From CHOP:

This is Rick, who I spent a lot of my time with inside. He was the leader of security inside and the one who vouched for me to all the leaders who did not trust me in the beginning. It was his relationship and trust that allowed everything to happen.

He was dedicated to protecting the protestors against a lot of very dangerous situations that unfolded. He was known to pull out his gun quite a few times and bear spray people also - But he was like a father to me inside and we spent every day together.

“Everyone is just waiting on us to destroy ourselves. They want us to be against each other. But we don’t want violence. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.

So when you come in here, you come in with respect. And if I’m around, I don’t care who you are - If your intentions are beautiful , you’re on my team. And nobody better put their damn hands on you.”

This was my first conversation with him and the one that started our relationship.

From Portland Protests:

“We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. And when we see that being broken, we knew we had to come to do our service and protect Americans.""

Minneapolis Protests:

“What are you protecting? It’s all burnt to shit.

How do we fix it? We talk to congress. We get petitions signed.“

“Two days ago, we were peacefully protesting in a very large group. Police pulled up in squad cars, stepped out and shot rubber bullets into the crowd. I remember some of them even aiming at our faces.

I was one of the people that got hit in the face and it almost took my eye out. But it didn’t take me out of the protests. I’ve been here ever since, peacefully.”

“We boarded up the building and went home and watched the cameras. In a couple of hours, they destroyed our life. We work 7 days a week here and, for all of our employees, this is their life too. They’re like family to us. And our customers are too.”

“How do you fight racism? Kindness. Only kindness.”

Jamaica (All from last year)

“Back in the 70’s there was a lot of unrest in Jamaica. Lots of political things were happening and we were all watching Cuba, making sure that didn’t happen here. But it was a very, very tough time for Jamaicans.

I have always been very involved in politics here, and keeping Jamaica free and democratic. But during all of this unrest, everyone just started fleeing the country. Me and my wife had best friends that we saw at work on Friday and by Monday, they had just disappeared. They were too scared to even tell us where they were going and just left. Some of them, we didn’t hear from for years after.

Because I was involved in politics, me and my wife were in danger by those trying to take over the country. Many people told us ‘They will come and kill you and your wife Winston, you have to leave.’ But I didn’t want to leave and would tell them ‘If Jamaica goes down in flames, I will go down with the Jamaican flag on my back. I am not leaving.’
Because we were in danger, they would move me and my wife back and forth from our home in the city to the mountains outside of here. We got a lot of threats during this time and these were very difficult years.

But slowly, the country came back, as I always knew it would. I had bought property and land when many people had left and, as tourism came back, we began re-building the city that is behind us (Montego Bay). At every step along the way, we have fought against corruption and to losing our country to drugs and crime. In the 1990’s, drugs started to become a bigger issue and we quickly installed checkpoints in between all of the parishes, saying ‘We will never become another Mexico.’ These checkpoints alone helped stop the large majority of all drug trafficking in the country.

Now, that it is later in my life, I am proud of what we have done. And I am turning property into parks, to leave everyone here with places that are better than when we found them.
To leave Jamaica as beautiful as it should be.

"You always have to be paying attention, you really do.

I remember a day a few years ago when I was power washing this property here, about to build my home. The machine was loud but I had this feeling like I should turn it off for a second so I did. When I did, I heard all of the shouting.

I ran outside and saw a few people around a man laying on the ground, by some power lines. I ran over there and saw the man was injured badly. He was from the power company and working on the wires when he got electrocuted and left torn apart.

But somehow - He was still alive.

I had some CPR training so I gave it to him while others ran to get help. They ended up airlifting him to a hospital in Kingston and he survived, but he lost some very important parts about his body.

The power company came to our town (Treasure Beach) to interview the locals and try to find some mistakes that he had made, so that they could deny his insurance. But I told them the truth - They had left the wire hanging too low and it was a fools errand. It was far too dangerous to be worked on.

The man the company sent said to me 'Sir, do you know that I was sent here to find a way to deny this man what is justly his? To find a way to deny his insurance. Because of you though, I will be going back to publish my report and say that we should give this man what he deserves.'

He left and I never heard another thing for over a year.

Then one day, while I was in my home, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and immediately recognized the man from the accident.

He told me he had lost everything after the accident. His ability to have children, his wife had left him, and I could still see how badly he had been burned. But he asked me if he could come in and I welcomed him with open arms.

He said 'Sir, I came only to say thank you for the compensation you help me get. Because of you, I won't have to think of work again. And I am here to ask you - What can I do for you? I was given a lot of money and want to know how I can use this blessing to bless you also.'

I quickly pulled him close to me and told him 'Mon, I have enough money. I don't need any more money. If you really want to bless me, then please take that blessing and go out and live the life you deserve. What happened was not your fault but what you do now is your choice, and only yours. Go and live your life with it.'

The man hugged me and when he pulled back, I saw many tears coming from his eyes. He gave me one more hug and then he left - And thankfully, never came back to this day.”

“I was born and raised in this very small place (Burnt Ground). A place where everyone knows everyone, and everyone gets along.

About 12 years ago, I heard a lot of noise in the front of the town and went to see what was happening. There was a girl and she was being messed with by two guys that wern’t from here. So I ran up and told them to leave her alone and they came around and tried to fight me. I protected myself in self-defense and other people came to help.

By the end of it, one of the guys ended up dead and the police came to investigate. When the police looked around for who was at fault, I got blamed because I was there first and they threw me in jail. When I went to court for it, the judge gave me 20 years in prison.

20 years… I was only 20 years old at the time.

I appealed it with a lawyer and hoped the truth would come out... That it would come out as self-defense. After a lot of time working on the case, we got it down to 15 years. But I appealed it again, hoping for anything better than that. During the second appeal, the police came back to this town to try to find out bad things about me and give a case to deny my appeal. But my whole town stood up for me…Saying I was a good guy and have always done the right thing.

Because of this, the judge finally brought it down to 10 years, which I ended up serving.

While I was in prison, my mother was the only person that came to visit me so I got her face tattooed on my belly, to show my love for her.

-

While I was serving my time, I mostly stayed to myself. But one day, a guy tried to fight me and I had to wrestle with him to protect myself. While we were wrestling, he pulled out a piece of metal and went to cut my face with it. I am so lucky I was able to move at the right time, so he didn’t cut my eye out. But I will have this scar for the rest of life to remember that from.

-

Because my whole town stayed by my side while I was gone, I told myself ‘When I get out, I will go back to Burnt Ground and live the rest of my days there.

So, when they released me, I came right back to the place that I was born.”

"I am 90 and he is 93. My husband died 12 years ago and his wife died 3 years ago
We both met at a lovely senior citizens home and, after months of sitting at the same table for lunch, he finally told me he had feelings for me. On one of our first dates, he told me that he didn't want to fall asleep alone and wanted me to fall asleep next to him.

But I told him 'If you want me to sleep next to you, you have to marry me first. I am a lady and my values haven't changed, even this late in life.'
So this Saturday, we are getting married here in Napa Valley to make it official. So that we can spend the rest of our days being able to fall asleep next to each other."

"I was a combat fighter in Vietnam. I remember like it was yesterday... My first night in the trench.
I had two soldiers behind me, trying to sleep for a minute whenever they could. Claymores in front. Barb wire fence in front. It was terrifying. It was hell.
That first night in that trench... I drifted off and had a quick dream.
In the dream, I was looking down a winding dirt road, with a beautiful country home at the end of it. Huge pine trees all around. Out in the wild. Total paradise. It was so beautiful... For that one moment.”

(He has a moment of silence)

"Adam, can you come with me for 7 minutes?"

We hopped in his truck and he drives down a little dirt road for just a minute. As we go around a gentle turn, he slows down and tells me to look forward.
There, right in front of me, was a winding dirt road, with a beautiful country home at the end of it. Where he and his wife had lived for the last 30 years, in their dream home.

"This was exactly what I dreamed of that night in the trench."

"My name is Yossi and I am a landscape architect from Israel. I flew 4,000 kilometers just to see and study this one geological fold here, on the cliffs behind me.
I saw a photograph of these formations on Google some time ago but never could find any more information about where they were. So, I just spent a long time trying to find the guy in the photograph (on picture #2)... and I finally did. I wrote to him and he kindly said to come to Southern France and he would take me there himself.

Please understand - this is an open history book of time that we are looking at here. You can see all the layers of each layer of time and, to me, this is much more interesting than any Napoleon history could ever be.
This is millions of years in the working and just incredible to witness.”

But there is something much more important about why I am here.
I am helping design a children's hospital in the city I am from. And I have always strongly believed that people can be healed and inspired by nature, if they see it as often as possible.
So, when I saw these formations in person, I just knew that we had to use this in the creation of the hospital and, as you can see in this rendering, we have already begun making this happen.”

“It’s hard. It’s really hard.

To inspire your son to become a baker and follow in his fathers footsteps means inspiring him to do something that takes a lot of time. Something that means working with your hands and might not look cool to your friends. Doing something that isn’t cheap or easy to do. So, last year, I took him to Fiji to show him how so much of the rest of the world lives. We met locals who took us in and they took care of us, for no reason other than the kindness in their heart. Expecting nothing in return. People with so little reminded both of us how to treat others. And, when we came back, he really started to see that many of the people he thought were his true friends, were not. Because he learned that true friendship expects nothing in return.
So now, we’re back in the bakery and I’m just trying to show him an honest way to live.”

"I grew up in the 50's in St. Louis. Now, back then, everyone was poor. And I mean, really poor. Only once in my life, when I was a freshman in high school, my mom gave me $5 and told me I could buy what I wanted with that money but that was it. And all I had ever wanted was a pair of nice shoes.

I bought a pair of Italian loafers and I wore them every single day. They were all I had. I wore them every damn day until they finally wore out. So, when they did, I took them to the shoe repair shop by my house to have them fixed. He fixed them but the first time it rained, it wore them out again. I ended up finding out he used the cheapest leather you could buy, which was belly leather. I was so upset that I went to trade school (which was free in those days) just so I could learn shoe repair to fix them myself. And it really was just because I loved that pair of shoes so much and I knew I would never be able to get another pair. What did I do with my first project in that class? I fixed my damn shoes.

Now, I've been doing this for over 50 years and supported my whole family with this."

The Quarantine Diaries