Wallace Lee (interview) (Oral History)

Wallace Lee (interview)

Lee, Wallace

Doherty, Shannon

Pack, Andrea

90 mins

Coverage: 1960s-1990s
Topics discussed : (side A): Background at WestConn; started around 1965 and taught for 29 years; believes WestConn was still a teacher's college; Bob Holberg and Chester Floyd; other members of math department when he arrived; Math department; only 3; 4 offices for entire math department; Physical changes of WestConn; Westside wasn't here when he began; Westside; his office did move there later; taught some classes there, but also taught at Midtown; Retirement; retired about 1995; enjoyed teaching, but enjoys retirement now; spends time at War Memorial now; Background; originally from Queens, NY; graduate from John Adams high there; received bachelors degree from Teacher's College of CT (now Central CT State University); began living in CT after going to school here; Curriculum changes; got into math because he could use his mind more than hands; now math is heavily involved in computers, which is essential; graphing calculators and the benefits of using them; Computers; have made math much more easier; they have speeded the mathematical process up; have benefited math and will continue to do so; got into using them his last few years teaching; Faculty and computers; professors should start reorienting themselves to using them; Basic fundamentals of math; computers will speed up the learning; not essential to know everything; Student changes; student demonstrations on campus during Vietnam War; he took part in some demonstrations; some conflict (non; physical); Quality of student; has had both good and bad from beginning to retirement; not much difference over the years; Teaching of math; never taught any teaching of math courses; only upper level courses; Faculty participation; little activity in working conditions and salaries in beginning; what state said the faculty went along with; AAUP; was involved w/ it; was president of it on campus; went to national conventions; thought it wasn't strong enough to make changes; elite schools like Harvard, etc, were a part of it; needed a union that was less elite; AFT (American Federation of Teachers); affiliated w/ AFL; CIO; he started up chapter at WestConn and grew to be largest on campus; worked w/ Sen. William Baker; both began chapters at all 4 CSU schools; Wayne Baker; head of labor department in state; worked w/ him to get AFT set up at the CSU schools; backed by the AFL; CIO; AFT won at Western, but AAUP at the other 3; AFT President; was a former president; John Encrichrot was first (in English department); Danbury Labor Council; was president of it for 10; 11 years; Changes at WestConn after AFT; salaries went up; departments allowed to choose their department chairpersons; Animosities between administration; the administration benefited from unions; have their own as well; NEA and AFT; NEA not affiliated w/ AFL; CIO; Bob Chase, Danbury resident and president of NEA, has said want to merge w/ the AFT; such a merger would benefit teachers; which union a teacher joins depends on where they work; Governor Meskill; cut money for education while governor; Ella Grasso; was a state representative before she became governor; he met her in Washington, DC during and AFT convention there; urged her then to run for governor of CT

1998

Universities and colleges--Administration

ms012_11_42_lee

00;00;01;16 - 00;00;24;12
Interviewer 1
This interview took place in April of 1998. Between interviewers Andrea Peck and Shannen Doherty and interviewee, while as the A math teacher, retired math teacher at Western Connecticut State University in the basement of Y Hall for Dr. Jennings Introduction to Historical Research Class.

00;00;24;14 - 00;00;26;27
Lee
Of the days, you know, you're going to have to look up the date.

00;00;26;28 - 00;00;35;27
Interviewer 2
We sure are looking more for a general perspective of the university and how it's changed perhaps during your tenure.

00;00;35;29 - 00;00;47;00
Lee
So I can say that I started here around 1965, around 1965 at 20 of the 29 years. This kind of thing is.

00;00;47;03 - 00;00;48;11
Interviewer 2
What you do. Exactly.

00;00;48;13 - 00;01;13;15
Lee
Okay. And when I got here in 1965, it was still a teachers college, I believe. And Bob Hallberg and Chester Floyd, I think, were the other three members of the math department when I got here. And I was the fourth. I might be begetting somebody, but.

00;01;13;17 - 00;01;15;07
Interviewer 2
I don't call that the train.

00;01;15;07 - 00;01;26;14
Lee
Car. That's right. And those offices are still being used. But that was it. There were just around three, four, three or four offices for the entire math department.

00;01;26;16 - 00;01;33;14
Interviewer 2
What other physical changes happened during your tenure that you can remember as far as the campus?

00;01;33;17 - 00;01;36;29
Lee
The new campus didn't exist at that time.

00;01;37;01 - 00;01;46;01
Interviewer 2
Was that the. Yes. Did you do many courses or teach many courses over there? And that's all you. So your focus changed?

00;01;46;04 - 00;01;56;15
Lee
Yes. My office was over there and I taught some classes there, but I also taught some classes here on the main campus. So we'd go back and forth.

00;01;56;17 - 00;01;58;02
Interviewer 2
When did you retire?

00;01;58;05 - 00;02;16;05
Lee
I retired about three years ago and I haven't regretted it. I enjoyed teaching very much, but now, instead of, you know, spending time here on the campus teaching, I go to the War Memorial and I work out.

00;02;16;07 - 00;02;23;13
Interviewer 2
For a I detect a New York accent maybe. Did you grow up and say, I'm from New York or Queens yet?

00;02;23;15 - 00;02;50;28
Lee
I was on Park. I lived in Woodmere long Island for a while, and then we moved over the Ozone Park and I graduated from John Adams High School in Queens and went to the New Teachers College of Connecticut, where I got a bachelor's degree. And Teachers College of Connecticut is now central Connecticut State University. So I after I got out of.

00;02;51;00 - 00;02;55;24
Unknown
School in New York, I.

00;02;55;27 - 00;03;06;05
Lee
Suddenly went to Teachers College in Connecticut and I started living in Connecticut. And I've lived in Connecticut ever since.

00;03;06;07 - 00;03;33;17
Interviewer 2
I was I was so fortunate to get where originally we were going to collect coffee or bring a coffee over and maybe it cost you in your front yard and you bought like a hard copy or something worked out that you were able to come by here specifically to your field. We were wondering if you noticed a curriculum change during your tenure, being that the national trend has been more towards science and math.

00;03;33;20 - 00;03;37;08
Interviewer 2
I wonder if you could expand on that.

00;03;37;10 - 00;04;01;03
Lee
Well, when I started teaching and one of the reasons I went into mathematics was because I, I don't feel comfortable using my hands, you know, mechanical things that I'd much rather work with my mind. And math was just perfect for me because this is that I was going to be teaching of courses that that, you know, wouldn't change.

00;04;01;05 - 00;04;28;03
Lee
And, you know, I felt I could do it and I enjoyed doing I, I still enjoy doing puzzles. I do the crossword puzzle every day in The New York Times and the News Times. So I'm probably more at that. I like to deal with problems and use my mind and math at that time was just perfect for me and I enjoyed it very much.

00;04;28;05 - 00;05;05;10
Lee
Now math is getting very involved with computers and it has to be that way. I, I definitely feel that the teaching of calculus should students should work with graphing calculators because the graphing calculators do the arithmetic type of work and leave you with the actual mental problems that are involved. In other words, it's just like an accountant adding up a whole bunch of numbers.

00;05;05;12 - 00;05;07;20
Lee
It's much easier if he does it on a machine.

00;05;07;22 - 00;05;08;15
Interviewer 2
The legwork.

00;05;08;18 - 00;05;26;24
Lee
Yeah, because anybody can do it. It's just going to take a lot of time if you do it, you know, adding up one well at a time. But if you've got a calculator, it does it so much faster. It's like, it's like somebody learning how to walk, you know, you've got to know how to walk before you can run.

00;05;26;26 - 00;06;03;15
Lee
And if you can do away with the walking and just go to the running, it just speeds things up. You know, you get to the place where you're going to at a much faster rate if you run instead of walking. And that's the use of the calculators, you can run instead of walking. So I really believe that computers and graphing calculator is a very necessary in math because they free up, you know, a lot of your time so that you can be involved in the real essence of mathematics, which is the thinking portion of it.

00;06;03;18 - 00;06;07;26
Interviewer 2
So I think technology won't be a detrimental be, it'll be more of a benefit in the long run.

00;06;07;27 - 00;06;54;10
Lee
Absolutely no question in my mind and my last few years of teaching, I started getting into that. There's so much to it though, and it would require so much more work for me to really do an excellent job at it. And I was right at the point of retiring. And so, you know, I felt that I don't know how much how much it would have been worth for me to spend so much energy towards, you know, getting the knowledge for myself that I could, you know, in part to the students on how to use these technical facilities, because I'd only be teaching for another couple of years.

00;06;54;13 - 00;07;16;10
Lee
But I definitely think that somebody coming into mathematics right now must have a tremendous technical background so they can feel very much at ease using graphing calculators and computing machines to augment the teaching of mathematics, because it means he can go so much farther with the school.

00;07;16;13 - 00;07;38;06
Interviewer 2
That's interesting that you say that kind of academic generation gap between the I hadn't thought of it. I, I see it with, with children who know more about computers in their parents, but I hadn't thought of it in the student faculty. When you think that a lot of faculty are having to to reorient themselves towards that.

00;07;38;08 - 00;08;02;13
Lee
They should be. They definitely should be. In my estimation. There are some people that feel now we teach math the same old way, you know, just and we don't need any of these graphing calculators or computers to to help augment the work and just concentrate on the theoretical aspects of it. And, you know, that's their point of view, but it's not my.

00;08;02;16 - 00;08;20;15
Interviewer 2
Do you think it's beneficial that the fundamentals are still fine? I mean, how much is technology going to be going to detract from people's basic math, mathematics skills? How can they get from the walking to the running or to we just do away with with the walk?

00;08;20;17 - 00;08;40;04
Lee
Do you watch TV? Yes. How do you operate the TV remote? Do you operate it with a remote? Do you understand the making of the remote and the TV? You understand everything that that's involved in. You are being able to see a TV show.

00;08;40;06 - 00;08;46;19
Interviewer 2
As far as the logistics of production and things of that nature or just the actual everything.

00;08;46;21 - 00;08;54;08
Lee
Everything, everything. You understand, all the electronics involved, you understand all of the mechanics.

00;08;54;11 - 00;08;55;19
Interviewer 2
You can't say, No.

00;08;55;22 - 00;09;02;10
Lee
It's not necessary, is it, to understand what you see on the TV screen?

00;09;02;12 - 00;09;12;11
Interviewer 2
So you think this will free up the future generations minds to to grapple with the more abstract and maybe useful?

00;09;12;14 - 00;09;13;26
Lee
I think so.

00;09;13;29 - 00;09;44;29
Interviewer 2
With fractal geometry, perhaps some of the newer York. Hello. What changes have you seen in a during your tenure? Did you notice a certain time where student attitudes and student discipline was either at its highest or lowest? Then you see a certain period, perhaps the early seventies, or have you, which have been pretty much constant.

00;09;45;02 - 00;10;13;16
Lee
Of doing the Vietnamese war. Of course, we had student demonstrations here on campus and I was involved with the students in the Committee to End the War of the CW, which we set up here, which was, you know, an anti Vietnamese war student faculty group. And we had lots of things going on here on the campus and in the administration about all these things.

00;10;13;16 - 00;10;20;02
Lee
And there was some conflict on campus. Very interesting times.

00;10;20;05 - 00;10;21;21
Interviewer 2
Physical confrontations.

00;10;21;23 - 00;10;22;17
Lee
Not physical.

00;10;22;24 - 00;10;27;00
Interviewer 2
No. You know, just heated exchanges between.

00;10;27;02 - 00;10;46;19
Lee
Yeah. And you know, some people wanted to demonstrate and other people didn't want to demonstrate and you had that conflict going on. But at that time, you know, it was the student movement throughout the entire country. And it it had some ramifications here on the West campus for.

00;10;46;21 - 00;10;50;00
Interviewer 2
For distractions or you just probably.

00;10;50;00 - 00;11;14;11
Lee
Sitting type of things. Yeah, I, I don't think we had too many cases where classrooms were disrupted here at West Cowan, but there was talk of that and there was there was quite a bit of of of action at that time, you know, demonstrations against the war that didn't interfere with classes. So we, it was an interesting time.

00;11;14;16 - 00;11;27;13
Interviewer 2
Students would actually come in and disrupt a class or just from all the things that were going on. It was a, it was a distraction or disrupting class. Yeah. If there were active, you know, segments coming into classes.

00;11;27;13 - 00;11;29;23
Lee
No, nothing could.

00;11;29;25 - 00;11;30;20
Interviewer 2
Stop the war.

00;11;30;20 - 00;11;35;11
Lee
And so but there were demonstrations on campus.

00;11;35;13 - 00;11;38;01
Interviewer 2
Do you notice a difference in the quality.

00;11;38;03 - 00;11;45;22
Unknown
Of student in the student body?

00;11;45;24 - 00;12;09;10
Lee
From the beginning to the end? I've had some very good students and I've had some poor students, so I, I can't say that there's been too much of a difference in the quality, especially, you know, I taught math and so I had some good students and some not so good students. And I. I haven't seen that much difference through the years.

00;12;09;17 - 00;12;17;24
Interviewer 2
It didn't see the proficiency in math going up. Perhaps maybe towards the end of your tenure. Not pretty constant.

00;12;17;27 - 00;12;19;21
Lee
Pretty constant.

00;12;19;23 - 00;12;31;24
Interviewer 2
Pretty constant. Did you teach any. So I know Andrea and I are both in the elementary education program. Did you teach any courses focusing on teaching of, of mathematics?

00;12;31;27 - 00;12;34;13
Lee
Nothing. Why? I've never taught any of those course.

00;12;34;20 - 00;12;35;19
Interviewer 2
Really?

00;12;35;22 - 00;12;54;17
Lee
Mostly advanced where I taught some advanced and general mathematics courses. But, you know, that was one, one aspect of the department that I didn't get into.

00;12;54;19 - 00;12;58;08
Interviewer 2
And as they come out of question.

00;12;58;10 - 00;13;00;09
Lee
The, I could at some.

00;13;00;15 - 00;13;01;01
Interviewer 2
Point I.

00;13;01;01 - 00;13;31;25
Lee
Could, I could tell you that when I first came here, there was very little faculty participation in their working conditions. And their salaries. For instance, you know, it was more or less the state says this is the way it's going to be done. And that's, that's it. And, I was very much involved in the AP when I first got here.

00;13;31;25 - 00;14;02;03
Lee
I became president of the AP here on the campus. And then, you know, and again then, I, I, I was pretty active in the AP, and I, I went to national conventions and I got a pretty good idea of what the AP was all about. And I felt that it wasn't a strong enough organization to really make changes.

00;14;02;05 - 00;14;33;07
Lee
they were more or less an elite organization. Most of the, the major colleges, were involved in the AP, the leadership. And the AP at that time was, you know, from Harvard, Yale, places like that, the elite schools where the professors, you know, received very high salaries in comparison with the salaries that we were getting. And they were more or less on a level with the administration.

00;14;33;07 - 00;14;51;28
Lee
And they didn't they didn't see any reason, you know, for being more militant. Well, you just got to work with the administrators and they'll take care of it for you. And we couldn't do that. You know, we were like workers and the administration in the state, you know, came down with the salary schedules and, you know, the benefits and what have you.

00;14;52;02 - 00;15;02;20
Interviewer 2
Do you think they had a there was a conflict of interest there, a little. Do you think they were manipulated or in cahoots with? No. Well, you know what? The administration.

00;15;02;22 - 00;15;27;19
Lee
If the work is and this goes for any type of organization, if the work is not organized and the management feels that they can, you know, do whatever they feel like without having any problems, naturally your benefits are not going to be as high as they could be. So that's that's the way the situation was at that time.

00;15;27;23 - 00;16;00;29
Lee
You know, we would, have meetings with them to, you know, increase things, but if they didn't want to go along with it, they, they just didn't, you know. So that was the situation. And so I felt the AP wasn't strong enough. in that sense to, to continue on. So I changed around a little bit and I became an advocate of the American Federation of Teachers, the AFT, which was affiliated with the as well.

00;16;01;06 - 00;16;30;01
Lee
I started up a chapter here and, it grew to the largest, organization on campus. And, I was, I work with Senator Wayne Baker and we were very instrumental, you know, the AFL CIO along with and we started up a TI chapters at all of the four state colleges at that time central.

00;16;30;05 - 00;16;32;16
Interviewer 2
If you were Senator or state senator.

00;16;32;16 - 00;17;13;22
Lee
State in Ohio State to make it Well, anyhow, we started up a 50 chapters of all of the four schools and we worked with Wayne Baker and we had the AFL CIO backing us and we had Wayne Baker at that time was the head of the Labor Department, the Labor committee in the State Senate, and we managed to put push through a collective bargaining agreement so that all four state colleges would be in one unit and we would have an election and we would choose the collective bargaining agent that we wanted to.

00;17;13;25 - 00;17;41;06
Lee
Before this time, we had collected what was called collective bargaining work. Like I said, we'd go there, we'd say, we'd like to have this, you know, we're falling behind here. And they just, you know, would pass this law. You know, we had no power like that. But this this way we had we got that bill through and we had a collective bargaining election, the 51 here at Western, but the U.P. one at the other three schools.

00;17;41;13 - 00;17;46;17
Lee
And so we became the collective bargaining agent, became the A U.P..

00;17;46;19 - 00;17;48;15
Interviewer 2
So it remains that way.

00;17;48;17 - 00;17;52;13
Lee
It's it's still remain that way. That's right. You feel you.

00;17;52;15 - 00;17;55;13
Interviewer 2
Were instrumental in getting that through? We got.

00;17;55;13 - 00;17;55;29
Lee
The collective.

00;17;55;29 - 00;18;03;22
Interviewer 2
By what they had to start again. That's right. And I happen to think yeah.

00;18;03;24 - 00;18;24;13
Lee
And that's that's one of the things that I'm most proud of, you know, working here at West Coast. I, I still remain. Well, I wasn't the first president, John. I, I was the first president. The AFL was involved in the English department, and I don't have a doctorate.

00;18;24;13 - 00;18;29;24
Unknown
By the way. I just have a masters degree from Notre Dame. And it was a.

00;18;29;26 - 00;19;09;27
Lee
Like I was the first president and then I became president after that after a while. And I also became president of the Danbury Labor Council, and I was president in the Labor Council for ten or 11 years. So I became very active in the after and the a the AFL CIO attended many national conference. That was where I spent a lot of my time, just about every week I'd have two or three meetings associated with Labor, you know, So that took me away from, you know, concentrating a lot in math and doing a lot of work in math.

00;19;10;03 - 00;19;15;04
Lee
I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but that's that's the way things turned out.

00;19;15;04 - 00;19;24;05
Interviewer 2
I think that's a worthy cause to be distracted by. When did you become federated with the AFL? What? What time were we talking?

00;19;24;08 - 00;19;26;08
Lee
Well, I don't know. I.

00;19;26;10 - 00;19;28;24
Interviewer 2
I, I'm 37 days around.

00;19;28;27 - 00;19;48;03
Lee
You could look up and see when that collective bargaining bill was passed is Wayne Baker was in the Senate at that time. Since then, out of out of that I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's a lawyer. Here is that time, you know, with the collective bargaining, even with the AAUP, you know, doing the bargaining salaries have gone up quite a bit.

00;19;48;03 - 00;20;07;15
Lee
Our working conditions have gone up quite a bit. We now can choose our own department chairmen. You know, the members of the department can choose rather than have the administration tell us who the department chairman was going to be. So a lot of the departments changed radically, and I think much for the better.

00;20;07;17 - 00;20;14;21
Interviewer 2
I was going to I was going to ask some other than salary, what were some of the other reforms you were trying to impose? So those.

00;20;14;21 - 00;20;16;13
Lee
Are some of the reforms.

00;20;16;15 - 00;20;25;04
Interviewer 2
And any small and particular peevish ones that you had in the margins of the agreement or those were your main ones.

00;20;25;07 - 00;20;26;27
Lee
Though those were pretty much the main ones.

00;20;26;27 - 00;20;29;15
Interviewer 2
I hated private rooms, stuff like that.

00;20;29;18 - 00;20;34;16
Lee
No, nothing, nothing like that. And, you know, did you think we've been.

00;20;34;16 - 00;20;41;26
Interviewer 1
Very religious since a lot of animals be from the administration because you tried to get this going, at least in.

00;20;41;28 - 00;21;08;04
Lee
I think the administration probably benefited a lot from it, too. As a matter of fact, mostly the administrators now belong to unions to ask me the American Federation of State, County and Municipal, once they started up their union. Also, we have to, after we got the collective bargaining, we had unions. So their conditions have improved quite a bit also.

00;21;08;06 - 00;21;11;11
Lee
So I don't think there was that much animosity from them.

00;21;11;13 - 00;21;16;06
Interviewer 2
How was that union tie in with the NEA?

00;21;16;09 - 00;21;44;12
Lee
Well, the NEA is not affiliated with the AFL. CIO, and for years and years those a lot of people in the party have worked for a merger of the two unions and just this year, Bob Chase, who is from Danbury, by the way, and is the the president of the National Education Association, the NEA, which covers the entire country from Denver, he's from Danbury.

00;21;44;18 - 00;22;11;03
Lee
He's come out with a statement saying that, you know, they want to have a merger with the AFL. He's meeting with Sandy Feldman, who is now the president of the AFC. And hopefully that that will take place. It's going to be up to the conventions to vote on that this year. And if it does come into being, then you'll have one of the most powerful unions in the entire country.

00;22;11;03 - 00;22;24;28
Lee
All teachers are affiliated with the NEA and the AFGE. That's big affiliates throughout every state in the country. That is going to be a very powerful union in the AFL.

00;22;24;28 - 00;22;42;17
Interviewer 2
CIO wonder what now? Is this too empty, just college faculty? Or when we become teachers, are we going to be asked to join that or are we going to be asked to join the NEA? I'm curious that, you know.

00;22;42;19 - 00;23;04;10
Lee
It depends on where you get a job, because for the last, I'd say six or seven years, the NEA in the area to have more or less a reach reaching agreement, not to read one another. When I first started out there was tremendous competition between the AFL and the NEA and there was reading going on all the time.

00;23;04;10 - 00;23;26;19
Lee
There were collective bargaining elections taking place all the time. I Do you want to vote for the NEA or the AP? And there was that competition last seven or eight years. There hasn't been too much competition like that, and both groups have agreed to work together. And that's why I feel it. You know, the time is right for a merger between the two groups.

00;23;26;27 - 00;23;58;16
Lee
The only thing that's been holding it back has been the affiliation with the AFL. CIO. The NEA at one time was very elitist. You know, we're teachers. We don't want to be associated with other common workers right now. I think that, you know, they realize that they need to help ordinary workers to get through their particular bills. Anything that helps education is going to help the children of the workers because they're the ones that come into the schools.

00;23;58;19 - 00;24;06;15
Lee
So, you know, it's a natural it's a natural type of affiliation. Right.

00;24;06;17 - 00;24;30;02
Interviewer 2
It's really helpful. Now, I'm glad Dr. Janick had mentioned that you were involved in the union, and I'm glad you brought it up, because I really did not touch on that. But you have anything else to. And I think that that's above all, really you could be being, you know, included in someone's dissertation because of the stuff.

00;24;30;04 - 00;24;58;07
Lee
That's right. And stuff. That's that's the that, that's what sets me apart from the other people too to you. I've been very active in that before and we had a terrific group of union people in years that once they got involved in it, once they found out what it was all about, you know, some of the teachers here, they became very good unionists.

00;24;58;09 - 00;25;24;24
Lee
We had demonstrations set up here. We picketed against the mayor skill when he was in town because of his anti teacher proposals and cutting back funding for the state colleges. This was when he was governor. I don't know exactly what the governor. Yeah, yeah. But we we had.

00;25;24;27 - 00;25;33;08
Interviewer 2
I don't know El Grasso's as far back. Wow. All right. Well, I think we could wrap it up.

00;25;33;10 - 00;26;03;22
Lee
I can tell you something about El Grasso. please. When she was a state representative for Connecticut, I remember we had a convention in Washington and AFL CIO convention, and I was there with Al Casale, who is one of the representatives for the state of TI. And we got an appointment to see Ella Grasso while she was in Washington, in York, and we went to see her.

00;26;03;22 - 00;26;15;17
Lee
And we urge to very much to run for governor of the state of Connecticut. And, you know, we let her know that labor was fully in back of it. And we we hoped that she would run it.

00;26;15;19 - 00;26;16;26
Interviewer 2
She was certainly one.

00;26;17;00 - 00;26;18;18
Lee
She was a state representative, state.

00;26;18;18 - 00;26;26;29
Interviewer 2
Rep, you know, really. And she ran she she was served two terms. I think she.

00;26;27;02 - 00;26;31;29
Lee
Was going to be more. Yeah. I think she died while she was screwed up.

00;26;31;29 - 00;26;48;12
Interviewer 2
Yeah. You know, that's one of my formative years. Who was the governor? We remember her as one of the one of the best mean. I don't know what we can substantively, but I.

00;26;48;15 - 00;26;57;22
Lee
Always feel that you had a little bit to do with it. Anyway. I know that was. That certainly was not any major cause, You know.

00;26;57;24 - 00;27;01;24
Interviewer 2
Certainly I don't think she would have been considered to have the backing of labor.

00;27;01;27 - 00;27;27;24
Lee
And she remembered it because there was one time when when we Labor wasn't too happy with it. She was laying off state employees just before Christmas. I thought that was a terrible thing to do. And I was in Hartford at the time and she was governor and a lot of labor leaders were trying to get into her office to speak to her and they couldn't get in.

00;27;27;26 - 00;27;55;27
Lee
And I just happened to be there. And I think it was I was by myself at the time. And I let word, you know, that I would like to talk to her and that I felt that she more or less owed it to me because I had been a strong supported supporter of her. And she gave me an interview with that time.

00;27;55;27 - 00;28;17;22
Lee
She let me come in to see her and I told her of my concerns and that I was disappointed and she listened to it all. And one of the reasons that she let me in and, you know, the other labor leaders that she's going to talk to you, you've got an appointment to see you because these you know, this is something like the president of the AFL, CIO for the state.

00;28;17;22 - 00;28;44;26
Lee
He couldn't get in to see her. You know, she just had had it with labor people all that time because we were coming down on her so badly for laying off state employees just before Christmas. And we thought that this was a horrible thing to do, even though it was a political type situation, you know, where she wanted the Republicans to do something and she was, you know, trying to show the public that she wasn't completely beholden to labor.

00;28;44;26 - 00;29;24;28
Lee
You know, they were they were criticizing her for that fact. And so this was her way of showing that, you know, she's she's strong. And, you know, she she she was not in the pocket of labor, so she did this. But I got in to see her and I spoke to her about it. And I think one of the reasons that she she let me come in to see her was because of the fact that I had supported her strongly in the past and that she also wanted to get some information about the president of the AFC at that time, Ron O'Brien, who she didn't like and who I didn't like either.

00;29;25;02 - 00;29;44;29
Lee
But with me about him, you know, after she heard of my complaint, she told me about how she wasn't too happy about what Grant O'Brien did to her at a particular meeting in the AFC. You know, a lot of the local sports, that's another interesting story. But that has more to do with unions than it does with West Coast.

00;29;45;01 - 00;30;07;14
Interviewer 2
Well, those kind of marginal things are the kind of things that turn out to be really valuable when we're doing this kind of a project, because you can start off somewhere and you can come to Dr. Janet Cohen in a couple of weeks and people talk about what their accomplishments in their lives and they really take your you're staying up to, you know, to write off, you know, this kind of stuff is really what makes up the history.

00;30;07;16 - 00;30;12;26
Interviewer 1
Okay. My tape recorder is playing around with me. If you stop me, if you starting back up.

00;30;12;28 - 00;30;15;04
Interviewer 2
So. Right. I think we're. All right.

00;30;15;06 - 00;30;16;18
Interviewer 1
Well, thank you for your time.

00;30;16;18 - 00;30;23;04
Interviewer 2
That's very kind to me. Yes. Nice meeting you. I will tell to.