The Walt Sessions

March 3rd, 1996 In this sweeping and reflective conversation, Walt revisits the arc of his personal and political evolution—from WWII soldier to community organizer to radical educator—grounded in experience rather than ideology. He opens by expressing gratitude for the young people who took risks to work alongside him over the years and begins tracing the shifts in his thinking, marked by a journ...

February 25th, 1996 A sprawling conversation, from personal philosophies, to current thoughts on work with Project Neighbors, to more on Walt’s history. Starting from a conversation on family values to the individual, and the destruction of the individual. Walt touches themes such as what it means to be a “true revolutionary” and moving against the state and “high tech,” before getting into more t...

January 14th, 1996 This week, Walt and George spend their time talking about the operations of Project Neighbors, the nonprofit they run in Valparaiso, Indiana. They also discuss themes of leadership and the importance of building relationships and community. 

December 10th, 1995 Walt talks more about his personal history, from Christmases as a boy during the depression and waiting for “the” gift he knew was coming each year… to being marooned for weeks on an island in the Philippines during WWII where he and several others were taken in by local families and a person whose name Walt has never forgotten: “Domingo Valado.” George and Walt end this journe...

November 19th, 1995 George starts their conversation by talking about his brothers’ partners’ death from AIDS and about having some control over his own death, not letting the medical establishment intervene when there was nothing that could be done. Walt talked about the importance of being able to suffer with those that suffer. He also talked about the joy he finds in reconciliation when there s...

November 5th, 1995 Walt and George open their conversation talking about “where do I belong?, “who am I?” Walt talks about that biblical directive that we don’t belong to anyone – the quest of discovery of connections is the point. As opposed to any other religion or ideology, Christianity (especially organized religion) does exactly the opposite of what we are called to do. Walt recounts listenin...

October 22nd, 1995 Walt and George start by discussing the Million Man March, organized by Louis Farrakhan and others to promote Black men taking responsibility and leadership in their families, communities and the country. Walt talks about how black families were not as violent and disconnected before the dominance of the welfare state. He says that both the left and the right are able to look at...

October 8th, 1995 Walt and George start by discussing the difference in Black and White reaction to the OJ Simpson verdict… They launch into a far-reaching discussion about the role of religion-which Walt emphasizes is different from faith-in the world of work and society… Religion has become an ideology that promotes standard of living… The global ideology today is that production is everything…...

October 1st, 1995 Walt and George start by discussing the launching of the Hilltop Neighborhood House daycare center. The Board had asked for a sponsorship from Immanuel Lutheran Church because it was important for daycare licensure. There is a tension between the identification as a Christian effort (because of the partnership with the Church) and the broad commitment to serve people of other fai...

September 10th, 1995 Walt continues to talk about what God means to him. War had a major impact on his views… His mother raising him with a constant “no” on his forehead, being surrounded with people who only said “yes,” struggling with the opportunities of his anonymity, closer ties to his Jewish roommate than others who were evangelical Christians… All of that resulted in real thinking about wha...

September 2nd, 1995 George asks Walt to start talking about “god” and what that means to him, which he assumes is not what it means to others. A concept of god, for Walt, that doesn’t touch the real world is meaningless… there is no way life is by chance – it has meaning… What is the source of meaning? Walt explores changes in the source of meaning over time and cultures… We only know about god th...

July 16th, 1995 Walt asks George about what is driving him right now… they talk about the value about having something that pushes them forward… changes for Walt since he cannot be as physical as he was before his heart attack… being comfortable is not what drives Walt-the opposite… his physical focus has moved from building to long walks that he uses to think about people and things that should b...

June 11th, 1995 In a free-wheeling conversation, Walt and George start by blasting the movie “Bridges of Madison County” as a warped view of love… Walt talks about how the self-focus of “being all you can be” (the US army’s slogan from 1980-2001 and omni-present in popular culture in the 1990s) is being used to pacify society… Love has to be acted out or it is bullshit… Love is responsibility and...

May 29th, 1995 "The only way you destroy the power of money, is to give it away, with no strings attached." George starts the conversation by talking about family, and how lucky we are to have an extended family in Valpo. Walt talked about what his thinking was when he moved with his family into the middle of Chicago in 1965 for four years. He was driven to go, and he had to figure out h...

May 21st, 1995 This episode focuses on the changes in Walt’s job to first taking on the creation of the Youth Leadership Training Program at VU in the early 1960s to going to work for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod to create a national organization called the Prince of Peace Volunteers (referred to as “POPV” throughout the episode), headquartered in Chicago. He moved his family into the city i...

April 30th, 1995 George starts by raising his concern about recent news from Walt’s doctor that he has a progressing heart disease and the urgency to keep going on this project…“freedom” to him is couched in what his limits are and death is one of  those limits. A major focus of this episode is the betrayal of “the church” in dealing with an individual (him) who has confronted the total and sacred...

April 9th, 1995 Episode 5 starts soon after Walt’s second heart attack and as Project Neighbors are starting to create Hilltop Neighborhood House (a daycare center that would serve the poorest in Valpo and established with a retired University prof, Ed Senne, taking on the role of Director and the University selling a former rat lab to be used as the facility). He and George struggle at first to f...

February 12th, 1995 Walt talks about the early years at Valparaiso University… his football career… role as a chaperone to all frat parties… stories related to meeting Loie and the three weeks between their initial meeting and asking her to marry him.. receiving notice to report for the Korean War (after years in World War II) the day after he asked Loie to marry him… he believes that the only rea...

February 12th, 1995 Walt opens this episode by talking about how he ended up at Springfield College due to the GI bill (when there would have been no other way for him to go) and his time there as he sought to become a football coach… his schooling supplemented with a job at a prep school coaching… talked about how he tried to get across what he wanted to say while still not failing… he had a majo...

February 5th, 1995 Walt talks about “desacralizing the sacred” over history….the role of Islamic scholars in the transformation of European society in part by challenging the previously sacred… the Bible is steeped in nonviolence but the church is based on violence and power… work was not alienating until the advent of Taylorism, when workers were kept from realizing the “end product” of their lab...

February 5th, 1995 George and Walt start by discussing a speech just given at the University by Derek Bell (one of the original founders of Critical Race Theory), with a particular focus on the impact of work (an area that they say that they want to discuss in more depth over the next months)... Walt talks about his conception of “revolution” which is very different from what is being put forward...

January 29th, 1995 Walt continues to discuss his childhood, including the trauma of his near fatal illness. He also alludes to the impact of his father leaving the family in the early years of the depression on his childhood. His high school years were heavily impacted by both extreme poverty and the fact that he had been pushed ahead nearly two years in elementary school. He relates his connectio...

January 29th, 1995 Walt starts this session by discussing the changing nature of the proletariat in a technological society. There are two proletariats-one of affluence and one of misery-that are being generated. This is a topic which Walt and George agree that they will come back to. The bulk of the episode is spent discussing Walt’s childhood, significant events that shaped his life going forwar...

January 22nd, 1995 Walt starts discussing his own history in this session. The impact of “work” is something that was a key part of his life (grandfather, brothers, shipyards, etc) and the subject of conversation with George. Many stories are shared  related to his childhood including… the fact that his mother’s family (Mugge) were aristocratic of German heritage (mother sent to Europe to study) a...

January 22nd, 1995 George and Walt kick off this conversation that started in 1995 and would continue over the next four years. This first episode starts with the two trying to figure out how to accomplish two things—create a chronology of Walt’s life and also answer the question “Why do you do what you do?” Walt jumps into the second question first and discusses… The starting point for everything...