s what I did, and I liked the University of Arkansas because it was more primary care focused and it was really focusing on helping a lot of independence and working in a rural area. So that’s where, how I got connected there and actually Hillary Clinton was one of my prenatal patients. (laughter) CC: Really? PS: Yeah. When I was working with one of my preceptors. He was an OBGYN, Dr. McClellan. He asked me, he said, “Well do you want to examine the governor’s wife today?” Well this was when Bill Clinton, in ‘79 and ‘80 and she was pregnant with Chelsea. Here comes Hillary and Bill and she’s about, probably about eight months pregnant, I guess. I saw her for about three or four visits. They were so kind to let a student work with them, but that’s the reason I went there is because they had the Masters and the nurse practitioner together and it was a concentrated program which was kind of a new, it was like twenty, you had to take like twenty-four hours a semester plus do a thesis and do all the clinical part and they changed it after (laughter) after our year because it was really intense, but I wanted to kind of get it done because I needed to get back home and get to work again. And then I came back here and I worked I think in Haywood County as education director because I was looking for some way to get the Shuler and Shuler 4 prevention piece going. And I really, had taught at Western but it was in their public health nursing program. And I liked that, but I really wanted more hands on, so I just was at Haywood for a couple years and we decided to go to California mainly because Keith was checking out the music industry. We were either going to Nashville, California, or New York and (laughter). So he picked California and that felt right to me too. I had a job offer at Vanderbilt. They wanted me to teach, but Nashville didn’t feel right to me either because his music wasn’t all country and California just seemed a better fit for us. So anyway, we packed up and I told the people, faculty members I was working with then at Western, I said, “Well, I may try to just teach at UCLA.” And they said, “Well, you just don’t drive out to California and teach at UCLA.” (laughter) And I said, “Well, you know… I don’t know.” So, we drove out and here again we had our van packed up and we had our car towed and we found out pretty quick that we could only go 45 miles an hour because the car would fish tale. So, we drove across the United States at 45 miles an hour (laughter). It took us almost a week. CC: I bet that was a fun experience though. PS: Oh, it was. Yeah. Yeah. And we’d been out there before so we kind of knew where we were going but. So anyway, it was not real easy to get settled in because everything was so expensive, and it was a little bit of a culture shock, but we liked different cultures. CC: How was it a culture shock? PS: Well, all the population, I was used to Charlotte, so I was used to a big city and I fit in a city or rural either one. And really LA is pretty easy to learn your way around. You just learn which streets are parallel and which ones were perpendicular and you can find your way around pretty easy. But it was just such a hodgepodge of different ethnicities and people and the job, I was calling UCLA and I didn’t really get through to one of the nursing faculty for about a week because it was there, they hadn’t started back their… we moved out there around Labor Day. They hadn’t started their semester back. So finally, when I got a hold of someone, I told her that I was a Master prepared family nurse practitioner, but I wanted to do clinical as well as teach. And I knew that would be a little harder to find. And she said, “now wait a minute. Say that again?” And I told her and she said, “Well you must be a god sent and I said, “Why is that,” and she said, “Well we just got this, The Johnson Foundation million-dollar grant and they had just opened up a clinic on skid row to treat homeless people. And she said, “We need somebody to run the clinic, treat the homeless people, and teach nurse practitioner students at the clinic.” KS: Pam’s leaving out some things here. (laughter) But anyway go ahead. You have to believe in divine intervention to get this whole story. PS: Well yeah. The good Lord did direct all that for sure. KS: All right. Go ahead (laughter) PS: Because we couldn’t find a place to stay. We were staying at a campground in our van. I mean she’s got only has an hour so I can’t tell her everything. CC: You can take your time. It’s ok. (laughter) KS: They didn’t say just at an hour they said sometimes it took an hour but whatever. Shuler and Shuler 5 CC: Don’t worry about. PS: But anyway, we ended up renting a room in a condominium at this really nice couple and in the meantime his sister’s son was injured in a football, he was fourteen, inured in a football accident had a subdural hematoma and ended up dying. So, that was right when we moved out there. CC: And they were where? PS: They were in Atlanta. So, Keith flew back, and I was there with this couple because I had to start work the next day. And so that really added a lot of stress at that time because he was such a neat fellow. You know fourteen it really, really shocked everybody. So, anyway, people said, “How did you adjust to being on skid row?” And I said, you know inner city nursing or being a nurse practitioner in the inner city is very parallel with rural because you’re working with impoverished people. A lot of times, people that don’t vote a lot of times. They don’t have a lot of political interaction. A lot of times there’s a transportation problem. A lot of times there’s families that are either dysfunctional or they’re just partial families, and there blended families to a very large degree and the big addition was the adding of the different ethnicities. The Latino population was a lot larger out there than what I had worked with before. I had worked with a lot of black populations in Arkansas and also here and we had, but we had people from all over Los Angeles. But we were in this 100-year-old mission and we were up on the third floor. No air conditioning and plaster would crumble from the ceiling about every day from earthquakes. I was usually wet with sweat most of the day. (laughter) It was just, I had a missionary’s wife who was my intake person and we… This particular mission was a social detox and so we took in homeless men. This was a men’s shelter, men’s mission but we saw anybody at the clinic. But anyway, they had 250 men in their social detox program, and they had a delousing program downstairs which was really important because you know that was not available a lot of places and a lot of them had to have that done. They had showers. They had shoe repair. They had clothes to change. They had haircuts. This was for anybody. But then if you were in the rehab program you had all those services plus, they had three meals a day. They served thousands of meals a day. I’ve forgotten how many exactly. The 250 men in the rehab program they also had skills training. They helped them with school. They helped them with budgeting. They helped them with how to learn how to keep a bank account. They helped them transition into an independent life. A lot of them had to go through detox and a lot of it was alcohol back then. There was some crack and cocaine. A little bit of heroin but mainly it was alcohol. And I never worked a lot with addiction so, but a lot of tobacco use of course. CC: Did that change how you viewed nursing? PS: It did. It did. It helped me to realize how important, it just really confirmed the importance of wellness to me. If you have a strong body and you keep your body as well as you can it really effects your body’s ability to stay healthy. Which is common problem, but if you have the addiction problems and if you have other kinds of issues it stresses the body in ways that you wouldn’t even imagine. But it also helped me realize the family units. How important they were and how you have to work with the whole family. That’s where the holistic approach, the mind, body and the spirit like Keith said. This was a Christian mission which we were really, I was with UCLA, but we were in a Christian mission which was really wonderful because I had chaplains I could talk with and refer to. I had social workers and it was a team effort. And it help me see nursing as one piece of that team and helped me realize you don’t have to be everything to everybody. Although I had an important part everybody else has an important part too. I worked a lot with skid row mental health. But it was very eye opening. I cried every day, for about Shuler and Shuler 6 six months, because I was overwhelmed with the need and I felt guilty because I had a bed and a refrigerator, and I had family that cared about me and I had you know. I mean it was just amazing because some of these people were like you and me. I mean it’s not like everybody, some people have the fallacy that everybody chooses to be homeless or they choose a lifestyle or they’re an addict because they’re a bad person or whatever. I had this one gentleman. He was, I think he was from Kansas. He was an engineer. And his whole story was his wife developed cancer and they lived in a small area. He had to travel like three or four hour trip every week for her to have her treatments and all and he started running out of his sick leave and his vacation time and she ended up dying and he had these huge medical bills and he was just overwhelmed with the whole thing and he started drinking. And he ended up losing everything he had and got on a bus and ended up in Los Angeles. Well this man had, I mean his life could have been so different if he had different circumstances or more support or something else to help him. I ran into people like that all the time. One man walked from Texas in his cowboy boots. His feet were so swollen and blistered because he is trying to have a better life and this one guy was a Yugoslavian weight lifter and he defected from his country. We went to Los Angeles in ’86 and that’s when they had the Olympics in Los Angeles. KS: ‘84 PS: ’84. Yeah. And he defected when he was in the Olympics there. So, he ended up on skid row and he ended up at the clinic because the mission was trying to help him. And I had a lot of Latino people who were, one of my medical assistants, she came across the Rio Grande in an inner tube. Found a birth certificate in a field or… She said she found it. I don’t know. (laughter) The FBI called me about her so. (laughter). But anyway, we got it worked out and she got her citizenship. Yeah that was kind of scary. I said, “Jackie the FBI is calling me.” (laughter) But she was wonderful. Yeah. I mean it just makes you realize how fortunate you are to have. My parents were not wealthy. We were middle class. My dad was a tire recapper my mother was a guidance counselor in a school when. But it just makes you realize how important the stability of family and your faith and your spiritual beliefs and you’re trying to, knowing how to take care of your body to help yourself stay healthy and taking care of yourself mentally too. I had some of the really sad situations I had were women who were addicted, and they were prostituting their children. And they would bring their children in and they had STDs and some of the children were mentally ill and we certainly got social workers involved and things like that but seeing things like that is heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking. And you know, you have to really, you have to work through not being judgmental and your spiritual beliefs help you with that. And also, just realizing once you’ve talked to the mother you’ve seen what she went through. What her mother went through and what her sisters have gone through. It was just, I’m a different person from living in California. CC: Yeah it sounds like an amazing experience. So, it seems like all of these things kind of played into your Shuler Nurse Practitioner Method? PS: Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m taking too much time. CC: No, you’re not. Don’t worry about time. (laughter) PS: Well what the… KS: We can do it again one day if we have to. (laughter) CC: It will be ok. Don’t worry about it. Shuler and Shuler 7 PS: The way that started was when I was at the University of Arkansas, nursing theory is a very important part with,I don’t know if you’re familiar with that or not. But, you know, there’s different nurse theorists and we were introduced to all of them when I was in my baccalaureate program at Western. We had a really good theory class and you kind of select which theorist you gravitate toward. One theorist Roy was a little bit more about adaptation and Orem was more on self-care and Martha Rogers was a little bit more esoterical with her, I never totally grasped her theory because I’m a practical person. (laughter) You know I want to see how this goes with this, but she, I love her thinking but it just, it wasn’t applicable for me in practice. There were several others but anyway, I kind of blended a few. I liked the self-care part because I liked the teaching. I want to help people learn how to take care of themselves and what to do before they call me because that’s just practical. So anyway, when I got into my master’s program they said, “OK you need to select a nursing theory to build your practice on.” and I said, “well,” you know… I thought about it. I really tried but I told my faculty member, I said, “You know I really feel like we need a nurse practitioner model.” I said, “Because we’re a blend of nursing and medicine now.” Nursing is you, you treat response to illness whereas with medicine you assess and diagnose the illness in addition to treating response to it. So, we were doing more than just treating response to illness. She said, “That’s a great idea, why don’t you develop one?” So, I naively said, “Ok.” (laughter). So, I found wellness nursing theory by Springer which very few people are even aware of her theory and it really spoke to me because it divided out the holistic piece and the mind not just mind, body, spirit, but also environmental, occupational, social, cultural and spiritual. So, I said, “Ok. This one I can kind of build on.” So, I took her theory and then I added the medical model and added the nursing process to it. And I kind, I got a basis for it then, but I did my thesis on black women’s health beliefs about breast cancer, breast self-examination. And that, because I feel like health beliefs, preventative health behavior, cyclical behavior, I felt like there’s different behavior. I really felt connected with those theories and models too because there’s a cyclical behavior, preventative health behavior and there are people who have written and studied those kinds of things. I took all that and kind of blended it together and then, and I you know, that was my first step. And then my next step was when I graduated, I said, Ok I’m going to have to use this model and kind of finish it off and manipulate it as I go through practice because I didn’t know what it was to be a nurse practitioner. So, my first work really as a nurse practitioner was in Haywood County. I worked with Dr. Steins a little bit and I taught as the educational director, so I started hammering it out a little bit. Then when we moved out to California, I really was able to visualize it. Then I finished it in my dissertation. They started a doctorate program at UCLA in nursing and I started, it was a PhD program with the curriculum. But then at the last minute the UC system said you’re going to have to make it a Doctorate of Nursing Science because we have two other PhD programs. We can’t have three going on at the same time, but we’ll convert your degree at a later time, which sounded kind of strange (laughter). So anyway, that’s what they did. They started us, the UC Irvine and UC Santa Francisco were starting their PhD program, so we started the DNSC program. It was all the same curriculum. But it took them twenty years to convert our degrees (laughter). But anyway, they finally send you another certificate in the mail (laughter). But anyway, with my dissertation I was able to conceptualize the model in a diagram because I’m a very visual person. Plus, you need a diagram to follow, to explain it to other people and to help students use it. And it’s holistic and it’s kind of driven by the type of visit. For example, if it’s an episodic visit you use the model, you use all the model except in the center where the type of visit is. You just use pick one section, episodic. If It’s comprehensive with a problem, you pick that section. If it’s comprehensive with no problem, you pick this section. It’s kind of, it can be individualized which I thought was helpful. Shuler and Shuler 8 CC: Yeah. That’s really great. PS: But you have to explain it to people because it looks a little confusing. But the interesting part about my model which some models don’t have I think is at the very top I have information that you’re gathering from the patient but parallel with that I have what the nurse practitioner is actually exhibiting to the patient because they are interviewing me at the same time I’m interviewing them. They are looking, so, I’m having to be aware of my role modeling. They are going to look at me about my communication skills. Am I judgmental? Am I kind of practicing what I preach or am I way out of line? You don’t have to be perfect, but they do kind of evaluate you, you know. So, I have in the model the nurse practitioner needs to be aware of these cultural sensitivity, environmental awareness, spiritual, all of those things. We need to be kind of aware of ourselves at the same time we’re trying to assess this patient. Then you gather your data and you come up with your problems and your diagnosis and then you put them together. CC: Yeah. That sounds great. PS: And you always check with the patient. Say, “This is what I’m coming up with.” You’ve said this, this, this and I’m finding this, this, this on the exam or under the microscope or the lab tests or whatever and this is what I think is going on. Does this sound right to you? The reason, one of the reasons I ask that now is because I had a patient, homeless man, and gosh I guess I’d seen twenty-five people with this GI bug. It was terrible. With the vomiting and diarrhea and it was hot, and it was the end of the day and I was getting a little tired. And so when I saw him, I asked him what his problem was, and he said he’d been vomiting. So, I asked him a few more questions. I said, “Well I guess you’ve got the same thing everybody else has gotten.” And he didn’t say anything, and I told him he had to do my exam and then I said, “So, do you think you might have this bug that everybody else is having?” I asked him again and he said, “Well…” because I had to develop a little bit of relationship with him because people just don’t trust you right off. He said, “Well it might be related to the bottle of Tylenol I took last night.” I said, “Yes.” (laughter) “It could be related to that.” (laughter) So, you learn. You don’t assume and you always ask for the patients input. Do you think this is what’s going on? And moms particularly… “What do you think is going on with your child?” You know, “What have you observed?” You know. I just developed such respect for these people, particularly the homeless people. They were so innovative in how they took care of themselves. Some really more than others but they’re survivors. It’s not easy to survive out on the streets. And one guy he came in he kept having problem with athlete’s foot and I told him I said, “You know, you’re going to have to buy some flip flops and shower sandals.” And he said, “I’m homeless. I can’t buy these new flip flops” and I said “Well.” I said, “You’re smoking cigarettes” and he said, “Yeah” and I said, “Well, where do you get your cigarettes” and he said, “Well I buy them” and I said, “Well you might have to save about 25 cents, because I told him where you could find them for 25 cents. I mean I could have given him to him, but I thought but he needed to do that. We gave him socks and we gave him underwear and things like that. He was so proud. He came in two weeks later with his backpack, “look look.” (laughter) He had his flip flops and he was wearing them. He was an interesting little fellow. CC: So, you came back to this area to come and practice medicine? PS: Well actually Kentucky. The dean at UCLA, we were pretty close because she came to UCLA right when we got this grant and she had been in Maryland I believe, the University of Maryland. And so I had to be her, kind of, chauffeur and show her around skid row (laughter) and show her the clinic and Shuler and Shuler 9 explain the grant, because it was a million dollars which is a pretty big grant. So, we were, we kind of got really connected and she connected me up with the Dean in Kentucky. Because I told her, she wanted me to stay in Los Angeles. And I said, her husband was a movie producer. They owned some movie star’s house and they owned a house in Hawaii and all this. I said, “You know, we’re not in that income bracket.” And it was really, Keith and I are very nature oriented. We lived near the beach and we lived in a one room studio apartment for seven years because it was about two blocks from the ocean. We could go out and walk on the beach at night and we had a better air quality and it was safer. We’d take our bikes and we’d go up to Santa Barbara and ride and camp for the week. We did a lot of camping. There’s all kinds of beautiful places you can go. So anyway, we made it work. But I said, “You know, I can’t survive out here unless you really have enough money to live in a different place.” So, she said, “OK, well,” she told me who she thought would be good for me and I wanted, we wanted to be closer to home. So, we, Kentucky, they were having problems retaining primary care practitioners in their coal mining area because it was not a very desirable place to live. It was very remote, and it was very violent. I mean they had more murders per capita in southeastern Kentucky than they do in Chicago. It’s just, and they have all these, this was in, when did we move there, ’91. They had all these people making money growing pot and they had all this bat guano from you know Mammoth cave and all these caves. And they had all the woods booby trapped and you couldn’t even go out and hike. So anyway, they moved us there. They started a center for rural health in Hazard and we lived in Hydon where the frontier nursing services, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that or not. That’s the midwifery program where they used to ride horses and everything. So anyway, we started a center of rural health in Hazard and we had a nurse practitioner training program., we had a physical therapy program, a family practice residency program and a laboratory tech program. And they hired me to help with the nurse practitioner program. And their theory was if you bring in nurses and doctors and people from that area that are local and train them locally, they’ll stay. Because they had to hire a lot of foreign doctors from India and a lot of people couldn’t understand them and there was a cultural clash and all kinds of problems. So anyway, it was a successful program, but Keith couldn’t find any work and his dad died. My dad, mom was already widowed, and she retired and moved here. So, his mom was widowed, my mom was widowed. One of his grandmothers was still living and she was widowed, and we were needing to come back here. But mainly you couldn’t find anything to do there. It was really kind of a tough spot. So anywhere, we moved back here but I commuted back and forth for a year. Because I had a two-year contract with them, and I would go and stay for a week every month and get the students, teach them what they… Then we did the, they called it a, they didn’t have the internet then. We had a compressed video line and home communications and things like that but that was an interesting experience too because there was a lot of substance use there as well and a lot of domestic violence and it was. But it’s, I’ve always kind of been drawn to underserved populations and when we came back here, I immediately went to Cherokee because I’ve always wanted to work there on a reservation, and I was their director for women’s and children’s programs. I learned how to write grants which is very helpful because if you can bring money into an institution you can hire more employees, you can improve your office space, your examining tables. So, I was able to write grants to get even, we were even able to get a colposcopy machine so that we could help women with pap smears, abnormal pap smears and we could do it there rather than having to send them over to Asheville. Because it’s kind of a frightening experience having these things done. So anyway, myself and two other people we wrote a grant that was $800,000 and we got the women’s wellness center started. And part of it was I wanted to send two Native American RNs to Emory for nurse practitioner training so we would have a culturally sensitive, we’d have Native Shuler and Shuler 10 American nurse practitioners. See in public health I was always taught, at UCLA had one, and my minor was in public health. Wonderful public health program. And most of my professors spent a lot of time in Africa or Central South America and they always told you, you never go into another culture and do something that you can’t teach somebody else to do. And your goal is to work yourself out of a job because you want somebody from that culture to take over what you’re doing and that’s what happened. I eventually turned it over to them and I did have a little bit of a mishap with the Vice Chief he was wanting me to misappropriate grant funds for his girlfriend. (laughter).And I said, “no I can’t do that.” (laughter). CC: So, are there any medical issues in this area that you think we should bring more attention to? PS: I guess I’ll have to give you a little, one more piece of information before I can answer that because it goes back to my interest in nutrition and prevention. Seeing a lot of people with the addictions and seeing a lot of people with mental health problems, with thyroid problems, hormone problems, depression, anxiety, insomnia. I never really felt right about focusing on prescriptions because I didn’t see it work. I saw it helping to a degree which is fine but there was so much more that I knew could be done from all the preventative studying that I had done. So, when I left Cherokee, I actually took a couple years and just did some part time things. I worked at Fairview in the school there and I worked at the health department a little bit more just part time because I really, it’s kind of a little bit of a spiritual, another spiritual journey for me. I was really wanting to do what the good Lord wanted me to do and I didn’t feel like I was supposed to just go work in the hospital or go to work in a doctor’s office. In the meantime, my, one of my friends I’d taught with at UCLA she asked me if I’d help her write a book for Mosby on alternative complimentary care for nurses. And I said, “Ok.” So, I thought, maybe that’s what I needed to do. So, we wrote this text book and as I was writing my chapters, I’d go to MAHEC library because we didn’t have a really good library here and I really, I pulled out this book, The Power to Heal and it was written, it was actually put together by a drug company back in the, probably ten years before I found it. This was probably 2000, in the 90s. So anyway, and it took like a day or two around the world and showed how healers and how alternative medicine was used throughout the whole world. Oh! I just loved that book and it was so It had all the pictures. Looked very Time Life book. And I just got so drawn to that book so. (laughter) This was over Christmas break and I was working on my chapters and my family was here and I kept telling Keith, and I said, “I’d really like to have a copy of this book” but you couldn’t order it. I mean it was a drug company one-time thing. So, I took it back to MAHEC after many years and I gave it to the girl at the counter and I said, “You know, I’d really like to have a copy of this book. Do you know where I could get one?” and she looked at me and she said, “What did you say” and I said, “I’d really like to have a copy of this book,” and I said, “I just really feel connected,” and she said, “I don’t believe this” and I said, “What?” And she said, “Ten minutes before you came here this man walked in and gave me one of these books.” She says, “Its over there on the coffee table. If you want it, you can have it. So, I’ve got the book. (laughter) CC: That’s crazy. That’s crazy. That’s amazing. (laughter) KS: We’ve had, since Pam and I have been together some interesting things. You’ve got to believe in divine intervention. PS: This was the book. CC: That’s amazing. Shuler and Shuler 11 PS: So anyway, right after that about a week or two later this doctor that I didn’t even know his wife called me and asked me if I wanted to work at this clinic and I said well I really feel like I’m supposed to work in alternative. She said, “That’s fine we want something like that,” and I said, “Ok.” So, I started, that was Tom Wilson up 441, Dr. Wilson. He’s still there. I didn’t know he was having trouble with his contract with the hospital and all so I only stayed there a couple years, but it gave me a good start where I could use bio-identical hormones which is compounded hormones and do hormone testing and there was a lab in Asheville that’s just world renowned for doing this kind of specialty testing. I learned, plus I’ve been worried about the gut, the GI tract and how important that is to everything. Especially your moods. Sixty percent of your serotonin which is your mood elevator is made in the GI tract. And a lot of people with yeast or GI problems were depressed or they were anxious or whatever seemed to get GI tract straightened and a lot of times that helps mood and all. So anyway, this lab had naturopathic physicians and I’d call them up and I’d go over cases and they taught me a lot plus I started going to classes. And then when this job ended, I called Asheville’s, I mean, Great Smokies Medical Center. They are a pure alternative clinic. We had IV, nutritional therapies and everything. I worked there ten years and we did heavy metal detox and all that in addition. KS: [Inaudible] PS: Yeah. I just caught, Keith and I, I mean that was another divine appointment. We’re sitting right here, and he had had a knee injury. He was land surveying and he had a… I told him, I said, “You’re going to have to leave your job” and I was having to leave my job (laughter) and neither one of us really had our jobs lined up and I told him, I said, “It will work out.” So he quit his job one day and the next day the school called him to teach down at the alternative school and he’ll tell you about that and then we were sitting here talking and all of sudden I just had this feeling, go call Great Smokies right now so I went and called them right then and it was on Friday when they were closed, but the business, the physician who owned it his wife just happened to be there and she answered the phone and she told me to come by. We just published a book Alternative Care so that helped, that I had a little credibility plus I’d worked two years. I’ll show you that little book. KS: So, there’s a lot of things that goes on in your life. CC: Yeah. This is so interesting. PS: This was the complimentary book that we wrote. So that helped. They could see what we were interested in doing and all. And in the meantime, Keith got, he developed an autoimmune condition and I’m so thankful I was over at the alternative clinic because he doesn’t handle medication very well. He has a genetic disposition where his liver doesn’t clear things out. His mom had the same thing. We found her unconscious after one antibiotic pill. Because it kept circulating. So anyway, knowing what I learned in the meeting the people that I met we went up to New York to see a Russian homeopathic physician that helped him some and people that I worked with helped him some. Physicians in Europe helped him some through the doctor I worked with over there with some protein injections, peptides and I mean he, it’s amazing. He could have been in a wheel chair. I think he almost died twice. So now he’s doing really amazing and it’s cleared his body out. And we avoid chemicals. That’s one of the reasons we sit in the back of church. (laughter). There’s too much perfume or even one family has moth balls sometimes in their clothes and nobody else probably smelled it but that’s deadly to him. (laughter) Shuler and Shuler 12 Elizabeth McRae: I’ll be sure not to put anything on. We aren’t perfume wearers so that’s good (laughter) PS: He’s just so sensitive. But not as much as he used to be. But anyway, it’s been a journey. You know and I just, there’s so much, you know, to share and to talk. I have students that call still. I went to Australia and presented the model at the international nurse practitioner conference. CC: That’s amazing. PS: There’s students in Africa and Taiwan and Japan. I had a student I was working with in Japan. It’s used internationally. Denmark and England, and different places. But you know, I don’t make any money off it. If it can help people that’s good. CC: So, I’m looking into going into the medical field myself. What advice would you give me and people that are going into the medical field now? PS: That’s a very important question. I’m very encouraged and optimistic about the future with healthcare but I think there’s some reservations that I’m a little concerned about that you have to go in with your eyes wide open. Because as you’ve probably heard for example Harris and Asheville are both going for profit rather than nonprofit. Physicians that I’ve known for years have been leaving the profession because it’s becoming so production oriented. Limited time to spend with patients and you really, I found, I mean I was nurse practitioner for 35 years. You’ve got to get to the root of the problems. You can’t just treat symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. And you have to look at the collection of problems. You can’t just treat one problem, one problem. You have to look at the whole thing. So, I think I would be careful about going into a family practice role. Because now they expect you to learn, to know everything from infants to geriatrics and to keep up with all of that. That’s pretty overwhelming. Plus, only having a finite amount of time to spend with a patient. You really need, if you can get into a specialty area or an area where you can kind of carve out, where you can get to know your patients and really become very skilled. Get a skill set that you can hang on to and really keep it updated. I think I would probably specialize if I was going to be, if I was going back to the nurse practitioner training now. Even mental health they’re psychiatric mental nurse practitioners. If you’re interested in that that would be an excellent field. But I would add, not just the medications, that was something else that Great Smokies taught me. We treated mental health problems with Amino Acids. Keith and I have talked about this a lot. I’ve only had to prescribe, SSRIs are very important for certain people and anti-anxiety meds are too, but they can be overused and if you get young people started on them too soon it can change their brain chemistry. The receptors in the brain so I’ve only had to prescribe SSRIs like five times in 35 years. Which is not very much, and I had a lot of people who needed help. But I was able to help them in other ways. You do a urine test and you can look at their neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical messenger to the brain. Some are made in the brain and some are made in the ducts some are made in other places. Epinephrine, norepinephrine You have excitatory ones like epinephrine and norepinephrine and dopamine and you had inhibitory ones or calming ones like serotonin, gaba, glycine, those types of things. When we got these tests back from these patients. Oh, it was so, I mean you could just see some were wet here some were wet down here and you’d give them amino acids which was made from food and you can even treat pregnant women with these products. And it’s just food based. And I mean it just, it just changed their life. CC: That’s amazing. Shuler and Shuler 13 PS: Yeah. And one patient. It shocked me. She came to see me. She had just gotten out of alcohol rehab. She’d been an alcoholic since she was twelve and she was in her forties. Very wealthy family from Cashiers. She’d been in a private recovery center in Black Mountain. She came to me because she had a hysterectomy and she wanted her hormones balanced. And she was, I mean I could tell she was [bare wire]. She was [just a very nice person]. And, you know I offered to her, I said, “You know, would you like for me to check your nutrients?” Well I said, “because these hormones are all related to other things. You know, it’s not just your ovaries, missing your ovaries, but we need to look at your brain chemistry and your GI tract as well.” And she was open to that. So, we did the urine test and we also did, some other functional tests as far as her GI tract and her triglycerides were like 800 and that was mainly from the alcohol. Alcohol and sugars are what boost that up. So anyway, I got the test back and started her on the hormones and I started on the supplements. She was totally compliant with everything because she came back in a month and I asked her how she was doing, and she said, “I don’t want to drink anymore.” And I said “What?” (laughter). She said, “This is the first time in my life I don’t want to drink anymore.” I said, “Oh my gosh. That’s wonderful.” And it was because she, see alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Her epinephrine was like four times what it should be, her adrenaline. And that’s the way her body was made. So, I gave her amino acids that calmed that down and brought her serotonin level up and she didn’t need an alcohol, she didn’t need a central nervous system depressant. That was so gratifying to me. I mean it shocked me really. (laughter) I said, “Gosh this stuff really works.” Plus, the hormones. She needed progesterone. A lot of people need sleep. They need progesterone. Progesterone you can get at the health food store. Just rub a little cream on your wrist and it can help you sleep, protect your breasts from cancers. It’s totally different than Progest 10 which is the synthetic progesterone that can cause breast cancer. Even some physicians don’t know what [inaudible]. I got in the biggest discussion with a doctor over at the Hope Center. I said, “These are molecularly two different products. (laughter) This one is protective and this one is cancer inducing.” So natural hormones have a role. I used to have to take hormones, I’m 64. I’ve used them since I was 50. I have them compounded in Asheville. And you know, I only use a small amount and I measure my levels and, you know, it’s really amazing. CC: That’s great. PS: I think I digressed. I’m sorry. EM: Oh, my goodness. No. I’m like I’m going to have to set up an appointment. I was like, oh my goodness. (laughter) CC: (laughter) I was thinking do you still practice because, I kind of want an evaluation. Like I’m out of whack (laughter) Let’s go! PS: I wish that I could be, I know that I could help. It’s kind of, it’s just, I’d love to help more people, but I couldn’t keep up the pace. My mom was terminally ill. I didn’t know I was going to retire really. I left to help her mainly. This was five years ago, and we finally realized, we never found out the primary cancer. She must have had an internal melanoma somewhere. Well, she had a metastatic brain tumor which we finally found. But anyway, after helping her for a year and then Keith was really sick the next year, well not really sick but he had a lot of challenges off and on. When we finally got through those two years, I just realized how tired I was. (laughter) And plus the practice I was at was wonderful, but it was absolutely consuming. We had to be on call seven days a week because you couldn’t send the patients to the emergency room. I mean I had, the medical board was always breathing down your neck because Shuler and Shuler 14 “why are you doing this, why are you doing that? You’re giving B12 more than once a month.” “Why are you doing that?” We weren’t doing anything that was dangerous. It wasn’t understood plus it was a threat to the drug companies to be perfectly honest because you don’t, you can’t patent natural substances. You can’t patent them. So anyway, there wasn’t a single weekend, holiday, or vacation that I wasn’t contacted, and I was just getting really exhausted. Plus, very complex patients. We had patients that had been to Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic and they couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with them, so they come to us and we’d start digging deeper and we’d find lime disease. We’d find heavy metals. We’d find candida overgrowth. We’d find, just a lot of things that needed to be addressed at a biochemical level. Biochemistry, I’d take biochemistry. That’s what I do if I were you. CC: That sounds really interesting. PS: I would take nutrition and biochemistry because that’s really what I did was I treated the biochemistry of the body and we ordered organic urine test and you learned what kind of balance and what vitamins and minerals your body needed in order to rebalance it and why weren’t they weren’t absorbing. See absorption is a big thing. You can take all you want to take but if you don’t absorb it. Some people need stomach acid. Hydrochloric acid. I take hydrochloric acid every day. I used to give patients hydrochloric acid because our body makes hydrochloric acid, but it stops around age 35, producing it. It starts cutting down. That’s why a lot of people have indigestion. They need more acid. When you get broken hips and fractured, they don’t restore their calcium and everything. That’s why our grandparents kept vinegar on the table. And they used to put vinegar on their food because it gave them that acidic environment to absorb their minerals. So, my grandmother taught me that. (laugher) She’d say eat your vinegar. So, right now, and there’s not a lot of people who do what we did. And it’s, I mean I’ll be glad to help anybody informally, but I don’t have my active nurse practitioner certification right now. But informally I can, whatever I can share with anybody I’d be glad. Just give me a call. CC: This has been so informational. I’ve learned so much. KS: She went to great Smokies and started working. You worked there how long? PS: Ten years KS: Ten years. So, it was like a whole another PS: It was like another graduate degree. KS: I mean it’s just a whole another field compared to what the traditional medical field does, and I will have to say, I was pretty skeptical a lot of times about certain things but now I have this psoriatic arthritis which is an autoimmune thing, and they started working on me and, it happened, and I started in 2003, I guess. But anyway, it was pretty amazing after a while some of the things and finally I’m to the point where I’m, knock on wood not taking any medications or anything just by trying to be real clean with my diet and my environment as much as I can. It’s pretty amazing a whole nother field. PS: Well we don’t eat out, can’t stay in a motel, or fly in an airplane. You’re pretty limited but we did more traveling when we were younger. And you just have to kind of avoid chemicals. He wears a respirator when he uses the chain saw. We were in a motel in Colorado about seven or eight years ago and he got, it usually take two or three days, his liver not clearing up. They had carpet freshener or something in there. He was sick for oh gosh, for about a week or two. Shuler and Shuler 15 KS: We’re living in this chemical world and for anyone like me whose chemical sensitive, or sensitivities or whatever can be. But I think I’m good on, better with that too these days. PS: But we don’t drink. He never has drank a lot. We don’t drink or smoke or anything it’s just a genetic thing. KS: So, I’m, but anything to try to not happen. That stuff can be really painful so when they started, I said, “OK, whatever.” (laughter) There’s nothing like pain to get your attention. (laughter). So anyway. And that whole field that Pam’s talking about, and you younger people I’m just amazed. I think this younger generation, I’ve got a lot of hope for you folks because I think you’re starting to realize that. I used to tell my students down at the school that a lot of us people my age. We’ve not been good examples. We want to say that first. We’ve not. And we’re in denial some of the people my age and we’re in denial about a lot of things going on. You younger people I think are starting to see the light on some thins and what Pam’s talking about with the medical community. All these things, boy there is so much needs to be changed. And what they did in alternative medicine and everything. There’s amazing stuff there that is not allowed in the United States because some of the treatments I had came from Europe, but it’s not allowed here, and it made a major difference in my life. I can tell you that. So, there’re so many things. PS: But functional medicine is one organization. You can actually become certified. I went to functional medicine conferences, environmental medicine, American holistic nurses and medicine. They have these natural conferences and international. There’s places where you can learn these things. They do a lot of self study. CC: Well are you ready to start your interview? (laughter) We’ve got to go back to ground zero. PS? You didn’t get to eat your cake CC: It’s ok. It’s ok. I promise I will eat it. KS: Go ahead and have a bite of cake and I’ll be right back. EM: So fascinating CC: Yeah, I know. That’s so great. PS: You know I’ve met so many wonderful people. I mean I’d love to hear your stories. I’m sure your stories are fascinating too. EM: I just have questions! CC: I was in the hospital a lot the last few months because I’m my grandmothers care taker and she was mine when I was little, and so I’ve been in the hospital with her a lot the past few months and I see them pushing like… just treating the symptoms with medications and everything and not like addressing like the base problems. It’s really, I understand. PS: It concerns me. I mean I know there’s a place for all of that, but you can’t treat chronic disease like diabetes and all the chronic problems we have. You have to get to the lifestyle. You can’t just treat the symptoms and it’s not just diet and exercise. It’s stress and it’s genetics. And it’s, you know, there’s a lot, Shuler and Shuler 16 environment. People don’t realize how these chemicals are endocrine disruptors. And that’s a word you’ll probably be hearing. CC: Yeah. It took psychology and they really focused on how like the chemistry in your brain affects all of your well-being. PS: Oh! It does. And some of these chemicals are mimickers of hormones. Pesticides are estrogen builders and there actually when you eat, if you eat certain foods with pesticides your body thinks its estrogen and it sends it to the breast or sends it to the uterus or sends it to the ovaries. That’s why organic food. But you have to be careful with organic food too. That’s why we try to grow most of ours because they pick it green and if it’s not vine ripened you don’t get what’s called the eighty central glyconutrients. The sun shining on that fruit and vegetable is what makes a huge difference. Also, you don’t want everything grown in a greenhouse because the plants not stressed. And I went to one conference I went to, I went to hear this professor, this woman from the University of Kansas and she studied broccoli. And she said that the nutritional value of broccoli is grown outside where it has to have deep roots to withstand the wind and has to fight off bugs and the heat and all that. It has hundred times more nutrients than one that’s pampered in a greenhouse. Because the ones pampered in a greenhouse it doesn’t have to produce these sulforaphane. Which is the chemical that’s cancer preventing in broccoli. In greenhouse broccoli doesn’t have very much of it in it but the wild broccoli that’s grown out does because it’s a chemical that the insects don’t want. CC: This is so cool. EM: I know, this is so great! PS: And I’ve just been so blessed to hear, you know, to be I guess in association with a lot of people. Plus, the patients taught me a lot. There’s a lot of brave, courageous patients that go the extra mile to get help and sometimes you just have to say ok we’re going to have to just [inaudible] (laughter). I’m sorry. (laughter) KS: No. No. We could talk all night. (laughter) CC: So, we’re going to start back from ground zero. KS: OK CC: So, I understood that you grew up here. What part of this area did you grow up in? Can you describe how communities, how it was then compared to now? KS: Ok. I grew up actually on Buff Creek. You know where that road’s at down the road and This was, my dad’s parent’s lived here. This house and it’s changed quite a bit, you know, as far as Buff Creek and the area. When I was younger it was kind of more the two-story lot houses. It was different ones with the big front porches. The farm houses with farm areas around it but now and then later on it was a lot of smaller houses and now we have some smaller houses and some trailer parks and different things so the actually Buff Creek has changed quite a bit. I used to know, and it was like one big community where I was related to most everyone and knew everyone and growing up, we could just go wherever, and you could let your children go wherever because this neighbor was looking out after them or that neighbor and we would go leave Buff Creek and go down to the sawmill and to the school. That was part of our play area and hanging out area and we’d go down and we’d borrow lumber from Hennessey Lumber. Shuler and Shuler 17 Hennessey owned it first and we’d borrow lumber and build camps. There used to be a big swamp now actually, where they’ve got cleared now. They’d go in. They knew we were borrowing the lumber I’m sure. PS: (laughter) They were building on their property. KS: Yeah but they knew that kept us occupied, I guess. Now a little bit of trouble sometimes. But we had, it was a fun experience particularly for the boys. We were just, could range and go wherever. Through the mountains and through the neighborhood and communities and everything and like I said everyone knew everyone and looked out for one another’s children. So, it was a unique place but now you couldn’t do that. CC: So, how many siblings did you have and what were they like and what were the values that you guys were raised up on? KS: Well I have one older brother who’s a half-brother first cousin (laughter). This is the mountains, you know. (laughter). And I have an older sister and a younger brother. Now the reason he’s my half-brother and first cousin my mom was married first to his dad who grew up on this property and they were married young and she, my mom was like sixteen when she was married and they had older brother, Tony. His name was Virgil and her husband Virgil he died at about 24. They said from tuberculosis, but my mom always wondered he, during the war time he went to Michigan. PS: World War II KS: To work in one of the plants there and she wondered if he wasn’t exposed to something there in that plant. So, when he died my dad was in the Merchant Marines during World War II and, he, my dad was younger. He had a brother and he asked him to check in and knew he was really sick. He was up at the other grandparent’s place. Asked him to check in on my mom because he knew he wasn’t going to live so when my dad got back from the Merchant Marines, he was checking in on her and I guess kept checking and the next thing you know (laughter). They realized. So, she married brothers. She married my dad who was my older brother’s father. PS: Your dad is your older brother’s uncle (laughter). It’s complicated! KS: So anyways, older brother, older sister, younger brother and we grew up going to this little Baptist Church down the road. Buff Creek Baptist Church. We grew up, my dad was the deacon song leader there for many years and he was like my biology teacher in high school. Jack Bradley used to say my dad was the mayor of Buff Creek because he was kind of like the guy that anything went on, people came to him for a lot of things and he was really liked by a lot of people. When he died that’s when Melton Riddle Funeral Home was there. And they said that was the most people ever came to a funeral we’ve ever had. But he knew a lot of people here and he worked in Haywood County. So, we grew up like…. PS: You had a little farm too. KS: Little farm… We had a horse and a cow, and a lot of people had that back in the early sixties. Had your own milk cow and maybe a pig or two and chickens and always raised a garden and, you know. EM: What was your dad’s name? Shuler and Shuler 18 KS: Pardon? EM: What was your dad’s name? KS: Lincoln Shuler. EM: Lincoln Shuler. KS: Yeah. Lincoln Shuler. Lincoln and Eloise was my mom’s name. Lincoln and Eloise Shuler. We have actually another Lincoln Shuler. My, now my nephew, my younger brother’s son had a little boy, named him Lincoln Shuler (laughter). Actually, I have a niece she married a fellow his last name was Hoffman. We have a Lincoln Hoffman also. (laughter) So anyway, Lincoln is back. But anyway, it was, like I said, a little community church and whole community and it was a really neat experience growing up here in the mountains. CC: Really? That’s great. KS: Yeah, we had like I said just open play ground. CC: So, you attended high school here. What kind of things were you involved in in the high school and what was it like back then? KS: Ok. Yeah. Went to Sylva Webster High School which is Smoky Mountain now and I got into, my buddy I grew up with on Buff Creek he got me started playing football at a young age really. He was the one instrumental. We started like the midget mite teams, and worked up and so got into high school it was football. I did fairly well as a student up to about the 7th grade and then I think between football and girls and started playing the guitar about the 8th grade I got sidetracked. (laughter) By the time I got to high school it was nothing but football, guitar, and girls, I guess. More than, I should have been studying a little more. PS: I didn’t know him them. I won’t take credit for that. (laughter) KS: So, the football, the first two years I played football. A freshman and sophomore we had really good teams. That’s when they had a couple of guys Gary Phillips and Tommy Love who, and Tommy Love and Leroy Jackson when I was a freshman were the first, and a couple girls, black students who came to Sylva Webster for the first time. CC: Oh really? KS: And Tommy Love, he was an amazing football player and Leroy he was a short guy, but they were really neat. CC: What was the reaction to them coming? Like how did people here react about it? KS: It was… There was a really unfortunate part about that. Most all the students really, they worked in and treated them great I think as far as I remember. Actually, our principal at the time, Carr Hooper, if you ask some people, and I don’t remember hearing this on the intercom but if you ask somebody like Boyce Dietz, he can tell you that he remembers hearing this, that Carr Hooper, our principal at the time, which was a nice guy. He was in the War and all these things but apparently wasn’t ready to be integrated because he made some announcement, he said, “Well, we don’t want them here, but they’ve Shuler and Shuler 19 got to be here anyway” or something like that. I forget the exact announcement but anyway. But they were, they were some schools when we played football like Robbinsville has always had the name of being pretty tough and they sent a message said, “don’t bring your black students.” Of course, they probably didn’t use the word black when you come to play us. And if I remember right, I don’t think they went. And when we played at Waynesville I remember when we ran out on the field that game people in the stands were throwing rocks and apples off on us as we ran out. CC: That’s crazy. KS: So, it was a little bit, but overall though they were treated... PS: But your football team accepted them KS: Oh yeah. All the players and all the students at school accepted them and really cared about them so it was… CC: Well that’s good. KS: It was a good experience from that angle. Both of them were great guys and Tommy Love was an amazing football player. Had a, I don’t know if you know about his history but… CC: I’ve heard of him before. KS: Yeah. He went on and had a scholarship to play at Michigan State and, broke, I think, the freshman, I don’t know if he made it to sophomore, freshman year was breaking all kinds of school records on the football team, but I think it was his sophomore year he actually died from a heart attack in a pickup basketball game. PS: He had a congenital defect. CC: That’s crazy. KS: But anyway, that’s when Babe Howell, he was the coach and I was there as a freshman the first year he came in. Well known football coach throughout North Carolina in high school so. But it was a pretty amazing experience. And getting football, like in the old days and particularly like with Babe Howell and those guys, man you talk about being in shape now. When I was drafted in the army and they all, these guys talking about boot camp and the army and I said, “This doesn’t even start to compare with my high school football practices.” And it didn’t. At that time, they had this thing where you, they didn’t think drinking water was good for you and if we practiced really good and it would be really hot, we’d get a hand full of ice cubes to eat and suck on, you know, and it was pretty wild. But anyway, it was an interesting, it made us, a lot of us tough for sure. CC: So, going back to how you were in Vietnam were you drafted, or did you volunteer? KS: No and luckily, I didn’t, I was drafted during Vietnam but about a month before I was headed for Vietnam and that was about 1972 or ‘3, President Nixon at the time, thank goodness for that thing he did. He started pulling out the troops so about a month before I was headed to Vietnam, they started pulling out troops, so I did not have to go to Vietnam. I actually, they started sending us wherever they had bases and I ended up going to Korea for about 13 months. So, I was really fortunate that I did not have to go to Vietnam. But I was drafted during that time and some of the guys I was with, they call it Shuler and Shuler 20 AIT training. It was a special training after boot training. Some of those guys went on to Vietnam but they got out a little earlier actually but some of us didn’t have to go so. PS: Your older brother was a marine in Vietnam. KS: Yeah. My older brother Tony, he was a marine in Vietnam for three maybe three years or so. CC: Even though you didn’t go to Vietnam did you still receive any different treatment when you came back? Were there any people that were rude to you or what was the reaction? KS: No. You know, I was fortunate on that also because I hear a lot about people particularly and I think other areas but this area… Like when I was in Fort Rucker, Alabama for some of my training and a couple of times I would catch a plane to Atlanta and would get out in Atlanta and a couple times I ran across the freeway to get to the other side of the road and I’d have my uniform on and I would hitch a ride to come up here. And I had one guy nearly wreck trying to get over to pick me up. And I had people pick me up, couple times bring me, catch, once I got out to the road I’d catch somebody maybe, I know one time I caught a man coming to Franklin and he brought me on to Sylva. Couple of other people, couple of girls one time picked me up somewhere. I forget, maybe they were in Franklin or somewhere. People would take me right to my doorstep and bring me right home. And, no I never had that bad treatment that some people had. CC: That’s good. So, that was a lot of my questions. PS: Can you see? You want to go inside are you getting cold? CC: I’m fine if you guys want to move inside that’s fine. PS: Do you need some light? CC: I’m ok. I had two pages of questions and so I was seeing if I had gone through them. So, when you came back here what was your life like? Like how had it changed from high school? Like what was it like when you came back? What were your goals? KS: You know, when I came back and, I could get into a long story here so Pam would just punch me. (laughter) But anyway, I had changed as far as some of my beliefs and things. See I grew up going to the Baptist Church and everything, which was interesting experience and it did tell me about, you know, God and religion and everything but there was a part of it that some of the people in the area still and not necessarily my parents per se, but maybe more than we realized. It was too much, there was some prejudiced ideas about people of other colors and people of other religions. Some of them might, my uncle or somebody might say, “them old Jews.” When I got in the army, I met all these really neat Jewish people. Really neat black people and it gave me a whole different perspective on some things and it really bothered me that we sang this little song at church. “Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” And we didn’t really seem to be living that and it really bothered me. So for some reason in the process, time came back I was a little bit, I guess mad about it, but I was really and truly becoming agnostic. I’d decided this whole thing about God and religion is a man-made thing. And man has put together. And, it’s been to keep us all in line, so we’ll be scared to do anything to get out of line. CC: Like skeptical… Shuler and Shuler 21 KS: Yeah, and I was really down that road of thinking. Lady who actually bought a house. We used to live in our old house. She was from Florida originally. I was about twenty-three and she was maybe 50 or 60 and she had some of that same belief, so we used to get together and talk about it. So I was going down this different road and I don’t know how to make this short but, and the other thing was even though I came back here I had changed. I knew all the people basically here, but I didn’t fit in around here. CC: Yeah. KS: I was different. I didn’t fit in. My thinking had changed. I was a little different and it was actually one of the loneliest times I have ever experienced. Even though I knew everybody here and I was trying to, I wanted to meet that special person that I settled down with and I would go out on dates sometimes but it’s like we didn’t click. It’s like I felt like I was a little different and they would look at me like oh he’s strange or something (laughter). Like I was a little different, so it was a weird time for me when, actually when I came back but. EM: Had you just gone to career or had you gone to school? Like how long were you gone before you came back? KS: I’d been in Korea. I was in the army total for about nearly two years. PS: And after high school you… KS: After high school. Now after high school I wasn’t drafted for maybe a year. I actually worked over at a plant that was Dayco Southern for a little while. PS: You went to Western and you played football… CC: Had you guys already known each other? PS: Well I’d met him, but we weren’t dating. KS: Yeah, we had met… PS: He dated my sister (laughter). My Claudette, the one with the… CC: Oh, the Marilyn Monroe (laughter) PS: Yeah (laughter). KS: Since we’re on that subject I met Pam’s cousin Debbie Higdon, her grandparent’s old house is actually behind Fairview. PS: Gabe Sardi’s mother. CC: Oh, I know Gabe Sardi. I went to middle school with… PS: Dana is my cousin. Dana’s dad and my mom were brothers and sisters. So that’s her grandparents. CC: She’s so sweet. That’s so cool. KS: So anyway, Pam and her sisters and Debbie and all were actually at a horse show. We used to have horses, and out of Savannah a guy by the name of Woody Hampton used to have a place so I went out there and I first bumped in, of course I knew Debbie because she went to school here and then Pam and Shuler and Shuler 22 all were there. Pam was just 15 at the time and I was 18 so that seemed like a big difference in age and Pam had these dark glasses on. (laughter) PS: I liked them. KS: Claudette she was, Claudette was definitely a little more wild. So we kind of, actually we just went horseback riding together with all of them then. But I didn’t meet Pam again until, well I met her, saw her once when she was a senior in high school right before I was going to Korea and we actually, I… Pam used to come up here all the time to Sylva Webster High School and I graduated but they had a dance and I went out that night to see some of the friends I knew, and Pam was out there. She danced with me once that night and I thought, boy this girl has grown up because she was a senior. She was looking pretty nice. (laughter). She said her dress was too short when we did a slow dance. PS: That was the mini skirt days (laughter). KS: We didn’t see one another… EM: Oh my gosh. That is so funny (laughter) KS: She went off to Colorado and school and I went off to Korea and… CC: And then you came back here. KS: Then I came back and then I was going through that hard time. We can make this real interesting. But we’re going to, It’ll take… CC: No. Let’s make it interesting (laughter) KS: It would take a lot of time. PS: If y’all need to go to the restroom we’ve got two bathrooms. (laughter) KS: It would take a lot of time but if you want to hear this and I don’t care, you know, I tell this story and there are parts of it, Pam says this gets too involved. CC: I’m, Yeah, we’re good! PS: If you’ve got time (laughter) because it can get a little… CC: That’s why we came here (laughter). KS: If I tell, if I go on through to the very last part and I tell that, and some people start thinking. Now I know Keith has a wild imagination and did this really happen or not, and you’ve got to believe in divine intervention because I was at the point and time when I did not believe in anything. CC: Yeah. KS: And why the good Lord above decided He was going to get me back on track I’m not sure unless it’s because we went to California and something that Pam did, because we went to California and we thought all because of me but I tell people it wasn’t about me and I had to learn that lesson. It was more I believe about Pam the reason we went to California because you heard some of the things, she did. Pam did amazing things out there. She was working there at Union Rescue Mission getting a doctorate Shuler and Shuler 23 degree and working another job all at one time and she did amazing stuff while I was trying to figure something out about this entertainment industry. But anyway, when I got back here, I was going through this thing. I was totally, and like I said it was one of the worst times of my life. I was just not knowing what to do. I had the GI bill. I could go to school but what I was, my dream was to be a successful song writer. Successful by being able to write songs I could make enough money to live on. CC: Yeah. Music was really big then too. KS: Yeah. That was my dream and of course at the time, now at Western Carolina, where they did have, they have the music industry and everything else. That would have been perfect for me back then, but they didn’t have it then and there wasn’t any, and I wasn’t interested in like the marching band type of music. EM: Yeah. KS: I play music by ear and I just created. And I learned to play the piano and guitar and whatever and I just create and write. So anyway, I was back here trying to sort this out. What am I going to do with my life? What am I going to be? And I was going through this thing about not believing anything and I was living at my parents’ house on Bluff Creek at the time and it was on a Saturday night and I was getting depressed at certain times. I was thinking, this was the first time in my life, I’m not that type person usually. When I was in high school, I was always joking and going on hey, hey, and pretty, but I was really feeling down and out, and I was at, Saturday night at 9:00 and I hadn’t… Usually you go out on the town when you’re that age Saturday night. EM: Yeah. KS: And I was there getting ready to take a shower. Now I’m going to tell you this and you’re going to, some people are going to say “Oh, I don’t believe this,” and “I don’t believe in these things” and got some people say you shouldn’t tell people this. They’ll think you’ll (laughter) you’re hearing voices you know. But I’m telling you this is the truth. I was taking a shower and when you say you hear this voice it’s not like a voice out here it’s like a voice speaking within you. Now maybe you’ve had this happen I don’t know. I’ve met different people that has. CC: My mom talks about it. She says she… KS: All right. This voice said clearly. Go and, at the time the hangout in Sylva was a bowling alley which is where the doctor’s offices, are at now and Rebel restaurant which is down where Sav Mor is at but closer to the road. That was our hangouts. But anyway, clear voice. And I never had this happen. I had a friend that used to talk about ESP and all these things, and I thought huh maybe this is ESP, a clear voice said go to the bowling alley you’re going to meet somebody. I said, “Whoa what’s this? What? (laughter) Go to the bowling alley, going to meet someone.” And ok… I thought this is crazy. Am I going crazy? I was taking a shower and I thought, well anyway, I finished the shower and I, well anyway I’ll go to the bowling alley. So, I went to the bowling alley and of course I knew everyone in, they had pool tables in there and I knew everyone. People were shooting pool. And Pam she went to take a break probably said I heard this story to many times. PS: No. The cat wanted in. Shuler and Shuler 24 KS: Well anyway, I went in and I thought this was crazy. I came down here to, this is wild. So, I kind of started talking to everyone and I went out and I saw this guy, Eddie Sellers. I hadn’t seen since I’d been back from the army and he was waiting for his wife. She was working at the telephone office. They had like a night shift. Or a 3-11. So, I got in the car and was riding around with Eddie, around town. And we’re talking, and I forgot about the voice thing and everything. We were talking around the Rebel you know. Hey. Hey. (laughter). There were people I hadn’t seen and went back to the bowling alley and pulled in and there was a big parking lot there and there’s a little place where there’s cars can park in the bowling alley and we’re a pretty good distance away from the building and this car pulls out and this girl gets out and walks, and gets out of her car, and I said, “Who’s that girl Eddie?” “I don’t know.” I said, “Holler at her.” He said, “No I’m not going holler at that girl” and that’s what we did back in those days. (laughter). And she went in and she came back out and I said, “Holler at that girl.” “No, I’m not going to holler, I’m married” And I said, his window was here, and I was sitting over here, and he said, “I’m married. I’m not hollering at that girl.” So, I leaned over to his window and I said, “Hey, Sandy” and she stopped and looked cause neither one of us knew who it was. I just yelled a name that came to my mind, you know. And she first couldn’t tell which car it was and so she started to walk on, and I yelled again I said, “Hey, Sandy” and then she kind of saw the car and she was pretty cautious you know. Kind of looking like this and looking over there and she said, “Do you know me?” I said, “Is your name Sandy?” And she said, “Yes.” (laughter). Eddie looked at me like gosh. (laughter). So anyway, I got out of the car, Eddie’s car and went over and I thought, it came to me the voice, said I was going to meet someone. So anyway, we met this young lady which we didn’t know, and she actually went to a different school on up the road and we talked, and we actually went out a few times and everything, but we weren’t, wasn’t the person I was supposed to be with but it started me thinking, wait a minute. What was this that just happened here? Was this ESP or is this something else? So anyway, it happened again where I got this message and I believe the good Lord used this because that was the most important thing in my life. PS: At that time. KS: At that time. To try to get me to realize that there was more going on in this world than just… See I kind of believed going to a Baptist church that we’re kind of watched and monitored while we’re on earth and marked down. They said the Lamb’s Book of Life and marked down everything you did right and wrong and then when you die you go and you’re judged or whatever and I never thought about God being here now and in present time, helping us with things. So anyway, I was still struggling thinking, “I don’t know… this is strange here” and not believing still not believing in things going on. But anyway, in the meantime, it happened again. And then Pam and I, when I was really in a down and out mood around Christmas time, a friend called and went up and that’s when I met Pam the next time and when it was on… And I tell people she’s my most amazing Christmas present because she was there. I have to back up and tell you this. I’d gone and like I said had another message to go up and meet someone at WCU actually and it was during Easter break and at that time everybody left the campus. No one’s there, but I went up like I was told and went around and sure enough it was two girls sitting over there and I went up and I was telling them I said, “Hey.” And I started talking with them and went to this party I don’t remember their names or anything, but it got me thinking there’s something strange going on here. I didn’t tell them a voice told me to come up. (laughter) They might have said the hippie days, and I’d say far out man, or something like that. But anyway, I was going through this really tough time and by that time I’d moved up here and started working on this house, so this is going on in a year or two’s Shuler and Shuler 25 time. And, uh so, I was here one Saturday night feeling really down and out and depressed and I’d try to go, I was hanging out with some people and there was too much drugs and things going on and I used to have some musicians that came here and we’re playing some music but then they were bringing in drugs and I had to tell them do not bring your drugs anymore because my buddy whose brother-in-law was the sheriff at the time or deputy sheriff said, “And listen they’re watching your house because there’s people coming up there with drugs.” So I told them, “Listen, don’t bring them.” So, I cleared all that out and they quit coming and I was going over to Waynesville to try to meet some people and I met a young lady there and we kind of hung out for a while but thought, “That’s not working.” But anyway, I was back here one night really feeling just totally down and out and depressed and not knowing what on earth to do with my life and what was working out and I was in this very little house right in there and that’s where I had my “religious experience.” I said, “OK God. If you’re real you’re going to have to figure this out and if I’m supposed to meet someone and be with someone ok. If I’m supposed to be by myself the rest of my life, I’ll accept that” and I guess what I read and realized later, that’s when I relinquished. And I’ll tell you this. This was the communication. The voice said, “Don’t worry about what your friends think, your family thinks, anyone thinks. Keep playing your music and change.” And that word change, that’s a big one and let me tell you I’ve been changing ever sense but it was amazing. It was like, you know they talk about this burden being lifted from you. It was the most freeing feeling I’ve ever felt, and tears came to my, down my face and I was just, it was like amazing. I knew I’d made this amazing connection that it didn’t matter about anything about [inaudible] And it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever have. So, after that about three months later I was really, the change was I didn’t need to go out and party and I was going to be really, if I met another girl it’s going to be someone I really want to be with and not something, you know, just taking off because I’m out or whatever. (laughter) I had to really start changing to be a person. I didn’t like partying. I didn’t like drinking. I didn’t like smoking pot with everybody. I liked to get, to wake up early in the mornings and write songs. I wake up really early and I didn’t want to be hung over or whatever. It wasn’t my life. That wasn’t me and I didn’t care if my friends understood or not, didn’t need that anymore. So, when we got to that party on that Christmas night I’d been pretty down and out for a while there and went in and all the people were there and there was partying going on and they went, a friend, she wanted me to my bring my guitar out and play songs and I thought Pam was there, whoa. I need to play some really good songs tonight (laughter). I was thinking the whole time should I ask her and she’s in school out in Colorado. I thought, she’s got all these boyfriends out in Colorado. I though, should I ask her out and I knew she liked horses and we had some horses then and I thought I can ask her to go horseback riding and so I did, and she was pretty cool about it at first because she didn’t really trust me. PS: I brought my cousin with me I didn’t want to be by myself (laughter). KS: The first two dates she always had a chaperone. She didn’t really trust me (laughter). PS: Well, he’d been in the military. He’s three years older than me. (laughter) KS: A reputation I guess, but anyway… PS: My daddy told me about boys like that. (laughter) KS: Finally, when we finally got on our date by ourselves, I always remember we were riding around. We went to a movie or something, riding around Sylva and riding down Back Streets Sylva, you know you cut Shuler and Shuler 26 up the little side street and we’d been talking, and it just hit me that we understood one another and communicated and that was the thing… CC: And you clicked. KS: Yeah. We just clicked and we, I thought man this is amazing because all of the other girls we just wasn’t clicking whatsoever. (laughter) It was like “Oh, this is amazing.” So, but Pam was still playing pretty cool and she’d been, I mean, she didn’t tell you Pam’s been to about ten different schools because at that time… PS: I couldn’t figure out where I wanted to go. (laughter) KS: Her mom had, her mom when she came from Colorado had her… PS: Please don’t go into all that. PS: Lined up to go to go University of North Carolina to nursing school and then when she met me, she decided she was going to come up here and her mom was so upset, and she was in bed and she’d never missed a day of school. (laughter) KS: She was (laughter)… KS: She made me go down there with her to tell her mom she was going to come up here and her mom was not happy (laughter). Her dad was a little bit cool about it. But anyway, but she’d actually by that time she was in school at NC State when she was up here, and we met so Pam’s been to all these schools but anyway, a few times. But anyhow, Pam was going back to school and I thought boy I was pretty infatuated, but she was playing it cool. Being a song writer what I’d do I wrote this song called Silent Hearted Lady, like “we may never know you will never know, if we don’t open up our hearts we will never know.” (singing) (laughter) That there might be something we both should know, and I played her a little song and she said, “Oh, that’s nice” and I thought she thought that was stupid. (laughter) I thought, “I’ll never see that girl again. I just blew that one.” (laughter) So anyway, she took off going back to NC State and I was thinking, “Well, I’m not going to get in touch with her. I’ll never hear from her or see her again. That’s the end of that.” But about a week later I went down to the mailbox down here, opened it up and there was a card from Pam, and I thought, ”Oh that’s a good sign.” (laughter). EM: That’s a good song. KS: I remember coming up this driveway I felt like I was stepping ten-foot-tall and she said she enjoyed spending some time with you and would like to get to know me better or something like that, I think. But anyway, we got off together and started and to tell you, I told Pam all about my past which was good and all about all these things and all about my love for song writing and everything and she said, “Well, at some point you’ll probably have to move to a music center” and like she said Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York is basically where the music centers and of course Nashville is the most logical so I started going over to Nashville in the late 80s or late 70s, early 80s. Taking songs and doing what they call song pitching and was getting to know some people a little bit there and they kept saying well you’ve got to move here to Nashville to really get into it. And that was the plan and Pam would go with me and we were going to Nashville, going to Nashville and Pam had a job offer at Vanderbilt and that week we told everyone we were moving to Nashville so I could check out the song writing and everything. But it never felt right, and I kept on and by that time you know Pam together, I start realizing Shuler and Shuler 27 after my experience here and everything and I was opening the Bible and all those things and realizing we could be guided and directed. But we didn’t know what to do and we had a couple horses up on Buff Creek and I was up there and my buddy in California said that horse kicked you in the head didn’t it? Because it had Pam’s horse Poco I was shoeing him and had his back hoof up and kind of talking to myself and praying I guess or talking to horse or God or whoever was listening (laughter). I said, “I didn’t know what we were supposed to do.” It doesn’t feel right going to Los Angeles and a clear voice said, or going to Nashville, clear voice said “Move to Los Angeles.” That’s the reason we went to Los Angeles because I went home and I said, asked Pam I said, “Pam, had you rather move to Los Angeles or Nashville.” She thought for a minute and she said, “I’d rather move to Los Angeles.” I said, “Good. That’s the message I got.” (laughter). And it was wild, I mean, because it had to be divine intervention and when Pam talked about, We, you know, took us all that time to get there but when she finally got a hold of Irene Stewart and what Pam told people what she was teaching up at Western, they thought, yeah, you’re pretty naïve think you’re just going ride out to UCLA and get a job, you know. So anyway, that was amazing when Irene said you must be a God sent because I truly believe, and I could have told you maybe that was the reason that we went to California. We thought it was for me, but I think it was more about Pam. PS: You did things to help you. KS: Well, we both, but it was an amazing learning experience. CC: Yeah. PS: We’re different people. KS: We’re all on this spiritual journey, every one of us. Whether we believe it or not and everybody’s is a little different. For me I’m hard headed I needed to be, have these direct messages. Some people can just be nudged like Pam and different people. And Pam’s had some direct messages. And some people are just good about following goodness and these direct messages without. But when you’re hard headed like me, oh gosh, we learn things the hard way and we have to have direct messages and we have to have pain from like psoriatic arthritis to take me down many notches. I’ve told people that I couldn’t have worked at this alternative school if I hadn’t, I mean somedays I’m just barely getting along and that was good because I had to be really calm with those students. CC: What did working there teach you? KS: Patience (laughter). CC: Can you describe some experiences you had there? KS: Patience and it taught me not to be judgmental as much. It taught me to have more love and understanding. Those students have more compassion. All these things I didn’t have. I was, I’ll admit it… PS: You had some. (laughter) KS: I had some, but I was too much of an arrogant male chauvinist type. PS: You weren’t that bad, or I wouldn’t have married you. (laughter) Shuler and Shuler 28 KS: Well I’m not that bad. Not as bad as some but a little bit of that football playing a little bit of this or whatever. PS: Yeah you had a little bit of that. CC: It humbled you. KS: Yeah. PS: Yes. KS: It made me a totally different person. These students, I tell people I hope I helped them some, but they helped me a lot. PS: Well and you helped them, Keith would help them. Some of these children had never played an instrument before and he’d get them together and they’d form a little band and before the end of the semester they’d do a show and they’d be playing Lynyrd Skynyrd. They’d be playing Santana. They’d be playing. I mean they’d do this show and they got, you know, peers would go up and say gosh you did good and teachers would. They had recognition, their parents and. He really connected with those children. He got them to do things that a lot of people I don’t think would be able to. KS: I think one of the, if anything, if I gave some of those students just a few moments of recognition and enjoyment and feeling accepted because I’m telling you these , a lot of these students… PS: And learning how to play an instrument. That can take you through hard times. KS: A lot of these students never get that. They just get all the negative, all the negative. But that was the most rewarding thing that I finally persevered by God and I think they. Afterwards they were so excited that everyone clapped for them and saw what they could do and accepted them, and it was really wonderful to see that. PS: They’d get over stage fright, that’s huge, and sing in front of people. KS: They, it taught me, and like I said good Lord above. I mean those days I’d be sitting there and one time I was down, tell you this little story, I had the trailer out back and was by myself and then there was another student that would come down at lunch time and there was a break in between and sometimes I was feeling so bad. And every once in a while I had this thing where I would just pass out but I would still be conscious enough to talk but everything would go black and I was sitting at the table, at this long table and I felt, knew it was coming on and I just, I thought well I’m going to get in the floor, so I just rolled over in my chair, and so I was kind of rolled over in my chair sideways in the floor and this boy Cody, see these kids see people passed out, hurt, and shot, everything. They see this stuff. This boy Cody walks in and says, “Mr. Keith you want me to call 911.” I said, “No, it’s alright Cody you can go on to lunch.” “OK.” And he went on to lunch and never told a soul that I was passed out laying in the floor. (laughter). I mean that’s kind of an unusual thing. PS: Or they had to sleep in cars KS: So, it was, it was interesting but anyway, about took me down like I said, I learned I didn’t have the energy to argue with them. You don’t want to argue you just say ok. “Here’s your choices.” You need to Shuler and Shuler 29 be as calm as you can because oh, they can say and do things that would make you mad if… (laughter). Oh, gosh. But anyway, it was an amazing experience and… PS: Well you worked with autistic children too. KS: Yeah. I worked with… PS: He had the emotionally behavioral problems and then you had the autistic children. KS: Yeah you had all. ADHD big time and then autism and all and I’d never had any training. I was just here and happened to know how to play some music and they’d call me up and I told… CC: So, it was learn as you go. KS: Yeah. Joe Cowan called and I said, “Joe, I’ve never taught children. I don’t have any children of my own. I play music by ear.” He said, “Well, just come down and try. (laugher) We’ve got a new piano and we want somebody to help with the piano.” And I went down, and I helped one class with piano and then they said, “Well, can you be the guitar teacher, he left. Can you do guitar?” And it just evolved, and I was down at, like thirteen years and you know, and it went on. But anyway, it was an interesting experience, but it was more my spiritual experience. Like I said it taught me a lot of things that I didn’t have that I needed, and it’s made me a much better person, I hope. I keep trying to be a better person. This change thing, most important word we have in our language I believe because we’re all just trying to change, trying to become better. I keep struggling as Pam’s knows (laughter). She’s helped me a lot. She’s helped me in so many ways. It’s been an interesting experience at this point I’ll have to say. CC: So, what do you think about people now cutting funding for music and arts and schools and stuff? KS: Well, I think it’s extremely important like I said. When I went to, I went to the same school for elementary school where the alternative school is at. I used to tell the kids my first music lesson was my friend in 8th grade drew up about four or five guitar chords on a piece of notebook paper. I remember one of my, few things I remember about going to school there was being in the school play. Singing at Christmas, “We three kings of Orient Are.” (singing) I was one of the wise men in the third or fourth grade. CC: Yeah. KS: I don’t remember a lot of the other stuff. I did learn my multiplication table in third grade from Mrs. Warren, but I remember those music and anything related. So, I think it’s very important. I think it teaches, I mean you can you tie so many things into the arts and with music. If you want to tie in Math and English and all that I mean it all can be tied in. PS: I see a goose. Canadian goose. KS: But anyway, I think… PS: Well, and he even tied the civil rights. He had some DVD about how the children used music to communicate during the civil rights. They’d play certain songs on the radio and that’s when they were supposed to gather. But he used that as a teaching point. Show them the DVD to kind of help broaden their understanding and music can apply to every aspect of your life really. Shuler and Shuler 30 KS: Yeah, I think the music and arts is very important in school and in anyone’s life. Music for us, I never was that successful song writer who made lots of money with the songs, but the music has taken us a lot of places and met a lot of new people and it’s still fun. I play, try to play a little bit every day just for my own. I just love it. I still, I’ll go through the songs. Occasionally, I’ll go out and play for some other event or something and we like to go, we go down to the Bridge Park, last Friday night we were down there dancing (laughter). It’s a wonderful thing. And after, down there Friday night it’s amazing and particularly when there’s other people gets up and a group of you are dancing. There’s something really neat about that. It always gives me this unique fond… PS: Connection. KS: …connection with people you don’t even know usually but it’s, you’re having this fun together and so it’s really music and arts in the schools and it’s very important. CC: Well, that’s all the questions I have for you guys. Is there anything you want to add on? Is there anything you ever want to say? (laughter) PS: I think you’ve gotten more (laughter) EM: This is so good. PS: Well y’all are so kind to sit here and listen to all this stuff (laughter). CC: No that was great. That was awesome. EM: Really, I’m so thankful that I got to bring Chloe and got to listen. PS: We’ve just been looking forward to talking to you and getting to know you and if I can be of help to you in anyway, I have articles that my mom [inaudible] give you copies. CC: Yeah. I will definitely try to keep in touch about some of that. PS: If I can help you in any way. Really, I love to talk to people and you can come by and we’ll talk about it. I’ve been out of practice about four years but a lot of principles and things that I learned, and I can try and direct to who the CC: Well I’m about to go into like where I need to go to the next step and different things and know people so that would definitely help. EM: I saw those guitars and thought my husband would be so envious. PS: Does he play? EM: He’s a shed player. He plays in a shed. PS: Oh, well that’s alright. That’s wonderful. KS: It’s whatever… EM: He’s already trading. I’m like what? (laughter) He’s always trading guitars. Shuler and Shuler 31 KS: It’s just, there’s just something wonderful, I think about music and arts of all. I never could draw or anything really. Except mine was folk art if I do but I just think it’s all so important and, just personally, for your own benefit and then for others. PS: You enjoy it. It sounds like your husband enjoys it. KS: Connect with a lot of people, a lot of times. And like I was telling you early I’ve got a lot of hope in you younger folks because when you stop and think about it, people my age, there’s so many things, there’s some good things we did along the way but there’s a lot of things… PS: Well the environment and all that overlapping… KS: It’s so, keeps working on and somebody’s got to stop and say, “Hey, listen.” I’m a, a lot of people don’t like this thinking… musicians they think are supposed to be you’re wild and crazy and you’re always a drinking and doing all this stuff. But I’m kind of stickler about the alcohol thing. I think that’s one of the areas we’re in real big denial about because my students that I work with, being in the music class, man for some reason it just opened up, they’d tell me about everything. CC: It’s a little therapeutic. KS: We’d get on the subject about drugs or whatever and some of them I mean, man they were doing drugs, of course some of them were doing drugs with their parents, of on all levels. Which is sad. But one of the first things some of them would say to me they’d say, if I got on them, I was always telling them I said, “Alright, now you’re going to have to…”and they’d know, “Ah he’s preaching to us now” and I’d joke around with them (laughter). The Cherokee, I had a lot of Cherokee guys too. I said, “You guys, you’re really going to have to get things together here.” I said, “Go back to your old ways.” I said, “You can’t eat this food that you’re eating now. Anytime you see a fast food restaurant you guys should run as far as you could.” because they had a lot of diabetes and everything and I said, “You need to go back to get grass fed beef maybe or buffalo or whatever and your natural foods and everything.” I said, “You’ve got to get back on these things.” and then as far as the drugs if I got off on that with some of the others, one of the first things they’d say, “Alcohol is a drug too.” And it was a thing. It was like don’t preach to us because you’re, they always thought I… PS: Adults always drink alcohol. KS: They were like always thinking, “I know you drink.” I said, “Yeah right.” It is. I’ve got friends, some of them are dead now who were addicts. All of the drugs, heroin, all of them. I’ve had them tell me, “Alcohol is the worst drug of all,” and I tell those students I say, “You’re right.” I say I’ve had people tell me alcohol is the worst drug and I think we’re in real denial how this all ties in with the opioids and all the things together. It gets in there. And that’s where a lot of us, we, like I said, we’ve not been good examples. So, you younger folks are going to have to step up and say listen. You people need to sit down and we’re going to take over here and we’re going to change some things and we’re going to make...(laughter). In fact, I wrote this little song with my students they were supposed to sing says, “We are young.” (singing) I told them I said, “Now you students are going to sing this to us older people.” “We are young we are strong we are beautiful. We can change the world. We are brave, we are smart. We are wonderful. We can change the world.” (singing) And it goes on and on. PS: Nice little song. (laughter) Shuler and Shuler 32 KS: “Yes we respect our elders, but we can’t keep a goin’ on.” (singing) I change the lyrics, back after the school shootings. “Following leaders who without no conscious what they’re doing wrong. When fathers turn their heads as their children bleed. Seems like the old are gonna’ have to stop and let the young ones lead. We are young. We are strong. We are beautiful. We can change the world. We are brave. We are smart. We are wonderful. We can change the world.” (singing) There’s another verse. (laughter). You want to hear that? Anyway, that’s a song I need the younger folks to sing. EM: You need to record that one. PS: I talked to much then you didn’t get to talk. KS: Actually, we did record it with some students. You had a different version, more environmental. But anyway, that’s the song that you younger folks need to sing to us older people, make those changes. Now let me give you one of these CDs. EM: Thank you so much. This has been amazing. CC: This is awesome. I learned so much PS: Oh, I’ve enjoyed talking so much CC: Thank you so much it was really good. PS: Oh, you’re welcome.

Pam and Keith Shuler are interviewed by a Smoky Mountain High School student as a part of Mountain People, Mountain Lives: A Student Led Oral History Project. Pam Shuler discusses her career in health care. Keith Shuler grew up on Buff Creek in the Addie community and talks about meeting Pam, their travels through life, their many experiences with what he refers to as divine intervention, and teaching guitar at Jackson County School of Alternatives. Both Pam and Keith share many bits of wisdom.

• Creator
  • Shuler, Pamela A.
  • Shuler, Keith
• Contributor
  • Collins, Chloe
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2018-06-04
  • Date: 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s; 2000s (Decade); 2010s;
  • Date digitized: 2019-08-15
• Extent
  • Duration: 1:54:24 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 32 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Alternative medicine
  • Autobiography
  • Medicine
  • Music
  • Music teachers -- North Carolina, Western
  • Musicians -- North Carolina, Western
  • Nurse practitioners -- North Carolina, Western
  • Nurses -- North Carolina -- Interviews
  • Nursing models
  • Schools -- North Carolina -- Jackson County
  • Shuler, Keith -- Interviews
  • Shuler, Pamela A. -- Interviews
  • Veterans
  • Western Carolina University
  • Western Carolina University -- Alumni and alumnae
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - Mountain People, Mountain Lives
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Collins_Shuler_Shuler_2018-06-04_audio
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library