Interview with John Ed Pearce, December 13, 1995

 BIRDWHISTELL: John Ed, last time we were together, we -- I think we got you through high school, --

PEARCE: High school.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- much faster than it took in real time.

PEARCE: Yeah. [Chuckles] [Inaudible]

BIRDWHISTELL: We talked about -- we talked, of course, about the Depression and -- economic depression and -- and how that changed your life, and working at the packing --

PEARCE: Umhmm.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- company, and some of the things that -- events in high school. And we talked about where your classmates went off to school and -- and -- and what your plans were, and your -- Think we ended up where you had at one point gone and asked your grandparents --

PEARCE: For help.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- for help.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: And -- and that hadn't worked out. And so 00:01:00let's pick up the story right there, at that point in time when you're graduated from high school and -- and finally -- You -- you go to work after that, as I --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- recall. And -- and work, and then save some money, I assume t---

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: No, you didn't save any money. You gave your --

PEARCE: Well, --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- used -- used the money to support your family, right?

PEARCE: And myself, yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, tell me about then how you were able to then work it out so you could get to college.

PEARCE: Well, it was both very simple and rather complex. [It was ?] [chuckle--Birdwhistell] -- I -- As I said, I went to Lexington from Norton with a friend and was told there by the director of the printing plant at the University of Kentucky that I could go to 00:02:00college if I come down and get a job. And -- and I decided I was gonna do that, one way or another.

BIRDWHISTELL: S--- so you and a friend came to Lexington.

PEARCE: Yes, his name was Sag--- [Sagiser ?] Cash. He was from Carlisle, Kentucky. And he had graduated from the university School of Journalism and was working, at the time, for the Norton paper.

BIRDWHISTELL: And you -- you became friends with him.

PEARCE: Yeah, he dated a girl lived across the street from us who was a friend of my sister, and I just saw him around. And I was, at the time, working for Swift and Company, and I'd see him on weekends and things like that. He was a nice fellow.

BIRDWHISTELL: And so you all -- you would talk about your interest in going to college, or would he say --

PEARCE: No. And that wasn't the idea, really. He just said, "I'm going down to 00:03:00Lexington this weekend. You want to go?"

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh. On --

PEARCE: And I --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- a trip.

PEARCE: Yeah. And I had gone through Lexington once on the way to Chicago to the World's Fair, but I had never been there and had heard a lot about it. I -- People in the hills, you know, li--- like in eastern -- eastern Kentucky, they liked Lexington. Liked to go to Lexington. Then did then.

BIRDWHISTELL: Why?

PEARCE: I have [chuckle] no idea. It's just a nice place to go. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, what year are we talking about here?

PEARCE: We're talking about 1937.

BIRDWHISTELL: Would this be the fall of '37 when you made the trip or the spring?

PEARCE: Uh-huh, summer of '37.

BIRDWHISTELL: Summer of '37.

PEARCE: So, we went down there and -- to Lexington and stayed in his fraternity house, as I recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: Like -- Would that be like over on Maxwell [Street] or Limestone, --

PEARCE: It -- Limestone.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [around there ?]? Limestone?

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh.

PEARCE: And walked around the 00:04:00campus. I thought that Lexington was the greatest place I'd ever seen. I just loved it the minute I got off the train. It was just one of those things that apparently hit you. The first time I ever lan--- landed at [Gai-Tek ?] Airport in Hong Kong I thought to myself, "This is an electric town. This is an exciting place." And I'd never even been there, had no idea. But I --

BIRDWHISTELL: You felt it.

PEARCE: I just felt a certain excitement. And it -- The first I ever went up to -- the river to -- to Bristol, England I felt that strong sense of deja vu, just, "Lord, I love this country. Love this place." Same way with Lexington. I got -- we got off the train before dawn, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Right downtown.

PEARCE: -- there -- on Main Street there, at Central Station, and I walked out on the Main [chuckle] Street of Lexington and I thought, "This is a great town." And [chuckle--Birdwhistell] as we walked across the university campus, as 00:05:00the dawn was coming up, it was in late summer and everything was pretty and green and smelled good, you know. I just sort of said to myself, "One way or another I'm going to come here to school. Don't know how I'm gonna do it." I think I told you last time that -- ran into a man named Dave Griffith, over at the university printing office, who told me that -- that if I'd come down here and get a job, I could work my way through.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, he knew your friend that you were traveling --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [with ?].

PEARCE: Th--- that's how I ran into him.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. They --

PEARCE: "Sag" went over to the --

BIRDWHISTELL: To say "hello" and --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- and he sort of said, "This is my -- my friend John Ed from --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- from home.

PEARCE: Well, he said, you know, "What are you doing here?" And I said, [chuckle--Birdwhistell] "I'm just with 'Sag'". And he said, "Are you -- are you coming to school?" And I said, "I wish I were. I'd like to come to college, I just don't have any money." And he said, "Oh, that's no excuse. [You --?]" [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I went on home and I didn't tell my mother. 00:06:00I -- I think she knew what I had [chuckle] been doing. And so, in a few weeks, I forget just exactly how long, I took a -- a little vacation from Swift and hitchhiked down to Lexington. St--- stayed at the Drake Hotel, which was on Short Street at the time. Cost me a dollar a night, I think. And I think I told you also that the black boy who ran the elevator, to take me up to the room, he kept saying, "Sure there's nothing else I can get for you, now? Sure there --" And I was naive along those lines. He was trying to see if I wanted a girl. I had no idea about getting a girl, you know, for -- for money. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I had no -- I didn't know what he was talking about. But, --

BIRDWHISTELL: This was late summer of '37, --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- then.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: You'd have gone -- You went back home, stayed a few weeks, and then hitchhiked --

PEARCE: Umhmm.

BIRDWHISTELL: How long did it take you to hitchhike from home to Lexington?

PEARCE: Get down there in a day.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Just a matter of getting the right ride, huh?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. That's all. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I just worked Lexington to death looking for a job. I went everywhere.

BIRDWHISTELL: Like -- Where -- What kind of jobs were you looking for?

PEARCE: I went into department stores, men's stores, drug stores, the cafes, restaurants, hotels. If there was a store there -- you know, if it was an establishment, I went in and asked for a job. And I didn't get it. And the rea---

BIRDWHISTELL: Tough time to get a job, wasn't it?

PEARCE: Sir?

BIRDWHISTELL: It's a tough time --

PEARCE: Oh, yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- to get a job.

PEARCE: It was very hard to get a job then. And there were so many students, of course, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

PEARCE: -- looking for jobs. About fifty percent of the men at the University of Kentucky were working at least part of their way through then. So, yes, the competition for jobs was -- was very tough. I 00:08:00-- I did that for about three days, and I could see that, boy, I'm -- I'm getting nowhere. So, on the -- early in the afternoon of the -- the third day, I gave up. I was running out of money, for one thing [chuckle]. And so I went out on Richmond Road, out on east Main, and started hitchhiking home. And strangely, for once I could not catch a ride [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. I just s--- stood there with my old thumb up and couldn't do it. And I've often wondered if there isn't fate that watches over you from time to time. And around five o'clock I gave up hitchhiking. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere that day. So, I caught a bus and rode it back down the Drake Hotel for one more night. Now, I remembered that Griffith man out at the university. Called him. And he said, "Well, come on 00:09:00out." And I went out to his house there. I remember it was dark and I found the house with some difficulty. He and some more people were sitting on the front porch drinking coffee and talking. And [I mean ?] very hospitable to me. "Sit down," you know, and everybody seemed friendly. And I told him my story, and he said, "Well, that's a shame." And he said, "It's a shame you can't run a Duplex press. I could give you a job that'll get you through college. We're getting a new Duplex press in next week." And [as I say here ?], once more here come the great lie [chuckle--Birdwhistell] thundering dur--- down the track. But, as I explained earlier, there was really no sense of guilt [inaudible] attached to telling a lie to get a job. As old Colonel Sanders explained 00:10:00to me, he was always telling some outrageous lie to get a job and -- but he said, "You lied -- Everybody expected you to lie."

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] That's right.

PEARCE: The jobs were -- You were fighting for your life. And he said, you told a lie to get a job, but then you learned that job in a hell of a hurry, and then you -- you [inaudible] -- you had not really lied. But if you got a job and then couldn't do it, --

BIRDWHISTELL: That's a lie.

PEARCE: -- then you'd shamed yourself more or less. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] It was -- that was [a bought ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: So you told him the big one, huh?

PEARCE: Yeah. I said, "Oh, hell, I can run a Duplex press." And he said, "[You're a ?]-- Model B?" "Yes, sir." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I had no idea th--- what difference was. I didn't know that there was Model A and Model B, Duplex presses. Now, it wasn't -- it was only about ninety percent of a lie, because I hadn't -- I had known a lot about Duplex presses. As I say, I worked for Crawford's Weekly there while I 00:11:00was in high school --

BIRDWHISTELL: They had a press.

PEARCE: -- and -- R--- They had a Duplex press and I worked on that. It was an A, it was a double drive, and it was quite a bit different from the one that turned up at the university [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. But I learned how to run it.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. Now, why was he getting a new press at the university, just for the university's own printing?

PEARCE: Yeah, the [Kentucky] Kernel.

BIRDWHISTELL: For the Kernel and then all the other printing that they would do there?

PEARCE: N--- no, it was for the Kernel.

BIRDWHISTELL: Just for the Kernel.

PEARCE: It was a printing pr--- it was a --

BIRDWHISTELL: Newspaper.

PEARCE: -- newspaper press, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: I see.

PEARCE: Running off of a roll.

BIRDWHISTELL: I'm --

PEARCE: [inaudible]

BIRDWHISTELL: -- surprised you waited so long to -- to contact him, since he had sort of given y--- given you encouragement just a few weeks earlier.

PEARCE: Yeah. I figured -- maybe I figured, I don't know -- I figured, well, if he'd had anything, he would have said so.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, he would have just said, "I've got --"

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- "a job," --

PEARCE: "I've got a job 00:12:00here," yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- right here on the spot, sure.

PEARCE: And since he hadn't, I hadn't even considered him.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right. And all he'd told you at the time was, if you want to get through college, you can.

PEARCE: Yeah. "Come down here and get a job, -- "

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. [Inaudible] --

PEARCE: -- "a lot of boys do."

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Okay.

PEARCE: "That's no excuse for not going to school."

BIRDWHISTELL: I see. Yeah.

PEARCE: So, I went home and I told my mother. And that was a very hard thing to do, because I -- I knew that this was going to hurt her and -- and it would scare her. She was depending on me and my sister to keep the family going. My sister teaching school. And I think, too, she -- she wanted me there. I was more or less the man of the family.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. So, how'd you tell her?

PEARCE: I just told her.

BIRDWHISTELL: Straight out.

PEARCE: Yeah. I said, "I'm going to school at U.K." And I then hitchhiked up 00:13:00to Tazewell, Virginia where my grandparents lived and tried to get them to help me. My grandfather, by that time, was dead but my Uncle Bland was more or less in charge of the family. And he told me, "Your mother has been good to you and she's taken care of you all these years, now you go home and take of her," and that was all the help I got from them. I went home -- I was not given an awful lot of encouragement. I remember Rance Thompson, a friend of mine who, at the time, was going to University of Tennessee. He said, "You can't do that. Y--- If this job pays you fifteen dollars a week," which they said it would, "you can't get through school on fifteen dollars a week. 00:14:00And -- and you can't count on a job like that." Said, "You'd better see if you can't borrow money before you go, because you can't make it." And a lot of people said that. I remember, Bob Osburn, another friend of mine who was going to Transylvania, said, in effect, "Man, it's gonna be tough. The school itself is hard, studies are hard, takes a lot of time. If you have to work and you're surrounded by women," he said, "Yeah, the -- the campus full of good-looking girls, it's just gonna drive you nuts." [Chuckles] But I remember [it was ?] -- Cash and others said -- I remember D.J. [McNurny?], bless his soul, he told me, "You -- you go on." He was my boss there at Swift and Company. [He said ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: He encouraged you.

PEARCE: Yes. He said, "Get out of here." He said, "You can make it. 00:15:00You go on. You got this job here, you did it. You can do that." And, "Get out of this town." So, I had a little money in the bank, oh, very little. And I took it and gave it to my mother, except for a dollar. And George [Botts ?], who was going to Transylvania, gave me a ride down to Lexington.

BIRDWHISTELL: Wh--- where was your -- Did you tell your father you were going to college?

PEARCE: Not that I remember.

BIRDWHISTELL: You didn't feel any need to let him know?

PEARCE: Well, we weren't in much c--- contact then. There was very little communication between us.

BIRDWHISTELL: But he was still living in the same house as you were, right?

PEARCE: He was living there most of the time, yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Where would he be when he wasn't there?

PEARCE: I don't know. He'd go visit his brother in Texas sometime, I think.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really? He's be gone for extended trips.

PEARCE: Yeah. But, most of the time he was around. I think I told you before, I think the Depression killed my father. He lost his newspapers in --

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: -- North Carolina, and he never recovered. He tried to sell insurance for a while and who wanted insurance during the Depression. My uncle, Uncle Doc died and left my father some money, and my father took it and went into the small loan business and lost it. He c--- He w--- not a good businessman, ever. And he grew querulous. He had crazy ideas. So no, there wasn't much communication between us.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, did your -- did your mother try to talk you out of it, or would -- did she just become --

PEARCE: Yes, she said I --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [resigned ?] --

PEARCE: -- she said, "I don't know we'll do without you." And I remember my brother and my sister were sitting out in the front yard one day as I walked down the walk, and they said, "Don't let Momma talk you out of it."

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: "You made it. We'll make it. And you go on."

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you left -- you left home with mixed emotions, to say the least.

PEARCE: Yeah, with high excitement and great expectations, and it was just sort of like being released from prison. I -- I looked on Lexington as the place I wanted to be. I -- And I was doing what I wanted to do. I'd always wanted to go to college and now I was going.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, di--- I -- I think I interrupted you. You said you hitchhiked back again to -- when time came 00:18:00to enroll to college?

PEARCE: No, I got a ride down to Lexington with George Botts.

BIRDWHISTELL: Who was going to Transy.

PEARCE: He was going to Transylvania.

BIRDWHISTELL: What'd you take with you?

PEARCE: I took a bag [chuckles].

BIRDWHISTELL: You took a bag?

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Had a few -- some clothes, and --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- toiletries, and --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- just whatever.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: And that was it.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: And how much money did you have?

PEARCE: Had a dollar. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I spent forty-seven cents in -- I spent forty-seven cents in Corbin at Sanders Court.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Colonel Sanders in those days had a restaurant down in Corbin.

BIRDWHISTELL: But --

PEARCE: [inaudible] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you actually stopped there on the way to college.

PEARCE: People from all around stopped there whenever they could.

BIRDWHISTELL: You knew about it already?

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd been there. It was a good place to eat. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So you spent --

PEARCE: -- a lot of college kids going north to school, to Eastern [State University] and Berea 00:19:00[College], and U.K., Transy, so forth, they'd stop there on the way.

BIRDWHISTELL: But you spent half your money at --

PEARCE: Damn near [chuckles]. Got to Lexington. And I don't know how I had found this place, but I found a room in the home of a woman named Mrs. Smith, whose home was right next -- right next to Memorial Hall. It's not there anymore.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right. Right there on Limestone?

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm.

PEARCE: And I got a room there. Very nice.

BIRDWHISTELL: That's pretty handy.

PEARCE: And -- Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: That was pretty handy [place ?].

PEARCE: Oh, it was indeed. I was a stone's throw from --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: -- from McVey Hall, where my job would be, and, you know, from the -- I was on the campus.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, did they still have the street running up -- Graham Avenue, was it still running -- the -- Where there still houses on Graham Avenue that was parallel to Washington Avenue then? 'Cause this house was probably somewhere between Graham and --

PEARCE: Yes, it was around there. It was next door to Memorial --

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

PEARCE: -- Hall, is where it was. Yes, there was a little street, as I remember, but now that's --

BIRDWHISTELL: I understand.

PEARCE: -- asking quite a bit. I [chuckle] --

BIRDWHISTELL: I understand.

PEARCE: My memory isn't [like ?]--

BIRDWHISTELL: But you don't remember how you made those arrangements, how you found that room.

PEARCE: There were always signs out, "Room for Rent."

BIRDWHISTELL: When -- when you got to Lexington, you didn't have one. You --

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you had to go find a place to --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- to live and you found that place.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. And I told her, "I've got a job over at the Kernel office, and I'll pay you as soon as I get paid."

BIRDWHISTELL: How much was it, do you remember?

PEARCE: How much I -- was I gonna get paid?

BIRDWHISTELL: No, how much that -- you -- your pay was fifteen a week, how much was your room? Did --

PEARCE: Oh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you pay by the week?

PEARCE: Yeah, it was two or three dollars.

BIRDWHISTELL: Two or three --

PEARCE: It wasn't a great deal.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you have to do any work around there, I mean like keep the furnace going? A lot of --

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [people who ?] boarded had to --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- had assignments. [It ?] --

PEARCE: I was -- I would [chuckle] have been willing to do that.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] You would have taken that if you could have gotten it.

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. That -- A -- a furnace job was a good job, usually, because you got meals for a furnace job.

BIRDWHISTELL: Is that what you got [inaudible] --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- uh-huh, if a person didn't [inaudible].

PEARCE: Now, I got a -- I got a furnace job for a while, at the home on Limestone of a Professor [Eston Jackson ?] Asher, who lived over --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure, [J. W. ?]--

PEARCE: Could have been.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- Asher of psychology.

PEARCE: I believe so.

BIRDWHISTELL: That's right.

PEARCE: And [I'd do down ?]--

BIRDWHISTELL: He was into mental testing.

PEARCE: Yeah. I'd go down there in the morning and fire his furnace and so forth. And, oh, get something like a quarter or thirty-five cents [inaudible].

BIRDWHISTELL: You didn't live there, you would just go to --

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Now, --

BIRDWHISTELL: You did or didn't live there? I'm sorry, I'm -- I'm --

PEARCE: No, I did not. [No ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: You did not. Your job was just to go start his furnace.

PEARCE: That's all. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Interesting.

PEARCE: Clean it out, shake out the ashes. Now, I went over to the Kernel office and was told, to my distress, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh oh.

PEARCE: -- that the press had not been delivered. It was being installed, but it wouldn't be there for that week. And so I -- my job 00:22:00wouldn't start for a week.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh oh.

PEARCE: I was stuck [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: You had to pay your -- your room, and had to eat, and you only had fifty-three cents.

PEARCE: I was out of money [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And I was doing a lot of tap dancing, I'll tell you.

BIRDWHISTELL: What'd you do?

PEARCE: I -- Well, I did a number of things. I remember one thing [chuckle]. As I say, I probably should be ashamed of some of these things, but I'm not [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. You know, these were d--- desperate times.

BIRDWHISTELL: Abso--- [chuckle] absolutely.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Absolutely.

PEARCE: It [chuckle] amuses you, it was not amusing then.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] No. No, it was -- it was --

PEARCE: It's a matter, almost, of life and death.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Yeah. Well ?], certainly of -- of your future. Your future was at the crossroads here.

PEARCE: I went over to the Dean's office to see if I could get a job around the university until it opened.

BIRDWHISTELL: Which dean, do you remember?

PEARCE: Dean Jones.

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay, T.T. Jones?

PEARCE: Dean T.T. Jones.

BIRDWHISTELL: Dean of men.

PEARCE: Right. And he handled a great deal of the N.Y.A., National Youth --

BIRDWHISTELL: That's right.

PEARCE: -- Administration.

BIRDWHISTELL: That's right. Wasn't he --

PEARCE: [I knew ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- from eastern Kentucky?

PEARCE: Yes. He was a cousin of Bert Combs.

BIRDWHISTELL: Bert -- Bert Combs' cousin.

PEARCE: Of his moth--- of mother.

BIRDWHISTELL: That's right. What -- Well, I mean --

PEARCE: She was -- she was a Jones.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. But he was related to Bert Combs.

PEARCE: Right.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. T.T. Jones.

PEARCE: He wasn't in [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. The offices hadn't opened yet. School hadn't begun so there was --

BIRDWHISTELL: This was like early September probably, --

PEARCE: Yes. [Of course ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: -- after Labor Day.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. And I asked a woman there where he was and so forth, and she said, "Well, he won't be in until Friday or Saturday," or something like that. "He'll be in next week." And there were two or three people there with children looking for the dean. They wanted to register and get rooms and that sort of thing. 00:24:00And so a little light bulb went off in my head. And there was an anteroom there with a chair and a table and so forth. So, I just got this table and put it sort of in front of door, and sat down in a chair behind it, and these people came in [chuckle] looking for Dean Jones. And I said, "Well, the dean isn't in yet. I'm working out of his office." [chuckle--Birdwhistell] Well, that wasn't any lie, I was outside his office and I was working [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And -- and they all wanted places to stay. When I found out what they wanted, before I set up my table, I went all along Maxwelton Court and South Lime and Bonnie Brae, right around that area and I'd ask all these landladies, 00:25:00"If I bring you roomers, can -- will you give a dollar a head." Yes, indeed, they sure would. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] So, I went down there and I set up my sales desk there [chuckle] --

BIRDWHISTELL: What building --

PEARCE: -- and --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- was he in at that point, do you remember?

PEARCE: The Administration Building.

BIRDWHISTELL: He was [right ?] in the Administration --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- basement, [probably ?].

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Basement.

PEARCE: Right. And -- and as mothers and -- would bring in their children, I'd send 'em out [chuckles] to my rooming houses.

BIRDWHISTELL: You s--- [chuckle] assign 'em -- [chuckle--Pearce] You would give 'em assign--- rooming assignments.

PEARCE: Yes. And I'd say "Just -- just take this and tell 'em Mr. Pearce sent you." [Chuckles] [Inaudible] seventeen and eighteen [chuckle] years old.

BIRDWHISTELL: What kind of clothes were you wearing at this point? Did you have -- Were you dressed pretty well, even though you didn't have any money?

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. I -- I th--- -- I think so. I had always -- I guess during the Depression, certainly more than now, we prided 00:26:00ourselves on looking well. And I think I've told you that -- [Chuckle] Not long before I left for Lexington, this traveling salesman came through Norton and he stopped by Swift and Company. He was selling clothes, ma--- made-to-order clothes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really?

PEARCE: And he offered suits for fifteen dollars and so forth. And they looked pretty good. So, I ordered two suits and an overcoat.

BIRDWHISTELL: Whoa.

PEARCE: And everybody jumped on me and beat up on me, "You're crazy. You'll never see that guy again." Well boy, weeks passed and I thought, "I've thrown away my money."

BIRDWHISTELL: You paid him in advance.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh [chuckle].

PEARCE: Here came the -- a big package. Two of the best suits I ever had in my life.

BIRDWHISTELL: Is that right?

PEARCE: They fit beautifully and 00:27:00they were good --

I was wearing one of 'em four years later [chuckles]. Wear 'em all the time. And the overcoat was quite handsome.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. So, did you have a suit on the day you were -- set up your operation outside Dean Jones' office, or you --

PEARCE: Oh, I --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- were dressed casually?

PEARCE: Well, -- We usually either wore a suit and tie, coat and tie, or presentable sweater with a tie, hat. So, I suppose I was properly dressed. That's all I can recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, I was just thinking, since you'd set up business there in the Administration Building, you'd have to have a certain look about you to be successful I suppose.

PEARCE: I don't know. I -- [chuckle--Birdwhistell] I guess so. But I always tried to dress well. I -- As well as I could.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure. So you had these customers coming in, you were assigning 'em, --

PEARCE: And I did. 00:28:00I sent --

BIRDWHISTELL: How much money did you make off of that?

PEARCE: I forget. I remember one thing, I always told these kids, "If you don't like the room, come on back here, I'll get you another one." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I'd sell 'em again [chuckles]. I had a boy named Wynne McKinney [Jr.], who later became an associate and something of a friend, a strange character, and I sent him either two or three places. And [chuckle--Birdwhistell] -- And there was a woman named Ms. O'Neill to whom I think I sold about three boys. And I moved into her house with another man, I forget his name. But I --

BIRDWHISTELL: After you --

PEARCE: -- she --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- left Ms. Smith's --

PEARCE: I -- I -- I told Ms. Smith, I've got a deal up on the hill. I forget exactly what it was that made me move to Ms. O'Neill's house, but obviously I had some sort of deal with 00:29:00her.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. You say up on the heel -- hill. Where would that be, up on the --

PEARCE: That --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- hill?

PEARCE: -- was on Bonnie Brae.

BIRDWHISTELL: On Bonnie Brae?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Maxwelton Court and Bonnie Brae was off that way, yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: So, that's where I stayed. And I remember [chuckle], I had very little shame, thank goodness. Three or four of these boys wandering around, you know, in a strange town. They said, "Where -- where do you eat around here?" And I said, "Well, there's a good cafeteria downtown." And there was. On Main Street there was a thing called The Tatewood Cafeteria.

BIRDWHISTELL: Tatewood?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Tatewood Cafeteria. And so we all went down there and loaded up. Boy, you'd get -- You know, in those days a cafeteria was a good place to eat, [chuckle--Birdwhistell] because you'd get big helpings and everything.

BIRDWHISTELL: A lot of mashed potatoes.

PEARCE: Yeah. Well, and we went -- started out, and heavens to Betsy, I had left 00:30:00my wallet at home. [chuckle--Birdwhistell] "Would you fell---" "Oh, let us get it. Let us get it," you know. They -- they were very flattered that I -- an upperclassman, as I passed myself off --

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh [laughs].

PEARCE: -- as an upperclassman, showing them around. As I said, I was without shame, but a lot of hunger [chuckles]. And so they paid for my dinner. I remember that. I [chuckle] -- I carried off this charade pretty well for a while, but I remember that we were standing in line to register and this McKinney boy was just a couple of boys from me [chuckles]. He said, "What --" said, "What are you doing here in the freshman line?" Said, ah, the masquerade was over. [Chuckles]

BIRDWHISTELL: You 'fessed up.

PEARCE: Yes. I was -- I was unmasked --

BIRDWHISTELL: Now -- now, no--

PEARCE: -- as a fraud.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- no one fr--- [chuckle] no one from Dean Jones' 00:31:00office came out and inquired as to what you were --

PEARCE: There was no one there.

BIRDWHISTELL: They wouldn't -- Yeah. After you --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Oh. [Chuckle]

PEARCE: I had the Administration Building almost to myself [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And then I went over to the Kernel office and started work. I remember I melted lead for pigs, for the linotype, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, the -- in the -- This was the fall of --

PEARCE: '37.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- '37 and the Kernel offices are --

PEARCE: In Mc--- McVey Hall.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- in -- in McVey Hall already.

PEARCE: On the first floor. And -- and in the basement. The press was in the basement. The Kernel offices of the student was also in the basement, and the Kentuckian office was in the basement.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. So, after that first week, your job as a -- as a press operator got up and going?

PEARCE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: You -- you survived that first week through --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- selling rooms and --

PEARCE: Well, and --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- bumming meals --

PEARCE: -- doing whatever I could -- Yeah. And I did some work over at the -- over at the Kernel office. And -- and, you know, got my time card and --

BIRDWHISTELL: Who were you dealing with over at the -- over at the Kernel? Were you dealing --

PEARCE: Dave Griffith and a man named Don Grote, G-R-O-T-E. Nice fellow. Both of 'em were nice fellows. And the student [for I remember?] was a boy named Bill [William] Hopewell from west Kentucky. I believe it was -- he was from either Princeton or Providence, around in there.

BIRDWHISTELL: How did you say his name, Hope---

PEARCE: Hopewell.

BIRDWHISTELL: Hopewell.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. [Billy ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, --

PEARCE: -- Hopewell.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- now were Griffith and Grote employees of the university, they were staff --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- people? They weren't faculty, though, were they?

PEARCE: No. No, they were administra---

BIRDWHISTELL: Staff, umhmm.

PEARCE: -- people, yeah. And I guess I worked for them. I'd go over and 00:33:00do whatever was available. And I had my time card, you know, by the time clock. I'd go over and punch in, and then when the job was over, I'd punch out. At the end of the week, why, I'd get some money in a little envelope from the business office. That was about it. Quite simple.

BIRDWHISTELL: And at the time you were working there for the Kernel, prior to -- just as school was getting started, did you meet the editor and the students who were running the newspaper then?

PEARCE: Yes. Very shortly. I enrolled, got my classes set up. I started classes. And started running the press, which, as I say, was in 00:34:00the basement and right opposite the student offices of the Kernel. And, of course, the student editors and so forth, they would come into the [plat ?] there and make up the pages, and -- and then we'd put 'em on the press. So, I just got to know 'em very casually. And [then ?] -- and then I more or less wandered into the paper. I don't know exactly how that happened now, but I started running around. I remember the -- a boy named Ross Chepeleff was editor and George [Kerler ?], who later wound up on Owensboro paper, he was with the A.P. [Associated Press] in Frankfort. He was on 00:35:00the paper. Don [Donald] Irvine from Lexington, who later wound up with the U.N. [United Nations] in Paris, was on that. Joe Creason, Andrew Eckdahl.

BIRDWHISTELL: They were all there at this point?

PEARCE: Yeah. They were all there. And they were ahead of me. You know, [inaudible] --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you hit it off pretty well with all those people?

PEARCE: Yeah, I got to be very good friends with [Kerler ?], Harry Williams, who was a -- I think Harry was in the same class I was. He was from Henderson, Kentucky and -- and a highly eccentric young man, and very bright. I -- I just got to running around with 'em.

BIRDWHISTELL: Virgil Couch was there then. Did you know Virgil Couch? He would have been a senior, I guess.

PEARCE: I didn't know him --

BIRDWHISTELL: [I was just ?] --

PEARCE: -- as I recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, I was just curious. When you signed up 00:36:00for your classes, --

PEARCE: Umhmm?

BIRDWHISTELL: -- let's see, where would you have gone to register for those classes?

PEARCE: I w--- went to Alumni Gym.

BIRDWHISTELL: Alumni Gym. And you found out where registration was and you went and started filling out --

PEARCE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- papers. Now, how did you know what to take?

PEARCE: I knew what I wanted to take, I guess.

BIRDWHISTELL: What did you wa---

PEARCE: [Well, and ?]-- Well, first of all, there were so many requisites --

BIRDWHISTELL: There were some -- Okay.

PEARCE: -- that we had to take.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you knew about those. And --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you just took sort of a standard --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- classes for --

PEARCE: Liberal arts, --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- for freshmen. Uh-huh.

PEARCE: -- of course. Uh-huh. And, you know, students talked to each other and -- and I'd talked to the students at home who had been away to school.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, so you knew about all this.

PEARCE: Yeah, it was no mystery or anything [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. The only thing was that [chuckle] when I got down to the disburser's desk, they wanted money, wanted sixty dollars that I --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sixty.

PEARCE: -- didn't have, so I told 'em, and they called Dave Griffith over at the Kernel office. "Yes, he has a job here." And I gave 'em an I.O.U. and that was it.

BIRDWHISTELL: You had to just sign a paper saying --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you owed 'em sixty dollars.

PEARCE: Right. And that I would pay. It was relatively simple and it became increasingly hard physically. I soon found out that it was going to be as much as I could do. I'm --

BIRDWHISTELL: I -- I wanted to ask --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you, I've always been intrigued by this -- people like yourself who end up in this registration line at college. I mean, this is a -- by any measure, a life-changing event.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: And I remember reading about Sarah Blanding talking about when she decided to go to college, standing in that line, and the person that registered her was Frances Jewell. She never forgot it. 00:38:00I wondered if you remembered who was at the end [chuckle--Pearce] of that line when you -- when you walked up there and said, "I'll -- English, History,-- " [chuckle]

PEARCE: I've no recollection in -- whatever.

BIRDWHISTELL: Anonymous person registered --

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- John Ed Pearce.

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh.

PEARCE: I do remember there -- As I say, the fellows over on the Kernel, I liked 'em and I made many good friends over there.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess, as the classes got under way, this would be mid-September, probably --

PEARCE: Second week in --

BIRDWHISTELL: Second week in --

PEARCE: -- September, I guess.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- September, okay.

PEARCE: Second or third week.

BIRDWHISTELL: Second or third week in September. Classes get under way, your job gets going.

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: You know how to -- You learn how to operate that press successfully, I take it.

PEARCE: Well, they assigned a man named [Harold] Hartzer to work with me until we could get the thing settled in. A new press takes a lot of 00:39:00breaking in.

BIRDWHISTELL: Does it?

PEARCE: Yeah, you've got things called angle bars through which the paper is [led ?] through the press, and they must be set just very precisely or the paper will not run through evenly, or will -- the [web ?] will break, which is a mess.

BIRDWHISTELL: Does the actual printing devices have to -- have to get sort of seasoned with the print -- or, I mean, the ink, or --

PEARCE: No. The ink rollers, for example, the rollers that back up to the ink wells and then spread the ink on the rollers that run across the type--see, this was a flatbed, cold type press, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay.

PEARCE: -- old-fashioned type--they all had to be sort of broken in. And you had to get the press oiled. There were oil cups all over the thing that had to be filled and -- We just [inaudible] 00:40:00things. The cutters had to be very precisely aligned so that they would cut each paper where the paper was --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: -- supposed to end.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure [chuckle].

PEARCE: And --

BIRDWHISTELL: That's very important.

PEARCE: And, as it came across on the triangle, it would cut it right in the middle, cut the pages -- the pages in two. There were these things to do. The -- I remember the first time we ran off a -- an edition of the Kernel. We started in the afternoon and we didn't s--- get that pr--- paper off until the next morning.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: The web was breaking constantly. We couldn't get the thing properly aligned and balanced.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. Well, I'll never be able look at a 1937 Kernel now without thinking of you running that press.

PEARCE: Oh boy, it was a nightmare [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. However, after about a month, the press settled in and we didn't have any trouble with it.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, would -- would this -- Is this a late afternoon, early evening job then?

PEARCE: No, it was in an eve--- a night job.

BIRDWHISTELL: Night job, like at --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- eight o'clock or something like that?

PEARCE: We'd go over -- as I recall, we'd go over and -- and punch in, had a time clock. Go in and punch the time clock, oh, as soon as [chuckle] -- pretty near as we were allowed to, to tell the truth [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And then we'd go down and get the press ready. We'd go down and fill the ink wells. We'd go down and fill the oil cups. And we'd put paper on the press, which was a major job because it weighed pretty close to a ton.

BIRDWHISTELL: Hmm.

PEARCE: You know, those huge rolls?

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Yeah.

PEARCE: And they were stored in the adjoining room. And we had to have huge crowbars like, ease 'em down onto a dolly, take 'em in, lift 'em onto the press with bars, align them --

[End of Tape #1, Side #1]

[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]

PEARCE: Ge--- All this 00:42:00had to be done before the -- we started --

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. So, you --

PEARCE: -- running the press.

BIRDWHISTELL: So this is manual labor, too. It's not just standing around punching buttons.

PEARCE: Oh, God.

BIRDWHISTELL: You're -- you're working.

PEARCE: I say you're working. Furthermore, it was in --

BIRDWHISTELL: [So, you ?] --

PEARCE: -- [a place ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, go ahead.

PEARCE: I beg your pardon?

BIRDWHISTELL: I was gonna say, people who -- who listen to this and read it in the future won't un--- a lot of them won't understand what it meant to work at a --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- at a press.

PEARCE: It was -- Well, it was an old-fashioned press. Today it's more or less, as you say, the b--- by no means entir--- a matter of buttons. But in those days it was not a matter of pressing buttons.

BIRDWHISTELL: I'm sorry I interrupted you.

PEARCE: This was in the basement and there were steam pipes all around, and it made the press room very hot.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure. Sure.

PEARCE: And the work was heavy and hard, and very tiring, I'll tell you. Then around, 00:43:00oh, between nine and eleven o'clock, usually around ten o'clock, the -- the paper would be ready upstairs and Billy Hopewell and his people would get the pages ready. And [then ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, the pages had been with the type, is that --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- is that how --

PEARCE: [Now, it ?]--

BIRDWHISTELL: -- it worked?

PEARCE: -- were in [chases ?]. They were -- they were -- the type was put into --

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. And it was about four to six pages, I guess, of newspaper?

PEARCE: Well, each chases was one page, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: But this is a --

PEARCE: And our page ran from four to sixteen pages.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. But this is a -- Is it still a weekly paper then?

PEARCE: No, it was twice a week.

BIRDWHISTELL: Twice a week.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay. I c--- I -- I lose track of when they --

PEARCE: As I recall, it was -- As I recall, it was either Tuesday and Fridays, or Mondays and Thursday. Now, I don't know -- At this remove, I really can't recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: S--- so you're running the presses probably two nights a 00:44:00week.

PEARCE: Yes. Then, once the pages were ready, made ready, boy then came the tough job, 'cause we had to pick up those -- You put what they called dogs, which was a metal clamp, and they would stretch across the chase and you'd tighten 'em to keep the type from falling out of the chase. You would lift it then and put it on a dolly, roll the dolly out to the elevator, take it down the elevator, and then very carefully take it down the slope there to the press room. Now, once --

BIRDWHISTELL: That elevator's still on the end of McVey Hall, probably.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: Umhmm. Take it down that same old elevator. Then you had to lift those pages one at a time, and they weighed I would imagine seventy-five pounds --

BIRDWHISTELL: Umm.

PEARCE: -- or more.

BIRDWHISTELL: [That's ?] kind of awkward too, I would think, with 00:45:00this [inaudible] --

PEARCE: Well yes, and boy you c--- [chuckle] lifted 'em very carefully. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And placed 'em on the flatbed of the press, and aligned 'em, and got 'em into proper alignment, and tightened 'em with coins. That was difficult enough, but occasionally the elevator would break.

BIRDWHISTELL: Of course.

PEARCE: And then we would have to carry those forms, one at a time, down circular -- an old circular metal stairway. And that was --

BIRDWHISTELL: But you got somebody to help you. You'd get two people to carry 'em down the stairs, --

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- wouldn't you? Do it by yourself?

PEARCE: There was -- Well, there wasn't room on that little stairway for two people to carry [that thing ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: Where was that stairway? Was that --

PEARCE: It was to the -- it was to the -- it was to the right of the elevator.

BIRDWHISTELL: Turn left, go to the elevator, and turn right and go down those --

PEARCE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- those back stairs. Uh-huh.

PEARCE: Whew. Boy, that 00:46:00was tough when you had to do that. It just wore you out; by the time you got the press running, you were tired. And then we'd run the press. It was a slow press and usually we'd get off anywhere from three to six in the morning.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did it all night.

PEARCE: Yeah. It was pretty much an all-night job. And furthermore, we fudged on it. Th--- We'd sleep. One of us would run the press -- Once it got going, one of us would run, the other would sleep a while. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Just like when we were waiting for the pages to be made ready upstairs, we'd sit down in the press room and study. And -- and that -- that was fudging on 'em, but nobody -- nobody minded because --

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, the money to pay you all, was that coming out of the N.Y.A. or was that --

PEARCE: No. That was university money.

BIRDWHISTELL: University operating --

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- money to -- to support the student newspaper.

PEARCE: Right.

BIRDWHISTELL: 'Cause there -- Yeah. 'Cause --

PEARCE: Well, the student newspaper pretty well was self-supporting, --

BIRDWHISTELL: By the --

PEARCE: -- [inaudible] [advertisements ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: -- advertisements.

PEARCE: Yeah. It was a good advertising medium.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, it brought -- it had its own budget that they could use to operate the newspaper.

PEARCE: The Kernel plant itself was a university operation and it was funded by the university. And the money that came in from the Kernel and from other publications, for example it printed all of the publications that the -- that the Department of Agriculture, the school of agriculture, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really? Extension service and --

PEARCE: Extension --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- all that.

PEARCE: -- service publications, hundreds and thousands that went out to farmers all year round.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. Now, did you work on those, too?

PEARCE: I did in the summertime.

BIRDWHISTELL: In the summertime.

PEARCE: Oh, and sometime during the year, yes I did.

BIRDWHISTELL: So, how many -- Well so you go over there on these two nights a week, you go over there, I guess, sometime after dinner.

PEARCE: Yeah. We'd try to check in around 7:00 and we'd get off around 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning. And there were a little shower room in there where the janitor showered. We'd go in and -- with a gasoline can and get off the ink and the -- you know, the dirt off of us and get a shower as best we could, and change back into our cl--- street clothes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. Could you ever get all the ink off after a --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [night ?] like that? Would it come off?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Came off with gasoline.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh. Oh, you took -- actually took --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- gasoline in there and took it off. I see.

PEARCE: And then we'd -- we'd go home and get dressed and so forth.

BIRDWHISTELL: Have some breakfast, probably.

PEARCE: If had enough money, we'd have breakfast.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. How many hours a week would you generally work during -- wh--- during this period, when you're doing [inaudible]?

PEARCE: As many as I could. As many hours as I could get.

BIRDWHISTELL: Would it be like fifteen, twenty?

PEARCE: Oh, no. It'd forty -- [something like ?] thirty or forty.

BIRDWHISTELL: Thirty or forty hours?

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. Sometime more than that. Now, on Wednesday night, I think we ran the press on Monday and Thursday night.

BIRDWHISTELL: That would make s---

PEARCE: On Wednesday night, I did stereotyping. We'd cast the cuts for the ads in the paper.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, okay.

PEARCE: I knew how to do that. From my work in Norton I knew how to do that. So, I would do -- I would cast the cuts. And that would take me from -- umm, I'd say 7:00 'til midnight.

BIRDWHISTELL: When you say, cast a cut, what does -- what is -- what's that involve, --

PEARCE: Well, --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- if you don't mind me asking?

PEARCE: Well, I do mind you asking, [chuckle--Birdwhistell] because it's very hard to explain. You -- We had, in those days, what they call mats, which were sort of a papier-mâché replica of the way that the advertisement would appear in the paper, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay.

PEARCE: -- in reverse.

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay.

PEARCE: You'd place it down on a platen, line it off with metal bars, put the platen up against a backdrop, tighten it up, and on top would be this metal -- this molten metal. And you'd bring the -- the metal container over and the spout, as -- like in steel mills?

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. Yeah?

PEARCE: The molten metal would then run down against the mat --

BIRDWHISTELL: Wow.

PEARCE: -- and then, when it cooled, it would be an impression of --

BIRDWHISTELL: Then you'd have --

PEARCE: -- that mat. That would be the ad that would come out in the paper. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: Wow.

PEARCE: -- so then, you'd pick it up and put it over at the side, let it cool.

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, you were very fortunate to -- to arrive with a skill and --

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- knowledge.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Because without that, I mean, you could only bluffed your way through so far, right?

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: I mean, you had to have some --

PEARCE: It didn't take any big brain to do casting.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, it didn't [chuckle]?

PEARCE: No. No, any [lame ?] head can do it after a while.

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, speaking of your --

PEARCE: Then in the afternoons, when I got out of class, if I didn't have anything after say two o'clock, I'd drop by the Kernel office and very often they'd want -- they'd want metal pigs for the linotype, metal bars that went down into the metal melter and would come out as -- as slugs of type. And you'd take the old type and old cast cuts, things like that, put 'em in the pot down in the basement near the press, and build up the fire underneath it, gas fire, and melt down that lead. Then you'd take a skimmer, stir up the melted lead, and skim off the impurities or the dross on top, which you'd throw away. You'd 00:52:00take then a s--- ladle which held, as I recall, oh, nine to fifteen pounds of lead, and you'd pour it in the molds. And it molds it out in -- in pigs that were, as I recall, about a foot or eighteen inches long. And when it cooled, you turned up the mold, and dumped 'em out, and went through that again. The only difficulty in that job--again, as I say, it took no [chuckle--Birdwhistell] nuclear physicist to melt lead--the only difficulty was that you had to be sure that your molds were fairly warm, and that wasn't easy to do. You had to heat 'em up a little bit because once they started cooling off after used, they would collect some moisture. And if you poured that hot metal into a mold with moisture, it would pop. 00:53:00And, man, if it got on you it would just take the skin right down to the quick, in a very -- a fairly considerable burn. It'd also ruin your clothes. So, the trick was just to pour a little bit into each mold before you started pouring really. And then it would heat up the mold and -- And, you got -- I [chuckle] got paid as much as -- for that as I did for running that big old complex press. Thirty-five cents an hour.

BIRDWHISTELL: Thirty-five cents an hour.

PEARCE: And --

BIRDWHISTELL: And you took all the hours you could get.

PEARCE: Took all the hours I could get.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, I think the -- I think the -- l--- a lot of people would agree that the hardest part of college is that first year when you're trying to figure out what's expected, 00:54:00what's going on, how the classes work, who the professors are, you know, how the whole thing kind of works. I mean, you had friends who'd been to college and you'd heard -- you know, and you -- you knew -- you knew the ins and outs of all this stuff, but still you have to get kind of acclimated to this whole routine. That first semester when you were taking these classes, how -- how did that go in terms of the classes themselves? Did you --

PEARCE: All right.

BIRDWHISTELL: You found them not too difficult?

PEARCE: No, I didn't have too much trouble as I recall. I had trouble with one fellow --

BIRDWHISTELL: Who was that?

PEARCE: -- in an English class. He was a Princeton man, I wish I could remember his name. Very good looking, sharp guy.

BIRDWHISTELL: Young guy?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. And he took sort of an instant dislike to me. Some people do, [it's ?] [chuckle--Birdwhistell] -- you know how it happens.

BIRDWHISTELL: Why do you think he did that, [John Ed ?]?

PEARCE: I don't know. I didn't like him either [chuckles].

BIRDWHISTELL: What was it about him you didn't like?

PEARCE: I don't -- He didn't like me [chuckles]. I guess that was it.

BIRDWHISTELL: This [chuckle] --

PEARCE: So --

BIRDWHISTELL: This was just like freshman English, where you --

PEARCE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- writing compositions?

PEARCE: Yeah, and stuff like that.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. And you just --

PEARCE: And the journalism classes. Well, Niel's dead now, isn't he, so I -- Niel Plummer taught a class in b--- beginning journalism.

BIRDWHISTELL: You took that your freshman year?

PEARCE: Yeah, I had to.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] 'Cause you knew you wanted to be a journalist, right?

PEARCE: No. But I was in journalism sort of because I knew what it was. And I was -- You know, you had two years of preparatory before you chose a major. And so I thought I'd go into journalism maybe.

BIRDWHISTELL: And so you had Niel Plummer.

PEARCE: Hmm?

BIRDWHISTELL: And you had Niel Plummer.

PEARCE: Yeah. And I remember -- The first day we were there, Niel got up in front of the class grinning, you know, like a 'possum eating poke berries and he said, "What is news?" [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And then he sort of stood back expectantly. And [chuckle--Birdwhistell] nobody answered, 00:56:00of course. We [chuckle] -- He said, "News is anything that makes you say, 'Whew, gee whiz.'" And I remember Harold Williams [chuckle] was sitting right next to me and he says, "Whew, or [shit ?]." [Chuckles] And Niel's class was sort of that way. It was very elementary and sort of silly, I thought. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And -- and then there was a fellow named Portmann, Victor Portmann.

BIRDWHISTELL: Victor Portmann.

PEARCE: The old sarge. He w--- If you weren't careful, he would -- he would tell you about his war experiences [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And he taught type and stuff like that. Total waste of an adult man's time.

BIRDWHISTELL: Of his time or your time?

PEARCE: Mine. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Well, ours. Yeah, it j--- I didn't think it was a college course. It was a trade school course. And 00:57:00I fe--- "I'm wasting a hell of a lot of time in here."

BIRDWHISTELL: But it was --

PEARCE: It was --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- three hours credit, right?

PEARCE: Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: You got three hours credit, though.

PEARCE: Yeah, you got your credit for it. But, then I s--- fell in with the Kernel boys and they all said [chuckle], "Don't -- Go ahead, wade through it. It's -- You get credit." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] "It doesn't take any [chuckle] brains."

BIRDWHISTELL: So you had English -- That fir--- that fall semester, I don't know if you can recall what you had. You had English, --

PEARCE: Can't recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: Can't recall.

PEARCE: No. Recall [from time ?] -- Had Kentucky history with Tom Clark.

BIRDWHISTELL: How was that?

PEARCE: Loved Tom Clark.

BIRDWHISTELL: What was that like? Tell me about that.

PEARCE: It was nice. It was interesting.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, he's a young guy.

PEARCE: He was a young, good-looking guy and funny, and he was -- he was pleasant. He was nice to us.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, what -- You said he was fun--- how was he funny? I --

PEARCE: Oh, --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Inaudible] stu---

PEARCE: -- he'd tell stories.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, students talk about him being funny. What -- like what? What would he do?

PEARCE: Well, he'd tell stories.

BIRDWHISTELL: About Kentucky --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- history?

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Or history in general?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. And he'd kid with us, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really? Uh-huh.

PEARCE: And -- Let's see, what else did I take? Took Kentucky history and English.

BIRDWHISTELL: But you liked Dr. Clark right away.

PEARCE: Yeah. Like how can you dislike [chuckle] Tom Clark?

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] Well, I know that. I -- The people who --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- listen to this might -- might not have an opportunity to know him.

PEARCE: And I remember I had -- I don't know [when I was first with him ?], but I had Amry Vandenbosch.

BIRDWHISTELL: Amry Vandenbosch.

PEARCE: Oh, I just absolutely loved him.

BIRDWHISTELL: Political science.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. Now, what'd you like about him?

PEARCE: He was nice to me. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And -- and he'd com--- and he w--- spoke to me as though I were an adult. And we'd discuss things. And I'd sit around with him after class and we'd talk. And he always -- I liked -- I've always responded better to kind treatment than to harsh treatment. 00:59:00A lot of people have to be driven and cursed and things like that. I don't react well to that. I -- If you'll encourage me, I'll break my back, you know. And Amry Vandenbosch, I remember one time -- I was always sleepy, naturally [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. Well, you know, I worked all night.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] [I'm ?] sure you were.

PEARCE: And one day I could -- I could f--- fi--- feel myself dozing off. I just couldn't stay awake any longer. And I remember hearing Vandenbosch say, "Leave him alone. He needs the sleep worse than he needs this lecture." [Chuckles] Which was true, I guess. And -- and then John Kuiper, John[?] [T. Huntley] Dupre, ooo, history. Wonderful man, just brilliant. Kuiper in -- in philosophy. Amry Vandenbosch in political science. Tom Clark. Jasper Shannon in 01:00:00political science. And then, of course, people like Grant Knight in English. Now, he was wonderful.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: He was just wonderful.

BIRDWHISTELL: Why?

PEARCE: Oh, he was supercilious, and snotty, and looked on all of us as "you peasants" [chuckle--Birdwhistell], but if you show any capability, he would look at you in a special way and he would treat you as though you were a special person.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you show ability?

PEARCE: I guess, 'cause we got along fine. You know, when I was in the navy, we put into port one time after having been out to sea and got mail. And in it was a book of poems from Grant Knight.

BIRDWHISTELL: Is that right?

PEARCE: And he had written -- and he wrote a very nice, kind note in the front 01:01:00of it. There was --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Do you still have it ?]?

PEARCE: -- a man named Willis Tucker who taught journalism. He was the only --

BIRDWHISTELL: Willis Tucker.

PEARCE: Yes. He --

BIRDWHISTELL: I don't know that name.

PEARCE: Well, he was the only man in that department who deserved to teach college people.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: Yeah. The rest of 'em really, I thought, didn't know what the hell they were doing except wasting time.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, there was a woman in -- in the journalism school, [too ?].

PEARCE: Miss Margie [Marguerite] McLaughlin. She loved football players [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. All you had to do was sign up for Margie's class and show you could do a couple of push-ups and get a "B". She was really terrible. She wasn't as bad as Victor Portmann, but -- she was no worse than -- she was no worse than Niel Plummer. Classes weren't too hard. It was hard to find time to 01:02:00study. See, every -- every minute I wasn't in class, I was -- I was hustling for -- for money.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you do other things besides the job at the Kernel?

PEARCE: Yes, I got a job with a woman named Ms. Williams who lived -- whose establishment was up on South Lime there, near where the Tom Clark Building is today, where the university press is located. It was right along in there somewhere. And she fed students. She had two long tables in this big dining room and she fed students. And we would wait the tables and get our meals for waiting the tables, which wasn't a bad deal.

BIRDWHISTELL: Would that be like dinner, --

PEARCE: Lunch --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- supper?

PEARCE: -- mostly.

BIRDWHISTELL: Lunch?

PEARCE: Yeah. I don't recall whether it was dinner or not, but I know it was lunch. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you'd have to hustle over there and do that, --

PEARCE: Sir?

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [wouldn't ?] -- You'd have to hustle over there and do that during the middle of the day, then.

PEARCE: Yeah. There was also a woman named Ms. Mullins, who I didn't like, but who gave me a job for breakfast waiting tables and -- I'd wait tables over at Ms. Mullins' for breakfast, wait tables over at Ms. Williams' for lunch, and could eat -- I don't remember what we did for dinner. Just wherever we could, I guess. And then I'd work at the Kernel in the afternoon and three nights a week I worked at the Kernel office. And on the weekends, I -- I would do an awful lot of studying, and sleeping.

BIRDWHISTELL: You know, John Ed, w--- when -- I remember talking about your growing up in Norton and -- and Pineville, and you were very aware of these class distinctions in your communities, about who 01:04:00had -- Not -- not about money, but about who was --

PEARCE: Social status.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, social status. And -- and here you are, you know, you -- you're from the mountains, --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you come to Lexington, how do you feel about working all night in a press room and waiting tables during the day? Does that -- Are -- are times so tough that you're just -- you're so happy to be able to support yourself that that doesn't matter, or do you -- do you think about your own status at this point, your situ---

PEARCE: Yes, I did.

BIRDWHISTELL: How did you deal with that?

PEARCE: Well, --

BIRDWHISTELL: What'd you think about it and how did you deal with it?

PEARCE: Well, I felt -- [chuckle] ju--- As my sister said, and a book, I think, has been written on the title -- my sister Rose said, there was -- there was years there where we didn't have any money, but we were never poor people. There was a little -- a little distinction. We still had some social status.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: We were a good family, we had come from good people, we had a --

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: -- nice home. I felt at the -- at the university during those first weeks, that I was not in the class of students that I wished to be in and I hoped to improve myself. But I had no choice at first, I had to hustle. And I was hustling to beat hell. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I was in the press room one day running that press when Edgar Penn--they called him "Chicky"--came in. And he was business manager, as I recall, on the newspaper, on the Kernel. A nice looking guy, about my size, and handsome. Sharp featured, blonde, and just a pleasant, good guy, as I recall. And he said, "Hey, what are you 01:06:00doing this evening?" And I said, "I don't know," you know. He said, "We'd like you to come over to the house." And I said, "What house?" And he said, "The -- the Pi Kap [Pi Kappa Alpha] house," the fraternity house. "Whoo." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] So, I did. And he came by and picked me up, and we went over to the fraternity house. Boy, now that really made an impression on me. The house was on Transylvania Park. It was a strange looking house. I go by it today, it really looks pretty shabby. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] But it looked very grand to me. I m--- The lights were all up, you know. And they had a big case of -- of trophies and cups and plaques and --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: -- everything that the boys had won, you know. And pictures all over the --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Composites ?] --

PEARCE: -- wall.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- everywhere.

PEARCE: Yeah. And -- and pictures of "Happy" [Albert] Chandler and Earle Clements, people like that, who were alumni, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: Who were "Pikes", uh-huh.

PEARCE: Yeah. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: Was this your freshman year?

PEARCE: Hmm?

BIRDWHISTELL: This was your freshman year?

PEARCE: Yeah. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So did you all sit around and smoke cigarettes and stuff?

PEARCE: We had dinner, I remember --

BIRDWHISTELL: Dinner?

PEARCE: -- that. Yeah, they --

BIRDWHISTELL: They --

PEARCE: [Well ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- invited you to dinner.

PEARCE: Yeah. [You know ?], always on "rush" they would ask you to dinner and -- and then afterward, why, we would sometime go over to the Paddock and have a drink, and stuff like that. Be just casual.

BIRDWHISTELL: So you liked that atmosphere?

PEARCE: Oh, me. Well, you see, I had read about this and I had seen it in movies.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure. Sure.

PEARCE: College men went to fraternity houses and they were blase and very smooth guys [chuckle--Birdwhistell], you know, and -- This was glamour, boy, for me. I was eighteen years old.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: I had a -- I went to the "Pike" house myself and was [chuckle] impressed.

PEARCE: I was very --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Not ?] [inaudible].

PEARCE: -- impressed. So 01:08:00then they asked me back. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So you made the cut.

PEARCE: Yeah. And they asked me back and they asked me if I'd be interested. And -- and I -- I got [chuckle] "Chicky" over there and I said, "Now, let's face it. You know what and who I am. I don't have any money." And they said, "Maybe we can help you. Maybe we can help." And they took me over to this side of the room where there was a sandy-haired fellow about my height and stocky, rugged face, named W.T. Bishop, Bill Bishop. And he was the general manager at Keeneland. He was an alumnus. And they introduced us and 01:09:00he said, "Do you want a job?" I -- I said, "Well, I've got a job, but I guess I could use anoth---" And so they -- he said, "We'll get you a job at Keeneland." And I said, "'Chicky', what the hell is Keeneland." [Chuckles] I -- you know, how could I know. Keeneland was -- had only opened the year before, --

BIRDWHISTELL: That's right, --

PEARCE: -- see.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- '36.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: It was brand new. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] "What's Keeneland?"

PEARCE: -- he said, "It's a racetrack." [You know ?], [chuckle] "Okay."

BIRDWHISTELL: Had you been to a racetrack?

PEARCE: Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: Had you been to a racetrack?

PEARCE: No. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Had no idea. Had never seen a race. Knew nothing about horses, didn't care anything [chuckles] -- And so, yeah, they said, "We'll get you a job." So then around the first of October or around there somewhere, maybe later than that I guess, I reported out to Keeneland. Found the office and there was a man named "Ruby" White. Now, tha--- I -- that's what I remember. I may be wrong on that. And he 01:10:00showed me -- showed all of us how to run the parimutuel machines. And that's what I did. [chuckle--Birdwhistell] And every day during the --

BIRDWHISTELL: Fall meet.

PEARCE: -- during the fall and spring meet I'd go out to Keeneland, check in, and they'd have a list of those of us who could work that day. Some days you didn't get to work and that was very disappointing.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. How much did you get paid for --

PEARCE: Eight dollars an afternoon.

BIRDWHISTELL: Whoa.

PEARCE: You check in at noon and you got off around 4:30 or 5:00, and you'd have eight dollars a day for it.

BIRDWHISTELL: Shew.

PEARCE: Which about two dollars an hour almost, and I was getting twenty-five, thirty-five cents an hour.

BIRDWHISTELL: Shew. That's good money.

PEARCE: Oh, it was. And people would -- would give you what they call -- There were two kinds, there were tips and there were drops. A fellow'd buy a ticket and make a lot of money, he'd come back and throw you a buck, you know, every now and then. And then there were drops. People, especially women -- 01:11:00and I was [chuckle] -- He to--- He said, "Now, you --" This fellow next to me, an old timer, he said, "Watch women." He said, "They'll reach down in their purse and grab out a bunch of money, and they don't know what it is, and they'll put it down. And a lot of times they'll put down the wrong amount. And they'll pick up the ticket and go off. And you'll pocket what they leave." [Chuckles] That was called a drop.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] A drop.

PEARCE: Yeah. And -- and I -- I -- The reason I'm telling you this is that a woman came up and put down a five and a one, and gotten a two dollar ticket, and walked away. And I screamed my lungs out after her, "Lady, get back here." She had left four dollars and I wanted her to have her money. And this fellow next to me kicked me. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And he said, "Now listen you little son of a bitch, there are two kinds of people out here, them and us." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] "And they got it and we want it." And he said, "Now, any drops you get, you put in your pocket." 01:12:00And I did. And -- and it wasn't honest, and I didn't like to do it, but I did it. And a lot of times you'd make a lot of money on drops.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. How did you get out there to -- since the --

PEARCE: Hitchhike.

BIRDWHISTELL: You'd hitchhike out to Keeneland?

PEARCE: Yeah, you -- Somebody was always going --

BIRDWHISTELL: Or -- or somebody --

PEARCE: -- out to Keeneland.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- else would -- who would have out there would --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- go and have a car.

PEARCE: Yeah. Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh.

PEARCE: And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, with the -- with the prospect of employment at Keeneland, you opted the pledge then?

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: And --

PEARCE: Became pledge. I remember "Chicky" came down one day, in the press room, and handed me a pledge pin. He said, "How about putting this on?" And I was -- I -- "Yeah, sure." I wanted to be in a fraternity.

BIRDWHISTELL: You wanted to be a "Pike".

PEARCE: [Well, I'm -- sort of -- yeah ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, John Ed, I have a hard time imagining you as a pledge.

PEARCE: Why?

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, because of the way-- what pledges have to do.

PEARCE: We -- they --

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you --

PEARCE: -- they weren't too hard on us.

BIRDWHISTELL: It wasn't?

PEARCE: No. They had a lot of stupidity, you know, and a lot of silly stuff, but it was sort of fun. We --

BIRDWHISTELL: You enjoyed it?

PEARCE: I didn't mind it. [chuckle--Birdwhistell] The only thing is, I didn't want to get hit with those paddles. Now, I got hit two or three times and I'd say, "That's enough. If that's going on, I'm out of here."

BIRDWHISTELL: And they stopped?

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you have a "Big Brother?" [Was it too ?] --

PEARCE: I think "Chicky" was my "Big Brother."

BIRDWHISTELL: [He's the guy ?]?

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, I assumed he would be, if he --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- he kind of recruited you.

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: And I'd go over at the house. In the summertime I lived at the house.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you?

PEARCE: Umhmm.

BIRDWHISTELL: That first su--- summer of '38?

PEARCE: Oh, two or three summers. One t--- summer when the house moved down to High Street, High and -- I believe that was Stone [Avenue]. There's a parking lot there now.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. Why'd they --

PEARCE: [They had a ?] huge, big, red brick house.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you move the house 'cause you needed more room?

PEARCE: I don't know.

BIRDWHISTELL: Don't know?

PEARCE: I -- I wasn't having too much to do with the fraternity after the freshman or sophomore year. I thought it was a [chuckle] bunch of crap.

BIRDWHISTELL: I was go--- [Chuckles] Well now, -- Let's see, you answered the question before I could ask it. I was -- I was gonna ask you how long you -- how long you were taken by this kind of activity.

PEARCE: Well, I didn't mind the ritual and all of it.

BIRDWHISTELL: You --

PEARCE: I thought --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- enjoyed that?

PEARCE: Yeah, it wasn't too bad. Now, [chuckle] I'll tell you a funny thing. In the late spring of my freshman year, the "Pikes" had a regional convention. Chapters from Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky all came to Lexington for, you know, a convention. Whiskey drinking and [chuckle--Birdwhistell] big talk and -- And so, the -- A fellow from Tennessee, a 01:15:00senior, was supposed to give the main address of a student, and I was chosen, from the Kentucky chapter, to give sort of the welcoming speech.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really?

PEARCE: Yeah. It was down at the Lafayette Hotel. It was very elegant, man. The Lafayette was elegant.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: And I had as much pride, I guess, as the average kid, and I worked on that speech, and I worked hard on it. And I gave 'em a lot of crap in it [chuckle--Birdwhistell] and appealed to brotherhood and all that, you know. And, man, it was a good speech.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: I mean, it -- it wowed 'em, man. As -- Can say that now at fifty years remove, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure --

PEARCE: -- I guess.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- sure you can.

PEARCE: Yeah, it -- 01:16:00And the poor old senior from Tennessee got up and said, well, what can I say [chuckle] after that, you know. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And he made a couple of poor jokes and sat down. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I was sort of the hero of the hour. And, as we left the thing, two men came up to me and said -- introduced themselves and said, "What -- what -- what is your major? What do you plan doing?" I said, "Well, I'm thinking about journalism, being some form of writer." And they said, "Well, this summer if you don't have anything to do, why, we run a little new--- we run a little magazine down here called The Bloodhorse. Why don't you come down and see us."

BIRDWHISTELL: Hmm.

PEARCE: Their name was Joe Palmer and [Sid Pastus ?]. Well, being the smart-aleck that I was, I thought, "Bloodhorse?" [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] It sounded like a butcher shop, you know. Very grisly, I thought, "I don't want anything 01:17:00to do with that." So, when summer came I got a job jerking sodas over in the Paddock. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I wasn't gonna work for any [chuckle] "Bloodhorse." I often wonder what would have happened -- what would have happened had I taken that Bloodhorse job.

BIRDWHISTELL: You probably would have become a turf writer.

PEARCE: Yes, I might have. Or I might have become the executive there. I -- I probably would had I -- probably become the managing editor.

BIRDWHISTELL: But you decided to be a soda jerk.

PEARCE: Yeah. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell]

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, let me ask you this, since you're -- I was gonna ask you if you ever talked to your fraternity brother "Happy" about your being a Pike, but I -- The -- the fall -- the fall campaign in 1938 pitted your fraternity brother against Alben Barkley. Did you all mobilize in his behalf?

PEARCE: No. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I didn't -- I didn't care anything about Kentucky politics at all.

BIRDWHISTELL: I just thought maybe your fraternity got involved.

PEARCE: In f--- I'm glad you mentioned that, because -- Now, I'm almost sure this was in my freshman year. It may have been the sophomore year, but I think it was in the freshman year. But "Happy" gave a party at the [governor's] mansion for "Pikes."

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Well, he had --

PEARCE: Dinner party.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: It was very impressive, of course, and he was. And that impressed me with the fraternity again.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: A man like that. He was -- he was such a great personality, you know, and for a boy from nothing to be there and have the governor hug him and all that business. I was -- I was very impressed --

BIRDWHISTELL: What'd --

PEARCE: -- with him.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you say to him?

PEARCE: "Hi." [Chuckles] I don't know what I said to him.

BIRDWHISTELL: But he was a -- Was he bigger than life at that point? I mean, --

PEARCE: He always was.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Yeah.

PEARCE: "Happy" was always bigger --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, here --

PEARCE: -- than life.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you were in the governor's mansion.

PEARCE: Yes, sir.

BIRDWHISTELL: That was quite a jump from getting off that train down in -- town Lexington --

PEARCE: This is what --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- and wondering where to go.

PEARCE: -- I mean. Oh, I'd been there at U.K. about six weeks, I think. I had time to draw a deep breath. I had a little money, because I was making enough to get through. And I looked around the campus and it occurred to me that you could spot the cool guys and the smooth guys on the campus. They'd go with the better looking girls, and they had better looking clothes, and things like that. And I saw right then and there that clothes were very important. You didn't wear that R.O.T.C. [Reserve Officer Training Corps] uniform, you got the best clothes you had. And the first thing I did when I saved money, I got myself a tuxedo.

BIRDWHISTELL: A tux?

PEARCE: Yes, sir. 'Cause 01:20:00I wanted to go to those dances. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I loved to dance [something -- Man ?], I always loved to --

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, you --

PEARCE: -- dance.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- were already into dancing by the time --

PEARCE: Oh, yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you got to college.

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. We had good dances at home.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Yeah. So, you went and got a tux.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Where'd you get it?

PEARCE: [Graves Cox ?]. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Yes, sir. And, yeah, we'd go to the fraternity house and put on our tuxes. If we'd taken a girl, we'd send her a corsage, and then we'd go pick her up, you know.

BIRDWHISTELL: This be like for your spring formals or something like that?

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. And they'd have mid--- mid-season, the same, mid-winter, the same. And fraternity dances -- fraternity and sorority dances all year long.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. Everybody was always having something, right?

PEARCE: Yeah. At least one or two a month. And they'd be big formals. And you'd need to wear a tux or white tie.

BIRDWHISTELL: Wow.

PEARCE: We didn't mess around. We [chuckle--Birdwhistell] went as best we could. I think it -- You know, it was during the Depression and I guess you didn't want to give a basis too much to the poverty of the era. So you dressed as best you could and conducted yourself as best you could. So I started and I bought myself some good clothes, and I had to work my ass off, too. I --

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, you --

PEARCE: -- started dating. And I guess that spring Don Irvine, my friend from Lexington, going with a girl who still there, woman's still there, nice woman. And her aunt owned a camp down on Lake Harrington. And that's where I ran into the girls whose families had camps on 01:22:00Lake Harrington. And I remember we were down there, and I took this girl from the Tri-Delt [Delta Delta Delta] house. She was a doll. She was the nicest girl. And we liked her. She was upperclassman now, unfortunately. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And she was the first woman I slept with, down there at that camp. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] That was a big thing in my life, I'll tell you.

BIRDWHISTELL: That's --

PEARCE: And I was very --

BIRDWHISTELL: Lake Harrington --

PEARCE: -- [impressed ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- has a special --

PEARCE: Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: -- place in your heart, right?

PEARCE: Yeah. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And she did, too. She really -- I -- She was a great girl. And it was just a milestone in growing up.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

[End of Tape #1, Side #2]

[Begin Tape #2, Side #1]

PEARCE: I started running around more and more with the Kernel people, more than the fraternity people. 01:23:00And the Kernel people were, at least on the service -- surface, a more -- I guess you'd say intellectually interested than socially, as the fraternity boys were. And they intrigued me. And we'd sit around downtown in one of these places and drink and have intellectual discussions. At least we thought they were intellectual discussions.

BIRDWHISTELL: What were you all talking ab--- Were you all talking about interna--- You know, you've mention Amry Vandenbosch and how after class you'd sit around and talk with him, and --

PEARCE: International --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Because he ?] --

PEARCE: -- affairs, --

BIRDWHISTELL: International business [inaudible] --

PEARCE: -- they -- they -- Of course, Europe was starting to boil over --

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: -- and -- and [there were limits ?] to the Depression, and Franklin Roosevelt and his programs, of course, were hugely on our minds. So, we were 01:24:00quite interested in national, international politics, and also more or less in philosophy, because we were just starting to take philosophy and our minds were starting to open up. And we were also interested in literature and -- and comparison of authors, and so forth. We were becoming as cynical as most young college intellectuals become [chuckle--Birdwhistell] in their first years. And the -- the conversation was -- was pretty bright, pretty sharp.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: And humorous, and -- you know, witty. And it -- it always a challenge. And -- and I was fascinated by it.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, who would you be sitting around talking with, if you [inaudible] --

PEARCE: Oh, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Give me some of the names.

PEARCE: As I say, there was a George Kerler, Harry Williams, oh, Don Irvine, and Robin [Robert?] 01:25:00Sweeney. Sometime boys like [Jamie Thompson ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: What was your politics at the time? You said earlier, you didn't care much about politics at that point.

PEARCE: The state politics.

BIRDWHISTELL: State politics. But what were your politics in a bigger sense? Were you a --

PEARCE: I was --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- were you a "New Dealer?"

PEARCE: Oh, yes. And I was -- I was fairly radical liberal.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. You thought government could -- You -- you liked the movement toward government --

PEARCE: Activism.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- activism. Yeah, that's the word.

PEARCE: Yes. Well, I think we all did, then. And at the same time, as time went on and the things in Europe got worse, we rebelled against participation in the war. And we were very much opposed 01:26:00to getting into World War II. We were opposed to conscription to the draft. Didn't think that we should get into another war.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Well, there was ?] --

PEARCE: [You must ?] consider that had been only twenty years since World War I was over.

BIRDWHISTELL: And there was a -- a tremendous peace movement during this period [and ?] --

PEARCE: Oh, yes, especially on the college campuses.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- and on the college campuses.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Were -- There were actually some activities on -- at U.K. that -- formal activities that --

PEARCE: Very little --

BIRDWHISTELL: But you weren't --

PEARCE: -- and it was limited.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- involved in any of those.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: You were involved in [those ?].

PEARCE: I was involved some of 'em. But, not terribly s--- seriously. I --

BIRDWHISTELL: There were organizations like "Future Mothers Against the War," and all those --

PEARCE: There was a thing called "Veterans of Future Wars."

BIRDWHISTELL: "Veterans of Future Wars."

PEARCE: Yeah. It was started, I think, by a Louisville boy at Princeton.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.

PEARCE: And I'll think of his name in a minute. Anyhow, we --

BIRDWHISTELL: You -- you were -- you were drawn to those types of things?

PEARCE: [Certain ?] -- Pretty much.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, when you say a radical liberal, I -- seems to me there'd be two currents going on in -- in a college student's mind --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- in the late '30s. One is the near collapse of capitalism, --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- which you had such a personal experience with in --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- on your own life. And the other was, this sort of impending --

PEARCE: Doom.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- doom of war. And so you have these two currents that are sort of s--- c--- you know, in your head all at the same time, so it would be a perfect time for a young thinking person to opt out of the system in a sense.

PEARCE: Yeah, it might have been. We had -- we had the radicals, so-called communists. I don't know whether they were really communists or not. A lot of people could be called communists in [chuckle] those days. We had some of them. And I remember when I was 01:28:00a -- on the paper, they invited me once to come over--what was the name of that outfit--and speak to them.

BIRDWHISTELL: A campus --

PEARCE: They were a bunch -- Hmm?

BIRDWHISTELL: A campus organization?

PEARCE: Yeah. Yeah, a bunch of -- of scruffy kids over there. They didn't dress very well, so we didn't have too much to do with 'em [laughs]. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And most of 'em were from up east; New York, New Jersey, bad people like that [chuckle]. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] So, we -- we didn't want anything, really, to do with the communists on campus unless they could dress better and go to better parties. There w--- I remember there were two sort of [chuckle--Birdwhistell] typical communists on the campus at the time. One was a man named Joe [Rinermagio ?] who was a Italianate looking guy, 01:29:00fairly large, dark-haired, big, strong, aquiline nose, handsome, and a compelling personality. And we all loved Joe Rinermagio, and he'd come in the Kernel office and banter with us, and call us capitalist pigs and things, you know. We [chuckle--Birdwhistell] -- we liked Joe. He sold banners and pom-poms at football games. He was poor as church mice [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. Then he fell in with John and Scott Breckinridge.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really?

PEARCE: Yes, and he would go out to the Breckinridge house and eat. And I think he just shot the home sweet hell out of old Dr. Breckinridge who was about as conservative [chuckle--Birdwhistell] as you could get, you know. But Joe was so bright, and he was witty, and -- and he was so pleasant, everybody liked having him around. Now Pete [Gregous ?] was another c--- cut of cat. Pete was our other com--- campus communist. And he was tall, skinny, lank-haired, 01:30:00intense looking man with sort of pop eyes, and I don't think he smiled. He -- he was just intense about life. And he was always mad at us on the [Louisville] Courier -- Kernel. And he would come in and -- and he was not a nice person to argue with or anything. He was mad and -- We were not impressed really with communism, except that what was going on in Russia we found interesting, what we could learn. We didn't know an awful lot, but wh--- we found that interesting.

BIRDWHISTELL: What did you know -- As events in Europe started to unfold, from your perspective as a college student who was interested in these things, when did you first start to -- or did you start to think that the Nazi movement and Hitler was some -- something different?

PEARCE: Along about our junior year we realized that something was really about to boil over.

BIRDWHISTELL: '39?

PEARCE: Yeah. And Hitler had always been interesting to us, because it was so new --

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: -- and it seemed so a--- alive and so vigorous.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: We didn't know a lot about the Jewish thing, and frankly I didn't know much about Jews. I don't know whether I believed that Jews were bad [like that ?]. I remember that we were up in the dormitory--I was living in the dorm one year--and we were up there arguing. Bob [Spragens ?] from over at Lexington and Martin Packman, who lived here in Louisville, and his sister and brother in law later became good friends of mine, and we were arguing about Hitler and the Jews and so forth. And I said to Martin in a rather irritated way, "How do you know so God damned 01:32:00[chuckle] much about Jews?" And he said, "Well, I am one." I said, "You are?" [Chuckles] I didn't know a damn thing about Jews.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, you'd had a Jewish family in one of your communities where you grew up. They owned a --

PEARCE: Norton.

BIRDWHISTELL: Norton. They owned the store there.

PEARCE: Big -- big dry-goods store.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. So, you knew about them.

PEARCE: [inaudible] But -- Yeah, I knew there were Jews and --

BIRDWHISTELL: But not in a --

PEARCE: Not [where I was ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- geo-political sense, right [chuckle]?

PEARCE: No. And I didn't know that they looked different or anything like that. You -- My brother had a -- I think I told you, my brother Joe had a close friend Jerry [Ellen ?] who was a Jew. [Well ?], we looked on Jews as being less different than Catholics. Now, we looked Catholic as being sort of foreign [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. Really, we -- we thought -- And most of them were what we'd call foreigners; Italians, [Honkies ?], things like that you -- Im--- First -- first generation or 01:33:00second generation immigrants. They were -- they would be Catholics. And when they started a Catholic church there while I was in high school, we looked on them -- and the nuns. We used to call 'em "buzzards," [chuckle--Birdwhistell] because they flapped around in those old black clothes. We had very little respect for Catholics. But Jews, I didn't know anything about Jews.

BIRDWHISTELL: So you had a pretty steep learning curve here in the late '30s, trying to deal with what Nazi -- what the Nazi movement was, what Hitler's ultimate agenda was, and how that --

PEARCE: We had a poem written by Don Irvine that I carried in my magazine, to the tune of ["Humoresque" ?] as I recall. And one verse went, "Hitler is a monster and we'll be invaded next. We must protect our bank account on any old pretext --" [chuckles] -- "pretext."

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, --

PEARCE: "[The main ?] please remember Berlin by December, for we want war." [Chuckles]

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, obviously Europe -- because of the way our culture developed, Europe had our attention here in this country, but simultaneously there were developments in the Far East that were going to have tremendous impact --

PEARCE: And they -- and they made no impression on us --

BIRDWHISTELL: It just went --

PEARCE: As I recall, we -- we never paid any attention to the Japanese, except in sort of a humorous way. We heard they were building battleships that would turn over when they launched 'em [chuckle]. They were sort of a funny, silly people. The idea of their being powerful, dangerous never occurred to us. It was the Germans. The 01:35:00Germans were the serious threat, if there was one.

BIRDWHISTELL: And of course, --

PEARCE: But --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- you have this -- you know, the Jewish issue with the Germans and, of course, with the Japanese it's a race issue.

PEARCE: Not with us. We didn't know anything about --

BIRDWHISTELL: No, --

PEARCE: -- [it at all ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: -- I mean, as a people you -- you -- I mean, when you're talking about the Japanese people, you know, the --

PEARCE: Oh, --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [balance ?] --

PEARCE: -- you mean, they were different?

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah. It's a matter of race.

PEARCE: I guess.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: We just didn't pay much attention to the Japanese in -- when I was in college.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, your professor Amry Vandenbosch, he and Frances Jewell McVey and some others had an International Club.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you go to that?

PEARCE: No. Wasn't invited, as I rec---

BIRDWHISTELL: You had to be invited?

PEARCE: I think so. I'll -- I'll tell you, a charming custom that we had on campus then was Mrs. McVey's tea. One afternoon a week, and I forget what afternoon it was, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Wednesday.

PEARCE: -- she would give a tea and invite all the students in.

BIRDWHISTELL: Wednesday afternoon.

PEARCE: Wednesday? I think it was Wednesday.

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm. It was.

PEARCE: All right. We'd go in there on Wednesday. All of us on the K--- Kernel would go over together.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really?

PEARCE: We'd go over there. And when it was over with, Mrs. McVey would give us the sandwiches that were left [chuckle--Birdwhistell] and we'd take 'em back to the Kernel office and eat 'em. We were always hungry [chuckle--Birdwhistell], naturally. She was a charming woman.

BIRDWHISTELL: Tell me about [it ?].

PEARCE: And it -- and the tea was very pleasant. We'd meet the faculty members, people from town, and --

BIRDWHISTELL: She would have different groups to service and --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- be the --

PEARCE: Umhmm.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- and -- and host the thing.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you ever work at the tea at all, [that ?] --

PEARCE: I can't recall that I did.

BIRDWHISTELL: Tell me about Frances Jewell McVey. What -- When did you first meet her, --

PEARCE: That was it.

BIRDWHISTELL: That -- You met her at the tea.

PEARCE: At -- As I recall.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. What -- And what were -- what were your impressions of her?

PEARCE: Why, she was a beautiful lady. It was like Dr. McVey. He was the personification of the college president. Tall, austere, a commanding presence and 01:37:00voice, and with a -- a worship of the mind. H--- his life was dedicated to the education of his students. He didn't believe in athletics. [Chuckle] He tried to -- like old President [James K.] Patterson, tried to keep it off the campus and failed. He wanted students who were interested in developing their mind. If you were -- If you were interested in learning, and if you were learning, it didn't make any difference then what kind of ex--- opinions you expressed. The fact that you were growing up and expressing opinion would get some respect, more or less, 01:38:00on campus. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, would you find yourself engaged in conversation with Dr. McVey or --

PEARCE: Very -- No, very seldom. I -- I never had the opportunity and I was a little awed by him.

BIRDWHISTELL: Uh-huh. What about a conversation with Frances Jewell McVey?

PEARCE: Yes, we'd talk to Mrs. McVey. But in a social sense, not in an intellectual sense. We just tried to make, you know, polite chatter. My intellectual discussions would be with Grant Knight. I'd go around in the afternoon and he'd sit there and listen to me by the hour. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And he was so patient. I remember -- As I say, he was -- he was handsome, grey-haired fellow who wore very sharp grey suits and he would have a grey mustache. Tilt his head back and sneer at us 01:39:00[Chuckle--Birdwhistell], "How many of you have been to Paris?" Well, hell, there wasn't two people in the class that had -- "Too bad. I'm afraid you never will." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] "Why not," you know. "The Germans are going to destroy it."

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh. Oh.

PEARCE: This was in '38, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: -- '39.

BIRDWHISTELL: He was telling you all that.

PEARCE: "Yes, war is coming." "No, we won't fight." "Yes, you will."

BIRDWHISTELL: Ohhh.

PEARCE: "The war will come and -- is coming and you will fight, and the Germans will overrun Europe, because we're not prepared and they are."

BIRDWHISTELL: And this is an English teacher.

PEARCE: Yes. And -- he -- outrageous. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And Willis Tucker. Willis Tucker would talk to me, almost man to man. He gave us a test once in Advanced Reporting, as I recall. 01:40:00And the -- the assignment on the final exam was, "Lay out a year's calendar for a magazine in one department," politics, sports, something like that for a year. I took that thing, I worked for four hours on it. I not only laid out the story that would run every month or week, but I'd write a lead for it, to show what it was going to be. Not just a topic. And he gave me a 99+ and he says, "The best examination that I have read by a student."

BIRDWHISTELL: Wow.

PEARCE: And Amry Vandenbosch, Jasper 01:41:00Shannon. You could talk to them.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, would somebody like Dr. Vandenbosch and -- and Shannon, would they be promoting preparedness?

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Inaudible]

PEARCE: I don't recall they did. I remember John Kuip--- no, John Dupre had a son at Oberlin [College] who refused to sign up for the draft. And the American Legion there in Lexington gave Kuiper a hard time and said they was wanting him fired from the university.

BIRDWHISTELL: Well, that was --

PEARCE: It was a -- it was a nasty time and that, but exciting. Exciting time.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

PEARCE: I had -- As time went on, as I think I told you, as -- 01:42:00it's a shame that I didn't put up plaques, "John Ed Pearce slept here," [chuckle--Birdwhistell] because I stayed all over. I was always running out of money.

BIRDWHISTELL: So you financ--- I was gonna ask you that, John Ed. Your financial situation didn't stabilize?

PEARCE: It was precarious for four years. [chuckle--Birdwhistell] And s--- A lot of time I simply ran out of money and I'd bum around.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, you mo--- you said you moved into the dorm. Why did you move into a dorm?

PEARCE: I guess some sort of deal. Ms. [Margaret] Crutcher -- Oh, ho, ho, I know what I did. I moved into Bradley Hall and I had tutored football players in English. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Oh, made a lot of friends. Made a lot of friends among the football players. They were great guys, I thought. I --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Were they ?]?

PEARCE: -- liked 'em. Yeah. And it occurred to me -- I had two or three boys up there who were smart and who had never been 01:43:00given the chance to learn, in that they had not been forced to learn. They'd played football through high school at [Mailor ?], places like that, you know, [Manuel ?], and they had never learned anything, but their minds were fertile and they -- they wanted -- [chuckle] they had a natural sort of thirst for knowledge, and they wanted to express themselves, and they did it so badly. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I remember one boy went on to become a colonel in the army, and married a wonderful girl there from Lexington. And I understand he became quite a success. Carl Staker, the basketball player, became president of a huge engineering company in Cleveland, and an extremely wealthy man. Yeah, I lived over in the dorm. [Shirley ?] the janitor, -- [Chuckle] Every time I'd go 01:44:00to a dance, I'd try to leave about that much whiskey in a bottle and bring home, and I'd leave it for Shirley. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And so he pretty well took care of me, you know, [chuckle--Birdwhistell] and he'd clean my room and --

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, you said Crutcher got you involved in -- in that arrangement.

PEARCE: Mrs. Crutcher, who at that time was head of the dormitories.

BIRDWHISTELL: Of the dormitories. Okay, I --

PEARCE: I -- I forget who she introduced me to, and I --

BIRDWHISTELL: Who was the person --

PEARCE: I was always doing little jobs like that.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did the living in the dormitory kind of cramp your style any, after being on your own?

PEARCE: No, I loved it.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you?

PEARCE: Yeah. I had my own room.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, you had your own room.

PEARCE: Oh, yeah. Had my own room. Up at the top. Nice little room.

BIRDWHISTELL: Bradley Hall.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Bradley Hall. Shirley would come in and clean it up for me. And I had nice clothes, I remember that. I was buying my clothes then from Hank Bowman, downtown. He was a tailor at [Thorpes ?] and I always had my clothes tailor-made. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] Oh, and they were good looking clothes.

BIRDWHISTELL: Even though you were -- your financial condition was -- was [inaudible].

PEARCE: Desperate, [you might ?] [chuckle] --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- d--- desperate, you still --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- invested in your clothing?

PEARCE: Yeah. I would -- I would bum friends for meals at fraternity houses. They'd take me up to the fraternity house for lunch, otherwise I'd have [chuckle] starved sometime [chuckle--Birdwhistell].

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you -- you --

PEARCE: I spent money. Whenever I got it, I spent it on clothes and on girls, on dances. I had a pretty good social life, frankly. I -- I might get off work in the morning at six o'clock and be m--- smeared with printer's ink [chuckle] and red-eyed with exhaustion. A little later the -- I'd go down to the Student Union grill and sit around with people from Lexington. And I remember [hearing ?] they thought that I drank a lot [chuckle--Birdwhistell], 01:46:00because I was always sort of bleary eyed and red-eyed. [Chuckles] I let 'em think that [chuckle], because it was a lot more glamorous than to think [chuckle] the poor bastard's been working all night in a hot room [chuckle] with a dirty press [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. [But there's ?] people -- I remember once that I left my overcoat out Keeneland one -- one afternoon, and I got back, and I was down in the grill, and I realized suddenly, "Oh God, I left my overcoat." It was a good-looking tweed overcoat. And I raced out of there. And someone said, "What the hell is he such a sweat about? He can buy a dozen of 'em." They thought I had a lot of money because I dressed well. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I went to dances. And I dated -- I dated nice women.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you have a favorite sor--- you dated sorority women, I assume.

PEARCE: Well, I didn't care about that. I -- I liked to date Lexington women, at 01:47:00least that seemed to fall into it. And I dated some girls from Lexington whose friendship later meant a great deal to me. I was -- And I just loved them. They were so nice. They -- So attractive and they lent so much to my life. And I -- usually I liked their families. And I -- I -- I wanted to have a good time, and I was having a good time. You know, in the summer, I lapsed from being a sensible student to being a sort of an idiot. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] As I told you, we had the -- the Kernel printing office had what they called the bindery where they published and manufactured, I guess, assembled and 01:48:00packaged, pamphlets for the College of Agriculture which were distributed among the state's farmers through the Extension Service. There would be, ["Well, these are sparklers," ?] and "How to Make a Pig-Pen," you know, "New Chicken Houses," farrows and all that business. And gee, boy, they were really dull stuff. But we would assemble them, and stitch them, and cut them up, and package them, sent 'em over. It was the dullest work on earth [chuckle--Birdwhistell], but you could get all the hours you wanted.

BIRDWHISTELL: And it was day work, right?

PEARCE: Yes. Well, it was 24 hours a day.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really.

PEARCE: There was all the work you wanted. There were always orders for catalogs, what they called 'em, [little catalogs ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you were able to save money in the summer?

PEARCE: Oh, boy.

BIRDWHISTELL: You lived in the fraternity house, so that --

PEARCE: Sometime I wor--- lived in the fraternity house. I forget where I lived other times, wherever I could. One week we worked a hundred and twelve hours. [chuckle--Birdwhistell] We never went -- never left the o--- never left the bindery. When we got too tired to run the machines, we'd just go over and lie down and sleep a while. When it came time for a meal, why, one of us would go out and get a bunch of food and bring it back. We'd never let the machine stop. We'd just keep those machines humming all the time. And we'd work there for two or three months and pay off the debts we had from the previous year and get a little bit of money ahead, and then we'd head for the lake [chuckle--Birdwhistell] and sleep with the girls. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: What were the -- You mentioned your encounter there at Harrington Lake at the end of the last tape. Well, 01:50:00what were the sort of the sexual mores of the student body at that time, at least as you experienced it?

PEARCE: Well, nice girls weren't supposed to, unless maybe they were engaged.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right. [If they were planning to marry ?].

PEARCE: I think that if a girl was really engaged to be married, most people figured out that they did it. But you didn't talk about it. And girls wouldn't admit it. And, of course, we were always trying. And -- and having pretty good luck with it, you know. I would usually have one or two girls a year that I'd see a lot and I'd sleep with. And then next year, get some more [chuckle].

BIRDWHISTELL: You'd drop them?

PEARCE: No. Sometime they'd go to other schools. I was hideously in love with a girl whose mother bundled her off to Sweet Briar [College] [chuckle] to 01:51:00get her away from me. [Chuckles] Hee-hee. And well, you did the best you could. I was -- I somehow never looked on sex as being sinful. I knew it -- it was sort of anti-social. You'd -- you didn't get a girl pregnant. Now, I went with one girl whose best friend -- in fact, she was -- she was a friend of several of ours, and damned if she didn't get herself pregnant and had to get an abortion. And that was a bad time.

BIRDWHISTELL: How did she -- where did she get an abortion?

PEARCE: There was an abortionist over on West Third Street named Ms. [Bee ?], and she aborted 01:52:00a lot of the college girls when it was necessary.

BIRDWHISTELL: Was she a white woman?

PEARCE: Yes, and it wasn't a good -- it wasn't a good deal. And this girl was terribly sick afterward and stayed at the home of a girl friend of mine until the girl friend's mother got suspicious and she had to leave, and about the time she was able to go home. No. We always were afraid of pregnancy. It would ruin a girl to have a baby then.

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure, sure.

PEARCE: It wasn't like it is today. And furthermore, you -- you -- a girl did not let it be known that she was laying a man. And -- and if you were a decent guy, you didn't go around telling on her, either [chuckle]. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: So, did you worry about your girlfriends getting pregnant?

PEARCE: All the time.

BIRDWHISTELL: All the time?

PEARCE: We sweated it out every month until the girl's period came around. We would be 01:53:00terrified sometime if she was late. Oh, boy. But, it didn't keep us from doing it [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And -- You know?

BIRDWHISTELL: Sure.

PEARCE: But --

BIRDWHISTELL: You didn't --

PEARCE: I had a lot of girls of whom I was truly fond. This was not just a sexual relationship, and sometime it was not a sexual relationship. It was just sort of a -- a very chaste love affair. [I ?] --

BIRDWHISTELL: Were you --

PEARCE: Hmm?

BIRDWHISTELL: In your college romances then, were you -- were you looking for a spouse?

PEARCE: No. I thought that perhaps after I got out of college I would start.

BIRDWHISTELL: You --

PEARCE: I was just --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- were looking for romance?

PEARCE: Yes. That was it. I was looking for romance. And it was thrilling. It was wonderful to have a romance with a -- a nice girl, like Sue Fan Gooding [chuckle]. She was a beauty queen there. And we never -- we never got down to 01:54:00sexual intercourse. And it was my fault, and I don't know why I sort of held back. About fifteen years ago, I suppose it was, I was invited over to a party in Lexington, and she was home for the -- for that party. And during the time we were standing [chuckle] out on the porch, and she said, "John Ed, why didn't you ever make love to me?" And I said, "I'm damned if I know. I regret it." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I did, I regretted it quite a -- I never -- I never regretted sex with a woman. They were nice women. I -- I was a nice boy. I meant well by them. I -- I liked 'em. I -- I'm -- I regretted those I didn't.

BIRDWHISTELL: Of course, Sarah Blanding was in the business of --

PEARCE: Keeping us --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- kee---

PEARCE: -- from it.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- keeping [chuckle] from having -- You must not have been one of her favorite people.

PEARCE: Yes, I was.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, were you?

PEARCE: I was.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Tell me ?] --

PEARCE: Sarah --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- tell me.

PEARCE: -- Sarah liked me. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I liked her.

BIRDWHISTELL: What'd you like about her?

PEARCE: She was sharp.

BIRDWHISTELL: Was she?

PEARCE: Boy, she was a whip. She was bright as hell and she was tough.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yes, she was.

PEARCE: Yeah. But she was fun, you know. I liked her. When I was on the paper, I always liked to go over and talk to her.

BIRDWHISTELL: What would you go talk to her about?

PEARCE: Oh, stories on the paper, you know. Yeah, I liked her. One time I was going with a girl and she sneaked out of the dorm. She wasn't with me, she was with a friend of mine [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. She sneaked out of the dorm and got caught sneaking back in. And she was in deep doo-doo. She was gonna be in trouble. And I went over and talked to the dean about her [chuckle]. I said, "She's a friend of 01:56:00mine, she was really a pretty nice girl. That was stupid and if you'll let her go, I'll see she doesn't do it again." [Chuckle] And the dean said, "Okay." [Chuckle]

BIRDWHISTELL: Dean Blanding said that?

PEARCE: Yeah. [Chuckles] [Phone rings]

[Interruption in taping]

PEARCE: My college career tended to go up and down a lot. I -- There'd be times when I would be very flush, have a lot of money, lived well. And then I'd -- couldn't get any work anywhere and the Keeneland meet wasn't on. I had -- I had a good fortune -- Am I getting ahead of you?

BIRDWHISTELL: No.

PEARCE: I had the good fortune, as I say, of making the friendship of people like Harry William and Malcolm Patterson, Andrew Eckdahl, a man named Mark [Perdue ?] who was head of A.P. bureau there in Lexington.

BIRDWHISTELL: At the time you were a student, --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- he was head of the A.P. bureau.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. And Harry Williams, the head of the U.P. [United Press International]. Well, he was it. And it -- it was almost a string for 01:57:00him. And they lived over on South Upper Street, 327 or somewhere like that, as I recall. Nice house. And Harry and I -- were the first, I believe -- we moved into the attic, a little attic apartment up there, and made it very nice. We fixed it up and -- I--- A very pleasant place to live. And we had a -- a record player and we had a hot plate, and we'd invite girls up there. We'd have tea, you know [chuckle--Birdwhistell], and stuff like that.

BIRDWHISTELL: You could entertain in your --

PEARCE: Yeah. Well, we entertained --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- in your quarters.

PEARCE: Uh-huh. We entertained in quarters. And -- and we tried to do it in a -- in a -- on a nice level. Not boozing and grabbing at the girls. We'd have music and we'd have tea and we'd talk. And it got to be rather popular.

BIRDWHISTELL: Really?

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: People would want to be selected.

PEARCE: Well, the girls seemed to happy about it. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I remember the first job I got. Andrew Eckdahl said, "Hey, how would you like a feature writing job?" "Fine, I'll take any kind of job," you know. I was working on the Kernel. I think that was before I started the magazine. And he took me down to the [Lexington] Herald and they hired me for special editions. They'd put out a tobacco special every year, and I would write special stories for them. I forget just where I got the material, but I'd get the material and write it up as a feature, you know. Make a little money. I must say I didn't retire on it [chuckles]. If I got five 01:59:00dollars a story, I was very lucky. But, I did. So, --

BIRDWHISTELL: Plus it was ma--- it was good for you to make those kind of professional connections --

PEARCE: Indeed so.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- to the Herald people.

PEARCE: Yes. And then -- Now, I'm getting ahead of myself and I'll have to backtrack. When Harry left, he left me the U.P. string, and in the meantime I had gone down to WLAP and gotten my own job as -- writing two local newscasts a day. I'd go out and gather local news stories and also, of course, [getting ?] the Lexington papers, and pick up and capsulize stories --

BIRDWHISTELL: For -- for --

PEARCE: -- from them.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- for radio broad---

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: What year was this? What year [were you ?] [inaudible]?

PEARCE: Oh, this started about 1941, I guess.

BIRDWHISTELL: This would be your senior --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- year?

PEARCE: Yeah. And, in the meantime, Harry had gotten the Time-Life string, and he left me 02:00:00that.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, really?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Now, Perdue got me a string with the Cincinnati Post -- the Kentucky Post, and I was their Lexington man. I had the Cincinnati Post, I had the New York Herald-Tribune, and don't ask me why.

BIRDWHISTELL: Tell me what it --

PEARCE: I never --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- means to be a string.

PEARCE: You cover an area for the paper. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: Submit stories or news --

PEARCE: Ye--- Well, yeah, you send 'em in stories that will -- We would send 'em by Western Union?

BIRDWHISTELL: Umhmm.

PEARCE: I would get a -- I'd get a story. And finally it got [sort of ?] [chuckle] a manufacturing job. And I would s--- sit down. I remember it would be N.P.R. call, Night Press Rate collect [chuckle]. And you'd send it to the United Press and such-and-such 02:01:00an address. And I'd sit down and I write my story with, say, three carbons. And I'd send one up to the Cincinnati Post, put a different slug on it. I'd send one maybe to the Knoxville papers or wherever [chuckle--Birdwhistell]. And I would also sometimes use it than on my local newscast. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell]

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, would they pay you regardless of if they use it or not, would they have to use it to pay you?

PEARCE: Now, for example, I got five dollars a week from the Cincinnati Post. And they used a lot of [copy ?].

BIRDWHISTELL: So, you were just on a salary with them basically. PEARCE: A -- a retainer.

BIRDWHISTELL: A retainer. A [str--- Yeah ?].

PEARCE: We call it a string retainer.

BIRDWHISTELL: String retainer. Where you'd get five dollars --

PEARCE: Uh-huh.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- no matter --

PEARCE: Now, Time-Life was space. The only thing about the Time-Life [chuckle] was, it was -- the pay was so good that when you did get anything -- You'd submit stories and when they'd pick up one, man, they paid you.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, your material would then appear in -- wh--- I'm gonna show my ignorance here, Time-Life meaning either Time magazine, or Life 02:02:00magazine?

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Okay.

PEARCE: I [chuckle] remember Harry had left and Mark had left, and a raucous, raunchy man name Julian Wilson was A.P. photographer, and he was living in the little anteroom of our apartment. And, oh, he got me laid by a beautiful woman, I remember that. But, [chuckle--Birdwhistell] he and I would go around and we'd pass ourselves off as Time-Life people. That was not exactly honest, but it was not exactly dishonest, because if we uncovered something, we could sell it to Time or Life. And, naturally, we'd go over to Danville to some Sesquicentennial celebration [chuckle] or something and pass ourselves off, you know, as Time-Life [inaudible] --

BIRDWHISTELL: 'Cause there'd be --

PEARCE: -- and get a wonderful --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- food and drink. [Chuckle]

PEARCE: -- reception. And be honored guests at banquets and things like [chuckle--Birdwhistell] that. As I say, it was not total fraud. We had a story there [chuckle], I remember. I covered the first big story of my career when [Miriam Miley ?], the golf pro, was killed along with her mother at the Lexington Country Club. Killed by two men from Lexington named Anderson and Penny. I can still recall that. The trial was sensational. And I got a lot of money out of that.

BIRDWHISTELL: What was sensational about it?

PEARCE: The details. They went out there -- These two men got drunk here in Louisville and decided, for some reason, it was never adequately explained because they denied, you know, having done it, but they went out to the Lexington Country Club to rob it after the Saturday night dance, thinking that they would have a lot of money on hand. Before they could get the safe, Miriam heard them, and surprised them, 02:04:00and they killed her. And her mother, coming to her rescue, was killed. Her mother managed -- managed the country club and Miriam was the pro. She lived there with her mother. Well, I sold that damn story all over. And felt myself very big sitting in court, you know, and taking notes, and -- Yes, sir.

BIRDWHISTELL: Hang on just a second.

[End of Tape #2, Side #1]

[Begin Tape #2, Side #2]

PEARCE: And I remember after the trial, I'd go up to the Canary Cottage and sit in the bar with Sue Fan Gooding and she thought I was pretty glamorous, big time reporter.

BIRDWHISTELL: Did you feel like a newspaperman?

PEARCE: Yes, sir. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] I --

BIRDWHISTELL: [Any ?] --

PEARCE: -- thought I was hot stuff. And --

BIRDWHISTELL: But you were still going to class, too, right?

PEARCE: Uh-huh. Some time. [Chuckles] I was not as interested in going to class as I was in -- then in my profession.

BIRDWHISTELL: Were you -- were you managing to -- Obviously you were managing to do okay in school, though.

PEARCE: Yeah, I wasn't taking as much as I should have. I -- I didn't expect to graduate.

BIRDWHISTELL: You did not expect --

PEARCE: No, I didn't care to. I -- [Chuckles] Didn't appeal to me especially. I didn't need a degree, I needed a job. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I w--- I was heading for New York. I wanted to go to New York and work for the Herald-Tribune. That's what I wanted.

BIRDWHISTELL: That was your goal.

PEARCE: Yeah. And I remember Julian and I covered a weird case where a black man -- boy, he was simple-minded. He was robbing a home and went down the chimney [chuckle]. I swear. He -- Well, of course, he got caught in the chimney, they started a fire, and he suffocated. How to get him out of the chimney? And the firemen went up -- it's gruesome. And they let down a noose, and got him around the neck, and pulled him out by the neck. And Julian got a picture as [chuckle] he came out of that chimney, and I wrote a little story about it. And Time ran it. [Chuckle]

BIRDWHISTELL: It ran in Time magazine.

PEARCE: Oh, yes. And we got a good piece of money. Then --

BIRDWHISTELL: When was that?

PEARCE: -- Life -- Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: When was that?

PEARCE: Oh, that was about '40, '41, 'round in there.

BIRDWHISTELL: '40 or '41.

PEARCE: And I think Life ran it, too. We got paid for that.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, would your name appear with that?

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: It wouldn't. It --

PEARCE: No.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- would be like a -- like a -- yeah, --

PEARCE: Yeah, it was a story.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- a wire report.

PEARCE: We didn't have bylines in those days [way ?]. I don't know that I ever got a byline in --

BIRDWHISTELL: I -- I assumed you didn't, but I just wanted to make sure.

PEARCE: I was so pleased, you know, to see my copy in the paper.

BIRDWHISTELL: Oh, yeah.

PEARCE: Yes.

BIRDWHISTELL: To be in Lexington, Kentucky, and a college student, and your --

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- what you had written to be in Time magazine.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: That was pretty heady stuff, isn't it?

PEARCE: Yeah, that check was pretty heady, too, boy. It paid well. Well, -- But, to go back, at the end of my sophomore -- is that right, junior year maybe -- sophomore, I think, at mid-term maybe 02:07:00of my junior year, Jim Shropshire, the graduate manager of publications came to me. We had a humor, so-called, magazine on the campus called Sour Mash.

BIRDWHISTELL: We sure did. [I've seen it ?].

PEARCE: And it was right funny magazine.

BIRDWHISTELL: It sure was.

PEARCE: And --

BIRDWHISTELL: Quite [elaborate ?] actually.

PEARCE: Yeah. Yeah. And it -- A man named Vogel or Vogler -- Vogel, I think it was, yeah, Al [Alfred] Vogel was business manager of it. And he was making a pretty good thing. So at the end of his senior year, he went downtown and copyrighted the thing. Nobody had ever copyrighted [chuckle] it. He owned it. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] He owned the title. Well, this upset 02:08:00the university no little [chuckles]. They couldn't have that. So, they [ruled ?] this thing off campus. And Jim came to me and -- Vogel left town owing quite a bit of money on [chuckle] Sour Mash. He had milked it. And Jim said, "If you'll take that thing, change the name, and pay off the debts, you can have it. Make some money out of it." So, I -- I took it. He had ne--- renamed it The Wildcat. And I ran that thing and paid off the debt by the end of the year, and -- and it was sort of mine.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now see, I haven't -- I've seen copies of sou--- sou--- Sour Mash, --

PEARCE: Sour Mash.

BIRDWHISTELL: -- but I've not seen copies of The Wildcat.

PEARCE: I'm glad of that.

BIRDWHISTELL: Aww.

PEARCE: It was the worst [chuckle] magazine in the wor---

BIRDWHISTELL: What -- what --

PEARCE: It was soooo bad.

BIRDWHISTELL: How bad --

PEARCE: How bad was --

BIRDWHISTELL: -- was it?

PEARCE: -- it? [Chuckle]

BIRDWHISTELL: [Chuckle] Yeah.

PEARCE: I was ashamed of it even then. [Chuckles]

BIRDWHISTELL: Wh--- why were ashamed of it? What was --

PEARCE: [Oh ?], it was juvenile. It was silly. And frankly, I'm ashamed that it was so bad, because it didn't have to be. All I was interested in is getting the magazine out and making the money off of it.

BIRDWHISTELL: [Right. Right ?].

PEARCE: We'd do anything to sell copies, you know. All sorts of weird schemes and scams.

BIRDWHISTELL: Now, I remember -- I -- I remember reading something about you, at one point, while you were still at U.K. and it -- it -- it mentioned your affiliation with The Wildcat.

PEARCE: Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah, but I didn't know what that was.

PEARCE: Well, they were gonna throw me off the campus.

BIRDWHISTELL: Why was that?

PEARCE: In my junior year, I was called over to the Disciplinary Board and they confronted me with the horrible fact that I had not taken military science and physical education. [Chuckles]

BIRDWHISTELL: When you said you didn't wear that ROTC uniform, I 02:10:00was gonna ask you about R.O.T.C.

PEARCE: The uniform was crummy. [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] And I didn't mind the physical ed. I remember I took boxing--was gonna be a gladiator of the squared circle [chuckle--Birdwhistell]--and I won two -- I won two matches in the intra-fraternity bouts. And then I got up against an independent named Bowman, who must have hit me ten thousand times. I [laughter--Birdwhistell] -- His gloves were in my face so often, I didn't see him [chuckles]. I lost ignominiously. But otherwise, I didn't care much for physical ed. I was always too tired, really, to go down there.

BIRDWHISTELL: Yeah.

PEARCE: And [chuckle--Birdwhistell] so I had not taken the prescribed four semesters of each. And they 02:11:00got me out in front of the board and I said, "If you'll requirements it says, 'You make take four semesters,' it doesn't say you" [chuckle] "must pass four semesters." [Chuckle--Birdwhistell] "And if you'll check, I signed up every time." And I did. I'd sign up, I just [chuckles] wouldn't go. And what was that fellow's name, Leo. He later became a vice-president, I think [inaudible] --

BIRDWHISTELL: Chamberlain.

PEARCE: Who?

BIRDWHISTELL: Leo Cham---

PEARCE: Leo Chamberlain.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: Leo Chamberlain looked at me and he said, "You're a living lie." [Chuckle]

BIRDWHISTELL: In front of the whole group he said it?

PEARCE: Yeah, "Well, at least I'm alive." And they threw me out of school. They suspended me for -- for six weeks.

BIRDWHISTELL: Six weeks.

PEARCE: Yes. And that was supposed to flunk me. I went to my professors and they all said, "Well, don't pay any attention. Just come on" [chuckle] "to class." I did. I never paid any attention to it [chuckle]. I went to class and at the end 02:12:00of the year I took the exams.

BIRDWHISTELL: Wow.

PEARCE: Passed.

BIRDWHISTELL: Who else was on that disciplinary board, do you remember?

PEARCE: No. I remember --

BIRDWHISTELL: Paul --

PEARCE: -- Leo Cha---

BIRDWHISTELL: -- [Min ?]?

PEARCE: Huh?

BIRDWHISTELL: Paul Min?

PEARCE: I think so. Yeah.

BIRDWHISTELL: [All right ?].

PEARCE: They -- they were always doing sort of silly things. There was a big discussion on campus concerning Dean [James H.] Graham of the engineering college. And he had built some buildings there on the campus, including the law building.

BIRDWHISTELL: Right.

PEARCE: The law building was a horror because it had no air-conditioning and the windows wouldn't open. And one day, the Dean of the Law School said, "I can't stand any more" [chuckle] "of this," and picked up a chair, and knocked out the windows [chuckles] to get some air in the classroom.