Transcript of interview with Dr. Harrie Fox Hess by Scot Siegel, February 26, 1979

UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess i An Interview with Dr. Harrie Fox Hess An Oral History Conducted by Scot Siegel Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess iv Abstract On February 26th, 1979, Scot Siegel interviewed his psychology professor, Dr. Harrie Hess (born March 1, 1929 in Hammond, Indiana) in his office at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. Hess discusses his family’s reason for moving to Nevada and how he felt as a young adult moving to Las Vegas. The two go on to talk about Dr. Hess’ contributions to Nevada through his work as a psychologist, and briefly mentions the first law to be drafted on psychology certification in Nevada. Dr. Hess then describes the Wild Cat Lair as an important site of social recreation for early Las Vegas youth. The interview concludes with his memory of Boulder (Hoover) Dam and how he believes that workers from the Great Depression paved the way for industrial success in gambling due to their employment on the Dam. UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 1 The informant of this oral interview is Professor Harrie Hess. The date of the interview is February 26th, 1979 at 2 o’clock. The place is University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89154. The name of the collector is Scot Siegel of 3600 Swenson, Apartment 338, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89109. The name of the project is History 117: Oral Interview. Professor, will you please state your name and present address? Yes, I’m Harrie Hess, I live on 1520 Mancha Drive, Boulder City. Okay sir, where were you born, and on what date? I was born in Hammond, Indiana, March 1st, 1929. Alrighty, when did you and your family settle in settle in Nevada, and why? We came to Las Vegas in the August of 1946. I’d say we came here because we were, well we felt we were pioneers coming out west—did you get that on? Oh, that’s on—(unintelligible). Alrighty. Yes, we thought we were pioneers coming out west, and we wanted a better life. We also—another thing as well, was my parents’ desire, particularly my step-father’s, of kind of getting away from his family which had been a dominating influence in his life. The opportunity to come up here occurred because my grandfather, F.H. Fox, who had retired from the practice of medicine in Hammond, had come out here, and bought two years earlier, and that was during the Second World War—he came out here and, you know, for his retirement home. The reason he came out here, was that his sister, Stella Bing, had settled here in Las Vegas in 1905, where the town was originally founded. And she, Stella, and her husband, had been in the lumber business here. So when my grandfather decided to retire, he selected a place that he had heard, you know, UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 2 was a neat place to live, and there were some opportunities, and he had never really liked medicine anyways, so he wanted to do something else. That’s interesting. Were those the main expectations that you and your folks had in Nevada? Yes, new opportunity, excitement, a nice climate. I remember getting a letter from grandfather Fox, in March of 1946—and it was on my birthday, March 1st— and he said, “its seventy-five degrees here in Las Vegas,” and I know that we were still traipsing through snow back in Indiana. Yes. That was a big influence. What type of work did your family members engage in? Well, of course, my grandfather was a physician, my step-dad Bill Deutch, was in Indiana, the manager of hotel. That hotel was owned by his father, Leo Deutch, and then during the war—the Second World War—Bill worked at the Poland Standard Carbonite Manufactory, company there in Hammond, which was a war plant, where they assembled tanks. And so you were dolled in at the hotel and all night at the factory because he was for—a good serve in the military. So he made some extra money during the war, and gave us all an estate which enabled us to move. I see. How did living here in Nevada influence your lifestyle? Well, when I came out here of course in 1945, I was a seventeen year old kid, and I was entering my senior year of high school. It was a big social change for me, I’ve been kind of—did my own school back east, and you know, that was a big social change. But I would say that the move out here just had a really, really pervasive influence on our destinies as a family. It just sort of directed you know, the remainder of our lives—Bill got involved in different businesses, you UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 3 know, my step-father, my mother became quite active in politics, and then Bill got into politics, so following her—they have continued to be exceedingly active in civic affairs. Like, down to the day, Bill still serves in a number of appointed positions, and of course he (unintelligible), so he’s—he has achieved, let’s say, a degree of prominence out here that would have been quite unlikely to achieve back home. And well, it has had just as pervasive effect on my own life too, I’m sure. I imagine it would, you know? Where did you reside—what places would you travel that you felt were very interesting? Well, our first home here in Las Vegas was at 607 South Sixth Street—it was a duplex. My grandfather had bought it, and then we occupied one half of it while he occupied the other. I remodeled the garage and back and the porch with the four boys in the family at that time, and—so we lived there for a couple of years and then we moved towards where Huntridge is now. ‘Cause Huntridge was a brand new neighborhood then. Then we’ve had various residences around town—the sort of recreational travels would be, you know, the places in the area around here, like Death Valley, and the National Parks in Utah, and Grand Canyon, stuff like that— Did you travel to the coast of California? Yes, we have done that—we do that more in recent years than we did back then, however. The drive to California in the 1940s was, kind of a hard and unusual and dangerous drive. That highway claimed many lives—it was just a double end road—you’ve seen the old LA Highway here, that was it! All the way to you know—and it was— That brings us into our next question now, I felt was very interesting. What was transportation like on the roads around here? There were roads, and for a highway system? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 4 Well, there were two lane highways into Las Vegas in the same locations as where they are now. There was the road to Kingman, again, kind of a narrow-winding and dangerous two-lane road. There was the one up towards Utah called—we now call it the Salt Lake Highway. It was torturously winding in some places, and again, a dangerous road. There was the hilly highway to L.A., narrow two-lane, a ‘lotta big trucks on it and many dips. We had no visibility to the front at all—and then there was the highway to Reno. So essentially, the same highways that exist now, but they were kind of narrow and dangerous roads and going anywhere was more of an adventure than it is now. I can see that, sure. I meant to ask you as well, were a lot of the roads paved, or were they gravel? Or, were they constructed—? All those highways were paved, and they probably had been paved for many years even before you know, 1946. But, here in the Las Vegas area, you know, the streets and the town were paved at that time, and they were broad. And one of my biggest impressions was, as we moved down to Sixth Street, for example, and Las Vegas Boulevard South—how broad the streets are compared to you know, the towns of the east. They no longer look that way to me, but I was really surprised with the high quality and size of the streets back in those days. Now, on the area where we are now, here at the university—you see, Maryland Parkway was non-existent in those days, although maybe there was a dirt trail down here. And of course, McCarran field then, did not reach the area where Paradise Road is, so if you wanted to go out into the boondocks, out into Paradise Valley, you can take Paradise Road, which was paved out, oh, about as far as where the airport is now. Then it became a dirt road and it was a popular place for young people to go out into the desert and park with their sweethearts— Uh-huh. UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 5 And stuff like that. West Charleston was a dirt road; beyond the underpass was Charleston Boulevard. Well now, it’s a major road there. So really though, the highways and the streets in town, those were the big streets. The rest of ‘em were dirt roads. How did you take to the development of the airport? You mentioned the airport. Well, see the airport was there, but the runway—it just wasn’t as large as it is now because the old airplanes didn’t require as much runway. Mm-hmm. So it was all we knew, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years ago they extended the runway across paradise road, and that made the big runway for the jets, you know. I’d say that the airport is a much more common influence upon the city now than it was then. The little airplanes came in now, like the DC-3s, were you know, they just weren’t as noisy, they didn’t require as much room, and there weren’t as many of them. There probably weren’t as many complaints from the residents. Well there weren’t any residents. You see, the airport was way out of town, there weren’t any residents around the airport. Where did the bulk of the population live? Well it was right down around the—there was no settlement area, the town was Fremont Street, between First and say, Seventh. The lane here between First and Fifth Street was like a knock-off Las Vegas Boulevard. The only development on the Strip in those days was two hotels: the Last Frontier and El Ranco Vegas. And if you went way out of town, you would go to the Last Frontier which is the forerunner of the New Frontier hotel that’s down south, the Frontier hotel. When did the Flamingo come into play? That was when— UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 6 Well, that came in the next year, in fact, as I worked at the Flamingo on the opening night, I was parking cars. They had them—we were dressed—some people came in, and some of them even tipped fifty cents or something like that, it wasn’t big money— That was a lot of money, sure. ‘Course those were real silver dollars, they’d be a ‘lotta money today (Laughs) Yes, they certainly would, that’s right. Moving on to another subject, what was schools like in your day? You know the beginning of your education going up? The—I suppose you’re speaking of this region? Or you see, my only familiarity with the local schools here was attending Vegas High School—I graduated from Vegas High School. And it has the same physical plan that is there today, except some of those newer additions were not present there. There was just one big three-story building that was Vegas High School. And we had six-hundred students in it and it was to my knowledge, the only high school in town. Yes, that’s why I asked you—it was the only one? So the entire high school population, as I recall, was just Vegas High, and that was six hundred of us and there were one hundred forty of us in my graduating class. I think the quality of education was good, the—it was a little bit, sort of parochial, and I did have some problems with some of the teachers. I had some problems getting any recognition because I was the new kid from out of town, you know? Vegas was a small town then, and you know, a new kid, or a few new kids in a class of a hundred forty showed up pretty much, you know— Was it one of those where like, more or less, everyone knew everyone else? Is that what it was? Oh yes. Oh yes? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 7 Oh yes, everybody knew everybody else in the class. And of course, you would even know most of the, you know, the youngsters in high school. How did the education here influence you to go into your line of work? Or what did influence you to go into your line of work? Oh, it was not my education here that you know, the high school. But rather, some experiences at college; later on I went to the University of Nevada— At Reno? Of course, that was the only campus with a university in those days. Yes. And as it turned out, I didn’t have to take freshman English because they gave an exam and I got a high score on the exam, so I was permitted to skip freshman English, and that left a three-hole gap in my curriculum and I had to find another course. And one of my pals, in fact, his name of Borden Hayes, he still lives here in Las Vegas, was in my class up there, and he says, “Well I’m taking psychology,” and I said, you know, “What’s that?” and he says, “I don’t know really. But I think it’s something like philosophy.” And I went, “Well that’s nice, what’s philosophy?” you know? (Laughs) (Laughs) He says, “I don’t know, but come on, we’ll take it together.” And I said, “Okay,” so since his name was Hayes and mine was Hess, we took that class, we sat right next to each other, and that was my first contact with psychology. I see. What awards and achievements did you receive? Well, let’s see, when I was in high school here in Vegas, I was on the track team and I got some recognition through that. Earlier I had played tennis, and I was on the swimming team in high UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 8 school back east. And we went to college—well, I did pretty well in the running the mile back in those days, and I got a little recognition in high school for that. And I got to go to the state meet in Reno where I got beat. But then, up at college, we had been warned by the other people in Las Vegas who went to school at Reno, that, “hey college was really tough,” you know, “So you’re not ‘gonna make it, be careful,” you know? And “You better work hard,” and stuff like that. So I worked hard and I got good grades and I found myself sort of at the top of the class, and I won the Max Fleischmann scholarships, I think that started my second semester of college. And then I had then, throughout the rest of my college, and that was a pretty big amount of money in those years, I saved myself four hundred dollars a year. And then it went to five hundred dollars. Again, it would be something like having five hundred silver dollars today, would be worth about three thousand dollars, you know (Laughs). It was a pretty good scholarship. How do you feel about the work you’ve done in your field and its contribution to Nevada? Well, in my professional career, I have been a clinical psychologist, I have rendered a lot of clinical services to thousands of Southern Nevada citizens. And I suppose, that all has some impact on the society. I’ve won some recognition in my own profession too—I’m presently president of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, which is an association of southern western states. And over bringing our convention, I hear this spring, probably meeting at the eleven in April in Durby Lot, maybe a thousand psychologists come in, so that’s some impact. Sure. In fact, I brought the same convention here, well, the same convention came here six years ago, and that had some relevance, I had some relevance to its coming here. And then me getting Nevada affiliated with that—so this is the second time. I’m also the president-elect now of the American Association of State Psychology Boards, which actually is an international UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 9 organization of all the psychology boards in the United States and Canada. And that has brought some recognition to the university, my occupying that position. I have a question: what special skills and interests do you have? Well, ‘course, my occupation has been my big interest, and probably, is my most finely honed skills, are clinical skills of diagnosis, and psychotherapy and stuff like that. And I, might as well, am a pretty fair teacher—sort of my vocational interest include things like flying—I’ve been an aviator since I was a kid, I flew when I was fifteen, I went solo for the first time. And then I did sailing, I have a boat—I go sailing on Lake Mead, that’s my vocational interest. I like to read, I like to write, and say development of skills, I’m a pretty good maintenance man, builder, and I’m an excellent whistler (Laughs) (Laughs)—How long have you been here at the University of Nevada? Since 1965. If I’m not being too personal, tell me about your religious membership and activity. I have no religious membership, no religious faith, and no activity. I did go to church in some sort of expression of gratitude in in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. I felt that was some sort of indication that I go to church. Sure. And then, when I was married, I was married in a church, and I’ve gone to a few weddings in churches. (Laughs) That’s about the extent of my religious activities. Were you a member or active in any other organizations besides the psychology ones you told me about? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 10 Oh, I was an active member in the Sierra Club here in Las Vegas for several years. I still am a member, though not very active. I got into the hiking, and stuff like that, and went to some the conservation projects with the Sierra Club, and I still help them when I can, with legislative things. Do you have any interests in the geology in the area? I understand geology in this area is supposed to be pretty interesting. It’s all on a very amateur level, you know, I’ve gone out to Fossil Ridge, and I’ve picked up fossils, and I learned how to identify a few rocks, but that’s about the extent of it. I see. What were the laws like and how do they compare to today’s standards, of when you first got here? I don’t think there’s been an awful amount of change in the laws themselves—at that time, Nevada was known as a kind of a wild state, with relatively few restrictions upon the behavior of its citizens. Prostitution was legal here in Clark County, as well as gambling. Prostitution of course has since been outlawed here by local law action. I would say that you know, it was a friendly community where the behavior of people tended to be enforced primarily by their concerns about social pressures, social recognition, social censure, the law was never considered a hostile presence in those days, and the attitudes which is sort of prevalent these days, you know, where disrespect is shown towards the police, we didn’t see much of that. And we didn’t have much of that as kids here in Las Vegas. I see. Was there much violence, and how was it dealt with? Was there much violence here? No, I do not recall being in the presence of violence as a youngster here in Las Vegas. It may be that, as a kid growing up in a culture, we just didn’t notice anything in particular about the culture. What my recollections are, was kind of a nice friendly little town. UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 11 How about prejudices, like towards Indians, or black people or anti-semitism? You know, the prejudices were there, I’m sure, but because we all shared those prejudices, none of them were aware of that. It was just, something that was, it was natural for all of us. I recall, looking back through the high school annuals of Las Vegas High School, and you will find, a few black members of the classes were very few. I also noticed that most of the black members dropped out in the early grades, so there were few black graduates at the high schools, to my recollection. I presumed that they dropped out because they were not socially accepted, they really weren’t part of the high school society, you know, and I presume, that there was economic necessity for them to drop off in cases. I see. How did gambling influence the lifestyle of the times in Las Vegas? Probably, even less that it does now. And I think for Las Vegans, even now, gambling you know, does not enter much into the lives of the people, it’s something pretty much confined to the Strip. Now there is a style of life which is probably more characteristic of the families in which a person is a gambler. And—but that style of life is probably more different now than the typical life of other workers than it was then. Gambling was not a big, big thing then—probably not as great as it is now, even relative to the size of the town, as I said, we had two hotels: the frontier, and the El Rancho, and later on the Flamingo. And of course then there were the Downtown clubs, and the Downtown was the real central of gambling, but it was kind of a friendly home one, and a local group. Now you’d only find that kind of atmosphere, maybe in the little clubs of North Vegas or something like that. I see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was Downtown more or less, like the Strip is now? No, Down—well, Downtown was the center of Las Vegas, it was the center of activity. And when people came to Las Vegas, they didn’t go to the Strip so much, as they went Downtown. UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 12 There really wasn’t too much of a Strip, really. No, the Strip you know, like I said, consisted of these two really, motels along the side of the road and they were called the El Rancho and the Frontier. They’re just basically, motels, you know. They didn’t have casinos? Yes, they had the casinos, and they had entertainment, so—but you know, they were not very impressive establishments. For their days, and this little desert town, they were pretty impressive establishments. I see. You mentioned entertainment, which brings in my next question: How did entertainment influence the lifestyle then, and how does it compare to that at present? I would say entertainment again, was less a part of the picture than it is now. We did have you know, renowned people come through town and entertain at the Last Frontier and at the El Rancho. And for a little while, they had a place called Horace Heidt Biltmore hotel, which was down on the corner of Main Street and Las—and the Bonanza. Right now there’s a Shamrock furniture store down there, but that used to be the Horace Heidt Biltmore hotel, and they had some entertainment. And Horace Heidt himself was a famous orchestra member. M-hm. But let’s see, the way that influenced me, as a young man growing up, see, when we were in high school, on a date, we might go out to El Rancho and we and our dates would order a coke, and we’d sit in the back of you know, the (unintelligible) watch some well-known entertainment figure sing or dance, or crack jokes or something like that. I see. How effective were the various medias from the early days on, like newspaper, radio, and TV? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 13 Well, we had one little radio station here in 1946. And they had one in Boulder city which we could pick up, but to my knowledge, there’s no Boulder City radio station now, but I believe there was then. So we had a couple of local stations we could get in, probably two hundred fifty waters, and of course, because of the desert sun, those were the only stations we could pick up, and so they were the ones that people listened to during the day. At night time however, you could pick up the Los Angeles stations, just as you can now, but since there weren’t no other local stations and there were no really, there was no really good entertainment on local stations, we used to listen to the Los Angeles stations at night. How about newspapers? Well, there was just the one that I recall, that is the one that is the predecessor of the current Review Journal. I’m not sure if it was called Review Journal then or we just called— (Tape one ends) (Audio beings mid-conversation)—On the matter of the media, we did not have television here in the Vegas Valley, in fact in the forties, in fact, it didn’t come along ‘till sometime in the fifties. And I’m not sure when, because I was away at school during the fifties, and in the Army. But—so in that respect, you know, entertainment was much different here. People turned more towards activities which they themselves were the participants, or they would turn on the radio, or the little shows that we had at the hotels. We had a baseball team called the “Las Vegas Wranglers,”— Oh yes? That played in the League, and it was successful for a few seasons, I’m not sure how many, but at the beginning, you know, people didn’t have a lot to do in those days, and so they turned out at night to watch the local ball club. And the teams had a place call the “Wild Cat Lair,” which was UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 14 you know, the mascot, of the Las Vegas High School—it was the wildcats, that was the name of the team—and so the Wild Cat Lair was the place where the high school kids hung out, and it was publicly supported. It stood down near where the old main post office is, near where the city hall is today. And it had a dance floor, it had some ping pong, and other recreation rooms. And on the weekend nights, there was always a little band of some sort playing there, or we danced to records or we just sat around and played ping pong—(telephone rings)— and watched the others. (Audio cuts off and returns mid-conversation)—just to add to my comments about the Wild Cat Lair, it—I think it represented something which you know, we just don’t have in Las Vegas these days. It was a fine place for the teenagers to hangout, it was not associated with the schools, it was not a scene of where kids got in trouble, you know, there was no dope or drugs on the scene in those days, about the worst thing the young people could do would be to drink a little bit and to fool around with the opposite sex. And so for me, the Wild Cat Lair meant a lot of social leads—the kids were not hungry for something to do back in those days. We’d walk down to the Wild Cat Lair and, one of my friends Jim Walsh, and I, would play tennis sometimes right across from the lair where the city hall office is now. There were some tennis courts and we’d go out, and could put out—turn on the lights, we’d put a dime in the slot, and then we’d play tennis at midnight on those hot summer nights. Anyway, the recreation opportunities were pretty good in those days compared to now, I think with kids. That’s very good. Overall, how has Nevada changed in respect to things such as the industry, population growth, buildings, and their structural design? Well, now you see of course, as far as homes go, it’s the subdivision architecture, the little ranch house boxes gathering around in the subdivisions, and the variations upon those designs. Two-story designs would be very rare back in those days; now, when you see more two-story designs UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 15 being built. The tenants or people would be living in bungalows. If you look around the old park like, South Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Street, you could see the old architecture is still there: neat little houses. Houses are bigger these days, now, I say, with Hundtridge—the building of Huntridge—which was the first real subdivision in Las Vegas when there was mass-produced housing, and that came in 1943 and ’44, and so, the Huntridge homes have just been built a short while before we got here. The places on the Strip, the first two of course, were just these rambling ranch style motels—the Frontier and El Rancho—all single-story stuff. And it wasn’t until the Flamingo was built that the Strip places started going up more than one-story. How about apartments, were they around? Well, there were a few, but not very many. Las Vegas was not a city of apartment dwellers in those days. (Unintelligible) No, no. How about in respect to industry: how do you feel it’s changed? Wasn’t there some mining going on in the earlier days here? Well yes, there was mining going on near Henderson, you know in connection with the production of chemicals and whatever else they produced out there during the Second World War. I don’t really—you know, I would say you know that, entertainment and tourism are bigger things today than they were then. Then like, you know, for example, the rail road was a big influence on the town—a lot of people worked for the railroad. We had big switchyards here and now that would be a minor part of our town’s economy. Was that part of the public transportation then? I don’t think it is now, but was it--? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 16 Yes, there were passenger trains that went through here regularly. Back in those days there was a little long passenger station down, out where the Union Plaza stands now. I see. Moving on to our next question: Please describe your status as a tradition bearer in various communities in which you’ve lived. Well, I would say that I have no such status and haven’t really had such status. I’m probably just getting now to the age where people will look upon me as one of the senior citizens—so I suppose that as a tradition bearer, I don’t know, maybe this interview will be one of the first you know, aspects of tradition bearing in that people might be interested in listening to me now, where they were not earlier because I had no particular traditions to tell of, you know? I see. Were you very active in politics? And did you belong to a political party of any type? I never ran for political office, I have been active in several sessions of the legislature, in a lobbying capacity and in writing bills, with the aid of Paul (unintelligible), I wrote the initial psychology certification law for the state of Nevada. And with his help, and (unintelligible) Peterson, and others, we got that law through in 1963. I’ve been active in several legislatures since then, including the present one. Influencing primarily legislation in the effective practice of psychology. I see. Were you member of any part of any type—are you now—? I belonged to the Young Democrats when I was a young man, and I was fairly active in that organization. My party of allegiance was primarily liberal, and I’m still a registered democrat, although I’m more like a Nevada democrat now, which is a pretty conservative democrat. Do you remember the visits of any of the presidents or other important people to the Las Vegas area such as President Roosevelt or Hoover? UNLV University Libraries Dr. Harrie Fox Hess 17 Well, no. The Roosevelts’ visit here came before I was out here—I’ve heard tales of his visits and how he went up to Mt. Charleston and visited the trails built by the CCC, it’s a big conservation, important during the Depression years. I guess that I have never been one very interested in nobles, or even when some of the more recent presidents have visited, I haven’t bothered to participate much. I did just a few years ago, when Jimmy Carter came through, or well, when he was a candidate, I think it was in ’76, when he was a candidate for president, I turned out to listen to him here in our own student union, here at the university, and I was (unintelligible) Do you remember some spectacular events such as the 1942 crash of Carole Lombard’s plane? Well, I wasn’t here in ’42, however, I used to work during my college years, during summer time, I would stay here in Vegas at my parents’ home, and I worked at the Blue Diamond Mine, where I did very heavy p