Victor Davis Hanson (66:05)
She would be. I mean, she grew up in the house where I'm living in, and she was the fourth generation to live there. No one had ever gone to college. And her father had three girls, she and her sister, and her oldest sister was completely bedridden with polio. So my grandfather said, you girls have to get educated because you're not going to be able to go out and save the farm. That was the idea. Save the farm. Save the farm. Save the farm. And so she was 17 and she ran for student body president. And she was elected at high school, first one to be a woman. And then she immediately started haranguing about the Japanese relocation because all of our. We had a lot of neighbors and she was an activist and went to the local Selma Enterprise and with Lowell Pratt and got a lot of articles written and then helped my grandfather get people to make sure that farms that were confiscated, the rent was put into a deposit account and the larger corporations didn't buy them up, which happened. My father had a football scholarship to play with Alonzo Stagg at University of Pacific. That was a big powerhouse football. And he and his first cousin, who was really his brother because his first cousin's father was blind and his mother died during childbirth. He was an only child. So the two of them were big Swedes and they played tight ends for Alonzo Stagg. And so my mom met him and went to UOP and got a ba but she wanted to be a lawyer to help the farm. So Stanford was not taking people with uop. They weren't taking people that had bas from UOP and they weren't taking people who were women. So she went up to Stanford and got another BA from Stanford, then was admitted as one of the first women, I think 1944. And she got this degree. I still have some of the letters where they are very well meaning letters, but they say, Pauline, you're doing very well, but you'll never be able to compete with men. And if you were able to compete with men, they have to be the breadwinner. And you would be taking a job during the war away from a man. And then she would write polite letters, but I'll tutor, I'll do this. So she did very well. And then being Stanford right at the end of the war, when everybody was at war, they did have a need for lawyers. She couldn't get a job. So she waited till my father Victor was killed. Everybody thought Victor would make it because he only had one battle, Okinawa. And they thought that Bill would be killed, my father, because the B29s were a disaster. They were dropping out of the sky. They were crashing on tenon. They had 1600 miles. He had to fly 40 missions, but he survived. So they quickly got married and there were no jobs. My father was farming 20 acres and trying to go teach high school. And then he was trying to get a master's to teach college and farming. They had no money. We had an 800 square foot home that he moved. He found a wrecked house. It was 800 square foot. He moved it onto the farm. My grandfather let him do it and I lived there till I was seven. Then he built himself a little add on. But he never connected the houses. So we grew up with two houses next to each other, one with a kitchen, living Room and one with the bedrooms and rain. We'd get all wet. My mom would say, I did get a law degree. Don't you think we could have a cover between the two homes? And we worked on the farm nonstop on weekends and after school. But anyway, so my mom was 41 and no one would hire her. And then finally we were really in trouble. And then when we were little kids, she got a job at the appellate court being a researcher. And she was really good at it. She was very bright and she was dynamic, and she worked her way up to the head attorney. And then when she was 50, she was made a superior court. She had a wonderful colleague, Annette Lerul, who was also another woman who. And they were just two women. And then they made her appellate court. And then she was really one of the highest ranking, one of the first appellate court women in California, if not the first, I'm not sure. And then she got a meningioma brain tumor. They said it was benign, but it wasn't. And she died young. She got it when she was 63. She died at 66. And she was. But I'm getting the Tom Soul point is that when I would come home and I'd say, you know, I'm at. I'd say, I'm at graduate school. Everybody went to, you know, prep school. And there's only four of us in the PhD program in classical languages. And I'm supposed to go to archaeological digs in the summer. I'm supposed to take intensive French so I can speak it as well as pass it. And here I am out here pulling Johnsongrass in the summer. I said, mom, you can't be a graduate student. I'm 22 years old and drive home every week and help grandfather, my grandpa on the ranch or with the raisins, because I can't compete. And she said, you think that's bad? And then when I didn't get a job because they were only, you know, 1975, they weren't hiring white males and nobody got a job. And then I came home and she said, well, then farm. I didn't get a job and be the best you can. And when I got a part time job, I waited five years. I went up to Fresno State for four years in a row. And I'd say, I would like a job teaching Latin. Oh, we don't need. We have a. We don't need you. And by the way, nobody with a PhD in Classics Farm. So your background is so hokey. You're farming and you do this. And then she would always tell me, that's not bad. You're doing wonderful. Keep going. I said, mom, I'm going to be 30 years old pretty soon, and I made $6,000 this year, and I'm trying to save this farm with you. And my grandfather had died. My father was working both jobs. My grandmother, we were living with my grandmother who had Alzheimer's. She was 90. And I said, three kids and she was wonderful. And she said, and then when I do it. And I started writing books right before she passed away, she said, well, you're doing just what I did and I have no worries and you'll be fine. But just. She did give me a piece of advice that stop working so much, enjoy things. So I was really lucky. I had a wonderful mother, father, grandparents. That's why I really think that's one of the reasons I really like character. Charlie Kirk. We had a talk, I think it was August 23rd, after my interview. And I had talked to him in Phoenix the year or year and a half before. And he said to me, don't you think the problem is not political? I said, yes. And I said, the red state model works, the blue state model doesn't, but that doesn't mean you abandon the blue state model. And he said, no. That's where I went. I went to Pennsylvania, Michigan. We won the most states because we got 17 to 18% of the youth vote. 17% larger margins in 2024 than we did in 2020. And we appealed to social issues. And he kept saying, you've got to tell young people to stop the prolonged adolescence, stop the victimization. I know it's hard to buy a house. The party has to work on home. Buying cheap energy, cheap gas, buying cars, buying houses, getting married in your mid-20s, having children before you're 30, get on the road. That's what he was saying. And it was exactly what I'd heard. As you know, I got married when I was 23 and had three kids by the time I was 30. And I didn't have them, obviously, but that was what he was trying to say and stop this. Six units here. Nine units here. Two units here. Eight years to graduate, part time job here. Angry that no one impreached my genius. I have a BA in sociology and I'm making 20,000. And a guy with a high school degree and a welder is making more. This is unfair, the Mandami crowd complaint. So that's why I really like Charlie, because he understood that if the Republican Party could create an ethos in which younger people were really proud of their country and the system. And they felt that by marrying and creating a nuclear family and having two or three children and raising them not to be in the therapeutic mode then they were doing a lot for the country. I didn't hear anybody saying that, to tell you the truth. I wasn't saying that.
