the aids issue is is a bit of a problem i guess the first thing that comes to my mind not having any immediate friends with that problem is is the financial end and how can a country stand to uh spend as much or much more than they already are on such a problem uh but then that kind of thinking is also [tempered] with the the knowledge or at least the the rumor i'm not really sure if it's true or not that uh we're not spending as much per let's say [afflicted] person on cancer uh there's some uh take breast cancer for instance it seems to be doing much more damage and affecting much more many more people than aids and yet uh more people die of it and yet the funding has already uh exceeded aids has more money than uh breast cancer so uh i mean if it's true i i've i've always heard these things i've never bothered to dig it out and make sure but uh i've heard it on more than one documentary that uh they were complaining that whoever's sitting up there making these decisions or whatever institutions raise the money and uh it's just one big p r campaign that yeah we think that's the world's worst thing so let's give money to aids and yet we've had breast cancer problems for years and it's just one of those uh course one of the shows i saw was taking it from the angle that since it doesn't effect men it's not going to get funded and uh having thought about that for a while well i i kind of i thought well that that might be possible since there are a lot of men in control of that kind of thing but then i got i got to thinking the the number one killer of men seems to be the [prostate] and there's only one test that just recently got developed uh a blood [antigen] uh [antibody] test for the [antigen] in the blood and that's fairly recent and yet men have been dying from [prostate] cancer for years so it's not really cured yeah it's not uh not that heavily funded either and then that seems to be one of the the major uh problems that men have in the realm of cancer so i don't know i i guess there's just some strange public opinion as to who they want to give to uh be it through different organizations march of [dimes] type uh [telethons] or or bicycle rides or whatever how they fund whatever uh illness they wish it's kind of hard to to get an even keel on that i mean it's really hard to say well there's you know a hundred thousand per year affected by this one so let's give it this amount and then this other one's only a tenth of that so give it a tenth of that and and just keep [doling] it out that way or right right that's true you know the the other thought that i had uh i've had several minutes to think about this after i uh while i was finding people i uh i could think about the topic longer that the person that receives it so it's kind of a a unfair advantage as it were but the other thing that i thought of on this is i wonder if there isn't enough money uh in our economy or in our system uh it seems like there's so much that goes to things that don't really do a whole lot of good i mean yeah they're kind of nice but we have such an affluent society society that i wonder if if we took a little from here and there and the other if we might wind up with a a cure for just about everything of course then we wouldn't have any room to put people but that's yeah you know you hear these ridiculous figures for pizza or you hear these these phenomenal amounts of dollars spent for this that or the other and then you have all the arts that that are nice and [aesthetic] but are they that [enhancing] for the for the masses you know they certainly do well for those who go to the symphony orchestra and all that but uh had all that [donation] and time and labor and effort gone toward something else than well that's interesting isn't it yeah right what did you think about that idea they've not really given it attention either yeah right well i'm i'm glad i'm not the one that's that's in charge of of making those decisions they uh you wish that there could just be money for all these problems because they're all so serious you know i mean it's not so serious i guess until it affects your family and then all of a sudden it's the most important thing so i i would hate to have that responsibility just personally but but then again we really we really do have it as a society to decide which things we need to address i uh i guess i it it frightens me to think of so many people with with aids and with cancer and many of those things uh if they're not able to to be insured then the country's going to pay for it one way or the other whether it's through prevention or or treatment or you know just uh just helping the people when they are not able to take care of themselves it seems like one way or the other we're going to end up paying for it but just change our right just change our priorities a little bit right well aids is a nasty terrible disease and you die from it so i think that uh they need to look into it and it's kind of like cancer i don't you know how many years have we tried to find a cure for cancer i think it'll probably be as difficult uh how about yourself yeah they say a million people are [infected] with the h i v virus and uh yeah i think uh in the country america yeah and they have millions i don't know i've just heard it on the radio sometimes you hear things that on the radio that you know could be true or couldn't be uh do you feel like this is i i guess they're spending a billion or so a year on this aids research do you think they should spend more what do you think doug of mister johnson magic do you think he's the hero that he's being called by a bunch of other a bunch of the media you know i took advantage of the opportunity when you know he came out i talked to my kids about it you know it's something that i hadn't hadn't done before uh i'm glad that mister johnson's changed his tune on uh safe sex to abstinence or i was glad he did that for young kids because a lot of kids would have ended up dying because of what he was promoting uh let's see what are some of the other questions uh you don't uh let's see i don't have any friends that have the disease i guess you might might not is it pretty nasty yeah it sounds awful is it just that the immune system [ceases] to function properly and and oh really you think about aids research uh_huh um well i'm certainly in favor of aids research and i think probably the government could spend a bit more money on it than it does i think that because besides the fact that it's a deadly disease that it's a contagious disease so that it's um although it is not killing that many people now it still has the opportunity to get out of control and become a huge problem uh_huh that's in the world or in america you oh really um that's whose figure is that okay uh_huh uh_huh uh i i think they should actually although perhaps not a an incredible amount more than what they're doing and i don't necessarily think that they should uh fund aids research and in the process neglect cancer research or whatever i think that it would be a good thing for the government to increase funding for medical research in general um well i well i am sorry that he has the virus i um i don't know i don't i think it's very strange that the media hasn't um questioned him more strongly to about gay sex or [intravenous] drugs or anything like that as they probably would for a lot of other people um well not not really though i mean i think he's probably doing the right thing for a man in his position but i don't think it's anything exceptional that he's doing it's what many people have done already who were just less famous uh_huh uh_huh well that's good uh_huh uh_huh um yeah i do my cousin does for instance and um yeah yeah it is he's actually um he had aids related complex for a while and he is now in full blown aids really not doing very well and has a brain [tumor] or that sort of thing yeah it's it's a very nasty thing um yeah that's that's basically it that um the immune system can at first slow down and the white blood cell count goes down which is that's aids related complex but then when things get completely out of control and it basically hits bottom that's aids and in that case you know people are prone to getting any kind of you know weird cancer that only animals got before and yeah that sort of thing well michael what do you think about uh funding for aids research do you uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh well i guess i'm not too aware of how much they're spending right now you know yeah uh_huh yeah i mean i go ahead uh_huh yeah yeah yeah i mean i i can see that research is needed and you know definitely i mean it's becoming a major problem but uh i guess the area that i think more about is i would like to see them focus on uh preventing it uh in more you know right and i i feel like just saying uh safe sex is not the answer it's it's uh abstinence in certain cases and yeah and knowing you know uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah i think for a lot of people it has so so uh_huh drug addicts uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh well yeah boy that's a hard issue it really is yeah i mean i i definitely think that it's the drug problem that needs to be addressed but as you say uh people i mean in the meantime well someone who's not ready to give up drugs uh you know if they're [perpetrating] the aids problem passing that on to each other then you know yeah yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah i haven't either i've heard you know uh different voices speaking up and saying we're not spending enough and mostly that's what i've heard so i don't know and yet i know it's uh it sounds like big money to me but it probably takes a lot so uh_huh yeah did you have any fear working in the hospital with that uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well uh uh that's something i've thought a lot about uh i i work in a hospital and i've worked in the hospital for fifteen years and i've taken care of a few aids patients uh when they asked us did did we want to uh keep it the same or uh spend more spend less i think uh i think right now what they're spending is adequate uh my for my personal opinion uh because i think it's something that's going to take them a while to come up with a uh [vaccine] for i don't think it's going to be that easy to come up with or i think they already would have by now you know and uh so i don't know if if spending a lot more money would really make any difference right now i think they're doing the is as much research as they can possibly do you know and uh what about you i'm not either i'm definitely not aware of how much uh that's something i've never really kept up with at all uh i don't i'm not sure uh i know uh i've always thought more about the disease rather than the research you know what i mean and uh that sort of thing uh if if we were talking about the money uh i'd just have to say what they're spending is probably enough simply because i don't know that much about it you know oh yeah i think so i think so yeah yeah yeah well that's true that's true because uh it's a such an easily preventable disease uh no it's definitely not that's true that's true uh myself uh uh i'm just recently or about to get a divorce and uh course i'm not all ready to just run out there and start dating everybody i can or anything but it's sort of scary to find yourself single again you know and uh because you never know what's going to happen you don't know who you're going to come across you know course it's it's not that i'm wanting to i'm not going to want to go and have sex with everybody i see but it's something you got to think about these days a single person you know and uh i mean it certainly changed my attitude about that in a hurry and uh certainly yeah but uh uh i know that uh in some of these larger cities they're passing out free [syringes] and all of that sort of thing to prevent you know so that uh the drug addicts won't be getting dirty needles and everything and uh i don't know i don't think that's a bad idea i know it uh sort of doesn't address the problem of drug addiction it just sort of keeps that going but uh i don't know at least drug addiction can be treated whereas aids so far cannot be you know so i don't know that i think that's i'm not too much against the the passing out of the free [syringes] myself i don't know what do you think about that it it really is it really is they gave us a hard topic uh_huh that's true that's true yeah you know i guess if you consider the two problems drug addiction and aids aids would have to come first i guess as far as something to to do about it so so i don't know uh course there's so many things in the world where if you solve one problem you may be creating another you know and uh so i guess you just have to take the two problems and see which is worse which is the most important to solve at the time and i don't know but uh but i've never looked into how much money they're spending i have i have no idea and i know a lot of our tax money goes to that but uh i really have never looked into it i have no idea yeah yeah right sure yeah yeah i think it is i think it is yeah it does every it seems to take more than uh for any little thing they do it seems to take a lot more money that you would think it would you know but uh that's one thing i've never really [feared] uh uh i a lot of the my family you know they fear me working like that and under some some of those conditions but uh uh i don't fear it at all uh i work in in the operating room a lot and uh and of course when so julie how do you feel about aids research i'd agree too but i mean it seems like it just makes economic sense in that you know uh you know it would have made even better economic sense to to to have had a lot more research than a longer ago you know because you know because uh the country's going to wind up paying for the treatment of patients uh_huh i think they cover aids but what they do is uh if you know you apply for for to get a a insurance policy they'll uh check to see if you're h i v positive and if you are not only will they not give you uh a policy but they'll uh they have like there's like you know a [database] of people that have tested positive so you'll never be able to get insurance ever again yeah i think a lot of it was was just that you know because of of the you know because because the majority of the high risk groups were people no one really cared about that uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh yeah one one one one humorous [retort] i heard heard someone you know who claimed that you know aids was you know god's punishment was that then [lesbians] must be god's chosen people but uh so uh uh do you think you mean do you actually think we're doing enough right now to private organizations uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i mean it seems that you know it's just you know of it's just going to reach a steady a steady state a let a lot lot higher point than it will if we you know we'd [nip] it in the bud to quote barney [fife] uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i would probably agree with that uh so do do you think it's more important to spend money on research or for support of uh people uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i think it's i think it stands a really interesting question of uh i think we need we definitely need more of it definitely oh yeah yeah for certain exactly exactly does does like do health insurance policies like for companies and things do they cover diseases like that uh_huh um well that's but that's why they should have started doing stuff before i mean still you know since it's [dormant] for such a long time there's still probably a lot of people you know before the tests ever really came out who are who are [draining] a lot of money right now you know right right right and all these god [fearing] people were like well you know god is trying to kill off all the et cetera et cetera uh yeah boy that's a good one yes no i really don't i did i did like a research kind of thing on aids research and stuff and uh really we're not doing much at all i mean most of what gets raised i mean it's not really federal movement most of what gets raised gets raised by uh uh you know conscious yeah communities and things like that you know like uh san francisco has a a real uh strong aids support group and all that kind of stuff and and uh get they get donations from the community you know they're real and from corporations around the around the city you know for aids research and that kind of thing and uh i think there needs to be more of that sort of on a federal level you know rather than just in the places where it's you know where it's [predominated] so far because it's you know it's bound to spread right yeah i don't know i don't know i i i don't know what the likelihood of that is but i mean you know people really waking up especially with the ultra [conservatives] move our our political system sort of seems to be taking yeah so god that's a good question fish i don't know uh i think i think one of the main things that's really important to spend money on is education not support or or research per se but but education because a lot of people sort of get [drummed] out of the work place and out of society you know kind of like [lepers] would you know and it's really it's really not necessary uh until until the disease reaches its final stage you know becomes really [infectious] and uh i think that would be the most effective support they could get is for other people to understand you know try to understand what they're going through and everything and try to understand that they're not you know they don't they don't have to be just completely cut off from from the community and that and uh i don't know i guess i think that that uh research is i guess the most important just because i you know it it really needs to come to an end you know i don't know i don't know fish what do you think about that subject well [charlie] what do you think should we spend more on aids research or stay the same why do you think we don't spend enough well i agree with you i think we have a lot of talk but not dollars and you know we we our situation where we're faced with people that you know choose a lifestyle that may cause aids but then at the same token there are a lot of people like the children in florida who didn't choose a lifestyle but there was no help for them and i think one of the things we can do as far as the government goes is just to [dispel] some of the myths you know drinking from a water [fountain] will give you aids using a restroom will give you aids but at the same token i feel like heart disease cancer multiple [sclerosis] where do we put those in perspective to aids no i don't and you know i'm like you i do not know what the government is spending on aids yes right yeah well i'm in texas and we have a teacher that died from aids yeah well not my school district but it was in the state of texas and it was because of a transfusion and i think that got a lot more publicity because again it wasn't a minority group and you know we're looking at a situation that hopefully can be controlled it is frightening you know because it could be you or i and then what would we do we'd want help that's true yeah well my mother had a blood transfusion about four years ago and i i was scared to even mention to her that there was an emergency situation we couldn't give she couldn't give her blood and we couldn't go down to give our blood for her and you know there's always the possibility no but the i agree with you uh okay i'll start uh funding i think that in light of the seriousness of it of the fact that that by what uh i think they said by the year two thousand there will be at least five is it five thousand a year or more uh yeah we'll be dying from it and i know uh what is it uh over in africa it's just already in horrendous uh yeah it really is so in light of that i think that that we're probably going to have to increase the funding for research i think that uh i don't know if they have it but it looks like to me that all the countries could go together and have like a joint aids research program i don't know if they already have one of those where everybody could put in their input i don't know i don't know i don't i don't hear about research that much except in the terms of what the united states is doing and the celebrities that's you know the benefits and things that they put on for aids research i do i did hear about uh africa and uh how rampant it is over there and i know uh in talking to i have a relative that works for uh state welfare in oklahoma the aids children that are coming in with it uh it i mean it it's it's tragic it's just absolutely horrible and it's you know it's not just [homosexuals] it's you know [heterosexuals] it's you know the drug users it's innocent people that you know go in for blood transfusions so i mean it's starting to affect everyone i think that probably partly is it i think that it is has received so much more publicity since we have had well known actors athletes everything come down with it i think that uh i do agree with someone when uh magic johnson announced uh there was a uh [spokesperson] for the gay community that came out and said that you know it would not be receiving this much publicity if it wasn't for someone like magic johnson and it would be you know very interesting to see that's right that's right and i think it it i think it makes people more aware that it hits other than just the gay community and uh but i do think that that in light of the in fact that it's going to hit all of us i think what are they saying by the year two thousand i think it's one in three is supposed to have it you know it it because it it is it's spreading so rapidly oh i didn't realize that well it is i know that i i heard another conversation regarding aids the fact that that you know cancer is not receiving this and yet is is cancer growing at such a rapid rate you know it's it's you know and i think that's what is scaring people is that it is reaching such epidemic [proportions] you know where is is cancer on the is it rising as rapidly you know as for instance aids you know uh i don't i don't know either you know it it's just uh and granted i i do think that because of the publicity and because of the people you know getting it and everything i think that that people are more aware of it than you know say if you know someone just dies with cancer which is it's a tragic way i mean you know yes yeah well i don't know i really am not sure what they're spending on aids aids research i get the impression it's a pretty sizeable chunk of money i was always uh uh i'm trying to remember where it was but recently uh somebody on the news said that one of the problems with uh aids research was that each time they find somebody with you know about every fourth or fifth person they've diagnosed with aids has got a new strain they seem to be [mutating] just like about about like the common cold finding a cure for something like that could be several hundred years in the making well yeah the general yeah general human yeah that might help to it might help the awareness part but uh yeah yeah i don't know it you know the uh funding situation seems to be the same for so many of the major diseases so to speak the uh bulk of the money goes to administrative costs which usually means high salaries for people running the show and a major name researcher is involved with it but you know who knows what actually gets done as far as true research yeah it seems everywhere you turn somebody's coming up with it wild part about it nobody seems to want to suggest the idea that doing without is the only safe way of keeping from getting it they figured well you know we all want to be [promiscuous] so they're just running all over the place and yeah no there are people who don't get it from [promiscuity] there's the sorts who get it through blood transfusions yeah that's the [saddest] cases of all of or that woman who died just recently the one who died just recently got it uh from her dentist something like twenty two twenty three years old died of aids she got it because her dentist had it and didn't use any precaution i don't know those are the sad cases southern mississippi yeah um right now as far as the state budget concerning aids awareness i'm not even sure that there is i know there isn't any on the city level or on the county level i'm not sure if the state's got much of anything on the aids awareness i think most of the aids awareness information is more or less coming through private sector um yeah well uh actually i'm i kind of uh well that's like between saying yes and no it uh i think that we're uh spending about what we should but i'm not exactly sure if we're spending it in the right right uh uh location yes right right uh but i think that a lot of people have the attitude that the more money you throw at something the uh better chance you have of [curing] it and that's just not true right i think uh you know that that money needs to be spent on on research but i i think uh you know it should be a a wide spectrum of research and not just uh research on a cure and not not on a research on how to [prolong] life or or uh make the disease any any less traumatic you know i think money i think one once somebody has contracted the disease that's that's uh you know that's unfortunate but let's try to concentrate on on you know let's put resources on making sure nobody else gets it uh right right well i think uh you know there's there's my opinion is there's there's a there is a limited number of resources medical resources available and i think it is foolish to to uh spend most of those uh a a large majority of those resources on people who have aids uh simply because they they uh they need attention right away or or need more attention than somebody who has heart disease or or slow cancer or something i think i don't know i think uh too much money is being spent on on a on sophisticated medical treatment for for people for people who need to be in a hospice program yes well that i mean that fits the country we live in the people oh okay yeah the i mean the people with the [loudest] voice get the money it's not necessarily the people who uh who deserve it the most right although that sounds [heartless] that's that's right well i know just something local to you i i used to live in dallas and so i have some friends there and i know for example uh parkland hospital is spending or at least was when i was there spending a large portion of their their budget on on on basically warehousing aids victims and you know that's you know i i you know my heart goes out to those people who who have the disease but i don't think that we should be spending uh you know that that a majority of the hospitals resources should not go for for uh indigent aids patients have you any thoughts okay well uh i'll tell you i am uh uh impressed with the uh uh amount of spending that's occurred so far as far as aids research and i think that uh proportionately maybe uh so far it's been enough it seems like it seems like uh there's not uh been any money taken away from other necessary medical research uh uh subjects uh you know in in allocated towards the aids research i think that aids research has been a a lot of the funding has not been done by the government a lot of it has been done by private endowment uh but i think the government is doing a good job so far of keeping the uh their portion of the funding up uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh exactly uh it although i was uh i i was shocked at the public uh uh outrage uh that occurred after after i think it was dan quayle who said uh you know who suggested that maybe maybe we you know maybe that is a a possible and and uh uh likely most effective solution is you know abstinence and and yet the a large portion of the community said well that's stupid you know that just shows that you have no interest in in in spending any money on the on the problem and i thought that's not that's not the point at all uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right okay that makes a little bit of sense uh i i hadn't i was not aware that that was uh such a a within the n i h that uh that was much uh start us yeah right because it's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse yeah it already has right although they're doing a whole more than they were five years ago you know they're living longer and and their medicines are a whole lot better so they're not having to go through as many of the as of the other diseases or so it sounds anyway as you know when when all of this first started out they they came down with every single disease that came down the pipes because they had no immune system and they suffered so much worse so you know at at least they're making progress but they've got to get it stopped they've got to find a cure so have i yeah well yeah well especially with you know surgeries all the time it's so scary uh_huh right right yeah and you know well with the time factor it could be up to ten years you know so that's what's so bad and and you may test negative this time but you may test positive you know two weeks down the road so the test is relevant for that very day but not necessarily forever yeah yeah yeah and and like when i went in the hospital you have to sign a paper saying that that you'll allow them to give blood if they if you need it otherwise they won't do the surgery so what do you do i mean yeah you're given the option of signing or not signing but if you say no i don't want the blood then they they may say well then i'm not going to do the surgery right right what what can they do well that's right and they've got to do something about it they can't put it on the back burner and just say well you know the research is going on and doing good enough because it's not there's no cure yet you got it yeah of course i don't have that problem i probably will never have to worry about that oh gosh what a shame slight chance you think ugh oh it is it's like okay show me your papers then we'll talk yeah well they're doing a lot over in europe with it and i know when randy was so sick he was having medications flown in from europe because he couldn't get his hands on it over here and uh uh_huh yeah so he was he had a lot of medication coming in from europe and then he finally was able to get the what is the a z t over here only because he had connections that was not open to the public at that time so i don't know but they've got to do it because it's it's everywhere to everybody of course that's right there's nothing to lose so you may as well do whatever you got to do yeah or if it was one of my kids right no problem yeah yeah a little over two years a little over two years and at that point he was the fifth fifth longest [survivor] but see that was almost four years ago and now they're living a whole lot longer so but he i mean jeez he had everything under the sun he had hepatitis he had [meningitis] he got throat cancer and he never smoked even a grapevine much less a cigarette you know um just you name it he he just oh it was horrible it was horrible yeah and then i had another very dear friend of mine die four months after randy did and uh he didn't know he was sick he'd just you know had a cold that he couldn't shake all winter and kept getting [sicker] and [sicker] and finally went in the hospital and uh he had pneumonia and both lungs were full and he died within about sixteen hours of going to the hospital yeah yeah yeah and his friend had died the year before and they swore it wasn't aids but i know darn good and well it was you know so ooh it's just that that's close to home you're kidding um my gosh all righty uh i guess our topic today is air pollution and we are to just discuss what substances do you think that contribute most to air pollution as well as what society can do to improve the air quality of the atmosphere around us um does your work [entitle] uh anything of environmental along these lines uh_huh right yeah it's uh uh uh well i work in i work in [environmentals] uh projects right now and so the sherman deal is um uh lost a lot of hair over that project uh what we run into um is we have the texas air control board t a c b that send out uh jurisdictions under which we have to uh uh [reply] to and a lot of their rules and regulation aren't real clear so we have our manager of environmental who [assist] the t a c b which is located in austin in writing and hey look what we've done here at t i and uh we are presently uh in receipt of a site permit which will allow us to um uh this is our side allow to have certain emissions up to a certain [tonnage] it's in in in tons per year um and so you know what we do to make contributions so that basically we go and do things like put in high tech [scrubber] systems uh that uh scrub out the n o x and uh v o c's and and [ammonia] [compounds] uh like all the acids to a certain level we are very um aware of the [opacity] which is the [thickness] of a stack emissions so if you don't see anything coming out of a stack the [opacity] is zero or twenty or [thereabouts] and so what we go through is uh if you see it smoking there's a problem and having worked with some of the legal folks very closely uh it becomes a real issue especially when it's smoking and you have to get it fixed el [pronto] as you know they they're allowed to come on site the [federaldes] anytime they want drive through and see and inspect so it's a full time uh everybody has their home phone number type of job um the sherman facility we are still in the closer too but still have a little bit of um [finalization] to do right it's been pitched to the sherman city council with um open arms as well as the public we had open [forum] and and uh uh tom jones our environmental corporate environmental guys handle the project and uh its real uh going real well i think it's matter just a matter of fund funds right now as i understand it uh but it's uh it's something else yeah they're they're they're in the same issue we were hoping on burning a lot of the [effluent] up there uh because the the system is setup where it won't have any emissions you're correct it will have something coming out of the [stackhouse] it was it was human nature but it won't have can any uh any bad stuff so uh i think t i we spend of all the major semiconductor firms we probably put safety and environmental on the [utmost] foremost uh uh first thing we always look at and we probably put more money into the systems and engineering behind the system of any other firm i know of we eat and sleep the stuff everything we do over here and uh it's an interesting job but um possibly uh_huh yeah i'm familiar with that one we have we have stuff that's very interesting uh we have hoods we have [duckwork] and all those type of interesting pieces of equipment where um they have um that we sample and it may have over uh a certain emission levels this is on the solid side and so we take it and uh we can't deep well [inject] something like that because it's a solid and we mix it with concrete and actually um [potash] per se and concrete and then actually put it in the ground but not so not in a hazardous waste location because it's basically a concrete slab it was totally legal but the cost of doing this is astronomical they actually show you what [duckwork] and things and so we were uh very very uh [cognizance] of and aware of all these types of uh expenditures because it could get very expensive but i think we uh you know we do all kinds of things to make the the world a better place to live you know i think some of the folks that aren't aware of it will be surprised at how much effort and energy is put into doing that i really would um i've enjoyed speaking with you this has been an interesting topic uh i was one of the i was responsible for all the planning and engineering over the corporate or in the north building yeah so uh i hope you like your office yeah yeah glad to see y'all taken care of well the uh i think what changed everything and uh is uh y'all were y'all were the only ones that make any money for t i here in the last ten years exactly and that's um when when you start when you start paying your way uh you know jerry takes a different outlook towards you guys i was just exactly i've enjoyed speaking with you see you later bye bye right me i'm in the legal department and um we do have uh a group of attorneys who handle our environmental issues and i don't know too much about the air pollution thing i do know for other types of pollution like the toxic waste and such that t i has to [dispose] of that we normally put in the ground you know we're coming up with a uh a new solution we have been finding a lot of toxic places to dump and we just transport to these places but after awhile it always seems that the um oh the site starts to leak and then you have to clean it up and such but the new idea is to take everything up to sherman and we're going have that you know incineration place up there and dump everything there and supposedly that facility will not generate air pollutants from what i've heard that everything would be in in you know a confined kind of incinerator and just burn it all up and that we won't be polluting the air i'm sure we have to have uh permits you know for that place and that there's you know limits as to what we can uh let you know go into the air oh okay oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh okay uh_huh um um now is that place built or you're still on the [makings] of it uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right well i know from some of the sites that we've had uh quite a list of [cites] that have gone bad and you have to clean up and you know the law now is the super fund and anybody who's contributed toxic waste no matter if you were somebody that eventually you know uh damaged the ground or not uh everybody has to contribute and it's been a lot of big bucks when we've gotten uh gotten pulled into these super fund deals to clean it up and you know mega bucks to uh you know take everything out and redo it and you know fill in some other area and um certainly it would to have a better solution like the sherman facility than um just letting it go in the ground because eventually you know it it seems that no matter what they do if they put it in oil drums and then seal it in some kind of cement lined uh dump area it still only in time starts to leak out yeah there there was one site that they cleaned up and then the new place leaked again uh_huh uh_huh um um yeah oh you were oh okay yes yes it's a heck of a lot different and we used to be really embarrassed about the gray metal desk we were about the only place in you know t i that had the gray metal desk people used to come and laugh and go gee i hadn't seen one of those ten fifteen years we finally got a little respect nobody thought of us as a profit center before right right not just overhead you too bye uh robert what do you uh think what substances do you think are the most uh likely causes of air pollution right do you uh do you think that those are bigger contributors than things like acid rain and some of the pollutants that come from uh industrial areas factories and so on i was going to say and and you so you understand smog uh_huh wow my word and that was a few years ago i i wonder if it's any better now because they uh california has such strict rules um about emissions and so on um i i don't know if you heard about the uh recent legislation in uh colorado uh against a power company uh that's actually on indian land i believe but uh it has been ruled against uh regarding air pollution because they think that it's causing terrible smog over the grand canyon and um particularly in the winter months so they it was uh a landmark case because it's unusual to um i can they they were talking about [shutting] it down or if it didn't comply and so on i don't know that the information is one of those wire services kind of news pieces of news you know so it's hard i never did see the full story so i don't know but they said that that it really caused so much smog over uh the grand canyon in the winter months that they couldn't do the uh [piloting] uh you know the [helicopter] trips and that sort of thing which would be horrible because the there's nothing i mean that's such a [spectacle] it would be a shame to ruin it uh what do you think individuals could do or society could do to alleviate this problem right uh_huh you think it's more more to society well i guess i kind of agree there i uh on an individual basis there isn't a lot we can do about a lot of things but if we are concerned about it then we certainly can uh force uh government uh that we elect to deal more seriously with it and i do think that we have a responsibility there i must admit i'm not always real politically active but i do think that um congress has backed down much too much on some of the air pollution standards and it's brought the they uh really listen to the the uh [lobbyist] and uh the car manufacturing companies have uh you know have really pushed they all those restrictions are really too hard we can't we can't quite make that go and they don't and then we still live with air pollution um so i suspect that that's one thing that that as individuals we can do make our voices known perhaps to our legislators but um as a society i think we can do more and that's probably how we ought to do it uh being individually responsible as uh in order to be group responsible right uh_huh i suspect that the that there's going to have to be a lot of pressure uh come to bear on the companies that deal with it and probably the only way that can happen is for um governments to realize that they have to pay if companies don't and uh i don't know how long that that will take sure exactly yeah right right well it's just the same thing with the car uh uh the gasoline now is a wonderful time to smack a fifty cent a gallon tax on gasoline so that we don't uh run into the kind of problems we recently had and yet the government is not going to do that because people are too dependent and they don't want they don't want to pay for it so instead we spend billions of dollars going to war uh you know however it might have had other causes certainly oil was a big factor um and i think that's probably going to happen with with such things as air pollution when we when we get serious about cleaning about our motors in our automobiles then uh then maybe you know we'll have a little bit of help um uh do you have any air pollution in your area oh no your talking about from from the uh the middle middle states that that have more factories and so on yeah we really don't have that either although i think i can tell a difference in i lived in this area for about twenty five years and i think i can tell a difference in the comfort level uh particularly in the summer uh you know when it gets hot and you have the that kind of a pressure from the pockets of air uh usually they say caused by exhaust it seems to me that i'm more uncomfortable and you know my eyes sting more and so on and so on so i suspect that it's it's an ever growing problem well i suspect that we've probably covered everything that we need to here it was nice talking to you so did i bye bye um gee i don't i mean i i guess it's the stuff that comes out of automobile exhaust you know they say in the paper [nitrous] oxides and ozone and all that so i believe them but i'm not a chemist i don't really know um i grew up in los angeles and have felt like i was victimized by air pollution i understand it very well and in fact i was a private pilot there and i can remember very etched etched clearly in my mind uh flying and coming up above the smog layer at about three thousand feet and looking back down and and really being [unbelieving] at what looked like a uh it just looked liked peanut butter thick and brown and so on this was quite a few years ago this was in the nineteen sixties people say that it is somewhat better right um so did it burn coal yeah um yeah yeah uh i don't uh i don't know whether we could do a whole lot as individuals uh maybe just take good care of our cars and make sure we keep our pollution devices clean and all that sort of thing um apart from that i i don't know what we can do as individuals what do you think we can do yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess i'm i'm to the point where i'm cynical enough that i really don't believe anything will happen unless unless there's something economically [justifiable] about it and in the case of air pollution it simply might turn out at some point down the road to be so costly to have to live with air pollution in terms of health problems and everything else that we'll spend the money that's necessary to uh to get rid of the source of it yeah people also have to realize they can't have their cake and eat it so if you don't want to burn coal for power how about nuclear energy well we don't want that either how about investing in the sun well nobody wants to pay twenty five cents a [kilowatt] hour i don't think uh i probably wouldn't mind if it really came down to it oh yes yes yes yes oh certainly yes yeah there's not really a lot here in raleigh uh once in a while we'll get some uh i think it kind of [washes] down from uh from your area linda that's what they that's what they yeah yeah yeah that's what they say but it's it's not it's not very usual and certainly we don't have the eye [stinging] variety that you get in the big cities uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah right i think we've given them about seven minutes according to my watch and i enjoyed the conversation bye oh go ahead i i am glad to talk to an expert i always wanted to know who an expert was uh well there there's two things uh the one i'm interested the most i guess myself uh would be the the freons i mean for air the one i guess that's the one i'm most curious about is how they're going to replace the freons in air conditioning that seemed to be the biggest surprise to me and whether when they replace it you know they're going to really come up with something that is not just as bad yeah i uh was uh you know where they were all concerned about that but that that it seems to be no i heard about it though was that before i didn't see it was that before they actually did that or it was because of that you know right are you you didn't work at t i oh okay where do you work in research or oh okay oh okay yeah yeah uh well i'm kind of a car buff myself i was going to ask you another question but uh i'll do that in a minute i i think that the changing you know from leaded fuel was a tremendous advantage you know not using no no no really oh i'm a car buff too we ought to talk about that one day uh uh i think you can use the you can use high you know the ninety two percent uh ninety two [octane] i don't think you'll have any trouble oh yeah yeah no i i think uh i uh work on my own cars and uh i don't think that's a problem i thought i'm saying i was glad to get rid of leaded gasoline and uh-oh the same thing about the war uh or related to the war on i was watching c n n and i cannot remember what station it was what did you see the advertisements uh where they talked about nuclear war what that would have been like in changing the atmosphere it is so scary that i hope that every one of the government officials saw that because it was just total disaster you know did you see any of those uh i it was it must have been channel thirteen i don't recall although i thought it was on c n n oh i it was a somewhat of a commercial because it i saw it regularly and it showed that and it was really devastating and it would uh how much ash would fall and and how it would essentially literally destroy the world you know oh really yeah there there's probably a lot of natural things uh yeah uh it i guess it's got to be really i don't know i don't know if it's air pollution it's uh it's dust pollution whether it's natural or not i don't know yeah oh yeah well i live in arlington and there there there are no buses i mean there there is the only school bus the only buses you see are school buses so well i know it it's uh you know the car is we have this big romance with the car but uh i think people are would be interested if you had one i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah well you said you were car buff uh i think that uh all of us could use one electric car right now i mean today because i think uh you said people drive forty miles and fifty whatever yeah when you go to trips and all you can have one gasoline car but i think we all could in a family say have an electric car where my one of my daughters or my wife my wife she could use one now if they had one you know because they she don't even she doesn't put fifty miles a day on the car no no you're right i i have seen them but uh they have a battery car uh i went to the auto show this past week and they did not [endorse] now that i think of it and i was so interested in the auto show i didn't think to ask anybody there were no electric cars i was surprised but now that you just mentioned that yeah i i think uh there could be a lot of i people close this is really we're we're nine years away or less i guess from the next century and i think yeah they've got a they've got a area over in the s m building too which is uh but it's a solar uh it's for uh [gots] some money from a power company and it's probably more [generating] power for you know uh electricity a hundred and twenty [volt] or whatever no i'm actually in the south building but uh i was uh i'm the facility so i've been in all most of the buildings anyway oh yeah well the the solar area is right right around from the auditorium now and it they've got several different uh areas where they're called solar lab it's right there on the first floor you look walk by there yeah but the solar project you know t i's been into it for years and i guess it's just not uh economical yet because of the other fuels yeah i've seen some i think then again i'm surprised now i didn't think they'd asked anybody when i was in the auto show there was nothing uh and there was no place for air pollution or companies or anyone there it was just pure automobiles there huh i didn't see did you go oh uh i was uh quite impressed with all the cars you know the engines are so much smaller now and everything and they're they all have brand new engines even general motors uh very few only the [caprice] and them and the cadillac had eight uh the old v eights they're all brand new engines uh of course they're burning gasoline of course yeah and uh whether you know that's one way you know uh uh on air pollution i i i don't know if the automobiles are the biggest contributor or not really they've got catalytic converters everyone seem to have gone to that whether they last uh and do a good job and now that they the inspection systems are analyzing that uh well what do you think if you're in that you know if you're concerned about that i mean if you're you're you're knowledgeable on that oh well i'm not an expert i just had a little i've i've seen a little pollution in my time it's uh the the chemicals we were dealing with were uh a [raid] [repellent] and uh that was really quite dangerous i'm not certain that that was that that's really a pollution issue i think pollution issue is is uh is is the argument over over people catching uh things like uh respiratory disease well the you know that that's another [arguable] issue and i i've seen the uh uh uh assuming you can buy into global warming i well did you see carl [sagan] on sixty minutes on uh when he was talking about when if if the if the war started in in kuwait and they'd set those uh all uh it was it was it was interesting but uh i'm just curious what he has to say now that they've got them all lit yes and his argument was uh was that that you would see a uh a year with no summer which actually happened and it it yes it actually happened uh it was a [volcano] [erupted] and it was high enough up but uh they had some people from the national [meteorological] center i think it was which is the national anyway research people and they said that the uh that the pollution would not go high enough and it's going to be interesting to see if carl [sagan] and his billions and billions of stars may have once made a mistake but the the the general the opinion among among the uh [meteorologists] at uh i'm uh member of the american [meteorological] society and yeah i do but i'm uh i i did that in my no i'm a planner a production planner but i i i'm in the active reserves as a [weatherman] so uh i i keep up from time to time but what the the argument is that uh that uh maybe there isn't global warming and maybe there is but um if there is uh we probably could do something about it now and if there isn't if there isn't and we do some the right things i think how do you feel about about all this smog and stuff on cars well do you have an older car i i have been working on an older car but it yeah well i'm restoring one i'm not having any problem it's a seventy and the but did you have another you said you had another uh no i didn't see that that i know that the uh that's well that they called nuclear winner and and i suppose that's that's the ultimate uh pollution problem well it well the [chernobyl] accident uh actually um because the circulation budget as high as it went uh covered uh a fairly remarkable amount they did some [tracers] and they i i think it's drawn in uh i think gets in there i can't think of the other trace but i saw a a presentation on on that and they it went quite a long ways but i i i guess i can be a little sympathetic but you know there's some argument that in in in the blue grass of kentucky that the [smoky] mountains that that's the uh the pine trees giving off pollution and but the but when you when you get up in the morning in in dallas and and see all that haze from west texas is that is that pollution well it that's the thing is that i think i think dallas really does have a problem in this the idea if we could get some cleaner fuel burning fuel the problem is is it's like los angeles people don't people don't want to use mass transit so but who wants to who wants to um ride a bus well my boss drives forty miles one way each day and one of the guys that works with me drives forty five miles and and they don't think it well i guess they do think something of it but um not even to you know you consider how much um but then you get into all these issues of of whether it it's the types of pollution and what it's doing to your lungs and are we going to die of of respiratory so we all move out of the out of downtown so we get away from the the smog my my wife grew up in southern california and they moved out to the valley before los angeles uh when the valley was clean and now the valley is not and so people move out one more valley and yes yes well do general motors apparently has one that they're they're testing i think it's no it's alcohol vehicles that they're testing but they suppose huh well the road and track was talking about that this apparently general motors has some uh they apparently think they're close well there's still a lot of research i was over in in the research lab a couple i guess it's been about a month ago and saw this research it was a little light that says solar solar powered research yeah well do you work in that c building oh i'm at oh well i'm in i'm in the c building been there for all my life huh well that's been a i know the focal plain [array] is they were taking space to a long time well the problem is that gas at a dollar a gallon you know who wants to yeah i mean we want to not pollute but uh at a dollar a gallon uh it's hard to beat the amount of energy you get from uh well i thought i saw an ad for volkswagen that had an alcohol they had one with spots on it and something i didn't go but it was showing they i mean uh an article no i didn't i didn't go so i they've done a lot well well they uh it's interesting though because my cars are older and so i didn't have to if you live in dallas county you have to have your have to have it checked and it's i had a friend with a [fiero] that uh they tried and tried and tried and had all kinds of terrible getting that [pinned] and so apparently well i um i haven't really lived in a lot of big cities i mean i'm living in dallas now plano is outside of dallas but um so i don't really have a lot of experience with air pollution but i know when i lived down in houston on the outskirts of houston there were some towns like pasadena that had oil refineries and um if you would drive by there like on your way to the beach or something there would just be dumping this huge amounts of smoke into the air and it always smelled really bad we know that that was really really really bad for the atmosphere what have you got up there huh_uh huh_uh oh no sure yeah it's just i mean it's just so bad that there is just so much going into the air and and the little bit you say that there putting in here and there and everywhere it all adds up plus all the problems in the middle east with all that smoke and yeah so it's just um why are we doing this to ourselves i just don't know but um i you know what really amazes me about like that pasadena area and the oil refineries is that there would be houses and people living just really close to it i mean between the freeway and the oil [refinery] you would see a neighborhood and you just thought well it's obvious that there's a lot going up in the air there and what comes up must come down yes and and how if they have all of those um [toxicity] i mean it there's signs around saying how dangerous it is and here you are living that just doesn't make too much sense huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh well um individual companies and things are so selfish and their desires to save a few dollars and and that they don't care about the environmental impact that they make yes huh_uh well have you ever visited um like los angeles or any place that's ever it's kind of known that it has uh pollution in it's air huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh that's so awful well what about in new york i guess you've gone that way maybe pretty funny well i've been to new york i have relatives that direction we have it's um where you are is it close to [phoenixville] pennsylvania because i have family there and oh huh_uh it's pretty neat that's beautiful country up that way i know it's um very lush and pretty up in the back in the east it's really well i'm thirty one seems kind of old to me huh_uh huh_uh yes that's really true and we all you know need to be willing to help pay a little bit like i've heard some people uh [grumble] about their uh cars passing their emission tests and things and how they've had to how it's more expensive and things and i thought well it's so much better huh_uh oh you don't huh_uh huh_uh well i really think it must i think every i mean well think about how many automobiles there are and each is putting out like we have a car an older one of our cars is an older car and every time you start it from the tail pipe it makes a black spot on the cement and you know that that is a sign yeah and that's all cars are doing that and it's really polluting the air huh_uh and it's also it's causing of lot of the real terrible suffering like cancer and things we sure wouldn't want so much more people suffering from that huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh pretty sad oh no huh_uh huh_uh no no it's scary it's scary huh_uh it's really awful well i've really enjoyed the conversation it's helped me to think more about some issues that i need to be thinking more about huh_uh and it's instead of waiting until it directly affects me like you say it's important to be involved ahead of time well you have a good day thank you bye bye huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh well i i live out in the country so that part is good uh we're maybe one hundred miles from pittsburgh which has a lot of pollution from their plants and right now in our area were fighting against a toxic waste incinerator and uh it won't be too for from where we live and everybody really has been you know fighting against it because we we do not want it well we don't want one any place we would like the uh industry to do more to take care of the waste products before they turn to incineration because we feel that uh the small percentage that they're going to be putting into the air is too much you know huh_uh huh_uh oh that has to be terrible over there huh_uh huh_uh yeah huh_uh yeah yeah breathing it we're breathing it all the time huh_uh no and i figure we're paying to take care of this toxic waste no matter who does it so and they have shown some of the industries have been real good at uh uh doing their part in uh reducing the amount that they have uh they've reused some of it uh it can be recycled a lot of their things and that they've shown that it uh to begin with apparently it does cost more but once they get started it's really it saves them money in the end and it cuts down on the end product that has to be dealt with some other way and if they would all that's what that's what we want done is we want industry to take you know more responsibility in taking care of it huh_uh huh_uh they're greedy it's money is what is it's it's the money they're making fantastic amounts on these things and uh even the incinerator the money and the income that they're going to make off this is you know just astronomical we've never been we went as far as as uh like las vegas and yellow stone park we did go we should have gone the whole way over but we didn't but i understand that we have an aunt that lives out there and when she was visiting here she would look up at the stars and she said how wonderful it was to be able to look into the sky and see some of the things that she saw she said they couldn't see those things out there because of the smog and everything no never been in new york i don't want to go there have you been there oh um no i never heard of that one we're near pittsburgh clarion university it's it's kind of northwest part of pennsylvania huh_uh you sound very young are you a young person thirty one you're you're young no you're young you have a lot of life yet and and these we have some people who say well this isn't going to affect me this air pollution uh older people or they think they're far enough away from something that it's and they don't realize these things are going to affect everybody and if you're older it's not going to affect you that way you have grandchildren you have children uh nieces nephews whatever friends uh everybody is going to be affected by it huh_uh huh_uh they say it has really made a difference though now see we don't have that here yet no we don't have that testing in that down here yet but they i have read that that that it has really helped where the problem is greater where the population is greater and that it has made a difference huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh something is coming out yeah yeah yeah if you have to put a price on it which is more valuable life or paying a little more huh_uh huh_uh huh_uh yeah and like i said i think you have to pay for it no matter what you do you with it because it's industry we're paying industry to make the products and we're helping pay for there making these end products that are toxic waste then we have to pay for them to pay somebody to carry it away someplace then they put it in the dump some place and they find out well this dump doesn't work so we have to clean this up and move it someplace else we end up paying for it again now we're going to end up paying for it again by having it burned in these large [incinerators] and we're paying to have our air polluted and our water streams polluted or the where they want to put the one area they want to put the incinerator is right in the middle of the clarion the two water sheds that feed clarion river and you know it just boggles our mind that they can consider even putting it there because if that water gets contaminated it will go on down to pittsburgh it will you know it affects so many people and it's just hard to think that they could allow them to do things like this huh_uh it really is it is really a concern so huh_uh well you too huh_uh bye okay uh_huh uh i don't know there's a lot of air pollution um i think industries and companies provide a lot of it and with uh i guess with the oil burning over in kuwait and stuff that would have a lot of air pollution in it um i'm north of pittsburgh so yeah yeah um we have a couple we have like a steel mill and a couple refineries and stuff and i know there's a lot of air pollution going in there and like they they get fined whenever they do the air pollution but the fine is nothing you know it's like nothing to them yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh my god uh_huh uh yeah but i don't know what they can do to really prevent it you know like how what can they do about the oil burning over in kuwait what you know i mean they fine the industries but you know that doesn't seem to stop them there i don't know what else they can do uh_huh yeah i i yeah i just don't understand you know what else anyone can do about it i don't think it's something that people really think about either you know it's i mean it it should probably be a big issue you know because it's it's doing a lot of damage but i it's something you know i don't think many people really think about it because it's nothing they i don't think we really have too much control over it uh_huh uh_huh yeah exactly well i really don't know too much else about it uh_huh yeah yeah we have tried i mean you know and um i i know where you know where a couple of the mills that have i know they put things on their stacks you know to filter the smoke and do all kinds of things but i mean every now and then it breaks you know and and you just have smoke going out into the air for a day or two until you can get it fixed and so so you know it's something we we have tried to help yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah okay well uh_huh it's been nice talking to you okay bye bye well discussing air pollution today i guess um uh well give me your first [impressions] yeah uh_huh uh puts a whole yeah gets a whole new picture to what real air pollution can be but uh that stuff going on over there what what uh what part of pennsylvania are you in okay okay so it's it's amazing too you know with that with the oil wells burning over there that's the exact same stuff that's coming out of cars every day just in uh just in a little different grade i guess but uh in dallas we've got we've just uh brought in a whole new set of requirements on inspections and things like that for cars because uh people just don't use mass transit and stuff in dallas everybody loves their car and you see an awful lot of uh one person vehicles on the road on during rush hours that seems to be our biggest problem down here um you know there's uh there's a lot of industry around but uh it's not it's any pollution that industry's dumping around here is not going into the air it's typically water type situation uh_huh yeah it's it's like like two hours of output or something like that that's true that's true yeah i a uh i grew up in south dakota so i was never i was never exposed to anything of of the of the sort um there were always e p a people and what not were always telling us that uh farm chemicals and what not were destroying our water system and all that but we just we just never saw the results there was there was dust in the air during planting seasons and what not but that that was all we ever saw and then five years ago i moved to dallas and i suddenly started to understand what burning eyes and all that stuff is about that i'd always heard about it uh it's it gets it's real depressing in the morning sometime you can tell if it's a good day or a bad day by uh how far out from downtown uh you can be on the road and still not see it and uh yeah i mean it's not i don't think dallas is considered uh a real bad place for air pollution but you you can tell you can tell the differences in the days when it's when the haze is kind of [yellowish] gray instead of just being a a foggy [misty] color and uh it it's a little it's a little disappointing sometimes you start to realize what you're breathing right right it it's that there really isn't a whole lot it's one of those uh it's one of those things that if they do a little bit and uh and you know every little bit does help i do believe that um but i also believe that the earth is a kind of a self regulating system and uh it will clean itself up eventually it the whole idea is not to not to push the limit too hard i guess let the you know let the natural natural systems take care of the problem as much as possible uh_huh right and it's one of those things it it's so hard to measure what what the damage is it's kind of like oh i guess it's kind of like kind of like cigarette smoking you know it it could go on for years and years until they start to see some results and people can actually actually say yeah it's it's it's doing doing some damage and something's got to be done um there's you know there's a lot of things like that it you can uh you can pound on something for a long time before it finally breaks but until it breaks you don't really know that there you were doing anything to it but uh yeah well that's that's i think we both agree it's it's one of those deals that uh i just think there's a lot of other problems right now and uh we've done a lot to take care of it and uh oh sure sure oh there's no doubt about it i don't know if you ever happened to see some of the like twenty twenty and what not about [rumania] and east germany when they first got pictures out of there about how some of their systems had been running for twenty and thirty years and uh you know they had absolutely no regulations no controls whatsoever and they had destroyed entire forests and what not just because the air was so polluted that's that's the kind of things that uh you don't see in this country and that's that's why i think that you know it's i don't know if you can ever do enough but uh i think it's all relative to the to the time and place and i think right now it's it's pretty much under control all righty well you bet bye so well this is an appropriate topic the day after earth day so um well what do you think is uh the pollutants the main pollutants in the air yeah well that's me too after um on channel thirteen uh they had some some programs the day before and i'm not sure that about yesterday we didn't really watch it too much yesterday but the day before they had a lot of programs about the environment and you know how we're affecting the earth and things by what we do as the people and and they mentioned sulfur and carbon dioxide a lot and that actually um as our population increases and you know our of course our our cars you know our number of cars increase per the population that's the problem but also like you said the industry pollution and you know they're they're regulation that's placed on them is i mean it's better than it used to be but it's incredible that they still don't have you know they don't they're not made to regulate the amount of pollutants that they put into the air you know i i just i can't stand that and i know for a fact that they get away with a lot that you know they're supposed to be regulated because we have a we have a plant i don't know about t i but we have a plant uh a pillsbury plant in in a town [adjacent] to ours and i know people that work there that of course you wouldn't think pillsbury would put out certain chemicals but they put out toxic chemicals there just in some of the um what they do uh to uh make their dough and to clean out the flour and stuff like that yeah i mean it's incredible and um they said that they're you know they have a little creek that runs by them and some of the people that work there have told me that when they have [inspectors] coming they you know shut down everything and they clean up their act but on a normal basis that they're that they're dumping things that they're not supposed to be dumping and i'm like if they're getting away with it can you imagine that's a that's a pillsbury plant i can't imagine plants yeah they have chemicals that they use to [refine] their [flours] with and stuff you know to to break the [flours] down and then they they also do testing there and i don't you know when you consider you know it's probably not radioactive but toxic can be can be anything that's uh classified that can damage the earth so there could be a lot of things that they could put you know that chemical wise that they use to uh that they are testing with that they're dumping yeah yeah i don't think they do the packaging at this plant but they do they do a lot of research and they do um they do do a lot of the [refining] up there or i'm not really what's it called when you do flour i'm not yeah yeah uh_huh yeah but i mean you think about it it you know it's probably a lot easier to detect things that go into the ground than it is maybe to just i'm not really sure but i would think it would be easier to detect those things because you could detect them down or stream or such or you can you can you know do uh testing on the ground itself at that point but when they pollute into the air and you've got you know and you've got movement through the air it's going to move a lot of that off so i don't see you know how they can do some of the unless it just hangs there like in places where it's a lot of pollution you know like in los angeles or or the bigger cities where it it tends to get stuck there you know that you have a lot more particles in the air you know per per uh per particles in the surrounding community because it's not moved away but um uh_huh yeah well i know out in some i'm not sure i can't remember the name of the county it's it's where [stillwater] is or sweet no i'm not sure i know it i think it's uh i know we have a piece property there it's called [dublin] it's in [dublin] texas i'm not really sure what the county it's stephen no [stephenville] okay where [stephenville's] at they've had a lot of problems because they've um introduced a lot of [dairies] there so they have a lot of cattle in the area i mean they've got like per per uh per lot you know they've got like a lot of head of cattle because [dairies] they don't it's not like it was a big ranch where they let the cow roam around free they've got to have them there to be able to milk them and they and i read in this article i couldn't believe it where you know like one cow produces like a day produces like a hundred or so pounds of manure one cow i was like my god and they and this thing says that that you know people think well cow manure is good for fertilizer but when you get that much manure it says it becomes a real problem because it's not it's not when you know you buy cow manure at the store they've added stuff to it and they've added [humus] and stuff that breaks it down and and this and this article said that they've got a real problem that um you've got toxins and and uh bacteria in the manure that is what it's doing is it's going through uh they don't have a very deep um you know they're water they're natural water uh i forget what that's called with you know it's like a spring spring water but it's below the surface it's not very far down and all this stuff is [seeping] through to the water and they're like they're afraid that you know within a certain amount of years that it's they're they're water in that town will be totally polluted and they won't be able to have any drinking water because they will have um polluted completely polluted so that they're you know there's too many toxins and [bacterial] growth and i'm like my god you know just from that one you know just from them introducing dairy farms in that one county no not when you figure i didn't realize a cow one cow produces that much manure and they were talking like thousands of cows you know they were talking thousands cows in one little tiny area you well they are evidently but um i mean evidently a normal cow produces that much too but they're just so spread out on ranches and stuff that it's not you know a problem but when they get them in these tiny little areas you know and they've got a real big problem and they they said that that what they were doing was scraping it with [bulldozers] and stuff and taking it to uh these like ponds that they had to filter it with but the ponds because they've had so much rain in the past few years they just overflow and they overflow into the the creeks and stuff in the area so that just creates you know there there's and oh it was just disgusting it said the creeks will foam people people stand outside their houses and their watch the creeks foam brown and all and i'm just like oh my gosh and the smell is really bad they yeah but i i don't know it really frightens me though as far as the when you think about the you know thinking of just air pollution itself and then and channel thirteen they're really um [emphasizing] the problem with acid rain you know if we if we keep putting that stuff into the air and and you know if we keep creating the problem and not doing anything about it that it's really going to be a problem for um just the the earth you know what the earth is receiving back you know because how can you tell where it's going to come down at yeah the rain forest and all yeah well they do because what is it carbon dioxide they use that where we can't [synthesize] it and they're [synthesizing] it for us yeah yeah i think we just have to i don't know personally you know i suppose you know if you just make sure your car is is working properly and you know they're nowadays they have the emission controls on them but uh i think the only the main thing is just keep on the your legislators back you know as far as seems like they've only just really started as far as the environment saying okay we're really going to get involved it it's really becoming a problem by the year two thousand there will what what are we going to have what kind of results are we going to have for the environment and and what will we right i have trouble with the chemical plants and things like that i just uh i think they put off so much and they're not regulated enough uh_huh yeah right uh_huh no really huh oh right i wouldn't have thought that pillsbury could would the i mean or even had you know well those chemicals would not yeah right yeah right you know like in in packaging and uh you know just goodness yeah yeah uh only thing i can think is [bleaching] but i mean i i don't know what's how they do the flour but um we we're on the southwest side of houston we don't have that much as far as uh [aiming] in the plants over on this uh the east side does we've got [imperial] sugar but uh and they're you know they're right there on the creek also and uh they've been there for years and uh yeah uh_huh uh_huh right yeah uh_huh i know that i worry every now and then we're still on a well water we're not on city water and i think well what if somebody's dumped something back there in the and no one knows about it and you know it [sinked] in through the ground and all that yeah uh_huh oh okay okay uh_huh yeah right uh_huh oh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh oh it will uh_huh yeah and the right right yeah and the the ground will filter some of it but not all of it these are well fed these are good grief these are well fed cows uh uh_huh right uh_huh yeah oh oh now that's bad oh i was going to say the air pollution alone there just from a hundred pounds of cow manure was going to be bad uh_huh yeah right right and then cutting the trees you know that bothers me as far as you know the yes uh we've been wanting to well not me but uh it's been or suggested that we cut a few of the trees down here i'm like no you know for what's cut down here you know more will be cut down someplace else and it will just take that longer to grow back and trees help so that uh i don't uh_huh right right believe me it's just so much better so uh yeah i knew i think there's lots that be that could be done to to improve how things are done now uh_huh uh_huh right all right do you have a bunch of factories and stuff out there the uh oh you mean for like smog and stuff huh uh_huh huh what do you think of that uh the greenhouse effect that's going on yeah that's causing the hole in the ozone uh_huh it it is scary though isn't it right well all right north carolina that's up there by kentucky isn't it uh_huh okay okay well kentucky's next to virginia i'm pretty sure well i'm from kentucky i should know but i don't i'm sorry but kentucky we use to have severe i mean just real cold cold winters and we'd have three and four feet of snow course here in texas they don't have snow they don't know what snow is they freak out when there's snow on the ground oh amarillo well that's close to here how long have you been in raleigh well how old are you okay well we're the same age yeah i forget my age all the time so that's okay it's i think it's just something that goes with the territory but to me texas see and kentucky we had to have ice on the ground for them to close school okay in texas i'm serious if it gets cold and it looks like it's going to rain i i swear they close everything down i just laugh i mean i do they get i mean and traffic [slows] down to nothing oh well no i'm from the north that's why i said we in kentucky we i don't know you just get used to the weather and of course the people down in south they they're not used to cold weather and stuff and uh it just i don't know i just laugh every time they have a every time they have snow on the ground everything's closed up and you know you can have snow on the ground and not be slick on the road but uh no not really i mean not to see it now of course there's you know t i is here oscar mayer and there is a few factories but i don't see much pollution going on uh_huh well see they have that um what is it a test or something like that they call it and uh that's supposed to cut down on it yeah school buses and the commercial buses yeah well they're burning that diesel fuel is what it is and uh it it gets bad uh_huh well that's a good idea well uh the you know pregnant women aren't supposed to walk along a highway because of that smoke fumes when i was pregnant with my first little boy i had read it because back then because i was walking back and forth well not back and forth i was walking home from uh the college i was going to in kentucky and i was having to walk along the highway it was just one day a week but it was in i i have no sense of smell so i couldn't smell this but it would make me sick and i'd be real tired anyway just from walking along the highway but yeah it's yeah all the exhaust uh well that was four years ago too it's probably a lot worse now yeah uh_huh do you uh smoke yeah it's kind of yeah because you do smoke one a day um uh for the air pollution huh but they i don't hear much about it down here course texas we don't have a bunch of pollution but too we've got that air coming in off the coast and you know it'd blow it up north so maybe that's part of the reason it's not so bad down here but no it would seem like it would be the same way in on the california coastline wouldn't it uh_huh uh_huh but they usually have that everywhere because of the humidity especially i think they do that for most everybody especially it's usually for the young children and the older the old people older old people it is oh oh well this is pretty wooded area down here so in a lot of parts yeah i know texas is supposed to be flat but they've got you know down by the denison dam there's a lot of uh they do they live close then in durant oklahoma you go where uh you go to visit them oh yeah well down by lake texoma there's a bunch of wooded area this but but kentucky's beautiful they've got trees and trees are supposed to you know [purify] you know what the best indoor [purifying] plant is for smoke and stuff it's a [philodendron] it's supposed to filter the air for you in your home i had one my husband bought it for me when my daughter was born three months four months ago yeah i do yeah i do yeah i did i couldn't make myself quit i did cut down a lot i got i i've got one vice and smoke is smoking is it i don't i don't drink and i try not to [cuss] and i do i do very little and smoking i just i got in the habit of it when i was about thirteen yeah we're down here at the bible belt aren't we uh i wasn't saved until i got down here and people down here are just there's so many christians and it's so different from kentucky but um i worked at t i for a while but then my brother in law works there and he got me into it how'd you get into it well it's fun i like talking to new people and i half the time well a couple of times i've been interrupted by my little girl i've had to hang up and stuff but i enjoy it i talked to people from well what carolina now up in uh boston and new york well boston is new york isn't it no boston massachusetts but i've talked to people in new york but i've talked to a lot of people in texas because i guess it's because t i down here with boston i love their accent i do i love the boston accent i met a girl from boston one time my husband was in the service so we went from kentucky to louisiana down here to texas and his family's down here we're out of the service now yeah he got out of it his unit right after panama we went to he went to panama when noriega was doing all that and uh he um we've got quite a few actually what we're more concerned with is the inner pollution in the city um we've actually had some warnings in uh raleigh uh on air pollution uh_huh because of there so many cars and we have a belt line around raleigh where we're trying to [divert] traffic and um you know it's still it's just surrounding the city and you can actually see it there's a couple of uh tall buildings in raleigh and and you can actually you know they're [blurred] they're even dark and what it is is the pollution well i guess that's the [fluorocarbons] and uh uh_huh yeah that's very serious i mean we can we're even feeling the effects of the weather from uh uh the shift in the jet stream oh yeah i mean uh the last two uh years our winters have been absolutely nothing i mean maybe one snow kentucky uh north carolina is all the way on the east coast it's further west than georgia it's uh right below virginia uh_huh uh_huh originally i'm from texas so i mean amarillo so uh uh_huh yeah real close um i've been out of texas about ten years oh twenty uh seven i almost forgot my age oh really um uh_huh actually they've been doing the same thing here it's you know it's kind of funny they um i guess [northerners] are different but even uh north [carolinians] they don't know how to handle cold weather uh_huh that's true do you all have much pollution there uh_huh well you know what irks me is these cars that are driving down the road and you have that black smoke coming from their tail pipe uh_huh well supposedly that's supposed to catch it but i'll tell you what and even these buses oh lord it real bad these buses in raleigh oh yeah i mean school buses are notorious oh yeah yeah well you know what they've started doing is is instead of the tail pipes being at the bottom of those buses they've started putting them up at the top and that way it gets above um other cars on the road and uh it really does make a difference although it it settles you know even if it's at the top and it's a lot of black smoke coming out it still settles and and you know if you're going to be jogging on the side of the road that's that's even more miserable i would i'd have to go out to the country to jog no i didn't know that uh_huh um uh_huh golly that's that's bad oh i'm sure well they um you can really feel it you know in your breathing even normal people and if you're older um i mean you can really deplete your [oxygen] and it'll you know pass out and it's you know it's killed several people um actually i'm a very i just smoke one in the evening if that so i'm a very very light smoker it was kind of funny they were doing some uh ozone testing and uh the e p a and they were just screening some candidates and i don't think i'd ever you know do that but they uh asked me if i was a smoker and i didn't fit into the [smoker's] category and i didn't fit into the [nonsmoker's] category um it was you know i was just one of those yeah in between people so that kind of threw them off but they're doing a lot of research here uh the e p a for ozone and oh yeah all that they're they're real big into it they've got research triangle park here and they're you know they're just doing a lot of uh lot of stuff huh_uh oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh gosh i think i would hate to live in california the smog there i mean i can't believe they have warnings here which it it's mainly just when it gets real real hot really well that's kind of good to know because i thought lord i thought i lived in a halfway decent area um uh_huh well you ought to come to north carolina it's a big change yeah there was no trees where i was from in amarillo and here they've got the mountains the beach the trees you know it's they've got streams rivers ponds it's really pretty here is it uh_huh sherman and denison do you know my grandparents live in durant yeah yeah real close i go there yeah oh uh_huh yeah we used to go fishing in lake texoma huh_uh oh really well i'm going to have to get some uh_huh do you smoke do you did you smoke when you when you were pregnant well i mean i can understand that actually well yeah well one thing i miss is uh is the people from texas are are you know i miss their morals their values and everything it's uh uh_huh how'd you get involved in this research oh i see huh um i i was taking a voice i o class and um and actually doing some research and so they told me about this project uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh no boston's above uh_huh yeah i've talked to a lot of people in texas i had one call actually from charlotte north carolina and virginia and um i can't remember where all from up north like you said i think one was from boston uh_huh uh_huh oh i bet you're glad uh_huh oh gosh um what do you think the major cause of air pollution or at least in the boston areas uh_huh yeah yeah um that isn't the same in the washington area because we don't have any major um industry except for uh government and services and the the transportation situation is such that uh all the car pollution is is absolutely awful um also the worth of the [hub] of three [airports] in this general area there is uh national dulles and then uh baltimore washington and it interestingly some of the information i've been reading [indicates] that the amount of air pollution from uh uh airplanes is extraordinary yeah and that's always something that you know you just don't real you don't think about but the uh apparently the air pollution and the fact that it's delivered right up in high [altitudes] is a very significant factor yeah yeah uh_huh society has especially recently i mean you know what it's like here yeah yeah yeah we just had the that's right so solutions to this would be i i you know improved well i guess the the to me the first thing is i wish society would get as upset about this as you do get getting people upset about animal rights i mean this is so so basic it's human rights in the sense but uh in terms of demanding it's just not caused but demanding that uh we can spend so much money on certain things but that research really be directed toward um improvement of polluting vehicles and not just cars but also buses um planes that something can be done i i can't imagine that well if we can't send people to the moon that we can't improve these things converter yeah uh_huh uh_huh and that for buses that's right well and also to make it economically feasible uh and also in buses i don't know if you ever got caught in a traffic jam behind a bus that you know uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah but even of course in the longer term just to get away from fossil fuels i mean i'm i'm thinking of research in that direction rather than we we've taken the intermediate step but i don't think fossil fuels are the answer uh_huh yes i yeah yeah you don't throw the baby out with the bath water and condemning nuclear use yeah yeah but with the pollution issue uh fossil fuel is not the way to go anyway uh so you've to you've got to look elsewhere so uh but it is something that's a little frightening and in fact well i within our family we have said my husband i have two sons uh well one is already in college in new england and the other will be going in september and we just feel that when we leave uh this area we're going north not south uh i like the mentality north and i also like the [fresher] air up there so i mean that's the way we will be going but um so i i'd be interested in having spoken with somebody also from the far west on this issue to see how they their attitudes are uh_huh uh_huh the smog and yeah uh_huh yeah i mean even california was notorious for its smog years ago before it even was an issue out here well that that's that's that's personal air pollution yes yes yeah well i i definitely advance that well listen i enjoyed speaking with you and let's hope some there are other people that feel the same way you're welcome bye bye well the the the major cause it seems up here is i live right on the ocean so it's kind of hard for me to tell what would happen if i lived in some of the valleys inland but the major cause here and we always seem to and it seems to be [validated] by the press is the car pollution we don't have too much industrial pollution uh car pollution seems to be the one and only thing that that i can really put my finger on here is that so i didn't know that well most people talk about the noise pollution from airplanes rather than the air pollution yeah i would think so you know uh i guess it talked about all types of pollution i happen to just read something the other day at least in the boston paper there were three things that that come to note one is that the carbon [fluorides] that are uh being released into the atmosphere are causing even a larger hole in the southern hemisphere in the ozone layer and again and now they've located another one or rather an expanding one in the northern hemisphere so so i'm quite concerned i don't think it's involved any longer with with uh hair sprays or those no i think it's now is what uh from what i understand it's air conditioning units and and we certainly turned into an air conditioned society yeah i know in florida there's no place you go that isn't air conditioned and i do quite a bit of business in washington and oh yeah it's quite is is the it's really out of the norm not to find something that isn't air conditioned and and i guess refrigerators are the same way they release that yeah well yeah well i i yeah no i think that it can be done simply because uh uh we've we've every car now in america that's been produced for the past fifteen years has what they call a catalytic converter and no lead gas was came to the pumps and and that's been done there's the lead pollution has that problem essentially i guess because it was at crisis [proportions] was was [licked] and i think that there are there are solutions certainly we don't even need a need a research anymore it's just a matter of passing the law and passing the law depends on how heavy the car industry the automobile lobby is that's right that's right oh yeah well that that the the smell is awful and but you know i was reading the other day not to go on with this but that diesel fumes actually have less pollutants in them than gasoline fumes so i guess you're better off sitting behind a bus than a car although i can never i could never uh really rationalize that while i was sitting there yeah well we you know up here in new england uh where i've right close to where i live is the [seabrook] nucleus site which is practically a you know [guerilla] war up here went on for years uh my daughters [marched] in the uh uh against the [seabrook] and i kind of uh my feelings were that we needed this bridge to to uh to jump from whatever it was going to be from fossil fuel to whatever it was going to be yeah unfortunately though i think the oil companies have [lied] to us for years so we really don't know whether there's enough fossil fuel left or there isn't and uh and uh no yeah yeah yes that's right yeah well since since texas and louisiana and uh california that in that [ranking] order the worst pollutants in america i mean i read that the other day i mean louisiana for a small state it was amazing but it's the industrial pollution i should imagine and california seems to be taking steps i mean you you read about the the fairly fairly stiff laws they put in on cars now they're they're enforcing but uh again uh that didn't occur without a crisis nothing will occur i guess without a crisis yeah exactly exactly well the greatest thing that happened to pollution in the last couple of years as far as i'm concerned is the no smoking rules on airplanes and in restaurants and it it really is a pleasure for me although i guess smokers don't think that but that to me was pollution that was its most personal personal uh pollution that i can think of surely something happen right on thank you bye bye uh we are to discuss air pollution and uh what we think the causes are and i probably would uh target uh industry as being number one [polluter] well vehicles and and yes right because uh there's a lot of commercial vehicles out there especially those the big rigs like the [busses] and um the big uh eighteen [wheelers] and so forth i think they would generate probably uh one of them would probably generate enough for three cars but that's not and i think it can be resolved if uh if they really let go with the technology that they have at uh at their hand and they haven't released it yet i think there's a lot of hold back uh because of uh-oh priorities that they have you know and uh it's you have some children oh okay do you have do you watch children or do you uh_huh well that's interesting um is there anything well temporarily they do then we get out of that phase soon enough oh yes uh_huh uh_huh sure uh_huh well i know uh uh in michigan uh the way they used to take care of the trash is they would [incinerate] it and the fumes from the incineration was a terrible [pollutant] to the air and um of course now no and when they and you bury it and it's not gone either because it has [untold] ramifications and uh and it gets into into people you know which is uh the the most important um resource that we have is people and they're and they're destroying us they really are so i think the [cockroach] will evolve uh safely so they say yes but there's not enough and we need expert cooperation yeah education of the education of the people is primary i would think and uh and we're hard to teach we are hard to teach absolutely yeah uh_huh absolutely yes uh of course uh we would like to see it [accelerated] because uh of the critical nature of it the the learning of it and the just to um think that way we have to be in that thought pattern and able to um motivate ourselves to um uh do what is right for the atmosphere um i think we're all contributors i mean every human being that lives is a contributor to pollution so we just um uh_huh well hopefully it can be resolved within a shorter time frame than we have seen it done in the past that the time frame for cleaning up our air and our and our um land you know which uh we get our [nutrients] from you know i mean everything goes back to the land so um it's just um very critical i think at this point to uh get that through to the people and get us educated uh_huh i i don't know if they offer classes in uh the uh in the grade school uh uh [subjecting] in science okay what grade level would that be would that be um perhaps the first grade level which would be well i mean are they starting though at at with the children that are so their little minds are like [sponges] and they can really uh relate to that target stores oh okay okay oh i see uh_huh help fight the pollution oh that's wonderful well i'm sure that uh perhaps they're the leaders you know and other will others will pick up on their example and carry it uh further you know because uh thoughts are uh_huh uh_huh yeah that's probably a major one i think uh individually uh just by the vast number of people there are there's i think cars are also a major contributor to it yeah vehicles huh uh_huh uh_huh just a minute i'm on the phone uh_huh yeah well it yes i have i have five in the kitchen at the moment you need to shut the door please shut the door right now we have the air conditioner running what do you need hurry i'm on the phone yes you may and they keep turning the tape recorder up besides um i have three of my own and i have uh two that i'm tending for the summer off and on so they cause more noise pollution than air pollution that's right that's right yeah but um i think another you can tell when you go around cities you can smell specific things from from specific industries i remember being i i grew up in new jersey and uh i can remember the smell of [newark] [vividly] and it's the type of industry you know which obviously if you can smell it it's in the air yeah well people think you burn it it's gone but it's not gone uh_huh then it just gets into the soil and into the water yeah yeah we really have to do more i think we've got to do more with the recycling that's i'm i'm really glad to see that there's more of that happening yeah well it's a we're getting at least they're starting you know so at least they're moving that direction yeah uh_huh well it's going to it's probably going to be a generation or two before before it's really going very well because now the adults are more aware of it and the children are being taught in the schools more it'll be you know on down the road this is going to be passed on which is good uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah i think you're right education is a big thing you know and as we educate them individually what they can do people become more aware of the things in industry too that that are causing problems and and i think that they'll they'll work towards solving those problems more too um uh_huh yeah just a minute and i'll turn it up i'll turn it up in a minute honey when i'm done uh_huh yeah well i think science has come a long way to making it so that it's possible to find ways to solve the problem um i think they teach it a lot in science yeah i would think that that's where it would come through i i think they're kind of getting it in all different grades yeah i think they are starting probably in the first grade they're you know they're hearing somewhat about it um i know uh target has their program to make kids more aware of it and yeah they've got if you go in the [entrance] they've got uh stands usually where they have um little uh kind of a little newspaper thing that the kids can read and and they can form a a group to um yeah yeah so yeah well i i know it's it's a hard problem to solve because you you know like mcdonald's has changed back and forth between paper and foam and that kind of thing and they do all these studies on which ones pollute more and then there's the paper and plastic bag question okay um in plano yes where do you live oh okay huh um i was trying to think uh something we were watching the other day and they were doing an [overview] of los angeles uh from an area that was up higher and you literally could see the band of smog that uh i've never been out there but it was it was quite evident that it was a real brown area and yeah yes yeah yes well i know uh that's been the concern in europe they hadn't uh we have friends in germany and uh have family that live near the black forest area and large areas of the forest are being hurt from the cars because when we uh switched to the unleaded gas and and had the emission control advice uh devices required on the cars uh that's something that europe didn't do right away and now they're doing that and i guess it started in the last few years because they have found that in that particular part of the country that's the only pollution that's been there it's not an area that is industry but they were losing a lot of uh trees and a lot of um i guess from from something that the car was uh was giving yes and yes yeah yes yes yeah i i get that sometimes um my line gets some static i don't know why well i know it's um we did have a solar water heater when we lived in houston and uh oddly enough i thought our part of the country was ideal oh i don't know what to usually it's the other phone i have trouble with it must just be on the line can you hear me okay i don't know what uh i i don't know what the problem is but uh when we lived in houston we had a solar water heater and we had thought this part of the country would be ideal for solar homes and solar energy and we have enough clouds that uh there are other areas that would be better suited that surprised me because i think we have a tremendous amount of um sunny days and and it yes it can be used and it can help but uh that was a problem that they were still working on but well i yes yes uh i hope so well i do think um i mean you've already mentioned several things i think uh just the change in attitude and the fact that more people are aware there is a problem and more people are interested in uh yes yes well and and for the future generations too uh yes where do you live in plano in dallas uh the air pollution isn't too bad in our area so we're very fortunate but i know in some areas it's really it it really is bad i haven't either uh_huh well i think it would be terrible to live in an area like that and unfortunately i think there are a lot of areas that are that that bad particularly in the areas where there are industries uh where they are burning a lot of coal and oil up more up north i guess uh i think it's a bigger problem with the car pollution anti pollution devices i think uh air isn't as bad it once was from the cars because we certainly have plenty of cars in our area from acid rain i think it gives off uh in the emissions it gives off [gases] which combine up in the atmosphere uh and form a a weak acid it just makes the rain fall on the acid side and after a period of time i think that [accumulates] in uh trees because they take it up through their roots as well as it landing on the leaves on [surfaces] like you've seen what it's done to buildings even where it's really bad what's interesting several years ago i took a course uh on uh well it was actually it was put on by the power companies and about the various sources of energy and how much pollution there was and there wasn't from various kinds of of energy and uh at that point in time one person that was a speaker brought up the topic of acid rain and it was kind of pooh [poohed] you know oh you're making a mountain out of a [molehill] kind of thing and it's turned out that that's been very true what he was [forecasting] about the [accumulation] of of the pollutants in the air and the acid rain and what it would do to [foliage] so it's kind of interesting the change in perspective from when i took that course now a lot of people are really afraid of nuclear uh i'm not afraid of nuclear having had that course because of how the nuclear that uh they use is not bomb quality and we're so strict with all our controls in the united states the chances of of an accident are slight and it doesn't pollute the air at all it's safer to be around a nuclear plant then it is to be around a coal plant many more deaths have occurred in and dealing with coal plants then ever around nuclear plants it's kind of funny because people are just [petrified] at least some are at the thought of nuclear so i don't know in europe there's a lot of dependency on nuclear power and they recycle the fuel and then instead of of some people are really afraid to recycle the fuel because they're afraid it could become uh bomb quality but that's the only sensible thing to do is recycle and reuse the fuel and not store it down in the ground as far as i'm concerned where it could eventually perhaps there's some problem uh pollute the [groundwater] so i don't know what the answer is the best answer of course would be solar or uh fusion or something clean well we've got a problem on the line don't we uh_huh but uh solar of course would be the clean the [cleanest] i can't hear you at all for all this static now i can again uh_huh uh_huh oh yeah it it's still got a long way to go it's just you know a possible solution in the future i think maybe to help in some ways it may not in all ways maybe they'll come up with fusion you know be able to control it i don't know how long that'll take but one of these days because that's perfectly clean it's just we can't control it right now it takes more energy to cause fusion to occur then you get out so it isn't not at all and you can't control it unless you gotten a huge [electromagnetic] field so that's not going to work at least not now but uh who knows what the future will hold uh as far as energy goes i i think with solving some of the energy future energy problems we'll probably solve some of the pollution problems as well i do to i like to be [optimistic] i don't like to be [pessimistic] about these things we have one earth to live on and we got to take care of it uh_huh i've noticed students are are much more you know young young people are much more receptive to ideas about the environment and protecting the earth and so if we can raise it uh you know generations with those concerns we'll solve a lot of our problems i'm afraid i know i was part of the me generation where they didn't so many of them didn't people didn't care you know it's whatever you know recycle well if it's a problem forget that uh not throw the trash out the car window and leave it in the car and then throw it away how horrible you know now i've always done those kinds of things because i just didn't like messes and okay and i'm up in wisconsin uh my name is terry and uh in the small town we don't but uh we're not that far from the city where there's tons of pollution okay i'll go ahead and start recording that okay um just in particular here in the twin cities we have a lot of big corporations and um i'm sure there's a lot of pollution we uh before moving to wisconsin lived across from where they were um [gravel] pits and also where they were making tar and so we would occasionally if the wind was blowing the right direction would get the smell of tar and it would uh smell the continuous you knew that you were also breathing that into your lungs so and it was like miles away but just the idea of having that come across the way it did in the wind kind of made you know that there was a lot of pollution and that was just one small corporation that was doing the pollution of that but also um where we also lived too it was very close to a highway so got a lot of fumes from uh trucks and cars and you would literally see the pollution on your furniture i mean it was on your tables you would dust every day and it was dirty um type of dust i mean it wasn't the typical dust that you get way out in the country um for i live in a small um town now quite a ways from the twin cities about an hour away and i may dust once a week and that's all it needs versus every day when i lived in the city so oh yeah it it comes right on through through the screens the only way that you could actually live in the in the city is to close your windows and have an air cleaner system right in your home that would take the air from the outside and clean the air before it would get into the house and so it was quite a dirty city um if you were well protected by trees which catch a lot of the pollution then you're fine but most of the time in the city you have lots of high [rises] you have lots of other things that are not catching the pollution and it's just going for miles and miles and miles and it's landing somewhere with the wind but sure sure yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh oh sure sure yeah it's i mean our air quality um in the twin cities is a lot better than what we've heard about california and maybe in the other areas but um they were always talking about the air quality of today is this you know the ozone or whatever and it's kind of scary because the air is something we take for granted and many people are too busy getting to work not thinking about okay i could have [carpooled] with a friend even my husband was uh talking to some of the guys at work now he's uh fifteen miles away from work but he was talking wouldn't it be nice to carpool and the guy says well it's too close it wouldn't pay and so yeah and exactly and so my husband says well that's fine you know it would save quite a bit on the wear and tear on cars and you know the gas and no everybody has their preference to drive by themselves or if they do they they drive with one little buddy uh at least it's with one person but most of the time people are saying forget it i don't want to carpool it's too much of a hassle it's too much involvement but yet yes we are and i think of my daughter and i'm sure you think of your children and you kind of say to yourself what kind of future will they have when they think back and say well my parents did have the choice to kind of make a difference and maybe people are trying but they have to change attitudes uh_huh sure sure sure well they my name's mary [dell] and i live in the dallas texas area where there's a lot of pollution oh uh_huh yes okay oh uh_huh ooh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh gosh uh_huh uh_huh huh i'd never thought about that being a cause i have to dust a lot as well yeah uh_huh my goodness uh_huh uh_huh that's kind of the way dallas is we're so flat and open and i live in a suburb that doesn't have much vegetation trees it was all cotton fields so we don't have that advantage and ours i think is primarily cars where we don't carpool like we should an airport i work in a building i'm nineteen floors up and i look out toward d f w international and there's just an awful brown haze all the time and i can imagine it's even worse for people living over near the airport uh_huh yes uh_huh uh_huh want to meet my own schedule those are the arguments we hear uh_huh uh_huh but we're paying for it uh_huh and it seems to me that it's already so evident with our children having a lot more respiratory infections than we had growing up you can really see it i i had a chance to go to [bolivia] a couple years ago and of course there's no industry very little trash they they don't even have that much that they burn because they consume everything down to the thread and it amazed me i i just had totally forgotten how okay for as far as um i would think the probably the uh worst substance that's probably um or started to say the uh what causes the most air pollution is probably the car and uh whether or not um they'll ever get into like huge transit systems into big cities where people would all travel on a high speed uh train or or something like that or yeah that's exactly it and that's what we're finding um here where we're at in minneapolis area is that people don't want to carpool that there are [inconveniences] to that or maybe you don't like the person you have to you would want to carpool with that kind of thing so it's it's kind of a thing where uh i think the majority of the people do not carpool uh_huh yeah exactly uh_huh or if somebody gets sick yeah or if somebody gets sick and it's not the other person and they want to go home and that one person's got the car then they're they're stuck you're definitely right so yes uh_huh sure sure that happens quite a bit yes yeah that's very true uh other than that uh i don't know okay oh okay we'll try to be real quick here the other thing then is because i don't know how long they want us to talk five minutes oh okay minneapolis area uh actually no we have uh quite a bit uh the only problem that we have and that's all over the whole world is ozone and of course hay fever season you get some pollutants such as those but those are natural um but there is starting to in minneapolis itself because of so many people on the highway there is becoming a problem of pollution and they just put in a strict law that as of every year when you get your license tabs you have to have your car inspected to see if it's releasing any uh lead into the air or other pollutants and if that's the case then you have to get your car fixed at least where you sure yeah yeah it's not a bad idea uh_huh sure sure exactly uh_huh sure uh_huh uh_huh sure uh_huh sure uh_huh yeah sure uh the other thing when you're talking about freon with cars uh air conditioning i'm sure over there it's a necessity versus something up here we can live without it but it's uncomfortable but uh this year my husband [recharged] our freon because it was needed to be done and one of the cans released entire amount of freon into the uh into the air because he opened it and i don't know if there was something wrong with it or it his directions weren't quite fully instructed onto that and i was thinking how many other people oh sure because if you take it into a service station they want to charge you forty dollars just for uh freon which only costs you about three dollars so i have this feeling that freon probably will increase in price because it is something that people will have to take into consideration and say hey that's that's right there i think it's like three or four dollars a a can and it takes about four to five cans to fill up a air conditioning unit in a car and i i thought about that and my husband even was kind of [woozy] after that because i'm sure he [breathed] it but uh you think about that all the people that are using freon and things like that and uh_huh exactly pump yeah probably so yeah it'll be hard to get people to give up their mobility uh_huh i think so too i'm in texas and very few people carpool uh the people that i know don't want to because uh they never know for sure what time they're going to leave their job they never know when they want to run out and do an [errand] at noon you know they just feel they need their car uh_huh uh_huh that's right and people don't want to give it up but now i think we've made great strides in changing a lot of that by going to the unleaded gasoline and and to change the car itself but uh you know i i don't guess we can get away from it a hundred percent but yeah well my other line is ringing but we're going to ignore it i'm sorry for these [beeps] oh close to five minutes i believe and you're in minneapolis well is the pollution really bad up there uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well that's the way it has gotten here we have just had that law i think about a year maybe a year and a half here in texas but uh i think it's a good idea because a lot of people still want to drive the older cars which you can't blame them for that and uh but if they are polluting the air they need do need to have them fixed and you know there's a big move especially in the industrial part in texas right now of controlling the c f c that the big manufacturing companies are producing into the air they're having to change the type of products they use uh they can't use like i have a friend that's in the air conditioning heating business and they have to pay a penalty for every ounce or pound of this certain type of freon that they use in the air conditioning systems therefore the individual every time they have a service call if they have an old unit that's still using this twenty two freon or whatever it is it costs them three times as much to get it fixed and uh if you have a new high efficiency system that uses the new type of freons that do not release as many c f c into the atmosphere it doesn't cost as much so eventually people are going to have to go to newer systems you know but uh_huh right uh_huh um uh_huh it's probably happened to millions of people uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah [inhaled] so much of it uh_huh yeah well of course in the uh i think you probably noticed in the discount stores and places in the hair sprays we're not seeing as many aerosol cans down here nearly everything is in the pump [squirt] so what do you uh think is the uh the worst [culprit] for air pollution uh_huh yeah i uh i it's hard to put the finger on uh what's worse you know the acid rain situation or the ozone [depletion] um with uh your hydrocarbons uh causing the damage in which well i notice on one of these uh home shopping networks they were selling these uh [halogen] uh fire [extinguishers] and the [halogen] is uh an ozone [depleter] and it got hydrocarbons in there it's a very clean uh fire [extinguisher] but it's you know really bad on the environment yeah yeah i know uh in the twin cities area i just moved out of there and was kind of happy i [timed] it just right but they had a new policy where in order to get your uh your license uh your car license uh renewed you had to meet the pollution standards and uh yeah yeah uh yeah i guess that was just mainly in the cities there and as far as where i live i don't have to do that but i have an old car which i doubt would uh would uh pass the inspection a seventy six and uh you know there's no way i would put in a lot of money to to repair it to meet standards yeah so although i do what i can to to cut down pollution but uh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well well around here i we get uh well it depends you know either in the in the winter time it it blows it your way and in the summer time we probably get yours yeah yeah well it uh that's a big thing too i know it has nothing to do with air pollution but i kind of look at the way people treat our okay well i think it's it's probably a combination of things um factories that that burn coal as a an energy source with sulfur and nitrogen [contaminants] you know and you get sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides uh those are the ones i think primarily contribute to acid rain and i think that's that's probably hurting us a little bit it's hurting you know it's hurting germany for example too and some other parts of europe where they where they have high industry so we're not the lone ranger here yeah hopefully we're backing off from that a little bit but i know we haven't cured it yet by a long shot yeah yeah huh yeah i guess i missed that one uh automobiles of course are contributing too and you know how how we are with our love affair with the auto kind of hard to do anything about that i guess yeah we have that here too but it's part of the inspection sticker you know they put a [probe] in your exhaust pipe and and the computer reads whatever the [ionization] is coming out and so that's you know that's the way they're dealing with it here yeah yeah it'd probably be difficult anyway i was just reading an article in uh mother earth news mother earth news magazine and uh they've got a new uh you know a lot of places are burning wood a lot a lot of people are burning wood those of us who have i've got a place in the country you know and uh they've had catalytic you know catalytic converters on those on uh i think they're required in california and oregon and and washington but they've had up those for quite a while and somebody's come up with a new one that uh sort of it's a it's a catalytic converter it's it's a plate that fits in you know into the smoke pipe and uh apparently it sort of feeds itself the more smoke is produced you know after you get to like five hundred degrees the higher it gets the more complete the [combustion] is and it sounds real neat i haven't seen them priced anywhere yet but that that sounds like that might help solve that problem even on you know old old uh older stoves that don't have any kind of e p a requirements on them that might help a little bit especially in some places we're really lucky here we have a [prevailing] [southerly] wind that blows just about everything out now sometimes we get a kind of a especially in in uh autumn it seem like we get kind of a brown haze sitting on us but most of the time it's blowing out pretty well probably blowing up there to you guys yeah it comes back yeah i really think uh you know we're doing some some important things education raising consciousness awareness uh i know school kids i work for the school district here and uh you know this is one of the big things with kids kids are writing letters to the newspapers about you know telling adults to clean up their act and it's uh you know i hope we're not too late with it we're we're uh we're having all kinds of recycling up up there maybe maybe you guys don't have as uh big a problem with air pollution as many do you do you really uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that's horrible uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh right right well uh in dallas i i haven't seen air pollution quite on a quite on a level that we had in denver i grew up in denver and and i've lived there most of my life and we used to have those uh you know the posted warning days uh however in colorado now they have the emissions control law which has really cut down probably only once every couple of years do we ever have pollution so bad that they have to post warnings now you know as far as health concerns uh due to that the the emissions uh uh control on the vehicles seems that all of our all of our uh smog was caused by vehicles rather than industry uh_huh um uh_huh uh_huh oh really uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh yeah yeah it it becomes uh maybe to you and i who have grown up in some in uh uh some more beautiful parts of the country uh i think that that uh we become a little more aware uh rather quickly of of what's happening with air pollution and how uh how horrible it really is um i i notice people in in dallas seem to say well sure there's air pollution but you know really how bad is how bad could this problem really be oh really uh_huh uh_huh right right do you find that um or or do you [hypothesize] that that most of the uh smog or or air pollution comes from vehicles or does it come mostly from industry up there yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i had talked with my parents i i grew up uh i was born in uh [muncie] indiana and and grew up a little bit in [terre] [haute] and i had asked them before uh i went back to visit recently about a year ago and i asked them i said did you ever realize the air pollution that was we we we have a terrible air pollution problem our summers are extremely uh hazardous and during uh certain wind directions because we get the uh gary indiana chicago pollution and we can look out on the lake and just see the brown haze uh coming up along the lake and they do post uh uh warnings for people who have uh heart diseases or respiratory problems during that summer season in the winter it's not as severe but uh if the wind comes basically from the south it can be really bad uh the state of wisconsin as a matter of fact uh started some litigation against illinois because of the air pollution we were getting uh i don't think it's going to go very far but it it was uh a way of uh [triggering] uh awareness so what's the conditions like in dallas um wisconsin has a a law in which we need to take our cars in every year when we apply for a new license tag and they are tested for uh their pollution control equipment and if they don't qualify then they have to take it to a mechanic and have it gone over and then verify that it it is [drivable] so they've they've tried to do a lot of that and i you know there seem to be at least in certain little pockets and we were talking earlier about madison madison has one of the nicest uh bike uh road uh sharing programs of of any city in wisconsin and all wisconsin has probably the most extensive number of uh bike trails for recreational use of any of the states and there is a a real promotion of of biking but um there are still a lot of people who insist on on driving their own automobiles uh to go everywhere i find that a little irritating because i don't think it's always so necessary send send them to wisconsin and we'll let them try to drink out of some of the lakes and try to fish in some of the lakes that have been suffering from uh the uh acid rain and they'll they'll they may wake up you know how'd you like to own a piece of property where your lake is going sour because of acid rain it's uh really a serious issue for those of us up in this uh sector up up here i think it's mostly vehicles although it does come from some of the industry of of the gary area and uh i don't know exactly where it [emerges] from when it it's up in the uh northern sectors of wisconsin that causes the acid rain that i'm a little [uncertain] of but i do know that uh it is a problem okay first off speaking of air pollution i'm coughing um i'm not sure what contributes to air pollution exactly i find it hard to believe that a lot of the hair sprays and things that we use cause the air pollution it doesn't seem like but i guess when you think of it everybody has some sort of aerosol in their home you know and it's kind of dangerous uh_huh uh_huh oh yeah but you think the mountains and the are kind of a barrier oh that's an interesting thought uh_huh here in texas i know a lot of the pretty much every place here is relatively flat and so i would think that that would probably contribute to us not having that big of a like a smog problem or something like that um uh_huh i i yeah i guess i've never really uh thought about the fact like in california they they have a lot of smog problems and it's real hilly there so that is probably something that plays a big factor i think probably just uh a lot of factories um you know they have the smoke stacks i guess you call them and different things like that uh_huh aren't they supposed to be coming out with some sort of uh special gas or something that doesn't [emit] certain chemicals or something um oh okay uh_huh uh_huh the diesel oh yeah i know a lot of people with diesels truck you know but um no i don't i i work in waco at a t v station my mother works at t i that's why yeah yeah you work at t i oh okay okay oh okay that's interesting what else causes air pollution um noise noise causes air pollution yeah that's why i thought of it oh yeah landfills we just yeah we just had a big uh thing here in waco they're needing to open a new landfill or to expand onto the old landfill and uh it's it's really been a big fight because a lot of the people that live by the landfill don't want it expanded because they're thinking that they're water is going to be contaminated somehow and so they yeah uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh one one of the big concerns is they have a there's a school right across the highway from the landfill yeah so the parents were really really upset yeah they they've been fighting over it for the last year and they just now approved it so they're going to try an appeal or something yes yeah it it yeah yeah that's true uh i don't know we live um well i'm close to salt lake and there's mountains uh you know all around but sometimes i think tend to hold a little bit of it in you know really it's it's fairly clean um i think it's a fairly clean city compared to some but you know how quite a yeah i think sometimes it seems to be but but uh anyway i don't know i know there's a lot of plants here when i drive down you know along the just along the freeway there's a lot of plants that they're burning things and oh uh_huh yeah we we have a real fog problem um the last few years just in through december and january it it really is foggy and and seems to just um it's kind of like it it just stays for a month quite foggy but uh gee i don't i don't know what else i know cars uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah that's that's what i see burning a lot i'm not exactly sure what they're burning i know uh_huh there are some oil companies and i'm sure that that contributes a lot just the burning of the oh i don't know i haven't i haven't heard that i know uh i don't know how your emissions test is on your cars or anything but i know i think they they differ from state to state but um you know that's been a new thing in the last few years and i guess some cars are a lot worse than others i think those uh what are they the i know a [rabbit's] one diesel the diesel cars yeah they seem to put out quite a bit huh oh well do you um are you working for t i oh okay oh oh uh_huh and that's how you got involved yeah no we we have um my husband's sister lives in dallas actually and they kind of got it us involved that way yeah but well i don't i don't know yeah noise i've got speaking of noise you can probably hear my little yeah he is quite noisy yes gee i don't know i know that um don't dumps you know where you dump all your trash in the uh yeah i'm sure that does i know they're always [churning] that up and i i think they burn a lot there too oh well i don't think i'd i'd like that you know we um when we've taken things to the dump just the dump uh that is uh you know closest to us there's some houses around there and i know that on windy days you know they're always moving the the trash over to different spots and they've got those big [bulldozers] and you can see the dust flying and and i'm sure that their homes are really quite dusty and oh is there worried about their their kids getting huh how you doing howard this is a a subject that i'm not real well versed on but okay no okay i'm from the uh i'm from dallas i'm in richardson what do you think as far as air pollution in the dallas area right right oh really sure well you are you are well versed on the subject i tell you this is not one of my better ones i guess i guess i notice it the most just uh in driving around dallas with all the the highway equipment that's working on the on six thirty five and seventy five just the cars in general that's where i see most of it right oh i don't know i've lived here since seventy four howard and i i think i think they been working on the highways around here since i've been here and i think i think they'll be working on them long after my wife and i are gone right i understand i sure hope so i tell you you know you get out on the uh interstate highways versus i travel quite a bit and traveling from like dallas to austin to san antonio it's the same thing as far as the pollution created by the automobiles in the in the [stalled] traffic and the busy highways you you you're at your best and i guess when you're out on the interstate heading north or south and you're just [cruising] right along and there's no build up of cars and yes i tell you what i i don't think i really have but i'm going that way tuesday and i'm going to make it a point to sure oh i know i know going to uh uh i [detest] going to houston because it's such a i guess we're ready to talk well let's talk about air pollution what do you think causes air pollution in dallas or where are you from maybe you're not in dallas okay uh well i have some small experience in this area the brown haze that you see if you look down central towards downtown a lot of that is uh tied up with the oxides or nitrogen although some of the kind of [bluish] gray stuff we see sometimes is tied up with particulates but uh the one of the major problems that dallas has is oxides and nitrogen that's because of all the equipment that's being operated but at the same time uh because we don't have we don't burn a lot of coal and solid materials we don't get a lot of particulates now particulates would come from trash burning or incineration or something like that here in dallas uh power plants since many of our local power plants uh are natural gas most of the time uh the things that come off of those plants are carbon dioxide and n o x there's no particulates in natural gas of course and we pick up a little bit of sulphur off some of these products we're burning fuel oil and a few other things but gasoline of course now the [lead's] out at least theoretically uh i guess you could say we're picking up some sulphur because a lot of the fuels does have sulphur that's why we get that rotten egg smell sometime off the catalytic converter the sulphur yes and that's uh course [hydrogen] [sulfide] which is when you burn gasoline you also produce some water [vapor] and that goes back in with your sulphur and under the right condition you get h two s but anyway uh well i don't know uh_huh uh ron a lot of this is caused by the fact that cars sitting in traffic tend to run rich because the way the pollution is and when they run rich they they spit out a lot of hydrocarbons and that's another part of the problem the gas is not being burned completely but uh hopefully if we ever get our road system fixed up this will get a lot better well i guess i not trying to top you but i grew up in dallas county and i can remember when they built the north part of north central which was built after the south part of central and uh i can remember coming over the hill down there long about uh i don't know little bit north of mockingbird on up in over those hills and i said i wonder if they'll ever need this road course it was designed for most of us to go about forty five miles an hour because the short on ramps and are off ramps but gosh seems like uh those ramps might kill us yet i hopefully the new ones will be a lot better yeah ron have you noticed when you're driving south on thirty five i guess towards waxahachie [hillsborough] on down to austin you hit a point down there about i think where they call bear creek exit on just this side of the county line right along in there somewhere suddenly the air feels cleaner have you noticed that well sometimes it depends on which way the winds blowing but uh i also travel a little bit and uh i don't know it just seems like there's a certain point down there where you can breathe easier it may be all in my mind yeah one of the things they asked me to ask you was where you thought the major source was coming from or sources that's what i would think right yeah i think the automobile definitely is an area and any any industry that burns you know and then i don't know about chemical pollution i'm not real into that as far as how it affects the air i know we have a lot of chemical the indoor type pollution they have offices that are too well [insulated] they found people are getting sick but i don't know if that affects outside you know i i think seems to think seems to me that's what they were asking about was outside and the thing i can the only thing i can think of would be cars and factories yeah right yeah that is well that's destroying the ozone isn't it yeah that's it's kind of scary yeah i think something too that you probably see in older states all we we do it down here once in a while we will have a cold spell is where people will use their [fireplaces] i think it will uh_huh right right yeah in this area too since you know in texas we're so spread out we have to drive so far but i know in colorado i have witnessed that where it just uh it just stacks up at the when the [rockies] starts but we're even getting it here we can drive into when we've been on vacation or something drive into fort worth or dallas and you can tell it in the mornings too my husband likes to go out and jog and there's just a brown fog here and we don't even have any mountains that are holding it in but they also said that more dense the population and the more we crowd together the worse it gets you don't have to have mountains that are stopping it and uh they make uh making more and more high rise buildings and uh so yeah we can comment and we didn't see this a few years ago it was pretty clear here right uh_huh yeah yeah yeah and it's a shame too when you do see somebody driving a big car just one person in that it's a lot of waste but well i guess we're uh forced to finally to do a lot about air pollution i hear that the major automobile manufacturers are looking at [nonpolluting] cars and low polluting fuels are being experimented with [ethanol] and other types of fuels i you know i assume that the major sources are cars and factories but i i don't know for sure i just know that um acid rain apparently is a big problem in canada from would comes over the border from us yeah yeah the [smokestacks] or the exhaust pipes um i guess there's been a lot of pressure to um do away with the c f c's in these spray bottles which has been a real problem again i that's what i hear and and there's this big debate apparently about whether the ozone there's a hole in the ozone or not but at last i heard it was uh discovered that the hole was bigger than they thought initially well it is scary and i think it will uh continue to force us to clean up our act literally and [figuratively] we've got to learn to manage without destroying the environment i i i'm wondering whether it's going to get to the point where you can't do that in los angeles they're apparently going to they've passed laws that for habit for example people using uh barbecues gasoline lawn mowers um and it's really bad in places like los angeles and it's gotten bad in denver and and uh it's not too bad around here although you see it you know more and more in the sky and people in this country are really [wedded] to their uh cars and our economy seems to and this i think is one of the big problems yeah yeah well that makes a lot of sense i mean i i hadn't thought about it that way but it it yeah no and i think yeah and i think that that more and more it's becoming apparent to people that the earth which includes all the people on it and everything that's going on it is a is an [organism] of sorts and that there is a a whole set of organic relationships that if we start to destroy one part of it it's going to tell us about it and uh we're going to feel it and i think it's going to be real interesting and particularly in light of what is obviously going to be a big [structural] change in the economy uh in this country uh whether people are willing to get out of their cars and in this country uh the the solution that that people seem to think work are politically unacceptable for example taxing people heavily for using their cars and uh i have a little sports car that i enjoy using and i know just like anybody else how much fun it is to drive but i think uh we're going to have to make some fundamental changes and and i'm i'm not sure how long it's going to take or what it's going to take because they keep saying that the economy is going to depend on how many cars and houses we sell okay you want to start uh_huh yeah that's stuff we never even thought about three years ago um have they stopped that practice now yeah oh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh um yeah yeah i hate to see a car going down the street or even a truck or bus for that matter that's putting out a lot of dark smoke and i know there's a lot of pollutants we can't even see coming out of cars but that that particular bothers me uh_huh oh uh_huh yeah oh i see uh_huh uh_huh yeah i might as well uh one of the things i'm very concerned about the air pollution is the uh this this the ozone layer uh uh issue uh i used to own a heating and air conditioning business and handled lots of different types of freons and that uh rather bothers me that uh i was in in effect uh contributing to the delinquency of the the environment so to speak right right and one of the reasons they fixed up the freons eleven twelve and thirteen in in in that area was because they were inexpensive uh they could be made uh you know inexpensive and lots of it uh and in that and its properties were great uh with uh the machinery didn't have to have lots of expensive machinery to uh get your heating and cooling cycles to work so well course there's a a tremendous number of refrigerators and excuse me refrigerators and [freezers] both commercial and residential uh utilizing freon twelve and of course the new cars i guess starting with nineteen ninety three will not have freon twelve in their systems but uh there's you know the ton of after market machines and et cetera et cetera and that's got me very you know highly concerned that uh that's going to be quite a while before we can uh undo this now that could [spawn] several good industries and help pull us out of this recession but you got to have people that can make you know earn a salary to pay for this conversion so so i see us in a kind somewhat of a catch twenty two unless we unless the banks or industry and or the government go together and and come up with a way to uh have us as a part of the unemployed society be able to be [gainfully] employed again converting all this freon twelve stuff into the new [nonpolluting] uh [compound] because as i say there's a there's a well how many uh uh families own a refrigerator and then do you know that number and then how many a a freezer separate from and how many people especially here in texas own cars and trucks with air conditioning i mean this is there there are people that that make it have a [thriving] business uh that do nothing but heating and air conditioning on on automobiles and trucks and uh the only reason i didn't uh get into that more when i was had my little business was because uh most of your uh air conditioning in in on vehicles tend to be greasy and dirty to the n [th] degree and i mean so uh that's why i stayed in stayed more towards uh uh and that's a polluting type deal too is the excessive um you know uh petroleum products in your engine bay and so forth and the dirt and [grit] and those two mixed together with with water and uh really make uh make a mess uh_huh right well most most most of the time when you see bus uh you know the [busses] with the diesel that's uh those are carbon particles and carbon dioxide and water [vapor] uh because when you when diesel is burned it's it you know diesel fuel is burned in a in the diesel engine it's burned so completely that you don't have any uh [nitrous] oxides uh or oxides of nitrogen uh to uh form because of by virtue of the very [combustion] process of the diesel engine because diesel oil is uh is not very volatile you know where gasoline if you leave a little [pail] of gasoline out before long it's gone diesel is going to be around because it doesn't evaporate easily and it's got well you know it's [latent] heat is high but it's slow burning at at uh normal pressures that's why your diesel engines have such high [compression] [ratios] as the as the air is heated you know by virtue of the [compression] process to like one to nineteen or nineteen to one ratio and so if the car sucks in uh fifty degrees so how you like new jersey right i guess uh i don't know what part of new jersey you're in but i guess it's uh fairly industrial right uh_huh yeah yeah right right well i don't know about you but i've always considered automobiles to be probably the the prime contributor i mean there's a lot of contributors but it seems that automobiles would probably do more than their fair share of that yeah that's yeah that's that's a big issue is you know a lot of states don't have a uh inspection law so you get you get a lot of people out there without e t r emission control systems on their cars and things like that yeah and it's like sure right i guess from what i hear though uh next year ford is coming out with their electric cars they're actually coming out with the first [prototypes] in california yeah right i hope i i'm hoping that comes along quick uh i was reading a an article in time the other day about the ozone layer and how fast that's going and i guess it's it's really disappearing a lot quicker than people realize and i know that's not due to uh it's not due to to gasoline or to you know carbon [monoxide] so much as the c f c but uh yeah i think that's a that's a contributor definitely right right yeah i guess right now what they're what they're primarily worried about is third world countries because i guess united states and and russia have kind of taken the lead in terms of eliminating c f c production but it go ahead uh_huh right and that's one of the arguments that the third world countries have been using is that basically they don't want to have to pay for our mistakes if if that makes any sense uh in terms of exactly exactly uh those of kind of yeah those are joining arguments but uh i don't know that's that's kind of an interesting situation there uh what they don't realize those third world countries what they don't realize is how quickly the ozone is [depleting] i guess the latest figures are up to fifty percent at the poles and it's it's increasing even as far near the [equator] as like florida and cuba and those places so it's kind of an interesting situation it's not not a real good one actually but yeah uh_huh yeah yeah you don't get that that source of [cleansing] anymore are have you been in big cities a long time okay so you've got yeah those are actually areas that are hit pretty hard i would think yeah [denver's] definitely yeah that's one of the worst sure yeah [denver's] that that real good that real good uh example of sitting in a valley kind of like mexico city does i guess mexico city is historically been one of the worst in the in the world for that but i've been pretty lucky i've lived in cities that really haven't had that much of a problem although uh i'm really kind of based in orlando florida and there you can tell that it's getting worse i mean it it definitely it's not at a level comparable to los angeles or denver but you can exactly yeah and there's not that much in terms of of public transportation down there there is but it's kind of it's uh it's pretty good you know you get uh closer to the uh coast here and you do get a good bit of uh smog and stuff especially from all the uh fuel cracking [towers] and chemical plants yeah it's when you get further east towards new york city it gets very industrial but i'm i'm about uh thirty miles west of there so you have uh actually green trees and such that you don't notice that that other part of new jersey exists actually very you know you go even a few miles out and you got uh farms and everything so you relatively clear air but uh oh definitely it's uh you know there are a large number of them on the road they're all you know going and a lot of them are in relatively poor repair oh even where you do have the inspections you know the inspection is once a year you get the car that's in the accident and muffler falls off or something and guy keeps driving along for long period of time after that yeah that and i think also some of the uh car companies are coming out with uh gas powered [fleets] so you natural gas powered rather than uh gasoline it it is coming from cars though i mean the uh car air [conditioners] is one of the major leaking sources of uh the uh freon which is one of the major [fluorocarbons] well it it no it's it's the type of thing there that uh you know the third world countries are less industrial and they want to become industrial so they're on the different part of the cycle of the u s the u s used you know all the air pollution stuff and air polluting technologies to get where it is today or or they want the right to make the same mistakes themselves to [bootstrap] them up to the way where we got to yeah no well you also have the very close related thing of the uh rain forest [destruction] which is the main source of what's clearing out the atmosphere and replacing some of the pollutants mostly i've mostly been in the east coast so that's going between atlanta d c area well not not as hard as some places out west because you don't get the uh major pollution sources as you do out in denver with the inversion and los angeles and rest of california which is just terrible it sounds uh_huh yeah yeah there it's almost all automobiles because there's not that much in the way of heavy industry you know that would be causing it uh_huh well here in logan utah we've got a nice little valley here and it's like crystal clear all the time except for during the winter when the inversion sets in and then we get a little bit of pollution in the valley yeah yeah definitely here in utah up along the [wasatch] along the western side of the of these rocky mountains here where a lot of the big cities are salt lake and ogden and provo and [logan's] up in the valley a little bit further north we get a lot of pollution and it's like seventy percent of it is from cars and uh it always really hits hard during the winter when we get the inversion and when we get get cold air down in the valleys and warm air up above and it just sits and sits and sits and we're starting to hit pollution levels now on the [wasatch] front which match that of l a a few years ago it's not it's almost sad because when i grew up here it was just always the crisp air up in the mountain valleys and now it's not in the mountain valleys huh they're getting serious about things like uh mandatory well they've already passed laws where you have to get your cars checked for pollution if you're in certain counties emissions yeah they've actually started doing it down along the not in logan up here cause we're doing a lot better we have a lot population is a lot lighter up here yeah yeah they're eliminating that out here they're also talking very seriously about the thing called a dirt gun where they're uh looking at the emissions from the car using basically a [spectrometer] and looking at the basically how much of what is coming out of the exhaust kind of like a [radar] gun and yes yeah do it remotely just looking at the what they do they do several different types of things sometimes they put a source light and they look at the source light and then as the car goes by you can see the exhaust pipe and the source light behind it and you can look at the emissions actually and like across the street they'll set up like a trap or something like that in some sense and they're also looking at uh other you know ways of monitoring this and cause they've found out something basically that uh and a poorly tuned car can [emit] something it's an incredible amount it was like four hundred times as much uh of certain pollutants and it was like [unburned] hydrocarbons then a properly tuned car and and the idea being that if you just tuned up all the cars well if you tuned up this ten percent of the cars that were producing like fifty percent of the the pollution then you know you it'd be one way to cut the pollution in half uh_huh huh yeah and they're huh well here in seattle uh it's the [air's] getting more and more polluted we're uh we're in kind of a basin and uh seattle is on [puget] sound which is a inland [waterway] between two mountains and uh there's been a lot a lot of growth population growth around here and uh it's uh it's getting worse i think most of it is from cars uh_huh oh yeah yeah i live in the university district and uh uh it's supposed to have about the worst air pollution i think probably due to uh a lot of students going back and forth to school and then we're right next to interstate five also oh yeah have they started doing that yet we have that here and uh they're they're expanding it to uh more counties here uh as the population spreads out and i think they're also going to be making it uh mandatory for more cars there was uh something in the law about if you're car was over a certain age like over twenty years old you didn't have to get it done anymore and i think they're eliminating that uh that [loophole] yeah oh really you mean they could do that remotely huh now where does the source light go oh i see jeez yeah that's neat but it's also been uh-oh you know everybody is talking about using more mass transient here but it uh it's tough you know like i've i've looked into riding the bus to work and i can drive to work in uh and get there in twenty to twenty five minutes over a very congested [corridor] which goes over lake washington on one of the floating bridges but if i uh if i take the bus it requires several [transfers] and it takes over an hour so so it it's it's not hard to see why why i keep driving and you know i feel guilty cause i'm driving a okay yeah is it i know in here uh downtown dallas it's you i mean you drive by and you can just you can see it but then again i originally was from california and uh there is a big difference between texas and california and uh they'd have their smog [alerts] and where you'd have to stay indoors for so many hours with an air conditioner and of course they don't have that here in texas so there's no not in not in well not in dallas that is yeah we're going there tomorrow uh_huh we're packing and getting ready to go to uh_huh yeah oh okay yeah you do then is it really i would not imagine that huh huh you learn something every day uh_huh yeah i've seen that huh huh_uh huh no oh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah that's true right huh and of course i doubt if there's any you can buy regular anymore you buy unleaded right yeah huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh huh that is good yeah yeah huh oh that would be nice i think i saw that on t v one time they maybe it was c n n where they were [demonstrating] that or something similar to that huh but what i think that was a a a setback that they i don't know they went i don't know how many miles an hour i think like was that something maybe it was i don't know huh huh yeah and they're they're very expensive too well yeah yeah well it doesn't make sense because if they want people to convert you know they should make it worthwhile yeah yeah um well i'll tell you sometimes it's it's pretty bad here like today i think it was pretty bad i don't know if it was if it's just uh the allergies or what but some days it's very nice here downtown and other days it's just really bad so i don't know so what what kinds of things did you experience in l a when you were there or can you remember were you there at a cause i haven't been there probably yeah well we were there when they had a okay carol so air quality uh_huh surely you mean they don't have the uh the smog [alerts] right i i yeah i spent a summer in tyler so i know just east of dallas there oh really yeah actually i'm a california born person i was born in l a so i know what you're talking about in l a it's pretty bad uh the worst city in the in the world is actually uh mexico city yes the worst one for smog is mexico city the most polluted city in the world yeah i know that they've they're looking at uh uh you know uh you know better running automobiles uh some things they do one of them is they're using corn in fuel you ever heard of that yeah [methanol] yeah well that's big up here because of the they grow a lot of corn uh that's one thing that they do at that it's pretty easy to do and the uh unfortunately it still contributes to global warming cause you have to you know wipe out forests to grow corn and things like that it doesn't make sense uh but it's you know one of the most uh productive crop in the world is corn yeah drive cars with catalytic converters and all that it's interesting they're they're looking at there's some work being done on uh automobiles that are electrical powered and uh they're looking at where you have a battery operated car basically but it has a a engine in the back that charges it so the engine [kicks] on when the batteries need power and it turns off interesting thing about gas is when i mean about battery powered cars is when you're at a stop light you're not using any any energy unlike a car where it's running a electric car it's on demand i mean it's either on or off basically you don't have to shift so you cars become very simple all of a sudden too very interesting yeah there's there's a race in australia with solar powered cars and ford and general motors and all those compete right yeah g m uh chrysler announced that they're going to they're well they actually have an electric minivan yeah their their caravan but it costs uh fifty thousand dollars right now to operate yeah but you know people are buying them you know whose buying them the power company free you know free for them kind of interesting so see uh_huh yeah it's top speed is something like eighty miles an hour so it's a good good vehicle uh_huh oh i wasn't there too long ago uh well you know going over the hills you know coming into the valley you can see that horrible horrible brown haze well i guess without a doubt we'd have to say automobiles although i suppose manufacturing contributes uh quite a bit to air pollution uh yeah you know i'm wondering uh of course uh freon is uh is uh eating away at our our what you call it layer there ozone layer i wonder when they're going to what they'll be able to you in in place of freon though uh well actually you know that is the way a refrigerator works well basically what happens is you have to have some form of heat be it electrical as in your home refrigerator or [propane] as the one on the ship that you said uh you had and uh somehow heat must be created that freon oh i'm not exactly sure what happens but apparently it expands in the heat and in the process of expanding it goes through cooler [coils] and whatnot and it becomes ice cold oh yes yes [freon's] uh freon is in a closed circuit uh that's why our present day [refrigerants] uh systems are not dangerous unless the lines are broken well did you ever see what happens when they uh replace the or [replenish] the freon in your automobile air conditioner i mean there's uh a lot of it is uh turned out into the atmosphere and i understand now uh i don't know if it's international or just here in texas or what but uh service stations are going to require to have a special device to catch this freon as it is [expelled] the excess freon and therefore you won't be able to just pull in anywhere to or you wouldn't even be able to do it yourself at home no that's true you know i can remember as a child uh spending summers at my grandfather's place and i'd be running around with nothing but a bathing suit no shoes socks shirts or anything uh i mean from [dawn] till dusk and i developed a nice tan but uh my gosh never had to worry about uh skin cancer or for that matter you could stop at any stream that looked reasonably clear and and get a drink of water without worrying uh about catching some disease um yeah yeah i tell you a funny thing happened to me with with polluted water uh t i sent me up on a trip to wyoming i think it was and i was out in this little town kind of [backwoods] town you know where a big night on the town is going down watching the traffic light change but uh i checked into a motel and after i signed in and everything why the uh clerk told me uh don't drink the water it's contaminated he said now we do have bottled water we supply to our guests but unfortunately we're out of it right now but as as soon as we get it i i'll see that you get a bottle of it well the next morning i got up and the water had not been delivered yet and would you believe it i brushed my teeth with [coca] cola oh well they had this uh it's some kind of a bacteria or carried by animals and it they got their water from this uh beautiful mountain river well maybe not quite a river but a little bigger than a stream but this uh bacteria had uh [penetrated] their entire pipe system or water system and they tried [flushing] it out they they couldn't get rid of it i've often wondered now this is years ago and i've often wondered what they ever did of course oh it was a beautiful mountain stream [bubbling] nicely you know the which uh is what [purifies] the water when it [bubbles] yes and yet even at that it was still contaminated yeah yes well i'm beginning to wonder too i mean you you're always hearing stories about well the government [okayed] this and then all of a sudden you turn around and my gosh it's okay to to doing it this way but if you turn around and do it that way it's dangerous as a matter of fact i did neither have i uh yeah i've often wondered about uh l a now that's suppose to be about the worst city in the country i guess for air pollution yeah uh_huh well uh they used to do it down in florida now i lived down there for ten years no they did away with it because they found out that uh the people that were doing it it was just a [racket] to them and for uh for nothing to yeah uh_huh well now here's another thing diesels uh diesel engines are are the worst and yet they haven't done a thing to them uh_huh yeah tell me about it i just got rid of uh a diesel engine escort well they um i i had good luck with mine until it finally just blew up on me here a few weeks ago is that right well uh_huh well now there was at one time as a matter of fact it may have been buick i think because i think it was g m that came out with a or diesel engine that was converted from a gas engine and uh they used the same [pistons] and and cylinders and whatnot but all they did was change the uh uh the [induction] [ports] and uh et cetera et cetera whatever needed to be changed over and although they were it seemed practical at the time they were nothing but a headache and they did finally did away with them and went to a straight diesel well now of course in california they they have much stricter codes than we have elsewhere now could be that we could do the same thing that they're doing out in california i don't know what it is [precisely] but uh they're doing they do something a little more stricter than we do well i guess i've uh just i've listened a lot to the media and i've tried to read some things on it and i've tried to take some steps to uh understand it and figure out where i am in the whole mess um apparently it's getting worse i mean i can tell that just by driving in dallas you have the low flying gray cloud on certain days but you know it really gets to you in terms of being able to breathe and and and things like that so we know that if you do the same thing to like your plants and you don't let them breathe they kind of die on you um and so you know looking at the different areas that um cause air pollution um i guess we have industry for one um that has to be i guess a little bit more aware of you know the output and uh harmful chemicals and things that they use um what do you think about that oh right yeah yeah oh good yeah right well that's true i think you know we we had such i mean i'm i'm close to forty and i can remember the good old days when we didn't have to worry about all this stuff and life was pretty you know um complacent in these areas and uh i think you're right though that we not only pay the price in money we're going to pay the price in health and our you know in the future whatever's going to happen here and you know it takes a few people you know on the alert to uh um really make a change and make a difference in the way people think and you're right about the education it's just got to be little by little by little until people become aware but i think we've got sort of a snowball effect going on now and i think that you know in terms of air pollution we're um [pinpointing] certain you know industries in our own communities that are you know blatantly um abusing the [airspace] and i think we're beginning to make them aware that um you know it's not just the a financial bottom line that they have to look at it's you know um it has a a bigger impact on the on the whole environment and the whole area and gosh i i don't know you know health seems to get in in the act too you know your your health and your lungs and and all this i mean this comes down to smokers and i don't know what to do about smokers because you know that's sort of an infringement of they're rights see you can go overboard too you can be real radical about this and i'm not for that i'm for [persuading] people by the use of education and by demonstration and by um you know your example of how things go um and you know i know there's some real [radicals] out there and that that will tend to turn you off any time and think that they're you know full of baloney and they're not you know on the right planet sometimes but you know what i mean about that i think it's education like you said that really needs to and it starts with you like you said just tell them to you know why you're doing why you're collecting cans and why you're collecting glass and why you're recycling the stuff and gosh oh yeah just as yeah well get it's yeah it's hard it's really hard and they have to maybe sort of like like hit bottom like they either have to die or they have to be you know totally incapacitated before they change their mind and you know bless their hearts you can't do anything that will impact them or or you you can't find a way really that it's it's it's almost like you know you can talk about [alcoholism] too i mean you know in this hidden in this manner sometimes i think that it's just a person has to change their mind and uh it's tough but um you know it it i don't allow people to smoke in my house and i i hope they respect that and you know i i send them outside sort of thing and and they respect that or else they just don't come back they don't smoke in my car and you know and it's not getting to be a big deal anymore i you know they they seem to uh understand or at least have a little bit of respect for your wishes and they don't just necessarily light up and and uh you know not expect to get some flack these days yeah well yeah uh_huh use your own lungs don't borrow mine can take part in your air yeah well things are getting i mean like i said i don't know why i know how old i am and i know that i never had to worry about the stuff i thought you know the grass is green the sky was blue and the ocean was a pretty light blue you know and and i'm finding out that that's not always the case anymore and that you know the damage has been done and you know we're left with a mess in a lot of ways you know caused by um starting with the air pollution and and that's just one of the factors that goes into you know trying to get this place cleaned up but oh gary indiana huh which one oh really really yeah oh i remember yeah oh i'm from chicago i grew up in chicago so yeah you know we had a lot of snow up there oh absolutely okay well i i definitely think it's our the cars we drive and i think you know everyone has good intentions and and thinks well i should car pool and i will and but that we just have so many different interests and so many different things we have to do it's it's a bother to have to pick somebody up and if you have a doctor's appointment or something and they have to get another ride home or you have to arrange it's just a hassle and i guess we're not willing to do that but that to me is probably the thing that needs to be done or to start using public dallas area i live in plano which is just a a suburb of of dallas do you live in a major city oh okay no well myself i i go to richardson which is a i teach school and so i don't commute that far it's only about four miles but the majority of people that live in this area go into dallas to work and and when you're if you go out on the freeway and you look you see almost every car is just one passenger and our public transportation system's a joke so people just don't bother to take that because it's inconvenient we don't have any kind of a a train or uh you know anything like some of the big cities do we're supposed to get one but it's you know way off the in the future but no it's just it oh is that right sure how large is raleigh so it's pretty big yeah uh_huh and so you ride your bike to work and everything or aren't you well that's great see that's that isn't even i mean i'm not sure that a even a percentage of of people in the dallas area ride bikes to work you know i just don't think they do i never see anybody um another thing that that i think our my family's real conscious of is is is to stop using aerosol cans and you know uh you know get find another way instead of you know i know it really is and we just need not to buy the stuff and those businesses will have to you know the corporations and so forth have to change if you don't buy it they're not going to make it so yeah that is an easy one but uh you know and i notice probably a lot of uh commercial pollution and and factory pollution in dallas you can see it some days it's really bad yeah it's awful it's nothing like california where the smog is constant but it's still there and you know it if we i think if we really realized how much we do breathe in that's unhealthy we would immediately do something about it but i don't think people realize how unhealthy the the air is yeah well i think i don't see i only teach english and and uh but the science teacher i teach fifth grade and we're [departmentalized] and the science teacher does a really big unit on it and i think the kids are more informed than adults are i mean and uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh they do they do and they and and i think that they are they care a little bit more and i think as adults we need to care because it's the the future for our kids and i you know i mean my kids are much more aware than i was at their age about things like that and i think it's it's definitely has to be that no it really wasn't it wasn't a problem it i mean i'm sure it was beginning to be a problem but people were just weren't aware of it like they are today and i think that's where it has to start with the kids because it's going to be their world soon and i think it and and we're real big on you know plano which is a small suburb of dallas about a hundred thousand um i think we're more than that about a hundred thirty thousand now but um they're really trying their best to start recycling and things like that that will and we just we have separate garbage collections now for plastics and cans and newspaper and which i think is i mean that's that should be just a way of life for everybody you shouldn't even complain about it you should just do it uh_huh that's true you're right you're right well you know it just has to be when you consider the landfills we we're not going to have any soon and it's it's ridiculous but the thing the [quandary] that i'm in is that that we had a great big article in in in the newspaper last week about i've been real big about going to to the store and asking for paper instead of plastic well that was really controversial because some scientists you know feel like plastic i mean paper is worse than plastic it's just it's just a real um debate about which one is is the best really the best thing to do is to bring um you know a cloth bag yeah do you yeah see that's what i do too i forget and and besides when i go to the store i have a family you know i i get maybe ten twelve bags of groceries and you know it would be a little a little expensive although you know i'm sure some uh_huh yeah uh_huh yes that's right that's right you're right uh_huh well you know and they say that you know plastic is recyclable but not that many people use them again you know yeah that's true sure sure i think that you know i think that it's tremendous the research they're doing on all of this because i think we need to to know and be more aware of it so we can do some changing but the majority of people are so lazy about it that they're not willing to to sacrifice a little to to make the world a better place and it's kind of sad because especially if you have children and because you know you want your kids and their kids to to be able to be a part of a yeah a world that's halfway decent and you know just in my lifetime i've seen such a change in the environment and it's scary because by the time my kids have kids and they're growing up it's going to be a completely different world you know and it's it's scary so you know like i i know that i need to car pool and i don't and uh and i you rationalize and say well i only am four miles away and that it's no big deal and well you know but yeah right right well you know just yeah just with with our thing in plano it had recycling garbage it hasn't it hasn't been that long and it was just uh really an easy adjustment for most people but there was a small percentage that [griped] and complained and wrote you know letters to the editor and you know like it was some real great big deal inconvenience and but it seems to me you should just be able to give up a little bit to make the world better but some people don't think that so and some people don't and some people i think really believe and maybe they're [rationalizing] but they really believe that everybody's making a bigger deal out of the problem than it is and that and that it's right no way it's it's there and we've got to face it that's right i think in some cases they aren't and i see i wonder i wonder how much the laws that congress passed several years ago are really enforced as far as big companies and oh i think so too and i think that they're not fined the way they should be or they're they pay them off or whatever so they can get away with it i i was born in ohio and when um when i was young we we did a lot of fishing and on lake erie and i i mean when i went back i just couldn't believe the difference it's just terrible the way it's polluted because of of big corporations that dump and you know and you just feel so bad because at one time it was a wonderful beautiful lake and now it's a mess yeah i when i was little my dad had a boat and we would go fishing on lake erie and it was beautiful and it's not beautiful anymore that's interesting i hadn't seen that i know there was a lot of talk about freon contributing to the the uh hole in the ozone layer and other various pollution but uh other than uh making the air conditioning systems tighter i didn't know that there was any work on uh alternate [coolants] uh_huh the uh the the times that i've seen any sort of of loss is uh at a time when maybe i'd have uh the the uh freon checked in the air conditioner or maybe [topped] off and it seemed to me that they'd practically waste almost as much as uh they'd put in the car but i've noticed in the past few years that uh the controls on that are tighter uh people are a lot more concerned about that well obviously cars uh and trucks contribute quite a bit and personally i'll uh i carpool uh most of the time with someone i work with but my schedule doesn't uh doesn't make for a consistent carpool uh_huh that's a that's a good question uh the leaded fuels have obviously been out of the automotive industry for quite some time and there's always talk about uh about regulating the emissions that a a car engine can produce and [tightening] down on that and of course the uh the large auto makers in this country spend [untold] millions to lobby to keep business just the same as usual there's a big issue in rhode island right now uh there's a company that wants to build a coal fired uh energy plant very close to to downtown [providence] and they are pulling all sorts of tricks to maneuver around various controls and inspections and regulations apparently the the well we have the the usual automotive pollution although it's not very visible you don't worry about that uh too much uh but uh we have a lot of wood smoke here now i heat with wood so uh i'm one of the [polluters] if you think that wood smoke is a is a source of pollution but there are people in this community who who think that uh it's gone beyond the part of being part of the charm of the community to the point of being part of the pollution and and uh we're very close to the uh grand canyon where the air pollution is a very big issue because uh of pollution well it's debatable as to whether it's coming from the los angeles area on the jet stream or whether it's coming from the four corners power plant up near page arizona uh but because it's a national park that's a a big issue there uh here in [flagstaff] actually uh it it's something that's unique to us the the biggest [pollutant] that we have in our air is cinder dust and that's because uh we're in a [volcanic] region and we uh we have dirt roads uh in a lot of areas that are covered with [cinders] but they also use [cinders] on the highways in the winter time in place of uh using salt or substances like that that they might in the eastern part of the country and when the snow goes away and it dries up and the cars drive over it we get a lot of cinder dust kicked up into the air and as of you know the the largest quantity that's the biggest pollutants that we have to to deal with here yeah huh right does does dallas sit in any kind of uh uh i've been there but i don't remember if you sit in any kind of a trough that uh where you get temperature inversions that that capture air pollutants or anything like that sure i laugh because i made the journey once from el paso to dallas and then continuing east uh to the eastern coast of the united states and uh i [joked] that uh all of the [settlers] settled in eastern texas where the green rolling hills are and and when they finally beat the mexicans the mexicans said fine you can have east texas but as only as long as you take west texas too yep uh_huh uh_huh right it yes here in [flagstaff] uh [juniper] is the the very [distinctive] smelling wood that you can smell in the wood smoke uh and one of the issues here uh which gets into forest management but has an impact on on air pollution is that uh we're surrounded by the largest stand of ponderosa pine in the world but people don't want to burn ponderosa pine they want to burn oak which is very hard to find in this region or [juniper] because it's the more [plentiful] hardwood and uh aspen uh it burns very [cleanly] but doesn't put out a lot of heat uh and ponderosa we also have [pinon] but uh uh it like ponderosa is very dirty and so they're not [preferable] woods and so here we have this great abundance of ponderosa pine and the forest service is saying we really wish that we could find a way to make it uh less of a how's the quality of air in portland really uh_huh uh_huh quite a bit of ozone and a lot of smog yeah oh yeah i've heard that los angeles is horrible and denver is i hear it's really bad atlanta atlanta is moderately bad uh you know we have we have a big problem with ozone uh and you know it's generally uh you know it's just just quite often you know be a very [hazy] sort of day you know because there will just be this pollution hanging in the air uh i think a lot i think most of our problems cause by automobile emissions it's you know a very mobile city uh_huh uh_huh heavy industry yeah i think the industry has been you know relatively good about uh you know having regulations at least in the last twenty years or so about industry pollution but it's just seem that i think i think we really suffer because you know we don't have any sort of an organized mass transit system any sort of you know like high speed rail or even even you know decent regular passenger rail across the country uh it seems it seems like like there there's a lot more federal subsidies for automobile you know through the construction of highways for automobiles um i know a little bit of chemistry uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh until it gets to the air just can't can't support them in the quality life they want uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh they they do have automobile emissions tests but uh it's there's some sort of rule i don't have a car so i don't know the actual specifics but it's like your car is it's a if the model year of your car is more than twenty years old you don't have to have it inspected any more you know which which is just kind of ludicrous you know because it they're the ones that you would expect to you know be the hardest be the biggest [polluters] yeah that's true i essentially live downtown and i go to school at georgia tech which is pretty much located in the heart of downtown within a mile from the heart of downtown it's i don't think it's really announced you know in the sense that the way the way it is in california but uh okay what do you feel is contributing most to air pollution cars you think so uh_huh yeah i i would have figured that some of the factories may be contributing as much as as uh automobiles uh_huh uh_huh well if you only have to get your car in inspected once a year you can just have it fixed real quick right before the inspection and and a lot of when you a lot of places when you go get the inspection they just pull it out of the garage and then pull it back in and they don't really check anything they just make sure the lights work basically have they uh_huh oh gosh yeah that will help less people drive and more you know more people riding in one car rather than everybody riding to work by themselves would help a little bit and if if everyone car [pooled] that would cut it down in half uh_huh yeah well uh in uh san antonio the parking downtown i work downtown and the parking is so dad gum expensive you basically have to car pool to be able to afford to park it costs seventy five dollars a month just to park my car so i ride with two other uh girls so that way it will only costs me twenty five dollars a month to park but it's just crazy and it's from what i understand i know a girl in washington d c and it costs her a couple of hundred dollars a month to park her car yeah and from what i understand new york city is worse that it just costs a fortune to own a car in new york city huh_uh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah uh once you're in downtown san antonio it's real easy to get around they have a they have these uh buses that that look like little street cars and they go all around that it's just real easy to get around once you're downtown the problem is getting downtown and they have some uh park and ride uh [expresses] where you go to the the bus stop and you get on the bus and it takes you directly downtown but they don't have enough of them and they're not convenient enough and there just happens to not be one convenient to where i live so if if there were i would ride the bus uh no not really um i noticed once flying into d f w there was just a a [brownish] orange haze over the city it was the ugliest thing i had ever seen yeah this is a nice time of the year though when it's so windy it just seems everything is so fresh yeah um yeah yeah i guess so i think it's five and i think we have it was nice talking to you so what do you think about it um for the worst i would assume yeah uh_huh uh_huh you're probably lucky to see the end of the [runway] by now um well i'll tell you i don't know i i don't know whether i i i count the stink as part of air pollution and it stinks down here it depends on where you are now if you're over yeah if if you're over by [asheville] you're pretty good because you're up there in the mountains and you've got some nice ozone and all that over here in raleigh it's kind of flat and stagnant and just yucky it's fine over on the coast because you've got the you've got the breezes off the off the water there but uh seems like it's just dull and [uninspiring] here no i don't know they're they keep doing things and it doesn't seem to be doing any good i was i was really amazed because i never would have expected you know this problem somewhere like in atlanta and i drove through atlanta uh couple of weeks ago and it was unseasonably warm and you could see the smog just sitting on top of the city and when i drove through i it it was terrible i i had to keep the windows up it was just so thick and uh heavy uh i couldn't believe it i because i i used to live in atlanta years ago and it was always fairly clean i mean you always you didn't have a problem with stagnant air like like l a does but boy it was really bad that day yeah yeah right but you see all these all these trucks [belching] out this black smoke yeah i know it's i i i don't understand where the priority is it's uh like in atlanta they have um they have mandatory catalytic converter inspections there's only three places in georgia that requires that and uh even with that it hasn't done any good i mean obviously it's gotten a lot worse but you know just like you say you go through there and you watch all these trucks and they're just coughing out all kinds of stuff some of them spitting it out so thick you can't even see past it you know i don't know uh_huh yeah because of the stuff settles on it yeah yeah i don't know things like you know well like acid rain and all these sulphur [dioxides] being dumped out there it's just like a big [avalanche] you know you start putting sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere and you end up with acid rain acid rain kills the trees trees don't scrub the air and there you are and then of course you've got all these folks cutting down on the rain forest as quick as they can i wonder too you know they keep talking about ozone [depletion] and all this it it seems funny that it's coming around at the time when we're losing the most most of the forests because i i i think that a lot of the pollutants and stuff are being taken out of the air uh you know by the plants and the trees and all that good stuff and here we are losing it and now the now it doesn't have any where to go but uh_huh yeah well it's like our winter here i mean it was the winter that wasn't you know we were having having hot days in december and january and got in uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah you you might as well sell it for scrap or something because you probably never will use it it's a shame too because i miss all the cold weather i i enjoy winter yeah yeah it was an interesting day the other day uh i think it was um yeah it was last not not this past friday but friday a week ago we i don't know i think you had some bad weather up there too we had tornadoes and everything down here um that was the most historic weather day in recorded history for severe weather in the country on that one day i mean you know of course you always have severe weather somewhere but there was more of it on that one day than ever recorded before over four hundred reports of tornadoes hail and heavy winds amazing it's a little bit scary yeah um i read an article a couple weeks ago they were talking about uh talking again about the ozone layer they said that uh the ozone deteriorate is greater than they had originally thought over some of the major metropolitan areas that's a little bit scary to think about because that's certainly not going to improve things around there yeah well that's that's yeah that had that had been the thing that had always i mean i i i have always thought about the ozone layer as sort of like a layer and it would move around i'm not that much of a [meteorologist] but uh yeah i was a little surprised at that too because up to that point all i'd heard about was the one over the pole and i said well i'm not too awfully concerned about that if it's going to start melting the ice cap it's not going to be for a long time yet but opening opening up over major metropolitan areas now that's uh that's yeah yeah yeah course the ozone is up there so yeah i i mean i don't even know i don't even know if the ozone layer does move i mean apparently it doesn't but of course it it might be just a couple of scientists trying to get their name in the paper sort of like cold fusion yeah i'll tell you i i was real excited when i first heard that i said hot dog they finally did it you know i mean i'm yeah i mean i'm an old science fiction buff from way back when i was a little boy and this is the kind of stuff that science fiction was made out of and it's the days that i keep looking for that aren't going to happen in my lifetime but you know we're supposed to have moon colonies by now but uh yeah cold fusion would have been great could have gone might have started making a little [inroads] on air pollution with that but who knows yeah yeah there's there's always a drawback to everything i mean i don't know well okay i pushed it so what do you think um we can do to uh prevent air pollution yeah well you know what i was talking to my brother in denver and he told me that they have restrictions on when they can burn their fireplace yeah i couldn't uh_huh yeah yeah i just couldn't figure out how could they could restrict uh you know like a fireplace because a lot of places that's all all the heat they have in their home you know well i know yeah isn't that terrible well i don't know all i know is that we have to have our car our car [smogged] every two years you know and uh uh_huh well you think that they would be able to do that you know i think they could too you know they just they don't want to they want to use uh you know something that's going to burn all this gas so we can buy more gas you know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well i don't know about that either but uh i know i took a ride down southern california just recently and it was just amazing to look you know like being up higher and looking down and seeing all this crud you know it's oh it's terrible uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah it does it burns your eyes and everything but a lot of these trucks that's on the road now to i think they could do something to those because some of those trucks just smoke like heck you know but it doesn't seem like no one ever does anything about that uh_huh no the electric cars i think that was a good idea i would really go for that yeah right right huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah well uh we have a fireplace here to i don't burn it every night usually i just have mine on the weekends or when i have company that we're going to be in the house all day you know and it's just nice to sit in the living room with a fireplace going but uh other than that i don't use mine yeah right right yeah i know i think it's going to have to be these large companies and hi [cynthia] what did you wear to work today so can you dress pretty casually yeah well i um run a business out of my home so i tend to get up in the morning put on sweats um do whatever i want to do with the kids then whenever i have a meeting with a client i'll put a suit on and then come home and get back into regular clothes again yeah i've recently um tried to update my wardrobe trying to put suits together that i can [interchange] the jackets and the blouses and all that a lot that's helped me a lot with having i can only have a a limited wardrobe since i'm only working part time right now um but still it gives it some variety add different blouses and [scarves] and belts and things like that what about your casual wear do you like to wear jeans most of the time yeah it's nice you can wear shorts especially on a day like today when it's so hot dress shorts yeah yeah yeah but yeah but uh_huh oh yeah it'll be comfortable i guess down here uh we just recently moved to texas so my wardrobe has changed quite a bit um we moved from colorado where and i have a closet full of sweaters that you live in virginia now oh that's interesting uh_huh yeah i'd like to be able to wear those here today it's eighty eight degrees so needless to say my sweaters have been hung in the closet for quite a while now today was uh definitely a shorts day around here this is pretty [unseasonal] but uh at least we you know it it it feels good it gets uh everybody doesn't have cabin fever today it's nice to get out and about okay sounds good it was nice talking to you bye bye um let's see what did i wear to work today um actually i wore [corduroy] shorts with a white blouse um and flat shoes um on occasion on occasion um i do vary um you know i wear suits i wear skirts and sweaters on occasion i can wear jeans um how about you uh_huh yes uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um you know there's real no no real dress code where i work um you see people wearing you know all different attire i um don't like to wear heels that really tires me out i work in a big building so i predominantly wear flat shoes um you know in the winter i wear sweaters in summer i you know i like one piece dresses short [sleeves] things like that right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right right [accessories] uh_huh um yeah mostly i mean at home i predominantly wear [sweatpants] and things like that also yeah well they're um you know they're like yeah they're like black [corduroy] bermuda shorts and sometimes i wear a blazer with them and i get really a lot of [compliments] on them um where i work is predominantly male so you know they their attire is always the same you know suits or slacks you know jeans whatever and um but i'm really the only woman i guess at work that does that but seems to work for me in fact i just bought i i just got a new outfit as a gift that um it's one of those [skorts] you know it's shorts but it looks like a skirt so i think that'll be good for work too yeah yeah so uh_huh uh_huh well see i live in virginia uh_huh yeah yeah so i'm you know like right now today was in about you know the fifties but um you know i i do wear a lot of sweaters and things like sweater dresses oh my uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah we're still pretty much you know in winter as far as that goes here uh_huh uh_huh i guess we've discussed everything there is about clothing okay okay it was nice talking to you also bye bye okay um i don't know about you but where i am we have a like an extremely lax dress policy at work and it varies like every day i mean from jeans one day to business suits the next it's pretty bad but it's true you know they tend to try to be you know real lax and supposedly the policy is like you know we you know we hire these wonderful creative people and we don't want to [smush] their creativity you know we want to go ahead and let them do what ever they want and you know you really will see people in in jeans one day and business suits the next yeah yeah you know we're kind of that way too i try to i'm the same way you are i kind of try to judge from day to day i know you know where i am we work a lot with the customers and we have a lot of government folks come in all the time and and you know if i know that they're going to be there you know you i try to really watch it and like you say you know really dress up and if i know they're not you know i i've been doing a lot of [reorganization] you know the last couple of months the same way you are you know and it's just it's just impossible to crawl down on the floor and dig through boxes in a dress it is and so uh uh_huh oh no oh no oh how awful it sounds like mister power hungry you know just yesterday though i saw a girl in the spine out here at lewisville that had on a pair of shorts and i don't care you can call them split skirts and you can call them [culottes] all you want but these were shorts that's all they were i don't care what else you call them you know if they're below the knee okay maybe you can call them split skirts if they're above the knee they turn into shorts you know and these weren't even really full ones i mean they had a problem out here with it last summer wearing these shorts that were you know the real wide full ones you know and these weren't even those these were like pretty short black and they were very dressy the were black [velvet] shorts and she had on black hose and black heels and she looked very very nice but you don't wear shorts to work you know i mean as far as i'm considered she was in violation and nobody says anything to them it's always been a big problem in lewisville in the summertime you know if they just you know the management doesn't ever seem to want to take an cut off you know that no this is wear we're going to draw the line this is shorts you know and and nobody will ever kind of take control and do that you know so it always gets annoying because the rest of us are going well god we have a pair of those at home too it sure would be cool and comfortable to wear you know but yeah yeah and then during the week you see these women in the you know just because you put on a pair of hose with them doesn't make them not shorts anymore you know i mean i've never seen them do it without hose i mean they always have hose on but still it's they're shorts i don't care what you say they're shorts well i think t i's dress code is pretty lax considering everything anyway you know uh oh do they really oh my god i i couldn't afford to work there oh no uh_huh t i says no shorts and no [halters] i know that's it wow i don't know that that would be a good environment to work in i mean i see i i am more i don't know about anybody else and a lot of bosses may say i'm nuts but i am more productive when i'm in pants i i am i work faster i get things done faster than when i'm in a dress and heels you know i and it's weird but i it's i do i can i can get so much more done if i'm dressed comfortable you know right yeah uh_huh you can't do that in a skirt poor soul oh yuck yeah that's terrible that's terrible gosh well i don't know i just figure you know yeah sometimes i worry about you know if i go in in pants and i never i never ever ever ever go in in a pair of jeans you know but i'll go in in pants i mean today i had on a pair of you know navy blue dress slacks and and uh like a peach colored top and you know not [cruddy] but not a dress either and sometimes i wonder if stuff like that would will hold you back you know if you don't dress in you know your dress for success business suits everyday if you know if upper management doesn't notice that and remember that later on but you know i don't know if they do or not you know i see a lot of the managers and they're in jeans so you know really wow uh_huh yeah isn't that funny that's great yeah that's the way to do it i mean that's the smart way to do it it really is because your making you know if when they're meeting with the engineers who they know are going to be dressed down if they come in in you know a six hundred dollar three piece suit it's going to make the people they're meeting with feel very uncomfortable you know or it would me you know yeah yeah look at this slick guy i wonder what kind of money does he make uh_huh i can see it now well it was good to talk to you it was really enjoyable it really is oh yuck yeah well it's kind of enjoyable i'm really looking forward to it well thanks a lot bye bye well i'm kind of that way too i work in the legal department and where we are now what we're doing is some very big lawsuits that happen to have a heck of a lot of boxes of documents and i get to [toting] around boxes of documents several times a day it always seems like i'm doing that and i can't see getting dressed up and wearing heels and stuff when you have to carry you know boxes of documents around so if i'm just going to be there working in the litigation center and doing you know odds and ends and stuff with the boxes of documents i dress down but if we're going to have a meeting where we're having the attorneys come in or people from uh other [party's] attorneys and stuff then i normally dress up yeah and i'll wear a dress and hose and stuff uh_huh uh_huh that's right that's right as a matter of fact i thought i had one funny story when uh i was at t i the first year or so we were sent out to our record retention facility to look through two thousand boxes we had them in the warehouse and at that point it the warehouse was over across the road and it wasn't air conditioned and it we were there like in the middle of the summer it's [unair] conditioned it was dusty and dirty uh there was like a fan at the very end of the row and that was it and so we didn't really know we weren't supposed to we thought t i dress code was just dress appropriate to your job we wore shorts we didn't know that was a big no no and the supervisor from another area came up to us and you know this area where record retention is there's only a few people that work there and he he knew who worked there he should have realized that we weren't [regulars] in the warehouse there and he came up to us and he just said who's your supervisor well he called our supervisor and our supervisor and our [supervisor's] supervisor and it went up all the way to the head of facilities complaining that we were wearing shorts he didn't at at least say to us did you know you're not supposed to do that that could have [alleviated] a big problem we ended up getting called out on it yeah uh_huh um um yeah um well i've seen some people try to just come in like over the weekend because they want to use the [texteller] machine and they have said no yeah i know i didn't know that e d s has a very strict dress code i had a friend oh definitely i had a friend who worked there for a year or so and they spell it out for men it's particular suits uh the pin [stripe] and the particular colors of shirts and wing tipped shoes oh it is definitely lined out women are not allowed to wear slacks you wear coordinated suits and and a particular kind of shoe you know so high heel oh it is spelled out when i was looking at her materials when she first started you know she had her benefits package and all that kind of stuff and it told about the dress code and it said these are the color pastel shirts you may wear or white shirts with this kind of [stripe] in it for the men and this kind of shoe and hair just this way yeah and e d s is very particular about this hair cuts i mean it was like you can't have you know such and such [facial] hair no [beards] you know and just really detailed well the the time we were there at the warehouse we felt really bad because we had uh another person coming from washington our outside counsel and she was told that we were going to be in a warehouse but she really didn't get the idea that we were in the warehouse part of the warehouse not the office to the warehouse but the warehouse and she came with skirts just like she'd be going into the office and we'd try we'd try to say didn't you bring any pants or anything we're we're out here in the warehouse you know you you got your skid of you know that wooden [pallet] of boxes and you're going to have unload you skid look at the documents in the in the boxes and then [repack] your skid and she and she was so she was so hot and miserable you know in the skirt she finally tried to go buy you know a pair of pants but you know i mean it was just completely miserable for her some of our people in the legal department we have um assistants to the general counsel and it's funny because there's one that always wears a suit a matter of fact he's never seen without his jacket to the suit on [buttoned] and then there's another one who's who's a little younger and a little more [yuppish] and he's always kind of like in the [khaki] pants and you know a shirt and sometimes he wears the jacket to it and some of the [patent] attorneys have been real casual in their clothes and then other ones tend to always wear a suit with a very [starched] cotton shirt so that's just with the you know the little [suspenders] or something on so we've we've kind of had a variety there but i think a lot of times it's it's mainly who they're going to meet with or they're meeting with people that they know is going to be dressed that way then that's how they are if there just going to be meeting with t i like to talk about a [patent] kind of thing and the they're engineers that they're talking too they dress kind of like how the engineers are dressed and they're usually casual yeah it's one of those [slippery] attorneys coming in here yeah this is this is kind of a fun project i've done some of the other speech programs but we've never got to talk to another person it was always just talking to the computer so this is a little different yeah okay bye well uh i am basically retired now i was a member i was in education and in administration so basically i wore dresses and uh heels and i was never one uh because my work often took me into court uh never was one that got uh accustomed to wearing pants suits and pants to work but that was just me i know many people are very comfortable in the classroom and what have you wearing pants uh it i guess i was just old enough not to uh be very comfortable in it how about you oh uh_huh uh_huh yes and i think that does make a difference because when you do have to be in front of people uh i think you the the tendency there is to wear dresses and suits and and uh more classical style of clothing what about the mini skirt uh_huh well there are mini skirts and there are mini skirts there are some that are really short and then there are some that may be will come like four inches or five inches above the knee and again it depends upon the size the shape of the person as well as the shape of the person's legs now i also uh even though i retired from education i uh i do modeling and i teach at a modeling agency here and uh so when we are doing [wardrobing] and we have uh two two hour classes in wardrobe we do discuss a great deal the mini skirt and the types of clothes to wear on the job uh even though i may have them from sixth grade on up through uh grandmothers in my class and uh i always try to emphasize the clothes that you wear should not necessarily be the greatest fad because maybe they those are not the clothes that are the most uh appealing to you or the most uh [complimentary] to you but uh the mini skirt many times will [evoke] comments you don't really want and and then uh then you're in the situation where you're very unhappy that's right well i i uh i have to uh agree with that even when they was very very popular in the early sixties uh i uh uh again maybe because i was at the school there were still many teachers who wore mini skirts uh we had no regulation against it and a lot of the kids did of course and it could be very embarrassing for the men teachers because they were not that careful in how they handled themselves in those mini skirts and so i think uh uh of course now i go the other extreme i do not like to see in the corporate areas uh all the women dressed like men with the suits and uh white shirts and ties and what have you so that they all look exactly the same uh i don't like that i don't i think there should be individuality in dressing yes right well i and i don't think that you have to be [manish] and extremely tailored to to look professional i think that you you make of that what you wish and you can go the opposite direction and uh over do all the frills and [laces] and [flounces] and what have you which don't belong in the in at least in my opinion in the work place uh but that that you can have a classical look without a lot of a great deal of [adornment] and what have you and still be very feminine because that was one thing i always fought against i started out as a physical education teacher so i was always fighting against the idea of looking tailored or [manish] uh and people would never ever guess that i was [phys] ed and um and that pleased me uh and so then i of course just continued what i considered the best style of clothing for me at work and uh and i find even even at home here now i i will wear blue jeans or i'll wear shorts and what have you uh and be very comfortable but when i go out somewhere then uh unless i have a pair of dress slacks i don't usually wear a lot of blue jeans i have difficulty getting them to fit me comfortably any how and so uh uh i just feel that uh you know each person has to dress to their own liking and for their own comfort but uh there are certain norms that companies should be able to uh put out as guidelines for their employees right yes yes that's good yeah uh_huh yes right right right yeah yeah well i don't either fortunately i don't have to work in those companies but uh i i uh did have a group come over from one of the banks over the children's hospital where i was volunteering and uh they were doing a presentation and every one of the young [execs] coming up were dressed exactly a like men and women they all had on the gray jackets and the gray [trousers] or or skirts and the white blouses and the same color tie i mean you could hardly tell the women from the men except for the lengths of the pants and one was a skirt and one was a pant and uh and i think that's sad because that doesn't allow for any individuality that's uh can [stifle] creativity so i guess so well it's been nice talking with you uh_huh bye bye okay what do you usually wear to work uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well i work at t i and they don't really have uh dress code so to speak there it's pretty lax about um you know you can pretty much wear whatever you want to and i wear anything from jeans when i'm feeling really casual to uh suits and dresses when i'm meeting with a customer or i i teach training classes and so when i'm teaching a class obviously i wear a suit or dress so it it uh definitely [fluctuates] mainly with what i'm going to be doing that day and kind of what my mood is and when it's raining i'm more likely to wear jeans and and when it's really cold i'm more likely to wear jeans or pants or sweaters or that type of thing um but it just really depends on the weather and my mood and then you know obviously when i'm doing anything that i'm in front of people or or making presentations teaching whatever i'm going to dress up more uh_huh uh_huh there are a few people every now and then that wear those to work there pretty strict about that though um i've never worn i just wouldn't i mean even to well jeans aren't exactly professional but for some reason a mini skirt is to me a little more [unprofessional] to wear to work than jeans just because it's maybe it's just because of the [sexist] views and everything but you just feel like you're you're being showing too much i don't know i wouldn't want to wear a mini skirt to work i have seen a few people do it though but they they weren't overly and they weren't overly [revealing] they were pretty much in good taste but um for me i just i just wouldn't want to do that yeah uh_huh that's what i've seen uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right right uh_huh well i feel like too on the job when you know there's men around and some of the managers are men you just you know you don't want them looking at your legs necessarily and uh to me i just wouldn't feel comfortable in that at work but uh uh_huh uh_huh right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh even with the very tailored look of a suit sometimes i like to have a just a little something that's feminine not you know you don't want to over do it but just a little a touch of it just to say yes i am a woman but i can be professional too right uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right that's what i one thing i like about t i is that they aren't overly strict about what you wear and they don't you know your boss doesn't come up to you and say now remember tomorrow you have a meeting so you'd better wear a suit i mean they they leave it up to you and your judgment to to use good judgment and dress [tastefully] and dress for whatever occasion you may have the only real restrictions they have are uh no [halter] tops and no shorts even the long walking short of the [squirts] the the split skirts anything that that could be considered shorts they don't allow and they don't allow uh any sweat any sweat shirts or t shirts that might have [vulgar] or you know anything like that on it but other than that it's pretty pretty lax and i think that's good because it does allow people to be individual and it allows you to kind of dress the way you feel that day or you know if you want to be comfortable and casual you can and sometimes i think you may be more productive if you're comfortable with what your wearing and can be be feel more relaxed whereas uh sometimes when your in the suit and feel kind of almost stiff and you're not you know maybe you don't uh can't get as comfortable to sit down and you know like when i'm writing training material i prefer to be more comfortable unless i know i have to meet with a customer later during the day so that's i think that is good that they're like that i do know there's a lot of companies that are very strict about what the employees wear and they must wear blue or gray or black and a white shirt and you know no variation and i don't i don't quite agree with that right uh right yeah uh_huh right i agree well it i guess we've talked probably long enough nice talking to you too i enjoyed it bye bye okay uh i was just trying to think about how i how i dress for work you know t i is a very casual atmosphere and uh what i usually do on the weekend is is lay out five outfits and uh on monday i i wear the the worst looking one because it doesn't seem like people are really you know are that alive on monday you know so and then [progressively] through the week i'll i'll wear nicer looking things and then on friday most everybody wears jeans jeans and sweatshirts or you know jeans and blouses or something like that uh but mostly what i wear are skirts and blouses or you know skirts and uh pullover sweaters or uh you know little two piece dress suit suits like but uh_huh right right like where i work it's it's pretty casual uh it's it's i guess it's more like a a college campus also i mean there's you know hundreds of people work for t i and uh a lot of people just just wear jeans and and uh sweats all the time and they dress up like when customers are coming in or uh when we have department meetings or something like that and uh you know a lot of people like those that work in the legal department for their the real uh higher ups like the the the t i lawyers and uh those that work for the the higher executives those secretaries they uh they really dress up all the time so there's a good combination in the hallways all the time you know yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh and that's very acceptable at t i i believe at i b m they they make you wear a blue suit and uh some kind of colored shirt and a tie uh_huh i i would hate to be in that atmosphere uh_huh oh i see yeah oh t i is everywhere uh_huh that's true that's a good idea uh_huh the no right yeah and if you happen to go into one of areas that is a smoke smoke area and you don't smoke you almost [strangle] so much smoke in the air yeah areas the smoking area you know it's closed in and if you if you don't smoke and you go in there everybody that goes in there smokes so it's full of smoke when when you go in there i used to smoke a long time ago i used to burn my clothes talking about getting back to clothes i used to burn my clothes with cigarettes that's one of the reason that i stopped yeah she always had uh yeah she always had to have a lot of clothes no i i wasn't either she my daughter she's real good at finding sales though you know she'll buy a lot of yeah she'll buy a lot clothes at the end of seasons you know and uh just have them for the next year and she you know she finds all the outlets and all the discount places and uh buys clothes uh you know when they were coming up i i didn't sew but now i've i've learned how to sew so i'm well i'm i'm still learning how but i'm and i'm getting much better at it and i i'm going to be able to make my own clothes right right because clothes are are really expensive you know uh uh a little simple shell shell blouse you know that you can make for about say ten dollars at you know at at the most out of a decent fabric boy runs you like twenty something dollars in the store just a little shell to go under a suit you know uh_huh right especially to pay that kind of money for it i have a friend who uh she had a she had a a little boy and uh she used to dress him out of [neiman] [marcus] i mean she dressed him uh [fabulously] and then seems like every time she turned around he was [outgrowing] stuff and she finally learned that you just can not do this you know so now she finds the basement sales and just like you know everybody else right yes and you right and yeah and you just have to keep buying them you know if you if you if you're not buying the most expensive clothes out there the the quality is really not that great you know for the price that you pay right right like i bought i bought the most beautiful uh sweater from uh i believe it was ross dress for less and it it was really pretty it was just you know it was just plain a plain uh you know round uh [necked] uh sweater and it had like it was [embellished] around the the top you know it had uh leather leather designs and um some other other little things on it and i just thought it was so pretty and i i got it at a real good price i think maybe it was nine ninety nine or something and it was so pretty and after i wore it a couple of times i realized why why it was it was so cheap there was in the middle of the back of it there was it's like there it had been [slit] and they had like just sewed it back together right in the middle of the back you know wasn't a seam or anything you know and that's why it was so cheap although it's not it's not really noticeable uh from the outside but but still it's you know it's really not not not a good quality and then i was told by somebody that works for j c penney's that uh ross ross is just one of those places that sell sells seconds yeah yeah um they don't really buy the first quality they buy the second and uh places like j c penney's that they'll reject the seconds they'll send them back every time but places like ross dress for less and uh t j max uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah uh you know that's a good way to approach it i've never thought about um i do plan my clothes a week in advance actually i plan them a month in advance i usually do a month at a time so i don't repeat an outfit but um i've never thought about wearing your worst outfit on monday because really no one's paying attention but anyway um i really i don't work outside of school um i work in the computer lab at school so i can just wear whatever i have on for school an and um and really it's i try to dress [presentable] but very comfortable like um in the warm weather it's always shorts and a t shirt or a button up or something like that and then in the winter time it's jeans or or pants i usually uh you know college is so casual you really don't want to dress up unless you you uh have a job and you have to be there right after school or something like that so yeah uh_huh oh well that's good that they're so casual i mean uh my brother works for t i and he's a computer programmer or computer engineer and uh you know whenever he was going to school he was expecting to having to wear uh a tie or a dress shirt everyday but uh he goes to work in his blue jeans t shirt and tennis shoes and he just loves it yeah that's what i've heard but uh i mean they they just moved into the new building he calls it the new building i don't know it's where all the executives are and um and so they were they were going to try to take their blue jean code with them and trying to get all the all the upper level to start wearing blue jeans but he just left for italy today at four and he'll be over there until july first setting up some kind of computers for them over in t i mean for t i but over in italy oh yeah he was so excited about going but uh he didn't carry any ties or anything because he he just went over there with the that attitude well if i don't take it then they won't make me wear it because uh he just he didn't you know he's not really into all that he would wear it if he had to for his job and all but you know if he had the preference i mean his his preference is um blue jeans and a t shirt so but i think that's great about t i and also uh to get off the clothing the smokers you know how they have the the different designated areas for smokers and stuff i think that's great oh really do you smoke uh_huh i think that's um well um you mentioned your daughter had graduated from college well when she was in high school did she always have to have all the new fashions and uh see that's how that's how i am but my mamma was not raised like that and so oh me to boy i have to hunt them down uh_huh that's great i wanted to take a sewing class at school but i just haven't fit it into my schedule yet but that i mean that can really benefit um that's something that i'd be very interested in very interested in learning uh they're outrageous uh_huh yeah it's it's marked up it is it is really outrageous but uh i mean like whenever i i was growing up and all my mom i never understood this then but i do now but she never would buy me like the new [designer] jeans that had come out that were thirty dollars or um or she wouldn't buy me the fifty dollar tennis shoes and stuff like that and she always told me it was because i was still growing and she wasn't going to buy me something i was going to grow out of next week yeah oh no uh_huh that's the best way to shop i mean i always thought my mom was being mean to me but i look back at it now and my child is going to i mean i'm going to raise mine the same way um i don't know i just they're just so outrageously priced it's just incredible i try to uh always catch the sales always yeah it it depends on um yeah there's there's always a reason why they're on sale so that that has a lot to do with it but um well uh uh_huh oh that's great uh-oh oh no uh_huh the [defect] uh_huh t j max does that yeah we have a t j max over here and um okay guess we can go ahead uh well i guess you know it's you know since living in dallas it's always so hot so in the summertime i just i wear lots of shorts so because i don't work during the day so do you work oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah and buying suits and stuff yeah because just being at home and i work at home so i just have you know i just wear my you know my shorts and stuff like that i don't go out and spend lots of money on uh different you know suits and stuff you know but when i before i got married you know i was working so i uh you know i had more suits and stuff then but worry about all that kind of stuff uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh when you're training right yeah uh_huh moved from winter uh_huh uh_huh yeah because i came from wyoming and i had wool suits and wool skirts and you know i've got all these clothes that i never wear because you can't wear them here and uh the seasons are just so much different you have so much summer and uh so then when i you know i finally get a chance to go out with my husband it's like a real chore to find something nice to wear yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah you hate to get rid of it because you know how much you spent on them and it's real hard to get rid of some of that stuff i know so uh_huh uh_huh clothes yeah uh_huh yeah yeah and i i just don't spend you know right now my clothes come from target you know yes and they you take them out of the drier and they're [wadded] up in a ball oh i'm so glad to meet somebody that that their iron board is their permanent fixture in their house you know i have very little furniture but my ironing board is part of my [decor] so uh_huh uh_huh yeah well yeah it is it is but it's like uh i just don't want to do it yeah uh_huh yeah that's an idea yeah yeah i you know if i have if i know i'm having somebody come over to the house and there's a possibility they might be going back into my room i will put it away but i iron our clothes as we go along so you know right no uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh you can't iron it all and yeah and then with my kids they're always getting into you know they can't decide what they want to wear so they change their minds you know i know i mean my oldest is only four but she's still changes her mind two or three times before she figures out what she's going to wear so and then they never put anything back uh_huh yeah that that that's called smart you know they don't we don't do that kind of stuff you know that's called too easy on mom our lot in life is to make her life miserable so uh yeah well that's it's been good talking to you to see somebody hear somebody that does the same thing i do because i tell people what i do and they just go oh how do you do that it's like it's easy you just do it you know uh_huh yeah yeah i don't think i'd know what to do if it wasn't there you know my husband wouldn't know where to hang his dirty clothes you know yeah he wouldn't know where to put things so yeah so oh it was nice talking with you too take care bye bye uh_huh yes uh_huh yeah i do work uh and but i work at a manufacturing plant so i wear a lot of blue jeans and t shirts but occasionally i have to get dressed up and wear [panty] hose and a dress and high heel shoes and i feel really uncomfortable doing that and in the plant so uh it's it's a problem for me but normally i just wear blue jeans and a t shirt very very comfortable i like that so much better than having to wear dress clothes uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right well i have plenty of suits and dress clothes because i'm like you when i first started working uh i have all these suits and blouses and skirts and mix and match and that kind of stuff but now that i you know work in the manufacturing plant then it's just it's so much more difficult for me to to actually get dressed up to come in to work like that uh but occasionally i have to because uh part of my job is teaching and training and uh so you have to look just a little bit nicer than your normal [garb] than your normal [garb] but i'm like you too uh i moved from ohio down to here and i had mostly [polyesters] and [wools] and winter clothes and buying all these cotton clothes and then of course you have to iron them all the time that's really that's been a problem for me right right uh_huh that's true that's true well i know i was just now uh uh putting away a lot of my winter clothes and i was going through here and i was thinking i haven't worn this in three years and because it's a wool skirt and there's just not that many opportunities to wear it and i have five or six wool skirts so i was thinking well maybe you know i need to think about getting rid of them but no i folded it up [neatly] and put it away maybe next year uh_huh uh_huh i know i agree with you well i know last year uh well this past winter it wasn't that cold but the previous winter we had more uh cold weather where i was able to actually wear your double and triple [layerings] of uh clothes yeah like you would when you're up north so that's really interesting yes yes yes and they're all one hundred percent cotton and yes yes i know so i uh i have my ironing board sitting out all the time i never put mine away it is it is that's true and and i've been looking at these uh uh like in home depot where you can go and they've got that ironing boards that will just flip right down off of the uh uh what the the the door and uh and then you can actually have one where you can put it inside of a wall you know to have it permanently attached and that's what i'm thinking i'm going to have to do because mine's sitting right out in front of my bedroom and it's just it's just an [eyesore] i think with all the uh uh uh uh no i've been thinking about putting the ironing board in the closet and and running you know a line in there for my iron so i could do it in there and i wouldn't have to have that [eyesore] yeah so i have a big closet uh_huh yeah uh_huh i no longer do that weekly thing because i have so many and i'm like you i the night before or that day i will iron whatever it is that we need and that's it because it's too many hundred percent cotton uh_huh uh_huh right right oh i know i know no no of course not no that uh that would be too simple absolutely not that's right uh_huh absolutely absolutely oh that's right that's right you do you do so uh but yeah i uh i know several of my girlfriends though we uh we all keep our ironing boards out and just uh an ever present thing in our household so there you go things that need to be [mended] things that have to get [ironed] uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that's true oh well it was nice talking with you okay take care uh_huh bye bye all right and and your occupation is teaching substitute teacher yes it is it is right well i was just trying to make an introduction here but oh and and i haven't told you i'm going to be at a different school this year now i've just gotten a another job at an elementary library at [barron] right i well not really i've got the every day i've got to uh read to kindergartners so i'm going to be down on the floor with them i've got about forty kindergartners i'm going to be doing working with every day for uh you know a half hour so i'll be i'll probably be wearing slacks as often as i do because i'm i'm if i'm going to be down on the floor messing with them i'm not going to wear nylons and you know nice nylons and dresses right well of course you've been at clark enough that you know it's always cold but you don't know uh i guess at some of the other schools you go to unless you've been there subtract right i i think some of the dress codes are different at different schools that's one of things one of the things i ask about you know whether whether she would allow slacks and she said she doesn't have a problem with that she just didn't like sloppy dressing and and i said well you know that was okay and i'm basically i just you know i wear slacks year round except every about once a week i try to wear a skirt and and in the winter you know i just add a maybe wear longer sleeve shirts than i do in the summer and add a heavier jacket or you know wear jackets more in the winter than i do in the summer that's about i don't i don't really work in a profession that requires that i wear a business suit and you know look really yeah right and you never know that though sometimes when you're going in do you right right right on what thursday right right so that would kind of give you a a clue i guess and and sometimes you get the long term stuff so you're aware ahead of time of what's going on that so that's and i don't know you know i i think about well the dress code they have for the kids you know are they put one on the parents or the teachers and say they have to the men have to wear ties and there can be no blue jeans worn and because some of the teachers i know wear uh dress up jeans not sloppy looking jeans but [tapered] jeans that they've had dry cleaned so they have got the [crease] and uh you know they'll wear it with a nice top and and uh i don't know that that looks that bad but if you're going to tell the kids they have to dress up i guess you can tell the teachers that too uh_huh uh_huh right right right yeah there's a couple teachers up there that that do dress up more than others right right well and you always course it's a standing joke you know when the when the men come in in a a tie and a suit coat you say you know what have you got a job interview today or there there's there's usually yeah there's usually something going on that that uh and would would uh cause that to happen and i i don't know how a coach would feel if that teaches health or you know english or whatever that they had to wear a tie i some of those male coaches that might really right and a t shirt right that i didn't ever understand i mean we've got coaches that teach health for five periods and then have athletics sixth period so whether change then well see that's what i would think that's what i would think right course we had had one coach one period he'd teach p e and the next period health and then a period of p e and and that's hard you know so he just left warm ups on but but uh no i think really probably they could they could uh really and i don't know if if they put make uniforms the thing for the kids i guess the teachers will have to follow suit with a dark skirt and a white top and you don't think so well some of them yes they do and and it's not at some of the private schools but even there's a couple public schools in dallas where where the kids wear uniforms and the teachers you know dress in [accordance] with that uh_huh well i i think it would make a difference at school i i don't think we should be spending time saying somebody's wearing torn clothing or wearing too shorts too short or they've got the really short skirt and the black nylons and the high you know i mean it's a lot of trouble to to take care of that and of course the kids say then why bother just let me wear what i want and and yet we can't to that either i'd like to see them go to to not necessarily a uniform but saying that they've got to wear a button down shirt you know that would that would alleviate any t shirts with sayings on them but if they could wear a button down shirt and a pair of dark slacks and they could buy them anywhere they wanted and and then the girls right i don't no not in plano they may get but they said in the dallas schools that that helps their educational process there highland [park's] thinking about going that route so it and then i think that's going to push teachers to dress a lot more professionally than they do yeah i agree with you on i'm a i'm a substitute teacher is is this pat i'm talking to now yeah i'm a substitute teacher in i believe the same school system we both work in oh okay oh well i bet you're you're you may dress differently then for that well what i wear sometimes depends on on how cold i think the school might be or what room i might be in since i'm a sub and have different rooms to go to and always carry a sweater yes no you try to layer so you can add or or or take off and it's it's interesting to notice when you go to different schools that some are a little more fancier than others and have a very casual uh uh_huh uh_huh right and well for me sometimes they even have dress up days or they you know have have spirit week that that you wear your different outfits and you have to have the color for that particular school if you if you choose to participate in spirit week and one might be a hat day where you have to come up with some sort of hat no but because i sort of stick to several schools uh i'm usually aware that there might be a spirit week going on and and might might remember to do it and then many schools on a particular day during uh i guess football season maybe all year long they wear the school colors for uh game day which right it might be thursday for the high schools and it may be friday for the senior high schools yeah uh_huh yeah it it i see that the i think the elementary school teachers or maybe even the middle school teachers dress a little fancier than than some of the high school teachers i think but it i think it varies it it just so much anything anything can go and you can see in some of the departments in some of the schools like history at clark they're all pretty fancy but they're just sort of into clothes and then there's other departments that aren't and they'll just wear your common ordinary you know whatever you might might say right and so you try to maybe follow those if you know you're going there you don't want to dress too tacky because you're going to be in the same room with them or you're going to be observed yeah right they go around in their little coaching shorts or [parachute] pants yeah well at vines the coaches don't do that they they dress pretty good i would say and then they go to their coaching and they they put their shorts on there uh_huh but they they don't look you know they don't wear their sweat pants or or anything they're they dress like any other teacher would in in a classroom situation not in p e those i can understand yeah i don't think we'll ever get to that no i don't think i think we're going the opposite direction it's the parochial schools that i guess many they've had uniforms for years i don't really know if they still do it certainly makes it easier to dress uh_huh well it's certainly cheaper and easier in the long run i think that you don't have to be concerned about your wardrobe uh_huh yeah but i doubt that that would come that that will come about just yeah i i no not yeah well i think it does it it takes their minds off of of trying to compete uh_huh yeah i i don't think a lot of teachers are very professional but hi uh basically i wear pants i'm a real pants person and uh like when i'm at home since and i'll say i'm a homemaker since that's my basic thing uh i wear a pantsuit most of the time not a pantsuit i guess pants and a shirt and uh in the summertime i wear cotton tops cotton top shirts and in the winter i wear uh like sweaters i like sweaters a lot and so i do that but when i go out for meetings uh then i will wear either uh skirts or uh a dress and i have a couple of [pantsuits] because those are real in at this time but that's basically what i do oh right well that sounds nice uh it said the seasons do do you change much through the season or uh_huh maybe no uh_huh yeah yeah right uh_huh then uh well i don't have the resources to just go out and buy buy buy anyway and so my don't change dramatically over the years if i need something new i will go and buy it but basically i'm a a pretty much the same in the summertime i wear the light cotton and in the wintertime i change to the sweaters and so it's not a whole lot of of change for me either and uh especially when i go to the meetings and wear the dresses i i i enjoy that but it just wouldn't be uh smart for me to do that in my home with my children so i have to uh think about things like that too i have given seminars before in in creative writing and things like that now i don't know if they consider that a job i don't really get paid for that uh often but uh when i do that then i i think i become more businesslike uh but it doesn't really change my clothing style yeah oh uh_huh oh dear that's not helpful yeah i guess so well it's been great talking to you have a great day bye hello well i think our tastes are fairly similar although i am i government worker i do tend to i'm uh a scientist so that technically i suppose i could get away with with extremely casual clothes but for the most port part i don't i wear fairly respectable looking shoes and and a pantsuit of one sort or another and uh i guess dress it up with a with a a very nice black jacket when i have have visitors or have to give talks right no actually i guess this summer i i wore some fairly nice jeans uh more than i have in previous seasons but uh no i tend to to use the same things because actually our offices are very cold in summer i don't know whether they think by you know freezing them up overnight then they can save electricity during the day or something but but you know you wear a heavy sweater in your office all summer so right uh yeah i don't i don't i you know i'm not a clothes horse in the sense that some of my friends and i guess although in as i recall the stereotype of of secretaries was you know [overdress] over kill sort of and in a in a sense the people i know who spend the most on clothes are secretaries although the fact that most of the ones i know are in the government and they're not meeting the public it i find it a little bit strange that their priorities would would be to spend this money here you know i mean i suppose if you were a a more a receptionist and meeting the public and it was the image of your company at stake perhaps you would have to dress up uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh exactly i mean you can look businesslike in in a the same pant suit you would you know wear for other things yeah i'm i'm really glad about that pant suits are popular because i'm allergic to many of the [synthetics] and so i used to have a problem when when i was working in a restaurant while i was in college and had to dress up and nylons and things like that would just give me a terrible [rash] so right right but otherwise now i'm i guess we're both pretty practical okay well have a good day bye bye okay why don't you start so you probably have a job you need to get to pretty soon oh you are oh wonderful well how do you dress for work uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh so you're in a church there uh_huh well i'm working this is my first morning to work down at our little church preschool and they've told me to wear just something terribly comfortable because these are two year olds and they have a lot of uh they have bible lessons and they have all the things during the morning but they still have snack time and play time so i'm going to be dressing just in casual slacks and t shirts probably not blue jeans but little bit short of that just just tennis shoes and play clothes yeah i'm envious well it's a beautiful day here and it's in the sixties but we still have a lot of hot afternoons it's supposed to be eighty five today so you'll still see people it it's kind of an in between change that they're in their play clothes i mean they're in their summer clothes during the afternoons because you just can't stand the sweaters but in the mornings people are dressing for work in their sweaters because they just want it to be fall so badly did you i understand well so are the people around you um dressing similar to you uh_huh so you don't have to you don't have to buy the lot of the wardrobe that some of the people in banking and that kind of thing do well that's good that's good uh_huh well that's wonderful well my husband has to take the bus into dallas and doesn't return all day so he has to dress and he just really hates it they have the long sleeve shirts and the whole tie and the whole suit and even when his job is not going to be with people all day long he said it's just part of the uniform and the expected image that they have to dress uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well i think that's i think that's great i think that's good i understand well another interesting thing on the our our end here is how even in my forties how much younger i dress than my mother would have in her forties and i will run around to the store in things in slacks and tennis shoes and she right and [pearls] and she would not have even probably owned a pair of tennis shoes after she got out of high school so uh she tells me i dress young but that's okay well there's not a lot more i can think of to discuss on clothing i guess this is what you call a natural end well we wear of course like i said if my husband's going downtown he's got the whole uh you know the dress men's dress shoes but for as out here just anything that the moms we all kind of have our own little dress code of just either tennis shoes or little [loafers] and and uh [tights] and things that feel comfortable to us around our kids yeah i'm sure they are there yeah i'm sure they are that's right i'm sure that true it's a lot different than working in a kids preschool that's right well you all have a nice day there thank you very much bye bye i'm already on my job so you you reached me at my job my my dress for work uh most of the time is uh rather comfortable and casual uh usually uh slacks and a soft colored shirt the um thing that that [distinguishes] me a lot of the time when i have to dress real professionally for a meeting or something is i wear a clerical collar and a suit and uh all of that sort of thing but when i don't need to dress up for a a meeting or a service of some sort i don't yes well around there you can probably wear uh t shirts and other things but around here at this time of the year we are into sweaters and uh coats today today we we wear coats and as the day uh warms up we may go to light jackets but i don't think there's an escape from light jackets the wind will take away a lot of body heat very similar no i'm not stuck with that kind of a uh situation as i say unless it happens to be now yesterday i had to dress up and and uh be more formal because i had a a formal meeting at noon time but then i can go home later in the day and and be a little more casual and then if i have a a meeting of people that i know i can be very casual in the evening yeah that's around here in a lot of places that's the way it is i mean there there are expected uh dress codes and the people need to follow that i think uh years ago i used to be far more uh committed to the idea of of a dress code but i've relaxed a lot more as i've gotten older and become more comfortable with myself it's taken a long time to break away from from that but now that i've broken away from it i'm i'm glad i have you mean you don't need to wear little old house dresses any more that's a good idea that's a good idea no there you know yeah what kind what kind of shoes do they wear down there uh_huh we we can wear pretty much that although um tennis shoes are kind of out in in almost every every situation unless you want to look like a [gook] a lot different you too and thank you for calling uh_huh bye okay so we're going to talk about uh what kind of clothes we wear while we work do you work for t i oh you do well you're like me then i stay home also yes i have two a seven year old and three and a half year old how about you oh oh my you are busy and they're all girls i have two girls so all girls around here yes uh really sweet that's how i am too uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh that's funny yeah yeah yeah i know that's kind of how i am i said who ever i talk to is going to be board because when it's summer time i'm wearing shorts and when it's cold i'm wearing sweat pants and most of unless i'm going to something special that my daughter's doing or something like that well that's that's good i used to wear jeans all the time until after i had kids and now nothing seems to be comfortable because i bulge in all the wrong places so yeah right yeah yeah yeah i know what you mean well oh uh_huh right uh_huh that's right one of my daughters was born in june and i remember i wore [sundresses] and you know just those real cool dresses almost the entire time and i had one that was born in december so um it was a little bit because it was a real warm winter so even even into like november and december i was still wearing the short sleeve dresses course i'm always hot when i'm pregnant too so i i didn't really need warm clothes but i really have been spoiled by sweat pants and these new uh units outfits you know that are just knit oh they are so comfortable it's it's just um you know a light weight kind of like a sweat suit but made out of that real light polyester stuff and it's just great because you can put you know you can decorate them up or dress them up if you want or you can just wear them with you know tennis shoes if you want so they're really nice and i've enjoyed wearing those but i yeah well i don't either if we if we had professional jobs where we go into an office and have to wear a jacket or something that would make a big difference i worked part time when my oldest was a baby and um i had to wear a dress every day and and it was a little bit hard to uh wind down i would i would have to drive six thirty five home and i would be burning up like in the summer time by the time i got home i was like oh i've got to get out of these clothes uh_huh right right yeah yeah yeah and then when you drive home like especially if you're in a lot of traffic which you are in dallas uh_huh because i always hated to run my air conditioner just sitting still all the time i was afraid i'd make the car [overheat] yeah so i would roll my windows down it was still a hundred degrees and i would just be [sweltering] hot by the time i picked my daughter up and um i had a friend who used to take shorts to work and after work she'd go in the bathroom and change her clothes and i thought that's probably a good idea because you really yeah because you can ruin your good clothes getting so hot in them if you especially if it's something that has to be dry cleaned which i don't have any of no when you have children you don't um even when i go to church i have to have something i can just throw in the washer when i'm through that's right or if you get it dirty or whatever i know it me too i know that's how i am too right me neither i have okay i'm ready uh_huh no i work at home do you have children oh that's good i have four girls they're nine and five and three and a [newborn] yes girls are nice aren't they anyway as far as clothing goes um my wardrobe changes all the time depending on my size we go from regular kind of spring clothes regular kind of fall clothes pregnant clothes clothes that are in between where you're not down to regular size yet or you're on your way up from regular size and they're all in boxes or bags and they all rotate all the time kind of the same stuff all the time though i don't uh get a whole lot new right now yeah yeah i i like jeans a lot oh and it's it's frustrating i just i find i have to get the right kinds though or it's not comfortable they it it works best if they have pleats in the front and uh they have to my waist is kind of small compared to the hips so it has to be not the straight up and down [levis] kind but um but i when i was i was pregnant through the summer this time and i wore dresses all the time because it was so much cooler and so much more comfortable not to have something [binding] on your waist but uh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah yeah oh i haven't tried those huh yeah yeah uh_huh i don't know if they expected us to talk about [blazers] and such here but i sure never wear them yeah uh_huh i'm watching [janice] uh_huh oh i i remember that from when i was i worked way before i was married even but offices they keep them so cold in the summer that you can't wear regular summer clothes and be comfortable you've got to have something to add to it or something i don't know if you can you burn up yeah yeah it's hard on the car oh yeah oh that's funny yeah at least something cooler that's true yeah i don't have to worry a whole lot about that that's right something that it doesn't matter if it gets spit up on too i've always been a creature of comfort too if it's not comfortable forget it wool was never comfortable to me uh the only work i do outside the home is i am an avon representative and i sell family products and uh so i i don't really i don't really dress up a whole lot do you work outside oh uh_huh oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well you'd have to dress differently when you're working every day i think yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh it's kind of nice to relax a little bit yeah well my my dress up i live out in the country also so what i wear depends on the weather uh so i really i know a lot of the avon representatives are portrayed as being very dressed up but i mostly dress i try to dress nice but for convenience because when the weather's bad when i go into the home i take off my shoes which i try to wear something easy to take off you know and put on and i don't too often take off my coat even so uh i really don't have to dress up like you would like if you're in an office or something uh well not actually because we really only have maybe three four months of i'd say warm weather yeah and the rest is uh gets into the cooler weather uh_huh course they keep saying the weather's going to change and we're going to have more florida type weather up here so i don't know but for now but for now we have a lot of ice and snow in the wintertime and uh cold weather and that type of thing now my daughter works all the time so she dresses i think you know you have to spend more money on your clothing and that because you do have to have the appearance a good appearance to do a good job where you work uh_huh um uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right yeah did you find you wore uh slacks when you were working full time or did you did they wear more dresses and skirts no slacks uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh not even a dressy slack a dressy suit slack suit even if it's all uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i know my daughter mostly i don't think she ever wears slacks to work but i didn't know if the trend changes you know if uh uh_huh uh_huh look more like a woman huh uh_huh uh_huh uh well then you you you know why they make them then that way uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah but yet you need to keep up an appearance for your husband too though at home because that's i i believe oh you don't think you will huh well you'll be excused because considering everything uh_huh yeah but i i look at homemaking as a job also uh being a homemaker and i i think sometimes we lose sight of that uh by the fact that we don't sometimes watch our dress oh okay uh_huh do you well i i work uh i'm a c p a and i do contract work and so and i work with another c p a who just started his own practice and i work with him a couple days a week and so when i go to his office or to other [clients'] offices then i'll dress up but otherwise it's great being at home in jeans or shorts or whatever so that that makes it pretty nice it's kind of weird because before i used to work you know full time and and uh it seemed like i was wearing a suit every day just about right right and so it's uh some of my suits i haven't put on for quite a while so it's it's it's very nice gosh uh_huh sure uh_huh uh_huh right yeah yeah well i imagine that where you live uh you're in warm clothing quite a bit of the year not really oh is that right uh_huh uh_huh so you all are waiting for that uh_huh yeah right right yeah well down here it's sunny most of the time and uh usually warm i mean we had a few cool days uh this month but not anything i'm sure compared to what you've had so far so i mean people are still wearing shorts and and uh usually around halloween it starts getting cooler so you start you know breaking out a coat at that time but that that lasts you know for a few months no no never wore slacks it was i think it was one of those things where it's not like someone came out and said you can't wear them it was one of those understood things that you just you know either wore you know a dress or not no not not with what i did uh most people didn't sometimes like the secretaries might but even then you didn't see them wearing slacks too much and i really you know there's some nice [pantsuits] out and and i wouldn't have minded you know wearing those especially when it gets pretty cold but uh uh_huh you know i think it's one of those things where it's not viewed upon as being professional i guess they expect women to be in skirts or dresses yeah that's right and it's the men that make the rules but no we usually you know skirt and skirt and blouse or suit or dress is what you see down here so it's nice with me working at home because i can wear pants no no one can see me unless i'm you know yeah yeah but i'm not going to put a skirt on just for him yeah i think that the main issue at home is being comfortable in your clothing right yeah the way i'll go ahead and start the way i work uh the way i dress for work is uh this year nineteen ninety one has been really suit and tie or i shouldn't say suit but coat and tie every day a a year ago i changed jobs from being a researcher to doing marketing for the research group which means kind of a i guess it's a different set of standards i guess so uh i i dress almost the same every day i mean pretty much it's a white shirt and slacks and shoes and a coat but it was very different before how do you dress uh_huh yeah i understand right i understand that's funny so does it change your dress no so or i guess do you have things like presentations to do or anything like that so back in my old job up until through nineteen eighty i would usually wear blue jeans and pullover shirts and the like but probably once a month or so there was some reason that i would have to put on a suit for a customer presentation or something oh i see i understand oh well that's interesting let's see uh what else about this uh it it seems like t i is pretty cut and dried with two like two or three levels that there's the upper management that always wears gray suits and the people that don't uh i would if you if i want to say don't have power or don't have authority or whatever like i used to be in that research and i guess you are that we dress in the jeans and then there's kind of the the branch manager level or marketing people that kind of do that middle thing but there's not much it's nice that there's not a requirement for it oh yeah right yeah i guess you see those once in a while sure yeah that's right that's right i guess they're the isn't there a dress code something about spaghetti straps i'm not even sure what they are oh [backless] all right okay so this wasn't necessarily a big conversation but i think we we did it okay and and your name was lisa great i am yes and i work in the north building uh well thank you all right good day uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh well i'm a drafter so i just wear blue jeans and tennis shoes and i have sweatshirt on today and that's pretty much the norm for me if i come in in a dress everybody's shocked they ask me you know what are you doing in a dress and it's usually i haven't done my laundry lately ran out of jeans no no huh_uh no huh_uh uh_huh yeah yeah yeah every now and then i'll get dressed up and come in but that's for my husband's job and not mine i have to go to a business meeting once a month with him but so uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah middle of the road uh_huh uh_huh sometimes i think there should be some of these women around here look like they came off of harry [hines] and you know the they have the no shorts deal and some of these mini skirts you know are worse than shorts ever thought about being but uh you know that's i guess that's one of the things you got to put up with when you don't have a dress code supposedly and [backless] things but i've seen those too but uh yeah lisa are you the expressway sites oh okay thank you uh_huh bye bye okay uh clothing at work um i work as a news reporter and a lot of i work in a since i work in a small station this is my first job and so i dress very [variedly] if that's a word um sometimes i'm shooting and doing photography and so i'll be in jeans one day and another day i'll be on camera and so i'll be in a suit and another day i'll come in and i won't know what i'm doing so i'll wear a pant suit in case i have to shoot so it really varies i try to dress very comfortably i don't really like dressing up at all i don't i don't wear a lot of makeup or anything like that i just i don't know it just it takes too much time out of my day and i don't i don't know yeah i don't mind it at all um uh_huh okay white pants in a bakery wow okay what's the name of the bakery oh italian i guess new clothes and stuff yeah that's one thing i would like is just to sort of have i really don't like uniforms but just to have something i don't have to get up and decide what to wear that just bugs me to death oh yeah sweats and yeah when i was in school i was a sweat monster all i had was sweats and when it was time to go out i didn't have anything to wear yeah yeah um let me see i hate shoes if i didn't have to have shoes i wouldn't have them i just oh my feet bother me and they're just tedious to go find shoes for me it's just i don't know i wear size nine and it i don't know if just the shoes i get i either don't like them or they don't fit right and i just wish that i could just go without them oh really oh just the opposite but um let's see what else do i wear um if i were in a bigger market when i do get into a bigger market i'll probably go out and buy a bunch of suits and things and uh where i wouldn't have to shoot and do a lot of other things and i could then i would be able to dress more business like and things like that but we're all kind of just out of school at this station and so we're all you know still in sweats really so it's pretty fun though yeah i oh yeah i like this the uh suits with the they come like with a mini type skirt you know and the jacket i like that but but i'm pretty short i'm five four and so that really doesn't [flatter] me but i think it looks good on taller people are you yeah any time i go to the store i mean i i have like two pairs of pants because i can never find any that are short enough for me and it's just oh ridiculous pants too i could do without those pants shoes yeah those are nice those are nice yeah those are nice and tennis shoes my boyfriend's got me these l a gear they're kind of big and [hefty] tennis shoes and it it's just like a chore to pick up my feet because i'm used to wearing the little white girl tennis shoes the little ones yeah and i'm used to those they're just sort of you know like your feet i mean you don't feel them you put these things on it's it's you know like exercise or something for your feet and i have to wear them because he gets upset if i don't so so so how do people in wisconsin dress warm i grew up in new york and so i know what warm is like five pairs of socks and yeah oh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh oh oh me neither yeah yeah same here i don't mind not wearing any makeup um i work at a bakery because i'm a still a a college student um but we we have to wear white pants and um any color t shirt as long as it's not like a bright color like a pastel yeah yeah the [bakers] wear all white and we wear [aprons] and have to pull our hair back and so yeah it's italian bakery and uh so i don't mind having having to wear a uniform because i don't have to buy you know right as you know many clothes oh yeah yeah i know i do that every day for school yeah but i i like to wear comfortable things like cotton and baggy things and yeah yeah yeah i know i don't have very many dress clothes but i don't mind i don't need them yet um oh really oh oh um oh wow i love shoes i always buy shoes yeah uh_huh yeah oh i like the look the the like suit look professional like you know look but i i really don't have much of an opportunity to wear it um i'm going to be a teacher so i'll probably just wear casual clothes maybe skirts and some oh yeah yeah that is cute yeah i'm five three and yeah oh really oh i like the like stretch pants the cotton ones they're really comfortable with a baggy sweatshirt oh yeah oh oh yeah i have a pair of those yeah yeah oh yeah warm this time this time of the year pretty warm sweaters and yeah yeah sleeping in sweats or long underwear my parents keep the house cold i guess you heard our our topic for today was clothing how you dress for work and season to season and everything how do you dress for work sure you bet look professional yeah i understand i am a i own my company i am in the i am uh manufactures rep sales organization and my office is a small office and i am very casual and wear slacks and sports shirt and things like that but then when i travel it is a little different situation uh suits and sports coat tie and the whole bit cause you go to meetings and you are required to look your best and look professional of course yeah i think in today's society uh there is more credibility to be quite honest i will always remember i will tell this real quick story when i graduated from college my first job years ago uh thirty years ago twenty nine years ago in fact was selling agricultural fertilizer i worked for the uh smith douglas division of [borden] chemical and i sold uh you know manure and uh i would go out and call on farmers and i would always try to look my best wearing sport coats and things like that but i was calling on guys that wore bib [overalls] and so one day i got up and thought well i will just go casual and you know that i called on a guy wearing exactly that bib [overalls] and he sort of told me that he expected me to be professional and he sort of expected me to dress as a professional so uh it was sort of you bet even back then so i sort uh been aware of my dress ever since then and try to look my best but here again i dress casual quite a bit so it gives you confidence in my business if i call on the the j c penney company here in dallas or say someone say sears and [roebuck] in chicago then i wear coat and tie if i call on just uh a normal little dealer of mine i might be casual i call on [oshman's] sporting goods again it may be casual or it may be coat and tie so it depends uh probably no probably no because uh today i believe you can get away with but then it depends on who you are calling on who you're you like your minister standing up in front of you with no tie you just uh he would be missing something although he shouldn't be evaluated on that so it's its' just different yes it is i am uh like a catholic and the people that go to my church you know catholics dress very casual a lot of the times people in jeans and in whatever but yet the way i was raised i am a converted catholic the way i was raised i was raised a baptist and like as a youngster i use to always dress up all the time i guess that has changed also right sure but that is a very good point i am from west virginia so i understand what you are saying there and it's it's a very good point but you shouldn't what's the old saying you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and uh evaluation of an individual course all of it depends on the type of job responsibility you have i think you have to dress sort of accordingly but uh you certainly should not judge a book by its cover and uh or evaluate a person by that what about season to season does i guess your dress changes yes i certainly did uh_huh well uh uh about the same i dress for school i uh i am a graduate student so i don't have to worry too much about uh what i wear too much of the time which is nice uh uh uh although i do uh a lot of i am a speech pathology major and so i do a lot of [clinical] work and when i do clinic work then i have to uh uh look my best yeah unfortunately uh_huh yeah sure uh_huh yeah yeah uh uh do you find that uh on the average do people give uh more credibility or less credibility to a professional uh to professionally dressed individual uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh really even the farmers oh wow uh_huh uh_huh yeah certainly uh_huh yeah it depends sure uh so you don't uh if you had the choice would you wear a tie or not uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right right uh_huh yeah that uh if if you wanted to uh uh really get into a hot issue uh well at least in some in some beliefs uh how people dress when they go to church is uh is uh sometimes a pretty pretty hot topic uh unfortunately uh_huh uh_huh uh yeah i'm i am uh i go to the church of christ i have been raised in the church of christ and uh but uh i uh too many times you hear you hear a lot about what what you're uh supposed you're supposed to look your sunday best uh uh and dress and proper attire and uh and sometimes that really [disappoints] me uh in uh when i see in other economic areas like in kentucky you know people just don't have that and they are afraid to go to church or afraid to go simply because they don't have the clothes to wear uh_huh yeah certainly uh_huh uh_huh uh yeah a little bit uh uh of course in the summer if i can get away with it i wear uh uh a pair of shorts and that's it run around [barefoot] no shirt or anything but uh okay so how do you just figure wow uh_huh uh_huh oh well um i'm going to talk about when i was working as a teacher and when i was working at now um when i was a teacher um in utah i would generally wear um dresses and heels and things like that and even when it um rained and snowed i just [braved] it and i wore heels anyway and i know it might kill you to go up and walk up to the door but you're going to look nice for the kids oh oh yeah well i need all the height i can get oh yeah uh_huh yeah we too um if it was it looked really dangerous then i would wear boots but then i would change um into heels as soon as i got to my desk so um oh oh sure uh_huh uh_huh yeah huh well um yeah um the first two years i was in a room where they didn't heat it so i did yeah and then the third year we um got heating so it was nice right uh_huh oh that's nice uh_huh oh nice well uh no we we moved to iowa and um i'm working at a day care right now and so the way i dress is really different because i'm working in the nursery room with kids from six months to like twenty months yeah i wear uh tennis shoes and jeans and things that you know are sort of um not yes it doesn't matter if i have to wash it a hundred times or something yeah but i never wore jeans because um i thought that was too casual for yeah really yeah that's how i feel too um oh it there's some good things about it but i've seen a lot of things i'm not used to yet um um we lived in utah before and and i grew up in california well you know it depends upon our weather here you know today was a beautiful day it was like uh uh summer day it was seventy degrees so so i dressed in uh uh a light weight skirt it's a uh ultra [suede] skirt and a blouse with a sweater [cardigan] over it because i had some [appointments] at the office today some interviews and so i had to dress up anyway and then i wore heels you know but when it rains a lot which is has been doing here a lot lately uh very often you know wear uh pants and boots you know so how do you dress okay uh_huh yeah i i can see i i've been a teacher so has my daughter and i know that we very often wore heels despite the fact that it was [tiring] that's right that's right and it always makes you feel like you're a bigger person than the kids right yeah i do too so to be taller than some of the boys in the bigger grades uh older grades i had to wear heels uh_huh of course we wear uh an [unlined] boots you know it has a heel on it they're the kind of boots that i wear to work and we wear them you know they're a leather boot that you wear and as i said they have a regular heel on them high heel and they wear them we wear them a lot with shirts and things uh it's kind of a i can't say constant down here in texas that you wear these boots they're not a cowboy boot but they're just a real pretty boot but they keep your feet nice and [toasty] from the rain as i have a private high school that i run here and so when i'm interviewing a parent of course i feel like i need to wear heels you know and look like i'm a business person you know because the children will tease about where's your motorcycle if you wear boots too often you know of course you probably wear coats a lot oh my goodness so then you had to yes then things improved right but of course here we wear a light weight jacket a lot you know you know and uh that's very seldom we it depends upon our winter we have a few days you might wear a coat winter coat you know but most of the time you can wear a sweater and we just don't wear coats much we often laugh about even when it turns chilly we're wearing something [lightweight] or no jacket because we're so used to running around like that it's really different let's put it that way are you not teaching anymore i see oh so you don't wear heels anymore i'll bet yeah uh_huh more practical when you were teaching did you ever have uh uh a blue jean day or anything like that yeah well i know that some of the schools they have uh country western day or something like that one you know or tacky day and i always thought it was kind of out of got out of hand when the teachers looked real tacky too it's all right for the students they look tacky a lot but i didn't think teachers should you know yeah do you like uh uh iowa where did you live before oh well that's quite a change from california to utah okay hi well i work in uh corporate control so we have to dress kind of nice so i usually wear skirts and sweaters in the winter time slacks i guess and in the summer just dresses we can't even well we're not even really supposed to wear jeans very often so it really doesn't vary that much from season to season since the office is kind of you know always the same temperature not [formally] but it's kind of understood that we're supposed to dress a little bit nice a lot of times we have to go over to uh like jerry [junkins'] office and bill [ellsworth's] office to deliver stuff and we prepare a lot of [foils] for [marvin] and bill so we have to dress a little bit nice we're not yes now you know if if like in august when everybody is on vacation or something we can dress a little more casual or ice storms of course you know we all came in in our tennis shoes but i guess that would have to do with the weather but um unless it's an you know an unusual day uh_huh yeah uh_huh right yeah or uh_huh what area do you work in um okay it with the yeah but then usually in the summer it's cold in the offices because the air conditioner is doing it's job so well oh yeah it uh_huh just suits there's not a whole lot of fabric [variance] there uh they can't have a [rayon] suit so not really i think i mean it's kind of [unwritten] but i think we're supposed to wear hose and and shoes you know most of the people do anyway and most of the women wear um actually most of the women wear suits more than anything else but i'm not in that professional of a position so i don't i'm not expected to do that uh_huh yes pretty much i'm a secretary yeah yeah but there's really no written rule i guess they couldn't write that down that might be discrimination or something i don't know i mean i've never been told what to wear or what not to wear it's just you know judging from what everyone else wears is how i determine you know what i feel a comfortable in you don't want to stand out too much well that pretty much covers the topic well thanks for calling me well i haven't uh i've benefit working in my own home for just um about the last three years so i can just wear whatever i want around the house but before then i taught at the the university of houston and um so i tried to wear things that were comfortable but still tried to look you know yeah it wasn't quite business but to give the students um and made you feel like you were the authority i felt like if i came in just in jeans or or [tattered] clothes that i didn't have as good control over the class and if i tried to wear things that were a little bit more businesslike uh_huh uh_huh oh that's nice well do you um meet with clients and so you have to dress a certain way for the clients or huh_uh well i have noticed with my own children for example that they will depending on what they're wearing it it makes a big difference on how they act and so that could be the same can be said for the business office too uh_huh uh_huh well and i noticed in my teaching experience that since a lot of the people were my own age or older even um that because i taught english as a second language so i didn't have your average freshman and um so i i had to do something to just [elevate] myself a little bit off their level you want to be friends with the students but you don't quite want to be their equal and so for me to dress in businesslike clothes my uh you know um i i preferred slacks because we had to park pretty far yes and you wouldn't want to have to walk uh you know in high heels it's hard to walk a long way and the campus is pretty large so i preferred slacks and um you know kind of dressy shirts and things but so that i would look a little bit different and i would come in and i would have just the appearance of a little bit more authority than they did and that helped with their discipline and didn't make me have to much trouble and with the students huh_uh well i noticed since we moved down here to texas my husband is originally from texas but uh i'm not and since you don't have to have uh such a wide variety of seasonal clothes that you do up north you have a totally different wardrobe with different [fabrics] you know heavier [wools] and no and you don't um you know if you usually can wear pretty close to the same types of things just with a jacket or sweater or or something rather than having the whole entire different wardrobe different shoes you know we always had like um higher shoes higher tops on them rather than just the lower skim [skimmers] i think they call them that you would wear day to day but huh_uh that is really true a lot of it is um the color certain colors seem to be acceptable you know if you wear um [pastels] it needs to be warm weather and otherwise you have to wear darker colors in the winter for some reason and so i guess part of that is um just the physics of it that in what isn't dark colors attract the sun and light colors repeal themselves huh_uh that's true there's some rule that's like between labor day uh no is it labor day or memorial day huh_uh right and the one that's like in may you can only wear and supposedly we don't have an opportunity my husband and i we don't go to a lot of like where he as to wear a white dinner jacket or something and so you can only wear a white dinner jacket between those two holidays that is pretty funny it's funny that we have as a society go to so much trouble when we have so many other things we could be spending our time thinking about huh_uh huh_uh i noticed uh when we moved to plano that um the mall here collin creek i don't know where you are but um oh you do that there there is a pretty um i wouldn't say [snobish] it kind of borders on that if i depending on what i'm wearing i get better service at the mall i felt since uh since where you know where i've lived in houston that you have to in order to get the attention you might need help you need to be you can't just come in off the street is what i'm trying to say oh is it huh_uh yes i think i think your right i've noticed that too it's very different but i've i think it's kind of sad when you have to make have to dress up when you go somewhere i mean just to the yeah and you have to be sure that your everything [coordinates] and and everything everything is freshly pressed and everything no you can't well i appreciate the conversation we have had about clothing i know i've it's interesting to hear a man's point of view it's usually my husband he's got a pretty good deal i go out and buy all his clothes well thank you you have a good day this is like one of the worst topics i've had because i'm a terrible dresser i'm really not that bad of a dresser but um where i work um it's very casual dressing so i can wear jeans and um pretty much a sweater or even a t shirt to work yeah well we i work in a manufacturing plant so we i don't have to deal with customers or anything but no actually i'm at work right now i work at night and i'm using this phone as one of my you have to have two phones i'm using one of these yeah well i sit here i'm taking a course and i study when i when i read my course while i'm trying to get through so i just make a couple a night though oh you see that's i almost wish i had a job like that so it would force me to dress nice yeah because i can [slough] off and then when it comes things out or i go out to dinner or something or or not not so much going out to dinner i have like three or four dresses that i can wear something like business interview i went for another job in a different company and it's like i go right over to my sister's house what do you got to wear yeah and it's it's really convenient we're twins too and so it works out yeah she just had to change her whole wardrobe because she's going up like a management ladder and even though she still has to work i mean do some lot of physical work and adjust her machines um she still has to dress for success as they say so she went out and she changed her whole her whole wardrobe yeah that's true you know i know because you know even like i [ironed] a shirt to come to work tonight you know just a nice blouse and if i had to wear it with a suit or something i would have had done a a ten times better job yeah and it's it's got to be more expensive yeah but that's what's so hard when you you have to deal with the public or deal with the customers like that that business suit boots do you have to do you find that you you can are you happy with wearing dress slacks instead of dresses because i know a lot of people dress it's dresses dresses they hardly don't wear dress pants or anything yeah all the girls that i know i know a couple girls that work in insurance offices and that's all they wear are dresses they hardly ever wear pants then on the weekends you know they wear their jeans and their sweats but they uh the pants just aren't dressy enough but in the wintertime i think i would yeah yeah yeah even even here the secretaries they usually dress nice but it's not strange to seem them in jeans and a sweater so and you know sometimes it is on fridays but in the summertime if their going to like i know a couple of the girls and this one lady goes camping a lot and like every friday she's you know she still does her same function and everything but uh normally she's dressed to the t she's just perfect yeah well we're fortunate here cause the [building's] um very um climate controlled but we work in an electronics field and we have to wear polyester smocks so it's usually um a tank top in the summer and then silk and polyester are the only things that are close enough to being dressy and [polyester's] terrible on me and i wear my silk under this polyester uh [smock] and you just get so hot even though it's a nice temperature in here so you really in the summer time have to we have to dress extra light because we have to wear these smocks yeah and in the winter time pretty much just uh um even a [turtleneck's] all right because you have to wear these smocks a [turtleneck] and a sweater and the [smock] would be too much it gets really hot so it's kind of weird when it's really cold we we come in pretty much we take our coat off and then we take our outside sweater off trucking through the parking lot yeah but they still they have to keep the pants really just but yeah and their shirts have to be pressed so they still have the same thing here if they could dress casually it would take them less time too but i know it's great i mean just putting on a pair of [panty] hose can take you an extra five minutes yeah right i know um even my dress shoes i don't wear them a lot i notice the wear on the bottom of them and there's no way i could wear them all days i would be one of the women in flats well i'm pretty short but i have a very bad knee i couldn't couldn't walk in heels all day when i go dancing i stay on the ball of my foot hope that i don't slip on my heel because if my if i if i came down on my heel too much my knee doesn't catch and it's bad well it's no we don't at all um we used to be a lot [busier] so um it used to be important what you wore if you're comfortable because you knew you were going to spend a lot of time working and now it's very slow and i pretty much i've taken a couple of courses and now i sit at my desk and i and i read read my courses i'm a technician so i've taken a couple of technical courses plus i'm going to take a couple of college courses like i've taken um some business courses just to it gets boring to stay here technical courses learning about in computers yeah yeah this okay so do you think it's been five minutes see i never time these oh okay so we can end our call okay who knows did did you have you ever gotten duplicate people no i i'm almost afraid to get duplicate people i don't know why okay yeah okay bye uh are you a t i okay well we might have a difference uh to talk about on clothing uh what i am how come we got the same subject i was amazed that they had the same subject on clothing too i never have had that before i noticed it on the weekends occasionally when i call and how could they possibly get the same person that's ridiculous no no they sure haven't what other aspects i'm i i'm this is funny you know uh clothing let's see uh i was curious you know if they just want to talk about the words of uh related to clothing that polyester was coming back have you heard that uh i saw it on the t v that the models were they had a new kind of polyester uh whether that they just like to switch materials uh periodically i don't know we might i haven't we didn't talk about materials i i prefer you know the cotton with very little in fact when i look for uh i i try to go for the [cottons] and i don't know that polyester will although men's shirts are half and half or sixty forty or whatever yeah i uh i'm originally from the east and i we used to wear sweaters and things and sweaters are this isn't necessarily sweater country uh you know i i guess they're not as popular as they were i don't know about how women if you do you have problems with air conditioning or were you you were uh is that a factor that's very bad yeah yeah at t i i am too in and out and well of course we don't wear ties and jackets certainly not in this kind of weather the the jackets they don't disappear but you know they're they're on a hook usually the vice president's or the [manager's] and again i used to wear them but i don't i don't bother with it right now yeah that is a problem uh where did i see an article about where they're about that subject where they're trying to have oh i know it was [lunchrooms] where they're trying to encourage people to stay at work and so that's why they even downtown this might be applicable where they're trying to have restaurants within walking distance but at the same time in other words you go down in a subway or whatever and go to lunch and they say that's so much more healthy for you than going out in the street in the open traffic and going to lunch you'd be better off i'm maybe you do have some tunnels down there and they they say that's so much more healthy for you to you know when you have to go out or go to lunch or whatever it's to to walk or however and get to a place that is uh you don't have to go in and out of the of the temperature whether that affects how you dress i can imagine uh right yeah i uh well i'm for colorful things and i sure i i do enjoy the uh the newer products along those lines what do you think about women and wearing slacks and all that we haven't talked about that okay yeah do you have children i might comment on teenagers how they dress oh you have a lot to experience i have two right well have the opposite then i have uh well one of they're almost now teenagers at one twenty almost twenty and one almost sixteen and i learned early on being surrounded by women here that the i i love to take them shopping but i don't pick anything out you know i i just kind of influence but uh the the teen the junior high teenagers really i don't know if you can describe how they dress you know you you i i know what angle that we can talk about here we they want us to talk about clothes around work but uh the way kids in school should dress and i'll give you my i don't think that the school should just kind of let the kids dress what is the current style not that it's totally ridiculous of course but public schools oh i didn't hear that yet right well well whoever said that in my opinion doesn't have any teenagers who didn't grow they won't do that they'll never pass it that will be like right uh_huh i can uh of course i went to school you know a hundred years ago in college and uh we did wear ties and jackets and this was they have since changed it was an engineering school a city it was in an downtown area like i don't know well you can't compare anything around here to the school in like no u t a here is in arlington but i guess like that and they just historically since it was in the city they wanted us to wear jackets and ties and i did my whole college career which is i guess terribly unusual we wore jackets and ties for four years and i so subsequently i wanted to get a masters degree in in after i got out of the service and uh they changed drafts so there was a the styles have certainly changed to where i guess my campus now looks like typical uh college campus i guess huh the older i get the more open to other people's ideas uh you cannot be you have to let them come out with uh whatever they not whatever but some of their ideas too and so you kind of back off and see what people and i know their clothing is changing you know all the time and i'm i'm certainly open to how you should dress uh now of course the subject is work uh or clothes really i guess uh and the again the one thing i am at at work is is certainly a professional look but i'm not saying that that will not the professional look will look differently from year to year perhaps no i really don't it's uh uh go through a lot of shirts and think no i don't really uh_huh right well you're sure right there because not even when i wore a jacket and a lot of the guys when i was up at spring creek in uh plano uh we think he just brought the same jacket even that wasn't a that's not a black mark against the man and you're right that uh women are expected to look more everything matches i guess right right your work without saying much about it do they ever bring the subject up of asking your opinion on on whether you want things to change on how you dress or are the ties oh uh_huh right uh_huh uh t i has several locations different sites have a little bit different dress like i said at spring creek it was definitely more formal i think because it was newer and uh type and many many more people wore there was very there was very few production areas uh a little bit during the school year we're uh definitely expected to wear [hosiery] and you know things like that although we can wear slacks uh during during the school year and of course that's a good idea because i do sit on very low chairs to read stories to kindergartners and you know so it's pretty important to uh i also like very much the new split skirts you know because then you oh that's oh that's true the old [culottes] that's right but those are just real comfortable and uh you know allow you the privacy and all the only uh no i think it needs to be longer probably if it's split it it varies though between the from one principal to another there are some like uh some principals insist that you not wear uh [anklet] type shorts i mean socks uh that you have to wear you know hose but i know of other schools where they wear uh you know [anklets] and uh_huh uh_huh how embarrassing i know i hate that you really really have to check on the check on the length well we wear the knee high ones a lot too so do you wear uh suits very much uh_huh yeah right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah i am too and i uh i've been here seventeen years but i'm from but i'm from illinois that's right that's right that's right right that really is nice i uh i'm kind of a pack rat especially when it comes to clothes and i i mean i still have some sweaters that i had you know from before i moved down here things that were were wool or just you know really nice things and and really very seldom get to wear them and should certainly get rid of probably all of them but like i said i'm kind of a yeah that's that's really true because who would want it down here but anyway they they still sit around in drawers and boxes and i i get them out at the beginning of the winter out of a box and put them in my drawer and then at the end of the winter i take it out of the drawer and put it back in the box and sometimes i never wore it now that is silly isn't it yeah are you from here then uh_huh well the thing is that you know it does get cold but it's just such a short season you know and you just can't wear that much oh how nice rabbit rabbit rabbit huh where have you found them uh_huh but they carry them at dillard's huh i'll have to look at those that sounds interesting uh_huh uh_huh well you mentioned that you liked the long skirts and i i really do too i just i don't know i'm really comfortable in uh_huh uh_huh i like that too that's exactly right oh well for work well you work year round right yeah uh_huh uh_huh that's true yeah that's true well i have more summer stuff i guess for that kind of casual because we do go on a uh i go back to illinois and visit my folks for a week and then we go out to the east coast to visit my husband's mom and family and we usually go to the beach while we're out there so uh in fact i was thinking this summer that since i'm doing summer school i haven't worn very many of those things but i was thinking oh well i got to get them all together so to take them on our trip oh how nice i took i went through my closet this spring and i i took some stuff out and put it in another closet in the guest bedroom because i'm so tired of looking over it and it's all just a little bit too tight but it isn't so much too tight i mean i could easily well maybe not too easily but i could lose that weight and then they would all fit fine and you know and there are things that i really don't want to get rid of you know i really want to keep them because they're nice and so i thought well i'll put them in there and then maybe i'll feel so bad that i can't wear them now and i'll do something about it but so far oh that's funny yeah that's right hey when you have kids you definitely have to have you think they're [hinting] yeah that's true ooh yeah you'll be glad believe me uh_huh oh it's just unreal the time though that it really gets the worst is uh is when the kids get old enough that they really care what they're wearing my kids are twelve and fifteen and uh you know they're both boys so they're probably not as picky as if they were girls but on the other hand they can be pretty picky and you know i mean i could get away with you know with it not costing nearly as much you know when they were littler because they didn't care anything was fine but you know now it has to be a certain kind of certain kind of jeans and the the shoes are just about the worst oh jeez i'm my son just came out the other day and he's his what is it i think they're [reebok] whatever my other son has nike [airs] at the moment but these [reeboks] and i was thinking he bought them in march it was early march he bought them and they are demolished i mean they are absolutely demolished there are pieces hanging off of them the inside of the sole on the bottom has fallen out i mean that's how worn out they are and they i bought them on a wonderful sale at mervyn's they must have been thirty five or so percent off they cost sixty dollars on that much of a sale and my husband and i were just talking you know it's i mean we're talking minimum of three of those a year that's a hundred and eighty dollars a year for his tennis shoes you know and my husband oh it's just awful and my husband bought i mean this year he bought a pair of of really good you know work leather nice men's dress shoes and they were about a hundred and fifty dollars or you know something like that and you know he said i felt terrible spending that amount of money on this pair of shoes he said but i'll still be wearing them in ten years and and he's i mean we're talking a just a piece of rag so anyway before we go visit grandma okay let's see um when i was working i would wear um comfortable casual type clothes nothing real dressy but um mostly um i do like to a shirts that are kind of longer and um not real high high shoes i would say more more more flat kind of shoes and something that would be comfortable to wear throughout the day nothing that would be too dressy uh_huh which is nice that's that's uh_huh i felt the same way well i work in a private high school and i always felt like i had to dress i dress casually but yet i dress a little bit i dress totally dressy compared to what the kids came in to what the kids looked like you know i had to right so i had this and real conservative my taste runs real conservative i like white blouses with little peter pan [collars] and sweaters and [cardigans] and turtlenecks and just kind of um just very conservative kind of traditional clothes and nothing nothing at all [faddish] i don't i get suits with dresses that i have that i had several years that i can pull out of my closet and they will still be in style just as they were when i first bought them you know that kind of stuff yeah yeah and just just um i do too i do too a lot of uh_huh well i have uh dark hair so i do like to wear the real bright i like bright royal blues and bright reds on on me and that's kind of nice especially for the holidays it's fun to dress with all the bright colors uh_huh uh_huh no too much for you uh_huh huh okay uh_huh okay yes now browns i stay away from browns because i have dark eyes and dark hair so for me i a lot of those pretty shirt uh_huh that that i have a a little three year old that has very blonde hair and i dress her with different colors that i never get to wear like the bright the bright um she looks really pretty in yellow just like a real bright lemon yellow and um certain colors like that and um i'll put on her and they look real cute um that's it well well that's the that's the problem i think it's you know the way you would like to dress and the way you could afford to dress is too different yes that's right i see i'm not even just working part time in this uh private school last year um it was it was an expense just to get started to get the clothes after being home with the kids and like i said it was real important because i was working around teenagers and i like you said had to set an example and i well wouldn't have felt comfortable wearing jeans although some of the teachers did once in a while that i don't i very rarely even just wear jeans at home you know i'm not comfortable in them yes yes that that is a big consideration if i have a a solid navy blue blazer i might you know go ahead and pick up a [plaid] shirt or something and then maybe a solid or whatever to mix and match that i sit there and really kind of i really have to take a long time to think about what to to get because like i said you have to right to make it right and also adding some [accessaries] to different different things i'm not a real um i don't like to wear really big earrings i kind of have a few gold earrings that are my favorites and just little [pearls] kind of boring and conservative no they once in a while i'd i'd try one on and it would seem right and then before i walked out the door i'd have it off because it just didn't feel right um i did until my company went bankrupt yeah now right now i haven't been able to locate a job down here in patterson it's kind of a small city so i've been going to modesto which is larger but it's not like being in the bay area where i came from you know but anyhow when i did work in the winter time i wore uh my wool skirts and sweaters and boots because the bay area gets kind of chilly in the winter time and um then in the summer time i just wore you know the polyester blouses and usually pants and just uh heels you know so uh where do you work at oh okay right do you i don't suppose you can wear pants oh because i never see anybody in the banks out here it seems like i never see them with pants on uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh no no i haven't uh_huh um uh_huh uh_huh oh uh_huh uh_huh oh really isn't that uh_huh uh_huh um yeah that would be interesting to do um i worked for a trucking company so we didn't really even have to dress up at all if we didn't want to we could wear pants all the time you know but uh i just in the winter time i just like to wear boots and you know the wool skirts and the sweaters and everything but uh i've never gone to and had a you know anything like that done to tell me exactly what color i would look best in uh i know i don't look good in yellow but i like pink and blue you know and red but uh i just look in the mirror and uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh huh very interesting so do you have your do you like do you in dallas do you wear wool in the winter time or uh_huh uh_huh um uh_huh and naturally it gets real hot in the summertime i suppose yeah yeah yeah it gets hot here in patterson in the summer time more so than it did in the bay area you know um like here uh like um a hundred and twenty six miles from [fresno] but in the valley north right right uh_huh oh i see uh_huh so you have been to california though do you have we're supposed to be talking about hello hello hello yeah i am now wonder what happened oh really i couldn't hear a thing well oh gee i was on a cordless when she called but then i uh i never get it to work so i had to go to my other phone anyway we're supposed to be discussing clothing right um yeah where do you work oh you work for t i oh okay yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah i know what you mean all right uh yeah i uh well i work for [lomas] mortgage and uh our office is so cold i usually try to wear i wear suits most of the time except on friday we have casual day i mean we can wear jeans i'm not a jeans [wearer] but i wear pants but uh a lot of people in the office dress fairly casual most of the time uh they do carry me through yes uh most of them i can wear all year i just you know i just buy them they are uh leslie [fay] makes a [haberdashery] and uh i can even wash them in my washing machine yeah and uh so they're not too heavy for summer or winter or just anytime so i i usually buy maybe a lighter color you know like for the summer then i won't wear the real light ones in the winter but uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah right yes uh_huh uh_huh right yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah that makes it nice oh you are well congratulations oh yeah oh yeah that's nice uh_huh yeah uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh yeah well our company is our company allows jeans on friday uh everybody wears you know most everybody wears jeans but they are kind of particular you know what kind of jeans or what kind of shirts you wear with them and you know they want you to look nice and uh everybody is pretty good i i'm a student and i work at [nu] skin so yes uh we're allowed to wear we we just can't wear jeans uh every monday through friday we just have to wear you know nice slacks or uh just something that looks nice and then on fridays and saturdays we can wear jeans so like jean day uh it's pretty standard i mean just more sweaters and stuff of course in the winter but right oh uh uh_huh oh really and you don't find that gets too expensive or really wow uh_huh that makes it really nice uh_huh does he have to wear suits and ties and um uh i i rarely wear dresses yeah i mean it doesn't it doesn't have to be that dressy guys have to wear ties at work but shirts and ties at [nu] skin but other than that oh no no no but uh the guys seem to get to have to dress up a little more than the girls for some reason we can get away with more uh no we can't wear tennis shoes during the week either yeah we can't wear tennis shoes but i it's pretty casual i i found i mean it would be what i would wear to school anyways most of the time so yeah yeah i well i work in the mornings from six thirty to ten thirty so i get up pretty early and then school comes after that so i just don't bother to change for school unless i really want to be casual but how long have you been doing this t i really how did you find out about it he's in is he in dallas oh really that's where i'm from yeah yeah uh what is is he in a ward down there or sure okay uh i i like yeah i'm more into suits i think i'm more uh yeah more what's it called just uh yeah and oh what's the word i can't think of the word it's uh did women uh have the more variety in this area right are you saying that the that the uh teachers are wearing jeans treated as if they're sloppy or treated as if they're uh peers ooh uh_huh right of course motivation is everything and i suppose you're striving for [intimacy] on a intellectual level it's really hard to figure out how you're going to do that but of course we're trying to talk about dress and not teaching well i am in a much more [conventional] position i work as a uh white collar worker uh i'm a senior principal scientist at s r i international uh work with speech technology teaching teaching computers how to understand the speech in texas instruments oh yeah i actually used i used to be chief speech scientist at texas instruments no actually i try to stay behind the scenes which means i wear slacks and uh my own personal style and it's it's variable and there are a lot of people who wear jeans but i say probably most people uh wear dresses or slacks and uh wear the men wear uh uh probably most of them wear long sleeve shirts without ties uh it's interesting it's sort of silly and ironic not ironic but it's silly in in a sense that on [visitor] days which is are quite frequently people quite frequently dress up and they wear ties and coats and uh on [nonvisitor] days people dress down and they wear just slacks and dress shirts right and it it's not one of my dressing is not one of my main [obsessions] or [preoccupations] well i i buy a new shirt once a year whether i need it or not well i don't pay much attention to it now this this question did it relate to work or did it relate to to uh whatever huh i guess i'm a typical [oblivious] male in that respect hello hello did i reach the dallas area yeah my name is fernando hey how's it going do you work for t i north carolina state university yeah i'm getting a master's in computer science and computer engineering um i took a voice i o course well uh one of my teachers went to a to this conference up in bethesda maryland and so he saw it there and he just said you guys want to make some money and talk five minutes a day here you go so uh not originally argentina yeah well i used to live up in new york and maryland and i uh i like i like bigger cities i like i like more populated areas because i used to live in [buenos] [aires] but they have ten million people but uh this area is nice it looks like it's got a lot of uh job opportunities especially at research triangle park and so it looks it looks well it's the third largest growing area in the country for businesses yeah yeah no north carolina state yeah no the wolf pack yeah no we're we're not we're not the tar heels why do you run oh okay my dad is too yeah yeah it's nice yeah it's it's clothing right how you how you dress to go to work and how it changes from season to season and from day to day okay okay ready i'm going to press the one no then then we say bye and uh well i i've got a [stopwatch] here so i'll probably say you know it's like well we've been talking for five six minutes so okay well uh we'll just open it okay i'll press the one ready okay okay so well you see since i don't work i just go you know to class it all depends because i like to wear like sweat pants because it's more comfortable for me but you know it's like when you're in school you either wear [sweatpants] or jeans yeah yeah yeah okay are they like t shirts or are they like do they have oh okay well well because how how hot i mean like like in the coldest that it gets in winter down there how much is it yeah yeah that's well it's basically you know it's like i got like a leather jacket or a you know so i just put on a t shirt and a leather jacket and i usually stay in class that way and if not i would wear a sweatshirt underneath it and then you know you'd but what happens is uh what i've seen here on campus it's very strange because a lot of black people here they wear like dress pants and dress shirts to go everywhere okay and they wear either that or they wear dress pants and black turtlenecks or white turtlenecks and so the thing is you know is like i asked a guy you know why why do you wear that he goes well it costs me the same amount which is true because some dress pants you know cost me twenty five dollars which is the same as jeans but um but basically all over here everywhere everybody wears jeans and if not what the what the thing is that they're wearing now is sometimes you wear like shorts with [biker] pants underneath it which is yeah where at where at oh okay yeah yeah but the thing is when you started with t i was it as big a company as it is now yeah yeah i mean when hello you probably got wait calling okay well i guess i'm supposed to talk alone while he's on the wait call about clothing right so i don't know what to say i don't wear any clothing we're at [nudist] camp we don't wear any clothes here yeah oh that's okay yeah was that in the seventies no no but uh when it had gone up yeah yeah i i i sort of remember that i'm only twenty two but in the seventies i heard you know t i was even making uh those little watches you know those those uh l e d watches that you couldn't see in the sun yeah so yeah well they said that women like the the you know executive women or women that work whatever they spend uh five hundred dollars on clothes a year so but but for me yeah i mean women go all i mean what i've seen like you know they like to wear something different every day and for me it's like people know how i dress and we have you know like the gym here they give you shirts right which which you use and then you take back they give you a clean one and so sometimes you wear you know the shirts from from the gym every day of the week the only thing is that you can tell them apart because they have the year that they were bought in so i mean you don't feel as bad because it's like they they give you different year sometimes you know so you're wearing you know sometimes you're wearing eighty nine the other times sometimes you're wearing ninety one the other times you're wearing you know eighty six so it's okay you know right see when we take p e you have to dress in the in p e clothes but it is it's issued to any one that wants one that's in the university well right now since i'm graduating i'm well pat what do you wear to work uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah my my schedule yeah my [schedule's] pretty similar i um i teach so on the days i teach i teach a couple days a week so whenever i teach i try and wear a tie but uh but that's i wear normally just wear like [khaki] pants and a shirt and tie i never wear a sport coat that's ridiculous but then most of the time you know then i just have to uh i can wear jeans or or just casual clothes i think they i think they [frown] on shorts and sneakers but i think i could probably get away with jeans and sneakers uh yeah i could well if i don't have to see students and uh i'm just in my lab and no one sees me then i'm probably okay uh_huh yeah uh_huh right uh_huh yeah well that makes sense uh_huh yeah as long as you're clean and yeah that makes a lot of sense uh_huh yeah that's true uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah that would that would uh_huh yeah and you don't have to worry about fashion and stuff too you know buying nicer clothes and things yeah that makes a lot of sense well you know my mother's a waitress and she has like three uniforms that she sort of wears in rotation and she likes that you know uh_huh yeah your your uh_huh that's right where the the uniform as as a waitress now your uniform really it might be a little expensive when you first buy it but you know that's it doesn't it's made of polyester so it doesn't stain like cotton or wool would you know uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah well that makes sense yeah that makes a lot of sense uh_huh that's uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh probably the people that probably the people that are prone towards getting dirty yeah with the type of job that you have you might be getting dirty either either manual label labor where you'll [perspire] heavily or uh or where you'll come in contact with uh oil and things right uh_huh yeah yeah that's what yeah i find too um if you're a programmer do you get cold does your how's your air conditioning work uh_huh yeah uh_huh oh oh see yeah because my office is really heavily air conditioned because i guess they they keep the air conditioning on all the time where they don't in a lot of the other offices because of the computers and um right uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah see sometimes my air conditioning gets really cold i think it's probably because my office is one of the only ones air conditioned in a a large area you know probably probably that's why i get because sometimes boy i'll get i'll freeze it's so cold in there especially when it's ninety degrees outside right yeah and blows on my legs man one time i left i thought i was going to i thought i was going to freeze the one day i wore shorts to the office because i was just going to be in my lab and i wanted to be comfortable because i thought the air conditioning would be all turned off you know and jeez if it wasn't the air conditioner wasn't blowing it wasn't fifty five degrees yeah that's true a lot of those nice looking legs yeah yeah i was just laughing it's funny that um we get clothing you know because uh i'm i'm in graduate school i only work part time and my wife uh we recently we decided we'd buy a sewing machine because that would be a good investment you know and we could make clothes and save money so she's made me shorts well of course you know she makes shorts and she says here i made you shorts and they're they're a nice material nice [checkered] [plaid] material here but but she didn't put a fly in them yeah the pattern she bought didn't have a fly so it's like well they're fine for her but uh you know they're just everyday summer shorts you know but there's no fly yeah they're not for a guy that really changes your the whole way you do your day so i was laughing i thought that was funny you know because while i i was up at the office and everybody says oh jeez those new shorts i think they were laughing because they are sort of a wild color you know but i was just crossing through to get my mail and stuff uh_huh yeah that's probably true without being laughed out yeah i'm not i never i laugh at the wardrobe my father in law wears golf clothes and it's the only time he puts on those funny clothes and he doesn't wear those in the back yard or casually around just when they go to play golf they wear those funny clothes that's true uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah but they have that dress code i you know i also know um e d s uh e d s i have some friends that interviewed with e d s and uh you know they interviewed while they were in college so they didn't really have a suit with them and the woman said to them well your second interview would be here but [du-] oh and on that day i would say wear a suit because i guess they just had on a sport coat and the one guy even had like um a gel in his hair you know his hair was sort of [slicked] back you know which is popular with the kids and she says oh and you know uh i wouldn't put the gel in my hair you know in other words you're to bore us a two or three piece suit with no gel in your hair you know and that way she made it pretty clear during the you know the first interview how they were supposed to dress for the second interview you know so i thought that was really funny too you know uh_huh uh_huh i don't think my hair has probably changed in ten years uh_huh he he's into what uh-oh really uh_huh yeah i see them i see the kids with the the things cut in their hair all the time well you know my dad was the same way i thought it was really funny back in the nineteen seventies my brother came home with cowboy boots on was growing up in pittsburgh and my dad called my brother tex for about the next four weeks you know and other than calling him tex he barely talked to him because he was so angry he was wearing cowboy boots yeah i thought it was just so funny you know my dad we're not in texas it was very funny you know and all that over a pair of cowboy boots and it was finally my mother convinced him she you know the cowboy boots give you about uh an inch lift you know they sort of have a heavier heel what well what kind of job do you have uh_huh oh okay is that because you're a student or uh oh okay okay well i'm a student that's why i was asking and uh i uh i haven't been working this semester so i don't really have uh much to say about that but i do work in the hospitals once a week uh i yeah i have i wear a uniform a nursing uniform so i don't really have much choice yeah they they tend to be pretty expensive uh yeah they should uh unless you just buy a few and keep wearing those all the time and yeah and people tend to use [bleach] on them because you know you want them to stay white and that kind of [deteriorates] it a little bit but uh i'm hoping mine my one uniform will last me a long time until i have to start working more days and there's not much of a selection at least in my price range like styles or things of yeah yeah so uh oh you did oh okay that sure does yeah were you a receptionist oh okay yeah definitely uh_huh sounds good right also the shoes are expensive that's yeah that's really tough before i went back to school i work as a uh what do you call it can't even remember it's been so long uh office administrator or whatever it one of those titles uh sort of and it was a more of a casual uh atmosphere but i still wore dresses and things like that so i mean it was for a uh non profit organization so right yeah i agree i i really i totally agree i have a friend that has a [knack] for looking really stylish but always comfortable yeah she's really good at doing that exactly uh_huh yeah yeah well she she you don't have to wear high heels to look good yeah she never wore high she's an engineer and she never yeah she never wore high heels just flats and low low heels uh_huh more the classic look yeah see that doesn't have to be uncomfortable yeah but you're right i think those things tend to be more expensive yeah uh_huh right yeah because uh also you tend to those things don't go out of style so much and uh i find right yeah and since i'm a student i never buy fad clothes because i know they'll be out of style the next season and then i have to go buy more so i just don't buy any hello hey how you doing fernando wait let me turn off my stereo here because i've been like waiting like for about ten minutes to get connected to somebody yeah yeah what time is it over are you are you in dallas are you because every time i got through i went to dallas texas yeah i'm in north carolina on the other coast what yeah yeah it's uh i'm watching saturday night live here wait what did how how did you get to know about the t i thing what are you working on really i'm doing my masters in in computer science and computer engineering at north carolina state university uh i don't because uh i come from a lot a bigger city than this one and i i'm in raleigh and yeah that area and it's really small all all you have is like towns built around universities like chapel hill yeah where you at oh okay so so i mean it's like this this town probably has like two hundred and fifty thousand people and that's about it yeah oh okay so so where do you go do you go to berkeley oh okay because uh i was looking at at the doctorate degree in computer science center at berkeley and they're asking like for a uh g p a of like three point seven or something like that and like they're looking like for uh g r e like ninety nine percentile and this and that and it's like yeah i know that's why that's why i didn't apply i mean it was like for me it was like practically impossible to get between like ninety and ninety nine percentile on the on the [verbal] part yeah so are are you going to go for your doctorate yeah when do you get out oh okay but uh but what if they pay for it what if they pay for yeah because i know i know a couple of people here that work for uh the army uh i think i think they're military but i mean the guy is still in and uh uh he works over in maryland and so he's doing his masters here they gave him like a scholarship like for a year and he's doing it in like in a year and a summer and so he's getting that and uh they said like they got a lot of benefits and that that's why you want to join but uh this guy i mean you can earn a lot more money so you say i go why you still there if you can earn a lot more money once you've get your your your masters they go well they got a lot of benefits that would go with it so yeah but i mean i mean you the once you get your masters you can be earning between anywhere between like thirty seven forty five thousand a year and and that's not what they're paying yeah yeah i know yeah but that's uh yeah it's like it's like uh in i b m in i b m you can get certain points and uh everyone's a manager but nobody can get one more point to become you know like whatever you need to earn so much money yeah it's like no i i mean i b m is like there's a joke about i b m which says you know it's like uh all all the major companies get into a a boating race right and so i b m says well we have we have to have a team right and then they come in last and they have this whole team you know analyze why they came in last right because the person asked for it saying he goes uh the problem was that there were five people saying row row row and one person [rowing] right so he goes have you come up with a uh have you come up with a solution they go yeah change the [rower] you know it's like everyone's a manager but you know it's like only use like one person does the work so yeah so yeah well that's the way it works i mean that's that's why they're having problems i mean everyone's a manager and yeah i mean it's like it's like the people that actually do the work there are uh very few and then the other people just plan it you know it's like it's like have you have have you ever seen the commercial like for federal express where the with uh the think tank you know like all these people are just standing sitting around just going you know like what shall we do has anybody thought of anything no and then this guy from federal federal express comes along they go what's that this track which it's going around the world and they can tell you where your package is anywhere any time and so it's like the same thing with i b m you know so they have this think tank and they got to come up with ideas but see uh the the thing is that i b m is so [stabilized] that everybody will buy their stuff yeah and it fails and you're dead yeah well i b m doesn't fire anybody because uh what they do is they they put you in a different job which you actually are like sitting around not doing anything so you quit i mean that's their policy they never fire anybody unless you're caught doing something [illegally] yeah like if you're stealing something or doing anything like that but they won't let you off what they'll do is like suppose you know like you're a manager so they'll put you into keeping up the paper you know it's like how much paper is going in and then you say that's not my job so you quit right right right no but i mean it's like it's like they they have just like different policy i don't know my dad works for them but it's like i b m like never in their commercials they never put down any other company you know it's like they won't say yeah because see what happens is they have a good backup policy and anybody can fix it and so that's what you're going to go for and and you know it's like for example like leading edge have you ever heard of leading edge what they they made like uh small personal computers i don't know i don't know but what they do is what they did i don't know is buy all the parts that i b m would throw away and build an i b m p c with all the parts that i b m would throw away yeah for example you test a chip it can't last seven years but it can last five i b m says let's throw it away leading edge will say we'll buy it from you and so that's i mean they're still around i think so that's what they do they buy all all the things that i b m throws away and they and that's why they're so compatible because i mean and by the time you have computer for five years you're going to throw it away anyway you know well i mean there's like well in a way you realize i mean one one of my teachers got this computer which you know it's like uh voice uh [synthesizing] stuff and he got that he said you know it's like uh i was testing it and it was wonderful and then when you tried to erase and correct you know all the errors in your voice it takes up all your memory and i want more you know and it's like jesus christ you know it's like why do you want more because it's like one second of recording i mean you put into wave and you want to correct the errors into wave it takes so much i mean it's like of course it does i mean by the times it [transforms] into wave by mark off model and you put it in there and you want to correct those and then you know you're trying to make the the wave smooth so you can approximately of course it's going to take a lot imagine imagine what it is for us to make mark off models you know it's like jesus christ yeah yeah yeah well like they say like nobody can get enough you know it's like once you have something and it's like i was watching this program on t v yesterday in nineteen seventy six nasa came up with three d graphics right and they were showing this like three d three d graphics view of like what no no no this is like this is like video game stuff okay but the only thing was that it was just lines okay like if you hello not bad not bad what's your name fernando my name is nick sure really [phew] man i'm no no i'm in detroit or not detroit i'm in uh california yeah i really oh well you're on the uh let's see yeah twenty one yeah shoot man it's what midnight almost yeah okay all right well i guess we're supposed to talk what about credit card oh one of my instructors uh said that they were doing something like this and a a masters in uh information systems yeah where at hey how do you like it out there yeah oh raleigh durham yeah uh_huh yeah so it it's basically a bunch of small towns anyway kind of [quaint] little towns but they don't have a whole lot there uh well i'm in monterey california right now yeah two hundred fifty okay it it's it's a lot bigger than monterey is but we're just uh just south of uh san jose and san francisco and it's only a couple of hours away or a hour away to a you know to a large city no no i go to the it's the naval [postgraduate] school out here uh_huh uh_huh yeah well that's what they look for whether or not they get it is hard to say yeah yeah it's pretty tough it's pretty tough i uh let's face it you know and you know i you know did the you know as far as i found it a lot of times with regards to education you know the school only takes you so far you know it's what you do you know so uh i don't lose any sleep sleep over stuff like that probably not see i'm in the navy and uh you know most of the navy funds that i probably won't do it until i if i do do it it will be after i get out of the navy oh probably be another twelve years oh you know i like what i'm doing right now excuse me if they pay for a p h d [nah] they won't pay for it they've i think they have maybe two people a year go get get their p h d yeah they [civilians] or uh military uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh well a lot of times it's you know a lot of times it's not the money that keeps that keeps people in they they like what they're doing they you know they feel good about what they're doing that type of thing it's more uh_huh oh easily i'm sure no well it depends on what rank you are of course i mean like i say if you're if you're you know if you're at an upper level in the rank category you know you're probably pulling down close to seventy grand a year yeah those are few and far between though uh_huh yeah since i imagine it's fairly competitive uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah too many chiefs and not enough indians yeah i don't know that can be that that can really slow you down i didn't realize that uh_huh push paper around uh_huh uh_huh yeah oh yeah they've got a they've got basically a uh you know a lock on a lot of the market and a lot of times you figure you know with the support that they provide you know people generally go with that because they figure that the you know you probably won't get fired for getting i b m material where's if you try something different they'll they'll say yeah why didn't you buy why didn't you try something more [mainline] no uh_huh uh illegal or something like that yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh so in other words that's the way they force people out that's why they can say you know there's no layoff policy but it they don't really say that you know you're you're always going to have great career conditions hey that's kind of sad no well they're the standard right now or as far as that goes you know people think of computers they think of i b m a lot of times and the main uh_huh yeah well you know that's that's a that's a big thing yeah they are out of korea right leading edge don't they yeah small p c they're out of korea right uh_huh oh yeah okay yeah i've seen well i've seen them around anyway you know uh_huh most people do or they have to anyway uh_huh wow uh_huh it's amazing yeah well when you get you know when you get right down to it the uh the more they can do for you the more uh like i say the more the more memory they're going to require yeah both both in terms in ram as well as uh you know standard memory or disk disk base so oh yeah you find out more yeah uh_huh like the deal like a hologram with just graphics on on a okay what are you afraid of with them yes well that's very can be very very true well that's the idea they figure that if they give you card at no charge for a whole year that you will use it and absolutely well the other thing of course is the fact that they hope you will not pay your bill at the end of the month so that you would be paying interest i use mine a great deal um for groceries for everything that i can and then just write one check at the end of the month for the entire thing right that's all right sounds like you have a little one there oh you have great how old are they oh boy those are two very active ages uh_huh well uh do you uh do you ever use the a t m machines well i find it a great use from the standpoint that you don't have to continue to write checks in order to get cash oh that helps right well the the other thing some people are not aware of is they will use their a their credit card like their visa or their mastercard for cash and when they do that they begin paying interest right from that very day on yeah right absolutely because they they figure that that's correct the idea is to use their money and uh during that whole month and then pay it at the end of the month uh_huh right well i think that's the only thing you can do is just say no and mean no and not be tempted well oh absolutely preapproved that's their favorite word i think so you're right well it's interesting uh that uh people have the generally the same view of credit cards no matter where you go that much stuff right well and some people use one credit card to pay for another credit card they own and i mean that does nothing but [exacerbate] the entire problem that's right that's right well it's been enjoyable talking with you right well take good care take care of your little ones uh_huh bye bye well um with credit cards is me i uh i try to get maybe just one or two i don't i don't like having credit cards for every store i i uh i just don't like them what am i afraid of um i don't know if i'm really afraid of spending too much i just uh don't think that i need them you know i uh they are tempting at times but i i just you know sometimes i just don't like everybody knowing everything about me you know so so and you know everybody just gives you a credit card just so you'll spend money so yeah uh_huh that's right see they make money off of it whether you use it or not that's right uh_huh uh_huh that's what i do that's what i do just a second sorry i have two little ones yes yeah so um four and two and half yes so yeah um i'm i'm like you i i use my only use my credit card for um you know when i you know i just use it whenever i feel like i don't want to write a check and then but i don't charge anything that i can't payoff at the end of the month so no i never do my husband does at work just to get cash out but uh i take the checkbook so i you know i just if i need cash i just tell him and he gets it out and i don't even think i know my number uh_huh that's right see we he couldn't do without it but you know since he can just do it right there at work for nothing yeah uh_huh you're right and that's kind of silly yeah your [defeating] the purpose yeah yeah yeah i mean i get i get at least one or two a week people you know sending me a credit card or calling me on the phone and i just say i don't want it because i yeah it's like i'd like to know where they determine that i'm such a good credit risk that they can go and say you get this much credit line you know you've already been preapproved yes everybody in the country is preapproved i think so yeah uh_huh yeah and then some people they get so wrapped up in them that they find you know one day they find wow i didn't realize i had this much you know i'd spent this much money and then they can't meet the minimum monthly payments on it uh_huh yeah it does because you're you know you you're you know you're just costing yourself more money because you if you can't make the monthly the minimum payment you're paying interest again so yeah so yeah it's enjoyable talking with seeing that somebody feels the same way so well you you too good luck bye bye okay i was trying to get my children quiet for a minute well credit cards boy that's an easy topic isn't it oh yes yes i guess i've had some good experience and some bad experience with them uh_huh well i do fairly good until i go in the store and i see something i want you know not need want there's a big difference there but most of mine that i use is strictly gasoline uh_huh oh it sure is especially when you work out of town and everything that way at least that's for me yeah but yeah i've i've talked to some who's really had some bad experience and kind of knock on wood i haven't yet not bad you know i just i'm just shocked at the end of the month to see what damage i have did but i try to keep it pretty reasonable uh_huh yeah yeah and then they have bad drawbacks too i mean high interest it's like paying twice yes so oh uh_huh yeah yeah oh yes uh we used to have you know like several but right now we're just more or less at american express you know and that way we can go ahead and pay it off when it comes in yeah pay fifteen yeah yes i know yeah and when you pay fifteen dollars a month it sure takes a long time it sure does uh_huh uh_huh yeah well i've enjoyed talking to you and maybe we'll get to talk again okay bye bye okay okay yes it is it's one we all hold dear and near i'm sure yeah most of mine's been pretty good although i'm i guess i'm like a lot of other people now i'm trying to to pay off my credit cards and and uh i've done pretty good at it yeah yeah uh_huh there is a big difference yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i i do that i do that but the rest like i said the rest of them i've been trying to to pay off and uh get back on a cash basis except for gas it's too easy to to run into the gas station and uh_huh yeah yeah so yeah well that's yeah yeah well i've been pretty lucky in that respect i don't charge like i say i've i been trying to to not charge except for emergencies and uh so but i haven't really had any bad problems with credit cards there's you know they have uh wonderful features they're there when you need them you know like in emergencies or whatever yeah it's it's awfully easy that's true that's true i try to i did switch to one uh sponsored by the credit union though that seems to be a pretty low interest yeah compared to some of the other ones and you don't have an annual fee there and that helps uh_huh yeah that's one way to do it because that that forces you to pay for it instead of saying well i'll just pay on it this month and yeah takes a long time that's right and now without the benefits of being able to deduct interest off off your income tax that's you know of course it's been going down for a number of years but this is the last year you can take anything so so well i've enjoyed talking to you okay bye bye so do you have any credit cards uh_huh okay uh_huh yeah yeah i have one card and i try not to use it but right now it's maxed out uh_huh yeah um i have uh the thing that bothers me worse than the credit cards i think is uh you mentioned the gasoline credit card i don't have that but i've got you know one of the the the instant teller cards that you can use for point of sale purchases and we use that usually to buy gasoline and it's just it's really amazing how quickly that goes uh_huh yeah yeah that's what they've they've talked about it course it [eliminates] any waiting period god help those people who have to float checks occasionally because you won't be able to with that no oh it was well they consider it to be the same as cash well cause it actually is yeah it's better than cash they don't even have to deposit it it just goes straight in there right uh_huh yeah but i'm so glad he told me that when that they they got to such a point with their credit cards they didn't want to cut them up because they were afraid sometime they might actually need them they paid them off and then they stuck them in a thing of water and froze them she said at least before she could use them she'd have to thaw them out i mean that's funny yeah yeah i i want to still have just one just in case but i'd sure want to get the get it paid down and not use it for a while uh_huh yeah well our our limit is you know fairly low and uh so that's that's one thing that's good oh i've got another call okay all right bye bye yes i do i keep uh i have an american express and a visa card that i keep you know kind of for emergency purposes and i have you know i use a gasoline credit card which i you know pay off every every month but i've i've gotten rid of all of the credit cards you know that i possibly could and my balances are practically zero on the ones that i have especially since you know it's no longer after this year or after tax year nineteen ninety there's no deductions for you know credit card interest that you pay so it's a you know gosh credit cards run what anywhere from up to eighteen nineteen percent i guess it's just a bad deal course there are emergencies you know that you you know probably need to have a card uh_huh that's that's probably enough absolutely it's it's very easy to you know to do that or you know to abuse it it really is it's so easy to pull out the plastic but we're trying our best not to not to add any you know credit card debt to our structure here uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i'm sure you're right i don't i don't i don't participate in that but you know a lot of folks do yeah at least with the uh gasoline company credit cards you have you know up to thirty twenty five thirty days you know interest free for it but you know the instant thing may be may may be the way of the future to you know to replace checks and every other thing yeah it certainly does absolutely that's right do you get any sort of discount when you use a card like that i see i see i see it certainly is yeah uh_huh that's right no returned checks or anything yeah no i i understand it's becoming you know the popular thing to do we're not participating in that particular program at the moment and i don't really perceive doing it unless we absolutely have to but uh i have in times past gotten into a bit of trouble with credit cards it's just you know too easy to do that's right well that's a novel idea yeah that would cause you think a little while wouldn't it that may not be a bad idea but i'm kind of getting a little more leery of credit cards you know as time goes by unless you just absolutely have to now there are times when you'd at least think you do anyway yeah uh_huh yeah that's right my wife and i really i guess are fortunate we're really not compulsive [shoppers] you know we we plan purchases you know pretty well you know watch for the best buys things like that but uh some people have a real problem with it uh_huh sure absolutely yeah oh i'm sorry was nice talking to you take care bye bye well how many credit cards do you have sounds like we have no conflict we had for a while i was carrying one card and my wife was carrying a different one and since the slips all look alike uh you [commingle] them and then you get the statement and you try to sort them out uh and it uh it caused more confusion about it i finally said gee this is kind of a waste of time and then when a t and t came along and offered a free one uh i accepted that and we've been using that one uh the interesting thing is is that uh the amount of money you can can run up on them i don't know do you know any people that run up big big bills well did um were you able to get one while you're in college just curious because i have a son that's a senior this year and he's heading off with any kind of luck but there has been i've had a couple of ads for for for to provide a card for a college student uh what do you think about the idea of providing one for somebody like that well that that that i guess from the from the card [issuer] uh that since since it's it's in the parent gets it for them that really the parent becomes the one that's responsible but it's yes it's whether the parent wants to take the risk yeah to to go run up a big bill and the thing is there some advantages if he got off some place and stranded i i'm i'm leaning towards doing it for for a convenience yeah and the idea that you know if he got in trouble there's some some ways of getting out and that he doesn't have to carry cash the uh i i like the idea of credit cards that uh i don't i don't i don't carry cash around and and uh i don't even carry checks around i let my wife take the checkbook and she writes the checks and i record them so it's uh it's uh it's but it's interesting that uh the people that can that can uh the amounts of money you can run up on on credit cards and uh i i had recently had some dealings with a fellow that they had run up he was making oh considered a modest salary for an engineer and he had run up uh more than a years salary in in various debts to and he wound up declaring bankruptcy but there it it's hard to believe that you'd run up twenty thirty thousand dollars of uh well it was a combination of things he had there were there were several credit cards and then there were several other businesses but uh i i guess what's interesting have you seen the the the the ads where they're offering to extend payments from uh things like uh like the credit union's offering yes yeah the interesting thing about that is is that uh that that they're encouraging you to incur more incur more debt and and they make more money if you extend your loan yes and they know that people own a car that new unless absolutely die of service they're not going to keep on if the car were older the interesting thing about it is is that from a uh uh an economy standpoint or in economics i i thinks it's i think it's poor poor uh economics to to carry all that consumer debt at least from a tax standpoint so it's interesting that that the american public is encouraged to incur all that debt and then next year none of it will be deductible and this year it's ten percent or so it's uh it's interesting that that uh they encourage us to do things i think ten percent yes of your of your consumer credit oh if you had a thousand dollars that means there's another hundred dollar deduction i've given you yeah it's on uh yeah yeah on the the there's there's there's a place for consumer debt and then you take ten percent of it on the oh okay it's on schedule um schedule a under uh well it's the same place it's the same place you put uh interest but but see that's what that's what makes texas [squirrelly] laws that you can't you can't take out a a second mortgage like some states where you can take out the mortgage and declare that and so uh it's fully deductible the laws are a little [squirrelly] but it basically comes down to it's not in your best interest to borrow money from a tax standpoint but uh anyway sounds like you're you're very very financially responsible it's uh that's uh there're a lot of people who really run my boss drives quite a ways to work and he's got just enormous debts and he's but i mean what do you say it's like [shucks] boss i'm sure sorry you've got all that debt well he's had had two kids in college and and this kind of thing and that i think that the whole credit card issue i think they certainly encourage people to run up the debts and but i agree with you i don't i my debts well i did buy a new house last summer it's it's remarkable how many people as soon as they get out of college buy a new car and that uh apparently that's been going on for a really long time i didn't do it i i bought a second hand car when i was the middle of my senior year yep miscellaneous things like food and other things these habits you get into eating and and uh it's it's it's amazing how it what you learn well anything else good to say about credit cards i might just you don't have to carry the cash and and uh and it's it's it's certainly accepted more places than the places you know it's hard to cash a check if you're out of state and yeah they don't allow they don't do yeah carry all that cash with you well you know they they they've started towards a little bit of the debit card have you seen the debit cards where they actually debit your account when you yeah and i think that's where yeah i've seen a couple although the so many of the grocery stores don't do that because of the the time frame which they get paid in general that uh they i've seen checks deposited the very next day i mean cleared my account the next day my wife will write a check for groceries and you know almost well i guess it's the day after uh technically it's two days but they took that check and [scurried] it to the bank and the bank [scurried] it back to my account and you thought there'd be just a little bit of float but apparently that's why the uh the uh the uh grocery stores are reluctant to do that because their volume that is quite high and they have uh the [costability] of the cash flow is a big issue for them anyway well it's good talking to you maybe we'll get across we'll cross paths again good night um i've only i've got about four maybe i try to limit them because i well one i don't use them too much and i use my visa just for for about everything and i pay it all off so i try not to i just use it for free money for thirty days basically i'm i'm you know i'm in the age group you get out of college and i think a lot of these people have them maxed out um i don't think i ever tried um well yeah i i you know it's you know feasible i mean i know a lot of college kids who have them you know who had them but just depends yeah so basically if you want to take the risk it's your risk do you trust your your son uh_huh uh_huh i'd say you know have one with you know at least a thousand dollar credit limit or something uh_huh the the extended loan payment for your car yeah i saw that well it's it's it's business and they're making money off that yeah and and it's so it's business so and you notice that they're they're only going to do it to like cars that are one or two years old and so they've already shifted the risk if they assume that car then they just have to sell it themselves and they'll recover the loan uh_huh yeah yeah uh what now what's ten percent we can deduct i didn't know that i didn't think you could any thing on a loan or i mean a mortgage i know you can oh i've never [itemized] yet so maybe that's schedule a or yeah yeah i try i i really do i just try to stay out of debt and i and i use my visa for for as much as i can and i pay it all off and uh_huh uh_huh yeah hell i took a five year note out on my car when i right when i got out of college and uh i'll never do that again i still got a couple of years on it to go and i'm well you you think you're starting out well until you start paying all those bills uh apartment rent and yeah yeah so um you know they're convenient you know that's probably one big thing about them and uh yeah well i was used to using my credit card like at skaggs [alpha] beta in dallas and stuff and now i'm out here in phoenix they they none of these grocery stores take any credit cards so now i have to carry cash when i go to the grocery store which is new to me you know i got to have sixty bucks on me or something so uh that was interesting cause i always you know you didn't have to worry about carrying that much unless i knew i yeah i've heard about them that's mostly locally the banks will line up with uh yeah all righty all righty take it easy all right uh_huh um i wish i had well i it was done for me after a while i had a uh i had a business going and this was back in the eighties i don't know if you remember the gold and silver prices and all that but uh i had a coin shop and everything was going great while gold and silver was up and it started falling so i started paying expenses and stuff on my credit cards and things got worse and worse and finally boom yep yeah it was i ended up going into you know it was one of those things uh oh it'll get better next week you know things will pick up and so there i was in old bankruptcy court oh yeah oh yeah yeah i was buying from other dealers and uh you know they take payment any way they can get it yeah course on on stuff that i was on merchandise that i was buying on cards it was i was getting the money back because i was selling it i wasn't buying you know just to hold onto it uh but it was things like you know rent and phone bills and advertising and all that other good stuff that ate them all up so uh_huh uh_huh sure uh_huh yeah that's the way they suck you in uh_huh uh_huh well just today in the mail i got uh i got got my guaranteed acceptance by uh american express yeah yeah as soon as you're a graduate student they get your name and uh course i guess i guess i've been [purged] from their records i used to have an american express uh back when i had my business i got one and they they goofed up bad on my on my very first bill because i was using the american express strictly for the travel expenses and the bill would come in and i'd pay it and the very first bill i paid it and then i got this nasty letter from them saying you're [overdue] pay so i said well it just crossed in the mail so i didn't do anything about it two weeks later i get another letter even [nastier] and said we're going to turn this over to our attorneys if you don't pay and i looked at that and i said uh_huh so by this time my checks had come back from the bank so i made a copy of the check that they had [cashed] attached it to their letter and sent them a nasty letter with the card cut in little bitty pieces saying thanks but no thanks yeah they were i tell you they don't talk about they're charging that enormous fee every year it's up to fifty five on the gold card it's eighty five for the optima or i'm sorry no no yeah for the green card well now that's the card see oh yeah yeah it's um well of course on the green card you have to pay it when the bill comes in so there isn't any but on the optima card it's um let's see right now it's running at about it's not too bad it's actually it's about sixteen and a half percent which is pretty good as far as credit cards go well they're dangerous huh_uh mine don't either mine don't either they uh my mom has a uh has a mastercard and a visa card and that's it yeah yeah now i i do use gas cards yeah yeah exactly plastic is just too easy i mean that's the that's the whole problem with it um yeah sure naturally that's i got into all kinds of trouble doing that well having having been out of the credit game for some years now i've gotten used to either paying in cash or not getting it and uh well it is but i i i'm kind of uh grateful for the experience because it's taught me a lot of restraint yeah exactly i i uh i just went out and got a new v c r yesterday with cash and it it's no i wish i did yeah i could use a discount i have to wait for things to go on sale yeah especially on electronic goods especially now circuit city yeah they they're not their prices aren't that terrific they they used to be but they've gotten they've got to pay for all that national advertising now uh_huh yeah they're they're all over the country now they they used to be good i remember when they first opened up they did have good bargains i don't know if you have a place there called uh or you probably have something similar we call it service merchandise you got service merchandise yeah it used to be service merchandise was the place to go and uh circuit city came along and that was the place to go to get your t v and washer and dryers and refrigerators and all that and then after the years went by they just sort of kept creeping up on price and actually service merchandise is cheaper than them now so so much for circuit city i don't i'm a graduate student i'm a professional student it is it's great it is great i love it n c state uh north carolina state not yet ours don't ours doesn't start until uh next week where am i what do you mean where oh in raleigh little the [burgeoning] [metropolis] of raleigh what a dead place yeah i've got a nice little business at home and i sit around and tinker with that most of the time um uh human factors not a thing it's it's really looking at systems and design systems and seeing how people interact with them it's well it's more psychology and engineering uh my my master's is in industrial engineering yeah p h d in human factors well oh yeah i b m uh i mean uh a lot of people use human factors folks but i b m is what i'm looking at right now they might be but not at not at the human factors level they they're no as a matter of fact the i b m right here or in [carey] which is a little suburb of raleigh just just hired one more human factors person doggone it if they'd just waited a little bit longer it could have been me i'm i'm i'm going into or going into the uh dissertation this summer uh i'm going to start this summer i probably won't finish it until the end of the year but uh i'm i'm trying to get a uh [intern] position with i b m right now so that i can find an area to do my dissertation in it's hard finding an area to do a dissertation in this field yeah that's that and and it's it's limited application in some respects um in the area that we're in here there's a lot of places that use human factors people most well like i told you before and you're talking about credit cards we put ours up i mean i had a delightful evening one night cutting a bunch of those suckers up well you should try it yeah you lost your business oh [gol] what a nightmare well you weren't charging gold and silver were you you can't do that can you oh you can oh that's a nightmare uh_huh well i remember before i got married you know when you graduate from college they'll send you all those credit card applications you know of course you fill them all out because you're honored and uh i had stuff for like [sanger] harris and you know it got up like to couple of hundred dollars and i thought well that's okay cause all they wanted was ten dollars a month right i wasn't thinking a thing about it yeah i was just stupid and every time they had a sale there i was because you know got get such good bargains and i don't know oh yeah we've been getting those i went back to school and got my master's and they started sending those things to me again yeah they did uh_huh yeah um turned out they weren't [cheeky] so what is it now what do you mean fifty five you mean fifty five dollars but then what's the interest and interest is like eighteen or something yeah well credit cards you know my parents don't hardly use them i've got all my gas cards because i don't want to carry money around i'll do that now impact is kind of bad too though you know especially if you get forget to record those little suckers uh_huh well and you're tempted if you've got cash a little bit of cash and you don't have enough for the purchase right of course you got to charge it and keep your cash what are you saying oh my husband says i might buy it but i i don't really usually consider that an option maybe that's how we got in trouble yeah but it's hard isn't it well it makes you feel good when you whip out the cash instead of your plastic with cash do you work with t i no yeah you could have got a discount couldn't you but there's always a sale yeah what is that thing i saw circuit circuit world or something circuit city have you been in there oh it's national i think i've seen two around dallas well what else yeah in garland uh_huh so so okay what else can we talk about who do you work for sounds wonderful we were talking about that just today we could be just lifelong students where are you going to school what's that so you're on spring break so where are you yeah oh okay is it so what are you getting your degree in and what do you do with it well what is it so it's sociology so you're working on your doctorate oh lord oh that will that will sound wonderful won't it get you a little [plaque] aren't aren't they laying off several thousand people well i heard it on the news today i could swear it was i b m um how much longer do you have and get that done this summer ooh because you why there has been so much work done already okay um let's see how do you feel about credit cards uh_huh right right yeah right wow right well we uh me and my wife when when we have like extra money that we know we're going to have and we can put it in our budget yeah we'll we'll use it but like last year i think we paid i think it was like twenty something cents interest on our visa and i think this this year we uh i think we used it for christmas and we got caught just a few days on our grace period and uh so we'll pay a little interest this year but maybe two dollars but we don't like to do that at all and you know we i think we feel about the same way you do real strongly we uh we have several credit cards though we have a gas card our visa and then of course the american express and i think we have a couple of department stores but we use it the same way and uh uh_huh right right it's it's not uncommon for us to have paid it before we even get the bill that's usually how we do it uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah right yeah right right that's good i've i don't think we've gone that far to pay it in you know in advance before we spend it but i guess if you [foresaw] that you were going to have to use it that like that that may be good uh_huh oh really yeah right right uh_huh uh_huh wow wow yeah right right right uh_huh right yeah right yeah right yeah especially yeah yeah well that's good oh from the dallas area oh really wow do you work for t i well really um i wonder how t i got g t e involved oh okay oh okay yeah yeah yeah you have a very um very what's the word your your speech is very exact oh really wow yeah right i work in yeah yeah i think we talked for a good eight minutes about the subject so i think you get ten so i think we're okay well you too same here bye personally i do not care for them uh although i find them a necessity in business and so forth i i try to [refrain] from their use as much as possible um for a number of reasons one of which is the you know extreme interest rate on most of them the one i use uh of course for mostly only for business purposes is uh you know american express and uh i'm not i'm not terribly in favor of them not for my own personal uh point of view plus it uh has you know from an economic point of view it has increased our debt tremendously to the tune of somewhere on the order of five to ten billion i believe uh at least that's one number for this range of numbers i have i have heard do you use them frequently or uh_huh yes uh_huh i find the one i use mostly uh aside from the american express i do use my sears card but uh i try as with the american express i try to pay it you know as it comes in so uh i know when i travel or when i used to travel overseas quite a bit what i would do on my american express card is before i would before i left i would mail a check to to american express and you know have some idea of how much was there you know i'd sent them you know several hundred dollars or whatever i felt i would spend and then use it then but uh for hotels and and so forth but uh but i knew that it was paid i knew i knew that i had that much credit going in sometimes you know sometimes i would go over but it wouldn't you know it wouldn't hit me in a big in a big way because i knew that uh i would have it covered in that respect well i found i found in um in traveling overseas that uh often it would uh it would [expedite] things to have an american express credit card for hotel bills and so forth plus i would uh when they uh would send the bill they would automatically convert to the exchange rate so now the only time that got to be a problem was if the exchange rate changed drastically uh for example i remember on one trip to france when i started planning the trip i think uh a dollar was worth nine or ten francs and just in a matter of a week or two the dollar fell against the [franc] drastically and when i finally got over there it had fallen uh two or three francs to the dollar so the so i got caught a little short in that regard but uh uh i i was anticipating you know my room would cost uh let's say if it were say sixty or seventy francs a night that would mean it would be about ten dollars or so or maybe twenty maybe it would be more than that it was more than it would average out to thirty five or forty dollars a night which is a reasonable rate but then when i got back and i was working for the government at the time of course the government was several months behind in their on its per [diem] for exchange rate so there's a little [consternation] you know in trying to get them to compensate for the difference in the exchange rate that was the only time i really got caught short and i but as i said most most of all i try not to use them uh to any you know [lavishly] in that regard well from where are you calling so you're from okay i'm from maryland yeah no i work for g t e yes well i know jack [godfrey] i know him very well i've known jack for a long time and i'm also in the speech business so when i heard that jack was going to do this i called him and asked for an application where i could participate in this and so that's how i got involved oh thank you very much but as jack said i'm one of the the old hands in the speech business yeah uh yes i i've been doing it for twenty some odd years and so uh i was very much interested uh in getting involved in uh switchboard so uh you work for t i oh really i guess we're supposed to do this part of it before we started the recording alright okay fine well you have a good evening it's been pleasant talking to you take care good night okay how do you feel about them yeah well we have this philosophy we use it when we go off somewhere but we pay for it as soon as we come back you know as soon as we get our bills we pay it off and we only have one we tore all the rest of them up because i don't like credit cards for one thing you know i mean they're okay i guess if you're on a trip or something you don't have to take a whole bunch of you know cash with you but i don't like using them because i've seen too many people that used them and ended up bankrupt or on chapter thirteen and stuff like that because they have this weird opinion that if you use that card you don't have to pay for it yeah yeah and it gives you a um a false sense of security or something it seems like because you say oh well i don't have to pay for it now but you're going to have to pay for it and it seems like uh_huh right are you married oh okay well i know that a lot of young people you know i it took me a long time to get it through my child's head i mean that was her goal you know uh got to have a credit card but now that she has one she's only used it one time but she wanted to establish some credit but i think it finally [sunk] in you know because she saw some of the other people and just like she heard them say you know well i used a credit card and my husband's sister is the world's worst at oh well i'll just use the credit cards and she has all of her credit cards up to the limit you know and i'm i'm thinking woman wake up and smell the roses before they come and get you but right and people don't see that either right the only one that we we have that we kept was the discover card and it pays you to use it i mean if you pay your bill off right away if you don't ever have to pay any interest on it because they give you a certain amount every time that you use it and you make that money as long as you don't ever have to pay them any uh interest now it's and people say well you know i'm making money by using this credit card but they don't realize that if they i mean it only takes one time for you to use it and not pay the interest i mean you have to pay the interest not pay it right off that's going to take up what you would have made so that's the only reason that we kept that we debated for a long time plus they don't have that um charge on it you know like yeah right they don't have one of those so it we decided that was it you know and i mean everybody calls us and wants to give us a credit card we have we could have credit cards running down our ears yes yes and then i'll have just like uh department stores they'll call me up you know and i'll say look i don't want the credit card well we're just going to send it to you you know you don't have to ever use it if you don't want to they'll send me any credit card i tear it up i just can't see it uh_huh yeah i know it and you know what what's really bad about those though is just like young people if they don't you know we take the time to you know help my daughter she's in college but it this is her first credit card thing well when she got her first one she was so excited it was unreal look at this they sent me this money you know so then when i explained to her look you have to pay this back and they are going to charge you interest and stuff of course she tore it up but a lot of parents would not take the time you know and they wouldn't even think of it or their kids may not be as close as my daughter and i are and uh you know they may not even discuss it they go out and cash their check thinking that you know they've got something maybe they've won something you know somebody sent them something free and go out and spend it and um it's just unreal i mean i don't like credit cards i wish that they would come up with some other way to you know the only way you could use them is if you were like on vacation they would let you use it maybe once a year you know i mean of course i guess some people go out and spend their whole entire limit on it like that at that time but um i have seen so many people and i have a friend right now she just got off of thirteen she got uh i can't remember what she called it it's some kind of maybe it's sure or something like that it's something it's some weird name of a credit card and she is charging out of her mind already and i'm going you just got off that's how you got on to it to start with you know what is the matter with this person but um it seems like people just you know they just think well i can just have anything i want and i just don't see it like that of course i always see pay the bills first and whatever's leftover that's what you have but um maybe a lot of people don't see it like that but i can't stand owing i mean i cannot fully tolerate to owe something like you know i guess it's just because i've been brought up like that but um i could not charge to the limit and knowing that i was going to have to pay this thing out for ever and maybe suffer from having to [payout] but that's just the way i feel about it right yeah oh yeah i guess it is like that though because it seems like more and more people are like that but um i guess it's because i'm older i mean i'm not real old but i am older and um you know i didn't feel like that i didn't feel like i had to have everything i guess it was because well i had everything when i was at home but i i don't know why i didn't uh_huh yeah huh yeah well it didn't hurt you did it to i mean you didn't go out and charge a whole bunch and lose everything did you yeah well you learned then right yeah uh_huh well i keep trying to get away from them i used to use a lot of credit cards i guess for a while i would use you know a variety of the visa and the mastercard and the stores but i think i i impulse buy too much with them or i buy things you know i see it on sale and i think oh it's on sale i have to get it and i really don't need it or i really haven't budgeted for it so um the last couple of years i really have tried not to use them at all what about you uh_huh uh_huh okay uh_huh right huh uh_huh that's true if if it's on the credit card it doesn't seem like it's money out of your pocket sometimes you may think well i don't have the money so you use the credit card it's like fake money or something yeah you think well i don't have it now but payday will come and then i'll have the money but that's probably paying for things that were still owed from last time yes uh_huh uh_huh huh right besides the fact that how much interest you pay and then this yeah this thing that you thought you got on sale by the time you get done paying with that with all the finance charges because you pay it off over a long period of time you've spent a heck of a lot of money on that thing uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh huh service charge you mean yearly fee yeah oh you get that stuff in the mail all the time what i really hate in the mail is like for the credit cards that i do have still that they send you these things that look like checks and they say hey you know two thousand dollars you know free to you kind of thing you know all you got to do is go cash those things and you've got a short term loan i hate it i can't believe they have the nerve to do that uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah i think it's it's somewhat a uh symptom of our me generation and that we think we need all these things and i think my parents always you know did without or saved up to you know buy things and we consider that so many of these things we just have to have you know like when i first got my apartment and i was setting it up i did try to [economize] some but you know i was just like well i have to have it all [furnished] and i have to have all of my kitchen setup and you don't you know do without too much and you know that's how i got started kind of with setting up a household all up you know it kind of like in the short amount of time you know you just have to have these things just you know have them at home have to have them at my own place and that's you know a big expenditure to start um buying all these things that you think or or have to have and actually they're kind of luxuries or you should save up slowly and keep buying them and not just rush out and [furnish] the whole place you know going in one big [swoop] save up and then buy it but we're not into that we're into like have to have it all now well we're geared to that we're like okay like i want a living room set and instead of sitting back and and going okay well it's going to cost maybe a thousand dollars two thousand dollars and i'll save for two years people go oh well i'll just go buy it put it on credit and they'll pay it off people aren't tuned in to like saving for it and then buying it they just put it on a charge card put it on account and then pay off the bill because they want it now it's always have to have it now no no but i have had some times when i've had some pretty good balances on there and uh you know i finally you know paid them all off and thought this is you know kind of nonsense so we don't uh have big balances on them at all now we're we're you know we i use it occasionally but i pay it right off we're yeah you learn the you know the hard way you hate paying all that interest and i've never been one to itemize on my income tax and never had enough to itemize and so it's just a big chunk of money and you realize that you're not buying anything on sale your paying so much more for that item because you've got finance charge and the cost of having that card every year which is what forty dollars sometimes just to have the card that's a lot of money that you went to buy this item and then you never feel like you've got anything to to put into savings or anything you're always just paying bills paying bills you know you don't feel that you have any extra to save and i hate i hate living paycheck to paycheck i like to have a little there you know that i can save so i can feel that you know if something comes up i've got the money to pay for it yes uh_huh right you have a lot of discipline they make it really easy for people to uh to get credit cards especially college students i have uh two daughters who who both are in college or in fact one has finished now but they both have a lot of credit cards uh_huh uh right and then they they give you uh uh the credit limit and then you're always seemingly up to that limit now i have quite a few credit cards that i'm always almost up to the limit on most of them and that's that's how a lot of people get into trouble uh_huh right yeah yeah well you have a lot of discipline i uh i'm trying my best right now to pay off some of mine i i've i've paid off about four credit cards this year and uh but still i have some that are are up to the limit and especially the visa card that you can go and get cash on and it seems like every time i'm short of cash i just go get get it from visa uh_huh uh well uh you can go in a bank and just hand them the visa card and say i want a cash advance or if they've sent you a uh a number that you can use you know a a personal identification number that you can use in the uh impact machines or whatever you you can do that because i have one that i don't have a pin number for you know sometimes you have to ask them for that and then i have one that uh just gave me the pin number automatically uh_huh right oh wow well they they do that a lot if you have good credit and you have been paying your bills on time everybody in the world will offer you a a credit card uh_huh uh_huh right well you know the way the economy's going and inflation and the recession and all that i think we we really need to try to stay out of debt as much as possible that's that's why i've i've really started to try to to pay off mine and get out of debt because we never know when we might you know get laid off or something especially me i work for texas instruments and they've had had a lot of of uh you know layoffs lately you do where are you johnson city uh_huh i know they're selling out somebody in colorado springs yeah it it certainly is i've uh i have worked on a part part time job uh where i was a collector for uh uh a jewelry company people uh that they just had this jewelry account it was [zales] jewelry in fact and uh a whole bunch of i mean they have about a thousand [collectors] i guess and uh there's just so many people that have bought jewelry which is really a luxury item and then they they just can't pay for it something something happens you know and you hear so many stories listening to them like uh you know they lost their job or uh they they've signed for a friend you know they got it in their name but they got it for a friend and then the friend wouldn't pay them and now they're stuck with the bill and it's ruining their credit and you really have to watch it this you know because yeah because every every month all of these credit cards report to the credit bureau you know automatically most of them do yeah and if you if you're uh it's bad because if you you know your bill is due on the fifteenth then [y-] you're not past due until the fifteenth of the next month but you know if you if you pay one day after that fifteenth you're not one day late you're thirty days late right right and anyway we need to watch our credit reports and all that kind of uh_huh well you know you you can do that i believe it costs about ten dollars oh yeah it is it is you might even find somebody's been reporting on you and you didn't even know it you know you i mean you might think you're paying something on time or and you by that day and you're thirty days is not real bad though anyway if you've got a charge off on your credit report or something like that that's when it really gets bad or something you haven't paid in sixty days or ninety days you know and things like that uh_huh do they charge a lot of interest on that card i don't uh_huh uh_huh yeah well always watch out for anybody who bills you out of atlanta georgia or there's a couple of other places that are able to charge us like twenty one and twenty two percent interest i know i had a charge with uh [spiegel] and i hadn't read the uh terms of the credit agreement really and uh when i did i you know i realized that that it just looked seemed like i was never paying the balance off you know and i looked at the credit card agreement one day and it was like twenty three percent interest and that's the one bill that i hurry up [hurried] and paid up and and i've always watched it since then you really have to watch those interest rates i mean that's true so anyway they can't bill you any higher than eighteen percent i think in in texas but there there are a couple of states that can and one to watch out for is anybody that bills you out of atlanta atlanta georgia well uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh wow i wonder if they i started when i was in college you know they always offer credit cards for college students so i went ahead and accepted every one that i was offered because i knew it would be easier to go ahead and get them and establish credit early so i i pack around a lot of them but i only use a few of them yeah and they give you such high credit limits it's it's easy to get caught up in the minimum payment trap yeah i've got i've got two that i you know that usually i'll have a balance on and then all of the others i just try to use kind of like you would an american express card and and pay it off every month and that way i feel like i'm getting you know a thirty day loan but i don't have to worry about you know running them up too high except at christmas then they usually go then they usually get run up pretty good uh_huh yeah now that's one that's i've never used my visa for cash before can you use it like at a bank machine or yeah oh okay yeah now we got that's that's funny you said that because we got a credit card uh my husband and i got credit cards in the mail one day that we hadn't even applied for now a couple of weeks later we got we got pin numbers and then we got uh a bill saying you know uh the yearly fee it was like forty dollars and we we cut them up and sent them back because we we hadn't even applied for them and we didn't want them but they they had just automatically approved us and sent them without even [contacting] us so i thought man i don't know if i trust this or not it's like let's see if we can get her to run up her bills but it's hard i mean it's it's tempting when you see something to say well i'll just charge it and sometimes i'll do that but usually i i will try to pay everything off the next month or the ones that usually have an outstanding balance all the time i'll i'll pay more than the minimum payment just i i feel like even that little bit helps i know it well i work for t i too and i think they're getting ready to to probably sell us out our division in johnson city tennessee yeah yeah they just they just announced that didn't they so i mean it's it's kind of a bad time to be a slave to your credit cards uh_huh man yeah oh didn't pay them man that's scary i didn't realize that yeah oh okay they don't they don't recognize any time difference do they ooh that's scary that's something i never thought about getting you know checking with to see what what your credit report looked like might be worth it for peace of mind yeah i think that discover card has a good idea with you know giving you a little cash back incentive for each amount you you purchase as long as you don't go crazy trying to get cash back and since they don't have the yearly fee i don't know i've never i haven't gotten one just because it's uh uh i felt like with visa and mastercard and american express you didn't need another one i would think it wouldn't be you know much more than the eighteen or nineteen percent everyone else charges so that that wouldn't be too bad yeah holy cow definitely that's awful i mean there's no point in giving them any more money than we have to so oh that's great i'll try to remember that one well let's see i was trying to think if there was anything else uh the i guess the worst problem i ever had with with a credit card though was um i got a an item on my bill that i had never purchased i had ordered a sofa and had filled out the paperwork but they weren't supposed to process it until they delivered it and i changed my mind but then they went ahead and charged it on my account and it took me about eighteen months to get that all of that mess off of my account so that's that's probably the worst thing i've ever had happen with a credit card i don't guess we got our first uh credit card oh back in the seventies early seventies when i first got married was a visa card uh issued out of a liberty bank in oklahoma city because my sister worked at the uh the visa some bank [americard] center there so we were still in college and had she not worked there i'm not sure that i would have qualified they've come in handy over the years uh and they have become or also a a real bother sometimes especially you know if you catch yourself short on cash or if you're on vacation it's just easier to put everything on a card and uh i find if you're not careful you wind up uh a month or so staring those bills in the face and you go i don't remember doing all that stuff and it adds up so sometimes uh especially traveling with t i you know everything goes on american express and it makes it a whole lot easier for [bookkeeping] but uh as far as personal life goes i guess i really try to use them as little as possible uh i kind of like having them for uh gasoline purchases yeah but other than that uh i i guess over the years tried to avoid the national credit card syndrome of just putting everything on there day after day after day and then then you really get [socked] to it if you don't watch it how how do you look at counting credit cards well that's right well that's kind of the way we were doing it's uh i guess for that very reason that that uh if you're not real conscious of what you're doing it's just too much by the time you get well if you got a bunch of cards you get a bunch of bills every month and for some strange reason those people think they need to get paid yeah and i give them maybe not maybe they're not really concerned about getting paid because they're know if you don't then they're adding on what eighteen nineteen twenty percent sometimes it's twenty two percent interest yeah i guess that's one of the motivations behind the the uh the uh american express card with t i there's no with the american express card from t i there's no um late fee there's no uh interest rate you you either pay the thing off or they come get it and it's turned into personnel and they come get you so they've got quite a bit more motivation i think to get paid then some of the others do but that's the one that your call center manager sees every month so you're a little bit more careful about what you put on that even though you can use it however you want to oh yeah you can use it like any other card and uh but it you know you kind of you know that somebody every month and who knows how many people are looking at those uh bills that come in and those statements you're not the only one so uh you want to make sure that uh is that okay is that okay that those people see what it is that you are buying and most of the time it is but most of the others i've sent back i mean all you get is card offers i've got three card offers now uh from gas companies and uh visa gold and uh some other bank uh [citibank] i think is always sending the visa stuff out and i usually just throw them away because i i don't want another one i don't want to have to mess with it you know you carry around a wallet full of credit cards and uh one of these days it's going to all be full oh that's not bad yeah no if they don't say no annual membership on them i'll throw them away um years ago well i had my visa card through this bank in oklahoma city for oh probably fifteen years and then they started charging uh annual membership fees and i said [adios] i'm you know i'm not paying you it's just another way to make money as far as i can tell i mean they've been well sure and they i guess they figure they've got enough people out there with cards they're going to get cards at the twenty bucks a pop there's going to be that much more uh so then a couple years ago i found uh a bank here in plano that if you kept a minimum balance in any kind of account whether it was a savings account or what it was you can get a visa card through them and no annual membership so i went over and just stuck three hundred dollars in my son's savings account in his name and got my visa card so as long as they have no annual membership fee i it would be okay but i can't see paying someone to use their card be charged their eighteen percent interest so yeah i think you're right the best philosophy is have them if you need them but otherwise leave them tucked away somewhere yeah yeah it sure does maybe they're counting on that i don't know well i guess that's it thanks for talking bye uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah oh tell me about it uh_huh uh_huh yeah they add up quick uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah we like to keep one on hand just for emergencies you know but uh_huh yeah we just uh quit using them and they got us in trouble we took a loan and paid them all off we keep them uh we keep uh one gas card and uh and uh visa just you know in case there's an emergency or something but other than that we don't use them anymore uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i know isn't that funny yeah yeah and then some of them add late fees on it if they don't get paid and uh_huh huh huh uh_huh oh really oh yeah yeah uh_huh can you use that one for personal use oh you can uh_huh oh i see huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh oh i do too i don't even open them much i throw them out uh_huh a girlfriend of mine found a it was a visa or mastercard she found an ad for one in like a good housekeeping magazine for eleven percent shoot i need one of those uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh why do they do that i mean i mean they get enough you know on the interest uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh huh no i can't either yeah yeah really gets a lot of people in in trouble okay nice talking to you bye bye well what are your did you like do you use credit cards huh_uh so it doesn't get uh uh the credit uh the interest rate is so high that you're really if you're going to use credit cards you need to use that policy i think don't you otherwise you end up paying so much more for your merchandise that it's hardly uh it's not a very good idea well i have a lot of them but i don't use them very much though i use them mostly for big things like maybe sometimes uh tuition if it's you know if i'm short to go ahead and get it and then try to get it saved back as quick as i can the other thing i i think if you do get overextended a little bit you need to be sure and pay it off uh more than one at a time because i think you could run forever paying what they require just goes on and on yeah yeah that's true there are times when it's when it's very useful like uh emergency trip or something sometimes when you when you the money will be available but it's you know not immediately handy i think uh they're very helpful plus the fact that it's helpful not to have to carry a lot of money sometimes but uh i you really do need to be very um oh responsible about it or you end up in deep trouble uh_huh right right that can be very handy under those kind of circumstances the other thing about them is too if you really don't you really need to get some and use them because if you have never used them and developed and haven't developed a credit thing it stops you from doing a lot of things if you if you pay for everything by cash uh there is a lot of things that a lot of people who will not give you credit when you need something like a house or a car so so they they have become a very vital part of our of our monetary system over the last few years but uh it's true you have to be very careful or you end up uh going in the deep end and uh and an awful lot of people are in trouble we have a boy living with us who works for a credit card uh company that and he makes calls to people who have problems you know credit problems that are trying to work out and uh poor thing he comes home very depressed every night because the world has so many problems of that sort so it's it's uh it's uh it's a really big problem i think and um takes mature people to to treat it uh so that it's so that it's a real advantage to you instead of a disadvantage yeah right it didn't do you any good now does it even before it probably wasn't though because you didn't get anywhere near as much as what it you didn't get to claim anywhere near what you ended up paying so well i'm not other than that i don't have too much on credit cards but it's good to talk to you uh_huh bye now uh not very often i usually uh the ones we use is like visa and we always try to pay it back at the end of the month i have uh uh right yeah that's right do you have a lot of credit cards right oh yeah which is what they want i think a lot of people go in debt because they think oh you know i can just charge it but really i mean if they don't have the money then they aren't going to have it in a month so they uh make the mistake of pushing all their cards yeah yeah right yeah i made that mistake when i first got a job and that's kind of like it took me quite a while to pay them off so after that i decided well i'm not going to use them at all and just try to pay cash for everything and that worked for a while and then we got married so we decided to you know if we used them we would pay them off as we go so right that's true yeah uh_huh uh_huh huh_uh oh yeah right i think um the way the tax system was they encouraged people to use credit cards you know with a big write off at the end of the year but now it's like it's punch money because you cannot right you cannot write off your interest yeah yeah you too thanks for calling bye hi what do you do with your credit cards oh jeez oh i was going to say that that sounds like like pretty many but i see what you meant you had them for each of the individual stores uh_huh uh_huh oh gee oh sure uh_huh uh_huh but each of these had an annual fee also right uh_huh yeah forty five right uh i exactly you know i that's it i really resented the fact that they were charging me for cards so i sent back all of mine except the ones that were free and um then then i also limited it to one of each one mastercard and one visa and here most of the stores will accept those and actually i then got a discover card since they pay you back oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah oh i see yeah uh_huh yeah yeah actually i pay off my cards every month only once in my life have i not paid right uh_huh uh_huh well and also in a sense they're giving you a loan for a month so that you know if i were smarter i would have that same amount in savings and get the interest which i don't do but but yeah the the thought of adding you know x percent to to the price of what i buy i just i can't accept uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that's right that's right yeah yeah that i would that would be a very scary feeling for me to know that i was you know juggling payments to different people i guess because i never experienced it and it's not because you know i'm rich or anything it's just a mental concept that i have yeah that i just uh_huh uh_huh right right but it sounds like you know you you learned from it and you're coming out of it all right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh but now the fact that you still have two cards are you do you use them more [judiciously] yeah uh_huh purchases uh_huh uh_huh clothing sales sales i find are a pain uh_huh uh_huh well it sounds good you know like i said it sounds like you're you've really got it under control uh_huh uh_huh yeah and like i said once once it it happened i couldn't because my son's tuition came due and i guess i had you know not really counted on it quite at that point but um yeah i didn't like it at all i was very uncomfortable so you know and and i mean it was i thought a lot sixty dollars interest or something for for just a couple of months and i'm going jeez that's outrageous but in in you know retrospect it wasn't all that much i mean a lot of people pay a lot more and and you know but still i mean i figured i didn't need those items if it cost me sixty dollars more to have them exactly groceries for a week yeah uh_huh but now did you use to not feel so badly because you could take it off your income tax uh_huh right right thrown away yeah jeez you were good at it uh_huh yeah i suspect that you know thinking about it and looking at my friends and the number of credit cards that they use and you know the amount that i know they buy i guess probably a lot of them are in a similar situation and you know just don't talk about it uh_huh uh_huh very personal uh_huh yeah and especially if you if you don't feel you're handling it quite right or that somebody might make fun of you or that it would be uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right right but but once i suppose you you prove yourself by paying this off next year you'll be in very good shape uh_huh uh_huh oh well my husband and i have gotten into some some problems with credit cards we don't handle them very well we we tend to run them up to the maximum and then ask for more they they're they're really bad for us um matter of fact we've gotten rid of all of our credit cards except for a mastercard and a visa and we pretty much keep those maxed out yeah we had i had probably twenty credit cards for i had i had an american express american express gold an optima all the different department stores um two visas two mastercards i mean i had any time anybody would you know send me an application you know preapproved or whatever i went i took it and it really ended up getting us in some real serious trouble um because see the more credit cards you have the more people offer them to you and the more you use them the more they send them to you exactly the american express was probably the worst um because with the gold card i can't remember how much it was because i didn't even have it very long before i gave it up but i know the green card was like thirty five five dollars a year which was a lot because i mean you had to pay it in full every month uh_huh uh_huh yeah i had a discover and that was one of the ones in the group that i ended up um closing um it really wasn't my choice though i mean i ended up having i ended up actually losing my credit cards um i ended up going through a credit counseling service um because my husband and i just don't handle credit very well and um when when you do that they automatically once you start with their service they close your accounts out so i'm still paying on all these accounts but my accounts are closed so and i would prefer to keep it that way once we once we're paid off um i would prefer just to have one mastercard and one visa and that's it i think that's a really good way to handle it because that way if you if you paid off every month you never have to worry about well how much do i have to pay these guys you know this month you know this you buy what you can afford i mean if you handle it just like you would like a check or cash it's a lot easier to keep it in check yeah uh_huh yeah and i and i think at this at this point in time with the economy the way it is i think that um it's going to get even worse um i'm i'm glad that we're starting to pay our debts off now um you know we only we started this last year and we probably still have about another year to go before we're completely out of the hole but i think this they way the whole economy is going right now it's just not good to be in debt uh_huh yeah well when you when you're getting rid of the whole credit card cycle and if you really get into the mind set i got really good at juggling money and basically robbing peter to pay paul and it was scary because i was so good at it and i thought this is not right i mean this has got to stop because eventually it'd end up catching up at catching up with me and it hit me in the face um i yeah i have i've learned a lot from it i've learned that credit cards are extremely dangerous in my hand and my husband's too because he's he's the same way i am i don't i don't think that well when we buy on credit we just don't have a concept of how much money we're spending until the bill comes in and then all of a sudden you look at the bill and you go oh my gosh i spent this much yeah we pretty much use them for emergency type things like transmission fell out on our car and that paid for a new transmission um and and things like that um and we try not to use them for [incidental] type things like you know gas and stuff like that yeah yeah i've i've gotten i've gotten a lot more away from from credit cards and i pay by check a lot more now i i admire you for having having that mind set for not not even getting you know past the thirty days i would that's ideally the where where i would like to be uh_huh i can imagine yeah oh yeah uh_huh think about what you can buy for sixty dollars yeah yeah i i think about all all the money that that we've spent on interest on all of our credit cards and it's just incredible we've never been able to take it off our income tax i'm i'm fairly newly married i've only been married less than two years and before that i never owned a home or anything so i never had any deductions so really it was always just money thrown away and i never really thought about it because yeah i was so good at it that it just kind of got stuck in the back of my mind and just never um became a real problem until all of a sudden it came an [insurmountable] problem yeah most most people don't like to talk about money they feel uncomfortable i think you know for a lot of people it is very personal yeah but i think the the average american is probably pretty heavily in debt not not including like a mortgage a mortgage is an understandable debt because that's you have you have to have a roof over your head and i would much rather own my own home than than be renting it like we're doing i mean we're basically you know kind of throwing seven hundred dollars a month away we're renting a house but you know right now with the way our credit card situation is there's nobody in the world that's going to give us a mortgage on a house yeah yeah it's it's going to it's going to take quite a while hopefully within five years we'll be in our own home but um i'm not really counting on it real soon okay yeah we well we have quite a few but we don't really use them a lot we have well we like a lot of gasoline credit cards because we like to be able to stop you know when we're traveling and stuff wherever there's a station but as far as like mastercard and visa we don't use those too often what about you uh_huh right uh_huh yeah oh really huh oh is it like an automatic debit or oh huh oh really yeah we use our credit cards sometimes for a big purchase but we always have the money set aside already to and then we just pay it off the next month we never pay we don't like to pay interest on the credit cards at all yeah gosh uh_huh yeah right yeah yeah that yeah we we screwed up one time like that too we mailed it and they just never did get it and we had to finally mail them another check huh yeah i don't either no you figure you'll get your check back if you have to yeah really i like to use my card if i buy something through the mail which i don't do real often or something from out of state you know where if something is wrong you don't want to end up having to pay for it a couple times i've had to write big credit card companies and say you know i didn't really get this or i don't know what this is yeah uh_huh uh_huh oh yes it's yeah if you filed that letter with them then they will kind of yeah i'm like you too about the yearly fees i don't uh i don't like to pay the yearly fee for a card right now both the mastercard and the visa we don't have to pay a yearly fee on and since we don't pay the interest it doesn't really matter what the interest rate is too just as long as we don't have to pay that yearly fee now we had american express cards and my husband had always had that before we got married and those got so high we finally decided for him and me both to have a card it was like ninety dollars or something i think i can't remember but we decided let that one go and uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah but yeah like you said if you really if you need that extra for charging tickets and stuff it's more worth it uh_huh oh yeah that wouldn't be too hard to do yeah have you ever run into problems of charging up more than you meant to and having to be stuck with that we've never had that problem either uh_huh yeah right yeah yeah i guess it depends on whoever you buy it from how fast they turn them in or something lot of places have i guess they're called those pointed sale [terminals] where it's like it goes in the minute you charge it yeah oh oh gosh yeah that's nice right yeah i like that feature and the like if you break it yourself even you know if you buy something that's [breakable] yeah oh really oh i didn't know that hi do you have lots of credit cards uh_huh um i used to have a ton of gas credit cards and now i have one or two of them but i think i've even let some of them [expire] but i was living out of the country for a while so i wasn't using them too much and i don't drive that much but i have you know mastercard and visa as you know i have a mastercard and an american express now i got rid of the visa because it was getting out of hand having fifteen million cards but as long as like my mastercard is um free as long as you spend about i don't know three thousand dollars a year or something like that and so i tend to buy almost all major purchases on a credit card when i have the choice and um i used to even use it for my grocery shopping and stuff the stores around here don't let you do it too much and so i don't but i was living in france and there you pay for everything by credit card but it's not really a credit card it's a it's a debit card yeah and um just you know it's many times you get out of the store faster if you pay with that than if you pay with cash bye thanks um yeah because they're just so well set up with it right well yeah i i never pay finance charges on them except when i screw up which i occasionally do and you know i'll forget to pay the bill by the due date or this last month i mailed a check to them on the twenty second and they didn't get it until the [thirtieth] and it was due the twenty fifth and you know so i thought i and so i got hit up with a uh finance charge on it which pissed me off because um you know i really did mail it in time but they have no proof of that i don't i don't want to probably talk to them some more discuss it but i i never um usually never pay finance charges i had that hassle one time and that went on for months and months and months because and they eventually found the check and deposited it and months later they were still telling me that i owed them finance charges and um late fees and things like that and i said well i mailed you a check and you eventually did deposit it so you know i guess i don't know who the the burden of proof is on you know kind of the because you never when i pay bills i don't make a xerox copy of it or i don't um right or i don't get a i don't mail them all a signed receipt whatever i you know at the bank to have a proof of when i mailed it and i mean you can't do that it would be ridiculous right well you can right or i returned it so don't charge it yeah well that's basically what happened with us is we bought a computer and the computer um wasn't didn't do what these people said it would do we need to just put external cards in and it wouldn't do that so he brought it back to them and they're supposed to [modify] it and so i called the credit card company and said well we haven't really taken possession because it's not useful for us we can't use it and then they said well then don't pay it and then a month later i had to dispute it in writing and i was out of the country and got back and i took care of it as as soon as we got the computer back and it was okay i mailed off a check but then it was too late so now they're hitting me up there with a finance charge but it's sort of you know it's it's half our fault and so right if i had filed the letter to dispute it and then paid it eventually it would have been okay so i learned that for the next time yeah uh_huh right yeah yeah well my husband and i both have that and i don't know what we pay for his card i pay i think i have a gold one so i think it's like seventy five dollars for me and i'm not quite sure what it is for him but i had really like there nowadays i'm not so sure that it's worth it but um in the past there you know there are some places that only take american express and then they don't have the credit limit because i've over done the credit limit on the other card if my husband and i both travel it you know a couple of plain tickets and a little bit more and you're over the limit on the credit card and um with the american express they say there is no limit there really is but they tell you that but then that was one advantage but that's like i don't i think it's seventy five dollars for me and forty for him for a year which is a lot be yeah well we should probably get another um visa card one another one that's free because there are some like i think a t and t has one that's free if you make two purchases a year well so yeah and so that's easy enough to do and if that's true that's um it might be better off to have that as a second card just to have the credit and get rid of the american express because it costs so much no no i and i don't i mean i guess i do understand the mentality of people doing it but i don't understand because people think it doesn't really cost them anything to pay i have had months where i was shocked at how much had come in because like i thought i would buy a big expense and think that it would take one or two months to process and sometimes it comes in right away and it's like oh well guess i have to pay that too because like many times i'll i'll buy some things towards the end of the month thinking hey i won't get that bill until the next bill not this bill and it will come in on the next one you have to pay for it right away anyway but sometimes the is long like i've had things that i didn't get [billed] on for two or three months yeah immediately yeah but that's what happened with us like we bought a washing machine seven months ago and that i got [billed] like the next day it didn't matter because we couldn't have paid for it by check but we prefer like with the credit card you get the automatic um one year guarantee so if something breaks things like that you can uh return it so like the washing machine we bought it in october and you know if something goes wrong with it within the first year we've got an automatic guarantee on it besides the manufacturer's guarantee and [somethings] like that are right or if it gets stolen or if you lose it or whatever it might be and so so that's you know another advantage and then even things like airline tickets you automatically get flight insurance which um you hopefully you never use but like if your but things like if your baggage gets lost you get money for that to buy new bags and things like that and yeah when you rent a car you get that and sometimes you get discounts with the cards and so do you use credit cards a good bit uh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh okay absolutely right uh_huh yeah well actually i i have a whole wallet full of credit cards i don't use them very often um oh i may use i try to use at least one gasoline credit card a week and try to use a different one so that you know i have keep those active i have a half a dozen department store credit cards and i i'll use those if i need to run in and buy a dozen pair hose right quick or something like that just enough to keep them active my [biggies] are the visa mastercard and discover and for the most part i had used those for like uh charging airline tickets where i can pay for those you know you could make the transaction over the telephone or i fly southwest a good little bit which means i can just run that card through the machine uh and it saves a lot time and that's what i was using it for however we had a had a a very pressing financial family crisis which said you have no alternative you must have the money to do this with and you do not have any other options so i charged all three of those cards up and right now i am paying and praying but uh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well i never did right i never did use it for an advance most of my charges were uh medications didn't have cash for the medications or it was uh the doctor would accept mastercard or visa and uh a lot of times you can get by using those for uh uh different labs will use those charge accounts for uh_huh well i have not like i said that was just one period in my life where that was critical i don't generally charge i say well i need a checkup in six months and i kind of set that aside and just pay for it i'm reimbursed on insurance anyway and i can handle you know paying for it and waiting two or three weeks getting into a credit card fiasco is easy it is easy and it's very difficult to get out i just cringe every month when i see those interest charges i say wow i i ought to go to the credit union and borrow the money and pay this off big deal i'm saving two percent uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh oh yeah and it's not just paying back what you've charged it's paying that and half again uh you send in uh uh fifty dollars you're going to pay twenty twenty five in interest charges you only get half of that paid for the principal so i'm looking at three or four years before my balances are cleared on those charge accounts now as the monthly payment uh i mean as the monthly payment amount goes down that will free up more cash where i can continue to make the larger payments uh as long as i don't have a major disaster where i have to use it again i can i can do that meantime though i'm not building any reserves anything that i could be put aside into savings is going for interest on those cards uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well you either need a big chunk of money or you need a large reserve so that if you do charge on that account you can make a single lump sum payment now those are very handy if you have the reserves and you can make lump sum payments sharp good no problem because you're living on the other guy's money for a while but i can promise you that those credit card companies are going to ride high on my money and it just irks me i say my gosh i had to work three hours just to pay the interest on this and i've got three cards i've lost a whole day of my life to interest yeah yeah and that just blows my mind i my house is paid for my car is paid for i've got some home improvements but even the payment on that doesn't equal the payment on one of those credit cards uh_huh uh_huh that's right i think that is a good healthy safe use of credit cards uh_huh uh_huh uh i went to a seminar they said don't ever use your credit card for [consumable] items you only use credit cards for investments i said for crying out loud if i had the money to you know if i could do some investing you'd have to invest at better than twenty percent earnings in order to pay for the payments on the credit card that doesn't make a bit of sense to me i thought god [dang] where is his pencil that's right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh you also have to have that willingness to commit to that because you're committing a good portion of your life and income when you do it i do and i wish i didn't before i got married uh about the only credit cards i used were gas cards because i didn't like carrying you know the cash with me all the time but i just never wanted to get into the hang up of using credit cards and having all those bills hanging over my head in fact i remember getting my first mastercard and the only reason i got it was you know there was a while years ago when you couldn't cash a check without like a mastercard or visa and so that's why i went ahead and got one it was a mistake yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's right uh_huh i know how that goes and that's exactly what we've i mean i have to say i have been thankful for them because there were times when it was just like that when we had to have the money we had no way around it and the only way to do it is go get you know an advance on a card and so like you were paying for it but it's one of those i'm glad it was there oh i see oh what do you find now though that even some doctors won't i've found some doctors that say you know i was so used to doctors or medical care places taking credit cards and so many of them don't anymore so yeah right right oh it is i know right but you know the interest even though it bothered me it didn't used to bother me so much because of course you could list it on a schedule a and you got all your interest you know towards your tax deductions and now they've messed that up to where it really is a financial burden to have to pay it and but it but it is easy to get into a credit card problem and i i think about young people that think you know there's kind of that feeling of hey it's so neat i have my first credit card and and they just don't understand that you still have to be able to make the payments you know that's right that's right that's right right right right no and that's frightening to me that's right that's frightening too uh i i just i my husband is in business for himself i work for t i but he doesn't and uh we're uh i i've kind of got my fingers crossed i've learned when you're in business for yourself that that you don't count on something until it's happened you know but he's got some you know it's those once in a lifetime cases and after ten years he's got two of them and they should pay through next month and and we're both just looking at each other every night going man that will pay off like both of our mastercards you know and you know just in one lump because that's the only way you can do it is to have a big chunk of money or it's like you say you pay forever and so i'm really looking forward to that that's right right sure yeah i agree that's right i know and i know you're like what am i working for today it's incredible boy i wish i could say that my house and well my car is paid for now it was wrecked three weeks ago but but you see again the credit cards came in handy i had to have the money to pay rental car pay this pay that till the insurance company pays back and uh yeah because you know that's coming back to pay it off right it's sure that's right that's right well the smart half was don't pay it for [consumables] don't you know if you can't afford to go to a restaurant and eat out and pay cash don't put it on a credit card you know and and so that that is the smart half but uh and i can remember before we had kids we did that a lot but it was no biggie you know because we could pay it off while after kids and you're paying child care and other things all of a sudden it's not so easy to pay off so we cut that out real quick and uh but i i do like having them there there is a bit of security in having the credit cards and knowing that in times of crisis they are there to use but you have to have a very good sense of saving and or common sense not not to get yourself in trouble uh_huh basically uh my husband and myself use the credit cards in regards to major purchases we really don't get into small little purchases if we're going to purchase something quite large we might put it on a credit card but other than that it's not something that we use a lot of uh we may have only two or three versus uh i know a lot of people have up to a half a dozen or uh up to a dozen credit cards but uh ours are just major credit cards that we have and uh use uh use only when when we feel it's necessary to make a big purchase yeah yeah uh yeah one sears sears is pretty major with us simply because we do uh appliances and things like that and they're real good with their appliance and stuff like that so but uh we try to avoid them with a passion because of the percent of interest rate if you've got the cash to pay for something it's better to do it that way than versus credit cards unless it's a small enough sum that you can do it within a two three month period but if it's uh any large purchases uh you've got to kind of think about uh how much you're going to put down as far as uh payments on it so that you're not getting eighteen percent or twenty percent interest taken off so uh_huh yeah yeah yeah uh_huh sure sure uh_huh sure so you know sure yeah exactly exactly or if it's a business transaction a lot of times that's important too to keep a better receipt of it so yeah uh_huh uh_huh sure oh sure for the month or whatever yeah exactly so uh_huh yeah exactly sure sure yeah oh yeah and you always get these preapproved uh credit card things coming through uh your credit is great so let's send you another credit card or it's preapproved for that's that's to [entice] you to get more credit cards yeah and so you know we always laugh about that because it's quite a bit i mean you know you always constantly getting those preapproved stuff so uh ours is through a bank yeah we had it a long time ago through a bank and it just a but oh you're already paying them uh if you're if you don't pay it off within that month interest anyway so yeah that's exactly it so okay okay all right thanks a lot bye now yeah is that like visa and and mastercard do you have department store credit cards too or uh_huh appliances yeah yeah right my my husband and i do basically the same thing but we we end up [sneaking] a few in there that surprise us we still pay it off every month if it kills us but we do it mainly for you know the cash flow what is that oh float that's the word float and i often will keep track of what i've charged and sometimes deduct it from my checkbook already and sometimes just and keep a list and make sure i i don't go over a certain limit especially around birthdays you know oh if we go out to a restaurant oh just to float it or i don't know yeah yes my husband has a a or anytime like a plane ticket or you know even if we have the i'm sure we'd have the cash before we got it but the float for more than a hundred dollars seems real nice for that that thirty days or whatever we have a new one from a t and t and we have you know haven't used that one too much be interesting that's nice because you can use it for a calling card also it's a mastercard too so it's kind of fun uh but you get a lot of junk mail about them yeah you're such a a wonderful person we'll give you five thousand dollars up front right do you have uh an annual fee on yours or do you get yours through a bank or yeah yeah i i can't see paying an annual fee for it i mean i almost yeah well it sounds like i'm being [paged] otherwise so good talking to you hello hello hi boy it took forever to find somebody good well i'm my name's gail and i guess we have to talk about credit cards okay well if you're ready then uh okay i'll press one okay well i'm not this is kind of an interesting subject to come up for me because credit cards are my downfall i just find it so easy to to charge something when i don't have the money to pay for it and i'm really trying to get out of that habit so i think they're kind of dangerous uh_huh yeah me too uh_huh yeah that's true that's true seems just like our society is so um pushes so hard for you can have it you know and then no interest no payments for a year and stuff like this they're really trying to get you into that situation because they know they've really got you then so uh_huh uh_huh it's funny that we've got a sears card and we bought a washer and dryer on it four years ago and we still owe i mean i i think like half the amount that they cost in the first place it's just uh you know you never never get it out and now that's real irritating uh_huh well we did you know one time we wanted to buy a truck a used truck and so we went down to the bank and they said sure we'll give you a personal loan it was only a thousand dollars that we needed for the truck and they said sure that's no problem but you know why don't we consolidate your bills and at the time we thought oh that would be great you know we could and it's going to be a lower payment than it was for all of them you only have to write one check a month not all those you never miss one or whatever and we did that but we didn't realize at the time until several months later that we we were real i mean this was four three years ago we were pretty young and we were just kind of like well i guess that means these credit cards are closed and we didn't you know about six months later we realized we could use them and so we charged them all up again yeah so then we were not only paying those bills regular like we were before but also adding the lower payment for all of them so we were paying like twice um so we didn't ever make that mistake again luckily but uh we're definitely working on not doing that credit thing we just as a matter of fact this it's real interesting the subjects i get they always seem to be so [pertinent] but we just discussed this last night at church talking about debt and things like that it's so so [alluring] and uh so easy to get uh sometimes uh_huh yeah yeah yeah that's true oh i just picked up my daughter and she was eating a [cupcake] and now her crumbs all over yeah what a mess you are oh so i don't know if i if i i just feel kind of my big thing was my husband really wanted to get rid of our visa card and i just thought you know if we ever had something go wrong with our refrigerator or something you know and we had to had to buy one then we would really need that and so he said okay we'll keep it and then we weren't smart enough to not use it so hello hello oh well i'm glad you found me yes my name is carolyn okay i'll just let you start i think they are too and unfortunately um we use ours in we don't use them all the time but we use them like at christmas time and then it seems like it takes all year to pay them off when you use them like that but um i would love to just take some [scissors] and cut them in half i think sometimes when you look at the interest that you're paying on them um that's what gets to be the really scary part you know if you think when it comes around to income tax time and you look at how much money you paid out just in interest all year you could really get a lot more stuff if you were just able to pay outright for it that's right yeah all i know is some of my credit cards like um we have a sears one and we always get a maintenance agreement every year and it's just easier to say you know just put that on my credit card well that's probably four or five hundred dollars you know that goes on at that point and then it seems like takes forever to pay that off wow it sure is we eventually did one time we just borrowed took a personal loan and paid off all our credit cards and the interest on the loan was cheaper than it was you know to just have that we haven't done it lately we probably need to do it again uh_huh uh_huh oh no uh_huh i know they really encourage you not to go into debt for anything except for maybe your house and your car and uh if you could stick to that you know we'd get rid of a lot of [indigestion] and everything else oh dear uh_huh you know one thing you might do with in a situation like that though it's just like keep um i do what what do you think about them yeah definitely i have one right now and um i just got it about eight six months ago and i find that it makes it a lot easier to get things that you generally wouldn't get yeah oh my goodness really that's good yeah i i made a rule with myself when i got one that if i couldn't pay it in full every month that i'd have to rip it up so that's yeah but uh_huh i have i have a couple friends too that have about three of them maxed out and they they can't do anything but work to try to pay them off and and and like one of my friends she has hers is up to nine hundred dollars and she she only earns like two hundred dollars a month because she's going to school and and so i mean that's just enough to pay rent and buy like thirty five dollars worth of food a month so and and pay for her like like monthly fee like i guess you have to pay like twenty dollars each month is the so all she's paying is interest on hers every month it just seems crazy to to me but yeah oh really was a visa card oh my goodness i bet yeah i i don't know i'm about sick of mine right now i don't uh_huh right exactly yeah my parents are really good about not using credit cards they are against it i don't think they like the fact that i have one either uh_huh yeah huh yeah i'm i'm twenty right now so just going to school and and working so it does kind of get in the when you want something that like last weekend was homecoming and i needed a pair of shoes so i just went out and bought them and on my credit card i didn't really have the money to do it but yeah it sure is so do you just have two kids or oh really neat i'm from plano texas but right now i'm out in provo utah going to b y u so yep but this is a extra long one they're giving us a lot of time yeah have you done a lot of this oh really do you do it every day so do you have an opinion on credit cards you do i think they get a lot of people in trouble uh_huh yeah and then you don't stop to realize that you know you charge this for twenty charge that for twenty charge this for twenty and pretty soon you owe a hundred dollars and you don't stop to think about it i got in trouble when i was in the service quite a few years ago like ten to fifteen thousand dollars in trouble and then you know so i eventually got it all paid now i carry one i have a gas card and a visa card and i never use them unless i need to so but they yeah that's a good idea stops all them interest rates and interest rates aren't none too shallow these days anyway but i know a lot of people that get in trouble with them especially you know we have i'm in lubbock and we have a bunch of college kids around here going to tech and they seem to get in trouble with them a lot yeah gee yes something like that yeah well my wife got in trouble one time with hers she was making like i don't know what she was making forty five dollars a month i think and fifteen dollars of it was because she was over the limit and fifteen dollars of it was interest so she was only paying in it fifteen dollars a month so and that was before we got married so but it's you know we sat down and talked about it and discussed it and it's it's come out pretty good now we have a eighteen year old that's fixing to get out of high school and go to college that's the first thing he wanted yeah so we kind of discussed that a little bit and shot that idea down right quick you know so but i think they're too readily accessible and there's too many companies out there that are willing to give them to you and get you get you trapped i mean you can always file bankruptcy to get out of it but that's a lot of pain and hassle when you know in the [olden] days when my parents were growing up and we couldn't afford everything we didn't have such things as credit cards we just waited until time come around that we could afford it and you know we had all the necessities so and i very seldom use a credit card on necessities i always use it for something i want not something i need so yeah i think if card cards were as as stringent as say a a home mortgage loan or something like that where you have to you know be able to prove that you can afford this and the rest of your bills we probably wouldn't have the problems we have of course we wouldn't have the [retail] market we have either so i guess they trade one for the other i disagree with it but they still trade one for the other well that's good i'm it sounds like you kind of got your head together in the credit department for you sound pretty young so are you yeah all right oh yeah yeah it's pretty easy uh we have a eighteen year old seventeen year old and a seven year old yeah oh are you are you a you're a mormon then oh all right what's that oh yeah they may not they must not have too much traffic on saturdays uh fifteen or twenty i guess oh yeah i try to every day i uh i get calls at work i get calls at home so doug you want to start you don't use any credit cards i don't imagine yeah uh_huh do you use them a lot uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh well that's an idea that's a thought uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh my husband loves them uh we do use them uh we try not to but he he's one who believes in credit cards and he uses them quite a bit he likes using them and then just pay at the end of the month he he likes that uh_huh and that's when you get into expenses right uh_huh uh_huh right well sometimes you do come on bargains and that and it's really useful and some places won't take you know like personal checks or cash even but they would take a credit card uh_huh right we yeah we have the same thing up here so we don't deal where they do that we you know we go to places where they don't charge extra some of them charge five cents a gallon even like the gas stations more and uh we just try to avoid you know the ones that do that we just don't uh go there because there's enough other ones around that don't charge you anything extra because actually to me credit cards are the same as cash to me they are anyway right right yeah yes yeah right well i can't say we never have now we have you know at times made payments on our things but we try not to we try hard uh_huh uh_huh right right uh_huh yeah because sometimes uh there's times when you may maybe couldn't take advantage of something but with a credit card you can so uh well i think we're [narrowing] it down actually uh uh like i said my husband likes them and we have quite a few but we really get when you get down to the nitty gritty there's probably three that we use most of the time uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh yes well it's not every week but you you do get them they make it very readily available almost too much so but i i really don't like it the charges that you know we try to limit look at that also what they charge per year to use our money you know they're charging us to spend our money and i i'm not real crazy about that so we try to look at that also uh_huh right sure no of course i use credit cards i have a couple of credit cards and uh use them oh we try not to we're on a pretty strict and tight budget we use the credit cards however when we're at a situation where we don't have either the cash or the checkbook handy or we use credit cards also if we want to get an extended warranty on an item that we're purchasing so so yes and basically we use it mainly when we're traveling or out of state or or somewhere where you know they don't take local they don't take out of state checks and so when we're traveling some do you use credit cards often uh_huh oh yeah well that's that's a good thing because lot of people don't pay at the end of the month and they just pay the minimum required balance yes and you get in over your head it'll uh some people i know also try to use it as float where they buy something now and say well i'm going to buy this when it's good and on sale and then i can go ahead and pay for it when i get my check at the end of the month when i'm being paid that's true uh_huh right how how are the laws in pennsylvania uh as as regard well not the laws but the rates credit card rates in pennsylvania for example down here when you go up to a gas station you get an extra charge for credit cards than you would by paying for cash are they the same there that's pretty steep yes uh_huh uh_huh yes because you make the deduction at the time of the purchase and and so that the end of the month or when you get your credit card bill are you saying that that way you're not left stranded and high and dry very good you're you're one of the good i guess good faithful [shoppers] that don't get into a problem when it comes to budgeting their money uh_huh well yeah well i see that as an advantage to a credit card also that you can can find yourselves in those situations and use a credit card to to help yourself so i think that there's a great advantage to a credit card in those situations uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um do you have uh multiple credit cards and do you find that advantageous or uh_huh right we're we're actually in the same boat we like to use three uh basic credit cards that way we're not confused and we don't have an awful lot of expenses or surprises when it comes the end of the month and do you find that you get an awful lot of credit card applications through the mail once a week twice a week or three times a week yeah right so the annual fee right right yes so there is the basic annual fee for the credit card plus they charge any where from seventeen to twenty three percent uh based upon what the state will allow um i think i'm down to one well no i was pulling your leg i i well the way i'd like to try and use it is um you you you make your purchases at at prime buying time and then you pay that off and don't use it until uh it's paid off that's that's my ideal way emergencies come along and i and i use it uh like uh my car uh had a major problem and seven hundred dollars and uh things just come up and you just never get to use it the way you'd really like to uh_huh um yeah yeah well i i know i was up in there and a lot of credit cards and i was just starting to get to where it was getting me in trouble so we just disposed of them paid them off and got out of it i just yeah yeah yeah well now we pretty much just pay cash for as much as we can there our our only credit card is sears so and i have that for automotive purposes yeah yeah it's it's just too easy basically uh just get yourself in trouble with those i see yeah uh i wouldn't mind uh you know getting back into one if they would you know you start out at a low limit and then they just keep wanting you to increase your limit and and if i can get one that'll keep my limit at five hundred and i can never go over that or something like that then that's fine but they eventually get's up there to five thousand ten thousand whatever fifty thousand forget it i don't want that yeah so i don't know just uh writing checks is just as easy i guess yeah well really what what can you other than you use them or you don't use them you like them or you don't like them so i guess uh they don't care if we end it early so uh hopefully uh you have a good thanksgiving that's coming up and and then uh maybe we'll talk again yeah texas is the big one okay then well bye now so how many um credit cards do you have oh my gosh i wish i was that way is that why you said i had more experience than you oh well how how do you use your credit card i mean do you just keep it in reserve or uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh how how do you use it yeah that's understandable exactly uh_huh right right uh_huh uh_huh well actually i do have quite a few more credit cards than you have um and i use them you know like my american express i use for you know gas things like that and i pay that off monthly and then um some other credit cards like store credit cards you know i do have them up there a little bit but uh i try not to use them too often but living in this area uh like i live fifteen miles west of washington d c it's a very expensive area so sometimes you have no other choice if you need to buy something right uh_huh uh_huh well that was good that you had the opportunity to do that uh_huh now are you married that you both you and your wife use a credit card or uh_huh uh_huh um uh_huh uh_huh um right right well well that's great um everyone i know here uses um credit cards like they're going out of business to be honest with you yeah yeah yeah the only other one i have i have like a [diner's] club through my um where i work so that i use because i travel some so i use that and i don't really have to worry about that because i only use it for business so i automatically have the money to pay it off but um uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah um the [temptation's] too great um yeah that's true that's true but so i guess uh we've kind of exhausted this uh topic yeah you can't say too much about it really uh_huh okay you too yeah may be you're the furthest person actually that i've talked i've talked to a lot of people in texas yeah yeah so okay bye bye laurie okay i'm supposed to ask you how do you make use of your credit cards and i'm supposed to compare those with my my habits yes right no i do not uh_huh oh okay sure well myself i always i'm i'm a traveling person and i'm out of town quite a bit so i use credit cards quite a lot also as far as everything from service work and gasoline in my car to my [lounging] entertainment and for everything so that's uh as far as using them outside that i'm not i don't use them too much but i i think my wife is sort of like you she uses a credit card most of the time so she does most of the shopping for our household so she'll use them more than i will yes so it's me i'm always i'm the guy that always goes to like dillard's and i'll go in and charge something and i'll have to give them my driver's license they'll have to look up the number because i'm never carrying a credit card but i do carry like my american express and my visa which i use for you know primarily work type things this is my first call by the way so oh is it really all right so we're both [beginners] then i've had this for a couple weeks and i've been out of town so this is my first time to to use it so no i was given this topic yeah they give you they assign you a topic you call the eight hundred number have you tried it yet okay when you call the eight hundred number they assign you a topic and uh pretty uh cut and dried i'm not sure a couple about two three minutes i think but i really don't have too much more to say in regards to credit cards i one thing i've always tried to do is when i get my credit cards i always try to pay them off because i just sort of [detest] paying interest and uh like years ago my wife and i got married she was the one with a little bit than i was because i had my credit cards i think up to the limit and i was giving everyone ten dollars a month and everything like that that was like thirty years ago so now it's a little different we i get a bill and i'll pay it the same day it comes in or at least i try to and i just kind of tell my kids how much i hate paying interest so they should follow the same rule oh you bet it's it's an absolute savings you bet that's that's very handy well i think that's all i have nice to meet you and uh give it a try i think you'll enjoy it okay thank you bye yes okay how do i make use of credit cards um let's see i carry a lot of credit cards with me mostly because i don't ever have cash and i i do you work for texas instruments okay well at t i we have to use what's called a tex teller if we want to get cash out and those are only available at t i so if i'm in a mall or something i can't get cash out without paying extra money so i'm always using credit cards uh_huh uh_huh yeah me too yeah uh_huh but do you get to pay the bills same at my house uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah oh it's mine too yes yeah oh okay okay now did you pick this topic or were you given i see okay right no huh okay um let's see so how long are we supposed to talk for okay oh yes definitely uh_huh oh that will cost you a fortune yes yes that's right well yeah if you pay it that way it i mean it really is it's like getting a free loan for a while which is what i do or if you travel for work and you get your reimbursement before the bill comes in you get to keep the money yeah it works great okay well it was nice to meet you okay thanks bye bye where are you bob oh okay i am in waco yeah right down the street oh credit cards my favorite subject oh do i yeah mostly over christmas uh i get in a [rut] with credit cards cause they get me kind of in a vicious cycle where you use them a lot one month and then you have to use whatever money you have to pay those off and so then you have no money so you use a credit card yeah uh i probably have one of every credit card there is do you use them a lot uh_huh oh yeah yeah well that is a good idea is that that through a visa uh_huh huh uh_huh yeah that is my problem i don't try and pay them off i pay like the minimum i know so i have got myself exactly i have got that is why i have got myself with all this trouble now but i pay most of them on time and everything it is just the i always have them so it is kind of strange oh yeah exactly like the government in in debt yeah have they put the cap on the interest rates i didn't know if they actually did that or not i know they were considering it uh_huh yeah funny how that works isn't it i would be interested to find out how many people or how much uh people use credit this year say in nineteen ninety two as opposed to nineteen ninety one even nineteen ninety i think i think it would be amazing how much how many more people use it because of the economy yeah exactly i would be very i would like to see some numbers on that i think that would be interesting yeah i have a credit union yeah they do uh_huh yes i do yes i do a matter of fact uh i work for channel six it's it's an n b c affiliate down here oh really oh okay where do you work what is your oh okay oh okay so you probably work with uh uh what is the boy from here you ever work with davis davis iron work yeah oh okay and uh what else well i live actually in hewett yeah right outside so that is where davis iron works is uh i don't think i have seen that one i am sure i pass by it or something but i am not sure huh prime air oh okay okay have you ever been to marlin i think it is marlin or mart they have uh uh a place i guess that would be similar to prime air it is called h g h or something like k g h or i can't think of it i can't think of the name but oh yeah yeah uh_huh oh i don't like that drive i make that drive sometimes we have stories out there but uh huh oh really i know oh goodness they they are bad at hewett too on eighty four they are real bad that is where i got my last ticket so of course i couldn't pay that on a credit card i am in plano where are you is that right oh okay you mean you use credit cards i bet you used them all up over christmas and then your are in debt i understand that well uh it kind of comes and goes uh i use uh [citibank] the uh advantage one pretty much cause you get vantage points for every dollar you spend once a year i get a free airplane ride that way so as long as you pay it off every month it doesn't cost you anything that is what i yeah yeah but uh i got all sorts of credit cards for my business that i use but uh if i can get away with paying them off every month it is alright if i don't then it gets expensive well you shouldn't do that you never you never get out of the hole that way kind of like the federal government right can't never get out of debt and every time you try to get out of debt the economy goes to pot because people are spending money right no just the people who don't need credit get the four and a half percent the rest of the uh and me we have got to pay fourteen and eighteen percent the [thou] who doesn't need credit gets cheap credit well i think so because the that's right you have got to use everything you have got just to stay where you are at do you do you have any uh credit union where you work or anything like that do they have a mastercard or visa card you have got that one who who do you work for oh i do a lot of work down in waco a lot of i call on a lot of my business is down there i sell metal fabricating equipment and tooling [tyme] and mercury and [tempco] and all those people down there uh gene davis iron yeah matter of fact i just saw them last week are you in that part are you in the south part of town now oh yeah okay you know do you know parker machine tool down there bobby parker and uh there is a place in hewett called it is a new company called prime air that is in hewett just around the corner from davis iron works they make uh [humidifiers] and uh filters for air [filtration] stuff for hospitals homes something like that uh yeah oh really huh huh i will have to stop in there i went i have gone through there uh my oldest son goes to a and m he is working on his master's the navy sent him there for his master's mostly in engineering so once and a while we go up six there rather than take forty five that is about the last time i have been through marlin and mart there is always a state trooper down there you have got to drive careful between mart and marlin they will nail you if you go over sixty miles an hour uh_huh uh_huh yeah they seem to be a part of life yeah how do you use them uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah i use a few i uh i watched my grandmother go into debt on them and so i've and then i guess my mother yeah so my mother learned from that and i guess she taught me to be very very careful with them so basically uh i just keep them i use them so that i build up a credit rating you know but otherwise uh i generally and my husband it turns out i've just been married seven months but he has the same habit and we just keep a few you know few of the major ones and then use them once in a while for something but we always pay it off right that month so that we don't pay any service charge so that way we keep out of debt and we keep on top of what we're spending yeah yeah yeah that's what i feel so uh_huh it's really easy just to forget you know that you you charged that or charged that i try to keep all my receipts and keep them in someplace where i know that the [bill's] going to come but sometimes i forget and so you know a bill will come in and i'll think oh no i didn't know it was going to be that high but so far i've been able to we've been able to pay it off every time so uh_huh uh_huh um yeah have you ever used discover card yeah i'm not even sure what their interest rate is since i pay it off but you know uh i think sears originally put it out but it's uh it's pretty well taken all over the u s now i mean uh i've haven't found many places that don't take discover and there's no annual service fee which is good you know and then uh they also give you they say cash back uh like at the end of the year for the amount that i charge i get two dollars back or something but if you use credit cards a lot you probably get more back yeah basically that's it and i think the service charge is pretty low too but i'm not sure uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah i think it's best to keep the number down that you have so uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah well do you have anything else to say okay i don't think i do either so well it was good talking to you okay have a good evening bye bye well i suppose we both have credit cards yeah well i do use them uh i have a few favorites that i use more than others and uh i try to keep my balances fairly reasonable i i could probably pay them off any month if i wanted to uh but occasionally they can get out of hand and get higher when when you start using more than a few and uh they all can build up uh i think they're handy i just get uh i don't carry a lot of cash with me and uh i hate writing checks when you go shopping well do you use credit cards uh_huh grandmother huh uh_huh that's good oh that's that's wonderful well the interest rates in credit cards is so high now compared to what you're savings is bringing it's really i guess ridiculous to let them keep building but i know some people can get get you know carried away with them and let them get out of hand uh_huh yeah well that's good i'm looking right now i'm kind of looking for a visa that has a lower interest rate it seems that some of them have gotten higher and uh i saw on t v they had a program on uh credit cards and they're supposed to i don't know if it was tennessee or arkansas or some some other state had a visa card that was the lowest one in the country and i didn't write it down at the time and then i went and looked and to see what my visa was and i think it's eighteen percent or something so think i want to find something that has a lower rate no i haven't is that the one from sears okay okay uh_huh oh they give you money back for using your credit card oh i didn't know that um well you know sears was one of the few department stores that never would take any other credit cards i worked at sears for over ten years and uh it was only a sears card that they would take until i guess they decided to join the club and come up with their own credit card another credit card that was accepted so you know now they'll take the discover but i still don't know if sears will take visa or mastercard but uh i never did apply for a discover card i just figure with the visa and american express i probably have an i can do enough damage with those two uh_huh yeah i've got some that i you know i haven't even used at all uh past few years i probably wouldn't be able to use them but uh i i do like my dillard's i have to admit that's one of my favorite places to shop and i do use dillard's probably as more than any of the other department stores but well no not too much more about credit cards okay well good talking to you beth good luck you too bye well credit cards i'll tell you what i i can't say a whole lot about credit cards because i uh tore mine up yeah uh i got in some problems with uh financial problems because of credit cards so i uh basically just got rid of all of them i i have a a couple i have a uh gas card that i that i use just for gas and you know uh one that i use just for emergencies but yeah i know it uh_huh oh is that right that's a that's a good policy yeah yeah uh sometimes i wish i had them but in most cases i'm glad i don't because i you know unfortunately i i i don't have the control you have i wish i did but but i don't uh and it you know it i just don't want to get into that situation again so we'll oh that's it see and that's even with my gas card you know i find that i'll go in to get some gas and i'll end up buying you know candy and drinks and you know sweets and whatever and then at the end of the month i you know i get a bill and i'm thinking what did i get that costs so much and yeah that that's true but i can i can certainly understand where you know oh yeah isn't it that's unbelievable how let me ask you this how how old are you thirty three okay you'll be thirty three this year you want to be thirty two as long as you can huh it's coming yeah i i know what you mean about the interest rates it's uh it's unbelievable uh_huh oh jeez yeah and then you bet that's uh yeah i in fact i've i've even uh heard some people that have applied for credit cards with much less uh rates and have paid off their you know higher interest rate uh cards and just sent them back you know and i i guess there's some there's uh uh some [negotiating] there too because i heard uh on one of the local talk shows here they had somebody on and and said what you can do is uh call you know if you've got a pretty good rating uh credit rating you can call your you know your your card wherever you got your card from and tell them hey either drop my rates or drop my you know uh annual fees or i'll just go to somewhere else you know and if you've got if you've got a pretty good uh uh history with them they're more than willing to do that yeah in fact that's that's what this guy you know he wrote a book on it and he says that's you know he's tried it with several of his cards and he's just told them you know i i can get this card from this bank at this rate and yours is at you know eighteen or nineteen percent it does not make sense for me to do that and if you won't drop my rates i'll just go ahead and send you back your card and i'll go somewhere else and get it uh_huh yeah is that right i i know i know some other people that have done that um uh_huh uh_huh yeah i i have we have some some friends that did the exactly the same thing they uh you know they kind of overextended and borrowed and borrowed and finally they realized that they were they were abusing them and weren't going to get out of the hole and they just cut them all up except for for one they kept for emergencies and they're still paying away to get out of debt but no i did just the opposite i i guess i i sort of followed in my uh parents' [footsteps] i have quite a few of them i use them continually but i uh i basically never charge anything i don't have the money in the bank to pay for and uh and i always pay them off totally every month yeah yeah and it you know i mean they they're just a convenience for me i don't have to get cash out of the bank and i don't have to to be writing checks and and uh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah i mean it it's easy i mean you don't have anything [transferring] just a little signature so what you know uh_huh right surprising yeah well you know but the i mean there are sort some inherent limits there you're not going to you're not going to run up a few thousand dollars for that right now i the thing that probably helps me most doing that is really you know uh not so much discipline i mean well i mean you have sort of a discipline in general about finances but but i hate their their rates so badly i mean their interest rates so badly that i i'm uh thirty three thirty two excuse me yeah uh_huh you know i just that just irritates me so much that that i refuse to pay them interest and and my wife recently uh decided she had to go to brazil and was going to take off and she's from there and and uh didn't really have the money but you know she could pay it off and so i sort of reluctantly let her put it on credit cards but she's paying it and uh i just won't do it i mean she's paying i don't know i don't know what per month you know forty fifty dollars per month in interest and i just you know i just refuse to give it to them if i need to borrow that kind of money i'll go to the bank and uh you know income oh yeah right right yeah uh_huh right high i might um right um i might try that because i i have one card that i've had for about uh i don't know nine or ten years uh_huh right yeah for me the big thing you know is the uh uh is the annual fee and i just refuse i won't get any card now i've i've got a good rating and i've got you know and i'm not going i'm not going to pay an annual fee the only one i actually pay on is this one that i that the very first i pushed it so how do you use your credit cards uh_huh yeah that's me i won't use one that i have to pay an annual fee you know and um i'm uh like you i i use it well to buy my gas with my my shell credit card i use that and then like my [emporium] card and uh [weinstocks] card i use that but i'm like you i usually pay it off as soon as i get my bill why i don't just write a check i don't know you know it's just really weird but i i don't carry a lot of cash with me because i'm always afraid that someone's going to steal my purse yeah you know enough for a phone call and that's about all but uh other than that that's the that's the way i use them i know some people that uses them so bad that every one of them that they've got they they can't charge any more you know and i think that's terrible oh yeah yeah because if anything ever happens that you do need to you know you have excellent credit why it really does help yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah well i think it's better to use credit cards too like i say because there's so many people around any more that's watching what you're doing and if you pull a [wad] of money out of your pocket they're going to hit you over the head i know it just uh you know it just seems like they're somebody's always watching so i just don't i don't carry money i'd just soon use my credit cards and just pay them off you know right yeah yeah right yeah right and you know some of those stores don't even seem to check your signature or anything you know i don't know why they don't unless you have to spend a certain i don't know but i notice that some of them don't even look you know they just slide it in there and pass it back to you you know so i don't think that's right i think they should check it to make sure that the signature at least matches you know uh_huh uh_huh well let's see what else can i say about credit cards um yeah i don't i don't uh that that's that sears discovery card is that what that yeah now i don't have that one you know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh you mean uh for for your using your credit card you get like a rebate or something uh_huh oh i see uh_huh um i see yeah well i'll okay oh we use them for paying our gas and for paying uh just about anything because um we don't like to pay for our checks so we use it quite a bit but we we pay off every month though so we never have to pay interest and we always we never get the the credit cards if there's a monthly or a yearly charge we always get it through our bank or somewhere where it's free so we never have to pay anything extra yeah we just don't think it's worth it so see well you i don't do it either yeah yes exactly that's how i i mean it's a rare day when i even have seventy five cents in my purse yeah yeah because it's really it helps your if you have good credit you know it helps you in the long run when you want to go make a bigger purchase or something yeah and i think it's more convenient too in a lot of cases like whenever we go on trips we always you know use our our visa or our mastercard or whatever and then um you know we really don't have to pay for it out of our own pockets until about a month later and so it helps us gain interest in the bank that when we do it we come out a even a little bit ahead because we've been able to use whatever first off and then pay for it later oh yeah yeah even if it's five bucks even yeah and also if you if someone did happen to steal your credit card my husband was saying that if you know you notice it within i think it's twenty four hours you can report it in and i he said the most you'd ever have to pay is fifty dollars for them to cancel you know whatever payments you had and if whoever tried to uh you know credit it to the [hilt] you'd only have to pay fifty dollars of it and then you know you can have your card back with pretty good rating you know because you can pay fifty dollars but not you know maybe five thousand or whatever i know yeah exactly yeah sure i mean it's just a precaution for everybody yeah so um oh i also use like to use discover when i can because they give you some money back every year yeah yeah well we just started doing that and you know what it comes in handy for when you're buying things like um tickets for the train or um airplanes because they'll give you some money back you know and it's only a little bit but i mean it's still something we got two fifty last year and so it's you know it helps out here and there so yeah they give you i think they start giving you like a half a percent back which doesn't sound like a thing but when you you know when you add up everything you've you've charged up on the discover card for a year and they give you a half percent of that and that adds up to you know two fifty or something and so that's what and i know we're going to get back more this year because they you know we spent a little bit more probably and they do it for how long you've been a member i think too and they increase the percentage a little bit okay oh yes and i believe we all do and it's it's just too easy to use oh i believe that uh mine would say the same uh but uh i seem too rely on them too much um it uh you know i seem to uh use those more than i do cash in fact i'd rather carry the cards than i would the uh cash uh yes yes that's real easy to do i have to watch it in fact yeah uh we i can understand that [predicament] um they they've um you know they've made them too easy and too accessible at everything to to buy oh yes and then plus then you for end up forgetting to write it down oh uh_huh oh that's good oh yes yes uh and then then then that gets into a vicious circle as far as you know paying off the the loan that you just got from the credit card to pay off the other loan oh no um yeah the a t m's they're but they're nice though to have in case you need to get some quick cash and everything is closed oh that's the best way it's used that's the best way yes i think that sort of [evens] it out as far as uh letting them carry it so as long as they do buy us something and see there's no [secrecy] to that because the bill always comes in and we know how much they pay for it oh i have to open it you know they mine always charges the flowers so i can always end up saying oh you spent too much you know and so yeah oh those are fun you get started on them and can't quit just exactly oh it's it's real easy to get addicted to them you know you get out on a shopping frenzy and uh just charge it all and then you don't have to write a check or anything yeah there is a a fear to it as far as what happens if yeah oh yeah that's oh yeah there's that's a weakness there that's just you know you you always want to get your kids everything and uh you don't care how much it costs or what it takes uh_huh yeah that's uh i always end up going into wal mart and coming out with everything that uh i didn't have on the list we're just getting more than what we went in for uh_huh oh yeah it's dangerous uh_huh oh yeah it's just too easy to do you go in for just one thing we're we're [infamous] about that and so oh well yeah i well i'm i'm glad we have credit cards that's uh because in sometimes when there's an emergency it it comes in handy it's nice to have yeah we've yeah we've had uh a sick animal and uh the vet you know the dog and [vet's] are so expensive that uh we uh the credit card helped us a lot there too so we wouldn't do without them huh_uh no no i think it's become too much of an everyday life here they're a part of it the balance oh yes uh_huh so you know he can't spend too much yes uh_huh i was i was just uh oh well let's see i guess we've talked what almost five minutes oh i wish i had one of those oh did you see there you go oh your up in memphis oh your in texas oh okay i was going to go goodness they really got uh this out far yeah yeah i'm down in houston oh okay yeah uh_huh well oh this has been just great this was the first one i had uh_huh my husband did one last night and he just loved it he's been getting he got a real good topic and so well uh yeah i was just trying to think uh i think we've pretty much said it all yeah so uh but yeah uh_huh i think we couldn't make it without them uh_huh yeah yeah but uh we uh we try to keep uh uh tight controls over them but it it gets hard like especially around christmas time and birthdays oh goodness uh_huh uh_huh oh it gets rough that's hard get that cash advance uh_huh yeah it uh it but see it does come in handy those they do they're worth it so well i i think we've pretty much come to an end here i think it was at least five minutes wasn't it okay um do you have a credit card i know i've got one i did have two and the i found that um it just made me spend a little more so when i paid one of them off i got rid of it now i have two only have one um i don't know i always used to be the person that would put something on and pay the bill right out and now i've at every christmas it seems the last few [christmases] i used it for christmas and i'm still paying it off i don't know i consider myself pretty good but sometimes i can go out and i can i can over [overspend] my budget i guess i can afford it but it is it's a pain paying it off i don't i don't know um i had uh i have seven hundred dollars in mine now and i've saved up enough money where i'm going to bring it down to two hundred and hopefully i can keep it around there yeah i know a lot of people have i mean fifteen hundred dollars two thousand dollars but um i don't know i never i never liked loans a lot so i'm not a heavy credit card user i have a girl friend that she probably has two thousand dollars on couple credit cards so i know it's easy to do especially if you if you have a job where you have to buy nice clothes and things it it i think that is the biggest problem when you really not you don't don't really need the stuff but the nicer looking clothes are the more expensive nicely tailored clothes even though you could probably get away with a cotton dress you got to go out and buy the [rayon] dress or something you know you got to be they say you have to dress for success yeah how many credit cards do you have that's pretty good yeah my husband won't even put his name on it i don't believe in those it's like but the time we went to florida and needed to rent a car you know he believed in it you've got to have a credit card to rent a car yep that's up here at some if it's if you're not in your home town you have to show them a credit card well actually if your check [bounces] i guess they could legally take it off your credit card if that's why they're taking it i mean i don't know how fair that is but i don't know um yeah i guess that percentage rates are like eighteen percent yeah thirteen that's not bad yeah then you have to pay your fee and american express you're really it's not a credit card because you have to pay it off at the end of the month but the fee for that it's really expensive isn't it i've never had one oh that's good yeah if he they they they have you pay it right out every month yeah because it's uh i know especially if your uh your reimbursement didn't come through from your company because i know they i don't know why but you can use american express and they give you an [itemized] bill you can use that i don't know why you can't use other credit cards for business that way american express yep this is this is it actually kind a boring subject of credit cards you really you just know some people abuse them but not a joke about the person who pays their master card off with their visa i bet you there are people that do that people get a cash advance on one credit card to pay the other i think they charge more for cash advances so yeah you can't get cash advances oh oh well no uh it it think that's a really bad plan in your budgeting if you have to pay one card off with another oh eventually no it doesn't be solid for a couple of weeks then you get both bills back i know credit cards almost seem unfair to a person who's who's got a victim of impulse buying like unfair advertising or something huh_uh oh wow and we used to lose four percent on the credit card orders yeah it's it's the thing if if a business is taking a credit card they're they sacrificing something too it seems the credit card company makes money all the way around because it is a four percent that they take three or four percent i don't know which put you in better rating yep because when i used to go to the bank i used to take it off the deposit yeah you do have to take it off your deposit yeah so it is a a service that they're offering i i know should own stock there instead of these uh banks going that are [folding] but i wonder how much is numbers how many billions of dollars it's got to be billions of dollars yeah that's uh probably true i mean you have the principal debt the car loan and your house loan and then there's all the merchandise you buy on your credit cards [sheesh] maybe they don't yeah i know i had a girl friend she just got married out of college and the husband had [confiscate] her credit cards i mean i don't know it's probably they're always saying the women are doing are the spending ones but i haven't heard uh a single woman taking their credit card away from the man well i don't know i i definitely want to get up mine paid off month to month like i used to and just as soon as i get it paid off i'll probably get laid off all right i have some do you yes me too well i have uh we've got an american express which we got that on purpose so we could pay that off every month that way we we know our limit but then i also have department stores and um you know we keep a couple hundred dollars um if that much charged on those which isn't too bad it's just your normal you know getting clothes and stuff every once in awhile exactly uh_huh right yeah right just your visa yeah yeah i you know uh people always complain about american express saying not enough people take it but i've i've rarely found a place that wouldn't that wouldn't take it so that doesn't bother me luckily uh_huh oh does it sure that's true that's true that's that's real nice to that's true uh_huh paid back i know when we first got married we you know went and got all the credit cards and of course charged those puppies up and it's oh boy when those bills start coming in they want a lot of money when you sure kick them up there uh_huh uh_huh that's good uh_huh that's good i've noticed on the like the department stores they sure do hate it when you pay double payments you know it's like whoa wait a minute don't pay us too much you know and they drop it your balance uh they drop your monthly payment down low because they want that interest to build up so that's what i normally try to do if it's pretty low i try to make a couple payments at a time and get it down quicker but they're easy to use no have you uh_huh i don't understand how they do that right but they say you can't be turned down and i don't understand how they can uh_huh oh i see sure they've got your money already well gosh well that's darn easy then i wouldn't turn you down either i'll give you one huh no i haven't attempted that i'm satisfied with what we have right now and we do have a gas credit card and we use that uh_huh right that's true that's true well we uh my husband always usually always pays with cash but i never seem to have cash or at least not enough you know to fill a tank up so i always almost always use my credit card on that on that and then it's you do tend to pay more for gas but other than that it's it's a good deal i think yeah i saw that exactly but they won't they won't charge i saw that advertised too that's a good deal but it's real it's real convenient for me i i just like being able to go in and do that and and it's like american express you have to pay it off at the end of the month so it's not going to go up too high so it's good for emergencies that's what we do on sure we always use especially on trips you know we just charge all our gas that saves us spending it or [shelling] out the cash right then uh_huh right yeah oh yeah yeah i know and isn't that terrible and save all that money um well do you think we've okay well thanks for talking [scarily] very very very seldom only in dire emergencies in fact i leave them home i have never uh i've used them but never to the extent of getting in debt like uh some people do it's just that since my money is tight right now i don't even give myself a tempting because i've gotten them all paid off so now i just wait before i use it but uh like i'll keep one minor one like sears in my purse just for identification purposes because i won't use it period i'll use uh visa but otherwise huh_uh never never uh_huh check very seldom would i even use cash uh_huh how about you see that's exactly i didn't get in debt but what i did was one year oh i can't remember when five six must be eight nine years ago when i paid my taxes i realized that i had ran up so much on my credit card that i was paying interest that was ridiculous i mean sure it was the tax write off but there was no sense to it i mean there was no sense at all to it i was paying more interest on that card than the card was worth as far as i could tell so at that point there we just stepped right on you know just saving all the way in and i'll turn around like on my car i'll borrow against my insurance which i pay five percent interest and buy my car that way and that works so i don't have to worry about it but i use uh [override] at uh [texin] credit union so that i don't have to keep too much i keep enough balance in my checking account so that i don't have to pay you know a service charge and then i yeah if i write a check real large it'll go ahead and pull it out of my savings account so i don't have to you know worry about it one way of the other and i just keep that minimum balance in there so it just you know and i pretty much budget that way all the way around but as i said my money's tight right now yeah there's no charge for it so i do it that way but i do as i said i keep the credit card in my purse for identification when somebody wants identification one way of the other but usually i won't put anything on that card unless it's something i really unbelievably need otherwise i'd better have it somewhere else because i'm like you i'm not going to have a balance on that thing because it's too easy i know too many people that pay off that well i've got this credit card well maybe i'd better use that one or something like that and i'm saying huh_uh not me well it's like um the little piece of plastic for uh to get your money out or the credit union all you have to do is put it in the machine one way or the other and like i'll run down there like you know for vacation and things like that and i'll leave it in there in savings account until last day and then i'll put the card in and pull it out what i want but i'll pull it out of savings because i don't keep any balance in the checking but that's still that's easy enough as it is but i wouldn't use the machine to pay fifty cents or a dollar for it i won't even go that far um but i'm like you if there's something really that i wanted i'll write to them before i'll put the credit card call in though i won't put it on the card unless i really i'll take write them uh check for it because it wastes too much time on the credit card and i'm kind of i'm leery about things going on my card because i've had you know had to go back and return something and it took so long to get it off and that was years ago so i'm having real good luck with a credit card i mean it came off there's no problem but it just takes too much you know scares me and like tom [thumb's] got uh credit card now they used for groceries yeah over here in in plano uh_huh and you can charge your groceries on it and uh you can either charge your groceries on it you have a choice or you can write a check and they it that way so you don't have to keep going and get it you know credit check and things like that and they'll give you an extra twenty five dollars no charge or anything else like that but i won't even put that on groceries because hey what happens if the clerk marks in an extra number or something like that and i don't check it no thank you i don't want anything going on my you know in my checking account unless it's i know about it but do you like discover card i hadn't heard too much about it uh_huh well credit cards um i would think they are wonderful but uh i think you have to have a lot of restraint uh i have never been in trouble with credit cards but uh my youngest daughter is and a friend of mine is and i think it is terrible that they can uh you know wipe out a max in uh such a short time uh i never pay interest charges i value my money too much to uh line somebody else's pockets with my money and i always uh pay it off before uh i am charged any interest on my balance never uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right you really have to show a lot of restraint but if you look at if you look at the time frame on that uh you will find that you have about six or seven weeks before you have to make that payment back to the credit card company without being charged any interest that is correct yeah you uh_huh your budget has to be so that you can uh you know [summarize] what your balance is going to be at a particular time and i can do that that is right well that is what the you know that is what that is what it is geared for advertisement you know is uh to [whet] you appetite and give you that oh i've got to have that i can't live without that and that is the image that the younger generation has you know uh_huh on that who was that that could is that a department store oh okay that is probably no it is not in uh in dallas huh_uh no we we have dillard's and uh [sanger] harris and [macy's] and [neiman] [marcus] and things like that and i am sure that they probably would not have a problem either well self yeah self control though is the key uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh dear uh_huh uh_huh wow sure well experience is the best teacher and sometimes you know uh a lot of us have have to learn by experience and and uh if you can learn by someone's else's past mistakes then you are very wise if you can heed to advice given that is true yes i am yeah uh_huh uh_huh sure oh credit cards are you know really a blessing uh but you have to be wise when you use them and uh i have nothing against them other than you know people abusing it and then they get themselves in hot water and you know they are just hurting theirselves and when you uh have a bankruptcy it takes you i think about eight years to wipe that off your record and so you know that is the shame about that is uh and people won't touch you and you have got to live that down so you have to be very cautious about how you use your credit i mean it is a wonderful thing but do not abuse it oh absolutely sure uh_huh sure that is right well there is a lot of people that uh know exactly what they are doing and they will run into thousands and thousands of dollars into debt and they will deliberately do this so that they can go into bankruptcy and they they have a way of uh [diverting] all of the things that they have bought and put it like in hiding no i have heard uh uh there was a radio program in dallas that we listen to and i well it in fact it is nationwide and i was shocked at some of the stories that came out of that uh program about these people that really you know they bought all these wonderful things and then they went bankrupt and they knew that yes they knew that they were going to do that and they just uh_huh and uh they said you know it was worth the uh jeopardizing their credit for that amount of time because they still had the stuff you know and they could write it off you know they can only uh be responsible for a certain percent and not the full uh amount that they owed and i do not know who uh determines uh the percentage rate that they have to repay but it is not surely what they are were indebted for uh_huh so it it they use it as a scam instead of uh to me they were criminals and they used that in a in a really bad situation and that has kind of [snowballed] i guess around so i do not know maybe the courts and lawyers are working on that to you know cover all the loopholes that might exist but i have never been in that situation and hope i never have to be okay no i can't think of anything i am sure that we have not covered everything because that is uh that is a great big uh a ball uh credit i can't think of anything right now well listen thank you for calling and you have a good day um no not really we use gas cards more than anything uh basically convenience uh which led to habit i guess oh really yeah we don't we don't ever we don't carry a whole lot of cash with us so we use the the gas cards because our families are both out of town and like when we travel and stuff we use the gas cards yeah yeah and then we have uh an american express that's through t i that steve uses just for t i stuff yes yes a lot probably the uh uh if there's a premium each year and the uh the a p r and there's it's it's kind of hard to beat t i and so you know usually we just trash it tear it up and trash it and most of the time it goes [unopened] we just yeah if if that much they're thirteen something but i'm not sure if it's i think it's a flat thirteen right now yeah yeah and then you're then you're if you're that lucky you get to pay them another twenty five bucks a year just to be that [privileged] to get twenty one percent a year yeah yeah yeah that would that would help a lot i i'm not even sure why i mean the purpose of an annual fee i'm not really well i guess so because it's not any more [prestigious] to have to pay it as far as getting another card where you don't you know oh really yeah have ten percent off if you got to use that credit card yeah that yeah right i did that with my husband uh he was off working at t i in austin one day and so i went out to the mall to kind of look around and hit mervyn's and found some stuff after christmas on sale and ended up getting fifteen percent off already off of it already whatever it was lower and i think that's the only card i have that's you know recently is gotten a mervyn's card and i used it for i think for the first time when i was in houston this weekend and i have i've had it for months yeah yeah i don't i don't like it a whole lot either uh yeah yeah yeah i never understood how people could i mean there are some people who say well i can't charge it it's at it's limit and i thought [gol] how can you charge a credit card to its limit it just it just i guess it's that that you know lack of discipline when you have a piece of plastic that says pay later you know yeah and i just it's the yeah it just worry about it tomorrow yeah and it just i don't i don't really go for them and i in fact i had my own before we got married and ended up cutting them up just for the fact that t i had lower rates you know and decided and i mean when i tried to close with chase manhattan it was just like pulling teeth i mean i couldn't close they'd send me a statement every little this is your new you know balance with bonus points or whatever you know and it's like look i closed this months ago and i don't want any more of your letters i don't want anything and well you have a credit balance well send me a check you know yeah yeah yeah yeah they do but we we were in in that same boat a couple of years ago and they had said well just list your major ones and the balance still owed on it you know or give it a balance still owed on it and that's all we did right right yeah and it's like well who are you to approve something for me without my permission anyway but i think um i think what you can do as far as i don't think as many companies when you are a good customer i don't think they report that as much as they should their [delinquent] customers because a lot of times you have to write and ask them to report it to the credit bureau so that you look like you have good credit as far as you know paying off you know your cards early or on time or whatever that usually doesn't happen unless i've heard people say well you have to write to ask that and i say well you know if someone's so quick to turn you over because you're thirty days late i think they they should do do that more often what do you think about that uh discover card oh really the dollar you didn't cash oh oh well i was wondering how that that worked because it's like you know we'll pay you for i'm going wait a minute you know yeah we don't we wouldn't even have one if it wasn't for t i and steve's traveling we just you know the topic today is credit cards uh why don't you go ahead and tell me some uh some of your favorite uses for a credit card if if it all that supplies okay well i wish i was in your shoes pat i uh i was i was in pretty much control of my credit cards up until the point where we moved down here from south dakota and then uh it took my wife and i about two months to find a job so in that interim everything went on the credit card and uh so now we're slowly trying to pay it off and if i would i just keep thinking if i would have just been able to take that money and put it in a savings account instead of right i'd be i you know i'd i'd be doing all right today but no i've got those darn credit card bills hanging over my head right well that's uh that's always a possibility um okay okay well i uh while we were doing like i said we were doing all right you know we'd put gas occasionally go out to eat or pick up a small gift or something you know some clothes or something but and we could always pay it off when when the bill came and when we moved down here and everything was going on the credit card i think we we got a little rampant we you know went out to eat out everything and you know we we would have to go to wet and wild and we had to basically play tourists the first the first month that we were here and of course everybody takes credit cards so it got uh it got way out of hand but [thankfully] we're we're now working to pay them off and and we haven't put anything on them in a couple months it can it sure can well what uh what do you find are some of the best advantages of credit cards uh_huh that's true right right that's right you can you certainly can well i understand that you know you can't even rent a car hardly or uh get an airplane ticket without a credit card it's right well even if you have cash it's hard to if you're under twenty five and you you have cash you still can't get still can't rent a car you have to have a credit card and that uh i don't know okay you work with t i then okay well you don't speaking of cash you don't get the five dollars for the phone call you you get the gift part isn't that how that worked if you're a t i employee well that's all right that's that's an interesting incentive we uh we wanted to do it because we weren't from the south and i think we would we'd be able to well not yeah exactly you know get get to i still have a hard time uh understanding some people's accent you know i i can't i just can't understand what they're saying but yeah there are okay where are you originally from los angeles boy there's a change i suppose it's about as cold there as it is here now well what's life in l a like okay a lot of crime and seems to me you know i couldn't understand why it would be such a heavily populated area if there's so much crime so much smog so much traffic this is a kind of ironic subject for me because this is the first year um i purchased i mean i i was actually able to uh get some credit cards because i'm twenty one and i got it through school uh and i i've kind of you know you kind of make a purchase and you and you forget you know what you put on your credit card and you know within a month you know they send you a bill and uh i'm about three thousand dollars in debt right now yeah they do i mean it's amazing it's like a an an illness or a sickness or something uh_huh yeah christmas time i can understand but what my after i got one i didn't just stop i got i've got about five six six credit cards yeah and uh so i just charged a little on each and uh and you just get the um the adding machine out and you add it up and it's it's amazing uh_huh we went to we went on vacation and uh and i charged a lot you know just well i charged um like clothes for the vacation and then on the vacation you know charged our hotel and then you know when you go out to eat you charge food i mean you know it's so convenient and you just don't i guess i'm just really stupid i just didn't realize uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah i have a friend that um she's married and her and her husband uh she said you know they tried really hard to pay them off and it took them three years before they were able to uh pay off their credit cards uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah i think it was hard for me because i wasn't working at the time and i was just going to school and like every weekend i would just it was just and go out and just spend uh but yeah um i have a discover and a visa a sears and i have like most of the department stores yeah i have um i have maxed that one yeah it is and i got the sears through the discover before i had um and i didn't even know i went over my limit i mean that's i just didn't even add it up i don't know i was just going crazy and there's about fourteen hundred dollars on that card uh_huh i wouldn't do that i would not do that i've seen on t v well my view i work for a financial institution and yeah and i love my credit card uh you end up with more consumer rights by using credit cards than uh what i mean is say you pay for something with a check your check clears you're out the bucks you pay for something with a credit card you are dissatisfied with it you take it back and they say sorry we you can't take it back if you know you can leave it there and then just have your visa charge back get your money back visa well that's the kind we offer and uh we're just offering a a new card that gives you up to one percent back of all the charges that you make cash back you know like [discovers] and we're starting to do that we are uh we do america first credit union yeah did you get much back well good for you that must mean and it's one percent so you spend about five thousand that's pretty good well i i do better than that everything goes on mine and then i've got a business too that i use it for charging computers on it is nice yep well how many cards have you got uh_huh uh_huh a debit card i don't like those oh really that's interesting uh_huh with a debit card oh credit oh okay yes is it twenty percent interest wow our [card's] thirteen and a half with a ten dollar annual fee well you have to be a member of our credit union america first it's we're the yeah yeah you have to a resident of this state uh do you have mervyn's and all those have you noticed that they all have started [issuing] their own credit cards what do you think of uh sears not taking any one but theirs yeah do you like that or do you think that's fair or oh yeah it's theirs this is jay in dallas how you good where you from oh okay so right that'd be great go ahead yeah that's right i i think that's what happened to everybody out they gets back when they just sent them to you without any i've got i don't know how many tons of them but uh i use uh this one particular one for everything i mean everything i buy including groceries and it runs up pretty high every month but then i pay it off because i get a air uh advantage miles on american with it so i i can get a you know i've already gotten a free trip just from using that card so i don't uh i don't have any carry over balances any more but i just i was wiped out there for years but that was the way to do stuff and uh i think you have to make the decision but um texas is uh you know it's a [debtor] state and if you get in too big of a trap you you can just blow them off and that's not good but i know a lot of people do it that's what runs that interest rate up you know pretty high yeah uh_huh yeah well it's uh the interest rates are still crazy up there you know and they've come down except the credit cards so it's not uh it's not really an advantage to have them now they uh some of mine i think up over twenty percent i don't use them any more but i think they've gone over twenty percent a year and some of them you know i think the one i'm using is about fifteen but i don't use the interest any more so it doesn't make any difference and then when i travel i travel a lot in europe i use diners club and that gets all my um uh insurance on rental cars and of course they have a pretty good uh uh plan on the gifts and things like that i try to get something out of them now so right absolutely there's no use paying that fifty or whatever it is a a a year oh sure um personally my my next project i think is to take those that i do have and cut them up that i'm not using uh especially the ones that don't that there's a working asset to these that gives a lot of money to um the environment and things like that that's my second here but i've got one [cigna] visa that doesn't give you a damn thing so uh i think i'll cut it up this year for my new year's resolution i've got a lot of um gasoline credit cards that i don't any more because they take all the others so i might as well pitch them i mean it's just weight carrying it in your pocket absolutely yeah oh yeah you can i was absolutely uh i r s checked me one time and they said nobody in the world could have paid this much interest and i said well i'm glad you mentioned that because i've got receipts for all that but you know something else i couldn't have proven but uh that was i'm not young any more so i uh took a long time to learn but a lot of young people do get trapped on it it's easy you know you don't have any money and yeah oh sure and they got all those late charges now and stuff they didn't used to have and if you go over the limit there's a charge i mean they're they're really starting to hit you know a lot harder than they used to they they you use credit cards do you uh_huh i see what is the advantage then of a gold card because um you don't pay any interest if you have a regular mastercard or visa i see i see we use to get the american express card and stuff like that and then we just kind of got back to plain old mastercard and visa uh because we never really had any um benefit that we thought was worth the the price of the special card so it may change if we do a lot of car rental which we don't do or other types of services i'm sure there're some things that come along with the gold cards that are appealing and and uh i've just wondered what they were they haven't been appealing to us so far yeah that you know i think that was my original appeal uh i was i was in my twenties and the american express card really appeals to people on that basis of of you know you've arrived you've got this card and uh you know it got to what fifty five dollars a year or something like that and my wife said well this is ridiculous why are we doing this and uh so we stopped doing it and we refused to pay i don't know whether you know this but my wife discovered this we started to refuse to pay our banks an annual fee for the that for the visa and mastercard and they said fine we'll give it to you anyway and we said you know we're uh we're not interested in your card any more and they said well wait a minute is it the price and we said yeah so well we won't charge you any more you know and they used to charge what eighteen dollars a year or something like that twelve dollars something like that so they're wonderful i mean i think credit cards are great we use it to get cash uh you know you can use it now in the safeway out here in san francisco and it's wonderful in that respect and we're glad to have them we we yeah it's great you know and it eventually what we're going to go to is nothing but these kinds of cards and it'll be mastercard visa and and american express i don't think the discover [card's] going to make it in the long term um you know we don't need to many cards and the american express will probably survive but it'll have to become more like these other ones and become cheaper i think if the price will come down i don't think it's worth fifty five bucks a year when you can use the visa or the mastercard everywhere in the world and they're pitching that in all their commercials i notice yeah yeah well that's that's interesting i can see why because then they get some sort of advantage in terms of the conversion fee probably right well and it's going to come that way and the reason it's nice is because basically what it does is put you electronically in touch with your financial resources anywhere in the world and that's where we're headed the technology supports that nicely and uh it makes more sense than than that because you have a card and if you have insurance which we have had on the card you uh can have you lose it stolen and you don't get uh anything charged to you and that's great it's just insurance we're very responsible with our cards but nonetheless if we lost them it'd be great to know we didn't have to pay five hundred dollars or whatever uh on the cards we look for the low rate we have u s a a cards you know u s a a um i use them carefully i guess um i uh i usually don't i usually use them to consolidate billing uh for convenience sakes but i usually just pay them off at the end of the month i don't i don't avoid the finance charges uh as high as they are i don't uh don't you know i don't let them carry over you know i i've been lucky i guess i haven't had a bills big enough where i couldn't pay them off at the end of the month but uh i try to try to live within a budget you know and so i keep that in mind i just don't you know i guess it takes self restraint when you have a credit card to know that that there's you really have to pay these things off plus a lot more you know and you got to realize that there's only this much money in the bank and if you're going to live you know if you're not going to try to you know say well pay it off sometime in the future uh_huh right well some people a rip theirs up just because they you know they can't resist them right right uh_huh right i use them to float sometimes if it's near the end of the month and you know and you know i don't have a check coming in a few days i'll go ahead and and charge it knowing that the money will be there by the time the bill comes uh_huh right you know we go out to eat a lot of times i don't like to carry a lot of cash with me yeah i have so i just carry my credit card and and answer things like that as long as i know you know that i'm i'm not over doing it it's uh and yeah i have i have what i have two credit cards that's all i use i'm always getting stuff in the mail all the time you are a preferred such and such and you are you're already approved oh sometimes they just send them to you and say here have a credit card i have that one yeah i just ripped i just cut it up and threw it away but you know they had already is that right huh i didn't know that that you didn't want is that right huh that's right that's right they could they can make your life miserable if they want to is that right we don't have too many exxon stations out this way we've got lots of mobile [mobiles] are big and we have a few exxon we've got some other ones like [citgo] yeah is a is a one yeah got some shell stations a few texaco stations uh_huh right and there's another local one i can't i can't remember what there's some few [sinclair] stations yeah the few with the green dinosaur they're they're they're [logo] yeah there's not that many down here but you know once once in a while you'll see one i guess they're still in business yeah yeah you ever you ever gotten in trouble with your credit card where they they've charged charged you for something you didn't didn't didn't purchase yeah i have uh_huh uh_huh right right from someone saying uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh somebody blew it right right do you have the discover card neither do i they they i don't know i don't know how anybody can fall into this you get cash back and buy into that because all they're giving you back is a little bit of the interest you paid in yeah their interest right their interest [rate's] twenty two percent higher than any other ones and then they said that we'll give you back some of your money how about like right it it's a rip off but a lot of people think it's wonderful i guess said they're they're doing well everything i've read they've been getting a more market share i guess they're they're advertising and [promotions] and i guess so yeah uh_huh yeah i have a on my credit cards i have a grace period if i pay it off within when the bill comes i i don't have to owe any interest and uh right uh_huh uh_huh yeah once in a while uh my i have an american express they have visa in a buyer protection thing where uh they extend the warranty so uh they both can be nice around christmas time and stuff if you're going to buy a t v or uh or uh electronic then and everything huh uh_huh he pays for that yeah a couple hundred bucks probably for that like hike high in card well if you have the money i guess get what you pay for huh for that little right yeah uh_huh right right right uh_huh yeah a lot of people do that for a living i guess trade money uh_huh uh_huh huh right the other check went through made a little extra money there huh uh_huh none at all huh i see yeah has it uh_huh uh_huh yeah that that's what we we got rid of an american express card for the same reason though we have a a credit union and we get our cards our other mastercards for free so we don't have to pay a a fee at all and that's i i know people who don't have any credit cards at all and i'm always amazed because i don't know how they can get by without them it doesn't seem like you can do anything anymore without a credit card uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah i like um too with with us we've got insurance of course but husband's work but by the time like two weeks ago we all got sick all four us and one kid had to go to the doctor twice and then all the other the rest of us did and he was like six hundred dollars yeah and it was we were we all had it was a [viral] pneumonia it was really bad and and we were just horribly sick but i mean six hundred dollars i can't come up with but um yeah all the doctors here will take a visa so that and you know go to k mart and use the pharmacy to pay for the uh medicines and then turn it all into the insurance company and wait for it to come back you know and so our part of it was still twenty percent but twenty percent i can payoff in one month or as you know then i got to wait for the the rest of it to come back from aetna but it basically floats you know during the the time because we've got a thirty day grace period on the credit card as long as you pay it you know within that time and that's usually enough time for the insurance to get back i try to make that our biggest use of credit cards i know people who are so in debt people who have five visa cards you know it's like why did you go get they charged up one so then they but they were still paying their minimum so their credit rating was still good and and you would you know they get this in the mail say oh well we can't use that one anymore we'll just get another one and that's like who you oh yeah uh_huh oh yeah but that's that's a good way to make a big problem in your marriage real quick gosh that's just dishonest oh well maybe maybe they'll be all right i know in mine if i did something like that and then my husband found out jeez he would just be well i think i would feel the same way i'd i'd really feel like i'd been [deceived] you know that that wasn't the thing to do uh_huh um yeah we've tried to do that we've paid ours off you know all the way down to where we had everything down to zero and especially right before i i quit work two years ago to stay home with the kids and right and before i left we had everything paid off we were in great shape we were putting money you know because we were both working we were finally putting money in but we've gone back the other way to some extent because just because there are times when you just can't pay it all because there are just too many bills yeah uh_huh oh isn't that silly i i sent that one back because we had used it for a year and we had used a thousand dollars worth during the year and what we and i think we got back fifty cents or something it was like please what is this this is and the interest rate on it was was eighteen or nineteen percent and our visa card was we could get through our credit union was like fourteen percent so we just we sent it back we we keep gas credit cards and we have visa and then i have started my own business i have a photography business and i went ahead and got a separate visa just for that photography business because there are things that i have to buy and and with my when i when i take things to the lab to get developed it's several hundred dollars at a time and i was using up all of our personal credit with my photography business even though again it's paying off every month because i'm i'm putting everything i'm i'm uh you know i'm getting the pictures and i'm taking them back so the people already have their money but i wasn't [depositing] them until i gave them the pictures back another practice i found i'm going to have to stop hot checks you wouldn't think for a for a twelve dollar school picture that uh that people would write a hot check but they do i guess it's just you know and when i think about that this this particular lady who wrote me a check for twelve dollars and it bounced and i sent it through you know sent it through the check through the bank once and she [incurred] at least a fifteen dollar fee for a returned check so now she's already doubled the price of her check and i've sent it through a second time because they said there's money in the account now you know and and if it doesn't go through the second time that woman's out thirty bucks for one twelve dollar check gosh yeah he's going to have a debt going out the year uh_huh uh uh_huh well we have a lot of mobile stations around here and i used to use that card almost exclusively but now they're charging the extra five cents to use your credit card and texaco and [chevron] and somebody else is not anymore they'll take it you know at the cash price or you they'll now let you write a check if you have their card so you pay for it immediately instead of um you know putting it off for a month what's that writing a check for gas well all of them down down here you had a cash price for gasoline and a credit card price right that's that's the uh_huh right and and they've changed that now now stop it go play and leave me alone yeah and so i'm using the other ones now because they're just as easy to get to and then they're nickel a gallon cheaper so yeah we try not to we're probably the only two people in the united states the banks don't want to hear from us because they want those people who charge it up to ten thousand dollars and and then get all yeah and then pay fifty dollars a month and it all goes to interest oh i guess they must they must make a ton there's not too many places you can make eighteen percent interest on things anymore that's what we need see you and i need to get in the credit card business we need to start our own credit card if you can yeah because you sure can't get that interest anyway else oh yeah ours are like seven percent we've got one and with with i r a stuff in it and uh jeez you can't get any interest rates my folks have just retired just in the last couple of months my dad has and uh they're trying to figure out you know what they're doing with stuff and my mom's in there cutting up the credit cards you know can't use these anymore i got rid of mine about uh-oh it's been about four years ago now and uh went on a strictly cash basis and sometimes it's inconvenient but it is so much better for me because i i am the type that will always find an emergency but i have found that there were so many things that with a credit card i really did need and with cash once you know it took me probably two years to get on a cash basis when i stopped charging but once once i did you know it it only takes me two or three months to be able to save up what i want to buy and i'm not paying the high interest rates because it's so easy you know you have these wonderful intentions of well i'll just pay off the whole balance and then i won't owe any and then something comes up you know and well i'll just pay the minimum well you just do that forever no you're paying the interest you know i've i've thought about going ahead and getting something like american express where you have to pay within thirty days right and just for i d purposes but it's become such a way of life and like see it was so convenient and then pretty soon you get a [consolidation] loan to consolidate all your credit cards and then they send you another credit card right so i've i just finally figured out that for my way of life i did much better and i've i've been able to buy as much or more by just going cash and like i say it was tough because it's a really it's a habit or you know you'll think okay i've got x amount to spend this month and then somebody has a birthday or get they get married or something that well i'll just put this one thing on it well you don't do that once you start you know you're going to have a bill coming in anyway right and i i just you know for for me it was a trap that was too easy for me to get into uh_huh well you know there are times when you know it is but i i've been laid off twice in the last four years and had i had a lot of credit cards i well you know it it really helped that i didn't have that to pay for but in the other [vain] had i had them i would have lived on them right and uh this way you know i i made do and uh when i was you know employed then i didn't have all that that i had to go back and say well i've got ten thousand dollars worth of credit cards to pay off now it really you know with the first like i say it took me over two years to pay mine off but the first time you know that i could go out and make a major purchase okay uh first um i need to know uh how do you feel about uh about sending uh an elderly uh family member to a nursing home yes yeah uh_huh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah probably the hardest thing in in my family uh my grandmother she had to be put in a nursing home and um she had used the walker for for quite some time probably about six to nine months and um she had a fall and uh finally uh she had [parkinson's] disease and it got so much that she could not take care of her house then she lived in an apartment and uh that was even harder actually because it was you know it was just a change of change of location and it was very disturbing for her because she had been so used to traveling i mean she she had she had children all across the united states and you know she spent nine months out of the year just visiting her children and um that was pretty heart [rending] for her i think when she finally came to the [realization] that you know no i cannot i cannot take care of myself yeah i mean for somebody who is you know for most of their life has has uh not just merely had a farm but had ten children had a farm ran everything because her husband was away in the coal mines and you know facing that situation it's it's quite a dilemma i think yeah well my uh my uh probably one of the biggest decisions i think that was very strengthening for our family was rather than have one child make that decision than just [delegate] it i think that they they had a great deal of um all the brothers and sisters got together and they actually had a conference and i mean it was just it was probably one of the most strengthening things for our family getting down together and doing that and and just the children were involved in the decision because it involved just them and you know making that decision and then finding a place and everybody had duties to perform you know whether it was just you know giving money or whether it was actually taking part in a lot of the decision making you know like finding a proper nursing home and they i know they and well they had well they had they had seen it coming so so i mean it i mean i i i i i i truly wish that if something like that were to happen that my children would do something like that for me yeah yeah well we we yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh um yeah yeah well with my with my grandmother i think it was it was such that uh that she did not have the problem with she was very well aware and her daughter came and visited her at least her daughter came and visited her and also her several grandchildren came and visited her every day and i think that when she passed away it was probably one of the greatest um i i i think it would be it was more of a relief for her and um i mean but she was truly she was truly aware i mean i i i i don't know how i would how i would deal if one of my parents came with with alzheimer's or something like that which is which is far more devastating and um i i i think that what one thing that they were concerned probably was the fact it wasn't necessarily you know like the quantity of care but the quality of care that the people that worked there were very were very interested that to make it as close a home environment as possible i think i think i think you know for myself i i see that as probably the the what everything would [hinge] upon is it how close is it to a home environment that's the that's probably the major question yeah yeah yeah you know it's it's interesting that that a lot the population of the united states is changing because you know uh now that so many more minorities where they have had extended families for such a long time um matter of fact in the united states we used to have extended families it wasn't but i guess as we become more [industrialized] and more you know less in a rural situation we we don't we we we choose not to deal with the extended family because we feel it's kind of cumbersome when in reality it makes things much much easier uh yeah yeah i i i think that perhaps perhaps the extended family you know that it maybe one of the solutions to a lot of things even child care you know i mean of course there there comes other issues you know whether or not any of the grandparents whether we feel like are going to be a good they're going to be a good caretaker for our children but i mean they raised us after all yeah but uh i i i think that you know we always uh i mean i've i've had a lot of good experiences with uh with many many people especially where they've had uh extended family and i and i i kind of see that that you know perhaps you know we may need to like get close to the family environment and and get down to the values of you know i mean uh it's money seems to be too big of an issue with with with with what's going on today and i i think i think that we may not that may be you know perhaps if we put money on the back burner that may that may choose to alleviate a lot of the problem i mean i mean we may not we may not have as high a standard of living but the but actually have a [truer] standard of living yeah yeah yeah okay well i guess that was it okay all right hey bye bye well of course it's you know it's one of the last few things in the world you'd ever want to do you know unless it's just you know really you know and uh for their uh you know for their own good i'd be very very careful and uh you know checking them out uh our had place my mother in a nursing home she had a rather massive stroke about uh about uh eight months ago i guess and uh we were i was fortunate in that i was personally acquainted with the uh people who uh ran the nursing home in our little hometown so i was very comfortable you know in doing it when it got to the point that we had to do it but there's well i had an occasion for my mother in law who had fell and needed to be you know could not take care of herself anymore was confined to a nursing home for a while that was really not a very good experience uh it had to be done in a hurry i mean we didn't have you know like six months to check all of these places out and it was really not not very good uh deal we were not really happy with nursing home that we finally had fortunately she only had to stay a few weeks and she was able to to return to her apartment again but it's really a big uh big uh decision as to you know when to do it you know is there something else we could have done you know in checking out all the places that uh might be available of course you know there's not one on every corner especially you know smaller areas smaller towns oh right uh_huh uh_huh yes uh_huh right uh_huh i can imagine uh_huh that's tough that's tough uh_huh uh_huh yes my mother excuse me go ahead uh_huh that's great that's right right yeah uh_huh uh_huh yep you were very fortunate uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh absolutely unfortunately a lot of times it responsibilities like that seem to fall to you know maybe one child in the whole family you know and uh it's usually not a very smooth smooth thing we were i was lucky too that i only have one brother and uh fortunately we agreed you know on exactly you know what we thought should be done my mother also was very very independent she had her own still had her own little house and still driving her own car at age eighty three we were lucky in that in one respect in that after she had her stroke she wasn't really you know really much aware of what was going on that nursing home life would not have been you know anything of her choosing of course she would she would not have been happy there at all but as it turned out the stroke took care of that concern for us uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that's great uh_huh sure uh_huh that would be tough yes absolutely uh_huh yes right uh_huh uh_huh yes it would oh yes that's right i think that great strides are being made nowadays in in caring for the elderly you know in several in a in a whole lot of areas just people are of course populations getting older uh_huh uh_huh true yes um uh_huh uh_huh that's right sure absolutely and people things are scattered so much nowadays yes yes just because they're grandparents yeah just because they're grandparents that doesn't automatically make them a good child [carer] uh_huh oh yeah sure realistically it is uh_huh that would certainly help uh_huh right that's just a matter of [defining] priorities i guess or some priorities anyway i think your right okay it was good talking to you yeah take care bye bye okay so what do you think about it should uh_huh right yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yes um it's it's funny because um i know people at that are in all three and people that work you know i know someone that works in all three different stages like you said and i have known you know people close to me that have been in all three and i have seen them like go from where they're in an apartment building they we call it um well we have high [rises] and it's just for elderly people you know or most of most of one of their spouses has already passed away and it's really nice for them because then they're with people their own age and people that have gone through things exactly what they have gone through and it's it's really nice to go and see them you know where they can still get around and everything and they still you know do their own thing but it's it's really nice to see them because i mean sometimes like i had a great aunt she lived with us for um three months and because she's starting to get alzheimer's disease and i know i have a bunch of younger brothers and sisters and i know it was hard for me as well as it was for them to to actually sit down because she doesn't like doing things that the younger kids like doing and to actually sit so it's really nice to see that uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah um i'm in college and i'm i'm only twenty one but we had a i had a speech class last semester and there was a girl in my class who did a speech on home care of the elderly and i was so surprised to hear how many people like whenever they're in you know the older people they're like um [fastened] to their beds so they can't get out just because they you know they wander the halls and they get the wrong medicine just because you know the the aides or whoever just give them the wrong medicine and so many of them you know are yes and it was it was awful to hear what you know what some of these people really went through and i forget the percentage of people that you know that she had said and this was i mean she did research on it and everything uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh i know and and sometimes they share a room and it's just a little [cubbyhole] and they share it with another person and they're still paying that much it it it just sometimes it just seems ridiculous uh_huh uh_huh yeah um i've been lucky well my mom's um parents they're both in their in their uh eighties and i was just home for spring break and my grandma said something to me about she goes well maybe we'll just sell the house she said it's getting too big for us to take care of and i was like no no no stay in the house as long as you can uh_huh oh uh_huh it sounds like uh an apartment or oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh oh really see now we've run into a lot of problems where our relatives were well i've lived here for thirty years and we've built this and this is our home and we have nothing else to show for our lives and we don't want to leave uh we've run into a lot of that uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah that's what like well um now i know we have an we call it an old folks home but it's basically a nursing home too but everyone has basically their own room and they're you know none of them have cars because they can't drive but if someone would come to get them you know they're allowed to leave with them and there's a staff there that makes supper for them and each person has a chore like maybe wednesday night it's [george's] turn to set all the tables and it's really nice because that keeps them going too rather than just sitting around and i know um our youth group goes over and we play bingo with them and you know like stuff like that uh_huh yeah just to keep them going uh_huh yeah uh_huh but i think before like you i don't think i don't think it's right to just put someone in it i think they would have to agree to go in it well yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh okay um i like the idea of nursing homes as a as a growing the choices you have in nursing homes now whereas used to you used to have only you put you know when when people got to the point where they were [debilitated] and couldn't take care of themselves and there was no other choice you couldn't take them in your own home then they went into a nursing home you know maybe you lived too far away to care for them or your daily job or whatever prevented it but um i like the choices you have now where they can go into an apartment type setting and have some basically have a independent life style but [assisted] care and then if things deteriorate they can go to a second level which is you know like where they prepare their meals for them and and they still live somewhat independently but they have people checking on them and making sure they have hot meals and then where the same community a lot of times will also have the third level which is full care you know where some people can't where they're in a wheelchair or where they're in a bed and they can't get around but then they have full care but i really like those those options now and and i think about it more often because my husband's parents are they're very active right now but they're seventy five and and seventy two so that comes up somewhat more often in my thoughts as i see these things because of their age uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right yeah that's some of the things i would find important before i i would look into that for a person is is is like you're saying a good mix of people who have the same interests and uh and the programs here they have different uh besides just different levels within the same program they have different types of programs they have several areas they have one area in town where the people i guess a lot of it comes with money i this this one area is a bit more expensive and the people who probably are living there have had more money in their life but but things that people where they have similar interests like you're saying and the programs that they have where where some of them will have dances once a week and some of them sponsor different crafts and they go to the [arboretum] to see things and they make sure that if they want to go to church there's a bus there and it'll or you know or someone will transport them to a specific church even though it's you know maybe it's thirty minutes away because it's a big you know dallas area is a big metropolitan area but a lot of these places have have churches or have have individual transportation that's that's something i'd look for something that would make me happy personally if i had to live there because i don't think a lot of people really even in the nice ones and even in the ones where they can live fairly independently they really don't necessarily like it because they're not in their own home so i think those kinds of things to make it more [homelike] and to make it more um enjoyable for them that'd that'd be one thing i'd look for along with the uh health care aspects to make sure they had you know that it was clean and that they had good doctors and nurses uh_huh uh_huh yeah are [overmedicated] too uh_huh yeah that's one of the things that that we don't think about as we get older and the the money that it now requires to uh be in one of these places because some of these people that are just on social security and if they don't have any living relatives perhaps they never had children or if their children you know passed away before they did they can be in some places that are you know that that are not good or they they have very minimum minimal care and the the care that they are getting the people who are giving it are are paid at a minimum wage and they just they don't care as much and and like you said they're trying to make it the caretakers in some cases are trying to make easy on themselves to the point where they're putting people in bed or [overmedicating] them so they'll stay in one spot and not do anything that certainly would be something to to watch for because you've got with some of them being some of these places can even be two and three thousand dollars a month to stay in yeah oh yeah so you've yeah you've got to really strike a balance in what kind of care what kind of level of care you need and then what you can unfortunately what you can afford at the same time well like there are other communities too that aren't necessarily a nursing home i had an aunt who lived in a small town in texas that um was in a it was a it was a housing division each person had their own little bitty house that they had built and it was um [supplemented] their they were most of them were on social security and they got some kind of supplemental aid besides from the state government but it was this little bitty one bedroom house but it was a separate house and they had a living room and a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom so they still had they had and they had people who came in who um supervised all these houses were like fifteen or twenty of them all right together kind of like on one block and they had a a supervisory um wasn't a house really it was it was more like um a headquarters or something anyway where they they staffed it three shifts a day so that someone if they needed someone they could ring and and someone could come to their house and that and they always cooked then they had they had the choice you know they lived in their own little house they had their own possessions still in there to some you know some of them and they could make their own breakfast if they wanted to and their own dinner and they always had somebody come in for lunch but they had people who did you know they didn't have to mess with the yard they had people who did the yard and they had a maid that uh uh service that came in and cleaned everybody's house so they didn't have to worry about that and it was really a nice it was really a nice compromise especially because she felt like she was still living in her own house and she still had her own couch and her own bed and it it really helped a lot and she was a lot more comfortable and she didn't resent like having to be in a situation because she still had a lot of her own possessions yeah yeah oh yeah yeah it would be hard to that's that's why this she was she felt that way too but when it helped that she got to still be in a house and still have some of her own stuff and i guess that that it was a pilot program i think where she lived so it's probably not widely available yeah uh_huh uh yeah that's good everybody needs some sense of responsibility an even even if it's just a little bit yeah so it's it's more like living with a big in a big house where it's your turn to to set the table like you're saying or whatever instead of being waited on hand and foot all the time yeah that would be nice yes unless they're at a point where they're mentally incapacitated like you're saying with alzheimer's and stuff they're going to be some people who have to be there whether they want to or not and that's when it's important to really check out the medical aspects of it when you're when you're in something like that that they'll get the kind of medical care they want without or they need without [overdoing] it without doing something to make this you know to keep like you're saying to keep them still to make the staff happy so all right well on this subject i really hadn't had to deal with putting someone in there yet but my mother's always been administrator of a nursing home so i've always been involved you know in one well i've well i can kind of see both sides you know i really can uh nursing homes to me i would personally be the last resort you know i you know if i had to put someone in there yeah if it's a have to thing yeah i yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah yeah well i kind of think that's true too i guess because it's so under staffed you know that's like everything else though uh_huh yeah yeah but yeah yeah yeah i know i've always well my sister's involved in one also and i really think they really do a wonderful job but still there's those little things that happens you know there really is which i think it's a wonderful place you know if it comes to that you know if you just can't take care of them any more uh_huh that's it uh_huh other things yeah yeah yeah but i think when the time comes i i hope to have the time to really look around you know and pick one that i really think my mother would be happy at i do too [outside's] awful deceiving sometimes you know yeah yeah yeah yeah off yeah to no uh_huh and everything you worked so hard for all your life yeah uh_huh uh_huh now there is some really nice ones there's also you know some private ones you know but of course i would never be able to afford to put my parents in something like that you know that's way out of my reach oh yeah uh_huh the very same yeah no but i there's i think there's ways around it though that you know like they could put it in one of their children's names or something you know but still a lot of them doesn't feel comfortable doing that you know it's their money you know that's how i feel about it anyway yes yeah my mother's seventy now so naturally she's retired but she's still on her own i mean i think that's wonderful i really do just as long as they can and then on the other hand i've seen some people go into the nursing home and just so happy you know uh_huh they're not lonely oh yes uh_huh yeah no around yeah but i really don't know what the other solution would be you know i really don't but no when the time comes i'm really hopefully we'll really look around before i decide on one for my parents really do because i have been raised in one you know so there's lot of things i know to look for and i don't think they'd want to go where they used to work either you know i really don't it really would yes yes and like i said my sister's still in it and i really don't think my [mother'd] want to be there either oh well it's been nice talking to you and i guess we'd better get back to work huh all right bye bye uh_huh how do you feel about them i mean since you've kind of been close to that uh_huh well i've had a touch of experience my um dad had [emphysema] and got to the point where mother couldn't take care of him and uh she put him in but he wasn't there very long before he died but um i guess um the one time that i saw him there you know as far as the surroundings that seemed okay but um we kind of thought that maybe they just wanted to give him some medication to sort of you know keep him real out of it all the time and that's always kind of bothered me uh_huh i have a sister in law who runs a nursing home but i've never actually been there and i know that she's the kind of person who wouldn't allow you know a lot of the horror things to take place that you hear about but still i'm sure there are you know aspects to it that aren't really desirable yeah well sometimes you don't have any other alternative family and friends are usually well family's tied up with their own lives and things and usually working and it's hard to yes uh_huh i think that's important too in fact there's a yes there's one close to where my mother is but in order to get in you have to be able to um walk in on your own in other words you can't be in you know too bad a shape to start out with but then if you deteriorate um they have a separate section for those who need care you know all the time but it's always well and they have a long waiting list too so there's always this feeling of well golly gee you know you've got to be able to walk in the door so you can't wait until you're too bad off but then you don't want to go do that when you don't have to because like uh you have to give up your automobile or whatever yeah and if you're still capable of driving and doing those things then you feel like well gee i'm you know i'm [isolating] myself here for no reason at the moment so it's kind of a that's a hard one but it is a very nice nursing home uh_huh yeah that's the problem the expense of it all is and uh what i another thing i hate to see is when someone has a small amount of money and they go into one of these places and they just eat it all up immediately but those who don't have money can go in and get the same care you know so i don't like that aspect yeah that's right well yeah i've talked to my mother about that several times lately and i i said i want you to have control of your own business but you know what if yeah yeah my mother's uh seventy five and still has her own home and everything yeah that's true they have a lot of people around to do things with some of those places have wonderful activities and things you know lots of stuff going on and they'll take them places so i don't know it's not all bad but i guess once you get ill then you know you really have some problems if you can't get around and do things no uh_huh yeah yeah that might be kind of tough huh well you too okay bye so um well i'll tell you my situation is uh i have an elderly grandmother that we did just recently put in a nursing home and um her son which is my father is also elderly and this is one of the reasons why she had to go to the nursing home is that she was literally driving him nuts in his later years now my father's almost eighty my grandmother's almost ninety seven so um it's strange because it it so hit so close to home that um my father's an only child and really me and my sister are the only ones that will deal with my grandmother she had many sisters and a couple of them took care of her and then one her last sister died and it was probably seven or eight months after that she had to go in a nursing home because i was pretty much giving up my life my sister was and plus she was driving my father crazy she went through three [housekeepers] live in [housekeepers] so she's kind of cranky to get along with there's nothing physically wrong with her except she's very very old but her personality is is very [grating] i mean i hope i don't get like that when i get old so yeah you don't know if their complaints are legitimate um we don't have that problem up here we might maybe in a rural uh maybe there's a bad uh a bad home in a rural area but it would be a very small one um the one my grandmother's in is very um hospital like there were some really nice ones here all the a lot of the nursing homes around here have very good [reputations] um this one is more or less for someone who's poor and can't go there and my father's is he's no by no means wealthy but he's quite well off and he could easily have put her into a nicer um home but up here there's waiting lists and that was the first one that opened and i suggested to him why don't you change um he said well these people here are they are very nice to her and he was saying his excuses if you move her some place else the people might not be so nice so the the professionals in the nursing homes really have to want to do what their doing because it's a really trying job i mean i go up twice a week to see my grandmother and i know the staff very well so they couldn't they can't hide anything on you or anything like that but i have heard of really awful conditions especially down the southern part of the the country which is oh that's terrible well that's good so is your grandmother um [impaired] is she of alzheimer's or something like that oh oh that does happen yeah yeah you know my neighbors across the street their mother was sick at times and they they couldn't handle her so they put her in a home and then uh the old frenchman he'd get a little drunk look round at his kids oh you still need your mother i guess i'll look after here and that happens a lot when people are sick or they just real [manic] [depressants] they end up being put in homes and it's like oh well but that's it's it's i'm really glad that i come from an area where um that there's good people in the homes but it's just as it doesn't matter if it is like you say the best place they still don't want to go to these homes and my grandmother's real there i mean she [cries] every day this has been over a year and she tries to make me feel really guilty but i have to you know i have to put my foot down where where my life begins i mean if that was my mother i would really feel a lot more responsible i would probably take care of my mother i don't really um when my father when something if anything happens to him i don't want him put in a nursing home just for the fact i don't really want to go and visit him at a nursing home and hopefully that he can uh get along with uh in house help so he's going to probably hopefully set it up so that he will be able to pay someone to come in and stay with him probably for sixteen hours a day because i think that's the best situation is when you're you get that old and you've been independent your whole life you don't want to go into a home because like i say my father's eighty and he's really active he still has his driver's license here i mean you wouldn't believe what he does he actually tows cars and as the years go on the tow trucks got better more easier and he went out and bought himself a flat bed one so he won't have to do very much work so someone like that they i really don't want to see them go in a home he's got two dogs that are his constant companions and he always replaces them you know i've had like over the past thirty years i've had you know about seven or eight different dogs all the time and it's like you know it's oops dad's got these two and the old dies and the young one goes for a while and he gets another one so i can't see him without his animals even though it's very expensive to stay at home mentally it's just the best thing for you i mean when you get on in your years it's the only thing you really have and i'm thinking when i get older i i i think if brought all my precious belongings with me i think i could live in a home i don't want to be a selfish you know a burden on anyone that's what i think because i see what my grandmother puts me through and i'm saying that when i get older i could probably make the best of this place i mean and of course it's institutional food and everybody hates it and it's so ironic is that they go in there and they lose weight it's really it's a bad thing but when they go into the homes they lose weight and because of the institutional food you know i think it's fine but you know my taste buds are pretty uh flexible and here they are they're always used to these old fashioned foods they're very set in their ways and used to have what they could get at home and now they're feeding them um [quiche] and all kinds of strange food that we would eat just they don't feed them the old people food the chicken and biscuits and things like that that's that's the thing my grandmother really misses i mean really [growls] about oh yeah i know if if if people would think ahead of time and do things like that like build the in law apartment and have it on you know one floor and really easy access well that's what i'm telling my father now he needs a new floor in his bathroom and i says now is the time redo your whole bathroom so you can get in and out jeez yeah i'm i'm i have some great concerns about uh my parents and my relatives reaching that age um around here where i live in maryland in the washington area there's there's and uh i used to live down in dallas there was just so many stories about uh rest homes where the people are being abused where the people are being kept in filthy conditions in fact here in baltimore they've actually shut a couple of them down and taken all the people out of them because they were so uh bug [infested] and rat [infested] and uh i it really concerns me that um first of all that anyone could let someone live like that but if you have to you know how do you make sure i mean i'm sure when you make your appointment and go by everybody puts on a happy face um you know how are you sure that the home is really as good as it is because once you put someone into there you know they may not like the fact that they've been put in there and they might complain about the place all the time even though it's the best place in the whole world they could be just because they want to make you feel guilty for putting them in there and you know yeah uh_huh uh_huh yes uh that's true my uh my grandmother's um last time my mother went down there to visit the the place where my grandmother was staying at was so [overrun] with roaches that uh she even you know they went in and she had roaches crawling on her there were roaches even in her alarm clock um yes it was absolutely horrible they took her immediately out of there and they just threw everything away that that she had from there i mean they wouldn't even take the uh the uh the dresser that she had that was her own dresser because it was just you know full of bugs they just left everything and uh bought her all brand new stuff and they they had called a home where they you know where they were on a waiting list to get into there and explained to the person that was in charge you know what had happened and that they had they had to take her out of the home because of the conditions and amazingly enough the very next day they had an opening and they put her into that opening i'm not sure um what exactly is wrong with her up until nineteen eighty two uh actually i'm sorry not until yeah i guess it was around eighty two eighty three i found out i had a grandmother prior to that i was told that she was dead and um apparently what had happened was that i had a grandfather who um put her into a mental institution and uh you know it was a real hush hush thing and then i was wondering why my mother always referred to you know his second wife as that [hussy] yeah yes i know yeah yeah yeah my mother has made similar statements that she doesn't want to become a burden to the family you know just put me out to pasture or shoot me or something you know are the lines that come from her and uh and i tell her you know no problem mom always got a place for you but uh uh_huh hello this is jim in dallas uh how you doing oh you're right here okay yeah i'm actually working tonight i just uh called and came in do you work at t i yeah i just got a little booklet uh this not what we're supposed to talk about just got a little booklet in the mail with the gifts and i thought i better make some calls yeah well i haven't had a chance i haven't got a chance to look at them yet my daughter uh got a few calls at home she talked to some student in i guess they give them to computer students too in uh virginia something like that she's talked to two students yeah oh yeah great uh we're supposed to talk about the elderly now i guess uh do you have anybody that you uh are close to that decision on or anything or i've thought about it for myself and all and my my wife's mother is in a retirement home she's not in a nursing home uh yeah did i didn't we push let me i'll hit it again just in case i did it as she said yes but uh she's she's down in san antonio and it's it's a uh it's a brand new one it's a catholic uh retirement home for [nuns] it's at uh trinity uh no let me see trinity i keep calling it it's not trinity i'll think of [incarnate] word and they have a retirement home for the [nuns] and they take some lay people yeah and that one's really super now i i know what they're talking about on regular retirement yeah there's not too many they do have a wing where the people who are really sick you know have nurses and then they have other wings that we visited uh that are very nice i mean it's just super oh yeah they they they have uh like uh a guard with locks we've been there once at night at christmas she just went in last year she drives and everything she she she's perfectly healthy uh well her husband died they were in the military together and she just did not want to take care of the house and she visited the place and then fell in love with it and decided to just [shun] all responsibilities of any kind so to speak and so she's happy as as heck and they serve meals of course they have clubs and a swimming pool so that's nice now i i know the ones where you're really ill we visited a long time ago when she had a grandmother that was in one and they were all more or less hospitalized type you know really really sick it's a tough question oh you got more experience than i do then on it yeah yeah oh that would be awful i never thought about that you know uh_huh yeah i think that uh hopefully we as a country are learning a little more about it and they're getting nicer i've seen on t v where they take animals and young children in fact my daughter is one my wife took my daughters one year when they were getting some points for school took them to an elderly home and boy that really pumps them up that is very nice to see young people i think that's one of the sad things is when you're in an older home if you just have people your own age you never get a chance to see kids or anything or animals or anything you know you can't take care of them kind of obvious you can't take care of children or animals in a nursing home but it's nice to have them visit and everything yeah right yeah i think you do get more by by stimulation my in fact my mother in law just visited she's just about seventy five again perfectly fine but one and and she visited us here in in dallas when she went back every time she goes back to uh san antonio my wife has two sisters there too she said she's much better she's much more alive and and uh active when she's been on a visit with somebody else you know and and our routine has obviously hectic with teenagers and everything and she's much and so the stimulation part is really important i think like any animal anything you just lay around uh that's the fastest way to die i think you know oh yeah i'm afraid i'm a t v [flipper] anything bad i like i like to flip i flip it off but it's sad it's sad yeah oh yeah yeah right when i was uh younger we i lived in the east i'm from the east really and it seemed like there were several people that i knew that had their uh parents i guess they would be but well in their living with them and one of them was even a woman who was fairly old and i guess she she had her own separate room and i think whether it's more a custom up there or maybe because i was younger and it's just not a custom anymore to have uh you know the grandparents live with you anymore i guess that uh well we aren't getting away from that which is not right oh yeah oh right right yeah oh well that's nice in a lot of ways bet you were surprised that you said that by mistake yeah right that's what i think about it for me i think well my kids better not do that to me i don't want that you know so i i think of it well how would i want to be treated rather than well it's easy to say oh yeah let's put these old folks in a home but when i think i don't want to do that you know i don't want to be i'd want to have my little home i always threaten my daughters i say well i'm going to build a little house behind yours and i'll take care of your lawn he says but i'm not going to one of those places right yeah that's what we that's the way we call it which is really wrong but my wife's mother and the one she's in san it's everything but the opposite of what you've seen i mean it's a little hotel you might say again a swimming pool and grounds and she has enough room she has two bedrooms and a and a separate living area they don't have kitchens or anything but they have little it's like uh on each floor they have a little kitchen area where you can go down and have a make a meal you know oh yeah it's it's it's nothing like that it's like living in the hotel i mean she's totally on her own uh and she still drives which we do does scare us some because she has [dented] a few things you know and we keep thinking about that you know because she they get less alert and they don't care and i've seen some of these elderly people on t v you know the ones from florida that just run into people and they don't even understand what happened you know i know i i know go ahead i'm sorry oh he still drives that's well it's wonderful in one respect but i don't know if you can afford the insurance yeah yeah right that's good i mean people are all different i i wonder if they should give them a test or at least maybe not take their maybe give them a [refresher] driving course and just to see how well they are every five years are they doing it yeah well everybody needs [retraining] it doesn't hurt uh you know the best football players and all the opera singers still have coaches and i don't know why you couldn't after sixty five every five years have a [refresher] course and then take another driving it would sure the insurance companies would would probably help pay for some of that you know right there you go there's a good point very good point very good point but i think they maybe should do that and then the families hello fine i'm [callie] in garland yes oh are you yeah you i know i know they it was a lot nicer than i expected i've talked to i don't think they were students one i think worked at a university university um and the furthest away i've talked to someone has been new york yes we are oh well that's a did you push the button did we okay just in case now what oh oh well isn't that neat isn't that neat uh_huh oh that's good that's neat just supervised more or less than anything and security i guess oh uh_huh what made you all decide to put her or what made her decide to go right well that's good that's great uh_huh right shut ins and yeah it really is i worked in one as a teenager i [volunteered] well it was really it was really sad heartbreaking i guess and uh i just oh i just felt for those people especially the ones that never got visited that just bothered me that just bothered me so much especially you know at my age i was probably about fourteen and that really made a bad impression on me i always thought not really bad of them i mean because they are most of them i believe are probably pretty good for the people but i don't know it's just a it would be a tough tough decision right helps yeah uh_huh uh_huh right right right yeah and get that youth back you know sometimes that even helps them just being around young people to because some of them are so um just stationary i mean they'll get in a wheelchair or they'll just sit in a chair and and until you come along and really try and pump them up they're just stationary and i feel like gosh that's all they do all day long so i do love to see young kids go and and men take the pets and everything i think that's a real real neat idea yeah that's yeah right right stagnant yeah that's exactly right i think they're really neat um of course i've seen those reports on t v the horrible ones and that scares me it's sad to think that we would do that to people and you know i've seen them on t v with uh bed [sores] and oh they just stay in the same clothes or the same sheets and not do laundry and i just think how can you do that these people have given so much of their lives you know to to america you know whatever and here is how we treat them just put them in a home and leave them uh_huh right i think right i think it's neat i think uh you learn a lot from them from all their experiences and and that's one of my favorite things to do is sit around and listen to their stories i think that's neat because they really have a lot of good [insights] that my my husband's father is really old he he had him late in life and he's he'll be eighty this year and i just uh he lives with different you know people in the family he'll switch from time to time i just yeah i just couldn't imagine locking not locking him up but putting him in a home and just lock him up i know i know right exactly that's right oh you're going to put me away that's what my mother she always you're going to lock me up one day aren't you i can tell you're going to lock me up i know right that's great gosh right yes prepare your well that's great now can she leave um on a day by herself oh man that's neat right right i know bless their hearts you hate to hurt them by doing that that's like their one last thing that they can still do and you take away that driving ability and that would really be hard we've well we've thought about doing that for my husband's father because he yeah well luckily he drives a big old tank so he i mean i don't think he he could get hurt i just hope to god he doesn't ever hurt anyone but he he hasn't had any accidents luckily yeah yeah i saw that on twenty twenty they um you know they're testing that they're you know thinking of doing that and i think that would be a great idea because i think they do come become less aware and they just i don't know they and they don't hear as well for one thing and that doesn't help right at least that way the burden is not on the family of taking their license or their car away it's on the state okay um i don't have any i guess definite views about elderly care um the first thing that comes to mind is kind of those horror movies that you see where elderly people are abused and things like that i think that's one thing that i would look at if i was putting my grandmother or my mother uh in some sort of home the first thing that i would look at would be their history as far as any court cases that came out of there um the history of you know their doctors um their nurses and things like that uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh just out of curiosity what what kinds of things were they doing when they were considered a bad place uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh my goodness uh_huh in pain or something uh_huh right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that's great yeah i would i would personally hate to know that my mother or grandmother or anyone is in a home like that and my biggest fear would that they would be is that they would be lonely and i would like to know that there are you know just a lot of activities like you said you know just putting a plant in a room you know just makes just [brightens] and and and just makes them just a little more active television they can go outside and just to know that they're not you know laying in a room looking at gray walls you know that that's what would just really kill me i'd like to know that you know they have friends there and they have little conversations and things i'd like to know there's a lot of interaction and maybe some kind of of activity little field trips or something i don't know how they would do that but uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i didn't realize that there were groups that go in like that that's really neat right uh_huh oh uh_huh uh_huh that's great that will be something you know they would look forward to if they knew you know that the puppy is coming on wednesday you know that would be something to look for that's really neat that really is uh_huh uh_huh right yeah putting any of my family in an elderly home to me would be the very last resort you know it um and i know it's hard for a lot of families if you're trying to to work or trying to take care of your own family it's kind of hard to to because an elderly person sometimes can be totally dependent you know on you and i know that's hard sometimes and but it would really have to be a last resort because that would just i would feel so guilty i don't know unless i knew that they were somewhere just really i mean just really great you know that they were really enjoying i don't know anyone personally that's in an elderly home uh_huh yeah yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah [nod] your head and smile at them uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right oh oh that's something that if i had to work in an elderly home i don't think i could do it like i i would really like to be a teacher but i don't think i could do it because i'm very very emotional and the minute i mean the minute something happens i cry on i mean [hallmark] commercials that's just the end of me and so i mean something real life i just i interview a lot of children i'm an education reporter and i always go and do an education things i meet these kids who are you know dropping out of school left and right and all the sudden they're in this program they're making straight a's they're going to graduate early and i'm just i just want to hug them and go you are just fantastic and you know i could just imagine you know working in a home like that and those people they're so sweet and and so genuine you know and all they want is just for everything to be happy and you know and so that would probably just tear me apart i mean in a good way but you know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i'm sure uh_huh yeah uh_huh right yeah and children i mean usually a of elderly people like to they like to uh share their experiences with the with the younger children they'll be telling them all kinds of stories that they don't even know what they mean you know they feel like they've lived life so they need to share it and i'm sure i'll be like that too yeah but that's great i didn't know there were such groups uh_huh yeah yeah and i would hate it if anyone put me in one yeah somebody take care of me okay okay well nice to talk to you uh_huh bye bye uh_huh yeah right yeah yeah i agree with you i um a group that i'm a part of goes once a month to a um they call it the heritage house it's it's a nursing home for elderly people and this particular one has people that are in pretty bad shape a lot of them have had um limbs [amputated] or um have serious illnesses you know that kind of thing and um i watched the interesting thing was i watched this particular one change hands it started out just being a terrible place for the people and then a new company bought it and came in and remodeled the whole place hired new nurses and uh just really just redid it you know well to me it was dirty for one thing uh when you would walk in the smell was just awful the you know the floors you could just if you're walking on them feel how filthy they were um there were a lot of people just kind of up and down the halls laying in their beds hollering and you know crying of course i don't know how many of them were you know not in their right mind or how many were yeah yeah i just really don't know but i feel like they were neglected and um yeah that was what i was going to say it sounds like just neglect all over you know neglect to [cleanup] i don't really think anyone was being you know cruel or or trying to [mistreat] them or anything i just think they were not doing anymore you know than they had to do and um just kind of letting everybody live in a not very good environment but this new company came in and they like i said they remodeled the place and it smells nice when you walk in and it looks nice and they got like several new color t v's for the people and redid the dining room where they made it you know a lot more place for them to be they made a little patio area where they can go outside yeah just you know small things that make it seem a lot more homey yeah and it's like it's a lot more like an apartment place instead of just uh right right right uh_huh right exactly yeah right right yeah yeah well they uh this place that we visit it's really neat they have everyday they have schedules of groups that come in and they will do bingo our group does a church service once a month and then other groups come in and do the services you know other sundays so that they have at least one service every sunday so there are a lot of things there are places that have a lot of things for them to do but you really do have to kind of seek it out you know and make sure that it's not a place like this one was yeah yeah yeah it is it's real nice and um i know our church does it and there are a lot of other churches and they are just like civic organizations that do and uh i have other friends it's kinds of neat they take animals over and let the people pet them like they also have a dog that maybe needs a home and they will wash it all up and make sure it's it's a friendly animal you know and take it in and let just let the old elderly people pet the dogs yeah yeah yeah yeah i thought that was a real unusual thing for someone to do so yeah there's a lot that can be done it's just a matter of people not being lazy and you know doing the best they can again i don't know what i'd do if it was my own mother or grandmother you know right right uh_huh yeah yeah yeah yeah i would too yeah right yeah i know i know what you mean yeah well i have interesting conversations with a lot of these people because um many of them of course their minds are not good and so a lot them have told me exactly the same story you know every time i visit them they'll [reminisce] about childhood and tell me something that they did and then the next time i go it's the same thing you know that just somebody to listen to them uh just seems to make them really feel good right i'll tell you the people i feel the [sorriest] for there's a guy at this particular one i go to that i think that he's really an intelligent person but he has [cerebral] [palsy] so bad that he just cannot communicate and um he's blind and he has [seizures] you know i mean he's just like in a world of his own and yet he wants so much to be around people and if you come over to him if he can touch your hand he'll grab it and kiss it oh and he's always got a smile i mean he really tries to [brighten] up your life oh it's just amazing but he can't say anything he can just kind of make noises yeah yeah me too yeah i know i know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah oh it does yeah yeah it is it's really hard and but one of the neatest things i think though is we always take our kids i have a three year old and a six year old and they um have gotten comfortable being around these people because they've always gone with us and the people love them and they want the children you know to hug them or hold their hand and so far my kids will do it just real easily and i think it's because they've gone since they were real little and they've never been afraid but that's something to me children you know need to people need to take groups of children because the kids just [brighten] up their lives as we walk through the the lobby they'll all say bring her here i want to see her i would love to hold her uh_huh yeah that's true yeah well me too yeah it's quite an experience yeah yeah there are and and uh it really helps those people i think but like you said i'd really have a lot of second thoughts before i put any of my own family members there it would be a last resort oh i know i'm always afraid like oh no what if i lose my mind am i going to end up in a place like that yeah that's right well yeah you too [tonya] thanks for calling bye uh_huh well my parents are both in their seventies my my mother and stepfather and my father and [stepmother] are all in their seventies and my uh uh father and [stepmother] are not in very good health so this is something that is yes it is yes they are they are not for them my my mother and stepfather have have uh set up an arrangement where they have a large home and uh two of my sisters and and their families one of them's husband and then all the children are living in this home its got a lot of bedrooms and bathrooms and and uh they all share the same kitchen and dining room and den and kitchen and and uh my father bought this uh my stepfather bought this thinking of a time when one or the other of them might need care and they felt like that would be their alternative to a nursing home unless unless they were so ill that they needed nursing care that could not be given in the home well i i felt good about it because that's my personal feeling also i uh i read a lot and then i know people then have visited nursing homes and uh have had great grandparents in the nursing homes and it was not a happy situation for for any of them and and uh we have a very active nursing home here in plano that that has uh activities going all the time and they have uh even the people that are wheelchair bound and and really are are incapacitated go and uh participate in olympics and they make their crafts and sell them at a big fair that's held annually at a big mall here you know so there are a lot of a lot of activities going on all the time and this is a nursing home it's not a senior citizens home so that the people are really uh right they need the nursing care and and but it's a very expensive solution right right right uh_huh right and that's right i well i took my husband one night to an emergency room when he was in an emergency situation and uh they brought in a very elderly man from a nursing home who had had uh apparently [inhaled] some chicken he was eating and uh he had apparently had not been in the home too long just a week or so but when they the family came in to see him they had not been made aware i was in the room when the emergency technicians brought him in from the ambulance and i overheard their conversation and when the family walked in his wife and daughter and son in law they were not even aware of what had happened so i told them he strangled on some chicken and uh they said the the woman the wife said he was not even supposed to be eating any food like that that would require chewing or so you know and i thought right right and then she was upset he had on two different shoes one of which was not even his he had on a pair of slacks and the wife said these are not his slacks and she said i just took two pair over yesterday for him that were clean and right right well i this was just something that i was i witnessed to and and uh at no point did anybody from the nursing home come in and we were there in the same room with the man for a half hour and with just a curtain of course between us and and uh they [revived] the man and cleared out his [airway] and so forth and he was definitely just by looking at him and the way he acted you could tell he was in need of of nursing home care but the family were all talking about uh putting him in another home they said he will not go back to that one i'm glad they the option i i would hate to be in a position where that was all i could afford and there were not there was no choice oh my um uh_huh uh_huh right right that's right visits everyday right visit right right suspicious you know i i my i remember my my grandmother many years ago when she was in a nursing home before she died and i guess there was not a name for what she had at that time but i guess alzheimer's would come as close as anything she really was not aware of what she was doing and uh i i can remember she had several strokes and the nursing home was right next to a hospital and they would rush her to the hospital and [revive] her and just bring her back to the nursing home in a couple of days and it was she was it was just like keeping something okay well the topic is selecting care for the elderly and i don't have elderly parents yet but not that far in the distant future what about yourself a concern of yours right now are are they living independently right now oh have you looked at any homes for them or talked to them about that oh that sounds the ultimate well even at that point most care can be given at in the home that sound like just an excellent solution you must feel real good about that uh_huh right really in need of a nursing home right uh_huh well it's you know i think we just you know listen to is the fact that there are good solutions both inside and outside of nursing homes it's just a matter of finding a good home and and then of course there is always the problem of being able able to afford either of those solutions and that i think is what is scary and i also feel that that's where some of the bad [images] of nursing homes come from is when people have to put people in a nursing homes and they really can not afford the best oh oh goodness oh what a shame they put him in the home so that he could be cared for and then they could have done that well at home oh you hear these stories all the time you happened right oh right well good good i'm glad they have a solution to do that yes i know exactly my uh my ex husband's grandmother had been in a nursing home now for oh it must be seven eight years and uh and uh it's just her her condition deteriorated deteriorated instantly upon getting into that home as the situation is so sad because it just takes all the [dignity] away from from people who have been independent all their lives like this was a really neat vital woman and you get in a nursing home and the first thing that happens you have to share your your whole living space with someone that you have never known before in your life and oh i i do not know what the answer is but i do know that there are some wonderful places out there and it i think it does a lot of it goes down to just money and family support uh if you you know have family that uh you can live with right right i i really i think the way of selecting a nursing home would be similar to the way you would select child care you know you would do your research and you would go visit and uh hopefully they would have they would have it so that you could go there anytime because if you could not go there anytime then that would make you a little bit right uh_huh hi you want to start first right uh_huh you apparently have somebody there in one oh you are kidding oh uh_huh i will be darned uh_huh oh for heaven's sake you are very very much aware of what goes on that is great uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right right i will be darned uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh now see that is a nice attitude to go into uh it seems like they must be waiting until it is a necessity and there is no chance of uh good companionship or doing anything uh_huh uh right right uh_huh uh_huh that is true but what i mean is instead of maybe entering a nursing home when you are still able to have good relationships with maybe other friends they wait until they are you know unable right right right uh_huh uh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah that is great uh_huh uh_huh yeah that sounds great yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh see if they could could get this idea across though better than what it is you know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh well you have that with anything oh yeah in the homes yeah well we used our nursing home as uh like when my sister was real bad before she died uh we took her the last month and a half into a nursing home and they were super with her they were uh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well a lot of people do that they left them [temporally] maybe they had a broken hip or something or uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh and it can become home to them it it depends upon the individual uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh this is and there has to be consideration taken on everything yeah that is right you would look into it thoroughly and do do the best job you could in choosing one uh_huh no and you do not have the time to look that is what i am saying most people will not even look at that until it becomes a necessity uh_huh whatever their talents yeah uh_huh yeah i have a cousin who is uh she had a son that was [epileptic] from birth and he did fine at home they lived on a farm but she made arrangements so that when she was gone she did not want her her children her other children [burdened] with his care so he they she has made arrangements that when she she was gone that he would go into the nursing home and he has i would say he adjusted very well and uh he he he has been there quite a long time and uh he don't know me usually so he goes wheeling down uh the hall to bingo somebody else is helping him out you know and uh he has adjusted very well uh_huh oh yes yes uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh to keep them there uh_huh true yes but for some reason people resist uh the fact that they should be paid as well as businesses and that type of thing you know it seems to be a resistance uh_huh uh_huh right right but there seems to be a resistance yeah yeah so uh well around here we have some you know the churches take your the children and i know our kids thoroughly the children thoroughly enjoy of course we are talking about the elderly and uh whether or not we we like nursing homes and as a matter of fact i can tell you something about that no actually my grandmother owned and operated a nursing home for years and her mother no she did and then my mother also owned and operated a nursing home for years and then uh went on back to school and became the director of nurses at a nursing home and uh my mother and my older sister both are geriatric nurses so i do know something about that absolutely actually the motivation for grandmother entering the business was that her mother was very old and couldn't seem to find companions she was lonely and she needed company for her mother and so she opened a nursing home and initially started with eight ladies and then uh it it grew into a very [prosperous] business from that point uh then they uh_huh uh_huh well that is not really true either uh i think that is a stigma and an i and an impression that has come from some few bad experiences you see those who had bad experiences talk about them and those who do not may write a letter to the nursing home and say you did good but they do not talk a whole lot about that uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh sure well now that is right well that is because they wait until the children make those choices they choose to not make those choices themselves however my daughter in law also is a nurse in a nursing home and uh she works for one here in dallas which is more a retirement village than it is a nursing home and these these i love watching these elderly people come they will come and tell her well i am going for my tennis lessons and uh would would you you know call down and have the van come around and take us for our tennis lessons and they are very active and very enthusiastic and they have some excellent programs right there on site their dining room looks like you know luby's cafeteria or or one of the lovely cafeterias and they have you know pink [linen] [napkins] for their dinners and a well equipped library oh i am certainly very much for a nursing home and i think when the the parent gets old enough to the extent where they just do not want to be bothered with keeping house and with taking care of themselves anymore that is a wonderful alternative it is expensive it is costly uh_huh well now my daddy's mother uh lived in a a retirement village and she and her sister had side by side duplexes one bedroom duplex she still had her individuality but they were there close and they did have uh you know the button that you could push the central office if you got into problems and there were lights that you could flip on and so forth and they have security no i am very much in favor i have heard horror stories i know that the elderly can easily be abused but i would be willing to bet they are far less abused in a nursing home than are they are in homes of their own children uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh absolutely well now my grandmother of course all of my folks lived to be very old and my grandmother developed [hodgkin's] disease when she was in her late eighties uh late seventies i mean she went to the doctor she had surgery she got the treatments and during the period of time that she was [undergoing] those treatments she was in a nursing home she got better she got well she got out and went dancing again uh_huh that is right uh_huh uh_huh i think it is a wonderful interim place it is a place that you do not have to struggle with hospital problems and yet it is not you know you have uh_huh uh_huh it certainly is it certainly does but you see we have had excellent experience with that and uh i i did not put my husband in a nursing home when he became ill but i would not object to going to one i might i might like to be uh coherent enough to make my own choice uh i would not particularly think i would want my kids to say well i think this is what i need for mom and then dump me there but i would like that is right uh_huh uh_huh and i think you would shop for a nursing home just like you would shop for a church or a doctor or anything else uh_huh sure uh_huh when you get to the point where you are in trouble and you have got to have that help you are in no position to make those choices that is right uh_huh absolutely i think that one of the best ways to do that is for families to realize they are going to be needing those facilities one day and to actually get involved and participate on a community level with community service go out to the nursing home help guide some craft programs perhaps work on some music programs whatever their talents are and work with those senior citizens uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh that is right uh_huh uh_huh yeah that is right uh well one of the things i think that is most desirable for the elderly and that is routine routine and uh [constancy] uh the only real problem with that in a nursing home is that the staff turns over i do not think they pay the nursing home staff [sufficiently] to to get the dedication that they have in some other profession and that is sad because i think the health profession is one of the most critical and uh that is right care for the elderly and care for the children i cannot imagine a more costly and a more a more uh better area to invest your money you are preserving your heritage and your future there and as a matter of fact i do not see why they do not have children's programs in nursing homes uh_huh uh_huh we're to discuss a little bit about the process of putting someone in a nursing home and making the decision on a family basis and probably the first question would be whether you've ever had to go through that process uh_huh uh_huh so it was pretty much a physical decision um yeah my husband's family are reaching that point but it's it's so difficult was she in favor of it or or was she kind of opposed to it uh_huh yeah so often i think though elderly people don't realize that their diet is that bad i work with a lot of elderly people i'm a trust officer and so often they think they're adequately caring for themselves when they're really not eating very much or very balanced meals yes well you know that's part of the aging process that your taste buds goes back to the sweet taste it really is yeah uh_huh yeah and the portions people don't want to try to figure out little bitty individual meals i do that right now and i'm not near nursing home age yeah uh_huh so as a family you all just visited nursing homes or probably in college station there wasn't a whole lot of choice uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh yeah that's a given uh_huh and sometimes the the help there does it i think uh_huh uh_huh adapt yeah i as i think i mentioned i was in the trust business and i've seen so many elderly people usually there has to be some wealth involved which is great if if you're financially if if you don't make the decisions so late that you're worried about money but the the places like presbyterian village and some of the the retirement places where where they have different levels of care seems to be so much better as far as elderly people [adapting] they're able to move in while they're still independent and still social and and they do group things and then if health or or mental capacity [deteriorates] they're able to take the next steps without so much change and oh i wish everybody could go that direction rather than just all of a sudden moving out of the home they've always been in it's really kind of difficult yeah uh_huh well and it's the first step in in actually accepting that you are failing and and aging you know once you make that step you know that it's just going to be downhill from then on and and i've seen people really fight it that desperately needed to make the change they they became in fact that's probably what's going to happen with my husband's mother she's going to [endanger] herself before she'll willingly and probably will never willingly make the decision and that scares me the the thought of forcing somebody to do something yeah uh_huh not as independence yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah and the quality of life really isn't there oh it's tough it really is uh_huh well they fear being dependent on somebody they they fear being a burden to to family members my husband's mother will have major surgery and we'll find out about it in a casual conversation she'll let something slip and we'll say wait a minute and and that's it she just well i didn't want to bother you she can't accept that we want to be the care givers yeah well she stayed she stayed in a temporary nursing home until she was okay you know it's just but it's frightening to us because we live pretty far from her she's down in temple and we can't see her often enough to really know what's going on so it's difficult it really is and we're all heading that way and uh_huh yeah well not so much personally but my um husband has an aunt who has been like a second mother i mean always lived in the same town and took care of him and such they live down in college station where his parents do too and they put her in a home last year she appeared to have a couple of light strokes and started to uh not be able to be in her apartment on her own so they found a a place nearby that they put her in last year uh yeah although she is uh in pretty good health and she's doesn't take any medication it's just she had had her own apartment and drove a car and everything up until that point then she was starting to get uh you know lose memory sometimes and which is kind of frightening when she's in the car uh well yeah when it finally came down to it um she just got to the point after the i mean it wasn't a very um strong stroke it was just kind of all of a sudden she wasn't herself anymore and she got kind of fearful of being on her own she never really ate very well it was one thing she hardly ever took care of herself and she didn't eat she ate very poor so i think she was you know bad uh nutrition on top of it and uh she got to the point she didn't want to alone anymore so um well she was almost ridiculous like she'd eat ice cream and cookies she'd didn't one oh really well she didn't want to cook for herself anymore oh that's too much trouble that's too much trouble didn't want to cook yeah although they've got uh meals on wheels which i understand is a really good you know way to handle that so that at least they eat no i don't think there was um i know a little bit more from a a co worker her mother in law had been in for quite some time and had different degrees of a place that she was in um she was ambulatory and so there was a lesser care uh then she got uh uh hip broken and then uh she wasn't as ambulatory so they were almost you know to the point of saying she can't be here anymore but i remember from her checking around she ended up staying at the arkansas house i think out in arlington something like that and uh you know the type of facilities whether it's a shared room or two separate rooms that share uh a uh bathroom all of them all seem to say that people there are going to steal their items they're always saying that somebody's going to and some of them i think unconsciously do it you know as a just you know half uh so they they uh don't have too many facilities it seems for their personal items very limited space waste but um at least they all seem to have uh you know people that monitor their uh medication intake and dining facilities you know go to the dining room and and eat some good meals i know when my friend's mother in law first went in i mean very [antisocial] maybe it takes a while for them to say okay well i'll be with other people but yeah i don't understand that they they don't want to be with anybody else uh_huh uh_huh yeah i have a um my [aunt's] mother is uh gotten ill recently and uh she lives in pennsylvania they live in alabama and they're saying hey we need you to be closer and you have women like that i don't to men it seems like the women out just out live their husbands but very reluctantly that whole i mean they don't get out of the house they don't socialize but it's my home and i don't want to leave it uh um but it's it's so lonely you know they can't get out and see anyone and i mean it's hard for for someone like me to understand that because i i think what do you have there it's a house it's walls and it's furniture but there's nobody there don't you want to be close to me i mean you know be with other people i just don't understand why they so much want to just stay in that building and there's no family there they don't get to see their grandkids they don't get to see their children they just there in that house yeah that's from the child's standpoint the child is going why don't you want to be close to me and your other family what does that house got attraction i know they're really proud of independence uh well when she got home who took care of her oh uh_huh um yeah my husband and i we have been thinking about his folks are in college station and we've pretty much planned that we'll be here in the dallas area and there's nothing to hold them there in college station since they're retired so we thought maybe we could get them to move a little closer here how would you feel about sending an elderly family member to a nursing home uh_huh right and what type of recommendations did you have when you decided where to place him oh my yeah so the convenience right my grandmother lived with us um until august um and we made the decision to put her in a nursing home she has leukemia and her the rest of her family and her regular doctors and everybody she trusted and knew was in dayton and were several thousand miles away so i made the decision to put her in a nursing home and my sister being on the other end found one that she could have what was called an independent living facility she had her own little room and didn't have to share it with anyone and could bring in her own chair and t v set so yes and that the other major factor is that she needs blood transfusions every week to ten days and would have to be hospitalized a day or two so in this facility they can do it right there from her own room so she didn't have to be [transported] back and forth so she's been there since august the [thirteenth] and seems to have adjusted pretty well it's not her favorite place to be in she'd much rather be here with me but when it got to the point i was spending more time at the hospital with her and i've got little children here who needed me here she needed somebody to watch her twenty four hours a day so she was falling down and [hemorrhaging] and you know all kinds of physical problems so it just became too much for me to handle even though i would have liked to have had her stay with her health being what it was she couldn't anymore yeah uh_huh yeah oh yeah yes well i think sometimes when people get to be a certain age other people have to kind of help them make decisions it sure wouldn't have been [granny's] decision to leave us and go back to a nursing home but she's accepted it real well now so well we enjoyed having her here but we feel she's much safer where she is now she still continues to fall but when she does there a nurse is right there to help her and i know she's eating the right things and her doctor's right there where he can come in and check on her so it became dangerous for us to keep transporting her back and forth in the car because she was so [wobbly] and needed a walker or a wheel chair so i think she'll adjust well i don't feel very good about it but i think that at some times it can be the right thing to do we sent my grandfather to a nursing home at the point when he was really [incapable] of caring for himself anymore he actually died a few months after that and so as at least in retrospect it was the right thing to do because he was either in a nursing home or a hospital or something else that he would have been spending most of his time in those days um well the see uh well we he wanted to get into a mennonite nursing home which is very popular and hard to get into and had like a ten year waiting list right we wound up just choosing a another mennonite nursing home that was easier to get into or but naturally no it was even mennonite related i'm sorry it was actually not a particularly great nursing home mostly the thing was that it was available when we needed it because he suddenly got sick and needed to be put in uh what do you think uh_huh yeah yeah yeah that's important i would say okay yeah right so that right and that becomes difficult then uh_huh yep we tried to convince my grandfather to live with us at several points during the last few years of his life but he was essentially too proud and too independent so that even though his heart was getting incredibly weak and his knees were going bad he lived in his own house as long as he could but he was living alone had an upstairs apartment could barely make it up the steps to the top without a great deal of pain and this eventually things just went too far and he allowed himself to be put into a nursing home right well that's yeah that's right that the children have some responsibility too to their parents and such to help decide what's the right thing and uh_huh yep now then i think that are you there all right do you have any one that has been in a nursing home oh yes well what do you think can be done about that i mean what can we do well i can of course i'm old enough to remember when the family or the church took care of all of this we did not have to call on on someone else and i feel no you tell me how you feel about yeah certainly i worked with an agency in west texas that they it's where they really started this concept of meals on wheels and i think it's such a valuable thing for our elderly if they didn't have to you know go into a kitchen my mother expired just just a little over a year ago and we had finally she didn't want to live with either my sister or me but we we got found a retirement center for her and it was beautiful and they had all these they didn't even have nursing care there so until as long as mother was you know mobile and got her food and she was with people with whom she enjoyed sure yes sir uh_huh being a widow i find that eating alone is one of the hardest things i have to do i have just recently retired and i am finding it extremely hard to adjust to so uh mother had the little kitchenette and she could do all these fine things that she just had a microwave had to pop her popcorn now this is wonderful but when it came time for a full meal then mother was able to go with people and and enjoy oh i think so well uh_huh yeah i'm here uh well only my um my grandmother but for a very short time um she uh she was just more or less in a in a nursing home for uh recovery from a broken hip because she could receive more medical attention but um that physical therapy was there and whatever but i think in visiting her there um it was very obvious to see that a lot of the people in the nursing home that she was in uh weren't there mentally uh she was probably the only person in the um whole nursing home that uh still had all of her mental facilities about her so that was uh that was very [disheartening] oh yeah it's really hard i guess i i come from a family of um of uh take care of your [elders] i guess uh my my dad's mother is an invalid and she lives with my aunt and uncle and they care for her you know all around the clock though she's not uh she doesn't have to receive constant medical attention she because of arthritis she's just unable to get out of bed so i guess you know there's that family commitment um i know that my parents my mother is trying to let my grandmother stay in her house as long as she can um yeah right yeah yeah well probably i think as long as the person's able to um to understand what's going on around them and i think you know my grandmother right now is still able to walk around and she's still able to uh to do some things for herself though she gets meals on wheels which i think is a great thing because um it saves people from having to prepare food for her because you worry a little bit about her leaving a stove on or whatever although she does most things very well it still makes a little bit easier for her uh uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh right yeah that i think you know it's really funny i have two grandmothers still alive and my one grandmother says that she wants to stay in her house for as long as possible she's like openly told people she's always been very good about knowing yes she's eighty nine and she said that she would really like to stay in her house as long as possible because it's her home but when the time comes um she and she can't do things and she has to be cared for whatever she would prefer and she's actually said this to move into some type of community where she has her own apartment uh probably with like a living space and a bedroom with maybe a kitchenette so that if she you know if she wants to fix herself something light she can do that but if she wants to go to a meal she can go down the hallway uh to a room where there's a cafeteria and there's other people there and she can mix with them and talk with them and enjoy their company uh_huh yes uh_huh right uh_huh right uh_huh right yeah i think i think that probably until until they're really [invalids] uh the elderly are [invalids] i think that they should be able to interact with other people in an environment that they choose if they can if the family can afford it i mean um see i know that my grandmother would like to stay in her house and my parents actually said you know that they may have to take their end sometime so because you know my grandma she says who she wants to live with she's pretty you know she lets people know well about nursing homes and and older people uh my husband has a grandmother that lives with his mother and they're just really close here and his mother has bad health too and so i go over sometimes in the day when he's at work and i um help with her and [bathe] her and feed her and uh and i that's hard to be a caretaker i really believe it's really difficult to be a caretaker twenty four hours a day uh she has alzheimer's and does not remember uh a lot if anything and so she asks the same questions over and over again which is not you know unrealistic um and so you just have to try and be patient and answer them again or just answer another question uh i uh some nights his mother calls me and says can your family and just bring the kids in the family and just come over and and visit grandma because she gets very [disoriented] she's ninety two oh i think that's wonderful well uh_huh yeah i was just going to say yeah um yes uh i think it's wonderful these these places that aren't nursing homes necessarily but they can go and [reside] there like little apartments places in between places and i like that idea if they can handle it themselves um yeah yeah yeah uh_huh yeah nursing homes visit uh_huh they don't go and see them that's right that's right you know um i i think nursing homes are are um some are good i have to say that but for the most part i truly believe that the parents would be better if they were with the children um right right uh_huh i hope so you know it's i think it's very difficult in the first place to make that choice to have them go there and then if you find out that they are not having good care you know i'm sure that it is just you know you'd pull them out of there so fast and uh and yet if you didn't feel like you could be a good caretaker i don't uh it's a very very hard decision i think uh_huh i think that's right and especially if you're not a person that is like a medical person maybe or something that the person needs medical treatment now i know a friend of mine who had a father uh she brought to her home uh to live there but he needed the medical treatment and she had a nursing person come in like three times a week to to help him out and that might be a partial solution or something but um i personally am for the trying it at home caretaker part before i think i'd ever yeah yeah well i i think we kind of are along the same lines good to hear from you have a lovely day what is it about nursing homes yeah uh_huh right oh it's very difficult i know uh_huh uh_huh right yeah yeah how old is she uh my see my father is ninety two and still uh he and mother still live at the house and drive and and do the whole thing but you know if something would uh whenever something happens to one of them then i don't know what i'll do up there i i just know that too many horror stories about nursing homes and so they're in missouri and i could i i know i know stories for sure that they just they they just well they can't take the proper care of them most of them and uh it's it's tragic that you know when people live so long that they uh don't have a really don't have a place to go so right yeah there's one very close to where my parents are but uh i think it would be nice but my dad's the type he wouldn't want to spend the money on anything so uh i mean he's from that old depression era and uh you know it's oh it's just [blissfull] that they're both able to do everything for themselves i would imagine that i'll uh if something happens i'll move one of them or you know in in with me so uh but i know a lot of people have said that and then find out how tough it is and but i think you'd have to really they also wanted us to talk about you'd have to really check on the uh on this homes but i just don't know how much you can see when you go for a i think you just have to drop in all unexpectedly a lot and so many people when they put people in the nurses home they never see them they never go to see them i've talked to many uh owners of places and say that nobody even maybe maybe christmas uh_huh right oh i do too or if if they could be real real nearby where they could see them everyday or so uh because i know governor richards is really upset about what she's finding in the nursing homes uh regulation in texas so maybe we'll get it improved so anyway right oh it's tough i'm sure oh right that would be devastating i'm sure so it is a tough decision and it's one that needs a great deal of thought and prior probably yeah right uh_huh right i would hope we could do that and then go from there well anyway we've covered a little bit and uh it's good to hear from you and have a good have a good um i don't i am only twenty eight and i haven't had much experience with nursing homes i don't i have never visited any of them and uh i don't think i've ever even been in one have you uh_huh and it it takes a lot of care like twenty four hours a day someone has to be well there's someone in my my fiancee's family his grandmother too and they're that her son his uncle whatever you know anyway he he has he's recently retired and so he's the one who she moved in with when she had a stroke and and all the other children are working or whatever they're all my parents age and uh so he's got you know his retirement though is really twenty four hours a day they have a day care two days a week they call it senior citizen day care but she goes in the senior citizen center so he gets a break two days a week but it's only for like two or three hours at a time and you know just you see a lot of things like you you know was a great golfer and wanted to play golf when he retired and you know that a lot of the things he thought he would do when he retired he's not able to do now but he refuses to consider any other i don't yeah and is that how your parents feel or uh_huh uh_huh i know at this i know i feel like i would never do that with my parents either you know but i i really feel bad for the people i see not very i'm not really really experienced but like i said i just have that one family and i just really feel bad for the guy who his whole life is different now and than he thought it would be but yeah and he's got you know seven brothers and sisters and and uh he's the one because he's the one that isn't going to work every day and that she moved in with when she needed to move in with someone and oh well that's great that's a good idea we ought to yeah and maybe when the other brothers and sisters retire or whatever i don't know what they're going to do it's really not my family it's my fiancee's so i don't i can't say much but i always feel like i would never put my parents in either and i wonder i'm going to be the only [sibling] that isn't going to have children so if my parents do need to live with someone it will probably be with me because all my brothers and sisters will be having teenagers around and everything to care for you know and i'm i that's fine with me my fiancee and i both figure that's what's we're going to end up with both of the parents or whoever if you know what i mean we feel like it's our responsibility and i feel like i would never put them in a home but i wonder how much you know if one of us is going to have to quit work someday or retire early or something you think about it and it's really i don't know this country kind of takes the worst care of the elderly of any other country and it's really more of a um like a respect issue that the older older people in other countries that i've been to seem to really have a lot more respect for the elderly people and and they really seem as wise and and in this country nobody really yeah nobody really pays attention and they oh the old timer made with the old way and nobody respects the traditions and you know it's i i'm not saying that i do either but you know it's just funny and and we really don't have any that don't have the social security and everything really isn't that much for elderly people to live on you know even if they're in good health it's incredible they don't have any they don't get special treatment and maybe they should you know because we're all going to get old someday and so it's a it's kind of a depressing topic though how old are you so it is yeah and it must be rough for you too to see your grandmother um actually i have um i've i've been in them but um just visiting and uh we used to when we were like in in our teen ages we'd go on sundays and visit you know the older people but um i have an elderly grandma that lives with us and she's lived with us for like five years so i kind of know how it is to how to decide if you want to put somebody in a rest home or um like we i mean we've had those discussions you know about should we put her in or because she's pretty senile and yeah it's uh_huh oh really uh_huh right to put her in a rest home um well see it's more my grandma that feels that way she says that when her husband died that he said oh that my uncle had said that he would never put her in a rest home so it's kind of uh i don't know i mean i don't i don't think my parents would but she is getting pretty bad like she has to have like a little toilet right by her bed and it's and my mom has to take care of her pretty much so it gets i don't know it's it's a hard decision but i don't think i would do it to my parents personally when he retired yeah it's like that good for us just because my uncle and my and my mom switch off like we have her for three months and then he has her for three months so that that works out good uh_huh really uh_huh uh_huh you think i i i'm not really familiar with how other countries they're seen as senile right uh_huh right uh_huh i know um i'm twenty yeah it's it really is but and she she drives us okay have you faced uh elderly care yet uh nursing home care for any of your parents uh_huh yes i think sooner or later uh both my mother and my husband's mother we had to end up putting in nursing homes and they were to the point that they only lived both of them about six weeks once they got in and uh_huh and it's absolutely i believe that was one of the hardest things i ever did in my life i that it just you know it's absolutely devastating what have you found in dealing with the nursing homes yes um uh_huh yes yes no uh there well there's a little bit of difference in in the two between my mother and my mother in law and uh theirs both ran oh i think my mother in law's was like fifteen hundred and my mother's was two thousand then this has been five years ago and uh uh one of the things that you know i had discovered is that if they knew that i came in there at all different hours they got much better care than if when i started out with my mother in law because she was in there first i would go certain hours and they knew and if i'd pop in unexpectedly i discovered you know they did a little bit they did better you know uh_huh and you know a couple of times with my mother in law i would catch something not being taken care of and you know would have to rate so i got to where i knew then when my mother was in that you know not to go the same time all the time because they would and when i was looking for the nursing homes another thing that i learned uh we had my mother all set to go into one and for some reason i just went back and on my own went around the different floors and i saw areas that they had not shown me and they did not come across as well as you know what they had originally shown me so uh we did not put her in that one we put her in another one that i i went a couple of times when they weren't expecting me and saw and you know was much uh better pleased with the situation yes you do uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh does your mother have alzheimer's uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh did she know that she was going to a nursing home did she know that she was going to a nursing home uh_huh unfortunately yes uh in fact tonight i had the dinner with uh my three brothers and our wives and we were talking uh we had a review with the nursing home staff my mother's in a nursing home and uh we had a review today and a few things we had to do that are part of it that you don't really like like uh making decisions on living [wills] and extended care that type of thing so yes i'm very familiar with it and it's not something that is uh you know i never thought i'd have to go through this kind of experience but i guess we all do oh really uh_huh right well they're not every all the horror stories you hear about them i think are true uh we've you know we've looked around and my wife has looked at extensively at all the ones in the area and the one she is in now uh there's a lot of drawbacks a lot of things we don't like but again it's no different than every one and you know the cost of it the three thousand dollars a month when you think about it for what you're paying a hospital for almost the same well even not as much care it's not that expensive really uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh really uh_huh yeah uh_huh well i'll be darned uh_huh yeah yeah you you know this is the whole point you've got you've got to shop them i know my mother's in now in a unit that's mainly alzheimer's and uh we're convinced that she probably would be better off in a geriatric uh the fact that these people are they're up and around but they're they're it's reminds me too much of an asylum type situation and it's very very she well who knows they call it uh [dementia] and uh we don't know i i mean she does not know us anymore and whether it's alzheimer's or what it is nobody really knows but it's basically the same and her health is not that bad although she has gone down downhill drastically since this this last well she had been in a retirement community and somewhere in the back of her mind she had it that she would live with her children well she we we just did not have the capabilities to to take care of her and uh but she she has gone down steadily since she has been in and she's been in the nursing home now for oh i would say about three months and i'm sorry she no as far as she knew she was going to a hospital and that she could she could handle a hospital and we says you know mom if you you know if you get a you get better you've got to have the care the doctor [insisted] on it you know if you get better that you could come out okay well carolyn the uh one of the main things i'd like like to know is uh how do you feel about the knowing about the environment of a nursing home before you would send someone there to live and so forth what do you think would be required and so forth oh you knew of the homes then you knew of the homes themselves uh_huh oh okay yeah well from your point of view how would you feel about actually sending someone that that's you know means something to you to one of those homes i realize that you indicated you wanted to check out as much as you can about it and of course that makes sense but how do you think they would feel i should say about moving from where they have lived most of their life into a whole new new home situation uh_huh oh okay uh_huh yes uh_huh well how do you find that your your personal relationship is with her know that you're both together all the time and you are having to do a lot more for her than normal does that does that cause any problems between the two of you uh_huh is she it's hard to accept the fact that you're unable to pursue life at the level that you did before isn't it yeah it is different i had that almost similar situation my mother lives in an apartment with my sister and uh so i except for the three or four months this summer that's the only time i ever spent with my mother and of course since i see her only once or twice a year i was just thrilled to have her here with me and i spent every minute i could to be with her and uh cooking foods for her you know just to make her her life as though she were on vacation but somehow another it that doesn't work between my mom and my sister and they they find they they are in speaking they i don't know my mother feels uncomfortable around my sister and my sister's uncomfortable because her mother's there and i guess it's just because they're there all the time so it's it puts has put pressure on both of them from that point of view so that's that's kind of bad news and by the same token my wife's mother is now moved into a nursing home and after all she has been a farmer's wife for sixty years and now all of a sudden she's had to move off of her farm into another home where the environment is totally different she's relatively happy but she doesn't like the food and when she complains about the food then they kind of get angry with her so that's another one of those things you have to solve yeah after all their their life is so totally different because in those early days the food they had to make it from scratch so to speak i mean you raised your own chickens and you killed your own [hogs] i suppose and then they they had to store the meat in uh i don't want to say [barns] but they had regular little places they they would hang it you know to cure it and so forth and and now all of a sudden it uh comes in differently it tastes differently well uh i'll tell you i i watched what went on um with the twenty twenty show i don't know if you saw that a few days ago that that talked about nursing homes and actually they specifically talked about some in the area where i am here in texas and pardon well i no i'm not familiar with those homes per se but um they were in the area where i live uh and it was really [revealing] to see some of the you know the things that go on i guess in some of these homes so i would definitely you know want to really check things out and uh go i guess that the big thing would be once you got someone in a home like that to to make sure that you went daily you know and made sure that they were cared for and uh_huh well actually i have that kind of situation because my mother lives with me and she's eighty seven and uh from the time that we were tiny she said you know i want you to promise that you'll never put me in a rest home so i know how she feels about it you know if i uh if i ever had to put her there i think uh it would be probably when i just could not handle it any more you know if i she got to the point where she was totally bedridden and and i mean i just didn't have the skills or the strength to lift her or whatever it needed i think that would be the uh i wouldn't say any more than usual i think it's very hard for her um to be waited upon so to speak i mean i think it's hard for her to have that role of not being able to do as much as she used to yeah i think that's very true um on the other hand it takes on almost a a switch of a mother child relationship uh oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah um uh_huh huh uh_huh yeah well that's got to be a big adjustment for someone that's as you say lived on a farm for sixty years and then go to something like that uh_huh yeah uh_huh that's right yeah well well yes i do uh this is a a question that hit pretty close to home i had to go through this with my dad about four years ago he was his health was failing and uh he was adamant about two things one was that i take care of my mother and two that he not be put into a home and we talked uh about some length and i respected his wishes he uh stayed at home as long as he could and then uh he died in a hospital but um i think that my position is that uh you need to find one that you can really have confidence that they are taking care of the of the uh of their clients and um because i've heard about the many abuses and because he had heard of so many abuses he just didn't want that how about you yeah almost thirty all over thirty percent isn't it uh_huh they're captive uh we had a at one stage we had care somewhat like like what you're talking about we had the visiting nurses program and they sent somebody in and it it was a a nominal charge that this uh it started out that the lady would come in i think three times a week and eventually got up to the point where they were coming by every day they would try to get him to exercise they would try to uh you know they would check him over to to you know the basic checks try to get him to talk and be motivated and uh that's what we went through uh up to a point things seemed to be working and then uh i think he he became discouraged and they did not know how to take care of that and then um at that point i think it's mostly a psychological problem and uh but yes i agree there's a lot of options there could be a lot of options i think it's time that uh we decide to do something about it um i suppose at one time the church would fulfill this need yeah the church or [synagogue] whatever because typically these were close knit groups at one time but in today's large metropolitan areas or even in most even even the rural areas now people are not quite as close as they once were uh the mobility factor the factor that uh-oh we're living longer and people are less trusting all these things tend to destroy this type of system but i agree with you there might be some possibilities there although dealing with [geriatrics] is something a lot of young people just aren't emotionally prepared to do i think they would have to have some training do you have uh some strong feelings one way or the other about about the care of the elderly uh_huh uh_huh yes yeah yeah well my graduate work is in speech pathology and uh so so uh i've thought about this more than once uh you know dealing with uh you know i'm concerned we're going to have a geriatric uh population in in twenty years it's going to be you know phenomenal yeah yeah uh and um but i have been amazed and and in talking with uh some of my fellow students it looks as though um nursing homes are not going to be the only option any more and uh in twenty years uh where a lot of students are hoping uh to work as an in the home type uh uh approach where where the uh where there's you know the speech therapist or whether it's a nursing specialist or someone plans to uh work out of a family's home and take the responsibility away from the family but yet allow the the loved one to stay you know at home with the family members uh it's it's difficult for many families especially in the case of uh of alzheimer's and and uh some of the more [degenerative] diseases to uh say uh uh leave them to have them at home because then the family becomes completely uh exactly yeah and and did did you experience that with your with your father or not uh_huh yeah uh_huh right oh uh_huh yeah definitely you know one of the other subjects on the switchboard and this is one that i've been thinking applies here uh where where uh young young kids uh graduating from high school whether they should do a community service type work this would be an excellent example of some where uh some place where um the community could be more involved you know more than just leaving it only to professionals there is a lot the community the community can do to uh [enhance] the or or [assist] the lives of those who are keeping a loved one at home possibly before i don't know now uh_huh huh_uh uh_huh i agree that's a that's a good point well i was just wondering if you had had any experience with um the care of the elderly uh_huh right uh_huh well that's nice no it's really sad it's really a sad situation and uh i think a lot of people struggle with i i guess the problem is that the spouse of whoever you know the parent is doesn't always want the in law living in the house is that right well that's really sad uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right yes well i know when the i remember being a child and my grandmother had had several strokes and things and that we had my parents tried to keep her in the house and they did for a long time i couldn't tell you how long until she got uh where she had to have complete care and so they couldn't you know keep her in the house anymore and it was really hard on everyone she had to have you know twenty four hour a day care and i don't remember much about it except that there was a nursing home at that time just a block or two from our house and that um they put her there and we all went just constantly until she died but it was very hard on everyone to see you know grandmother be like that and i don't know that you know i don't being so young i don't remember why you know what was why she had to go there uh_huh well i do remember that she was you know totally [incapable] of taking care of herself in any way and that that they couldn't they found that they could not you know give her the [hygienic] care and everything that she needed no but like you say there is a tendency for people to be abandoned though you know in the nursing home i do remember the other patients there uh being real excited when we came to see our own grandmother because they got some interaction with someone uh_huh right right and i guess that's hard on people to give give up their lives if they're busy they don't you know it's easy to abandon people because we do have the nursing homes i guess if you can afford them but anyway well i'm glad it worked out good for your family yes i have in fact uh just a little over just a little less than a year ago uh my mother went to be with the lord and we cared for her the last oh seventeen months of her life here in the at home aside from uh having to uh take her to the hospital and uh you know those times well she was there in the the regular hospital and then she was diagnosed having [inoperable] type of cancer and so the doctor elected to have her uh finish out uh in the hospice program and uh i as far as i'm concerned that is far and above any nursing home because uh she's around her own you know the the elderly parent in question is around their own family the uh hospice program provides a hospital type bed well it is a hospital bed and all the [oxygen] stuff and a uh and a visiting nurse at least every other day et cetera et cetera et cetera and it's all taken care of by by uh medicare uh and uh it it's it's really neat uh and i you know i wouldn't i wouldn't [banish] uh my old loved one to a to a warehouse and that's that's what i basically uh view a nursing home as a warehouse so that's pardon me uh_huh oh uh_huh right yeah i know but uh in this case uh spouse and i uh are uh we're are are uh united in this area because i guess her father her grandfather and grandmother both lived with uh her parents uh their golden years too so this isn't like uh uh just one one uh instance in fact uh her uh uh experiences were were [invaluable] to me uh in fact i don't know if i could have uh held up uh you know without my wife uh helping in this this in this case uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh okay uh_huh well maybe well as as you say the care of of grandmother or was was just such that such mom and dad couldn't handle it oh boy yeah uh_huh uh_huh well then then there's almost then there's almost no no uh uh choice left to her then uh_huh right in fact just uh just uh sit and chat with them for five minutes and and be interested in what they have to say regardless of what it is uh_huh right and then then oh yeah it did and i was just i just praised the lord that that we were able to uh have uh uh hello hi my name is [dolphene] i live in texas okay i work for t i do do you also okay oh okay uh you ready to begin oh okay okay yes well i don't think that uh any of my relatives would really like to go there i i believe if i am in a position uh like when my mother gets to a point where she needs special care that i will be able to just bring her into my home and my father also and uh or have someone go into their home you know and uh and look after them that way uh_huh right it's basically it's more how they feel about it and it is like they feel they are uh the way my mother would put it like somebody had thrown them away you know right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh and another thing to think about uh on the positive side of the nursing homes here i use to work in one of the offices in a nursing home and i got to see a lot of the things that they did they uh they had a lot of crafts and they had a lot of games and uh they get together and just do they they do all sorts of things and then there some some of the uh the people that are in there are real you know very nice and friendly to everybody and uh then there are others that are uh it is just a job and they just you know want to go in and do what they have to do and get out go home uh the the attitude of the staff as you said is really very very important right right yeah yeah well it is like the one that i worked in uh you would see some of them just like in [wheelchairs] all day they would just roll themselves around all over the place and and they would enjoy enjoy themselves with activities and then you would see see some of the others that are were like distant from the other group and they they just didn't like participate together with the others because they had some some uh i guess uh slight mental disabilities and things like that what what do you call [alzheimer] disease and stuff like that and they don't don't uh they weren't really together with the rest of them when they got together for such activities hello hi my name is pat johnson and i live in texas too no no i live in dallas i work for the dallas school system we might as well i understand we are doing care of the elderly right and how do you feel about putting someone in the nursing home uh_huh yes i would find it very difficult uh to uh place my father or my step mother uh in a place like that particularly since i know how they feel about it yes yes i do think that there are some significant kinds of things to to look for you know if you are faced with placing someone in a place like that uh you know aside from the cleanliness and the medical care that is offered and such but attitude of staff makes such a tremendous difference and i have a a friend who is partly [paralyzed] and is in a nursing home and has no family who you know could care for her and uh i know that the cheerful pleasant people who treat her [kindly] make all the difference in the world in how she feels about uh her situation uh_huh uh_huh yes uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh i think it would matter too uh kinds of uh disabilities that the nursing home accepts because there are some uh who poor things you know don't have uh any real grasp on reality any longer and they may be ambulatory but they tend to behave like children small children and that would be very difficult i think for an adult who wasn't in that situation to to have to deal with on a daily basis uh yes uh_huh uh_huh yes yes [alzheimer] yes yes and that can okay well why don't you start cause it said i was suppose to ask you what do you yes i do oh my gosh uh_huh uh_huh right right yeah right my mother in law finally they had to make a family decision there's seven children in my husband's family and fortunately four of them live in the same home town and she has alzheimer's it was getting where she was getting dangerous i mean letting strangers in and things like this but they were very fortunate it's a small town and she happens to room with one of the doctor's mother's and then she's got a lot of family there and that go and see her all of the time but she really doesn't nobody thought she would adjust but she has adjusted beautifully but then i am also facing my father who is very sick and my mother and father [reside] in colorado she's been taking care of him i don't know how much longer this can last and at that point because he requires round the clock he can't do anything without her he doesn't know when to take his medicine and it's really sad and i have thought if something would happen to my mother for uh my brother's are not interested in helping me so i would have to move him down here that way i want to see the nursing home if i have to put him into one you know where i can go see it i i'd be very uncomfortable with him being in colorado and yes and some of them are limited care too where people can do uh like they have apartment styles but that wouldn't work for him i think he is beyond that where if you need help you can get it but basically people kind of have a small apartment and doctor's are available if they need them and allows yeah yeah well the only problem with these are that they are very expensive of course i guess all nursing homes there is but right yeah right yeah i uh yeah and i think a lot of people who do it now in colorado it's interesting i talked to my mother they allow you sixty five thousand dollars and your car and your home and my mother could make it on that what she probably would do is [disburse] the money to me and then i would send it back to her so that's what would happen yeah it's unfortunate right yeah it's frightening and i guess uh i don't know how old you are i'm forty six you know we're the generation moving into this and i don't know how our kids are going to take care of us you know yeah yeah right i also see on my generation a squeeze between looking to having to help my parents and still having to help my son because things are so rough out there job wise and he's still living at home and i don't know how he is ever going to get on his own the way things are and so it's kind of you feel squeezed in the middle of having both generations but it something will have to change as more and more of us get older uh luckily if we could be like your grandmother i uh you know i would love to live to a hundred and two if i were okay but you see these people in their seventies yeah most aren't that's the problem that's incredible do you have any elderly relatives currently in an uh nursing home now do you i have a grandmother she's a hundred and two she'll be a hundred and three in august and we decide not to put her in a nursing home she lives with my mother and my father who also live here in town and then my sister takes care of her she even though she is a hundred and two she still has all of her faculties she still has her snap she takes care of her own business this is the first year that she has gotten weak and actually has to have a little walker but with somebody that needs around the clock care i have seen my family age i have seen them in the she's been there ten years now and i have seen them age twenty in the time and and with the expense and everything i i still think it is worth it if you if you had a good nursing home and they needed some quality care i would put someone in a nursing home uh_huh oh well that's good oh that is great oh why yeah i am sure you have got some really good nursing homes around dallas uh_huh i i know a lady that lives in a place similar to that in austin and the bad thing about it before you can get any kind of government help you just practically have well you have to be a [pauper] it it takes every penny they want you to spend every dime you have before the government will pay for your your care and that's the sad part about it uh_huh i think that's what most people do you just have to give it everything away i i work at a [brokerage] firm and i have seen so many people that just have to gift you know their belongings as much as they can each year in [anticipation] of having to move to a nursing home i can't imagine i'm twenty nine and everybody in my family has always had we don't have any children everybody that has has them later in life so my my mother and my father are in their late sixties so i mean they're not that far away oh i know it but yeah most people aren't and that's the bad thing i would hate to have lived so long she lived by herself my grandfather passed away before i was born so she lived by herself up until she was ninety ninety one and just did everything i'm ready okay well i don't have an elderly person that i could send to a a nursing home or anything my both of my parents are dead but i did have a friend that was in a [convalescent] home uh like a nursing home and i went there very often to visit her and uh made me feel really sad if i did have a mother living i don't think i could do that i think they would be better off being at home with their family you know uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh i can believe that yes because most elderly people can't take having a lot of noise and kids running around and things like that in a situation like that maybe it would be better uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh oh uh_huh oh see now that's that's that's really a sad situation yeah really you know uh_huh yeah right right yeah in a case like that you know you more or less think it would be better if she were in a nursing home because you have your family growing up where uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh but the cost of these nursing homes are so you know a lot of people can't afford that you know so you really have no choice that way if you you know if you're not rich or you know uh i know this lady that you know that was a friend of mine now her husband was still alive at the time when she was in there you know and it was costing him a small fortune to keep her in there so uh_huh yeah then bring her back home at night uh_huh uh_huh yeah you know just come home for dinner and then usually they want to go to bed fairly early anyhow you know so that would probably be nice if we could ever get something like that but yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um uh_huh yeah if if they don't know anybody and they don't know what's going on around them and everything like that well i can see maybe a nursing home would be better you know but if they they have their wits about them and everything why it's kind of hard uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well uh my mother always said she hopes she never had to be like that and uh luckily i mean she lived by herself and then you know one day she had a heart attack and she was gone so she never did have to go into a nursing home or anything like that but there's so many of us kids there was like seven of us that my we wouldn't have probably allowed that to happen anyhow you know she could have taken turns living with each one of us you know for a a a period of time because we all don't live in the same city anyhow nor the same state so uh i i have a couple more that live out here in california but then i have a why don't you go ahead and start off i agree although we're in that situation right now we have a an eighty seven year old mother in law living with me right now and because of her circumstances she can no longer live independently and even moving from her house to our house has been tremendously [unsettling] for her and we have several young children and they about drive her crazy well we've you know we've struggled a lot with it because again most of the nursing homes i've been in are very depressing to me and she's still alert enough that i think she would really know that we were putting her there and i think she would really resent it and i think that would make it very hard but on the other hand i see my wife with i guess our youngest one now is five and her trying to struggle because her mother really cannot take care of herself she needs to be [bathed] and dressed and a lot of those kinds of things and so the drain on the family and when the kids have kids come you know she's always saying you know why do they have to be here why can't they send them home it's too noisy and she'll say that to the kids' friends so it's a hard situation either way i think i think that's one of the things we're really wrestling with when does it become detrimental to our family to the point that you have to consider that as opposed to considering her current circumstances and oh prohibitive yeah yeah i think we need to develop some alternatives like adult day care that's more readily available you know i think if we could send her someplace for the day and she could be around some elderly people and have some activities would be of more interest to her and then in the evening have her return and be with the family yeah but there's not many of those available right now and they're very hard to get them into and we tried sending her to a senior citizen center but they're really not prepared to cope with her because she's somewhat senile and so a lot of the activities that they're engaged in she can't participate in but i think it's an issue that you know with the [graying] of america we're really going to have to as a as a country figure out how we're going to deal with this because it is a difficult situation and you know you hate seeing them just sort of send off and not well cared for and yet and then i think it depends on their physical ability too you know if they could be up and doing some things it might be better than when they're just sort of needing almost constant supervision and care yeah do you live at all close to each other uh so what do you think uh about putting the elderly in a nursing home huh uh_huh that's true yeah huh uh_huh that's true i never thought of that yeah that's true until they get over that hump of whatever it is they're dealing with yes they really are they don't like to keep them longer than a week yeah what do you mean yeah that's true yeah and it depends on how how sick the person is too what you're capable of like if you have a family to take care of you know of your own yeah uh i would personally like it if my parents were to get ill i would like to take care of them at home and if i had the money with some help that's not always possible but uh to the best of my ability i'd like to do it until it gets impossible right uh_huh yeah that's true yeah but i think nursing homes can be good it just depends on what kind they are you know you need to check them out ahead of time uh_huh uh_huh yeah that they're yeah right who know what they're doing with that yeah well my uh grandmother's not really in a nursing home but a retirement home that also has a nursing home sort of attached to it and she really liked the idea of of moving there she's not ill yet but uh she worked there as a volunteer for about ten years and then she decided that uh she's eighty five years old that eventually you know she she doesn't want her family taking care of her and being a burden she's very independent so she's in this nursing home it's out in the country and uh she really enjoys it right now because she doesn't have to wash dishes or cook uh_huh right some support and then there's also uh sort of a wing for those people that do get sick and what i like about it and i think she likes about it is that she knows everybody there now and then so if she ever does become ill uh it will be like family around her yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh no she loves it she has a great social life and she travels and uh it's in in the very in the mountains and it's beautiful and uh i i hope that i have something like that when i get older uh_huh uh_huh oh definitely it's right okay well i think that it it varies on on the individual basis uh sometimes it is there is no alternative uh you do not have uh uh family available or family that's uh you may not even have family that is uh uh in you know who are around so sometimes it's not an alternative and i think uh but i think also sometimes it can be uh a benefit if it's for a short time sometimes in a nursing home uh especially if if it's after an [acute] illness to get over a or to rehab after uh an illness sometimes you know sometimes the nursing homes are good for uh just short periods of time uh_huh because too often the [acute] hospitals will are sending them out much faster than what they're really able to so so there is some good to it uh sometimes too it's used as a dumb job you know the well the families do not necessarily uh know what to do with them and they don't want to take the responsibility so they will put them in a nursing home so you see uh there's both sides to it too what do you think yeah that's true i think that's also where you're going to have a lot of people who are going to it's there's not a choice it's because it's not economically feasible even to put them in a nursing home so that that option sometimes is not available if they do not have the uh either medicare or insurance to cover it so yeah and then there's also some that are set up for specialties uh i know some unfortunately some elderly have to go to or have i guess it's alzheimer's or where they wonder or or uh confused or have some mental problem and you need a special nursing home for that you need one that has a unit that's locked where they are not able to get out and roam around and you need people who are trained for that type of problem yeah so so there's different types of nursing homes i think uh_huh gives her a little bit of her own independence but she still has uh a security there that's right and i i've seen some of them like that too and also they have a lot of uh activities going on for the ones who are more active so it's not sort of like uh uh a sick place yeah i i think i think the uh i think that the decision that needs to be made though on nursing home has to be a joint one between the uh elderly uh person who's going in and the family that's going to be uh effected by it and uh you know sometimes it can those those choices can be made in advance and sometimes the choices because of the nature of the illness when they're okay uh before a couple of years ago i had a a very narrow view of of nursing homes and it was uh more like a funeral home i always [joked] around about it being a funeral home and not really a nursing home and uh then i had to do some volunteer work here in tyler texas and i went to one and it just had a very good activities director everyone was cheerful and now i don't have such a bad view of nursing homes anymore but i i certainly wouldn't want to send my parent unless it was an absolute last resort uh i have a sister that is in nursing school and she's real interested in [geriatrics] yeah so uh she she's real interested in uh what ann richards has been doing she's ann richards is really cracking down on uh the nursing homes and i don't know you wouldn't know anything about a texas governor okay ann richards is our governor in texas and she's really cracking down on restrictions and what goes on in nursing homes and uh my sister's real interested in that and and getting into the to that side of nursing right uh_huh uh_huh oh uh_huh right right uh_huh right right right uh_huh it sure is and some of the really nice ones that really take care of their people are so expensive because cause they can afford to hire the people that are really going to care for the older oh yeah right my grandfather passed away several years ago i was much younger but uh he was in the nursing home the last several years of his life and someone visited him every day my grandmother did but uh if she couldn't someone visited him every day it was in a very small town nursing home and uh people didn't get paid much there at all they didn't care about what went on they would let a let a patient get a lot of bed [sores] and uh the the people living in the nursing home would have all kinds of needs that wouldn't get met because they were just old people and then the nurses and doctors really didn't put any for forth any loving care for them right right uh_huh right right and nurses get so worn down right oh sure and they feel they feel pretty [helpless] is it uh like a retirement center uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh how's he handling that uh_huh ooh oh sure there wasn't anything like that that you could do in florida well that sounds good i've heard the name and that's about all it goes yeah that's one problem with the the nursing home environment it the elderly even out of the nursing home are very open to abuse uh you know they don't always have their full wits about them they're not completely up on what should be going on or what's not going on and it can be pretty sad i've got a had a grandmother who had a stroke and she was in a nursing home for four or five years before she died and you know it's the type of thing that she was living down in florida my families was up in maryland and the other part of her family was up in uh new york state and you know it was very difficult for either them or my grandfather to take care of her since she was uh you know could not do very much for herself after the stroke and you know the nursing home was the you know best facility to put her in you know besides moving her up which is not a practical solution since both my parents work and both my uh aunts and uncle work which means it's you know very difficult for you essentially need to have someone taking care of the person full time and you know there's also a lot of medical problems that can't always be completely handled in the home which makes it you know it's a necessary evil i think yeah yeah and you know even there you have to watch out for you know you get one person who's a little bit dishonest working in there and you know the elderly sometimes have a lot of jewelry and other stuff that just very easily tends to disappear in the nursing homes uh_huh yeah uh_huh either that or they're just so [understaffed] that they can't afford to put in the uh care that they need cause it's you know an elderly person can you know it's like a [newborn] baby you need to have twenty four hour care uh answering all the needs cause they can't do much for themselves at certain points uh_huh and you know there's a lot of number of the elderly are very you know complaining because they remember the way that things used to be and remember being able to do things for themselves which you know they no longer can and it very very hard for them to accept that we just uh moved my grandfather into not a nursing home but you know a [transitional] type facility more of a retirement home he's got his own efficiency apartment and they provide one meal a day and you know the rest of the housekeeping and other meals a day are up to him but they do have you know group activities going on uh he'd much rather be living alone in his apartment down in florida uh you know to move into that facility we moved him from florida up to maryland and it's it's a bit of a shock to the system weather wise if nothing else well there was stuff like that in florida but well i don't know my grandfather is ninety two years old and he is still living by himself my grandmother died a couple of years ago but he doesn't want to to move away he lives in a little [farmhouse] on a farm and he recently had to have an operation but he just really doesn't want to go to a nursing home well he was until this operation he has arthritis and now i don't really think he's doing that well and my a lot of my aunts and uncles live near him and i have one aunt that really looks after him a lot but uh my great grandfather was put in a nursing home when he was a hundred and three and uh died six weeks after they put him in the home uh_huh uh_huh but i just don't think that nursing homes really do a very good job uh_huh uh_huh but i don't i mean at least i mean i think some nursing homes do that but i think a lot of nursing homes really uh are guilty of neglect uh_huh well julie uh are you in a situation where you'd soon need to deal with uh special care for elderly uh_huh uh_huh is he able to uh still do everything himself pretty well oh yeah yeah uh_huh yeah and i'm sure that kind of thing would influence your grandfather's feelings because uh i you know i think for a lot of people it really is the decision of do they still have some of their life left and and for for i'm sure a lot of people going into a nursing home it's like saying my life is over and i'm just here for the rest of the stay and so i you know i guess most of the time when i think about somebody going into a nursing home it's more a case of where they are not able to look after their day to day needs yeah they have can look after a lot of things but there's some of the day to day needs that they just are not able to deal with physically anymore uh i know my none of my grandparents were in a nursing home they generally were able to have someone care for them at home and they died but they were all goodness younger than your grandparents like they were in their eighties that type of thing uh but i did uh you know i guess uh when i think nursing home i do think of people that are not able to do take care of themselves physically uh and that's that's difficult part because i think what they often get used as is uh almost like a very high level or long term care for uh similar to a hospital uh i know like here in [saskatchewan] we have our hospital care the care actually for the older people graded in level in four levels and a level four type of care would be someone that really requires long term hospital care generally are not able to look after themselves to very to a very great extent physically often times they even have mental difficulty with [senility] or alzheimer's disease or those or or physical and mental handicaps uh you know where they really require twenty four hour supervision of some kind even though it may be minimal and uh but i think that it can be helpful in that uh it gets people the level of physical care they need uh yeah i and i think it happens more in areas where it's uh i guess uh a broad social medical system where uh you know there's government medical care and that kind of thing if it's the lot where it's funded by the individuals and and i guess that's sort of my lack of understanding i think that a majority of the places in the u s uh you know there is some government aid available but the majority of it is to the availability of the individual to pay and uh if you're not able to look after yourself then you have to rely that's right that's right you know what what uh what do you think is important if you were uh i don't know how how old you are but if you had if you had uh parents say or or or grandparents whatever it is uh who were ready who who you thought might benefit from a nursing home what do you think you would look for huh yeah yeah huh well my uh uh my wife's grandmother is in a nursing home in uh minnesota and we go there uh once a year we see we tend to see her there cause we're in boston so we're pretty far away when we visit minnesota though we go to see her and it seems uh i mean the the environment there i don't know too much about it but it it seems nice enough uh it it's hard at least half of the residents i would say are not not mentally sound so it's hard to tell how much of that rubs off on those who are struggling to to retain uh [clarity] say uh you know yeah well i i i don't know we we also my wife and i uh uh volunteer to go to a uh nursing home that's just a mile from our house we uh she goes more often than i we used to go once a month once every two months to visit some of the patients there and we'd take we have a two year old son and so we sometimes we'd take him with us and uh there i would say it's the same thing it's it's a nice uh relatively nice environment but again um it must be depressing for the people who who are who are just essentially not able to take care of themselves in their own house but but certainly uh certainly have are have [retained] all of their uh mental skills and so on it's must be depressing to to walk walk the halls and see and see all these other people who really don't know where they are i think yeah i think they're relatively respectful yeah and and concerned that in as much as they can be i i think sometimes you know i've noticed uh people asking for uh some of the patients asking for things uh just [repetitively] and but things that are not reasonable and so at some level the the the uh i'm sure that the that the uh the staff learn what's normal for this person and so it looks to me like maybe their not catering to this person's needs is really because this person is just you know is just in a state where they don't really need what they think they need you know oh yeah yeah i'll tell you one thing though that'll that that i i saw that was really nice we saw a husband and wife we used to see a husband and wife in there uh together and they were in the same room which not all husband and wives were but these two were and when you walked into their room they had brought all their furniture from their house and so yeah you walked in there and it didn't look like uh you know how you you walk into some rooms and there's it's completely generic there's nothing maybe a picture or two that belongs to that person and that's it but this room on the other hand you know they got rid of all of the sort of standard issue beds and [dressers] and this and that and they had all their stuff from their house and it looked like uh it must have been it was nicer to walk in there and to talk to them and it must also give them a sense of uh uh security and and uh and and you know uh yeah huh yeah huh temporary i that that's that's new to me i right right bye so we're uh our [discussion's] about uh the care of the elderly uh well i actually my dad's my dad's almost ninety and he lives by himself and he's in good shape uh but uh some friends of mine have uh gone through this i think i'd look for a home where they got a lot of attention and uh where they did some things to try to keep them um mentally alive and where there was uh caring and [compassionate] where there were caring and [compassionate] people uh operating it do you have any experience with this yourself uh_huh uh_huh from the lack of stimulation you mean do you think that in the case of the one that you've actually had some experience with that the people who operate it seem to have what you'd perceive of as genuine concern uh_huh yeah yeah it it's possible i was thinking also that there'd be there could be a fair burn out factor um in just having to respond to people's needs where the needs are sometimes depending on the person not going to be what we would perceive of as rational need uh_huh uh_huh so it gives them a sense of identity yeah i i think part of what you're saying matches what i have read i used to initially think that the only people who went into such [residences] were people who uh were adequately [deficient] in their abilities uh physical or mental that they couldn't take care of themselves but i also know a couple of people whose parents have gone into such things because i think they provide um a lot of social activities uh the one of my friend's parents who went in because she had largely lost her abilities and she was in there for awhile when they were away on vacation uh and well i think it i think it was sort of on the grounds that they were considering whether she would live there and i feel like the whole vocabulary of this is very loaded if you think of words like like put her in there and there there's so much do you know anyone that uh is is in a nursing home or has ever been in one uh_huh well i'm trying to think my uh uh wife's grandmother had alzheimer's and they were going to put her into a a nursing home and uh they when they put her in she had all kinds of trouble and the nursing home made them come and take her back because she was being a a you know a a [nuisance] or worse than a [nuisance] i mean she sort of went you know bananas and they couldn't couldn't deal with her so i guess you need to uh know whether it's a you know a no deposit no return kind of thing whether yeah right right my grandmother actually was in a a nursing home that uh there was a retirement hotel and then a uh there was some sort of full time care place that was also associated with it so for uh the first few years she had her own apartment and you know made her own meals sometimes but could could also go and eat someplace else and then uh as she became less able to take care of herself then she moved into this other part that was able to uh provide full time care and uh she didn't have to do anything anymore but my experience has been that most people that move into nursing homes die very quickly and that's i don't know whether that's because they you know sort of give up hope once they get in there or what the the reason is but i think the average length of time that somebody lives in a nursing home is only like six months or something yeah right yeah if if you can take care of yourself at all or have someone that can take care of you then you stay where you are then you only go there as a last resort or people send you there as a last resort uh_huh right right yeah i guess right when you need it you need it i guess right yeah sure and you probably if it were you you probably wouldn't want someone choosing a place for you to live based on lowest price yeah well maybe that's the purpose of the nursing home is to have them go someplace where they can see that it's not worth continuing yeah right yeah i've known quite a few people that have uh gone to retirement communities i don't know if they have them back there but here in california and in no but i my grandparents were looking into it before so i know what they've said uh_huh oh they thought it was too much of a bother right if they're equipped too to handle the kind of patients you're going to have you know put in there too because i know my grandparents wanted to have some independence still they wanted some place they can go and have their meals and a nurse on staff just in case they needed her but they wanted to be independent as well have their own room uh_huh well a lot of it's probably to do with the fact that people go to it because they need help they need health care so they're already ill before they go that's probably a large factor uh_huh right right that's what my grandparents it was just so that the rest of the relatives would have peace of mind knowing that if anything happened there was somebody there for them so that was their thinking somebody who would know what to do in the event of an emergency and also so they could find someplace that they enjoyed while they still had choices to make so they wouldn't be stuck going into just whatever nursing home was available at the time i guess that's a problem too for people wait lists and all that uh you can't always get in when you want too and of course you can't just sit around and wait yeah and the money is also another issue how you're going to pay for it at that stage of life you only have so much money left and i guess it's not exactly fair for the younger family members to have to put it in their savings i mean it is kind of fair but it's also not fair because they have their own children to raise so it's another problem right right so it it's just so complicated anymore i think people [outlive] their savings and with medicine being the way it is you're [extending] life where sometimes the quality of living has gone down and they're not necessarily enjoying life anymore it's just a shame that's the way it has to be i think the retirement home [idea's] a nice idea to go and find older people and with similar interests and someplace to stay and cause like if your spouse died all alone it'd be nice to go someplace with people similar to you to have friends okay well uh just briefly uh i worked in a nursing home so i kind of know from way back uh how things used to be run and i think there has been definite changes of nursing homes but i think uh if i had to personally put one of my parents in a nursing home they would have to be pretty bad off to where i couldn't take care of them at all it would be something that you know i would certainly if they're forgetting things or whatever i'd prefer to have them at home or have them in what they call now home care where somebody comes in and they cook meals and they clean their house for them that kind of thing so they still have their own independence and not reliable you know they don't have to be in a nursing home situation but uh i don't think the nursing homes when i was working in them were very much [understaffed] very much uh in need of good personnel uh i think the patients weren't given the quality of care that i wouldn't have you know i look at it and say thank god i got out of that kind of situation but they they were not given the time and they were not given the money basically to staff appropriately people to help and i can remember lifting a patient all by myself simply because there was not another person to help it's either leave the patient in bed all day long or get them up and i would have preferred to get them up than to leave them in bed all day but uh uh so i think nursing homes are have changed i'm not quite sure but hopefully they have uh_huh yeah sure uh_huh sure yeah i i think that's that can happen and i think in the nursing home that i worked for i wasn't quite sure of it but i'm sure that some of the patients were uh given medication to keep them in uh quiet and and yeah yeah and they would just lay all day long and uh the ones they also put mentally ill patients in the same they were not on the same you know ward but they they were in the same nursing home so that these mentally ill patients could walk into where the other uh older people that were in there for reasons of uh you know age uh the mentally ill patients could walk right in into the rooms or do whatever they wanted to basically because if you weren't there to watch them and keep them in their own wing they could they had freedom to just walk around and a lot of them were i think there was a couple that were [schizophrenic] and i remember one time watching one of the uh [schizophrenic] patients actually go out on i don't know what they call it a binge or whatever you want to say it she grabbed a hold of this and it was kind of funny when i looked back at it but i mean i remember the patient getting very upset that woman actually pulled uh the other person's hair i mean she just came up right behind him and pulled his hair you know and it was a guy that was just really upset i mean he said what the hell are you think you're doing you know and i laughed at it then but then i'm thinking god you know if i had to put my parents in that nursing home i wouldn't want them there so i think there's laws now that kind of protect that nursing homes either have to keep the mentally ill totally away from these people and not in the same type of facilities even though they're aging mentally ill they are still mentally ill and a lot of these older people have their you know they're not insane or anything like that they don't have these tendencies to to [lash] out but seeing that kind of made me think twice about jeez i wouldn't put my mother father in that nursing home at all a small town yeah yeah i don't know i don't know i i kind of look at it this way i think if you have a big city area i think there's more people to keep watch on it and yeah yeah and you have more competition and i think nursing homes have to be better than when there's one nursing home for a whole community and this is back in nineteen seventy seven that i worked there and i look back at it and say jeez you know it would have to be awfully bad for me to put my parents in there but my grandmother uh later on got cancer and uh could no longer well actually she uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah i guess i haven't had that much experience i've only seen like my great grandparents in a nursing home but i have an aunt who lived on her own until she was well in her nineties and then she she got sick and she ended up in nursing home and my parents went to visit her and it got to the point where the it seemed like the nursing home didn't want to deal her anymore and so they gave her drugs to keep her asleep nice [sedative] state uh_huh yeah to be violent was this in a big town or a little town oh really because it seems like the small town nursing homes there's a lot more personal attention uh_huh you have more options uh_huh okay uh i haven't been in this situation yet you know my my parents are not quite at that age yet so i haven't no so i haven't uh really been in that situation although they are thinking about my grandmother but uh but that's really about it how about you have you been in that situation yet uh_huh did it really yeah oh no that's sad yeah oh okay i'm sure they were yeah uh_huh ah yeah oh um yeah uh_huh yeah and i'm sure it's it's expensive yeah yeah yeah my my grandmother is not in a nursing home but she's in a oh they're like uh they're apartments for senior citizens and she loves that because they arrange activities for them all day long and then they have uh where the bus picks them up and takes them where they need to go and she she she really does love that but she's just concerned about in the future you know that she she knows it's not going to be like that all the time and she's just wondering well what's going to happen to me and and i you know it's i guess it's so normal to start to wonder about that even if she doesn't need that but you know she's kind of asking questions about what well what's going to happen this can't last forever and so yeah yeah she can but i i think it is also cafeteria style because i i really i i i doubt if she rarely cooks for herself so uh because i i remember her in her letters telling me she'll go downstairs for coffee or something to eat so i'm assuming it's something like that too so uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh and she lives by herself too she seems to like it and uh my husband's grandmother is well she lives she lives in a house on her own and she doesn't really need the care or anything like that but she has her own home and she's doing really well i'm really proud of her she's doing really well so we haven't had to do anything but then again she has a lot of support so i mean she's got her mother in town too and things like that so hopefully we won't need to go that route yeah they're not quite elderly huh uh_huh uh not for my parents but i i was around uh two sets of grandparents uh quite a bit we we put one i put one grandfather in a rest home and that killed him well yeah kind of well there was some other things involved but it before he was really active and the there was some you know he lost his drivers license and i couldn't get around and wasn't able to do some things and so we ended up just having to put him in a rest home and he just kind of became a vegetable and died so but that was a long time ago that was uh back in like seventy three so uh i think the way they did things were a lot different back then and uh my grandmother his his wife uh we also put her in a rest home she was in a rest home and then she was back out because she didn't really need to be there and uh had a physical had a good physical therapist at that place and they worked with her and got her walking and got her kind of taking care of herself and so she was able to come back home and then she had to go back in a couple of times but mostly it was just because she kind of gave up and they got her going again so i guess as far as looking i said as what you're looking for i think you need to look for an active uh an interactive staff somebody who is willing to work with uh you know work with a patients and do do things with them and treat them treat like they're it it is it is expensive uh_huh oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh when she can't take care of herself uh_huh now uh_huh does she have a is it like a kitchenette type apartment where she can fix her own food if she wants to or she can go down to the cafeteria uh_huh in fact i uh_huh yeah i i really like that concept they've they have a few of those well quite a few of those places like that here in utah and you know couples can you know husband and wife can can live there too or or whatever i and and then and yet they have their their friendships and relationships and the you know of getting together and eating together and all of that i i think it really takes uh you know looking more at the people than even really the facilities uh_huh yeah yes well i i think that that's the thing that's a little bit scary you know a little bit tough about putting them in a rest home is it's it's almost like that you know they say putting them out to pasture and some some of the people that were there with my grandmother were really active they they wanted to do things they didn't you know they didn't want to go down and play bingo or uh you know play with the oranges um what is your experience been with but do you have elderly relatives that live with you or have lived with your parents or something like that uh_huh oh gosh and they gave it to her anyway we had my grandfather had alzheimer's disease and my grandmother kept him at home as long as she could actually my parents and my uncle and aunt who tried to convince them to go into like an old age community where he could have gotten care and she could of had help with somebody cleaning and things like that and she refused she she just didn't want to do it she felt uh i don't know maybe too much guilt or something uh_huh and so eventually they were forced to put her in one yeah well my grand father you know eventually completely lost control type of things i i mean i don't know if he ever really got violent but they put him in a nursing home and actually the problem that they had with him was more with the hospital the the nursing home you know some day he had a fever or something so they sent him to a hospital which is what they seem to routinely do which i think is ridiculous too you know because they might not be really be sick and at the hospital they um did an [electrocardiogram] and decided that he had a heart problem and uh you know you know he was very old he had alzheimer's he had been like a vegetable for a year and the hospital said oh we have to put in a [pacemaker] and you know wanted to approval for the it and all this sort stuff and eventually you know the whole family is in an uproar discussing it and some of these said well yeah they should do it and others said it's ridiculous this man's you know his body finally wants to die just let him die and um eventually the at the they said no to the doctor and they found out it wasn't even his [electrocardiogram] it it was some other patient you know by the time he had been sent back to the nursing home and under care there but oh it's horrible but sometimes you just can't keep the person at home they're just you know oh i felt went to visit my grandfather one time in the nursing home and i said never again i said i just can't go uh_huh but i had a cousin of mine that was in a different nursing home which was sort of nicer you know and until really close to the end she was able to go out and take walks and things and they took her outside and in some ways i think it might of even been better or i say cousins like my grandmother's cousin but i had been really close to her and it's only the thing for her it might of even been better because she used to live in an area that when she moved down there was mostly elderly people well not you know it was like a community of apartments that were mostly elderly when she moved there she might have been like sixty it wasn't you know like ancient but you know older and then that community for some reason started getting the apartments were fairly low income i guess and started being bought out by families and things and she instead of having fewer and fewer friends and people just she she she used to say to me at when she was ninety two or something at the time say um you know i just i all my friends have died off i have nothing to do i'm bored you know i walk over to the store i walk back someone comes and picks me up and brings me to the community and so when she went to a nursing home in the beginning i think she kind of liked it she did art work there she did it was almost a progressive type nursing home uh_huh yeah then you just can't get better uh_huh uh_huh well i'm sure does the medical care in nursing is typically less than in but are they supposed to give as much help as you know a jeez uh_huh at the second one oh my that's horrible had they checked into these nursing homes much before they put her in it or they just sort of i mean i it's sometimes hard to even get places in there you're lucky if you get a spot uh_huh oh so you probably don't have too much choice uh_huh but really it's pitiful often times i've gone into nursing homes where you know they have like a central area where they take the people to and all you do is just sort of sit there like you know almost like they're mentally retarded patients or something and some of them you know they're just sort of sitting in the wheelchair and sleeping or whatever and it's it's heart breaking you know and i i feel like you know what have i moved into and and they're you some of them i think just needs stimulation yeah well i've never been to a mental hospital right like you expect from the movies of mental hospitals like uh oh gosh yeah because the i mean the poor man too he could get really cold he could that's crazy but i think they're almost i mean i can't imagine working in a nursing home like that i'd be there because it must be so depressing but you know when i see them i don't know that i could you know when i think of my parents who fortunately shouldn't be close to getting there yet but i don't you know i think of having to make the decision as to put them into a place like that or not it's horrible i guess i would try and have somebody at the house as long as they were healthy enough but sometimes they're not i don't know are you you know where have the old days gone where people just sort of died of something in their family houses and they're you know people are [stabbed] and it's not just torture uh_huh uh that's interesting because it's my mother's parents well actually my father's parents both of them sort of you know they just died of something um but my grandmother you know in my grandmother's case which is very sad she fell she came into new york to visit and she fell at the airport going down some steps and spent you know six months in the hospital but it is was still it it it wasn't you know the same as a nursing home type of thing yeah no that was that was horrible it was and she never even got to see her family that she came into visit they no they came to the hospital but i mean she came in no no she came in for a [pleasurable] visit and fell and cracked her [skull] open and that was sort of it was terrible but um my it was really just my grand father i guess and this one elderly cousin of mine that went into nursing homes but it's just a scary thought every time i certainly don't want to be like that some day okay uh not with my parents although my parents are now in their early seventies and uh fortunately they have to this point been very physically healthy and very self sufficient and they really look after themselves and i think considered what they want done as they get older and may be less able well the it's more that they have when they retired and we are from south dakota so they retired from the rural farming community into [sioux] falls which is the biggest city in the state and set themselves up near medical facilities and i i can not say that i can tell you what they have decided as to okay because i think some of that is that maybe you think ahead somewhat but you do not uh book those facilities yeah uh_huh uh_huh well have they do they recognize the coming and try to make the decision themselves uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah that is one of the options that uh that is so related to the family situation of the children and uh you know i guess not that it has happened in our case in my family because it well i have seen it in their generation it what you do is first see your parents go through it with their parents and i would say at this point um you can say i have been through all that because i have no no grandparents left uh and it's you see all the different options and you see that they all can work uh uh_huh well if they are uh that's the thing if they are physically able it is a much more pleasant more caring uh situation to be in the home of one of the children uh the other side of that is that if the children are no where near where the uh parents had spent their life then in a sense you you have no friends at the new place uh in this that you are unless that you develop new friends and uh the best thing is kind of a combination where uh the at least one of the children if not several are uh uh back in the area where the parents uh had spent their years and then yeah uh_huh uh_huh yes well it's uh it's not an easy choice because it's uh but it's something that we all face and we uh yeah but the way society changes it makes it so that uh what was acceptable for our parents and their parents may not be as workable for us it it's certainly a problem as we as people live older of course as long as you can live a healthy life uh the uh the care is is not near the issue it becomes when you start having the physical problems yes okay do you have anybody uh in your family that you ever had to put in a nursing home or yeah was that here in texas right did did you have to put her in yourself or i understand understand well my uh aunt that i kind of grew up with uh was in a nursing home she did have alzheimer's and we had to put her in the nursing home because of that but uh this was up in uh milwaukee wisconsin and uh it was a situation that's probably as good as you're going to get uh it's associated with uh our church and uh what they do my mother is in is a [terrace] which it's called [terrace] and uh these are condominiums you buy into when you know whenever you know you're sixty or whatever you know whenever you want to buy into this thing and these are very nice condominium things and uh the idea is once you are in this program you are taken care of the rest of your life and they they have a nursing home if you can't maintain your own apartment or your condominium uh you automatically go into that and from there they also have a health care area if you can't you know if you need more intensive care and uh even the best there is isn't a nice situation with uh like you say when you get to the point where uh well she was ninety four and she was uh in the nursing home and the health care facility for i would guess about a year's time but uh it's a hard decision to make i tell you it's uh that's that was really the and that it gets very hard and on anybody uh i'd go up there and visit and and she would recognize me but as soon as i was out down the hall she didn't even know i was there and uh it's it's sad you know it yeah well it's but what's really hard is the differences of care you know if you aren't fortunate enough to have a situation like with my mother right now she's got terrible arthritis in her knees and it's probably not real long where she won't be able to you know get along on her own and she probably you know hopefully it will be a number of years but she's seventy nine years old right now and now she understands that someday you know if she can't handle her apartment that uh you know she'll have to go in the nursing home but if you have situations where you don't have that kind you know it's you're confronted with it and if you look at all the different nursing homes uh that are out there it it is kind of frightening some of these places uh it's like put them in a [cubbyhole] and you know they don't they're they're more caretakers kind of it's almost like putting a dog in a kennel you know some of these places they stink and they're it it's a tough decision and you know if people don't have the resources for uh it's i i don't know about in arizona but around here i understand it's it's anywhere from about twenty three hundred to three thousand dollars a month in a a nursing home right yeah well and that's the other thing that helps is that you have a relative a close relative that will look in on them okay uh okay one of the things they said about how you feel about putting an elderly person in a nursing home um i've had that situation presented to me personally about three years ago when i had to put my place my dad in a nursing home and um he had alzheimer's and he uh wandered and i had to put him in there for his own safety because i could not i couldn't care for him here any longer i tried as hard as i could yes and uh i had to work and he would get up in the middle of the night and he could get out and wander down the street and i was afraid for his safety um and so i had to make that decision um yes i did i checked into the facilities the other thing that i did and i recommend other people to do this same thing sometimes is to check and with people that have family members in that nursing facility you know see if you can find out who who has a family member there or if you go and check it stop and ask somebody when you see them you know do you have you know what relative do you have here uh how is the care are you satisfied um it took me quite a while to choose yes very much so there was a large range of costs uh and the cost didn't necessarily reflect the care the cost some of the costs went for other amenities for those that were uh up and ambulatory like really nice dining rooms and you know uh things like that but that was for one segment but then the other segment that needed full nursing care i didn't feel i got the benefit of the extra cost uh_huh right and you would want the maybe the uh extra amenities you know like the very nice dining room and you know the freedom of the grounds to be nice so they can walk out there and you know activities she would uh organized activities and things like that right yeah each state is different but uh here in texas there are certain you know requirements some of them yes there was a waiting list um in fact i had one when i first started i went through a series of see i had my dad in two different nursing homes when i first started he was in one that wasn't total total patient care but where he could be watched but he had the freedom to wander around and and help caring for himself but he could do you know he could feed himself he could do things for himself um and i had him on a waiting list there then he got so that he they could not handle him at that level and they didn't have a higher level at that facility which i really didn't think of you know when i checked him in uh so then i had to go and i had to start all over again uh medicaid will under certain circumstances medicare will again under you have to be [discharged] from the hospital and for so many days uh medicare will like i said under certain circumstances my dad did not was not eligible for medicaid and medicare would not cover alzheimer's so that yeah it almost goes by case by case it is it it does and well how do we feel about the nursing home right um i have a dad eighty nine years old and uh he has [parkinson's] and there are three of us children my sister brother and i and we decided that we could not live with him going to a nursing home and so for two years we took turns my brother and i live here my sister lives in [longview] going back and forth up there helping her she has him in her home and uh we just decided we couldn't put him in the nursing homes but i decided i couldn't keep on with that and now she won't put him in the nursing home i think she's getting close but the problem with these nursing homes is the cost and uh he has a house and since he has a house it would cost oh i don't know something like two thousand dollars i think to keep him and uh uh i really need to know more about it oh ooh yes yeah is she still mobile though oh really right they become a vegetable more or less and uh they don't they sedate them and forget them uh_huh well it really is uh my dad can't even feed himself and um he still you know has his pretty his mind pretty much and that's why we can't put him there i guess if he didn't have his mind you know it would be easier to do that but yeah well hopefully they're going to clean these things up i don't that they will right yeah i guess one problem that they're having in these homes is is help they don't have enough help to go around yeah i have a friend here that i think her mother's like ninety seven or something and uh she's been well pleased with the care of course she goes every day and i think as long as you go every day to see about them they get better care uh_huh yeah right well i do you know anything about the um qualifications uh i mean of knowing qualifications of the nursing homes uh_huh no no they're really not and i think as long as they're is a family member to go in and see about them they get better care uh_huh right uh_huh well that's kind of the way my dad was when he had to leave his home he he left my home and went to my sister's and of course you know as far as hi hi [bridget] i'm [gunner] i'm here in dallas oh you are oh okay oh okay yeah sure am okay well uh i think there uh you know need to have uh some some means of taking care of them in a in a reasonable and uh uh i guess respectful way and uh it's uh i guess my biggest problem is that uh they seem to uh be you know put in nursing homes and just forgotten about that's you know have you uh ever spent much time or worked around one or anything oh yeah is there uh uh well shoot i guess there's no uh medicare i don't think pays for it uh um i don't know it's just the whole thing is just kind of amazing to me uh uh_huh yeah and a lot of other countries though uh uh you know basically like family takes them and uh i guess take them for as long as they are you know as long as they live well i yeah i do too um especially now that all the you know everybody is getting older and living longer and uh you know it's it's there's going to be more and more folks yeah uh_huh yeah um yeah that is uh that's difficult i tell you uh_huh yeah yeah um yeah it sure is i know like uh uh lot of places it's like hundred dollars a day you know i know but uh is it i don't even know yeah no not really my parents are still pretty young my father is forty five mother about the same age yeah um so it really hasn't been an issue for me how about yourself uh_huh uh_huh right have they done anything with uh supplemental insurance for that or uh_huh yeah well i've heard about this uh insurance i was wondering because it seems like what i've heard is usually that is uh kind of thing where they cancel you a couple of years after you get into the home so it tends to be kind of useless anyway uh_huh right yeah uh_huh yeah right yeah i know it seems to me that for the kind of money a nursing home typically costs you can maybe even afford to to have a nurse come into the home periodically yeah dollars a year at that point you know it seems like you could hire somebody part time yeah certainly more [dignified] than uh than warehousing them right yeah it's it's kind of scary because it seems like uh you know a lot of people you know have the budgets of these places has gotten so tight and uh you know they just really can't take care of them very well the budget and staffing especially if it's state run uh_huh yeah it seems like every time i see something on television it's not good yeah yeah it seems that way yeah i sure do they're they're pretty healthy everybody in my family seems to die when they're they're in good health but they get to be like seventy or eighty and all have [aneurysms] just drop dead yeah i think you know that's pretty good way to go i'd be happy yeah that's the worst part um seems to me that a lot of times people wind up in nursing homes who tend to survive major things like strokes or uh heart attacks that sort of thing and then you know they can't really help themselves so they have to be cared for right yeah i mean it seems like they'd almost just doing better off just withholding care to some some degree yeah yeah well it seems to me it's a little bit easier with the elderly because you know at least they've lived a life and yeah yeah it's something it's something like fifty percent or greater of all health care expenses are in the last five years of your life so uh_huh right uh_huh right yeah seems like uh unfortunately many of those people who are put through those if they'd uh let their wishes be known ahead of time frequently they wouldn't have been interested in [heroic] measures and if that's the case then uh_huh yeah well i don't know my wife's a medical student and uh you know it's a journal of the a m a and the american medical news thing and it seems like that physicians unless they're in writing or video tape or something you couldn't take care of her anymore huh yeah that's rough isn't it uh_huh wow yeah that's really hard my grandma is uh just turned ninety and she's still on her own and she's down in phoenix and i don't know what we'll do when she can't take care of herself her her son my dad is dead and she has a daughter my aunt uh who lives in another state but uh she uh well i'm the uh yeah i'm my sister and i are the are her only grandkids so i don't i don't know what's going to happen with her but she's amazingly strong uh yeah but i don't know i guess uh most of us uh probably end up there sooner or sooner or later oh my gosh uh_huh uh_huh boy that's amazing that's a lot of stress uh_huh uh_huh amazing uh_huh every night wow that's dedicated oh i see huh yeah it's a tough emotional uh issue yep yeah that's tough uh_huh uh_huh [whoo] i remember one time i was uh in a mexican restaurant here in seattle and uh i i was sitting alone in this booth reading and eating and i overheard some folks in the next booth who i think some of them worked at the restaurant they were a little younger than me and they were talking about the differences between i don't know whether they were from mexico or or but they were you know definitely latin american they were talking about the differences between uh how uh our country cares for old people and what it was like back home yeah and they were just appalled that anybody could put somebody in a you know in a rest home yeah they weren't course they weren't talking about uh where you know you're absolutely unable to care for them but it was it you know they would come from large extended families where you know the the old people were uh were at home yeah and uh most people don't want to live that way today in this country yeah god yeah i don't know i and i've been single so long i don't even know if i could handle living with a wife i'm probably [incorrigible] yeah yeah i do have actually as a matter of fact uh and i'm i'm not sure how it would relate to the big city but there are certainly ways and humane and nice ways of handling care for elderly i come from a very small community in northern iowa and the churches have [banded] together and built and staffed a retirement home and the care of course is is wonderful because these are all people who care and every week the churches a different uh groups of the churches volunteer and come in and maybe have bingo day or special celebration day or help somebody with their birthday or whatever and it makes the care very [personalized] of course but since it is a small community everybody knows everybody and so there there would be absolutely zero chance of any abuse yeah it's it's a real problem uh it is a real problem and i know that everybody hates the idea of going to one of these but i also think that it is a choice that we have all made in our lives as we have drawn back and [internalized] ourselves as opposed to being a part of the community uh it used to be that neighbors looked out for you the churches looked out for you but many of us don't belong to churches anymore and so therefore we don't have this broadened community of caring people no no absolutely not you know i presume when when the time comes for something to happen to me that i will probably go back to iowa to be in that community but uh but it's the type of thing where i think we should look at some things that are working and try to use them in the cities also i mean is there some reason why some of the churches here could not band together and do a similar situation yes and actually a great deal more money right but you know if my if all of my kids still live here and i go back to iowa of course there's no convenience so probably it would [behoove] me to try to start something of this sort here in dallas but uh that's a big job you know uh so many needs are crying the homeless the abused children the the beaten wives you know there's so many things going on that that how do we all of this and maybe that's a part of it maybe maybe what we can do is uh of course this is kind of a far [flung] situation but uh you know they're talking about work fare now in uh wisconsin i believe it is but is there some reason i wonder why we couldn't have some of these people involved in nursing homes so that they didn't have to be so expensive you know if if you've got somebody who is drawing welfare then perhaps that can be quote part of their their payment for their welfare payments yeah because part of the problem now is that it costs so much money to get into a [convalescent] home or or an aged home you know it's almost prohibitive for many persons and uh you know so what do you do does someone go on welfare in order to get in one of those homes or does somebody in the family quit their job so that they can be at home and and but of course that's not always wonderful either because somebody with alzheimer's needs twenty four hour watching and nobody can do that well see i don't have a relative that's made it over sixty one huh_uh but my children's on their father's side have them up into the nineties but uh the only time we came close and we started looking into it was when my grandmother became senile she start senile at fifty and at that time the homes that we were looking for when i was a kid uh my mother i can remember them arguing they couldn't find one that it was either clean enough or they took enough care or there was one thing or another that continuously arguing about it and they ended up keeping her from relative to relative and of course she died when she was fifty nine so it wasn't that long but the few i've been in they have varied tremendous so uh oh well we were talking about it the other day because a girl at work has got that problem right now and uh she keeps saying she's never going to put her mother in one and i says hey look go around look at them they're totally different than your concept of what it was years ago and i says i don't know what condition your mother's in which i didn't but you do have the choice now and i says what is your mother going to do all day long while you're out here at work i says think about what she would like to have because a lot of them hey they might be bedridden but at least they've got company and people their own age to talk to to keep them home what do you've got they're sitting there like they're they [vegetate] is what happens uh_huh see you're not aware of the the horror stories and things like that that i've grown up with and i mean i'm talking about horror stories and they're still out there i mean it's it's not something that's been eliminated there are lots of homes out there that just literally people drop them off forget about them and they change hands i mean i'm not saying they don't investigate they investigate it's great when they're there but unless they keep current with it and they changes hands it goes either direction because they're relying on a lot of people that hey they're like any other business if you lose a lot of your customers they get into a financial bind and people say well you know they're a nursing home but i say hey it doesn't work that way they're a business well like my neighbor she runs down here to this nursing home down here and she just point [blank's] tired of the pressure and responsibility of working as a nurse in a hospital she admits it she's tired of it so she works down here she's a nurse she's qualified but she's fifty oh she's in her early fifties somewhere and working down here at the nursing home keeps her hand in there she gets good money for it and she enjoys the old people you know it's it's just that simple for her but uh and she says it's hard they get cranky they get obstinate but she feels the same way i do i would rather depending on the situation i would rather be able to put myself or anybody else in a nursing home if i was able to get close enough to them so they don't feel lost now see my grandmother she wouldn't go in a nursing home besides being scared and everybody else didn't want her she was terrified of one literally and positively terrified because she remembers the old stuff uh_huh oh oh she drives oh yeah they've got nothing or they get on the telephone all day long but i mean this is one area where i'd like to see social security or the government step in and take people over a certain age or with handicaps or something and take their social security away from them i mean give them you know money at a certain point and putting them in homes to where they can get something fed back to them in other words people talk to and become still human beings because you see people down in south dallas and every where else sitting in a house they don't know anybody they're scared to death of [robbers] they're scared to death of everything they hardly have enough food to even eat on i mean you're not living yeah i mean hey i'm putting all this money out to the government why can't they put it out there rather than in the federal prisons um but you know you see pictures on t v i mean i wish i had enough money to go down there and do something but you know i don't know they if they can have day care why can't they put elderly people care and put them in a home to where it's regulated well i certainly um can appreciate the patience and the you know energy and money and time and effort it would require for someone to you know take care of their elderly parent or whatever in their home i think that you know would definitely be [preferable] if the person is you know able to do that i think sometimes people take on i know i have one friend who is taken on more than she can handle you know with her her mom needing constant supervision and for one person to be able to cope with that you know is really difficult but i know it's hard not to feel guilty you know to put somebody in a nursing home i if i suppose if you could find a nursing home that you thought really comfortable you know that they were getting adequate care but i think that's probably pretty hard to do at times i've not ever been put in this position i personally would have a real hard time taking care of my father he's getting up there but he's very difficult to live with and i think that would be a real consideration in in um entering him into our family unit here you know so there's a lot of factors involved well i think i would in some ways have to decide how much personally you know i was able and willing to handle and how much it would affect the rest of my family because i have two small children and um we don't have a real large house if you had a lot of money and you were able to you know have like a little separate wing or something where i wouldn't have to constantly be having my children you know be quiet and go away and that kind of thing to accommodate an elderly person i think you know just the medical aspects too would be a big question how much um it would require you know in terms of nursing care at home and i know that there is often times insurance companies won't even pay anything to the families for doing things if they were in a nursing home would cost you know a hundred times more so that's a consideration too but i don't know it would be a really rough choice to make depending on the parent and their personality and you know your own family and what's going on with i'm home all day anyway right now with young kids but if i was working full time and had to give up a career that would be another you know problem too but um the only people i've seen is my husband's grandmother has been in a nursing home for several years i know that uh there's been a lot of questions from other family members as to whether she's getting enough attention and whether they just kind of let her sit there and roll her over once in a while it it's really tragic to go in those places so so um i think i would uh look for a place that definitely had the physical [attributes] and it wasn't a [sterile] kind of environment but had a comfortable feeling to it that respected uh that you seem to see some respect for peoples privacy and the attitude that the staff would have towards the patients i i was visiting a friend in the hospital and there was a nurse screaming at an older man that was a head injury unit and he had apparently wet his pants and they had a blanket [draped] over him and the blanket had either fallen to the floor or he had dropped it on the floor and the nurse was just screaming at him about how [obscene] that was or something and i just thought gosh if i walked into a place and i saw a staff member just [berating] or humiliating a patient i'd definitely that would be something i'd really want to be on the look out for um i would hope they would have some consistent staff i know they don't pay that much in a lot of those places and so there's probably a lot of turnover that would be another thing that would be you know something to be important because i think it's confusing particularly if people are in some state of mental you know confusion anyway to have constant new people on staff and having to develop new relationships and oh i don't know what else other than that maybe some place that had activities you know that they could participate in instead of just kind of sitting there watching the wall or something you know talking to other people who had family members there see how responsive the staff was to the things i brought up you know that i thought were important for my family member it would really be hard because when we go to visit i'm sure places have you know their best foot forward kind of thing unless you drop in frequently and kind of get the since of what's going on behind the scenes it would really be hard to know it's kind of similar in away to some of the things you look for in going to try and find day care for your kids you know so uh i'm sure if you have enough money you can find just super care but you know the cost of it is probably just horrendous yeah i think that would be great i had wished often with my husband's grandmother that she had been in a place like that because she had lived alone in an upper story of an apartment building away from even friends not really close by her or a grocery store or anything and i thought she could have lived a a lot longer if she had been in a place where she didn't have to climb up and down the stairs haul groceries and then she would have people to check on her and didn't have to cook because she just got to a point where she wouldn't cook just for herself and then she fell down and nobody knew about it for hours and hours and hours so i think that would be great if i had to choose a place for myself that's definitely i think that kind of atmosphere would be wonderful even i recall where i was living in the college dormitory as a graduate student i thought how how neat you know that you can have a place where you can you know go down together have dinner with other people because if your living alone the isolation and the depression and all those other factors should be taken into consideration too so i thought you know they should have dorms for older people so they had activities going on all the time and you know it was really a much more comfortable lifestyle i could imagine for an older person so yeah i think that would be great if they had places like that huh_uh yeah yeah they had their own privacy yeah huh_uh right yeah yeah i don't know you know how many of those there are but i definitely think it's a great idea to have that kind of thing you know for people i know um in that way too that sometimes the elderly can be more involved with their families they can have their grand kids and that kind of thing over to spend the night or there's a lot more freedom i think instead of just being kind of taken away from all of that and being told where you're going to be and what you're going to do in a nursing home yeah yeah yeah yeah let's hope it's true it is i've i've had a lot of thought thought provoking conversations on the topics huh_uh right right well as the insurance companies get more into this preventative health care i think that will help it just seems very slow that that is happening but uh yeah i definitely think that will help yeah yeah okay well take care thank you well i would i hate to see them being put into a hair or a health facility care environment because they then feel like you know the family has abandoned them is what i get the comments from elderly people that i know that it's happened to and the elderly people that i that are still hanging onto their homes that is their greatest fear is to be put into a a a care facility rather than their families taking them in because the families then seem to neglect visiting them but if that is the case that they have to go to a care facility like that i think that care facility has to be thoroughly investigated as far as the uh medical um evaluation what kind of credentials do the medical people hold uh if they're qualified uh what type of recreation do they have for them uh their food uh situation um the environment that they are exposed to the majority of the time that they're there is it bright and [cheery] and to put them in with people that have the same type of uh life style uh that they would feel more welcome in uh in making new friends because they can relate to certain individuals because of their personalities um so i guess i would like to hear how you feel about it now ray oh my i i see yes he did uh_huh uh_huh that's wonderful that's good so he was very independent wasn't he yes wow that's wonderful sure he it didn't have any [hindrances] for him uh_huh oh bless his heart uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i see sure i understand that uh_huh sure uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right wow i didn't know that they were that uh were you satisfied with uh the facility uh_huh right oh uh_huh so you established a relationship with the uh the personnel there uh_huh uh_huh okay well then you did see some compassion from the people there or were they just very businesslike and perhaps not of that faith okay okay okay yes i see uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right sure right oh yes sure oh absolutely absolutely uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah so he kind of adopted you and your wife uh_huh uh_huh well i'm sure he looks forward to that uh_huh right yeah they're abandoned by their families yeah or they might not have any at all uh_huh uh_huh oh yes uh_huh uh_huh of course yes uh_huh uh_huh like the old indian people used to do uh_huh yeah how long ago was that okay yes but that was uh okay so that was fairly recent and even then a lot of the conditions i think you're right they haven't improved that much yeah uh_huh yeah yeah huh sounds tough yeah right uh_huh oh yeah that's that doesn't seem right does it yeah i you know you walk into one of those places and you basically start to feel depressed because they don't it's almost like they just shove people in there and wait for them to die you know and it's it's really it's a bad problem uh i work at honeywell up here and i was talking to a guy that's actually working toward mobility aids for handicap people and one of the things he's done is interview uh nursing home directors because they're looking for get this they're trying to find out ways to restrain patients so that they don't look like they're [restrained] because apparently the family members who come to visit get upset [understandably] upset when they see that their loved one is in [restraints] you know uh at the same time you have to restrain him because they might hurt themselves they might stand up and not be able to stay stood up or might fall down or whatever so it's an interesting problem that's just one of the many things that you know you have to think about in a nursing home but you know the stuff that you told me is there's no excuse for that you know right stop when they're not on their guard you know oh sure you know it's it's really a good idea to look at places and see what's out there and see what the [modes] of treatment are and and how people act yeah you know it really is you know that brings up a good point i've got a friend of mine up here and we were talking about this because his father is getting to the age where they're going to have to decide what to do and he brought up a real interesting suggestion that works well for families that have a lot of kids in it like i i come from a family that has five kids well the way he said it was our parents spent you know quite a bit of time when we were young taking care of us you know call it call it three years per child now if you have five children that's fifteen years total therefore shouldn't it be right that they should be able to stay with one family member uh in a rotating fashion for fifteen years free of charge there you go it it's essentially repayment yeah that's it but the thing is hold on i got one more thing and i'll let you talk cause we started talking about that you know we started saying well you know some family members might not agree to do that and he said fine let the one who does agree to do it keep him keep the keep the father or mother for a longer time and charge the family member who doesn't cooperate just say basically look uh i'll take care of mom and dad for you but you have to give me a kind of a payment for doing that for you you know so essentially it it [relieved] them of the burden uh and at the same time everybody kind of comes out happy i don't know if that would work but then again it it depends on the family size okay um have you ever had to put one a a family member in a nursing home oh uh_huh oh well my mom is sixty five and she's which i feel is you know quite young still but she's not in the greatest of health and so recently she has been talking a lot about what we would do if we had to put her in a nursing home she's adamant that she does not want to live with any of her children and put that burden on us oh uh_huh uh_huh but their parents are still alive oh my goodness wow oh uh_huh right uh_huh right uh_huh oh oh oh dear uh_huh now how do you go about finding out things like that uh_huh right uh_huh oh that's right uh_huh well that's true that's right oh my boy well uh_huh uh_huh oh well uh_huh well that's what my mom's been saying you know she's been just saving her money and not paying a penny of it but she says my little bit of savings will probably pay for a nursing home for maybe a year and then i'll be on medicaid anyway so she said why don't i go out and and enjoy life while i can and you know when i get to that point of being in a nursing home then maybe medicaid will just have to take care of me but why don't i just enjoy life now i think so yes uh_huh uh_huh oh oh uh_huh that's right uh_huh yeah well it's it's kind of a sad thing to think about isn't it okay so what do you think about uh uh health care for the elderly right that's all all the bills does that include uh nursing home type care just strictly health care right right that's a hundred percent coverage so it's that's good huh um huh right so where does she well uh i guess in terms of where do you is your mother now in a a nursing home right i guess that's the big question is uh what what happens when they begin to get older i have a grandmother and it she is not really uh you know she is getting to the point where she almost can't be in a nursing home she spends some time with my parents some time now she is with an uncle of mine living with them but she requires a lot of attention and she can't really exist on her own any longer and that's that's kind of a difficult situation that that she has to live with one of her children right yeah yeah yeah my uh my grandmother is hers is physically she is in not too bad of shape she is in her upper eighties i guess forgetting in my order but uh she's uh alzheimer's i guess and so her memory is very poor and so she can't really be on her own but she can still do things by herself but you just have to uh kind of direct her um only if i had to yeah it's real hard on both the family and the people i mean yeah yeah how old is she i see yeah well um would like if do you think you're going to have to it's going to come to that yeah i went through this with both my grandmothers we had to get someone to look after them but we were lucky and we found someone to look after them in their home we didn't have to put them in a home yeah yeah well my great grandmother that we had to put in a nursing home because it got to where my grandmother couldn't take care of her after they put her in there with i mean she deteriorated i mean her health really got worse after after a short yeah well that's um i guess references or whatever from other people first of all and then all that you'd have to check i think all the licensing that they go through yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah see that's what it is the people are so old in there that they don't really know what's going on and i think that they can get away with that you have to i think you have to really check into them real closely and then even after you put someone in there then you would want to be able to check up on them on a weekly basis just to make sure that they were [treating] them properly oh that wouldn't be too bad yeah it's a scary thought yeah i think she was like my great grandmother was about she was i think ninety two one of my girl friends her her great grandmother is a hundred and two but she still lives at home with her with her family or whatever yeah no it's a it's a tough decision it's a tough decision to put to put them in there and then uh_huh but just it's a lot of responsibility no ma'am yeah no what um i'm trying to think what else we went through oh and then the medication if they have to have medication that's another thing that that i mean you never really know and you never really feel confident with anything unless you're actually doing it yourself and if they're at a home you don't know that they're being given their medicine uh_huh yeah well it's kind of you know you put them in there someone so someone else can take care of them and then you really wonder you can't feel really confident that they're being taken care of what huh_uh yeah well how do you feel about um putting an elderly family family member in a nursing home uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah i agree i it's it's a tough issue i feel like each case probably has to be evaluated individually i feel um i i feel like as families you know we need to take care of the older ones in our families and yet i understand um well we may be facing that with my grandmother she is living near my parents out in california and they this year they moved her into a um retirement apartment complex so she's got part time care but as soon as she needs around the clock care then she's not allowed to live there any more and so we'll have to face the issue of whether she moves in with my mother or they put her into a nursing home and it's it's difficult because i know my mother feels really um torn about it she doesn't want to to put her in a place where she's going to be unhappy lonely or where there's bad care and sometimes you just don't know what the the place is like um i mean you really need to get recommendations i guess from others and um and yet it's a real burden to her to have to to be there all the time or else you know or else like you said you have to hire someone to be in the home it's a tough issue yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh i was thinking you know might i guess i would want to visit the place quite a bit before or something and and talk to the staff see what their attitudes are talk to some of the people that live there and see how they feel about being there um because i've been in different nursing homes where i've [sensed] different [atmospheres] you know often it's it's been negative where and i know that partly can be the attitude of the person if they they feel neglected by their family or whatever or they feel just ready to die and you know tired of feeling not feeling good all the time then they're not going to feel too good but then i've i've been to other places where you know the people have told me um this is a really good place the people here really care about us so yeah yeah yeah well no um but all the years that i've been alive she has for the last thirty years or so it's central california yeah uh_huh well i we're sort of in the middle of it uh last february we brought my mother from florida to up here in texas and so far she has been with us but i really look to the future that it may be occurring uh uh i don't know what i will do i am almost inclined to hire somebody uh to be in our home with her rather than have to put her somewhere you know but well i think partly and it's not me it's the it seems to me the older generation my mother and father and my in laws uh you know the stigma use to be you went there and you died and so they have all kind of right you know i just uh and you try and say they are nice now or or nicer and you know i wouldn't want her in one in florida because i couldn't check on her but if she were in one near here i i would probably be there you know several times per week and i would stand up and scream if i saw things that were you know [improper] or uh you know her care was not have you had that experience yet well oh right it's uh well my father died several years ago and that was you know he had cancer and eventually the hospital comes and says you know your father uh you know medicare says he doesn't need the level of care to be hospitalized so you are going to eventually they will come and tell you will have two days to you know move him somewhere else and that my mother and i needed to uh think what do we want to do at that point we did because he was not yet [comatose] but real close and he lived two weeks in the nursing home so we did do that but uh at that time three and a half years ago my mother was in such a state of depression i didn't think she could handle even if we had full time around the clock care i didn't think emotionally she could handle him being there well it yes that too you know there is no question that uh just moving them about is uh difficult but it really is and it's just uh and i have friends who we are all in the age group where we are thinking about some of these things for our parents and it really is uh with well of course this again was in florida actually the level of care and in fact two that we looked at you know they were all in [mauve] and blue and very elegant looking and so on but i didn't like the fact that they had you know eight patients for one uh you know nurse or one care giver and the one we selected was not nearly as uh up to date however it was clean and the patients were well cared for and i like to think because it had a level of five to one and i felt that that would be better care for my father uh and several of her neighbors and friends oh but you ought to i said i know but we are making this decision and my mom basically let me make the decision so uh and she was pleased with it because he did get uh you know just wonderful care oh absolutely i don't care what you know one of these had a little ice cream parlor and i looked at the manager and i said my father you know will never get out of a bed i don't care about an ice cream parlor you know if you went there and you were in your seventies and well you just went there to uh you know a retirement center yes you could do all that good stuff but this was i wanted him cared for and not left you know if he spoiled his [linens] or something i did not want that you know there what do you do in a hospital work with okay all right right yeah no i haven't either but a lot of my friends and actually my boss had to put his mother in a nursing home and i know just going through it with him i mean it's a real traumatic experience first just even deciding to do it and then i think feeling guilty after you know that it needs to be done you know oh really uh_huh okay that's what i was just going to say if they're out of state you know it's different if they're in the same town i think you have a little more chance to look out for them but then too if you work you know you get there has to be somebody there uh_huh uh_huh oh oh you mean not staying at home and not yeah yeah uh_huh oh yeah well that's it because gee they've got probably a good twenty years to live in some cases if they're healthy you know it would be clean yeah i know and to make sure that there's enough people there to keep everybody like that can you know to be involved instead of just leaving them sit in their room you know uh_huh yeah in fact i used to date a guy that reminds me when i was back in minneapolis but his mother i mean he had she ended up i guess getting it what they now call alzheimer's yeah but to begin with you know when they first i mean she would know us you know and we'd go to visit her but then it would get you know like she didn't really know she didn't know me and then she thought he was a brother you know and it just got steadily worse you know uh_huh and has been independent all their lives and then all of a sudden you know um uh_huh uh_huh just getting used to it oh uh_huh oh uh_huh well that yeah would definitely be a positive part because they'd be around more people and would be easier for them to get and to see those people i guess well i would think that you ought to be in fact i was going to say that i would go at different times of the day not only when they're expecting you to come you know just to see how you know at different time of the day what they do and how they treat them you know uh_huh or is it just because yeah they're having such a hard time adjusting you know uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh that's very spicy too i mean these bell peppers and curry oh that sounds really good huh i guess it was is this dinner time for you all done in advance yeah that's um i uh i'm i'm not that great a cook but i was single until i was thirty so i did cook a little you know uh and i cook a little bit now what i like to do mostly is stir fries and my wife normally says oh tom why why don't you make a stir fry tonight and so we even we just were recently married so we have a stir fry pan sort of like a big wok and we do a lot of um stir fry vegetables it's it's called a stir fry pan and it and it fits right on your uh it fits right on your burner whether it's gas or electric so it's it has a [flatter] bottom than a normal wok does and um normally what what we do is um just you know like two tablespoons of oil maybe sesame oil or some other type of oil than just regular vegetable oil but i will use peanut peanut oil or things and then we just stir fry broccoli and carrots and um green peppers and um maybe put in a little bit of um garlic and ginger uh beforehand that gives uh uh uh [spicier] flavor and then after the stir fry is over just mix in um a little bit of uh sometimes chicken broth and corn starch and soy sauce and that sort of makes a uh a glaze that sticks to the the vegetables i've used you turn them over a lot of times when we do stir fry we just put in [tofu] we don't put in meat cause i guess we're i'm not but uh she likes to watch all the how much red meat and things so we'll do a lot of times vegetarian but it's a real good meal because you have squash and broccoli and uh carrots and celery and green peppers and um oh gee mushrooms it's it's a pretty big and we put that over rice oh you don't oh uh_huh yeah see we never in fact i never had squash growing up my my wife eats more vegetables ate more vegetable than i did growing up i'm i'm from pittsburgh and pittsburgh is a very meat and potato town yeah recipes in pittsburgh [consisted] of red meat and a potato red meat and a potato oh she had all of those types of vegetables see never no vegetables in my family yeah it was really funny well that was a real farm no but i i've i've heard stories uh i've heard stories uh oh this is you shouldn't be talking about this right before while you're fixing dinner that's right you should be careful that's pretty funny but my dad used to tell stories you know about the way they eat chickens but i never we never we lived in the suburbs we we bought everything in a grocery store there was no but it was funny you know it so but when we got married you know a lot more vegetables a lot more you know a lot of changes i think so too but we just went shopping and we came back with uh with uh sweets you know chocolate covered peanuts and uh we came back with sweets we didn't bring all the healthy food back too uh_huh well that's that's supposed to be um the trend of the future but uh the cut back i uh recently was over a friends house that's indian and uh she had brought indian sweets into the office and it was really funny because they were made from yogurt and carrots yeah that was a sweet and i was like ugh this is a sweet oh it is it's a candy i'm like ugh you know indian candy is not very good but everything was and everything you didn't notice it at first but everything was sort of hot everything had a little bit of curry in it it was funny even the sweets did when you first took a bite of them you didn't notice it but then after a couple of minutes you could taste it you know it had that that after taste that very it was a very indian flavor good they didn't have i didn't like her desserts very well they were very yogurt and carrots and [pistachios] [pistachio] nuts and yogurt and it wasn't very good uh_huh yeah well have we done our ten minutes something like that i think we're no normally they just come in and they say you've overextended your your conversation oh okay well that's you'll see it will normally it will come on and it'll say you've over extended your conversation you now have fifteen minutes to fifteen seconds to complete it but uh i've been cut off twice so i just thought in fact i'm just also i'm hearing a [siren] outside i think my my neighbors car must have got bumped you know he has one of those alarms on his car one of the the neighbor has an alarm on a car and it's going off so i was going to go out and see what they were doing okay hey thanks so much uh_huh and you said this was your well you'll you'll get a couple more probably i uh i called yesterday i or friday maybe i talked to somebody that uh i got them on uh during the day it was a housewife and she was home with two kids and while we're talking the kids are screaming in the background you know that they wanted something and they were arguing back and forth and she just kept talking the whole time it was pretty funny okay hey thanks a lot i'll talk to you later bye okay in order to make the uh [curried] chicken i just fried the chicken until it was nice and brown you know make sure it's nice and brown on both sides and then you take it out of the fat and you you let the chicken you fried kind of drain so that a lot of the oil comes out of it and then you you uh pour most of the all of the oil out of the pan and you kind of clean it out and you put back maybe two tablespoons full of the oil and [saute] some um bell peppers and onions in in that little bit of oil maybe one tablespoon or two tablespoons let that brown then put all of the chicken back in there and then you uh mix flour and a cup of water maybe uh one tablespoon of flour and a cup of water stir it real real well then you uh pour that in there you know to make the gravy and you let it come to a boil again and then you let it simmer and you add uh about a tablespoon of what i'm using now is [jamaican] curry powder and that's going to it's going to be really good yeah it's right and then if you like it really hot you can add some hot hot peppers and hot sauce and all that kind of stuff yeah uh well it will be in a little while i'm trying to get it get it ready early oh uh_huh what kind of wok do you have is it is it a real chinese wok uh_huh i see yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah oh that's that sounds real good except the squash i just don't like squash i never did my mother used to cook a whole pan full of squash and she'd have squash and corn bread and maybe some she'd have chicken or something and i'd just be uh_huh uh_huh oh that sounds good we we were from north carolina and we had a garden and my mother would would uh grow the squash and she'd grow white potatoes and onions and cabbage and [collards] and all kinds of right wow you wouldn't believe it we even raised chickens you ever seen anybody kill a chicken and they put the head under a tin tub and chop the head off and then you hear the chicken jumping around under the tub and finally it dies down you get just a little [patter] and then it getting ready to eat chicken too uh_huh well that's good a lot of people are eating healthier now a days yeah ugh yeah i'm trying to learn how to cook um deserts without without all of the sweets you know maybe use honey or something yeah ugh uh right the spice yeah wow yeah uh_huh well i might have liked some of that i i like hot stuff i really do oh is it ten minutes i don't know do we get a signal oh well this is my first one oh wow uh_huh goodness uh_huh well okay yeah thank you it was nice talking with you yeah ugh yeah kind of hard that way okay all right thank you bye bye okay what do you like to cook uh_huh uh_huh that would be good for a dinner party that you know to cook that because you don't have to deal with eight different things coming out at once is that what you usually cook when you have a party uh_huh really that sounds good um fattening uh we it's funny that um we're talking about this we just had a dinner party and we had um our senior pastor and his wife came over and i catered to their diet is the only thing though so it wasn't something i really wanted to make i really wanted to make red beans and rice and with you know sausage because i'm from new orleans originally and um i was going to make that red beans and rice with the those cajun sausage and french bread with garlic butter and stuff and uh well there's salad and then for desert i would i really wanted to make um just brownies or french [donuts] would have been good but it's real hard to make them they don't really come out like they do in new orleans up here i don't know why i don't know if it's me or the water or the recipe i have but um that's what i want that's what i like to make is just real neat stuff like that but kind of like the italian it's really good but instead i catered to their diet so i made baked chicken in the crock pot and um it was good and everything it had all the vegetables in it but it seemed kind of boring compared right i find it changing the way that i eat but not the way i entertain because i guess i guess i feel like if they're on a diet like that i'm going to you know honor that but if it's just another couple came um over a couple weeks later and i made what did i make that night i made a roast and i made um uh i can't believe this my husband broke the coffee pot i just bought yesterday i can't believe that anyway but i asked when [ricky] and [carrie] came over we made um a pot roast with rice and gravy and salad and the whole bit and normally i don't eat we don't eat like that during the week because of the you know the calories and the fat in it but you know when we're having guests we just kind of say oh just do it and i made blueberry [cobbler] and we had extra crust with it it was so fattening but i don't think we gained any weight from it so right i made an apple pan downy when the pastor and his wife came over and she didn't eat it but i did bake apples so that it would be not brownies you know i figured there was less calories in apple pan downy than in fudge brownies so um i've read a good brownie recipe but uh anyway so i guess that's about what i did when i entertained so do you have anything else you want to say about it okay well it was nice talking to you okay bye i like well i like to cook foods i like to eat i like to eat italian food best and i find that i that's pretty easy to cook because a lot of it is one dish meals type things and they're kind of convenient right um i usually have parties that are smaller groups i don't have i've never had a real big dinner party except at traditional holidays like thanksgiving and such and so um yeah i guess i usually do i like to cook um heavy sauces and um noodles and pasta and such yeah actually how about you what do you like to to cook uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh oh really humidity or something uh_huh it kind of uh kind of down played compared to what you would like huh do you find yourself um with all the um cholesterol and and high fiber changing the way that you that you entertain uh_huh oh no uh_huh uh_huh yeah that sounds good well every once in a while i i think i feel the same way when i'm entertaining i don't take that thing into consideration unless it's really really like a lot of women will turn down dessert if it's too rich simply because they don't want the extra calories so i think dessert is the only thing that i kind of down play sometimes oh yeah yeah yeah oh that's good uh_huh um nothing comes to mind right off so i guess not okay you too bye bye okay um yeah that's what it said to discuss some maybe a recipe well it says why would you what you would have for a dinner party um this is strange because i pressed one and i thought it said begin okay maybe maybe we're all set okay we'll talk for five minutes they interrupt at the end um yeah it says what you would have for a dinner party i just happen to plan one out for saturday i'll tell you what i'm going to have um if i can find it well i have this new fondue pot and i was going to do basic cheese fondue and i have two different kinds of [breads] and some ham and i was going to try something weird which you know when you have fish au [gratin] i was going to make some uh like fish chunks and dip it in the fondue i don't know if it will come out yeah the cheese fondue i make some people like swiss um i prefer cheddar and i'll mix i won't make i won't have a sharp cheddar because it for fondue i think it should be a little [calmer] than real sharp cheddar and then i was going to make other things like potato skins see you don't necessarily have to dip this stuff and um i was going to have broccoli and cauliflower for a a vegetable oh yeah it's amazing how vegetables trays will go at a party yeah instead of something greasy or my uh girlfriend's do catering and they always about every party they do is they have a vegetable [tray] i think they try and suggest it what i've been doing when i get invited someplace and bring something i make uh food [kabobs] you take little toothpicks and cut up uh pineapple and strawberry and even banana if you can do it just before you leave it stays nice and fresh yeah yeah i like those um they they made a couple of those uh they made one for my uh [bridal] shower and i was pretty pleased i never made one for myself though but they look easy enough to make it's not yeah yeah you probably get this probably pretty sticky after you get done then you've got to drain the water out of the watermelon because you know when you scrape it it makes the water yeah um something i do is a fruit is i'll get um make chocolate sauce and dip strawberries and bananas in them yeah i have two nieces and they they they go melt some chocolate chips go buy me some strawberries yeah you know if you get a sweet strawberry they're much better but if you get a sour strawberry huh yeah no they um the strawberries are coming in season now from they're they're coming up from florida of course i live in vermont so but they're really reasonably priced they're coming up from florida so yeah yeah i think the uh actually i think they get um some of them from south america yep they a lot of um of a um winter produce comes from south america of course their seasons are switched so um do you want to discuss the recipe i have a recipe if you want um it filled a lot of people try to stay away from this but i make my own homemade pudding just because i don't like box pudding yeah it and it if you um well first of all i take about a quarter and a half of milk and i put it in a two quart saucepan and you put it on a really low heat and you want to use one of your good sauce pans that [dissipate] the heat because it it ends up burning i mean no matter how careful you are you still might get a film on the bottom of the pot i don't let that worry me and i get the milk lukewarm and then i pour about a half a cup of cornstarch in it and i have this thing it's called the [slender] blender it it makes the uh it makes uh a whip topping out of milk if you get the milk cold enough it's uh i don't know they're called [moo] [goo] leaves or something they're yeah they're real neat i think they're real reasonably priced some of them they used to be a hundred dollars and they used to whip skim milk into a dessert but i didn't get that one i got the black and [decker] kind but uh it's real handy because it doesn't have a cord and you beat this cornstarch right into the the milk you know and it does an excellent job or just hand beat it i guess you could use a hand mixer but i don't think it i don't think it gets it good enough and then before the milk gets too hot um i add two beaten eggs and i really mix them in good and then about a half a cup of sugar and i let it pretty much i beat it like every minute for about ten seconds and it's it starts [thickening] when it [thickens] the cornstarch might get a little i don't know it gets like little [globs] of this [rubbery] cornstarch and you just keep beating it in and it's the the trick is is to have this blender so if you were you'd have to probably almost go out and someone who's just going to make it first time it's you'll have much better luck if you had one of these little [blenders] and then you can add cocoa powder to it to make chocolate or after it's [thickened] i cook it for a good once it starts boiling i just i cook it for a good seven minutes seven to ten minutes and then you can make chocolate or you can take it off and let it cool you put um really good vanilla [favoring] in it and some butter and that makes french vanilla um custard yeah a chocolate powder yeah that cocoa yeah the unsweetened it comes in like a real dark can our mothers used to use it and then yeah we all used to yeah it's the unsweetened kind it's not like [nestles] [quik] i suppose you could use that yeah but um well i used to make the regular pudding the chocolate and put it in the pie shell and if it would sit in the refrigerator for a day where you cut the pie it would soak into the pie shell and it was like red and i'm like oh this is kind of [groedy] um actually i found it in one of my mother's um homemade cookbooks i mean something she had collected out of woman's day or something so i think you couldn't make it with a hand [whisk] or or a regular beater but um yeah but i still think a beater would do it good enough um the trick is to get the cornstarch um yeah right in the in the lukewarm milk sometimes i put the cornstarch in a separate bowl and i would put it in the sink and i'll take my lukewarm milk and put it in the cornstarch and beat it good it seems to be better than putting the the cornstarch into the liquid it once it hits the top of the liquid it seems to make little balls and stuff on the top yeah and i'll do this uh sometimes i'll put my after i pour that into my back into my saucepan i'll put the eggs in the same dish and beat them up and then pour the cornstarch and the milk mixture in the egg so yep and then you know if you can put your cocoa in with your cornstarch if you wanted to the cocoa even seems to [thicken] it even more because by the vanilla doesn't seem to [thicken] as well as the sometimes the cocoa is like my husband really likes it thick he says i can stick the spoon right in this because i'm always worrying it won't firm up because it when you take it out of the saucepan it's like boy i hope this [thickens] a little more because it's not like real package thick you know when you cook a package it's it's a little less but i put it in a nice glass bowl and um some people don't like that that film on the pudding so you can put uh saran wrap over the top and then once the pudding starts cooling it makes little balls of water on the saran wrap so when you pull the saran wrap back you sort of should be a little careful pull it back and shake the water off the saran wrap and i might put it back on but um yeah after well when it starts [steaming] a lot uh i definitely yeah put it in the refrigerator but um i my father always told me if you put hot food in your refrigerator you're going to make it work too hard that's yeah so that's why i do that so well i don't know that's my my great hard recipe what what is do you have a favorite recipe oh oh that's wonderful okay that's what kind of fondue the cheese dip or right yeah oh that sounds good that's always a good thing vegetable trays always go over so well because i think people get tired of eating junk i mean i think they like to have healthy stuff too you know it's oh definitely i think better even than than other kinds of food right exactly yeah uh_huh oh yes right right that's true or even have you ever seen where they they'll take a watermelon and just cut the top out of it and then hollow that out and then put the fruit in the watermelon that is really neat yep oh i think it would it would be a lot of work but um you know because it's you know you have to cut each thing or you know use the [melon] [baller] and stuff but but i think they're really neat and you know i think they're worth the time you know because they oh yeah right yeah is that is that good you know i've seen that so many times strawberries dipped in chocolate but i've never tried it are they really good oh i bet it doesn't mix well does it oh well that's good because i know they've been really expensive lately because they weren't in season of course they had to be be uh grown in [greenhouses] and stuff and in oh is that right oh i uh_huh right well okay sure is that right i've never heard of that uh_huh uh_huh i think i know what you're is it like a hand held the yeah okay uh_huh oh huh huh uh_huh oh wow that is really interesting are you saying to use like um for chocolate like unsweetened unsweetened yeah i have some i just want to right okay cooking chocolate that's really interesting i've never heard of anybody making their own pudding before that's really neat well how did you get a recipe for pudding on your own is that right oh neat that is just really neat because i it would probably be a lot more work and probably not turn out as good uh_huh so you put the milk in the cornstarch and then put that back in the saucepan huh that's oh uh_huh uh_huh do do you put it in the refrigerator then or uh_huh right that's true i knew that yeah yeah um hello um what is your favorite um food for a dinner party do you do tex mex oh fajitas how do you make fajitas uh_huh oh oh uh_huh uh_huh oh it sounds good okay well that's nice oh well basically um because i lived in the middle east for a while i tend to fix middle eastern foods when i have have people over and so um some of the dips are like [chick] peas mashed with um sesame and uh cold um what's it called i forgot what it's called anyway and and my that's right that's right it's called now i remember it and um [dipping] arabic bread the thin piece of bread in that or another dip is made with very similar but with um [eggplant] which has been actually it ends up with a barbecued taste i although we usually bake it in the oven or if we have uh those of us that have gas stoves bake it on top just like putting it in the gas flame and sort of getting it black on the outside but mushy on the inside but barbecue is it like steaks or is it uh turkey would you barbecue a turkey or a chicken or uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh i'm sure that the chicken that we barbecue from the middle east has a lemon garlic sauce i wouldn't imagine that a barbecued chicken would uh_huh uh_huh right right well it's been fun talking to you right uh in wyoming it would be less spicy vegetables once in a while oh dear okay very good okay bye bye um i don't know i i think i make things you know i do things kind of simple because i you know i just have close friends over i make like lasagna and uh-oh we like to have barbecues outside so you know when the weather's nice because in texas you have a lot of nice weather so we do a lot of um things like that um i'm not really into gourmet cooking so i don't know how to do that so i don't have gourmet foods um yeah you know like fajitas and stuff like that so um it's kind of like made out of skirt steak and you marinate it you can buy [marinating] mixes here i don't know get it up there uh you can you know marinate it in any kind of barbecue sauce you like and then you uh you quick fry it real fast with in hot hot grease you know not a not not deep frying it but you can either barbecue it which is really good with uh green beans not green beans but green peppers and red peppers and onions and uh then you put it on a flour like you know you make your meat real uh thin you know bite size pieces then you put it on flour tortillas with you know guacamole and uh sour cream and you know all kinds of you know it's like a tex mex type thing it's really good you can do it with chicken too chicken fajitas and stuff so so what kind of cooking do you do up there oh that sounds interesting uh_huh you cook them so often you kind of forget their names yeah yeah oh uh_huh oh oh that's unusual i'd never heard of anything like that you know here in texas it's all you know tex mex cooking and barbecue and they're really big on stuff like that and yeah you barbecue pardon me oh yeah you can barbecue turkey if you have a big enough grill but my i cook my [turkeys] inside you know it you can buy smoked [turkeys] and or uh but most the stuff that we barbecue is like steak and chicken and hamburgers hot dogs you know the simple things like that and you know we we like things like that you know barbecue beans and baked beans and no no this is more like [hickories] [hickory] type you know depending on the it's like a smokey flavor if you've ever you know had stuff like that yeah it's totally different sounds like it would be interesting to eat some of the middle eastern cooking so yeah yeah it's been fun it's been nice it's uh you know new to learn some what different people eat so you get to think you know i come from wyoming and it's basically the same same type of thing except for you do eat more the tex mex down here so yeah yeah you you know down there it's just like meat and potatoes you know yeah right well it's been interesting to talk to you thank you for calling bye bye all right what are some of your favorite foods i imagine in argentina you've got some great foods uh_huh yes i've had i've had that meal in new york uh where they bring you a [plank] sort of with all this wonderful beef parts of beef cooked and barbecued and it's marvelous i have to find a place around here that has that okay i'll keep that in mind yeah you serve that yourself or the for a family you ever serve that yourself when you have company uh_huh yeah oh do you buy them um separately at you know an american grocery store now or do you have to you don't you don't go buy it from a [wholesaler] little butcher shops yeah yeah i've lived in mexico so i know yeah yeah you have to you have poultry place what do you what other what dishes do you serve with it yeah the turnover the stuffed turnover oh i love those uh_huh yeah uh_huh do you remember when you were in washington sam the [argentine] baker it used to be in georgetown years ago he moved i guess he he retired and went back to argentina i guess in the early seventies yeah so that that's before your time your parents might remember if they were here then okay i mean he was wonderful we used to get the most marvelous [impenadas] and other [argentine] things yeah i'm italian uh_huh yeah well because there're many italians in argentina uh_huh uh_huh yeah my grandparents my grandfather came to the united states through argentina this was around the turn of the century actually actually a little bit later like nineteen thirteen nineteen twelve nineteen thirteen yeah well i'll tell you it's interesting because when we cook here i'm of italian descent my husband is chinese so we and we both love continental cooking french cooking so we cook uh our meals are well we don't we don't usually mix i mean that sometimes well if we're entertaining we'll do a chinese recipe and um there are really easy recipe that is you know with chinese you always have several dishes and nowadays with microwaves you can steam many of the things in a microwave i don't know if you have one and if you like chinese food you can take filet of fish and put a little bit of soy sauce and a little bit of sesame oil on top of it and chop some [scallions] and a little ginger and just cover it with some uh [waxed] paper and steam it just until the fish is done and it's a wonderful um [flavorful] piece of fish yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah buy a fresh filet of fish a nice one at the fish the fish counter um any white fish sole is good uh um flounder sole or flounder is real good and even grouper little bit of soy sauce and sesame seed oil and not too much soy sauce uh some chopped up um you know [slivers] of [scallions] and [slivers] of ginger and then just cover it and put it in the microwave for just just two say two minutes check it after two minutes to see if the fish [flakes] and if the fish [flakes] it's done don't [overcook] it though well you see just check it you know during and another quick dish if you like um do you know what hoi sin sauce is it's that sweet chinese sauce well if you go in a chinese store ask for hoi sin h o i s i n h o i s i n or s e n either way they'll spell it hoi sin sauce it's a very sweet dark sort of a [purplish] plum sauce [purplish] brown and if you take uh little pieces of pork and you fry them like little cubes of pork and you fry them with garlic and a little bit of couple [dashes] of hot pepper and then mix some hoi sin sauce with sherry just a little sherry to thin it and stir that in you can even put a spoon of ketchup in and that makes a great pork dish with a sort of a spicy sweet sauce that you can serve over rice um well for two people um if it's american style i buy a half a pound if you know we if you're just serving that but if you're serving another dish with it say the rice dish um well with guys pretty healthy [appetites] i'd probably go a third of a pound and then you know you could and you can always you can always heat it up again and save you know yeah you can also do the same thing using um if you have ground beef just stir fry the ground beef drain off the oil use the same hoi sin sauce and some of the frozen mixed vegetables just stir that in and you've got a very colorful side another dish um the hoi sin sauce oh a dollar twenty nine a can a can would serve you for for you know for quite a few um meals you know oh no no no no no it's not expensive at all it's one of the chinese cooking basics yeah well listen it was good talking with you hope you enjoy your recipe okay bye bye all right mine well yeah well we got um a lot of uh european dishes we got we got what some people call the best beef in the world so it's uh [bishu] like every sunday you go out and you buy all these parts of the cow and then you just cook them over a grill that's like in our house it's already built in there's this whole special place in the back so you can make a barbecue yeah yeah and then well they have one in uh they have an [argentinean] place down in georgetown so um excuse me oh no well see the problem is i'm only twenty two but like like when i'm down at home and like somebody says okay when are when are we having this you know and i'll cook it you know like you have to prepare the fire and then put the sausages on and then you know you put all these different meats which take different times no but what happens is in argentina they have like all these little places like the fruit stand and you know the dairy and products and whatever and so and so they got they got the meat place and so you just go there and you can't find chicken there you got to go to another place to find the chicken well basically it's what we call it [impenadas] which is which is like right meat [turnovers] and then we also put sausages on a [bun] and then that's that's to start out with and then what you have is also like you know like three different kinds of salad and uh that's about it uh no oh okay yeah no we were only there for two years yeah and uh what i what i also eat now since i graduate i have an italian roommate and are you and since being [argentinean] we also have a lot of pasta and you know yeah and my mom you know like makes like what we call [niokes] and all this stuff that it's just you know everything like lasagna and everything oh okay yeah yeah at one point one third of the population of argentina was italian like pure italians okay okay right right yeah yeah yeah okay okay okay is it because i was at you know it's like when you when you go buy fish you know well like i buy like the fish so you can do it in the microwave the [breaded] fish and yeah i've seen you know the filet what kind of fish okay so we put soy sauce and sesame okay okay okay because i got i got um one of those little uh microwaves the ones that take forever to boil a cup of water yeah no i don't wait wait wait h h o i s i n okay okay okay uh how much uh how much pork do you buy for two people right yeah i could probably go half a pound so it's just it's just since i'm from argentina i just love meat and we okay okay and how much does it cost yeah oh okay yeah okay i thought it was maybe like you know like five fifty or something oh okay same here all right thank you bye bye well what would you have at a dinner party uh_huh oh gosh that sounds great uh_huh well um i think it would probably depend on whether this was a formal or a informal dinner party but if it was informal my first choice would be crawfish because i mean crawfish everybody over here likes crawfish but you know i i wouldn't have to worry about satisfying my guest but if it was a formal dinner party i would probably think of something else like uh shrimp shrimp [fettucini] is real easy to um make and everything and it's usually well liked by people i guess i'm just a seafood fan so i think on the lines of oh yeah um you're not supposed to i mean you're not supposed to eat them dead i mean well you eat them dead but right because if if they are dead for too long you can always tell whenever they're cooked if they've been dead for a long time because their tail [straightens] out and you're not supposed to eat those because they're bad for you yeah so if you ever go in a restaurant order crawfish i mean every once in a while you'll see i mean it doesn't happen very often because it's just an accident but if the tail is straight on it then yeah don't eat it but um you just put some cajun well lots of pepper and you just boil them and they're absolutely wonderful but there's uh they're a pain to peel for some people once you get used to it they're real easy but um you know if you have nails or anything you can plan on those being shot i think for a dinner party i i don't know it depends like if like my age if there was a bunch of college kids coming over for a dinner party no i they would shell their own you know we'd just have crawfish and beer or something but um if it was more formal like if i was you know working environment then i would probably um shell them or at least [disconnect] them from the head but there's a there's a big thing over here that everybody sucks the head so um it it would just depend that's the best part of the crawfish [sucking] the head but um i don't know it it just depends on what type it was i guess but you can buy uh the crawfish shells already peeled and everything and usually you use those like for frying or to put in salads or to um you know make a sauce with or something like that but you can go ahead and buy them cooked and [shelled] and they're more expensive of course but um yeah it really does i like shrimp better just um the crawfish i mean it just has a taste of its own it also depends on who's cooking it and how much seasoning they use stuff like that but um i think that and also to get totally off the subject of crawfish lots of vegetables and hors d'oeuvres and stuff like that for a dinner party i think that that really helps that's what i need uh_huh oh i bet that that got pretty competitive you know as far as who could come up with the best recipe that would be fun uh-huh sometimes it might be the [candlelight] and sometimes it might be the picnic out back or something well that's you know that's fun uh_huh that sounds right i would i'd take him up on that uh_huh i'd be i that's about how much i can cook you know i'm i'm doing a lot more cooking now than i used to but that's only because my mom just started working so she's tired when she comes home in the afternoon so i try to have things cooked for her but uh um i usually try to stay out of kitchen i don't know not one of my favorite hobbies well um my grandma speaking of those meatballs again she owned every christmas and and easter whenever we have at the big get together over at her house she makes this meat ball sauce and it has i don't know they are just kind of like quarter size meatballs and they are absolutely delicious i don't know what she calls them in i don't i'm sure she puts wine in it because um she cooks everything with alcohol but um i don't know i would i would be interested in getting that recipe for you if you have it around oh yeah oh that would be wonderful yeah um hum oh um hum well um how long do you cook the meatballs uh_huh oh yeah hum that sounds great especially i mean the fact that you can prepare the meatballs so so far in advance i mean like if if you are having a dinner party on wednesday night you could do it on a weekend that would be great i think i'm going to have to keep that in mind for my future because i hope to have to have lots of dinner parties cause i like to i mean um um i'm sure that i'll be involved in a big company and i know that my future husband will be you know he's going to be working for [chevron] in houston so he's going to be um you know i'm sure that dinner parties will come in handy oh yeah i have to impress the boss and clients cause um i'm in i'm in public relations in school so i'm going to have you know my whole job's going to be based on my clients and stuff like that so i'm going to have lots of dinner parties and have to take them out to eat right now i'm taking a class on [ettiquesy] and all the little bitty things that i didn't even know i mean i thought for sure i'd been raised properly but i've been doing a lot of things wrong i didn't know about but um so is there anything else oh yes you need to try em oh they're wonderful well uh lately since i have children i've cut down on having dinner parties but when i do i try to keep it pretty simple on things that i can prepare ahead of time uh i have one recipe for uh a really good um type of a [meatball] it's called burgundy [meatball] and it's made with red wine and um it's it's really good and you can make it ahead of time and then um make the sauce when you're ready to um to serve it that's one of my favorite things to to serve sure oh really well i guess being from that part of the country uh_huh yeah well how do make how do you you cook crawfish i in fact i just came back from the grocery store and being in texas we don't have too many you know people that that eat crawfish but they had live crawfish on sale uh_huh don't buy them that way uh_huh okay well i'll remember that uh_huh uh_huh huh when you were um when you serve it do you shell them and then serve em too um hum sure still have see that ooh um hum does it taste a lot like shrimp uh_huh yeah sure yeah we have a a friend another couple where the husband is the one who cooks all the time and yeah that's what i wish i had but in our family i am the one who who cooks and i i really enjoy it it's gotten a little more difficult with kids but i really do enjoy cooking and we um we have them over for dinner back and forth quite a lot and before i had my second child we sort of had a contest going where you know he would cook and then the next time it would be my turn and i'd try to outdo him and then he'd try to outdo me and we we was really a lot of fun and yeah it did we we tried to be fancier or more courses than the other or uh it was a lot of fun you know it something unique you know and then we got into different um themes you know um whether it would be ethnic food or um sometimes it would be um oh oh i don't know maybe an outdoor theme or uh elegant theme or you know it was a lot of fun that's right it was fun and and we threatened to make the other two uh make us dinner one time uh just to even it out since we seemed to be [unfairly] doing all the cooking and they were doing all the enjoying i'm it does except that knowing them they would probably do something ridiculous and terrible just just to uh make sure that they didn't have to do it again make hot dogs or some potato chips uh_huh oh that's nice it can it can be fun i if you have the time but you know a lot of times it's too much of a rush really be able to enjoy it able to uh_huh yeah it's um it's in the other room i don't know if we have enough time for it it's real easy one of the unique things in this it's like a pound of ground beef some bread crumbs um an egg um whatever seasonings you can just light so salt and pepper um and chopped up water [chestnuts] which is something different um makes them a little bit crunchy you need to chop em up real fine but um it makes them crunchy and that adds something new to it and then the sauce is just made with um [bouillion] cubes water burgundy wine and um cornstarch instead of flour so it's not a it's not a thick rich type of a sauce it's more of a when you use corn starch in in gravy like you know when you have um chinese food that kind of a gravy or a sauce that comes with a lot of that they use corn starch instead of flour in all of their sauces and [gravies] and it gives it a bit of a different consistency the meatballs you just um after you form them fry them in a pan until they're uh [browned] on all all sides and then drain off all the grease uh then what i usually do is i freeze them and then when you're ready to serve them then you cook the sauce and then put the meatballs into the sauce and heat it probably you have to heat it up for a good oh if they're frozen you know it may take a half for them to thaw out but then heat them thoroughly in the sauce itself let them simmer in the sauce itself and it's real good right and then freeze them sure uh_huh yeah you'll meet friends invite invite the boss over and and friends at work uh_huh sure oh really well i i think we've covered the subject i got some interesting information about crawfish i was in fact it's good cause i was curious about that today when i saw those for sale oh i will i'm sure my husband will be surprised because we were talking about them the other day before perhaps this connection no it still echoes okay um i love it uh do you work and have a family oh i expect so uh well for a dinner party i think one of my favorite things is baked chicken and white wine oh um i guess mostly out of an international cookbook that i have oh they have a t i plant in texas in [kingsport] oh uh_huh uh_huh great what is uh is a [marsala] wine a [sweeter] wine uh_huh okay uh_huh huh oh oh so it kind of browns and then you put wine over it uh_huh that sounds real good yeah what do you serve with it what do you serve with it uh_huh that's what i do too uh_huh that's what i've got i've got steamed broccoli down on mine no it's great i've got a good dessert recipe uh do you like angel food cake i just break it up in a glass bowl and then i mix up uh some cream cheese and a little bit of [amaretta] and some cool whip and i make a [thickened] blueberry sauce and i layer it with uh angel food cake and the blueberries and then that topping it is it's great uh_huh right i know i know what you mean we don't eat desserts much any more uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh and pour that over it that sounds great it would be pretty right yeah right that would be pretty we've been fixing something lately that well we've been cooking a lot of turkey breasts because it's low fat and i've been making a hot sandwich i [toast] a piece of whole wheat bread and then put the turkey on it and then slices of the low fat swiss cheese and then i make a little honey mustard dressing and put over it and pop it in the microwave it is delicious i wouldn't mind serving that to anybody no yeah it's real quick right uh_huh yeah well mix up a little uh mayonnaise with some [dijon] mustard and honey until it just i mix it until it just tastes good to me uh_huh yeah and it's real good and it keeps in the refrigerator oh it keeps a long time no uh_huh it keeps a long time oh and i put a little um oh yogurt in it too if i just plain yogurt it gives it a little tang it makes a great sandwich oh are you oh yeah that's kind of hard they'll eat fish she'll eat fish uh_huh right uh_huh that sounds good right i had a recipe from that um international cookbook two that's a great salad in summertime do you do you garden or not okay it's just sliced tomatoes and i put it on a glass plate because it looks real pretty sliced tomatoes and then green pepper strips just over it and some red onion slices and just a little bit of um basil and then a little italian dressing over it and everybody loves it and it's so easy and it's delicious huh_uh it isn't and you can put some [cucumber] slices on too i got it at the checkbook store and it's got all these beautiful pictures in there that are inspiring it's going to say uh edited by charlotte [turgeon] editor of i'm not french [laroute] [gastro] [lamink] the creative cooking course i'm trying to see who it's published by [ottenheimer] i've never heard of it this edition is published by [bonanza] books it's a big book but it was not expensive uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh we do too yeah that's right i don't think it would uh_huh i stir fried some the other night though some uh beef and broccoli strips it was good but it didn't have much beef in it uh_huh uh_huh it just takes the time to cut everything up cook uh_huh right uh_huh one of my daughters sent me a colorado cook book put out by the junior league of denver have you ever seen any put out by junior leagues they are great uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right yeah they are good usually good aren't they oh is that right what was that uh_huh you buy the canned baked canned baked beans uh_huh uh_huh oh that sounds uh_huh that sounds good right uh_huh jot them down huh do you like to cook i do too it it's kind of hard to find time sometimes but yes uh i don't have a family but i i usually work about fifty hours a week and by the time i get home i'm so tired it's hard to cook a full meal that's that's really weird that you said that because for a dinner party mine is is a is a chicken in a [marsala] wine sauce so where did you get your recipe for it oh okay well mine actually came from the um texas instruments cafeteria they they yeah we have it's in johnson city and um the cafeteria is real good about putting out recipes you know like once a month they'll put out a recipe of the month and they they put this one out and i tried it and it was really good yeah a little bit [sweeter] and it uh it's a it's a red wine and uh i'm trying to think what else i i roll it in bread crumbs and uh parmesan cheese and then i rub it with a little bit i rub the chicken with a little bit of oil and pour the wine sauce over it as like the last twenty minutes so that it gets just enough flavor right and it's really easy too so what do you use huh i like to serve um a wild rice with it this is really neat and i we're big broccoli fans well i just i just don't think you can go wrong with something like that oh what yes uh_huh wow what time should we be there that sounds wonderful i love desserts but since there's only two of us it's really i i try to avoid making anything that too fancy that we'd like too much and eat too much but i i guess one that that i really like that i haven't made in awhile and it's it's called a fruit pizza and you take a uh sugar cookie uh recipe and and spread it out on a pizza pan so you make it like a pizza crust and then you you bake that and then you um take things like [kiwi] and strawberries and bananas and whatever fresh fruit you want and you mix that with um excuse me you use cream cheese and a little bit of orange juice and i can't remember what else is in it and you make kind of a glaze and then you layer your fresh fruit on that yeah it is really good and it it's real light and it depending on the fruit you use it's you know it's real colorful especially with like the [kiwi] and the strawberries so but usually i just opt for brownies and vanilla ice cream uh_huh yeah it's just so much better for you uh_huh oh that sounds great no and that's that's something that just you know it doesn't take a long time to fix it's really good and it's really good for you and we eat out a lot and there are sometimes you just don't feel like eating out and i wish i had something a little bit different to just [zap] together uh_huh i was going to say do you just mix it to taste okay how long does it keep do you well you wouldn't have to make yeah and you wouldn't have to mix that much together even i'm sorry i keep coughing i've had a bad cold plain plain yogurt i'll bet that is really good man i'm going to have to think of that we're getting company tonight and i have been debating what to cook because one of my guests is a vegetarian so we're going to i think we'll try to do something a little bit we might try to to um to grill some flounder or salmon steaks yeah and i usually when they come down i'll grill those and brush on a little lemon butter sauce and um definitely go with it will have to be a rice dish lots of vegetables to make up for the lack of meat no we don't our next door neighbors do and some a lot of times they'll give us something yeah oh uh_huh uh_huh okay that's what i was just thinking it doesn't sound like it it would be hard at all where did you get where did you get this cook book really i'll might have to visit the state book store i haven't either okay well the ones that i've been i've been wanting to get um i guess you've seen the three hundred sixty five ways to cook chicken and the three hundred sixty five ways to cook pasta i've been i've been wanting to get those because we eat a lot of chicken and we do eat a lot of pasta so we we just said the other night it wouldn't be too difficult to be to do without red meat you know we don't have that much of it now as long as we have plenty of vegetables and lots of chicken yeah i've got a i've got a wok that we don't use near as often as we used to we used to stir fry a lot especially um a lot of chicken and and a lot of rice dishes yeah but usually if i'm if i'm if i take a day off or on the weekend especially i try to cook real real food and at least cook a couple of dishes ahead so that we can have those to enjoy so uh_huh yes cause we have some some local ones and we have a share alike column in the paper where people you know write in and share recipes or write in and say i'm looking for this recipe and that's where i get a lot of my recipes yes and i got i got a real good one from a doctor's office one time it's uh it's a baked bean recipe and you mix baked beans and [lima] beans and uh let's see i guess yeah just mix the canned beans together and brown sugar and [molasses] and bake them in [catsup] you know and and you just bake it and it's just it's like a a [spicier] baked bean dish and you can add hamburger if you want to give it a little more body so i i try to always keep my eyes open and because a lot of time you can find find really good recipes where you wouldn't even think about it so i try to always keep a little notebook in my purse but it's been okay you can go first or i will okay well i'm going to tell you what i'd have down in the south we have a lot of shrimp okay and i have uh shrimp that is steamed in beer that i cook and then i have a cauliflower that i would cook garlic bread green salad tea and we'd have a lemon pie for dessert yes and what's really neat about it is the shrimp is cooked in your uh like your rice steamer your rice cooker and um you place the shrimp in the in the rice steamer and you put a bay leaf and put some uh red pepper over it now you can either use you know the kind that comes in the little can or you can just get some you know regular red peppers cayenne uh_huh and you put a little bit of that over it now if you use the dried kind then you would only use two of them and you put that in there and then you pour two bottles of beer over it two pounds that's the jumbo shrimp in the shells leave the shells on them so they won't just roll up and you pour the beer over the top of it and you cover it and you only cook it until the mixture begins to boil and the shrimp turn pink then you remove it and you put it on a platter and then you serve it with melted butter and uh i usually put garlic powder in mine and they can just dip it and they shell it as they eat it but uh then the uh the cauliflower you cook that in the microwave and what you do is you just uh wash it and you core it and in a like a oh what do you call it like [pyrex] or something like that kind of bowl that would go in the microwave uh_huh but it's got to have one that has a cover on it and you uh put about two tablespoons of uh water into this bowl and about an eighth a teaspoon of salt and then you just set your cauliflower in there and then you cook it for seven minutes on high and you rotate it one time uh_huh uh when you core it you be real careful so you won't knock your flowers off and uh you just set it in there and you microwave it on high for seven minutes and you turn it one time and while that's cooking i take mayonnaise about a cup of mayonnaise and a teaspoon of mustard and some garlic powder and i mix it all together and i shred up some just regular white cheese and after that's cooked you take it out and pour this on top of it and then you sprinkle the cheese on top of that and you cook it for another three minutes on high you know just mainly to melt the cheese and everything and let all the seasoning melt into it and it's done it is good but it it looks i mean what you can do then see is like what i usually do is i'll like sit the cauliflower in the middle and then i put the uh shrimp around the outside of it you know on my platter and then i have a green salad that i put around the outside of that and you know you have all the different seasonings and stuff and then i just fix little individual cups for them and they have the garlic bread and it makes it a real nice looking you know huh_uh huh_uh but it looks like it you know you look like you went to a whole bunch right and uh usually i cut those little cherry tomatoes up and put some color into it you know and i'll lay those on top of my salad you know to make it look nice and things like that okay uh it usually serves six yeah uh_huh yeah yeah yeah have you ever had crawfish oh you ought to try some crawfish they are good but see that's one good thing about living down here is usually anybody that comes over you know even if it's like out of town guests and stuff they want our cooking you know they want it from down here because just like now especially crawfish it is starting to move out you know and more and more people are beginning to find out how good it is but uh it's similar uh_huh yeah it's not exactly i mean it's got a taste of its own you know but it is it is similar to because you only eat the tails of it um it looks more like a crab uh_huh but no um let me think of i can't even think of what you i guess if it uh it looks like more like a cross between uh a crab and uh and a lobster because it's small like that and it's got the [pinchers] like a crab but you know it's it's similar to a lobster too because the tail has got the little pleats in it like a lobster would and we call them mud bugs but i mean they're fantastic tasting they are so good everybody it's it's the season for them right now louisiana oh yeah uh_huh yeah yes you know you buy it you buy it as a seasoning huh_uh huh_uh i cook mine well do you have a uh like a black iron skillet oh okay well i guess you could cook it in in that too but i don't know you know i never have i use uh uh the black iron skillet to cook mine uh_huh but it really it's not it it it doesn't burn or anything like that the blackening is really the seasoning i mean there is it's it's a blackening seasoning you know i mean that is a seasoning that's really it's not like you would have to cook it for an extreme amount of time or something like that to get it because it's called uh what it's called is blackening magic and it it comes in a bottle and uh well i'm trying to see it's got a a picture of [dom] de [luise] on it uh_huh right uh_huh but uh_huh yeah but you do have to have it you know you do have to have it hot when you cook it i mean your pan it does have to be really hot you know when you put it in but it's not like it's burned and it what it what [blackens] it is the seasoning and it is so good oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well have you ever thought about coming to louisiana you know to visit yeah you ought to come down um you don't even have to go all the way to new orleans you know if you want to really get some good food i mean you don't have to go that far south but uh of course the further south you go the better the food is as far as i'm concerned and fact is we're going to take a vacation this year we're going to go to new orleans again and uh we're only going down there for the food though uh yeah we go to the the french quarters and stuff like that and uh i have some friends that live down there and so usually we go to we don't go to the tourist ones we go to the ones that they tell us to go to you know and we went to this one it was called the back porch and uh they were cooking the stuff you know while we were we went on this boat ride and then we came back and ate out on this it was like a back porch and uh usually if you can find somebody of course now when you go down there you know i mean they've got just there's no where you can miss i have never gone to a restaurant and not just been so full it's unreal i mean it's so good the seasoning they it's just unreal gumbo no gumbo uh_huh right uh_huh you can even make it with chicken or you can make it with seafood uh_huh uh_huh and i'll tell you what do you want to go first well you go ahead oh yeah oh yeah uh_huh oh it sounds fantastic oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh is it cayenne pepper you mean yes uh_huh yes and how much shrimp would you use two pounds okay oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh okay uh_huh oh yeah sure uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh a glass dish uh_huh okay uh_huh yeah uh_huh and it's are you cooking the whole head at one time okay i see uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah oh that sounds fantastic um um uh_huh sure and it's not much work that sounds yeah i bet it tastes good too oh yeah now how many could you serve yeah okay i figured about that oh that's good see out here we have so many uh ethnic people we have italians and we have portuguese and we have russians and polish and it depends out here like the type of people you're going to entertain you know so it's hard uh you you just have to pick something for the the group that you're going to entertain for that particular time and uh they're big on finger food here too you know chicken wings and uh ribs and that kind of stuff uh barbecue and uh cooking out in the yard it you know when it's nice barbecue outside chicken and that kind of stuff uh no but i have had shrimp oh of course that's yeah really is it like shrimp it's similar oh it does does it look like a lobster oh it looks more like a crab oh are they thin long or wide uh_huh uh_huh oh yeah yep oh and and where did you say you were from louisiana oh well do you do cajun cooking oh i love uh blackened you know uh the the fish and the chicken and that kind of stuff oh we have a few places up here that do that and if ever i see it on the menu i always get it it is so good now how do they do the blackened but uh do you have to have a certain skillet or something no i did have i don't have it now but i have mostly teflon you now but does it have to get extremely hot yeah uh_huh oh oh i see yeah oh i see oh oh really oh now would you would cook it for the same amount of time as you would prepare it any other time is that what you're saying oh uh_huh because i could have the uh chicken on the [skewers] with uh uh blackened seasoning and oh that is so good delicious uh_huh uh_huh oh it is i i love it i i in fact i was in texas for a little while and i liked uh the barbecues and the mexican food i have a passion for all that type of different tastes because i have been brought up mostly italian american food because my uh parents are italian and portuguese so we cook a lot of pasta and uh [gravies] and pizzas and you know [roasts] and that kind of thing that's why i enjoy going to restaurants and have you know trying different things i would love to i really uh_huh is that right uh_huh now where do you go when you go there uh right on basin street and those places uh_huh oh oh i see oh that's nice uh_huh really and don't they make a lot of um i'm trying to think what they call their soup i don't know yeah jumbo gumbo right is is is that with seafood oh you can that looks good too i've seen them the [chefs] on t v do that and oh it looks delicious see we do um uh a thing we call it a sea bake you uh you take clams okay so do you do a lot of cooking in your family oh yeah yeah do do you like to cook yeah yeah oh really oh yeah yeah but that's neat though because you get to have different stuff yeah i'm not i'm a pretty bad cook i'm pretty bad my husband is really good he put himself through college working in restaurants and uh he's much better cook than i am so when i was home i still cooked a lot and i was in to a lot of vegetarian stuff and now i went back to work about a year and a half ago so one of the things that he took over was the cooking and the kids are thrilled they're really happy that i don't cook anymore yeah they say oh dad let dad cook mom let him do it but um so so do you all do you have kids you obviously have one okay you have two two and half oh i was just going to say makes a difference in what you eat doesn't it or are you not at that stage yet yeah right oh yeah oh my gosh oh my gosh i couldn't yeah boy i couldn't do that i what's that oh really oh yeah what's what is that saint jack or something scallops saint something or yeah yeah yeah really with scallops no no i'm from new england so we we had um a lot of seafood before we moved down here and uh that sounds delicious to me that sounds great i think we're just thinking of having a uh dinner party we went to this dinner party the other night that was kind of like a game they had uh a murder mystery and you came dressed as one of the characters and you had to solve the mystery during the dinner and it was really fun and so we we were thinking we wanted to do you know we were going to try doing it ourselves but we're trying to decide what can we serve because at this one the [hostess] was pretty busy running around trying to get stuff ready for the table and that kind of interrupted the game so so i was thinking there's this beef [bourguignonne] recipe that i've tried before that's pretty good and then you can make that ahead and you can just leave it in the pot on a stove until you're ready so that's uh yeah uh yeah oh yeah i know my husband did too his parents are [austrian] and they uh always made sure they had a lot of meat at the table yeah yeah yeah oh my gosh yeah yeah oh gosh so do you oh they did the that you do right right that's just part of it yeah we didn't my family didn't but when i got into the vegetarian cooking we got kind of used to that but my husband always did it kind of [grudgingly] he never there was dishes that he really enjoyed eating there were several things that he liked but it never was really something that he would have chosen it's just that i cooked so he had to put up with it so but there was one thing that he couldn't stand and that was [soybeans] i tried it like once or twice and he just could not eat it so i never i had i was limited i had to make vegetarian meals without using soy beans but yeah yeah that's true yeah some of the stuff is good but it just it was a tremendous amount of cooking because you do have to make sure you have the right combinations of different [proteins] to make sure they're complete and we had little kids at the time you know when i was home with them and it it was just so much cooking i couldn't i don't like to cook and i'm not really that great at it so it just turned out to be too much of a too much too much cooking so well i guess i'll let you get back to feeding your little one there he's set oh okay okay do you like to bake at all or do you do you get into that's that yeah really no kidding yeah then be gone i know that's the thing about baking i used to i i don't mind baking at all and i i can do a pretty good pie we have this pie crust recipe in our family that my grandmother gave my mother and my mother taught me how to make it and um so i can make a pretty mean pie but um i don't do it anymore because it's just too fattening we had the same kind of problem if you make homemade bread i mean it's supposed to save you money but you eat like three times the amount of bread that you usually eat it tastes so good oh uh yeah yeah yeah uh_huh i've heard of that i've heard of it but i've never done it that sounds pretty good yeah oh yeah yeah and then you you make the bread but you [pinch] off a portion or save a portion of it for the next time or something yeah yeah yeah i know it sounds it always sounded i don't know how safe that was yeah that's true that's that's got to kill anything i guess but all right well yeah thanks plano yeah plano in texas are you in texas no kidding gosh it sounds so close yeah i thought for sure i thought for sure you were in dallas or something yeah yeah yes they're they're trying to get all different amount of people well gee my husband is from richmond and i went to u v a that's where we went yeah yeah oh you did yeah yeah boy we'd like to get back over to the east coast i'll tell you it's nice over there oh really oh yeah no kidding well things are doing pretty good down here we we were we tried to move over to raleigh last year and there just was there was so little such little going on in raleigh you know you couldn't get a job to save yourself over there so we decided we'll try in a couple of years but but business is yeah you probably could you probably could okay well it's good talking to you take care bye um i do some every now and then i i work and my wife's home during the day so she usually ends up doing most of it when i was single we used to always cook around the house huh yeah i really like it um there's a few dishes like i i grew up with the um you know having polish and [ukrainian] food and my wife she likes italian and stuff so we we definitely have different tastes so uh_huh oh wow uh they're like uh [preferring] it now right yeah two uh_huh yeah one is uh nine months and the other is two and a half yeah that's the hard part is cooking with uh kids around because uh yeah it does we try our hardest to get them to eat what we eat you know and my sister uh she's the master of the fast order grill you know she can make uh she makes six different meals but like to have one thing you know one likes chicken nuggets the other one like hot dogs and then she makes noodles with uh with soy sauce or whatever so all things but um yeah our favorite let me think i was thinking of the one recipe that uh that we made i guess the thing that always turned out the best for us was something we thought looked really fancy but was real easy and that was um uh scallops uh [scallop] um it has a french name it basically means that it has a swiss cheese cream sauce with it and you pour it over rice yeah uh yeah i can't even remember what the [recipe's] name is anymore but uh it was basically just ground up swiss cheese and then uh standard cream sauce base and then uh the scallops an and it sounds sort of funny but it tastes really good yeah yeah but uh uh_huh uh_huh right yeah uh_huh yeah that's another thing i have a problem with my wife she uh she likes to um she doesn't like the beef dishes she likes the chicken and fish and like i said we always ate beef and uh pork you know a lot so oh yeah red meat plenty of good red meat my dad could eat a a meal with out any vegetables at all and uh [susan's] you know they had you know [meatless] meals you know my dad wouldn't know what to do course she grew up catholic so you know they they sort of come with the there's a certain amount of [meatless] meals you have to have uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right yeah it's hard to get a protein content up then yeah i like i like them every now and then for a change it's nice uh_huh no uh he's all done yeah yeah i set him down yeah we used to do that um my mom used to go crazy every sunday until my dad like blew up you know after he gained about eighty pounds after coming back from the navy she stopped doing it but um she used to have you know two dozen sticky [buns] three bread rolls you know every week and um the sticky [buns] of course would last you know three or four days and that would be it uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh we always we had that bread that was uh um you ever seen the the starter bread i can't remember what it's called they call it the um amish bread here but uh it's made with you just leave it out you know and you let it spoil sort of you know yeah yeah it tasted pretty good really but uh it's the sort of thing where you let a portion of it go bad and then you add all these other ingredients to it but yeah right you take some of the [batter] out and give it to someone else and that's how they continue the thing yeah i know it sounded strange to me too i figure well you're baking it so you know yeah okay well i'll talk to you later where are you calling from by the way texas where plano okay no falls church virginia yeah i know we've got a good connection must be a uh t i connection yeah yeah i i talked to so many people from texas that's where practically everybody i talked to is from i think that's why they call me because they want to get people outside the state you know oh oh really yeah i went to school at uh well i went to school at west virginia university but i grew up right here in falls church right outside d c yeah it's sort of funny i have people that want to go to dallas yeah one of my one of my friends here he was just talking how he's thinking of leaving the company and going to dallas saying how yeah yeah we were saying we could sell our house here and buy one down there cash you know well northern virginia okay nice talking to you too bye bye okay where where are you from oh okay because i uh i talked to a professor in uh what was it north carolina who got the the t i system and he gave to all his students so my daughter's even talked to and i've talked to several people from north carolina i was just curious have you too yeah i talked to the professor and i asked him about it and he said oh he says i think i'm the guy that actually uh gave it to all my students so that's why so many people are from this college go ahead you you first eve food oh great yeah we have them too and i i'm trying to think which is the best uh that i prefer uh my wife uh doesn't like to have all that work on the very day that you're doing it uh and we haven't catered out very much uh we i always worry about the barbecue in that you have to be the man always gets that chore and you have to make it perfect uh i've made shish kabob which i like it's fairly easy and fast uh i guess i'm thinking of the easy thing to do for for having uh uh dinner i do cook but not i'm mostly the easy cooker you know the [breakfasts] and and the steaks uh although i would like to experiment with uh the meals my mother made you know so to speak and i haven't gotten around to that yet uh well she was polish and uh she would make very economical meals we were very poor different rice and ham and things that uh she would throw things together and [galunkies] and all that and uh i would like to try that one day and she would make spaghetti with pork chops and and special meat balls and everything and my wife of course thinks i'm crazy which i may be too but yeah but dinner parties are a lot of work uh yeah yeah yeah well that that shish kabob is uh just because it only takes a few minutes to cook you know you get it ready you have to do a lot of work beforehand i agree and buy special stuff but uh so far as getting out there and and putting it on it only takes a a few minutes uh but anyway i'm i'm thinking of the easy way rather than my guests i guess but uh right right uh_huh yeah oh yeah right you'd get the odor of it yeah uh_huh yes oh great oh yes we probably ought to try this but it probably will never taste as good as we remembered i guess it gets better and better as we remember it back as we get older you know but we probably should try it uh to do that the recipes are really interesting you know we're probably going to lose them and we'll probably forget all about them you know since we're trying to make everything so here i am talk about trying to make everything easy you know i uh you talked about thanksgiving there are interesting meals at different times uh something my wife's from texas so uh i remember we were first married and we were living in new jersey and uh we were going over to my mother's house for christmas you know to have a meal and we were on the way over we were just married that very year and she said oh i'm looking forward to a nice turkey i said turkey i said we don't have turkey at christmas i said we only have turkey on thanksgiving i said we're going to have a ham she said what i said yeah i said no turkey is only for thanksgiving and because she had turkey a lot you know and uh that was surprising in the in the east uh we always had ham you know and and that's one thing that's another recipe i guess we could talk about now the hams just kind of you know go take it out of a can or uh uh a package sliced uh the cans were cooked for hours and hours and and were just wonderful you know i i'd like to try that too yeah oh yeah i saw them that's good no i i uh i've i know about sam's my wife i think goes but uh_huh oh really oh i haven't heard of that yeah yeah oh yeah i'll have to ask her about that uh because we have a delivery guy that comes around that sells i'm trying to think of his name of it uh uh i don't know uh i see a can here or a box here of gourmet choice uh he delivers uh what is the name of this thing i got a box distributor marked on it it doesn't say gourmet choices but he but it's a company that has uh you know a truck that comes around and and they recently had hams they have steaks and and uh actually [pirogies] and all that stuff that uh i i wish i could tell you the name of the company but i don't know what it is but uh they recently had a ham that was supposed to be it was boneless and we tried it it was real nice and it was fully cooked and everything we had it for breakfast a long time it was really great yeah i would like to try the old recipe though of cooking it and and i keep saying this uh to to do the different things that we did but i would like to put one in the oven you know the old fashioned way and put it in there for hours and hours and see if because i don't think in in my married life which is uh twenty six years now we've never done that you know and i remember that when i was a kid uh to have the ham cooking uh rather than that we just ham is just something you have for breakfast occasionally you know and that's it you know in the old days we had hams were the meal and i don't i don't think we really have it as a main meal right that's an interesting point how how have you changed your your meals now have you into that uh looking at those things uh_huh parents that's unusual oh yeah that's amazing yeah well that's amazing they'd go that they have started usually it's the younger people doing it yeah i uh my my wife's mother is the only [grandparent] left and uh she has high cholesterol of course i i have too but not like hers and i always get after her about salt and everything else and she just will i mean she's going to eat the same way she ate you know her whole life and she just tells more or less tells me to shut up you know and uh i like to i'm trying to do something about my cholesterol in the same way uh uh it's it's not the i listen to uh larry [newarth] on the weekend he's a fitness expert and uh he talks about you know the chicken and the rice and everything else and and uh throwing away peanut butter and all the things you know the things not to eat you know ever i think the peanut butter and mayonnaise he would throw away for ever and then he's got me into making eggs without the yolk you know try that sometime my wife says she can't stand it but uh when i make scrambled eggs now talking about a recipe i say if i have four eggs not not for me but if i'm making four eggs uh even for my daughter and i i'll take out all the [yolks] but one and and it's fine you you don't miss it uh in fact when i when i make eggs for myself if i if i fry them throw them in there i will almost hard fry them so i can take not eat the yolk at all and you don't really miss it you get the flavor of the yolk but uh you don't eat it at all you know you don't they're hard you get like uh a bite at at the most and so uh for cholesterol i mean i'm trying that and it has worked my cholesterol gone down twenty points so although i haven't gotten on the which whether butter or not cholesterol [margarine] and all that i don't know know whether any of that is true you know whether the [margarines] or butter um just here in dallas uh_huh that's yes yes that's true i've talked uh_huh people from virginia and and all over yeah uh_huh oh okay um well the subject we're supposed to be talking about let's see is uh food what type of foods do you cook and what would you uh cook in uh uh let's see if you were giving a dinner party and the only reason why i may know a little bit about this is that i'm planning on having a barbecue pretty soon and to me that's the type of thing that i like to give in um uh cooking for people and uh if he's cooking outside where it's cooler and uh you don't have to do all that much work you know you just uh slap on some food and slap on some barbecue sauce and away you go uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yes uh_huh what kind of meals did she make that you liked uh_huh uh_huh huh no sounds interesting uh_huh yeah that's great yeah yeah but uh that's that's why i like the the outdoor stuff a a lot better people can entertain themselves i think a great deal more uh when you have a barbecue especially when you have hot dogs and hamburgers and uh you know nothing really fancy like your your shish [kabobs] where you have to do a whole bunch of work uh_huh right yeah yeah well i i think you do do a lot of work even if people do bring over things you still do uh all the uh housework and get everything prepared and [utensils] and just just everything uh you know my mother used to make an [armenian] rice dish i'm thinking about uh special dishes and uh yeah it was made out of rice and consume soup uh and bacon and onions and then you'd simmer it like all day long oh it would yeah and it was just it was just wonderful that's that's something that i would really like to uh to try and find the recipe for but we used to have that at thanksgiving time because you can you can put it on top of the stove and do this and and there's so much broth and juice in there that it has to uh soak up into the rice all day long in order for it to uh uh to come out fluffy and and nice and that was you know when you were talking about the the polish dishes uh some [goulashes] and things like that that's uh that's what i thought about was that [armenian] rice dish that's true that's true uh_huh right right uh_huh oh uh_huh yeah uh_huh right right uh_huh uh_huh yeah you know what i found was at sam's uh wholesale uh stores and uh what they have is this honey baked ham they have you seen have you had any of those if if you ever get a chance to buy one of those i think it was uh twenty dollars for uh i don't remember how many pounds it was but you cook it in the bag that they send it in and all the juices and everything are all sealed in and i tell you what it's never failed to come out tender and [juicy] and just and just delicious because i normally don't like ham because it's so salty but with this honey bake that they have that that's the only one i have been able to find there at sam's warehouse it is absolutely delicious and it slices great uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh wow you know that sounds like it but that's that's the only ham i have found that i thoroughly thoroughly enjoy wow uh_huh right right that's true i i don't think so anymore not with more becoming more conscious of uh fat and cholesterol and and all those good things oh yeah well my parents actually started it and uh getting well it it's true i think my parents are very unusual because uh we grew up in the south where uh you have all the uh you know biscuits and gravy and oh fried foods [galore] and then gradually they started switching over to uh plain rice uh no gravy it's just it really is they uh they're actually they actually uh uh led us through it versus uh us teaching them you know the uh the [finer] points but my mother has really high cholesterol so it was one of the reasons which started them off and they started doing this like in the early or in about the middle seventies uh yeah it's true it's true i agree with you so it's really neat uh_huh uh_huh that's right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh wow uh_huh uh_huh wow huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh wow that's good uh_huh okay um do you like to cook oh really what are you making uh_huh uh_huh and do you cook i mean are you single do you cook every night for yourself uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well like if you were having a dinner party what would you cook a variety of things i mean you know vegetarian and [nonvegetarian] uh_huh uh_huh yeah that's something that's you know really easy in fact i'm having a dinner party next saturday and that is what i'm having is pasta well for for christmas i got a um pasta machine and all all my friends are really anxious you know to have the homemade noodles so um no it's the hand kind old fashion kind uh_huh yeah yeah i like you know kind of still having in put that not everything's being done for me you know but um yeah so that's what i'm going to be cooking you know i thought i would um pasta salad first and um then just something for desert you know bread and wine and cheese stuff like that uh_huh yeah yeah yeah a lot of people think though that i've talked to about it think that it's you know a lot of hard work and i said heck it's kind of easy yeah i do uh_huh right right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um well i don't entertain that often uh when i do though i i have some friends that i always like to experiment on but you know um i see a recipe and think oh wow i'd really like to try this cause i'm single and i live by myself so it's not necessarily something that i would cook just for myself so i'll say okay you guys are experimental i want say how this is going to turn out but here we go and usually i'm i'm pretty good about it um i have this really good recipe for this um pork chop and apple casserole kind of thing and um you put stuffing and put [poached] apples and everything and my girlfriend and her husband loved it in fact she passed it on to her parent and so it's like it really made the rounds and i was quite impressed with myself if i should say so uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well i'm the kind of cook that i don't normally measure things i just kind of throw them in and you know i don't to the point of you know measuring down to the exact amount that they say oh is that what it means uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh no i haven't uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um yeah i've been wanting to take an um oriental cooking class and i just haven't gotten around to it yet yeah i stir fry things on occasion but i'd like to know more about you know more elaborate things like guess uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh really uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh um i just kind of you know cook here cook there i don't have any one specialty i mean i'm always willing to try anything usually and i i especially like baking and making deserts i've taken a cake decorating class and no no actually it was a private course through like a it is it's it's neat but it takes a long time you know i mean like i'm elected to always bring cakes into work like for people's birthdays and that and it's like you know you bake the cakes and then i guess just because i don't have the expertise to just hurry up and do it like you know some a professional would i try to i go real slow and you know it's a little time consuming but it's really worth your effort once you see how you do uh_huh uh_huh sure that's okay uh_huh uh_huh so uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh oh my uh_huh uh_huh well you learn helpful hints in the classes at least you know the instructor told us certain things about well don't follow what's really necessarily on the box you know if you're making just a cake from a box you know do this cause you know make it a variety you know some different hints yeah some different hints you know and the different the different kinds of [frostings] you can make you know and i have a book an it and you know all of the different you know decorating tips an things like that so yeah yeah well yeah yeah so that's about it okay well it was nice talking to you thank you bye bye well i love to cook as a matter of fact i'm making dinner right now um i um i'm making some uh i have a little turkey left from a passover which was in april and i had frozen it and i'm [defrosting] that and making some dressing and gravy and making corn and wheat stuff that you can buy at a store which is like uh rice [pilaf] but we with with with wheat [kernel] that no um i'm married and actually the my wife is a vegetarian so this isn't for her this is for our friends that came over and helped helped me do some stuff so stuff so he and i and and she's having i i do cook um virtually i cook most of the time because i yeah we we consistently if we cook if if we have a dinner party we usually make it vegetarian just to make life easier so we'll make something you know uh some sort of pasta or something you know homemade pasta or lasagna or something oh good idea what um electric or uh best kind that that that that's we we bought one in italy that's the best kind to have uh_huh that's real good um that would be great have you made pasta before um so you know so you know that it's a a lot of fun actually i it actually is if if if you have a food processor i don't know if you have a food processor or not actually it it turns out that if if you really want to be nice and easy about it you can make the dough in the food processor really simply and then um and with that it becomes really easy to make colorful pasta by throwing in some spinach or some tomato or something and mixing it up it it's a snap from there and then i made i making yucky it's also people think it's real hard it just time consuming to get all of the little things right otherwise it's real it's good stuff what other kinds of uh dinner parties do you serve uh_huh right you didn't want to cook that's great uh yeah that's how these things sort of make it for one person as an experiment and i usually find it when i make up for the first time i usually doctor it just a little bit and little here and there and it works real well that means you're a real cook if you've ever watched the ones on television like uh jeff [schmidt] the super gourmet he he just takes stuff he says yeah about an ounce of this or something it's real good yeah we have a we do uh uh middle eastern dinner quite a bit actually or uh we have people other that have never experienced it before and haven't had much middle eastern food we make uh cause we're my wife is syrian and um her families always have this food she grew up in and i've made some of it before as well so we make uh four or five middle eastern dishes that are just all real simple we put them out for people and that's always a real big kick for people who want you know who've never tried it before that's that's that's that's a fun idea i mean if you ever uh want something different to try i would try that oh do you have a wok though yeah i think it's god's gift to cooking cause it's just quick it's easy um and the food just comes out you know if you do it right i think it comes out the food comes out very tasty not very mushy you know and and it doesn't taste like a million calories of oil so we live in our wok yeah we we we like to eat even when we eat out and stuff we eat a lot of chinese food or japanese food or you know korean and that seems to so wok food seems to be our thing so anything else you cook well that's good that's always the way to do it i think it's uh oh the wilson course i like it that's great i haven't the wilson class right uh_huh yeah oh yeah we have um my brother can do it he's he's uh got a degree in business management so he learned to uh how to do this can you hold on one second thank you sorry about that some one kept [beeping] in our calling waiting so yeah he he does that a lot so you know he cooks a lot but you know he bakes a lot whenever he when my wife and i got married the night before we had a party or two nights before and he baked us he made a real big cake himself so new years our friend made a baby cake like a baby new york it was amazing i never could do anything with cakes so i get the mold i put i put it on you know the [frosting] always melts and it's it's just horrible yeah i'm oh that that you mean about the mix itself well that helps yeah well most [frostings] are sort of butter cream to aren't they those are those kill me it's like it's like i'm eating sugar but they're good sugar i think that's part of the problem yeah yeah i guess so it was it was a pleasure chatting with you yes well have a good time cooking for your dinner party next week bye bye all right what type of things would you fix if you're having company come over uh_huh uh_huh oh oh yeah you serve it cold oh yeah that sounds good um yeah usually when we entertain we do something really simple because i like to visit with my company and not be [scurrying] around in the kitchen so a lot of times we'll barbecue like uh for memorial day we had some friends over and we just bought a brisket and marinated it overnight in one of those like [adolph's] meat marinate and put it on the smoker and cooked it and it was real good you can buy a fairly cheap piece of meat that way and then people think they're eating steak or something yeah yeah it really does i don't usually i just pass on any recipe that's got more than five or six steps to it because i just know i'll never take the time to do it uh_huh yeah it seems like most people like spaghetti yeah uh_huh well i think when you heat your kitchen up it really makes a big difference in your whole house uh_huh yeah most we don't entertain like people from work or stuff often it's usually friends from church and stuff and it's usually kind of like you want to come over and they say well what can we bring and so it's real easy because you just make one or two things and everybody else brings something oh yeah yeah it's a lot more relaxing i don't know if i could take the pressure of having to you know put on this really fancy dinner for someone huh_uh yeah yeah do you work do you stay home with kids yeah i i've been working we're going to have a baby this summer and i'm not going to work anymore yeah so hopefully i think i'll enjoy cooking more when i don't have to work all day i don't like to come home and stand in the kitchen and spend an hour fixing something and then have to clean it up and by then it's eight thirty or nine o'clock at night so yeah eat at six yeah oh that's good yeah yeah that's neat uh_huh yeah that really is it keeps the family in touch with what's going on with each other right now we eat in front of the t v but since it's just the two of us it's yeah uh_huh to see what's happening oh uh_huh oh i've seen those in the magazines uh_huh yeah yeah yeah oh yeah yeah we like that that's good that that's a good way to get kids to eat vegetables too oh neat oh wow that's great how old is he eleven wow that's good do you cook like you cook a breakfast every morning or yeah yeah uh_huh yeah oh uh_huh yeah oh do they get [rubbery] or i've never tried it uh_huh yeah oh uh_huh huh yeah uh_huh yeah yeah we had my grandmother used to do that to us with things like squash everybody would say we don't like squash we won't eat squash so she would make these fancy casseroles and hide it in there you know and then we'd go oh this is really good well i have a really great one that i make in the summertime because it's cool and it's uh it's just really pretty easy it's pretty much dumping things in and [stirring] and i like that uh the only thing you have to do is cook the rice that goes in in it and then i you're supposed to do chicken but i just use those little cans of chicken and it makes it so much easier and so you dump the rice you dump the chicken and then you put in fruit like pineapple and [mandarin] oranges and [grape] now grapes are the ones that you have to pull all that off but i get my kids to do that so i i don't have to do that and um and it really and you mix it all up with there's a little dressing that goes in it that you have to stir up but it's so simple and it tastes really good because it's cool in the summertime uh_huh yeah it has to sit in the [fridge] over night but but it's really good and i like that one yeah exactly uh_huh oh that sounds good yeah yeah and these days that helps doesn't it yeah i know what you mean now [spaghetti's] such an easy one um i do that a lot i do spaghetti a lot yeah i don't like to do that if it's real hot though because um i don't know i have a real thing about being hot in the in the summertime i guess yeah yeah i think that's right and um we don't entertain that often but when we do i'm like you i like it to be fast and easy and something so that we can talk and not and not have to worry about being in the kitchen all the time yeah yeah that's exactly like us from our church we just do it yeah uh well you see all that on t v and i could never be that person it just uh i'm just not well i'm so i'm pretty laid back and uh you know so i don't i know a lady in a my church and uh she like does her own bread and does her own stuff and so when she um does food she really goes all out and i don't know how she can do it and be calm i guess no i don't uh_huh yeah oh how exciting yeah well i usually start about six and an and cook and then eat at seven i mean cook at five and eat at six rather yeah and uh my family and i we're a sit down together family uh yeah i don't like the run in and out part and i like to be able to sit down after school and have them talk with me an and my husband about what's happened and i think i that was [ingrained] in me during my family time at home and uh you know we could learn to talk about things and i think that's good yeah i think yeah yeah well that happens to us sometimes too but uh sometimes if something uh is on that they want to watch i leave it on but we eat in the kitchen and their heads are always [poking] past the door yeah anyway food is is uh a real life style kind of thing and some people don't like to do this but i like to uh cook with my kids and if they're going to have other kids over then then they help and we make real simple things you know those oh i i don't know if you've ever made them maybe not since you don't have kids yet but those [jell] o uh [gelatin] things you can pick up with your fingers i can't think of what they call it yeah they're so simple and the kids love to do that uh finger food is is a biggie with them and and like now one thing i wish i could find a a better way to do are celery sticks and [carrot] sticks because they love to do that and it's just really hard and if you have to work with a knife i don't like that so that's uh they like to eat it but it's a hard one to have to to prepare but they like that with the the cool ranch dressing that goes along with that yeah yeah my son's getting to be a a real good cook so uh sometimes he fixes me breakfast yeah i like it i like it a lot he's eleven uh_huh yeah so uh not every morning uh mostly during the summer it's hit and miss and we usually have like uh cold cereal or something like that um during the during wintertime when they're in school um then i try to vary it so that we only eat that like a twice a twice a week or something and then have like when it's really cold i even cook [oatmeal] because i like [oatmeal] and the they like it all right and um then sometimes we do something it has to be fast because they're on their way to school we do like [eggo] [waffles] and stuff like that but yeah so i try to uh and sometimes we do eggs if i get up early enough to do that i used to do them in the microwave but they don't like that um it it depends if you let them cook too long then they'll turn a little bit gray you can tell if they've gone to long because they'll turn a little bit gray and they will be a little harder and i don't like that so you have to just let it cook a little bit less than what it says in if you have a microwave book but you cook it a little bit less and then let it sit with a like a plate over the top and let it steam and then and then stir it up yeah an and that turns out okay and it's funny because if i turn them out on to a on to like a plate for them to take what they want they don't know i've ever done it in a microwave it's really funny it's very deceiving you know because if they see it with their eyes they go uh i don't like want that you know and yet if they don't ever see it then it's like oh this tastes okay you know so anyway yeah okay i i do a fair amount of cooking and and i love having guests to dinner i probably do that about once a month and uh i usually prepare something depending upon the guests you know it it i like to prepare chicken that seems to please everybody pasta or a casserole how about you um uh uh_huh well that's about the way i prepare most fish uh i made scallops the other night that was unusual and uh basically uh i found a recipe to make it in the microwave and you sprinkled uh you [swished] around a little melted butter and do uh-oh i do not know [microwaved] them for about nine minutes no no four and a half to five minutes and you had to add sesame seeds and bread crumbs on top very simple but very nice so if you are looking for a french recipe that was good sesame seeds and bread crumbs and uh my husband liked it and uh no unfortunately scallops are one of the more expensive uh fish items but you know i i look for them to go on sale at the grocery store uh one of the things i love to do eat out how about you do you have any particular places you like going uh_huh yes i have been there and uh it's kind of kind of like black eye pea but i do not think it's a chain oh oh yeah yeah i i do not feel like they are very healthy and i always feel like the home cooking places are are the [healthiest] meals you know i tend to have chicken fried steak when i go go to them oh how was it um uh_huh yeah i i tend to uh i get [teased] by my family a lot because uh i like experimenting on on food and sometimes i go for fairly exotic things and my father [teases] me about gourmet cooking which is not always true but and the thing about experimenting with cooking or anything else is that some of the experiments fail uh the last time we had some uh friends over for dinner i tried a dessert that sounded wonderful in the recipe and it was just a total bust i was sorry i did not have ice cream to fall back on oh my that's ambitious um yeah uh_huh yeah uh_huh huh see i am not that's interesting one of the things i do not make is dessert and uh my husband [accuses] me of putting him through dessert [depravation] because uh you know we have ice cream or something like that and that's why when i took did this experiment for the company we had about three weeks ago it was just a total fiasco uh everything else was fine but that was a fiasco uh yeah yeah and i i also don't have much of a sweet tooth so i can live without live without dessert for the most part yeah uh do you cook for yourself or do you cook for others yeah well when i was single i used to uh i think my favorite meal was a a baked potato and oh yeah oh yeah and i mean i never put anything other than a little butter on it if i had or if i had a little cheddar cheese sometimes i would [grate] that up and uh it's amazingly satisfying yeah i i did not say it was [nourishing] but it was satisfying and yeah yeah but you know i never really enjoyed cooking for myself so i ate very simply and i was that's why i think that's one reason i like having people over because i could try things i mean i must be a frustrated chemist or something like that cause cooking is a little bit like like being in a chemistry lab and uh yes and have an explosion sometimes it blows up anyway i i once had a an old boy friend over to to dinner when i was recently staying with my parents and uh i had this wonderful recipe and you were supposed to make a a [toffee] like substance for a pie by uh boiling [evaporated] milk three hours and it does turn to [toffee] inside the can and uh the only problem was when i opened the can it just flew all over the place it was on the ceiling on the walls and me and and the boy friend thought it was he was supposed to be there at six o'clock not seven o'clock so just at the time all this happened the door bell rang and there he was and i had to have my my my my dad sort of entertain him for a for for awhile while my mother and i scrambled to clean everything up uh i really do not remember that was about ten years ago i just remember how embarrassing it was and i have made i have made it since i've i and several times before and i never had that problem just that one time and uh he he was a gourmet cook he was kind of pushy too acted like he came from san francisco and he had a very sophisticated taste i i really wanted to impress the heck out of him and and well it was a memorable evening anyway uh as far as i i do enjoy cooking so i was awfully glad i was given this okay uh_huh uh_huh yeah those are things i like the most i like fish and chicken the most and uh most of the cooking i do just comes out of a can unless it is unless it is i catch a fish and i prepare it and then i just uh you know i just [broil] it and put lemon on it uh_huh sesame seeds and bread crumbs uh_huh yeah right uh_huh oh yeah uh_huh oh there's a restaurant called string bean on spring valley and central i like that it's just it's just home cooking uh_huh right exactly uh_huh and that's that's the other restaurant black eye pea so i do not really like uh you know uh uh chili places or what is it judge roy bean's or i do not like greasy places yeah right and i and i got uh chicken [marinara] the last two times it was uh it was great because that's that's what i like i do not like it you know i just like a baked you know a piece of chicken and then i get like green beans and mashed potatoes you know uh_huh yeah that's true yeah yeah my uh my brother tried to make uh a bunch of things uh way back he tried to make bagels one time yeah and uh we took some and then we had uh german shepherds at the time and we took some and gave it to the dogs and the dog never you know he treated it like a milk bone and he never did finish it he just barely made a dent in it uh and uh then he tried to made [grapefruit] [citron] one time it's uh supposed to be candy and uh it it did not turn out very well it was you know it like made concentrated all the acid of the [grapefruit] into uh into a kind of a candy stick so uh uh_huh uh_huh huh well you have to put eggs and everything don't you or yeah just about uh_huh use about half the sugar or make everything diet mostly i just cook for myself uh_huh it's easy that's for sure yeah yeah i always put cheese on them uh_huh yeah but you know there's hardly any i guess there's hardly any protein it's mostly starch so it fills you up and then the cheese has to make up for whatever the protein you get oh yeah it really is then you have to make a salad or uh_huh right uh_huh except you get to taste the product instead fill them up or blow up yeah oh yeah right uh_huh did you let the can cool off yeah huh yeah right well hi i guess uh i'll just start by saying that we entertain with uh a gourmet club here um which means that we have like eight eight people four couples and most of the husbands this is really peculiar most of the husbands cook i mean the wives during the day you know get i guess so burned out on cooking whatever they have to cook every day um you know they don't really care about gourmet stuff but it was the guys that got together and did all this and um like my husband just he really really likes to cook in terms of um oh barbecue and i mean all guys i think like to barbecue i think it's [caveman] i'm telling you but um he really does cook and it's a good thing because you know you can't you can't knock that but all these other guys do too and so we've gotten together and we just do these really elaborate gourmet meals and it's really really kind of a neat thing to do you well we try i mean because you know everybody is so active with their kids and all that it's like you know if we can do it once every six months we're doing well yeah so i mean we originally started out you know when we were younger and didn't have so much stuff going on with the kids um then we would we tried to do it every other month but lately it's just been once every six months yeah oh really really oh it is absolutely yeah right oh yeah well yeah that's true and we have a gourmet friend that can't stand fish so i mean he can get within oh my oh yeah it sure it makes you uh keep looking for recipes every time you have an eye out for something like right so we we try to keep all that in mind but otherwise um i guess you know entertaining um i i guess i have recipes i um but that's that's basically what we do is the gourmet so you know they would be pretty elaborate um but it's fun i mean it took us four days to cook a stock and three days to make this stuff and you know you get all prepared but you're right it's very very rich and i'm glad we don't have it every because it is it's a quite a treat it really is um right but so you like food and i just love the the community of food i just think it's neat i just love sharing meals and and whatever you can do you know to do that i don't think you have to be you know more than hamburgers and hot dogs out in the backyard and the and the [coleslaw] and potato salad but but oh what are you providing right right there you go i know we're all not built like uh what what oh martha stewart you know we all aren't martha stewart and have our coordinated glasses and [tablecloths] and and time to you know yeah shot a video of the whole thing i don't know but it's it's really kind of a neat thing i get a kick out of it i i really do everything all parts of the food i mean i love to make things from scratch you know making [breads] and and you know people really pretty much appreciate it oh i think so oh oh oh there you go oh oh it is i mean we have [bakeries] around here that you know you you just gain weight going by the door you know just like that right but i don't know i guess some of the best things i've ever had um i some of them were just hors d'oeuvres you know doing little hors [d'oeuvre] things that i have a kick making that i mean you know i get off on strange little details of food i guess but um gee we have so much going on here because you know this is dallas this is the southwest this is you know chips and picante sauce and anything hot you know you can always make it hotter and and lots of stuff like that you know so that's um a really good party time eating all that hot food and and they just love it you know down here it just just you know all the stuff that goes with that so oh i'm not thank you for noticing i'm from chicago and how i got really and how i got to texas by way of virginia i'm and everything is a long story but yeah well absolutely i in fact it just came to mind um and this uh_huh great oh that's nice right right no how often do you meet oh yes yes uh_huh yeah oh well that's much more reasonable i was involved in a a club like that for um that you know where we tried to really do gourmet uh meals and uh we we were a little bit too frequent i think i don't remember if we were once a month or anyway it was it was difficult by the time we went around it was uh four couples so uh by the time we got around uh to each of us and it was time again we were almost tired you know um partly because um gourmet cooking is not particularly conducive for regular dining it's too rich and so we found that while we enjoyed the evening we regretted it the next day um so uh we we kind of and then one of the couples uh moved and so we sort of didn't didn't continue it but um and i must admit that as you say when your children start taking up your time then you you don't have as much time for uh regular entertaining but um uh uh when when we entertain i usually try to find something that will be um kind of good for everybody and that's that sometimes means you can't do gourmet because depending on who your guests are oh yeah well one of my friends doesn't eat any cheese at all uh so that's a real problem because so many dishes require cheese uh well i take that back uh she can't eat some cream cheese but that that really limits um oh yeah right uh_huh yeah oh wow yeah yeah sounds wonderful oh sure i do too yeah right right right sure well my um daughter is graduating uh sunday and so we're having a uh few people in sunday afternoon and i did a cop out on to it i'm buying cold cuts well i have to make a cake and i have to make hors d'oeuvres and i have to make dessert so i figured for the main thing it's going to be sandwiches uh so oh i'm buying the little tiny rolls and so on but i can't do it you know working full time and it's just too much those people that try to do everything yeah ugh wouldn't that be nice yeah right uh_huh yeah oh they do it's very difficult to purchase um items that are as good as what you can make yourself um in spite of uh or if you if you do buy it it's extremely expensive in fact uh i just got back from a shopping trip to purchase the cold cuts and i i bought turkey and [pastrami] and and barbecued ham at a an amish market near here and i've never been there before and found that there's uh individual [vendors] and the foods are wonderful and one of the uh the um [vendors] had cakes all sorts of wonderful cakes uh they fresh strawberry cheesecake now and and so on and it's like thirteen fifty for a whole strawberry cheesecake um which is really not such a bad price i decided i i just couldn't quite make myself um buy it because i do make cheesecake and somehow i didn't want to do that because it but i was very tempted because it looked wonderful and they had black forest cherry cake and all those things that but those are homemade they are not um commercial bakery made and in that they are made in their homes um so it it's kind of interesting uh it's out there if you want to pay the price but right just smelling the air yeah uh_huh yeah yeah uh_huh right yeah we like hot food too so right you don't sound like you're from texas originally though i thought i thought that there was a slight difference in accent right i'll bet did um do you have a favorite hors [d'oeuvre] recipe that's easy or is it always good morning my name is jean oh where you from tina oh garland texas i'm in pennsylvania really do you work for texas instruments uh_huh most of them do now i don't have anybody that works for t i but uh my son works for a computer company the national institute of something i don't know what so i guess we're supposed to talk about foods today yes uh_huh you ready okay uh foods like you would for a dinner party or something like that well i don't know my brother lives down east of us down there and i don't think they ate all that much different uh i think as long as you plan your basic foods course for a dinner party you fancy things up a little bit more uh uh_huh uh_huh oh uh_huh right yeah and it's not as good as if it's fresh uh_huh is that right yeah well they probably were trying to do the best they could yeah uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah well they do in the summertime i think that tea is big in the summertime mostly of course you have warmer weather most of the time so uh yeah so i is that right uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh more like covered dishes for those type of dinners well i don't know just about anything yeah we we really uh use most anything i uh i think like parties and that though are well like we had a dinner party here here not too long ago with a mystery dinner party but basically we tried you know included all the basic uh foods that you are supposed to have in a meal your uh bread family and your or least what it used to be the regular menu was followed and ham and bake potatoes uh uh something from each each area that you're supposed to choose from and uh we we we ourselves are into the wok cooking you know they been advertising that and we've really been enjoying those uh meals they have a lot of vegetable to them and uh they really are very good is he a meat and potato person well all our family is is gone they are out on their own and uh it it's much different and uh uh_huh uh_huh well my husband didn't like that so we us kids we had five children and we ate that when he he wasn't going to be home for supper that's what we had uh_huh uh_huh uh yeah oh those always go good yeah yeah oh really well maybe that's good the way way the things are going uh_huh right children usually they like the ham and the hamburgers and that and it is easier to chew uh_huh right we don't really have uh you know entertain too much i don't know if you do or not but we we don't a whole lot we're more once in a while but mostly family activities uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah well that's good yeah we do a lot of that take things to church and our homemakers meet at the church also and uh that's what we do mostly most of the time for that so you don't really include any certain food groups you just bring what you like sometimes you have all desserts sometimes you have all vegetables yeah but it doesn't happen very often usually you get a pretty wide variety and you can you can have pretty good meals from one of those oh those are fun uh_huh uh uh_huh uh_huh oh uh_huh oh was there enough to go around uh_huh yeah that's kind of irresponsible and does upset you because they are grown adults usually and you know they know better even if they can't do it they can always maybe get somebody else to cook right right they said that we could share we share a recipe but i'm up at my daughter's i don't even have any of my recipes with me uh you know oh oh great they are ready to go well we probably have we talked long enough i okay so i'll let oh same here you have a good day uh_huh bye bye hi i'm tina i live in garland texas oh my lands you're the farthest person i've ever talked to yeah my husband does yeah probably most people you talk to do huh huh i see well that's neat yeah i guess you have to push one though okay yeah yeah i guess so it may be interesting because probably here in texas we may eat a little differently than you do up there oh really yeah that's true well uh the thing that i found interesting my husband and i lived up in washington state for awhile and up there of course they ate a lot of sea food and that kind of thing and down here sea food is pretty expensive because you have to ship it a long way to get it right and and uh and but here we eat a lot of like mexican foods and um up there there was no no place that we went tasted like real mexican food to me yeah it tasted like they were trying to do the best they could but it just didn't taste right yeah and uh down here we eat a lot more fried foods i think like chicken fried steak is a real big thing up there uh it was hardly ever heard of and we drink ice tea with every meal and up there hardly anyone drank ice tea really yeah right yeah it never gets real cold yeah but when when we have a dinner party around here i think a lot of the time a mexican menu is something real popular yeah i know that um i do a lot of planning with our church and a lot of the times when we get together well everybody will bring a mexican dish or and italian food is real big too uh_huh yeah yeah how about you what is real popular up there oh really oh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh well that's good uh_huh right oh yes i i love that kind of cooking my uh unfortunately i am married to a man and have two children that eat about four things right they uh_huh that probably makes it easier but yeah we find ourselves eating a lot of macaroni and cheese and uh and of course right yeah well that's pretty much what we do if dad's not coming home we have macaroni and cheese or something but they like uh spaghetti you know that's one meal i can fix and the whole family eats but uh there are several things that well as a matter of fact i keep chicken nuggets handy all the time because yeah the children love them and uh they are real easy to cook and that way whatever meat we have if they don't like it well and my girls don't like beef i don't know i guess well yeah it could be they don't i think it's the texture of it but it takes more chewing uh_huh right right so they're not too much into beef my husband and i eat more beef than we should but at least we keep our chicken nuggets handy for them uh_huh yeah well most of the entertaining we do is church associated we have a real tiny little house we don't have room really to have people here but we do get together for [fellowships] at our church and my husband and i do a lot of the planning in that and yeah it is and it's fun to uh i like just having a pot luck meal where everyone brings their favorite dish yeah uh_huh yeah yeah right that's right yeah yeah that's true that's the only problem with just letting you bring whatever you uh like best uh_huh yeah yeah i remember one time we had a progressive dinner it's the only time that ever yeah they are but it's the only time i can remember that i can't remember what food it was i it might have been the main dish that hardly anyone showed up with several people were supposed to bring you know each like uh a an [appetizer] and a main dish and a dessert and we had tons of desserts and tons of appetizers and but when we came to the main main dish plate there was only like two or three well not really you know we all took real tiny little portions and uh were kind of angry with whoever it was we were not sure who didn't show up with the food yes right right either either go ahead and fix your dish or call someone that can i know it well that sounds neat i can't uh believe you're so far away but you sound so close it sounds like you're here in dallas oh i don't know if i have anything handy we were just about we were getting ready to go swimming and we're waiting on my sister [cara] hold on just a second as a matter of fact my little one is hollering i think it probably has been so i've enjoyed talking to you thank you thanks for calling bye bye and i guess the suggestion is that we maybe talk about a menu for a dinner party if we wanted to do something like that or share recipes or something um are you one who gives dinner parties very often no nor am i they are a lot of work that is for sure yes yeah yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah right yes uh_huh oh that's great you sound like my mother who has been well i bake pies too but my mother was always the famous pie baker in the family and she has the same the same technique i mean i guess after many years of doing it you just kind of do it second nature uh she enjoyed it huh well there is a woman in our choir who is nearly famous for her apple pies and uh we had a a an auction one time at the church excuse me and uh one of her pies was [auctioned] for fifty dollars well i think i i have had it once and it has been a few years ago but i do recall that it was quite good so uh yeah so that is her specialty uh i like to bake uh also i do not bake so much now that my children are grown but i do enjoy baking and i guess i always liked making uh cookies and bars and things like that that was more my specialty i suppose and they seem to last longer than pies around here pies would go practically in a [day's] time yes right and well it is interesting that yesterday i had lunch with a friend and she was telling me that she had a dinner party over the weekend for friends of hers for um uh one of her [acquaintances] one of her old friends i guess had been in town and uh they invited two other couples over and so there were seven of them that uh i said well what did you have and she said what she had uh just mexican food but you know she had uh uh guacamole and uh i cannot remember all she had but she also had made uh flan which is actually spanish i think have you ever made that or had it it's uh it's um i had used to work with a gentleman who was from cuba who would make it uh it's just a wonderful dessert it's like uh an egg custard in a caramelized sugar with on top of it and it's it's quite actually not very difficult to make but it's very very high in cholesterol i am sure with all the eggs that are in it but uh she said that she and her husband had uh traveled in spain a couple years ago and and flan is almost uh a basic with every meal that you get there yeah uh_huh it's just very [customary] to get flan so if you ever run into that you will sort of be aware of what that is all about but uh i would never have thought of making that as part of a a mexican dinner but you know [sopapillas] i guess would be another kind of a dessert if you decided to do something like that but flan is something you can make ahead and have just you know have ready but uh well i would have been thinking i would like to have a dinner party sometime soon but i tell you it i my it's one of those things where it does require some real uh planning and it's you know you don't just make the dinner you have the house to clean and you know the whole business that goes with it yeah probably a good way to do it oh the house needs cleaning i guess i had better have a dinner party oh uh_huh oh good heavens uh oh wow that is such a nice thing it's i you know until well we have my husband and i have been married twenty six years and until last year i had never had another person clean my house and then i got so involved and so busy i said this is one luxury i am going to let myself have every now and then and so i had a woman come in uh once a month and you know it was not just very often but for me it was wonderful well it is and it is buys you time to do other things like have a dinner party i guess so it is just a real gift of time as far as i am concerned but well uh i uh_huh i have heard about that but i have never tried it no well i should say i have heard of one that has vinegar in it i do not know that it has egg in it uh_huh do you have it right on the top of you head you do not have it yeah i would uh_huh right uh quite large yeah right uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh what is it about the uh the vinegar that uh makes the crust better uh interesting yeah yeah boy that that's the real secret oh it makes me think of years ago uh when i was visiting my mother in law in uh michigan she lived very near an apple [orchard] and we just had we could take as many apples as we wanted from it you know according to the owners and so i decided to bake about four pies ahead you know and freeze them well talk about working with big amounts of pie crust and having it be tough those were the toughest apple crust or apple uh pie crust i have ever ever made it was terrible i i could have used that recipe it sounds like where about well we lived in plymouth for four years uh yeah in fact i we were there from uh seventy three to seventy seven and i was i worked for the little the weekly newspaper there the the plymouth oh what was it called [crier] and uh my husband is from the upper peninsula so he was born and raised up there that is where my mother in law still lives so uh are you originally from michigan or uh_huh i will be darn yes uh_huh sure right no i avoid them with all yeah they are i mean i do them but they are a lot of work i usually have them when i there is a special event in our lives and i i make a big deal out of it for them and uh i think i am most uh happiest with my most familiar foods that i know are successful you know and i have i make my own pies and pie crust and you know i can make my pies from scratch i do not need a recipe to follow and uh yeah you just know from heart i had one of the ladies at church that tasted my [coconut] cream pie and she said make me one and i made her one and when i when she gave me back the plate she said i did not share this with anybody and i thought whoa that was a big pie yes uh_huh my word she must have a great pie recipe then wonderful uh_huh uh_huh yeah you that's right yeah they are meant for the that [evening's] dessert and you know it has got to be gone or daddy gets into the you know the [leftovers] puts about two more inches on his [waistline] and then he is [chastising] himself afterward uh_huh no i have not huh_uh uh_huh oh okay sure yeah like apple pie in america right uh_huh wow uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yes uh_huh well when i have a dinner party that is my motivation for getting the house clean yeah yeah we are catering a wedding uh um in august and uh this lady that is it at it's at her house she is not a good housekeeper so she has got to hire this crew of four women to come in two weeks prior to the wedding and get it ready yes and there you know she is she must have found some [jewels] because they start in the corner and work out yeah so uh_huh uh_huh sure yeah that is nice you know to have that that's a luxury today that's right yeah yeah uh_huh i i have a pie crust recipe that i that is unique that has vinegar and egg in it have you egg and sugar uh_huh uh i no i think it would be too [hazy] because um the i uh no well it like the liquid is like a half cup of water and then your egg and then your tablespoon of vinegar and you mix that together and then you you know your see it makes it makes uh five pie [crusts] at once so that it's quite a volume of i think it's four cups of floor and like uh a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar and and you combine your dry ingredients and then you uh put in your liquid it just it just makes it very [pliable] and and very flaky and you can really treat it rough and you are still going to have a flaky pie crust like uh it's not mine it was from the one of the magazines probably twenty years ago and it said you can throw this on the floor and step on it and it will still be flaky i thought wow quite a statement for them to make uh_huh uh_huh oh wow wow well i am from michigan detroit uh_huh oh yeah that's real close uh_huh oh how neat oh okay uh_huh oh yes born in detroit okay well i i i guess if i was having a dinner party i depending on the number of people i might cook a like a brisket or a roast or a maybe a chicken dish and um i guess i usually plan probably a lettuce salad and a a potato dish and we usually serve fresh fruit and uh then make a dessert so that makes well that sounds good that sounds good bread do you have bread to go with it gosh oh well [lasagna's] always wonderful for large crowds i've heard you know i've heard a lot of people say it the short cut on the cooking for lasagna they they've told me that they go to sam's and buy a great big pan of lasagna so did you well i i know people that have have served it and they say gosh if you have company coming when you don't want to be always in the kitchen it's easy and she said it's they said it's good so that that's always sounds good to me um i feel like i feel like i'm in the kitchen cooking a lot i cook guess i cook a seems like i cook a lot of dinners oh not always for company just for just for family so feels like i'm often in the kitchen but a time consuming place yeah right right so i don't know what that is no i don't know what that is okay right right right right right do you like to make your own guacamole yeah we we don't make it very often i guess but uh oh do they gosh gosh oh that's good that's good or it's always good on top of something in the sandwich oh well we made i made guacamole that i would take to a pool party across the street the other day and and everyone there said they never made guacamole salad well i don't know i guess they don't have it at home they must they just said they never had it at home so i i was concerned that i thought oh taking this you know taking this as a dip i thought gosh you know sometimes when we have it at home it it turns dark on the top so quickly so i just oh does that help okay well well i'll have to remember that well i just i that day i just took extra lemon and just squeezed across the top and it really stayed longer than i ever thought it would so i thought maybe that was the trick yeah yeah so oh well i guess we bought a lot of we've been buying turkey lately instead of beef so even though you know the ground turkey it's the meat is softer and i everybody seems to like it so sometimes it seems to be cheaper too so we often buy it we buy it yeah yeah so we bought that or we bought the the [filets] and then the chicken or turkey nuggets and i don't think anybody in my house knows the difference unless you tell them or in yeah yeah less less cholesterol yeah right right well i guess that's probably all we need to do for tonight i always like dessert right right that's always good probably probably the only family recipe that we we make and it's really for special occasions is cheese cake and we take a recipe from my grandmother you know it's probably fairly typical cream cheese and egg and sugar and the insides of a uh_huh oh that sounds good uh we're not uh real wealthy at the moment last time i had people over for dinner we had lasagna and i used my mother's recipe i really like it it's got um you cook the noodles and make and brown hamburger and put tomato sauce in with it and i'm not sure she even puts must be some italian spices in there i can't remember but um for the cheese part you mix uh sour cream and cream cheese and cottage cheese and uh layer all that it's good and then uh uh tossed salad and and um oh my goodness diane get down from there and uh let's see what else did i serve with that corn yeah i made french bread with that one too i have a recipe that's pretty good for that so yeah i've heard that sam's has a really good lasagna in fact i think i had it at a at a party once it was good easy yeah yeah oh i know oh yeah not my favorite place but a necessity let's see what else do we like to have for trying to think what else i like to serve my mother likes to serve taco [grandes] have you ever had that you take a flour tortilla and you fry it like a taco shell and you uh for all the inside parts you brown hamburger and put some um tomato sauce in it and and i like to just add picante sauce to get the mexican flavor so you don't have to mess with spices and stuff and then um let's see and then and you heat up refried beans and you cut up tomatoes and lettuce and grated cheese and what you do to make it you take the shell and you spread the beans on first then you put the meat then you put the grated cheese and then you put um let's see what's next then and i i usually put the cut up tomatoes next and then the um lettuce and you can put uh like guacamole and [katy] i'm on the phone well get a towel or go change i'm on the phone um oh a little sour cream is good and and chopped olives uh yeah no i don't very often usually when we get [avocados] my kids just like to eat them plain so yeah i just cut slices off and i like an [avocado] sandwich too yeah yeah what you want where do they get it i can't imagine it would stay fresh long enough to i guess they just buy it at a restaurant when they eat it at a restaurant maybe yeah it helps if you i helps if you leave the pit in it yeah if you leave the pit in the bowl with the thing especially while you're waiting before you serve it that's supposed to help keep the um keep it from turning brown so quick oh oh that's good that probably helps too do you want it oh yeah we have too do you want scrambled yeah yeah if you get it on sale yeah yeah i don't think mine know either in fact we've been getting lunch meat that's turkey too it costs less than the other i don't know there's supposed to be something more healthy about it poultry instead of the beef and pork yeah yeah i i can't think of any other specific things i like to serve um one salad that we always like my sister in law always brings to family dinners is a i don't know what you call it uh you mix um cottage cheese and a package of [jello] and a thing of uh like cool whip that's good and quick and easy uh_huh okay i guess we're going to discuss food and cooking do you enjoy cooking i'm kind of that way too when i have i i enjoy cooking when i have time i don't enjoy preparing three meals a day everyday it gets kind of boring how big is the family you cook for uh_huh we have four so and two of them are teenage boys so are they yeah yeah yeah we have that problem too but also now it's just the amount that they eat it's just absolutely incredible yeah does he yeah that's true uh do you have any favorite things that you serve when you are doing a special meal favorite recipes that you've come across or uh_huh out on the grill uh_huh ooh uh_huh how ooh yeah ooh that's sound good i love that my husband really likes seafood um and i think that no matter what i do i don't serve enough of it really to uh to suit him i didn't grow up eating that much seafood and uh so i don't know it's just kind of not natural to me but i like it and uh i don't know one of his favorite things is uh well it's called seafood stew and it's really it's really like a soup that that you serve over rice and uh it has oysters and shrimp and crab in it and no no that's kind of louisiana i think if you do that yeah i don't either but uh no this is just it is really good and and one thing that's good is it makes the a large amount and so i've usually we eat one and i freeze two containers of it then that's just real quick to get it out and serve it over rice but neither of my kids will eat it you know so then they eat a pizza or yeah it really does one thing i've run across recently though a friend gave me a recipe that i really like for chicken enchiladas have you made them does he ooh uh_huh yeah well are these are done with a flour tortilla is that what he uses yeah isn't that something yeah i was going to say my kids both eat it i guess that's one thing that i particularly like um but i think it's good for you know for for company too and i've made it a few times um and you can make a lot at one time when i needed to make something to uh to give somebody you know like you know to take over to somebody's house or something else it it's nice when it makes a lot because you can feed your own family and then uh_huh what what does it have in it uh_huh sure uh_huh yeah uh_huh sure sometimes those are the best ones uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh yeah ooh that sounds good uh_huh oh yeah those are good aren't they uh_huh um that sounds good right you cook the rice before you put it in yeah i bet the mayonnaise in there makes it really kind of gives it a tang that would be good i guess i would now use the the new mayonnaise free yeah that's really wonderful that they're coming out with so many new things like that because like i told my husband this summer i love to eat you know chicken salad and tuna salad and stuff like that and and you know basically it certainly a low [calorie] you know good thing except then you put your mayonnaise in there and spoil the whole thing you know and now it's it's it's okay and you can even i used to just put a tiny bit in well now i'm just putting more and more in yeah and it's only it used to be like a hundred calories per tablespoon and now it's like twelve oh i just think that's the best thing to have happened i'm just so excited about that anyway yeah yes right uh_huh uh_huh yeah that's when they as our family would say a pig out that's good oh one of my boys that that's twelve um is has high cholesterol have you ever found out about your kids um and my other one does not so oh year or so ago he found out and he went on a fairly strict diet to try to get it down and did he was able to get it down it's i think it's mostly [hereditary] because we really have never eaten high things in cholesterol he's never eaten any eggs he's never had anything but skim milk and you know i've never bought butter and things like that but um oh he just left for the doctor again and it's it's kind of back up um so he needs to be careful again so we've really been talking about the foods you know for him to to be sure to eat and uh so he's eating an apple a day for the last two days and all that kind of stuff does really help well i think we've probably talked long enough and alright sometimes not all the time right yeah that that's about the same boat i'm in too yeah uh five oh well i'll be hitting that fairly soon because all of mine are boys too so and they get pretty particular sometimes in what they want to have huh oh yeah well see i my oldest is nine and he already he already does that and i told him he's going to have to get a part time job by the time he reaches teenage years so he can eat um my husband and i our favorite meal is uh and we do it like for special stuff [celebrations] and we have like steak and he does the steak and then uh uh_huh and he [marinates] it in his special stuff that he does and it's real good and uh i do [sauteed] mushrooms so and asparagus and that's our favorite dinner yeah so do we yeah uh_huh it's not the one with all the shells and stuff in it is it i don't know what that i don't see how you eat that but oh yeah so it yeah it defeats the purpose oh yeah yeah my husband makes those i'm not i don't eat enchiladas i i don't like i don't like the i don't know i guess it's the texture or something i don't like the taste of enchiladas but everyone else in my family does yeah i don't know i it's i don't know what i don't know i i don't know what it is about the enchiladas i just and i'm the only one including my mom and dad and my brother i'm the only one that doesn't eat it but my kids love it uh_huh yeah yeah yeah i've got a chicken casserole that's like that that that i've yeah because i when i make this chicken casserole i it it makes a real big casserole and then another one that i freeze so or i give it to my mom and dad if i know we're not going to eat it's you can use chicken or turkey because my mom started making it like right after thanksgiving and using the leftover turkey and it's rice and when i do recipes i just throw stuff in i don't i'm not real good about measuring because i just i do it to taste and well yeah but it it's like it's just chicken it it's as much as you want you know torn up and and rice and cream of chicken soup and some mayonnaise and lemon juice and celery and that's it and some hard boiled eggs and that's it you just mix it all together and pop it in the oven just to you know heat it through and you sprinkle uh that those uh [toasted] onion rings on top of it for the crunchy and that's it you know and it it it goes and it's filling because of the rice so uh_huh yeah yeah it gives it a an extra yeah little tang yeah that cholesterol fat free uh_huh uh_huh i know i don't like tuna salad unless it's got lots of mayonnaise in it yeah i know yeah we did the low cal stuff well with my kids i don't they get enough sugar and stuff anyway mine are bouncing off the walls normally anyway and they don't need any added help so when we're here at home you know with sweets and stuff they they don't we don't really do that much i do a lot of fruits instead of the cakes and the [candies] and you know stuff like that and and drink wise they have [kool] aid milk or water normally now when they go to their grandmother's house which is every weekend it's a it's a different a different story all around uh_huh that's exactly what it is oh really no not yet huh yeah huh yeah the lower cholesterol foods and stuff they suggested some sort of a recipe uh for uh company for entertaining did you have anything in mind that uh you'd like to share ooh oh ooh that sounds good what uh_huh one tablespoon of [worcester] okay oh that how much chili sauce did you say like eight not eight ounces that would be a lot is it okay this would make a lot right and how much crab meat did you use one one can of flake oh okay have you ever used the uh [imitation] yet ooh that sounds i've tried it and then i have it here on hand for about a week and then all of a sudden it [dawned] on me wait is this totally [imitation] and then i found out i went back to the store and they said it is a fish product so therefore you really don't have a very long life you know once you buy it i thought so you know they should put some directions on some of these new things they're making that you really don't know what the shelf life is you know oh that's a good idea whose was that uh sam's right right oh oh that sounds good because that's great that must be the ones that look like they're packaged for a restaurant okay i i've right oh hey that sounds right and it's something good to have on hand too it's frozen in the first place right so you can uh it is frozen isn't it and then you can [refreeze] hey that sounds great that oh do you and that's my favorite and i really don't care for desserts that well other than one piece of it that's the that's the thing i hate most about entertaining is thinking of what i'm going to serve i i said i can make it no time it's trying to think and then we just uh built a new home and i have one of these kitchens that's the center of the house and so no matter where they're at your company can see you cooking which is funny this well this is what everyone has said they said it's okay for you because you keep a real neat kitchen and i said yes i decided it looks better in better homes and gardens than it does in [practicality] but uh what i have learned in the uh ten months we've lived here is it that when i entertain i have to have my foods all prepared and in the oven with all the everything through ready to serve because with the open area you don't want someone from your dining room seeing your mess like you said so you have to have the [picturesque] kitchen you know right out of the magazine you're right and you know the funny thing is now that i have a large kitchen with a big island and that i still have people trying to come you know they'll come in the kitchen and i said out we have the chairs on the other side of the counter for guests you're not allowed to [trespass] into my kitchen and it it has worked out but at our point of life we know many of the people we're entertaining uh well enough that they know you know it's very much at home type situation well we even have a better one now we decided that we all meet we have it worked well i uh just had a christmas around the world party the other night and had some hors d'oeuvres and i fixed uh a crab meat spread that is real good and real easy it's uh it's like uh eight ounces of cream cheese [softened] and you mix it with one tablespoon onion juice and one tablespoon lemon juice one tablespoon [worcester] sauce and mix it and spread it out onto a plate and uh_huh and then you take and uh cover that with [drained] crab meat mixed with one of the small bottles of chili sauce and spread it over the top and spread it on [triscuits] crackers and that always goes over real well and it's real easy it's one of the small bottles i don't think uh well it's about eight ounces it it uh_huh yeah it would probably make well it doesn't make quite as much as you think but yeah spread it out because you keep the cream cheese kind of thin one tin of the flake uh_huh and drain it real good uh_huh yes i have i used it uh last [christmastime] uh what did i put it in i think i just served it by itself there's like a little [tidbit] with the sauce to dip it into and stuff uh_huh uh_huh right right that's very true very true i had bought a cheesecake uh and they very nicely put onto the box that it may be [re] frozen which i felt was real nice yeah it uh was uh lawry's i believe or [lawler's] and i got it do you have a sam's wholesale warehouse up there it's real yeah okay that's where i picked it up it comes out of chicago and they're very good [cheesecakes] yeah yes yes and they have and they have the little papers between them and i think they're what about nine dollars and something yes yes yes yes it is frozen and i thaw it and then you can [refreeze] it and uh_huh it was they're very good very good and that's the one thing that i hate to make is desserts is it oh i love to eat it but i don't like to make it it takes time and you have to rack your brain and time i don't have anymore uh_huh it is uh_huh that's right and your mess yeah right right that's that's right well i like to have mine all done anyway because then i want to i want to party too i don't want to sit in the kitchen and be putting an olive on something you know correct sounds right well a lot of our entertaining anymore with the couples again that we've known a long time like you they uh we all bring things and it sure makes it a whole lot easier anymore okay so you're into microwave cooking yes and that's what we all are looking for isn't it something that we can just cook in a hurry after we get off work i've gotten in the habit of cooking something big on the weekends so that i have [leftovers] all week uh_huh i know i try not to make too much it's just my husband and i too and i try not to make so much that it lasts more than that week but uh i usually i usually like to make spaghetti or soup or chili or you know something like that or sometimes a roast but what's your favorite thing to cook if you're having a dinner party oh oh uh_huh ooh that sounds delicious uh_huh i end up with an old stand by that we call russian chicken because it's so easy and uh it you have to cook very little to go with it just some rice and some salad and that's about it you know uh you make you just take your boneless chicken breasts and then you take and make a a dressing out of uh russian dressing one bottle of that and a package of [lipton] onion soup mix and three ounces of [apricot] [preserves] and you mix it up and you just put it on the top of the chicken and then i cover the pan with foil and put it in the oven for about an hour and then i take the foil off and let it brown takes about another twenty minutes and it's delicious and it's so simple because i can pop it in when i come in the door you know and then uh go about my business and by the time i've got everything else ready the [chicken's] [chicken's] done so that's a real easy thing for me uh_huh oh really no i don't my mom gets that but really uh_huh um um oh my goodness uh_huh well i love cheese cake i have never been i don't know the ones i have made i have not done that well with i like a baked cheese cake you know i don't i have had a recipe that someone has given me that it's kind of like you just mix cream cheese and stuff and [refrigerate] it you know but that's not the same as a a new york style cheese cake and uh the recipes that i've used everybody will say oh this is real simple and then i make it and it's it's really not very good but yours sounds good i bet that lemon and orange peel gives it a little bit of [tartness] um well that sounds interesting so there's your good dessert for your dinner party are you into serving wines with your dinner party me either i wish i knew more about it uh_huh uh_huh they would be if you just had time to do it uh_huh uh_huh well how neat uh_huh um well i didn't even know they were offering that i guess i uh_huh oh well i bet that would be a fun thing to do yeah it's just it's so easy nowadays you know and it's uh especially when people are working just to come home and pop something into the microwave and it be ready in just a few minutes yeah all week well we've done that too there's just my husband and i and he he sometimes makes a huge spot uh pot of spaghetti and you know we're eating it for a week and a half and i kind of get sick of it after he uh_huh yeah right right um i have a great recipe for sour cream chicken enchiladas it's it's really good i got it from a friend of mine that i used to work with and uh every time i've served it everybody just loves it so that's that's one of my favorite things to make what about you uh_huh uh_huh well what do you put in it uh_huh uh_huh ooh that sounds good uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh ooh that sounds good is done right yeah that sounds good too i've got a um a great recipe for cheese cake i don't know if you get southern living but they have one if you like to cook they have every recipe i've tried out of that has been a really good one and um you know every month they've got all different kinds of recipes but i got one in there about a year or so ago on cheese cake and it's just a regular cheese cake and then you can put raspberry uh topping on it but inside the cheese cake uh recipe you put um lemon peel and orange peel and it's just enough to taste it you know when when when you're eating the cheese cake and it is wonderful but it takes a long time because you have to cook it for forty five minutes and then you turn the oven off and you leave it in the oven for another forty five minutes and then you open up the oven door and leave it in for another forty five minutes and then you're supposed to um i think chill it to room temperature so sometimes i'll do that overnight and then put the topping on the next day but it's it's very good uh_huh right yeah no it's not right it does and it it it is really good right oh sometimes but i mean i'm not a wine [connoisseur] by any means i've been to you know some wine [tastings] up in napa valley but um you know and i learned a little bit about them then but you know what would be fun they have some of those classes you can take yeah and then there's places um do you live in dallas okay there's places here that um offer i think it's like once a month you can go and to a particular restaurant or whatever and you can kind of take a cooking class and then you get to eat everything afterwards and then they also go into the wines you know to serve with you know different types of of meals and that kind of thing and it sounds like it's a lot of fun we have some friends who've done that and they've really enjoyed it yeah this place is called like [medina's] or [messina's] kitchen or something like that yeah it it sounds like like it okay while i was waiting for you to connect i i thought of a couple of menus so i decided it had to be in it informal or not you know if it's informal i'd probably choose something i mean just like hamburgers or steaks out on the grill because that's a lot of fun especially this time of year where it's so nice out um if it was formal i'd probably go with something like a chicken breast or lasagna or something i'm not i'm not into formal dinner parties but i'd probably go with lasagna a green salad and garlic bread um i have a pillsbury cookbook i got when i was married but it's kind of the bible of cooking for me then i have some from like church that are more family recipes that are more useful you know budget cookbooks but and of course you get a lot from when you're growing up um i cook a lot the same as as my mom did of course i've added several different recipes but what you serve or what would you well that's good uh_huh uh_huh huh yeah that would be wonderful in these times yeah either they're really fast or uh_huh uh_huh what's one of your favorites uh_huh wow sounds too good yeah yeah that thirty minute cookbook that sounds fun i find a lot of the cookbooks that i don't know that you buy over the counter ask for really strange ingredients or things i don't keep on hand all the time and i have young children and our budget's set you know at this time but i want to use simple recipes that i have things on hand i don't have to run to the store to buy or look for something i haven't heard of that's why sometimes i shy away from uh more of a traditional cookbook but well it was interesting talking to you it's a fun subject food is one of my favorite things too anything else you wanted to add oh wow uh_huh that's good uh_huh uh_huh that sounds good that sounds really good it sounds like you guys are a little more gourmet than i am i'm pretty simple right now but yes that's probably that's true i have little ones and we and they won't eat you know too many different foods right now yes yeah yeah [spaghetti's] a pretty staple every other week or so and it goes a long ways too so all righty talk to you later maybe uh_huh uh_huh yes i see so what do you use for cookbooks uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh right well i i i think we come from from different backgrounds uh so the i i i so it you know have different perspectives that you are i find the joy of cooking to be a remarkably useful book to to fall back on because it has almost everything in it but on the other hand it's not very inspiring uh it's a good reference when you need to dig something up what we've found very useful is a book called the thirty minute cookbook i think that's the title by marion [burroughs] uh which has recipes which allegedly can all be prepared in thirty minutes you know the whole meal and so she's yeah now now i i find that the cutting up of the food and all that really makes it take a little longer than thirty minutes but they're but they're but they're interesting they're interesting menus um combinations that you wouldn't have nobody thought of um um gee the one i had most recently was was one that was she she describes as jim [beard's] favorite um summer menu or something and it [consisted] of of grilled [kielbasa] sausage uh a potato salad with olive oil and uh some tomatoes that had been chopped up with onions and curry powder and probably some yogurt was in there uh and that and that was you know that's that that's certain you can do in thirty minutes but there are a whole lot of you know i mean i i would recommend you look at that book if you're a busy person thirty minute cookbook uh_huh uh_huh yes yes uh_huh yes well you had said dinner you know you know what would i put together for a formal dinner we we had some friends over as recently as saturday night and and um put here here the inspiration was a combination of julia child for the dessert you know a chocolate [mousse] recipe and a sort of cookbook which has a recipe for a thing called chicken [marabella] um which is this wonderful thing you can do um basically you're baking baking chicken in a in an open pan um having marinated it first and my wife did this part so i don't remember all the details marinated in olive oil and some seasoning um and cooked with some olives and some and some [prunes] uh there's a little bit of brown sugar in there and it bakes up and it's a delicious thing and it's easy [comparatively] so um i'm sorry i just love well maybe a little more leisure time to do it i don't know yeah i found my kids were very frustrating when they were little in terms of their tastes well there again sometimes it was easy they'd you know canned [ravioli] was one of their favorites and so it was easy to open a can of [ravioli] yes well nice talking to you cheryl okay bye okay diane and a very good afternoon to you do you uh do most of your cooking at home or do you uh have a lot of people come in and have to prepare for them uh_huh my goodness well what would you uh like to cook what's what what's what is your favorite uh recipes uh that you would like to have for a dinner party now you're in dallas is it okay i was i was thinking in terms of mexican almost tex mex uh_huh well that's a very interesting food though and when i go out to eat dinner sometimes that's the type of foods i like to find we have uh i think chico's or or in these different restaurants in this area that uh have all this fine mexican foods but um if i were to cook uh a dinner party uh it may be standard to you but uh actually i never get too much fried chicken but i would have fried chicken uh with reasonably hot sauce on it almost a mexican type thing and i love twice cooked potatoes have you ever had twice cooked potatoes with with a cream made of the the sour cream and cream cheese and uh a little [oleo] and i use uh [oregano] and maybe dill weed uh mixed in with it and uh i like broccoli casseroles which would include onion and cheese and and more dill weed and some medium hot peppers as you can see i'm inclined towards the mexican type of a meal and i would probably have some quiet and gentle fried onion rings mixed in there with it too so uh how would you improve upon that more fresh vegetables included to that uh_huh how do you cook your green beans uh_huh so you all right that's what i was wondering about what what you use and and in herbs and so forth uh_huh have you ever tried chinese type green beans we use soy sauce well you might uh be interested in that have it gives a very delicious taste you you have a soy sauce taste and you also have a little cream sauce in there because you you would use the uh water and uh golly what's this white powder that that uh that you mix with water and gives a thick sauce i can't even think of the name of that right at the moment anyhow sorry about my mind but uh it does make a nice thick creamy sauce with the green beans and then you have a nice soy sauce taste under it with a few onions in there with it if it does it it brings out such a so much different things in uh in the string beans i i like it to try them differently i hardly ever cook them the same way twice just so i can enjoy them so you might uh think about that chinese cooking actually has a lot of very delicious tastes to them and uh north african cooking is good when you use something called [couscous] and that's uh made from uh i think they call it beans and that's the type of something that whatever you mix with it this [couscous] uh absorbs the taste of whatever else you put in it where that makes a very delicious dish you probably have to buy that from specialty stores c o u s c o u s and that's a a north african dish they eat it one to two meals everyday in north africa and it is very very flexible you can do a lot of things with it it makes a fantastic uh uh salad with cucumbers and olive oil and onions and oh boy real tasty well i've enjoyed talking with you and i hope i've given you some ideas and uh that's one thing we can enjoy is good delicious food well thank you very much miss diane bye bye and good afternoon to you um no i do most of my cooking at home and um i could safely say that i have never cooked for a dinner party um right i'm in dallas of course um dinner parties down here probably oh turn out to be more things like barbecues and uh_huh yes yeah uh tex mex uh mexican food um probably a little bit different than what you serve up in pennsylvania for a dinner party uh_huh right uh_huh fried chicken uh_huh oh yes i have uh_huh right uh_huh uh_huh right uh_huh oh improve upon that let's see i'd probably put a bunch of fresh vegetables in and some yeah uh green beans and uh carrots and things like that my green beans um i just get fresh green beans from the grocery store and snap off the ends and put them in water and steam them for about ten minutes and i like to put a little mrs dash in with them uh_huh right uh_huh um i like to just put a tablespoon or so of mrs dash in there and it makes them pretty tasty the chinese type are they the real no i haven't ever used that uh_huh a white powder um gosh that's okay uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh yeah i might try that oh yes i love chinese north african uh_huh uh_huh huh uh_huh well i've enjoyed talking with you oh yes okay thank you bye bye hi donna ready to get started okay sort of an interesting topic since i just got back from lunch here oh it was uh it was i'm an officer in the air force and we went to the [officers'] club for a little mexican food today yeah yeah if you're having a dinner party what what would you serve sure uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh uh_huh jeez well well when is the party here i don't know being a being the bachelor here that i am i i don't think i'd i'd be i mean it it's not a question of capability here to do something like that it's just there's there's no motivation you know i want to i want to throw some charcoal on the grill and and throw a steak on there and some baked potatoes and stuff like that but um uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah yeah that's what they they are shooting for here well i live on a i live on a lake here and uh so it and then during the summertime it's real nice to be able to entertain outdoors like that's a little more a casual thing but in mine the wintertime it's not bad too because then i've got a a fireplace and a nice nice house and all that so we sort of a really good place to do entertaining like that i just haven't uh really tried a whole lot but uh i don't know let's see i have had well one time i did have a dinner party i served a uh uh i had a gang of people over and kind of made a fried chicken thing and biscuits and kind of southern uh southern food even though i'm up here in new york so yeah oh yeah yeah it is it's oh no kidding upstate rome in uh [griffins] air force base well i was born in buffalo and uh been all over the place yeah right uh_huh sure yeah yeah i've been down to texas a few times and uh had uh the pleasure of their good mexican cuisine down there uh_huh uh_huh hi this is donna donahue hi uh yeah i think so okay well what did you have for lunch oh oh well that's interesting okay so our topic is is food today is that okay okay uh do you want me to go first okay if i was having a dinner party i would probably um have some um some uh um some fruit to start with with some apples sliced up and maybe some cheddar cheese and crackers and grapes and um probably serve maybe some wine and beer and maybe have some uh uh salsa and chips around and peanuts and then i would have um let's see i usually have like a little theme when i have a dinner party so um i would have maybe um say if it was like greek night or something um maybe um on the barbecue we'd put uh cubes of lamb or i guess lamb used for greek and um like a shish kabob and um mushrooms and tomatoes and onions and then we'd have um like a big greek tossed salad kind of like a [caesar] salad and um let's see what else um maybe some rolls and um i guess some uh some rice or something like that how does that sound yeah um yeah that would take some planning but that's right well that sounds good too i have um i have three kids so um when we have friends over i have my oldest kind of baby sit for the little two younger ones upstairs and um usually we just have very plain kind of you know interesting not very interesting meals pizza and that all so once in a while when we do something like that it's kind of fun but it's not a not a regular thing um now are we supposed to talk for about five minutes is that it okay okay um let's see now okay so you would have a barbecue uh_huh oh sure uh_huh oh that sounds wonderful uh_huh uh_huh oh you are in new york right now oh i'm i'm in texas i didn't know this was all from all over the whole country oh i see and i'm originally from long island yes and now where are you in new york oh upstate oh okay oh okay is that where you you are originally from around there oh okay oh wow that's interesting okay let's see um well i like to have um sometimes when i have a dinner party i'll have um everybody bring something and that's real interesting because then you get different um different kinds of foods and new recipes and um uh sometimes somebody will be bring something that you really like and get the recipe from them or whatever and we are just getting interested in in mexican food because here in texas they have lots of really good mexican restaurants and um we're we're just getting into the fajitas and all that stuff that you could do you know what a [fajita] is yeah okay yes they have some delicious delicious things and i um since i always make chicken [burritos] and just take chicken breasts and you boil them maybe like four chicken breasts and you boil them until they are cooked maybe like thirty minutes and then you [debone] them and and kind of shred them up into the meat that has gotten cooled and you take um little bit maybe two tablespoons of butter and a in a big frying pan and chop up some onion and put in [oregano] and salt [angie] okay um let's see uh i like seafood uh let's see uh shrimp steamed uh [shellfish] with maybe herbs uh spicy lobster with [linguini] yeah uh_huh right yeah uh i think hors d'oeuvres are good too uh and that way you can have a variety uh uh yeah fresh vegetables would be good or uh just no yeah yeah oh all these hard questions uh what white wine yeah i'm not really a drinker so i'm not i don't know a lot about that oh goodness uh chocolate something chocolate uh yes oh you do uh_huh yeah uh_huh that sounds good too traditional right yeah i just started i just really started uh uh learning about that and i bought a martha stewart i don't know if you've heard of her her cookbook and she talks about catering and uh you know goes into goes into all that and the different types of uh uh different types of parties you know different types of foods um my father owns a restaurant it's it's just a uh a cafe so it's not really anything you know that i want to it's not the same uh it's in lewisville trinity that's public no uh_huh it's not uh let's see what about [hawaiian] [luau] could have uh uh fruits and and pineapple uh let's see uh i think i think decorating your food is you know really now is it [stacy] [angie] i'm sorry well now so if you were going to have a dinner party what would you make that sounds good now what is uh what is uh the steamed [shellfish] you said and what would that be like a clam or uh okay so if you have a a dinner party and you're going to serve uh seafood for supper what type of uh hors d'oeuvres would you serve prior to the meal like cheeses or fruits or vegetables or probably not [nachos] and dip huh and would you uh would it be appropriate to uh drink with the uh prior when you have the hors d'oeuvres okay and then when you serve the meal what type of wine would you have with uh with the with seafood that would be my guess and and then uh uh dessert something sweet you must like chocolate well let's see usually when we have a dinner party i always i like to grill so we might have some [cocktails] ahead of time and maybe some uh some dip uh some cheese one of our favorites is uh to take some let's see philadelphia cream cheese i think is that what comes in those little blocks and pour cocktail sauce over the top of it and then get these little canned shrimp and uh wash them and cool them and then dump them in the uh sauce and then take crackers and then you just dip the cracker in the sauce with the clams and the cream cheese and you have a real nice dip that goes good with a cocktail and then i like to barbecue like steaks or pork chops and then we have uh oh lot of times we'll have baked potatoes with them and a salad and then uh i don't know what we usually have for dessert cake sometimes but uh that's what we would do for a dinner party i guess but that's i guess when you talk about dinner party that's probably not uh that's more for like when friends come over traditional yeah i wouldn't be the big uh [snotty] kind huh_uh oh well do you work in a uh in a setting where you uh are in the food business oh in uh is it in dallas okay all right so you graduated from which high school trinity okay and that's a public school or private huh okay i have to get to know this area a little better i guess uh well is your father's cafe uh one that you could cater out of um and he's not interested in letting his twenty one year old daughter experiment with it probably well let's see what else for catering uh oh that would be good and you could actually go with uh a chicken if you wanted to what are you guys having for christmas oh you're not yeah well funny you should mention that i'm a pig farmer yeah well now it's kind of a hobby more than anything else but we're going to have uh wild boar we uh we killed a boar the other day it was you know [mating] with the [sows] and you can't use the [piglets] you know so it's about six months of no use so we uh we shot him and cleaned him out and had him you know processed into ham and uh we're also going to have a little roast [suckling] pig because i i've got one that's got a a [hernia] and rather than you know pay the vet four hundred dollars for surgery we'll just cook him and eat him well no hey i tell you what preparing a little pig is is a snap i'm telling you real easy easier than chicken yeah you just uh you kill him you know you probably most guys just shoot them in the head they go you know in a second they're gone and then you just dip the [carcass] in uh boiling water pull it out and there's a we use a little [raspy] brush pulls the hair off and uh gut it and uh just stick it down in a pit with some [cloves] and uh some pineapple about three [pineapples] you know sliced them up and uh cover him up with uh wet uh sacks feed sacks is what i usually use and then start a charcoal fire on top of him and after about six hours you put the fire out and dig that baby out of there and it's the best eating you ever had yep just like a pig i mean you know uh it has a lot less fat this wild boar weighed probably about three hundred and thirty pounds and he dressed out to almost two hundred and ten pounds well you know we took the skin and the head and the and the feet off and that was about you know a hundred hundred pounds of just ham oh well we're you know we're not going to eat the whole thing it would take a year but uh you know we're going to drive up to kansas city see my wife's folks and uh she she what's what's what's your mother cooking for christmas yeah well her mom's doing brisket brisket it's a part of the cow that they used to throw away it's just tough as a boot and uh you know they used to use it for leather i think i mean no i was kidding but uh it's it's a part of the [loin] you know the rib cage and it has a lot of muscle in it and a lot of [gristle] where it [attaches] to the ribs so it's really really a tough piece of meat but it's so tasty you can't stand it so you just take it and you marinate it for a couple of days and then uh you just put it in the oven takes about four hours to cook one they weigh about anywhere from ten to twenty pounds and uh we're going to have that oh well we'll have [cranberries] and [hominy] and uh we we are we're big on olives and cucumbers and stuff up here we have olives black olives and cucumbers and uh tomatoes we still have tomatoes yeah fresh tomatoes well it started to freeze up around here you know there's nothing between you and us but our [barb] wire and half of that's down i mean it's thirty degrees this morning yeah but uh it'll go up to fifty or sixty almost oh yeah well it's desert you know where where we are it's it's it's uh the edge of the desert i mean it's part of the great plains so in the day time in the summer it goes up to a hundred hundred and ten and at night it goes down to about sixty yeah we get a fifty degree temperature swing in about four hours so everything that lives around here is real tough that's trees you know we got hundred year old trees that are you know twenty feet tall that's all the bigger they get they you know they're just hard as a rock what are we having let's see well i'm not planning the menu no we usually go out to either one of our folks they both live close to but um i don't know it seems like a a big thing for christmas is usually ham oh you are huh my goodness huh oh really is that is that hard oh really oh huh oh my goodness oh well does a boar taste just like regular ham does it huh oh my oh my goodness oh well how many people are you planning on serving at christmas eat it all yeah i don't what is brisket huh oh oh my goodness yeah oh my goodness huh and that [softens] it up huh huh oh gee well what else do you serve with your pig huh oh do you oh we we just got lots of snow oh really huh oh my goodness i didn't know it got that low at night oh gee my goodness oh boy oh oh gee okay um well i like to cook um but i don't like getting too awfully fancy about it just because um uh it's too much pressure you know if i have people over for dinner i like it to be nice and relaxed yeah and so i don't like to arrive or or when they arrive for me to be completely worn out yeah exactly uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh you'd just do it yeah uh_huh um boy i like that yeah well i'm planning a and naturally this is appropriate because i'm planning dinner for people tomorrow night and then the next night so tuesday night there'll be eight people here altogether oh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah that's fun uh_huh yeah yeah that's a good idea yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh yeah yeah that's good well one of my favorites if i don't want to have other people bring stuff i just want to treat them is to make chicken and rice it's very easy to you don't like it oh you do okay yeah i have a really easy recipe for that where you just brown the chicken and then you put rice in the bottom of the pan you pour [bouillon] or chicken broth over it and and you put the chicken in then pour the uh broth over and you can put mushrooms in if you want and then you just yeah over uncooked rice and you can either microwave it or do it in the oven and it just it [fluffs] up and it's really moist uh_huh wow yeah uh_huh yeah well i'll keep that one in mind yeah yeah uh_huh yeah you can get away with it even having a semi nice dinner or you know semi yeah yeah you put in um let's see what was it three quarters of cup of rice or it depends on you can really vary it but you have to put the water in [proportionally] i can't remember i think it was three quarters cup rice to two cups water two cups um broth yeah flavor uh_huh yeah uh_huh um let's see i think it was an hour i've done it in the microwave so often lately because it's it's really easy yeah but i think it's about an hour or maybe it's only half hour um you just until the rice looks fluffy and and not overdone you know before it gets overdone yeah um i'd let it cook just a little bit just so that the cooking goes a little faster yeah i liked your idea too there uh_huh yeah uh_huh uh_huh okay what kind of foods would you have oh i do too uh_huh uh_huh yeah you can't enjoy it right that's that's what i like doing things like making lasagna just because i can have it ready and baking in the oven it's everybody just says how wonderful it is and it's it's like uh yes i that's one of those things i got famous for in college people would come and say could would you come over and make lasagna for me it's like well i can't really give you a recipe uh i can i can just do it i like doing that kind of stuff and it's it's fun in fact that's what we had for a christmas party last week we just had a bunch of people over and we had we did lasagna and garlic bread and uh yummy uh i do too in fact oh oh good uh actually one thing we have done quite a bit through the holidays just because it's a real easy is just baked potato dinners and have you know like three or four couples come over and i'll do the potatoes and you know like butter and cheese and stuff and have everybody else just bring a couple of [toppings] whatever they like and it turns out great because i mean you've got like hot sauce and taco meat and barbecue and you know bacon and all that good stuff but it's it's inexpensive plus it's real easy on the [hostess] because you can just have the potatoes ready and just have a salad with it and you got a great dinner it's it's real easy i like doing that part i'm in favor of very little clean up um very little planning because we've got three or four couples that we get together with to play games and it's we invariably end up at my house since i've got two kids and that it's it's fine because then i can just say okay fine you bring this you bring this you bring this we're done and it's pretty cool uh_huh oh oh oh i love it um over the uncooked rice oh oh how neat huh now i've done it with where you put you cook the well i guess you probably could do it same way but cook the rice and then take a can of like cream of mushroom soup or cream of chicken soup and put a little bit of white wine in it and every once in a while i'll put in i'll slice white grapes and i'll put in there and that's just because i'm not a real big wine person but i like it it adds something to the chicken and then just bake it and it makes a wonderful sauce over the rice yeah it's that was one of the first things i made for my husband because i was like um yeah i could actually find something i could cook real easy that would be kind of sort of elegant kind of