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This is Candace Ellis and Diana Dombrowski on July 7th, 2011, interviewing at the Panama Canal Re Union. And we're here with Let's baba Zumbado. Alright. Um, Okay, uh, just to start off with when? How and why were your ancestors involved with the Panama Canal Zone? Okay, the way I came to the canal was as a result of my mother's divorce.

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Her second marriage is my stepfather, who was the Canal Zone employees. Uh, so I came in 1946 and with my sister and my mother and my stepfather is really the more interesting aspect of my interview because he he came to the canal zone when he was about 11 or 12 in 1917 or 1918.

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My records are clear exactly, but he was like I said, 11 or 12 years old. And his father was John Wallace. E quit whatever he was doing in Boston because evidently, the labor was not available readily, and he was looking for work, so he came to the He was a seaman.

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So he came to the canal zone thinking canal, the ocean ships and jobs air available. So he came there, and I don't have any record of where he actually worked. But, uh, I imagine he worked for the Marine Division. I'll call out names like the Marine Division and the dredging division.

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People that know we'll understand, even if you don't know what those things are. But anyway, my dad was born in Boston. My step dad, and he came with his dad. He had two of younger brothers and a sister. But I don't know if they were born in Panama or if they were born in Boston and also came I don't have any records and everybody's disease, so I have no way of checking it.

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Anyway, his mom was from Scotland. You met? Met, uh, my stepfather's dead in Boston. Got married after a few years. They came to the zone. Uh, let's see, where do I go? Okay, Alan, Alan is my stepfather, Alan Wallace. He, uh, said he really wasn't too interested in school, so he wanted to work quickly as he could.

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So when when he was about 14, he decided to apply for work in the in the canal. But he was too young. So he went, got an interview, and I guess he lied about his age, so this is kind of funny. On June 2nd, 1920 he was hired by the Panama Canal Company and assigned as a seaman with the Marine Division just to do whatever menial labor they would give him.

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And he was. He was hired at $72 a month, which was pretty big bucks in those days. That was a second in June, the fourth of June 2 days later, they discovered he was a minor. So they fired eso. He struggled that trying to get through school.

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He was an excellent swimmer, so he did some lifeguarding at a pool down here. The government had a couple of hotels that that they operated for visiting dignitaries and whatnot. One was called the Washington Hotel, and it was in the Atlantic side of the isthmus. So, as a kid, since he would swim, well, he, uh, he hired on his lifeguard and did training.

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He wanted to be a competitive swimmer. So when he couldn't get official work, he got he got recreation, worked as a lifeguard. So he did that struggle with school. And, uh, on june 20th, 1923 he finally was old enough at 17 toe, actually get a job.

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So he was hired at Oh, I think it was something about the same $72 a month working for the railroad as a checker. I don't know what Checker does in the railroad, and he's not alive, so I can't check it. But that job only lasted a while because he kept wanting to go to work with the Marine Division because that had to do with seagoing things and canal and water and boats.

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So he finally did after about a month and he worked with the Marine Excuse Me Division operating a za crewmen on the tugboats. When ships approached the canal, they first had to be tugged in or tugged out when I got through the other side. So he was a crewman on the tugboat, and he liked that work, and after a while he moved up the chain on and actually became a tugboat captain.

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So by around 1938 or so after many years as a crewman, he became a tugboat captain, the biggest job opportunity for big bucks, and as I said, he was never interested in schooling. But he was interested in money, So he applied for a training program to become a pilot in the canal.

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Pilots are the guys that took the ship through the locks. It's about an eight hour transit. You have thio guide the ships through the locks. And by the way, if somebody hasn't told you in a previous interview, the Panama Canal, then and I think still today is the only body of water with the captain of a ship must relinquished, relinquished total control of the ship to the pilot any other body of water, even where there are other canals, captains don't relinquish control of the ship.

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He's still the boss on the Panama Canal. It belongs to the pilot. So he wanted that job because it was the big paying job. He went through a training program, and eventually, after apprenticing for a while or being a pilot in training, he was certified as a pilot and was also eligible to be a master of a ship captain of a ship anywhere in the world.

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So he rose up the chain, by the way, when he, when he first applied for the training program, is a pilot, he was making $315 a month. This is 1939. That was good money. He took a pay cut to about $260 a month to go into the training program to pay off was that if he was qualified, he jumped up and pay a great deal.

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And he did. When he finally qualified, a ZA pilot pay went up to $416 a month. Eventually, by the time he retired in 56 he was making $13,600. Uh, today you would start the death of 13,000. In those days, that was just about the top salary that anybody could earn working for the canal, short of being the governor and the highest administrative officials.

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So anyway, one of the stories that he used to like to tell me was that in 1923 when he first got hired, he immediately resigned from his job because he wanted to try out for the United States Olympic swimming team. He was 100 m freestyle er, so they gave, I guess, like a level passes.

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But the head of terminate his employment, I don't know where you got the money to travel, but he went to the States and try it out for the Olympic team. At the trials, he jokes about it all. We used to joke about her. He never made the Olympic team, but he got to compete against some of the top swimmers of the day.

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And, uh, he said he got to see a lot of Johnny Wise, Johnny Wise Lord. But you know who Johnny Wise more was? He was one of the first Tarzan's on TV. Oh, that's what. Anyways, he got to see a lot of Johnny Weissmuller behind because Johnny Wiseman it was a premier under meter freestyle of the day and I could never really verify this story.

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But he said he didn't really like he didn't really like Johnny Weissmuller. He said He's kind of a dumb guy, but he didn't meet a couple of other guys that he enjoyed the whole lot knowing. And here's a couple of games you probably never heard of either.

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But the fellas that he met that we're also competing in 100 m freestyle was a gentleman by the name of Duke Kahanamoku and his brother Sam. They're icons in Hawaii, especially Duke, the older brother. He's kind of might be considered the father of surfing as we know it today.

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There's pictures up all over Hawaii, these big, old tall wooden surfboards hand cut out of trees. Anyway, he liked the Duke and Sam and even though he, uh, he didn't maintain a longtime friendship with him, but he enjoyed their company where he didn't like Johnny. And just to check to make sure his story a few years ago, thank God for the Internet.

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E started checking the Olympics in 1920 for this guy. Johnny Weissmuller won the gold medal in the 100 m freestyle. Duke Kahanamoku was the silver medal, and his brother Sam was the bronze medal winner. You can check, that's That's a fact. Okay, so that was one of his favorite stories to me actually work in a swimming museum?

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I did in high school. There's a giant, really creepy statue of Johnny Weissmuller, and I would have to shut down at 10 at night and turn out the lights out. He just stared at me in the darkness. It was really, like straight. And there's a stuffed bobcat that when he walked by it, It would like, make a noise at you.

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Those cars of movies. Yeah, So that's that's my experience with him. So I don't know how I feel about him either. Eso Anyway, that's Ah, little that I know about his early life and how he had a career. A za pilot When I came to the zone and how I came about was, uh, I was born in Costa Rica in 1936.

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My mother was married to a Latino. My dad, Robert Roberto Jose Zumbado. They had a good marriage for a while, but I guess cultural differences. He, uh they got a divorce when I was about eight years old and she was kind of a lady without my mother without any kind of training.

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She had one year of college, but never any employment history. So she was kind of worried. How is she going to support two kids the rest of her life? Living in a foreign country. So she went over to the American Embassy on when I interviewed her.

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She they find out that she's in the eight or nine years she's been in Costa Rica, she'd become a linguist. She spoke in Spanish and wrote Spanish perfectly on. Of course, Obviously she spoke. She was a girl from Kentucky, so they hired her. And after a while, they said, You know, your abilities air beyond what?

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We can give you a faras work here. You can stay at work here, but we recommend that you stay in foreign service and transfer and stay in the area of Latin America. You could probably get a better job, uh, in other other countries. So she's a wonderful Where could I go?

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They looked around. They found a job for her in Panama at the American Embassy in Panama. So she accepted the job and figured out I can't take these two kids. My sister, who was five years older and and my son to Panama, sight unseen of the country, not knowing where they're gonna live, how they're gonna be schooled.

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And at that point, she was convinced he wanted to quote Americanized. Both of us spoke Spanish fluently, didn't speak English. So in the meantime, while she was working in the embassy of Costa Rica, she met my step father Alan Alan Wallace, and a friend of his Bob King.

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The reason that she met them is can Al Zone men often would travel in those days and maybe even in later years to Costa Rica, because it was reputed that they had the prettiest girls waited, get themselves a nice Latin American wife that could cook and clean and was pretty.

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And why not? But instead, my mother met Alan and they struck up a friendship. So anyway, to get to the part where she takes me and my sister to Kentucky and deposits her in Central City deposited us with her sister in Central City, Kentucky, to live for a little while, She said, I need to go to Panama, get settled in my new job, get the lay of the land, find out what I'm gonna do with my kids.

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And by the way, find out where my relationship with Mr Alan Wallace is gonna go. Mhm. So we were there. We got to Kentucky in August of 45 in December. Uh, my aunt that I was living with gets a telegram for my mother saying, Okay, send my Children down, send her some money and all way went down.

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Toe flew down to Panama In the meantime, she got married Thio Alan. So by then she was in the U. S. Government conclave called the Canal Zone way. Didn't have to worry about going to a Latin American school for Spanish. So we were on our way.

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But let me back up while I was in Central City, Kentucky, I as I said, I spoke only Spanish. So I was thrown into an elementary school in central city, Kentucky, nothing but English speaking kids. And in those days, kids weren't mollycoddled. List the language you thrown in and you either learned it or you didn't.

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So I went to school on I had to learn English and learn my my studies as well. And it was a tough time for me because, uh, you might expect prejudice existed mawr even then than today. So I was kind of bullied by some of the kids and called the Little *** and senior and Mr on.

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But I took it well, I fought back, and, uh, it wasn't It wasn't a big problem, but because I retaliated and I didn't take any stuff from the other kids, they actually I guess I gained a measure of respect and they got I got buddies and you know, kids are amazing the way they communicate, even when they don't speak the same language.

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I learned English force fed by the Children, not by the education system, because they would teach me what, what, what things were and how to speak. And they teach me things like the Pledge of Allegiance, because in those days the first thing you did when school started on the first class of beginning days, you stood up.

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Put your hand over your heart. Flag was on the wall, back in the teacher's desk and you recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't know there was a strange ritual to me, so I had the kids explained it to me, not the teacher. And anyway, gradually I learned English took me about three months from not speaking English to speaking with Southwestern Kentucky accent, which is kind of a funny story when, anyway, we're on the plane, we gotta weigh Goto, Panama.

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My sister, being older, still had more of an affinity towards the the Costa Rican side of the family. She had gotten permission two when the plane landed in San Jose, she would Costa Rica, she would get off and spend a couple of weeks with her dad.

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I would continue onto the canal zone, get introduced to my new world. And when I got thio Panama Uh, there have been a mix up in the telegrams between my sister and my mother. Mom wasn't expecting me until the following day. So I arrived in Panama.

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Nobody to meet me. Eight years old. Little pinstripe suit. I was a little worried, but I could speak Spanish. So I spoke to the people there at the airport on. They directed me to a cab stand, got a cab driver, and I said, Will you take me to the American Embassy in Spanish?

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And I said, I only have this much money. I showed him what I had. He said, That's not enough. And so don't worry. My mother works for the American Embassy. She's got plenty of money. She'll pagan. So he said, OK, he took me, deposited me at the embassy, waited for me to get my mother prepare.

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So, uh, the Marine guard at the embassy was very helpful, and I fell in love with the Marine Corps immediately because he was so good to me and he took care of the cab driver paid him, took me inside the embassy, called my mother on the intercom.

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I waited in the lobby and she comes out of the elevator into the lobby and I was in tears. I was so happy to see my mother after all these years, and she starts to laugh. I had spoken to her. I don't know what I said in greeting, but she starts to laugh and I bawled even more.

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Wow, I haven't seen you in a in a long time. Why why are you laughing at me? And so she explained. Well, the last time I saw you spoke only Spanish. Now you're talking like a little hillbilly eso. After that, I stopped laughing. Anyway, that's that's how I That's how it came to be in the Canal zone.

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Yeah, so great. Let's see way could move on to the second question. Yeah, the second question was about living conditions. Well again, I lived in his own from 46 to 55 or third grade through high school graduation. So the system of assigning quarters was by position status.

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Longevity on the job. So the question kind of asked for a comparison of the housing. Well, I guess kids don't think of the house is the house. E was happy wherever we live, especially having had the conditions of situation that I had. So one thing was, none of the houses were air conditioned, but they were designed thio take advantage of natural ventilation.

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There were screens and the windows had louvers that you could open and close for the rain. But we were never really conscious. At least I don't remember being conscious of the heat. If it got too high, just went outside or you just accepted it. Air conditioning was something that rarely saw, except maybe a government office building.

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And even then, most of the buildings down here we're not air conditioned, but the houses were all comfortable. I lived on a house on a street called Morgan Avenue. The first time first house I lived in it. It was built on the side of the hill and they were upon pillars, square concrete pillars or stilts.

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And, uh, interesting thing is that the base about six inches from the ground, that the base was a metal shield all around the pole so that to keep rodents and bugs from crawling up pillars and into the house Uh, eso I noticed once there was some green potter around the base of the pillars.

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I asked about that. My step dad explained. That's a product called Paris screen, and it's a poison, and it's their toe kill bugs even before they try to come up. And also rodents. Well, Paris Green was a very dangerous substance that actually was harmful, the pets and could have been harmful to humans.

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So over time the maintenance department of Health Department come around Sprinkle all the basis of all the pillars and all the houses and office buildings. But over time, when it was determined, stuff was too dangerous for humans, the it was outlawed or banned from use. So the I never heard of a human ingesting it and being hurt.

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But often a pet get very sick or die from it, sniffing and licking it. So the tropics are full of bugs of all kinds, and you've probably heard stories of the combating of malaria in the building time of the canal. So one of the other weapons they had to kill the mosquitoes.

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Thio protect people against malaria was product called DDT. DDT was sprayed throughout the housing areas periodically. I don't know. Maybe 173 or four months a truck would come around with a machine that just spewed this stuff like a billowing white cloud. We didn't know it was harmful to humans.

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The kids would get on their bikes and chase that truck all around the neighborhood and try to get as close to its policy. Breathe all that junk in well over the over time, the it was discovered that it could be harmful to humans. So DDT was outlawed and we no longer I had to worry about that.

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But I know in recent years, probably within the last decade, there have been some studies done about the effects on people who years ago were exposed to DDT for long periods of time. I don't know how many formers onions of my age or their bus were interviewed or examined, but we would all be good, good subject for such a study because, like I said, we deliberately went after it sucked it into our lungs.

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I don't think I had any after effect, so I'm not worried about it. But anyway, the elementary school was just on the hill from from where I lived and one of the questions was I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself. Was about how I got to school.

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Well, that school I walked to because it was less than a quarter of a mile down the hill. And as I progressed in the grades and also as my dad, uh, got promoted or got higher mawr longevity and his job, he was eligible to select houses.

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So we moved to different quarters. In the 10 years I was there, I think we moved six different times and each time elevated with style and quality of the home that we had not. And we're still ever air conditioned. But anyway, uh, most of time I walked.

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There were times when I took the school bus. As I got into high school, we drove bikes to school. Wasn't like today where every other kid has a car, sometimes better than the teacher. Eso I never actually had a car. My senior year. I had a motor scooter.

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That was a great motor transportation. You could buy these, they call them. They were Cushman made by a company named Cushman. In the States, those scooters were used in industrial complexes to get from warehouses from one to another. In the zone, we got temas modes of transportation.

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So I had one of those and that's how I got to and from school most time that c Oh, yeah, I did wonder about a some point as I got older. I did wonder, Why did people have different houses? And I kind of covered that already.

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But my dad said, Well, you young man, are not to draw any meaning of the fact that we have better houses to some of your friends or that somebody is not as good as somebody else because of the assignment. It has nothing to do with the quality of the person has only to do with their longevity maybe the status of their job, that they have a high job or lord job.

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But don't don't assume anything about it's just the way it is. Sometimes they get a families, get a scientist. By the luck of the draw, house becomes available just as they come, and they get put into it right away. So I learned very quickly, not not treat people prejudicial.

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Based on how they lived, everybody made decent salary. So there was no riel upper class. And it was there were no poor people in the American conclave. Okay, so what were my experiences and great school, High school and college? Well, what, like I said, when I came tow zone, I had gone through all this trauma learning a language.

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So on. I'm coming from a broken home. And in the space of six months, I lived in three different countries for three different families learned a new language exposed to a new culture. Latin American culture is considerably different than the American culture. So I was kind of in a state of what the hell is going on in my life?

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Well, my first experiences in the elementary school were wonderful. I loved Balboa Elementary School. I loved it because everybody was so friendly and the teachers were also nice. And to top it off by then, I spoke English. Well, so I didn't have any problem understanding or making friends.

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So I really I really had wonderful experiences there. Now the and also the teachers. There were good quality teachers. I can't verify this, but I heard at one point in order to get a job, is a schoolteacher down here? A teacher had already have three years of experience on the upper grades in high school, in junior high.

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They had to have three years of experience in the master's degrees just to get a job there. So we had good, good quality. Teachers were not to demean anybody, but we didn't have any rookies that we're just starting in their careers. So that was That was definitely a plus school.

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There was much like school is today, I suppose. But in the Latin American school where I started 1st and 2nd grade, it's serious business. There's not a lot of nonsense. They don't do plays and they don't sing for a Christmas time and have Christmas programs And all this stuff it was Just go to school.

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Learn your your A B CS. Go home Well, in the canal zone, very Americanized was differently. We celebrated the holidays. We learned cultural things about the Panamanians as well as our own culture. We learned about our forefathers and all this good stuff, patriotism was a very in thing.

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So it was besides the regular studies, it was just I was in heaven. I thought everything was happy. So anyway, that was kind of my experience. And the other thing is in Latin American, also in Kentucky. But that was a short span. Schools were segregated Onley boys and only girls.

00:24:57.840 - 00:25:15.810

I was in heaven canals because for the first time in my life, I was I had girl, friends, girl friends. I don't mean in a romantic sense, but it was great. I e didn't have accepted my sister. I didn't know any girls, so that was kind of really having After a while, girlfriends could become girlfriends.

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So So that was my experience there in a Sfar as the schooling sports Well, sports and recreation of big in the canal zone with a lot of programs. Let me first tell you a little bit of go back to my elementary school days a to bottom of the street when I went walk to school on Morgan Avenue.

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The very last building just before you got to the school had been a residence, but at some point it was converted to the office of the American Red Cross. And unlike all the other houses on the street underneath the house where it stood on pillars, it was just dirt.

00:25:55.520 - 00:26:11.970

All the others have pavement and carports. People could bring their card. Not always nothing but dirt. Kids would go to school early, the boys mostly so they could play marbles. That was a great place to play marbles. That dirt was never money because it was covered by the house and the rain didn't affected.

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So that was my first experience with first experience gambling. You could play for funds or for keeps. Keeps meant that if you want you kept the other kids marvels, or if you lost, he kept them. So it didn't take too long for me to learn that gambling wasn't a good idea because it came a point where Mom and Dad wouldn't buy me anymore, marvels eso.

00:26:34.440 - 00:26:59.050

Let's see. Okay, sports, Uh, every community that there were different housing communities in townships and almost all the all of them had uh, either had or had very nearby gymnasium swimming pool, tennis courts, eso There were a lot of sports that you could do on your own, but Also, they were very well organized up.

00:27:00.240 - 00:27:20.660

They had the Children for after school. They had, um, organized by age groups. E used to call them three younger kids were a D League and older See League and a B league for the young teams. After that, you either made the varsity schools for sports sports teams or you played in adult leagues.

00:27:20.660 - 00:27:37.760

They had a lot of adult leagues and bowling, softball, baseball, basketball. So there was always something to keep you busy keep you off the streets. Uh, you gotta understand that there was no private industry there in the canal zone, so kids couldn't get work. There were a couple of jobs.

00:27:37.760 - 00:27:53.530

You could be a theater, usher, or you could get a paper rock. The local papers that was in there were no no storage where you could apply to be a store clerk or anything like that. Okay, so the team thing, that lead thing was very well organized.

00:27:53.540 - 00:28:12.860

Adults volunteered to coach, so we were always well supervised. So let me let me get on to the next question was about experiences of my play sports in high school or junior college. Yeah, I was attracted. Guy ran on the school tracking for about three years, but the competition was very limited.

00:28:12.860 - 00:28:26.980

There was only two high schools Balboa on the Pacific Side and Crystal High School in the Atlantic, and there was a junior college. Nowadays, people that are much younger than I might refer to it as canals on college. Eventually, it did become a college. In those days.

00:28:26.990 - 00:28:49.260

It was a junior two year junior college, so the competition was limited once once. Really, one track event a year was called the Balbo Relays, and it was the only time where we could compete against the schools in junior college. But also the military basis could enter teams in that one year, that one annual event.

00:28:49.640 - 00:29:08.240

And we like that because we were able to compete against Serviceman's, the Army would have team the Marines, the Navy base, and we found that we did very well against them. So it was like great competition, and we took great pride in being able to be 20 and 25 year olds, so that was a good thing.

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But prior to the actual tracks leaves the beginning. While where were we were in a training motor coach. Ah, wonderful fellow named John Fawcett. He came up with a great idea. He was always He was innovative and he wanted us to be exposed to Mork competition, uh, in age group, other high schools than overs.

00:29:26.740 - 00:29:45.760

There was no budget for us to travel to the States or for schools and states to travel to compete with us. It was unthought of unheard of in those days, but what he did, he had some. He came from California and he had some friends of his were also coaches, and they communicated and decided to do something they called telegraphic meets.

00:29:46.240 - 00:30:02.320

What we would do is we'd set a date on the same date a school. And I remember a town called Chula Vista, California. Another one called Redlands. We competed against those two, and on the same day they would run all their events. They like a practice track meet against each other.

00:30:02.320 - 00:30:15.380

They would run the 100 yards and 220 in the quarter mile in the mile and then throw the shot in the high jump, all the events. And then they would telegraph the results to our coach in the meantime, we had done the same thing on our track.

00:30:15.390 - 00:30:32.710

We would telegraph the results to them and they would compare the times and then they would have a print out Balboa High School. Bobby's a bottle 100. You know Johnny Smith from Chula Vista was second, and we had 1st, 2nd and 3rd place compare, And then we would have the points and figure out who wanted to meet.

00:30:32.720 - 00:30:51.830

So it was really an innovative thing to do in those days. Uh, and that gave us more competition with, uh, peer group, Same age, same grades, kind of high school. So, anyway, Coach Foster was a really a great, innovative guy, and I love track, but baseball was my first love.

00:30:52.620 - 00:31:12.480

Wasn't quite good enough to make the high school team really talk me a little bit. But there was an adult league called the Twilight League, and these were adult workers, and some of them were oh, really good ballplayers. They were because there weren't enough people to comprise all the teams.

00:31:12.490 - 00:31:43.260

Each of these, uh, teams was allowed to have up to three teenage kids. So I made one of those teams and, uh, it was a team sponsored by a local distillery in Panama called Womack Whiskey. And we have nice uniforms, Womack whiskey across the back. And I played second base for the team for a couple of years, and it was really fun because I got to compete against my high school, get a little retribution that way, beat them a couple of times.

00:31:43.750 - 00:32:12.070

But what was interesting is distillery sponsored. The adult players on the team. If they played well in a particular made, were rewarded with a little bit of product booze. I couldn't accept that. I was 15, 16 years old. Plus, I didn't drink anyway. But they did have, ah, program where if a player performed well, for example, if you got three base hits in a single game, they gave him a little stub coupon in essence and get a free spaghetti dinner at a local restaurant.

00:32:13.040 - 00:32:31.060

I did that a couple of times against the high school, which is really nice, because they were my my crew, but they cut me from the team so I could beat them, get a little exactly yeah, so that was that was that. But there were There were a lot of sports where adults competed.

00:32:31.060 - 00:32:54.440

That wasn't just kids they had after hours volleyball in the gyms, and they had bowling leagues. So anyway, that's the extent of my exposure to sports football. I didn't play because I was a slight kid in £115 or so 120 until I was a senior. But my mom and dad were fearful of getting injured so they wouldn't they would let me play now.

00:32:54.780 - 00:33:18.370

The difference was that most families that apparent at home because there was a time when Onley one parent could work for the government. My mother didn't work for the government in the canals, and she was in the American Embassy, just entire different jurisdictions. She worked in Panama, so both my mom and dad worked, which gave me a lot of unsupervised time.

00:33:18.840 - 00:33:38.160

So my freshman year I played football for the junior varsity. The only thing is, Canales was very close knit community. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody tells us that the adults kind of watched over the kids. So somehow Mom and dad found out that I played football that ended any possibility by ever playing football.

00:33:38.160 - 00:33:51.850

I can't maybe quit JV and that was it. But I still loved it. And I used to love to go to the football games on Friday nights because one of the cheerleaders was the love of my life. Uh huh. So I would go to stare at her.

00:33:52.440 - 00:34:11.410

And in later life she went one way. I went another, got married, had Children. 1985. After divorces, we got together again. So now when I wake up in the morning and I go to bed at night, I get to stare at the love of my life again, my little Children on.

00:34:11.420 - 00:34:33.650

That's why I was hoping that she would get in and do her interview. Okay, so we're goingto hobbies. Well, I I guess I read a lot. I read all the some of the famous novelists of my youth and historical novel novelists like Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson.

00:34:33.660 - 00:34:59.760

Zane Gray, Edgar Rice Burroughs. He's the guy that wrote the Sergeant books. Edgar Allan Poe, A guy named C. S Forester who used to write the seagoing stories. But Captain Hornblower on that was kind of what I did. Uh, the other hobbies. I had been hiking in the jungle looking for weird animals, which there are a lot of down there and spending time on the beaches not to swim, but to look at the girls.

00:35:00.740 - 00:35:29.590

And my dad. He had the big hobby. He my step down, he would buy a yacht, a boat in great disrepair. And his thing was, rebuild it, get into beautiful shape and then sell it and buy another one. And he would he would tell me. Look, Bob, we're gonna fix this one up, and then we're going fishing trips you could bring your friends on the boat never happened, because the minute he got it fixed, right and seaworthy, he would sell it.

00:35:29.870 - 00:35:45.710

So I got a little frustrated with never getting to go on the boats just a few times. But the good side of it was that the he paid me for my work a quarter an hour, and that was my way of getting my allowance and spending money for movies and dates.

00:35:45.710 - 00:36:02.840

And what? So that was pretty much it. But canals, always more of a place where kids to spend their time outdoors. It wasn't e tried to stamp collecting for a while, but spend more time looking out the window for something to do. So that was basically the thing with hobbies.

00:36:04.130 - 00:36:30.890

Uh, memories of the Panama Railroad Panama line, Steamship charter flights. I don't remember any charter flights, but the Panama line there was, I guess, a reward. Whatever. The employees of the canal once every two years could take a vacation to the States on the Panama Line ships.

00:36:30.900 - 00:36:49.020

And they didn't pay anything. They paid something. They paid taxes or excise fees or something, but they didn't pay any regular passenger fees, so it was very cheap. So we went to the States a couple of times in the Panama Line. Ships. Hi. I am so savage.

00:36:49.040 - 00:37:09.390

Aural interview. Oh, a to 30. Is it? 23? Okay, Yeah. We're actually in the middle of conducting an interview right now. What time is E? I don't think. What's your name? Okay, you're you're scheduled for 2. 30 a week. Okay. Well, I haven't finished mine yet.

00:37:09.400 - 00:37:35.590

Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's 1 40. Okay. Yeah, We'll see. Like Okay. So the Panama ships my experiences as, uh, teenager was they were great fun again for, uh, romance. That's what we did. We met girls and we went to the parties and, uh, tried to sneak into the bars even though we were minors, and, uh, they were just a great experience.

00:37:35.600 - 00:37:52.570

Uh, there was a time when the ships would leave the Panama and go directly to New York. But at one point they changed the route and they go from New York to Haiti. Port a prince on, then to New York on that was that was kind of fun because we get to get off Prince.

00:37:52.570 - 00:38:05.650

They would stop there for half a day and we could get off the ship and walk around the island a little bit and see a little bit of a different, slightly different culture, uh, in Haiti, and then get back on and go to New York and from New York.

00:38:05.650 - 00:38:20.760

Then we would go to different places since I had family in Kentucky. Sometimes my family go to Kentucky to visit my aunt that I stayed with when I was a little kid. I mentioned earlier on. Sometimes we would just take trips toe see things that we went to Washington, D.

00:38:20.760 - 00:38:50.240

C. Smithsonian Institute, typical vacation thing, and eventually go back to New York. It's shit and come back home. But it was It was very kind of luxurious vacation, yet it was very cheap, so that was That was pretty nice. The railroad in Panama. It was interesting because the only time we, his Children used it to kids when you went to the ball more took her soul to the football or baseball games of the track meets.

00:38:50.240 - 00:39:10.370

That's how we travel on the railroad train. Come back after the event was over on the same train and get off and go home. Football season again was the most important thing because we would go to Crystal Ball for the football games. Most of the student body would go Spectators and we load up the train, get off in Mount Hope Stadium.

00:39:10.370 - 00:39:27.550

Christo, watch the game. We would leave like it's 6 15 in the evening daylight, Not much going on in the train except singing and having a good time. We come back after the game, pitch dark. The trains. I don't think we're lighter. If it were lighted, it wasn't very brightly turned them down.

00:39:27.920 - 00:39:45.320

So that was another opportunity to learn about the fair sex. Ah, lot of Nicky went on on. A lot of I imagine there are some marriages that came as a result of romance is on the train. Uh, big sin in those days was sneaking a beer or cigarette on.

00:39:45.320 - 00:39:57.580

That was a good time to try to do it, you know, bringing aboard because always gets the conductors kind of walked up and down. They just left the kids alone. They, too many kids to try toe affect any kind of discipline unless somebody got really rowdy.

00:39:57.590 - 00:40:30.450

Troublesome. So those were my experiences? Um, let's see. Holidays were, I guess it's traditional, just like it is in the United States. We celebrated all the traditional holidays Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, all that kind of in the same manner that they were celebrated in the States. What was interesting about Christmas was that, of course, it's the tropics, and it's hot and and you wouldn't expect evergreens to grow there, and he didn't.

00:40:31.010 - 00:40:47.200

But we imported him from the United States, and early in December, a soon as the word got out that the Christmas trees that arrived in the commissary families would rush to the loading docks and try toe pick out the best tree that they could buy and take it home.

00:40:47.210 - 00:41:06.420

And, uh, just like people do here in the States. We set the tree up in the house. Everybody would buy Christmas street lights in the commissary and decorate their trees with lead stencil. I don't know if you've seen Lead stencil now, uh, icicles, but they kind of made out of plastic the lead ones that they used to make hung real nice.

00:41:06.420 - 00:41:24.320

They were heaven and Hungary straight and beautiful, so we would decorate trees and some of the people would go caroling very much the same Aziz in the States. And of course, we have traditional Christmas presents under the tree and get up Christmas morning and open your trees and enjoy your your presence.

00:41:24.780 - 00:41:42.250

The best thing about Christmas was it. After long after the holidays, the trees would really dry up, and they were. They were a fire hazard, even as they are today. But in order to I think it was in order to reduce the load on the people that collected the garbage.

00:41:42.610 - 00:42:01.050

What we used to do with the Christmas trees is we would collect them in somebody's yard or in a in an area and save them big piles of Christmas trees. And sometime around the middle of January, every every community, every neighborhood would have a Christmas treat burn what This was.

00:42:01.470 - 00:42:18.330

Everybody that collected these trees would bring them to this open field. And there would be a volunteer fireman to supervise, or maybe an official guy in his uniform of the fire engine close by. And we would have hot dog roasting marshmallows and potato chips and Cokes and we would sing around.

00:42:18.330 - 00:42:35.420

This big bonfire kept feeding the bonfire with trees. They go very quickly on. There was like a big party. It was very interesting. I've never heard of anything like that in this done in the United States. But leading up to the Christmas tree burned what would happen sometimes.

00:42:35.420 - 00:42:55.520

And I have to admit me, and some of my friends were we're likely to do it is any other way. We would locate where somebody stash of trees or in another neighborhood on sneak over in the middle, right, steal them and bring them to our community to increase the size of our stash to make fire bigger, brighter and less longer.

00:42:56.490 - 00:43:19.430

One night we are. Five of us actually made a big deal that we got stuff on our faces, you know? Calif. I wore dark clothes. Or on midnight we snuck up to this guy's house where he had all this. He was saving trees for his neighborhood, and he had them stuck to get wired together with cable drill holes in the trunks and had them all wired together.

00:43:20.000 - 00:43:36.740

So we brought our little wire cutters, weigh speak down the hill back of this house and getting ready to start stealing the trees. Next thing you know, lights go on and he comes out with a big flashlight. And what the hell are you doing? Get out! The mistake was that this guy's name was Blades.

00:43:36.740 - 00:43:55.530

He was Officer Blades. He was a policeman. Canal Zone police. Big mistake. Of course, we all booked as fast as we could off four of us. One of us, One of my friends, Mike Carpenter. When the officer holiday stop he stopped had, of course, he got in all kinds of trouble.

00:43:55.540 - 00:44:10.840

But to his credit, he didn't squeal on the me and my buddies, Larry and Cotton and Paul Glass. One way got away with it, and he never He never told us. But anyway, that's just a small bit of thing. Chicanery that we got involved in stealing Christmas trees.

00:44:10.850 - 00:44:33.500

But he didn't get shipped away. So you see, I think I've covered how we got the trees that were shipped from the states and then transported from where they were delivered in Cristobal on the train to Balboa. Okay. And I talked about the events leading up to the burn and getting caught doing that.

00:44:34.490 - 00:45:00.370

Conditions where we worked. Well, I never worked there full time. I did have a job the summer of 55. The administrative building had the accounting department and other other departments headquarters, and they offered student jobs. Thio, uh, senior high school seniors if they wanted it. And that was the first job I ever had paid.

00:45:00.560 - 00:45:15.610

Big bucks, a dollar and a quarter of an hour in those days. I was pretty big money. It was only for eight weeks, and I really enjoyed working there, except it was kind of boring. I was in the accounting department. Yeah, I worked for a young lady named Cold.

00:45:15.620 - 00:45:28.400

K O L B. She was nice but her duty was to bring me my work. She bring me a stack of invoices about a foot or two high, and she told me what to do with them. Each end. Boys had a cover cover letter or reconciliation.

00:45:28.400 - 00:45:45.020

She called him and I was Thio. Operate the adding machine and add figures and then put the totals on each cover sheet piling over here. At the end, they she would check them. I had a machine about this Big was an adding machine about 2 ft long and about 10 inches high with a crank and push buttons.

00:45:45.030 - 00:46:02.920

Very electromechanical. It would do the work, not even a smudge of the workers today's hand calculator, strictly adding, subtracting multiplication. That was about it. But anyway, a T end of the day. She would check my work, and she always seemed satisfied, so but it was just boring drudgery.

00:46:03.380 - 00:46:19.490

The best part about the job was the dollar and a quarter an hour. The next best part was the coffee break in the morning at 10 o'clock with 15 minutes to go down toe basement cafeteria. The administrative building with all the other employees there got the meat adults in the workplace.

00:46:20.580 - 00:46:33.400

And, of course, they would talk to us. About what? What are you gonna do with your life? Are you going to stay here and work? Uh, no way. I took my job there for eight weeks, and when I quit the job, went to Gainesville to go to the University of Florida.

00:46:33.780 - 00:46:53.170

Yeah, government s So I can't tell you much about work conditions. Since that the one thing I can tell you my stepfather was a canal pilot. That was an interesting job because it was not on 8 to 5 job. You're on call. Whenever a ship needed to be guided through the canal, pilot would get called.

00:46:54.370 - 00:47:07.610

Generally, it was during the day, but sometimes you could get called in the wee hours of the morning and he would go and get on. The pilots launch would take him out to the ship, bring the ship canal. And when he got to the other side, we lived in Bob all most of the time.

00:47:07.610 - 00:47:25.980

So when he got to Christofle what they call it jitney, which is nothing more than a automobile with a driver to bring him back to the house about an hour and a half drive. So he was gone sometimes regular hours, but sometimes he'd have a day or two off before the next transit.

00:47:25.990 - 00:47:47.120

Sometimes you have three or four transits in a row, so his hours were irregular. That's why I told you that because both my parents worked. I was I had a lot of unsupervised time, and it's true. But other times I didn't know what his schedule waas and when I thought I could get away with something and do something I wasn't supposed to do or go someplace I was supposed to go.

00:47:47.130 - 00:48:08.380

That would be the day he was off. So I had to cancel a lot of my misbehaving plans anyway. That's basic about all I can tell you about working conditions there experiences in the war. Well, I wasn't there during World War Two. I got there just after the war was over, so I don't have too many experiences there.

00:48:08.390 - 00:48:25.130

I left in in 55 to go to university, so I missed the riots of the 59 64. I wasn't there for the signing of the treaty. So how much I could tell you there, Uh, aspires my feelings, which is the next question. Um, I had mixed feelings about that.

00:48:25.130 - 00:48:44.120

I kind of always felt that a turnover of the canal back to back to Panama was an inevitable thing. But I was a little upset that President Carter kind of accelerated the process. I had hoped that it would it would run its course to the full original plan, which is 99 years lease or in perpetuity.

00:48:44.120 - 00:49:02.960

Which means that resolved, they renew the lease. And I figured we would run the canal forever. But in my heart, I knew that wasn't gonna happen, and it didn't. So I was upset. But a lot of people still hate Jimmy Carter for it. I can't say I hated him, but maybe if I had lived and had a career work, there would be one of those.

00:49:02.960 - 00:49:25.680

But I just figured it was something the sooner or later would happen, and it did it. So how did we interface with military? Well, this is kind of interesting. The military dependence went to school in the canal zone. Now, since that time that I was a kid, the million military basis developed the elementary schools and junior highs.

00:49:25.680 - 00:49:42.790

But But when I was there, they all went to Balboa, Cristobal or the Junior High and Balbo. So it was kind of exciting. At the end of every summer vacation, going to school was wondering, Who are the new Children that are coming that have come to military duty?

00:49:42.800 - 00:50:10.680

What new kids with new kids, Who are the new kids that we're gonna meet? In those days, communications wasn't like it is today, the Internet and live cable television all over the world. You didn't know what was going on in the United States. We were maybe a year behind a year and a half behind the latest fads, what the kids were wearing, what the good music was, what the movies were that the kids and states were enjoying because, like I said, we were a couple of years to a year and a half behind.

00:50:11.160 - 00:50:26.070

But when September came around, school started. We get to meet new kids, and we would just by seeing them, we knew, Hey, we don't wear that kind of clothes, so we try to emulate them and learn how to dress the way the kids did or get the haircuts.

00:50:26.070 - 00:50:41.160

I don't know if you ever remember the d A haircuts Dia's, uh, duck's ass. That was a big fact, but we were two years behind that. But once we started seeing military dependence to enroll in our school wearing those things ah, lot of us had teach.

00:50:41.160 - 00:50:53.780

Our local barbers tried to do that. So get those circuits. So that was kind of fun. And of course, the girls love to know what the music was and what what clothing was. So that that was how we, in the phrase with military through the dependence there was another way.

00:50:54.360 - 00:51:21.430

Some of the canal employees Oh, depending on the level of job. My dad was a kind of pilot, so he was pretty high up in the pecking order of jobs. And, uh, I don't know where the cut off was, But certainly the higher paid jobs were allowed to have a privileges to go on the military bases and, uh, freely move about driving cars and used the officers club with golf courses and things.

00:51:21.440 - 00:51:37.290

And my dad was in that position, but I never took advantage of it. I had privileges on the basis to as a dependent, but anything that you could get on the military base, you get in the zone. So I didn't see much of advantage of that.

00:51:37.660 - 00:51:52.200

But the adults did enjoy it because the officers club were kind of a social center for activities for adults. So Mom and Dad used to be, Oh, go, go the officers club a lot. But other than that, e didn't have too much interface with the military.

00:51:52.210 - 00:52:12.500

When I When I got out of the university, I didn't join the Marine Court. I had hoped that tried many times to get assigned in the canal, the Marine Barracks Standard. But I was never fortunate enough to get that assignment. I'm kind of covered that that was great.

00:52:12.510 - 00:52:29.490

That's pretty much I mean, that was really thorough and helpful. That was Yeah, well, I would love to entertain any questions that you might have for me. I'll give you this paper. Yeah, that you're trying to think even of What? Was it covered? I mean, that was very thorough.

00:52:29.730 - 00:52:51.150

What? I can tell you just generally way. But I say we have talked about kids that graduated anywhere from from high school anywhere from say 52. Even his latest say 66. Those were the That was the heyday of the canal, though that was everything was at its best.

00:52:51.150 - 00:53:19.420

And and, uh, even today, those of us that went to school during those times still get together. Not just here for the Canal Zone society reunion, but high schools that high schools have many readers within this overall reading. And we've maintained friendships. I have still have many of my buddies that I communicate with, So it's a It's just a really close, close organization.

00:53:19.430 - 00:53:44.100

Are you able to get down there often? I I went back in 19, I guess 90 just after the just after the war that the operation just cause when they ousted Noriega, I went down there then just, uh, just to see it, Joe would e think you may have interviewed him.

00:53:44.100 - 00:54:02.290

Or if not, you probably will. He was a very high official. He was the number two man in the canal, Uh, at that time and of he he's a classmate of mine from high school. So we went down to visit him and his family, and he he arranged for us toe have me and my wife to have temporary quarters.

00:54:02.300 - 00:54:19.180

My wife's first husband also lived there in Panama. He was not a Panamanian, but he's American. But he was an attorney and he lived and worked in Panama, not for the U. S. Government private private practice. So she had still had kids down there. So we went down Thio, see her family and my old friend.

00:54:19.180 - 00:54:35.470

And we spent about a month there. And it was it was kind of sad, because by then the turnover had begun and some of the neighborhoods of the canal Zone had already been turned over. And the Panamanian government had not yet figured out what to do with them.

00:54:35.840 - 00:54:53.960

So they were the houses, and some of the buildings were disrepair had been vandalized, and it was kind of sad. Thio drive through some of my old neighborhoods and see the damage that was done. Not serious, Just Vandals. Yeah, that was kind of sad. Uh, because what you remember is like a paradise.

00:54:54.440 - 00:55:08.710

So that was it. And then about a year after that, I went back again with my wife, one of her daughter, with her daughter, her got married and she had her wedding down there, so we went down there for the wedding. But other than that, I I really hadn't been back A to this point.

00:55:08.710 - 00:55:18.490

Had no desire. They go back, so All right. Well, thank you. You're welcome. I hope so much. That was very Yeah. Thank you.