Transcript of interview with Ruth Poirier by Joanne Goodwin, February 5, 2003

An Interview with Ruth Poirier by Joanne L. Goodwin Conducted on February 5, 2003 Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas 2003 ii © Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2003 Produced by: Las Vegas Women Oral History Project Women’s Research Institute of Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-5083 Director and Editor: Joanne L. Goodwin Project Assistant and Text Processor: Laurie W. Boetcher iii iv List of Illustrations Frontispiece: The Brick Tops, formerly The Parisian Red Heads, directed by Bobby Grice, one of the top all-girl bands in the 1930s. The photographs listed below follow the text: 1. Doris Pressler and her mother, Bertha Hendrich Pressler, date unknown. 2. Doris Pressler, ca. 1929. 3. Gypsy Sweethearts, ca. 1927. 4. Talent newsletter, New York, January 1, 1933 profiling the Red Dominos. 5. Band on the road, posing in Allentown, Pennsylvania, ca. 1939. 6. All-girl band posing on the lake, Flint, Michigan, ca. late 1930s. 7. Cleo Balcom and her Musical Aces, ca. late 1930s. 8. Annette Demon and her French Dolls, ca. 1939. 9. Doris Pressler with engineering colleagues, ca. early 1940s. 10. The "Club Ron" in California, ca. 1940s. 11. Doris Pressler, ca. 1950s. 12. Las Vegas Senior Band, 1976-1982. All photographs are courtesy of Ruth Poirier. v Preface In 1927, a sixteen-year-old girl from Rockford, Illinois moved to New York City to play trumpet with the all-girl bands common from the 1920s through the end of World War II. During this period, which spanned Prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War II, all-girl bands came into their own in America. They were especially popular during the war, when most men were off fighting but people still needed and appreciated music. This was also a time when jazz and swing became wildly popular in this country. All-girl bands were able fill a niche left empty by men at war. Doris Eloise Pressler was born in Jamesville, Illinois on January 17, 1911 to Bertha Hendrich Pressler and Louis Pressler. Almost immediately after her birth, the Pressler family moved to Rockford, Illinois. Bertha was a teacher, a homemaker and mother. Louis did auto body hand-painting and also managed a bar. In addition, he played baritone saxophone and taught his daughter Doris to play trumpet. They both performed with hometown bands, playing churches, dances, and other social events. In 1927 at age sixteen, Doris left school, moved out of the family home, and went to work for Walgreens in downtown Rockford. In her free time she played music. Doris began her professional music career in 1927 as a trumpeter with the Gypsy Sweethearts in Rockford. That same year, she moved to New York, where she played in the only women’s band that ever performed at New York’s historic Roseland Ballroom. During the early 1930s, Doris performed with the Red Dominos, an all-girl band that was part of a variety show produced by E. K. Nadel. However, it was tough for girl musicians during the Depression. Few managers wanted to hire female players when so many men were out of work. Doris persevered, and through the 1940s, she traveled and played with other all-girl bands such as Annette Demon and her French Dolls and the Hollywood Debs. While Doris pursued her music career, a little girl in Wisconsin was learning to play the piano and trombone. Born on April 13, 1917, Ruth Poirier came from a musical family: her father John played drums and French horn, her brother drums and bassoon. John performed with the local Elks Club group, while Ruth and her brother played for their high school band. Ruth’s mother Mary had been a nurse, so when she finished high school Ruth decided to attend nursing school in Chicago. After a year, she returned home to vi Wisconsin and trained as a beautician. In 1939, Ruth answered a local ad for girl musicians and signed on as a trombonist with an all-girl band. Her first gig lasted only a month, the band dissolved, and she left to tour with Annette Demon and her French Dolls out of Milwaukee. While playing down South, Ruth met a fellow musician who became her lifelong companion, Doris Pressler. In July 1939, Ruth and Doris took off for Southern California. While living in Long Beach, Doris performed with bands at the 660 Club on the Pike, a well-known waterfront amusement park, and at the Waldorf Cellar. She also played a gig at Murphy’s, across from the Showboat in Las Vegas. Girl musicians began getting more jobs because the men were being called into military service. Ruth, a “Rosie the Riveter” during the war years, helped to build Navy fighter planes for Douglas Aircraft in El Segundo, California. After the war ended in 1945 women, whether “Rosie the Riveters” or band members, lost their jobs to the hordes of returning servicemen. Realizing that all-girl bands were “gonna go nowhere at all,” Doris had decided in the early 1940s to return to school and pursue studies in her second love, mathematics. She took classes in math and engineering at the University of Southern California, and then joined the Los Angeles County surveyors’ department as a civil engineer. After two years there, Doris transferred to the road department, where she worked until her retirement in 1974. Ruth returned to work as a beautician, running a shop out of her home. The Greater Los Angeles area contained an active gay and lesbian community both during and after the war. Doris and Ruth enjoyed a social life that included girls’ clubs such as Tess’s and drag clubs like the Flamingo. According to Ruth, these were “sitting-down, drinking places…and visiting. We had one club where they had dancing…. But then they let everybody in.” After the war, everybody just wanted to have fun, and Doris and Ruth enjoyed getting together with all types of friends in clubs and in private homes. During these at-home evenings, Doris and others would play popular music for everyone’s enjoyment. After their retirement to Las Vegas in 1974, Doris and Ruth were active in their local senior center. Doris played with the Las Vegas Senior Band for ten years, and Ruth worked in support of the band and the center. According to Ruth, Doris loved playing vii with the band, and enjoyed it more because she was retired and could devote herself to her playing. Doris Pressler and Ruth Poirier lived together through six decades of radical social change in America. From the rise of women musicians and workers outside the home, through the return of women to more “traditional” roles after World War II, and finally the revolution in women’s roles from the 1960s to the present, Doris and Ruth experienced it all. And through it all, they maintained a relationship that lasted for 62 years, until Doris’s death. According to Ruth, “I enjoyed my life. I never found anything wrong with it. …I think Doris would say the same.” viii The Brick Tops, formerly The Parisian Red Heads, directed by Bobby Grice was one of the top all-girl bands in the 1930s. ix An Interview with Ruth Poirier An Oral History Conducted by Joanne L. Goodwin 1 1 This is Joanne Goodwin. It’s February 5th, 2003. [I’m] interviewing Ruth Poirier at the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada at UNLV. We’ll start – and I want to thank you for coming and for being a part of our project here and for signing our papers, giving us permission. What we want to start out talking now, you thought you might want to start out talking about Doris first, so will you tell us what this is – at the beginning, tell us Doris’s full name and spell her last name for us. Doris E. Pressler, last name P-R-E-double-S-L-E-R. Doris is from Illinois. She – Do you want me to – Shall I go on? Oh, I’m always doing that. I’ll sit on ’em. She was born in Wisconsin? No, Doris was born in Illinois. Do you remember her parents’ names? Yeah, her mother’s name was Bertha Hendrich and her father’s name was Louis Pressler. And what was her father’s and mother’s occupations? Well, her mother was just a housewife, which everybody was in those days ’cause, you know, Doris was born in 1911. So that was it. And the father used to work with the early automobiles, when they used to paint on these stripes, put the stripes on, he did it and drew a straight line like this [gesturing] without ever, you know – they did it by hand but they had to be very good at it, and that’s what he did, and other things, you know, and then he also had a bar that he managed and so, why, that was it. Where did Doris get her interest in music? 2 2 Her father. Her father played baritone [saxophone] and he taught Doris to play trumpet, and he was very good and he belonged, of course, to the band back there and Doris did too, and they played different things like churches and things like that, you know, and – but that’s where she got her music from, was her father. In fact, all the relatives were musicians. Really. To this day, yeah. Her mother as well? The mother not, no. The mother was a teacher. No, her mother did not, but her uncle, which would’ve been her uncle, he taught music and his wife was a teacher of English and what have you. But other than that – But Doris always loved music. I think that was her first love, and also mathematics, but you find out that mathematics and music are like this [gesturing]. Closely linked. If you figure, what you’re doing, you’re figuring – you’re doing mathematics when you’re playing music. And she loved both of those things. So anyway, she lived in New York six years when she was – she left home when she was sixteen years old. She had a stepfather by that time and she didn’t get along with him, so she left home and went to New York and she played in many bands. She was with the only women’s band that played at the Roseland Ballroom when it was still there. 3 3 The Roseland? The Roseland Ballroom in New York. She was in the only women’s band that was ever in there. Let’s go back to Illinois, and she said she played in a band with her father? Is that what you said? No, her father played in bands and so did she… Oh, I see. …but Doris did play in the band from the Local 47, you know, which is the same as 47 in California, I don’t know what – oh, she joined the musicians’ union the same place that Jack Benny did… Oh… …Waukegan, Illinois. …I’ll be darned. Yeah, that’s where she joined and of course then she played with the local band that they had there in their home town, so… Now, you said – and we’ve seen pictures of this first group… Uh-huh, yeah. 4 4 …I believe you told me it was around 1927 she joined the Gypsy Sweethearts? The Gypsy Sweethearts, yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about that group, as you recall. Well, I didn’t know very much about it because she had been – her first – I could never tell you the name of the first band she was with – this other gal that is still living in California, she had a band originally in Doris’s home town and Doris played with them, and then both the other one and Doris got into the Gypsy Sweethearts and they played out of Chicago, Illinois, and I don’t know how long they played with that, you know, she didn’t say and I wasn’t thinking about it, and then she was with the Red Dominos, another band. All of these were bands that were around Chicago at that time, but… Why were all-girl bands such a phenomenon at that time? Because World War Two, the fellas went to war, and as soon as the war was over, the girls were done. Then what they did, they started all little bands and just played. Okay. Now, that’s jumping a little bit ahead of where I want to go. Just a second. You said her first band was in 1927, so in 1930 she was playing a number of these bands? Yeah, and she was in New York then, she went to New York. This gal that had the band in New York wired Doris and said she’d like to have her join her band in New York. And I forgot what the name of the band was at that time. Anyway, so she played – she was six years in New York, she lived in the Village [Greenwich Village] and she played all over. Oh, they played all over around New York and Isle of Palms and all these 5 5 places and, oh, even went to Miami, played down there. They traveled. They were a traveling band out of New York, so… Was this at the time that she was playing with the Hollywood Debs? Yeah, and those bands, yeah. Yeah, the Hollywood Debs and the Red Dominos. I’m trying to think of some of the other bands. And she played Babe Egan and her something-or-others [Babe Egan and her Hollywood Redheads], I can’t remember the name of that. Babe Egan was from Texas… Baby Gun? Babe Egan. Babe Egan. E-G-A-N. E-G-A-N, yeah. I’m sorry. Okay. And she was with that band for a long time. I cannot remember the years… That’s all right. …because I just don’t. But anyway, then after World War Two, Doris decided – she said to me one day, she said, “You know, I’m going to get out of music,” she said, “it’s gonna go nowhere at all,” and she said, “I’m gonna go back to school.” And so she went to USC [University of Southern California] and she went into engineering. And she 6 6 finished there and she went and got a job at the – she didn’t finish, she took a lot of courses, because she was older and she didn’t want to get into – so she took all the courses she could, like calculus and all of that sort of thing. She took all of these things that were important for engineering. And she said, “I’m going to go down to the county and take a look at what they got down there,” so she went down there and sure enough, surveyor’s department, there was an opening. So she said, “I’m gonna go take the test,” and she took it and she got first in the line-up, and they took her right away. And then she was with the surveyors about two years, and this head of the road department came down one day and he said, “Doris, my name is Such-And-Such.” (Anyway, his name was Bracewell. He’s been dead quite a few years now.) Anyway he said, “I’ve been watching you,” and he said, “I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about your work. Would you be interested in coming to the road department?” And she said, “Oh, I’d love it.” She said, “I think I would really love that,” you know, building the roads, all that, you know. And so anyway, she did, she transferred, and he said, “It means a big, big jump in salary, too,” because the road department was so much bigger. They had the largest road department in the country, in California. So anyway, she did and boy, she loved her work and she was absolutely – I mean, her printing, everything they did, you know, was so nice. I don’t know whether I showed you the thing that she did on this one street. It was at Doheny. That’s the type of work she did. And she told ’em when they did that one, she says, “You know, I’m gonna change this because if you do it the way you have, these people down here are gonna 7 7 have to walk up to get to the road.” And the boss said, “Do it your way, Doris.” [Laughing] And they did, and she drew that. But you see, her work was always – she was never satisfied with her work. She was never satisfied when she played. She never thought she did well enough, and gosh, everybody loved to hear her play. She played beautiful trumpet, and she played ad-lib which was from – and when she played something… They used to have a little sax player in the band that I was with. And every time Doris would – she played “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise” because that was her mother’s favorite tune, and she’d play that for her, and this little girl would sit there, tears running down her face [laughing]. I’d get hysterical. I’d say, “For God’s sake, crying over a tune.” But Doris never just though that she was good enough, you know. I mean, even when she, you know, it wasn’t too long – well, the last time she sat down at the piano she played a couple of choruses and she says, “I can’t do it.” Perfection. And then she said – she went into her desk ’cause I’ve been doing all the budget now. She had taught me to do that, and thank God, every day I thank her because I stay by my budget. And so anyway, she went in and looked at her desk and she said, “Gee, I gotta get back to doing this stuff again,” and I said, “Well, when you feel better you can do it, you know.” I had to pass it off like that. I knew she’d never do it again. I don’t think I thought that but I mean, it’s – she was so weak, you know, I just figured she wasn’t gonna be able to do it. But anyway. 8 8 Let’s go back to her family in Illinois. You said she went to New York, she did a lot of playing and touring. Did she ever return to Illinois for family reasons? No. She loved her mother. She’d go to visit her mother, but she would go – she always got an apartment or stayed with her father, one or the other, but she’d never go back to her mother’s house ’cause the guy [stepfather] was impossible. So anyway, but she adored her mother, naturally. She lost her mother the year I met Doris, just a month before. Then while we were on the road that time – we were in New Orleans – her father died. And she hopped the train to be there. She hopped the train, got on the train, and I said, “I’ll call my folks.” My mother and dad wired some money to the next – they figured out – they checked with the operator and he says, “You can wire it to this such-and-such a stop and she’ll get it,” for her fare. So they did that and… She literally hopped the train. She did. She was gonna get home to her father if she had to crawl, I guess, and I don’t blame her. I mean, her father was very good to her. So did she at any time take care of her mother while she was sick? No, she never could because he… [Because] of her stepfather? Her stepfather. Oh, I see, okay. Okay, so she left her family’s home at about sixteen, supported herself? 9 9 Yeah, she always did, yeah. She worked some office one time. She did other things, you know, because naturally all the music jobs weren’t there all the time, you know, so. I call ’em jobs, they call ’em gigs [laughing]. And the women that she would play with, there was just this circuit of women bands, there was always work available? Yeah, well, that’s the thing, there wasn’t always but she kept pretty busy because she was well-liked. These are all smaller bands, you understand now, because the guys had come back. Even in New York she worked in a lot of smaller bands. And she’d work anything. She’d take any job they offered her, you know. Were these like bands for ballrooms? Some were ballrooms, some were clubs, some were bars. Whatever they were, she worked, you know. She was her sole support. Okay, let’s see. She was working during Prohibition, then, wasn’t she? I’m sure, yeah. Yeah. That was a little bit before your involvement. Oh yeah. I knew about Prohibition but I don’t remember what year Prohibition… I think it ended in the mid-Thirties. 10 10 Mid-Thirties. Oh, okay, then I knew about it, yeah. Well, I didn’t pay any attention to it because I was a kid, you know. Okay, let’s move to your beginning – where and when you were born, your parents… I was born in Wisconsin, April 13th, 1917. I just lived with my parents and – well, I had a brother who did everything nicely and perfectly, and I was just the opposite. Our mother used to say occasionally, she’d say, “Why can’t you behave like your brother?” Well, I was hyper, I was always on the go. I got over it, believe me. I mean, I was always into something. Never anything bad, but just – it seemed like if there was something going on I’d be there, you know. Well, they’d say, “Ruth was there.” Well, you know, I’m sure I was. Anxious. So you had one brother. Uh-huh, that’s it. And you went all the way through school in Wisconsin? Yeah, right. How did you get started in music? Saw an ad. Oh, to begin with, I went to Chicago. I was in nurse’s training for a year. And my mom had been a nurse and a friend of mine went into nursing, so I went there. So anyway, my dad said before he left me – I was crying, I was so lonesome already – he 11 11 said, “If you still don’t want to stay in a year, you come home.” Well, my mother was ready to kill him about that time, you know, but a year to the day I went home. I quit. And it isn’t that I didn’t like it, and I got good grades because that’s all I had to do was sit there and study, you know. So anyway, but I went home and then my dad said, “Well now, you don’t think that you’re just gonna sit here and do nothing. You’ve gotta find something to do.” Well, a friend of mine called. She said, “Hey Ruth, there’s an ad in the paper for girl musicians.” So I went and interviewed [with] this gal in another town, and I was with that band for, oh, just only a month. The band didn’t really last, to tell you the truth. And then I heard about the one that was out of Milwaukee, actually, and so I went and I interviewed [with] the gal there, and that’s the band I went down South with, and Doris did, too. And so we left in two great big cars – half of the band was in one car and half in the other – and we left and we were on our way to Chicago and we ended up in a snowdrift. Now these cars were all-steel cars and if you turned the wheel, you turned ’em like this [demonstrating]. It took a lot of power, and of course we were all young girls so we were very strong. And so anyway I said to this one gal, I said, “You steer this car, turn your wheels, and we’ll shove you.” Well, we shoved that car out of the snowdrift and back on the road, five of us. Well, then they left me off at this bar out of Chicago and I went in there and I said, “I’m looking for…” Oh, this is what’s so funny, because they left me. Now, how did they know that she was gonna show up, you know? They didn’t know, and I never even thought about it. I said, “I’m supposed to meet somebody.” He says, “Yes,” he 12 12 says, “her name is Doris?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “She said to call as soon as you got here.” So I called her, and she was out there with her little straggly wire-haired terrier. Her name was Lucky. So anyway here comes Doris and she’s got white shirt, jodhpurs on, and boots. I said, “Are you going riding?” [Laughing] She said, “No, but I like these.” And they had a band that they called the Aviators, or something to do with that, and they wore these outfits in the band, so she had those, so anyway. And this is during the Depression, so you wore whatever you had. So anyway, we went – this is a nineteen twenty-eight Dodge we were in, her car. She wouldn’t let me drive it, and so anyway I said, “Well, okay.” So she drove, and she brought a bottle of apricot brandy [laughing] and kept sipping on that. By the time that we got – we were going to Nashville and we ended up in Nashville, luckily. Anyway, so we got to Nashville and that was all right. And that’s when we first met. And we stayed at this – I don’t know which hotel it was at that time. Anyway, we played all around Nashville and we played Gulfport, Mississippi. We played wonderful places – played yacht clubs and some of these beautiful homes, you know, they have kept as a – what do they call ’em, the Landmark or whatever, gorgeous places. And this fella that hired the band, he would leave enough money so we could eat and get to the next stop, but we never got our salaries. And so anyway, we ended up in New Orleans and played at the Chez Paris. And when we were there Doris went to this owner. Now, they had just had – I don’t know what the colored band was in there but one of the big bands. Anyway he said, “We’re just a little strapped right now, so you play ball with us and we’ll see that you get your money.” This is the way everything went on with this. Anyway, what they used to call it was a “panic” and I’m sure we were 13 13 on it, but I thought it was just fun so it didn’t, you know – as long as I had something to eat and a place to sleep, that was all right. So anyway, Doris went to the owner. She said, “Well, the rest of the band can go ahead and play but Ruth and I are going to get paid.” He says, “Okay.” And so anyway, I didn’t say anything to him. The manager of the band got wind of it, and he was a creep anyway, so he said, “Well, Ruth is with us. She’s gonna stay with us.” Doris says, “No, she’s not.” And so anyway, and I said, “No, I’m not.” And he said, “She’s not gonna get paid. You can get paid, but not Ruth.” She says, “Well, Ruth’ll get paid or we’re through tonight.” Well, they couldn’t take us to the union because the guy who had been running this thing, he was cheating us all the time and, you know. Well anyway, we ended up down in this – oh, in the meantime Doris’s father had died so she, as I said, went home. Okay. So then when she got back, we were playing in Jenrette, Louisiana – I remember the name of that place – and all of a sudden this woman came in – and we were practically paying for our room and board. Things really were terrible in those days. But being young, it was fun to me. I thought, you know, I got a place to eat, sleep, you know. So anyway, in comes this great big lady with the cops, arrested the band. We ended up in Louisiana. They came and they – we had to drive the cars and the fella came right with us, one of those policemen came right with us. And Jackie had a little white Spitz and I had Dorothy’s dog Lucky. So anyway, they put us all in jail. And when we went to court the next day, the first thing, this big – she was this big around [gesturing] – she came in and the fella took the chair out for her and she sat on the floor [laughing], so of course we started laughing. Well then, she was furious, you know, 14 14 by this time. Well, what happened is, the judge, the little bench judge – he had a little goatee and a mustache, cute as heck – and we’re all sitting there and he was walking in like this [gesturing] and Jackie’s little dog was scared to death. I’d been around a jail but never been in it. Anyway, so he took a look at the band and he pointed to me and he said, “That’s the only Frenchman in the crowd,” ’cause the name of the band was Annette and her French Dolls, see? Well, anyway he said, “I want to see the manager of the band and the leader in my chambers,” and he pointed to this thin gal, “I want to see you and you.” And we had to be fingerprinted. Everything had been done the night before, you know. So anyway, he came in and when he came back he didn’t hold them, but they had to sign a paper and put out for this – they don’t call him a producer, I forgot what the name of it was, anyway he was the one that – and they did get him. What was the charge? The charge was that she didn’t pay the band and, see, we didn’t play this one job that this woman had because they had such a terrible like a typhoon, storm, and only half the band got there. Well, we couldn’t play with half a band. If we had had a few instruments that went together, fine, but they were all really not. So anyway, that’s why she did this, and so the judge came out and he said, “You are all dismissed. There will be no records of this put on the books. We’re not holding this band. You cannot hold this band for your responsibilities.” And so anyway, that was the end of that. 15 15 Ruth, let’s go back to your family and growing up in Wisconsin and the training, or how you learned music. First of all, what were your parents’ names? I’m not sure we got – or do you not want your parents’ names? No. Okay. How do you spell your last…? They’re Mary and John. Mary and John. And your last name is spelled P-O-I-R-I-E-R? Yeah. P-O-I-R-I-E-R. Everybody has trouble with that name. Yeah. Okay. And how you came to music. Now, was your family musical? Your family. My brother played. My dad played. My dad was in the Elks band and he played drums and French horn. My brother played drums and bassoon. I played piano and trombone in the band. What band? Well, just in our high school. High school band. Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. You played piano and…? 16 16 No, I played trombone. And that was your experience then for these later girl groups. Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. That was it. How did you get started? Well, I just got this ad. A friend of mine told me there was this ad in the paper for this one band, and that’s when I started, that first band. And I don’t think it even had a name. They only lasted about three weeks [laughing]. Then I found this other band, it was out of Milwaukee, but anyway I went with that one. And that’s the one that we went down South with. From our earlier talks, you mentioned that that group was based in Nashville? Well, we went down to Nashville and then it would be in all the areas around there, you know, and we ended up at the Chez Paris in New Orleans. But as I say, we played all these beautiful homes and yacht clubs. Very nice. Very nice dances. And on that tour, were you ever playing clubs or showrooms or theaters? No. He had gone ahead and made all these arrangements for all these different places. They were nice places. And he’d been paid, you see. And so they went to all of these people and they got him. They did get him. He was in prison. He was put in prison. Did you play dance music? 17 17 Oh yeah, yeah. It was mostly dance music, yeah. And how would you categorize your music? Was it swing or was it…? Well, it would be like swing from jazz. Doris played everything. I mean, you know, she loved jazz, absolutely loved jazz, so we played it. And then of course we had all of our charts, so it was all arranged. And mostly it was swing because this gal was not much for jazz – the leader. You’re playing in the South, it’s 1939, at the end of the Depression. It must have been, first of all, a great time for music. Yeah, it was. Well, it was fine for the fellas. The men bands were great – oh no, the women came in around 1939. Yeah, that’s right. They came in during the war. [End of side one, tape one.] And you never had mixed bands. It was either all male or all female. It was so funny. This one band – I think I have a picture, but I’m not sure, of it. They have this fellow – they couldn’t find a drummer so they made him wear a dress. We had to get a guy to play the drums because we couldn’t find a girl drummer, and we had these dates, so they put him in this dress and the dress was like this [gesturing] and his chest hair was…[laughing]. Did he travel with you? Well, he traveled for a while, you know, but that’s all. 18 18 Did you ever interact with any black bands with jazz or blues or any of that? No. Because of course that was such a hot time for that. Well, the jazz started in what, New Orleans? Yeah. Loved the funeral things they do. You talk about jazz, that’s real jazz, and Doris loved it and she loved to play jazz. She was just absolute about that. And, you know, ours was background stuff, you see. A lot of our things were background stuff for her, and in fact they used her so much of the time, and the sax player, you know. But see, our work – and I played a few solos, not much. I enjoyed it. I could sit back and relax and really enjoy it, you know. How long did you play? We only played about – let’s see, we left [Wisconsin in] March [1939] and we left New Orleans in July. And when I got to California – we came to California – I called my mother, I said, “I want to go to California with Doris,” and Mother said – it didn’t bother her, she’s so cute – she says, “Well, all right, but don’t forget to write.” [Laughing] I never forgot that. I’d think of that so often and I thought, “She didn’t say anything more?” Somebody said, “Is that what your mother…,” I said, “Yeah.” And Mother says, “Well,” she said, “I know you. You made up your mind and you’re gonna do it,” so she said, “I said okay.” But then Doris had eighty dollars and I had twenty-five, and we pooled our money, our big wad, and we drove that nineteen twenty-eight Dodge from New Orleans to California. The only problem we ever had was it got a broken fan belt. 19 19 That was all, and everything. And we got there. Doris did so many things. See, I didn’t do any of these things. Anyway, so we get to California. First thing, she had a job the next day, down at what used to be called the Pike in Long Beach, many, many years ago. It was during the war and all the ships had come in and that’s where the sailors used to go, down to that dance place down there, and I think it was the Six Sixty Club. And so Doris played down there, and I didn’t play. They had a trombone player so they didn’t need me. And I was just as glad ’cause I said, “I want to go to school. I want to go and get my state board and go b