Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Charles Harrold Russell was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
I...I had dramatic fevers as a kid which is a heart problem and yeah...I had to not take physical ed for all through junior high school so I went to the high school and I joined the ...ROTC and uhhh...like I say, I, I put all my effort to it and I...uhhh...I ended up that I, I was Colonel of the Oakland High School. There's eight high schools and I was the...[pause]...I earned the number one job on, on that. So I went CMTC and the...and the summer camps, which is a military camp for to train people to be officers and, uhh, you had to do the ten serves, which is a theoretical job so...uhh...the National Guard was, was having classes and...uhh...they were at least, they were studying together. So I joined the National Guards and then quit that. [Laughs] I knocked that off. So there I was in the National Guards. So I went to the National Guard officer school and passed first in that, but I, I didn't do the, the ten serve because I was in business for myself and I just didn't get to it. So there I, there I was and, I was in the guards and I, they, there was so much labor unrest and the guards were having to be pulled out and I couldn't afford to, uhhh, to leave... uhhh... [pause]... uhhh... my... ummm... my work; be pulled out just for, for that type of duty. So I dropped out of the guards and...uhhh... and it wasn't, it wasn't a month or six weeks I think that they bombed Pearl Harbor and I volunteered to... [pause]... there. So with all of my experience, they put me on a special deal where they would send me to, to, class and for permission. So it took them almost two years before they called me. So I went to the Reception Center, and due to my mechanical...uhh...experience, the, the Colonel called me in and told me I had the highest mechanical I.Q. that had ever gone through the Reception Center.
Because you worked for your dad?
Yes, because my father, yeah. So they asked me if I wanted to go in the Engineers or the Ordinance Department. So I knew what the engineers were, so I went to the Ordinance Department, [laughs]. So they, they, they assigned me to take a couple fellows with me and, and go off to the Ordinance Department, Ordinance, which was in Aberdeen, Maryland. Do you know where that is?
Uhhuh.
It's halfway between New York and Washington D.C. roughly.
Uh huh.
But it's a little, little one, it was then, and little one street town.
Uh huh.
So I went back to the ordinance dept. and they taught me basic training and so forth [laughs] which I'd been, which I'd been doing for years. They told me how to, they had some little guy teach me how to shoot and the first, they first...uhhh...[pause]...the first, ...[indecipherable] ...that this is an expert rifleman and these are all the different things that was expert in. So here this guy was trying to teach me how to shoot and the first, on the first period, I wore this on my hat. [Laughs]. Made them feel a little silly. Did you ever seen a dog tag?
Uhhuh.
Yes. That, this, this, is my, is my listed dog tag. It has my name, name and serial number and where, my hometown address that I came in from.
Where were you born?
I was born in Fresno.
In Fresno?
Yeah. This is...uhhh...I have in my pocket; I have my officer's dog tag, which has a different number. So this, this starts out at 3,4...Three hundred and, and the officer's starts out 'Zero'.
Zero.
011558329. After fifty years [laughs] I still remembered. Yeah, this, this is just a...this is when I was coming back for from vacation. This is my wife.
Oh, that's a picture of you?
Just a little, just a little...
Oh, that's nice.
But anyway, I went to the, went through all the radle-ma-daz, and they gave me a commission and they...uhhh...they stuck the first five fellows in the class and kept them at the proving ground, so I was one of those that stayed at the proving ground for, to do my duty. Now mind you, the wars going on and all this jazz, and...uhhh...and this is the Ordinance Department, you know what the Ordinance Department is? Its, it takes care of the...all the weapons, they go right into the front line and take care of the weapons if...uhhh...if they need it. And they took care of all the machinery and all the machine work and automobiles and tanks and all this. They each had their own department and did their studying. So...[pause] ...I wrote out a line, but I don't know, don't know where I'm at.
We actually have a couple of questions if you don't mind us...
Beg your pardon?
We have a couple of questions if you don't mind us asking.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Umm, so do you have any siblings, or do you have any brothers and sisters?
I have one son. Yeah, my wife and I were married five years before this young fellow come along.
Uh huh.
I'm, I'm losing height. I have bone deterioration, which usually women have, but I'm one of the few men that has it. I've lost 5 inches in height from bone deterioration and...uhhh...my wife and I were married for 50 years, and she, she and I never smoked in our lives, but she was attending a group session where they were doing a lot of smoking and I go into the room to pick her up and you could cut the smoke with a knife. So it, it got her, and she died with lung problems. But she was with me for 50 years.
Oh, sorry to hear that. So as a child, where did you attend school?
Uhhh...[pause]...mostly in Oakland, California.
Oakland, California?
Yeah, I, I did, I was in Fresno and Santa Barbara...I was born in Fresno and, and we moved to Santa Barbara and my dad went back to college. That's where he got his teaching credentials.
So you were raised in Santa Barbara?
No, I was only there for about a year.
Oh, ok. You were born and raised in Fresno?
No, I was, I was born in Fresno and moved out of there when I was about five I guess. And I lived a year in Santa Barbara, walked and saw the, the, what do you call it...[pause]...the religious places in Santa Barbara and so I lived in...uhhh...in Oakland most of the time and I, I lived close to the junior high school. I went to grammar school there and I was, I was a student athlete in grammar school. The fact is I was on all the championship teams in town. We were pretty hot at the time, but then I got this dramatic fever, which is a heart problem, and they wouldn't operate on me, and my mother got another doctor's opinion and they didn't. Uh, my friend, one of my friends had the same thing and he died on the operating table. It's a heart condition. So anyway, they evidently got the right doctor and he made us take, uh, a lot of rest. Didn't take any active, drop out of all the athletics and so forth in junior high school and, umm, I expected to be, die off at about 35, and here I am at 87 [laughs].
87? Oh wow, you made it a long way.
I don't, I don't know why I'm still here. Maybe the, maybe the...but anyway, when I graduate in this officer deal, I turn around and taught a group of men that, that had, uhhh, had in the war, had signed to the Ordinance Department because of their experience, and they had no military experience. So I, uhhh, I had a major and a captain and a lieutenant that I, plus others in the class that, uhh, I taught how to be, be military. And an interesting little side thing is that, uhh, what we call the "Green Fly" was a, was an eating place, sandwiches and so forth, and I was in there with my wife and incidentally my, my wife came out to visit me before I went overseas and she was there five years...so we were together all that time. But anyway, we were sitting there and...uhhh...and this captain was supposed to be, supposed to be in uhh...[pause]...study hall, supposed to be in study hall. And here he was, here he come in there when I was there, and here the captain comes up and apologizes to me and the lieutenant, all the guys, they were all officers in the place, they didn't know what was going on! [Laughs]. And the captain apologized to the other lieutenant, and...[pause]...I was assigned to the ordinance school, and I worked...they needed somebody with business experience and I had a lot of pre-war business experience, I run my own candy...my dad taught me how to make candy as a side deal, I run a candy store...uhhh...everything of that sort. But my dad, uhh, was into teaching woodshop at the time and he wanted me to get some, uhh, at that time they carved airplanes out of wood, and they made them out of sticks and paper. So I put some, a few of those in there and gradually it turned the candy store into a hobby shop, a craft and hobby shop. So I am completely familiar with all the crafts and hobbies, I can do all kind of that junk anyway. I'm...am I going way off the beam for you?
No, no, no, no.
Oh, no. That's fine. So where were you when Pearl Harbor...
They need someone with business experience, uhh, to take over what they call the Silk-Screen Chart Plant. You know how they make Silk-Screen Chart?
No.
Well they have a frame and they put a silk screen on it, then they block out with plastic, they block out what they don't want to print. And they run this, this weegie across the...paint through this silk screen, just that thick. Then they lift it up and they have a color printed on there, and uhh, we made...what the purpose was that they made training aides to send out all over the world to teach the ordinance people that, they make prints of weapons and various things, and on charts. So that they could teach them that. So they were 11 months behind in their work and uhh, so they, I was completely in charge of this plant. And there's a lot of funny little things that went on that I don't know whether you want to be bothered with them or not, but they, they were taught by the previous officer in charge to have some of these men...no matter what they were doing. And the screens had to dry when they washed off to change it, the screens had to dry and there wasn't anything they could do. So I, I told them, look, here, when you're sitting there and you can't do anything, just stay sitting. So in comes the general and everybody looks at me, you know. And the general come over and ask me what they were doing, and I showed him. So that made me number one with all this group. I had 50 soldiers and 50, 50 civilians doing this work.
So what was your rank?
At this time, I was a lieutenant.
A lieutenant?
Yeah. But they, uhh, actually to make sense out of the thing I have to tell you that they, they on this post they promoted on seniority, not on, not on what you were doing. Strictly on seniority. So I, I, uhh, replaced a lieutenant at that job. So anyway, I did too good a job at that, so they assigned me, addition to, incidentally I have the army, uhh, writes everything down, writes the orders down, so I have, I have all the orders for me to do this at home. I know it's hard to prove I did all these things, but anyway, they, uhh, it was about half a mile away, it was what they call the Plastic Model Shop. They, they made things out of plastic so you could see insides of it so you like take a shell and see how the inner workings of the things run, or, uhh, the radiator and see how the cooling works and so forth. So I, a funny little thing there, is that the major that was in charge of the building, see this is a different location, and it was the, uhh, the...was all by itself. But here, uhh, some distance away was this plant and the, uhh, I made everyone clean up every night before they left. So I come back in the morning and here this place is all messed up. So I put a lock on the switch at night. I found out who was, who was doing it. It was the major that was in [laughs] that was in charge of the building. But he, he never did that again. But, so...I guess got doing too good a job at that. I, I learned to be a workaholic. So the, the major in charge of the design section set out the stuff for us to do and I decided that, that he should be in charge of these things we had. So we recommended that, and they took our recommendation 'cause they put me in charge of that in addition to the other two jobs that I had. So there I was doing three man's jobs, including a major's. So, I was still a lieutenant. So...
Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
I was in, I was in business in Oakland.
Business in Oakland?
Yeah. I had just dropped out of the National Guards because, of the...uhhh...not too far before that, not because of that type of thing...but because I couldn't afford to be pulled out on civilian jobs.
And you say you joined the war on a voluntary basis?
What?
Did you join the war voluntarily?
I, yes. I, uhh, I voluntarily went over to the, to San Francisco to the, to the post, and uhh, and volunteered the day after Pearl Harbor. Because I was, I was an experienced officer in the National Guard, I hadn't taken my commission but I had, I'd, all my ROTC experience and CMTC, and I was in CMTC, and in charge of the schools in the ROTC. So anyway, [pause], they didn't know what they were doing. I should have gone in my outfit; my National Guard outfit went to the allutions and, so forth. But, uhh, anyway, I spent all my time at the proving grounds and my wife came out there to see me off, and she was out there for five years. And... umm... so I don't know whether they got the use out of me or not, except when the war was over and they, they were sending everybody home, I should've been sent home. But the, but the general needed 3 men to replace me, so I had to go down to the, to the Pentagon to get permission to get rid of me [laughs]. Ain't that silly?
And that was right after the war?
Yes. It was when they were sending everybody home, breaking up everything. Anyway, I went down to get permission, it sounds silly as heck, but I had to get permission to get out of the army at the headquarters because the general needed three men to replace me. So there I was, perfectly capable of leading a...platoon...and I was kept in this country, never got my foot out of the United States. They just as well have sent me overseas because I was 3000 miles from home; it's on the other coast.
What was the job the general placed you on, remember when you were telling me you were doing three other person's jobs. What were they?
Well I was in charge of the Silk-Screen Chart Plant... working at it, the civilians were paid by the hour, then I took over the Plastic Model Shop which had, which had complete machine shop that had drill presses and all, you name it we had everything that went there. Then they, then they gave me the design section which, and I had officers working for me that were, that were not even on the post, they were in their work.
And the design section as well?
I'm sorry?
And you said the design?
Yeah.
Ok. And all three of them, they're under the Ordinance Department?
Yes. They're all...this operation made charts that were sent all over the world...
The design department?
Yeah, yeah, for training purposes.
So, during the war, how did you stay in touch with your family? With your wife and your son?
1 called my wife, she was, she had, well in the meantime, I had taken over a department in one of the big department stores and I got everything through one of the fellows there. So my wife took over this when I left, and so I called and I told her, and she was so unhappy being alone...
Took over the department store?
She took over this department, so I told her to, to turn it over, get, have this fellow, that, that did the wholesale work, and actually, we subleased from him. So, she had him take it over and she come out to see me temporarily because we didn't know whether I'd be going overseas at anytime, so she came over out there, and, uhh, she went down to the post and she was a bell-telephone operator. They used to plug in the telephone lines...
And they would have the operator there to...
The operator would plug things in...
And your wife would...went over there...
And my wife, she was survey experienced in that. So when she went down to see if they had any temporary work, they wouldn't even let her leave, they put her right to work. [Laughs] So she got some, got housing outside the post the trader operation, and ...post, so, she, she didn't leave there, she was there when the war ended, which was several years later. And, uhh, so I'm not sure whether they kept me there, kept me there because of me or my wife [laughs]. But, uhh, so that's a look...at military experience that never got out of the continental United States. <r
So what places did you travel to? Where did you travel while you were in the service? - / ...
Where'd I what?
Where did you travel while you were in the service?
Oh, well, we partially bought a new car before the war so we had a new Chevy, and we, and we, we went back home for our vacation and brought the car back, and uhh, and...an interesting thing is that we went into, in Chicago, we went into, you can only get so much gas anyway, but it wasn't enough to go clear across the United States. So we'd run out of gas, and we'd have to go into uhh, a, uhh, a place to get more. So we went up to the door of this place, and I was in uniform and they yanked us inside, and they, and they gave us a lot of coupons that we're supposed to have and then they sent me to the next place and they gave us some more coupons, we ended up with enough gas rations to last us...[laughs] the rest of time.
So that was before the war? .
No that was during the war.
During the war.
Yeah. That was, that was, that was when my wife first come out to visit me temporarily. [Laughs]
And where was that then?
Well this was in Chicago that we stopped temporarily. We went into Chicago, and then back out. We slept in the car overnight, and ...we went into Chicago and decided to go into a hotel. And we hit the bed, and the bedbugs hit us! [Laughs]. Never, never had any experience with bedbugs, and I don't want to have anymore. We got out of there in a hurry.
What were your feelings during the war?
Pardon?
What were your feelings during the war? -
Oh, my feelings? Oh well...[pause]... its hard to say. You did what you had to do, and, uhh, with my military experience, I thought I could be of help to them. And here I am, I end up doing everything but! [Laughs].... but the military. Right when I first got my commission, they were very strict on teaching, uhh, uhh, infantry training because what happened is, that, uhh, the war was over in Africa and they had an ordinance coming over there and they were, uhh, they, they were attacked by, by the...men and had all this equipment and didn't know how to use it. The ordinance officers, the ordinance, and what they needed to know about ordinance. So when I first come in, they were teaching them infantry...of course, I didn't teach too much infantry training. I don't know whether you can say I had a World War II experience or not because I never got out of the states, never saw a shot fired in anger. But, umm, I had a tremendous amount of, of, well, in the high school they uhh I taught the rifle teams how to shoot and so forth and we were championships at the seven schools so the, uhh, the structure never come down [laughs], I did all the training. Well actually it did come down, we were top dogs in the schools. But I, uhhh, like I say, I'm a workaholic, I put all the time I needed and a little bit more into it. I went, after the war, I decided I wanted to, I'd like to get down to where I didn't work 80 hours a week. So I went to work for a calculator company. I figured It'd be complicated enough, but I'd do well. The first day I sat there, I made schedule. It usually took them two weeks to make schedule, and I made it the first day I was there, doing this mechanical work. So they wanted to, wanted to promote me immediately, but the, but the unions wouldn't hear of it. So they put me into a separate binary where, where everything come together, and, they made the subparts and they all come together there. So I, being a workaholic, I learned the job jin front of me, and in back of me, and on both sides. And, uhh, and they had know choice when they needed a lead man, that had no choice but to put me in there. So they, uhh, they very soon wanted to send me over to the engineering department, but I'd only been there a short time, they couldn't understand why, why I should go over there. So, they, they sent someone else over there. So they, they had a special gadget and I was sent over there to do assembly work on it. So I ended up, uhh, running that area and all that, and uhh, uhh, they, umm... [pause]...its not my memory, its my old age getting the best of me. But, umm, they put me in charge at this deal, in charge, in charge, I was had 80 people working for me making calculators. So I went over there and we, we went into the engineers and they, they were making the early days of the computer. The computer was as big as this desk, this computer that you have is as big as this desk. And they had what they call a flexi writer; its memory is paper tape. And it punched the paper tape, and you run the tape back if, if you want to memorize it. So I was in my early on in computers, but, uhh, I just got rid of my computer, I haven't the time or energy to stick with it. But, umm, I've had probably 6 or 7 new computers because they've progressed. Anyway, I used to have little brain, I mean, I used to think! [Laughs]
So did your service or experience in the war effect or influence your work in any way?
Well, only the experience of having people...
Right, because you have people working under you...
I had people working under me, yeah. When I, when I went to that back and got a job, I very quickly had people working under me, and I had that experience with the Chart Plant, and the Silk-Screen Chart Plant and all that. Yeah, I had, probably had 200 people working under me in three different locations...[pause]...well four different locations because I had one officer working for me that worked out of New York. Incidentally, I lost 5 inches in height.
Then did your service affect your relationship with your friends and family at that time?
Only my little dog. [Laughs]. I...and I learned to train this little guy to do trick. I, people, I taught him she could count. And they said 'I don't know what you're talking about' and I said, I said, what's 1 and 1, and she barked twice, woof woof. And I said, she says, 'Oh, you're signaling her' and I says, I says, 'You want to come back, speak!' and she said woof. I said 'That's nothing' I says, scoot, and she go out into the other room, and I said, when you come back, speak twice, and she'd go 'woof woof!' [Laughs] So, my dad thought so much of this little dog that, that he would take her to his class on the last day of school and she was taught to stay in her, in her bed, her box, and so she would stay in there between classes, she would stay in her box, and he would show her off to every class. And at nighttime, he would take her to the teacher's deal and show her off. But when I come back from the service, you've never saw a little dog get down and bawl when she first, when she saw me. They met me at the train station and this little dog, brought this little dog, and on the ground and just cried her heart out. [Pause). Now teaching a dog is, is repetition and be sure you do everything exactly the same. If you do it differently it, confused them. You can teach a dog anything if you repeat it exactly each time.
So what do you do now for a living? Do you work right now for a living or do you have certain hobbies or what do you do during your...what do you do during your leisure time?
Oh my leisure time. Well, a lady friend of mine, we used to travel all over the different, uhh, things they'd have here. We'd go, go across a couple of states. Go to this that, and something else. And, uhh, we'd used to go out to eat and so forth. But she's, she's...now in a rest home, and I go see her every day, which nobody else does, but I do, and stay with her for about an hour. And take her little this, that or something else: candy and ummm...so I come down here for lunch, uhh, I used to come down here five days a week&and my son decided he'd want to go out with me on Fridays, so I go out and...and, umm, get him on Fridays. But most of the time, I used to do a lot of computer work and I started walked groups here and out at Stonegate Country Club, I started groups walking for exercise, uhh, twice a week here, and once a week out there. And they still do that, but I don't walk anymore.
And Fridays you just spend with your son?
Fridays lunch, incidentally, he's, he's in the computer business. He's, uhh, when he got out of college he didn't know whether to get into, well ,uhh, his specialty was, what do you call it, well anyway, it had to do with the crops and so forth, and he did the computer on the side. So he decided that he and another fellow would go into the computer business and so forth. And the other fellow kind of dropped out and my son, uhh, ended up with uhh...see, he had 15 people working with him doing computer programming. He wasn't getting any money, he didn't like doing...work, so he, he uhh, he decided that he would sell his business, which he did, and he went out and he was, over, overqualified for any jobs [laughs]. So, so he works out of his own house doing specialty work for different companies. I don't know, its none of my business, so I don't know what he's doing, but he's evidently doing alright. He raised two kids and he, uhh, and my daughter-in-law came from a family of, of 4 girls, and she didn't, and they had 2 boys, and she didn't, she wanted a girl, so they, they uhh, at that time...she uhhh...what's the word...they took over this girl as their own...what's the word?
Adopt?
Yeah, right. Too much boom-booms in here. My hearing is, went bad slowly from...in my younger days, they didn't use ear plugs, they didn't do anything to, to protect their ears from loud noises.
So loud noised when they were testing out the weapons?
That's right, even on the firing line, they didn't use earplugs. They do now, entirely, but we, we used to fire with a gun right by your ear going off, and we never used earplugs.
Were you on the front line? - .
No, no, on the firing range. I did a lot of firing, in fact, one interesting thing is, when you, when you're holding targets, you're behind a broom and, and the target's over your head and you pull it down and mark where the hole, where the shot went, and you push it back up and it shows a spot, a large spot. You so that you could close your eyes and you could put the plug in the hole, you get so used to how far it was and where it was. So when they, when they wanted us to climb underneath there and get the fellows used to shooting over their head, they would climb under these wires and they'd shoot over their head. Knowing where the shells were going I would have stood up [laughs] it was that far away. People go...and they make a snap when they go over your head, I know that is hard on the ears, you know. I'm not giving you a heck of a lot of what you want, but... Interviewer 1 and
Oh, no, no.
Did you know anybody else that was going into the war when you were going into the service?
Well, you went down to the reception center, and like I say, my mechanical I.Q. was such that they decide to send me to the Ordinance Department so I went off, and they assigned me a couple strangers to, and I was, made a temporary goal to take these people to everything. We had a stop over in Chicago and so forth, but... [pause]...its funny. I had a lot of experience and a lot of the time, they shoved you back to beginning stuff again.
So what did you have in mind that you wanted to do in the service?
Well, I expected, I expected to lead a platoon, an infantry platoon, because that was all my experience, but, uhh, when they, when they, when I felt I could do more good in the Ordinance Department, I went there. And a lot of the ordinance to begin with was infantry, mainly because, like I told you, they had trouble in Africa, because that equipment, they didn't know how to use it. So they improved the training in the infantry and the other thing. I, uhh, we had a place that we lived just off the post and the tanks were constantly making a racket, the tank proving grounds. My wife worked out at what they called "Susputy" which is, was where they set off the bombs, you know. But I was available to go anytime, I was up there.
So where was the base or the station where you were doing...
It was Averdine Proving Grounds, and that is, that's where all the equipment is tried, and uhh, proved out. And uhh, they had a, I worked on the training grounds, which was, which was training then. My wife worked at the telephone deal, she worked out at the engineering place for a while. It was very; one interesting thing was that these fellows that worked at the proving grounds, these civilians that worked at the proving grounds...
Where was the proving ground?
This was Averdine; this is halfway between New York and D.C. Its in Maryland, its on the...there's a, a, not a river, a, its right on the water. I took some training down on the, uhh, chemical labs as part of the training too. Interesting, you go into a place all full of gas, have to breath [laugh].
So it says here that your highest rank was a captain? When did you become a captain?
Yes that was just before I got out of the service. I was, I replaced a major early in the deal, but they didn't, uhh, they promoted only on rank, only on the time that you had your commission. So, I was, I was doing major's work long before I got out of the service, but you didn't get the rank because, had I been any place else, I'd have gotten the promotion, but at the proving ground, they promote just on seniority, how long before, since you got your commission. They did a lot of funny things, [laughs], that didn't make sense. You had to live with them. A lot of, a lot of these people were inexperienced that were your bosses?
Do you feel that the war has affected your life in anyway?
[Pause]...oh, it took, I would have probably been a big shot in the business had I stayed home, but I come back and worked for somebody else, but I worked, I was running my own business pre-war, but I left, I left, I volunteered, I left when I was running my own business. So who knows, I might have been a big shot or a millionaire [laughs] or I might have been dead broke. But I had a terrific advantage over everybody.
You were promoted fairly quickly?
My father, my father was teaching school and he was running a business on the side, and the fact is that when I got out of high school, I took over his candy shop because he was doing something else. And my mother used to dip chocolates for me, at one time, they used to dip all the chocolates by hand, they'd put the chocolate on a slab and cool it down to a certain point and after...and they'd drop the center in there, and put their hands over it which would cover it with chocolate, and they'd run down the end of their fingers and drop it down on a piece of wax paper, and they would mark it. You could tell from the mark they put on it, you could tell what was on the inside of the candy. And they'd ask for strawberry, and certain marks for this, that, or something else. Then my wife, my mother taught my wife how to dip chocolates, and she helped me for a long time. She was a, she was a brill...you know what brail is? It's the little dots, the raised dots that the blind people read. My wife was an expert at that. I was, I guess at home I have, I don't know how they have enough brained to keep track of all the dots, there are probably 200 different kinds of dots and they each mean something. There's an alphabet, but there's also, but it also means a whole sentence sometimes, just two or three dots. How she did it, how they did that, I don't know. My little boy, like I say, I only had the one child. Incidentally, my wife had naturally curly hair and my boy had curly hair [laughs] a baby boy with ringlets. The fact is, we put him in, we put him in a, uhh, what do you call it, a child... [pause]...
Is it like a boarding school?
No, no, a contest. Yeah, he won the pretty baby contest [laughs].
So where does your son live now?
He's here in town, that's why I'm here. He umm. ..do you know anything about soccer? Interviewer 1 and
A little.
Well, he was a hot shot on the soccer group he, he took care of the, he ran two or three soccer teams and he organized the soccer games all over town. They still do this, but he advises, but he's not tied up with it. He works for himself and he can get out anytime. If he wants to go, he just picks up and goes, doesn't worry about anybody else [laughs]. He comes over on Friday, takes me out to lunch, and its less than an hour by the time he, he picks up 'til the time he drops me back off, but he lives, he lives in, uhh, up by Anderson Road. I'm now over...I lived at Stonegate Country Club for 20 years, uhh, hardly ever went there because my wife was involved in so many other things, we never went to the club, and, uhh, so being lonesome, I started going there and I started the walking group and various other things, but I paid dues there for 20 years and practically never used it. A lot of people don't know such a thing exists. But if you live over in West Oakland, past a certain line, you have to be a member of the club. You, you pay dues whether you want to or not. If you don't pay them, they'll take it out of your property tax...they'll add it to your property tax. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize such a thing exists, but they have a, they have a, an artificial lake. You can sail boats on it. I had a sailboat for quite a few years, but I had a, I bought a lot up in the country and my wife and my son would go up there for, uhh, all summer, and uhh, I'm the bachelor here at home, I became an expert bachelor. So, she pick him up the day that school was out, and up they go to this little...I had an acre of land and I had 150 feet on the road, and across the road was this little lake where you sail boats and stuff. Oh, yeah. There's lots of things I've done in my lifetime I wish I hadn't but under the same circumstances, I'd do it again.
Do you have any photos that you would like to put in the Library of Congress? We can make a photocopy of it, and give you back the original
That's when I was in high school. I was a good-looking kid. That's the trouble with getting old. Yeah, you know an interesting thing is...I gave all my photographs to my son. I had, when my wife was gone, I had albums and stuff so I gave it all to him.
Would you like to include this photo in there?
If you really want to you can, in fact, you can have it.
Oh, ok
My, my family's got lots of pictures. I gave them all the pictures so I don't, I don't need to save any.
How old are you in this picture?
Oh, I must've been 17.
17? And how old are you when, when the war broke out.
I was a little older than the average, I was about 25. Yeah, I was, I was older than the average fellow. Most of the young officers were 20, 21, in there. But I was 25. With all my problems at a young age, the excess energy did me a lot of good. I'd take a group...we had a mountain cabin, or a place where the army hiked up to and had lunch and did certain things and so forth, and it was about 15 miles up and 15 miles back, and I take a group of people I was assigned to, and we'd walk up there and back, and when we'd get back, we, we stopped for rest period, when we get back, we'd stop there outside the posts, and I'd run about a half a mile down to tell my wife I'd be back, and I'd run back there and when I'd get back, I'd say "oh, lets go", I was in pretty good shape in those days. But that did it, they were all conked out, and then I'd run as far as they could see [laughs]. That was the days. But I always feel bad because I can't ...foreign wars because I've never been overseas. I just found out I was entitled to all the privileges, one of the city councilmen, he comes in I think on Wednesdays at noon time and, uhh, he arranges for people to get taken care of, out at the air base. If you want to, he'll pick you up and take you out there, and do, uhh, all of your health work and get, uhh, I've never done it, but It'd be interesting. I've been fortunate to have fairly good health, I don't know why, but, uhh,I'm do for my yearly physical exam and I haven't seen a doctor between times, so uhh, the doctor I went to about 20 years ago, I went into him to have someone sign my death certificate, and that was 20 years ago [laughs] and he's going to retire in June. It's a funny world.
Do you have any brothers and sisters?
I have a sister, and she's 5 years older than I am, and she's still living. Now she's, in December, she'll be 92 in December.
So do you still keep contact with her?
Yeah...[pause]... fact is, I sit right there at lunchtime. [laughs]. I come down here at lunch to, uhh, to socialize. That's the bad part of it is, when you get older and you don't do anything, you get the tendency to, for your mind to go bad. My mother had Alzheimer's, which is, uhh, a lack of memory, and uhh, she and my father, when he retired, she never got out and did anything, she stayed at home all the time. And I think that's, that's uhh, contributed to her mind problems. But, uhh, so I try to get out and stay active. This lady friend I went with, she's in the rest home and, uhh, I see her everyday, for about an hour. And I'm jolly with the people there. If you want to feel really good about feeling good, you aught to go over to one of these rest homes. They, it's a whole collection of pretty sad people. A lot of them don't get out of bed all day for weeks on end. Ahh, yeah. I'm sorry I didn't give you any exciting things about shooting people up.
Oh, no, everything you gave us was good. A lot of information. Umm, we have a life history chart...
I can't complain about that?
Do you think that if maybe you can go back, you would go to college?
I'm terribly sorry, but I can't quite hear you.
Do you think that if maybe you can go back, you would go to college?
Under the same conditions, I wouldn't go to college. Of course, today its more important than it was then. The main thing is that you, you put out all your effort, like I say, I, I was taught to be a workaholic, and no matter what I done, I would come out ahead. Not because I was smarter, but because I worked harder. The fact is, I, my spelling was always lousy. The funny part is I have an odd kind of a memory; I can make it work but when I'm through using it, it goes to heck. No, anything I do, I can, I can make, accomplish the job I do, but it falls right back on...pretty sad.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I can't think of anything. Did I give you anything good?
Oh, yeah, plenty of information.
Well, I always feel guilty about not getting out of the states during the war, but, it wasn't my doing...I was pretty capable of taking...course I was married at that time too, I had a certain amount of responsibilities. Probably been a workaholic...ah, yeah. Some days this place is busy all day.
This is a nice place though.
They rent it out it different occasions for the city. You can come here for a wedding or this, that, or something else. They made this room, this room opens up, these doors slide apart, there's more room over there than there is in here, so its double the size. I, I haven't, I haven't looked at...they have a design they're going to build, but I haven't looked at it. I moved out this way, and it was about the same distance. At one time, when I lived in West Davis, it was as long to go to Woodland, as it was the senior center. Living with the wife, we, uhh, we had plenty of entertainment and exercise and friends, we never used the senior center, I don't think I ever came down here. There's a constant turnover of volunteers, they have some that come here from the college, and I don't know what kind of credits they get for it, but they come here for lunch.
Have you had lunch yet today?
Well, I hope I gave you something I you can take.
It's for a project for the Library of Congress, but its also for one of our classes too. It's for the Human Development class for the Elderly and Aging.
The information you gave us was very interesting, it was plenty of information. Thank you very much!
Okee doke.