96 THE BEST OF MONTEREY BAY® LIVING WELL 2025-2026 When John Nash Jr. was growing up in Seaside, for a while he didn’t even know racism existed. Born in a Fort Ord hospital in 1957, Nash was surrounded by biracial children in his youth, and didn’t know that’s why some of them ended up at Fort Ord, like his friend Herm Edwards, who had a Black father and German mother. (At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in many states.) “My best friends were of all races,” he says. “ is is what I grew up around. We were a community of celebrating each other’s diversity.” It was just two or three years ago, he says, that he realized the reason he took a bus to Monterey High everyday—instead of Seaside High—was because of desegregation, and the school needed some Black students. Nash lived in Seaside until he was 21 years old. At the time, in 1979, he was working at Soledad State Penitentiary after earning a degree at Monterey Peninsula College, and he applied for a job at PSA Airlines. Forty- ve years later, he’s still working in the airline industry—he’s a ight attendant—and since he left Seaside for San Diego, he was transferred to L.A., to San Francisco, to Washington, D.C. (where he earned another degree at Howard University), and in 2009, he moved to Houston, where he still lives. But Nash still travels to the Monterey Peninsula nearly every weekend, and what brings him back here is not just family, friends and natural beauty, but gospel music. His mother was a gospel singer, so he was always involved in it as a kid. At 9 years old, Nash started directing the youth choir at Greater Victory Temple—and he’s been doing it ever since. He has even performed with some gospel greats. ough living in D.C. at the time, Nash was tapped to recruit and direct a community choir for the 2007 Monterey Gospel Festival, and it was so well-received that Nash was encouraged to keep the choir going. Two or three months later, the idea struck while he was on a ight, and he started writing notes on a cocktail napkin—he would help start a nonpro t community choir. When he landed, he started making calls, and the Monterey Peninsula Gospel Community Choir was born. e choir practices twice a month and performs regularly, sometimes abroad, and the feeling Nash gets from leading them through a performance is unlike any other. “When their creative juices start to ow, it really becomes a spiritual kind of thing,” Nash says. “We’re all mind, body and spirit, and they get taken away in the moment as well. “It is a spiritual experience, not a religious experience.” Flying High For Seaside native John Nash Jr., the joy of gospel music always brings him home. By David Schmalz DANIEL DREIFUSS formación profesional, gestión de casos y asesoramiento sobre trastornos por consumo de sustancias. • Vivienda de emergencia, vivienda de transición y vivienda de apoyo permanente. M-F/L-V 8am-4pm www.vtcofcalifornia.org 831-883-3024 Victory Mission Misión Victoria • Homeless shelter for single men providing day center, overnight shelter, dinner, and food pantry • AA meetings and Sober Living Program • Refugio para personas sin hogar para hombres solteros que ofrece centro de día, refugio nocturno, cena y despensa de alimentos • Reuniones de AA y Programa de Vida Sobria M-F/L-V 8am-4:30pm www.victorymissionsalinas. com 831-424-5688 YWCA Monterey County YWCA Condado de Monterey • 24/7 Crisis Line • Domestic violence services and prevention • Emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence • Information, education, and advocacy • Línea de Crisis 24/7 • Servicios y prevención de violencia doméstica • Refugio de emergencia para víctimas de violencia doméstica • Servicios de salud mental • Información, educación y abogacía M-F/L-V 9am-5pm www.ywcamc.org 831-422-8602 Salinas 831-372-6300/831-757-1001 Crisis Line/Línea de crisis Housing Resources Recursos de Vivienda
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