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

[User] Right, yeah.

[Assistant] And there's no sense of what that means. I mean, it's awful hearing them [inaudible] but it's so wide scale in other parts in Africa and Haiti and the government, there's no conception of what that means.

[User] Yeah. Yeah. And I really think, you know, if you experienced it firsthand, it makes a huge difference. And just the, I think the whole notion of realizing that people don't think about the world in the same way. You know, my students would say, how can you talk about loving french fries? You can talk about loving God or loving your father, but how can you talk about loving french fries? I think just being confronted with these different ways of looking at the world at a fairly young age, it's really important because it just makes you realize, hey, you know, there's another way to look at things. It's not. It's not necessarily the way I look at things. So I think being kind of jerked out of my own way of thinking and, whoa, never looked at it that way. You know, that sort of feeling was really important for me to have that experience at a young age. You know, that maybe there were different perspectives.

[Assistant] So a 21 year old, not your daughter, comes to you and says, I'm thinking of joining the Peace Corps, Dr. Vann, what do you think?

[User] Oh, I always, I'm always, I'm very encouraging of students. I've talked a lot of students into doing that or something similar, you know? Yeah, I think I talked to a student last year into doing Teach for America, and her parents were very much against it, again, you know. And I really talked hard to get her to do it, you know, and I'm sure her parents hate me for it. But she did it. She's doing it right now. And yeah, I've talked several people into doing Peace Corps as well. Yeah.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you want to say that I haven't thought to ask or that hasn't been asked that you want to share?


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

[User] Oh, I always, I'm always, I'm very encouraging of students. I've talked a lot of students into doing that or something similar, you know? Yeah, I think I talked to a student last year into doing Teach for America, and her parents were very much against it, again, you know. And I really talked hard to get her to do it, you know, and I'm sure her parents hate me for it. But she did it. She's doing it right now. And yeah, I've talked several people into doing Peace Corps as well. Yeah.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you want to say that I haven't thought to ask or that hasn't been asked that you want to share?

[User] Probably not. My daughter is thinking of joining the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Yes!

[User] Yes, she is. She actually got accepted, in fact. I'm not sure it's right for everybody. You know, I don't want to be like my mom. I'm not going to disown her. But I think some people probably are going to have not such a positive time. And I think also Africa is a very different place now than it was when we were there.

[Assistant] So who knows where she'd get sent to?


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

[User] Probably not. My daughter is thinking of joining the Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Yes!

[User] Yes, she is. She actually got accepted, in fact. I'm not sure it's right for everybody. You know, I don't want to be like my mom. I'm not going to disown her. But I think some people probably are going to have not such a positive time. And I think also Africa is a very different place now than it was when we were there.

[Assistant] So who knows where she'd get sent to?

[User] She would get sent to French speaking Africa. That's why they want her. Yeah. She's French speaking.

[Assistant] Oh, OK. Sure. We had a guy in our group who had a degree in African studies and spoke French and they sent him to Thailand.


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

[User] Yes, she is. She actually got accepted, in fact. I'm not sure it's right for everybody. You know, I don't want to be like my mom. I'm not going to disown her. But I think some people probably are going to have not such a positive time. And I think also Africa is a very different place now than it was when we were there.

[Assistant] So who knows where she'd get sent to?

[User] She would get sent to French speaking Africa. That's why they want her. Yeah. She's French speaking.

[Assistant] Oh, OK. Sure. We had a guy in our group who had a degree in African studies and spoke French and they sent him to Thailand.

[User] They used to do that. They don't do that.

[Assistant] They don't do that anymore? OK.


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

[User] She would get sent to French speaking Africa. That's why they want her. Yeah. She's French speaking.

[Assistant] Oh, OK. Sure. We had a guy in our group who had a degree in African studies and spoke French and they sent him to Thailand.

[User] They used to do that. They don't do that.

[Assistant] They don't do that anymore? OK.

[User] No, when they found out she spoke French, they immediately.

[Assistant] They just wanted to gobble her up.


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

[User] No, when they found out she spoke French, they immediately.

[Assistant] They just wanted to gobble her up.

[User] Moved her to the top of the list and started telling her she would go to West Africa and she would be in a French speaking country and she would be teaching ESL. And what's made her hesitate, actually, is that she doesn't enjoy teaching very much. She's already teaching ESL and she doesn't enjoy it. And you know, there doesn't seem much of a chance for her to do something like, you know, smallpox eradication or, I don't know, whatever it is, you know. It's just going to be classroom.

[Assistant] Administrative.

[User] Classroom stuff and, you know.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. OK.


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

[User] Moved her to the top of the list and started telling her she would go to West Africa and she would be in a French speaking country and she would be teaching ESL. And what's made her hesitate, actually, is that she doesn't enjoy teaching very much. She's already teaching ESL and she doesn't enjoy it. And you know, there doesn't seem much of a chance for her to do something like, you know, smallpox eradication or, I don't know, whatever it is, you know. It's just going to be classroom.

[Assistant] Administrative.

[User] Classroom stuff and, you know.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. OK.

[User] I think we did it.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think we did it. Very good.


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

[User] Classroom stuff and, you know.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. OK.

[User] I think we did it.

[Assistant] Yeah, I think we did it. Very good.

[User] Thanks, Peace Corps.

[Assistant] Hello, JFK Library.


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

[User] August 14th. I mean, October.

[Assistant] I bet it's October.

[User] October 14th.

[Assistant] October 14th, 2015. I am interviewing Joe Hanlon, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras from 1966 through 1968 in a community organization project. Joe, let's go back to who you were before you joined the Peace Corps.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Where did you grow up?


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

[User] October 14th.

[Assistant] October 14th, 2015. I am interviewing Joe Hanlon, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras from 1966 through 1968 in a community organization project. Joe, let's go back to who you were before you joined the Peace Corps.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Where did you grow up?

[User] Peoria, Illinois.

[Assistant] Peoria. And were you in a big family? Small family?


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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Where did you grow up?

[User] Peoria, Illinois.

[Assistant] Peoria. And were you in a big family? Small family?

[User] No, small family. I have an older brother five years older than I am.

[Assistant] Just the two of you?


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

[User] Peoria, Illinois.

[Assistant] Peoria. And were you in a big family? Small family?

[User] No, small family. I have an older brother five years older than I am.

[Assistant] Just the two of you?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Yeah. And what did your parents do?


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

[User] No, small family. I have an older brother five years older than I am.

[Assistant] Just the two of you?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Yeah. And what did your parents do?

[User] My dad was a businessman and my mom was an at home homemaker. She had been trained as a as a registered nurse. And she went back to nursing after I went to high school. When I left the house, so to speak.

[Assistant] Okay. But she was home for you when you were a kid?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Yeah. And what did your parents do?

[User] My dad was a businessman and my mom was an at home homemaker. She had been trained as a as a registered nurse. And she went back to nursing after I went to high school. When I left the house, so to speak.

[Assistant] Okay. But she was home for you when you were a kid?

[User] Yeah, definitely.

[Assistant] And so you went to school. What, local public schools?


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

[User] My dad was a businessman and my mom was an at home homemaker. She had been trained as a as a registered nurse. And she went back to nursing after I went to high school. When I left the house, so to speak.

[Assistant] Okay. But she was home for you when you were a kid?

[User] Yeah, definitely.

[Assistant] And so you went to school. What, local public schools?

[User] Right. Right. Thomas Jefferson Grade school was nearby. We walked or rode our bikes there. It was probably two or three miles away. I came home for lunch. I remember that. So those eight years was at Thomas Jefferson in Peoria, Illinois.

[Assistant] And then you went to high school?


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

[User] Right. Right. Thomas Jefferson Grade school was nearby. We walked or rode our bikes there. It was probably two or three miles away. I came home for lunch. I remember that. So those eight years was at Thomas Jefferson in Peoria, Illinois.

[Assistant] And then you went to high school?

[User] Peoria High School. Peoria Central High School, it was called. For that, my dad would, on his way to work, he'd take me. And then after a year or so, I had some friends who had cars, so we'd use and get rides and so forth. But high school was a big thing for me. My brother was five years older and so I devoured his yearbooks.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] As I was in seventh and eighth grade, maybe even in sixth grade, in like '56, '57, '58. And also being older, he had those 45 records, you know, Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers and all that. And so at a very young age, I would secretly play those and lip sync in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom and memorized all those lyrics and tunes, which I know to this day. So anyway, high school was a big thing for me. I mean, I was really excited. I was a good student in grade school. I really liked it, but I sort of knew what I was going to do when I got to high schools by reading those yearbooks.

[Assistant] Oh yeah. Right.


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

[User] Peoria High School. Peoria Central High School, it was called. For that, my dad would, on his way to work, he'd take me. And then after a year or so, I had some friends who had cars, so we'd use and get rides and so forth. But high school was a big thing for me. My brother was five years older and so I devoured his yearbooks.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] As I was in seventh and eighth grade, maybe even in sixth grade, in like '56, '57, '58. And also being older, he had those 45 records, you know, Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers and all that. And so at a very young age, I would secretly play those and lip sync in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom and memorized all those lyrics and tunes, which I know to this day. So anyway, high school was a big thing for me. I mean, I was really excited. I was a good student in grade school. I really liked it, but I sort of knew what I was going to do when I got to high schools by reading those yearbooks.

[Assistant] Oh yeah. Right.

[User] And thinking about the sports and the studies and the various clubs and so forth.

[Assistant] Did you do some sports in high school?


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

[User] As I was in seventh and eighth grade, maybe even in sixth grade, in like '56, '57, '58. And also being older, he had those 45 records, you know, Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers and all that. And so at a very young age, I would secretly play those and lip sync in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom and memorized all those lyrics and tunes, which I know to this day. So anyway, high school was a big thing for me. I mean, I was really excited. I was a good student in grade school. I really liked it, but I sort of knew what I was going to do when I got to high schools by reading those yearbooks.

[Assistant] Oh yeah. Right.

[User] And thinking about the sports and the studies and the various clubs and so forth.

[Assistant] Did you do some sports in high school?

[User] Oh yeah, yeah. I played football. I was on the track team. I managed a basketball team, varsity basketball. That's about it. But we had a good football team, great leadership. And actually I made the all- conference fullback my senior year.

[Assistant] All right. I'm pleased to know you. And what about academics? What were you drawn to in high school?


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

[User] And thinking about the sports and the studies and the various clubs and so forth.

[Assistant] Did you do some sports in high school?

[User] Oh yeah, yeah. I played football. I was on the track team. I managed a basketball team, varsity basketball. That's about it. But we had a good football team, great leadership. And actually I made the all- conference fullback my senior year.

[Assistant] All right. I'm pleased to know you. And what about academics? What were you drawn to in high school?

[User] Pre, pre college, is that what it is? I mean, I knew I wanted to go to college. And so I took all the hardest, you know, English and math. I wasn't the best, but I was very high up.

[Assistant] Yeah. Did you study a foreign language?


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

[User] Oh yeah, yeah. I played football. I was on the track team. I managed a basketball team, varsity basketball. That's about it. But we had a good football team, great leadership. And actually I made the all- conference fullback my senior year.

[Assistant] All right. I'm pleased to know you. And what about academics? What were you drawn to in high school?

[User] Pre, pre college, is that what it is? I mean, I knew I wanted to go to college. And so I took all the hardest, you know, English and math. I wasn't the best, but I was very high up.

[Assistant] Yeah. Did you study a foreign language?

[User] I studied Latin for two years, my freshman and sophomore year. I thought, you know, I never even conceived of speaking it or anything like that. Just to sort of take off for a second. Language in college was a requirement and it very much worried me and bothered me because I felt like I had no inclination or special aptitude for foreign, speaking a foreign language. And they actually had a conversational class. It was all set up. It was in the, you know, early sixties for college for me, and with labs and earphones and tapes. It wasn't academic, it was conversational.

[Assistant] This is in high school?


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

[User] Pre, pre college, is that what it is? I mean, I knew I wanted to go to college. And so I took all the hardest, you know, English and math. I wasn't the best, but I was very high up.

[Assistant] Yeah. Did you study a foreign language?

[User] I studied Latin for two years, my freshman and sophomore year. I thought, you know, I never even conceived of speaking it or anything like that. Just to sort of take off for a second. Language in college was a requirement and it very much worried me and bothered me because I felt like I had no inclination or special aptitude for foreign, speaking a foreign language. And they actually had a conversational class. It was all set up. It was in the, you know, early sixties for college for me, and with labs and earphones and tapes. It wasn't academic, it was conversational.

[Assistant] This is in high school?

[User] No.

[Assistant] No, later in college? Okay.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] No, later in college? Okay.

[User]
I'm thinking about foreign language.

Anyway, I took two years of French and felt like I didn't learn a word of French. Never. So anyway, when it came time for the Peace Corps, that was really a concern of mine. And I kind of dove into it in training and so forth. But anyway, after being in-country for three or four months, and basically the five, six, and seven year olds that were in my neighborhood taught me how to speak Spanish. You know, they didn't laugh.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] They understood exactly what I was struggling with because they had just recently learned that part of it. And so I thought I got pretty good at my Spanish at the time, and it was a big accomplishment for me then, since I'd had that negative kind of experience with Latin and French.

[Assistant] In the classroom, right. Yeah. Outside of school, as a high school kid, did you, did you go places with your families? Did you travel, vacation, summer vacations?


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

[User] They understood exactly what I was struggling with because they had just recently learned that part of it. And so I thought I got pretty good at my Spanish at the time, and it was a big accomplishment for me then, since I'd had that negative kind of experience with Latin and French.

[Assistant] In the classroom, right. Yeah. Outside of school, as a high school kid, did you, did you go places with your families? Did you travel, vacation, summer vacations?

[User] We did. I don't know exactly why my parents were, you know, wired this way, but when I was four or five, we drove with another couple to Monterrey, Mexico, from Des Moines, Iowa.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] And I can remember the hotel. I can remember the, uh, there was like a nightclub that our parents took us to for dinner and stuff. And there were, like, dancers and uh. And then, you know, during the daytime, we rode these burros and we went out and visited somewhere, and everybody got on a burro. And there were souvenirs, like carved baseball bats with Mexican colors and designs. And it was really an exciting thing. And I saved those souvenirs in my bedroom for years. And my, well, and then as we got older, my dad, we took a two week road trip every summer. And, you know, we'd go to California and stop at all the national parks. And next year, we go visit relatives in Seattle. Stop at. We went to New England. We went to Washington, D.C. We went to New York City. You know, it's kind of ironic. The only place that they were not interested in going was Florida.

[Assistant] Where you are now.


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

[User] We did. I don't know exactly why my parents were, you know, wired this way, but when I was four or five, we drove with another couple to Monterrey, Mexico, from Des Moines, Iowa.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] And I can remember the hotel. I can remember the, uh, there was like a nightclub that our parents took us to for dinner and stuff. And there were, like, dancers and uh. And then, you know, during the daytime, we rode these burros and we went out and visited somewhere, and everybody got on a burro. And there were souvenirs, like carved baseball bats with Mexican colors and designs. And it was really an exciting thing. And I saved those souvenirs in my bedroom for years. And my, well, and then as we got older, my dad, we took a two week road trip every summer. And, you know, we'd go to California and stop at all the national parks. And next year, we go visit relatives in Seattle. Stop at. We went to New England. We went to Washington, D.C. We went to New York City. You know, it's kind of ironic. The only place that they were not interested in going was Florida.

[Assistant] Where you are now.

[User] Where I live now.

[Assistant] And what about summer jobs when you got to be 16?


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

[User] Where I live now.

[Assistant] And what about summer jobs when you got to be 16?

[User]
I was always looking to make a little bit of money there. I guess I had two big summer jobs in high school. One was working for my dad's company, which was a gasoline retailing company around central Illinois, so that there were these small tanks for gasoline that were on farms for farm tractors and farm equipment, and they needed to be painted. And so I had to enlist a buddy of mine. And so we went around painting those things. And at times it would be, we'd stay out in the field for like a week at a time, stay at a local motel out there, because it would be a couple of hundred miles from home, and you wouldn't want to make that trip every day.

The other sort of major job that I had, both in high school and college, was a summer job working at a Portland Cement Company warehouse, I'll call it. It was on a branch of the Illinois River, and there was an elevator and a train, uh, like a little stub of a, of a train track. And they offloaded this dry Portland cement through some kind of a pneumatic tube thing and put it in this elevator, huge tank overhead. And then trucks would come in there and they would load up these trucks with this dry cement. And then they also loaded up railroad cars with this dry cement off the barge from the river. And so that was a good job. That was a Teamster job.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] So I think that was like 4 or 5 dollars an hour.

[Assistant] That was pretty good then.


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

[User]
I was always looking to make a little bit of money there. I guess I had two big summer jobs in high school. One was working for my dad's company, which was a gasoline retailing company around central Illinois, so that there were these small tanks for gasoline that were on farms for farm tractors and farm equipment, and they needed to be painted. And so I had to enlist a buddy of mine. And so we went around painting those things. And at times it would be, we'd stay out in the field for like a week at a time, stay at a local motel out there, because it would be a couple of hundred miles from home, and you wouldn't want to make that trip every day.

The other sort of major job that I had, both in high school and college, was a summer job working at a Portland Cement Company warehouse, I'll call it. It was on a branch of the Illinois River, and there was an elevator and a train, uh, like a little stub of a, of a train track. And they offloaded this dry Portland cement through some kind of a pneumatic tube thing and put it in this elevator, huge tank overhead. And then trucks would come in there and they would load up these trucks with this dry cement. And then they also loaded up railroad cars with this dry cement off the barge from the river. And so that was a good job. That was a Teamster job.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] So I think that was like 4 or 5 dollars an hour.

[Assistant] That was pretty good then.

[User] Big money.

[Assistant] Yeah. You dad helped you get in there?


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

[User] So I think that was like 4 or 5 dollars an hour.

[Assistant] That was pretty good then.

[User] Big money.

[Assistant] Yeah. You dad helped you get in there?

[User] No, he didn't. He didn't have, I don't know exactly. I can't remember why I found that, but he didn't have anything to do with that.

[Assistant] Huh. Well, good for you.


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

[User] Big money.

[Assistant] Yeah. You dad helped you get in there?

[User] No, he didn't. He didn't have, I don't know exactly. I can't remember why I found that, but he didn't have anything to do with that.

[Assistant] Huh. Well, good for you.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So you graduate from high school.


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

[User] No, he didn't. He didn't have, I don't know exactly. I can't remember why I found that, but he didn't have anything to do with that.

[Assistant] Huh. Well, good for you.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So you graduate from high school.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And you choose a college.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So you graduate from high school.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And you choose a college.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Had, your brother was five years older than you, so had he gone on to college?


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Had, your brother was five years older than you, so had he gone on to college?

[User] He did. He went to Bradley, which is a local school in Peoria. And actually he wasn't so driven academically as I was. And so he dropped out after a couple of years and worked somewhere. My parents, you know, said you're going to have to get a job. And so he diligently figured out how to get back into school and finish. He actually got a master's degree.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] After that. But my big accomplishment was going to Yale University.

[Assistant] As an undergraduate?


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

[User] After that. But my big accomplishment was going to Yale University.

[Assistant] As an undergraduate?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] Yeah. And so and that's something, you know, my father must have been so generous. I mean, to pay for that. At the time, I never, you take it for granted. But anyway, so that was great fun. Another classmate of mine from high school got in and so we drove out there and we'd come home for the holidays back to Peoria driving.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. And what did you study at Yale?


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

[User] It's, uh, it was at the time. It still is. I'm kind of proud of it. But it was part of the sixties creative curriculum kind of thinking. It was a major comprised of four departments: psychology, sociology, biology, and anthropology.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
It was an honors program. There were like maybe ten or 15 students in it. At that time Yale was all men. The full four years I went there, it was all men. So it was a small program, honors program. There were, freshman, sophomore year at Yale, there was sort of a commitment, a curriculum probably for 80 percent of your classes. And then you could begin to do your major stuff in your junior and senior year. And there was a paper too, some kind of a paper. But anyway, it was fun because I could choose in that major, I could choose higher level courses and graduate courses in the biology department, in the psychology department, in the anthropology and sociology, and then put together your own sort of curriculum. And I got good grades, I was a good student, and so that's what I did.

And it was good training for Peace Corps. And the idea at the time in the sixties, culture and behavior is, you know, those, that's when the Darwinian evolution was sort of sinking in. Not really. Everybody was a Darwinian. There were nothing else, but evolution of, um, not just physical DNA, but behavior and man as a social animal. Instincts, you know? How does a spider make a web? How does a bird know to migrate across, you know, endless ocean without any speck of land in sight? And how is it that men have come to be so technologically proficient and develop their material culture, and so forth. All that stuff.

[Assistant] Provocative questions.

[User] Yeah, it was good.

[Assistant] Now I know that when you went into the Peace Corps, you went in as a married man and you married somebody from Peoria.


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

[User]
It was an honors program. There were like maybe ten or 15 students in it. At that time Yale was all men. The full four years I went there, it was all men. So it was a small program, honors program. There were, freshman, sophomore year at Yale, there was sort of a commitment, a curriculum probably for 80 percent of your classes. And then you could begin to do your major stuff in your junior and senior year. And there was a paper too, some kind of a paper. But anyway, it was fun because I could choose in that major, I could choose higher level courses and graduate courses in the biology department, in the psychology department, in the anthropology and sociology, and then put together your own sort of curriculum. And I got good grades, I was a good student, and so that's what I did.

And it was good training for Peace Corps. And the idea at the time in the sixties, culture and behavior is, you know, those, that's when the Darwinian evolution was sort of sinking in. Not really. Everybody was a Darwinian. There were nothing else, but evolution of, um, not just physical DNA, but behavior and man as a social animal. Instincts, you know? How does a spider make a web? How does a bird know to migrate across, you know, endless ocean without any speck of land in sight? And how is it that men have come to be so technologically proficient and develop their material culture, and so forth. All that stuff.

[Assistant] Provocative questions.

[User] Yeah, it was good.

[Assistant] Now I know that when you went into the Peace Corps, you went in as a married man and you married somebody from Peoria.

[User] Correct.

[Assistant] Just talk briefly about how you met Bev. And was she at Yale when you were at Yale?


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

[User] Yeah, it was good.

[Assistant] Now I know that when you went into the Peace Corps, you went in as a married man and you married somebody from Peoria.

[User] Correct.

[Assistant] Just talk briefly about how you met Bev. And was she at Yale when you were at Yale?

[User] No.

[Assistant] You went, you had.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] You went, you had.

[User] So our love affair started, you know, fairly innocuously as we were classmates in homeroom freshman year. We'd gone to different grade schools. So I didn't really know her, but, uh, and we were, we were good friends in high school. We really didn't date much. And senior year we dated a little bit, but it was just that we were competitors actually, like officers for the student council. And actually our, for the student council president, we ran against each other and she won. She was president and I was vice president.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] So anyway, the romance kind of started in college and I think.

[Assistant] When you'd come home for vacation?


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

[User] So anyway, the romance kind of started in college and I think.

[Assistant] When you'd come home for vacation?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I think I proposed to her like the summer after my junior year, and we sort of began planning and thinking about what to do. And the Peace Corps was something that both of us were interested in. And we applied as a, you know, before we were married.

[Assistant] Now this would have been what year?


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

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I think I proposed to her like the summer after my junior year, and we sort of began planning and thinking about what to do. And the Peace Corps was something that both of us were interested in. And we applied as a, you know, before we were married.

[Assistant] Now this would have been what year?

[User] '65. We got married in the spring of '66. I graduated in June, and we went into the Peace Corps like in August of '66.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. So you both were talking about Peace Corps. You were both interested in it. Did you know other people who had been in the Peace Corps? Were any of your friends joining the Peace Corps?


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

[User] No, I don't think so. No, I don't think I knew anybody. Another thing I should say is the Vietnam War and the draft were a big motivator.

[Assistant] That's right.

[User] For me.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And for Bev and I as a married couple. I can't remember all the details about my draft number, but I'd had a safe deferment in college. The headlines were full of the dangers and risks. I think it was just the time when the U.S. was gearing up with a much heavier sort of boots on the ground military involvement in '64 and '65.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you get married in, when did you say, in spring of '60?


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

[User] And for Bev and I as a married couple. I can't remember all the details about my draft number, but I'd had a safe deferment in college. The headlines were full of the dangers and risks. I think it was just the time when the U.S. was gearing up with a much heavier sort of boots on the ground military involvement in '64 and '65.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you get married in, when did you say, in spring of '60?

[User] April. Six.

[Assistant] Six.

[User] 1966.

[Assistant] And you had graduated from college in?


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

[User] No, we hadn't graduated. It was my senior year. And so we just, we got an apartment for a couple of months, and I just blindly wrapped up all my senior year commitments and so forth.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] She had left college. She went to the U of I, down at Champaign-Urbana.

[Assistant] Illinois.

[User] Right. And, uh, but she had left after her freshman year or sophomore year, to take a year off. She was working in Peoria for a year. Then she went back and then we sort of decided to get married and it was kind of impulsive. So she dropped out that year too. So when we moved in together in New Haven in the spring of '66, I was doing everything I had to do to complete all my requirements to be able to graduate and to go into the Peace Corps. That was the next big thing on our agenda.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. So you applied separately before you were married?


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

[User] Right. And, uh, but she had left after her freshman year or sophomore year, to take a year off. She was working in Peoria for a year. Then she went back and then we sort of decided to get married and it was kind of impulsive. So she dropped out that year too. So when we moved in together in New Haven in the spring of '66, I was doing everything I had to do to complete all my requirements to be able to graduate and to go into the Peace Corps. That was the next big thing on our agenda.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. So you applied separately before you were married?

[User] Yeah. Probably like in November or December.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] And we applied, you know, I can remember the application. It was like Africa, Asia, Latin America, Micronesia.

[Assistant] Those were the choices that you were given?


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

[User] Yeah. Probably like in November or December.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] And we applied, you know, I can remember the application. It was like Africa, Asia, Latin America, Micronesia.

[Assistant] Those were the choices that you were given?

[User] Something like that.

[Assistant] Did they ask you to rank those in in order of your preference?


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

[User] And we applied, you know, I can remember the application. It was like Africa, Asia, Latin America, Micronesia.

[Assistant] Those were the choices that you were given?

[User] Something like that.

[Assistant] Did they ask you to rank those in in order of your preference?

[User] I thought it was just one. You know, I can't remember.

[Assistant] So which one you did you say you wanted?


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

[User] I thought it was just one. You know, I can't remember.

[Assistant] So which one you did you say you wanted?

[User] You know, we talked about it and it's like, well, Latin America. Okay. So we sent it in and then we were accepted. And, you know, the letter said Honduras, and it was like Honduras, where's that?

[Assistant] Where's that?

[User] So we go to the atlas and look it up. Well, there is a place called Central America, and Honduras is one of them. Let's go. But it wasn't, uh, it wasn't because of a burning interest or deep knowledge about Mexico or Latin American culture. It's just, you know, pick. Pick one out of five world continental.

[Assistant] And that sounded okay.


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

[User] You know, we talked about it and it's like, well, Latin America. Okay. So we sent it in and then we were accepted. And, you know, the letter said Honduras, and it was like Honduras, where's that?

[Assistant] Where's that?

[User] So we go to the atlas and look it up. Well, there is a place called Central America, and Honduras is one of them. Let's go. But it wasn't, uh, it wasn't because of a burning interest or deep knowledge about Mexico or Latin American culture. It's just, you know, pick. Pick one out of five world continental.

[Assistant] And that sounded okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So what was your, what was the reaction of your family, your mom and dad, your older brother? Did they, what did they think about this?


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

[User] So we go to the atlas and look it up. Well, there is a place called Central America, and Honduras is one of them. Let's go. But it wasn't, uh, it wasn't because of a burning interest or deep knowledge about Mexico or Latin American culture. It's just, you know, pick. Pick one out of five world continental.

[Assistant] And that sounded okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So what was your, what was the reaction of your family, your mom and dad, your older brother? Did they, what did they think about this?

[User] My older brother was married and had a kid by that time, and we were close to them. We were close to my parents. Everybody was in favor of it. It was like, okay. I was probably, I think I got accepted into law school. I think I went through the application procedure to go to law school at University of Chicago, and actually my class, my roommate Eddie.

[Assistant] Your roommate at Yale?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So what was your, what was the reaction of your family, your mom and dad, your older brother? Did they, what did they think about this?

[User] My older brother was married and had a kid by that time, and we were close to them. We were close to my parents. Everybody was in favor of it. It was like, okay. I was probably, I think I got accepted into law school. I think I went through the application procedure to go to law school at University of Chicago, and actually my class, my roommate Eddie.

[Assistant] Your roommate at Yale?

[User] Yeah. We both applied there together and he got in and I got in and then, but I sort of. Anyway, everything seemed to be fine. The idea was, and the University of Chicago said, you can go to the Peace Corps and we'll honor that when you get out, when you come back. And so that was not, it was not conflictful.

[Assistant] Good. So you and Bev were invited to go and train. Where did you train?


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

[User] Yeah. We both applied there together and he got in and I got in and then, but I sort of. Anyway, everything seemed to be fine. The idea was, and the University of Chicago said, you can go to the Peace Corps and we'll honor that when you get out, when you come back. And so that was not, it was not conflictful.

[Assistant] Good. So you and Bev were invited to go and train. Where did you train?

[User] Saint Louis University.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] Is that right? Or maybe Washington University in Saint Louis.

[Assistant] In Saint Louis.


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

[User] Saint Louis University.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] Is that right? Or maybe Washington University in Saint Louis.

[Assistant] In Saint Louis.

[User] In Saint Louis, I think that's where. They had, they had, uh, trained Honduran groups for several years. They had a core program there. This guy named Ray Swan was a director for our specific group. I think our group was seven. Honduras VII. And I think that there would have been 60 or 70 of us that converged on that campus. We lived in the Y and went to classes over on the university campus. Married people were together in rooms. Single people were more roommates and stuff like that.

[Assistant] But you were all at the Y?


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

[User] Is that right? Or maybe Washington University in Saint Louis.

[Assistant] In Saint Louis.

[User] In Saint Louis, I think that's where. They had, they had, uh, trained Honduran groups for several years. They had a core program there. This guy named Ray Swan was a director for our specific group. I think our group was seven. Honduras VII. And I think that there would have been 60 or 70 of us that converged on that campus. We lived in the Y and went to classes over on the university campus. Married people were together in rooms. Single people were more roommates and stuff like that.

[Assistant] But you were all at the Y?

[User] Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

[Assistant] How many? How big was your training group, do you remember?


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

[User] Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

[Assistant] How many? How big was your training group, do you remember?

[User] I think 60 or 70 people were in there.

[Assistant] To start?

[User] I think so, yeah. Big group.

[Assistant] How many married couples?


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

[User] I think 60 or 70 people were in there.

[Assistant] To start?

[User] I think so, yeah. Big group.

[Assistant] How many married couples?

[User] Not too many. Maybe five. Ten couples, maybe.

[Assistant] So you're at the Y and you go to the university for classes. Talk about that a little bit. What did they, what were they teaching you in training?


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

[User] The introduction when we got there and some of the descriptive information we took there from that was mailed to us described our project as being social workers are going to work with the national social work organization or agency in Honduras, whose titular head was the wife of the president of Honduras. And so we would be spread out throughout the country, sort of associated with schools and, uh, I want to say alcaldes, mayors. But anyway, where they were hoping to set up and expand an existing social work program. And so we were going to be the manpower. So in St. Louis, we trained. We learned how to sort of manage and conduct children's games. Kickball.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] We did some gardening. We had gardens, and actually we had them in those, near those sort of despicable high rises that were later blown down. I don't remember the name of it, but it was, uh. So we, you know, we did various, I'm going to call social work type activities, and that was the program that we studied, because half of the curriculum was conversational Spanish.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] And the other half was this kind of varied social work stuff, whatever they could put together. The whole thing was scheduled to last about three months, so it wasn't like we were going to get deeply trained in any kind of social work activity or accomplishment. But we, you know, the language training was intense.

[Assistant] Who taught it?


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

[User] We did some gardening. We had gardens, and actually we had them in those, near those sort of despicable high rises that were later blown down. I don't remember the name of it, but it was, uh. So we, you know, we did various, I'm going to call social work type activities, and that was the program that we studied, because half of the curriculum was conversational Spanish.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] And the other half was this kind of varied social work stuff, whatever they could put together. The whole thing was scheduled to last about three months, so it wasn't like we were going to get deeply trained in any kind of social work activity or accomplishment. But we, you know, the language training was intense.

[Assistant] Who taught it?

[User] There were two or three native Hondurans.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it was Honduran Spanish.


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

[User] And the other half was this kind of varied social work stuff, whatever they could put together. The whole thing was scheduled to last about three months, so it wasn't like we were going to get deeply trained in any kind of social work activity or accomplishment. But we, you know, the language training was intense.

[Assistant] Who taught it?

[User] There were two or three native Hondurans.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it was Honduran Spanish.

[User] Yeah. Yes, I think so. There were some American Spanish, you know, they were Spanish, but they were Americans. But there were, I bet half of the teachers were from Honduras.

[Assistant] Oh, that's terrific. And then were there classes about the history of Honduras, political situation?


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

[User] There were two or three native Hondurans.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it was Honduran Spanish.

[User] Yeah. Yes, I think so. There were some American Spanish, you know, they were Spanish, but they were Americans. But there were, I bet half of the teachers were from Honduras.

[Assistant] Oh, that's terrific. And then were there classes about the history of Honduras, political situation?

[User] I think so. I know that we had some book assignments and stuff like that, that kind of stuff.

[Assistant] Do you recall if there were American studies, talk about communism?


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

[User] I think so. I know that we had some book assignments and stuff like that, that kind of stuff.

[Assistant] Do you recall if there were American studies, talk about communism?

[User] Well, I do remember that we were told that we couldn't wear beards. You couldn't be like Castro. Castro was fairly new. He had just come in in '59 or '60 into Cuba, and he was exporting his Cuban revolution throughout Central America and the Caribbean. And it was a big concern to the Americans and to the established governments of Mexico and Central America. So anyway, we were, we couldn't have beards. We shouldn't be dressing like Che and Fidel. Sandals were kind of prohibited because, again, that, it looked like you could possibly be a leftist communist guerrilla. I think the women were told to wear skirts and dress formally, not too. Uh. I don't want to say loose, but you know, it was the time of the hippies.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And so long hair.

[Assistant] You were not to look like a hippie.


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

[User] Well, I do remember that we were told that we couldn't wear beards. You couldn't be like Castro. Castro was fairly new. He had just come in in '59 or '60 into Cuba, and he was exporting his Cuban revolution throughout Central America and the Caribbean. And it was a big concern to the Americans and to the established governments of Mexico and Central America. So anyway, we were, we couldn't have beards. We shouldn't be dressing like Che and Fidel. Sandals were kind of prohibited because, again, that, it looked like you could possibly be a leftist communist guerrilla. I think the women were told to wear skirts and dress formally, not too. Uh. I don't want to say loose, but you know, it was the time of the hippies.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And so long hair.

[Assistant] You were not to look like a hippie.

[User] Yeah, you weren't to look like a hippie.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. No tattered blue jeans.


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

[User] Yeah, you weren't to look like a hippie.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. No tattered blue jeans.

[User]
Yeah.

So part of training often is medical stuff. Did they give you a whole battery of vaccinations?

Yes. I think Beverly had her wisdom teeth pulled.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah.

[User] That was a routine. They looked at mine and I said, I want to keep them. So I didn't have them pulled. But yeah, we went through some kind of screening for that and it was not an issue.

[Assistant] Did you have physical ed training?


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

[User] That was a routine. They looked at mine and I said, I want to keep them. So I didn't have them pulled. But yeah, we went through some kind of screening for that and it was not an issue.

[Assistant] Did you have physical ed training?

[User] We, yeah, you might say sports.

[Assistant] Sports.

[User] A little bit of activity.

[Assistant] But not like an Outward Bound endurance challenge?


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

[User] We, yeah, you might say sports.

[Assistant] Sports.

[User] A little bit of activity.

[Assistant] But not like an Outward Bound endurance challenge?

[User] No. I don't think we did that.

[Assistant] Deselection. Was that part of your training program?


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

[User] Yes. There were several times when there was sort of a black ball exercise where we were all given lists of everybody and said, you know, do you think that this person should continue and go or should this person not go? And I can't remember that I really had strong feelings about anybody not going. But there were, there were some that were deselected out. I think there were sort of, there were several self-selected.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] People who were ambivalent, who had other things to do. It wasn't turning out to be what they thought it would be.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] But, you know, a lot of the men with this deferment thing hanging over. It was like, you know, we want to get finished with this, get the deferment, and go to Honduras.

[Assistant] Do it. Yeah. Did you have psychologists coming out to interview you?


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

[User] But, you know, a lot of the men with this deferment thing hanging over. It was like, you know, we want to get finished with this, get the deferment, and go to Honduras.

[Assistant] Do it. Yeah. Did you have psychologists coming out to interview you?

[User] I think we did. I think we did.

[Assistant] Individual sessions?

[User] Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not everybody. Maybe just some people who were showing worse signs than others. I don't remember that.

[Assistant] Yeah. Do you remember, um, do you ever remember feeling that there was some injustice, that people got deselected who you thought would be terrific volunteers?


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

[User] I think we did. I think we did.

[Assistant] Individual sessions?

[User] Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not everybody. Maybe just some people who were showing worse signs than others. I don't remember that.

[Assistant] Yeah. Do you remember, um, do you ever remember feeling that there was some injustice, that people got deselected who you thought would be terrific volunteers?

[User] No. I don't remember having any strong feelings about that. I think a draft board got this one Black guy in our group, and that was, it seemed bad and it seemed racist because my draft board was cooperating. I don't remember where he was from and I don't really remember anything about it except that his participation didn't protect him at that time.

[Assistant] Right. And you thought it ought to for most of you?


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

[User] Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not everybody. Maybe just some people who were showing worse signs than others. I don't remember that.

[Assistant] Yeah. Do you remember, um, do you ever remember feeling that there was some injustice, that people got deselected who you thought would be terrific volunteers?

[User] No. I don't remember having any strong feelings about that. I think a draft board got this one Black guy in our group, and that was, it seemed bad and it seemed racist because my draft board was cooperating. I don't remember where he was from and I don't really remember anything about it except that his participation didn't protect him at that time.

[Assistant] Right. And you thought it ought to for most of you?

[User] Yeah. It was doing it for all the white kids.

[Assistant] Were there other Black people or was he the only one?


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

[User] No. I don't remember having any strong feelings about that. I think a draft board got this one Black guy in our group, and that was, it seemed bad and it seemed racist because my draft board was cooperating. I don't remember where he was from and I don't really remember anything about it except that his participation didn't protect him at that time.

[Assistant] Right. And you thought it ought to for most of you?

[User] Yeah. It was doing it for all the white kids.

[Assistant] Were there other Black people or was he the only one?

[User] I think there were several. I think there were some females. Uh. I do remember Powell, a girl named Powell, who was, she was Japanese. Her parents had been interned. She had actually spent some time in one of those in the Second World War in California. I'd never met anybody like that.

[Assistant] No kidding. So that was one of the interesting aspects of training, of being mixed together with people quite different from those you would have met even at Yale.


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

[User] Yeah. It was doing it for all the white kids.

[Assistant] Were there other Black people or was he the only one?

[User] I think there were several. I think there were some females. Uh. I do remember Powell, a girl named Powell, who was, she was Japanese. Her parents had been interned. She had actually spent some time in one of those in the Second World War in California. I'd never met anybody like that.

[Assistant] No kidding. So that was one of the interesting aspects of training, of being mixed together with people quite different from those you would have met even at Yale.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Did you develop close friendships with some of your fellow trainees?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Did you develop close friendships with some of your fellow trainees?

[User] I think so, yeah. Certainly the ones that we went on to be close to in country. And there were some that we had good friendships with who didn't go. And so there was no future to that or didn't follow up.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But we had a good time. We had a good time in Saint Louis.

[Assistant] Do you think it prepared you? Was it an adequate training program?


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

[User] I think so, yeah. Certainly the ones that we went on to be close to in country. And there were some that we had good friendships with who didn't go. And so there was no future to that or didn't follow up.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But we had a good time. We had a good time in Saint Louis.

[Assistant] Do you think it prepared you? Was it an adequate training program?

[User] Well, about two thirds of the way through, the sky race one gathered us all together one morning and said, well, the social work program has just collapsed.

[Assistant] Oh. Oh my.


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

[User] Well, about two thirds of the way through, the sky race one gathered us all together one morning and said, well, the social work program has just collapsed.

[Assistant] Oh. Oh my.

[User] What we thought you were going to go do for various bureaucratic reasons, you're not going to do that.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User]
Don't worry, we'll find something for you to do, but you're not going to do that. And it was like, well, uh, what does that mean? What are we going to do? Nobody knew. Nobody, nobody had any answers. And I guess even, I think that some people knew. I think I'm just, I've kind of forgotten or put it out of mind about why it was. Maybe it was local politics in Honduras more than any Peace Corps snafu. But again.

You know, we were not teachers going to teach. We were not engineers going to be engineers or some of the specialized Peace Corps programs that I think are more prevalent nowadays. I think it's more technical now. You kind of get, they select for a specific type activities. You get training for that and you go do it and you make a contribution. For us, it was really the community organization, the people to people kind of stuff, and it was. In an important way, it didn't make any difference what kind of training we'd had or what kind of. As long as we could go there and they would support us health wise and so forth, it didn't matter to me what we were doing.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it's not clearly defined.


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

[User] What we thought you were going to go do for various bureaucratic reasons, you're not going to do that.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User]
Don't worry, we'll find something for you to do, but you're not going to do that. And it was like, well, uh, what does that mean? What are we going to do? Nobody knew. Nobody, nobody had any answers. And I guess even, I think that some people knew. I think I'm just, I've kind of forgotten or put it out of mind about why it was. Maybe it was local politics in Honduras more than any Peace Corps snafu. But again.

You know, we were not teachers going to teach. We were not engineers going to be engineers or some of the specialized Peace Corps programs that I think are more prevalent nowadays. I think it's more technical now. You kind of get, they select for a specific type activities. You get training for that and you go do it and you make a contribution. For us, it was really the community organization, the people to people kind of stuff, and it was. In an important way, it didn't make any difference what kind of training we'd had or what kind of. As long as we could go there and they would support us health wise and so forth, it didn't matter to me what we were doing.

[Assistant] Yeah. So it's not clearly defined.

[User] Not at all.

[Assistant] What your role was supposed to be. Um, is there anything else you'd like to say about training before we move on, into Honduras?


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

[User] Great language training. I think toward the end, it was almost 12 hours a day.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] For a couple of weeks.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I think, again, I try to describe that frustration I felt about being naturally disinclined to learn a foreign language and kind of. But I think that the repetitive, lengthy, intensive training that we did get in St. Louis sort of laid the foundation so that I could pick it up easily when I got there.

[Assistant] Once you got there. Yeah. So training comes to an end. Swearing in ceremony maybe? Do you remember anything about that?


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

[User] For a couple of weeks.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I think, again, I try to describe that frustration I felt about being naturally disinclined to learn a foreign language and kind of. But I think that the repetitive, lengthy, intensive training that we did get in St. Louis sort of laid the foundation so that I could pick it up easily when I got there.

[Assistant] Once you got there. Yeah. So training comes to an end. Swearing in ceremony maybe? Do you remember anything about that?

[User] No. No, we went home.

[Assistant] You get to go home after training?


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

[User] I think, again, I try to describe that frustration I felt about being naturally disinclined to learn a foreign language and kind of. But I think that the repetitive, lengthy, intensive training that we did get in St. Louis sort of laid the foundation so that I could pick it up easily when I got there.

[Assistant] Once you got there. Yeah. So training comes to an end. Swearing in ceremony maybe? Do you remember anything about that?

[User] No. No, we went home.

[Assistant] You get to go home after training?

[User] We went home for a week or two or some period of time. And when we were there, I can remember Bev and I ran around Peoria putting together that trunk. We had a trunk, some kind of a dimension. We went and got one of those and we actually bought that chicken fryer thing that you see over there, some kind of a cast iron. We went down to the hardware store and bought some cooking type stuff. I went to the clothing store and bought some basics. Bev's sister-in-law made her several dresses. You know, we tried to think about two years and being in this foreign place.

[Assistant] Right. Where it was going to be hot.


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

[User] No. No, we went home.

[Assistant] You get to go home after training?

[User] We went home for a week or two or some period of time. And when we were there, I can remember Bev and I ran around Peoria putting together that trunk. We had a trunk, some kind of a dimension. We went and got one of those and we actually bought that chicken fryer thing that you see over there, some kind of a cast iron. We went down to the hardware store and bought some cooking type stuff. I went to the clothing store and bought some basics. Bev's sister-in-law made her several dresses. You know, we tried to think about two years and being in this foreign place.

[Assistant] Right. Where it was going to be hot.

[User] Yeah. And, you know, we knew we could get, like, toothpaste and stuff like that, so we didn't have to stockpile. But for example, I went to the Army Navy surplus store and bought like three or four pairs of shoes, which turned out to be trash. They were just very poorly made and fell apart the first time I wore them. But anyway, stuff like that that you kind of tried to think about.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right. They probably gave you a list of things that you needed too.


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

[User] We went home for a week or two or some period of time. And when we were there, I can remember Bev and I ran around Peoria putting together that trunk. We had a trunk, some kind of a dimension. We went and got one of those and we actually bought that chicken fryer thing that you see over there, some kind of a cast iron. We went down to the hardware store and bought some cooking type stuff. I went to the clothing store and bought some basics. Bev's sister-in-law made her several dresses. You know, we tried to think about two years and being in this foreign place.

[Assistant] Right. Where it was going to be hot.

[User] Yeah. And, you know, we knew we could get, like, toothpaste and stuff like that, so we didn't have to stockpile. But for example, I went to the Army Navy surplus store and bought like three or four pairs of shoes, which turned out to be trash. They were just very poorly made and fell apart the first time I wore them. But anyway, stuff like that that you kind of tried to think about.

[Assistant] Yeah, right, right. They probably gave you a list of things that you needed too.

[User] Probably.

[Assistant] And so you're saying goodbye to your family. Do you remember going away parties?


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

[User] Probably.

[Assistant] And so you're saying goodbye to your family. Do you remember going away parties?

[User] No. I'm sure there were some.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] We had friends there. I can remember some friends of ours from high school gave us a wedding present because we had gotten married in New Haven really. So they had just, so back in Peoria, there were some stuff like that.

[Assistant] And then you go somewhere to get on a plane.


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

[User] We had friends there. I can remember some friends of ours from high school gave us a wedding present because we had gotten married in New Haven really. So they had just, so back in Peoria, there were some stuff like that.

[Assistant] And then you go somewhere to get on a plane.

[User] Yeah, I'm sure that we got on it in Peoria.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Just you and Bev flying into Honduras, or did you fly over on a chartered plane?


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

[User] Yeah, I'm sure that we got on it in Peoria.

[Assistant] Really?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Just you and Bev flying into Honduras, or did you fly over on a chartered plane?

[User] Yeah, we gathered in Miami, the Peace. Our group reassembled in Miami at the airport on such and such a day.

[Assistant] And this was what time of spring?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Just you and Bev flying into Honduras, or did you fly over on a chartered plane?

[User] Yeah, we gathered in Miami, the Peace. Our group reassembled in Miami at the airport on such and such a day.

[Assistant] And this was what time of spring?

[User] No, it was late summer, early fall.

[Assistant] Late summer. Okay. All right.


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

[User] Yeah, we gathered in Miami, the Peace. Our group reassembled in Miami at the airport on such and such a day.

[Assistant] And this was what time of spring?

[User] No, it was late summer, early fall.

[Assistant] Late summer. Okay. All right.

[User] And I suppose it was a chartered plane. I never gave it any thought, but we were all on one plane and we flew to Tegucigalpa.

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's from Miami. That would have been what, four or five flight?


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

[User] No, it was late summer, early fall.

[Assistant] Late summer. Okay. All right.

[User] And I suppose it was a chartered plane. I never gave it any thought, but we were all on one plane and we flew to Tegucigalpa.

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's from Miami. That would have been what, four or five flight?

[User] I don't know. No, I don't think so. I don't think it would be that long.

[Assistant] Ah. Yeah. And then you get off the plane. And what was that like? Did you remember what it felt like to get off that plane and find yourself in Tegucigalpa?


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

[User] And I suppose it was a chartered plane. I never gave it any thought, but we were all on one plane and we flew to Tegucigalpa.

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's from Miami. That would have been what, four or five flight?

[User] I don't know. No, I don't think so. I don't think it would be that long.

[Assistant] Ah. Yeah. And then you get off the plane. And what was that like? Did you remember what it felt like to get off that plane and find yourself in Tegucigalpa?

[User] It was the capital city. There were lots of other volunteers around, people who'd been there while. There were staff. There was, you know, things to do, like be here tomorrow morning at 9:00, kind of organizational stuff. We were all anxious to go to our places where we were. And by then, I think we had an assignment. We knew we were going to go in this place called Goascoran, wherever that was. And no, just kind of a mad whirlwind of keeping everything, not losing anything. And basically, they probably drove us to our site. I'm sure they did. I'm sure that some staff guy put three or four volunteers in kind of a big station wagon and went down the southern highway down toward Nacaome and dropped some people off there, and then went on to Goascoran.

[Assistant] You mentioned something a little earlier before we turned on the tape recorder about wallets. Your dad giving you 200 bucks? Did you tell that story?


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

[User] Yeah. My dad had given me 200 bucks cash just to kind of walking around money, which was kind of a lot of money in '66. And I also had a very nice camera. I had gotten a camera and I hadn't really thought too much about security and so forth. But anyway, we stayed at this reputable pension, it was called. It wasn't really a hotel. It was sort of bedrooms off of a couple of patios, maybe a couple of different levels, in Tegucigalpa. And I can remember sort of waking up in the night and thinking, you know, there's some movement or something around here. But it was all so exciting and new to me. I'm sure I didn't get any sleep anyway, but the next morning I noticed that the $200 cash had been taken out of my wallet. Everything else was safe. But, you know, it's.

[Assistant] Your camera?

[User] Yeah, it was safe. Good. It occurred to me that that would, you know, just be so natural to. You'd have these incoming Americans, all of them with some kind of money, and all you got to do is go take it out of that wallet.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] And there it is, hanging on a nail right by the guy's.

[Assistant] In somebody's pocket.


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

[User] Yeah, it was safe. Good. It occurred to me that that would, you know, just be so natural to. You'd have these incoming Americans, all of them with some kind of money, and all you got to do is go take it out of that wallet.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] And there it is, hanging on a nail right by the guy's.

[Assistant] In somebody's pocket.

[User] So that made sense to me afterwards. At the time, I was upset.

[Assistant] Well, I would imagine you were upset. That's kind of a rude welcome to a country. But here you are, a middle class American who's a wealthy man in the eyes of poor Hondurans.


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

[User] And there it is, hanging on a nail right by the guy's.

[Assistant] In somebody's pocket.

[User] So that made sense to me afterwards. At the time, I was upset.

[Assistant] Well, I would imagine you were upset. That's kind of a rude welcome to a country. But here you are, a middle class American who's a wealthy man in the eyes of poor Hondurans.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] So you. You're taken in a Peace Corps transport to the town of Goascoran. Tell us, now you know where it is in Honduras. Where in Honduras is that?


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

[User] Well, it was southwest, so to speak. It's near the Pacific Ocean or it's in the lowlands along the Pacific side. A lot of Honduras is in the north side, along the Caribbean.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] The major ports, San Pedro Sula and Tela and whatever the other ones are. And the cruise ships go to those resort islands up there, Roatan. Anyway. And then Tegucigalpa is in the central part, in the mountainous part. And in the south you have the south, and the Pan American Highway runs through Mexico and through Central America to South America, or at least to the Panama Canal.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Through that southern plain. And so our village was, actually it was on the river, which is the border with El Salvador. If you looked over the river, that was El Salvador. And a three mile or five kilometer walk down our road got you to the Pan American Highway. And there was a la frontera, the frontier customs, the formal entry on the Pan American Highway for each country, Honduras and El Salvador, was right there. So there was a military installation and all that sort of thing. So anyway we.

[Assistant] How close to the ocean?


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

[User] The major ports, San Pedro Sula and Tela and whatever the other ones are. And the cruise ships go to those resort islands up there, Roatan. Anyway. And then Tegucigalpa is in the central part, in the mountainous part. And in the south you have the south, and the Pan American Highway runs through Mexico and through Central America to South America, or at least to the Panama Canal.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Through that southern plain. And so our village was, actually it was on the river, which is the border with El Salvador. If you looked over the river, that was El Salvador. And a three mile or five kilometer walk down our road got you to the Pan American Highway. And there was a la frontera, the frontier customs, the formal entry on the Pan American Highway for each country, Honduras and El Salvador, was right there. So there was a military installation and all that sort of thing. So anyway we.

[Assistant] How close to the ocean?

[User] Pretty far, I would say 50 miles.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. So you couldn't walk to the beach.


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

[User] Through that southern plain. And so our village was, actually it was on the river, which is the border with El Salvador. If you looked over the river, that was El Salvador. And a three mile or five kilometer walk down our road got you to the Pan American Highway. And there was a la frontera, the frontier customs, the formal entry on the Pan American Highway for each country, Honduras and El Salvador, was right there. So there was a military installation and all that sort of thing. So anyway we.

[Assistant] How close to the ocean?

[User] Pretty far, I would say 50 miles.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. So you couldn't walk to the beach.

[User] You couldn't walk to the beach. And there were actually when we did go down there, it wasn't much of a beach. It was just kind of marshy and mangrove-y. And there was some black sand some places. But over in El Salvador at La Union, I'm pretty sure it was called, there was a Pacific beach. And it was a beautiful beach and it was like a two or three hour bus ride from our site. So if we wanted to do that, we'd go.

[Assistant] You could go for a little R&R.


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

[User] Pretty far, I would say 50 miles.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. So you couldn't walk to the beach.

[User] You couldn't walk to the beach. And there were actually when we did go down there, it wasn't much of a beach. It was just kind of marshy and mangrove-y. And there was some black sand some places. But over in El Salvador at La Union, I'm pretty sure it was called, there was a Pacific beach. And it was a beautiful beach and it was like a two or three hour bus ride from our site. So if we wanted to do that, we'd go.

[Assistant] You could go for a little R&R.

[User] Yeah, over to El Salvador.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. So you're taken to Goascoran, and did Peace Corps staff introduce you then to the mayor or people that would be your coworkers?


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

[User] You couldn't walk to the beach. And there were actually when we did go down there, it wasn't much of a beach. It was just kind of marshy and mangrove-y. And there was some black sand some places. But over in El Salvador at La Union, I'm pretty sure it was called, there was a Pacific beach. And it was a beautiful beach and it was like a two or three hour bus ride from our site. So if we wanted to do that, we'd go.

[Assistant] You could go for a little R&R.

[User] Yeah, over to El Salvador.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. So you're taken to Goascoran, and did Peace Corps staff introduce you then to the mayor or people that would be your coworkers?

[User] There had been a volunteer there previously, you know?

[Assistant] Oh, there had?


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

[User] There had been. And I think that she had left like maybe more than a year, but not much more. But it wasn't like we were right on the heels of that. There had been quite a time gap. But I think most of the people there knew sort of what we were about.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I think they had kind of made arrangements. They put us in one house that night and it was raining in this and that. And then they decided that that wasn't really where we should be. So they found another house for us, which was the house that we stayed in for the two years. But there, yeah, the priests, the Roman Catholic priests who were French- Canadian.

[Assistant] No kidding.

[User]
They and they had kind of a clinic there with some nuns. I don't think the nuns actually lived in Goascoran, but they were there often. They were, I think they were part of a welcoming committee with sort of like the mayor and the school teacher and others, kind of welcoming us and trying to find out if we needed anything, if we wanted anything. And it was very soon that we got very comfortably settled in. One story that I like to think of is that we stayed in this first place on these sort of roll away beds. And then somebody said, you know, you shouldn't be down here because the river is right there. And there could be these ladrones, these thieves, that would come across the river and steal your stuff. I don't really know how.

But anyway, they had found this other room and where we were going to pay a nice rent. And the landlord was a former mayor of the town and he had built this room as part of his house and sort of upgraded it so that it could be a store, a tienda. So it had a nice tile floor, it had real wooden doors on the doors and it had a window opening with bars in it and shutters. It wasn't glass. But it was new. And actually there was a latrine in back and there were, there were no toilets in town.

[Assistant] When you say a latrine in back, that's outside?


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

[User] Maybe half of those would have been in private homes and the other half were in public squares in different places that were convenient.

[Assistant] So you'd go down there with your bucket and fill it up?

[User] Yeah, our place had one.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And of course, that's why they got it for us, because they know we needed it and we wanted it and we could pay for it. And, uh.

[Assistant] But this was not potable water?


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

[User] Yeah, our place had one.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And of course, that's why they got it for us, because they know we needed it and we wanted it and we could pay for it. And, uh.

[Assistant] But this was not potable water?

[User] No.

[Assistant] This was water that you'd have to purify, boil.


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] This was water that you'd have to purify, boil.

[User] Right. Otherwise you'd have to send a kid down to the river, you know, with a three gallon.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And bring it back. And that's of course, if you look at the pictures, that's what most of the people did most of the time.

[Assistant] They'd get the water from the river.


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

[User] Right. Otherwise you'd have to send a kid down to the river, you know, with a three gallon.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And bring it back. And that's of course, if you look at the pictures, that's what most of the people did most of the time.

[Assistant] They'd get the water from the river.

[User] Well, now that it was piped. But I mean away from our town, out in some other place where there wasn't. Yeah.

[Assistant] And so if people didn't have even a latrine, and I was going to ask you where they would go, but describe your latrine. Was it a toilet?


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

[User] Well, now that it was piped. But I mean away from our town, out in some other place where there wasn't. Yeah.

[Assistant] And so if people didn't have even a latrine, and I was going to ask you where they would go, but describe your latrine. Was it a toilet?

[User] Well, it was a pit latrine. It had a wooden box over it. It was a one holer and it was just a pit dug in the ground and on the seat there was a tin can full of lime, calcium or something. White stuff.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And when you'd go there was toilet paper, when you'd go you'd sprinkle that in there. And if you are real curious and you wanted to shine your flashlight down in there, you could see what was down in there. But it was private, it was ours, and it was comfortable. It was built in a corner of our backyard. Our yard was an adobe wall on two sides, and it was in that corner. So it was 20 feet away from our back door. And eventually we roofed over that so that you wouldn't even have to get wet going out there if it was raining. But you know, it takes some getting used to, but the alternative was basically to defecate on the ground.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you'd go out to a field somewhere.


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

[User] And when you'd go there was toilet paper, when you'd go you'd sprinkle that in there. And if you are real curious and you wanted to shine your flashlight down in there, you could see what was down in there. But it was private, it was ours, and it was comfortable. It was built in a corner of our backyard. Our yard was an adobe wall on two sides, and it was in that corner. So it was 20 feet away from our back door. And eventually we roofed over that so that you wouldn't even have to get wet going out there if it was raining. But you know, it takes some getting used to, but the alternative was basically to defecate on the ground.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you'd go out to a field somewhere.

[User] Well, or any corner. I mean, you, you know, and that's what 99 percent of the townspeople did.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And that was normal. And it was healthy, so to speak, and routine. There was nothing. And you never saw it. You never were dealing with it. Part of it is the pigs and the chickens. They're roaming everywhere.

[Assistant] Right. And they clean, they'd clean it up?


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

[User] Well, or any corner. I mean, you, you know, and that's what 99 percent of the townspeople did.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And that was normal. And it was healthy, so to speak, and routine. There was nothing. And you never saw it. You never were dealing with it. Part of it is the pigs and the chickens. They're roaming everywhere.

[Assistant] Right. And they clean, they'd clean it up?

[User] Everything. Yeah. When you, like when a baby would have an accident. Boom. Dogs, the pigs, the chickens, and it would be clean as a whistle.

[Assistant] Be gone. Yeah.


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

[User] And that was normal. And it was healthy, so to speak, and routine. There was nothing. And you never saw it. You never were dealing with it. Part of it is the pigs and the chickens. They're roaming everywhere.

[Assistant] Right. And they clean, they'd clean it up?

[User] Everything. Yeah. When you, like when a baby would have an accident. Boom. Dogs, the pigs, the chickens, and it would be clean as a whistle.

[Assistant] Be gone. Yeah.

[User] And within, you know, 10 minutes. So that was interesting. And then the electricity, I want to mention, you know, utilities and so forth. There was a light bulb in our room and like a 40 watt light bulb hanging down from wire in the middle of our room. Our room was like 12 by 12, or 15 by 15, something like that.

[Assistant] And this was your entire living quarters, right?


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

[User] Everything. Yeah. When you, like when a baby would have an accident. Boom. Dogs, the pigs, the chickens, and it would be clean as a whistle.

[Assistant] Be gone. Yeah.

[User] And within, you know, 10 minutes. So that was interesting. And then the electricity, I want to mention, you know, utilities and so forth. There was a light bulb in our room and like a 40 watt light bulb hanging down from wire in the middle of our room. Our room was like 12 by 12, or 15 by 15, something like that.

[Assistant] And this was your entire living quarters, right?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] This one room?


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

[User] We did have a back porch and that's actually where the water spigot and the pila, kind of a cement tank thing.

[Assistant] A sink.

[User] Yeah. And there'd be a storage thing next to it, because the water would go off.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] You couldn't always get water out of that spigot.

[Assistant] So you want to have a supply.


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

[User] You couldn't always get water out of that spigot.

[Assistant] So you want to have a supply.

[User] They have like ten gallons in this tank thing. And then the sink and the water. The empty water just went out the back of the spigot there. And that's where you'd planted all your plants and everything and they'd get the water.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But anyway, this electric light bulb. Right behind us, uh, the, there was a private generator owned by kind of an entrepreneur in our town. And I think he supported like, say, 100 light bulbs in town or I don't know how many, but you paid him a monthly subscription and he turned his generator on at 6:00 in the evening and he turned it off at 10:00. And so you had this 40 watt light bulb going during those four hours.

[Assistant] For 4 hours every evening. Yeah.


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

[User] But anyway, this electric light bulb. Right behind us, uh, the, there was a private generator owned by kind of an entrepreneur in our town. And I think he supported like, say, 100 light bulbs in town or I don't know how many, but you paid him a monthly subscription and he turned his generator on at 6:00 in the evening and he turned it off at 10:00. And so you had this 40 watt light bulb going during those four hours.

[Assistant] For 4 hours every evening. Yeah.

[User] And there were a lot of battery stuff, the radios and flashlights and. And radios I guess really is what I'm thinking about, the battery. But so it was primitive. It was primitive without what you would talk when you would think of water or electricity or plumbing, you know. But our room was dry, it was comfortable, and it was all very civilized. Well, I know the story that I was getting to is when we got, when we moved into this permanent room, we're all standing. It was dark and it seemed like it had been raining. And so we had some mud on our shoes and we had our suitcases and trunks and we're all kind of getting the lay of the land, looking around here. And our landlords, Don Jesus and Dona Blanca, they had like 16 kids.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] And some of their older kids had kids. So there were a lot of kids.

[Assistant] A lot of kids around.


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

[User] And there were a lot of battery stuff, the radios and flashlights and. And radios I guess really is what I'm thinking about, the battery. But so it was primitive. It was primitive without what you would talk when you would think of water or electricity or plumbing, you know. But our room was dry, it was comfortable, and it was all very civilized. Well, I know the story that I was getting to is when we got, when we moved into this permanent room, we're all standing. It was dark and it seemed like it had been raining. And so we had some mud on our shoes and we had our suitcases and trunks and we're all kind of getting the lay of the land, looking around here. And our landlords, Don Jesus and Dona Blanca, they had like 16 kids.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] And some of their older kids had kids. So there were a lot of kids.

[Assistant] A lot of kids around.

[User] And I think it was China who was about, I'm going to say four or five years old. And of course, we didn't really know her at the time. But anyway, she was in there and we were standing around and I sort of had my back up to the wall and everybody's talking, you know, you can't understand very much and this and that. And I saw this great big, huge spider start to walk up this whitewashed wall right behind me. And I went, ooh! And I moved away from it. You know, it was like, because it was dark and shadowy in there. I move away from it. And China was on the other side, this little four year old girl. And she looked at me and she looked at my eyes and she looked over at that spider and she slapped with her hands, smashed this huge spider. And it was like, China, what bravery! And, you know, so it was a great welcome to that house.

[Assistant] A wonderful introduction.


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

[User] And some of their older kids had kids. So there were a lot of kids.

[Assistant] A lot of kids around.

[User] And I think it was China who was about, I'm going to say four or five years old. And of course, we didn't really know her at the time. But anyway, she was in there and we were standing around and I sort of had my back up to the wall and everybody's talking, you know, you can't understand very much and this and that. And I saw this great big, huge spider start to walk up this whitewashed wall right behind me. And I went, ooh! And I moved away from it. You know, it was like, because it was dark and shadowy in there. I move away from it. And China was on the other side, this little four year old girl. And she looked at me and she looked at my eyes and she looked over at that spider and she slapped with her hands, smashed this huge spider. And it was like, China, what bravery! And, you know, so it was a great welcome to that house.

[Assistant] A wonderful introduction.

[User] Then we got to know China.

[Assistant] Yeah. So this family with the 16 kids, they were crammed into a very.


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

[User] And I think it was China who was about, I'm going to say four or five years old. And of course, we didn't really know her at the time. But anyway, she was in there and we were standing around and I sort of had my back up to the wall and everybody's talking, you know, you can't understand very much and this and that. And I saw this great big, huge spider start to walk up this whitewashed wall right behind me. And I went, ooh! And I moved away from it. You know, it was like, because it was dark and shadowy in there. I move away from it. And China was on the other side, this little four year old girl. And she looked at me and she looked at my eyes and she looked over at that spider and she slapped with her hands, smashed this huge spider. And it was like, China, what bravery! And, you know, so it was a great welcome to that house.

[Assistant] A wonderful introduction.

[User] Then we got to know China.

[Assistant] Yeah. So this family with the 16 kids, they were crammed into a very.

[User] The other two rooms.

[Assistant] The other two rooms of this building. Yeah. Wow.


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

[User] Then we got to know China.

[Assistant] Yeah. So this family with the 16 kids, they were crammed into a very.

[User] The other two rooms.

[Assistant] The other two rooms of this building. Yeah. Wow.

[User] That's what they wanted though. They didn't, they wanted the rental income. They never intended to occupy this fancy space. The other rooms had mud floors.

[Assistant] And yours had, yours had a tile floor.


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

[User] The other two rooms.

[Assistant] The other two rooms of this building. Yeah. Wow.

[User] That's what they wanted though. They didn't, they wanted the rental income. They never intended to occupy this fancy space. The other rooms had mud floors.

[Assistant] And yours had, yours had a tile floor.

[User] Yeah. And they didn't even have doors and they didn't, they. I think they might have used the latrine before we got there, but they were not bothered by the fact that they could no longer use that latrine back there in the corner.

[Assistant] And they didn't have a latrine for themselves?


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

[User] Right. There was no other latrine.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I will say that, you know, in these adobe houses with a tile roof, you have a center line. It's a peaked roof.

[Assistant] Oh yeah.

[User] And so whether you have gable ends or whatnot, you still have this peaked roof and the tile. So interior walls that divide between spaces do not typically go up.

[Assistant] You'd have a triangular open space at the top.


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

[User] I will say that, you know, in these adobe houses with a tile roof, you have a center line. It's a peaked roof.

[Assistant] Oh yeah.

[User] And so whether you have gable ends or whatnot, you still have this peaked roof and the tile. So interior walls that divide between spaces do not typically go up.

[Assistant] You'd have a triangular open space at the top.

[User] Yes, exactly.

[Assistant] Between your living quarters and your neighbors.


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

[User] And so whether you have gable ends or whatnot, you still have this peaked roof and the tile. So interior walls that divide between spaces do not typically go up.

[Assistant] You'd have a triangular open space at the top.

[User] Yes, exactly.

[Assistant] Between your living quarters and your neighbors.

[User] Yes. So that was permanently occupied by little faces. They were always looking over.

[Assistant] Looking for you.


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

[User] Yes, exactly.

[Assistant] Between your living quarters and your neighbors.

[User] Yes. So that was permanently occupied by little faces. They were always looking over.

[Assistant] Looking for you.

[User] And we'd go, get down from there! So but that was how our privacy was respected.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. Yeah.


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

[User] Yes. So that was permanently occupied by little faces. They were always looking over.

[Assistant] Looking for you.

[User] And we'd go, get down from there! So but that was how our privacy was respected.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. Yeah.

[User] And hardly any other neighbor kids would, they would let them in there. But those, our friends. They would. They couldn't resist. And you could hear them inside, Dona. Get out, bájate!

[Assistant] Oh, the parents telling, the parents telling the kids to get down off the wall. Yeah. What about cooking? Did you cook for yourselves?


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

[User] And we'd go, get down from there! So but that was how our privacy was respected.

[Assistant] Oh my goodness. Yeah.

[User] And hardly any other neighbor kids would, they would let them in there. But those, our friends. They would. They couldn't resist. And you could hear them inside, Dona. Get out, bájate!

[Assistant] Oh, the parents telling, the parents telling the kids to get down off the wall. Yeah. What about cooking? Did you cook for yourselves?

[User] Yeah. Beverly cooked. I didn't cook, but Beverly cooked. And we'd go out, I guess, a little bit. There were little eateries around there, nothing like a restaurant, but there were places where workmen and others who were away from home could get a meal. And so Beverly cooked. Once a week, there was a butcher that would slaughter. One week he'd slaughter a cow, and the next week he would slaughter a pig. And it was on the town square. And you went down there and you looked around at this meat hanging in his living room and you'd pick out a couple of pounds of it. And, uh, after a while, it might have been six months or I don't know. After some time we bought a used refrigerator. It was a kerosene fired refrigerator, which, you know, sounds crazy. But anyway, if you light a fire in the bottom of a fridge, this kind of special refrigerator, the heat coming off that thing will do certain refrigeration, uh, boiling and condensing and transporting this coolant around through that refrigerator somehow. I still don't know how, but you could have ice in top. It was a little refrigerator.

[Assistant] Wow, it was efficient enough to make ice?