00:00:17.580 - 00:00:30.780

I said, I can't live here. I'm driving around, I'm driving around, and somebody told us about this place. And I drove in, and I said, this is it!

00:00:38.000 - 00:00:53.160

A guy standing, I guess maybe from a steam engine or something. I was there, 1922 rail strike. Well, of course, you can imagine in Brunswick, all of them, those people, railroad people, they all

00:00:53.160 - 00:01:01.280

have memories of personally being involved in that. You're involved in labor relations? Yeah. Oh, you would love to listen to

00:01:01.280 - 00:01:11.580

that, at least that segment of the tape. They said, all men, they're wonderful. Brunswick accent saying. And he came up to me and he said,

00:01:11.580 - 00:01:21.140

where are you going? I'm going to work. Well, he was out on the floor. He was seeing stars. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

00:01:22.720 - 00:01:36.160

That was a very critical moment. The membership of the machinists, I know, went down to oh, as low as 15,000 or something. Really wiped out.

00:01:37.360 - 00:01:51.740

And they were in a high point just a few years before of $200,000, so it was a big, Big thing. But that was the 8-hour day, right? That means they did get the 8-hour day.

00:01:51.740 - 00:02:03.420

No, what it led to was the Railroad Labor Act, which was the LRB for the railroads. They got it before the private sector got it, so to speak.

00:02:04.540 - 00:02:15.660

And then they got the railroad retirement act and the railroad labor act. Or as a sort of, as a result. So those were passed in this weird

00:02:15.660 - 00:02:28.240

period, or passed I think like in 1930 or something, right? At the bottom of the Depression. But because it was at this moment, it had been built up so they could bring it up.

00:02:32.700 - 00:02:46.620

So it really was the product of the abuse of interpersonal safety by the railroads towards their workers. Whatever, whatever that issue, whatever 1922 was, I was never very clear about it.

00:02:48.240 - 00:03:06.560

I never really took it to heart. But it was a key moment. Well, this is Hoagy Young. Hi. And he's sort of the, what were you saying?

00:03:07.000 - 00:03:28.140

An unofficial historian of the community. He's got a house full of slides of what's becoming several thousand. And tapes, other tapes that have been made. He's put together a very nice slide, you know, multi-projector

00:03:28.660 - 00:03:38.860

slide show. It shows quite often. That's iced tea. No, thanks.

00:03:44.120 - 00:03:50.040

And, this is Rick Wagner. He's my partner in concerts in the country. He lives in Boise.

00:03:53.100 - 00:03:57.860

And a lot of the pieces are in Boise. Yeah. And way up there. Yes.

00:03:59.760 - 00:04:16.160

My wife's just headed for colors, oranges, I guess, and so on. Oh, right. And this is Larry Massive, who produces a radio program that you

00:04:16.160 - 00:04:25.580

might hear sometimes. You hear it at 7.30 on a Saturday morning. What's the program?

00:04:25.760 - 00:04:36.820

The show is called Stamper. It's actually on a Sunday, so maybe EPA, evening sometime, very dry. It's a fabulous show.

00:04:36.820 - 00:04:44.560

It's a half hour feature show, and the whole show is on one topic every week. It's absolutely great. On 26th?

00:04:45.740 - 00:04:57.500

On the radio show. On WAMU on Saturdays, and WMTA on Sunday. Yeah, I usually end up, I listen

00:04:57.500 - 00:05:13.300

to WAMU until WDCU goes off of gospel. I usually listen to Bob Linden. Then they go into African, so I switch over.

00:05:15.480 - 00:05:31.660

I like it when you switch from station to station to station, and you get this pattern going on. So it's a feat, an in-depth analysis of one. It's just not in our doctor experience.

00:05:31.740 - 00:05:42.940

And Since we work with people from all over the country, it's something different. There's not always a theme to the series.

00:05:44.700 - 00:05:58.060

Well, I like your comments. I like the news on public radio. Yeah, I think on Sundays it comes out right after when it's considered.

00:05:58.520 - 00:06:05.280

Yeah, I think it's all been, yeah. Oh, so you're another thing considered. Yeah, just, by the way.

00:06:05.280 - 00:06:17.340

One thing after the other. Although, as often as the middle half hour won't be considered for the same program. Well, that's because we let them resell the show.

00:06:20.600 - 00:06:36.300

But it's done for WAMU? We resell the show. It's done for WAMU? No, it's just put on one satellite and there's like 150 stations around the country. Was your association with WJHU, John Hopkins?

00:06:36.300 - 00:06:47.860

Did somebody give that credit? Yeah, well, we use their studios. And we paid their IWUP. Again, for us, some people use their studios.

00:06:47.860 - 00:06:54.240

I don't. I just sit at my house. I do my shows in my house. So it's freelancers.

00:06:55.680 - 00:07:08.720

It's all freelancers. So you guys are going to do a great job. Yeah, I do. And this is Steve Louvar, who

00:07:08.720 - 00:07:17.060

works as a Smithsonian in the American History Museum. So he's a historian, too. I should say the only historian here.

00:07:18.720 - 00:07:25.660

Does he work on the Folk Festival? No, never worked on the Folk Festival. At the Museum of American History. Oh yeah.

00:07:28.480 - 00:07:36.220

Over by DC Space. That's too far. That's over by... I've never seen it put that way.

00:07:36.220 - 00:07:44.160

You're supposed to go the other way around. I know. It's over five hours. Well, I work at the labor department, which is sort of near

00:07:44.160 - 00:07:48.280

here. In the big labor department building there. Yeah.

00:07:49.300 - 00:07:55.400

We have a wonderful library. We did have. Yes. No, but it's still in the stuff.

00:07:55.400 - 00:08:03.460

Yes. It's still in the stuff. You would have died to watch the stuff they threw out. They contracted it out.

00:08:03.480 - 00:08:10.820

Yeah, I heard the story. Now they're lending the whole library away to the meeting center. Well, that's better.

00:08:12.040 - 00:08:23.300

Gets it out of the hands of our opponent. Jeez. See, they had a historian. A historian works up near my office now.

00:08:23.800 - 00:08:35.720

He got rid of, they got rid of the historian. And he kept, he'd sort of go down there and snatch a few things out of the wastebasket. It was terrible.

00:08:35.940 - 00:08:53.300

They had a, they had a, it was a labor library. It was not a labor relations library. It started out and they had publications from all foreign trade unions, all this stuff.

00:08:55.600 - 00:09:05.800

So you haven't retired yet, huh? No, not quite. Gosh, this is turning into a Ross Norwegian world here.

00:09:05.800 - 00:09:24.440

This is an elder household. I'm reading all the back issues of the newsletter. The whole gay young family moves in and they're running the show, they're running the nursery school.

00:09:25.440 - 00:09:41.900

It's wonderful to be reverie to that period when all our kids were not born yet. Do you have a survey of who are the oldest living, longest living people here?

00:09:42.560 - 00:09:56.720

First ones that have moved here? We don't. No, we don't really. We have to, but we could do it. Yeah, we could separate it by, like I say, newcomers and old

00:09:56.720 - 00:10:04.540

comers by some cutoff date. Pretty easy. So you would have a record of who moved into which house? Oh, OK.

00:10:04.540 - 00:10:13.260

Well, we can go back and get an old directory and compare it. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, I've got that information now with the

00:10:13.260 - 00:10:21.780

newsletter center. I know who's coming and going from 1952 on. We did that for the reunion, but

00:10:22.600 - 00:10:31.980

we just went back and tried to collect names of people that were no longer here. And then you were tracking down their addresses.

00:10:32.540 - 00:10:43.260

I don't know if I found it. Well, when did you move here? Here? Let's see. Did it?

00:10:43.260 - 00:10:57.180

In [19?] 556, or 757. And how much of Banningburn was completed, or what's different? What's the? It was all completed.

00:10:58.180 - 00:11:10.220

It was marvelous. We didn't really understand. I mean, we didn't catch it until I started looking at the dates and everything years later.

00:11:10.240 - 00:11:19.440

We moved in just at the point when all the building was done, all the hassles were done. Everybody was ready to have a good time.

00:11:19.820 - 00:11:29.880

It was really amazing. I couldn't believe this place. But, No suffering through the construction trucks? Yeah, well, they had a long...

00:11:29.880 - 00:11:52.200

Well, from 1946 to 1957, they had 10, 11 years of fairly complicated decisions, difficult decisions. And They had first getting the pilot project going and then what to do about the second pilot

00:11:52.200 - 00:11:59.560

project. And then meanwhile over here, the people that are revolters were bold over here. And they went off on their own.

00:11:59.600 - 00:12:06.880

That's when the Merrimack House was born. With bookies, it has its own name, this area over here.

00:12:08.180 - 00:12:19.620

The Green, the Green, something with green, Greenway, Colock or something. Yeah, it was just a faction, it wasn't a real. So that was the Merrimack group? Yeah.

00:12:19.780 - 00:12:27.020

Merrimack houses? Yeah, all around over here. Because his isn't one of them. It's in the history book, by the way, this description.

00:12:27.660 - 00:12:38.940

Right, his isn't one, yeah. Maybe his was a bill already, but I don't know. Or later. But he wrote the piece in the

00:12:38.940 - 00:12:50.580

history book, I believe. So you have all this kind of stuff. What attracted you to this place?

00:12:51.160 - 00:13:09.720

Why did you choose to move here to Bannockburn? Because I moved here from Madison and Ray Munts was already here and so he said to move here. He says, we didn't know any

00:13:09.720 - 00:13:13.220

places. We didn't know anything about Washington. We moved here.

00:13:15.100 - 00:13:29.320

Did that happen quite a lot, that people brought their friends in? I don't know. Yeah, so then he arranged to—we rented a house for two years over on one place.

00:13:32.680 - 00:13:46.540

No, I don't know. Just on West Halbert where we are now, but it was down further. And so we moved in.

00:13:46.540 - 00:14:03.400

We arrived, we drove in here, we went by and did the mistake everybody does, we went out to East Halbert, we're all looking for 6310 or whatever it was, and couldn't find it. Then somebody told us that it was on West Halbert, so then we found

00:14:03.400 - 00:14:11.620

it, you know, so. And then we moved in. So we lived there two years, and then we bought a house across the street.

00:14:13.320 - 00:14:23.040

So there's lots of people renting? Lots of houses for rent, there? I don't think so. I don't know. I haven't seen a lot.

00:14:25.020 - 00:14:38.940

Five or so. For instance, the Morris' moved out in three or four, around about the '60s or so. And they live in Bloomington and they were renting their house

00:14:38.940 - 00:14:53.900

every Sunday. They still belong to me. When did they leave? Well, I guess 1960. I may have been younger than that.

00:14:54.060 - 00:14:59.840

No, I still remember that. Yeah. They came in '61s. Oh, okay.

00:15:01.060 - 00:15:15.200

Around three or four. They were the ones with the most children between them and the Delaplaines, right? Yeah, that's right. They were... I mean, people were having six and seven children in

00:15:15.200 - 00:15:24.940

those days. That was really... Well, the most was the Rosses and the Nades. I think they only had four.

00:15:25.060 - 00:15:36.220

I don't know. I think four was the top, maybe five. But that's unusual for a- The Rosses had six and the Delas had five.

00:15:36.220 - 00:15:45.360

Okay, alright. Other Rosses. Oh, excuse me, right. Up here.

00:15:46.420 - 00:15:57.740

He had the biggest... But you go up and... We counted our street, you know, in the reunion, and you go up and down, you just take West Halbert

00:15:58.520 - 00:16:16.080

and go up and down, You're talking like two, two, three, two, three in every house. Four maybe. And so there were 57 kids on that street the time we were there, and

00:16:16.080 - 00:16:26.580

now there's three. So the public school was basically in Bannockburn It was in Bannockburn. And then it's now must be very broad and drawn to a broad area.

00:16:26.580 - 00:16:42.880

And then they're even enlarging it to cover a bigger area. Yes, and that has a big impact on the community. I mean, all the community organizations that we established, and let's include the school as one of the scenes of community

00:16:42.880 - 00:16:54.840

organizations, have all been eroded by various changes so that the schools, you know, you talk to the principal about the Bannockburn. Oh, right, Bannockburn, right.

00:16:55.200 - 00:17:06.800

It's just one of the many areas she covers. And then the Bannockburn babysitting pool is, I don't think anybody's bank anymore. It's all Cabin John's.

00:17:08.300 - 00:17:17.660

Well, it's turning around again now, you know, because there's a lot of little ones coming. And they get down to, then the swimming pool is all owned by people outside the community.

00:17:18.180 - 00:17:33.440

I mean, the president is from over on the other side. And you can get closer now, the community club, the president is South City from over on Fairway Hills. Is that right? Yeah.

00:17:34.760 - 00:17:44.420

And it's getting very, yeah. That sounds pretty controversial to have a community club president outside the community. Well, it's a problem.

00:17:45.040 - 00:17:58.140

You know, it just means that it changes a lot of things in terms of their focus. At one point, the community of Bannockburn was really pretty self-contained, there was a border and everything.

00:17:58.140 - 00:18:20.820

Well, there was the golf course, yeah, there was the tracks, but the club ball, or the BCI ball, or the Oxford. August, no, April 5th, 1946. When did that start breaking down?

00:18:21.100 - 00:18:31.960

When did other areas start trying to use it? Well, I just discovered it in the reunion. I started out, so I'm going to call all the organizations and get them involved in this thing.

00:18:31.960 - 00:18:46.500

And so I'm like, ah, this is Iowa. That's the babysitter, the Bannockburn babysitting pool called me back and said, well, I don't think we'll participate. You know, just like that.

00:18:48.360 - 00:18:55.740

So, it's all these big houses up in here. We're the poverty. A big base.

00:18:56.940 - 00:19:02.880

We're a poverty caucus here now. Blackwood is in Capital. It is one of the big houses, I think.

00:19:02.880 - 00:19:09.400

The black one or the big house? It's the smallest big house in Capital. They're terrible. People are damned.

00:19:11.280 - 00:19:18.740

So what? They are a sea of houses here. Those in the back, The new ones you mean, where the water tower is? And then we got to talk about a shock.

00:19:19.000 - 00:19:26.820

We went to Angler's Inn sometime recently. We had somebody from out of town. We thought we'd go up there for dinner.

00:19:28.140 - 00:19:38.980

Oh my God. I mean, it used to be sort of a freaky old quaint place, but now I thought I was in K Street or something.

00:19:38.980 - 00:19:48.420

It was terrible. You know, it was a obsequious waiter and all this. Instead of that restaurant. Priceless, yeah, they used to have

00:19:48.420 - 00:20:01.180

barrooms. Yeah. But it is, God, it sure has changed a lot. But I don't know, that's when I noticed it, in that we did that.

00:20:01.400 - 00:20:13.040

I'm sure it has been developing. But you know, people like that, what are you gonna do? So the Fairway Hills people belong to the community club.

00:20:13.480 - 00:20:23.760

So it's been defined as part of the community and I'm sure it's come to pass that somebody became president. It's also, I think, an

00:20:23.760 - 00:20:36.180

age-dependent thing, you know, all of the sort of original things are people who, well, first of all, paid their dues by having served on a hundred thousand committees over the years when they were young.

00:20:36.660 - 00:20:44.380

And you know we're all abdicating and the new ones are coming in and the young ones with the energy are coming in. So they happen to live outside the

00:20:44.380 - 00:20:50.660

perimeter. Yeah that's right. Southside is... Well look at Dan and Rick from the

00:20:50.660 - 00:20:58.020

swimming club. He's over in Fairway now. Yeah, that's where the energy is. That's right.

00:20:58.780 - 00:21:19.440

We had that came to pass in the in the swimming pool issue this year, it was all of the people here, holding the shares and didn't like what was happening. It was all people from outside

00:21:19.440 - 00:21:25.760

that were making the proposals. So it was a real interesting conflict. And all the people from the

00:21:25.760 - 00:21:37.900

committee showed up and it resolved itself pretty well. It was a big issue. Were you at that meeting? Yeah I wasn't following it too well.

00:21:37.900 - 00:21:50.120

[laughter] Well the guy that's the son of a bitch that's the president... Is this being taped? [jokingly] We'll delete that.

00:21:50.120 - 00:22:03.220

[laughter] He, you know, he manipulated the meeting so the whole thing was this long long presentation which went on forever and then he got down to questions for about 10 minutes, and then it was the ball game.

00:22:04.640 - 00:22:11.480

At which time we'd all been warned to look up. Yeah. Sounds like the way the communists would have used to do it.

00:22:11.480 - 00:22:34.900

All bureaucrats do that. Marianne, what are the borders of a Native village? Well, the original borders were the borders of the actual golf course, okay? And it's a very weird shape of

00:22:34.900 - 00:22:43.240

what used to be owned by the golf course. And that's what he's talking about. Only 150 acres. Yeah.

00:22:44.960 - 00:22:54.140

Oh, that's what he's talking about then. But like when I go up Selkirk, when I get to Selkirk, when I go in with the... So that's already off it by the

00:22:54.140 - 00:22:57.880

time you get to Selkirk. By the time I get to the top of the hill. Well, by the time I come down,

00:22:57.880 - 00:23:11.820

you're on the other side. Now this is the sign from the auction poster of Gallatin or MacArthur Boulevard. I was taken the day before the auction.

00:23:11.820 - 00:23:21.780

This is the brochure that the auctioneer put together, which has a good shot of the golf course. He gave them a couple of guys a bunch of money.

00:23:22.720 - 00:23:29.360

Did you ever know it when it was a golf course? Oh you were still in Madison then. I was in Madison. That was nothing we had to do.

00:23:29.440 - 00:23:44.680

But you want to get some there is a I gotta think of his name but I ran across him again and went in, you know, researching for the reunion. He's a guy that lived in, he was a

00:23:44.680 - 00:23:55.780

kid that grew up in Cabin John. And he was a caddy here. And then he became a pro. And he's on the, what's the tour,

00:23:55.780 - 00:24:10.840

the tour? He was a part of the tour or whatever that is and that's the, I guess that's the big time golf player and I talked to him but I never got down to interviewing him.

00:24:11.760 - 00:24:20.020

It ought to be done you know he's getting up there like all of us. Does he live in Cabin John? No he lives in, where the hell does he live?

00:24:20.020 - 00:24:29.680

He lives in Florida I think or somewhere. But his folks, his family, he has family still living over here in Cabin John. So I track him down.

00:24:29.680 - 00:24:47.180

And then he also told me about, he put me in touch with a guy over in Virginia who managed the place, has a golf course for a while. He ought to be interviewed, too. He's a little harder to catch.

00:24:47.180 - 00:25:04.280

I guess he summers up here and winters in Florida or something like that. But then this guy from Cabin John, this was a Navy recreation center during World War II, and he was

00:25:04.280 - 00:25:23.000

assigned here as a Navy specialist dealing with that. So he was here, he produced a really great picture of a whole bunch of folks around a piano back against that wall. Everybody had a girl on the knee and a bottle of beer.

00:25:24.340 - 00:25:34.700

Yeah, I've seen that picture somewhere. Yeah, that's great. And there's a lot of things in this building that I don't know about.

00:25:35.020 - 00:25:40.840

Rooms that I've never been to. I've never been up in that archives room in my life until the other day. You know.

00:25:40.840 - 00:25:45.720

Well, you see from that, there's a picture in there. This was the front lobby of the golf course.

00:25:45.720 - 00:25:57.540

You came here and then I guess there were offices up there or something. And this was a circle out in front, a track. So you'd row it up here.

00:26:00.160 - 00:26:16.540

By what's left of this road? Yeah, there's a stone wall along there. And this road was the entrance from MacArthur Boulevard. So was Sam Silverman in his house already by the time you moved in?

00:26:16.960 - 00:26:26.020

Oh, yes. Well, he built it. He was there while his house was built. He has photographs of every week of the construction.

00:26:26.880 - 00:26:38.380

So he's very useful. When we get into it, we're doing some landscaping now, and he's got photographs that show where the gas line is and all this kind of stuff.

00:26:39.720 - 00:26:50.780

We were afraid that our house was resting on sort of filled land, but this photograph shows that they're resting on the original land, and then there was fill put on top of it. So fill put around the house.

00:26:51.060 - 00:26:57.880

The house was built high up and then dirt put around it. So, you know, he's got a lot of stuff on that.

00:26:58.440 - 00:27:11.880

He's got great pictures of the construction. There's one up here. They even have a auction of the golf trophies.

00:27:12.800 - 00:27:17.280

Oh, that's... You can have your very own golf trophies. You have to buy it on your 20

00:27:17.280 - 00:27:30.640

acres of land to get your own. You never have to play the game. Yeah, that's a picture of the Merrimack houses. Yes, that's a wonderful picture.

00:27:30.820 - 00:27:37.740

Yeah, isn't that good? The chimneys. With just the chimneys. That's, one of those must be Sam's and yours, right?

00:27:37.920 - 00:27:59.820

No, that's Sam's for dry land. Oh. Only one half mile from the end of Massachusetts Avenue, which wind extended as his plan will go directly through the property? But never did, no. They never did.

00:27:59.820 - 00:28:10.920

No, it's still having help from here. But it's also right on the end of the trolley line. And, oh yeah, the trolley must have. Well, you were here when the trolley was here.

00:28:10.920 - 00:28:18.360

See, that's one thing we missed out on. Yes. This is the one. Did you ride that? This is the car.

00:28:18.820 - 00:28:21.240

Oh, yeah. That's the two we were talking about. Oh, yeah.

00:28:21.500 - 00:28:25.680

Oh, yeah. Go tell us about the trolley. I want to know about that. Well, that was a great deal.

00:28:25.940 - 00:28:43.580

I used to, let's see. When I worked with the machinists, I came out here on it, and you just get off down here and walk up the hill.

00:28:43.580 - 00:28:52.780

It was great. It must have been a great ride. And it was a great ride, because you left from Georgetown University, all the way down

00:28:53.100 - 00:29:05.180

through here, and then through, what's that community down, Brookmont, went through the middle of Brookmont, and then it went through the Palisades along there. And a lot of those people have

00:29:05.420 - 00:29:17.200

some right away in their backyard still. Well, they have to because they don't want it. And then they went—you know where it crosses MacArthur? You know where that photocop— There's a, you know where that

00:29:17.200 - 00:29:23.460

photocop, that's, that's. Down at the end there where Bustle comes in. Yeah.

00:29:23.540 - 00:29:29.840

Yeah. That photocopy store. Well, that's where the track crosses. There's still a bridge down there too.

00:29:30.120 - 00:29:39.880

Anyhow, then it went by Catholic U, and then you're out into Georgetown. And then you're out onto, I guess you're out onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and you ended up at the

00:29:39.880 - 00:29:50.980

Capitol. I mean that streetcar. But it's a ride along the river was great because you know you were You were out in the country and looking down and there's the

00:29:50.980 - 00:29:57.540

river and it's all trees all around. It was amazing. Do you remember what the fair was then? No, I don't.

00:29:58.380 - 00:30:09.060

Whatever it was. But I can't—where the hell did I catch it? I can't remember. I guess I walked, I suppose I walked down to, I don't think I

00:30:09.060 - 00:30:16.220

walked down to Pennsylvania. But anyhow. Did most people here ride the trolley to work? Sure.

00:30:16.400 - 00:30:30.140

So there would be like this little camaraderie of people waiting for the trolley and you would be waiting with your two neighbors, a couple neighbors or something? Mostly it was the same thing on the bus, but that is before the

00:30:30.140 - 00:30:38.240

subway. But it was, yeah, it was good. Subway. But it was good.

00:30:38.360 - 00:30:47.100

We got a little film from Mr. Mr. Delfine. What's his name? Stan Cohen. Stan Cohen.

00:30:47.100 - 00:30:55.640

He has a little film of his family going on the last ride. You mean he was here? No, his family.

00:30:55.640 - 00:31:13.280

You see his other family. He lived, I think he lived down Mass Avenue someplace. His first family or his earlier family. And they lived around here nearby.

00:31:14.400 - 00:31:23.940

So it turns out it was a pretty dark film. Why did they shut the trolley down? Well, you know all about that.

00:31:23.940 - 00:31:34.140

That was the Grosvenor General Motors operation to get rid of all public trolleys. And as a matter of fact, they had a name for it.

00:31:34.140 - 00:31:45.420

It was an organization that was created by Five General Motors and this is all So this turned up recently in the paper, but it has a name. There's a name for the organization.

00:31:45.620 - 00:31:57.880

Anyhow, there that was their job. Well, this is what they did here. Well, it's very interesting. First of all, I wasn't it wasn't

00:31:57.880 - 00:32:06.060

that that wasn't taking out the whole transit system at that stage. So all it was was talking about this line.

00:32:06.900 - 00:32:17.180

And they did it, I think they announced it, so it was known, because I know we went on the last day. And I think that was a Saturday,

00:32:17.440 - 00:32:24.560

or if not, maybe a Sunday. But Monday morning, they are out there and the tracks were gone. I mean, they were messing around.

00:32:24.840 - 00:32:28.940

Yeah. They were very smart and demonic of them. Yeah.

00:32:28.940 - 00:32:41.820

They do that when they're going to take down a historical house. They'll do it so fast you can't get your protest to go. But anyways, and there's still a bridge down here too behind those bushes.

00:32:44.540 - 00:32:52.260

Yeah, you can see the trestles climbing. Some guys around, There's a few collectors of the trolley around here.

00:32:56.320 - 00:33:11.180

At Glen Echo, they have a movie one guy did that was pretty good. That's it. You worked for the machinists union? I did, yeah.

00:33:17.500 - 00:33:32.940

I worked for the Labor Department. The other thing I remember hearing about, of course, was the Glen Echo Park, the amusement Park and the controversy and the racial problems.

00:33:33.840 - 00:33:45.120

What was that? Do you have impressions of that? I mean especially... Well yeah the people who were involved in that of course were well I mean people around there

00:33:45.480 - 00:33:56.740

Esther Delaplaine was active in it and Mrs. Rodner Those two were very active. So you might get together with them.

00:33:56.740 - 00:34:03.360

So people in Bannockburn, there were those who would picket it and whatever. Yeah. Oh yeah.

00:34:03.640 - 00:34:29.060

Sure. And she has a—they just put together a story for the co-op news, which I dug out a couple of pictures for.

00:34:29.060 - 00:34:37.360

I don't know if I ever saw what I was into. But she has a couple of pictures, plus all those, all those, don't mind.

00:34:38.480 - 00:34:52.320

Is that this month's? Oh, this was six months ago. Oh, I'm sorry. Phil Cook? No. Artist? No, not an artist.

00:34:53.760 - 00:35:01.720

Anyhow, somewhere around, somebody's put that together, so maybe we can get a hold of that. But It was a very interesting event.

00:35:01.720 - 00:35:16.040

I mean, I was at the site. Those of us that supported the segregationist policies on one side, and was Bannockburn would tend to be opposed to the segregationist policies, right? So did that mean that you'd go to

00:35:16.040 - 00:35:34.240

like a neighborhood store in Clannack, Owen and find that getting to arguments with the other residents who were in support of the parks? Well, I wasn't aware of any organized support of the park policy.

00:35:35.280 - 00:35:50.400

I mean, there was a group that was working for desegregation and of course, they were working against inertia. I mean, I wasn't aware of any group that was really, But it did create a lot of discussion.

00:35:50.500 - 00:36:03.460

I used to hear, I remember, over at the shopping center, I overheard some folks that had just come off picket to the beginning of an argument with some of their friends from school about the whole issue.

00:36:04.080 - 00:36:15.780

What's for and against and all this. So it created a lot of discussion. I don't think they needed any pro-organized, pro-movie because the whole society was pro.

00:36:15.920 - 00:36:24.140

Yeah. But it was, you know, a guy came here to do that. It just, I mean, like it was going

00:36:24.140 - 00:36:34.620

on all over the country. This is a guy, an organizer from one of the organizations, and he set up here, and he contacted everybody and got a whole thing going.

00:36:36.660 - 00:36:50.660

And they, I don't know, it went all one summer. I guess it was resolved over the winter in some way. So it opened the next year, integrated. But you'll have to check on it.

00:36:50.660 - 00:36:56.040

So there would have been a lot of news media that would have come out. There was a lot of media, yeah. A lot of controversy.

00:36:56.040 - 00:37:04.480

And they got involved in, at the same time they got involved in integrating the movie theaters over in Bethesda. I see. And other things.

00:37:04.780 - 00:37:14.140

So they had a lot of spin-offs. And now that echoes no longer there as an amusement park. Heiser movies no longer there as

00:37:14.140 - 00:37:26.120

movie houses. One year we had a group of Howard University students out to picket the park. It was a hot day like today, and somebody got them tickets to go to

00:37:26.120 - 00:37:32.520

the swimming pool. The swimming pool wasn't segregated. That was a big debate when the

00:37:32.520 - 00:37:41.680

pool was built. Not the question of segregation but how to deal with maids who weren't, should they be allowed to come to the pool.

00:37:42.620 - 00:37:53.800

And that was resolved very easily if they paid their dues they could come. So These seven or eight young black girls were coming to the swimming pool.

00:37:53.940 - 00:38:05.840

I was a president of this one. Now you're talking about the Bannockburns Bounty Burns. Oh not the clinic but the Bannockburns. The motor at the pool broke down.

00:38:05.840 - 00:38:21.680

The recirculating pump broke down. The bacteria count already passed the minimum standards for health. So the manager came over and said we got to close the pool down just as the seven tickets for the University came in.

00:38:23.600 - 00:38:39.040

And I stood there and I bit my tongue and I said, we got to keep it open. But I told the woman from Bannockburn who brought the seven that we had a problem, that we're

00:38:39.120 - 00:38:50.680

going to close the pool down, that we'd keep it open for another hour for her people to swim. But it was an embarrassing moment. Oh, Herb is here.

00:38:50.740 - 00:38:57.020

Good. Welcome. And welcome too. Good.

00:38:57.160 - 00:39:08.960

Hey, listen. What are we going to do about this bathroom here? Nobody wants to talk about the past. Well, I guess we should introduce everybody again.

00:39:35.060 - 00:39:39.020

I didn't get your name. Steve. Steve, OK. Are you ready?

00:39:39.020 - 00:39:48.140

She's got to explain. I brought you a memory cake. Ha ha ha. A memory cake.

00:39:49.920 - 00:39:59.940

You want to talk about the memory cake? I want to talk about anything you want to talk about. But I'm interested in this story, the story that I had never heard before.

00:40:00.600 - 00:40:18.840

Are you saying that the Bannockburn pool, it Wasn't segregated, but at this particular episode, the pool had to be closed. Because of county regulations about bacteria count.

00:40:19.080 - 00:40:25.960

Yeah. And it was just the wrong time to close it. Because the Glen Echo Pool was

00:40:25.960 - 00:40:30.780

segregated. Oh, the Glen Echo Pool was segregated, no question. They had what?

00:40:31.260 - 00:40:40.620

Blacks on Fridays and whites on the other day or something? Well, when we moved in, there were no blacks at any time. No blacks at all. That's all I recall.

00:40:41.100 - 00:40:57.840

As a matter of fact, we read about Bannockburn and Glen Echo and the Sacramento Bee, because we lived in Sacramento when you desegregated the pool. And we made no connection at all.

00:40:57.940 - 00:41:06.540

I mean, we just read about it. Never dreaming that we would move here. You mean about the picketing?

00:41:06.980 - 00:41:15.060

Yes, yes. We're thinking about it in Sacramento. And out of that we developed a

00:41:15.060 - 00:41:26.180

relationship with the Danville movement because of a preacher that was up here. So we one time went down there for a camera demonstration.

00:41:28.080 - 00:41:41.840

I went down there one weekend. And they came up here? They visited up here. Now that really dealt with Nancy Carrow's... 1964 was the play. We were from Bannockburn.

00:41:43.040 - 00:41:48.920

We went down Bannockburn to Danville. The Danville? I wasn't here then.

00:41:48.920 - 00:42:05.540

It's called Clanville. [Klanville?] I wasn't here then, that's true. That's right. But anyway, she got her bandages

00:42:05.540 - 00:42:16.770

on in time to get from— She got herself to jail. She was in jail. She had read something about— About the fact that they were trying to integrate—She was going

00:42:16.980 - 00:42:22.920

to test the search engine. [Not?] No Pelvix for me was the song. Right.

00:42:25.420 - 00:42:34.940

Pelvix for me. That was an actual bomb. But the Danville trip that we all made, I went down on that one. You stayed home with the kids.

00:42:35.020 - 00:42:55.340

Right. And the thing that was, first of all, we went down as a show of solidarity, if you will, of support. And it was very carefully orchestrated.

00:42:55.900 - 00:43:15.960

We were briefed very carefully by Lou Schwartz and a couple of other people who had looked into the legal aspects. And the Danville people, especially the police department, was not anxious to have any kind of a scene.

00:43:16.240 - 00:43:34.080

They were anxious to cooperate. And we were housed in black homes. But it was very carefully orchestrated that there would be no bad scenes.

00:43:37.580 - 00:44:02.040

So that was quite an experience. We went down, we participated in Sunday morning church, and I myself chose to be shown around Danville by two of the men of the black citizens there because I was familiar with the wreck of the

00:44:02.040 - 00:44:15.520

old, what was it, '89 on the Danville Bridge, and I was curious to see it. And they took me around, and I became aware of a police car carefully following us around.

00:44:16.300 - 00:44:28.880

It was— Because you were white and you were black men? With black men. But nothing— Oh, you had a picnic at the swimming pool.

00:44:29.120 - 00:44:34.600

That was great. It was a marvelous picnic. And going to this swimming pool, we went by these houses where these white guys sitting there

00:44:34.600 - 00:44:47.640

with shotguns. Holy mackerel. And then the other bazaar, where we stayed in this Catholic convent, or nun's stay, whatever it's called.

00:44:48.620 - 00:45:02.980

And this, God, we had this strange discussion because the nun we were staying with was all a gung-ho for integration. We're sitting there talking with her with a picture of Joe McCarthy on the wall.

00:45:04.300 - 00:45:14.440

But, you know, that's the way it falls. No Father Coughlin? No, but it was an amazing event, I thought.

00:45:14.960 - 00:45:27.540

Actually, the Ballad of Clandagle Jail was the first show I was in. I had one line. I was on a picket. Yeah, that was the first show I was in.

00:45:31.400 - 00:45:44.640

It was fun. It was a good show. It was one of those first shows where everybody turned in music, birds to music.

00:45:44.640 - 00:45:51.400

We didn't really know how these shows were put together. But June... Wilentz.

00:45:51.580 - 00:46:01.580

Wilentz wrote a... She wrote a... I think if we played the... Everything that she wrote, we would still be... I'm saying right now.

00:46:02.320 - 00:46:11.120

It was mostly a matter of cutting it down to something that's with the last there, but it had a lot of words. There were not a lot of words in

00:46:11.120 - 00:46:30.940

it, but it was a fun show, and it was based upon a true incident. That was the kind of nice thing. And it was sort of tied up with the fact that Johnson was running for election.

00:46:32.780 - 00:47:04.500

He was just filling out the Kennedy term, and he was at about an all-time high in popularity, having gotten civil rights bills passed, and Vietnam was simply a little blip on the horizon. And he was deeply immersed in the war on poverty and all sorts of

00:47:04.600 - 00:47:28.040

other good things that were going to happen during his election. He subsequently got elected by an overwhelming majority, but the show took that into consideration and--we had, I think Werner played the part of LBJ.

00:47:32.420 - 00:47:46.800

It's very funny looking back on it, what a tremendous spirit of good feeling there was about things that were happening. Integration was coming faster, the

00:47:46.800 - 00:48:06.100

voting rights bill got passed. He was practically a wizard at getting Congress to pass whatever he wanted to do. So the Danville story was able to poke fun at that.

00:48:06.580 - 00:48:18.920

And I think one of the other baddies there was the guy who used to own the movie house in Bethesda. What was the name of it? Heiser. Heiser.

00:48:19.200 - 00:48:29.080

Yeah. He was called, How's it? Heiser. In the show. And he was definitely a bad guy.

00:48:29.160 - 00:48:45.440

Yeah, he was the real, real rotten guy. And those are pretty simple days to draw a good needle. Have you got the scripts from all the old shows? Who's in charge of all this? The scripts from all the old

00:48:45.440 - 00:49:04.240

shows? We have most of them, most of them between Al and Madeline Siegel and a certain I have and a residue upstairs in the lockers up there. Now the trouble of course is that

00:49:04.240 - 00:49:29.020

any show that we've done, it's certainly true of the shows done in the recent past, they go through so many iterations that you don't know if you're seeing the first draft or the one that actually got produced, what's his name, when Goodpastor wrote shows

00:49:29.100 - 00:49:47.280

and when the Bilinos wrote a show, It was pretty much their show. And so, whatever, what they did is they had a script and they bled from every poor cut a line out. Or changed a line, I don't know,

00:49:47.280 - 00:49:52.540

they liked that. But with shows of reason... It's not a cooperative effort. Huh?

00:49:52.540 - 00:49:56.200

Yeah. The last few years, it's been more of a... Well, there's a cooperative effort

00:49:56.200 - 00:50:03.860

there. They wrote a framework and people put in, put in their skin to it, but They took the responsibility of really whipping it into shape.

00:50:03.960 - 00:50:19.120

I think Betsy and Al got a little bit tired of writing a full show as the years went by. So mostly they became more editors of other people's work. Where Goodbaster really liked to write full-size scripts.

00:50:19.460 - 00:50:30.580

And no changes. And a bit like Cajun sometimes. But now the producers are in full control. Producers, God knows what the, we have now more music directors.

00:50:31.020 - 00:50:46.280

We have more music directors, it's always hard to know who's there. We have a cast of 50 or so directors. But the show started by accident and nobody thought for a moment that it would continue.

00:50:46.280 - 00:50:58.940

It's gone on every year since '57. It started, as I recall, because people were tired of collecting money for the clubhouse roof and they'd go around and say give me $5.

00:50:59.280 - 00:51:06.820

So Mickey Rooney said to Judy Garland, let's put on a show. And so the first show was April in Paris, something like that.

00:51:06.820 - 00:51:15.840

Since I had lived in Paris, he asked me to be the director. I had no talent. And so we put on a show, which was a vaudeville skit.

00:51:15.960 - 00:51:27.380

And we had so much fun doing it that we kept it up and it's continued to all of our amazement I think for 30 32 years. Are they always so political. It doesn't sound like they've

00:51:27.380 - 00:51:33.340

always been so externally political as it were. Well there always is. There's always a sort of a cross between.

00:51:33.340 - 00:51:58.320

There's always social comment. Social comment, banning for an event that have taken place. And I think, Hoagy and I put on a couple of shows together in the 70s, 69 and 70, and the 69 one was done with Goodfellas, but we did

00:51:58.320 - 00:52:06.220

pretty much the same sort of thing. Took them the name, had them off the generation gap. Right, and backing into the 70s. And backing it, but the shows

00:52:06.220 - 00:52:26.540

really reflect the sort of status of the community in general. They reflect the status of what's going on in the US at the time. It's unbelievable when you look back. I remember that the Hedemophile Generation Gap, which was episodic

00:52:26.820 - 00:52:50.740

and we finally figured out that the framework was to talk about yesterday, today, tomorrow, more or less as a sort of loosely derived, the loose framework for it, and a lot of quick in and outs because, What was the name of that very funny television show that

00:52:50.740 - 00:53:00.960

didn't last very long? Laugh-In. So we wanted to have a lot of laugh-in kind of, quickie, in and out things there. And we were also pretty affected

00:53:00.960 - 00:53:08.940

by the success of hair. So we had, of course, the Age of Aquarius. That was one of the best shows we

00:53:08.940 - 00:53:11.780

had. That was one of the best shows we had. They're all the best.

00:53:12.740 - 00:53:27.840

We had movies, we had slides, We had two or three things going on at once, I think all due to Hoagy at that point. Well, we actually produced some kids from the neighborhood that had a wet show.

00:53:28.680 - 00:53:39.640

Oh, nice. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, how do you put on a newcomer's production, sort of a

00:53:39.640 - 00:53:55.600

full production, multi with a couple of screens going and slides. And give me a few slides to preview and to think of things to say during those slides.

00:53:55.600 - 00:54:04.340

And that sort of became a little theme that we used in that. That was fun. So we decided let's do something like that on a bigger scale.

00:54:04.460 - 00:54:13.120

What year was that? That was '69. Well, the fall of '68 was the newcomers part and the spring of '69 was the show.

00:54:13.520 - 00:54:31.000

That first multimedia type of show that we had there. We had a lot of people. We had a guy who was sort of a subdirector for a CBS documentary group, and he got us a lot of

00:54:31.000 - 00:54:42.320

stuff that was hard to get hold of. He lived in the neighborhood for a few years, but not very long. Who's that? I can't remember his name, but he did this.

00:54:43.180 - 00:54:51.560

Tom Noonan? No. This was after—oh, and the whole thing happened because Tom Noonan left. Tom Noonan is certainly, you know,

00:54:51.580 - 00:55:01.620

who's a dictator of the Adolf Hitler type. Exactly is. You shouldn't speak ill of him. By the numbers.

00:55:02.020 - 00:55:14.840

And I had, I worked under, it seems like the only other director that ever worked on like that, back when I was an actor in the '30s, was they were always left-wing people.

00:55:17.220 - 00:55:27.620

There was only one right way to do it, and that was the way that he did it at the Moscow Art Theater. And God knows if they really knew how they did it at the Moscow Art Theater.

00:55:27.740 - 00:55:36.220

Who could argue with them? Tom Noonan had the right way. Tom Noonan grew up in theater doing puppet shows and we were his puppets.

00:55:37.200 - 00:55:45.560

And he believed in that kind of an arrangement. I would like to add something. I'll bet you a lot of people don't know that Hoagy plays drums.

00:55:46.260 - 00:55:53.200

No, I don't know that. You didn't know that? Really? Yeah. We had a great routine in '65 and

00:55:53.200 - 00:56:03.480

'67. Yeah. Hoagie and I. Hoagie was a. I did a belly dance to his drums. Oh. Remember that thing with the pillowcases, the belly?

00:56:03.740 - 00:56:08.800

Yeah. Oh, the whistling, the bridge on the River Kwai. With the hats.

00:56:09.140 - 00:56:26.140

No, no. Where you had the faces painted? Yes, that was the, that was the, that was hysterical. Yeah, well that was a, that was a thing, I had seen a thing like that done at one of those ethnic organizations in Cleveland that

00:56:26.140 - 00:56:44.620

put on a show with that thing. And Nick Hefter had seen the same thing, a variation on the same thing in Casablanca. So we did it here, it was a great fun thing to do.

00:56:45.460 - 00:56:54.620

And Nancy, who was very good at makeup, painted big faces on our stomachs. With the belly buttons, the whistling.

00:56:56.600 - 00:57:07.880

And we had these enormous big black hats that came down to our shoulders, in which we kept our hands inside. And we had jackets around our

00:57:07.880 - 00:57:27.560

waist with the arms dangling, but we had gloves on there. So when we walked across, we had these dangling arms there. And these were like three huge dwarfs wandering around with these very strange things.

00:57:27.560 - 00:57:32.800

Hairy faces. Hairy faces. But in this '69 show, we shocked people by having somebody nude.

00:57:32.800 - 00:57:39.660

Well, almost nude. Almost. No, no. I was sure that Al was going to be naked.

00:57:40.200 - 00:57:45.400

He wore a diaper. Oh, that's right, Al Menlon. Yeah. He wore diapers, I recall.

00:57:45.420 - 00:58:00.340

I think that was about. Was he in that show, '69? No, it was way out. I told him whatever it was, it was way out. Well, the good is, in the various segments of the show, Al came up

00:58:00.340 - 00:58:22.560

and posted little Boris, what was the past, what was the present, what was happening, and the future. And he was wearing clothes of the time, so for the future, he came out in a diaper or something, a fig leaf I think, it was a

00:58:22.560 - 00:58:29.880

jockstrap. And I was very, very concerned that it was not gonna be big enough. But...

00:58:31.180 - 00:58:42.420

But next year in the overture, to assure people not to worry, the show was Bannockburn Crude. In Bannockburn Crude, there's nobody nude. Right.

00:58:42.700 - 00:58:51.260

Well, you can see in the '60s, I think part of the '60s, the community came apart. It went berserk. It did.

00:58:51.260 - 00:58:56.760

It really did. The signs, remember the stop signs? Yes, yes. Stop war.

00:58:56.760 - 00:59:15.400

Stop war. But no, they changed, not only stop war, but they had painted out the stop sign, and they had, what, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, all on the various street signs.

00:59:16.100 - 00:59:29.880

They kept, As fast as they kept repainting the signs, the cabal of kids who were doing it would figure out a new scheme to do. They had Zodiac signs for a while.

00:59:30.040 - 00:59:37.540

I want to add something. In 1969, I remember because this was the 20th year. The '69, I think it was Estee

00:59:37.540 - 00:59:55.820

Daupline and Mary Lou Muntz organized an exchange. We had students here by the carload. I think they were Friends Exchange, American Friends Summer Exchange students.

00:59:56.040 - 01:00:08.800

And the reason I remember it is because we had wall-to-wall kids in our downstairs watching the moonwalk. Oh, oh, yes, I remember that.

01:00:08.800 - 01:00:23.720

Remember that? Yeah. We once, we always had trouble getting pianists, and I once picked up a pianist at, a park ranger at the Clara Barton house. And she played a few times, and then she decided, she learned she

01:00:23.720 - 01:00:33.140

wasn't going to be here for the night of the show, so she dropped out. Well, the show was on Wednesday, and then on Friday, and then on Saturday, and she hadn't come.

01:00:33.260 - 01:00:43.040

And she'd worked for us, so I called her up and insisted that she come to the show. So she came rather timidly. And she had watched the rehearsals, remember.

01:00:43.580 - 01:00:54.520

And she came and she watched the show. And when it was over she said, my God, that was good. When I saw the rehearsals, I didn't think you guys would have the courage to get up on stage.

01:00:55.020 - 01:01:08.860

It was so disorganized and so. The other thing I remember, we had a new young woman here, Nancy Aitken. And she was very modest and very

01:01:08.860 - 01:01:12.260

shy. She was brand new and she sang a song. And finally, when she got up a

01:01:12.260 - 01:01:21.600

little more courage, I was directing that year, or kibitzing, I'm not sure which, she said, why are we making fun of Ronald Reagan. I was sort of shocked I said

01:01:21.660 - 01:01:32.540

because he's president. You should have seen what we did to Jimmy Carter and Amy and Rosalyn and others. She said but my father's coming to the show.

01:01:32.920 - 01:01:45.400

I said, well, so, but he's a Republican congressman from Grove Point, Michigan. He came and he loved the show. There was also Mary Ann's ballet.

01:01:45.860 - 01:01:56.080

Ah, yes. It was Mary Ann and there was that, let's see, Mrs. Stevens, Barbara Stevens. And there was a woman.

01:01:56.980 - 01:02:04.520

In the house we used to live in. Freedman or. Freedman. For a couple of years and there

01:02:04.520 - 01:02:15.520

you put together some incredible. We put together one You remember the one you and I and Barbara did to the Maylock song? And it was, we.

01:02:16.300 - 01:02:19.620

The machine? Yes. The machine. The machine was the one I remember.

01:02:19.620 - 01:02:28.860

That was the one we did. That was great. That was Barbara, you, and I. And we just synchronized it just it was incredible.

01:02:28.940 - 01:02:39.960

It really was good. We frequently have had numbers put in at the last minute when some event took place. When the hostages were taken in

01:02:39.960 - 01:02:48.460

Iran, we had the show pretty well along. And on Wednesday we had a dress rehearsal, and on Thursday, Louis Smith called up.