Transcript of interview with Connie Hill Sheldon by Claytee White, February 11, 2013

AN INTERVIEW WITH CONNIE HILL SHELDON An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2012 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach, Stefani Evans, Joyce Moore Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Project Assistants: Barbara Tabach and Claytee D. White The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes 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. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iii Preface Connie Hill Sheldon and her identical twin, Billie, also were members of Rancho High School s first graduating class of 1962. Connie and Billie were born in 1944 in Oklahoma and spent their early years in southern California before moving to Las Vegas in 1956 with their mother, brother, and stepfather, Gerald Elmore. In Las Vegas Connie and her siblings attended Sunrise Acres Elementary School before going to Rancho, and the family was active with Homesite Baptist Church. While she was at Rancho Connie worked at the Huntridge Theater, and she continued working there after she graduated. In 1968 Connie married fellow Rancho '62 classmate Clyde Sheldon in Goldfield, Nevada. At the time of their marriage Clyde was an active-duty Marine. Over the course of his twenty-year USMC career the Sheldons lived in several places, but following his 1983 retirement they returned to Las Vegas and then moved to Pahrump. In this interview Connie particularly focuses on military life in New York City and in Havelock, North Carolina, and on her work over the years at the Huntridge Theater, the Nevada Test Site, and Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, Inc. (REECo). iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Connie Hill Sheldon February 11, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee D. White Preface Discusses childhood in Oklahoma and California and discusses family members: father, a glazer, mother; brother; and identical twin. Recalls parents' divorce, mother's subsequent remarriage, family move to Las Vegas in 1956, Sunrise Acres Elementary School, and Homesite Baptist Church. Remembers bowling at the Showboat and working at the Huntridge Theater 1-5 Shares how her mother made aprons so Huntridge workers could stay clean behind the snack bar; speaks of Rancho classmate Macio Harris and race relations in Las Vegas; recalls Coach Paul at Rancho, GRA (Girls Recreation Association), and Pep Club 6-10 Describes cmising Fremont Street and recalls celebrities performing at school assemblies; gives impressions of "rich kid" schools like Twin Lakes and Garside and poorer schools like Sunrise Acres and J. D. Smith. Describes businesses on and near Fremont Street 11-15 Expands on discussion of Huntridge Theater, Nevada Theater Corporation, and Lloyd and Edythe Katz; talks about husband, Clyde Sheldon, and life in the U.S. Marine Corps 16-20 Discusses living in New York City and Havelock, North Carolina, and recalls experiences driving a school bus 21-26 Remembers husband's USMC retirement and their return to Las Vegas in 1983; describes working at Palm Mortuary and other jobs before going to the Nevada Test Site; discusses work at and commute to the Test Site and buying a house in Pahrump 26-31 Expands on work at Area 12 at the Test Site and at Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, Inc.; describes growth of Pahrump from the 1980s to 2013 31-35 Talks about places like Mercury, Forward, and Area 51 and recalls different jobs at the Test Site; shares former code name for and secrecy about Area 51 35-39 Recalls struggles with schoolwork and learning about her dyslexia when she was in college; describes teaching preschool and continuing to develop study strategies to accommodate dyslexia. Shares career and Fashion Forward charity of daughter Shannon Sheldon 40-44 Index 45-47 v ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Rancho High School Class of'62 flANCHo RAMS | I ?se Agrrfmrnt Name of Narrator: fL /*> i vj • C ( 9!.$^ y'\ Name of Interviewer: f,Lf\ S'Tfz/- 7) jj/bf/ff^ We, the above named, give to the Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded intervicw(s) initiated on , ii along witli typed transcripts as an unrestricted gift, to be used lor (Such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada I .as Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. This gilt does not preclude the right of the interviewer, as a representative ol UNLV, nor the narrator to use the recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. I understand that my interview will be made available to researchers and may be quoted from, published, distributed, placed on the Internet or broadcast in any medium that the Oral I listory Research Center and UNLV libraries deem appropriate including future forms of electronic and digital media. There will be no compensation for any interviews. 0 ' 1J 1 3 Signatiir&of Narrator Date Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 VI This is Claytee White and I'm with Connie Hill Sheldon this morning. We're in the Reading Room, Special Collections. It is February 11th, 2013. So how are you this morning, Connie? I'm very well, thank you. Wonderful. Connie, I know that Sheldon is the usual spelling, but could you spell your last name? S-H-E-L-D-O-N. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm going to call you Connie if that's okay. That's perfect. Good. Connie, could you tell me a little about your early life? Well, I was bom in Oklahoma in a really small, small town called Heavener. I was bom at home. I'm an identical twin, so that was quite unusual. I don't know if you want stories or anything. Yes, please. There's a story that goes that my aunt, because we were so small, she put a doll in the bassinet with us and told the mailman that we were triplets. And did the mailman believe it? I don't know. Probably not. But who knows in those days? Anyway, that's just the story. Well, when we were eighteen months old we moved to Southern California. Why did the family move to Southern California? I think it was work. My biological father [John H. Hill Jr.] was a glazer by trade. The men in that family were glazers. What is that? It is a glass cutter, basically. In fact, I have handmade mirrors that they made and they're lovely, just lovely. They're etched and beveled and they have birds and flowers and that type of thing. My grandfather was a very talented man, as well; uneducated, however. Never went to school. Could only sign his name. Could not read. By my father, of course, was some education. So we were there in California until, oh, approximately—well, I was in the eighth grade. So about 1956 or '57. So where in Southern California? Lynwood, California is where we lived actually. My brother was born in Compton, California. He was born in 1947; my sister and I in '44. We had a very happy life there. I remember going to grammar school there at Lincoln Elementary. We used to walk there; then I guess you could do that. And then we went to Hosier Junior High School before we moved to Las Vegas. And give me your parents' names. My mother's name was Margaret; her maiden name was Walkup. And then my father's name was John H. Hill Junior. My mom and dad divorced when we were in the third grade, I believe, and my mother then later on went to work and she met my stepfather. She was a bookkeeper at a car dealership in Huntington Beach, California; that's where she met my stepfather. Then in 19561 believe it was we moved to Las Vegas. Why did you move to Las Vegas? He had a job here as a salesman for Navajo Freight Lines. And what is that? Well, it's a freight line where they move furniture and freight and that type of thing. 2 Wonderful. And his name is? His name was Gerald L. Elmore. Okay, wonderful. And even though your mother worked as a bookkeeper at one time, you consider her a housewife. I do. She did not work before she and my father divorced. She was a very talented bookkeeper and accountant. But then when we moved to Las Vegas, she also did not work; she stayed home. She baby-sat some, but really did not work. So where did you live when you first moved here in 1956? Oh, we lived on I think it was North 14th—no—North 17th. I think it was called Greater Las Vegas; it was like tract homes. They were really seventies, well, fifties-type homes: ranch style with lots of windows and that type of thing. They're still there; the home is still there. Okay, good. So did you have your own bedroom or did you and your sister— Oh, no. We always shared. I can't ever remember our having a separate bedroom until she got married and left. She married three years before I did. So tell me about that early period of Las Vegas. You were eighth grade. Were you moving into the ninth grade or still in the eighth grade when you moved here? No. In the beginning of eighth grade, in September of that year. So which school was that? Sunrise Acres [Elementary School]. So you began to meet some of the same people that you went to Rancho with. Oh, absolutely. And we went to church. We were very active in church, Homesite Baptist Church, which was on 25th Street then; now it's Eastern [Avenue]. The church is not there— well, the building is there, but it's no longer Homesite Baptist. That's where we became close 3 with a lot of our friends that we still keep in contact with because we all went to school in Sunrise Acres, we all went to church together, and then we moved on to high school. Oh, that's wonderful. Tell me about recreation at that period, what kids did. Well, we went to ball games—basketball, football. Even in grammar school they had a very active sports and recreation-type thing. And we went to the movies. We bowled a lot; we were bowlers. Where did you bowl? Showboat [Hotel, Casino, and Bowling Center], Now, did your parents ever go out to the Showboat, an adult date? Seldom. I can remember a couple of times they went out usually with some of my [step] father's clients. I think they gambled some. But as far as dating goes, I think they went to the movies a few times, but not a lot. Money was tight in those days. We were not well off; I would say middle or lower income—middle income, I guess. Did you work as a teenager? When I was fifteen. What did you do? I went to work at the Huntridge Theater. Fabulous. Why did so many kids work? Because I think we were poor. On our side of town—and I guess that's pretty ugly to say, but that's the way it was; there were rich areas and not-so-rich areas, and over by Sunrise Acres and in that area, that was a poor area. So if you were going to have clothes and those sorts of things and get a car and things like that, you had to work. And so basically I didn't tell the truth about my age and got a job at the Huntridge. In fact, one of my classmates in high school helped me 4 get a job because he was a manager there. He said, "Go down and see so-and-so." And I did, and I got a job there. I worked there actually until I was married. Oh, that s wonderful. Tell me about some of the movie openings. Do you remember any of those? Oh, Ben-Hur; that's the one that stands out in my mind. Tell me about it. Oh, it was fantastic. They took the box office that was normally where you just paid your money and stuff and they put ticket—because everybody had an assigned seat. So they had ticket numbers and things like that and you bought your ticket right out of that—well, the lady at the cashier's office would say, "Well, this is what's available," just like they do now, only you purchased your ticket right there. Then we sold, oh, books with a Ben-Hur thing in it; that was an extra thing. And they got uniforms for us. In fact, we went to the old El Rancho [Vegas (hotel and casino)] to be fitted for them. Oh, my. So this was important. Right. There was a seamstress there. Oh, it was a very big thing, very big thing. So this seamstress made the uniforms? Yes, a seamstress. We went to the El Rancho and they fitted us there and then they custom made them for us. Describe one of those uniforms. It had a dark blue skirt and then a little bit lighter blue blouse. And anything reminiscent of that era, of that Ben-Hur era? Did you have a headdress? No. We didn't do anything of that nature. Any special shoes? 5 No. No, you didn't have special shoes or anything. You just wore what you had. I will tell you a little story. Working behind the snack bar it's messy, a messy thing, and you had to clean and things like that. Well, the fronts of our uniforms—and they had to be dry cleaned, as I recall, and that was something most people couldn't afford, really. How many people went to the dry cleaners? Not very many. But anyway, finally Mr. [Harry] Zumar hired my mother to make aprons for everybody. That way it helped to keep the front of your—and you only wore the apron when you were behind the snack bar. And boy, if you didn't keep that apron clean, you were in trouble because they didn't want you looking messy back there. And my mother was a very exceptional seamstress, as well. In fact, she made Joyce [RasmussenJ's wedding gown. So did she make your wedding gown, as well? No, she didn't. Wow. Now, why didn't you have your mom— I didn't make my daughter's wedding gown, either. I made my niece's, but I didn't make my—I couldn't please her I'm sure. So are you a seamstress, as well? I do; I sew, not very much anymore, but I used to. So let's talk about Rancho. You've already talked about the work that you did outside of that. What was the difference going from your junior high school to Rancho? What were the differences that you found? Well, we changed classes for one thing. I don't know if that's the type of thing you—and then we met kids from all over town and that was unusual, I thought. I might mention, too, that—I don't know if this is appropriate—at Sunrise [Acres] I think we were the only school who had black 6 kids and I think there were two. In fact, I think I can remember a couple of their names, but not right now because I'm a little nervous. But anyway, they were very important in our lives. And coming from California that's the first time—I'm kind of backtracking—that's the first time I ever had a class with someone that was of color. So Lynwood didn't have any kids of color at that time? Not where I went to school, not one. And you were saying that your brother was born in Compton? Uh-huh, a hospital in Compton; I think it was Compton Community Hospital. Wow. Yeah, because those communities today— Oh, I know they are. Yeah, yeah. Primarily people of color. But that was the first time—Macio Harris; that's one of the—and my husband [Clyde Sheldon] played ball with him because he was in the same class as us. He and Macio were very good friends. In fact, if I'm not mistaken he still may be in that area over there. Over in the Sunrise Acres area? No. Over on the Westside. I mean I think he's not in there now, but I think he does go to church there. I think he may be a minister of some kind or a deacon or something. It seems like I was working with a girl who knew Macio and said that he was a deacon in their church or something. Harris? Harris, Macio Harris. Wonderful. A name like that I should be able to find. We're doing a special African-American project at the same time as I'm doing this, so I really appreciate that. That gives me goose bumps. That's great. That's wonderful. So since you mentioned Macio's name, tell me about race relations at the time. We have 7 Native Americans here at that time, Latinos and blacks. The Latinos, well, they didn't—I don't know. It's just unusual—because there were so few in Sunrise Acres—because most of them went to Madison and I can remember going there for a basketball game one time. That gym is still there. So where was the gym? Over on, I think it's D Street. It's a well-known building. It's something else now. Not the Westside School? It might have been there at the Westside School. There's a very large building right by the street. It could be. D and— D and Washington [Avenue]? Yes, that's where it is. Okay, that's the Westside School. Yeah. Most of the kids went there. I don't know why we had a couple of boys. There were no girls, but there was one boy. I remember he walked to school. So he must have lived right on the outskirts, or something of that nature. So at Rancho, what kind of mixture did you find when you went to Rancho? There were not a lot of black students. There were a few Indian, Paiute children, and then there were more Mexican-Americans I guess is what you would say. But there were very few black; you can look in our yearbook and see that. And we lived in a poorer side of town, so you would have thought, maybe, that there would have been more, but there weren't. And when you say "relations," that automatically makes me think of "issues." As far as I know there were none. And when I say race relations I'm talking about the whole gamut, playing together on sports teams. 8 Oh, yeah. Going to movies together. All of that. I do not know that any of them—well, I don't know if any of them ever went to school. But I know that we went to sports together. They didn't have separate places to sit and things like that. That was never nothing that I knew of. What kind of classes did you enjoy most and the teachers? I think I enjoyed most things like psychology. I remember a Mr. Paul. He was a coach, Coach Paul. He was the only Ph.D. I understand in town at that time. He was a coach and he taught psychology and I don't know what else he taught. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed government. I enjoyed English class; that was a good one. But Dr. Paul—we didn't call him doctor then; Coach Paul—I remember him. And I enjoyed shorthand and typing and things like that, too. I knew that even if I went to college, which I wanted to do, that I would have to work, so I tried to prepare myself to be able to do both of those things. That was smart. Well, I knew I would have to work. So I needed to type and I needed to try to do shorthand and things like that and be a business-type person so that I could go to school. Tell me about the sports activities that you engaged in. Personally? I was in pep club and GRA [Girls Recreation Association]. GRA was so profound I can't remember doing anything. What was GRA? Girls Recreation Association. If I'm not mistaken that was my mother's idea. For one thing, it wasn't expensive to be in it; it was playing sports and doing things like that after school. But my mother was also quite a sportswoman. She was very tiny, but she played basketball and all sorts 9 of things like that in her community. She graduated in 1940 in Arkansas and everybody knew her for some reason. But anyway, she played that, so we did that. And I think we might have played a few times. But again, being in our economic group, we had to ride the bus to school and home, so it was very difficult to stay after school and then get home. Rancho is on Owens [Avenue] and, well, I guess it was around 12th, so that would be Bruce [Street]. So we'd either have to walk home or get a ride. And we lived on Nellis [Boulevard] and Bonanza [Road], And it was dirt road mostly. So it was a long way to walk for things like that. So how far do you think? Oh, I'm terrible at that kind of thing. So how long did it take you? Did you ever walk? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So how long did it take you? I can't remember. It's been a long time. So anyway, so unless we could get a ride with somebody... But Pep Club was a little different story. You stayed a few times after school, not long, and then we also going to the games and things like that. My folks could always take us and then pick us up there. And it was fun. It was a neat thing to do. It was good, a lot of camaraderie. During assemblies and things, Pep Club normally sat in one spot, especially if it was a game thing. So it was really neat. That's good. What about lunch hours? You had an open campus. Yes. What did you and your group of friends do? We stayed on campus. 10 Did you bring your lunch? Yes. Very seldom did we get to buy lunch because we didn't have the money to do that. When we did I think I bought pizza and a grape drink. Yeah, we brought our lunch. What about hanging out after school or on weekends? On weekends we'd spend it at church mostly. Okay. So no Blue Onion? Oh. Yeah, we always hung out at the Blue Onion. Tell me about that. That was so much fun. A lot of times that was the church people; we would go after church and go over to the Blue Onion. And we'd go all the way from the Blue Onion—I know you've heard this a dozen times—all the way up from the Blue Onion up to the Union Station and then turn around because there was a park there. Then you'd go all the way around and go all the way back down to the Blue Onion and go around a couple of times and then you'd stop and have your snacks or whatever. I can remember in the heat of the summer they even installed those air-conditioning things. It was like a big piece of—well, flexible LLS pipe; that's a vent pipe. You can put it in your back window and roll it up and then you get some air. Oh, my. No one has told you that? No one told me that. See, that's why we ask the same questions because of those different answers I get. Somebody remembers one thing; somebody— Oh, I can't believe nobody said that. Oh, yes. And somebody else will remember something else. 11 I was sick when they changed that to something else and it wasn't—and we used to go there even after I went to work. I know they had a very nice coffee shop there, and we used to go there for lunch. It was a nice place to eat. I know some kids walked over there to have lunch from Sunrise Acres if they had the money and their folks didn't have... I have to tell you, watching these cutouts here. I don't know if anybody's told you about this or not. But we also had Sammy Davis Junior come to our school for an assembly. Why? And the Platters, too. Wow. Why? I don't know. I don't know what the deal was. Every once in a while we'd have an assembly with a movie star or a singer. I can remember—and my husband remembers this always, too— that he came out and he had a cigarette in his hand and he took a big puff off of it and he went [blowing], "Share it amongst you." That's just one of those silly things you remember. No kidding. [Laughing] I love it. Yeah, yeah. And the Platters sang a couple of their great songs. Connie Francis was there once. I mean those were people of that age. I'm thinking that maybe Nat King Cole was there, too; I'm not sure. I'd have to look in the yearbook for sure. But yeah, we had some really— I love it. Thank you so much for those memories. So getting back to Fremont Street. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. Oh, no. This is what I want you to do. You're doing it perfectly. This is what we want. Getting back to Fremont Street, when you used to do the circle, driving around 12 seeing all your friends, what do you think about it today when you see it? Oh, I'm sad. Well, but it's been that way a long time. The Union Station closed a long, long time ago. Then after I worked at the Huntridge, I worked at the Fremont Theatre for a while, too. So you'd see people going up and down even then and you could wave or they'd wave. In fact, I remember one time I saw my husband—he was home on leave; I didn't even know he was in the [U.S.] Marine Corps—and they rolled down the window and he waved at me and said, "Hey, Connie," and we were talking. At the stop signs you would stop and talk to everybody, at the stoplights. Yeah, I mean it was a neat thing. It was a wonderful time then. But it was a smaller town. Everybody really knew each other. In school, once we got from junior high to high school, then you met kids from all over town. When I look back on it now and I see the people at our reunions and things like that—in fact, we were joking at the reunion and we were taking pictures of all the Sunrise Acres people were here and all the J. D. Smith [people] were here; we all took pictures like that. And we jokingly said, "Oh, those are all the rich kids." Which ones were the rich kids? Oh, Shirley Gragson. No. I mean— Let me think of the school. Twin Lakes. Twin Lakes and Garside and places like that. Some of them didn't have junior highs. Sunrise didn't have a junior high, but J. D. Smith did. So when we were in our freshman year there were only like three or four schools. We had a small freshman class because some of them had a ninth grade. Exactly. So they had a junior high. Yeah. We went from eighth grade right to high school. And there were only—I don't know— 13 maybe four schools, three schools that had no ninth grade. But Fremont Street was really special. I really miss that. When I see it today, I know it's progress and things like that, but it's just not the same. I think everybody will agree with you. Recently I know Dr. [Leonard] Carpi passed away and he used to be the eye doctor down on Fourth Street it was Third or Fourth. When I worked at the Fremont [Theatre] I used to walk by his office all the time because that's where I got my first glasses was Dr. Carpi's office. Oh, I'll tell you another story. When I worked at the Fremont, I every so often would get my car towed away. Well, I didn't have change to put in the thing to get your ticket out and put on the thing. So I'd go to get in my car and, "Oh, not again;" I'd get towed away. So tell me about the ticket and putting it on your windshield. Yeah. I just parked my car and left. Okay. But they had some kind of a system where you would get a ticket? Yeah. You put your money in the machine and they'd give you a little ticket, just like you do at the airport, and then you put it on the dashboard. Then they wouldn't tow you away because they know you paid. But I would get towed every once in a while. Well, I'd be in a rush. How much did it cost at that time to get your car? I can't remember. It must not have been a lot. Yes. But you just talked about the eye doctor that was down on Fremont Street. What other businesses do you remember? Oh, where it was Trader Joe's or Trader Vic's. Trader Vic's. Trader Vic's. The El Portal Theatre was in one block and the Fremont was in another. Let's see 14 what other businesses? Herb and Marv's, they were across the street. What did they do? They had a men's store. This is another story. Good. I love those stories. Well, years and years and years and years later my sister was an accountant and Herb and Marv used to be one of their clients in her office. They always wanted her to come to work for them and she kept telling them no. She says when you make a million dollars I'll come to work for you. And then they made a million dollars and she still wouldn't come to work. [Laughing] I love it. But there was Herb and Marv's and then Hecht's. The senator [Chic Hecht] owned a dress store there. I bought a lot of things from Hecht's. That was right across the street from the theater, within a block or two. And J. C. Penney was on that street and the phone company, it was there, and Sears and Jo Ann's Bridal where I bought my bridal gown. It was further down. But no one has ever said anything about a bridal shop. Yeah. In fact, I walked there from the courthouse once to show one of my coworkers my wedding gown when I went to get it fitted. So that was down toward the phone company? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm not sure what was the phone—I think it might have been Sears building and then it became the phone company in there. But it was about a block further on than that, so it was probably around Sixth [Street] would be my guess. Any beauty shops or barbershops on Fremont Street that you remember? Not that I remember. So they must have been on other streets, side streets. 15 I remember they had a beauty school not on Fremont Street but on one of the side streets there because I can remember going there and getting my hair cut. Wow. Thank you for those memories. Tell me about some of the other recreational-type activities, like the proms, senior dances, Sadie Hawkins, any of those. I only went to one and that was the Freshman Frolic. I didn't have a date. It was a very small thing; there was hardly anybody there as I recall, not very many people at all, but probably because we were freshmen and it was a small class at that time. Then the junior and senior prom I was always working and never had a date, so I just never went. Nowadays I know my daughter, she didn't want a date for the junior and senior prom; she went with her friends. I said, "You're kidding?" She goes, "No." [Laughing] I love it. But anyway, then you didn't do that; you only went if you had a date or whatever. But anyhow, I used to see the pictures and everything and they were wonderful. Sadie Hawkins Day, that was always fun. I don't think I ever asked anybody to go because I didn't have the money and then I worked. When I did have the money, I worked. I would always opt to work because I just felt like I needed to. And did you spend the money to help the family or did you buy your own clothes and books and things like that? In general I spent it on myself, my own clothes and things like that, because I really didn't have anything until then. Did you buy a car? Yes. My sister and I bought our first car and we paid forty dollars for it. It was a 19—either a 16 49 or 50 Nash Rambler. It was the kind where you—you don't probably remember this—but you flip the little button and the seat went flat down and almost made a bed. It was ridiculous. Oh, my. They had that back then. Yeah, yeah. I guess they were family cars. And people knew our car; it was funny. What color was it? Black. It was black. In fact, one time it needed a new something; I don't remember what—it was a carburetor. And my dad said, "No, it needs a new carburetor." And he wouldn't put it in there and we didn't have the money to get it fixed. So we bought the carburetor. It had so much room inside the engine thing, not like today where everything is so compact that we opened the hood and we were sitting on the fender-type things with our feet down in the—there was that much room in there. We were in there taking the whole thing away. We got it all back together and there was one thing that we didn't know where it went, so we just left it off. But it worked. [Laughing] I love it. 50 we drove it around like that. One of our girlfriends who you're going to interview, Linda Raul was there the day we were doing that. She probably doesn't remember it. But yeah, she was just shaking her head. But it had to be fixed; we didn't have a way to get around. I love it. So you just became a mechanic. You just did what you had to do. More or less. You did what you had to do. I love it. Later on in life when you finished high school you continued to work for the movie theater? Yeah. It was called the Nevada Theater Corporation. It still may be that; I don't know. I don't think they own the movies anymore, but I think they do have some sort of corporation. Mrs. [Edythe] Katz. 17 Edythe Katz. Ll