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TI: But then, but then as soon as you got your Ph.D., though, then that opened up other possibilities in terms of teaching. So, because at that point, that was after ten years in Renton, you received your Ph.D., and then what happened then?

RM: That was the interesting part. I, Stol Holt said that he could arrange for me to go to the University of Alaska or the University of New Mexico. They both needed people, that I could work in that field. And I said, "Okay," but we had two sons, one deaf and one -- almost deaf -- and one retarded. And I said, "I, I really need to be in a school district where they can be helped, and I don't know about Alaska or New Mexico." And I said, "Highline and Tacoma have really good programs." Stol Holt says, "Well, I know this fellow in Tacoma, he's president of the school board, and I think he can help us." And so the next day I was teaching in the classroom, and for the first time the principal came up to my door. And he knocked on it, and he said, "You have a phone call down in my office, and it's the superintendent of schools at Tacoma." I said, "Oh," so I went down, it's a fellow, wonderful guy, named Angelo Drudrony, says to me, he says, "You wanna come to Tacoma?" And I said, "Yes, very much." I said, "We have two sons that you have programs for." And he said, "You got the job."

And so I, I took the job, and I got a phone call from Fred Haley, he was the president of the school board, and he was a friend of Stol Holt's, and I knew he'd put into the University of Washington a pilot program for studying causes of retardation. And so I admired him a great deal. And he called to say, "We're having a party for you coming to Tacoma." "You are?" "Yeah," he said, "we're really looking forward to..." he said, "Stan Thompson speaks highly of you, and Stol Holt, and we think you can make a contribution here." And so we went over and had a party with Fred Haley, and Fred has been my friend ever since. Fred Haley really tangled with the anti-Communists in a, in a spectacular episode with the Chutakov case, and I knew about that case. And he had defended, "You have proof she's a Communist, show it and we'll fire her. You don't show us the proof, we don't fire her." And, it was a celebrated case. The only case where a teacher was accused of being a Communist who wasn't fired. So he stood by. And that friendship with Fred Haley continues to this day. I was, went out to see him yesterday.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.