Oral History Interview with Shana Goggins

Mandy Higgins 0:00 Let's switch to happier!

Shana Goggins 0:01 Sure, let's talk about happier things.

Mandy Higgins 0:03 Yeah.

Shana Goggins 0:04 Which are not happier, they're fine.

Mandy Higgins 0:07 Okay, we are--it is Wednesday, June 8th. We're in Frankfort, Kentucky conducting an oral history interview for the Mask Makers Quilt Oral History Project with Mandy Higgins and Shana Goggins. Can you just real quick, state and spell your name?

Shana Goggins 0:23 Sure, It's Shana Goggins. First name is S-h-a-n-a, last name is G-o-g-g-i-n-s.

Mandy Higgins 0:32 Thank you. And thanks for being with us today.

Shana Goggins 0:34 No problem, thanks for having me.

Mandy Higgins 0:35 Yeah, and you really helped kick this project off right.

Shana Goggins 0:35 Well, I'm glad--I'm glad.

Mandy Higgins 0:38 We're very excited for that. We're gonna start earlier than the project.

Shana Goggins 0:43 Sure.

Mandy Higgins 0:43 Can you tell us a little bit about when you began to sew or craft?

Shana Goggins 0:49 Um, honestly, I've probably been sewing or crafting, like, off and on all of my life. I grew up, I was fortunate that as a young child, I was able to spend a lot of time with both my paternal and maternal grandparents, which included my maternal great-grandmother. So, I knew that the women in my family sewed and quilted, but it wasn't something that they really took the time to teach me about. And actually, my dad's father is the one who taught me how to sew, and that he's taught me how to thread a needle and just make basic repairs, sew on buttons and that kind of stuff. So it's never really been something that I did a lot of. But, when I got pregnant, I decided that the one thing I had to do was to make a baby quilt. Now, this is where I'm probably going to cry. [laughter] Um, so I had this idea that I wanted to make a baby quilt. And I love Winnie the Pooh. So, I went and I bought all this Winnie the Pooh material. And it went to my father's mother, my grandmother, Norma, and asked her to help me make a quilt. And she said she'd be glad to.

So we sat down at her kitchen table, and I didn't know that it didn't matter that you most likely weren't gonna cut your pattern. So for example, I was gonna cut Pooh's head off a number of times in putting this quilt together. So, as we're sitting there quilt--cutting the pieces of material, they're just not coming out right at all. Like they're too big, they're too small again, Pooh's head was missing, Tigger's arm was missing, and I just crumbled and started crying. And I was like, if I can't make a baby quilt, how can I take care of a baby? [sniffles] Sorry, and my grandmother started crying too. [laughing] And she--because she felt bad because she could no longer sew to help me figure it out. So there the both of us were, just blubbering and crying over this Pooh material and how we were cutting Pooh's head off. And she was like, "you'll be fine. You can take care of a baby. It's so much easier than quilting," or something like that. [laughter]

So, I put that material up, she had someone make a baby quilt, my daughter is seventeen. And thus far [knocks on wood] I haven't messed anything up [laughter] So, when Raven was probably like six or seven, I got this bright idea that I would make her a T-shirt quilt. And so, I started cutting the front's off of her T-shirts. And again, I don't measure a thing. So, I'm not paying attention to the fact that none of this is lining up like the way it's supposed to. Because I just decided that you should be able to take a needle and thread and material and sew it together, and that's just how it works, right? Like my great-grandmother did it, it was so much less than I had, I can make a quilt, that's fine. So, I actually did, I put it together. It has held up and it has not come apart. So, a couple years after that, I decided that I wanted to make a quilt for my grandmother, Norma again, the one that was gonna help me make the baby quilt for my baby. Because when I was a little girl, she made me a quilt and she made my brother quilt. So, I decided that I wanted to make her a quilt to repay the favor. And instead of going through the hassle of cutting and measuring, which I don't do, right, I bought handkerchiefs, so just bandanas and I bought twenty of those.

And I sewed her quilt with five rows of four in it, and it was red, and she really liked it. So, that really just kind of I guess like motivated me that it's really not as hard as you think it is. Like, you can actually take the time to do it. To my Mother's dismay, I do not use a sewing machine, I prefer to sew by hand. Because, I feel like that's just the simplest and easiest way to do it. I know how to use a sewing machine, but it seems like a lot of hassle. And [laughing] it's just more cathartic to do it by hand. So, I've made a couple of quilts in the last couple of years. Maybe getting a little bit ahead of this, but in the pandemic, I started more quilt toppers. And then I inherited, my mother was given quilt squares that her grandmother had started, but had not been able to finish. So, I had took those from my mom, because my mom is not the sewer at all. [laughing] That is not her thing, so she gave them to me. And I finished one of the quilt toppers that my great-grandmother started and gave that to my mom for her birthday. And then I've got plans to do things with the other pieces. And that I'm also of the theory that if you're gonna make a quilt, you should use a quilt. So, I'm trying to put all of that I guess, to good use. And like I said earlier, it's a bad joke, but a good joke and that nobody really depends on me to make our winter blanket, so I have the option to do it as I like and one-on-one.

Mandy Higgins 6:22 Yeah. Did you--beyond on the quilting, did you make other sewing--

Shana Goggins 6:27 Oh no! [laughing]

Mandy Higgins 6:28 --Projects or other crafts--sort of thing? No.

Shana Goggins 6:30 No, not really.

Mandy Higgins 6:31 Yeah.

Shana Goggins 6:31 Um, I like to take pictures, I considered myself to be like an amateur photographer. I'm sure like everybody in their youth, they dabbled with jewelry making. So, I have lots of beads and stuff like that. But no, I never really considered myself to be like a serious or, you know, like an avid crafter, it was just something that occasionally, if I didn't have something to do, then I would do it. I learned how to arm knit out of boredom in that I am the kind of person that sometimes that looks at things and says, "oh, that looks simple," [laughter] and then try to figure it out. So, really crafting and sewing and things like that, I'd just do them in my leisure time. I like to pick it up periodically. I'm really good about starting projects, and then setting them aside because I'm like, ooh, I should really be doing something else like working or housework or you know, something along that line. So, it's kind of haphazard.

Mandy Higgins 7:33 Yeah. Are you involved--or were you involved in any sort of sewing groups or?

Shana Goggins 7:38 Oh, no, [laughter] no, no, no, not at all. The closest I came to a sewing group is that when my daughter was younger, her babysitter participated in a sewing group, and she would take Raven with her. But, I never did anything like that.

Mandy Higgins 7:58 Are you--so it was more of a private but--

Shana Goggins 8:01 Yeah, it was more of a private like, I don't really have anything to do, just kind of like something to do to pass the time.

Mandy Higgins 8:09 Which is a good setup for where we're headed [laughing] towards the next questions. How did you learn about COVID-19?

Shana Goggins 8:17 How did I learn about COVID-19? Oh, wow. So, in November of 2019, my daughter's high school marching band participated in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, a big bunch of us went to New York for the parade. And when we came back, probably within a week or so, different people that had traveled were sick, and they all kind of had you know, this, like runny nose fever, whatever, whatever and nobody really knew what it was. And then, I guess just in watching the news, you started to see that more and more people were having this mystery, you know, virus, and nobody really knew what it was from there. So, I guess just kind of following and tracking and keeping abreast of like what was going on, as far as you know, what we knew in terms of the public health information that was being shared. And then, I guess I would have to say that once they identified it and labeled it, it was like oh, most likely the people that we traveled with in November, you know, they may have had COVID and not been aware that it was COVID because nobody really knew what COVID was, just those few short months before that [laughing]. So, I probably found out the same as everybody else did, just watching and tracking and being sort of a conspiracy theorist at heart in that like okay, fifty people, [laughing] you know, have this same thing, then there must be you know, something to it.

Mandy Higgins 9:51 Can you take me back to March of 2020? Tell me a little bit about your feelings--

Shana Goggins 9:57 Does time exist anymore?

Mandy Higgins 9:58 Yeah. [laughter]

Shana Goggins 9:58 --I guess that's the--most of the thing, um, the interesting thing about COVID is, is that also my household, we were already self quarantining to a degree, because my partner had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. So, he was being treated for cancer, and we had already limited our contact with the outside world, just in the interest of his health. So, whenever March came, and we were officially like, labeled, this is a pandemic, and these are the precautions that we need to take, it wasn't that different or new [for] from us, because we were already social distancing, you know, due to his health. So, it wasn't a huge adjustment, I think the biggest adjustment was, is that, the things that I've wanted to do, you know, up, up to a certain point, we still had use and access to outside spaces. And once we had to put restrictions on the outside spaces, like public parks and things like that, that's when I was like, this really sucks. [laughing] Because, that was kind of, you know, like the one thing that we could do, and not necessarily have to worry about a lot of people.

So, we were fortunate in that we had already started implementing some of the practices that we've been asked to take during the pandemic, so it wasn't that much of an adjustment. The only real difference is that, at the time, I was teaching a course in Appalachian studies at EKU [Eastern Kentucky University] and we went home for spring break, and then never went back. So, that was hard, in that I had to take a in person class, and make it [an] one hundred percent online class, and then also our daughter, was a sophomore? See, time has no real meaning anymore. [laughter] So, it was an adjustment for her because, then she had to start working and learning from home virtually. So, it was an adjustment in that now all three of us were home all of the time, instead of just one person being at home all of the time. And then just trying to figure out how to adjust and adapt to that. We--we joke in our house that we have so few guests that when someone rings the doorbell, we're like, who is that, and why are they here? So, it's not like we were very social people, we didn't have a lot of people that were coming over and we weren't really doing a whole lot of stuff. So it was--the adjustment was subtle.

Mandy Higgins 11:25 Do you remember what you were feeling in that--

Shana Goggins 12:35 Oh--

Mandy Higgins 12:35 --Those moments?

Shana Goggins 12:41 --Kind of like, what is this? How long will this last? You know, what are the long standing implications? And then I think, I don't know, I think kind of in a way, there was some relief, right? Because, when I think about--we think about all of the things that we've learned during the pandemic. And I think now for me, having perspective, part of the relief that I describe, which might sound weird, is that much of the pretense of the busyness of the life that we lead before, you could literally just cast that aside. And then it was legitimized, like if you didn't wannna go anywhere, and you didn't wannna be bothered with people, it's a bad excuse, but you be like, "oh, I'm social distancing." [laughing] So, I think there was a little bit of relief in that, like the busyness of what we were expected to do, we didn't have to figure out how to do that anymore. But, then also there was this piece of like, I guess, reservation or trepidation in that, like, what are the long standing implications of this? And like, how long can we sustain, you know, a life in which we are limited in what we can do and where we can go. And then also, probably intimidation too, because I had felt like I had just figured out how to teach an in person class, [laughing] and now I was being asked to flip and teach online. So, it was a mixed bag of, "I'm happy, no, I'm not happy. You should be happy, no you shouldn't be happy, people are not happy. It's not a good thing, you should not feel relaxed." But yeah, just a constant like "I'm not really sure how I feel about all of this." And I would honestly say I still don't really know [laughing] how I feel about all of this.

Mandy Higgins 14:35 Yeah. Do you remember or did you participate in any of--some of the height--the practices of that early pandemic period like sanitizing your groceries?

Shana Goggins 14:46 I didn't do the sanitizing of my groceries because I didn't understand that. [laughter] And I have a picture and I'd be happy to show you, but the first time I went to the grocery store, I over-prepared myself, in that [laughing] I wore this stupid ridiculous like, it was like a you know, it's kind of like a thing that you wear in the winter [laughing], when you're covering yourself from the snow, and then had a mask underneath that. And I got halfway through Kroger's, and I was like, you're gonna have a flippin heatstroke in here [laughing] as you're so like, covered up. So, the masking, I did do, and that's what prompted me to learn how to make masks. I didn't sanitize groceries, because I was like--I don't--I don't know about that. And then also, I have always questioned, I will not mention this restaurant by name, but I have always questioned a practice of a certain restaurant, in which they wear gloves to prepare your food and then touch everything with those same gloves. So, to me, wearing gloves in the store was kind of like that same thing, in that I'm just transferring germs from one space to the other. So, I didn't do anything like that. But, just the basic, like staying away from people, social distancing, as much as I could and wearing masks, yeah.

Mandy Higgins 16:16 Yeah. Did you--so you mentioned that you were wearing a mask pretty early, when did you start making masks?

Shana Goggins 16:23 Um, when I realized that it was gonna be--that we were gonna be doing this for a while. And at the time, there was a lot of limited availability, and there was still not a lot of information and knowledge about the types. And I was like, well, if we're gonna be doing this for a while, I should probably learn how to make masks because that seems like it would be more sustainable. And again, it was the whole thought process of, there's a million YouTube videos out here, and I can just watch a YouTube video and I can figure it out. It took some trial and error, but I think I eventually figured it out pretty sufficiently. And then just you know, like with anything, it went from me cutting out a stencil with cardboard, to then going on Etsy and finding that you could buy the templates where you could cut, you know, if you wanted a small, medium, or large or extra large mask, and it went from--part of it, too was the--my family members, my partner, my daughter, they have little ears. [laughing] And so, the traditional masks were not working for them, in that they couldn't--we couldn't find, I guess if you will, like the elastic piece that would stay on their ear that wouldn't hurt their ear or wouldn't bother their ear. So really, I have to go back and say, the first thing I thought of was, how to adjust and manipulate masks that were already made, with giving them the type of whatever that's called, that they needed. So, I saw on Amazon that you could order elastic pieces that had an adjustable piece, so I started with that. And then altered some of the masks that we had purchased for them, with that. And then I was like, "but if you can do that, then you can just make the mask yourself." So, I just went from there and just started making them. I had tons of material that a friend had given me, that I didn't really have any plans for and I was like, "well, if you mess it up, you know, it's not like you put a lot of great expense into it."

Mandy Higgins 18:33 Yeah. Did you--so you altered some of these patterns? Did you land on one you really liked?

Shana Goggins 18:41 Um, yeah, I landed on one that I really liked. I tried to make, you know how there's the ones that are pleated, like we've traditionally seen in the doctor's office, but I could not figure that out. So basically, mine are just like the standard ninja style, if you will. I liked that, and then I like the earpieces that are adjustable, so it has that plastic piece, so that you can adjust it on there. I think those are--those are the ones that worked better for us in our household.

Mandy Higgins 19:11 You mentioned Amazon, how else did you--source your supplies?

Shana Goggins 19:13 Etsy. I looked at Etsy a lot, Amazon and really, just like watch YouTube videos of other mask makers. And then, I have a friend who participated in this quilt project also. She was making masks, so I purchased a few off of her. And then, there is a friend of mine in Richmond, she was making them, so I asked them like you know, "what's your pattern? What kind of template, what kind of tools are you using?" And they gave me suggestions or advice about what they were doing.

Mandy Higgins 19:48 Did you have to--did you struggle to source any material?

Shana Goggins 19:55 No, it was easy. Like I said, I had a ton of material at home and what I had read had up to that point indicated that you really needed two layers of material and I had so much material that that was, it really wasn't a problem. So, the only thing that I had to outsource, if you will, were those elastic pieces. And at the time, you could order like one hundred for like, I don't know, $10. So economically, it made more sense to me to buy the pieces and just use the material that I had, because I didn't really care what it looked like. It could have been a funky pattern or print, it was just the point that it served a purpose.

Mandy Higgins 20:33 Umhmm. Did you--who did you make your mask for?

Shana Goggins 20:38 I started with just making them for the people in my household. And then, I shared--I have an aunt who lives in Louisville, and she was having to work in public. So, I made a few for her, I had a friend who was working as a personal care assistant over in Adair County. So, I made a couple for her. I made a few for my mother and a few for my grandmother. But mostly they were--sadly, I didn't feel like they were like top quality. So, I [laughing] wasn't really like trying to distribute them to people. And most people I knew, you know, they were pretty well covered. So mainly, I was just making them for my household.

Mandy Higgins 21:21 Umhmm. When and where did you make your masks?

Shana Goggins 21:25 Whenever because, I was fortunate in that, the two jobs that I had at the time, I am still a practicing mental health therapist, and then I was teaching at Eastern. So, I could do both of those things at home. And I had control over my counseling clients schedule. And then, my class was pretty static, we were doing work online, and we were not meeting virtually, they were just doing work. So basically, that's what I did, I wa--like to this point, and I've probably--it's probably why I can't watch a lot of TV now. But like, I was binge watching all kinds of shows, there's so many shows I've started and not finished. But, I [was] basically just sitting around the house and not doing anything, watching TV. And I was like, "oh, I could make a mask." And so you know, that's kind of like my general sewing pattern anyway, have it anyway, if you will. My days are not so hard press, and fortunately for me, the pandemic allowed me the ability to work from home, so then I have a lot more control over my schedule. And sitting and sewing and watching television was way more fun than washing dishes or, you know, rearranging the closet. So, really just whenever.

Yeah. How did you learn about the quilt?

Um, how did I learn about the quilt? Honestly, I think a friend referred me to the group--to the Facebook group. That's probably my first thought about it. And then, when I saw what the conversation was and what people were doing, the friend that I mentioned to you that I purchased masks off, I invited--off of--I invited her. And then there were a couple other people that I knew that were making masks, so I invited them. And I don't think I had any thought about it other than one, I probably felt like, is this a group I should be in because I'm not really like, you know, many of those people they were making hundreds of masks for like health care workers and, you know, schools and this and that. And I was like, I'm just making masks for my family. Because, you know, it seems like the smart, economical thing to do. So I probably questioned like, should I be here? And like, I'm not really a mask maker. I mean, I'm a mask maker, I suppose, but not a mask maker on that--on the level that these individuals were.

Mandy Higgins 23:54 But you stayed?

Shana Goggins 23:55 I sure did. [laughter]

Mandy Higgins 23:57 And how--how was that community? Like--

Shana Goggins 23:59 It was great. Like, I don't--no one made, no one asked or checked, right? No one was like, oh, well, you're not making masks for hospitals, and you're not making masks for sales. It was just a really great space to have community. Because, even still now, just having conversations about COVID, about the precautions that we needed to take, it was so controversial, right? And it just felt good to be in a space with people who respected and or understood that one, at the bare minimum, this is the most that we can do that is the most helpful. So, I really appreciated being in a space in which people were not questioning what you were doing or why you were doing it or are you living in fear or you know, any of those dog whistle type things that we heard. So, I really appreciated that sense of community. And then also, I like being around people who like doing stuff that I like to do, even if I don't feel like I know how to do it on the level that they're doing it.

Mandy Higgins 25:04 What sort of--so you mentioned that you were talking about precautions, what other sorts of conversations or what was-- what else was happening in the group?

Shana Goggins 25:12 Um, mostly people were talking about, like the materials that they found. So, it was a helpful resource, I probably went from one type of what I keep calling an ear strap to another type of ear strap because of what somebody recommended. People would talk about, like the best types of material, what they thought worked best in terms of breathability. There were some people that lives [live] fairly close to one another. So for example, if there was a fabric shop or a place that had materials, you know, on sale, there was a lot of exchange, too, because a lot of individuals, say were looking for things that they needed, and they couldn't find. So, that group was a place to post like, "hey, I've got," you know, "elastic, or I've got this and I don't need it." So, there was a lot of sharing, and there was a lot of discussion about, just really the process of making masks and like where you could find materials if you needed it.

Mandy Higgins 26:10 Can you tell me a little bit about the process of the quilt and how that came together?

Shana Goggins 26:14 I really wish I could, but again, time has no real meaning, it seems like it was just yesterday. [clears throat] I'm gonna tell you this, and I'll probably be wrong [laughing] so, you'll have to check with one of the other members. But, I think that--and it might have been Gina Hudson, or it might have been another individual. In that one, it was apparent that all of us were watching the daily briefings, like that was the--the one thing in my life, at that point that was routine and regimented, like I didn't do anything else all day, but at four o'clock, I was ready, I would sit there, and I would spend my hour with Andy [Beshear], listening to the briefings.

That was the only time that I knew that existed right? All the other hours of the day, it was just the same monotonous get up, don't get up, take a second nap, eat a second breakfast, you know, whatever. Because, we went feral, [laughter] in my household, we literally went feral. Um, so I think it was, someone in the group, possibly Gina, mentioned that she wanted to do something or that we should do something to really lift up and support the governor, because he really was being treated unfairly, and I think that's the best way to describe it, in that, you had an individual that was trying to do their best with an unknown and unforeseen situation. And there was just a lot of criticism, there was a lot of ridicule. And I think for us as a collective, we really appreciated and endorsed and supported the measures and safety precautions. And so, when the idea was mentioned to do something special for him, no one even hesitated about what to do. I feel like we all settled on the quilt in that, when you think about it, a quilt is a--an incredibly Appalachian symbol, and we just felt like that would be the most fitting in that when you think about quilts, you think about comfort, you think about security. So, I think it really just evolved from that.

Mandy Higgins 28:33 --What were the directions? How did they--how did that kind of?

Shana Goggins 28:36 Um, the directions were hard [laughing] in that they told us specifically the dimensions of the quilt square [laughing] that they wanted us to make. And basically it was, make a square that is representative of you or what you want it to be representative of. They wanted, you know, because again, with quilts, it matters, [laughing] your dimensions. So, they gave us the specific dimensions that our pieces needed to be, or our square. And that the call was, we wanted to have a quilt square that represented one of every county in the commonwealth.

Mandy Higgins 29:15 Tell me about your square.

Shana Goggins 29:17 So in my, hey, I'm a quilter, it's so easy to do this. I had cut up a bunch of rectangles, just that I was gonna use for other things and bits and pieces. And so, those squares were already cut. And again, to me, taking pieces of material and sewing them together is like one of the easiest things that you could do, so it was a given. One, the execution part of it would be really easy. I just had to find all the pieces that were relatively [laughing] similar, so that they didn't look weird, and sew them together. So, I already had the individual pieces cut, it was just putting them together to make the total square.

Mandy Higgins 30:07 Yeah, can you describe your square for me?

Shana Goggins 30:10 Yeah, it is blue. [laughing] Let me see, let me look at this picture I have. So it's blue, a joke I say often is that I bleed blue for the Commonwealth, but not for UK. I like the color blue, and bluegrass. So we've got like, it's blue with kind of like a paisley type print, if you will, that's like a powder blue, I guess it is. And then, the other square is more of a navy blue, and it has flowers in it. There's a powder blue, I'm gonna go with royal blue, and then maybe a white. I really like green, green is a favorite color of mine as well. But, I just felt like the blue, with my own sentiment of bleeding blue for the bluegrass, would be good. And again, those are the ones that were the most uniform. [laughter] I would like to tell you that there's a lot of symbolism, but that would be a lie. It was about the uniformity, and what--I didn't want somebody to have to go back and redo and have to work harder to fix the thing that I was trying to share.

Mandy Higgins 31:22 How did you share your square, do you remember what you did?

Shana Goggins 31:25 Um, we were asked to take a picture. So, I call on my daughter into going outside with me and taking a picture because, I had two squares, and I wanted the picture to be of both squares, even though I knew most likely they would only use one. Take the picture and share that, and then--we Gina volunteered to be the person to receive them. So, we were just instructed to mail them to her.

Mandy Higgins 31:49 And you did that and--

Shana Goggins 31:51 Yeah, I did that, and they received it. And then, they were really good about filling us in on the process along the way. So like, sharing updates and pictures, and that way we knew, like what was gonna happen. And I think that some of the squares that were received might have been used for some of the other projects and or gifts. And that was a little bumpy, because I think some people initially, before they understood that we had way more than what were--we would need for the quilt. So there, we had to, you know, there had to be a little bit of extra caution and care taken with that, to make sure that no one felt like their piece was being excluded. And I would say that the organizers did a great job of handling all of that stuff. One thing I should add, going back is you asked me how I learned about it. And then I--you know, learned about it by being in the Facebook group. And even though I've sat here and I've told you I don't measure, I don't consider myself to be a quilter. I never once considered that this was not a thing that I was not--that I was not going to do, in that if there was gonna be a quilt made for the governor, then by golly, [laughing] I was gonna have a piece in it.

And it was selfish, admittedly, in that I wanted to be a part of something that was bigger than me. And I wanted to be a part of something that paid tribute or honored or gave the governor the respect and the accolades that I felt like he was deserving. And I felt like my quilt being there, m--or my square being there, wasn't just about me, but it was also about my grandmother who taught me how to sew, my grandfather who taught me how to sew. And then also, the quilting that my great-grandmother did. So it was it was, it was all about me, but at the same time, it was about so many other people, and I just wanted to be a part of that. Like, for somebody to see the quilt and see that square and think, she did that because she cared so much about this, and then this is also representative of things that, you know, are important to her.

Mandy Higgins 34:15 Yeah. Did you write a note to the governor or include anything?

Shana Goggins 34:21 I probably did, but I honestly don't even remember. [laughter] I really don't remember if I did.

Mandy Higgins 34:29 if you were to write it now, about the quilts.

Shana Goggins 34:32 I would say all of those things, in that like, I feel like [sighs] I don't want to politicize this, but it is what it is, in that the Beshear administration is such a refreshing breathing space from the previous administration. And I think that when we come down to it, Andy Beshear is a lot like all of us. You know, like, he's a compassionate person, he's a genuine person. He sometimes--it looks like he might be out of place like socially, [laughing] like, you know, like, he's not really comfortable there. But, I think that's part of the relatability is that he is this figure, he is this person, but he's a relatable, likable guy. Like, you just get the sense from seeing him that he literally would be the person that would randomly stand next to you in line at the local coffee shop and talk to you about whatever. And I just think that we need to highlight those kinds of people, whether they're elected officials or not. And I think it's on us that when we ha--when we're fortunate that we have people that represent us in an elected official capacity, that we do as much as we can to add to them, because, and this is like, even before some of the really hateful things that people have said or done in response to him and his leadership, it just felt like he was getting such a bad deal. You know, it was a catch-22, no matter what he did, somebody was not gonna like it, somebody was not gonna criticize it. And I just really wanted to be a part of something that at least for a moment, reminded him--not that he's ever forgotten, but kind of reiterated, like, what this is all for.

Mandy Higgins 36:31 How did it feel when you saw him see it?

Shana Goggins 36:35 Oh, it was great. [laughter] Like, you know, again, I think we all feel like Andy is our next door neighbor. Like, he's our best friend, because we spent all that time with him in the afternoons. And it was just really great, because, he just seems like a genuinely like, humble, non-pretentious kind of person. So, it was really gratifying and satisfying, because his response and the way it was received, was the way that we or I, like it just was natural, like, well, of course, he would act that way. Or, you know, of course, he would respond that way. So, it was validating, but it was affirming in that like that was needed. It was something that we needed to do.

Mandy Higgins 37:23 You mentioned feeling like you knew the governor--

Shana Goggins 37:27 Yeah!

Mandy Higgins 37:27 --Because you spent the afternoons--

Shana Goggins 37:28 Yeah.

Mandy Higgins 37:28 --With him. Can you talk a little bit about sort of that evolution from March to let's say, when the governor received the quilt in October of 2020, of knowing him?

Shana Goggins 37:40 Oh, I mean, like, look in my head, Andy Beshear was gonna be sleeping under a quilt that I made. [laughter] Right?

Mandy Higgins 37:47 Yeah.

Shana Goggins 37:47 So like--we were like BFFs. Because again, I pleasantly call him Andy, and not Governor Beshear, right? So, that implies that we are on some kind of personal level? Um, I don't know, I think it really just, you know, it's like, when you--okay, so most likely, between us, there's at least five people that we know that we don't even know in common. And then over time, you know, oh, I know you, we know each other. And so, your associations get smaller and smaller. And I think with the quilt, it was just more of a direct line, right? Like in everybody--well, most people were sitting around listening to the briefings. But then, that added that next layer, right, so it's like, oh, I know him. But no, I really know him because then you have a solid concrete tie or an example to that person. So, it takes it above the one level.

Yeah. Did you make anything else that was shared with official[s]? Did you send anything to the governor or do anything else?

No.

Mandy Higgins 38:56 Yeah.

Shana Goggins 38:56 That was it.

Mandy Higgins 38:59 Yeah. How has the community continued to support each other?

Shana Goggins 39:04 Honestly, the conversation has [laughing] gone a little quiet, like in that group. And I think it's just because, you know, a lot of things--COVID continues to impact us all. And, I think that once we did that, like that was our group project. That was our joint project, we were all working towards something. There hasn't really been a lot of conversation. Most of the conversation has just been about, hey, where's the quilt? Does anybody know where the quilt is? And I think, you know, I think that's natural. I think when people do a big project, there is some time that you know, lapses between when they have contact and communication. And then also maybe, like, that's just what it was supposed to be. We were supposed to come together and have that really close connection of community about that project. But then also know that those people are still there or that community is there if you need it.

Mandy Higgins 40:03 Can you define team Kentucky for me?

Shana Goggins 40:06 Oh, wow. I mean, I don't know. [laughter] Um, I think it's just, you know, kind of like what we've been talking about throughout, is that there is this sense that there is this collective effort, and that we are literally all in this together. The irony of my experiences with--experiences with academics in higher education, is I hate group projects. I've never liked group projects as a student, and I hated group projects as a professor. And so Team Kentucky [laughing] was the ultimate group project. And some of us did, well, [laughing] and some of us did not do so well. And it's an opportunity, I think the opportunity still exists for us to realize that we have more in common than we have in, you know, in not like, and that we literally can do so much, if we work together. And I just wish that the spirit of Team Kentucky still exists after the pandemic, in that there are a lot of lessons that we've learned as a result of the lockdown and loose restrictions and mask wearing and social distancing, that really can improve our situations and make life less complicated. So hopefully, we don't forget those things, once we, you know, get to the end.

Mandy Higgins 41:37 Yeah. How are you feeling now, two years into it?

Shana Goggins 41:42 [clears throat] Like, time has no real meaning, of what day is it? [laughter] Like, it's still you know, it's interesting, people still have responses that are not favorable. We hit a period where it seems like we were not having as many cases, but now it seems like we're going back up in terms of that. So, I'm kind of waiting for the shoe to drop, but not the shoe to drop in that like, nothing has changed really, since the very beginning, except for that we know so much more. And sometimes it's disheartening that with the level of knowledge that we have, we are still fighting and arguing over things that are basic common sense. And that we have missed so many opportunities to make things better, to make things easier for people. And then also that, if we were a commonwealth, or a group of people that were already experiencing difficulties and disparities, that we seem to fail to recognize that COVID has made those things even much more. And so, what is the energy and time we are using to spend to make things better?

Mandy Higgins 43:13 Do you think the quilt and the work that you did was time well spent?

Shana Goggins 43:19 Absolutely. I would do it again? Absolutely, like I said, for me, it wasn't anything because, I already had the rectangle square and--I mean cut, and it was just putting them together. So, absolutely, I would do it again. If I had the ability, or if I [laughing] could pull it off, I would make an entire quilt for myself. I mean, not for myself, but for, you know, the governor or anyone. I think that it is a part of like maintaining--quilting will always be something that I do, in that I strongly identify as an Appalachian American and I think quilting is quintessential to Appalachia. So to me, anytime I spend making a quilt, it reminds me of my grandmother, it reminds me of my great-grandmother, it reminds me of so many people that have come before me that made quilts. And those are lasting pieces of our legacy. Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books, and I'll butcher this quote, but we can insert it later, but there's a piece where they talk about how your legacy is anything that you touch and anything that you leave behind. And so, I have been spending a lot of time in the last six to eight years thinking about my legacy, and thinking about the things that I leave behind. And I feel like the quilt is a part of my legacy. So absolutely one hundred percent, hands down, I would do it again with no reservations.

Mandy Higgins 44:53 Thank you.

Shana Goggins 44:54 You're welcome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai