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

[User] Yeah, flat top.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. So when we got to Santa Cruz and where did you end up?

[User] Uh the place we all stayed for just a night or two before we start started being dispersed to our area. There's a pension and I remember that we stayed there. No, I think when we got there it was probably afternoon or something like that. And we were sitting around at these tables and somebody had mentioned maybe Israel clerk had said something about them. They would bring us coffee and a roll or something. And we were sitting there and kind of expecting this because we've been told to expect it. And it turned out that the people running the place didn't do that except in the morning they would bring your coffee rolls. And so they finally, I think, did start to bring but it was something that they didn't expect, as we found out. But that's the only thing I remember about that particular time we went in there and.

[Assistant] So then where were you posted?

[User] In Santa Cruz.

[Assistant] Right, in Santa Cruz?


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

[User] Uh the place we all stayed for just a night or two before we start started being dispersed to our area. There's a pension and I remember that we stayed there. No, I think when we got there it was probably afternoon or something like that. And we were sitting around at these tables and somebody had mentioned maybe Israel clerk had said something about them. They would bring us coffee and a roll or something. And we were sitting there and kind of expecting this because we've been told to expect it. And it turned out that the people running the place didn't do that except in the morning they would bring your coffee rolls. And so they finally, I think, did start to bring but it was something that they didn't expect, as we found out. But that's the only thing I remember about that particular time we went in there and.

[Assistant] So then where were you posted?

[User] In Santa Cruz.

[Assistant] Right, in Santa Cruz?

[User] Yes, right in.

[Assistant] And with what


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

[User] In Santa Cruz.

[Assistant] Right, in Santa Cruz?

[User] Yes, right in.

[Assistant] And with what

[User] Oh, let’s see, the AG Extension Agency, I was working with a man who was a veterinarian there, and I worked part time with him and with four cops and I worked with another veterinarian. And my job there was to help them take blood samples to check for brucellosis in the urine. So I alternated between those two officers.

[Assistant] So how did you like that?


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

[User] Yes, right in.

[Assistant] And with what

[User] Oh, let’s see, the AG Extension Agency, I was working with a man who was a veterinarian there, and I worked part time with him and with four cops and I worked with another veterinarian. And my job there was to help them take blood samples to check for brucellosis in the urine. So I alternated between those two officers.

[Assistant] So how did you like that?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were the people that you work with pretty easy?


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

[User] Oh, let’s see, the AG Extension Agency, I was working with a man who was a veterinarian there, and I worked part time with him and with four cops and I worked with another veterinarian. And my job there was to help them take blood samples to check for brucellosis in the urine. So I alternated between those two officers.

[Assistant] So how did you like that?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were the people that you work with pretty easy?

[User] Yes. Wonderful people.

[Assistant] How about the language?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were the people that you work with pretty easy?

[User] Yes. Wonderful people.

[Assistant] How about the language?

[User] No problem.

[Assistant] Had you had Spanish before you came in?


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

[User] Yes. Wonderful people.

[Assistant] How about the language?

[User] No problem.

[Assistant] Had you had Spanish before you came in?

[User] Yes to that mainly was the polishing, the speech, you know, the length of the grammar as far as the how the structure, but becoming fluent. In other words, you can speak without a lot of infinitives, things like that.

[Assistant] Yeah, there were some people never did get out of the end. So that were you stayed working the whole time you were there?


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

[User] No problem.

[Assistant] Had you had Spanish before you came in?

[User] Yes to that mainly was the polishing, the speech, you know, the length of the grammar as far as the how the structure, but becoming fluent. In other words, you can speak without a lot of infinitives, things like that.

[Assistant] Yeah, there were some people never did get out of the end. So that were you stayed working the whole time you were there?

[User] When that was made? That was the only place I worked with those to do offices.

[Assistant] Can you remember about midway through how you were feeling?


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

[User] Yes to that mainly was the polishing, the speech, you know, the length of the grammar as far as the how the structure, but becoming fluent. In other words, you can speak without a lot of infinitives, things like that.

[Assistant] Yeah, there were some people never did get out of the end. So that were you stayed working the whole time you were there?

[User] When that was made? That was the only place I worked with those to do offices.

[Assistant] Can you remember about midway through how you were feeling?

[User] The one problem I remember is that they ran out of the antigen to check for brucellosis. And so for me, it was several months that they were waiting for this and we had nothing of that type to do from that office. And that was frustrating because there wasn't really enough from the other office to keep me busy. And so I was kind of like go to this one office, which we were testing for brucellosis, and I would try to help out there and see what needs to be done. But he was a little bit frustrating. I know Jim Herberger and I wish we could have been sent out into the middle of the jungle, you know, basic agricultural practices. But he said, no, we're not to do that. I was actually looking at my one concern with the job that I had was that in my replacing a Bolivian that could be paid to do this.

[Assistant] There was a concern I had as well, and I actually was the beginning. Yeah. So what do you remember, particularly from that first year and a particular incidents or adventures or whatever, what did you do when you weren't working?


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

[User] When that was made? That was the only place I worked with those to do offices.

[Assistant] Can you remember about midway through how you were feeling?

[User] The one problem I remember is that they ran out of the antigen to check for brucellosis. And so for me, it was several months that they were waiting for this and we had nothing of that type to do from that office. And that was frustrating because there wasn't really enough from the other office to keep me busy. And so I was kind of like go to this one office, which we were testing for brucellosis, and I would try to help out there and see what needs to be done. But he was a little bit frustrating. I know Jim Herberger and I wish we could have been sent out into the middle of the jungle, you know, basic agricultural practices. But he said, no, we're not to do that. I was actually looking at my one concern with the job that I had was that in my replacing a Bolivian that could be paid to do this.

[Assistant] There was a concern I had as well, and I actually was the beginning. Yeah. So what do you remember, particularly from that first year and a particular incidents or adventures or whatever, what did you do when you weren't working?

[User] Um, well, let's see. The Bolivian American center, I got acquainted with Dan Ritter, who was had been put in place directing that, and he asked me if I would be interested in teaching English to Spanish speaking people. And at first I demurred. And he said, well, I don't know. And he kept asking me and I said, OK, so I started teaching Spanish or English. And I had one class, which were students from about 10 to about 13 and another class, which was adults. And I found out I liked it. I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] Yeah. But before then, no?


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

[User] The one problem I remember is that they ran out of the antigen to check for brucellosis. And so for me, it was several months that they were waiting for this and we had nothing of that type to do from that office. And that was frustrating because there wasn't really enough from the other office to keep me busy. And so I was kind of like go to this one office, which we were testing for brucellosis, and I would try to help out there and see what needs to be done. But he was a little bit frustrating. I know Jim Herberger and I wish we could have been sent out into the middle of the jungle, you know, basic agricultural practices. But he said, no, we're not to do that. I was actually looking at my one concern with the job that I had was that in my replacing a Bolivian that could be paid to do this.

[Assistant] There was a concern I had as well, and I actually was the beginning. Yeah. So what do you remember, particularly from that first year and a particular incidents or adventures or whatever, what did you do when you weren't working?

[User] Um, well, let's see. The Bolivian American center, I got acquainted with Dan Ritter, who was had been put in place directing that, and he asked me if I would be interested in teaching English to Spanish speaking people. And at first I demurred. And he said, well, I don't know. And he kept asking me and I said, OK, so I started teaching Spanish or English. And I had one class, which were students from about 10 to about 13 and another class, which was adults. And I found out I liked it. I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] Yeah. But before then, no?

[User] No, I, uh, I never thought about teaching as a career, but I enjoyed that.

[Assistant] So what, uh, can you tell me about some of the things that you did other than say teaching?


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

[User] Um, well, let's see. The Bolivian American center, I got acquainted with Dan Ritter, who was had been put in place directing that, and he asked me if I would be interested in teaching English to Spanish speaking people. And at first I demurred. And he said, well, I don't know. And he kept asking me and I said, OK, so I started teaching Spanish or English. And I had one class, which were students from about 10 to about 13 and another class, which was adults. And I found out I liked it. I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] Yeah. But before then, no?

[User] No, I, uh, I never thought about teaching as a career, but I enjoyed that.

[Assistant] So what, uh, can you tell me about some of the things that you did other than say teaching?

[User] Oh, yeah, let's see, um.

[Assistant] Were you there during any of the Carnival activities?


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

[User] No, I, uh, I never thought about teaching as a career, but I enjoyed that.

[Assistant] So what, uh, can you tell me about some of the things that you did other than say teaching?

[User] Oh, yeah, let's see, um.

[Assistant] Were you there during any of the Carnival activities?

[User] Yeah, although I didn't, uh, I went I went to, uh, I guess one of the carnival activities, but I was more a spectator than anything else just to see these people, see what was going on. Um, but the things I remember were things that happened on the job. Um. See, there was one case where I was taking a blood sample from this cow, she was laying down and she reached up with her hind foot and just clipped me across the belt. And I rolled over backwards to do the somersault and the campesinos that were there got a big bang out of that. Another time, I was taking blood samples from a bull, which we didn't have to do. And we told the owner, we don't have to test bulls, but I want you to test me for. Well, you had these huge horns and they'd been cut off, fortunately, in the end. What about that big around? And they had his head tied to this skull. Well, I was taking this blood sample and of course, thick skin working, getting that needle in. And then that head came around right in the middle of the forehead, right near the end of the swing.

[Assistant] Just with one of the horns. Yeah, it was a flat part.


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

[User] Oh, yeah, let's see, um.

[Assistant] Were you there during any of the Carnival activities?

[User] Yeah, although I didn't, uh, I went I went to, uh, I guess one of the carnival activities, but I was more a spectator than anything else just to see these people, see what was going on. Um, but the things I remember were things that happened on the job. Um. See, there was one case where I was taking a blood sample from this cow, she was laying down and she reached up with her hind foot and just clipped me across the belt. And I rolled over backwards to do the somersault and the campesinos that were there got a big bang out of that. Another time, I was taking blood samples from a bull, which we didn't have to do. And we told the owner, we don't have to test bulls, but I want you to test me for. Well, you had these huge horns and they'd been cut off, fortunately, in the end. What about that big around? And they had his head tied to this skull. Well, I was taking this blood sample and of course, thick skin working, getting that needle in. And then that head came around right in the middle of the forehead, right near the end of the swing.

[Assistant] Just with one of the horns. Yeah, it was a flat part.

[User] I want to see on another time that talking about road conditions, have you ever met a pothole which was so steep and deep that even a four wheel drive vehicle with a winch couldn't pull it out of the hole? I broke the cable on the winch kind of thing back there, wove the thing back together and then got a tire, too, and made a ramp out of the hole. I got my sign out, but, yeah, those are the things that are interesting challenges.

[Assistant] Because they were quite a few challenges trying to drive around in the Santa Cruz area. Did you ever go out to the Okinawan Colony?


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

[User] I want to see on another time that talking about road conditions, have you ever met a pothole which was so steep and deep that even a four wheel drive vehicle with a winch couldn't pull it out of the hole? I broke the cable on the winch kind of thing back there, wove the thing back together and then got a tire, too, and made a ramp out of the hole. I got my sign out, but, yeah, those are the things that are interesting challenges.

[Assistant] Because they were quite a few challenges trying to drive around in the Santa Cruz area. Did you ever go out to the Okinawan Colony?

[User] No, I never got out there that I can recall. One thing I was assigned to do, though, was to help a new Chinese settlement. And they wanted me to go out there and teach them how to use the tractor. And fortunately, the tractor they had was a John Deere A and I cut my teeth on the John Deere A. So I was able to show them what they can do.

[Assistant] Fortunately it wasn’t some Russian tractor. Yeah, yeah. OK, but I didn't know you had gotten involved and I didn't know a lot of the things that you could do it because I was so focused on how I was with you today.

[User] I think a lot of us were that way. I mean, we had our jobs and so many of us were so far away geographically. Well, not so far in miles. But, you know, we couldn't get there and we didn't see each other, but once in a while. So we really didn't know what the other people were doing except on occasion we would get together and talk the other day to day, basis, why of course.

[Assistant] I think just as an observation, I think the people in Cochabamba were much closer together because were each other more often. So tell me about some of the jungle tours that you do you have heard.


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

[User] No, I never got out there that I can recall. One thing I was assigned to do, though, was to help a new Chinese settlement. And they wanted me to go out there and teach them how to use the tractor. And fortunately, the tractor they had was a John Deere A and I cut my teeth on the John Deere A. So I was able to show them what they can do.

[Assistant] Fortunately it wasn’t some Russian tractor. Yeah, yeah. OK, but I didn't know you had gotten involved and I didn't know a lot of the things that you could do it because I was so focused on how I was with you today.

[User] I think a lot of us were that way. I mean, we had our jobs and so many of us were so far away geographically. Well, not so far in miles. But, you know, we couldn't get there and we didn't see each other, but once in a while. So we really didn't know what the other people were doing except on occasion we would get together and talk the other day to day, basis, why of course.

[Assistant] I think just as an observation, I think the people in Cochabamba were much closer together because were each other more often. So tell me about some of the jungle tours that you do you have heard.

[User] Well, we had 30 days vacation, two to three day vacation periods during the year. And we heard talk about some people going to Rio de Janeiro over the holidays. So a place like this and. I had no interest in it. I'm not a tourist or type. I don't care to go to cities. I don't care to go to shows necessarily. And apparently Jim is the same type. And I was thinking, well, what am I going to do with my vacation? And one day Jim said, no, I'm just let's build a raft float down the river. I said, good. So we spent nine months every weekend doing that building. Eventually, they take a trip.

[Assistant] Were you able to actually get down where you meant to go?


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

[User] I think a lot of us were that way. I mean, we had our jobs and so many of us were so far away geographically. Well, not so far in miles. But, you know, we couldn't get there and we didn't see each other, but once in a while. So we really didn't know what the other people were doing except on occasion we would get together and talk the other day to day, basis, why of course.

[Assistant] I think just as an observation, I think the people in Cochabamba were much closer together because were each other more often. So tell me about some of the jungle tours that you do you have heard.

[User] Well, we had 30 days vacation, two to three day vacation periods during the year. And we heard talk about some people going to Rio de Janeiro over the holidays. So a place like this and. I had no interest in it. I'm not a tourist or type. I don't care to go to cities. I don't care to go to shows necessarily. And apparently Jim is the same type. And I was thinking, well, what am I going to do with my vacation? And one day Jim said, no, I'm just let's build a raft float down the river. I said, good. So we spent nine months every weekend doing that building. Eventually, they take a trip.

[Assistant] Were you able to actually get down where you meant to go?

[User] Yes, that's right. It took us a little longer than we expected. And we had a few very exciting times, but we accomplished what we wanted to do and we were very happy with it.

[Assistant] What kind of exciting time?


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

[User] So we saw nothing of that sort. They told us to watch for piranhas, but during the flood stage, the water was so roiled up and so muddy that nothing was. I don't know where the fish go, but they weren't biting. Yeah. And we during the night, toward the end of the, uh, I think it was the Rio Grande, they just before we got to the moment we saw some freshwater porpoise, that was the only thing we saw that was in the water.

[Assistant] So after you got down there, was it Trinidad that you went to, how did you get that point?

[User] We had we had this planned out when we got to Trinidad and we knew we could get a plane back to Cochabamba or Santa Cruz, which city we landed in. But that was planned out for.

[Assistant] So would you say that was a highlight?

[User] Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely, yes.

[Assistant] And how long did it take you actually?


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

[User] Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely, yes.

[Assistant] And how long did it take you actually?

[User] I believe it was 33 days.

[Assistant] Thirty-three days.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you lose some weight?


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

[User] I believe it was 33 days.

[Assistant] Thirty-three days.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you lose some weight?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well you lost all your canned food. So, um, are there any can you think of any other experiences that you will particularly stand out in your mind?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did you lose some weight?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well you lost all your canned food. So, um, are there any can you think of any other experiences that you will particularly stand out in your mind?

[User] Uh, I worked with a Bolivian, Julio Flores, who became a very good friend. So I was his American brother and he was my Bolivian brother. He was unusually tall for Indian, same height I was. And we got along just famously. But, yeah, that was interesting. I enjoyed working with the two veterinarians at. I wish I could remember the one’s name, the one I enjoyed working with more. I can't remember his name. I believe he came to the States and he told me he'd come to the States for some training. But those two gentlemen were. Yeah, I enjoyed working with him and the whole the whole office there, the, um. Our culture in the office.

[Assistant] So you have you maintained contact with him?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well you lost all your canned food. So, um, are there any can you think of any other experiences that you will particularly stand out in your mind?

[User] Uh, I worked with a Bolivian, Julio Flores, who became a very good friend. So I was his American brother and he was my Bolivian brother. He was unusually tall for Indian, same height I was. And we got along just famously. But, yeah, that was interesting. I enjoyed working with the two veterinarians at. I wish I could remember the one’s name, the one I enjoyed working with more. I can't remember his name. I believe he came to the States and he told me he'd come to the States for some training. But those two gentlemen were. Yeah, I enjoyed working with him and the whole the whole office there, the, um. Our culture in the office.

[Assistant] So you have you maintained contact with him?

[User] No, I haven't. No, I think we exchanged one letter between Julio Flores and myself. But other than that, no, we lost contact.

[Assistant] So when you think back about what you did in Bolivia, do you think, um, how do you think you could change what you ended up the trajectory that you as your life, for example, or what you ended up doing? Would you have done the same thing had you not gone into the Peace Corps?


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

[User] No, I haven't. No, I think we exchanged one letter between Julio Flores and myself. But other than that, no, we lost contact.

[Assistant] So when you think back about what you did in Bolivia, do you think, um, how do you think you could change what you ended up the trajectory that you as your life, for example, or what you ended up doing? Would you have done the same thing had you not gone into the Peace Corps?

[User] That's somewhat difficult to say, because I had planned on going into veterinary medicine before I left and I continued that I completed my education toward that goal. And after I finished my undergraduate work, I had gotten married in the meantime, and my wife was helping put me through college. I was working part time doing college full time. So when I finished it and got the degree why I had planned to go into veterinary school, but finances were pretty tight and so my wife suggested that you better get it maybe when you're getting a job for at least a year. OK, there aren't any jobs available. Well, the school district over here just 50 miles away looking for teachers, I said teach. You better think about that because we do need a job. So I went over there and I applied and they gave me a contract and I started teaching. And after the first year, uh, I thought, you know, I like this. I enjoy this.

[Assistant] What were you teaching?

[User] Uh, there I was teaching junior high science, eighth grade start with. But I again, I had never intended to go into teaching, but, uh. It was something that I found out. I enjoyed this, and so I never intended to make a career of I just went one year after the next. After the next.

[Assistant] All of a sudden it was a career.


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

[User] That's somewhat difficult to say, because I had planned on going into veterinary medicine before I left and I continued that I completed my education toward that goal. And after I finished my undergraduate work, I had gotten married in the meantime, and my wife was helping put me through college. I was working part time doing college full time. So when I finished it and got the degree why I had planned to go into veterinary school, but finances were pretty tight and so my wife suggested that you better get it maybe when you're getting a job for at least a year. OK, there aren't any jobs available. Well, the school district over here just 50 miles away looking for teachers, I said teach. You better think about that because we do need a job. So I went over there and I applied and they gave me a contract and I started teaching. And after the first year, uh, I thought, you know, I like this. I enjoy this.

[Assistant] What were you teaching?

[User] Uh, there I was teaching junior high science, eighth grade start with. But I again, I had never intended to go into teaching, but, uh. It was something that I found out. I enjoyed this, and so I never intended to make a career of I just went one year after the next. After the next.

[Assistant] All of a sudden it was a career.

[User] Not all of a sudden, it took thirty six years.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. Well, that's pretty amazing. So when did you ever have any health problems?


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

[User] Uh, there I was teaching junior high science, eighth grade start with. But I again, I had never intended to go into teaching, but, uh. It was something that I found out. I enjoyed this, and so I never intended to make a career of I just went one year after the next. After the next.

[Assistant] All of a sudden it was a career.

[User] Not all of a sudden, it took thirty six years.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. Well, that's pretty amazing. So when did you ever have any health problems?

[User] And only when I first got down to Santa Cruz. I had a little trouble adjusting to the diet for a few weeks. But other than that, nothing.

[Assistant] Yeah. And so, uh, in terms of what you did down there, how did you how do you feel about you feel like you were able to make a contribution or how did you feel?


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

[User] Not all of a sudden, it took thirty six years.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. Well, that's pretty amazing. So when did you ever have any health problems?

[User] And only when I first got down to Santa Cruz. I had a little trouble adjusting to the diet for a few weeks. But other than that, nothing.

[Assistant] Yeah. And so, uh, in terms of what you did down there, how did you how do you feel about you feel like you were able to make a contribution or how did you feel?

[User] Well, again, the job I was doing was something that was not wasted. But in the one case, working with, uh, taking blood samples, I was concerned because while I was there, they let one of the technicians go. And I asked the veterinarian, I said am I replacing him, he said no. He said the funding has been cut. And he said and he said, we can't keep him regardless whether you're here or not. So and he wasn't doing their blood testing anyway. That was not his function. So I thought that maybe I could have been you'd been more useful in other areas, but that was the job I enjoyed the most, actually. So he really didn't want to give it up. As far as what we're trying to accomplish. But I think that’s hard to say, because it may it affected me, did I affect the Bolivianos? Who knows? I hope it did. You know, I hope that was a positive experience for them.

[Assistant] Do you think they were able to understand a little bit more about Americans from knowing you?


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

[User] The ones I worked with, they were wonderful. I mean. I couldn't ask for any better compatriots as far as working. And along the river, when we finally got to a place where there were settlements, when they saw that raft coming in, we stopped where people just swarmed. We want to know what you were doing here. So when they realized they were we were gringos and we had come down the river and this nobody does this. It was an interesting experience for them. And us both. Yeah.

[Assistant] Um, I often had thought that one of the things we did was volunteers was push boundaries, but, you know, because they were a lot of traditions there. And while we tried to work with them, I think a lot of times the things we did push some of those boundaries, like, your raft, you know, coming down the river on the raft. So do you think that experience, uh, say, helped you in your years teaching?

[User] Maybe the experience I had in teaching helped me to understand the difficulties that students would have in learning the material. Because trying to teach, especially the adult class, the kids would catch on pretty quick, the adults at some of them were having a tough time. And trying to understand their difficulty, I think helped me to try and understand my students difficulties in understanding and them getting material. Um, well, I guess I wouldn't be having to do with the experience though.

[Assistant] Well, I mean, you're, uh, you were teaching down there. Uh, do you think that just all the different people that you met helped you to understand? Did you have much diversity in your classes?

[User] Um, not a lot, pretty homogenous. Uh, northern Illinois at that time, there was very little minority groups.

[Assistant] Well, all in all, do you feel are you glad you were in Peace Corps?


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

[User] Maybe the experience I had in teaching helped me to understand the difficulties that students would have in learning the material. Because trying to teach, especially the adult class, the kids would catch on pretty quick, the adults at some of them were having a tough time. And trying to understand their difficulty, I think helped me to try and understand my students difficulties in understanding and them getting material. Um, well, I guess I wouldn't be having to do with the experience though.

[Assistant] Well, I mean, you're, uh, you were teaching down there. Uh, do you think that just all the different people that you met helped you to understand? Did you have much diversity in your classes?

[User] Um, not a lot, pretty homogenous. Uh, northern Illinois at that time, there was very little minority groups.

[Assistant] Well, all in all, do you feel are you glad you were in Peace Corps?

[User] Oh, yes, I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] So you think it was a positive experience?


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

[User] Um, not a lot, pretty homogenous. Uh, northern Illinois at that time, there was very little minority groups.

[Assistant] Well, all in all, do you feel are you glad you were in Peace Corps?

[User] Oh, yes, I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] So you think it was a positive experience?

[User] For me, definitely, and I hope for the people I contacted or was put in contact with down there and I hope works for me, definitely very enjoyable.

[Assistant] Well, do you have anything else you’d like, any other I can think of something that we haven't talked about that stands out in your mind? Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated?


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

[User] Oh, yes, I enjoyed it.

[Assistant] So you think it was a positive experience?

[User] For me, definitely, and I hope for the people I contacted or was put in contact with down there and I hope works for me, definitely very enjoyable.

[Assistant] Well, do you have anything else you’d like, any other I can think of something that we haven't talked about that stands out in your mind? Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated?

[User] Oh, yes. Yeah. Um, at the leprosy colony.

[Assistant] Oh, you were at it?


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

[User] For me, definitely, and I hope for the people I contacted or was put in contact with down there and I hope works for me, definitely very enjoyable.

[Assistant] Well, do you have anything else you’d like, any other I can think of something that we haven't talked about that stands out in your mind? Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated?

[User] Oh, yes. Yeah. Um, at the leprosy colony.

[Assistant] Oh, you were at it?

[User] Yeah, I had been asked to drive Dr. Gray for some reason up to there. And I didn't understand why at first because I thought he was just coming back to Santa Cruz. I thought, well, why is he want me to drive him and bring him back. When I found out he was on his way to La Paz. So I had I had driven him to the leper colony and we were there and I was out in the field just walking around and somebody came out and said President Kennedy had shot. So, yeah, that particular image is in.

[Assistant] So what was the reaction of the people around you?


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

[User] Oh, yes. Yeah. Um, at the leprosy colony.

[Assistant] Oh, you were at it?

[User] Yeah, I had been asked to drive Dr. Gray for some reason up to there. And I didn't understand why at first because I thought he was just coming back to Santa Cruz. I thought, well, why is he want me to drive him and bring him back. When I found out he was on his way to La Paz. So I had I had driven him to the leper colony and we were there and I was out in the field just walking around and somebody came out and said President Kennedy had shot. So, yeah, that particular image is in.

[Assistant] So what was the reaction of the people around you?

[User] Well, I mean, when we got back to the hotel with the building, we were just standing around and just kind of shaking our hands and, you know, I suppose some people were crying, I don't remember for sure, but I suppose we all felt kind of, good grief. This is a terrible thing.

[Assistant] Ok, well, if you don't have anything else that you want to add to this, then I guess we're done.


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

[User] Yeah, I had been asked to drive Dr. Gray for some reason up to there. And I didn't understand why at first because I thought he was just coming back to Santa Cruz. I thought, well, why is he want me to drive him and bring him back. When I found out he was on his way to La Paz. So I had I had driven him to the leper colony and we were there and I was out in the field just walking around and somebody came out and said President Kennedy had shot. So, yeah, that particular image is in.

[Assistant] So what was the reaction of the people around you?

[User] Well, I mean, when we got back to the hotel with the building, we were just standing around and just kind of shaking our hands and, you know, I suppose some people were crying, I don't remember for sure, but I suppose we all felt kind of, good grief. This is a terrible thing.

[Assistant] Ok, well, if you don't have anything else that you want to add to this, then I guess we're done.

[User] OK.

[Assistant] And thank you.


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

[User] You're welcome.

[Assistant] We'd like to begin with you sharing with us how you first became interested in aviation.

[User] Oh, first became interested in aviation. Well, as you mentioned before, I'm borderline actuarially challenged. I was an impressionable young lad during World War II. My father was a chief petty officer in the Navy and in World War II was in the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Coral Sea. I was biased toward Navy, anyway, and aviation in general, and just decided at that time, at a very young age, that I wanted to be a naval aviator, and that desire stayed with me. So it's from the time I was ten, eleven, twelve years old.

[Assistant] You set your career path then. What were your first steps? What did you do after you made that decision?

[User] I got an [N]ROTC [Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps] scholarship to Penn State and got a commission as an ensign out of that. I had an instructor, and perhaps misguided at the time, I had intended to make a Navy career. I had an instructor at the ROTC unit there, who said as long as I was going to do that, I ought to go to sea first. So I did go to sea on a destroyer off the West Coast for about a year and a half, before I went to flight training.\n\n It's one of those experiences you look back on, and I'm not sorry I did it, but I wouldn't do it again, because it put me a year and a half behind my contemporaries who got their commission either out of colleges or the [U.S.] Naval Academy and went directly into flight training. So when I got to my first squadron, V[A]-44, Al [Alan L.] Bean and I were squadron mates in that squadron, and Al had already been there for a year and a half by the time I got there, for example.

[Assistant] Then what was your next step after that? How did you keep moving through toward—


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

[User] Oh, first became interested in aviation. Well, as you mentioned before, I'm borderline actuarially challenged. I was an impressionable young lad during World War II. My father was a chief petty officer in the Navy and in World War II was in the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Coral Sea. I was biased toward Navy, anyway, and aviation in general, and just decided at that time, at a very young age, that I wanted to be a naval aviator, and that desire stayed with me. So it's from the time I was ten, eleven, twelve years old.

[Assistant] You set your career path then. What were your first steps? What did you do after you made that decision?

[User] I got an [N]ROTC [Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps] scholarship to Penn State and got a commission as an ensign out of that. I had an instructor, and perhaps misguided at the time, I had intended to make a Navy career. I had an instructor at the ROTC unit there, who said as long as I was going to do that, I ought to go to sea first. So I did go to sea on a destroyer off the West Coast for about a year and a half, before I went to flight training.\n\n It's one of those experiences you look back on, and I'm not sorry I did it, but I wouldn't do it again, because it put me a year and a half behind my contemporaries who got their commission either out of colleges or the [U.S.] Naval Academy and went directly into flight training. So when I got to my first squadron, V[A]-44, Al [Alan L.] Bean and I were squadron mates in that squadron, and Al had already been there for a year and a half by the time I got there, for example.

[Assistant] Then what was your next step after that? How did you keep moving through toward—

[User] Jeez, you want an autobiography.

[Assistant] Yes, we do.


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

[User] It must have been about that time. I think Apollo 20 had been scratched before then, and about this time was when 18 and 19 were scratched. Then we started working on Skylab, so it probably was about 1970, I would guess, the middle of 1970. Deke had the Astronaut Office form a little Skylab Office, headed by [R. Walter] Walt Cunningham at the time. Joe [Joseph P.] Kerwin was in it, Jack Lousma. We went through the whole thing at Skylab originally.\n\n Are you familiar with the wet workshop/dry workshop concept, where the workshop is going to have to be two launches? Jack and I spent many, many hours in the water tanks both at Houston and at Huntsville, because we had to take plugs down to put in the drains from the functioning S-IVB stage to make it habitable. So we did that.\n\n The Apollo telescope mount was on a separate launch, so then we were investigating a feasibility of remotely controlled docking of the ATM [Apollo Telescope Mount]. Anyway, we went through all that, so I guess it probably was right after Apollo 13 that I was assigned to work in the Skylab Office Group within the Astronaut Office. But I couldn't tell you when the crews were announced.

[Assistant] Were you surprised that you were put on that crew?

[User] I don't remember. Maybe I thought it was about time.

[Assistant] How were your feelings of knowing the first time you were going to fly, you were going to be there for a while?

[User] Oh, that was all right. It was flying. These guys had it pretty easy. Bruce McCandless [II] had to wait sixteen or seventeen years for his first flight. By '73, I'd been there eight years, seven years, whatever it was. '66 to '73, seven years. So I think it probably was a general feeling of relief in being finally named to a crew and given something to do.

[Assistant] Did you have a specialization that you trained for before you launched? Was there something that specifically you were in charge of, or that you felt—


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

[User] I don't remember. Maybe I thought it was about time.

[Assistant] How were your feelings of knowing the first time you were going to fly, you were going to be there for a while?

[User] Oh, that was all right. It was flying. These guys had it pretty easy. Bruce McCandless [II] had to wait sixteen or seventeen years for his first flight. By '73, I'd been there eight years, seven years, whatever it was. '66 to '73, seven years. So I think it probably was a general feeling of relief in being finally named to a crew and given something to do.

[Assistant] Did you have a specialization that you trained for before you launched? Was there something that specifically you were in charge of, or that you felt—

[User] Yes, the EREP package, the Earth Resources Experiment Package. EREP.

[Assistant] Could you share with us some of the details?


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

[User] Yes, the EREP package, the Earth Resources Experiment Package. EREP.

[Assistant] Could you share with us some of the details?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] You know, Skylab, first launch, we were considered—they had this screwy system, they had a Roman numeral system and an Arabic numeral system, so we always went by Skylab II, the first manned launch, crew, first crew. They basically had three primary objectives since Skylab was medical, earth resources and solar. Of course, being the twenty-eight-day mission, then the prime on ours was the medical stuff. Joe Kerwin, being an M.D., obviously then he was the principal contact on the crew for the medical protocol, they called them, not experiments. They were called experiments at the time, I think.\n\n We kind of all shared, the three of us, since we were all solar physics dummies, we all shared our non-expertise with the ATM, Apollo Telescope Mount. We were probably about equally proficient, whatever that means, whether it was good or bad, but at least we did get to record a solar flare toward the end of our mission, so we got that. Then, of course, the earth resources stuff. It just fell out that I was tagged to monitor development of the hardware and the crew interface with it, because they had the wide, I guess it was one-inch tape, probably, to record data for some of the sensors, some microwave sensors. We had multispectral cameras and a large five-inch format camera, etc. Plus we had the EVAs. We had a scheduled EVA also, of which we were only doing one, so Pete and Joe were prime on that one.

[Assistant] But you were very much involved in the EVA, as well, isn't that correct?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] You know, Skylab, first launch, we were considered—they had this screwy system, they had a Roman numeral system and an Arabic numeral system, so we always went by Skylab II, the first manned launch, crew, first crew. They basically had three primary objectives since Skylab was medical, earth resources and solar. Of course, being the twenty-eight-day mission, then the prime on ours was the medical stuff. Joe Kerwin, being an M.D., obviously then he was the principal contact on the crew for the medical protocol, they called them, not experiments. They were called experiments at the time, I think.\n\n We kind of all shared, the three of us, since we were all solar physics dummies, we all shared our non-expertise with the ATM, Apollo Telescope Mount. We were probably about equally proficient, whatever that means, whether it was good or bad, but at least we did get to record a solar flare toward the end of our mission, so we got that. Then, of course, the earth resources stuff. It just fell out that I was tagged to monitor development of the hardware and the crew interface with it, because they had the wide, I guess it was one-inch tape, probably, to record data for some of the sensors, some microwave sensors. We had multispectral cameras and a large five-inch format camera, etc. Plus we had the EVAs. We had a scheduled EVA also, of which we were only doing one, so Pete and Joe were prime on that one.

[Assistant] But you were very much involved in the EVA, as well, isn't that correct?

[User] Well, finally, the way it turned out, yes. But, I mean, had it gone according to the script, without damage to the workshop, I would not have got to do an EVA.

[Assistant] That's the script just got rewritten right after it launched, didn't it?


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

[User] You know, Skylab, first launch, we were considered—they had this screwy system, they had a Roman numeral system and an Arabic numeral system, so we always went by Skylab II, the first manned launch, crew, first crew. They basically had three primary objectives since Skylab was medical, earth resources and solar. Of course, being the twenty-eight-day mission, then the prime on ours was the medical stuff. Joe Kerwin, being an M.D., obviously then he was the principal contact on the crew for the medical protocol, they called them, not experiments. They were called experiments at the time, I think.\n\n We kind of all shared, the three of us, since we were all solar physics dummies, we all shared our non-expertise with the ATM, Apollo Telescope Mount. We were probably about equally proficient, whatever that means, whether it was good or bad, but at least we did get to record a solar flare toward the end of our mission, so we got that. Then, of course, the earth resources stuff. It just fell out that I was tagged to monitor development of the hardware and the crew interface with it, because they had the wide, I guess it was one-inch tape, probably, to record data for some of the sensors, some microwave sensors. We had multispectral cameras and a large five-inch format camera, etc. Plus we had the EVAs. We had a scheduled EVA also, of which we were only doing one, so Pete and Joe were prime on that one.

[Assistant] But you were very much involved in the EVA, as well, isn't that correct?

[User] Well, finally, the way it turned out, yes. But, I mean, had it gone according to the script, without damage to the workshop, I would not have got to do an EVA.

[Assistant] That's the script just got rewritten right after it launched, didn't it?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] How did you find out that there was a problem right after the launch of Skylab?


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

[User] No. No, I wouldn't say that. No, because the whole thing was what shape is the workshop in, was it inhabitable. I mean, it was holding pressure. It was responding to commands. I mean, the attitude control system was functioning. It was an atmospheric system. They flushed the atmosphere a couple of times, so we knew that we—but still 100 percent? No, because we had to get the temperatures under control. The whole thing was whether these things—that's why we launched with three. The plan was if the parasol didn't work, we would jettison it and then lay the twin-pole sunshade over it if we had enough consumables on the CSM. But we didn't know how that would turn out.\n\n It's not that we ever said, sat down and said, "Hey, Pete, what do you think our chances are of going for twenty-eight days?" We never did that. "Oh, it's 92.4," or something like that. We never did that. But certainly in my mind it was less than 100 percent that we were going to go for 28 days. It was less than 100 percent in my mind that we'd get inside the workshop because of the uncertainty.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] How about the outgassing? We didn't know whether or not it innocuous stuff in there.

[Assistant] You did settle down into some type of routine once that you got some of those situations under control.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Can you share with us what those were and how you all fell into that—


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] That's good.

[User] Yes, without hurting something. But, yes, housekeeping was an important part of every day's activities, and we shared that. We were all qualified, as it were, to work on it.

[Assistant] You've each had your space that was, I guess, yours, your sleeping area, or tell us—

[User] We each had a sleep compartment, yes. We made a point, and I don't say what's good or bad or anything, but we made a point of eating all our meals together, all three meals together. We also found that, of course, you get used to working in a new environment, and then we could do things quicker and easier, though we thought if we started asking for more work to do, that that had the potential to load the next crew up too much. I think that came to pass with the last crew, when they had the so-called mutiny, mainly because the ground just did not appreciate how much work they were giving Jerry [Gerald P.] Carr and his crew to do at the beginning of the mission. So we got to loaf a little more toward the end.\n\n Did you ask me a question?

[Assistant] Just talking about individual, you were sharing a living quarters, but yet trying to have an individual space or your own, own area that was yours and how you—


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

[User] Glad you asked. I spent my free time looking out the windows.

[Assistant] You'd mentioned that earlier. I was going to ask you, could you determine where you were by all those views? Did you know where you were at each time?

[User] Oh, yes. Plus we had what's called the orbital slider on board. Have you seen one?

[Assistant] No.

[User] It's a little—I can show you one, if you want to shut that thing down for a moment.

[Assistant] We sure can.


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

[User] Oh, yes. Plus we had what's called the orbital slider on board. Have you seen one?

[Assistant] No.

[User] It's a little—I can show you one, if you want to shut that thing down for a moment.

[Assistant] We sure can.

[User] You want to do that?

[Assistant] Yes, let's take a break and if you want to get that, we'll come back and you can show us how it works.


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

[User] It's a little—I can show you one, if you want to shut that thing down for a moment.

[Assistant] We sure can.

[User] You want to do that?

[Assistant] Yes, let's take a break and if you want to get that, we'll come back and you can show us how it works.

[User] All right. Sure. [Tape recorder turned off.]

[Assistant] We're ready, yes. Please.


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

[User] [Referring to orbital slider board] Well, anyway, this is a training article, not a flight article, so I don't want the Air and Space Museum to get mad at me, because I have something that really belongs to them. But the ground would send you up a longitude of the ascending node, which starts here. This is our ground track. So then you'd set this up here and then you could, see, and it rolls. It doesn't work so well anymore, because it's old. So you can line this up at any time, it's time-tagged here, so you could set your stopwatch to it and you go around. Then you could just see at any given time what your position was on the ground.

[Assistant] How wonderful.

[User] Well, it was convenient. It was handy.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Yes. But you could basically tell by looking out the window, too. I mean, Earth geography ought to be familiar with most everyone.

[Assistant] Do you have a favorite spot?


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

[User] Sometime in there I moved up. Sometime between officially assigned to STS-6 and coming off the LACIE Project and working on the software stuff, then, yes, I was John's deputy for a while, before he flew. They needed to fly continuity within the office. I forget who was deputy before then, but whoever it was probably left.

[Assistant] Part of your role there was that to hire other astronauts?

[User] No. No, that was a separate process. The Chief of the Astronaut Office basically is responsible to his boss, depending on whether you're flight operations or flight crew operations, for providing trained crews. So it's seeing that the needs of the assigned crews are met, that the needs of the agency as far as what training is required and what types of people are required for specific missions. Then that's the chief's responsibility, and the deputy aids him to the extent that he wants it or will accept it and take it from there.\n\n But the selection process was different. That was headed up by the director of—it was George Abbey, and I forget what his title was, because he went between FOD [Flight Operations Directorate] and FCOD [Flight Crew Operations Directorate] a couple three times in there. Maybe even MOD [Mission Operations Directorate] once, I don't remember. Probably not.\n\n Of course, all the board members, not all, but most of the board members were out of the Astronaut Office. The Astronaut Office, Abbey chaired every board, as I remember, and the bulk of the members were from the Astronaut Office. Then you had Human Resources folks in there, too.

[Assistant] Okay. About ten years passed since you launched with Skylab and when you commanded STS-6.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You trained for Skylab and you trained for Shuttle. Can you tell us what the differences were from those, and how you trained for one era of NASA's space history to another?


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

[User] Electrophoresis. But Story [Musgrave] was an M.D., so I said, "Story, electrophoresis is your baby," because they used biological materials in it, so that was his. I was the captain of the ship. If they wouldn't let me do the EVA, then gosh dang it, I was just going to use my prerogative to only do the neat stuff, other neat stuff, which wasn't much.\n\n See, it's just like flying. The junior aviators get the best job. They get to fly all the time, because they don't know any better and because they don't have that many other responsibilities. The chiefs, they've got to do paperwork and planning and all that stuff. That's the way it is in the Shuttle missions, too. The commanders, they get the big label that says "commander," but they don't get to do the fun stuff.

[Assistant] Well, did you enjoy looking out the windows of the Shuttle?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You had a little bit more, different type of view this time.

[User] Yes. Since we were kind of on constraint, and also we had some of the—a couple of the experiments called for us to observe the Earth, not with any detection system. One of them, I think, was low-light-level binoculars or something like that, so we got to the point, the top of the Orbiter, which is really the only useful window. You either had to point your nose at the Earth, or the back of the Orbiter to Earth to see anything worthwhile. So, yes, we got to look out there, but not as much as on Skylab.\n\n And just to keep things going, we didn't have the bunks in the Orbiter then like they have now, so I took my sleeping bag up on the flight deck and stretched it out horizontally.

[Assistant] Wanted to keep that going, that tradition now had been made.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You had a little bit more, different type of view this time.

[User] Yes. Since we were kind of on constraint, and also we had some of the—a couple of the experiments called for us to observe the Earth, not with any detection system. One of them, I think, was low-light-level binoculars or something like that, so we got to the point, the top of the Orbiter, which is really the only useful window. You either had to point your nose at the Earth, or the back of the Orbiter to Earth to see anything worthwhile. So, yes, we got to look out there, but not as much as on Skylab.\n\n And just to keep things going, we didn't have the bunks in the Orbiter then like they have now, so I took my sleeping bag up on the flight deck and stretched it out horizontally.

[Assistant] Wanted to keep that going, that tradition now had been made.

[User] Right. I wanted to sleep on my back. Plus it put you closer to the commander seat, if something goes wrong, which it did. We lost a computer one night in the middle of the night and I was glad I was sleeping on the flight deck then.

[Assistant] Did your crew look to you, since you were the only veteran on that trip?


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

[User] Yes. Since we were kind of on constraint, and also we had some of the—a couple of the experiments called for us to observe the Earth, not with any detection system. One of them, I think, was low-light-level binoculars or something like that, so we got to the point, the top of the Orbiter, which is really the only useful window. You either had to point your nose at the Earth, or the back of the Orbiter to Earth to see anything worthwhile. So, yes, we got to look out there, but not as much as on Skylab.\n\n And just to keep things going, we didn't have the bunks in the Orbiter then like they have now, so I took my sleeping bag up on the flight deck and stretched it out horizontally.

[Assistant] Wanted to keep that going, that tradition now had been made.

[User] Right. I wanted to sleep on my back. Plus it put you closer to the commander seat, if something goes wrong, which it did. We lost a computer one night in the middle of the night and I was glad I was sleeping on the flight deck then.

[Assistant] Did your crew look to you, since you were the only veteran on that trip?

[User] No. That was a very bad crew from that standpoint. No respect at all [Weitz smiles].

[Assistant] A bunch of independent team members, huh? They all worked together, but they were all very—


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

[User] Right. I wanted to sleep on my back. Plus it put you closer to the commander seat, if something goes wrong, which it did. We lost a computer one night in the middle of the night and I was glad I was sleeping on the flight deck then.

[Assistant] Did your crew look to you, since you were the only veteran on that trip?

[User] No. That was a very bad crew from that standpoint. No respect at all [Weitz smiles].

[Assistant] A bunch of independent team members, huh? They all worked together, but they were all very—

[User] No. No, we worked as a team.

[Assistant] Yes. Of course, your landing was a bit different this time when you came back to Earth than your original trip up.


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

[User] No. That was a very bad crew from that standpoint. No respect at all [Weitz smiles].

[Assistant] A bunch of independent team members, huh? They all worked together, but they were all very—

[User] No. No, we worked as a team.

[Assistant] Yes. Of course, your landing was a bit different this time when you came back to Earth than your original trip up.

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] Could you tell us about that memorable experience of landing at Edwards?


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

[User] No, no, no, not at all, because you're coming down, you can only modulate drag in Orbiter, you don't have any thrust. No, Orbiter at one time did have little jet engines on it, not enough to take off, but enough to help your lift-to-drag ratio. The approach is so much steeper, I mean, even the approach to the carrier is steeper than it is at an airport, it's commercial. It's nothing compared to the 17 degrees that you're coming down in the Orbiter. So there was really not much transfer outside of it being another flying machine. But as far as technique, there's no transfer from a carrier landing to a Shuttle landing, in my mind.

[Assistant] Well, you've been there, so—

[User] Well, other people may argue with me.

[Assistant] Then the opposite of that, when you launched, of course, you launched on the Saturn and then you were launching from the Shuttle. You mentioned that simulations helped you prepare for that—

[User] Not yet.

[Assistant] —but what were the differences of launching from that vehicle to the one that you launched to with the Shuttle?


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

[User] It was long enough.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] I mean, we did everything we wanted to do.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] See, the thing to do on the Shuttle would be just launch once a week. I mean, those landings are great. They're a lot of fun. So you'd like to just fly a bunch of one-day missions.

[Assistant] Once you were home and that mission was over, then where did your path lead you with NASA?


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

[User] I mean, we did everything we wanted to do.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] See, the thing to do on the Shuttle would be just launch once a week. I mean, those landings are great. They're a lot of fun. So you'd like to just fly a bunch of one-day missions.

[Assistant] Once you were home and that mission was over, then where did your path lead you with NASA?

[User] Well, I had another decision to make, and while I was cogitating on those events, we had another couple of selection boards. I guess I went back to being John's deputy, and then, of course, John flew again, on STS-9. So that gave me something to do in the meantime.\n\n But that period is kind of overwhelmed by\n\n Challenger\n\n 51-L business. The best thing that ever happened to me from a personal standpoint is—well, George Abbey went to the Cape for every launch and he wanted John there and he wanted me there, also. So we went down and then I got a cold while I was there. I mean, if I couldn't have contact with the families or the crew, then there was no sense of being there. So I'm back to Houston, and I have to believe that having to deal with the families at the Cape was a very, very traumatic episode for John and George, and I was glad that I wasn't there for it. I was in mission control.\n\n Since I was a senior member, I think, of FCOD, as soon as I realized what had happened, I didn't know what the procedure was in Building 30. I was afraid I'd get locked in the viewing room, so as soon as I realized what was going on, I basically fled the viewing room and got out of the building, so that I could be free to do other things as required.

[Assistant] And what was your role during that time?


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

[User] Well, it was, and then the agency, as I mentioned before or alluded to, never really took charge of the investigation, mainly because the agency was in a bit of a turmoil. Gerry [Gerald D.] Griffin had just recent, not that long ago, left as director of the center. I think [Richard H.] Truly was administrator the day of the accident. I don't remember, but I think he was. Jesse [W.] Moore was supposed to come down and be a new center director at JSC, so Code M was kind of in a turmoil. I think that was part of the reason that perhaps the headquarters didn't act as swiftly as they could, and again, the leadership at JSC was in the process of a transition.\n\n So, yes, the primary thing at the time was dealing with the loss and the grief, perhaps at the expense of getting on with resuscitating the program, but I still think at the time it was the right thing to do.

[Assistant] Was there a turning point that you know of that put NASA back on that path where flights were going to be scheduled again, people felt that it was time to move forward?

[User] No, not what I would call a turning point. They had the committee. Whose committee was that? What was the name of that?

[Assistant] Rogers Commission?

[User] Right. The Rogers Commission, yes. They did a good job and they had the right people on there, it just took a long time, because it was in a bureaucratic environment of Washington. By then the commission—if I were Rogers, I'd have done the same thing. You have to satisfy perception in many cases, as well as serving the issue, so we had to do that.

[Assistant] Were you at the launch at the Cape when we returned back to space travel?


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

[User] No, not what I would call a turning point. They had the committee. Whose committee was that? What was the name of that?

[Assistant] Rogers Commission?

[User] Right. The Rogers Commission, yes. They did a good job and they had the right people on there, it just took a long time, because it was in a bureaucratic environment of Washington. By then the commission—if I were Rogers, I'd have done the same thing. You have to satisfy perception in many cases, as well as serving the issue, so we had to do that.

[Assistant] Were you at the launch at the Cape when we returned back to space travel?

[User] I don't remember. I was deputy director then, so I probably wasn't—no, I think I wasn't. Whatever. We had then gone back to regular numbered flights, so that was 26, 27, twenty-whatever. You know why we came up with that system? You've been told that, right?

[Assistant] Share with us how that happened.


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

[User] Mr. [James M.] Beggs, who was the Administrator of NASA, apparently suffered from—I use the term "suffer," but experienced triskaidekaphobia. He didn't like the number thirteen. So he didn't ever want any mission numbered thirteen, so we went through this system of 51-L. Now, how was that? I think the first digit was the fiscal year that the flight was originally scheduled. One was an East Coast launch. Two, second digit being a two, was a Vandenberg launch, which, of course, has never come to pass. I forget now how the letters came about. But anyway, we've now gone to a numbering system, but, of course, we don't fly them sequentially anyway.\n\n See, that was a big decision we had to make at one time. "Big" I say. And it turns out that the paperwork was the deciding factor. Once the crew started training for STS-XX, it just was too big a job to make sure you kept the documentation, all the documentation, all the training documents, checklists, the whole thing, to keep it straight. Funny how a little thing like that, but that was, as I remember, the deciding factor for saying that 101 flies three years before 97, or however it works out. But it's confusing to the public sometimes.

[Assistant] That's okay.

[User] So in that period then, I got a call from Admiral Truly saying that they wanted me to be the deputy center director. Well, I didn't know if I was keen on that or not. Then Aaron Cohen called me. I'd already planned to go on a hunting trip to Wyoming, so I asked Dick [Truly] if he wouldn't give me a week to let him know.\n\n So anyway, for better or worse, I agreed to take the job and [never] regretted it. Aaron Cohen was a great guy to work for.

[Assistant] Were you given specific duties or were you again—

[User] Yes, I did everything Aaron—like most deputies, I did everything Aaron didn't want to do.

[Assistant] Could have been a different agenda every day, huh?


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

[User] So in that period then, I got a call from Admiral Truly saying that they wanted me to be the deputy center director. Well, I didn't know if I was keen on that or not. Then Aaron Cohen called me. I'd already planned to go on a hunting trip to Wyoming, so I asked Dick [Truly] if he wouldn't give me a week to let him know.\n\n So anyway, for better or worse, I agreed to take the job and [never] regretted it. Aaron Cohen was a great guy to work for.

[Assistant] Were you given specific duties or were you again—

[User] Yes, I did everything Aaron—like most deputies, I did everything Aaron didn't want to do.

[Assistant] Could have been a different agenda every day, huh?

[User] No, not really, because it was by function. I say that semi-jokingly, but equal opportunity, for example, has always been the job of the—always had been of the deputy center director, dealing with the so-called institution, the non-programmatic functions, like the construction of facilities budget, the institutional budget, in other words, what it takes to keep engineering running, for example, not from a test standpoint, but from facilities and people. So those are the kind of grunt things I did.

[Assistant] Then your position evolved, is that correct, moved into more a—at some point you were the acting center director?


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

[User] Well, then George Abbey came down as the deputy. I'd been telling Aaron and the Marine general who was Code M back then.

[Assistant] Abramson?

[User] No. No, he was Air Force. That was a long time ago. Anyway, I'd been telling JSC and Code M that I was leaving in spring to summer of '94 for quite a while, because I didn't want to spring any surprises on anybody. So Goldin called me up and he says, "You're the deputy director. How about if I send George Abbey back down there as the deputy?" You know, he was nice enough to call me. I said, "I've got no complaints with that."\n\n In the meantime, besides, I didn't have to take a cut in pay. [Laughter] The associate director, Dan [Daniel A.] Nebrig, had retired previously, so I moved from one office to the other there, took on the title of associate director, which really was kind of what in the Navy we used to call a twilight cruise. And they would often do that, they'd say, "Okay, you're going to retire. Where you going to retire to?"\n\n You say, "I want to retire in Jacksonville, Florida."\n\n They say, "Well, we'll see if we can't find a job for you there for your last year, if you promise to be productive for that year." Saves you moving expenses.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] So anyway, it basically was a twilight cruise for me. The associate director and the deputy director kind of shared responsibility, so I'd always left the travel budget and other things like that, really nasty things, up to Dan Nebrig. So then I got to deal with those when he left, when I moved in there.

[Assistant] During that time period where you were in the center director office area, NASA moved into a partnership with Russia for part of the Shuttle/Mir Program. Were you involved in those negotiations and those efforts at all?


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

[User] So anyway, it basically was a twilight cruise for me. The associate director and the deputy director kind of shared responsibility, so I'd always left the travel budget and other things like that, really nasty things, up to Dan Nebrig. So then I got to deal with those when he left, when I moved in there.

[Assistant] During that time period where you were in the center director office area, NASA moved into a partnership with Russia for part of the Shuttle/Mir Program. Were you involved in those negotiations and those efforts at all?

[User] No. No, not really. At that time the Space Station effort was really almost separate from JSC. I mean, we provided facilities for them. We housed some of the Space Station stuff, both Space Station Freedom and later ISS [International Space Station], but they'd come in with the advanced—what's the new building over there, 5A? Or what's the one just south of Building 4, that seven or eight-story building? It's relatively new. It's next to the cafeteria. Took out the Building 4 parking lot.

[Assistant] I think they call it 4 South, the sixth-floor building.

[User] 4 South, right. Right. Thanks. 4 South, that's what it is. I was the deputy center director responsibility for facilities, and these Space Station guys come in and they demand three floors or whatever it was, and I say, "Well, you can't have it. You can half a floor. How about that?" I mean, we were a host, is what amounted to at that time, so my involvement was practically nonexistent in either Space Station Freedom or International Space Station.

[Assistant] You mentioned you were trying to give them enough time to let them know that you were getting ready to retire. Was there something that pushed you toward that decision, or was it just time for you to make change?


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

[User] Flying. I mean, that's what you go there for. That's part of the reason that I had always, I think, wanted to be a naval aviator, was I thought that you had to be a little cut above the people who land on 10,000-foot runways to land on an aircraft carrier.

[Assistant] Any thoughts about where you think our space program will go in the future?

[User] Oh, I think it's solid now. As a matter of fact, I just read a thing in the paper yesterday, [William J.] Clinton's budget includes an increase for NASA over this year's. It doesn't keep up compared to what we had in Apollo, adjusted for inflation costs. We're going probably a quarter to a third of real dollars of what it was then.

[Assistant]
Well, I was going to ask Carol and Sandra if they had a question for you. Do you have anything you want to add?

When you were preparing for both of your missions, both for Skylab and for the Shuttle, and you said on Skylab you had been involved with the earth resources primarily, had you had a lot of interest beforehand in anything specifically related to earth studies?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Did you develop that as you went along? How did you prepare for that?


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

[User] Another archive photo, we made it very simple, and Pete made it up and we Scotch-taped it to the—we had a separate control panel for most of the EREPs. He Scotch-taped it on there and that will soften it a little bit, and it said, "CDR and PLT's EREP DS cue card." So that was our summary cue card until we double-checked the very important things like the multispectral camera door open, window cover, whatever.

[Assistant] It must have added a little bit to the flight to be with Pete Conrad for twenty-eight days, from what we understand—

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] —about his character and personality.

[User] Oh, yes, he's a very serious guy when serious was required, and he was fun to be with when it was time to have fun.

[Assistant] I heard one time that he fixed the battery on Skylab with a hammer.


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

[User] Oh, yes.

[Assistant] —about his character and personality.

[User] Oh, yes, he's a very serious guy when serious was required, and he was fun to be with when it was time to have fun.

[Assistant] I heard one time that he fixed the battery on Skylab with a hammer.

[User] Oh, yes. That was during the film retrieval EVA. It was a battery regulator or charger regulator. Pete also prided himself as being—he had a sailboat the time, and he prided himself as being a sailor. He'd been into sailing for quite a while. I mean, he had like, I don't know, a twenty-four-foot sailboat at the time. They did a couple of things. They wanted to assess what happens to the material, the mylar material that the parasol was made of after exposure to it. So Pete was happily, busily, sewing this sample. He was sewing the sample together and sewing pieces of Velcro on it, because they wrap around one of the tubular support structures of the ATM. So he's busy there with his needle and thread, and then they said, "We want you to do this," I think CVR charger battery regulator module was sticking some way.\n\n So he had a hammer. I guess we just had a hammer in our tool kit. So we had to rig up a restraint so Pete could take it outside, and then he gave it a mighty whack on his way out to the end of the ATM. Sure enough, it was the old "If it doesn't work, kick it once and see if it works." So we got it back into shape.

[Assistant] Did what it took.


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

[User] Oh, yes, he's a very serious guy when serious was required, and he was fun to be with when it was time to have fun.

[Assistant] I heard one time that he fixed the battery on Skylab with a hammer.

[User] Oh, yes. That was during the film retrieval EVA. It was a battery regulator or charger regulator. Pete also prided himself as being—he had a sailboat the time, and he prided himself as being a sailor. He'd been into sailing for quite a while. I mean, he had like, I don't know, a twenty-four-foot sailboat at the time. They did a couple of things. They wanted to assess what happens to the material, the mylar material that the parasol was made of after exposure to it. So Pete was happily, busily, sewing this sample. He was sewing the sample together and sewing pieces of Velcro on it, because they wrap around one of the tubular support structures of the ATM. So he's busy there with his needle and thread, and then they said, "We want you to do this," I think CVR charger battery regulator module was sticking some way.\n\n So he had a hammer. I guess we just had a hammer in our tool kit. So we had to rig up a restraint so Pete could take it outside, and then he gave it a mighty whack on his way out to the end of the ATM. Sure enough, it was the old "If it doesn't work, kick it once and see if it works." So we got it back into shape.

[Assistant] Did what it took.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you'd like to add before we close this session today?


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

[User] Oh, yes. That was during the film retrieval EVA. It was a battery regulator or charger regulator. Pete also prided himself as being—he had a sailboat the time, and he prided himself as being a sailor. He'd been into sailing for quite a while. I mean, he had like, I don't know, a twenty-four-foot sailboat at the time. They did a couple of things. They wanted to assess what happens to the material, the mylar material that the parasol was made of after exposure to it. So Pete was happily, busily, sewing this sample. He was sewing the sample together and sewing pieces of Velcro on it, because they wrap around one of the tubular support structures of the ATM. So he's busy there with his needle and thread, and then they said, "We want you to do this," I think CVR charger battery regulator module was sticking some way.\n\n So he had a hammer. I guess we just had a hammer in our tool kit. So we had to rig up a restraint so Pete could take it outside, and then he gave it a mighty whack on his way out to the end of the ATM. Sure enough, it was the old "If it doesn't work, kick it once and see if it works." So we got it back into shape.

[Assistant] Did what it took.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you'd like to add before we close this session today?

[User] No, I can't think of a thing right now.

[Assistant] Well, we certainly thank you for your time and for all the good information.


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

[User] Middle of the tape recording and talking.

[Assistant] Today is March the 22nd. This is Wendy McLaughlin interviewing Robert T.K. Scully, also known as Bob Scully.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] In Atlanta, Georgia. And so I'm just going to kind of go into the questions, Bob, and just feel comfortable to elaborate. And I always like to really start out the interview asking interviewees about their present family, their work, where they reside, what some of their interests are.

[User] Sure. Well, Wendy, I want to thank you for doing this project for so many years. I think it's very important that these histories of these early volunteers in particular somehow gets recorded because many of these people, myself included, were entering in some ways unknown territory. In many cases, we were the first American in an area and in my case welcomed with open arms. And it was kind of a relief after the British regime in Kenya.

[Assistant] So if you could speak a little bit about your present family and where you reside and some of your interests. What do you do?


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

[User] Previous to that, I had worked in university administration in North Carolina, in Minnesota, and various other places, usually in the fundraising and granting field. Before that, I was the ethnographer and the professor at a college, private college and museum. The Yager Museum in Oneonta, New York. And that's what got me into this whole new work, both financial development and also health development. My, my expertise, my area of expertise in the area was community based health programing. And it is, how do you get the communities being served to basically take charge of their own health?

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Or if you don't have to treat people, this is the way you get a healthier community. Some communities as we know now, but didn't 20 years ago necessarily, really have to buy into a program point to succeed. It cannot be something taken from outside or implanted in them and expect it to succeed. Well, that's, that's kind of a little nutshell.

[Assistant] Very, very rich.

[User] [coughs] Forgive me.

[Assistant] Well, so, um. When I take you back to the year before you joined Peace Corps.


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

[User] Or if you don't have to treat people, this is the way you get a healthier community. Some communities as we know now, but didn't 20 years ago necessarily, really have to buy into a program point to succeed. It cannot be something taken from outside or implanted in them and expect it to succeed. Well, that's, that's kind of a little nutshell.

[Assistant] Very, very rich.

[User] [coughs] Forgive me.

[Assistant] Well, so, um. When I take you back to the year before you joined Peace Corps.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And actually, I should mention on the tape that Bob was in Kenya between October 1964 to December 1966. So if you could think back to 1963 or roughly about a year before you joined Peace Corps and talk a little bit about your life. You know, what you were doing at that time?


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

[User] [coughs] Forgive me.

[Assistant] Well, so, um. When I take you back to the year before you joined Peace Corps.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And actually, I should mention on the tape that Bob was in Kenya between October 1964 to December 1966. So if you could think back to 1963 or roughly about a year before you joined Peace Corps and talk a little bit about your life. You know, what you were doing at that time?

[User]
I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. I'm sorry, University of Missouri. And I have Minnesota connections as well. And was wrapping up an undergraduate degree in history with a couple of minors. I lived at a co-op on campus, something like a fraternity, but it wasn't a fraternity. It was a basically inexpensive housing, good but inexpensive housing, with other men. One of the people staying there was a fellow named Douglas Odalla, who was an engineering student, a graduate student. And there were quite a few overseas students living in the facility, a number from China. There was the one African.

And Douglas and I seemed to gravitate toward one another and have our meals together and tea and so on when we had a chance. And I always found him a fascinating person, who was a bit older, a married man with several children back in Kenya. I didn't have enough information to know this at the time, but the name Odalla is a Luo name. You may have heard another similar Luo name, Obama maybe? Has that come across your desk?

[Assistant] I think I've heard of him.


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And actually, I should mention on the tape that Bob was in Kenya between October 1964 to December 1966. So if you could think back to 1963 or roughly about a year before you joined Peace Corps and talk a little bit about your life. You know, what you were doing at that time?

[User]
I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. I'm sorry, University of Missouri. And I have Minnesota connections as well. And was wrapping up an undergraduate degree in history with a couple of minors. I lived at a co-op on campus, something like a fraternity, but it wasn't a fraternity. It was a basically inexpensive housing, good but inexpensive housing, with other men. One of the people staying there was a fellow named Douglas Odalla, who was an engineering student, a graduate student. And there were quite a few overseas students living in the facility, a number from China. There was the one African.

And Douglas and I seemed to gravitate toward one another and have our meals together and tea and so on when we had a chance. And I always found him a fascinating person, who was a bit older, a married man with several children back in Kenya. I didn't have enough information to know this at the time, but the name Odalla is a Luo name. You may have heard another similar Luo name, Obama maybe? Has that come across your desk?

[Assistant] I think I've heard of him.

[User] Years later, a Kenyan colleague of mine, someone working at MAP International, Undungay Keating, came in. We were, there was this young new senator from Chicago, Odalla, oh, Obama. And I still remember laughing and I said, wouldn't it be something if he became the first Luo president of the United States? And he laughed because when you hear, you know, Obama, Odalla, Odinga, you know, all of these names, immediately it's Luo, it's Lake Victoria. So we always had a chuckle over that. And what do you know, our first Luo president.

[Assistant] Well, so the year before you were living in the co-op and?


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

[User] And, uh, you know, a couple of months later, it was summer, I was doing the finals. Final courses and credits in the summer to finish my degree.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] An AB in history. And I got the letter from the Peace Corps, you have been selected to go to Kenya.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And Douglas Odalla happened to be on that summer, and I showed him the letter, he was the first one to look at it, and he hugged me and kissed me and jumped around and said, of course you're going, aren't you? I said, well, I don't know yet. I have to think about this, you know?

[Assistant] So you don't remember, there wasn't a long? There wasn't a long application process for you back then?


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

[User] [coughs] Sorry.

[Assistant] That's okay.

[User]
So Douglas Odalla was kind of my motivator to look into it. So I, of course, had to find out where Kenya was and get some basics about Kenya. I had read a book by Tom Mboya, who had been a Kenyan student who came to America to study, either undergraduate or graduate studies. I forgot which now. And so I did kind of have a Kenyan in my mind at the time. Basically, Africa was Tom Mboya and a few others. I did have a relative on my mother's side who had lived in North Africa for a number of years. And I had been in touch with that relative off and on, had worked at a hospital in Tangier, but had been elsewhere in North Africa. So there was kind of an Africa connect. I knew there were people, at least in the family, who had been there and that had been talked about a little bit.

But that was about the extent of my exposure, except in anthropology studies and working as an undergraduate. So lo and behold, I kind of said yes. I packed up, left Missouri, went back to my home in New York. I grew up in a place called Suffern, New York, a small town about 30, 40 miles outside of New York City.

[Assistant] Suffern?

[User] S-U-F-F-E-R-N, Suffern, New York. Old Revolutionary War carriage stop in the Ramapo Mountains, but part of the greater river and mountain area of old Dutch New York. And from the top of the Ramapos you could see the Empire State Building on a clear day. It was, but it was pretty far out there, and it was a different world. It was very rural, a small town, it was not an urban area when I grew up. It was horse country, basically. And we had horses.

[Assistant] The Appalachian Trail doesn't go through there?


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

[User]
Almost the first message was forget about language. Everything's in English. In fact, students are penalized if they use anything but English at the schools because it's an English media school. You've got to learn English. And I swear, the motivation for learning a language dropped completely. Well, guess what? It really made a difference knowing, knowing Swahili and, uh, and of course, the vernacular of the area which spoke. People use Swahili everywhere. English was still the language of the literati. The people who had had an opportunity to go to school. The vast community could communicate rudimentary in Swahili. The English was, was taking hold, of course. It had been an English colony, as you know.

And so but that was, that was a kind of a surprise when I got there. And the guy who did my household workings and that sort of thing, laundry, cooking, and hauling water and this.

[Assistant] Guy?

[User] Yeah, my guy named Baraza, who became a good friend of mine, but I mean, he spoke not a word of English, and his main language was Lubukusu, which of course, I did a double take on that, you know. And so we worked with Swahili and some Lubukusu, as I learned it. He knew all the words for foods in English, but not much more. And I was happy to learn Swahili. So I didn't push the English because I thought, well, look, if I'm ever going to pick this language up, it better start at home.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] And then we, you know, we did very intensive work. We built, we kind of built rapport with one another. And we became a support group. And most of us have a very fond feeling of one another even today. We've had a couple of reunions and.

[Assistant] How large was your group?


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

[User] Yeah, my guy named Baraza, who became a good friend of mine, but I mean, he spoke not a word of English, and his main language was Lubukusu, which of course, I did a double take on that, you know. And so we worked with Swahili and some Lubukusu, as I learned it. He knew all the words for foods in English, but not much more. And I was happy to learn Swahili. So I didn't push the English because I thought, well, look, if I'm ever going to pick this language up, it better start at home.

[Assistant] Sure.

[User] And then we, you know, we did very intensive work. We built, we kind of built rapport with one another. And we became a support group. And most of us have a very fond feeling of one another even today. We've had a couple of reunions and.

[Assistant] How large was your group?

[User] Oh, probably about maybe 120 or so. We were going to three countries.

[Assistant] Well, but the people that trained with you at Columbia?


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

[User] Oh, probably about maybe 120 or so. We were going to three countries.

[Assistant] Well, but the people that trained with you at Columbia?

[User] About 120, maybe a hundred.

[Assistant] That's huge.

[User] Was it?

[Assistant] That is a huge group.


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

[User] About 120, maybe a hundred.

[Assistant] That's huge.

[User] Was it?

[Assistant] That is a huge group.

[User] Maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong about that. Let me think. 30, 60, maybe about 90.

[Assistant] It could have been that way back then. I mean, they've changed.


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

[User] Was it?

[Assistant] That is a huge group.

[User] Maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong about that. Let me think. 30, 60, maybe about 90.

[Assistant] It could have been that way back then. I mean, they've changed.

[User] I'm thinking about 30 went to each of the countries.

[Assistant] Okay, that sounds about normal, right.


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

[User] Maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong about that. Let me think. 30, 60, maybe about 90.

[Assistant] It could have been that way back then. I mean, they've changed.

[User] I'm thinking about 30 went to each of the countries.

[Assistant] Okay, that sounds about normal, right.

[User] Maybe 25 to each country, so maybe 75 to 100.

[Assistant] But you trained, obviously, at Columbia with people that were going to three different countries.


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

[User] I'm thinking about 30 went to each of the countries.

[Assistant] Okay, that sounds about normal, right.

[User] Maybe 25 to each country, so maybe 75 to 100.

[Assistant] But you trained, obviously, at Columbia with people that were going to three different countries.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's, that's very unique.


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

[User] Maybe 25 to each country, so maybe 75 to 100.

[Assistant] But you trained, obviously, at Columbia with people that were going to three different countries.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's, that's very unique.

[User] And the curriculum was East Africa and the TEA program was Teachers for East Africa. So they were basically all the stuff, all the professional stuff, were on the faculty of that program. So they were transitioning to a different kind of crowd as well.

[Assistant] Besides obviously the curriculum and the teachers portion of what you were going to be doing in Kenya, what else did you do in training?


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

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] Okay. So that's, that's very unique.

[User] And the curriculum was East Africa and the TEA program was Teachers for East Africa. So they were basically all the stuff, all the professional stuff, were on the faculty of that program. So they were transitioning to a different kind of crowd as well.

[Assistant] Besides obviously the curriculum and the teachers portion of what you were going to be doing in Kenya, what else did you do in training?

[User] We did cross country studies. We did education studies. And although I didn't do this, we could take final exams and get a certificate of some type for education, sort of a, not a master's. I don't think it was a master's, but it was an advanced certificate, possibly could have been led to a master's with some additional coursework. We did the language study. And we had sort of a P.T. or physical exercise type of once or twice a week where we had East African type games explained to us and we went out and we'd practice soccer and that sort of thing.

[Assistant] Cool. So that was kind of the cultural piece to make sure you could fit in?