From Mississippi Airwaves to Michigan Management: Bruce Rainey's Journey

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon.
Today is Wednesday, april the9th 2025.
We're here with Bozella BruceRainey, who served the United
States Air Force.
So good afternoon, bruce.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's great to have you here.
So we'll just start out realsimple this afternoon.
And that is when and where wereyou born.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I was born on March 5th 1943 in Clarksdale,
mississippi.
It's a city in Oklahoma County,about 75 miles or so south of
Memphis.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay, you lived in Mississippi most of your life
then.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
No, actually left in my late teens okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So did you stay like in the same area up until that
point?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
um.
Most of my time was spent inthe mississippi delta um until I
?
Uh joined the military okay,okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
All right, well, tell me a little bit about growing
up.
Did you have brothers andsisters?
What was it like being a kid inMississippi?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
No, I would have had one sister who was stillborn,
but I grew up as an only child.
Interestingly enough, I wasreared mostly by my grandparents
.
Okay.
And a step-grandfather who Idon't think could have been any

(01:34):
better of a grandfather had hebeen my natural grandfather.
He was my mother's stepfatherand I think she loved him about
as much as I did.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So he took really good care of you.
Yeah, there's something aboutgrandparents.
I know my grandparents raisedme for a few years.
There was a closeness there.
What are some of your bestmemories of them?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Probably my fondest memories are of my grandfather,
who was not quite asoverprotective as my grandmother
, who placed a lot ofrestrictions on who I should
play with and where I should goand when and so forth.
But my grandfather would takeme shopping with him, take me to

(02:25):
carnivals and circuses.
I remember being deathly afraidof clowns as a youngster.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
I still am.
A lot of people don't likeclowns.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
No, not at all, but he spent a lot of time with me.
He would sit me on his lap andtell me made-up stories.
Probably his favorite story wasone about a character he had
named the Iron man.
Okay, Iron man lived in sewers,oh oh boy, and he would only

(03:04):
come out at night and made aweird sound and it was sort of
like.
I don't know.
I can't remember any of thestories, but I suppose today
they probably wouldn't even makesense to an adult.
But for me I guess it was thefantasy of what he was talking
about.
I guess it was the fantasy ofwhat he was talking about.

(03:26):
So that's probably the thingsthat I can remember most about
him.
My grandmother was sooverprotective that she wouldn't
let me walk to school alone,and I recall probably I don't
know second grade.
Maybe she would always walk tomeet me and I would kind of

(03:50):
figure out which route she wastaking to walk and take a
different route so I could avoidher.
Oh no, Because I didn't want tobe teased by the other kids.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah.
Yeah, Did she figure it outpretty quick what you were doing
?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Sometimes, but there wasn't much she could do about
it, because if I was on adifferent route I would probably
pass her yeah, yeah so, yeah,it always seemed like a long way
, uh, to walk, and I remembergoing back many, many years
later and realizing that it wasonly a few blocks.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, it's like that whole thing when you go back to
your school.
You know, when you were a kideverything seemed so big, and
then you go back to your schooland everything's just not as big
as you thought it was.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, the school was just as I remembered it, but the
walk there was a housingproject.
Back in those days they wouldhave low-income housing but they

(04:59):
were in a community and it wasprobably about, I would say,
three blocks by five blocks, butit was sort of like we would
see a condominium communitytoday.
It was designed sort of likethat and they were mostly duplex
or triplex units spread outinto little neighborhoods, and

(05:23):
so I didn't realize it was onlyabout three blocks one way and
three blocks the other way, soabout six blocks total to get to
school.
But it seemed like a long wayto me when I was small, and so
that community was just on theother side of the street of the

(05:44):
school.
So that community was just onthe other side of the street of
the school.
I was originally baptizedMethodist but grew up Catholic.
My parents enrolled me in aCatholic school in the city of
Clarksdale, where mygrandparents lived, and so,
therefore, I spent most of myschool years with them.

(06:04):
Sometimes I spent most of myschool years with them.
Uh.
Sometimes I spent summers, uh.
Well, most of the time when Iwas smaller I spent summers with
my parents, um, but as I gotolder and uh began to uh be
enthralled by a swimming poolwhich was uh there in Clarksdale
.
Uh, I wanted to spend more timein the summer there so I could

(06:25):
hang out at the pool, which wasonly a block away.
There was a lot of history inthe town that I grew up in,
specifically around blues musicA lot of well-known musicians
have come from that general area, but perhaps more blues than

(06:47):
any other I should say blues andrhythm and blues than any other
genre of music.
A lot of famous personalitieshappen to be around there.
Even today, uh has a a businessestablishment there in

(07:08):
clarksdale, mississippi oh, okayit's called ground zero and uh,
I guess this past year therewas a pretty large new year
celebration in there.
Uh and uh, I guess some of itwas.
I don't know if it was actuallytelecast, but someone sent me a

(07:31):
video shot of some of thehappenings.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, it's kind of cool when things happen in your
hometown like that.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah Well, folks, probably some of the better
known folks were Sam Cooke wasborn in that area.
Ike Turner when I was apreteener I used to listen to a
couple of disc jockeys, one ofwhom was Ike Turner, but a more

(08:00):
well-known one was Early Wright,who's, I think, now in the
Blues Hall of Fame.
But Ike Turner was on a localradio station called WKDL and
Early Wright was on WROX.
And of course Ike Turner wenton to make his fame in the

(08:24):
rhythm and blues area and earlyright.
Just I don't know how manyyears he spent on that radio
station, but it was kind ofunusual in those days to have a
minority broadcaster.
Yeah.
Even though it was the bluesright, yeah, even though it was

(08:45):
the blues right Like yeah, uh,even though it was blues, he, he
, uh, he didn't limit his music,uh, necessarily to blues, but
there was some rock, but rockwas just beginning to to find
its own at that point in time.
Um, you know, folks like ElvisPresley and Pat Boone who did a

(09:11):
lot of the early blues covers,right, but you know, so I think,
at some point a little bit ofcrossover, but mostly blues,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Well, and was that?
I mean, was that inspirationalto some of the kids in the
neighborhood to to see aminority on the radio when
that's just wasn't the norm?

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I.
I don't know if his being onthe radio was necessarily an
inspiration.
He was somewhat illiterate,didn't matter but he commanded
quite a listening audience and Idon't know what his level of

(09:56):
education was, but he kind ofspoke in a vernacular that some
people could understand and sothere was that kind of an
identity.
But I'm not sure A lot ofyoungsters aspired to follow him
.
There were a lot of.
As I grew up, a lot ofyoungsters aspired for careers

(10:18):
in sports, medical field, thelegal field.
There weren't a lot of.
Well, there were just beginningto be more opportunities
available for people of color tolook into the medical field or

(10:40):
become an attorney.
As I grew up, most of theprofessionals were teachers,
morticians, barbers, maybe a fewcontractors or construction
higher-level construction people.
But as I was growing up I wasable to see people form their

(11:03):
own businesses and do thingsother than the traditional
professions in the minoritycommunities.
You know as I, as I went alongand I can recall that my my

(11:30):
chemistry professor in college,I believe, was the first black
person to receive a PhD inchemistry, Dr St Elmo Brady.
I'm not certain of that, butI'm pretty certain that he was
one of the early pioneers inchemistry from the black

(11:51):
community.
My parents lived in a communitycalled Mount Bayou, Mississippi,
which was at that timeessentially an all-black town,
Perhaps the largest in thenation, and it was formed by

(12:12):
former slaves of Jefferson Davis.
And the mayor of that town wasone of the early minority
graduates of Harvard Law Schooland he was the son of one of the
founders and right now I'd haveto look back at notes, but I

(12:39):
believe there were two BenjaminGreens and I can't remember
which middle name he was.
Okay, he was Benjamin Green Jr.
We'll leave it at that Soundsgood, and I knew him as a child.
It was quite a prosperouscommunity in its early days.

(13:00):
Over time it lost its statureand became a little bit more
integrated and that kind ofthing, but it still exists.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, it's still there.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
It's still there.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
So you talked about sports and other things like
that, so growing up and duringyour school.
So what was it like being inschool and did you play sports?
What were your interests inschool?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
I played basketball one season.
I wasn't much of a sports fan,never have been much of a sports
fan.
Later, after military, I didinvolve myself pretty deeply in

(13:45):
judo as a sport and I followedjudo for a number of years and I
even taught it at some point.
But you know I had kind ofdifferent interests, because I
was always I read comic booksand I was always fascinated by
Mandrake the Magician.

(14:05):
Okay, I don't know if you.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
I'm familiar with Mandrake the Magician.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
yes, you know, for comedy was Dagwood and that kind
of thing, but for challenges Iwas always.
You know you live in kind of adream world as a child.
Yeah.
And it's sometimes difficult toseparate reality from, you know

(14:38):
, from fantasy right yeah,fantasy yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Fantasy right yeah, fantasy yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
And Mandrake would put people in trances and do all
these magical kinds of things.
And so I developed an earlyinterest in magic, pretty
quickly realized I didn't quitehave the dexterity and memory to

(15:03):
be a very good magician and Iwas always fascinated by the
idea of hypnosis.
And as I grew up, the librarywas one block well, two blocks
away, one block south and oneblock I don't remember now it

(15:28):
was east or west, I believe itwas west of where I grew up.
I grew up at 660 McKinleyStreet, which was on the corner
of 7th Street, and our librarywas an extension of the library
on the other side of town.
Okay, didn't have a lot of books, and if we wanted certain books

(15:52):
we would have to request themand then they could be brought
from the other library.
But we sometimes weren't ableto get some of those books.
I think to some extent theymight have been censoring topics
and subjects, yeah, as to whatwe were allowed to read.

(16:13):
So I was not able to find a lotof books on hypnosis, a few
books on magic, and so I wouldread books on hypnosis and magic
and um, that was one of, youknow, kind of a fantasy thing.
Um, that I, you know if onecould be said to have had a

(16:34):
bucket list at that age yeahthose were things I said one of
these days.
One of these days I'm going tolearn how to do that.
And so there were a lot, lot ofthings that kind of tweaked my
interest electronics andphotography and, fortunately, my

(16:56):
godfather, who was half Chinese, which was another unusual
thing in our community and liveda block away, um, who kind of
became a, uh, surrogate fatherfigure for me because he, he

(17:18):
involved me in things that mygrandfather didn't.
My grandfather was kind of astay at home guy, um, but he
would spend a lot of time withme doing things Right, but my
godfather was I always refer tohim as Mr BT, which is everybody
called him BT- yeah.

(17:41):
And, excuse me, believe it ornot, I didn't find out what his
initial stood for until hisdeath, really.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
When I saw his obituary.
So what did they stand for?

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I'd have to look at my notes.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
But I do have that.
I can't recall the name now,but I always thought it was kind
of an odd name, uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Which is probably why they called him BT.
Right yeah, an odd name.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Which is probably why they called him BT, right, yeah
, his son Daryl.
He would spend a lot of timewith me.
Daryl eventually became well totake a step back.
His father and he workedtogether in an interior

(18:24):
decorating and carpentrybusiness that Mr BT owned, and
Darrell later became aself-taught engineer Because
there weren't too many places hecould go to school.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I remember him having this book about four or
five inches thick that he taughthimself from I can't recall the
title of it and he worked forcompanies like Delco and RCA
moved away to Kokomo, indiana,which is essentially where he
passed away.
I'm still in touch with hiswife.

(19:02):
They divorced some years later,um but um.
I remember the first time Iever had chili was with his wife
and I've liked chili, yeah, andshe's still alive and I still

(19:23):
communicate with her.
She's almost blind now.
She's pretty much almostcompletely blind, but Daryl
taught me a lot aboutphotography and a lot of basic
electronics.
I'd spend time with him.
He had a workshop at the rearof his house and they lived in a

(19:49):
very small house and I recallhim building an enlarger from an
old Bellows camera.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I can picture that.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And so he was able to control the aperture and
exposure settings for hisenlarger, and someplace I
probably still have somepictures that we did.
The last, I think the lastbirthday party that I can recall

(20:26):
was my 12th birthday party andhe did pictures of that, and
I've taken to writing about someof my experiences along the way
and some of those pictures areactually in the the document
that I've been putting together.
But yeah, so that those weresome of my desires, you know, to

(20:53):
to learn Um, and as a result ofthat I later did become a
professional photographer ontheed, a studio for a brief
period of time, primarilyportraits.
I did school pictures for atthat time the largest school

(21:14):
picture firm in the country,which was School Pictures,
Incorporated out of JacksonMississippi, Pardon me, and in
the interim ran a studio where Ihad taught some high school
students to fill in for me whenI wasn't there, and I did proms

(21:36):
and senior portraits and taughtmyself to hand color photographs
with transparent oils.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
So some people don't realize this, but it used to be
like all you had was black andwhite and you could get it
colorized.
I remember my grandparents hadportraits done and they had them
colorized, and that's an artand a science, is it not?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, typically you take a black and white
photograph and use a sepia tonepaper, so when it was printed it
would have a brown tone whichwould give warmth for coloring.
And you'd use transparent oils,probably some 200 different

(22:30):
shades of colors, um, and youwould uh then start to tint
essentially the picture and youkind of start off with shadows
and things like that and buildit up.
You'd use a lot of Q-tips, woolfleece to smooth out the tones

(23:03):
and over time you'd learn how toblend all those tones to get an
appropriate flesh tone and thatkind of thing.
And then people started tobrush backgrounds in to give it
more on a canvas paper insteadof the regular semi-matte, or it

(23:28):
would always be a matte orsemi-matte paper because the
glossies wouldn't hold the color.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Right, they'd just come right off, wouldn't they?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Right.
Eventually some artists startto actually take those and blend
brush strokes onto thephotograph to give it more of a
formal hand-painted portrait.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, like it was a painting that way.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yep, but most of them that I was around were people
who had more artistic talentthan I did with brush-in
backgrounds.
I tried it a few times, but youneed to know a little bit about
art.
The company that I worked with,school Pictures Incorporated,
also had a portrait studioHoward Pippin Studios and I've

(24:16):
unfortunately not been able tofind much information about
either of those on our greatinternet today, because I don't
remember an awful lot anymore.
There were two of us, asminorities, that worked for the
company.
The other was a school teacherwho taught art, and he worked

(24:37):
when we were not on the road.
He worked in the studiopainting.
Okay.
He did both types and of course,these would be like 16 by 20s,
20 by 24s, like what you have onthe wall over there.
Yeah, the big pictures yeah,people, it was a pretty high-end

(25:00):
studio.
I worked in the darkroomprocessing prints and film,
because they also ran acommercial film development
operation.
I mean all aspects ofphotography.
So there were the two of usthere.
I had some interestingexperiences with that because

(25:24):
when we were on the road therewere very few places that I
could stay.
Even though I had an expenseaccount, I couldn't use it that
often.
But that expense account kindof saved me quite a bit because
we got per diem and so I'darrive at a school and the first
thing I'd talk to the principaland say, you know, do you know

(25:47):
of anybody who takes borders?
And so they'd get me a nightand a meal and they would charge
$7, $10 a night or whatever.
Not much, and I don't rememberwhat I got for per diem, but I
made money off of it.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
That's the beauty of per diem, if you use it the
right way, right.
So I want to, I want to, I wantto hold that thought, I want to
back up a little bit, though,so before we get too far ahead
of ourselves.
Um, I do want to talk about soyou, you, you did you graduate
from high school then?

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I never graduated from high school.
When I was 11th grade I took anexam and that exam qualified me
to enter college and bypass the12th grade.
If I wanted to wow, my parentswent.
They were both professionalsand my father was at that time a

(26:47):
high school principal and mymother was an extension home
economist for the Department ofAgriculture, working with the
extension service, and so theyhad to always go away for
summers to do workshops andin-service training kinds of

(27:09):
things and so forth.
Right, they left the car withme.
I was 15 years old.
In Mississippi at that time youcould get a driver's license at
15.
So I had a driver's license.
They left the car with me.
I was with my grandparents andI got this letter that told me I
had passed this exam and, astypical youngsters want to get

(27:34):
away from home, my parents hadalways prompted me to save money
and I had quite a bit of moneyput aside and I took my money
and I went down to Jackson,mississippi, to Tougaloo College
at that time Tougaloo SouthernChristian College and enrolled

(27:59):
in college and started duringthe summer session.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
At 15?
.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
At 15.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
You know, I got to tell you that's pretty
impressive, because a lot of15-year-olds that I know would
take their money in that car andyou wouldn't see them again
until they were out of money andthe car was wrecked.
So that's wow.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
I.
It was too young, though Rightright, and having been overly
protected so much of my life, umleft me wanting to explore a
lot of things.
Um, and you know, for a 15 yearold, with there were there were

(28:41):
still a number of veterans whohad been in the Korean War, who
were going back to school.
So I'm with all these olderpeople and I went in the summer
where a lot of teachers werethere for in-service training
during the summer.
That wasn't so bad, because acouple of them knew my parents

(29:04):
and kind of kept me in line overthe summer.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
There's eyes everywhere, isn't there?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
And there was.
There was a, I remember, in inour, in our dormitory.
It was a small school had.
They had matrons, dorm mothersand that kind of thing, yeah, so

(29:34):
there weren't many of thosethere during the summer and so
there wasn't a lot of disciplineof the same type that was there
during the fall and springsessions.
In spring sessions so one ofthese ladies I had kind of
befriended and it was in thebasement of our dormitory, there
was like a kitchenette typeaffair with refrigerator and so

(29:55):
forth and she would make mealsand feed me.
Oh, nothing wrong with that,nothing wrong with that at all,
so I didn't have to spend a lotof my money at the cafeteria.
Yeah.
And back then you would buy,like a meal, a ticket, book and

(30:18):
the booklet had different valuesand it was cafeteria style so
you could go in and pick andchoose what you wanted and pull
out your tickets for whateveramount and pay for it values.
And it was cafeteria style soyou could go in and pick and
choose what you wanted and pullout your tickets for whatever
amount and pay for it.
I think they were like tendollars for a book.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
ten dollar book would last you about a week okay,
when you're out of tickets,you're out of food, right so, um
, but I can tell you, during myearly years we ate a lot of
pancakes and sardines.
Together.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
No, oh, I just want to make sure.
Because my mother had taught mehow to make a baking mix.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Oh, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
And we could make pancakes and we'd go to the
cafeteria and get those smallcontainers of milk and that's
all you needed, right?
Or you could even do it withwater, because some of them were
made with dry milk, so you justadd water to mixes.
And so we weren't allowed tohave hot plates, but we had a
double burner hot plate.
So we'd make pancakes and we'deat pancakes and occasionally,

(31:24):
if we could afford it, we'd getsome sausage, various types of
sausage, and we'd have pancakesand sausage.
When we were pretty low onmoney I think back then a can of
sardines was like 15 or 20cents or whatever We'd get
sardines and I won't tell youthe nickname for them.
It's not something we canprobably say for the public.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
All right, I'll just let my imagination figure out
where we're going and I won'ttell you the nickname for them.
It's not something we canprobably say for the public.
All right, I'll just let myimagination figure out where
we're going with that.
It's funny you say sardines,because I used to sit on the
porch and eat sardines with mygrandfather.
We'd have sardines and crackersand my mom hated it because
they just smelled so bad.
I still, to this day, I eat acan of sardines with no problem

(32:07):
at all.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh yeah, that was not , that was, excuse me, that was
a pretty popular meal, excuse me.
Canned sardines, canned porkand beans and what they called
lunch meats, which could bebologna, could be several other

(32:27):
types of luncheon meats.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Unidentifiable lunch meats and cheese.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, those were things that they could keep in a
lunch pail without themspoiling for a few hours, so
they would eat sardines andcrackers was a quick snack.
Yeah, it's good food.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Not going to lie.
They're healthy for you, theyare, they smell terrible.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
To this day.
I don't get the ones in oilanymore.
I get the ones packed in water,which don't smell quite as bad.
I wash them to get as much ofthe salt, because they're packed
in salt water Right Out.
Then I take them, I mixmayonnaise, pickle, relish, hot
sauce and chopped onions, I mixit up and I call it sardine

(33:15):
salad and I eat it on crackers.
It's good stuff and it's good.
Occasionally I put a littlemustard in it.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, you want to get on the wild side there.
Throw a little mustard on it.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Eat it on crackers.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, it's it.
You know, when I need a quicksnack and I'm not real hungry,
that's what I'll eat.
It's not bad for I don't thinkit's bad for you anyway.
So so you're in college, you're15, you're eating sardines,
you're eating pancakes.
Things are going pretty wellfor you, it's not.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
You got somebody cooking for you 15 yeah, um,
paid Paid for my first two.
Well, it would have beenequivalent to one regular
session.
So by the time regular sessionstarted, I had 12 hours.
So they called me an advancedfreshman.

(34:03):
Okay, so here I am.
I'm 15 years old, I got 12hours of college credit and I
did pretty well.
But then the regular sessionstarted.
The upperclassmen started tocome in, the girls started to
come in and there were all kindsof distractions.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
I could see that that's part of what college is
about, though.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yep.
And so my grades were startingto suffer and I decided, being I
was surrounded by a lot ofveterans, but being I was

(35:18):
surrounded by a lot of veterans,I decided that maybe I force um
.
And then OTS.
His name was Franklin Cerruti.
He's still alive.
There's some interesting thingsI'll get into a little bit
later about him, but at any rateI talked to him extensively

(35:43):
about what he was lookingforward to, and so that was like
October, November of, I believe, 1960.
And he went into the Air Force.

(36:04):
He went through basic, he wasin OTS and I had made up my mind
.
But then I was only 17 and youhad to be 18.
And so my mother was balking,not going to sign.
So, coming up to the end of thesemester, and I said to her I
says well, you know.
And so, coming up to the end ofthe semester, and I said to her

(36:27):
I says well, you know, if youdon't sign and you force me to
stay in school, I'll be 18 inMarch and I'll leave then.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
And you would have wasted your money, always
thinking.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
And that's some serious negotiation for a 17
year old kid.
And she finally consented inwhat I've been writing I think I
have a copy of the letter, youknow, acknowledging her consent
and so I went into.
And I went into basic trainingI believe it was in January,

(37:06):
late part of January 1961.
And had my 18th birthday inbasic training.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Did they throw a party?

Speaker 2 (37:18):
No, no cakes, none of that well, franklin cerruti,
which we always called him byhis last name, cerruti, was in
ots by this time now, that'sofficer training school.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Is that what that is?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
officer training school.
Okay, excuse me, get a littledry here.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Oh, you're fine so.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
So somehow, I guess through base locator or whatever
, he knew I was coming in, so hewas looking for me and he found
me and so, pardon me, I thinkit was about my third week in
basic, because I only spent fiveweeks third or third week in
basic.
Cause I only spent five weeksthird or fourth week in basic,

(38:08):
we got base Liberty and we couldgo to the service halls.
So we met, I went to theservice halls and so, being
aware of non they call it whenthey're not allowed to associate

(38:29):
, oh yeah, the separation of theranks, right yeah.
He wore civvies.
I had to wear my uniform causeI was still in basic.
Yeah.
We were not allowed to havecivvies and we met and we had a,
a few pops and I don't knowsandwich or whatever and talked
and so forth.
So I already got orders to goto Biloxi to Keesler Air Force

(38:55):
Base and a few weeks later I gotback.
Those days, if you were goinginto tech school, you spent five
weeks in basic and in techschool you finished your basic
of an additional three weeks,which was over extended because

(39:17):
you were only doing basic abouthalf a day.
Each day you were in schoolhalf day and then you did
training.
Okay.
Excuse me, so wouldn't you knowit, I get orders to go to
Keesler also.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Happy coincidence.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
And I didn't realize he was there.
One day some of the guys bythis time I had become like a
squad leader.
In basic training At Keeslerthey had a system called the
rope system, which was a redrope, yellow rope, white rope.

(39:53):
Red rope was a squad leader,yellow rope was a flight leader,
white rope was a squadronleader, if I remember correctly.
So it was red rope leader, if Iremember correctly.
So it was Red Rope, I think atthe time.
And some of my troops comerunning in and says hey, rainy,
rainy, there's an officer outthere in a Cadillac looking for
you.
Uh-oh, no idea who this is,what An officer.

(40:19):
He's parked on the curveoutside the barracks and I go
out and walk up and then look inthe car sheepishly and I said
so, rudy, what do I do?
Do I salute or what he says?
You damn well, better salute me, herman, right?
So I salute, of course, becausehe's in uniform right, yeah,
yeah.

(40:41):
And so we chat and it was kindof interesting because we
couldn't spend a lot of timetogether on base, but off base
we'd meet up and do stuff.
Yeah.
So he gets orders to go to Omaha, nebraska, off at Air Force

(41:02):
Base SAC Headquarters, strategicAir Command at the time.
A few weeks later I'm coming upfor graduation and by this time
I'm a yellow rope from a flightleader and, interestingly, if
you were a rope, you had prettyclose to NCO privileges.

(41:23):
We couldn't go to the NCO clubbut we could leave base, come
and go as we pleased, so forth.
Now did you have civilianclothes privileges at this point
too, oh, yeah, once we were Idon't remember how far into tech
school, maybe three weeks intotech school.
Okay, Once you gotindoctrinated, you could leave

(41:43):
the base, primarily during theweekend, because that check was
9 o'clock.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah Well, you were pretty busy during the week
anyway, weren't you?

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, although you know we lived in World War
II-style barracks upper andlower bays and I had bay chiefs
that I could rely on fairly well.
Most places in Mississippi backin those days closed around
midnight anyway.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, there wasn't a lot of trouble to get into.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
I could go out and maybe dance a little bit and
come back and be okay.
But Reveille was real early inthe morning because I had to get
my troops out, yeah.
But anyway, I got orders forGrand Forks, north Dakota.

(42:36):
I thought mm-mm don't want togo there.
It was like one or two weeksbefore graduation and we had one
more exam, so I flunked my exam.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Now, what were you going to school for?
I don't want to derail thistopic.
I just wonder what was yourspecialty?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
It was called SAGE, which stands for Semi-Automatic
Ground Environment.
It was the Air Force's first,maybe even the nation's first,
computerized radar system.
It was under NORAD NorthAmerican Air Defense Command and
it was a part of the earlywarning system for missile

(43:26):
attacks, things like that.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Early warning system for oh for, like missile attacks
, things like that.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Air attacks, missile attacks, whatever.
Yep.
Okay, and um, so I, uh, Ithought, well, some of the guys
had told me well, you know, ifyou flunk your, your, your test,
you'll get new orders.
So I said, any me, any, my, anymo.
I didn't know what I wanted todo, but I didn't want to go to

(43:51):
Grand Forks, North Dakota.
So I said, well, you know, Icould get worse.
I could get Thule, Greenvilleor Alaska, if I you know, if I
flunked, but anyway I did so.
It takes several weeks to getnew orders, but anyway I did.
So it takes several weeks toget new orders.
And so at that point I was dueto get the white belt.
It would have been short-livedanyway, Right, and I didn't get

(44:16):
the white belt or belt, thewhite rope.
I'm thinking judo now.
Yeah, Didn't get the white rope.
So they assigned me as barrackschief for the transient
barracks during the interim.
I had to keep things orderly.
It was right across from theorderly room.

(44:36):
But by this time you graduatedtech school, you got
semi-permanent party status,which means you're assigned
there until you get new orders.
Yeah.
Excuse me, so my new orders comein Omaha, nebraska.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Is that better than Grand Forks?
Oh, that was much better thanGrand Forks, all right.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
But remember, Cerruti was already in Omaha.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Oh yeah, yeah.
So is he pulling strings, or isthis just luck?
I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
In the meantime I eventually get done and end up
going to Omaha.
But we were not on the samefacility.
I was at the 789th RadarSquadron which was on the old,

(45:42):
actually on the old, actuallyoff.
It was not, it wasn't really inOmaha.
I was outside of Omaha, yeah,and where I was was in Omaha but
on the other side of town,probably about 20 to 30 miles

(46:04):
away, and we were like part ofthe primary air defense for
Offutt and that surrounding area.
We were part of the Sioux CityAir Defense Command at the time
and I was there a few weeksafter, maybe a few months after

(46:28):
he was there, and we of coursemet up again.
In the interim.
I had become married and it waskind of funny because we would
get into our civvies and hewould take me out to the
officer's club at Offutt.
It was kind of funny because wewould get into our civvies and
he would take me out to theofficer's club at Offutt.
Not many chances of anybodyknowing me out there.

(46:51):
Yeah, true, and I would havehim to the NCO club on our site.
We only had one service club onour little site which was an
NCO club, but everybody wentofficers, airmen, ncos.
Everybody had privileges to gothere.

(47:11):
It's just a different level ofmembership and, if I recall
right, I think we had to paylike $10 a month or something
like that.
But anyway, so we did that.
And then when my first child, mydaughter, was born, he and his
wife, jackie, became godparentsoh nice Of our first child.

(47:36):
And from that point I wentoverseas.
After two was I there two years.
Yeah, I went overseas and Ilost touch with him, didn't find
him again until many yearslater.
He and Jackie became divorcedand he remarried.

(48:00):
As far as I know, he's stillalive I spoke to him a few
months ago and his new wife, um,but um, the internet.
It's remarkable when you wantto find people.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, that's.
Uh, it's been a great help.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
That's definitely for sure, so, um, that was kind of,
uh, an interesting aspect to mymilitary career short career.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
How long were you in total, four years.
Okay.
So you did your time in Omahaand then how long were you
overseas?
A year.
Okay, when did you go overseas?

Speaker 2 (48:37):
I was in the Okinawan island Jane, on an island
called Miyakojima, which isabout roughly halfway between
Taipei, taiwan, and Naha,okinawa.
At the time it was supposed tobe remote service, but I recall
there were about 80,000 peopleon the island at the time and it

(48:58):
had one major city and a coupleof smaller villages.
The people there were justamazing.
I liked it so well until I wentback 52 years later.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Oh, had it changed much.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
I couldn't recognize it.
Yeah, the airport when I wasthere was just a strip with a
little shack where they wouldsell tickets and I don't
remember how often the flightswere, but they weren't very
often.
It was called Cat Airlines,which was actually run by the

(49:44):
CIA Civilian Air Terminal, Ithink was what it stood for,
C-A-T and there's quite a bit ofinformation on the Internet
about that whole situation.
But that was the commercialairline and when I went back

(50:05):
there was fairly good sizedairport yeah, legitimate airport
with planes and everything,probably about the size, maybe
half the size of lansing'sairport?
yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, uh, very nice littleairport.
Um, and I couldn't recognizewhere I was when I went back to

(50:26):
the site of our, our site radarsites, they were called.
The only thing that was left ofwhat was there when I was there
was the front gate shack stillhad its typhoon shutters on.
The Japanese defense forces hadbuilt an entire base around it,

(50:49):
but they left that in oneartifact.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
I have pictures of all that stuff too.
There's a lot more surroundingsome of the things I'm talking
about that I've been writingabout.
And I was still treated verywell when I was there.
I was only there for five days.
In five days I appeared intheir local newspaper twice the

(51:16):
Miyako Minichi.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Wow, celebrity too.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
I had saved business cards.
I had about five business cardsover the years and I wanted to
see if I could find any of thosepeople.
One of them that I had knowneventually became the mayor.
Most of them had passed away ormoved away and I wasn't able to
find any of them.
But during that process I wasable to find the wife of our

(51:45):
chief cook when I was there andhis son.
His son worked for a recyclingcompany there and his wife had
worked on the site as well.
I think she worked as ahousekeeper in the officer's
quarters.
I didn't know her, but I knewhis father was called Lucky.

(52:10):
I did know him.
I didn't see him very oftenbecause he was always back in
the kitchen, right, but I knewwho he was, knew who he was, and

(52:32):
so my host hostess when I wasthere um, I couldn't have found
a better.
She ran a bed and breakfast butshe was pretty well known and
she just took me anywhere,anywhere I wanted to go.
I had asked about renting a carand she said well, we can talk
about that when you get here.
So she had found some carrental pamphlets and stuff.

(52:54):
She gave me.
But then, after I was there thenext day.
She said don't worry about that.
She told me that she had talkedto the newspaper and they
wanted to interview me.
She says I'll make sure you getto wherever you want to go.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
That was nice.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
So it was like the very I think it was the second
day I was there the newspapereditor came and so he put this
big article in the paper aboutwhen I was there.
The newspaper editor came andso he put this big article in
the paper about when I was thereand a picture of me then and a
picture of me when I was there.
If you recognize this person,contact the newspaper.
Well, they had arranged for meto be at the newspaper offices

(53:41):
the day after, I think, thatarticle appeared and about five
people showed up.
None of them knew me, but theyknew of things that I might have
known about.
As an example, there was a firein the village just below the

(54:04):
site.
As an example, there was a firein the village just below the
site and we had a firedepartment at the site and they
responded and they were able toget an elderly woman out, but
she eventually died Becausetheir houses back then were
probably thatched.
Right, they burned prettyquickly.

(54:25):
Pretty quick, yeah, and one ofthe ladies was from that
community and recalled thatincident and she was there to
find out if I recalled it.
Yeah.
And I did so.
There were several other peoplewho were just interested.

(54:45):
Well, another irony surroundedthat trip.
At that time I was working forthe Department of Technology.
What's it?
Dtmb, technology Management andBudget.
Okay.
It's been a while now, so yeah,oh, that's fine.

(55:09):
I don't think back, but anyway,it was Veterans Day that year
and our department had askedveterans to write a synopsis of
their service and they publishedit on Veterans Day on the
intranet.
Ask veterans to write asynopsis of their service.
And they published it onVeterans Day on the intranet.

(55:34):
And almost immediately afterthe thing was published I got a
phone call from a young lady whosaid you know, all my life I've
never known anybody who knewabout this island that you said
you were stationed at Miyakojima.
She said my mother is fromthere.
Oh geez.
And I said I've been trying toplan a trip.

(55:54):
Maybe you can help me.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Right, right.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
And she was helpful and I met her mother and her
sister and her daughter and twosisters actually, and we met and
we talked, and so I was able toplan the trip.
Well, my wife is Filipino, sowe were going to go to the

(56:23):
Philippines and part of my tripwas going to be we would travel
separately on the trip there.
I would go a roundabout waythrough Miyako and meet her in
the Philippines and she wouldtravel directly to the
Philippines and spend some timea week with her folks first, and
then we'd travel back togetherand then we traveled back

(56:46):
together.
So that worked out and I gotthere and one of those people
who showed up was this younglady's aunt who lives there and
she lives in probably the nicesthouse on the island.
And then I come to find outthat my hostess I don't know.

(57:08):
I never quite understood whetherit was her father's company,
but at any rate, the companythat she had worked for was an
architectural company that haddesigned the aunt's house.
Oh so they knew each otherthat's a small.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Well, it's a small, small uh island, but that's a
small world right there.
That's funny and uh.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
So when, when we found the, the cook's wife and
son, they invited us to come outand he, the time we could go he
was at work, so we showed up athis workplace, which was only
maybe five minutes from where heand his mother lived, and so we

(57:57):
went there and we talked and wetook some pictures and so forth
and he said come on, come on,come on.
We followed him to his mother'shouse because she wanted to
meet me, and so she came out andshe had some I don't remember
what some goodies that sheoffered me.
And he ran into the house andhe came back out and he came out

(58:20):
with a military serving trayand spoon, the metal trays that
we used to eat on.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Oh yeah, I remember those yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
And a spoon from the base when his father was in
charge.
Apparently, when they closed itand gave it back to the
Japanese, they gave him a lot ofutensils and he gave it to me
and I have a picture of himpresenting that to me to bring
home, which I mean.
There were several incidentsthat kind of took me to tears

(58:49):
while I was there.
Yeah.
I couldn't believe the welcomeand the attention and everything
that you know and everythingthat you know, all of the

(59:12):
kindness that they showed me.
The night before I was to leave, they threw a party and there
were, I don't know, maybe 10people and there was a band
playing traditional instrumentsand they played the national
anthem for me on theirtraditional instruments.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
That would have been really cool to hear, yep.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I have a recording of it.
Oh, and then the next day, KLCole, my hostess, took me to the
airport and there were about 10people at the airport to see me
off.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
It's just like you've expanded your family almost.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
And I was able to stay in touch with her for a
while, but none of the otherfolks really followed up much.
I had hoped to be able to stayin touch with the editor, who
had spent a lot of time inAustralia and he spoke almost
perfect English, but it justdidn't work out and now I've

(01:00:17):
kind of lost touch with Kay Oka,I think she has a presence
still on the internet, but she'snot responsive very much
anymore, and then she moved toone of the other islands, so I
don't know how much she wouldhave been able to help me with
keeping in touch with some ofthose people.
But right, but she did in theimmediate period after send me

(01:00:41):
some other historicalinformation that I've been able
to use Well and I want to, Iwant to back up a little bit too
.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
So you, uh, you were there for a year, right, and I
mean what a great experience togo back and be welcomed like
that and, uh, maybe not to seethe people you knew, but to see
people who knew the people youknew.
That's sometimes even better.
So this was an unaccompaniedtour.
Then, if I'm not mistaken,right, because of where you were

(01:01:10):
at, your wife didn't come withyou.
No, okay, so she was back homefor that year.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
No, If you recall, I said we traveled.
She traveled to the Philippinesand I traveled there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
So I'm talking about your initial tour.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah, no, I was there .
My marriage, my pretty newmarriage went kind of on the
rocks while I was there, whichis a different story that I
don't really want to get into.
That's fine, but a lot of itcentered around incidents with

(01:01:54):
my young daughter.
At the time While I was inOkinawa.
I think I had three visits fromthe Red Cross with incidents
back home, wow.
And ironically again on one ofthose incidents I was on the

(01:02:14):
main island, okinawa.
While I was there I kind ofserved as a chaplain's assistant
and I would make trips back andforth for supplies and that
kind of thing to the main island.
And on one of my trips I waswalking to the gate at Naha.
Our squadron was stationed outof Naha Air Force Base.
I went in and out of Kadenawhen I landed and left, but I

(01:02:41):
was walking toward the gate andI heard somebody yelling.
Rainy rainy, rainy.
I turned around and here's ayoung man from my hometown whose
father had been the principalof the school that my father
retired from.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
And he said I knew you were here because I work in
the comm center and I saw somemessages for you.
Of course I'm sure he knew alot more than he went on to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Oh yeah, Of course.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
But that was interesting.
Yeah, another.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Yeah, it's as big as the world is.
It's kind of small sometimes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
And then when I was in Okinawa first or second time
I had to, I don't remember,maybe it was when I arrived
there we're going throughprocessing.
Yeah, I met this young secondlieutenant and we started
talking and I found out that hehad gone to school in Jackson
Mississippi, same as me.
Talking and I found out that hehad gone to school in Jackson

(01:03:47):
Mississippi, same as me.
So whenever I'd come back tothe island, I'd just get in
touch with him.
Stay in the BOQ.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Why not?
It's much better than thealternative, right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
It was just all of these things, that little
ironies, that occur.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Yeah, little things that happen that make it a
little bit better.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
And my last year at Tougaloo College I spent on the
campus of Jackson State College,which is now Jackson State
University, which is now JacksonState University, because a
friend of my mother's husbandwas one of the deans and she my

(01:04:33):
mother's friend was on the staffand they had campus housing.
So I stayed there and just tooka bus back and forth to where I
went to school and that waskind of a cost-cutting thing
because she could just pay herkind of a room and board and not
have to pay for my campuslodging and campus food.

(01:04:59):
Makes sense Since they knew Iwas going to be leaving anyway,
right, so that kind of workedout.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
So you finished your tour on Okinawa then, and then
you come back stateside, wasthat?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
Yeah, okay, came back to the States.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
And then where were you at?
So you had about a year leftwhen you got back after that
tour of duty.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
No, I was discharged On my arrival.
I was discharged on my arrival.
I was discharged to Travis AirForce Base.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Okay, and then, yeah, so what happens after you get
out of the Air Force?

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
I go back home, marriage had pretty much fallen
apart, moved to the area wheremy mother lived in Mount Bayou
and went through a divorce,tried as hard as I could to keep

(01:06:03):
it together, but it just wasn'tgoing to happen.
Unfortunately, my first wifecould drink two beers and be out
of it and unfortunatelycouldn't keep her away from it.
Yeah, but that's too bad.
Couldn't keep her away from ityeah, that's too bad.

(01:06:29):
So after that happened I foundthe job in Jackson.
Now I'm left as a single parentand after three different court
cases, I get full custody withmy parents of my daughter and

(01:06:51):
now I had to try and find a wayto make a living.
So my daughter stayed with myparents and I went to Jackson
and found a job the first day Iwas there.
So it was kind of interestingthat I'd had those experiences
of photography.
I was able to get that job.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
So this is where you started working for the
photography studio.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
And was in touch with my mother's friend who I lived
with before I went into themilitary.
Yeah lived with before I wentinto the military.
Yeah, and she knew a woman whowould, uh, take a border and it
was an ideal thing for mebecause she would have a border
who would be gone most of thetime.
Yeah, so you know, I paid herand again, I'm still getting per

(01:07:42):
diem, right, I think it waslike $10 a week or something
like that.
Uh-huh.
Because usually if she knew Iwas coming she'd have a really
nice dinner meal for me orsomething and I'd be off to see
my daughter.
Yeah, you know.
And so I traveled all over thestate of Mississippi and

(01:08:08):
southwestern lower southwesternportion of Alabama, okay, from
Birmingham down to Mobile.
Yeah.
And all the way across thestate of Mississippi.
I mean I could be on theMississippi Gulf coast today and
then required to be in theMississippi Delta tomorrow, 300

(01:08:31):
miles away.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
It's a lot of traveling.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
I can honestly tell you there were times that I
could remember stopping at atraffic light in the town and
not having remembered the lasthundred miles.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
That's a little scary , isn't it stopping at a traffic
light in the town and nothaving remembered the last
hundred miles.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
Yeah, that's a little scary, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm at a saplight and all of a sudden, like
I'm looking around, where am I?
Yeah.
And I guess later on I foundout, it's called road hypnosis.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, it has something to do with the way
your brain processes things,right like I, I used to work in
mount pleasant and I remember,like I can remember leaving work
and I remember getting home,but I don't remember anything in
between and that's yep.
That can be terrifying so tired.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Yeah, um, that didn't happen too often, but it did
happen a few times.
Um, I can recall anotherincident that happened.
I was on the Natchez Trace.
I don't know if you knowanything about the Natchez Trace
, but it runs from, I believe,natchez Mississippi all the way
someplace into Tennessee and itwas an old Indian trail.

(01:09:36):
Okay, and it's perhaps thelongest national park in the
country.
That highway is a national park, so when you travel on it
you're not allowed to stop andonly can get off certain places
and so forth.
But it was the shortestdistance to where I needed to go
and I was so tired and it waslike around three o'clock in the

(01:09:58):
morning and I found a fire road, like I don't know, that's what
it was called.
A little two-track road, yeah, Ipulled off in there and park
ranger came up.
Now, mind you, this is not agood time to be out on a lonely
road by yourself as a minority,right, um.

(01:10:23):
But he was a National ParkRanger and he tapped on the
window and said are you okay?
Yeah, I'm okay.
He says you know you're notsupposed to be here.
I said yeah, but I was so tiredand I told him what I was doing
and where I was traveling and Isaid I had to get some sleep.
And he says okay, I'll tell youwhat he says.

(01:10:49):
When do you have to be back onthe road where you got to go?
And I told him he says okay,I'm going to keep an eye on you,
you just sleep.
Um and cause, he said I'drather you do that than I have
to pick you up off the highway.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Yeah, that's really nice of him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Uh, so, uh, I, you know I.
That was another incident thatI recalled being so tired, uh,
traveling.
I don't envy anybody who has ajob on the road anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
No, no, no, no.
And how long did you do thatjob?

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Almost two years.
Okay, um, it's, uh and it'sjust.
Some people think traveling isjust so great, you know.
But then when I started to workafter I finished college, I
traveled quite a bit, and livingin and out of hotels is not fun
.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
No, no, I think it's exciting for the first couple of
times, but then, yeah, itprobably just gets old.
So what did you do when youleft the photography business?

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
So what did you do when you left the photography
business?
Well, let's see.
When I left School PictureIncorporated, I was traveling
and living out of JacksonMississippi.
I moved back to Mount Bayou andat that time President
Kennedy's well, it was Johnson'sprogram at this point was the

(01:12:13):
poverty program.
There were several povertyprograms that had been initiated
, one of which was NeighborhoodYouth Corps and another was, I
can't recall, they fell on anumbrella called Community Action
Programs.
I can't remember what some ofthe others were, but the first

(01:12:36):
one that I went to was inOklahoma County, which was where
I was born, and I traveled backand forth from Mount Valley to
Clarksdale, and it was a basicadult education program where we
took illiterate people in and,in the course of several months,

(01:12:59):
would be able to take them fromzero to 12 and perhaps do their
GED.
Now, not everybody got to thatpoint, but that was the goal and
we had to be trained in orderto do that.
And there was a special program, special books that were
written for it and that waspretty much at the height of

(01:13:27):
integration, and so it had to bean integrated program.
There were no whites enrolledin the program, but there were
whites on the staff.
Okay.
Didn't go over too well with thelocals.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
I can imagine that it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
And I recall one day dropping off a young lady.
I can't remember where she wasfrom now To where she was
boarding.
Of course, that was the onlyway you could find a place to
stay, but where she was boardingwas kind of like an alleyway

(01:14:03):
that went back about a block.
Can't really call it acul-de-sac, but it went to a
dead end, yeah.
And she was living in the lasthouse on the left and so I drove
her home and she got out, shestarted to go in and then a
police car came up behind me andI thought, boy am I going to be

(01:14:27):
in for it?
I guess they didn't.
They didn't really do anything.
And and I thought, boy am Igoing to be in for it?
I guess they didn't really doanything.
Then they backed out.
So I started out and I drovethrough town and out onto the
highway and they followed me tothe city limits.

(01:14:51):
I guess they just want to makesure there was no hanky-panky,
Right, Whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
No, shenanigans right .

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
But then I had to drive 26 miles on a dark stretch
of roadway.
Yeah.
From that point on I was alittle leery and there was like
a little kind of roadside parkon US 61.
One night I was driving homeand to this day I believe,

(01:15:19):
somebody shot at me becausesomething hit my windshield and
ironically it hit and deflectedbut you could see, and so I
drove probably the next 10 mileslaying on my seat just peeking
over the dashboard.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
That must have been scary.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Yep, it was.
But I did carry a gun back then.
That's another story.
But um, I um went to thesheriff's office the next day
and showed it to them, gave theman incident report.
They didn't think it lookedlike a bullet.

(01:16:01):
I thought, well, maybe a rock,it's your windshield, whatever.
But in hearing more from that,but from then on I was really
careful as I drove and reallywatched very carefully and I
didn't have any more incidents.
So I worked in that programmaybe a year and then I went to

(01:16:26):
the Neighborhood Youth Corpswhich was in Cleveland,
mississippi which was another 10miles south of Mount Bayou, so
I was living in Mount Bayou andit was during that time that I
got involved in broadcasting.
So I was working during the day, I'd work broadcasting at night

(01:16:48):
.
I'd work broadcasting at nightAt.
The station that I worked atwas WCLD in Cleveland,
mississippi, and I'd work sixnights a week in one morning.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
So I'd close the station six nights and open the
station Sunday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
It's got to be a long week.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
I was also a part-time deputy sheriff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
So you're doing a lot of stuff right around this time
and I did that for a couple ofyears.
The way I got that job was.
There was a high school teacherwho's 90-some years old now, who

(01:17:41):
on Saturdays broadcast from thestation but from the studios.
Not as a control operator.
He would sit in the studio andsomebody else controlled the mic
and everything for him.
And essentially what he woulddo is he would buy that block of

(01:18:04):
time and he would sellcommercials to local businesses,
predominantly minoritybusinesses, and some of it would
be church groups.
They might take a block of 15minutes or half an hour Right,
so he would run that and he hadto go off for training.

(01:18:28):
He was a school teacher so hehad to go off for some training
and ask me if I would sit in forhim and I was always kind of
shy and I don't know.
He says well, you know all youhave to do is sit in front of
this mic, like I'm doing righthere, and talk when they give
you the cue.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
How hard can it be right?

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
And I says, well, what would I say?
He says, well, you havecommercials to read and things
like that and I'll take care ofall that for you.
And I said, well, okay.
So then he was supposed to comeback at a certain time and he
extended that time.
He said I can't come back whenI'm supposed to.

(01:19:10):
So in the midst of all this, um, the general manager was
talking to me and asked me neverthought about going into
broadcasting and stuff like that.
And I said no, and he startedto explain to me well, you know,
you, if you really want to getinto it, you have to get a
license.
Then you have to get a license,then you need to get this

(01:19:31):
license, you have to travel toNew Orleans and take a test, and
so forth.
Okay, why is he telling me allthis?
So it was like I think it wasthe last day I was supposed to
be there.
He calls me into the office andduring that period of time,
mississippi had been a totallydry state, even though you could

(01:19:52):
get whatever you wanted, right?

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
You just couldn't get it legally Right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Yeah, and they were doing a referendum to make it
legal, uh-huh.
So he had this five-minutepiece that he wanted me to read
and he said would you mind doingthis?
And I think it wasn't.

(01:20:21):
Well, I was pretty pro doing it, but it was not very partial
that way and you know, I justkind of laid out the advantages
of having it legal and thedisadvantage and so forth, and I
said this is about afive-minute piece.
So I did it.
So when it was done he calledme into the office.
He said some of his boardmembers had called.
I wanted to know who I was.

(01:20:45):
So he said so we've beenthinking about maybe making a
place for you.
I said oh.
He says yeah, but we're goingto have to put it before the
board.
We're going to have to do somejuggling around and see what we
can come up with.
So I said okay.
So he said well, it's going tobe a few weeks, he says, but in

(01:21:08):
the meantime you should considertaking that test.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
He's really pushing you to get this license.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
So New Orleans is a long way.
Yeah, I had a friend whosefamily was fairly influential in
Mount Bayou and there wasreally no Democratic Party at
that point in time inMississippi.
It was like the Dixiecrat PartyRight and they were trying to

(01:21:40):
revamp the party and bring backthe more national flavor and so
the young Democrats were thevehicle that they wanted to use.
So this family.
I had befriended one of thebrothers who was a Chicago

(01:22:01):
police officer but he was also askip tracer, so he would work
all these long days in a row andthen he'd have so many days off
and he'd do skip tracing andhe'd come down to Mississippi.
So he was going to be downthere and he said why don't you
go down to this young Democratconvention with me down in
Gulfport, mississippi?

(01:22:22):
And I said I don't knowanything about politics?
He says, well, you know goodexperience.
And I says how far is that fromNew Orleans?
He says, well, it's not veryfar.
I says can we go to New Orleanswhile we're down there?
Can I go?
He says, well, yeah, I gotenough time.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Oh, wow, okay, I'll do that Kill two birds with one
stone.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
So we went to this convention, which was at one of
the biggest hotels on the GulfCoast at that time, which was
another experience for me andone of the oldest and I got to
meet Senator, michigan SenatorHis name's escaping me right now

(01:23:13):
, I'd have to look at my notesbut anyway, quite well-known
Michigan Senator at that time.
And then the other one wholater ran for I don't remember
President or President, Ibelieve it was from Minnesota.
I can't recall either one ofthem's name right now.

(01:23:34):
That was a while ago, yeah, butanyway I got to meet both of
them, which was prettyinteresting for me.
I didn't.
Kendra, paul is a youngster Manypoliticians coming into Mount
Bayou for rallies and that kindof thing, not really knowing who

(01:23:56):
they were Dawson is one name Ican recall.
So we finished that littlething and went down to New
Orleans and I took the test andof course you didn't get the
results right away, or dude, Idon't know, maybe we did get the

(01:24:22):
results right away, but wedidn't get the license.
You had to wait on the license.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
It wasn't computerized right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Oh no, you sat before .
I think it was three examinerswho did this, but anyway I got
the license.
I can recall we went down onBourbon Street and some of the
things I can remember werewalking down Bourbon Street and
coming to a door.

(01:24:47):
Two or three big guys wouldstand in front of the door,
couldn't go in.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
So there was still some segregation going on.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
Yeah, so we just walked up and down the streets
and of course my buddy wasprobably three times bigger than
me.
He's a big guy, he wasn'treally bothered.
He's a Chicago police officer.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
What's going to happen?

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
But anyway I can recall the parking was a problem
because if you parked onBourbon Street and if you
overstayed your parking time,the New Orleans city had their
own tow service, Like policevehicles.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Yeah, they'd come get your stuff, yeah, take it away.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
And we saw them take a family away in the vehicle and
the father was saying how can Igo get my car?
I mean, it was just such aninteresting thing, but anyway.
So we came back and some weekslater I got offered the job and

(01:26:01):
I don't know if it was the firsttime, but it would have had to
be one of the first times thatin the state of Mississippi that
a minority was actually runningthe station, Because when I was
there nobody else was there.
I had to watch the meters, takethe station off the air Sunday

(01:26:23):
morning, bring it back up on theair, ran all the controls and
fortunately it was a collegetown, Delta State College at the
time, now Delta StateUniversity.
My little show got to be quitepopular, so that's when the
moniker Bruce came up.
Okay.

(01:26:44):
And people were having troublewith my name.
So the name I chose that timewas Bruce Kane.
Later, when I came to Michigan,I changed it to Bruce Ray,
which was R-A-Y for the firstthree letters of my last name,
r-a-i Got you.
And so most people in Michiganknow me as Bruce.

(01:27:06):
If I hear somebody say Bozella,I know they probably knew me
when I was growing up.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
So you can kind of gauge.
So how long were you inbroadcasting then in Mississippi
before you came up to Michigan?
Two years.
Two years Yep, and you went toanother station there.
No, oh, you stayed at CLD, justat that one station yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
Now, during the time I was there, there was another
station that came on the air inLeland Mississippi, which was a
black station.
I don't think it was owned byblacks and I don't, to this day,

(01:27:46):
don't know if the people whowere on the air were licensed or
not.
Yeah, they just did it.
Huh, I think engineers ran thestation.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
And they broadcast.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
Okay.
Yeah, so you didn't have tohave a license just to talk Yep,
so in that day, so back in thattime, was that pretty common
that you would be the engineeron your own show.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
Well, with a third-class license I couldn't
be called an engineer.
Okay, that was a, uh, actuallya what they call the first phone
.
First class radio license,uh-huh was an engineer.
A second class could do certainthings with the transmitter, uh
, but typically under the firstclass authorization, you kind of
worked under their license.

(01:28:29):
So it was kind of a steppingstone.
But with the third class youcould read the meters, you could
turn the station on and off,but you couldn't actually work
under the covers.
Okay, all right On thetransmission equipment which was
more of an electronics kind ofthing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Yeah, so what brought you to Michigan?

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Several things.
I think there were some peoplewho thought I was a little bit
too open-minded, because some ofmy friends were, you know, like
I had befriended one of thedisc jockeys on the air who
invited me to his house and hiswife had a problem with that,

(01:29:19):
and some of their neighbors hada problem with that and things
like that, and I guess itirritated some people and it had
gotten to a point where Icouldn't make a living at the
radio station because that waspart-time work and I didn't have

(01:29:42):
.
Those poverty programs don'tlast forever.
The grants run out, right?
Those poverty programs don'tlast forever.
Yeah.
The grants run out Right.
And so my mother had a cousinin Detroit, her first cousin,
who was an insurance executiveand knew a lot of people.
And so he spoke to one of hisfriends, dr Haley Bell, who

(01:30:10):
owned the Bell BroadcastingCompany, and asked him if he
could look for a place to fit mesomeplace.
He sent him a letter ofintroduction and I traveled to
Detroit.
As I was driving in on 75, Iwas wondering where am I going?

(01:30:31):
This was right after the riots.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
What did you get yourself into?

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Oh man, dirty expressway back then Nothing
like today.
I mean they were filthy,garbage and everything on the
expressways.
Travel through where some ofthe riots had taken place and my

(01:30:54):
cousin lived right on the edgeof where.
I mean you could drive twoblocks and see burned out
buildings.
Yeah, that's pretty close,right.
And so I was going to bestaying with them until I could
get situated.
It's on 3360 Pasadena, Ibelieve was the address which is

(01:31:16):
basically on the corner ofDexter and Davison in Detroit.
I stayed with them severalmonths until I was able to get
myself situated and get anapartment and so forth on the
west side of Detroit in thefamed 10th Precinct.
So I still wasn't doing muchbetter in terms of income,

(01:31:43):
because I'm still workingpart-time, fill-in, yeah,
although I think I recall beingon the air like almost 24 hours
one day because of a snowstorm.
People called in, didn't cometo work.

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
Yeah, somebody's got to run it right.
Might as well be you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
Yep, and it was a 24-hour station, yeah, and so
you're like trapped there.
That was one of the times whenI was really thankful for the
group Rare Earth.
You know Rare Earth.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
I do.
That's some good music.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Do you remember Get Ready?

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
I do, I do.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
One vinyl side.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
That was my.
Potty breaks, bathroom breaks,lunch breaks whatever.
There you go.
I'd play that side and thatwould sometimes take a quick nap
.
I can recall back at WCLD onthat Sunday morning shift was
really rough for me.

(01:32:39):
It was one hour of playinggospel music before church
groups would come in for theirblocks of time.
They would do their.
It would be a musical groupthat would play and sing and try
and make money, or a churchthat would have a 15-minute or
30-minute.

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):
Yeah, do like a little sermon or something yeah
right.

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
And so from six to seven was the really worst time
because nothing was happeningand I didn't know much about
gospel music growing up as aCatholic.
Our music was different thanthe gospel music that's
traditional for the blackcommunity A lot different, super
, really different.

(01:33:22):
But I played these records theygave me.
I'd just play them andsometimes people would call and
ask for a record and I'd go findit.
But there was this lady whoknew my mother.
She was an elderly lady and shewould listen every Sunday
morning.
And I remember being awakenedto a phone call one Sunday

(01:33:43):
morning.
It was probably about 10minutes to 7.
And she said where are youdoing?
I've been trying to call youfor how long?
She said for several minutes.
She says that record is justgoing boom, boom, boom, boom.
Oh no, I have fallen asleep.

Speaker 1 (01:34:06):
Oh, that's no good, that's just some new kind of
music.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
Right, uh, because the the tone arms on the on the
turntables were all manual.
Everything was manual you knowyou put, put it on there, cue it
up and I actually have one ofthose here, a manual, uh,
turntable.
Yep, I like them so when itgets to the end, it just goes
right right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
Better be awake when it happens, right so, but, so
how long did you bounce aroundthe part-time circuit then,
before you like, landed afull-time gig?

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
I don't recall exactly, but it was several
months.
Yeah, um, I was on the airthere at WCHD.
There were two sister stations,wchd and WCHB, and I believe

(01:35:04):
those initials were at the endExcuse me, were initials for the
two owners, and I can't recallthe second one now.
But anyway, I got a call fromthe program director at WGPR who

(01:35:24):
had been an on-air personalityfor a while, known as Katie
Beebe.
His real name was Ken Bradleyand he offered me.
Well, he asked me if I wasinterested in a full-time job
and I told him well, yeah, itdepended, you know on what and

(01:35:46):
where.
And by this time I had drivento Detroit in a Volkswagen
Fastback, which I bought new,but it had pretty much given up
the ghost after that trip.
And if you're familiar withVolkswagens, the heaters don't
work very well in Michigan.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
No, For those of you listening, volkswagen was,
airwagen was air cooled, so youdidn't have a radiator to
provide heat.
You used heat from the engine,which sucked.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
It was terrible even in the fastback, which was a
step up from the beetle, oh yeah, but it's still garbage, though
still garbage.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
You could buy like little fans and stuff to put in.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
None of it worked so I remember riding around in
Detroit in the wintertime withhaving to leave the windows open
because frost would form on theinside window Right and two or
three coats to stay warm to getto where I was going.

(01:36:44):
Yeah.
But anyway, he eventuallyoffered me the job and so I
started to work there.
I now don't remember.
I think it was initially adaytime slot and then eventually

(01:37:08):
moved to an evening slot rightafter drive time.
But it was a full-time job andI was able to do a little bit
better.
I was able to go and buy myselfa new car With heat.
Yeah, it wasn't a new car, itwas a I don't remember what year
now Ford Fairlane.
Yeah, but it was a nice car.
Yeah, although I recall that itwas yellow with a black vinyl

(01:37:33):
top.
And I recall in the apartmentthat I lived in over off of
Livernois, going out, excuse me,to my car, and there was so
much soot in the air in Detroit,then my car would have this
black film on it and you had tobe careful to not smudge it.

(01:37:56):
You would have to make sure youwashed it off carefully or it
would stain the paint on yourcar, you'd rub it right into the
paint, right yeah?
It was so bad, but anyway I wasable to get an apartment, a
small apartment, I think it waslike $110 or $115 a month.
It had a living room,kitchenette, walk-in closet,

(01:38:21):
bath and bedroom and there wasplenty for me.
That's all I needed.
So I worked at WGPR for twoyears, got into some contract
disputes.
I wanted them to give me acontract.
They didn't want to give me acontract and I had initialized a

(01:38:44):
news department for them andone of the top newscasters on
Channel 7, wxyz, who was therefor years.
I gave her her first job inDetroit at WGPR Wow, and she
wasn't there for very longbefore she got picked up by the

(01:39:05):
other place and she came herefrom Washington DC.
She had been a model back in DC.

Speaker 1 (01:39:13):
Those are the best looking newscasters anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
Doris Bisco.

Speaker 1 (01:39:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
And another guy that I hired, I think that eventually
ended up in Atlanta.
So I had a staff of two andthey wouldn't give me a budget,
they wouldn't give me a contract.
Finally, they just said well,you need to find someplace else
to go.
How nice, yep, I think they hadbefore or after that, but they

(01:39:49):
were, I think, probably innegotiation for Channel 62.
It would have been the firstblack TV station, oh, which I
think is maybe CB, I don't know.
No, some network is there now,but anyway, it's down on

(01:40:11):
Jefferson Avenue.
They were probably scrapingmoney to try to do that.
I didn't have top ratings, Ihad average ratings.

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
Sounds like you did a lot of stuff behind the scenes,
though.
Yeah, help them be successfulright.
So then I was able to get intowrf as a writer which by I gotta
interrupt you right now when Iwas a kid, riff 101.
So this is before satelliteradio and it was so cool when
you got close to detroit you puton aiff 101 because they played

(01:40:47):
all that music that they didn'tplay here in Lansing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Oh, that acid rock.

Speaker 1 (01:40:52):
Yeah, it was a very cool.
For me at that time it was avery cool radio station.
When you told me you worked atRiff 101, I was like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Well, it was kind of another interesting job because
what I had to do was I had to goto the wire services AP.
What I had to do was I had togo to the wire services, ap and
UPI and anything that wasdrug-related.
I'd pull those stories and thenI have to kind of edit those
stories to make them not too pro.

(01:41:22):
But that was.

Speaker 1 (01:41:26):
You wanted to keep your audience happy.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
The drug culture and acid rock music were entwined.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Right, that's what made the music Right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:40):
Psychedelics and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:41:41):
Yeah, so you think about the Inigata De Vida, right
, yep, right.
The whole story behind that isthose guys were so stoned, they
were supposed to be singing inthe garden of Eden and they
couldn't do it.
And now you have this 40 minuteone-sided LP in a gala Davida,
which the music's amazing, butstill the drugs probably made it
more amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
Not that I'm promoting drugs, but that was
right, that was the time, thatwas the thing.
So I you know I had to makethese articles appeal to the
audience right and not and notmake the censors man yeah,
literally, literally, rewritethem, yeah.
And so I just sat in a littlestudio and wrote, pulled music,
pulled stuff and wrote and justhad to make sure it was ready

(01:42:23):
when, when the uh two showscrossed the time that I was
there I remember Pentalo, Ican't remember the other guy, he
was a blonde guy, I can'tremember his name now, but
anyway they crossed and I had tomake sure I had stuff for when
they would read the news.

(01:42:44):
Yeah, read the news.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Yeah, um, and I, I can recall being whenever um
what was the famous umsportscaster?
Oh yeah, my memory's not thatgood um abc sportscaster.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
I know you're talking about.
Anyway, I could picture the guyyeah, a little abc code on and
everything yep, uh, he and heand I, lee, used to have it out
a lot yeah but his name's righton the tip of my tongue, but I
can't call him right now howardcosell, howard cosell, howard
cosell yeah, yeah.
Whenever he would come intotown he would use the studio

(01:43:31):
that I worked, so he would go tothe abc affiliate to do his
show.
Well, he would kick me out of mylittle little work spot, oh
he's howard cosell right, and hewould just run in and do his
thing and I'd have to go findsomething to do and then he'd

(01:43:52):
run out again onto his nextplace, wherever, wow.
So yeah, that was kind ofinteresting too.
But I worked there for I don'tknow for a while and then I got
a lead on WGP W know for a while, uh, and then I got a lead on
wgp or w?
Uh uh, wjbk, channel two, and Iworked there for five years now

(01:44:21):
were you on on air like a I waswhat they called, uh, an
announcer, uh that positiondoesn't exist anymore.
Now they either hire the stuffdone by individuals or companies

(01:44:41):
or whatever voiceover typepeople who just do that, but
they don't work in the stationanymore and it's all
computerized.
So they go in and they work forhalf a day or whatever, or they
do it from home or whereverthey do it, and they send it and
they put it into the computerprogramming thing and it just

(01:45:04):
runs the stuff right.
But I sat in a booth the sizeof a small bathroom right, it's
like a phone booth, right.
Yeah, with a window looking intothe control center, uh-huh, and
I had to keep the station logand I had to announce.
So that would be like readingdoing what they call off-camera

(01:45:29):
movie host and doing voiceoversand tags.
A tag is they do commercial andthen there's a local tag on the
end of the commercial Right,yeah, like it's Chevrolet, and
then it's like so-and-soChevrolet downtown, wherever so.
I did that and again 6 o'clocktill 3 in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
That's a long time to sit in a phone booth.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
Well, I had a two-hour lunch break in between
because we had overlappingshifts.
Yeah.
But that's one of the mostboring jobs I could ever have in
my life.
I'd sit through soap operas andyou had to be precise with your
log times.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
So I'm curious.
So you were doing this.
Okay, so you're doing this live.
I'm a little slow.
I'm putting this together now.
So when you watch TV, now allthat's pre-programmed but you
had to watch when they werecutting-programmed.
But you were actually you hadto watch when, when they were
cutting to commercial, and thenyou were doing it.
You were like doing it rightthen.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
I wore headphones, yeah, had a mic, a mic and a
headphone and a switch box infront of me when the director
and we had one jay from it washis name.
He was a very animated directorand he was always at his chair,

(01:46:58):
you know, and he's watching allthese monitors and he's got it.
You know, he's got a sound guyand he's got what they call a
switcher guy, that's switchingcameras and other pieces of
equipment and he's got to directall this stuff and he was real
animated and so when it wouldcome my time, he'd go announce.
Hit the button and I had to knowwhere I was and what the next

(01:47:19):
thing to do and say was.

Speaker 1 (01:47:20):
Yeah, you didn't want to mess that up, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:47:22):
Wow, and you know if you announce, announce.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
If you weren't awake you would be right.

Speaker 2 (01:47:34):
You made me jump when you just did that, so all of
his directions came into my earand I had, like I said,
headphone on mic and a buttonswitch panel.
That's all it was.
In a room in a chair Wow, at adesk I had logs which were big,
write down everything thatchanged.

(01:47:55):
So when the commercial startedit's all pre-programmed.
When that commercial started,or when that program started or
whatever, I had to log theprecise time.
I had a clock over there.
I forgot, yeah, I had a clockover there.
I forgot, yeah, I had a clock.
And then they recorded all ofthis and a program director

(01:48:18):
would go through and check therecorded time against your log
time.
I had too many of them thatwere off.

Speaker 1 (01:48:27):
Oh, they probably didn't appreciate that I had too
many of them that were off.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
They probably didn't appreciate that Nope.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
And it got to a point where they said we can't have
you doing that, so maybe youbetter go someplace else.
Time to find another job.

Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
So in the meantime I decided to go back to school.
I had my GI Bill.

Speaker 1 (01:48:46):
Yeah, why not?

Speaker 2 (01:48:48):
And so I went and enrolled at the University of
Detroit, graduated from there inthe class of 1977, in the off,
like in the winter session.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
Oh, so you graduated like early then.

Speaker 2 (01:49:08):
I graduated like in december 76, but it was the
class of 77 yeah, yeah so Ididn't get to like may I think,
or june to march, or whateverwhat'd you get your degree?
in communication studies okay,you had the background, now you
just need the degree right, soyou got your bachelor's in in uh
but only about half of mycredits transferred, yeah, so I

(01:49:31):
thought I was going to only haveto be there for about a year.
Well, I had to be there forabout two years.
Yeah, wasn't prepared for that.
So I had to find someadditional work.
I ended up working for a littlecompany called scientific
medical labs, which, uh, endedup working for a little company
called Scientific Medical Labs,which was a medical laboratory.

(01:49:54):
So I was a driver picking upspecimens all over the city of
Detroit.

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
You're that guy that opens those boxes and grabs that
stuff out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:03):
Yeah, in those days.
Only if they were closed Iwould actually walk in and
they'd hand me a bag.
Okay, the worst part of it wasthe drug clinics.
Yeah, a box of little bottlesof urine that often spilled.
Yeah, no, thank you how longdid that job last for you?

(01:50:28):
I want to say a couple years, Idon't remember exactly now.

Speaker 1 (01:50:32):
I guess not a bad gig though.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
Well, I advanced eventually when I finally did
leave.
I had gotten the job at StJoseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac
when I left, so I worked therea few weeks after I got that job

(01:51:24):
.
But I, I, uh, had actually goneinto running pap smears, all
the things that you could dowithout having the technical
knowledge, so it's justmechanical work, um and um.
I don't know where I would havegone had I stayed, but probably
was a good move because theyeventually went out of business.
Yeah.
Uh, and I saw this little one byone type ad.

(01:51:47):
Back when you've had ads in thenewspaper.
Yep in the paper,Communications director for a
large metropolitan hospital anda telephone number.

Speaker 1 (01:51:59):
That's it.
That's about as blind a call asyou can get right there.

Speaker 2 (01:52:05):
I called and wouldn't you know it.
Some weeks later, several, manyweeks later, I got the job.
I'm still working at the laband afraid to leave right away
because I didn't know what I wasgetting into.
And the first day I walked intothis office and I started

(01:52:26):
looking through the files and Ithought again what did I get
myself into?
I don't know anything aboutthis stuff, which was telephone
systems and radio systems,overhead paging systems, mail
rooms, vehicles.
I had to learn all that stuff.

(01:52:46):
I had five areas ofresponsibility the mail center,
information center, patientinformation center, the
telephone systems and theoperators, the motor pool and
the vehicles, and I can't recallone other one I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
That's quite a laundry list for the
communications director.

Speaker 2 (01:53:16):
I had all those responsibilities.
I can't recall if I had themall initially.
I think I only had three ofthem initially Mail, oh yeah.
The other one was the radiosystems yeah, so they were

(01:53:37):
changing all their radio systemsat the time and going into um
putting telemetry in ambulancesso that they could send results
and stuff back to the hospitalfrom the field.

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
You could get like EKGs and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
Right, and so those were specialized communication
systems, and then that was aboutthe advent of digital paging
systems.

Speaker 1 (01:54:05):
Oh, I remember digital pagers yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:54:07):
Where you could get a message on the pager.
And then when I went in to meetthe president after I got hired
, he went through everything.
He said well, they tell meyou're going to put a new phone
system in for me.
You got a year.
Wow, I don't know anythingabout them.

Speaker 1 (01:54:26):
You better learn quick, Bruce.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
Right, I ran a switchboard when I was overseas
as a relief operator.
There was no traffic, no, I wasin Omaha I'm sorry when I did
that, and you know so.
I knew some basics about howswitchboards worked, but nothing
much else.
But anyway, worked there for 10years.

Speaker 1 (01:54:51):
Wow, must have done something right.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
Two years later some people called me an expert in
hospital.
Communications Was a reallyquick learning curve.
I dare say I could do that jobtoday.
It's changed that much.
Everything is digital and thiswas just getting into the

(01:55:18):
digital world, but it's grown sofast and so many leaps and
bounds I would have had to goback to school to even keep up.

Speaker 1 (01:55:26):
Right, so you're there for 10 years.
So you were there.
Right about you left rightaround the 90s, then the 1990s
timeframe.

Speaker 2 (01:55:37):
Early 90s, late 80s.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
Yeah, yeah, sometimes just kind of yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
Late 80s.

Speaker 1 (01:55:42):
So now you're an expert.
Where'd you go from there?

Speaker 2 (01:55:46):
Where'd you go from there?
Well, a friend of mine who Iworked with fairly closely, who
was director of safety andsecurity, who also is one of the
few people still alive his workand my work kind of went hand
in hand Because, if youunderstand, hospitals kind of

(01:56:09):
operate like like little citiesand he was like the police
department, that was likeeverything all of the folks he
would go to for certainresources.
You know what we need to see,what's going on with this phone,
or we're doing thisinvestigation, we need some
records, whatever, yeah, and sowe got to be pretty close.
If there was any emergency inthe hospital, we always had to

(01:56:32):
work great together and hedecided to go to the University
of Michigan.
And he talked me intoconsidering a job there.
He says well, they gotbasically the same systems that
you've put in here and theydon't know how to make them work
.
So I went over and talked tothem and they wanted to come

(01:56:53):
over and see what I'd done atPontiac and I said, okay, so
I'll let you do that.
But we kind of have to do it onthe QT.
I don't want the administrationto know that I'm bringing
another hospital in.
So it's kind of it has to be onthe basis of you just want a

(01:57:18):
tour.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
Right, you want to see what you do.

Speaker 2 (01:57:20):
But I shared some information with them as to how
I got to where I got and I hadone of my system of working,
really working full bore, andthey didn't know how to make
theirs work and uh, so theyfinally talked me into taking

(01:57:44):
the job there.
I did not like it.
Yeah, I was there for a year.
Oh you, really.
Months after I was there, Igave him a resignation, you
really must not have liked it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:53):
I did not like it at all and I traveled from.

Speaker 2 (01:57:56):
at that time I was living in Ferndale.
Oh.
I was on the board of educationat Ferndale and had become
president of the board and I wasdriving back and forth from
Ferndale to Land Harbor everyday and in the midst of all that
my mother had become seriouslyill and was in Beaumont Hospital
and she wouldn't eat until Ishowed up at the hospital in the

(01:58:17):
evening.
So I had really really longdays during that time.

Speaker 1 (01:58:22):
Sounds like it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
I gave my resignation after about seven months and
said 90 days to get somebodyelse after about seven months
and said 90 days to get somebodyelse.
Well, university of Michigan,one of their rules is if you
give a resignation, no matterhow long they, let me serve out
that year but, you immediatelywere reassigned, made a special

(01:58:44):
projects director.
Some people just sat.

Speaker 1 (01:58:48):
Uh-huh, I don't think you're that kind of person,
though, are you?
They gave people just sat.
Uh-huh, I don't think you'rethat kind of person, though are
you.

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
They gave me five projects.

Speaker 1 (01:58:51):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (01:58:53):
I was done with them in two weeks.
So then I just looked for everyfree IT class, computer class,
anything I thought would benefitme, that they offered, and I
took it if it didn't cost anymoney.
And they had a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (01:59:11):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:59:12):
And so in the meantime, while I was doing that
, when I had all that time, Istarted to build my own
consulting company, and so I didthat.
When I left there I had severalpretty high-profile clients
small but pretty high-profile,until I got a call from the

(01:59:36):
state.
So I had the Ferndale HousingCommission.
The city of Ferndale revampedtheir whole telephone operations
.
Partially did the city ofBirmingham.
They had the Ferndale Co-opCredit Union which.

(02:00:00):
I think now is all merged withLake Trust.
I think I had a couple ofsmaller ones.
I can't remember, but anyway, Ihad built that up in the lower
year.

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):
Lots of good, solid work really.

Speaker 2 (02:00:18):
Yep Kept me busy, and then, of course, those were
long days too, because I was myown salesperson, my own
secretary clerk.

Speaker 1 (02:00:33):
When you own your own business you take on a lot of
job titles Right, wear a lot ofhats.
Yep, I was everything.

Speaker 2 (02:00:39):
Yeah, and I got a call from the state public
service commission and I thought, wow, this would give me an
opportunity to have say-so intothe regulation of various
telephone companies and so forth, which would be a nice new step

(02:01:00):
.
And so we came into Lansing andlooked around and thought this
is much better.
I never even considered movingto Ann Arbor.
This is much better and kind oflike the Grand Ledge area.
That's where I bought a house,so I'm still there.

(02:01:20):
And of course then I had togive up my position on the
school board and, you know, makeadjustments for that move.
Unfortunately, I was only atthe Public Service Commission
for two years and was reallybeginning to get into the swing

(02:01:43):
of things when we had anelection and Governor Englert
took over and decided to do someof the same kinds of things
we're going through right nowand downsize everything.

Speaker 1 (02:01:53):
Limited a lot of positions yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01:55):
Yep, which really is destructive to the way things
operate.

Speaker 1 (02:02:03):
But so be it.
That's government worksometimes, right, yep, it just
depends on which way the wind'sblowing.

Speaker 2 (02:02:10):
Yep, and um so we.
I was put on the layoff listbecause of my low seniority.
Yeah.
Only two years.
Fortunately, uh, my directorwas real pleased with my work.
The commission was real pleasedwith my work.
The commission was real pleasedwith my work.

(02:02:31):
And I had really met all mygoals that I'd been charged with
when I came there.
Because when I came there, myboss said you've got three
employees an auditor and twoengineers.
I didn't have an engineeringdegree.
I didn't have an engineeringdegree, I didn't have an
accounting degree, right, butthose were people that reported

(02:02:54):
to me small staff with a lot ofresponsibility.
One of the engineers, he saidyou'll have two that you're
going to have to kick into shapeand one's a teddy bear.
You'll be able to work with him, and he and I are still friends
today.
Oh, that's awesome.
We try to do lunch at leastonce a month.

(02:03:16):
Sometimes we see each othermore often.
He tells me I taught him how towrite, but anyway, um, the one
engineer, because of his timeand service, felt that he should

(02:03:37):
be promoted to the positionthat I was going to yeah but the
director didn't feel that hehad the appropriate management
skills to do that.
he wanted somebody who knewcommunications and also had
management skills and someexperience, and apparently I fit

(02:03:59):
what he was looking for.
When I came for the interview,I wasn't home a half an hour
before they called and theywanted to bring me in at the top
of the scale.

Speaker 1 (02:04:10):
Yeah, they knew what they wanted.
Yep For sure.

Speaker 2 (02:04:13):
But of course then that led to a lot of animosity
by one individual Right and theauditor was kind of in support
for him.
But eventually I convinced theauditor that he needed to not be
in that position because youknow it could jeopardize his
position.
As fate would have it, thatengineer and I both left on the

(02:04:38):
same day.
Only he was walked out with anearly retirement retirement and
I went to another job becausethe commissioners were able to
find me another position to keepme from being laid off, even
though it was a four leveldemotion.

Speaker 1 (02:04:58):
Right, it's still a job, right yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:05:00):
And I'm still in state service, which is the
critical thing, because onceyou're out, getting back in is
not easy.

Speaker 1 (02:05:07):
It's hard enough to get in Right.
Yeah, you're out.

Speaker 2 (02:05:09):
Getting back in is not easy.
It's hard enough to get in,right, yeah, and so I went right
across the street to thecorporations and securities
commission.
They gave me several projectswhich I completed pretty quickly
.
Do you remember the 900 numbers?

Speaker 1 (02:05:25):
I do.
I mean, I don't personallyremember them, but I remember
what you're talking about thestate's first 900 numbers.

Speaker 2 (02:05:29):
I do, I mean I don't personally remember them, but I
remember what you're talkingabout the state's first 900
numbers and they didn't have agreat reputation.

Speaker 1 (02:05:36):
No, no, If you dialed the wrong 900 number, it was a
problem but they were an idealway to have a service.

Speaker 2 (02:05:46):
Pay for itself, yes, and corporation securities had a
lot of people who were seekinginformation about companies and
licensing and that kind of thingand they would be on hold for
sometimes hours if they reallyneeded the information and they

(02:06:09):
had a lot of hangups, a lot ofbusies and all of this kind of
thing.
And my background incommunications, where I used to
study traffic management andthat kind of stuff, allowed me
to study their services anddevise a method whereby they

(02:06:30):
could give better service andstill pay for it without having
to put the cost back on thecustomers who were trying to get
service.
Because if you're sitting on along distance call for hours,
you know that got to be prettycostly and people were
complaining right and left.
The 900 numbers were the idealway to do it, but it also had to

(02:06:54):
require a certain level ofstaffing and a certain type of
building shifts.
So we'd have staggered shiftsand sometimes even split shifts,
where people would come in inthe morning and come back in the
afternoon in order to meet thepeaks and valleys of the demand.

Speaker 1 (02:07:13):
Yeah, Was that pretty predictable in that business?
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:07:17):
Because the phone company could measure hang-ups.
They could measure what we callholding times.

Speaker 1 (02:07:22):
Right Abandoned calls all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
Right and abandoned calls all of those kinds of
things could be measured and youapplied typical traffic models
to those and you could tell,when you needed your average
call length, how many peopleyou'd need to handle that yep,
aht, yeah, all that yep, funstuff, yeah, right.
so um, uh, we put them in and ofcourse, all the negativity

(02:07:50):
followed it, because they're 900numbers.
Oh well, you know you'recharging people now says but
we're charging them a lot lessthan what they were paying.
Sitting there holding beforeand half the time not even
getting any service, right?
And they still pay.
Yep, but of course when youbudget constraints it are in two
sometimes, and typically peoplewho are not.

(02:08:10):
But of course when you budgetconstraints it are in too
sometimes, and typically peoplewho are not in the
communications business or havenever been in a business, a
service type business, don'tunderstand traffic modeling or
queuing theory.
If you run a grocery store youhave to understand it.
For instance, all these got itdown to a science.

(02:08:31):
They can see so many peoplewaiting.
They call somebody up Right,take a cash register.

Speaker 1 (02:08:36):
Right, there's these trigger points, right.

Speaker 2 (02:08:40):
Yeah, and they typically underfund, even though
it's predictable.
You tell them this is what'sgoing to cost you, this is the
kind of staffing levels you need, and they don't hire the right
people, develop the right shiftsand over time, and they don't
continue to study it.
So, anyway, I don't know whateventually happened to it, but I

(02:09:06):
was there for about six weeksbefore several positions at my
level opened within the state,and because I was on the layoff
roster and still employed, theyhad to offer me.
If any became available, theyhad to offer me.
Well, at that time time theyalso had another qualification

(02:09:29):
which they call selectivecertification, excuse me which
meant that you had special killson a special skills in a
certain area.
They had to consider you forfor, you know, for those jobs
before anybody else.
Um, well, the job was in the atthat time Department of Commerce

(02:09:49):
and I'm sorry that was theprevious job.
This one was in the Departmentof Management and Budget at the
time and the job was asupervisor of telecommunications

(02:10:12):
billing services, and therewere a couple people that were
in line for that position, butit just so happened that there
were three vacancies for threemanagers at the same level, and
so for me, it was a matter ofwhich one they felt that I was a
better fit.

(02:10:33):
I felt like I would have been abetter fit to one of the other
positions which was more in linewith what I had been doing
though I had been doing it at ahigher level as a department
director rather than at asupervisory level, but they gave
me this position.

(02:10:55):
I'm not sure whether they werelooking for somebody that had
some background in innovativekinds of things and revamping
technology and that kind ofthing or not, but there was a, a
billing system that needed tobe badly updated.
Uh and uh that wasn't a goodterm needed to be updated badly,

(02:11:18):
right.

Speaker 1 (02:11:20):
Or it needed to be updated.
Good, or something like that,yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
Uh, and anyway, uh, that was a position they offered
me and, uh, it was at the samelevel.
Uh and I ran into the samechallenges there.
There was a person inmanagement, uh, who had been
there for several years and feltthat the position should have

(02:11:45):
been hers, and of course then Ihad to fight through that.
The position should have beenhers, and of course I had to
fight through that.
She eventually took an earlyretirement and there were

(02:12:09):
several Unix-based systems thatthey were using to do different
aspects of the billingoperations.
There was no ability for themto communicate between each
other, so they're kind of siloed.
Yep, okay, and so you'd have todo all these operations in sort

(02:12:31):
of a sequential fashion.
You'd run something on onesystem, then you'd have to go
and take data to another systemand run it there, then to
another system and run it thereto reach a final product which
was, at that time, only billingfor the telecommunications
telephone systems and that kindof thing, circuits, data.

(02:12:54):
Well, I don't even think therewas any data Data circuits then,
but there was no billing foranything other than primarily
telecommunications phoneservices.

Speaker 1 (02:13:08):
So was this in the late 70s, early 80s or later
than that?
This would have been.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
I want to say early 90s.

Speaker 1 (02:13:17):
Okay, yeah, so right before computers and data and
all that stuff really exploded,Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:13:25):
Um, and so I uh, I had to sit down and really begin
to.
I had no experience with Unixfirst of all, um, very, very
minimal experience with Unix andum.
I had to learn a little bitabout Unix so that I could

(02:13:46):
understand how systems work, alittle bit about Unix so that I
could understand how systemswork, and then work on looking
for a way to converge all thedifferent operations essentially
into one system where we couldcollect data, do the billing
operations and collect frommultiple systems.
We had several phone systemsthat we collected data from and,

(02:14:09):
of course, then you have tocollect the raw data, you'd have
to match it to rates and thenyou'd have to create invoices
and you'd have to supply them tothe agencies for their services
.
And so I was fortunate and I hada young student who I'm still

(02:14:35):
in touch with and he had beenthere through his high school
years as an intern and then hadcome back as a paid student
assistant, as a paid studentassistant, and he was very sharp

(02:14:56):
.
In fact he was so sharp I couldsit down with him and say, okay
, I want to create an operationthat does this and I kind of
start to describe the flows andhe would sit there at his
computer writing that softwarein BASIC as I talked to him.

(02:15:17):
He'd write them in littlemodules.
Then he would take them away,put them together so they would
be more like a program, bring itback to me and say, okay, what
do I need to fix?
And when we would get it to dowhatever we were trying to

(02:15:37):
achieve, he would compile it,write a menu around it and we'd
have a program.

Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
That's pretty handy.

Speaker 2 (02:15:46):
Wow.
So he was able to actually pullthe data, parse the data and,
in our little intermediateprograms that he would write,
produce the final product, and Ican't remember exactly how much

(02:16:07):
he was able to achieve, but I'malmost certain we were able to
generate the invoices as wellthrough his software.

Speaker 1 (02:16:17):
So did his software like?
Allow you to not have to dothis handoff the software.

Speaker 2 (02:16:22):
That was the whole purpose of it was to bring all
the data together in one spot,oh okay.
We were still collecting it thesame way.
Yeah.
But we were processing itdifferently Took care of the
handoff Right, and it took careof a lot of the manual
iterations that we had to gothrough to make those things
happen.
Mm-hmm, in fact, I was just intouch with him this past week,

(02:16:51):
just in touch with him this pastweek.
From the work that he did, wewere able to generate an RFP, a
request for proposal to build asystem, have a company to build
a system that would doeverything that we were doing,
and we were able to utilize alot of his flows that he had
developed to build into that RFP.

(02:17:12):
And so we, before I get anyfurther into that system, he
wrote me a really nice letterafter he graduated from college,
because he stayed with usthrough his college time and, if

(02:17:37):
I remember, if I can recallcorrectly, he graduated from
Central Michigan and he hadtaken an IT degree.
Well, because of the backgroundthat he had that I had allowed
him to experience throughtelecommunications and his data
training, he was able to get atop job in industry.

(02:18:04):
I believe it was Tenneco and, ifI'm not mistaken, he's still
working for Tenneco.
That's great and he's still incharge of all of their data
stuff and he's still dealingwith telephones and data, and
now he just basically travels alot.
He got married and he has somekids now, so he's done quite

(02:18:32):
well for himself and he's stilljust like he was.
Yeah.
How does it feel to know thatyou were a part of that for him,
oh it feels real good and itfeels even better and we're
still in touch, yeah, and wehave lunch every once in a while
, even though he doesn't livehere, but he still has to come
to lansing for, uh, his work,right, so he has some offices

(02:18:57):
here and um.
But he wrote me this really nicenote saying that it was because
of the freedom that I had givenhim to be creative and to delve
into other aspects of the fieldthat he felt that he was able
to get to the point he hadgotten and that someplace I

(02:19:19):
misplaced it in the one of thefew things that I wish I still
had Um, cause he had it was itwas so well written Um.
But anyway, we went on.
We got the RFP on the streets.
We had a lot of consternationfrom some of the vendors, some

(02:19:42):
of them saying nobody can dothat, it was kind of cutting
edge, that it was kind ofcutting edge.
Computerized billing systemswere just coming into their own,
because this was right afterthe divestiture of the phone

(02:20:03):
companies from AT&T.

Speaker 1 (02:20:05):
Right, because it was all one big mob bell right and
they busted off in all thesedifferent areas.

Speaker 2 (02:20:09):
Right.
So now companies, organizations, were able to own their own
phone systems and manage themand so forth, and they were
essentially about three or fourmajor manufacturers.
Back in that time we were a fewyears beyond the divestiture,

(02:20:32):
because it had been some 10years earlier when I put the
system in at St Joseph Mercy andthat was one of the early
systems.
And now the state had an AT&Tsystem which was a little bit
more difficult to work with thansome of the other systems
Because there was still a lot ofstuff that they held

(02:20:53):
proprietary.
And so we I think we sent out20 invitations thereabouts for
bids, we posted it publicly, wegot three bids and two of those

(02:21:20):
bids, as I recall, weredisqualified, one of which would
have been probably my choice ifI would have pulled one off the
street, and it was a smallcompany in Grand Rapids and one
of the reasons was because itwas it was kind of a Windows

(02:21:47):
interface, gui interface, Iremember that term.
Yep Now I can't recall what theacronym stands for.

Speaker 1 (02:21:55):
Can I?
I was hoping you weren't goingto ask.

Speaker 2 (02:21:58):
The last, the last.

Speaker 1 (02:22:00):
I is for interface Right Something?
User interface yes, we'll haveto look it up after this but at
any rate I uh one.

Speaker 2 (02:22:13):
There were two, two companies out of grand rapids,
both fairly small companies, oneof which was would have been my
choice, only because of howthey built their system
interface.
It was a lot more user-friendlythan the typical DOS-style
menu-driven interface, and so Ithought that was going to be the

(02:22:37):
wave of the future.
But these two got disqualifiedbecause they had more questions
in their responses than they hadanswers to the questions, and
the questions were.
You have to answer each one ofthese questions in each section.

Speaker 1 (02:22:55):
I almost feel like you'd want to hire the guy that
asked a bunch of questions,right?

Speaker 2 (02:22:59):
Well, but there's no answers.
Oh, yeah, they have a wholeseries of requirements and you
have to say how are you going tomeet those requirements?
Right, a whole series ofrequirements and you have to say
how are you going to meet thoserequirements?
And instead there were well,but we can do this if that kind
of thing.
Yeah, you know.
No firm answers, fortunately,or unfortunately.

(02:23:22):
Fortunately, I suppose, for theother company, the third
company, unfortunately for us inthat particular period was
almost every question they saidwe understand and we will comply
.

Speaker 1 (02:23:39):
Oh, I don't know if I like that, I don't even know if
that's a better answer than noanswer, but nonetheless they
said they could comply Okay Toevery requirement.

Speaker 2 (02:23:50):
How'd that work out?
Essentially every one of them.
There were a few where theysaid you know we would have to
negotiate this, but we'rewilling to do that.
But in general they hadanswered all the questions in an
appropriate fashion.
So essentially they got thecontract by default.
So essentially they got thecontract by default.
I recall there was one companyout of Nashville that I was

(02:24:13):
pretty familiar with and theywere fairly popular around the
country.
They were just livid when theRFP finally came out because
they swore nobody can do that.
You've written it for some othercompany, you've written it to
favor one company, but we hadn't.

(02:24:33):
So anyway, they got thecontract.
We started to have our initialmeetings.
Then they started to realizethat this was going to be a real
challenge for them.
Probably the biggest challengefor them was the state
accounting system and itsmulti-field accounting coding

(02:25:03):
methodology, where they hadseveral fields buried in a 120
some character string, if Irecall.
I don't remember all thespecifics now, but it was a very
long string and they hadseveral fields built into that
string.
So you had to parse all thatout because each, each portion

(02:25:24):
of it represented some aspect ofaccounting.
That was a real challenge forthem because their system, as it
was designed, could not handlethat larger field.
They, you know 10, 12 characteraccount code right, yeah, like

(02:25:44):
you see on your checks.
Right would handle, yeah, and sowe spent a lot of time over two
years as they were designingthe system with attorneys until
they finally came up with ascheme to make it work, to make

(02:26:05):
it work.
From that time on they wereable to pretty much achieve
everything that the state askedof them.
When I left they were stillthere.
They are still there today.
I can't remember now how manyiterations of that system

(02:26:27):
they've gone through, but it waswritten for the state, so it
has been able to, all along theway, evolve as the state has
evolved, and I think now they'vebeen through the third
accounting system.

(02:26:47):
Oh, and they've been able toadapt to each one of them
Because of the flexibility thatthey built into their system and
for the ability that they hadto move from old programming
languages to the newer languageseasily, without impacting their

(02:27:14):
user interface significantly.

Speaker 1 (02:27:16):
They've been able to stay there even though they've
gone through, I think now, threeor four rfps do you think it's
that that, initial though thatallowed them that flexibility
later on down the road, like you, asked for something that a lot
of people said you couldn't do,and then you got it, but now

(02:27:36):
it's still kind of working.

Speaker 2 (02:27:38):
Well, I think because they what they had done is they
bought excuse me, they bought asystem where they bought the
rights to a system that had beendeveloped by nec nippon
electric corporation.
Yeah, and they tore it apartand built their own system

(02:27:59):
around the different modules sothat they had their own
interface, but they were stillusing these different modules
and so they were able tocustomize things a lot more
easily because they had torn itall apart and built their own

(02:28:20):
system around it and as timewent on, they started to get rid
of different aspects of thatand they became more custom.
And I know they had otherclients.
They had a large railroadcompany, they had several other
clients and they had donesimilar things for them.
That's how flexible the systemthat they had built was, right.
So I think it was probably theflexibility and the direction

(02:28:42):
that they chose to move indeveloping their system.
I should say systems, becauseeach one of them was designed
for that customer Right, whereasmost of the other systems that
we looked at were off the shelf.
This is what we have.
You have to adapt to us, right?
You have to bend your way toour-.

(02:29:04):
And they were saying no, we'llmake what you want and make it
work.
Yeah, the interesting thing wasI don't think they've ever had
more than seven people total inthe company.
Last I was there they had fivethat's pretty lean, yep and for
what they do and they've beenable to survive.

(02:29:26):
Both the principals at the timehave since retired.
One of the principals boughtthe other out and his son one of
his sons took over the businessand has done really well,
considering that wasn't even hisfield.

Speaker 1 (02:29:47):
Yeah, there you go.
You just never know.

Speaker 2 (02:29:50):
He's become a very good programmer.

Speaker 1 (02:29:54):
So how long did you stay in this position and is
this where you retired?

Speaker 2 (02:29:59):
from yeah, I retired from that position.
Okay, so I had several titlesduring that time, but during the
same thing.

Speaker 1 (02:30:04):
Right, well, that state likes to do that, right,
we'll just change the title.
But so you?
When did you actually retirefrom the state then I think it
was 2017.
If I remember, Okay, um, so youwere, you were going to tell me
.
Um, so we know that you youretired in 2017, but there was
something you want to tell meabout the company and how it got
its name okay, yeah, thecompany was m-a-t-s-c-h match

(02:30:33):
and um that stood the the twoprincipals that started the
company, I think.

Speaker 2 (02:30:40):
I think they both left at&t after divestiture.
I can't remember now, butanyway, they were uh uh, bob
matthews and robert schaefer,bob they.

(02:31:03):
They used robin bob, right,rather, rather, rather than
being both Bobs Right, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:31:11):
That would just be confusing, right.

Speaker 2 (02:31:13):
Right, so it was Rob Schaefer and Bob Matthews.
Okay, so M-A-T for Matthews andS-C-H for Schaefer Match.

Speaker 1 (02:31:23):
That's really cool, right.
That's a marketing genius,right there.

Speaker 2 (02:31:27):
Well, it didn't stop there, Okay.
Each of the telephone systemsthat were around the state, okay
, had collection boxes.
In other words, the telephonesystem would spit out usage data
into a collection, a collective, a box that collected that data

(02:31:48):
and stored it for laterretrieval so it could be merged
and then matched to accountingdata and so forth.
Well, those boxes, those remoteboxes which they would pull
periodically to pull the data ateach of those switches, was
called a matchbox.

Speaker 1 (02:32:08):
Oh man, oh.
So, like you'd have to go, Igot to collect from matchbox
number 10.
Yep, oh, that's brilliant.

Speaker 2 (02:32:17):
Yep, and so, yeah, it's kind of an interesting
concept that they came up with.
So they had these matchboxes.
I don't know if they still callthem matchboxes, because I
think now they have internetconnections to all the switches.
I don't think those thingsexist.

Speaker 1 (02:32:34):
They may still exist for backup purposes, because you
always need some kind of asecondary device well, if you
think about this too, like a lotof that stuff came about and
then things progressed andchanged, but you still had the
match boxes and there wasprobably a point in time where
people were calling them matchboxes but didn't even know why.

Speaker 2 (02:32:53):
That's just what you've always called them, you
know I probably didn't, theydidn't know, yeah, but that's
that's why they were calledmatch boxes, wow, um, so then
they.
They hired another Robert.
She had three Bobs, so we usedto call them Rob, rob and Bob,

(02:33:14):
and for a while he had been apartial owner, but they decided
to part ways and the two guyskept it.
As I said earlier, the one guy,rob Schae, bought out bob
matthews.
Bob matthews moved down toflorida and lived a life and and
then they brought in his sonand their genius programmer I

(02:33:38):
shouldn't even call himprogrammer their genius hardware
guy, yeah, who took care of allof their servers, all the match
boxes, all of the programmingthat made them talk to each
other and that kind of thing.
And the son took over the basicprogramming and then hired a
couple students student-typepeople, you know, early

(02:34:01):
graduates or students who werestill in school to do a lot of
just the grunt work programming.
Here's your, here's yourassignment.
Go do it Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:34:13):
I got to ask this question, so I'm going to I'm
going to set it up for us andmake some statements here.
So you know, I worked incorporate America for 28 years
and we did a lot of RFPs and andwe did a lot of projects and
all of that.
But here's what I noticed aboutyou that I don't notice about
anyone else.
You know the people that youwork with.

(02:34:38):
Like, I knew the companies thatwe worked with, but I didn't
really know the companies that Iworked with.
But throughout this whole thinglike you know, this whole
interview that we've been doingI've noticed that you take the
time to not just know the nameof the company and maybe where
they're at, or maybe it's alittle bit like you know
intimately who owned it, whatthey did, how the name came

(02:34:59):
about.
You know you are so invested inthe people that you work with
that at some point they writeyou letters thanking you for
what you did for them.
Like, you have this thing thatyou do where you get invested in
the people that you work with,um, even some of the people you
don't get along with, becauseyou know they left after you got

(02:35:21):
there, but you knew about them,and so what is it about you
that drives you to get to knowpeople like that?
Like that's a, that's just awhole different skill set Like
that's?
That's what makes peoplesuccessful is knowing the people
around them.

Speaker 2 (02:35:37):
I'm just a people person.
Yeah.
I'll.
I'll ask you a question.
Okay, you were with me about aweek ago with some other people.
Uh huh, that's how I do it.

Speaker 1 (02:35:52):
That's funny because I learned a lot about those guys
who were sitting there eatinglunch.

Speaker 2 (02:35:56):
Yep, yeah, that's how I do it.
I find people who I can usuallyfind something interesting
about almost everybody that Imeet and I try to relate to
those people on that level.
I can still recall I think Imentioned earlier my Motorola

(02:36:19):
rep.
Well, I even knew people at thecorporate office Because one of
the systems that I hadinstalled to do that answering
service and the paging that wetalked about earlier, early on
they had approached Motorola tomarket their system and I

(02:36:40):
traveled to Motorola'sheadquarters in Rolling Meadows
Illinois I think it was RollingMeadows Illinois to see the
prototypes of the system that welater installed at St Joseph
Mercy and that University ofMichigan had installed but
couldn't figure out how to makeit work.
I remember that.
Okay, and there was.

(02:37:04):
So there were sales folks.
I even knew the owner quitewell His name was Scott Stingle
of this particular system.
The company was InteractiveCommunication Systems, I believe
it was called.
They were out of Walton,massachusetts, but I made it a

(02:37:25):
point to get to know who I wasworking with, because you'd be
surprised what you can get whenyou know people on that level.
You know because it's harderfor them to say no for certain
things whether they fly in for afew hours and then they take

(02:37:46):
off and you never talk to themanymore.
You know that just wasn't me.
I'd have lunch with them, goout to dinner with them,
whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:37:59):
They were people.
Yeah, I've been a firm believerin the face-to-face meeting.
Like I always jokingly wouldsay, say it's harder to be mean
to someone that you know.
You know like if you and I sitdown, have dinner and we're
doing a business deal, we mightdisagree on something.
We're not going to be mean toeach other because we know each

(02:38:20):
other.
We're going to work this thingout.
So I've always kind ofsubscribed to you, got to sit
down and meet people face toface.
You can't do it over with allthose companies.

Speaker 2 (02:38:29):
We had our ups and downs, we had our disagreements,
we had.
It was a lot easier to workthrough a lot of them right, um,
and a lot of times we couldhave some very difficult
meetings and then go out for adrink or dinner or whatever
afterwards.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:38:47):
That's, we get stuff.
We get stuff done Right.

Speaker 2 (02:38:51):
Uh, and Rob Schaefer lives in Holland today.
In our still friends we visitfrom time to time.
Um, we didn't become very goodfriends until several years, I
mean after he bought the company.
It after he bought the company.
It was after he bought thecompany we started to spend time

(02:39:12):
just talking on a one-to-onebasis.
We were both getting towardretirement and so forth.
But what was a neat thing abouthim, he never forgot special
days.
Somebody in my staff would havea birthday or whatever.
They would always make it apoint to, if they were aware of

(02:39:36):
it, to acknowledge it in someway, maybe flowers or any
retirements.
They would always show up.
Somebody from the company wouldbe there, if not two or three
people.
I think at my retirement therewere three people from Match, I

(02:40:01):
believe.

Speaker 1 (02:40:02):
And that's interesting because a lot of
times outside vendors aren'tpart of those transitions.
You know what I mean.
Like when I, when I worked atconsumers energy, I never saw
vendors at a at someone'sretirement, even though we
worked with these guys all thetime, you know you didn't.
You rarely would see a um acontractor at a retirement.

(02:40:27):
So that speaks volumes for therelationship.

Speaker 2 (02:40:29):
There was actually one, one vendor who I only
related to indirectly because hesold circuits, data circuits
and large scale telephonecircuits and that kind of thing.
And I'm still in touch with himand when he's in town sometimes
he'll call and say let's havelunch.

(02:40:50):
And we had no really directrelationship.
He would come from meetings andsometimes he'd just because he
knew we handled the billing.
So we got the money that madeit possible for him to be there.
Come on, let's go to dinner.
Or he'd bring bagels in orsomething like that.
He lives down in the Detroitarea.

(02:41:11):
I try to make it a point of notcreating enemies.
I don't know how to phrase whatI want to say I don't meet.
I always to say I don't meet, Ialways meet friends.

(02:41:32):
Yeah, and if you want it to beother ways, otherwise, that's
your choice.

Speaker 1 (02:41:43):
Well, and the other thing is you don't seem like a
transactional person, Like Ineed you to do this job for me,
but there's this friendshiprelationship that develops and
it's not just a you do this forme and I'm going to give you a
check.
You don't seem transactionallike that.
You seem more on a personallevel.

Speaker 2 (02:41:56):
Well, if you're at the next lunch, maybe you'll get
to meet one of the guys thatwasn't able to be there.
Pardon me at the lunch you wereat, pardon me the lunch you
were at.
When I was at the publicservice commission, the first
day job I had, I think Imentioned earlier, I had only a
staff of three.
Yeah, and it was.
It was the teddy bear.

(02:42:17):
He's the teddy bear, okay.
So all that time we've becomefriends, um, and I wait until
you meet him and you know andyou can tell, he can tell you
some of the stories and you knowtoo bad for the people
listening that uh, they don'tget to go to these lunches.

Speaker 1 (02:42:36):
But you know that last lunch that I went to the
interesting thing to me waseveryone at that table was
different.
You know there was some commonlike interests, but everyone was
different.
Everyone kind of had adifferent life, a different path
and it was great, like I, if Ihadn't had an appointment that
afternoon I think I'd still besitting there.

(02:42:57):
To be honest, like that's ahard table to get up from, yep I
, I find it that way as well,yeah I just generally like
people.

Speaker 2 (02:43:07):
My wife gets frustrated because she says you
know, I find things interestingabout anybody I've met, almost
yeah, and I just like to sharewith them, like to talk to them.
I learned from people.

Speaker 1 (02:43:24):
Almost every time I meet somebody new, I learned
something from them and I enjoylearning and my doctor keeps
telling me just keep doing that,I'll make you live longer it,
will they say, if you use yourbrain, it uh, it lasts a lot
longer, it doesn't wear out well, there's a social aspect to it
as well right, because I knowseveral veterans around me who

(02:43:50):
are younger than me who can't dothe things that I do.

Speaker 2 (02:44:00):
That's probably the only way I'd say it.

Speaker 1 (02:44:02):
Yeah, I understand, I understand, so let's kind of
transition into that.
Then.
So you retired and it's beenalmost transition into that.
Then so you, you retired and uh, it's been almost probably
around eight years ago that youretired.
Um, I don't, it doesn't appearto me that you've slowed down.
So, um, the first question iswhen you retired, what was it
like to kind of walk out of thatreally for the last time?

(02:44:22):
How did that?
What was that feeling like foryou as you're leaving the state?

Speaker 2 (02:44:26):
Bittersweet.
Yeah, I had worked seven oreight years past retirement I
don't remember how many yearsnow I had worked way past
retirement, yeah, and it waskind of nice because I could
draw Social Security and I couldwork and not have any
limitations and I could put thatmoney away.

(02:44:47):
Social security and I couldwork and not have any
limitations and I could put thatmoney away.
And I had several things that Iwanted to achieve before I left
so that I could say when I leftthere would be no major

(02:45:07):
challenges, no major hurdlesleft for somebody else to have
to pick up midstream, that theywould be at a point where they
could just kind of move on andgrow.
And I stayed until I could seethat that spot.

(02:45:30):
There was only one thing leftthat I wanted to achieve and
that was in process, um, andthat was just another data
matching operation to minimizesome more manual stuff that had
to be done so that we could haveall of our systems interfaced.

(02:45:56):
And that was the last step andat that point I could see that
it would probably happen.
And there was another young,really smart person who is now,
I think, at my reasons, didn'tseem to like me, but she also

(02:46:32):
didn't seem to like a lot ofother people.
So it wasn't just you, yeah, Idon't know why, but a lot of
people just had difficult timesgetting along with her and she
had a large hand in thetelecommunications side of the
billing and the data collectionfrom telecom and she resented he

(02:46:58):
and I working together becausehe was able to visualize the
concepts that I was trying tomove into with those systems and
he was doing the same thingthat the other young man had
done.
He was actually writing stuffand coming to meetings and she

(02:47:19):
prohibited him from coming tothe meetings.
Well, they started to have somedifficulties in management in
that department, started to havesome difficulties in management
in that department and, um,they brought in a.
They had brought in several liketemporary directors, um, and
the one director that was there.
I mentioned to him that.

(02:47:40):
I said you know you have areally bright young man in your
area and he says but he's beenprevented from working with our
group to bring, bring these uhinterfaces together.
And he asked me who he was andI told him and he said you can
have him whenever you need him,I'll take care of that.

(02:48:03):
He's never stopped.
And now, now he's where you werepretty much a different area
but at my level, right From whatI what I'm hearing, I he sends
word to me through another,through one of the other
managers who's still working,that I'm friends with.
He sends word to me from timeto time oh, tell Bruce that,

(02:48:27):
that, that, that that you know,and from time to time, oh tell
Bruce da-da-da-da-da.
And so I felt good about thatone too, and I guess he told
this friend of mine that I wasvery instrumental in his
development as well.
So, that feels good.
It's always nice to be able tohelp the younger folks.

Speaker 1 (02:48:46):
Oh yeah, I mean, we owe it to them to be mentors.
I think our job is to get thenext group ready to take our job
right.

Speaker 2 (02:48:53):
Yeah, but that was you know.
Now that you mention that, oneof the things that I used to
always describe to, I know a lotof managers feel like they have
to know everything.
You know they've got to bebetter than anybody that's below
them or that reports to them.
I didn't like that term and Iwas always of the opinion I

(02:49:18):
don't need people, I don't needto know everything that people
do.
I need people who know how todo things.
I need to know how to managethose people and bring the best
out of them, and I would alwaystell them it's not me who gets
the credit, it's those peoplewho do the work that I need and

(02:49:39):
understand how to make thosethings happen.
Those are the people thatdeserve the credit.
You know, all I did was try tobring them all together and make
a cohesive working unit.

Speaker 1 (02:49:55):
Yeah, you just need to know people.
They need to know their job.
Right yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (02:49:59):
And so I recall when I took my first job at St Joseph
Mercy and I told you I had avery good mentor there, my boss
there.
I remember several months intothe job I was trying to learn
everything.
I had so many responsibilities.

(02:50:20):
I was trying to know as much asI could about each one of them.
Like I said, they gave me a lotof leeway in terms of training
and that kind of thing.
But he called me in one day andhe said to me he said, bruce, I
don't need you to work.
I kind of the photo, look on myface.
He says I need you to manage.

(02:50:41):
And we had to have a littlediscussion about it.
But you know, he got me tounderstand what he wanted from
me and I started to step back.
And it was about that same timethat saint joseph mercy had

(02:51:03):
this big emphasis onparticipative management styles,
where you bring staff in andhave these brainstorming
sessions, get all the ideas onthe table, talk about the pros
and cons, pull out the bestaspects of all the different

(02:51:29):
ideas and solutions, put ittogether, develop a plan and
implement.
And I've carried that with mesince then.

Speaker 1 (02:51:39):
I kind of chuckled when you said what you said
earlier, though, because Iworked for Chris Shelberg
probably one of my better bosses, my better supervisors, and I
was a manager over a large areaand one day she pulled me in and
she said look, when I tell yousomething's got to get done,
that doesn't mean you have to doit.

(02:52:01):
That means it's got to get done.
You have all these smart peopleout here that work for you.
It can get this done.
Stop doing.
You know exactly, manage themanage, manage the operation,
but let the people do the work.
yep, you can't do it all forthem they're the experts yeah,
yeah, I mean, why would you hiresmart people and tell them how
to do their job?
That doesn't make any sense.

(02:52:21):
So I get it.
So you know, let's, let's talkabout that transition then.
So you, you leave the state ofMichigan, and then what happens?
What have you been doing overthe last couple of years?

Speaker 2 (02:52:38):
Well, I really thought I would miss the work,
but because of where I leftthings, I had no reason to think
about it.
You know, I had no reason tothink about it, right, you know?
Oh, I wonder if this happened.
It just I didn't need tobecause I had achieved almost
everything that I wanted toachieve all the goals that I'd

(02:52:59):
set for myself, and so it waslike okay, so there's this new
chapter.
I need to go out and figure outwhat I'm going to do.
So I started saving money andbuying photographic equipment
and radio equipment.
I've got the radio station thata lot of people would dream
about.
Now I enjoy it when I have timeto go in there and operate.

(02:53:22):
I like what we call DXing,which is long-distance contacts.
The one thing I don't likeabout it is because in the hobby
, so many people all they wantto do is to make the contact and
get it in their lock.
They don't want to talk what wecall rack chewing.
Okay, I made this contact in mylock, so I talked to some guy

(02:53:44):
in Timbuktu.

Speaker 1 (02:53:47):
So is the idea to talk to people from all
different and kind of fill in.

Speaker 2 (02:53:52):
It's a very interesting hobby.
Yeah, there's so many aspectsto it.
I mean there's satellite radio,there's moon bounce, there's
auroral bounce, bouncing signalsoff the Aurora.
Um, there's um, cw, whichstands for continuous wave,
which is Morse codecommunications.
There's CW, which stands forContinuous Wave, which is Morse
Code communications.
There's voice communications,there's gosh, on and on and on,

(02:54:17):
and then within that there areall these contests.
How many parks can you?
Parks are numbered throughoutthe world.
So some guy will go out in apark, take all portable
equipment set up and see howmany contacts he can make out
there, and there'll be on theother side folks who want to see
how many they can collect.
How many countries, how manystates, how many counties can

(02:54:41):
you collect?
So all they're interested in isgetting that contact in their
log and getting it confirmedboth ways.
Right Checking the box Rightand I like to talk to people
because I learn again from those.

Speaker 1 (02:54:57):
Yeah, you like to talk to people?

Speaker 2 (02:54:59):
Yeah, and I learn from them.
And so every once in a whileI'll find somebody in a distant
country or a different statethat we kind of make a little
friendship and we'll talkwhenever we can.
And I've got contacts all overthe world Middle East, asia,

(02:55:23):
south America, all over NorthAmerica, all over Europe.
South America, all over NorthAmerica, all over Europe.
I've had contacts in Antarctica, in the North Pole, new Zealand
, australia.
Did you talk to Santa Claus?
I didn't talk to Santa Claus,but what did get involved in?
You know when they follow?
Santa Claus oh yeah, when NORADdoes, the NORAD has its.

(02:55:46):
Did get involved in that oneyear.

Speaker 1 (02:55:48):
Oh, tell me about this.

Speaker 2 (02:55:51):
Well, it's just, you know, there's a network of
contacts who will supposedlymake contact with the control
operations and that kind ofthing.
Well, santa is here now andhe's going through this part of
the world.
I don't even remember how itworks now.
It was a while back, when I wasstill kind of new in the hobby.

(02:56:15):
But I do remember gettinginvolved with it and I haven't
listened for it since.
I've gotten involved in whatthey call the seven days for
Christmas too.
You've got to make somecontacts on each of these days,
and each day has a differentsymbolic meaning.
All of these different aspectsof the hobby that you can get

(02:56:38):
involved in.
I just like the voicecommunications.
There's also datacommunications.
A lot of guys nowadays arecommunicating from their
keyboards.
Okay, um it just.
I don't care for it.
There's no personal interaction, right?
but there's something foreverybody right, that's how some

(02:56:59):
people like to communicate.

Speaker 1 (02:57:00):
You like to do voice and so it works out.

Speaker 2 (02:57:02):
So, yeah, so I did that and, uh, I think I showed
you some of my photography.
I like really shooting stilllife plants and insects and
animals and sometimes peopledon't get a chance to do much of
the kind of photography I didin my early years anymore,

(02:57:24):
although I've done a coupleparties recently early years
anymore although I've done acouple parties recently and I've
done a couple weddings notformally for friends I had.
I had at least one to tell methat the shots that I provided
them were better than those thatthey had from their

(02:57:45):
professional photographer.
That's nice and I was and I wasshooting different angles.
But when I do an event likethat, I prefer candids.
Yeah, I don't like a lot ofposts.
They're obviously the thefamily shots and those kind of
things you got to do post.
But when they're mingling I tryand hide myself and just get

(02:58:09):
candid shots.
I don't like to be very obviouswhen I'm taking shots and I'll
shoot with my phone and I'llshoot with my cameras and that
has more of a warm personalfeeling for people.
I think they can see thoseinteractions and they're not
people looking in the camera,right?

(02:58:29):
Um, one of the things I learnedwhen I was doing portraiture
and I didn't believe it when Iwas, when I was being trained,
until later I I found out it'strue, never have a person
everybody wants look, look righthere at the camera.
Well, if you're shootingindividuals and they're looking
at the camera, and then if youput that shot in a frame and you

(02:58:54):
walk from one side of the roomto the other side of that room,
their eyes will follow you.

Speaker 1 (02:59:00):
My grandmother had a picture of Jesus that would do
that.

Speaker 2 (02:59:04):
Because they're looking right at the camera, so
from every perspective thoseeyes are there.
That's creepy, and so when Iwas doing portraiture, I would
always have a person look overyour nose, look across your nose
.
So if I had the head turnedthis way, I'd say look across
your nose that way, so that theeyes are almost as if they're

(02:59:26):
gazing in the distance Right.

Speaker 1 (02:59:31):
And it made a lot of difference.
Yeah, guess I never thought of.
You're right.
There are some pictures outthere where it's just.
I just gotta get rid of thisthing.
It's eerie, yeah, I don't needthis.

Speaker 2 (02:59:36):
I don't need this at all so that was one of the kinds
of things that I learned, but I, I like learning, I like
knowing how things work.
I don't necessarily have to beable to get into the depths of
them, but I like to understandthe mechanics of it.
So, yeah, so when I, when Ileft, uh, I thought I'm going to

(03:00:02):
rest for a while and then Iwill start, uh, spending more
time with my friends, moresocial life, going to movies,
which I almost never had timefor, finding interesting things
on television reading.
During COVID, we had a group offriends that we go meet at a
park down by the river, wesocial distance ourselves at

(03:00:26):
picnic tables and have lunch.
We're out, we're out in the air.
It was summertime and we had alot of fun doing that, because
everybody else was locked insome place, right?

Speaker 1 (03:00:40):
I think you told me, uh, at lunch.
So you guys were, you guys hadordered pizzas or something we'd
order.

Speaker 2 (03:00:45):
We had pizzas.
We had chicken yeah, we gotpopeyes or kentucky fried or
whatever and get a big box ofchicken, whatever.
Some days we bring our ownlunches.
Um, did it pretty often.
But again, I guess that's thekind of people that that I enjoy

(03:01:09):
spending time around them.
They're social animals, yeah,um, and you got a flavor.
You got a flavor of it, andthere were a handful who aren't
usually there, that weren'tthere.

Speaker 1 (03:01:24):
So next, time, maybe you'll get.
I'm excited.
I'm excited for two reasons.
One, I'm going to see morepeople in two.
Two, you guys said somethingabout popeye's chicken and, uh,
if you'll know, my wife doesn'tlet me eat popeye's chicken.
If I say I'm going to havelunch with bruce, she'll be fine
with it.

Speaker 2 (03:01:40):
Popeye's chicken and dirty rice I don't know what it
is about that, but man, that'slunch well, I've been married
more times than I even want totalk about and I won't get into
all of that.

Speaker 1 (03:01:53):
But well, bruce, let me just say that the third
time's the charm, at least ithas been for me.
Well we'll just leave it atthat.
We'll leave it at that well, sohow long have you been married
to your current wife?

Speaker 2 (03:02:10):
six uh 12 years.

Speaker 1 (03:02:13):
Okay, yeah, my wife and I about 10 years, so it's
about 12 years, yeah oh nice.

Speaker 2 (03:02:18):
But number three was, uh, from louisiana.
I think I mentioned earlierthat her father and my mother
went to the same school.
Yes.
Okay, she could cook CajunDirty rice.
First time I ever heard dirtyrice was from her or her mother,

(03:02:43):
and I don't know that I've haddirty rice.
I've tried to make it and it'sjust not the same.

Speaker 1 (03:02:48):
It is not.
It is not.
You know.
I'll share with you.
I had a chicken dinner in anIraqi prison.
It's a long story and this isyour story so we're not going to
get into it.
But a chicken dinner in anIraqi prison and it came chicken
and rice.
It looked like roadkill and Ilike dirty rice, but I and rice.

(03:03:09):
It looked like roadkill and Ilike.
I like dirty rice, but I don'tlike rice that's dirty.
So they didn't quite have therecipe town either, okay, but uh
, yeah, that's a story foranother time I make pretty good
gumbo, oh well, you should.
You should have lunch at yourhouse sometime and we'll have
gumbo.

Speaker 2 (03:03:24):
I'd like that well, usually I have gumbo.
I'd like that.
Well, usually I make gumboafter after.
Don't have a big family, no, sono big turkey carcasses.
Yeah, but I like to get theturkey carcass.
That's the best starter for me.
Uh, but uh yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:03:44):
We know, every year after Thanksgiving we take the
turkey carcass and we make uh,we make our own broth with that.
It is absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:03:54):
Boil it down until everything's off the bone.

Speaker 1 (03:03:56):
Yep For like like 48 hours on the stove just
simmering.
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (03:04:03):
Anyway, I digress Yep , so yeah Well.
Obviously we both like to eat.
Yes, yeah Well, I didnress Yep,so yeah Well obviously we both
like to eat.

Speaker 1 (03:04:08):
Yes, yeah.
Well, I didn't get this lovelyfigure by not liking to eat.

Speaker 2 (03:04:13):
So, so, anyway, that's uh, I just never.
And now, what amazes me is Ican't even recall a lot of the
specifics of what I did in thoselast years.
It's just, I guess, when I left, I just left it, and I always

(03:04:39):
thought I wouldn't be able to dothat, and the only thing I
could attribute it to is thatwhen you achieve what you set
out to achieve, you don't have aneed to look back.
You want to look forward.

Speaker 1 (03:04:53):
That makes perfect sense.
It really does so.
So I think this is a great,it's a great segue.
We've we've talked about yourwhole life.
We've looked back on everythingA lot of your family history, a
lot of your own personalhistory, things you've done,
people you've met all of those.
As we kind of come to the closeof our discussion here, I'd

(03:05:18):
like to look forward and I'dlike to ask you a question, and
that is you know, if someone'slistening to this 100 years from
now?
I don't think either one of uswill still be here.
Maybe we will.
Who knows?
Um, and they're listening tothis and they're.
They've heard your story andthey've heard us talk.
What message would you like toleave for people?

Speaker 2 (03:05:47):
Given the state of affairs in our world today and
given the events of the day,with the Holy Father just

(03:06:07):
passing away on Easter.
Saturday Easter Monday EasterMonday I believe it was right,
it was Monday, yep and hismessage of trying to recognize

(03:06:31):
the common folks and bringtogether the entire human race
in such a manner that we couldput wars aside and maybe have

(03:06:54):
some common respect for eachother.
That's the best framework I canuse right at the minute for
each other.
It's the best framework you canuse right at the minute.
Just, there's too muchindividuality,

(03:07:19):
self-aggrandizement andunwillingness to sit down and
have just open conversations.
So I think you know, I wouldhope that someday that this
country can not just thiscountry this world can come

(03:07:43):
together in harmony.
I know it will never be aperfect harmony, but that they
could come together for thecommon good.
And if we don't, I have no ideawhere humanity will end up,
because I think today we're on adestructive path.

(03:08:05):
We're on a destructive path.
So I would just ask that peoplelook around and try and
understand your fellow man,listen Something that my wife
will kill me for saying this,but I always say to my wife
listen more, talk less.
Just listen to what the otherperson has to say, try and

(03:08:30):
understand what they're sayingand then take your time to talk
so that they can hear what it isthat you're trying to say.
If you're both talking at thesame time, nothing happens.
And I recall that my oldersister, who was 20 years older

(03:08:54):
than me my only sister is 20years older than me.
I remember her saying to herchildren who were around my age
just remember, it takes twopeople to make an argument.
Somebody has to listen.
I don't know if there's anymore I could say.

Speaker 1 (03:09:17):
All right.
Well, thanks for that, thanksfor taking time out to come and
do this with me, and Iappreciate it.
I'm looking forward to thatnext lunch.
Thanks.

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