I'm Dean Smith. And uh I've been at a su for so long, I've forgotten any
time when I wasn't. I spent the longest time as, as director of
publications for the university. And then we'll go back and start at the
beginning. And I'd like to start at the very beginning and ask you when
and where you were born? I was born in Salina, Kansas and on April 3rd,
1923.
And what kind of a, of a family? Was it a farm family? It's the line of
Kansas makes me think of farming. Did you grow up? No, they were in the
hardware business. And my dad had the, uh, the LL Smith hardware in
Phoenix for 44 years. You've probably seen their store. It was a quite a
favorite of a lot of people, but I didn't like the store business. All I
wanted to do was be in journalism. So, uh, I deserted. I was the only one
who escaped. When did your family come from Kansas to Arizona? It came in
1933 because my younger brother had asthma at that time. Nobody else came
to Arizona unless they were sick. Or crazy one or the other. So, you were
about 10 years old. Exactly. And what was your first impression of Arizona
? I wanted to go back to Kansas
and I was, it was pretty hard. Uh, it took a while to get acquainted and
they made fun of my clothes and I didn't wear jeans like everybody else
did and all that. I got to where I look it. I liked it very much. What
part of Arizona did your family settle in? Glendale? I went to Glendale
grade school and high school. Graduated from high school in 1940 came over
here at a Suastc,
I should say
what was Glendale like. Then there was a great place to live. It was about
4000 people. It was a farm community surrounded by farms. It was nine
miles from Glendale to Phoenix and you can go on the Manderson bus for a
quarter and we did that quite often down Grand Avenue. And uh
they had a big ice plant there, Crystal Ice and they iced the railroad
cars and shipped cantaloupes and lettuce and that sort of thing to the
east. So agriculture was the heart of Glendale. What about Phoenix? You
said you could take the, the bus down to Phoenix. Um What was Phoenix like
? Phoenix had about 40,000 people at that time, maybe a little less. And
uh there are some nice theaters downtown, the Orpheum and the Fox
particularly and some nice restaurants but there wasn't much else. The
Indian people used to come in on weekends and, and sit on the sidewalk on
Washington Street and sell their wares. And, uh, it was a pretty small
town atmosphere.
So, tell me a little bit about your life as a boy growing up. Um, what
kind of things did you do as a boy?
Well, I'd always wanted to write. In fact, I fell out of a tree when I was
eight years old and broke both wrists and knocked myself unconscious. And
they say when I came out, I'll never ride again. So that's, that felt,
that was a big thing to me even at that time. And when I came back from
the service, I could have, I had the grades and the, the G I be able to go
almost anywhere. But no, I had to stay here and be a newspaper. Man. Could
have been a doctor, lawyer, financier, who knows. So, a boy in, in going
in Glendale, um, you went to Glendale high school? Glendale? Were you a
good student? I was the salutatorian in our class.
I was a pretty good student, I guess. So. Uh, athlete. Well, tell me about
what kind of athlete were you? Oh, I held, I held a state record and a
half mile for a while and, uh, I played in a little dance band. I, I was
into everything I, I enjoyed high school. And what about your classes.
What classes did you like?
Oh, I like history. Spanish English. Uh, I hated the science courses.
They're very poorly in them. Not if you became the Salutatorian, you
couldn't have done too poorly. Um, what, when did you first start writing
? What did you, what were the first things you wrote?
Well, I suppose the first thing I ever got paid to write was, uh, I was a
high school correspondent for the Glendale News. And, uh, that made me
home sometimes as much as a dollar and a half a week. But it was a lot of
fun. And, uh, to see your name in,
I think we all have that, uh, that sort of ego when we, we writers.
What about school papers and things like that? Yeah, I was on the school
paper, I was editor of the State Press here at the su and later I was
editor of the, uh, of the yearbook as well in another year or so. That's
always been a prime interest.
You mentioned your, your family came out here for your brother's health.
How, how big a family did you come from? One brother and one sister,
younger or older, sister's older, he's younger and we're all still alive
and living in the area.
So, when you graduated from high school, did you have any idea then what
you wanted to do? I want to write for a newspaper.
So, tell me about how you went about do going in that career path.
I said I had, I been a high school correspondent for the Glendale News and
on the spring that I graduated in 1940 I, I went to work as a cub reporter
there and was listed as news editor. Boy, I'll tell you that was really
hot stuff. That was the first real job I had in the business
and later on after the war I, I was in with several other newspapers. Did
the newspaper, people give you advice about how you go when, what you
should do to become a journalist or
the main thing is to be interested in everything and ask questions and to
have Catholic interests, I guess you might say to, uh, I want to talk to
people about their business and their, I always enjoyed interviewing
people to find out about them. I've been, uh blessed to interview a lot of
celebrities and it, uh it's always fun.
So tell me about how you decided to come to a SU again.
I came to SU because I couldn't afford to go anywhere else. I frankly, uh
, a stc I had been offered a track scholarship down at the U of A but
somehow it fell in the cracks and it never came through. So I came over
here and, uh, awful glad I did. What year was that? 1940? Describe for me
what the papus was like when you came here? Well, we had 1300 students and
48 faculty.
And uh there was the old main quadrangle,
the science building which is now the university club and the auditorium
gymnasium, which is now a language and literature. That was the heart of
the campus. And uh behind that was the pain training school. This was a
teacher's college. Remember? And the president's home was, was behind Old
Maine and uh the quadrangle east, west, north and south,
most of the students lived was where the library is now.
He's tall. Right. Spent most of my time right where the main library is
and of course west to, is still there.
I think there's, isn't that, uh, social work now? I think it is. Uh huh.
And north and south are long gone.
So it was pretty small then, wasn't it? 1300 students? Most of our high
schools were bigger. Well, if you wanted to be a journalist, why would you
come to a teacher's college? As I said, it was a hope we can afford. I had
to have a job even to go there. I think my dad gave me $10 and said, go to
it. I didn't have much help after that. That's an interesting point at
that time. Almost all the work on this campus was done by students. I
don't think there were a dozen staff people, uh, full time staff, people
on the campus, all the waiting and the waiters in the cafeteria, the, uh,
maintenance people, floor sweepers. Everybody were students and they all
had student jobs. I couldn't have come otherwise because this was, we were
just coming out of the, out of the depression at that time.
Everybody was poor, but we didn't realize it. So we had a good time. What
kind of jobs did you have to put yourself through college? I worked in the
news bureau and then, uh, a state press editor, but I didn't get to finish
that year because I was called into the service. What year was that? 42?
43? That was when you started on Monday and you had a bunch of people
around you. And by Friday there were probably a third of the men were gone
by that time.
Well, tell me what, what were those ears like? I mean, the, the Warriors,
I wasn't here before you, before I left. I remember that, that you wanted
when your number was gonna come up, I had, had volunteered for a program
and I'm all for that. I did because it was pre meteorology. I was sent to
Pomona and, and Yale University in that program. So I would, I really
lucked out on that.
But the girls are about the only, the only live people that were, were
left.
It's hard to believe. But the enrollment dipped below 500 at one time in
1945
they did have a Cadet Air Force Cadet unit here. For a time which probably
kept the place from going bankrupt.
But it was just a matter of survival. There was nothing new happened. They
just holding on until the war was over and nobody knew where that was
gonna be. That's right. So you, you say you went to Pomona and Yale?
That's right. Two very fine schools. Tell me about what you did during
those war years. Well, most of it was, was math and physics. The training
part of it, the things that I hated the worst. But I kept thinking about
what the infantry was like and I decided I could, could like science and,
and, uh, and math better than I thought I could. Of course, when I got to
Yale, then we were, they changed the program and I became a communications
officer and we worked with radio most of the time and that's how I was
assigned when I was commissioned.
And I was a cryptology officer for a long time. I worked in a code room
and top secret stuff. This was, this was fun. Too exciting. Where were you
? I was stationed in the Aleutian Islands most of that time. It's a place
where somebody said it's worth about 15 minutes of post war conversation.
It's really a pretty, a pretty deserted area and the sun rarely shines.
It's cold and dreary and snowy and rainy and it's not much. You, well, if
you remember the Japanese took over at tattoo and, uh, Tato and Chemi, I
should say on the far end of the chain. And so we, they had a big naval
base there and 11th Air Force headquarters was at Adac where I was
stationed. We didn't want the Japanese coming and invading Seattle.
So, which branch of the service were you in? Air Force? I stayed in the
Air Force Reserve for 35 years. Although I, at the time I didn't think I
would ever do such a thing. But, uh, it was a big part of my life, I guess.
So. That's a long time. You lieutenant? No, I was a full colonel full
when you,
yeah, a long time to stay in. Um, well, let's see. Well, tell me about
when you finally came back. Um, when was that? Well, that was exciting.
That was in June of 1946
and the first GIS were just coming back at that time and the, it, it got
very crowded in a hurry. All the, uh, dormitories filled up. They, they
put three in the room and sometimes four in Irish Hall. They even used
phone booth for one room and they built Victory Village. Have you ever
heard of Victory Village? That's where the married couples lived and they
had quite Roy Doyle was there. Did he mention that today? Mhm.
I was to see all this going on and of course, there was no way to take
care of this rush of humanity. With infrastructure or faculty or anything
else. We just, it was like a flood. So, where did you live? When you came
back? Irish Hall? I just had a year or two to serve before I graduated in
47.
And you graduated, you said in 47 what was your major then? Well, because
we didn't have a journalism major at that time. It was business. I was in
the first, the first group which uh which graduated with a BS in Business.
Say the year before in 45 they had changed the name Terrorism State
College. And it authorized a bunch of new degrees before that. It was only
teaching and most of us didn't want to be teachers anyway. So this was a
good thing for us.
So what did you plan to do after you graduated? I went with the newspaper
again
first to Glendale into the Mesa Tribune and then finally over to the
Republic.
I was there for seven years. Well, tell me about those, those jobs. How
long were you at each of them? And I was at Glendale a little less than,
than two years. I was editor at that time. Title and move Salary shall we
say? And uh I was fired there the only time in my life, the publisher said
he just couldn't afford to keep that many people on the payroll. So I
started looking around and I got a call the next day from some tribute
they were looking for a sports editor. It just couldn't have happened
because that was my major interest,
Charlie Mitten.
And uh
like everybody else, a small daily, uh paper was just changing from weekly
to a daily at the time that I went over there. And we work from seven in
the morning until seven at night. Usually if there was a city council
meeting, we were there with our cameras and our, everybody loved it. This
was just what we wanted to do, worked on Saturdays.
So why did you leave the MESA paper then? Well, I got a call from Don
Kinsel who was director of athletics over here and a good friend of mine
that they needed a sports information director. This was in 1950. So I
came, this was my first job
and like everybody else because of the budget situation, we had two jobs.
I was director of Sports Information and now they have, I think 10 people
in that doing that job. And I was also the uh director of student
publications supervising the your book in the, the newspaper. So we were
expected to do all that for us. $300 a month salary.
How did that compare with the newspaper salaries? It was the same. They
found out what I was making over there in Oman.
Yeah. And so then you said you, you let's see. How long did you stay there
at all? The sports job? Well, two years later, I, I covered a su sports
all the time, I would say. So I really never got off the campus for very
long, but there was an opening in the Republic in 1952. And I went over
there and spent seven years in their sports desk.
At the end of that time, I got a call from Gober Katie and create a gamb
that they, they want me to come over here to, to head up their new uh
publications bureau.
And I was, was there for the rest of my career.
So most of your newspaper career then was in the sports area. Is there any
particularly memorable um sports events that, oh, so many, I, you ever
heard the name Wizard White? Milford White? He wore number 33 and he is
still the most exciting halfback I've ever seen. I think he was on, on
Eddie Doherty's teams and in the late, excuse me, the late forties. And uh
he still is in town. He, his son, Danny now is the coach of the Arizona
Rattlers.
So it was, it was kind of hard for, for Wilfrid to, he was idolized and
now he's known as Danny White's father, but she doesn't care for a whole
lot.
We had a scandal and 1951 when uh coach Larry Simmy recruited some people
who were not eligible and this was found out by
some other people. And then, uh the university college was put on
probation for two years and it really set us back a long way and, uh,
working with a team at that time it was, I had pretty stressful, pretty
stressful period. That was the football team. Yeah. Was football the major
sport here? Well, an interesting thing and I don't suppose anybody or if
you know this, but the first sport that we made national on the national
scene was track and field. Don Kinzel, who was director of athletics was a
Olympic class hurdler and he devoted to a lot of scholarships and a lot of
talent and energy and the recruiting quota, track team. I think his second
year, we, we tied with us c which won the national championship for four
or five years in a row. Almost instant uh, success, you might say. So we
sent teams back to the Drake relays and, uh to New York for Meats and all
that sort of thing, won the conference championship year after year.
But that then football did take over when, when Eddie Doherty got here and
, uh, with his team, when you were the director of sports Information, did
you get to travel back to some of those?
And as a reporter also, I'll never forget. 1951 we brought the first black
players into the Southwest Conference.
I played at the University of Arkansas and, uh, we had two bikes and, uh,
the reporters were all over me asking, do you always do this, do you? I
said, we try, we broke the color barrier in the southwest where we was far
ahead of everybody else. And uh they said, well, we can't guarantee their
safety. You know, that was usually the argument, everything went smoothly
, I suppose there were some words exchanged, but there was no trouble at
all. And that from then on it opened the door and black athletes appeared
all over the conference. So we're rather proud of that. Something I had
not heard about. What year was that, sir? I was 51 when we, when we
brought the first players into the conference,
another satellite Texas tech was in our conference. The border conference
takes his take at Lubbock. We never played them because they would not
allow our black players to play there. So we said, all right, if our black
players can't play, we're not gonna play. So, although we were in the same
conference four or five years, we never did play. It took a long time to
break that, that bury her down. Now you're looking and see the Alabama
Mississippi teams with, with five starters in basketball. This is all
black. This is amazing. That's interesting because it reminds me that I
just did an interview with Calvin Good and he talked about um going to
Carver High School, which was Black High School, but then he was able to
go to Phoenix College and to a su in the forties. Uh so a su was always
open to black students. No, that's not quite true. I'm ashamed to admit it
now. But there was, this was very Jim Crow back in the thirties and early
forties. They cannot live on campus. Do you know that they cannot eat in
the dining hall? They couldn't get their hair cut in a barbershop.
They couldn't go to the school dances.
We got along. All right. But, and I think I'm ashamed that we never
thought anything about it. It's just the way it was, but they did get to
go to class. Oh, yeah. Well, that's something they got to pay their fees
and all like everybody else, but shameful situation. But we did break out
of that very shortly thereafter. One of the first schools to do so. So
when did that start changing?
Oh, mid f far ahead of the University of Arizona, by the way, they, we had
, had black athletes playing long before they did.
So the black athletes were, they, they were allowed to eat on campus and,
and do all the other things. When we took black athletes on a trip
for a football game, they had to go stay with another family with a black
family and eat it separately in Texas. Most of the other teams were in
Texas at that time.
No, it was, it was quite a battle, a different era. Um, well, so did you
ever teach on campus or were you always just working on the publication I
never taught. No,
I guess I wasn't smart enough. I didn't have a degree that, but I did come
back and get a master's in business, which I never used. But, uh, where
did you do that? 61?
I'm sort of like, like Rudy Lavi who was a long time director of athletics
here. He said I was never out of work long enough to, to get a doctorate.
Um Well, tell me, where were you uh when the university uh changed its
name when it changed its name to a university? Where were you? This is my
last year at the Republic in 58. And uh I was over here all the time. I
felt like I was on campus and I was here for the big party that they had
on election night and all that there was a, you may know that story how
they all get it out in front of the union and uh the teletypes were going
giving momentary results and something happened. The up I moved and uh
sent out some wrong information and showed us behind 2 to 1. And this went
on for 45 minutes and everybody was in shock. I thought Greedy Gage was
gonna die right in the spot. And then they got a straightened out and we
were ahead again and we wound up ahead 2 to 1. And you've probably seen
the famous picture of him. Standing on the balcony of the union with his
arms out like this. And we won. Now, have you worked on that campaign or?
Yes, because you work for the news. We all worked. I was alumnus. Uh I was
also writing by the way for the uh alumni magazine at the same, same time.
So, uh we did everything and I was also trying to sell magazine articles
, anything to put food on the table. So it wasn't a conflict of interest
for you to be working for the Arizona Republican campaigning for the
university.
Well, if it was so be it, that's, uh we had these bumper stickers
200 and we count that every morning on cars to see how we were doing. It
was sort of like a straw poll
and we covered every county or any. Um, we wanted every county I should
say except po, of course we wouldn't. And I believe Santa Cruz and the
coaches might have, have gone against us too, but it was a great victory.
How did that change things around here? Oh, it changed things a great
deal though. Gave us a new perspective, new confidence.
We opened up a new program as a new,
you see, the, the first four colleges were created about that time and,
and those were the seeds which sprouted into so many other things
center for solid state physics, for example, in the, the great things
we've done in the, in the arts and all the rest.
Oh, it was very important because it, uh I told in the first place it
announced that the public was for us and we never really felt that way
before. We were always the underdog,
an underdog complex. Still. Do I think, don't you think so? Oh, always
trying to beat the U of A in some way or other. I have been quite
successful in doing that.
Tell me again about how you came to return back to work for a su
Well, uh as I mentioned, Gilbert Katie and, and the president wanted to
set up this bureau to standardize publications. Each little college and
department were doing their own at that time. So we set up shop in the old
uh president's old Matthews cottage, which is now the nursing school and
it was more or less like an ad agency. We had a, an editor to fill that,
that position. We had an art director. We had a, a director of uh
relations with the printers and the, and the other opera. It worked very
well. And uh I think we did a good job during that time. It was an
interesting thing to start from scratch that and to build it. And what
year was it that you did that? 59
I came here and um October 1st of October, I guess it was and Great Gage
died at the end of December of that year.
I don't know. If you know that story or not. But he was, uh, the night
before he had done going over the plans for the new auditorium.
And, uh, I promised Kay, his wife to take her Christmas shopping. He came
back and, uh, so he didn't feel very good. He thought he'd go to bed and
by morning he was dead.
So that was one of the reasons they named the auditorium after it was this
great interest he had in, uh, in building it. He had convinced Frank Lloyd
Wright to, uh, to design it. Uh, if you knew Frank Lloyd Wright, he, he
didn't do anything that he wasn't well paid for, but he, he liked Grady
and he, uh, he came home and told his wife once, he said he's an
interesting gentleman, but he has no money. But he decided to, to revise
the plan. He had, had drawn up for a big auditorium in Baghdad. Did you
know about that? And, uh,
he died, 03 or four months after Grady did
so neither one of them ever got to see their auditorium. But, uh, what was
that like when, when the president of the university died? So suddenly,
what was that like on campus
Gage had been present for 26.5 years and nobody could remember when he
wasn't president. It was kind of like FDR, you know, I thought he was
perpetual president of the United States. Uh
Doctor HD Richardson took over as, as, as an interim president and served
for six months until, until Homer Durham came on campus.
And we've always said that we always had the right president for the
period that we had Matthews helped to build up. He was here 30 years,
build the cap the framework for the college and uh great am built the
framework for the university and then he died. And then
Doctor Durham came in with those foundations and build on those. And he
was exactly the man for the job. A tremendous president. Tell me a little
more about him. What was he like? Well, I was very close to Homer Durham
and uh
he was a renaissance man. He knew more about more things than anybody I've
ever known. He knew more medicine than most doctors do, more law than most
lawyers do. And the his son George, they used to say when they went on on
vacation, it was like a continuing lecture all the way for the kids.
And he knew he knew history. He knew just about everything there was to
know. Uh And uh he brought
good science teachers here. He brought historians and political. He was a
political scientist himself, never got a masters. By the way, he went from
Bachelor's doctorate at UCL A.
He was Mormon and later became one of the high officers in the Mormon
church. After his, after leaving here, he was here nine years from 60 to
69.
And the time he left we were at a university,
in fact, as well as a name, which is a, so we can always be grateful to
him for that.
Can you put a note in here? I didn't ask you about this. About the flight
from Earth? Oh, flight from Earth? Oh, that's one of my favorite stories.
Have you heard that one? June? No, I haven't heard that one to show you
what kind of a place this was in the, in the early fifties. Uh, I wouldn't
think of doing such a thing now. But g and, and Jim Crisman who was alumni
secretary
and Kinzel and a couple of other people decided to play a trick on the
library and Harold Bachelor because he, he was trying to build uh an art
collection. He was a man who started our very fine art collection and, uh
, he was getting gifts of art from, from here and there. And, uh, one day
these guys got together and they went down to Marlow Keith Welding class
in the industrial arts section. They had a metal pole and they'd uh,
practice welding these little pieces on the different kinds of metal and
all that. And, uh, it's kind of like a tree. The welding exercise is what
it was. So they said this looks like like something. So they took it and
they, they mounted on a oak base and got a, um, uh, plaque
to put on and they called it Flight from Earth by low Keith Melo Keith.
And they, they said to Harold Bachelor certified letter from New York that
the uh the New York Museum of Modern Art went to, to present this, this
piece of art because they heard we were trying to start a collection and
Baxter was thrilled to death about this. And uh, so it arrived with a
guard and all that these guys spend all kinds of time working on this
elaborate hoax and they brought it in and, and uh, the Bachelor was so
thrilled with it that he put it in the place of honor, right inside the
door of the, uh, it was the old library at that time, Matthew's library.
And uh, everybody got a good chuckle after it about it. And shortly
thereafter, Walter Benson, who was president of the Board of Regents,
president of Valley Bank and an art collector and art expert,
some renown
came over to Gage's office and said he'd like to see the new collection we
were starting over here. What game would you got a little excited to get
on the phone to Chris? He says, get down there right now, get that thing
out of there jokes over.
So K Chrisman went into Bachelor's office and told him what had happened.
Bachelor would not believe him. He says, I know art when I see it and
this is a piece of modern art and it's very good and they were arguing
about it. When, when Cambridge and Benson came in
and Benson, when he was told the story, uh, Gamage had to dress up. He
said, you know, I rather liked it.
Ok. A flight from earth disappeared for 30 years. I saw it in Payson at a
bachelor's home. He had a summer home up there. He had kept that thing
hidden all the time. But when he moved up there, he put it in his back
garden is sort of a remembrance piece and it's probably still there. I was
gonna ask you where it ended up. I was, I was gonna ask you if Benson was
fooled. He walked in before somebody told him, what did he think of it
before? Well, I think he explained to him right away.
You mentioned here something about um Ellis and, and Morrell too. Were
they involved? I'm just mentioning some of the people that were involved
in everything at that time. Uh They know that story too. I don't know
whether everybody knew about that or not, but uh I've used it in a couple
of books. I used it in the one on, on G and might have been in one of the
others. I've forgotten which. But uh and I thought they pulled several
stunts like that. They were going to have a school for army undertakers
here and they got Katie all worked up about that. They kept sending
telegrams from supposedly from the army that they were going to open
operation formaldehyde, they call it.
So it sounds like Grady g, had a lot of sense of humor. Yeah. And not
surprising because he was a, a pretty serious kind of guy. I've not heard
that side of him before
but he went in for more elaborate. All these things took weeks to put
together and lots of people.
Well, you've got down here something about the medical school in law
school. Oh, yes, I have those.
Well, after the uh the name changed took place where
our ambitions ran wild, of course. And uh Dr Gamage got
funding for a two year medical school here from a man named and he
announced the regs that he wanted to start this school. And um Dr Harville
at the University of Arizona went into panic. He said, no, no, no, we
don't need a medical school here. At that time. We were training our, our
doctors with wii which is a Western compact for, for training physicians.
They took all the states that did not have medical schools and, and help
to fund this thing. And I had to go to University of Utah, University of
New Mexico, various other places.
But we went ahead with it as far as we could. And then of course, Harve
immediately rounded up his troops and his big wheels here and they said
going to have one, but it's going to be in Tucson and they got us
a man, uh a doctor from the University of Alabama who was, was to head the
uh the committee
to search out the best location for it. And uh everybody knew when he was
picked that he was, he was picked by the Universities of Arizona people.
And of course, at that time, their physical science schooling was ahead of
ours considerably as it turned out, it didn't make that much difference.
Medical school is a separate institution and they don't pay much
attention to
undergraduate science programs at the university. It probably should have
been here even if it were a University of Arizona Control because this is
most medical schools are in the big cities. They've always had trouble in
Tucson getting enough variety of patients.
And the so we lost out in that battle, but sort of as a consolation prize
, we got the law school started and that was Durham's pride and joy he
brought in Willard Pedrick from Northwestern as the first dean and he was
great. He was uh everybody loved p as they called him and was a good law
school from the beginning. He recruited a bunch of people that several of
them had been nearing retirement in other schools. And it was said that
our law school at the beginning was better than the, it's been a battle
ever since as to who's, who's the best. But uh
that's the story of the medical school and the law school. It's not a
trade offer.
What about the, the period during the sixties you were here during that
kind of time of unrest? Oh, yeah, that was
June. When did you come? 64? 64? I was, well under way at that time. Um,
they had a war feeling was, was great. Everybody, nobody was happy with
the Vietnam war. But those of us that were a little more patriotic thought
we had to stick with the, the president and the army while they were there.
But these kids were, they wanted to, to get out of it. They want to
have demonstrations and I never forget a fellow's name of Chad Smith. He
was the leader of the, some of the dissidents and they, they build a
little camp in front of the administration building and slept there for
several weeks and they took over a portion of the old main and took their
OTC blocked that entrance and all that. So we had very, very slight
demonstrations compared with some of them were actually bloody and many
other universities. But we had them, they were there and there's always
kids who want to go out and march no matter, someone didn't know what they
were, were marching for at that particular time. But it was fun to go down
Mill Avenue and have a big march against something.
Yeah. In your position. And with the publications you didn't really, did
you still work with the student paper and things like that. No, I had
nothing to do with that. Uh, along the last I, I started doing more and
more work in public relations. We put together a couple of films and I
would take them around and show them around the States,
make talks, that sort of thing. So, more and more of that work, uh, went
to other people and I was, I was, I guess the first director of
Development.
Uh but that was a sort of a trial basis and I didn't, I didn't last very
long with that.
That's a very tal uh specialized field. And I've never had any experience
in it and we soon saw that this wasn't for me. So I got out of that. When
was that?
Oh, Durham did that. So that had to be in the late sixties.
So, when did Durham, how long was Durham here from 60 to 69? And why did
he leave? He got an appointment as the Chancellor of Higher Education for
the State of Utah, which made him the boss of all the universities, all
the state universities. And he was uh rather unhappy at that time anyway,
he, he'd been trying to start a West Valley campus long before. As U West
was ever thought of it was a Goodyear company had uh offered land in uh
Litchfield Park. And we were, we went so far as to list it in the catalog
one year with the Dean, Richard Landini as the dean. That's a collector's
item now because it never was such a thing. But, uh, the legislature
wouldn't, wouldn't buy it. And this is one place where, where Durham fell
down. He, he tried to lecture to the legislature and they didn't care for
that a bit. He told somebody one time you got to play the legislature like
a fine violin. He said that word got back to some of the legislative
leaders.
That seems kind of strange that you list a whole university section in a
dean that didn't exist in the catalog. How did that happen? I didn't list
the whole se we just listed the officers of the, of the university. And
that was, that was far as it got.
It was what, 1012 years later before Su West was born.
Um Well, tell me a little bit more about how your career progressed. So
you took a little detour to be the head of development, then you came back
or that I continue to work with publications during that time. And, uh and
later on when I guess the last two years of, of my tenure here, I worked
uh what they call it, director of, of community relations. That that was
the term we used and I was attending all the council meetings and the club
meetings and getting everybody to work with the university. There's always
a sort of a friction between town and g as you're probably aware and, uh,
I was supposed to help smooth that over a little bit. I enjoyed that part
of it and still doing other things at the same time. I don't think I ever
had a period when I wasn't in two jobs upon time around here.
So, you stayed ahead of publications then? Was that, what was your title,
I guess? Well, they, they broke it up about that time and I was, I was
sort of up in the air for that period of time. I was, I was helping down
there with the, uh, split it up and it wasn't the kind of organization we
had had before. It was kind of an unhappy time for all of us. You remember
how June was there? Tell me a little bit about how it, how it changed and
grew from the time you came and took it over when Baby Gage hired you.
Well, at first we about all we, we worked with the catalog, we always with
the catalog that was always the big one and uh annual directory, which has
got to be quite a phone book now.
And we did, uh, did publications for each of the colleges. We, uh we did
that sort of thing when we started then when we graduated in tomorrow,
sophisticated things we were doing during journals for the uh the Meteoric
Society which was on campus and for various other scientific and uh
esoteric operations that, that had their own journals, their own, their
own publications. It was quite an education. I learned a lot about a lot
of things that way and I learned to know most of the people that were in
charge of things, which was important. I talk to people now who were at
the university at that time. They, they knew hardly anybody outside their
own department
and I guess this is, is rather a common thing in universities. Uh, but I
got to work with the dean of this and the director of that and the vice
president of the other and I enjoyed that part of it.
I might add one thing. I, I think it was very big for me. I was with the
Air Force, obviously, I was head of the Air Force Academy program in
Arizona. We had 15 officers involved calling on high schools and working
with congressmen and parents and all that. And that was a huge job for
about 1617 years. I was carrying that on while I was doing all this other
stuff. So that was sort of a part time job or, well, there was no money
involved. It was a reserve activity, but the money came later. Uh once you
got your 20 years in and you were qualified for uh for retirement pay,
which I, I've been collecting for a number of years. So we knew that was
in the, in the future. Sometimes we live long enough. But uh at that time
, there was no money involved.
So, what made you stay in the Air Force Reserve all those years? Well, one
thing I got that assignment was the Academy, which was fascinating. We got
to go up there once or twice every year and, uh, I still go up there for
annual conferences. And, uh, they were just, just building the Academy at
that time. Where was that Colorado Springs?
So, I was really in on the ground floor of that operation
and then I was doing a lot of writing as June knows, that's what I started
doing the books that I have done since. And I wonder sometimes how I was
able to fit all those things in. I can't do that now,
don't have the energy. Why don't you tell me a little bit about some of
the writing that you've done?
Well, I've,
I've been involved, I guess you'd say in 20 books on Arizona history and
biography. 16 of them, I think I've done myself and the other four were an
editorial capacity or co-author or something of the sort. But, uh, that's
been the most interesting part of, I still do that. Uh, I, I didn't, I was
, I guess called the unofficial historian of a SU I've, I've written most
of the books and articles have been done about a SU history. I've done two
books on the Goldwater family and one on the Babbitt family and, uh on
some of the other several of the big ranching families in the state. I did
the Sun Devils, which is the history of U football. Uh
So these things, each book usually took about two years right now. We're,
we're completing the history of the SU foundation
and that's been in the mail for a long time. Did you do something with
John Rhodes? I did a book with John Rhodes.
I used to produce books and company. We had John Rose on, I remember you
saying that we shouldn't interview you, we should interview you got the
John is still
a good friend. We get together quite often.
Um Well, tell me about some of your favorite books. How did you pick your
topic? So how did you decide what to write up? Well, like the football
book, of course, was easy because I'd always, I'd covered football for so
many years and
most of it first hand the records were available for things that I did not
know. And uh with G uh I was asked to do that by the uh by the university.
Mrs Cambridge had and asked me to, to be the author. I want to do a book
on, on radio and that was a wonderful project. I found out more about him.
Did you know that he married his high school English teacher?
His first marriage was to was to her. And uh we have a dormitory named
after her
Dixie D's Gamage Hall where that name came from. Interestingly enough,
Brady Junior told me one time and he was walking with his mother down that
street after his father died and he saw that sign Dixie Gammage Hall and
he said, who was Dixie Gamy? I never mentioned that to him. And I guess
she finally explained at that time, but that was a closed door as far as
Grady was concerned.
How do you work when you write a book like that? Um, but, well, with
someone that's still alive, particularly, how do you go about doing that?
Interviewing mostly that person and everybody who is close to him to get
as many views as you can. The computer has been an awfully big help. You
can access all kinds of things that you couldn't do before and uh store
material
interestingly because I swear I'd never use the darn thing. I was, I'd use
a typewriter for about 2 million words. I figured on time on the
typewriter. I've probably got that money on the computer now. But, uh, you
get to find out things. Well, governors and senators, congressmen
that they wouldn't talk about to anybody else, which is kind of fun.
Personal material.
Nobody else would have reason to ask about.
Had some of those things,
the Rhodes book, for example. And, uh,
and I have a book to go Water book. So, when New York on the Goldwater
book, did you spend a lot of time with Barry Goldwater? Quite a bit. Uh I
spent probably more time with his family than I did with him. He was not
that accessible.
This was just before he ran for president that I did the first one and
then later on,
uh there's one on the family, the, the Waters of Arizona, which is,
has been used quite a bit around the state out of print now, unfortunately
, but that's a pretty good book.
You wrote a book about him before he ran for president. It wouldn't seem
like he would have been particularly worth writing a book about at that
point. Well, this was because uh we read, um who was it, one of the big
publishers in New York, uh saw that this was a comer and they wanted to,
wanted to get a book out on the stands about a paperback before anybody
else did.
So, a young fellow named Rob Rob Wood and I, he was in charge of the, uh
he was a political editor for, for a P and Phoenix. So we did it together
and put together in about four months. A pretty sloppy job. But uh it was
the first book that came out on Goldwater since then. There's probably
been 30. Do you read them all? I read most of them. Very interesting. Man.
Did your early book have things though that, I mean, that was a whole
different part of his life before he got so well known. Is, was it more in
depth about his early life then, or how would you describe it? There was
so much interest in him then because he was,
he was trying to make conservatism uh viable again. And, uh was quite an
army was, was forming behind him. You might say up to that time to say you
were conservative was practically to say you were an old, old fashioned
footy day. But he was such a striking figure and so talented in so many
areas. You know, he was a, he, he's a member of the, the Royal
British Photographic Society. I think that's the name. He's a leading ham
radio operator in the world Royal Photographic. Is that what it was uh uh
has books. Uh
the book, The Conscience of Conservatives sold over 4 million copies and
certainly he didn't write much of it, but it was his ideas.
I've written probably seven or 84 words for books that have his name on
them. He asked me to do it. I took over the operation of his Arizona
Historical foundation after I retired and did that for several years. He
had started that with uh with Burt F over at, at the headquarters in our
library, a very fine collection of, of Arizona materials over there which
Barry had started. So between those two things I did get fairly well
acquainted with them, never as much as I wanted to. But uh I flew with him
a couple of times and did things with him.
What about the Babbitts? You said you wrote a book on, I probably get to
know them better than I did the Gold Waters. At one time I knew every
living Babbit.
There were five brothers who had come out here in 1886 from Cincinnati and
started the Ranch of Co Bar and they branched out into a situation where
they, they owned almost all the major businesses in Northern Arizona at
one time, it was kind of fascinating the way they did that.
So the five brothers were all dead by the time I started doing it, but
their, their sons and daughters were still
very big in the field and I did get very well acquainted with them.
I remember in that book, I said something about George Babbitt who was,
who wanted to run for governor, but he, he never made it. And I, I said,
but someday I may sit in the governor's chair and later Bruce came up to
me and says, you did, you got it right.
That was kind of fun.
We were speaking of the, of the book on the Getz family and, and the Hall
of Flame, which
George Gates brought us a collection of antique fire engines and equipment.
Some going back into the 17 hundreds, but they were living in Chicago and
they were quite big wheels. He was the admiral of the yachting club and uh
they were big people and, um, he had said one time he, he passed an old
fire engine, it was on display somewhere. He'd always wanted to have
something like that. So his wife bought him one for Christmas and he drove
all around North Chicago and that fire engine that day and that started,
then he started looking into, to collecting others. He was doing it until
he died. Mhm. Now, how did you get hooked up to people to do these books?
I never did apply. I was always asked incidentally, I did run on, on
Elliott Roosevelt.
He had heard that I did this kind of thing, you know, he died in
Scottsdale.
He came to Scottsdale to die. I guess you'd say he had lived in Phoenix
earlier. He was one of the, uh, of FDR sons looked and sounded like him.
It was uncanny when I first met him. I said, God,
there were five of these kids and they all waited all over
£20 when they were born and they all grew to be 6 ft or more even an of
the daughter.
But he was fascinating. He, he was one that had five wives, you know, and
, uh, I was kind of leery about working with the man, but I got to where I
really enjoyed it. Elliott. Well, it's gotta be fascinating. He had five w
five wives. It was interesting life, all different ones.
Now, the case of that book was that he was a man who was burdened by his
name. You might say he always tried to make it. But everybody said, oh,
well, you, you get everything handed to you because you're a Roosevelt,
you know, and uh he tried to escape that and never did really make it. In
fact, he died broke. Really?
I enjoyed it. Um What, what, which of the other books that you've done? Do
you are the most memorable for you?
Well, I enjoyed the book on the Babbitts as I mentioned. And uh the one on
, on Grady Cambage I thought was not handled very well. I think it's, it's
a book that, that should be read. It's not just about him, it's about his
, his 27 years here, you know, and uh for anybody who is interested in
issue history, it really covers that quite well. Did you ever read that?
We titled it? In fact, I guess
Ju Is Man of Vision, wasn't it? Pretty GJU Is Man of Vision?
Now, did you do some of those books as part of your job at A U or were
those separate? They were all separate? Even the G book that was after I
retired?
So, how long did you work at A U? When did you retire? I retired at the
end of 1983.
So it's been quite a while. It doesn't sound like you very much. And June
organized a farewell retirement party for me. Bless her heart. I still
have the video that you did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, tell me about the
department that you sort of started and established. Um, were there people
that worked in that department that were notable? Well, by far the most
notable I suppose was Larry Tusi, who became one of the best known
wildlife artists in America, still living over in Phoenix. But he's not
painting anymore. He got into writing. He's a fine writer too. And uh he
lost his son in Vietnam and that seemed to change his whole personality.
Oh, we were blessed to have him for a couple of years. The most memorable
thing about that I think was that he turned out some beautiful work on all
these publications, but he was there when the Gage Auditorium was
completed and we want to have a, a book to sell, told about the auditorium
and cost was no factor we could do one or two and that was one of and
we soon ran into a big problem. The Frank Lloyd Wright people had always
done their own and they, they looked like architecture books. They were,
were nice and all that, but they were not already in any way. And that was
what we wanted. And uh so I, I put my back up and Larry put his up and,
and uh there was at that time, the head, the head people of, of the
Frankly Wright Foundation were over in Europe on some sort of tour and
they kept the cables hot for a while. But what are we gonna do about this
? These, these
schools down here want to do their own book instead of letting the pros do
it? Well, we had one of the pros and Larry Tasik. Fortunately. And uh he
designed a magnificent book. I don't know if there are still reprinting
that or not, are they? No, they're not, still reprinting it. In fact, I
think I've got two puppies at home that I'm hanging with you better. You
better.
So, was that book done? You're the,
the year the auditorium was finished. It was 65.
Yeah, the term was completed in 64. At the end I worked on that. So I know
it was probably after it was more like 65 that we, that's it. The most
interesting thing about it was after it was done, the Frank Lloyd Wright
Foundation ordered about 50 copies.
I, so that was quite a compliment for you.
Any other particular stories like that of publications that you did?
Well, we did a book sort of on my own. Call it Men to match our building.
Do you remember that one?
I often wondered about the names of some of the buildings I wasn't aware
of Irish Hall. Think they're named after Irishman. They're named after
Frederick Irish.
I was here 50 some years. Uh, that was Matthew's Hall and uh he was a
former president. So I spent some time researching that and we put those
together with a little story about each one, the building and the person
and, uh, I still have one copy of that left.
Um,
why don't you tell me about how you came to hire June?
That's a good question. I had known her work for a long time and, uh, she
was working for, she was selling whiskey, weren't she? Or beer or
something? I was at the Republic when you actually hired me. Oh, is that
right? Yeah. And she worked for the beverage journal and, uh, and it's a
Republican. So I asked you to come over. It's quite a nice thing to work
on a campus. Really. When you've been working in industry or, and that
sort of thing. A campus is a very nice place to work. You meet a lot of
interesting people. You go to lunch with experts in 100 fields. And
so I think you were attracted by that where you're not June.
And, um, she, she was with me all the way.
Our first art director Bruce Benson contracted some rare disease and died
after about two years. That's when Larry came on,
Bruce was a great guy. I, I loved him but I didn't get to know you. Mhm.
He had a great sense of humor. Larry and Jim Flanagan and two or three
others.
When you look back over your, your long career at a, at a suw, what is it
that, that you're proudest of,
I guess, sort of being there at the, at the beginning
when I came over, they had the old quad and, uh,
they had the industrial arts building
where we had to, the publication headquarters, we had Matthews Hall and,
and Matthews library was fairly new and they just built Irish Hall and, uh
, a few of those buildings around that was it, that was all the, all the
bedrooms there were. So I, I personally have gotten to be in on, on
watching almost the whole campus built. And knowing the, uh, the first
Danes we did, uh, a book on the, on the founding deans one time, didn't we
?
And there's still a couple of them live.
Let's see, I deemed of, no, he's dead. Well, Dean mcgrath is alive. He's
over at Friendship Village.
Uh Hardway. She's alive. That's right. And the father of the father of the
Rio Sla Jim, Jim Elmore.
01 thing II, I should mention it was my pleasure to get to know almost
every football coach in the history, including the first one who was coach
in 1896.
And of course, I wasn't here then. That was Frederick Irish and he was
alive when I came here as a freshman. And, uh,
Matthews who had been president for 30 years was still alive. They both
died in 1941.
So I didn't get to know them well, but I didn't get to know them and it
was. And then of course, I knew all the others after, after 40 um you
probably never heard of Dixie Howell. He was Heisman mister football
player of the year in 1935. He, he was our coach who brought us our first
prominence early in football, went to the Sun Bowl two years in a row, 19
39 and 40. And uh
so all those we've had, of course, Frank Kush and Dan Devine and
I never heard in football Hall of Fame, those fellows are all in the Hall
of Fame. So we've had a lot of interesting characters pass our way.
Interesting that you got to know them all and all of the, um, the college
presidents too.
What kind of difference does a college president make when it changes? We
just got a new president. How do you, have you seen the university change
with the different presidents? It makes a huge difference. Uh And we were
all holding our breath about what changes the new one. Doctor Crow is
going to make. He is so different from lady. Lady was the ultimate public
relations expert. Everybody loved lady. And he did a great job. He was one
of our very finest presidents. Crow is a little more abrasive. He is a
workaholic, he expects everybody else to be a workaholic. He's a driver
and there's people that are just wondering whether they're gonna be able
to keep up with his pace, but I think he'll do great things here if he's
allowed to do it,
one president will, will emphasize research other than teaching.
Of course, we all talk about the, they're all equal. But uh each one of
them has his own ideas and I think Crowe is going to be a research
oriented president. That seems to be the big thing these days. How have
you seen that change from? You started it with a teacher's college and now
they're talking about it as a research college. How, what is the
difference? Amazing changes. Uh Our friends in the South like to refer to
us as the normal school.
You maybe I'm kind of proud of that. We started as a in, we're, we're five
years older than they are. Did you know that
the normal school started in 1886 and the U of A didn't start until 1891.
So we got a five year jump on them. But uh
I got to watch it go from a teacher training institution primarily into
all the various stages of branching out into other things to a research,
one university as it is. Now,
would you ever think that you would see that?
Can you imagine us playing Notre Dame in Nebraska and football, for
example?
Can you imagine us uh I was more uh scholars of what do they call the kids
to get the uh national merit? We have had more national merit scholars the
last three years than the other two Arizona Universities combined. That
would have been far beyond anybody's belief before, you know. But, uh, we
have gone so far, so fast.
I hope the budget cuts don't slow it completely down.
Do you see the story this morning about? Have you let people go?
That's one thing you had, you had job security here through all that time
. I was there. Nobody got fired
but they are. Now,
what is your memory of, of the, the best day that you had at, at a su
probably as a student.
I'll talk about that a little bit.
The big thing here was the Wednesday night dances. Do you remember those?
I think I was a little bit later. That was a big social event every
Wednesday night in the Moore building, which was the women's gym at that
time. They lasted from 7 to 8. The freshman girls had to be back in the
dorm by eight o'clock on weekdays. Talk about a local parata. So we had it
,
we took care of our girls to keep them out of trouble. They had one late
night, a semester that all they had where they could stay out, I guess the
whole weekend. But, uh,
as I mentioned, I think there were two cars on the campus at that time and
one sport coat. I think
you go down to the Varsity and you could buy a Coke for your girlfriend
for a nickel. Watch somebody else play the record machine.
We blissfully went along. Didn't know how poor we were.
Those were good days. You'd be rich in a lot of ways. What to you was like
the worst day that you remember at the university.
Well, certainly the simmering scandal was one of the things that kept me
awake.
It looked like everything they built for so many years was going to
collapse. And, and then of course, the crash incident in which he was
fired summarily on the afternoon before the Washington game. And that's
cost us dearly in many, many ways, it cut to giving to the university
severely. A lot of people who were, who worshiped Frank Kush just shut
their pocketbooks after that happened and it took a year or two to get
over it. So those were two of the things that I remember. It is not very
pleasant.
Incidentally, my book on the Sun Devils came out the week Frank Kush was
fired, talk about timing.
Oh, did that hurt the sales or help them?
Fred Miller wanted to stop sales of Fred Miller was the director of
athletics and, uh,
because there was stuff in there about Kush his program and all that, but
we went ahead and sold it anyway through the alumni office.
Let's see, what do you see as, as the sort of legacy that you leave to
people at a su
Well, if, if I could do anything for my Alma mater, Rama. Leave an
institutional memory, I guess you'd say because too often you have, have
people who don't know anything that happened before yesterday or care.
Really. We find the Doyle and I incidentally are starting a class
this semester, um, called a su or Alma Mater in which we're gonna cover
these things and in none of the classes filled up, they're not taking any
more applicants or any more enrollees. So we're going to use the pictures
and we're going to bring in some of the people who were part of the
history of the institution and, uh, do a little lecturing and have a good
time doing it. I think it sounds like fun. Is that a credit class or 11
credit, one hour a week? And that's, that's going to be offered this fall
?
Interesting. What about off campus? What do you see as the legacy that you
leave in Arizona State off campus and all the other books and things
you've done?
Oh, I've, I've tried to further the knowledge about Arizona history and,
uh, I had to do a lot of research on that along the way. I met a lot of
the people who did, who made history along the way. Polly Rosenbaum being
one of them. You see the big story about her last week. A great old gal to
get to talk to people who were senators and legislative leaders and all
that has been one of the most interesting things that I've had to do and I
think, maybe help to introduce people
to their state and how it got the way it is.
And yet you majored in business. I majored in business and never, never
used it and didn't major in history or no, I didn't major in history
either. But, uh,
no, I think that that's probably if I've done anything for the state that
would be it three or four years with the Arizona Historical Foundation, we
tried to, to collect as much material as we could and
some riding in that area too. So I've already been doing that for the last
30 years, probably at the cost of my regular job.
What advice do you have for, for young people today that are just starting
out in their careers and deciding what to do with their lives?
I think one of the wisest things I've heard was
industrial president, spoke to one of the groups here years ago and he
said your first job is so important,
your salary means nothing. Pick a job that will help you learn something.
Don't take a job that pays twice as much as a dead end or whatever. But,
uh, I did that at, in college. My, my jobs are always in journalism
so I've tried to follow that advice all the way through
to get out of school. It's a big old world out there now. You're, you're
probably lucky to get a job at all. It's, it's, it's pretty tough job
market, but if you have a choice it's much better to, to pick one that,
that leads somewhere, even though the salary may be minimal. I think
that's very good advice.
Do you need anything else you wanted to ask? Well, I can't think of
anything else right now. I didn't know whether you wanted to talk about
your family or anything. Did you wanna say? I haven't really talked much
about that. So, who's a doctor? Did you think is very interested in that?
Well, most of the people have mentioned where they met their wives or
something like that. Oh, I met my wife and in 1942
I can't exactly remember. And she's kind of angry about that, but I think
it was at one of the Wednesday night dances.
We, uh, went together, uh, for almost a year before I was called into the
service and, but we both married other people and got together 25 years
later with four Children each and we've been able to tell those families
together pretty well. My kids all love Jean and she's a,
she's their mother really because their mother had some mental problems,
make it difficult for them. But Jean has been very special to her. I have
three daughters. Uh, Cathy, the oldest is uh as an RN. She's also as a
masters in history. I was working on her doctorate for a while until she
decided to go into some other things. Karen. The next one was a teacher at
NASA high school for a number of years.
Clark. The third is a psychiatrist in San Diego
and the youngest Kelly works for Bank of America and the
tracing down fraud division.
She, she doesn't even talk about that much. I'd like to find out more of
what she does there. But, uh,
we always talk about other things, I guess, interesting today with
computers and identity fraud. And so none of them followed in your
footsteps and in journalism.
No, not really. Uh two or three of them are very talented writers. Uh
Cathy in particular, uh Kelly is a natural artist but she wants to be a
writer and so she, she doesn't do either one of them really very much. But
uh I've started something in the family wondering uh on their birthdays
instead of sending them a check or credit slip or something like that. I'm
sitting down with them and interviewing them about their childhood and
then I'm going to summarize what they've said and, and give it to him as a
little package for, for their Children because the kids always wanna know
what was it like when you were a young mama? And that'll be priceless, you
know. So I think it was, it was a good idea. And what about interviewing
you? Are they interviewing you?
The library did a book on me?
Which is in the stack somewhere.
Jan, who wrote it? Uh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I remember, I heard about
it but I haven't read it. It was not widely read. Shall we say it? Never
made the, you didn't,
did you read it? Never made the New York Times list? Yes, I did. Yes, I
did.
Yeah, I think I've covered most of the things that I had to ask. I think
you have anything else that, uh, you wanted to bring up?
Oh, you, you could talk for hours. I find when I'm interviewing people on
, on books, you know, you think you've covered everything and then you,
you go back and I didn't even talk about this and I should have and
they'll come up with something, uh, when you just sit down for an hour or
two, you don't, you just go ahead at all. Right. No, you kind of just skim
over the surface of a lot of it. There's a lot of areas you could go back
and talk in detail. But I think for our purposes here we've probably got
what we need
a very interesting career and I appreciate you asking me to do this. Thank
you.