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

[User] It’s awesome. You’ve got to read it.

[Assistant] It’s really good, yes.

[User] It’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars. It’s very well done. Andy Weir did a great job researching it. He took a little license with the storm that set up the whole thing, but everything in it is very plausible. Very, very well done story. That’s what exploring is about. We need to be able to do that.

[Assistant] Yes, I think it’s a reading list requirement by [Center Director] Ellen [Ochoa]. It’s being stocked now, actually, at the Gilruth. You can pick it up when you’re at the gym.

[User] And it’s going to be a great movie, if you’ve looked at the trailers.

[Assistant] Yes, I’m definitely looking forward to that. So once you’re finished with your PRs, what did you do until you got assigned to STS-53?


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

[User] It’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars. It’s very well done. Andy Weir did a great job researching it. He took a little license with the storm that set up the whole thing, but everything in it is very plausible. Very, very well done story. That’s what exploring is about. We need to be able to do that.

[Assistant] Yes, I think it’s a reading list requirement by [Center Director] Ellen [Ochoa]. It’s being stocked now, actually, at the Gilruth. You can pick it up when you’re at the gym.

[User] And it’s going to be a great movie, if you’ve looked at the trailers.

[Assistant] Yes, I’m definitely looking forward to that. So once you’re finished with your PRs, what did you do until you got assigned to STS-53?

[User] I was a CapCom. We talked about that.

[Assistant] Okay. Yes, we did talk about that.


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

[User] And it’s going to be a great movie, if you’ve looked at the trailers.

[Assistant] Yes, I’m definitely looking forward to that. So once you’re finished with your PRs, what did you do until you got assigned to STS-53?

[User] I was a CapCom. We talked about that.

[Assistant] Okay. Yes, we did talk about that.

[User] Yes, it was great. Then 53, that was a great flight. DoD-1, can’t tell you about it. It’s still classified. It all went flawlessly. We had some experiments, too. We had some fluids experiments down on the middeck. We did an experiment where we had a fire in space. It was all contained, but looking at how flames propagate in a micro-gravity environment. That was cool.

[Assistant] Yes, those were neat.


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

[User] I was a CapCom. We talked about that.

[Assistant] Okay. Yes, we did talk about that.

[User] Yes, it was great. Then 53, that was a great flight. DoD-1, can’t tell you about it. It’s still classified. It all went flawlessly. We had some experiments, too. We had some fluids experiments down on the middeck. We did an experiment where we had a fire in space. It was all contained, but looking at how flames propagate in a micro-gravity environment. That was cool.

[Assistant] Yes, those were neat.

[User] Fifty-three, that was just—it was a great flight, again. I really enjoyed flying with all those guys. It was awesome. The training, going through again a second time, just reinforcing everything I’d learned. There’s stuff I’d tell you, but I’m not going to tell it to a recording.

[Assistant] That’s okay. I’ve got some open-ended questions that you could probably answer. How did training differ from working on partially classified flight to a very open mission? How do things change for you?


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

[User] And Dave had willed the Dog Mobile to me.

[Assistant] I was wondering about that.

[User] On the Dogs of Summer, instead of being flat black, they painted it like a T-38. It was white with blue stripes. It was really nice, looked awesome, still had all the flight hardware on it. So we tow it down to Rick’s little ranch in Santa Fe [Texas], and we got it parked down there, and we’re rebuilding the Dog Mobile. It doesn’t run anymore. It is in sad shape. It had just rusted away and wasn’t going to run, and we’re getting it going in our spare time, which is nil. I go down there one night to work on it, and it looks totally different. “Wow, Rick, you’ve really been working hard.” Well, he was driving home one night, and he saw this 1978 Buick station wagon. The Dog Mobile was a Pontiac but the same year. You can’t tell the difference between a Pontiac and a Buick. He had bought it for like $600, so we took all the flight hardware off of the old Dog Mobile, and we mounted it on the new one. It was really nice. It ran good, painted it again white with blue stripes, just like a T-38, and that was it.\n\n Then, after that, I thought, “What’s going to happen to the Dog Mobile?” Well, Rick pulled all the stuff off, patched all the holes, repainted it, and sold it, because it was registered to him now, and the other Dog Mobile just ended up getting junked. I’ve got to go find those pictures somewhere.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] So that’s the story of the three Dog Mobiles and the three Dog Crews, or the one Dog Mobile and three Dog Crews.

[Assistant] What did you guys do with all that flight hardware?


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

[User] On the Dogs of Summer, instead of being flat black, they painted it like a T-38. It was white with blue stripes. It was really nice, looked awesome, still had all the flight hardware on it. So we tow it down to Rick’s little ranch in Santa Fe [Texas], and we got it parked down there, and we’re rebuilding the Dog Mobile. It doesn’t run anymore. It is in sad shape. It had just rusted away and wasn’t going to run, and we’re getting it going in our spare time, which is nil. I go down there one night to work on it, and it looks totally different. “Wow, Rick, you’ve really been working hard.” Well, he was driving home one night, and he saw this 1978 Buick station wagon. The Dog Mobile was a Pontiac but the same year. You can’t tell the difference between a Pontiac and a Buick. He had bought it for like $600, so we took all the flight hardware off of the old Dog Mobile, and we mounted it on the new one. It was really nice. It ran good, painted it again white with blue stripes, just like a T-38, and that was it.\n\n Then, after that, I thought, “What’s going to happen to the Dog Mobile?” Well, Rick pulled all the stuff off, patched all the holes, repainted it, and sold it, because it was registered to him now, and the other Dog Mobile just ended up getting junked. I’ve got to go find those pictures somewhere.

[Assistant] Absolutely.

[User] So that’s the story of the three Dog Mobiles and the three Dog Crews, or the one Dog Mobile and three Dog Crews.

[Assistant] What did you guys do with all that flight hardware?

[User] I don’t know what happened to it, but it’s somewhere. I’d have to track Rick down and ask him, because there’s a wingtip, a drag chute door, an HPU vent. We had flight data file checklists inside, just like the Orbiter, Velcro-ed in place.

[Assistant] Were they specific to your mission?


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

[User] So that’s the story of the three Dog Mobiles and the three Dog Crews, or the one Dog Mobile and three Dog Crews.

[Assistant] What did you guys do with all that flight hardware?

[User] I don’t know what happened to it, but it’s somewhere. I’d have to track Rick down and ask him, because there’s a wingtip, a drag chute door, an HPU vent. We had flight data file checklists inside, just like the Orbiter, Velcro-ed in place.

[Assistant] Were they specific to your mission?

[User] Yes, yes, it was some unique stuff, as I recall. I’d like to get a hold of that and look at it again.

[Assistant] Absolutely. That’d be great. We could send it over to the Air and Space Museum, like your whole mission in the Dog Crews. Yes, that’d be great.


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

[User] I don’t know what happened to it, but it’s somewhere. I’d have to track Rick down and ask him, because there’s a wingtip, a drag chute door, an HPU vent. We had flight data file checklists inside, just like the Orbiter, Velcro-ed in place.

[Assistant] Were they specific to your mission?

[User] Yes, yes, it was some unique stuff, as I recall. I’d like to get a hold of that and look at it again.

[Assistant] Absolutely. That’d be great. We could send it over to the Air and Space Museum, like your whole mission in the Dog Crews. Yes, that’d be great.

[User] It was fun, so I credit Dave Walker. Dave was the one that got the Dog Mobile and kept all that alive. It was a good time.

[Assistant] Yes, what a hoot. So Guy Bluford told me that you guys actually got to ride the crawler out for a day, take the Orbiter out there.


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

[User] Yes, yes, it was some unique stuff, as I recall. I’d like to get a hold of that and look at it again.

[Assistant] Absolutely. That’d be great. We could send it over to the Air and Space Museum, like your whole mission in the Dog Crews. Yes, that’d be great.

[User] It was fun, so I credit Dave Walker. Dave was the one that got the Dog Mobile and kept all that alive. It was a good time.

[Assistant] Yes, what a hoot. So Guy Bluford told me that you guys actually got to ride the crawler out for a day, take the Orbiter out there.

[User] Oh, we did. When 53 rolled out to the pad, we flew down, and we rode on the crawler with Discovery partway out to the pad. That was awesome. I was looking at the tail of the Orbiter, and it sets up a frequency. Since then, they roll slower to the pad because of it. The tail was doing this [demonstrates] all the way out. I said, “That can’t be good, having all that flutter on the tail like that.” It was really interesting.\n\n When I got assigned to be a director at KSC, the last six missions that we flew out, I went out. One o’clock in the morning, I went out and rolled out with every vehicle. When I first got there, I was the only one out there. It was me and the guys doing it. The last three flights, there were a ton of people. To me, when the Orbiter clears the VAB [Vehicle Assembly Building] doors, and it rolls out in the xenon lights, that is the beginning of a trip to space. That’s almost as emotional as a launch. You’re on the mobile launcher on top of the crawler. The Orbiter—it’s just awesome. It rolls past those doors, you’re on that crawler-way, and the lights are shining, and that’s special. Pretty cool.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s pretty unique. Not many people have gotten to ride in that crawler.


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

[User] Oh, we did. When 53 rolled out to the pad, we flew down, and we rode on the crawler with Discovery partway out to the pad. That was awesome. I was looking at the tail of the Orbiter, and it sets up a frequency. Since then, they roll slower to the pad because of it. The tail was doing this [demonstrates] all the way out. I said, “That can’t be good, having all that flutter on the tail like that.” It was really interesting.\n\n When I got assigned to be a director at KSC, the last six missions that we flew out, I went out. One o’clock in the morning, I went out and rolled out with every vehicle. When I first got there, I was the only one out there. It was me and the guys doing it. The last three flights, there were a ton of people. To me, when the Orbiter clears the VAB [Vehicle Assembly Building] doors, and it rolls out in the xenon lights, that is the beginning of a trip to space. That’s almost as emotional as a launch. You’re on the mobile launcher on top of the crawler. The Orbiter—it’s just awesome. It rolls past those doors, you’re on that crawler-way, and the lights are shining, and that’s special. Pretty cool.

[Assistant] Yes, it’s pretty unique. Not many people have gotten to ride in that crawler.

[User] So all six [of the final missions] I did that. It’s like being on a ship. The mobile launch platform and the crawler, it’s painted navy gray. It smells like diesel fuel. The diesels are running. There’s a hum to it. It has got knee-knockers and watertight doors and ladders and hatches. It is just like being at sea, except there’s not as much motion.

[Assistant]
Wow, interesting.

Yes, that is interesting. One of the things I read is that your crew sent greetings for participants to the Army-Navy game. Do you remember that?

[User] Oh jeez.

[Assistant] It must have been a big deal.


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

[User] So all six [of the final missions] I did that. It’s like being on a ship. The mobile launch platform and the crawler, it’s painted navy gray. It smells like diesel fuel. The diesels are running. There’s a hum to it. It has got knee-knockers and watertight doors and ladders and hatches. It is just like being at sea, except there’s not as much motion.

[Assistant]
Wow, interesting.

Yes, that is interesting. One of the things I read is that your crew sent greetings for participants to the Army-Navy game. Do you remember that?

[User] Oh jeez.

[Assistant] It must have been a big deal.

[User] This is bad. I cannot be in space during an Army-Navy game. I had two December missions, STS-53 and STS-88. I took Beat Army stickers with me on both of them. On STS-53, it made the USA Today. I’ve still got the article. I’m walking out with the rest of the crew, and I didn’t tell Jim Voss, because he’s in the Army. So as we walk out, I pull up this Beat Army sticker, and I got pictures showing it. I took it to space. I got pictures of me in space wearing a Naval Academy sweatshirt with a Beat Army sticker, and we lost both of those games. We were winning the one. They’re giving us updates throughout the game, and I’m giving Voss a hard time, because Navy’s killing Army. And dang, they came back and won by a field goal in the last seconds of the game, and we lost but that was fun. We did a little inflight spirit video that we sent down to be played during the Army-Navy game. That was fun.

[Assistant] That’s neat. So this mission was scheduled to land at Edwards, but it ended up landing at KSC.


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

[User] Oh jeez.

[Assistant] It must have been a big deal.

[User] This is bad. I cannot be in space during an Army-Navy game. I had two December missions, STS-53 and STS-88. I took Beat Army stickers with me on both of them. On STS-53, it made the USA Today. I’ve still got the article. I’m walking out with the rest of the crew, and I didn’t tell Jim Voss, because he’s in the Army. So as we walk out, I pull up this Beat Army sticker, and I got pictures showing it. I took it to space. I got pictures of me in space wearing a Naval Academy sweatshirt with a Beat Army sticker, and we lost both of those games. We were winning the one. They’re giving us updates throughout the game, and I’m giving Voss a hard time, because Navy’s killing Army. And dang, they came back and won by a field goal in the last seconds of the game, and we lost but that was fun. We did a little inflight spirit video that we sent down to be played during the Army-Navy game. That was fun.

[Assistant] That’s neat. So this mission was scheduled to land at Edwards, but it ended up landing at KSC.

[User] No, actually, it was scheduled to land at KSC, and we landed at Edwards. My first two flights both landed at Edwards Air Force Base.

[Assistant] I must have dyslexia, sorry.


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

[User] No, I was happy to just be home. It was okay. We got to see them soon.

[Assistant] What did you do once you finished your PRs and debriefs?

[User] My first flight, I remembered giving my wife a hug, and I almost knocked her tooth out with my neck ring.

[Assistant] Oh, ouch.

[User] Hon, careful. Yes, what else? From 53, there was probably more.

[Assistant] I’m sure there is. I’m just not sure what you can talk about.


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

[User] My first flight, I remembered giving my wife a hug, and I almost knocked her tooth out with my neck ring.

[Assistant] Oh, ouch.

[User] Hon, careful. Yes, what else? From 53, there was probably more.

[Assistant] I’m sure there is. I’m just not sure what you can talk about.

[User] Yes, I’m letting a lot of that stuff go. I’ll tell you afterwards. Somehow, I’m going to have to record it for somebody somewhere. I think some of that stuff needs to be saved.

[Assistant] I think so. Well, maybe write a book, be like Mike [Robert M.] Mullane.


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

[User] Hon, careful. Yes, what else? From 53, there was probably more.

[Assistant] I’m sure there is. I’m just not sure what you can talk about.

[User] Yes, I’m letting a lot of that stuff go. I’ll tell you afterwards. Somehow, I’m going to have to record it for somebody somewhere. I think some of that stuff needs to be saved.

[Assistant] I think so. Well, maybe write a book, be like Mike [Robert M.] Mullane.

[User] Maybe. No, it won’t be like Mike Mullane’s. One of the most fun things that the commander and the pilot do—and we take mission specialists with us sometimes, but sometimes we’re just by ourselves—was going out to Edwards to fly the Shuttle Training Aircraft, taking a weekend. You’d be scheduled to fly on a Sunday morning or a Saturday. Dick and I had this routine, because we trained out at Edwards and at the Cape and at White Sands [Space Harbor, New Mexico], of course. Once a quarter, they’d have a weekend where the assigned crews would go out and fly at Edwards Air Force Base. And it had to be on the weekend, to not interfere with the work out at Edwards.\n\n I remember we’d fly out there Saturday night, Saturday afternoon. We’d get up early Sunday morning, fly the Shuttle Training Aircraft, and then we’d stop in El Paso [Forward Operating Location and T-38 Depot, Texas] for gas on the way back to Houston. We hadn’t had breakfast yet, and we’d get the rental car there or GSA [General Services Administration] car while they were filling the jets with gas. We’d drive out to Whataburger, and we’d get taquitos and coffee— potato and egg, awesome—and have breakfast. It was fun, flying out to Edwards with Dave, too. I just love flying.

[Assistant] While you’re on the subject of the commanders, you mentioned earlier that there were two different types of commanders, but you learned a lot from each one. Can you share some of the things that you learned that you used for your own?


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

[User] Yes, I did that on a couple of flight. Frank Culbertson was the hardest one to get airborne. I don’t know how many trips I made. You know, Jim Newman had to marry Mary Lee, because it wasn’t fair for her to keep paying her own way down to the Cape to see him launch, as many trips as he made.

[Assistant] That’s a new reason.

[User] Oh, this is really embarrassing. Mike [Michael L.] Coats is one of my dearest friends. I’m escorting the STS-39 crew, I got Diane and the whole gang, and I missed a turn. It was dark at night, going back from the beach house. I missed a turn, and we ended up way the heck south of Patrick Air Force Base [Florida]. I’m on this bridge going back, and then we’ve got to drive all the way back north again to get to Cape Canaveral, and the Cape Winds condo where they were staying. I was so embarrassed. I said, “Don’t tell anybody.” They didn’t mind. We bonded. I was close with all those wives. They were good to me. Guy Bluford was on that flight, and Linda Bluford, she is a hoot. So on STS-53, Linda, jerkin’ Guy’s chain, sends a note up to him and says, “Guy, I’m remodeling the kitchen. I just gutted everything, and I’m buying new appliances.”

[Assistant] Good timing.

[User] I don’t think she really was. She was just jerking his chain.

[Assistant] During that time that we’re talking about, Shuttle-Mir was kicking off. The negotiations had started.


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

[User] Yes, I don’t want them to forget the crews, I don’t want them to forget what we learned from that, and that we rose above it, that both times we returned to flight and we were better.

[Assistant] I’m sure the families appreciated that, as well, that they’re not forgotten.

[User] Oh, especially the Challenger families, because Challenger got handled different than Columbia, and it meant so much to them. Kathie, Scobee’s daughter [Kathie Scobee Fulghum], she said, “Can we have an overnight? Can we just have a sleepover here?” And Lorna Onizuka was just so thankful and pleased, they all were. Jane Smith is a close friend. They’re all close friends. I got to know all of them long before this, and they’re all special people, and their husbands and spouses were, also.

[Assistant] It’s a nice gift.

[User] I’ve got a lot of memories of all those folks, the crews. Kalpana [Chawla], I remember teasing her at the astronaut gym before she went down to the Cape to fly right—she’d just gone into quarantine. She was always over at the gym. I’d run into her all the time over there. “Kalpana, I’m going to have a pull-up contest with you while you’re in space.” Yes, lot of good memories.

[Assistant] So you even fostered that family when you were chief with the Astronaut Office—


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

[User] Oh, especially the Challenger families, because Challenger got handled different than Columbia, and it meant so much to them. Kathie, Scobee’s daughter [Kathie Scobee Fulghum], she said, “Can we have an overnight? Can we just have a sleepover here?” And Lorna Onizuka was just so thankful and pleased, they all were. Jane Smith is a close friend. They’re all close friends. I got to know all of them long before this, and they’re all special people, and their husbands and spouses were, also.

[Assistant] It’s a nice gift.

[User] I’ve got a lot of memories of all those folks, the crews. Kalpana [Chawla], I remember teasing her at the astronaut gym before she went down to the Cape to fly right—she’d just gone into quarantine. She was always over at the gym. I’d run into her all the time over there. “Kalpana, I’m going to have a pull-up contest with you while you’re in space.” Yes, lot of good memories.

[Assistant] So you even fostered that family when you were chief with the Astronaut Office—

[User] Oh, absolutely.

[Assistant] —not just the crews.


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

[User] I’ve got a lot of memories of all those folks, the crews. Kalpana [Chawla], I remember teasing her at the astronaut gym before she went down to the Cape to fly right—she’d just gone into quarantine. She was always over at the gym. I’d run into her all the time over there. “Kalpana, I’m going to have a pull-up contest with you while you’re in space.” Yes, lot of good memories.

[Assistant] So you even fostered that family when you were chief with the Astronaut Office—

[User] Oh, absolutely.

[Assistant] —not just the crews.

[User] Absolutely. We always did stuff together, yes. I give a lot of leadership classes, and I really believe in servant leadership, in always putting the welfare of the people that work for you above your own. Take care of the people and they’ll take care of you, put them first.

[Assistant] So we just talked with Beak [Jefferson D. Howell], and I’m curious, because he teaches leadership classes, as well: is that something that is Marine heritage, or part of your training?


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

[User] Oh, absolutely.

[Assistant] —not just the crews.

[User] Absolutely. We always did stuff together, yes. I give a lot of leadership classes, and I really believe in servant leadership, in always putting the welfare of the people that work for you above your own. Take care of the people and they’ll take care of you, put them first.

[Assistant] So we just talked with Beak [Jefferson D. Howell], and I’m curious, because he teaches leadership classes, as well: is that something that is Marine heritage, or part of your training?

[User] No, I learned a lot about leadership at the Naval Academy and in the Marine Corps, but I think that has a lot to do with what I’ve learned over the years. Everybody can learn to be a better leader. There’s no such thing as a born leader. Some folks are a little more charismatic than others, but we can all learn to be better leaders.

[Assistant] Are there a few tips that you can share with us?


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

[User] Oh yes, we were all brand new to the job. After being chief of the Astronaut Office I was so looking forward to being director of Flight Crew Ops and being with the crews again down at the Cape, after coming from Russia and being away, even though I was involved in everything. Then that was the very first flight. It was hard, but it all worked out.

[Assistant] You had a tough job that morning.

[User] All worked out. Never forget that, telling the families that they weren’t coming home. I could not believe it, out there at the middle of the runway with the convoy commander, and it’s like, no sonic booms. Where are they? And then you realized, there’s no way. They’re not coming. This is it. Then seeing the video clips of those pieces of the Orbiter reentering.

[Assistant] Did you make the decision on when to tell the families?

[User] Yes, got them all together, and I told them. That was hard. Then we got them on a plane, got them out of there. I got on a plane and headed back.

[Assistant] At what point did you know for sure the crew wasn’t coming back, and you had to inform the families? Was that something you talked with [NASA Administrator Sean] O’Keefe about?


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

[User] All worked out. Never forget that, telling the families that they weren’t coming home. I could not believe it, out there at the middle of the runway with the convoy commander, and it’s like, no sonic booms. Where are they? And then you realized, there’s no way. They’re not coming. This is it. Then seeing the video clips of those pieces of the Orbiter reentering.

[Assistant] Did you make the decision on when to tell the families?

[User] Yes, got them all together, and I told them. That was hard. Then we got them on a plane, got them out of there. I got on a plane and headed back.

[Assistant] At what point did you know for sure the crew wasn’t coming back, and you had to inform the families? Was that something you talked with [NASA Administrator Sean] O’Keefe about?

[User] As soon as I got back to crew quarters I told them. It was obvious, based on the data that I had and what I saw. So it was in the time it took to get them from the end of the runway back to crew quarters, and for me to get from midfield back there. Bad Saturday morning. Eight o’clock in the morning, beautiful blue sky. It was a great day to bring an Orbiter home, and they didn’t come home.

[Assistant] And Ellen was back here in Houston. What were you sharing with her from the Cape?


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

[User] Yes, got them all together, and I told them. That was hard. Then we got them on a plane, got them out of there. I got on a plane and headed back.

[Assistant] At what point did you know for sure the crew wasn’t coming back, and you had to inform the families? Was that something you talked with [NASA Administrator Sean] O’Keefe about?

[User] As soon as I got back to crew quarters I told them. It was obvious, based on the data that I had and what I saw. So it was in the time it took to get them from the end of the runway back to crew quarters, and for me to get from midfield back there. Bad Saturday morning. Eight o’clock in the morning, beautiful blue sky. It was a great day to bring an Orbiter home, and they didn’t come home.

[Assistant] And Ellen was back here in Houston. What were you sharing with her from the Cape?

[User] You know, I don’t even remember talking to Ellen. She was in Mission Control. She knew what was going on. I remember—well, we were flying back, getting Jim [James D.] Wetherbee in a car headed up to East Texas, to start putting a recovery effort together. It started that quick. I look at everything that we went through, figuring things out, and all that we did to make the Orbiter better after that. One of the things I tell folks is don’t ever be afraid to ask questions. You’ve got to ask questions. If something’s bugging you, make sure you ask it. I don’t care how new you are. What’s going on. Don’t take people’s word. Ask the question.

[Assistant] Would you talk about those days and weeks following the accident? What were your days like? What sort of issues were you grappling with?


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

[User] Well, it was really hard. Everybody wanted to go out and do something, and you can’t just have people running willy-nilly. We had to set up somebody in charge. Jim spearheaded pulling the team together and the recovery efforts. I’m sure you’ve heard this: the hardest part was having to deal with the physical remains. And the astronauts that worked with all of that, that was really hard. Really hard. Have you talked to Nancy Currie?

[Assistant] Not yet.

[User] Talk to Nancy. The whole recovery effort was just phenomenal. When you think of the team and the area of ground that they covered, and how much of Columbia was recovered, and how we were able to piece together what happened, just absolutely phenomenal.

[Assistant] While the answer wasn’t one you wanted to hear, it certainly saved the Orbiters’ future issues.

[User] Oh, yes, what we learned was critical to the future. Allowed us to complete the program and complete the Space Station.

[Assistant] And those are good things.


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

[User] Talk to Nancy. The whole recovery effort was just phenomenal. When you think of the team and the area of ground that they covered, and how much of Columbia was recovered, and how we were able to piece together what happened, just absolutely phenomenal.

[Assistant] While the answer wasn’t one you wanted to hear, it certainly saved the Orbiters’ future issues.

[User] Oh, yes, what we learned was critical to the future. Allowed us to complete the program and complete the Space Station.

[Assistant] And those are good things.

[User] Yes. It was a great thing.

[Assistant] Did you get to spend any time up in East Texas?


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

[User] Oh, yes, what we learned was critical to the future. Allowed us to complete the program and complete the Space Station.

[Assistant] And those are good things.

[User] Yes. It was a great thing.

[Assistant] Did you get to spend any time up in East Texas?

[User] I did. Great folks. I went up and saw the team a number of times, just to see how my astronauts were doing, see how folks were doing.

[Assistant] And they were so well-received in the neighborhood, they did such a good job.


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

[User] Yes. It was a great thing.

[Assistant] Did you get to spend any time up in East Texas?

[User] I did. Great folks. I went up and saw the team a number of times, just to see how my astronauts were doing, see how folks were doing.

[Assistant] And they were so well-received in the neighborhood, they did such a good job.

[User] Oh, it was awesome. People were so nice. People up there are just absolutely wonderful.

[Assistant] When did your days return to normal after Columbia? Did it take a few months? You had other things to do.


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

[User] I did. Great folks. I went up and saw the team a number of times, just to see how my astronauts were doing, see how folks were doing.

[Assistant] And they were so well-received in the neighborhood, they did such a good job.

[User] Oh, it was awesome. People were so nice. People up there are just absolutely wonderful.

[Assistant] When did your days return to normal after Columbia? Did it take a few months? You had other things to do.

[User] Yes, we got back into the return to flight mode. Once we figured out what the problem was, “Yes, this is it; all right, so how do we fix it?” Then it was an engineering return to work mode. I still had crews on the International Space Station. We still had to assign crews. We had crews in training. We had to work to get crews up there. We had to take care of them. It wasn’t like we weren’t flying in space; we were still doing space ops on ISS, so you had to take care of them. It was hard on Don [Donald R.] Pettit and [Kenneth D.] Bowersox, being on orbit and losing a crew. They had to deal with that up there.

[Assistant] And, of course, all the regular, day-to-day things that you had to deal with.


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

[User] Oh, it was awesome. People were so nice. People up there are just absolutely wonderful.

[Assistant] When did your days return to normal after Columbia? Did it take a few months? You had other things to do.

[User] Yes, we got back into the return to flight mode. Once we figured out what the problem was, “Yes, this is it; all right, so how do we fix it?” Then it was an engineering return to work mode. I still had crews on the International Space Station. We still had to assign crews. We had crews in training. We had to work to get crews up there. We had to take care of them. It wasn’t like we weren’t flying in space; we were still doing space ops on ISS, so you had to take care of them. It was hard on Don [Donald R.] Pettit and [Kenneth D.] Bowersox, being on orbit and losing a crew. They had to deal with that up there.

[Assistant] And, of course, all the regular, day-to-day things that you had to deal with.

[User] Yes, we still did all of that, yes. Life goes on.

[Assistant] That all managed to get done.


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

[User] Yes, we got back into the return to flight mode. Once we figured out what the problem was, “Yes, this is it; all right, so how do we fix it?” Then it was an engineering return to work mode. I still had crews on the International Space Station. We still had to assign crews. We had crews in training. We had to work to get crews up there. We had to take care of them. It wasn’t like we weren’t flying in space; we were still doing space ops on ISS, so you had to take care of them. It was hard on Don [Donald R.] Pettit and [Kenneth D.] Bowersox, being on orbit and losing a crew. They had to deal with that up there.

[Assistant] And, of course, all the regular, day-to-day things that you had to deal with.

[User] Yes, we still did all of that, yes. Life goes on.

[Assistant] That all managed to get done.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, I think this might be a good time for us to stop.


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

[User] Yes, we still did all of that, yes. Life goes on.

[Assistant] That all managed to get done.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, I think this might be a good time for us to stop.

[User] I think so. I’ll have to tell you about STS-88 another time.

[Assistant] Absolutely. I wanted to save that.


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

[User] Yes, certainly they were primarily interested every time we had a major failure. “What does this mean to the schedule?” The first Shuttle was launched in ’81, I think it was three or four years late. I think the Shuttle probably paced that schedule as well as the Orbiter. Both of them were struggling with some technical issues. All the systems seemed to really mature, coming together so we could seriously look at a launch about 1980, and from there on we knew sometime in ’81 we’d get it off.

[Assistant] How were you able to follow the progress of the project, being as you had work going on in California, work in Mississippi, and at Marshall? How were kept apprised of all the different components and different issues facing the engine? Did you have other management below you keeping track?

[User] We had other people in the program that were assigned to stay on top of the various subsystems, and we had constant reviews, both at Marshall as well as at the contractor site. Not only within the project, but also within the Center that were Shuttle-focused, not only including the Shuttle main engine, but the solid rocket boosters and the external tank as well. Then we had a number of meetings and reviews with Headquarters, so it was a very review-focused time. You were almost constantly in some kind of a review or budget cycle or something else. It was a very exciting time, looking back on it. A lot of pain, but exciting nonetheless.

[Assistant] What were your hours like during those years that you were the project manager?

[User] I’m an early person, so I would usually get to work around 6:30 and then leave in the evening sometime. On TDY [temporary duty], the hours seemed to be a little longer. Down at the test sites, Stennis, there were always things to do and be concerned about.

[Assistant] There was some involvement by the National Research Council with the main engines. Can you talk about their involvement and their suggestions to improve the main engines?


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

[User] We had other people in the program that were assigned to stay on top of the various subsystems, and we had constant reviews, both at Marshall as well as at the contractor site. Not only within the project, but also within the Center that were Shuttle-focused, not only including the Shuttle main engine, but the solid rocket boosters and the external tank as well. Then we had a number of meetings and reviews with Headquarters, so it was a very review-focused time. You were almost constantly in some kind of a review or budget cycle or something else. It was a very exciting time, looking back on it. A lot of pain, but exciting nonetheless.

[Assistant] What were your hours like during those years that you were the project manager?

[User] I’m an early person, so I would usually get to work around 6:30 and then leave in the evening sometime. On TDY [temporary duty], the hours seemed to be a little longer. Down at the test sites, Stennis, there were always things to do and be concerned about.

[Assistant] There was some involvement by the National Research Council with the main engines. Can you talk about their involvement and their suggestions to improve the main engines?

[User] I think they first got involved back in the days of the subsynchronous whirl. Perhaps the [NASA] Administrator [Robert A. Frosch] or John Yardley asked the National Research Council to take a look at the Shuttle engine because of the criticality, and it was problem plagued at that time. The Research Council appointed Professor Gene [Eugene E.] Covert from MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge] to head a team or a panel. They came down to Marshall on several occasions and out to Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, got heavily involved in the program, offered advice, reviewed status and progress, and eventually were satisfied with the outcome. They were very helpful.

[Assistant] You didn’t find that particularly challenging, working with another group coming in and having some oversight?


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

[User] I’m an early person, so I would usually get to work around 6:30 and then leave in the evening sometime. On TDY [temporary duty], the hours seemed to be a little longer. Down at the test sites, Stennis, there were always things to do and be concerned about.

[Assistant] There was some involvement by the National Research Council with the main engines. Can you talk about their involvement and their suggestions to improve the main engines?

[User] I think they first got involved back in the days of the subsynchronous whirl. Perhaps the [NASA] Administrator [Robert A. Frosch] or John Yardley asked the National Research Council to take a look at the Shuttle engine because of the criticality, and it was problem plagued at that time. The Research Council appointed Professor Gene [Eugene E.] Covert from MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge] to head a team or a panel. They came down to Marshall on several occasions and out to Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, got heavily involved in the program, offered advice, reviewed status and progress, and eventually were satisfied with the outcome. They were very helpful.

[Assistant] You didn’t find that particularly challenging, working with another group coming in and having some oversight?

[User] No. I mean, probably your first reaction is, “Oh no, not another one.” But once you get through that, we worked well together. It was not contentious, there was no tension as I recall. It was just a tough problem and we welcomed the help.

[Assistant] Tell us about your relationship with John Yardley, who was AA [associate administrator] for Manned Space Flight at that time, and his impact on the main engines.


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

[User] I think they first got involved back in the days of the subsynchronous whirl. Perhaps the [NASA] Administrator [Robert A. Frosch] or John Yardley asked the National Research Council to take a look at the Shuttle engine because of the criticality, and it was problem plagued at that time. The Research Council appointed Professor Gene [Eugene E.] Covert from MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge] to head a team or a panel. They came down to Marshall on several occasions and out to Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, got heavily involved in the program, offered advice, reviewed status and progress, and eventually were satisfied with the outcome. They were very helpful.

[Assistant] You didn’t find that particularly challenging, working with another group coming in and having some oversight?

[User] No. I mean, probably your first reaction is, “Oh no, not another one.” But once you get through that, we worked well together. It was not contentious, there was no tension as I recall. It was just a tough problem and we welcomed the help.

[Assistant] Tell us about your relationship with John Yardley, who was AA [associate administrator] for Manned Space Flight at that time, and his impact on the main engines.

[User] I really liked John. To me, he was the glue that held the Shuttle Program together, and it took a toll on his life too. John was on the road quite a bit. He was very tough, he was very demanding. I mentioned I usually came in early, six-thirty, seven o’clock, but wherever I was, I could expect a call from John at seven o’clock Washington [DC] time. So if you’re out in California, that’s four o’clock in the morning, and he knew where I was and he stayed in touch. It was tough.

[Assistant] I understand that you tested the engine with a number of flaws to prove its worthiness at some point. Did he approve of those ideas?


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

[User] Certainly they were heavily involved in that and wanted to know the progress and why the local project managers felt that it was safe enough and the testing was adequate enough to fly safely, and so they monitored that progress pretty well. I would say they were very active as an oversight, and, I might add, tolerant, patient as we worked through some of these problems. I found the NASA management system, and particularly the Marshall management system, people like Bob [Robert E.] Lindstrom, who I worked for, and Bill [William R.] Lucas, who was the [Marshall] Center Director at that time, to be very supportive, patient, but also very demanding, just like John Yardley was.

[Assistant] Tell us about your relationship with Bob [Robert F.] Thompson at JSC. What was that relationship like?

[User] It was very good. It was on par, I thought, to the relationship I had with John Yardley. He was a very strong leader, got heavily involved in making sure that he understood what the problem was that you were working, and he was comfortable that we were going about it in the right way. That was a good relationship; it was a good oversight. Headquarters was Level Zero, Yardley was Level One, Thompson was Level Two. The projects, like the Shuttle and the Orbiter and the main engine, were Level Three.

[Assistant] You mentioned the Management Council was particularly patient as you were working through some of these challenges. Did you ever feel any pressure to meet certain schedules or meet certain costs at any point?

[User] There was a lot of pressure, but you just did the best you could, and if you had a cost problem, you had a cost problem. You couldn’t save costs and solve the technical problems at the same time. I could have been fired a number of times. I mean, there was probably a lot of reason to do that, but they were patient and probably in the end had to ask, “Well, if we fire him, who are we going to get?”

[Assistant] Yes, who wants to work those hours? Tell us about the certification of the main engines for that first flight and the flight acceptance test.


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

[User] There was a lot of pressure, but you just did the best you could, and if you had a cost problem, you had a cost problem. You couldn’t save costs and solve the technical problems at the same time. I could have been fired a number of times. I mean, there was probably a lot of reason to do that, but they were patient and probably in the end had to ask, “Well, if we fire him, who are we going to get?”

[Assistant] Yes, who wants to work those hours? Tell us about the certification of the main engines for that first flight and the flight acceptance test.

[User] The certification program was probably inspired more by John Yardley. At the time, I think he brought his airplane experience with him. This was much in advance of the certification program. You had to write down what the criteria was, how many engines you were going to use, no failures, how many tests, how long. You couldn’t wing it; you couldn’t test and then all of a sudden at the very end decide we were ready. You had to write down, and then once you wrote it down he had to approve it, and he usually added something. It was a very strenuous program.\n\n I think before the first flight we completed two ten-test series of engine testing at the normal thrust and then the 109 percent thrust. No failures, no anomalies or you had to start over. That’s where we introduced some of the flaw testing that he got quite nervous about, because we were doing that as a part of the formal certification of the engine. You’re going to run these tests with flawed parts, and you can’t have any problems. You had to be right.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s a pretty gutsy move.

[User] Then the acceptance testing was, as I recall, very successful. All three of the first flight engines were conducted without a hitch, and then, of course, all subsequent flight engines went through an acceptance series. I don’t recall any real problems in the acceptance testing after the basic design had been through that torturous certification program.

[Assistant] Talk to us about that first flight readiness review that you participated in for STS-1.


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

[User] Then the acceptance testing was, as I recall, very successful. All three of the first flight engines were conducted without a hitch, and then, of course, all subsequent flight engines went through an acceptance series. I don’t recall any real problems in the acceptance testing after the basic design had been through that torturous certification program.

[Assistant] Talk to us about that first flight readiness review that you participated in for STS-1.

[User] Well, it was the first one, so there was a lot of attention. It was a very important review. It was very thorough, perhaps somewhat tense. There was no one part of it that stands out. I don’t recall any particular focus on the Shuttle engine, other than, “Now you’ve had eight years of testing of this thing and you’ve had a lot of problems, have you solved them all?” And, of course, we had the results of the certification program and testing to augment everything we had said at that time. It worked out very well.

[Assistant] Tell us about the minutes before the launch. What was happening at launch control? Were you at one of the consoles monitoring that main engine?

[User] Yes, I went in that night. It was before midnight, I think, and George [B.] Hardy, who was the project manager of the solid rocket booster, rode in with me. I remember coming over the causeway and looking out at the launch pad and it was all lit up. I mean, the whole sky was lit up, and the realization that “This is it.” And we launched later that morning.

[Assistant] Any trepidation as the main engines—?


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

[User] Well, it was the first one, so there was a lot of attention. It was a very important review. It was very thorough, perhaps somewhat tense. There was no one part of it that stands out. I don’t recall any particular focus on the Shuttle engine, other than, “Now you’ve had eight years of testing of this thing and you’ve had a lot of problems, have you solved them all?” And, of course, we had the results of the certification program and testing to augment everything we had said at that time. It worked out very well.

[Assistant] Tell us about the minutes before the launch. What was happening at launch control? Were you at one of the consoles monitoring that main engine?

[User] Yes, I went in that night. It was before midnight, I think, and George [B.] Hardy, who was the project manager of the solid rocket booster, rode in with me. I remember coming over the causeway and looking out at the launch pad and it was all lit up. I mean, the whole sky was lit up, and the realization that “This is it.” And we launched later that morning.

[Assistant] Any trepidation as the main engines—?

[User] Oh, I had plenty. You know, while you’re sitting there listening and watching that launch, all your past failures run right through your head. It was a very stressful time, but rewarding as well.

[Assistant] Did you have any sensors on those main engines for that first flight that you were able to get data as they launched?


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

[User] Yes, I went in that night. It was before midnight, I think, and George [B.] Hardy, who was the project manager of the solid rocket booster, rode in with me. I remember coming over the causeway and looking out at the launch pad and it was all lit up. I mean, the whole sky was lit up, and the realization that “This is it.” And we launched later that morning.

[Assistant] Any trepidation as the main engines—?

[User] Oh, I had plenty. You know, while you’re sitting there listening and watching that launch, all your past failures run right through your head. It was a very stressful time, but rewarding as well.

[Assistant] Did you have any sensors on those main engines for that first flight that you were able to get data as they launched?

[User] Yes, we had a lot of instrumentation, everything we had during acceptance tests, so we knew how they were performing. They performed very well. There were no issues, there was no spurious data that got us all upset during flight. It was very nominal.

[Assistant] Were you at Edwards [Air Force Base, California] or at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida]?


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

[User] Yes, we had a lot of instrumentation, everything we had during acceptance tests, so we knew how they were performing. They performed very well. There were no issues, there was no spurious data that got us all upset during flight. It was very nominal.

[Assistant] Were you at Edwards [Air Force Base, California] or at the Cape [Canaveral, Florida]?

[User] I was at the Cape for launch and went out to Edwards for touchdown.

[Assistant] Exciting moment.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you at the Cape when they pulled out the main engines and looked them over?


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

[User] I was at the Cape for launch and went out to Edwards for touchdown.

[Assistant] Exciting moment.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you at the Cape when they pulled out the main engines and looked them over?

[User] I probably got reports of that, but I wasn’t there for any inspections after it got back to the Cape.

[Assistant] Were there any changes made to the main engines following that first flight?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Were you at the Cape when they pulled out the main engines and looked them over?

[User] I probably got reports of that, but I wasn’t there for any inspections after it got back to the Cape.

[Assistant] Were there any changes made to the main engines following that first flight?

[User] Sure, there were some. They were normal upgrades or improvements of a valve or of a seal, nothing that was dictated by the last flight. There was no change of that type.

[Assistant] How long did you serve as project manager once the Shuttle started flying?


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

[User] I probably got reports of that, but I wasn’t there for any inspections after it got back to the Cape.

[Assistant] Were there any changes made to the main engines following that first flight?

[User] Sure, there were some. They were normal upgrades or improvements of a valve or of a seal, nothing that was dictated by the last flight. There was no change of that type.

[Assistant] How long did you serve as project manager once the Shuttle started flying?

[User] For several years, from 1974 to ’82. I was a manager of the Shuttle engine for those eight years, and then after that I became the chief engineer at Marshall. So I was still involved in the Shuttle engine, all of the Shuttle elements then for another two years, and then I went to Princeton [University, New Jersey].

[Assistant] Then you came back as the Center Director, I understand. Would you like to talk about your years as Center Director at Marshall?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Who was it?

[User] He was from Los Angeles. He got into trouble about two months after we were there.

[Assistant] Yeah, there were a handful of guys.

[User] Yeah, they were adjusting to the drinking part of Fiji, not necessarily the other parts.

[Assistant] But I'm going to back up a little bit. So you got accepted and got this invitation to Fiji. Did you know anything about Fiji or have you heard of it before?


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

[User] Yeah, they were adjusting to the drinking part of Fiji, not necessarily the other parts.

[Assistant] But I'm going to back up a little bit. So you got accepted and got this invitation to Fiji. Did you know anything about Fiji or have you heard of it before?

[User] No. I had worked on staff in L.A., so I knew all of the countries, and actually had to learn that they weren't misspelling Tonga when they were inviting people to Togo in Africa. But Fiji, we had a guy on our staff who had been a volunteer in group two of Fiji's Peace Corps volunteers, so he was really excited to take me to an Indian restaurant in L.A. and tell me about his experiences. He was a teacher, Dick Earl. And then my family, of course, thought, oh, you're going to the cannibal islands. That's about all the information there was in books around that time. This is '74, 1974. So not everybody even knew about Fiji other than, I mean, even now it's become a tourist destination, but not so much then.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] It was expensive to get to. And so.

[Assistant] Very far away.


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

[User] No. I had worked on staff in L.A., so I knew all of the countries, and actually had to learn that they weren't misspelling Tonga when they were inviting people to Togo in Africa. But Fiji, we had a guy on our staff who had been a volunteer in group two of Fiji's Peace Corps volunteers, so he was really excited to take me to an Indian restaurant in L.A. and tell me about his experiences. He was a teacher, Dick Earl. And then my family, of course, thought, oh, you're going to the cannibal islands. That's about all the information there was in books around that time. This is '74, 1974. So not everybody even knew about Fiji other than, I mean, even now it's become a tourist destination, but not so much then.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] It was expensive to get to. And so.

[Assistant] Very far away.

[User] Very far away. And I was a little naive. I thought, oh, on my school break, I knew you get a break at the end of the year, I'd go to see the Taj Mahal. I'd go to India during that, because I knew you had almost three weeks of break. So my sense of geography has improved.

[Assistant] Yeah. So what was your family's reaction?


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

[User] Very far away. And I was a little naive. I thought, oh, on my school break, I knew you get a break at the end of the year, I'd go to see the Taj Mahal. I'd go to India during that, because I knew you had almost three weeks of break. So my sense of geography has improved.

[Assistant] Yeah. So what was your family's reaction?

[User] Well. Two years is not much. At that time, you know, if it went badly, it was still only two years, so nobody expected changes to, you know, happen badly. I'm a good correspondent, so I, you know, wrote to them when possible. There was no telephone service where I was during training or on my assignment. So that was actually kind of nice. People had to come see you or write to you and you'd get mail. Delayed mail, sometimes about a week and a half to get from California to Fiji. But they were enthusiastic.

[Assistant] They were?

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I should state that I was in the same group as you. So I've got a little insight, insider information. And we didn't, we weren't in the same language training, but I do. I do remember one thing from when you went down on one of these homestays.


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

[User] Well. Two years is not much. At that time, you know, if it went badly, it was still only two years, so nobody expected changes to, you know, happen badly. I'm a good correspondent, so I, you know, wrote to them when possible. There was no telephone service where I was during training or on my assignment. So that was actually kind of nice. People had to come see you or write to you and you'd get mail. Delayed mail, sometimes about a week and a half to get from California to Fiji. But they were enthusiastic.

[Assistant] They were?

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I should state that I was in the same group as you. So I've got a little insight, insider information. And we didn't, we weren't in the same language training, but I do. I do remember one thing from when you went down on one of these homestays.

[User] Mm hmm?

[Assistant] Is that you had the kids write their names down. What was it on? Tell us. Tell me about. Do you remember that? You had them write it on a piece of cloth.


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So I should state that I was in the same group as you. So I've got a little insight, insider information. And we didn't, we weren't in the same language training, but I do. I do remember one thing from when you went down on one of these homestays.

[User] Mm hmm?

[Assistant] Is that you had the kids write their names down. What was it on? Tell us. Tell me about. Do you remember that? You had them write it on a piece of cloth.

[User] Yeah, I made use of fabric a lot. And so in one of the summer school kinds of things I did during training, I was going to do tie-dying and the news went through the school like it was wildfire. People were taking their shirts off in order to get the fabric printing techniques that I was teaching in the little school at Bunimono. And this is in a place where the rain is on the tin roof. And it was an interesting introduction to teaching there.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I think after having the kids write their name on the cloth, didn't you embroider it?


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

[User] Mm hmm?

[Assistant] Is that you had the kids write their names down. What was it on? Tell us. Tell me about. Do you remember that? You had them write it on a piece of cloth.

[User] Yeah, I made use of fabric a lot. And so in one of the summer school kinds of things I did during training, I was going to do tie-dying and the news went through the school like it was wildfire. People were taking their shirts off in order to get the fabric printing techniques that I was teaching in the little school at Bunimono. And this is in a place where the rain is on the tin roof. And it was an interesting introduction to teaching there.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I think after having the kids write their name on the cloth, didn't you embroider it?

[User] Oh, I did. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you would remember all of their names.


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

[User] Yeah, I made use of fabric a lot. And so in one of the summer school kinds of things I did during training, I was going to do tie-dying and the news went through the school like it was wildfire. People were taking their shirts off in order to get the fabric printing techniques that I was teaching in the little school at Bunimono. And this is in a place where the rain is on the tin roof. And it was an interesting introduction to teaching there.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I think after having the kids write their name on the cloth, didn't you embroider it?

[User] Oh, I did. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you would remember all of their names.

[User] It's permanent. Permanent in my memories. Yeah, I've got. I do that a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah. I thought that was a great idea. So any other experiences from that training period or the home stays that you can think of or?


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

[User] Oh, I did. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you would remember all of their names.

[User] It's permanent. Permanent in my memories. Yeah, I've got. I do that a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah. I thought that was a great idea. So any other experiences from that training period or the home stays that you can think of or?

[User] I was glad that I had the opportunity to go to two different villages and a cross-cultural Indian town. I was always asked, you know, when are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I would say in Navua, I'd say, oh, when the bridge gets finished. Because the bridge had washed out several times before I got to that to that part of the island and it washed out again. A brand-new bridge had been in construction. It wasn't finished when I left. And then the first big flood it washed out.

[Assistant] So did you kind of keep in touch with those families?


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

[User] It's permanent. Permanent in my memories. Yeah, I've got. I do that a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah. I thought that was a great idea. So any other experiences from that training period or the home stays that you can think of or?

[User] I was glad that I had the opportunity to go to two different villages and a cross-cultural Indian town. I was always asked, you know, when are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I would say in Navua, I'd say, oh, when the bridge gets finished. Because the bridge had washed out several times before I got to that to that part of the island and it washed out again. A brand-new bridge had been in construction. It wasn't finished when I left. And then the first big flood it washed out.

[Assistant] So did you kind of keep in touch with those families?

[User] I did. I'm still in touch with three or four of my former students. It's gone down from about a dozen that I was pretty frequently in touch with. I know about when their kids are born, when they've gotten put in arranged marriages. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you said your training was about three months.


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

[User] I was glad that I had the opportunity to go to two different villages and a cross-cultural Indian town. I was always asked, you know, when are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I would say in Navua, I'd say, oh, when the bridge gets finished. Because the bridge had washed out several times before I got to that to that part of the island and it washed out again. A brand-new bridge had been in construction. It wasn't finished when I left. And then the first big flood it washed out.

[Assistant] So did you kind of keep in touch with those families?

[User] I did. I'm still in touch with three or four of my former students. It's gone down from about a dozen that I was pretty frequently in touch with. I know about when their kids are born, when they've gotten put in arranged marriages. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you said your training was about three months.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then tell me about your assignment, your work assignment.


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

[User] I did. I'm still in touch with three or four of my former students. It's gone down from about a dozen that I was pretty frequently in touch with. I know about when their kids are born, when they've gotten put in arranged marriages. Yeah.

[Assistant] So you said your training was about three months.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then tell me about your assignment, your work assignment.

[User] I was invited to Fiji with the information that I was going to be teaching art at two Indian schools. This is in contrast to having the two months of Fijian language training.

[Assistant] Right, disconnect with the language training.


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then tell me about your assignment, your work assignment.

[User] I was invited to Fiji with the information that I was going to be teaching art at two Indian schools. This is in contrast to having the two months of Fijian language training.

[Assistant] Right, disconnect with the language training.

[User] So I wound up having tutoring in Hindi for about 10 days. And then that assignment fell through because the Minister of Education, um, they were. He told the schools who were trying to say, well, you have to give her housing. No, you have to give her housing. So I had no housing. That was going to be part of my school assignment. And so the Minister of Education said, OK, you don't have an art teacher for the next two years. So I wound up going to the teacher's college. I actually was sworn-in in January of '75 without an assignment. I stayed with the Peace Corps nurse in her house that needed to be fumigated, with albino cockroaches flying in the facilities. And shortly after that they found the assignment at the teacher's college. So I got to teach in.

[Assistant] Was that a little discouraging when you were kind of in limbo for a while?


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

[User] I was invited to Fiji with the information that I was going to be teaching art at two Indian schools. This is in contrast to having the two months of Fijian language training.

[Assistant] Right, disconnect with the language training.

[User] So I wound up having tutoring in Hindi for about 10 days. And then that assignment fell through because the Minister of Education, um, they were. He told the schools who were trying to say, well, you have to give her housing. No, you have to give her housing. So I had no housing. That was going to be part of my school assignment. And so the Minister of Education said, OK, you don't have an art teacher for the next two years. So I wound up going to the teacher's college. I actually was sworn-in in January of '75 without an assignment. I stayed with the Peace Corps nurse in her house that needed to be fumigated, with albino cockroaches flying in the facilities. And shortly after that they found the assignment at the teacher's college. So I got to teach in.

[Assistant] Was that a little discouraging when you were kind of in limbo for a while?

[User] I had worked in Peace Corps in L.A., so I knew the administration can be, um, a government administration can be challenging. So, you know, I might. I didn't. I wasn't too too worried. One of the ladies who was in my training group and had been my pal in Navua wound up going home in January because she felt that the hurricane that came through while we were finishing our training was enough to send her back to that old boyfriend that she'd left in America. So.

[Assistant] So then you get assigned to the, uh.


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

[User] I had worked in Peace Corps in L.A., so I knew the administration can be, um, a government administration can be challenging. So, you know, I might. I didn't. I wasn't too too worried. One of the ladies who was in my training group and had been my pal in Navua wound up going home in January because she felt that the hurricane that came through while we were finishing our training was enough to send her back to that old boyfriend that she'd left in America. So.

[Assistant] So then you get assigned to the, uh.

[User] Teacher's college. And I wound up teaching in English because the British have set up that system so that the children are taught in English primarily. I was teaching integrated arts. So the kids that were going to do art, P.E., or music in the high school level would were in my classes. I had, my favorites were the licensed teachers. They had been in Fiji and had a one-year experience of teacher training years and years before. And so they were just so enthusiastic for anything I could share with them. And then the third group were the two-year secondary, well, two year regular kind of college students. And so I taught them, and some of those are the ones that I've stayed in touch with. Some of them were put in arranged marriages with licensed teachers that I knew too. So I've kind of known some of those families.

[Assistant] Those would have been the Indian.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Indian teachers. So there at the school, you had a mixed population.


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

[User] Teacher's college. And I wound up teaching in English because the British have set up that system so that the children are taught in English primarily. I was teaching integrated arts. So the kids that were going to do art, P.E., or music in the high school level would were in my classes. I had, my favorites were the licensed teachers. They had been in Fiji and had a one-year experience of teacher training years and years before. And so they were just so enthusiastic for anything I could share with them. And then the third group were the two-year secondary, well, two year regular kind of college students. And so I taught them, and some of those are the ones that I've stayed in touch with. Some of them were put in arranged marriages with licensed teachers that I knew too. So I've kind of known some of those families.

[Assistant] Those would have been the Indian.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Indian teachers. So there at the school, you had a mixed population.

[User] Half female, half male.

[Assistant] Yeah, and you got to work with both cultures.


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Indian teachers. So there at the school, you had a mixed population.

[User] Half female, half male.

[Assistant] Yeah, and you got to work with both cultures.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Or the many cultures that are in Fiji.


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

[User] Half female, half male.

[Assistant] Yeah, and you got to work with both cultures.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Or the many cultures that are in Fiji.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And so walk me through a typical day. What was your typical workday there?


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

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Or the many cultures that are in Fiji.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And so walk me through a typical day. What was your typical workday there?

[User]
It was. It was longer than I expected. I had worked in an administrative kind of jobs in my career prior to that, but I thought teaching up, oh, you'll start at 8:00 and you'll finish at 3:00, maybe a couple more hours for homework, you know, to prepare for your lessons and you'll be, you know, that's not, doesn't sound bad. That wasn't the case. This was my first year of very formal teaching, trying to research what they could benefit from, what resources they had. So I was teaching how to do things with art supplies that they could get ahold of. Things. I think I was most effective because I could teach with, if you had a fish, you could use the bones for jewelry. You could make fish prints with the skin. There was, I really liked teaching there and studying things that would be useful.

I got publicity for the art classes from a study of tattooing. Fijians don't tattoo as much as some. Some groups in other cultures will scar their skin in order to make a raised pattern. So that got first page on the Fiji Times with coming out to see my students in the lessons that we were learning. We were painting on the skin. But it wasn't boring. I had heard that Peace Corps volunteers had a lot of off time. That didn't happen for me. I was, I don't know if it was because I was eight miles from the capital city, so I would be able to go in and get some groceries from the capital and come back, or what the story was. But I had sent myself some books to read during those two years, and I never read them at all.

[Assistant] Yeah. So you lived near the capital, did you? Did you live on the school compound or in the neighborhood?


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

[User]
I did. I lived in the school compound in a house that was a wood house that was elevated off of the soil. And so I had plants growing underneath my house that I'd only bought in nurseries in L.A. So that was kind of pretty to have maidenhair ferns and different kinds of lush, tropical flowers. My house didn't have hot water, so I spent the two years without hot water. So that made it easier to come back to move to San Francisco, which was undergoing a drought, because they were asking people not to use water so much. So I thought I was well prepared for my culture. Also, with the mice that would be in the house. When I had mice in San Francisco my first month, it was like, what's the story here? I'm in civilized country. And so I bought mousetraps and I was buying mousetraps for the size mice that were in Fiji. The mice would eat the lure and go away. So I kept going to smaller and smaller mouse traps.

But I had electricity, so I could work a long time into the night at home. And I was just, you know, a flip flop walk away from the school art building. First year, I also made clothes for myself with the sewing machine that my New Zealand volunteer roommate had. And the second year I would go up to the home ec department and make clothes for myself there. So that was one of the things I'd worried about in leaving America was, how am I going to sew for two years?

[Assistant] I remember they had treadle sewing machines?

[User] Yeah, yeah.

[Assistant] Was that what you used?

[User] Yeah, that's what they had up at the classroom. And so, um. One of the other activities in art that I was doing was batik and stenciling and stuff, and I learned to use a kerosene iron. I had electricity.

[Assistant] So describe a kerosene iron. How does that work?


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

[User] Yeah, that's what they had up at the classroom. And so, um. One of the other activities in art that I was doing was batik and stenciling and stuff, and I learned to use a kerosene iron. I had electricity.

[Assistant] So describe a kerosene iron. How does that work?

[User] Kerosene iron is just crazy. It's got this little contraption on the back of the iron that will, um, that you put the kerosene in and then you light it. And so you have this sound like a hot air balloon at the same time that you're ironing. I grew up with kerosene lamps and iron, old 1880s artifacts in my family.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And so but I had never even heard of a kerosene iron, and so I thought that was pretty cool.

[Assistant] Sounds like something you could burn yourself pretty good on if you're not careful.


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

[User] Kerosene iron is just crazy. It's got this little contraption on the back of the iron that will, um, that you put the kerosene in and then you light it. And so you have this sound like a hot air balloon at the same time that you're ironing. I grew up with kerosene lamps and iron, old 1880s artifacts in my family.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And so but I had never even heard of a kerosene iron, and so I thought that was pretty cool.

[Assistant] Sounds like something you could burn yourself pretty good on if you're not careful.

[User] Oh, I think so. I think so. Definitely. Yeah. I used the Primus and different kinds of kerosene stoves when I was in more rural areas in the homes. I went to visit with one of my students who was a licensed teacher, and she invited me to her home up in Labasa area, and so I got to meet her family. She had left her family to take this one- year course at the teacher's college, and I've been involved with her family ever since. You know, they've, both her daughters have been married. I've made wedding gifts for them and stayed in touch since the '70s.

[Assistant] So what was it? I'm sure you remember her name then.


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

[User] And so but I had never even heard of a kerosene iron, and so I thought that was pretty cool.

[Assistant] Sounds like something you could burn yourself pretty good on if you're not careful.

[User] Oh, I think so. I think so. Definitely. Yeah. I used the Primus and different kinds of kerosene stoves when I was in more rural areas in the homes. I went to visit with one of my students who was a licensed teacher, and she invited me to her home up in Labasa area, and so I got to meet her family. She had left her family to take this one- year course at the teacher's college, and I've been involved with her family ever since. You know, they've, both her daughters have been married. I've made wedding gifts for them and stayed in touch since the '70s.

[Assistant] So what was it? I'm sure you remember her name then.

[User] Oh yeah.

[Assistant] What was her name?


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

[User] Oh, I think so. I think so. Definitely. Yeah. I used the Primus and different kinds of kerosene stoves when I was in more rural areas in the homes. I went to visit with one of my students who was a licensed teacher, and she invited me to her home up in Labasa area, and so I got to meet her family. She had left her family to take this one- year course at the teacher's college, and I've been involved with her family ever since. You know, they've, both her daughters have been married. I've made wedding gifts for them and stayed in touch since the '70s.

[Assistant] So what was it? I'm sure you remember her name then.

[User] Oh yeah.

[Assistant] What was her name?

[User] So I have. The friends that I've kept in touch with there, the Ryans, Mayawatiram and her husband Hari, H-A-R-I.

[Assistant] Also this was an Indian lady from Labasa.


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

[User] Oh yeah.

[Assistant] What was her name?

[User] So I have. The friends that I've kept in touch with there, the Ryans, Mayawatiram and her husband Hari, H-A-R-I.

[Assistant] Also this was an Indian lady from Labasa.

[User] Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so she moved, I guess her assignment eventually after she finished her teacher's college thing was still on that island, but not as close. Probably a 40 minute bus ride from Labasa. And so when I went back in '84 with now my husband, who I met in Fiji, we went on a bus to just go and see her. And on the elementary school compound, the bus driver forgot that we were on the bus. I thought that showed we really fit in pretty well because you didn't even notice that we were still on the bus and we were very unfamiliar where we were going. We got to her home. She wasn't there, but her neighbors invited us into their house. We had tea and probably some biscuits at their house. You just don't have that in California. I, you know, I will never forget the hospitality in Fiji. I think it was just so sweet.

[Assistant] Yeah, so talk about that a little bit. You just got off the bus and had nowhere to go, so they invited you into their house. Was that typical?


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

[User] Yeah, it would be hard to not to stand out as you're making your way in an area that, um, you're the white people. And so but that happened also with a family in, um, in another part of Fiji, where we got to their house, they weren't there, their neighbors took us to a stream to, you know, enjoy the sightseeing in that area. And eventually, the people we were looking forward to meeting came home. One of the things we did in '84. My husband said he felt like a visiting education officer. We went at the crack of dawn to get to a village where my friends would be. And we'd get there by sunset. We'd spend the night with, you know, socializing and staying with my old students and then get up the next day to take a punt, a boat, to the bus stop to proceed to visit other people. So all of his work companions that he knew were in Suva, right in the capital city. All my students naturally were sent to outlying places.

[Assistant] They were all over the place.

[User] Mm-hmm. Fiji's got 300 islands when there's low tide and my students went to all sorts of places. One of the sweetest letters I've kept all of these years is from a fellow whose assignment took him on a boat to get to it, and he writes about his homesickness. And his homesickness was just like anybody's homesickness that we're familiar with, because he was going someplace unfamiliar, didn't know who he was going to see.

[Assistant] Yeah. Even though it's in the same country.

[User] Yeah, I've often wondered what happened to Apollo Qata because, and I've asked a few friends if they can find him for me, because that made an impression on me. His last name, Q-A-T-A.

[Assistant] He was one of your students?


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

[User] Mm-hmm. Fiji's got 300 islands when there's low tide and my students went to all sorts of places. One of the sweetest letters I've kept all of these years is from a fellow whose assignment took him on a boat to get to it, and he writes about his homesickness. And his homesickness was just like anybody's homesickness that we're familiar with, because he was going someplace unfamiliar, didn't know who he was going to see.

[Assistant] Yeah. Even though it's in the same country.

[User] Yeah, I've often wondered what happened to Apollo Qata because, and I've asked a few friends if they can find him for me, because that made an impression on me. His last name, Q-A-T-A.

[Assistant] He was one of your students?

[User] Mm hmm. We've had some of my students come back. We just had a student come by about two years ago on their way to on various busses and things from Fiji to see other parts of the United States. And I get this call totally out of the blue. And she remembered me with such fondness and it was like, my god. It's nice to know that you've made an impression on people.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they found you after that somehow.


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

[User] Yeah, I've often wondered what happened to Apollo Qata because, and I've asked a few friends if they can find him for me, because that made an impression on me. His last name, Q-A-T-A.

[Assistant] He was one of your students?

[User] Mm hmm. We've had some of my students come back. We just had a student come by about two years ago on their way to on various busses and things from Fiji to see other parts of the United States. And I get this call totally out of the blue. And she remembered me with such fondness and it was like, my god. It's nice to know that you've made an impression on people.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they found you after that somehow.

[User] Yeah. Well, it's a closely knit community. The Fijians often have someone who they, they don't call them cousins, they're sisters and brothers. And often you'll find someone, you'll see a name that you think you know, and you'll ask somebody else about it. And oh yeah, that's my, you know, relative. And I don't know if exactly that's really their auntie, but they just have a genuine affection for everybody.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they have these large extended families.


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

[User] Mm hmm. We've had some of my students come back. We just had a student come by about two years ago on their way to on various busses and things from Fiji to see other parts of the United States. And I get this call totally out of the blue. And she remembered me with such fondness and it was like, my god. It's nice to know that you've made an impression on people.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they found you after that somehow.

[User] Yeah. Well, it's a closely knit community. The Fijians often have someone who they, they don't call them cousins, they're sisters and brothers. And often you'll find someone, you'll see a name that you think you know, and you'll ask somebody else about it. And oh yeah, that's my, you know, relative. And I don't know if exactly that's really their auntie, but they just have a genuine affection for everybody.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they have these large extended families.

[User] Absolutely.

[Assistant] Hard to figure out what the real relationships are. So were you at Nasinu Teachers Training College for your entire?


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

[User] Yeah. Well, it's a closely knit community. The Fijians often have someone who they, they don't call them cousins, they're sisters and brothers. And often you'll find someone, you'll see a name that you think you know, and you'll ask somebody else about it. And oh yeah, that's my, you know, relative. And I don't know if exactly that's really their auntie, but they just have a genuine affection for everybody.

[Assistant] Yeah. So they have these large extended families.

[User] Absolutely.

[Assistant] Hard to figure out what the real relationships are. So were you at Nasinu Teachers Training College for your entire?

[User] Yeah, it was my two years experience. And during school breaks, my students and I would go to a village and we would teach arts and crafts during the day, and the villagers would teach us traditional weaving, because my students were going to be going to these various islands. And not everybody knows how to do bark cloth printing or any of the crafts that Fijians are known for.

[Assistant] So you got to visit quite a few different places as part of your job.


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

[User] Yeah, it was my two years experience. And during school breaks, my students and I would go to a village and we would teach arts and crafts during the day, and the villagers would teach us traditional weaving, because my students were going to be going to these various islands. And not everybody knows how to do bark cloth printing or any of the crafts that Fijians are known for.

[Assistant] So you got to visit quite a few different places as part of your job.

[User] I did. I did. I took advantage. I got to see where the cannibals actually originally fought, and it made a lot more sense when you study all of the tools, the wooden clubs and things that are so beautifully carved, how they could not just be slaughtered in these jungle like settings. These were not the open grasses that you sometimes see in TV movies of battles.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] This was, it made a lot more sense to me.

[Assistant] The jungle kind of places?


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

[User] I did. I did. I took advantage. I got to see where the cannibals actually originally fought, and it made a lot more sense when you study all of the tools, the wooden clubs and things that are so beautifully carved, how they could not just be slaughtered in these jungle like settings. These were not the open grasses that you sometimes see in TV movies of battles.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] This was, it made a lot more sense to me.

[Assistant] The jungle kind of places?

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So what place was this that you're talking about? Do you remember the name of it?


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

[User] This was, it made a lot more sense to me.

[Assistant] The jungle kind of places?

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So what place was this that you're talking about? Do you remember the name of it?

[User] I wrote it down because I thought I might be asked.

[Assistant] Was it in the interior of Viti Levu?


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

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] So what place was this that you're talking about? Do you remember the name of it?

[User] I wrote it down because I thought I might be asked.

[Assistant] Was it in the interior of Viti Levu?

[User] No, it was on a coast.

[Assistant] On the coast?


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

[User] I wrote it down because I thought I might be asked.

[Assistant] Was it in the interior of Viti Levu?

[User] No, it was on a coast.

[Assistant] On the coast?

[User] And in fact, it was a place that if, um, you could almost see a tourist island off the shore. And this village, they got their water from rainwater collected in barrels and stuff. They were on the coast, so we got to see a traditional fishing kind of net activity. And I should have, I wrote it down. It seems to me it was K-A-B-A, Kaba. Now, being in California, I think it's fun to say words in Fijian like tholorondo because of, you know, I learned the pronunciation of Fijian words, but not necessarily all of those pronouns. The nominative pronouns that are necessary in order to. You, not all of you, you and me.

[Assistant] Yeah. The sounds of the letters are different in Fijian. Yeah. So any other interesting places you got to see traveling with your students?


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

[User] And in fact, it was a place that if, um, you could almost see a tourist island off the shore. And this village, they got their water from rainwater collected in barrels and stuff. They were on the coast, so we got to see a traditional fishing kind of net activity. And I should have, I wrote it down. It seems to me it was K-A-B-A, Kaba. Now, being in California, I think it's fun to say words in Fijian like tholorondo because of, you know, I learned the pronunciation of Fijian words, but not necessarily all of those pronouns. The nominative pronouns that are necessary in order to. You, not all of you, you and me.

[Assistant] Yeah. The sounds of the letters are different in Fijian. Yeah. So any other interesting places you got to see traveling with your students?

[User] Um, let's see. I've mentioned a couple of them. I also went down to Kadavu with John and sort of played and did seashell things with the kids, the young kids that were down there. Where else? Interacted with a Swiss architect that was out in Lami that participated in boat racing in Fiji.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And he's from Switzerland, so I went to one of his parties. No one spoke Fijian, no one spoke French, no one spoke Spanish. They spoke Italian or German. You know, things I didn't speak. So I remember it was as much as, it was as difficult speaking at that with those people as it had been in trying to learn Fijian in the beginning. You did a lot more hand gestures and it doesn't do you well to only be arrivederci. That's goodbye.

[Assistant] So there were a lot of expatriates around at that time.


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

[User] Um, let's see. I've mentioned a couple of them. I also went down to Kadavu with John and sort of played and did seashell things with the kids, the young kids that were down there. Where else? Interacted with a Swiss architect that was out in Lami that participated in boat racing in Fiji.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And he's from Switzerland, so I went to one of his parties. No one spoke Fijian, no one spoke French, no one spoke Spanish. They spoke Italian or German. You know, things I didn't speak. So I remember it was as much as, it was as difficult speaking at that with those people as it had been in trying to learn Fijian in the beginning. You did a lot more hand gestures and it doesn't do you well to only be arrivederci. That's goodbye.

[Assistant] So there were a lot of expatriates around at that time.

[User] There definitely were.

[Assistant] So tell me about the impact this Peace Corps Fiji experience has had on the rest of your life.


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

[User] There definitely were.

[Assistant] So tell me about the impact this Peace Corps Fiji experience has had on the rest of your life.

[User] It changed my life. I mean, even joining the Peace Corps staff in L.A. changed my life in meeting people. I didn't know that the people from Santa Barbara that are just so kind and nice. And what's the story with that? They had a very large Peace Corps recruitment from that school, and I thought I should have gone there.

[Assistant] UCSB?

[User] Uh-huh. And I could have majored in medieval studies. All sorts of strange things. But in my artwork, I, well, in my family you didn't. It wasn't so bad if you failed at something. So the fact that I wasn't making a lot of money for two years in Fiji wasn't, you know, a disaster. And so I think it gave me the confidence to become a freelance artist here in San Francisco. So I've involved a lot more artwork that has an ability to share what I liked about Fiji in my artwork. And so I've taught needlework to people. I've made etchings and embroideries that have mossy patterns in them, like a Wizard of Oz scene where we know we're not in Kansas, but it's palm trees with mossy on the trunks. And I had always said, you know, there's no upper age limits for Peace Corps. So I had thought maybe I would do that eventually again.

[Assistant] You still thinking about it?


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

[User] It changed my life. I mean, even joining the Peace Corps staff in L.A. changed my life in meeting people. I didn't know that the people from Santa Barbara that are just so kind and nice. And what's the story with that? They had a very large Peace Corps recruitment from that school, and I thought I should have gone there.

[Assistant] UCSB?

[User] Uh-huh. And I could have majored in medieval studies. All sorts of strange things. But in my artwork, I, well, in my family you didn't. It wasn't so bad if you failed at something. So the fact that I wasn't making a lot of money for two years in Fiji wasn't, you know, a disaster. And so I think it gave me the confidence to become a freelance artist here in San Francisco. So I've involved a lot more artwork that has an ability to share what I liked about Fiji in my artwork. And so I've taught needlework to people. I've made etchings and embroideries that have mossy patterns in them, like a Wizard of Oz scene where we know we're not in Kansas, but it's palm trees with mossy on the trunks. And I had always said, you know, there's no upper age limits for Peace Corps. So I had thought maybe I would do that eventually again.

[Assistant] You still thinking about it?

[User] I don't know, my health isn't. My walking is not as good as it was in Fiji. I'm not sure that I have the right health anymore, but I sure love the people I met there.

[Assistant] And you've stayed in touch with other volunteers as well as local people?


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

[User] Uh-huh. And I could have majored in medieval studies. All sorts of strange things. But in my artwork, I, well, in my family you didn't. It wasn't so bad if you failed at something. So the fact that I wasn't making a lot of money for two years in Fiji wasn't, you know, a disaster. And so I think it gave me the confidence to become a freelance artist here in San Francisco. So I've involved a lot more artwork that has an ability to share what I liked about Fiji in my artwork. And so I've taught needlework to people. I've made etchings and embroideries that have mossy patterns in them, like a Wizard of Oz scene where we know we're not in Kansas, but it's palm trees with mossy on the trunks. And I had always said, you know, there's no upper age limits for Peace Corps. So I had thought maybe I would do that eventually again.

[Assistant] You still thinking about it?

[User] I don't know, my health isn't. My walking is not as good as it was in Fiji. I'm not sure that I have the right health anymore, but I sure love the people I met there.

[Assistant] And you've stayed in touch with other volunteers as well as local people?

[User] I have. I have. I helped organize a reunion of volunteers in Kirby Cove that brought about 80 people from the United States all over.

[Assistant] Yeah. When was that, back in the?