Referrals.
Yeah, so we decided to play the game. While we were in Texas, we wrote letters to all the congressman and all the senators from Oregon and got on. So I started working on maintenance up there and did that for two years. My brother and I were both there when the old guard was still in charge. Buck Evans was a colorful character. He was Chief Ranger.
He had a long history at Yosemite.
Yeah, 25 years, or something like that.
How long did the referral system last? Did it get phased out by the mid-sixties?
I still remember getting hired in our own right. They didn’t really talk about it [Congressional appointments]. The park didn’t like them. Maybe in ’59, ’60, ’61, there wasn’t a real hard feeling toward it. But I thought, well, if that’s the way to go, that’s the way you get on. We wrote our letters and got hired immediately. So it must have done some good. I’ll never forget I got one letter back from [Wendell] Wyatt. He was an eastern Oregon representative, and he says absolutely not. I don’t even know you, no way am I going to. He did it the way he was supposed to. I mean, that’s the way you should act. But everybody else, we got glowing reports, I guess. You see, you weren’t automatically allowed to be hired again. It was a one shot, and then they’d hire you if they could. They had to open up positions for Congressional appointments (and veterans), and you saw a lot of rich kids. And that was why the feeling was so bad because they were getting these rich snotnose eastern kids who probably enjoyed the experience, but they threw their weight. And so it left a bad taste in peoples’ mouths.
