Joel:       I am neither David nor Karen. I am their child. I’m Joel, their third child. And I am here with my dad today and we’re going to continue our discussion.

David:     And why is that? What’s happened to Karen?

Joel:       Well, as mom gets older, both of you are doing this podcast kind of before we go. And she has a few books left in her that she’s been talking about, and you’ve said, “Well, we need to clear everything off your schedule.” You guys are not 20 anymore. And so, she needs to wake and get going on her writing. And this kind of becomes a distraction and then it’s clean this and do that and do this. And then suddenly the day is gone.

David:     She’s actually made some good progress since last week. So, I’m pleased with how she’s doing.

Joel:       Right.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his son, Joel Mains. Here’s David and Joel Mains.

Joel:       So, you and I had our first conversation last week and what we’re doing is going through memories for dad here. And we didn’t really have a huge amount of time to talk about it. We took my father out of his control, which is why I’m starting the program. Because if I let him open it, then I’m going to be in a different seat. And I have to kind of wrestle the control from you a little bit and stay in the driver’s seat.

David:     We’re going by your rules.

Joel:       That’s right. That’s right. First of all, that was completely different for you just to have a conversation and not have an entire podcast laid out with a key sentence and things like that. What was your thought as you listened to it or felt about it afterward?

David:     I thought you did very well. I think I was nervous.

Joel:       You were nervous.

David:     Yes. No, I’m still a little nervous.

Joel:       Your legs bouncing here. So. Okay. Well, I thought I did okay. Hopefully I’ll improve. The Mains family is very much for looking at something. How do we make it better? That’s kind of a philosophy I work with. So, I feel like sometimes I didn’t finish a sentence, or maybe a thought. Maybe we need one theme that we kind of focus on rather than just be too abstract. But we’re kind of learning as we go. So, my hope is that you’ll kind of having an opportunity to hear my father in ways that you wouldn’t because I’m here and I’m going to run a conversation differently. Maybe the dynamic we have as father-son will be interesting to you. That’s the hope as you listen, but hopefully there will be a chance to hear him talk about memories and things that are important to him. You feel your age at this point.

David:     Yes, very much.

Joel:       Yeah. Now you’ve said a few times your dad died. How old was he when you’re?

David:     It was 91.

Joel:       91, and you are what?

David:     I’m 87.

Joel:       Right.

David:     Getting close to 88. I don’t want to skip any years if I can help it.

Joel:       Stay a little closer to your mic there.

David:     Okay.

Joel:       Yeah. So, you feel that though because you bring that up every once a while that you know, well dad was you know, 91 or you feel that date coming. Don’t you?

David:     Yeah. I, you know, I could watch dad. He had retired by that time. He was a businessman and very successful businessman. But I’m aware that I’m reliving his life now. And some of the things that he would say to me. I feel those keenly now. I don’t have the strength that I once had. I forget things. I’m not known as somebody who forgets, but I’m forgetting.

Joel:       Yeah. Well, I think you’re a person who, you know, you’re just…

David:     I’d like to say I’m a recovering workaholic. I don’t think I’m totally that but I’m much better than I used to be.

Joel:       But I think some of the… you don’t get sick all that often. You don’t you just kind of keep going. So, when my dad gets sick, you know, he’s like… “Something is wrong with my body.” It’s called a cold dad. Many people feel those things. Well, it’s not functioning the way it should. So, as you age, for sure, you’re coming to grips with, you know, your recovery time is slower. Your, you know, reaction time is slower, those kinds of things.

So, I wanted to talk today about people who influence you in your life. That would be our theme today. It’s and let’s start with early life. So, we can kind of keep this focused. But I would like to know maybe, you know, a few people in your early life that influenced you and maybe who you became.

David:     Strongest influence were mom and dad.

Joel:       Your parents.

David:     Yeah, they were. I talked about them some of it. I’m more appreciative as the days go by, as to who they were and their love of the Lord. All that was good. When I think about the last time we recorded, probably I talked about the family more than anything. I have memories of individuals as I reflect on my life who play a significant role that I really didn’t think about until you said, “Let’s talk about this topic.” I’d like to, if I could just zero in on two people. The first one was probably in my junior high years. That would be what seventh and eighth grade, ninth grade maybe.

Joel:       Okay, so let’s put a date to that. You were born?

David:     I was born in 1936.

Joel:       36, so you’re talking you’re 13, 14?

David:     I was junior high age. There’s a reason I remember that because the first gentleman I would talk about was a professor. He had his doctorate at a seminary in Chicago. My dad would try to do things that he heard about like Youth for Christ was very large in that day. So, he would bring people down from Chicago to Quincy. That’s little over 300 miles. Quincy’s on the Mississippi River, 50,000 people. Dad had been born and raised in Chicago. So, it was a different world for him. But he saw the bigger world and then he tried to duplicate that as a layperson in Quincy. And he would bring speakers down, both for church and for what would be like once every couple of months, a Youth for Christ rally.

One of those was this gentleman who was a teacher at seminary, at the Northern Baptist Seminary in the Chicagoland area. And he had as a hobby, doing a sleight of hand.

Joel:       You’re talking magic.

David:     Yeah, not magic in terms of a spiritual sense, but just as a hobby. Usually, the guest would stay at our house, or at the very least they would come and have a meal at our house. And this gentleman came, and I had no idea who he was. I didn’t even think in those terms at the time, but he showed me some up-close magic tricks. And it was amazing to me. And I’d say, “How did you do that?” And then he said, “Well, that’s a secret. We don’t tell people how we do things, but did you enjoy it?” And I said, “Yes, it was wonderful.”

Joel:       This is palming coins and the coin out of the ear thing.

David:     All of those vanishing coins, multiplying coins, little sponge rabbits in your hand that multiply.

Joel:       And this was all fine at this point, because I know some of the early Christians at that time who might be dubious about sleight of hand.

David:     If you don’t say magic, they had magic tricks.

Joel:       But you don’t say magic here. So clearly there was something that maybe you were a little more careful about.

David:     I didn’t even think in those terms back at that point.

Joel:       The guy was doing something amazing.

David:     He was doing something that had never seen anybody do in my life before. It was quite something. And then he just out of the goodness of his heart, he showed me how he did one of his tricks. Now, you’re not supposed to as magicians, but he was being kind to me. He said, you like it. And when he came back the next time, I had practiced that, and I showed him what I did. “Oh, that was very good,” he said. You know, obviously he’s fan-fringed to me because he’s way out of my league. But then he taught me another one. And this was something that became an intense hobby with me. In fact, I did my first magic show, if you could say that, where they had a talent night at the school. And I did one of my tricks and the people clapped and I thought, “Wow, that’s really something.”

Joel:       That feels good.

David:     I think that maybe I just discovered where my position in life should become. But I did that all through high school. And I began to learn more. I read about magic and it occupied hours and hours of my time. And over a period of years, I began to be pretty good at it as a high school person. In fact, I was advertising myself with my little cards, you know, high school magician David Mains, a rabbit in the hat-off. And I would drive places and do magic.

Joel:       So you say rabbit out of the hat, are you talking, you had real rabbits or these foam rabbits?

David:     I had one once and I decided never to use live rabbits again.

Joel:       Well, that’s a story I think we might need to hear.

David:     Let’s leave it alone.

Joel:       Oh, come on.

David:     But Dr. Warren Filkin was this gentleman and he got me started on something which became my reputation. You know, David Mains is a magician.

Joel:       Right. And that’s probably, I doubt many people even really know that about you. And you were not, this wasn’t like many kids go through phases, dinosaurs or whatever and magic can kind of be a phase. But this was something serious. I mean, you took this very seriously.

David:     I actually thought of someday maybe I can become a professional magician. But what I was learning, which I didn’t know was how to be in front of people, what they liked, what they didn’t like.

Joel:       I think there’s a lot of look here and then I’m doing something over here, right? Your distraction.

David:     I was going to, some of them were church banquets. More of them were just people who heard about me, and they would invite me to do something maybe at the house, whatever, just as entertainment. But I was growing all the time in terms of my ability to do it. It’s like if you have been practicing piano for a long time, pretty soon somebody says, “Would you come and play for us?” Well, there are a lot of piano players, but there weren’t that many guys who were interested in doing sleight of hand.

Joel:       Right.

David:     I learned how to be in front of people. I wasn’t so nervous after a while. Learned how to use comedy. Most of all, I think I learned the delight people have in surprise. You’re always one or two steps ahead of people. You’ve rehearsed it.

Joel:       Right.

David:     Try to make it look spontaneous.

Joel:       Well, I think we’re getting the insight here though because this is hours and hours of practice. Clearly, the objective is to make it look seamless and graceful and all that. But really, it’s hours of practice to pull that off, which then translated later into how you do a podcast.

David:     No, it was…

Joel:       You’re not as comfortable with winging it though.

David:     I would agree. What I learned was this was very interesting to me. And I got a chance because on occasion someone who did magic, it wasn’t a big name like Blackstone or someone of that sort. But when I could, I would go see someone else do it. And then I said, “Boy, he’s really good.” I’m not very good because you’d seen somebody who was far, you’re superior and older and making a living doing this. But I learned so much. In fact, one of the things that eventually this became a part of me was when I began to be more in the church world. I thought, golly, there’s nothing surprising. This week is like last week, which is like the week before.

Joel:       You’re talking about for a service.

David:     A church service. And I thought, where is the… I’m putting it in quotes, “Where is the magic? Where is the delight? Where is the surprise?”

Joel:       Right.

David:     And the only person I knew who used it was this Dr. Warren Filkin. And I happened to be fortunate because he kept the contact up over time. So, he had a profound influence on my life, although I don’t think he would ever dream that he did. But his graciousness to me and his reaching out to a kid in grade school and showing him how to do things that he could do well, that became a big part of my life. I eventually gave up doing magic. I had worked in several churches. I worked with Youth for Christ. They used it in terms of giving me exposure.

Joel:       Now, we went to one of the halls at Wheaton College. That’s where you went to college. And I remember, it was a pretty big place, hundreds and hundreds of people. And you had said, “Well, I did my magic show here” and you had filled it. You had said, right?

David:     Yeah, Edmund Chapel. Doc Edmund was the president of the Wheaton College. They named the chapel for him, but it was kind of a multi-auditorium. It didn’t look like a church meeting, although a lot of spiritual growth meetings were held there. I was leaving college after I graduated thinking this is still an option for me. My first year in seminary, I went to Fort Worth to a seminary, a Baptist seminary. And I was, because they found out that I did magic, I had a big half a page right up in the paper in Dallas Fort Worth. And so, I was serious about it. But the Lord had other things that he was wanted to say because when you got in a seminary, if you got a preaching spot, they say, you can do magic. That’s good. We’ll get people to come, but now you also need to preach.

Joel:       Right.

David:      So, I feel like the Lord tricked me in at all, but I’m not complaining.

Joel:       But at its core, there’s a delight that comes with a good magic trick or a good magic show. What I hear you saying is, as you moved into ministry, you still had an inherent sense that, well, a sermon or a service needs to contain that same kind. Why can’t it still contain some sort of delight?

David:     You were surprised.

Joel:        You come to church and it’s something you’re going to talk about. Did you see how they did that? Not magic, but in the sense of…

David:      Oh, that was different. I liked it. Case in point: I was 10 years in the inner city. We started a church in there and I can talk about that another time. But one Sunday morning, as a call to worship, we were praising God that he is multilingual. He understands all languages. That’s not said very often in church. But instead of just saying that, I wanted to illustrate it. So, as a call to worship, we had one person stand and pray in English. In about, I would say, two paragraphs into that prayer another person stood in the congregation this time and began to pray in Spanish. So, the guy in English was saying, “You know, this is interesting. I know you’re listening to me and also to my friend, but he speaks Spanish, but you understand Spanish too.” And then another person began to pray. So, the three people prayed and pretty soon we had five, six people praying.

Joel:        In different languages.

David:     All in different languages, yeah. And all praising the Lord because he was multilingual. And as they continued to pray the choir in the back, that’s a great choir too. They began to say, well, for a thousand tongues to say my great redeemer, the person who were praying, they quieted down it. And then you just had this wonderful choir praying. Well, it was a surprise.

And you could possibly have people, our congregation, relatively young would say, “Why did you do that?” Well, no one reacted negatively. In fact, they understood very quickly what was going on, but there was a surprise. Something different happened.

Joel:       It didn’t feel like the church from 1960s people had grown up in, right?

David:     Exactly, right.

Joel:       Regimented as far as what it would do.

David:     But I would say to myself, “How do I, if I am praised, how do I wake people up so that they don’t say, yeah, been to one church service, you’ve been to them all.” Well, we did all kinds of things like that, that were different and novel, but all had great meaning and moved people to say, “Wow, I’d like to come back again.”

So, this is still in my mind all the time. It’s a little bit different, but I can say even with us, I’m willing to try to do the podcast in a different way, if it can attract people. Maybe I’ll start thinking, how do I surprise them to the degree that they’re just captured by this and people say, “You got to tune into that Before We Go Podcast.”

Joel:       That would be fantastic. I have two thoughts. One is I want to go to your next person.

David:     Okay.

Joel:       And two is, of course, I will be doing these programs here for a little while. If you have a question for my father, you can send us an email on that at the end of the program. I’ll give you the address for that. But go ahead and we’ll try to get some of those questions in if we can. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to know, then go ahead and send that.

And this is an opportunity to be a little harder when they get back in the regular format once they’ve already set out the program.

But you said there were two people. And I want to, before we get to the end of the program here, who would be another person that was an influence?

David:     I was in church an awful lot. And that was a massive influence in my life. It took hours of my time, and my hobby was the other big thing. I never really was, that popular person. Nobody had ever seen him.

Joel:       You were talking in school?

David:      Yeah, in school. I had friends, people like me, but I was second, third.

Joel:        You were kind of in the shadow of your older brother a little bit.

David:     He was a phenomenal person and my younger sister. But I was kind of, you know, I didn’t even think in those terms. Another person had come to the school to be on the faculty, and he was the band director. Immediately he became the most popular teacher in the whole high school. I don’t know how many of them are graduating class in high school. I would say probably four or five hundred. So, it wasn’t a small school, but again it wasn’t a huge school either. His name was Daniel Perino and I played baritone in the band. And one day he came to me, and he said, “They’re having elections for student body president or student council president.” There were several offices that people feel. And he said, “I think you should run.” I said, “Well, so and so.” I named him. “He’s already running.” And he said, “Yeah, you could beat him.” “Beat him? He’s one of the most popular kids in the school.” That’s not it. And he said, “I want you to think about it. I don’t want you to come back and tell me whether you’d be interested or not.”

And I kind of sloughed it off because it just was totally out of my grid. But he persisted and he got me again maybe a week later and said, “Now tell me what you thought about what I said, I think you should run for student council president, and I think you’ll win.”

So, he made it known that he was a little bit disappointed in me that I hadn’t really responded to him at all. And I said, “I don’t even know what it’s about.”

He said, “Well, student council president, you want to put a student level, you are in charge of kind of where the students are and you’re the liaison.” So, I said, “Well, let me think about it again.” And I came back, and I said, “I don’t have the famous idea how to go about this.” And he said, “I’ll help you.”

Joel:        Wow

David:      Anyway.

Joel:        What was this man’s name again?

David:      His name was Daniel Perino.

Joel:       Daniel Perino.

David:     And I mean, he came back several times as there were class reunions and incredible influence.

Joel:       What was the influence there other than obviously there’s an influence on organization, but it was somebody kind of investing in you? What was it? I mean, there was a part of your identity that you said, “Wow, I have value.” First of all, you won long story short.

David:     Yeah.

Joel:       You became student council president.

David:     Yeah, but I would, you know, I didn’t even know how to organize a thing. I drew my own posters. I didn’t have a group of people who were my companions. I just did it on my own because I didn’t think I would win. Then it was a swamping victory.

Joel:       Wow.

David:     It just, it was like I’d never, ever perceive myself in that bite.

Joel:       Interesting.

David:     And I came home, and I told my parents “I won the election. I became student council president today.” And, you know, they, neither of my folks, as I said last time, graduated from high school. They were depression people. And it’s kind of, yeah, uh-huh. And that was it.

Joel:       Really?

David:     My dad probably wasn’t there. I don’t remember the occasion. Dad was a traveling salesman. He was gone a lot during the week, and they had to be home on the weekend. And, you know, I thought, wow, that’s something. And, then fortunately, the faculty member who was the advisor, his name was Myers, he was a good man and he helped me. and he challenged me because people knew me as doing magic. But they said, “You know, you’re not doing this in a right way.” And in fact, at the end of the time, all of us got a grade, who were the officers, and he gave me a B. I was lucky I got a B because as I look back, I didn’t know what in the world I was doing. But I was being raised to a new level that I could never go back to yesterday anymore. So now it was an interesting thing.

Joel:       So you’re, if you had not had this experience, you probably would have never thought of yourself as a leader or anything like that.

David:     For this thing from my mind, I was always relatively short compared to other people. My growth spurt came probably my junior year of high school. I’m normal height now, but I wasn’t then I was very slow in growing. It was like a new dawning in my mind. But I look back and I say an individual who changed my life was Daniel Perino, the band director at Quincy High School. And he went out of his way. In fact, you know, at the end of the school year and after graduation, I went back to the high school to clean out my locker and such, and he was there. And he came up to me and he said, “I want to tell you something, David.” He said, “My wife and I went through all the ceremonies and the different things that you were highly honored. You won just about any honor you could win.” And he said, “But this is a little different.” He said, “My wife and I were talking, and we said to each other, ‘well, all the kids we’ve worked with,’” they had a little baby son. He said, “We would like our son to turn out to be like you.”

Joel:       Oh, my Lord.

David:     And I, yeah, that’s exactly how my response was. “Gosh, you know, he really means that too.” And so, there was this encouragement in a world that wasn’t just church. And, I look back on that and I say, “The Lord himself orchestrated that to put me in a place where I didn’t always think as a loner, but I began to think you can have an influence beyond what is going on here.”

So, then I, the day after I graduated from high school, the family moved, they were waiting for me to graduate from Quincy up to Chicago area again, because in dad’s business, which it expanded, he wanted a Chicago headquarters more or Chicago, Chicago land area probably. But I look back and I still, I say, “Lord, I thank you for Daniel Perino. And I thank you for Warren Filkin,” you know, and I look back and I can say more people like that, but it wasn’t me. It was people who were pushing me.

Joel:       Right.

David:     And encouraging me.

Joel:       You know, as we wrap it up here. I think about, you know, you modeled that in your own life many, many times. I mean, the amount of times I can think of you taking someone aside or saying, “You know, you may have gifts in this area and are using the gifts of a congregation.” Or that’s very central to who you are as a person. I don’t think everybody gets to see that, but you are a leader that’s, self-focused. You’re very other people focused. Do you think that came from that experience too?

David:     The funny thing to me is that the church never said this about me. The church somehow had never realized there was a world outside of the building. So that my senior year, because I had those positions, we had a moody science film. You probably don’t have a moody Bible is to put out these…

Joel:       Kind of nature films.

David:     Nature films, I guess you could say, but there was also certainly a message about Christ. It wasn’t evangelistic, but, yeah, I, when I went into see Mr. Garenstein, I said, “I’d like for you to look at a film that I think would be good to show all of the church.” Not the church as well, the school. And he looked at it and said, “That’s wonderful. Sure, we can show that.” You know, and so there were entrees. In fact, I was a little bit nervous when I went in as to what this was going to mean, but there were all kinds of opportunities. I’ve never thought like what you just said, this is who you are. It is.

Joel:       Oh, it’s core. Yeah.

David:     It’s saying, there’s more to you than you realize. You’re far more attractive than you know. I don’t say that in a sexual thing, because I can say that to a man or a woman. I think a lot of people, their self-image because of how they’ve been raised or whatever.

Joel:       That’s made you unique.

David:     That’s really where you’re wanting to go. You know, what, God has a plan for you. And, uh, but I look back and I think, “Wow, thank goodness, because those people changed my life.” You know, I mean, here’s a guy coming down from Chicago on a train, you know, to come and preach. And he’s spending time at our family. And I’m just a little, you know, little tyke in grade school and he’s changing my life. And yeah, it’s something I think that there probably were preachers who changed my life as well, but these are the ones that come to me.

Joel:       Interesting.

David:     Yeah.

Joel:       Well, I appreciate you sharing that. Those are interesting stories. I think they are core to who you are. I’m glad I get to sit here and listen to that and hear that.

And I hope as you’re listening to the program, you’ll stick with us as we talk through, because there’ll be more programs like this and give my father an opportunity to just tell some memories and a little bit about his life that’s maybe a little more autobiographical.

David:     Give your mom a chance to finish.

Joel:       That’s right. That’s right. So how long are we going to do this? Well, I don’t know. Well, I just have to see how long mom takes on her books. No, she will be back. Maybe we’ll do this with her as well, or both of you together.

But anyway, we appreciate you being with us today. And again, if you have questions, you can send them in an email to us. We would enjoy the correspondence. I tried to tailor these to what you’re listening to.

But dad, I thank you for your more relaxed now. It’s nice. I got you in kind of a groove and hopefully we can stay here as we move forward.

David:     You’re a magician in your own sense.

Joel:       Well, we had a good teacher.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2024 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.