‘I believe that any profession can be done with desire and eagerness. I also believe that my education is my duty and critical to my success.’

Selden

“I always wanted to be an artist, but I just didn’t know how I would make a living of it. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 11, so my mother always told me to make sure I have a job that has benefits.

“Being a driven individual has always been a quality that I’ve wanted others to mention about me. I worked my way up in a company starting from an accounts receivable clerk to assistant project manager of a demolition company. Then I took on a more demanding role as a warehouse manager of a plumbing company.

“Despite some good decisions, the passing of my close friend solidified the determination to become what I’ve always wanted to be, an art educator. Overall happiness, instead of just financial happiness, became my motivation to attain a career in the arts.

“During the last weeks of my friend’s life, I sat next to him, pressed up against his hospital bed, hearing every inhaling and exhaling sound of his life support. At the time, I was 30 and going through my own personal struggles.

What motivated me about the study of art education is how I will be able to help students navigate their future, opening their minds to the endless opportunities that life has to offer.

“My new job was exhausting. The night shift I worked took a noticeable toll on my body, and I was losing things I’ve worked so hard for. None of my struggles compared to what my dear friend was enduring. I learned a valuable life lesson from this heartbreaking experience.

“There are many things he wanted to accomplish that were left unfinished. I decided I want to accomplish those unfinished things in my life before it’s my time to go.

“I went back to school for my degrees. I believe that any profession can be done with desire and eagerness. I also believe that my education is my duty and critical to my success.

“What motivated me about the study of art education is how I will be able to help students navigate their future, opening their minds to the endless opportunities that life has to offer.

“Being a teacher, I’m able to be involved in the arts and motivate people and have that security my mom wanted for me. I teach high school studio arts and media in Brentwood High School. My students have won national awards.

“What I want people to know is the perseverance I’ve gone through, just constantly pushing through to get to where I want to be, and all the hard work it took to get here.”

Interviewed by Liza Burby

‘It’s so horrible, you can’t imagine it happening to your child, and you don’t want to think about it — but imagine how it feels when you can’t not think it.’

Valley Stream

“I’m a father of six, but we did lose one. We’re angel parents. My oldest daughter, Kelly, was murdered in 1976 on Fourth of July weekend in Astoria, Queens, when a woman jumped into my car saying she was going to kill us, and the car crashed. It’s so horrible, you can’t imagine it happening to your child, and you don’t want to think about it — but imagine how it feels when you can’t not think it.

“We had five kids after that, but we always live with that tragedy. Growing up, I was an incorrigible kid, but I got straight A’s, 90s and 100s. I got a scholarship to Regis High School in Yorkville, which is one of the best schools, then went to Iona College on two scholarships. But this was all in the middle of Vietnam; I always wanted to be a Marine, so I dropped out of Iona and joined the Marines in 1971. I joined thinking I’d be going to war, but by the time I was trained, they had yanked the Marines out, so I didn’t end up going there or seeing combat. I still remember seeing soldiers my age coming home, getting off the plane and people would spit at them and trash them.

“In ’88, I went back into the Marine Reserves. I became a 36-year-old lance corporal, which is unheard of. They called me ‘sergeant major’ because I was such an old dude. We used to call soldiers over 24 ‘pop,’ so just imagine being 36. I finally became a staff sergeant when I got discharged in ’99. But when the first Gulf War came, I volunteered, but got stationed in the Midwest instead of the Middle East. I ended up doing volunteer work at a hospital in Kansas City. I worked with teenagers, running a group. There were some really sick kids there, mentally and behaviorally, and they needed help. It really mattered to me, so I said to myself, ‘You know what? Let me go into this racket.’ So I left the accounting job I had with the Defense Department, and I went back to school for psychology at University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1992.

I still stay involved, even though I retired from the VA three years ago. It’s a mission of mercy with my fellow vets.

“This started a 12-year educational journey that included getting my bachelor’s in psych, which I got at Columbia University, then a master’s in social work, and now I’m a certified alcohol-substance abuse counselor and an advanced social worker for military veterans and their families. My career covered handling things like addiction, group homes, places with people there on parole or probation. I ran a drug program in Harlem before ending up at a hospital in Hell’s Kitchen working in detox and the psych unit, and also worked the phones with those out in the field seeking coverage from insurance companies for medical treatments.

“Then I started at the VA [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs] in 2010, as a readjustment counseling therapist, working at vet centers. Vet centers are part of the VA but like ‘special ops’; we’re not at the VA hospital but in communities, like an outpatient place. They’re run by veterans, and we see any veteran, honorably discharged or not, eligible or not. We’d see combat vets with PTSD, with military sexual trauma, which is not confined to women, and provide bereavement for survivors, which is really tough when you get mothers, wives and kids coming in; we treat those three tracks. Not that we can’t treat vets for depression and anxiety, or alcoholism or addiction to things that are legal or illegal — we do all that — but that’s secondary to the three main lines. I also worked with the veterans court, which involved treatment in lieu of incarceration.

“I got involved with the FDNY counseling unit. Why? Because so many vets and reservists are cops or in the fire department, and some had worse PTSD from their jobs than from being in combat. I still stay involved, even though I retired from the VA three years ago. It’s a mission of mercy with my fellow vets. Plus, both my sons are Marines; my youngest did two tours in Iraq, and my oldest fought there, too. They’re both adversely impacted by that is all I’ll say.”

I was thrown a lot of curves in life, but I consider my old self lucky. I have an attitude of gratitude.

“I still do things for the church, for schools; I’m always donating to children. We also used to bring kids from Northern Ireland to our house for years during the Troubles. I worked with Toys for Tots for years. I’m a lifetime member of the Marine Corps League, western Long Island detachment. I’m with the local American Legion, and I go to every Veterans Day and Memorial Day event in my uniform. I help with whatever to raise money or to change or add somebody’s name to a monument. And I’ll tell you, if my old lady wasn’t telling me, ‘You’re not going,’ I’d be on a plane to Ukraine to help out there. Nothing happened to me as a kid to make me like this; I just have a keen sense of justice.

“I always have worked, maybe because as a kid we were poor. Before the first Gulf War, I did everything to make money for my family: I worked in the post office before quitting to become ‘Mr. Mom’; plus, I did construction, drove a truck, did demolition, installed garage lifts. Name a blue-collar job, I probably did it; plus, I played in my band while my wife worked, too. I was thrown a lot of curves in life, but I consider my old self lucky.

“I have an attitude of gratitude. I beat cancer twice. I have my kids and 12 grandkids, and I’m still playing Irish music every day. When I leave my daughter’s grave at the cemetery — where I should be buried, not her — it says, “A man never stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.” I always liked that saying. But it doesn’t have to be just children. I always look out for that person sitting in the corner. I can tell they’re a vet because they’re checking the perimeter. I walk over, talk to them and give them my card. We do what we can do, right?”

Interviewed by Ian J. Stark

‘I want to make sure the kids in my program see that we do for others, that it’s cool to help. It’s not all about baseball.’

Williston Park

“Growing up, I was horrible at baseball at first, really awful. I still loved to play. It was a bonding experience with my dad. He was at every game, cheering me on whether I was dropping balls or hitting home runs.

“In college, my dream was to play baseball professionally. But in my sophomore year, I hurt my knee on a road trip. When I came home, Dad said, ‘I hate to break the news to you, but we’ve lost everything.’ They just fell behind financially.

“I had to end my dream of playing professionally in a heartbeat because we were one check away from becoming homeless.

Everyone around me said, ‘You’ve got to open up something. Maybe this is your calling.’

“I jumped into the workforce as an assistant teacher. As long as I worked with kids, I was happy. And I went to college at the same time.

“In June 1999, when I graduated, literally the next day I went to work for the city. I oversaw investigations of child abuse and neglect as an assistant commissioner for the Administration for Children’s Services, and I’ve been there 23 years, but I always felt like something was missing.

“Fast-forward to 2020 and the pandemic. My wife’s friend reaches out to her and says, ‘My son is going crazy in the house. Is there any way that Andrew can work with him?’ So, I met him at a park in Franklin Square for one-on-one baseball training every week. And then one kid led to two. And two led to five. Before you know it, I had 10 kids who wanted to train with me.

“Everyone around me said, ‘You’ve got to open up something. Maybe this is your calling.’ So, my wife and I dug out the garage, put in a batting cage and started OneFive Baseball.

“I follow a news reporter on NBC, Joelle Garguilo, and she posted about an online comedian named Lisa Marie, whose husband had cancer. Lisa had been going to Memorial Sloan Kettering and couldn’t believe how many kids were in the hospital.

“The kids I train, their parents and I put together a toy drive and raised over 1,000 toys. I couldn’t believe how many people participated. MSK told me it was one of the biggest drives they’d ever had, and we’re definitely going to go bigger and better next Christmas.

“I want to make sure the kids in my program see that we do for others, that it’s cool to help. It’s not all about baseball.”

Interviewed by Jenna Kern – Rugile

‘I started this personal journey of what I now call “coming home to me.”’

Point Lookout

“My life of loss began the day our young mom left due to childhood wounds of her own, and though her choice deeply impacted us, I have come to understand how losing her own mom at a young age traumatized her. When I was 23, I became a young widow and a single mom resulting from a tragic accident. Later in life, I remarried and gave birth to my third child. Unfortunately, we ended up in divorce, leaving me a single mom of three children. Fast-forward to around my early 40s, and I met somebody new. After five years, we were engaged. It was everything I could have ever wanted at that point in my life: to have family unity in the home and in love. The wedding didn’t come to pass. It threw me into a tailspin, becoming the catalyst in saying, ‘Enough is enough’ and wanting to understand how this loss, along with all other past losses, impacted me.

“I started this personal journey of what I now call ‘coming home to me.’ I went to therapy and also started doing my own research. After watching a video on childhood trauma, everything began to click. Since my 30s, I’ve always written. I don’t have a journalism degree, but I am published, and it’s a part of my journey that I cannot explain. As I started to write about what I was learning, people would reach out to me for information on mental health. Next thing I know, I found myself unemployed. I had nothing to lose.

“There were so many people looking for resources, so I spent the next couple of months working on all the details for our first mental health community resource event at a local library. I did everything for it: I coordinated it, I contacted people, I made the flyer. We had 32 agencies show up. It was more than I even planned. I didn’t have any experience with this. Once I saw how well it worked out, I started coming up with other topics and did 10 presentations over the years. Originally, when I introduced the topic of trauma, the library was hesitant because trauma is not an easy topic to discuss, but I knew it was something I wanted to talk about. It was the most well-attended event. There were no open chairs left. You could hear a pin drop. The speaker had their full attention.”

Because of the wounds we carry, we sometimes hurt people and we don’t mean to do it.

“What I’ve learned, unfortunately, in my life, is that when we have trauma that’s not addressed or healed, we walk around with it. Because of the wounds we carry, we sometimes hurt people and we don’t mean to do it. It’s not an intentional thing. We don’t realize. That’s why childhood trauma, or generational trauma, is prevalent throughout the world. I come from a family of generational wounding, and we were all too young when these traumas happened, and we had no support. Generational trauma can take generations to heal. I want to see families be connected, not detached from each other. We’re getting smarter and starting to understand how the brain works, especially in a child’s developing brain. We need to heal ourselves and our community members. Nobody should have to wait until their 60s to get their act together and understand who they are.

“The last column I wrote was really about how meditation helped me to connect with my inner self, the disconnected part of myself. I did guided meditation, and each time, I became very emotional. That’s when I realized I was connecting to my feelings. I’m coming home to knowing myself again – like really, truly knowing who I am. I’m feeling a love for myself that I haven’t felt most of my life. There’s always been something missing, and that thing I was missing was me. It brings tears to my eyes. Now, I could feel and love myself. I take each day as it comes. I think the beauty of having a voice is to use it to help people. I have nothing to gain by helping other people, except knowing that maybe somebody will be spared some of the pain that I’ve had to live through. It’s a very strange feeling to not know who you are.

“You can go through life not being connected to yourself and feel fine, or believe that you feel fine, but it takes time to reconnect with yourself. Everybody’s journey is unique. I’ve seen peoples’ resilience and other people’s journeys. I know for myself that I took too many hits and too many losses, so I wanted to really understand all of this because I didn’t want to hurt people. Life has taught me the hard way, but this is my journey.”

Instead of faulting each other for the traumas we carry, we should have compassion for the ones we carry, and do whatever we can to help each other. We always have to have hope.

“For those of us who have lost ourselves in childhood, it wasn’t through anything we did. It’s a survival mechanism that takes place. We disassociate and disconnect from ourselves because we were just in survival mode. As a child, we needed healing resources, and that’s what trauma-informed care is about. That’s what I want to focus on going forward. That’s what this journey has been about – learning about traumas and how the brain works and how healing works. It’s a very complex thing. It’s about realizing the power of these unhealed wounds and how they impact our lives. Everybody deserves to be happy, to have self-confidence and high self-esteem and to believe they are worthy of love. People have every right to feel it and to learn how to do that for themselves. People who have childhood trauma and wounds grew up believing that they’re unlovable, and then we make choices based on that without even realizing it’s all subconscious. It’s an issue of trust. We have to learn to trust ourselves first before we can trust any other human being.

“When you’re not available to yourself, you can hurt people. That survival feeling of having to self-protect is always there. I have to try to find ways to bypass that feeling, and I have to take care of myself. That’s why awareness is key and to understand the choices you’re making and why you’re making them. The wall is always there. That doesn’t go away, but now, I don’t want to stay behind that wall. I’m going to try to climb over it to get to the other side because I know there’s something better there. It’s not easy to let that go. It’s been an armor all your life, but it’s not the kind of armor that helps you grow. Some people are suffering so much that they can’t find it, but I just want to see people have happiness. Instead of faulting each other for the traumas we carry, we should have compassion for the ones we carry and do whatever we can to help each other. We always have to have hope.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas

‘Music can comfort people more deeply than almost anything else, so giving students that gift is special.’

West Hempstead

“I’m doing music because I couldn’t live without it. I grew up in Germany until I was 14. My parents were missionaries after WWII. My mother was a singer, and my father was a saw player. I was surrounded by a love of music.

“We had monthly meetings in our home, and families and professional musicians would play. This is where I met my violin teacher, who was a concertmaster. I lived next to a castle, and for lessons I’d walk 30 minutes to her special home.

“Later, I went to North Carolina School of the Arts, and then the Manhattan School of Music for my MA and DMA, and followed my love for learning. This allowed me to play for Broadway, film, commercials and a variety of classical music concerts, in addition to being nominated for a Grammy! Throughout, I was teaching violin performance at LIU.

I wish I had five lifetimes to do everything I want to do.

“My first time on Broadway was in 1980 subbing for the violinist in ‘Annie.’ The conductor discovered I played the musical saw and let me play the violin solos to ‘Tomorrow’ on it. Because of the saw, I was a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and I was on ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.’

“I also play the theremin, mandolin, recorders, dan bau, erhu and sitar. There’s nothing greater than learning until the last second of your life. I enjoy being creative and bringing music to people, which is why I founded the Long Island Vegetable Orchestra.

“I taught at Waldorf School in Garden City, where I created a rock concert out of rocks, and I had an eco-orchestra where we made instruments out of everything. I want students to have music anywhere in their lives, whether they’re at desks or Jones Beach.

“Music can comfort people more deeply than almost anything else, so giving them that gift is special.

“This year, my cabaret class at Long Island High School for the Arts performed at 54 Below. I was inspired by their transformation and how meaningful it was to them. People are more capable than they realize.

“In Germany, the old idea presented to me is that you couldn’t do more than one thing well. I wanted to prove that wrong. I wish I had five lifetimes to do everything I want to do. People shouldn’t waste a second and should have the clear minds to be able to pursue anything.”

Interviewed by Iris Wiener

‘I never thought it wouldn’t happen because acting was all I knew. I was so close I could taste it. Then, it happened!’

Oceanside

“When I was a kid in Oceanside, I had an inordinate amount of energy, and I wanted to be an actor. I never deviated from this goal. When ‘The Nanny’ came out, it became, ‘I want to be the Nanny!’ My career wouldn’t have happened without two things: My mom’s close friend being an agent for kids, and my having a willing and supportive mother. As a kid, I was lucky enough to be going on auditions all the time. We would schlep on the LIRR. I had a thick Long Island accent and had to get help getting rid of it. The first big job I got was on … ‘The Nanny!’ I was 12, and my mom and I flew to California. The Northridge earthquake hit a few hours after we arrived. Sony completely flooded, so we couldn’t shoot until the set was rebuilt a few weeks later. I had to come back and do it all over again.

“I was actually on the show twice playing two different characters: young Fran in a classroom, and three years later, Fran’s cousin. After one semester of college, it happened to be pilot season, so my agent called everyone who would listen, including Danny Jacobson, the showrunner of ‘Roseanne.’ She said, ‘I have a client you should write a show for, and if you don’t like her, you’ll never hear from me again.’ I sat down with him, and he shortly realized he wanted to give me a development deal with 20th Century Fox and create a new show. That show never happened. It was the first of many times I almost had it. I also had a deal with Nickelodeon. They were creating me a spin-off of ‘All That’ called ‘And Now This!’ It never went.

“I started doing stand-up when I was 14. One of my first bits was listing the Babylon train line in the announcer’s voice. At one point I bought a boom box and a karaoke CD and met a producer in the lobby of a Doubletree, where I did my shtick, including a song-and-dance number. I did anything to make this career happen! It all sort of worked because they were steps forward. I never thought it wouldn’t happen because acting was all I knew. I struggled so much on the way to where I am. I was constantly in meetings with people who said, ‘The right person is going to see you, and it’s going to happen to you.’ I was so close I could taste it. Then, it happened!”

It’s mind-expanding to be capable of a thing you never thought would be possible for you.

“When I tried out for ‘American Idol’ in 2008, I’d been acting for 20 years. I loved making music, and I’d gotten more serious about it when I’d moved to New York to do a show called ‘Jewtopia’ in 2003. I’m pretty much down to do anything creative. I auditioned for ‘Idol’ with 18,000 people in New York; they showed three auditions on TV, and I was one of them. Then, after Paula Abdul was on ‘The Tonight Show’ saying I was her favorite, I got eliminated immediately. Welcome to Hollywood! It was sort of a blessing that it didn’t happen. Even though it was devastating at the time, I don’t know that it would have been the most fruitful journey for me. I mostly did ‘Idol’ because I had been acting for so long and it wasn’t happening.

“After ‘Idol,’ I ended up being a musical comedian, touring colleges and doing commercials from 2010 to 2015. I didn’t have a lot going on when I got an audition to play Gilda Radner. I prepared for every single one of her characters, including costume changes. I brought a guitar, wrote a song, I brushed out my hair and practiced my voice. I was wildly prepared. I get chills remembering how, as I was leaving, the casting director opened the door and yelled to me down the hallway, ‘Jackie, don’t cut your hair!’

“Getting to play Gilda in ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’ was life-changing. It was a coveted role, and me, this no-name girl from Long Island who hadn’t worked in a while, got the part. The movie was an incredible experience that led to an audition for ‘GLOW.’ I read the script and was going to pass out because it was the funniest, deepest, most diverse, interesting, real, grounded, women-led, women-written thing. I tried out for every character on ‘GLOW’ before getting Melanie. I wasn’t an athlete, and we did all of our own stunts. We learned how to wrestle! That was me, body-slamming people. It was the most validating and empowering experience of my life. It’s mind-expanding to be capable of a thing you never thought would be possible for you. Our value in these situations is vaster than we ever could know. As a person who’d been acting for years, I was acutely aware of how rare of a situation I was in. To have the dream job was incredible.”

I’ve learned to be unreasonably tenacious in order to have a well-rounded career in which I get to do a lot of different things.

“My buddy Mike and I created ‘Do Re & Mi’ in 2014. I would have never known a cartoon takes seven years to make until I made one. He had an idea for a kid show with music, so we came up with a bunch of scripts. He also created an incredible amount of art, and my friend Dave helped write songs. Music and arts education are [historically] the first to go when schools are facing cuts. We wanted to make the show so all kids can have access to music education in one way or another. I was at Kristen Bell’s house and wanted to see if her daughter responded to the art and music. As I was showing it to her daughter, Kristen said, ‘I love this idea, let me know if you need any help.’ She came on as a producer and a voice. We started making the show in 2019, and it came out in 2021. Mike and I created it, Dave and I wrote all the music, and Kristen and I did voices and executive-produced. I wore a lot of hats, and it’s absolutely the direction in which I’d like my career to continue.

“When I got the opportunity to do ‘Best Leftovers Ever’ on Netflix, which was a cooking competition series, it put hosting at the top of my dream list. I love meeting and interacting with new people. A big part of hosting is improvising and thinking on your feet. We only did one season, unfortunately. Looking back, who knows what would have happened if I had not grown up on Long Island? My dad is a musician, and my mom is incredibly funny, so all of my good stuff came from my parents. My brothers are athletes, and my parents are both gym teachers, yet I somehow came out born in a leather jacket doing a dance number and have never stopped! I’ve learned that to be in my career, you must have perseverance and patience. I know I was more patient than I thought possible because I always had my eyes on the prize. I have an internal combustion engine to just perform and make art. I can’t not do it. If you want to succeed, you have to make stuff and put yourself out there. You have to have thick skin and want to keep coming back for more in the face of unimaginable rejection. I’ve learned to be unreasonably tenacious in order to have a well-rounded career in which I get to do a lot of different things.”

Interviewed by Iris Wiener

‘In February, I became a father, and I cannot wait to show my son that there are many paths in life you can take to be successful.’

Massapequa

“I always struggled in school. I had trouble focusing and was always acting out, getting in trouble. In third grade, I was diagnosed with ADHD, but the medicine had bad side effects, so my mom let me stop taking it. By senior year in high school, I was in danger of not graduating, with the only option of earning BOCES credit. Now I’m one of five kids, and my mom had always cut our hair. One day, I decided to try cutting my younger’s brother hair. It wasn’t the greatest haircut, but with that clipper buzzing in my hand, I could see myself pursuing barbering, and my mother noticed that BOCES had a barbering program.

“What started as some extra credit to graduate became a craft I fell in love with. My teacher, Mr. B., taught me the business side, and that you don’t need college to become successful. The day I got my high school diploma, I handed it to my mother, and by the following Monday I was cutting hair professionally. I was only 18. My friends were away at college; I was working Monday through Saturday at a Massapequa barbershop. Soon, I began to envision something bigger and better: I wanted to start my own brand of barbering. I went out on a limb and decided to open my own shop with money I had saved up over the years.

Find happiness in what you do, and the money will follow.

“My dad and I are both handy, so we found an empty storefront in Massapequa, gutted it and built a new three-chair barbershop from the ground up. At 21, I was the owner of my own barbershop. Then the pandemic lockdown hit. We shut down for a few months, reopening that June. The business started to take off after I cut a few rappers and influencers and posted their photos on Instagram. We took over an adjacent space and expanded to eight chairs.

“Nowadays, my shop is a staple of the community. We stay on top of the hairstyles everybody wants. Right now, skin fades are in. We sell hoodies and other apparel and our own hair products, do hot shaves, facials, eyebrows. Every one of our barbers is a recent graduate of the same barber school I went to. In February, I became a father, and I cannot wait to show my son that there are many paths in life you can take to be successful. Find happiness in what you do, and the money will follow.”

Interviewed by Jim Merritt

‘I grew up in Arizona, but knew in my gut that I was supposed to be in New York from the time that I could remember anything.’

Huntington

“I grew up in Arizona, but knew in my gut that I was supposed to be in New York from the time that I could remember anything. If you look at my high school yearbook, it’s always things like, ‘Have fun in New York!’ And then I got pregnant six months later, and that was it! I was pregnant with my daughter when I was 18. Her dad and I were high school sweethearts. I thought it was very important at the time, and I still do, that she has a good relationship with her father. So, even before I gave birth, he and I would hang out once a month to get used to being around each other and not hating each other, ha ha. And we’ve always had this really good relationship since then. I modeled that after my parents. My parents split up when I was 3, and they still did everything together, every school event. It was not traditional, but it set such a good example about what it means to have consistent parental figures in your life. I was very fortunate to have two fantastic parents.

“But moving to New York was always going to happen; it was just a matter of when. And the time became right when my daughter was 12. Neither of us had ever lived anywhere else, and I came out to Long Island and kind of sussed it out. And I came right home, packed my bags and sold everything that I had. I sold my clothes, little floral arrangements, every picture that I had on the wall. I was on Craigslist hustling. I sold everything because I had no money. By the time that I got here, I had like $500 to my name. I ended up with my resume walking up and down the street in Huntington. I walked into places and said, ‘I’ve had jobs in restaurants my whole life. I’ll be the best person you have working for you. I’ll scrub the floors, I don’t care. I’ll work my way up.’ I got hired in two places.

“Within a couple of months, I made enough money to have a car, rent an apartment and fly my daughter out. We’ve always been close, but something about being on this road together made us even closer. We just really enjoy each other’s company. We’re very similar, always making music playlists, and we’ll stay up all night talking. We get each other. She’s just a beautiful person.”

Anybody could do whatever the hell they want, you know? There’s no time frame. It’s never too late to be who you’re supposed to be.

“Besides moving to New York, another thing I felt I was supposed to do was music. Growing up, I was always in bands. When I was a kid, I was in choirs. Then, when I got older, I wanted to move to New York to sing, but six months after graduation, I got pregnant. And so that just didn’t happen. I was always touching on it here and there, and no matter whatever I did in my life, it always came back up. I tell my daughter all the time that you’re never too late in the game to just be who you are. I think a big part of who people are at their core is who they were as a child, before the world told you that you couldn’t be that version of yourself. But that doesn’t mean that’s not who you still are. The more you’re true to whoever that person is, the happier you are, and then you’re more in tune with everyone around you.

“It was around 2018 that I came out of a personal experience with someone where I was just like, ‘I never want to feel this uneasy about myself again. What am I going to do to change it?’ So, I just started changing things. I began showing up at this open mic in Huntington every Monday. And that’s kind of where I fell into this group of misfit musicians, and we’re all still good friends and play around to this day. I just fell in love with the energy there, and I felt like I was tapping into who I’m supposed to be. I guess the biggest thing is to stay in alignment with who your true self is. How are you going to be a good person if you’re so unhappy? Like, I’m not going to be a good mother if I’m pissed off all the time. I just decided that I’m never gonna allow somebody in my life, personally or professionally, to influence how I feel about myself. I don’t want to have that kind of self-esteem issue, so how can I work on it and make myself a happier person so I’m standing stronger on two legs? And then it just all kind of fell into place.

“Now, I’m a full-time musician and constantly performing. I love having my daughter at my shows. She’s so supportive! I’ve recorded with a multiplatinum producer, and I’m a Sony Music artist. Anybody could do whatever the hell they want, you know? There’s no time frame. It’s never too late to be who you’re supposed to be.”

Interviewed by Jay Max

‘After I was honorably discharged, I thought about studying medicine, but something had enchanted me about that poppy field.’

Holbrook

“When I was growing up in Massapequa, I didn’t really find Long Island that interesting. I didn’t think there was much history here; everything seemed to be developed. I read through my grandmother’s encyclopedias to see all the cool places in the world, and I had this old globe, and I would fantasize about all the different places I could go. My family doesn’t come from money at all, so there was no way I was going to college, but my grandfathers had made it out of Long Island and seen the world in the U.S. Army in World War II. I joined up at age 18 and served four years as an infantry rifleman in 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, including two seven-month combat deployments to Marjah, Afghanistan, from 2010 to 2011 and 2012 to 2013. We lost a lot of friends there. Three people at our first deployment, one during our second deployment. We were patrolling poppy fields in southern Afghanistan that were a source of funding for the Taliban. I would be up there in the guard tower watching them plant and tend a poppy field a little bit bigger than a football field, right in the middle of a community, and thinking this is a huge culture shock.

“I’m from Massapequa. I’ve never seen Central Asia, the Islamic culture, let alone farms. After I was honorably discharged, I thought about studying medicine, but something had enchanted me about that poppy field. I decided to study botany, the science of plants and how people use them. The whole time I’m going to college, I’m traveling as much as I can, digging at archaeological sites at the base of Mayan pyramids in Belize, and doing underwater excavations, finding coins on ancient Roman shipwrecks off the coast of Caesarea, Israel.

“I’m getting married on April 30, and my fiancée are I still traveling, but the more we go away, the more I’m seeing my connection to Long Island. No place can compare to my home, and the more I learn about ancient plant use, my archaeological field, the more I realize it’s a field that hasn’t been looked at on Long Island as much as other places. There’s so much to learn from studying archaeology on Long Island.”

There’s so much to learn, and archaeologists aren’t the only authority on our past.

“Many Long Islanders are into metal detecting nowadays. You can find gold watches, rings, jewelry. A lot of people are afraid to tell anyone about their finds. But in New York, anything that’s 50 years old is archaeological, and if it’s found on private land, it’s pretty much yours to own. If you think it’s a significant object, it’s ethical to let a New York State museum or a local university know that there’s an archaeological site there.

“For archaeologists, it’s not just about the stuff, it’s about the context that stuff is found in. We don’t make any money off what we find. We’re trying to measure or understand items that are essentially garbage from the past. In my field, I try to find out what kind of plants people were using in the past. I’m looking in the soil, digging in ancient kitchens, hearths and abandoned privies. I take what I find to the lab and look at the species of each seed to see the plants people were using.

“I teach at Queens College CUNY in Flushing, and I’m a PhD student at the CUNY grad center in Manhattan. I’m working on a dissertation investigating early 17th century colonialism in coastal New York, and, specifically, how plant use and foodways were impacted during periods of conflict. I’ve looked at seeds upstate in the Mohawk Valley, and soil samples from the New York State Museum excavated in the 1990s at Mohawk archaeological sites. I’m trying to see the differences in the plants the Mohawks were using before and after the Europeans arrived.

“I haven’t started my field work yet on Long Island. The most important thing to realize is that you might think you’re studying the bygone past, but everything that has happened on Long Island in the past impacts right now. Native American communities such as the Shinnecocks, Montauketts and Unkechaugs are still here. It’s their ancestors we’re studying, which demands equal partnership with descendant communities. There’s so much to learn, and archaeologists aren’t the only authority on our past. It’s the descendant communities, also including African Americans and European and more recent immigrants to Long Island, that have an equal partnership in understanding the past and using archaeology to explore it.”

Interviewed by Jim Merritt

‘I’ve had about 176 clients. My responsibility is to make sure when they’re getting ready to transition out of prison, resources are available to them.’

Westbury

“I first became aware of Network Support Services Inc. when I was in Otisville State Correctional Facility serving a 25-year sentence for an offense I didn’t commit.

“The residential prison program is designed for individuals who believe they need change, empowering incarcerated people to transform their lives and reenter society as productive citizens with a renewed sense of purpose.

“I became a group leader conducting sessions discussing stresses, concerns and long- and short-term goals. We created programs geared towards bettering ourselves. Network is a positive environment for human development in a caring community where individuals help themselves and each other. It’s like a brotherhood, so we look out for each other.

Time is precious.

“While participating in the program for two years, I rose up to become coordinator. I was released in May 2017 and placed on parole. Upon my release, the former executive director, who had a vision of this therapeutic organization, made me outreach coordinator.

“Since then, I’ve had about 176 clients. My responsibility is to make sure when they’re getting ready to transition out of prison, resources are available to them. We network in the prison, where I have the privilege of communicating with the guys.

“We network in the community, where it’s an ongoing therapeutic treatment that these guys will receive upon their reentry. We assess what they need: a debit card, Social Security card, employment, housing and transportation.

“They have to complete our 12-week programming in the community if mandated. My commitment to the people of New York is to reduce the recidivism rate of incarceration. This is the goal of Network. Providing housing and employment for the formerly incarcerated helps prevent them from re-offending.

“I believe that they are the ones who are going to really transform this world because they’ve come from a different world that society has no clue of what’s going on, and they’re at a greater advantage than normal people out here.

“Time is precious. I used my time in prison by developing a disciplined lifestyle. I allowed my mind to be set on positive ideas so that I can apply that same disciplined lifestyle in the community.”

Interviewed by Liza Burby