Oral History Program Ray Gines Interviewed by Tearsa Cannon 29 September 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ray Gines Interviewed by Tearsa Cannon 29 September 2008 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Gines Ray, an oral history by Tearsa Cannon, 29 September 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Ray Gines. The interview was conducted on September 29, 2008, by Tearsa Cannon, in Bountiful, Utah. Gines discusses his life story and experiences he’s had. TC: Okay, when were you born? RG: I was born on July, the eighteenth, 1921. TC: Okay and where were you born? RG: In Tabiona, Utah, Duchesne County Utah. And in them days, they didn't have doctors to attend births, so I, my, the one that delivered me was Mrs. Wagstaff who they called a midwife, and the midwife delivered me when I was born. TC: Well that's cool, um, who were your parents? RG: Well my parents were Afton Gines and Pricilla Clair Gines. TC: Okay, and how many siblings did you have? RG: Well, I had five. TC: Um, what were their names? RG: Well, first one was, eh, Burt then Keith then Paul and then Lee and then Joanne. TC: Okay, and, um, can you tell me a little about your childhood? RG: Well, yeah, I can remember when we used to have to ride a horse to school, and our old horse's name was Bess. We rode her to school. She didn't like to leave home and so we took a little encouragement with a whip to get her to leave home because we took 1 her to school and tied her to a fence and whether it was cold or warm she had to stand by that fence all day until school was out. And then we'd take and ride her back home, and it wasn't hard to get her home! TC: How did you meet Elaine? RG: One time we went to Murray for a music festival. Elaine, she was in the Davis County Orchestra and she played the violin. And we met up there. Two opposing schools, but I was sitting by a tennis court watching them play tennis and all of a sudden I seen her walk by and there was a cute, little, curly-headed girl in a brown pleated skirt, I just never forget! And I just thought, "Wow, what a deal!" So I, eh, went over and talked to her a minute and then she went and got on the bus and in a little while the Davis County School Bus, and in a little while I decided I wanted to talk to her some more, so I went over and climbed up on the black bumper of the truck and the windows was open, it was hot in the summertime and the kids, when I climbed up on the back, why, a lot of the kids came back to see what I wanted and I said," I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to that little curly-headed one up there." So, she came and we got together and we went up to Como Springs in Morgan. And, eh, that was the first time we set together and held hands, and, but eh, when we got up there we went in the skating rink and just watched them skate and the girl that I knew in school named Barbara Duncan, she wanted me to take her cousin out, and I didn't want no part of it cause I had somebody else I wanted to see. So I told, eh, kid by the name of Tubby Leonard, he come in there were we was and I said, "Hey, you go out and come back in a minute and say, 'hey, you guys come here, I want to show you something!'" So he did, he went out and pretty soon he come back, he says, "Come here I want to show you something, and we 2 jumped up and went to see him, but I didn't go to see him, I went over and got Elaine and we got on the Davis County school bus and talked and, but eh, in the meantime, why, we decided to take our pictures and so we went to a picture booth. Well you get three pictures for a quarter, or whatever it was, and we set in there and I had them take my picture and then I give my hat to Elaine, my band hat to Elaine, and she set in there and had her picture taken and then we took our two pictures and I put my name and address on mine, and she put her name and address on hers and then we started writing to each other. And one day I was come in from milking and I was standing at the sink washing my hands and getting ready for breakfast and I looked up out the window and a car had stopped out there. And oh my criminy, here's my girlfriend! She always gets a big bang outa saying that she come to see me first! Her dad had come up there to go fishing and she of course came with him. And so we had our first meeting after we met in Morgan up at my own home. TC: How old were you guys when you started dating? RG: Well, our dating was kind of funny cause I was working on the ranch for Petersons and milking cows, that's all I ever did for a living was milk cows, and so uh, I'd milk cows till about seven or eight o'clock at night and then I'd get in the car and I'd drive and Woodland to Salt Lake. And first time I got mixed up, she said to go down to the underpass and go over to where there's a barber shop on the east side of the road, but eh, I knew she lived in Woods Cross so when I got to Cleverly Crossing there was a sign that said Woods Cross this way. I went down that way and what I was on was eighth west and I got over there and I seen a man going around his house and so I went over and asked him, "Where does Elaine Argyle live?" and he didn't know Elaine Argyle. 3 And I said, "Well she lives by a barber shop." "Oh that's just right up this street!" so I went up that street and sure enough, I found the barber shop and I found her. So we'd get in the car, and this is probably pretty close to midnight when I'd get there, and we'd set in the car and talk till about two o'clock in the morning and then I had to go home and get ready to go back to milk at six. So that was our dating. I, when I'd come down to see her, why I'd knock on the door and her mother would always get up and answer the door and she'd always holler, "Laine!", she didn't call her Elaine she said, "Laine, that boy from far away is here, do you want to get up?" So she'd get up and we'd go out and course we only had an hour, hour and half, to talk and then I had to back home to milk. A lot of times on the way home I'd go to sleep. I'd be tired and go to sleep and a guy by the name of Keith Young use to go with me and he'd take over, and he'd drive the car and when I'd sleep we were in Salt Lake some place and all of a sudden he said, "Hey, we're home." And I'd look and sure enough, we were home and he drove us home. TC: When did you guys get married? RG: On June 11, 1941. We met in '38 and it was '41 when we got married. TC: Where did you guys first live? RG: Where did we live? TC: Uh-huh. RG: Well, I was working for a guy by the name a Bruce Fitzgerald and I was milking cows again. That's all I ever did when I was young was milk cows. And, uh, I told Bruce that I was going to get married, and he's, "Where you going to live?", and I's, "Well I don't know, I ain't got no place to live, I'm just going to get married!" So he said, "Well, bring it 4 over and put it under that big tree and I'll string electric light cord out, out to it, and you can live there." So we went to housekeeping, just two of us in this old sheep wagon. It had one bed in the back and a bench on each side and a stove in the front. And an ice box for a fridge, and, uh, my salary was 50 dollars a month, and they give me a pint of cream and all the milk I wanted to drink. And the brother to Bruce was, had a chicken farm, Guy Fitzgerald, had chickens, raised chickens and so I got all the eggs he wanted to eat. So we started living that way and one day when I come in from milking why I come in with a pint of cream with me, and Elaine says, "Hey don't bring that cream in here, I already got a pint and it's going sour, I'm going to have to throw it out, so don't bring me any." Hey, throw out cream! No you don't throw it out! "Well what do you do with sour cream?" "Make butter!" Oh, she never heard of such a thing, make butter outa cream. So I showed her how to take an egg beater and mix a cream up and pretty soon it churned to butter! And then we drank the butter milk that comes off the butter; that was good. So we made our own butter. TC: How long did you live in the sheep wagon for? RG: Well, we got married in June and on September 21, 1941 again, her parents come and up and say, "You can't stay in that sheep wagon all winter, you'll freeze to death up here, so come on down to our place and live with us for a little while during the winter." So we moved here to, down here to Bountiful, into her folks’ home. But we didn't like to be in her folks’ home with them so we bought us a trailer house and set it under the trees by her mother's house and run the electricity out to it. And me and her lived in the trailer house. And I went to work for Bamburger Railroad. And, uh, then on September 5 21st again, 1943, I was drafted into the United States Army, and because I had railroad service. TC: What did you do in the railroad? RG: I would, well I started out as on the section as a gandy dancer, and worked hard shoveling cement, her, shoveling gravel and tamping ties and doing all things that they do on the labor gang. Then I, uh, finally they put me in train service and I got to be a brakeman, and finally a conductor. Not, uh, a conductor on the freight trains. And then when I went into the army, because I had this experience, why, they put in the railroad, in the army transportation department and, uh, the railroad battalion. When I went in the army, I went down to New Orleans and took my basic training and Elaine stayed home with her mother and helped her mother while I was in the service. Then, uh, I went over to Slydell for the rifle range and I got sick. And they, they think I had pneumonia and they brought me back to New Orleans and put me in the hospital and seemed like every day I was in the hospital I got sicker cause I just laid there finally they told me they was going to release me from the hospital and send me back to my old unit so I got on a train and went to Little Rock, Arkansas, and then to a little town by the name of Vanburen and then we had a camp up there by the name of Jessie Turner and we stayed in that camp, but then when I got up there and had kind of a permanent residence, why, Elaine decided to come down there and stay with me. So she came down and we lived with a woman by the name of Robinson, Mrs. Robinson. And she had a couple a girls about the same age as Elaine and they become quite chummy, but, we uh, lived there for quite a while and we started chumming with some of my own, my buddies Dorothy and Gary Ebbert. Gary was just a young recruit too, and he was in the 6 railroad battalion with me and I think he went home on vacation when we had a vacation to go home; he went home and married his wife, Dorothy. And we chummed around and become real good friends there. TC: What did you do in the war? RG: What'd I do in the war? TC: Yeah. Where did you go and that sort of thing. RG: Well, I switched cars in England for quite a little while on the English railroad, mainly worked railroad yards. And finally, on September 21st again, 1944, they took us to southern England, south Hampton I believe it was. Put us on a troop ship and we sailed across the English Channel and went over to Normandy peninsula. When we got over there, course the war was over with, and uh, I, they had what they call LST- landing ship troops. Were just kind of little barge like and they brought it out the ship and we went down rope ladders and we had to pack our barracks bags and our rifle down. We got on this LST and it went in and when it got close to the shore on Normandy, why, they had a pontoon bridge out there and they just lowered the front of that LST down and we walked out and walked out onto this pontoon and went ashore on Utah beach without even getting our feet wet. When we got settled in, why they, we climbed the sea wall and up on top of the sea wall, why we was in France and uh had a little old French drizzle, and the field because everybody'd walked through it since the invasion, why, was muddy, it was just a muddy mess! And yet they said, "You'll have to stay here for a few days." And so we took and laid our rain coats down in the mud-two of us- and then we took our shelter halves (he had one shelter half and I had one shelter half) and we pitched it over our two rain coats and we laid on top of the rain coats and then we didn't 7 hardly dare get out a bed cause if we did, we'd get mud on our feet. But we stayed there and we did have to get up and go eat when they'd, they told us to and finally they said to us well we're going to move out so we put our barracks bag over one shoulder and our rifle over the other and did up our rain coats and our pup tents in our duffle bag and headed for, into France, and went to a little town by the name of St. Mere Eglise. In English that's "St. Mere's Church" but that's a town that's named that- St. Mere Eglise. There was a train sitting in the depot at St. Mere Eglise and we got in it and I never had to walk another day I was in the army. And then from then on we rode the railroad trains and worked the railroads. And so we went up from Normandy and some of the outfits stayed down near Normandy. But the group I was with went up to Toole, France. And when we got up there, why we worked the railroad yards in Toole. I don't know how much you want me to tell you about railroads, I can go all day on for that. TC: How long did you serve in the war? How long were you gone from home? RG: Well, I came home in a ... I think it was '61 but I'm not really sure of that. I think it was '61. EG: Elaine Gines, Ray's wife : You came home when? RG: '61, wasn't it? EG: No. We got married in '41. You went in the army. You got back, you went in there three times, you got back three years. When did you go into the service? RG: '44 I when in, in '43 and I served in France and Germany. EG: Alright that was '46 then when you come home. 8 RG: Well alright '46. But anyhow I served in Toole for quit a little while and then they turned sent us into Germany. We railroaded into Germany at a little town by the name of Ludwigshafen, right across the Rhine River from Manheim. And the Germans as they left blew up the bridge between Manheim and Ludwigshafen and the middle of it was laying down in the Rhine River and the ends of it was still hanging on the bank. I could tell you some real stories about Ludwigshafen! But, I don't know how far you want me to go into detail on it. TC: Well, um, tell me what you did when you came home from the war. What did you do for work? RG: Well, when I come home from the war, why, I went back to Bamburger and they wanted to put me on nights and I'd been away from home for so long that I'd just decided to quit Bamburger and I, they went broke anyway, and finally they discarded the railroad, so I probably lucky I did, but I, when I came home I went back on the railroad for a little while. The guys was real upset, I come back and my place on the railroad is a conductor again and my seniority on the, the railroad place, but they said, "Here we've been working all the time during the war on the railroad and you come back and step ahead of us!" And I said, "Well, I would've liked to a changed places with you, I'd a liked to stay home and let you go to war." But anyhow, I finally decided to quit Bamburger and so I quit them. I looked around for work and finally I found out that Bountiful city needed a truck driver. I had never driven truck but I went to work for them anyway and had a guy on it named Glines and he showed me how to shift gears in the truck and how to do everything and so I started driving truck. Then in a little while, why, they needed somebody to run the road grater to build roads, and so I took over and so I 9 started building roads and Glines, he, he got in his car and went home, or something, I don't know. And the city finally decided to fire him. They knew that he wasn't doing his job and they decided to fire him. And in the meantime he told me he was going to quit and go to Salt Lake City, so I told the city, "You don't need to fire him, he's going to leave." And so he did, he left. Left me as the road grater operator. And then I built so many roads in Bountiful City. They called me the street supervisor of Bountiful City and I was the street supervisor. And I build a lot of roads in Bountiful, and when I go back and look for them I can't find them no more. There's one that I do remember making and that was Fourth North, or Main Street up to Fourth Northeast, and a course I made it out of gravel and I didn't put no oil down or anything. But then later on I decided to build first west and so I built first west from Fourth North to Fifth South and I mixed the oil with the road grater on the road, I got an oil distributer to come and bring oil. I think it was RC4 I put down, it was the number of the oil and they'd spray it on the gravel and I'd just mix it back and forth with the road grater until I finally mixed the oil in with the gravel it become just a kind of a gooey mess and. Then I'd take and spread it out and I laid it down, and after I got the oil down, I'd get my car and see how good a job I'd done, and I'd drive the car on the street and make sure it'd stay level all the time. And I'd drive and I'd tip back and forth where I'd give it the wrong slope and I'd done good, put it down pretty good. And I worked for Bountiful City for quite a little while and of course it was political and I knew that if someone got elected that wanted to and had a good friend that they'd probably put them on the road grater, but I was going to sure, they'd have to learn they self, they wasn't going to learn from me. So I told them, "As long as I'm working for the city, I'm going to run the road grater. And so I did, I run the road grater 10 and I had a guy by the name of... oh... I can't think of his name right now, maybe in a minute. But anyhow, I run the road grater, one day the Mayor B.T. Rice came up and he stopped me and said, "I want you to learn Ernie Youngbird. I want you to learn him how to run that road grater, because if you get sick we won't have nobody to run it." And I said, "I've told you before Mayor, that if someone else runs the road grater that I'm not going to let nobody run the road grater but me." And he said, "Well I want you to get somebody else." "Ok that's your decision?" "Yeah." "Alright." When Ernie came over I told him, "Get in here, run this grater." "No that's your job." "No it's not, it's yours, now I'm going to quit." So he took and he finished the job that I was on and I quit and went down to Standard Oil, they just built a new refinery there, and I went in and talked to them and asked them if they needed help. And they said, "Well we don't want to hire somebody that's going to just come work a few days and then quit. We've had too much of that." And I, "Well look at my record. I don't do that. I stick around. I stayed on the job a long time." So finally they decided well ok. So they give me a job as janitor in the front office. So I cleaned floors for a little while and then pretty soon they come in and said, "We need somebody to work on the labor gang. So I quit being janitor went out and worked the labor gang. And then I had to dig holes and chip coke in the vessels and clean tanks, the dirt outta the tanks had a settled outta the crude as they brought it in. I was a dirty mess a lot of the times and criminy I wished a hundred time that I'd never quit Bountiful City cause I did like that work and now I was working for the. And then after I worked there for a little while I was on the labor gang, why, they come and told me they wanted me to be a helper. So I then was shuffled between all of the mechanics that were. Helped the electricians some days, I helped the welders some days, helped 11 the boiler makers some days and ah, it went on and on. And pretty soon, they eh, kind of settled into working at the boiler exchangers, two of them. Danny Clondie and Porky, was the guy, was the other one, and I never liked to call him Porky, I thought that was kind a derogatory and his name was Glen. And so one day I was in the shop and I wanted to talk to him and I started hollering, "Glen... Glen?" and he didn't even turn around, he didn't even recognize, and finally I said, "Porky?" and he turned right around and I talked to him as Porky. But he didn't recognize his name as Glen and nobody called him that. But anyhow, I worked in the boiler exchanger for a while and pretty soon the boss came out, Bob Baer, and Danny liked to talk, and so he stood there and talked ta Bob Baer. And me, I didn't really have nothing to really talk to him about, I was still just a helper and so I went ahead and I was working on the exchanger, whatever it was we was working on. And I learned to roll tubes, I learned to fix leaks and brunettes of, and I learned the boil maker pretty good. And finally Bob Baer says, "Do you think he could be a Mechanic A?" I was just a helper at that time and Mechanic A paid a little bit more money and Danny says, "He can handle it, and he, he's a good helper and he can handle it." So, they put out a bid for a Mechanic a Boiler Maker. And a course I put on a bid on it. And ah, when I did, why the union head's name was Donga. He opposed it, he said, eh, "You can't give him", oh, they said, "This is for Gines, board of records ordered this for Gines, nobody else." And he said, "Well, eh, you can't do that, he doesn't have as much seniority as a lot of other guys here and you’re supposed to train the senior man." And so they couldn't get along with union on it, and finally they withdrew the offer and I didn't get to be a boiler maker, and neither'd anybody else. Job just went not being filled. And then I started to work in with the welders, and finally I decided ta, I wanted to 12 learn to weld a little more. And so I went down to the trade school and took a couple years a welding and, but I didn't know how to read the blueprints. And finally I de... someone told me that if I took a course of drafting that eh, that I could learn to read blueprints. If I learned to draw it I could read them. So I took this course in drafting at the trade school. And then as soon as I got through with that course I come back and went to work for the company. And finally they said, "We need a draftsman up in the front office. We want you to go up there and work." And I said, "No, I don't think I'd like that. I've worked outside all my life and I don't want to go up to the front office." And they said, "Well, we need a draftsman and you got to go up there." So I went up. And I worked with a German by the name of Ordon. Me and Ord never got along. He went on a mission for the church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when he was younger and he'd fought in the war and he was a prisoner of war. Americans took him prisoner and he used to laugh and talk about how when he was a prisoner of war inside this fence, why, one day when the Americans wasn't looking, he walked out and left! And he thought them dumb Americans. He never had no respect for Americans, he was a German. And so he used to spend most of his time just arguing with me and I was trying to do my work. I had work to do and I was trying to settle in to do it. And I got, I finally got so interested in drafting, I would lose myself. Somebody came in and talk to me and I wouldn't ever hear what they was saying. And then, but he kept a questioning me, kept a questioning me. One day I was trying to solve a problem and I couldn't, couldn't quite get it exactly what I supposed to come up with. And so I finally just turned around to him, "Ord, just shut your damn mouth! I'm sick and tired of trying to listen to you. Just shut up!" And he said, "Hey, I'm the boss in here and you can't tell me to shut 13 up." "Hey, I'm telling you to shut up and if you don't shut up I'll come over there and shut your mouth for you!" And he said, "You can't talk to me that way!" and he went in to one of our engineers, his name was Jim Shutz, and talked to him about it. And so he came back out and he said, "Well, Jim's going to want you to come in and talk to him." And I said, "Hey that just tickles me to death! I want to go talk to him. I'm going to tell him all you do is stand over there and argue and you ain’t put your pencil to a piece of paper yet! You haven't done nothing! All you done do is stand there and argue." And so he went into Jim's office and pretty soon he come back out and he says, "Well Jim's it all right. Jim ain’t going to call you in. I told him we settled it." And so I didn't go in and see Jim. Well, there was a lot things happen, but finally they come in and the company told me I had gone up there for six months. And then in six months if they liked me I'd stay and if I liked it I'd stay. And they'd give me twenty-five dollar raise. Ord says, "They cut your rate, they won't give you more money." Well when I went in after my six months they asked me, "Do you like it?" "Yeah, I like it." "Well, do, do you want to stay?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm having a hard time with Ord, but I, I, I'd like to stay." So they say, "Okay, we'll give you twenty-five dollars extra then." So I went and got me a twenty-five dollar raise pay. Well, then it went on and on, still Ord didn't change his attitude much and I had a lot of trouble with him. And finally they come in and told me, "We want to make and engineer out of you." And I said "Well, you can't make an engineer out of me! I've had nothing but high school. I haven't had a day of trigonometry or anything like that! I can't do the calculations an engineer has to do." And they said, "We will give you a new title- Engineer Technologist." And I said, "Well if you give me an engineer..." I said, "Make Ord an engineer, he wants to go ahead." "No, we don't want him, we want 14 you." And I said, "Well, if you make me and engineer, Ord will quit." And they said, "Well that's alright, let him quit." And so they made me an engineer and sure enough Ord quit. But he didn't find a job any place else, so finally he come back. And went to work for them. And I was an Engineering Technologist. Well, there was a lot that went on and I don't need to tell you. But anyhow, finally they closed the refinery in Purpanboy, New Jersey. The company couldn't get along with the union. The union was strong there and the company couldn't get people to do what they wanted to do, so they closed the whole refinery down! And they had some engineers that they wanted to keep and so they just issued a blanket offer to all the engineers in Standard Oil. If you want to retire early, why we'll give you a package for retiring. And eh, I thought, "Wow, that's a good deal. I can get away from Ord and get retired." And so when they made me an offer and they paid me for vacation I hadn't taken and by the time everything was added in it amounted to a year's pay. And so eh, I took it. And eh, it came, I took it in May and in the last of June they got my money to me and I just took and invested the money in the bank at 12% interest. Then we get 12% interest. I put it in the bank at 12% interest and I took and kept some of it and me and Elaine bought a grand tour of Europe. And we were off to Europe! TC: Grandpa, do you think you could tell me a little bit about your kids? RG: Well, there were five of them. Lee, he is the only one we've lost. He got colon cancer and they put him on chemo-therapy and it burned him up. It burned his liver and his kidneys up and they put him on the dialysis machine for a little bit. But they took him off and he just laid there and he just suffered. He had a terrible death. But... TC: How long ago was that? 15 RG: Well, I don't know. I don't remember how long ago it was. TC: Um, what are your other kids' names? RG: Well, then course, Lee was the one that died, and then Joanne, you know she had terrible cancer too. And they had to take, had to cut her open, cut her whole belly open and get that cancer out. And eh, Burt he, I think he kind of took - the attitude that I always picked on him because he was the oldest. TC: Yeah. RG: The oldest kids always think the youngest kids that do everything, and I, he said, "Why don't you just let one of the other kids mow that lawn. And I said, "Hey, you’re one of the other kids, your one of them. Now you get out and mow the lawn!" And he didn't like that, he didn't like to be doing them things. So he still won't really come too often, but he does give me a lot of nice presents and stuff, and he cares about us. TC: Yeah. RG: We don't hear much from Burt, we don't hear much from Burt. Paul, my criminy. Paul's been a life saver for us. Paul comes here, him and his kids, anytime, they come when we don't need anything, but they find how, "What do you need us to do?" And so they get a job every once and a while, and they, they've really been good. We've sure enjoyed Paul and his family. Keith, he's, he's good, he's, if we call him up and ask him, he'll come up in a minute and help us out. But if we don't call him, we don't ever see him and once in while he comes out, but not very often. And it kind of hurts parents not to have their kids pay attention to them, but you can't tell kids what to do, you got to give them their free agency and let them do what they want. 16 TC: Yeah. How come all your kids are five years apart? RG: Well, I'll tell you what I did. My wife, I hated to paint and she doesn’t mind painting. And she said, "Let's paint this room." "Okay, but I don't think I can do it, I... Finally she said, if you don't get me pregnant, why I'll do the painting. So that was it. That was the way and we kind of just stretched them out, you know? TC: Um, when your kids were born, were you with Elaine? Were you there with her? Were you at like the hospital when all your kids were born? Did you miss any of them? RG: Well, all my kids weren’t born in a hospital. TC: Oh yeah? RG: Joanne and Lee were born at home. We had a Dr. Stocks and he used to come down home and he'd deliver them right in the house. And Burt was born at his grandmother's house and in them days they never let you put your feet to the floor after the baby was born for twenty-one days. And so after about twenty days, why, they brought Elaine to our home which was right next door and but they put her in a rocking chair and slid her along to bring her home, they wouldn't let her walk. Now, as soon as the baby's born, they're up walking. TC: Where were you when Burt was born? RG: We lived there in Bountiful, about fifth west and second north in Bountiful when Burt was born. TC: Do you know how many grandkids you have? RG: No. 17 TC: A lot? RG: Elaine will tell you, but I, I don't know. TC: You just have a lot of them. RG: And a lot of great-kids. Used to be a time when we knew. We could keep control of the growth of our family, we... But it just seems like it's gone away from us and we can't control it no more! TC: Yeah. RG: We say we got twenty grandchildren and three on the way! TC: Alright. RG: About talked myself out! TC: I think I got everything. Thank you! 18