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Hello. Today is July 7th, 2011. I'm Sarah Blanck, and I'm here with Mr Skip Rally, and we're doing an interview on the Panama Canal Zone. Mr. Rally, can you start just by telling me some basic information about where you were born and when we were born?

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I was born in Koran, Republic of Panama, which was an American hospital in the Republic of Panama. Right on the beach. December the 14th, 1939. Okay, Uh, have been 21 minutes earlier. My sister and I would share the same birthday. Here's the 13th. Um, I grew up on the Atlantic side, went to grade school there and part of junior high, and my father got transferred.

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Well, actually, he quit the Panama Canal and went to work for the Navy. My dad was a sea captain, and he had a chance to go back to see again. So he wanted his experience levels up, so he did that. So then we moved to the Pacific side, and when he worked at Rodman Naval Station, we lived in the town of Coakley and we lived there for probably three years.

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Moslem use. My mother finally got tired of him going to see him being away. So he decided to quit and they even come back to the canal. So he got a job. Is captain of yoga which is a salvage tug in the Gamboa region on and they go all over the Central America, replacing buoys and things like that Navigational aids.

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Uh, we lived in Gamble for several years and then he because of high school so far away and every we moved into Balbo and actually into those reels, that's where they stayed until they retired. Of course, I graduated from high school in 59 I left. That's all North Story, but I left it on a yacht.

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E never did graduate from high school on stage. Okay, I took all my tests early because I got hired by a man from Washington State to be a crew member on a yacht which was every boy's dream in the canal zone to go to exotic places on a yacht as a crew member and mine.

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My dream came true, and we got us faras Kanye Island in Costa Rica and got shipwrecked. And I spent five days marooned on the rock Nobody knew where we were. Nobody even knew we were there. All right, I'm slowing you down. Okay, Hold on. Hold on to start over again.

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Okay. Well, first of all, you have to help me with geography. You said that your dad stopped. Your father stopped working for the Panama Canal Company. Correct. So does that mean that you had to move out of their sails on housing? Yes, housing. So you didn't actually live in the zone after that point way?

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Actually, we lived in New Cristobal and do the seniority. You get a better house with North Service that you have. So when my dad first started out, all I could get was a 12 family or a four family. Something like that. And you didn't have finished walls like you have here.

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They were just built with two by fours and then diagnosed would and exciting. In early days, we had no air conditioning, had all screen windows, and you just open the windows, had glass windows to keep the rain out, which opened the windows all the way and just let the breeze blowing.

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Everybody had oscillating fans, and it wasn't too many ceiling fans e They weren't at that station. And the popularity they were in in taverns and bars and in downtown, but not in houses. So everybody had oscillating fans. And in earlier years, I remember we had a nice man come around and chop off a block ice and we put it in our refrigerator so you could always hear him coming down the street, banging on his his brake drum that he had mounted on the back of his card and make a better rot Dong Dong dong.

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And you know he's coming. So we go out and get ready for ice. Um, So you went Thio. You originally went to schools in the zone, right? So those were US schools. And then when your father stopped working for the company, did you go to Panama schools?

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You continue going to the U. S. School when you work for the military, you have all the privileges Canal zone, plus military privileges. So Okay, so we have them both at that time. Do you think that obviously your education was different than Panamanian education? How would you say that?

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It differed? Well, I never went to a Panamanian school, but I know there's an awful lot of Panamanians who were very wealthy, who would pay to have their Children come to the American schools because they thought they were better. Teach English better. There's not a lot of rabble rousing like there isn't a Panama schools.

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There are a hotbed for English in canals, all Oh, yes. But they also taught Spanish. You could take a French class if you want. You could take a German class if you want to speak German. I had various languages. You could speak. Everybody normally spoke Spanish.

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That was kind of a native language. Aaron and I didn't do too well in Spanish class. I learned most of my Spanish on the street. Um, to this day, I am not bilingual. Although I I don't speak. I don't speak Spanish now at all, because I live in Tallahassee for last 22 years on Die for gotten a lot of my Spanish, But when I was still working down there, I was pretty good at it.

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I wasn't totally bilingual, but I I could carry on a conversation with anybody. No problem. Okay, so now you have to tell me how you got this job on the boat on the ship. Well, e actually, I was my second job on a boat. My first one was a tuna boat shipped out on first summer.

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Did you work when you were in school? Oh, yeah, every summer. And we got it in. Pull. When you tell them my dad made me get a job. You don't stand around sleep all day, sun. You get out there and hustle a job. So I have ever since I was 13 or so I was a shoeshine.

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Stand the car wash, Stan. One summer, Then I was a lifeguard pool. Then I shipped out on a tuna boat for the whole summer. Then then another lifeguard job. The next year, I worked for a contractor putting tile seller textile in and four tiles and like that, just turned sometimes.

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But at my senior year, I was getting ready to graduate. E came home from church one day, and there was a gentleman sitting on my mom's out with my mom and house. There were along with Jerry Dare or another Amazonian, and Jerry was electronic technician. And this yacht had some Elektronik problem with the radios and whatnot.

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So they got Jerry to fix it. And while he was doing that, they said, Do you happen to know what he young boys? I would like a feeling for a crew because we lost one of our crew members had to go back to work in states.

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And Jerry said, I know just the person you're looking for. So they came over to my house on Sunday and my dad and I came home from church. Is this man was there and he was from Fortunate State. And he says, I'm I'm here to offer you a job.

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How soon can you be ready to go? And I was caught off guard. Uh, look, my mom and dad and say you know is okay with you. Of course. Dad was the first one. Remind me you haven't finished school yet. I said, Well, let me call Mr Hoax.

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He was the principal, so I called him and talk to him at home. And he said to come in on Monday morning, he would arrange to have all my test taken in the library that day That so I did. I went took all except one test, which I had to take Tuesday morning bright and early and by my dad, in the meantime, went around, got all the paperwork ready all my visas, departure cards, all that stuff I had needed to get in and out of countries on, uh, Mr Holds handed me my diploma at noon time, as they say under the table, because I never got it out.

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I never graduated on stage, and I had graduated my school. And by Tuesday afternoon, I was sailing down to channel on the yacht and headed for a story Oregon on, uh, that's where the boat was gonna be. How's it came from ST Petersburg to the canal was going up the story.

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Well, needless to say, we spent the first night in port um, US re fueled and whatnot. And the next night next day, we completely went around peninsula down there in Panama, headed for Puntarenas, Costa Rica. And we pulled in the the anchor Kanye Island, which is a really neat little island 12 miles off their Marenco peninsula in Costa Rica.

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And, ah, storm came up while we were down eating dinner, and I mean, it just blew up all of a sudden and part of the anchor line and we didn't know it. And how many days have you been working? I was just my probably my third Or maybe my fourth day on the on Onda we got shipwrecked.

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I mean, it was just the yacht was drifting. Now it went into the rocks. On the very first thing the captain of the boat heard sing like that. When the propeller hit the reef, he compounding across the table, stepped into food and jumped up and got the engine start and found out he had already lost support engine that was all been busted up.

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So now we had to use the starboard engine and it was bent a little bit. Had some blades bent, but it was still usable. But we didn't have the power. So we turned. We backed off the reef, the best we could turned it around the best.

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We could start heading for the mainland, which was 12 miles away. Oh, cute. We found out very short order that we were taking on water fast. So we were sewing off pegs from broom handles everything else and stuffing into little holes with rags were trying to stop the water flow, but we didn't realize that that time underneath the engine that had been busted, the whole there was a hole there about a foot in diameter and water was pouring into the engine room.

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Way had no choice but to turn around the head for the island now, and we didn't know where to go, because there's just nothing but a lava rock or all around the island. They sent me up topside and I man the spotlight. By now, it's getting dark, and I put a spotlight on search around.

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I found a piece of white sand up their little speck of sand, and I yelled down in the capital. Oh, it says, There it is. Captain White Spot is a sandbank. Let's try to get in that. So he way did that. But on one engine, only about half power.

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We had very little maneuverability and not a lot of power, and the current and the waves were kind of coming off our port quarter, which is kind of a stern on the port side. Onda. We just bounced and bounced around. Finally, we just lifted up. Next time we sit down, we were square on top of the rock.

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Just there did. It's still the hole in the bottom of the boat, right through The kill on the boat wasn't going anywhere now, but it was just still bounce up and down with the ways because the storm and come up in the waves A really big.

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So now we're trying to figure out how to get off the island, are off the boat onto the island. They drew straws, and I think it was a I think it was automatically I was gonna be chosen because I was the youngest. I was 19 and I could swim.

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I was a swimmer from Panama, so they put a rope around my waist, maybe swim through the surf into threw rocks, entire this line around a big tree that we saw in the bank. So I did that. I decided to thank going to swim breaststroke, because if I had a swim KRI style, I'd ripped my hands open on the coral.

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That was just below me, and I didn't know it. I didn't know how deep it was on. I wasn't gonna be sticking my hands down there on purposely looking for it. I was waiting to hit sand and that was it. And so did that. He's here for action.

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Self. Okay, so that then we got a lines tied to the tree and tighten it up between the boat and we hand hand over hand brought ourselves ashore. But then we also had to bring the lifeboat all our cargo in our past everything. So we went back and got on the put everything on the lifeboat that was now bouncing around the water and handed over hand.

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We took that into the beach to and brought all what we could cushions and whatnot. And that's all we could get. It was too rough. Do anything else. Um, my smile and my mom and dad had given me a brand spanking new 35 millimeter camera on, and I hadn't taken it out of the box yet because I was wait until I had some time.

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I'm traveling. I was gonna read the instructions how to work and all that stuff. Well, they got dumped in the water and it didn't get submerged real hard, but it got wet. So I've got that out and I dried it the best I could with whatever we had available to dry it with, and I just fumbled around with it.

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I loaded the film in it and I started taking slides and I took a whole roll of slides of this whole incident, which I have in a slide. Show it home. I did that several years later on the cruise when I was elected on a cruise ship and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

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But I had whole pictures of the ship or the yacht breaking up from the size. I started out being until it was only about 12 ft along the way at the most on. And but now that we spent five days on there and watching this boat break up, we had, ah, container, one of the fuel containers from the four that we had a 55 gallon drum.

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We broke the top off and took a long time, but finally got a fire started a diesel drum, which is hard to do. Diesel fuel does not light like gasoline. Way finally got it lit and it starts smoking, which is what we want to do. We had a big black smoke going up there, hoping that we could get some attention on.

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And there's a couple airplanes flew over that were out someplace else and they were kind of hide. But if you ever seen a movie where people you know, there's an airplane and everybody goes crazy waving at it, we're over here. We're over here and you say, Oh, how dumb that is way did it way were yelling and screaming and I couldn't hear It was dark.

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It was brought way. Yeah, of course. With this smoke going round the clock to the rain stopped By the time you got the fire started What? It rained every day? No. Well, it didn't put the fire out, but it rained every day. Once that diesel fire got going to rain didn't stop it.

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But no see ums way Look, name no. See him planted by them on by mosquitoes. Something like that. What we did is is the next morning we just spent the night on the rock. That's all we did is they were freezing, shaking all huddled together, trying to stay warm, and the suitcase and everything was all dripping water out of them.

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So I couldn't do it in the dark. And then the lights at the time. So the next morning, when the sun came up, we noticed that the deck, the foredeck of this yacht, had broken off and it was just kind of in on the beach, while we managed before was managed horsing around and set it up on some rocks.

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And these thes men had bought five cases of Johnnie Walker Black Scots. When they were in Panama, I was too young to drink, So we had these five cases of Scotch propped up on one corner. We put this deck on, we had the other corner deck in the, uh in Iraq and another one on a limb of a tree.

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And we just had this thing perched there. When the tide came in, it would come in, actually, under our floor. One would go out, we would have a 50 ft of beech way, have a lot of tiger big tied in the Pacific there. But that's where we stayed.

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We brought some cushions in from the deck chairs and things like that. We started sleeping. Then we from the Tar Polian over a branch that happened to be hanging out, and so we had a little bit of a roof that we're still leaking when it rained hard.

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But at least it kept the sun office and everything else. And then we just started looking around every day we'd start looking around for salvageable items that we could use. We found all kinds of cans. No labels. On the speech from the boat boat, the boat broke out of the boat.

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All the canned goods, the only one I could recognize was a tuna fish can rest of cans, you know, you'd open up. You're getting peas, you get in character, getting something that you don't even know what you opening. There's no label on it. Wait a little.

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These little, uh, wanted military uses, you know, those kind of things like that. But we managed to just eat out of cans. You know, we could weigh, managed to make a little bit of a fork type thing out of a branch and hang it close to the fire.

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So it least when he cans up a little bit before it wouldn't cook the food, But it was just warming up a little bit. And we could do that when we send every one of the dishes. Believe it or not, dishes from the yacht never got broken.

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They were all laying down in the sand, under the rocks and under the keel. When we broke, the bottom broke through. Everything just fell out the bottom also. Then the next night, thesis, turn of the boat started to break off, and it had V drive engines because it used to be originally when it was built, it was an air sea rescue, like a P T boat.

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Something like that had a planing hall and with the Allison engines, and that they could go fast when it was designed, but then had been reconverted to a civilian yacht and taking those Alison's out put this regular diesels. And so it was a slower boat now, but it had V drive.

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Engines were mounted facing forward, and then they went into ah gearbox and came back on and over. The props or the props came out of that, so the props set right under the engine's well, they had the bottles of CO two up there for engine room fires had this great big, probably 4 ft high bottles on the second night when the engine room broke off.

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The whole sternal boat broke off his head. Broke off the bottle of CO two. And it just looked like a rocket going straight up way were asleep when it happened and woke up. We didn't know what was happening. Saw this thing going up here. Hold these.

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What a beautiful sight. That way it's gonna come down where it fell down in the water. We never did plenty, but it was We found things for several days. Finally, on the last day. How many days does it spend? Five days. We spent five days in Iraq.

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And how many of you were there for E? I was the youngest. Uh uh, How you came around the island on the fourth day on things guy had been He didn't speak in English and no one spoke Spanish except me. So I was able to converse with them and tell them that we were shipwrecked off course office.

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There's about all record from us. I told him you're gonna have anything. You want to get us off this island s. So he took us. We had the lifeboat, our life, but with a little more motor. So we were able to get with him. He pulled this guy.

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You go to beach and he told us. Come on, get in a boat. He took us around the island to the lighthouse, which we didn't even know was there e? There was a lighthouse on the other side of the island Way had done is walked. What?

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I walked one way and another guy walked another way. But we didn't both go around the far side of the island, which the worldwide as we got so far, I said, Well, nothing here. We came back again, so we never found the lighthouse. So he took us over there, and he was there with his lady, and they lived there raising pigs and chickens and things like that on, uh, So we started breaking Rick, going back and getting all the stuff we had Scotch and all that stuff.

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What? The radio gear that we could use salvage and all that started. Bring it back and forth. And he wanted to ride with us all the time. And he was helping us load the boat and all that stuff. So every time you go there, everybody started drinking a little bit of scotch and this little native guy got absolutely drunk and he was standing up on the bow of the boat with a painter in his hand.

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Painted was about rope. He's standing there just with breezes face, and another guy was kind of half half loop to was driving the boat with outboard engine. He zoomed on coming up to the beach and I'm sitting there looking. My eyes are getting bigger and bigger.

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Slow down, slow down, slow down. Ran up right on the beach. And when that boats come toe a kind of a sudden stop that little native guy would like a on his hit the deck and sand and rocks and beach. And to start tumbling, he got all cut up and beat up over the sand everything.

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And his lady little woman there came down with a broom handle and start beating death and yelling them in Spanish and cussing him out again. No, no, no, no, no. He's running up trying to get away from her, and we're sitting there laughing and she turned around, looked at us.

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Well, we're getting out of here way. Got that settled. Taking care of it. But then that night there was a boat came out and anchored in front of the White House. I got another yacht and he paddled out and you go to find it, Say it was on it and brought the owner shore, which have to be Grant Foster, the the builder of the Pan American highway.

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He was out there for a weekend of fishing and he said, uh, he brought him ashore and he met us and he said, I'll take you back to golf Ito on my way back. But I'm out here for a weekend of fishing, so I'm going to do that.

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You guys relax, I'll pick up on the way back. So then he on the way back, he pulled in there close and we all got out, went back to golf. Ito and we were put up in. The United Fruit Company's headquarters has stranded survivors, so we didn't have to pay anything.

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They pay for that. Then he flew us to San Jose and it took us three weeks in San Jose to get our paper worker, he says. Passports and all that stuff back. So we just stayed in the Europa Hotel courtesy an American embassy that stranded survivors.

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They gave us clothes to wear anything else I was gonna meet. Sandals is a beautiful place for a young man. Eso do the whole ordeal. You were pretty sure that whole time that you were gonna be okay. No, no, it was, I have to admit, as a 19 year old boy, I was in tears a couple of times thinking I'm my life is over.

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You know, I'll never see my mother and father and E. And of course, being 19, I was missing my girlfriend all that. I'll never see my girl again on this and that and on. These guys were saying, Boy, it's great to be away from the old lady.

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Eso was one of the stranded people. Was the owner of the yacht? No. No, the owner wasn't there. So it was just the crew e I had met. The owner was later on the guy that hired me called me up after we got back to Panama.

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Now, in the canal zone, you have summer jobs for American citizens. But you have to put your application in before school's out and all that stuff and get a job. You also have summer college. It starts to summer semester. You also have uh hmm. That XYZ basically yet?

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Prentiss program If you're gonna be an apprentice to take the test and you can get the friendship well, being that I was away, I couldn't do any of this. So when I got back, all the jobs were taken for the summer. The school had already started.

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The Apprentice program had already started, so I couldn't do anything. I just sat there twiddling my thumbs. I didn't have a job, couldn't get a job, had nothing to do. I was just dragging my parents economy. So Neil called me from Washington State and he says, What are you doing?

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And I said, absolutely nothing. He says you don't have a job. I says, Nope, Can't get a job. And he says, Well, how would you like to come work up here in Washington? State? Boy perked up like a Garfield. The cat said yes. So I told my dad Meal just offered me a job.

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And so I'm on the phone. It says, doing what he says, Well, it's you'd be a labor type thing, but be working from sunup to sundown and, of course, in Panama, the sun comes up at six and goes down to 6, 30 plus or minus 20 minutes all during the year, depending where the sun is north south.

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The Twitter on I thought we already That's not too bad. I didn't realize that up in Washington state, Sun comes up 4 30 in the morning, goes down to 10 30 at night. That's a long day, and so I didn't know that until I got there.

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And, of course, Washington State is beautiful. That's God's country, and I loved it up there, but I got a job. Is a driving a truck for a week? Farmer that was harvesting week on. I worked 21 days total. I drove a truck for a while and then he put me into the combine.

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I drove in 18 ft swath combine, didn't have air conditioning and all that staff was going down your back, making it and all that stuff during the day on. But then I asked him if I go back on the truck because driving that combine was a bit much for me now.

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So I went back driving a truck and what we do is take all the dirt all day, week from the combine and loaded truck, and I take a truck down the silo and dumping silo. Come back up and drive right alongside the combine as its unloading.

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That way that you never stop. You just keep on going on. They had 22 trucks to catch these things like that. Well, after 21 days of e mean, brutal hot sun, working all day long hours, getting a little sleeping ring, I was tired. I wasn't used to it, and I was a spoiled canal zone.

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Brad is a e. I asked. Boss has John for a day. Officers. I'd like to have Sunday off to go to church. I really hadn't planned on going to church. I just wanted to stay home. Sleep well. He saw through my little my little, uh, lie there.

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And so he fired. He said he didn't even want fire. He said, Well, that's all right. We're almost done. You probably won't have to come back again. Really nice about it. So I was. I slept on Sunday morning and Neil's wife came down to wake me up.

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I was staying in the basement of the house and I said, I don't have to go to work tonight. Today, Billy, She says You don't have to go to work on Sunday E says, Yeah, he gave me Fact, I said, We're almost done. I don't have to go back and crawl.

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She knew that wasn't right because she had been born and raised there. And she knows the cycle of wheat harvesting. So she called John on the phone and John says it fired a kid. He didn't wanna work. He's lazy. I wasn't late. I just want a day off, you know?

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So Billy came back and says, Do you know that you just got fired? Of course. My jaw dropped. God, I'm fired. No income. I have no job. I'm in a strange place away from 5 7000 miles away from home. No money, no car, nothing. No e.

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I mean, now I'm scared again by myself. So he gave Neal gave me a job. Hey, had ordered a swimming pool to be built and I worked as a swimming pool helper. I helped dig a ditch and to pull and hold on all that stuff and put the lining in.

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When that job finished, there was no more pools being ordered because we're getting laid into the summer in Washington state. There's no need for swimming pool in the fall in the winter. So then he says, Well, come on down to my place He owned the largest, um Crane Mobile Crane Construction Company in the Pacific Northwest.

00:26:24.010 - 00:26:41.160

This new lamps, lamps in construction, you could look it up in the dictionary and our encyclopedia. Uh, hey said, come on down. I could put you to work down there is doing something. So I went down there and my first job was to sort out nuts and bolts and screws from this big long cabinet there and just get them all straightened out.

00:26:41.740 - 00:26:57.590

And I got that all done, and I was kind of guy that passed the tools of mechanic. I wouldn't even help her. He would just say, Go get me a big old crescent wrench and I run over and get me the president. Bring it back to him and we're working on the diesel trucks, the cranes and things like that Big 18 wheelers on.

00:26:57.600 - 00:27:13.590

Uh, I wasn't used to that either. That was kinda hard looking heavy labor. I was spoiled rotten. I mean, but I was getting used to it and getting with the program. They let me operate the crane a little bit around the backyards. They're lifting pallets of this palace that nothing.

00:27:13.600 - 00:27:30.560

Just I figured I just figured it out. This is gonna work out for me. If I stay here, I gotta start out the bottom and do the digger work. And then I could go on and start raising up, get a nice job. Sometime on, I saw that I saw it in my dream coming, but I didn't see it in actuality.

00:27:30.560 - 00:27:42.470

And I'm working there and I had no money to buy clothes. I'm still paying back my airplane ticket to Neil. He said you'd send me money for the airplane ticket and I have to pay him back. So I'm out of every paycheck. I'm paying him back.

00:27:42.480 - 00:27:56.360

I had now moved out his house and I was in the back room with some elderly couple's house e. Have one shell from refrigerator to put my milk on my cereal. Peanut butter and jelly. Some i e. I have to walk to work a mile on.

00:27:56.370 - 00:28:10.750

It started getting cold up there on my I was freezing and these guys were loaning me their jackets everything. And I looked like Sad sack because these guys were 6 ft tall and I'm 5 ft five. And so when I put their coat on, you couldn't even see my hands coming through the sleeves.

00:28:10.750 - 00:28:25.150

And I looked like sad sack walking down the street like a like a homeless guy on my walk to work. And every now and then on Friday, the guys would get paid. They go right next door to the bar on by themselves, a couple of Olympia or reindeer beers.

00:28:25.150 - 00:28:48.350

Brain. Here's what they normally got and I was too young to go in a bar, but I was 19. They would come out and see a kid, you know. So I set out there in the corner and drink a beer, and then one of them would probably take me home that day on and on, and I'd get my when I got some done paying my rent and paying back Neil all that I had, and I bought a few groceries.

00:28:48.350 - 00:29:09.340

Every week I walked toward what's, um or cereal? Milk and butter. And And if you think I get bread for lunch all that I had $5 left the last until next week, and I met a guy up there who ultimately joined the Navy with me. But hey had a car and we used to double date to the theater and we all piled into Trump except him, and he paid in.

00:29:09.340 - 00:29:24.520

The his brother in law would buy him a case of beer and give it to him. And so we're going to drive in. He paid to get in way. Then we'd split up the money and have a beer spread paid, you know, spread the prices way.

00:29:24.520 - 00:29:39.860

Could watch a drive in movie. That's the only way you could do. And that was my entertainment. Um, Then I was walking down the street one day with my friend and saw sign flapping in the breeze, has joined the Navy and go south for the winter.

00:29:39.870 - 00:29:54.950

E says that sounds like a good idea. E walked in, asked the recruiter what I gotta do, and he told me he gave me some books. Look out over the weekend when I went back to the house and the rhythm. I decided I joined the Navy.

00:29:55.840 - 00:30:19.180

And up until that day, the military I'm not anti military. Never have been. But I was never gonna be in the military. Just wasn't for me all of a sudden. The best option I can see. And what year is this? 1959. Same year graduated. Um, so on October the 14th, I joined the Navy and got sent San Diego boot camp.

00:30:20.040 - 00:30:39.250

That started a whole new venture. E. My life has been one adventure after another. I have had more adventures. I've had a great life. Really, e. I've done everything I've ever dreamed of doing. Well, I still have two things to dream about. I want to go around the horn on a sailing ship like my dad did.

00:30:39.250 - 00:30:53.660

My grandfather and my great grandfather, They're all sea captains. Which is why my name is Skip. Okay, Skipper. My dad thought I was gonna become a sea captain to, and then you will always called Skipper. So he named his skipper. Well, I didn't go to see for a living.

00:30:53.940 - 00:31:11.760

I became a commercial pilot. Bad first run in with E. No I don't get seasick. Attitude about was neat, but that was E. Don't get seasick. I love boats. I still do today. I love boats. I love airplanes. I'm a commercial pilot. What was your second thing before?

00:31:11.770 - 00:31:28.960

Okay, the second thing is to go down to Cape Town or Australia. Either one go down in a shark cage and confront a great lakes. Are that those two? When I get those two, I will figure I could die. I've had everything I want todo I already did.

00:31:28.970 - 00:31:42.100

I flew a p 51 Mustang, which is my dream plane. I love that plane. And all my life I wanted to fly Mustang and I finally got to do it, so that was one of my dreams. That's cool. So you actually had a list and you checked a lot off a bit.

00:31:42.110 - 00:32:00.390

Oh, well, my bucket list is only got two things remaining in it now. Eso How did how did training go? Boot camp camp Go Book cap didn't go to bed. I had been in ROTC in high school, so I was you know, that's why I didn't want to be in the army because they have the marks all day doing that stuff.

00:32:00.400 - 00:32:19.760

But we got I got done with boot camp and most everybody out of boot camp. Winds up going to a ship in the fleet. That's it. You get out of boot camp and you report some ship somewhere. My whole company got schools, and when I asked May I had I've been up to hear what high school?

00:32:19.760 - 00:32:36.840

I I really wasn't a great high school student. Scholastic wise. I, um I said, I don't wanna go to school. I wanna just join the Navy, go to see, See the world? Well, they sent me to school, and I at first I kind of resented it.

00:32:36.850 - 00:33:01.470

But then I got over to Jacksonville. I had to go to Aviation Electrician's School on I went there in, uh, school graduate from there, and then my class all went to submarine school submarine, anti submarine warfare school. They used to be up in Norfolk, so I had to report there to learn how to operate all the equipment that airplanes used to stop find submarines.

00:33:01.640 - 00:33:23.360

Then I was transferred back to Jacksonville again VP 30 which is a rag program to call it flight training program for the P two v. Neptune's, which is a submarine hunter. And we always tell us to turn into burning because they have to. Jets mounted outside of the main resets on the wings with wingtips and searchlight and all that on the startling.

00:33:24.040 - 00:33:37.930

But then I joined my squadron VP 26 up in Brunswick, Maine. And from then on, I'm glad I was so happy to go to school and get what I did. I didn't have to go nearer ship on when we had. It was a great life being an Airedale in the Navy.

00:33:37.940 - 00:33:53.420

I got actually flight crew. I logged 1700 hours of flight time on P to be looking for submarines, and I found a lot of Russian submarines. Things like that. How did you feel the first time you actually got to fly a plane the first time that I flew?

00:33:53.420 - 00:34:07.070

One Nervous? No, that's not. I didn't fly the plane in the Navy. I was a There's a card to No, no, no. You didn't know. I didn't. I didn't fly the plane. I wasn't a pilot. I was a crew member. So you just had the O.

00:34:07.080 - 00:34:25.680

E I did get to fly a P two v were in Puerto Rico in operation. Uh um, I remember the operations called anymore. It's common operation. Yeah, we learned. And our pilot was a very nice guy. He said I want every one of you guys and how to fly this plane and bring it home.

00:34:25.690 - 00:34:45.350

Should pilot copilot gets sick and a navigator, or we have a shot at get wounded or something like that. So he let us all fly the plane, just straighten level makes in terms of banks on diverse sites on. I got to make an approach into Rosie roads to make a landing on, and I was very, very nervous.

00:34:45.350 - 00:35:05.480

I mean, I was extremely nervous. Of course I had co pilot on my side. Help me out. He was doing the have to fly, but I was actually he was just following me through, But he could stop me anytime and over. Correct me. But I bounced so hard that I swear a pop rivets out of that airplane because I just hit that deck so hard, bounced you and yeah.

00:35:05.440 - 00:35:17.680

Wow. Then I he took over as soon as they bounced around he took over to recover because he didn't want to stall and crashed. Eso he took over and I never got to fly it again. E none of us did. I mean, that was the only time we ever had a shot at it.

00:35:17.640 - 00:35:34.860

Yeah, but I got a taste in my mouth of flying as a durn. That was super e Want to do this? So I had saved all my money. Had a lot going home all the time. I was in the service, and when I got home and I started my apprenticeship, I went to college for a year.

00:35:34.870 - 00:35:50.120

I was gonna be electrical engineer in canal. So when I was in college, I went there for a year on. I woke up. Finally. I was in my second year, actually, and I told my dad I said, Dad, I'm wasting your money and my time. I said, I'm not enjoying college.

00:35:50.120 - 00:36:05.830

It's just not for me. I wanna fly. Wanna work with my hands? I wanna I was electrician's and I fixed a lot of airplanes keeping going. I don't want to do that. So I dropped out of college. I was just before my second year ended and you didn't get my associate degree.

00:36:05.840 - 00:36:27.450

I dropped out of college and took the apprenticeship examined pass it became an electrical apprentice under locks. Andi. I started working there, and one day I was walking down the wall and get tuned locks, which exactly, north and South. And I heard this aircraft coming behind me down center walls, heading from the south, going back to the States.

00:36:27.630 - 00:36:41.950

And I knew right, that's a turn P two v. I could tell by the sound of those engines having had so many years of having those things grown into my ears. E turned around and sure enough, it was a peach of the so, And it just got my heart stirred up against Good.

00:36:41.950 - 00:37:12.950

I miss flying eso. I started taking flying lessons out a little airport eso load in eight hours. Got my private pilot in 40 hours, and I kept flying and building some time. But I wanted to become a commercial pilot by now. And so I did. I I quit the Panama Canal just before my partnership ended again, and I went to the States with the flight school and got my commercial mall the engine of my instrument rating, and I was all set to become an airline pilot.

00:37:13.330 - 00:37:29.000

When I went into her interviews and the guy says, I told you, son, I said, I'm 55 He says, Sorry about that. We require hardcore 5 ft seven. You don't qualify and you talk about the biggest disappoint my life. I'd quit my apprenticeship to do this.

00:37:29.000 - 00:37:44.340

And now I've got all these hours. I got over 250 hours of flight time under my belt, and the airlines were hiring it with 200 hours with the multi engine and instant rating which I had. But I was competing with Vietnam, unwinding and everything like that.

00:37:44.340 - 00:38:00.480

And there was just Mawr people coming back with multi turban time. I didn't have any turban time. Uh, that's a jet jet engine hired recip, Sis, we're suffocating engines. Propeller driven airplanes. That's all had flown is propeller driven. So I had no jet time on these guys.

00:38:00.480 - 00:38:14.010

All had multi jet time, so I couldn't compete with them either. And they had thousands hours by now being in the military s o. I was working a bad tree, so I went out got a job at Honeywell working for and I was in a appliance.

00:38:14.010 - 00:38:33.460

I mean, I was a fair man for all the electrical stuff on, and I got riffed from that job. They had a Vietnam of winding down. All the things were starting to dry up a little bit, so I know security. I got rift. I took the test, become an air traffic controller past it, and got hired.

00:38:33.460 - 00:38:51.030

I became an air traffic controller in Jacksonville Center and my license and my commercial, my commercial license in my instant rating got me that job because you needed that, or or four years of college. And so I had the license. So I worked as an air traffic controller for five years.

00:38:51.420 - 00:39:10.240

Um, and Jack? Well, four years in Jack center, one year in Puerto Rico. I transferred down to a tower and we were in Puerto Rico. And my wife hated Puerto Rico. Jackson. Well, no, she was We were in Jacksonville, Got transferred to Puerto Rico and down a poncy on the south coast small little airport.

00:39:10.250 - 00:39:30.850

My grandma's from way lived in mercy. I was in mercy and airport way. You remember. I wouldn't mercy data. I'm not familiar with the airport, but I've only been back once. It's all the time. Well, now in the air traffic controller there. And my wife hated Puerto Rico so bad this we were living in the trailers out there.

00:39:30.850 - 00:39:44.200

Fort Allen, which were beat up and rat infested anything I got. My wife couldn't take it. And we had 13 year old girl and she was pregnant when she went down and she had to go back to states have the baby because she refused to have it in Puerto Rico.

00:39:44.210 - 00:39:59.810

So then she brought the baby back after I was born and still was miserable. And I asked my boss for a transfer back to the States. And he says, You're on a two year contracts on you Can't do that. So I went home and told Bevis, help, We can't leave.

00:39:59.810 - 00:40:11.500

I'm on a two year contract and we're here now for one year. We got a year to go. She says I'm okay. I'm leaving with or without you. And that's it. Back in the bags. While I went back on the boss again, I said, This is getting serious, Boss.

00:40:11.510 - 00:40:29.030

Uh, My wife has got her bags packed and she's leaving me. I'm gonna lose my happy home. You know, for this job, I need to get back to the States. He says you can't go back to the States for another year with that. I took my name badge off and throw it down on his desk, and I said, I quit now You gotta send me home.

00:40:29.410 - 00:40:46.150

Andi. I kind of had struck with chest out. I guess I told him. Well, it came and packed me up. Then my date to get on that airplane. I finally got on the airplane. We're all leaving Puerto Rico. And I just broke down like a little baby and cried as of what God's name have I just done?

00:40:46.710 - 00:41:05.780

I gave up the best job in the world for a girl. For a woman. I said team and Christmas, You know? I mean, why I am here I am. I'm going back to States. I got two kids, a wife, no home, no job. The only thing I got his money in the bank.

00:41:05.790 - 00:41:23.320

Um e that was I just cried all the way back to Miami. I was miserable. E wonder if I had a gun, I would probably shot myself. That was pretty extreme. Ultimately, it was. I mean, that was a bad day, you know? So then I got back Jacksonville and I had to start hustling, trying to find a job.

00:41:23.330 - 00:41:35.540

Well, I couldn't find one in Jacksonville, so we moved to ST Petersburg and I moved in with my mom and dad again. Again. E moved in with them. They didn't when I was living at home and I got married and they didn't like that so much.

00:41:35.540 - 00:41:49.720

So I moved in with them. And they like the grandkids, that sort of thing. That kept me going. But then I got a job working at Sears selling hardware, and that was a do nothing job, No pay, hardly speak of honor. And I didn't like that at all.

00:41:49.730 - 00:42:08.510

So I put my application in to go back to the Panama Canal as a electrician's on the locks and all experience I had working in Honeywell and General Telephone. I worked for a while, going all qualified for time. I went back and got hired in the Katyn, started my partnership on, Got Done With that came to states.

00:42:08.510 - 00:42:30.920

And, uh, wow. A few other odds and ends here I am. Well, I went, I stayed there and I stayed there till I retired. E worked on the locks. I became a I got promoted up the line from electric into electrical leader to a junior control house to a junior lock master, Senior control, senior lock, master slot.

00:42:31.550 - 00:42:49.920

Though I wasn't a permanent senior lock master, I I didn't want to do it because I have a bad hip on. And I didn't wanna walk the walls all that much, but I retired as that in my high three was in that. So when the treaty went through and I finally had had enough of what's going on Panama, I didn't like the treaty I was against.

00:42:49.920 - 00:43:10.060

The treaty is one of the questions. You have your down here. Um, I was just against and s So I figured out I stayed there 10 years after the treaty went into effect. It had a 20 year transition period. I stayed 10 years unless I That was enough for me.

00:43:10.070 - 00:43:26.500

I had had a longer so I gave me 20 almost 27 years of government service and I could take the retirement on an early retirement due to the treaty. So I took that option, moved to Tallahassee. My wife was working for the Army. She had a priority placement transfer rights, which I did not have.

00:43:26.500 - 00:43:44.800

I was early retirement. Or if I transferred to a stateside, everything. I'd have to stay and work my full 35 years or whatever it was. So her job transferred her to time on. I just retired then, and it's your turn. I've been retired ever since. I've had part time jobs, but, you know, just a little Ha jin in now.

00:43:44.800 - 00:44:00.520

My wife just retired a month ago, so she has over 30 years service 31 years service. So she was working for the government. And your wife is from Panama to know. Well, see, when I was going to flight school right after I got out of flight school waiting for the FAA.

00:44:00.520 - 00:44:22.560

Hire me. I went to work at Honeywell, a za maintenance man, and I met my wife in Honeywell on we started eating and got married. And then that's when we moved to Jacksonville when it became an air traffic controller. Uh, we went to Puerto Rico, and we've been married now 40 43 years.

00:44:22.570 - 00:44:40.070

For three years now. Yeah. Um, so do you Do you go back very often. Oh, I've been back to Panama many times since I retired for 12 years. I didn't go back because I had been thrown in jail. Uh, going to work one day. And the QE two has a ship.

00:44:40.080 - 00:44:54.630

Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth. The second was coming through. And when that ship comes through, there's always a lot of tourists go out there to see it because it is fabulous. Big ship. It's close quarters, everything else, and they'd like to see it. So I put the work and I was working the afternoon shift.

00:44:54.630 - 00:45:09.960

Just It was in Miraflores Lake heading south on. I was trying to find a parking place because the parking lot was full of. Finally there was, and I had a big red truck pickup truck. I pulled into the parking lot and I saw everything was full, so I kinda just poked along.

00:45:09.960 - 00:45:22.950

We were hoping I would see something coming out, getting relieved, already getting in the car and going. And finally the guy came up here. He's going to get Isis. He pointed me. I could get his parking place. So he back. He was trying to pull out and I was in his way.

00:45:22.960 - 00:45:39.760

So I'm trying to back up. And there was a BMW behind me with a guy wearing a pink leisure suit and Ray ban glasses and driving gloves. I never forget that that his hand on his wheel and he just glaring at me and I signaled outside of the car, I said, Back up.

00:45:39.770 - 00:45:55.900

Hey, wouldn't back up I said, Back up. Hey wouldn't back up. So I put it in reverse, lit up the backup like So I started to back up and he wouldn't move, so I kept backing up, really slow back. I must have come within a paint job of hitting his front bumper, but I never hit him.

00:45:55.910 - 00:46:09.310

And then this guy was able to get his car out. He went about his business, and I was ableto dog like Get my car into the parking lot and he's assumed on down the end. By that time, another person who just walked down there and he was getting in his car, so he parked way down there.

00:46:09.280 - 00:46:23.200

Came running down the parking lot, turned around and was walking backwards. But he was bouncing me in the chest. When I'm working, I'm walking this way. He was trying to pick a fight with me, and he was yelling to me in Spanish that this is no longer American territory.

00:46:23.200 - 00:46:34.870

I'm a gringo. I should get out of here. Get out! This is my home now, not yours. And I'm answering him in English. E knew what he said, but I didn't want to speak back to the Spanish. So I'm not that I am American. I was born here.

00:46:34.870 - 00:46:54.490

I was much Panamanians. You are to have a dual citizen. I work here. This is still canal Zone. Still American territory. Blah blah, blah, blah. E finally got to the gate. He wanted me and hit him and I wouldn't hit him. E finally got to the gate, and I told security guard, American sort of get this so and so off my tail in E.

00:46:55.280 - 00:47:21.330

Well, he immediately reached over, picked up the phone call the Carcel Modelo wanted me, notified them to come get me and arrest me. He was a Guardia major for Noriega. Andi. Just a pompous person. Yeah. Hey, thought he's a big shot around here. So because I insulted his mother by calling my S o b e was arrested consulting his mother.

00:47:21.340 - 00:47:41.300

So they arrested me and took me out of the controlled house in handcuffs. Took me down to the Carcel Modelo, and I spent the night down there. There's another man I just saw here. We call on video. Andy Rivera. He's a He's here this weekend. He came and sat with me in the jail all night just to make sure that he was a witness, that they weren't gonna beat me with rubber hoses and things like that.

00:47:41.310 - 00:48:02.110

And then my brother in law is also here this week. Colonel Stevenson. He came in and and also spent some time with me. And just be cool. Calm collected every because I was nervous and upset and ticked off and ready to tear the world apart on they pulled my passport and I I was under house arrest like I got out of jail when I got home and I couldn't go to work.

00:48:02.110 - 00:48:16.770

I had to call in sick every night, lost a whole week of work. I had to go to night court every night and I would get dismissed. Before that. I got my case. Got brought up in the very last night. The Guardia shows up in his uniforms with all his all kinds of apple.

00:48:16.770 - 00:48:29.310

That's and I know he's got all kinds of doodads on me. He's a big shot in the garden. I see now. So he shows up there. And they called me up for the case and I had to this up to then the judge had never spoken a word of English.

00:48:29.320 - 00:48:52.860

All the cases that were there in front of we're all in Spanish. Suddenly he speaks to me in English and he speaks better. English, Light e mean, he was absolutely perfectly spoken. He was educated in Yale. I think so, Yeah. He dressed me down a little bit, told me I had a big mouth and I shouldn't have lose my temper so quickly in this and that and everything else on I said, Yes, sir.

00:48:52.870 - 00:49:10.390

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. On. Then he looked at the Guardian National who was standing here like Oh man, I just won this war and he says any dressed him down worse than me. Just because you're a guardian, a major national guard does not give you the right to go picking on people and doing what you did.

00:49:10.400 - 00:49:22.540

And if you hadn't started all this ruckus what he probably would never even talked to you. You would never insulted your mother, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you could see this guy just kind of collapsing within himself. And I just knew Oh, my God, I'm a marked Banned.

00:49:22.540 - 00:49:40.690

From now on, this guy's gonna for blood now. So when I got home that night, I I told my wife you take my truck to work every day. I'm taking your conduct work because they don't bother women. All women has to do is start crying and no, go, go, go! C o s o.

00:49:41.070 - 00:49:55.920

I didn't want to be caught in my red truck because I knew that was gonna be guys out there looking for that red truck. I took my wife's car. They didn't know it was And it just so happened that a week or two later, thereabouts, his brother got killed on the bridge, going across the isthmus.

00:49:55.920 - 00:50:10.520

So his attention now is to find the bus driver who ran his brother off the road. So I'm off the hook now completely. But I just thought, my name's and all of if I fly out of here and fly back, I'm probably gonna be on a want list or hit list in the airport to go to jail.

00:50:10.520 - 00:50:23.600

I didn't feel safe anymore. E didn't my family. I didn't feel safe for them, either. So I said, the only thing to do is put in for a priority Placements that Devon, and because I can't do that I don't think I could do is retired. So she did.

00:50:23.610 - 00:50:39.550

And Boom! Got it back almost almost sensibly, had a job for in Tallahassee as a secretary for entire Southeast District of the Air Force. So she took that it had to be up there right away. So I put in my retirement papers, and this was in September.

00:50:39.550 - 00:50:59.010

She had she would put in for hers in September. She had to report the day after Thanksgiving, and I retired New Year's New Year's Eve. I retired of what year of 88 okay, and I moved to Tallahassee, sight unseen, although a new Tallahassee from the air because that was when I was in air traffic controller.

00:50:59.010 - 00:51:16.230

Tallahassee was one of my sectors, so I knew all the holding positions of radios, airways, blah, blah, but I didn't know Street name one. I was kind of a babe in the woods there, but we've been there 22 years. We kind of like it. Yeah, it za really warm place, just temperature wise.

00:51:16.240 - 00:51:29.700

It's the hottest place in the state of Florida, I think, in the summer, and it gets colder in winter. First year we were there. It has never snowed since, but were there, we moved up. I retired the end of 88 so I was there for all of 89.

00:51:29.700 - 00:51:46.330

And Christmas of 89 with a white Christmas in Tennessee hasn't snowed there since. My kids have never seen snow before, so they were going out making Snow angels and everything else. So you moved back to Panama and Noriega was ruling. Well, Noriega wasn't really know Noriega was.

00:51:46.340 - 00:52:03.750

Hey, wasn't even up talk about it yet. It was the guy who talked about the treaty, and right now I can't even think of his name the general. Um, it was a dictator. Time with T. Uh, it starts with a T. Write his name. I think I'm blanking on it.

00:52:03.760 - 00:52:20.730

I'm I'll think about it. While I can think that I would Now he and Carter got together. Did this treaty and Jimmy Carter and his wisdom gave the Panama Canal away a multi trillion dollar enterprise. Gave it away. Lock, stock and barrel. I've never been happy about that.

00:52:21.650 - 00:52:40.080

But it was a big mistake, I think in the United States was has is gonna be paying for it. Still, do you think we've already in order to give it away? It's custom. United States. We already bought new locomotives and knew all sorts of things so that they would get a nice brand new canal.

00:52:40.450 - 00:53:06.080

Now the only thing they don't have new is the locks itself. Now they're building that new canal, and the United States didn't get one contract in there. If you go down to Panama now, there's they built the new museum at the Miraflores Locks, and they'll basically you walk in there and you say the French start to build the Panama Canal back in 18 hundreds And ultimately Panama owns it.

00:53:06.450 - 00:53:18.940

It does nothing about the United States. Build it and ran it for 90 years. No way United States has for gotten were history. Get out of here. So, how many years have you been coming to this re union? Oh, this is my I've lost track now.

00:53:18.940 - 00:53:37.840

Probably my 40th consecutive re union E. Come over here in my last interview, the gentleman I spoke to who has the complete opposite view of you of you about the treaty. So is that really like a contentious? It was. It was down there. There was there was those that were further treating and those are against treating.

00:53:37.840 - 00:53:54.120

What about? What about at these reunions? Does that come up? Oh, I don't That's history. Now. It doesn't know. It's not like Democrats and Republicans were all get along together now. Yeah, so But no, there's my even my brother in law is pro treaty. He thought it was a good idea.

00:53:54.120 - 00:54:12.350

And I will admit that if we were going to keep the Panama Canal, we would have spent a lot of money on it because it was concrete hardens to a certain point, and it becomes brittle, and there's always concrete maintenance going on their ships. Hit the wall daily and you see a cloud of smoke where there's concrete dust goes into dust.

00:54:12.360 - 00:54:34.500

Um, the local motors have to be maintained. The rising stem valves, all you know, they warn and knew it had to be repaired and overhauled and all that stuff. So it's It's a constant maintenance, an expensive maintenance program. But the Panama Canal actually paid for itself, and every year would put minimum of $20 million in the U.

00:54:34.500 - 00:54:51.900

S. Treasure, and they were self insured. If they had an accent on the ship, Panama Canal paid the tab or whatever. Whatever the case was it it was our fault. Uh, and they would still do that. Everything else And the tolls were cheap. It was like I don't remember.

00:54:51.900 - 00:55:11.200

The toll is now $2.90 for a long time or something like that. Nowadays, a Panama has raised the toll so much that ship's a lot of ships were thinking maybe it's cheaper to go around the horn or do that around in North America through the Northwest Passage in the summertime, when you could do that because it's just it's getting outrageous.

00:55:11.210 - 00:55:28.290

Well, I got to a point where they're also building bigger ships. And some of those big ships like the the Valdez, um overseas was anyhow, Valdez one had the Oh, no, that big tanker up in Alaska that hit the reef here many years ago. Exxon Valdez.

00:55:28.300 - 00:55:50.920

Those ships cannot go through the canal there too big. So they anchor way offshore, 60 miles offshore. And then these overseas liners tankers go through the canal. They'll go south, bound and balance, which is empty. Philip tap alongside that tanker out there, Philip Doyle. Come back through the canal north, bound full and go up to seaports and in Louisiana or Evers refineries.

00:55:50.930 - 00:56:06.470

And then they go back down. They shuttled back and forth between the canals. Well, now they're building that new locks and and the new canal is this is not a canals. And what they're dredging out the existing canal building, a brand new set of locks, which are the monster locks.

00:56:06.480 - 00:56:28.010

We'll see how that works. Its technology, I think, is there today, but it's still we'll see. But a lot of us know we lost our happy home by the giving way to canal. A lot of us called us people like Hong Kong residents. They had a 99 year lease on.

00:56:28.010 - 00:56:50.200

They were had their own little communities, Nothing. We didn't have a 99 year lease. We had a treaty that was in perpetuity, which means forever. Jimmy Carter disregarded that and says, Well, give it away. Lock, stock and barrel lock, stock and new barrel. Yeah, new stock.

00:56:50.210 - 00:57:09.640

No, but that was it. Did you get to witness any of the riots? Yes, it was 1964. I was involved. Kind of partly on that one there. Um, I was trying to defend a flag and Coco Solo that I was working in. Gateau unlocks the time on that didn't work out too well.

00:57:09.640 - 00:57:26.410

We got over taken on. And so I was got beat up by the Panamanians. Same thing happened. Invaluable a little bit. They don't talk about it in the newspapers, but there was a lot of a lot of young kids. In fact, that's all there was in Panama was three kids were the rabble rousers in colleges.

00:57:26.410 - 00:57:40.690

I mean, not the big adults, not the 50 year old adults. It was the kids. And when somebody get hurt than the adults would come down there and complain more. But yeah, that that riot was something else that you didn't drive across the isthmus. You didn't feel safe.

00:57:40.700 - 00:57:54.560

The cops that get in your house, stay there. You couldn't go out. You could stay in the canal zone. But you have to be careful where you went because they were. You never knew who came across the border because there was no fences. Anybody could drive in and out of Panama Canal Zone.

00:57:54.570 - 00:58:07.350

Panamanians always says that way were a foreign country and right in the middle of the country. Well, it's true, but we never had any. There was never anything that says they couldn't drive across. This was to get from one part of Panama, the other part of Panama.

00:58:07.920 - 00:58:32.750

There's no problem with that. We had made service. We had a lot of Panamanians worked in the canal zone. They came in every day. They drove their cars and their partner, um, they didn't have commissary privileges because, like the military, they have PX privileges. We didn't have PPI expert reduced until the treaty went through And then it was one of those deals that if I worked for the Canal Zone government, I got free rent, electricity and my next door.

00:58:32.750 - 00:58:51.440

Neighbors say, in a duplex house they work for the military. They would get P expertly dead to pay the rent and electricity, but they get P expert religious and all that stuff. So it was a big joke around here. I'll run extension cord around. You can run your washer dryer off of my electricity since it's free on you go to buy me all my food BX and comes here.

00:58:51.420 - 00:59:05.330

So what kind of one of those stupid things and some of that happened, but not not quite often people think I would definitely take advantage of it. But then, yeah, but those are the kind of things that we had to put up with canals also aan den.

00:59:05.330 - 00:59:22.370

Of course, during the treaty, they says that anybody to start working as of today does not have us repatriation rights, which, if you got hired it from states, you're you're free home leave took you back to that state. Well, a lot of us. When I started out, I was born and raised in Panama.

00:59:22.370 - 00:59:38.530

I didn't have that anyhow. It wasn't until I quit with states and I came back. But I had that. Now. I had Florida from my home, home, the fire. But I was I was born and raised there and all that stuff. But eso any other people that, like, what came out of the military, they go down there.

00:59:38.530 - 00:59:49.750

The military said, Man, this Panama Canal is great. I'm gonna put in for a job and get one of my time's up here. Get out of the army. I'm gonna get out. Ah! Police put it on again. They didn't have hypertension right now because they weren't born here.

00:59:49.760 - 01:00:12.530

They they were never local higher. Yeah, that's complicated. A lot of technicalities that went on there, but as a child growing up in the canal zone, there was no better place. I don't care where you go. We had we had a perfect paradise. No winners. You know, you didn't have to buy winter clothes, so she had great schools.

01:00:12.540 - 01:00:28.810

A great sporting events I saw was a swimmer, swimmer, shooter. I excelled in both of those. I didn't play football because I have a bad hip. I was treated in Shriners Hospital for several years as a little kid. Some, Which is why I'm a Shriner today.

01:00:28.820 - 01:00:48.960

Uh, but, uh, but it was great raising your kids. They didn't get in trouble. There was no drugs down there. Back in my days. Waited. Our biggest thing was e can't even remember what it was. No real big thing. Have a party and played a stereo late at night on the winning stereo.

01:00:48.960 - 01:01:15.640

In those days, um, had a beer party occasionally out on the cut on Contractors Hill. You drive out there and the kids who have a beer party? Well, of course, the cops pretty well knew it was out there. But they say as long as nobody was doing anything reckless and then they check you on the way home, make sure you weren't drunk and make sure that whoever it wasn't, uh, I'm busy right now.

01:01:15.650 - 01:01:34.470

Talk you later. Bye. Okay, But you know, that's the one other thing that I keep hearing Is that while life in the canal zone was really nice and cushy and tropical paradise, if you messed up your God, that's true. If if you did something really bad.

01:01:34.480 - 01:01:57.090

I'm talking. You kill somebody or you got drunk and rector card hurt somebody bad or you stole something out of commissary. Big time your car doing that. Your dad's job was at jeopardy. You would get sent home, you'd be out of the canals on yourself. But maybe your parents would get booted out too.

01:01:57.100 - 01:02:17.610

So yeah, there was. That's why the kids were always kind of well behaved because parents would instill in them. Don't you dare do that way Don't exist here in the canal zone and basically and we all grew up, But I would I don't think it was It was a I think, one year ago I came One of the pranks we did is we?

01:02:18.200 - 01:02:36.780

It was There's a guy down there that some of the kids didn't like too much. He had a little crossly car, a small little car, and he went to the movies one night and we all got together and lifted his car up and propped it up against the wall and by the bowling alley, just stood it on his bumper because that that's how smaller car it wasn't with nothing.

01:02:36.790 - 01:02:52.090

Kids, Hey, come out of the movie looking for his car. He served, reported the cops. His car's gone. Someone stole his car. Well, they've got to look around and set your car. Get up there. Nobody knew, but it was there. And we're all sitting around, you know, clouds.

01:02:52.090 - 01:03:09.770

Awesome. Wait, did stupid little things like that. But of course, later on, he said, Well, I'll help you take it. Take it down to one. You know, we don't know what I was involved in putting it up there, but I'll take it down. So a couple of others volunteered Help taking E when he got the word, he got the message.

01:03:09.770 - 01:03:23.930

Anyhow, you know, that's how we did it. We take people's garbage can sometimes and hauled him up the flagpole in the middle of night and they come out next morning and look for flag garbage cans to be hanging up in a flagpole. When you get ready, put the flag up in the morning American flag.

01:03:23.940 - 01:03:51.030

There's a garbage can hanging up there some things, little things like that so you could get away with. Yeah, Another one was putting soap in the Monument Goethals Monument. Take a box of time Halloween used is that Halloween? I e didn't do that. But if you wake up on Halloween night after a day after Halloween and soap such, you can hardly see the monument for also president.

01:03:51.500 - 01:04:04.040

Can you put a box in there and it gets the waterfalls? It's got the locks of the waterfalls, so it stirs it up all the time, being pumped into around around, getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Those kind of things we did for pranks.

01:04:04.050 - 01:04:24.910

Nothing ever seriously damaged. It's just cost money, too. Empty it out until you don't do it again, but nothing major right? But But you could go water skiing on Christmas Day in the lake. No problem. There was water skiing everywhere. People that live in Panama generally pretty good skiers on pretty good swimmers.

01:04:24.920 - 01:04:40.600

Another contest we used to have. And how many things can you How many places can you swim in in one day on would take account. You drive the Atlantic side, which is 50 miles away. You go swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, then you get out and you swim in GATT tune lake.

01:04:41.190 - 01:04:56.190

Then you go to Google it pool you goto Davis pool. You go to Washington hotel pool and you go to Coco Solo pool. Then you drive across this Mr Gamble, you go swimming the Gamble pool shatters river and and the lake right there in front of Gamble.

01:04:56.190 - 01:05:19.310

Then you go into bowel bar. Stop off it, Clayton, and go to Clayton Poole to go toe over pool. You go to bow ball pool and you drive across. You go to riding pool and you go, You go swimming. Peter McGill. Wake also and then you go swimming at the off the end of the locks here in the south end of Miraflores Locks and you go out to cause when you go swimming in amateur beach and you count all those how many times did you did it in one day?

01:05:19.470 - 01:05:37.330

And when you say pool, are these natural water formations? Well, there was a couple of there was a couple of ponds around there to gamble water waterfall. You could swim there, too. If you want e mean place, you could actually go in and dive in and swim around, come out and get your car and go someplace else to do the same thing s so it was.

01:05:37.340 - 01:05:51.290

It became kind of an event on Saturdays. How Maney. How many could do today depending on how fast your car was? How much? How will you travel Christmas on Bond driving across the isthmus? Even though it was only 50 miles, it was always say, Oh, my God.

01:05:51.290 - 01:06:03.030

I gotta go toe Balboa tomorrow or Cristobal as if it was a major job. Here. People drive 100 miles and thinking nothing of it. But they're going through all the little kind of towns and nighttime. You never know his cows in the middle of the road or whatever.

01:06:03.030 - 01:06:16.870

So it was. I'll tell you, if I had to do my life over again, I would opt to do it exactly what I did. E. I had a great life in the canal zone. I was sorry to see it end. I know the rest of us here.

01:06:16.880 - 01:06:31.870

That's why we have so much fun is re unit because we're all we're all buddies from day one way don't see each other, but maybe once a year now, because almost live in Washington state or Oregon or Texas is Oh my God, so we don't always see each other and not everybody comes every year.

01:06:31.870 - 01:06:52.620

So if you come every year, you see all your buddies, all your friends and all of the parents used to know, um, and all the girls that you used to date, you know, you try to meet them when you don't have your wife with. She didn't go for that too much, but it's just just a fantastic place to be born and raised and grew up in.

01:06:52.620 - 01:07:05.920

And I wouldn't trade it for the world. You were born in the States, right? Yeah. I was born in South Florida South Flores e so in a similar climate, But it definitely wasn't relaxed, too excited. But you can't say I was born and raised in the canal zone.

01:07:05.930 - 01:07:21.600

That's that's a special deal. I was born and raised in God's waiting room. Both of my daughters were born in Florida, one in Jacksonville wanted state people, but they lived. I took him back to canals and when they were babies. So they where Jacksonville did you live?

01:07:21.680 - 01:07:38.900

I lived in San Mateo when I was an air traffic controller. Okay. And then I lived lived in Clearwater we got. I lived in Clearwater and my wife lived in ST People. We got married, and then we bought a house in Seminole, and, uh then we moved to Jacksonville.

01:07:38.910 - 01:07:59.340

And what school in Oklahoma Goto Air traffic Control School out there back to Jacksonville in Puerto Rico. And we've traveled around. We lived in a lot of different places. Three Canal Zone is always a place I love the most. And if it hadn't been where it is right now and found my hands, I probably would have stayed there instead of moving to the States when I retired.

01:07:59.350 - 01:08:12.910

How? That's about a place right there on stage because it was beautiful. I just loved the country. People up in the country, up in the interior. They're the nicest people you ever wanted. Me, they really are. They they'll work all day for you and joke with you.

01:08:12.910 - 01:08:36.530

And they have all respect for you. And you go to the city. You're a gringa. Will on gringo Go home. Leave your money. Yeah, so But I love Panama. I go back. I was I've done several tours on cruise ships as a lecturer because I have my experience living down there and working on the locks.

01:08:36.540 - 01:08:50.000

I could go through the locks and tell them they always put a man on board from the Canal Company, and he's on a p a system that you can hear throughout the ship. But I'll stand myself up on top of the ship there, and and I have much people around me.

01:08:50.000 - 01:09:07.320

And I'll just tell him because the tour guide that comes aboard doesn't tell you what you're seeing out there and this and that. I mean, he just he gives a history of Panama, which I do when we're at sea. I give him a history of Panama, given the history of the Sandglass Indians, and that's a very neat culture.

01:09:07.320 - 01:09:29.100

They have their I give. Then I give a tour of the locks. I have slide to do all this slide presentation for everything ideo and it just It's a fantastic lecture is a fantastic thing to talk about, and I could add live on Panama hour after hour after hour, and they only give me so much time to do my lecture and then I'm done for that day.

01:09:29.470 - 01:09:39.680

Then I walked the decks and people come up and say That was interesting. Morning. Can you tell me more about this So and so blah, blah, blah, blah. And so then I'll sit down there and I'll just spend the rest of my day talking about Panama.

01:09:39.690 - 01:09:59.600

What is, like, e mean? I'm so proud of the place where I would live there. I love it. It was a It was a great place. It waas your canal zone. It was unbeatable. Yeah, and you'll if you hang around and talk to some of these people, you'll find they're all pretty much the same way.

01:09:59.970 - 01:10:15.050

The treaty was probably prone. Gone on a lot of people. Yeah, No matter how much people are going to disagree on that, everyone always seems to agree that that's pretty much the most spectacular place to grow up prior Prior to that. Yeah, And that's what this this is all about it.

01:10:15.260 - 01:10:32.160

And even the old people that I see old people, I'm I'm 70 now, so I'm kind of what the parents have a lot of us kids here, They used to come all the time. And even when we came here and I was in my fifties and I would see some parent.

01:10:32.160 - 01:10:45.220

I would call them Mr And Mrs So and so Because that's the way I was raised. And they finally would tell me, Don't you think it's time to call me Frank? Yeah, but I don't feel comfortable calling your friend. You're just Mr songs on the radio or whatever.

01:10:45.220 - 01:11:01.980

So on my godmother, I finally she just died last year. But I think the year before last, I called her marrying her face. And I felt funny doing marrying You're looking great for for an elderly woman, you know? And she was She was in her eighties, you know, or older.

01:11:01.980 - 01:11:20.590

I guess she was in her probably close to 90. So she just died. And just this kind of things that I was taught by my parents. You don't ever call an adult by her first name? Never. That's taboo. Eso And most of us grew up that way.

01:11:21.060 - 01:11:42.510

What work today? Which skills on Mr and Mrs Deacons or Mr and Mrs? You know, whoever Mr Mrs would, um, still ground you? Yeah, just yeah, until they tell me otherwise. I call them by Mr and Mrs Yeah, I definitely agree. It definitely evolves into something that's beyond formality.

01:11:42.520 - 01:12:05.850

Its's who threw it is you know, that's the relationship you have with that person. Like unlike where I live. Right down Jack Tallahassee. I have two little girls living next door to me once. About 3.5, I guess. And they called me Skip on And I said, My name is if you got insists on calling me Skip Call me Mr Skip.

01:12:05.850 - 01:12:22.390

So then one day she come and say Skippy on I didn't answer her and she coming, Skippy, Start talking on my pants, Skippy, as my name is not Skippy to you. Never You call me Mr Skip or Mr Rally. And that's all. I'm gonna answer you too.

01:12:22.400 - 01:12:47.570

And so now she hasn't talked me in the last week. Oh, Well, is there anything that we haven't covered? Oh, yeah. My mom and dad started out down there, sir. My mom, my grandmother on my mother's side, lived in in Alabama. My mother was born in Birmingham, but my my grandfather had died.

01:12:47.580 - 01:13:01.590

So my mother, my grandmother, went to Panama because her sister was down there and she called her. And this is before the Canal even opened. And did you want to come down to get a job? My grandmother didn't have a job in Alabama, so she says yes.

01:13:01.590 - 01:13:20.470

So she formed my mother off to another lady, and she went down there Thio, Panama, and got a job as a telephone operator. Telephones a brand new, a switchboard operator type stuff. Andi. She had four years of service. She finally came backstage and got my mother and took her back down there, along with her sister and brother.

01:13:21.150 - 01:13:41.140

They stayed there and, of course, they grew up there. My mom was a champion swimmer. She beat Johnny Weissmuller swimming on. He was an Olympic gold medalist. My mother belonged to Red, White and Blue through which is a very famous swimming group in Panama, playing the greaser, uh, just dive and swim off the locks all the time.

01:13:41.150 - 01:13:58.600

Well, she grew up there and went to high school down there, just a normal regular life. And Zonen's. My dad had been born in Long Island, out of out of Quahog, Long Island, and when he got to be a hit come from a seagoing family, His his dad was a sea captain his.

01:13:58.610 - 01:14:20.270

His grandfather was a sea captain and his grand great uncle was a sea captain. Everything I got So they were all on whaling ships lost about of out New England Bedford on Martha's Vineyard and things like that. So my dad was marked to go to see hey went to maritime school in New York, where his training his school was on Bed Lows Island, which is the Statue of Liberty Island.

01:14:20.270 - 01:14:37.980

So every morning before breakfast, they'd have to climb top, Statue of Liberty and go back down again. They could eat breakfast. That was her exercise in the morning. Then they go to class and they went to see on a wooden sailing ship square Riggers Newport. And they went around the world on that ship during their summer times and lessons, and he learned he come up.

01:14:37.990 - 01:14:55.070

He said he used to go to see when he was ironman wooden ships and went round horn on that ship. Power, weather and everything else. Well, he came through a little bit later on Is he got a job as a captain, our third meeting, second mating and first mate, and eventually got a job as captain during.

01:14:55.080 - 01:15:14.970

He came through the canal a couple of times and one particular time to engineer on the ship. That was that had been here before and had dated my aunt, my mother's sister, and is one of those things is that they got to go to port and says, Um, my dad says a, uh, does she have a sister?

01:15:14.980 - 01:15:33.160

She just happens to have a sister s. Oh, my dad. He introduced us. My mother and my mother used to tell me that they go dancing. My dad was a good dancer and my mother was a great dancer, and they go down to the strangest club dancing like that, and they'd ride around in a horse drawn buggy.

01:15:33.740 - 01:15:50.640

And she said My dad always had rowing fingers. And so she took her brother with her the next time. Michael Landon, just to make sure my dad didn't have rolling fingers. You always want to put his hand on her leg, and she didn't like that, so they kind of dated on and off a little bit there.

01:15:50.640 - 01:16:03.490

And then, of course, he was going to see back and forth a couple times over a couple of years he got down to Australia and he finally said, That's it. I'm gonna marry her. So he called her on the phone and says, I'm coming back. You marry me now.

01:16:03.500 - 01:16:22.100

So he got off the ship down there and got another ship that took him to Los Angeles on, then got off that ship in Los Angeles a zone officer and got on a ship coming through the canal. Hey, got off the ship when he came to canal here and stay here and married my mom and, um then he couldn't get a job.

01:16:22.100 - 01:16:35.010

At first he worked in the abattoir, which is a slaughterhouse on He was a sea captain that would have Captain's license. I've been working in the slaughterhouse, and then he got a job from there because I wouldn't want any jobs being a vacant at the time.

01:16:35.020 - 01:16:50.090

Then a job came open for the signal stations in the cut, which is a signal stations. In those days before radios, everything ships had no communication with one another, except they could see what was hanging in the cones and the balls hanging in the signal stations up in the hills.

01:16:50.100 - 01:17:06.040

They could tell you which way you're going and what time you're supposed to be, or whether the cone pointed down or pointed up or whether there's three cones in line or two cones of one cone or balls. Same thing. Black balls or white balls. Either one wouldn't have a code, so you could read those and tell you where you're supposed to be.

01:17:06.040 - 01:17:18.440

At what time? More or less. Well, he did that for a couple of years, and then a tugboat job came open, and he got on the tugs and worked his way up the line and became senior captain of tugs in Atlantic Side. That's when he quit.

01:17:18.440 - 01:17:36.340

Went to the Navy. He became captain of ship. Then he came back and he was captain of a yoga on. He stayed there, captain of another tug until he retired. My dad was senior captain on the tugs in the Panama Canal Zone for many years, and he was one of the very few tugboat pilots down their captains.

01:17:36.340 - 01:17:50.810

He was he actually went on a pilot force for like a year and a half. One of his good friends was a pilot. They brought him on board and recruited him. But my dad didn't like the way they work the shifts. He wouldn't be able to be on the tugboats.

01:17:50.810 - 01:18:08.460

He could. He worked around the clock for 12, 84 4 and eight, uh, 12 days, but he could look at his calendar is okay on this date, I'm gonna be working for 12 shift. I can't do what I want to do. Okay. He could swap with someone like a shrine bunker or Masonic function or Ah, picnic er or or something on that we were supposed to go on.

01:18:08.470 - 01:18:21.110

Whereas the pilots You couldn't do that because you never knew when you're gonna work, you take a ship through and you get eight hours off, maybe 16 hours off. Maybe there have not no ships. Maybe there's two bigger ships coming through, and they need more bigger senior pilot.

01:18:21.110 - 01:18:41.650

So you get called in on short notice and this and everything else and so on. So what? He didn't like that too much. He wanted to schedule, So he went back on the tugs and stayed there. But besides that, when back in those days, the difference in pay between a senior tugboat captain and pilot was peanuts.

01:18:42.020 - 01:18:59.470

Later on, when I retired, pay differential between the tugboat captain and the pilot was 19 8. Everybody wanted to be a pilot because the money was fantastic. But then the ships were getting bigger and bigger and bigger and tougher to put through and sometimes take four pilots to put him through.

01:18:59.480 - 01:19:22.940

So it's, um it was the operation of locks. You got to go see it to believe it. It's unbelievable thing it works like clockwork because it's just so neat. I could go on for hours talking about the locks because they are fantastic place. My first day of my apprenticeship, I walked in there and I went and I had seen the locks all my life.

01:19:22.950 - 01:19:34.490

But I had never been down in the bowels of the four on. I walked in there and then took me down in the tunnels and so I didn't know those tunnels were e knew they were there, but I don't know what they looked like or what they did on.

01:19:34.490 - 01:19:54.710

I walked in on e can't believe I was man on Instagram Control house where he operated open all the gates. Something like that and my jaw dropped again. A. I don't think I could ever do this job. This is complicated. And, uh, I was just a much in the state of all what day I retired as I was today.

01:19:54.710 - 01:20:12.150

I went there because that place just never failed to amaze me. It was a It worked like clockwork. Just so neat. Mhm along. Those things went fine. They would find course when they didn't go find things went haywire. You know, you slam, bring windows been, uh, throat arm or something like that.

01:20:12.160 - 01:20:27.330

That's then you gotta take chamber out of service, take the whole whole lane out of service while you repair that straight arm. Put a new one in. And all that said you can equalize the water so you could move the gates equal. It's a lot of things, e mean, I was working overhauls.

01:20:27.330 - 01:20:45.000

I had drained a chamber many times. I had to fill the chambers back up from scratch, which is very delicate when the chamber is empty, Totally empty. You can't just open a valve helter skelter. You've got open it just a couple inches and let you got thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of pressure coming through there.

01:20:45.010 - 01:20:57.860

And if you let it all go through one time, it blow the bottom right out of the locks and really well, so you gotta let it go in until you get enough water in there to put some weight on that floor. Then you can open its, um or and get some more weight on it.

01:20:57.860 - 01:21:16.940

And so finally you get it, or you can open up the whole valves, all the valves, And so you could do that. It zits technical. You gotta know what you're doing when you're controls Operator. That's when you learn that stuff. We have to be there. I'd be Electrician's first fix all equipment, and then he ultimately become a leader.

01:21:16.950 - 01:21:29.700

I'm working on the locomotives as well. And then a bitch tag it, Put in the control houses, an operator. And then, from there you go to a lot Master Junior and then senior Control house and senior lock, master and and you're in charge of the locks during the daytime.

01:21:29.700 - 01:21:48.640

In the nighttime weekends nights you're in charge. So it za lot of responsibility, but it's it's a neat place to work. It's a fantastic place on. How many years did you actually work in the canal zone? I don't work abroad. Uh, in the canal zone itself.

01:21:48.650 - 01:22:07.330

I probably I had five years of air traffic control. I had four years of military and in the restaurant was on canal. Okay on. I had 27 years service just under 27 years service. Mhm eyes. There. Anything else that we should have on the record? Okay.

01:22:07.800 - 01:22:24.630

Oh, I read through this year. In what condition? Like when housing already told you about that. They were not much in the way of housing. Have seniority to get a better house. Yeah. Um, high school college. Best place in the world. Grew up, uh, swimming and shooting.

01:22:24.640 - 01:22:56.880

Um, hobbies. Honeywell e got these from, uh, there was a little convention earlier in the way worked in aerospace Honeywell. Tell us our state Pittsburgh way. World War Two way. I just I was in the Cuban blockade when I was flying, so I got there and status for that, but yeah, flying in the navy got me interested in flying that I became.

01:22:56.890 - 01:23:12.360

That was my career. Is trying to be as a pilot when I feel right now. I've got several 1000 hours of flying time. I don't fly anymore. Um, I just don't fly anymore. Don't only airplane anymore. E owned an airplane when I was in Puerto Rico is an air traffic controller.

01:23:12.360 - 01:23:31.560

But I sold it when I left through the islands. Things like that. But I, uh, now, I just puts around in my yard, who would working late? Woodworking. Like little electrical stuff around the house. Fix things. And I don't throw things away. My wife throw it in the garbage.

01:23:31.570 - 01:23:57.340

I'll fix it. I can fix it. E punch around with it. Yeah, yeah, but other than that, I've had a great life. E I think most of these kids that wanted growing up there a lot of them You'll find that out. High school. Which college? In states you got a job, States everyone back on, they come to the reunions, and they sure wish had come back to, you know, I just didn't think it was anything there for me.

01:23:57.800 - 01:24:16.860

Waas But they all love it. I don't think you find anybody gonna talk to us. It wasn't a great place to grow enough. Yeah, I'm starting to get that feeling. Also getting very jealous. It was paradise. I feel sorry for you people in the States who don't know what it's like to live in a perfect place.

01:24:16.870 - 01:24:35.800

Yeah, almost like a Shangri LA, you know? Not quite. I mean, it really wasn't that good, but I don't know of any place else that I would ever wanna live if I was a young kid and I wish to help him. It never been given away because I would have stayed there, raised my kids.

01:24:35.800 - 01:24:46.720

My kids would have married down. There were such a close knit family. All of those people. Even if I don't know who you are in his own, you know, the fact that you're there and we can talk about you might be three or four years behind me in school.

01:24:46.720 - 01:24:58.950

And I didn't necessarily know you. I might have known your older brother some, but I didn't know you. We could sit here and talk all day about things that went on there. And you? You're familiar? What I'm talking about, I'm familiar What you're talking about. Same places, same people.

01:24:58.960 - 01:25:17.560

Yeah, well, thank you for doing this interview. You were full of information on my pleasure, and we will definitely send you over a copy of it for your personal enjoyment. Are you gonna way? Get it all transcribed and then we send you a copy in case you wanna check for factual skips around a lot.

01:25:17.570 - 01:25:25.120

Just you. Okay? One more time. This is Sarah Blanck, and I'm here with Mr Skipped Rally. And it's July 7th, 2011.