52. Wonder Twin Powers Activate Part 2: Mike and Doug Share Twin Stories

Michelle Walters 1:29

Welcome, everyone. We are back at mine power meets mystic with me, Michelle Walters and my podcast pal Cynthia Varkevisser. We are moving on to part two of the twins episode we just heard from Cynthia's twins, Dominique and Amber. And now we get to hear from my twins, my father, Mike and my uncle Doug. So unlike Cynthia's twins, these older gentleman are in a different chapter of life. They've lived through many different experiences. They had their own professional lives. They're both retired now. And they had a family with younger siblings. So that, of course makes things somewhat different from the Dominique and Amber story. So the older gentleman just had a chance to watch the younger twins. Interview before we got started here. And I wanted to ask them, why don't you each introduce yourselves as you speak and say a few words about what your relationship is like now at this point in your life. And I will let you choose who gets to go first. He told us he goes first. How come I always have to go vert.

Doug Oliver 2:52

I'm Doug. I'm John. And I'd have to say that

I guess.

After high school,

we we lead separate lives quite a time until Mike came out of the Marines and joined me down at San Jose State where we both did our undergraduate degrees.

But now, we spend a lot of time together. We enjoy

same kind of films, books.

And that's those things occupy a lot of our time and conversation.

But it's

I think we've grown more alike in our own golden years than perhaps in our teenage years thereafter.

You could speak to that, Michael? Oh, I think I'd agree with that. We

Mike Oliver 4:01

we were around each other living somewhere relatively close

to each other for a big period of time. Right after high school. I I went into the Marines that separated us right away.

pretty substantially. I went overseas. I spent three years in the Marines. They tricked me. I was gonna go in for two and

but that's a different story. Anyway, today. I picked Douglas up in the little yellow car that his the people in his apartments think of his as his personal Uber. And

I agree with him that we share a natural number of interests. Car Shows Blues Festivals, which we haven't done enough of lately. And

Douglas for a while and up in Oregon with his son.

But we've roomed together after I

got divorced.

So we have a extremely close relationship, I would say.

Not as aggressive toward the rest of the world as

I met. So

yes, that's where we are now. Pretty much on the same pages, except maybe, politically.

Cinthia Varkevisser 5:41

We'll stay away from that just for a moment.

I do have a question about when you were growing up in high school, went through high school? Did you enjoy the same sports? Did you have the same friend group? Did you hang out with your other siblings rather than each other? What was that like?

Doug Oliver 6:03

Oh, high school. We were just putting aside the same outfit.

Cinthia Varkevisser 6:12

I'm so sorry.

Doug Oliver 6:15

And there were things about it that were strange. We're always known as the Oliver brothers. I remember I had an art instructor who said I couldn't understand it. He would go by me in the hall and I will not say anything to him. And then other times, we will be greeting each other very quick, quick. And I had to explain to him No, I have this twin. But I think high school was at a big high school, we did have the same friend group. For the most part. As I remember. How about you? Well, you hung out with the guys from the German class. I remember that. That was a little detour. Yes. Sports. We were pretty on sporty. But maybe as a Allman have the eventual choice to enlist of all things in the Marine Corps. I was I was on the boxing team. Only because I thought I had enough reach to keep anybody was 124 pounds. Like I was pretty, pretty distant. As far as how hard I get hit a little Mexican with bad teeth taught me. But I was really wrong about that. Yeah, that was pretty much the limit of our sporting activities. Although in those days, we had gym and you had to go out and participate in sporting, sporting stuff that you were unenthused about. not dressed for and not enthusiastic about. I had to had to learn a whole new vocabulary and a lot of the new rules and stuff when I taught high school because there if you were one of the instructors who words sent off to the judge to discuss or measure the shotput what have you it was a new part of my education when I was educating

Cinthia Varkevisser 8:52

Wow, okay, um, you know, you dress high school, but what about your other siblings? Was there did you to favor each other? Meaning that you hung out together more than you would with your other siblings? Or were you pretty much you know, independent, independent.

Doug Oliver 9:13

When Mike came down to San Jose State. Our younger brother Tom came down about the same time right out of high school. And we were all bunk together in a green apartment building as our recollected and you couldn't get Tom out of bed in the morning, go off to class and you read and take any interest in it. And sure enough, he flunked out in one semester, as I remember, and, but we stuck together and we did imitate one another and had the same values I think about college. And we're where we were going in life.

Michelle Walters: 10:06

Well, and I, I'm going to, I'm going to jump on in here to kind of get you guys to talk about this a little bit more, but you guys have three or had three younger siblings. And over the course of my life, we always saw Doug a whole lot more than we saw my other aunts and uncles, like you guys were, were much more of a pair, then than what I saw in terms of your relationships with your, your other siblings. Is that fair to say?

Mike Oliver: 10:42

Yeah, it is fair to say, I will say on the rare morning that we did get time off to go to school at the same time we were going, we would tell people, we were triplets. We look so much like Tom, Tom couldn't get up in the morning because at night, one of the neighbors in the apartment house we were in would yell talk time. And that was an invitation to play a game that I think was Filipino and origine origin and a handful of guys would assemble and play until two or three in the morning and then not get up and go to school the next day. Most of them flunked out that they were gone. Our youngest sibling. This besides the three of us was my sister Abigail, she went off to New York, got involved in the rag trade. Had a career as a photographer for travel books, as I understand that Lonely Planet, that sort of stuff. Yeah, she had an exciting life. But she our relationship was the victim of the 70s. It was she was estranged from my mother for reasons I never understood. And our next younger sibling was Duncan was what? Well, viewers are so younger than we were. So you're right. We we hung out together. We didn't. I was gone for the high school years of Tom. And he was gone. He joined the Air Force after he failed that college several times, and became a guy that watched radar on the dew line. And then went all over the world watching radars for incoming Russian planes that fortunately didn't arrive yet. So we we were separated geographically through a lot of it. So Doug and I were the pair. And we we stayed the pair. I remember we were riding on a bus in Los Angeles. And there was a guy across from us, that kept looking from one of us to the other us back to the other one back to the other one. He couldn't figure out why he was seeing the same thing over and over again. And I wanted to save him, but Doug has kept me from it.

Michelle Walters: 13:39

Well, and you guys used to sound exactly Now you sound a little bit different. But growing up, if it if you guys answered the phone for each other, your voices were the same.

Doug Oliver: 13:53

Oh, tell me that. Tell them the Edmond story. You started out No, no, I'll tell another story. The I had a lady friend I would occasionally have dinner with and she called me up one night. She said, I just saw your brother on television. He's defending somebody about some crime. But He sounds just like you. And I totally get used to it, I guess. But a lot of this stuff is is the culture. I mean, the Armed Forces reading the story all over the place because it was the Cold War. And that's what was going on. Culture is king when it comes to relationships, the my mother bragged so From from time we could hear her voice, that she could listen to the two of us in the next room. And we sounded like to everybody else, but she could tell instantly who was speaking. But but the payoff really came. Douglas was working on a project at the Vallejo courts. And he had contact with the clerk of the court. That was RAM rotting, whatever he was doing, I never did understand what you were doing. And one of my favorite judges was called LU admins. And he started out the roadeo Justice Court of all things, but we had a good relationship. Fortunately, not the drinking relationship that that he was in with everybody else that he was friendly with. But so he and his wife were attending a some kind of function that arose out of his position as being a judge, and her position as being a chief clerk in a municipal court. And they heard a voice. And one of them said to the other, oh, that's Doug Oliver. And Lou said, No, that's my call ever. I'd recognize that laugh anyway. So eventually, they've made their way through it and found which Oliver they were dealing with, but in between the two of them, they absolutely were certain to each other, that they knew that voice anywhere.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 16:50

Now, because you both sounded alike, and look alike, any pranks?

Doug Oliver: 16:57

Oh, you know, I really can't remember doing any of that stuff. We always were advised by mischievious people, perhaps like their daughters do this prank or that or pretended to be somebody else? But I can't really remember anytime we ever went through with any of that stuff get talked about, you know, but it never seem to result in any kind of action. The prank I remember, wasn't a really prank played by the two of us. We were on the porch. It must have been about eight or so. And the minister had been invited over for ice tea on the deck or whatever when he was there. We never saw a lot of that. But the was this occasion when it happened. And I remember that I made some jest. It's I was wanting to do and my mother turned she had a ice tea glass, a plastic one in her hand, and she banged it on top of Douglass's head is if he had made the remark he said I didn't say anything. You

Michelle Walters: 18:21

think the story about when you guys made root beer? Oh,

: 18:26

yeah, that was pretty sad. I thought it was pretty grand. We had a Brunswick kullander radio, which was a big cabinet set up in the golden age of radio. And the cabinet was large the equivalent inside it was very small. So we thought this would be a great place to put root beer. That was aging and we would aged a little extra and dry the results but hit a patch where it started exploding. That was pretty embarrassing moment of

Michelle Walters: 19:20

this behavior. parents weren't aware of this root beer brewing

Doug Oliver: 19:23

all I think, well, I knew when the first bottle popped. Explosion you could smell it for quite a long time. Inside of the rail cabinet,

Cinthia Varkevisser: 19:34

right? Yeah. How old were you when this happened? When you had the grand idea? Well,

Mike Oliver: 19:41

yeah, that'd be an alcoholic said we could manufacture. Yeah, and I left Douglas at the table as I ran in. I knew right away what had happened and turn it all the buttons to get the back of the radio. This was thing that stood on legs. So it was it was huge. And as Douglas has pointed out the actual radio inside was practically a crystal set. I mean, it was tiny. So, so there was plenty of room for bottles in there. We had about half a dozen. And I ran in and grabbed the errand bottle capitalists as it was and foaming over everything, and somehow got it out of the way and got the rest of the bottles. Shortly thereafter on kept before more explosions occurred.

Michelle Walters: 20:39

When did Papa my grandpa, what did he think of all this root beer making? He went on to be a chemist? So yeah,

Mike Oliver: 20:47

they probably tumbled to it. I was a little hard to imagine that they didn't get that. That what we were up to. But he he was he grown up? His mother died when he was 12. She was in bed from the time he was eight. They went to Arizona from Minnesota to for her health, which didn't improve enough, obviously. And so he grew up with three boys and a father who was

Michelle Walters: 21:26

a widow dad widowed dad,

Mike Oliver: 21:27

and so he was the middle son. My middle daughter tells me that being the middle is significant as to how you will land in the world. But yeah, they probably knew we were in the brewing business. For short time, although I will mentioning the brewing business, my dad said. I remember when the three of us, Tom, Doug, and I came up from San Jose on a Friday night. And that was we were having a great conversation. It was just a great family time. And my dad said, I like the new boys come up said is always a great conversation. And there's usually a quart of beer.

Michelle Walters: 22:32

So would you guys so the girls talked a lot about being very competitive. Have you ever been come? I would not say you two are competitive? Have you ever been competitive? That might answer the question. Yeah, I guess.

Doug Oliver: 22:56

The thing about my father was that is I look back on it now. One of the things he didn't say the things he just let pass. And I always came to re I came to realize, trying to be good father myself. How many times he didn't insert himself into something and make it a problem. Left us to work it out. Which I think is a smart move. Yeah, and I'm sure

Cinthia Varkevisser: 23:31

you'll agree with that.

Mike Oliver: 23:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 23:35

Well, so my kids are, they're competitive with each other to a point because they know that there's, I don't know about you, but we talked about, I also have twin uncles, and have their twins all around me. So I don't know how that happened. I think it's a product of the time. You know, my my uncles are only five years older than me. My best friend and her best friends. They were both sets of twins. And my question to you is, if it's not competition, there's something about a twin where there's always a comparison. Did you feel like you were compared like at school or within the family? Or, you know, in the community? Did you to get compared a lot? Or did you use that thing where he's older? I'm older so

Michelle Walters: 24:27

that wasn't you guys against the world. That's what we heard from Dominique and Amber. Yeah.

Mike Oliver: 24:34

We were always ready to stick with our sibling if there was an occasion to do it, but the competitive thing Michelle's right, it silences the answer. As far as I'm concerned. Well, here's the one I remember that you don't because I've asked you about it before, we were about I think 12 or so, maybe a little younger. And we wound up in the, in the classroom that we were students in, and everybody was out of the room, except the two of us. And two guys that I regarded as the bullies of the, of the classroom. And we got into a scuffle. And because Doug and I scuffled a lot, my mother said, you, you're always fighting? Well, nobody won because we were totally matched. But I do remember in the fray, I like using that word of legal word, be afraid and classroom that we were pretty successful. And I remember specifically that I wound up on the floor on my back and I was missing a shoe. I guess it really got

Cinthia Varkevisser: 26:12

good. That's a good scuffle. Yeah.

Mike Oliver: 26:15

And I remember I took my suckless foot and pressed the my adversary's hand into the rail on the truck board causing a lot of discomfort. This was probably an omen for eventually going in the Marines, I guess. But we came off pretty well. And at that point, you know, we, we knew we could do it. And we didn't do it, really get in fights. Anyway, the thing about the skip boy scuffling was one thing, it just stopped. Where I remember it just my kids, boy girl at each other all the time, then one day, it stopped was quite amazing to me. Did you

Cinthia Varkevisser: 27:16

know they didn't they, they talked about it actually, that they didn't really like that every couple of times, they'd like, Well, what happened is that they started fighting I came in and they turned it into patty cake. Because they didn't want to get in trouble. And it was one of those instinctual things that they did. And it's funny because I remember that moment. Because you know, as a parent, when you just feel like something was wrong, but there was nothing you could, there's nothing you can do about it. And that's the other thing. So here you are, I love that the that it almost sounds like a Malay I'm not gonna lie, if you have one shoe off and your foot on someone's hand against the rail against the chalkboard, just saying that, when you twinned up, that there's a step there was this amazing thing there. And you can call up. I don't know if you want to call it power, but there's this kinship that really up to you to have. And I was wondering, do you have any other examples of that where the two of you got together? And something really, really cool happened? I mean, you just, you know, you handled yourself with the two bullies.

Unknown Speaker: 28:29

A lot of stuff it happened. Okay.

Michelle Walters: 28:33

I don't, it's my observation that the two of you have really have really gotten in there for each other. Right. That's what I'm looking for when life got tough. And, and Life has been good to both of you. But that's not to say you haven't both been through some rather ugly twists and turns. But, but I've seen the two of you stand up for each other. I mean, there was a time when, when Doug and his wife had been separated for a long time. And after dads split with mom, the two of you were roommates. And you know, you were not young things like you stood up for each other. You've How many times have you helped each other move? I mean, you know, it's it's um, there is something and this is this is different from your relationship with your other siblings. And but partly because of age and distance and all those other things but But you two do have a a relationship that is really tight now but has has been there for each other over the course of your life in the times when one or the other of you needed it. Is that is what I

Mike Oliver: 29:56

would. I was about to respond. Uh, that Doug did a lot to get me through when we became roommates after my separation from your mother, and it's a little different. You know, guys take these things for guise of our were 83 Guys of our time. Didn't didn't do a whole lot of talking about it. I used to kid that somebody would confront their guy, buddy about some horrible tragedy that had befallen them. And the response would be, how about those giants? So let's not talk about it. So, but yeah, we have a great relationship now. We rarely have anything that would resemble friction. And two of our siblings are now deceased. My Sister Abigail died, what, three or four years ago and Tom died five years ago, I guess now killed by the military who gave him all the cigarettes he could smoke while watching for Russian planes come flying over Alaska. So yeah, it's been a great ride.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 31:35

I have to ask one thing, because it's I think it's kind of obvious to me. But out of all the schools, out of all the schools, you both pick San Jose State. So one is done. What were you doing while Mike was in the military? Were you already in school? And Mike did what caused you to choose San Jose State out of all the schools? I mean, I'm thinking there might be a twin thing there.

Doug Oliver: 32:05

Um, well, I had decided to do after high school was I was going to go to college, and become a teacher.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 32:14

Thank you for your service. And thank you for your service. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Well.

Doug Oliver: 32:24

So San Jose was the kind of place you went to for that sort of thing. It had been the normal school for years and years, where they trained teachers, that's all they did. Nowadays, huge campus with tentacles everywhere. And it was, it was not far from home. It wasn't a case of bringing my laundry, home to mama every weekend, but wasn't difficult to go home. And that was good. It was good support. And I was I was very pleased when both the boys came down. Join me there.

Michelle Walters: 33:14

Why did you go there down.

Mike Oliver: 33:17

And there was a guy who I knew real well, that had gone down there and gotten through the process he described the registering for classes is some kind of a czarist nightmare. That he could help me paddle through. And he did. So cards had come to college. So it was yeah, it was it was a twin thing.

Michelle Walters: 33:57

And then Tom went there because you guys were there?

Mike Oliver: 33:59

Yes. Yes. Yes. And talk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's

Cinthia Varkevisser: 34:05

major. The major,

Mike Oliver: 34:06

major. Yeah. Talk Time. Yeah, I really hitched my wagon behind yours. Doug took some time out between his time at San Jose he went right straight there I went with with a buddy that I don't know how I talked him into it that we would go into the Marines together. But I had some real serious doubts about how successful I was going to be running off to college. Decker was braver than me in that regard. took the easy way out when three years in the Marines. But yeah, it was a twin thing and it was great to have Tom along. on Wii Wii, it was tragic that he wasn't more successful. Yeah, he was a lazy guy.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 35:16

Well, middles children,

Doug Oliver: 35:17

too. I don't know. Did you know that the twin thing there was a fad for a time? When one person, one twin would turn cards from a deck that mingled together, and the other one would attempt to guess That's right. Red or black?

Cinthia Varkevisser: 35:46

Yep. That was the psychic telekinesis and the psychic piece to see if you got it. Right.

Doug Oliver: 35:52

Yes. And I think we've we've made a dent in that thing, but we never followed up on any of that stuff.

Michelle Walters: 36:07

Do you guys know what each other one is? What the other one is thinking about

Mike Oliver: 36:11

sometimes, sometimes finished the other guy since you know he's a little slow. You can jump right in cleaning it up and move the conversation along a little faster. We always had opinions. So we shared a lot of them. But once we didn't, we made we made good. Good use of and displayed. I would like to say at times. Some pretty great wit. Yeah. Well, not just on your part. Again, that was my foot partly my father's story. He was a man who insisted that there be interesting conversation at mealtime.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 36:59

I think it's I think it's a great idea.

Doug Oliver: 37:02

Well, I think he got that from growing up with two other boys. And no mother for most of it. Right.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 37:11

Right now, you said one quick snippet about when you got into high school and you dropped the matching outfits. Did you really have matching outfits? Because by the time my kids came around, which was in the 90s the and I love that you don't have matching names in some way, shape or form. Because I have twins in my life that were you know, shelling, Kelly, Johnny, Jimmy, that kind of thing. Right? So, which is fantastic. But when I had my twins, the fad was that they were color coordinated, but not in matching outfits. It's ridiculous. I know. And yet I

Mike Oliver: 37:54

know about color coordination.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 37:59

But did you have the matching outfits?

Mike Oliver: 38:02

Yeah, we kind of did until about high school. My mother had Tom three years younger than us. She was about that time she was getting started on the second part of the family. Abigail and Duncan so buying two pair of pants that looked like this probably a natural for but we did diverge our our clothes somehow never talked about it never made a thing about it just turned up not wearing the same stuff. We weren't we were a long way from rich. We didn't get to tell mom that. You know we'd like this and like that. I remember I remember both of us protested when we came west from Michigan. And we were the only guys wearing the white Peter T shirts, the strap ones. That's the way they came. That's what you did back in Michigan. But everybody here had the teacher to the throat t shirt. And it was a major retooling that we impose on our mother about that. We didn't impose much on our mother. She She we used to call her the toy Tiger. She was about five foot two and full of him and vinegar and the perfect foil for my dad's quiet approach. Yep, that's true.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 39:52

Sweet. I love that you didn't talk about it. didn't really think about it and you just changed clothes. That's kind of cool. Printing, just saying.

Mike Oliver: 40:02

Yeah, he was more color coordinated. I will say in retrospect

Michelle Walters: 40:10

thank you both for being with us this morning for our recording here for mine power meets mistake. It has been great to have you on. Cynthia and I are so thankful for your time and your stories. It will be a great episode.

Cinthia Varkevisser: 40:24

It was a super fun time. I really enjoyed getting to know you. Thank you so much. From right here.

Michelle Walters: 40:30

Thank you. Thank you. You've been listening to my power needs mystic

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I am mystic aka Cynthia, the Gabi and spontaneous F bomb dropping Virgo who likes to sort socks.

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