780 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/59fed968f91e90c58d1840c561bcd04e.pdf d28eede4383d0dcb3e2448b0cb6df3a8 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Patrick Mateo Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/22/2012 Biography and Description Patrick Mateo is a Young Lord who was born in the United States but lived many years in Puerto Rico. His family is from Salinas. But he and his siblings grew up in Chicago starting at Van Buren, the old La Madison barrio, and in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is currently living in Puerto Rico. Mr. Mateo fixes his own cars and studied carpentry and building maintenance. He can build you a house from scratch. His mother lived in a convent for some time and attends church regularly at St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids. Mr. Mateo, who also dabbles in music, has played and sung for the church choir. He is a community organizer. Mr. Mateo has also worked on several Young Lords projects including the Latino Support Group that became the first bilingual, bicultural support group in Grand Rapids. The Latino Support Group was a volunteer program that received referrals from the courts and probation departments to assist Latinos with substance abuse issues. Mr. Mateo also helped to organize the KO CLUB, an afterschool neighborhood program to prevent youth from becoming involved with gang violence. And he also helped to organize several Lincoln Park Camps in Michigan, to educate people about the Young Lords and to recruit volunteers who would assist in documenting their history. Each of the camps were self-supported by a donated fee, provided a weekend get-away, and proved positive and memorable events. Mr. Mateo has a large family that looks to him as its leader. The Fernández side is also large and well established in Grand Rapids. They include church pastors, school principals, and businesspersons. �He describes rough times and perseverance. And he remains a role model and pacesetter for others in his community. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, all right. Patrick, just give me your name, your date of birth, and where you were born. PATRICK MATEO: My name is Patrick Mateo. I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1957. JJ: Okay. In Grand Rapids, Michigan? PM: Correct. JJ: Okay, now, who was living here at that time with you? PM: Well, we didn’t live in Grand Rapids much. We moved to Chicago, so I lived most of my life, I lived in Chicago. Until my parents got divorced, we lived in Chicago, and from Chicago, we went to Puerto Rico. JJ: When you were here in Grand Rapids at that time, who was here with you? You said “we”. PM: Well, we had a whole family here. I mean, it started as a small group. [00:01:00] It was a small Puerto Rican community, and most of, a lot of the Puerto Rican community, a lot of it was, we had a big family. JJ: Okay. PM: So, I mean -- JJ: So, who was with you, I mean, when you were born? Who lived here? PM: I was living with my uncle. We lived in one of his apartments he was renting. JJ: What’s his name -- what’s his name? 1 �PM: His name was Pio Fernández. Yeah, he was a very well-known person in Grand Rapids, Pio Fernández. JJ: Pio Fernández? PM: Correct. Then later, he’d become owner of a bar. It was one of the first Puerto Rican bar they had here in Grand Rapids, 'cause they really didn’t have that many Latinos in that time. But I don’t remember much. All I remember, when we moved to Chicago, we used to come back and forth, like we’d come on vacation from school. JJ: Okay. Were you with your mother? PM: Mother, yeah, parents, brothers. JJ: What’s your mother’s name? PM: Rosa Perez. JJ: Rosa Perez? PM: [00:02:00] And I have brothers. JJ: Your father’s name? PM: Pedro Jesu Mateo. JJ: Okay, and your brothers? PM: My brothers, there was four of us, four brothers, and two girls. The two girls were born in Chicago. JJ: Okay, so the four brothers were here? PM: Correct. JJ: Three brothers. PM: Three and I. 2 �JJ: Okay, what are the three brothers’ names? PM: I had Pablo Mateo, Jesu Mateo, and Pedro Luz Mateo. JJ: And what about your sisters? PM: My sisters, Olga Mateo and [Elsa?] Mateo. JJ: And they were here too at that time? PM: No, they were born in Chicago. We were living in Chicago. When we were born, we didn’t live here long. JJ: Okay, how long did you live here, about? PM: As far as I remember, probably we moved when -- probably six years old, I was about six years old. JJ: Okay. Do you remember anything at all from six years old? You might remember something. PM: Well, we were coming back and forth. I remember we went to Chicago, and I guess in Chicago, [00:03:00] we had a struggle 'cause it was a whole different environment than Grand Rapids. It was a big city, a lot going on. We had to watch it all the time. When we’d get out of school, we’d get beat up by bigger kids. They’d take our money, our lunch money. (laughs) JJ: What neighborhood was this? PM: This was Van Buren. JJ: You were on Van Buren? PM: Yeah, we were raised on Van Buren. JJ: Do you remember what address? 3 �PM: No. All I remember is playgrounds we used to play. They had holes in the grounds that we used to go, and tunnels. JJ: Holes in the ground, you mean like sewers? PM: Like sewers, we used to go play under the sewers, you know, when we were kids. JJ: You mean like where they used to have like charcoal, or not charcoal, for the heater? PM: Probably that’s what -- yeah, I was small, so this is as much as I remember. JJ: So, they had these sewers, and you would go under the ground? PM: We used to go underground, correct. We used to go underground and play, and my parents’d be looking for me, screaming, “Hey, where are you?” You know, and [00:04:00] when I went home, then (Spanish) [00:04:02]. But yeah, we used to have fun, but it was also a big struggle. JJ: So, (Spanish) [00:04:09] meaning you got beat up by the old man or the mom? PM: We got beat up by the old man, by the kids in the neighborhoods, you know, the prietos. They used to grab us and take -- you know. JJ: It was a Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood? PM: It was a Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood, and [they were no?] blanquitos, but they were like kinda -- JJ: So, (inaudible) White? PM: Yeah, you know, they stuck with us. JJ: So, the Whites and Puerto Ricans were together, and then you guys had fights with the Blacks? 4 �PM: Correct. Then we’d have fights. JJ: Was this gang or just neighborhood kids? PM: Well, I didn’t know. I was too young to know that there were gangs, but, you know, they were like groups, little groups. I didn’t have the understanding of [00:05:00] what were gangs at that time. I was probably nine years old, eight years old, as long as I can remember. JJ: This is all on Van Buren? PM: This is all on Van Buren. I mean, I was, that year -- JJ: Was it by Kedzie, by Halsted? PM: I think it was Van Buren -- JJ: Racine or Ashland? PM: I think between Western and California or something. JJ: Something between Western or California and Van Buren Street? Do you remember, were you going to school? PM: Well, yeah. We went to Catholic school, so (laughs) every time we’d get out of Catholic school, there they were, waiting for us. We had a little radio that our parents would buy us. You know those little radio they used to carry at that time? We had to hide it because they would come to grab it, and then they’d beat you up. JJ: They beat you, and they took the radios. They took your money. PM: They took our money. We couldn’t do anything. We had to keep walking. I mean, there was all the Latinos, and they usually picked more on the [00:06:00] 5 �little kids. They were bigger kids, so, you know, they’d come, and they’d take the stuff from us, and we couldn’t do anything else. JJ: Oh, was it Latinos doing it too? PM: No, just Blacks. JJ: Blacks were doing it? PM: Yeah, it was like the Blacks and Latinos, mixed Black and Latinos, not many Whites. You know, that was the neighborhood that we were staying around. JJ: And they were older Blacks taking the -- PM: Correct. They were like teens, and we were younger, in the nine, eight year. JJ: Do you remember what school you went to? PM: I think it was Saint Patrick’s. JJ: Saint Patrick’s? PM: Yeah, around that area. And I remember the nuns. Also, the nuns used to beat up. If we said something wrong, they used to put soap in our mouth. I mean, now, they didn’t do it to me, but I seen it being done at a time, because at that time, I don't know, they did stuff like that, you know, put soap in your mouth. I don't know. You ever went to a Catholic school? JJ: Yeah. PM: Yeah, a lot of kids. Oh, and then we used to join [00:07:00] the YMCA too, to stay out of trouble. We didn’t want to be in the street. JJ: And still, you were on Van Buren? PM: We were still on Van Buren. JJ: So, where was the YMCA at? 6 �PM: It was around that area. JJ: Right in around there? PM: Yeah. They used to come pick us up, take us, and bring us back, so that kinda kept us outta trouble a little bit. JJ: You were getting into trouble? PM: Well, not us, the neighborhood, yeah. They had like bigger kids trying to get kids to steal for them because, you know, younger kids don’t go to jail because their age, so teenagers around the neighborhood, that’s what was happening at that time. JJ: They wanted you to steal for them? Or what kind of stuff? PM: They’d take you downtown. You know, you’re a kid. You put your money in -- I don’t know if you remember at that time, they had like you’d grab a newspaper, and you’d put the money. JJ: I remember, I used to -- That was my newspaper you went to -- (laughter) They used to have a cigar box, and then people would put the money [00:08:00] for the paper [and things?]. Your guys would take the money? PM: These teenagers or older guys, they’d take you out there, “Hey, let’s go to downtown,” a little group, and that’s what we would do. We’d go around, and they’d go to entertain the guy that was in the stand, and then we’d go up there. We’d put our money in there and grab a whole bunch of change, and then we kept doing it little by little, and then we’d get a whole bunch, you know. And that’s how most of our life went. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 7 �PM: Yeah, that’s the type I life we were doing in Chicago, and that’s young, you know, started. And I guess my parents, they found out about it, my dad, and then he sent us to Puerto Rico. JJ: So, you got sent to Puerto Rico at what age? PM: Well, I was about probably 11, 10 years old, and Puerto Rico, you think -- JJ: So, they sent you to Puerto Rico to -- PM: To get us out of the neighborhood in Chicago because we -- JJ: The police ever come to the house or anything like that? PM: Well, yeah, they had me, and police would take me and [00:09:00] interrogated me, you know, to tell on the guy. And I never told on him, and stuff like that, so everything, well, the guy went back home, and they never went to jail. JJ: So, Van Buren was a little rowdy, a little bit. PM: It was a little rowdy. They were killing. I mean, they killed our neighbor. She had like a little restaurant, and I remember when I was a kid, we all loved her in the neighborhood. And one day, somebody came, and they -- JJ: She was Puerto Rican? PM: And they robbed ‘em, and they shot ‘em. No, they were White. JJ: They were White? PM: Yeah. JJ: But somebody robbed ‘em and shot ‘em? They don’t know who it was? PM: No. I don’t think anybody -- you know, they was trying to probably figure out who it was, but I don’t think they’d ever found out. You know, type of information like that, when you’re kid, you don’t know any of that. 8 �JJ: This was your neighbor (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: In the neighborhood, there was a lot of people hanging out, I remember now clearly that I used to go by -- they’d go in the buildings in the basement and get high. [00:10:00] JJ: So, this was in the ’60s, in the early, middle ’60s? PM: Yeah, in the ’60s. I remember they -- high, heroin. They were sniffing. I don't know what they were -- you know, everybody was like sniffing off of like a handkerchief. JJ: (inaudible) bags, the handkerchief? PM: Yeah, they were sniffing. JJ: It wasn’t like a rag? PM: There were some bags. JJ: It was handkerchief, so it was like (inaudible) or something? PM: Yeah, all kind of just sitting there, all high. JJ: So, when you say you remember guys were doing that, you weren’t doing that. PM: Oh, no, no, no. I was in, you know -- JJ: You saw other people doing it. PM: Yeah. That’s all you see around that neighborhood. Van Buren was bad. You know, it was bad. JJ: What do you mean, it was bad? PM: It was bad in the sense that it had a lot of robberies, a lot of killing. People used to come from other neighborhoods, come to our neighborhood and break things, and shootouts and all kinds of stuff like that. 9 �JJ: Shootouts? PM: Yeah. JJ: You mean [00:11:00] other groups would come to shoot at you? PM: No, they’d come shoot at other like little clubs or little groups. JJ: What were some of the groups that were there? Do you remember? PM: My understanding, that’s where the Kings started. JJ: On Van Buren? PM: You know, part of the Kings, they started over at Van Buren, around that neighborhood. You could tell the way they dressed at that time, they were dressed with the suspenders and some pants, you know. You’d say, “Yeah, they’re the Kings,” because they showed theirselves. They have their, como se dice, su marca. JJ: So, su marca, “their mark”? PM: Yeah, the way they looked, and now they use the colors. At that time, I don’t think it was more through colors. No, it was the way they dressed. JJ: The way they dressed, you could tell they were gangbangers? PM: Correct. Yeah. JJ: From that group? So, they would dress like with suspenders? PM: (Spanish) [Suspenders, los pantalones, eso ancho que tenía como --?] [00:11:53] JJ: Oh, Gouster? Those Gouster pants? PM: (Spanish) [Como, tenía como pachuco así --?] [00:11:58], yeah, similar. [00:12:00] JJ: Oh, pachuco. Similar like that? 10 �PM: So, that’s how you identify -- JJ: Any hats? Were they were wearing hats? PM: (Spanish) [La gorrita, también --?] [00:12:04]. I mean, it was pretty -- and then after that, we went to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was worse. Over there, you know, you go over there -- JJ: So, you went to Puerto Rico. Where did you go? What part of Puerto Rico? PM: We went to Salinas in the south of Puerto Rico, by Ponce, between Ponce and Guayama and all that area around there. JJ: And so, how was that like? PM: That was bad because over there, there was racism también. JJ: What do you mean, racism? PM: Racism among the Puerto Rican-Puerto Rican and they call us Americanos, the Americanos Puerto Ricans, which they didn’t like at that time. JJ: Oh, so the Puerto Ricans that were raised in Puerto Rico didn’t like the Puerto Ricans from here. PM: Yeah, they called ‘em the Nuyoricans or Americanos. JJ: The Nuyoricans? PM: Or Americanos, they’d call ‘em. JJ: Or the Americans, Americano. PM: Americano, they still do that. Y’know, they call you, “Ah, Americano.” JJ: So, you felt that racism? PM: Oh, yeah. You know, [00:13:00] I fought in school at last three, four times a month. 11 �JJ: You had to fight? PM: I had to fight. I had to because they would force you, you know. At that time, you would tell a teacher, but I mean, at that time, teachers didn’t really get involved in things like that. So, we did what we had to do. JJ: What is it that they didn’t like? PM: They didn’t like you. If they don’t like you, they’ll say, “Hey, meet me at the park at this time,” and that’s it. You know, that’s when I was growing up. There was a couple guys, y’know, so [they wou --?] JJ: But was it from the Puerto Ricans that were coming from here over there or more like from the ones that were there to the ones over here? PM: It was more with the ones from over here going over there. I mean, they had problems with people that were there already, but -- JJ: So, the ones that came from here, from the United States, and went to Puerto Rico, they were badder than the -- PM: I don’t -- they just didn’t like ‘em. [00:14:00] JJ: They didn’t like the Puerto Ricans that were there? PM: They didn’t like Puerto Ricans that -- no, it wasn’t the Puerto Ricans that came from here to there. It was the Puerto Ricans with the Americanos. JJ: Okay, they didn’t like the Americans. PM: They didn’t like the Americans. At that time -- JJ: The American Puerto Ricans. PM: Correct. Americans or American Puerto Ricans. (laughter) 12 �JJ: They didn’t like Americans or Puerto Rican Americans. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: They didn’t care, whoever it was. JJ: This was in Salinas? PM: Oh, it wasn’t just in Salinas. It was all over. But I mean, I’m telling you about Salinas. JJ: What year was that? PM: This was probably, wow, in early ’70s. JJ: Early ’70s? PM: Yeah. I remember, I think they were still the (Spanish) [estaba acabando la Guerra de --?] [00:14:43] Vietnam. JJ: Oh, okay, so it was in the early ’70s. PM: So, it was in the early ’70s. JJ: So, that’s when -- PM: That was right past the ’69 -- JJ: (inaudible) ’69 and -- PM: Correct. JJ: -- ’70 and stuff like that. Oh, okay, so you can feel that there was a tension there, that there was a tension at that time. PM: Yes. [00:15:00] There was a tension in school. Then I had to get out of school. I joined the Job Corps in Puerto Rico to get out of school so I could get a training and go to work. JJ: Why did you want to get out of school? 13 �PM: Because I was having problems in school, and I was fighting. JJ: Fighting, and the learning in school? PM: And not learning because -- JJ: Was it hard? PM: -- I was worried. I had to go to school every day, and something new was gonna come up. And the only people that I had was my brothers because there were four of us, and we gotta stick together. JJ: So, all four of your brothers were there? PM: Yeah, all four, the whole family, talking about the whole family, correct. JJ: From Van Buren, they went to Puerto Rico? PM: So, it was like our brothers was the little club or the little gang that we had to help each other. JJ: Okay, so you were just in the family. PM: In the family, because we went to the same school, most of us, because we [00:16:00] were close to the same age, so if anything happened, then, you know, one of the guys say, “Hey, your brother, he’s having problems,” so I run over there, and you know, we took care of it. Or he would hear something, and he runs over here, and we would take care of it, and that’s how it went all the time. After we grew up, then we grew up, and everything changed. I guess people got used to the Puerto Ricans going. You know how this works. You know, it’s a new generation and everything. JJ: So, you were there for how many years? PM: I think we stayed -- let me see. 14 �JJ: From ’70s to when? PM: Probably ten years. JJ: Ten more years, until the ’80s? PM: Until I turned old enough, and then I came to United States. JJ: ‘til the 1980s? PM: No, earlier probably. JJ: Before the ’80s? PM: (inaudible) ’78, ’79. JJ: And so, after that, you started getting along with the Puerto Ricans there? [00:17:00] PM: Well, before I left, I know I have problems. I had to come over here. That was one of the problems. JJ: What was one of the problems? What do you mean? PM: Oh, problems with, you know, fighting, and something went outta hand, so, you know, I came. I just wanted to come over here and cool off a little bit, and I stayed with my parents. JJ: Something went on that’s serious, something serious? PM: Well, yeah, something serious, so then after that -- JJ: But you can’t talk about it? PM: I can’t talk about it. JJ: So, you had to leave there. 15 �PM: I had to leave. Then I came. Then I come and live with my dad in Chicago, and I stayed with my dad. And then after that, I was from like Chicago, and here, Chicago and Grand Rapids, and Chicago and Grand Rapids, back and forth. JJ: So, you came back to Chicago to what neighborhood? PM: Okay, let me see. JJ: Now, you only went to school there, right? PM: To Chicago? JJ: When you were in Puerto Rico, did you get to the Job Corps? [00:18:00] PM: Yeah, I went to the Job Corps. The Job Corps, same thing, same thing, same thing, fighting. Oh, God, you couldn’t get outta Job Corps because there was another racist. I mean, Puerto Rico was crazy. I mean, you got stories, like you go to -- what they call that -- Hogar CREA? I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. JJ: I’ve heard of it. PM: You know, that -- you know. They had racism about them people. JJ: Hogar CREA is a rehab. PM: Correct. They didn’t like the people from Hogar CREA. They didn’t like the people from the Job Corps. It was chaos. JJ: Oh, even in an organization, they didn’t get along either. PM: Correct. JJ: So, people was real divided then. PM: At the time that I was growing up, yes. Now it’s more liberal. JJ: Relaxed. 16 �PM: Yeah. And from then, like I said, I came over here, not here, I came to Chicago. Chicago was pretty good. You know, I like it. We had fun. JJ: So, you went to Chicago to what neighborhood? PM: I went to the neighborhood, [00:19:00] I think it was Clark. JJ: Clark Street? PM: Yeah, it was from Clark. I can’t remember the other street, but it was close to the park. They had railroad tracks; they used to run right over the apartment we used to live at. JJ: By Clark, you mean, over by Chicago Avenue? PM: It was by Clark Street. JJ: At Clark? And they had a railroad track, I’m trying to figure out --. PM: Yeah, I can’t remember that. That’s years ago. I can’t remember the address. JJ: But was it by Chicago Avenue or Grand? PM: No, Grand is the other way, I think. I think it’s over way -- is that west, west (inaudible) when you go to the lake, west of the other side. JJ: Oh, by the lake? PM: No, (Spanish) [pasando para otra para --?] [00:19:53] west, Lake and North, no? JJ: Oh, by Lake Street. PM: No, by the lake, [00:20:00] the lago, there. JJ: By the big main street? PM: Yeah. JJ: So, it was right around there. PM: Around there. 17 �JJ: So, you had the train, but it was underneath. PM: No, no, no. The train go over, over there. Anyways, it was around Clark area, the Clark area. That was where. I can’t remember, but then after that, we moved because (Spanish) [-- también de blanquito --?] [00:20:19]. That was, it was too expensive. We couldn’t afford it. JJ: Oh, that was Lincoln Park, man. You’re talking about Lincoln Park, not Clark, the Lincoln Park neighborhood. PM: But it had that Clark Street around. JJ: Yeah, they had Clark Street, but the train wasn’t on Clark Street. It was more on the -- PM: No, no, it wasn’t on Clark Street, no. Clark Street, it’s a big street. JJ: Okay, so you lived like around Clark? PM: Around that area, yeah. JJ: Around Clark Street? But was it by Hermitage or North Avenue? PM: I can’t tell you. I don't know where that is. JJ: Okay, so you lived around Clark Street. PM: Yeah, I lived around Clark Street, yeah. JJ: Okay, and then how was that neighborhood? PM: The neighborhood (Spanish) [ah blanquito --?] [00:20:55], then we stayed there for a little bit. Then, we moved. Then, we went, we lived to the north side [00:21:00] of town, north Chicago. JJ: Oh, you’re talking about by Wrigley Field. Is that where you’re talking about, by Clark, by Wrigley Field? 18 �PM: El parque. JJ: Yeah, by Addison and Clark and that area by Wrigley Field. PM: (Spanish) [Aha, por allí. Por allí, sí, sí --?] [00:21:14] JJ: So, you went to that neighborhood by Wrigley Field. PM: No, we didn’t live there long. We moved. Then I think dad had a girlfriend, so they kinda break out, so we moved. And then from there -- JJ: The whole family lived up there? PM: No, no, no. It was just my dad and I. Then I think my brother went with us, but he didn’t like it, so he went back. JJ: Your mom stayed where? PM: She stayed in Puerto Rico. There were other family. They got divorced and everything. There were other family. JJ: Okay, so they split up at that time? PM: Correct. JJ: So, did you work at that time? Were you working? PM: I wasn’t working. I think I was too young to work. I’m pretty sure I probably [00:22:00] was too young. I needed like paperwork and stuff like that. But once we moved out of there, I think then we moved to the north side, around Chicago, Damen, that area, or through Wood, all that area through there, and Augusta and all that. Then we moved on there. JJ: So, how long did you live there? 19 �PM: Oh, we lived there for years. We moved just a couple buildings [down?], stuff like that, but we stayed around that area. I’m pretty sure I was probably there about ten years. JJ: About ten years? PM: Yeah. JJ: So, this is like late ’70s, like ’78? PM: It’s like ’70s. JJ: The ’70s and ’80s? PM: And the ’80s. JJ: Okay, so ’70s and ’80s, you were around Chicago Avenue, Wood Street, Damen. PM: Correct. JJ: That area. What was that neighborhood like? PM: That was a good neighborhood. I mean, we used to party. That was the times when we played congas in the street and sing. [00:23:00] JJ: In the street or in the park? PM: In the streets, in the park, you know, all over. JJ: And you got into conga? PM: Yeah, I started playing some conga. JJ: Were you always into music or no? PM: No, I learned in Chicago. I started playing. JJ: Who were you hanging out with? PM: We used to hang around the -- around the [water?] area with the Mighty Grands. My cousin was part of the Mighty Grands. I mean, we were in that. 20 �JJ: I thought the Mighty Grands were like Italians, or were they mixed? PM: No, all the ones I knew were Puerto Ricans. JJ: All the ones you knew, the Mighty Grands, Puerto Ricans at that time? PM: That was around the Wood area. JJ: Okay, but it was mixed too, or wasn’t it? PM: The ones I knew, they were all Puerto Rican. They had the Playboys next to the Mighty Grands. JJ: Oh, okay, maybe that’s who. PM: I think they were Italians. They had a bar that was called the Playboy, and then they had [00:24:00] a little Playboy bar, and they were called all the Playboys. I mean, we used to go by that neighborhood, and then you’d hear shootings. JJ: Okay, so you guys fought with the Playboys at that time. PM: Well, I didn’t fight. I was not (Spanish) [-- natural --?] [00:24:13]. I was never in gangs. You know, I used to be around ‘em. I used to hang around by the Unknowns, the Kings, all these gangs, ‘cause at that time, when I was growing up, they had gangs in every corner. JJ: So, they had the Unknowns, the Kings. What other groups? PM: They had the Mighty Grands. They had the Superior Gangsters, and (Spanish) [00:24:44]. It’s been years. JJ: But you were neutral. PM: I was neutral. I was never interested in gangs. You know, yes, I would hang around with them. We’d drink, get high, stuff like that. JJ: Get high on what? What’d you get high on? 21 �PM: What was that? JJ: What [00:25:00] did you get high on at that time? PM: We used to -- just weed. JJ: Weed and stuff like that. Did you drink beer, wine? PM: Wine, yeah, wine was a big thing in those times. JJ: Richard’s? PM: Yeah, Richard, MD 20/20 in there. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, we used to run around. Oh, no, wait a minute. I remember those times too, they had the acid. I don't know if you ever, you know. You’d be tripping on that acid. They had that angel dust, you know. They had a whole bunch of the stuff, you know, those things. JJ: Did you try all that stuff? PM: Oh, I tried a lot of that stuff, you know, yeah, when growing up. I mean, it was crazy because it was all over. That was that era where everybody was getting high. I mean, there was also -- JJ: This was the early ’70s and late ’80s? PM: Yeah, like in ’76, ’78, around there. JJ: You’d still get high on (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: (Spanish) [Yeah, eso también […] --?] [00:25:55] hippies (Spanish) [00:26:00] JJ: But that was not a hippie neighborhood. PM: No, no, no, this was a Latino neighborhood. I think it was Latinos and White. JJ: Latino meaning Mexican and Puerto Rican? 22 �PM: They had some Mexicans, well, not as much, but they had ‘em, and a couple Blacks. They didn’t have many Blacks. JJ: This is Chicago, Damen, that area, the Wood Street? PM: (inaudible) from downtown, coming all the way to Chicago Avenue, all the way down to Lowell, passing Kedzie and probably around there. JJ: So, Chicago Avenue was the street -- PM: Yeah, that was the main street. JJ: -- that you followed, the Mighty Grand thing. PM: Well, they didn’t run all that area because they had other gangs on the other side, you know, like the Unknowns that were over to the -- by Humboldt Park and that, and the Kings, and then the Kings, the Cobras later and stuff like that, y’know, that came out. Other gangs started coming out. JJ: So, you just hung out on what street? What street are you [00:27:00] hanging out on? PM: I hang out on Wood, right there. They had a little park there. JJ: Wood and Chicago, right there? PM: Yeah, al lado de -- they had a police station, so we’d hang right across the street. They had a little (Spanish) [-- nombre parque de -- que Valle a --?] [00:27:15]. Geez, I forgot, I don’t think it’s Wood Park, right? They don’t have a --? JJ: There’s no Eckhart Park. That’s the other. PM: No. They had a little park there. That’s where we’d hang all night. We’d listen to music, and we’d hang out with our girls, you know, with our oldies on. The oldies, yeah, they had that oldies station. You’d put it on late at night. 23 �JJ: Like WVON, the oldies, the Black station? PM: Yeah, they used to play all those like lowrider music and stuff like that, so we’d hang out with our girls, drink some wine and stuff. JJ: And just kinda party with girls and stuff like that? PM: Yeah, just hang out. And we never -- JJ: Not really into gangs. PM: No, it was like [00:28:00] a neighborhood club, you know. That’s all it was. We weren’t out shooting people or nothing like that. It was just protection for us, and that’s all we did. JJ: And once in a while, you had somebody come from somewhere else. PM: Yeah, but that was rarely. It was very rare. I’d see more action at Humboldt Park when I used to go to Humboldt Park. In those years, at Humboldt Park, I mean, that was chaos. JJ: What was Humboldt Park like? PM: Well, Humboldt Park, well, you know. You was around there, everybody playing the congas, (Spanish) [-- tabaco, “Hey, tabaco!” Tengo -- cómo --?] [00:28:29] -- I don't know how they call it -- they had heroin, everything, anything you wanted, even a woman if you wanted a woman. I was young then, and I was wild. This is like -- JJ: Free open market. PM: Yeah, open market for everything, right at Humboldt Park. I mean, it was good times ‘cause, you know, we were al -- (Spanish)[-- Boricua. No sabe ya --?] [00:28:53]. You didn’t see blancos. You didn’t [00:29:00] see no other (Spanish) 24 �[-- que Boricua.] [00:29:01], and we all hang at Humboldt Park, and we all protected each other. You know, if somebody come messing with you, they come and they protect you. That’s all it was at that time. JJ: So, you liked it because it was more Boricua, more Puerto Rican. PM: Correct, yeah. And it was, everybody was -- JJ: Is that why you went there, just to hang out with -- PM: Well, we’d go there and listen to music, get into the music, sing, you know, play congas and stuff like that. JJ: What did you mean, sing? PM: Well, sing, they make coro. Everybody makes a coro. (Spanish) [poner un cantar y --?] [00:29:31] JJ: And you were more into music? PM: (Spanish) [-- y’know, la canción --?] [00:29:33] JJ: Okay, improvising? PM: Improvise, yeah. (Spanish) [Todo eso. Como tirando y […], tú sabes. (laughs) -y ventando --?] [00:29:38] So, that was great. JJ: So, you did that on the weekends? PM: Yeah, the weekends, that was the paydays. By then, I had a job then. When I moved to that area, I had a job. JJ: Where were you working? PM: Geez, I had a (Spanish) [-- un trabajo aquí --?] [00:29:58], and I’d grab another one next door. [00:30:00] I’d walk from here, and I was working like in (Spanish) [00:30:03], like (inaudible) and stuff like that and making boxes. (inaudible) 25 �(Spanish) [00:30:07], pictures. Then I went to other places. Then I went next door. It was like a little rubber thing, making plastic spoons and bottles and stuff like that. They had a lot of jobs at that time. You couldn’t get a job here, you’d get another job next door. You know, it says, “Help wanted.” It was good. At that time, it was good, so every time payday, we would run. Either we’d go to Fullerton Beach, y’know -JJ: Fullerton? PM: Fullerton Beach, yeah. JJ: What was that like, Fullerton Beach? PM: Well, it’s the same thing. And the rocks, you know, and the rocks in that area? JJ: That’s by Lincoln Park by the rocks. Yeah. That became like a Puerto Rican (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, at that time. JJ: That was the Puerto Rican beach, Fullerton Beach. PM: That was también, the same as Humboldt Park. I mean, they didn’t have all that selling and stuff they’re doing in that park. It was all music. You know, [00:31:00] they’re playing over here. Everybody’d come, and they’d join. They’d bring their own instrument and just enjoyed the music. JJ: What year was that? PM: That was in the late ’70s. JJ: In the late ’70s? So, Fullerton Beach was the Puerto Rican beach in the mid’70s. PM: Yes. 26 �JJ: Is that what you’re saying? I’m not putting words in your mouth. PM: No, that was our hangout for the beach. That was when we would go to the beach. JJ: From all over the city? PM: Yes. JJ: From Humboldt Park and -- PM: From Humboldt Park to there. JJ: And everybody went to that beach? PM: And to the neighborhood. JJ: Now, did the gangs fight each other at the beach, or was that neutral? PM: Then that was neutral. JJ: Then that’s kind of a neutral place? Nobody fought? PM: Yeah. The fighting was mainly like in the club at that time. I remember, as long as I can remember, you go to clubs, they have the Martini, we used to call. It used to be, [00:32:00] I don’t remember (inaudible). JJ: The Martini House? PM: Martini was one of them. You go, there was disco at that time. I don't know if you remember, Diana Ross and all that, those canciones de disco. JJ: So, you had a lot of disco clubs. PM: They had a lot of disco clubs. That’s where the gangs used to come in and do the shooting. That’s where the problem was. I mean, that’s where I saw it. I never saw the outside. Yeah, there was shooting, but not around my neighborhood. 27 �JJ: Were there a lot of disco clubs? PM: Oh, yeah, at that time, yeah, they had a lot of disco clubs. They have one at North Avenue, right on North Avenue and I think it was California, and a club, like a little hall upstairs, and they used to throw disco there too, but that was more relaxed because that was from around the neighborhood, (Spanish) [00:32:44], so it wasn’t as bad, and they couldn’t sneak in. Like in the clubs, they used to sneak in and shoot right in the club. And I went to a couple clubs, and they would shoot out right inside a club, so I mean, we had to get outta there, [00:33:00] y’know, collect all our buddies, say, “Hey, let’s get outta here.” (inaudible) Yeah, that wasn’t that bad. Mostly, when I was growing up in Chicago at that time, all the gangs were mainly like at Humboldt Park, the fighting. I’m talking about this was after the Humboldt Park went down. They closed the Humboldt Park. JJ: What do you mean? PM: They closed it. Remember, they closed Humboldt Park so the people don’t go in there, play congas? I don't know if you remember that time. You were probably in Chicago when that -- JJ: I’m not sure. PM: They closed it. They put like a barrier or something so the cars wouldn’t go in, nobody go in. JJ: You mean by the boat house? PM: By the boat house. JJ: So, they closed the boat house? 28 �PM: They sealed it down, and they didn’t want nobody going there. And then that’s when they stopped, and then that’s when they started all the gangbanging. JJ: So, there wasn’t gangbanging before that? PM: When that was happening, yeah. Before that, I didn’t know nothing about it. [00:34:00] We would hear one or two things, but that was if somebody came into the park, and then for protection, then they would have -- JJ: So, why did they close it down? PM: Well, probably because the selling of the drugs, prostitution, heroin. JJ: There was no gangs? PM: I mean, there were gangs, but they weren’t -- JJ: I mean the gang fighting came later, you said. PM: Yeah, more. It escalated. JJ: It escalated maybe because they closed it down? PM: I mean, I don't know if it was because they closed it down. JJ: Was that when they made the beach? Were you there when they made the beach or no? PM: No, I was in Grand Rapids after that. JJ: So, the beach was already there. PM: The beach was there, but they used to call it Mojóne Beach. JJ: Mojóne? PM: (laughs) Yeah. JJ: Mojóne means? PM: Mojóne, you know, the poop, the turd, yeah. 29 �JJ: Like a turd beach? PM: Yeah, the Turd Beach. JJ: As in feces, turd as in feces? PM: Correct, because it was never clean. And then they’d keep it clean, or it looked dirty. You know how the Latinos are. [00:35:00] They put names on everything. JJ: So, that was when the city was doing that, trying to fix an area like for a beach for the Puerto Ricans, but the Puerto Ricans didn’t take care of it, or --? PM: Well, as long as I remember, they still take -- a lot of people go in there. That beach was never fixed. It was just, maybe it was too small for too many people. That’s what I saw. I never went in there. JJ: You went where? Where did you go? PM: I went to the Fullerton Beach. JJ: How come you didn’t go to North Avenue? PM: Well, we walked. Yeah, we’d walk all the way from Fullerton. You can walk all the way to North Avenue because that was the thing. Everybody walks back and forth. JJ: Did you go to Oak Street Beach too? PM: No. I never went there. JJ: Nobody went to the Oak Street? PM: No, at that time, that wasn’t the hangout. You know, we’d follow the rules. Where the people was, y’know, [00:36:00] that’s where we follow. JJ: Okay. I know Montrose was also one of the beaches. 30 �PM: Montrose, correct. I think we went there a couple times, but the one on Fullerton, there were all the Latinos. JJ: What did they do? PM: The Latinos, I guess you’d feel more comfortable. You’d feel like you’re on your own island. You feel more comfortable with the Latinos, at that time. You can go to Chicago right now, and I don’t think you’d see that many Puerto Ricans over there. I went one time, and it’s mainly all Whites. JJ: Fullerton? PM: Correct. JJ: So, there’s no more Latinos? PM: There’s some but not like it used to be, and then there’s cops all over. JJ: At that time, they didn’t have cops? PM: At that time, no, they didn’t have that many cops. There were cops, but, you know, they’d just look and see if everything was cool and kept walking. JJ: And usually, there was no problems? PM: And there was no problems. [00:37:00] JJ: Okay, but now they have a lot of cops and no Latinos? PM: Correct. JJ: So, how do you feel about that, that your beach is not there? PM: Well, I think it’s a big change. In Chicago, everything changes. They move people out and bring others in, and Chicago has always been like that. JJ: Okay. What do you mean? What do you mean, they move people out? 31 �PM: They raise the taxes so the poor leave, and then the rich people move in, and so they’re forced to leave and find another spot. They take your neighborhood from you, and then they force you out. JJ: What do you mean, they take your neighborhood? PM: Well, they’re taking it. I mean, they’re taking it legally. I’m not saying they’re just taking it. Legally, they take it. But [00:38:00] I think Chicago’s always been like that. I mean, that happens here in Grand Rapids too. It’s happening right now. JJ: What’s happening? PM: In Chicago, they’re moving. They’re fixing. They’re growing downtown. It’s coming to the ghetto, so they’re kinda, I mean, in a good way, yeah, they’re fixing, but that’s for now. You don’t see it as bad in Chicago. Chicago, you see it, everything. I mean, I remember I used to hang around Division. Now on Division, you don’t see people playing dominoes in the streets like they used to and hear the music. Now it’s different. JJ: (inaudible) did it improve, or it got worse or better, or what do you mean? PM: In a way, it’s improved, but then they make things, things are expensive, so the people don’t have the money to hang around there. And so, I [00:39:00] mean, it’s good in a way and bad in another way. JJ: Tell me why it’s good, and tell me why it’s bad. PM: It’s bad because la gente can’t afford to be around there, they can’t be around there. It’s not like it used to be. It was more liberal. People sit down, talk to others and stuff like that, and you can’t do that anymore. You can’t just sit there. They’re gonna tell you you have to move. You have to buy something, which, 32 �you know, that’s how restaurants are anyways, but that’s what it is. I don't know much. JJ: That’s the bad part. What’s the good part? PM: The good part? It looks good. The neighborhood looks good, but it looks good but not with our people. JJ: What do you mean? PM: (laughs) JJ: I asked you to tell me what’s good. I didn’t tell you to say [what’s bad?] -- PM: It looks good. The neighborhood looks good, but not with our people. JJ: What do you mean, [00:40:00] not with our people? We’re not there? PM: Boricuas, it’s a Boricua neighborhood, y’know. JJ: But the Boricuas, the Puerto Ricans that moved to -- they’re living in the suburbs. PM: They’re somewhere in the suburbs. JJ: They’re better. PM: You think? JJ: I don't know. I’m asking you. PM: (laughs) You tell me. JJ: We live in the suburbs, right? So, we moved up. PM: Ah -JJ: What do you think? PM: Not everybody wants to live in the suburbs, don’t you think? That’s like moving them out, getting them out of town, you know. I wouldn’t want to live in the suburbs. 33 �JJ: Do they live in better houses in the suburbs or what? PM: I have no idea, they probably do. I love the ghetto, man. I’m a ghetto man, you know, (laughs) 100 percent. JJ: You love the ghetto? PM: Ghetto, you know the ghetto. JJ: You love to be by your people. PM: I like to be by my people. Yeah, that’s what I like. I don’t care. I know for some people, it’s bad. You have to think big and positive, but it’s, [00:41:00] I guess, I just like to be by my people. I don't know. It’s a good thing for me. JJ: So, when did you leave Chicago then? PM: Oh, I left Chicago -- wow, let me see. JJ: I mean, it looks like you didn’t like the job market. Otherwise, you would’ve stayed there. PM: No, well, you know, it’s those things. JJ: Why did you decide to come back here to Grand Rapids? PM: Well, you get older, and you get to that time that you gotta change. You know what I mean? So, I came here. This was a nice -- Grand Rapids is a good place to raise a kid, have a good job. They had jobs here like crazy when I came here. JJ: But I thought you said you liked it, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) around your people. PM: Yeah, well, they have Puerto Ricans in Grand Rapids too. JJ: So, you figured, come over here? 34 �PM: And I have more family here. I’m very close to my family, [00:42:00] so, I mean, I had all my family here. JJ: When you say all your family, who of your family? PM: Well, family, I have a bunch. I got the Fernández. I got the Hernandez. I got the Perez, the Mateos. JJ: They were all here? PM: And then they’re all mixed with all other Latinos. If I mention ‘em, man, I’ll be here all day. JJ: So, you have a very big family in Grand Rapids. PM: Yes, bigger than Chicago. JJ: Who are some of your uncles and aunts that are here, or cousins? PM: Wow, there’s too many. I can’t even go through all that deatil. There’s so many. I really don’t like mentioning their names. Let’s skip that. JJ: But are they involved in the community or no, some of them? PM: Yeah. There were some. I mean, we had Yolanda. JJ: Yolanda Wilson? PM: Yes. JJ: She was the director of the ex-offender [00:43:00] program? PM: Yes. She went through a couple programs, helping the Latino and the immigrants. And then we have her daughter that she’s following her steps. JJ: Who’s her daughter? PM: Man, you just put me under the -- JJ: Yolanda Wilson’s daughter is working also in the community? 35 �PM: Yes. JJ: Now, don’t you have some cousins or somebody that are teachers or something? PM: Yeah, I got a couple. I got a cousin that’s a teacher also. JJ: But I mean like principal, right, or something like that, a principal? PM: Yeah, she’s a principal over here on Franklin. JJ: Okay, so they’re kind of active. You had the Fernández Bar. PM: They had the Fernández Bar, which that bar ran for years over in Grand Rapids. So, I mean, I came here, I liked it here, I got a job. JJ: So, your family is very much in the community. PM: Yeah. I came here. [00:44:00] I settled down. I got here. What I never did in Chicago, I did it here, and I made a bad decision. I got into heroin, and then that was something, to be hooked on heroin for close to 10 years. JJ: Here in Grand Rapids? PM: Here in Grand Rapids. JJ: So, you didn’t do that in Chicago, but you started -- PM: I never did that in Chicago. JJ: But you saw it. PM: I saw it, and I lived around it, and they would do it in front of me and everything, but it never went through my mind. Just, I would get high on weed and stuff like that and once in a while drop a pill, but when I came here, then my life went downhill. JJ: So, what happened then? Were you just curious, or were you depressed, or were you going through problems? 36 �PM: Probably, yeah, going through problems with my ex and stuff like that, so going through that stage kinda brought me into that, you know. And I tried it, and I tried [00:45:00] stopping. JJ: You found you liked it? PM: Well, you know, (laughs) that’s the bad part, when you try and you like it. So, going through all that, I mean, yeah, I liked it, and it was a great high (inaudible). Plus, it was a cheap high too. JJ: It was a cheap high at that time? PM: But I’ll tell you what, really, I didn’t just try it and go and buy it. I got into selling, y’know. I was selling. I would sell weed. I would make my business like, make some money like that. I would work and sell some weed, and I would sell some heroin. JJ: So, not only did you like it, but you were also making money, so you’re making money too. PM: Correct. JJ: It was giving you a positive -- like a positive reinforcer, would you say? PM: Kinda. To me, it wasn’t costing me anything, and I liked it, so, you know, I kept doing it. JJ: Did you get any problems later or no? PM: Well, you know, yeah, I got addicted to it. [00:46:00] JJ: And then what happened there? PM: So, that’s an addiction and that. JJ: Did that affect your family at all? 37 �PM: Oh, yeah, it affected my family. I got divorced, and then one day, I said, “Hey, you know, I gotta stop.” I decided I have to leave this alone. JJ: Did you ever go to jail for it or no? PM: Not for it. Well, I got caught with, not with any dope on me, you know, marijuana [is still?] dope, [I would cap it?], that was like 75-dollars, 50-dollars fine for a little bag or whatever. I’d go pay it and get out. JJ: So, your problem wasn’t the jail. It was more the family issues, like you got divorced? PM: Kinda, yeah, then. So, that brought me into the drug, and then after that, one day they were looking for me. I don't know. I think I owed some money. They put me in jail. I mean, I had the money in my pocket, and I said, “This is the time for me to quit.” They just said, “Well, [00:47:00] I got you here. You got three months, or you pay 300 dollars.” And then in my mind, I said, “You know what? This is my time to quit.” Boom, I said, “Gimme the three months.” And I had the money, and I went in there, and once they put me in jail, I started doing my three months, and that’s where I started kicking. Lucky I had one of my cousin’s cousins. They were working in a jail as a guard, and he was helping me with aspirins here and there to kinda calm down the chilling and stuff like that, but I went through hell in there. And I went through it and got over it, and I came out. Then, I came out; I started going to church. I did a cursillo, matter of fact. JJ: You went to what church? PM: I went to St. Joseph’s. JJ: St. Joseph’s, a Catholic church? 38 �PM: Catholic church. JJ: You did a cursillo? PM: I did a cursillo, [00:48:00] and after the cursillo, I was in church for a while, for years, for maybe 15 years. JJ: What is a cursillo? What is that? PM: Cursillo is a Christian organization. I think it’s through every church. It’s a spiritual… (Spanish) [¿Cómo la dirías eso --?] [00:48:19]. JJ: Like a retreat? PM: A spiritual retreat, yeah. JJ: So, you went like for a week or a weekend? PM: It’s a weekend. JJ: Okay. And what do you do there? PM: Well, that’s something you can’t talk about it because that’s -- JJ: Just prayers and stuff? PM: There’s prayers, a lot of prayers. You study a lot. It’s a bunch of things that they teach you, go through, and at the end, you come out clean. JJ: Now, did you ever relapse again on the heroin? PM: After that-- not on heroin, no. After that, I never relapsed, but I did turn alcoholic. [00:49:00] JJ: After that? PM: Yeah. I started drinking a lot. JJ: 'Cause sometimes people, they stop the heroin and go to the alcohol. PM: I changed the heroin to alcohol, and I didn’t think it was a problem. 39 �JJ: But you improved, so that was good. PM: You call that improvement? (laughs) JJ: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s better than -- alcohol, you know, I don't know which is worse, but still, it wasn’t heroin. PM: Well, there was times where I would wake up in my car all drunk and stuff like that. JJ: So, you went pretty bad into the alcohol. PM: Yeah, I didn’t think I had a problem, but I did. And then I realized that, and then that’s when I joined Project Rehab. That’s where I met you. I met Jose, Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez. JJ: I had a bottle too? PM: You had a bottle to hit people in the head with. (laughter) JJ: What was I doing there then? [00:50:00] PM: You was a counselor. You was my counselor. Yeah, then you would help us out. I went in there and did what I had to do. I mean, I wasn’t happy, you know. (laughs) JJ: You didn’t like your counselor? PM: No, it wasn’t the counselor. The thing is, you know, I mean, you go over there voluntary, they say, “Well, you got 30 days,” and then you say, “Wow, I got three more days.” You go, “Three more.” (laughs) JJ: You’re doing time. PM: Yeah, like doing time, “You got three more days to go --” 40 �JJ: [I gotta tell you?] “You can’t go because you’re doing time… You’re not getting into the program.” PM: Yeah. (laughter) JJ: “This guy’s just doing time.” PM: No, but I was getting into it. You know, I mean, I was feeling good. At first, it was kinda hard. JJ: What did you learn in there? Because, you know, it’s not really the concept of change, as you change yourself. PM: Yes. You have to want to. I mean, if you don’t want to, it’s not gonna happen. And I mean, [00:51:00] everybody, you just could see people, just looking at the people and see the behavior already changing, what’s going on and all this, I mean, that made you want to think you don’t want to go back to this. I don’t want to be there again. And that’s every time something like that, I think about it. I said, “No, this ain’t for me,” and thank God, I’ve been doing pretty good. But it was hell in there. (laughs) JJ: What do you mean? PM: Well, it’s got the rules, you know. Especially when you’re an alcoholic, you don’t like nobody telling you what to do and the meetings, and everything is a meeting. You gotta listen. You have to listen to these people, and the same thing over and over and over. In a way, it sticks to you, you know? (laughs) You come outta there, and you’re having like nightmares. JJ: “Oh, not again.” 41 �PM: “Not again. (laughter) This guy, the same thing.” There you go. But yeah, it was pretty good. [00:52:00] But some of the counselors, I mean, I think it’s just me. I just couldn’t deal with a lot of ‘em. JJ: What year was that? PM: In the ’80s. JJ: The ’80s? PM: Yeah. JJ: Okay, so this is (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: What, ’89, wasn’t it? You was there. JJ: Yeah, ’89, ’90. PM: Or ’98? JJ: No, I think I left there around ’95 or something like that, ’96. PM: You left, so it was before that. JJ: Yeah, it was before then. PM: So, yeah, then I came out of there. Then I changed my life. JJ: So, today, you only chipped a few things? PM: I chip what? JJ: You chipped a few things? PM: No, no. (laughter) JJ: Just a couple. PM: Just a few. (laughter) JJ: Oh, just a few. (laughter) But so far, I mean, you’re -- 42 �PM: No, I’m doing good. I’m doing good. I mean, I bought some houses. Once I [00:53:00] got outta there, I got me a job. JJ: You bought some houses? PM: I bought houses. JJ: Where did you learn? You did some (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: I did it on my own. I did some research. Well, thanks to you, you helped me out. We worked together on the support group. We worked together. JJ: After you came out, you were helping me with the Latino Support Group? PM: Latino Support Group. JJ: And what was that? What was the Latino Support Group? PM: That was combined with alcohol. It was more with everything, you know. JJ: Drugs? PM: Emotion and everything, a group combined with drugs. JJ: (inaudible) your culture and all that? PM: Yeah. JJ: It was like a twelve-step program? PM: Yes. JJ: It was for the people when they came out, we’d set that set that up for the graduates, but they didn’t have any support [on the --?] PM: Correct. JJ: So, we set that up. You helped me with it. PM: Yeah, it was you, me. We had a couple people. JJ: Carlos. 43 �PM: You, Carlos, and I were the first ones that started it, [00:54:00] and then we started bringing people in. And it went pretty good. It was a big group. We had a big group. JJ: Actually, it split up into other group. It’s still going. PM: It’s still going, but it split it up. They changed the name, but it’s still there. JJ: Because before, they didn’t have anything in Spanish. PM: Correct. So, we did that, and then we did the Lincoln Park Camp. JJ: Yeah, the Lincoln Park Camp was to talk about the history of the Young Lords and all that and to get people from here to go to a camp. PM: Correct. And then we were working at the Lincoln Park. It was part of the group we had with the church. JJ: The KO Club. PM: The KO Club. JJ: What was the KO Club for? PM: That was to keep kids out of street. JJ: Out of the gangs? PM: Out of the gangs. JJ: So, you helped with that also? PM: We helped with that. I worked a lot of years with that, and then we looked for funds to make funds for the club. So, that went on for a while also, until the funds ran out, I guess. JJ: Yeah, they ran out [00:55:00] in three years. PM: Correct. 44 �JJ: But it’s still going. That’s still going but with a different name. PM: Yeah, that’s still going with a different name, correct. But we got that started too, and the Lincoln Park Camp. It’s still going. JJ: And the Lincoln Park Camp is still going because we’re documenting the history right now. PM: Correct. JJ: I mean, they were trying to document the history right now, so that’s what it was for, right? PM: Yeah. Oh, and then we had the little Young Lord group that we started here. That was a five-person group that we have. JJ: And that group is the one that started that -- PM: That started all the other programs. I was involved, you, Carlos, and some other, two more guys. JJ: Those were the main people, but there were other people involved? PM: They were the main people, correct. JJ: Because the people in the KO Club and all that were involved in all that different. PM: No, they weren’t. They were just with the KO Club. So, [00:56:00] that’s how I met you, and that’s my life. JJ: So, you became like a businessperson. PM: With the houses. JJ: With the houses. PM: Correct. JJ: And so, what did you do with the houses? 45 �PM: I rent ‘em. I rent. I live in one. JJ: You rent ‘em out to people? PM: I rent out to people. I’ve been successful because at that time, I could’ve had more than two houses. And like this house here, I bought for 4,000 dollars, and between Carlos and I, we got in here, and we fixed it. We tore the whole thing. We put new patterning, new floor, new everything. Then once I got fixing, then I borrowed money out. Then I borrowed money on this, fixed some more, and then I bought another house. And then the other house, that’s the [00:57:00] moneymaking house. I got a duplex, so that brings a lot of money, and I’m almost done paying that. I wish I could do more, but that’s good enough for me. JJ: So, you’re not just fixing them to sell ‘em. You’re fixing them to rent them. PM: I fix to rent, yeah, so I can have some retire money when I -- that’s my main goal, the retire money. I wanna see some money when I get old, you know. JJ: And so, that’s one of your business. PM: So I can go to China, you know, Japan. (laughs) I wish I could. JJ: Okay, well, that’s good. PM: Everybody has dreams. You know how that is. JJ: That’s a good inspiration (inaudible) [businesspeople?], but you still are involved with the community and stuff like that too? PM: Sure, I still get involved with the community. I’m more watching on the neighborhood, you know, and stuff like that, around the neighborhood, keep it [00:58:00] clean. And pretty far, it’s been successful around this neighborhood. I mean, still it’s gotten worse, and we have a lot of gangs here now, this area here. 46 �But this area here, since I was a little kid, 'cause I was born in this area, and it’s always been bad. But there’s still shooting. There’s gangs that come out. JJ: And when you say, “this area,” this is the -- PM: This is the Grandville area, Grandville Avenue area in Grand Rapids. JJ: Is that where the Puerto Ricans live? PM: This is where the Hispanic people live. You can’t say Puerto Rican here 'cause it’s Hispanic because it’s not all Puerto Rican. JJ: Who lives here, then? PM: This is mixed. This is Puerto Ricans, Black, White, Mexican, Tejanos, all kind. JJ: But I mean, it’s big? You said it’s all kind, but it’s also the center where the Latinos were, the Hispanics. [00:59:00] PM: Well, now it’s changed. This is more mixed now. The center of the Latinos is on Burton, the Burton area. That’s where all -- JJ: Burton and where? PM: Burton from -- let me see. I will say like from Hall School to 28th Street, on Division all through there. All those houses are all mostly Latinos and Blacks. They’re also mixed because Grand Rapids is all mixed. The system, you know, this is not like Chicago. They got one neighborhood that’s all Puerto Rican, one that’s -- JJ: It’s how it’s been. PM: It’s never been like that, yeah. And then like gangs here, gangs are mixed too. It’s not all Puerto Rican gangs. This is all people that know -- JJ: Is there a gang problem? 47 �PM: There used to be. [01:00:00] I mean, they’re shooting people, but I don't know. You don’t get a lot of information on what’s going on. You know, you hear it, but the cops won’t say much on the paper. But I think, to me, it’s more like drug related or maybe some gang too 'cause most of the gangs are doing the drugs. They’re the ones that’s selling the drugs, so… but I don’t wanna get into that 'cause, you know. JJ: Well, is the neighborhood calm, or is it changing? PM: The neighborhood’s changing. The people, it’s changing. It’s better than Burton. I mean, Burton, they do a lot of shooting. There’s gangs all over. Most of the gangs are on Burton. JJ: So, this is more stable? PM: This is more stable here on this side of town. JJ: But it’s also changing though. Isn’t downtown -- PM: Yeah, downtown kinda moving in. JJ: So, the urban renewal is coming in. But you say that’s good for the money. PM: Well, it’s good in a way, you know, I mean, if [01:01:00] you wanna sell out. (laughs) JJ: Is that what you say (inaudible)? PM: (laughs) No, I [didn’t?] say that. JJ: I’m just joking with you. (laughs) PM: Nope, I say, “You know what? Gimme the house, and we’ll pay for it, and just get out. You know, here’s a couple whatever just to get out.” 48 �JJ: But it’s pretty stable because the people that are living here have kinda been here for a while, right? The renters that you have. PM: The renters, yeah, they’ve been there. I mean, I don’t charge much rent. A lot of people like that, and I got good tenants, so I’m happy. If I can get ‘em to cut the grass and stuff like that, (laughs) that would be great. JJ: That’s part of the agreement? PM: No. (laughs) But pretty much, that’s pretty much it. That’s what we got. JJ: Okay, [01:02:00] any final thoughts? PM: I covered it all. That’s it. END OF VIDEO FILE 49 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6666aa05ad86c85c6a3fefe18aefc6b.mp4 2fb9f09f6628b16ac3ec8cd92639c52c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Patrick Mateo vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Mateo_Patrick Title A name given to the resource Patrick Mateo video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mateo, Patrick Description An account of the resource Patrick Mateo is a Young Lord who was born in the United States but lived many years in Puerto Rico. His family is from Salinas. But he and his siblings grew up in Chicago starting at Van Buren, the old La Madison barrio, and in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is currently living in Puerto Rico. Mr. Mateo fixes his own cars and studied carpentry and building maintenance. He can build you a house from scratch. His mother lived in a convent for some time and attends church regularly at St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids. Mr. Mateo, who also dabbles in music, has played and sung for the church choir. He is a community organizer. Mr. Mateo has also worked on several Young Lords projects including the Latino Support Group that became the first bilingual, bicultural support group in Grand Rapids. The Latino Support Group was a volunteer program that received referrals from the courts and probation departments to assist Latinos with substance abuse issues. Mr. Mateo also helped to organize the KO CLUB, an afterschool neighborhood program to prevent youth from becoming involved with gang violence. And he also helped to organize several Lincoln Park Camps in Michigan, to educate people about the Young Lords and to recruit volunteers who would assist in documenting their history. Each of the camps were self-supported by a donated fee, provided a weekend get-away, and proved positive and memorable events. Mr. Mateo has a large family that looks to him as its leader. The Fernández side is also large and well established in Grand Rapids. They include church pastors, school principals, and businesspersons. He describes rough times and perseverance. And he remains a role model and pacesetter for others in his community. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-22 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/76d9216aceac2f863a5a82146a4539ac.mp4 76c4016a13e0418294ff56ec691f9505 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8934fd73d3a1c3857293e0ed75f9b401.pdf eafb5aa89f93a2cc74e1c808c63f540d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of Interviewee: William Patrick Name of War: Korean War Length of Interview: (00:38:35) (00:05) Background Information • • • • • • • • • William was born in Maywood, California on April 9, 1931 He grew up in CA, his father was a chiropractor and his mother was a teacher William’s family got along fine during the depression and he felt he was too young to notice problems with others William had a few family members that fought in Germany during WWII and his father had been a pilot during WWI William felt it was his duty to join the Air Force after the Korean War had broke out He graduated from Huntington Park High School in 1949 William then began going to college for pre med at Los Angeles City College He went for 2 years and it only cost $7.50 per semester William enlisted in the Air Force in August 1950 (5:05) Training • William was inducted in Los Angeles and then went to boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas • The men were always told that they were technicians and not soldiers • They went through calisthenics, marching and other physical work for about 13 weeks • After boot camp William was sent to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX • After he graduated he was sent to Denver, Colorado for preliminary air training school in which he would train to be a gunner on a B-29 • During this time he had run into an old friend that was just coming back from Korea and his friend told him to get out of the program as soon as possible • He said that in Korea they were having as much as 90% losses with B-29 strikes • William then volunteered to go to advanced computer training, working on computers in B-29s that controlled the fire systems • After going through the computer training system William was transferred to Randolph Air Force Base in Texas • He lived off base with his wife, whom he married in April 1951 • William worked about 8 hours a day in Texas for the remaining 3.5 years of his service (12:20) Strategic Air Force Base • In early 1954 William went to work like any other day at Randolph Air Force Base �• • • • • But overnight a hangar had been completely surrounded with barbed wire and armed guards They were instructed not to go anywhere near the hangar or they would be shot dead Randolph Air Force Base had become a strategic base overnight They later found out that they had been storing atom bombs in the hangar because the Russians had flown bombers into Guatemala William had been ordered to prepare the atom bomb racks on a few B-29s even though he did not have security clearance (17:20) Maintenance • William became an inspector on weapons systems and navigational devices near the end of his service • He checked everything after it had gone through maintenance • William had once checked an airplane after maintenance and found 13 errors • His master sergeant decided to try his part in the inspections and looked over the same airplane, but only found 3 errors • Everyone had thought that William was trying to make the sergeant look bad and he received a few threats • The staff sergeant would not allow him to leave the base and go to the hospital when his wife was going through labor with their second child (21:30) Working • During William’s last year of service he got a job working part time off base at a gas station • He was not supposed to work in a civilian job off base, but his family was growing and he could not afford to support them with his service pay • Many of his friends he worked with knew that he was working off base and helped keep his secret • They would sign in his name sometimes on work sheets, even though he was not there • At one point a plane that he has “signed off” of had the door open during flight when a bombardier had stepped on it • The door had been malfunctioning, but William had not gotten in trouble because the bombardier had not been supposed to walk in that area of the plane (25:50) Crashes • One day a B-29 had been passing over a field on base and the entire engine fell out, with the crew coming out right afterwards • William had questioned the pilot when he caught him whistling the next day; the pilot told him that he was just so happy to be alive despite the crash the day before �• • Altogether 9 planes had crashed during the 3.5 years that William had worked on the base The most terrible crash was when he had seen a pilot crash and die and the man’s wife had been there watching (28:55) End of Service • William was discharged from the Air Force on August 24, 1954 • He had taken enough courses to be an equivalent of a college degree and they had offered to put him through Officer Candidate School • William declined the offer because that would have required him to stay for another 6 years • He moved back to California and got a job working as a draftsman at North American Aviation • William made his way up through the ranks working in engineering and his boss later asked him to move to Muskegon, Michigan with him and start a company • The company had failed and the men had lost all their money after one year • William moved to Texas with his family, but moved back to Michigan after 2.5 years (35:30) Retirement • William had been working in engineering in Michigan about 80 hours a week, but it was causing problems at home • He decided to do what was best for his family and got a job as an engineer consultant, where he worked for 11 years • William has now been retired for 16 years, living on a lake in Muskegon with 16 acres of land � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PatrickW Title A name given to the resource Patrick, William Mc Kee (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Patrick, William Mc Kee Description An account of the resource William Patrick was born in Maywood, California on April 9, 1931. William enlisted in the Air Force in August 1950 and went through basic training in Texas. He then went through preliminary air training school as well as advanced computer training in Texas. William then spent the rest of his 3.5 years stationed at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas where he inspected B-29s before they took off for Korea. He discusses several air crashes that he witnessed, along with more routine duties. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-12-13 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c5056eab51e98176b33cd00df3d2534.jpg f36c194215e150dbcbb1b035b36661b9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ronald Oakes collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Oakes, Ronald Description An account of the resource Collection of photographs by Ronald Oakes, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, and in the U.S. National Guard in the Iraq War. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968/2005 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/628">Ronald Oakes Vietnam and Iraq war photographs (RHC-80)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Iraq War, 2003-2011 Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Photographs Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Relation A related resource Veterans History Project interviews, RHC-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-80 Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-80_Oakes-Vietnam-Scan-080728-0006 Title A name given to the resource Patrol during Operation Allen Brook Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States--History, Military Marine Corps Military life Soldiers Photographs Description An account of the resource Patrol during Operation Allen Brook. Right after Oakes took the picture, North Vietnamese machine guns began firing from the opposite bank. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Oakes, Ronald Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Ronald Oakes Vietnam and Iraq photographs (RHC-80) Veterans History Project interviews, RHC-27 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Vietnam War Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3a23a4b4b1033139db68630c6e4be81e.jpg 6932bbc85d1552350a6de3dda27f2068 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_881 Title A name given to the resource Patrol vessel escort Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource US PCE (patrol vessel escort), October 1, 1947. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy Military education Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947-10-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e27ee9855e9aec90b5fa095f24fe573.jpg 8fec1593eac86ff6156ee53e1395cb32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_882 Title A name given to the resource Patrol vessel escort mine sweeper Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource US PCE AM (patrol vessel escort/mine sweeper), October 1, 1947. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy Military education Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947-10-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61b95429dbe0bf3288fa99d75e8fe2d2.mp4 60ff07bf5b99036ac083bfc33ae8e2e8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2c006ccc82049de6d5c5d005c4cf193f.pdf 6c44df5c20edc3f7f4aff26450e40901 PDF Text Text Living with PFAS Interviewee: Paul Golembiewski Interviewer: Dani DeVasto Date: November 6, 2025 Dani DeVasto (DD): I'm Dani DeVasto and today, November 6, 2025, I have the pleasure of chatting with Paul Golembiewski. Hi, Paul! Paul Golembiewski (PG): Very good. Thank you. DD : Thank you. Paul, can you tell me where you're from and where you currently live? PG: Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rockford, Michigan. It's not far. The same places basically. Went to school at the University of Michigan State. What am I saying? University of Michigan? Michigan State. Graduated with two degrees, horticulture and crop and soil sciences and have been working my own business for 43 years. And have lived here for 48. DD : And your business is? PG: Expressive Horticulture. Landscape design, installation, problem solving. I throw a lot of pesticides out there, so I'm aware of chemical use. And that would be of benefit probably to this discussion also. I'm lived here very intensely. Um, city lot. Planted 40 trees. Someone told me the last thing I planted was my feet. <laughs>. DD : And how long have you been in Rockford? PG: 47 DD : For 47 years? PG: Yeah. DD : 1 �Awesome. Paul, can you tell me a story or several stories about your experience with PFAS or with PFAS in your community? PG: Um, I'd like to start with a story that I was six years old and my parents loved to ride around on Sunday afternoons and, uh, in the old Oldsmobile with no AC and I'd get the middle of the backseat 'cause my sisters got the windows. And my dad was told of a gentleman in Rockford who had animals in cages on his front yard. My dad worked at Fisher Body and he knew he was a very good oh politician. Met a lot of, met a lot of people and knew them well. And so he'd always have conversations on where to go on a Sunday afternoon because he'd like to drive. So we ended up, my my recollection is we came down Oak Street and we went across the railroad. And the first house on the right was Mr. Cahill's house. The gentleman whose name is used on our road. PG: And sure enough, there were cages in the front yard. There was a, there was a bear, there was a black large cat. There were peacocks walking around. I think there might've been some monkeys. My sister Sue got out of the car and ran up the front door, and Mr. Cahill, you know, came to the door and invited her in the basement to look at other animals. And here's my parents not doing anything like, oh, yeah, go ahead. I mean, they, they didn't, they didn't give her permission, she just, just went. DD : Wow. PG: So she emerged about 15 minutes later, and while I was waiting, I looked to the, uh, northwest, which is where this development that I live now is, and it was totally barren. There wasn't a stick of a grass or weed, anything, nothing. And the smell...watering my eyes and burning my nose. And I asked my dad, what's that smell? And he says, oh, that's pig. That's why nobody moves to Rockford. DD : Hmm. PG: <laugh>. So later I found out that where I live was basically a field of the waste from the vats at Wolverine. And when the smell got to be too bad, they trenched it in. Now jump ahead 50 years. And this became a development. Nobody has record of where those trenches are. Nobody has any information on what was in those trenches, except it's obvious, it's lead, mercury, chromium, and likely PFAS later on. So this whole development had likelihood of a lot of contamination. Consequently, uh, because of HIPAA, you can't get enough information to know how people's health are, you know, their health is around here. But in my experience, there have been four premature deaths and several people with blood, bone and, um, oh, muscle activities, you know, that they can't do anymore. Um, two 10year-old kids who were next door to each other, but they were 10 years apart, and they played in the same sandbox. And when I got involved with Lynn McIntosh, I was responsible for taking soil samples. And I, I found that, uh, kind of a shaded area where the sandbox would've been between their two properties. It was right on the property line, and I took a sample and, uh, it was sent off to Prein and Newhof to be analyzed. Uh, it never came back. And Lynn and I found out later that all the samples were 2 �lost, or they were tossed intentionally. And that's because Wolverine instructed them to, they didn't want any of the soil tested from Rockford. DD : But you guys were paying for those tests? PG: Well, we never paid for 'em, because they never came back. <laugh>, DD : but they were like your own private tests? Samples? PG: Yeah. It was, it was very disheartening. We took other samples, and I think Lynn may have sent some of them out. Um, so let's keep this in some sort of chronological order. I'm jumping around a little bit. DD : Can I ask you a question? PG: Sure. DD : Um, Mr. Cahill, who is he? PG: Oh, he was the mayor, the chief of police, the, um, uh, the governor, the, um, he was every officer that could be possible for the city of Jericho. And, um, I went to his house about four or five years ago, and there was a new owner, and I asked if there were any, any sort of documents, any sort of newspapers of any sort left up in the attic, maybe used for insulation or anything. And they said they'll look, but I've never heard back from them. Um, but the, yeah, the city of Jericho was, uh, a sad place to be, unfortunately. Just, just a little side note. The, uh, just to the east of the bridge that goes over the Rogue River, that is the Jericho Road. There is a sandy level surface there. It's the only such surface that I know of on the Rogue River. I've canoed it a couple times. And the gentleman who bought the property there, Mill Pond, built the condos, did research to find out that that was an Indian trading post for 10,000 years. <laugh>. DD : Wow. PG: Yeah. And here's, uh, Jericho came in, put up a dam to flood their entire trading area. And the Indians just decided to leave. They, they didn't have much left to hunt anyway, because all the forests were gone, so the animals were not there anymore. So they basically agreed, you know, there was no 3 �skirmish at all. And, uh, so Jericho became a horrible place after a while. They were nice and friendly to the Indians at first. Now I got all this is, this is not directly from the Indians, but this information I got from Charles Hornbach, who was the owner and developer of that property. And he went back through archives, actual physical pieces of paper and the internet, and found this information. And, um, I'm very grateful for him doing that. And while I did the landscaping there, I found countless number of arrowheads and pieces of pottery, you know, so that, yeah. You can tell there was life there for a long time. Yeah. Anyway, so how about the next subject? DD : <laugh>. Alright. So, so you, yeah. You were six and seeing these animals in cages and seeing the, just the barrenness of the land up here. Um, and then you were talking about the, the trenches. But that there are no, there's no record, no. Of where the trenches have gone. And I assume no testing? PG: Uh, intentionally. And we'll get to that later. Living with PFAS, that's, that's the stuff that, um, this little interview will be very much valuable for with the information I have. But later on, I was told by the great, great grandson of the homesteader of that property, Mr. Giles, he said his grandfather was told it was fertilizer and to dump it on the, on the ground. And they could be in, in some way, having, you know, better crops, didn't do anything but kill everything. DD : Oops. PG: Yeah. Um, there's, there's a couple of side notes on that. I, I guess I could say this now that he told me that right along my property line was a two track that went to the railroad, that Wolverine at about, uh, 1915, got permission to dump their waste on the railroad's property because it was lead. A lot of, uh, arsenic is lead. So the railroad would spray the railroad bed twice a year with arsenic. So in this case, from, from what is my property line to 12 Mile became a dumping site right alongside the railroad. Because the, the terrain was possible to run a, what would be a, if you can imagine a truck from the 1915s, you know, the wheels are about, you know, six inches across and there may be 20 horsepower or flatbed. And they had barrels on them, and the barrels would slosh around while they would go, you know, down the two track and across and down to the railroad's property, and they'd dump them, just kick 'em off. PG: And imagine, you know, how ridiculous that would've been. But, so that was what Mr. Giles told me. So that's, that's firsthand information. I asked the DEQ if they could test the railroad, and they told me, oh, they already did. And there's nothing, there's, there's no lead. It's all set. Right. You got a hundred years of applying arsenic, and then you got Wolverine dumping on it. It doesn't make sense that it doesn't have contamination. I tell everybody to keep their dogs on the asphalt, and if it's a dry, dusty day, don't go out there because the dust is gonna be blowing and you're gonna get inhaling it. PG: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I skipped over the story between the two kids that were 10 years apart. Um, yeah. Uh, let's see. Kruisenga, Derek Kruisenga and his neighbor, neighbor of 10 years later, her name was 4 �Tammy, I don't have her last name. They both died of the same very rare nasal cancer. And it's because they played in that same sandbox, and there wasn't enough sand in it. And if you look at the terrain, it was right on top of a, of a ridge that the truck from 1915 would have then dumped and probably spilled over and ran down the hill, and probably on the wrong side. And so that area right there is probably very, very contaminated. And they were playing in the dust, and they both had a very horrendous death. They, they suffocated they had cancer in their sinuses that couldn't be cured. PG: Um, yeah. And I was really quite amazed that the, the doctor that was treating, um, Derek actually diagnosed that. He said, this is a chromium toxicity. And at that point, no one had even thought of that, so whatever happened to that information I don't know. It never was then found to be a serious issue, which again, at the end of this interview, I have a a point to make, but, well, let's see. Let me go on to, oh, yes. <laugh>, our founding fathers, can I mention their names? They're long gone. Rockford's founding fathers. Mr. Blakesley, Mr. Farmer and Mr. Krause. Mr. Krause was the architect of Wolverine Worldwide. In 1905, Ford began to want chrome bumpers. Mr. Kraus had been to Europe and saw where their plating process was great for cleaning up hides from pig hides for, for leather, because the acid would eat the remaining flush away without any having physical work to clean it. And in that same vat, there were lead, mercury, and chromium, which made the leather heavy and ductile. So their boots that they made at the time. They would advertise 'em as a hundred year boot <laugh>. I wouldn't wanna, I would imagine that. But, um, so that's how Mr. Kraus made his money. Now, these three gentlemen all agreed to allow the dumping of that solution wherever Wolverine wanted to get rid of it, because that was Mr. Krause's venture, and they all knew it had lead. Lead has been a poison for 6,000 years. So they just said, oh, okay, fine. No, the next generation will take care of it or the next. And they never kept, never kept any records. Uh, they did own Bell Disposal in the sixties, and basically it just disposed of their liquid waste up to House Street DD : Who owned Bell Disposal? PG: Yeah, the, uh, gentleman that told me that he lived on 10 Mile and was able to see the vats and the solution sloshing out as they go down the road. And some of the hides would come out and he'd run out in the street and pick 'em up and play with 'em. And today he's blind. DD : And Krause owned Bell disposal or Wolverine did? PG: Wolverine did, yeah. Krause was the, he made his money in, in lumber, and, uh, then went into the, uh, tanning industry. And disposed of all the waste wherever he could. But he picked up the waste because of the booming plating industry, because of the Ford company. All throughout Rockford, which would be Keeler Brass, McInerney Spring & Wire, and probably three dozen other little, you know, outlets that were plating. And when they, they could only use that material for about six to eight hours, then it'd get contaminated. So they would change it out, and Wolverine would come and pick it up for free, and they'd put their hides in it. And then they dispose of it wherever was easy for them to dispose of, which in my degrees, I could tell where the foliage was incorrect. Where the, the growth of trees had been 5 �suffering and lead grows trees to death. It, it accelerates their growth. So you would find, um, elm, box elder, uh, choke cherry, all soft wooded trees along the, along the trail and in other places I found about 104 that were showing very, um, disfigured growth and a lot of dead growth. I gave a partial list of that to the EPA during a, um, interview, and they pretty much discarded it. DD : Hmm. That must have been disappointing. PG: Yeah, I think I mentioned this when we talked earlier, um, that only, that was about six years ago, that the EPA was looking for liaisons that would be able to talk to the community through information that they would give us. It was not that at all. It was just a ruse. It was to find out how many people knew how much, and to make sure that that information wasn't so widespread that people would panic. So it was an attempt to just feel around to understand who knows what and why. And I'm sure they got to me, they didn't want anything to do with me. They didn't want me to go out and start telling people what I know. Because <laugh>, that would not be DD : You knew too much. PG: They would, they would, I don't wanna panic people. Yeah. In fact, I want to do the other. But, um, we'll get to that at the end of this. Let me go on with my stories here. I'll, I'll go a little quicker. Um, I have a gentleman friend that I've known for several years. He and his wife live just over on Childsdale. And Carol had a condition that was never, uh, diagnosed and she had lower GI um, cancers and chronic pain and such that it was just horrific. Um, the back of their house is a ravine that had some water in it, which is the MO for Wolverine. They look for places just off the roadway that are already wet, and then they, they can dump their liquid and it's not as obvious. And, um, the gentleman that lived in that house before worked for Wolverine and had nine foster kids. <laugh>. DD : Oh my. PG: So it really didn't work. So what the fact was, he was being paid by Wolverine to dump, and at Carol and Conrad's backyard. And I had that as one of my sites with the EPA, and I never got notice back. But Carol had very serious health issues. And, uh, they divorced. And she's, she's okay. She's had a lot of surgeries, and she's been through chemo several times. So, and that's one story. Uh, let's see another story. DD : And those were neighbors of yours on Childsdale? PG: Yeah. Right up here, about a quarter mile away. My, uh, former cousin-in-law, Tom Breihof lived, he, he passed away from, again, lower GI cancer concerns. And he lived on the site that was later, much later, 6 �announced that from House Street to the Grand River, there was an underwater or underground, um, movement of that water from House Street, which was where there was a large amount of contamination for almost 20 years. Boy, you see what they do with that now. They really cleaned it up, maybe, but he lived and he had a well, and he drank his own water there, you know, so that was likely how he was affected. I've had two other accounts in that neighborhood. Um, one, the gentleman died when he was in his mid fifties of cancer. The other, while I was working there, they had health issues, and their backyard was literally seeping water, and they were lower than House Street on the other side of 131 Highway. By about maybe a half a mile, but they were right on top of that aquifer that was draining into the Grand River. And, uh, my job was to drain their backyard. Didn't know it at the time that it was, you know, likely PFAS. The water was, um, very, uh, it had an iridescent sheen to it, so it had oil in it. Um, but it was, it was a lot. I mean, we, we, we put in three tile lines and they ran water out just constantly into a wetland area behind their house, which then I also gave to the EPA. I get nothing. It's, it's, it's right around houses that are worth half a million dollars. And that's another issue that drives this. Property values. PG: So let's see. Next story. Oh, yeah. Right near the Rogue off of 12 Mile, Rogue River, there's a, uh, a development, it's a dead end road. There are 10 houses on that street. I did work for two of them. And while I was there, the account that I was working on said that there were nine people in those households, nine outta 10, that were suffering from cancer and are not expected to live. They all had wells, and they all were on a wetland or near a wetland that was used by Wolverine. Another site I gave to the EPA, nothing happened. Um, right now there's a, there's a new dog park just down the street from there. <laugh> and I, I look at that and I, I, the dogs have access to the river and, you know, people are there, you know, they, they've got a drinking fountain. I don't know. It must be a, well, I don't think so. I don't know. They must have had city water come into there because this, this development also had city water. But just recently. It had been almost 15 years that they were still using their wells. And all those houses sold out. I mean, they, they sold most everything, all those people that were there when I was there. They all sold their homes. DD : And left. PG: Yeah. So you know, talk about you don't really wanna publicize this stuff. But you have to. But, but there's, there's concentrations in places that are overwhelming. And then there's just a general understanding that, that these contaminations exist everywhere. I, I can drive down the road and I can look at just off the, off the side of the road, if there's a wetland area, you can right away see that it's contaminated. There's one DD : What, what kinds of things do you see that clue you in? PG: Trees that are growing like this <laugh>. I mean, they just don't, they have a very poor form, or they've rotted away, and then they're still trying to grow some more growth on them. And, you know, they're, they're terrible in that they, they can't, you know, they're growing too fast. They're, they're trying to, uh, 7 �grow more cells. It's cancer. And there's a, there's a holding pond at Rockford Public Schools, right between baseball fields. And that was a site that I told the EPA was, you know, to go test for. Two weeks ago. Now, this was nine years ago, eight years ago, I told 'em to. Last two weeks, they put up signs, metal signs every 30 feet. Caution, stand back. Do not enter, do not approach. Very serious language, very serious metal signs. Probably cost as much as a fence would've been <laugh>. But I'm sure that, you know, teenagers will be teenagers look, you know, looking through this and go pick up frogs that are, you know, dead and dying in there. DD : So someone's doing something PG: Yeah. That, what is is that? It's just a bandaid, you know? PG: Uh, let's see. Um, oh, I was on a, a site on Plainfield. And, um, this was for a, oh, a little retail, a strip mall. And I was in charge of the outdoor landscaping and such, and I was there to make sure that the excavation was gonna take place correctly. And, uh, we had an excavator putting in the, uh, I think it was a gas line. And he excavated down and he found metal barrels down about four feet in the ground. And so we dug around a little bit, and there were about half a dozen of them. They called the township, um, inspector over. And the inspector looked at them and waved his hands like this and walked away. They reburied the barrels and they rerouted the line. DD : Oh. PG: That, that whole area, that Plainfield and East Beltline was once a swamp. It was barely trackable in the 1900s. And then they put in a little sand, um, berm. So, you know, you could run a little truck over it or something. But, but that was all filled in. And that is also the location of Plainfield Township's water supply. It's the, the lake, DD : The current, the current location? PG: Yes. It's, it's the lake right to the east. It's, it's even got a public swimming area. No boats allowed, but I can't remember the name of the lake right now. <laugh>. But, but, uh, that's DD : Is that Versluis? PG: Versluis. Thank you. Thank you. So that's their water source for Plainfield Township. I was told by a prominent person regarding the, uh, they worked at the Plainfield, uh, offices and, 'cause we, I, I 8 �brought up the fact that that was all filled in and I can't imagine that that lake has clean water at all. And, uh, she said that the incidences of cancer and serious, serious health issues in Plainfield is 30% higher than the national average. They don't want that publicly known. Also, in the 1940s, there was a landfill just to the south of that by a quarter mile up by where Robinette's is. Just the other side of the road. You'll see these mounds that are there, and you'll see the pipes that come up every so often. So the, the property near Robinette's to the northeast driving down East Beltline, you'll see that there's this barren hillside with pipes sticking up and it's all fenced off. That was a landfill in the thirties that Wolverine used to dump serious amounts of PFAS and that drains into Versluis Lake. Now, they went through extensive amount of effort to ensure that the, that landfill doesn't have the opportunity to have enough water sourced actually, you know, penetrate the ground and go into the lake. So what they did was they, they put in wells, put in probably 30 wells all around so they could suck the water out continuously. And then on a Sunday afternoon, a Sunday morning, for some reason I was going down East Beltline and there's no churches there that I go, I don't go to church <laugh>. Sorry. So there's a lot of churches there. PG: But on a Sunday morning, I was going by there and there were, uh, at least a hundred guys that were rolling out white PVC over that entire, like, 10-12 acres site. And they were gluing the seams together. And then they, later on in the week, they then brought in top soil and put top soil over the PVC liner. So that way there's no water that can get through. Imagine the expense. Yeah. It's just an, an incredible expense. Why in, why does Wolverine get away with this? You know, it's so many ways in places that they've contaminated, it would be impossible to clean them all up. But this one is possible. It's a very condensed area. It's just like House Street. DD : That landfill. I think I've heard about it before. It's, um, Wolverine, this was not, Wolverine was not the only company dumping there. PG: Correct. It was not DD : So that, that also probably gets them out of PG: Yeah. Liability had to be stretched out over several people. And what, and then Wolverine could say, excuse me, <laugh>. DD : Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Okay. PG: Yeah. Okay. Let's see. What do I got here? Oh, I worked at the, uh, the CEO of Owen-Ames and Kimball, um, who built most of the schools in Rockford. I worked at his house for 25 years. Um, the house is worth probably 10 to 12 mill. It was right on the Rogue River. And, um, he told me the story of when he 9 �bought the place that it was just a little shack and it was all in need of all kinds of things. Of course, being involved in <laugh> Owen-Ames and Kimble, things got really fixed up and really very nicely. And, uh, the wellhead that was part of the original house was right next to the front door. And on the north side of the house, about 50 feet away was a wetlands that was right off of Algoma. And there was a nice little roadway back to four other homes further out into the woods and on the Rogue. And, uh, that was a site that Wolverine used. Um, the owner of the house knew it. When I told him what information I knew, he and his wife looked at me like deer, you know, staring at the headlights because they didn't want, they didn't want any way of suggesting that they already knew that 'cause their property values. And, uh, so the, the wellhead was moved to 150 feet away from the house, right at the very farthest point of their property. And the furthest they could get away from that wetland. Um, they still had five, six gallon containers of water delivered to their house every week. They still had a refrigerator in the garage stocked with bottled water. And all their grandkids and their kids all drank from that. Nobody drank from the water. But he was very smart. He probably had that tested soon after they moved in because he may have even suspected that the growth of those trees was not right. Everything was just twisted and gnarled and, uh, and it's right on the Rogue River, which, let's see, that is, yeah, that's, uh, upstream from where I discussed about the nine households that had cancer. But there are several other places along the Rogue River that are very easily accessible. And again, the MO of Wolverine is to have found a way that they could just park alongside a road or pull into a very, uh, well established roadway that's solid enough for a very heavy truck to dump all the liquids into the wetlands and down a slope. PG: It's a, it's really obvious to see those places and, you know, right away the trees, most people will probably think, well, that's just wetland and that's what trees look like when they're sitting in water. That's not the case. I can show you plenty of cases where there are wetlands that don't have that. Well, anyway, uh, <laugh>, uh, let's see. Oh yeah. Recently, I had an account. Well, let me, let me back up on, on Lake Bella Vista. Are you familiar with Lake Bella Vista? DD : Yes. PG: Okay. I don't think there's a home on the lake, no matter how small or how insignificant it is, that isn't worth over a mill. Right now, I've seen houses that are worthless places on the lake selling for 2.3. DD : because they're on the lake? PG: Yeah, they're on the lake. Um, I did the condos on the lake back in the early nineties. And, uh, there were two wells that were drilled on the condo property that were designed to keep the lake full of water because the lake was manmade. And it was supposed to be sealed with clay. Of course, you know, there are going, it's a huge place, you know, so there's always gonna be some, some ways in what the water gets out plus evaporation. But there may be one little spring in there someplace. But I wouldn't touch that either. But, um, so while we're working there, um, the water would flow a lot. I mean, there was a stream that was probably four feet wide and, and 10 inches deep of water flowing in all the time. 10 �Um, and I'll jump ahead to last year, I was working at a house, um, not far from there. And, um, one of my projects was to ensure that there was gonna be enough water for irrigation. And I looked at their water meter and it had a five eighth inch water meter. So I went to their association and I got permission to put in a one inch water meter because they didn't have much water running out in the yard. It was very poor water pressure and not a lot of volume. An irrigation system would've been a lot more expensive. 'cause you gotta put in more valves and more, more heads to be able to cover it. Uh, so I, I put in a one inch meter and, um, I, as I'm doing this, I'm cutting the pipes. I've had water turned off at the road, and I'm cutting the pipes and I'm measuring, I'm putting it in, and I cut the pipe and I look inside the pipe, and here it is nearly blocked with a black jello like stuff. It is. Um, I, I stuck my finger in it thinking, well what's this? <Laugh>. DD : Oh, Paul PG: Well, I take other measures. I wash my hands right away. But, um, it was, it was not a salt, it would've dissolved. It was not an organic compound. 'cause that would've, you know, rinsed away. Um, it, it was not a water soluble con, it's not a water soluble product at all. Okay. Think about PFAS. Okay. Teflon does not, you know, in any way, uh, connect with any other surface. So water is one of them. So here it is just at the meter, it slows down and this, this goo collects there. That, that's what was shutting off the water supply to the whole house, which they had a little tiny water filter. And the gentleman says, yeah, that's good enough. But that's another story. But anyway, so I I, I put the water meter in and I saved the pieces of pipe that I cut out. And I called the water authority. And the water authority that week had just changed hands. In other words, they hired somebody else to take care of the water around Lake Bella Vista because it's a closed system. PG: And the gentleman that came out, two of them had no history at all of what Lake Bella Vista was. They barely knew that it was a manmade lake. Now, when I did the condos, I was told that the wells were also going to feed the houses for a short time on the, uh, north or southeast corner of the lake, because they didn't have enough homes to afford a massive system with a wa with a water tower and, and had and water, um, wells. Which by the way, they did about 10, 12 years later. And they put it at the exact opposite place on the other side of the lake, furthest away from the condos, furthest away from what was the most likely dumping site because it was the lowest part of the lake. It was, it was a swampy area. It was called Grass Lake. I remember seeing it before it was ever excavated. And that was where they could have easily had access to it. Well, um, these two gentlemen had no idea. Well, I was, I told them that those two wells are still feeding this side of the lake. They should have been shut off 20, 25 years ago. And that's why the neighbors all around this cove were getting sick. Two people had died. And the people that live there are not very healthy. Um, low, low energy. They're going to the doctor often. Um, and they're using water from their faucets. So, uh, I told these guys, I said, you know, this has gotta stop. You gotta do something, you know, you gotta expand, you know, the water system around this side of the lake. Okay. Jump ahead a year later. And the wells are turned off. PG: Lake Bella Vista's water level now is down almost 18 inches. People can't get their boats in because in some cases it's too shallow. They can't run their jet skis because you gotta have 18 inches above the 11 �sand. Otherwise they're, you know, they burn out the, the pump. So there's all sorts of people wanting to know what's going on. Nobody's telling them. I know. Because they shut those wells off because the people on that side of the lake are finally getting water from another source. And it could be from Plainfield Township, who's been putting in a lot of water lines, although I haven't seen any construction there. It may be that they continued off to the, to the other side of the lake and used a bigger pump or dug another well, where their water tower is. But the, the creek doesn't run water into the lake anymore. So I know those wells are shut off. DD : That's a significant water difference for two wells. PG: What do you mean, sorry? DD : Like 18 inches down. And it, you think it was the two wells that got shut off? PG: Yeah. PG: That's a lot of supply. PG: Yeah. These are two eight inch wells. And there's a separate pumphouse for them. And there's, they probably run on 4-40 and they run day and night. And, uh, that's why the, uh, the service fees for like Bella Vista is something like $1,800 a year, which is probably not bad anymore. If they keep it there. But the, um, the, the new Water Authority looked into when I told them to look into it, and, you know, it took them a year before they, they recognized what the problem was. I just told an account, this goes back to my summary about that the lake has excessive amount of PFAS. DD : Has anyone tested Lake Bella Vista's water? PG: I again told EPA. They didn't. They probably did. They don't wanna let it out. Because these are million dollar homes. You know, people are gonna get really upset. A lot of lawsuits, they're gonna take, you know, EPA to court, a lot of lost time, a lot of money. So, but there, there's probably a lot of other contaminations in there too. DD : Did the, the black goo in the pipe ever get tested? PG: 12 �Uh, I gave it to the water authority, and I don't know, <laugh>, DD : Did the homeowners have anything to say? Or did they not see it? PG: Oh, they saw it. I, I showed the gentleman when I, you know, first cut it, he was home. I stuck my pinky in there and I said, look, <laugh>, DD : now we know why you didn't have water. PG: I only did it one time. I didn't do it twice. But, um, they were, they were bo both, uh, Air Force, uh, retirees. And they still make a lot of money doing related. And, uh, they told me that, well, if the Air Force didn't kill 'em, whatever's in the water is not gonna kill 'em. I, you know, I can't argue with that <laugh>. So you, but yeah. You know, they went through survival training and, you know, they had to, they had to eat crow and all sorts of fun stuff, you know, so but, um, yeah. So, so that's that whole ring of effort there. PG: And I, well, I did talk to an account and kind of the subject came up about the lake being low. And I told her about the wells being down and why. And she says, you mean the lake is contaminated? And I said, I wouldn't doubt it. I don't know if it's been tested, but I highly would <laugh> imagine that it has, because there's so many people and there's so much liability. And she got a little upset with me that I would suggest that Lake Bella Vista is toxic. I didn't quite say that. She asked me, is it contaminated? And I said, likely. That was just, you know, gotta be so careful. PG: Okay. Next effort. Uh, let's see. Oh yeah, I told you a certain, I won't name it, very prominent, um, engineering firm on East Beltline. I can say that much. Um, took my soil samples and threw them away. And at the same time I had insight that was, it was one of their employees that, that told me later that they were told by Wolverine. They didn't want, they weren't supposed to test anything from Rockford. So that's firsthand. PG: Uh, let's see. Hey, we're onto the second page. Almost done. Um, Lynn, when Lynn McIntosh first met up with me, she was riding her bike. She saw me out and she wanted to stop and, you know, say something about the landscape. And then she identified herself and, uh, she wanted me to try to have, you know, some understanding of where the contamination was. And that's when I told her about, you know, trees being disformed. So I, I said, well, just, I'll show you something. I said, so we walked out, we walked to the trail, and if you look to the east, you'll find nothing but disfigured trees. Soft wooded trees. A lot of 'em have fallen over recently. And the brush is gonna be there forever. 'cause they can't get a, a heavy truck on there with a chipper <laugh>, one thing only put one inch of asphalt out there. They shouldn't have done that. So, <laugh>. But you look to the, you look to the east, and the trees are 13 �gorgeous. They're absolutely beautiful because the creek stopped the buckboard and the little truck from going that way. And the, the, the creek wandered all the way up to the north. So this was the dividing line between here and 12 mile DD : Your house. PG: Yeah, so the property on my, on my property line is very contaminated. I don't do much of there. On the other side, it's not. DD : And the, the, um, the trail runs behind your house, right? PG: Yes. Correct. Runs parallel to the back property line. Yeah. So I, I showed Lynn that, and she, she got pretty excited about the fact that that was so obvious. DD : The cont the, the damaged trees are to the west or the east PG: To the, to the east. DD : To the east, yeah. And then west of it is...? PG: Yeah. From here to 12 mile is the worst. And, uh, it's a big difference. Um, and again, told the EPA nothing <laugh> one of the other sites. Should I stop saying that? <laugh> uh, let's see. See, I told you about the baseball pond and has the signs up. Uh, okay. I can, I can summarize this. Um, I, I own a, uh, tfel fry pan. Teflon. And I would never give that up. You'd have to prime my dead hand off of it before I'd give it up. <laugh>. I make breakfast every morning. And if I'm gonna clean the fry pan for, for more than 30 seconds, that's years off of my life cleaning a fry pan. So, okay. PFAS standing in the kitchen cleaning a fry pan, <laugh>. So, you know, the point is, um, there's toxins everywhere. And Wolverine got to the point where, where they knew that there was going to be more PFAS, there was going to be more lead, there was going to be more toxins. And there, there still is. I mean, there are a lot of things that we take for granted, like dish soap. How do we know that dish soap doesn't build up and then have effects on our environment and us, you know, nobody wants to know that. And if it does, if there's a, no one's gonna afford the testing for that because somebody's gonna be in very deep trouble <laugh>. So, um, yeah, nobody wants to know it's the norm. And without really knowing what is the norm, there's no absolutes, there's no, there's no guidelines, there's no baseline, there's, there's nothing. We all live in an industrial area that always has and always will be contaminated until, you know, you get up to, uh, probably Manistee, you know, you gotta go further north <laugh>, it's just, Ludington maybe. There's probably not a lot of industrial, uh, environments there. 14 �PG: They, there, there's a river. So there probably was some, at some point, whenever there's a river, there's gotta be some, some industry that decided they're going to make something and dump their waste into it. But further north, you go the further off of 94, you get goes east west, and so then you're out of the corridor. So shipping becomes a problem. So as global warming occurs and everybody goes north, hey, it'll probably be a better lifestyle. <laugh> who knows but, uh, yeah, Rockford, Rockford is toxic by design. It's, it's always gonna be that way. Uh, Wolverine did probably the most damage. And, uh, the, uh, the EPA did this huge cleanup, right where Wolverine was, where, where the tanning plant was, but they neglected to do the river. Now there's a dam immediately there. So lead chromium, zinc, they're very heavy. They're heavy elements. PG: They settle in the lowest spots. So the opposite side of that dam is probably one of the most contaminated areas. Someday that dam isn't gonna be there, it's gonna break, and all that stuff is gonna float down river. It is now, because it's being agitated all the time. A lot of it, you know, still comes around, but there's, that needed to be cleaned up. I mentioned that. Nothing happened. You know, they, they did the land, they, they actually trenched and dug and did a fine job. Uh, they did a fine job on House Street too. An enormous project. Took them four years. And I, it was, it was very similar to the, the landfill on East Beltline. They, they took out all the vegetation. And Lynn, you know, said to us that, that all had to go to Byron Center's landfill because it was toxic. PG: Now the trees are toxic. I didn't know that. Now that means all this vegetation along here is also toxic. You know, if you're, you're sitting there with a chainsaw and you're cutting up a dead tree that was on the railroad's property, and you're getting this dust from this, and Yeah. You, you shouldn't be there. No one should even be on the trail. It, it should have been fenced off and forgot about it. Oh. There's portions, portions of the trail further on the, the Mesquite Trail that go to Muskegon. They, they did that 'cause of contamination from, um, farm, uh, concerns for, um, factory farm for cattle. That they can't clean it up. And it's, it's got a lot of heavy metals in it. And so they just blocked off the trail indefinitely. DD : I can't imagine that happening for the White Pine. It's such a big thing. PG: Yeah. They should have signs up. You know, stay on the trail. Don't let your dog wander away. Stay off of this. And if it's dusty, if it's hot, if it's dry, don't go there. <laugh>. That's not gonna happen. You gotta have signs that show that, you know, people falling over on, on the ground around <laugh>. But, uh, so, you know, toxins are everywhere. And here's my point, the last thing. People are complacent, and they have to be, they have to be, otherwise they would panic. They'd go crazy thinking about all the things they have to be concerned about. And if life expectancy doesn't get beyond, you know, 75 or whatever it is, 78 now, then I guess that's okay. Um, you can't expect anymore if you're going to expect a Teflon coated fry pan <laugh>. And, you know, I, I gained three years of my life with that. So what, what I, you know, <laugh>, you know, I don't wanna stand by the sink that long. You know, there, there's just things you have to have to give up. And so I'm, you know, I, I don't want to burst your bubble or anybody else's, but we all live with a lot of toxins and they're not gonna go away. And, uh, if in fact, in the time, in the future that there is a way to clean this stuff up easily, marvelous. But there's gonna be side effects to 15 �that too. Probably cost, if anything, but um. Even in the cooling towers and the smoke stacks for what, what our power plants, they spray them down with PFAS on an every other week basis to keep the, the byproducts from accumulating so they all fall to the bottom. PG: And of course it all goes up in the air. There was a study done back early 2000s that from, Port Sheldon Power Plant, which is 46 miles away from us, their stacks, if you take a, a 60 degree angle out of those stacks to the west, that the incident of breast cancer is quadrupled for the next 30 miles. So we're just to the east of that. But you can imagine, you know, they're burning coal. Um, they were supposed to shut down and Trump said, no, don't shut down. Now they're going, I don't know, a couple more years. That makes some real good sense. PG: But, you know, again, this information, it, it either gets forgotten or it's not to be public. It's, it's to be, not to frighten anybody, let's just imagine what healthcare costs would be. What, you know, you wanna, you want a rider in your healthcare plan that says if you, if you are, you know, deemed to be too toxic to burn your body, <laugh>, they have to ship you over to Byron Center's landfill where, where everything else is toxic already. You know, because it, it's just a matter of, uh, there's no absolutes, there's no understanding it, there's nothing more than just be aware of it and do what you can to safeguard yourself. I eat chicken bones, a lot of chicken boats, <laugh> not, not the shafts, but the ends of the bones. I get a source of calcium that replaces the calcium that I, that I use every day. That's a whole other story, which I, I know you don't want to hear <laugh>, my kids don't ever wanna hear it either. <laugh>, I got one of them, one outta the four that's finally eating. No two, got two that are now eating their chicken bones. Sometimes <laugh>. DD : Oh my goodness. PG: So that, that would be the premise of how I feel. Yeah. And it's not easy. Yeah. DD : I'm, I guess it's striking me listening to all these different stories that your line of work has really put you in a position to see things in a way that most people don't get to see. You know, you're seeing both the kind of work you do, but also that you, you know, are working at all these different places in the area, PG: Black goo in someone's plumbing. Yeah. That's. DD : Like, you're just, you, your perspective is, is really like, you have a lot of data points in a lot of ways. So I think that's just, um, that's just not a perspective that, you know, most people, it's like, it's, it's me, it's here, it's in my neighborhood, or it's my thing. And you have all these different kind of reference points, which is very interesting. 16 �PG: I'm a very, um, empathetic and very, uh, observant person. And I'll, you know, toot my own in that way. But, um, so I, maybe that's why I, I see all these things. I don't know. I don't know if other people do and then they just don't, you know, take a, a moment to think about it. But, um, DD : Do you have concerns about, um, like exposure through your work? I mean, if you're, if you're digging in soil or you know, you're doing all these projects, um, do you have concerns for yourself? PG: I have for the last 45 years, applied some very horrific pesticides. And I don't wanna sound like those people that, you know, went through the Air Force and decided that if they didn't die from that, you know, that they're not gonna die from PFAS. But, but, um, I, I take, you know, some, uh, responsibilities to know what I'm using and what its action is. I stay away from any nerve agents. There's very safe pesticides out there in the last 22 years now that, um, you can spray on yourself. They're, they're actually labeled that way. They're, they're bifens. Well, bifen is a product name, but they're, uh, pyrethrins, which are made from, uh, originally made from, uh, chrysthemum and eucalyptus extracts. Now they're made synthetically. And you can buy the, the original, which is made from those two products. PG: Or you can buy the synthetic, which is a lot less money. And it works the same, but it, it is so safe. Um, it actually can be sprayed on the surface of your skin and on your clothing if you go out camping to keep out mites to keep out, uh, ticks and fleas. Um, I don't <laugh>, I, I don't do a lot of camping, but I do a lot of spraying. And I get a lot of, you know, overspray. I think I sprayed about 69, 68 people last year, and each of these places was a hundred gallons minimally. And they don't have a single insect for a year. And, uh, they can't be happier. Um, no spiders, no anything. No ants. Ants is a big thing because if you let ants get away, you know, they can destroy your house and your trees, you know, landscape, they can undermine your concrete. I have had so many people think that their driveway is cracking up because it was poorly installed. No, it was ants, <laugh>. They, after 25 years, the ants have moved out the sand and they've created their space. I could stop talking anytime. You could tell me. Shut up. DD : <laugh>. No, but, um, so it sounds like maybe you're not concerned about PFAS exposure for yourself through work. PG: Uh, boy, or That's a good question. I, I, um, no, I guess, well, one other little story I have, when I first moved here in '78, um, when 1980 came along, I looked at, I had been looking at Rockford's water supply was the Rogue River. It was just downstream from Wolverine Worldwide. And I was, I was mentioning this to people around here, and I says, what are we, what are we drinking here? We we're getting the water, just, it's going through a, a swimming pool filter, you know, diatomaceous earth. And, you know, it's supposed to be cleaned up and it's, that's not getting, you know, the chemicals out. So I went to at the time. DD : 17 �So what was, what was, what were people's reactions as you were...? PG: Oh, they, they thought I was, no, it's fine. Of course they wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't put poison in the water. And why would anybody do that? So I went to Builder Square at the time, you're not old enough, <laugh>. It was the first big box, uh, national chain. It was owned by Kmart. And on the shelf, I looked at all their water purification systems, and they had, well, larger, no, this was the larger one, <laugh>. It had a reverse osmosis filter in it, and a sediment filter and a carbon filter. And they were big filters, and this thing was big. And it took up the entire space underneath my cabinet in the kitchen. And, uh, I brought it home, cost a thousand dollars in 1980. And my wife said, no. I said, yes. I said, we're not drinking that water. Now, to this day, my kids are all very healthy and sane. Knock on wood. I don't have any but <laugh>. But I, I have other neighbors who they, you know, they don't have a filtration system, and they have health issues. They have fatigue issues. They have, um, poor reflex to, you know, food items. They get allergies, they get, uh, um, what's it, um, <laugh>, I said it earlier. But, but they have other concerns that, that are easily cured. You have to create, create for yourself an environment of your body that can withstand that. And your skin is your most important organ and it's the largest one, and you better make sure it stays perfect. I don't have any cracking. I don't have any soreness. And as of, you know, last year I calculated the amount of, you saw the trailer out front with the firewood in it. Okay. I've been doing that for 37 years, and sometimes many earliest years, I'd handle that amount of wood six times before it was burned. Now I got it down to like three, but I did the calculating over 37 years, and I have moved 1 million ton of wood personally. DD : Wow. PG: Yeah. DD : Wow. And, and it's, can I ask, how old are you? PG: 71. DD : 71. And it's, and you credit chicken bones. PG: What was that? DD : You give the credit to the chicken bones. PG: 18 �Well and we also eat, uh, products that are mostly organic. Or if they're not organic, they are no pesticides, hormones or antibiotics. And I go outta the way to get it. Um, we, we haven't gone out to eat in <laugh>, I don't remember, it's probably five plus years. Maybe we've gone out once or twice in there. But I don't trust, uh, food in a restaurant because they're always trying to make a profit. They're gonna give you whatever they can that's gonna make them money. And that's not gonna be the healthiest stuff. But we do eat Qdoba once in awhile we like that, but we don't eat burgers out anywhere. We eat organic ground beef. I, I buy salmon from Alaska. Um, which I still have. I have enough right now. But yeah, I eat fish two or three days a week. And, uh, so that's my efforts to get away from the contaminants. Yeah. Um, there's probably another three dozen of 'em. You don't want to hear my DD : No. But it does make, so I, you know, you've got the filter are on your street. Are you, are you on city water here? PG: Yes. Yes. And I just bought a new filter because the other one I couldn't get parts for and it was starting to leak. And the other one I got now is really nice. The first one I had, this is, it was a water pic, and it was one of the earlier, um, reverse osmosis, and it took 11 gallons of water to make one gallon of filtered water. So my water bills were always kind of high. Yeah. Plus I, you know, irrigate and, but, um, I cut my pipes here and I'm looking in the pipes. There is phosphorus, which is what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a coating. It's supposed to be white. So I know that there's no buildup of that much. PFAS. The, there's a pamphlet that comes out every year, and it's always suggesting that the, now the PFAS doesn't exist. PG: Well, it does, but their wells are well away from, from Wolverine. There's three eight inch wells that are water, our water source. And that has been in service now for, oh, since 06, 07. But I did hear through the gentleman who I mentioned earlier, who's the engineer. I asked him, I think the last couple days, no days, not months. Um, how's the water doing? And he says the aquifer is half empty, so there's gonna be a time when we're probably gonna have to switch. And the only other source of water is Lake Michigan, which was an option for Rockford. But the previous manager decided he was gonna do the well thing and then do, um, Wolverine or have, uh, the water sewer system. Oh, yeah. There's another caveat to that. <laugh>. This, this is, this is fun. Um, we were told by the city manager that we were going to have, um, the water sewer North Kent water sewer authority paid for by Wolverine. OK. And the sewer line, Wolverine was gonna pay for it all the new sewer line and the, the sewer cleaning facility. And, um, I dunno if they were gonna throw in the new wells there or not, but it was going to cost Wolverine, uh, over 20 years, millions of dollars a year to be able to afford to do that. Well, um, at the time they announced that, uh, about two and a half years went by, and then our city manager said, oops, Wolverine's no longer gonna pay for this, so everybody in Rockford's gonna have to pay for it. So my water bill now has an additional charge of $45 every billing period, which is two months. Um, and that's gonna go on 40 years <laugh>. But at the time, they, that Wolverine had announced that they were going to pay for it. They had already bought the permits to build in Big Rapids and move their facility there for tanning hides. So they weren't going to be using the sewer, they weren't gonna be using the, the sewage treatment plant. That was just our city manager wanting them to announce that. So the people in Rockford will all get all happy and excited and that he was doing a fine job and Wolverine is being so nice, <laugh>, but it was all planned. It was all planned. Two and a half years later, he said, oops, sorry. Uh, everybody's gonna have to be charged now. 19 �PG: <laugh>, It's corruption everywhere. You, you just, it's like it toxic, toxic substances. And then there's toxic people, there's toxic events, and then yeah. Everybody wants to have some sort of power and control, and they, they want to see if they can get away with it. Um, that's unfortunate. But it's, yeah. To, to preserve yourself, you have to know the facts. You have to feel that you are capable of making decisions, which also is, I'm still in Rockford and I know why the water system is the way it is, that I know that there's contaminants everywhere. And, um, and they're not just PFAS. Um, DD : So you sort of maybe hinted at this, um, but what concerns do you have about PFAS contamination kind of moving forward from here, if any? PG: Right in my neighborhood? DD : Locally or broader. PG: I, I guess I see it as being still being used. Um, there is not enough regulation on where and how it goes after it's been used. And if it can be contained at all. I don't, you know, the, the whole effort to give us a limit on how much PFAS can be in our water or any other sources around us is just a cover up. There's not, it's not ever going to be controlled. There's not ever gonna be enough testing. Um, there's not gonna be enough ways to try to change that substance into something that is not toxic. You know, the research to do that, I'm sure there is some, probably the makers of Teflon have to come up with something, or they have to have a, you know, a laboratory someplace, you know, that looks like they're trying. People are greedy. They're gonna keep being greedy and eat your chicken bones <laugh>. That's all DD : <laugh>. PG: Oh, it's, it's, I don't know. I, I find that, uh, I've been very fortunate and my kids are all very healthy. And I, I do know that in the past, some of my relatives have probably passed because of alcoholism before anything else, or they, they were not recognized as being, um, gay. So, you know, they committed suicide. So those are concerns too. Mentally. And, uh, I don't know. It, it's a, it's a crazy mixed bag of everything around us and probably PFAS may not be the worst. DD : I should ask you, before we wrap up, if there is anything that you'd like to add that we haven't touched on, or anything that you want to go back to, to say more about? PG: 20 �I, I have to give Lynn McIntosh enormous amount of credit. Wow, she is just one great woman, <laugh>. Yeah. If it weren't for her, I don't know where this would've gone. You know, I mean, she used me for information, but she put it all together. She presented it, she went to all the council meetings. She went to fight, you know, for some sort of understanding. And, uh, yeah. That's great. Yeah, there's been a couple of other people, I, I don't know them personally. I was part of the CCRR group and, you know, it's still kind of casually am. Um, Lynn kind of keeps me in tow, but, um, I've been so busy, <laugh>. But, uh, yeah, I, I really do have to give her probably 99% of the credit. Yeah. PG: And, uh, for me, it's just been, just been in the wrong place, or the right place at the right time, wrong time, whatever, you know, people open up, I see things that are not normal. I recognize that there's, uh, extenuating circumstances that should be looked into and never are. And I had my chance to talk to the EPA. Over an hour and a half, three very nice people that sat across the conference table. And I told 'em what I knew and how many ways they could check and test. Um, they didn't get back with me. Of course, <laugh>, there was never, never any liaison. DD : When did you meet with the EPA for that? When did, when was that? PG: Uh, four years ago. DD : Oh, so somewhat recently. PG: Yeah. Yeah. And they were just doing a, a fishing to find out who knew and how much, and to know if they had to try try to find out a way to be, uh, calming people down. Yeah. I've tried in so many ways to not be hysterical, not be playing, you know, commenting, you know, commenting, commenting to people that, you know, this is not good. There have been people on my street though, that I have told 'em not to let their kids play in the sandboxes. Uh, just, just abandoned them. And kids that had, you know, parents that had kids that were, uh, young toddlers and yeah. There have been incidences of, of childhood cancer here that, that really are out, out of the line. I mean, way outta line. I have warned people, you know, to, you know, if they have a, a daycare in their house. Uh, the, um, the development right to the north of me is also where, well, that's where the, the field was that the, you know, Mr. Giles' great-great grandfather had been, well, great-grandfather had been dumping or allowing Wolverine to dump. So they have a, a holding area, <laugh>, little retention pond that, that's built up like a up. And <laugh>, there's an overflow that goes down, Jericho. PG: Oh, yeah. There is one other story I should tell you anyway, that, that water goes into a, a storm drain that by all regulations, all ordinances, state, federal should have gone into a retention pond. And it had to be a a hundred feet away from the, from the bank of a water source. Which was be the Rogue River. Well, they, they ran that line, uh, down the new home. Here is his driveway underneath the driveway, and they emptied it out 15 feet from the Rogue River without it being in a retention pond. <laugh>. Why? I mean, they did, they, they just bypassed all of the regulations. So, and he goes, oh, here's 21 �something. And geez, I forgot to tell you, I dunno why I didn't write this one down. When I first moved here in, uh, '78, um, it was in March, and I noticed there was these two guys that were dressed in very dirty coveralls, uh, and driving a pickup truck that was all rusted out with a winch on the back, cable winch, and a motor that ran the winch. And they would, between the sewer manhole covers of the old sewer line which runs, you know, back that way. Um, they would send down a fish line and then pull back a, a stainless steel bucket the size of the sewer line on the power winch. They would do this continuously. Every 200 feet is a manhole cover that goes from here to Comstock Park <laugh>. And they would drag the bucket, pick it up, and dump it on the ground right next to the manhole. PG: You can imagine how contaminated that is. Again, I told the EPA, but I did tell million dollar homes across the river here. There's a development called, uh, River Bluff, I think it is. And, um, there's, there's two houses with a manhole cover on their property line, because the sewer line goes underneath that. And I told them, please don't let anybody near that. Don't, don't even touch it. Don't mow it, don't do anything. Just let it grow wild. And they don't, they manicure it and it's lot, a lot of dead <laugh>, but every 200 feet is probably the most contaminated surface in Rockford that you could have that runs right through those million dollar homes and all the way, all the way to Comack Park. Um, the EPA, nothing. DD : So you said you noticed them doing this back when you first moved here? Yes. Is this a practice they're still doing? Or they don't do it anymore? PG: No, they don't do it anymore. Um, they still use the old sewer line like we talked, and it's probably rusted through in so many ways 'cause of the acid that it's just leaking it out and it doesn't have to be dragged anymore <laugh>. So it, it just seeps into the ground. And you can imagine how that's going to affect the aquifer in 30 to 50 years from now. Um, especially. Right you know, right near the Rogue River, we're talking about surface water and we're, we're talking these manhole covers are just on either side of the Rogue River. And that's where they've been dumped. And, you know, every time it rains, a lot of that still finds its way into the river. DD : Oh yeah, for sure. PG: Yeah. I did, I did have a gentleman who lived across the street from me and his dad bought a piece of property and had owned it on the end of Rio Rogue, which was a dead end road, and it's beautiful little site right on the river. And, um, I remember talking to him and I told him, I says, you know, this could be contaminated. That sewer line runs, you know, right alongside your property. I told him what I knew. He sold it in a couple months, got rid of it. He didn't want any part of it. DD : Hmm. I wonder now that the, since the tannery closed, um, how that affects, you know, they're, they're not discharging in the same way that they used to 22 �PG: In Big Rapids they are <laugh>. DD : They have the boot making factory up there, don't they? PG: Yeah. They have asphalt lined retaining pods, retention pods DD : In Big Rapids? PG: Yeah. They have to, they have to pump it out and where they run it to, I don't know. Um, that would be a good story for MLive to look into <laugh> DD : Because, Yeah, go ahead. PG: It probably, they probably dump it somewhere around Big Rapids. So maybe on people's property that is abandoned, maybe probably the same scenario that they did here. They're just doing it up there now. It'd be impractical to haul it and it doesn't evaporate when it gets down to a, a certain level, it just becomes sludge and it doesn't evaporate after that very much. I don't know. Unless they have a lot of retention ponds and as it 'cause it rains, it, it becomes a liquid again. I don't know. Leather. Leatherette. It's a good idea. <laugh> the fake stuff. Actually that is still leather. It's a very thin coat of leather on top of a polyester. leatherette. It looks like leather. DD : Well, Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories today. PG: Thank you for listening. I think I got 'em all out too. It's that last one I totally forgot about the bucket. That was a good thing. That was when I first moved here, I saw that and thought to myself, why? This is weird. What are they doing, <laugh> DD : Yeah. And just cleaning the pipe PG: Cleaning the pipe. And they're dumping it. Sewage. I mean, if it's just sewage, it's bad enough. But it was from Wolverine and all the heaviest metals you could possibly imagine. Yeah. They didn't go down the pipe. There's not enough fall, not enough, you know, circulating. So they had to scoop 'em up. <laugh>. 23 �DD : That's wild. Well, thank you. PG: No, thank you. Oh gosh. <laugh>. Yes. I'm free <laugh>. 24 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Living with PFAS Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Devasto, Danielle Description An account of the resource Beginning in 2021, the Living with PFAS interviews were recorded to gather the personal stories of individuals impacted by PFAS contamination. PFAS, or per- and polyflourinated substances, are a large group of human-made chemicals used widely since the 1940s to make coatings and products resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They can be found in countless household items, including food packaging, non-stick cookware, stain-resistant furniture, and water-resistant clothing. These chemicals are often called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily, can move through soils and contaminate drinking water sources, and build up in animals, plants, and people. PFAS have been linked to increased incidences of various cancers, increased cholesterol, decreased fertility, birth defects, kidney and liver disease, and immune system suppression, and thyroid dysfunction. It is estimated that PFAS are in the drinking water of more than 200 million Americans (Andrews & Naidenko, 2020). In Michigan alone, over 280 sites have PFAS contamination exceeding maximum contamination levels for groundwater (MPART, 2024). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Living with PFAS (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Personal narrative PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals) Groundwater--Pollution Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-11 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Motion Picture Text Sound Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PFAS0042 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Golembiewski, Paul Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-11-06 Title A name given to the resource Paul Golembiewski, 2025 (Interview video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Rockford resident and horticulturist Paul Golembiewski reflects on decades of living and working near the former Wolverine Worldwide tannery, sharing detailed observations of chemical dumping, environmental damage, and community health concerns tied to PFAS contamination. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource DeVasto, Danielle (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Personal narrative PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals) Groundwater--Pollution Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Living with PFAS (project) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b366f87bc0a024e89e972703f772da86.jpg d6300498c6d807d52e02d2e2b74bffdc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_M072-0004a Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-05-04 Title A name given to the resource Paul McCracken in Wheaton, Illinois Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of University of Michigan economist and professor, Paul McCracken, in a classroom at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. McGracken also worked as an economic advisor to many United States presidents and had been appointed as President Nixon's chief economic advisor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers until late 1971 when he returned to being a distinguished faculty member at the University of Michigan. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource McCracken, Paul W. (Paul Winston), 1915-2012 Wheaton College (Ill.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fe3bbc420ad060a1beb1023f90367640.jpg 29a63b3121b57f5676b05665863b1685 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_M073-0006a Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-05-04 Title A name given to the resource Paul McCracken in Wheaton, Illinois Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of University of Michigan economist and professor, Paul McCracken, in a classroom at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. McGracken also worked as an economic advisor to many United States presidents and had been appointed as President Nixon's chief economic advisor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers until late 1971 when he returned to being a distinguished faculty member at the University of Michigan. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource McCracken, Paul W. (Paul Winston), 1915-2012 Wheaton College (Ill.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1927dcc9609d423704c3b20f19e86504.jpg d35f7564aa9bc9ce58d6e5e643870e9b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_M073-0043 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-05-04 Title A name given to the resource Paul McCracken in Wheaton, Illinois Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of University of Michigan economist and professor, Paul McCracken, in a classroom at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. McGracken also worked as an economic advisor to many United States presidents and had been appointed as President Nixon's chief economic advisor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers until late 1971 when he returned to being a distinguished faculty member at the University of Michigan. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource McCracken, Paul W. (Paul Winston), 1915-2012 Wheaton College (Ill.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4f6a88bf9ffb014e607723ace05733f9.jpg d3601b7c52fb48917d393bc0751dd468 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_FilmPacks_A_40_002 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1946-02-20 Title A name given to the resource Paul R. Weston bright indoors OK Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of a baby, Paul R. Weston, being held in a woman's lap. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/88de78877aec361b80719fbf3c7afd24.pdf ba195740afd6b306c94331dbd4219a08 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Paul Siegel Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 2/7/2012 Biography and Description Paul Siegel was a precinct captain in the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign (1973-1975). He was also a member of the Inter Communal Survival Committees that moved to Chicago to concentrate their forces and work in Uptown organizing the poor at the grassroots level. Paul’s precincts bordered Young Lord areas, so he spent many hours near the Young Lords office on Wilton and Grace Streets in Lakeview. Mr. Siegel was determined to cover and win the precincts and made many friends by providing referral services and following them up. He also talked and listened to local residents for hours, learning a great deal about what was on the minds of Latinos and poor people. His office was the street of his precincts and he knew everybody’s children and pets by name. Mr. Siegel was also especially gifted at identifying and enlisting community leaders to help him get out the vote. After the Jiménez campaign, Mr. Siegel also ran for alderman of the 46th ward and nearly won. Like the Jiménez campaign, his run helped to lay important groundwork in the ward for the victory that arrived with Helen Shiller’s election in 1987. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, go ahead and start, Paul, just give your name in that and your, kinda, connection to the -- how you came from Wisconsin to here, and your connection to the Young Lords and that -PAUL SIEGEL: Okay, my name is Paul Siegel, and how I came to have a connection with the Young Lords, well, it was, I guess you could say, via the route of Wisconsin in part. So I was in Madison, part of the student movement there, and was among the people that left the campus to do community-based organizing. And I was part of a group of people that really drew their main inspiration from the example bein’ set by the Black Panther Party and by [00:01:00] the challenge that started with SNCC and then continued with the Panthers to White people who wanted to change society. That our job was to organize White people who were oppressed to realize that they were part of the same struggle as the Black Panther Party. So from Madison, I joined up with a group in Racine, Wisconsin, which was called the Revolutionary Youth Movement, a name of which grew out of a group within SDS that came to be called Revolutionary -- RYM II. RYM I having been the Weatherman group, and RYM II being more, we wanna be based in the community, in communities of people, poor and working-class people struggling for change and less the idea of, [00:02:00] kind of, a small elite that, sort of, knew what to do and was out, you know, kind of, a bit isolated, I think, from the struggles of poor and working people. So in Racine, Wisconsin, we had direct contact with a group that was 1 �called the People’s Information Center in Chicago, which had the same connection to SDS that we did. And we also had contact with the Black Panther Party chapter in Rockford, Illinois, which wasn’t that far from Racine, and the leaders there, you know, particularly, a guy named Harold Bell. But the People’s Information Center, which became the Intercommunal Survival Committee, had a direct tie with the [00:03:00] Black Panther Party nationally and in Chicago. And we increasingly began to work together with them while we were still in Racine, and we were organizing things like a free breakfast for children program. We were distributing the Black Panther Party newspaper to poor, White people in Racine and, kind of, modeling on the Survival Pending Revolution idea of the Black Panther Party. This would be, like, the beginning of the 1970s, and as time went on, the people from what became the Intercommunal Survival Committee in Chicago proposed to us that we, kinda, join up with them. And so that people who were goin’ in this direction of community-based organizing, in which the goal was to directly [00:04:00] relate the struggles of poor and oppressed White people to the struggles of Black people and peoples of color. That people who were of that kind of approach and who saw the Black Panther Party as the most important force working for social change in the country at the time. That we should consolidate and build a base in Chicago that could be an example of that kind of work. So we agreed to do that, and we gradually, kind of -- we didn’t just up and leave Racine ’cause there were people we were workin’ with, and some of those people who were from Racine came with us to Chicago, in fact. And so there was a gradual folding into the operation in Chicago, which also drew people 2 �from an Intercommunal Survival Committee that had started in St. Louis. So you had this, kind of, convergence of organizers that were inspired [00:05:00] by that approach that I just, kind of, talked about generally, a convergence in Chicago. Now at the time, I came to Chicago in the summer of 1972, and I think it would be accurate to say -- and the person who’s interviewing me is the real expert on this, so he could correct me. But I think it would be accurate to say that by 1972, a struggle that had happened in Lincoln Park led by the Young Lords against displacement by urban renewal, had, kind of, gone as far as it could go. And, I guess in essence, you could say, had been defeated to rise again, but had defeated by the powers that be. And so I arrived when the Intercommunal Survival Committee in Chicago was [00:06:00] still based in Lincoln Park, and Lincoln Park was a real interesting community ’cause you had this mix of people. Like I remember when -- I’m jumping ahead, but when Cha-Cha ran for alderman, he drew upon Bob Gibson to write us a campaign anthem, which was a great song, and Bob Gibson, you knew him out of Lincoln Park. So Lincoln Park was this mix of people. You know, you had this, kind of, folk song scene, and that whole thing, had probably every left group around, you know, had somethin’ goin’ in Lincoln Park in those days. And it was before they turned it into a really exclusive, gentrified community. And the struggle that Cha-Cha and the Young Lords led in Lincoln Park was the struggle against the plans to do that. So the impact of the struggle of the Young Lords in Lincoln Park against urban renewal [00:07:00] upon the organizers that were already in Chicago, the Intercommunal Survival Committee in Chicago, I think you can’t overestimate it. 3 �Because this is where folks that had come out of the Civil Rights Movement, come out of the student movement were following that mandate that I talked about, which is we don’t need you to be runnin’ Black organizations or Puerto Rican organizations, we need you to be bringin’ White people into the struggle. So this was where that concrete connection was made. You had poor, White people in Lincoln Park, you had a, kinda, contingent of White people from Appalachia, kind of, a group of families really that were living in Lincoln Park, and other poor, [00:08:00] White people in Lincoln Park. And the Intercommunal Survival Committee in Chicago began working with those people in the same way that we had been doing in Racine, organizing survival programs. But comes this Young Lords organization, which I don’t think I need to even try to recite that history because I assume that’s comin’ from elsewhere for this collection of interviews. Comes this Young Lords organization that grew out of a Puerto Rican street gang, absorbed the anti-colonial struggles that were goin’ on in the ’60s, hooked up with the Black Panther Party, hooked up with the Young Patriots, which was an Appalachian-based youth group in Uptown. And Cha-Cha Jiménez as the leader of that transformation [00:09:00] of a street gang into a fighting political organization, community-based, led this battle against urban renewal in Lincoln Park. To my understanding, I arrive, again, just as it’s, kind of, at the end, and Cha-Cha’s, at that point, in hiding because of a whole series of trumped-up -- right? In 1972, Cha-Cha is in hiding because of a whole bunch of trumped-up charges that are connected with all the repression in Chicago that culminated in the murder of Fred Hampton at the end of 1969. So Cha-Cha 4 �Jiménez is driven into hiding, and that movement, kind of, in defeat in ’72, but the example that it gave of large numbers of people fighting against urban renewal, fighting against displacement, saying, “We gotta have a viable community to live in, in which we can [00:10:00] thrive and in which we can reach out to other people so that we can change this country.” The impact of that upon those White organizers in Uptown, who were part of the Intercommunal Survival Committee, was just huge. When I arrived in 1972, it was clear that where we needed to go, the Intercommunal Survival Committee, was to Uptown, which was one of the nation’s largest urban concentrations of poor and working-class White people that you could find anywhere, so... And Uptown already had had struggle at the same time, which was the fight against Truman College, at the same time that the Young Lords were leading the battle in Lincoln Park, which was deliberately built by the city right in the heart of the Appalachian, White community in Chicago. [00:11:00] And it was never just Appalachian Whites, there was always a mixture, but the biggest single group was Appalachian Whites. There were other poor Whites from the South, there were poor Whites from the North, and already, there were African Americans and large numbers of Native Americans in Uptown, so you already had this mixture, so... And there already had been some struggle against urban renewal. So the Intercommunal Survival Committee in Chicago, strengthened by bringing organizers from Racine and St. Louis, you know, strengthening its ranks in terms of a core of committed people, began to move into Uptown to build a base in Uptown. That’s where I came in, and what we did was to -- well, we did many things, but we had that direct link with the 5 �Black Panther Party. [00:12:00] And one of the first things we did in Uptown was organize what the Panthers were doin’ at the time, which was a massive distribution of groceries called the Survival Program. And it was around the theme of community control of police, which at the time, the Black Panther Party was leading a fight to try to bring about a citywide referendum for community control of police in Chicago. Of course, you know, the problem of the police and repression and the way they acted in four communities in Chicago was more than scandalous. And, of course, this was an issue that appealed to a lot of people in Uptown who had had terrible experiences with the police. So that was one of the first things we did. And Bobby Rush, who, at that time, was head of the Black Panther Party chapter in Illinois, spoke [00:13:00] at that program where we distributed 3,000 bags of groceries. But what came off of that was a whole lotta names, a whole lot of context because 3,000 people were there, and that plus our just goin’ out and canvassing, knocking on doors, sometimes seven days a week in the community. We were building this network of contacts, and we built it around distribution of the Black Panther Party newspaper. This was really an important move in terms of building a base in Uptown. We were challenging -- you know, as I say, there’s a mix of people, so we’re hittin’ doors and we’re talkin’ to Native Americans who came from the reservations, and we’re talkin’ to Puerto Ricans who were beginning to find their way up into Uptown having been displaced from Lincoln Park. [00:14:00] And some Puerto Ricans are migrating one step ahead of the wrecking ball. Every place they go, it’s gettin’ urban renewed, and they’re gettin’ displaced, and they’re migrating 6 �sometimes a block at a time up into Uptown and west out to Humboldt Park, really I think in two directions from that Lincoln Park base. That was just, you know, in essence, largely destroyed when they -- through repression and other things, they defeated that movement. So we’re knockin’ on doors, we’re meetin’ all kinds of people, focusing as much as we can upon challenging the poor, White people we met to take the Black Panther newspaper where we would deliver it once a week. Well, if you think about it, you know, the housing conditions are crowded, everybody’s livin’ on top of each other in this community. Everybody that was in Uptown, I know -- [00:15:00] I’m, sorta, jumpin’ around, but everybody that was livin’ in Uptown had been displaced from somewhere else. Appalachians had been displaced from the coal mines by technological unemployment when they brought in new machinery. They carry the coal dust in their lungs, and the black lung disease, and not much else, but what was on their back, and a lot of them came to Chicago and many, many came to Uptown. Puerto Ricans were displaced from the island by Operation Bootstrap and then displaced through neighborhood after neighborhood in Chicago, rapid-fire displacement. African Americans were displaced from enclaves they had on the North Side, and then many decided that they wanted to check out a multiracial community where they had lived on the South Side or the West Side and had been displaced often from viable neighborhoods on the South Side into public housing. So [00:16:00] you had this phenomenon of this neighborhood that had a cross-section of everybody who couldn’t fit into Chicago’s post-World War II order of urban renewal, gentrification, and putting all the resources into the Loop. 7 �And Uptown is this cross-section of everybody who’s thrown out because of what was makin’ some people a lot of money in Chicago, and that was, sort of, the basis of the whole political, social order in Chicago. And so Uptown becomes the place where people start to say, “Are we gonna be displaced, just be displaced again, or we’re gonna fight? And are we going to fight each other because we’re of these different colors and different races and we’ve been taught all this crap against each other, or are we gonna pull together in order to fight to say this time, [00:17:00] this community’s got to be ours, we don’t wanna to be pushed out again?” So steppin’ backward again to the beginnings of that and what I was saying about -- so lots of people are coming into Uptown ’cause they’ve got no place else to go. The housing supply is limited, so people are crowded together. So if you’re a White person from the South or a poor, White person, and you take the Black Panther Party newspaper in that situation of so many people concentrated, you’re really makin’ a statement. People know that you’re takin’ the Black Panther Party newspaper. You’re sayin’, “Yeah, yeah, I know what I’ve heard about the Black Panthers, and I know what I’ve heard about Black people, and I know what I’ve heard about these agitators that -- comin’ around. But they seem to be the people that give a damn about what’s gonna to happen to me and my family, [00:18:00] and they seem to be sayin’ they’re part of this community, and so I think I’ll take that paper.” So you start to identify who in the community is progressive enough to identify with that. And then you’re deliverin’ that paper every week, and you’re in the person’s house, they invite you in. You’re findin’ out about them, about their life, about their family. You might meet their neighbor 8 �who comes to see them when you’re in there, sayin’, “Well, check out this article that’s in the paper this week,” or what have you. You’re learnin’ about the community, and you’re beginning to really build a base. So around that home, it was amazing what the home distribution of the Black Panther Party newspaper did. And then you gotta to look at that and say, “Well, it’s amazing the fact that there was a Black Panther Party that was producing that newspaper based on the practice that they were involved [00:19:00] in that was creating that example that we could project to people.” So it was a rare, historical moment of opportunity for organizing. Because you had this community where so many people were pushed out and displaced that was now gonna face displacement again because the establishment wakes up and says, “My goodness, this is one mile from the lake, this land is worth its weight in gold, double its weight in gold. We can’t leave these poor Whites, and Black people, and Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, and then later on other people are comin’ in, immigrants, we can’t leave that for them. There’s too much money to be made here, and besides, it’s too dangerous. We don’t let too many people get concentrated in one area, and there’s too much potential power in numbers in that concentration.” So it was a rare moment of opportunity [00:20:00] to organize people around the potential to make change. And I think that we seized upon it, and did everything we could with it, and made whatever mistakes we made. And it’s a legacy that I think the current generation of young people that’s Occupy Wall Street and whatnot, they need to know about this as one part of their history because in America, there’s this tendency towards amnesia. In 9 �other countries, there’s political parties that are working-class based that have an institutional memory, and that, kind of, carry that history from one generation to the next. Maybe they also get a little bureaucratized, and they twist it around a little, so maybe there’s a disadvantage, but there’s an institutional [00:21:00] memory. In America, each organization seems to get destroyed, and sometimes in some crazy way, induced to self-destruct. And we see it again and again, generation after generation, and then the new generation that always winds up resisting the oppression has to, sort of, try to reinvent the wheel each time. So I think it’s tremendously important that those of us that are still alive that live through some of this struggle get the story out, get that legacy out, so that young people can take it and do what they want with it. They could say, “Well, this part was bullshit, and this part was right, or it was all bull crap, but this is what we learned from it.” I’ll let the young people figure out what to do with it, but I want the young people to know about it. So, you know, I’m really jumpin’ around, and if it’s a little incoherent, I’m sorry [00:22:00] but -JJ: That’s all right. PS: -- the... So, how does the tie in -- (break in audio) PS: -- with the Young Lords? Well, let’s say that, first of all, it became very clear that resistance to displacement was gonna be the issue that was gonna pull together people in Uptown. That became clear, and it wasn’t out of a textbook. And, you know, one of the things that I feel really happened, and this -- again, it goes back to what the Young Lords got started in Lincoln Park. You can’t overestimate the 10 �importance of it. One of the things that happened was really because of the displacement process. It’s like they’re takin’-- that people are seeds that are getting spread around, and scattered about, and then the wind concentrates them again in [00:23:00] Uptown. And people are bringin’ these experiences of the oppression that’s involved in being displaced, and the examples that they had, whatever examples they bring with them of resistance to it. And you’ve got this cauldron where those experiences are comin’ together. And what I’m sayin’ is that the organizers from the Intercommunal Survival Committee, who were so inspired and learned so much from the struggle of the Young Lords, in a lot of ways, they become part of this sea, this ocean, this wave of people that’s gettin’ displaced through one neighborhood after another and comin’ together in Uptown. So that it’s not somethin’ out of a textbook, it’s somethin’ that’s alive, and the organizers themselves are actually part of the same [00:24:00] phenomenon that they’re tryin’ to figure out how to organize, you know, how to move. They’ve made a commitment, they’ve made a full-time commitment, how are we gonna move this struggle, but they’re really part of that historical experience. And the thing that happened in Lincoln Park and the mass struggle that was led by the Young Lords was key to it. So Uptown becomes, I think, really the place in the city where what I sometimes call the submerged tradition of opposition to displacement. It’s Like Cha-Cha was sayin’ to me today, “Well, are people in Uptown and in Chicago still movin’ on displacement?” and I said, “Well, it’s always there, you know, it’s under the surface. And you never know when the 11 �conditions are gonna be created for it to, you know, come up with an explosion and become a defining [00:25:00] issue again. JJ: Finish up what you’re sayin’, but can you, kind of, elaborate a little bit on some of the mechanics, some of the experiences in terms of the campaign, and -- PS: Right -- JJ: -- as well -- PS: -- that’s what -- JJ: -- in terms of when you started working in the Intercommunal Survival Community, started workin’ together with the Young Lords and -- PS: Right. JJ: -- vice versa and --? PS: And so, you know, without gettin’ into the details of the work with the Young Lords in Lincoln Park, which I think can be covered by other people who were there. JJ: Right, okay. PS: It’s about 19-- you might help me out with this, it was -- JJ: Seventy-two probably? PS: Yeah, but -- and ’70, when you came out of -- JJ: In ’72. PS: -- you came back in the open, as I remember, it was probably ’73. JJ: Nineteen seventy, December fourth, for Fred Hampton’s -- PS: Which year? JJ: Of 1972. [00:26:00] 12 �PS: Okay, very end of ’72. So we’ve been in Uptown, and we’re startin’ to organize these Survival Programs, and maybe I won’t go into all that much detail. There’s another interview where I go into more detail on that, and, you know -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PS: -- that could be used. But, you know, we’re organizing all kind. At the same time that we’re in people’s homes showing ’em the Black Panther Party paper, we’re sayin’, “Oh.” And they’re telling you about that, of the hassle they’re havin’ with the welfare department or the police or the landlord. And you write it down, and you say, “Oh well, we got this legal defense program,” and, “Oh, you can’t find a decent doctor, well, we got this people’s health program, and we got somebody that can come and help you find a better doctor and go with you to that doctor.” And then that starts to move into community-based mass movements [00:27:00] for preventive health care dealin’ with lead poisoning, dealing with black lung disease in the case of the poor Whites where there were all these folks that came from the coal mines and had black lung disease. And where we wound up, you know, really creating some models in terms of diagnosis and treatment of black lung disease out of Chicago where people, in the end, started comin’ from the coalfields to Chicago where we organized with doctors from Cook County Hospital who specialized in occupational disease. So we’re dealin’ with all the survival needs from that base of goin’ to the people’s houses with the Black Panther Party newspaper, and those survival programs are beginning to grow into more and more organized kinds of demands for change. And durin’ this process, Cha-Cha Jiménez comes out [00:28:00] of hiding, deciding the time is 13 �right to do that, and moves to Wilton and Grace area, which is interesting because Wilton and Grace is like two blocks south of what they would call the southern border of Uptown. It’s two blocks south of Irving Park, so it’s right there. It’s directly adjacent to Uptown and happens to be in the same ward that most of Uptown is in. Just a quick footnote to the political history is, in 1970, I believe in part because of the fight against Truman College and that there’s a movement startin’ to grow in Uptown, they took -- where Uptown used to historically be in one ward that was called the 48th Ward, they, kind of, chopped it up, mostly at Lawrence, from Lawrence to Foster, put that in the 48th, put the bigger chunk [00:29:00] in the 46th, and figured they’d split up the vote, right, and that they could keep down the political insurgency that they were afraid was bubblin’ up. But they didn’t, kinda, take into account that a lot of Puerto Ricans were comin’ northward and gatherin’ some in Uptown, a whole bunch in Uptown, but also a whole bunch just south of Uptown or in that Wilton and Grace area. So Cha-Cha refounds the Young Lord organization and sets up an office at Wilton and Grace, which is in the 46th Ward. And that is the beginning of what became a coalition between the Intercommunal Survival Committee and what eventually became a big, massive organization called the Heart of Uptown Coalition, which was, in a sense, almost like a community union of several thousand families, all of whom signed up to be members and that [00:30:00] fought harder and harder in this struggle against displacement. Well, Cha-Cha Jiménez refounds the Young Lords and sets up an office at Wilton and Grace, and we build this coalition. And I remember, you know, havin’ them -- really what, to me, was a great honor of 14 �taking Cha-Cha around on that home distribution route with the Black Panther Party newspaper, with a shopping bag full of Black Panther Party newspapers to deliver the Panther paper. And that was how Cha-Cha could meet a large number of families in Uptown that we were workin’ with ’cause he went around on that route with me. And so Cha-Cha starts to get known in Uptown, and he’s got the bases that the Young Lords that have been refounded are building around Wilton and Grace, and then in 1974 [00:31:00] declares his candidacy for alderman of the 46th Ward. There’s gonna be an election in February of ’75. He declared a good year prior to the election because we knew we needed time to build. And I’ll always remember the button, which was a picture of Cha-Cha Jiménez and the slogan, “The dawning of a new day,” and what’s in Spanish, “Un nuevo dia, nuevo --” JJ: El amanecer -- PS: -- El amanecer JJ: -- un nuevo dia. PS: -- un nuevo dia. And it was a big button, and we’d sell ’em for a dollar to raise money, and more and more people who were meeting Cha-Cha Jiménez, hearin’ about him were buyin’ that button, and the button was startin’ to, like, grow wings and fly or somethin’. One of the things I remember in particular was a woman named Irene Jamison who died just a few years back in Uptown -- she was very [00:32:00] old by then -- who was really the matriarch of a large, extended family of Whites from West Virginia. She was the widow of somebody who died of black lung disease, couldn’t get her benefits, was a founder of the Chicago Area 15 �Black -- in fact, the Chicago Area Black Lung Association, which ultimately came to have about 900 members, ex-coal miners from all around the Chicago area. Because we found out they were displaced coal miners just scattered out everywhere with this base that we had in Uptown. She was the founder. When she put on that Cha-Cha Jiménez button, that served notice on a whole extended family and network of people that somethin’ was changing. And there were people in her extended family who had real problems with racism. You know, they didn’t use [00:33:00] the word Black people, they used another word, and those people start to get pulled in because you gotta realize, conditions in Uptown, this was no picnic. Conditions in Uptown were really getting rough. Uptown had always been very rough. I remember when I interviewed David Hernandez for a project I was doin’ a few years ago, Puerto Rican poet, and a close friend of Cha-Cha Jiménez, and someone who was very much part of the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign for alderman, saying that he remembered. He lived on Clifton Avenue, I found out, when it was burning down to build the college. He, through process of displacement and everything else, just that sea of people, he came in there, and he saw the Young Patriots [00:34:00] and was impressed by the fact that these poor, White people from the South were starting to see a class-based fight and not a fight of White against Black or White against Puerto Rican. And he said, “You know, I remember a few years before thinkin’ we’re all gonna wind up in Uptown, and that what Uptown was, compared to the other neighborhoods, it was a cauldron of oppression.” Let’s not romanticize it. What you had was these huge buildings that existed for all kinds of historical reason, 16 �goin’ back to the ’20s with a different social function in mind at the time. And so you had huge, multi-unit apartment buildings and [courtways?] that had all been turned into rental units. In many cases, six flats chopped up into much smaller apartments. Sometimes a six-flat would [00:35:00] survive as a six flat, but you had competition for the available housing because so many people from the housing crisis in Chicago, due to displacement by urban renewal, came to Uptown. So you had competition for the housing that’s gonna exacerbate the racial tensions, right, and the racial conflicts because people are in that conflict for housing. And that’s the root of some of the gang violence between young people that really started to happen. And then you had the city coming up with plans for urban renewal that were gonna transform, and it was known that the plan was for people not to be there anymore, so what does that do to landlords, what kind of landlord is now attracted, right, to come in, and what kind of landlord leaves? Because people who own the buildings see, okay, the plan is for these folks not to be there. [00:36:00] So I’m gonna make a killin’ here, I’m gonna bleed this building, which is already overcrowded and already rundown, and I’m gonna bleed it, right? And then eventually I can burn it down, collect some insurance, and then somebody else gonna come in and buy it, and I’ll make a pile of money. So what is this? So that’s this slow, agonizing process in which arson for profit begins to increase. And arson for profit wasn’t just that some hustler wanted to burn down a building, it was who was putting the people up to it. It was because there was a plan at the highest levels to displace a community and remake it for a different class of people. So that’s the Uptown that I’m talkin’ 17 �about. And, you know, I remember actually, there was a professor who said, “Well, you know, it sounds like [00:37:00] not fertile ground for a great movement because the problems are so oppressive, right?” And I said, “Yeah, but a movement happened because the will was there and because of the other things that I said, different people comin’ together.” So what I’m sayin’ is that when people made that commitment to the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign for alderman, which made displacement the key issue... When people made that commitment and reached into community across racial lines, right, to say, “I’m a hillbilly from West Virginia and I’m gonna support this Puerto Rican, ex-street gang leader, right, whose cousin I might have been, you know, fightin’ with, with a knife last year, right? [00:38:00] I’m gonna reach across these lines in order to make this alliance.” And I guess what I’m saying is it’s not a simple, kind of, easy thing. This is happening under conditions of crisis, of a community in crisis, a community that’s experiencing worse and worse arson, people are dyin’ in these fires, a community that’s experiencing worse and worse lead poisoning, a community where the war on poverty kinds of programs that had been put in are bein’ pulled out and where industry is leaving the city, and there’s fewer and fewer jobs, a community in crisis. And the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign, once again, and I say you cannot overestimate the importance of the struggle of the Young Lords in Lincoln Park in terms of [00:39:00] beginning to define this tradition of political struggle against displacement. And where it makes -- you know, because Puerto Ricans had been displaced as part of their history as colonized people, you know, there’s these profound connections. Just as you 18 �can’t underestimate the importance of the Young Lords in Lincoln Park as an inspiration to people who then carry this on. Now, you can’t underestimate the importance of the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign to defining a situation in which the most oppressed people in Uptown were gonna be the defining opposition. Remember Uptown is not by itself in the 46th Ward, so you’ve got Lake Shore Drive on the east, and you’ve got a community to the west, you know, that’s, kind of, homeowners, [00:40:00] and then you got the huge population of Uptown. There was, kind of, a Lakefront liberal independence set and had good people. And I remember you got the -- when Cha-Cha got the endorsement of IPO, which was the Independent Precinct Organization, which existed -- okay, we don’t need to. You know, kind of middle class, White, liberal, independent, precinct organization. Well, that wasn’t a foregone conclusion that he was gonna get that endorsement. That took a lotta work because there were independent, Lakefront liberals who were accustomed to being the opposition, and, you know, it’s not the disparaging one. You had Bill Singer in Lincoln Park, and Dick Simpson in the 44th, and [Mike Kriloff?] in the 49th, and then later David Orr. So there’s a certain tradition, [00:41:00] and the 46th Ward’s supposed to fall in, right? But what happened here was -- and the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign was the first major step in doing that -- a movement of poor people’s coalition came to define what the opposition was gonna be in the 46th Ward. The Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign, I personally will never forget, one of the things that I remember about the Cha-Cha Jiménez for alderman campaign was that it was the partying-est campaign I have ever seen. I think it was a profound understanding of exactly 19 �where we’re at the time and what we needed to do. You had to get people socializing with each other. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that you were gonna be able to bring African Americans, and Puerto Ricans, and poor Whites, and Native Americans [00:42:00] together in a coalition. So I remember the assignment was every Friday night, we are goin’ to have a party at the Young Lord’s office, and we did that for weeks and weeks. And if you were tired, you were goin’ to that party all right, every Friday night, and there would be a lot of Puerto Rican music at that party, right? And we would cajole, and coax, and get people to overcome whatever fear they had, bring poor Whites from Uptown, especially those gettin’ involved in the campaign, right, to the party at the Young Lords. But every Saturday night, there was another party. Every Saturday night, you organized the party in the precinct in one of the precincts you were working in at the home of one of the people. And so we had a party every Friday and every Saturday night for many weeks running, and it was really, sort of, our main recruiting tool to get [00:43:00] people recruited to be workers in the campaign and to get ’em to stay because they started lookin’ forward to this. So that was one of the things I remember about the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign, that and many, many, many hours of canvasing. And Irene Jamison putting on that button and what that did in terms of a large, extended network. It’s significant enough without creating myths, you know, without a basis in truth. The place where the poor, White support for Cha-Cha Jiménez was strongest was the part of Uptown that was from Montrose, South, and it took in that huge stretch on Kenmore from Irving to Montrose, which is now pretty well gentrified and is not the Kenmore it 20 �used to be. [00:44:00] But it was almost like a world unto itself because you had the L tracks to the west, and then you had instead of an eighth of a mile and then an intersec-(break in audio) PS: -- a quarter of a mile from Irving to Buena, and then that circle, Buena circle, and then a quarter of a mile from Buena to Montrose. And it’s all solid housing, and it’s, kind of, enclosed in a way because you got the L tracks on one side. So it’s almost a neighborhood unto itself in some ways, and it’s a huge concentration of poor people, including many poor Whites. What I’m sayin’ is that though, so south of Montrose, that’s where you’re right in proximity with the Puerto Ricans that have moved partly into those Uptown blocks, and partly into the Wilton and Grace area. That’s also where you have all the African American people in the Courtyards on Broadway, just two short blocks over [00:45:00] and directly parallel to Kenmore Street, all right, which was public housing. And in the really brutal and sudden displacement of the African American families from that public housing became the subject of the Avery suit that was a major challenge to the urban renewal plans in Uptown. What I’m saying is this is the area, the southern part of Uptown where you have the mixing, where you have people just rubbin’ shoulders with each other. And I was workin’ down there every day and knew, kind of, every crack in the sidewalk. And I remember sayin’ to myself early on, “Man, we ain’t gonna be able to do this, people using these racist terms, and they livin’ right on top of each other practically, and there’s tensions. This is gonna be the place where we’re not gonna be able to do it.” [00:46:00] It turned out it was 21 �just the opposite. For all the tension, for all the little day-to-day conflicts, once a standard was created with the Black Panther Party newspaper, with a coalition led by a Puerto Rican revolutionary nationalist leader, Cha-Cha Jiménez. Once a standard was created, and that education was created, and all those survival programs were created, that became the place where people could grasp natural political allies. People of color are our natural allies. They could grasp that message even if they were fightin’ half their lives, you know, because of some kind of silly conflict, right? That was the place, in other words, where the political support grew the fastest, and that was where Cha-Cha got the most votes. So there was an area, I remember after the election, [00:47:00] from Gray Street to about Sunnyside and from Clifton to about Clarendon. You could use it, you could come up with a map for whatever archive this is goin’ into. And so it goes a little bit north of Montrose, but it’s mostly that south of Montrose area, Cha-Cha Jiménez was the alderman of that, about seven precinct area. Cha-Cha Jiménez won the total vote in that area, and he then got, you know, somewhere towards 4,000 votes, I can’t remember the exact total. And Chris Cohen, who was the regular democratic alderman, got many more votes because there wasn’t time to build. We got the IPO endorsement, but to go get massive support on Lake Shore Drive, that was not gonna to be any easy task, and it’s not like we had infinite [00:48:00] personnel and resources to do it. And then north of Montrose, which is the place where stereotypically it got called really Hillbilly Heaven, right, Broadway and Wilson, right, and Magnolia Street and Malden where we’re at right now, that was less. Now, there were some people who took a stand up 22 �there, and did some work, and got some votes, but there was less votes there. To have a chance to win, we would’ve had to massively get all those precincts too and get the ones in the south more massively than we did. And, you know, remember, we’re fightin’ again -- people are gettin’ displaced all the time, that means they’re losin’ their voter registration. And we still had that totally oppressive voter registration system where, you know, you had to wait until they did in-precinct registration twice a year [00:49:00] to get registered to vote. And then you’d get evicted and lose your registration and don’t know how to change your address, and the precinct, meanwhile, got his control vote in the poor community, the oppressed community. That’s maybe 10 percent of the total people that are eligible to vote, but he’s got the connections to keep them registered. And he’s got them under control for whatever reason he’s got them under control, so we’re up against a lot. So we couldn’t landslide in those precincts that we won, but still, that base was established. And there was no question from that point goin’ forward that the poor people’s movement in Uptown was gonna define the opposition. And I just think you can’t overestimate the importance of that in terms of what became... I don’t remember if I finished a sentence a few things back -- [00:50:00] where Uptown became the main place where that submerged tradition of opposition to displacement, that starts as soon as urban renewal starts right after World War II in Black communities saying there’s a master plan. People are saying there’s a master plan, and we’re not in it, urban renewal is Negro removal, and then the Puerto Ricans become such an important part of that that history. And that submerged tradition comes up for 23 �some air in Lincoln Park, and comes above ground, and becomes a massive movement for a short time, and is brutally repressed, and then into Uptown. And then Uptown I think became the place where that submerged tradition of opposition and resistance to displacement most crystallized into a massorganized, political movement against displacement. In terms of the fighting against racism, [00:51:00] in terms of having a reference point relating to selfdetermination, the fact that the Young Lords led that first salvo, that Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign, that first major political campaign in the 46th Ward in Uptown. That stamped on that movement a certain character that might not have been there otherwise. So just thinkin’ about, you could almost say, the ethic of makin’ contact with the people in their homes, right, and hookin’ ’em up with Survival Programs, and out of that, will come any number of spin-offs in organizing efforts. I always remember, I think it was Slim, he went to a political education at the Young Lords office, [00:52:00] and I believe it was after the campaign. And he came back, and he said, “Well, Paul, here’s what Cha-Cha said about you. He said he was telling people about goin’ to folks’ houses and keepin’ at it, knockin’ on doors, bringin’ ’em information.” And he said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of like Paul, when he goes to the house, even the dog knows him.” (laughter) That’s my favorite compliment I think that was ever paid to me as an organizer, and it was quoted to me. But that went on with the Young Lords at Wilton and Grace. One of the things that happened, one of the pledges that Cha-Cha made, one of his campaign promises was, “Win or lose, we’re gonna have a nonpartisan, righteous [00:53:00] community service office come about as 24 �a result of this campaign.” This was a promise that Cha-Cha made as part of his campaign, and we then founded that. It started out at 4048 North Sheridan, so it’s right there, right there in that territory where both Wilton and Grace and Uptown from the north can feed into it, and people can use it. And Jim Chapman, who’s a lawyer who actually came out of that Lakefront independent movement, that Lakefront independent liberal movement, progressive, and who himself knew Cha-Cha as -- if I got it right, if I’m remembering right, himself knew Cha-Cha and the Young Lords from the Lincoln Park struggle and had, sort of, gotten organized and excited by it. [00:54:00] Jim Chapman committed to this service center, which started out as the Uptown People’s Law Center in a major way. It was the good officers of the law center that made the Black Lung Association possible, so it became... And the idea of the pledge for a nonpartisan service office put that in the context of a democratic machine that’s frontin’ for urban renewal and for gentrification and for the developers. And that considers itself to be the owner, all poor people, “Hey, ain’t you a Democrat, what are you, a Republican? Of course, you’re gonna vote for the -- you know, you’re gonna vote for the Democrat, you don’t know who this-so called independent --” That’s the line, so, but it’s such oppression because the Democratic Party machine has totally sold out to the developers, and to urban renewal, and to this unjust social order. So they’ve got their 46th [00:55:00] Ward regular democratic service office and to get anything from them, you have to be owned by them. You have to be like a serf paying, you know, homage to the to the boss, right? And if you go against them politically, you can’t get any help. We said, “Whether 25 �you vote for us or against us, this office is gonna be there for the people in the community. It’s gonna serve the people in the community,” and we did it, we started this office. That was a promise that came -- that’s something else that really came out of the Cha-Cha Jiménez campaign. And in the early years after the campaign, something called the Coalition Against the Chicago 21 Plan came about, which was -- the 21 Plan was the extension starting in the early ’70s of the master plans in the ’60s [00:56:00] to take the area from -- and you can look at it and see how it’s carried out now from Cabrini Green, you know, from the Near North Side and the projects down to Pilsen and protect the Loop, your investments in the Loop by making it affluent. It’s all pretty much come to pass. Cha-Cha was part of and the Young Lords were part of building that initial Coalition Against the 21 Plan. You know, I guess the one last -- reminiscing about the campaign, I just gotta mention David Hernandez because, again, there was this cultural side to it, like the parties that I was talkin’ about. He had this poem called [“We Pack,”?] you know, and when I think of that poem, to me, he’s the Puerto Rican Allen Ginsberg. [00:57:00] To me, it’s like an epic, long poem about a people’s experience. It’s we pack our rice and beans, and it’s best done orally. He would deliver that poem orally at events for Cha-Cha’s campaign and at these parties, and everybody loved it. And it was about we pack as we’re bein’ forced to move again and again and again. So, you know, it was just this culture that was coming up, this culture really of resistance to displacement and what displacement does to people. You know, you finally keep goin’ back and forth to the school, and you get to where maybe the teachers will respect your kid a little 26 �bit. You finally find a doctor who’s not just a pill pusher. You’re working to stitch together a life. You find a store where you can get some credit [00:58:00] and where they won’t rip you off, right? You’re stitchin’ together a life and then bang, no, no, no, we’re gonna fix this place up real nice, but you can’t live here. Then you’re scattered out again, and you gotta start all over again. It’s out of this that this resistance comes and that -- then that Coalition Against the 21 Plan and other coalitions that were coming about from the early to the late ’70s, coalitions against the city’s plans, you know, really, were making anti-displacement the basis of demands. That the resources of the city be reorganized, you know, to create jobs, to create decent housing, to create a situation where people could have a future. It was the opposition and resistance [00:59:00] to displacement that was the basis for those kind of nascent, you know, coming about kind of coalitions. What happens, I think, is that it then all really gets channeled into the movement to take the fifth floor, and that’s the movement that elected Harold Washington. Okay. JJ: Before that, you also ran for alderman later or -- ? PS: Well, that was in connection with -- yeah, in conjunction with the Harold Washington campaign, right? It was when Harold ran. JJ: So if you want to -- PS: Right. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) about your campaign there. PS: Right, you know, I guess we should say briefly that in terms of 46th Ward politics, after the Cha-Cha’s campaign in ’75, Helen Shiller ran in a special election in ’78, 27 �one of the old-line machine. I think, in essence, booted Chris Cohen, who they could never quite accept [01:00:00] because he came from the outside, from the New Frontier and the Great Society, and was sort of foisted on them, and they in turn were foisted on Uptown. They were Jewish machine Democrats who had to leave the West Side when it became Black, so there was always a certain weakness of the democratic machine here. But anyway, there was a special election because Cohen was finally induced to quit, and Helen ran in that, and then the regular election was just a year later in ’79. And it was an incredible campaign that massively involved a lot of people, that she undoubtedly really won. There was more time to win support, we’d been around longer, won a lot of support on Lake Shore Drive and all over the ward, the support in Uptown was just massive, there’s no doubt... She went into a runoff 800 votes ahead of [01:01:00] Axelrod, who was running for alderman for the machine and had been board committeeman for the Democrats for years. JJ: Now, this is the same Axelrod that’s --? PS: No, no, and not in the same family, I don’t think. Ralph Axelrod, but I think he’s a distant relative of the Elrod group, right? I think so, I was never terribly clear on that. But, kind of, yeah, that, sort of, or the hardcore machine Democrats from the Jewish side of it, really. So she goes to the runoff 800 votes ahead, it was unbelievable, nobody thought that would happen. I mean, people were just stunned, you know, and they brought in -- what’s -- oh, Victor De Grazia, right, that was the guy, a very expensive consultant who had run all kinds of governor campaigns and whatnot. [01:02:00] I think he ran Governor Walker’s campaign, 28 �and he came in and took that thing over, you know, and threw out anybody that -you know. He ran it, and it was the most vicious, there was violence, there was slander. One day somebody took black spray paint and sprayed it all over Helen’s face on every Helen Shiller poster, and it was the idea of black, Black Panthers, right? And, I mean, all the stops were pulled out, and he supposedly won with 50.5 percent of the vote or something to 49 point-some percent of the vote for Helen, but there’s no question that it was stolen, you know, just the fraud that we knew of. So, okay, so that was another step in [01:03:00] establishing this coalition led by poor people as the voice of opposition in the 46th Ward. A state senator named Harold Washington from the first congressional district made contact with us at the time of the Helen Shiller campaign. He had run for mayor when Daley Senior died, and they pulled off -- well, it’s gettin’ into so much details. They pulled off this racist move where Wilson Frost legally should have been the acting mayor, and they wouldn’t even let him be acting mayor for a day. I mean, the plantation politics of the city of Chicago in that era, it was so thick, it was so heavy. This guy could not even be allowed, even though he was supposed to, because of his position in the city council, be acting mayor for one day. They locked [01:04:00] the office; he couldn’t get in. And then they got Bilandic elected mayor, but Harold Washington, in his anger at this racism, who had come up through the democratic machine, ran for mayor in the special election that elected Bilandic, and made a surprising good showing. And Harold Washington, even at that right, he made contact with the Heart of Uptown 29 �Coalition and did a walk in Uptown with all kinds of -- the whole ragtag army of all the different races. Were you there then? JJ: Yeah. PS: Yeah, and he led us on a walk around Uptown, and he’s talkin’ to everyone, “Hey, vote for me, vote for me.” So then he came and did coffees. JJ: Yeah, in ’76, you’re not talkin’ about ’76? PS: I think ’77. JJ: Okay. PS: In ’77, the special election for mayor, right, right, ’77 would be the year. So then Helen runs in ’78, ’79, and Harold [01:05:00] came and hosted a bunch of coffees for her. So he started to build his bridges, and one of the main places he built his bridges as an African American South Side-based powerful politician who’s now defying the democratic machine is the movement in Uptown. So this movement in Uptown is starting to become part of a developing opposition in the city. And so then Harold -- you know, it’s a long -- you know, I don’t know that we -- I mean we couldn’t possibly tell the whole story tonight about the deci-- you know, the part that this grassroots coalition played in persuading Harold Washington to run for mayor. I guess what I wanna say is that, look, the primary thing is that it was an uprising of large numbers, huge numbers [01:06:00] of Black people in the city, African American people, against the racist democratic machine. It’s primarily that, but there’s this related and not totally the same phenomenon that is doing so much -- (break in audio) 30 �PS: -- contribute to the nature and the real content of this campaign, right? Who know -- an African American, the time was right for African American candidate to challenge the racist machine. But it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that somebody -- that Harold Washington, who I think really represented the most progressive, the most interested in coalitions across race lines of the leaders in the Black community, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion he was gonna be the candidate. That coalition, that poor people’s [01:07:00] coalition had a lot to do with what the nature of the Harold Washington campaign became, see, so I don’t wanna overstate that. Because above all, it’s an African American-led uprising, massive from the South Side and the West Side, but this is an important piece of it. And Harold was conscious in reaching out and building a coalition with that movement, so, you know, he decided to do it. There was a coalition called POWER, People Organized for Welfare and Employment Rights, which consisted of that -- I’m sure by that time, you were startin’ to get involved. M1: Yeah, I came in si-- I’ve been in Uptown since about ’58, but I worked on ChaCha’s campaign for a week on Dylan Avenue. PS: Right, right. M1: But I came in in ’79, we were getting ready [01:08:00] to keep Bernard Carey as state attorney, yeah, against Daley -- PS: Yeah, yeah. JJ: -- [another?] Daley, and that’s when we started -- PS: I definitely -- JJ: -- hangin’ out in Wilson Avenue again. 31 �PS: Yeah, I hear what you’re sayin’. So around that time comes about this People Organized for Welfare and Employment Rights coalition, which are people from Uptown and all kinds of places. We’re makin’ contact with communities we didn’t have contact before, Far South Side and all kinds of places, and we’re startin’ to talk about the key here is voter registration. Remember what I said, they’ve got the city locked up because they’ve got a voter registration system that’s closed. Where you got two times a year that you can register in your own precinct 30 days before the election, and otherwise, you’re not registered, and the precinct captain will control, [01:09:00] will have various ways to disenfranchise people and control who’s gonna be registered to vote. And masses and masses of poor people never even vote because they’re not registered. So, you know, we came about with this idea, let’s pressure the board of elections and make them send registrars to the welfare and unemployment offices. That’s where our people are. Somebody, just a grassroots person from the community thought of this idea at a meeting, “Hey, why don’t we get people registered to vote? They got their ID on ’em, they gotta have that because they’re goin’ to do their business with the welfare department or unemployment office. Make ’em send registrars there, and we’ll be out there runnin’ around and gettin’ people to go out, [01:10:00] you know, I guess outside to a van where they’d be set up and register to vote.” And we were able to pressure them to do it because there’s a movement gathering and there’s political pressure. So through that and other means, tens of thousands of new voters are put on the rolls. Harold said, “You want me to run?” Harold meanwhile had defied the democratic machine, ran against a handpicked 32 �machine candidate for congressman of the first district, and won. So now, he’s got a seat in the Congress, and Harold’s got a seat in the Congress -(break in audio) JJ: Okay, go ahead. PS: So Harold Washington has a seat in the Congress, a growing reputation. Why does he wanna run in some, you know, tiltin’ at the windmills mayoral campaign, you know, against this entrenched [01:11:00] big-city machine, when he can be a progressive congressman and the machine doesn’t -- they don’t care what you say in Washington, you know? JJ: Yeah. PS: You can stand for anything you want to in Washington. He says, “You want me to do this, eh? Well, you register me, whatever it was, I think 50,000 people to vote.” Well, we did it. That oppressed people’s coalition was key to that. And ultimately, I mean, we had posed that issue in Uptown from the start. As a civil rights issue, they denied people the right to vote in Mississippi, they’re denying our right to vote here. They have all kinds of ways that they disenfranchise us. We have to get registered to vote; we have to demand that the registration process become opened up to people. In Uptown, we started out... I’m only gonna backtrack for a second ’cause I could get into 10 million things about the old days [01:12:00] in Uptown. We started out every Saturday morning, we’d hustle up some old beaters, and we’d line up some people, and we would drive four carloads of people to city hall early Saturday morning, wakin’ ’em up. They were out partying the night before, “Get up, you promised me you’d go, get out of 33 �bed,” and we started registering people to vote that way. And then gradually, we would demand things like a special day where the registrars from the board of election would be set up at the firehouse or the library, and we’d bring people. Around Harold Washington, that movement around voter registration grows and grows, and that’s what made possible his election because then the voters were there. People were enfranchised, and people started really grasping, “Hey, [01:13:00] we could change this city.” And just like Cha-Cha was the right candidate in 1975 in the 46th Ward, this guy was the right candidate for a movement like that in Chicago. So it’s 1982, and Harold Washington’s runnin’ for mayor, and we got this movement in Uptown, and now, we gotta figure out what we’re gonna do. So the fact that he’s African American for some White people, poor, White people, that might be even more problematic for some of ’em than somebody who’s Puerto Rican, right. And he’s from the South Side -- well, the South Side. Helen wasn’t gonna run that year, and we, at the last second [01:14:00] said, “Well, we’ve gotta have a standard bearer for Harold Washington, we may not be able to win, it’s --” You know, meanwhile, there’s a Lakefront liberal, a very good woman, let me not disparage her at all, Charlotte Newfeld, who really a good, solid, progressive person, and more and more so over the years, and she’s, you know, happily still with us. Charlotte Newfeld had been runnin’ for a year, but the nature of the politics, she wasn’t gonna be a standard bearer for Harold Washington in the 46th Ward. There was not one of these White independents that held office that endorsed Harold Washington in the primary. People that now remember about the Washington 21, and that there 34 �were White aldermen and this White person, not in that primary when the racism was being stoked up by the democratic machine because [01:15:00] that was what they were scared shitless and that was what they had, right? That was what they had, and they stoked up the racism, Vrdolyak and whatnot with everything they had. And so what are we gonna do, she’s not gonna endorse Harold Washington in the primary? She’s worried about, you know, havin’ the support of her base on the Lakefront and whatnot. We know she’s pretty good on housing, you know, we’re in this battle over housing in Uptown, we’ve gotta force a situation where the fight for affordable housing in Uptown, by that time we were in a battle to try to win a people’s plan and see if we could get 1100 units of low-cost housing to just begin to replace all the stuff that had been burned down and demolished [01:16:00] so that we could have a future in the community. We’ve gotta have some kind of standard bearer, even if we don’t win the election, to keep that issue in front, so... We were, kind of, behind because we were also taking people, full-time organizers in Uptown, and putting them all over the city to deal with this citywide campaign and try to get White support, White votes for Harold in other communities. We’ve diluted some of our strength in terms of that core of full-time, real cadre, kind of, organizers, based in Uptown who were elsewhere. So one night, we had already done our Christmas program, it was the tail end of December. You know, we did this Christmas program every year where people in the community get together [01:17:00] and hustle everything they can, hustle up, and then we got gifts and bags of groceries for thousands of people in the community. We’d already done that, that was over. It was the very 35 �end of December, and Slim Coleman says to me, “Paul, we gotta have a candidate, we gotta have an Uptown favorite son candidate, and you’re the one we want.” And I said, “No, I’m busy with the Black Lung Association, no, no, no, no, no,” and he says to me, “[Ison Cox?] says --” He’s a White brother who had come in with Helen’s campaign. Do you remember, you’d know if you saw him. Ison was just a tremendous guy, but he said, “Paul, do you realize that Ison Cox, this White guy from Missouri somewhere is telling me that he needs a candidate [01:18:00] that will support a White candidate that will be supporting Harold Washington, so he can get people on Kenmore to vote for Harold Washington? Are you telling me that you’re goin’ to deny Ison Cox his White candidate?” “Well, man, I guess not.” So we put together this campaign at the absolute last second, and we had a whole bunch of people that were out there scattered out, and, you know, I had to stop what I was doin’ with the Black Lung Association and then do all these endless series of candidates’ nights. There were like four candidates. There was Orbach, the guy who did win, who had, in mafia-like fashion, nonviolently stabbed Axelrod in the back. Axelrod, who had won as alderman, had brought Orbach up through the ranks, and then [01:19:00] after Axelrod almost lost, Orbach cut deals with Vrdolyak, who then told Axelrod, who was absolutely intending to run for reelection, “You’re not runnin’, Jerry Orbach’s runnin’.” So then a guy that really liked Ralph, Ralph Axelrod named Art Smith, a police, a Chicago police officer ran, and he had this little base among seniors, and Charlotte Newfeld ran, you know, standard bearer, that kind of Lakefront independent movement, and Orbach, and then I’m in there. So there were these 36 �endless series of candidates nights, and I was havin’ more and more fun, and we were gradually kinda... Charlotte who figured she was absolutely entitled to this ’cause she had been workin’ at it for a year, linin’ up all the ducks and talkin’ to all kinds of people, was startin’ to worry. And I pledged from the start if I’m not in the runoff and Charlotte is, I’m endorsing her, [01:20:00] but we want Charlotte to endorse Harold Washington if she gets in that runoff. And we’ve gotta have someone in the primary that’s endorsing him, and we gotta have somebody who’s gonna speak strong for the poor people’s movement in Uptown and for housing. So that was the deal, and I wound up getting 4,000 votes, Harold almost -- and that brought -- you know, in that way, above all, I was able to mobilize a lot of poor White votes for Harold Washington. So that, sort of, preserved the honor of the coalition in Uptown, where there was massive support for Harold Washington, and there was a need for an automatic standard bearer to organize that. Charlotte got about 4,600 votes, and Orbach had what it was, the front runner, and then was a -- and Art Smith had somewhat less although not a totally insignificant number of votes. [01:21:00] So then it’s Orbach against Newfeld in the runoff, I endorsed Charlotte, I worked hard for her. A lot of people in the community couldn’t quite bring themselves to go all the way, but she did very well in Uptown, and she lost by even fewer votes than Helen. She lost by some 60 votes I think it was. No, that’s six votes, that was when Orbach beat Axelrod for ward committeeman, and I think so anyway. Anyway, it was incredibly close, and it was probably stolen from her also, but she just didn’t quite make it, which is unfortunate, ’cause that would’ve been one more vote for 37 �Harold in the city council. But she endorsed Harold, and she strongly endorsed our program in the heart of Uptown. So that’s what my candidacy accomplished, and then I went back to what I always went back to and never ran for office again. [01:22:00] So that’s the story of my political career, so... And Harold, as we know, won and had to stand up against the most vicious kind of racist campaign that was run against him, won the primary, and then won the general against the Republican Epton, who had all kinds of machine Democrats defecting to him. Their slogan was “Epton before it’s too late.” Cha-Cha Jiménez, when I was in that whirlwind campaign for alderman came to -- he wasn’t living in the 46th Ward at that time, and he came there and spent the day goin’ around with me, talkin’ to especially Latino voters about my candidacy, kind of, returning the compliment of all the work I did for him when he was running for alderman. So Harold Washington [01:23:00] did win that election and that gave us a lot of breathing space in Uptown. It’s a long story what then happened with Harold Washington and what happened with Uptown, and maybe that’s best left for another time. Because I think we wanted to, sort of, key in on the relationship of the struggle in Uptown with the Young Lords, and how it plays into Harold Washington in my campaign for alderman. JJ: Okay, I think that’s good. PS: Okay. JJ: What do you think...? So we think, we’ll leave that for another time, but, what, anything else related to the process of goin’ to Harold? We also worked in the Logan Square area in the office over there, you know, was it a continuation of the 38 �struggle? I mean, did you see it as a continuation of your campaign, Helen’s campaign, how did you see that? [01:24:00] PS: Yeah, absolutely, and I guess what -- you know, the one thing that I would say -- JJ: I mean, the Lincoln Park -- PS: Yeah, yeah, oh, well, yeah, absolutely. In other words, from Lincoln Park, the migration into Uptown, and -- JJ: I mean what did you see? I’m just saying -- you know? PS: Right, and Uptown as the place that’s fightin’ this -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the same. PS: -- right, displacement. And then the Uptown support for Harold Washington, which, again, has this little-known role in terms of the character of the movement that elected him, right? JJ: Yeah. PS: All that comes out of that massive sea of humanity displaced every step of the way and then into Uptown -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PS: -- and resisting displacement. JJ: Right, resisting it. PS: That’s, no, no, absolutely Helen’s campaign, [01:25:00] my campaign, the election of Harold Washington, you know, the support that Harold got in Uptown and in the 46th Ward. You know, I guess the one thing that I would say, and I said it in that other interview, and maybe it’s something for young people comin’ up to think about. As I look back on it, and I, sort of, wanna make sure I don’t get 39 �misunderstood. Unreservedly, it was a great victory to take the fifth floor, to elect Harold Washington, and it was a great defeat for racism in the city. And at the same time, there’s an extent to which, remember I was talkin’ about, that you had this, the beginnings of a city-wide coalition taking on [01:26:00] displacement and destabilization of our lives by displacement, and urban renewal, and challenging, you know, and tryin’ to fundamentally challenge how the city is structured. You know, you can’t ever do it in one city, it would have to be something that would catch on elsewhere, but you can do what you can, you do what you can in one city. I guess what I’m saying is that the Harold Washington election was this massive thing in which that was one piece, that was a piece. And we had a newspaper called the All Chicago City News, which was a great vehicle and which did so much to help define the most progressive positions that came out of the Harold Washington campaign and give voice to different communities that were supporting Harold Washington. [01:27:00] What the All Chicago City News did was supply this tremendous amount of information that supported what Harold was saying around neighborhoods first. And the problem is that the resources are all goin’ to the Loop, and Chicago, you know, it’s the neighborhoods where Chicago’s people are. It’s the small neighborhood-based businesses that are actually employing more people, and we are going to redress this imbalance of resources, and then Harold, you know, did everything he could to deliver. You know, instead of playin’ favorites with his political base, he evenly divided the capital funds and fixed streets in every ward and said to these rotten machine aldermen who were trying to sabotage him at every point, “You can 40 �decide which streets, right, in your ward, just make sure it’s done [01:28:00] for the neighborhoods in your ward, right?” Here’s what I still have to say. Neighborhoods first, redress the imbalance between the Loops and the neighborhoods. The movement of that is in tandem with and in harmony with that movement against displacement. Is it the same thing? Not exactly. So I guess what I’m sayin’ is that our energies, once you win a victory, like winnin’ the fifth floor, and these powerful forces are trying to destroy that, the Harold Washington government, right? The most energetic people are the most radical people who come out of that coalition, and their energies are increasingly absorbed into defending the fifth floor, [01:29:00] and defending the Washington government, and sending people all over the place in these special elections to get alderman elected, and it’s all great. But that barely being born citywide coalition that, in a way, had a more radical program, you could say, a deeper challenge. In the end, Harold Washington dies, and it’s not there, and, whoops, we lost that. The organizational form isn’t there anymore, and there’s a whole new set of circumstances around the whole, sort of, counterrevolution you could say that’s being carried out by Daley and all kinds of things have happened in the world from the end of the Cold War to, you know, republican-dominated era. And, oh, it’s not -- [01:30:00] you know, some of that we had that starts in so many ways in Lincoln Park, right? You know, of course, it’s the Panther Party, and it’s Fred Hampton, and it’s the struggle in Lincoln Park, and the struggle in Uptown, and in Pilsen. In some ways, we neglected to continue to develop, and Harold himself, to continue to develop that totally independent grassroots, the 41 �organizational forms that would’ve been there when things started to get reversed. And Harold was known to have said in internal kinds of meetings and things, “Don’t let me co-opt you, I can’t help it. I gotta be the mayor of the third largest city in the country. This is a world major city, right, in this capitalist country, and I gotta be the mayor of it, and you can’t let me co-opt [01:31:00] you,” but there’s an extent to which it happened. It’s not Harold’s fault, I think Harold did what he was supposed to do, and whose fault is it? We had to defend his government. You got only so many resources, you got so many hours in the day, you’re workin’ day in and day out, and I think something was lost though. So I think that as people in the next generation consider the grassroots movements we’re talking about, and how they feed in Chicago, feed into this massive victory of electing of a progressive African American mayor who’s so good in so many ways, you gotta [01:32:00] figure out now, you know, how do you keep certain thing, not get totally absorbed into defending a government. And I suspect that problem has existed in plenty of places in the world but, okay. JJ: Okay, what do you think? PS: I think maybe that’s... I see, this is -- well, so when you come back in May, you wanna do -- (break in audio) M1: Just call me Uncle Junior from now on. PS: Uncle Junior? M1: Nah, everybody still does. You know, when you get older, you only got a half a dozen friends, and they all call you Junior. 42 �PS: (laughs) Makes you feel young, man. M1: Yeah, (inaudible). JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) M1: It’s unique. This is [01:33:00] my girlfriend’s son -- PS: Yeah. JJ: And -- (break in audio) PS: (inaudible) JJ: (inaudible) M1: Yeah, once it settles (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PS: I’m thinking, if I had gotten that to you in advance, then you could’ve keyed in. JJ: I [keyed?] -- PS: Knowin’ what else you’re doin’ with this -- JJ: Right. PS: -- you know well -- JJ: What I’m tryin’ to [define?] is, we’re tryin’ to describe the history of the origins of the Young Lords. We want to include as much as we can about that, but what we’re trying -- you know, (inaudible) tell the different parts of the story. PS: Right, yeah, ’cause I wasn’t on the scene, so everything I say about that is secondhand. JJ: Right. PS: It’s what I learned from you. (laughter) 43 �JJ: That’s (inaudible) [01:34:00] the good part is more, I’ll ask you to -- I’ll start with what is the connection to the Young Lords in that. PS: Right. JJ: And then you’ll probably start talking about the -- PS: Uptown. JJ: -- when you lived in Lincoln Park and then -- PS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. JJ: -- when you came to Uptown and how you got, you know, the Intercommunal Survival Committees and -- PS: Are you gonna be able to interview Slim for this? END OF VIDEO FILE 44 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3d3cd1d7c00cc51843ba3bf4573e5c18.mp4 afd1db511d66f6c60911e3c6e138d7b7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Paul Siegel vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Política y gobierno--1951- Pobreza--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Siegel_Paul Title A name given to the resource Paul Siegel video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Siegel, Paul Description An account of the resource Paul Siegel was a precinct captain in the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign (1973-1975). He was also a member of the Inter Communal Survival Committees that moved to Chicago to concentrate their forces and work in uptown organizing the poor at the grassroots level. Mr. Siegel also ran for alderman of the 46th ward and nearly won. Like the Jiménez campaign, his run helped to lay important groundwork in the ward for the victory that arrived with Helen Shiller’s election in 1987. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Politics and government--1951- Poverty--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-07 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/09c5af43a440a51eb9de16856ed6108f.jpg edf951c0fe3e72c4b7bd3dff51f96592 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PaulMarianne Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 Title A name given to the resource Paul, Marianne Description An account of the resource Marianne Paul Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 1979s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d9a267c353d6ef7061aaf5a3ea3f5ed6.pdf 54e6d912d2492721cab44c8b1ee4928b PDF Text Text Paul: A Larger God and a Grander Vision From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience Text: Ephesians 2:14-16; 4:4-6 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan June 13, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon In the sermon this morning, I am going to return to Paul and try to redeem him somewhat. The last time that we thought about Paul, a few weeks ago, I said that he was simply wrong about history, and he was. I won’t take anything back from that. Paul had a religious experience in which he not only experienced the presence and the glory of God, but also was drawn into a kind of apocalyptic understanding of history whereby he expected the end to occur very soon. And he was wrong about that. But, what he experienced in that encounter with God, what he came to understand, gave him a sense of a larger God and a grander vision, and that is still a tremendously important understanding for us to gain from St. Paul. We have recognized that Paul is probably one of the great formative, shaping persons of mind and spirit in the whole of the Western tradition. Paul impacted St. Augustine, who probably would rank right there with Paul, and, on the basis of that experience, Martin Luther’s 16th century experience of the grace of God has put another filter through which we see Paul. And even in our own century, Karl Barth gives us a certain perspective of Paul that creates a lens by which we read him. But I came across a rather interesting source that gives me some fresh eyes with which to read Paul. A young Jewish scholar, Alan Segal, in a book, Paul, The Convert, returns to the first century and reads our New Testament as a source of information about first century Judaism, which, of course, was not only Paul’s context, but also Jesus’ context, and Alan Segal sees him, not through that Protestant experience of justification by grace through faith which Luther made to stick and to which Augustine had pointed; but, rather, Alan Segal as a Jewish interpreter of Paul, sees Paul’s struggle to create one new community or one new humanity out of the Jewish community and the Gentile community who Paul saw united in Jesus Christ. Segal would make the point, along with some others, that justification by grace through faith, which is so very Lutheran and very Protestant, was not really the center of Paul’s passion at all. He was saying that salvation is to be received by faith or by trusting God because God is gracious, and that means that the © Grand Valley State University   �Paul’s Larger God and Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 2   respective religious communities, trusting that grace and receiving it, not through any ceremony or any particular religious ritual, but rather, that grace received by faith could be that common entré to God for this diverse community of people in the first century. I think that there is some fresh insight that Segal brings us in a perspective on Paul. It’s understandable that the Jewish community for centuries has not fussed with Jesus and has not fussed with Paul because Jesus and Paul have been a source of the Church’s anti-Semitism and triumphalism and, therefore, there was a block. But, Alan Segal says if you read Paul in the New Testament, it’s the best source we have of information about first century Judaism which is so critical to understand if we want to understand both the message of Jesus and the ministry of Paul. So he begins by pointing to Paul’s authentic religious experience, and I want to begin there, too, this morning. There is such a thing as an authentic religious experience, and this spring I’ve been using William James’ classic text, The Varieties of Religious Experience, in order to say to all of us just that: that there is a variety of religious experience. Alan Segal says Paul had an authentic religious experience. He can say that 2000 years later as a Jewish commentator. There was reality, there was honesty, there was integrity, there was authenticity in Paul’s religious experience. We had here two or three weeks ago Marcus Borg and if you were here that Sunday morning and you stayed for the Perspectives hour afterwards, you heard Marcus Borg share on request a recent spiritual experience that he had which was a kind of mystical sense of the sacred, of the holy at the presence of God, and I could see that some of you were saying, "Oh, I feel like such a deadhead," that I reminded you that I’m a deadhead, too, when I told you, as I say many times, my little pinky’s never even tingled. Well, Marcus Borg wrote a note commending all of you as a community and speaking of the good time he had here, and he added this: P.S. And I like your theology. You say that you’ve never had so much as a tingle in your pinky finger, but you know about the sacred. We both know that religions are imaginative human constructions. [You’ve been hearing me say that, and one time he wrote me a note about where did that come from, and I said Gordon Kaufman was the author of that idea that religions are human imaginative constructions.] We both know that religions are imaginative human constructions, to sound like Kaufman/Rhem, and I sense that you know there is the sacred behind all those constructions. Not all, perhaps not very many "liberal" theologians know that, but I sense that you do, and I’m happy to be called a liberal theologian myself. Now, the nice thing about Marcus is that he not only shared his own experience in a very gentle way, in a way that really didn’t make anyone who didn’t have that © Grand Valley State University �Paul’s Larger God and Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 3   particular experience feel that they were sort of outside the tent. He has a very fine way of communicating that authentic religious experience that he has had. The nice thing about this little note is that he acknowledged that I can be in the tent with him, even though my pinky doesn’t tingle. The point is this, and I think it’s so important that you hear this, that there is a variety of religious experience, because what we’ve done, particularly in Protestantism, is we have taken this unusual experience of Paul and we’ve made it normative so that anybody who didn’t get it like Paul got it might suspect whether or not they really have it, and that’s just not the point. Authentic religious experience comes in lots of different forms through a lot of different experience, and I think that none of us ought to lust after the experience of another, but perhaps just breathe deeply and relax and trust that we are embraced by the grace of God. Sometimes there is a Paul who has a vision and it is so compelling and wedded to such a passionate personality, that that vision grows legs and begins to walk across the earth, and of course, this is what happened with Paul. He had an authentic religious experience; he had a vision of the holy and of the sacred; he saw the glory of God and the glory of God took the shape of Jesus, and in that experience, he felt himself called, particularly to the nations or the Gentiles or anyone who was a non-Jew. Now, the interesting thing is that Paul was a Pharisee, and we’ve gotten such bad press on the Pharisees from the New Testament which comes out of a conflict situation, but the Pharisees were the most sincere, the most serious, the most engaged of Jewish observers. They were careful, observant Jews who were deadly serious about observance of the ritual, of the ceremony, of the law, and Paul was one of those. In the wake of Paul’s encounter with this glory of God in the face of Jesus, he went off for a while simply to assimilate all of this and to put it all together, and then, sensing himself to be called particularly to the non-Jew, to the Gentiles, he began to hang out with them, and, as he hung out with them, he found that here were non-Jewish people who heard the story of Jesus Christ and the grace of God in Christ who came to the same kind of insight, understanding, and experience that he, Paul, the former Pharisee, had. I don’t even want to say "former Pharisee." I want to say Paul, the Jew, who continued to have high regard for Torah. In fact, Paul, in his letters, which Alan Segal tells us from a Jewish perspective are very Jewish in his argumentation and his reasoning – not systematic like John Calvin made him, but very Jewish in the concrete situation to which he was addressing Jewish Rabbinic kind of reasoning and so forth – begins to indicate that God’s intention is for one new humanity, that in Jesus Christ that middle wall of partition was torn down, that wall of hostility, and I think there is some basis at least in the Letter to the Ephesians that was read a while ago. But, even in the other writings of Paul, his biggest concern was to find out how to get people like him, with all that Jewish background, into community with people from all of the respective paganisms of the nations, all the non-Jewish religious observances, © Grand Valley State University �Paul’s Larger God and Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 4   how to get those people together, because the Jewish system had certain ways of preparing food and of eating at table and, of course, there was that sign of the covenant community, circumcision. How could you get those two groups into a unity? In the Letter to the Ephesians, he says this is the purpose of God hidden through the ages, this mystery of God hidden through all the ages, now coming to expression through me, through the gospel, through the church. There was an incipient universalism in the institution of the covenant of grace with Abraham. In Abraham the word was, the understanding of that calling of Israel, was that in Abraham, all peoples of the earth would be blessed. The particularity of the call of the Jew was on behalf of the universality of God’s claim on all. And Paul, now, begins to hang out with these Gentile Christians, and he sees they have the same kind of authentic experience that he has. It seems to be the same God, the same grace, it seems to be the same kind of response in life, and this is what Paul saw: God is bigger than ever I thought, and all of the religious observances, structures, forms, all of that is relative and relatively unimportant. Let’s just take the case of circumcision. A few weeks ago we looked at Acts 15, which is the Jerusalem Council where this dilemma of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians was to be resolved, how they could live together. One of the people at the Jerusalem Council whom Paul and Barnabas brought along was Titus, and Titus was a Gentile, and Paul makes a point of the fact that they didn’t require that Titus be circumcised in order to sit at the table of the Council of Jerusalem in deciding these matters. But, if you would go to the 16th chapter of Acts, you would find Paul meeting Timothy and wanting Timothy to go with him and finding out that Timothy’s mother was a Jew and Timothy had never been circumcised and so, Paul has Timothy circumcised in order to make him properly marked as a Jew who now is a believer in Jesus. Now, if you’re thoroughly confused on all that, let me say what it means. It means that Titus was never circumcised and it didn’t matter. It didn’t take away anything. And Timothy was circumcised later on as an adult, and it didn’t add anything. It was purely a pragmatic matter of sensitivity to the social, religious context in which Titus and Timothy, respectively, were to minister. And this is what Paul saw. This stuff doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. We have a baptismal shell there; we put water in it and we baptize infants; we cross their forehead with the water. We could really drip their big toe in paint thinner and, pointing to the same reality, it would be as effective. We have in the 8:30 service the Eucharist, the bread and the cup. We use grape juice. I’d rather use Gallo. But, it doesn’t matter. All religious observances and structures, according to Paul’s insight, do not matter. What matters is that the forms and the words and the structures are freighted with meaning, and are engaged in with authenticity, and then a community can be shaped in a wide variety of ways. Jews with Pharisaic background can come to the table of the © Grand Valley State University �Paul’s Larger God and Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Lord, joining with Gentiles with no religious background or some Greek mystery religious background, coming to the table of the Lord and they can break the bread and pour the cup and know that they are one humanity because throughout all ages, God had no other intention, according to the insight of Paul, than to create one new humanity. And I think to Paul it was a larger God and a grander vision. Isn’t it strange how our respective religions crimp God and try to package God? It’s like having a pail at the seashore. We take our pails to the water and dip our pails in and the pail is a container for the water, but the pail, the container, cannot contain the ocean. God is so much more than our respective visions, our respective manners of worship, our mode of organization, our doctrinal systems. Paul saw that and, in seeing that, he became this passionate person. Now, if you read his Letter to the Galatians, an early letter, he got rather testy; he got rather nasty, because the thing he saw was that all of the things we do that are all relative are not the things that bring us into the experience of God. His own experience was that God is given to us by grace, and we simply trust that; we simply accept that, or we have faith that that is the case. We don’t do anything to earn or gain or secure that experience. We simply open our lives to whatever spirit, whatever rift in the sky, whatever manner in which God might come to us. There is a variety of religious experience, and we ought not to pigeon-hole anybody or have the sure set of dies by which a Christian can be cast, but the important thing is that, whatever that immediate experience, we see it as that which brings us into the community under the one God Who would create one new humanity, one human community. Paul prays for them powerfully in this Letter. And then in this third chapter, particularly, he prays in the name of the God for whom every family on earth is named. You get it? The God for whom every family on earth is named - this God will give to you an experience of God’s love that you’ve come to know its breadth and its length and its height and its depth. To know the love of God which is beyond knowing, you see? That what God wants is for people to have the experience of an ultimate, absolute love that is the Mystery of all things. Paul says, "Now, to God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above anything I can ask or think, to God be glory in the church ..." and then he goes on to a practical application of it all in that fourth chapter, "with all humility and gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace" for, he says, "there is one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all, through all, in you all ...." Almost sounds like Stoicism, almost sounds like Pantheism, or maybe better the Panentheism of a more contemporary expression, God who is not "out there" stirring the world with a stick now and then, but a God who is permeating the whole of reality, that dwells within us and binds us together and makes us one, © Grand Valley State University �Paul’s Larger God and Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 6   because there is no division in the whole of reality, be it cosmic, physical or human. That’s what Paul saw. That authentic religious experience saw him, enabled him to transcend the respective religions. The secret, folks, is to be serious about the religion you pursue without absolutizing it and without fear, somehow or other, of being threatened that if you don’t dot the i or cross the t, you’re out of luck, to be able to see the variety of religious experience and the diversity of religious expression. One must be passionate, following one’s own experience, knowing the love of God in all of its dimensions, with humility, gentleness, patience. We see the critical nature of things in the Balkans right now, as was alluded to in the prayers. It’s the old human story - the wounded Russian pride that will make its statement. So, shall we in NATO stand up to it and make it back down? Shall we put the barrel of the gun to the temple of that wounded giant? If we would do that, we would only be acting out what has been acted out in the respective religions, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic, and Muslim, which fuels that ethnic division that nurses hurts and grudges and wounds over centuries. You see, Paul’s vision was not about religion. Paul saw religion, finally by the grace of God, as simply a means, relatively important, legitimate in diversity, but just a means to come to the experience of God Who is every dimension of love, Who calls us to peace. It’s a larger God; it’s a grander vision. References: Alan Segal. Paul, the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. Yale University Press, 1992. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac30452f91e2a3996cc4530290801d2c.mp3 3b38cc29e6b14334d2eb1fa187d9c1ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost IV Series Varieties of Religious Experience Scripture Text Ephesians 2:14-16, 4:4-6 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Alan F. Segal. Paul the Convert, 1992 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19990613 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-06-13 Title A name given to the resource Paul: A Larger God and a Grander Vision Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 13, 1999 entitled "Paul: A Larger God and a Grander Vision", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Ephesians 2:14-16, 4:4-6. Compassion Inclusive Theology of Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/86deabe2a1764b120a9f44f4ccac802e.pdf 2fd3f8468b2e3ed7649e09e3c319fb70 PDF Text Text Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience Text: Acts 8:1, 8:3, 9:14; Romans 7:19, 24-25 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan April 18,1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon In 1902, William James, considered by many to be America’s foremost philosopher who had moved into the field of psychology, delivered the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of the most prestigious lecture series still in the world today, and he entitled his lectures, "The Varieties of Religious Experience." His lectures have become a classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, a very fine read if you ever see it on the book shelf. I read those this week, because in Eastertide I want to be thinking about some of the different responses to Jesus Christ, to his death and resurrection and the expectation of his coming. People are different, and our religious response varies from individual to individual, and I was somewhat interested in what William James had to say about Paul, for example. Paul’s story is familiar to us. I didn’t read the account in Acts, but we know that he was a Pharisee, the strictest sort of observant Jew, who were very fine people, but who get bad press in the New Testament because of the antagonism. Paul was also so committed to the Jewish faith and its propagation that he saw the Jesus Jewish movement as a threat, so he was on his way to stamp it out, on the way to Damascus, for example. He was knocked off his horse with a bright light and a voice said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Going into Damascus, received with fear and trembling by the little community of Jewish Jesus people there, he receives baptism and he becomes the great Apostle, St. Paul. St. Paul is one of the significant figures in the whole of our western history and has had a tremendous shaping affect on our understanding of the Christian gospel. Paul did see something. Paul was a radical in that he went to the root and he had a vision, an understanding of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ which has shaped the whole Christian tradition, subsequently. There are those who say Jesus was not the founder of Christianity, but Paul was, and one can make a case for that, actually. Paul saw something and he spent the rest of his life telling the story of Jesus, proclaiming faith in Jesus Christ, establishing churches, and so forth, and we © Grand Valley State University   �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 2   speak about that Damascus Road experience as Paul’s conversion. But, that really isn’t right, for Paul wasn’t converted. Paul never thought of himself as anything but a Jew. Paul never served or worshiped any God but the God of Israel. What happened to Paul in that Damascus Road experience was not so much a conversion as a calling, and it was in that experience that he felt called to take the news of Jesus to the Gentile world, because what Paul believed, what he saw, what so startled him was the fact that Jesus Christ was the means by which God was overcoming that ancient separation of the Jew and all the rest of the people. Jew - Gentile. If you weren’t a Jew, you were a Gentile. In his Letter to the Ephesians, he uses the term, "That middle wall of partition" that separated the Jew from all the rest. In Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced that that wall was taken down and the grand vision that Paul had was this sense that, in Jesus Christ, what God was doing was creating one new humanity. That great gulf was being bridged, and Paul had as his passion to be the instrument by which that Gentile world would come to God through Jesus Christ and, in that, be united with Israel, with the Jew, and there would no longer be that great separation, but one community of the people of God. He began to see that he was the instrument of the bringing in of the Gentile, and the bringing in of the Gentile was literally bringing into the covenant of grace, bringing into the aegis of the God of Israel. That’s really what was happening. There were congregations that he founded all over the place and they were composed of Gentile converts and Jewish Christians, or we can say Jesus Jews. And in any community where he went, that was the makeup and in such a makeup there was the beginning of the realization of his great hope and his vision, but also there was great tension. Paul had no argument, really, with the Jew. Paul remained a Jew. Paul was an observant Jew when he was with Jews, according to his own word. Let’s just say, for example, that this half of the house are Jewish Christians, Jews who have come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. This half of the house, Gentiles. Any kind of a mix of religious experience was pagan, whatever you want to call it. Now, Paul, when he’s with this crowd, is kosher. When he’s with the other crowd, he has ham on buns. And he does that with good conscience, because he realizes that all of those religious rituals and ordinances and regulations are finally inconsequential. He has had an experience of God in Jesus Christ that transcends all of his religious observance. But, he doesn’t derogate it; he’s not negative about it, and he continues, in order to win the Jew, to be a Jew when he’s with Jews, and to win the Gentiles, to be a Gentile when he’s with the Gentiles. Problem: As long as you stay on your side of the house and you stay on your side of the house, no problem. But, what happens when we have a banquet, a potluck, and the Gentile Christians say, "Ach, we’ll cook this time?" Menu? Ham. What are you going to do? You’re observant Jews, even though you believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Now there’s a little kink in the community, and we can laugh about it, © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 3   but it was a serious problem. We know that it was so serious that Peter and Paul had a confrontation in Galatia, and those good Jewish people who came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah continued to think of themselves as Jewish, they continued to follow Torah, they observed Sabbath, they observed the dietary laws, they practiced circumcision. Nothing really changed so much, except that they saw in Jesus God’s onward movement, Jesus the Messiah who eventually will come and finish it all. But, over here, there is no knowledge of that background, no sensitivity to that background, and now you’re trying to forge one new community, a people with that kind of diversity, and there was tension. Paul had been a happy Jew. Sometimes we think of Paul as having this bad conscience and burden of sin, but that’s not Paul. If you read Paul through Martin Luther and St. Augustine, then you get the bad conscience and the heavy burden of sin and heavy guilt and all that. Augustine with his profligate life, never got over it, and screwed us up in the West in our understanding of sexuality ever since. And Luther with his tormented soul, learning from Augustine. Tormented soul: "How can I find a gracious God?" Both of them went back to Paul, and we read Paul through Luther, through Augustine. But, that wasn’t Paul. You read in Philippians, the third chapter, Paul’s autobiographical notes, he says in regard to the law, "I was blameless," and as Krister Stendahl says in his discussion of Paul, Paul had a robust conscience. Paul didn’t go mealy-mouthing around, groveling in the dust. Paul had a very good sense of who he was and what he had been as a Jew, and he is not really responsible for what has been done to him and the interpretation through Augustine and Luther and into Protestantism, especially Reformed Protestantism. Paul, himself, Krister Stendahl says, according to his character and his academic achievements, was a very happy Jew. But, he had seen something more, and what he had seen is that it was possible to transcend his highly respected Judaism into a more spiritual, transforming relationship with God, and his concern was to get these two groups together. He knew that in order to get them together, that this group could not go over here and become Jewish. He fought that to the death. And he knew that these people couldn’t simply come over here and give up their Judaism, but he knew both of them could find a meeting place in the grace of God in Jesus Christ by faith, not by religious observance. Now, you may ask, "If Paul wasn’t one of these guys groveling in the dust, what about chapter seven of Romans that you read?" Well, let me tell you about chapter seven of Romans. You have to read it in the context. To whom is Paul speaking? Paul is speaking to Jewish Christians. If you read the beginning of the chapter, he’s speaking to those who know about Torah and all that stuff. And so, he wants to show them that the Torah way won’t finally get the job done. He’s come to see that, and he wants them to see that so that they can let go of it, so that they can move here. And so, he gives them a little commentary on Genesis, chapter three, verses 7-12 of the seventh of Romans. He © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 4   says, "You remember the story - in the beginning when God formed a garden, created Adam and Eve and said to them, ‘Now look, there is orchard after orchard after orchard. You can eat any of the fruit. But, there’s one tree in the middle. Don’t touch it.’" Paul says, "What happened? They touched it." I mean, what happens to you when I say, "No?" You say, "Yes." Or, when I say, "Yes," you say, "No." Paul said, "I’ve discovered there is something in the human being that is contrary and you say you can’t have it, covetousness begins to generate, and I want it." And so, Paul says there is nothing wrong with the command, nothing wrong with the Law. But the Law exacerbated the human situation. The old serpent, the liar, comes and says to Eve, "What did God say?" Eve says, "Well, God said we could have a lot of stuff." "Oh, but not that one, eh? You know why? Because God knows that the moment you eat that fruit, the moment you go against the command, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, and you will have the knowledge of good and evil." For once, the old liar wasn’t lying, because that’s just what happened. She took the fruit, she shared it with Adam, and their eyes were opened, and they looked at each other and knew that they were naked, which is not a statement about having no clothes on, but is a statement about their real condition. They took the fruit and awareness dawned on them. They took the fruit and they became like God, knowing the difference between good and evil, they gained a moral sense. They came to consciousness and awareness and their mind blew. That is a parable. It is a profound parable, and Paul says, "That’s what the Law does. It exacerbates that in the human person which is contrary and it excites the opposite response." Well, we call that the Fall. I think it’s Milton in his Paradise Lost who speaks about the paradox about the fortunate Fall. Now, tell me, if you were Eve and you had it to do all over again, what would you do, knowing what you know? Would you live in blissful ignorance, unconscious, unaware, like the rest of the animals that Adam named? Or, would you also, knowing the consequence, take the fruit and have your eyes opened and come to awareness and find in the wake of that all of the hell on earth, from Kosovo to the Holocaust to broken promises and the tragedy that stalks our steps? What would you do? Garden of Eden? Garden of Eden in Paradise? Unaware so that, well, excuse my language, like a dog you could urinate, defecate or copulate at ease, any time, any place, with total unawareness. Do you ever look at a dog and envy the dog? That © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 5   beautiful innocence, unaware. Or, would you, too, bite the apple and pay the price of human being? Now, Paul paints that picture in order to say to Jewish Christians who are following Torah, "Look where following religious observances finally leads. Legalism, moralism, obligation, dotting the i, crossing the t, can keep you hedged in, but it will never transform you inwardly so you are sprung free to soar with the Spirit." He was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community there is another way than Torah. He says, "Look, Torah? It is good and righteous and holy. It is of God. With my mind, I affirm it. Everything that it entails, I affirm with my mind. But, this mental, spiritual part of us," Paul says, "is housed in a body and because it’s housed in a body with all of the drives and all of the coercions and all of the temptations and all of the seductions, there’s a civil war going on within the human being. With the law of my mind, I serve God. With the law of my flesh, I serve sin." Paul says flesh battles against spirit and the spirit battles against flesh, and I don’t understand my own actions. The good that I would, I don’t do, and the evil I would not do, I do, oh wretch that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Can any of you identify with that? Don’t tell me. Don’t raise your hands. I wouldn’t want your spouse to know. Can you identify with that? Is that not the human dilemma? Are we not the battleground? Are we not caught up in a civil war between that which we affirm in our spiritual selves and that which we actually live out in this body of death? Paul was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community which was still observing Torah that that’s not the answer, and we could get you all together if you could see what I see, if you could see that there is the possibility for a freedom in the spirit of Jesus Christ. The eighth chapter of Romans is that marvelous chapter on life in the Spirit and it is Paul’s answer to that civil war that he finds within himself. I read William James and found him fascinating. Paul is Paul. Augustine was Augustine; Luther was Luther; John Bunyan of Pilgrim’s Progress, with the load on his back, was John Bunyan - we all respond differently. We all come with a different set of hormones and genes and backgrounds, environments, but William James did say there were two distinct kinds of people: there were the healthy-minded and the sick soul. The healthy-minded, the sunny personality, like a Walt Whitman who revels in this life, revels in the world, revels in the grass and the flowers and the trees, who never seems to have a cloud in the sky. And then there are the Augustines and the Luthers, such like, that seem tormented always with this sense of failure, of condemnation, the burden of guilt they never seem to get rid of. There are different people and religions can exacerbate it or reinforce one or the other. © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 6   But, William James says, in regard to the healthy-minded like a Whitman, there is finally a superficiality there because, he says, it won’t do for one to just whistle a happy tune. It will not do for one to whistle in the dark, to deny the darkness. We are not isolated individuals. We cannot be cognizant of what’s going on in Kosovo without our being caught up with it, and if we think long enough and deeply enough into our own hearts and look around us, we know that there is a certain tragedy that is a part of the human scene. There is suffering; there is misery; and finally we die, and anybody who thinks long and hard about that, knows that it is not enough simply to whistle under a sunny, blue sky as though that’s all there is. There’s more to it than that, and Paul knew that that "more to it" was the very kind of nature that we have, this human nature that can affirm the law of God with the mind and get all caught up in selfishness and greed and hostility and hatred and anger and create a Kosovo or a Holocaust and the impossible darkness that is a part of our human scene. So, William James, very sensitively dealing with these things, says, "Healthy-mindedness has its limits." And while he would not advocate that we all become examples of the sick soul person, nonetheless, we do recognize that also within us there is raging a civil war which sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, and I suspect that Paul, who had this vision of one grand humanity, and the possibility of it by seeing this salvation by faith in the grace of God, may have overplayed his hand. If you read the eighth chapter of Romans, it will give you goose bumps. There are marvelous passages there, but I’m not sure that one moves chronologically from Romans seven to Romans eight and ever gets rid of Romans seven. I think to our dying day we will live as divided personalities. I think to our dying day we will struggle with this body of death which will not cooperate with the nobility and the magnificence that this mind can envision, and our soaring with the Spirit of God in the heights will never pull us free fully from our anchorage in the mud and the physicality of this body that is the house and the ground of the Spirit. Paul may have promised more than any of us will ever realize, but he did see that it is not in religious observance, it is not in the fulfillment of heavy obligation, it is not in prescribing to legalism or moralism, but it is in catching a glimpse of grace that there lies the possibility for some freedom from the struggle. He did understand that what we all need to hear is that we are accepted. This is the point at which traditionally and still too often in the Church the minister takes the occasion to exacerbate the load of guilt and the sense of failure of the people. This is the point in this message when this preacher would like to say to you, "Drop your guilt. Let it go. It doesn’t help. There’s nothing positive about it. It will do you no good, except keep you bound at a point at which you will not know the freedom of grace." © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 7   We’ll never shed this shell as long as we live. We’re never going to get beyond the human dilemma. But, it’s a human dilemma. It’s a human possibility, and it’s a humanity embraced by God, Who, after all, as the Psalmist says, "Knows our frame and remembers that we are dust," making us thus. Maybe the finest statement of what I am trying to say was written by Paul Tillich: It strikes us when our disgust of our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us, as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes, at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted." Accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now. Perhaps you’ll find it later. Do not try to do anything now. Perhaps you will do much later. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted and, if that happens, you have experienced grace. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b63efb6c4c3ceec0e2825ef99eb719b0.mp3 e8ab868094ec9b7909183b74d5e4190e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Eastertide III Series Varieties of Religious Experience Scripture Text Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19990418 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-04-18 Title A name given to the resource Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 18, 1999 entitled "Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25. Forgiveness Grace Inclusive Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b9a293fd373dc0a6b7b58b0923580fff.pdf b5c3ab4334ea60fc6feabb2d2758b308 PDF Text Text Paul: Simply Wrong About History From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience Text: I Thessalonians 4:16-17; I Corinthians 15:22-24 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan April 25, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon Nancy and I have finally succeeded in securing our future just in case Jesus doesn’t come in the year 2000. We consolidated our pension funds. We have a very fine financial advisor who lives in New Jersey and we’re so very happy with him. Michael is not only competent and honest, but he is also a committed churchman, a Christian, who seems to have a real personal concern for us, and he comes through once or twice a year to hold our hand and say, "All will be well." Michael came through this week. He is just finishing a term as Moderator of a large Presbytery in New Jersey, and so he’s really interested in the Church and he has been interested in Christ Community and in case anybody is at all interested, I have a dozen or two tapes I have at all times at the ready. (Silver and gold have I none, but sermons I have aplenty). And so, I share these around; they grow legs and crawl all over the globe. He must have gotten a tape from Advent, this past Advent when I announced rather boldly in the season in which we celebrate the fact that Jesus came and is coming again, that Jesus wasn’t coming. Remember that? Jesus isn’t coming again. Michael said he was listening to that as he was driving along on the New Jersey Turnpike and he almost ran off the road. He said to me, "Could you get me a printed copy? I’d like to study that." And he sort of still had a dazed look. Well, what I’d like to do today is to say that Jesus is not coming again and the reason we’ve been confused about that for so long is that Paul had it all wrong. Paul was wrong about history. Paul was wrong about history in terms of the time line, where he thought he was in the time line of universal history, and that caused him to be wrong about the meaning and significance of world history. Now, I understand it’s a bit presumptuous to take on the great Apostle, but hear me out this morning. Paul was obviously wrong about the time line. I have said that here for a long time. I mean, you can’t deny that. Paul had it wrong about where things were in the whole cosmic journey. Paul didn’t even grasp, through no fault of his, but simply that the information was not available about the whole nature of the unfolding of the cosmos and billions of years and this bio-historicalevolutionary trajectory on which we find ourselves. Paul thought that the End © Grand Valley State University   �Paul Wrong About History Richard A. Rhem Page 2   was very near, the end of his world as he knew it, the world as it was organized at his time. He thought the End had come, and he believed that in the death and resurrection of Jesus the climax had been reached and all that was left now was a brief interregnum, that is, a brief interim period in which Jesus was reigning from heaven, soon to return and bring all things to their consummation. Now, as I said, I have said for a long time here that Paul had that wrong. That’s obvious. Paul said Jesus was coming soon. Jesus hasn’t come yet. You can’t very well get the Apostle off the hook on that. He expected the imminent return of Jesus to wrap up all things, and that’s obvious in the readings of this morning. The first kind of labored paragraph that I read beginning with verse 12 shows that in Paul’s mind there was an intimate connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the general resurrection. If one didn’t happen, the other wouldn’t happen. If one happened, the other would happen, and they were intimately connected, and in order to maintain that intimate connection, even though Jesus was resurrected and glorified and the rest hadn’t happened, Paul used the figure of speech, the "first fruits." Jesus was the first fruit of those who would rise, but the first fruit, you know, is the first ear of corn that is ripe, the first tassel of oats that is ripe, the first apple, the first strawberry, that is the first fruits. You say, "Ah, we got one ripe." But, the first one ripe doesn’t precede the rest by very long or you have a problem, and when there is a hiatus between the first one ripe and the rest, something is out of kilter. That was the image that Paul was using Christ the first fruits, and then the rest at his coming, and his coming has to be rather soon in order for him even to conceive of first fruits, and he had to conceive of it that way because there was an intimate connection between the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection, in Paul’s thinking. Paul goes on, then, to give us the scenario of the End in his understanding at that time, for Christ is presently reigning, subduing all contrary powers after which he will yield up the kingdom to the Father in order that God may be all in all. All of that, obviously, is to happen in relatively short order. Jesus will return after he has subdued all contrary power. The dead in Christ will rise, and he will turn it all over to God, big "G." That he believed that and that he preached that is obvious from his letter to the Thessalonians. He went there, founded a congregation, then kept in touch with them, as he did with the congregations he had founded, dealing with the problems that cropped up, and at Thessalonica, the problem that cropped up was that he had taught them so well that Jesus had come, died, was resurrected in order to give them eternal life, and would soon return, that they got up every morning and said, "Maybe today is the day," and they looked skyward hoping there would be a rift in the sky and the appearance of the Son of Man on clouds. Then, a loved one died, and then another loved one died, and they began to look at each other and ask, "Will our loved ones who died before the grand event miss out?" © Grand Valley State University �Paul Wrong About History Richard A. Rhem Page 3   So, Paul said, "I write these things to you that you grieve not as those who have no hope, for if we believe that those who fall asleep in Jesus God will bring with him," and then he gets into the apocalyptic imagery of the trumpet and the angel and then we who are alive at the time, Paul expecting still to be a part of that company who would be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, who has brought with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus before the grand event, and so he says the only thing that’s really important in that paragraph, "We will be forever with the Lord. Comfort one another with these words." He was dealing with a very concrete, pastoral problem that was precipitated by his preaching of the imminent coming of Jesus who didn’t come soon enough in order to get there before Aunt Bessie died. Obviously, this is what Paul believed. This is what he proclaimed, and he was wrong. He was wrong about the time line of history. And being wrong about the time line of history, which is beyond refute, he gives us a distorted sense of the significance of history, of our present experience, of our human experience, of our ordinary experience before the face of God, and I think that you will see that quite readily when you will remember that Paul was obviously in the apocalyptic mode and the shorthand for explaining that is simply to say that Paul was a throwback to John the Baptist. We’ve looked at that, time and again here, most recently in our Lenten series where we saw how Jesus distanced himself from John the Baptist because John the Baptist was calling down fire and judgment from heaven and the outpouring of the wrath of God and the vengeance of God on all that was evil and in opposition to God, as well as the salvation of the chosen. John participated in the very widespread and pervasive apocalyptic expectation of his day, and so did Paul. If we had time, we could read on in the second chapter of Thessalonians, and you would see all of the apocalyptic imagery is there, including the vengeance of God. Paul is talking now about the vengeance of God being poured out at the coming of Jesus from heaven who has been received into heaven for this little brief period of time. Paul was apocalyptic, and apocalypticism was in the air between 200 before Christ to 100 after Christ. During that whole 300-year period, Jewish thought was permeated with apocalyptic expectation; it was in the air. John the Baptist was the one who was waiting for God to do something, and Paul knew that God had done something but hadn’t finished it yet and would soon take care of the rest, bringing all things to consummation - God’s vengeance on the unbeliever, God’s chosen justified. Thus for Paul and his contemporaries, life between Jesus’ ascension and his coming again was an interim. They were cooling their heels and waiting for the end to come. To Corinth he writes, ... the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not © Grand Valley State University �Paul Wrong About History Richard A. Rhem Page 4   rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. I Corinthians 7:29-31 So, sit loosely, don’t get encumbered. That was counsel for an interim, temporary experience and that must be a limited, less than normal kind of human existence. Paul was quite uninterested in everyday ordinary human life. And Paul was not really interested in the life of the historical Jesus. Once he says we knew him after the flesh, but we know him thus no more. The reigning Christ about to return was Paul’s total focus. Jesus’ life and concrete existence played no part. Now, this is the opposite of the case with the Gospels. There God’s salvation is embodied in a very real human life. Incarnation is key and the historical Jesus is concerned about very concrete human life, about justice and mercy, about table fellowship and healing of the body - in a word, about transforming the human situation dominated by power issuing in violence. For Paul, the present was a time of feverish activity - proclaiming the Gospel, calling to repentance, getting as many into the number of the saved as possible before the end arrived. Now to make Paul’s understanding of the time between the two comings normative would miss the meaning and significance of human existence and human history which comes to expression much better in the life of Jesus, where we claim the eternal God was embodied, incarnate. What’s an alternative to Paul’s missed reading of the times, which led to a misunderstanding of the nature of things? Well, the alternative, I think, is what we see currently in the research on the historical Jesus. Dominic Crossan introduced us to a Jesus whose life was a non-violent protest in the name of the God of justice. The Jesus who distanced himself from John the Baptist who had said, "God can’t you do something," and Jesus rather representing a God Who said, "Why don’t you do something?" The difference is a God in the face of Jesus, as Marcus Borg will speak of Jesus, a Spirit person, concretely in human existence, healing and embracing. I mean, you have to sense that this is so. Obviously, if the curtain of history is going to ring down very soon, as Paul thought, then you adjust your life one way. You certainly don’t celebrate birthdays. No need to plant a seedling or to clean up a river. I suppose you might celebrate flowers, but you’d see a cut flower as a symbol of everything that was soon to wither away. The alternative would be to see that God is to be known and served and worshiped in this life, that it is not "out there," but right here and right now that I am to live before the face of God, that it is here and now that I am to find © Grand Valley State University �Paul Wrong About History Richard A. Rhem Page 5   meaning for my human existence, that it is here and now that I am to be the continuing embodying of the Spirit of God as was uniquely embodied in Jesus. It makes all the difference in the world how I look at my world, how I meet my day, how I live my life, whether I think that I have to simply endure and hold on until ..., or whether I recognize that this is the place, for God’s sake, where God has placed me to live before the face of god, to love justice, kindness, walk humbly with my God, embrace my neighbor and to find meaning and significance in my ordinary days. "Ah," you say, "this world? This life? What of shootings and violence in Colorado? What of bombings in Kosovo and Belgrade? What of the constant eruption of evil and darkness? This world is that to which you would point us for meaning and significance and communion with God?" I would say, "Yes," for this life is not only violence and darkness. It is also a marvelous spring morning in which there are blossoms with the prodigality of color to delight the eye. It is also a world of an Olivia and Alexandra, beautiful creatures, children who smile, as well as dirty diapers. It is also a world in which one can look into the eyes of another and say, ‘I love you.’ It is a world that has all the potential to self-destruct and lie in ruins, or a world that has all the possibility of being a human community, a family where hands are joined and hearts entwined and peace reigns. NATO at fifty? Bombing, but bombing in order to say "No" to an inhumane monstrosity because we have come to see that we cannot stand by and allow that to be. Haclav Havel, addressing the NATO leaders, said, "Peace is something which we must be willing to defend." I can understand the temptation to cry: “God, can’t you do something? Take me out of here!" The answer is "No, I have put it in your hands. You do something." Paul was wrong in the time line. He is not a prophetic voice to follow in wringing the best out of human life and history. There’s something so much better. David Hartman, the Rabbi who has taught me so much, is the first person who incarnated for me one who could live fully today without all of that eschatological baggage and all of those questions about the future that we really don’t know anything about, but could well just leave to God. I got a letter from him recently and in a lecture that he gave, the Cardinal Bernardin Jerusalem Lecture, he concluded it with these words, My primary interest is in being alive and in finding significance in everyday reality. History has holiness, not because it points to the messianic kingdom. History has holiness when it provides opportunities to © Grand Valley State University �Paul Wrong About History Richard A. Rhem Page 6   live in a covenantal relationship with God. History has significance when we can bring God into everyday life. And all God’s people said ... Amen. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/28a24b66e41746f4045e6e1be44a5921.mp3 720078e80e231a9ee2639b9563fb845c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Eastertide IV Series Varieties of Religious Experience Scripture Text I Thessalonians 4:16-17, I Corinthians 15:22-24 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19990425 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-04-25 Title A name given to the resource Paul: Simply Wrong About History? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 25, 1999 entitled "Paul: Simply Wrong About History?", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Thessalonians 4:16-17, I Corinthians 15:22-24. Compassion Eschatology Justice Resurrection https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/39e533cd45398b78f216a0178bfb2527.mp3 6346c76b6e7c50d968d6fce73f44bd53 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4209f38b3a6152f6023717a1cfe3bae5.pdf 200a1bc876d22ac465af5ddad7570e9d PDF Text Text Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic From the sermon series: No Stained Glass Saints Text: I Corinthians 9: 22-23 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 23, 1986 Transcription of the spoken sermon Brilliant, educated, passionate, Paul is certainly one of the towering figures of all time. With him, perhaps we have come too far in this series; maybe he deserves to be set apart, far removed from the likes of us ordinary mortals. Perhaps here we have met the classic "Hero of the Faith." But before I yield the point too quickly, let us review this Apostle and let him speak for himself. This series ends with Paul. With him as with all the others, the purpose has not been to deflate, to puncture, to destroy the image commonly held. It has been rather to see that the Bible is not a history of extraordinary individuals, of persons of religious genius or special holiness of life which made them fit instruments for the effecting of God's purposes. Rather, the biblical story is God's story, the record of what He has done and is doing in our history through ordinary people, people like you and me. To set up biblical characters as almost super human in their faith and devotion, as models of faith and virtue and then to say, "Go thou and do likewise," is to turn the Bible into a moralizing textbook on human conduct rather than the story of God's gracious purpose worked out through common, rag-tag humanity. Frederick Buechner credits his Old Testament professor, James Murlenburg, with giving him this insight: What I began to see was that the Bible is not essentially, as I had always more or less supposed, a book of ethical principles, of moral exhortations, of cautionary tales about exemplary people, of uplifting thoughts - in fact, not really a religious book at all in the sense that most of the books you would be apt to find in a minister's study or reviewed in a special religion issue of The New York Times book section are religious. I saw it instead as a great, tattered compendium of writings, the underlying and unifying purpose of all of which is to show how God works through the Jacobs and © Grand Valley State University   �Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic Richard A. Rhem Page 2   the Jabboks of history to make himself known to the world and to draw the world back to himself. (Now and Then, p. 20) A biblical scholar, James Sanders, makes the same point convincingly. He writes, The Bible ... provides very few models of morality. An honest reading of the Bible indicates how many biblical characters were just as limited and full of shortcomings as we today. It would seem that about seventy-five percent of the Bible celebrates the theologian ... God's providence works in and through human error and sin. The Bible offers no great or infallible models, no saints in the meaning that word has taken on since biblical times - nearly perfect people. None! It offers indeed very few models to follow at all except the work of God in Creation and in Israel in the Old Testament and the work of God in Christ in the New ...We need to read the Bible honestly, recognizing much of it celebrates God's willingness to take our humanity, our frailty, and our limitations and weave them into his purposes. God's grace is not stumped by our limitation... (God Has a Story Too, p. 22F) Now, to Paul: does he confirm the thesis of this series? I suggest that he does. He is the Apostle of Grace par excellence. To say that is to focus on his never dying amazement at the grace of God that embraced him, forgave him and transformed him. I have set the focus on Paul with the title "The Mellowing of a Fanatic." A fanatic is a person affected by excessive and mistaken enthusiasm. It speaks of one possessed by a deity or a demon, making one unreasoning. Paul was richly endowed in mind and spirit; of that there can be little doubt. He had the advantage of Roman citizenship, of the best of rabbinical education. But for all that, he was a person possessed by a narrow, rigid and mean fanaticism. As he humbly confirmed, I persecuted the church of God. We know his story well but I think most of our reflection on it has been on the dramatic conversion he experienced on the road to Damascus - that is a thrilling story and the response he made to the grace he received is even more thrilling. But the story is so dramatic because of what Paul was prior to that encounter with Christ. Paul was religious in the worst sense of the word. Religion made him moral, but it did not make him good; rather, it made him mean, narrow, bigoted. Paul was a Pharisee, a scrupulous observer of religious rules and rituals. He was a legalist with no sympathy for those of lesser zeal and devotion to the law. He was a driven person knowing no deep assurance and inward peace, and his own enslavement to the "performance principle" made him © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic Richard A. Rhem Page 3   coercive in his dealing with others. The self-doubt and anxiety he knew were kept under and masked over by his belligerence to those who differed with him. He testifies against himself that, when followers of Jesus, followers of the Way, were hailed into court, he voted for their death. Telling his story before King Agrippa, he confesses, It was I who imprisoned many of God’s people by authority obtained from the chief priests; and when they were condemned to death, my vote was cast against them. In all the synagogues I tried by repeated punishment to make them renounce their faith; indeed my fury rose to such a pitch that I extended my persecution to foreign cities. Acts 26:10-11 Not a very nice person. Not a person one would choose to deal with. Religion did its worst work on Paul. It made him mean and bigoted and, when such a spirit is combined with giftedness and passion, we get a very dangerous kind of person. That is why I hope we never get a president from the ranks of the religious right. Sincerity is not enough. Paul was sincere. Being a worshiper of God is not enough. Paul was a devout Jew. I do not question the sincerity or Christian faith of the vocal fundamentalist crowd in our day, but I fear their spirit even if it is lacquered with smiles and cited with smooth speech. A person who is certain he has hold of the Truth and is convinced he is God's warrior is terribly dangerous. More crimes have been committed, wars waged and havoc wrought by such persons than by any other sort. Paul was a fanatic and fanatics are dangerous. Paul never got over the damage he had done. Perhaps that is why he never wavered from the grace principle. He knew it was by grace and grace alone that he was saved. He knew there was no way he could repair the damage and rewrite the past. It was done. Only grace could set him free from the horror of what he had done. Listen to his own testimony and hear the deep humility that clothed him from the moment he met Jesus. Writing in an early correspondence to Corinth, he tells of the appearance of the Risen Lord to him: Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am… I Corinthians 15:8-9 In a later letter to the Ephesians, he wrote, Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me by the working of his power. To me though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given… Ephesians 3:7-8 © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Finally, in the First Letter to Timothy, he writes, The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience…I Timothy 1: 15-16 One can sense a descending scale of self-valuation from least of the Apostles to least of the saints to chief of sinners. And as one reads those passages, one senses that this is no over-pious, false humility. This Paul was not through conversion reduced to a pious pansy of a person. There is a ring of Truth, an authentic note that strikes one. Paul is not out to impress those to whom he writes. This is how he really felt. He never lost sight of that from which he had been delivered, that which had been forgiven him, that grace that embraced him and set him free from the guilt of his past and the bondage of that narrow religious legalism that had enslaved him. The good news of our reflection on Paul is the radical transformation of this person from legalist to champion of grace, from persecutor to Apostle, from rigid, narrow fanaticism to graciousness and love and freedom. I could take you many places in Paul's writings to demonstrate the transformation of his character, but since we have begun by detailing the fanaticism that led to coercion and persecution of the Church, let me point you to the new Paul who became the model of flexibility and freedom. Indeed, I have become everything in turn to men of every sort, so that in one way or another I may save some. I Corinthians 9:22 The context is a discussion about Christian freedom, about whether it is right or wrong to do this or that. The specific question was about eating meat that had been offered to heathen gods. Without trying to explain that issue, let me simply give Paul's answer - It really doesn't matter. You have permission. But if it bothers your brother, don't do it. Always act in a sensitive, loving manner over against your weaker brother. Paul then demonstrates his principles in his own life and ministry. He asserts the basic fact - "I am a free man and own no master." But because of Jesus Christ and the call to ministry, Paul declares, "I have made myself every man's servant, to win over as many as possible." He then goes on to explain that the context of his ministry on any given occasion determined his manner of life. © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Evangelizing Jews, he became like a Jew. Evangelizing Gentiles, he became like a Gentile. To the weak, he became weak. He did whatever was necessary in order to share the gospel and bring persons to faith in Jesus Christ. We can find this documented in the Book of Acts. In the 16th chapter, Paul meets the young Timothy and wanted him to accompany him on his mission. His mother was a Jewess, his father a Gentile. Paul had him circumcised "out of consideration for the Jews who lived in those parts." This is the Apostle who argued strenuously that circumcision or uncircumcision count for nothing. This was not a matter of legal necessity, of salvation. Paul did what he did so as not to offend in a matter that did not really matter. Again, in Acts 18:18, Paul himself takes a vow, shaving his head, not of necessity but because he desired to undergo a spiritual discipline for his own good. On one of his visits to Jerusalem, he came to see James, the Lord's brother and head of the Jerusalem Church. James pointed out that there were thousands of Jews who had received Jesus as Messiah, but continued in their Temple worship and religious ritual. They had heard rumors that Paul taught the Jews in the Gentile world to turn their back on Moses. Therefore, to put the rumor to rest, James suggested Paul undergo ritual purification in the Temple along with four men undergoing that ritual at the time - even paying their fee (or making their offering). Paul did. From these instances, we can see how consistent the words of our text are with the actual conduct of the Apostle. All things to all people in order to win some. Such flexibility is remarkable and it is rare, especially in religion. We all get ideologized bias, whether in religion, politics, economics, or whatever field of discourse we engage in. Paul's flexibility was founded on his freedom and his freedom flowed out of his experience of grace. Paul was set free by grace. Christ died and rose again. Paul died with Christ. Paul rose with Christ. Paul was free of every human structure, ritual, law, custom and institution – he was a slave to Jesus Christ and that enslaving was perfect freedom. The freedom of grace relativized every other duty or claim upon him. Paul never wavered from the Gospel as it had been revealed to him and in his Galatian letter he insists it was given him by revelation. On the principle of grace, Paul would not compromise. He took on Peter and admonished Barnabas when they withdrew from Gentiles at table when Jewish Christian leaders from Jerusalem arrived in Galatia. He stood on the grace principle. But standing there, he was able to move with freedom, to deal with flexibility. His overriding passion was not his own ease or power or success but the setting of all persons free, free from religious superstition and constitutional oppression, from the manipulations of religious or political leaders, free to become fully human, fully alive in the grace of Jesus Christ. © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Thus he remained a person of passion and deep commitment, but now to the one thing needful – the gospel of grace – that turned him from a hardnosed fanatic to a gracious apostle of Jesus Christ. Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXVII Series No Stained Glass Saints Scripture Text I Corinthians 9:22-23 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19861123 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-11-23 Title A name given to the resource Paul: The Mellowing of a Fanatic Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 23, 1986 entitled "Paul: The Mellowing of a Fanatic", as part of the series "No Stained Glass Saints", on the occasion of Pentecost XXVII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Corinthians 9:22-23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Apostle Paul Freedom Gospel of Grace Grace of God Ritual https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4924abb656fa770ca345e8292a1153f0.jpg 3fb15c9050ce0d9816304cad8f714124 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_M275-0005a Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-08-10 Title A name given to the resource Pauline Baynes, English illustrator Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph featuring an outdoor portrait of Pauline Baynes, English illustrator, author, and commercial artist who was the first illustrator of some of J.R.R. Tolkien's minor works and later became well-known for her cover illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in addition to all seven volumes of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Baynes, Pauline Illustrators--Books and reading Illustrators--England Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/463f2a79c4e86a31474b90b3dbedeb0f.jpg 12580256b5801429ef8b84471c0e3fca Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_M275-0013a Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-08-10 Title A name given to the resource Pauline Baynes, English illustrator Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph featuring an outdoor portrait of Pauline Baynes, English illustrator, author, and commercial artist who was the first illustrator of some of J.R.R. Tolkien's minor works and later became well-known for her cover illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in addition to all seven volumes of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. In the photograph, Baynes is leaning against a wooden gate with a sign that reads, "Rock Barn Cottage," for the cottage located in the background. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Baynes, Pauline Illustrators--Books and reading Illustrators--England Cottages--England Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/20e7eb36a54ebfb66933b8cd774e7977.mp4 3bd73a931e01964604fd3757029067d6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/803ee41969ef76f93b35a98bf9eaee87.pdf a6e03fde6a4f7848815e25ff1dd29761 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II, Women’s Army Corp Irene Paxson Length of Interview: 54:02 (00:00:10) JS: We’re talking today with Irene Paxson, of St. Joseph, Michigan. The interviewer is James Smither, of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Now Mrs, Paxson, can you start by giving us some background on yourself. To begin with where and when were you born? IP: Well, I was born July 15, 1917. And my mother said it was just as the sun came up on Sunday morning. Christ child. And I was born in Illinois. In Mount Vernon, in a rural area of Mount Vernon. JS: And were your family farmers? Or did they just live out there? IP: They were…my family were farmers. Doctor. Teacher. Hunt. JS: What did your father do for a living at that time? IP: My dad was farming. And teaching country school, at that time. JS: And how many acres did he have? (01:04) IP: A hundred acres. JS: And what kinds of things did he grow there? IP: Well, I don’t remember anything about that because he left when I was three years old. So I assume wheat and corn. That’s what people grew in that area. JS: All right. And so then, did you stay in that area? IP: Well, I didn’t stay because my father’s crops were destroyed by the weather. It didn’t rain for about seven weeks and they dried up, and then my father had to find something else to do. JS: Okay. And so where did you go after that? (01:43) IP: After that, he went to St. Louis and took a civil service examination. He went to work for the Post Office in St. Louis. Where he worked until he retired. �JS: So did you grow up in St. Louis then? IP: I grew up in St. Louis. JS: Did you live in the city of St. Louis, or… IP: I lived in the city until I was 11 years old and then we moved to a suburb. A suburb called [Aveton]. JS: did you go to public schools? IP: I went to public schools. JS: And did you graduate from high school? IP: I graduated from high school. JS: And what year was that? IP: That was 1935. (02:27) JS: And then what did you do after you graduated? IP: After that, I went to business school. And then I went to work. JS: Okay. Now business school, was that for… IP: Bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing. JS: Okay, so kind of a secretarial…what we might call a secretarial school. IP: Yes. Yes. JS: Now how long was that program? IP: About six months. JS: And, then what kind of job did you get? IP: Well, the first job I got was at [Warsaw] Company, in St. Louis. It was a low paying job. I was very very shy. Afraid of going on interviews. But fortunately when I went to this school, I did well enough that, the lady who ran the school, um, suggested me for a state job, working for the Missouri Public Service Commission. And that’s where I worked after that. A very high paying job. (laughs) �(03:31) JS: Now, you’re doing this, this is the late 1930s… IP: Yeah. JS: This was the middle of the Depression. IP: It was. Jobs were hard to get. So, you went…you had to make sure that you were good at what you did, or you’d end up working in a dime store or something like that, so… JS: Okay. IP: So, I was fortunate enough to have…going from a low paying job to probably one of the better paying jobs at the time. Any state job pays well. JS: Now at this time were you still living with your parents, or are you out on your own? IP: Yes. I was still living with my parents. (04:08) JS: Okay. And then how long did you stay in that position? IP: Oh, several years. JS: And were you still doing that when World War II started? IP: No. After a few years, my father had accumulated time working for the government. A couple of months vacation and he wanted the whole family to go on a trip out west. And I was a little reluctant to go and, but it was important to my father. The war had started in Europe in 1939, and I had a brother two years my junior and another one a few years younger. But I think he saw the hand-writing on the wall. And he wanted the family to take a trip out west. So he rented a trailer, and we went traveling out west to a lot of historic places. My dad had always been interested in history. And we went to San Francisco, to the Fair. In San Francisco. And then I stayed out there for a while. In Long Beach, California. And got a job, because I wanted to just see what it was like, make a life of my own, on my own. So I did. Got a good job. And then, I received an invitation from the Treasury in Washington, to go to work there. In the Accounting department. (05:44) JS: Now when was that? IP: That was in, I think it was 1940. JS: Okay. So you weren’t really in California all that long then? �IP: No. I was only there about seven months. And so I got the invitation to go to Washington, so… It just so happened that the aunt I was staying with, her only daughter lived in Washington D.C. And her son-in-law was head of the legal department for the Veterans Administration. And I had several other nice contacts when I went to Washington, so, it worked out very well for me. (06:19) JS: Tell me a little bit about what you remember about living in California, though, for that time. What kind of work… IP: You know what I remember most of all? I worked in an accounting department. And, um, I’m trying to think. Southern California Gas. And what I remember most about it, I had a friend that was a librarian. And she used to bring home books to me. And she brought a book home, it would be “The History of the Hapsburg Dynasty.” Which started a lifelong interest in biographical history. JS: Well, the Hapsburg’s would give you a lot to choose from. (07:05) IP: Well, I was fascinated with the contacts of the royal family. And how they secured their alliances with other countries, through marriage and family. Yes, that I remember most of all. I did a lot of reading, because I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any dates or anything. But I had a friend who was a librarian so I did a lot of reading. JS: Okay. Now at the same time, were you following events in the world carefully? With the war in Europe, and that kind of thing? IP: Oh, yes. Yes. JS: And were you worried that your brothers might get drafted? Or some else like that? IP: Well, my oldest brother was in. Tommy’s was one of the first groups to go to England. And sure, I was worried about my brother. I was worried about my friends. I was worried about my country. Cause we had Germany heading toward Britain. And then we had the Japanese attack. And fighting a two front war…and I think I was just part of a great movement in our country that we hadn’t had before. Or since. Because we were attacked and people everywhere tried to do what they could, for the war effort. Society women went to work in factories. Farm girls were gone, went to work in factories. People were doing whatever they could. Kind of like the best of time, the worst of times. (08:45) JS: You know if we can kind of follow your story. You go to Washington before America’s gotten into the war. IP: Yes. �JS: You worked in the Treasury Department, did you say? IP: I worked in the Treasury Department. JS: What kind of work did you do for them at that time? IP: I worked in the Accounting department of the Treasury. JS: And, then, were you doing that job when Pearl Harbor happened? (09:10) IP: I was doing that job right up until Pearl Harbor. And I had decided to leave Washington. An affair of the heart, I guess I would say. (laughs) And I decided to leave. And I went to San Francisco. I fell in love with San Francisco when we were there before. But my cousin who was very close to me had married a big name ball player. And he was out there. And she wanted me to go out there, so I did. And I got a job working for the U.S. Army Engineers out there. JS: Now was that still before Pearl Harbor or was that right after? IP: No, that was after. I felt kind of guilty about leaving Washington. My boss tried to persuade me to stay. But I didn’t. (10:08) JS: Okay. Yet, you wind up back with the government pretty soon anyway. IP: Um hmm. JS: Cause eventually you decide to enlist in the Women’s Army Corp, known as WAC. How did you come to that decision? IP: Well. When I was in Washington, I stayed at a place where there were quite a few Canadians. One young man was a downed pilot. RCAF pilot. And another young man that stayed where I did was with the Canadian Legation in Washington. And he had three young women from, Canadian women that were service women, that came to work at the Legation, that he wanted to find a place for these three girls, that he thought were typical American girls. And I happened to be one of them. And so I was acquainted with this service woman from Canada. She was in uniform all the time. Got a lot of attention when she was walking on the streets. All the magazines, like Cosmopolitan and unique ladies magazines…and they were…I had these people around me that had been in the war for a long time. English people and the Canadian people. And I was following the war pretty closely. But it was a difficult decision to make up my mind to go in the service. You know, that regimented life is not all that easy. And of course as a woman, you were volunteer. The men were often drafted. Well, that’s the way it was, when you went in the service. (12:10) �JS: All right. Now, what the actual process when you decided you wanted to enter the service and then what did you do? IP: I just went down. I was in St. Louis. I went back to stay with my folks for a while. I just went down and registered. JS: So an Army Recruiting Office, basically? IP: Yeah, I went to the recruiting office. WAC Recruiting Office. JS: Now at this time was the government making much of an effort to publicize the women’s branches of the service, to encourage women to joining? (12:43) IP: Well, actually women were getting a lot of attention, because this was the first time we had women in the service. And, um…so I just chose the WAC. I went to basic training. Then Des Moines, in Iowa. JS: All right. What kind of facility did they have there? What kind of place did you train at? Were you training at an Army base, or… IP: Are you talking about training for what I eventually did… JS: Basic training, first. IP: Basic training was at Fort Des Moines. And I think I was there about six weeks. And at that time, you were tested to find out just what you might be going to do. You go through, get all the shots, the whole routine. And then I was sent to Kansas City to be trained for radio school. (13:43) JS: I want to go back a minute to the basic training part again. The men’s basic training, there are certain standards that happen. One of the things was there was a very strong emphasis on discipline and following orders. IP: Indeed. JS: So you got the same thing? IP: Oh sure. JS: And did most of the women adjust to that pretty well, or… IP: I would say most of them did. Most of them. (14:09) �JS: And did they have anything by the way of physical training? Exercises, and that kind of thing. IP: Oh, yes. Of course, one of the best exercises in scrubbing floors, after we took showers. JS: So you had a kind of version of the same thing the men got? IP: I think so. Probably not as tough. I can’t imagine going into the service now, where women do things they never would have thought of doing before then. (14:40) JS: Did they give you any weapons training, for instance? IP: Oh, no. No. JS: Cause that would be standard now, for women. IP: Sure. JS: So they send you to Kansas City next. What are they training you for there? IP: A general training. A basic training is just, um, getting all the shots and just getting adjusted to regimented life. JS: And now I was asking about the next step. You go to Kansas City next? (15:09) IP: I went to Kansas city. For radio school. For five months of radio training, there. And I was stationed in a hotel, and they were very strict. I do know we were called very unprepared for war. And everything was rush rush rush. We didn’t even make our beds there. We had room service. Cause very minute counted. You had to work hard to train. And so, um, and so I spent five months there, and from there I went… JS: Wait, wait. I’d like you to describe a little bit the actual training itself. And so you’re in radio school. What does that mean? What were you actually doing? IP: I was in radio school, I was actually learning international morse code, all this time. For five months. JS: How did they teach that to you? What kind of exercises did you have to do? (16:13) IP: Well, you started first with the letters. Letters of the alphabet. Done in code. Dot dot dot, I made up a song like that. And that was tough for some of the girls who washed out there. JS: Did you have to get to a certain speed, that you could either decode or type? �IP: Yes. You had to. And some of us were better than others. JS: Now, did you get any language training at this point? IP: No. No language training. JS: This was just the code itself. Did they have you doing anything besides that? Was it just learning the code or did you do other things? (17:03) IP: We did other things. And now, right now it’s kind of difficult for me to recall. There were other things that we did learn. But it was chiefly being able to intercept code messages. JS: so you were listening to something and you had to be able to copy it to… IP: Oh, yes. JS: And so, you survive that five months. And during that time, you said they were very strict. You were living in a hotel. Someone made the beds for you. Did they feed you right there in the hotel? IP: No. We had to go several blocks to a place where they fed all of us. JS: So you weren’t just going someplace, to a restaurant. It was some place… IP: No, it was for just the service women. (17:56) JS: Okay. And what kind of women were you working with? Like how old were they, what kind of backgrounds did they have? IP: Oh, I think they had all kinds of backgrounds. But a lot of them had dome secretarial work before. In offices. There were teachers. Quite a few teachers. One of my particular friends was a teacher. And then there were girls that did various things. But mostly I would say office work and teaching. JS: Well, that’s part of what you have to do, is type quickly. I guess that makes sense. IP: You had to type sixty words a minute. I never considered myself a typist but that was required in order to be a part of the program. JS: Now did you get any free time? Or time off? Did you go anywhere or do anything? IP: Not really. I got married. (laughs) To a young man I knew before I went into the service. And we were married in Kansas City. �(18:59) JS: Okay. So you had seen him again, when you came back to St. Louis, before you were… IP: Oh, yes. I saw him. Cause he was stationed in the country and so was I. So we went to places like Chillicothe, Ohio. And Altoona, Pennsylvania, him and I. JS: Once you finish your training program, then, where do they send you? IP: Well, I went to Camp Crowder for more training. A couple months of training. And then we went to, let’s see. We were sent to [ ], where we had more training. I would say, all together, we had about eight months of training. (19:44) JS: Now, do you remember anything about this additional training? Were you… IP: I can’t remember exactly where it was. But I didn’t do anything but what I just told you. JS: Okay. IP: But I read a book that my doctor gave to me, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, you’re probably familiar with her. [unable to hear recording] It made me realize that we were so woefully unprepared for war. Because Roosevelt knew that we had to help Britain, an, but he knew the country did not want to go to war. There were secret meetings arranged between Franklin and Churchill. Meeting off the coast of Newfoundland. And reading that book helped me realize again how fortunate we were that Hitler didn’t invade England. Because he decided to go change directs and go to Russia. That would have changed everything for all of the free world. But that was a very wonderful book to read. (21:17) JS: I want to kind of get back to what it was that you sort of saw and did and experienced, a little bit. So, what year was it actually then that you get out to [Bent Hills?], do you remember when that was? IP: I think that was, it must have been 1944. JS: Yes. Do you remember where you were sort of Christmas of ’43? Were you still in Kansas City, or St. Louis? IP: In Christmas of ’43, I had to be in Kansas City. JS: Okay, so probably not too long after that you get out to Washington. All right. Now when you move to Washington, what kind of living accommodations, now Vint Hills, did that, where is that relative to Washington? IP: Well, I lived near Dupont Circle. �(22:03) JS: Okay. So you lived in Washington? IP: I lived in Washington, and my dad had a cousin that was there during World War I, and she had this dear friend that stayed in Washington and she met me, and she helped me find a place to live. It was very expensive, as most capitals. And I was so discouraged, looking at rooms. And maybe a blanket would cover the wall. And the blanket would have a hole in it. [can’t hear recording] Finally, we found a place that had just been newly opened about six weeks before. A nice big place with a big friendly front porch. And it was right near Dupont Circle. And I found a place to stay there. And it was just before Christmas. And the people that were there were mostly home for Christmas. So I said I would like to have a roommate. It would be more affordable for me. And so this lady that owned the place said, well there’s a nice young lady that I think you’ll get along with. And share the room with her. So I moved into a room with a young woman I didn’t even know. I was looking at her shoes and her dresses to see, you know, how she was, find out something about her. And Christmas night she came in, with a great big grin and brown eyes. And she brought fruit cake and brandy and we sat down and got acquainted and became fast friends. Her name was also Irene. (24:03) JS: All right. So now would that be Christmas ’44, then? Or Christmas, ’43? IP: It was Christmas, ’43. JS: I try to figure out, as best we can, the time line. IP: Yes. Well, anyhow, that’s when it was. And then the next morning we went down to breakfast and I got acquainted with the other people that were there. A gal from California. Her father was a college professor and she had gone around the world on a tramp steamer. Wow. (laughs) Margaret Strong. And then there was another girl from Pennsylvania. Another one from Escanaba, Michigan. One young man, he was a lawyer. And I think we all sat a long table. A very inviting room. A fireplace, it was chilly at that time. And we got acquainted and became fast friends. (25:09) JS: All right. Now you had mentioned this place called Vint Hills. Is that where you started working, or did you…? IP: Yeah. I started working there. JS: Now how far is that from Washington, itself? IP: It was about forty miles south. Near Warrenton, Virginia. JS: So how did you get out there, then? IP: Well, we went out, they took us by bus. �JS: Okay. IP: And the barracks were temporary barracks. We had a little potbellied stove we had to stoke every day. We had to put coal in. And the snow in the winter time would come right through the cracks in the floor. To keep warm we had to bring all the covers we had, that they’d provide for us. And flannel pajamas. Was it cold in Virginia, in the winter time. (26:12) JS: So you would have, you said you had a place back in Dupont Circle then, in town. Were you keeping that room? IP: Oh, no no no. That’s before I went into the service. JS: Oh, okay. I was trying to piece together the story there. So that would explain that. This Christmas there, with these people, that was a little bit earlier in your story. But now you’ve come out and you’re staying out at the Vint Hills facility, and so you’re living in these improvised barracks IP: Um hmm. (26:40) JS: Can you detail what you were doing there? IP: Yes. Monitoring our own troops in North Africa. To see what kind of information they were giving away. Of course the enemy is doing the same thing we are, listening in. And then I was transferred to Special [unable to hear] Network, which was operated by a legendary figure in the � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PaxsonI0616V Title A name given to the resource Paxson, Irene (Interview transcript and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paxson, Irene Description An account of the resource Irene Paxson, born July 19th 1917 near Mount Vernon, Illinois, was working for the U.S. Treasury when Pearl Harbor happened. Not long afterward, she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps and trained as a radio operator and cryptographer. She was assigned to a special base outside of Washington, where she intercepted German radio messages, and also monitored American traffic to watch for security breaches. A little older than most of the other women in her unit, she soon became a leader, but left in 1944 after she became pregnant. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army. Women's Army Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-12 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/69180f971efe634d21dfb39f078f4628.pdf 42e9f9c741f6ffd7e3d9e3a14390dbe5 PDF Text Text PAY EQUITY: DISPARITIES, POLITICS, AND THE PATH TO CHANGE MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2011 AT 3:00 p.m. EBERHARD CENTER, ROOM 215 (PEW CAMPUS) Light refreshments provided • RSVP Encouraged to www.gvsu.edu/women_cen by Oct. 13 Complimentary parking is available in the Fulton Lot www.gvsu.edu/meetatgvsu/eberhard-parking-directions-and-map-12.htm Join the GVSU Women's Center and the Michigan American Council on Education Network for Women in Higher Education as they host Mary Pollock. Pollock will present on pay disparities, the laws prohibiting wage discrimination, and current legislation that is being proposed on pay equity. She will share some tips on negotiating wages and how you can take action on this important issue. About Mary Pollock: She has been an ACLU board member for over 25 years and currently serves as the Lansing branch ACLU Board President. Since 2006 she has been the Michigan National Organization for Women's Legislative Vice President. She retired from state service December 1, 2010, and is now self-employed as a lobbyist and writer. For individuals needing special accommodations, please contact the Women's Center at 616.331 .2748 or womenctr@gvsu.edu @ GRAND\M.LEY SrATElJNivERsITY WOMEN'S CENTER MICHIGAN oWHE~ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource GVSU Sexuality and Gender Flyers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Rainbow Resource Center Women and Gender Studies Department Women's Commission Gayle R. Davis Center for Women and Gender Equity Description An account of the resource Digitized posters, flyers, event notices, and other materials relating to gender expression and sexuality at Grand Valley State University, with materials spanning from 1974 to 2019. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974/2019 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digitized from collections at the Rainbow Resource Center (formerly the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center), Women and Gender Studies Department, Women's Commission, and Gayle R. Davis Center for Women and Gender Equity. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Gender identity Gender expression Sexual orientation Women's studies Queer theory Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-09 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-09_SGF_2011_Pay-Equity.pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Women's Center Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-17 Title A name given to the resource Pay Equity: Disparities, Politics, and the Path to Change Description An account of the resource Flyer inviting people to join in a discussion lead by Mary Pollock on pay disparities and wage discrimination. Subject The topic of the resource Community centers Pay equity Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Women's Center Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cb053f95a1e108e1b75cb14e70a62df0.pdf d2794b0e3c142e73d7899a88de23c05f PDF Text Text Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project Johnson Center for Philanthropy Grand Valley State University Oral History Interview with Michael R. Payne, February 28, 2012 The Council of Michigan Foundations, Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), and GVSU Libraries’ Special Collections & University Archives present: An oral history interview with Michael R. Payne on February 28, 2012. Conducted by Dr. James Smither of the History Department at GVSU. Recorded at GVSU, Grand Rapids, Michigan. This interview is part of a series in the Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project documenting the history of philanthropy in Michigan. Preferred citation: Researchers wishing to cite this collection should use the following credit line: Oral history interview with Michael R. Payne, 2012. Johnson Center Philanthropy Archives of the Special Collection & University Archives, Grand Valley State University Libraries. James Smither (JS): We’re doing this interview with Mike Payne, on the staff at Grand Valley State University [retired professor, School of Public, Nonprofit and Health Administration]. This is for the Johnson Center for the study of philanthropy and the interviewer is James Smither of the History department from Grand Valley. Now basically what we’re doing here is we want to, we’re gathering information on sort of the history and origins of the Johnson Center, so, and we’re talking to various people who were involved in it in one way or another, and before we get into that we like to fill in a little bit of background on who we’re talking to. So, we’ll start with when and where were you born? Michael Payne (MP): St. Louis, Missouri, 1946, so. (JS): And then did you grow up in that area or somewhere else? (MP): Grew up in and around St. Louis until mid-late 60s, mid 60s, I guess. (JS): Ok. And then what did you do at that point? (MP): Well, those were Vietnam days, so I spent four years on active duty until 1970. 1 �(JS): Well you’ve just gotten yourself into a good deal of trouble since I run the veteran’s history project, but we won’t worry about that now right here. So, were you in the army or? (MP): Air Force for those four years. (JS): Air Force for four years, alright, and for four years then let’s see, were you an officer or enlisted? (MP): Enlisted. One of those many folks that didn’t carry enough credits to keep their deferment, so, you had a choice of finding something you wanted to do or be drafted. I found something I wanted to do so I spent four years doing electronics for the air force. (JS): Alright. Now did that take you to Vietnam at some point or did you stay in this. (MP): No. I worked with training pilots for the Air Force. We did all the training at home. They went to Vietnam to work. (JS): When did you leave the air force then? (MP): Early discharge in I think it was January of 1970 to go back to school, so I went to the University of Missouri in St. Louis and finished an undergraduate degree, and then from there to Syracuse for a Ph.D. in economics. (JS): What did you do the undergraduate degree in? (MP): Economics. (JS): So, it’s economics all the way through. (MP): Yes. (JS): In what area of economics then did you focus your research on as you were doing dissertation work? (MP): Started out with a fellowship to study economics of education which sort of expanded to human resources, human capital kind of resources not personnel. And from there, narrowed back to health care. So I studied for-profit and nonprofit hospitals as they behaved in New York State back in late 60s. (3:19) (JS): Was there a central message or lesson that you took out of that? (MP): Sure, being an econ and numbers guy, there was all kinds of theories about how hospitals behaved, and back in those days, there was a rift between for-profit and 2 �nonprofit hospitals, one accuse the other of all sorts of things, and the way I wanted to get at that was look at the actual expenditures; how did they spend money? If they spent money differently then maybe there was a difference. Turns out they didn’t spend money differently at all. So, I had data on every hospital in New York from Blue Cross was the financial intermediary for the federal government to pay hospitals through Medicare. So I had access to all of their data, and stratified by size and scope of hospital they behaved exactly the same. There was no statistical difference in behavior no matter what the theory said. (JS): And you’re measuring behavior basically just by what they are paying for or... (MP): How they spent their money. If you and I spend our income the same way, we may have very similar motivations. Since we had very good theory about for-profit hospitals, and how they are profit maximizers, I wanted to find out if the nonprofit hospitals behaved in a more philanthropic way or if they behaved the same. Turns out they behave the same. Part of that was artificial I think because they were reimbursed the same, so they were only going to be reimbursed if they did a, b or c. If they did something that was non reimbursable, they didn’t get any money for it, and they chose in general not to do that. I didn’t look at how the money came in; I looked at how the money went out. Very interesting, so, I was doing philanthropy stuff back in nineteen whatever that was, ’74, I guess, mix of for-profit and nonprofit. (JS): As you were doing this, were you publishing papers or things like that or does that come later? (MP): A little bit then, I had a research assistantship, worked on some projects around Syracuse, but, at least thirty some years ago, the main focus was, get the dissertation done, then do something else. The model was, get it writ. (JS): So, how long then did you spend in grad school? (MP): Three years on campus, I gave myself a three year window to finish the coursework and pass the exams, get a dissertation started. I had a family so that was my time frame, three years I’m out of the door. Then I took another year, taught full time and finished my dissertation while I was teaching. (JS): And then did you teach at Syracuse or did you go somewhere else? (MP): No. I went to Union University in Albany New York to teach for that one year. I was the combined departments of Economics and Sociology, one guy. I was the only one I think that didn’t have a white coat. Everybody else was very much in the science model. (JS): And then, once you completed your dissertation, where did you go next? 3 �(MP): I was recruited through a health, I had a fellowship to do my dissertation, and was recruited by Western Michigan University to come there and do health economics. (7:10) (JS): And did that put you into their economics department? (MP): Yes, economics department. I was appointed there over the fifteen years or so I was at Western. That moved to being a great appointment for me but a very risky one for a young faculty person. I was physically appointed in economics, but my time was split between the Center for Public Administration and the College of Health and Human Services. So I had sort of three hats but kind of risky thing to do. (JS): Now, was this a conventional tenure track position or a contract position or what was it? (MP): Conventional tenure track position, as I started moving away from my department, basically made a deal with the dean to protect myself. So, we had a sort of a contractual arrangement of how the other two departments would be involved in my evaluation and promotion, because econ was not completely thrilled with having me on their payroll but working really spending two-thirds of my time outside the department. (JS): Now, given the nature of your work, was that kind of outside of the experience or knowledge base of most of the colleagues in the economics department or were there a fair number of people who dealt with sort of public sector stuff of different kinds? (MP): Most didn’t. We had some courses in urban economics of course, or transportation, but I think I was the only one that taught outside the department. One guy might have taught a class in political, sort of economic political science or something like that. But it was a pretty traditional department. I was sort of the odd duck, which wasn’t unusual for me, so I spent most of my time, as that continued on; I spent most of my time in public administration. (JS): What kind of sort of research track or program did you develop then while you were there? What were you getting into? (MP): Really a mixed bag. With my econ colleagues, it was large scale general equilibrium models about urbanization, and much of that focused in the developing world and how urbanization was coming about, whether it was rural to urban movement because of agricultural revolution or population explosion or whatever it happened to be. And then some work also on some health care, I kept sort of a health care stream going along. Over in the school of, what was still then the Center for Public Administration, we developed a health curriculum, a master’s degree concentration in health, and so I taught health economics and developed several of those courses in the late, mid to late 80s. 4 �(JS): Alright sort of for a lay person when you’re teaching health economics, what does that actually mean in terms of course content? (MP): Sure, it’s applied microeconomics primarily, function of the firm in this case hospitals primarily, also but also large private practice and at some level insurance companies. So, the traditional things that you would study if you were looking at any micro economic slice of an industry, how are they reimbursed or how they are paid, labor issues in the case of health care you had multiple unions, so part of that was about reimbursement and expenditures, part of it on some labor theory, a bit of it is how do hospitals behave, are they profit maximizers, back to my study from twenty years before, or do they function in some other way. We have a very good theory about how firms operate if they’re trying to make money, we have virtually no theory about how firms operate if they aren’t trying to make money, so there’s this constant question about how does this firm really function? So, really and that was continuation for years of my dissertation. By the way that question is still out there today. Focused in health literature on quality of care, cost of care, access to care that came up in the early 1900s at a conference it’s the topic today, hasn’t changed in over a century. Details have changed. (JS): Did you start getting involved with sort of outside foundations or organizations, the Kellogg Foundation for instance or some of these others, or do you start to build up connections with those as you do your research or? (MP): Somewhat limited at Western, the focus there was primarily on developing curriculum, and we also started a, then it was a DPA, doctorate in public administration offered in Lansing, and then Western was in the satellite business as they still are. Western has a campus down the road. Thirty years ago I was teaching in Grand Rapids one night a week for Western with the health concentration, so we exported that concentration to several different communities, in fact that’s how I got to Grand Valley. (13:23) (JS): But you didn’t have much connection really with things like philanthropic foundations or organizations while you were at Western? (MP): Not much. A little, obviously there was the ongoing grant writing kinds of things, but the focus, and I even taught grant writing for a while, but my focus was more curriculum and student focused. Much like Grand Valley back in those days, Western was very much a teaching institution. I was never the grant researcher. I did enough. (JS): Your CV has a good list of published papers and all of that kind of stuff. (MP): And then for a while I edited a journal, I did a few other things that were...it was boxes you needed to check, you know, don’t mean to sound cynical but as you know 5 �there are things you need to do if you want to make associate or full professor. You just sort of have to go through the hoops or the hurdles. (JS): And you made both of those jumps? (MP): Right. (JS): At what point did you come to Grand Valley and how did that happen? (MP): 1990 I was recruited by Grand Valley to help them develop truthfully a competitive program with what Western was doing in health administration. It was a very small department and in fact it wasn’t a department, it was a center within the social science division back in those days, and there were only four of us. Eleanor French, the director at that time, short, very feisty lady, Mike Mast, who I think you’ve interviewed, Bob Clark, who passed away a few years ago, and myself. That was it. There were four of us and we did it all. Some things better than others most likely, and the interest and the reason I was hired was to develop a curriculum for a new concentration in health administration which I managed the one truthfully very parallel program at Western, kind of picked that up and brought it here. While Western continued doing their version of it, we implemented something similar, not exactly the same but similar here at Grand Valley. Focus was on mid-career students, looking for the student with maybe five years’ experience in administration with an interest in health care and moving typically from a clinical position into an administrative one, or they might have been in an administrative position and sure wished they knew more of what they were doing. So, that was our student body. (JS): Now were you doing this at the graduate level? (MP): Graduate level only. I taught very little in the past thirty years at the undergraduate level. My focus is virtually always been graduate or I try to forget about it, I was not an undergraduate focused faculty person. (JS): Now, how was it that you got involved with what would become the Johnson Center, at what point did you start developing that angle? (MP): Really the second year I was here. I came in fall of 1990. We got the curriculum which was already partially developed before I got here, put the finishing touches on that got that off to the curriculum committee. Maybe it was ‘91, started talking with Kellogg, and my interpretation of what Kellogg wanted, you’d have to ask Kellogg, but my interpretation is they had an interest in doing, of trying to instill philanthropic ideas and volunteerism in the undergraduate curriculum. If you read their proposal, that’s what I take from that. We were primarily interested in graduate study for nonprofit execs and wannabes. They wanted undergraduate stuff, so we came to this grand compromise, we’ll 6 �do what you want if you let us do what we want. Don Lubbers was involved with a group of college presidents with Kellogg at a meeting and Kellogg pitched their idea, everybody thought it was fantastic until Kellogg said, “But we are not going to pay for the whole thing,” then interest I think dwindled a bit. Don Lubbers was really tuned in to philanthropy, he was a phenomenal fundraiser, had good people around him including Dottie Johnson and a host of others that were just neck deep in philanthropy, and so they well understood what we wanted to do as a center, and that was communicated to Kellogg. We’ll be glad and we understand the undergraduateness of what they wanted to do, and I think, this was unwritten, my impression, Kellogg saw the nature of the student body changing over time, now we’re up to 1990, there’s an awful lot being written about first generation college students, well if they’re first generation therefore they don’t have the history that previous college students had. I think Kellogg was concerned that the underlying understanding of service to the community and philanthropy and giving was somehow different in new students that we were getting at the college level than students from 10, 20 years before. Whether or not that’s true, I have no idea. That was my impression. Through the 70s, 80s you know we did the women’s study thing and nonwestern world and there were several attempts to kind of infuse in the curriculum new ideas. I believe Kellogg wanted volunteerism and service learning to be that next bit of infusion to get students thinking about how to give back to the community. (20:21) (JS): On some level, it may have been they may have assumed maybe that first generation students are looking at an undergraduate education as a credential or a ticket to a better job. They are looking to sort of improve their own position, and maybe not seeing as far past it. (MP): That could well be, and I don’t think it was an elitist position, you know, the wealthy kids of the past understand all this, you know how you’re supposed to play the game but these new kids don’t. I don’t think that was it as much as the numbers were so much bigger. We were getting you know, Grand Valley back in 1990 was what 10,000 students or less. (JS): Hit eleven thousand in 1990. (MP): Now we are at 22, 25. (JS): Twenty-five. (MP): Western was 14, and it went to 30, you know, so the magnitude of the number of people on campus was just mushrooming, you know. I’m the leading edge of the baby boomer; you can’t get any older than me and be a baby boomer. I was born in 1946. Bill Clinton, and George Bush and I, we’re all the same age. That means there are 75 million 7 �people behind me, and that boom is what Kellogg was interested in, I think. You’d have to ask them. (JS): Alright, now, if there hadn’t been a Kellogg grant or this thing had not come up, do you think there would have been much done in terms of study of philanthropy or things here at Grand Valley? (MP): It was beginning to happen in the literature. There were a couple early conferences that some of us went to, where the chat, the conversation in and around public administration was beginning to identify the nonprofit sector as sort of the third leg of the stool. And it was gaining in importance, so there was interest in gee, how do we, public administration is more than government, we know it’s not business, but it’s more than government, and by the way is anybody at all paying attention to nonprofits? Basically the answer was no. So, public administration as a field, I don’t think of it as a discipline, public administration as a field was moving to begin to incorporate some nonprofit administration at least, and so we were headed in that direction. We ended up with concentrations, a concentration in health care that had a set of courses that were contained almost like as electives within a master’s degree, and we were beginning to develop the same idea for nonprofit, we had the same in urban, and in criminal justice, there were four I think, concentrations that a student could select one of, they had to select one. So there were these core courses in administration, history of the field, personnel, statistics, policy analysis, those sorts of things, then there were specialized courses if you were interested in health administration, or nonprofit administration, criminal justice, then you would splinter off. Then come back together at the end with some capstone kinds of things. So the idea was to bring this variety of students together for some common knowledge. Split them off into specific concentrations and then bring them back together again, and as we brought them back together again they discovered they were more alike than they were different. They had some of the same problems, may have used different words, they had a different terminology from nonprofit to health care, but they were both concerned about getting the grant money and reimbursement and serving a client. So there was tremendous overlap that they didn’t understand at first, nor did we completely. (JS): Now, what sort of impact did it have ultimately on our programs here, once the Kellogg grant happens, what goes on or starts to happen that either couldn’t have happened or wouldn’t have happened as quickly? (The phone rings @ 25:11.) (MP) I don’t think the grants for service learning and all of that would have taken place, certainly not with the scale it did. Our deal with, let me back up to think about the service learning piece, our deal with Kellogg was that they would fund us but we had to put up money as well. It was a shrinking Kellogg component over a period of years. One of the 8 �things they were really interested in was us developing grants to faculty to get them involved in the community and not much of that had been happening without the grant. That was a new initiative. In part we were able to dangle dollars in front of a history professor or someone in who knows where, art, and ask them to go out in the community and find a connection, take their students with them, and we’ll pony up some grant money for it. So that was the carrot to get them to do that. I think most of that wouldn’t have happened without the Kellogg grant. I think we would have had a bit at least of the graduate concentration but not as much or as fast. (JS): How does an academic center like this one that you are creating, how is that going to actually relate to or connect with ongoing philanthropic activities, or organizations particularly within Michigan? Where are the connections? (MP): Connections? Again so much of this was historical. There was another organization in town back in the early days called the Direction Center, and they were involved with providing ongoing nonprofit support in the form of training and classes and all that sort of thing. Part of it was contractual work; part of it was in-service training. We had an agreement with them that we would do the credit level graduate work and not do the in-service learning kinds of things. They were going to focus on affirmative action workshop or whatever the latest ADA compliance thing was, they were going to focus on that. We were going to focus on the academic courses and try and improve the graduate level students that were working in West Michigan in nonprofit work, and then of course our connection through Kellogg and then with the Council of Michigan Foundations we have ongoing work there. A tad later, Kellogg funded a large effort about youth philanthropy and some of us were involved in that as well. (JS): Now as this, what becomes the Johnson Center, initially kind of gets off of the ground, who were sort of the key people in making that happen and what were they doing? (MP) Ninety one, ’92, don’t remember exactly, I am sure it’s in a file in some place, the grant’s awarded, we do a search and hire a new director or the first director, a guy named Thom Jeavons, came out of a religious philanthropy background, and that I suppose was the start of the center although it wasn’t called the Johnson Center yet, it was just the Center on Philanthropy. There was money in the grant to provide funding for some faculty. I was one of the named faculty. When I came here from Western, I brought along a journal that I was editing, New England Journal of Human Services, and we did that out of what’s now the Johnson Center. Published that for a while, and started doing the earliest part was starting the service learning projects as I recall and getting the curriculum through the curriculum committee to really get the graduate nonprofit concentration off the ground. So, key players, John Gracki, out of the president’s office I think he was associate provost back in those days, Eleanor French was still the director, 9 �Mike Mast worked on this some and had the real undergraduate focus that I didn’t have, Bob Clark was split between political science and public administration, tangentially involved with nonprofit, Jeavons, then we had some others that sort of came and went. (30:55) (JS): Now to what extent has, the creation of the center, how has that affected the kinds of classes you teach and the kinds of students you’ve seen in them, and if you’re looking at the students who were, is it attracting more or different students than you had been teaching back before this started or? (MP): Well dramatic change in the student body over the last 20 years. Twenty years ago, and this sounds like ancient history, you know, twenty years ago was primarily midcareer students in each of the concentrations, required to be mid-career in health care, turned out to be mid-career, because that’s where we, what little marketing we did, that’s where we marketed and they were local. We didn’t offer this in Toledo or any place else. It wasn’t online, so if you couldn’t drive here three nights a week, and it was only an evening program, if you couldn’t drive here you weren’t going to have it. Little later on we did some off campus stuff. So, western Michigan, mid-career, sort of nontraditional students that was our graduate niche. The undergraduates were Grand Valley’s undergraduates, of the day, and we didn’t have a specific undergraduate course in nonprofit for a long time until PA 300 came about some years later. But over that time, the student body at the now School of Public, Nonprofit and Health Administration, if I’ve got the name right, now there’s that mid-career element, much much smaller, there’s a foreign student element that wasn’t there previously, an occasional one student, and now there is a very large pre career component to the MPA, folks that got their degree last year maybe in psych or soch or history or business or who knows what, and they are pursuing a master’s degree in public administration. In those mid-career students, that group now also has some folks that are changing careers. They used to be at Hayworth or they used to be at somewhere else, but they’re not anymore and they’re interested in either government or nonprofit, to a large extent they are interested in nonprofit. That’s the other big change. It went from a Center for Public Administration that in the name meant government, now, and you have to check upstairs, but I would bet a third or less are going to be “government students”, two thirds or more are going to be nonprofit and health, and a good half of those are going to be nonprofit, so it’s, nonprofit is not the tail of the dog, it’s a very large component of what’s now public administration. (34:27) (JS): Now you’ve got this sort of influx of what we would I suppose call traditional graduate students in a way, they completed undergrad they go on to grad, so is it now in 10 �part that people go in through college, they recognize there are real career opportunities in nonprofit and then this kind of work in nongovernmental organizations and actually targeting that as an area to go work in? (MP): I think so, if you ask the incoming freshman they wouldn’t answer that in the affirmative. I don’t think it’s managed to work its way down to the high school yet, as they go through an undergraduate degree, and some begin to look at, alright, what are my opportunities when I leave here, some of them aren’t real satisfied with the options and start looking then for another avenue. Clearly there’s been growth in the service sector and in the nonprofit sector. There are jobs there, at the moment. If you are really interested in a job in government maybe your opportunities are a little thin, so where are the jobs, so part of it I think it is career driven, I think part of that is just the reality of the day. (JS): Now as far as the center itself has developed, how has, what have you observed in terms of the evolution of what became the Johnson Center over the course of time. You’ve now been able to look at it over twenty years, what’s happened to it over that time? (MP): It started out very clearly an element of the School of Public Administration, housed together, staffed together, separate budgets, but in the same pot. Today, very separate, physically, in different buildings, different staff, some crossing, but limited between PA faculty and Johnson Center activity, much less than there used to be, until whenever it was two or three years ago, whenever the new building was put up, we were still housed together. Even when we were still housed together, we were on opposite sides of the hallway, basically on opposite sides of the street, and the PA faculty mostly did PA faculty stuff, and the Johnson Center had their own staff doing a lot of work in the community. There was some cross-pollenization there, in part because many of our graduate students ended up being either interns or employees of the Johnson Center. The Johnson Center director historically has taught at least one course a semester a year, I don’t know, in the School of Public Administration, I don’t know if that’s still happening or not. The previous directors had been faculty members in the School of Public Administration, whether it was Thom Jeavons, or Dott, or Donna VanIwaarden, and Donna was a PA faculty that took over that job and kept her faculty title. Margaret Sellers Walker was a PA faculty that moved to what’s now the Johnson Center, but she was still faculty. I think we’ve lost that. That’s my impression. (38:26) (JS): Does the Johnson Center at this point have its own faculty or are there courses that are taught that relate to what it does that are those still public administration courses right now? 11 �(MP): To my knowledge the Johnson Center doesn’t have any faculty. The graduate programs, the academic stuff is still in the School of Public Administration, I think. But I’ve been gone for a few months, life may have changed. It’s a non-degree granting and as far as I know, non-tenure track faculty center. They have folks that work on a contract. To my knowledge, there’s no tenure there. And they’re in the main, maybe exclusively except for the director, not Ph.D. folks. They’re master’s level trained in general. I think that’s true. (JS): Ok. And do you see the center as providing a kind of complementary function to what is done in public administration, that if they can focus on a lot of the outreach and the training for because they run various programs and seminars and all this kind of stuff? (MP): Very much complementary, noncompetitive, the world is sort of divided up into credit granting and not. There’s some research that flips back and forth, may be funded by the Johnson Center and carried out by a PA faculty person, there may be a workshop given by the Johnson Center that a PA faculty person runs. But I think there’s a lot more separation now, clearly more separation than there ever has ever been. (JS): They are off at the Bicycle Factory now. (MP): Yeah, they got their own little universe over there. We certainly talked about all of us moving together and the faculty, as I remember, the faculty voted by a very slim margin not to do that because the faculty argued, rightfully so, that their focus needed to be where the students were, not off at the bicycle factory. I think by making that decision though, it created a large space between what they do and what PA does. Without sort of the constant connection, I believe you lose something in the separation. (41:30) (JS): Now to what extent do you see what we’re doing here with the Johnson Center as being kind of distinctive or unusual in terms of what universities do? (MP): Clearly, clearly outside the box. There’s only, I don’t remember the acronym, anyway there’s three of these centers: Indiana, Arizona, and here. The other two are both academic centers and a Johnson Center-like environment merged. We’re not, although I think we’re still considered an academic center, you’d to ask the Johnson Center folks, certainly less academic than the other two. But those three: Arizona, Indiana, and Grand Valley, that’s it. Those are the three big places. There are certainly other universities, San Francisco and others that are doing things in nonprofit, but it seems like that triangle, or triad or tri-something, that’s where an awful lot of work is being done. (JS): On some level you could kind of look back at the initiative that started this center 20 odd years ago now, as being something of a gamble, let’s go try this and see what 12 �happens which was the kind of thing that Don Lubbers did in a variety of situations, how successful has that gamble been? (MP): I think it has been hugely successful. Again we are talking about twenty years ago; Grand Valley was a very entrepreneurial place back then. Gee, I’ve got this idea, well go try it, see if it works. It didn’t work, come up with a new idea. It was very entrepreneurial; ah those days are long gone. It got more bureaucratic overtime, and I don’t mean for this to sound like the old guy complaining, but it just changed, you know. Changed for the better in some cases, and I think changed for the worse in some others. Comparing Western to Grand Valley -- and I taught at Western for 15 years and 20 at Grand Valley -- very, very different environments. Couldn’t have done this at Western. It was very bureaucratic then, it’s even more bureaucratic now I think. There was a little room for innovation because public administration was able to pull off some things, but it was a much more formal higher-ed model, where Grand Valley was still this young kid that was growing and you could do all sorts of things. If you had an idea, you typically skipped the provost, you went right to Don Lubbers, you call, “Hey Don, can I come in and see you?” “Oh sure.” You go in, you see Don Lubbers, and you pitched your idea and if he liked it, he gave you a check, basically to go try it and see what happens. (44:40) (JS): And this was a pretty big thing, the University of Michigan and places like that had the opportunity to do this and they passed it up. (MP): They passed it up. I think we were a gamble on the part of Kellogg. They would have bet, my guess again, I don’t speak for them, I think they would have been more comfortable with the U of M, you know some, or at least Wayne State, but Grand Valley? West side of the state, relatively young, I’m sure we didn’t do nice pretty proposals like U of M did, but we had the interest and the drive to do it, and willing on the part of the board of trustees to put up the money. And I think that was the gamble that Grand Valley was taking. We’ll try this, and we will fund it in a growing percentage over the period of three or five years to the point where the Kellogg money is gone, and then we’re committed to continue this as a line-item budget. And the other universities, I think they were very willing to do it if Kellogg paid for it. But Grand Valley’s model for many grants has been, we’ll pay part. If we think it’s a good idea, we ought to put up some of our own money to make the case that we think it is a good idea. Where, I believe anyway, in general terms, Michigan State or U of M were willing to take virtually any grant that comes along as long as there’s 100% funding, they don’t have anything to risk. (JS): I guess this is sort of my final question here. Where do you see the center and its programs going, what do you think is the most important thing for the center to be doing over the next decade or so? 13 �(MP): Truthfully I don’t know much of what the center is doing. There’s a new master’s degree in nonprofit administration. I’m not at either place anymore since I retired. I think they can be a stand-alone west Michigan center that does what they do, and most likely they do it very well. My opinion, the center and public administration should get back together. Quit the squabbling, not that they’re really squabbling, patch up the divorce or whatever it is, and get back together. I think they can do more together than they can apart. That’s an idea. But no one asked me. (JS): The historian did. Ok. In that case I’d like to just close out here. Thank you for taking time to come talk to us. (MP): Glad to do it. (47.56) 14 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7290ae56072fbad0a448c45c0aa5ff0f.mp4 9b7819efcbee864e3f7452a13af2396e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project Interviews Subject The topic of the resource Philanthropy and society--Personal narratives Family foundations--Michigan Charities--Michigan Description An account of the resource The Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project (MPOHP) was initiated in 2006 as an innovative partnership between the Council of Michigan Foundations, StoryCorps, Michigan Radio and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University to create an oral history of Michigan philanthropy. Additional video interviews were created by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy to add to the depth and breadth of the collection. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/516">Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project (MPOHP) (JCPA-08). Johnson Center for Philanthropy Archives</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Sound Text Moving Image Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf video/mp4 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-08 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2006-2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Johnson Center for Philantrhopy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource StoryCorps (Project) Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/516">Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project (JCPA-08)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Payne, Michael R. video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Payne, Michael R. Description An account of the resource Michael (Mike) Payne, Ph.D., discusses his service in the Air Force, education in economics at the University of Missouri and Syracuse, his study of for-profit and nonprofit hospitals in New York State in the late 60s, and teaching at Union University, Western Michigan University, and Grand Valley State University. He discusses developing health administration curriculum at Grand Valley State University, incorporation of nonprofit administration in the public administration field, and development of the Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, Michigan Philanthropy Oral History Project Subject The topic of the resource Philanthropy and society Personal narratives Grand Valley State University Education, Higher--Curricula Universities and colleges--United States--Administration Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-08_PayneM Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Relation A related resource Johnson Center for Philanthropy Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-28 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7854cb90d03c0772625fbc80de9e1834.jpg cb6af99e5dfb2b5c0efb00c658807306 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PayneMike_Photo01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Payne, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Payne Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df72c1b96373efe3265472c1beb7a5e1.jpg cace77f92fe725206cd7d443de606618 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PayneMike_Photo02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Payne, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Payne Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f387ab0edb6040286a09eba59e599b3a.jpg af43c7381cd1432e9ab1e12979c65220 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_M567 Title A name given to the resource PB2Y Coronado patrol bomber Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource PB2Y Coronado US patrol bomber, circa 1945. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1945 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives