Audio
Frederick Penn
Transcript
Amanda:
[00:00:30]
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.
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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:
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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:
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"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.
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Amanda:
So this was when the Presidio was already listed as part of the base realignment and closure.
Rik:
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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.
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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."
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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:
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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."
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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?
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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:
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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."
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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?
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Rik:
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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.
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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.
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Amanda:
Did you work with any trees that you assisted, like forestry or maintenance to fell purposefully?
Rik:
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Rik:
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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:
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[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...
Description
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
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