There was one that still has a vinyl top to it.
That old pinkish-orange, that was Einar’s legacy.
So, that’s where that came from. It’s in the museum right now.
The bench?
Yes, I now have the table in my office.
Oh, you do? His wife as the story goes, was the one who went down to Klamath Falls and picked out the plastic. And they put it over the top of them. It looks very ‘sixties. It was the color that Plymouths were coming in. That orange plum. It was a sick color. Everything was painted that color, it seemed like. So then he hired a couple of old painters. I loved those two old guys out of Medford. They did a lot of painting for the park during this era. And they were always ridiculing the park. They were nice people, but I was working on the radio in dispatch and they were in there painting over all the dark molding. He says, “This is stupid. You’re not going to keep the paint on there.” They used what they call a liquid sanding, that’s supposed to take the varnish. It made the varnish rough so the paint would hook to it. And of course, it started coming off immediately every time he’d touch it. I just detested it. It looked ridiculous from the day that they put it on. But that’s what Einar wanted. He took out the big old chandelier from of the lobby of the Administration Building and put in fluorescent lights. He was always doing stuff like that. He didn’t have any appreciation. That’s when they butchered so many of the cabins and tried to modernize them to a certain extent. They pulled out all the old fixtures and just dumped stuff.
Did you ever meet any of the regional directors during this time?
Yes. They’d come sweeping, but they didn’t pay much attention to the people running dispatch. I saw a lot of activity coming through the park because I’d usually work two days and then three nights, evening shifts. So I was there during the day sometimes a lot. Some years, I’d have five days a week. I was there during the day. So I got to see a lot of the park activity. People came to me because I always knew what was going on. The superintendent’s office was usually open so you could cock an ear and listen to what was going on in there. I tried to keep track of things just to satisfy my curiosity. That was during the time that I found out about the superintendent’s special hiding place for his booze. Of course that disappeared during the remodel, but it was right there by dispatch down that little hallway (18). I think they’ve kept the clothes closet in that stairway there, but I think it’s kind of open. I haven’t been in the building that much since it was remodeled. When I was at the park on weekends, it was closed.
