Oklahoma Voices: Dick Howard

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Transcript:

Dana: I am Dana Morrow and I work for the Metropolitan Library System. We're at the village library and it is October 27, 2007 today. And I'm here to interview

Dick: Dick Howard

Dana: and Dick can you tell us when your birth date is ?

Dick: August 15th, 1937. I was born in New York and my name is really Leonard Richards Howard and Richards was my mother's maiden name. But I've always gone by Dick, and it's always been confusing for official documents and things like that.

Dana: And now did you grow up in New York?

Dick: No. I was born while my parents were on vacation, which they had gone to upstate New York every year. And they didn't quit going. And I was born there. Whitehall, New York. We lived in Muskogee. My grandparents had come from Montreal and so they had gotten into the habit as Canadians of going into this area, Lake George, New York, which they’d gone to in the summers for ever. And so when I moved to Muskogee here, my grandfather was in the cotton business and he opened an office for a company called Dominion Textile, which I think some form of is still in existence. Anyway they put him down in Muskogee, which was in the middle of a big cotton growing area, and they had four five railroads at the time.

Dana: So let's talk about these grandparents, what were their names?

Dick: The ones I was just talking about who moved from Canada were George E. Howard. And we called in Dody. Don't know why everybody called him Dody. And I suppose he was like most children derived from daddy or something that ended up Dody. And then my grandmother, her name was Alice, his wife, Alice Maude Howard. And we called her Nana.

Dana: In what year did they come to Oklahoma?

Dick: I'm not sure they were born about 1890. I'd say it was just prior to nineteen twenty Would be my guess.

Dana: Now what was their ancestry?

Dick: Irish and English. My grandfather was although Howard’s I think, a very English name. He was Irish. So they must have come back. And then he was born in Ireland. My grandmother was born, I think she was born in Canada, but her family came from England. York, they call them Counties, I should know that, but anyway, I know I can't.

Dana: So you knew them pretty well. You knew your grandparents?

Dick: Well I knew my grandmother, she lived to be eighty five or six. My grandfather died when I was nine. So I didn't know him very well, other than to think of what a nice man he seemed to be.

Dana: And so tell me who your parents were? What were their names?

Dick: My father's name was Leonard, George Leonard Howard. He was born in Montreal, but they moved down. Well, I guess he was three or four. That kind of answered your earlier question. And my mother's name. And she was from. Her name was Nancy Alouise. Richard. Don't know her Alouise came from. And she doesn't. She doesn't either. Anyway, and she was born in St Louis. And her parents moved to Tulsa. And they, my mother and father met at Oklahoma State University in the thirties.

Dana: Well, what were they getting their degrees for?

Dick: Dad was an art major, I think. And he was the cartoonist for The Daily O’Collegian.

Is that what it was called? He was very artistic. Had a band. And he also was a drawing artist none of which I seem to pick up. And I don't honestly know what my mother was, what degree she was working on. She didn't never pursue it. Like most people that day, she became a housewife and raised three children.

Dana: And who are your brothers and sisters?

Dick: Incidentally, I don't leave out my grandparents on my mother's side.

Dana: OK.

Dick: They Harry W. Richard and we called her dudes. Ryan was her. It'll come to me in a minute and I'll inserted in this thing. OK. And your next question what was your next question Dana?

Dana: Your siblings.

Dick: Oh, sure. I have a sister who now lives in Tucson. Her name is Linda. She's married to a man named Bill Marcus. Her second marriage and I had a brother who was killed in a car wreck long time ago. His name is Tom. He was only thirty five. 

Dana: And what was the birth order? Were you the eldest? 

Dick: I'm the oldest right, and Linda was the next oldest 14 months later. And Tom was five years later.

Dana: Well talk about your early childhood. What are your some of your earliest memories?

Dick: Well it was great, I thought about it. You know, as you get older, you're thinking about such things. And I don't see my wife is from Los Angeles. And she thought hers was great, too, but quite different than mine growing up in Muskogee, I lived a block from school. I would come home from my early memories are just this neighborhood. In fact, my we had a big side yard and so a lot of the games and kids would play occurred in our our side yard

Dana: like what games?

Dick: football and baseball. run around I would even go to the Saturday movies in those days every Saturday morning. Most kids that’s not necessarily the case. kids in my neighborhood and we go down to the Broadway theater and we'd see a cowboy western movie which had a serial before it, but had like 15 or 16 episodes. And you'd have to go to the next Saturday morning to see what happened then episode 2 or whatever. So we'd go down and see those everyday. I'm trying to remember. I think the mother shared driving us down there and it was about 20 blocks, which seemed like an awful long way. For a person who's eight or nine in a small town because it was all the way downtown from where we lived and we would come back and reenact the serials like cowboys in my side yard and shoot 'em ups and that kind of stuff. Those were simple times, weren't they? But like I said, we lived a block from school. So my memories of that and I like school, Longfellow School, which is gone now, and so was the junior high school I went to and so is the high school I went to. But we would race back at lunch. I remember I'd race back to have lunch real quick, probably peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then I’d run back to the playground because the boys any rate played baseball and we played workup. That was the name of the game, which meant you whoever got back first got to bat. And when you'd get to batting, you'd go into the outfield and, you know, you made your out and work your way back up to right field of the center field of the left field and so on until you were back up to the batter. So if you got back quick, you had a pretty good chance of getting to bat more. We used to do that all the time. So my memories of... that's just an early memory.

Dana: Did you have a baseball hero at the time?

Dick: Yes, indeed.

Dana: Who is that?

Dick: Stan Musial. St. Louis Cardinals. Started watching when this is about. This interview is occurring during the World Series. The first one I listened to was nineteen forty six. I still remember what I've been thirty seven, nine years old. My mother was from St. Louis so as I mentioned. So I started to listen to the Cardinals and was for the Cardinals and I've always been for the St. Louis Cardinals. And so Musial was beginning his career then and I followed it all the way through. There were others, too. But he certainly was a guy probably for everybody my age.

Dana: What did your father do?

Dick: Initially he was in the cotton business, which is. My grandfather had done, well he wouldn't have necessarily been in the cotton business, but he worked for his dad. And then when he died in forty five, they took the cotton company to Dallas and it was called Howard Cotton Company. And my dad didn't want to go to Dallas. He went down there a little bit, I think, and decided he wanted to stay in a small town. And that must have coincided with the opportunity to buy a bookstore, which was in Muskogee called Clarks Bookstore, and they bought it. My parents bought it and ran it for 30 or 40 years, though they changed it to Clarks book and camera shop. That was the first thing because dad was also a photographer and a good one. And. That's another story I used to take, this was during World War Two, I remember they used to take pictures of both friends and other people in Muskogee. And then, um, a lot of military people during the war would come and have photographs taken of their families, maybe the wives with the little babies. And so I still remember I was young.They had a big white one to say sheet, but it was something a little fancier that And the subjects of the photography, the photograph would stand there if there was a baby my mother had been in the background making the baby laugh and I still remember too. Anyway so they changed it to Howard's and ran it for, I don't know, a long time, 30 or 40 years Mom also had the Nancy Howard show on KMUS radio and continue to do something else. Trying to remember thirty over 30 years there in Muskogee. There was just a little program in the morning where she just gossiped and read in the newspaper and did hundreds of adds

Dana: Recipes. Did she ever give recipes?

Dick: Oh, yeah. You have recipes on it as if anybody important ever came to Muskogee. Why they got interviewed by mom.

Dana: So you really grew up in a very stimulating atmosphere, a bookstore. What was your experience?

Dick: Yeah It was kind of stimulating in a way. It certainly introduced me to books. I love books. Still, even if I don't read as many and I buy them. But I like books. But the first books I remember reading and I don't know if they still have him anymore or not. The Hardy Boys

Dana: Those were around when I was growing up

Dick: and then they had some girls' books. Which girls and books my sister read Nancy Drew was at that time.

Dana: Absolutely.

Dick: So I read those all three of those I zipped through those and aside. I laugh when I was reading The Hardy Boys, I joke about my best friend still named Dick Colwell lived behind me and he was reading Patton Marches through Europe as I'm reading the Hardy Boys or something. And he still has more knowledge about more subjects than anybody I know.

Dana: So talk about your friends that you had growing up.

Dick: The boy behind me was named Dick Colwell and Dick we lost touch. I never touch, but we lost contact with each other. For a bunch years, but probably one of the best things that's happened is for the last 25 or 30 years, we've been in touch. I sent him an email. He is in Albuquerque, outside Albuquerque. And so he and I probably communicate via email at least once a week. Email is great for this sort of thing. And talk on the telephone fairly regularly. I go out there every now and then and play golf. He's still got a few ties to Muskogee, although it’s got to be funerals and things that brings him back so when he comes through. In high school reunions and that sort of thing, I guess was the last time he was back here for his 50th. I suppose it was. And so another fellow named Bob May, who just retired actually October the 1st as a doctor and in El Paso and his birthday was recently, which prompted my call. But I've stayed in touch with him. There was a fellow named Joe Moore who went to OU and he and I and a fellow named Herb Miller used to hang around all all the time. This is in junior high and high school. And Joel lives in one of the towns east of here. I can't think of a name, but Choctaw. I haven't talked to him a long time, but I grew up with him. And then we used to play baseball and then football and golf and basketball. Our little worlds pretty much went with the seasons of the baseball began and all that kind of stuff. And I still and then went to college and met a couple of them, met a lot of other fellows. But as I see them more now than I do my high school, my high school chums.

Dana:What are some of your best memories from? Let's start with grade school. When you were younger, what's one of your best memories when you think about that time? What makes you happiest?

Dick: Well are we talking about grade school or anytime?

Dana: Well, it can be anytime, whatever comes to mind.

Dick: Now, just chumming around. I remember in high school I read this was a good memory. It speaks to the Times. Gasoline was about a quarter a gallon. And so most of us had to borrow our parents' car when we started driving. And rather than have our own cars today, I guess one would hope might be the situation anyway. And so we would just drive around Muskogee going down to teen town looking for a girl.

Dana: What was teen town?

Dick: Oh, that was a place that they kept trying to give the high schoolers are always “well, we got nothing to do. No place to go.” So they opened a place called Teen Town and now and then we go down there pretty often. But there weren't that many kids down there. And it wasn't, kids do like to do what they like to do. Just, I guess, just hanging out. I suppose you'd call it today. But when we drive around we weren't going anyplace. We never left Muskogee, and I don’t know where we were going. We just drive to here, there and kind of you know I’m trying to think of the name there was a hot dog place called Chet’s. And there was a place called the Red Arrow Grill, as I recall. But I was going to say so if it was my turn to drive, the other people would chip in on the gasoline. So we'd get anywhere from 50 cents to maybe two dollars worth of gasoline and would be a pretty big step to get. But again, $2 was four gallons. And that I don't know what the mileage. I have no idea how much miles, 60 miles. But we always got the other people shared and shared in the gasoline, which is kind of funny. But those are fun times. But again, It's just fun kind of growing up in a small town. But then when I went to OU it opened a whole new world, which I really, really liked. Those are going to be in a whole new. I really liked OU like both going to school And I like the fun. I love being in my fraternity that I was in it was a four and half really good years.

Dana:Well, is there anything else? Before we move on to your college, is there anything else you'd like to add about growing up in Muskogee? What kind of car did your dad drive on? I'm curious.

Dick: Well, that reminds me of it. This was remember during the war, too. So during the war, you couldn't get gasoline. and so I remember he had a bicycle and he bicycled down to work down to the cotton company again, which was on what we lived at 2420 Columbus. And the cotton company offices were like 4th Street or something like that. So that's roughly in about 20 blocks or something, like that. And there's a it doesn't seem like such a big hill now, but it did at the time. You know, you're going to the old football stadiums or something that seemed huge when you were 15 and now they don't seem so huge at all. Having been to Owen field or whatever it’s called. So we had. So he used to ride the bicycle down that hill. And I laugh, but when he must have come back up. He must have been a different deal. Driving back up that hill during the war, he couldn't get gasoline, so he had So he rode this old bicycle, which I later inherited. He gave to me, inherited. They had a nineteen thirty eight Buick and we had that car for a long, long while for ten years probably. And then they also and then after the war we got, my grandfather got him up, he got that car, got him a Plymouth. And so we had two cars which was kind of a big deal I guess. Two cars. All of the old driveways weren't built for two cars. So you're always moving one car out so you get the other one in and this kind of this kind of confusion. And then from there, then the next door neighbor was a Packard dealer. And so we bought a Packard and the nineteen in the late 1940s. And then I guess after that I went to college in ‘55. I'm trying to remember what we had, but the cars I remember were that old 38, that old 38 Buick and the Packard. I guess they had a series of Fords after that.

Dana: Do you... speaking about World War II. Can you remember the impact it had on you and your family besides the gas rationing? Is there anything else that stands out in your mind?

Dick: A couple of things stand out in my mind. There was food rationing, too. There's lots of rationing. I remember one time my grandfather, who was a salesman. My maternal grandfather, Harry Richards, and we called him Harry. Here's a piece of work he was great and he lived till I was sixteen or 17. Anyway, he had been following along behind like a Swift and company truck, and somehow or another big box of bacon fell out the back end of that. And so granddad stopped and picked up that bacon. And we are the only people for months that were that eating bacon when no one else was eating bacon. I just remembered that. Funny. I must have been seven or eight. Had to be before 1945. You're quite do I Yeah. I had an uncle who was in the Navy. My dad's brother who lives within a mile of here in the Village, and he was in the Navy. So we kind of kept up with where Jack Howard was. My father was not in the service. He you know I've never known exactly for sure, except he had three children. And that kept him from going into a war. And he may have had a minor health problem. Like maybe his eyes weren't 20, 20 or so. Why wouldn't I think it calls him not to be at work. And I forget they they used to categorize your race 4F or, you know, all this kind of stuff. So he didn’t go into the service. And about the only other thing that I really remember it affecting us. Well, they'd have these air raid warnings. And for the kids, it was fun because somebody would come around your neighborhood and tell you you had to turn all the lights off so you would be real dark. And, you know, just kind of kind of fun for kids because it was kind of kind of different. But no, fortunately, the were the War 2 didn't have much impact on me in Muskogee.

Dana: Can you tell me. What did your Grandpa Richards do? What was his business?

Dick: He was a salesman. He worked for a company that may still be in existence. My sister and I were discussing it the other day. It was called then Mine Safety Appliance. And he came down from St Louis. He was actually born in. Oh it’s a town I never can think of the name of in Illinois. Anyway It's a St Louis suburb now that even still exists. And he came down to Tulsa. He was transferred down here and he sold mine supplies, mining supplies the hard hats, the hats with the lights on the front. Other kinds of things that the miners, particularly in northeast Oklahoma, Picher. They used to go up there. About twice I went on trips with him. He took me and that was great. Talk about a nice memory.

Dana: What made those trips of great why did?

Dick: I don't know. He was just kind of a fun guy to be around and thinking back on it I guess he knew how to talk to an 8 year old or a 10 year old or something. He swore a lot. And I thought that was kind of  exciting, kinda fun hearing him say words and I didn't get to hear very often, but later learned on the golf course. My golf course. But I just have fond memories of being and being with him. He’d take me up to these guys he’d introduce me to the miners, the guys who are running the mines. I don't know that we were ever talking to miners. It would have been the managers in there. And I didn't do this often either. Maybe two or three times it, 60 or 70 miles from Muskogee, I suppose. And so he'd just take me for the day and bring me back that night. On his you know Muskogee was between Tulsa and the mining areas that he took me to you know if he went to some farther south in the west. I don't, I don't know. He didn't always make the call and some of the time he had people working for him did that. He was the sales manager for the area.

Dana: Can you remember? Let's talk a little bit about your mom. What kind of person was she? What was she like?

Dick: Well, I say not because I didn't like her by any means, she was great. She is wonderful. And she really liked me. I don't want to get too choked up. She died not too long ago at 84, but she was us. I guess another. She's a strong person. She kind of ran the show, I think. For what Thinks she was as a child and everything And I think she was thought to be attractive. She was young. She was only twenty two or three when I was born. So she was one of the younger moms, and she was busy, very active and this and that. And like I said, she had the radio program for 30 or 40 years. And she was well-known and she was well-known around Muskogee. We never had a hope. We probably, we were probably right in the middle. We weren't by any means well to do. But on the other hand, we all lived alright. So she was a strong person who I always thought, really loved me a lot.

Dana: What was the best meal you ever cooked? What kind of foods did you like her to fix for you? Do you remember that?

Dick: No, I really I really don't. What I do remember, though, is that we all ate at the table every night. It was great. And there would have been five of us, actually, that would have been six, because my mother's sister Marjorie, who was younger than mom, but a couple of years lived with us for I don't know how many. Quite a few years. Not funny at all. You'd think you'd remember. But you don't want those dates. But I probably certainly during my teenage years, she... So there were six of us around the table. And so I remember I'm always playing and I was suppose to be home at 6:00 because we're usually at six o'clock and led me as she’d call for me. And often I was in the yard and was the last one at the table, and you'd have to call several times. I'd finally get in there and they'd tell me my food was going to be cold, which I guess. Do people still do? I don't know. People's maybe then today I guess they all eat from the TV or something. But we didn't. There wasn’t any TV. I was 16 years old before we got television, but it was. But we all sat at the table. My dad sat at one end and mom was at the other and us kids I forget how we sat. We sat at the table and she was a good cook. I don't remember some meatloaf jumps into mine, but I'm sure if she were here she'd like to say I could do more than meatloaf, you know. But as far as I always liked casseroles, which I suppose most kids, don't they turn their nose up at them. The only thing I really hated was liver. And I haven't had a liver since I've been married. But sitting at the table and dad was hilarious. He was really a funny man. He really was. And he’d say some I in part because it goes they liked it. And I'd fall out of the chair in laughter. I didn't have to fall out of a chair and they all got a kick out of it. So. And he was really funny. So we sat there and we were I don't remember we spoke of any matters of the day. You know, like you read about famous families who sat around and talked about politics. I don't think I don't recall that we ever did talk about that. I think we talked about Muskogee stuff.

Dana: Yeah, well, think about your dad. Tell us more about your dad besides being funny with the kind of a laid back guy.

Dick: Yeah, I guess he was, you know, laid back didn't seem to fit him one way or another. He certainly wasn't stressed. He had a good deal. Mom was taking care of everything inside that house. He didn’t need to worry about it. He was an artist kind of out of place in a way. Let's say he had I think his greatest pleasures were his band. He had a band in eastern Oklahoma for years.

Dana: What kind of music?

Dick: Dance band Dance music.

Dana: And what did he play?

Dick: He played saxophone. And I've often heard him his greatest some of his greatest memories were during the war when they'd go out to Camp Gruber, which was there. And they would have a band at one end of the hall and a dance band at the other end. And one would play a set, and then the other would play a set. I really think those are probably his fondest memories. But then he had his photography. And like I say, he'd done cartoons for The Daily O’Collegian. If that's the name of the college paper, Oklahoma A&M, which, of course, is what it was called then. And he did other pictures. But I don't know. And I always thought that. If he had torn himself out of Muskogee, he might have been able to do something with some of that. And he was something else in Muskogee because there weren't that many people. I remember one instance. They had a minstrel show at Longfellow Grade School PTA. And I think he was the interlocutor or the guy on the end? I don't know. He was in blackface. I saw a picture and they used to could do that in those days, we’re talking about nineteen forty eight probably. And he did dance. He'd taken dancing as a child even. His mother was a little lady from England and then Canada and she was she, she sent him to dance school and he didn't want to go like most but he came to enjoy and he became pretty good. I've gotten off the track, but he gave this minstrel show and it was just really funny and really good. And I never seen anything like it before. Again, I hadn't seen him because he hadn't done any dancing for the years. But he used to like to tell a story of... some character had to have a scarf that looked like it was blowing in the wind. So his mother had some kind of a metal thing wrapped around his neck that shot out like three or four feet and held on to this cloth or the scarf. So did it look like I was being blown in the wind. And he had to have this for some recital that he turned around and it hit the girl who was in this thing with his scarf. And you can only imagine hearing him hearing him tell it. And she was a grandmother, Alice Howard, and she was witty, too. She was funny. So that's probably where he got it. And I didn't know my grandfather, Howard, long enough to know if he could have been there, if that's where his wit could come from.

Dana: So he really was offered a lot of experiences. I mean, to learn to play the sax..

Dick: Yes. And I don't know how or why they happened to do that, but they did. And, you know, I'd never thought about that till now because what we didn't as a parent, we didn't do that well that much. We didn't do that. Give our children that experience. But my son has got two daughters in the Houston Youth Orchestra. And so anyway.

Dana: When he was growing up, your dad, when he was given these experiences, he was in Muskogee. They were in Muskogee by then.

Dick: He would've been born in 1915. And like I say, they moved there around nineteen twenty or twenty one.

And my uncle who's nine years younger, was born in nineteen twenty four I guess, and he was born in Muskogee. He was American.

Dana: Was there anything else before we go on and get you out of high school.

Dick: No, I got out of high school, played some sports, golf I was on the golf team. That sort of stuff in high school. Yeah. Those are some of my fondest memories growing up playing golf, like Dick Caldwell, who I mentioned, and Bob May who I mentioned, and some other people who don't, you know, name Jim Smith comes to mind. We every day during the summer, we'd go out to the golf course and play golf almost, almost every day. And then when I was like a junior or senior or junior and a senior couple whose years I worked in the golf course in the pro shop out there, and I remember I used to it hasn't we talked about how good life was used to go to and go play golf, do that most of the day. And then when the day it was over and mom would usually have to take me out there this was before I could drive. But we knew people. It was at the country club. We knew the folks there. The fact that caddied for a lot of them went to one lane golf where we would caddy a dollar and a half or 18 holes if you got twenty five cent tip that was all right. Yeah, a 50 cent tip. Boy, you'd really hit it good. And of course we all know who the 50 cent tippers were, you know. So when I'd get through caddying either once or twice during the day, then I'd get a ride back home with one of the one of the men who played golf. They knew me or and they all knew me by then, knew my parents, it's a small town. So I'd get a ride back. And if I was running late, I get a ride back to the the what they call athletic field, which was where the Muskogee Reds Baseball team played. And I had a job there as a ball shagger now today, if anybody, would go to a baseball game. I don't know about the minor league Muskogee was in the Western Association C League C level, which is about five or six levels down. And if you hit a ball out of the park, they wanted the ball back. The owners did. So kiddos like me were stationed strategic places around the ballpark to run outside and get that ball and bring it back in. What was a guy's name Hartman or something ? I can't remember where I was yesterday, but I remember that guy's name and he'd give us a quarter. And so if I made seventy five cents or a dollar. Plus you got in free. It was a good day. And then once again, I'd have to call someone to bring me home or or again if I knew somebody there, which was often the case, they'd give me a ride. So those were pleasant memories. I thought about the ball shagging often because I go to a lot of baseball games. And so when I see him go how to park I tell the stories of what happens now.

Dana: So you graduated from Central High School, and your parents encouraged you to go to college. You wanted to go to college.

Dick: It was just kind of it was presumed that I'd go to college. Everybody and the people I ran around and were going to college.

Dana: You chose OU Do you remember why?

Dick: Because the guys I knew and was most fond of were going there and a couple of them in particular Jim Cunningham, Jim Savage and some other fellows that I chummed around with in Key Club they had gone to OU. And they were all in this particular fraternity that boys from Muskogee had pledged forever and ever. Yeah, but I don’t know if they still do or not? But they certainly had back then. All the kids who were seniors in high school when I was a sophomore or a freshman all these people that had all gone to OU and they had all pledged to Phi Gamma Delta.

Dana: Phi Gamma Delta. When you started, did you have any idea of what you wanted to do?

Dick: Nope. In High school?. In college? Yes. The guy across the street about five years older than me and practices law here. Jim Davies. Andrew Davies. Somebody was a Phi Gam from Muskogee. He had wanted to be. He was gonna be a lawyer and an accounting degree with law added on to that . And so he was going to be a lot of tax law. So that's what I started out to do. And in fact, I got three years of accounting and then you went on to law school. It’s what he did and you could in those years, you could do the six years, which was a mistake. It wasn’t ... Well, accounting. I didn't like and didn't understand what they were trying to do. And so that meant all those courses and things that I didn't care for that you had to pile up. You have to take on. I don't know. Twenty four hours of accounting in three years. Yuck. When I should've been taken history and politics and all that kind of stuff, which really intrigues me. And then and then I went on to law school and I was too young to really immature to figure out what was happening there. So I did all right. And it wasn't great. And then the ROTC came along. I mean, I got my degree after my first year of law school. And I'd also been doing ROTC. And so I had to go to service for only for six months. But anyway, so after my graduation. I went to the service and then I came back and finished up, would have finished up law school. But by then I'd figured out I'm not real fond of this, so I went to school and took courses in economics. That’s what my masters is in.

Dana: Is that right? Yeah. Now, did you meet your wife then?

Dick: Yes. When I got out of that that first year of law school, and then I had to go to service. I had seven months. I guess was before I had orders and when I had to leave. But I had about seven months. So a fellow named Sam Johnson, who is a fraternity brother from Mangam, he still lives down in Lawton, he practices law. We could go wherever I wanted for six or seven months. You know, I couldn’t go to Europe, but I could go any, anywhere as a place to earn a living. I mean, I was going to have to get a job. So I have another friend of ours who I still see named George Higgs. I spent three days and he was in Dallas and he was several years older than me from Kansas City. George talked Sam and I and I going to San Francisco. He thought that he was a great place. He'd been there once before. We'll all go to San Francisco. Well, George didn't go, but he convinced Sam and I to go. And so we drove in tandem in two cars out to San Francisco. And that's where I met Gail. She was from Orange County. She's only 19. And I met her at a rooming house. They had in those days.

Dana: What year would that have been.

Dick: 1960 got married in 1960, July, sort of in late 59, 1959. And so they had rooming houses which they don't have now though. Things are a whole lot different now. You know, for the better, for the worse. Well, I'm an old person. I think it's for the worse. Well, people will... usually no one could afford to buy an apartment. I mean, to rent an apartment on their own. And that would just be too expensive. Even in anywhere. Dallas, for example, friends, I knew of who had gone to Dallas, which is a lot of them. They shared three, four guys would live in the apartment, which they share the rent. But they had rooming houses. And in San Francisco. And what did it cost ninety dollars or $70. Really pretty inexpensive. You could have. You got a room and you got breakfast. And I had a big dining room and you got breakfast and you got dinner. So and you were on your own for lunch and you got a roof over your head, so once you came up with whatever that amount was. $75 or $80? What she came up with the eighty dollars. Why you were home free for the month you know, which was good because in three hundred twenty dollars at a bank job that I had as collection on personal loans anyway. So. So I met Gail the day before she moved out and she claims still that I promised to help her move. She lived... men and women lived in these things but not togethers would be now, which I'd deny that I'd promised I'd help her move. In any event, I didn't help her move I knew where she moved to. We had our first date and went to see Ella Fitzgerald But the boarding house was like. Oh heck, I can't think of the name of the hotels of Mark Hopkins Hotel. She was performing, which was one block away from where we were there at the Fairmont. But anyway,

Dana: Was it your idea?

Dick: Yeah.

Dana: I bet she was impressed.

Dick: She probably was. Despite the offset of not helping her move. Yeah, but that. Oh, one one kind of amusing story about the boarding houses birds of a feather congregate so some of them were mainly older people living in them and in a bunch of them were younger people. So the way to find out. And Sam, whom I mentioned, who went out there. He and I first got out there first we lived at the YMCA in what's called the Tenderloin district. In fact, I heard this program on the radio the other day talking about something going on over homeless people in the Tenderloin district, which is kind of a down and out district. I don’t know where it gets the word tenderloin. But anyway, Sam and I moved into the YMCA first because it was easy and it was cheap and it was... It wasn't probably wasn't atypical. You're right. So. So after awhile then after we'd gotten our feet on the ground, so to speak, and then we moved to this boarding house. But the way you picked a boarding house was you went there at dinner to see whether it was old people. And if it was young people, how pretty were the girls? And so I met Gail thanks to the owner of the boarding house having such attractive twin daughters. That's what I still remember. There were a bunch of cute girls really in her early 20s who lived in this room in the boardinghouse as I judge they ate there. And they did live there. And so I don't remember Gail at the time that she was even there. I noticed her pretty quick. But anyway, the owner had these real cute cool twin girls. So that's why we picked that place out of a 3 or 4, which certainly wouldn't have gone to a couple 20 year olds, weren't gonna move into a place where everybody in the dining room was in their 40s or 50s or 60s, for goodness sakes.

Dana: Right. Well, so you and Gail got married in, huh? I was just we've got about 10 more minutes. Yeah. You and Gail got married, right.

Dick:1960 in Indianapolis fort Ben Harrison. Chapel number two.

Dana: Now, because you were in the ROTC.

Dick: Yes. Because I knew then I'd been assigned to a duty. And I went to Fort Ben Harrison. I was in accounting I had an accounting degree. So I was put in a finance corps. And so I was on Fort Ben Harrison. This was in nineteen sixty one. I guess it was in somewhat after sixty one.

Dana: Where did you go after that. After you got out.

Dick: Back to Norman. Oh. And worked on a master's degree which by now was in economics. We lived in. Still out there I think. Oh I can't think of the name of the lot of that stuff. But it was on whats the street. Is it Lindsay that goes down? Where's Lindsay go? That's not a yes, Lindsay. Anyway, there are a bunch of apartments, along there bunch of them kind of across what used to be the old golf course. But it was old. Had never been a golf course when I was there. So we live there. Yeah. And our first child was born. Was born. We lived there, Kelly. And I'm not going to think of this right now. Don't think. But anyway, it was I remember the price. It was $55 a month.

Dana: Yeah. Can't beat that. So Kelly was born

Dick: in nineteen sixty one. Sixty one.

Dana: All right. Who came. What happened after you got your masters or who came next.

Dick:Let's see. And oh okay. I got my masters and we moved to Dallas. I worked for Texas Power and Light Company. My job was within the department which tried to encourage businesses to move to Dallas, which would then buy power in Texas power and light, would sell them the power. Most utilities had a department like that. And there's that pretty good. And we weren't there too long until, well, I guess about 3 or 4 years to Mike was born. He's now. Well, he was born in sixty five. Kelly was born in sixty one. And then from there I went to the University of Missouri. They were setting up a Department of Industrial Development studies, which was the idea was to get professors and also a little office to generate information which would make Missouri seem attractive to companies and they'd move to Missouri. So it was kind of tied to the other job that I'd had. And while I was there, I got my doctorate. And here I really knew what I like. And that was. Political science, is that right? And although I started economics there, it had become too statistical and mathematical for my taste, so I went to politics.

Dana: So you got your doctorate and then then what have you done?

Dick: Then I went to an organization called the Council of State Governments, which was an organization which serves as the secretariat for a bunch of different organizations. At the time they served as the secretariat to the National Governors Association, the National Planner's Association Conference of State, let for state legislators with the regional groups and other state officials, budget officers.

Dana: Was this in Oklahoma? Where were you?

Dick: in Lexington, Kentucky. Another nice town, so I got to live in Norman, which I didn't think was so nice then. I do now. Dallas which I've never been fond of, Columbia, Missouri, which and was a nice town. And Lexington, which is and which we liked. Actually, we lived right outside a town called Georgetown anyway.

Dana: And so how many years did you do that?

Dick: I was with the Council of State Governments for University of Missouri for seven years. The Council of State Governments for 10 years came back to Oklahoma in 1982. I have been here ever since I came back, applied for and sent out a bunch of resumes and applied for and got a job as a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma. And did that until five years ago. 2002, I guess it was

Dana: when you retired. 

Dick: Now I'm retired and have been retired since January the 3rd. I think it was 2003.

Dana: And you had two children?

Dick: Three, three.

Dana: We didn't talk about the third.

Dick: Oh, we forget. Jim. Well, when we moved to call it. Yeah, we when we moved to Columbia, then Jim was born and that was in 1968.

Dana: Yeah. Do you have any grandchildren?

Dick: Do have four grandchildren. They all, they’re all little girls, I had her four granddaughters.