Barnes
Today is February 12th, 2014. I am interviewing Scott [T.] Kidd, who served in the United States Navy. My name is Mark Barnes, and with me is Fernando Maldonado, who is working the camera. We are interviewing Mr. Kidd as part of the UCF Community Veterans History Project, and as research for the creation of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording this interview at UCF [University of Central Florida], in the city of Orlando, Florida. Mr. Kidd, or Scott, however you would like to be directed.
Kidd
Scott is fine.
Barnes
Scott. So, if you could just give us some of your early biography. Where were you born? Your brothers or sisters, mother, father?
Kidd
Sure. I was born in Richland, Washington. I have six brothers and sisters. Single-parent family. Raised there in the [19]60s. Left home when I was 15, as part of the late 60s-early 70s liberal generation movement. Early—bounced around the California-Las Vegas area. Got married.
Decided I would join the military and clean my act up, at a certain point in life. And then spent 12 years in the service. After multiple experiences there, I received a medical retirement, due to some contamination from a command I was with.
And moved on into real life. I opened a couple of businesses. got into broadcasting. And now, I run a company that is involved in putting science and technology companies together with young students in order to do career guidance.
Barnes
Good. And what year did you join the Navy? And what were your reasons for choosing the Navy over other services branches?
Kidd
I joined the Navy in actually February of—yeah—February of 1983. And, at that time, we were busy—the United States, in particular, was busy—enjoying a massive recession. Huge unemployment. Eighteen percent—18 to 20 percent interest rates on home loans. There was a lot of convulsions there, and I had a young family that I needed to be able to take care of. So, like many people, I joined for the job. I selected the military, because—quite frankly, I selected the Navy, because they gave me a bonus, which came in quite handy at the time. So like many people in the military who joined, it was for the money—for the job.
Barnes
And what were some of your first experiences coming out of boot camp—some of your first assignments?
Kidd
Okay. here’s a little entertainment. First place, I was—even though I was born in Washington, I sort of made my way to warmer clim[ate]s, like the L.A. [Los Angeles] and Las Vegas areas. When I joined the service, in February of 1983, the Navy and its infinite wisdom sent me to Great Lakes, Illinois, which is the north end of Chicago. Directly on the lake. Now for those of you unaware of it, it’s frickin’ cold up there [laughs]. So when you have a chill factor of minus 35 [degrees], it, ah, persuades you that—it gives you second thoughts about your [laughs] —your move to join the military. But any rate, I completed boot camp there, and my initial training—I was actually there for a best part of the year.
And my first duty assignment was in Norfolk, Virginia, with a ship called the USS Shenandoah—I forgot to mention it down there—brand new ship that had just been commissioned. I was what was known as a “boiler technician.” I was persuaded to become a boiler technician, because the recruiter I spoke to was a chief boiler technician who told me what a great job it was. And, oh, he lied [laughs]. I will tell you, this is not just for me, but through your conversations with anyone else in here, one of the most common refrains you will hear from folks who served in, ah—in any of the branches is that, “My recruiter lied to me.” [laughs]. That is just—it should be on Hallmark cards.
But regardless, when I started on board the Shenandoah, which was a tender ship—in other words, it was a repair ship, so it brought supplies and performed repairs on other ships while they were deployed. So we would accompany battle groups of ships that would go on cruises. For example, Mediterranean cruise would normally be scheduled to last for about six months. It would include an aircraft carrier, some destroyers, support ships, this-and-that, and we would—we were the type of ship that would go a long with that group in order to keep them functioning over that six month period. So my job was to work on propulsion—stuff which is what boilers were for. We built steam. Interesting experience.
It was also one of the first ships in the Navy that had a sexually-integrated crew. Because at that time, women were not permitted in contact—in combat roles. Because this particular ship was considered a support ship it was—it did not put anyone in direct combat. Ergo, you could have women sailors.
Barnes
What year was…
Kidd
That was 1984.
Barnes
What—when did you come to NTC [Naval Training Center] Orlando?
Kidd
I was stationed starting in June of 1989. I was—what was called? My first shore duty command, which meant that I did not have to go to sea for a while.
Barnes
And how did you come about getting that assignment?
Kidd
My assignment at NTC Orlando was actually with the subcommand RTC Orlando—Recruit Training Command. This is kind of important—an important distinction in that, as background, if—in order to get promoted in the military, you had to show your skill and availability, flexibility in different types of roles. Those roles would usually include assignments. Now, there were certain assignments that you could take in the Navy that enhanced your resume, and virtually guaranteed your promotion to the next level.
For enlisted people, promotion—you went through E[nlisted Rank] 6—is essentially strictly a test taking job. The Navy says how many it needs, you take a paper test, and if you score high enough on that test, you get promoted. The promotion to E-7—the E-7 through E-9 grades, which is senior enlisted, is based on different criteria, along with taking tests. It’s also a lot of interview and examination of your service record, what type of assignments you had, skill sets, etc. Performance-based. So, if you wanted to be promoted to E-7, which is kind of important for a number of reasons, you had to take some demanding assignments. RTC Orlando recruit—being a recruit company commander slot, there was one of those type of assignments that would get you—if you completed it successfully, odds are you were gonna get promoted .
Barnes
So you arrived in 1989 to…
Kidd
I was there through—through 1980—from ’89 through ’93.
Barnes
And what were your impressions of the base and/or the Orlando area when you arrived?
Kidd
Oh, Orlando’s beautiful, compared to Norfolk [laughs]. The base had—was a mixture of buildings that were 60 years old and brand new. From—the base, of course, was originally an [U.S.] Army—was an [U.S.] Air For—Army Air Force base built back in World War II. And it had been—in the 1960s—supposed to be closed, but Lyndon [B.] Johnson did a deal with one of the, uh, Congress people here for Central Florida, in order to get the congressmen’s votes for the Civil Rights Act [of 1965]. Lyndon Johnson did a deal with him—said, “Well, we’ll keep the base open instead of closing it so you have jobs.” And they transferred it over to the Navy. The Navy—you might note that we do live in Florida, and that Orlando is damn near as far from the water as you can get. So that might seem an odd place for a Navy base [laughs]. But any rate, that’s why it was there. But it was a beautiful base, and the city of Orlando of course was growing at that time. Lots of great building going on, lots of energy, sunshine. All things you might expect.
Barnes
So while you were at RTC, what were your responsibilities? Your day in and day out responsibilities.
Kidd
[coughs] I was what is known as a “recruit company commander.” Many people recognize that from what they are in the other services called “drill sergeants.” But the Navy being different, we’re recruit company commanders. It was our job to supervise folks who were brand new to the military experience—Navy, in particular—from the time they arrived on a bus until they had met certain standards and were prepared to go on to their first set of actual technical schools. We trained them in how to wear uniforms, appropriate sense of discipline, how to recognize military rank, appropriate forms of behavior.
The, uh—the recruit training experience is something that’s been around since Roman times. It is designed to take someone who is a civilian, with civilian values, regardless of where they come from, and first break down their identity as a civilian, for who they were in the first place, and then build them back up with a new identity—sense of recognition as a member of that military group. So that is what—that’s what we did over the course of eight weeks. We spent a couple of weeks being very nit-picky about any—any deviation from standards, by the quarter inch. Sometimes sixteenth of an inch. Once you did that—that normally took about two weeks—and from that point on, you would spend your time having them involved in basic classes—classroom activities—and then participation in group activities in order to build up that identity.
Barnes
And how did the recruits—obviously, they may have all been different—but how did the recruits seem to act to the environment, to the training, to the region, did they come in raw and left as…
Kidd
Left as sailors, which is what they were. It’s such a wide range. It is. But when you say how they reacted when they came in, that’s kind of the point. The point is you do have a wide range of individuals, and the point is to put them out in the end of that eight-week training as similarly as possible. So they all met certain standards. So we really didn’t care how they felt when they got there. We already knew that the system was designed to be uncomfortable for them. It was designed to be challenging.
An example is routinely you would—their first day of arrival, regardless, they would be scheduled to come in somewhere between ten o’clock at night and four o’clock in the morning. They would be herded into a—basically a dormitory room with bunk beds, regardless of what time they got there. With their stuff, whatever they carried on which was minimal, and their clothing. At 04:00—or four o’clock in the morning—myself and another person would come in and wake them up. It was not unusual for us to wake them up by banging metal trashcans, or using an air horn, or both. The idea was—thinking of it as shock and awe, because they would lead, for the next couple of weeks, 18-hour days, in order to—as part of that process to change their value system.
Barnes
Now did you guys—now you as an instructor, and you can answer for the recruits if you know as well, did you guys have normal off-base activities? Downtime? Anything that you guys liked to do?
Kidd
The recruits did not. During that eight-week training, uh—let me rephrase that. During the eight-week training period, the recruits would normally go through six weeks basically [coughs]—six weeks of training of varying intensities. Initially, extremely intense, a little less so, and more cerebral[?] as it went along, more detailed-oriented.
By the end of six weeks—normally somewhere—the sixth or seventh weekend, they were there. they would be escorted by company commanders like me to some type of off-base activity. Go to SeaWorld, or something else along that line. The following week they’d be allowed to go without escorts. Like that weekend when they graduated, which was either—normally the end of their seventh week. When they graduated they would have that evening to go out and do whatever they were—then they would come back they would have two or three more days before they actually left the base and went onto their next command. Depends on the schedule, on the way it fell apart.
So by and large, the company commanders—no. We, the company commanders, were horribly mistreated [laughs]. I’m sorry, I’m just playing. It was a very challenging duty for a company commander, because in the shipboard Navy, normally you deploy for six months. You’re gone from home, family, all the rest of that, the boat’s gone. And you go for shorter deployments, depending on what type of command you were on. It was nothing for shipboard Navy to be gone, physically, nine months a year from your home and family. Very strenuous.
Well, when you came to a training command here, it was just as bad. Problem was it was even more intense, and worse your family is just down the street from wherever you lived. So when—when we say it was intense for the recruits, understand the company commanders did everything the recruits did, were with them that entire time. Plus an hour before and an hour after. So it was not unusual for company commanders to have weeks where they averaged four hours sleep a night.
After—after three consecutive—the normal schedule was to train three companies, and then take a break from being a company commander to being an instructor in teaching classes, which was normal life. you actually had like weekends off. But for six months you were pretty burnt out [laughs]. The effect on company commanders being stationed there—the normal billeting there was a three-year duty. When you have orders to go there, you are expected to be there for three years. And the divorce rate there for married couples was an excess of 70 percent. It was just that strenuous, and demanding a duty. It was pretty intense. But for those people that survived it and did well, God bless them all.
Barnes
But you mentioned classes that recruits went to. What were some of the classes that they take?
Kidd
Recruits would go through classes—everything from an introduction to naval history. Teaching them about John Paul Jones— it was a very much—very light overview, very light, of the years the Mili[tary], the years the Navy got started, some of the high points, and very early naval history, etc. That type of thing. They would also go through courses—classes on basic hygiene, behavioral sense. I would call it “social and ethical education”, as in teaching what the standards were. We had class everything to naval history to rape awareness, all of which were taught be certified instructors like myself. So everything from how to wear your clothes properly, to the language of the Navy—as in, for example, what a “bulkhead” is. It’s a wall, by the way, if you didn’t know. All floors are decks. ceilings are overheads. There’s a shipboard terminology the Navy uses that no one else does. So you had to learn that. You also had to learn neat stuff like “bits,” “bites” as they applied to the Navy. They have nothing to do with high-tech, they have a whole lot to do with ropes [laughs]. So these are all things that—there’s a wide range of topics. Largely related to how to behave in a shipboard environment.
Barnes
Now did you instruct male and female recruits?
Kidd
Oh, yes. I did [laughs].
Barnes
So—so what was that experience like for the recruits? For the officers?
Kidd
For the—let me start with for the recruits, because I got a lot of feedback from them. This was a unique time in the Navy’s history—my particular time era—because of the fact that, while Recruit Training Center of Orlando had always—as long as the Navy had been accepting women—had been the training center for women enlisted recruits. In the late ‘80s-early ‘90s, the Navy as a policy made the commitment to do training of both sexes together in the same room. No separation. this-and-that and the other things. The Navy was very, very concerned, from a policy matter, that they—there would be problems involving throwing a lot of young people together in a stressed environment, where they might be encouraged to look for some release from that stress. What a stunning idea [laughs].
So in the Navy’s infinite wisdom, they made it the responsibility of the trainers and stuff to emphasize to these young men and young women every day that having sex was not a good thing. So you might want to imagine telling a drunk, “Don’t think about pink elephants.” So yes. It became challenging in that respect, and young women and young men, being what young women and young men are, there were some rather creative attempts to get around the rules there. Not a big deal. In the big scheme of things, it’s hardly—but it was more amusing than anything else. The point was that it added a note to the training environment that didn’t exist elsewise in the Navy.
And it also led to some major changes in the way recruits were actually trained. The history of training recruits is—regardless of branch of service, again—is very much tied into the process of breaking down the individualized identity in the first place, and rebuilding them. Anyone who has ever watched the movies knows that there’s a certain amount of blunt language that is used, and historically has been used. Well, the United States Navy, as training command, decided that that type of language was no longer to be used.
So within an environment where you have certain expectations by many of the recruits— come in expecting that this is going to be the toughest thing they ever did. some of them were a little disappointed. Probably a minority, but nonetheless you had folks who were very highly motivated to be there looking for the challenge of a lifetime. Those are a lot of recruits who came to the military simply because they were looking for direction. That was their number one reason for entering. It wasn’t because of job. it was because they wanted a sense of who they were within a larger community. I cannot count the number of kids—and I’ll say “kids,” because I was in my mid-30s and most of them were in their teens—who came to me after, upon completion of training or during it, and expressed their pride about being part of the organization, knowing what they were doing, having goals that were clear to them at that time. So by and large, for the vast majority of recruits coming through, boot camp—RTC Orlando—was a very positive experience. I think most of them—I never met one who afterwards[sic]—many of the kids I trained here, even 20 years later, are in touch with me via Facebook or something else, who haven’t expressed what a positive impact the experience had on their lives.
Funniest thing I ever—I actually had probably over the course of my three and a half years, 13 companies that I’ve pushed, which was pretty much the record. More than once, at the end of the training cycle for the kids, the eight-week period, when they approach their graduation, the night before their actual graduation ceremony, their parents and families would come to visit. And more than once, I’d have some young man come introduce me to his single mother. And then come to me afterwards and say, “I wish I had a dad like you.” Which was a little scary when you think about all the horrible things I said to that boy [laughs] not two months before that.
But that gives you an idea of how many of them looked at the experience—was something to go through. It was finite. They did it. They knew they were changed. For us, as the trainers, the vast majority of us were already set in our career goals. We already knew where we were headed, so it was a job to be done. Most of us took a great deal of pride in the job. Sometimes it was challenging. By and large, I can say this from my own experience. and I stay in touch with five or six folks from those times. Everyone shares relatively similar experiences. Both the joys and the frustrations. So, uh, it’s a job.
Barnes
There’s[sic] two features of the base we just want to kind of get your feedback on, and then you can let us know how they relate either to the base or to what you did. So that would be the Blue Jacket, USS Blue Jacket…
Kidd
Right.
Barnes
And then the Grinder.
Kidd
[laughs] I almost forgot about that being called the “Grinder.” The USS Blue Jacket was, at the time I was there, pretty much an unused reminder—mainly because by 1989, it had been there for 30-odd years. It was broken down, unsafe. Never went on board it. Never took recruits on board it. Because it would have cost money to fix, and that’s not what money got put into. But it was a little bit of humor for all of us there, because the Blue Jacket was physically located at one end of the “Grinder.”
The “Grinder” was—I think was a huge patio space—cement, you name it. But it was located there. you could see it. And it was nothing to march around in, or run around in, as the case may be. And there were people from the base maintenance crews who had the job of keeping it painted, and all the rest of that. But other than that, it really did not have—while I was there, and subsequent, because the base closed two years after I left—three years after I left. It really was nothing more than an ornament. Before that, I understood they used to do some facsimile training onboard simply to say, “This is a boat.” “This is a rope.” “This is a gang-way.” “This is a flag or pennant.” [laughs] And that’s fine. You need those things, but it was not used for that in my time.
Now the “Grinder”, on the other hand—one of the primary tools of training for all the boot camps—for all the services boot camps—particularly here, is marching. Marching means that you get a group of people together, you teach them to march in step as one. Their arms and legs moving at the same, each—left arm, left leg. Everything moving at the same time, to a certain rhythm, dressed a certain way. And the “Grinder” was where you taught them to do that. And you yelled at them a lot. And, you know, you played loud music—loud marshal music, in a lot of cases. In other cases, you played some serious, four-beat, rock’n’roll, because it all has the same beat if you get them to march to it. The fun—I won’t say fun, because it certainly wasn’t for them [laughs].
After the first six hours, if you’re out in the middle of the sun, it’s far less entertaining than you might think. But this is Orlando. It gets hot here. Certain times of the year you’d be out on the “Grinder”—you’d had companies who were out on the “Grinder” every day, or at least in the evening, for two or three hours at a time. At other times of the year, when heat and humidity didn’t allow for it, because of heat stress factors, you had companies that never—did not spend a single day on the “Grinder,” simply because physical requirements were such. they weren’t allowed to. They may have gone through basic swim instruction at some point, where they had to cross the “Grinder” to get to the training facility, but other than that, they simply never saw it. Which made a challenge for company commanders like me who had to teach them how to march. “It’s where?” [laughs] “Oh, okay.”
So—but you would also use the “Grinder” as a—let’s call it a “training tool.” As in, the companies would be in their particular barracks, and as a company commander, perhaps you were dissatisfied for some reason with the level or performance, or moral, or whatever other particular instance. So you might send your people out the back door, out onto the “Grinder”, and have them run around the “Grinder,” uh, at sometimes two to three times, and then report back in. And woe unto to anyone who fell behind [laughs]. And so you could use those as disciplinary, but…
BarnesSo were there any other structures on the base that you remember vividly that you used a lot? or recruits may have remembered vividly, because they trained a lot?
Kidd
Well, uh, classroom building, which I believe is still there. uh, but you had other than the cafeteria, uh, which of course was the primary spot for all of the recruits. Um, you had the firefighting command. You had what’s call WSMP, uh, which was—I hate to say water sports—water systems and physical training, which was the gymnasium and pool. Those are pretty much what the recruits saw for those eight weeks. They simply did not spend that much time unsupervised or as individuals. They just weren’t given it. Once they left that—that recruit training command portion of thing, there was a lot of the base to be seen, but they were not allowed to do that while they were recruits.
Barnes
Now did you ever spend on NTC as a non-recruit commander?
Kidd
Yes.
Barnes
And what did you do in that capacity?
Kidd
I taught at nuclear power school.
Barnes
Okay.
Kidd
I taught remedial mathematics. neat stuff like that. Kids who had, or for young men—it was always young men—who had signed up to go into nuclear power training. It was very high-end stuff for them. Some of them needed refreshers in their math in order to be able to handle the theoretical stuff in there, but that was just like being a classroom teacher anywhere. Normal 8-5 working hours. Monday through Friday.
Barnes
Now, at the time, was that the only nuclear training facility in the…
Kidd
It was the initial.
Barnes
The initial?
Kidd
The training pipe. I’m going to use the word “pipeline,” which many people recognize—as in like, there are varying points along there. Uh, in the military in particular, there’s always ongoing training, regardless of what you’re in. Recruit training is simply the very beginning of the pipeline. From that point on, regardless whether you’re going to be a, uh—if you’re planning on just going out as an E-1 to a ship someplace—“Congratulations. You’re gone.”
You are a seaman apprentice or a seaman recruit is what a[sic] E-1 is. You are going to go through additional training, just to teach you what a boat is all about. That’s called “apprentice training,” and that was also at Naval Training Center. It was separate from recruit training. Uh, for more technical schools, then there was[sic] various pipelines.
For example, nuclear power, which was one of the most restricted—restrictive—qualifications. Um, for someone to get into it they had to—well, of course, they had to be a high school graduate, but on top of that, they had to have certain score on Navy-wide entrance tests when they came in. Um, certain behavioral records, etc. Uh, we used to go by what we called AFQT scores—Armed Forces Qualifying Test. They were scored on a 0 to 99 basis. You could not be accepted into nuclear power program, unless you scored above 90 on that test. Trust me. there were a lot of people that didn’t. I trained recruits that were as low as 13. You can imagine the level of literacy for those folks.
Um, so—but at any rate, you also had, uh, initial training for electronic weaponry. Uh, electronic—you had training for folks going into, uh, basic seamanship, like boatswain’s mates school. A variety of things took place on the Naval Training Center Command. These are all initial and secondary schools, prior to sending someone out as qualified in that particular field to, uh, command. And some of them might move on to a different training command. When you spoke about the Nuclear Power Training Command, it—about a two, at that time—it took roughly two and half years from the time someone came in, as a recruit, to the time they actually went to a command to be around—to a seagoing command that had a nuclear reactor on it. So some of the training is intense.
Barnes
And you were at the base at the infancy of the simulator training? Was that beginning to develop why you were there?
Kid
Yes. It was. Uh, first off, all military training for years, has been—there’s simulation involved. You need to understand what simulation is, of course. Not all of it is high-tech electronic gizmo games. And that’s—you mentioned earlier the Blue Jacket was a stab at simulating seagoing environment. Um, many of the, uh—for example, I give the example of firefighting school as the single best example.
Oh, I almost forgot, because you earlier asked about one that the recruits would remember. They all remembered the tear gas chamber. All of them. And that’s another example of simulation, because, uh—well, for firefighting, of course, you would walk people through and train them in class about the basics of actual firefighting skills. Then you would walk them through donning the shipboard firefighting gear—boots, heavy jackets, facemask, oxygen breathing apparatus, this, that, and the other thing. Put them on fire hoses, put them into a building, and light controlled fires. Then have trained groups operate the hoses in order to work those. Firefighter is a major, major skill that is consistently trained onboard ships all the time. For the obvious reasons that you don’t call the fire department in the middle of the ocean. So [laughs] that’s kind of—so when you talk simulation, obviously there’s[sic] varying levels of simulation and varying degrees of realism. The more realistic you can make the—the training more effective it was. Does that answer that question for you?
Barnes
Yes. It does. Thank you. So when you left—you left in 1993?
Kidd
Yes.
Barnes
Was that your final year in the Navy or did you have another assignment?
Kidd
Oh. No. From there I went out to Guam. I was attached originally to a ship that was getting ready to be decommissioned. Um, the refrigerator services ship that was being decommissioned. A ton of fun. The ship was already 40 years old and, if you can imagine driving a car that’s 40 years old, now [laughs] drive a ship that’s 40 years old. It’s got a few miles on it. But, uh, one of the problems with a ship that’s 40 years old is that it’s got a lot of things on there that were older than 40 years old, including asbestos and this, that, and the other thing, so which I was part and parcel of discovering. So subsequent to that, I thought it was time to stop being Navy, and the Navy agreed with me, but fortunately it hasn’t killed me yet.
Barnes
Now did you return to this area immediately after leaving the Navy?
Kidd
No.
Barnes
Or you just settled here?
Kidd
Um, two years later, I returned here. I owned a home here I had bought. The fact of the matter is that Central Florida is a beautiful place in comparison to a lot of other places. Um, Orlando was a medium-sized city, uh, so it didn’t have quite the problems of the [Washington,] D.C. area or San Diego[, California], or some of the other places I lived at. Sun always shone and I had this odd thing about I was going to learn to play golf. That lasted about two days [laughs].
Barnes
I can help you with that, if you decide to change your mind
Kidd
[laughs].
Barnes
So what were your initial thoughts when you heard that NTC Orlando was closing?
Kidd
I wasn’t concerned about it at all. Um, largely because for me, my experiences in the Navy were pretty broad. Um, while many people—if you were career Navy and worked all the way through retirement, which would be 20 years, at least, uh, you were stationed at multiple commands. Lots of them. And that meant that things came and went—people you knew, people you were intense, great friends with for a short period of time. You lost track of shortly thereafter, simply because you were separated.
So, uh, loosing Naval Training Center Orlando, largely because it wasn’t on the ocean anywhere—it was just a set of buildings—really wasn’t a whole lot different than any other set of buildings any other place. And of course, the Navy did not get rid of recruit training. They simply consolidated it all up in Michigan—or Illinois, rather. So it was never about the location. It was all about the process.
Barnes
What do you think is the Navy’s legacy to the Central Florida region?
Kidd
A lot of folks are unaware that Central Florida is the location of the second largest group of retired military—military retirees—in the nation. It tends to concentrate a lot of people here. The fact that we had the Navy base here for so long is really a very vital part of that. Um, and those retirees have a very strong commitment to the values they were trained in, and they live and work with those every day. They bring that as part of the palate of colors that is here in Central Florida. Um, people who have a strong memory of learning about responsibility, decency, reliability, ethics, in general, and that shared commitment—those shared values. They live here and there’s a lot of them.
So the effect of that command, that physical base, and the people that worked there is something that will—that doesn’t only exist now, but it’s going to echo for quite a while. Um, that, uh, is something that the Orlando and Central Florida community should be very proud of and they should recognize that that contribution, while again, because we’re not located on the water, people don’t necessarily grasp. But for the number of retirees here, who came specially because—either returned because of that, or came because there was that presence here—the impact is really immeasurable.
Barnes
So as a former recruit commander, or as a former recruit, why do you think someone would want to come back? Or what do you think someone would like to see or be reminded of if they came and visited the Lone Sailor Memorial [Project]?
Kidd
Being. First place, there’s[sic] several Lone Sailor monuments throughout the nation, and this is a great location for them. And in the public mind, uh, whether you’ve been in the service or not, uh, that image is rather striking. It implies a lot of things. For the people who served, the people who were Navy and went through basic training—regardless of where they went, but specifically here in Orlando—it reminds them of a dramatic change in their lives where they took control of themselves and their destiny. They made that choice to say, “I don't want to do what I was doing. I’m going to be different.” And they learned a new value system. They learned to be part of a generations-old organization that had a history they could be proud of, and that they could carry with them and they could then share with their own friends, children, subsequent generation. It means a lot. It means a lot to a lot of people. and far more than just movies that no longer get watched [laughs]. The fact that we trained a lot of people—we sent a lot of people out to represent and defend the nation—some did not come back—needs to be remembered. We need to be reminded of why that happened. What those values where. And why they’re still important.
Barnes
Very good. Is there anything I missed that you think would be relevant either to the project or to your story?
Kidd
I appreciate that y’all took time to ask me the questions. No. I think we pretty much covered everything we'll do on camera.
All
[laughs]
Barnes
Well, very good. We appreciate your time.
Kidd
Not a problem.
Morris
This is an interview with Garnett White. This interview is being conducted on October 13th, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
White
Well, yes. I was born in St. Augustine, Florida. My father was a butcher—or meat-cutter, I guess we would call it. We moved to Sanford when I was maybe three years old. I remember when I was four years old going to a birthday party to a neighbor girl—and as I’ve over the years have tried to think when that was. I believe I was about four years old. We lived on [West] Tenth Street in Sanford, and my father worked as a butcher—meat-cutter—and he moved here from southwest Georgia—called Pelham, Georgia—and he went to work here for a man from Pelham, Georgia, named Bluitt Stevens.
We lived on Tenth Street until I was in about second grade, and my father had a house built on Tenth and [South] Laurel Avenue, and he still worked for Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens owned a store in Downtown Sanford where the Colonial Room Restaurant is now, and it was called Triple S Groceteria—the red front store, and that time is about the time I started school, and I went to Southside Elementary [School], where my first grade teacher was a Mrs. Jacobs, and the principal was Mrs. Harrington. And I remember those times. I went up through the fourth grade. And in the second grade, Elizabeth Wigham was my teacher. And the third grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And the fourth grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And this was only about three—maybe four—blocks from my home, and back then, of course, you didn’t have buses like that, and I remember walking to school when I’m six years old, and of course today, they don’t allow that type of thing, but it was not out of the ordinary at all.
One memory I have of that is that the lunch. The lunches cost 11 cents. You got a blue ticket for five cents, and that gave you the food—a roll usually, amongst other things—and milk was six cents. That was a yellow ticket. And I think you could get all five for 25—all five of a week for 25 cents, as well as I remember. But most people brought their own lunches. They did buy milk for six cents. And that was kind of interesting.
This would have been in about 1940 or ’41, and the Second World War started in 1941, and I remember big piles of metal, particularly aluminum, and rubber. This was to help the war effort, with aluminum to build airplanes out of—and I don’t know what they did with the rubber. But that was my first recollection of playing baseball—or softball, I guess it was—was at Southside Elementary.
Then we, uh—my grandfather was from Athens, Georgia, and he had his arm taken off. He had cancer, and my mother went up there to take care of him for about six weeks, and I, of course, went with her, and so I went to school for that six weeks in Winterville, Georgia.
Of course, coming back to Sanford, continued with school at—we called it [Sanford] “Grammar School,” which is now the Student Museum on Seventh Street and Elm Avenue in Sanford. They’d talk about it being so old, and so on. Of course, that was 70 years ago almost, but it doesn’t look any different today than it did back then. And they’d talk about it being old, and so on and so forth. Didn’t mean anything to us. You know, you had a seat and that was it. You know, scribbling all over the desks with knives. So on. So, you know, times—it just did not mean anything to us, as far as how new something was, and apparently nowadays you got to have a new school, or they don’t—or the children don’t accomplish as much, I guess, is a word [laughs].
But then—about when I was 11 years old, I got a paper route. Remember, this is during the war—the Second World War. And I got a paper route delivering The Florida Times-Union, which is the Jacksonville paper. They weren’t—the Sanford paper came out in the afternoon, and it was very hard to get newspaper or newsprint, and presses would break down, and I delivered The Sanford Herald also, about that time, and they had brown paper. It looked like the brown paper that’s used by butchers to wrap meat in, and that was kind of odd. And I’ve talked to people in the last few years, and they remember the paper being printed on that brown paper.
But something that is really kind of interesting is, over the years, I have talked and had coffee with Senator Mac Cleaver, and we would always talk about our paper routes. He was older than I was, but it never changes. And we would talk about who lived in certain houses, and where they would leave the money for the newspaper, and they still—me being eight years younger than Mac—they still left it at the same place—on the banister, on the porch, that type of thing.
Of course, after that, we went to Sanford Junior High School, which was over on Ninth Street and Sanford Avenue, and I guess that’s when we started growing up a little bit, and getting around town on our bicycles more than we did when we were very young. But we would ride our bikes down to the lakefront—which is Lake Monroe, down where the motel is now—and we’d jump off the seawall. It was there at that time. We’d jump off. We’d swim out to one of the beacons or markers out in the water. Another time—me and another fellow—we swam across the lake all the way to the power plant, and truthfully, we walked most of the way. It was very shallow out in the middle. We didn’t really walk. We just kind of touched bottom, and my father picked us up on the other side at the power plant on the north side of Lake Monroe.
But those were good times. It was not out of the ordinary to go downtown and walk around. Go through the alleys and see what people—or I’m talking about stores—had thrown away and did we want it, and that sort of thing, you know. It was—I really remember one time we went behind a place called [B. L.] Perkins. That was a men’s store. And there was a book of swaths of material that you could pick out what you—the men—would want their suits made out of. And we thought that—they were little old things about three by three inches, about three inches—and we thought that was a big deal. We took those home, and I think our parents threw them away. Anyway, as time goes on, in high school, went further from home, and went through all of the things, I guess, that happen in high school. And immediately after that, I joined the Navy and spent my hitch on board a fleet OR, and this would have been in 1950-51. But going all over town with paper routes, you just got to where you saw things you would never have seen, or people that you talked to or knew—you knew who they were, uh, if you didn’t have a paper route.
And then, as time goes on and I got out of the Navy, I got my—went to the real estate—school of real estate law—and, uh, got my broker’s license. And shortly thereafter, I met my wife, my now-wife. And we got married and had three children. As far as the real estate business is concerned, that was 50—I still have a license—and that’s 56 years ago. That’s a long time. I actually made a living at it. Only way I’ve made a living, up until about 6-7 years ago. And I’m 78 now, so it was time. But in the meantime, there’s quite a bit of property—not houses, but I never was much in the house business—that I’ve sold over that period of time three different times. There was one piece of property I sold three times. All three times were to people named Hall, and that they had never known each other, of course.
Morris
Of course.
White
So it’s interesting. And land would sell for—I can remember appraising. I did quite a bit of appraisals for the banks in Sanford and the First Federal Savings & Loan, and that really got me back into going to places that you normally wouldn’t go if you weren’t in the real estate business. As time goes on, I was handling acreage, as I said, and they pretty well quit farming in Sanford.
Uh, farming as they knew it at that time, which was produce—which was celery. You know, at one time, they said that Sanford—Seminole County I guess—was the celery capital of the world. And it was actually a picture in one of the school books that said “harvesting celery in Sanford.” I remember that. But after the war, they—the farming kind of petered out, because it all went to the muck, and the muck means that you don’t have to spend as much money on fertilizer. And the type soils that we have around Sanford—the farming areas—was good to hold the roots in place and that’s all. And that’s come from the farmers that said, “No, you got to fertilize.”
So muck farms in Zellwood and down in Lake Okeechobee pretty well had an end to the farming in the area. It’s my understanding from the owner of Chase and Co[mpany], which was a very large company—probably the largest farmer in Central Florida back in the ‘20s and—but the last celery grown in the Sanford area was in 1975. Now that came from the owner, president of Chase and Co., and his name was Sydney Chase—Sydney [Octavius] Chase, Jr. His father[1] and his father’s brother[2] are the ones that started Chase and Co.
Something really interesting is that, of course, all of this product had to be shipped by railroad. You know, you didn’t have trucks like you have today. You just didn’t put things on a truck, haul it to New York. It all had to go to—through the railroad, and so most every packinghouse—that type of thing—was located where it could be sent by the railroad. And celery—and cabbage, cucumbers, all of those things—required refrigeration. Well, if you’ll think back to 1925, you didn’t have no refrigeration. But they was able to make ice in big 300-pound “slabs” I’ll call them. Chase and Co. had an icehouse out on the east side of Sanford. There was another one in Ransidey[?], which is in Monroe, Florida, just west of Sanford on the railroad. And you had railroad cars called “reefer” cars, and that stood for “refrigerator.” And they would put these big 300-pound slabs of ice in these railroad cars. They were all painted yellow, and during the summer, there was a siding going—railroad siding going from Sanford Avenue out to the Chase washhouse, which is on Cameron Avenue. And that’s a long ways. And they would store these reefer cars all summer long, because they had no use for them except to ship produce, and of course, you didn’t grow produce in the summertime. Come summertime, in like May or something, would be the last that they grew until next fall and next winter. But I remember all those yellow reefer cars there, and I’m sure many other people that was[sic] out in that area remember just sitting on the siding and waiting on the next year.
But there was a lot of—another thing is interesting is it seems as though to me that the people that owned automobiles—and their kids went to school with me—they were farmers. And other people didn’t have automobiles. My father did not have an automobile until 1946, which was right after the war, and things became available to sell, particularly meat products.
But all of that—getting back to the real estate business, I would come across and I knew a lot of people in the citrus business. And as time went on, I sold some citrus groves, and I bought some citrus groves, and I leased several citrus groves. And our—my wife and I’s—two children kind of grew up knowing what citrus was, and you could go on the Internet under White’s Red Hill Groves and read about us, and it’ll tell you all you need to know about our family and the citrus business. But it’s been 29 years now since we purchased a gift fruit packinghouse called Red Hill Groves. So we have set out new trees and taken care of old trees, and picked and packed, and shipped citrus all over the United States. I would say there’s not a state we haven’t shipped fruit to. But times have changed considerably, since probably 1985 and things started booming—this is because of Disney—and started booming.
And another thing that’s kind of interesting here is that when I went to high school, Seminole High School had a hundred people in each class. And Crooms Academy had maybe 30, and Oviedo [High School] may have 15, and Longwood, which is called Lyman High School, may have 15. And look at it today, there’s what? Eleven high schools, each one of them got three thousand in that school. So that’s really what started happening during those years, and those of course, just kind of bloomed.
Really interested—I was very active in the civic things in the city—Chamber of Commerce, the Jaycees,[3] and that type of thing. As time goes on, I think I’ve been through four—they call them—they don’t call them “depressions,” whatever they call them.
Morris
Recessions?
White
Recessions. And I’ve been through four of them. And I can remember trying to sell houses for a hundred dollars down and making a commission. There ain’t much left to make a commission out of. But times would get better, and then you’d start selling again. People would start buying again. I guess time is going to tell about the one we’re in now in 2011.
But anyway, it was a good life that I lived in Sanford. It is much different. Traffic, as everybody knows, gets on your nerves. But all three of our children live in Sanford, while our packinghouse is in Orlando. The boys go back and forth every day, and our daughter works for Bayer Corporation in the animal health division.
So anyway, we—my wife and I—both feel that our time growing up in Sanford, and spending our entire life here, except for those maybe three years, has been good, and as good as any place we could have settled. I don’t know that we ever considered moving from Sanford, neither of us. But I guess that’s pretty well the story.
Morris
I have a couple questions, sir.
White
Sure.
Morris
Okay, sir. You talked a great deal earlier about the paper route you ran as a kid.
White
Right.
Morris
Was that a great experience for you? Because you spent a lot of time discussing how you met and saw a lot of things.
White
Oh, well, sure! There’s a little story that goes along with that, was we delivered The Florida Times-Union, and we had about 11 or 12 paper boys. And you’d go up and down. Each one of us had about a hundred customers.
Morris
Okay.
White
And you’d go up and down the streets, and there was a policeman that walked the streets at night named Harriet. And Mr. Harriet had a dog that went with him, because Mr. Harriet walked up and down the alleys, and all the way generally throughout the whole downtown area. Well, a friend of mine who lived four or five houses from me had a dog, and the dog would go with him on his paper route. Well, it seems as though Mr. Harriet’s dog would jump on him and bite him and all of this sort of stuff. So my friend bought a collar that had, oh, pieces of metal like a nail sticking out the side—sticking on it. Well, he sharpened those up. And we’re all sitting there one morning, waiting for him to come with his dog. He’d always come around this corner—First Street and Oak Avenue—and he would come around that corner. Well, we’re waiting to see Mr. Harriet’s dog jump on this dog’s neck with those sharp barbs, and he did and he went off just howling. And Mr. Harriet came out. There was a bakery there, and everybody—paper boys—we would go in there five o’clock in the morning and get day-old donuts, and so would Mr. Harriet, and he come out of there just raising Cain about who hit his dog. But that was interesting.
And I guess when I was a senior in high school, I had a car route, and I went to Monroe, Paola, went all the way to Wekiva River, and back up through Monroe. And a man named Bass—he was the last one on my route. And he was a farmer, so he told the paper manager that I was just getting there too late, that if I couldn’t get there five o’clock in the morning, that he wasn’t going to take the paper no more. So I had to rearrange my route so I could get him first instead of last. But that was interesting in that too. And the people—there’s still people around that deliver papers. We talk about it, every now and then, when you see somebody. But that was good experience, really was.
Morris
And you did that from when you were younger all the way through high school, sir?
White
Not all that time, no. But I got a paper route when I was 11 years old, so that’s gonna put me in the fifth grade. And I remember having a paper route in the seventh grade. I don’t think I had any until I was senior, from the seventh until that time.
Morris
Oh, okay, sir.
White
Because like, a lot of—something very interesting. I worked in a grocery store.
Morris
Okay, sir.
White
And you worked Thursday morning from about four o’clock in the morning, and Friday afternoon, and all day Saturday, for four dollars and something. Well, a friend of mine was caddying at the golf course, and he said, “Oh,” you know, “I don’t work but 4-5 hours and I make more than that.” So I went out and started caddying. So I caddied for several years.
Morris
Oh, okay, sir.
White
Because you made more money. You carry those bags around. If you did it twice, they called it “double looping,” you made more money than you would at the grocery store. But anyway, I think everybody sooner or later worked in a grocery store.
Morris
I don’t think that’s changed much, sir.
White
Huh?
Morris
I don’t think that’s changed much. I’ve worked in a couple grocery stores.
White
No. No. I see the kids in there now, and they’re—course we didn’t stay there until all night long like they do now. They put up stock now at night, and we didn’t do that. Anyway, it was good. Good times.
Morris
All right. You mentioned you were in the Navy, sir. How long were you in the Navy for?
White
I was in the Navy for one hitch. I was a quartermaster.
Morris
Okay, and one hitch is, uh...
White
One hitch is when I was on something called “minority cruise,” and that you means you join after you’re 18 and you get out when you’re 21, instead of a flat three years—four years, whatever it is. And I joined when I was a senior in high school, and this wasn’t too long after the war. This would be in 1950.
Morris
Okay.
White
And the war was over in ’45. So anyway—but I was a quartermaster. A quartermaster is someone who does signals and navigation, that sort of thing. And a fleet oiler is different than a tanker. A tanker hauls fuel from one place to another, and a[sic] oiler refuels ships at sea when you’re both underway—you’re both moving. And that’s what an oiler is. You still have oiler today, and always will, because you need it in the middle of the ocean just as you do alongside a dock. And I liked that—and I may have stayed in longer except the ship was going on Operation Deep Freeze, and that was in Antarctica, and I wasn’t going there, ‘cause I’d heard the stories about it before. Everything’s full of ice and all of that. Anyway, that was my military experience.
Morris
Did you travel anywhere on that, at that time, sir?
White
Oh yeah, sure. We went—first time when I went on board there, we went to New York City, which of course, here I am. Never been to New York City. We stayed there for like two days. Then we went to the Caribbean [Sea], down to South America to the Azores. Just that type—wherever. Maybe just sit out in the middle of the ocean waiting on a convoy to come that needed fuel. I mean, that was our job.
Morris
Right, sir. Did you enjoy your time in the military—the Navy?
White
Sure.
Morris
Just didn’t want to go to Antarctica.
White
I didn’t want to go to Antarctica, and probably if I’d have stayed in longer than that, I’d have stayed. I would have stayed to retire. But I didn’t, and not been disappointed in that at all.
Morris
Okay, sir. You also mentioned you worked with civic duties for a while. So tell me a little more about that.
White
Well, 1963, I started civic-type stuff. Well, I was a Boy Scout. And I’ll have to go through the Boy Scouts [of America] first. But the Boy Scouts—I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and I worked at summer camp as a waterfront director-type person. I guess I was 16 then, maybe 17. Sixteen and seventeen. I worked two years, one at Camp Wewa over in Apopka. The other one was Camp La-No-Che. Excuse me, Camp La-No-Che wasn’t open then. See, that’s 50 years ago, and most people never heard of Doe Lake [Recreation Area], and Doe Lake was in Ocala [National] Forest. And that was a Boy Scout camp and I worked there at that time. But I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and that was a big deal to me. And we didn’t have many Eagle Scouts around here. Well, around anywhere. That was good.
Morris
I’m sorry, sir?
White
Yeah. You asked a question before that. What was that?
Morris
Your civic duties, sir.
White
Oh. Well, in the Boy Scouts, believe it or not, we actually did a lot of things civic-wise. But I was president of the Sanford-Seminole County Jaycees[4] in 1963, and the Jaycees were very active at that time.
Morris
The Jaycees, sir?
White
Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Morris
Gotcha, sir.
White
Okay. [laughs] And—very active. Had maybe 150 members, and had maybe 150 projects. These were things that, uh—and that was a big time in my life. For instance, we had a Christmas parade that we sponsored and worked. That was the big project for the year—the Christmas parade. And the year I was president, we had 11 bands, and nowadays, if you have one, you got a bunch of them. We had a hundred people working, doing whatever it took to make the parades. But it was always that way. And I have paperwork to that. So—I say “paperwork”—we made booklets of our projects. Some of them. I don’t have all of them. But it was a[sic] active time for people up to the age of 36. When you were thirty-six, then you were no longer…
Morris
Junior.
White
Invited, I guess, to be a Jaycee. And then, I was president of the Seminole County union of the American Cancer Society, and I was president of the Greater Sanford [Regional] Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, it was the Sanford-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce, and I was a director for 25 years of the Chamber. So, you know, there were those. I was a bank director for 15 years. Served on the board of Seminole State College, as vice-chairman of the board for however many years. I don’t remember. So that was civic-type stuff.
Morris
Okay, sir. Sounds like you were very busy.
White
Yeah. I was busy. I was busy. Knew a lot of people. Most of them are dead now, but, uh, and I’ll join them before too many years. Maybe tomorrow [laughs].
Morris
That’s why we’re getting this down today, sir.
White
Get that out today. Okay.
Morris
Could you tell me a little bit about your family? Your wife’s name, how you met her, and then your children’s names.
White
Yes. I’d gotten out of the Navy, and just got out really, and me and another fellow went to Leesburg High School—to a football game. This was in September, before—after—I had gotten out of the service in August, I guess. Anyway, this girl was a cheerleader, and had black hair. And afterwards, you always used to have dances always—and out of town also. And back then, the girl cheerleaders would always go to the dance, and so me and this fellow went also. And I met her, and then—from then on, had a few dates with her. And anyway, three or four years later, we got married. We have two sons. One’s 54, one’s 53. Have a daughter about 44—something. And the boys run the packinghouse. Have for 20. I say “running” —that’s only partially, mostly. They’ve—that’s 29 years. And a daughter that works for Bayer in the animal health division. Anyway. I guess that’s it. And got grandchildren [laughs].
Morris
How many grandchildren, sir?
White
Well, three. Three boy grandchildren. And one of them works for the city in Palm Coast, and the other one works for the car place—Gibson [Truck World]—down here, and the other one’s thirteen. He goes to school.
Morris
Okay. Is it okay if we get your wife’s name and your children’s names?
White
Paulette. Paulette. My wife’s name was Paulette Casen. It’s Paulette White, of course. And the children are Ed [White], Ted [White], and Judy [White]. And that’s their names.
Morris
Ed, Ted, and Judy?
White
Yes. Eddie, Teddy. [laughs] Yes. Ed, Ted, and Judy.
Morris
Do they still respond to Eddie and Teddy?
White
Oh, yeah, sure. Sure, sure, sure. Matter of fact, people their age call them Eddie and Teddy. But, you know, they have a lot of friends, since they’ve lived here.
Morris
Their whole lives, sir?
White
Yeah. They’ve lived here except when they went to college. Eddie graduated from Stetson [University]. And Judy graduated from [University of] Florida. One of the grandsons graduated from Florida and has a degree in architecture. I was telling a story to a fellow about architecture, and I was telling him I knew nothing about computer[sic]. I do know how to turn it on. But I said I have a grandson that has a degree in architecture, and he has never picked up a pen or a pencil. It’s all down on the computer, every bit of it. It’s kind of hard for people my age to think that—that you’re actually gonna draw a plan for a building with a computer, instead of a pencil [laughs].
Morris
I gotcha, sir.
White
Yeah.
Morris
The, uh—one of the things you mentioned earlier that really caught my attention was you said a lot of farmers had cars. Is that—do I remember that correctly?
White
That’s correct.
Morris
Were a lot of the farmers well-off, or was there...
White
During certain periods, they were well-off. Yes. And it was told to me that a farmer in the late ‘30s could make a living on ten acres of celery, and that’s not very much, but he couldn’t do that today. Same token. I’ve sold—I’ve sold property to people that owned an orange grove and did all of the work their self, and they had 20 acres, and they made a good living. They had a car, and made a good living on 20 acres. But they did all the work their self. They didn’t have somebody else doing the work.
Morris
Right.
White
And so, you know, there’s[sic] certain jobs that—if you’re cut out for it. Not everybody’s cut out to be a farmer. A lot of people are going to have to start thinking about it though, because somebody’s got to grow food to eat.
Morris
Sir, and I do like to eat.
White
And everybody likes to eat.
Morris
Yes, sir.
White
And the truth of the matter is there’s a lot of fussing going on now. People don’t like—well, one thing is dust. They don’t like the dust that farmers create when they plow their field. That’s the EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—and they want to stop that. Well, I don’t know how you’re gonna eat if you stop farm dust. But I’m talking out of bounds here.
Morris
Still interesting to hear, sir.
White
But that’s the way farmers feel. Although we consider ourselves farmers, we’re not farmers in the cattle business or corn business. We’re in the citrus business. But I guess you could say we could be in the citrus business without growing any of our own. We could buy it from somebody else, and pack it, ship it, and that would work, you know. But we do it all.
Morris
Okay, sir. My last question, if it’s all right with you, could you just give me a brief overview of how you actually grow citrus—the process for it.
White
Well, you plant a tree, and you grow it, and it ends up and blooms, and has fruit on it. That’s about it. It’s, you know—it’s just like any farming, and I think that’s what you’d have to say. It’s, you know—you’ve got to prepare the soil, if you want to call it. In the citrus business, you plant small trees—three feet tall—and after about five years, they have some oranges on them. Not very many, but enough, considered that you’ve got some fruit. And the maximum is about 20 years. And during this period of time, you fertilize them, and you prune them, and you just generally take care of them like a baby.
And things change in the business, such as—used to plant them 35 feet apart, and 35 feet in all directions, because the way that you get the weeds down was with a disc or harrow. So you went up and down the rows in one direction, and then across the rows in another directions to kill the weeds. And nowadays, you don’t do it that way. You plant them 10 feet apart in a row, and then you use chemicals to kill the weeds. And you also hedge them, because you don’t have that 35 feet. You have 10 feet. And you got big machines with big, round saws on it—three foot—and they’re spinning, and you go up and down the rows and make a hedge out of it. And that’s what’s really changed in the citrus business in the way that you grow citrus.
Plus, used to—you didn’t have very many ways to keep the fruit clean. Everybody wants to have a blemish-free piece of fruit. It don’t work that way. A friend of mine who used to disc and take care of the growth—first one I ever had—named Carl McWaters. His family was in the business, and he was a caretaker. He said, “Well, Mr. White,” said, “You know, my father worked for that packinghouse over there in Umatilla.” And whenever they had a—one of the diseases—not a disease—one of the bugs that you have. It’s called a “rust mite.” And a rust mite makes fruit look rusty. And he said, “Whenever we’d have a bad rust mite year, we’d go ahead and ship them up north anyway, and called them ‘Golden Rusty.’” Which made them sound a whole lot better than a rusty piece of fruit. So that was kind of interesting. Because they didn’t have any way to kill those rust mites.
And nowadays, you know, it’s an entire—oh, I don’t, what I want to say it. Crop protection, whether it’s citrus or other crops. It’s a whole world of taking care of those problems. In the United States and the agricultural business, the idea is to get rid of a problem instead of live with the problem. And that’s true with a lot of things, not just citrus. But, you know, if you got rust mites, you know—“Well, let’s get rid of those rust mites.” So you got 50 different companies out there trying to have chemicals to get rid of them. In a lot of countries that grow citrus, they don’t do that. They just live with it. And I see nothing wrong with that. But that’s kind of interesting too—how that kind of thing works. But, you know, the companies—some of the largest companies in the world are agricultural chemical companies.
Morris
Okay, sir.
White
Anyway.
Morris
That was it for my questions, actually. Did you have anything else you’d like to say?
White
No. Not really. I may have said a whole lot more than I should have, to start with. But, uh, anyway…
Morris
Well, sir, it’s all great. Thank you very much, sir.
White
All right. Nice to talk.