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This is Candace Ellis on July 1st, 2010 with Charles Detour. And we're going to be talking about life in the Panama Canal Zone. So to begin with, guess we'll begin with the beginning. Well, the beginning is first of all, my mother was born there in 1913.

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Mhm. And my father was stationed down there right after World War One. Oh, okay. And I believe it was in all Brooke or Fort Clayton that he was stationed at. And at that time, they had the double winger planes. Yeah, all right. He was also in the thirties, a member of the Red, White and Blue Troop, which is a swimming club from the United States.

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The red, white and blue troops was coached by Coach Greaser Bible High School in Crystal Ball High School. Used to give out the Greaser Award back in the fifties and the sixties for the best outstanding swimmer. When my dad swam there for the red, white and blue groups, his swimming partners were Ed Wood and Johnny Weissmuller.

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Most people don't remember Johnny Wise Mueller, but Johnny Weissmuller ended up to be cars. Um, in the motion pictures. Well, my dad swim with Johnny Weissmuller? He was that good. Uh, we can go on to say, my grandfather who helped construct the Panama Canal back in around, I guess.

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1910, 11 and 12. Somewhere around there, we're all of his Children. Well, we'll say the majority of his Children were born down there, which would be my uncles and my aunts, including my mother. They all worked for the Panama Canal as they grew up. Some of them were pipefitters Electrician's.

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Uh, my Uncle Dan was the port engineer at the time for both the Atlantic and the Pacific sides. Uh, my mom and dad met down there in the Canal Zone, but eventually got married up in, uh, Pennsylvania. And that's where we were born. The first part of our family was born in Yeah, Philadelphia.

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My mother always said she had two families, one in Philadelphia, which was four boys in Philadelphia. Then, when we left the United States back in 1940 1946 we went down to the canal zone, and we live down there. My mother had another family, which was two girls and another boy.

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So there were seven of us in the family and we all went to school in the canals. Owns. It was on the Atlantic side, in a town called Cocoas Alito, which no longer exists. Caucus. Alito was a town site that was every two years would change hands from the military.

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Uh, every two years, the army would run it the following two years. The Navy would run it. Ah, lot of the Puerto Rican people that were stationed in the army at the time lived in coca, Sollitto, Cocoa. Salido only had six streets on it, but they had 12 family with 12 or 88 family dwellings.

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The dwellings were all on columns because of the rain. If you had a car, which nobody had at the time back in the forties, early fifties, hardly anybody had a car. You would park the car underneath the building, on board, living there. You knew everybody. You knew everybody.

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When we lived there from 46 to 1950 we would have little parties underneath the house. We would go into the woods or the jungles, we called it and cut down palm leaves and draped the palm leaves around the columns underneath the house to make it look like the wall of palm leaves.

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And we have our little 45 record player, and we'd be having a little party in the dance. 1950 way moved to Coca Solo, and we only lived there for one year. But Coca Solo waas at that time belonged to the Navy, which my dad worked for the Navy.

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He was a Navy fuel gauge er, a Navy fuel. Gauger is an individual who fuels and defuse the vessels as they come through, particularly the Navy vessels. He also worked at the Navy Tank Farm. For instance, a vessel coming from the Pacific side would offload its fuel into these huge underground thanks and then pump it across the isthmus to the Atlantic Side and fuel the Navy ships 1951.

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We moved back to Cocoas Alito. There. I met most of my classmates because when I graduated from high school back in 1958 we were still living in coca Solo cocoas. Alito. Beg your pardon? How far apart were they? They were about one mile apart. Okay, they were about one mile apart.

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I was more or less considered an outsider in high school because I came from Coco Solo and Cocoas Alito, where everybody else worked for the Panama Canal Company and my dad didn't My dad worked for the Navy. Let me see. How are you greeted? Was it?

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How would I was? Was it a hostile environment for you then Because you work? They did not want to include me in any of their you know, they had their own gangs and their own parties and everything where we had ours. Now a lot of my girlfriends came from the Republic of Panama.

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They all went to ST Mary's Catholic School in Colon, and I dated a lot of the girls there in Coco Solo and Coca Sollitto. But when it came to sports, I sort of excel. And so they almost accepted May after after I beat the pants off them and track and football and swimming.

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But it was still, despite that even it was difficult for you. Thio was from these people. Exactly. I just didn't fit into their little groups because when they would have a party, they would ball be in Margarita or Gateau Hoon or or New Cristobal, And I'm sort of out of the way going towards the coast and where they, the indigenous Panamanian people or where they America.

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Ah, lot of those Panamanian people too, right? It's just where their mother could have been Panamanian. And the father could have been an American and working for the Panama Canal. It was just the fact that you weren't associate with the canal you are with There I was with the Navy, right?

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With the Navy. Rather I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me see. Living conditions. Living conditions in Corpus Sollitto who were very rustic. Uh, when we left Philadelphia in 1946 went down there to Coca Sollitto, Um, very little furniture in the house. I remember some wooden crates that were used to sit on.

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You picked up your furniture from navy quartermasters. And because my brothers were very young at the time. Hey, we had bunk beds. We had one packs. There were no windows on the building at all. There were screens and wooden blinds. Very large wooden blinds that they call jealousies.

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Yes, inside the house. The mosquitoes would kill you. Well, not the mosquitoes. They're called sand fleas. They're very small and they go through the screens and get into the house. The Roaches were something else. You just couldn't stop the Roaches from coming in. So living in Coco's Solito, the Navy or the Army would run around almost every night with a truck that would dispense DDT to help killed bugs while living in the house.

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My mother would never clean the screens of Mawr. Dust is. You can get on the screens the better, because it would keep the sand fleas out and those times nobody had air conditioned. What was their condition? Air conditioned was a fan on the wall 25 cycle.

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It wasn't until about 1950 I guess around 1950 that they changed over from 25 cycle to 60 cycle so that all of your electron ICS pieces, your blenders, your toasters and everything all had to be changed. Uh, my experiences in grade school. I was a very poor student in grade school when I left Philadelphia.

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I was in the first grade and we had just finish school and we're coming down to Panama. When I got to Panama, I was supposed to go into the second grade, but the school systems in the Canal Zone were a year ahead of those in Philadelphia.

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So back to the first grade I went again. That's why when I graduated, I was almost the oldest person in my class because I had about two years in the first grade. What would you say? How about the quality of the education, that the education was great because of you knew everybody.

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You knew everybody every during the sports or the festivities or whatnot. You knew everybody. There were no strangers whatsoever. The class, matter of fact, my graduating class. I think there was only a total of 38 people. That's how small the glasses were. Yeah, okay, let me see what else I could talk about.

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What kind of sports was I involved in? I was involved in track. I was one of their best. I was the best from Crystal Ball High school. I ran the high hurdles, the 100 m, 100 yards, the low hurdles, the broad jump on the high jump.

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Matter of fact, I still hold some of the records down there in the Canal zone. I was on the swimming teams and I played football for the Cristobal Tigers. Ah, lot of my friends, a lot of my classmates that I meet here at the Rie Union.

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That's what they remember May by by my sportsmanship and my ex selling in those particular sports. Uh, let me see. After high school, I did not go to Canal Zone College. Although my wife did. She wasn't my wife of the time she went to college, but when she graduated from Canal Zone College and came to the United States Uhh.

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I guess this was in 1966. She only was up here for one semester at, um, Old Dominion University in Virginia. Well, she wrote and told me that she couldn't take it any longer. She was coming back, Andre, and she just wanted to be with me. So we got married in 67 have been married ever since.

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So we just celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary. And how did you both meet in high school? No, she was a young girl, very young and, uh, riding on a bicycle in Coca Solo. And I was already working for the Panama Canal. I was serving an apprenticeship.

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Yeah. Uh, I beg your pardon? I had already finished my apprenticeship and finished my tour of duty in Vietnam and came back Andi, uh, I had a girlfriend and I drove around in a little m g. I could see this little girl here on her bicycle.

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She used to have a dog in the basket of the bicycle, you know? And I stopped the car and I said, You know, if you were a little older, I I take you out. Well, by golly, I ended up taking around, Uh, what kind of hobbies did I have to occupy my time, I guess.

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My hobbies. Waas I was a coach wife and I were coached to softball teams on all women's softball team on the Atlantic side. This softball team that we had were working women and these women played like men. As a matter of fact, I can remember going at least four years without losing a game.

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We would play 18 from Fort Gulick for Davis, Republic of Panama and other softball teams from around the Canal Zone area like Margarita and got done. One are many, many a time. We would be invited to play a man's team and we'd end up beating them.

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They couldn't believe it. We were that good. I mean, these girls played so long together that when that ball was hit, you knew exactly where that ball was going to go. Whether it was from third base, you knew that that third baseman was going to throw it in that spot.

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You just hold your glove up and pile. There it waas. I would help catch just a warm up the girls and they throw the ball to May. It would sting my hand with the global. They would throw it that fast. They were that good. Anyway, The wife and I ran that team for quite a while.

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Quite a while. Okay, let me see. Holiday celebrated naturally. Christmas without the snow. Of course, nobody that grew up in the Canal zone knew anything about snow. But I came from Philadelphia and it's no. There's some Christmas time in the canal zone. We always fought to get the best Christmas trees.

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Okay, I can remember one time one Christmas tree didn't look good enough, so we would have to buy two and strap them together to make it look like a good full tree. Yeah, Christmas trees were sold at a specific time of the day. Onda. There would be a mob of people there waiting for that particular time to go in and get a Christmas tree.

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When those doors opened at that specific time, it was a mad rush to run in, grab a tree because they only had a certain, um out as long as you had your hand on a tree that was yours is yours. And what did you participate in the tree burning after we fall?

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When I was a young kid growing up there after Christmas, we would go around and collect the Christmas trees that the people would throw out on the street sides and we would make Christmas tree forts huge. I mean, hundreds of trees that you would make piles of them.

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You know, you would have tunnels going through it wars between this mound of trees and this mound of trees. You know, here we are just elementary kids, you know, having a good time. But the Christmas tree burns. We would donate our trees. And this was later on.

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When you were in high school, we would donate our trees for the Christmas tree, burn the whole community would participate. Uh, like Coco Solo and Coca Salaita would be together if you were over on the other side. You would be Your margarita would have their own Christmas tree burn or whatnot.

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But it would be an all day affair. You would have parties and races. Uh, water balloon toss is egg tosses. Uh ah. Lot of food, you know. And it was all donated by the community, so it was free. But everyone had a good time on the Fourth of July.

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Now, other holidays there would be swim meets on DWI would participate in those the swimming pools in the area, like Coca Cola Pool. Uh, for Davis and Fort Gulick pools were Olympic sized pools. They were huge to us. They had a small diving board, a middle diving board and a tower.

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The first time you climbed that tower and look down at that pool. You thought Jeepers, if I jumped off this What? I hit the pool. That's how high it seemed to the young kids. You know, it was great fun living in the canal zone. As a matter of fact, we did.

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It was paradise. There was no crime. There was no drugs. Just a wonderful time down there. You didn't detect any kind of racial tension between racial? No. Not at all. Not at all. Yep. That's what I've been hearing all day. That it's this paradise. I loved Thio.

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It was paradise. Nobody locked their doors. Uh, I can't even remember whether we have locks on the doors. You know, later on, though, it turned to that. I'm going into the sixties now. From the sixties to the eighties. It was a lot of tension. There were riots.

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Oh, yes, I can recall the riots I had. Let me see. The riots were in, what, 64 And another one with a little bit later. I'm trying to think I know that. I know the one in 60 64. I can remember 64. I had just gotten out of the Army in 64 years old and working with the Industrial division.

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I had a job on the Pacific side. And when you go over to work on the Pacific side, see, we live in the Atlantic side. When we went over to the Pacific side, the work they would put you up in hotels. Well, the hotel that they put me up to was the Tivoli, the Tivoli Guesthouse, which was the official hotel of the Canal zone.

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Matter of fact, President Teddy Roosevelt stayed there. It was a wooden structure, but the restaurants were fabulous. The rooms were all would wooden floor, very high ceilings. Your bathrooms were down the hall rooms never had a private bath or toilet area or anything of that nature.

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They were down the hall. Well, when we worked there and I was staying at the Tivoli Guesthouse, they had a riot. They came and they took the American flag down and there were some shots fired. One of my workers from the Atlantic side who was a machinist.

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Forget his name. He was shot in the buttocks. Uh, all he could claim at the time was he ought to get a medal for that way. All laughed. That was at the Tivoli Guesthouse. I really hated to see them terror thing down. It was It was a piece of history.

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When did they tear it down? I let me see. My son was born in 69. That money it was probably around 71 or 72 because I've got a picture of my son standing in the front door of the Tivoli while it was closed because they were going to tear it down.

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Why did they end up closing it and tearing it down? Oh, it was old. It just it terminated. Yeah, everything was would write. It was It was from the construction days. That's how old it was back in the 1915. Can you also mentioned that cocoas Alito on cocoa?

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So you said that they're not there anymore or that they weren't cocoas. Alito was wiped off the cocoas. Alito was wiped off the map. There's nothing there just because of the small size of it. You'd say just, uh it could be because they were just the old wooden building.

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Yeah, why Panama didn't want them. I don't know. Coco Solo. They have taken about 80% of Coca. Solo is gone. These were concrete bomb proof buildings where the Navy officers lived. That where we lived also, um, the majority of those buildings, our corn down and the area is used to put containers off the ships because the free zone where the containers come into colon, they've got the have places to put these humming.

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You're talking about thousands and thousands of containers. Thes containers hold the dry goods for almost all of South America, Central and South America. All right, about during World War Two. I can give you stories about World War Two, but that was in Philadelphia. That was all in Philadelphia.

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So, uh huh. I could talk about the turnover of the canal to Panama at the time. Let me see what the heck date was that? That was around 1979. All right, Uh, it was a very sad feeling. And most people, yeah, would go to the ceremonies where the last time that they would lower the American flag.

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So all of these big flagpoles that held the American flag, they would have ceremonies there. Thio, take down the American flag for the last time. And it was the canal zone police that did the owners of taking the flags down. They would have ah band plan.

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This was Let me see. I believe it was in Coco Solo that they took the flag down on board. The police had big, you know, they were all lined up in their fanciest uniforms with all their medals and everything. They had a band plan and people cry, including May.

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It was just heartbreaking to see that for the last time. All right. Did you leave after that? Did I do what? Did you leave Panama? I left the canal zone in 1984. That's when I retired. Okay. And where did you relocate? I relocated in Chesapeake, Virginia, where I worked for another shipyard, a private shipyard.

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I was in charge of their fabrication shops in Virginia, and I retired from them just about three years ago. I had 21 years service with them on. I had 27 years with the Panama Canal working. What was the transition? Lee from the transition going from from Panama to Chesapeake.

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Uh, well, it was scary. It was scary because in the canal zone, you knew everybody. Even the people that you thought you didn't know. They knew you. They knew me because of my position for what I did in the canal zone. Thank you, but coming up to the States, you go, You go shopping it zits.

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Surprised that you go into the store and you don't know a soul where if you went into the commissaries in the Canal zone. You knew everybody here. You knew? No one frightening. Frightening when you moved to Chesapeake. Do you know other people from the Panama Canal Zone who had lived?

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Only people I knew here at the time was my father. Okay? Hey. Lived in Chesapeake also. He is a retired master diver of the Panama Canal. I also was a diver for the Panama Canal. My job in Panama after serving a four year apprentice program as a ship fitter.

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Mm. I was drafted due to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the Cuban missile crisis. So I had to get into the service. A matter of fact, I still have that letter from President Kennedy. It says, Greetings your country, and I need you. You will be in active service by such and such a date.

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So you see, I joined the Army or entered the army down it for Clayton. Okay? And I was stationed there for about a month before I came to the United States for basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Yeah, I was in the two seconds signal and the 18th Airborne, which is out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

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They wanted me to join the uh, O. C s officer's candidate school. But if I did that, I would have to re enlist for one more year because being drafted, I was only eligible for two years if I had joined. I mean, if I had joined the military, I would have had to go in for three or four.

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So I was called a us for everyone else that served three and four years was called on are a regular army. If I had gone to O. C s and enlisted for one more year, I would have lost my job in Panama. The canal zone Waas Uh, mhm.

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Well, they had to hold my job for me because I was drafted. It wasn't my doing going into the service. It was the government. So they were compelled to hold my job for me where if I had gone toe CS and enlisted for another year, my job would have been bacon.

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So after I got out of the army after serving only 25 months, I went back. My job was waiting for me. Well, I've been I had already served my apprenticeship. Four years there I was a journeymen and I was still a ship fitter. And I would say I was a very good shit for her.

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E a matter of fact, two years. Matter of fact, I e became the ship fitter Li man. And whenever the, uh, the headman would go on vacation, I would take his place. So I was in charge of the boiler shop to sheet metal shop. The welders, the burners, the ship fitters.

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I was in charge of the whole time. It was very loud. There was it loud. It was loud. It was very loud. Yeah. Uhh! After working my way up again, I became General foreman of the launch repair facility. I took care of the launches from the Pacific side and the Atlantic side, and we had workstations in Gamble Crystal ball, ball boy.

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And there was 11 short pier that we used in the middle of the canal. We took care of the pilot launches, which is about 53 of them. We overhauled them, we painted them, we kept them running. I would I would have a chauffeur that would drive may over to the Pacific side to inspect, to find out what they needed.

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Tool wise, I would send up to schedules for overhauling set up shift work, shift work. Everybody wanted to get onto the shift work because they would work 10 days straight days and get four off and then work Kenmore straight days to a Panamanian, which was About 70% of my crew were.

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Tell me to them a four day off is a vacation. A big vacation for them. So they really wanted to get on that shift. Very competitive, I bet. Yes, yes. Okay. How did life change for the better or the worse? I think it was time to leave the canal zone.

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When I did, my kids were one of them was, I believe, in the 10th grade and the other one was in the fifth grade. And when I was living in Coco Solo the last year, it was quite hectic because because of the riots, because of things closing given away, you know, we lost our post office.

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We lost the railroad, we lost people. You know, the majority of the people in the United States don't know what we have down there. We had our own postage stamps. We had our own judicial system. Judicial system. There's another thing. I was on a list for the coroner's.

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Okay? Any time there was a killing, a murder, a drowning, a death, I would have to witness investigate the body, inspect the body to say yes. This is that person, or this is what I believe happened. The canal zone Police on the detectives, which my wife worked for, couldn't do it alone.

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They had toe have a civilian alongside them to say, you know, so it wouldn't be just one side of the story. It would be two sides of the story. I can remember one suicide in the Atlantic side. I knew this man. I don't know his. We knew him as Frenchy and he ran the hobby shop in Cork a solo.

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Well, prior to his death, he wrote little tags that you put on bulletin boards and he would write for sale One shotgun used only once. Yeah, Or for sale One. Volkswagen needs repair in the roof. And put these on the bulletin boards. Nobody took any initiative to find out what was really going on.

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A few days later, of all places. He parked his Volkswagen in the circle in front of the elementary school in the blue top head ALS post the top of the Volkswagen. Well, with a shotgun up in here and the whole head gone, you don't see anything.

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Just holes where the eyes used to be. And I had to go on witness his body. And I had to look at his hands to see whether right handed or left handed, you know, actually investigated, and they don't want to know. Is this really Frenchy? Very hard to tell.

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Very hard to tell. Why did he do it? Nobody knows why. Nobody knows why. Anyway, there was a lot of them like that. That drownings were terrible. Do you recall the massacre in one of the islands? One of the Caribbean islands where they all drank the Kool Aid?

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Yes, Grenada, Grenada, I want to say Yeah. Uh, no, it wasn't Grenada, Grenada, maybe not Grenada, but Granada. Anyway, all those bodies came to Coco Solo. All of them were 200. It was a huge congregation. I know that Did it any way they could not. They could not find enough coffins or caskets to put all these because when they arrived, they all arrived in bags where the canal zone was responsible of putting them into a coffin before they went back to the United States.

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I was also on my computer, which was very, uh, very new to the market at the time. Um, I had access in my computer to look in the warehouses, and I had to figure out how many coffins we have. Small, large, whatever. All of them, every one of them.

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We took them all out, and they even shipped some from the United States down way. I didn't have nothing to do with the body's going into the coffins or whatnot, but it had to look presentable, going back to the United States in a coffin rather than in a bag.

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E can remember that where they were offloading the bodies on Pier one in Coca Solo E lived, I would say, about two blocks from here. One my window, my building. I could see Pier one, where the hobby shops were, and the Navy boats used to be until the Navy pulled out.

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I had a boat. I had a boat on the Atlantic side It was a 20 ft mark. Twain and I had a six cylinder Chevy engine in it and we would go out to break wall. You know what a break wall is? Ah, break wall is a man made?

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Yeah, a mound of rocks or stones or something to keep the waves from the oceans running into the houses. Eso Here's the break wall. It's the entrance to the Panama Canal. You go through the break wall and up towards Gateau. We would take the boats many.

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As a matter of fact, the majority of the people down there had a boat, and the majority of them went to get to him. Like to go fishing where the bass fish are. It was stocked with mass fish. Sometimes you didn't need any bait. You just throw the hook in and pull it out and you've got a fish on the end.

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That's how plentiful they were. Let me tell you a story about gas tune late Katyn Lake is quite deep. It couldn't it could go down, I would say 200 ft. That's quite a ways for a man made lake is a matter of fact. It used to be the world's largest man made lake.

00:41:22.200 - 00:42:04.420

This is a freshwater lake that feeds the canal that actually operates the chambers because it's all along gravity, right? The get Tomb lake has a weed or grass tick. Rosen it called hyacinth. Hiassen is a long tube that can go 100 some feet. On on the top is like lily pads, but on the top it gets so thick that when the ships came through the canal, the intake on the ships for their cooling of the engines and so forth they would suck the water from the lake.

00:42:05.000 - 00:42:28.250

But it would get so clogged with his highest in in the grass and whatnot. Ah, couple of years, they tried copper sulfate in the late killer. In turn, it killed the fish. It killed the marine mammals and what? Not what they did. But they bought from the United States.

00:42:28.250 - 00:43:02.960

Seek house. Ah, see, Cal resembles a manatee. Yeah, well, when the neighbors found out, please would catch them too, and eat them. So what? The canal zoned in what the divers did. We blanked off a very large lagoon of Gatun Lake and killed everything in there, especially the bass.

00:43:02.970 - 00:43:24.610

We netted it off and killed everything in there and then waited for the following year. And we stopped it with exactly one million, um or um, or is a fish from Africa from South Africa? It's called a white um, or it will look like a minnow.

00:43:25.600 - 00:43:52.780

But we had one million of them and they were approximately. I have to inform where we put these fish in this enclosed area of gateau in lake, they grow to about three and 4 ft warm. Look like a very giant minnow. They do not eat me.

00:43:53.110 - 00:44:23.430

They do not eat other fish. But we had to blanket off because if we put the small, um or in the lake, the bass woody thumb. Alright, thes way to more on Lee. Eat the vegetation. When the vegetation is gone, they will climb, crawl on the ground and eat grass.

00:44:23.720 - 00:44:53.620

When the grasses grown gone, they will climb and lean themselves up against a tree and eat the bark. Not many people know about this. These air, some of the secrets from the Panama Canal. So what happened? Did they they off? They almost solved the problem when they got big enough where we knew that the bass wouldn't bother them.

00:44:53.990 - 00:45:17.300

We opened the gates and they went through Mattoon Lake. So they're in Mattoon Lake, now called a white um, or they they are not edible. They almost resemble a tarp in nobody eats a tarp in. It's a good game, fish. But I'll tell you this. You go out there with a rod and reel and expect to catch one.

00:45:17.310 - 00:45:41.670

Forget it. Yeah, they will. Not by the hook. They will not by the worm. They will not bite fish. So this is how we would catch them. But then re release them. You would get a 55 gallon drum and you put rocks in the bottom and you would have the drum float in the water.

00:45:42.220 - 00:46:12.060

Say, about 1 ft above the waterline and you put sticks across the barrel on, put grass on it, mhm and have a string from the barrel to the shore. And just watch. These fish would get up to the top of the barrel, start to eat the grass and fall in, and you can pull it to the shore, take the fish out, examine the fish and look at all this is what it looked like.

00:46:12.060 - 00:46:30.910

What? Not and then let him go back in the water. What a sport that was. Did they ever create any environmental problems with their appetite? I have never heard. Never heard a perfect never heard resolution to that problem then. Ah, lot of people don't know these things.

00:46:30.920 - 00:47:11.310

For instance, being a diver, you'd have to go underwater at the spillways and inspect the seatings where the gates lock in tow, hold the water. And they have things called culverts, which are about 8 ft in diameter with big metal screens to catch logs And what not from going through it za whole tunnel effect to operate this canal in front of the spillways, A spillway controls the level of gateau.

00:47:11.310 - 00:47:53.570

Only there was one in GATT tune, and there was one of mirror flurries. Uh, they had, I mean, built secretly a set of, um hmm Gates that would come up out of the water to protect the gates that air flowing, controlling the water. These gates would shoot up from the bottom and protect the major gates holding the water back in case they worked har paedo during the war.

00:47:56.280 - 00:48:26.860

If a gunship or something came by and dropped the torpedo and hit the spillway. Entire Mattoon, Lakewood Flow and wash away completely. Wash away the Atlantic side. The lower like coca solo coca Salaita Margarita colon would be washed into the sea to prevent that. They had these gates that shoot up out of the water in case something would come by and say, Hey, we're gonna have an attack.

00:48:26.860 - 00:48:50.150

Boom! Here they come. They would shoot up and they would hit this before they hit the gates to just go away. These were some of the secret stop e like the secret stuff on the other side. No, We see on the Fort Sherman side, which was all Army four.

00:48:50.150 - 00:49:20.500

Chairman had had batteries that were underground where we had a specific type of missile. Yeah, that nobody is supposed to know about, but where it gets around, There was a big wheels down there, you know? So I knew quite a lot of it. The thes missiles were never used, but they were installed at Fort Sherman.

00:49:21.170 - 00:50:00.790

I'm not sure about the Pacific side, but during the war, Fort Sherman, Fort Randolph had gun parrots, very large gun turrets built on hillsides. The one at Fort Randolph overlooks Kalita Point, the entrance to the to the canal. They had huge gun turrets, their massive anti aircraft stuff bigger than I'm talking about big stuff.

00:50:00.800 - 00:50:18.280

Bigger than the anti air. This is for ships coming through that they, you know, they might have been, You know, that the cannons on them were probably from that wall of this wall, you know, big, big, big things for shooting ships. You know, maybe, uh, 15 miles out.

00:50:18.760 - 00:50:34.400

I just can't even imagine. When we were teenagers, we would go up and play into these things. All of the mechanisms on all the guns were gone, but the gun turrets and the cement foundations for all of these things were still there. Way would play play on on things like crazy.

00:50:38.060 - 00:51:03.940

We, as teenagers would spend most of our time in the jungles, building forts. I can recall a a building burnt down in coca Sollitto and I would take They were throwing everything out, would buy the crock loads. Well, we would have little wagon and loaded on my wagon and bring it out of jungle.

00:51:03.940 - 00:51:18.550

I actually built a house out in the jungles. Everybody used it for a clubhouse of some kind, you know, fun house. But we used to go up, collect mangos, bananas. I mean, you know, you didn't have to climb a tree. You just reach out and grab it there.

00:51:18.550 - 00:51:47.640

That many? Yeah, One of the most pleasurable vegetables or fruits that you could find down there is called a rose apple. It it z shaped like a pear, but a dark red, very dark red. The inside when you took a bite of it, it was like a cotton ball, but so juicy and had a very rose type flavor to it.

00:51:48.450 - 00:52:17.880

Everybody lived Rose apples in gin IPs e get up. Anybody from the canal zone knows what a rose apple and again it is again. It is a small fruit that looks like a I would say about the size of your thumb like green. You crack it open and there's a very orange jelly looking thing, and you just stick in your mouth and suck all that gooey stuff off the seed.

00:52:18.750 - 00:52:46.900

E heard a side. Yeah, but very popular, very popular. I heard a term bread and butter for vegetation edible vegetation, bread and butter. It was You might be returned referring to a bread plant. Yes, I think. Yeah, a great plan. Ah, bread plant is all throughout Central and South America.

00:52:46.910 - 00:53:22.220

It's about the size of a cannonball Green. Uh, Americans and Panamanians didn't quite eat it, but it was a staple food for the Mayan, the Aztec and so forth. Uh, one of the one of the explorers from England can't recall. I'm talking about 15 hundreds, came down and brought back hundreds of these fruits called breadfruit back there.

00:53:22.220 - 00:53:43.080

And see if this will. This will take care of the whole country if we can grow these. Well, they never grew. They never grew. Who was the explorer that went down to the Galapagos Islands? And, uh, was that Darwin? Maybe it was he that some of his collection that he was bringing back to wherever.

00:53:44.150 - 00:54:06.600

Anyway, it never pans out. You have another fruit down there called ice cream bean. A nice cream being is really a being. I mean, a a nice cream being can get 2 ft long, and it will look like a string bean on Leah. Vory hard brown, shaped like this.

00:54:07.540 - 00:54:29.170

You crack it open. Just like a peep. Are you? Open that thing up and inside would be these vice cotton like candy over a big black seed and like peas in a pod. Only these would be these little ice cream beans inside this huge. It was stiff, very stiff.

00:54:29.180 - 00:55:04.450

Yeah, I think very stiff and hard. And you just suck this cotton stuff off of the black seeds to see down ice cream beans. They had cannonball trees. They have had another tree that? Yeah. Oh, Can't remember it Looked like an Oriole bird nest. Hang from the tree and a long stand and then come out with a little ball On the end.

00:55:04.450 - 00:55:25.580

The birds would go inside, but there was a fruit like that. Anyway, you can always find a Cacau tree. Do you know what a Cacau is? Um your college student? You should know Cacau Thio. You pronounce it cocoa? Yeah, Okay. You could find a Cacau tree.

00:55:25.590 - 00:55:44.910

It's different than any other tree because the fruit itself grows out of the trunk of the tree. Not the top where the branches are. It grows right out of the trunk. That's the Cacau anyway, You take those seeds and you have to drive them out in the sun and one not writing them all up.

00:55:44.920 - 00:56:05.830

And you can get your Coco Coco right? There's, ah, a matter of fact, the majority of the people that left the canal Zone and company, the United States. This is what they crave. They crave the difference. Flavor, the food, the way it's prepared. Fish corvina, fish.

00:56:06.430 - 00:56:27.960

No matter what restaurant you went to in Panama City or Golan, Corvina was the catch of the day. Red snapper Fine, but corvina. They used to make a dish called Ceviche E. So Viki takes the place of the United States Shrimp cocktail Panama. You don't get a shrimp cocktail.

00:56:27.960 - 00:56:52.080

You get a ceviche e. So Vicky is a corvina type fish cut into chunks about half my half inch and raw, and they are soaked in lime juice and peppers. The type of pepper they use is called trumbull, and it's just hot sauce and the lime juice.

00:56:52.080 - 00:57:13.280

As soon as you drop the raw fish in there, the fish turns white. It's done. It's ready to eat. They serve this in a dish with crushed ice on the bottom, maybe a lettuce leave and a whole scoop of this raw fish with onions. Cilantro? That's it.

00:57:13.290 - 00:57:31.260

It's fantastic. You can't get it here in the United States. You can't get it. Ah, lot of people here in the United States substitute and try and make it with the fish. They could get in the market or whatnot and said, Oh, yeah, I made of each of the other line.

00:57:31.270 - 00:57:56.330

Okay, but it's because you can't get the jumbo peppers they use. Not the jalapeno. Know that the wet scotch bonnet, maybe? No, no, no. That's too little yellow ones about real hot. Are they big around? Hello, Hala peen. Jalapenos. Jalapenos. Agreement? Yeah, my mind. Aban Eros.

00:57:56.330 - 00:58:23.270

Thank you. Habanero peppers E put the United States makes there's with Alright, what else have we gonna talk about? Uh, uhh. Oh, right before we left here, I got it over here. Right before we left the canal zone. They It was getting a little on the hostile side.

00:58:23.760 - 00:58:47.970

They would be bomb threats. There would be, you know, a lot of yelling and screaming Yankee go home. Mhm Well being that they took away the canal zone. Police the National Guard. The Panamanian National Guard had to come in and protect these little cities that you cannot let the Americans were still living in.

00:58:50.120 - 00:59:17.400

They would escort my kids to school that lived. We looked just about across the street from the elementary school, but they would have toe walk my kids to school with M 16 rifles. They were all armed, and they were all on this is the Guardia Nationale, their so called army, naturally Panama and have an army even.

00:59:18.020 - 00:59:49.790

How did your Children transition during, um, when you guys moved to Chesapeake area? I don't think they cared for it too much until they got the no new friends Until they got the new, you know, goes down there. They knew everybody. They they were into all the sports and the activities and the school programs and what it was similar to how when you grew up there is it was similar to how how it was when you were there when you were young.

00:59:49.790 - 01:00:08.720

Just that sense of community and kids. Yeah, until the last couple of years, until the last couple of years. And you left in 1984 by then it. Waas It was time to go. Dangerousness. It was time to go. Do you return? Ever. I have not been back, but both my boys has.

01:00:08.730 - 01:00:34.700

Oh, great. Both my boys have both of my boys. Everyone tells me you go back and, uh, you're just gonna cry because it's not there anymore. Nothing. Is there the town sites that we grew up in or gone? No. Yeah. Do you have any desire to go back way?

01:00:34.700 - 01:00:56.170

We'll go back. Maybe when the wife retires, we might take it down there. It's either that or go to Russia. Way we've been We've been around the world. It's great. We've been all over the place, being so close. Living in Panama. It was it was easy to Yeah, go to places like Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

01:00:56.180 - 01:01:18.610

You know, Heavens, you only just a little bit, you know, get 100 miles away from Costa Rica and you know, 300 miles Teoh. You know you're so close to everything down there. Uh, we went through all the sights of South America like Machu Picchu. Oh, I love that.

01:01:18.730 - 01:01:44.650

Did you learn how to speak Spanish? I can speak Spanish. raise a majority of my people that worked for me. We're all kind of manion, so I had a little bit of background. Right? Right. But we've been We've been around. One of the best places that we visited in South America was Ecuador.

01:01:46.100 - 01:02:19.220

It was beautiful, beautiful, so clean. Ecuador is the only country in the world that unclaimed toe have four seasons every day of the year. We landed there. It was in the morning. Nice weather. 70 degrees. Come afternoon, 105. Hey, man, we got to go back to the room and get toe.

01:02:19.900 - 01:02:37.270

You know, start changing some clothes here or whatever. Get back to the room and you get ready to go to dinner or whatnot. You know, when you look out the window and it's snowing here it is summertime. It's snowing In the morning, the sun comes up, melts all the snow and everything.

01:02:37.280 - 01:03:14.590

Every field is covered with little yellow flowers, all the highways air lying with beautiful flowers. Five oclock In the morning, the women are on their hands and knees scrubbing the sidewalks, and the sides of their building, which are all white, marched 90% of the homes on the houses Him this village in, uh, Ecuador with a heck of with, uh oh, what a memory.

01:03:15.610 - 01:03:43.320

Anyway, the homes that are painted white and with blue shutters are all over 400 years old. That's an equity. Kito is the town kit, which is also the capital city. E think it's the highest capital city in the world. Okay, we drove to Cotopaxi, which is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world.

01:03:44.370 - 01:04:09.840

We rented a Volkswagen and drove up to Cotopaxi. Uh, there's a plateau before you reach the summit that you have to park your car because there's not enough oxygen to even run the engine in the car. You would get out and start walking and you take seven steps and have to stop to breathe again.

01:04:11.090 - 01:04:27.230

I would take a cigar out of my pocket and light it one time. Take one puff and instantly put it back in your mouth to take the second puff and it would be out. That's how thin the era you were so high above the clouds you couldn't see anything.

01:04:27.690 - 01:04:43.220

Do you know what the elevation is? I can't recall. I don't remember. I can't recall. But boy, you were up there. No vegetation. You can come down a little bit around where the clouds are and you start seeing nothing but purple, which is nothing but the volcanic ash.

01:04:43.490 - 01:05:05.250

And about a mile down further, you can see the vegetation where the trees are The green, the tree line. Oh, boy, What a beautiful country to visit Tokyo. Alright. Any other specific questions you'd like to me? Oh, it's to answer. You've been It's been a good interview has been great.

01:05:05.260 - 01:05:24.200

I think we've got everything. E don't know if there's anything you'd like to add. Um, but other than that, it's been used. My dad was here. My dad was a swimming instructor for Balboa High School. Also, that was in the thirties. Where is he now? He lives in ST Pete.

01:05:24.210 - 01:05:40.210

Okay, He's 101 still drives. So does his own copy. So after the reunion here, I'm going to go down to spend a week with him. Sounds good. Thank you so much for your time. No problem.