Grover Wind, Interview

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Historic and Cultural Preservation Department Oral History Program

“A Twenty-First Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against Covid-19”
As Remembered by: Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Mr. Grover Wind Interview by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
Date: December 10, 2021
Transcription: The Audio Transcription Company
Edited by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
MIDGE DELLINGER: This is Midge Dellinger, oral historian for the Muscogee Nation. Today is December 10, 2021. I’m at my home in Tulsa, Oklahoma interviewing Muscogee citizen and Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Mr. Grover Wind, who is at his office located in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. This interview is being performed remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I am performing this interview on behalf of the Muscogee Nation Historic and Cultural Preservation Department for the oral history project titled “A Twenty-First Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against COVID-19.” Secretary Wind, mvto. Thank you so much for being here with me today and participating in this project. We’re going to start out this interview by learning a little bit about you. And so I’d like to start with my first question. What is your [00:01:00] clan and tribal town?
GROVER WIND: My tribal town is Little Cusseta, which is right outside of Okmulgee here. And my clan is I’m a member of the Bear Clan. First off, let me say too thank you for inviting me to be a part of this program you’re doing because I think it’s not only very informative but very important that we are able to, shall we say, continue our education in this area. So thank you for having me today.
DELLINGER: Absolutely.
WIND: Okay, I’m sorry, go head.
DELLINGER: Okay.
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WIND: I have tendency to just get started talking, so sometimes you’ll have to reel me in, or sometimes I don’t want to get into different parts of your questions too early, so but, yes, I was born here in Okmulgee, and I was raised in Okemah, Oklahoma. Currently live in Morris, Oklahoma, which is six miles east of here, or it was six miles east of Okmulgee, so, yeah, this is my [00:02:00] home again.
DELLINGER: Will you share a little bit about what life was like growing up in Okemah?
WIND: Yes. My grandparents raised me. My grandparents took me when I was two weeks old. There’s a long story behind that. That’s another hour and a half, but took me when I was two weeks old and raised me. I basically consider them my parents. Was raised with another cousin who was a year younger than I was, so we were raised together. We were raised on my grandfather’s allotment out east of Okemah until the house burnt down. And then we moved into Okemah, and that’s where I continued my—I graduated from Okemah in 1969. Interesting story on where we grew up at, I can remember songs, and I can remember funny stories about people growing up without electricity. I was ten years old before we had [00:03:00] electricity out on our allotment. And I can remember when they brought the telephone poles and set the poles and everything.
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Growing up in the allotment, we grew up well-loved. Poor, but we always had food on the table. We always had clothes, clean clothes. Mama would wash them by hand. I called my grandmother Mama. Mama would wash them by hand. We may have patches, but they were clean. Grandpa farmed, so we always had meat. Again, we always had fresh vegetables with which to eat. We didn’t realize we were missing anything. You know, we didn’t have a TV until we moved to town, and I was eleven years old before we had a TV. But growing up with the culture, Mama was full-blood Cherokee. Grandpa was three-quarter Creek and a quarter Irish. Grandpa [00:04:00] was raised south of Okemah, and Mama was raised in Tahlequah. But I can remember times when we were growing up, because they were on social security, so grandpa had to go back to work when they took us, but I can remember times with Mama when he was at work.
We would get up early in the morning, just about sunrise, and we would go out walking in this—our 160 acres. And I can remember her picking and us helping her picking different plants and different herbs. And Mama would make medicine from that for healing, you know, whether it was a wound or whether it was a cough or whatever it was. We didn’t have factory-made medicine. We didn’t have shots and needles. We were raised, we were healed when we were—our medication was strictly off herbs that Mama knew. We would come home, and fixed for us or brewed for us. And I remember one particular time, [00:05:00] and I know this is—I’m going off in a different direction with you, but I’m just remembering memories. I’m recounting my memories. But I remember one particular instance when we were out walking, and it was—the sun was just coming up.
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And Mama was walking along, and she told us to be quiet and stay where we’re at. And she walked over real quietly underneath the tree. And she reached out, and she grabbed her hand—got her hand, and she grabbed an owl that was setting on the tree. And it was just setting there. I think the sun had kind of blinded it for a minute, but I mean, I think back now, I think about the ways of our people and how, you know, nowadays we’re so noisy. Nowadays we wear shoes. Nowadays, you know, we rattle through the brushes. But I look back and think of some of the things that I learned from her growing up. I wish many times that I had known how important these herbs were, the medicines were and kept [00:06:00] count and learned how to do this, but we were too eager to get to man made medicine. We were too eager to get the doctor’s medicine. And I remember thinking even recent years how I wish I would have learned and kept more about that.
We grew up going to church in High Spring Church, which is south of Okemah about five miles, back when churches would start church on Wednesday night before Sundays. And we would go to church on Wednesday night, and Mama would fix meals through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And we would have church all day Sunday. And I can remember other churches coming in. I can even remember—of course we had cars there, but I can remember even one particular church, one pastor that still had a horse and a buggy he would come in on. But I look back, and I [00:07:00] think how simple it was. But just how much more family-oriented we were then than we are now. But I thank the Lord every day for my upbringing. And I thank the Lord every day for—there was a
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reason that my grandparents raised me, and one of these days I’ll know fully why, but I appreciate my upbringing.
I grew up, my grandfather was fluent in English and Creek, but he would not speak Creek in the household, because he was afraid it would interfere with our learning the English language. And I can remember on occasions when I would ask him about it as I was growing up, on several occasions he would tell me that we had to be twice as good as white men to be as good as white men. [00:08:00] So he didn’t want any of our traditional ways to interfere with us merging and growing into what the world was now. Looking back and learning the history of our people and of our ancestors, and even he met my grandmother at boarding school. That’s how they become acquainted. And knowing what they went through of not being able to speak their language and address their cultures and stuff, I understand now why he was doing it and why he done it.
That’s why I’m so glad now that we’re adamant about bringing our culture back and our languages and teaching our young ones about what it was like and how it was and things we are. And I think it’s so important because we were given this earth. We were the caretakers. And even back [00:09:00] on the farm, I can remember how grandpa was always certain that when he took something from the ground, he put something back in. If he took, for example when we farmed, he would always make sure that he put some vegetation back in the ground so that the ground would be nourished and everything until the—but I look back now and see that, but as I say, I’m so glad that now we’ve gone the
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full circle, my grandkids particularly and my kids with my grandkids are so interested in learning about these things.
And I’m glad. But grandpa always said it would be our generation that we started, our children’s generation that would be the next step, but it’d be our grandkids and our grandkids would be the ones who would really start our full circle back. And I see it now.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to get off on that, chasing the rabbit down [00:10:00] that hole.
DELLINGER: No, I’m just sitting here listening. It’s fantastic. So now who are your grandparents who raised you? Can you mention their names?
WIND: Yes, my grandparents at Jesse and Lillie Wind, Jesse Sr. from Okemah. And my parents were Jesse Wind, Jr, and Zelma Yahola Wind, the two were, but my grandparents were Jesse and Lillie Wind from Okemah.
DELLINGER: Oh, go ahead.
WIND: I’m sorry, go.
DELLINGER: You have several siblings as well, right?
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WIND: Yes, I have eight brothers and sisters. And interestingly enough, my youngest brother, one of my youngest brothers is a pastor at High Spring Church. All my brothers are deacons at that church. One of my sisters is an elder there, so I mean, it’s interesting too that, yes, yeah, I have eight siblings. [00:11:00]
DELLINGER: Now, where did you graduate from high school?
WIND: Okemah.
DELLINGER: Okemah. And then, you know, where did life take you directly after high school?
WIND: I went to Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton. I went down there. And then that was—of course, I graduated in ’69, which was—it wasn’t the height, but it was during the midst of Vietnam War. And at that time most young men, particularly Natives,
were drafted and were sent to Vietnam. So I knew I’d be going to Vietnam when I dropped out of college. I dropped out of college, and I worked about, oh, about six months before I knew my draft notice would come back up again. At the time I decided to go ahead and join the Army, and one of my cousins, Kenny Bunner, who was like a big brother to me, [00:12:00] was one of our few Muscogee Native veterans who was a Green Beret. And he had just served a tour in Vietnam, and he come in one weekend and found out that I was going to join the Army, which, our family traditionally joined the Army, and he asked me to wait another weekend so he could talk to me again.
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And anyway, he ended up talking me into going to the Air Force, and so I joined the Air Force, and I spent seven years in the Air Force. I spent three and a half years active and then traded my active time for reserve times because they weren’t getting any volunteers in the reserves or guards. But when I got out I moved back to Tulsa and started at Tulsa Junior College. Then I continued on to the University of Tulsa. And then I end up getting into sales and marketing, of all things, a Native American in sales and marketing, and it was kind of a niche to be a Native American in marketing/sales because you just didn’t see it, you know. [00:13:00] And I was blessed, as I say, I look back on my grandparents, I was blessed with being around my grandfather because even though he was fluent in Creek and three-quarter Creek and quarter Irish, but even though that, he was very outgoing. He was a people person.
And growing up around him, I was afforded the opportunity to become like him. So that helped me in the sales field. But then I got in the sales field, and I was in sales field for years. And I got in construction several years ago. I had a construction—I’ve had several companies over the years, but I had this construction company and then retired eight years ago. And Secretary Shawn Terry, or Secretary of Health, Shawn Terry, was a good friend of mine and had talked to me about coming to work with health as a liaison for the elders and the churches and the communities and the grounds and the veterans. [00:14:00] And I wasn’t really sure I wanted to come out of retirement, so I kind of put him off a few times, and then COVID hit. And then Mr. Terry approached me again. And he said, “We really
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need some assistance,” and his foresight, Mr. Terry’s foresight in the health and wellbeing of our citizens, unless you know him, he’s very unselfish.
He doesn’t have to have, what’s the word I want to use, he doesn’t have to have the glamor of it. He’s quick about praising his workers or giving credit elsewhere. But where I’m going with that was he recognized that while healing of our people was very important physically, there’s also a side that we needed to be concentrating on that [00:15:00] we wasn’t, and that was the spiritual side. So he talked me into coming to work as a chaplain, and I worked with him for a year as a chaplain before I took this position. But and it was a very important part because, you know, initially my role was to visit with the family or visit a patient, COVID patients and COVID families. But what we found during the first early months, early stages of COVID, it wasn’t necessarily our patients or family’s patients, it was the staff because they were going through so much stress, and they was going through—and we were so shorthanded that they needed to talk.
And many times I would be walking down a hallway after visiting a patient, and the staff member would say, “Pastor, can I talk to you?” And so we’d go in one room. They just wanted to talk. You know, [00:16:00] they just wanted to relieve. You know, sometimes it was a death of one of their patients, sometimes it was the stress they were going through. Sometimes they were just tired, and they just wanted a shoulder to talk to, talk on. So his foresightedness, I think, really was important in helping to get us through the COVID thing with our staff and others, you know. But so I worked with him, and then this, of course, I‘m a veteran, and my heart’s always been with the veterans too, you know. So when this
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position—when unfortunately come this position, then I took this position. It was the only position that I would have taken other than the health position I had.
But it’s full circle, now here I am working with the veterans. I had—interestingly enough, I had an individual tell me the other day, said, it’s really interesting. Said the veterans’ end of it, [00:17:00] we need compassion there, and now we have a minister or somebody who has a compassionate feeling about veterans. So, God always has a plan. We just have to sometimes let him do his planning, quit trying to do ours.
DELLINGER: Yes. So now you mentioned that you live in Morris, Oklahoma. And how many years have you been in Morris?
WIND: I’ve been in Morris about twenty-four years. My wife Melodie Eaton, she was an Eaton, her family was from around Union High School in Tulsa. Her mother there, she’s kin to the Harrells. Her mother was a Harrell, which was around Jenks. And I have two daughters, Robyn and Kimee. And I have—let’s see, I have five grandchildren, and I have [00:18:00] five, let’s see, one, two, three—I told you I was going to make sure I had it right. I had one, two, three, four, I believe I have, it’s five great-grandchildren. I have three stepchildren. And I have one, two, three, four, five, six step-grandchildren. So we’ve got pretty good-sized family, you know. But I’ve lived in Morris now about twenty-four years.
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DELLINGER: Okay, yeah, and I had told you that I wasn’t going to make you give me the names of all of those grandchildren.
WIND: Thank you. (laughter) Because I would had to write them down to make sure, you know, so, but—
DELLINGER: Well, so at what point in your life, because I know you’ve done a lot of things throughout your life with your career, but at what point in your life did you go into the ministry?
WIND: Ten years ago. [00:19:00] Interestingly enough, I knew from a very early age what I was to do. I mean very early. I was probably eight years old when I knew what I was supposed to do and just never did it. I got involved in life in a different direction, but ten years ago is when I done what I was supposed to be doing. I just praise the Lord that he took care of me all those years and carried me all those years. And I look back again too, and that is I look back and see the times and the see the wrecks I’ve walked away from, see some of the instances I’ve walked away from that had to be his hand or I wouldn’t be here today. And I look back, it’s just like sales. When I went to—when I enrolled in college, when I enrolled particularly, and one of the reasons I picked University of Tulsa was I wanted an [00:20:00] engineering degree.
I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. That was my goal. Went to work for a sales company in Tulsa as a—inside sales, and first driving the truck and then warehouse and
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then inside sales. I never believed that I would ever be in sales, but I see the footprint of God along through the years. What is a minister? He’s a salesperson. What’s he selling? You know, he’s selling eternal life. He’s selling. But you know, I but I just look back, and I see through the years what—everything was just orchestrated to fall in place. If you had told me, or if you had told me fifteen years ago that I would have been a chaplain for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, I’d have laughed at you, no way, you know. Twenty years, well, you know, I can’t say I wouldn’t have been a minister because I knew all along I was supposed to, but, [00:21:00] yes, ten years ago, knowing sixty-two years ago what I was supposed to be doing.
DELLINGER: I just want to tell you this, we are going to talk a little bit more in detail about your time as a chaplain, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about your work there now as Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs. So what are some of your responsibilities and goals there with that position?
WIND: One of the things I would like to see, and we’re working on it right now, is offering more benefits for our veterans. Our original predecessor, my original predecessor when we started this, has done a tremendous job in benefits and disability benefits for a lot of us, even myself. He got my disability benefits. But one of the things that we have neglected is other benefits that [00:22:00] we can do for our veterans, whether it be helping to get a roof for a grant. But there are areas that we need to help service our veterans in their times of need. PTSD is something that we really haven’t done as much as we need to, you know, working with behavioral health and some other
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departments right now, there’s areas we’re looking at. We want our veterans to feel welcome. We want them to feel like—and as I’ve told them in several meetings we’ve had, we’re going to do all we can to help you however we can.
We probably won’t be able to help you with everything. The flip side is that there are organizations that can do things that we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We just want to find out who they are and how we can work with them. We’ve had, since I’ve been here, we have had, just in the [00:23:00] last three weeks we’ve probably had ten meetings with different organizations, finding out what they do. So is it something that we need to do, or is it something we can just join up with them and send our veterans and help our veterans? One of the things you’ll find with veterans, veterans will talk to veterans. They usually won’t talk with—when I say that, you know, they’ll get together. I’m not saying they won’t have a conversation, but veterans will really get down and talk to veterans. But Native veterans will talk with Native veterans.
Native veterans, lot of times, won’t even share feelings with other veterans, but their own Native veterans they will. So we’re wanting to develop an atmosphere to where—and one of their goals is to, starting in first year, once a month is have donuts and coffee here. Just let them come in. Let them sit around and a talk. Let them visit. If they need help with a
benefit or [00:24:00] need something we can help them with, then we’ll help them here, you know. We had a event Veterans’ Day. We only had, like, three weeks to get it done when we done it. And so went and got three dozen donuts, and some water and figured that—I really figured we’d probably have two dozen donuts to take home after we left,
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but we actually had thirty-one veterans plus their family show up. So we had close to sixty veterans that day here.
And was in a meeting yesterday where one of the other service organizations was telling us that the veterans, that she was dealing with some veterans, and they said that it was just so enjoyable to sit with other veterans. And it really was. Midge, I would walk out there, and I would see—they all got to meet their other brothers and sisters they had never met before. I’d walk out through the hallway, and they’d all be standing around talking about even [00:25:00] relating their experiences on different bases they were on or something. So there was a relationship there that I think is really needed, and I think that that’s a big help for us. So making a long story out of this, I want to develop what we can do as far as benefits for our veterans. I want them to feel welcome here. I want them to—I want us to—and I tell the staff, our veterans, that’s our customer. That’s why we’re here.
We have a beautiful museum back there to walk through, but that museum is not what we’re here for. We’re here for the veteran. And, you know, we’re happy to report that when I first got here, and it’s not because of me, it’s just because we’ve opened the doors more, and some of it had to do with COVID too, but when we first opened, when I first come here, we were having three or four a week. It’s not unusual to have three or four a day to come through now. Some of them just come in to talk. [00:26:00] And that’s okay. We’ll sit down, have a cup of coffee and just talk, you know, but that’s what we need to
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do. But we just—the veterans have been neglected for so long, and we just, there’s a need there that we’re going to do all we can to help them.
DELLINGER: Well, all of that sounds absolutely fantastic. It sounds like you’ve hit the ground running there, and I know that’s much appreciated.
WIND: Yes, ma’am.
DELLINGER: Yeah.
WIND: And I have to say, the support that we’re getting from the chief and second chief, it’s just been absolutely great. The support we’re getting from the council has been absolutely great. You know, I mean, we just—
DELLINGER: That’s important.
WIND: Exactly right. We cannot do with them. And I thank them both, both of them, the council and administration because without them we couldn’t do anything. But you know, they’ve just been very, very supportive in everything we’ve done, you know, so far.
DELLINGER: Right. So obviously from this conversation that we’ve [00:27:00] had here, you’re an extremely busy person, but I want to ask you, what types of activities do
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you like to engage in for yourself? Do you have any hobbies or special interests that you engage in?
WIND: Yes, the thing I enjoy doing most is building hotrod motors. I would never make a good mechanic because I’d have to get it done right then, you know. But I really enjoy—I grew up in the ’60s, remember. I grew up around hotrods. I grew up around the Road Runner, the Super Bees, the Chevelles, and the ’34 Roadster with the blowers on it, you know, and everything. So I love—that’s—when I, and it took my wife a while to understand this, but when I need to release, I’ll go out to my shop, and I’ll piddle with a motor. I’ll either build one, or I’ll repair something. And right now I’ve got an ’84 [00:28:00] Chevy C10 pickup that I’m building up, and I’ve got what they called a 383 stroke where it’s 350 that I’ve bored out and stroked, and I’ve got two four-barrel carburetors setting on top of it. And so I mean, that’s what I love to do.
Now, the flip side of that is, course, as you can tell, I love to talk. So I enjoy preaching. I enjoy it. And I call it speaking. I don’t call it preaching. Because to me, when you preach to somebody, you’re telling them something. But I like to speak because—and my wife and her group, they’re a gospel group my wife’s in—sings gospel. And I love to go hear singing, the singing, but, yes, I just—other than that, I’m just—and of course, I enjoy OU football. I have to but that in, OU softball (laughing). But, yes, ma’am. [00:29:00]
DELLINGER: All right, well, I’m glad that you have these things that you enjoy doing. Well, okay, so listen, we’re going to transition now, and we’re going to talk some about
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COVID and the COVID pandemic and your experiences from here over the last couple of years. It’s hard to believe that we are almost two years into this COVID-19 pandemic. But thinking back, do you remember when in 2020 you first heard about the virus and how you first heard about it?
WIND: Yes, it would have been early—I would say early summer of 2020, I guess, when I first heard about it. And like anything else, you just kind of think, oh, yeah, it’s just another, something else coming through. And then I guess the severity [00:30:00] of it was when Secretary Terry would have conversations with me because we had conversations about it on several occasions. And of course, he, you know, being firsthand and on the forefront and on the frontlines really seeing it. And honestly, I remember, looking back, I think I remember, well, this is just a phase. It’s only going to be a few months, and we’ll be over it. And it’s still an eye-opener to me when I realize just how wicked this disease was and is. And being probably involved with the health and the hospital and visiting the patients and visiting not as much—well, the families too because what they went through many times families couldn’t be with the [00:31:00] patients.
It didn’t take me long to realize this thing was for real. I think it helped from the standpoint for me, it helped me in dealing with the pastors and the churches because I seen it firsthand, and was able to say, hey, you know, this is not something that Midge told me about. This is not something so-and-so—I’ve seen this. I’ve experienced it. I’ve been there to see the suffering of the patients, to see the hurt and suffering of the family members, and there were times, of course, when they first began to give out the vaccines,
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there was a lot of pushback against it. Some say it was a conspiracy, and even in our churches they would say, no, that’s something of the devil. It’s 666 or whatever, [00:32:00] you know, there were lots of pushbacks in different ways.
But again, to be on the forefront and see just how bad this disease was, how bad this— how wicked it was, it was good for me because I was there firsthand. Over the years we’ve all stumbled, everything, but over the years—one thing Grandpa told me when I was growing up, that your word is the only thing you have. Respect, you earn. He told me one, he said—when I was little, he said a light shines. It doesn’t glow. And as a child—it wasn’t until I was older that I really understood what he meant. I’m going somewhere with this in a minute. But over the years, when I started with—when my wife and I began the ministry, I started out [00:33:00] as an evangelist to our Native churches. And, you know, every Sunday we have a fourth Sundays. So we have a list of churches. You might have ten or twelve this Sunday and then on down another through the month.
So we have eighty-seven of them on that list, and I made all but fifteen of them. And I’m going somewhere with this. Just let me tie it in. But I realized during the pandemic that there was a reason that I visited all these churches before. There’s a lot of people out there. There’s a lot of our citizens that went to these churches, and if I had just been Grover Wind who just showed up as a chaplain for health, you know, and said, hey, you need to get your vaccine because of this and everything, most of it would have, just rolled off their back. But here was a guy who was in my church. Here was a guy who ate lunch with us. Here was a guy who’d done four Sundays with, here was a guy who was in our
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revivals. So I really think that helped me when I would talk to pastors and say, hey, guys, this [00:34:00] is real.
We need to get to our churches. We need to know that this is not just a conspiracy. This is something that we really need to help them take care of. So when the vaccines come out, I approach Secretary Terry, and I said I know this is for the frontline people for our nurses and doctors, but if you don’t mind, I would like to have the shot. And he said you are frontline because you’re in the hospitals every day with—so, yes, you can have it. So by taking the shot, I was able to tell other pastors, hey, I didn’t grow a third ear. I don’t have another arm. But this is real. And I was blessed through all this. My wife caught it. Three of her sisters got it. Her brother got it. Her mother got it. They almost lost her stepdad. I never got it. The whole time I was in I never got it. Being in and out the hospitals, being with patients, patients’ families, being around my wife’s family, being around it, I never got it.
Praise the Lord. [00:35:00] I’m not bragging. Again, I’m making a point, and but I think the vaccine had part of it, to do with it, you know. I think the hospitals—and those nurses, before I went into a room, would make sure that I was fully protected, that I had the gowns on, that I had the gloves on, that I had the mask on, and sometimes I would have on two masks and, of course, the flip-down mask. So I believe that was a lot of it. But during the middle of the pandemic, one of my little brothers text all of us. And he told us, he said we’re not going to get this. He said Mama told me that—my real mother, you know, said told me that there was something in our blood that we would never get
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these diseases. And, Midge, you know that none of my siblings have ever had it. While their family may have had it, while their spouses may have had it, none of us have ever had it.
So [00:36:00] whether there’s something to that or not, I don’t know. But in the midst of all this, by being able to go, by being with the churches early on before this ever happened, by being with the health department, I think that we were able to reach more than what we would have. And again, I have to give Secretary Terry this, I have to give credit to him because when he first talked to me about coming on, that’s what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to relate, get out and be among the churches, the communities, you know, just so he would have a spokesman out there. Your question was, and I’ve probably gone around it, what was my first thoughts about it? My first thoughts was it’s just going to be a passing thing. But the more I was involved in it, the more I knew just how—and it’s still here, as you know, but also saying that, the more I have learned [00:37:00] to not only appreciate Secretary Terry but appreciate our health people.
I tell nurses, particularly nurses, almost every time I see one, “I appreciate you so much,” because before then, before working in the hospitals with these nurses and before seeing them work two shifts, then go out to their car and take a short nap to come back in because they were short-handed and to see them literally so tired that they couldn’t hardly walk but that they were there, before that, to me going to the hospital was going and getting my tonsils out, going and getting a foot that you broke, you know, a cast on it or going to clinic was getting a flu shot. And so I learned to appreciate our health
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department and our frontline workers so much this last year and a half. I mean, they just—when you see one, you need to [00:38:00] stop and just tell them thank you. And it’s parallel to our veterans.
You know, our veterans sacrificed parts of their lives, three years, two years, seven years, twenty years of their life to serve this country, and we need to thank them. We also need to thank our health people. But anyway, I made a long—I hope I answered your question, but if I didn’t, tell me again.
DELLINGER: No, you did, absolutely. But actually, we’re going to go back in time here again, and so when this pandemic started, which, really it made it to Oklahoma here in March of 2020, were you already working as a chaplain for the health department?
WIND: No, ma’am. I didn’t start until September of 2020.
DELLINGER: Okay.
WIND: Yeah, I actually talked to—Secretary Terry talked to me, let’s see, he would have talked to me in [00:39:00] April. He approached me in April, and he approached me again in–well, we talked off and on until I took the job. I actually was going to start in July. But my wife got it, and then her family got it. So we held off until all was well before Health could take me on, bring me on board.
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DELLINGER: Okay, okay. At the beginning of the pandemic, and you’ve already shared that you felt like this was just going to be a passing thing, do you remember what some of the initial conversations were with your family once you realized that it was a more severe issue?
WIND: Yes, disbelief. I mean, when I say disbelief, same thing with them. This is a passing thing. I couldn’t—[00:40:00] in my own family sometimes, I couldn’t get them to understand the severity of this. I’ll use my wife as an example. “I’m not going to take the shot. I don’t need it. I’m not going to take it.” And it wasn’t until I guess I had my shot for over a month before she began to realize that what I was telling her about the severity was there. And when people began—because, well, when people began to die, I guess, is when people began to really view this as something serious, you know. But again, the general public didn’t have the—wasn’t afforded what I could see. When I would see the patients struggling to breathe, when I would see the patients begging the nurses or doctors or [00:41:00] even me, “Can I have the shot?” It was too late.
We couldn’t give it to them. But my family and associates, I actually was probably able to reach others before I could them because the conspiracy thing was pretty strong. And it actually took hitting home in some cases to make them realize this was for real. And, you know, I just wish people would get over this conspiracy thing because it’s not a conspiracy because, as somebody told me one time, ask all those people in India if it’s a conspiracy or whether they would like to have the vaccine. So it took longer than I hoped it would [00:42:00] to convince them this thing was real. And there was times when I
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would—I told my wife, “I wish I could take you into the room with me, and you could see what I see. Then you would know.”
DELLINGER: Okay. Well, when, you know, back in 2020 when local and state governments started locking things down and telling people to shelter in place, obviously you personally were not able to—well, I guess initially you could have. Did you and your family shelter in place at the beginning of the pandemic?
WIND: No. No. Well, let me back that up. Let me back up. Yes, yes, I guess we did. Course, at the early onset, I’m trying to think, [00:43:00] we were just probably very careful. Yes, and we didn’t go eat out. We were more careful in going to the grocery stores and stuff like that, just to keep it from—but when we did get in the height of it,
when the nation was closed down, when the Creek Nation was closed down, yes, we were more sheltered then. I have to say we were then. My wife still works. She worked for housing, so she would work three days a week. I worked every day, because I was, I needed to be there. But I don’t know so much it was sheltered as just being careful.
DELLINGER: Yes. So can you share, most people, most of us developed very quickly, like, different types of safety measures and even routines that we would go through if we left the house and, you know, when we came back into [00:44:00] our home, did you have any type of specific safety routines that maybe you and your wife followed?
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WIND: Yes, we always carried sanitizer with us. We always carried wipes with us, and we always carried a mask. Now, and any time we got out of the vehicle, we would put the mask on. At home we didn’t, but at home, she was very careful about making sure that we had Lysol, we cleaned. And if I can, I would like to tell a funny story about that. When my wife got COVID, when she tested—I tested. Of course she tested positive. I tested negative. So Secretary Terry gave me a B12 shot, and he gave me a bunch of vitamins to take, and he gave me some Lysol, and he said, “You be sure and protect yourself and clean up,” you know. So I got my wife home, and she wasn’t feeling very good. [00:45:00] And everywhere she touched I’d spray that Lysol and wipe it off. And I wasn’t realizing I was hurting her feelings until later (laughs) that evening she said something about it.
And I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I just wasn’t even thinking,” you know. But she said, no, I understand. Need to do it so you don’t get sick. But yeah, I hurt her feelings that first day because everywhere she touched I’d spray and wipe it off. Back to your question, yes, probably the most thing we done is we always made sure we had some kind of hand sanitizer. And if we shook hands with anybody, we would wipe our hands. I mean, there were times when I would apologize to somebody and say, hey, you know, I don’t mean to offend you, but this is just something that we do. I suggest you do it all also. And if you need, I’ve got a bottle of hand sanitizer. And we always tried to carry extra with us so if we could give to somebody we could, you know. So—
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DELLINGER: I’d like for you to share, if you will, what is your knowledge and understanding [00:46:00] about the COVID-19 virus, including, if you can, where it came from? And, being there on the frontlines in the hospital, you’ve seen a lot of horrific things, if you can share just a little bit about the effect that the virus that can have on the human body if somebody contracts it.
WIND: I really probably really can’t address where it came from because I honestly really don’t know. I have my thoughts, which is thoughts, you know, most what’s out there and everything. So if I were to share that it would be strictly my opinion, so I really don’t have any feel for that. You know, as far as effects it has on the body, seeing my wife—more firsthand, the patients, [00:47:00] usually, when I see the patients it was in the room, and I wasn’t there for maybe thirty minutes, an hour, you know, but seeing my wife, the time that she was down, she lost her appetite. She lost taste. She didn’t have any taste for food for—I literally had to make her eat something because she didn’t have any desire to eat. She didn’t have taste. She didn’t—fever, she had fever. She didn’t have any respiratory problems, but in the hospital I seen quite a bit of that, struggling for air, and that’s probably the thing that I guess stayed with me most is seeing them fight for air, [00:48:00] you know.
And that’s probably the hardest thing because that’s the one thing that, other than giving them oxygen, that’s the one thing, you could—I can make my wife—I say make. I can’t make her. But I can encourage my wife to eat. You know, I’m going to stand here until you eat some of this soup. I’m not leaving until you eat something. “Well, okay, I’ll eat,”
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you know. But I can do that, or I can give her a cloth, a warm cloth or wet clothe to help with the fever. Or I can give her something, a pill or something with the fever. But those that were having struggle breathing, I couldn’t help them breathe, you know. And that’s the part that probably bothered me the most. And you realize then that the only one who can give you life or breath is our father, you [00:49:00] know.
God is (unintelligible), so but that’s probably the most it still stays in my mind. The loneliness of not only the patient but the family member not being able to be with their loved one, but sitting in a room with a patient trying to be that gap for them because their family’s not there, talking with them, praying with them, encouraging as much as you can. That’s a situation where, I believe in healing. I’ve been healed. You know, I’m not one where Midge told me she was healed, or she seen somebody healed. I’ve been healed. I was healed when [00:50:00] I was very young, and I was healed several years ago. Anyway, but it’s just, it was just one of the other things, I guess, as I say, was just the loneliness that a patient had for not having a loved one there with them.
And a lot of times when they would depart our world, it’s not having that loved one there, that’s one of the things, especially the families particularly with our Native people. We share that last—we want to share that last step with them we can. Even our burials, we’re there with them. We want to see them covered up. We want to do that last handshake. A lot of places when they have burials, they just take the casket out and they leave, and then it’s, you know, it’s lowered and covered, and we’re not like that way. So particularly in or people, one of the things that really was wrenching was the fact that [00:51:00] they
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didn’t have family with them. Now, in saying that, that’s one of the issues Secretary Terry really worked hard on and just working hard on was to be able to have rooms to where if it happened again to where the patient wouldn’t have to be alone.
They could have a family member, at least close where they can see them. So but that was probably the hardest thing, Midge, was seeing the hurt, the loneliness of dying alone. And I think that’s what struck so many of our staff was they were there. They were the intermediate between the family and the patient, and it, after a while, it got to where it was just a struggle. And one of the things [00:52:00] with staff, with nurses would be I would get a call, you know, it might be at ten o’clock at night. It might be a Saturday or Sunday. It just, I would get a call. Can you come to the hospital? The nurses need you. And again, we would go in, and we’d pray, and then I would just ask them, does anybody want to talk? You need to talk, let’s talk. And one of the things would be, “Well, Chaplain, I just fed him supper at six o’clock. And they were good. We were laughing. We were talking.
And I come back, a while later they were gone.” Not knowing exactly what this disease was and can do was one of the biggest problems, I think, and I can’t speak for Health. For I’m speaking from my standpoint, was one of the biggest problems that we had. It was that we didn’t know what to expect. [00:53:00] You know, I know an example where a patient, they were having a little problem with their heart. And they got that straightened out and was feeling good and everything checked out good. They went home that morning, and that night they had a heart attack. Blood clots. This disease caused blood
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clots, you know, and that was something that wasn’t discovered until sometime into it. So this disease was not only wicked disease but it was, there were so many things that it done. We just didn’t know. We didn’t know to look for until we’d lost some deaths, and we’d begin to tie together what it was. So it’s a scary disease.
DELLINGER: I want to ask, just from the things you share here, [00:54:00] it sounds to me like you really put yourself on call twenty-four-seven to be available to, you know, spiritually nurture and care for our people. How did you at the end of every day nurture and care for yourself? How did you do this every day?
WIND: I have strength in the Lord, and I had strength in my family. It was hard sometimes. My wife was a big strength to me. I would talk with her a lot. I couldn’t tell her situations [00:55:00] at the hospital. I couldn’t tell her the patient situation, but I would just talk. And there was a time when I was doing or I was at ten funerals a week. It’d be one in the morning, one afternoon. I was either officiating or helping or just representing the health department or tribe. Sometimes I just had to get by myself. And I’d pray. And I read the Bible. And but a lot of times I [00:56:00] would just talk to my wife. I’d just say—we’d just talk. But the encouraging part for me was I knew that I was taken care of. I knew God was always taking care of me, and I knew Secretary Terry would never put me in a situation where it would be detrimental to me or my health.
And I want to say this, and I hope it sounds right, but what kept me going was I knew that the patients, the staff was hurting and losing more than I was. And you had to be strong
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and be there for them. And as I said, many times it would be just to talk. [00:57:00] Many times it would be just when I say talk, just to listen. I wouldn’t talk. I’d just let them talk, you know. But I couldn’t have done it without the Lord. I couldn’t have done it without my wife because she was a big help, and I couldn’t have done it—and there were times that even Secretary Terry would say, hey, let’s talk, or let’s go have lunch. And we’d just talk, you know. So but anyway, he was good for me too.
DELLINGER: That’s good. That’s good. Well, thank you for answering that question. Throughout the pandemic, with your work as a chaplain and a minister, what changes have you seen in people’s spirituality? [00:58:00]
WIND: You know, we go through life thinking we have control of our life, and I say that because I’ve always been one of these that, all the years that I was in business, I like to know what’s going to happen here. I like to be prepared for if this happens or if this happens. I think people realize that there was a stronger force, that there was a spirit, that there was something that, I don’t want to say controlled our lives but that was essential in our lives being—how do I want to say this—guiding our lives. And so I think we all learned there was spirituality to all that we are, what we come from, and to get us through. Hope is [00:59:00] a very important thing. You have to have hope for anything to happen. But for hope to work, you have to believe that it’s going to work. So through all this time, I think that we learned that there’s something more than just a needle, something more than just a vaccine.
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There’s something more than just that that helps us get through life. I know I do. I know there’s not a day that goes by that I couldn’t get by without him. There’s not a day goes by that whatever happens, he has control or he can help me. And I think it was kind of a
moment for us to realize, hey, there’s something more. There’s something, shall I say, superior [01:00:00] in our life for us to grab hold of, to understand, and to know he’s there. And sometimes that faith and that belief is all we have to get us through, believing that it’s going to be taken care of. So I believe spirituality is a thing that we’ve gotten away from that helped us again to focus, hey, there’s something out here than the needle to help us, you know.
DELLINGER: Yeah. So in 2020 after the pandemic was here in the Muscogee Nation, and you’ve touched on this a little bit, but what impact did the pandemic have on our Muscogee Nation churches? What did those folks go through? [01:01:00]
WIND: Spirituality, I believe, that the churches were our strong point because at no time did I not know or not hear that our churches weren’t gathered together, whether it’s for prayer or to help each other. But the thing that it done to our churches was—it hurt our churches in the respect that when the churches—and of course, I give this to our administration, and I applaud them for it, at no time did they say churches, you’re going to close. All they said was be careful, and if we can help you, we’ll help you.
And Secretary Terry himself, you know, I know would be—always was open to sending masks out to the churches, if they needed masks. And we even offered to bring vans out
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to the churches to give vaccines if that’s what want to do. But it hurt our churches in respect that [01:02:00] as you said, a lot of the population sheltered. So you didn’t have people going to church. And if you don’t have people going to church, you don’t have tithes being paid. And if you don’t have tithes being paid, then, you know, your finances are not what they need to be. So financially I think our churches were hurt in that area. I think we got into a mode of getting away from assembly. And you know, I know we are the church ourself. You’re the church, and I’m the church. But there’s also important for assembly, not only for learning but also just for the fellowship.
And I think [01:03:00] we lost some of our fellowship in our churches, meaning not being—you know, there were some churches never closed down. None of them closed down during this time. But probably the biggest thing is, again, is financially they were hurt because they didn’t have the congregation to help pay for the needs of the church. Spiritually, I don’t think we ever lost. Spiritually I think they were even stronger in some areas, you know, because they would even have, of course, during that period of time, my wife and I, we had been livestream for almost a year, and to take care of the churches. And a lot of the churches, lot of the older churches didn’t have livestream because they didn’t have Wi-Fi in the churches, or they didn’t have the understanding to do anything. So I think that you’re seeing a lot more of that livestreaming done that you would ordinarily have, but I think [01:04:00] now, I think now that we need to get them back to the fact that, hey, okay, let’s quit livestreaming. Let’s go to church. So but I think probably financially was the most our churches were hurt, besides congregation wise.
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DELLINGER: Yes. Now, as someone who is obviously out and about within many of our Muscogee Nation communities, I want to ask you, do you think that our more traditional Muscogee people had a different mindset or approach to how they have dealt with the pandemic?
WIND: Oh gosh.
DELLINGER: You have any thoughts about that?
WIND: No, I really don’t because I don’t think that there’s really been [01:05:00] any different approach. I think the biggest thing that for any of our culture, any of our citizens, has been really, has been knowledge. When I say knowledge, and just understanding and not knowing. I don’t think it really mattered whether you were traditional or whether you’re the cultural or church or whatever it was. I just think it was—I think the thing that affected all of us was education, and that’s the one thing now that we try to do early on is get an education out there, you know? No, I didn’t really see a difference here, yeah.
DELLINGER: Okay. I want to go back to the vaccine. You’ve already mentioned that you’ve been vaccinated. And which vaccine did you receive?
WIND: The Pfizer? It was the first one, so I took the first one. I took the Pfizer when it first come out?
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DELLINGER: Did you have any side effects?
WIND: No, ma’am. [01:06:00] No, ma’am.
DELLINGER: That’s great.
WIND: I mean, my arm was a little sore from the shot, but I had no side effects, and I didn’t have any side effects with the booster or either shot, and I took the booster a while back, but I didn’t have any side effects other than a sore arm, you know. And I think that’s just me because I don’t like shots. But, no, I had no effects at all.
DELLINGER: Okay.
WIND: Secretary Terry (unintelligible) about it and laughed about it during all this episode going on during the pandemic, during the height of it. He threatened to bring me into the hospital and take my blood and sell it because I wouldn’t have any infection or so. But anyway, so I stayed away from him for a while. I’m kidding. I’m kidding.
DELLINGER: How has the pandemic impacted your work there in the veterans’ affairs office? And also, you know, what impact has it had on the veterans themselves? [01:07:00]
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WIND: Okay, it’s effected the office here because of the closedown of the nation. Not being able to, you know, have a veteran’s come in like we would be during normal times. It’s affected our veterans. Or it’s affected our veterans because of the effects that COVID has, and that being, you know, early on the biggest loss was some of our oldest, our elders, and we had a lot of Vietnam veterans. And of course you know, most of them are my age or older, which, you’re talkin seventy, seventy-five, seventy-seven. So the effect of it as far as the health, it affected the health more so of our veterans. [01:08:00] Benefit wise, being able to get some of the benefits for some of the other organizations because they were closed. So yes, it did have an effect on things we could do for our veterans.
DELLINGER: What about the Honor Guard? And I hope that’s the right name— WIND: Yes.
DELLINGER: —that I’m using. Have they been able the entire pandemic to continue their duties?
WIND: Absolutely, absolutely, and let me put a plug in for those guys, like the Health Department. That’s a group that I have the utmost respect for because when I was doing these funerals for the veterans, they would be out there paying the honors for the veterans. There were times when, and me being in the past or even now, there are times when the Honor Guard, the funeral would be at 2:00, but you know how Native funerals are. And they may be out there [01:09:00] until four, five o’clock waiting. There are
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times that I’ve seen them in the rain, in the cold, in the snow, in the sleet waiting to—no, they never missed a beat. They never missed a beat. They were always there for whenever the funeral was. They have a small group, and the group they had was—and just like myself, there were times when they would do two funerals a day.
There’d be times when I’d see them at one funeral and see the other group in another funeral. Yeah, no, they were very—I don’t know of any they missed because of COVID. Now, they—likewise, of course, how big a cemetery they can distance from the congregation, and of course they wore their masks when they need to, but, yeah, no, no, they were always here. I’m proud of them. I’d do anything in the world I can to help those guys.
DELLINGER: Okay, that’s great. [01:10:00] What are your thoughts about how the five tribes—so we’re going to go outside of the Muscogee Nation here and include the other four tribes. What are your thoughts about how they have handled the pandemic in comparison to the state of Oklahoma and even the federal government?
WIND: Oh, wow, I think—and you probably have seen this—we actually, the tribes actually gave more shots out than even the public health service. And I remember one meeting I had at the mayor’s office. He has a monthly meeting, what he calls his monthly advisory committee where you have the VA hospital, we attend. You have the different organizations of Tulsa that are affiliated with veterans in one way or another. And I was up there, oh, this has probably been, [01:11:00] golly, what is this? This is December—so
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this is probably would have been when we were in the heights of when we were giving shots though. I’m going to say first of the year maybe, May, maybe, something along in there. I don’t remember exactly what the day was. But the director of the veterans’ hospital got it, and he was speaking and he was talking about the number of shots, of vaccines taken, given.
And I had just been at a meeting with Secretary Terry. We were talking about the number we had given. And he was talking about, at that time they had given 113 shots, and they were going to have another vaccine that weekend to see how many more they could give. After the meeting I walked up. I walked up to him, and I said—at that time we had given 4,000 shots already? And I walked up with a little bit of pride [01:12:00] saying, hey, you know, we’ve already vaccined, I think it was 4,000, something in that. But, no, I think the tribes really stepped up and offered vaccines not only for our tribal members but for non tribal members, going into the schools and giving the vaccines. You know, so, no, I think the tribes were way ahead of not only federal government but the state government in their fight to do something about this, about this epidemic.
DELLINGER: Yeah. So as you mentioned earlier in the interview, and as we know, we are still in this pandemic. This pandemic, unfortunately, hasn’t ended, and we’re all still having to deal with it. What are your thoughts about how this virus continues to mutate, and it doesn’t seem to be going away? [01:13:00]
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WIND: I really don’t have any thoughts on that. I really don’t know. I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t understand. Of course, the original question you ask was where did I think you started or where—and I said it used to be my thoughts. And course, you know, early on there were—okay, I’m just going to give my thoughts, okay?
DELLINGER: Yeah.
WIND: Early on, and studying this, and one that’s one of the things I’ve done, and that’s study on it because I had to present it to the churches, and I had to present it some of the elders. So it wanted to be able to talk about it to some degree. So in researching what I read, what I come up with, was, yeah, it initially had started as a study in one —of our universities. [01:14:00] And a particular president, when he found out what they were researching, cut off funding, cut off the grant for it. And but China had reached out to these particular scientists brought them or took them to China to do the research on it. So you know, my limited knowledge of it was that that’s where it got started and was started actually testing their people, and that’s actually how it got out of hand. Tell me the question again. I got off on another rabbit hole. What was your original question?
DELLINGER: That’s okay. I had just stated that we are continuing to be, you know, in this pandemic, and it’s not going away. And [01:15:00] I was just wondering what your thoughts were about that, you know, how do we continue going forward?
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WIND: Okay, if it were indeed, if it is indeed come from a lab, I can understand why it’s attacking—it’s a different mutation every time, how it was developed to not only come in and be able to fight, not only that, that strain but have another one to overcome it, to just continually get bigger and bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger. That’s the only thought. That’s my thought that I would have, and it’s not educated, and I don’t have any resources to back it. It’s just my own personal opinion. But that’s why I think the mutation is like it is. I think it’s just—I think it was intended to do that when it was designed. Again, it’s just, this is just my personal opinion because I have nothing to back this, but [01:16:00] I really think that, yeah, it was developed in a lab.
DELLINGER: Okay. Well, I tell you what, we are winding down at this point. We’re towards the end of our interview. And so with this next question, I would like for you to really think about our future generations of Muscogee who may find themselves in the situation that we’ve been in here the last two years trying to survive a global health and economic crisis such as this COVID-19 pandemic. So what words of advice or wisdom can you give to them about living with and surviving such a catastrophic event?
WIND: You know, early on I mentioned that we were given this land to be caretakers. And I [01:17:00] strongly believe that. I also believe that I talked about the spirituality of it. Years ago Billy Graham made a prediction. He was talking to some of our Native leaders and some of our Christian leaders on the Navajo reservation, and he made a prediction that next greatest revival would be led by the Native Americans. And I read that, and as I was studying, as I began to minister, as I was in my studying, that really
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was something that really just kept popping out at me. So as I began to study it and even reference it through scripture and other areas, it always just kind of stood out and always just kind of—it was always something that just kept coming back up to me. So several, years ago we had a revival. I had a revival here, at the Dome.
And one of the ministers I brought in was a minister from [01:18:00] Arizona from the Navajo Reservation, Brother Ellison Bennet. And I ask him after one of the revivals. We were having breakfast. And I said, “Brother Bennet, I have a question for you.” We talked about, I mentioned that the prophecy Billy Graham had made, and I said, “Do you think that is so?” And he said, “Yes, I do.” And I said, “Well, why do you think it’s so?” And he said because the Native American has always been spiritual. The Native American has always been spiritual with the Great Spirit, God as some call it. And he said I’ believe that’s why the Great Spirit or God has said this about the Native Americans, because he can talk to the Native Americans where he can’t talk to some of the other groups. Made a lot of sense.
So where I’m going with this is I think you’re seeing us get stronger spiritually [01:19:00] as tribes, as members, as Native Americans. I’ve always believed that we didn’t cross over the Bearing Strait. I’ve always believed we have always been here. I believe this is our land. I believe it will be our land, always will be our land, and as I’ve spoken some of our veterans meetings, is that, you know, we have the largest percentage of people that serve in the military of any ethnic group. One out of four Native Americans serve versus one out of twelve other ethnic groups. So this is our land to
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protect. I see us getting stronger. I see our—I’ll take our five tribes. I see our five tribes doing things together, as a group instead of individually. [01:20:00] We’re getting, my advice or my thoughts and not my advice, my thoughts will be we need to continue to look upon each other as brothers and sisters, not as Creeks and Cherokees and Choctaws and Apaches and Comanches, because I believe that we all initially, in the very beginning, were taught things that others weren’t taught.
And I also think that education is so important in our cultures. And as you know, our history was not taught in Oklahoma history or American history. And I think it’s very important that we teach history as history happened. You know, the old saying is [01:21:00] so it won’t repeat itself. But mainly so that our young ones know what happened so it doesn’t happen to us again. I’m proud of the way that our young ones are now starting to step up. You know, I don’t advocate violence by any means, but I do advocate unity. And I think that’s, again, I was glad to see this inter-tribal come back together. That’s what we need to do. Fighting this COVID, I see our five tribes, I seen them working together. I seen them sharing things. I seen them helping each other. And that’s what it’s going to take, you know, for us to get through another one.
DELLINGER: All right. Thank you so much for that. In closing, is there anything that I have missed, possibly, that you would like to say or [01:22:00] share about your experiences with COVID-19 pandemic?
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WIND: No, I think you pretty well covered it. Like I said, I just, I want our people to realize that as many negative thoughts as we get, that I want them to realize that our Health Department is really, really an exceptional department and really in good hands. And so many things that are happening, that are going forward that are going to be for the benefit of our people. I know I think you’ve covered it well. I think COVID was wicked and severe but not as wicked and severe as it could have been if we hadn’t had some hands on it in the beginning to kind of get a feel for what we needed to do. So I just, again, I applaud the Health Department. I think they’ve done a tremendous job.
DELLINGER: Very good. [01:23:00] We will leave it at that. And again, mvto. Thank you so much. Your experiences and your thoughts and your words are important and greatly appreciated. So thank you for taking the time to do this, Secretary Wind.
WIND: And thank you for taking the time to let me speak. And you have a blessed day, sister. All right.
DELLINGER: You too, and stay safe.
WIND: Amen. Bye-bye.
END OF INTERVIEW
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