Eric Clough and Jane Clough

[00:05] ERIC CLOUGH: My name is Eric Clough. I'm 82 years old and today is May 30, 2023. This is Fort Williams State Park, Maine, a suburb of Portland.

[00:20] JANE CLOUGH: My name is Jane Clough. Today is May 30, 2023, and we are at Fort Williams State Park, Maine. When we got married 31 years ago, I didn't know much about your military service. I've learned more since then, of course. But could you please remind me why you joined the military and the Navy in particular? Sure, go ahead.

[00:52] ERIC CLOUGH: I turned 17 and graduated from high school shortly thereafter, like weeks thereafter. And I spent that next summer on a dairy farm in central Pennsylvania, 200 miles from where I lived. And the fall came and the dairy farm work petered out. They didn't need me anymore. So I was at home during the latter part of the fall, and on rainy days, I worked for a landscaper part time. On rainy days, I went to the high school woodshop where I hung around. And one of my mentors there was a teacher named Harmon Brown, who was my student council advisor. I happened to be president of the student council at school. And one day he said, have you thought about the military? I hadn't, so shortly thereafter, it's now probably November, I went to see the marine recruiter in a little bit into Philadelphia. He wasn't there, but the Navy recruiter was there and the rest became the history of my life.

[01:59] JANE CLOUGH: So the marines lost out?

[02:00] ERIC CLOUGH: Marines lost out.

[02:04] JANE CLOUGH: When most of us think of being in a submarine, because that was what you did in the Navy, right. We can imagine being underwater in a tin can. Did you have any concerns about that when you signed up?

[02:19] ERIC CLOUGH: Wait a minute, wait a minute. A tin can is a destroyer. Oh, a submarine is a big pipe. Did I have concerns about that? Not so much. Remember, I was 17. By the time I got onto the skipjack, I was 18. There was boot camp and six months of electronic school. And that's interesting because six months of electronic school at Great Lakes transistors were mentioned. They weren't even part of the training.

[02:47] JANE CLOUGH: They weren't a thing.

[02:48] ERIC CLOUGH: So by the time I got to the skipjack, which was built in 1955, all of the electronics there were vacuum tubes, no transistors.

[02:58] JANE CLOUGH: So the skipjack was the submarine you were on then?

[03:01] ERIC CLOUGH: Yes.

[03:02] JANE CLOUGH: Tell us about the skipjack.

[03:05] ERIC CLOUGH: It was the first of a class of submarines called the skipjack class. It was 300ft long, had the fifth submarine built with a nuclear reactor, reactor makes steam, and powered the ship through the water with one big propeller, a 15 foot propeller called a screw on the back. And we could do submerged, we could do nicely. Over 30 knots. That's pretty fast for a boat.

[03:33] JANE CLOUGH: So what was the training like? At any point? Did you think maybe this was a bad idea? I know you talked about having to go down in a tank. Tell me about that.

[03:44] ERIC CLOUGH: Tanks are for the army.

[03:46] JANE CLOUGH: In the water tank at the submarine.

[03:48] ERIC CLOUGH: Training station in New London, there's this big, tall silo of water, and you have to do. During the eight or ten week school. I've forgotten now you have to do two ascents from a hatch on the side of this tank where the pressure gets. Gets equalized with the water pressure in the tank. Then you come out of the tank through a door, and then they tap you on the shoulder, and with a life jacket on, you float to the surface pretty fast.

[04:16] JANE CLOUGH: Wow.

[04:17] ERIC CLOUGH: But if there was ever a time to think about this is scary, that would have been it. And I just. It was just. I wasn't frightened of that. It was just something you went through.

[04:27] JANE CLOUGH: So you're not claustrophobic?

[04:29] ERIC CLOUGH: No.

[04:30] JANE CLOUGH: And in the sub, what was the longest time you were submerged?

[04:35] ERIC CLOUGH: 60 days. Two trips of 60 days each.

[04:39] JANE CLOUGH: And what were they like? Where did you go?

[04:42] ERIC CLOUGH: You went to your bunk and read and slept.

[04:44] JANE CLOUGH: I mean, where did the submarine go?

[04:48] ERIC CLOUGH: We went from New London to Scotland, had a nice bus tour of western Scotland while we were waiting there, and then from there north, and we hung out for, like, six, left Scott, and submerged and didn't come back up to the surface until we were almost all the way back to New London. But we spent almost two months hanging around in the White Sea, which is just outside of the Russian, the year round russian harbor of Murmansk, and we spied on russian ships coming and going. Wow, that's pretty cool.

[05:25] JANE CLOUGH: Did you have a part specifically in that?

[05:28] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, I was a helmsman, so I got to sit right in the control room and was a duty driver. I was also the maneuvering watch helmsman, so I got called in for when the driving got kind of scary and hairy and bad weather or whatever, in and out of harbor, so I got to steer a lot. What year was that, approximately? I got out of high school in 58, so I was in the navy from 50, January 59 until June of 1962.

[05:59] JANE CLOUGH: So about what year were you calling on the Russians?

[06:07] ERIC CLOUGH: We were there in 61 and early 62.

[06:12] JANE CLOUGH: Thank you. So if there'd been a medical emergency while you were submerged, how would that have been handled?

[06:22] ERIC CLOUGH: Never thought about it.

[06:23] JANE CLOUGH: Well, say someone had appendicitis, what would happen?

[06:28] ERIC CLOUGH: We had a corpsman on board who's equivalent to a. What are they called now? The name, we would still call them corpsman, but they would be equivalent to a PA physician's assistant. And they were, I assume he was probably skilled enough to do an appendectomy.

[06:48] JANE CLOUGH: Really?

[06:50] ERIC CLOUGH: That never happened in those 260 day trips? That never happened. You weren't taken on a trip like that unless you were Fitzhe to go, unless your health and background were really understood and pretty clear.

[07:04] JANE CLOUGH: So what were your duties? You've talked about some of them. What else were you required to do?

[07:15] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, be there.

[07:16] JANE CLOUGH: Be there, show up.

[07:19] ERIC CLOUGH: There's no question about showing up. You're there. But what did I do? I spent a lot of time as a helmsman when we were underway. But when.

[07:26] JANE CLOUGH: What does that mean to be driving, steering.

[07:28] ERIC CLOUGH: Helmsman steers.

[07:30] JANE CLOUGH: Did you get to put the periscope up?

[07:32] ERIC CLOUGH: No. No. An officer of the deck would do that. I got to look at. Look through it. I was always asked after them to let me if there were whales to be seen, I wanted to see a whale. I never did get to see one, except maybe a great distance from the top. But I stood torpedo watches, sonar watches, and as helmsman. And at battle stations, my rate was fire control technician, and my job at the battle station was I would be the guy that pushed the switch to shoot torpedoes.

[08:13] JANE CLOUGH: How often did you practice those things?

[08:15] ERIC CLOUGH: Not very often, no. We were there to look and listen for Russians.

[08:19] JANE CLOUGH: Did you have to be very quiet when you were listening?

[08:22] ERIC CLOUGH: At times, if you were close to another ship thought to be an enemy ship, you were very quiet. Very quiet. Because if you drop something on a steel deck, bang something against any steel in a submarine, it can be heard for a long distance.

[08:38] JANE CLOUGH: Were you, Eric, close to another ship?

[08:41] ERIC CLOUGH: Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Well, on that first trip to the. To Murmansk, we were waiting outside the harbor, and an aircraft carrier left Murmansk, and we drove along underneath it, and we followed it for miles, looking at the bottom of it with a periscope. So we're submerged, but the periscope. And the periscope. Still submerged, but we can see the bottom of the aircraft carrier, and we follow it like that, recording all its noises. And we've got a very interesting sound signature from it because they left the harbor with. It has four screws, four propellers on an aircraft carrier, or at least on that one. And while they were over us, they turned two off and turned the other two on. And of the ones that they turned off, one of them had a big gash, a big nick in the propeller. So we had a bona fide recording of the difference in the sounds from those propellers.

[09:44] JANE CLOUGH: That was useful.

[09:46] ERIC CLOUGH: I guess that's what the Pentagon does, you know, they try to use that stuff.

[09:49] JANE CLOUGH: How was the food?

[09:51] ERIC CLOUGH: Oh, terrific.

[09:52] JANE CLOUGH: You had told me about, you had lobster a lot.

[09:55] ERIC CLOUGH: Not out in the ocean, but when we were in port, we had lobster every Friday.

[09:58] JANE CLOUGH: Every Friday.

[10:00] ERIC CLOUGH: Special services like flying and submarine service get in general, treated very well.

[10:07] JANE CLOUGH: And how did you shower? I went to shower. And you had a regular shower.

[10:13] ERIC CLOUGH: It's not like World War Two. It's a nuclear submarine. Plenty of air conditioning, plenty of fresh water. That was not a problem.

[10:19] JANE CLOUGH: So one thing that I attribute to your submarine training is the way you shower at home. And when you're done with the shower, can you talk about that? What you do?

[10:30] ERIC CLOUGH: I squeegee the shower wall.

[10:32] JANE CLOUGH: You squeegee yourself. You do. You shed the water from yourself before you get out. And towel.

[10:41] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, you don't have a monster sized bath towel on a submarine.

[10:44] JANE CLOUGH: You have a towel so that, you know, I don't do that because I've not been in a submarine.

[10:51] ERIC CLOUGH: You also let the water run when you're brushing your teeth.

[10:53] JANE CLOUGH: Oh, I do not. No. No. Well, what are the sleeping arrangements? Did you have your own bunk?

[11:01] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah. When you're on a longer trip. You did. If we were, because we were the first of the skipjack class, first of six built. A lot of things on the skipjack were experimental. So when we were at New London electric Boat Company in New London, very often we would have equipment installed or brought aboard, and then civilian technicians would go out with us for Monday to Friday or whatever workweek and test equipment, use it, see how it worked. And in cases like that, junior sailors, of which I was at first, but then by the time I left there, I had my own bunk even. But junior sailors would hot bunk. So if you're, remember, ships at sea, at least in the US Navy, you're on duty for 4 hours and you have 4 hours for training, eating, showering, whatever, and 4 hours of sleep. And then that cycle repeats itself over and over again. So you. So when you, you get 4 hours to go sleep, you may not get the same bunk when you're a junior person because we have these extra people on board.

[12:17] JANE CLOUGH: Did you get clean sheets, though?

[12:20] ERIC CLOUGH: What was that?

[12:22] JANE CLOUGH: That wasn't a thing.

[12:24] ERIC CLOUGH: No, that wasn't a thing.

[12:26] JANE CLOUGH: Were there opportunities for advancement in the navy?

[12:32] ERIC CLOUGH: Yes. Yeah, of course.

[12:34] JANE CLOUGH: For you.

[12:36] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah. I mean, I got to be maneuvering watch helmsman. That's not. You don't get assigned that when you're.

[12:42] JANE CLOUGH: Didn't they have you do some special testing and then.

[12:46] ERIC CLOUGH: Oh, yeah, yeah. Along the way. I mean, I did make e five and three and a half years.

[12:53] JANE CLOUGH: I was e five.

[12:55] ERIC CLOUGH: Enlisted list, enlisted rank. Five. That's pretty good. I was second class by the time I got out. But the. There was an opportunity to sign up to go to the naval academy prep school. So sailors from the enlisted sailors from the ranks could sign up, go to the prep school, and then take sat tests again like you had in high school and potentially get admitted to the academy. And another young man whose name I've forgotten on the skipjack and I were offered that chance, and I declined it.

[13:31] JANE CLOUGH: So why. And you decided not to sign up again, even without going to the academy?

[13:36] ERIC CLOUGH: The military wasn't for me for the long term, because I think I was just a little too independent, a little.

[13:48] JANE CLOUGH: Too entrepreneurial, and still are. Still happily. So. When you did take some tests, you told me you got some of the highest scores. And what did that do for you?

[14:05] ERIC CLOUGH: Looking back, you know that I was not a good student in high school. I mean, my high school diploma was a gift. Most people talk about being in the top 20% of their class. I was in the bottom 20% of my high school class. So when I first got, actually, the screening tests for the Navy before I was inducted, I can remember being called out of this group of a whole bunch of people. Some were being drafted. Vietnam era was starting up then, and so hundreds of guys at the Philadelphia Navy are taking tests, and I was called out, and a bunch of guys with uniforms on said, oh, congratulations. Well, it turned out that on this test, and I can remember it, too, because I finished it, and I was going back over it, and I found a wrong answer, which I erased and corrected. Well, it turns out that I did 100% on that test based on that answer that I corrected. And they said they hadn't seen anybody do that in a long, long time. So that said, well, geez, maybe I. But then I got to boot camp, and I had you take tests every week in boot camp, and I had the highest grade in our 80 man company. I thought, oh, that's good. So. But anyway, time went along, and I started reading, which I hadn't done before, and started paying more attention.

[15:37] JANE CLOUGH: You learned another skill, didn't you?

[15:39] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, I taught myself to type. I got a book and learned how to type.

[15:43] JANE CLOUGH: So when you were in the navy, did it occur to you? Did you even envision that you would then go to college and from college to veterinary school.

[15:54] ERIC CLOUGH: No, vet school was a. But, yeah, I was thinking about college.

[15:58] JANE CLOUGH: Yeah, good.

[16:00] ERIC CLOUGH: And then you don't finish high school in the bottom of quintile and just go to college. So come time to get out of the navy, Albright made me an offer. Come to summer school. If you get bees or better, you can stay in September. And I did.

[16:18] JANE CLOUGH: Oh, excellent. Albright in Pennsylvania.

[16:21] ERIC CLOUGH: Albright College, reading, pa. Yeah.

[16:23] JANE CLOUGH: Tell me, what friendships did you form in the navy?

[16:28] ERIC CLOUGH: I lost track of the one good friend I had there, a radioman named Don Price. Who? The last I know of, Don, if he ever hears this and look me up. Don. I miss you. Yeah, we did a lot of things together. He had a car, volkswagen bug. And we used to drive all over New England to go hiking on weekends. In time, when we had time off it.

[16:50] JANE CLOUGH: Was there a lot of racial and cultural diversity on the skipjack?

[17:00] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, there were 90 crew and ten officers, and I think probably that's 100 people. I would guess that 96 of them were tall, skinny white guys, but there was. I don't recall tension about that or about. I don't recall racial slurs or jokes or whatever.

[17:27] JANE CLOUGH: And was there any gender issue? Were there gender issues or identity?

[17:35] ERIC CLOUGH: Guys missing their girlfriends and their wives?

[17:36] JANE CLOUGH: Yes, but not people.

[17:38] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, I think now on big summaries, Polaris missile submarines, which much larger crews that are out for longer, I think they're women serving on some of them, and I'm sure the navy watches that closely, and people are respectful.

[17:55] JANE CLOUGH: So when you finished your years with the Navy and you returned home, how did you feel you were treated? Did people say, attaboy, good job, or. No, not so much.

[18:06] ERIC CLOUGH: I mean, Vietnam was still an early thought. It was more and more in the news, you know, at that time, but still not. The protesting against Vietnam was not raging like it did a few years later.

[18:20] JANE CLOUGH: But there were some protests, you said at.

[18:24] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, electric smoke coming.

[18:25] JANE CLOUGH: People used to.

[18:25] ERIC CLOUGH: I think they were protesting nuclear power mostly. Then people at the gate of the shipyard, if you were leaving at the end of a shift, there were protesters.

[18:34] JANE CLOUGH: So when you heard years later, when people came back from Vietnam, soldiers, people in the military, and were not treated well, they didn't get attaboy. How did you feel? Did you. Did they deserve an attaboy, good job? Thank you for serving the ones lucky.

[18:52] ERIC CLOUGH: Enough to come home. Yeah, I know four people who died over there and a lot of people who served there. That was sad business.

[19:02] JANE CLOUGH: So you thought people's reaction was unfair.

[19:05] ERIC CLOUGH: Oh, that was terribly unfair. We didn't belong in Vietnam. I thought that was our government made a bunch of mistakes, and it cost us a lot of lives.

[19:17] JANE CLOUGH: I've often heard you say that young people who have a difficult time in school or with socialization issues, that they ought to consider the military. They ought to consider the military. Why is that? Why do you think that?

[19:31] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, it allowed me to grow up. I wasn't just a 17 year old kid anymore. By the time I got out, I was 21, and I was determined to do better. And it afforded me, that four year period afforded me a chance to grow up, not necessarily not grow up all the way, but I. To become more determined that I could do something with my life. And so that's wonderful. And I got from Albright the niftiest letter I ever had was after the last semester of my 20th year of formal education. I made the dean's list at vet.

[20:08] JANE CLOUGH: School, if vet's good. University of Pennsylvania. Yes. Muzzle tough. Yes. If any of our children or grandchildren had considered the military, what would you have advised them?

[20:23] ERIC CLOUGH: I probably would have said, you'll learn more that you can use later if you join the coast guard. But if you want to travel, consider the air force. Like my best friend Paul went into the air force, and because Paul spoke some French, he was very shortly there. After joining, sent to Morocco, where he spent his entire tour, and he's functioned with the military police as an interpreter. He spoke enough French, and he certainly polished his French, and he loved it.

[21:00] JANE CLOUGH: Yes, he did. He had quite a booming business there, as I recall.

[21:04] ERIC CLOUGH: He had a good time.

[21:06] JANE CLOUGH: What was the name of the submarine that went down on its maiden voyage?

[21:11] ERIC CLOUGH: The thresher.

[21:12] JANE CLOUGH: The thresher.

[21:12] ERIC CLOUGH: That was just a few months after I got out. We used to see, because when I left the navy, the skipjack was brought here to Portsmouth for overhaul, and the thresher was there. It was built at Portsmouth. And I remember when it went. I got out and it went down. I got out in June. I think it went down in November, and that was just shocking.

[21:35] JANE CLOUGH: It was, yes.

[21:37] ERIC CLOUGH: But then even more recently, the second skipjack class submarine built was the scorpion, and it was built at electric boat in Connecticut, like the skipjack was, and it was berthed next to us when we were abort. It was very often there at the same time. And I've been aboard this scorpion, and it sunk off the Azores in 1969, I think. And it was. I mean, I recently read the book called Scorpion down. The scorpion was torpedoed by a russian submarine.

[22:13] JANE CLOUGH: Oh, my goodness. Wow. That's pretty gift, Jack, now, is it?

[22:19] ERIC CLOUGH: It's mothballed on the west coast. Yeah. These ships have about a 30 year life expectancy.

[22:25] JANE CLOUGH: Oh, do they?

[22:26] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah.

[22:27] JANE CLOUGH: And what happens to nuclear subs when the nuclear part? What happens to that when they're.

[22:33] ERIC CLOUGH: I think they probably. They remove the fuel and then weld everything else shut. And they just sit. They're not useful for anything else.

[22:44] JANE CLOUGH: I know that you learned to play cribbage in the navy, and I'm grateful for that.

[22:50] ERIC CLOUGH: Just because you beat me this morning, doesn't it?

[22:52] JANE CLOUGH: Well, because you taught me. And I look forward to playing games with you every morning. We play. So I'm thankful for. To the navy for that. And I also want to say that you may have been second class in the navy, but you're first class with me. And I love you very much. And I'm so proud of you.

[23:11] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, I love you, too. How are we doing for time?

[23:16] JANE CLOUGH: We do have some time left. If there are other questions. I have a couple questions, if that's okay.

[23:21] ERIC CLOUGH: So I'm curious, where did you two meet? Oh, well, I became a veterinarian. I don't think we made that very clear. And was working hard and hired an accountant to do our taxes. Jean came from time to time to the office and every year did our taxes.

[23:45] JANE CLOUGH: Jean was the accountant and my best friend.

[23:48] ERIC CLOUGH: Turns out she was Jane's best friend. And one day, Jane had moved from Michigan to New Hampshire because Jean was there and had been there a couple of years. And Jeanne suggested, why don't you take your dog to see doctor Clough and come on. I dropped the dog at a practice on my way to work. That's out of the way. So that went back and forth for a while. And eventually they made an appointment for Jane to bring the dog to see me. And she did. Jesse.

[24:23] JANE CLOUGH: Cutest old dog, our little.

[24:25] ERIC CLOUGH: And we were married three months later.

[24:26] JANE CLOUGH: We were. We were married in Maine.

[24:28] ERIC CLOUGH: In Maine?

[24:29] JANE CLOUGH: Yeah, at the stage neck inn on the beach in the morning. It was wonderful.

[24:36] ERIC CLOUGH: In the rain.

[24:36] JANE CLOUGH: Well, no, we waited.

[24:38] ERIC CLOUGH: It was in between.

[24:39] JANE CLOUGH: It was in between. We finished the wedding, which was beautiful, and ran inside, and it poured.

[24:48] ERIC CLOUGH: We had this little white. Jane came with a little white bichon. I didn't have a dog at the time, and she was a dearest little dog. She lived to be 16.

[24:56] JANE CLOUGH: Yes, she did.

[24:56] ERIC CLOUGH: Before she died, we got our best dog ever. Jesse was a great dog, but we got our best whippet named Owen.

[25:04] JANE CLOUGH: Yes, we did. And I knew you were serious about me because when I would come visit you in your house, which had beautiful wooden floors, Jess, he had trouble on the stairs. And you put down little carpet squares.

[25:18] ERIC CLOUGH: Which she used right away.

[25:19] JANE CLOUGH: She used right away. So I thought, this one's a keeper.

[25:26] ERIC CLOUGH: Who, the dog or me?

[25:28] JANE CLOUGH: Well, both.

[25:29] ERIC CLOUGH: Oh, okay. So there were some other things about. No, I said that. What were some of those other things I had written down?

[25:43] JANE CLOUGH: I think we covered them all because I incorporated them into my list.

[25:49] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, that was your list.

[25:50] JANE CLOUGH: We have done together. I was a hospice nurse. So together, while I was still in nursing and Eric was still in veterinary medicine, we established a program of hospice for pets. We promoted that. We spoke at University of California, Davis and Tufts medical. Tufts veterinary. I'm sorry. And at other veterinary meetings. Ancient memorial. Yes. And we promoted treating dying pets or very aging deaths pets. Sorry. Not just with euthanasia, but with teaching pet owners to treat their symptoms at home as caregivers for human hospice patients do, using a lot of the same medications and theories. We're proud of that.

[26:55] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, we did a good job with that. Still have the CD.

[27:00] JANE CLOUGH: Oh, that's been a while.

[27:01] ERIC CLOUGH: I retired in 2005 because along the way, I broke a heart valve, and it had to remember.

[27:09] JANE CLOUGH: How could you not forget?

[27:11] ERIC CLOUGH: And that led to a huge, huge surgery. And so I'm. I now have my second pacemaker. And it's interesting how it's not nuclear powered, but must be close. Must have spent plutonium in it. But I remember when the first pacemaker battery is winding down, leaving the. The cardiology. One day, the nurse practitioner handed me a pair of double A batteries. He said, here, keep these in your pocket in case the battery in your pacemaker. Excuse me. I know that you mentioned you have children and grandchildren. Can you share a little bit about them?

[27:54] JANE CLOUGH: So we each have two children. I have a daughter, Nancy, who is married and has two children. She's an attorney for Hillsborough county in Tampa, Florida. Her two children are Isabel Jane, and Isabel works now. She graduated from University of Southern California and works now for some sort of data analysis systems for a company in Salt Lake City, Utah. And her son, Kai, Daniel Kai is just graduated from high school, and he is going to Harvard in the fall. So we are very excited about that. He'll be closer to us. And my son Ben has Mia, who is nine, and Toby, who is seven. And they. My children are half japanese. My first husband is japanese, so my son's wife is japanese also, and so those children are bilingual. And I'm very pleased about that.

[29:13] ERIC CLOUGH: Jane's first husband's parents lived in Hawaii and Michael's father stood on the roof of their house.

[29:27] JANE CLOUGH: Yes.

[29:28] ERIC CLOUGH: And watched japanese bombers bump roar.

[29:33] JANE CLOUGH: I know. And he didn't know what was going on. He had no idea.

[29:39] ERIC CLOUGH: Nobody did.

[29:40] JANE CLOUGH: But in Hawaii japanese people were not put in camps. There were too many mix rays and too many Japanese. It wouldn't have been possible. But in other places that did happen. To our great sorrow and embarrassment.

[29:58] ERIC CLOUGH: My family has a tie to Hawaii because my mother, before she married was a young woman and a young nurse spent two years living and working in Hawaii. And so I've always had warm feelings about that wonderful place.

[30:12] JANE CLOUGH: Tell us about your children. Grandchildren?

[30:14] ERIC CLOUGH: I have two children, same ages as Jane's. An older son named Kyle. Kyle is a project manager for a big travel company in Denver, Colorado. He has two children, a daughter Kira, now a sophomore at Colorado State, and a son, Hudson, who is about to be a 9th grader.

[30:44] JANE CLOUGH: He's going to be 14.

[30:47] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, he's 14. And my other son Trevor met his husband while they were both working in Boston. Trevor is a Brown University grad, was working for Oracle, but Trevor worked for Oracle after he got an MBA at London business School and he has since London business school he has stayed in England, become an english citizen and together he and Jason have a little twelve year old son with a surrogate mother and an egg donor and they're just a spectacular family. And Trevor has started Trevor and Jason together. Although Jason's gone back to a corporate job they started a company called Digby Fine English and they make sparkling wine, the best in England.

[31:42] JANE CLOUGH: It's wonderful.

[31:43] ERIC CLOUGH: Now served on british air, British Air.

[31:46] JANE CLOUGH: And in the House of Commons and then the Queen Elizabeth speaking of the.

[31:50] ERIC CLOUGH: Navy, it's a good story. Trevor had a call about a year and a half ago from a man introduced himself as an officer from the Royal Navy interested in Digby wine for the HMS Elizabeth. Wardroom wardrobe on that ship is 500 officers and pilots and Trevor having learned his marketing cues from a good marketing company finally got around to saying well, do you think you'd like to have some digby on board? The officer said yes. How much? Well we're thinking 500 bottles. And Trevor said make it 1000 bottles and I'll private label it for you. Deal. And that order has been refilled?

[32:32] JANE CLOUGH: Yes.

[32:32] ERIC CLOUGH: So they drink fine wine on the HMS.

[32:37] JANE CLOUGH: It's also the wine for the rowing club in England.

[32:41] ERIC CLOUGH: They have a big presence.

[32:42] JANE CLOUGH: Henley Regatta.

[32:43] ERIC CLOUGH: The Henley regatta on the Thames. We've been to that event. That's spectacular.

[32:48] JANE CLOUGH: You have to wear hat.

[32:51] ERIC CLOUGH: Yep. Women have to wear.

[32:52] JANE CLOUGH: Women have to wear. Men have to wear jackets. No matter how hot it is, you're not allowed to take off your jacket.

[32:58] ERIC CLOUGH: And we love traveling in England. It's a great country to travel.

[33:03] JANE CLOUGH: I love the pubs. I love sticky toffee pudding.

[33:07] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah.

[33:07] JANE CLOUGH: Pub food is driven mess, which is another wonderful dessert with meringue.

[33:13] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, well, I don't think they sort of eaten mess at Cambridge where Jason went to school.

[33:17] JANE CLOUGH: I think they did.

[33:19] ERIC CLOUGH: Really?

[33:19] JANE CLOUGH: Yes. I don't know about that famous british dessert.

[33:23] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that's an Oxford.

[33:27] JANE CLOUGH: Oh. Because you can't say Eton when you're at Cambridge.

[33:30] ERIC CLOUGH: I'm not so sure about that.

[33:31] JANE CLOUGH: Okay.

[33:32] ERIC CLOUGH: I wouldn't.

[33:33] JANE CLOUGH: Okay. I won't. If any of your children or grandchildren.

[33:39] ERIC CLOUGH: Listen to this recording, is there anything in particular that you would like them to know?

[33:48] JANE CLOUGH: Yeah.

[33:50] ERIC CLOUGH: Keep your paddle in the water.

[33:52] JANE CLOUGH: You know, we love them so much. We're so proud of them. Our nine year old, Nia, interviewed Eric for school about his service in the navy. And they're good readers, they're good writers. We're proud of that. We wish we could live forever just to see what they become. Because they are wonderful young people.

[34:18] ERIC CLOUGH: Yeah. I been thinking that if I made it to 90, that would be pretty good, given my heart disease background. But over this past year or so, I've started thinking I'd like to live 30 more years just so I can see how our kids get on with their lives. And we'll see. We'll see if a guy hands me another pair of AA's next week. I'll have to rethink that. All right, no more jokes.

[34:46] JANE CLOUGH: No more jokes. We're done.

[34:47] ERIC CLOUGH: Be serious.

[34:48] JANE CLOUGH: Okay.

[34:50] ERIC CLOUGH: Thank you very much.

[34:52] JANE CLOUGH: Is there anything else that, Heather, you like to share? Just that our dog, Lulu is in the car and she's probably eating part of the steering wheel by now.

[35:04] ERIC CLOUGH: Well, inquiring minds might like to know why we play cribbage.

[35:09] JANE CLOUGH: Why do we play cribbage? Sexual favors. No, just got that right out. Just. We're not even going to talk about canasta or gin, so. No. Is there another reason why you play cribbage? It's good for the brain. It is. We don't keep score anymore. We used to, but that got personal, so we don't.

[35:40] ERIC CLOUGH: There's one more thing. That we have a lot of friends scattered around the country and in England, too. And I think about and miss a lot of them. I'll be going this fall to a 65th high school reunion in suburban Philly, and I'm looking forward to that. Some of these people I've known since second grade, two of them live here in Maine, second grade friends. And we'll be driving down together. It's a real treat.