The presidio was a lot of posts in one. The stories found here are told by people who mostly interracted with the main base portions of the presidio. When a military faciltiy most of the surrounding areas, like Fort Scott, were considered sub-posts, that eventually became part fo the Presidio as a whole.
"The advisory commission, I would say, played a really important role the ensuring that the Presidio became a park. It’s important to realize during all of this, and you know from ’89 to ’94—or even ’96 when the Presidio Trust legislation actually was enacted—that the context of all of this was a lot of volatility in Congress." - Craig Middleton
Craig Middleton
Craig Middleton discusses some political aspects of Presidio being turned into a national park, and becoming the acting executive director of the Presidio Trust. As well as thoughts and feelings of the Trust Bill, its effects and possible future applications.
Haller: Are we...? Oh, good. My name is Steve Haller and I’m here at Presidio Trust headquarters, on June 14, 2002, with Craig Middleton, the acting executive director of the Trust And Craig, I’m really thankful that you took some time from your busy schedule to be interviewed today. So, thanks a lot for that.
Middleton: No problem at all.
Haller: Now, I understand that you give and grant to the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, all the literary and property rights, title and interest, which you may possess, and I do the same for those rights that I may possess, to this tape recording done on June 14th. And it’s for the history archives at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which gift we both will never revoke or recall. And I agree to those terms, and do you?
Middleton: Yes, I agree to that.
Haller: Great! Well, let’s get going. Would you care to share a little, some biography of your pre-Presidio years, just so we can understand you and who you are a little bit better?
Middleton: Sure. I had somewhat of a non-conventional background in the sense that I didn’t have a direct career path that led me here. Although I started out…I got a Masters in public administration in, I guess, it was 1986. And prior to that did a lot of carpentry work and that kind of thing. Worked in a variety of places but really started to work in the political environment after that. Went to Washington and worked for Congresswoman Pelosi, who was at that point a new Congresswoman, had been elected in 1987.
Haller: Before Washington, let me ask you, where’d you grow up?
Middleton: I grew up all over the place, mostly in California. Was born in Atascadero, California, down near San Luis Obispo. And my father was in sales and so we moved a lot, you know, in those days. He worked for General Motors and they kinda felt a little bit like the Army did. You move every two or three years So, we lived in Ohio, and we lived in Davis, and we lived in the peninsula. I went high school at Woodside High School down on the peninsula. And then I went to UC Santa Barbara and then later the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Haller: Thanks. Back to you started work then, you were saying, with Congresswoman Pelosi. When was that?
Middleton: That was in 198-…right in the beginning of ’88. She had been elected in ’87, in a special election of June of ’87. And I was knocking on doors in Washington, really wanted to work for Nancy, although I didn’t know her. But ended up being a wonderful position. I ended up moving in as a press secretary, and then doing all kinds of work there as most people do when they go to Washington. I worked on environmental issues for her in the international banking subcommittee of the banking committee, which she was on at the time. And then as she moved into different committees, particularly onto appropriations, I started to work on her appropriations stuff. Doing funding for—primarily for projects in San Francisco, like the retrofit for the entire Embarcadero. I worked on that project, and we got a lot of funding for that. During that period of course, we got word that the Presidio was going to be closed, and so that was of great interest to our office.
[tape is stopped and turned back on momentarily]
Haller: Among the issues that you worked on in Congresswoman’s Pelosi office, you started to say was the Presidio Trust issue, or at least you said it had come up. Now, was this an issue you worked with in her office a great deal?
Middleton: I did not work on this lot in her office. Judy Lemons[??] who is her chief-of-staff was the key person working on the Presidio. At that point—this was I guess 1989—I remember it particularly because I was with my wife in West Virginia—oh, she wasn’t my wife yet. But in West Virginia we at a bed and breakfast and I happened to pick up the Post—the Washington Post—and there it was. The Presidio closed and, of course, I knew that was going to change everybody’s life in the office [laughs]. And it did.
So, everybody really worked on it. Judy was the point person on it, and I assisted. I was the press secretary, so of course, that had a lot to do with—there’s a lot of press interest in it.
We were working pretty hard at the time to ensure that there would be adequate funding for the transition, because clearly when it went from the Department of Defense, and that kind of a budget environment, to the National Park Service, and that kind of a budget environment, we were concerned that there wouldn’t be enough money to fund the Presidio.
So, worked very closely with some other members of Congress, including, at the time, Barbara Boxer, who was a member of Congress not a senator yet. And I think Barbara actually represented the area that the Presidio is in. That got changed in 1990.
So, we worked with Barbara a lot. We worked with Congressman John Mertha a lot, who was the chairman of the subcommittee on defense appropriations. A key person there. George Miller[??] was involved. The Senate, senators were all involved. It was a group effort to try to get this money.
And ultimately, we did prevail in getting extensive amounts of money for infrastructure improvements here at the Presidio—even though this was DOD money, even though everyone knew that the Army was leaving. So that was kind of a gift to the park that the military made.
Haller: Well, that made a huge difference in the success of the transition, didn’t it?
Middleton: It really did. Because, you know, it’s a huge nut to crack still. We’re estimating now that we have about 580 million dollars worth of work to do at the Presidio just to get the forest in shape, and all the buildings restored, and site improvements made, to make it a really magnificent national park site.
But that really helped, you know, it really helped to get some of the fiber loop done, the basic infrastructure, most of which is under the ground, and you don’t see, but is critical to the operation of this place.
Gotta remember it was, this infrastructure, not only was very old, but it really wasn’t well mapped. And so, we just didn’t even know what the extent of the problem was until we got into it. And that money was tremendously helpful.
Haller: And that money is still coming at this point, and that, I guess, relates directly to those early efforts.
Middleton: Well, yeah. I mean, the money that the DOD provided, in—I guess it was ‘9-…I’m trying to remember now—’91, ’92, something like that—Was…you know, we’ve used that. That’s been expended, but now, of course the DOD has provided us will another 100 million for the environmental cleanup. And that was a result of a negotiation that occurred in 1998.
And when the Trust came in and there was a—after about a year and a half negotiation. And the help of Senator—now Senator—Boxer and Senator Feinstein and Congresswoman Pelosi, as well as John Mertha and Ralph Regula and others who had been involved in the beginning.
Resulted in a landmark agreement wherein the Department of Defense transferred a 100 million dollars to the Presidio Trust and the responsibility for cleaning up both Area A and Area B of the Presidio. The Park Service was a party to that—I guess it was DOI actually—was a party to that agreement. It was a three-way agreement between DOD, DOI, and the Presidio Trust.
Haller: Why do you refer to it as a landmark agreement?
Middleton: It had never been done before. Generally, the way these cleanups works is that it remains the responsibility of the military. And then you argue about the reuse authority—which in this case was us and the Park Service—argues with the military to get them to pay for things that would make the reuse more possible.
And it’s pretty clear that the Defense Department—it’s not a mission related activity to clean up military bases. That’s not the business they’re in. And we realized that particularly with the self-sufficiency, financial self-sufficiency clause in the trust act, that if we were going to be able to reuse these buildings, restore them, reuse them, we had to have control over the cleanup process.
And so that was really the impetus for that conversation, which ultimately resulted in the landmark agreement. Landmark not only because that kind of a transfer hadn’t been done before, but also because we got the largest private insurance policy ever written for environmental cleanup. A 100-million-dollar policy, which was put in place to cover us against any overruns.
So, we had a 100 million in cash and a 100 million in insurance, and hopefully that’ll all work. We’re still working it all out, we’re starting the cleanup now.
Haller: Well, I hope it does work. [clears throat] Why don’t we go back chronologically then and work our way back to the…We left this tread of thought with you working on funding issues and Congresswoman Pelosi’s office. What juncture in the Presidio story did you begin to work for GGNPA?
Middleton: I came out—well, of course, it was ’89 when the whole saga really started—I guess, ’72 when it started [laughs] but ’89 when it really got going in terms of the transfer, and the planning effort began then.
I was in Pelosi’s office until ’93. So, I came into working for the GGNPA in ’93. The Presidio Council had already been established.
Haller: I didn’t realize that.
Middleton: Nan Stockholm[??] was the staff director working under Greg Moore[??], for that Council, and I got a job working for Nan.
Haller: Well, tell us about the motivations, if you can then, for the creation of the Presidio Council. I understand you’re telling me it started before you got there, but if you could still shed some light on why the Presidio Council was started, how its original role was envisioned. Can you do that?
Middleton: Sure. I think that it became clear when the Park Service realized it was going to inherit this wonderful but complex military post, that it would be important to pull together some of the greatest minds in the country. In an advisory role to the Park Service to try to get some ideas about, not only what should the vision be for this place, but how should they run this place, you know? What did they need to do to take this 200-and-some-odd-year-old base and turn it into a national park?
Great opportunity and they didn’t want to squander it. And so, they put together, through the auspices of the GGNPA, a blue-ribbon panel of about thirty-five people. With luminaries in the business world and the arts world and architecture, landscape architecture, education, film, you know, you name it they were there. It was an interesting group of people.
And interesting not only because the individuals were interesting, but because the combination of these individuals was really quite astounding. And you’d have Jay Brody[??] from the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation talking to Maya Lyn, talking to Francis Ford Coppla, all in the same room talking about—brainstorming about ideas.
And so, it was really a great idea to have this group. And I think they were very, very productive and helped the planning process significantly. I would say they really spawned the whole idea of the Trust, although that’s not what they called it at that time. It ended up in the plans and public benefit corporation, but that really came out of this council.
So, I think that’s why it was put together. It was funded through the GGNPA by philanthropic funding, and we also got quite a bit of pro bono help from people like Mickensie[??] & Co. and others to do management studies. So.
Haller: Who were some of the most, eventually the most, influential people who worked, in quotes, “on the Council.”
Middleton: On the Council? Boy, so many offered. I would say though, just from my perspective, probably Jim Harvey[??], who was the chairman—of course, chairman and CEO of Transamerica—brought tremendous, I guess, gravitas to the whole process.
He was also a member of the board of the National Park Foundation. Had worked very closely with Senator Bradley[??] on water issues, and Congressman Mill[??] so he had very good contacts in Washington. Ran one of the biggest corporations in America, and also had wonderful contacts in San Francisco.
Had just a wonderful unassuming air about him. Sort of this confident, unassuming, intelligent air about him that really drew people to him. So, he was very influential, I think. A very practical guy. There’d be all these fanciful ideas floating around in the room and Jim would sort of bring them all back down to earth. So that was important.
Toby Rosenblat[??] played a big role in that, as well as chairman of the GGNPA that was sponsoring the Council. So, he was quite a player.
Roy Isenhart[??] was another wonderful mind who was there. Roy had a way of looking at things from a different angle. So, he would always bring that kind of, “Well, have you looked at it this way?” kind of attitude, which was really, really refreshing. And I think Roy is one of the more brilliant people I’ve ever met.
Jay Brody[??], who at the time executive director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation. And had great practical experience, both in dealing with the Park Service—sort of these Park Service projects that were also sort of development projects. You know, he did Pennsylvania Avenue.
Historic preservation, he understood that very well. He understood Washington very well. And was very instrumental in helping us figure out how something like a Presidio Trust could be structured. And if you do look at the legislation, that created the Presidio Trust, there’s a strong resemblance to the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation legislation.
Maya Lyn. Creative, brilliance, combined with Gio Obata[??] and Lorie Olen[??], who had great design sense, and Francis Ford Coppola, who really cared about youth programs in the arts. And that whole side of it was really important, particularly in the context of the business side of it that Jim represented. So, it really kind of all came together there.
And then we had Virginia Smith[??] who was a college president, and she brought a great deal of practicality to it as well as vision. For me, what I found most useful was when you could take the vision that everybody was—which was…pretty large—and then somehow tie it to the place in a very practical way. People that could do that were the most influential.
Carl Anthony[??] was very important. He talked about environmental justice and how that could be furthered in, and how we could work to bring diversity to the park. And that was really important too.
There are others. Everybody brought something but those stand out in my mind. Bill Reilly[??] was also part of it. He wasn’t a member of the Council but was a consultant to the Council. And he is so articulate in putting together how the vision could be achieved. And he was close to Secretary Babbitt, and that was very helpful too. So
Haller: That’s very good, because…very useful to hear the personal side of what sometimes is a very procedural story. But very good to give it a human element, so, that was great. Thanks.
Middleton: Yeah, yeah. The come out, I can’t remember how many times we’d meet, but—some were more involved than others—but I think all of them found the Presidio extremely magical. And they’d come out and we’d spend time walking around, just envisioning, which was pretty fun.
Haller: How about the public involvement role. Was it ever intended for these folks to have play as the strong role in that regard?
Middleton: Oh, I think ultimately after some time passed. Now we’re getting into when I came I along, and, you know, I came along kind of at the end of the visioning process and the beginning of the “How do we make this happen process.”
And my experience, of course having been in the Congress, was with legislation and legislative strategy and that kind of thing. And these Council members then became advocates for what became the Presidio Trust legislation. It began as the Presidio Corporation and then, you know, evolved over three years to becoming the Presidio Trust.
Haller: How bout the role of the Citizen’s Advisory Commission of the GGNRA? That always had an important role and I imagine it did much of what—for the Presidio---what it was intended to do for the park as a whole. Which was be the primary public conduit for these ideas? Is that basically, correct?
Middleton: Yeah, I think that’s correct. The advisory commission, I would say, played a really important role the ensuring that the Presidio became a park. It’s important to realize during all of this, and you know from ’89 to ’94—or even ’96 when the Presidio Trust legislation actually was enacted—that the context of all of this was a lot of volatility in Congress.
Yes, in 1972 everybody knows Phil Burton put this in the law and that the Army every left that this would become part of the National Park system. But having said that it wasn’t carved in stone. Yes, it was in the law, but.
Keep in mind we were in difficult financial times. There was a lot of pressure. There was a federal deficit. We weren’t in a surplus era. We had a lot of people in Congress saying, “What are you talking about?”
Now, some estimates are that the Army spent 70 million dollars to maintain the park. Nobody really knows because of the way they accounted for it, it was hard to tell. But even during the transition we were looking at a number of 45 million dollars, and it, you know, was sort of shift from the DOD over to the Park Service.
Well, 45 million dollars for a national park—not a national park but a piece of a national park—was extraordinary. And no one really could afford it. Everybody thought that it was too much, and there were several efforts—and not only to de-authorize pieces of the Presidio, selling them off, the Letterman, the Public Health Service Hospital, the golf course, selling them off in order to pay for the rest of it.
But also, there were plenty of very close votes to actually just cut the money. That was the easiest thing to do, you know. Don’t de-authorize the park, just don’t fund it. And so, I remember one member of Congress, I was in the room, and he said, “You know, this is so extensive why don’t we just put a cyclone fence around it and let the grass grow until we figure out how to fund it?”
Well, you got a huge collection of historic properties that are going to deteriorate if you do that, and so, that wasn’t really an option. But that was the context in which we were working. So, I think it’s really important, because people just assume that this was always destined to be a national park and so therefore there really wasn’t any controversy about it.
Getting back to the advisory commission. They really kept pounding on the fact that this was destined to be a national park, and this was Phil Burton that put it in, and we had to keep it that way, and we had to fund it. And that was, I thought, a very valuable role that they played, reminding the public of the controversy that was there, and the important of us, sort of, standing together to make sure this was the best thing that could happen.
Of course, they were also involved very much in the plant and in the workshops and the hearings that went ‘round that planning process. Which was an extensive planning process, leading to that 1994 plant. So, they played a huge role. Many of those people are still on the Council, so there’s a sense on continuity that they bring.
Haller: This may have been prior to—
Middleton: Mission, I should say. Yes.
Haller: This may have been prior to when you arrived at GGNPA in 1993, but at some point, rather early on in the process the advisory commission formed a committee or a subcommittee under Joe Williams[??]. Rich Barker[??] was a part of it, and there was a third person whose name I haven’t pinned down. And they’re described, particularly by Hal Rothman in his work “The Park That Makes Its Own Weather,” as having been enlisted to support the Presidio planning effort.
Or rather I should rephrase that. Excuse me. Rothman talks about this citizen’s advisory commission having been enlisted to support the Presidio planning effort, and you just described a lot of what that support was. Now, there’s also this subcommittee chaired by Joe Williams[??], and I guess what I’m trying to ask is was the subcommittee the core of the kind of effort that you were describing? Or did they have a…was there a sort of particular task for this group, in this state?
Middleton: Yeah. You know, I gotta tell ‘ya, I don’t remember much about that subcommittee. I wish—I, you know, remember the payers but I just don’t remember exactly what their role was as opposed to what the full committee did, or the full commission did. So, I’m just not much help on that, I just don’t know.
Haller: ______[??]. That’s okay. When all these new folks started to interact with the Army and its two-hundred-year tradition at the Presidio, and its long and proud tradition of how they do things, I think there was a little bit of an adjustment period of everyone all around. Doug Nadeau has described that pretty adequately in terms of how the park service people learned to fit in with the Army and vice versa.
Rich Barkey[??] actually tells a story of joining their jogs that they used to do around the Presidio in formation, with Nadeau[??] in the lead. [Middleton laughs] And that that really helped break the ice.
What kind of reaction or how’d the ice get broken, or did it need to get broken with the Council members and the ranking officers in the Army?
Middleton: You know, I don’t think there was a tremendous amount of interaction between the Council and the Army. I do remember, though, that during this transition period the culture shock sort of thing. You know, where here you have the Park Service coming with this participatory ethic. And not necessarily—although they may be structured in a hierarchical fashion, everybody gets a say and it’s more of a consensus, especially under Brian. More of a consensus type of an operation than the Army, obviously, which is very top-down.
I would credit the success of the transition—two people come to mind and one of them is Mai-liis Bartling who developed a very good relationship with the Army, as did Mike Savidge. And I think they did a lot to really bridge that gap. And Mai-liis is so fair and so honest that, you know, it just transcended any kind of cultural difference.
And they worked together very closely on coming up with sub agreements that would govern the different transitional activities and worked very well on transitioning the budget from the Army to the Park Service.
I will also say, that when I became the first employee of the Presidio Trust—actually, working under B.J. Griffin[??]. I was an employee of the Park Service assigned to the Trust, in fact, I was an employee of the GGNPA assigned to the Park Service and then assigned to the Trust.
But! Mai-liis was my counterpart in the transition from the Park Service to the Trust, of Area B. And she, again, was a wonder to work with. And we’d sit down and work together on [sighs] this 25 million. How are we gonna spilt it up, who gets what, and what re we gonna do, and what are they gonna do? So, I could see why it would have worked between her and the Army.
But in terms of the Council, I don’t think that there was a whole lot of interaction.
Haller: Well, I can see what you mean about Mai-liis who has not only an extraordinary grasp of detail, but an ability to get right to the nub of a very complex matter very quickly. Now, you mentioned Mike Savidge. Maybe you could talk a little about his role. He was in—
Middleton: He was head of the transition team for the Park Service, and just seemed very capable in that role. He worked very well with the Army folks. And, I think, in between those two they had a whole team, but I remember mostly those two as being particularly useful.
[End of Tape 1, Side 1]
[Tape 1, Side 2]
Haller: Craig, you spoke about Mike Savidge and his leader of the transition team. Now, at the same time there was a planning team set up by the Park Service, and the head of that was originally Rodger Kelley-Brown[??]. And then he was replaced, fairly early on in the process, by Don Neubacher who stayed for quite some time.
Can you talk a little bit about those two people and their styles, and how one led to the other?
Middleton: Sure! I don’t know Rodger. I came after Rodger, I think. But I did know Don, and Don did run the panning side of it and had a great staff including Carrie Feierabend —who ended up becoming our planning director for a while and has just left us unfortunately.
Style. Don is kind of a soft-spoken guy, but really smart. And I was just amazed at how he and his team could pull together an extraordinary amount of workshops, and an extraordinary amount of public comment, into something that turned into a plan. It was just amazing.
I remember at the end, toward right before they published it, just…these guys were going nuts with all of these comments. And trying to figure out how to put what they’d gotten in this workshop with what they’d gotten in this visioning section. And then of course we added the complexity of this blue-ribbon panel that also wanted to have a shot at it. And he was very good at kind of putting it all together to come up with something cohesive.
Nancy Licht[??] who was on our staff at the GGNPA, Presidio Council staff, I think played a big role in that as well working with those two to come up with language for the vision statement and other parts of the plan.
So, we also fed in a lot of the implementation side, the implementation strategy that was put together to accompany the plan. But, you know, I think Don was great. And obviously he was very good because he went off and became the superintendent of Point Reyes. I enjoyed working with him.
Haller: You mentioned the extraordinary amount of public input. Do you think it was the right amount? Or was it kind of so over whelming, and so, I guess, broad going from alpha to omega in its ideas? That, I guess, the one conclusion that might be made is that there was so much input that it just made the process—it certainly made the work very hard, you’re implying—but was it the right amount to get the right—for the process—to get the right handle?
Middleton: I think it’s the right amount of public involvement. You know, this is a place—and it’s a role we’ve had to deal with, too—I think the planning process for GNPA…must have been a four-year process. It was a long process. But this was a place that was extraordinary, and it was a [post that had to become a park and was pretty much unique in that nation.
So, I guess, it required that. I think the difficulty, sometimes when you have so many different points of view, how do you come up with a cohesive document that isn’t just an amalgamation of a bunch of different points of view?
And I think that they did a fairly good job of it. We’ve been struggling with the same thing with out PTEMP, which is our plan that we just published—or are about to publish.
Haller: For the sake of posterity, what’s the PTEMP?
Middleton: Yeah, just so people know. Presidio Trust Management Plan. Yeah, we decided in 2000, the year 2000, to essentially update the GNPA which published in ’94 without the foreknowledge of the Presidio Trust and the self-sufficiency requirement. And a change in the Letterman, that, you know, UCSF would not be at Letterman, which had been anticipated when the first plan came out.
So, we did an update. It took us two years to do it, nine months of public comment. And I frankly don’t know how they [laughs] withstood four years but, uh, more power to ‘em.
Haller: Dr. Rothman in his book quotes Jim Harvey[??] as declaring that it was the release of the Presidio concept workbook, was a turning point in…the end of the visioning phase? Which you referred to also earlier. And the beginning of planning for new uses. Do you agree? Was that the, basically, the turning point?
Middleton: That’s probably about the right time, yeah.
Haller: So that’s about the time when you appeared?
Middleton: Yeah, I’m trying to remember when that came out.
Haller: Or switched hats?
Middleton: It’s right around then. Yeah, I agree with that. That visioning process was very long, frustrating. It’s hard to get a vision for a place down into one page [laughs]. Which they ultimately did, but it was hard.
Haller: So, in your mind what are some of the other key milestones of this long road from post to park?
Middleton: You know, a lot of my perspective comes from the congressional political side and this extraordinary effort to try to maintain the place as a park, and the integrity of the place as a park, in the context of an awful lot of political change in Washington. You know, the 1994 Gingrich revolution, the first time the House had become Republican controlled in a long time—in four years, I think—the budget deficit problems, the expense of the park, all of these things—trying to keep it going—that was really my perspective.
And I think that, for me, one of the pivotal things was when we came up with the idea of this public benefit corporation. Because it really was in many ways, as it became a piece of legislation, the thing that was gonna allow the park to be saved. Because it was the one thing that everybody could agree on.
You know, let’s create something that will sort of be a public/private partnership, help us with the authorities that the Park Service didn’t currently have—still doesn’t—to retain revenues for use in the park, to do long-term leasing. Prior to that act the only long-term leasing authority that the Park Service had was under the National Historic Preservation Act and it had hardly ever been used because it was so complex.
So, that was really important. And then as people started to understand that through this kind of a set-up, we might be able to actually do this thing without causing the taxpayer too much pain. It started to win acceptance and instead of people saying, “Let’s sell the park,” or, “Let’s disinvest in the park,” they started to say, “Let’s support this legislation that Pelosi and Feinstein/Boxer put in.”
And I think that really was pivotal. Because there was, I think it was 1994, an effort to sell the park. It was put in the budget in the senate, by the budget committee, to sell the park for 500 million dollars and use that to help balance the budget. Would not have gone a long way of balancing the budget, but, anyway, that was what they did.
Barbara Boxer and Hank Brown got that out of the budget, but it was just you felt like you had your finger in the dike and how much longer was it going to hold? Because each year the votes would get closer, and closer, and closer for disinvestment. I think we came do to, at one point, twenty-six votes and had it gone the other way, you know, all you’d have to do is flip fourteen votes and you would have lost. And that’s out of four hundred and thirty-five votes, so this was not a sure thing.
And that was in 1993 with the twenty-six votes—it might be twenty-eight, I can’t remember exactly. And then in ’94 the majority switched, so we knew we didn’t have the votes. So, we had to do something.
And I think that that was a very pivotal time when we had to come up with this idea. Now, of course, the original legislation and the final legislation weren’t exactly the same, but a lot of it was the same, there were some key differences. I think the original legislation had what was then called the Presidio Corporation, modeled after the PADC, within the Department of Interior. In fact, it may have even been within the Park Service. I can’t remember exactly, but that got switched so that it then became a separate entity—federal agency.
In the beginning there was no financial self-sufficiency requirement. That got added as did a couple of other things, but those were the two key differences between what passed in ’96 and what was introduced in ’93.
Haller: So, it sounds like it’s quite fair to say that the nature of the 1994 Congress has made a huge difference in the way history has turned out over here.
Middleton: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s easy to over-play it. I think that in the final analysis the financial self-sufficiency—although it was considered pretty Draconian—galvanized a lot of support around the bill. And it wasn’t only Republican support, it was bi-partisan support. The bill passed by an extraordinary margin, and part of the idea was that this would be, you know, they would hold our feet to the fire and really make us act like a financially responsible agency, that would have a goal at the end of which if we didn’t meet the goal the park would be sold.
Now, you know, certainly nobody would want to see that happen and that was a piece of the bill that was a compromise that had to be made in order to get it through. But it, hopefully, will never happen, I don’t think it will.
I think it that really did go a long way toward galvanizing pi-partisan support for the bill. We also put the GNPA in the bill. This was at Nancy Pelosi’s insistence that the park plan be referenced in the bill, in order to balance the other side. So it created quite a nice balance between, I think we called it the General Objectives of the GNPA, and then the financial self-sufficiency.
And the financial self-sufficiency without having had the other might have tipped it too far in one direction so it turned out to be pretty balanced.
Haller: As I recall—in fairness, also I think I’m correct—in recalling the original version talked about the objectives of the GNPA and the final version talked about the general objectives of the GNPA.
Middleton: Yeah, I think the first version in ’93 didn’t even talk about the objectives. I think it just said the GNPA. I mean I think it was…Boy, that’s a long time ago [laughs]. But I think that that’s what it said. So that was a change, yeah.
Haller: At the time that we’re talking about this key juncture with a new kind of Congress, and a new kind of trust legislation passed, people often used the phrase that this was a new kind of national park, implying a model for the future. And over time I hear it more being spoken of as a unique kind of national park, which to me implies what we’ve been talking about at creation strongly influenced by a moment in time. Do you have any opinion on that subject? Do you think this is likely to be a model for other national parks in the twenty-first century? Or is this indeed something that works for a particular case and a particular time?
Middleton: I think the—going back to the new kind of national park—I think that was a slogan that was put together in the early days by the Park Service and probably the Council. And it was a great slogan, “a new kind of national park,” or “a park for the twenty-first century,” or something like that, there were a couple of ‘em.
I’ve always felt that this is extremely unique. That this model does not work in the traditional sense for traditional national park. It wouldn’t work at Yosemite, it wouldn’t work at Yellowstone, it wouldn’t work at most, if not all, parks. It might have some relevance to a place that has an awful lot of historic buildings. Maybe it could be used in parts of Gateway.
But by and large—and I think that you’ve hit on a point that’s really critical in sort of the, I consider, the trust/park service relationship to be akin to a marriage. And we’ve had our ups and downs in the marriage and certainly some of the downs have been around the concern by park service people that this would become a model and be used over and over. And it would be used by people who wanted to make the Park Service self-sufficient in some way.
And it just doesn’t apply. And I think that, you know, we’ve understood now that this is a very unique model. Where I think it could be useful is in protection [background humming gets louder] of lands and—maybe not so much lands, but, let me say, assets for public use.
I think that the Presidio Trust model could be used, or should be viewed, as not a model for the parks in the National Park system, but as the protection of lands, particularly in urban areas—or assets in urban areas, or perhaps military bases that become decommissioned in urban areas particularly—where it’s becoming more challenging for us to preserve spaces for the public to enjoy.
It’s not as easy as just buying a big tract of land and just preserving it. Now we have complex situations in urban areas. And maybe this could be viewed as kind of one way of preserving…assets for public use.
I get calls all the time from other areas of the country and even from other places in the world—Sydney Harbor Trust, for example, down in Sydney, Australia. They have a similar situation where—of course, they have the big harbor and they had the military fortifications along the harbor, and now that’s been turned into public lands. They’ve created the Sydney Harbor Trust which is a crown[??] trust that is very similar to the Presidio Trust. They have financial mandates—it’s very, very similar. And they’ve been up her e a couple of times to talk to us about how we set it up.
Governor’s Island in New York is another example. And there’re plenty others, but they don’t really fall into the category of the traditional national park. And I think that our marriage has been much better since we both—the Park Service and the Trust—have come to that realization.
There are people out there who would like to make more trusts. There’s been an Oklahoma City Trust, there’s been a…the Villas Calderas[??] Trust down at Baca[??] Ranch, and so in some cases we’ll see if they work.
But I would say it only works when you have a lot of buildings, and you have revenue potential. And we’re close to an urban area with tremendous revenue potential. So, it does make some sense that you preserve the building by reusing them and you reuse them and therefore create revenue to support the park. It really does make sense here; it doesn’t make sense very many other places.
Haller: Well, it, indeed, is also not coincidence that GGNRA is a park, really spearheaded the adaptive reuse of historic buildings in national parks. It certainly wasn’t the first, but it certainly also was the one that was, as they say about some Southern Calvary general, “was the firstest with the mostest.”
Middleton: [laughs] That’s for sure.
Well, we have more historic buildings in this park, GGNRA, than anywhere, I think.
Haller: At Anne Arbor[??] National Park—
Middleton: Right, right.
Haller: And where, I believe, the three of the ten regions in the national parks—
Middleton: Yeah, I’m not surprised.
Haller: —are in the system.
Middleton: Well, Brian O’Neill has been a wonderful advocate of partnerships. And, you know, it’s worked. It really has worked. It is the only way to preserve this kind of square footage of historic building. You know, we can’t restore them and put them in mothballs, we have to reuse them.
Haller: Absolutely. Speaking of Brian, can you talk a little about his particular, unique contributions to this process?
Middleton: Sure! I’d love to talk about Brian now.
Haller: Let’s talk about Brian.
Middleton: Let’s talk about Brian! I have a wonderful working relationship with Brian. I’ve known him for a long time. And through all of this Brian—and I say all of this meaning, the ups and downs of the marriage, [laughs] which has been intense at times. Brian has always been a really good partner.
He really does value, not only the concept, but the actual working of partnerships. Understanding that they can be difficult, understanding that there’s give and take, but ultimately convinced that it’s the best thing to do. Not only for the park but for the community that surrounds the park.
And he’s a great advocate of pulling in community to help restore public assets. I think it’s been a great success here at GGNRA. So much so that now people are asking him to go all over the world and talk about how to establish partnerships. So I think the ear of us being able to do everything with federal money, or state money, or with taxpayers’ money, without creating partnerships is probably over, as budgets get more and more constrained and cost go up.
I think the partnership model is a good one, and we’ve got some great examples here at the Presidio: the San Francisco Film Center, or the Therou[??] Center, or any number of other buildings where private capital has been brought to bear to restore a historic building.
In fact, the whole idea of historic tax credits that’s in the National Historic Preservation Act, is predicated on the idea that a private sector organization would come in and take a tax credit to restore a historic building. And obviously public sector organizations don’t value from tax credits.
The only way we value from that tax credit is by partnering with the private sector. So we bring in the private sector partner, they get the tax credit, and that savings is passed onto the public sector. So…It’s working here and Brian has been a great advocate for it.
Haller: Can you think of any specific vignettes or incidents [Middleton chuckles] where Brian’s partnership skills or his other skills made a difference? In an illustrative example perhaps?
Middleton: [pauses] Let me come back to that one. Let me think about it.
Haller: Yeah, we can come back to that. If something pops up.
Middleton: Because there’s so many—
Haller: Sure.
Middleton: I’m just trying to think of one that’s particularly illustrative.
Haller: Well, let’s talk about some of the other kinds of charac—players.
Middleton: Characters, obviously! [both laugh]
Haller: Characters is a loaded word, yeah. Players who worked for the Park Service or at any other organizations, GGNPA and the like—or the Trust—that contributed to this Presidio that we partner with and that we both care about so much.
Middleton: Yeah.
Haller: Let’s say Robert Chandler. He came at a time when the GNP was…
Middleton: No, he could—
Haller: Well, tell me when did you two work—
Middleton: I’m not exactly sure exactly when Bob came, but I do remember Bob coming [laughs]. I can’t tell you the…What was really great about Bob’s coming was, and I know this probably caused some problems within the Park Service, but you can talk to other people about that.
Haller: Oh, well, we want to hear about that sort of stuff.
Middleton: They didn’t write it off, somebody, I guess maybe it was Roger Kennedy[??] who was head of the Park Service at that time. Now, incidentally Roger Kennedy[??] was on the Presidio Council, later became head of the Park Service.
And because of the uniqueness and the prominence and probably because of the capacity for this to become a negative if it went badly—the Presidio, to become a negative for the Park Service—the decision was made, I think by Rodger, to have somebody appointed as the general manager of the Presidio that would report directly to the director of the Park Service.
Not through Brian, even though this was part of the GGNRA. I don’t think it was an issue of Brian’s capacity or anything, it was just an issue of how prominent the Presidio had become in Congress and how important it was that we do it right. And so, he wanted to have that direct contract.
So, Bob came. Bob had been, you know, like the Superintendent Extraordinaire Everglades, Olympic, Grand Canyon. You know, he had supervised all of the big parks, or a lot of them, and considered a pro at this.
And he came in and my experience with Bob was, you know, here’s this guy who’d done all of these things, and he was not arrogant, he was a very decent, down-to-earth individual who was very capable. I thought ran that, what they called the project office for the Park Service, very, very well. And was very practical, he got along very well with members of the Presidio Council. Like Jim Harvey, who was also a very practical man.
I thought he was extraordinary. He really also did well in Washington for the Park Service and for the Presidio in dealing with the members of Congress who were concerned about it.
So, I enjoyed working with Bob a lot and, in fact, I still see him once in awhile, it’s kinda nice.
Haller: Apparently the Council stepped aside, as Morathan[??] puts it in his book, as Chandler arrived. Now, is that merely coincidental that the Trust had been established, at least legislatively, and its Council’s work heads was more or less done at that point when Chandler arrived? Or did it have something at all to do with Chandler’s ability to really show—
Middleton: No, I think it didn’t really have that much to do with Bob Chandler. It had to do with—the Council actually decided to disband on September 30th, 1994, which was the date of the transition from the post to park. In fact, we had a little ceremony and closed it off.
I think the Council became—I don’t know what they called themselves. But they wanted to stay involved but as a Council disbanded. The idea was they felt that their contribution had been in helping the Park Service with the vision, helping the Park Service with understanding what the management roles entailed, and what kind of partner might be appropriate in that management capacity.
Worked on the first piece of legislation, with the 1993 legislation, which was the Presidio Corporation Act. Worked with Mackenzie[??] and Company to come up with a whole idea of this public partnership—or public/private partnership—and how that should be structured. Should it be a non-profit, should it be a federal agency, should it be a private entity?
And I think that they felt that they had made their contribution and that was an appropriate time to disband. I think Bob’s entry onto the scene was pretty much coincidental with that.
Haller: I see.
Middleton: Certainly not a cause.
Haller: You mentioned the Mackensie[??] Report and that’s noted in several works, Lisa Bends[??] work on the Presidio as well as Hal Rothman’s[??] work, as being a very important document. And my impression is that this document essentially analyzed and articulated the germ of the idea of a public benefit trust that the corporation had hatched, if you will, and laid it out and analyzed it in black and white? Do I have the essence of that correct?
Middleton: Yeah, well, you know the Mackenzie[??] Report really is a misnomer. There never really was a report. It was really more of a process that resulted in some draft documents, but never was actually pulled together into a report.
But the process was really valuable. And what essentially was done was that we did some—with the help of Mackenzie[??]—analysis as to what was needed. Clearly, we needed revenue. We needed to be able to hold onto the revenue. We needed leasing ability. So, we listed out all those things that we needed, and then we went, and we looked at all different types of structures that were in existence already.
Like the Toronto Harbor, Waterfront Harbor Trust, or something like that. I can’t remember the name of it—Williamsburg[??], Lowell[??], PADC. I think we looked at fifteen or sixteen of them. I can’t remember all of them now—redevelopment organizations, you know, government type organizations, state organizations, federal organizations, private organizations. TVA[??] was one.
And so, the idea was to, “Okay, what’s the best model?” Or should we create a hybrid? And I think ultimately it just came down to we thought we needed to rely on appropriations for this park. At that point we weren’t thinking about it becoming financially self-sufficient.
So, clearly a federal park was going to have to have appropriations, and the best way to have appropriations was to create an entity that was federal. You can give appropriations to a private sector entity, or like a nonprofit, but it’s not common.
So, we decided what we needed it to be was very flexible in its management approach, and not be bound up in some of the red tape that other agencies are bound up with. So, we started looking at models and the federal corporation holy[??] owned government corporation turned out to be the best model. PDAC happened to be one of those. But there are probably thirty other ones that are each one very singular and different from any other.
FDIC, TVA, PDAC, the Saint Lawrence Seaway[??], I mean, they’re very different creatures but they all have one thing in common. And that’s that they have a charter which is in the legislation and that creates the basis for the organization to exist. It’s charted by Congress, then it’s federal, and it receives federal appropriations.
So, that was the model that was chosen.
Haller: So, if anything the series of Mackenzie[??] draft documents, if you will, informed the way the Presidio Corporation Act got written?
Middleton: Yes.
[End of Tape 1, Side 2]
[Tape 2, Side 1]
Haller: This is Steve Haller and I’m here with Craig Middleton at the Presidio Trust Headquarters [Middleton coughs] on June 14th, 2002. This is Tape 2 of an oral history interview with Craig.
Craig, we’ve spoken quite a bit about the history of—well, the entire process of—military post to national park to the Presidio Trust. Yet, I wanted to concentrate, if you will, on this side of the tape, with your work with the Presidio Trust. We talked about how that trust was a new kind of undertaking, modeled after some existing organizations that came into being at a particular point in time. When it came into being, I understand, that you actually got to be [laughs] the first employee of the new Presidio Trust. Is that true? And can you tell us a little about what [laughs] that was like?
Middleton: [laughs] Yeah, it was true. We had a board. We had a board of seven, appointed by the president, and me. And I did have some help over in the Park Service for some time, but it was great, it was just great. I set myself up in Building 10 over on Funston Avenue. My biggest decision was where to put my office.
And then I ultimately hired a temp named Frank Pratt[??], who ended up being hired full-time as my assistant. And we set about to figure out just the basic things. Here we were a federal agency, a creature of the federal government, but I couldn’t write a check. I couldn’t buy anything. I had no money. I had no ability a piece of furniture. I couldn’t get a phone line.
All of this was because of we needed to set up all the structures that a federal agency would have in order to access money. And people over at the Park Service were a great help. Leo Gillery[??] helped us with our—He’s the contracting officer over at the GGNRA—helped me work up a set of interim procurement procedures.
Of course, of procurement piece in the legislation was different than any other federal agency. And that was the case all the time. Our personnel situation was different than other federal agency, our procurement situation was different that any other federal agency, our ability to retain revenues was different. So everything was different and yet we had to set up some procedures in order to operate.
I had to set up some basic personnel policies before I could hire anybody. And, you know, how can you create and agency if you don’t hire anybody? Meanwhile I had OMB[??] calling me because we had to put together our first budget, and the question is, “Well, how much money are you going to need for the next year or two?” [laughs] How many people are you going to have? And here I was sitting there alone in an office trying to figure it all out. It was really fun.
And, so, we did it. We did it. I was wrong on a few things; I thought we might have forty people after a couple years. I think we ended up with two hundred…because we made some decisions to hire people rather than contract out.
But it was fabulous, really. I did that for Bill Reilly[??] and the board had asked me top take this on, I think it was in May of—must’ve been—1997. And the executive director, Jim Meadows[??], started right around New Year’s of ’98.
So, I did this eight months or so, seven or eight months.
Haller: So, it’s setting up this trust, getting it ready, who really helped you? Who were the characters that helped you? Key players with the trust?
Middleton: Well, there’s a guy named Craig Crutchfield[??] who was really helpful. He and I hadn’t met but we talked on the phone a lot and figured out things. He was very interested in this as a new kind of organization as well. And so, I guess, we were both sort of public administration wonks and we had a good time together trying to figure out how to do it.
Jim Mikelightner[??] helped on the personnel side. He was a Park Service’s Regional Office. And got a lot of help from Leo Gillery[??]. Our board was extraordinarily helpful, you know, I had quite a bit of knowledge and experience on the board. And so, they were very—And Toby was great. Mary Murphy[??] helped an awful lot. Don Fischer[??] helped a lot.
So, that was very useful. Mai-liis helped us kind of with setting up the original budgetary processes. She was very helpful, you know, I kinda just picked her brain. That was useful.
I relied on Greg Moore[??] and other people over at the Parks Association. And some of their board members as well, who I knew from, my past association with them. And then on the political side, Nancy Pelosi was great and Judy Lemmons[??] was like a constant ally in making sure that we got through those first couple of years in the appropriations process, without a hitch.
So, there were a lot of people involved, but I was really lucky to be the guy—You know, I had a Master’s in Public Administration where you study all this stuff and it was really kind of amazing to be in the position of being able to put together a federal organization, or a federal agency. It was a great experience.
Haller: Now when Jim Meadows came here how did he affect the corporate culture, as they would say, of the trust? How did he put his stamp on things?
Middleton: Well, Jim is a—how do I say? Extraordinarily energetic guy, who came in here and just wanted to get it moving right away, and in some respects, we had to prove ourselves to a lot of people that we could actually accomplish things. And he was really accomplishment oriented, so he came in here like gang busters and it was just Frank and I [laughs] and Jim. And then we brought in some people, but we immediately started to hire people, quickly.
And we made decisions about bringing in the Park Service maintenance crews. So, we did do that, and we hired about a hundred Park Service people to do maintenance. We decided to hire, at this time—of course the economy was booming—and so getting contractors was a long-drawn-out process and a very expensive one, because they charged you thirty percent more because they were so busy, they didn’t need the work. So, we hired construction people.
In two or three years we’d gone from me and Frank to…four hundred people, four hundred and fifty people. It was an extraordinary growth, and it was really driven my Jim, who really wanted us to move, move, move, and move fast. So, he brought that kind of energy to the place, and I think that was probably appropriate.
He also brought, though, a sense of…I think it was threatening to the Park Service. So, when I talk about our marriage [laughs] that was not the highest point of our marriage. There was this sense that we knew how better to do than they did. And I’m not sure that was really warranted, I think that what was really the issue was that the Park Service had been set up to do something that was [coughs] not exactly what we were doing here.
And they didn’t have the authority, for one thing, to do it. They hadn’t hired the expertise to do it. That’s not the kind of expertise the Park Service had. So, you know, there was a sense of turf. There was a sense of “we lost the park,” I think, from the side of the Park Service. I don’t think we were as sensitive as we could have been to understanding that. But we got a lot done [laughs] and I think that now we are moving more into a full partnership position with the Park Service, which is partly a function of time having passed, which I think needed to happen, with some wounds being healed, and sort of our emergence as—our meaning the Trust’s emergence—as a full federal partner. Which I don’t think was really there before. We were kind of the little kid on eth block and now we’ve kind of proven ourselves. I give a lot of credit to Jim for that.
Now we’re much better positioned to be a full partner with the Park Service, and I think that’s the direction we’ll go.
Haller: Do you think it’s fair to say, looking at it from the Park Service side, that the understandable need to serve yourself as the Trust, or, as you just put it, go from being the new kid on the block to being a full-fledged partner, also contributed in some way to the roughness of the early stages of the marriage?
Middleton: Yeah, I do, I do. We’ve talked about how in 1993 when we started this legislative journey…and in the plan itself, the GNPA where they talk about a public benefit corporate partner, public benefit entity. From the Park Service side, I think it was always envisioned that the trust, or whatever it was called, was going to be a part of the Park Service. It wasn’t going to be a separate entity.
And, in fact, there was no sense that there would be a separation in terms of land. There wouldn’t be an Area A that was owned under the jurisdiction of one agency, the Park Service, and the other, the trust, would have Area B. But that it would be more of a functional difference, so that the trust or the corporation would be in charge of real estate, and in charge of, sort of, bringing people into the buildings, and rehabbing the buildings. And the Park Service would be doing the plants and, you know, other things that the Park Service particularly had expertise in.
And the trust would essentially work fro the Park Service. It would almost be like the business office of the Park Service. So clearly [laughs] the model that emerged was very different in that we had legislation that actually transferred jurisdiction from the Park Service to another entity, which was the Trust.
Now eighty percent of the Presidio would be under the jurisdiction of a different federal agency, not working for the Park Service, not even under the Department of the Interior. So, we would report to the President and so would the Secretary of Interior. And the connection would be through our board, which would include the Secretary of the Interior.
It was a very different construct then was originally envisioned by the Park Service. And I think that there were—I can’t speak for the Park Service, but my guess is that there was a lot of concern and resentment that it had turned out that way, and that they had to shift jurisdiction in 1988 to this new entity.
So, there was competition, there was, probably, some concern about what would happen if the Trust was particularly successful. This issue of would it become a model. Very threatening to the Park Service.
So, I think that played as well. And then we had, sort of, this brash new agency
that was coming in, and they were gonna get things done, and, you know, a bunch of newcomers. I had been around for awhile but most of the people were kinda new, and quite a different corporate culture. Much more of a—under Jim, anyway—much more of a top-down kind of culture, not a consensus-type thing like the Park Service is used to.
So, there are a lot of issues that played into this difficulty in the marriage.
Haller: You brought up an interesting point when you talked about how the Trust became not a part of the NPS and it wasn’t something that so much shared management in a woven together fabric kind of way, but rather it became part Area A and Area B. We had talked about how the creation of the trust act in its final form was very much an example of a particular Congress, a particular point in time, a particular philosophy.
There is also part of that point in time was a real strong anti-government philosophy, or political vein, in Congress. That less government is better than more government. And would you think that also has a place in the marriage, if you will? Or in the uncertainty of the Park Service and with the Presidio Trust being created?
Middleton: Could be. I think that there was also at the same time this whole notion of reinventing government. The Al Gore thing that was going on at that time, and this notion if you could just run government like the private sector, it would be great. Government’s great but if it could only be made more efficient somehow by making it more like the private sector.
Now in recent history we’ve understood that maybe the private sector isn’t all that efficient either [laughs]. But that was where we were at in the mid- ‘90s. I think that played into it a lot. This was kind of a reinventing government thing.
If you look at our procurement exemptions from federal law, if you look at our exemptions from Title Five of the Civil Service in the Civil Service provisions, what that really says is we want management to have flexibility in hiring and firing and setting pay. We don’t want to encumber this organization with the difficulties inherent in the Civil Service system in terms of management.
The same thing with the procurement. Yeah, we’re going to require reasonable competition, but we’re gonna leave it somewhat ill defined and let the Trust come up with its own provisions, rather than having a federal acquisitions regulations all apply.
So it was that. And I don’t know how that played into the marriage issue, but it certainly was different. It created a different corporate culture, and, certainly, the corporate culture was [smacks fist in hand] get things done, and we want to show that we can to that.
Haller: What’s your contribution to the corporate culture?
Middleton: My contribution?
Haller: Yeah, Craig. How do you—
Middleton: You mean now? You mean now?
Haller: Yes, I mean now. How do you want to see this Trust operate? And how would you describe your goals in that regard?
Middleton: Yeah, I would say that [laughs] maybe I’m a product of reinventing government, but I do really believe in government. I think government is essential and I take great umbrage at people who downplay its significance and importance, particularly as it relates to the protection of federal assets or providing equity in the society for people.
Having said that, I think that government can be more efficient, I really do. And I have seen, through the Trust, an ability to accomplish things that I think it has been very, very interesting and very successful.
So, I guess, I would just like to make this thing work in a way that kind of embraces what Brian’s been talking about for years, which is this partnership ethic. I just don’t see why if we are managing eighty percent of the Presidio and the Park Service is managing twenty percent of the Presidio—and the rest of the park in which we sit—we should not be joined at the hip. I do think we should, and we should develop teams that work together on any number of issues and get beyond the issues of jurisdiction.
I actually think that Congress probably was right, and I know this won’t go over real well, but I think that Congress was right in that when they decided that it would work better if there were separate jurisdictions. I think it would have been very difficult to try to create the corporate culture that we have within the Park Service. I think it would have been hard to do that.
I think there would have been a lot of resentment. Had we not had the authority and the power to be able to get our own budgets and do that kind of thing, we might have been stymied by people who would say, you know, “You can’t do it this way, you can’t do it that way,” in the Park Service.
I actually think that having given us jurisdiction and allowed us to develop a separate government entity was a smart idea. Now the challenge is to take this one entity and make it work with the other entity. And I am very optimistic about it. I think the people that we have…One good thing is so many people from the Park Service came to work for us. So, there’s a mixing of the culture already, and I think it will work.
Haller: Well, as we kind of conclude this interview, I’d like to ask you to think a little bit about any key moments, junctures, or thoughts that we may have overlooked in terms of describing the transition from post to park to trust, if you will.
Anything we haven’t talked about yet that you think, “Ah, that was something I would have liked to have discussed.”
Middleton: Well, there is just a little story that is kind of funny. I don’t know how important it is but it’s a funny one.
Having been involved in both the Council and the creation of the Trust—in terms of the act—and then the creation of the actually Trust. I would describe the whole thing as an extraordinary roller coaster ride. It never just went sort of straight up [laughs] or straight down, it just went all over the place.
And one of the key times that I remember this was in 1994 at the end of the Congress. We had passed the Trust Act, this was the 1993 version of the Trust Act, the first version, called the Corporation then. Passed it through the House, passed it through the Senate, passed it through the Conference, it was going back to the—it had passed the Conference Report though the House.
So, we had gone through this extraordinary labyrinth of process. Diane Feinstein and Barbara were carrying it on the Senate side. It was the last day of the session, it was up for a voice vote, [coughs] and there was a hold on it. Senator Dole[??] had put a hold on it, on the Trust Act.
And the other major piece of legislation that was up, also sponsored by Diane Feinsein[??], was the Desert Protection Act. And there was clearly, although it was not said, that both were going to pass [laughs]. And it was also clear which one won’t [laughs more].
But prior to that we thought we were going to get it. We thought we were going to get the hold off and it was going to be cool. So I was back in Washington, we ordered a whole bunch of sourdough French bread. Huge box of it to be sent up from here to Washington. And we were going to provide, you know, just thank people with the sourdough. Not a big gift but just something from San Francisco.
Well, the box arrives, the bill dies, and I’m sitting there with Judy Lemmons[??] eating loaf, after loaf, after loaf of sourdough [laughs]. Thinking, “Oh, my God, we’re going to have to do this all over again.” Because you know in the next Congress you have to reintroduce and start from scratch.
At that time, we didn’t know that the Gingrich[??] revolution would’ve occurred and the political landscape that we’d be dealing with in the following Congress would be so different. But, anyway, it was just one of those roller coater rides. [laughs]
Haller: So, you dealt with it, but sourdough didn’t become sour grapes?
Middleton: [laughs] Thank God it was good.
Haller: Forgive a bad pun. I dealt with some other people who we haven’t mentioned that played some important roles, and ones that come immediately to my mind, although I’d be glad to hear from you in this regard, are Greg Moore[??] and BJ Griffen[??] also.
Do you have any things you want to say about their contribution?
Middleton: Well, Greg was my boss when I first came to the GGNPA. He ran that extraordinary organization and still does. Really put together the Presidio Council with the help of Toby and Roy[??].
He was sort of the force behind a lot of the Presidio Council. Nan worked for him, I worked for Nan, we all worked for him. And he testified on behalf of the Presidio Trust legislation in Congress when it was up. I can‘t remember which year but he was there.
And an extraordinarily talented individual who helped us in so many ways. Trying to marry the community and the sensibilities of the Park Service with the rough and tumble in Washington, that I was familiar with. Greg had come from eth Park Service, he understands the Park Service very, very well, he gets along beautifully with Brian, they’re great friends.
So, there was this wonderful connection. We was kinda like the glue between this rough and tumble—which was often very critical of the Park Service, it turned out that way in the political mumbo-jumbo that happened out there. And on the ground sensibility of the Park Service. He was really, really a great person of great integrity. Still is.
Well, what can I say? BJ hired me [laughs]. Actually, she was very flexible.
Haller: She hired you as...?
Middleton: Well, it was a funny construct because here we were, we had the Trust, we’d gotten the Trust Act through. We had the board; the President appointed the board. We had no way to hire anybody. You know, we had to create a personnel policy and an ability to pay people in order to hire anyone.
But somebody had to get it started. So, we came up with this crazy way of doing it, which was: I was working for GGNPA, I was detailed to BJ Griffin[??], so she was my boss. And then BJ assigned me to Toby Rossenblath[??]
[laughs] So I was kind of working for Toby and I was kind of working for BJ. What really happened was I’d go over and report to BJ every week or so, and I’d talk to Toby every day or so. And Mai-liis and I would figure out how to deal with all the inconsistencies of that crazy position.
But I had a great time working with her, with BJ. And I know she and Jim didn’t always get along, and that was kind of tough for a while there. But she always treated me really well, was very supportive.
Haller: Well, that’s great. I want to thank you for your time, and I guess before we leave, I’ll just ask you, do you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to get out there?
Middleton: I guess just that I hope that we, if we haven’t already, that we will dispel this notion that somehow the Presidio Trust is a threat…to traditional government or to the Park Service specifically.
I think that Brian’s approach, and certainly my approach, is let’s build this thing as a win-win, as a partnership that helps the park system, and will certainly help the Park Service, and certainty’s going to help the GGNRA.
And I think that’s the sentiment with which I would like to leave this interview [laughs].
Haller: Well, thank you for that sentiment. I think it’s a fine one. It reminds me of how Rothman[??] said a one point in his history of the park that the Trust, in some ways, protects the National Park Service. Maybe that’s part of what he meant, as you just described it.
Middleton: Hmm…Well, I don’t know about that, but certainly I think that what the Trust does is allow the National Park System to extend its reach into areas that may not traditionally have been considered National Park sites, so that we can together preserve—I mean, look at this park.
We’ve got State Parks in here, we’ve got the Trust, we’ve got all these different kind of jurisdictions all embraced by the GGNRA. And, you know, if in the future we as a society want to preserve lands for public use and enjoyment, we’re going to have to get creative, and this is a great example of how we can get creative and make it work.
Haller: Thanks a lot for your time, Craig. I really enjoyed sharing it with you.
Middleton: Sure. Thank you.
[End of Tape 2, Side 1]
[End of Interview]
Letterman Hospital
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA 34782
"I was born at the old Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. And it interests me now because the quarters are still standing and in fine condition." -William R. Bennett
William R. Bennett
Interview with William R. Bennett about his life in the Presidio and Fort Mason in the 1920's and 1930's with National Park Service Historian Steven Haller
My name is Steven Haller, and I'm here in Mountain View, California, at the home of William R. Bennett. And he lived on the Presidio and at Fort Mason in his youth during the 1920s and '30s. And I want to thank you very much for having me here today, Bill. We are making the tape for the archives of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for use in research and education about the history of our park. Now, I understand that the Park Service has your permission to make this tape and to retain all literary and property rights to this interview for the purposes I just mentioned, is that correct?
Bill:
That is fine.
Haller:
[00:01:00]
Good. Well, thanks again for having me here. And why don't you tell... Why don't we start by asking you to tell me a little bit about your father. And since he's I guess the reason for your association with the Presidio. Now, who was your father?
Bill:
My father was Colonel C.R. Bennett, and we were stationed at the Presidio in 1918 when I first appeared on the scene.
Haller:
So were you born at Letterman Hospital?
[00:01:30]
Bill:
I was born at the old Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. And it interests me now because the quarters are still standing and in fine condition.
Haller:
The quarters that you lived in at the time?
Bill:
Quarters that I lived in at the time in 1918 when I was a baby.
Haller:
For the record, that's building 58, which is the nice sort of Victorian frame house at Funston Avenue, isn't it? Is that correct?
Bill:
No. Funston Avenue, right. That's what you said?
Haller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
[00:02:00]
Bill:
Okay. Now our father at the time was a lieutenant colonel of infantry. And he was there, we were only there temporarily up through say 1920 when we left to go to Hawaii to Fort Kamehameha.
Haller:
Do you remember what his assignment was when he was at the Presidio at that time?
[00:02:30]
Bill:
[00:03:00]
Well as I say, he was the lieutenant colonel of infantry. And he went overseas to Europe, into Germany, and then came back. Now what his official's assignment was in reference to the proceeding itself, I cannot say. I'm sorry, I can't do that. But I do know that we were living in those quarters at that time. Now, after we left Presidio, then we went to Fort Kamehameha. Now, is there anything further that I can elaborate for you on that?
Haller:
Well, you left then the Presidio about 1920 you said.
Bill:
Give or take, give or take. Around 1920. But we were there say from 1918 until 1920.
Haller:
[00:03:30]
And your father was in Hawaii then. And what did he do? Just trace his career briefly until we got back to the Presidio. So bring us back.
Bill:
Until we came back again?
Haller:
Yeah.
Bill:
[00:04:00]
Well, let's see. In Hawaii, we went into Fort Kamehameha and my father was still an infantry officer at that time. And he was command of the high school ROTC units in Hawaii, which there were several, a commander's school and also a military academy was in existence at that time, Honolulu Military Academy. And he was the regular army senior instructor for that school. My two older brothers both went to Honolulu Military Academy. I was still a youngster living at Fort Kamehameha. And my memories then were of my grandmother coming down and the swings and the beach at Fort Kamehameha and things of this sort.
[00:04:30]
[00:05:00]
[00:05:30]
But my father, he was stationed then at Fort Shafter also during that period of time. Shortly afterwards, he transferred from the infantry to the corps master corps. And then we returned from Hawaii and our next assignment, he was sent to Pennsylvania where he assumed command of the New Cumberland Army Depot. And during that time, we were at Cumberland maybe for a year, year and a half, down on into Washington, DC. In Washington, DC, he went then to the Army War College and to the Army Industrial College, and then he was with, as I say, the corps master corps activities at that time. I was a youngster in school in Washington, DC. He was in the old munitions building in Washington, DC.
Haller:
Was it from there that you got back to the Presidio then from that assignment, that led you to the Presidio?
Bill:
[00:06:00]
[00:06:30]
We were there until early 1928. Then we left 1928 and he was assigned, ordered to Fort Mason. And we went through Panama Canal on the [inaudible 00:06:08]. That was my first time through the Panama Canal, which was quite an experience for a 10-year-old youngster at that time. Then after going through the canal, working our way on up to San Francisco, we had to await a period of time before acquiring quarters at the post.
Haller:
Quarters at Fort Mason?
Bill:
At Fort Mason and Presidio. So first my father accepted quarters at the Presidio, and that's when we were up on the old East Cantonment where I went with you not too long ago.
Haller:
[00:07:00]
That's interesting that you referred to that area as the East Cantonment and that was the general usage at the time, huh?
Bill:
Well, that was the terminology as I recall as a youngster. I'm sure that's out now and you refer to it in another manner, but that's the way I remember it. And there, sir, my early vivid memories of the Presidio came into being.
[00:07:30]
Haller:
Now we had visited that building and we established that it's quarters. It's 540A I think, and it's on Funston Avenue. It's one of the substantial field grade officers duplexes on, excuse me, on Presidio Boulevard rather, quarters.
Bill:
Well, those were the quarters where I was born. There were where I lived in when we were born.
Haller:
Well, I misspoke. You were born at Funston Avenue in building 58. And when you came back to the Presidio as a 10-year-old boy-
[00:08:00]
Bill:
Then we went up to East Cantonment.
Haller:
To East Cantonment, building 540, which is Presidio Boulevard. And that's where your sort of vivid memories-
Bill:
[00:08:30]
[00:09:00]
Those were, I was old enough then to recall as I am doing now memories of the Presidio where I was another, using the expression, Army brat. That's where I met other youngsters, boys, girls in my age bracket. And we participated in activities as you would on an Army post. And the Presidio brought the Army home to me then. So I knew what it was all about and where I could come in along the Lombard Street gate, which is still in existence today. And as I've said before, the street car came in there right to the left of that gate and terminating its run across the street from the Old [inaudible 00:09:07] and made a U-turn and back out it went. Now the quarters where I lived were right around the corner. East Cantonment was right around the corner from the end of that street car line.
Haller:
That's right.
Bill:
[00:09:30]
[00:10:00]
[00:10:30]
And I recall as a youngster having a newspaper route, we delivered the San Francisco Chronicle. Three of us kids with the Model A Ford standing on the running board, throwing papers. You'd circle around to the quarters, then went on over to the barracks where you people have your headquarters now at Presidio. And those were at one time occupied by the 30th Infantry. And we'd go down and drop papers in the various day rooms as we went down to the barracks. Headquarters for the ninth corps area were right across the playground at that time. And I recall going in and out of there, visiting my father from time to time. All memories of the post then, watching [inaudible 00:10:23] parades, and also things very vividly in mind were the raising and lowering of the flag, revelry in the morning, retreat at night, having a retreat gun go off, which I am sorry to say, I hear is no longer the situation in Presidio now, but something that I'll always remember.
[00:11:00]
Haller:
Well, go ahead though. You were saying about the retreat ceremonies.
Bill:
[00:11:30]
[00:12:00]
The retreat ceremony and the retreat gun was an important cog in my life at that time as a youngster, because my father had strict instructions, at 5:00 at firing of that gun and the lowering of the colors, then I had an hour to get myself home and be cleaned up and ready to sit down to eat at 6:00. We could be in the middle of a ball game somewhere or [inaudible 00:11:36] no matter what it might be. But whoops, I had to always realize, that was something. Nowadays, some people look upon that and frown upon it as being pretty regimental, that sort of thing. But I look upon it in a different light. I'm glad in a way, because it gave us a sense of training, responsibility. And I think it was part of the overall upbringing, which I treasure, which I think was pretty good.
Haller:
So being in a military family then really influenced your upbringing in a number of ways, didn't it?
Bill:
[00:12:30]
[00:13:00]
[00:13:30]
Yes, it did. And I think there's a lot. There's good and bad. That was one of the good features I felt. That and the respect, respect for the family, and the neatness, the tidiness. My dad would inspect my room like he was inspecting barracks. And he'd only do this on a Saturday morning, but things had to be lined up baseball gloves, clothing couldn't be littered about, had to be picked up. And later on when raising my own family that came into view, which was a standing joke with my daughter. She used to take anything that was loose, just throw it under the bed. I come along and look and I just pull this out from under the bed and leave it in the middle of the floor. When she came home, then I expected her to get these things hung up in the right manner. It's a throwback to my time. And my daughter gets a kick out of that when she recalls that early bringing up, how I stressed that.
Haller:
Now your mother also had a military background, wasn't it? Wasn't she a daughter of an Army officer?
Bill:
[00:14:00]
No, my mother wasn't. My mother was from Seattle, Washington, and that's where she and my dad met. And he had his received his commission in 1901. But they were married a few years before, a few years before. But no, she was not military connected prior to my father.
Haller:
Did she adjust well to the various moves and the other kind of formalities of military life?
Bill:
[00:14:30]
[00:15:00]
Yes, she did. Yes, she did. It was accepted as going into the military life then, there was a certain protocol and a certain formality that people maintained. And I had to respect that, respect that. It's an entirely different situation today, that you well know. But the only thing that I regretted at the time is the breaking up of school, your schooling. You would form friends in school, or you'd form even military or service friends, and you're no longer than four years in one place. Or if you go to foreign service, which was Hawaii, Panama, Philippines in those days, two years.
[00:15:30]
[00:16:00]
But you're in school during that time, all of a sudden you'd have to part company with your schoolmates and go into a brand new school in another area. The only time that really was noticeable or affected me to any degree was in high school where I couldn't graduate with my high school class. I had to go back to Washington, DC, where my father was sent, and that's where I had my senior year of school there. But my friends were all in Hawaii, still there, my civilian friends I had formed. And my love for the islands were so great I felt that's where I wanted to get back to, so I did. But from the standpoint of the military, you can see, so many years here, so many years there. And that situation still exists to some extent today. It's not entirely out of the picture.
Haller:
Well, where did you go to school when you lived at the Presidio?
Bill:
Presidio, I was in grammar school on Union Street at the Sherman School, which is just off of Van Nuys Avenue. My brother was going to Galileo High School. He graduated from Galileo High School.
Haller:
And did you take the street car then to Sherman School?
[00:16:30]
Bill:
[00:17:00]
[00:17:30]
I used to take the street car. I had the little newspaper route, and on such mornings my father had to leave earlier to go to Fort Mason or something of the sort then he'd go and then I'd take the street car. As I recall, it was the old hitch car going down Union Street. And it was fine. I enjoyed that, no trouble at all. When I lived to Fort Mason, then I used to walk over there. And Fort Mason now is another part of the era. And Fort Mason now has changed tremendously since I lived there at that time. The out in front of the headquarters building at Fort Mason was just an empty field. And I could walk across that empty field to Bay Street, which paralleled. And I can remember the fog in the morning sometimes being so great that I'd have to keep my eye on a path going across. If not, I could wind up clear down the far corner at Funston Field, which doesn't exist, and doubled back. But I just go across and that was how I got to Sherman School in those days.
Haller:
Well, at Sherman School, were your circle of friends mostly the army kids from Fort Mason or the Presidio? Or did you have a wider circle of friends?
[00:18:00]
Bill:
[00:18:30]
Well, there was a group from the Presidio, yes. I wouldn't say it was any large sum number, but there were a group of us that used to go back and forth to Sherman and other schools. But the friends, the people I really got friendly with there was the kids that I couldn't see normally. Those were Italian boys and girls primarily from the North Beach area. And in those days, at the time it was North Beach. Not as the situation exists today. But I enjoyed my time at Sherman School very much.
Haller:
Were the non-Army kids welcome to visit you at the post?
Bill:
[00:19:00]
They could. I had to try to handpick some. You just wouldn't take anybody in, because my father and mother might frown on somebody that didn't conduct themselves in the proper manner. What I mean by that is proper presentation, language spoken, and that sort of thing. And we kept it balanced out quite well. There was never any problems whatsoever.
Haller:
So what kind of leisure time kid stuff did you do at the Presidio to keep yourself occupied? I know you had your paper route.
[00:19:30]
Bill:
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
Well, paper route, yes. But I was beginning to become more and more interested in athletics at that time. I enjoyed my time at the old YMCA, which was right across the street from the old Letterman Hospital. So I can remember going down there on Saturday mornings with the kids and we'd all skinny dip, and that's where I learned to swim and where I started learning what a basketball was, things of this sort. And my brother later on became the swimming coach there and ran for [inaudible 00:20:04]. So those were things I remember in the Y. In fact, I even went to Sunday school in that same Y. But I learned to play different games, different sports. We even had competitions. And it got so where the officers' kids would play the NCO, non-commission officers' kids. We'd play against each other in teams. Then we formed a post team and we'd play against kids from Fort Scott and things of this sort. It's just a little, just kid games, but taken seriously. Playing baseball and basketball and a little football, things of this sort. And a lot of swimming.
[00:21:00]
Haller:
Were the officers' kids, you mentioned the officers' kids playing on teams and the NCOs' kids playing on teams. Did they stay together as groups socially? Or did you guys circulate without regard to rank? Or your parents rank that is?
Bill:
[00:21:30]
Well, when it came to socially, no, they had their group, but we had ours. And the Army had a protocol and you kind of had to abide by it. And it was understood by everyone. There was never any animosity, one towards the other. And it was just understood. And down the line a little further, I had some experiences where that came into play, but that was out in Hawaii in the '30s.
[00:22:00]
Haller:
Well, if it's sort of the illustrative of the kind of social situation that was in the Army at the time, why don't you tell me a little bit about it?
Bill:
[00:22:30]
Well, we were in... I was a youngster starting high school then. And we were youngsters of the NCOs, but also be classmates in school, we were all in same grade. Well then the social activities, there'd be dances held for the youngsters, NCOs' youngsters, and for the officers' youngsters.
Haller:
Separate dances though.
Bill:
[00:23:00]
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00]
These were separate dances and separate clubs. But there was a daughter of an NCO. In fact, he was a sergeant major. And I was attracted to his daughter and the feelings were mutual, but we had to maintain protocol once again. But I still went to one of her dances and I learned to be tactful at an early age. So I went over and introduced myself and they had to accept me as well as me accept them. See, the idea of a colonel's son coming in to them. And right away the wives and people knew who I was. But I was accepted because I guess I was forming a personality then. And I made some of the right moves, I asked the mother to dance, things of this sort. And the father, we were all smiling and all. And they thought I was just a regular kid.
[00:24:30]
My mother, she kind of backed off a little bit, but my dad thought it was great. He thought it was just great. He congratulated me for doing it, but he also congratulated me for being up front and not trying to do anything behind somebody's back. Because it would've gotten back and then would've been brought up at a dinner table and it'd have been unpleasant. I brought it right out in front. But that was the beginning of that. And nowadays it's probably looked upon entirely different. But there were distinctions, but I wouldn't call it class distinctions, but everyone knew their place and it was accepted, there was never ever any trouble that I can think of.
[00:25:00]
Haller:
And that's pretty typical then, even though this story took place in Hawaii, you feel that was sort of pretty typical of the social atmosphere?
Bill:
This would be typical anywhere, any place during that era. And I'm sure there are many, many, many other stories in some respects similar to mine.
Haller:
[00:25:30]
Was your family able to, or did your family have help, servants in their quarters during this era?
Bill:
Yes, we did. Yes, we did.
Haller:
And were those local people?
Bill:
Local people were hired. My mother had a maid, yes. My father had what is known as a striker.
Haller:
Tell me about that.
Bill:
[00:26:00]
Now, a striker was someone in service from one of his units. And this chap, particular chap would be recommended by his commanding officer to my father. And what he did, he did jobs for my father or he'd drive the car, service the car and things of this sort. But those are jobs that I acquired myself later on, things that I was expected to do, get out and get the car gassed, and this, and go down to a post commissary. And I'd be given a list to do the shopping, but the striker would do some of these things before.
[00:26:30]
Haller:
That was a fairly common practice for officers like your father, colonels and-
Bill:
Yes, yes they could. Yes, they could. They could do that.
Haller:
What was in it for the striker? What did he get? Did he get some extra pay?
Bill:
[00:27:00]
He would be given something. He would be given something. No, he wouldn't call for a raise in grade or anything in the military, no. But he'd be given something for his services, oh yes. And of course being realistic, it would probably relieve him from certain functions that did take place with his unit, or he'd be with me father driving him somewhere even. But that was all part of the routine also. But there was nothing that wasn't correct. I don't know how else to elaborate on that.
[00:27:30]
Haller:
Well, that's fine. I was just trying, you're helping me get an insight into sort of the social structure of what kinds of things went on, how your family lived, and how it related to the other people on the post at the time.
Bill:
[00:28:00]
Well, the military, the officers' family, there was a lot of sociability, a lot of sociability. And there was a lot of playing of bridge and going to each other's homes. And the military had a protocol where an officer would come onto post to see my father and they'd call and had calling cards.
Haller:
Tell us a little about that too.
Bill:
[00:28:30]
And he would call my mother, he went on a Sunday afternoon, they'd call on the commanding general, his wife, they'd go to the courts and have a little social visit. And as they'd go out the door, they'd leave their cards on the little tray. That was protocol to go to the commanding officer first, then you'd to other people. And my father went up in rank, then the junior officers would come to him [inaudible 00:28:45]. I remember that. And it was just something that was a merry go round, something that went on all the time.
Haller:
So in essence, you had a little, what civilians might call an open house hours.
[00:29:00]
Bill:
Yeah. There's a time, the time for calling, time for calling. They expected maybe. And you'd call between certain hours. If they weren't there, you could either leave your card or return a call later.
Haller:
Were you as a youngster expected to be there at this sort of the social circle or this is strictly for your father?
Bill:
No, this was strictly for the adults.
Haller:
For the adults.
[00:29:30]
Bill:
No, as kids, we didn't do that. But we did have our own little social dances just for the kids. And [inaudible 00:29:34]. But no, we didn't have that. We go around calling each other, no.
Haller:
No, I didn't mean that, but I thought were you expected to sort of be there and be polite, be there and small talk during visiting hours, during calling hours?
Bill:
[00:30:00]
No. Now as time goes on, after a youngster gets up in school, high school, college age, something like that, then he might expect to be around when this was done.
Haller:
I see.
Bill:
[00:30:30]
But at my age level at that time, no, I don't ever recall it. But I do remember that I couldn't come busting in the front door while there was somebody calling. I'd go around the back door, I'd come in and then go up to my room. I wouldn't want to interfere with any conversation, anything going on out there. I had to learn to judge that for myself.
Haller:
Okay, Bill. You lived on the Presidio starting in '28. You said you had two other brothers, is that correct? Tell me that your family was your mother and your father, and you had an older brother.
[00:00:30]
Bill:
[00:01:00]
I had a brother, Jack, and a brother, Bob. My brother, Jack, I never got to know. He passed on when I was still a baby, at Fort Command Air. He's buried at Schofield Barracks. He contacted pneumonia early age, so I never got to know Jack. He was born army post in Governor's Island in New York when my father was stationed there. My brother, Bob, was nine years older than I. Bob was at the Presidio. I wish he was present at this moment. He could relate other stories of the Presidio, which I know would be humorous and of interest to you. Same thing at Mason. Bob was born in Fort McPherson, Georgia, but he was an army brat. He was an army brat.
[00:01:30]
Haller:
I remember you telling me that you guys got together sometimes and pulled off some pranks and the like. Do you remember?
Bill:
[00:02:00]
[00:02:30]
Well, you got to realize now there's this nine year difference in age. He had his group and I had mine. But the story that I always remembered as far as Presidio was concerned with him, I don't know how many youngsters were involved, it had to be two or three. They picked up some cannon balls in the Card House area and took those in the car up the infantry terrace. This was on a Halloween evening. They turned these things loose at the top of infantry terrace. Then of course they disappeared. They get out of the way. Of course, when the MPs were made aware of this, then there was H to pay. Who did everything? Of course complete silence. My dad said, "You boys know anything about this?". "Oh, no. No sir. No nothing about this". But he was pulling stunts of that type. I was off doing other things.
Haller:
Of a more innocent nature?
Bill:
[00:03:00]
[00:03:30]
Innocent nature. One thing that we used to pull, even there in Schofield, which we thought was funny as a crutch, but didn't mean anything, we would stick an officer sign out in front of his quarters. In those days, the quarters and signs were put in the lung instead of tacked up on the building. You'd go over say to the commanding general sign, pull that out, and take it up the far end of the post, and put it up in front of Master Sergeant Smith's house. Take Master Sergeant Smith, bring it down. You'd disconcert a sentry temporarily, make a little noise somewhere, while the sentry's off looking, kids will run in, change signs. We'd do that all over the post. All over the place. Of course, after a period of time, people knew this. In fact, they undoubtedly in my mind, as I think back, we must have been seen from time to time, people looking out the windows. But they knew what was going on. It was no big thing, but the phones would be ringing. People have to drive down, exchange.
[00:04:00]
[00:04:30]
[00:05:00]
But those were just little kid, or, we used to think it was great to go by and swipe somebody's ice cream. In those days, they had the homemade ice cream, the hand cream. They'd have it on the back porch. We kids, we'd come by, steal it. Little things like that, but nothing really destructive as you might see today. No really intent meant to ruffle too many feathers, but we did in our own way. But there was comical, we thought. One thing that Schofield, I know that we try and take a pair of girls panties and run them up the post flag pole. And that was a trick too, and kept that really discreet. But if they roll them up, then once that was in there, disappeared. Nobody knew whoever ever did that. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. So those are just some of the little stunts, as I recall.
Haller:
Was most of your social, your time, and your life revolved around activities on the post except for school? Or did you get out and did you and your family, the rest of the kids, get out into the city a lot? Or was it mostly on the post?
Bill:
No, no. It was on the post and off the post.
Haller:
Okay.
[00:05:30]
Bill:
[00:06:00]
[00:06:30]
[00:07:00]
My family had, due to the number of times my father was in Hawaii, had a great many civilian friends in Honolulu. They were in it in San Francisco the same way. He had a great many friends in the shipping side of the picture. Being water, Marine transportation officer there, Schofield. The Embarcadero was going in full steam ahead in those days. All your major shipping lines were utilizing the piers along the yard. So my father knew people in those various shipping lines and they'd social calls, back and forth. The transports themselves would go into dry dock at Bethany. He knew those people. So there's a lot of sociability there. Whereas myself, in San Francisco, not too much at that early age, but once I got to Hawaii, that was another story. Then my friends in school, I'd see on the weekends and away from school. In Hawaii, we'd socialize with the youngsters from sugar plantations, not too far from school. We'd go to their social functions. We'd invite them up to ours, with our kids at school. And we'd inter-date.
Haller:
One interesting memory that you related to me was those about the polo matches on the Presidio. Do you remember seeing polo matches in the Presidio?
Bill:
[00:07:30]
[00:08:00]
[00:08:30]
Yes. Now we're coming back to another era again. That's true. Now, there were polo matches at the Presidio and there were two of us kids. Our job was to keep score. These polo matches were held on Crissy Field. I guess you'd call it the Southern end of Crissy field, not too far from the Palace of Fine Arts. The polo matches were held between what is then known as a Ninth Corps area. The Ninth Corps area was the army headquarters. One of the polo players was an aid of the commanding general, lived right next door to us in Fort Mason. The polo matches were played against the Presidio of Monterey, which was in an active army post in Monterey. The 11th Cavalry was there. In fact, another little bit of history, the Commanding General at that time, the Commanding Officer at that time, was a Colonel Wainright.
Haller:
The CEO of the 11th Cavalry.
Bill:
[00:09:00]
The 11th Cavalry. As time was on, he was the general [inaudible 00:08:46], general Wainright who had to surrender to the Japanese. But harking back to the polo where this all started, it was a great thing for us to watch those polo games, interchange, these teams playing back and forth. The big thing for us kids was to get to be able to ride a polo pony back to the stables. And we'd ride a polo pony back to the stables. Now when the teams would play down in Monterey, we'd go down and watch the games, but we didn't participate or anything like that. We just go down, see the games. I had a weekend in Monterey.
Haller:
Now these ponies were kept at the brick stables on the Presidio?
[00:09:30]
Bill:
On the Presidio. Right.
Haller:
Right. Do you have any idea, were these horses, these ponies had some regular military function or were they,
Bill:
I don't think so.
Haller:
Or were they just simply recreational?
Bill:
[00:10:00]
No, I don't think there was a military function. At the stadium for the animals kept there. 11th cavalry, that's another story. In Pedro Monterey, of course, it was a Cavalry unit. But as far as Presidio, no, I don't think there's anything of military significance there.
Haller:
I was just asking about the polo ponies. They were strictly polo ponies?
Bill:
[00:10:30]
Yeah. The polo ponies were there, and now how else they were utilized I don't know. No, I know, you'd begin to scratch your head and wonder, polo ponies on the military post? And why and when they use further. Now Scofield Barracks in Hawaii, we had a pack train, and there were you, that's a different story altogether.
Haller:
Well, the army had a lot of horses and mules at that time. I was just trying to see,
Bill:
[00:11:00]
The cavalry was a big part of the army. My father loved to ride. It was typical among all army brats to learn to ride when you're a kid. Go out and ride and used to have our own horse shows and things like that. The Presidio they don't recall doing that, but those horses were utilized. The officers were using rides out in the Golden Gate Park. Things of this.
Haller:
Did you get into the stables a fair amount? Do you remember them well?
Bill:
[00:11:30]
Well, I remember going down to the stables. Yes. Or taking a handful, have a pocket full of sugar, feeding the horses sugar cubes, and things like that. I didn't get to the point to where there was any one particular horse, favorite or not. My riding then was done with a group, close, nothing where we didn't start galloping off on our own or anything like it. This came later, Schofield, where I had my experience.
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
One of the disappointments my father had with me is that I didn't really be enthusiastic about getting up on a Sunday morning and going for a horseback ride. I had reached the age where I wanted to get to the beach. I was just a youngster, filling out, learning how to handle a surfboard. But from the standpoint of horses, we'd go off from time to time at Schofield and we'd start galloping, one thing or another. Well, I had the experience of a great many people or a horse galloping, there's a small hurdle where the horse comes to a stop. I started taking the jump, and the horse stopped but I kept going, head over heels. So of course, everybody ribbed me about that. That just about ended my horseback riding times.
Haller:
Yeah. I can understand that.
[00:13:00]
Bill:
Harking back further, there were times I did enjoy, down in Presidio Monterey. We'd go down there on the weekend. We'd be with a whole group, but we'd go out for a ride on the beach down there in Monterey. We used to love to do that, but that's no gallop. Just going along, turn around, riding back.
Haller:
But you really didn't do any of that at the Presidio you said.
Bill:
No. At the Presidio, going back that far, no, I didn't participate then.
[00:13:30]
Haller:
Now you'd mentioned Crissy field in the context of these polo matches, but Crissy field, the time when you were at the Presidio was an active air corps air base.
Bill:
Yes, it was.
Haller:
Do you recall some of the flight operations or any incidents that occurred at Crissy field in terms of airplanes?
Bill:
[00:14:00]
[00:14:30]
Well, I don't recall the type of aircraft. I can't think, the ones that came in there, but they were the smaller planes. They weren't the fast jets as we have today. They were all propeller planes. And this was years before the bridges came into existence. So Crissy was active in that standpoint. I do remember one incident, and I'm trying to locate pictures now of two gentlemen, and they made the first flight. Their names were Maitland and Hegenberger. There's a Hegenberger Road across the bay, where Oakland's named after him.
Haller:
Right. And their first flight, this was the first successful flight,
Bill:
This was the first one.
Haller:
From the mainland to Hawaii.
Bill:
[00:15:00]
Correct. And they flew in what it's called an army Fokker plane. I think one of them later on became a general officer in the air force. I think it was Maitland. They flew from Wheeler and this is where they took off. And I think they flew from,
Haller:
From Crissy?
Bill:
Yeah. From Crissy, right. From Crissy into what had known as Wheeler field and all way.
Haller:
Did you witness their departure?
Bill:
No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I didn't witness their departure.
[00:15:30]
Haller:
Yeah. They got their flight ready at Crissy field and I think they hopped it over to the Oakland field, Oakland airport, to load up with gas and departed.
Bill:
This very well could be, Steve. See, I don't recall all those things, but this is something that could have been. I do know the planes were kept at Crissy and you say they were serviced there and that sort of thing.
Haller:
Were you able to have any access to the field? Did that interest you at all?
Bill:
Yes I did.
Haller:
Did you go into the hangers? Look around?
[00:16:00]
Bill:
We used to go down to the hangers, and the people there knew who we were. They knew we were army brats from the post. So we didn't get in there. We knew where to stay out of their way, but we just observed. Now and then there'd be an individual who would take it upon himself to explain what they were doing to a plane, this and that, but I didn't get into it that much.
[00:16:30]
[00:17:00]
I do know that I was interested in flying a little bit. My father, no, he wouldn't leave the ground. It would take an act of Congress to get him up in the air. But whereas my brother and I, yes. Now it brings back an industry flying element at that time, right by Fort Mason. They had these float planes, two or three that come in there, and for such and such a fee, they'd give you for a flight, take a flight around the bay. Just circle around and you'd land right by the pier and Fort Mason. My brother and I sneaked down and we both did that one time, took a flight around.
[00:17:30]
[00:18:00]
But Crissy, one incidence I do recall at Crissy with poor planes were involved. I used to like to go out every year and watch the Pacific fleet, the Navy, come in through the Golden Gate. I'd go out to Fort Point. Me and my little brownie camera. Two or three of us kids, we'd all go out there. It would be early morning, we had to start watching the Navy come through. We watched the fleet came through, they came through, but victors. We turned around, we walked back to the post. On the way back to the post, we're going by Crissy Field, and we noticed that a plane had turned over in the water right by the field. So we walked over, had my little brownie camera, and I snapped a couple pictures of this plane. I hadn't gone a few yards on the way back home again and I got the tap on the shoulder and I looked back and here's this something.
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
He said, "Did you take a picture of that plane out in the water?". All the kids started laughing. I said, "Yes, I did". He said, "Well, I'm going to have to take your film". And I said, "Oh, wait a minute now. I've been taking pictures all morning of these ships coming in the bay. I just happened to see that there". "Oh, but you can't take picture of a plane that's had an accident like that". I said, "Whoa. Can I speak to someone else? Can I speak to Sergeant, the guard, about this or the officer today?". Then I told, "I'm Colonel Bennett's son and I live right on Presidio. All these boys, Colonel Cassidy's son right here. We're all together". And the guard got a little funny, but he was still stern. So he went over and we saw the Sergeant Duggar.
[00:19:30]
[00:20:00]
Sergeant Duggar, looked at you much more of a fatherly figure. He looked at me, "Son, you know what you did?". And I said, "Well, just take picture of the plane, Sergeant. I didn't know there was anything wrong it". He said, "Well, there's regulations, and you cannot take pictures of planes that have been in accidents like that". But he said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. Keep it under your hat. Don't tell anybody I say you could. You kids scoot on home now, but do me a favor. Do not show that picture. It's among your own group". "Thank you very much. Sergeant". And off we went. But that was the incident from where the flying picture came in. That's something we wouldn't have done it if we known it was against regulation. Goodness knows, I learned about regulations myself later on.
Haller:
I can imagine. Now, just for the sake of interest of someone who might be listening later to this tape, that you have kept those varied photographs.
Bill:
I've got two photographs here.
Haller:
And you're kind enough to offer them,
Bill:
Which I'd be more than happy to loan to you.
[00:20:30]
Haller:
Great. Good. Thanks. That's great. How about the coast artillery batteries around Fort Winfield Scott and the Headlands at the Presidio, was there access to those places?
Bill:
Yes.
Haller:
Were you allowed to get in there? Were you interested in them?
Bill:
[00:21:00]
We used to go up there because we knew youngsters whose fathers were stationed at Fort Scott. Fort Scott was active then, and we'd go up there for social functions, and they'd come down and see him. We were all in school together, they would just happened to live up there. We'd walk around up there in the barn, the batteries, yes. But I can't remember anything that's significant that stands out in my mind. I do remember driving along up there in the old Model A Ford, and then walking in there and seeing those. We never saw them fire.
Haller:
No?
[00:21:30]
Bill:
Never saw them fire, so I don't know. Same thing at Fort Mason. There were gun replacements at Fort Mason, but the guns were even been removed then. The guns weren't in there in '28.
Haller:
Right. No, they had been locked up by then.
Bill:
[00:22:00]
But we took a gun replacement at Ford Mason, right near the quarters, and made a miniature golf course out of it. We all got together, half a dozen of us kids, run and got some sand and model of the miniature golf course, were the thing in those days coming in.
Haller:
At Fort Mason?
Bill:
This was at Fort Mason. We constructed this little thing right by one of these gun batteries.
Haller:
[00:22:30]
Interesting. What was distinctive or special about the Presidio? You lived as a kid in a number of military posts. That's typical of army life at the time. But what was distinctive about the Presidio? What stands out?
Bill:
[00:23:00]
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00]
Well, what stood out, I guess, what was the feeling of an army post? As I say, from reveille to retreat, and hearing that cannon go off in the morning, and getting myself up to deliver those papers and get to school. But then the saluting that went on between listed personnel and officer personnel, the respect, the understanding, going in and out of the officer's club at that time as a kid with my family for meals. Pershing Hall was then active. The BLQ was then active. There were people in all the quarters, and so many people, they all knew each other. The one thing I always remember enjoying, is when I really took interest in my first retreat parades. Seeing the retreat parades out there in the old 30th. And well, the climate. Hearing those foghorns out there, then the fog, and coolness. And totally different, the army wore the old days, keep warm. Go to Hawaii, you see them in khaki, and different climate altogether.
[00:24:30]
[00:25:00]
But from a military standpoint, it kind of got a grip on me there. Strange as it sounds, and people wonder about it. I've been asked about it many, many times. Did you have a desire for the military as a career yourself? As time went on, no, I didn't. My dad, my goodness, thank goodness, he never pressured my brother and I about the military. He left it up to us. He loved us. He probably wanted the two of us to go to the point, but no, we didn't have the desire for it. I guess one thing was the changing of stations, not being in one place, and just where one minute you were at a place where you're fully enjoyed, the next time you could be sent somewhere out in the boondock somewhere.
[00:25:30]
[00:26:00]
Whereas in civilian life, different story. You didn't like your job in civilian life, you could leave. Military, no. So there's all kinds of different aspects too. But as far as, harking back to your question now, with the military and Presidio, that was where I had some of my early indoctrination. Memories there, you don't forget. I can go in Presidio now, and memories will pop out of nowhere, just driving, from the time I drive through that Lombard Street gate. So and so lived here. The old Litterman used to go down there and see where the Y was located and what we did there. Street car coming in, going down the end of the street car line, picking up our papers that came in on the early street car and rolling, going off, and then going to school. This is all part of it. All part of it. And I hope it makes sense, see.
[00:26:30]
But you can see a feeling there and my feelings, how they've been. Now, if you talk to someone else in a similar spot, someone else who had lived there, or some other youngster boy or girl who grew up in that time, I'm sure their feelings would be the same. It's a little different aspect all together. I don't know how else to explain it.
Haller:
I think you've explained it very well. Very vividly. And not only that, but I think your evident feelings about the post, and the fact of your formative years being there, and all that feeling, really comes through, Bill.
[00:27:00]
Bill:
[00:27:30]
[00:28:00]
Well, this little thing, going down to the commissary with my mother, going to the post exchange, or going to the theaters, or taking part in activities with other youngsters, as I related before, there's a life about a military post that you don't have on the outside. There's two different atmospheres. Life by the youngster off a post, civilian life, and military people on post. A lot of that is gone by the boards nowadays, but Presidio was a post that was near a larger major city. One thing I will always say about Presidio, I heard my dad many more many times is, there's not a career officer who spent his career life in the army, but one time or another did not desire a duty station at the city. It was one of the most desirable posts in the service.
[00:28:30]
[00:29:00]
As I've told other people, now that things have changed and people have taken over, I know there's so much real estate in Presidio, location of quarters, where retired people would've loved to be in a position to have purchased that property. The views of the bay, the whole thing, the atmosphere of San Francisco. But Presidio has so much to offer, and I'm so glad a few people have taken over, and I hope that you can preserve it in a good, proper manner, keep it up. Cause I'd hate to see it go the other way. I know there's a lot of work involved, a lot of people involved. You've had people out there who a bit active in the Presidio for years, and I know they'd all feel the same way. There are many, many youngsters who lived on the post as I did, who would feel the same way.
[00:29:30]
[00:30:00]
But I like to go in there and think, well, here's where I was born, they look over to the Presidio. It amazes me that the quarters are still standing, that they're still there. I look over at that club. Now, as time goes on later, as we may get in your talk here, your interview, I was married Presidio. So this expands upon it even more so, where my wife and I were married there. We had a reception in the club. The chapel is there. My father-in-law, Colonel Burbank, is buried there and the plaque in the chapel for him. These things all have an effect and they all add to the overall picture.
[00:30:30]
[00:31:00]
The golf course, my goodness. I learned to play golf at the Presidio golf club. I used to go up there and caddy. In fact, if you go in the club today, I'm sure you see trophies, pictures of a chap called Lawson Little. His father was a Colonel in there. Lawson Little became California state amateur champion. He was a nice caddy from time to time. And I used to love, that's where I learned, used to love to go up there. Caddy from my dad, play. The Presidio, the fog comes in there in late afternoon. It gets cool. I used to enjoy that golf course. I know I'm glad to see it's being maintained. It doesn't have the military control that it once did. It was strictly a military course here practically at one time. Now I'm glad to see it opened up to the general program and handled the way it is. I was told that the army Palmer group had come in and were taking over that course. And that's great at that time. So that's from a golfing stand.
Haller:
This is a interview with William R. Bennett. It is December 14th, 1995. This is tape two, side one.
[00:00:30]
Okay, Bill, let's switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit about Fort Mason. Your father was still the quartermaster officer at Fort Mason for the San Francisco Depot?
Bill:
The Army Transport Service.
Haller:
Service, right. And he was a quartermaster officer-
Bill:
He was-
Haller:
... for Fort Mason.
Bill:
Fort Mason. Correct. He was what you would call the Commanding Officer at Fort Mason.
[00:01:00]
Haller:
Okay. And then you lived at the Presidio for a while and then quarters opened up at Fort Mason and you must have been about 12 or so when you moved to Fort Mason?
Bill:
That's right. That was 1930. That was about 12. 12, 13. 12, 13.
Haller:
So, tell us a little about Fort Mason. Where did you live at Fort Mason?
Bill:
[00:01:30]
Fort Mason, we lived on a set of quarters facing what is now Aquatic Park [inaudible 00:01:31] and as you came in to the post from Van Ness Avenue and Bay Street and drove in.
Haller:
Right. Which is not today's entrance, but that's where the iron gates-
Bill:
That's where the original gates were.
Haller:
Got it.
Bill:
The General's quarters were the first ones on your right.
Haller:
Right.
[00:02:00]
Bill:
And the Commanding General was General Craig. The Commander was then Malan Craig.
Haller:
Malan...
Bill:
Malan Craig.
Haller:
Malan Craig.
Bill:
His headquarters were at the Presidio, but he was quartered at Fort Mason. Next to him as you faced Fisherman's Wharf were the quarters of the Chief of Staff. I don't recall the name of the Chief of Staff at that time, but that can easily be checked on if you care to get into that.
Haller:
So, that's quarters two.
[00:02:30]
Bill:
Quarter two, then my father Colonel Bennett, we had the next set of quarters.
Haller:
Okay.
Bill:
Next quarter over.
Haller:
Okay. Quarters three.
Bill:
Then there was a fourth double set of quarters on our left. And that's where the two generals' aids were located.
Haller:
I see.
Bill:
[00:03:00]
[00:03:30]
Now the set of quarters were beautiful. The two double set of quarters. And I know my mother loved those set of quarters because the rose gardens around there and the view, the whole thing, San Francisco. The whole family loved San Francisco. And you couldn't ask for a more beautiful place, military speaking, to live there. And my memories of Fort Mason are great. And I still went to the old Sherman school, elementary school over on Union Street. And I remember walking back and forth to that school.
Haller:
Sure. That would've been easy walking distance.
Bill:
That was just a few minutes. Just a few minutes walking over there. And headquarters of Fort Mason are the headquarters for your people right now.
Haller:
That's correct. And your dad had his office in his building.
Bill:
His office is right in that building.
Haller:
Do you remember?
[00:04:00]
Bill:
To the left or the main entrance, going in there many times. As you go in that main entrance of your headquarters building-
Haller:
Describe it a little. What was it like? Can you describe his office?
Bill:
[00:04:30]
Well, the typical headquarters, there were pictures of predecessors along the wall, which is typical. And what all those officers were, now, I can't recall what each function was, but I remember my dad's office was just to the left of the main entrance they came in. And I remember going out the rear entrance to that very same building. He walked up to what was known as the hostess house. Now the hostess house was very active in those days. As the transports would come and go from the piers, families would stay there.
[00:05:00]
[00:05:30]
Families coming in or were going out would stay in there, foreign families coming in, and there was a continual shuffle. They had all the facilities there for people. Had beauty parlor, barber shop, cafeteria, and everything that you'd want there. If an officer or anybody for that matter chose to stay in town, they could. In those days, the two main hotels were the Clift and the Steward on Gary Street downtown and a good many of the officer personnel would stay there. My father, his preference was the Bellevue Hotel, which has now all been remodeled under a new name. But Fort Mason, that was primarily fun. Big function then was transporting the people back and forth.
Haller:
People and supplies.
Bill:
[00:06:00]
People and supplies, animals. They had any number of army transports, the transports, as I recall, I used to go aboard all those ships-
Haller:
Back up for a second here. I know you've had some very good memories about the transports, which I want to talk to you about and forgive me for interrupting, but you walked us through Fort Mason headquarters there, in the front door and out the back door pretty quickly there.
Bill:
All right. Okay. So I will slow it down.
Haller:
[00:06:30]
Well, your father's office. How was it? Do you recall what it looked like and how it was furnished? Did he have a nice desk or...?
Bill:
Oh yes.
Haller:
Sort of GI?
Bill:
[00:07:00]
Oh no, no, no, no, no. It was a beautiful desk, set of flags in rear in the corners. Pictures, as I say, around the wall of predecessors and things of this sort. But his job was the handling of those transports in and out and everything that went on down there on the transport piers, he was involved with. And when people would come in and request transportation aboard a transport a certain time, he would do what he could. And he had to work with the personnel down there on the piers. You had a Marine superintendent and their officers were right in the center pier. I forgot, they were number one, two, and three.
Haller:
Correct.
[00:07:30]
Bill:
[00:08:00]
So I'm sure this must have been number two. To the right of the end pairs is where the shops were. And they had a carpenter shop, a sheet metal shop and they made things all through there. The warehouses were right across from the actual docks themselves. That's where supplies were brought in and where furniture came, incoming furniture, outgoing furniture and they had people that did that burlap [inaudible 00:07:59]. And coordination was also active in all the transports. They had a tug, army tug named the Slocum.
Haller:
Yes.
Bill:
Which I was very active with the standpoint of riding on and knowing the people and personnel involved.
Haller:
You were?
Bill:
And they had two water boats, El Acuario and El Aguador.
Haller:
Yes, that's right.
[00:08:30]
Bill:
[00:09:00]
These two water boats, plus the Slocum, their major function, the two water boats was to go to Alcatraz and Angel Island and they'd take water out there. Water, couldn't pipe it out there. It had to be taken out by these boats. I remember as a youngster riding on these boats back and forth out there and that was another function. But the transports, a good many of them were named after military campaigns in World War I, but the larger transports in my time, were the Republic, the General Grant. Then they came down to smaller sister ships, Shadow Theory, Psalm, and the Cambre.
[00:09:30]
[00:10:00]
[00:10:30]
They had two freight ships, the Megs and the Canoas. Those freight ships handled just furniture and also from time to time transporting animals, mules. And an amusing incident was when it came time for loading of those mules aboard one of those freight. We'd go down on a Saturday, kids from school would stand, get out of the way, stand at the pier there and watch these mules come in. It was interesting. The mules, as you know, stubborn. So they'd have to guide the mule into a stall and then swing it up aboard on ship. And they had set spots for them right on the deck. Used to feel so sorry for them because they'd get out there and rough with it. But the amusing incidents, these darn mules time to time just wouldn't want to move so they take a broom and they'd smack the mule on the tail and it'd bolt in there then they'd close it up.
[00:11:00]
One time while we were there, a mule bolted and got away from the handler. Or if it didn't go over the side, anyway. So they got busy slipped the sling under its belly, right? Quick light, got it back up. But it was interesting to watch that sort of thing. But I used to go board all those transports. And of course in those days I was known as the Colonel's son.
Haller:
Sure.
Bill:
[00:11:30]
And the civilian people who operated those transports, they know me as Colonel Benison. But another thing I did considering myself a Foxy kid and I had my little Saturday evening post I used to sell, I had a Saturday evening post. So these people are going, coming in on the ships. I sell them the latest coffee, the serving post, or I deliver them around the piers down there.
[00:12:00]
Some range superintendent was a chaplain named Stinson, whom I recall as a kid, he liked to get me in his office and set me down and tell me sea stories. He went way back and he had these big model ships in the glass keys in his office. And he would sit and talk about, I remember that very vividly. And, but the transports, one thing I used to do, I used to get myself in trouble on the home front.
Haller:
How was that?
Bill:
Well, because they would, I'd go down to the gales, and they, some of the cooks, one of the chief stewards two, or see me come going by, "Hey bro. How about a knife? How about a sandwich?" So they fix me up some beautiful roast beef sandwich. Here it is, four o'clock, 4:30 in the afternoon. Say here I am eating a big roast beef sandwich, and a big glass, some milk.
[00:12:30]
Then I'd go home for my six o'clock dinner. And I kind of... My mother didn't catch on for a little while, all of a sudden it dawned on her what was happening.
Haller:
Got it.
Bill:
My dad, once again, got a big kick out of it, because I'm down there talking to the ships personnel, see, and they're showing me all around, but that was something else that went on. But I loved going aboard all those transports in and on.
[00:13:00]
Haller:
You said that there really were quite a number of memorable characters who worked on the tugs or the transports.
Bill:
Oh yes. Yes. There all kinds of, and I used to know some of them by name and the stevedore and...
Haller:
Al Berry, was that what you mentioned?
Bill:
Al Berry, he was the skipper of the tug of the Slocum.
Haller:
I see.
Bill:
[00:13:30]
And later on, he was a captain Naval Reserve, World War II, very, very active and right on up to the end with Al Berry, his wife was a San Francisco school teacher.
[00:14:00]
[00:14:30]
And when I came back from Hawaii, after being out there a number of years after World War II, decided to move to California, just come up for a year and try out. Al Berry was still living in Millbrook. Al Berry had been on the Governor's Commission for Veteran Affairs. And he told me, he asked me, he said, "Bill, do you plan to purchase a home here, California?" I said, "Yeah, no problem. I'm going to sit tight. I don't go back to Hawaii. I will." He said, "Well, I have one bit of advice for you, is to get involved with the California vets program." The greatest thing that California has done for the returning veterans, these California vet loans. You can get a home and your fees are so small. You just can't imagine on the outside, the home we're in today was originally financed on Cal vet loan.
Haller:
Is that right? Good.
Bill:
Up to 10,000, you can see what this place is worth today. So that was all through Al Berry. If I hadn't known Al Berry, but that's where it started. But Al and I hit it off right away.
Haller:
You get out on stuff.
Bill:
[00:15:00]
I behave myself. I didn't do anything foolish on the tug. "Hey, Benny, take the time. The chief engineer won't [inaudible 00:15:01] down in at all. Of course I didn't like to... For a while, because the smells will begin to get to there a little choppy in the bay. "Whoops, I want to get out of there."
Haller:
Yep.
Bill:
[00:15:30]
But I learned the operation of the tug and what it did, how it helped the transports into the piers and then going out from time to time on a Saturday to Alcatraz with a water and we'd be a group of kids. We get kids from Fort Scott proceeding, a bunch of us and we'd all go out on the town together. We come out to Alcatraz and believe it or not. As I tell people this story today, they all look at me and shake my head. We'd play softball while the wildest water is being pumped into their tanks there.
Haller:
Right.
Bill:
[00:16:00]
We were told what time to get back to the tug, what time we back to Mason, we can go. But all the military families all around the bay area, we used to send our laundry after every week, we're strictly a military prison. I went through a time or two with my dad in those days, he took us on around Alcatraz.
Haller:
He did.
Bill:
But I'm going, this is 1930 now, 1931. And it was interesting to go out there.
Haller:
So you'd play some ball games, but the Alcatraz kids-
Bill:
[00:16:30]
The Alcatraz kids, and anyway, we just all get together and just, go make up pick games. Same thing over in Fort McDowell, we'd go to Fort McDowell the same way. And Fort McDowell, bring back memories. Because later on, after going into service myself, I came back out of Hawaii.
Haller:
Yes.
Bill:
As a young Sergeant, where do I go? Fort McDowell, where we're waiting to change. But I'll never forget coming into Fort Mason as a youngster in service myself, seeing the stevedores out there, And here's Al Berry, he's Marine Superintendent then, the little play.
Haller:
Okay.
[00:17:00]
Bill:
But the most amusing incident on the transport docks for me, where my father comes into play, which I'll never forget. One of his job was to go out. He'd go out on the Slocum and greet and meet a transport while it was still out in the bay.
[00:17:30]
He'd come back in, but the Slocum would take him out with a party, be three or four officers. They'd all go out, turn around, come back. Well they'd have to be checked. They'd make sure the flags were flying on the transports and the quarantine flags, things of the sort, but he'd go out and he'd be dressed in uniform and everything. Everything with my father being all military had to be spick and span. Boots, shine, everything just perfect. That was one of my jobs too. Shine boots.
Haller:
Shine his boots.
Bill:
Oh, shine those boots. Yeah. I used to keep his boots shined.
Haller:
Okay.
[00:18:00]
Bill:
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
But here we are. Long story short Saturday morning, I'm home from school. I'm just sitting around there playing with my old crystal set, doing something about the house, up comes the car and the old man comes storming in the house. You could hear him. Three blocks away, starts hollering for me, holler out my name, "Get me a clean shirt right away and get everything on there." I had to get a set of his collar on it. Put the Eagles up on here, the whole thing and what had happened, which brought down the house. He was down on the pier, getting ready to aboard the Slocum, a squadron of San Francisco's own flying eagles came by. One of them, bombs day must have been open, flat right on the shirt.
Haller:
Right on the shirt.
Bill:
[00:19:30]
Right on the shirt splat. So right away. So, and they say everybody on the pier, they had to turn the other way, because they didn't want to see, they could see the old man being left. Couldn't happen in front of the colonel. So he turned the other way, he jumped back, got in this first car and the driver brought him right up the house, put him on a shirt, back he went again. But Al Barry told me it was one of the most funniest things that happened when I was told him.
He said, "Your old man turned the color for, he was, "This happened? It happened to anybody anytime. It's happened many, many times." Just as he was getting ready to go out there. So we had to move fast and got him out here, held up the tug, held up the Slocum until we got back.
Haller:
Nice.
Bill:
[00:20:00]
But it was all work. There was just one of those little amusing incidents over the time. But even years and years later, I'm up in Millbury talking to Al Berry in his home. He says, "You remember that time when your dad came down the ground?"
But those are just little things that the things, stories of that type or in all families, all families have little incidents and stories like it. But this had a little military twist to it also, with the uniform and all that.
[00:20:30]
Haller:
Fort Mason is of course close to Fisherman's Wharf. Did that have any attractions for you guys at the time? I guess Fisherman's Wharf is sort of a different place than it is now though.
Bill:
Oh yes. Very, very much so. In fact, fog horns around the bay, I used to pick up on the fog horn from the piers on the transport docks, the Sausalito ferry slippers at the end of Van Ness Avenue, then.
Haller:
End of high street.
[00:21:00]
Bill:
And they had a foreign person [inaudible 00:21:04]. Alcatraz, I used to know these different tones.
Haller:
I can't imagine that must have been quite as simple.
Bill:
[00:21:30]
I'd been in bed before I get up in the morning, I hear "Oh, oh." The fogs in again. You hear the fog horn start up. So, "Oh, boy." But the one down at Mason had kind of a shrill sound. Each one had its own little distinctive sound. But I remember another thing with the boats, which I'm sorry to say today, it's a shame. In those days, fishing boats would come out of Fisherman's Wharf and they'd go out. Took, tag along with me out to the Farallon.
[00:22:00]
Haller:
We're talking about, you've had something to say about the fishing boats at Fisherman's Wharf while you were at Fort Mason?
Bill:
[00:22:30]
The fishing boats would come out of the war or something, in those days, and there'd be anywhere up to oh 10, 15 boats. And they'd go out Indian style, one behind the other, go out along the Marina Green, clear out to the Farallon Islands, turn around and they'd get fresh crab and whatever else then come back. Well, as was the case many times with me, I'd be down Marina Green, sailing a kite, playing softball or doing something. Boats are chugging back in the afternoon. When I'd say those boats go by. I knew it was about time for me to start thinking about, I can back up to the quarters at Ford Mason.
[00:23:00]
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00]
Many times I'd get up home. My dad would come along and he'd say, "Get your bike. I want you to go down, get some fresh crab." So off I'd go. And there was more or less a protocol or something that I'd do. He'd always have me leave some crap at General Craig's quarters, then beautiful fresh Dungeness crab. Today people ask me, "Well Bill, what are you paying for the crabs?" That must be a third of what they pay today and so plentiful, whereas nowadays you go up there. My understanding is, there may one or two boats that will go up. Maybe fisherman brought on number nine, may have a boat or something like that. That's it. And the, I guess it's a shame to see the America picking the crabs, go by the board and the environment, things that happened today, I guess, contribute to that. But those are memories I have about the fishing loops. It was interesting.
Haller:
There was a change of command ceremony while you lived at Fort Mason for General Craig, that you mentioned. Do you recall what that was about? Was he coming or going?
[00:24:30]
Bill:
To be honest with you. I don't know how that came into our original talk, Steve.
Haller:
That's okay.
Bill:
I actually don't recall the change of command.
Haller:
Not a problem.
Bill:
[00:25:00]
I know. I remember General Craig though, as a very likable... He looked upon me as a kid and I remember we used to play tennis right next door to the quarters and tennis courts there. I go over there and play tennis with my dad, and the general would come out and watch.
Haller:
You describe when you first talked about moving to Fort Mason, you describe the, how much you liked that, those quarters and the grounds and the landscaping. You said that there were roses in the gardens. Was that something that-
Bill:
That was something that my mother fully enjoyed.
Haller:
Did you?
[00:25:30]
Bill:
[00:26:00]
We had some beautiful rose gardens and it wasn't just our quarter. All of us, General Craig's quarters, all portions, a quarter, there all have these roses and they were all kept up beautiful. And that's something that just added to the overall atmosphere there. And the, it was just a, it was cool, but it was nice, enjoyed.
Haller:
Fort Mason?
Bill:
Fort Mason.
Haller:
So what-
Bill:
Everything was going full swing then. The chair deli was, the country factory was going, but we used to, as kids, we'd get over there, get a little sample every now and then after school. But Galileo was where my brother was going to school and we'd settle on that big wall up there, come down off the infinite. We'd sit on top of one, look out on the football field.
Haller:
Oh sure.
[00:26:30]
Bill:
And we could see the games going on right across the street. You know, we were kids. Another funny stunt I pulled, which wasn't funny. This time the old man didn't blow me out, was a railway tunnel.
Haller:
Yes.
Bill:
[00:27:00]
[00:27:30]
There's a railway tunnel right under there, but we're always told not to go walking through that tunnel. So on a Saturday, three or four of us, start on the transport side. Transport dock side to cross. Well, lo and behold, naturally, here comes someone, get out there, by then we couldn't turn back. So we had to freeze up against the walls and let this baby go by and we're just... But we glad to get out alive and get out of there. My dad would own me for that stuff. He said, "Don't let hear you doing that." Because we were, we could slip, but those are just only little things I remember right in there at Mason.
[00:28:00]
[00:28:30]
I remember high school cadets from Galileo, ROTC parading around the streets there, right around Bay Street there. And as far as the transport docks themselves, I'll never forget. I can't go to San Francisco today and go by there or eat, if I'm out on the bay, I take people out on one of those bay cruises or something like that. I look back and see those docks, like the wife and I have gone out. We had our honeymoon out on the Laurel, usually we said going back, they looked like the docks. And we took a princess line cruise to Alaska two years ago and we see a lot, we're embarking. And I looked back at those transport docks and I could still, and even if we go down to Fisherman's Wharf today for a meal, I can be Bond number nine and look up at Fort Mason. And I can still see those quarters, same quarters sitting up there. So that kind of things makes the mind twirl a little bit, because I'm not going back just a couple years ago, I'm going back quite a few years ago.
[00:29:00]
Haller:
Was there a difference in the atmosphere that, or the difference between Fort Mason and the Presidio in any substantial way?
Bill:
[00:29:30]
Well, yes. Yes. Presidio was what I had called an out of army post. There were troops there and they had the formality, as I say, of the revel and the retreat and this and that. Fort Mason had the retreat. Yeah. But they didn't have the firing of a can or the blowing of the bugles and things like that. The bugle calls and things like that. No, they didn't, they didn't do that. But the, it's one thing I neglected to mention, were bugle calls on military post and not so much at Mason City where the bugle calls first got to me as a teenager.
[00:01:30]
Haller:
At night at bed, go to bed, you'd hear Taps.
[00:02:00]
The troops were in four inventory regimens, one [inaudible 00:01:50] following the other. They had different buglers each night, but the one bugler, I'll say the 35th infantry, the first quandrangle would start Taps. Next thing you know, you'd hear a second bugler, a third, and a fourth, all blowing Taps at the same time. Then you got the ... all four, and just, that was something that I'll never forget hearing those calls. Then other calls that you'd hear, you'd hear Reveille in the morning. First Sergeants call, officers call, and different ... pay call, you know. You had a bugler for payday, mail calls, things like that, but those bugle calls were all part of it.
[00:02:30]
Bill:
They would use those bugle calls at the Presidio as well as at [inaudible 00:02:35]? Still to-
Haller:
At the Presidio, yes, but the Presidio was just for the one unit. Those calls were more or less just for the 30th.
Bill:
I see.
Haller:
Whereas for Scofield, there were four [inaudible 00:02:46].
Bill:
Four mentions? Got it.
Haller:
Plus other units too.
Bill:
[00:03:00]
One detail I want to make sure we don't neglect, because it's of some interest to our information regarding the pet cemetery, and we're back on the Presidio now here, so excuse me for jumping around, but you were living there in '28, '29, '30 or so. Now you said that one of your friends' dog was buried at the pet cemetery at the time?
Haller:
Right, right.
Bill:
Could you tell me about that?
[00:03:30]
Haller:
This was a youngster named Charlie Rockwood. His father was a major, the Major Rockwood. He lived just two sets of quarters from me on East Canton.
Bill:
Okay.
Haller:
[00:04:00]
Well, they had a pup. The pup got loose and ran out in the street in front of the quarters and was hit. Then of course the kids, we were all ... everybody was sad about that, but I knew the daughter, and the young daughter and Charlie, they wanted to have a little ceremony, so there was an area on the post that been designated for a pet cemetery.
Bill:
Where was that?
Haller:
That wasn't too far. Oh, from the barracks, from 30 down to the barracks, down by the bay. I can't name the name of the street there, and there was a road that wound up around to this main cemetery itself, but this was on a little curve.
[00:04:30]
Bill:
It was ... The present pet cemetery is sort of behind the stables, between the stables and the backside of Chrissy Field. Is that what we're talking about?
Haller:
Not ... That's in the immediate area.
Bill:
That's the same area.
Haller:
That's in the same area, mm-hmm.
Bill:
Okay.
Haller:
In the immediate area.
Bill:
Okay.
Haller:
To geographically put it right on the button for you, I can't do. My memory is not that good, but that's the approximate area.
[00:05:00]
Bill:
Okay. It was near the stables.
Haller:
Right, and this wasn't anything of any large size. It was small.
Bill:
It was small. What did it ... there were other burials there?
Haller:
There were others there, now, not two numerous, but there were a few. There was just some little spot that somebody had designated that could be used for that purpose.
Bill:
Okay.
Haller:
[00:05:30]
Whether it was one of the commanding officers of the 30th that the kids, the families do this, but I guess they all get together. Just ... We all went over there. I guess a dozen of the kids, we all went over, just a little ceremony, [inaudible 00:05:34] so on our own, and that was it. There was a ... but it was something that I do remember because it struck me later when I went back to the Presidio, when I'm driving around there, pet cemetery. Bingo, the light goes on and ...
[00:06:00]
Now I didn't go in and walk. I just ... I've never had one. I've just driven by a time or two, but it was just a little interesting, just one of those things that you didn't normally see. I didn't see that anywhere else. I never saw it at any other army post where I visited, but just something that the Presidio had. It's interesting that you say that they still have it there today.
Bill:
[00:06:30]
Well, they still have it and lots of our visitors ask questions about it, and since we don't really have a lot of information in the written record about it, your story's interesting to us.
Haller:
No, I wouldn't think you would, but unless there's something really significant.
Bill:
[00:07:00]
Yeah. Well, the Presidio and Fort Mason, well, the Presidio in particular has some other associations for you, even after you moved away. Perhaps I'm jumping around a little here now, but you got married on the post. I know you mentioned that, isn't it-
Haller:
That is quite true. Well, when-
Bill:
How did you meet your wife?
Haller:
Well, I met my wife in Washington, DC.
Bill:
Washington. She from a military family too?
Haller:
[00:07:30]
Yes. Sure. Her father was Colonel Goldberg. He was quartermaster, [inaudible 00:07:18]. He and my father were very good friends, and my father remarried in Washington DC, and the wedding ceremony, everything was held at Colonel Goldberg's quarters in Washington. A short time following, I was up for vacation time. The bank I was with in Honolulu, I was like, "Well, I'm going to take a spin back to Washington and meet my new mother-in-law and see my dad and everybody," so back I drove to Washington.
[00:08:00]
My father at the time was Secretary of the Treasury in the United States Soldier's Home in Washington, DC, so they had a set of quarters on the grounds there. He said, "Well, now I want you to come on this afternoon. I want you to come over and meet the Goldbergs, and you can also see where Laura here and I were married." Fine.
[00:08:30]
[00:09:00]
[00:09:30]
Prior to leaving the quarters, he looked me up and down just like he was inspecting the troops again, shoes shined, tie, [inaudible 00:08:23]. As I met his inspection, off we go. I did not know what to expect, but I figured, well, I'd head over to the Goldbergs, so we walked in, and I've never met nicer people. [inaudible 00:08:47] Of course, in those days, here I was, a bachelor in Honolulu, and meals at this operator club I belonged to [inaudible 00:08:55] play, but here in the home cooked meals, then the family atmosphere and all that, so ... but what started the ... struck by lightning, what started things going is when I walked out into the garden in their home, and here and lo and behold there's a young lady with another young woman too. The other young girl lived next door to my dad at Soldier's Home in Washington. Her father was General Walsh, and see, the two girls were both in from school. My wife-to- be had just graduated from teachers' college in Boston. The other girl was going to go a girls' college.
[00:10:00]
[00:10:30]
Long story short, we started up the acquaintanceship. I had to watch my P's and Q's because I was a little older. I was in the awkward stage there. I couldn't sit down as we're doing now in the living room and talk with the older people. They were all talking about colonel news or this and that, and I go out and here's the two girls out there. They're younger, but we're talking and joking and kidding. Another thing I don't remember, I always prided myself on using my head for something besides a hat rack. There was a bar all set up, but instead of dodging over there and start making drinks, I'd just have a drink, one and then sit down, because I knew we were being watched from time to time by the older folks inside.
[00:11:00]
But this conversation progressed and the young lady was most attractive to me, so it was protocol going way back in the early part of the interview, army protocols ... You go back and you thank them, you call upon somebody whom you've met. Here are the two girls. Got to take them both, both have entertained me. Both, both of them had been over there, both tied to their court, their homes.
[00:11:30]
I called up the first girl, General Walsh's daughter. She was there. Whoops. They [inaudible 00:11:15] later when she left. Why'd you call her? Had to take her to a nightclub in Washington, you know, but then I dated her and I had many friends around the Washington area, so that started the ball rolling. Then I go up to New York with this fellow I was living with in Hawaii. He was an insurance broker. We went up and saw the play South Pacific. I couldn't take her with me. Her folks wouldn't even want to turn her loose with me at that time. They didn't know me, but back to Washington I came for my dad's birthday, and I spent as much time as I possibly could right there in Washington.
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
Got back to Hawaii. We wrote back and forth over the course of a year, and then I proposed to her on the phone. "How would you like to come and live in Hawaii?" Then is a case, her friends were there, my friends and all, "You want to go to Washington to get married? You want to come to out to Hawaii?" Hit a happy medium. "Let's get married in San Francisco," and the families are all in full agreement. Great, so my dad comes up, and we stayed up at Fort Scott by the way, met part of the way, and the [inaudible 00:12:42] come out and we're married right there in Presidio.
Bill:
At the main post chapel?
Haller:
At the main post chapel in Presidio, and ...
Bill:
When was that?
Haller:
This is July 24th, 1950. I hope she's listening.
Bill:
Yeah, that's good. You remembered, because I know your wife's around.
[00:13:00]
Haller:
I hope you [inaudible 00:13:03]-
Bill:
Sorry I put you on the spot there.
Haller:
You had me in the corner that time. I figured you might do that, so I was prepared.
Bill:
You brushed up.
Haller:
I was prepared.
Bill:
That's good. Okay. Good.
Haller:
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00]
Plus that's ... I wasn't really sure what ... and the interesting thing, the chaplain who married us, great, great, very likable, jolly sort of fellow, and he later became Chief of Chaplains for General Walsh here, and no source of embarrassment to her when he had our pre-marriage talk. I'd been all up the night before on the plane. Boys were entertaining me on the plane once they knew I was coming to up to be married, so I got off, I had to ... and I kept falling asleep in the office downstairs there in the post, in the chapel right today where I showed you.
[00:14:30]
He was giving us this pre marital talk, opened the window and door ... embarrassing, really, and he teased me about that at the reception later on. You know, [inaudible 00:14:11], partner ... but that was Chaplain Brown, and great, but that was the wedding ceremony. We had our reception there at the officers club, which was just great. Then I remember we formed two or three cars, highballed it to the Embarcadero, and they took us down to the [inaudible 00:14:32], and that was where we had our honeymoon right back on [inaudible 00:14:35] back to Honolulu.
Bill:
Great.
Haller:
So that was ...
Bill:
[00:15:00]
Well, between ... we've sort of skipped a few years in here between leaving Fort Mason and San Francisco. I know you spent some time, which, which we've described in Hawaii at Scofield Barracks and also at Fort Chapter, but although you didn't make a career out of the army, you were in the service during World War II, weren't you?
Haller:
That is correct.
Bill:
You want to give us sort of just a little brief ...
Haller:
Well, the ...
Bill:
Discussion of what you did during the war?
Haller:
The only lottery I've ever won.
Bill:
I've heard that one before, you know.
Haller:
First draft.
Bill:
Yeah. You were the first draft?
[00:15:30]
Haller:
I was in the very first draft in December of 1940. As you well know, what happened a year later, but it was ... in my time, it was "Goodbye, dear. I'll be back in a year."
[00:16:00]
I was a teller in the downtown Honolulu Bank, and off we go to Scofield. I was on the spot from the time I moved, because a reporter got ahold of me and we were having our farewell speech by the governor and the president of the chamber of commerce in downtown Honolulu, [inaudible 00:16:07]. I stood out like a sore thumb being a big tall [inaudible 00:16:11] big Caucasian. Morning newspaper man comes up to interview me. Come to find out I'm the son of Colonel Sierra Bennett in Washington, DC. I'm a teller in the bank. The president of the bank is the president of the Chamber of Congress. He shakes my hands.
[00:16:30]
[00:17:00]
[00:17:30]
I listen to all this. I go out to Scofield on the train, go through all my swearing-in ceremonies, issuing of all the clothing and everything, getting the truck to go up to this area for a basic clean. One of the first things I had to do was walk in and report to my company commander to get my personal belongings, so I walked in and I made him laugh. No, I made him smile, but I did it ... Private Bennett. Private Bennett reporting, sir, as directed," which is the terminology, you see. He looked up at me and says, "You're an army brat," and he said, "by the way, have you seen the evening paper?" No I hadn't. "No sir." Right smack on the front page of the Honolulu Star post, here's my picture, shaking hands with the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Joey Waterhouse, Sam King our delegate to Congress standing there. They got a Colonel's son, Colonel's son inducted at Scofield there.
Young Bennett, 22, giving up a year of his life for service, and that's it. Well then ...
Bill:
Turned out to be more than a year though.
Haller:
[00:18:00]
[00:18:30]
Said a "goodbye dear and a year." Bingo, November of '45, but the cadre gave me a bad fact. They used the heck me out there when I took my basic, but we got through that. It was awful, because everything was second nature coming out there, but I ... whether I was with ... after being inducted, which is an involved story. I know you're going to run out of tape ... involved the local boys. I had my choice of two regiments when I finished my basic training for my year of service. One was with this 298th Hawaii National Drug Regiment in Honolulu, or 299th on one of the outside islands. I naturally chose to stay on the world, so I was with them for that whole year, at least, before the attack. We had the December 7th attack of the Japanese.
[00:19:00]
[00:19:30]
At that time I was near Wheeler Field, my brother, and I had to get to Scofield right away, get back, and our unit was made up of a good many Japanese boys. We didn't know that [inaudible 00:19:17] but they were [inaudible 00:19:20] which later formed, under the time, 442nd Regimental Combat team, the most highly decorated, and I did everything for those kids I could. Kids I'd been in school with, athletics with, worked with, anyway, and many, many friends. I saw them then. I saw them later in Italy when I went over to Italy later on.
Bill:
But you didn't follow the hundredth battalion to Italy though?
Haller:
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
No, no, no, no, of course note. The odds of me sitting here today wouldn't be in my favor if I'd remained with them, but I left then and I went and I was assigned to other divisions in the country, 72nd division, but then I was ... they broke us all up and they were shooting noncoms and everything overseas then in various units, replacement units, and I was at Fort Mead, Maryland. All of a sudden we get word that's breaking us up and we're to ship over as individuals, as a group, and I went up to Fort Hamilton, New York, went aboard a carrier, then we went to Casablanca.
[00:21:00]
[00:21:30]
We didn't know where we were going. Had no idea. We were at the pier at Staten Island for two days. No one would say where. We had a hundred E51 planes on this carrier taking over to the 12th Air Force, but we didn't know where we were going, if Merrill's Moradas out in Birmingham, nobody'd seen ... but once again, we used our ingenuity. There were two or three of us from Hawaii, started talking to a couple of the old Navy chiefs, and we started talking about the Lexington and Saratoga, the old carriers, how they used to come out to Hawaii and this and that. Oh, they got friendly with us. Finally, as we're pulling up, they said, "Fellows, we'll tell you now where you're going, now that we're leaving. You're headed for Casablanca."
[00:22:00]
[00:22:30]
Still didn't know what unit I was going to be with. I was assigned to fifth army, fifth army [inaudible 00:21:42]. Got into Casablanca, was there with the British people. Oh, with the British commanders for a time, worked with them and shipped 40 and eight train from Casablanca to Iran and on over to Italy. Fifth army headquarters, spent my time there with them, all the way through up ... all the way up until things were over. But thankful to say I was not with a combat unit. I was a combination situation where I worked with a special service unit and with counter intelligence, and there was good and bad in each situation, but I was there. I wasn't subject to anything that could happen at any time, as you would be in a company. There were incidents where landmines, things blew up in front of us, could just well been our Jeep as the next, but those were incidental, in comparison, but that was all part of the military then. Special service standpoint later on, and tied in with CIC. I met a chap named Burt Lancaster.
Bill:
Did you?
[00:23:00]
Haller:
Burt was a great, he was the nicest guy you could ever want to meet. My wife went into orbit when we introduced her to him later on. He came to Hawaii. They filmed the movie From Here to Eternity.
Bill:
Yes.
Haller:
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00]
He invited us down. This is a story she should tell. He invited us down to filming of the beach scene and all this and that, but he was one I met in Italy. We saw him in San Francisco a time or two after that, when he was out. Now, I'm sorry to say Burt passed on a few years ago, but he was just one of the people I ran into over there. Another coincidental thing, which boggled my mind for a minute when I first thought about it. After we were married, my brother-in-law hands me this Howitzer, a a West Pointier brother, class of '17, '18. I'm thumbing through that, finding my father-in-law, but who do I find in there as his classmate? General Mark Clark, commanding officer of the fifth army, also, which is of interest to you, a former commanding officer of the Presidio.
Bill:
That's right, and he was both your boss during World War II and the commanding officer at the Presidio.
Haller:
It tied in, made me think a little bit about that.
Bill:
[00:24:30]
Nice tie-in. Well, why don't you just briefly tell me, what was your career? What'd you do after the war in your civilian career?
Haller:
After the war, instead of staying in service as I could have done, even with General Clark in Indiana, I chose to go back to Hawaii. Coming back, I had a month on the east coast, month on the west coast, went back there, and I returned to the bank I was with.
Bill:
And has that been your career, a banker?
Haller:
[00:25:00]
[00:25:30]
No. I stayed with the bank and I was with the bank for 16 years, which included military service. Then my wife and I decided, let's come up to the coast, take a look. Her family had moved to Palo Alto there, and we said we'd come up and just look things, with the understanding I'd go back, come back to banking, whatever, but my [inaudible 00:25:16] cook, Dole, the pineapple company, had moved up then and it had a cadre in San Jose, out on Fifth and Virginia near the college. I had many friends. They said, "Bill, come on down." They said, "Bill, if you need [inaudible 00:25:35] come on down, working with us," just the chap in charge of personnel said, "I've got just the spot for you." He said, "Now, it's your choice," so we thought about it a little bit and decided to make the move up here, so I went back and came home back here.
[00:26:00]
Then I was with Castleman Cook, affiliated with Dole Pineapple Company, for 25 years retiring from San Jose. My work was military. I was in charge of military contracts and everything pertaining to the military as far as food operations and filing everything with the company. I was a very busy chap during the Vietnam War, meeting government contracts, shipping out of open, things with the service.
Bill:
I see.
[00:26:30]
Haller:
I worked with commissaries throughout the country, all military, so it all tied in to my background.
Bill:
Mm-hmm. I see.
Haller:
The powers that be at Dole knew this, you see, so ... and I had a contact here, a contact there, and I spoke the language, and so also I tied in. Working with them with military and foreign exports, so I enjoyed that very much. In and out of the islands a few times. Hawaii will always be a soft spot for me.
[00:27:00]
[00:27:30]
Hawaii will always be a soft spot for me, and the music, the people, are part of me in Hawaii. That'll never leave me. Just like my memories of the Presidio and Mason as we [inaudible 00:27:20] before. My memories as a boy. People thought that when I retired from Dole, I'd go back to Hawaii. My grandchildren live in nearby Vaceville. My daughter is a teacher there. We can watch those kids grow, which I would be unable to do before, so that's basically in a nutshell, my story now.
Bill:
That's good.
Haller:
But my wife and I do like to get off on trips from time to time. My wife is a retired school teacher and we've enjoyed 45 years together.
Bill:
That's great.
Haller:
I'm hoping to hang in there for the 50.
[00:28:00]
Bill:
Hope so too. I certainly enjoyed sharing the memories that you have of your life and of your life in Presidio in particular. You've had some really great stories to tell and some vivid descriptions. Before we wrap it up, do you think, is there anything we've missed? Is there any other things you'd like to talk about relating to the Presidio or Fort Mason, or do you think we have covered it pretty well?
[00:28:30]
Haller:
[00:29:00]
Steve, to be honest with you, I'd be searching if I was looking for something else now, but I think we've hit a lot of highlights and a lot of things that have stayed with me all these years and I don't regret a minute of it. Being an army brat, coming from an army family, I experienced things that many other youngsters wouldn't, and the travel and just the atmosphere, but east coast, west coast, north, south, east, west, I always said if I was to leave Hawaii, California and particularly this part of California is where I'd want to be.
Bill:
I'm glad you were able to fulfill that wish. Thanks a lot for having me down here today.
Haller:
Oh, my pleasure, Steve, and I appreciate your time and them taking time to come down and do this, and I hope I've been of help to you and the park service in relating things that can be useful to you.
[00:29:30]
Bill:
You certainly have been. Thanks again, Bill.
Haller:
Hm.
Presidio of San Francisco Lombard Gate
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA-1766
"It was building 563. It was right inside Lombard Street Gate." - Adeline Michel - on the location of the post thrift shop
Adeline Michel
A social discussion about the presidio of San Francisco involving the thrift shop that was located there.
Karana: 00:06 The date is January 27th, 1994. This is Karana: Hattersley-Drayton. I'm going to be interviewing Mrs. Adeline: Michel regarding the thrift shop on the post. This is an interview for the Presidio Oral History Project, National Park Service.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah. There we go. Let me go ahead and just tell you-
Adeline: 00:29 See you Wednesday, Cater. Thank you.
Karana: 00:31 ... why I'm here and because what you're saying would be great to hear too. I mean, we can be proactive. This is basically a history project, but history sometimes leads to social changes. Anyway, I am a consultant for the Park Service. I used to work full-time for the Park Service. We are doing an extensive oral history project looking at the post, looking at the past, but also trying to document the post now, both in military history and social history. And I think I yakked on more about it on the phone. And so what we were doing is talking to a series of people, I think from retired colonels to Red Cross workers, et cetera, to get a whole democratic view of life on a post called the Presidio, San Francisco.
And so from this, a transcription will be made. I'll give it back to you. You pay a little bit through me. You make some corrections. It becomes part of the history archives that hopefully, in future generations, leads to better walking tours, new policy, a trail brochure or something like that. So I'm just kind of going through this quickly, because I know you're really busy. But before I proceed, I need to make sure I have your permission to tape record.
Adeline: 01:35 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sure.
Karana: 01:37 Good. And why don't you just tell me a little bit about you and what's brought you to the position here? You are the manager.
Adeline: 01:42 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Karana: 01:44 Okay. And I don't even know how to spell your last name.
Adeline: 01:45 Michel, M-I-C-
Karana: 01:46 Michelle, because I heard it two different ways. M-I-C-H-E-L, Adeline:. Mrs. Michel.
Adeline: 01:51 Yes.
Karana: 01:51 Yes. And so, how long have you been here?
Adeline: 01:53 30 years.
Karana: 01:55 30 years. My gosh. And started off as a volunteer, perhaps?
Adeline: 01:59 As a volunteer. And then, oh I guess, in the early 1970s, they asked if they paid me $25 a month, if I would come in and work three days a week. So I started out at $25 a month.
Karana: 02:18 Mm-hmm (affirmative). I grabbed Mrs. Copeland's. So this is a mistake. I'm going to have to scramble here. I grabbed Mrs. Copeland's file instead of the one that I methodically made up for you last night. So I'm going to be... So I'm sorry. You said for $30?
Adeline: 02:37 I worked three days a week for $25 a month.
Karana: 02:40 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh my gosh.
Adeline: 02:42 Well, I didn't. It wasn't for the money.
Karana: 02:44 No, of course not.
Adeline: 02:44 It was because I wanted to do something.
Karana: 02:51 And are you an army wife?
Adeline: 02:53 Yes, my husband's retired military.
Karana: 02:56 And what was his position?
Adeline: 02:59 He only saw war-time service.
Karana: 03:01 Mm-hmm (affirmative), in the army.
Adeline: 03:02 In the army, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Karana: 03:03 And so, as an army wife, you probably never lived on post per se.
Adeline: 03:03 No.
Karana: 03:03 Right.
Adeline: 03:08 No.
Karana: 03:09 So the whole idea or concept of a thrift shop, you retired out here? Or he perhaps, had a civilian job?
Adeline: 03:13 I was born here.
Karana: 03:15 You were born here. So was I.
Adeline: 03:17 You were?
Karana: 03:17 Yes. Never lived more than 80 miles from where I was born, as a matter of fact. So tell me how the thrift shop operates. How does it work?
Adeline: 03:26 Well, you know what I've done, I brought this book and if you would like to take it and go through it, a lot of things are explained in here going way back to... You're more than welcome to take it and go through everything in here.
Karana: 03:49 Well, there's questions. There's official policy. There's unofficial policy. And I guess, one question I have is how much of what you do here is regulated by, oh, I know the name of the document, for non-appropriated deregulation versus actually that you have evolved, if you will.
Adeline: 04:08 Right. In the past, there wasn't too much until 1991, when we had a problem with the manager. I could have been manager years ago, but I never wanted to be. I just wanted to work back there and do my job. She violated many rules. And that was when the IG got in on the problem. The JAG office came in to observe and we were audited.
Karana: 04:42 I see. So up until that time you were independent.
Adeline: 04:47 That's right. And we always tried to make the customer happy. And of course, we had to abide by the rules. Only the military could consign. And then, anonymous letters were written to General Mallory. There were two other letters that were signed that were sent to General Mallory. And it was a result of these letters that all of this exploded in 1991. So the chairman of the board told me either I take over as manager and straighten things out, or we would be closed down. And we couldn't have that because we were providing a good service. So that was how I became manager. I did it to solve the problem.
Karana: 05:33 And your board of directors is selected how?
Adeline: 05:35 From each unit on the post. Letterman has a representative. The dental clinic has a representative. The three generals' wives sit on the board. The post commander's wife sits on the board. We have a representative representing the volunteers from the thrift shop. And we also have a representative representing the retirees. That's basically it.
Karana: 06:00 Enlisted? Did you say the two-
Adeline: 06:01 Oh yeah, [crosstalk 00:06:02].
Karana: 06:02 Yeah, right. That's what I've got because I knew that she was connected.
Adeline: 06:05 Right.
Karana: 06:06 And so, are you a nonprofit then, technically?
Adeline: 06:10 Yes, technically we're non-profit. Everything we make goes back into the post.
Karana: 06:14 Right. And is this thrift shop typical or atypical? I mean, because I think most posts, as I understand it, have thrift shops and they serve a really important function.
Adeline: 06:24 I don't know really, about any other except maybe Treasure Island. Jean McCabe, I used to know her when she was manager of the thrift shop for Treasure Island. But of course, that's a closed post.
Karana: 06:38 Right.
Adeline: 06:38 That's something else.
Karana: 06:39 Mm-hmm (affirmative). And you said as we were walking back that a closed post means that only military can consign and use.
Adeline: 06:45 And come on post, yes.
Karana: 06:46 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. So-
Adeline: 06:47 Whereas we are an open post.
Karana: 06:49 So anybody can come in.
Adeline: 06:49 Anybody can come in and buy, except military items. They have a restriction on that.
Karana: 06:55 Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it's probably in one of your official reports, but what kind of money are we talking about are you able to generate, because I know you put this back into post services?
Adeline: 07:05 Right.
Karana: 07:05 I mean, if that's a matter of public record, if I'm not prying or something.
Adeline: 07:10 No, no, no, no. It takes me a minute to think for-
Karana: 07:11 Because I have no idea. 20,000, 100,000?
Adeline: 07:15 I have it here in my last... Our bookkeeper is fantastic.
Karana: 07:37 While you're looking for that, what kind of people work here? What kind of people volunteer? Are they mostly army families who-
Adeline: 07:45 Right. They have to be connected with the military.
Karana: 07:48 Okay, they have to be connected, okay.
Adeline: 07:48 Right, right.
Karana: 07:55 And when you say military, you mean the army. You mean army, specifically, not navy or air?
Adeline: 08:00 No, navy and air... No, we take them. Let's see. Consignment sales in 1990 were 185,000. In '91, they were more because of the manager not following rules. One woman took out over 22,000 in one year. That was 1991. And 1992, we were still under the restriction with jewelry. It was mostly dealing with jewelry. In 1992, we took in 194,500. And now-
Karana: 08:38 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). And then, '93-
Adeline: 08:43 Yeah. See, we get 20% of this.
Karana: 08:46 Uh-huh (affirmative). 80% goes back to the-
Adeline: 08:47 Back to the consignor, right.
Karana: 08:49 Right. Door doesn't close, does it?
Adeline: 08:53 No, they took door off when they remodeled it. In 1993, we took in 211.
Karana: 09:01 And the people who consign here, Bud [Halsey 00:09:04] kind of explained this to me, but I bet you can even do a better job for the record, if you will. Because his understanding-
Adeline: 09:14 Aunt Bernice, could you go outside and talk, please?
Karana: 09:19 Yeah, no, that's okay. Is that people cannot afford because of the shipping costs because the army will only ship so much. You can't take all your stuff.
Adeline: 09:28 Yeah, that is, yeah. That's what... Yes.
Karana: 09:28 I mean, is that typical scenario?
Adeline: 09:32 Well, yes. And we also have flea markets once a month to enable them to dispose of their excess.
Karana: 09:40 Oh, okay. But I mean, the idea is that if you've got three kids and you need a stroller and you need a playpen and you need, I don't know, whatever, a high chair, you're probably not going to take that with you unless it's a family heirloom.
Adeline: 09:51 True.
Karana: 09:51 You're going to leave it here, get your money and then pick up new things hopefully, at the next assignment, tour of duty. That's the way-
Adeline: 09:58 That's good.
Karana: 09:59 That's the way it works.
Adeline: 09:59 Precisely.
Karana: 10:00 Okay.
Adeline: 10:01 Jump over the wire, dear.
Karana: 10:04 And then, you were talking about your concerns for the future and just the National Park Service and policy and what could or could not happen here and that's very relevant. I mean, what's going to happen to this place?
Adeline: 10:17 With his place, there are so many retirees. This is their only social function. This little old lady that was just in here, she's over 90 years old. And this is their thing of the week to do, to come in just for the sociability.
Karana: 10:34 It connects them.
Adeline: 10:35 It does, yes. They don't lose ties with the military.
Karana: 10:35 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adeline: 10:38 And of course, the money is good for those that want to get out and scrounge and buy at garage sales and consign it here. We don't discriminate against that because it's more money that we can donate to all those activities.
Karana: 10:54 Mm-hmm (affirmative). And what was I going to say? Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. The donations that you make, I know Hands Across the Presidio is one of the projects that you-
Adeline: 11:05 Right. Now, up by the cash register, there's a whole list. Our bookkeeper has just prepared a new list.
Karana: 11:11 Is there an extra copy of that? Or you just posted it?
Adeline: 11:15 I don't know. You'd have to ask her. But I know we contributed more than $27,000 in 1993. We subsidized what they called the Teen Enrichment Program, which all of that is in here. This book is... We also, I don't know whether Pat Copeland told you about the computer program.
Karana: 11:39 No, we didn't talk too much because she said I could and should talk to you, that that was the best source of information.
Adeline: 11:44 The bookkeeper would have all these figures.
Karana: 11:46 A computer program. Now, what do you do?
Adeline: 11:48 For any military person, we paid the tuition.
Karana: 11:52 To go to a computer class.
Adeline: 11:53 On post, yes.
Karana: 11:54 Uh-huh (affirmative).
Adeline: 11:54 Yes.
Karana: 11:56 Mm-hmm (affirmative). And then, tell me about Hands Across Presidio, because don't you folks run that program?
Adeline: 12:00 No, we do not run it. We pay the salary for the person, but we do not run it.
Karana: 12:05 Okay. And how does that work? What is it?
Adeline: 12:07 Well, I'm not really too familiar with it. You would have to talk to Judy Brown about that. [crosstalk 00:12:12]
Karana: 12:11 Okay. Yeah, I think I have her number someplace.
Adeline: 12:14 Yeah.
Karana: 12:14 Okay.
Adeline: 12:16 She could explain that more fully. But it's really to help military personnel that cannot survive on their pay. In fact, we are allowed to donate up to $400 a month to her to buy food to distribute. And then, she gets a lot of donations.
Karana: 12:37 Now, is that still an issue with the downsizing of Presidio where there still are families that definitely need that kind of assistance?
Adeline: 12:43 I have not been able to get a true answer on that.
Karana: 12:44 Okay, yeah. Because I know, I mean, things are changing pretty dramatically, pretty quickly.
Adeline: 12:51 Yeah. This is a board decision.
Karana: 12:51 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adeline: 12:52 We as management, have no say in this.
Adeline: 12:55 Oh, Diane, do you have a copy of all the organizations that we donate to?
Diane: 13:01 Yes.
Adeline: 13:02 Okay. Fine, thank you.
Karana: 13:04 Oh, that'd be great. That'd be great. Now, I mean, I just walked through there. That was the first time I've been there. Are there specific rules or guidelines or regulations about what you carry, what you don't carry-
Adeline: 13:14 Yes.
Karana: 13:14 ... beyond the sort of obvious? You probably don't have food, I imagine.
Adeline: 13:16 No, absolutely not.
Karana: 13:16 You probably don't have firearms, but I mean... And you have a-
Adeline: 13:20 I have a-
Karana: 13:22 Sort of written statement on that?
Adeline: 13:23 Yes. These are the items we never take.
Karana: 13:34 Okay. And is this an extra copy?
Adeline: 13:36 Yes.
Karana: 13:36 Great, okay.
Adeline: 13:37 And then, there are items that we don't take because of oversupply.
Karana: 13:41 Yeah. And that will change obviously, because time-
Adeline: 13:44 And then, this is what we have been giving out to our consignors about the closure.
Karana: 13:49 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, final checks ready. And then, they only have a couple of days to cash them.
Adeline: 13:54 Exactly.
Karana: 13:55 Oh, interesting. Now, why is that? I'm just curious.
Adeline: 13:57 Because we have to close out our account.
Karana: 13:58 Oh.
Adeline: 13:59 See, everything in here that belongs to the board has to be sold off. Everything that belongs to the army has to go back to the army, which is not-
Karana: 14:09 Oh, I'm sorry, by July 31st.
Adeline: 14:09 Yes.
Karana: 14:11 So I saw the three-day period, but it just meant once a year, you have to close your books, so to speak and move on to the next fiscal year. Okay. I think this makes sense. I'm trying to think. Your workers here, you were talking about that, how important that is for them. And these people are volunteering their time and most, or I guess all of them, have to be military families, or related somehow. I assume it's mostly women, or all women?
Adeline: 14:38 Yes, all women now.
Karana: 14:40 And mostly retirees or older ones?
Adeline: 14:43 Yes.
Karana: 14:43 And what kinds of social functions besides just being here might... This is the stuff that you're not going to find in here. You know what I mean?
Adeline: 14:43 Mm-hmm (affirmative), right.
Karana: 14:51 It's like you reward your volunteers by having luncheons or special things that makes them feel more important or appreciated.
Adeline: 15:01 I don't know what has happened to all my other copies, but we a great cue card, a new one.
Karana: 15:15 And then, while you're doing that, your position is actually a paid position?
Adeline: 15:19 Yes.
Karana: 15:19 Okay. And then, there's a couple of people work like three or-
Adeline: 15:21 We have a manager, an assistant manager, the bookkeeper-
Karana: 15:31 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Of course, this is all there, but I'm just-
Adeline: 15:33 ... the cashier and the janitor.
Karana: 15:36 Janitor. And you probably use more than one cashier, right? You have several people that rotate through, or not?
Adeline: 15:41 Well, no. Well, we're only open three days a week.
Adeline: 15:46 And the first Saturday of the month from 9:00 until 1:00.
Karana: 15:49 Is that your flea market, that?
Adeline: 15:51 Yes.
Karana: 15:51 Okay.
Adeline: 15:51 Yes.
Karana: 15:51 And is that outside, then, or inside?
Adeline: 15:53 Yes, outside.
Karana: 15:54 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adeline: 15:55 And then, we have an office aide and she only gets 125 a month. And these are-
Karana: 16:00 No position is-
Adeline: 16:03 Let's see. Thrift shop pays bridge tolls. Two times a year, volunteers are honored with a lunch and sponsored by the thrift shop. In the spring, volunteers are honored by installation volunteer coordinator and the post commander with a certificate of appreciation.
Karana: 16:03 Oh, how nice and a reception-
Adeline: 16:19 Yeah.
Karana: 16:19 You sure? Okay. And a reception of the officer's club. Well, that's so nice. Okay. And volunteers usually work one day a week, once a month, two days, it's all different?
Adeline: 16:29 Actually, to qualify for these benefits, they should work four hours a week.
Karana: 16:34 Okay. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adeline: 16:35 However now, Marie Potter, she works eight hours a week. Anne Patent works eight. We have many that work eight hours a week.
Karana: 16:43 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, that's great. Were any of these women ever recipients, or used the thrift shop themselves when they were army families, when they were raising their kids?
Adeline: 16:55 Oh, Marie, when Jackie was little, did you patronize thrift shops?
Marie: 17:00 I worked at the thrift shop.
Adeline: 17:00 Yeah.
Karana: 17:03 So I guess the point I'm trying to get at is how-
Marie: 17:04 Oh, did we? Yes.
Karana: 17:05 ... because I get the impression that, again from Colonel Halsey, that this is such an important service and that's what we're trying to understand and document. It's not just a nice thing to do and a way to raise money, which is also nice, but-
Marie: 17:17 Originally, it was an important service and started to help the enlisted family.
Karana: 17:23 Right.
Marie: 17:24 Originally, that's how thrift shops started on post.
Karana: 17:26 And how long back do thrift shops go?
Marie: 17:27 I don't know how far back.
Karana: 17:30 Because most places have them.
Adeline: 17:31 This one, I know, goes back to 1946, to the best of my knowledge.
Karana: 17:39 But I mean, they go across the nation now, don't they?
Marie: 17:42 Oh, surely. We've always had thrift shops. Even when we were stationed in Germany, we opened up a little... And this was always for the military family, to assist them in the moving, the coming and going. And your child outgrew clothes that some other child could use. I was never meant to be demeaning. It was to be helpful.
Karana: 18:05 Yeah, right.
Marie: 18:05 And that's really what it's all about.
Karana: 18:08 Well, has anyone ever taken it that way? I mean, you just don't use it if you-
Marie: 18:11 Well, thrift shops really became into being, when let's say to the hippie era then, because those were the kids who went and bought their clothes-
Karana: 18:21 Right, that's true.
Marie: 18:22 ... from the thrift shop.
Karana: 18:23 I see what you mean. Right.
Marie: 18:25 Whereas, I think maybe the other generation, because they wouldn't tell their friends, "My mother got this from the thrift shop."
Karana: 18:32 Right. No, you're right. You're right. It became kind of the new-
Marie: 18:32 Then it became a thing to do. They'd shop and get all the funny clothes, the old-fashioned clothes and big jackets and then-
Karana: 18:40 Piece of jewelry that their grandmother had [crosstalk 00:18:41].
Marie: 18:41 Absolutely, yeah.
Karana: 18:41 Great. Well, thank you. So you said you started one in Germany and that you've worked at others across-
Marie: 18:49 Oh, yeah. That's the first time we opened up. We had a little one that they opened up. And we were in Hessen. They had one in the bigger cities, but not in the smaller.
Karana: 18:57 Yeah. Well, thank you. And she's the cashier? Is that-
Karana: 19:10 How many people do sit on the board? 10, 12?
Adeline: 19:15 Let me see. Right now, two... I can't see.
Karana: 19:20 You know, sometime it'd be real fun to get a copy of the minutes.
Adeline: 19:24 Let's see. This was November. We had two, four, six, eight. Those are the voting members.
Karana: 19:42 Right. Yeah.
Adeline: 19:44 Me and Diane, and Judy Brown, we are non-voting members.
Karana: 19:48 And I see that they are all women. I mean, it is really very much supported by women.
Adeline: 19:53 That's right.
Karana: 19:53 Right. And now, are you folks tied into the program? Pardon me, unofficially you are, but the chain of concern? Do you figure into that? Well now it's become codified by policy. I always thought it was just a army tradition where the ranking officer's wife and the ranking enlisted officer's wife would, from that point on, start, it's almost like a pyramid of taking care of the women and helping them. And so, you would be a factor in that, I would think.
Adeline: 20:26 Well, that used to be. Again, years ago, that all changed. We had a chairman of the day and she would get the volunteers. And then, that all changed. The Letterman wives would work every other Tuesday. The retirees would work on alternate Tuesdays. The enlisted wives would staff the shop every Thursday. And that's what they did. But they did away with that.
Karana: 20:54 What caused that change to occur? That wasn't to a volunteer army. Was that at that time [crosstalk 00:20:59]
Adeline: 21:00 I think it was. At that time, I wasn't really interested in all of that.
Marie: 21:04 Well, that, and were you able to get enough volunteers doing it that way. At other posts I've been at, it was sometimes a problem. So it seemed easier to go to a system where the thrift shop needs volunteers. Who would like to volunteer and on what day?
Karana: 21:22 Rather than we expect you, this group to-
Marie: 21:25 Well, it used to be... I heard what you said earlier. It was done by each command group. You had a person responsible and you saw to it that they filled... Like as Adeline: said, we used to do one group was Tuesday, one group was Wednesday, one group was... Sixth Army would be Thursday, that kind of thing, your own particular group. Then it got so I think there were women that did not want to do that. The responsibility was so great. And it was like, you were forced... When my husband was deputy of logistics, I had my group that I had to work with and say, "Okay, we need so many women at the thrift shop." It became a forced issue. It turned out that way.
Karana: 22:05 Yeah, you were really arm-twisting.
Marie: 22:06 And when you had to have so many women to do this. And so, after a while, they broke that down and then it was just like a volunteer thing for each individual to do. And we had signups when they had their luncheons. They had signup sheets [crosstalk 00:22:21]
Karana: 22:21 And you don't have a problem generating enough help, it sounds like. You-
Marie: 22:21 Sometimes.
Adeline: 22:21 Sometimes, yeah.
Marie: 22:21 Yeah.
Karana: 22:24 And you usually have a staff per day, or volunteer staff, if you will, of what? About how many, in order to open? You can't open the doors, if you don't have so many.
Adeline: 22:38 Oh, okay. One, three, five, seven, eight, nine, 10, about 15 a day.
Karana: 22:45 Wow. That's a lot of [crosstalk 00:22:47]
Adeline: 22:48 Yes, yeah.
Marie: 22:49 We will work regardless of the number. And if it gets too much for us, then Adeline: will [crosstalk 00:22:56]. This is the big work area. You can always keep the front open if there are-
Karana: 23:01 Oh, I see, for sales and stuff.
Marie: 23:02 ... for sales. But back here is where the work-
Karana: 23:04 As you price.
Marie: 23:05 [crosstalk 00:23:05] people coming in, the consignment, pricing, tagging, getting it out.
Karana: 23:09 And how do you price? I mean, that takes a lot of skill to know how to set prices. Do you have guidelines? You just kind of get to know it?
Adeline: 23:16 No, actually it's up to the consignor to set their own price, because in the past, if we set a price and it didn't sell, then the consignor would become upset. So we said, "Do not set prices for the consignor. But if you feel they're not pricing something at a reasonable price, just say, 'Well, if that were mine, I'd put this on it.'"
Karana: 23:42 I see, yeah, because that would be hard. I mean, you don't know what a stroller necessarily-
Adeline: 23:46 That's right.
Karana: 23:46 Unless these people get pretty hip, because they're going from post to post and you just had to buy a stroller at this post.
Adeline: 23:50 But you see, this thrift shop is not like any other, because we get so many dealers from [crosstalk 00:23:58]. And on the first Saturday of the month, now this is an experience. If you could come on the 5th of February and see what happens, because the people are waiting in hordes to storm in here. Our sales on a Saturday are over $3,000 in four hours.
Marie: 24:17 And also, because it is an open post, you get civilians coming on the post that will shop.
Karana: 24:22 And plus, I would think being in this area, you have more people interested in exotic things. I mean, does that affect the kind of merchandise you have, or the things you sell?
Adeline: 24:29 No, it's just a mishmash.
Marie: 24:32 Yeah, it's a mix because so many of the military members coming here have been in different parts of the world.
Karana: 24:32 Right, Kansas.
Marie: 24:38 Yeah. And well, Germany, Japan, that. And as far as shoppers go, we were getting a lot of the new immigrants coming in, Russian and Chinese coming in the store.
Adeline: 24:38 On the first Saturday.
Karana: 24:50 In to buy.
Marie: 24:50 To buy.
Karana: 24:52 In to buy.
Adeline: 24:52 And Russians that come in, that's an experience, because they don't want to give up the package. The have [crosstalk 00:25:03]. And see we make them... We don't make them. We ask them to check them and they don't want to check their packages. So now Dorothy, bless her heart, she doesn't ask them anymore. She takes the packages and gives them a ticket. Now, this they understand.
Karana: 25:20 Uh-huh (affirmative). Oh, just because they're afraid they'll never get it back again, or something.
Adeline: 25:20 Yes.
Karana: 25:20 Oh my God.
Diane: 25:23 This is the list of donations. I printed out the acronyms for some.
Karana: 25:27 Is this an extra copy?
Diane: 25:28 Yes, you can keep that.
Karana: 25:29 Oh, thank you so much. And your name is?
Diane: 25:29 I'm Diane.
Karana: 25:29 Diane.
Adeline: 25:30 Diane Soward, S-O-W-A-R-D.
Karana: 25:33 Good. Great. Well, this is wonderful. So I see that you are giving money to Soldier of the Month, I was just there at that program, Hands Across Presidio. My gosh, look at all these things. Some of these, I don't even understand. NCO of the Quarter, what would that [crosstalk 00:25:48]?
Diane: 25:48 Non-commissioned officer.
Karana: 25:49 Well, I know, but what would you do for $100? Oh, that's just like it's an honor.
Diane: 25:53 It's the same as Soldier of the Month.
Karana: 25:54 Got it. Okay. Soldier of the Year, right. Half Emergency Food Fund.
Adeline: 25:59 Hands Across Presidio.
Karana: 26:00 Okay, good. USO, SFO. Okay, got that. Oh, USO at San Francisco Airport. You're helping to... My gosh, look at all the things that you guys are doing. So some of these might be write-offs rather than cash donations? Or are they all cash?
Diane: 26:12 They're all cash donations.
Karana: 26:13 Okay. Computer classes, Family Advocacy Program.
Diane: 26:25 That was run for our new community service, and-
Adeline: 26:25 Was that the computer class?
Diane: 26:26 No, no. It may have been childcare for some of the meetings that we hold here for family management.
Karana: 26:30 Army band. I know them very well. So people would come to you, as I think I understand from Mrs. Copeland, and they give you a petition or so at your board of directors meeting and say, "The post Scout group really wants a scholarship, or something." Is that right?
Diane: 26:30 Yes.
Karana: 26:44 And then, you might turn around and-
Diane: 26:46 The board votes on it. And if it's approved, then I can make check for them.
Karana: 26:50 Right. And then, so computer classes and the Teen Enrichment are at the big numbers.
Diane: 26:55 This was the first year for Teen Enrichment program.
Karana: 26:56 And those are for teens living in-
Diane: 26:59 On the Presidio and jobs on the Presidio, we fund for I believe it's 53 teenagers this summer. And we helped-
Adeline: 27:08 We give them this.
Karana: 27:10 Great. I see that. Great.
Diane: 27:11 There were other organizations on post that helped pay for the teen volunteers.
Karana: 27:17 Yeah, Pat was saying. Pat Copeland was telling me a little bit about that., And Hispanic Heritage, just to help fund Hispanic Days, or something like that?
Adeline: 27:25 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Karana: 27:26 Yeah? That's great. And then, food baskets. Now, where would the food baskets go? I mean, again, to post families?
Diane: 27:32 That was through the chapel. So they would have the description as to who got those baskets.
Karana: 27:39 Now, what's of interest is just how much you do and this self-help program. And it's just interesting to see that.
Adeline: 27:47 Why don't you sit down, Diane?
Diane: 27:50 The next was from our expense report, things we do for volunteers here.
Karana: 27:55 Well, yeah, because that's really important. Creative Cottage Childcare, $4.50. That was a big one. Oh, Army Community Service. If somebody volunteers-
Diane: 28:10 There, then we help pay for childcare expenses.
Karana: 28:13 Oh. So if they're volunteering here you mean, then you-
Adeline: 28:13 No, no.
Karana: 28:14 No. I'm sorry.
Adeline: 28:16 Anybody volunteering at ACS, we pick up their bill.
Diane: 28:20 And the same for Red Cross.
Karana: 28:21 Oh, I see. My gosh, you guys really do a lot. Well, and perhaps you want to answer this too. We began to talk at the very beginning about where this organization is going to go and how it's going to function, or work or not work, as the post is redesigned, if you will.
Adeline: 28:39 Well, we've been given a closure day. Fabulous. I think I gave it to you there.
Karana: 28:44 Okay.
Adeline: 28:46 About where the checks have to be cashed, and so forth.
Karana: 28:49 Oh. Oh, July 31st?
Adeline: 28:53 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Karana: 28:53 Oh, I thought that was just your once-a-year-
Adeline: 28:56 No, no. That's our closure date.
Karana: 28:58 My gosh.
Adeline: 28:59 It's on a separate sheet.
Karana: 29:00 Yeah. Well, it's certainly right here. I see.
Adeline: 29:03 Yeah, there it is.
Karana: 29:04 Oh, I didn't understand that when you handed this to me. But this is your closure that by a certain time this year. My gosh. Well, is there any reprieve or possibility of-
Adeline: 29:15 Well, this is why we were hoping that somebody from the Park Service, if they're interested, would come and talk with us because Major-
Karana: 29:25 Why do you need to close? I mean, I'm just going to be devil's advocate. You know I'm a historian and I can't affect the policy, but I can make suggestions. I mean, what is the reason?
Adeline: 29:34 It's because the board of governors told us this is our closure date.
Diane: 29:39 It's a Sixth Army fund.
Adeline: 29:42 The Sixth Army fund.
Karana: 29:43 But the Sixth Army is going to maintain their headquarters.
Adeline: 29:45 Yeah, that has been our argument. But nobody even from the Park Department has come to talk with us. The Ford Point Museum Association has petitioned the Park Department-
Karana: 30:00 Park Service.
Adeline: 30:01 ... Park Service to let us continue operating under their umbrella. And as I understand it, the Park Department has not responded to any of the letters that have been-
Karana: 30:13 Oh, sorry.
Adeline: 30:13 ... that have been written.
Karana: 30:16 Okay. Let me see if I can just... I don't know whatever I can do, but it certainly seems that you serve a real important function to the community. Now, consignments would no longer be taken, then. I guess, the question would become who would be consigning here?
Adeline: 30:33 Oh, right. We have taken that into consideration. Our suggestion was the military, the Park Department employees and their families, the Museum Association and their families. Of course, most of them would have ID cards anyway. But we would still have enough people to keep this place functioning.
Karana: 30:53 Well, is there even a reason to restrict it? I mean-
Adeline: 30:58 Yes.
Karana: 30:59 There is? Okay.
Adeline: 31:01 Yes. The normal civilians are not easy to manage.
Karana: 31:04 Oh, I see. Okay. I see. Oh, I see, It almost becomes like a pawn shop, or something like that.
Adeline: 31:09 Well, just their whole attitude. When we first moved down here, we were accepting consignments from civilian employees on post.
Karana: 31:09 Oh, I see.
Adeline: 31:19 And it just didn't work out.
Karana: 31:21 Oh, interesting. Even civilian employees?
Adeline: 31:23 Right.
Karana: 31:24 Oh my goodness. Okay. Do you think that there would be enough truck, if you will, enough merchandise generated from a reduced [crosstalk 00:31:32]
Adeline: 31:32 I think it would be because even some of the volunteers said, if it's a matter of money for the Park Department, we would all be willing to contribute to stay here, to buy the refrigerator, to buy the cash register, to buy all the furnishings, the clothing racks, whatever, all the accessories. They would be willing to donate money to keep the place operating.
Karana: 31:56 And then, the service that you render is beyond to the immediate families. It's also to this just military, retired military community in general. That's what you were saying earlier.
Diane: 32:06 Well, the majority of the consignors right now are retired military.
Adeline: 32:08 Yes.
Karana: 32:11 Oh, I see. Oh, so they're regardless.
Adeline: 32:11 Yes.
Diane: 32:13 Our goal is to keep [crosstalk 00:32:14]
Karana: 32:14 Regardless, regardless.
Diane: 32:15 Another point I wanted to make is when this becomes a national park, will yard sales be allowed for the families that are living here and have to move? How do we get rid of our things that we don't need anymore? That's where the shop has been so nice. We could compare and our things and we don't have to have a yard sale and put up all the signs and worry about [crosstalk 00:32:38].
Karana: 32:37 Do you live on post?
Diane: 32:38 Yes.
Adeline: 32:40 Yes. What we do, we have what we call PCS appointments. And if we have enough of a staff, we allow the person to make an appointment at 8:30 in the morning, usually on a Wednesday morning, and they can come in and consign 50 items. And they're entitled to five appointments.
Karana: 32:59 So up to 250 items, is what you're saying?
Adeline: 33:00 Right.
Karana: 33:01 Okay. So that's a pretty good size of your household, right?
Adeline: 33:04 Exactly.
Karana: 33:04 Uh-huh (affirmative). So if she were to move, let's say, or you're moving or I'm moving, I make five different appointments two, three. I bring in my items. I sit with you for a while. Do I have to sit with you while you're going through them? Or I could just leave it and have [crosstalk 00:33:18]
Adeline: 33:18 Well, we have a rider and you bring them up separately and we have... I'll get you a contract.
Karana: 33:22 Yeah, inventory sheet or something, because I take my children's clothes to a little place that we have. I mean, I was giving these beautiful things away. And you finally go, "Gee." Because we have a Children's Seedlings to Sprouts and you take your stuff in there. My gosh, I might go in and get a check for $10 or $15. And that's better than a kick in the teeth.
Adeline: 33:44 See this is our contract.
Karana: 33:47 Okay.
Adeline: 33:47 And all our rules are on the back.
Karana: 33:49 Okay. Well, listen, is there anything I haven't asked you about the history or the function of thrift shops? I know that you're really got a tight schedule and I don't want to keep you, or even you, Diane, about just how... You've worked on other thrift shops in other posts?
Diane: 34:05 Oh, just one other one.
Karana: 34:05 Okay. And was there anything about the way that one was run that was different than say here?
Diane: 34:10 That was 10 years ago and I really don't remember.
Karana: 34:14 And that was where?
Diane: 34:15 Fort Ord.
Karana: 34:15 Fort Ord, okay, because Fort Ord is another place where you have a real high rent area.
Diane: 34:21 Yes.
Karana: 34:21 And so, the problems for the enlisted families, particularly at the lower end, is just significant, in fact. Bud Halsey was telling me that Fort Ord required enlisted people from one grade down, right down to that, they had to feed their families in the mess hall once a day, which was unheard of anywhere else. If you go into Fort Ord, or used to, and you'd walk in and see all these little kids running around, which was just... Because it's so tough. But is there anything I haven't asked you about just the way this particular operation functions or it's importance to the community? You've got all sorts of stuff here that I can look at for facts and figures, which will be great.
Adeline: 34:58 Right. There's a lot of things in here, when we moved down here, and I keep what I call a bad book.
Karana: 35:15 Oh, okay.
Adeline: 35:15 Here, here, the Teen Enrichment Program.
Karana: 35:17 Oh, yes.
Adeline: 35:18 So if you'd like to take it, but I want it back.
Karana: 35:21 I will just write you an IOU on the back of one of your contracts or something.
Adeline: 35:26 The back section is-
Karana: 35:28 Just bring it back in a week or something.
Adeline: 35:29 Yeah. It'll take you a long time to go through it.
Karana: 35:31 Yeah, I'll be on post tomorrow. But I know I won't get through it tonight.
Adeline: 35:35 Things that have happened, I would go home and tell my husband. He said, "You had better start documenting." So I started documenting all the things that have occurred. Like this one woman, she was very difficult. She ended up being arrested for bank robbery. Her husband was a retired Air Force sergeant.
Karana: 35:59 Who came in here, you mean?
Adeline: 36:00 Yeah. She was a consignor. But there's-
Karana: 36:02 But most of the people who consign with you are just probably, I mean, [crosstalk 00:36:06]
Adeline: 36:05 Yeah, nine out of 10 are great. Nine out of 10 are great, yeah.
Karana: 36:07 Then there's the one, just like any population.
Adeline: 36:12 Right. And there's thank you notes in here.
Karana: 36:15 I would. And let me see. I didn't even think to bring blank letterhead, but something that I can give you a little note just saying I have it. Thank you so much for your time.
Diane: 36:28 Yeah. So [inaudible 00:36:28] notepaper here.
Adeline: 36:31 Yeah. Just write down your name and address and phone number.
Karana: 36:33 Okay. See, normally, I would have had one of these for you, but I just ran out of them. I'll show you what I mean, what we can call release form. But when I bring you back the transcription, then I'll get you-
Adeline: 36:33 This goes-
Karana: 36:48 This is like what Pat Copeland signed. We can use the material and you have a chance to look through
Adeline: 36:52 Okay. This one goes way, way back when we were up at the other building, but there's...
Karana: 36:58 Now, what's the other building?
Adeline: 36:59 It was building 563. It was right inside Lombard Street Gate.
Karana: 37:03 And bigger, smaller? I assume it was-
Adeline: 37:05 Yeah, I thought it was larger. They tell me no, but the layout was different.
Karana: 37:10 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adeline: 37:14 Now, this building originally was a stable.
Karana: 37:17 Yeah. I thought that this was the area of the stables. And this probably makes it an eight... I haven't really looked at it. 1880s or something?
Adeline: 37:25 I would think so. I don't know. It tells you [crosstalk 00:37:28]
Karana: 37:29 I have a history actually, of the buildings on post. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what. Again, I'm coming down once a week. I would guess this would take me at least a week to look through. So can I have it for two weeks, should we say, just to be safe here? And let me see. And I'm going to tell you my boss's name, just if you ever have a question or something. Steve Haller is the historian for the Presidio. And he's up in 20... Wait a minute. This is 204. 102. Is that right? You know that big, long line?
Adeline: 38:02 It properly is. I don't know.
Karana: 38:03 Right where the old parade ground is. Okay, that's my name and my address in Petaluma.
Adeline: 38:08 Okay.
Karana: 38:08 And this is my phone number, (707) 763-5447. I'm National Park Service. Steve Haller again, is my boss on this project, just so you know.
Statue in National Cemetery
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA 35360
"I started working in a US military cemetery as a landscaper. And that led me to the Presidio."- Rik Penn
Frederick Penn
Frederick "Rik" Penn discusses his time in the military, working for the Federal government, as well as being a Park Ranger for the National Park Service stationed in the Presidio of San Francisco
My name's Amanda Williford. I'm the Supervisory Curator with Golden Gate National Recreation Areas Museum Program. And I'm interviewing Frederick Penn, retired GGNRA Park Ranger, as well as previously part of the military who was here at the Presidio San Francisco. We are at the Park Archives and Records Center on June 2nd, 2023. I, Amanda Williford hereby give and grant the National Park Service all literary and property rights to this recording and resulting transcripts of this interview. Rik, do you agree as well?
Rik:
I approve this agreement and yes, I concur.
Amanda:
Fantastic. Well then let's get started. If you could give me a little bit about your background, family, where you grew up, education.
Rik:
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I grew up in a small town in Northern Virginia, as I tell my fourth graders, back in the last century. And I grew up in Virginia, eventually went to high school in Virginia, went to college in Maryland and then joined the army. My dad was in the army and my dad used to tell me stories about the army on his experience in the Korean War when I was a kid. And they were fascinating, the far away places, being in Japan, the coldness of being a soldier in the Korean War. All of those things were so mysterious to me as a child. So I always had a fascination with military history, throughout high school I was always still fascinated with history. Probably one of my better subjects, was terrible at math. I graduated from high school, interestingly enough on June 5th, 1967, which was the start of the six day war in Israel on the night I graduated.
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This was in the news, and little did I know that within a year or so of hearing that, that I myself would be in the war because I left high school, but I had no plans for college. I was the oldest of nine kids and my parents didn't have the wherewithal to send me to college, much less eight other kids to college. And my grades weren't that great, so I wasn't going to go anywhere on a scholarship. And I was afraid to stay in Warrenton because a lot of people get stuck in their hometown, and I wanted to see the world, I had to get out. I was so intent on seeing the world that in my high school Summer when I graduated, I worked a couple of jobs so I could get enough money to go to the World's Fair in Montreal in 1967. And I spent a couple of weeks in Montreal at the World's Fair and just seeing the sights and hearing all these languages being spoken like Italian and German and Russian and Chinese, and I just felt like I was a world away from little old Warrenton, Virginia.
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Because I went to segregated schools in Warrenton, Virginia until I got into my junior year of high school. So it was a wholly different world to see, suddenly you're on a world stage with all of these people from different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. So that whole experience of being in Montreal, it was a real letdown to come back to Warrenton and realize, I'm going to have to get a job here. So I just thought about it and thought about it because the Vietnam War was happening then. And I wasn't crazy about being in the military, but I saw no other way out of Warrenton other than joining the military so I could get the GI Bill so I could come out three years later and go to college, which I did. But in the interim, ensuing enlistment, I was hoping I would be sent to Germany or Greece or some other place other than Vietnam.
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And so I made sure that I got a training for a job that would be difficult for me to be in an infantry unit. And this job was radio telephone communications, which normally took place in a large van that was carried on the back of a large truck. And you'd get inside this van and you would give the communications to other people. Little did I know that because of my father's stories, and my father told me not to join the army to join the Navy or the Air Force. He said, "You'll sleep in a bed if you join the Navy or the Air Force." But little me with my little brain thinking that I'm going to show dad that I'm just as rough and tough as a soldier as him, I decided to volunteer to be a paratrooper. And so I went to paratrooper school, and as it turned out, the people who went to the paratrooper school got sent to Vietnam, the people who did not got sent to Germany. So had I not tried to outdo my dad, I might've just gone to Germany like I wanted to.
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Spent my time in Vietnam, spent three years in the army. I get out of the army, I get involved with a lot of pro peace and anti-war activities. Having seen the devastation of the war and having grown in my consciousness by the time I was 22 years old, I realized a lot of things. And that I had a social responsibility to say that the war I had participated in was one illegal, immoral and stupid. And there had to be another way to be alive on the earth and be a human being. So I put my money where my mouth was, I went up and got arrested and other things with other GIs. After the two or three years of being out of the army, I decided to come to California. And from there I worked a lot of different jobs and I worked at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. I worked at Rainbow Grocery for 10 years, and then I decided I wanted to have my own business. And I became a college book buyer and I went from college to college buying books.
[00:07:30]
So I went to the East Coast to do this, and my business plan was not thought out well. And within the year I was hightailing back to California, and that's where I first encountered the Veterans Administration. And I started working in a US military cemetery as a landscaper. And that led me to the Presidio.
Amanda:
What year was that?
Rik:
[00:08:00]
[00:08:30]
Well, 1989 I came to the Presidio, but in 1988 I was at the San Bruno National Cemetery, but working for the Veterans Administration. Basically weed eating, landscaping, cutting, pruning trees. And I got my first real exposure to the vast world of the dead. Started looking at tombstones and seeing how many wars the United States had been in or military actions because there were places I'd never heard of that US soldier had died in. I think there's over almost 200,000 graves down in San Bruno, some huge amount. I met other GIs and we also reminisced about our time in Vietnam and people who had been in other conflicts. And one day Louis Ortiz said, "I hear they're hiring at the Presidio." And this was about a couple few months after that, 1989 Loma Preta earthquake. And we went to the Presidio and we applied for jobs, and we both got hired working at the commissary at the Presidio.
[00:09:00]
[00:09:30]
[00:10:00]
And the army was still in full force, Sixth Army was all over the Presidio. The whole 200 year history of the Presidio was all around us. And I worked for the commissary for about almost a year. And then Lou said, "I think they're hiring over at DEH." And DEH was, the acronym was Department of Engineering and Housing. When I went to interview at DEH, which was by the way, run mostly by retired sergeants, non-commissioned officers ran DEH. They had already retired from the military or the Navy at the Air Force, and now they were on another job. They had the classic double dipping thing, they were getting two pensions. And these sergeants, when they asked me, do I know what DEH stands for? I said, of course, the Department of Engineering and Housing. And they all laughed, they chuckled and one of them at a desk said, "No, it means don't expect help."
Amanda:
Oh no.
Rik:
[00:10:30]
[00:11:00]
And what they were saying was, if I get a work order from the desk, if someone calls, make sure that Sergeant so-and-so sees the work order. I'm not supposed to tell the person, "Yes, we will do it," It has to be cleared by Sergeant Russell or Sergeant Brown. And their method was they knew which officers deserved to have their buildings looked at first. If there were officers that they did not respect or they felt that the officer didn't respect them, they went on the bottom of the list. And so they ruled the roost, they determined what got done and when it got done. And looking back on it, other people have said, "Well, that's the way the army has always been, is the non-commissioned officers who really do all the work. The officers might give out the orders, but it's carried out by the non-commissioned officers." And so in their position realized they were in charge, not the general, not the colonel, not the majors, not those people, there was the DEH was in charge.
[00:11:30]
If you were in their housing and they ruled over what got done, you had to respectfully request that something gets done from the sergeant.
Amanda:
What were the typical requests?
Rik:
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
"Oh, can you come up and fix sum pump up at the house or the doors are really squeaking and we don't know how to stop it. Or I think there's the roots are moving the sidewalk up." It was basically housing maintenance, general housing and office maintenance was done by DEH. And they had an entire fleet of trucks and people. And interestingly enough, when I first started driving the trucks, which were painted yellow, I noticed on the inside of the door there was green and there was green on the inside of the cab. And I asked someone, I said, "Were these trucks once all green, army green?" And they said, "Oh yeah, they were all army green." I said, "Why did it change?" "Well, after a few years, they realized that people who didn't want to work would drive their truck into the woods, into the trees and you couldn't see it. And some people wouldn't show up, we'd call them on the radio, they'd be falling asleep. They were gold bricking, they were not carrying their weight. So the order came down to paint the whole fleet yellow, so it'd be difficult to not see a yellow truck amongst green trees. It's too strange.
[00:13:00]
Amanda:
So this was when the Presidio was already listed as part of the base realignment and closure.
Rik:
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00]
When I arrived in 1989, the rumor was that it was on the base closure list. I found out later that it had been on the base closure list for literally 10 years or for quite a few times. But the General, General Mallory at the time actually told the assembled DEH that, "Oh, don't worry about that, they're not going to close the Presidio. It's been here 200 years, that's just a formality." And I think within six months of that speech, there was an alert, a bulletin saying that as of such and such a time in 2013, the Presidio will no longer be an active military base. So that changed within about a year or year and a half of my being here. Really, I think it was over two years before it was actually said that it would close. Because people were suddenly scrambling around and trying to figure out where they're going to go next. Because a lot of us had just started our government service and we wanted at lease the 20 years.
[00:14:30]
[00:15:00]
[00:15:30]
And Sixth Army said, well, you can continue working for the army in Fort Carson, Colorado, or you can go to 29 Palms. And there were other places, but you'd have to apply for those jobs. And all of my friends were here in the Bay Area, I didn't want to leave to go to some other place. And so I just scrambled about, and it was shortly after that that all of us began to see the Park Service come in and do surveys. And they were measuring places and they were taking notes of trees and buildings. And I asked one of the workers one day, I said, "Is this really true?" He said, "Oh, yeah, the Park Service is going to be a ruling roost and taking over the Presidio." So I said, "How did you get your job?" And the fellow said, "Well, are you a veteran?" I said, "I'm a veteran," "Well, veterans get a priority, go over to Fort Mason and talk to Charlotte, so-and-so, and put in an application."
[00:16:00]
[00:16:30]
So from 1989 to about 1993 was my Presidio army stint. And starting in November, 1993, I got hired by the National Park Service. I had to leave the Presidio though to go to Muir Woods. But I had just about a New York minute, I had a little time in the Park Service on the Presidio. But it transpired that if I really wanted to work, I had to go to Muir Woods. And I was happy to do that, happy to start anywhere with the National Park Service, knowing that the Presidio would eventually dissolve and everything would be changed.
Amanda:
Did you have any interest or knowledge of the National Park Service prior to this, had they played a role at any point in your life?
Rik:
[00:17:00]
[00:17:30]
[00:18:00]
Well, growing up in Virginia, I mentioned that I had gone to segregated schools in Virginia. That's because so many things were segregated during the time when I was a kid. The schools, restaurants, facilities, hotels, hospitals, graveyards were segregated, segregated in death. So when I wanted to go to the national parks, and there was a park near us called the Shenandoah Valley National Park. And there was Luray Caverns and my friends who were white, one guy in particular, Dennis, we were both 11 years old. We were like the best friends as kids. Kids don't have that consciousness if they're left alone, they just become human beings who like to play with other human beings. So we would do everything together and ride our bikes together. And one weekend Dennis came to my house and said, "We went to the national parks in Shenandoah Valley and we saw this and we did this." And I was so fascinated and later asked Mom said, "Mom, we go, can we go to the national park?" And said, "Well, you have to ask your father."
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
And I think she did ask Dad and almost I think the next day dad said, "You know what? We're going to go to the park down the road here in the county park, it's only about five miles away." And I was kind of disappointed because it wasn't anything like what Dennis had described, these huge mountains you can see forever and rivers. And there was deer and all sorts of just really cool stuff because it was a national park. And then I realized what my mom would have to go through to get five or six kids in the car to go the 60 miles to Shenandoah. That because things were so segregated that Mom and Dad would have to figure out, well, if the car breaks down, is there a place that they can get the car fixed without being overcharged? If one of the kids gets sick, is there a hospital along the way that will take us into the hospital at night? If we had to stay overnight, is there a motel that we can stay in that we'd have to stay if one of the get sick?
[00:19:30]
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
Food or restaurants, there were so many things that they had to logistically figure out that they didn't like the idea of, well, what if they get rejected or what if they get ripped off or something? Because it was a climate of almost like a racist animosity that could happen at any time depending on who you run into and who doesn't like you. So I didn't understand then, I was off that they wouldn't take us. But over the years, looking back I realized yeah, there was a lot for those parents to have had to consider going 60 miles would be like going 150 miles if you're not around anyone you know. And I'd gone to parks too, Just in my travels growing up, and I had always admired national parks, the work of the national parks.
Amanda:
So you got a job at Muir Woods?
Rik:
[00:21:00]
[00:21:30]
Mm-hmm. Got a job at Muir Woods, and it was totally fascinating to be amongst the redwood trees and a bit of an arduous trek every day for people who have been to Muir Woods. It's a winding road no matter how you try to get there, it's a winding road that goes on for seven to 10 miles. And so to commute like I did from El Cerrito and from San Francisco and San Rafael, I went through two cars. The cars just were ruined by the commute there. But I did start learning a lot about the ethos and the whole purpose and meaning of national parks and Park Service and the etiquette and the manners. You might say, what goes on, I remember being told that I can't accept donuts and coffee from the snack bar. But then another supervisor came in and said, "That's okay. It's not $25, it's a cup of coffee and a donut. Don't listen to those other people."
[00:22:00]
And there was a certain comradery between the workers because I was in the maintenance division of the National Park Service. And oftentimes we had to go in and fix things in the snack bar and the gift shop. And I basically learned how to take care of the infrastructure of Muir Woods, fencing, roadways. I actually got to see a redwood tree fall, which was very rare. It took years.
Amanda:
Naturally?
[00:22:30]
Rik:
[00:23:00]
[00:23:30]
For years I heard about it, and then one time I was there on my day off. I come back on my day off after it had been raining and it was a windy day. And I was walking down a wet path with a friend and I heard this large cracking sound, it sounded like the end of a dump truck falling over, like part of a dump truck opening. It was so loud and I realized what it was, it was a tree cracking. And I looked around, I couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from. Then I heard it again], it was really close, I still couldn't see it. And I told people on the other side of the path, stop, stay there don't come this way. Something's about to happen, I think a tree is going to fall. And I told my friend to go over there and stand with those people because I'm trying to figure out where's it coming from. Because if you try to run ahead of the tree falling, you won't make it. The tree will fall on you, it's that tall.
[00:24:00]
But if it's coming toward you, you can just go stand to the left, stand to the right. If it's coming toward you, you can just go the other way. And it cracked again. And suddenly you just felt this shimmering motion in the tree tops and the tree fell against the hillside. And it took out another tree as it was falling against the hillside. And its dust was everywhere and fences were broken and people were just aghast at the power of this Malta, probably a thousand ton tree falling. And I never forget it, I never seen that before.
Amanda:
Wow, that's impressive.
Rik:
Yeah, it was.
Amanda:
And on your day off.
Rik:
On my day off and I just came in.
[00:24:30]
Amanda:
Did you work with any trees that you assisted, like forestry or maintenance to fell purposefully?
Rik:
[00:25:00]
[00:25:30]
Yes. mostly the trees that we encountered had already fallen. So we would take our equipment out, these gigantic chainsaws, like a chainsaw that's almost five feet in length. Just the blade is almost like four feet, five feet long. We would go out and remove the trees that had fallen either the night before or earlier that day because of storms or because they were old. And those were massive operations, we would literally have a small Bobcat backhoe come in and you'd have to move the tree a little bit, and other people would come in with axes and hammers and put wedges into the tree to try to split it as the chainsaw was moving. And I remember one tree was so massive that we had to work on it for two days and there was at least 10 to 12 people on the crew to affect the removal, just a section of the tree so that the pathway could be accessible. No one even thought about trying to move the whole tree, just a section where you can walk through.
[00:26:00]
[00:26:30]
And we could actually see why the tree fell over because there was a huge branch that was the size of another regular tree that was on one side of the tree. And the weight of that just went totally off balance. And we also discovered that this happens because in a rainy situation, the tree is thirstily drinking up thousands of gallons of water, and that water by osmosis is going way up to the top of the tree. So when the wind comes, the tree is top heavy. And the ground is soaked and muddy and it's not holding the roots, and just give them just enough wind and it'll crash over.
[00:27:00]
So just those little dynamics. Because recently in the Bay Area there was five deaths in the Fall from all the rain and the wind and trees falling over, hitting cars and things. And nobody in the news report I noticed talked about the trees and their water intake and how wind can affect a tree in one season. Whereas the same wind won't affect a tree in another season when it's not top heavy, there's a drought and it's just getting bare minimum of water.
Amanda:
Nature factors into a lot of things. So the typical maintenance crew, how many folks was that?
[00:27:30]
Rik:
[00:28:00]
Oh, I think we had, let me think. There's Jim and there's Peter, there's Mr. Riley, Manuel, Mike, Vicky, maybe five or six people in a typical maintenance crew. And on any given day there might be three or four versus start the day, and at the end of the day, there's usually only two of us. Sometimes in the morning there's only two or three, and oftentimes we have to cover a wide area. Muir Woods was pretty much a compact contained acreage of redwood trees, but then there was Muir Beach overlook and then there was Muir Beach. Then there was a lot of little roadside turnouts within a few miles.
[00:28:30]
[00:29:00]
So some days you'd be out on a truck for literally half of the day going to other places to maintain bathrooms, the trash cans, the fence lines, picking up debris. We always said that for mothers and children, coming to the park is the maintenance department that makes it safe and beautiful and clean and sanitized so that mothers and children can come to the park and have a decent time without walking on class or stepping on a nail or encountering ugly bathrooms. It's the maintenance crew that basically makes the park look pretty. And sometimes they're not always acknowledged by how much they do.
Amanda:
That is very true. So was that part of the Northern District Maintenance Department?
Rik:
[00:29:30]
[00:30:00]
[00:30:30]
Yes, I think it was. Once you cross the Golden Gate Bridge, you have Stinson Beach, you got Muir Woods and in Marin Headlands. So sometimes often people from those different parts will go and help each other. If there was a big job, people would come from other areas. For a week I would go to Muir Woods and get in the truck and drive to the Marin Headlands to help build a bridge. And other times those same folks would come over to Muir Woods to help us move a tree or something. And then occasionally we'd go to Stinson Beach to do work again, again, a lot of curvy driving. And then occasionally the entire maintenance division would get together from all parts of the Presidio, Fort Mason and other areas to talk about what the year is going to mean for us and who got promoted or we have a new maintenance chief. And then there was Christmas parties we would have on the ship in the maritime, all the maintenance folks would be invited to come to a Christmas party on the ship.
[00:31:00]
And occasionally there would be outings, we would all go to Alcatraz to commemorate something new that was built on Alcatraz. And it was a famous picture that was produced of the maintenance crew of that period standing on the roof of the cell house of Alcatraz, and it was done with one of those 360 degree cameras. So those were very exciting times when you got to see how much your organization was just covering an entire urban recreation area. Which was the Golden Gate National Recreation area and it was kind of neat to be able to see that outside of Muir Woods there was an entire network.
Amanda:
What was the supervision like?
Rik:
[00:31:30]
[00:32:00]
[00:32:30]
Supervision wise? There was, I think what has always been an ongoing, sometimes shortage of budget. Budget means, the budgets were always tight. And so the supervisors would try to do the best they can to cover everything that needed to be covered. Try to get the people trained with whatever state budget or federal budget that they could cobble together. For the most part, supervisors were very aware that when the public comes to their park and they leave with a good impression that the supervisors have been doing a good job. And therefore when things are falling apart or deteriorating, the supervisor can feel that it can reflect on them. Though it may not be their fault, it may be other factors that cover that. I worked at Muir Woods from 1993 to about 1998, about five years. And I learned a lot about maintenance. And luckily having worked for the Department of Engineering and Housing for the army, I started learning more about maintaining physical structures with the army.
[00:33:00]
[00:33:30]
[00:34:00]
And that kind of carried over to the Park Service as one of the reasons I got hired, was that my supervisor in the DEH also got a job with the National Park Service. So when he was asked about me, he gave me flying color review and I got hired immediately. Which was kind of a blessing, it was really good. I worked for those five years and then I don't think it's untoward or it was just honest report for me to say that another supervisor came into Muir Woods. And this supervisor was from another park, and we later discovered that that supervisor was asked to leave the other park. He was given an ultimatum, go find a job somewhere else, get out of here. And we at Muir Woods didn't know this for a couple of years because the first year seemed to be normal. By the second year, this new supervisor was causing a lot of friction and basically sort of disrupting the team that had existed before he came.
[00:34:30]
[00:35:00]
There's an old saying that a person who is absolutely healthy cannot walk into a room with four people with a cold and make them healthy. But one person with a cold can walk into a room with four people that are healthy and make them all sick. This supervisor was like the person with a cold because within a year of him being there, there was a lot of friction in our team. We began to argue with each other, it was like he was creating a hostile work environment, and it was just unfortunate. One person had a nervous breakdown, other people were just trying to stay out of his way, and so they would take longer to get things done because they didn't want to go back to the office. Which makes for inefficiency in the park and the maintenance operations.
[00:35:30]
[00:36:00]
And eventually it led me to want to get out of Muir Woods. And you would think, what a wonderful place to work, I was competent in my job, I was learning more about my job. I enjoyed the people I worked with, but if there is a hostile work environment, if there is someone that's suddenly making that environment unappealing, that's all it takes to disrupt everything. So I volunteered one... I only had two days off per week, and the supervisor, Brian O'Neal at the time told me, "Well Fred, I don't have anything for you here in Ranger Interpretation Department for you to go to. But you can talk to Naomi Torres and maybe Naomi will find something for you to do." I go to see Naomi, and she said, "No, we don't have anything but we are looking for volunteers. And thinking, look, God, I work 40 hours a week. Do I want to volunteer one of my days off? But I did.
[00:36:30]
[00:37:00]
[00:37:30]
So for about a year, I volunteered one day off and worked with Ranger Interpretation. And then less than a year, one of those interpreters got another job, they moved up in the ranks. And I was told with a wink and a nod, go ahead and apply for her job. And I said to myself, I don't know, maybe they're just humoring me because the person who's job I would be applying for has a master's degree in education and I don't have anything like that. But what I didn't know was there were no men in the group, there were no people of color in the group. And I had been doing this for free for almost a year. So I knew the routine, I knew what the program was about. And so I applied and I got hired. And I spent 15 years with interpretation and education and got to go to trainings. I started doing research and learning about primary sources to the point where I started doing interpretive programs everywhere from Alcatraz to Marin Headlands to Presidio. And got to be on local television programs like Bay Area Back Roads.
[00:38:00]
And one CBS Reporter came on a Sunday morning and my parents saw me on TV in Virginia. Probably it was the best move, had everything stayed hunky dory at Muir Woods, I probably wouldn't have left. But because things were so horrible, it motivated me to get out. And sometimes things-
Amanda:
But still stay local.
Rik:
Yes.
Amanda:
And still in the Park Service.
Rik:
Yes. Sometimes things happen for a reason, as they say.
Amanda:
So when you were a volunteer, what were your roles for that?
Rik:
[00:38:30]
[00:39:00]
[00:39:30]
Well, the interpretive branch, education department had gotten a big grant. Some money from a guy named Bill Lane who was a former ambassador to some country England or whatever. But he was wealthy and he really liked history and education and through his foundation, they granted money to the Park Service to create a program for the elementary school kids in his neighborhood. I think he was in the Palo Alto area, so East Palo Alto, there was a Ravenswood Elementary School. Mostly Hispanic and African American kids, but it was a smattering of different ethnic backgrounds. And he wanted them to learn about the Buffalo Soldiers. So Lynn Fonfa, my great supervisor, and she had her master's degree in education. She developed a program to teach about the Buffalo Soldiers. And I was trained to take over that program from an intern that she had worked with. And that really set the stage for my research into other areas of that subject of the Buffalo Soldiers and the fact that they had lived here on the Presidio for a couple of years at the turn of the century.
[00:40:00]
[00:40:30]
So I got to drive basically on a school bus to East Palo Alto and then go get the kids, get them on the bus, get their lunches, get the parents volunteers on the bus. Trek back to the Presidio, stay for two or three hours, put them back on the bus, trek them back down to Palo Alto. And that went on for years, years of doing that. And then we got a program together for San Francisco schools. When the money went away for that, we then expertly applied for other grants. So we got grants for inner city kids in San Francisco but we also tried not discriminate, fairly rich private schools were able to come to Presidio. People from Pacific Heights and places like that, so there was a great variety of different classes and school backgrounds that got to participate.
[00:41:00]
[00:41:30]
Not only the Buffalo Soldier program, but programs about ecology, programs about plant life and how to grow plants and how the Presidio grows plants to basically replenish the environment, native plants husbandry or whatever, something like that, like little farmers. So that went on for a good 15 years from my initial stages, from about near 2000 up until 2015. Actually from about 2002 until about 2018. And 2018 is when I began to think about retirement.
Amanda:
So because of your volunteerism, it sounds like you didn't have such a huge learning curve when you moved to the inter division, or did it feel that way?
Rik:
[00:42:00]
[00:42:30]
I basically had been vetted and trained in one or two education programs, but I got, what's the old term, trial by fire. One, Teresa who was acting supervisor, she told me to get the files from Marcus Combs because I'll be needing them to do an interpretive program. And I said, "Well, why can't Marcus do it?" And she said, "Well, Marcus double booked himself and he's got two programs happening on the same day. And the next day he's going on vacation, so you're going to have to do it." I said, "Well, what's the program?" She says, "You have to give an oral history tour about the history of Chrissy Field, the aviation history of Chrissy." I said, "I don't know anything about the aviation history of Chrissy Field." She said, "You got two weeks," she pointed at the calendar, "You have two weeks to do that. So just talk to Marcus, get his material." And Marcus said, "Well, most of the stuff is in my head. I can't tell you everything. You're going to have to read this and read this, read this, read this."
[00:43:00]
[00:43:30]
[00:44:00]
So I said about in addition to the Buffalo Soldiers Program, reading about Dana Chrissy, Chrissy Field, the early aviation, the Hap Arnold, biplane is Wright the brothers. And luckily I found some good things on YouTube to see that too. So in two weeks, the day came and this bus came and all of these people got out and I realized they're all retired airline pilots. And I just sort of swallowed hard and said, "Hi, I'm Ranger Penn. You're here today to learn the history of aviation here at Chrissy Field. Our first stop is blah, blah, blah." So after about an hour and a half, they stood and gave me an applause. They said, "Boy, I didn't know that, Charlie, did you know that? I didn't know that." And they were very pleased with the results. I took advantage of their openness to ask them about stories that they knew from aviation history or things that they knew from their profession. And I jotted down notes and I realize I've got at least six more stories now to use the next time I go out to do an aviation tour. Hello.
[00:44:30]
Amanda:
No worries. So we will pick up where we left off with that. So you're in Interp and what was this team like?
Rik:
[00:45:00]
[00:45:30]
[00:46:00]
Well, the intern education team, Nancy and Lynn and Susan and occasionally James would come and help out. It was a very well put together, well thought out education program. Each component had already been well designed before I got there. So all I did do basically was step in the shoes of the other person and just be trained. And by doing, learning by doing, and it covered kids having Creon and flag making king, storytelling. At one point we would sit inside of a tent that was located inside of the horse stable. And we would gather the kids inside of the tent and they would sit on a huge buffalo hide and we would tell them stories about the Buffalo Soldiers and ask them questions. And sometimes it would really be like the only thing was missing was a campfire and marshmallows because they really liked the storytelling portion.
[00:46:30]
[00:47:00]
Then we would get up out of the tent and luckily the park police would come and bring out a real live horse for these little kids who had probably never been up close to a horse. Many of them were almost afraid at first to touch the horse, but by the time it was over, they wanted to ride the horse. By the time this was over. Their nervousness and their anxiety turned into total fascination and curiosity in a matter of 20 minutes. And they all wanted to eagerly brush the horse and brushed the mane and just ask so many questions about the horse. "What does he eat or she eat? How tall is she? How much does she weigh?" And so it was an interactive, dynamic way to get kids who would normally cloistered at a little fluorescent classroom, into a historic area where there was a smell of horses. And the sight of horses and the whole connection between this is how the Buffalo Soldiers lived, they were cavalry soldiers. They were in, took care of their horses. They fed their horses before they fed themselves because they depended on the horses to get them to the mission, to take them everywhere.
[00:47:30]
[00:48:00]
[00:48:30]
And I think that lesson was commented on by the teachers who when they got back to class and the teacher said they had pretty much a good recall on what they learned at the Presidio. So we knew that the program was being effective just by their ability to tell us what we told them. And that was very rewarding. Growing up I think I did like the idea of being a teacher, but in this case, not only did I get to be a park ranger, but I was basically an outdoor teacher. And it was always cute to see the kids when you go to the classroom and you show up that day and the teacher say, "We have a special guest coming today." And me and another person would come in with our ranger hat and they would say, "Good morning ranger Penn." Then say, "Oh, you know my name." Because I guess they had shown a little video of what they were going to see prior to me coming.
[00:49:00]
And there was always some little kid who would look at you and say, "Where's your gun? I said, "Look, not all rangers carry guns. We carry a radio. Sometimes I'll call for backup." But no, I said, "We give stern warnings," most people respect the Rangers, so we don't have to get into fights. But it was a real learning experience for them too.
Amanda:
It sounds like you concentrated mostly on the Presidio, but you also went to other sites within the park, the programs?
Rik:
[00:49:30]
[00:50:00]
[00:50:30]
Yeah, we worked at the Presidio Plant nursery. We would go to the nursery and bring children there to learn about native plant history. What is a native plant? What are indigenous plants? They learn the word indigenous and photosynthesis, and this is from kindergarten through second grade. And we'd have the kids talking about the photosynthesis in indigenous plants. So I probably didn't know those words myself at that young in age, not only did we do the plant nursery, we would walk through portions of the woods in the Presidio. And we would go along and one of my famous lessons was to get everyone to learn the difference between the three leaves of the blackberry plant and the three leaves or the poison ivy plant. And I said, if you learn nothing else today, if you learn to recognize the difference between these leaves. And we would go through a lesson and I would hold up both plants in my hand because I'm not allergic to poison oak.
Amanda:
Lucky.
Rik:
[00:51:00]
[00:51:30]
It was something that I think I inherited from my dad. And I said, "Don't try this at home. Now I have two leaves, they're both of three. One has little hairs and thorns and the other one doesn't. Which one is the poison oak plant? And one has really shiny leaves." And most of the time they would say, "Oh, the one with the really shiny leaves." I said, "Why do you say that?" She said, "Well, it looks greasy, it looks oily." I said, "Yes, that's the oil in the poison oak that will get on your skin and make you itch." And then sometimes we'd get half the class saying 50/50. It's the ones on the right. No, it's the one on the left. Because they couldn't figure out, "Well, how can you hold that?" I must back up, I first used to hold the poison oak with a blue plastic gloves. And they would immediately go like, "Oh well, it has to be the in the blue plastic gloves," of course they were right.
[00:52:00]
[00:52:30]
So I realized I can do it better by not having the glove and say, okay, now which one is it. And it was a really good lesson for them. And I said, "You can save your friends a lot of pain and trouble. If you see them walking toward the poison oak, what should you do?" "Tell them to stop," "That's right, and you can be the hero of the day. You can tell them you learned that from the ranger in the park." There was also a large stairway leading to our wooded area. And with little kids, you always have to watch them because they'll trip, they'll fall, they'll push someone else down. And I finally learned one day a method for them to not fall, especially going down the stairs. And that we said that there is a magic number at the bottom of the stairs, there's a magic number. Now we're going to try to find the magic number, to do that, we've got to start counting at the top of the stairs and this is how you do it.
[00:53:00]
[00:53:30]
And I would go one, two, each time I step down, you count a number, I'll say, "Can you count to a hundred?" And they'll say, "Yes, okay. Because there's more than 100 stairs." And they would basically, from the time I started implementing that for years, we solem had anyone fall. And then we would get to the bottom and people would raise, "How many did you count?" This number or that number, that number. And the final count was 152 stairs, sometimes I'd get 112 or 98 or 212. I say, okay, you must have counting each step that you took. So there was all sorts of different educational methods that we would have to sometimes make up on the spot to affect a change that would either be good for their safety. And also to let's continue to learn, learning how to count. That was memorable.
[00:54:00]
Amanda:
So you were able to develop your own programs and your own script and that kind of thing? Or would you borrow from each other?
Rik:
[00:54:30]
[00:55:00]
We would borrow from each other. I'd see things that Lynn would do or Nancy would do or James would do. And I would incorporate those into the format. Or last time we just had pretty much kind an open design. Whatever we got that worked for us because personality wise or what someone may be used to doing, I may not be used to doing a certain thing or way. Before I took over, when I was taught to take the kids up the stairs, you walked through the wooded areas. You looked under the rock for the centipedes or the bugs of the ants, and we'd name them, we'd count how many things are alive in the ecological environment. And we'd ask the kids at the end, is this a good ecology? And they would say, "Yes," "Why?" "Because things are growing and living here." I said, "That's right, we got a lot. And how many banana slugs that we see today, kids?"
[00:55:30]
[00:56:00]
[00:56:30]
But at one point I come into the woods and the arborists had been there and they had cut down half of our trees. And I was not told, the education part was not told. There was no communication between whoever the park had hired to do this. I was really disturbed, really just kind of pissed off that they would do this because this thing, it's a classroom environment that was so rich for these kids. And now it's been reduced to this scraggly, almost like a devastated forest scene. And so we had to think quick about how can we do what we did before? Because before we had a canopy and it kept everything nice and cool, and the banana slugs were everywhere. They take away the canopy, everything is hot now and dry and banana slugs go away. So it was really difficult to continue the aspects of using these little mullets and things to emphasize the environment and the ecology and having them make that connection with what's a good environment or not.
[00:57:00]
[00:57:30]
So what I found was on the side of the road, a space had been sort of mangled. Me and my intern, we decided we would make kind of, not a campfire, but a circular place in here for kids to sit. So we put logs off the road in a circular fashion under a canopy, and then we would bring the kids in to the ranger circle and we would have them all sit around on logs. And then we would talk about the lesson of the day, and then we would go out to see what we could find. But before that had happened, we didn't have this area where we could actually sit and like a classroom just have everyone talk and tell us what they know about environments. What do they know about ecology, what do they know about the things that you have to have in a habitat, water, sunshine, air, things like that. So again, that was another case where we had to make it up as we went along, given the environment that we were placed in.
[00:58:00]
Amanda:
Were there any programs that were not as successful that you eventually stopped doing?
[00:58:30]
Rik:
[00:59:00]
[00:59:30]
That's a good question. We wouldn't necessarily stop that program, but we would suspend it for the season. Because either it was too windy or rainy or it was too dry and there was nothing in our environment that we could really point to say that this is a healthy environment because the bugs, butterflies or things stopped living there, especially after the devastation. But we did develop another program, actually it was a continual program. There was a portion of the, let's go into the woods and see what lives there, with that portion that of program, where after we came to the bottom of the stairs or the magic stairs. We would take them to the pier to catch crabs. And when we first began this, I was taught how they did it, how the previous rangers had done it. And that was, you bring them out onto the long pier and have them sit down. And then you pull up a crab and bring it to them so they can look at the legs, talk about his eyes, how does it walk, how does it breathe, where the skeleton is?
[01:00:00]
[01:00:30]
We would do all of those things like kind of a marine biologists. And then after about a few months, I noticed that I did not want to do this anymore. There would be too many little kids that were so rambunctious, they would run to the edge of the pier and pier over. And I said to myself, I'm not going to lose one of these kids in the cold words of the Bay, because they were making me highly nervous. And I just think that this was kind of dumb, I'm not going to do this anymore. And I told my supervisor, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not taking responsibility because some of these kids, they're crazy. They're going to just jump, they're going to put somebody else overboard. And that's the last thing we want as a news story, a ranger who can't swim, jumping into the bay to rescue a kid.
[01:01:00]
[01:01:30]
[01:02:00]
So my intern and I thought of something else. Instead of us taking them out on the pier, before we even see the kids, we're going to go out to the pier, we're going to put a couple of nets in the water. And by that time we will have gathered some crabs. So before they even come, we'll have the crabs in a bucket. And we will go out and we'll pull up one net and we'll have them sit and look at us, go and do it from the pier. They'll just get to watch us. And then as we bring the crabs back in the net, my intern will have them moved into a circle. And she will already have been talking about marine biology and the environment and habitat of the water and what lives in the water. And of course the little kids, "Sharks, sharks," of course sharks. And then I would bring the crab over to them. And then I always say, "Are they ready?" Yeah, they.
Rik:
[00:00:30]
Okay. And I would break off the crab. All the kids would scream because sometimes we'd get some big ones, and I would set the crab in the middle of the circle as we're going to see who the crab likes the best. And we'd put the crab in the circle and I said, "Don't move. It's going to come toward you." And the ones that were really cool, they would just sit there and crab would come up to their shoe. Then other kids would get up and run away because they knew, and that got to be really successful. They all looked forward to that. They would tell their other kids, they would go back to school and say, "Oh, when you go there, second-graders got to see crabs and stuff and to touch them or whatever." It was good.
Amanda:
You didn't actually stop a program or stop doing something?
Rik:
Right, right.
Amanda:
Just change.
Rik:
[00:01:00]
We had to modify it. With our supervisor, it was like, well, whatever works for you. As opposed to being rigid about, no, this is how we designed it, this is how it's supposed to be done. And I wasn't going to be doing that. I couldn't have eyes behind my head out on the middle of the pier.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Rik:
Yeah.
Amanda:
Were you given freedom to develop brand new things or pursue topics of interest?
Rik:
Well, we did, but as a team. We were a team.
Amanda:
Okay.
Rik:
[00:01:30]
Basically we would get together on a table and say, "Okay, we're going to have to come up with something for our fourth-graders," and they're a little more sophisticated than second and third-graders. They're going to be bored with what did with them. What can we do? And we would basically brainstorm and we would look at the standards for fourth grades from the state of California and pick out the things that they must learn, what they must have. And we'd try to apply that to a program.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:02:00]
[00:02:30]
[00:03:00]
And we did. We basically came up with a different type of program at the plant nursery when it came to seeds, having them identify seeds, talk about the effects of indigenous plants, have them wash the things that we would put the seeds in. There would be these long tubes, and we basically would have these fourth-graders washing hundreds of them. And we would make that into a game. We would say, "Okay." I would say, "Now here's the container that we're going to put the seed in, and oh, there's dirt in here. Now, should we put this seed in there when there's dirt in there?" And a lot of them would say, "Oh yeah, they need dirt." I said, "Well, let's look at it this way. If I gave you ice cream and a cup, or actually I have a cup and it's got some mayonnaise in the bottom, can I put a scoop of ice cream in there and would you eat it with that?"
[00:03:30]
"Oh, that's gross. Why would you want do that?" I said, "Well, in that same way, we don't want to have the cup contaminated, right? We don't want something in there that we don't want to eat. Well, the plants may not be able to live in this because maybe there's a virus in that old dirt. We don't want the seeds to get a virus, do we?" "No, no." We're going to wash these pots here, and sometimes it'll be four groups. I said, "The group before you, they washed 200. And you know what, you can outdo that. All you need to wash is 201, and you'll have more than them."
[00:04:00]
[00:04:30]
They say, "Yay!" They go and they wash. "We washed 212." "Very good. Okay." Then the other group, "Oh, they washed 212. If you washed 213, you'll be in the lead." And one parent, a gentleman who saw this, he complained to the nursery director that we were exploiting the children. We were doing child labor. And we had to explain to him that this is actually part of the education process, that they get to do something for the nursery. They contribute to the growing of the plants by washing these pots and learning that the virus that's in the dirt needs to be changed before you can put a new seed in there and then put in new soil, but it took some convincing. I don't think he was ever convinced of that. He thought we were having illegal child labor in the park.
Amanda:
Wow. Did you have any other types of similar interactions along those lines? Not necessarily child labor.
Rik:
[00:05:00]
[00:05:30]
Only certain parents who were just totally afraid that their child would touch a poison oak plant, which is legitimate concern. But we also had assured them that we know where the poison oak is here because we work here every day and we have patches of it, and we show them where those patches are. As a matter of fact, that's part of why we did the identification thing because as we go to finish our walk, we will actually ask the kids, we can see a poison oak plant, point to it, don't touch it. And they would say, "It's poison oak?" I said, "Yes, you're right." "Is this blackberry?" "Yes, you're right." It was a continually education process. But no, that was the only real time that we encountered anybody that didn't like the program.
Amanda:
Did you do programs for adults as well?
[00:06:00]
Rik:
[00:06:30]
[00:07:00]
[00:07:30]
For adults, not necessarily. Well, I did one program called A Walk Through the Presidio Forest, and that was for adults or people of any age. And there was a Park Service program where we met at the officer's club. We'd walk through the path behind the officer's club, we'd cross through the golf course, we'd go through the Presidio Forest because the lesson was how the environment changed and how the Army in the 1800s planted 200,000 trees, and trees of different varieties. And we had pictures of what it looked like before and after. We had pictures from the 1860s of the Presidio and that would fascinate a lot of folks who had no idea about how the Presidio changed and evolved over time. And this walk would literally go from the officer's club to the overlook at the ocean. And then we'd tell people to bring you a sandwich or lunch. You can stop at the bench, eat something, and then we'd come back through a slightly different route. And that lasted for a while, but we wouldn't always get enough people who really wanted to walk that far. Literally, it's, I guess about a three-mile walk by the time you finished it. But we did also at times do many cemetery walks about the famous dead people.
Amanda:
Can't escape your cemetery.
Rik:
Yeah. As a matter of fact, I even brought along food pictures. Well, this is the cemetery, of course.
Amanda:
Sure.
Rik:
[00:08:00]
[00:08:30]
And many of these folks here are buried in the cemetery. We'd have our little books and we would tell the short stories about people who had been in the Olympics. One gentleman who was in the Olympics who was a Cal graduate, he was in the Olympics in 1936 when Adolf Hitler was sitting in the stadium. And the same athlete, who was an African-American, also experienced a lot of prejudice and segregation during his time that when he returned to the United States with a gold medal, he still couldn't get a job as an engineer, even though he graduated from Berkeley as an engineer and wound up having to dig ditches with Beast Bay Mud, which existed back then. And it wasn't until 1941 when he joined the Army, when the war began, that he used engineering degree with the Tuskegee Airmen.
[00:09:00]
But these kind of really, I think very rich historical profiles of people in the natural cemetery, that was always mostly an adult attended program. And I learned a lot of that from one of the Park Service volunteers, a man named Galen Dillman. He had all the stories, he knows where all the skeletons were buried.
Amanda:
Quite literally.
Rik:
[00:09:30]
Quite literally. And then there were times when he was not feeling well, and he called and said, "Can you do the program for me?" And I asked my supervisor, because I may have been scheduled to do something else, but she would say, "No, go ahead. It's on the schedule. We need someone to do it," especially if you have people who have already called and signed up at the visitor center.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:10:00]
[00:10:30]
And to this day, even on this Memorial Day, I was there to give a walk and a tour through the cemetery for the background history of people like Dana Chrissy and Buffalo Soldiers and Paula Cushman Fryer, the spy, all the famous dead people. And in addition to that, we did actually develop a program that got discontinued. It was about Fort Point. We would actually take classes to Fort Point, and I think it was all about the Civil War. The problem was, even though the program existed, many of the schools sort of balked at it because they weren't teaching the Civil War at that time. When the kids were coming, the Civil War was not on their curriculum, the grades that they were in, fourth and fifth, but it was all we had to offer. And a free field trip is a free field trip.
[00:11:00]
[00:11:30]
They would come and they would learn about Fort Point, and we printed out booklets and talked about the terminology that the Army would have and what was going on as to why was Fort Point built and why was it saved when they built the Golden Gate Bridge over it. All of those things were included, and then they got to visit all the rooms in the fort and they got to eat their lunch in the fort and were outside of the fort, depending on how warm a day it was. But it was eventually discontinued because it wasn't really germane to what the teachers, that was on their curriculum.
Amanda:
How much work with teachers did y'all do to develop...
Rik:
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
Well, working with the teachers was really good. Teachers would actually come to a workshop. If they were interested in bringing their students to the park, we would have a workshop for each of these different programs. The kindergarten kids, their teachers would come. We would tell them everything about what they were going to do, what they were going to see, what they need to prep their students for. By the time we get to their class for the classroom visit, they pretty much know what we're going to ask them. And they have their background so that when we say, "Okay, we'll see you on Monday when you get off the bus to do the program," they're pretty much prepared.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:13:00]
And for each one of these, we went to different schools, usually a week or a few days prior, to meet with the teacher, show a slideshow, take questions from the students and basically tell them that we want you to bring your questions with you. We want you to bring questions that you want to ask us when you get there. We try to prepare them in all of these different areas.
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00]
When it came to one in particular, I think it was the one about the fort, they knew they were going to come into a building and we would do it on Monday because the fort's not open on Monday. And then I would say, "Okay, now you know that there are thousands of people that come to visit this fort. And usually there's hundreds of people each day, but guess what? On Monday, you're going to be the only people in the whole fort." And they would go, "Yay." "Yeah, we're going to let you have the whole fort. You can run, not run, but you can go everywhere and explore the whole fort. And at the end, we're going to have a quiz and then we're going to have lunch." But that was really exciting for them. Once we closed the door and they're locked inside, they're the only people inside the whole gigantic fort.
[00:14:30]
That was very exciting. And sometimes you'd almost have to tamper that excitement because they wouldn't want to sit still. And tell them no running in the fort. And we'd have to, again, emphasize safety because they're going up and down stairs, and the stairs are made out of granite. And we would tell horror stories about kids who fell on the granite and how we had to take them out on a stretcher, even though it never happened, but...
Amanda:
Okay, good. I was like...
Rik:
It never happened. And it never happened because I think we really got their attention that you don't want to fall on these granite stairs.
Amanda:
Sometimes extremism has its place.
[00:15:00]
Rik:
Mm-hmm, yep. I mean, there were a few knee scrapes, but nothing of a medical rescue nature.
Amanda:
Good, good. And you've mentioned interns. You worked with a lot of interns?
Rik:
Yes. Over time, usually in the 15 years, I must have had about 30 different interns.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:15:30]
[00:16:00]
And most of them were very enthusiastic. They were crackerjack smart, smarter than me. And sometimes I would be on the committee to hire the person, and sometimes I was the committee that hired them. And for the most part, I think I did a really good job. There was a couple of times what I thought would be a really good intern turned out to be someone who needed direction every single day. And I would come to work and the booklets hadn't been put together, the pencils hadn't been sharpened, the backpacks hadn't been filled. And this would go on just too many times because either they were caught up in social media or they were on their telephone, or they were just kind of spaced out.
[00:16:30]
[00:17:00]
But that was a rarity. Most of my interns were very enthusiastic, they were hardworking, they wanted to put their best foot forward, they wanted a good recommendation on their resume because they were going to go on and do other work. Some of them wanted to work for the National Park Service. They wanted to make a good impression. And I must say that one person who I hired, at least three of them I think did go on to work for the National Park Service. And one person who I hired sight unseen, it was just a telephone interview, but I had a series of questions that I had to ask them. Questions like, what do you do if you're with a group of students and one student calls another student a fag?
[00:17:30]
[00:18:00]
[00:18:30]
Or if one student laughs at another student because of some disability that they have, how do you handle a situation like that? And depending on their response, I would make a little notation, but most of them were pretty judicious, and they would put the shoe on the other foot and pull the kid aside, not to berate him in front of the class, but to take them aside and say, "This is not kind of language we use here. We don't ridicule people, we don't call people names. Everyone is treated with respect here." I don't know what you do in your classroom, but in our classroom, in National Park Service, they'd be stern, but firm, but loving to get them to realize this is a special occasion for them to get out of that old environment, whatever they were thinking and that was okay, that's not okay here. And each person would be different depending on their personality. We would ask questions like, you're ready to do your class, you've got everything ready, and the class doesn't show up for a whole hour. And now you only have one hour to do two hours worth of education. What do you do?
[00:19:00]
[00:19:30]
And of course, most responses are you try to cut to the chase. What's the most essential thing that you want to leave the impressions on these little minds, and how can you do that in an hour? Maybe there are some extraneous things that don't really add up to what's on the educational rubric. Some of it just could be like, oh, it's the environment that they're in, but they can get that environment in other places. But there's something that we want them to take away. I would kind of listen to their responses and how they responded to me knowing that I may not be there someday and they're going to be in charge of the entire class. Arcelli Montero, she was one of the last people I hired and who is now in my job.
Amanda:
Yes, she is.
Rik:
I knew I had picked a good person.
Amanda:
That's great.
Rik:
Yeah.
Amanda:
It's nice to see that transition and succession planning essentially work.
Rik:
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
[00:21:00]
Yeah, which is another thing I can say that in the National Park Service, and I think in a lot of government agencies, there's not enough succession planning, and I don't know why that doesn't exist and why in so many annals of job transition in the United States especially, and in other professions like carpenters and heating, air condition things, you would have apprentices. There would be an apprentice, and you would go and learn under someone who was a journeyman, and then you would be in line for that next job. Or there'd be a pool of people who are already trained. And I was very disappointed when my last years with the National Park Service that we were not in a position to fill all of our position with people who had already been trained, who wanted to work. And we had so many people, you've probably seen this with the archives. There's so many people that we've had in the past that had those skills, had the enthusiasm, were dedicated, they wanted to work. We had no budget for them. We couldn't keep them, had to let them go.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:21:30]
[00:22:00]
And I think we're poorer for that lack of planning, the lack of foresight, the lack of having people lined up and ready to move in when we have so many people who are moving toward retirement age, and we should have people in place to do this. And I'm talking about State Department, military, Commerce Department, so many parts of the US government, they always seem to be scrambling at the last minute to try to put people in who are qualified and who are really dedicated public servants. And I think in a lot of spaces and government, and this is from my 23 years of being in the Department of Defense, that we can have people who are not vetted enough. They're not really up to the standards that we need to carry on to get the job done with quality and integrity and with purpose. But that's just my two cents worth about that.
Amanda:
[00:22:30]
On the questionnaire, you mentioned that you had a lot of involvement with Buffalo Soldiers programs, and you've mentioned that a couple of times to the extent that you participated in an event over at Fort Baker with other authors.
Rik:
Oh, yes.
Amanda:
Could you talk about that a little?
Rik:
Yeah. The Buffalo Soldiers Research Study Program, for lack of a better title.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:23:00]
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00]
National Park Service had a congressional mandate or congressional bill, and attached to that bill was money for the study of a historical treatment of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers as it pertained to the National Park Service. And this study would have basically, it marshaled a lot of forces from people from universities, from museums, from the Park Service and other nonprofit organizations like National Defense Fund for the environment. People came together around a big round table. It was a series of different meetings. I think some of them took place in Washington DC and some here in Yosemite and some here at the Presidio and other places where there was a lot of brainstorming and project meetings to come up with the most viable way to use the money to make the most impact of a study and a program that would basically cement the history of the Buffalo soldiers and the study of them within the national parks around the country, so that if one person would retire, all that knowledge wouldn't go with that person.
[00:24:30]
[00:25:00]
[00:25:30]
It would remain in a viable way that someone else could come in, pick up on that and continue that story as part of one of the risk resources that the National Park Service has, because the Buffalo Soldier story stretches across the whole United States. Not only were they in Yosemite, they were in Hawaii, they were in Washington state, they were in Skagway in Alaska. They helped build a road up the volcano in Hawaii for seismologists in 1908, 1909. They were in the Philippines, they were at Fort Meyer in Washington DC. There's so much of the story that needs to be in place because more and more people of color are coming to the parks. They want to see themselves reflected in the history of the national parks. And this is one of the main areas that you can do that readily and produce the pictures and the backstories and the accomplishments of the Buffalo soldiers and just for the diversity in general, that anybody, would be they from Sweden or Spain or South Korea, they would come and they would walk away with that story, just how diverse the United States is, how diverse the park rangers and the things that they preserve is.
[00:26:00]
[00:26:30]
Of course, I always liked talking about Charles Young because Charles Young lived here at the Presidio, and when I first began to hear about him, I had no idea just how expansive and how pervasive his story is in telling about the Park Service and the Buffalo soldiers that Charles Young should have been a general in the United States Army, but because of the segregation and the pure racism that took place in the 18th century, the Army would not make him a general. They would transfer him to Haiti or to Africa, or to a university to teach instead of giving him a full command.
[00:27:00]
[00:27:30]
[00:28:00]
In doing the study to try to historically vet all of these things that the Buffalo Soldiers did, and to make it into a program, did get to meet people from the different parts of the Park Service and the different museums such as Anthony Powell in Santa Clara. Anthony, who has one of the most premier collections of Buffalo soldiers historic memorabilia in the United States. Even the famous basketball star, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had a collection of Buffalo Soldier material that he mostly got from Anthony Powell. And Anthony Powell, of course, gave us here at Fort Point, an entire photographic set of historical class negative pictures that were taken during the 19th century to basically graces the walls down there and have been there since the 1970s, I think, or whatever. I felt really privileged to be part of the conversation that hopefully has now been sort of set into a, if not a curriculum, at least a program that people look at around the country as important to telling the whole story of the National Park Service.
Amanda:
Cool. How are we doing? We're doing okay on all that, water, all that?
Rik:
[Cross talk]. Mm-hmm.
Amanda:
Fantastic. Let's see.
[00:28:30]
Rik:
Oh, if I might say that again, the importance of the Buffalo Soldier story and Charles Young, I'll just tell this quick story.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:29:00]
[00:29:30]
Charles Young, before he became a colonel, he was a captain or a major, and he saw another African-American soldier at another fort, a guy named Benjamin Davis, and he saw Benjamin Davis and the way Benjamin Davis appeared and the way he worked, Charles Young said, "This guy had his officer potential." He encouraged young Benjamin Davis to take the officer's candidate course to take the test to become an officer, because I think he was a sergeant. Benjamin Davis did, and Charles Young mentored him. Benjamin Davis took the test, passed with flying colors and became a second lieutenant. Benjamin Davis went on to become a lieutenant and then a captain, and then a major, and then lieutenant colonel and then a colonel. And in 1922 Charles Young died. Charles Young died before he got to see Benjamin Davis become the first African-American general of the Army.
[00:30:00]
[00:30:30]
When people do sometimes question the importance of diversity in American life, I often tell the story of Charles Young, and I say to myself, what would've happened had there not been a Charles Young, had there not been this officer that came to this fort that other black soldiers could look up to and say, "Oh, there's Colonel Young, or there's Major Young, or, I wish I could do that." If he had not been there, there wouldn't have been that inspiration for Benjamin Young, Benjamin Davis rather. And Benjamin Davis, of course, went on to have his own son, and he told his son, "When you graduated from high school, I want you to go to college, but not just any college. I want you to go to the college that my mentor went to because Charles Young graduated from West Point." Benjamin Davis Junior later graduated from West Point almost 40 years after Charles Young graduated in late 1930s, and Benjamin Davis joined the Army. And not only did he join the Army, he became a pilot and led the Tuskegee Airman in World War II.
[00:31:00]
[00:31:30]
And then Benjamin Davis went on to become the first Black General in the Air Force. Looking back on it, had there not been a Charles Young, how would that story have played out? And I always tell the audience I have, which is usually pretty diverse, and I said, "If an eight-year-old little girl from Kansas sees Sally Ride as an astronaut, that eight year old girl will say, "Mommy, I could be an astronaut." "Yes, you could darling," because of that person," and therefore the importance of diversity across the board.
Amanda:
Indeed. What were the main things that consumed your time?
[00:32:00]
Rik:
[00:32:30]
[00:33:00]
[00:33:30]
I think the main thing that consumed a lot of my time in education was actually sitting behind the desk at the computer studying rubrics for educational classroom activities, working with other educators to compile these things into a viable program, and going over how these things are going to be implemented, how they're going to be done, calling up buses to reserve buses, finding the money to pay for the buses, writing up lists of things for my intern to do, copying a lot of programs to hand out to teachers. At least half the day was in the office, on telephones, in front of the computer screen and at the copy machine. And that was not the fun part for me. The fun part for me was bring me the kids, I'll take them to the woods or bring me the people, I'll tell them the story. As an interpretive ranger, I think you want to be in action. You want to be out there in the elements with the public and interacting with the resources and interpreting what these things are. But I think there was more of the time than not, I was either in an office or in a meeting that took up a lot of the time.
Amanda:
Did you work with partners within in the park?
Rik:
Well, I worked with the Presidio Trust, which was our partner and the Parks Conservancy.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:34:00]
[00:34:30]
Both of those groups, between the Conservancy and the Trust, they definitely were one of the main components in supporting what the Park Service did. Probably without them, we couldn't have gotten half of what we did done because we wouldn't have enough personnel, we wouldn't have the wherewithal, we wouldn't have other people basically doing things that would help set up a framework for us to work with them. And working with the Parks Conservancy was always good because they were very pro-park program, so they would definitely go out of their way to make sure we were supported. And I can't say as well for the Presidio Trust. Presidio Trust oftentimes would duplicate our programs, and sometimes I would get jealous. It seemed like they had more money than the Park Service had, and yet we wouldn't see that money always trickled down to the things that we needed.
[00:35:00]
[00:35:30]
[00:36:00]
And sometimes it was difficult to get the Presidio Trust to share their resources with the National Park Service. I'm just being honest here, I would go to some trust folks and they would say, "Well, I don't know. We may not be able to help you with that, or we've got something planned for that same room." But then there were some other people who were formerly with the Park Service who were now working with the Presidio Trust, and they would be very sympathetic. They would realize how they can be a great service to the Park Service by getting us access to other resources. But overall, I think we worked pretty good with the Parks Conservancy. And I think over time, the Presidio Trust, I think, did try to do better in their cooperation with the National Park Service.
Amanda:
Or do you feel the visitor population or the education groups that you brought in changed over time?
[00:36:30]
Rik:
[00:37:00]
[00:37:30]
[00:38:00]
Definitely, I think the amount of school children, when the Park Service had its funds and its buses and its ability to freely grant scholarships to schools from the poor districts of San Francisco, especially citing the school down in Ravenswood, which was mostly people of color and kids of Hispanic backgrounds, we also would have Spanish interpretation on many of our programs. And that was by design on purpose because we knew English as a second language was happening throughout a lot of schools, especially in San Francisco. And there were a few times when we would ask for interpreters in Chinese also, and we would oftentimes get some parents to volunteer if they didn't have bilingual teachers at the schools from Chinatown to come. I can't say I've done a comprehensive study on what happened before I began to work with the National Park Service and before Lynn Fanfa came to the Park Service, but I know that during my tenure, there was a great effort to try to get kids in the park who didn't always have the ability to come or who lived so far on the other side of town that coming to the Presidio was like going to LA.
[00:38:30]
[00:39:00]
[00:39:30]
I would say that things have changed for the better, but I think there's still a lot to be done to get more people from the various diverse ethnic backgrounds, to get them into the parks, to have reasons and places for people to come to, because my story about what happened to me as a kid and trying to get to the Shenandoah from when my parents, they weren't comfortable going far away, giving the prejudicial background of the way the culture was set up in Virginia. I think that has affected for so many years, not only Hispanic parents, African-American parents, people of color have always, I think, been reticent to go out to national parks. Not so much if they don't love the parks or want to go, but I think if you don't have something already established that you've seen your aunts and uncles and cousins go to parks before you, and if your parents aren't doing it already, it's not something that you think of off the top of your head, because there's been no pattern established.
[00:40:00]
And I think that's happening a lot more now. There are a lot more African-American parents, Hispanic parents who do go skiing, who do go snowboarding, who will go hiking or camping, and maybe their aunts and uncles will do it. And will take these kids into the parks now more so than they have been for the past, I think 25 years. But I think that's an ongoing battle to make the parks part of your culture, which is why the Buffalo Soldier story is so important because Buffalo Soldiers were amongst the first ever park rangers since 1899. And that story is a story that still hasn't been told enough, I think, across the media culture in the United States to have it trickle down to schools.
[00:40:30]
Amanda:
Do you have a leader or a supervisor who you most admired while working for the park?
Rik:
[00:41:00]
[00:41:30]
[00:42:00]
Leader or supervisor. Well, I have to say that the supervisor who I had when I retired, Lynn Fanfa, I think has probably been the most influential supervisor because she actually put me in the positions to succeed. She actually helped me, gave me more confidence that I could be a good educator, that I could develop a program, I could lead a group. She actually put me in a position to do that, and she'd always try to get me to develop my skills. If there was a training situation somewhere, she'd send me to it. She'd say, "You need to go and do this, you need to go and do that." And I would get in there and I'd be better at it next time, and my next program would be better. I always improved over the 15 years, I think, because of her direction and her support and her ability to know what I need to do, what my weaknesses were, what do I need to get stronger in.
[00:42:30]
[00:43:00]
[00:43:30]
I also think that Brian O'Neill, when he was here, Brian O'Neill as a superintendent, he would give me compliments when I would lead a Black history program at the officer's club or when I would be out with some kids one day, he would stop with some people and say, "And there's one of our rangers right there with a group of kids. And that young man volunteers on his days off," and stuff like that. It was always good to see the supervisor of the entire park give you a little encouragement. And I guess there was probably one other guy, he wasn't a Park Service, he worked for the Park Service, but he worked for the water sanitation department. Joe Oliver. Joe Oliver, he was a former Marine, African-American guy, former Marine. But he was always very encouraging for me to, because I was in the interpretive branch and besides Benny and myself, at one time, there was only two or three African-Americans in the interpretive branch for years.
[00:44:00]
[00:44:30]
And Joe would always tell me that, "Ben, when they see you in the uniform, they'll be looking at you. They'll be looking at you, you got to represent." Every time he'd see me, he would say that. And sometimes it would be unnerving, and then other times it would be like, it was just good to hear that, have somebody who looked like you say that you're doing a good job and you got to get in there and go for all the gusto or something. Joe Oliver and Brian O'Neill and Lynn Fanfa, I think there's probably some other people too I know who I would look up to. Oh, definitely my buddy Shelton Johnson. Shelton, who lives up in the Yosemite area, works at Yosemite. Just seeing what he's done over the last 20 years always inspires me. And we often would talk together on the phone or I'll send you a new article I found, or he'll send me something that he found because we felt like we were almost like bookends.
[00:45:00]
People would come to the Presidio, they'd hear about the Buffalo Soldiers here, and the same people would be on their way to Yosemite. And I would say, "Well, when you get to Yosemite, then don't forget to see Shelton Johnson, because he'll tell you what they did after they got to the Presidio." And he has an entire program. It was Shelton that inspired me to try to find a reenactment uniform to represent the Buffalo Soldiers from a different period in history because he does the Old West one and I did the Spanish American War one because it was a khaki uniform, and Shelton would have the blue uniform.
Amanda:
What would you consider the most rewarding part of your time here?
[00:45:30]
Rik:
[00:46:00]
[00:46:30]
Oh, there was so many different... Well, I can tell you a few. I know that when I was in the Army here, when I was working for the Army and for the DEH, the Don't Expect Help Housing Authority, one day, a DEH, the sergeants gathered us all up together and they said, "We got a project, Ben, follow me." And we would go down to Christie Field. He'd say, "Okay, right here, I want you to start digging. We're going to make a stage here, and it's going to be small enough that we can pick it up and move it, but going to be sturdy enough that somebody important can stand on it." And we'd say, "Who's important? Who's coming, who's coming?" He said, "That's for a need to know basis only, get to work." And we would build this stage and it got built, and then within 48 hours, we had to be standing by and ready to tear everything down.
[00:47:00]
[00:47:30]
We're standing in the background and we hear these sirens coming onto the Presidio, and there's limousines and black cars, and there's a helicopter flying, there's Park Police. And this limo pulls up and out steps Mikel Gorbachev, and he's there at the invitation of a nonprofit in San Francisco to give a talk about mediation of crisis situations, talking about bringing peace, basically how to have a peaceful negotiation. Here we were standing, watching the former Premier of the Soviet Union standing on a diace that we built on an American Army base. That was pretty significant. I think going into the Park Service, I think being invited as a group of parks rangers to come to a special showing of a documentary about the national parks that was hosted by Ken Burns and have him be on the stage and tell us what we were going to see.
[00:48:00]
[00:48:30]
And he shows us a little synopsis of what this huge PBS documentary was going to be about. And after watching just about 15 minutes, I think we all looked at each other and said, "I want to be a park ranger, don't you?" Because it made us being park rangers say that, "Yeah, we would like to be a park ranger after seeing that." That was very significant. And another day when I was at the visitor center, and a lot of people would come through the visitor center, and one day I'm in the visitor center and there is an Asian-American man, looks like a grandfather, and he's looking at some books. And one book is about the 442nd Infantry Battalion, Japanese American Infantry regiment of World War II.
[00:49:00]
[00:49:30]
I say to him, "I saw the movie about these guys on TV. It was called Go For Broke and they had Van Johnson play the leader." And the man turned to me and said, "Oh, yeah, I never cared for that movie that much." But I said, "Did you know anybody in that group?" He said, "I was in that group." He was one of the veterans of the 442nd. And we both agreed that there should be a new movie made about the 442nd, and maybe Steven Spielberg or somebody should do that story again because it's so rich and so tragic and so full of drama and everything.
[00:50:00]
[00:50:30]
I also got to meet two of the Tuskegee Airmen who were at the Presidio. And one day while coming through the parking lot, a guy in a car drives into the parking lot and he puts his hand out the window, he waves at me like he wants to get my attention. He parks the car, and I walk over there, the man gets out and I realize it's George Lucas. And he asked me if I have any of the new flyers about the building on the Presidio, because at the time, Donald Fisher, the head of the Gap, wanted to build an art museum on the Presidio. And Lucas wanted to see where was this going to be and what was being said about this. I said, "Sure." I said, "I've got a lot of these at the desk at the visitor center." He follows me, and I didn't say anything about knowing who he was or anything, but I get behind the desk, I show him what he wanted to see, and he's standing there and he's looking at the proposal, the Fisher proposal for the museum.
[00:51:00]
[00:51:30]
And I couldn't resist. And I said, " You know what the rangers here really like about the Lucasfilm Building? We like that it blends into the historical architecture of the Presidio. It looks like it could have been a former military building." And he looked at me and said, "Oh, thanks. Thanks." He's like, "We never came here to make a statement with our buildings. We didn't want to do that." And I said, "Well, we think you guys are doing a good job over there." He said, "Can I take this?" I said, "Sure, you can take this, and here's a map too." And he says, "Goodbye." And there he goes. Kind of like being a representative of the National Park Service, they see the patch, they see the hat, and sometimes you're an information magnet, and they feel pretty confident that you can answer their questions.
Amanda:
I'd agree with that. The uniform definitely has a presence.
Rik:
Yeah.
[00:52:00]
Amanda:
On the flip side, what did you find the most challenging during your time here?
Rik:
[00:52:30]
[00:53:00]
[00:53:30]
I think the challenging parts is, well, I can tell you that because I don't think the Park Services... No, the military, I didn't expect the military to be very democratic. I mean, the military to me is almost like a totalitarian organization that's made to protect democracy, which is almost an oxymoron. You use a totalitarian system to protect a free democratic system because you follow orders and you don't ask questions where democracy is all about asking questions. And so there were times that there were things I could see in the military could have done better, but they weren't going to listen to a civilian employee. But in the Park Service, I expected more give and take in the Park Service about things that could be done better and things that, especially during the time when I was with the maintenance department and I'm in the field and I'm seeing things that are being done and I'm interacting with the public. And I would try to sometimes at meetings, suggest things, but because I wasn't a supervisor or because I wasn't privy to a budget, I think things just went on deaf ears.
[00:54:00]
[00:54:30]
[00:55:00]
And that really got to me, it bothered me. For example, a one day in the Marin Headlands out at Tennessee Valley, there had been problems about people going onto a road that was restricted to the civilian vehicles. It was only the Park Service that was supposed to get there, or there was a problem with people using the wrong cans for recycling versus trash. And I'm there and I'm working, and I can hear a couple of park people in supervisory positions asking themselves questions about what they think should be done here and what they think should be done there. And I'm standing there and they're not asking me anything. And I'm the one who's there all the time. And I'm thinking, "Well, why are you in a position that you can't even use your own resources to get the answers to questions that you don't even know about?" When in Rome, you go to the Romans and you ask the people who are in a position to know. And it wasn't until later that I think somebody else suggested that they move something that wasn't working, and they moved it to the place where I could have told them that it should have been moved to.
[00:55:30]
[00:56:00]
But no one would ask me. And sometimes I wasn't always encouraged to give my opinion. Because you're not in the interpretive branch. I think there was another time in Muir Woods when there was a supervisor who came up to me and said, "Oh, there's a popcorn bag down by the tree about, we're talking 500 yards, 300 yards down. Can you pick that up before you come out?" And I'm going, "Why are you asking me when you walked past it?" You walked past the popcorn bag and you're a park ranger. It's almost like the separation of work had became so extreme that they couldn't allow themselves to pick up a popcorn bag, but they'd have the interpretive ranger go all the way out there and back. I mean, there was just little... I know that there's a separation of duties, but sometimes it gets to be ridiculous when you can't do something that's just practical. And besides, why would you leave something ugly on the ground when you're there? Yeah.
Amanda:
Is there anything you would've done differently?
[00:56:30]
Rik:
[00:57:00]
[00:57:30]
[00:58:00]
I think I would've volunteered for the education department sooner for Muir Woods. I don't think I should have waited for a supervisor from hell to come in to make me leave. I could have been doing interpretation and education earlier, sooner. I think I would've, I don't know. Maybe I would have looked at taking a position on Alcatraz. At one time, calls were going out for people to work on Alcatraz. But generally speaking, I think I did pretty much what I wanted to do when it came to the Park Service. I had opportunities to go to Bryce Canyon or go to other places outside of the Bay Area that might've been considered a little bit of a hardship duty, but you could get considered for promotion faster if you traveled. But all my friends were in San Francisco, and I didn't want to travel. I stayed in GS five for a long time, and then in GS nine for a long time instead of moving up the ranks to GS 12 or something.
[00:58:30]
But I made a lot of good friends, and I think I left good memories with people who I worked with. I don't think I ever went out of my way to be mean to people. And I think I tried to pass on to the other interns and to Park Service volunteers that it's always good to have a rapport and communication with the visiting public, that if you actually explain to them the reasons why you're doing something, you're going to get more cooperation from them then to bark orders and yell commands at people.
[00:59:00]
Amanda:
Is there anything I forgot to ask about your career side of things?
Rik:
[00:59:30]
[01:00:00]
[01:00:30]
Well, while I was working with the National Park Service, I wound up attending jazz open mics, and I would go singing in places in San Francisco, in Sausalito. And I did that for about a good 10 years. And I still tend to do it from time to time. And as a matter of fact, oftentimes when we would end each education season in May before the school year ended, we would have a karaoke day and we would always encourage people to sing. We'd have some cake and ice cream, and thank you for your service and what you did during the education year. And at the end, Lynn would always invoke the song, The Hokey Pokey. And she'd get everyone in a circle, and she would give a very serious appreciation talk about what interpretation, about what education, about what is life about. And in the end, you know what? It's really all about the hokey pokey. And then we would start out... And if we do the hokey pokey, and then we would go around in a circle and everyone would have to do it. That was great fun.
Amanda:
That's some pretty great team camaraderie right there.
Rik:
[01:01:00]
[01:01:30]
Mm-hmm. Okay. I guess I also, while being interpretive ranger, I went to a lot of civic organizations and libraries to do Black History Month talks or talks about Buffalo Soldiers, sometimes being invited. And I got to be an honorary member of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club up in Fairfield, and they actually gave me one of their motorcycle club jackets because when their new members would come to join the motorcycle club, not only would they have to have a motorcycle and know how to ride, they also had to know something about the history of the Buffalo Soldiers. And if they didn't, they would bring new people, recruits to the Presidio and arrange for me to give them a tour. And then that's how they would finish their initiation into the club.
Amanda:
That's interesting.
Rik:
[01:02:00]
That went on for four, five, six or seven years, and that was really cool. And during our COVID lockdown, I actually sat down and wrote, I have a little bit. I'll only read you a paragraph.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Rik:
Listen, it doesn't have to be-
Rik:
... Part of that, but a little paragraph. This is from a time at the Landing Zone Eagle. This was outside of Danang in South Vietnam.
[00:00:30]
[00:01:00]
"I was so exhausted and dirty and sweaty from filling a never ending line of sandbags. And I was covered with the smell of diesel fumes burning human excrement when I went to lay down with a warm can of beer. Within minutes of lying there I was jolted by a series of loud thuds and vibrations. I wasted no time jumping up and grabbing my weapon. When I saw that no one else around me moved, they didn't so much as even twitch. One of the brothers looked at me and said, "When did you get here?" I confessed that it's been three days maybe. And he said, "Those are 105 millimeter howitzers firing a simultaneous barrage for somebody's fire mission request. They've been out of service for 48 hours. You'll get used to it because you'll be hearing them a lot since our hooch is pretty close to them." "Oh," I said, with a cool afterthought. I tried to reclaim my composure and sip on the warm beer.
[00:01:30]
[00:02:00]
Atop this ridge line gave us a vast and advantaged panoramic view of the area beyond the valley below us, and almost 360 degree fire zone gave the hilltop a kind of eagle's nest defensive position. Early one morning, the clouds were hanging low and I could look down and see other clouds below me, partially obscuring the valley floor. Someone near me pointed out and said, "Here they come." We took turns gazing through a huge olive drab spotter scope, the kind that bird watchers use. What I saw was a long line of soldiers sneaking their way down a hillside about 1,000 meters away in the direction of LZ Eagle. This would be the 502nd infantry and my new assignment along with a group of other replacements." I started writing my memoirs.
Amanda:
Very nice.
Rik:
Trying to... Sorry. It's like an ongoing thing. Every now and so often I'll get quiet and sit down and turn on the laptop and say what... Try to piece back things. Because your memory is never precise.
Amanda:
And never continuous either.
Rik:
Yeah, never continuous.
[00:02:30]
Amanda:
So kind of going up into a holistic view of the park, since it is our 50th anniversary and that's why we're doing this. So in your opinion, what do you think is the most significant project or achievement the park has done?
[00:03:00]
Rik:
[00:03:30]
[00:04:00]
Well, I believe... I think having... This is a very good question because we're coming into an era in the 21st century where a lot of things that have been hidden in the past are now being revealed. Just the fact that in the 19... I'm not sure what year it was, it might have been in the early 20th century when there was a reunion of the Civil War soldiers at Gettysburg, and it was on film. It was caught on film. And these old soldiers who were pretty old by that time, shaking each other's hand, they even had their old Confederate uniforms on and the old Union uniforms on, and there was a ceremonial meeting of the two sides, and the camera took all these pictures of them shaking hands and whatnot. And at that time, there were no Black soldiers taking part in that. And yet, at the end of the Civil War, there was 180,000 African Americans in blue Union uniforms.
[00:04:30]
[00:05:00]
[00:05:30]
But in that early 20th century reunion, none of the colored soldiers, as they were called then, were shown shaking hands across the way. And nowadays, when it comes to telling the story of Gettysburg, the stories do include what the African Americans did when the battles... When all these forts that exist now that are becoming part of either state historical sites or national park sites, that story is told. And because African Americans were part and parcel in the Civil War, they were in the Spanish American War, they were in so many historic places, the fact that those things exist is I think a milestone accomplishment. And to ensure that these stories remain, part of what people learn when they come to the national parks is vitally important, especially during a time now when we see certain state legislators and certain school districts and libraries wanting to divest themselves and to restrict telling the story of the diversity of America, whether it be gay Americans, LGBTQ, Native Americans themselves and how the land was taken from them, African Americans, the achievements of women.
[00:06:00]
[00:06:30]
All these things are sometimes being put upon now by people who don't think they belong, or that that story somehow takes away from someone else's idea of what the American story is. So it's important that the accomplishments of the National Park in its glory and diversity be front and center and be preserved and be expanded upon because this is the story of America. And if it's not being told that way, then that's dangerous. That's dangerous. And that's not accomplishing what the mission should be of the National Park Service. And I think it's significant, given what we're seeing in the news and hearing on the radio about certain politicians wanting to tamp down on the story of diversity.
Amanda:
How do you think GGNRA has taken that?
[00:07:00]
Rik:
[00:07:30]
Well, GGNRA I think is remarkably the leader. I mean, I think it's undoubtedly the leader around the country as to what we're able to do here gets replicated in all the parts of the country. And I think it probably has a lot to do with the history of San Francisco. I mean, just the fact that the Buffalo soldiers, when they came here, led President Roosevelt's parade down Venasque and guarded him around Union Square. They could do things here that they couldn't do in Florida or in Mississippi or in Texas. And that says something I think about the cultural diversity of being in the Bay Area because we do have Japanese, Chinese, American history. The Spanish history has been here even before the gringos came. And I think that kind of lends itself to that. But the whole idea that America's best idea is America's best idea.
[00:08:00]
[00:08:30]
It's the best idea America had, not just one group of people. And if we're going to be Americans, then we claim our whole story, the good and the bad part. The part that we want to talk about and the part that we sometimes don't want to talk about. But we have to talk about if we're going to tell the truth and if we're going to show how we have evolved as a nation so that other nations can see, "Look, if they did it in America, we can do it too." And that only happens if the Park Service preserves and showcases all that diversity front and center, and it should never be hindered from that mission.
Amanda:
[00:09:00]
How do you or you seen the GGNRA change during your tenure here? And that can be either staffing or core values, visitation, climate. Any way. It's broad.
Rik:
[00:09:30]
[00:10:00]
Well, I think it's great to see that there are... I think we were talking about one just before I retired. We were at a meeting and our supervisor was a woman. The vice supervisor was a woman, the chief of police was a woman. That makes a hell of a difference. And that's a cultural shift from the time when you could barely see women in positions like that. And I think that's an evolution that says that the Park Service is looking at competence. They're looking at people who can get the job done. They're not worrying about what kind of ethnic background they came from, sexual orientation or whatnot. And I think that's further in the capital of the Park Service because I think when I first got here, when I first started with the Army and transitioning to the park, I believe that there was... There were quite a few actually African Americans working for the Department of Defense.
[00:10:30]
[00:11:00]
[00:11:30]
And I think that's because a lot of soldiers who were in the army stayed in the army. So from every kind of background, some people chose to stay in the military. And as history has shown, the military has been more of an open door policy for promoting people on basis of merit and qualifications and experience than has a civilian population outside of it, which is why in so many areas, military bases in the South were much more open to interracial marriage, to having a diverse population living on that base versus going outside of that base if you were in Birmingham, Alabama or some other place where people were restricted. Because this is during times of outright segregation in those areas, but the military bases had a different policy. And because of that, I think that's why I did meet quite a few African-American folks who from the military transferred over to park service maintenance and park service activities, whether or not it was the Fort Mason computer department or IT and personnel and whatever.
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30]
So I think that partial it has the ability or should, I think, an obligation to continue in that tradition to make sure that there's a strong diversity. I can't say that enough, because it's a national organization. It's everywhere. It's almost every state, town, and county. And if it's there, it's influencing the state also, state parks and county parks. I don't see enough advertising for national parks on TV. I think there ought be more advertising. There should be an advertising budget for national parks. In any area where there is one, the local stations ought to be saying "And don't forget Bryce Canyon. Don't forget Zion, and don't forget Grand Teton." And I don't see enough of that.
[00:13:00]
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00]
It seemed like maybe when there is an event happening at Presidio or an event happening in the GGNRA, for a little while you'll see the little things. But I think just as a rule, there should be reminders. Trying to think of other activities that... Well, I mean, obviously the development of the tunnel tops here has been a big, I think, improvement. And if something like this is happening here, I'm hoping it's happening in all the parks across the country where they have opportunities to make either a constructive change or something is going to change. And why not make it better, why not incorporate something that can be used in the way that they've thought of this extra 13 acres on top of something that could have been just a big slab of concrete, and instead it's something that has turned into a big playground for adults and kids.
Amanda:
Do you have a favorite park area or historic event?
Rik:
[00:14:30]
My favorite park area event, I have I guess two or three. I really like the... There's an area just above Muir Woods, I think you probably may have been there. It's called the Tourist Club. You ever hear of Tourist Club?
Amanda:
Mm-hmm.
Rik:
[00:15:00]
[00:15:30]
And it has a whole history about the German folks that came here back in the '30 and '40s and how you can still go there and have a beer. And on a hot day, I'll go up there and find a... Sometimes there's some benches that you can sit on and you can just see the birds fly between tall trees and just maybe hear a murmur of traffic up above on the Panorama Highway. That's a really cool area. The area out by Fort Miley. Behind Fort Miley, there's these benches that they have there that's mostly for the veterans, but it borders our park. And you can go up there and see ships coming in and going out. And it's one of the best kept secrets. It's so quiet and it's just like a world-class view and very few people know about it.
[00:16:00]
[00:16:30]
And I think... Oh, yeah. Actually, the place that I would... If I had the money, if I had one of those lottery things, I'd lease that house at Fort Mason that faces Alcatraz. Not the haunted house, but the one behind it. The one behind the haunted house. Because I remember when the Park Service had access to it, and we could have parties in there. You could go in and have a birthday party. I had a birthday party there once, and I attended someone else's birthday party there. I remember when a couple of the boys got married, they had their reception there, and I attended their reception. And it was just a wonderful thing. And then of course, Fort Mason or a conservative, somebody would said, "Well, this is too valuable. Just to have it as a party place for our workers. We're going to rent this out and make more money from it." So I would go there and rent that out and live in there for a long time.
Amanda:
Do you have an understated or underrated part of the park that people should know about?
[00:17:00]
Rik:
Yeah, I think the best one... I would say the... Let me think about that for a second. I'm actually going to... Oh yeah, what's that place down where the... It's like Muir Woods without people.
Amanda:
Phleger Estate?
[00:17:30]
Rik:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I've been-
Amanda:
Down on Woodside.
Rik:
Yeah. I mean, you can go there and not see people for hours.
Amanda:
Agreed.
Rik:
[00:18:00]
Yeah. And it's just not... Yeah, it's underrated. I mean, it's like Muir Woods without people. Matter of fact, I might try to go... I'm going to visit somebody in Pacifica today or tomorrow, and I think we might say, "Hey, let's go for a hike over there." Although sometimes it can be a little cold. I mean, it's not like a sunny day at Muir Woods.
Amanda:
This is The Bay Area. There's nothing-
Rik:
Yeah, right. The chill-
Amanda:
Nothing's guaranteed about the weather at all.
Rik:
Damp wind, damp area.
Amanda:
What are the challenges for GGNRA?
Rik:
[00:18:30]
[00:19:00]
What are the challenges for GGNRA? I think the challenges is one, developing... They were talking about trying to develop a place. I know when the tunnel tops were talked about, there was a plan to try to get a new food source for visitors, like a inexpensive food source for poor families. They got a lot of kids that would love to give their... "Hey, want a hot dog? You want a this or that?" There should be something... How do you make the place more accessible to people that don't have a lot of money living in one of the most expensive parts of the United States? Because the folks who have their houses in Pacific Heights and in Marin County can almost afford to take their kids anywhere, or if there's a fee, they'll be able to pay it.
[00:19:30]
But what about the kids in the Bayview District and the Mission District whose parents barely even get over here because they may not have a car, they have a kid on the bus? And then by the time they pay that to get over here, they can't just go to... The restaurants that they have on the Presidio are ridiculous. I mean, Mexican food should be cheap. It shouldn't be gourmet prices, beans and rice for Christ's sake.
[00:20:00]
[00:20:30]
So I think the challenge is, how do you make it accessible to more people? Maybe have more outreach to community centers where the community centers tell the folks, " Tell your parents that we got free passes from Muni to get to the Presidio," or to get to Fort Mason or to get to Marin Headlands. Getting people to the Marin Headlands, there should be more than one bus that goes to the Marin Headlands. Once a week, there should be a regular bus that goes out there because people would get on it and go there if there was a way to do it. Especially folks that don't have cars or just simply can't afford to pay the bridge toll to go. I mean, we have so much to do. There's so many little treasures that almost seem to be the exclusive haunts of the rich and the well-to-do.
[00:21:00]
[00:21:30]
And I think that the challenge is, how do you make it more accessible? How do you really make it plain and clear to people that, "We want you to come here, it's for you."? I mean, I always thought that... This is sacrilegious, but if it's called Golden Gate National Recreation Area, why don't we have more areas for a soccer field? Why isn't there a football field somewhere? Why can't we have some badminton areas? I mean, where's the recreation? Because that's what people think of, basketball courts. And I think there's at least... I know there's a couple of tennis courts here, but it's mostly just for the Presidio residents. I think it should be more recreation in the GGNRA.
Amanda:
What do you most value about the GGNRA and your experience here?
Rik:
[00:22:00]
I think especially with the GGNRA and like the Gateway in New York, you're in a multimillion population area, and not everybody has the wherewithal to get on the bus and go all the way over to the East Bay Regional Parks or all the way down to Coyote Point. And so it's really good that you can drive into the Presidio or drive into Marin County and the Headlands or drive even over to Fort Mason and walk around. They have something so close that you to get out your car and be on a seashore. I mean, that's invaluable. They don't have that in Hope. So many parts of this country, people don't realize how so many places in Florida and Virginia are owned by people.
[00:22:30]
[00:23:00]
They own the shoreline. And you have to ask permission to go through their driveway to get to it, or the sign says, "Keep out, no trespassing." And people have to drive a long ways and then pay someone to be able to go to a beach or to go to... Mostly it's the beach area, it's a shoreline. But to come into a national recreation area and not have to pay to go down to the water is worth a lot. It's worth the price of, I guess, paying high rents in the Bay Area.
Amanda:
In one way we're paying for it.
Rik:
Yeah, we are actually paying for it.
Amanda:
And then finally, where do you think... And you kind of touched on this, but where do you think the park should head in its next 50 years?
[00:23:30]
Rik:
In the next 50 years. I think if and where... Well, we're talking about just the area here.
Amanda:
Just our park, yeah.
Rik:
[00:24:00]
[00:24:30]
I think that there ought to be funds to force the Presidio trust to open up that movie theater so we can show movies about park subjects. We can show movies about Buffalo Soldiers. We can show movies about the restoration of the Lost Manzanita that was supposed to be extinct, that was found here years ago. There are so many great documentaries in the archives of the GGNRA that ought to be shown in a theater, and they ought to be some sort of movie bill somewhere in papers, "And showing on the national parks this weekend is blah, blah, blah." And make it free to the public. I mean, that's one resource I always think that we have so many great things that have already been done by, not necessarily by the national parks, but other people have done films about great places in the national parks. And they can show things about Grand Canyon there, show things about parks in the other part of the country.
[00:25:00]
[00:25:30]
[00:26:00]
Maybe some sort of moving into the 21st century media world, because so many of the young people that will be coming are already steeped in that and they already expect that. And maybe we're doing a little bit of at the Vizia Center by having some touchscreen things or whatnot, but I think we can do more stuff. Even though Presidio was not always the greatest area around which to show movies, especially at night, because I remember when we did have a few times on certain nights, it would be fun. It wasn't cold, and other times you have to sit there with a blanket. But I think maybe there's more ways to maybe start to have... Partnership with people like the Mime Troop, partnerships with outdoor theater places where they can do things of a historic nature of stories related to the Presidio, John Pershing and the tragedy of the house burning down. Things on maritime about some of the shipping things that have happened.
[00:26:30]
[00:27:00]
And all these can be made accessible when you can just, "Hey, let's hire some writers." Write us up the script based on the reality. Hire the actors. It should be a richer use of the lands and places. And in many ways, that's what they do in the park over in Marin, the amphitheater up on Mount Tam. It's a state park, so it's a state park sponsored function. But I think there could be something done here on the Presidio that would... I mean, we sort of have something like that down by the warming. There is a little outdoor area where a theater production could be at, could be done. And especially living in the area where there is such a rich entertainment, music, dramatic scene between the Fort Mason and Magic Theater and all these other things that could be...
Amanda:
Explored.
[00:27:30]
Rik:
[00:28:00]
Merged. I'm sure if I had more... I never thought about looking ahead to 50 years from now. Wasn't there talk once about having the ferry boats from Alcatraz go to Fort Mason?
Amanda:
Yeah, there's a water transportation. I think it's always been in study phases and discussions on-
Rik:
[00:28:30]
I mean, that would be good. That way you can have a program about the disembarking of the troops and things in World War II. They came out of Fort Mason and have the whole story of that. "And here, we were shoving off. Now, imagine the troops heading out on the Golden Gate. We're going to Alcatraz but other people did this 50 years ago." Because there's so many little parallel tracks here that should be developed that can bring people from the present to the past and have a more visual, hands-on experience of what they could have been like, what was it like?
[00:29:00]
Amanda:
Is there anything I forgot to ask you?
Rik:
[00:29:30]
Let me see. I thought I had made a little... Well, I think we pretty much covered now. What does the history of the Buffalo Soldiers and the first national parks mean for Americans today? What lessons were learned by the military and by society in general? Of course, I think that has a lot to do with not locking people out and having diversity in all those areas.
[00:30:00]
Amanda:
And you're obviously still keeping your connection to the park by volunteering now as well.
Rik:
Yeah. Matter of fact, I'm talking with Kelly English about possibly working with the Port Chicago story. I was going to show you this though, because since I'm in Concord, I'm not that far away. But this is...
Amanda:
You have challenge coins.
[00:30:30]
Rik:
Yeah. This was from a guy named Bradshaw, Sons of something veterans. It was some program where he gave me that coin. And of course there's a challenge card from the Maritime.
Amanda:
Nice.
Rik:
[00:31:00]
[00:31:30]
Another one from a Buffalo Soldiers Group, a second one from a Buffalo Soldiers group. Oh, this is the one that I got when... Now his name's escaping me. He passed away about three years ago. He was working in the East Bay. And when I was retiring in 2018, Lynn had talked to him about taking my place and coming here. Let me see.
Amanda:
And he was at Port Chicago?
Rik:
[00:32:00]
[00:32:30]
Yeah. I want to say Brian. Not Brian. For some reason, I don't know if it's just sad memories or what, but I'm blanking. My dementia is showing up. I remember when he went to a talk that he gave out in Contra Costa County, and he gave me this coin. And then Lynn told me very excitedly that he had agreed to accept a position that I was going to vacate. And then he went into the hospital for a routine operation on his back, and he never came out of the hospital. He died basically on the operating table almost.
Amanda:
Unfortunate.
[00:33:00]
Rik:
So I'm going to look into going out there to tell the story. I've got to get some things in order first. I'm trying to work on my kitchen. I got to do some stuff in the kitchen.
Amanda:
Well, I'm sure that the parks in the East Bay will be very lucky to have you. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come over and talk with us and get this recorded down.
[00:33:30]
Rik:
[00:34:00]
Well, good. I'm hoping that most of what I have sat down here is accurate, because I always tell people when they give me... Sometimes I'll be in the park and... Well, when I was in the park, and some folks will come up and they'll make these grandiose declarations and statements about something that happened in the national parks, and I know it's not true. And then I have to gently correct them in a way that's not offensive. For example, one day when I was talking about the Buffalo Soldiers, a man said, "Well, you know, when the Buffalo Soldiers first came in the Army, they had nothing but beat up, used secondhand equipment and secondhand horses and horses that were meant for the glue factory."
[00:34:30]
[00:35:00]
[00:35:30]
And I would say, "Well, I've heard that story too, but that's not really the way it happened. The way it happened was that when the Buffalo Soldiers were put into the Army... Well, when Black soldiers were first made part of the regular army after the Civil War, the truth is, everybody had old horses and used horses. Everyone had old equipment and used equipment and used uniforms. Even then the white soldiers had, because that's all that they had. They were just recycling old Civil War stuff onto the new soldiers. But things got better, but it wasn't... Almost everyone had that. It wasn't just the Buffalo Soldiers." And I think that's the one good thing I picked up through working with the Park Service is trying to find primary sources and going back as far as you can to the original facts. And sometimes you can see how the facts change over time.
Amanda:
Follow the footnotes.
Rik:
[00:36:00]
Yeah. Some people think that the Tuskegee Airmen, the Red Tails were the only planes that would guard the bombers that went over Germany in World War II, and that's not true. There were three other squadrons, mostly white pilots that did the same thing. And sometimes they were on one side of the plane and the Tuskegee Airman was on the other side of the plane or the group, and they were all working together. But sometimes you only see the movie, the movie makes it look like they were the only ones. And that's not true either.
Amanda:
Dispelling-
Rik:
[00:36:30]
Dispelling myths. I actually bought an entire book about the dispelling of myths, especially those surrounding the Tuskegee Airmen. Now, I did find something that's really interesting that has not been mentioned, and that is... And I wrote a letter to Tom Cruise about this, that in 1949 at the first gunnery aircraft competition, it wasn't called Top Gun, there was a Tuskegee Airman that won one of the trophies.
[00:37:00]
[00:37:30]
So in essence, what became the Top Gun Competition in 1949, one of the teams that won was Tuskegee Airmen. And I never knew that until last year. I never knew that. So now I'm writing... I'm trying to write about this in relation to Hap Arnold, who was a commander here in the '20s and I want to know what his attitude was toward the Tuskegee Airmen because I don't know. And of course, that's the planes that they flew. These are the planes that they guarded. Hap Arnold was the congenital of the Air Force at that time. But this is one of those guys. He's in that picture.
Amanda:
Oh, wow.
Rik:
And I think he was in his 90s here. First Top Gun winner in 1949.
[00:38:00]
Amanda:
There's so many little stories to be uncovered.
Rik:
Yeah. Sometimes the little sidebar stories are more interesting than the main topic.
Amanda:
Yeah. Agreed.
Rik:
Well, I think you're doing a great job and given the lack of resources that they've giving you, you're still try to do the best you can.
Amanda:
[00:38:30]
Still trying. And I like reaching out and being able to keep these connections from the folks who worked at the park and made it the place that it is. Thank you very much...
These oral histories may be used for any legitimate non-commercial public or press use with proper credit given to the National Park Service. If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact the Park Archives and Records Center’s reference archivist at 415-561-2807 or e-mail us.
