Did you go to Grand Canyon during the time you were a seasonal at Petrified Forest?
Oh yes, did geology field work at the Grand Canyon.
Was Bryant around? Was he very visible as far as contact with people doing research?
Oh yes, and he came to Flagstaff for monthly meetings with the Northern Arizona University and of course we were all plugged into that. It was a very interesting set up, but there was nothing structured about it or ever written about it. It was just that this particular professor was interested in the Park Service. She took trips to these various places as well. After I had been doing the writing, she of course became interested in getting me involved with this group of fellas. As it turned out, quite a few of them went into the Park Service.
That kind of got me into the Park Service in an around about way; two years there as a seasonal.
As a seasonal?
Right.
Did you continue on as seasonal or did you go on into business?
I went back into the newspaper business for a year. Again, I worked for the same newspaper five different times, whenever I ran out of money in college I would go back to Phoenix and work on the newspaper. In fact, the last time I saw them they wanted me to come back again. Gosh, a great bunch of people. Funny, you get involved with the newspaper like you do the Park Service; it’s a very demanding and fascinating business. I was waiting on the list, I took the first exam after WW II, to get into the Park Service, and that was an interesting experience. All the temporary park employees, superintendents, rangers, naturalists were hired during the war had to take that exam. Because you see the exam was closed in ’39. So everybody had to take it in order; I don’t know, thirteen hundred, something like that, and some of them didn’t make it.
I know it took awhile for some of the temporaries to be either get conversions or get hired on after the war?
Right, quite awhile.
Was that something you were concerned with at the time you were a seasonal or was newspaper work probably more alluring?
Mine was just a clean approach to take the test, I don’t even remember the name of the exam now – they have changed it so many times.
