The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Time Like No Other: My Journey 1946-1967 by Ken Rand

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

A Time Like No Other: My Journey 1946-1967 by Ken Rand Kenrand.net https://www.amazon.com/Time-Like-No-Other-1946-1947/dp/1969865504 Historians have labeled the 50s and 60s as a ‘time of innocence, and many feel it was the greatest generation. In the early 50s, we witnessed the birth of television (in black and white). And it was live TV, where the unpredictable could-and would-happen. People felt safe, and it wasn’t unusual for them to leave their cars and front doors unlocked. In the 50s and 60s, we did not have cell phones or computers for texting and email. We communicated by talking to each other (sometimes for hours) and we wrote ‘hand-written’ letters; imagine that. Things were so different then. Milk and meat tasted different, and even tap water tasted better, (bottled water? What’s that?), It was also a time when women’s rights and the civil rights movement gained momentum. The world was beginning to change. I have two goals in writing this book. One is to share my personal life journey and memories with you, and the other is to provide you with a picture of what was happening in the world, especially in the United States, at that time. You will soon draw your own conclusions about whether the time in which we baby boomers were brought up was truly “A Time Like No Other.” If you were born in the 50s or 60s, I know you will cherish this journey and my personal stories. If you weren’t, then sit back, relax, read, and enjoy what you’ve missed. Put on your seatbelts. About the author Ken Rand is an award-winning math instructor who retired in 2015 after forty-seven years of teaching. His teaching experiences include a variety of educational levels, beginning with JHS in the Bronx, New York, and then HS in White Plains, New York, and then two- and four-year colleges in California. Known for his classroom story-telling technique, Ken has found a way to bring those classic stories to life in his Amazon bestselling book, One Student at a Time: A Teacher’s Journey. He is also writing a follow-up book with co-author Kim Thomas titled One Teacher at a Time: Teach-Inspire-Change.

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Because you're about to go on a moment. Monster Education Roller Coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks of Voss here from thecrisvons Show.com. Ladies gentlemen, the Iron Lady sings of that makes it official. Welcome to the big show. What else can you say about everything that we have going on? It's just the most wildest stuff that you can ever come up with here.

And as always, the Chris Voss show, we keep trucking along at 16 years going on 17-2600. millions of downloads can't be wrong can't be wrong we couldn't do it without you guys so go to goodreads.com for chest chris fuss linkedin.com for chest chris fos chris fos one on the ticotkyty all those crazy places in the internet opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the chris fos show some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind terry amazing young prolific multi-book author on the show we're going to be talking

about his insights his books and everything else that we can can get into with him on all of those details. So we're going to be talking to him about all that. And we're going to be talking about his first book today. It is called A Time Like No Other, My Journey, 1946 to 1967. And Ken Ran is going to be joining us in the show. We're going to get into with him, his insights, and everything else. And welcome the show. Ken, how are you? Thanks, Chris. I'm doing pretty good. Thank you. You've got a a lot of books you've written. Give us your dot coms. How can people find you on the interwebs? And how many books do you have? My dot com is a dot net because my name was taken

already by some guy who doesn't have my name. It's Ken Rand, K-E-N-R-A-N-D dot net. That's my website. And I think we're going on five books now. Congratulations. You're an award-winning math instructor and author who, after 47 years of teaching, retired in 2015. Your experiences include a variety of education levels, beginning in the junior high schools in Bronx, New York, and then high schools in White Plains, New York, and then two and four-year colleges in California. So tell us about this book, A Time, Like No Other. I'll start from the beginning. I was going on a bus trip up to Cash Creek Casino with my wife, and it was early in the morning, and I was trying to get to sleep on the bus, and the radio was playing some

songs from the 50s and 60s. And those songs, like Pretty Woman, other great songs. And they just, they brought me back. I couldn't sleep. I just started to reminisce about my teenage years. And then for some reason, I started to think about, my sons

know a lot about me, but they don't know anything about me before they were born. So I started to think that this would be a great legacy for them to tell them about my growing years. And the more I started to write the stories and the more that people read them, they said, this is a book. This is definitely a book, and you need to share it

with not only people in your generation, but anyone can identify it because we all go through the same type of things. Oh, yeah. Now, why did you name it the best times there, the most important times, as it were? It was such a different time to be brought up. There were no computers. There were no cell phones. People actually talked to each other. We wrote letters to each other. Life is very different. We all felt safe. My mom used to leave me outside in front of our apartment in the carriage when I was about one year old. People come along and tickle me and do all that stuff. And she was never worried that I was going to be stolen or taken or whatever. And food, food was a big difference of food tasted differently for some reason. Water, but we didn't,

if you had come up to somebody in 1950 and tell them that they're going to be buying water, or someday, they would have freaked out. That's very true. I still find it shocking to this day. Yeah, me too. Do we pay for water? And we're so proud of it, too. We're like, oh, I bought water. And you're like,

that's not the way. I bought the most expensive water. But the most expensive water and really it is just purified tap water. So yeah, it was a time like no other. I mean, it was a post a post-war

boom sort of era and we were called the baby boomers yeah yeah yeah so we're 1946 right after the end of the World War II and you know people were kind of enjoying you know the soldiers came back with their

GI bills and their money to spend on college and housing and you know Levittown started growing and became that thing where we just started paving over the world yeah it was a lot of population boom after that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you guys were busy back then. Our parents were. It is a time like no other now, because we have a declining population and people aren't marrying and having kids and everything else. No one likes each other anymore, evidently. Can I tell you a quick story? Please. Okay.

I got a phone call. I was very concerned in my book that I wouldn't be reaching today's generation to get them to read it. and I got a phone call yesterday from a former student who was laughing as he was talking to me and I said, what's going on? And Josh, he said, I was just reading a part of your book and he's like 30, 40 years younger than me and he said, I was laughing so loud

that my wife and my daughter came into the room and wanted to know what I was talking about and was one of the stories about you growing up and that's a problem for me. Oh, well, isn't that lovely? Now, one thing you should know, Ken, I noticed on the Amazon listing for this, they have the dates as My Journey, 1946 to 1947. I know. I'm trying to get that fixed.

Yeah. If you have an author page set up with KDP, it's kind of a separate section of an Amazon. It's actually a whole different site, but it's still Amazon. But if you get your author page picked up, which I think you have, because I see your bio here, your profile. If you contact someone through that, someone from Amazon should be able to help you. Yeah, I'm in the process of doing that. Yeah, I've been writing some letters and stuff.

Because I was looking at it thinking, did I read that wrong on the intro? You're only the second person to see that. Yeah, I tend to notice that to help out the authors we have on the show. So you wanted your people to know about this time, this journey and what Maricana was

maybe like at that point. and time of innocence it's labeled as by historians many feel it was the greatest generation it was definitely a great time it was a lot of people want to go back to that time is that is that really a time we should return to after all the advancements in science and you know mobile phones and crazy things are up to well that's the dilemma isn't it you know it's kind of disheartening when you go to a restaurant and you see half the people on their phones not talking to each other Whole family's just each having their own phone. Right, right, right. It's a struggle to, you know, even your own family, no cell phones while we're eating or things like that. So that's a negative part of today's, not generation, but what's going on. Yeah, that's a great question.

You know, I don't think we need to go back to the past, but it seems like because, you know, if you live in a past, you're not, there's no future. Yeah. But you need the past to remind you of how good things were then. and to give you directions for the future. That's my philosophy. Yeah, we often say on the show. The one thing man can learn from his history

is that man never learns from his history and thereby we go around and around. So, yeah, you definitely need to know your history. And there's certainly, you know, maybe, it's funny. I've often learned because I've always, you know, I have pretty memorable memories of places in my, history of my past and my youth that I loved, sometimes going back to cities that I lived in 40, 50 years before. And, you know, the one thing I found is, well, it's nice to go back. You can never really go

home. It just never, you know, you have these memories and maybe those memories are still wonderful. But man, when you go back home, you're like, wow, this place where they went to hell things really changed. And, you know, sometimes you might think, well, you know, maybe it wasn't as good as I thought it was. Now I kind of remember some stuff that was going on here. Yeah, holding on to those memories, I think, is good. I really do.

Yeah. I lecture to students now at colleges and high schools and junior high schools, and my main lecture to them is making a choice. And one of those choices is living in the past or going ahead to the future. And I say at the same time, I don't want you. to give up your heritage and your good memories. But, you know, the past can really hold your back because that's all we know is our past.

Yeah, yeah. And then, I mean, the future is going to come whether you like it or not. There's an old, one of my favorite lines is through, is from the movie No Country for Old Men. And Tommy, I forget his name. Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jones is standing there.

He's in the, I think, the trailer of the house of his uncle, I think it is. And his uncle's in the wheelchair. and I forget the name of the uncle, but a really amazing actor. And he's talking to Tommy and he says, would you got son ain't nothing new? This country's hard on people. But you can't stop what's coming.

That's vanity. And that really sticks to me. Sometimes we get these vein loops where we're like, oh, if we can only go back to this, you know. If we can only go back to that when eggs prices, were cheaper and everything and you know all that stuff that we get hung up on and you know sometimes the good times weren't always good sometimes the bad weren't as bad as they seemed i think that's the lyric from a book about the we i show you pictures of our family we look like the all-american family and

it just wasn't so that's part of what i wanted to reveal it's a very candid book about all not only the good times but the bad times and the tragic times and we were the only generation to go through the possibility of not being alive the next day. Oh, yes. Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuban Missile Crisis? I mean, I remember those days growing up as a child cowering under my desk,

you know, because those old steel asbestos deaths or whatever was in them were supposed to save us from the nuclear bombs. Well, you do remember that. I do. I remember thinking, I don't know

this is going to work. if the USSR drops the ball on me. It's funny now, but I remember being in the hole in the high school at, what was it, 9.45 a.m. and the Russian ships were supposed to cross the blockade, about 10.05, and, you know, the entire school is in the hallway. And when they stop going to the blockade, there's a roar that could be heard from miles around from everybody's in the hallway. It was incredible. That was a hell of a detain. It was scared.

Yeah, it was a scary time. I mean, it was, and in fact, if it wasn't, I believe it wasn't for John F. Kennedy's wisdom, and he kind of learned a little bit from the Bay of Pigs fiasco, that we might have been at war because the Russians were pretty intent on what they wanted to take and do. And this was before a time, of course, where we had, there's like a hot phone that goes between the White House from Russia evidently we didn't have that back then so we were kind of you know it was kind of who won that one I clearly remember the thinking that I'm dreaming that night that I may be like I may be dead the next day yeah yeah there was a lot of there was a lot of that

sort of feelings that went on during the during that time I mean you live with it up until what 89 and even then those nukes really weren't ever held down in the UK after the or the USSR after they fell. So let's go if you want, let's wander into your other book that we mentioned in the beginning of the show

that we were going to get into. The book entitled, let me see if I can get this pulled up here real quick, I've got too many tabs going on. The book entitled One Student at a Time, a Teacher's Journey. Tell us about this book. This book is actually a continuation

even though I wrote it before a continuation of a time like no other, because that ends in 1967. In 1967, I became a teacher in New York City. And it's even hard to explain how incredible those 47 years were. Teaching a junior high school in New York City, I'm 21 years old. My students are five years, six years younger than me, and I don't know how to teach. I just went to college for two months before, after graduate. in college. I went to graduate school. And it was like a train going through. They tried to get us

through to get us a license because it was the shortest of teachers. But the stories are incredible, especially those in the Bronx and then high school and college. So over 47 years, I accumulated so many heartwarming, tragic, funny stories. I witness a miracle in the classroom, and I think it was a religious miracle where a student who could not read was learned how to read because of the students around him who helped him it was just I cried my heart out while I was in the front of the room watching it and oh I saw I stopped a gang war in front of the school I took a gun off a student in the school I foolishly ran down a six foot five 250 pound intruder in the school and I still can't put my jacket on right well you sounds like you had quite

the impact, though, as a teacher, because teachers tend to have an impact to students that a lot of students remember them for a lifetime. Yeah, I was very lucky. My whole goal was to connect and engage with my students, to make them feel like the, you know, I know I'm a teacher, but students are brought up thinking that we have a, except there's no other light that's where teachers are 100% of the time, and it's not true. You know, we have normal lives and we have normal feelings. And so I did that to connect with my students and they would know them a quote-unquote

normal person. I was anything but normal in the classroom. In fact, I know I almost got fired five times in my first year. For doing crazy things like playing monopoly in the classroom and taking all my students on unauthorized trips to

their houses and stuff like that. So it was a crazy time. But then I went to, I've worked for a publisher after 10 And that happened because they convinced me that reaching 100,000 or 200,000 students would be more effective as a teacher than reaching the thousands of students of 1,000, 2,000 students I was having over a 10-year period. So, yeah, I worked for a publisher, a math publisher. And then I miss teaching so much. I went back into it.

I went back to teach the high school. And I wanted my parents to see my son growing up because we were in California. And so we went back to New York. We got a job of White Claims High School. So now I'm teaching it on a different level. And I'm wondering will my gimmicks, my tricks, my activities work, and they did. And then I went to California. Oh, I have to tell you this experience.

Okay. Yeah, please do. Yeah, we sure do. I'm at a community college in California. And I've never taught a community college class, but I'm in charge of what they call the math lab where students come for extra help. And I get asked by the dean of the math department to cover for a teacher, a math teacher. So this is my first experience ever in a college classroom.

And again, these are not like the junior high school kids or even high school kids. These are, you know, 19, 20, 21, some of them are even 50, 60 years old. So I'm thinking, is this going to work? You know, because my personality for junior high school and high school is one thing, will it work in college? And I got to tell you, Chris, that after 50 minutes in that room, I felt like I had died and gone to teaching heaven. It was incredible.

That is awesome. So I spent the next 36 years teaching community in college. You know, teachers are the greatest things that we have in society, and we need to appreciate them more. My mother was a teacher for five years. My sister was a teacher. You know, she's always on her when she has people come up to her. You know, they're fully grown now, and they have their own families,

and they're like, Mrs. Voss, we remember, you know, he was a teacher and you inspire me to do this and I had a better life and and yeah boy those moments are of changing the world and leaving the world in a better place are invaluable there's nothing more rewarding absolutely nothing it's impossible yeah and like you said it's come up to you years after where I live right now in California my sheer coincidence I've met four of my former students but the amazing thing about is that each each encounter with them they all told me, you know, Mr. River, we were talking about you last night, and here am I speaking to put you today. I mean, this was 23 years later. You know, it's funny. I don't know if

you've had this out. You probably have for all the teaching you've done. My mom's had a few people come up to her and they tell her, you know, oh, I was in your class. I was so-and-so, and she's thinking her, it had, oh, you were that one. You were going to, I was sure you're in it from prison. And they're like, I loved you. And she's sitting there thinking, I'm pretty sure you hated me and I hated you. But they gush over her and they tell her how wonderful they remember. I have customers to do that to me every now and then. They'll have a bad experience.

Usually over a bad employee doing some stupid and so I'll fix it, but they'll be, you know, swearing at me and telling me us how horribly are. And I'm like, okay, well, we're going to fix it. We're going to make it, you know, so that you're happy. And then when I get done making them happy, they usually go, off and they're, you know, oh, thanks, and they go off, but they're still kind of angry, and I can't blame them. And I'm like, well, we'll probably never see them again. And then they'll come back year after year to remorget their home, and they'll tell me how great their

experience was. And I'll be like, I remember you. That was like for me to talk. I have a quick story again. I just, please do. Yeah, all right. While I was teaching on the first day of class, I would pass out an index card to get some information about my students. I would do a whole slideshow about me, but now I want to know about them. And I asked them, why are they taking this algebra class or whatever class it was at this particular time in my life? And the next day, I would read back some of their cards because I would read the cards at night. And you're the only math teacher I haven't tried yet because I failed four times before. And this is my favorite. He says, my mom took you, and now I'm already thinking, oh, my God. My mom took

you and she said you were great and I had to take you. And now I'm thinking in front of the classroom you know I said pretty if I teach long enough someone's going to say my grandmother took you it's not something I want to have happen you know or you have a Mari experience you teach long enough they're like wait you're my kid no I'm just kidding anyway that might be funny I don't know so you know I mean the one thing people always ask me what do what do you want to accomplish in life what do you want to do and I like I would like to leave the world to better than I found it in a better place. Now, that's not probably going to happen with me, but it probably

up with you because you're teaching people and educating them, getting them all involved in this stuff there. Yeah. So what do you hope people come away with reading your second book or both books together maybe? You know, it's pretty much the same reaction we want from the first book. It's because I want them to come away not only with the history of the times, but, you know, I want to be moved.

I think any author who writes a book wants their readers to be moved. And they could be a warm moment, a sad moment, a funny moment. And that's all I want. I want them to be engaged with me as I was engaged with my students. In fact, the best compliment my readers give me is that they feel like they're talking to me when they read my book. Wow. And so it sounds like it's done well and in your voice and all that sort of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. And then do we want to tease out maybe the other books you have? What are some of the other books you have made people might be interesting. Well, I did a follow-up to one student at a time, and I called it one teacher at a time. I can show it to you here. Uh-huh. And you see that? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so one student at a time isn't about how to teach. I mean, though teachers can get something from what I did and how I handled my students or how they handled me. But I wanted to, you know, after 47 years, I think I have some knowledge of what works and what doesn't work. So I wrote this book with another author from, she was a teacher of the year in Chicago. Uh-huh. And her name is Kim Thomas. So I wanted a guide for teachers to use all the activities and games and engagements and connecting with how to do that with students, you know, without losing discipline and, you know, maintaining control. Because if you lose discipline and lose control, then nothing works.

So then, oh, you're ready for this? I got to plug this. All right. And what is that? That's afterwards. It's a book I wrote about 1978. I went on a binge and I wrote invented seven word games. Oh, really?

What's sad about this is that in 1978, I invented wordle. Oh, wow. Holy crap, dude. I don't want to look through the pages, but I invented word. and it was for two people, not for one. And half the games that are in this book are now on your phone. Not that I put them there. Maybe you should, you know, have an attorney call somebody for copyright.

I don't know. I try that. It would be more expensive than it would be worth. That's probably true. There's probably some, I don't know. But that's pretty amazing. I have one more book. Okay.

Here's another one. Second chances. Yeah, this is actually an anthology of 23 stories from 23 authors from around the world. We're all given second chances. And I've been given a second chance, not a third, not a fourth, but at least five life-threatening chances in my life. Wow. Yeah. Do you want to tease one of those out to us?

Excuse me? Do you want to tease one of those life-threatening experiences out to us? With me? Yeah. Oh, okay. 19 2005 I own a baseball card store

I'm working two jobs I had a heart attack oh wow on the way to the hospital I died holy crap I flat lined and they put one of those

defibrillator devices on and they brought me back to life wow and that was I kept saying saying when I was awake, I say, I'm not ready to die yet. I have some books to write. I'm serious. This is what I'm saying. And my son is the one who drove me to the hospital. He says, don't worry, you're going to live. You're going to live. But in the ambulance, that's

when I flatline. But the first happened not once, but four times. Four times. Now, is that on the same day or different? No, no. There were years apart. 2005, 2016. In 2020, during COVID, twice. Wow. Yeah. And I don't want to talk about that. I mean, that's all in my past, and that's a past, like, you know, I'm just lucky. I'm alive. I'm very happy, and God's good to me. No more heart attacks. You already, you already used it before. Right now. I don't know if you could hear it beating. Oh, you do. You've got it. Is it one of those intent or internal things? Yes. Yeah. Well, that's good. My dad had one of those internal defibrillators, a heart, I forget. Anyway. Face speaker. Yeah. And he. And he.

He had a heart attack. That thing, he was asleep at the time, and so it was probably good it went off because he might have passed in his sleep like my uncle did, his brother. But he said that thing lit him up, and he found him, he went from dead sleep to standing up beside the bed. I don't want to experience that. I'm like, that thing shocks you that hard. He goes, yep, lifting me right off the bed, and I'm standing on my two feet. went from dreaming to heart racing

but you know I mean he would have probably died in his sleep he was having a lot of strokes and heart attacks there in at the end and yeah I mean it doesn't sound like fun but I mean least you know you're alive at that point it works

it's kind of a miraculously but you know I just went through surgery Friday for hernias and you know I went through a lot of shit and post up and healing but you know I've at least I'm alive I won that battle sometimes it's a life's about my next book if I write another book I need to take a break for now I own the sports store baseball cards and so on and there are amazing stories from that experience again I did that while I was teaching which probably led to the first heart attack, but I got held up at gunpoint.

Oh, wow. That's in the store, and I'm not going to go too much into it. I want people to read about it, but I will never believe eyewitness identification again. Oh, really? It's too much trauma. I mean, the guys, two feet in front of me with a gun that's 12 inches long, and I couldn't identify who it was. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Well, you've written a lot of books. You've inspired a lot of people. you've helped a lot of folks and done on a lot of things. Anything more coming up on the horizon there? Well, I just had a great last Saturday. I had a

book launch party where my friends and neighbors and relatives came and about five of my former students and five of my colleagues and all my neighbors and friends where I live and my in-laws and came and so on. My family's on the East Coast. And

so that was a great time. I was, we had the 50 chairs there and a standing room only in the back and I made people laugh which is what I want to do. My next thing is going to be this Saturday I'm going to be at Barnes & Noble in Gilroy, California. And I'll be signing books there and a lot of my books will be on the table. So I'm looking forward to that. And then after that I'm going to rest. It's going to be a good holiday for me. Enjoy that holiday. Enjoy it with your family and all that sort of good stuff. Well, as we go out, give people final pitchouts to pick up your books, any dot coms, where they can find

you on the interwebs. No, I just encourage them to visit my website, kenran.net, and email me at the Ken, BBC, E-T-C-A-O-L.com. By the way, on my website, Kenran.com, I'll say that five times, there are some bonus chapters that can people, people can read without buying a book. Get those bonus chapters, people. Get involved in all that sort of good stuff, as it were. So thank you very much for coming the show.

We really appreciate it, Ken. Thank you. And thanks for sharing. I appreciate it. No, that's the role of the podcast, is to talk your aeroffs and get to know all this amazing data and stuff and journey that you've been through in your life

and share it with other people. Folks, pick up the book where fine books are sold. At Time Like No Other, My Journey, 1946 to 1967 and Ken's other books and stay in touch with them for his future offerings. Thanks for much for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com,

Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortess, Chris Foss, one, the TikTok, and all crazy places in the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

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