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

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Are there any thoughts or anything else that you'd like to add that we might not have covered?

[User] I don't know yet. I think probably the best thing to do is to think about it. Then if I've got any other subjects that we don't seem to have covered too well, I can do that.\n\n One of the things that might be worth putting in, and we can talk about it later, is this whole business of how do you go about selling a high-technology program in the U.S. Government environment. That's a very interesting story in itself.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And that was fun, too, because now I have all this enormous stock of knowledge. The only thing I care about is, I've got to get my golf score down to 85. [Laughter]

[Assistant] It's also nice to hear through all the years you worked and all the hours that you worked during those weeks, that there is the word that you seem to enjoy using a lot, that you had a good time. You had fun doing what you were doing, taking ideas and turning them into reality.


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

[User] I don't know yet. I think probably the best thing to do is to think about it. Then if I've got any other subjects that we don't seem to have covered too well, I can do that.\n\n One of the things that might be worth putting in, and we can talk about it later, is this whole business of how do you go about selling a high-technology program in the U.S. Government environment. That's a very interesting story in itself.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And that was fun, too, because now I have all this enormous stock of knowledge. The only thing I care about is, I've got to get my golf score down to 85. [Laughter]

[Assistant] It's also nice to hear through all the years you worked and all the hours that you worked during those weeks, that there is the word that you seem to enjoy using a lot, that you had a good time. You had fun doing what you were doing, taking ideas and turning them into reality.

[User] Yes. It's very rewarding. It's very rewarding.

[Assistant] We look forward to reviewing this and hoping to talk to you again. Thanks.


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

[User] I retired after 30 years of teaching kindergarten, and right now my main interests are my grandchildren.

[Assistant] Um, kind of think back to like the year before you joined the Peace Corps and talk about life then. You know, you can include childhood, education, other experiences, you know, relevant to becoming a volunteer.

[User] Well, I came from a family who never, ever traveled. So I remember watching a program on television called Operation Crossroads, which was like a precursor to the Peace Corps, and it showed some young Americans in Africa and that just, that really, I remember that vividly. And then I was obviously a big fan of President Kennedy. So when the Peace Corps was established and I was in college, I already set my mind that as soon as I graduated from college, I was going to join the Peace Corps. And when I did graduate, I hadn't heard yet from the Peace Corps. And my father was very upset that I hadn't made a real conscious effort to get a job because I kept saying, no, I'm going to go into the Peace Corps, I'm going to go into Peace Corps. And I just went back to doing the work I did every summer, as my summer job. And I finally heard on July 10th, I got a telegram that I was going. And I was just very, very excited.

[Assistant] So what, I guess you kind of hinted on this. You know, what made you decide to apply, seeing that?

[User] It was seeing that ad, and I always just loved learning about other countries. And I always thought that when I grew up, I would travel. And this just looked like an opportunity to do that pretty much at the government's expense.

[Assistant] When you applied, did you have a specific country or a project in mind?


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

[User] Well, I came from a family who never, ever traveled. So I remember watching a program on television called Operation Crossroads, which was like a precursor to the Peace Corps, and it showed some young Americans in Africa and that just, that really, I remember that vividly. And then I was obviously a big fan of President Kennedy. So when the Peace Corps was established and I was in college, I already set my mind that as soon as I graduated from college, I was going to join the Peace Corps. And when I did graduate, I hadn't heard yet from the Peace Corps. And my father was very upset that I hadn't made a real conscious effort to get a job because I kept saying, no, I'm going to go into the Peace Corps, I'm going to go into Peace Corps. And I just went back to doing the work I did every summer, as my summer job. And I finally heard on July 10th, I got a telegram that I was going. And I was just very, very excited.

[Assistant] So what, I guess you kind of hinted on this. You know, what made you decide to apply, seeing that?

[User] It was seeing that ad, and I always just loved learning about other countries. And I always thought that when I grew up, I would travel. And this just looked like an opportunity to do that pretty much at the government's expense.

[Assistant] When you applied, did you have a specific country or a project in mind?

[User] No. I went to school to be a teacher, so I was pretty sure I would probably be in education, because that was the majority of the Peace Corps volunteers were in education at that time. But no, I remember the question was, where would you like to go? And I put anywhere.

[Assistant] Oh, so even though the Crossroads thing had to do with Africa.


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

[User] It was seeing that ad, and I always just loved learning about other countries. And I always thought that when I grew up, I would travel. And this just looked like an opportunity to do that pretty much at the government's expense.

[Assistant] When you applied, did you have a specific country or a project in mind?

[User] No. I went to school to be a teacher, so I was pretty sure I would probably be in education, because that was the majority of the Peace Corps volunteers were in education at that time. But no, I remember the question was, where would you like to go? And I put anywhere.

[Assistant] Oh, so even though the Crossroads thing had to do with Africa.

[User] No.

[Assistant] You didn't specifically request Africa or anything. You just got. You know, with me, I didn't, when I heard Turkey, I didn't even know where it was. I had to look on a globe or something. What were your friends' and family's reactions when you were accepted? Were there any hesitation, reservations, either on your part or their part or?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] You didn't specifically request Africa or anything. You just got. You know, with me, I didn't, when I heard Turkey, I didn't even know where it was. I had to look on a globe or something. What were your friends' and family's reactions when you were accepted? Were there any hesitation, reservations, either on your part or their part or?

[User] I think most people fell in two groups. Either they really didn't understand it, and after the initial, you're doing what? Oh, what are you going to do? How long? And then there was, that was the end of the conversation. Or there were a few people that were just totally into it and asked a lot of questions. And there were also the people who wrote to me through the time I was there and always supported me. My mother and father I know were, had to have been very, very frightened, their first child going so far away. But I was too oblivious to realize how much of a shock it was to them.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I just was very excited about going. And they were, outwardly, they were always very supportive.

[Assistant] What, what project were you invited to join?


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

[User] I think most people fell in two groups. Either they really didn't understand it, and after the initial, you're doing what? Oh, what are you going to do? How long? And then there was, that was the end of the conversation. Or there were a few people that were just totally into it and asked a lot of questions. And there were also the people who wrote to me through the time I was there and always supported me. My mother and father I know were, had to have been very, very frightened, their first child going so far away. But I was too oblivious to realize how much of a shock it was to them.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I just was very excited about going. And they were, outwardly, they were always very supportive.

[Assistant] What, what project were you invited to join?

[User] It was Liberia IX. It was the ninth group to go to Liberia, and it was to train to be a teacher. So all of the whole group were going into education.

[Assistant] Had you had any previous education?


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

[User] It was Liberia IX. It was the ninth group to go to Liberia, and it was to train to be a teacher. So all of the whole group were going into education.

[Assistant] Had you had any previous education?

[User] I was an education major.

[Assistant] You were?

[User] Yes. So it was right up my field.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. Um, how did you prepare yourself and others for, you know, going away two years? Did you have any special preparations or anything that you had to do for?


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

[User] I was an education major.

[Assistant] You were?

[User] Yes. So it was right up my field.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. Um, how did you prepare yourself and others for, you know, going away two years? Did you have any special preparations or anything that you had to do for?

[User] I didn't really, because I had just graduated from college, so I didn't like I had a home or I had a job or anything like that. And I just, the Peace Corps sent you a big pamphlet of what you're supposed to do. And I just followed what they told me to do.

[Assistant] Okay. Now, if you want to talk about your training, where it was, the faculty, the syllabus, technical studies, reaction to other trainees, language?


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

[User] Yes. So it was right up my field.

[Assistant] Oh, okay. Um, how did you prepare yourself and others for, you know, going away two years? Did you have any special preparations or anything that you had to do for?

[User] I didn't really, because I had just graduated from college, so I didn't like I had a home or I had a job or anything like that. And I just, the Peace Corps sent you a big pamphlet of what you're supposed to do. And I just followed what they told me to do.

[Assistant] Okay. Now, if you want to talk about your training, where it was, the faculty, the syllabus, technical studies, reaction to other trainees, language?

[User] We were trained in, by the San Francisco State College faculty and staff. At that time, Peace Corps contracted it out. And so in early October, I was flown to San Francisco. And, um, the training was a, they were very long days. We were, we stayed at an old army base that was outside the city limits. And we were on campus by 5:30 every morning and had two hours of physical education by the PE department of the college. And then we had.

[Assistant] Two hours a day?


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

[User] We were trained in, by the San Francisco State College faculty and staff. At that time, Peace Corps contracted it out. And so in early October, I was flown to San Francisco. And, um, the training was a, they were very long days. We were, we stayed at an old army base that was outside the city limits. And we were on campus by 5:30 every morning and had two hours of physical education by the PE department of the college. And then we had.

[Assistant] Two hours a day?

[User] Every day, Monday through Friday. Four hours of language training, and then four hours of, it had an acronym. But it was West African studies and politics and history and that kind of stuff. And then four hours of education training. So usually we got back to the fort around 11:00 at night.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] It was very long days. And it was all staffed by either San Francisco State staff or some Liberians that the Peace Corps had recruited and some former volunteers.

[Assistant] And how long did this last?


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

[User] Every day, Monday through Friday. Four hours of language training, and then four hours of, it had an acronym. But it was West African studies and politics and history and that kind of stuff. And then four hours of education training. So usually we got back to the fort around 11:00 at night.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] It was very long days. And it was all staffed by either San Francisco State staff or some Liberians that the Peace Corps had recruited and some former volunteers.

[Assistant] And how long did this last?

[User] It was eight weeks.

[Assistant] Eight weeks. Okay. Now, what about the selection process? Were there surprises, disappointments, enjoyments?


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

[User] It was very long days. And it was all staffed by either San Francisco State staff or some Liberians that the Peace Corps had recruited and some former volunteers.

[Assistant] And how long did this last?

[User] It was eight weeks.

[Assistant] Eight weeks. Okay. Now, what about the selection process? Were there surprises, disappointments, enjoyments?

[User] I've never quite figured out what they used as a criteria because throughout the whole eight weeks in San Francisco and then the six weeks we had in Key West where we had our student teaching, people were being deselected all, all, all along that time. And I never, there were people who were deselected that I thought would have made great volunteers. There were people who ended up going that I never thought would make it. So I don't know what their criteria really was. They, I know they, they asked our feedback a lot. Who, would questions like, who would you like to? Who do you think would make a good volunteer? Who do you think would not? Who would you like to be stationed with? Who would you not like to be stationed with? And I guess they took some of those answers into account. But throughout the whole process, people were deselected, and in some cases it was very secretive. All of a sudden somebody was just gone.

[Assistant] Did you have a heavy psychological thing? Because we did in our group.


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

[User] It was eight weeks.

[Assistant] Eight weeks. Okay. Now, what about the selection process? Were there surprises, disappointments, enjoyments?

[User] I've never quite figured out what they used as a criteria because throughout the whole eight weeks in San Francisco and then the six weeks we had in Key West where we had our student teaching, people were being deselected all, all, all along that time. And I never, there were people who were deselected that I thought would have made great volunteers. There were people who ended up going that I never thought would make it. So I don't know what their criteria really was. They, I know they, they asked our feedback a lot. Who, would questions like, who would you like to? Who do you think would make a good volunteer? Who do you think would not? Who would you like to be stationed with? Who would you not like to be stationed with? And I guess they took some of those answers into account. But throughout the whole process, people were deselected, and in some cases it was very secretive. All of a sudden somebody was just gone.

[Assistant] Did you have a heavy psychological thing? Because we did in our group.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] We had these groups and then if you messed up in the group, they hit you over the head with an individual session.


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

[User]
Well, that when I think about it, it's interesting because the whole purpose of the training was to prepare you. I don't think a sentence ever started through those, those weeks with, that didn't start, well, when you were overseas. Well, when you're in Liberia, ba ba ba. And yet, it was a very important event in my life, training, and even if I had never gone overseas, I would have found it a very valuable, worthwhile, entertaining, and fun time of my life.

Um, the language was no help at all because we were, we did not know what our assignments would be. And there are like 27 different tribal languages. And so we just got a smattering of all the, you know, what, Manos and the Gio and the Bassa and all these. So we really, we just were trained in semantics and linguistics. So there was a culture shock. But I don't think they could have done any different. I ended up living with Manos and the Gios and the Mandingos, so I don't know if they could have given me a crash course in Mano or Gio or Arabic, you know?

[Assistant] Well, did, did you teach in English?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, so you could have got by without.

[User] I did. I did, yes. And they did do a lot with the pidgin English. And that was helpful when you got there. And of course, just with time you learned it. But I guess the training was helpful. I don't know. I did, I didn't have anything trouble adjusting.

[Assistant] Okay. What about your initial entry into the country and your reaction to the country? Maybe you can talk about the project, the staff, impression of local people, physical environment.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Oh, yeah, so you could have got by without.

[User] I did. I did, yes. And they did do a lot with the pidgin English. And that was helpful when you got there. And of course, just with time you learned it. But I guess the training was helpful. I don't know. I did, I didn't have anything trouble adjusting.

[Assistant] Okay. What about your initial entry into the country and your reaction to the country? Maybe you can talk about the project, the staff, impression of local people, physical environment.

[User]
Well, it was so long ago, but I do vividly, vividly remember the plane touching down in Africa and realizing I was in Africa. And we took a bus from Robertsport, the airport, into Monrovia, and it went through the jungle area. And, and I just remember looking out the window and all the colors. The blue, blue sky and everything was so green. And the soil in Liberia is very, very red. And all the women that were walking along the paths and walking along the road with their bright colored clothes and their babies on their back and the big pots on their heads and. And I just, that feeling of just. I do remember that.

Uh, the heat. I remember the heat and the humidity being. I just was, I knew it was coming, but still it was overwhelming to have that heat and humidity. We didn't stay too long once we arrived. We were only in the capital for probably 4 or 5 days. And then we were given our assignments and we headed out.

[Assistant] So was your initial assignment what you ended up doing? Or did you have like a trial period?


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

[User] No. The other thing that was good about it was most, almost all the staff of the, of the government high school was Peace Corps. So during my time there, we had between 4 to 6 volunteers in Sanniquellie. So, no, I was never alone.

[Assistant] Okay. Now, you said there were, were there 80 in your total group or just in your particular group?

[User] In my group, yeah. We all were going into education, so it was all one group. The only difference was there was a small group of around 16 lawyers and they, they took some different classes because they were going to stay at Monrovia and start the law school at the University of Monrovia. But basically we were all going into education and the group was one.

[Assistant] What about like your typical day and your relations with the people of the country?

[User]
Well, morning was, was always the best time of day for me. I loved it. I, um. My house. The main room of the house was really almost like a screened porch. Two sides of it were screened and it looked up. It was up on a hill and it looked down over a rice field. And then the village was past that. And the road that was in front of my house was the main road to the high school and was the road to the river. So I woke up every morning to the sound of the birds and the monkeys and all that.

But then watching the, the village come to life, I always loved that. I always sat and had my tea and heard the, what woke me up every morning was the caller from the mosque waking, telling the Mandingos to pray. So that always woke me up. I never needed an alarm clock. I heard him calling. And then soon after that the women would be going down to the river to wash clothes. So I'd hear them giggling and they're chatting as they're walking past my house. And then soon after that the little kids would be walking by to go to the river to fish. So just watching my village wake up every morning was wonderful.

[Assistant] Was Islam the main?


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

[User] In my group, yeah. We all were going into education, so it was all one group. The only difference was there was a small group of around 16 lawyers and they, they took some different classes because they were going to stay at Monrovia and start the law school at the University of Monrovia. But basically we were all going into education and the group was one.

[Assistant] What about like your typical day and your relations with the people of the country?

[User]
Well, morning was, was always the best time of day for me. I loved it. I, um. My house. The main room of the house was really almost like a screened porch. Two sides of it were screened and it looked up. It was up on a hill and it looked down over a rice field. And then the village was past that. And the road that was in front of my house was the main road to the high school and was the road to the river. So I woke up every morning to the sound of the birds and the monkeys and all that.

But then watching the, the village come to life, I always loved that. I always sat and had my tea and heard the, what woke me up every morning was the caller from the mosque waking, telling the Mandingos to pray. So that always woke me up. I never needed an alarm clock. I heard him calling. And then soon after that the women would be going down to the river to wash clothes. So I'd hear them giggling and they're chatting as they're walking past my house. And then soon after that the little kids would be walking by to go to the river to fish. So just watching my village wake up every morning was wonderful.

[Assistant] Was Islam the main?

[User] For the Mandingos.

[Assistant] For the Mandingos.


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

[User]
Well, morning was, was always the best time of day for me. I loved it. I, um. My house. The main room of the house was really almost like a screened porch. Two sides of it were screened and it looked up. It was up on a hill and it looked down over a rice field. And then the village was past that. And the road that was in front of my house was the main road to the high school and was the road to the river. So I woke up every morning to the sound of the birds and the monkeys and all that.

But then watching the, the village come to life, I always loved that. I always sat and had my tea and heard the, what woke me up every morning was the caller from the mosque waking, telling the Mandingos to pray. So that always woke me up. I never needed an alarm clock. I heard him calling. And then soon after that the women would be going down to the river to wash clothes. So I'd hear them giggling and they're chatting as they're walking past my house. And then soon after that the little kids would be walking by to go to the river to fish. So just watching my village wake up every morning was wonderful.

[Assistant] Was Islam the main?

[User] For the Mandingos.

[Assistant] For the Mandingos.

[User] Right. But the Mano and the Gio tribes, they, well, some of them, I think, I guess were Christian, but most of them were not.

[Assistant] Okay. What about some people that you encountered either, you know, people from Liberia or other PCVs, PC staff? And the role of language?


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

[User] For the Mandingos.

[Assistant] For the Mandingos.

[User] Right. But the Mano and the Gio tribes, they, well, some of them, I think, I guess were Christian, but most of them were not.

[Assistant] Okay. What about some people that you encountered either, you know, people from Liberia or other PCVs, PC staff? And the role of language?

[User]
Well, I guess the important people to me were my students, and most of those students had come from small villages outside of Sanniquellie, and they really didn't, they weren't with their families. They stayed in huts that their, that their chief owned and used when he came in to, had when there was big chief meetings. My neighbors were always very nice to me and I had a lot of fun with them. And I guess you first met the kids, like it is everywhere. The kids come up and look in your windows and talk to you, and then you meet the rest of them. And, um, I just, I enjoyed all my, all the people of Sanniquellie.

And there were lots of interesting foreigners. Like I think I mentioned there was Father Francis who was from Ghana, was very nice. And the Belgian sisters, I'd go over there and play volleyball together. They were very nice. And the Israeli doctor and his wife would come over. We'd come over for dinner and I'd go and visit with his family. Whenever we had any visitors, I was, well, all the volunteers, all the Peace Corps volunteers, were kind of included as the important people of the village. So besides all the doctors and the chiefs and the store owners and the principal, we were always part of that. So we always were part of any big groups that came together. So it was kind of nice to be an important person in the village.

[Assistant] What about work time versus leisure time, if you could maybe describe those?


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

[User] It was probably about an hour. It's hard to tell because if you travel from one village to another on the road and you, you take a, what they call a taxi, just a car that somebody decides that they're going to drive up and down the road and make money. And the time, the distance is based on money. So they say it's $2 up the road. And the taxi drivers have a life of their own. They may get started and then decide that they're going to have a meal in a little village nearby, or they are going to go visit with some friends. So it could take anywhere between, you know, an hour to three hours.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] Depending on the will of the taxi driver. But it was like a two hour ride up up there. It wasn't very long and it was nice to get up there. And I would then usually go to the supermarket and treat myself to some chocolate, chocolate from Switzerland and then maybe cheese too. And then I just I had that and just hoard it for the next few months.

[Assistant] For me, the Catholic Church was a refuge too. There was a Catholic church in the big city that was near us and we went in about once a month and we, we were able to, myself and the other volunteer that I was with, we were able to stay at the, I guess it was a monastery or whatever. The brothers were there. And in exchange for the room and board, basically, we conducted Catholic Church services on Sunday because there was an American airbase there, but none of the brothers knew English. So in order to have an English service, they needed somebody to conduct it. And my father's a minister, so.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I just got up there and read the scripture and sang the hymns in return for room and board so.


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

[User] Depending on the will of the taxi driver. But it was like a two hour ride up up there. It wasn't very long and it was nice to get up there. And I would then usually go to the supermarket and treat myself to some chocolate, chocolate from Switzerland and then maybe cheese too. And then I just I had that and just hoard it for the next few months.

[Assistant] For me, the Catholic Church was a refuge too. There was a Catholic church in the big city that was near us and we went in about once a month and we, we were able to, myself and the other volunteer that I was with, we were able to stay at the, I guess it was a monastery or whatever. The brothers were there. And in exchange for the room and board, basically, we conducted Catholic Church services on Sunday because there was an American airbase there, but none of the brothers knew English. So in order to have an English service, they needed somebody to conduct it. And my father's a minister, so.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I just got up there and read the scripture and sang the hymns in return for room and board so.

[User] I never got tired of hearing what Father Love's stories about first coming there. And the people, the people loved him.

[Assistant] How did your life and work change over the first, you know, few months or?


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I just got up there and read the scripture and sang the hymns in return for room and board so.

[User] I never got tired of hearing what Father Love's stories about first coming there. And the people, the people loved him.

[Assistant] How did your life and work change over the first, you know, few months or?

[User] I still just taught for the two years and I didn't, um, have a lot of projects. I guess the biggest thing was I got more confident in trying to encourage the women to go to, come to high school. I think the first year I was there, I really didn't try to, um, push any kind of philosophies or whatever on anybody. And so the majority of the, the vast majority of the high school students were men. And most of the women in my village, by 13 they were taken as a wife, and then their life was set that way. And I think the second year I really had a woman's club where I tried to get the young girls to, to come. And we could talk about things and try to encourage them to go to high school. It was hard for them to, the few of them that went because they were ridiculed and then those that did stick it out and did learn and went on. That was, that was worthwhile.

[Assistant] Try to kind of, uh, encapsulate the, the end of your first year. You know, your joys and woes, unexpected things that happened, relationships, health problems.


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

[User] I, I really can't delineate one year to the next year. I just think gradually every month I just became more acclimated to everything.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] I'm sure the first six months I did a lot of watching, I didn't. I taught, of course, but, and I asked questions. But I really stayed back a little bit and just tried to get used to things. And I never tried to force my own ideas or opinions on anybody. And I think just, just became more acclimated to things and more willing to give your ideas and differ with people. And even the things like just telling a joke. I would never have, just what, what makes, you know, in a certain community or a certain culture, some things are funny and some things aren't funny. I was well into my second year when I actually made a joke that the, that my students laughed at. I mean, they always were laughing at me, but believe me, it wasn't any, you know.

[Assistant] It was you and not your jokes.

[User] Yes, exactly. You know, so it just sort of a gradual osmosis into the, into the culture.

[Assistant] Were there, did you have any unexpected things happen or great joys or low points or high points? Or any health problems?


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

[User] I'm sure the first six months I did a lot of watching, I didn't. I taught, of course, but, and I asked questions. But I really stayed back a little bit and just tried to get used to things. And I never tried to force my own ideas or opinions on anybody. And I think just, just became more acclimated to things and more willing to give your ideas and differ with people. And even the things like just telling a joke. I would never have, just what, what makes, you know, in a certain community or a certain culture, some things are funny and some things aren't funny. I was well into my second year when I actually made a joke that the, that my students laughed at. I mean, they always were laughing at me, but believe me, it wasn't any, you know.

[Assistant] It was you and not your jokes.

[User] Yes, exactly. You know, so it just sort of a gradual osmosis into the, into the culture.

[Assistant] Were there, did you have any unexpected things happen or great joys or low points or high points? Or any health problems?

[User] Well, of course, I got malaria and I always had mild cases, but I had several bouts with malaria, even taking my little two pills every Sunday. Um, outside of that. Oh, the other thing, I guess. One of my trips into the, the, into the bush, I accidentally stepped on the devil ants and they, they really bit me and I had, and I get, I got all infected in my ankle. Um, but yeah, I survived that. So health wise it was only that. When I first got, the first three months that I was in my house, there were around eight snakes discovered in and around my house. And I, obviously I do not like snakes.

[Assistant] Discovered by somebody else?


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

[User] Yes, exactly. You know, so it just sort of a gradual osmosis into the, into the culture.

[Assistant] Were there, did you have any unexpected things happen or great joys or low points or high points? Or any health problems?

[User] Well, of course, I got malaria and I always had mild cases, but I had several bouts with malaria, even taking my little two pills every Sunday. Um, outside of that. Oh, the other thing, I guess. One of my trips into the, the, into the bush, I accidentally stepped on the devil ants and they, they really bit me and I had, and I get, I got all infected in my ankle. Um, but yeah, I survived that. So health wise it was only that. When I first got, the first three months that I was in my house, there were around eight snakes discovered in and around my house. And I, obviously I do not like snakes.

[Assistant] Discovered by somebody else?

[User]
They were discovered by other people, yeah. I think I just tried to take a blind eye. I mean, one time, I, uh. One of my students came over to my house and he found a snake and it was wound up right under my bed. Lord knows how long it had been there, but they got it out. Um, so. I didn't even want to go home. At one. [tape break]

Just told me about the snake society where the zoos, the special medicine men, would know about taking care of snakes. So the head of the snake society came to my house and he put some kind of paste or something around, around the outside of my house and said some words. And I never had any more snakes.

[Assistant] Uh, what, did you have a regular Peace Corps doctor or where did you go for, like with the ants? Did you have to go anywhere to get?


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

[User] It didn't have any plumbing, but it had a toilet that looked like anybody, any toilet here in America. But then we had to keep, we had to put special stuff in it and we had to flush it with buckets of water after, after it started to stink.

[Assistant] Was there a big hole that it went into it?

[User] Yes, yes. Lord only knows what happened.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Under the whole house stank.

[Assistant] Yeah, but in most of the houses you'd have to go out?


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

[User] Yes, yes. Lord only knows what happened.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Under the whole house stank.

[Assistant] Yeah, but in most of the houses you'd have to go out?

[User] Mm hmm. Or in any time I left or went out.

[Assistant] And so you were basically in the same place the whole time?


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

[User] Mm hmm. Or in any time I left or went out.

[Assistant] And so you were basically in the same place the whole time?

[User] Mm hmm. I was.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] The same home.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Anything else about, that you might want to say about the, the volunteers or the Peace Corps staff or anything like that?


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

[User] Mm hmm. I was.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] The same home.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Anything else about, that you might want to say about the, the volunteers or the Peace Corps staff or anything like that?

[User] No, I still, my group still stays in contact with each other. And we've had several reunions and they're, even though years may go by, when you do see them, there's a bond there. All, and many of the direct, the director and the assistant director and the medical staff, many of them participate in our reunions and they were always very supportive. I always felt that I had their support, but they didn't push it on me. When I, when I was dropped off in Sanniquellie, there was nobody that called me or talked to me for months and months and months. But I knew that the Peace Corps jeep came once a week with my mail and stuff, that if I needed something that, that John, who was the driver, would get things to them. I've always felt I had their support, but I also felt like they put me out there and do your own thing.

[Assistant] So all the Peace Corps mail came into a central place?


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

[User] The same home.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Anything else about, that you might want to say about the, the volunteers or the Peace Corps staff or anything like that?

[User] No, I still, my group still stays in contact with each other. And we've had several reunions and they're, even though years may go by, when you do see them, there's a bond there. All, and many of the direct, the director and the assistant director and the medical staff, many of them participate in our reunions and they were always very supportive. I always felt that I had their support, but they didn't push it on me. When I, when I was dropped off in Sanniquellie, there was nobody that called me or talked to me for months and months and months. But I knew that the Peace Corps jeep came once a week with my mail and stuff, that if I needed something that, that John, who was the driver, would get things to them. I've always felt I had their support, but I also felt like they put me out there and do your own thing.

[Assistant] So all the Peace Corps mail came into a central place?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And then they, they actually had a truck that delivered it?


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

[User] No, I still, my group still stays in contact with each other. And we've had several reunions and they're, even though years may go by, when you do see them, there's a bond there. All, and many of the direct, the director and the assistant director and the medical staff, many of them participate in our reunions and they were always very supportive. I always felt that I had their support, but they didn't push it on me. When I, when I was dropped off in Sanniquellie, there was nobody that called me or talked to me for months and months and months. But I knew that the Peace Corps jeep came once a week with my mail and stuff, that if I needed something that, that John, who was the driver, would get things to them. I've always felt I had their support, but I also felt like they put me out there and do your own thing.

[Assistant] So all the Peace Corps mail came into a central place?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And then they, they actually had a truck that delivered it?

[User] Yes, there was a Liberian man and it was his job. His name was John, and it was an old Army jeep. And it came, usually it was a Tuesday, and he came with our mail.

[Assistant] So you couldn't get mail through the regular mail system?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And then they, they actually had a truck that delivered it?

[User] Yes, there was a Liberian man and it was his job. His name was John, and it was an old Army jeep. And it came, usually it was a Tuesday, and he came with our mail.

[Assistant] So you couldn't get mail through the regular mail system?

[User] There wasn't any mail.

[Assistant] Oh, there wasn't any?


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

[User] Yes, there was a Liberian man and it was his job. His name was John, and it was an old Army jeep. And it came, usually it was a Tuesday, and he came with our mail.

[Assistant] So you couldn't get mail through the regular mail system?

[User] There wasn't any mail.

[Assistant] Oh, there wasn't any?

[User] There was nothing.

[Assistant] What about telephone?


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

[User] There wasn't any mail.

[Assistant] Oh, there wasn't any?

[User] There was nothing.

[Assistant] What about telephone?

[User] There was no telephone.

[Assistant] No telephone. Okay.


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

[User] There was nothing.

[Assistant] What about telephone?

[User] There was no telephone.

[Assistant] No telephone. Okay.

[User] And no email. There was nothing like that, you know?

[Assistant] Uh, let's see. I guess, do you have any big regrets or anything that was an outstanding satisfaction to you that you'd like to talk about?


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

[User] There was no telephone.

[Assistant] No telephone. Okay.

[User] And no email. There was nothing like that, you know?

[Assistant] Uh, let's see. I guess, do you have any big regrets or anything that was an outstanding satisfaction to you that you'd like to talk about?

[User] I think I might have been a better Peace Corps volunteer, and I certainly would have paid better attention, if I had been older. I think I mentioned to you that when you're young, I was 22, and there was so much about the culture that I just didn't bother to pay attention to. I didn't keep, uh, any kind of a journal, which was very foolish on my part. I didn't record the music that I heard. I didn't try to get, I brought very few artifacts home, and when I did, it was like. I said, I realized, oh my God, I'm leaving in a couple of weeks. I've got to get some things. And just, I just didn't take advantage, I think, like I could have.

[Assistant] Did you write home regularly or is there any record of your writing?


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

[User] And no email. There was nothing like that, you know?

[Assistant] Uh, let's see. I guess, do you have any big regrets or anything that was an outstanding satisfaction to you that you'd like to talk about?

[User] I think I might have been a better Peace Corps volunteer, and I certainly would have paid better attention, if I had been older. I think I mentioned to you that when you're young, I was 22, and there was so much about the culture that I just didn't bother to pay attention to. I didn't keep, uh, any kind of a journal, which was very foolish on my part. I didn't record the music that I heard. I didn't try to get, I brought very few artifacts home, and when I did, it was like. I said, I realized, oh my God, I'm leaving in a couple of weeks. I've got to get some things. And just, I just didn't take advantage, I think, like I could have.

[Assistant] Did you write home regularly or is there any record of your writing?

[User] My mother did keep all of my, my, um, all of my letters.

[Assistant] Because that's often something to build on.


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

[User] I think I might have been a better Peace Corps volunteer, and I certainly would have paid better attention, if I had been older. I think I mentioned to you that when you're young, I was 22, and there was so much about the culture that I just didn't bother to pay attention to. I didn't keep, uh, any kind of a journal, which was very foolish on my part. I didn't record the music that I heard. I didn't try to get, I brought very few artifacts home, and when I did, it was like. I said, I realized, oh my God, I'm leaving in a couple of weeks. I've got to get some things. And just, I just didn't take advantage, I think, like I could have.

[Assistant] Did you write home regularly or is there any record of your writing?

[User] My mother did keep all of my, my, um, all of my letters.

[Assistant] Because that's often something to build on.

[User] That's what she said, you know? And I never, I think I did read them about ten years after I came home, but I have them somewhere. I still do have them.

[Assistant] That would be a good thing to, uh, to get into. I know I sent letters all along and it's, you know, it really is. You know, it's how you were feeling at the time and what you did and.


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

[User] My mother did keep all of my, my, um, all of my letters.

[Assistant] Because that's often something to build on.

[User] That's what she said, you know? And I never, I think I did read them about ten years after I came home, but I have them somewhere. I still do have them.

[Assistant] That would be a good thing to, uh, to get into. I know I sent letters all along and it's, you know, it really is. You know, it's how you were feeling at the time and what you did and.

[User] Yeah, and a matter of fact, the letters really, they were to my mother and father. But I grew up in a very close neighborhood where all the, we all knew each other. And so when the mailman brought my mail, which was one of those air letters, so they knew it. You know, he'd always say, you know, Stella, we got a letter, we got a letter. And all the neighborhood came and sat down and she had to read it out loud. So I had to be careful what I said sometimes because it was news for the whole, the whole area. The mailman even waited and had to hear the story, too.

[Assistant] Okay, um. Let's see. Did you mention what you planned to do when you got back, or did you make any plans there at all?


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

[User] That's what she said, you know? And I never, I think I did read them about ten years after I came home, but I have them somewhere. I still do have them.

[Assistant] That would be a good thing to, uh, to get into. I know I sent letters all along and it's, you know, it really is. You know, it's how you were feeling at the time and what you did and.

[User] Yeah, and a matter of fact, the letters really, they were to my mother and father. But I grew up in a very close neighborhood where all the, we all knew each other. And so when the mailman brought my mail, which was one of those air letters, so they knew it. You know, he'd always say, you know, Stella, we got a letter, we got a letter. And all the neighborhood came and sat down and she had to read it out loud. So I had to be careful what I said sometimes because it was news for the whole, the whole area. The mailman even waited and had to hear the story, too.

[Assistant] Okay, um. Let's see. Did you mention what you planned to do when you got back, or did you make any plans there at all?

[User] No, I didn't make any plans there.

[Assistant] Okay. I guess now I'm going to have you kind of evaluate your service in light of the three goals of the Peace Corps. The first one is to provide technical assistance where requested. How do you feel you did in that area?


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

[User] Yeah, and a matter of fact, the letters really, they were to my mother and father. But I grew up in a very close neighborhood where all the, we all knew each other. And so when the mailman brought my mail, which was one of those air letters, so they knew it. You know, he'd always say, you know, Stella, we got a letter, we got a letter. And all the neighborhood came and sat down and she had to read it out loud. So I had to be careful what I said sometimes because it was news for the whole, the whole area. The mailman even waited and had to hear the story, too.

[Assistant] Okay, um. Let's see. Did you mention what you planned to do when you got back, or did you make any plans there at all?

[User] No, I didn't make any plans there.

[Assistant] Okay. I guess now I'm going to have you kind of evaluate your service in light of the three goals of the Peace Corps. The first one is to provide technical assistance where requested. How do you feel you did in that area?

[User] Well, being a person who's been in education 30 years, I think that's, that's the start of any kind of society. So, um, I think we were successful there.

[Assistant] And so you taught like high school, but when you came back, you, you went back to early childhood? Is there any reason for that or?


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

[User] No, I didn't make any plans there.

[Assistant] Okay. I guess now I'm going to have you kind of evaluate your service in light of the three goals of the Peace Corps. The first one is to provide technical assistance where requested. How do you feel you did in that area?

[User] Well, being a person who's been in education 30 years, I think that's, that's the start of any kind of society. So, um, I think we were successful there.

[Assistant] And so you taught like high school, but when you came back, you, you went back to early childhood? Is there any reason for that or?

[User] I came back in the middle of the school year, and that was the job opening. I really didn't think I was going to. I thought when I finished my Peace Corps, I planned to go and get my master's in history and social studies. And I really saw myself as being a history teacher at the high school and like running model UN and taking the students overseas. You know, that was what I planned to do. And I came back in the middle of the school year and a friend of mine from high school knew that there was a job opening in this one district at kindergarten. And I said, well, I'll just take it to get working and get my foot in the door and then move on up. And lo and behold, I never did.

[Assistant] Okay. The second goal is to provide a better understanding of the United States, you know, for the country that you are in. How do you think you did in that?


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

[User] Well, being a person who's been in education 30 years, I think that's, that's the start of any kind of society. So, um, I think we were successful there.

[Assistant] And so you taught like high school, but when you came back, you, you went back to early childhood? Is there any reason for that or?

[User] I came back in the middle of the school year, and that was the job opening. I really didn't think I was going to. I thought when I finished my Peace Corps, I planned to go and get my master's in history and social studies. And I really saw myself as being a history teacher at the high school and like running model UN and taking the students overseas. You know, that was what I planned to do. And I came back in the middle of the school year and a friend of mine from high school knew that there was a job opening in this one district at kindergarten. And I said, well, I'll just take it to get working and get my foot in the door and then move on up. And lo and behold, I never did.

[Assistant] Okay. The second goal is to provide a better understanding of the United States, you know, for the country that you are in. How do you think you did in that?

[User] Like I said before, I guess it's just a matter of them looking, not looking at this big country, but as individuals that make up that country.

[Assistant] Okay. And the third goal is to promote a better understanding of other peoples by Americans. So I don't know if you want to, you know, that's probably been done, you know, after you've come back. But did you do anything to, you know, talks or anything with Americans to help them understand your experience OR?


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

[User] Like I said before, I guess it's just a matter of them looking, not looking at this big country, but as individuals that make up that country.

[Assistant] Okay. And the third goal is to promote a better understanding of other peoples by Americans. So I don't know if you want to, you know, that's probably been done, you know, after you've come back. But did you do anything to, you know, talks or anything with Americans to help them understand your experience OR?

[User] In my early years of teaching, I would always do, um, show my slides and stuff to all the, all the grade levels throughout the year and give a presentation about Liberia. And very often kindergartners, it's, you know, Africa is not in the kindergarten curriculum.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] But I would, I often would flip flop and have like the fifth grade teacher, because the fifth grade is where they do the world, and do units with them. And then somebody would take over my class. I did that for years and then I just stopped doing it. Uh.

[Assistant] Okay. Through the years, have you continued any kind of involvement with your country of service or contact with people from that country?


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

[User] Well, for years I did hear from my students when, um, when there were Peace Corps volunteers that could get the mail out.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User]
But then in 1980, they had the civil war and everything broke down. And then I never heard from anybody anymore. And I haven't had any contact with any Liberians. I do hear here in the United States there are some, you know, some. I find out my sister, Molly Jo, has some Liberian children in her school. And I make a point of going over there and meeting them and sharing stories and that. But the one situation that I, that I have, and it's been fairly recent, I guess Peace Corps has a way for people from other countries to get in touch with former volunteers if they're interested. And I had a student, John, who through Peace Corps got my email address. And, well, they gave me his email address and I wrote him and then he wrote back.

And he had been one of my students. And that's a long time ago. And he now is an engineer. And I wrote, when I sent him an email back and we shared what he was doing and what I was doing and what our life's been like, I asked him, you know, why did he, um, why was he interested in me? Because we had had, like I told you, they were all, they were all volunteers teaching at Sanniquellie High School. And he said that I made the beginning impact on him in science and math. And then he went on and he wanted me to know that he now was an engineer. And it was just, it was just like the greatest thing that anybody ever could have done for me.

[Assistant] Even though science and math weren't really what you were. But you inspired him somehow.

[User] Yes. And the fact that he wanted to let me know. And we do now send, I get emails from him, from them.

[Assistant] Okay. What about any continuing Peace Corps involvement? I guess you can mention your work in the.


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

[User] Yes. And the fact that he wanted to let me know. And we do now send, I get emails from him, from them.

[Assistant] Okay. What about any continuing Peace Corps involvement? I guess you can mention your work in the.

[User] Well, since I moved here to Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Peace Corps Association is very active and I have been active with that. And I think we do a lot. We do a lot to try to educate Milwaukee about the rest of the world. And we try to raise money for partnership programs. And we participated in folk fairs and pushing teaching about Peace Corps and teaching about our interests. So yeah, this has given us a lot of opportunities.

[Assistant] Do you want to say anything about your specific work with the calendars at all or?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Are there any, what are some other third goal activities that you've been involved in? Or was your involvement with the Peace Corps returned group only started in Milwaukee or?


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

[User] Well, since I moved here to Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Peace Corps Association is very active and I have been active with that. And I think we do a lot. We do a lot to try to educate Milwaukee about the rest of the world. And we try to raise money for partnership programs. And we participated in folk fairs and pushing teaching about Peace Corps and teaching about our interests. So yeah, this has given us a lot of opportunities.

[Assistant] Do you want to say anything about your specific work with the calendars at all or?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Are there any, what are some other third goal activities that you've been involved in? Or was your involvement with the Peace Corps returned group only started in Milwaukee or?

[User] Yeah, there was nothing like that in the Rochester area or even western New York doesn't have anything.

[Assistant] Oh, they don't. And when did you come here?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay. Uh. Are there any, what are some other third goal activities that you've been involved in? Or was your involvement with the Peace Corps returned group only started in Milwaukee or?

[User] Yeah, there was nothing like that in the Rochester area or even western New York doesn't have anything.

[Assistant] Oh, they don't. And when did you come here?

[User] 2000.

[Assistant] 2000. Okay. Well, I think that's pretty much it, unless you want to. Well, what about the effect that your Peace Corps service had on you, either an immediate effect or did it change you or did it contribute to your career plans, things like that?


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

[User] 2000.

[Assistant] 2000. Okay. Well, I think that's pretty much it, unless you want to. Well, what about the effect that your Peace Corps service had on you, either an immediate effect or did it change you or did it contribute to your career plans, things like that?

[User] I never take a hot shower for granted. I still adore it. I just think I, I'm a better person for having that experience. I have, in many ways, I have a greater appreciation for the United States of America. And I'm very happy that I'm an American and I live here. But sometimes when you're taking, when you step away, then you can see better about some of our faults and some of our, we're misguided in some ways. And I don't think anybody can, unless you really live in another culture, you can't always evaluate your own culture very well.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] You don't have that frame of reference. And I just think that having that opportunity to actually live in another culture helps you appreciate and understand your own culture better.

[Assistant] That's a good thought. Do you have any like words of wisdom or anything you'd like to impart to people who may be listening to this in years to come?


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

[User] I never take a hot shower for granted. I still adore it. I just think I, I'm a better person for having that experience. I have, in many ways, I have a greater appreciation for the United States of America. And I'm very happy that I'm an American and I live here. But sometimes when you're taking, when you step away, then you can see better about some of our faults and some of our, we're misguided in some ways. And I don't think anybody can, unless you really live in another culture, you can't always evaluate your own culture very well.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] You don't have that frame of reference. And I just think that having that opportunity to actually live in another culture helps you appreciate and understand your own culture better.

[Assistant] That's a good thought. Do you have any like words of wisdom or anything you'd like to impart to people who may be listening to this in years to come?

[User] Well, I just that I had, I think I mentioned it. I just don't think I took as much advantage of my opportunities as I could have. And the recording, you think you'll always remember something, but you don't remember it, so you really do need to document your feelings and the experiences you've had and. Because you do forget.

[Assistant] What's that expression? Youth? Youth is wasted on the youth.


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

[User] You don't have that frame of reference. And I just think that having that opportunity to actually live in another culture helps you appreciate and understand your own culture better.

[Assistant] That's a good thought. Do you have any like words of wisdom or anything you'd like to impart to people who may be listening to this in years to come?

[User] Well, I just that I had, I think I mentioned it. I just don't think I took as much advantage of my opportunities as I could have. And the recording, you think you'll always remember something, but you don't remember it, so you really do need to document your feelings and the experiences you've had and. Because you do forget.

[Assistant] What's that expression? Youth? Youth is wasted on the youth.

[User] Exactly. Yes. Because I, I think about that when I see Zidra. I'm thinking, man, if I went, was in that situation a little bit older, I might have even. I would have just had a more, a more of an appreciation for what I had or what I experienced.

[Assistant] Is there any chance that you think you'll ever go back to Liberia?


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

[User] Well, I just that I had, I think I mentioned it. I just don't think I took as much advantage of my opportunities as I could have. And the recording, you think you'll always remember something, but you don't remember it, so you really do need to document your feelings and the experiences you've had and. Because you do forget.

[Assistant] What's that expression? Youth? Youth is wasted on the youth.

[User] Exactly. Yes. Because I, I think about that when I see Zidra. I'm thinking, man, if I went, was in that situation a little bit older, I might have even. I would have just had a more, a more of an appreciation for what I had or what I experienced.

[Assistant] Is there any chance that you think you'll ever go back to Liberia?

[User] Well, something I've been thinking about recently, because they do, it has opened back up. And there is a program now for volunteers who have previously been in Liberia to go and work with the teachers. And it's a, and I have thought about it. I'm just not quite sure my health is ready for it and can do it.

[Assistant] You know, I've been back a couple of times, and to me it's really rewarding. You know, the people really express how much you meant, even though they didn't at the time, you know?


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

[User] Good team.

[Assistant] Before we move on to the next one, it’s about forty-five minutes.

[User] Why don’t we take a short break. Can we do that?

[Assistant]
Yes.\n\n [pause]

Is there anything you want to add about the Life Sciences area before you move on to another division? I do have one question. Maybe it’s a reflection. The success of the first experiments that were sent up on the Shuttle, can you share with us what that was like, of knowing when it came back and it worked?

[User] We were given a very short period of time to develop that OSTA-1 payload and get it integrated into the Shuttle and flown. A couple of folks that worked for me spent a lot of time at the Cape, working with the Cape on integrating and what have you. [Richard A.] Dick Moke and [M.] Jay Harnage [Jr.], I think, were the two folks who sort of went through that whole process.\n\n But it was very, very short time. We had some problems with structural integrity of the truss. We found out that some of the landing loads might be a little excessive, so we had to go in and do some beef-up at the last minute to make sure it would survive both launch and landing.\n\n But it was quite an accomplishment, I thought, for us to get it integrated, get it up there, have it work very well, and get it back in one piece so we could fly it again. It was a pretty good job.

[Assistant] Did the shortened mission have any effect on what your expectations were for the results?


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

[User] Why don’t we take a short break. Can we do that?

[Assistant]
Yes.\n\n [pause]

Is there anything you want to add about the Life Sciences area before you move on to another division? I do have one question. Maybe it’s a reflection. The success of the first experiments that were sent up on the Shuttle, can you share with us what that was like, of knowing when it came back and it worked?

[User] We were given a very short period of time to develop that OSTA-1 payload and get it integrated into the Shuttle and flown. A couple of folks that worked for me spent a lot of time at the Cape, working with the Cape on integrating and what have you. [Richard A.] Dick Moke and [M.] Jay Harnage [Jr.], I think, were the two folks who sort of went through that whole process.\n\n But it was very, very short time. We had some problems with structural integrity of the truss. We found out that some of the landing loads might be a little excessive, so we had to go in and do some beef-up at the last minute to make sure it would survive both launch and landing.\n\n But it was quite an accomplishment, I thought, for us to get it integrated, get it up there, have it work very well, and get it back in one piece so we could fly it again. It was a pretty good job.

[Assistant] Did the shortened mission have any effect on what your expectations were for the results?

[User] Well, of course. We didn’t get all the data that we wanted to get.

[Assistant] But it was a beginning, wasn’t it.


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

[User] We were given a very short period of time to develop that OSTA-1 payload and get it integrated into the Shuttle and flown. A couple of folks that worked for me spent a lot of time at the Cape, working with the Cape on integrating and what have you. [Richard A.] Dick Moke and [M.] Jay Harnage [Jr.], I think, were the two folks who sort of went through that whole process.\n\n But it was very, very short time. We had some problems with structural integrity of the truss. We found out that some of the landing loads might be a little excessive, so we had to go in and do some beef-up at the last minute to make sure it would survive both launch and landing.\n\n But it was quite an accomplishment, I thought, for us to get it integrated, get it up there, have it work very well, and get it back in one piece so we could fly it again. It was a pretty good job.

[Assistant] Did the shortened mission have any effect on what your expectations were for the results?

[User] Well, of course. We didn’t get all the data that we wanted to get.

[Assistant] But it was a beginning, wasn’t it.

[User] It was a beginning, yes.

[Assistant] What division would you like to talk about now?


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

[User] Not right off the top of my head. They did a lot of chemistry, looking at the chemical makeup of the basically basalt; that was [what] most of the rocks were.

[Assistant] But the interest continued.

[User] The interest continued in just understanding the history of a rock, how long it had been there. They were interested in seismic activity on the Moon, stuff like that, and we did get some of that information from ALSEP. Some of the experiments on ALSEP were to detect moonquakes.

[Assistant] That was interesting that those two pieces of your career kind of tied back in together with the rocks. Any issues of missing rock? There was, not too long ago, an attempt to take some rocks from JSC—

[User] Oh, is that right?

[Assistant] —and I was just curious if you ever had any issues of—


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

[User] The interest continued in just understanding the history of a rock, how long it had been there. They were interested in seismic activity on the Moon, stuff like that, and we did get some of that information from ALSEP. Some of the experiments on ALSEP were to detect moonquakes.

[Assistant] That was interesting that those two pieces of your career kind of tied back in together with the rocks. Any issues of missing rock? There was, not too long ago, an attempt to take some rocks from JSC—

[User] Oh, is that right?

[Assistant] —and I was just curious if you ever had any issues of—

[User] There may have been one or two incidents where someone acquired one the wrong way and offered it for sale or something, but we kept a pretty close eye on the stuff.

[Assistant] Pretty unique items.


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

[User] Oh, is that right?

[Assistant] —and I was just curious if you ever had any issues of—

[User] There may have been one or two incidents where someone acquired one the wrong way and offered it for sale or something, but we kept a pretty close eye on the stuff.

[Assistant] Pretty unique items.

[User] Yes, yes. When you saw it up, of course, you have some sawdust. The sample gets smaller and smaller as you keep cutting it. But anyway, no, I’d have to think about that one some more.\n\n Earth Resources. The Secretary of Agriculture had, after LACIE, come up with a new initiative, called AgRISTARS [Agriculture & Resources Inventory Surveys Through Aerospace Remote Sensing], that was, again, a cooperative program between NASA, USDA [United States Department of Agriculture], and NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], primarily, with the State Department—AID [USAID, United States Agency for International Development] was then part of State Department—and Department of Interior. The idea of AgRISTARS was that there were eight crops, I guess, including wheat, but seven other crops of interest on a global basis; barley, rice in Asia. So we undertook to try to develop experiments that would let us identify these other crops besides wheat. That program, I think, ran about three years before it was cancelled. It was, again, using Landsat data, using aircraft, and using ground truth from Agriculture, from USDA, to validate the satellite data.

[Assistant] How well did it work, combining the talents of NASA, other federal agencies, universities, industry? You had to bring all those together to make this program work.


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

[User] Fred Haise. Worked for Fred Haise. Senior advisor role for a while, in order to make sure there weren’t any ethics problems with my going to work for Grumman on Space Station. But, yes, I worked for Fred Haise.

[Assistant] I’m sure you enjoyed seeing him behind a desk. [Laughter]

[User] Yes, I did. Fredo had many, many stories to tell. He really did. He had an interesting career. They had a bunch of rebuilt World War II airplanes down at Galveston [Texas] and he was flying one of those and crashed and was severely burned. But he survived a lot of things in his life. I haven’t had any contact with him in a few years. He was up to TRW [Inc.] about, probably, five years ago, gave a speech at a luncheon that they had on Veterans Day or something, and I went out and saw him again. He did his Apollo 13 speech, showed clips from the movie and clips from his camera, his videocamera, that he’d taken. Of course, he was an advisor to them when they made the movie, so you could expect it to be very, very close to reality, other than the fact that, in the movie—and I can understand why they never did it—it was like all mission control did the whole thing. There was no credit given to the contractors. In fact, they made Grumman kind of look silly in the movie, if you remember.

[Assistant] They did, yes.

[User] They kind of, like, “Well, it wasn’t designed to do that.”

[Assistant] I remember that.


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

[User] Yes, I did. Fredo had many, many stories to tell. He really did. He had an interesting career. They had a bunch of rebuilt World War II airplanes down at Galveston [Texas] and he was flying one of those and crashed and was severely burned. But he survived a lot of things in his life. I haven’t had any contact with him in a few years. He was up to TRW [Inc.] about, probably, five years ago, gave a speech at a luncheon that they had on Veterans Day or something, and I went out and saw him again. He did his Apollo 13 speech, showed clips from the movie and clips from his camera, his videocamera, that he’d taken. Of course, he was an advisor to them when they made the movie, so you could expect it to be very, very close to reality, other than the fact that, in the movie—and I can understand why they never did it—it was like all mission control did the whole thing. There was no credit given to the contractors. In fact, they made Grumman kind of look silly in the movie, if you remember.

[Assistant] They did, yes.

[User] They kind of, like, “Well, it wasn’t designed to do that.”

[Assistant] I remember that.

[User] Remember that?

[Assistant] Yes. Well, your career with NASA was somewhat diverse and extremely challenging at different points. Is there a time that you would feel is the most significant accomplishment of everything that you’ve done, something that, when you look back, it’s your proudest moment that you were there?


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

[User] They kind of, like, “Well, it wasn’t designed to do that.”

[Assistant] I remember that.

[User] Remember that?

[Assistant] Yes. Well, your career with NASA was somewhat diverse and extremely challenging at different points. Is there a time that you would feel is the most significant accomplishment of everything that you’ve done, something that, when you look back, it’s your proudest moment that you were there?

[User] I have to say the Apollo lunar landing was the highlight. I used to think that everything after that would be anticlimactic in life, but, you know, that’s not the case, because I went on to find a lot of other interesting things to do after the Apollo lunar landing. Wouldn’t take for the experience. Great experience. I’m just glad that I was a part of it.\n\n Those were the glorious days of NASA. I look back on that time in NASA and the competency of the people, the drive that they had, the sacrifices that they made of personal time. I mean, it was hard. We were working twelve, fourteen hours a day, and sometimes seven days a week to meet schedules, to stay on time. But I wouldn’t take for the experience. It was great. It was great being part of the team, it was great working with guys—[Arnold D.] Arnie Aldrich and [Richard H.] Dick Kohrs and George [M.] Low. These were giants in pulling together and managing a team of people to accomplish that.\n\n It wasn’t the end. I went on to find a lot of other interesting things, and I’m still finding interesting things to do, even today. I’m working with FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] on air traffic system safety and the challenges, the experience, and know-how has application. And I still feel like, in a way, I’m out there pushing the frontier back in this area with FAA.

[Assistant] Sounds like you have many more years of exciting times ahead.


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

[User] Remember that?

[Assistant] Yes. Well, your career with NASA was somewhat diverse and extremely challenging at different points. Is there a time that you would feel is the most significant accomplishment of everything that you’ve done, something that, when you look back, it’s your proudest moment that you were there?

[User] I have to say the Apollo lunar landing was the highlight. I used to think that everything after that would be anticlimactic in life, but, you know, that’s not the case, because I went on to find a lot of other interesting things to do after the Apollo lunar landing. Wouldn’t take for the experience. Great experience. I’m just glad that I was a part of it.\n\n Those were the glorious days of NASA. I look back on that time in NASA and the competency of the people, the drive that they had, the sacrifices that they made of personal time. I mean, it was hard. We were working twelve, fourteen hours a day, and sometimes seven days a week to meet schedules, to stay on time. But I wouldn’t take for the experience. It was great. It was great being part of the team, it was great working with guys—[Arnold D.] Arnie Aldrich and [Richard H.] Dick Kohrs and George [M.] Low. These were giants in pulling together and managing a team of people to accomplish that.\n\n It wasn’t the end. I went on to find a lot of other interesting things, and I’m still finding interesting things to do, even today. I’m working with FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] on air traffic system safety and the challenges, the experience, and know-how has application. And I still feel like, in a way, I’m out there pushing the frontier back in this area with FAA.

[Assistant] Sounds like you have many more years of exciting times ahead.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] We thank you for the time this morning.


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

[User] I have to say the Apollo lunar landing was the highlight. I used to think that everything after that would be anticlimactic in life, but, you know, that’s not the case, because I went on to find a lot of other interesting things to do after the Apollo lunar landing. Wouldn’t take for the experience. Great experience. I’m just glad that I was a part of it.\n\n Those were the glorious days of NASA. I look back on that time in NASA and the competency of the people, the drive that they had, the sacrifices that they made of personal time. I mean, it was hard. We were working twelve, fourteen hours a day, and sometimes seven days a week to meet schedules, to stay on time. But I wouldn’t take for the experience. It was great. It was great being part of the team, it was great working with guys—[Arnold D.] Arnie Aldrich and [Richard H.] Dick Kohrs and George [M.] Low. These were giants in pulling together and managing a team of people to accomplish that.\n\n It wasn’t the end. I went on to find a lot of other interesting things, and I’m still finding interesting things to do, even today. I’m working with FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] on air traffic system safety and the challenges, the experience, and know-how has application. And I still feel like, in a way, I’m out there pushing the frontier back in this area with FAA.

[Assistant] Sounds like you have many more years of exciting times ahead.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] We thank you for the time this morning.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you’d like to add or can think of before we close?


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

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] We thank you for the time this morning.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] Is there anything else that you’d like to add or can think of before we close?

[User] I don’t think so.

[Assistant] Well, if you do, let us know and we’ll pick up where we left off.


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

[User] Yes, just exactly like a greenleaf punch, male, female die, and that worked quite well. We demonstrated how that all worked, and I got a—

[Assistant] There had to be a hole there.

[User] Yes, we had to drill a half inch—let's see—

[Assistant] And then they'd fill that hole up—

[User] And they plug the hole after launch. Yes. That's all it had, is just one single hole so that the shaft of the piston cylinder could go inside. Right. And they mounted those. We changed from three hatches to nine. We had them expeditiously set all around in different elevations. So they installed those everywhere, and they went through all the follow-on missions feeling much more secure about these guys that might get trapped in there. That was one of my patents. It's kind of neat.\n\n This is one of the typical rods, and that's the knob there.

[Assistant] And this is you in the Control Center as parasail expert.


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

[User] Yes, we had to drill a half inch—let's see—

[Assistant] And then they'd fill that hole up—

[User] And they plug the hole after launch. Yes. That's all it had, is just one single hole so that the shaft of the piston cylinder could go inside. Right. And they mounted those. We changed from three hatches to nine. We had them expeditiously set all around in different elevations. So they installed those everywhere, and they went through all the follow-on missions feeling much more secure about these guys that might get trapped in there. That was one of my patents. It's kind of neat.\n\n This is one of the typical rods, and that's the knob there.

[Assistant] And this is you in the Control Center as parasail expert.

[User] Yes, we skipped that. This is Chris Kraft, Sig [Sigurd A.] Sjoberg, and Kenny—oh, boy. Anyway, he was one of the main guys; I can't think of his last name. And myself. We're in there, and I'm talking about the deployment sequence in Mission Control the night of the event.

[Assistant] How did you feel? Were you pretty tired at this point?


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

[User] And they plug the hole after launch. Yes. That's all it had, is just one single hole so that the shaft of the piston cylinder could go inside. Right. And they mounted those. We changed from three hatches to nine. We had them expeditiously set all around in different elevations. So they installed those everywhere, and they went through all the follow-on missions feeling much more secure about these guys that might get trapped in there. That was one of my patents. It's kind of neat.\n\n This is one of the typical rods, and that's the knob there.

[Assistant] And this is you in the Control Center as parasail expert.

[User] Yes, we skipped that. This is Chris Kraft, Sig [Sigurd A.] Sjoberg, and Kenny—oh, boy. Anyway, he was one of the main guys; I can't think of his last name. And myself. We're in there, and I'm talking about the deployment sequence in Mission Control the night of the event.

[Assistant] How did you feel? Were you pretty tired at this point?

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Not much sleep, right?


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

[User] Yes, we skipped that. This is Chris Kraft, Sig [Sigurd A.] Sjoberg, and Kenny—oh, boy. Anyway, he was one of the main guys; I can't think of his last name. And myself. We're in there, and I'm talking about the deployment sequence in Mission Control the night of the event.

[Assistant] How did you feel? Were you pretty tired at this point?

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Not much sleep, right?

[User] I think I show it. My hair is all fluffy and raggedy-looking.

[Assistant] You look like the typical scientist, the mad scientist.


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

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Not much sleep, right?

[User] I think I show it. My hair is all fluffy and raggedy-looking.

[Assistant] You look like the typical scientist, the mad scientist.

[User] I know! [Laughter] Unfortunately, I don't fit that classification, but you're right, I just look like one of those wacky guys. Anyway, these are the tubes that we used. Oh, here they are, all in a nice little bag. They just have a male thread on one end and a female thread on the other, and they just go together.\n\n Okay. This is a famous picture. In a press conference after the successful deployment, I held up a picture, and then they put this in the newspaper. Now, an interesting aside, for the next year—

[Assistant] What is this a picture of?


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

[User] I think I show it. My hair is all fluffy and raggedy-looking.

[Assistant] You look like the typical scientist, the mad scientist.

[User] I know! [Laughter] Unfortunately, I don't fit that classification, but you're right, I just look like one of those wacky guys. Anyway, these are the tubes that we used. Oh, here they are, all in a nice little bag. They just have a male thread on one end and a female thread on the other, and they just go together.\n\n Okay. This is a famous picture. In a press conference after the successful deployment, I held up a picture, and then they put this in the newspaper. Now, an interesting aside, for the next year—

[Assistant] What is this a picture of?

[User] That's the parasail.

[Assistant] Similar to one of the ones that you show—


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

[User] I know! [Laughter] Unfortunately, I don't fit that classification, but you're right, I just look like one of those wacky guys. Anyway, these are the tubes that we used. Oh, here they are, all in a nice little bag. They just have a male thread on one end and a female thread on the other, and they just go together.\n\n Okay. This is a famous picture. In a press conference after the successful deployment, I held up a picture, and then they put this in the newspaper. Now, an interesting aside, for the next year—

[Assistant] What is this a picture of?

[User] That's the parasail.

[Assistant] Similar to one of the ones that you show—

[User] Yes. And here's an artist's sketch of the parasail in place here. But when this happened, it went around the entire world, and I wound up getting 200 requests for autographs and my signature, mostly on these first day cards, stamp-collector type—

[Assistant] First day of issue.


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

[User] I joined Peace Corps because I had been thinking about working in a foreign country, and I didn't know how to go about it. One day when I was looking at the newspaper, it was the Sunday paper from San Francisco, because at that time I was living in Oakland, California. I saw an ad for Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya for cooperatives. That Monday, I called and talked to a representative who then obtained an application for me.

[Assistant] And that was it.

[User] That was it. I applied for a specific job in a specific country.

[Assistant] And how old were you when you applied?

[User] I was in my thirties.

[Assistant] You were in your thirties, which is pretty late to be applying, at least in my day. People were much younger. I don't know.


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

[User] I was in my thirties.

[Assistant] You were in your thirties, which is pretty late to be applying, at least in my day. People were much younger. I don't know.

[User] Even today there are some of the older people who will apply. And I was not one of the oldest because we had a woman in my group who was in her sixties.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] So we had a pretty good mix and there were three of us who had obtained our master's degrees. But by and, by and large the majority were recent college graduates and there were approximately 32 of us.

[Assistant] 32. So you, um, well, talk a little bit about your, your background. Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Oakland?


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

[User] Even today there are some of the older people who will apply. And I was not one of the oldest because we had a woman in my group who was in her sixties.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] So we had a pretty good mix and there were three of us who had obtained our master's degrees. But by and, by and large the majority were recent college graduates and there were approximately 32 of us.

[Assistant] 32. So you, um, well, talk a little bit about your, your background. Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Oakland?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Where did you grow up?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Where did you grow up?

[User] I grew up in Taylors, South Carolina, which is within Greenville County. That's the largest city in South Carolina. I was educated in the Greenville County public schools. I graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and then started working in New Jersey for AT&T. And at that time, AT&T offered us something that I couldn't give up. I couldn't say no to, and that was our master's degrees.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] They offered to pay for it at Fairleigh Dickinson University and.

[Assistant] In New Jersey?


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

[User] I grew up in Taylors, South Carolina, which is within Greenville County. That's the largest city in South Carolina. I was educated in the Greenville County public schools. I graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and then started working in New Jersey for AT&T. And at that time, AT&T offered us something that I couldn't give up. I couldn't say no to, and that was our master's degrees.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] They offered to pay for it at Fairleigh Dickinson University and.

[Assistant] In New Jersey?

[User] Yes, in New Jersey. And at the time I matriculated through the Rutherford campus, which no longer exists. But that was how I got my master's degree, because AT&T offered to pay.

[Assistant] And what was your bachelor's and master's degree in?


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

[User] They offered to pay for it at Fairleigh Dickinson University and.

[Assistant] In New Jersey?

[User] Yes, in New Jersey. And at the time I matriculated through the Rutherford campus, which no longer exists. But that was how I got my master's degree, because AT&T offered to pay.

[Assistant] And what was your bachelor's and master's degree in?

[User] My bachelor's degree is in psychology with a minor in history, and my master's degree is in finance. I have an MBA in finance.

[Assistant] So what did you do at, um, at AT&T?


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

[User] Yes, in New Jersey. And at the time I matriculated through the Rutherford campus, which no longer exists. But that was how I got my master's degree, because AT&T offered to pay.

[Assistant] And what was your bachelor's and master's degree in?

[User] My bachelor's degree is in psychology with a minor in history, and my master's degree is in finance. I have an MBA in finance.

[Assistant] So what did you do at, um, at AT&T?

[User] Well, it's interesting, because when I told my advisor in college that I wanted I was going to major in psychology and minor in history, he said, and just what do you plan to do with that? And I said, I plan to get a job with a company that wants a college graduate and does not care what their major is in.

[Assistant] Well, you knew that.


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

[User] My bachelor's degree is in psychology with a minor in history, and my master's degree is in finance. I have an MBA in finance.

[Assistant] So what did you do at, um, at AT&T?

[User] Well, it's interesting, because when I told my advisor in college that I wanted I was going to major in psychology and minor in history, he said, and just what do you plan to do with that? And I said, I plan to get a job with a company that wants a college graduate and does not care what their major is in.

[Assistant] Well, you knew that.

[User] I found the job, AT&T. There were lots of us that they hired as security owner correspondents.

[Assistant] Say that again?


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

[User] Security owner correspondents.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] So what I did, um, I communicated with the shareholders and the bond holders any questions that they had, which meant that I needed to learn something about stocks and bonds.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] So they had classes for us and we learned all of this. We learned all about wills and trusts, because some of the people, when they, when relatives or someone else would die, they would need to transfer that stock and the bonds into someone else's name. And, you know, we needed to see certain documentation. So it was, it was a good intro into business as well as estates. So.

[Assistant] So you really didn't have much to do with telephones?


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

[User] So what I did, um, I communicated with the shareholders and the bond holders any questions that they had, which meant that I needed to learn something about stocks and bonds.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] So they had classes for us and we learned all of this. We learned all about wills and trusts, because some of the people, when they, when relatives or someone else would die, they would need to transfer that stock and the bonds into someone else's name. And, you know, we needed to see certain documentation. So it was, it was a good intro into business as well as estates. So.

[Assistant] So you really didn't have much to do with telephones?

[User] Oh, no, I had absolutely nothing to do with telephones. It was the, it was dealing with the shareholders.

[Assistant] So how did you end up in Oakland, California?


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

[User]
Well, after I got my master's degree, I decided that I wanted a change. You know, once again in my mind, I'm thinking I want to work and live in a foreign country. And so I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And my brother, who lived in Oakland, California, said, well, why don't you come here? So I packed my bags and I moved to Oakland, California, and I worked in a bank there and, uh, it wasn't really what I wanted to do. And I kept looking for other positions and that one Sunday. I didn't usually buy the San Francisco Chronicle, but that Sunday I went out and bought the San Francisco Chronicle, and as I was looking through the want ads there it was. Peace Corps Kenya.

So why did you want to live overseas? Why did you want to work overseas?

I have no idea. It's just that I've always had this desire to travel and to do things. I remember when I was in the fifth grade, 1959, that's when Alaska became a state. That's when Hawaii became a state. To this day, I cannot remember anything about a class where my teacher talked about Hawaii. I'm sure she did, but I have no recollection of it. But I do remember Alaska, and I remember her talking about Sitka being the capital of Alaska when Russia owned Alaska. And I kept saying, you know, here's this little girl in a rural area, little Black girl. And she said, I want to go to Alaska. I had no idea how I would ever get there, but.

[Assistant] You did.

[User] I made it there. Yes.

[Assistant] Well, good.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What was your, so you applied, they responded, and they took you?


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

[User] I made it there. Yes.

[Assistant] Well, good.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What was your, so you applied, they responded, and they took you?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How long did that take? Is that a?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] What was your, so you applied, they responded, and they took you?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How long did that take? Is that a?

[User]
I believe it was in July that I applied and I was accepted right away because the month of August I left Oakland and spent the month of August in South Carolina with my mother. So then when I went back to Oakland, I had to go through my physical, and my physical was at the Alameda Naval Base. So I went through that. The doctor did not really want to pass me because I have bunions on my feet. And I'm like, they've been there as long as I can remember. And so he had me do some exercises, and so he said, okay, you can go.

Then, uh, in October we went to Philadelphia, and that's where we had our staging. And of course, we had to go through all these psychological tests and there were more health things that were involved. And of course, I come across this ophthalmologist who does not want me to go because of my eyesight. And at the time I was wearing contact lenses. So I convinced him that I could wear ski goggles. I don't know. I don't ski. I have never been on skis, but I have seen people in ski gear. And I said, well, I can wear ski goggles. So he said.

[Assistant] The problem, the problem was that you had contact lenses?