Okay, so you had just gotten there when that happened?
Right, but the first battle we had was over the fire sprinkling system and just absolutely was no question about it, it had to be done. Of course he did it, it was a very expensive proposition in that nasty old building.
Did you view the lodge as eventually being taken down? The sprinkler system was a temporary thing?
Yeah, it was just protection of life is all. Oh, we felt, that is most of us, I don’t know Bill might have some thoughts on that. Where you there on the planning of the master plan?
[Bill] Yeah, the one that you arrived I think this was the second mater plan. My involvement as far as the lodge was concerned was the inspection side of it Marvin [Hershey] and I had to do that.
That was unbelievable, wasn’t it?
[Bill] Yeah, we had many a battle with Ralph [Peyton], he wouldn’t let us go in certain areas and like those top floors, where he had all the employees. That was a death trap up there.
No way they could have gotten out of there.
[Bill] No, there wasn’t anything to get out to— the drop is five stories.
No fire doors.
[Bill] It was always a battle to do anything with him. He just dragged his feet and resisted everything, even if it just was today I am going to be nasty, more nasty than yesterday.
He was a character.
[Bill] A real character.
Somewhere in there, you may or may not be interested, but, later on we will get into the Klamath Falls thing. Paul was taking a lot of heat up there. Of course, when I was there, Peyton and I would just battle it out, you know, a couple of strong characters and you’d just keep swinging. So it was pretty much neutral between us. Neither one of us ever took it personally. Paul couldn’t leave the personal aspect out of it and it really hurt him, unfortunately. So down the line when we established the Klamath Falls office, we needed a Superintendent at Crater Lake. We had one at Lava Beds and we tried to get one at the Oregon Caves, but we never quite made that one. So I offered the job to Paul. He said he would take it except, I said except, that there is no exception; you’re the Superintendent, the whole smear. He said, “Well, I can’t handle Ralph and I don’t want the job.” I said, “Put it in writing.’ He did. I still hear about that, why didn’t you give Paul the job.” I got more flack out of that than anything I ever did.
