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Interview of my father Mike Johnson

This interview took place December 2nd, 2018 in the quiet place of my parents’ bedroom where there is a desk and two chairs. My father, named Michael Johnson, was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1972, and his family consisted of his two parents, JC and Edith, as well as his two brothers, Chris and Greg. My father later in life grew up to work in law enforcement and to meet my mother, Claudia. In this interview, Michael speaks about his parents’ ethnic background, his childhood experiences as well as life influences of culture and career before meeting my mother and I.

Michael’s Family: Parents and Siblings

My dad joined the air force to escape poverty and all of the problems associated with living in Little Rock, Arkansas such as discrimination against Native Americans. That’s where he was born. My grandmother was actually won in a poker game. She was part of the Apaches that were transported to Florida during the Trail of Tears and they started making their way back and my adopted grandfather, Jacob Johnson—which is where we got the last name Johnson, won my grandmother in a poker game. Jacob Johnson was an African American gentleman, he won her in a poker game and began—at the age of 7—began raising her and when she was old enough to have children. He started to have children with her. There was like 14 brothers and sisters, and then my grandmother, Kora Johnson, had an affair with another Native American—an Apache Indian named Samuel Ferris. So, Samuel Ferris is actually my real grandfather, and when my dad came out with straight, jet black hair and emerald green eyes they were like um...we know you’ve been hanging around with Samuel, you should probably have my dad JC Johnson go live with his cousins, so it doesn’t create too much stir in the community. Donald Ferris. There was like 12 of them. He was just living with his cousins. My dad actually went to the first high school that was integrated

He met my mom when he was stationed in Los Angeles,  And then from there they were transferred—transported to Germany, but he had also been stationed in Greenland, Texas, all over and then eventually Germany. Her family was first generation from Germany over here. She’s German and Welsh, her mom was German, and her dad was Welsh—from Wales. A lot of our cousins and relatives live in London and they live in wales. My uncle used to be the Milkman. She spoke a little bit of Welsh too—it's like Gaelic but it’s like the first language. Her brother, my uncle, Jack, um. They were pretty close, and we used to go visit them in Iowa every summer. And, his son, my cousin, became my brother because he had some type of affair and had a baby and they put him up for adoption. And, my mom adopted him. So, I guess my mom was all about taking in. That’s who she was. My mom adopted him, and he became my brother. Greg. He got killed in a car accident. He was a bad seed. He was always into drugs, alcohol, in and out of jail. He joined the army, he got thrown out for fighting and drinking. My dad knew a bunch of colonels, so he wrote a letter and got him back in, he got thrown out again. Um, and then in and out of jail for drugs and fighting. He had a heart attack and ran off the road and went through the windshield. On St. Patrick’s Day. My dad passed away in ‘06, my mom ten months later in ‘07 and then he was like a month later. My brother [Chris] was born in Inglewood. Like any brothers we fought and played together. But the older we got, you know, he was more into computers. Um, I was more into playing football and hunting and fishing. We talk to each other probably four or five days a week on the phone like when we’re driving to work. But at the same time, he’s different in the sense that he’s, like, more selfish—stingy kind of, you know. Like when my parents passed away, like, I was paying for their house. And, my brother wouldn’t help me with anything.

Michael’s Childhood

We lived there [Germany] for like six years. She didn’t get pregnant with me till they got there, and then I lived there till I was six, almost seven, before we moved to the United States. We used to go camping a lot. We always went somewhere, we were in Italy, Rome, Paris, everywhere. Switzerland, Austria, Munich, Frankfurt. A lot of cobblestone roads, it's very old, but a lot of culture.  I remember going to Oktoberfest and my parents would, you know, like the big beer steins, they would hide them in our stroller ‘cause they wanted to bring ‘em back for souvenirs.

[Long silence] I don’t think I ever had to have a hard lesson because I listened to what my parents told me. I did what they told me. I--I tried to be like my dad, and I remember even at such a young age, like ten, I had like, three or four jobs or something. I was, I was raising rabbits. I had anywhere between forty to sixty rabbits at any given time. I would breed them and sell them to the pet store, and I’d get ten dollars apiece for ‘em. I just felt more calm around them. Like, I preferred animals to humans. I was always very introverted and quiet, and I never really hung out with other kids. I was always just with my dog. That's it. I didn’t want to go down the street and play with this person or play with toys. I didn’t even want toys. Again, I just wanted to hang out with my dog, go have adventures.

Education

Well I’m ADD and Dyslexic, so school was always very hard for me. I had, uh, a tutor that would pull me out of class three days a week to help me with my homework and stuff. I don’t know if there’s anything I would really change about that, but--It was very stressful, very hard. Even sitting in a simple math class, it might as well have been French, I didn’t get it because, in my head, I saw different numbers than what they were talking about on the board. I just couldn’t do it. I've taught myself little tricks along the way to be able to decipher what’s real and what’s not when I'm looking at numbers. You compensate and learn little things, and then as far as being ADD, like, a lot of people see it as a negative because they’re so [inaudible] like, they can’t concentrate, but that’s because they don’t have enough stimulation. So, if I have, like, seven or eight things happening, going on at the same time, you’re very good at multi-tasking ‘cause you can focus on several things where if you only have one thing it’s very difficult.[dog’s barking in the background] So, I just keep myself very busy with lots of projects and lots of things, so I can focus. I went to College of the Dessert in Palm Desert, the community college, for two years. And then I transferred to San Diego State. I studied criminal law. And then I was also going to Miramar Community College. So, I got my Bachelor’s in criminal justice and I got an Associate’s in fire science ‘cause I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay with the police thing or If I wanted to go back to the fire department

Career from Fireman to Police Officer

I actually got into the fire department first because of him [father]. But he didn’t help me I just did it and I did that for like 7 years. And then I got into the police department. And my—when I was in the fire department my dad and I actually worked at the same station for a little while.

Growing up there was a kid that used to live a couple doors down from me named Keith Tucker. And, uh, when I lived in Indio him and I were like best friends. And his dad was a cop, he was actually the sheriff here in Riverside County for a while. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. And we used to play together all the time. We would either wear my dad’s fire stuff or his dad’s police stuff and we were always one or the other, you know. And, um, [cough] when I was in, uh, a senior in a high school, he got killed in an accident. So, that was very hard for his parents. Um, you know, he was going to be a fire—police officer and I was going to be a fireman and—yeah, we were just going to, it was going to be like that. He lived literally two doors down from me. So, I, um, was very close to their family. So, I actually did it, you know—because for them to see me do it was like for them to see their son do it. So, it was more for them than it was for me. I just turned out to be good at it. I think there’s a lot of stimulation. Perfect for me, always outside doing something. It drove me crazy, sitting there at the fire station. Clean the—vacuum, clean, sweep, wash the fire truck--I mean, it was like every day. Routine is good, but it was just too much waiting for something to happen. If I could go out and stop somebody before they killed someone then that’s more..better. I remember I went to a call once where this guy ran the stop sign. He was doing about 60 miles an hour and he ran the stop sign and he hit this car, went—on the driver’s side went over the top, ripped the top of the car off, went over and into this dirt field. He was so drunk, and he was just walking around like he didn’t know what happened. The lady who was driving, it went over, and it cut her head off, and her head actually fell into her husband’s lap. He [the husband] had a massive head injury, crushed shoulder, massive internal bleeding, and when we pulled up there was a six-year-old boy in the back seat. And he sat up just as we were pulling up, and he got out of it without a scratch because he was laying down sleeping. And the lady that was driving was actually our fire chief’s daughter. He was supposed to be working with us that night, but he did a day trade so he could have the day off thank God. After I saw that I was like, you know, drunk drivers and people that are doing stupid stuff need to be stopped before they get to that point.

European and Native Culture

You know, when you sit down and eat. Like here in the United States people sit down and just like [inaudible]. You wolf your food down and you go. Over there a lot of the restaurants don’t even open until like 9 or 10 at night, you know. Or if you sit down to have lunch, it’s like a 7-course thing, they’ll bring you like tiny portions, and you sit there and you eat that and you’re talking and—and they bring you something else, and then something else. They spread it out so you’re eating smaller portions, but over, like, two hours of lunch, you know.

I was born in Stuttgart, Germany. S-T-U-T-T-G-A-R-T. July 24th, 1972. I’m still a German citizen. I speak German fairly fluently, but I identify more with the Native side because that was more of the culture that I had growing up. Hunting, Fishing, trapping, tracking, building traps. Every weekend we were hunting or fishing. It was something that my dad had done all his life, so he taught me how to do it. He started taking me hunting when I was big enough for him to put me on his shoulders and we would go out into the woods. Hunting, fishing, trapping, tracking.

Edith Johnson’s Feurzangenbowle:

It’s like a fiery punch bowl. You take this wine and put it in—you put this wine in a pan and you heat it up. And then you have this, uh, it's like uh, a ladle or stick that goes across it. Then you take a sugar cube—or a, a sugar cone because in Germany, cones came as sugar. And then you pour, like, 151 Rum on it and you light it on fire. And the sugar start melting and falling into the punch bowl that’s already warm. And there’s like cinnamon and apple and wine and—yeah, it’s real good.

The House in Chama, New Mexico and His father’s passing

They went out there [Chama] to visit some friends of theirs and they fell in love with the area and the property. And, they bought ten acres and then over the next five years they paid it off. And, then they sold their house and used that money to build that one. They designed it then they had a contractor build it for them.

They came out to visit because I got in a car accident, I broke both of my wrists. Some guy hit me head on and I went [inaudible]. He just came into my lane and hit me head on. And, then I was having surgery. As a matter of fact, when I met your mom, I still had casts on. [cough]. I think I took ‘em off right before the first time I came here. It was thanksgiving, I had my surgery the week before thanksgiving and they, you know, took me to my surgery, brought me home, blah blah blah. And then, it was like the day before thanksgiving. My dad was sitting on the couch and he was just kind of like [inaudible] kind of like not doing well. Kind of like leaned forward like this [demonstrates]. I asked him what’s wrong. He said I just don’t feel good. I go like how? And he told me when he went to bathroom, like, blood was coming out. So, I picked up my keys and I go stand up. And I took him to the emergency room. And, I know everybody there, so I was able to just walk right in the back. And, um, he ended up staying in the hospital the first time for like 14 days. And then, home for like 3 or 4 days and back for another 7 days, and home for another couple and back for 23 days and—that started thanksgiving and then he passed away February 10. Yeah, when they were visiting me. Thank God, because the closest hospital to them out there is like two hours away. It just happened to be that my dad got sick when he was out here.

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Classic German Fire Punch

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Classic German Fire Punch (Feuerzangenbowle)

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Michael's adopted brother Greg

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Michael and his Brother Chris

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Jc and Edith Johnson

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Chris, JC and Edith Johnson

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JC and Edith's cabin in Chama, New Mexico

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Michael as a baby and his father