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Hello. My name is Richard. And today, July 3rd, 2015. I am here with Sharon Lou DeVore, in part with the Panama Canal Society as well with the Simon Procter Oral History program. And so why don't we start off by saying, Where were you born in a date?

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A little bit about your childhood. Okay. I was born in Panama City, Republic of Panama, on February 4th, 1941 which, by the way, February 4th 1914 was my mom's birthday. Interesting, huh? And I grew up on a Bible on Bible Canal Zone, lived in various houses there and were you first generation second generation.

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Well, how it worked was my uncle Laurel H. DeVore and his Roosevelt medals under LH DeVore help build a canal. He came down from New Albany, Indiana, and because he has the Roosevelt Meadow and one bar. So he's down there at least four years and probably five years.

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And he was 25 years older than his youngest brother. My father. There were a bunch of Children in there, and my father went down when he was 19 and they met for the first time. My father was 19 and his brother with my uncle would have been 25 years older.

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Yeah, And then my mom was an RN. Um, and born in Juniata, Altuna, Pennsylvania, on the date that I said And she became an R n a registered nurse. And, um, was the head of a newborn nursery in New York City in a big hospital. And she and her are and girlfriends got together and decided that they would go down to Panama because they needed nurses at Gorgas Hospital.

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So they got on the ship, went down there and my father was a bachelor down there. He had been down there quite a few years before that. Let's see, she probably I'm not sure. And she went down, but it was My father was 19 when he went.

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He was four years older than my mom. Um, I was She was 27 years old when I was born, so I think they met. She would have been 26 probably. I'm assuming when she went down as a nurse because the bachelors always threw a big party for the nurses, nurses, new teachers, which were women, usually.

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And he met my mom the first time, and I don't think they dated for very long. They got married and had me. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that's the starter, okay. And what we say their childhood was like, I feel very, very lucky to have grown up on the canal zone.

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Very lucky. It was safe after dinner. We could be outside, no worries of any kind of, um, criminal activity because the canal zone was a very safe place. Always felt safe when we would take the Panama Line ship up every other summer to visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania.

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And I went to New York and we spend the summer there because I guess, um, people who worked on the canals and got longer vacations to allow home. Um, I knew from early childhood how lucky I was because I had the friends in Pennsylvania, and it was a very exciting life growing up in the canal zone and Pennsylvania was more today.

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They were very good friends of mine. I missed them. But I was always really happy to get back on the ship and go back home to my exciting life because there were important people that came there from all over the world all the time. I when I was young with my little brownie camera, I stood on the corner of the Prato.

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We lived on the Prato and Balbo and snapped a picture of President Eisenhower. I'm not sure if he was a generalized an hour at the time or president, and it was raining and he came down and then went down the Prato. And I'm right on the corner.

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And I'm looking at him that snap your photo, Sharon. I got a great photo with the rain falling and I could have reached out and touched. Yeah, it was cool. And then when President Nixon came and Pat Nixon were at the Bible, a train station, they were on the back of a train.

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I reached out to shake his hand, He reached out and he shook my hand. And then I fell down on the tracks because, you know, it was little and it was high and yeah, it was cool. Yeah, So those are very memorable, thanks to me in, um, Terry Moore was down there and married a Panamanian that kept her down there all the time.

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And when I was in high school. I was asked to model for a charity event, and I was given two of Terry Morse dresses to wear, which showed me that she was short, like me, not as short, because they had to make them a little bit.

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But yeah, that was really cool. Um, there's just so many incidences like that that would never have happened if I was living in the States growing up. And I know you touch a little bit about high school right there, but can you spend more about your education through?

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Yeah, I loved school. So all of it from I went to Balboa Elementary School, we lived under Prato and it's right there. And my first grade teacher was Miss Drew. I remember her very well. Um, she had actually written a message to my mom and told her that I had an artistic talent and that that I should be encouraged along that line.

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And this day I am an artist, and I was in first grade. I even know where the room was on the first floor. On the as you look at the elementary school of the far right corner and as you went up. My second grade was in the back on the first floor, but then as you went great, you went up.

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There were three floors. She went up sixth grade was the third floor on the left hand corner. Yeah, I could never A lot. And then I went to Bible, a junior high school, which was a wooden building at the time, right next to the Bible. A junior college and Bible high school, which connected, and then Bob.

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Oh, high school. I was a cheerleader. Three years of Abu High School and captain in my senior year and loved had a great Yeah, I have very good memories of the my all my school years. Okay. And could you expand more on the people you interact with where they more pattern from the sun themselves?

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Well, actually, they were both because, um, I want to interject here. I only know English. I know Mui poquito espanol. Because the sad thing is, when I was born, my, um, parents got a maid. Louise Chase. She was Jamaican from Jamaica. She they hired her because she could speak English.

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My dad could speak Spanish and English. She spoke fluent Spanish my mom could only speak English. They wanted an English speaking mate who could speak English. And she was told to speak only English to the Children and to my mom, which nowadays they would have said speak only Spanish to the Children.

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Because I was a baby when she came and she was with him to my dad retired so that you know what they knew back then isn't what they know today. But I would have been fluent in both, um and so to go to battle high school Panamanians wealthy Panamanians could pay and go.

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And yes, I had them as friends. I dated them. I went, I went to, um Yeah, uh, prom or dance with, um, Teddy arias. Now his grandfather are his father or uncle was president of Panama. So is the various family. Yeah, and And I went to a carnival dance with another Panamanian wealthy, and I can't remember his name, but and it was you're supposed to dress up, and he said, we're gonna go as, um, like Hawaiians or South Seas.

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He said, you know, just where, like, a wrong thing or whatever. So he dressed that way and and I just got flowered material or whatever. And it got wrapped around and pinned, and we actually won a prize. Yeah, let's go. And I was at the Tivoli Hotel.

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A lot of the dances were at the Tivoli Hotel, which is gone. It was taken down. We would dance to Lucio Escada Ghous music, and it was a wooden floor. And we're out there trying to hold floor. Boom, boom, boom. And, you know, you'd wonder is the floor going to collapse?

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But it never did because it was a wooden building. It was the hotel where, when presidents came to visit. Probably Theodore Roosevelt when he came at the Tivoli. Maybe it wasn't built in, I don't know. But that's where dignitaries state in the shape of the hotel.

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And it was in Alencon, just kind of on the border to Panama City. And it just got taken down just because Yeah, it was wooden. It was big. It was old. And I don't know if I was gone. I mean, it happened before to turn over Now, I went to the turnover soon to Yeah, I'm really fortunate.

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Yeah, I'm jumping ahead. Right? Yeah, I know. Um So let's see. Okay. And then during your schooling, Um, did you How is the history? Did you learn more about the canals? The history of American? Yes. We had Panama Canal Zone history every single year and interestingly, in grade school, you know, new teachers who had come down to teach, and there is this is a new place to them.

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And they wanted to see old Panama. They wanted to, um, go down and see the golden altar. So we went on field trips all the time. What sold the flat arch in school, you know, because it's good for them to They were being educated to and in fourth grade.

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And I still have this, um mm. Album or scrapbook. We may, because I guess the teacher wanted to learn to. And it's about Panama. It's about how Pizarro came. So it starts back when, um bizarro. And I think he was done in Peru or somebody came to Panama and old Panama was ransacked.

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So that and then she would say, You need to draw pictures of this. So this went she put right on the board. What we were supposed to write on paper that would go in our albums. And she said, Get albums. You're going to make this scrap of it.

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And I still have mine to this day from fourth grade, and she would give postcards. So she got him to everybody in the class or there was a picture of the canal And how it the levels and everything. And yeah, I still have that. And I was fourth grade.

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Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, every year learned about Panama Canal PSA. And in fifth grade, we had, I guess, us history, I think. And also again in middle school and probably high school, But but still the Panama Canal. So So really, I learned it really well, I'm not really happy.

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Have an intense interest where I grew up. And then by the time you went to high school or high school was around the corner, did you ever get to go out and explore outside the Panama Canal Zone or just for independent on that? Yes. In Panama.

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Oh, yeah. Well, when I was growing up, my family, we would go on picnics out to Panama and climb up all over the ruins and everything. Yeah, I remember it vividly. And also we went to, um, But this was on the canal zone to Summit Gardens, which is, um, I think a biological.

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They do research and everything in animals there still, um, and there's, uh, water Lily Pond with a little arched. Writes me kind of Claude Monet's water Lilies with the little arched bridge. But we would have picnics out there because I was in the brownies. We had brownie picnics.

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Girl Scout picnics. Yeah, went all around. Oh, we lived on Morgan Avenue, where we when I was born. I'll start. We lived in one of the 12 family houses in the old flats, and it was a wooden building with 12 families. And it's just my mother, father, me and I don't know how old I must have been still a baby, and they moved to Morgan Avenue and it it was down the other side where it connects to.

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I don't know what road, but and then we went to the Prato when I was in first grader, very school, then, because my grandma came to live with us and we needed a larger another bedroom because you, my father, had so many years service they usually got where they wanted to live.

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But you had to have the amount of family to fill the house and Morgan Avenue in the old French single family home on stilts. Now, behind us was Jungles going up to Corey Heights, which was a military thing up on top of I think that's an Con Hill, I think.

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Yeah. And so we explored all up in the jungles. Never thought about there was a black panther up there because my brother had alligators under thing in Black Panther came and got. You can tell by the paw prints. It was in the bathtub, and yeah, so we Yeah, it was really a really neat life.

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And I was a girl, and I like this. There you are so right. And I know let's go a little bit way back. I know you talk about your uncle was who helped build a canal, and then so did your What did your father do? My father.

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Well, he was an accountant and he worked up at the administration building. And my uncle worked in the accounting division also, And my cousin, who was the same age as my father because you know, it's 25 years difference from my uncle and my dad. So my cousins were my parents age.

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They worked in the accounting division. And my very first job was as a student assistant between my junior and senior year in the accounting division and a tight up in the administration building. So they always worked up the administration building. Yeah, OK, yeah. And did you interact with any other?

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Not only administration building, but also other workers there on the Panama Canal Zone or stuff. Yeah, because that is one really neat thing. Um, no matter where you worked or what your stature in the community that didn't dictate where you lived. So a person like an m d or a dentist?

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Um, if his family and the year service, because they really work for the U. S. Government, um, dictated the same size houses you lived in, or somebody who was The dredging division was in Gamboa, so Bible didn't have that. But, um, commissary workers maybe probably lived.

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You lived next to them or or the corral where the cars were fixed. It didn't you there wasn't any class. That was a really cool thing. you did not. You didn't know my father has more money than you. Or more important than yours or your father.

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You know, that was a very nice thing, because it was not. You never felt inferior to your friend who, because her father might be doing something else. You didn't Even it didn't even enter your brain. Your house was the same as theirs. You, you just owned by the government and the government also did the lawns.

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So nothing from the outside was any greater. You might maybe have better furnishings inside, But, you know, I was a kid. You don't care about that. Um, that was a really good thing. I think that you you didn't, and people would say You've lived a sheltered life.

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Now you're going to go up to the States. It's going to be different. You've lived a sheltered life, and you're going to see the reality. And this always got me. Um, they considered his sheltered life. However, I never, ever lost sight of the fact how lucky I was, because the extreme poor in Panama was right there and then I'd be on the train.

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You know, the Panama can also train and it started over on the other side. I grew up in the Pacific side on the Atlantic side, is starting crystal Ball, which I think was in Panama and and then went on the zone well while sitting on the train waiting to go back over home to Balboa.

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I look out and there was, um, people, families, Children, naked, living in cardboard boxes. And, of course, a cardboard box might just cover their head. So I had never, ever, ever forgotten that Never. Yeah, so it's, they may say, a sheltered life, but I don't think it's sheltered, is what they think maybe as far as crime, because it was a safe place to be.

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Panama might not have been, but I felt very safe down there. Always. I still can go down there now and walk around the streets at night alone. I don't feel unsafe. Maybe I'm really naive, I don't know. And how would you say the experiences like the one you just said about you looking at the people in those conditions?

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How did that affect you have to? It affected me very much and because more than I ever dreamed, because one day. Um, I was at Morton Plant Hospital. I've been a volunteer there now, over 39 years and one day the maintenance people were taking this furniture and I said, What are you gonna do with it?

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There was a big, nice dirty desk. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the furniture, but they didn't need it anymore and just they were throwing it away. I don't like what I mean, and out of my mouth. So somewhere deep in my brain, this has been lurking there.

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I said you do. You know that desk would be a wonderful home for somebody. They could live under that sturdy desk because the cardboard box would disintegrate in the rain. And this solid desk is, you know, they looked at me like I was really coo coo.

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And then I tried to explain When someone has zero, no clothes, they have zero. This is a great home because I saw people living in cardboard boxes. So and that shocked me because that was many years later, many, many years later. So, yes, it's affected me.

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It's probably made me more appreciative of everything in life. Yeah, yeah, Dad's deep. So it's not such a shelter community after always it because, of course, it's in the United States to everywhere it's everywhere. Yeah, but I was closer to it there, because the canal zone, you didn't find that you couldn't live on the canals unless you had a job.

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And, of course, you had a house. You have a place to live. You're not gonna I mean, and so there wasn't any homeless. Nobody hungry, you know, is there. But it's right across the street right there. Whereas in the states you're living, you're living further away from it.

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Because where you're living, other people are living and probably the same, um, economic as you. You're probably not going to be living in a cardboard box even though, you know what I mean. But you would have to drive in a car to go and see that.

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So, to me, I think the people in the States are more sheltered, at least to that. Yeah, you could say that. Yes. Yeah, because it's not right there. Yeah, And then you graduated high school. And then what happened after that home? But then I went up to fish you university.

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Yeah. Yeah, because it was in Florida and I guess closer and my mom thought it would be best. And did you feel any quarter shot going from? Oh, no, I didn't. Now, this is another thing. I think on the canals. And we had a fabulous features because all I heard in high school all the time you were trying to prepare us for college, saying that it's going to be really difficult.

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You better know your English is better to end speed into me so much that I did. And when I went up there was really easy, and the English I knew far surpassed. I mean, I was amazed that people there and they're in college can't speak proper English.

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You know, I exempted the first thing that she went on to the literature or whatever in the same way with math. Um, so then I'm sailing along and I'm focused mainly grades, because I'm thinking I don't want to look out. And I was I was making all the good grades and I said, Okay, I think I would start doing something now.

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So I went after the official circus. I was in that and in the sorority. Yeah, So I said, Let's make a little get up, right? Yeah. So, no, I didn't find it difficult. But I do know people that I maybe their parents kept them so to the grindstone that when they went away, they're free.

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And they did not make it very, very smart people. That shouldn't have happened, too. But they partied. So say so. They did the opposite, as I did. And what did you study? Um, secretarial. Yeah, my mom decided that was the best. I had one at art and she said, Well, not really much there.

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Of course, nowadays, there's a lot in it. Um, so, yeah, it had a secretarial program is two years, and I would get what would now be an a, a degree, a certificate. And I had to take all the courses that freshman junior singer had to take.

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So I had really full loads because I had to have the math, the English, the science, the history, the humanities decides the secretary of things crammed in two years. But if I wanted to go on to more years, then I could have specialized in, like, doctor or lawyer.

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But I didn't. I got married. I was 20. So that's when I consider that my and even on the canal zone ended. I did marry somebody from down there, but I didn't live down there anymore. We stayed in the States. So while I was in college, my home my address was still the Canal song box 253 Bubble Heights Canal Song.

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Same boxes. A devore box. It was my uncle and my cousin and my dad. We had to say that the admin. Yeah. So you would visit well in college, back to the canals. I did not. I did not because my ex did not want to go back down there.

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So we moved to reading to ensure us with his mom, Who She was down there and had been. She retired. Um, and then ST Pete and Clearwater so pretty much stayed pretty much in the area from where I left and I left. And that's when you were married.

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I was 20. I got married when I was 20. Okay, Yeah. So I consider the 1st 20 years of my life was canal, So I mean, I was born there, grew up on babble. I live in a Bible and a lot of houses never anywhere else hears about because my dad worked in man.

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You know, I think you lived where your parent worked. Like if it was a dredging division, and then you were given gamble because I think the labor cuts near gamble, and I think that was always falling in my child. But that's right. Well, I got it in school.

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Beat into me. So I learned a lot there. Um, yeah, I I feel very fortunate for that life. And as I say, uh, in 1999 I went back down three times. That was when turnover is going to be. And I was told originally because I was born in Panama City, Panama This is before anything about the canal turning over that if I did nothing when I turned 18 or 20 I'm not sure the age I would be an automatic us citizen.

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However, if I wanted to be Panamanian at that time, I'd have to declare I want to be Panamanian because I was born there. But if I did that, I would give up U. S citizen. Well, I wouldn't do that, of course, But then I think with this turnover happening and Panama considered everybody born down there Panamanian.

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I was in their computers. I was shocked. They even had computers. I thought they had to say, Let me look through my files, you know, come back in three days. Um, so it changed. And then someone told me and I didn't have a proof of citizenship paper.

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And I wrote the State Department for it because I needed a birth certificate. Said, You can't get it from us. You have to get a Panama. You were born in Panama City. I wasn't born on the canal zone. That was another big eye opener. I had to literally go to Panama.

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You don't put $7 in and say, Send me a birth certificate. I did it twice. Of course. I never heard somebody got $7 richer. So I went down in person, and I got it. But, um but then I was told I could have dual citizenship, and I had a friend who told me, and he put it out there that he'd help any zone ian, um, to get their Panamanian Sevilla and pattern menu passport.

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And it would be good to have it in 99 before and I didn't speak Spanish well enough. And so I took advantage of that. I said, Yeah, that would be, I think because I didn't know whether I'd ever needed or what. And that is when I found out yeah, on the computer right there because I was for a Republic of Panama and and he said, probably because I was born in Panama, probably take three days.

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If you're born a canal zone, it could take 5 to 7 days because and so I got that. Then I got an invite to the Panama to the turnover ceremony at Miraflores Locks with President Carter and I Pictures President Carter and Maria Ms Kassa, the first woman president of Panama and the King of Spain and all these and it was hot.

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It was were flurries and everything was blocked, so no wind. But I went. I saw the turnover, I saw them, signed the papers, and I was invited to Maria mis cosas luncheon afterwards in Panama. She's the Panamanian president, and I got the hunger and say bravo lead the country well, because she's a female and I am And she she knew what I meant.

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She smiled at home. Yeah, she said, Yeah, she didn't. I understand. Do that. But I was Yeah, so that I really felt really lucky to do that. There was only four other zone Ian's that I saw there. I think there's only five of us. One of them lived down there, and And the, well, two of them get down there and three of us went down.

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So I feel lucky. It was, like the perfect ending to a perfect life down there. And how did you feel when you first heard that it was going to go over to Panama? Uh huh. Mhm. Not good. Um, and I've written about it, and I was online.

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And we It's when the computer and things came in, there was a site. Um it was Azzoni in sight, and people would write when we found out. And some of them said they never wanted to go back to Panama again, ever. They didn't want to see it.

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And it made me think, and I thought, um, if you never go back and see the changes, because absolutely, there would be changes. We know what the changes will be. We see Panama. We know. Um, Then you truly have lost your home. If only the buildings and the canal zone are your home, they are going to change.

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You will have lost your home. But if Panama, the country, the smells, the food, the people there are beautiful people, the mountains, It's beautiful. Everything else is your home. You will never lose your home, the house. But yeah, it's just a different way to look at it.

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I mean, I don't see how they could think they could live in a country and isolate themselves under canal zone. You're eating Panamanian food. These empanadas and yuca. That's Panamanian. That's not us. We got it on the canal zone. We smell beat the same air as the Panamanians.

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Smell the same sense. Saw the same plants, same mountains, you know. So to me, I didn't understand. But some never went back. They wanted to remember it as it was. And I wrote a poem about it, too. Um, if I could remember it by, I'd say it because it was, um I lost my train of thought.

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Um, mhm. Um, you won't ever lose in your brain as long as the brain stays health that you won't lose your memories of down there. Even if you go back. And I've gone back many times since then and see the changes that you know are going to happen.

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You'll never lose of how it was. You won't and we connect with each other and we keep those memories alive. But if you never go back as sad because in your home is wherever gone, I mean, I can't imagine not doing that because I love Panama.

00:32:57.090 - 00:33:18.970

I do. I love the U. S. But, um, I everything else about Panama, it's a beautiful country. There's much more there than people who ever dreamed. Yeah, so every time you go, even now it feels like home. It feels like home. It does. And of course, it's changed and everything but, uh, my house.

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So I lived in, and we were the first family to live in it in the new flats. You know, when I was formulas, the old flats, they tore down the old wooden French buildings and they built concrete once and we still have my grandma with me.

00:33:32.040 - 00:33:51.780

So with us So we needed four bedrooms and two baths, and it was his first family to live in it. And it was a for two families duplex, and it was an up and down stairs and, uh, just recently went back in March and it's now painted just a half of it, half that we lived in the first family.

00:33:51.790 - 00:34:09.670

It's, um, turquoise. It has beautiful pink Bogan via But I need I'm an artist, so I'd like Whoa, I like that. But, you know, you just have to go with it. It has a big fence around it, you know, and bars on the windows and stuff like that.

00:34:10.040 - 00:34:32.500

But the Prado, I'm very happy to say, is pretty much kept intact. I mean, there's bars on the windows, but they haven't sold them. And the administration building is their Bible high school. I understand they used the elementary school, but that part, the heart of really the canals Balboa is intact.

00:34:32.510 - 00:34:55.660

I mean, that makes me happy, because there are twice as a lot of my life. And I'll tell you this. The first time I went back, I went back on a tour, went to mirror Flores locks, and the U. S. Government keeps everything pristine, the palm trees or painted white halfway up, there's no weeds.

00:34:55.670 - 00:35:19.140

The locks is no rust. Everything is perfect. And I went back and it did make me really sad because Miraflores locks the grass is a little long. Some was dead. Um, there was some rust, um, some mildew. And And I said something to the tour person.

00:35:19.140 - 00:35:45.080

I said, you know, the U S would never and he never mentioned the Panama Canal Zone being owned by the US Never mentioned the United States of America. Who built it? Yes, other people's built it, but it would not have happened if never mentioned it. And I and I said I asked him about it and I said he was from Sweden and he was told he didn't know anything about it.

00:35:45.090 - 00:36:02.960

He was given a script, and that's what it was. And then I realized that me trying to educate him to be so he'd be more accurate than people coming behind me was useless. He had this script, this was it, and us was never mentioned in it.

00:36:03.530 - 00:36:32.820

That was shocking to me, but you've got to get over it because I can't change that in that shocking. So someday if the museum ever doesn't keep this history of the American era on the canal zone, people will never know the U. S. Government. US people were there ever that the United States built it because they immediately never said it.

00:36:33.530 - 00:36:58.750

I was really that that was really shocking to me, because I am Panamanian. But I am very much US system, and I very much no are roll down there what we did and yeah, very Yeah, and I'm a very passionate person about that. So you all just have to keep this up forever in perpetuity, forever.

00:36:58.750 - 00:37:19.690

Never, Never. No matter what, don't let any of the information die because the world will never know the U. S. Had any hand in it? Exactly. And at that moment, did you have any other moments like that in regards to Panama? And did that tarnish review of Panama after that?

00:37:20.150 - 00:37:49.190

It didn't, I guess because I still have a heart in Panama to, um it didn't because in growing up down there, you learn how politics works, You know, it's not news. I mean, that was shocking to me. I never expected that. How could that be, you know, But no, it didn't make me because I know it's just the people in power.

00:37:49.200 - 00:38:05.840

It's not the people. It's whoever is giving out these little rules. And the next president might come along and say so it didn't. And this person was from Sweden. He wasn't. He didn't know. He didn't know anything about it. He just did what they said. He gets paid, and I understood.

00:38:06.020 - 00:38:29.690

No, it didn't. I still a Panama. Yeah. And then I know you mentioned something about politics, and I was just wondering, Yeah, were you, like, since a little kid I know you talked about taking pictures and stuff like that, but was there any moment in time that we were more into the politics and we were very aware on the canal zone of the politics in Panama because it was a democratic country.

00:38:29.700 - 00:38:55.820

But in every four years, like the U. S, they would have an election. However, we got news through CNN, arson, armed forces radio, and I guess if you could speak Spanish, you get Panamanian. Um, it seemed to me to be the person that would win would be the one who burned the most ballots of the other guy or who killed the other guy.

00:38:55.830 - 00:39:19.680

Then that guy would win. Or, you know, because there was. We were always told, Stay away from an con because the Balboa Road and Fourth of July Avenue you just stepped across the street. You're in Panama City? No, there's no fans to know anything. It was just one country, and over here was an con gymnasium or whatever.

00:39:19.690 - 00:39:35.160

And bullets will fly from there and he beholds And where kids go to school and stuff us and they would say, Stay out of Panama City now it's a good time to stay out. Um, don't go near the border because it had nothing to do with us.

00:39:35.170 - 00:39:53.250

It's their little wars in themselves, on who is going to be president. Because every got president of Panama became very wealthy. They were very wealthy, but they became more wealthy, mhm because it's the money just poured into them instead of into the country and to the people.

00:39:53.620 - 00:40:16.740

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was very fully aware, though I love Panama, my inspiration, everything to paint and everything is in the mountains and down there and everything in in Arkansas, too. But I because I grew up there and saw it that it might not be the best place to go back to live.

00:40:16.750 - 00:40:55.570

I mean, it was cheaper at one time. I understand prices are going up because of this. This unrest within the country. Nothing to do with the U. S. But But it could affect you if you're us. Because I had a friend, one of the nurses that went down with my mom, Henry Sky, and she became a school nurse down there after her husband died and they had a home and we went up there and on the weekends, a lot of people had home up in the interior Panama, and it was up on the bluff looking over the Pacific Ocean.

00:40:55.580 - 00:41:16.290

Beautiful spot. And she went up there all the time. And then she decided when she retired, that's where she wanted to stay. She had somebody who cleaned somebody who took care of the yard, and then she went there to stay. But wealthy Panamanians, because the land was wonderful, wanted to buy it from.

00:41:16.290 - 00:41:32.770

And she said no. She wanted to spend her life there, and they had a wealthy Panamanian over here, and they wanted her piece of property. And she gets to tell them no. Well, they threatened her maid. They threatened her person. That came and did the yard work.

00:41:32.770 - 00:41:54.580

So she had nobody to help her, and pretty much forcing her to sell for whatever they wanted and come to the States. And that's what she did. It's not what she wanted. She stayed and she was a single woman by herself, all the retired. And so So I know that goes on to but it's the people.

00:41:54.590 - 00:42:13.060

It's in the, you know, the wealthy people not No, You can't condemn everybody for that. Yeah, exactly. And then I remember you. Okay? We went into high school. You got married and everything, but I just wanted to know what What's life been? What what was like after then?

00:42:13.070 - 00:42:36.970

Until now is for you. I think I've been very lucky. I mean, I love life, so everything looks good to me. I'm a happy person. Um, So I got married and lived in Saint that had two Children. Um, daughter is born in, um, Saint Peter was Mound Park at the time.

00:42:36.970 - 00:42:57.890

It's now Bayfront center. And then a son, Steven, born at Morton Plant Hospital. And they grew up in Clearwater. And yeah, so my life there. Yeah, Florida. I'm not thrilled about I will tell you it's way too flat. And, uh, and the palm trees. I don't consider them trees.

00:42:57.900 - 00:43:16.800

They're just a big plant. They have no branches. So to me. And And that was the first thing that my friends at a fish, you would take me out in this beautiful and like Not really. The sands are beautiful. I know. They're prettier in Panama and the palm trees, and not really, um so But I've adapted.

00:43:16.810 - 00:43:36.170

I don't miss the mountains anymore. I miss the mountains from Panama forever. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you said you were an artist, and then, But before you were starting to be as well, I always loved art. And because of growing up in the canal zone, this is a good thing.

00:43:36.180 - 00:43:50.030

The ship would go to New York City, so I went to galleries in New York City. My parents, you know, my parents. So I learned Are there the metropolitans there and and the galleries in New York City and also see the New York Yankees. So it was all balanced.

00:43:50.030 - 00:44:07.340

But these are, um, things that if I stayed in one place, I wouldn't have. So I always left are always appreciation of it. And my first grade teacher said that. But I could not take any art in high school. I wanted to. I was taking everything I needed for college.

00:44:07.350 - 00:44:21.900

My senior year, I went to the principal, Mr Coats, and said, I need to have six subjects. You know, you have six subjects in a day, but one of them has to be study hall. So you have five subjects. I said. I don't need study hall.

00:44:21.910 - 00:44:33.500

I get my homework done. I was a good student. I get it done. I don't need it to waste of time. May I take art? My last year, my senior year. And he said no. So I never had any art in school. I never had it and call.

00:44:33.500 - 00:45:07.660

I've never taken any art. I started painting the end of November 2002 in Arkansas. The mountains of Arkansas, very much like Panama's inspired me to paint, and I've been painting ever since. Yeah, and I do think for sure that growing up in Panama is influenced. My painting, because in Arkansas is further away from the equator, and I have a lot of art friends and they paint more pastel and my is brighter, more vivid colors.

00:45:07.670 - 00:45:24.290

And I had to analyze that once when somebody was saying something about and I thought, Well, you know, in Panama it's like I've been told It's like Hawaii and all the flowers are brighter, The greens are greener, everything's vivid. The sunsets are the most incredible sunsets anywhere.

00:45:24.300 - 00:45:48.780

And I thought if I ever painted the sunset, people would think I came out of my head. I mean And so I know that growing up in Panama's and we just came from this cultural Panama art. And I know for sure that my painting came from that because I like a lot of glitter, bright colors, busy and and I've done my walls.

00:45:48.780 - 00:46:07.610

I've done furniture. I mean, yes, so Panama and growing up there and everything has definitely yes influenced my art and how I see it and what I really love. I like all art, love, all art, even some not as much, but the brighter the sparkly er the better.

00:46:07.620 - 00:46:27.630

Yeah. And do you tell your Children about Panama? Yep, I do now. They've never been, um and they haven't been to the reunion, but Well, yeah, they have been. My son was six months old. I forgot. And Tracy was 2.5. Yeah, to last the Christmas last Christmas.

00:46:27.630 - 00:46:57.050

My parents were going to be down there. My father retired and 1966. Mm. And so they did. What do they remember? Probably not 12. Stephen don't remember anything. Yeah, I do. I tell him, okay, I tell everybody, actually, yeah, I do. I'm very passionate about. And then what would you say is your vision?

00:46:57.060 - 00:47:14.710

I would call it for Panama to future vision of Panama. Well, it is really changing. I just found out they got rid of all the buses and Chibuzor rather getting rid of them all the beautiful colors, because before these pretty buses there were achieve us and they were even more decorated than what we see.

00:47:14.880 - 00:47:39.440

Salt, the cultural seminar. Um and of course, they're building bigger buildings and more roads. The thing is, I guess like a lot of maybe I don't think Panama served world thank to us, but they build them, but then they don't maintain them. So the roads go.

00:47:39.440 - 00:48:19.700

But then they'll be able to big new highway over there big new building here, and that one's fallen down. I don't know the mentality, but I've seen the mentality in the U. S. Also in places. So you know, you I guess a lot of especially the poor people and the poor people in the United States when they get something they don't know how to take care about when the government gives him, like over in Tampa, you see the their projects houses, and they have the what's on the roofs so that the sun, solar electricity and that they steal the copper out of it.

00:48:20.170 - 00:48:40.540

And they're not thinking you're not gonna have any more hot water. You're not gonna have this, you know, it's, I think, and it's being Panama. The same thing. Um, they having grown up with knowing how to care for something, how to clean something, how you paint it when it's going away.

00:48:40.550 - 00:48:58.680

Um, you don't steal the wire to get the money for this moment in time, because then you have no more. You know, uh, so the mentality here in the States, for poor people, I think it's probably like, what animal? I mean, let it you build it.

00:48:58.690 - 00:49:18.910

Oh, it's beautiful and whatever, but you've got to maintain it. They keep it. And this is the worry. And I know I'm not the only one that thinks this because people would say, Ah, we move out of their The Panama Canal is going to rest shut simply because Pan wouldn't have any idea what you have to do to maintain it.

00:49:18.920 - 00:49:38.080

Because the U. S government was there. It was never closed for one second, and they overhauled it every year. I mean, as I say, I saw the difference within just a year when I went back. And so I don't know that mentality. I don't know what I mean.

00:49:38.470 - 00:50:03.020

Maybe they just take down the old rose, put up new ones, and I don't know, it's looking really amazing. The skyline of Panama City is amazing big skyscrapers. It wasn't like that when I was growing up. Very cosmopolitan, very modern big banks from drug money. I've heard, I don't know.

00:50:03.030 - 00:50:30.480

That's just hearsay. That a lot of people say Yeah, but I hope it survives. I mean, you know, I want it to all be successful. We still have thousands of Americans down there. Us people. People from the canal zone That couldn't leave. Yeah, well, I have no other questions, but I'm not sure if you have anything else you want to add.

00:50:30.860 - 00:50:53.380

Wow. Do you think? Probably, Probably. If I just kept thinking about it. I would. I'd like to end it with my poem, but I don't. Do you have it with you? I don't. That's too darn bad, isn't it? Yes. Well, you can always send it to us, or I don't know, I It's about being Amazonian, and I wrote it a long time ago.

00:50:53.760 - 00:51:22.060

Um, I wonder trying to think if I had email that lately or something. I don't remember. Um, maybe you look on my phone. I am I gonna Is that going to take a little time to Okay. I called this ozone Ian Azzoni in is a person who lived a bit of life in a land that is filled with rain, forests, mountains and a whole lot of sand.

00:51:22.280 - 00:52:08.490

Some of us were born. They're born and lived there. Yes, some spent a life there encompassing much less It's in the heart where we give birth to that wonderful feeling that's best on Earth Azzoni and I became right from the start. It's just something I know deep in my heart Nothing else Could I be It's easy to see It's that life in the past I so wish would last I live in the now Oh, yes, it is true But my thoughts stray to the land That was the home that I knew the home that was once My reality is now just a dream of finality The Panama Canal Zone may disappear, but in my heart it will live always near mhm.

00:52:09.060 - 00:52:38.420

Okay, that's it. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you. I've written articles to I've written about the canal zone bond because I really thought about that because it's like a bond that nothing can compare to anything. So I had to I never really thought about it when somebody asked about it, and I started really thinking about it.

00:52:38.420 - 00:52:56.430

And I wrote I read all in depth, all the what it is. I can't go into it now. but I've written an article on that. Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Great point. I think a lot. It's great. Yeah. Thinking this concludes that. Okay, Good. That's a good