[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The students were helping, yeah. In any event, but we got no satisfaction from this, and we just sort of left in disgust.

[Assistant] They didn't offer you a chicken?

[User] No, they sort of were denying everything. And I guess they just swapped out, the rich foreigner moved in, it's OK to take whatever's available. So after I threw whatever insults I could recall from my language training, we got the fence fixed. We got a bag of lime, another bag of lime. And then I turned to Abate who was from a nearby town, Iteya, and I said, Abate, do you know anybody who has a dog that they'd like to sell? So Abate went home the next weekend at my expense and brought back initially a puppy and he became my guard dog. So we don't have any more.

[Assistant] OK. That was rare, wasn't it, to have a dog?

[User] No, a lot of people had dogs.

[Assistant] Had dogs in their compound?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, they sort of were denying everything. And I guess they just swapped out, the rich foreigner moved in, it's OK to take whatever's available. So after I threw whatever insults I could recall from my language training, we got the fence fixed. We got a bag of lime, another bag of lime. And then I turned to Abate who was from a nearby town, Iteya, and I said, Abate, do you know anybody who has a dog that they'd like to sell? So Abate went home the next weekend at my expense and brought back initially a puppy and he became my guard dog. So we don't have any more.

[Assistant] OK. That was rare, wasn't it, to have a dog?

[User] No, a lot of people had dogs.

[Assistant] Had dogs in their compound?

[User] Yes. So we fixed the hole and got a bag of lime and got a guard dog. And that's how we solved that problem. Raising the dog and trying to house train or, he was too much, had a run of the place. I was, I'd never had a pet, I'd always lived growing up in apartments. We never had animals like dogs. We had a parakeet. But the dog had an accident in the house, and I was told, oh, you're supposed to rub his nose in it and tap him on the nose to discipline the dog. Well, the dog decided to open his mouth and kind of scream a little bit and on his very baby sharp teeth I split open, I can still see a little bit of a scar.

[Assistant] There's a scar, oh.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So this brings up the point that our hospital, we had sort of a crude hospital in Asella, it was a provincial capital, and it was staffed by Bulgarian doctors. Two Bulgarian doctors.

[Assistant] Very famous.

[User] And you know, Haile Selassie was very pro-Western, but he was not averse to taking aid from wherever he could get it. So communist Bulgaria at that time sent some doctors and they staffed our hospital. The other thing that was going on in our hospital was the training of what were called dressers. These were sort of, uh.

[Assistant] Nurses' aides.

[User] Nurses' aides, you know, not nowhere near paramedics of any sort, but elementary kind of health care providers that were being trained to staff clinics when there were no other health services were available. And I recall the Bulgarian doctor looking at my thumb and in his Bulgarian accented English, oh yes, I see the saliva in there. And he's cleaning out my thumb.

[Assistant] Did they mention the R word, rabies?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And you know, Haile Selassie was very pro-Western, but he was not averse to taking aid from wherever he could get it. So communist Bulgaria at that time sent some doctors and they staffed our hospital. The other thing that was going on in our hospital was the training of what were called dressers. These were sort of, uh.

[Assistant] Nurses' aides.

[User] Nurses' aides, you know, not nowhere near paramedics of any sort, but elementary kind of health care providers that were being trained to staff clinics when there were no other health services were available. And I recall the Bulgarian doctor looking at my thumb and in his Bulgarian accented English, oh yes, I see the saliva in there. And he's cleaning out my thumb.

[Assistant] Did they mention the R word, rabies?

[User] No, the dog was pretty, uh. Sorry, I didn't. I think I maybe have my health card in there, but you may have had a rabies shot as a precaution. Yeah. I think we had tetanus. But one of the things I did at the dresser school was I helped teach English. So in addition to my workload at the secondary school, about twice a week I had English language training for the dresser students who were, whose main medical training was under the direction of American nurses.

[Assistant] Oh. And their manuals were in English also.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Nurses' aides, you know, not nowhere near paramedics of any sort, but elementary kind of health care providers that were being trained to staff clinics when there were no other health services were available. And I recall the Bulgarian doctor looking at my thumb and in his Bulgarian accented English, oh yes, I see the saliva in there. And he's cleaning out my thumb.

[Assistant] Did they mention the R word, rabies?

[User] No, the dog was pretty, uh. Sorry, I didn't. I think I maybe have my health card in there, but you may have had a rabies shot as a precaution. Yeah. I think we had tetanus. But one of the things I did at the dresser school was I helped teach English. So in addition to my workload at the secondary school, about twice a week I had English language training for the dresser students who were, whose main medical training was under the direction of American nurses.

[Assistant] Oh. And their manuals were in English also.

[User] So, um. The nurses. So one of my good friends was Susie West, now Susie West McHugh, was one of the nurses. Marge Power, who is now married to another Peace Corps volunteer. Both of them married other Peace Corps volunteers. But we had two new nurses come in, and I can't remember what time this was, but in any event, I'll relate the story. And I won't use their real names because of what I'm going to tell you about. We'll call one of them Lisa. And they're in training. And Susie, I think Marge may have left already. I think Susie was our main trainer. And they took off one afternoon and Lisa went for a hike to explore. And sometime around after dinner, I got word she hadn't come back. It was getting dark.

[Assistant] And she was alone?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Late at night. There were hyenas. There were probably bandits. And was able to convince her to stay with him and his family in whatever kind of house it was until morning. At daybreak, they started down and were found by the search party. Now we had a lot of cultural sensitivity training, but obviously this particular person hadn't taken to all that cultural sensitivity because the idea of a single, young, and she was fairly attractive as well, woman wandering up this mountain. We were at the foot of a place called Mount Chilalo, which goes up over 12,000 feet. This single young woman wandering the mountainside alone was just so outside the norm of Ethiopian culture that she was immediately reassigned. She had no, nobody would listen to her or would be willing to be treated by her, to be instructed by her, given this reputation.

[Assistant] Experience, yes.

[User] And this experience. Apparently this person, when I looked up the roster on the website of the current group of returned Ethiopia and Eritrea, returned Peace Corps volunteers. She married another Peace Corps volunteer because her name linked up with one of the other names of another volunteer in the same town and had a successful period as a.

[Assistant] Good. Well, good for her. Maybe she learned her lesson.

[User] But she certainly ruined her career in Asella very quickly.

[Assistant] Unfortunate. Oh, we're fine.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But she certainly ruined her career in Asella very quickly.

[Assistant] Unfortunate. Oh, we're fine.

[User] The spring of '69, I recall a number of things. We had a Passover celebration, in my house as a matter of fact. There were several Jewish volunteers. And we had just an international seder. We had the French, we had the Indians. We had Ethiopians. And Andrews came down from Addis Ababa, and I think he brought matzo provided by the Israeli Embassy.

[Assistant] Oh. Exciting.

[User]
So we had a full blown Passover Seder. I think about 20 people. I think three or four of them were Jewish. So. And we stressed, and actually I recall and I've since adapted that Passover Seder to some of the things I've written myself. But interesting that the Ethiopian word for Easter, which is the concomitant fasika, which is the concomitant holiday to Passover, really has the same letter origin, that Passover in Hebrew is very similar to fasika or Easter in Amharic, which is an indication of the Semitic relationship between Hebrew and Amharic and is the older origin language.

So another event that year was, I think that's when there was the bombing of Cambodia in Vietnam. And we were constantly being asked by Ethiopians, by especially the Ethiopian students, you know, what about Vietnam? What about your government's policy? And isn't this terrible?

[Assistant] It must have been difficult.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. Now, the strike ended in a very interesting way. The students' demands were that the students who had been arrested had to be released. But apparently one of, these landowners are pretty conservative people. But a landowner who had enough money put up bail for the students because he wanted the school to get back in order.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And one of the local landowners put up bail and got the students released and the strike was ended.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User]
Subsequent to that, the governor ordered guards to be placed in the school compound, and that got to be very problematical. And so one of the, I think it was Bob Bass. But we asked for a meeting with the governor, and the arrogance, this impudence of these Peace Corps volunteers to ask for a meeting with the [Amharic phrase], who was apparently related to the prime minister of Ethiopia, Aklilu Habte-Wold, at that time. So we met with the governor and we explained that the guards were very distracting. The students couldn't learn well, and eventually after a day or so, the students were, the guards were withdrawn.

Later on, some years after Peace Corps, I recall reading an article in the New York Times about the revolutionaries who had deposed the emperor had had a show trial for Aklilu Habte-Wold and other imperial government officials, including [inaudible name]. And he was on the list of people who had been executed by what was called the Derg, the revolutionary council that had taken over the government. So it's kind of an odd feeling.

[Assistant] This would be early '70s?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And one of the local landowners put up bail and got the students released and the strike was ended.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User]
Subsequent to that, the governor ordered guards to be placed in the school compound, and that got to be very problematical. And so one of the, I think it was Bob Bass. But we asked for a meeting with the governor, and the arrogance, this impudence of these Peace Corps volunteers to ask for a meeting with the [Amharic phrase], who was apparently related to the prime minister of Ethiopia, Aklilu Habte-Wold, at that time. So we met with the governor and we explained that the guards were very distracting. The students couldn't learn well, and eventually after a day or so, the students were, the guards were withdrawn.

Later on, some years after Peace Corps, I recall reading an article in the New York Times about the revolutionaries who had deposed the emperor had had a show trial for Aklilu Habte-Wold and other imperial government officials, including [inaudible name]. And he was on the list of people who had been executed by what was called the Derg, the revolutionary council that had taken over the government. So it's kind of an odd feeling.

[Assistant] This would be early '70s?

[User] Yes, '74, about '73 to '74. It was an odd feeling seeing the name of someone who I knew and met was among people who had been executed by Ethiopian revolutionaries. So my children have heard this story of my arrest, and they find it quite entertaining.

[Assistant] Do not do what daddy did.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
Subsequent to that, the governor ordered guards to be placed in the school compound, and that got to be very problematical. And so one of the, I think it was Bob Bass. But we asked for a meeting with the governor, and the arrogance, this impudence of these Peace Corps volunteers to ask for a meeting with the [Amharic phrase], who was apparently related to the prime minister of Ethiopia, Aklilu Habte-Wold, at that time. So we met with the governor and we explained that the guards were very distracting. The students couldn't learn well, and eventually after a day or so, the students were, the guards were withdrawn.

Later on, some years after Peace Corps, I recall reading an article in the New York Times about the revolutionaries who had deposed the emperor had had a show trial for Aklilu Habte-Wold and other imperial government officials, including [inaudible name]. And he was on the list of people who had been executed by what was called the Derg, the revolutionary council that had taken over the government. So it's kind of an odd feeling.

[Assistant] This would be early '70s?

[User] Yes, '74, about '73 to '74. It was an odd feeling seeing the name of someone who I knew and met was among people who had been executed by Ethiopian revolutionaries. So my children have heard this story of my arrest, and they find it quite entertaining.

[Assistant] Do not do what daddy did.

[User] Yeah. One of the upshots of this was that the Ethiopian university students at our school were noted as the instigators of the student unrest, which they probably were, and they were expelled from the province. So we came back from the strike with seven fewer, six or seven fewer teachers. And we had to rework the entire school schedule.

[Assistant] I'm sure you took on a heavier load then.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, '74, about '73 to '74. It was an odd feeling seeing the name of someone who I knew and met was among people who had been executed by Ethiopian revolutionaries. So my children have heard this story of my arrest, and they find it quite entertaining.

[Assistant] Do not do what daddy did.

[User] Yeah. One of the upshots of this was that the Ethiopian university students at our school were noted as the instigators of the student unrest, which they probably were, and they were expelled from the province. So we came back from the strike with seven fewer, six or seven fewer teachers. And we had to rework the entire school schedule.

[Assistant] I'm sure you took on a heavier load then.

[User] Well, instead of teaching English, I took over 10th grade history. I taught seven sections of 10th grade history for the whole 10th grade, and there were seven. It was over 200, I think. And the interesting thing. I remember going into one of the first classes and they were following the official ministry curriculum in a way. Talking about ancient Greece, that's where I think is where I picked up. And immediately when I heard the students describing what they had learned, I was asking, you know, where they were in the curriculum. And you heard all this Marxist about, you know, the oppressed people and the slavery and the whole thing. Which in effect is true, but it was a very Marxist slant on Athens and ancient Greece.

[Assistant] It wasn't the old British curriculum.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. One of the upshots of this was that the Ethiopian university students at our school were noted as the instigators of the student unrest, which they probably were, and they were expelled from the province. So we came back from the strike with seven fewer, six or seven fewer teachers. And we had to rework the entire school schedule.

[Assistant] I'm sure you took on a heavier load then.

[User] Well, instead of teaching English, I took over 10th grade history. I taught seven sections of 10th grade history for the whole 10th grade, and there were seven. It was over 200, I think. And the interesting thing. I remember going into one of the first classes and they were following the official ministry curriculum in a way. Talking about ancient Greece, that's where I think is where I picked up. And immediately when I heard the students describing what they had learned, I was asking, you know, where they were in the curriculum. And you heard all this Marxist about, you know, the oppressed people and the slavery and the whole thing. Which in effect is true, but it was a very Marxist slant on Athens and ancient Greece.

[Assistant] It wasn't the old British curriculum.

[User] No. And I think it was. [tape break] Another story, which I can't verify, that I heard later on, was that as a result of our arrest, the police ministry, the Ministry of Interior, had decided that the four or five of us that had been arrested were to be deported. We were thrown out of the country. And the story was that the orders were supposed to go from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Education, because technically although we were Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] That's who your employer was, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, instead of teaching English, I took over 10th grade history. I taught seven sections of 10th grade history for the whole 10th grade, and there were seven. It was over 200, I think. And the interesting thing. I remember going into one of the first classes and they were following the official ministry curriculum in a way. Talking about ancient Greece, that's where I think is where I picked up. And immediately when I heard the students describing what they had learned, I was asking, you know, where they were in the curriculum. And you heard all this Marxist about, you know, the oppressed people and the slavery and the whole thing. Which in effect is true, but it was a very Marxist slant on Athens and ancient Greece.

[Assistant] It wasn't the old British curriculum.

[User] No. And I think it was. [tape break] Another story, which I can't verify, that I heard later on, was that as a result of our arrest, the police ministry, the Ministry of Interior, had decided that the four or five of us that had been arrested were to be deported. We were thrown out of the country. And the story was that the orders were supposed to go from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Education, because technically although we were Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] That's who your employer was, yeah.

[User] Our employer was the Ministry of Education. Apparently, the paperwork never found its way through proper channels, and I don't know if it got, some sympathetic person buried on his or her, his desk, I'm sure it was a he. Or for whatever reason, or whether it was ever true that we were ordered to be deported, but there was. It's an interesting thought. It was shortly after the strikes and the disturbance that the regional director for Africa visited Ethiopia. It was a man named C. Payne Lucas. I don't know if you.

[Assistant] I met him in Washington.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. And I think it was. [tape break] Another story, which I can't verify, that I heard later on, was that as a result of our arrest, the police ministry, the Ministry of Interior, had decided that the four or five of us that had been arrested were to be deported. We were thrown out of the country. And the story was that the orders were supposed to go from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Education, because technically although we were Peace Corps volunteers.

[Assistant] That's who your employer was, yeah.

[User] Our employer was the Ministry of Education. Apparently, the paperwork never found its way through proper channels, and I don't know if it got, some sympathetic person buried on his or her, his desk, I'm sure it was a he. Or for whatever reason, or whether it was ever true that we were ordered to be deported, but there was. It's an interesting thought. It was shortly after the strikes and the disturbance that the regional director for Africa visited Ethiopia. It was a man named C. Payne Lucas. I don't know if you.

[Assistant] I met him in Washington.

[User] And I've met him. He was in my house, and we all gathered together. I had one of the bigger houses among the volunteers. So when Andy Andrews brought C. Payne Lucas down to meet with us, discuss things, we met at my house. And I just have the vaguest recollection of a discussion of what about this traditional academic secondary education and how it met Ethiopia's needs when the economy was so limited, health care was needed, the sanitation was problematic. And here we were, teaching British curriculum subjects, history, and English and math and science and biology and so forth. What were we training these kids to do? So we all wondered.

[Assistant] Wondered, didn't we? We all wondered. You were the 10th group. Believe me, Ethiopia I said the same thing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Our employer was the Ministry of Education. Apparently, the paperwork never found its way through proper channels, and I don't know if it got, some sympathetic person buried on his or her, his desk, I'm sure it was a he. Or for whatever reason, or whether it was ever true that we were ordered to be deported, but there was. It's an interesting thought. It was shortly after the strikes and the disturbance that the regional director for Africa visited Ethiopia. It was a man named C. Payne Lucas. I don't know if you.

[Assistant] I met him in Washington.

[User] And I've met him. He was in my house, and we all gathered together. I had one of the bigger houses among the volunteers. So when Andy Andrews brought C. Payne Lucas down to meet with us, discuss things, we met at my house. And I just have the vaguest recollection of a discussion of what about this traditional academic secondary education and how it met Ethiopia's needs when the economy was so limited, health care was needed, the sanitation was problematic. And here we were, teaching British curriculum subjects, history, and English and math and science and biology and so forth. What were we training these kids to do? So we all wondered.

[Assistant] Wondered, didn't we? We all wondered. You were the 10th group. Believe me, Ethiopia I said the same thing.

[User] Another interesting event. My niece was born that spring, and an official Ethiopian, imperial Ethiopian telegraph stationery, got a telegram from her older brothers that my niece had been born. That was an exciting thing. There was a volunteer in the next town towards Nazreth, little town, bump in the road pretty much, called Iteya. It was on the town road between Nazreth and Asella, and there was a volunteer named John Nelson, and he was an interesting. He enjoyed the solitude. Whereas we had eight, nine volunteers in Asella, he was there by himself teaching at an elementary school. And he sort of became a local celebrity actually, sort of really got into.

[Assistant] His language skills?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I've met him. He was in my house, and we all gathered together. I had one of the bigger houses among the volunteers. So when Andy Andrews brought C. Payne Lucas down to meet with us, discuss things, we met at my house. And I just have the vaguest recollection of a discussion of what about this traditional academic secondary education and how it met Ethiopia's needs when the economy was so limited, health care was needed, the sanitation was problematic. And here we were, teaching British curriculum subjects, history, and English and math and science and biology and so forth. What were we training these kids to do? So we all wondered.

[Assistant] Wondered, didn't we? We all wondered. You were the 10th group. Believe me, Ethiopia I said the same thing.

[User] Another interesting event. My niece was born that spring, and an official Ethiopian, imperial Ethiopian telegraph stationery, got a telegram from her older brothers that my niece had been born. That was an exciting thing. There was a volunteer in the next town towards Nazreth, little town, bump in the road pretty much, called Iteya. It was on the town road between Nazreth and Asella, and there was a volunteer named John Nelson, and he was an interesting. He enjoyed the solitude. Whereas we had eight, nine volunteers in Asella, he was there by himself teaching at an elementary school. And he sort of became a local celebrity actually, sort of really got into.

[Assistant] His language skills?

[User] His language skills and his relationships with the locals. He was the only foreigner there. We associated with other teachers, including the Ethiopian teachers, but we didn't have a great deal of contact with.

[Assistant] The parents of the students.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] His language skills and his relationships with the locals. He was the only foreigner there. We associated with other teachers, including the Ethiopian teachers, but we didn't have a great deal of contact with.

[Assistant] The parents of the students.

[User] The parents and the other folks. But John got invited to a wedding. Maybe this was the second year when I was one of the last volunteers around, but Susan West and I, Susie West McHugh, got invited also. So we took the bus and got off at Iteya and went with John to this wedding. And apparently this was a fairly well-to-do farming family. They had some vehicles, they had a fairly nice house. And they went through the muck, in the old days apparently, the groom in his retinue would go and kidnap the bride. And they went, this was not done, it was not a kidnaping per se, this was.

[Assistant] Traditional.

[User] Traditional. They went through the motions of going through this tradition. They came riding in with the bride and they slaughtered a sheep across the threshold, supposed to be good luck. I remember this as being just before summer vacation because we were drinking and eating, and I think it was whatever I drank and ate.

[Assistant] The homemade brew?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. And I came down with a combination of dysentery and typhoid fever.

[Assistant] Oh my.

[User] Now, Peace Corps health care was pretty limited. I didn't go to the hospital in, uh.

[Assistant] Addis Ababa?

[User] In Asella. I took a bus. I was just doggedly sick. So after the year of the school ended, I was supposed to be doing my summer project. Supposed to be working on getting the library in shape. We had a bunch of donated books and then one of the buildings. But I struggled to get myself into Addis Ababa. I stayed at the International. They took a blood test. Next day, they came back and said, yeah, you have typhoid fever. I think they handed me a bottle of tetracycline. I asked my wife, did they have tetracycline in 1968? And she said, yes they did.

[Assistant] Yes, they did.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So they handed me a bottle of tetracycline, said take four a day and go back home. And that was my treatment for typhoid fever.

[Assistant] Oh my.

[User] And the dysentery took care of itself, pretty much. But I was pretty sick and I lost a lot of weight and I didn't do much of my library work. But we did have a chance to go on vacation and there arose of a tradition among Ethiopia volunteers that they would go to someplace nice and have some R&R. And so the tradition was to go down to Kenya, to fly down to Nairobi. And so the fellow who, he had come to Asella and was staying at my house to do his summer project. We ended up going and teaming up to travel through East Africa. And we flew into Nairobi. We had drinks at the voluntary bar at the new Stanley Hotel, and at the Lord Delamere Room of the Norfolk, all the famous colonial places. Tried hitchhiking to Kampala, Uganda, didn't make it, so we ended up getting on the train that went between Nairobi and Kampala. Somewhere there's a picture of me crossing the equator on the Nakuru Eldoret Road. And I remember in Kampala seeing the sign, zebra crossing.

[Assistant] Oh yes.

[User] And I tried to think, this is Kampala. It's a pretty booked up town. What are the zebras doing in Kampala? And I looked down and realized on the black tarmac were the white stripes for a pedestrian crossing. And that's what they labeled this pedestrian crossing, like a zebra crossing. And I realized it was not to warn me of zebras in the middle of Kampala. But I continued travels through on the boat on Lake Victoria to Mwanza at the southern end of Lake Victoria, on a train to Dar es Salaam for two days, visiting Arusha.

[Assistant] Did you climb Kilimanjaro?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did not. I did go to Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge.

[Assistant] Oh, excellent.

[User] Fascinating tour of Olduvai Gorge and the Leakey discoveries there. Also went to Zanzibar. At that time, Zanzibar, although, you know, united with the mainland, formerly Tanganyika to become Tanzania, was sort of independent and the Sultan had just been overthrown by a native group who were pretty radical. The red Chinese were there, the People's Republic was there. They had a Mao bookstore.

[Assistant] Oh wow.

[User] And I did purchase the book of Mao sayings, the red book, if you recall from the sixties. I recall sitting in the bar with a West German who was pointing out to me the East Germans that were in bar. We had stayed an extra night because our plane, we were overbooked and we couldn't get back to the mainland. So the airline put us up for an extra night at a nice hotel. I'd been staying at the hostel. And going around and watching, you know.

[Assistant] Did you go fishing?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Fascinating tour of Olduvai Gorge and the Leakey discoveries there. Also went to Zanzibar. At that time, Zanzibar, although, you know, united with the mainland, formerly Tanganyika to become Tanzania, was sort of independent and the Sultan had just been overthrown by a native group who were pretty radical. The red Chinese were there, the People's Republic was there. They had a Mao bookstore.

[Assistant] Oh wow.

[User] And I did purchase the book of Mao sayings, the red book, if you recall from the sixties. I recall sitting in the bar with a West German who was pointing out to me the East Germans that were in bar. We had stayed an extra night because our plane, we were overbooked and we couldn't get back to the mainland. So the airline put us up for an extra night at a nice hotel. I'd been staying at the hostel. And going around and watching, you know.

[Assistant] Did you go fishing?

[User] No. But we went to a coconut harvesting exhibition. I climbed the tree, cut down the coconut, opened it up, and we drink the coconut water. So we had quite an adventure in Mombasa and Malindi. Almost got stranded in the middle of Kenya, but somehow made it through and here to tell about it. When I returned, I returned to have a visit from my parents. My parents had combined a trip to the Middle East and they added on Ethiopia, and they were pretty shocked to see me. I was down about 40 pounds from when they had last seen me. I had grown a beard. And my mother talks about being horrified at seeing me.

[Assistant] Her son, her baby.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
Yeah, I am the youngest of two. But I guess we arranged, we rented a car and drove down to Asella. All of my students were so thrilled to see Mr. Kreiman's parents came to visit all the way from America. And I'm not sure how we protected the car from some bandits, but we did. But my mother, realizing I served, I think I made something like a meatloaf, but we didn't have any refrigeration, but I bought fresh meat just, you know, I told my students to get fresh meat that day. And I had a hand-crank grinder and I ground up the meat and made meatloaf. I was my own cook, unlike some who hired a cook. But I remember the look on my mother's face.

I had hooked up to my outhouse, which was about 10 feet outside the back door. It was a separate building with my latrine. I just strung lamp cord out to the outhouse and had put a light bulb in it and a switch so they could have a lighted outhouse. But my mother dutifully, we spent one night, they spent at my house in Asella. And if I could have captured the look on her face when she returned from the latrine, it would have been. Mother was, let's see. She was 52, 53, but she was very game.

[Assistant] It was more culture shock than age.

[User] Yes, yes. She was still pretty able to get around. Another thing I recall, I guess it was the summer of '69 when the astronauts landed on the moon.

[Assistant] Oh yes, exciting.

[User] And one of our favorite hangouts in Addis Ababa was a China Bar restaurant.

[Assistant] I remember that from my days. The famous China Bar.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And one of our favorite hangouts in Addis Ababa was a China Bar restaurant.

[Assistant] I remember that from my days. The famous China Bar.

[User] And it so happened that I think Suzy and I were in the China Bar on the day the astronauts landed on the moon. And there were Americans in the China Bar, and they had a shortwave radio on their dining table, blaring out the, you know, blow by blow account of the landing. Susie and I were all in the corner and we just cringed. We just thought, here you are in a public restaurant. How crude, how culturally insensitive to have this radio blaring. I'm sure you're proud that your country has the first Earthlings to land on the moon, but to do it in a public place. I guess we just sort of didn't want to be seen with it with these. I think they were military people or somebody. But we just were very embarrassed by their crude, what we saw as crude behavior.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] So I moved to a house the second year that had a compound with three houses. The owner was a retired police lieutenant who had been given a land grant by the emperor as a retirement bonus. The second house was occupied by the music teacher at our secondary school, and I had third house. And it made for quite safety, I mean, nobody was going to mess with a police lieutenant's compound, so I didn't have to worry about anybody stealing the lime from the outhouse.

[Assistant] Did you keep your dog?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And it so happened that I think Suzy and I were in the China Bar on the day the astronauts landed on the moon. And there were Americans in the China Bar, and they had a shortwave radio on their dining table, blaring out the, you know, blow by blow account of the landing. Susie and I were all in the corner and we just cringed. We just thought, here you are in a public restaurant. How crude, how culturally insensitive to have this radio blaring. I'm sure you're proud that your country has the first Earthlings to land on the moon, but to do it in a public place. I guess we just sort of didn't want to be seen with it with these. I think they were military people or somebody. But we just were very embarrassed by their crude, what we saw as crude behavior.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] So I moved to a house the second year that had a compound with three houses. The owner was a retired police lieutenant who had been given a land grant by the emperor as a retirement bonus. The second house was occupied by the music teacher at our secondary school, and I had third house. And it made for quite safety, I mean, nobody was going to mess with a police lieutenant's compound, so I didn't have to worry about anybody stealing the lime from the outhouse.

[Assistant] Did you keep your dog?

[User] But I kept my dog, and that leads to the next. I tried to keep my dog corralled on my part of the compound, but he got loose one day and the owner had brought in some sheep from some, not sheep, they were lambs, sheep from his farm. And my dog Moxie got hold of one of the sheep and had him by the throat. I mean, he was ready to bring it down. And they came out and they got him off the sheep. But he had punctures on the side of his neck from my dog. So to make amends, I had to buy the sheep.

[Assistant] That was very diplomatic.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I moved to a house the second year that had a compound with three houses. The owner was a retired police lieutenant who had been given a land grant by the emperor as a retirement bonus. The second house was occupied by the music teacher at our secondary school, and I had third house. And it made for quite safety, I mean, nobody was going to mess with a police lieutenant's compound, so I didn't have to worry about anybody stealing the lime from the outhouse.

[Assistant] Did you keep your dog?

[User] But I kept my dog, and that leads to the next. I tried to keep my dog corralled on my part of the compound, but he got loose one day and the owner had brought in some sheep from some, not sheep, they were lambs, sheep from his farm. And my dog Moxie got hold of one of the sheep and had him by the throat. I mean, he was ready to bring it down. And they came out and they got him off the sheep. But he had punctures on the side of his neck from my dog. So to make amends, I had to buy the sheep.

[Assistant] That was very diplomatic.

[User] I had the sheep brought to another volunteer's compound. We had fed them for a few days and then we had them slaughtered and sold the sheep skin to recoup some of the cost. And I invited everybody in for leg of lamb for a couple of days.

[Assistant] Oh, good for you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But I kept my dog, and that leads to the next. I tried to keep my dog corralled on my part of the compound, but he got loose one day and the owner had brought in some sheep from some, not sheep, they were lambs, sheep from his farm. And my dog Moxie got hold of one of the sheep and had him by the throat. I mean, he was ready to bring it down. And they came out and they got him off the sheep. But he had punctures on the side of his neck from my dog. So to make amends, I had to buy the sheep.

[Assistant] That was very diplomatic.

[User] I had the sheep brought to another volunteer's compound. We had fed them for a few days and then we had them slaughtered and sold the sheep skin to recoup some of the cost. And I invited everybody in for leg of lamb for a couple of days.

[Assistant] Oh, good for you.

[User] So it was great, but not particularly good leg of lamb, it was pretty tough, but in any event. The second year got pretty interesting. Gabahut Bely left for another assignment. A new school director came in. He was sort of a tinpot dictator who sort of, didn't, he was very much impressed with himself.

[Assistant] With his position.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So it was great, but not particularly good leg of lamb, it was pretty tough, but in any event. The second year got pretty interesting. Gabahut Bely left for another assignment. A new school director came in. He was sort of a tinpot dictator who sort of, didn't, he was very much impressed with himself.

[Assistant] With his position.

[User] Yes, as I recall. And he wasn't the congenial, effective leader that Gabahut Bely had been. We also had a bunch of new teachers. Running out of Indians and Peace Corps volunteers, they began contracting with the Philippines to bring in teachers.

[Assistant] Oh, unusual.

[User] The Filipinos had not had very much cultural training, if at all. I recall that soon after they arrived, stories of their having left laundry out overnight and having it stolen. Of inappropriate contacts between the Filipinos and Ethiopians. It was just, it didn't.

[Assistant] Didn't set well.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, as I recall. And he wasn't the congenial, effective leader that Gabahut Bely had been. We also had a bunch of new teachers. Running out of Indians and Peace Corps volunteers, they began contracting with the Philippines to bring in teachers.

[Assistant] Oh, unusual.

[User] The Filipinos had not had very much cultural training, if at all. I recall that soon after they arrived, stories of their having left laundry out overnight and having it stolen. Of inappropriate contacts between the Filipinos and Ethiopians. It was just, it didn't.

[Assistant] Didn't set well.

[User] Didn't set too well.

[Assistant] Now were the Peace Corps volunteers not replaced, even though you had a good reputation?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The Filipinos had not had very much cultural training, if at all. I recall that soon after they arrived, stories of their having left laundry out overnight and having it stolen. Of inappropriate contacts between the Filipinos and Ethiopians. It was just, it didn't.

[Assistant] Didn't set well.

[User] Didn't set too well.

[Assistant] Now were the Peace Corps volunteers not replaced, even though you had a good reputation?

[User] Well, five volunteers left by finishing their term. Jack Hamilton and Elizabeth Rogers completed their second year. Art Hall, Bob and Betty Bess completed the third year. So the five were not replaced that left. So the starting the second year, it was just myself, Loretta Huber, Loretta Huber Davis now, and Tom and Andrea Scully. There were only four Peace Corps volunteer teachers at the high school at that point.

[Assistant] Wow. So were you taking on an extra role?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Didn't set too well.

[Assistant] Now were the Peace Corps volunteers not replaced, even though you had a good reputation?

[User] Well, five volunteers left by finishing their term. Jack Hamilton and Elizabeth Rogers completed their second year. Art Hall, Bob and Betty Bess completed the third year. So the five were not replaced that left. So the starting the second year, it was just myself, Loretta Huber, Loretta Huber Davis now, and Tom and Andrea Scully. There were only four Peace Corps volunteer teachers at the high school at that point.

[Assistant] Wow. So were you taking on an extra role?

[User] I took, yeah, we had, the Filipinos came in and picked up some of the slack. What happened later in, I believe it was in Adwa, two Peace Corps teachers were assaulted by students. And I have the letter that they wrote to their fellow volunteers, which indicated it had been an anti- American, anti-government effort aimed at, you know, they associated Peace Corps with support of the emperor. They were against the emperor, at least these university students who fomented this, apparently, and it was their effort to try and push out one of the emperor's supporters, the American presence. There was a great deal of back and forth. There was a meeting of some sort, which I don't recall attending. In any event, the general rule was that if you left early, you had to pay for your own ticket home. That rule was waived in Ethiopia and because of the unrest, because of the assault on the teachers, anyone who felt that their position was not tenable, had the option to return early and have their way paid by Peace Corps. What they'd do, they would deduct it from your readjustment allowance, the portion of your tickets.

[Assistant] Yes. Were you asked to go to a different country like Kenya or?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I took, yeah, we had, the Filipinos came in and picked up some of the slack. What happened later in, I believe it was in Adwa, two Peace Corps teachers were assaulted by students. And I have the letter that they wrote to their fellow volunteers, which indicated it had been an anti- American, anti-government effort aimed at, you know, they associated Peace Corps with support of the emperor. They were against the emperor, at least these university students who fomented this, apparently, and it was their effort to try and push out one of the emperor's supporters, the American presence. There was a great deal of back and forth. There was a meeting of some sort, which I don't recall attending. In any event, the general rule was that if you left early, you had to pay for your own ticket home. That rule was waived in Ethiopia and because of the unrest, because of the assault on the teachers, anyone who felt that their position was not tenable, had the option to return early and have their way paid by Peace Corps. What they'd do, they would deduct it from your readjustment allowance, the portion of your tickets.

[Assistant] Yes. Were you asked to go to a different country like Kenya or?

[User] No, I think they were. It was, they were. This was like December, November, December of our second year. So we had one semester left. And I think they thought that relocating for one semester was not worthwhile particularly. So as I recall, Loretta Huber Davis and the Scullys both left after the first semester, and I was the last American teacher at that school.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] So I went through my own justification. The students were willing to attend class. They came and they worked. And I said, if they're willing to work, I'm willing to teach. And if they're willing to come to class. And I think the assault up in Tigray, much more political up there.

[Assistant] Well, it was near the Eritrea border.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Returned and she is there as we speak, doing training of elementary teachers in Shashamane, has picked up some information about what's going on in Asella. So I stuck it out, for better or for worse. I ended up being responsible for selling off huge amounts of furniture that Peace Corps had bought. We had gone from a town of, I think, eight or nine volunteers to two volunteers.

[Assistant] And they left their households?

[User] And they left their households, so a Peace Corps instructed me just to sell off all the furniture. So we had a big yard sale. Ethiopian garage sale. You know, chairs and tables and couches, beds and cupboards and everything. Hundreds of Ethiopian dollars’ worth of stuff that I turned over to the Peace Corps. Sold a few of my own personal things to build up a stash for traveling plans. I recall making a trip to Addis Ababa just before I left, and we had to get an exit visa. It was a document that had to be signed by a number of different ministries. And I recall going between, there's a music store between the International Hotel at Arat Kilo and a place called the Piazza, which is in the circle near the city hall, if you recall that.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And the music stores have the song music blaring on a loudspeaker. And what of all songs did they play? It was a song by a group called Eric Burdon and the Animals, and the song was.

[Assistant] Not the Beatles?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Or shortly after. However, the American Friends Service Committee, to whom I am grateful for it, sent representatives to Addis Ababa at the end of the school year to counsel all of the men about the draft. And one of the things they counsel us about was how to obtain a proper medical deferment. They came with a big, thick Army medical manual. They helped us search for conditions that we might have that disqualified us. They advised us not to wait to be called up and going through the traditional Army physical, which they just shuffle people right on through. But they said, every board has a medical advisor. You make an appointment with the medical advisor, you bring your documentation, and you ask them to make a determination, which I did. I actually had to find the spot in the manual that showed the condition that I brought documentation from my personal physician that I had. He filled out a form, stuck it in an envelope, and handed it to me and I was to be medically deferred.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And gave it to me to mail myself, and I asked him, does the board follow your recommendations? He says, well, they have all the time so far. So I stuck it in the mailbox downstairs from his office and his office was up in a little office building that on the ground floor housed a liquor store. So I went in and bought a bottle of what has since been my favorite champagne, Korbel Brut, and celebrated. And I received in a few weeks a 1-Y classification, which at that time was sort a, that only in an extreme emergency. When they're scraping the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. Because I had to deal with the draft, I had a limited amount of time to travel home. Others spent months. If I had had a high draft lottery number, I could have been more comfortable. Some traveled east and concluded around the world.

[Assistant] Which I did, which was fabulous.

[User] I'm sure.

[Assistant] I recommend it.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I'm sure.

[Assistant] I recommend it.

[User]
But I raced through a few key spots that I wanted to visit. I first went back to Nairobi and from Nairobi to Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv to Zurich, Zurich to London, and London to Washington, D.C. And I remember coming through customs in Washington, D.C. And how long have you been away from the United States? Two years? And here is this scraggly, bearded 24, 25 year old, and they started rifling through. And I, honestly, I had bought a camera in Kenya, a Pentax Spotmatic, and I declared it. And I think I paid like nine dollars duty on my Pentax camera. And they were searching for drugs. They were sure I had drugs in my suitcase, and I was not foolish enough to carry drugs in my suitcase, of course. But I came back and I took care of my draft issue.

C. Payne Lucas comes into this story again by this time. C. Payne Lucas was head of Returned Volunteer Services group, and he started something called the Transition Center program, and they contracted with a Washington consulting firm, a firm called TransCentury Corporation, to run a week-long readjustment effort for returned Peace Corps volunteers. And you had to apply and you had to write an essay, which I still have. And so I was selected and I came back to Washington, D.C., for the Transition Center program.

[Assistant] I hope you met Dick Irish.

[User] I met Dick Irish, he ran the program. Well, Dick Irish was an interesting character. But he revealed to me when I chatted with him about my having worked on the McCarthy campaign in the spring of 1968, that it was he who supplied the mailing list of Peace Corps to the McCarthy campaign for getting the mailing. And it was I, as a volunteer, who had copied the insert and stuffed envelopes and put the labels on that mailing to the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Yeah, he was very political.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I met Dick Irish, he ran the program. Well, Dick Irish was an interesting character. But he revealed to me when I chatted with him about my having worked on the McCarthy campaign in the spring of 1968, that it was he who supplied the mailing list of Peace Corps to the McCarthy campaign for getting the mailing. And it was I, as a volunteer, who had copied the insert and stuffed envelopes and put the labels on that mailing to the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Yeah, he was very political.

[User] And Dick Irish and a fellow named William "Buddy" Blakey, he was an attorney, were running the program.

[Assistant] TransCentury?

[User] TransCentury Corporation. Buddy is now, uh, he worked. I just looked at his website. I looked him up on the website. He has a law firm now, William A. Blakey and Associates. But he had worked for the United Negro College Fund or did something and had won some award from one of those type organizations. He was an African American attorney, which was still fairly rare in 1970.

[Assistant] Yes, it was.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Uh, he ran the War on Poverty, the Office of Economic Opportunity, but I don't know if he was directly involved with HUD. Additional, uh, before I got hired by HUD, one of the things that I do and I don't know how I made contact with them. Maybe it was TransCentury and the Transition, uh. The returned volunteer office asked me to help with the recruitment of the next and one of the last classes at that stage for Peace Corps volunteers. And they were doing what was called a pre-invitational staging where they had invited a group of people who were potential.

[Assistant] Applicants?

[User]
Applicants, who had applied and were potential for selection to Ethiopia. And they hired me to be an adviser on the Peace Corps experience. And I was flown down to Kansas City and in a meeting room of 25, 30, 35, potential Ethiopia volunteers, I was asked to describe my experience and what it was like. And I think on reflection, I think, you know, it's sort of a roller coaster experience. And I recall just a couple of stories of teaching that I have and I wanted to share with you. When I began teaching history, I got, following the curriculum, I got to the point of the Roman Empire and I had a segment on Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and the machinations in Rome and how Antony and Cleopatra united forces to try and defeat Caesar.

And I described all this and how Antony and Cleopatra had been defeated by Caesar's forces. How Cleopatra was just, could woo any man, exceedingly attractive, maybe just she had power, but in any event, the legend was that she was exceedingly attractive. And there was a room, classroom full of, and this was 10th grade, but they started late and they were probably 16, 17 years old in the 10th grade. And there's some smattering of young women. We did have coed classes.

[Assistant] There were a few.

[User] But I think it's probably 10 percent or less were females.

[Assistant] Yes. Did you get the Queen of Sheba allegory?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
Applicants, who had applied and were potential for selection to Ethiopia. And they hired me to be an adviser on the Peace Corps experience. And I was flown down to Kansas City and in a meeting room of 25, 30, 35, potential Ethiopia volunteers, I was asked to describe my experience and what it was like. And I think on reflection, I think, you know, it's sort of a roller coaster experience. And I recall just a couple of stories of teaching that I have and I wanted to share with you. When I began teaching history, I got, following the curriculum, I got to the point of the Roman Empire and I had a segment on Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and the machinations in Rome and how Antony and Cleopatra united forces to try and defeat Caesar.

And I described all this and how Antony and Cleopatra had been defeated by Caesar's forces. How Cleopatra was just, could woo any man, exceedingly attractive, maybe just she had power, but in any event, the legend was that she was exceedingly attractive. And there was a room, classroom full of, and this was 10th grade, but they started late and they were probably 16, 17 years old in the 10th grade. And there's some smattering of young women. We did have coed classes.

[Assistant] There were a few.

[User] But I think it's probably 10 percent or less were females.

[Assistant] Yes. Did you get the Queen of Sheba allegory?

[User] Oh yeah. And I actually mentioned something about that, but as well. But I went through this lecture and I timed it just right and spoke, you know, as word got that their forces had been defeated, that the legend was that Cleopatra took the poisonous snake from the basket, clutched it to her chest, and died. And that very second, the bell went off for the end of the period, and the students gave me a round of applause. One of my all time.

[Assistant] One of the highlights of your drama.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yeah. And I actually mentioned something about that, but as well. But I went through this lecture and I timed it just right and spoke, you know, as word got that their forces had been defeated, that the legend was that Cleopatra took the poisonous snake from the basket, clutched it to her chest, and died. And that very second, the bell went off for the end of the period, and the students gave me a round of applause. One of my all time.

[Assistant] One of the highlights of your drama.

[User] I had done some research. Gloria mentioned Sadar Sheba. And what I told my students about my understanding now Ethiopian legend was that the Queen of Sheba went to Jerusalem to visit Solomon and that the offspring of that visit became Menelik I. My take on that story was that Sheba was not Ethiopian. Sheba was Yemeni.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] She was from Saba, which was the term of Yemen, and that the history of the early part of the Ethiopian Empire. The first Ethiopian empire that came up to Axum was there had been a mixture of Yemeni immigrants across the Red Sea and indigenous populations. So my theory to them was that this legend of Solomon and Sheba came across with the Yemenis who had emigrated into the highlands of northern Ethiopia.

[Assistant] The Red Sea was much smaller than we were taught.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had done some research. Gloria mentioned Sadar Sheba. And what I told my students about my understanding now Ethiopian legend was that the Queen of Sheba went to Jerusalem to visit Solomon and that the offspring of that visit became Menelik I. My take on that story was that Sheba was not Ethiopian. Sheba was Yemeni.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] She was from Saba, which was the term of Yemen, and that the history of the early part of the Ethiopian Empire. The first Ethiopian empire that came up to Axum was there had been a mixture of Yemeni immigrants across the Red Sea and indigenous populations. So my theory to them was that this legend of Solomon and Sheba came across with the Yemenis who had emigrated into the highlands of northern Ethiopia.

[Assistant] The Red Sea was much smaller than we were taught.

[User] There was traffic across and there was evidence of emigration across from the Yemenis so that the legend of Solomon and Sheba, I had prophesied to the students, was one that had been brought by the Yemenis and there was not an accurate historical rendition.

[Assistant] But it's tied in with the Ark of the Covenant also. So did you get in trouble with your changing of history?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There was traffic across and there was evidence of emigration across from the Yemenis so that the legend of Solomon and Sheba, I had prophesied to the students, was one that had been brought by the Yemenis and there was not an accurate historical rendition.

[Assistant] But it's tied in with the Ark of the Covenant also. So did you get in trouble with your changing of history?

[User] No. Uh, I said that more privately than publicly. The other story I thought I'd relate. We got, again following the curriculum for history, we got to the Middle Ages in Europe and talked about the Middle Ages in Western Europe and about the feudal system, about the nobles and the land tenure system and power of the church. And I had the greatest student in my class, was not from the local area. I'm not sure what his name. His name is Lackay Temechache. And he was definitely the sharpest. And I had students who were good, who could pick up the material and, you know, sort of regurgitate it back to you, you know, were good memorizers and good. And they were reasonably successful. But Lackay had insight. And as we were finishing up a section on feudalism, he raised his hand and said, sir? And they called you sir.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Do we have feudalism in Ethiopia? And I looked around and I knew that somewhere in the class was somebody who was supposed to report back to the police if there was any.

[Assistant] If you said anything.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. Uh, I said that more privately than publicly. The other story I thought I'd relate. We got, again following the curriculum for history, we got to the Middle Ages in Europe and talked about the Middle Ages in Western Europe and about the feudal system, about the nobles and the land tenure system and power of the church. And I had the greatest student in my class, was not from the local area. I'm not sure what his name. His name is Lackay Temechache. And he was definitely the sharpest. And I had students who were good, who could pick up the material and, you know, sort of regurgitate it back to you, you know, were good memorizers and good. And they were reasonably successful. But Lackay had insight. And as we were finishing up a section on feudalism, he raised his hand and said, sir? And they called you sir.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Do we have feudalism in Ethiopia? And I looked around and I knew that somewhere in the class was somebody who was supposed to report back to the police if there was any.

[Assistant] If you said anything.

[User] Out of line.

[Assistant] There was always a monitor.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Out of line.

[Assistant] There was always a monitor.

[User] So I came up with a strategy. I said, Lackay, I'm a guest in your country. I've learned a lot about Ethiopia, but you know, I still only know so much. You all are from Ethiopia, you know your country, you know your society. And let's just go through the definition of feudalism and you just make up your own mind. And so we repeated the definition of the nobility, the land tenure system, the peasants who were providing their crops to the landlords, and the role of the church and the power of the land holdings of the church. And he just smiled at me. He had a big, bright, excellent kind of bright smile. He said, thank you, sir. And that's.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User] That's the way I handled that. When I gave the final exams the last year, as a prize to the student who got the highest score on the final exam, I gave him my history books. I had some history books sent over by my family, some references and some other things.

[Assistant] Oh yes, those treasured books.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I came up with a strategy. I said, Lackay, I'm a guest in your country. I've learned a lot about Ethiopia, but you know, I still only know so much. You all are from Ethiopia, you know your country, you know your society. And let's just go through the definition of feudalism and you just make up your own mind. And so we repeated the definition of the nobility, the land tenure system, the peasants who were providing their crops to the landlords, and the role of the church and the power of the land holdings of the church. And he just smiled at me. He had a big, bright, excellent kind of bright smile. He said, thank you, sir. And that's.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User] That's the way I handled that. When I gave the final exams the last year, as a prize to the student who got the highest score on the final exam, I gave him my history books. I had some history books sent over by my family, some references and some other things.

[Assistant] Oh yes, those treasured books.

[User] So Lackay Temechache got my history books.

[Assistant] Well, good for him. I'm sure he went on to the university.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So Lackay Temechache got my history books.

[Assistant] Well, good for him. I'm sure he went on to the university.

[User] Yeah, well, and this. We questioned the purpose of providing this kind of academic education given the economic and social situation there.

[Assistant] Certainly.

[User] And part of my thinking was, you know, what can I do to help students? And I saw a distinction between the very top students who were potentially university material. And maybe this was arrogant, but I made a judgment. And students who were good to above average students but in my judgment at the time, they would really have a struggle making it to university, passing the 12th grade exam and getting into university. At that point, the structure was that if you finished 10th grade, you have the option of applying for what were called teacher training institutes, TTI.

[Assistant] Yes, I heard that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I thought it would be beneficial to students who weren't likely to be successful university students, but who would be decent elementary school students to go through this TTI and get a decent job as an elementary teacher.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] So I cajoled my way to the good graces of the director and said I want to be in charge of the committee that selects the applicants for teacher training. There was a formal process every spring as we completed each year. And so I found a couple, I found myself on the committee and was able to steer certain students who I thought would be best served by going in this direction to go into teacher training. And one of them was the student that lived with me the second year.

[Assistant] Solomon?

[User] No, this was another student who after Solomon left, Amenaza Hall, and I still have a couple of letters from Amenaza Hall. Unfortunately, as a southerner, he was sent to Asmara for teacher training. He was very unhappy. He was treated very badly. He was looked down upon by the Eritreans, but he made it and he came back to the rural parts of Arsi Province to be an elementary teacher. But he, and I lost track of him, letters came back without an address. You know, I didn't hear anymore. But the letters I do have told about the difficult time he had had in Asmara at teacher training institute. And then coming back and, you know, getting a job, but still not being totally comfortable about it.

[Assistant] Well, the thing that I didn't realize is that making the transition between Tigrinya and Amharic was extremely difficult for the Ethiopians.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, this was another student who after Solomon left, Amenaza Hall, and I still have a couple of letters from Amenaza Hall. Unfortunately, as a southerner, he was sent to Asmara for teacher training. He was very unhappy. He was treated very badly. He was looked down upon by the Eritreans, but he made it and he came back to the rural parts of Arsi Province to be an elementary teacher. But he, and I lost track of him, letters came back without an address. You know, I didn't hear anymore. But the letters I do have told about the difficult time he had had in Asmara at teacher training institute. And then coming back and, you know, getting a job, but still not being totally comfortable about it.

[Assistant] Well, the thing that I didn't realize is that making the transition between Tigrinya and Amharic was extremely difficult for the Ethiopians.

[User] For the northerners.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] So my students were Oromo. They spoke what we then called Gallinya. We were very much discouraged from learning anything other than Amharic. And I don't know if in the north?

[Assistant] Yes, well see, the model for that was when India chose Hindi as their prime language along with English, even though they have a thousand languages. And Emperor Haile Selassie was convinced that that was the way to go in Ethiopia, one unifying.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] For the northerners.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] So my students were Oromo. They spoke what we then called Gallinya. We were very much discouraged from learning anything other than Amharic. And I don't know if in the north?

[Assistant] Yes, well see, the model for that was when India chose Hindi as their prime language along with English, even though they have a thousand languages. And Emperor Haile Selassie was convinced that that was the way to go in Ethiopia, one unifying.

[User] It was thought to be a unifying force. So, you know, that's. I got some teachers into, some boys into teacher training.

[Assistant] Good for you.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So my students were Oromo. They spoke what we then called Gallinya. We were very much discouraged from learning anything other than Amharic. And I don't know if in the north?

[Assistant] Yes, well see, the model for that was when India chose Hindi as their prime language along with English, even though they have a thousand languages. And Emperor Haile Selassie was convinced that that was the way to go in Ethiopia, one unifying.

[User] It was thought to be a unifying force. So, you know, that's. I got some teachers into, some boys into teacher training.

[Assistant] Good for you.

[User] I thought that was serving them well.

[Assistant] They had a career. Because for many, it was a stepping stone into government service and other things.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was thought to be a unifying force. So, you know, that's. I got some teachers into, some boys into teacher training.

[Assistant] Good for you.

[User] I thought that was serving them well.

[Assistant] They had a career. Because for many, it was a stepping stone into government service and other things.

[User] In reflecting back on those years, I mean, there were the highs of, you know, the kind of question I got from Lackay Temechache about his insightfulness to the analogy between the feudalism described in Europe and his own society. The sort of playing to the crowd I did with the story of Antony and Cleopatra. And I'm sure the youngsters, there were youngsters everywhere, teenagers, they were all this talk of this beautiful woman sort of got them on the edge of their seats. And they burst into applause, was some of the highs. In our interactions with our fellow teachers, and I think more the Ethiopians. There were a few of the Indians who were more congenial than others.

[Assistant] It sounded like you had an international group there with the Frenchmen and the Filipinos.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I thought that was serving them well.

[Assistant] They had a career. Because for many, it was a stepping stone into government service and other things.

[User] In reflecting back on those years, I mean, there were the highs of, you know, the kind of question I got from Lackay Temechache about his insightfulness to the analogy between the feudalism described in Europe and his own society. The sort of playing to the crowd I did with the story of Antony and Cleopatra. And I'm sure the youngsters, there were youngsters everywhere, teenagers, they were all this talk of this beautiful woman sort of got them on the edge of their seats. And they burst into applause, was some of the highs. In our interactions with our fellow teachers, and I think more the Ethiopians. There were a few of the Indians who were more congenial than others.

[Assistant] It sounded like you had an international group there with the Frenchmen and the Filipinos.

[User] The French and later. The Filipinos were kind of standoffish, kept among themselves. The single Indian men were much more congenial, interactive with the Peace Corps volunteers than were the married couples. And there were two or three. One of them, I recall, one of them was from Goa.

[Assistant] A Portuguese colony.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Portuguese colony. And I think it was, I don't recall the timing, but of course, Goa, which had been a Portuguese colony well into the sixties and when India had been independent and at some point, India just simply marched into Goa and took it over.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And he was a Goanese and was still resentful of the takeover by India.

[Assistant] Of course.

[User] Not that they enjoyed Portuguese hegemony. But I'm sure they wanted their own independent state.

[Assistant] Yeah, they wanted an independent state. And the other thing, the Indians had been treated so badly by Idi Amin in Uganda also.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not that they enjoyed Portuguese hegemony. But I'm sure they wanted their own independent state.

[Assistant] Yeah, they wanted an independent state. And the other thing, the Indians had been treated so badly by Idi Amin in Uganda also.

[User] This is before that occurred. Idi Amin occurred later.

[Assistant] Oh, OK.

[User] The other, uh, there was a Sikh among the Indian teachers and he was a math teacher, as I recall. Ranganathan, but he was an outgoing kind of person, very friendly. But he recalled that he had been in the Indian Army, in the commissary corps, and he told us stories about the challenges of the commissary corps of the Indian Army trying to accommodate the wide variety of dietary requirements from, I guess, the Sikhs have certain dietary requirements.

[Assistant] And the Muslims.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] This is before that occurred. Idi Amin occurred later.

[Assistant] Oh, OK.

[User] The other, uh, there was a Sikh among the Indian teachers and he was a math teacher, as I recall. Ranganathan, but he was an outgoing kind of person, very friendly. But he recalled that he had been in the Indian Army, in the commissary corps, and he told us stories about the challenges of the commissary corps of the Indian Army trying to accommodate the wide variety of dietary requirements from, I guess, the Sikhs have certain dietary requirements.

[Assistant] And the Muslims.

[User] And the Muslims and the Hindus. And there was, so that.

[Assistant] So he wasn't a cook, he was in the commissary corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I can speak to the single male experience myself. And I wonder what, I'm sure some single women have similar, but perhaps different, challenges as well. The couples, the stable couples, seemed to be very successful.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Or more successful. I think a dysfunctional couple would be even worse than a single male.

[Assistant] Yes. And there were some divorces in the beginning.

[User] And as I may have noted earlier, there were some matings that occurred that it seemed sort of the odd couples. One of the fellows who was attacked by his students in Adwa, married another woman who was stationed in Adwa, and they had seemed like the oddest of odd couple. She was a perky redhead kind of life of the party, come on let's dance, kind of young woman. And he was the speckled, bespeckled, studious, you know, intellectual type. And I never quite understood how Craig Johnson and Deborah Kendall Johnson ended up as a couple, but they did, and that's how they're listed in the, um.

[Assistant] Well, that's wonderful. There's odd couples in the United States, too, that they don't need the Peace Corps experience.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Or more successful. I think a dysfunctional couple would be even worse than a single male.

[Assistant] Yes. And there were some divorces in the beginning.

[User] And as I may have noted earlier, there were some matings that occurred that it seemed sort of the odd couples. One of the fellows who was attacked by his students in Adwa, married another woman who was stationed in Adwa, and they had seemed like the oddest of odd couple. She was a perky redhead kind of life of the party, come on let's dance, kind of young woman. And he was the speckled, bespeckled, studious, you know, intellectual type. And I never quite understood how Craig Johnson and Deborah Kendall Johnson ended up as a couple, but they did, and that's how they're listed in the, um.

[Assistant] Well, that's wonderful. There's odd couples in the United States, too, that they don't need the Peace Corps experience.

[User]
And you know, two of the other volunteers in our town ended up marrying Peace Corps volunteers. The other nurse that was in the town initially, Marge, married her husband doing something in Addis Ababa. They kept going back and forth, they were courting at the time. So she was either in Addis Ababa or Norm came down to Asella. So they spent a lot of time together and later married. So it's something that brought people together, the Peace Corps experience was an entree. I mean, the other thing I would say is that wherever I went, whether it was access into HUD through the Transition Center. It also helped me because as a Peace Corps volunteer, I had a noncompetitive access into the civil service for about 12 months. And that was within three weeks of finishing up that 12 months of noncompetitive access when I was actually hired.

And it was always, you know, a point of discussion when you meet people, it's sort of labeled you.

[Assistant] Oh, it's wonderful.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And as I may have noted earlier, there were some matings that occurred that it seemed sort of the odd couples. One of the fellows who was attacked by his students in Adwa, married another woman who was stationed in Adwa, and they had seemed like the oddest of odd couple. She was a perky redhead kind of life of the party, come on let's dance, kind of young woman. And he was the speckled, bespeckled, studious, you know, intellectual type. And I never quite understood how Craig Johnson and Deborah Kendall Johnson ended up as a couple, but they did, and that's how they're listed in the, um.

[Assistant] Well, that's wonderful. There's odd couples in the United States, too, that they don't need the Peace Corps experience.

[User]
And you know, two of the other volunteers in our town ended up marrying Peace Corps volunteers. The other nurse that was in the town initially, Marge, married her husband doing something in Addis Ababa. They kept going back and forth, they were courting at the time. So she was either in Addis Ababa or Norm came down to Asella. So they spent a lot of time together and later married. So it's something that brought people together, the Peace Corps experience was an entree. I mean, the other thing I would say is that wherever I went, whether it was access into HUD through the Transition Center. It also helped me because as a Peace Corps volunteer, I had a noncompetitive access into the civil service for about 12 months. And that was within three weeks of finishing up that 12 months of noncompetitive access when I was actually hired.

And it was always, you know, a point of discussion when you meet people, it's sort of labeled you.

[Assistant] Oh, it's wonderful.

[User] But at the same time, it was an entrée.

[Assistant] Yes, I agree.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
And you know, two of the other volunteers in our town ended up marrying Peace Corps volunteers. The other nurse that was in the town initially, Marge, married her husband doing something in Addis Ababa. They kept going back and forth, they were courting at the time. So she was either in Addis Ababa or Norm came down to Asella. So they spent a lot of time together and later married. So it's something that brought people together, the Peace Corps experience was an entree. I mean, the other thing I would say is that wherever I went, whether it was access into HUD through the Transition Center. It also helped me because as a Peace Corps volunteer, I had a noncompetitive access into the civil service for about 12 months. And that was within three weeks of finishing up that 12 months of noncompetitive access when I was actually hired.

And it was always, you know, a point of discussion when you meet people, it's sort of labeled you.

[Assistant] Oh, it's wonderful.

[User] But at the same time, it was an entrée.

[Assistant] Yes, I agree.

[User] I think I got along with the man who was assistant general counsel at HUD, who I worked with on program rules and regulations, who had been a Colombia volunteer. And he became a major attorney at HUD. Brilliant, just, Harvard Law and one of the most brilliant minds that I ever ran across.

[Assistant] How did you come to Denver?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And we ended up switching jobs. I was assigned to his job in Denver and he took my position in Washington. And that was the spring of 1984 and I've been here ever since.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] I retired here in December of '83, '03, December of '03. Continue doing consulting work on HUD programs, doing what I know, doing that occasionally. Joining the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Colorado group. I frankly have been so wrapped up in my own life I haven't done a lot of things with the group. Seeing the article about this oral history project was what got me going. I'll mention also that coincidentally, in the newsletter of the Ethiopia and Eritrea Returned Peace Corps Volunteer group, the national group of Ethiopia volunteers, it's affiliated with the National Peace Corps Association. An article that just arrived a few weeks ago was from someone who was in our town, in my town. Loretta Huber Davis is the woman I have mentioned previously who was back in Asella. She is now in Shashamane teaching elementary school teachers English. It included her email address. So I've been emailing between.

[Assistant] That's great.

[User] And we've also found Jack Hamilton, or we think we have a lead, who ended up residing in La Paz, Bolivia. One other story about one of the other things I acquired in Ethiopia. In the early years, and maybe you may have been involved in this Gloria, there was a need for culturally appropriate reading material in elementary language, and a fellow named Shlomo Bachrach and some volunteers assembled a group of stories and published them through the Oxford Press called Ethiopian Folktales.

[Assistant] Yes. And Wolf, Dr. Wolf Laszlo, who is deceased now, who was our language instructor in school at UCLA, helped Shlomo with that project.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, he did this woodcut of a woman with a jug on her shoulder.

[Assistant] Famous.

[User] And I have number 3 of 40 in my, uh, sitting in my dining room. I've attempted to get, and I've asked Loretta to look for copies of the original edition with the illustrations. I could not part with this memento of my Ethiopia years, but I would be willing to loan it to the Denver Art Museum. And interestingly enough, one of the local prominent bankers was a man named Daniel Yohannes.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] He was a regional executive officer of some sort.

[Assistant] With U.S. Bank in Denver.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I have number 3 of 40 in my, uh, sitting in my dining room. I've attempted to get, and I've asked Loretta to look for copies of the original edition with the illustrations. I could not part with this memento of my Ethiopia years, but I would be willing to loan it to the Denver Art Museum. And interestingly enough, one of the local prominent bankers was a man named Daniel Yohannes.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] He was a regional executive officer of some sort.

[Assistant] With U.S. Bank in Denver.

[User] U.S. Bank. And he recently retired and he has gone on to the board of the Denver Art Museum. And the article that I recall reading about announcing his appointment to the board of the museum is that he'd like to enhance the African exhibits.

[Assistant] Some of his pieces are on loan.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He was a regional executive officer of some sort.

[Assistant] With U.S. Bank in Denver.

[User] U.S. Bank. And he recently retired and he has gone on to the board of the Denver Art Museum. And the article that I recall reading about announcing his appointment to the board of the museum is that he'd like to enhance the African exhibits.

[Assistant] Some of his pieces are on loan.

[User] Well, once I am able to authenticate it, what I would like to be able to do is have a copy of Ethiopian Folktales with the illustration. I would be, my purchase is the second edition of 1969. My understanding from my email to Folaca Arnida Munir is that the first edition had the illustrations, but they didn't include them in the second edition.

[Assistant] For the cost of printing probably.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] U.S. Bank. And he recently retired and he has gone on to the board of the Denver Art Museum. And the article that I recall reading about announcing his appointment to the board of the museum is that he'd like to enhance the African exhibits.

[Assistant] Some of his pieces are on loan.

[User] Well, once I am able to authenticate it, what I would like to be able to do is have a copy of Ethiopian Folktales with the illustration. I would be, my purchase is the second edition of 1969. My understanding from my email to Folaca Arnida Munir is that the first edition had the illustrations, but they didn't include them in the second edition.

[Assistant] For the cost of printing probably.

[User] Or whatever, yeah. So if I'm able to document that and have so called the provenance clear, my plan is to contact Daniel Yohannes and offer my painting for whatever appropriate exhibits. On loan.

[Assistant] Yes. On loan, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Or whatever, yeah. So if I'm able to document that and have so called the provenance clear, my plan is to contact Daniel Yohannes and offer my painting for whatever appropriate exhibits. On loan.

[Assistant] Yes. On loan, yeah.

[User] Any other reflections that I missed? So, you know, I think on the whole, despite the ups and downs, my Peace Corps experience was successful for me. I stuck it out and I stayed two years where many of the volunteers did not. I was the last American teacher at the secondary school in Asella. And they moved, they built a new school in a different part of town just, that opened just after I left. I understand they were about to put in running water into the town that following year.

[Assistant] Yeah, fabulous.

[User] Apparently they have real hotels instead of just the little hotel bates. And so apparently the town has grown up quite a bit.

[Assistant] Oh, it must have. The population has just ballooned in size


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Apparently they have real hotels instead of just the little hotel bates. And so apparently the town has grown up quite a bit.

[Assistant] Oh, it must have. The population has just ballooned in size

[User]
It just exploded. Going back is one of the pieces of my dream trip. Sometimes dreams come true, sometimes they don't. I may have mentioned, although I'm 62 now, I have still have teenagers at home. I started a family late, so responsibilities there prevent just bopping off and heading out for a tour of places I'd like to go, everything from South Africa. I mentioned that in 1970 when I was leaving, I was considering traveling to South Africa and I have relatives in South Africa who are second generation South Africans. And was advised that because of my Peace Corps passport, that I would not be permitted to enter the apartheid regime of South Africa. But they had obtained all of the numbers, were able to recognize all Peace Corps passports and would refuse admittance to any of the liberal Peace Corps people types that, uh.

So I avoided that, but that would be something I'd like to do. Go back to Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, of course. See what Asella is like. They have this, I have a little, on my computer at home I have a folder in my favorites section called Dream Trips.

[Assistant] Oh, OK.

[User] And I've actually priced the ticket, what I would.

[Assistant] It's expensive, but it's worth it. Cause I went '95 for our 30th with a group.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
It just exploded. Going back is one of the pieces of my dream trip. Sometimes dreams come true, sometimes they don't. I may have mentioned, although I'm 62 now, I have still have teenagers at home. I started a family late, so responsibilities there prevent just bopping off and heading out for a tour of places I'd like to go, everything from South Africa. I mentioned that in 1970 when I was leaving, I was considering traveling to South Africa and I have relatives in South Africa who are second generation South Africans. And was advised that because of my Peace Corps passport, that I would not be permitted to enter the apartheid regime of South Africa. But they had obtained all of the numbers, were able to recognize all Peace Corps passports and would refuse admittance to any of the liberal Peace Corps people types that, uh.

So I avoided that, but that would be something I'd like to do. Go back to Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, of course. See what Asella is like. They have this, I have a little, on my computer at home I have a folder in my favorites section called Dream Trips.

[Assistant] Oh, OK.

[User] And I've actually priced the ticket, what I would.

[Assistant] It's expensive, but it's worth it. Cause I went '95 for our 30th with a group.

[User] Oh, well, this trip probably would be three months or more in duration and about a year or two ago was priced at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000.

[Assistant] It may be double now.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I've actually priced the ticket, what I would.

[Assistant] It's expensive, but it's worth it. Cause I went '95 for our 30th with a group.

[User] Oh, well, this trip probably would be three months or more in duration and about a year or two ago was priced at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000.

[Assistant] It may be double now.

[User] I'm sure. So if I have to remortgage my house, so what. Um, so, um, here's my passport. Here's, uh, I can see that my name was misspelled with an A instead of an R. Got it amended. The person who amended this, it is a stamp. It's amended. I may have mentioned the beginning that I decided to go into the Peace Corps instead of the Foreign Service. The gentleman who I went to in the consular section to amend my passport, we got to talking and he was a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of International Politics and had a master's in international affairs. And I had applied to the Woodrow Wilson School at the same time I applied to George Washington. I was not admitted to the Woodrow Wilson School, but I did.

[Assistant] Were you impressed?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh yeah. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Was your education supported by the GI Bill?

[User] Yes, I got my master’s when I was active duty, and the Air Force paid for that. The only thing I had to do was service commitments, so with each course, I’d have to promise to do so many more months and I used the GI Bill for the PhD work that I did, and that helped, ‘cause it was pretty expensive.

[Assistant] Have you ever tried accessing your military records on NARA?

[User] Yes, mine are at Randall Air Force Base. The Air Force has them. They’re electronic, even though they were paper. I have a copy of them, and we actually take the records here for anyone that’s employed in St. Louis if they have military service and they work here. Our process is we take those records, and we put them in our secure cage area, which has very limited access, and we do that to safeguard the records, because we don’t want the individual who has access to records doctoring the record in any way or a staff member who maybe be upset with someone, doing something to a record. So anyone when you’re hired here in St. Louis, we check to see if you had military service and any other relatives within your family, and we’ll pull those records if they’re here, and we safeguard them. And then when the person retires or leaves, then those records go back into the general stacks. So mine is electronically in Texas, but I have a hard copy that’s in the secure cage here.

[Assistant] Did you join a veteran’s organization?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, I got my master’s when I was active duty, and the Air Force paid for that. The only thing I had to do was service commitments, so with each course, I’d have to promise to do so many more months and I used the GI Bill for the PhD work that I did, and that helped, ‘cause it was pretty expensive.

[Assistant] Have you ever tried accessing your military records on NARA?

[User] Yes, mine are at Randall Air Force Base. The Air Force has them. They’re electronic, even though they were paper. I have a copy of them, and we actually take the records here for anyone that’s employed in St. Louis if they have military service and they work here. Our process is we take those records, and we put them in our secure cage area, which has very limited access, and we do that to safeguard the records, because we don’t want the individual who has access to records doctoring the record in any way or a staff member who maybe be upset with someone, doing something to a record. So anyone when you’re hired here in St. Louis, we check to see if you had military service and any other relatives within your family, and we’ll pull those records if they’re here, and we safeguard them. And then when the person retires or leaves, then those records go back into the general stacks. So mine is electronically in Texas, but I have a hard copy that’s in the secure cage here.

[Assistant] Did you join a veteran’s organization?

[User] Yeah, I’m a member of the DAV, Disabled American Veterans. I had some training incidents, things where I got injured a little bit and then with my appendix rupturing and all that, so I’m a disabled vet, 30 percent. I’m active in that, although not really active on a local level, really more on a national level.

[Assistant] What did you go on to do as a career after the service?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I joined the Peace Corps because it was something that I had always wanted to do. I remember as a high school student hearing President Kennedy talk about it, and I was very enthusiastic. It seemed like something that would be a big adventure and also a good way to give something back and be. And that, that motivation was really crystallized by the onset of the Vietnam War. For me, it was, the Peace Corps represented a perfect example of something that I could do that would be really good for the long-term interests of the United States and also for the country in which, to which I was assigned. So it just seemed like a good choice. And I followed up after, um, after a master's degree in civil engineering and was really pleased to be accepted.

[Assistant] Okay. What was your life like before joining the Peace Corps? Sort of a little bit about your childhood, education. You told us you got your master's degree. Other experiences relevant to becoming a volunteer.

[User] I had a pretty sheltered suburban life in the San Francisco Bay area. I was encouraged by my parents to put a lot of energy into academics.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] The, uh, they were both, they were both products of the combination of the Depression and World War II. And the idea that you could, you could be successful, get ahead by applying yourself in school, was just a constant part of growing up for me.

[Assistant] And you talked a little bit. You got a master's, you studied, you had a baccalaureate and a master's degree in civil engineering, right?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had a pretty sheltered suburban life in the San Francisco Bay area. I was encouraged by my parents to put a lot of energy into academics.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] The, uh, they were both, they were both products of the combination of the Depression and World War II. And the idea that you could, you could be successful, get ahead by applying yourself in school, was just a constant part of growing up for me.

[Assistant] And you talked a little bit. You got a master's, you studied, you had a baccalaureate and a master's degree in civil engineering, right?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] And how did you hear about the Peace Corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The, uh, they were both, they were both products of the combination of the Depression and World War II. And the idea that you could, you could be successful, get ahead by applying yourself in school, was just a constant part of growing up for me.

[Assistant] And you talked a little bit. You got a master's, you studied, you had a baccalaureate and a master's degree in civil engineering, right?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] And how did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] The news, when President Kennedy announced it. It seemed like a really revolutionary idea. And so why not?

[Assistant] Okay. And was there something specific that made you want to apply at that specific time in your life?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] And how did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] The news, when President Kennedy announced it. It seemed like a really revolutionary idea. And so why not?

[Assistant] Okay. And was there something specific that made you want to apply at that specific time in your life?

[User] Yeah, as I, as I said, the contrast between something that seemed very, potentially very useful for the United States and for other countries versus the Vietnam War, which seemed not useful at all.

[Assistant] So sort of a sharp contrast between war.