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all right. Good afternoon. Today is to live. 15 2000 and 15. My name is chance to Sarah. We're here with Mr Frederick Whitney today. I'm talking about his experiences in the Panama Canal Zone. Mr. Whitney, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us.

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Um, if we can start by you telling us your full name and when and where were you born? Alright. My full name is Frederick William Whitney Jr. I have born in, uh, Costa Rica and I went down to Panama when I was two years old. My parents took us over there.

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Okay, um and what type of work did your parents do and why did they take you to Panama? My dad was electrician, and he had hired into a company called Force and Lusa, which was in charge of setting up the electrical systems in Costa Rica. And then when I was two years old, my dad was I changed him from Costa Rica and Panama because they wanted to set up the electrical system in the Panama.

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And so then that's when they moved in there, and eventually my dad decided to go ahead to work. with the canal. And that way you could stay there working with the schools in the canal zone. Um, where was your dad Born? Where was he born? He was born in Maine.

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And what are the names of your parents? Hi. My my mother's name was, well, nearly Whitney. Which I can't tell you the whole name right now. That's okay. Yeah. Mellie l A cowbell. I can't remember the other one. Okay. I remember my mom was just when she was Whitney already, you know?

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It's okay. Um, and your father, Frederick W. Whitney. Okay, um And did your mom have a job or was she was a housewife? No, she was a teacher in Costa Rica. My dad, um so does she teach, um, Costa Rican Children or American Children? Two years in Costa Rica.

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She graduated from the schools in Costa Rica. So your your mom was Costa Rican then? Yes. So mine, too. Now you are okay. And so did you grow up speaking Spanish in your house and English? We did both of them, but mostly we we talked English and other people would talk.

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Some of them speak Spanish, so it kind of had both. Okay, So what is your earliest memory of the Panama Canal Zone From your little The first thing I lived in, Uh, remember Pedro Miguel? We went down over there, Remember that They had a place over there when I was a little kid there.

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And that was the old housing. They had a wooden housing there. Mm. Um, And did you have any siblings? Two sisters, younger or older? Yes. Okay. Three and four year old. Okay. Um, okay. And so what recollections do you have of growing up as a child in in the Zone, You know, what would you used to do with your sisters or your friends for fun?

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Well, we started in Petty, Miguel. We liked that place. They had a little lake over inside there. Did a lot of stuff outside there. I remember. We used to when it would rain, I'd go outside in the the turtles would come out of the ground, the little turtles I used to catch them.

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And I used to sell them for a dime. I get them. Oh, I go to the theater. The theater went in those days. I think it was only 15 cents for a movie. That was a long time ago. And later on we finally moved into Balboa and one over there in the Bab war.

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Okay, So how old were you when you moved into Baba? I was in third grade. Yeah. So how was that? A big change going from living in Panama property, then going to live on the zone? No, I lived. I lived. I always For me. I always lived in his own.

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I'm The guy was confusing the territory, right? Yeah. Um, So since your mom was Costa Rican, would you have, you know, relationships with people that were Panamanian and didn't live in the zone? Were you able to go back and forth? It was a little bit of discrimination in there, like against my mom because she was Latina mhm.

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And because some of the people that live there, I guess from the South and all that they were discriminations or whatever I can say. My mom and she still has walked from the from the house Zimbabwe, and she'd always go to the clubhouse through the store or whatever.

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And she I know once on some people, so you don't go by our yard, you know, because we were Latino, you know, with my mom. I never did it to me, but they did. To my mother, which was kind of rotten, was I mean, did your mom talk about how that made her feel?

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She didn't really pay much attention about it. Mm. Yeah, she just didn't really pay attention. Okay. Did she teach us? Well, while she was living in Panama, did she teach us well, while she was living in Panama? Yeah. She would teach some people here in in his own there for teaching English or Spanish because I just switch back and forth.

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And was she worked for the Panama Canal Zone, Or did she work? Oh, no. She never worked for the canal. All right, now tell me a little bit about attending school in the zones. Um, So, like the elementary school, you went to the high school with memories you have of that.

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I started right there at the elementary school. Bob, remember? That's the best one. I did start at the Element Elementary School in Pedro Miguel, and we started there, I guess a couple of years there, and then they moved us in the Bob Wall, and I remember right around a third, third glass.

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Third year when I started there. And that was a great place. It was a great here. Ah. What made it so great? Well, he had we had gyms. We had field flew in the backfield up to the ball field, and we had a lower one over there and then go by where the elementary school were the in August.

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Mhm Georgia's, uh uh immediate. No, man. It's okay. Yeah, I had I had some strokes, you know, Nine. So I still kind of forget some things here and there. But anyway, there was another place where we had the swings and everything right close to the administration building going up around there.

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So we had that old area where we used to play, and then we had the jungle up there and we'd be up in the jungle and all that stuff. Okay? We're your friends. Where they will see each other. Children from the zone. Yeah, All the zone.

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Just about all the Zonen's And what high school did you attend? Yes. Junior high school. Yeah, The name of your high school. We started junior high school. We started over in Diablo for a while, and then later on we moved from the apple. They moved over into Bob or high school.

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So what graduating costs were you? 66. 66? Okay. And I mean, what was Do you have a favorite memory from being in high school clubs that you were a part of things that you would do? I used to love the summers because in the summer they would, uh they would set up programs for everything for all the kids and everything.

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And he set it up like there for archery. They had basketball for playing basketball leagues, volleyball and ping pong. I mean, they had classes for all, for everything he just went in there that kids could go in and line up. So every summer, you coming out of out of school and you just during day instead of going to school, he just went right into the gym area and play the games and is fantastic.

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My piece. So you were, um, also living there during the riots of 64. Um, um, do you remember anything about that that you would like to share I didn't really get to see too much of it. I know we heard about the stuff, most of that stuff there.

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But I was there by the high school a little bit. And when they had were the rioter, people came down to the high school. I was over at the ball game and then also, and they came out with The Panamanian kids are coming. They're also so all the kids and all we all ran over to the high school to and there was support or whatever.

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So we did. I was there by the library, up on top, and I watched when they came in there and and they put it another flag up there on stop of that. And then that's when everything arrived. Started happening right after that, when they marched when I left from the school.

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And then he went down to Panama and it was just a It was bad. Um, and in your opinion, you know, from what you remember of the time, what do you think? Um, the issue was the issue. Well, the thing was for the Panama, and I mean, it was really there.

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Country, in a sense, that they should have had eventually. I mean, as I look at as a kid. Well, man, I love the zone, and I'm pro us. And of course I was I was I was negative against Panamanians, in a sense, you know, at that time, in that sense as you go on down the road, you realize that.

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Hey, you know, you grow up. Okay, Um, so seeing how your family came from Costa Rica, I understand. You know, there is always a lot of immigration to the zone. What was it like growing up in the community where you had so many different nationalities? We only have basically just, uh, in his in his own.

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Well, we had mostly all English people, all of them in there. Well, um, what about, you know, I know a lot of the domestic workers and such came from the West Indies, and we have people that were employed. There are Panamanians. That's true. They do that and all that.

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So and that was something else. When I went to school, their kids would go into school with us. In other words, they were paying millions and all that, but they were like say what? West Africans and they would be over in a school with us. I mean, they would like, remember, there was one kid, uh, Teddy's Germont and he was in school, you know, playing it all the way since I was a kid all the way up in school, all the way up through high school.

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They and I remember when I I got to high school. I got I got hired in the Panama Canal as an apprenticeship thing and I went to work at the locks and I went to work on the locks. And that's one thing. That's when all of a sudden I learned there's racial thing at that moment because there was certain place for the bathroom for any Americans.

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Be, and then you had them in the other ones. And quite frankly, I was shocked because I never knew anything about that. The only thing I remember was study German. Well, you know, it was a great great guy with me in school, and then after that it was like all of a sudden I started trying to work and it was a different world.

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I'll be honest with you. Oh, it was It was weird that the locks at that time at that time because I could say, Yeah, the gold and silver growed or whatever you one bathrooms could be just for the U. S. Or you couldn't use that one.

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And later on it changed because that's right. I left the canal for a while. When I came back, I went to work and got to Aaron dredging and it was different. When I went to dredge in, it was all equal. Then, at that time and later on, I transferred over and went over to work at the locks later on and had been changed.

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All also, you know, there wasn't no racial thing then. How did that feel like that? You you had grown up in that zone all the time. You graduated from high school there, And then you go work at the logs and you see this entirely different sides to your community that you hadn't You hadn't really witnessed it in that way.

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It wasn't. It wasn't. It was just terrible, you know, you felt how unfair was? I remember one time we had I went in there working at the locks at the Miraflores started working there and I started going over as a machinist, and they they would, uh I was going out working outside somewhere, and I had some problems with the supervisor in there one day, and I came in.

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I came home early from to work, and when I came out where there was a sort of pope machines all over the place here by Miraflores, and they had, like, a local boulders sitting there. One day I came out of there and I saw this, and I mean, guy, that was just sitting on the steps, what to look for motive.

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And I look at it look weird, you know, is a pale, you know, And I could be and ask what's going on. Then someone told me that he was a helper of the machinist leader that was on the shift who just got killed because he was checking the compressor and he touched the belt instead of shutting off the machine and testing again because tapping him with a hammer and he grabbed into the belts and it just throw him out in pieces.

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Killed a guy. God. Yeah. So I just heard. I just heard what happened there. Oh, my God. And this poor guy. And like I say, he wasn't a black guy, but he looked. He looked like he was, like, pale, you know? And when someone Tony, what happened?

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So in there, where they had the supervisor's office, they used to have a little bit that was laying next to these two room place, you know, when it has stuff. And I went over, I walked charged over there. Not only look, you've got this guy out here.

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He's like going stroke, you know, and as well, you know, I said, no, no, you got to get him out, or at least let them down on the side. And they didn't like me when I was, you know, got on him. But to me, I thought it was terrible.

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You know, it was a weird thing. And then, of course, they treated me and said, Okay, Fred, go down there and go down and help clean up that room instead of trying to help the other guy end up having to go clean up the the area where the pieces of meat and stuff all that was not very nice.

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Go. Wow. Um Okay. How long did you have that job for? I started my apprenticeship there, and then I quit. Mhm. I had a problem with with the boss, and my uncle decided to retire and leave. And so I said, Well, I guess I'll just go ahead and go to the Army or something.

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So I decided to leave, and that's what I did. I went from there. I went over to Virginia for a while, Mhm. And then there was coming close to Vietnam and the draft was trying to get hold of me. And I said, Well, look, I'm just gonna go back to Pan about one more time before I get a job, and that's what I did.

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The last thing. I had some money and I got to train a ticket, and I went over there because my sister was living in panel on the military and I went over there and I was gonna go join the military. Unfortunately, I did not pass the inspection physical own because I had blood pressure problems, so I couldn't hire me at that time.

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And then down the road, I started going to work with the college, so I could, you know, do some college. And there was a gentleman named Dr Paolucci. He was a deputy personnel director, and he, uh he saw me the apprenticeship because he was in charge of the whole thing.

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And he saw me, you know, at the school when I was one of the kids in their stuff like that. And I guess he talked to me a couple of times. And one day I was down there, the store, they had a look at the clothes, and all of a sudden he was he was in the place.

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And he says, Fred, what are you doing here? Because as he figured, I'd already left. And that's all Not I didn't I didn't make it. I just didn't pass the thing. And I didn't know what I was doing. And he asked me. He said, You want to go to work again?

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I said, Yes. I couldn't believe this guy. He says here he says, Call my office number on Tuesday morning. Call me as such as this time, and I'll see what I can do is okay. Sure enough, I call on the phone. You set up that Okay?

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I had to go up there and meet with. At that time, it was another guy. That was Percy was the new guy. Green used to be the first one when I started. Uh huh. And then later on there was Percy was It was a guy in charge of apprenticeship.

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So he had to talk with Dr Malucci and pursue first. You do not want me to get hired, so they didn't really like me. And I guess he didn't like me at the loss because I had like to see the problem with locks a little bit and stuff like that.

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And he said, Okay, I'll see. What I can do is I said, All right, so then about another week or so Dr Paolucci calls down and says, Go down to the apprenticeship thing, flights and such die. You're going to have an interview That's okay with He was the assistant director, assistant chief of dredging division.

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And so I went over to see that, and the guy said, Okay, I'll hire you. So that was great. Yeah. And then I had to go take all the physical tests and all that stuff, and the trouble was my glasses We're not very good. I had to get new glasses and all that.

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After about a week, I went over to the personnel. I was in there going in there with the whole thing. And I got the results of a test and all that stuff. I think it was Friday. I think when I went in there and I said okay.

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And I said Okay, Wednesday already. I said, Well, you know, can you tell me more or less when I want to start working again? He said Okay. The lady went out by, She came out. You start work tomorrow at seven. Gamble. I had no car. Oh, my God.

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A Saturday morning? Yeah, I was just instantly and I was fortunate there was a gentleman to work that works. Gamble. It was saying Howard to Edinburgh, which was a fantastic man, and he lived close to where my sister was, where I was at. So I go over there and I would get a ride and she'd take me.

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It took me to work the driving, so I started working. And then after a couple of weeks, I bought another car and yeah, we went from there and I worked there dredging for a while, and I worked on a dredge for six years, and then I transferred over to the locks.

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Okay. And how long did you work on the locks for? I worked along the first time. I locked in just about a year, a little over a year. And, like, I had some clashes with the people there. And, um, do you remember the years that you worked on the drudge I started in?

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Uh, let's see. About 70. 68 is six 68 68 to 1 down there. I started back in there, okay? And so you worked there for six years and that you went to the locks for about a year. Right? Then I transferred. I put a dress transfer into the locks because I had some problems with my boss.

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And so my job over there I got promoted over there as a machinist over there at the locks. Okay, Um, do you want to talk a bit About what problems it was that you have at your boss? No, I don't think so. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, I think it was something between him and his wife.

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okay? I haven't, actually. Yeah. I'll try to try and think. Yeah, well, that's that's what I came into the Panama when I was two. Oh, it was 53. I think he was electrician. He worked over and my uncle Harry, he worked a submarine base over time.

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And I think they both decided to go to work there at the same time because they wanted my dad to go to work in Colombia because once they fixed up Costa Rica and got the electrical system going there, then he went to Panama and then he was in there, and then they want him to go over Colombia and he decided, Now that was enough.

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He's always stay here for the kids. And so he decided to stay there. It's just an electrician because he was He was very high position when he was in without first a loser. And he could have gone really, really gone up that he decided to stay here in the canal because the schools I really don't know that.

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But I see my sister, my older sister she had lost lost a year because of that trace trading from Puerto Rico over the panel. Listen to reason my dad decided to go ahead and just stay working for the get out. Remember if your mom had dinner with her friends?

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She knew some of the Panamanians and some of the American women all. Yeah, she had no problem with My mother always spoke very good English. She helped a lot of the Americans. They were in their help. Seizure mountains, big Spanish and stuff like that. Did your Yeah.

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I don't know. For all their days once thought we had a German woman I worked for. How long that work? I retired in 98. Okay. So that you were there for the treaty. That was signed. Excitement, excitement. And you helped transfer the zones in the past.

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But, uh, yeah. So what was that? Like working on his own model was being transferred over to the Pakistani government. It was up and down, to be honest with you. Yeah. You know, there was. There was You were stuck in the middle. We don't want to get out and go over.

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Go there and then you're in the other way, and they're having the destruction. The all the problem going on about Oh, that stuff. And like I said, we we did all right. Like I said, they had one time when they closed the, uh, canal just about with ships, because people like striking in a way.

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So a lot of times we didn't even go to work. Then we went down and he went down to Yacht Club there one time just to watch the ships. There's a joke because there was no ships going through there. Um, do you remember much about the in the invasion to take out Noriega?

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Yeah. We used to watch the I lived in Los Rios at that time and they were prepared there was having a problem with the military. The first general that was in there just didn't bother, Didn't do anything, I guess No Diego at all. Noriega's people do whatever they wanted to do it.

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It was really pretty long. It didn't sound very good, you know, for the military at that U S military at that time until Maxwell, he was the other guy that became in charge of that invasion. I think marks well, General Marshall or something like that. So when he came in, he came in different he was hardcore against the ending so that you can see the difference in the difference between the American soldiers versus the Panamanian people when they were up with over general stuff.

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In other words, the America had to keep his mouth quiet and be like a mouse, like, you know, and then later on, when they brought in that other Maxwell and then it was the other. Also, here's the U. S. Soldier or something would talk down on the the Panamanian police or whatever.

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It was a complete different thing, you know? So which was it was a mess for a while, and we had, like, I was down there, remember down there, I used to walk around like around the town there and those reels and we would walk around there.

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I think it was around 6. 30 or seven. We'd walk around there and every night you could hear the plane, and it was was a plane that was flying around. I think it was over by a copay or something like that, where they had the tower had fuel tanks all, and they had these planes were flying over because there was supposedly these one of the terrorists or whatever, trying to get into the oil tanks and all that stuff.

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And they had their military and all that. But those planes, every time there was a around that time at night, when we be walking around the thing, those planes were always flying around at that same night and you knew, well, they were out there just watching, you know?

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Mm. And eventually. Then they had the invasion that came in. I remember that one and I was sitting there. My kids were very little at that time, and I had a neighbor across in front of me. Captain Waggle. He was a teacher. My cousin lived next house next to me at that time and his he had taken his family and kids already out of the zone.

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My cousin did. And so his kids were all gone there and Harry was sitting next to anyway that one morning all of sudden, I heard this this noise at night and I got outside and I called Harris and Harry. Something's going on here, you know. Something's happened.

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It's okay. We'll get together. So he came out of the door. I came out next week, and Captain Wagner said we were just sitting there talking. And then the armored vehicle things. The traveler, the tanks, not tanks. They're they're the transporter ones. Their armored vehicle. They came down the road, you could hear them going by Bom bom bom.

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They were heading from Clayton to Panama at that moment, and we're talking. I said, Oh, shit. You know what we're gonna do? I don't know. And then all of a sudden, there was some shooting going on. You heard some shooting? Not very much, but a little bit shooting, but Oh, shit.

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Yeah. So? Well, you better get in the house and get outside. So he was. The pilot went inside, and Harry, um and I we got my kids and I said, Well, we're going to take him out of the We were on the upper floor. I brought mattress down from there and put it down below.

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And I told my kids start sleeping in there because I didn't want to be outside there in case somebody shoots around here, you know? And we did get hit with a I'm ordered around. It was right over by the elementary school that went down there, and when it went off, it set my alarm off of my car.

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That's where my kids. It was just what I I just don't worry. It's just my alarm in the car. Don't worry. And my kids always wondering now I know what happened afterwards. I said, Yeah, it was because that's a mortar round hit next to it in the concussion.

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Sit on my alarm on the car that was and then my cousin, he he got a flight out of there the next day, and he went to the States to be with his family. And then we just waited here. You know that the went down and calm down.

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Wow, that was something We had the the elementary school and those reels there, and what they did was that's how they put the the soldiers. They would bring certain ones in certain areas, like to take care of while there, and they got the like, the gym area.

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But they had their and they brought there's, uh, armory vehicle, things that the solar, they come in and sit around there and they go inside. The soldiers had their bathrooms and all that stuff there and they sat in there. And the one thing that was very good is that the soldiers would go out there where, you know, the kids would come around here and playing all stuff it in what they did.

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They end up bringing out and started bringing some, uh, tables, you know, to put on stop there. And then the people came out there and would bring food to get to the soldiers and all that stuff. And everybody come out there and they put all the food up on the tables for everybody to eat and all that stuff and give the soldiers share whatever they want to eat and all that which were very, very nice.

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And they had, like, some people would get cigarettes and people come in giving cartons of cigarettes. They were just pile that people would just dump them. You know, it's like their way of saying thank you. You know, it was it was very nice. There a little picture of my little kids with just one guy that was a soldier there.

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I still got those things mhm. So then, um, the community really supported the soldiers in What's that? So the community really supported the soldiers then? Oh, yeah, they did. You always supported that? Of course. Mhm. Yeah, but what was it like, I guess, for you living there and the model of of this horizontal What were what were you What did you think the Panamanians were feeling about all of this?

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I think we're more more felt sorry for because they didn't have the control. You know, the Panamanian told you were you know, they want to fight. They never, ever wanted to fight against the U. S or anything like that. And they weren't that type of people.

00:35:10.250 - 00:35:33.560

The Panamanian people there very, You know, good people. Yeah, but they only just had a few what they call Molly Antas. You know that we're running the military and stuff like that, and the majority of people are all very good people all the time. Okay, Um and so you said you stayed working in the zone until 98?

00:35:34.040 - 00:35:53.460

Yeah. So 1985 decided to retire because I started Get in the middle of the politics out there because, you know, you had the Americans were always thinking out there. They're gonna do the canal and this I saw in the Panamanian guys just say, Well, when they get done to Panamanians, they're gonna do the canal better.

00:35:53.460 - 00:36:15.130

And, uh, you kind of get stuck in the middle of it, you know? And one day I was sitting there at the that the locks at Pedro Miguel, and they had a big meeting going on. And tonight, who's now the administrator? Keep pronto. And he come.

00:36:15.130 - 00:36:37.000

And he was talking about how, you know, the Panamanians were going to do this and the other stuff, and I kind of changed around, and I kind of was it was I gave him a hard time to Mr Key Toronto. And after he left, there was two engineers that were down there and they come up.

00:36:37.010 - 00:36:52.380

Gee, Freddie, you really give. He had a hard time and I walked away, and when I went back home that day, I talked to my wife. You know, I think it's time for me to retire when I started here and getting mad to people and stuff.

00:36:52.380 - 00:37:18.550

It's not worth working in there anymore, so I decided to go ahead and retire. Okay. I said that you met your wife in the zone. Yeah, well, that was before that. I went there in 90. I worked at the locks. I was a leader, and we're overhauling a locomotive, and I buy some lottery tickets.

00:37:18.930 - 00:37:41.750

Uh huh. And I $1000. And I said, Well, I'm going to go to Costa Rica for vacation, you know? And that's what I did. I went down there and drove down there. Yeah, because I have a cousin of mine there because my family's Costa Rica. So I went over and visit my my cousin, and I said, Look, I want to meet some women here, you know?

00:37:42.630 - 00:38:02.410

So I said, Okay, there's somebody over here to me. Nonsense. So they took me over by the school where there was some over there, and she wasn't there at that moment. So my cousins, uh, Sandra is called my wife and said, Look, Fred is sitting around here.

00:38:02.410 - 00:38:21.150

We don't have nothing to do. Can you go ahead and go out with him or something? So I said, Okay, so he set up a an appointment. At this point, it's like a date like to meet my wife and my aunt because she was my wife was very good known with my mother and my family.

00:38:24.120 - 00:38:48.220

And my wife had just had her husband died. He touched my wife was we could, uh, little at that time. So they went over there and articles to make up. My my aunt shouts they did a they did sewing place. They used to make seats and all that.

00:38:48.220 - 00:39:09.690

So I went over to go see it. Well, she wasn't there and left a note saying, She's late. So I walked around in San Jose a little bit, and later on, I came in and she was in the place and we were out to eat and had a good time, and we just kept going on from there.

00:39:09.690 - 00:39:32.360

We talked every day for hours and hours and hours and talked and talked about a little really great. And I finally got her into the hotel. That was it from there. That's very sweet. So how long have you been married for? Three weeks. I mean, now to present day.

00:39:32.360 - 00:40:01.330

How long have you been married for? Oh, since 80 since 80. Wow. Um, and then you You said you have Children. Yes. I got two girls and their names. Rosie. She graduated here from North Carolina, and she's got a dupe, uh, doctor degree in biology. She's now in, uh, Purdue doing a project over there.

00:40:02.410 - 00:40:20.030

Yeah. And then my other daughter is Delhi. She's living here with me now, and she graduated from, uh, and she stayed with a degree in English and a degree in Spanish. Um, so and then they grew up a bit of their childhood in on the zone too, right?

00:40:20.510 - 00:40:44.240

Yes, until they went to elementary school and a little bit of junior high school. And my older daughter, she had one year of high school, and then we went from there. We went into Costa Rica to Costa Rica. So then they really have always been part of their Costa Rican culture has always been a part of them as well, then.

00:40:44.610 - 00:41:05.730

Oh, yes. Okay. Oh, yes. We went over there and I put them into school. Lincoln School in Costa Rica. Is that the English? And we went into there, and then later on, I got a A friend of mine wanted me to work up here in North Carolina, so I brought him up here.

00:41:06.410 - 00:41:24.030

Okay, so then What were your thoughts when the zone was officially transferred to the Panamanian government in different, different I didn't go by there one or the other way. I'll be honest with I really thought the canal was going to get turned around and what it was.

00:41:24.030 - 00:41:47.330

I thought the the Panamanian government would just set up the electrical system and take off the electrical stuff that they would do it differently. But what they did was different because they kept the canal, which is fantastic. You know, they've done very, very good. I'm very proud of what they've done there.

00:41:48.110 - 00:42:10.590

Okay. Um, have you been back since they took ownership of it? No, I haven't. I have it. My wife went there a little over a year ago. I was going to go down there last year. We were going to Costa Rico. We're working on a house that we have in Costa Rica, and we were going to go from there to Panama and then visit around here.

00:42:10.590 - 00:42:37.110

See that? But the house in Costa Rica, we need more work. So I just said I'd rather just go ahead and stay there, finish working on a house, and that's what we did. So maybe next year I'll go there. Okay, Um and did you stay in touch with people that were working on the zone, like on the canal after you left, or was it just You retired and you kind of cut ties of it?

00:42:38.000 - 00:42:56.920

Yeah. They're mostly cut down a mandatory. Um, on a my cousin. He does get in contact with them here. And there are some of the guys, and most of them are already gotten out of there. Now they've retired twice or something. So I don't really see too many of the ones that are still working.

00:42:58.200 - 00:43:14.300

But I do go to the reunion here every year and see, you know, people. We see it all that stuff, which is nice, you know? But you still you worked on the canal for a long part of your career, Right out of the work that you did for the canal.

00:43:14.310 - 00:43:37.920

For what you left there. Sega. Are you proud of the work that you did on that canal? Yeah, sure it was. We all were. I love this. I love the canal. It was fantastic. I feel like I said it was time for me to go? Yeah, when you start getting mad and all that, it wasn't worth it.

00:43:38.500 - 00:44:00.510

Well, and my wife wanted to go to Costa Rica again anyway, Choose. So Okay. I thought I'd go down here and try to do some fish two fish down there with selling tropical fish, because that's why I didn't Panama. I used to sell tropical fish. I did as a hobby, and I really did very good there.

00:44:01.590 - 00:44:17.840

I thought I would be doing in Costa Rica, but unfortunately, they didn't have a good profits there, so And the water was different in Costa Rica, so I wouldn't do that. Um, So what would you say is the biggest legacy of the Panama Canal Zone community?

00:44:17.850 - 00:44:38.330

What is what? The biggest legacy. The biggest one legacy of the Panama Canal Zone community. Your legacy? I don't quite understand that one, like, you know. What do you think it is? Um, you know, that zone community lived in Panama for a long time. What do you think?

00:44:38.330 - 00:44:59.290

It's the most important thing that I left behind. Well, I think it was the thing that they kept the canal the way they're doing it. And the people have pride in the in the way the canal is still running. And the way the service is still doing good, I think that's the thing.

00:44:59.290 - 00:45:16.410

And the fan to me is that it took it on. They've, you know, let it keep going, which is a shop, you know, they've done. They're they're doing fantastic. Why do you think that it is such a shock that they've been able to keep it going to the standards that were left behind?

00:45:17.690 - 00:45:39.990

Why? I thought it was gonna be the other way. Yeah, I thought that they were good because of politics. Okay, we'll go in there and take over the the control of the whole system, because in the old days, when they had the railroad, they had other people got control of the railroad and what they do, they destroy the railroad, You know, it was gone garbage.

00:45:39.990 - 00:45:58.830

They just let it destroy. And this time, at the end, they didn't do that. Okay, Yeah, I guess the people that were in there, you know, fought to keep them all together. And like I say right now, I see the same thing. If the ones in there like Toronto and all that I hold a key on.

00:45:58.830 - 00:46:16.000

Oh, he was just an engineer when I went there, and I've seen him go all the way up and he was the best engineer that they had around there. Other engineers kind of acted like if there was a problem, they'd run away from the problem. It wasn't that way.

00:46:16.880 - 00:46:39.300

He always would go over there. If he had a problem, he'd go to try and solve it. I I knew Quiano very good for a good while. I I've always liked him and him and I get along very good. So and then I can say now he's administrator, which I think it's fantastic for company for the country to.

00:46:40.080 - 00:47:09.000

Okay, he's a good guy. That's really good to hear. Um, so I just have a couple more questions here. I wanted to ask What is so special about this community that you keep going back to the reunion? Well, you know, it's like you got to a place paradise, like they say, and that's what seriously, when you sit here like you take all the people that work like you go right around here in the States and all that stuff.

00:47:10.180 - 00:47:43.730

You don't have the the support of the company or whatever like that. They do have that in the Vanna Banana or Oh, the United fruit Company, right? They had the same thing. They had housing, areas and all that, and they would help the the employees and all that stuff because my wife at time, you work for another couple of the older and Costa Rica down there where they did with the African palm.

00:47:43.950 - 00:48:02.200

She worked over and there for a while in that same system over there. But like I say, the thing is like you have, like, around here, you don't have nothing here about school. They're separate or in Panama, you kind of grew up in the school. You got right in the system.

00:48:02.200 - 00:48:23.090

You had the gym is the the whole works. They had support. Like I said, when you went off in the summer, they had programs for all the kids. So you had something to do. You're always busy. They always had the baseball parks and, you know, you played baseball league and you know, the whole the whole works.

00:48:23.470 - 00:48:45.340

It was like support and all the employees are all basically had a decent salary. I have no crime to speak of. None at all to speak, though. I mean, the only crime there was. Maybe the kids. Will we be JDS Juvenile did victory with the majority of us.

00:48:45.340 - 00:49:11.080

That's that's about it, you know. So you didn't have any of that stuff, okay? And everything else is like the The canal took care of everything. Well, I mean, you always had a food you always had. Everything was in there at that time. Um and so, um, your wife does she enjoy living in the Panama Canal Zone, moving there from Costa Rica?

00:49:13.170 - 00:49:32.700

I like both of them. Okay, I love Panama, and I would love to go back again. I don't know. I don't want to be in Panama City, but I don't want to live in balance. They either want to be outside, and I'd like to be out where it's a little cooler up there.

00:49:33.370 - 00:50:00.570

Oh, um, if you could use one word to describe your experience living in the zone, what word would it be? I guess I'm just sorry that it's that it ended for Burnell, okay. And since you you got a copy of this interview. I wanted to act.

00:50:00.570 - 00:50:18.250

If there's like to say that she would like their Children to listen to later on about why there was, like, for you to live there. And I think that the woman could have to remember you by. They know it. Okay. They grew up until until we left.

00:50:18.260 - 00:50:35.190

So they had the whole thing. Okay, Um, so I don't have any other questions. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add that perhaps we didn't cover. That's about it. I have, um I'm going to stop the recording. You can Don't hang up.

00:50:35.190 - 00:50:38.890

Okay? Okay. Alright. This includes this interview.