00:00:04.540 - 00:00:13.900

That...I wonder if I have the year on it. 1956 maybe. Oh yeah. May 1956, yeah, because the kids were in nursery school.

00:00:13.900 - 00:00:23.800

They would have had, to be two years old. That was the first one I wrote. Did you do that with Sandy Ravner or by yourself?

00:00:25.840 - 00:00:32.900

No that one I did by myself. I can't remember why, or anything else about it. I remember that I did it a lot of

00:00:32.900 - 00:00:51.000

places. I took it to a lot of places where they were having daycare programs and so on. It's probably relevant at any nursery school.

00:00:51.280 - 00:00:55.760

At the time. At the time. It had to do with... Oh, and Sandy was...

00:00:55.760 - 00:01:03.580

Sandy did participate because she wrote the hit song. The hit song was called, "My Once a Week Day". Oh I remember that one. This is from Pyjama Game.

00:01:04.220 - 00:01:15.360

I think that was from this one. Where the mothers were all at home and there was one car situation. And once a week they'd have the

00:01:15.360 - 00:01:26.820

car and it had to be in this script. And I don't think it was ever incorporated into any other script. Well, I'd love to read the script.

00:01:27.920 - 00:01:34.700

Yeah, well, I've got to. The problem is whether it's in any kind of order. I can't.

00:01:39.720 - 00:02:02.000

OK, this looks like... Well, what would be interesting, Irene, is to pick your brain about how you sort of landed up here, how you landed up here.

00:02:02.520 - 00:02:08.080

How I got to Bannockburn? How your family got here and give me some background on stuff you know.. You know, I grew up in a

00:02:08.120 - 00:02:16.820

community, a cooperative community. Still, isn't that outside of New Brunswick somewhere? That's right outside of New Brunswick. It's in a town that is now incorporated called Kettering.

00:02:18.040 - 00:02:25.300

Oh, yeah, I see. Yeah. And I understand that where the colony was, it's now a supermarket and a superhighway.

00:02:25.940 - 00:02:41.600

I have not been there since 1964. In 1964, it was becoming a black suburban area for middle class Blacks. I'd been there before, but it was

00:02:41.600 - 00:02:57.540

kind of overgrown and neglected. In 1964, when I went, some of the houses were painted and the lawns were trimmed and things like that. And then during the war, we lived in Greenmont Village in Ohio,

00:02:57.700 - 00:03:10.540

which is the sister community to Greenbelt. And it was also a cooperative at the time. You moved in by buying the $25 share. So I guess I had an affinity for it.

00:03:11.260 - 00:03:27.600

When we came back to Washington in 1948, after the war, we went to visit a family named Ruth and Gil Beebe, who now live in Holland Hills. They were friends of Ray and Leo,

00:03:27.700 - 00:03:33.160

that's the connection there. And they were looking at Bannockburn. And then it was nothing but a

00:03:33.160 - 00:03:45.160

piece of paper, and they had these blueprints. And Martin and I looked at each other and said, "We don't want to live in a community like that. We've had it."

00:03:45.160 - 00:04:05.520

[laughter.] So we went on our merry way and, oh, it's 1948. In 1954, the twins were born and we outgrew, we had a little house in Rockville and we immediately outgrew everything. We outgrew our refrigerator, we outgrew our house.

00:04:05.800 - 00:04:15.620

So I started to look for a bigger house. And I had ideas about what I wanted. I didn't want a new house. I wanted an old house.

00:04:15.620 - 00:04:29.940

I liked the architecture better, stuff like that. Well, the upshot of it is I looked and looked and looked, and one day I was in a writing class. In my writing class was Nancy

00:04:29.940 - 00:04:44.280

Carrow and Yayoi Ono. Her name wasn't Yayoi, it was Ono. They lived behind here. It's a Nisei family.

00:04:44.280 - 00:04:53.960

They were both in the writing class. And they kept on saying, "Why don't you look in Bannockburn? That house is for sale in Bannockburn." I said, "No, I don't want to live in a community like that" But one

00:04:53.960 - 00:05:09.360

day Nancy said, "There's a house right on my street that's available." So she either got Mary Herling to call me, or I called Mary Herling, and she came and showed me this house and I bought it.

00:05:10.580 - 00:05:21.880

Just like that. So it sounds like our story. So that was in '54. This was 1955.

00:05:21.880 - 00:05:29.510

'55. So this must have been a new house at that. Well, it had been built within the year. It had been bought by a family named Podovsky.

00:05:29.820 - 00:05:39.440

And our joke was that for ten years—they lived in this house for about seven months. For ten years afterwards, if I meet people at the pool or something, they say, "Oh, you live

00:05:39.440 - 00:05:56.280

in the Podovsky house." The standing joke. So that's how we got here. I think one of the big attractions at that time was that the little school, the Clara Barton School,

00:05:56.280 - 00:06:08.120

had a full-day first grade. Josie was about to enter first grade, and I did not want her to be in a half-day first grade. You mean there was such a thing as a half-day first grade at that

00:06:08.120 - 00:06:16.240

time? I mean most of the first grades were half-days? First grades were half-days, yes. Many of the schools were on half-days. That was during the height of the baby boom.

00:06:16.580 - 00:06:22.840

Oh, so they would take shifts or something like that? Yeah. And then of course, I did not know they were going to build a new school, but they still had full

00:06:22.840 - 00:06:28.540

day. Now of course it's a kindergarten that they are fighting over. A full day business.

00:06:29.020 - 00:06:38.490

This one being one of the few in the county that has a full-day kindergarten. Yeah. So that's how I got to Bannockburn.

00:06:39.020 - 00:06:50.140

So you kind of unavoidably landed up in something similar to what you grew up in anyway. Yeah. That was interesting.

00:06:50.660 - 00:07:03.960

I went to Douglas College, Rutgers, and I did not realize that Stelton was a co-op. Of course, I guess I wasn'ton that wavelength then. Well, it was a co-op.

00:07:05.380 - 00:07:15.700

The home ownership, I don't know if it started out as co-op, but they certainly bought the farm. It was a farm, and whoever bought the farm was bought co-operatively.

00:07:16.520 - 00:07:28.200

The time I remember, people owned their homes, and there was quite variation in size and quality of the home. But the store was cooperative and

00:07:28.200 - 00:07:42.340

the school was cooperative, and the living house, the area where the boarding kids lived was run cooperatively, not for profit and all that. Oh, what do you mean?

00:07:44.380 - 00:08:11.820

It was a boarding school? Well, you know, the Stelton was settled primarily to put the school there, the Ferrer School. And the people, who were mostly union people, at that time anarchists, it was 1915, I think, they wanted their kids to go to

00:08:11.820 - 00:08:22.320

the school. Well, some of them were single parents, and some of them were two working parents, so they could not very conveniently live and dealt with the work in the factories.

00:08:22.360 - 00:08:36.960

They weren't all factory workers in New York and Philadelphia. So they put their children in what they called the living house, where the children lived, which was separate from the school. You can't call it a boarding school really because it's about

00:08:37.660 - 00:08:44.240

almost a mile. But they went to school during the week there. Well, they went to school and then

00:08:44.240 - 00:08:52.800

the parents came out on weekends. Was it a special kind of school? Oh, yes. The school was modeled after the

00:08:52.800 - 00:08:59.720

model of Francisco Ferrer. You know, if you went to this progressive school, do you know about Francisco Ferrer? Well, I'll tell you briefly.

00:09:00.720 - 00:09:16.520

He was a Spanish anarchist who lived, I think he was born like 1890 or 1880, and he was a teacher. And he believed that if people, of

00:09:16.520 - 00:09:31.520

course in Spain the education was run by the church. As people were educated to think for themselves and to see for themselves, they would change the system. So he developed this idea about education through experience,

00:09:33.420 - 00:09:46.440

which is that the teachers and children learn together. It worked very well in things like botany, mathematics, to get a problem and go through the steps. Or you go out on hikes and observe

00:09:46.620 - 00:10:00.040

what was going on, stuff like that. He was hanged. Somewhere between 1901 and 1904, I don't remember exactly, for being subversive.

00:10:03.260 - 00:10:12.120

He was shot, I remember that. Because before he was shot, he had two requests. One was that he shouldn't be

00:10:12.120 - 00:10:26.980

blindfolded. I forget what the other one was. But anyway, the story is that the—oh, they had a reenactment of his execution in Spain.

00:10:27.660 - 00:10:42.070

Not long—in Spain, they offered a reenactment, but it was actually movies. It was very well documented, I understand. He stepped forward and said, "Viva la Escuela Moderna."

00:10:43.700 - 00:10:51.180

So we were the Modern School of Stelton, New Jersey. And you went to that school. I went to that school. And the colony was the Ferrer colony.

00:10:52.240 - 00:11:08.760

What happened was that all over the world, workers, small groups, it wasn't very well known, but in Germany, France, England, America, workers' groups established, started picking up his ideas to teach for worker education.

00:11:12.540 - 00:11:28.140

And then in New York, they had their school on 15th Street, I think. I have a book about it, but I can't remember all the details. And Ray Shedlovsky and my friend Maggie went there, and then they

00:11:28.140 - 00:11:44.680

decided that the school should be in a [museum] where everybody was living the way they were teaching the kids. So they bought this colony, and the father built the school. And I don't think they had an architect, but the school was very

00:11:44.680 - 00:12:02.440

interesting just structurally. This was 1915. And what they built was a large rectangular building. There was a veranda around three sides of it so people could be

00:12:02.440 - 00:12:09.060

outdoors. The far side of the veranda was enormous. They had meetings, classes, folk

00:12:09.060 - 00:12:22.120

dances right on that side. Then they had a large auditorium inside with a stage and a few little classrooms, workshops in the back and then a separate building that was added later for

00:12:22.120 - 00:12:33.520

more workshops. They had a print shop, a carpenter shop, a metalsmithing shop, a weaving shop, and they believed that children would learn, for instance, that children would

00:12:33.520 - 00:12:43.040

learn, they would take up weaving, They would have to do arithmetic to figure out designs and get a sense of geography, stuff like that. Everything was a hands-on kind of

00:12:43.040 - 00:12:55.680

learning. Still advanced thinking now. But when I think about that school and saw schools that were built then much, much later, as brand new ideas, I thought it was just

00:12:55.680 - 00:13:00.120

like the school I went to, except it had outhouses, it didn't have plumbing. There aren't any new ideas anymore.

00:13:00.860 - 00:13:07.600

It was also the community center where the adults would go at night. There was nothing. They were living outside of New

00:13:07.600 - 00:13:13.580

York. You could not get into New York very easily. There was not even radio.

00:13:15.700 - 00:13:32.540

They used to have, like they used to bring in lecturers, artists, pianists, had concerts there, performances, and then they would put on their own shows. So it worked, obviously.

00:13:32.780 - 00:13:43.520

You learned how to produce shows and write shows. Yeah. Well, that's a very brief thumbnail sketch, and probably not totally accurate.

00:13:44.440 - 00:14:03.700

Well, as accurate as your experience goes. The way I remember it. So tell me something about— Okay, so how I got into the show business, is I would like to do

00:14:03.700 - 00:14:17.940

something hands-on. So when we came back to Washington and I was working and then when Josie was born, I gave up, I didn't work for 10 years.

00:14:19.200 - 00:14:25.320

I started to paint. I took painting lessons, but when Josie was born, I thought, "This is ridiculous. I'm not going to try to paint and

00:14:25.320 - 00:14:31.660

have all this stuff around. The baby gets into it and I'm not that neat. So I better find a hobby that is

00:14:31.880 - 00:14:44.120

less messy." So I figured I'd try writing. And I took short story writing. That's how I met Nancy and the Ono, Mrs. Ono.

00:14:45.060 - 00:14:59.900

So I was interested in short story writing at the time. And how I, that we were having a end of the year nursery festival, and for some reason I decided I

00:14:59.900 - 00:15:17.600

would write this skit, which was a sort of a combination lecture...But I see I have two introductions. I must say I don't remember which one we used. But I thought it was very funny that everybody had different ideas

00:15:17.600 - 00:15:28.220

about how to raise their kids. In fact, at that time, I used to, there was a big, big goings on about academic education and getting back to the three R's.

00:15:29.440 - 00:15:38.520

And I guess it was the height of whatever attempt it was in the public school system to free up education a little bit. But most people didn't understand

00:15:38.520 - 00:15:53.140

what they were doing, was my impression. So there was what they call people who were permissive, and people who were very disciplinarian. And I proposed many times, and I

00:15:53.140 - 00:16:08.100

still think, I know that's a sort of kind of doing it now, what the school system should do is have four school systems, four sets of schools, a permissive school, a very disciplinary school, and two schools in between.

00:16:09.320 - 00:16:18.160

And when they hire a teacher, they should ask which kind of school they'd like to work in, place the teacher there, and then when parents come to register the children in school.

00:16:18.160 - 00:16:31.240

They should ask them what kind of school they want their kids to go to, and everything would work. So what this was, was the four different approaches to raising a four-year-old.

00:16:33.820 - 00:16:43.300

And it just burst with songs. It's a very funny conversation. And it was a big hit. So that year, they had been doing the Bannockburn Show, I guess.

00:16:43.500 - 00:16:53.740

This was 1956. Maybe there had been five or six. I do not remember what the first date of the Bannockburn was. Well, Bannockburn was not built until 19—you are looking at the

00:16:53.740 - 00:17:02.120

history. When was Bannockburn, when did the first people move in? About 1948, I guess. '48? No, it couldn't have been 1948.

00:17:02.120 - 00:17:11.000

It was not even built yet. We were meeting in 1946. They started meeting in 1946. The early project, I do not know.

00:17:11.000 - 00:17:21.820

I got the impression it was before the '50s. Well, 1949. Yeah, 1949, yeah. Well, early on they had these Bannockburn Spring parties and the

00:17:21.820 - 00:17:29.760

Bannockburn Spring Show. The Bannockburn Spring Show was a revue. I think it's gone back to that

00:17:29.760 - 00:17:34.200

now. Yeah. Different people wrote songs and different people got up and sang and danced.

00:17:34.200 - 00:17:44.340

It was very nice, but it was extremely amateurish. It still is. I got the idea that I would try to write a book for the show.

00:17:44.340 - 00:17:52.940

This was the first concept. I guess Sandy and I had worked on this. The reason we had done this was

00:17:52.940 - 00:18:05.020

because we both had kids in school. So we decided we would do the spring show. We got together, I remember, with Lou..what was it, I'm terrible about names--Schwartz.

00:18:07.280 - 00:18:16.100

For some reason, I guess he was on the board or something, and he also wanted to be in it. So he had some ideas what he wanted it to be about. And so we wrote a show.

00:18:16.100 - 00:18:29.940

At that time, there was lots of talk about the Battle of the Sections. Most of the shows were built around some popular show title. That was what we introduced, that they continued.

00:18:31.160 - 00:18:40.520

Before that it was just a show. Before that it was just a one-night stand. The, um...I know I have it.

00:18:46.220 - 00:18:53.900

Here's one I can't remember. "The Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Bannockburn." I know I wrote it, but I can't remember anything about it.

00:18:55.020 - 00:18:58.690

It would be fun sometimes to go back and read all that. Oh, here. This is "the minor orbit.

00:18:58.690 - 00:19:11.980

So "the minor orbit", all of it's a space stuff. So this has to do with the, it's almost like "Reuben, Reuben," you know, the men and women of

00:19:11.980 - 00:19:32.720

Bannockburn have some kind of a falling out, and so they send the men to the moon and the women to Venus or something. [laughter.] Anyway, it did have a story. And...I don't think we used anybody else's.

00:19:32.720 - 00:19:43.350

I see I have a song by Jack Carrow in here. I think that comes from a previous show. You might be interested. It was a song about...Jack Carrow.

00:19:55.200 - 00:20:07.160

You might be interested in this. I know why I have it. I'll tell you that later. It started out with having a

00:20:07.160 - 00:20:14.160

party. "The Minor Orbit" started out they were having a party. The party was a nursery school

00:20:14.160 - 00:20:26.400

work party. That was the kind of parties. I don't know what, this thing about going up to the moon and then coming back and getting friends again.

00:20:29.060 - 00:20:41.000

I think that was very simple. So that was "The Minor Orbit." And it's, let's say, bits and pieces. There might be, pages might be numbered.

00:20:41.000 - 00:20:51.040

I see some numbered pages. You need an archivist now. You've got so much stuff. He has a song, I think I have it

00:20:51.040 - 00:20:58.600

in another file. He has a song he wrote. We collected some of the songs from the previous shows. The one from before Minor Orbit.

00:21:00.180 - 00:21:06.780

But at the 10th anniversary of the Bannockburn show, that's about to be a revueselection song from everyone. So I had some of Jack Carrow's

00:21:06.780 - 00:21:20.280

songs from the earlier ones. He did write...no, he didn't write anything for me. Anyway, that was successful enough

00:21:20.280 - 00:21:34.460

that they ran it two nights. They started this thing of having a party night and a show night. And then, I can't remember what

00:21:34.460 - 00:21:52.740

year, Then the PTA asked me to do one for them at the Bannockburn Elementary School, and I wrote a thing called, Who's Teaching? That too was done in a lot of places. And this is—you've got a pretty good copy here.

00:21:59.640 - 00:22:15.860

What was the name of the school that was going to be the pilot school for the strictly three Rs? Amidon. Right, so I call this the Armageddon School. Yeah, I taught right next door to that.

00:22:15.980 - 00:22:27.320

It was on Hawthorne, and I was right next door. It was all the talk about phonics. I don't know if I used the line, but David Leibig, who was then about 13, said, I think it's

00:22:27.320 - 00:22:41.480

ironic there's a P-H in phonics. So that was that. I bet there's some stuff that would be relevant now, probably more relevant than some of the stuff they're writing out in these

00:22:41.480 - 00:22:47.900

shows. I think it might be. I haven't looked at them, But there's one that's the most relevant was the last one I wrote.

00:22:48.400 - 00:22:56.960

Then there's one I completely forgot about. That was probably the last one I wrote, which was when the principal of the junior high

00:22:56.960 - 00:23:12.590

school, Powell Junior High School retired. I wrote a little This is your life bit about him. Well, that was that. The shows, the same thing, Minor

00:23:12.590 - 00:23:24.880

Orbit. I think the one I can't remember, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Polls in 1968. Oh, maybe that was one of mine.

00:23:24.880 - 00:23:39.140

I think they gave it to me. That's what it was. So did you direct them too, or? Oh, well, no. Okay, directing.

00:23:39.140 - 00:23:47.420

I directed the first one, the nursery school one. Then Lucy Brightman, who had a child in the same school, didn't even know that we were doing this,

00:23:47.620 - 00:24:05.820

said, I remember at the meeting after they were all very happy about it, oh my hearing aid dried out, said she enjoyed it very much but she was sorry she wasn't involved in it. And people said, oh, let hair got involved, or they were all...She's

00:24:06.400 - 00:24:13.780

very knowledgeable about theater, and she directed all of our other shows. Jeez. Except for the Principal of the Thing.

00:24:13.780 - 00:24:21.370

I think she was sort of not available at that time. I don't think she directed that. So a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Poll.

00:24:26.140 - 00:24:36.600

Looks like my name, my work. I wrote Winifred Taylor on it. I think I was going to adopt a stage name.

00:24:36.860 - 00:24:50.140

Winifred's my middle name. My initials are IWW and not by mistake. [laughter.] So, and Taylor is—Schneiderman means Taylor. That's right.

00:24:50.220 - 00:25:00.780

So, Winnifred Taylor must be me. Oh, I know what it was. This was for the Democratic—the County Democratic Committee.

00:25:01.240 - 00:25:10.220

I completely forgot about it. So, they're really done for different constituencies. Yeah, right, right. I've asked what this was.

00:25:11.400 - 00:25:23.940

We did use The Once a Week Day here again. Oh, yeah, Ticky, Dickie. Is...This again might be pretty appropriate.

00:25:30.860 - 00:25:41.320

One thing that I'm specifically looking for, the only thing that I really know that I'm specifically looking for is a children's song. I mean, is there anything in the

00:25:41.320 - 00:25:55.960

shows that the kids, the children would have sung? Well, I think The Once a Week day is not very pertinent, but I would have to refresh my memory on that. We had some, but I had one, I

00:25:55.960 - 00:26:09.020

think it was in the last, the Dolce Bannockburn. Now the Dolce Bannockburn, which I think was the best thing I wrote. Well, Dolce Bannockburn was about how—we had just elected a very conservative county board that year.

00:26:09.020 - 00:26:21.600

What year was that? —how they decided to privatize the county. Now, this was 1963. It seemed like a very outrageous, far-out idea.

00:26:23.180 - 00:26:31.760

That--we were here then. I definitely saw that So that was Dolce Banneker. It's very pertinent now.

00:26:31.760 - 00:26:43.840

You could do it for the whole country. Oh, that would be so fun to pull out something. Oh, we have an advertisement for cigarettes in it. [laughter.

00:26:46.720 - 00:26:56.280

That in itself is interesting. I mean, the issues are now, you know, have come full circle again, because everyone's very interested in parenting now. Yeah, we had to buy Bannockburn back from the county.

00:26:56.280 - 00:27:06.420

That was the problem. And it was interesting that there was a visitor from New York who said, "I couldn't wait to find out what would happen." [laughter.] Most people didn't pay

00:27:06.420 - 00:27:22.420

that much attention to the, you know. Yeah, one of the real ironies that I'm finding as I'm reading back on the history is that, you know, the strenuous efforts that were made to get the zoning for mixed usage in Bannockburn when it was first

00:27:22.420 - 00:27:32.710

built, and now the resistance to anything smelling of mixed usage with the new development. Yeah, oh yes they didn't get it. The exact same resistance.

00:27:32.710 - 00:27:40.060

I remember Mary telling me that story. They could not get it. They wanted to have a sort of cradle to the grave, small houses

00:27:40.200 - 00:27:47.960

for young families and then larger, and then an apartment for retired people. They wanted to use the clubhouse. Which was why they hired this guy, Vernon DeMars, because he was sort

00:27:47.960 - 00:27:57.440

of a specialist in that business. But now, you know, Harbannockburn is resisting that construction behind the school now. I mean, you know, townhouses, God forbid.

00:27:57.440 - 00:28:05.860

And the only reason that they can come up with to oppose it is that it doesn't fit in with the character of the neighborhood. The character of the neighborhood. Whatever that is.

00:28:05.860 - 00:28:25.940

Who's he? And I don't, my predicament is that I want to, you know, sort of point this out and yet not get anybody's hackles up but I guess that's impossible. Okay, now I'm thinking about the kids.

00:28:25.940 - 00:28:39.840

I know we've had some songs that... The ones that they've had lately, the songs-- This is the Japanese stuff. Here's a verse.

00:28:39.840 - 00:28:45.480

They're going to privatize Bannockburn and make it into a country club again. "The Dulles Airport's rather close.

00:28:45.480 - 00:28:55.620

We're sold out to a foreign host. And our situation's sad." This is part of a song. The music, you'd have to ask for Sandy. She'll remember everything.

00:28:55.840 - 00:29:04.900

She'll remember what these things are for, I think. You mean the songs that go with them? The music that they would sing?

00:29:04.900 - 00:29:16.160

It was based on popular songs. She would be able to tell you what songs the words were made to. Now I'm just kind of fishing to

00:29:16.160 - 00:29:33.680

see which songs might be good for the kids. The Once a Week song might not make any sense to them now, but it was a good song at easy, fun to stage. That was the day, the participation day, right?

00:29:33.680 - 00:29:37.960

That you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. In the car. Yeah.

00:29:37.960 - 00:29:45.640

Well, now, of course, it's all changed. And now the fathers go in, the grandmothers go in. Yeah. For the participation.

00:29:45.820 - 00:29:49.990

Oh, really? Yeah. Well, they didn't permit that. A lot of them, you know, the grandmothers are going in.

00:29:52.120 - 00:29:58.400

The babysitter goes in and took place, you know. It's not the whole idea. Again, they've lost the point.

00:29:58.860 - 00:30:09.140

Totally lost the point. Although, I mean, it's nice that the father's going. Well, having the mother and her father go is OK, but the rest don't have participation.

00:30:09.440 - 00:30:14.240

Raise the fees. These people don't want to go. Raise the fees and just have another helper.

00:30:14.240 - 00:30:23.540

That's the way it's going to be. The kids do better if they have a consistent aid, somebody who is there every day that has different people. Right, I think that was a difficulty sometimes.

00:30:23.920 - 00:30:38.560

I think that...people. So anyway, let me see, I guess I'll have to leave it to you to see what you think would be..."a little bit way out in our community, a little bit of

00:30:38.560 - 00:30:49.240

kookiness we got." They might like that. From Camelot. That was the final song for them. I wish I knew more about these show tunes.

00:30:49.240 - 00:30:55.120

I'm not really up on show tunes. Well, Sandy could get them to you. She probably has records. I don't know.

00:30:55.120 - 00:31:00.280

I'm sure she remembers every one of them. Some people like that. I can't even remember what I wrote.

00:31:00.480 - 00:31:12.540

I know people who can quote poetry that they wrote when they were kids. And I also have here something that you might be interested in. A show that I wrote that never got produced called The Bannockburn

00:31:12.700 - 00:31:19.900

Show Strikes Back. Oh, I saw about that in the newsletter. The title is so intriguing.

00:31:20.460 - 00:31:32.960

Maybe they took the title, but they didn't use my, I'm not at it. Come on. And it has excerpts from all the shows for the first ten years.

00:31:33.920 - 00:31:46.200

That was the, I think it happened when I was a little girl. Do you do any writing anymore? Do you write that much anymore? No, not this kind of thing.

00:31:46.240 - 00:31:58.380

I am about to write a little monograph having to do with the way I worked in the alcoholism business. I think I am going to write. I keep doing other things like

00:31:58.380 - 00:32:12.520

getting a computer and now I have to learn to use the computer. But it is good to have it. If you are going to write a lot. Well, I've got the computer and I've got everything I ever got

00:32:12.520 - 00:32:22.960

printed on what I did is now on a disk. So I can move it around and edit it. But I haven't got the disk yet and I don't know how to operate the computer, otherwise I'll buy it.

00:32:22.960 - 00:32:28.940

Well, Marvin can do that for you. Well, he doesn't know that. He wants me to teach him. We've had a big fight about that already.

00:32:32.400 - 00:32:41.860

Let's see, let me make some of this. Okay, this is the Bannockburn Show Strikes Back. I think they used the term. They may have used the title.

00:32:41.860 - 00:32:54.600

1967, I have question mark, which means...the first Bannockburn show was 1957, maybe. And they put out something different.

00:32:54.720 - 00:33:05.820

They built it around something else. What happened was they had a very good theatre man replacing Lucy by that time.

00:33:08.360 - 00:33:22.620

But you know in theatre there are lots of points of view about it. Oh! Jack Herling wrote a song about the swimming pool. I thought it was so funny.

00:33:22.620 - 00:33:31.860

"I had a dream this very night, the other night, but George, it hit me hard. I thought I saw a swimming pool adjoining my backyard.

00:33:33.160 - 00:33:40.020

And in the pool, the swimming were 200 couples strong. They splashed and splashed. They whipped it up with hot dogs, cokes, and so on."

00:33:40.020 - 00:33:48.900

There was a lot of opposition to the swimming pool. "The air was filled with shrieks and coos. My bed was filled with spray. They ambled through my dining room

00:33:48.900 - 00:33:56.280

and called it right of way. And in a flash, all those guys in the pool had disappeared. And I was left alone in bed

00:33:56.280 - 00:34:03.450

sobbing in my beard." [laughter.] So there was opposition to that? Oh yeah. Because it was in people's backyards. Especially the people down there.

00:34:03.450 - 00:34:15.990

I would not hear it then. I hear they're still doing that, not because of the enlarging of the building. Oh, always something.

00:34:16.340 - 00:34:23.440

I'm going to have a whole scene called Battles of Bannockburn. Well, let's put this one in. Put this one in. The one about the dog? I don't think we ever got a dog

00:34:23.440 - 00:34:30.480

song in, but for a while that was the issue, for about three years. Listen, it's in the newsletter. It's like the running thread through, you know.

00:34:30.540 - 00:34:37.120

30 years of newsletters. It's this dog story. Another battle that's unbelievable to me now is the sidewalks.

00:34:38.240 - 00:34:45.570

When we moved in here, I said, "sidewalks. "I don't remember what the authority—it didn't increase anything.

00:34:45.570 - 00:35:00.660

It's just people wanted to look more rural. We had on this loop, the Hook of Bannockburn, 63 children of elementary and sub-elementary school age, and they were always playing in the street.

00:35:01.840 - 00:35:10.580

I said, "I don't want that." And so we had a big to-do about that. They put it in the sidewalks. And I used to say, "The kids are

00:35:10.580 - 00:35:20.740

still playing in the streets." That's what the mother said. "Oh, the kids are still playing in the streets, but not in front of my house." I would go out and say, "You're playing in front of my house, I don't like to see people run over

00:35:20.740 - 00:35:31.260

in front of my house. If you want to play in the street, go someplace else." So we got on the sidewalk. That's interesting too, because you have a whole other repeating

00:35:31.360 - 00:35:37.620

scene now on Wilson Lane. What's that? The sidewalk story. It's coming back on Wilson Lane.

00:35:37.720 - 00:35:49.300

Oh really? Well, I think people are very glad that the children can walk safely back and forth now. Oh God, it would have made, how much money would they have saved now just by being able to have kids walk to school?

00:35:50.020 - 00:35:57.680

You know, because if they live on Wilson, they have to ride the bus to school. They could easily have walked if there had been sidewalks.

00:35:58.140 - 00:36:08.300

Yeah. But at that time, it was not a money issue. The issue was that these people had moved into the country and they wanted to look like country, not like a city or like a suburb.

00:36:08.300 - 00:36:15.420

Oh, I see. I never realized that that was a sort of rationale for no side--Because you know, we still don't have one on our own place.

00:36:15.540 - 00:36:26.600

That was the telling argument. People would have looked at the character of the neighborhood this. I don't know who he is or she is

00:36:26.600 - 00:36:35.700

to be. Do you remember any other sort of hair-tearing issues over the years? Over the years? Well, let's see.

00:36:35.700 - 00:36:48.260

Of course, the big issue when I moved in, right after I moved in, it was serious, because they wanted to put uh, 495 right through the middle of Bannockburn. Yeah, I'm discovering that as I'm

00:36:48.260 - 00:36:55.020

reading. Actually, 270. And that was really, 270 or whatever, that would have been a serious issue.

00:36:55.360 - 00:37:02.700

They would have taken down all the houses, they would have divided the community, and of course it would have been hell to live here. So that was the first one.

00:37:03.080 - 00:37:15.200

And I remember I offered to trade my car in for a bike. So the delegate from the highway authority came and he said, "Well, you know, the traffic. I said, "Well, would it help if I

00:37:15.200 - 00:37:24.240

got a bike instead of a car?" I mean, I try to be concrete about these things. Nobody takes me seriously. So I stopped writing plays.

00:37:24.240 - 00:37:30.920

One thing I liked about writing plays, once I stopped writing plays, I stopped writing, trying to write short stories. The reason is that you write a

00:37:30.920 - 00:37:49.900

play, people have to hear something. How did they eventually settle that? I mean, I knew it didn't happen, but how? You know who would be able to tell you exactly what happened was Lou

00:37:49.900 - 00:38:01.660

Schwartz. He did the legal side of... That whole issue? And he could tell you how it finally got to be.

00:38:01.900 - 00:38:16.140

I think what it was, my impression is that although Bannockburn is a small community, the Democrats were in charge at the time and the Bannockburn people had a lot of clout.

00:38:18.120 - 00:38:35.220

Well, that's encouraging that people– Bannockburn people had a lot of clout. By 1968, when I wrote La Dolce Bannockburn, we had a lot of people in Bannockburn who were quite close to the White House and

00:38:35.220 - 00:38:44.420

really could get to people. Like who and how? Well, Murray Weiss, for one. Even Marvin.

00:38:45.360 - 00:39:04.920

There were people in Congress who were friendly toward the problems of environmental and occupational health. They got them up the Hill to testify and they listened to them. That was Johnson? Yes, that was Johnson, Kennedy and

00:39:04.920 - 00:39:15.240

Johnson. But the sidewalk, that kind of thing, or even the highway, that would have been a state issue, wouldn't it? Yeah, right.

00:39:15.240 - 00:39:27.240

But that, Oh, well, the, Ravner was working for the state at the time. People had grown up. They had more clout than they had ten years previously because they

00:39:27.660 - 00:39:42.560

had moved up in whatever system they were in. There were a lot of people either running agencies or at the top of the agency. The digression, how is John

00:39:42.560 - 00:39:53.760

Hurling by the way? Hmm? How is John Herling doing? He seems to be stable. He is in a wheelchair, of course. He, I cannot say he is good, he is

00:39:53.760 - 00:40:00.040

just stable. I do not think he would survive last summer. A tree fell through their house.

00:40:01.500 - 00:40:12.720

But Alice had a party for the people who helped them out for their eighth wedding anniversary. And he's there. He's in and out.

00:40:12.720 - 00:40:24.940

That's what happens. Is it Parkinson's that he had? Parkinson's, yeah. That's what Mary had, too, isn't it? Yep.

00:40:25.920 - 00:40:39.520

That in itself is quite a story. Mary had Parkinson's, And John took care of her and kept her home to the bitter end. And then he got it, and his wife

00:40:39.520 - 00:40:48.040

was keeping him home and taking care of him. It's really interesting. He's doing better than he was. Saintly.

00:40:49.540 - 00:40:59.020

I say it's saintly. Yeah, yeah. He seemed to be with it the whole time.

00:40:59.280 - 00:41:08.840

That's the part. Occasionally he'd fall asleep, but he knew who people were. Sometimes he doesn't seem to know. Sometimes he will say something

00:41:08.840 - 00:41:20.580

which is pertinent to something going on inside him, like people with Alzheimer's, but it doesn't make sense. It's hard for someone else to put it together. But that day, that was just about two weeks ago.

00:41:21.980 - 00:41:42.540

He may be on the medication, but he's not going to get better. Do you remember any other, I mean, what are the sort of highlights of, amusing things or highlights of who? Do you remember any amusing stories involving you or the kids

00:41:42.540 - 00:41:48.480

or anything else that happened? You say there were 63 kids on the block. Well, that must have been a pretty— Oh, yeah.

00:41:48.480 - 00:41:57.720

One was the way I got the kids out of the street. It was wonderful. It was like magic to say that.

00:41:57.720 - 00:42:02.540

I didn't say don't play in the street. I just said "In front of my house, I don't want you to get hit by a car.

00:42:04.760 - 00:42:12.320

If you want to get hit by a car, go play someplace else." Well, that worked very well. Let me think. Typical Bannockburn stuff.

00:42:20.900 - 00:42:30.160

I really just put something together. Come to me later. I just have to keep talking, I guess.

00:42:31.680 - 00:42:46.280

How are your kids? My kids? They are no better than they should be. [laughter.] I read it to Marvin, I don't know, a few months ago I guess it was, when you were visiting in North Carolina?

00:42:46.500 - 00:42:50.080

Yeah. Who's there? Oh, yeah, North Carolina. Susan, she opened up her

00:42:50.080 - 00:42:56.120

chiropractic office. She lives right outside of Winston-Salem. She has two children, a boy and a

00:42:56.120 - 00:43:02.780

girl. So you see them much? Well, I'm going to help her move. They just bought a house.

00:43:03.080 - 00:43:17.620

I see them more than I see any of the other families. Sarah's where? Sarah's in California. And she's the Equal Opportunity Officer for the city of Pasadena. Josie is in Boston.

00:43:18.700 - 00:43:32.020

And she is assistant to the director of a program providing services to families who have children who are HIV positive. And that's just getting off the

00:43:32.020 - 00:43:44.080

ground so I don't know what it's going to be. It was a promotion for her. She had been running the daycare center, the infamous Roxbury Housing Center.

00:43:44.080 - 00:43:51.540

Oh, boy. Yeah. How long has she been in Boston? She lived in Boston. Yeah, but she was in Burlington for a long time.

00:43:51.540 - 00:43:59.940

Oh, right. She was in Burlington. She left Burlington in 1980. I guess she is doing a good job.

00:44:01.500 - 00:44:14.140

If she wanted to, she can do anything. I was reading about her in the newsletter. Do you remember? I wonder if you even remember these stories, because they're so long ago.

00:44:15.040 - 00:44:25.020

She had won a prize for something. Yes, I'm doing it. It just came to me only recently for a reason. Oh, Black History Month, I guess.

00:44:25.160 - 00:44:33.460

Somebody asked me something that brought the whole thing back up. What happened? Her best friend was Ivy Ash, who lived next door.

00:44:33.580 - 00:44:44.340

And she decided that she wanted to go to synagogue with Ivy Ash. So I was not about to go to synagogue. I said, "You go to synagogue with Ivy, and they let you come. I'm not going to be a member.

00:44:44.340 - 00:44:51.500

I'm not going to pay fees. They let you come. That's fine with me. You go ask the rabbi if it's all right."

00:44:51.500 - 00:45:08.330

And I thought he ought to give her a little lecture about what it means to be in the synagogue and Judaism and stuff. So she goes to the services, I guess it was Sunday morning, but with Ivy, and she comes home, and I said, "Do you have a good time?"

00:45:08.330 - 00:45:25.760

"Yeah," I said, "What did you talk to the rabbi?" "Yeah," "What did he say?" He said, "have some cake." [laughter.] Anything for a measure. So anyway, she decided that on Yom Kippur, she wanted to stay home

00:45:25.760 - 00:45:32.220

from school. And I thought, this is sort of hypocritical. We don't observe anything else.

00:45:32.220 - 00:45:45.080

Why should my child stay home from school on Yom Kippur? Well, on the other hand, I didn't feel like I should push her to go, so I said, "Look, this is a very serious holiday. If you stay home, you can't stay home and play.

00:45:45.180 - 00:45:55.620

You have to do something." Well, I was big on entering contests in those days, these 25 words or less. Oh, yeah. I won a few prizes.

00:45:56.780 - 00:46:11.000

So there was a contest announced for a one-page essay on my favorite Civil War character. And Josie had been reading a series of children's books.

00:46:11.000 - 00:46:18.980

They were very good. I don't know if they're still out. There was one, Betsy Ross, on Tom Paine, and one was on Harriet Tubman.

00:46:19.200 - 00:46:30.120

And Josie had just read that. So I said, "You write a page." She was in first or second grade. "You write a page about Harriet

00:46:30.120 - 00:46:44.720

Tubman." Well, she tuggled with it all day. And I wrote it up so it was legible, and I mailed it in. Completely forgot about it. Around about, this was in the, oh

00:46:44.720 - 00:46:55.520

yeah, This was Yom Kippur, I guess six weeks later or so. A big package comes to the door. And I thought, oh, my father sent the kid a pretty elaborate gift.

00:46:55.520 - 00:47:05.300

But this was a complete set of the Book of Knowledge and a complete set of a science encyclopedias, children's science encyclopedias. And I thought, this is more than

00:47:05.300 - 00:47:05.300

my--