John Garman Oral History Interview, August 3, 1979

JL: All right. Where did you get the money to buy this photographic equipment and carry on these experiments.

JG: (Chuckle) We made lots of stuff and what we had left over from the pay we got wasn't a great amount. I started teaching here full time at $1,800.00 a year. That was the average starting pay in those days. We didn't have much to throw away. If we got a piece of equipment you can bet we used it a lot and a long time and got everything we could out of it.

JL: Was there a lot of support from your professors?

JG: No, not many people really know much about photography and a person isn't very

enthusiastic about it unless they do know quite a bit about it. You can see how that would go?

JL: Yes.

JG: No, but it was interesting to students and when we got had courses going, 00:01:00why we got plenty of students. I put in full time nearly all the time I was teaching here in photography when there wasn't enough photography to take keep me full time I taught some other physics courses. But, there was usually enough. We'd have from, oh, I'd say from 60 to 200 or more students in a year for a 3 credit course and we had and divided up we got different lines for different ones. Along towards the last 20 years or so here we had advanced courses in, oh, photomicrography and color photography of different kinds and, of course, in portraiture at some times when there were a few interested. 00:02:00There were never many interested in that. You got about two or three portrait photographers in a town and that's about all a town can support, you see?

JL: What aspects of photography do you enjoy?

JG: Well, I enjoy having taken pictures of people and things back over the years and I enjoy going through them. I keep lots of pictures out where I can see them.

Just because of that they remind me of things I've done that were interesting, and were fun to do. Yes, we used to fish in the Willamette here quite a lot. We'd take a little boat way up stream somewhere and put it in the water and spend the day drifting down and making some pictures of reflections of some big 00:03:00trees in the water or little falls or something in mixed with your business of fishing why it can just make life more interesting. I go out quite a few times, I used to, with people who were interested in fishing and fishing is all in the world they had any interest in and if you wanted to stop and look at something or look at a certain type of flower or try a picture of something they're just plain bored tell they're back fishing again. It's all they are interested in. I hope that I'd never get that way and I never have.

JL: (Chuckle) So you started your interest in photography in the military. So what type of camera was your first camera?

JG: Well, the first one I took pictures with I still have out here and before I 00:04:00used it my dad took pictures of me on it. There are pictures there are some old pictures of me somewhere when I was about four, I guess, about 1900 or 1901. A box about that big each way, you see.

JL: What is that about six inches, eight inches?

JG: Oh, seven, eight maybe. Yes, cameras were big and bulky in those days.

JL: What type was it or is it?

JG: What would you mean?

JL: What's the make?

JG: Oh, I don't know. Let's see what could it have been. It could have been one of Eastman's. It could have been a Burke and James, oh, it could have been any of quite a few makes that I don't think there's any one company has ever made only the best ones or that. Of course, some companies advertise more than 00:05:00others, but, I doubt that there's much to choose. You just try and get what you can.

JL: When you were writing helping with this magazine this engineering magazine did you take some of the photographs for the magazine?

JG: I don't believe so. I think we wrote and got some pictures to use from different places. I know we had pictures of some of the big power installations then that they sent us on at our request and such things. No, I when you're putting in full time as a student and putting in some additional time quite a little working to keep money coming in so you can stay in school 00:06:00you can't do everything you might want to.

JL: What were you where were you working or what were you doing?

JG: I worked in the electrical engineering department. I know more about what to do there than the other students that came in. They sat in high school and listened to such things as who was the general in the third company of the civil war on Friday and things like that. I didn't pay attention to much of that. I've never been greatly interested in all the little details of history. I've been more interested in what I could do to make a living.

JL: So what did you do in the electrical department, engineering department?

JG: I repaired and installed and built. We built quite a lot of equipment as we went along. Things we would be needing and, oh, yes plenty to do around a 00:07:00department with some departments of the school about the only lab work they have is a piece of chalk. You rub that off the blackboard and they are through. They haven't any laboratory equipment to take care of or keep an adjustment or make working. No, it's quite different in different places but in engineering, why, we aren't completely confined to blackboards and so many can't understand that. Well, what do you spend your time on that for? (Chuckle)

JL: What kind of traditions did the engineering students have when you were a student?

JG: Well, I think nearly all the students in the group at that time were interested in learning what they could and in doing a good job but I think that 00:08:00has changed to quite an extent now. I've seen an awful lot of students since then that were interested far more in getting by than anything else. It's...

JL: Well, did they have some kind of a clique or, you know, wear something that identified them as engineering students like other departments on campus had?

JG: No, I don't recall but we had as other departments do have we had various fraternities in the different organizations. I was one of the organizers here that got the chapter here of Eta Kappa Nu in electrical engineering and I was the first president of this chapter.

JL: Tell me about that. What kind of activities went on at Eta Kappa Nu?

JG: The idea was to get together the ones who seemed to show the most promise and seemed to be sincerely interested in electrical engineering. Not just here to put in 40 hours a year and get a degree as so many students are. We tried to get together the ones who were interested. We tried to get outside speakers to come in and talkers in different lines and the ideas of promoting and improving the general education of people in that field same as I organized I helped it was good time organizing when I was in school here. I was one of the organizers of Kappa Kappa Si here a fraternity of band people.

JL: Ohhh. Well, what kind of activity days did Eta Kappa Nu do?

JG: Well, as I mentioned we got together to promote engineering and to promote good work in it and...

JL: How did you do that?

JG: We, initiated the ones that seemed to be the promising students in the field which we thought would probably accomplish the most when they got out. All honor fraternities are run that way aren't they?

JL: Well, do you...

JG: Aren't there some in your line?

JL: Sure.

JG: Well, ours wouldn't be much different would they?

JL: What did you do during meetings. For example, did you just talk sit and talk or did you have...

JG: We brought speakers in.

JL: Bring speakers in...

JG: To speak on different lines. I got a fellow to come down once from the Portland, what did they call it then Portland Railway Light & Power Co. I think was the name then to talk about the job of the dispatcher there. Somebody has to keep track of all the generating equipment and transmission equipment and people that work for them and do repairs and things and get the right amount of power available at the right time. You see, at certain times of the day there isn't much power being used. If a, in the middle of the afternoon if a big storm blows in quickly and everything gets dark, well, you'd be surprised how many lamps come on and how much more power needs to be ready and they've got to have a man, the power dispatcher, in touch with everything in the plant to get things started up and warmed up and going in time to be of use 00:12:00and to get them shut down when the need drops off to prevent just unnecessary waste and that's a big job. He's come down and talk to us about it. I was interested in getting him because we had quite a few field trips around in practically in engineering when I was in the Benson Polytechnic High School. I was around to the dispatchers office then with a group. We sat and watched and listened for half an hour to all the different kinds of things he was doing and I never lost my interest in that. We got people down who knew the electrical railway business and the problems they are up against. What do you do when ice is collecting on the rails and you are trying to get cars up to Council Crest and so forth and how do you handle the snow problems and how do you handle the 00:13:00repair problem and how do you get crews together and out there quick when a half a train gets off the track and you've got to get people from everywhere to getting the line open. You see, there used to be lots of more trains than there are at the present. When I was a senior here there were ten passenger trains per day on this electric railway down sixth street.

JL: Is that right?

JG: Ten passenger trains a day through Corvallis and in different lines we went and got people that were in those lines and knew them to come and talk to us. There is nothing unusual about that. I think accountants with there in their accountant honorary fraternities get accountants to come talk to them. Nothing surprising there. People in agriculture get various agricultural experiment 00:14:00station people and successful farmers to talk to them about different things. That's just common practice.

JL: Well, as a student would you or your classmates carry on some project in the Corvallis area?

JG: Oh, not what you would call projects, no. We had our work to do we had things to learn and I've always been a little skeptical about these so called student research projects. From what I've seen of quite a few of them I think a student would much better remain in classes and getting the fundamentals and the basic understandings rather than branching out into research because three times out of four immediately he's up against something he doesn't know anything about. I think research can come later but the first thing they seem to be up 00:15:00against when they try to branch out into student research is just that we're meeting something we don't know anything about yet and I think they could well meet it later in most cases.

JL: So, you as a student none of your none of your co-students would go out and work on any projects around the community?

JG: Why, sure we did. We worked all summer when we could get a job and we liked to work in our own field when we could, of course.

JL: But no research projects connected with the college then?

JG: Well, a lot of it they call that, yes. No, I was never in on that stuff or cared much about it.

JL: What other courses did engineering students take when you were a student?

JG: The usual basic understandings of the things of some English and some history and some math and some physics and some chemistry and some steam power 00:16:00and some electrical power.

JL: And your elective was always photography?

JG: No, they won't let a person take more than a certain amount of elective material in any course. You can't just ditch required subjects and take a lot of electives. Yes, they tried that in the high school here. The students picked out their own courses. After awhile they found that surprising how the registration has gone up in the things that seem to look easy. No, it wasn't run that way. We had to take a well rounded specified courses to fit us for what we'd be doing later. It's, always been a crime, I think, to turn out someone who could do engineering and couldn't write up his articles on it afterward.

JL: Well, what how did you how were you able to take courses in photography then if you didn't have electives?

JG: I didn't say we didn't have electives. I said we couldn't take more than a certain amount of electives. Our courses specified certain required things we were to take that year and we had a certain number of electives. We could take in engineering and a certain number of general electives those were the way things were raised. I think they are pretty much the same now, but you don't get a degree in something unless you qualify in it and of the things you take are to some extent up to you.

JL: Well, what professors outside of electrical engineering stand out in your mind when you were a student? And why?

JG: Well, Dr. Atwood in botany I always remember he was a man who just lived 00:18:00botany. Everything that came up why it had to do with botany. He'd stop and talk a few minutes with you about it anytime you met him on the campus. Professor Copson in, oh, what was his field biology and so forth largely. There was another one I knew pretty well and liked to stop and talk to when I had a chance and, oh, I liked to wander around different places and talk to different ones. Often they were people busy doing things and the different departments now there seem to be so darn many people are all sitting at a desk.

JL: Did you find that people in other departments unrelated to your field enjoy photography also?

JG: Well, yes, sure photography is not confined to physics, at all. A very small part of it is in physics but the things that photography uses are to quite an extent physics and math and geometry. Those things are used. Photography uses a lot of complicated organic chemistry which you don't have to spend your life studying complicated organic chemistry in order to make use of it. The company that makes and processes, these various films does that hut they can arrange it so that we can use it hut we still like to know what's going on and 00:20:00why and as

I've talked to several of my students, graduate students, that want to put in, oh, just I want to take one or two basic courses here. Well, I tell them you'd better take considerably more than that and in other fields because if you go into photography which a number of them have you'll find things are changing mighty fast and they will continue to change mighty fast and if you haven't a good basic understanding in the various things that applied to it, you're going to be licked by the first few changes. And that's the way it goes.

JL: Was there some kind of organization on campus for students or staff interested in photography in those early days?

JG: Oh, I don't recall any. No, I don't but pretty soon they got together in 00:21:00groups and different lines and they'd make a lot of pictures and have showings and then, of course, finally they pulled out prizes and then lots of people get interested. Not so much interested in photography probably as in prizes but there's lots of that. They put up a lot of weird queer things and, of course, some of them you don't think amount to much unless you can see the name on them. When you can see that they were done by a great person then they are great. But, I never fell for much of that.

JL: I still don't I don't understand and I asked this earlier what is it that interests you about photography? What is it? Can you do something specific 00:22:00or is it all aspects?

JG: Well, I see photography as a very useful tool to lots of people in different endeavors and it's been very useful to me and it's still a very important hobby to me and it is to lots of other people. There it covers so many things, of course, that nobody is interested especially in everything about it. You'll find various books and magazines here devoted to various lines. The biologists make an awful lot of very useful pictures of microscopic cells and parts of 00:23:00cells and so forth and the botanists their publications are illustrated with many nice pictures of plants and there various parts and structures and the smaller fundamental parts of them but almost every line I know of makes a lot of use of it. That's why I've been interested in it because while I ran the photo service department I was making pictures in many different lines for many different people. You see, it's a question whether you can teach enough botany to a photographer so that a botany department can get what they want from the photography department or whether you need to teach enough photography to the botanist so the botanist can make what he really wants and be able to tell 00:24:00whether he has a good job or not. See there is no single answer to any of those things. Lots...

JL: How did you build up a reputation as a photographer in those early days in the early 20's?

JG: Built up what?

JL: A reputation as a photographer?

JG: Oh, I don't know that I did. I when I got photo service working here so we were doing pictures for various departments, why, stuff came in. People who had brought us work to do before, why, when they had more to do they brought it in. Of course, as time went on and equipment got more plentiful and money for equipment got more plentiful and better equipment was available lots of people did more of their photography in their own departments.

JL: Well, now before we get to the photo service I wanted to ask when you were a student what kind of extracurricular activities would you do?

JG: I liked to hike. Ed, see, Luckley was one of the main journalists on the Portland journal, Ed Luckley, and his son Lawrence was in school here when I was and we used to do lots of hiking. I think we have slept on top of all the hills you can see out here from the campus at one time or another.

JL: Is that...

JG: We used to ride bicycles over to Marys Peak and then climb it. There were 00:26:00no roads. These other hills out here were closer and we'd hike right out here from town but I liked to hike and climb hills and that, yes, I've gone to picture shows we used to go to quite a few picture shows.

JL: Tell me about you mentioned when I first met you about a hike you took on Marys Peak and someone you met there. Can you tell me again about that?

JG: A hike on Marys Peak. Well, how far could you hike on Marys Peak? It's pretty small on top.

JL: Tell me about the experience you had when you met Peavy. George Peavy. Do you remember?

JG: Well, I was on several of us were on our way over to and up the peak. We'd left our bicycles down, oh, around Noon Station on the railway over there and were hiking onto and up the side of the peak and we just about got started up in some open stand of timber along a trail and we met several fellows come down off 00:27:00the peak. That was late afternoon we were hiking up to stay overnight so we weren't worried about being afternoon but they were coming back. They'd been up the peak this night and they were forestry students. Of course, they needed and got plenty of outdoor experience and we stopped and talking to them when this fellow came by coming down from the peak. He was I just noticed him he was a fellow worth noticing. He was quite an impressive figure and the way he was dressed and the way he hiked along carrying a big pack and that and the way he just addressed us with a few words and a wave as he went by, why, I was quite impressed with him and I asked the others there if do you happen to know who that is? "Why that's Dean Peavy!" (Chuckle) They were surprised. 00:28:00They were almost insulted (Chuckle) that I didn't know Dean Peavy but that was the first fall I was here as a student and I didn't know him yet.

JL: Was it you mean the forestry students were against that you didn't know?

JG: Yes, they just acted as if why everyone should know Dean Peavy that's the idea you got from them. (Chuckle) Of course, they all knew him well.

JL: It was a tradition in forestry to wear a red tie on Wednesdays. Did the electrical or did yes did the electrical engineering have any such traditions?

JG: Not that I know of. The seniors had a senior hat with a flat rim much like the original military campaign hat with a flat rim and all. The seniors wore those. Juniors wore corduroy trousers and the seniors wore dirtier ones. More 00:29:00well worn, of course, freshman had their green hats. But, I think Peavy always wore a red neck tie. As I recall it. I've seen him various places on various occasions but he, I think, he always had a red necktie. (Chuckle)

JL: Isn't that something. What activities did you do with girl friends on dates?

JG: Well, we've sometimes half a dozen of us we'd just hike out across the bridge and on out into open country there a ways and find a spot where we could build a fire and roast some marshmallows and sit around and talk and even then I experimented in making flash pictures by setting up a camera and aiming it toward the fire and the group of people and then I'd go and sit down there in my spot and pick up and toss into the fire some flash powder wrapped up in paper 00:30:00and there would be a "pooof!" and everybody was lighted by the flash (chuckle) and even then we had fun in experimenting in different things.

JL: Did it work?

JG: Yes! Often, Yes, it was custom. Quite interesting shots. (Chuckle)

JL: Where would you meet these girls?

JG: Oh, usually go around to their sorority and ask them, I remember calling from one girl up there at the practice house one time and I wanted to see if she'd go out that evening and so I went by there in the afternoon and I just ran up and rang the front doorbell and the lady housekeeper there came and, no, she isn't in but I'll tell her you came by and later the girl asked her, well, who was it? "Well, I don't know but I think he was a senior. He had corduroy trousers and they were dirty. So that was traditional then. You didn't...

JL: How would a student how would a woman student be regarded in electrical engineering if she had been in there. I understand some professors felt women didn't belong in the sciences.

JGL Well, they can do their own thinking along those lines but I don't think anyone I knew and considered levelheaded was paid any attention to whether they were girls or whether they were boys.

JL: Hmmm. That's good.

JG: No, I think a lot of that stuff has come up because some people like publicity and want to be quoted here and there. I think this and I think that but that kind of people we kind of stayed away from. I was never much interested in them. Going back to photography again you had mentioned to me.(Phone rings) Ohh...

JL: Oh, I was asking before the phone rang you mentioned the first time I met 00:32:00you about going out with J.B. Horner and taking photographs. Can you tell me something about that?

JG: Well, only that he was interested in the history of the different areas of the country and he wanted to find out what he could about the different Indian tribes and how they lived. The various tribes were quite different. The ones along the coast there life style and what they did and ate and what they lived in was very different than the ones inland and the ones up in the mountains were pretty different again.

JL: Yes. And then.

JG: So those things were all of interest to him and he sort of haunted all of the old very old graveyards where a number of the Indians were buried and there, 00:33:00yes, you can get quite a lot of ancient history from gravestones and the Fort Hoskins area out there was an interesting one, I know. We'd been out there a number of times. He was looking at remains of old buildings, and talking to the different people there who had lived there a long time what they remembered. Some of them were quite conversant with the Indians when they were still little kids, and they remembered quite a lot of things and...

JL: Would he write notes down while he was talking with these people?

JG: I never saw him writing a note while he was talking to people, no. No, I don't think he did. I think he came back and sat down and remembered it. I'd have had trouble doing that but some people are better at that than others, and 00:34:00I never saw him write down notes while he was talking to someone. He did often arrange to get them to come in and see him when they could. Yes, he lived there where the city library is now, big white house, and on the second floor he had a nice airy roomy room there where he had his desk and a places for visitors and I think he took down quite a lot of information while talking to them there but I that was before the days of recorders, too, so that would have been a big help in those days.

JL: Well, how was it that you were along with him?

JG: To take pictures. As we got a photo service department so called going 00:35:00here why we took pictures for people. That didn't always mean just sit here and photograph things that they brought in to lay on your desk. That would be a very small part of it. Gee, I've been on lots of trips around. I like to go over to Lecomb especially where the some of the of etymology people were running tests on the strawberry plants on the different pests because after you've made photographs showing the results of different kinds of treatments and the lack of, different kinds of different treatments then usually there was a row of ripe berries you could fill up on before you came home. (Chuckle) Such things.

JL: Well, when approximately when was it that you went out with J.R. Horner to photograph for him?

JG: Oh, in the early '20's I'd say. '21, '22, '23, '24, '25. Along in those 00:36:00years mainly.

JL: So he wanted you to come out and photograph what he was doing then?

JG: Well, he had me make pictures of various things that he went out to see. Old dilapidated buildings, yes. Remains of, well, sometimes you could hardly tell whether there had hardly been a building but there be enough disturbance and a, oh, rotted off post that maybe only stuck this far above the ground and a couple rows of them which outlined an area that had been an enclosure maybe a barn maybe a house maybe a sort of a fort. Such things.

JL: What did he what was he planning to do with his photographs?

JG: Illustrate articles on history of the area? Yes, he's written quite a few books. You'll find in the library, I suppose.

JL: I understand that he excavated Calapooia Mounds. Were you there during these excavations?

JG: I was never there during that. I've been over there a few times when they were working and they'd, oh, they'd divide this area up into maybe six foot squares by running, oh, big heavy brown binder twine on stakes this way and then across the other way, you know, and then they'd number all those different squares and then they'd shovel up and shovel dirt up into onto screens and shake it through, you know, to save the things done to a certain size that just wouldn't quite go through the screen and pick them all over and pick out what seemed to be relics and mark them then as to just where they came from and just how deep they were and I got we got pictures of people doing the digging and 00:38:00doing the screening and doing the picking over and all those things.

JL: Who were these people?

JG: Well, there were often students went out students in anthropology were that was an extracurricular activity for lots of those so sometimes people in the area helped and just now when they find a big new type of dinosaur somewhere somebody rounds up all the people interested in digging up dinosaur fossils and they go out and work on it, and when he got wind of something of seemed to be important why he'd get a few people to go along and help work on it and he'd go out later to see how they are progressing and I don't know the finances of it or 00:39:00how it was handled but I wasn't interested in that part of it.

JL: Some people felt that J.B. Horner didn't have the training to do these excavations.

JG: Well, you don't need much training. How much training do you have to have to handle a shovel and a pick? Would you have to take a course somewhere?

JL: I think so for some of that kind of excavating.

JG: Well, most anybody can make a shovel work and when it comes to being careful there they will tell them if you seem to strike something unusual stop and pull it away carefully and see what it is without trying to chop your way through it but I don't think that takes courses.

JL: Was he very careful about what he did.

JG: Oh, I don't know I never watched him excavate anything. I don't know 00:40:00whether he ever did or not but at least he had it done and did the writing up. I know he did that part of it.

JL: Someone I heard call him a great storyteller and that he sometimes some of the things were not quite accurate that he told.

JG: Well, that could be too.

JL: You didn't get that impression then?

JG: But, I doubt that he'd put lies in a book of history. I don't think he was that kind of a man, no.

JL: Someone said that you might know about the inscription he'd make on rocks. Inscriptions he'd make on rocks.

JG: No, I never saw him make inscriptions on rocks. That's a job for a good 00:41:00hard chisel and hammer and whether he handled those tools I don't know. I never saw him. No, I don't know what of those things he did. You see it's one thing to find and dig up and prepare fossils and relics and it's another quite different thing to write about them. Some people do both. But, I know he did the writing about as to what else he did as to the actual digging up and that and preparing I don't know, I never was with him when he was doing such but others would know about those things. You'd find...

JL: You mentioned...

JG: You'd find out much, more about that if you'd get a look at some of his books.

JL: I've seen them, yes. You mentioned one time, the last let's, see the first time I met you about Chintimini, something about that.

JG: Yes, it's it was pretty common knowledge then back in the twenties that he made up that word and he'd admitted it to various people. I never asked him about it myself but, I know, oh, probably five or six years ago we had a speaker on the early people in this area over at a Triad Club meeting and they'd mentioned that that he just what I had mentioned to you, I think, that he had made up that word Chintimini because they said he never told anybody what tribe that came from or what language and that he had admitted to them, at least, that he had made it up just as his own joke and it sounds like him.

JL: He made up a lot of things as a joke, yes?

JG: That. I don't say a lot of things and I'll still I'll repeat that I do not believe he would put lies in books. Some people might think he did but I doubt it. I know I showed her one of his books one time and she just read a few pages and laughed and laid it down and she said, "She couldn't take that stuff."

JL: This was your mother?

JG: Yes. So, I don't know what it was she read but there were things she knew about history too, she was considerably older than he was and about the area and some things she didn't believe. So, he may have used his imagination but I haven't read his books and I don't know.

JL: What would he do with these artifacts he'd find in the Calapooia Mounds?

JG: Oh, I don't know. They might belong to local people. They might go in 00:44:00museums here and there and different areas, different counties have museums and different cities.

JL: You don't know for sure?

JG: I don't know where things might have gone.

JL: Can you tell me was this over a period of years that you took photographs for him?

JG: Yes, off and on in different years. I don't know just how long but he was there and once in a while he'd call me and wanted me to go out somewhere with him and I went as much for the trip as anything.

JL: Well, now you mentioned Fort Hoskins. You took some pictures of Fort Hoskins?

JG: I took some pictures around there, yes.

JL: And the Calapooia Mounds?

JG: I don't know if I ever got to a mound or not but at least we got there was 00:45:00flat country there that they'd had all marked off and gridded as they call it and were digging where apparently there had been camps Indians had camped and, of course, they dropped things they were through with and lost and broken and they got buried then.

JL: Where was this that this grid pattern was?

JG: Well, that was in the upper Calapooia River area. I don't know just where. The roads are quite different now than they were then. More of them.

JL: Where else did you go to take photographs with J.B. Horner?

JG: I just don't recall definite places but sometimes it would only be half an 00:46:00hour from here and I photographed various crude implements that he brought in and just brought over and I photographed them there in my lab where I had the needed lighting and so forth.

JL: Well, what kind of implements?

JG: Well, there were stone tools and there were I know there were bone needles and scrapers and things. I think he had once a from some of the coast Indians he had quite an interesting tool. It had been a file, a big flat file you can see the little ground marks in it yet and yet it had been curved and a wooden handle fastened to it and it had been curved around and sharpened so you could 00:47:00use it as a kind of a chopping tool and as he said they used that to dig out the inside of their dugouts when they made a canoe, out of a tree, you know, those but, things, apparently some were pretty skillful at making good tools. But, that's about the only things I remember of it. We found better ones up north there in the Ethan Allan collection area. Oh, I wanted to get and show you if I can get out of here...

JL: What kind of a man is J.B. Horner personally on a one to one basis? Was he?

JG: Well, he's very lively and very ambitious and very fast moving and fast 00:48:00talking. I'd put it in that way. He's energetic. Very. One story goes around. I don't know I suppose it's true. It could be all right. Hugendorff who used to lay concrete sidewalks in this town and he did a lot of them and he laid a sidewalk in front of us up there on King's Road and Harrison back, oh, gee, back in the in the 1920's and, hmmm, at that time I pointed out to him that he had an automobile there an old wreck with some of his equipment in it he was hauling around to his jobs and I pointed out, "Your car is old enough to vote now. It's 21 years old." I told him and he got a laugh out of it. (Chuckle) But the that story was he laid a section of sidewalk 00:49:00a nice cement, you know, and had finished it and smoothed it all up and troweled it off and was just about through and here came J.B. Horner with a big dog and they pushed his barrier out of the way and plowed right through that cement and walked on and some fellow was standing there talking to Hugendorff and Hugendorff grabbed the board and tried to hit the dog with it he missed him and the fellow says, "Well, why didn't he hit the man." He said, "Well, he's a prop that dog ought to know better." (Chuckle It could well be true. I think Horner would have done it if he was thinking about something. Some relic or something. He wouldn't have noticed where he was walking.

JL: Is he was he absent minded?

JG: Well, I couldn't say I wasn't with him enough but he was very energetic.

JL: You never had him as a professor, yourself?

JG: No, I never had a course from him.

JL: He does sound like a character. I wanted to ask how did the photo service ever get started? You were a photographer as a student and then afterwards you came back as a professor and what happened?

JG: I took two or three courses here my graduate year here when I was on half time in electrical engineering. I think I. took, a three credit course each, term in photography because I was interested in it and R..W, Uphoff U P H O F F taught the photography. He left here shortly after that and I sort of stepped into his place.

JL: Now he was a full time photographer?

JG: No, he was a professor.

JL: Of photography?

JG: Of physics. Physics department.

JL: Oh, but he taught photography of physics? What type of photography would that be called.

JG: Well, what I took was beginning photography naturally because I'd had no previous work in photography.

JL: And this is when you learned how to develop your own film? Or what did you learn?

JG: Oh, I'd done a lot of those things on the side by myself without any instruction before but under him there I got some instruction in different types of lenses and using different types of lenses for different types of purposes and the different of films on the market and their specialties what they were good for and what they were not especially good for and filters and cameras and equipment and processing methods all those things. Yes, we covered lots of 00:52:00those things. They were good courses. He was good but he'd started to get some experience himself just as I did later. He'd started making some pictures for the department and for different departments near around him as he knew them and talked to them and to say

I wish I had a good picture of this and he'd say, "Well, let me try it" and he'd try it and...

JL: You mean something caught like something in a microscope or something else?

JG: Something that wasn't just plain straight pictures of groups of people outdoors. Yes. And that's the way he got started and he got a few people to bring things in for him to work on and so when I got into it I did the same thing and carried it on.

JL: This is what you taught in physics then?

JG: Yes. Yes, I didn't have, of course, enough students, at the start there to 00:53:00put in full time teaching then so I taught other physics courses but later, why I had all the students I could handle and for most years I had one or two or three people helping me.

JL: What other physics courses did you teach?

JG: Well, I taught some mechanics and electricity and optics and sound just the usual general physics courses.

JL: So, in the early so when did Dr. Uphoff leave?

JG: Oh, it must have been around 1923 or '04 I think was the last he was here.

JL: And so you moved into his position?

JG: Yes.

JL: And how did the concept of the photo service get started?

JG: Well, it just sort of grew up. As I've said there was a chance to get some good experience in trying to do some different things for various departments. Different people need different things as to pictures. People that raise and care for horses want pictures of animals posed so that they look good you see and such things and appropriate backgrounds and a lot of things and people that raise wheat they want certain pictures that they need. There somewhat different it isn't just that a person who can make a photograph cant just do anything.

JL: Who paid for these projects?

JG: Well, at the start we did them. We just did them as extracurricular activity and charged the various ones for the cost of the materials we used but when it got to where we couldn't run it all and still handle our regular full time work, why, we had to hire people that were that we could find here and there and often a student would come in that could do a pretty good on enlarging or printing and you put him to work at it in his spare time. That was good for him and that meant that we could do other things then, of course, we had to commence collecting enough to pay them for what they did but that the way it started it just started from nothing and gradually built up.

JL: Now, when you speak of we who are you talking about?

JG: The department.

JL: Who did that consist of? Which individuals?

JG: Well, Dr. Winegar, Dr Anderson and then Dr. Winegar were heads of the department one time or another. Ed Yonger and I were teaching in physics at the same time along in the early '20's and on into the '30's and that and he put in quite a little time in photography also we went down evenings and worked on things. That was fun as much as anything. When radio commenced to come into use why I know we spent quite a little time building radio sets of different types to try to make them work and when we lived on Kings Road and Harrison 00:57:00there we had a good big basement and we set up quite a little shop in there and we used to work there evenings quite a lot on electrical work of various kinds of radio largely and some of the neighbors got to wondering what all is going on in that place in the evenings. Are they moon shining or what and all questions went around at which we laughed. (Chuckle) No, we were really working on things we're not making moonshine.

JL: Were you working at all with some of the local photographers like Ball Studio or...

JG: No. No, we didn't work with them. In fact back in those days they thought that we shouldn't be allowed to make pictures that weren't belonged to 00:58:00them. They are commercial photographers. They couldn't have done a tenth of it. They didn't know how. They can make portraits and pictures of groups of people. Back in those days that was about the size of it. Yes, they could have charged big money for doing something they didn't understand very well but they were good business people and they'd built up businesses. Sure. I was never interested in a business of any kind.

JL: I understand that Mr. Ball was one of the first people that used a panoramic camera in this area.

JG: Oh, I don't know. He wasn't running the first ones I saw used on the campus. There were various commercial photography companies who, well, there 00:59:00was, I think, there was an outfit in Portland that had a panorama camera. In fact he used to come down here once-in-awhile and make pictures of the student body. I doubt that he was first at all. In fact, I don't even know of him using them later.

JL: Who are some of the photographers in town that you admired?

JG: R.M. Howells and his studio were the first one I was in contact with and he had, I think, he had one eye and one hand all bandaged up when I first saw him taking the pictures. You know, they used to get the various groups used to 01:00:00meet in the Forestry Building. That was about the biggest space there was on the campus in those days for a group. That's where we had the graduation ceremonies and everything and I remember him photographing a group I don't know what they were but it was a group, oh, 20 or 30 or more people over there and he was all bandaged up. He had photographed a previous group not long before that and the trouble was that in those days you bought flash powder something like gunpowder in a bottle and you had a long metal trough here kind of shaped up metal trough and you poured powder along in that and then you had something like an ordinary cap gun cap went in there and a little arm hammer set on it and then that was on a handle and you held it up here and pulled down on a ring and a 01:01:00little hammer went up and popped that little cap pistol cap and that set the powder off. So you had a cable for your camera and you pushed on the shutter release to open the shutter and then you held that up and fired it and then you let the shutter close and they had another picture to take and, of course, you poured more powder in that trough and he was a little to quick. The trough was still hot and when he poured powder in it, why, the powder went off and blew off the bottle and hurt his hand and damaged one eye. That was my first experience with him. That was the first I saw of him. He was all bandaged up. (Chuckle)

JL: Oh, no.

JG: Yes, that was something.

JL: But you admired him as a photographer?

JG: Yes, he did good jobs. Did nice work. Yes, there were just the two of them, I think. Ball and Howell at that time. Others have come and go.

JL: But, they were primarily portrait photographers.

JG: Yes. Yes, they occasionally then went out and took pictures of groups of people. There is money in that group business then. That's why they all get into that when they could and it didn't require any very special equipment. That outfit to shoot the flash powder in flashguns they called it was about the only thing you had to buy or make. We made them too.

JL: How did you make that? Gunpowder stuff.

JG: Well, you just bend up a piece of sheet metal into a sort of trough that you could pour it in. You didn't put it in one spot. You put it generally in a long line because the bigger the source of your light the less sharp the shadows 01:03:00were and the more pleasing the photographic effects generally. Yes, sometimes, oh, goodness I've done other ways I know. My fraternity down on when we were down on north 9th I ruined one of our plates one time. I poured flash powder on the plate and then I had a piece of fuse about that long I'd saved from a fire cracker.

JL: About six inches long.

JG: Yes, from we got firecrackers in bunches, you know, with strings here. When you unwound the bunch and unleafed them, why, you had the long fuse that went through the bunch and sometimes it was that long and more and I so I poured powder on that plate, and put the fuse buried one end and let the other end hang over the edge of the plate and then when we're all ready why I light a match and 01:04:00then I got the shutter all ready and when I opened the shutter then I lit the end of the fuse and then held the plate up overhead and I got a good picture all right of some of the gang but it spoiled the enamel and the porcelain surface of the plate, made it all rough so that ruined the plate. (Chuckle)

JL: Oh, no.

JG: But it, oh, yes, experimenting is a lot of fun.

JL: How did you know the local photographers disapproved of your activities?

JG: They said so, loudly. They didn't want me to teach photography and they didn't want me to make pictures on the campus. That was... They could do it much more expensively. Yes, and they did. (Pause) No, they just, well, yes the photographers here at one time tried to get a bill through the legislature 01:05:00to make it illegal for anyone except a licensed photographer to take pictures of a, well, of most anything as I could make it out except amateur snapshots. Well, the legislature decided that as photography was not a hazard to the health of the general public, why, they wouldn't pass such a bill. I was disgusted with that. Yes, they wanted to sew it up so just licensed photographers could take pictures for people. Well, wouldn't that be nice if there is just a few licensed photographers and you won't let anyone else get a license then you can charge anything you darn please.

JL: Sounds like it would almost stifle research, in photography.

JG: Humph, well little research is done around town. It wouldn't have mattered 01:06:00much there but...

JL: Well, I mean if you had to have a license to practice photography you couldn't do your experiments.

JG: I don't think they would have interfered with experimenting in research but they wanted to interfere with taking pictures for money because they wanted the money. Yes, it's surprising to what length people will go sometimes.

JL: Did you ever retain the negatives for projects like J.B. Horner's photos?

JG: No, I didn't file other peoples negatives. As I took the pictures I sent them their negatives. I got in on that right at the start when people would accuse me of losing their negatives and so forth and I'll tell them I never kept them. You picked them up right along with the prints. No, I never filed other peoples negatives.

JL: Where was the photo service first housed in 1923?

JG: Apperson Hall had most of the first floor there.

JL: Wow. So it was a bonafide photo service for the O.A.C. campus in 1923?

JG: Yes, we started it out about then.

JL: That's an awful long time in existence.

JG: Well, it's just I don't know what heading it's under now up there but it's been run under a different heading. I think it's tied up with the, oh, the film and movie camera service and things.

JL: I.R.A.M.. .. .

JG: Over there in the union building in the Coliseum, I think, you'll find 01:08:00that there those people have charge of it really. It's still their labs are still over there where they were in the in part of the physics department but they aren't part of physics anymore.

JL: What feelings did you have towards the U. of O. when you were a student?

JG: What what?

JL: What feelings? What was the relationship?

JG: Well, as far as we're concerned it's another school and things were going on there. In physics we were down there to meetings and they were down here to meetings. We had this Willamette Valley physics Teacher's Association that met in Portland and Salem and here and in Eugene, different places. It was just that but in athletics why that's where the competition and that stuff was. It 01:09:00was competition between athletes and I had an uncle down there at that time and teaching, oh, some wrestling and boxing largely and, of course, they were interested in competition. That was what they want. As far as science went we weren't interested in competition, but we worked together on things.

JL: Is that right? There was no animosity at all then?

JG: No, that was mostly in athletics. Still is, I guess.

JL: I know during the period of the unification program in the late 20's and early 30's there were a lot of animosity in other departments. Was this the 01:10:00case in physics?

JG: Not that I know of but it came so near going through, I think at that time people were wondering, well, who is going to run the combined physics department. (Chuckle) Some here wanted to run it some down there wanted to run it. Luckily that didn't come about and we never were combined on one campus. But, at that time we it was just a question whether two schools weren't too much for the state to afford to run. I think that was the main question at that time and, of course, each school wanted the other to become their servants. Both schools want that, of course. We want to dominate. So it is probably just as well it didn't go through but it would have led to probably a lot of animosity. No, there was lots of stuff in the papers. The two editors of the 01:11:00Emerald down there and The Gazette Times here fought back and forth quite a lot. They accused each other of all kinds of things and they used to write to and about each other. Bill Tugwell was the editor down there and, of course, Claude Engells was here so when Tugwell wrote something about the editor here, razzing him, he called him Claudius so when he wrote about him down there he got to calling him Billius. (Chuckle) Claudius and Billius wrote back and forth accusing each other of trying to ruin the others school and so forth. Oh, those editorials in those days are worth looking up. They'd be good. 01:12:00(Chuckle) Yes we had...

JL: But nothing, there was no outward feeling bad feeling towards the U. of O. in your department?

JG: NO, NO, that was, that's always been in athletics.

JL: What did you observe as Dr. Kerr's part in it as a professor?

JG: Well, I cant do much observing of a college president, you know. I'm in one little isolated department and I don't see him very often. No, I haven't much to do with school presidents any more than I have with the present one. I meet him occasionally for a word or two and, of course, that's about all but we're in separate fields.

JL: So what then you what feeling do you remember was in your department when 01:13:00there was no president in 1932 to '34.

JG: I don't think it made much difference to the department. We had our job to do and we kept on doing it. We were busy and we worked busy and plenty long hours on our work and we kept our nose out of most other things. There seems to be lots of people around who do mostly gossip and talk and I never was interested in those. No, we had very little to do with that stuff.

JL: So nothing changed when Dean Peavy came to be president then?

JG: No, I don't think he brought any especially big changes in. Somebody has to run the works and that was his job but I don't I kept out of politics pretty 01:14:00well. I've never been much of a politician and I never dug into it much. I was never one to take sides and carry banners and make up slogans. I'll leave that to the other fellow. I think it's a waste of time in most cases anyway but we wasn't interested in that. If a person is doing a good and honest job on their daily work which is supposed to be full time they haven't time for an awful lot of other stuff. Of course, there are plenty of positions in which full time is just practically play and they have plenty of time for such stuff, but I've never been in those kinds of jobs. I never wanted to.

JL: What effect did the depression have on campus? Could you see?

JG: We took a complete across the board 27% pay reduction, I know at one time. Everyone.

JL: How did the professors think about that?

JG: Near as we could see it was necessary. I never heard anyone complain. Now, they'd get out and shout and carry banners and yell on the radio and everything But, I didn't see any of that. No, that was done by the politicians. The yelling and shouting and complaining.

JL: What other changes did you see?

JG: Well, campus walks roads were finally paved. There weren't any pavement on the campus when I came here.

JL: During the depression years?

JF: I didn't come here during the depression years.

JL: Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe you misunderstood my question. What changes came about during the depression?

JG: Well, some people were let go. A student body, I think, decreased some in size I don't have the figures on that but they're a matter of record. You can get that easily enough.

JL: You noticed that in your department?

JG: I don't know. I just don't know as to that. Occasionally somebody came a new one. Occasionally someone left. Went to another job somewhere. But, I can't say what was based on the depression what wasn't. We couldn't get the student body figures from records from the business office. They will have all that and that, of course, determines the size of the teaching staff and the number of assistants they can hire and so forth. You see the teaching staff is 01:17:00kind of flexible in that they can pretty well keep a certain number of professors and assistant professors and associate professors on a regularly and if the load gets still heavier they hire more graduate assistants and when the load gets lighter again, why, they can get rid of some of those. They aren't permanent parts of the department. So that takes account of most of the coming and going so they don't have to just hire and fire like a factory would that's turning out certain things and when they can sell less they have to make less and they've got to fire a certain number of people. It isn't quite that here.

JL: Was their funds still for the photo service on campus during the depression years?

JG: Well, most every campus every department had funds to run it's department and they spent it as they saw fit. If they needed photographs of something 01:18:00they bought photographs of something. I don't know about their books whether they cut it down or increased it up. I didn't run that end of things. I made pictures. I liked to make pictures and I did. As to who did the bookkeeping on that that was someone else's job and actually a department can do less in a lot of ways but has less money. It might get less illustrations made to file it might get less made to illustrate articles but...

JL: It didn't affect you very much then in the photo service?

JG: No. The few that are engaged in research needed certain pictures and they got them.

JL: Yes, now by this time you had gotten married in 1925? Is that correct?

JG: Yes.

JL: How did you meet your wife?

JG: I don't recall. It was at some meeting, I think. I just don't recall. I think we were both at some meeting. It might have been a church meeting and it might not. There were various talks and parties and picnics and things and chances are we met at some parties somewhere but I don't recall. She might.

JL: She was in home economics. Is that correct?

JG: Yes, she had taken home economics. She had a sister and a brother here at that time and she finally quit and went to work in the Benton County State Bank 01:20:00as a bookkeeper to help get them on through school. So she didn't get to finish up. But, they went ahead and finished up. Her brother was my student at one time in photography. He took electrical engineering and went to the telephone company in San Francisco and put in his whole life there and retired from the finance department.

JL: What was her maiden name?

JG: Goff. Florence Goff. There are two or three other Goff families here. Robie Goff taught in high school but he wasn't a relative. He's retired.

JL: How many children do you have?

JG: Three. Two girls and a boy.

JL: And there names are?

JG: Shirley was our oldest daughter. She was born in about '26. Lou Ann was born about '37 and Bruce was born around '45.

JL: You mentioned last time that during World War II there were people you called 'watchers". Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

JG: Yes, they were up on rooftops in relays all the time. All around through the 24 hours watching for planes and spotting them and calling in on the phone. What they saw they had many pictures of these silhouettes, as they would see 01:22:00them of different types of planes and they'd report in at this time a certain plane of this type is has passed a certain distance from here and is headed in a certain direction and that all went to the ones who keeping track of it and the military. They didn't want a string of bombers to come in here and commence unloading without them knowing it, you see?

JL: Who were these "watchers"?

JG: Anyone who would volunteer to put in their six or eight hours or whatever time they could afford. I think the night people put in four-hour stretches. Yes the on top of physics building there was a shed up there. Some shelter so they could be out of the rain and they had their binoculars and telephone and whatever was necessary. Chance to keep their records. There was, I think, 01:23:00there was more than one set up on the campus, too, for them. But, they were all over the state altogether.

JL: That's interesting.

JG: Yes, that was one of the volunteer jobs that was handled pretty well. Of course, as soon as they were phoned in the trackers that were on the job have decided whether they are a military plane on a certain mission or a commercial plane on a certain flight or something that had better be looked into and whatever it was why they took care of that. But, there job was to spot them and report them.

JL: How was the physics department affected by World War II?

JG: We had a lot of teaching to do because lots of soldiers were sent in here 01:24:00for basic training and they were they mostly got some courses in physics in mechanics and ballistics. The ballistics of misses and so forth and we were mighty busy. We called in teachers from various departments. I remember W. J. Gilmore who was an ag man specializing in irrigation. He came over and taught these basic physics courses. Dr. Atwood from botany came in and as I was talking to him about a year after that finished he said that first year he lost about 20 pounds. He wasn't a heavy man either but he had to study and work mighty hard to put on a good job in physics which was way out of his line but...

JL: My god, did you have any of these soldiers?

JG: Yes, lots of them.

JL: What did you teach them?

JG: Just what all the others had to teach them. The basic things of mechanics and forces and velocities and something of light and sound and whatever they would be likely to need. You see the military has a lot of equipment to operate and to just simply train a person to follow a certain sequence of button pushing is not very satisfactory. If any troubles come up or they have anything special to do it's nice that they know a little more about then that.

JL: What happened to the photo service during World War II?

JG: Why, it worked right along on what there was to do. They didn't close up the campus because of the war. Work went on in many lines. Lots of research jobs came here I expect that were based on the war. I don't know but...

JL: You didn't work on any then?

JG: Well, I wasn't on research no. But many departments had things to work out. I know in mechanical engineering they were quite interested in helicopters which were getting designed and tried out in those days and they had one man there named Smith who was a very good mathematician and he worked on design of those big long rotor blades. They were breaking and falling off at odd times and making troubles and they needed to know what the various stresses were in different parts of them and why and he finally went to went from here to Boeing to continue the work up there because it's important that helicopters don't just crash all at once. There is other kinds of air equipment but he was one 01:27:00of the engineers here at that time in mechanical engineering and the different ones civil engineers all the others had things to do with the war. I think the universities had a lot to do with getting the war effort going and well handled.

JL: I can imagine that photography was very important also.

JG: Yes, aerial photography was becoming important at that time. I know they had an aerial mapping unit stationed out at our airport out south of Corvallis, at Corvallis Airport, and I had a bunch of those fellows in. They were mappers and, of course, knew the training of holding the camera and pointing it 01:28:00and shooting the pictures but they didn't have much photographic theory or understanding and I put on some courses for them. But it that was odd because we'd meet here, of course, they were busy through the day. They finished their day about 4:30. They started early and then I had them come in the evening and I put on courses in the evening for them and they'd come here and I'd look over the room and wonder, well, where's this fellow and this fellow. "Oh, they're in Florida tonight." They were an awful lot of special missions to fly and special reasons for trips and that and so they are liable to be anywhere in the world, you know, just tomorrow. (Chuckle) I could hardly get used to that. Oh, they'll be back tomorrow or next day. (Chuckle) Such things. So we had a good time.

JL: What kind of men were they that you taught?

JG: Darn good people. Darn good people. Specialists in flying they were aviators.

JL: Most of them were?

JG: They were a darn good bunch. You bet. Most of them were officers. I had some sergeants, I think, but they were mostly, oh, lieutenants, captains, majors. But, they, I think, I was able to do them some good. We hoped so that's why we laid things out as to what they ought to be taught and...

JL: Most of them were mature then?

JG: Yes. Yes, they weren't just beginning kids.

JL: That was a difference from before the war then?

JG: Well, before the war we had it was mainly the students here that were taking courses of student age, 18 to 22 or 3, you see. But these people had been aerial men and mappers for a long time. Yes, we went over things of use to 01:30:00them. That little picture on top there...

JL: Of the aerial view of the campus?

JG: No, the other long slim one. The one from Marys Peak. That, for instance, is taken by infrared. Now, you can see the effect there. The green trees are white and the atmosphere is very transparent. You can see mountains way off in the distance and infra-red was just coming into good use then in aerial photography work so naturally...

JL: This was the 1940's?

JG: What did you say?

JL: This was in the 1940's then? That infra-red was just coming into use?

JG: Well, it was just coming into general use from the air. It hadn't been used extensively before that. It had been used some yes but I gave them quite 01:31:00a little dope on infrared films and their properties and using them and what to expect to get and so forth. That's just one of the things where we could help them out some. They got new equipment and new films and all that hut it's all a mystery to them hut had a different name on it, of course, than before but as to understanding much about it that can help too.

JL: How did you keep up on the current photographic...

JG: The field of photography.

JL: Yes, how did you keep up on the new inventions?

JG: Why, just like other people do by studying and reading. We didn't throw our time away. How what did you play all the time? Well, we didn't play all 01:32:00the time. I was never ready to play all the time. We studied and worked and we put our time in all the time we could learning and finding out.

JL: But, there were special publications that you read that kept up on the new inventions of photography.

JG: Yes. As with everything else. If you're a dentist you sure read the publications in dentistry and keep up on the new things in dentistry.

JL: I have a question. You about one of your photographs that's O.S.U. campus from the air in April 1930. Can you tell me again about what these gas houses are and what happened with them?

JG: The what?

JL: Gas houses?

JG: Well, you can't burn gas unless you have gas. You have to make it somewhere. Those buildings contained gas producing equipment. I don't know 01:33:00what they did there. Chances are they do like they have done on so many, oh, automobile headlights in the old days and bicycle headlights and minor's headlamps and those things. They probably used calcium carbide and water, but the equipment to mix them in the proper proportions and at the proper rate to not bruise too much and to have enough and so forth. Have you ever gone down in a mine or a cave? Did they have a carbide lamps there with a little flame?

JL: Well, there you are.

JG: And this was used by the home economics department?

JL: Yes, chemistry...

JL: Again please. It was over where?

JG: There was a gas plant over near the where those big outdoor tennis courts 01:34:00were for the home ec. department because they used a lot of gas in their cooking schools and there was another one way over across the other side of the campus next to the chemistry building which it was at that time because they needed gas there. Glass blowing is quite an interesting thing and you do it with gas. You can't do it with candles.

JL: Well, tell me you said that it blew up many times. Tell me about that.

JG: Well, just that. If things don't work right you're liable to have explosions. It nearly everyday in the newspapers you read of some building that blew up completely because of gas leaking into it and getting ignited.

JL: And this would happen on campus, yes?

JG: It happened in those buildings a number of times, I know, they one would blow up once in-a-while.

JL: And all the walls would fall down, you said.

JG: Yes. (Chuckle) They'd patch them up again and get it going again. 01:35:00That was just a part of the job. They had to have gas so they made gas in the way that was feasible at that time. Oh, yes they had those gas generators oh, about, oh, maybe so big around and this high mounted on...

JL: Two feet high?

JG: ... the back end of the running hoard on the old automobiles and, oh this was went up to the headlights and you had the gas jets in the headlights.

JL: Sounds dangerous.

JG: Well, there's lots of things in this world are DANGEROUS but they are still running including some of the atomic plants. Yes, being dangerous didn't prevent all advancement in this world.