Keep the Heritage Alive!

Caribel Washington

Transcription of Oral History - Tape 1 - July 15, 1986 - Continued
CW Yes, they knew exactly why I was there. I really got started in church work through the United Brethren because I was invited to speak for them a number of times, but it was always race relations. I think I have spoken to more Race Relations Days and Brotherhood Weeks up and down to the churches than. Everyone came to know me because I was out there kind of fighting-kind of telling them what they really ought to know. This was all prior to Dr. King and his-and the militants and the peaceful people, the marches, and the sit-ins, and all of these things. I was never a part of the sit-ins. I can remember-and I have the article today-I spoke in a Methodist church in Normal, and I didn't realize there was a reporter in the room. And the next morning it said, "She wouldn't walk around her dining room table. She wouldn't march around her dining room table." Well, one of my sons was at work, and somebody was talking about it. He called me up and said, "Momma, what did you do?" And I said, "I don't know what you're talking about. What did I do?" And that was the headline in the paper-"She wouldn't march around her dining room table." Well, she picked this up, you see. But I said "Well, no, marching is not for me." I believe it's a one on one situation, you know. If you really are influential in changing a person's idea, they're going to try to change an idea you know. I wasn't against the marches.
MP That was your approach. You had a different approach.
CW Yes, yes. I was not. I never marched. I never sat in. I never protested loudly because through here I never ever felt like they were organized enough to get results. That was my own personal opinion about it. I can recall that my daughter-in-law called me one day. She said, "Oh mother, I thought you'd be here." And I said, "Where is 'here'?" And she was marching from Selma to Montgomery. And I said, "Honey, they don't want me down there. I can't-I couldn't be peaceful if somebody was spitting on me." And I knew it. She was sent. And I didn't realize this, but my sister called me up, and she said, "Did you read the Defender? Did you read 'When the Wagon Comes'?" And I said, "Not particularly." She said, "You go back and you read the bottom line." And here it said Betty Washington. She worked for the Defender, Betty Washington.
MP Now that's the Chicago Defender?
CW Yes. Betty went to cover the march from Selma to Montgomery, because nobody believed they would shoot a pretty girl. I nearly had a fit. I nearly had a fit. And then Mrs. [Viola] Luizzo-and here she is now. Got three little children at home. I mean babies.
MP This is your daughter-in-law?
CW My daughter-in-law had three little children and here she is marching from Selma to Montgomery. Well, after Mrs. Luizzo got killed, and some of the others, then people helped them get from... They went into a restaurant one night, and the girl told her, "You must leave here. You must leave here quickly," and somehow they got them from Alabama into Georgia, into Atlanta. And they were able to come home. By that time her husband had told her, "Catch anything coming north." He didn't care what it was. "Catch something coming north." But oh, she really is a journal keeper. And last year she wrote her impressions of that march and put it-see she's assistant editor of the Fort Wayne Journal- [Gazette] now, and she wrote that up. And it was just beautiful, just beautiful.
MP Oh, is that right? Do you have a copy of that?
CW It's somewhere. I can't tell you at the moment where it is, but it's in an envelope because a man from the hospital asked me if he could see it. I'll be very glad to share it with you. It was a very beautiful thing, but she just thought it was one of the nice things that happened to her.
MP Yes, I should say so. That's quite a story.
CW Now, I better get back to me, and what I've done.
MP You were talking about your involvement in the Methodist Church.
CW I worked in the Methodist Church for eight years. It finally got to the point where I wasn't only doing Christian social relation things. I was just invited to speak for different groups. So, I went through Michigan and through Indiana and here in Illinois with the church, which was a very nice experience for me.
MP And you were speaking basically on racial issues?
CW Well racial issues for the most part. Every now and then I'd have an opportunity to broaden out a little, but for the most part it would be on race relations, on brotherhood.
MP Now what was your basic-if you can recall, what was your basic idea about how to bring about better conditions for Blacks and more and better relationships between Blacks and whites?
CW There are other organizations that I have been involved in that have meant something to me. For a number of years I was on what was called Family Service of McLean County. This has changed to many things, and it is not to be confused with the state organization of Children and Family Service. This is a private-or rather civic group-that is mainly interested in counseling of families, or single people, or those who have money troubles. I was in that organization for nine years, and served two as it's president. And in 1977 I received a plaque from them, from the board and staff of Family Service, who felt that I should receive something for, so they said, my "unselfish service" to them. I enjoyed being on Family Service. This was one of the groups that you are on six years, and then you must go off. And I went back on because they kept asking me to, but I realize that if you stay off a year, you are missing so much that is happening that I don't think that I would ever leave any organization and go back to it. You get younger people with different ideas. You get changes from the top down and from the bottom up, and it becomes an altogether different thing to you. But I was glad to go back. I was glad to stay for three years, but I was also glad to leave.I was on the Human Relations Commission of our city from-well, for nine years. I'm not all that good at dates, but for nine years. And while I was a commissioner, I was conciliation commissioner, which meant that we tried to work out problems of people in housing and employment without taking them to court. This was rather challenging. For one reason, many people didn't believe they were for real. They didn't pay much attention until you would get down to the point where you said, "Well, if you do not talk to us, then we'll have to take this to court." So we were able to solve problems for people who otherwise would not have had anyone working for them. I have received several plaques from the city on human relations. This has been a rather good thing that they have done to recognize the people in Bloomington who really work to make the community a better place to live in, whether it's in big problems like employment and housing, or whether it is just in the relations of the give and take of the people. I've been happy about that. Because of having been in the local Human Relations Commission, I have twice been cited by the State of Illinois Department of Human Rights, and the Illinois Municipal Human Relations Association. They, of course, presented me a plaque two different times. One in-well one of them isn't dated. One in [19]77, I believe-one in[19] 80, and one in [19]84. When I left the[ Conciliation] Commission, I received a lovely plaque again in recognition for the years that I had served with them. All these are very nice, and someday I'll probably get them put up on the wall.one that I just never ever thought of-my sister called me and asked me if on a certain date was I free? And I said, "Yes." And it turned out that I was to receive the honor of being the "Spirit of McLean County." This is an award that's given by WJBC in conjunction with the McLean County Chamber of Commerce. I believe they're back to the name the Chamber of Commerce. For one while they had another name, but they're back to the Chamber of Commerce now. This is a very beautiful recognition, very beautifully framed, and I was speechless for once in my life. When they called my name, I had no idea that this was going to happen to me. My sister said-she finally said, "Well, you know we're going to the Association of Commerce and your meeting." And I said, "We are? Why those tickets cost twenty dollars. Who would think enough of us to give us tickets?" And she said, "That's all right." She led me to believe that through the YWCA she had gotten them. She said, "Well, that's all right. We'll go." So we had been out in the afternoon, and she said, "Now, I'm going home, and I'm going to change my clothes, and I'll be back to get you. What are you going to wear?" Well, we'd been out in a club group of our peers and usually you try to look pretty nice. And I said, "Well I thought I looked pretty nice. I'm going to wear what I have on." And she said, "Well. that's okay." So, of course, I had this very beautiful award, and with that they gave me a pewter plate, which is very lovely, with my name and the date and WJBC Spirit of McLean County. I believe I have one more thing over here I like to talk about.
MP All right, all right. This is beautiful.
CW This was on a Friday night, and then on Monday the Kiwanis invited me to be their guest. This, I guess, is what they do for those who have received the Spirit of McLean County. Then on that Monday you're a guest of the Kiwanis Club, and they give you a small recognition for the Spirit of McLean County. This was very nice. This was a group of men, and I have never really been apprehensive about being with men. I find out that I have more rapport with men than women. I don't quite know why, but I was a union member for years and years and years, and I...
MP Would you talk about your experiences in the union?
CW All right. This comes-I'll talk about that as I talk about my job at State Farm because this came that way. I went to work at State Farm in 1946.
End Side A; Tape 1
Side B: Tape 1
  I was hired to work at State Farm in 1946, and I was what was known as a traveling maid. One who-at that time State Farm had outgrown their building uptown on Washington Street, which has in these years become the Fire Company, but at one time that was the home office. Their business was expanding so rapidly that they rented any kind of space that they could rent around Bloomington in order to house their offices. So, I had eight different locations in town where I would travel throughout the day to see that the restrooms were clean and supplied. This went on, you know, for many years because State Farm did not hire Black people until the thrust of the fifties came where-especially those companies who worked in interstate commerce had to hire-had to be under the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and so, therefore, they begun to feel out a little bit to hire. But it was so strange that when I-when they told me I had to do this, I didn't really want to because I felt like I had the same abilities when I went in in 1946 as I had in 1950, or whenever we went. But while I was a maid, there was a movement very quietly of a union-the Service Employees Union-to unionize State Farm. And I learned later from one of the president's wives that the upper office said I was the one that did it, and I didn't really. I knew about the union because the organizers came to our house to tell us, but by that time their work was pretty well done. But somehow they thought I was the one that did it. And I said to the wife, "Well, you go back and tell your husband that I said, 'Thanks very much for that recognition,' but I didn't really do it.'" Why I think it was said-I realize that the men who were going to go in to negotiate were not the smartest men in the world. They just were not. And I said, "Well, you know there ought to be a woman on there. You're taking women in and there ought to be a woman there because sometimes women need different kinds of tenets in a contract than men do." So, I was in on the negotiated end of it. So I think that's why they thought that I really was a part of it, but I really did not help to bring the union in to State Farm. But I did stay a good union member for all those years just simply because I always had an office while I was there so it never cost me anything. That might not have been a good reason for my staying, but they needed secretarial work done. They needed all these things done, and I felt like I could do them. And so I would just stay and do them. I retired from the union when I was seventy because I had begun to see where the men didn't want to do any work if somebody else was doing it. I felt now at seventy I must leave because I'm just in somebody else's way there. I don't know how productive they are since I left, but everything that they do that is social I see I get invited to it. But it was.
MP But you were secretary for the union?
CW Yes, I was secretary for the local union. I was secretary for one of the state commissions of the union for about twenty years. Because Illinois has a-in fact, they were one of the unions that tried to move into Normal. You see the State-County-Municipal, you know, were trying to organize the secretaries, and also service employees. That's SEU. I don't think anyone of them got there, did they? Or is the State-County-Municipal trying yet? But I stayed in, and I felt like I had some experience that way, and could have if I'd really wanted to work. But there were two things I never wanted to work in, and they were politics and union work. I wasn't hard-nosed enough, I think, to do union work. I wasn't a table pounder. I felt I could talk.
End Side B; Tape 1
Side A; Tape 2
CW When I was a child there were many Black men in our area here who really had professions or skills, which were marketable to all people. I can recall there were plasterers, paperhangers, bricklayers, upholsterers. And one of the very things that I remember most were the Black chefs. There were many fine restaurants in Bloomington all uptown around the square because our business district was a very thriving business district, and the finest meals came from the restaurants that had the Black chefs. I can remember one who was a special favorite of mine because he was my father's friend, and he was called Squire Glenn. I always wondered why, but he-it just seemed to me he should have been named Squire Glenn because he was a delightful man to know, a lot of fun, but he had a reputation of being a very fine chef. All of these things sort of passed away in the Depression. There have always been laundresses, and housekeepers, and baby tenders, and maids, and chauffeurs. Those who had old money in our area-I say old money because this area is sort of noted for the proudness of its old families. But those who had old money were able to retain their help. And this is how many families lived because the woman of the family was able to go out and be a laundress, to clean the house, to take care of children, to cook, to be a "Girl Friday," and do everything in a house. This might sound strange in this day and age, but Black people lost everything. They lost their homes and everything they had. The banks closed in Roosevelt's moratorium. Many of them did not even reopen. Those that did reopen, did not honor the accounts that were in their banks. So there just simply was no money. Of course, there was very little for Black people anyway so their loss was just tremendous. There was nothing left for them. Those that were on relief would have food and would have clothing, and there was always an opportunity to get a little coal or a little kerosene for heating, and so they weren't in too dire-well, they were in dire straits because when you have no money you were in dire straits.
MP But at least they didn't starve.
CW That's right. They did not starve. Our father died just at the beginning of the Depression, and because my mother had a couple of nickels to rub together, we weren't as fortunate as some of the people on relief because we couldn't get anything. We could not get any help. But in our neighborhood there was always someone who needed a nickel or a quarter, and they would come by and give my mother the sugar, or the flour, or the meat, or whatever they had for this little money that she was able to have. It wasn't very much money, but there was a time when a dollar meant a hundred pennies you could go out and spend, which meant that it went much farther. A hundred dollars back in the twenties and thirties were a hundred dollars, and you could feel like you could make it if you had a hundred dollars. Today, here in 1986, you can drop it all in one place and not even account for it. This is the difference in the times. This is the sign of the times. During the Depression, we had a couple of Black fellows who went to Wesleyan University, and somehow they were able to get into the program of relief, and the WPA, and the PWA and that. Those were the two programs which brought work into every area, not only here but every area. The original one was the PWA, which was the Public Works Administration. This went for some years, and under it was the forestry program where men were permitted to go out and reforest the areas, where some buildings were able to be built because of the program. This lasted for some years. I'm not able to tell you when. But then came the WPA, which was called the Works Progress Administration. During this time, it was possible that one could get on there. When they had a project, then they had to be so many people who really needed the work. But there was some little leeway in the beginning for whoever was directing the project to bring in a few other people. And that is initially how I got on to the WPA. There was a music project, and the director of that project was the son of my music teacher, my old music teacher. And so when I first went on I went on as an uncertified worker on the WPA, and I was there for three or four years. I can't tell you just how many.
MP Was that at Illinois Wesleyan?
CW No, that was here in the City of Bloomington. This was a music project. There were several types of projects. There was the music project, there was a sewing project, there was a bookbinding, woodworking, and then a recreation project, which really was a godsend to the young people because they were able to open up the schools at night and on Saturdays and other times to have recreation. And this was really the beginning of sort of organized recreation in our area. After several years on the music project, I was able to get on the recreation project. This I worked at for a number of years. I did playground work in the summertime and schoolwork in the evenings in the wintertime. And one other thing I did was to have a pre-education class. This I had for probably four years. There might have been twelve or fourteen, sometime fifteen youngsters, not always all Black. I would have a white child here or there who would come to my school.
MP That's what I was interested in. Was it integrated?
CW Yes, but only because they knew of it, and my husband would pick up in the area and this sort of thing. We never solicited a child. Someone would hear, and then the child would come. This was morning work. Usually they were closed at noon because there were no facilities for food or anything like that. So, until I would say 1939-and I don't know if that is exactly right, I had children then who now since they are in their fifties, still say, "Oh Mrs. Washington, I remember when we went to school to you." A nice incident happened to me one day. A man stopped me on the street and he said, "Caribel, I want to tell about Nettie." He said, "You know she writes so beautifully, and she said, 'Well do you know who taught me to write? Caribel Washington taught me to write.'" And of course that set me up after all these years, but the children all-those who are grown now often say, "Well, we remember what you taught us." So while it probably wouldn't have passed the guidelines of the North Central Association, they did learn some things, and it was delightful time for them. And I enjoyed every minute of it.
MP Now did you teach piano lessons, voice lessons, or...
CW No, just piano lessons, and I taught more theory than-I would sort of do the basic part of it, and then there were-they had it sort of divided up. So I taught piano.
MP How did you.. You started taking piano you when you were a child?
CW Well yes, when I was still in the sixth grade school, in grade school. I never really turned out to be a bang-up pianist, but...
MP How did you learn theory? Did your teacher teach you theory?
CW Well yes, we had it as we went along, you know. And of course, it was a very simplified method of it, and the books we would use-and I don't even recall what they were now-would inculcate a little theory with the basic piano work. And of course, since you didn't have them but once a week and very little time at that, I don't know that anybody ever really turned out to be a Paderewski. But they did learn some basic music that way.
MP Now were there art teachers also involved in that?
CW If there were, I don't recall. I don't recall. I know there were areas where-especially in the big cities, New York, and some of those-where they had writing projects even. Somewhere I have a little book that has been published by writers back in that time.
MP That's right. I know at Hampton Institute there were teachers there who interviewed Black people who could remember what slavery was like and that was put into a book as a part of the project.
CW Well, we were not that sophisticated here.
MP You didn't have that many people here.
CW That's right. At one time we had less than 2,500 Black people. You see they have come in to this area with the opening up of the war plants and the war. Up until that time there were not very many, but after Eureka began to hire, and General Electric came in, and then Firestone came in. Now at one time, you see, the railroad shops here were the major shops for the railroad. Here, they made engines and I suppose boxcars too, but this was a massive industry here. Now Black men worked there, but they were the gas makers and the fire breakers. They did not work in the shops as machinists and this sort of thing. But still in all that was still back in the twenties, you know, and...
MP But it did provide excellent employment.
CW Yes, it provided work, and many of them worked out there in the shops doing the lowly tasks that some of the others didn't care to do. But it put bread on the table. This is the important thing-- in any home--just to be able to feed your family is important.
MP That's right. It is.
MP To get you where you want to go.
CW So, you know, it may be as a status symbol, but not necessarily. I previously spoke of Black women being able to hold down jobs in the private homes during the Depression. But as opportunities opened up to do other little things, the Black woman got smart like everybody else. There was a time they worked for fifty cents an hour, and then it became seventy-five, and a dollar. And now if a woman goes out to work in a home, she's asking five dollars an hour, or five and a quarter an hour. And this again is the sign of the times because baby-sitters, you know, think they need three and a half and four dollars an hour, if they don't know very much. And I understand in some places it's even more than that. So it's impossible to get your grass cut cheaply anymore, which shows that money has become a bargaining chip in every kind of job. Where this was not true before-one was able to have ten dollars a week or twelve dollars a week. I can remember my sister Kathryn would brag, "Well, even at ten dollars a week, I was able to save a dollar." Of course, she lived at home with my mother and with all of us. In fact, we never left home. Even if we married, we went home because she had the big house. She had never worked, and she was able to maintain the home because we all stayed home. And this was a help to her as well as a help to us. This day and age, I understand, they're going back home because they can't live anywhere else, you know. And I don't know that I'd accept that. I always say mine can't. My family cannot come home to live, but it seems like they are.
MP Yes they are. They're coming back now.
CW But I find when you talk to people, this is happening more and more. That it is becoming so hard to live. Rentals are so high, and with utilities and with sitters for both of the parents in the home out to work becomes more than one can earn. And so one has to do everything possible to manage. (tape is stopped) We might honestly say the roles of women have changed because the times have changed. I could remember my mother was always home. She never ever worked out, but there were other mothers who had to go out in the morning and work. In fact, my best friend when I was a little girl was a white girl who lived across the street. And her mother and father worked at the wholesale grocery company, and they would leave out early in the morning and not come home until after five in the evening. We would see that her hair was combed and all these kinds of things and took care of her. While she was my age, she had no brothers or sisters so we became kind of close. But women have changed as jobs have changed-I should say as education has changed. There was a time when Black women had-I shouldn't say had very little opportunity, but I believe the economic situation prevented them from having extensive educations to a great extent. But as women became better educated, then they had other skills, and many went into the professions. Those who did work accepted stock clerks and pressers in the stores or packers and things like that. And then it seems to me in this area it has always been sort of in an unspoken gesture on the part of managers in stores that if one kind of acts like they don't have two heads and can get along with people, they'll sort of push them out a little and advance them a little until they have acquired a little more skill and become a little higher paid in the store. This is just through association. All of us are classed as Black and not quite whole, and yet we find that people find out, well, maybe we're not so different, you know. Maybe we do understand. Maybe I have to change my perception of Blacks just a little bit. And I think, this to some extent has helped. We often laugh as a group because it seems like I always heard this saying: "In the South you can get close, but you can't get high. But in the North you can get high, but you can't get close." And I believe this is true because in the South the Black women especially have always been involved in the families. And you know, how much closer can you get to a family than when you're taking care of their children? But this is sort of a different attitude than we have found here in the North. We can say it's changing in many ways, but we can see subtly that there are a lot of areas where discrimination still abounds very much. With women, yes, but with Blacks also, because it's only in the late years that even our big companies have wooed the exceptional students. And this I sort of get a little perturbed about because they will send their personnel people into the Black colleges and pick off the very best there is. And these are the ones they want to work for them. My idea is that there are others who are worthy of the opportunity because they can grow. And if one does not get the opportunity, then there's not this advantage of being able to advance in anything. All of us learn by experience, but many are not given that privilege from the beginning. They have to kind of get in the back door and then work up.
MP Mrs. Washington, would you speak about the issue of how Black women react or relate to the concept of women's liberation?
CW I have not had too much experience with women's liberation because I've always felt like I've always been liberated, and most Black women have always been liberated because they have always had to work. While they haven't had positions, they have always had to get out of the home to a great extent and help make the salaries that come in to maintain the family. With women's liberation there's a great deal I do not agree with. Not because I don't believe women should be liberated, but I feel that many of those who are at the forefront of the liberation movement are-well, they try to become so much like unisex that you can't tell whether they're women or not. And I believe that when liberation comes women must maintain their femininity as far as the graces are concerned. I know you can't take them to town and spend them, but they go a long way in our associations with people. One would much rather have a woman who was intelligent, who was a good conversationalist, but who did not have to stoop to the baser habits of men to get along in the world. I know it's a difficult task for a woman to move into a man's world without criticism and innuendo and this sort of thing. She has to be really strong to make it, but I believe more of them are all the time.
MP Mrs. Washington, you have. I can say this-you have been extremely active as a woman and as a Black person in Bloomington-Normal and the state and the nation.
CW Well, not all the nation. (laughs)
MP Have you found it difficult in terms of performing in these different roles, in terms of how Black men may have related, reacted to that or...?
CW Well, I've had no trouble. I have not-I've really been more involved with organizations that have been white rather than Black. Yet in the last couple years in the Human-or I should say the last four or five years under the Human Relations Society I find both Black and white working together, which has not been true in other areas. Now, my most intensive work with men has been in the unions. In our own area-the union that I was a part of-there were not many Black men, and so, of course, I dealt mostly with white men. But when I finally moved into the state organization, then I found coming from the bigger cities there were Black men and white men and some women, some few women. But women were mostly in the garment trades and that sort of thing, and so there was not a great deal of association with them. Just simply because they weren't there, not because I didn't associate with them. But I find that to some extent men accept women if they think they're capable.
MP All right. This is what-the other question I was going to ask you. Did you find any discrimination or sexism amongst the men with whom you associated with in the union?
CW Well, not really. Not really. I think there were so few women that they were always so surprised that you were there that they were very courteous to you and tried to make you feel at home. This is the thing that I found. I've never come away from a meeting that I could recall an experience which was distasteful. Sometimes, you know, you have to step softly in turn to keep from a man going too far. You have to always maintain your dignity. I said, "Well, I have always been Mrs. Washington." Because I've tried not to in any way make any inferences of anything that would cause that, which means that when it comes, I can very politely turn it around. And I think this is what you have to do. There's some peculiar ideas out there about Black women, and you have to dispel them how you can. Of course, they might not be as prevalent these days as they were in former times, but I think one can meet them. You just have to be ready for them when they come. But my experience has always been pleasant, always been pleasant. I've always been in [the union], and I want to say this: I stayed in it because it paid. They needed jobs done that I could do, and I stayed because of the pay. Not because-I was extremely interested in the union, but I was not an aggressive organizer type. I was just there because this was a place that I could be.
MP So the union-you did work for the union?
CW Oh, yes. Yes.
MP Now the other thing I wanted to ask you-and you may find this one difficult to respond to-I know that you are a very active person. You're interested in a lot of things, and you do a lot of speaking, and I wonder if you've thought about how you got involved in these kinds of things. Was there anything you could point to in your own background, your childhood experiences, that somehow you think influenced this kind of activity on your part?
CW Well, I'm not sure. As children, we were-one of the demands put on us was that we should know how to speak. We were not allowed to just go along and say anything we wanted to. My daddy was especially keen about me in some ways. And we had to learn things, and after we learned them, we had to speak them. How I came into it is-oh, I guess by osmosis. You do one thing, and then you find that someone else wants you to do another thing, and it just grows. Probably my first experiences at public speaking and all came through the YWCA or through the church. We have always been involved some way in the church, and I've always been able to say something. And I think it has just come as a natural outgrowth of association where I happen to be there at the right moment.
MP But you said, though, that you had-your father was very interested in your development, your educational development. Would you say you had a very close relationship with your father?
CW Yes, yes.
MP Was he involved in community activities?
CW Well, not really. Not really. He was a homebody, for the most part. He was a disabled veteran of the Spanish-American War. Not extremely disabled, but disabled. And, of course, he was a pensioner, and he did not work. So of course, he was very involved with us as children. And they wanted us to be the best we could be. I think this is the little problem I'm having with my grandchildren. They want to settle for second best, and I try-second best is fine. I have nothing against it, but I think even if you're second best, you ought to be trying, you know, to move on with it. And this was the thing. They were very proud of us when we did things that were commendable. They were very, very strict disciplinarians so when we did things that were not commendable, we got punished. I'm sure they would have been classed as child-abusers in this day and age, but I don't regret any of it because I believe it's the making of a person to know that there are parameters beyond which you cannot go.
End Side A; Tape 2

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