Bennett Steelman and Elizabeth Steelman

00:01 My name is Ben Stillman. I'm 67 years old today, as Wednesday, September 15th 2021. We're in Wilmington, North Carolina. And I'm with Beth Steelman, my wife and I'm death. Stillman. I'm 74 years old. Today is Wednesday, September 15th, 2021. And I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina. I'm with my husband. Ben.

00:26 Then you have so many really cool stories about your childhood in the mountains of North Carolina. I don't know. You were busy and constantly. My daddy grew up in a little Community, Moravian falls out of Wilkesboro, North side of Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Anyway, I want one thing that happened when he was in high school. His best friend was Harold Sturdevant. Who's daddy ran the funeral home in Wilkesboro and Harold had to go down to Winston-Salem to pick up a new hearse now.

01:08 Somehow Harold, and my daddy made a deal with this Feller. He was going, he was going to pay them $20 cash, money to drive an old Buick from Wilkesboro to a certain gas station in Winston-Salem, and give it to a feller named Billy Ray and give him the keys no-questions-asked. Then they could go get the person can come home. Now. This was a very interesting drive. The car was very was driving. Like it was very, very heavy. Like it was loaded down and every once in a while when you took a turn you to clink, clink. Hang like there was a bunch of bottles in the back.

01:53 And everything went without incident, they got to $20 and my dad had to keep his mouth shut for the rest of his life. Because his mother was a good Baptists and if she found out that he had been running moonshine. Whoop his 6 ft, 6 ft wide, and made him, give them give the money back to the church or whatever.

02:18 What about the time you had your father got into the vines?

02:23 Are my his grandfather or my great-grandfather? Houston Steelman lived with his parents? He was a big imposing fell. He wore a big tall ten gallon, hats or black Hoss. Cartwright used to wear on Bonanza and he and he, he always, he always had a story or two and a lot of them were about Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone, passed through Wilkesboro. There's actually a monument there to it. Anyway, hit hit. Tell them stories about Daniel Boone this. And Daniel Boone. That how and old Daniel was out in the woods, and he got thirsty. He didn't need a canteen. He just reach himself up, get him a grapevine, cut it, and suck the juice out of the vine. Will my daddy thought this was cool as all? Get-out. So he grabbed his little brother Britt and they immediately headed off to the woods, to find the first Grapevine that they could, they could find a try this.

03:19 Will great granddaddy bless his heart. He left out some details like how to tell a grapevine from poison. Ivy Ono. And by the time they got back to the house, these little boys were like turning different shades of blue, green gray, my Grandaddy Amelie hopped in the Ford Model, A to rush off and get the doctor, but my grandmother was the one who saved the day. She was an old-fashioned Mountain. School teacher. She taught one room School houses where you had to beat up the biggest boy, at the first of the year to assert your Authority. But, anyway, fortunate they were on a farm with cows. And so, the first thing she did was get the old, the whole milk, and start pouring it down, those little boy's throat, and putting more down as soon as they threw up and kept, and kept it up and kept it up in person. So, by the time, the doctor got back

04:12 They were sort of warn out, but basically, okay and we can't go to the story. Is that the rest of his life? My daddy was totally impervious to poison ivy, poison, oak and poison, sumac. He can pull. Up by the rich with his bare hands and wouldn't affect him at all. That's almost unbelievable. How many years have we been married this year? I'm not Valentine's Day of 19 and 99. You know, I pick downtimes Day. So I'd remember it. You got it. Do you remember how we first met? I actually met wi public radio station whqr during the pledge drive. We we oh, we oh we oh our love to run to public radio. That's right, but it was a weird beginning, because remember, back in the day, pledge Central, you weren't a diet have food, and they are. This is a pledge Drive volunteered to answer, phones, and you were a shift supervisor. That's right, and I came in after work at, and I was hungry and they have

05:12 Lasagna out in the lobby and I cut myself a big piece and walked in with it and started eating while nothing was happening and I think this rub you the wrong way, but I said, who is that guy? And he's Breaking All the Rules and they said, oh, that's been Stillman. That's me. What does he do? When he works for the star news? And I said, oh really, because my background is in public relations fund development, public relations, and I had just moved back to Wilmington. I'm a native from

05:45 Knoxville, Tennessee, or Oak, Ridge, Tennessee, and I had been a public relations officer for a nonprofit there. And I have gotten to know all of the newspaper people. And you can just walk in and give your press release and talk and see if it was okay. And that's what they was. Wasn't that way with the star news. So I thought I've got to get to know this person better.

06:09 So I remember I called you up and I guess maybe we introduced ourselves at that time. I don't remember though, doing that. Well, you, you you left out a few details. I call you fust, me out and make it and get it made me get rid of that. Lasagna play. Oh, I don't even remember that. I was. Yes, you did, then. Basically, you've been bossing me around ever sent costume.

06:32 Okay. Alright. Well, let's move on.

06:36 I did call you and I said, let's get together for a drink or something. And you remember what your answer was? No, I do not. You said, well, I'm not free on Wednesday night.

06:48 But I can have dinner on Thursday and I thought I don't think I said anything about dinner, but we did and you correct me. One time. We were down at the Front Street Brewery. Is that where we went? And you just looked at me all night. Well, somebody had fussed at me recently because I tend to stare at the at the floor when I'm talking in. This is not a good thing. This is not a good thing and you're supposed to keep eye contact with the people you're talking with. Oh, okay, and apparently I did this to well. Well without saying anything I thought was he looking at me? I'm feeling uneasy but I have that effect on people think I don't know. What was then we started doing the cinema, take some indie foreign film series. It was a great time. And every Friday on Friday date was the movies.

07:48 Busy with the film. I wrote the movie reviews ride at the time. So, and that was fun, too. And then we got adventurous, one night. We was sitting in the back and watching television and something had come in the mail from betchart exclamation. We were, this was the middle of July. We were sweltering. And I'm I'm in astronomy buff, and I got to one of my astronomy club magazines in the mail in the middle is the depth chart flyer which had a trip to Antarctica and in the middle of July in North Carolina, Antarctica is possibly the most inviting place there from possibly be

08:36 And so, we went way beyond that we went and I remember in the airport. There was a man there saying

08:43 I think he asks we're going, he may have been part of the group. He said, why you going? And I said, because it's there.

08:49 And I think that's it. What's your most memorable?

08:54 Thing about Antarctica.

08:58 All sorts of all sorts of things. There. We, we, we ran into, I think humpback and white whales. That were beat to beat you. When we're floating out in Zodiacs. We were involved. I love seeing the different, the different penguins, what? They don't tell you about penguins, penguins are as bad as nasty as pigeons. They poop everywhere. They poop everywhere. They look very Dapper in the movies, but it gets pretty messy in and the smaller ones. Not the ones that got in the movies with Morgan Freeman. They all had these, I'll have these yakety call if there's one that's actually called the jackass penguin, because it sounds like a donkey.

09:40 You can really do a good penguin impersonation. I wish I could now, but I did going in among the among the, the, the cab gray shirt, glaciers and everything. I remember one of those strips with a blue eyes. Yeah, but the blue eyes, I remember one of those trips and I was on the Zodiac and I was close to the guide. The zodiac is basically a rubber raft for the aluminum bottom, right? And he kept talking on his walkie-talkie to somebody else. And I realize that we were out there floating around those huge icebergs and they did not know where we were, they were trying to get back to the boat, the ship, or whatever you would call it. And I thought I'm not saying anything about this, but I think that was memorable for me. And the other thing was the time that I didn't feel well.

10:36 I get paid too much wine the night before. I don't know what everybody else. Went out in the Zodiac and I stayed on the ship.

10:43 My experiences in my journal, The Sound of Silence never before and never sense, but I just, it was just incredible. It gives me goosebumps right now just to talk about it, but that was missed. But we've been on all seven continents. Now, we didn't intend to do this and we started out with the one that everybody is on my bucket list, but all of that trips,

11:09 What did what are some of your memories? What did you enjoy most or they're probably several Lake Baikal. It was really interesting. Is that big of the big huge Lake and up side beer in Siberia? It freezes. Oh, it freezes over so thick that you can walk across that you can walk across it and where were they? Actually ran tanks across it but in the summer, it's just like one of the Great Lakes its varied. It's a very deep very, very deep and it has it has the Conifer forests around it and

11:48 We saw stromatolite switch record for the oldest fossils on the earth, on the earth. And these amazing pictograms. On one of the things have been made by ancient people this wonderful Island on their supposedly. Where Genghis, Khan was born according to certain people. The Russians maintained that the folks who migrated across the Bering Strait land bridge to America. Started out from near here. I don't know about that. But anyways. It was just a lot of fun to the local, the local people. And people, they looked very much like they were first cousins of the Native Americans or second cousins. How I think we learned a lot of culture. There. I learned some other things too. I had an upset stomach and

12:38 He was hurt bad. What was that guy? He was director of the of the Botanical Garden in irkutsk ride, a pair of Siberia. And the guy, I knew his, the guy knew his plant and he wouldn't eat when you got sick. He, he just reached down and picked up some ginger and shaved it off and gave it to you. And you felt better, didn't you? I did. I really did. But there was some sort of things there to learn. I think I won't forget that. I mean, I can't forget it really, because I still have a bottle of water taken from Lake Baikal in that refrigerator. And one point is still have little bugs floating around in it. I think they're frozen. Now. How many years has it been? We went in two thousand and it was 2000-2005 because part of the excuse for going was to go to an observatory on the banks of Lake Baikal and view the transit.

13:38 Write an unfortunately the telescope was broke. So we did all these old tricks with with them.

13:46 Flashing stuff on card so that you could see the transit without burning your eye out. Alright. Anyway, so it was a lot. That was, that was fun. But getting the local history and culture was it was, it was more like it. I was thinking the other day. What do you remember most about South Africa? Oh, that was a nice, all sorts of stuff. Remember when we were in the Kruger Nature, Preserve in the Secretary Bird walked across the walked across the highway.

14:18 No, I don't remember that. Yeah. Well, the Secretary Bird is a very, very big at almost. It almost looks like a like a velociraptor from Jurassic Park with feathers. It has his big feathers sticking out from the top of his head. That looks like an old quill pen, like secretaries would have used in the eighteen hundreds, but is a very, very mean bird. And actually, it actually is possibly the scariest animal. I saw it. It is more imposing. Actually, in the elephants, bless their hearts and is rather handsome, but I was several years later, you know, my Secretary Bird got loose from the North Carolina Zoo and I don't think they've ever found it sent, but I remember that. That isn't what? I just remember, the Lions walking behind the Jeep and they just look like big kitty cats. When I said, I do not get out of the Jeep. It was a real.

15:13 The older line who is about 9 or 10 years old hits, would have been to Alpha Male, and his son and taking over. But he that, that that they love each other. So there's the sticker that stick around and did proud together and everything. And anyway, that was rather sweet. And I remember Sixth Ward in Cape Town, which was the, it was, it was an old historic African neighborhood that have been cleared out when they did apartheid and they devoted a home Museum to the lost to the to the Lost culture, how they had choirs, that would walk through the streets and seeing on Christmas Day.

15:55 And I just the just the vibrancy of that community and

16:01 I don't remember the food because what amazed me was that all of these immigrants have come over from Pakistan, from Pakistan and Western India. And you had these neighborhoods. As a result. They're all painted in bright colors and the food definitely had a spicy kick to it. All right, and it was a lot of vindaloo in there. I guess they were we when we were eating supper, in a year. That was Kim chatka. Yes, which

16:33 You didn't land on the shore. And so I'm going to see Alaska.

16:41 Anyway, that's the that's the place with all the with all the volcanoes in it. And we actually visited one the day before it erupted, which was rather interesting. We passed 119. Geyser. There was a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences who was under contract with NASA to study this. Because they were theorizing that something like this might be

17:09 On one of Jupiter's moons Europa, which has a witch has a witch has water erosion on it under under miles of ice, but it's the alliance theological e-active. So there might be a organisms around these heat vent sort of like there are in the bottoms of a certain parts of the of the ocean on this planet. Or remember, they told us that almost half of him. Chaka is heated by the steam. Geysers. Did I get that right? I think yes.

17:44 B team is basically natural steam power and they do. Filthy Steam Plant that serve like a population of 600000 is very interesting. They have these electric plants that are closed off by snow for 6 months. So they have all these the higher are all the crews from the old suck, their own, the old Russian submarine service. We're like used to staying submerged for long periods of time. Staying submerged for long periods of time. And remember, every time we got off the helicopter, that be somebody there with machine-gun. Well. I'm just an AK-47 there. Grizzly bears. You see? And they were just going about their own business, but they got upset.

18:30 I don't know that we ever saw one that we saw tracks. Yeah, we saw the tracks from them.

18:37 OG going back to exotic places.

18:40 We're actually living in the house. You grew up and right. Oh, yes. I'm in the house that I was sort of born addicts. That wasn't born in the house. I was born at James Walker Memorial Hospital, which is no longer here. But yeah, I call it the money pit. I guess it must be about a hundred, something years old now and it was you and your brother Billy. That's right. Billy was the I'm trying to remember was the was the electric Wiz. He actually built his own TV set at one point know it. I don't know about that, but he and his friend Clifford know. I think I could do this for a 7th grade on project, science project at Chestnut Street School, which is now Snipes Academy.

19:26 They built a stereo and that this was very unusual. There was no Stereo One. People could hear the ping pong ball, go from being the pain thing, and that was just really big news. And once we know where we are, now, we have surround sound and everything else, but he was so like, one of my children. I have 31 did not live to adulthood, but he was very much like, my brother Billy, he would like to take things apart and I think we have grandchildren now, which one is it? That likes to take things apart? I think it's both was a ticklish Stewart now.

20:07 You never know what's going to happen next or what? They're going to come up with Olivia extremely creative.

20:15 We have them. We haven't said but you are my second husband and I'm your first wife. Maybe I should ask you. Do you regret my baby for first? Wife will a wise man once told me that you bury your second wife, first.

20:30 What?

20:32 Ms. Wife first, yes. Oh everyone has a first wife and second wife. The first wife is usually our steak. So. Oh, well, my first husband just died. I don't know that mistake, but

20:57 And all of my children. Well. Keel over with the age of 38 and I work 40, I think. Yeah. Yeah, he did this or not that much, but he, he did have strengthened. That, was that? I think. So. We grew up, and everybody grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And then, when my job ran out there, both kids had from high school and went to college. And so I did what every Southern Girl does. I came home to my family and my mother was going into assisted living my father passed away.

21:32 And so I said, I want the house and she gave me the house. She needed it over $4 and the kids love the house. Everybody loves the house. It's got a lot of it's probably even got ghost. I will tell you that this and I neighborhood. We do have some haunted houses and we believe they are. And there's some story has to be told by different people that live in these houses, but there's some times that I'll be in that house and I'll see across just out of the corner of my eyes shadow.

22:04 And I have some people that claim they specialize in knowing spirits of that sort come into the house and say that they can feel it. But I've never been afraid the cat. Sometimes that's a little strange, haven't they see things? We don't

22:21 Oh, that one of the ghost is mittens.

22:27 Mother Siamese.

22:30 Well.

22:32 Because the shadow Tim to slink around the way a cat does.

22:37 I had noticed that, that's interesting.

22:42 I do know that someone stayed in the house one time and claims at well house, at while I was gone that they felt like the room was haunted.

22:55 But anyway,

22:59 Right now, we're just trying to clean a carpet after cats.

23:10 What do you want me to tell what they're your. They're your children right boys. Name for my mother's. Maiden name. Not Walker's. Supposedly. He did not talk until he was how old.

23:28 He may have been three years old and his first words were shut. The door that lots of tales about these kids. I'll tell you. But I was a doctor in Portland and Walker is a professor while he's a faculty member and no K and went outside and they both married. They live very exciting lives, and they do not want to come home. And, will they never lived in Wilmington that boy? You just wait and see.

24:07 I think we'll either he didn't walk the long time either, but them boys did that and all this and they just Blossom and now I'm

24:16 I Googled my children to try to figure out what they do and Walker doesn't even discuss what he does with me. Because he says mother, you're not going to understand it.

24:25 So, I think he's probably right about that. He wouldn't, we have a very International family, you realize Walker is married. To someone who is originally from Poland and Australia, New Zealand. I'm sorry, that's right. And what and Floyd is married to Michael, who is chinese-american, right? And they have one boy biologically. And the other is an adopted little girl from China there, three months apart. And they always acted like twins. They don't now. But when they were really small, they acted like twins. And people thought they were twins. My favorite story about the wust, you supposedly the first books you ever read in English was Gone with the Wind, right? So when they got engaged,

25:14 She hired a seamstress from the UK Ukraine. Is it was up in Ithaca New York to make a replica of the dress. That Vivien Leigh war and Gone With the Wind. She's at the picnic with the grains of the genius.

25:33 Green belt on it and walk or drive down to Savannah. So they could find just the right white wide brim hat, and gloves, and all of that, and they got married at Poplar Grove, which is in the foil, family, old plantation, house outside of Wilmington. So thrilled, she looked up, she let dog loose just slide down. The banister was supposedly is a bridal tradition, going back to the 1700 or some such. Yeah. That was Betty. Betty Taylor was a very for Taylor. She she's a member of the family and I think she's retired now, but that was quite a wedding. It really was an employee.

26:20 Was in Chinatown in San Francisco. And 250 of the two, closest friends and relatives were there. It was unusual cuz for it was considered a white woman and the first one in the family, really, but all of the cousins that was sitting at our table. Wanted to tell me what everything was to eat. I wish they hadn't told me cuz I was eating at Midway, but it was so much fun. It was both weddings are just really a lot of fun. I think walkers at Poplar grow. They were doing, they had learned to do.

26:56 They had learned to do a r l o. Okay, and they had me and what's his mother had gotten them? Both a traditional traditional changed into the traditional polish costumes cry. And in the middle of it, the wedding cake slid off the table and fell on the floor around too much o that some great memories. I have. We had really I think we had a great life together. Will thank you Beth. Thank you. Ben. You make a trip, all worthwhile be really do and also because we have a library of 8000 books back in the shed in the backyard. I read much better than I ever read before and when I took Russian at UNCW and wonder about this Russian book, you won't back out to the what you see the garage and a slide door and said, I have a copy of that book.

27:53 And you always seem to come up with a copy of a book when it's mentioned. So and we're known in the restaurants as the readers because we would come in without books and read and sit there and eat.

28:07 So, we hope that day will come back when we don't have masking regulations and all of that sort of thing. We, we live in very unusual time right now. Thank you.