Interview with Tim Duex, 05/02/2017

Jake Skoien: This is Jake Skoien for the UW-Oshkosh Oral History Project talking to Timothy Duex. Hi how are you today?

Timothy Duex: Okay.

JS: you went to school form 1963- 1967, is that correct?

TD: That's right

JS: All right so where did you grow up?

TD: I grew up in Oshkosh, native of Oshkosh

JS: All right, so can you tell me a little bit about how Oshkosh was when you were growing up there, like how your community was if it was a upper class, lower class or in-between.

TD: As far as the whole community was concerned, it was kind of a business attitude, you know there were some manufacturing things around town and a lot of people worked in those things. Oshkosh truck got its start back then, now of 00:01:00course that's developed into a big thing. There were some other things there were some motor factories that I remember as I mentioned Oshkosh trunk had a factory and my uncle worked at that for a while. So it was a relatively small community but there were a lot of agricultural activities in the surrounding area. Obviously a lot smaller city back then than it is now.

JS: So where did you live in Oshkosh? Was it a rural area or a in the city?

TD: Yeah we lived outside the city limits at the time and it was out in the country kind of although it was right on lake Winnebago and there were a whole 00:02:00series of houses that had been built along the shore but right across the road was an apple orchard and a cow pasture. Occasionally the cows would get loose and would be wondering in our front yard and stuff like that. So that's definitely rural but a little bit of built up area.

JS: How big was you house? Was it a small house? Big house? In-between?

TD: it was pretty small house it was originally intended as kind of a vacation house and my grandfather had built it he was a salesmen he had lived in, doing pretty good he lived in town on Mt. Vernon street in a big old house. He bought this property out in the country as a little vacation home so it was pretty small.

JS: last time you said it was passed down through your family, can you elaborate 00:03:00on that a little bit?

TD: yeah the a property that we grew up on was out on Lake Winnebago on Hickory lane is still owned by my sister it went through a series of ownership but originally my grandmother owned it when my grandfather passed away, when my mother was quite young I think it was at age 12 and it sat for a while but I cant remember exactly when that happened, but I wasn't around at that point but eventually my mother and father got married and moved into that house that was owned by my grandmother and my father was got drafted and got sent to the war got sent to Italy but he didn't see any action. When he came back we were living 00:04:00in the house I was born in 1945 was actually during World War II after the European war had ended but the Japanese war was still continuing and it didn't conclude until August that year.

JS: can you I said that I was interested in your father in the war can you elaborate a little bit on what he did in the Army in World War II.

TD: Yeah I mentioned that he had worked as a machinist a tool and dime maker before hand and he had a fight with his boss and then was drafted soon after that and like I mentioned after he passed away we were going through a bunch of his papers and from my experience in the military it looked like he signed up 00:05:00for as many different schools as he could and went to those and went to artillery school, officer candidates school, a bunch of stuff. Just to try to do something and he was eventually stationed in Florida I think that's where I was conceived because I remember my mother mentioning that my father was sent to Europe to Italy eventually and she had to go back to Wisconsin on the train and she left Florida sometime it was 80 degrees and she got off the train in Chicago to switch to another line that came to Oshkosh and it was like 10 or 20 below zero

JS: wow that's a big difference

TD: Yeah, and my father by the time he got sent over seas I think he war was 00:06:00pretty much winding down and he was more or less involved in occupation as far as I can tell he talked a little bit about it but he never did get involved in any of the heavy action as far as I can tell. He had it pretty good.

JS: yeah, that's what my great-grandpa did as well did the after clean up stuff as well

TD: Yeah you gotta have that you know for every fighting solider there were 9 other jobs that people had to do to support him.

JS: So you talked a little bit about your father and what he did, can you elaborate on what he did and what your mom did when you were young?

TD: Yeah ok my father came back from the war and he had been a pretty good baseball player, semi pro baseball player he and his brother, my uncle both pretty good and so he opened a sporting goods store and I remember it was on Jackson Street. Not far from the river I remember going there and watching a few parades that would go down Jackson Street and he did that for a while and that didn't work out very well, so then he went to go work for something on "" street and delivered milk and dairy products and stuff to people out in the country and one of the big thrills that we had as kids was that we got to ride along with him and just go out and see different things and that was always kind of interesting for me and my brother. It was kind of a get away during the summer.

JS: that's pretty cool yeah.

TD: After that I don't know how long after that he went to go work for the American Excelsior Company and they basically took wood and turned it into kind of shavings that was used as packing material and he did that until he passed away.

JS: when did he pass away? If you don't mind me asking?

TD: It was 1971 I believe, I think that's right

JS: What did your mother do? Did she stay at home did she do a job or?

TD: She was pretty much a housewife although she did have a part time job around 00:09:00Christmas time she worked for Miles Kimball Company it had a catalog and card business she would basically type up the addresses for people ordering cards and did that every year for quite some time. After my father passed away that worked out ok she could work about 3 months a year I think and earn a little extra money for Christmas. One thing I didn't mention is she also worked at Leon's Drive-In on Murdock I don't know if you've been to that but it was owned by a cousin of ours, I think a cousin on my fathers but he hired a bunch of his relatives she worked there for I don't remember how long, 10 years or something and my older brother and I both worked there and 3 or 4 of our cousins worked 00:10:00there and it was kind of a family thing for a while and its good frozen custard, if you haven't had it go try it.

JS: I'm guessing you know if it's still there or not

TD: Oh yeah it's still open yeah I go back there every time I visit Oshkosh there's not many places that are like it, maybe culvers is somewhat similar

JS: Yeah I will have to go try that out, what's it called again?

TD: Leon's its right on Murdock Street right across from Pick 'n' Save I think, the shopping grocery store.

JS: O over there? Ok I know exactly where that is. I will have to go check that out. It was a family business, so is it still a family owned?

TD: No, he sold it I don't remember how long ago but they still basically have pretty much the same menu the frozen custard is difficult to duplicate they still have the same machines that make the custard you can see them make it there right in the window. Its fresh everyday.

JS: that's pretty cool, fresh food is always the best. Can you tell me about your high school I know you said that you were one of the first people that were there so can you elaborate on that?

TD: yeah it was a catholic high school Lourdes High School and it was just starting at the time and I went there as a freshman we were the first class go 4 00:12:00years through the high school and it was a different experience because they were just starting out and we had Christian brothers who were teaching us and girls were taught by nuns and there was strict segregation girls were upstairs and boys were downstairs and the only time we got together was at lunch and for the bus ride.

JS: that's very weird hearing that now

TD: yea very strange

JS: my high jump coach, she also coaches there that's how I first heard of Lourdes.

TD: is that right?

JS: yeah, can you elaborate on you choosing to go to Oshkosh why you decided to 00:13:00come to at the time it would've been WSU Oshkosh.

TD: Right I think we talked about this last time that it changed names several times I remember it starting out as Oshkosh normal school or something like that then state college and then Wisconsin State University at Oshkosh. Well basically it was because it was in town and I really couldn't afford to do anything else so it was there and worked as far as I was concerned.

JS: so before you started college did you know what you wanted to do with your 00:14:00life or kind of something you decided later or can you elaborate on something like that?

TD: I didn't really have a firm grasp on exactly what I wanted to do but our parents and relatives always emphasized education and said you really need to get a education and need to go to college that was something that at least all of us kids did for a part of the time. My older brother went to Wisconsin Madison he was a national merit scholar he did very well in that and one of only 3 in the state at the time. He had a scholarship to go to Madison so he did that and I didn't get quite that far my development but I didn't end up getting a small scholarship to help at Oshkosh and so that pretty much help to pay for the 00:15:00education but I still lived at home. Basically I commuted back and fourth at the time but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I had a couple uncles who had been accountants and they said well might as well go into that its pretty good business they have done well with it and they liked it and said to do that and so I declared a major of accounting at the time they didn't have an accounting major they had economics with an accounting emphasis but the other thing I'll mention was that the school was growing rapidly at the time and when I started it was around 2,000 and students and by the time I graduated it was around 8,000 and so things were very busy and somehow I got assigned and advisor 00:16:00I think it was in English I cant remember. I'm an advisor now here so you don't know exactly what to do its kind of up to the student up to exactly where they want to go and so he gave me the standard courses math, history, and English he said oh you need to take science so why don't you take geology I said ok so I took geology and I like it and I took another one and after my freshman year I said well I like this so I asked him well there's some other courses I took some more courses by the end of my sophomore year I had more credits in geology than I did toward my major and I said I'd like to change majors and I talked to the people and they said well they didn't have a major at the time but they thought they were going to get one soon. So I started taking all the courses I needed in 00:17:00the sciences and more math and I mentioned last time they didn't officially get the geology major until December of my senior year. So it was pretty close in terms of graduating, and I graduated I think was in June at the time. I was the first geology major to graduate from Oshkosh so that's still listed in the alumni news letters that they send out in listing according to chronology. I talked to other alumni that I've run into since then and they say oh is that you and I say yup that's me, its kind of neat to have that.

JS: so your major was told you would have your major on a promise that they 00:18:00would eventually get it that must've been a little sketchy coming into your senior year.

TD: yeah exactly I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen but they kept saying oh were going to get it but I understand now it has to be approved through the whole university and by the state and the board of regents and everything. We just got a masters degree approved in our environmental science department and that took about 2 years. It's pretty standard to move slow like that. So it worked out.

JS: I remember last time you telling me about the registration for classes and how grueling that was can you elaborate on that?

TD: Yea because enrollment was increasing so rapidly and nothing was automated 00:19:00like I said computers didn't exist and you know calculators didn't exist and there was no such thing as a calculator they did have some things called adding machines but everything was done basically by hand you had to go to one office to another to do just about everything, I think for each course you had to go to the individual department and get registered with the apartment and there were lines you just had to stand in for days at a time to get everything taken care of it was pretty grueling waiting in line for an hour or two and then go wait in line some more. By the time I was a senior I think they had straightened it out somewhat but it was still pretty messy.

JS: Yeah I can imagine, it must've been a lot worse than we have to now, what we have to do now is go sign up online and its pretty easy.

TD: yeah there was nothing like that.

JS: you signed up at the very beginning of the semester correct?

TD: yeah

JS: now we sign up about signed up a few months ago already we sign up pretty much the beginning of the semester before so it's pretty weird to hear.

TD: that's the way our school works too it allows the school to plan better in terms of classes to see if classes have low enrollment or crowded if its low they can cancel a class if its crowded maybe they can make another section or something like that its better in a lot of senses students can plan a lot better.

JS: can you tell me a little bit about what your classes were like on why you decided to take some classes or if you understand what I am saying

TD: yeah most of the classes were fairly small the big lecture type things hadn't really hadn't been introduced at first they came a long by the time I was a junior or a senior I think my beginning math and history and stuff had like 20 or 30 students in each of the classes geology had a few more maybe like 40 or 50 00:22:00but not a lot by the time I ended up taking I think it was biology that was in one of the big lecture rooms in one of the science halls at Halsey I think it had maybe a hundred or more or so maybe but to begin with most of the classes were relatively small. That's why you got to know the teachers and had a chance to become familiar with you at least.

JS: was there any big construction projects on campus while you were there? \

TD: o yeah there was a lot of construction going on all the time because enrollment was growing they were building new buildings I think I said the science hall Halsey was built at the time was that physics now? I can't 00:23:00remember. Is that right? Physics or math or something?

JS: its pretty much like everything now

TD: everything, ok but that was built at the time a lot of the dorms were built at that time I'm trying to remember the names of the dorms right off hand, o Scotts, is it north Scott and south Scott?

JS: yeah I stayed in south Scott

TD: is that right?

JS: yeah I was in south Scott last year.

TD: ok yeah. Those I think were built after I left but the other dorms were built while I was there Scott towers where there when I came back and taught in 1981-1982 I think it was. But there was, I can't remember what else I think the 00:24:00student union was constructed during that time frame. So yeah there was a lot of stuff going on

JS: yeah it seems like it that there was a lot of construction going on. I remember my teacher telling us about this I cant remember what time period he said it was but the I think it would have been High street or Algoma one of the two they were still high speed road almost I guess you could say it was like 45 m.p.h. was it still that.

TD: yeah that's true I remember that. Then as the other buildings got built the 00:25:00dorms were in there and Kolf center got built, that was after I left I think but then you know they added the school zones, yeah they used to be big thoroughfares for the city and turned them into one way streets and going kind of parallel to the river those were some of the main avenues as of transportation goes, go from downtown to other areas. I want to think Algoma connected to highway 110 and I think they changed that now to 45, that goes out of town towards Winneconne and I cant remember what else it also hooks up with highway 22 and goes across the river to Omro and generally west.

JS: yeah all those fun little towns. So now my favorite part of the conversation 00:26:00is the Track and Cross Country. So can you elaborate on when you started Track and Cross Country, you started Track in high school can you start off with that?

TD: Well I mentioned I went to a new high school so first several years I was there they didn't have a track team they just had the basic teams you know football and basketball and that was about it I had tried out for basketball several times and I tried out for football but by that time I had started working at Leon's and football starts in the summer, during the summer I was 00:27:00pretty busy I was working 35 hours a week and so I was working 30 to 35 hours a week and they were doing 2 a days I was just beat you know so anyway that didn't work out but they started track my senior year and I mentioned last time that I had started running and that was something that was kind of unusual at the time one of the coaches that we had for physical education just told us running is good for you it gets you conditioned if you run it will help your athletics and in my family had always been athletic and my father played ball my brother was a good baseball and the older developed to so you know and he said running is good 00:28:00for you well what happened was that I had a paper route out in the country and one cold day in January when I went out to do the paper route my bicycle had a flat tire I said oh gees well I'll have to walk the papers, I started walking and I remember the coach said well its good to run. So I started jogging between every other mail box because its out in the country the mail boxes weren't that far apart but the whole paper route was upward of a mile or so and so I did every other mail box and I found out that I had done that faster than I had done that on my bicycle. So from then on I just started doing that till I could run the whole thing that's how I started running so when track started I said well I can run so I went out for track and I think I was the only person that could 00:29:00really run a whole mile, it was pretty unusual then for distance running. In fact I remember at times and even in college I would be running along the streets to maybe go to Menominee park that's where our cross country course was and would practice running that I would be right along the streets and people I knew friends from high school friends would pull over and say hey Tim what's going on? What you doing? I said running. They said why? Where did your car break down? Something like that I said no I'm running to run and that was totally unusual at the time.

JS: I remember some movie about the early days of running and how it was a weird thing that no one understood why people did it

JS: yep something not at all people thought at all of people doing, it's interesting.

JS: can you elaborate on why you decided to join cross country your freshman year?

TD: well I mentioned that the high school was too small that they didn't have cross country in fact I hadn't heard of it. My brother who had gone to UW-Madison came back and knew that I had ran track my senior year in high school and he said to me during the summer said hey you ought to think about running cross county they have these races in the fall and they run like 2 or 3 miles, and I was like what, 2 or 3 miles? Are you kidding? It was like a super long 00:31:00distance then, the mile was considered a distance event you know? So I started doing longer runs once a day or something like that running like 2 and a half miles or so and so it was the paper route and so I was in fairly decent shape. I talked to the cross country coach and he said yeah we heard you were coming here and we would like to have you on the team, I went out for the team and I trained with them.

JS: like I said last time I was very impressed with your first cross country meet it was in La Crosse and you took 4th by like a split second and you were first on your team. So can you elaborate a little bit on that one?

TD: yeah that was kind of funny looking back on it but the race was held in La 00:32:00Crosse and I had never ran a cross country race before, we had time trials I think that was in Menominee Park but that's really flat you know not much change in elevation the biggest change was when we went across the foot bridge or something like that, like 4 or 5 feet high. When we got to La Crosse and that's right on the Mississippi River it had these huge bluffs and hills and stuff and I was just kind of siked out about it and I couldn't really keep up and the coach kinda joking around and said we were going to have to run the highest one and was almost a vertical cliff and I knew that wasn't true but there were some pretty good hills on it the other runners from La Crosse knew the course so they were able to plan it a little bit better and a guy caught me right at the end of 00:33:00the race. Basically I think it was .05-second difference or something like that, that was a lesson I learned a lesson.

JS: as the paper put it, it was a miraculous photo finish. Last time I mentioned I didn't know what the Oshkosh Harriers and the Thinclads were.

TD: the Harriers were a term that was used to describe cross country runners and Thinclads referred to the track team, I don't know exactly where those terms came from but those were things that were used then and I haven't seen them fly 00:34:00since then neither, so its something a little bit different for sure. But it was used several times wasn't it? Not just a single usage right?

JS: yeah because I kept finding it in all of the papers I'm like what does this mean? I'm like this is something I have to ask him

TD: right

JS: I was very impressed by your times that you ran, you won conference was it your, you won two times right or was it just once? For cross country.

TD: I won the cross country once and I won the mile conference twice but I finished second and third in the conference cross country meets I finished third 00:35:00in my sophomore year and I won it my junior year and I finished second my senior year. Part of the think was during my junior year in track I had broken my leg in the track meet.

JS: oh wow

TD: yeah and I couldn't finish out the season, it was a stress fracture but it was enough were I had to wear a cast and then also that summer I went on what's called geology summer field camp something that's required of all students and we attended UW- Milwaukee because Oshkosh didn't have a field camp at that time and we went from Wisconsin all the way to Alaska along the Alaskan highway, 8 00:36:00weeks it was a great experience in terms of seeing things and getting out doing geology and climbing mountains 5,000 feet in a day so after that I wasn't afraid to run hills.

JS: I can imagine not

TD: it made a difference, but then as a result when I came back I wasn't in great shape you know in I don't know how long I don't know 6 months with out much running, it was climbing and that's good but I didn't have running and I just wasn't in great shape to start the season, I got better as I went on but it turns out there were a couple of good runners from Whitewater and that was pretty much a rivalry, before I had beaten 2 good runners one was a conference 00:37:00champion and I beat him my junior but then the guy that was a freshman when I won and he developed into a very good distance runner in fact he placed at nationals several times. I heard that sometime later he had won Chicago city marathon I think

JS: wow

TD: something like that, so he was a very good distance runner and I finish I don't know how far behind him senior year. The thing that I like and the thing that I was more satisfied with is the fact that we won the conference championship as a team. That and also my senior year we won the track conference 00:38:00championship. The year before when I had been injured, when I had broken my leg I couldn't run and Oshkosh ended up tied for the conference championship with I don't know who but I remember saying gees if I were running I could have placed 5th and gotten 1 point or something like that, so its frustrating. I think that helped in terms of getting motivated for the cross country season and for the track season.

JS: yeah your cross country time that I am still very impressed by when you won the conference meet was a 17:10 for 3 ½ miles at river falls and I thought it 00:39:00was very good. That would probably do very good now still.

TD: yeah I guess so, that's correct we had a good team several times through those years and it was competitive, and work outs and everything else, so that all helped. I think I mentioned that by the time I got to be a junior we had a good coach, it started out in cross country I think my freshman year the first coach was essentially a swimming coach and he didn't know anything about running, I mean not many people did back then and so the training that we did was go out and run about 5 miles or what ever it was. There was some interval work on the track and I'm tying to remember who else we had for track coach, I 00:40:00think for the track coach we had a wrestling coach and the next year we had for cross country we had I don't remember I think we had for track my sophomore year was the basketball coach who was given the assignment he didn't know anything about running period, just go out and run as I said in high school I had a coach that had been a state champion in the shot put and what he said was go out and run as hard as you can as fast as you can every time and if your not doing that its not doing you any good. That's just what we know now is totally ridiculous you're going to end up hurting yourself well that's maybe why I broke my leg. Nonetheless things really changed the coach that we had when I was a junior Jim 00:41:00Flood was a very good coach both from the standpoint of having knowledge about running and about conditioning in general in terms of the person and someone you could tell who cared and could tell what was going on and he was the one who really put it in my mind that I could in fact have a chance to win because I think it was early on in my junior year I saw the swimming coach who had been the cross country coach from the first year I was there and he saw I was doing well and he said well maybe when you're a senior you can win and Jim Flood looked at him and said no no this year you can win. Like we said having someone 00:42:00believing in you makes all the difference in the world it helped a lot.

JS: yeah it does help a lot

TD: as I'm sure you know right? Doesn't that help you when somebody expresses something about your ability.

JS: that's why I like my coach that we have now she's really helpful with all knowing what she does very well. Your senior year you broke the mile record and you kept breaking your own record throughout the year and your final time was a 4:17 so can you elaborate on that?

TD: Well once again Jim Flood was the coach and he was good at training us in 00:43:00fact in my junior year, when I broke my leg, I had run in for 4 or 5 races I think and the day that I had broken my leg it was in the 3 mile but I had already run the mile and I had broken the conference record at that time I think that the conference record was 4:24 and I had run a 4:23 which was my best time to that day but then I broke my leg but soon I was able to come back my senior year I had been running in cross country and it would help me out with baseline 00:44:00and conditioning so I was in better shape that I was for the start of the cross country season and I started training and coach Flood was good about alternating hard days with easy days and doing training that helped develop your speed and your endurance like not all of us run a quarter mile or what ever, that made a difference. The other thing I mentioned he had us run a mile at 3 mile pace that is about a 5-minute mile and 75 second quarter and I remember thinking that's actually pretty slow. As we developed he had us run hard races and at one point my senior year he said we are going to see how fast you can run just a single 00:45:00quarter of a mile and its going to be your main workout for the day and I ran under 60 seconds under a minute that was the first time I had ever done that in my life and I realized that I had more speed than I thought but you had to be developed he did a good job of bringing that along and I think I ran a 57.5 and I said if you can do that well then running a 63 or 64 or even 62 it is defiantly not as bad and psychologically, mentally it makes a difference. I was doing that I would kind of plan races and say you know figure out who I was racing against and there were some good distance runners I'm trying to think, 00:46:00the year I broke my leg, I went to the conference meet was in Madison and the guy who ran it won, I think he set a new conference record of 4:19 or 4:20 and he was a pretty good runner but I knew he also started out real fast and I didn't think to do that and I would just let him go and he would lead for a lap or two but then I tried to maintain a steady pace at 62 or 63 or something like that 64 maybe in the middle laps and try and pick it up for the last lap we 00:47:00could kind plan in that regard and figure out how to pace yourself and psychologically know what to do in the end. That helped quite a bit.

JS: I can imagine it would

TD: the other part that I didn't talked about last time when we chatted was after I graduated and went to graduate school in Huston at Rice University and I got hooked up there with a track club and there was a guy there who just volunteered to train people he just showed up at the track at Rice University everyday and we would train we had like 20 or 30 people and he would train and he had been alternate on the 1960 Olympic marathon team.

JS: Wow

TD: he had trained a Hungarian coach that had defected in 1956 in the Olympics in Australia and he had a method of training where 6 days a week we would work out on the track and run intervals and that sounds pretty boring, distance runners get out an especially and go run cross country run through the parks and through the woods or whatever but this guy was really amazing in terms of what he could do and he just basically understood how things were going and he kinda understood people everyday he had a dozen or two dozen people and he would train and he would meet with them I remember seeing him and he would come and look me 00:49:00right in the eye and ask how do you feel today and sometimes he would put his hands on my shoulder and say you feel ok? And Id tell him the truth and the other moments we had, he was a good distance runner as well at the top 20 times for the 3 mile one year and see if we could fool him and you know and say sometimes oh I feel really good or I feel really tired and it wouldn't make a difference. He would give us a hard workout and that's what he thought we needed to do and well he succeeded in getting me to do a lot of interval work and faster interval work and he would never, maybe once a week not event that he would maybe he would use the stop watch and time you other than that he would just say run easy and run hard something like that or all out.

JS: wow

TD: and he would have us do those workouts and have us compete against one another and that made a real difference I was able to run a quarter mile in 52 seconds and lowered my mile time to 4:07, yeah I was training a lot getting used to twice a day and in the summer time it got to where I was running over a hundred miles a week.

JS: Gees

TD: yeah I mean I was into it, I was good and we had a good nucleus of a team our cross country team got beat by Howard Payne University, I might have 00:51:00mentioned that they were national champions for the NAIA at the time and one of the best in the nation we lost to them by one point and we had a bunch of good runners including a guy who ran a 13:20 3 mile something like that

JS: wow that's pretty good

TD: so that was an amazing experience and again he really changed the way I thought about running it helped in a lot of ways in terms of building endurance in building speed and the way he did it, 6 days on the track never got boring he have you something different to do 100s, 150s, 220s, 330s, 440s, half a mile, just mix it up so it was always kind of interesting.

JS: yeah it doesn't sound like it would be boring, especially if you love running.

TD: yeah exactly

JS: so I'm going to shift gears a little bit here I remember last time you telling me about how you joined the army and you went and taught geology stuff over in Europe, can you elaborate on that?

TD: yeah I did originally go to graduate school and I was working on my Masters degree in geology and then I was drafted. It was during Vietnam but there were a couple things that I weren't quite finished with some things with my Masters but I finished all my course work and finished all my field work in geology collecting samples and all the lab work and I was about to be drafted and was in 00:53:00Huston and was the day before I was going leave and to get on the plane and come back to Oshkosh to be drafted and my thesis advisor called me in and he said oh are you leaving tomorrow and I said yeah that's right can you stop by in the morning before you leave and I said well okay I said why? We will have your thesis defense then and I said what? I was not barley prepared but I went in and postponed the flight again I didn't leave that day, I had a rough draft of the thesis and basically I had finished everything for the masters and they recommended that I do a little bit more lab work so I had been reading about the draft, there were big protest movements about how to get out of the draft because my father had served in World War II and my three uncles I didn't think that was right if you lived in the country and you are able to serve the country 00:54:00that you're in and when they said I was to be drafted I read things that you can do to kind of fight them off and in fact eventually I received five different draft notices from 2 different presidents from Johnson and Nixon and I got four of them postponed but the last one I got postponed but the fourth one by switching objection centers from Wisconsin to Texas to Houston, from Oshkosh to Houston and that gave me another 6 weeks and so I was able to finish up a lot stuff and I was drafted in Houston and once again the day before I was drafted, probably one of the best things that my thesis advisor ever did was called me in his office again you're getting drafted again? And I said yeah, had you ever 00:55:00heard of this scientific man power commission? I had seen something about it but it didn't stick with me but he said you should really give them a call and he gave me the number, back then we didn't have cell phones and so I had to use a pay phone I got like five dollars worth of quarters and went to the student union where the nearest pay phone was located and called Washington D.C. and a lady answered on the other end and I said hello I'm about to be drafted and she said okay what's your name, when are you being drafted what's your educational status, what's your specialty and it took five or ten minutes and less than five dollars but after I got out of basic training I was assigned to be a topographic surveyor and that's a lot better than being in the infantry or whatever and I 00:56:00got sent to fort Bellhorn and eventually I got sent to Germany and I was able to finish my masters degree while I was in the Army I got two weeks leave after basic training I had two weeks of sick leave and two weeks of leave before I got sent to over seas and finished everything in masters and graduated while I was in Germany well one of my officers had seen this evidently, he called me in and I thought that I made a mistake or messed up somehow and put me on KP doing something and he turned out to be a real nice guy he said hey I just read this and it said you have a masters degree and I said yeah and he said well you should go talk to University of Maryland European division they teach courses and in fact I had taken a German class from them they teach courses and they need geology the only science one they offer I didn't know that and so I went 00:57:00into an office and went to the headquarters for University of Maryland and was Heidelberg which wasn't far from where I was stationed was oh 12-15 miles and I talked to the director of science and math and it turned out to be this little old German lady and I when I was walking in I think that I was a PFC then an E3 then dressed in my OD uniform so you know not an officer or something like that I went into her office and I knocked on the door and she said yes what can I do for you in German I said I would like to see if I can teach geology for you and she said what makes you think you can teach geology and I said well I have a masters degree she said oh you have a masters degree she said come on in she 00:58:00took me into her office and turns out she had just taken a course in geology in a local university and had been on a field trip and had collected some samples and she had brought them out and she said now what is this again I said well that's quartz its one of the most common minerals on earth and she said oh yea that's right and what's this? I said that's caliphate and she said oh yeah yeah okay so we talked for and hour or two and she hired me and I taught a couple times while I was in the Army at night and I eventually got appointed full time and I had just been married to my first wife at the time and I got out in Europe and taught in various places I got to travel around Europe and visit a lot of places and mostly in Germany several different places in Germany, in Belgium, Italy, Greece twice in Greece, Turkey and I visited a lot of places in that 00:59:00around that area so it was a pretty good experience.

JS: I can imagine yeah

TD: yeah defiantly and I got interested in teaching so I wanted to teach at the university level and you have to have a PhD so I decided to try and come back and get a PhD.

JS: so is that why you came and taught here for a little while again in 81-82

TD: yeah I was in the process of getting my PhD and I was not a teaching assistant anymore I worked for a couple of years for the state of Texas geologic survey but then I decided I just wanted to finish my degree and one of my former 01:00:00professors at Oshkosh called up and evidently heard this somehow and wanted to know if I wanted to teach there for a year as a sabbatical replacement a person who taught me mineralogy and petrology and some other classes was on a sabbatical leave for a year and so I went up there and taught for a year and I helped to kind of solidify my thoughts and ideas on teaching and the next year I was able to finish my dissertation and graduate with a PhD

JS: wow pretty cool

TD: it took a while

JS: I can imagine yeah

TD: I went through a divorce at that time too so that was kind of unsettling

JS: I have to get to class soon but I have one more question for you I will end the recording then I will end the recording and then ask you the questions 01:01:00because it doesn't need to be on the recording (house keeping stuff)