This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
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What you will hear is... Right? Because at Michelin, we innovate on the road and beyond by creating airless tires to equip robots in their exploration of new planets. And this robot is rolling in negative 88 degrees Fahrenheit. This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show from the arts to sports and business to history and everything in between including your stories.
Send them to ouramericanstories.com. They're some of our favorites. And we'd love to bring you stories about families and about ethics. And today we bring you a story about both. It's the story of a father, Steve Rakeman.
and his son Mike. Here's Robbie with a story. Mike Rakeman owns a mortgage company. Being in the real estate business runs in the family from his father. Steve's side.
He started off going to school to become a priest, believe it or not. And luckily for me, he dropped out. But he and my mom were high school sweethearts and, you know, had five kids together and basically took over his father-in-law's business, which was basically a damage appraiser. We were builders and consultants. We did some contracting, mostly repairs of fire damage.
And We did consulting to insurance companies. We would have to write up the specifications for repair and estimate the damage. I was the young guy, so I got to go to all the dangerous places. I was shot out a few times. I had people come after me with knives.
I was young so I could run fast. One time I was in the South Bronx. And the local group of uh I guess it was a gang. Saw me go on to this uh four-story apartment house. It's had multiple fires in it.
There's no one living in it. And typically I would go up to the roof to measure the building and then I'd work my way down.
So they thought it would be fun. to set the building on fire. Below me.
So I'm on the roof. And I see the smoke coming up. And I said, oh no, this is a This is just a pain in the neck.
So I had to jump across the courtyards. To the building next to it, out and into the street, and got away from the gang. I don't want it to either fry me or beat me up or steal whatever. That was just... Work.
That's what we did every day. But what creates the kind of man that puts himself in the line like that? I was born and raised in Long Island. We lived in a small house. with my mother's parents.
And there was my sister and uh My parents. Uh My father was a very strong Irish Catholic. Mm. It must have been around five or six. And we were sitting at the dinner table, all six of us would always eat together.
And I was making fun of the garbage man. And he pulls me up. Out of the dining room. and he furrows his eyebrows. And says, Never ever.
Make fun of any person that does an honest day's work. for an honest day's pay. I don't care what his color, what his speech is. An honest man is to be Respected. And that always stood with me.
Uh My father once said to me, I'm giving you my name. There's nothing wrong with it. Make sure you pass it on. As clean as I gave it to you. Which meant a lot, you know.
He always said this one thing: that you have two hands and One is to work and one is to help your neighbor. That that's basically the way my value system was structured from it from a young man. Steve's father also instilled in him a father's duty to his family. When I got out of college, I worked for a few years as a school teacher, but back then the school populations were dropping, and although I had tenure, I had to wait at the end of every school year to see if someone would retire or die. And by this time my second child was on the way and this was no way to uh support a family.
being questioning if you have a job.
So I uh Got a job offer from a firm. which I work for in the summertime. My boss there was a guy named Bob Lang. And I always used to like to say, That if he walked up to a pay phone and there was a dime in the coin returned. He put it back in the phone.
And wouldn't use it because he was that honest. And that was. That was throughout our little office. Unfortunately, sometimes we had some unscrupulous people. who would come and offer bribes.
Say, oh, you know what? I I could really use $60,000 on this. and the damages would maybe be worth 10,000. My standard reply to that was Well, if you give me $250,000, I'll get you your $60,000. And they'd look at you.
And I said, well, because I'd be out of a job right away and possibly in jail. and someone has to take care of my family. And you're listening to Steve Rakeman. You'll be hearing from his son, Mike, too. But listening to Steve talk about his dad and what a profound experience to have at the age of six.
Making fun of the local garbage man and the father just pulling you out and saying, never ever make fun of any person who does an honest day's work. For an honest day's pay. Ever. and you can bet that young man never did. I'm giving you my name.
There's nothing wrong with it. Pass it along as clean as I gave it to you. What words of wisdom and know this it came from his Catholic upbringing. These are the kind of things that get instilled in young people through their faith, and then out came these principles by which to live. And we talk a lot about faith and how it animates good people's lives in this great country.
When we come back, more of Mike and Steve Rakeman's story here. on our American story. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to ouramericanstories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That's ouramericanstories.com. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. Upgrade to Elite Checking from America's Christian Credit Union and earn up to 4% APY, plus everyday perks and access to your paycheck up to two days early with early pay. Don't settle.
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Membership eligibility required. And CUA insured. Hi, I'm Steph, and I work at United Healthcare. When I think about United Healthcare's members, I think of my own family. My niece was diagnosed with an ultra rare genetic disorder.
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Watch live Sunday, August 9th on CBS at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific, and catch replays Monday on BET. Presented by iHeart. And we're back with our American stories and with the story of Mike and Steve Rakeman.
We heard from Steve about how his father instilled in him the virtues and values to stand up to mobsters and to just do the right thing.
Now we'll hear from Steve's son Mike. and how Steve did his best to do the same. Here's Mike. Once I got to a certain age that I kind of like really sort of understand things and what was going on, it was clear to me that my dad was a man of principle. There was right and there was wrong, and there was really nothing in between that.
There was no gray area. He would tell me, he said, you know, we would live, and again, in quotes, a much better life from a financial standpoint when I was growing up, as one of five kids, you know, he could have taken all that money. And you know, as a 15-year-old kid, I was like, well, why not? I could have got to the Air Jordans. I could have got this, that, the other thing, all the stuff that I always wanted.
But it was plain and simple. He's like, It's wrong. It's illegal. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Uh And the time that you do it, the first error could be the only time that you do it, that's it.
Now you got a target on your back. You always got to look behind you when you walk. It took me a little while to kind of like let that all sink in, but it was very eye-opening and connected a lot of the dots of what my dad had taught me. since from a very young age going forward. He would tell me stories He would speak a lot about mafia guys.
So, a lot of his, when he would go to claims and losses and stuff like that, he'd be in Brooklyn, the Bronx, stuff like that, where he would go in and the building owner would be there when he got there, sitting at a table, telling my dad to come sit next to him, and he'd have a gun on the table. Try and intimidate him and tell him, like, this is what's gotta happen. He kind of didn't really necessarily know what he was walking into. And I'm like, well, dad, if you're doing that, you might as well take it to cash too. I mean, come on.
It was interesting stuff. And I went to work with them. Maybe once or twice. And I think had he told my mom ahead of time where he was taking me, she probably would have tried to kill him because we went to some really nasty areas. As a 15-year-old kid, I probably should not have been there.
But Here I am today, unscathed, from that at least. You know, when I screwed up. and I knew that I was going to have to face the music from my dad. it wasn't i wasn't fearing like oh he's gonna he's gonna slap me it was the i was fearing Disappointing him because I know that he taught me better than that. I know that, yo, listen, we're all gonna make mistakes.
We're all going to, you know, none of us are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was, I know, I should have known better, and I let you down because you taught me. to be better than what I was. Got into a really bad car accident when I was drunk in college. Oh. This was pre-cell phone era, and my parents were visiting my other brother in college, and I couldn't get a hold of him.
It happened on like a Friday night or something. It uh. I couldn't, I had to sit there for 48 hours until I could even tell my parents what had happened.
So the anxiety from that to say I made these bad decisions. I did this.
Now I'm going to be in trouble. Et cetera, et cetera. Finally got them on the phone and you know They wanted to make sure I was okay, I wasn't hurt in any way, stuff like that. Later that week, I had the first time I had to go to court over it.
So the drive up from Where my parents live on Long Island, up to upstate New York, my college was about six hours.
So I knew my dad was getting on the road at like 6 a.m. He was going to be there by noon. And, you know, so I knew. you know, where what time about he was going to arrive at my apartment. I was dreading this.
dreading this. Like, I can't even tell you. I was like, oh man, I messed up so badly. You've gave me so many lectures when I got my car to go to college about this exact thing. And sure enough, Knock on the door.
I open it. I got a crack in the face. And then probably one of the biggest hugs I've ever got from him in my life. Because it was like You're an idiot, boom, but you're my son. I love you.
You're my idiot. And we're going to get through this and fix it. I always had a good relationship with my dad, and at that point, You know, one funny outcome of it was that I wasn't allowed to drive a car for about a year and a half.
So, anytime I wanted to come home from school, basically, my dad have to drive up, pick me up, and then we'd drive back.
So, I would get to spend those six, six and a half hours in the car with him, driving from upstate New York back down to Long Island, whether it was coming home for Christmas, coming home for Thanksgiving, or just for the summer. And he would do up and back the same day. I mean, we maybe stopped for a sandwich.
So, he's in the car 12, 13 hours. And I'm in there, you know, just the way down with them or the way up, depending on which way we were going. We still would talk about, although it was a lot of driving, and maybe at the time, you know, it's like, oh, I just want to get home. It just was nice to have six hours of, you know, just dad-son time.
Now having kids of my own, I can understand that Your time when you have siblings, your one-on-one time with Your parents, or one of your parents, is a lot different than when you're competing for their attention, or they're competing for your attention with all your other siblings. And uh We were You know, for better or for worse, I had six and a half hours to kill in a car with my dad.
So, you know, I'm a mortgage banker. We arrange residential home mortgages for people looking to buy or refinance a house. And, you know, I could easily, you know, had made fraudulent documents in order to qualify someone for a loan that they may not really be able to pay back, but the customer wanted, oh, I want to buy this house.
So I could write something out, change a number here, change a comma there, and all of a sudden they qualify for it, which basically is going to catch up to them sooner or later that they're not going to be able to afford this place, all for the sake of a commission check. That's certainly not something that I ever did or wanted to do. And yeah, I'd like to thank my father for instilling those values into me as a young kid because I saw so many people. Um go the other way, that they wanted to make the quick buck. and they didn't care at whose expense it was.
And then eventually It was a loss-loss because Whoever they did that. For that person, they were putting that person into a worse situation. In addition to that, eventually it was going to catch up to them, they were going to lose their license as well. And throughout 2005, 6, 7, 8, during what they would call the wild, wild west of mortgages, where people were doing. things they shouldn't do and eventually it all caught up to them and they would get, you know Bar from the industry.
They would never be able to work in mortgages again. And, you know, like myself and a lot of the other guys that work here didn't partake in any of that. And that's why we're still here today with healthy licenses that we don't have to fear over ever having revoked or anything like that. We have a lot of younger guys that work here too that we mentor as well and can kind of trickle down all those same things that were instilled in us as young people and have gone through this and saw it in the industry as well. It's not something that we would do here, and you know, you're basically jeopardizing things for the whole company as well.
You got to also be able to answer to the man upstairs, so that certainly plays a role in everything as well, and uh. You know, when you have that as the focal point of your business, you're going to land in good hands. My dad, since me at a young age, God blessed you with two hands. One is to take care of yourself and your family, and the other one is to help other people. I actually told him that I remember him telling me a couple years ago.
And my dad is not a crier, but I saw him. He got like a little emotional because his father passed away when he was like 14 or 15 years old. And it was something that his dad told him. And he didn't think that I remembered him telling me that story when I was a kid, but still do. I definitely remember it.
It's something that I passed on to my kids as well. And a great job on the storytelling by Robbie. And thanks so much to Steve and Mike Rakeman for sharing their father-son stories. Steve talking about his father, the values and principles that got passed along to him. Steve then passing those along to his son Mike, and Mike sharing those principles and values as well, and ethics in the end.
My dad was a man of principle. There is a right and a wrong. And if you're listening and you're a guy, Well, can your son say that about you or your daughter? When I screwed up, I wasn't fearing he would slap me. I fear disappointing him.
And every dad, every mom knows that discipline and love, well, they're two sides of the same coin. A beautiful story about fathers and sons, about love, about discipline, about God. here on Our American Stories. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S.
and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. Upgrade to elite checking from America's Christian Credit Union and earn up to 4% APY, plus everyday perks and access to your paycheck up to two days early with early pay.
Don't settle. Choose checking that rewards you and aligns with your values. Visit America's ChristianCU.com forward slash iHeart. Minimum balance of one cent required to earn advertised APY. Early pay not guaranteed.
APY equals annual percentage yield. Membership eligibility required. And CUA insured. Okay. There are exciting things happening at your local CVS.
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