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Good afternoon. My name is bringing me here. We are here with Mr Frank Meth. We are with the Samuel Procter Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Today is July 2nd, 2000 and 15. Um, Mr Ma, can you please start out with, um, your childhood where you were born?

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What year? All that good stuff. Humane. Okay. I was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Spent a lot of my childhood in North Virginia. My father was a career navy man, so we lived in just about any place on the East Coast that had Navy attached to it most of the time up in Norfolk.

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Onda. My childhood was spent in that area. Okay, Um, how did, uh, you end up in Panama? Okay, that all has to relate to that navy upbringing. My dad was assigned to the 15th Naval District, and that was in Panama. That was Panama. He was an officer at that time, and he was assigned to Quarry Heights, which waas the southern command for the military in that area, which basically included from Mexico down to Argentina.

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So when he was transferred there, he of course, took his family with him, which included myself, my brother and my one sister at the time. So we stayed down in Panama for about three years, and then I stayed down there. When I say Panama at that time, I'm using Canal Zone and Panama interchangeably.

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Um, and I have great memories of being in the canal zone. Awesome. Can you talk a little bit about those memories? What? I sure, Let's see. We don't have a censorship thing on that. So I'll try and be comfortable with. Okay, Um, I went to Balboa High School.

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They're starting as a freshman. I graduated from Balboa High School in 1955 and during that time I made some very good friends again. We stayed down there. I stayed down there for a total of four years. My family had already gone back to the States. I stayed with some people I knew, Um, and I had not the deep friendship that a lot of the people that are at this convention that were at the Panama Canal Society, but everybody down there made a very big impression on me.

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And even though I've had the privilege of living in a lot of states, now as an adult, Panama has always been like a second home to me. I'd love it down there. I think you would ask in an earlier interview about what was a reaction to the change when the canal zone was transferred to Panama.

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Uh, I had been long up here in California. I had long been gone from Panama when it happened, but I was very interested in that because a lot of friends I had made still lived in the canal zone there. And this was gonna be a big change.

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And I, like so many people, felt this is not a good thing. This is not good for for the American side of things are the Panamanian side of things. It's going to get messed up. Well, over the years, I changed my tune a bit because I a number of my friends that I had gone to school with were involved in various functions with the Panamanian government.

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And much to their credit, when they took over the canal zone and the operation of the canal itself, I thought they did a very good job. I was surprised. I have to admit I'm not very happy to admit that that that I had that attitude, but I was convinced that they are, and I still think they're doing a good job now.

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Like every other government, Uh, they still have problems, but that's not unusual. That's like everything. But you asked me my memories of the canal zone. I tend to get off the subject a little bit, but all I can do is talk about what gave me my memories of a place that unless you've lived there, you don't think it could ever exist because it was like an Ozzie and Harriet TV show.

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It was that good. Now you're too young to remember that show both of you are. But for older, more mature people like May. My wife says I'm older, but I'll say my tour. It is something that when you were there, you basically lived in this cocoon of a good life.

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The streets were nice, the buildings were kept up again. It was like a TV show that was showing you the best of a possible life. I didn't realize that all the time while I was down there, but after I left it, then I certainly realized it I can remember we had commissaries in the zone and where I went to school in Balboa at Balboa High School every day after the school would be over, most of us would walk the block and a half or whatever it WAAS to go to the commissary in the commissary was like We have department stores here or used to be Thrifty drugstore in California or this type of thing, and you'd go there after school and you discuss your teachers and not too flattering terms.

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Probably. But you would be sitting at the table with students from Panama that went to Bumble High School and Zone Ian's kids from there and we'd sit at a table and you might have three. Or you might have 15 kids at the table, all discussing various aspect aspects of the day.

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And at that point in my life, I could turn to somebody sitting over here and address him in Spanish and not think a thing about it turned right back over to the other side and talk to somebody in English and not have a second thought about it.

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I regret to my dying day that I've lost that ability to speak in Spanish. But as it was mentioned in an earlier interview, I wasn't taught Spanish so much as I picked it up, because that's who my friends were. They spoke Spanish most of the time, and I was very glad I had that ability at that time.

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I regret that I've lost that ability because I think any time you can speak a language to a people from a different country, you're better off. They're better off when you can do it. Regretfully, I can't do that anymore. But we used to drink. We used to sit there and drink a concoction called Bug Juice, which was just, uh, some kind of drink Panamanians made.

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It was sold to the commissary and they gave it to us. And as kids, we thought that was the funniest joke in the world to come over and have bug juice. Um, again. Like I said, my best benefit was having friends that could talk in Spanish or English and think that fast in Spanish or English.

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At my age right now, I don't even think that fast in English. Um, there are many, many stories of what went on in the zone and such. And I guess if you're asking me on a historical perspective of the canal Zone, I'm not sure that I can give it to you, but I can give you incidents that happened while I lived there.

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That make my memories of what? The zone? Waas on defy. Go off track. Tell me. I've been married for 57 years. I'm used to being told I'm wrong. There's no problem on that. Okay, um, one incident I had when I was dating this young lady, and at that time, long before the improvements of the canal zone had taken that have taken place.

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Now, where we had a bridge that was called the Thatcher Bridge. There was a Thatcher ferry, and it was we lived on the Pacific side. Okay, so this was where Rodman was. You left Rodman anything. You came over Thio toe, Thatcher Fairy Thatcher Bridge. And then you would cross over the bridge and get on the other side, which was by Fort Amador and then going into Balbo.

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Well, I was dating this young lady, and she was a very nice young lady, and we decided one night to take a moonlit stroll underneath the bridge. So we're doing that now. I'm proving to her that I am not only a gentleman, but I'm. I've taken part in football and other activities at Balboa High School.

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Is a member of the Balboa High School Bulldogs, the tough football team, and I'm one of the tough guys on it. So anyway, so I'm taking this young lady down there and we're holding hands and we're walking. And it's a very nice scene and very romantic and showed my sensitive side to hers.

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Were walking under the bridge and everything. And all of a sudden, yeah, Underneath my feet comes just rustle of leaves. And then the sky explodes with leaves and twigs going up, and armadillo had been let nesting there under the ground. And this is now we're talking 11 30 midnight or so darker than anything, and this animal, this thing comes up, it comes right up underneath my feet.

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Knox me a little aside, pitches this poor girl over to this way and as tough a Zai AM is of one of the ball ball Bulldogs football players. All I can say is I can remember her screaming Frank, come back and I'm running like mad here because I don't know what's gonna happen leaving this poor girl there, and she still could be there.

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For all I know today, I don't know that I ever came back for, but anyway, that's one of the things. Another time I was going out to a Panamanian talent called Todo My Spanish may be in perfect at this point in time, but anyway, another young man who was a year younger than I was at Balboa High School.

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He was a great behind me, but he had come to the States, or he had come from the States and he had a big motorcycle, and he was the hit of the group that we ran around within far Fan Far Pham was the military quarters I lived on.

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And so this gentleman young man named Foi Roberts says, Frank, would you like to take a ride book over to Torrio to visit one of my friends? I said, Sure, I get on the bike now. Once you got out of the zone, The zone and Panama Beautiful countries, woods jungle just lush.

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So we get out and we're riding on this dirt trail. Not a road, but a dirt trail that's maybe 6 ft across in the woods and we're going. All of a sudden, bam boy flies up in the air. I'm holding onto him in the back and I'm having to hold on like mad to keep him down on that seat.

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Come over on the other side. I don't know what's happened, but for it stops right now. At that time for was again looked like a gangster. What we in the zone picture does a gangster in the US with cigarette package in his shirt sleeves. You young people don't know about that, but that was a big deal.

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You were a tough guy. Then way turned around and there was a snake that was laying with. Apparently, it's head on one side of the bushes and its tail in this other side. Now, as I've told the stories over the year, that becomes a bullet constrictive.

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That was 800 ft long and 50 ft that it wasn't that, but to our eyes at that time, that's what it looked like. I'm standing there and FOI is standing there, and he looked at me and I says get on that. So and so bite. And we got on it and we got out of there.

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I still don't know how big that snake was, but it scared the living daylights out of us. Anyway, there was another idea of how tough I was not. I wasn't waiting around to see what that snake was like. Um, if you look in history and you look at Life magazine, I'm sort of going off the subject here.

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You will see pictures when they had demonstrations, when the canal was talked about being turned over to the Panamanians and they had a number of demonstrations that would come up from Fourth of July Avenue and they would come to Balboa High School because some of the kids from Panama were the ones that led the demonstrations that eventually propelled this signature.

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Well, those pictures were taken where I used to sit and wait for the school bus to come. And the pictures in Life magazine show the Panamanians trying to raise their flag. And such as that So that waas again. That was years later, after I graduated. But looking at the pictures, I thought, Wow, I was there when I was in that place where all this is happening now, I think in the long run, we in the canal zone can be very glad we lived when we lived there.

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But times change, things change. Um, I'm one of those people that thanks that the president at that time, who I blamed for turning over the treaty. I mean, turning over the canal, I think that he did. That was wrong. And I still think that's wrong. I wish that it had changed on that.

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But in the long run, I think the government and the people of Panama are doing a very good job in the operation of the canal. What's going on now was something that I don't think the founders and the diggers and I gave credit to the people who were down there in 1903 and 1904 and started on something that was an impossible task digging this canal.

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But I don't think they ever had any idea that this would be such an engineering feat, that it would be the marvel of the world. And I think now that the Panamanians have been good stewards of that, I am very glad for that. But my time in the zone again, not from a historical basis, but from a personal basis.

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Uh, you had an awful lot of people. And one of the amazing things Waas that in the zone everybody. It was a military atmosphere in one way, and one of the best things about that people had to earn respect and they had to give respect because it was done that this is our canal.

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This is our zone, and we have to keep it up. And I think that was a very important thing. I think if you're looking at a normal history, there are people that lived on the other side, the east side of the canal, crystal ball, cologne, all of that.

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My background is the Pacific side and the people that were there, I never knew what a good schooling I was getting going to Balboa High School. And I will give you a few reasons why I didn't know that. Uh, first of all, there was a respect among the teachers and the respect among the students at that school and that school for anybody that's lived on the Pacific side for any amount of time.

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Balboa High School was a focal point for everything. Everything resolved around that, Um, I can remember. There is a man, David Spear, I think, is a gentleman's name. That was a teacher at that school. Andi. I was not a particularly. They were not thrilled that I was a school.

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I was not a particularly brilliant scholar by a long shot shot, but I did have an ability. Thio enhanced certain things. And when I was in a history class, I remember Mr David Spear was teaching that history class and he used to say, I want you to pay attention to me.

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I don't want you to disc Herb Class. I want you to understand what I'm doing. And I thought I can never understand what this man is talking about. So I would sit in the back of the room and write a book reports for him, and I would turn those in.

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Now most of those book reports we're imaginary. I just made them up out of whole cloth. The end of the year comes in 1955 when I'm able to graduate and he calls me into his office and he says to me very directly. And he always called you by your given name, Mr Martin.

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And I'm ah, gawky little teenager at the time. He says, Mr Mahon, I'm going to give you a good grade on this because I think your reports are very innovative, very imaginative. But I want I don't want you to have any idea that you have fooled me, he says.

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We can tell from your writing that these things are simply made up. But he says, I've discussed it with a few of your other teachers. Your imagination is so wild that we have to give you credit for just the amazing ability to put it down like that.

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So I'm going to pass you. In spite of the fact that you couldn't, I thought, Now this man, I didn't think it did. This time I thought Louis caught me. He wound up becoming principal of the school. I gathered later years and I thought, This is a man that is a teacher was allowed to look at what a student can do, and it might not fall or follow forms or regulations, but it showed something that we all want to do.

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is find that ability to see things and put him down. So I think the Canal Zone school system was great, I guess mainly because they let me pass. But I do think the teachers like that play an important part in the zone. The one thing you have that's different than here in the States is particularly in schools.

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But in other facets of life, if people were complaining about the teachers, it waas the canal zone. The Panama Canal government decided whether or not that teacher was good are bad or anything else but the military and Pan Canal, which is quasi governmental. You didn't come up and complain, and they did not bow down in fear to you if they thought that they were doing was right.

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That's the way it was done. It was the old military base again. I apologize if I'm not asking you in answering your question directly. Another thing. Another person mentioned about the air airplanes and coming into all broke and such in Balboa High School. We it was a two story or three story building I can't remember, but some of my classes were on the top floor and at that time, the flight path for the planes coming into all book was directly over the high school.

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Now in the US there have been 87 demonstrations. If anything, but you could sit in your seat and look out at the window, and the girls would be looking out the window. When the planes would play over, the teacher would stop talking because there was no way anybody could hearing.

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But the young ladies and last would be saying no. I think his eyes are blue. No, I think they're this because that's how close you were. The building would shake and everything else. But people didn't complain about it because this is the way it was set up.

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And that's the way it was. And if you didn't like it, you probably better go back to the use A because this is the way we're gonna do it. It has its good points in its bad points, but that's one of the things about Belo Heart Balboa High School that I recall very vividly.

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I had a Spanish teacher, and for anybody that has grown up in the Canal Zone, spend a name appropriate amount of time. The name Mr Ward will either strike great praise or be scared to death of. When I was a senior in high school, I did take Spanish, and I guess Mr Ward thought I didn't have enough learning on the outside of his classroom.

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But he would take when I would not pay attention. He would take an eraser or something. Stand at the front of the room. Senior Mont Wham! On the razor would come and hit the blackboard next to me to get my attention. Now up here, he had probably been fired, put in jail or executed.

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I don't know which. But in the Canal Zone he was doing his job. He was getting my attention, and that's the way it waas the canal zone. We had two big schools. Chris Tobel High School on the Atlantic Side, Balboa High School on the Pacific side.

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That was our football games. We play in the bow ball. Bulldogs played Chris Tobel. I think it was a crystal ball tigers, but I'm not sure of that. But those were the games and we played during the football season. We played them and then there was a team or two from Florida, and I'm gonna say Jacksonville, that would come down there and we have some mythical championship that we had decided upon.

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But I guess that whoever ran the Jacksonville school system realized this was a way to get a paid for a trip down to Panama for him and his kids or something. But that was always a big deal down there was that championship the zone. The zone is a particular place in a particular period of time that I don't know if we'll ever be lucky enough to see it again.

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It wasn't all roses while you live down there. We obviously were human beings. But for the majority of people down there, the majority of memories are great, and it's because it was a well run good system that they used down there. Andi, I'm proud to say that I've got a lot of friends that air Panamanian, and I am so glad I lived in the canal zone to make that effort to see the people from Panama as people.

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They're they're good people. The majority of them are good people, just like the majority of people here. I'm sorry. I'm off the subject. I have a couple questions for you. Yes, ma'am. We'll try to answer them. Um, So when you came, you said that you when you went to Panama.

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You're a freshman in high school. That is correct. Okay, so I have two questions. One, the first one. How were you received when I came? Okay. Remember, I'm what they call a military brat. All right, So I was used to changing schools, and such as that I went to a number of different schools When I came The zone on Awful lot of people had lived in the zone forever.

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For there were families that grew up in their sons and daughters. Yes, previous. So there waas a bit of a clip there because everybody down there knew everybody and military kids myself included. We came down there, were there for a year, two years, and then we're gone.

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And then there's another group. So it took probably, ah, year of getting settled in. And then I became accepted. I didn't do anything to become accepted. I was just who I waas. And at first I tended toe hang around with other military kids that were coming in there.

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I lived in Far Fan, which Waas? It was a neighbor reservation on Fort Kobe Army base. So I lived there and those kids I call mingled with I got to know, and then we just simply got to know the zone. Ian's. The kids had been there forever, and I felt my acceptance was very good.

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I was not unhappy with it at all. Okay, on being that the schools in the zone are also American schools. But you had come from Northbrook, Virginia. Can you tell me a little bit about maybe the contrast or the similarities between the different kinds of schools and your experiences in the two different kinds of schools?

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Well, okay, if I could seem to make something to make sense to you again. I went to school in Virginia, I went to school in South Carolina and I went to school in California. Then I went down, and during those times I also went to school in the zone.

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I don't think at that time I could have told you what the main differences were because I was just trying to survive in high school. But I would think as I grew older, I realized that in Panama you had. First of all, the kids come from very, very a variety of backgrounds.

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That's not even talking about the Panamanians that went to our school, just the zone Ian's. They had a whole structure that was based in the Panama Canal, and it was sort of insular. When I came from Virginia, I went to a country school or small, very, uh, Southern, gentlemanly in their in their thing.

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So I think it was only later that I realized that the zone gave you a different somewhat in my case, a more formalized, polite way of dealing with things in school. I was in school when a movie Blackboard Jungle, came out. I know this sounds like it's going off the subject, but it's not.

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And there was a song at that time that was played called Blackboard Jungle. We thought that was the wildest thing we'd ever heard of. We're all in the States. That was just typical high school, But for us in the Canal zone, that was like just the wildest thing we'd ever heard of because we had sort of a sheltered existence in this this cocoon of civility, which is what we have over us, and I think that's the major difference.

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And in the schools that I went to before, it doesn't mean the schools I went to before were bad. It's just a difference And think the zone was a very insular, very protected society. In a lot of ways. You play by the rules and you were rewarded for playing by the rules.

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If somebody says I'm not gonna play by the rules, you wouldn't last long down there because that's the way it waas It's again. It's a mixing of military and quasi military civility and such, um on Do you said that your parents were there for three years, but you decided to before.

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So what made you stay? I was in my, I think, first year of the canals on junior college and such, And I wanted to finish. That didn't quite work out that way just simply because there wasn't there were not jobs for, and now his own kids like there is in the States.

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You could go out and get a job in a grocery store. Well, that's a different thing down. There are a wasn't that time, so I stayed down there to try and finish school and dr one or two of the teachers, they're crazy. But I finally said I have to go back to the States and because I've got to get on with my life on that.

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That's the reason I stayed down there. I wanted to finish that school. And I did finish the first year at the school, which I'm glad I did. But I never to one day have one minute of regret for the time I spent in the zone. And I don't have a minute of regret The fact that I consider Panama as part of my second home.

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Um, after you graduated from high school, what was your next step? Did you moved? Did you get a job? Yeah. I came back to the States, met up with my parents on this is a whole different thing way off of the zone. But I got married in 1959.

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We came to my wife and I came to California, and I got a job in the grocery business, stayed there for a good portion of my life, and, uh, in the meantime, I also worked some as a professional wrestler, and I'm still involved in doing publicity and that type of stuff.

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And again, I know this is way off the canal zone, but some of you might have heard of a guy has his real name is Terry Bollea. Um, but I was in Tampa, Florida, attending a class that waas teaching a number of us how to become a professional wrestler.

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And this guy named Terry. I told him I said, I've got one week here, and there is no way, Terry, I've got I'm getting married. I've gotta make money. I gotta get a real job. I'm not gonna do this. And I says, Man, listen to me.

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I've been around this longer than you have your brand new. You're never gonna make anything on this. Okay. Well, Terry, believe Israel name is Hulk Hogan, which a number of you may know. So that's that was my sage advice. Damn. And you can see he didn't follow it and is now a multimillionaire.

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So that shows you, uh you know what I might know, But anyway, um, I we came, came back to states, got married, came into California, got a real job, and very good life. And I'm very appreciative of the time I spent the canal zone going back toe high school in Panama.

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What are the kinds of things that you when the students there did for fun, raise help? No, I e uh, like most teenage kids in high school, you went out. Some of them drank beer. Of course, I never did that. Just Well, you would went. There was a place in Panama called the Atlas Beer Garden, and a number of us would be at nighttime.

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We would say We're going to a church meeting and we wind up at the Atlas Beer garden and spend ah, portion of the night. Let me tell you a quick story to tell you how close things were in his own now, particularly where we lived in far fan at the quarters that I lived in.

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Okay, a lot of other Navy kids living in the same quarter. I was dating this one girl. She had only been there for a couple of weeks. So I says, Well, cheek, can we go here? How would you like to go here when you want to see a movie?

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You're talking about what it gets do for fun, The usual things. I'll take you out the movie. I'll do this fine. No problem. We went out nice time got her back and plenty of times for her curfew. And about two days after that Uhh! She says, Can you come down the house?

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My dad wants to talk to you. Her dad was a lieutenant commander in the Navy, so I go down. No problem. He's very nice to me and everything. Very slow talking Texan, I think, and he says, Hey, Frank, when you come out here a minute, go out to their outside the yard says, I just wanna talk to you He says, You know what my job is?

00:33:05.370 - 00:33:31.360

No, sir, he says. Well, I had to shore patrol in the intelligence units out in this whole area, so it's very nice. Okay, I says, I wanna know. You know, I thought I thought you told me you and my daughter, we're going to hear I said I did, but I says, but we might have gone somewhere else, too.

00:33:31.360 - 00:33:58.260

He says, Oh, no, no, you didn't go somewhere else, he says. You went out to this place and you stayed there until, you know, 1600 or something, whatever time was at the time. And he says, I know you had a beer and a half and I know she had a Coke and I know that her friend was with her, and I'm sitting there thinking, Oh, my God, he says, I just want you to understand that I know everything you do, he says.

00:33:58.260 - 00:34:15.430

And I have intelligence operatives all over, he says. I'm not telling, but I want you to know that wherever you take my daughter, I'm there with you. I'm watching you. We became friends me and his daughter, but we didn't date anymore because he's scared the living daylights out of me.

00:34:15.440 - 00:34:32.640

But that is the way it is living in a small little town. And if I sneezed in Balboa, somebody in Crystal Ball could tell you how long I sneezed because somebody knew somebody that knew somebody. So that's the kind of thing as to what we did for fun.

00:34:32.640 - 00:34:53.070

We went to the commissary. We stayed like I said and discussed our school work. We went to the movie at the commissary, Andi, Then we did, particularly the guys we spent a lot of time in Panama City seeing what kind of trouble that we could get into, there was a thing.

00:34:53.080 - 00:35:22.690

I should say it on air. Anybody that's lived there will recognize it. They have Chibas down there, which is the local transportation and at Fort Coming on any Friday night, if I had taken Achieva in the Panama City and was coming back at 11 o'clock at night or whatever it waas, there would be a lot of the young privates and such on that bus who were coming back.

00:35:22.700 - 00:35:42.620

And they were so well, they'd enjoyed the liquid pastimes of Panama City to a great degree and they be yelling out Perata trying to stop the CI Vil where it shouldn't have been stopping and going back. But all the guys we used to think, man, those those guys, they're gonna get in trouble.

00:35:42.620 - 00:36:07.640

But it was all part of life in Panama and that type of thing Did you ever go into the jungle or Oh, yes. Let me tell you how we used to impress girls and far fan behind our quarters. There was a little hill and you could walk up it and I don't know the Spanish name for it, and I can't remember what it's called.

00:36:07.640 - 00:36:32.150

But there was a type. It's not a tree, but it's like a large bush that would grow up about 6 ft and it was sanctuary. Crystal, I think, is what they called it. You could take a machete, which is a common implement in Panama. You could take a machete and we had some kind of grass that when you touched it, it would close up okay, it would just close up like it was alive.

00:36:32.160 - 00:36:49.230

Like I don't know what that's called. But anyway, there was You could if you had a friend Ah, young lady or something, You could take her out just behind our quarter. You hold on to the top of this bush, you take the machete and you smash it, and it had a red sap in it.

00:36:49.240 - 00:37:13.520

And when the blade hit it, it would split it open like that in the air. Coming into it, it would make like a little tiny screaming sound, and you could scare the living daylights. And this girl would inevitably grab onto your hand or something just because she was scared, because you see this red sap fallout in this, Like this little tiny screen coming And it was just a porous material is what it waas and the rent.

00:37:13.530 - 00:37:29.350

So of course, every guy in the world would want to take the girl up there to shore that Sangre de Cristal type of thing. Um, I loved the jungle. I loved the jungle of Panama. We went out too many times. It was what the books call Impenetrable.

00:37:29.350 - 00:37:49.160

In a lot of places, it was just those that Panama is a beautiful country And the junk hold the woods. Whatever you wanna call it, make it like that. Yeah, We went jungle a lot. Have you been back to Panama after? Yes. I have been back to Panama not enough times as far as I'm concerned.

00:37:49.160 - 00:38:03.310

But my wife and I have been lucky enough. Thio, scrape the bottom of our savings and take a couple of cruises there. And so we've been and gone through the canal a couple of times and then I have a very good a few friends down there.

00:38:03.310 - 00:38:21.540

I have a very good friend that we stayed down there for a few days and we got. She took us around and showed us all the things that have changed, the things that haven't changed and just loved it. So we've been in. Or hopefully we'll save enough money up to go back again.

00:38:21.540 - 00:38:39.320

My wife also loves Panama did and she was not. She's not Panamanian. She'd never been out of the country until he got married. But she really enjoys the Panama Canal Society and enjoys going down there whenever we can. Do you have any Children? Yes. How many I have.

00:38:39.330 - 00:39:03.420

I have two girls and four grandchildren. E say the same thing. Wow. At times, What are the kinds of things that you told them about your time in Panama while they were growing up? I have told him mostly the truth about growing up in Panama. A couple of things I've left out in the interest of safety.

00:39:03.430 - 00:39:28.560

Um, but my girls know that my girls and my one, my one grandson know that I loved it down there and I still like it someday. I told him, maybe we'll be able if I ever hit the lottery, we can take you down there, But they're California kids born and bred so I don't know if we'll ever make it down there, but no, they know that Papa loves his time down there.

00:39:29.020 - 00:39:51.990

On earlier you said that this is your 60th anniversary 60th 60th high school reunion. Yes. Wow, Eso I don't know how all those other people got to be sold, but I mean, I don't know, you know, and I didn't I just can't understand that. What? How What is your experience being able to see all of your high school classmates?

00:39:52.000 - 00:40:16.990

It's great because there are some things in your life that give you a bond. And you don't even realize that sometimes until you come to a convention like this and you realize we all as different as we are with different opinions, different experiences. But we all share this bond of living in this idyllic place, and then it will probably never happen to us again.

00:40:16.990 - 00:40:32.150

It may never happen to my kids, but it happened to me one time, and it's made an impression that when I come back here, I sit and say, Yeah, that was really we actually did that. And there are people here that still remember the glories of it.

00:40:32.150 - 00:40:49.960

and just the general feeling of living in a very special place. So, yeah, it makes a big difference. And when you have something like that in your life, with all that life can throw at you, if you've got something that you can hang onto your a very, very lucky person.

00:40:49.970 - 00:41:08.570

And that's what I consider myself, what is your favorite thing about these kinds of reunions? Getting to see that I'm not the only old guy that's still around. I think that's the nice Say you're young enough that you don't have to worry about that for a long time.

00:41:08.570 - 00:41:32.570

But trust me when you get to be my age, it means a lot. No, there's some very good people in my class, some very good people that I knew while I lived there that didn't go to school. But I still knew him, and this says, Hey, you know it Z not exactly Alison Wonderland are the greatest thing on Earth, but it's a very good thing that happened to me, and this sort of reinforces it.

00:41:32.580 - 00:41:55.650

Yes, it didn't happen, and yes, you can still hang on to it and enjoy it on, and that's what's so good about it. Um, can we go back a little bit and talk more about where you were when you first heard about the transition for the Panama Canal on and kind of your attitude?

00:41:55.660 - 00:42:16.230

Has it changed? How has it changed? And how do you feel about the transition today? My attitude regarding the treaty and the changing of the canal to the Panamanians. Um, when I first heard about it, I was in California working, uh, in the middle of a career.

00:42:16.240 - 00:42:43.510

And when I heard about that, particularly when the demonstrations happened and such I thought, This is not good. This is something the canal should stay. Ah, us thing. Um, knowing that the people I knew from my own experience in Panama and just judging on that alone, I thought this'll should not happen over the time.

00:42:43.520 - 00:42:58.490

And even when I looked in pictures and saw, like I said, the high school where I went to and where I waited for the bus and I saw where the flags were being raised and I was not happy camper with that I really wasn't. And I didn't like the actions of our government.

00:42:58.490 - 00:43:25.060

But as the time went by, I thought maybe it was the time for something toe happen. Um, And as things went on and with what I see with going on in Panama now, I still in my heart of hearts, which we had the canals. Um, I wish things would be like they were, Yeah, but that's not life life changes and some good and some bad.

00:43:25.060 - 00:43:44.430

So I've come to grips with the fact that I think by and large, the Panamanian government has done a good job with the canal. I was surprised. I admit I'm glad for that. But when you when you see something that was so good in your life and it goes away, it's always there, thinking, G.

00:43:44.430 - 00:44:04.000

I wish my attitude change because I think that the life changes period, you know, and you can't live in the past. What I had was very special to me, and I think most of the zone Ian's that lived. I'm proud to be a zone, and I will to my dying day I will be Azzoni in.

00:44:04.490 - 00:44:31.710

But that was a period of time that's come and gone, and I think that I just hope that the canals are that what I knew is the canal zone and is now the country of Panama. I hope they prosper. I hope they do good things. Um, I guess it's a hard question to answer because it's like saying, which is your favorite kid?

00:44:31.710 - 00:44:54.430

Well, each kid's got some problems and such as that, and you have to recognize that. But you still love what you had with each one and I I think the zone represents a very special moment in time, and these reunions captured that moment. And then you leave the re union and you go on with real life with all the bad and all the good.

00:44:54.440 - 00:45:29.020

But you you know, So this just imprints upon your Yep, that happened, and we were lucky enough to be a part of it. Um, you said that you're very struck by the demonstrations that found out. Can you tell me a little bit about who was demonstrating World War it, the type of activism that was going on, my understanding And from what I saw on the pictures, and I think basically, Life magazine was the main, uh, instrument that had the pictures of the demonstrations of what I recall.

00:45:29.490 - 00:45:56.680

Waas and I believe it was fourth of July Avenue, but I couldn't tell you for sure anymore. But the main road from Panama to the Canal Zone ran by the ANC on post office and then ran down into Balboa into the high school there. And when we saw the pictures, it was of the students from the university that Panama that were leading the demonstration again.

00:45:56.690 - 00:46:14.970

Like most other demonstrations that's led by young people, for bad or good, they're the ones that decide they're going to take an action and throw it in the face of whoever. And that's apparently what happened there. They were getting some, um, so I'm not instruction I don't want to say.

00:46:14.970 - 00:46:32.670

But some information, some of which may have been good, some of which may have been bad, but from some of the instructors at that university in Panama. And they felt it was time to do away with the colonial atmosphere that they felt. So they came down those streets.

00:46:32.670 - 00:47:04.820

They came into the school yard and they had Panamanian flags, and they tried to take down the U. S. Flag that was on the flagpole and put up Panamanian flag, and I can still see pictures of a couple of the students reaching up like that. And then, of course, over the next a few days, I can't remember how many there were where the demonstrators were met by canal zone police who were instructed to keep the demonstrations down, and rightly so, they were not looking.

00:47:04.830 - 00:47:36.420

But any time you have a force and then you have another force that's trying to oppose them, things are gonna happen. Not so good. And eso things play out. Um, so that when I saw that, yeah, I was upset with that, particularly when you see it in a place that you've sat for years and you've had all sorts of friendly, non threatening things, and you sat with your Panamanian buddies right there at the same place.

00:47:36.580 - 00:48:07.110

But then forces that are stronger than me or stronger than those other kids take place and things happen on that's what happened in Panama. I think events, words that fourth that none of us could comprehend or or stop, perhaps on there. And, uh, you know, it's hard for me to discuss that in a non emotional voice because It's very personal, but events happen.

00:48:07.120 - 00:48:24.930

I think, uh, I wish it hadn't them in some ways, But then in other ways, I see that perhaps that's just the way fate is gonna be. And that's what's gonna happen And always when things were ready to clash, Always not always. But generally speaking, it's gonna be young people.

00:48:24.940 - 00:48:45.680

They're they're in lead the battle, right or wrong. It's gonna be the young people that are out there. Um, so you know, whether or not the switching of the treaty, whether or not the canal zone going over to Panama was a good thing or bad thing, that it's only history that's going to decide that right now.

00:48:45.690 - 00:49:11.720

I think Panama is doing a good job with a canal. So before the treaty, when you're in your with your experience in Panama, um, was there any hostility from the Panamanian kids with the American kids from my experience? No, I did not have a problem with the Panamanian kids, and as far as I know, none of them had a problem with me.

00:49:11.730 - 00:49:33.560

We could joke and laugh about the U. S. Government. We could joke and laugh about the Panamanian government. And I mean, I was involved in athletics and in the athletics football in particular, we might trash talk, which is what they call it nowadays. We might trash talk a guy over there from Panama.

00:49:33.570 - 00:49:52.640

But it didn't mean anything. It wasn't about Panama, per se as it was about trying to get the kids off of his game. But that painting me and the guy I might trash talk him. But then two hours later, after the game, we'd be sitting around, you know, tryingto figure out how we were going to date some girl or something.

00:49:52.640 - 00:50:07.440

And they were Panamanian. I was America, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. But again, you can't tell how everything. But I did not see it. Some people could say I was blind. But I have never had a problem with the Panamanians that I knew.

00:50:07.440 - 00:50:29.940

And as far as I know, they didn't have a problem with me. I didn't care. Um, so I have another question. Sure. Your parents. How Well, How did they view Panama? I'll tell you a story about that my dad was, and the Southern Command 15th Naval District.

00:50:29.940 - 00:50:48.540

That was his last. That was going to be where he was going to retire from. And he told me my mom had raised three kids with him and most of the time when he traveled and he traveled all over the world. But he didn't. He wasn't able to for a variety of reasons.

00:50:48.540 - 00:51:17.840

Take his family with him. My mom loved to travel, so she wound up. It is basically taking the kids between Virginia and California. Every time Dad got transferred and was out of the country, she go back to California to live with her folks. So in the 19 fifties, she was driving across country with three kids, two dogs and a cat in a non conditioned air car as a single not as a single lady, but as a lady with three kids going across country.

00:51:17.850 - 00:51:35.270

And so finally, when he got ordered to Panama on, she said, Frank, that was my dad saying, She says, Frank, you're taking me with you. You're taking the kids with you or I'm out of here or in words to that effect, whatever women in the 50 set.

00:51:35.360 - 00:51:53.020

And so Mom got her wish. She loved Panama. She loved driving in Panama. She loved being there and everything else about life there. My dad was a career, and even he just went in to Cory Heights and just did his job. And that's also they both there.

00:51:53.020 - 00:52:14.780

It was a good duty station as far as he was concerned. And for my mom, she was in Panama. She was in a foreign country. She was in her glory and she left to go out and dr in tow, not just the canal zone, but she would go out into the less explored areas of Panama and just absolutely loved it.

00:52:15.150 - 00:52:34.080

She also had a maid there, but she never had in her life. And she thought that was just the greatest thing in the world. We had a Jamaican made on. I will tell you one of the things that this made used to say Waas, Mrs Mont that just discombobulated.

00:52:34.090 - 00:52:52.660

May on. I'm telling you that at first we didn't know what that was. But the Jamaicans had their own language and that was their term in From that time on, whenever something bother my mom, it discombobulated her. I will never forget that my mom passed away a number of years ago.

00:52:52.660 - 00:53:17.720

I'll never forget that. I told my wife that I should have had discombobulate put on her grade because that's what she would have loved. But she had a maid. The main did the job. That she was supposed Thio, and her and my mom were like best of friends because it didn't make a difference about this was supposed to be your place in life.

00:53:17.720 - 00:53:34.740

And this was my place in life. Just two women trying to get along as best they could. But my mom loved it. My dad was very happy in Panama, and that's about all I can say about that. Did your parents ever go back after they decided to move?

00:53:34.750 - 00:53:53.210

Or when you have to go back to the States? When when? When he retired down there, they came back to Virginia and they stayed there. And then they eventually moved to California and we did. And they just stayed in California for the rest of their lives.

00:53:53.220 - 00:54:10.920

But they both of them for different reasons like that duty post. Okay, well, um it seems like we covered a lot of ground Onda. At this point. I want to ask you, Is there anything that we didn't get to talk about that you would like to add?

00:54:10.930 - 00:54:46.470

You don't want to ask me that because you could be here until your semester begins again. Uh um, no, I'm just, you know, the other gentleman that you interviewed. I think he gave you a good background on what he observed. This is what I've observed. And I'm just grateful for the for the chance to voice my thoughts about Panama in the canal zone and such in some sort of cohesive manner, Hopefully, but no, I think that's about it.

00:54:46.480 - 00:54:49.060

All right, well, we wanna thank you for your time.