Randall Black and Holly Phillips

00:03 My name is Randall black. I go by Randy and today's date is April 27th, 2018 and I'm with my daughter here in Fort Collins, Colorado.

00:15 And my name is Holly Phillips, and I'm 44 years old. Today's date is April 27th, 2018, and we're here in Fort Collins Colorado today and I am the daughter of Randy Buck 67.

00:35 Remember to get my age, okay?

00:39 So Dad you have never really told me much about your childhood. How did your parents meet will my dad was previously married. He was recently divorced and my mom I just started teaching school. She was a music teacher. She just got out of college. She was young because she skipped two grades in school. So she was like 20 when she graduated she started in Ridge Farm, Illinois and her first year of teaching she made $1,200 and

01:16 One of her students was a relative of my dad's and so he introduced my dad to his music teacher and I'm so that was that was how they got together.

01:34 When did they get married? Will they didn't do a very long they were they eloped and were married on June 19th 1949.

01:47 And and came back to live on the farm where my dad lived.

01:56 So then there was you when were you born? Well, I was born they were born over there were married in June 49 and I was born the last day of 1950. My dad always said I was a good income tax deduction that year and I was I was the first of what became for children. My mom had 4 Kids in less than 4 years. So she had children very quickly and she became a state stay-at-home mom with that. So I was born in December and of 1950 and my sister was born 13 months later and down the line. So, where were they when you were born or do they live?

02:42 The farm where I grew up in my dad lived at the time was outside of Westville, Illinois, and my family had owned the land for over a hundred years of the house that I grew up in was built in 1853. And so they went to live there my grandma still live there because my grandfather died my grandma to live there my dad lived with her.

03:11 And so they went to went to live with the grandma.

03:16 So house, what is your dad do I what was his job? Will he he farmed? We had a little farm It was 95 Acres. But because it belonged to my grandma. He just earned some money for farming at 4. And so it wasn't enough early to support a family. So he started a plumbing and electrical business and he did that out of his truck. And so whenever he wasn't farming he went and mostly worked on Farmers water pumps and you know, installing electrical things that but they needed and we were we were relatively poor the house where we lived we didn't have the edge of Scott and electricity before I was born and we didn't have hot water in our house until I was in junior high and we actually collected water off of the roof of our house.

04:16 I will text you when turn down the gutters and into a cistern in the ground and that was our water source. So we heated whenever we took a bath we heated to a pot of water on the stove and put in the bathtub and got about an inch of water and makes us open mixed it with cold water. And that was how we may as well. So we were we were relatively for

04:39 Taurus four of you. There's four siblings have a sister who's a little over a year younger than me. And then a brother Diane's my sister. Mike is my brother and

04:58 I had a sister who died also in 1954 and she

05:06 Your medicine is Advanced still at the doctor. The doctor said he thought the problem was my mom had too many kids too quick but really fit the fourth child. He died. I had spinal bifida which nowadays they know what to do with but back in those days. They had no idea what to do with spinal bifida that the doctor told my mom right before the baby is born that he thought something wasn't right. And so

05:35 The baby just lived a few hours and and died and I can remember that year. She was born in December 1954. I can remember that year, even though I was only 4 years old. We had a little Christmas tree about that. We had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree about 2 ft tall sitting on top of the record player that year because the baby had just died and it was kind of a kind of a sad year. So I remember you another sad thing. I remember you saying that you had Polio as a child. Can you tell me more about that? Will that was the same year 1954 it wasn't a good year for a family.

06:19 I was I was just three and a half in June of 54. It's amazing how much I can remember even though I was only three and a half years old. I guess it was because it was such a traumatic thing but

06:34 It's like I said before medicine that has advanced a lot. They really people really didn't understand polio very well. It was a very scary disease parents were scared to death of it. There was quite there were quite a few K. They were like over 50,000 cases of polio that year in in the US are parents were all afraid their kids were going to get polio and they were going up crippled for the rest of their life people really didn't understand how it was spread. So often times

07:07 You know schools which shut down swimming pools were shut down churches with shut down, but I was that summer. I was in vacation bible school at the little church across the field from my house Central Illinois flat and treeless so we can see the church across the field. I was in Vacation Bible School.

07:28 And I begin to get a stiff neck and that's one of the early symptoms of polio cuz it's a it's a neurological disease that affects muscles and

07:42 So

07:46 My parents called the doctor and again that back in those days doctors made house calls and the Doctor John R Us was our doctor in the next the little town near where we lived and they called and said, you know where we're concerned about her son. We think maybe it might be polio. He's got a stiff neck. It's not an explanation. And so it's kind of interesting because dr. Urbis he had a son my age and he came out to check me out of came out to the house and brought his son with him and I can still remember the whole family gathered around while dr. Basu was was checking me out and his diagnosis was that it was probably oh that was the best I could tell

08:35 It's always been kind of funny because my mom asked him will how did he get it and his analysis was this was his medical lab conclusion the wrong fly landed on his sandwich the cause quite a stir at the vacation bible school because there are a lot of kids there and so became if it was in the newspaper, you know, they shut down their vacation bible school a lot of you know, his parents were scared. But at the same time that church rallied around her family and prayed for us and

09:17 So the doctors said that you should take him to the hospital.

09:22 And we I still remember my mom taking me down the gravel road toward the hospital and there's a railroad track on the on the road there and when we got to the railroad track course in those days.

09:38 And there were no car seats it set in the front seat over that was three and a half years old sitting in the front seat and my mom when she got the railroad tracks she stopped and she asked me to check to see if there were any trains coming and I couldn't turn my neck and she was just double-checking that it was still that way. So I ended up at st. Elizabeth Hospital the same hospital where I was born. Now rim of the timeline because my sister died in December of the same year so that my mom was three months pregnant when I was diagnosed with polio. So she took me to the hospital Saint Elizabeth in Danville, Illinois, and they're kind of like what you see in the movies old movies very austere rooms that the bed was so, you know how to pipe headboard let you know and

10:38 It just kind of a sterile environment. I was in the hospital for many days.

10:47 I have one thing. My mom always told me it was bad to do a couple of spinal taps while I was in there and I can remember Mom saying.

10:58 That that

11:01 That was the the worst moment of her life being a parent.

11:06 Was that when they made her go down the hall when they would do the spinal taps?

11:15 And she could hear me screaming.

11:18 From down the hall when they were trying to do the spinal taps. A lot of people came to see me. I had an old maid and it was very nice to me at that started my love of chocolate covered raisins because she would she would bring me a chocolate covered raisins in the hospital. So anyway, I was dismissed from the hospital not able to walk I didn't walk for about a year. We lived in a two-story house. All the bedrooms are upstairs. So what my parents did was they bought a one of those Hotel desk bells that you push down with your hand. They got one of those bells put it by my bed. And so when I would wake up in the morning and I was ready to get up I would ring the hotel Bell.

12:12 And they would come and get me and carry me downstairs. I was never in a wheelchair. My I was small enough that my mom usually carried me all the time.

12:23 Hiya sure for write notes 3 and 1/2 by 3 and 1/2 to 4 3 and 1/2 to 4 and 1/2.

12:34 I did a lot of physical therapy went to the hospital the first Physical Therapy. They did was in a device called A Hubbard tank and it's a big stainless steel tank is probably not as big as I remember it being cuz I was small but they would put me in this hybrid hybrid tank. It's kind of like the modern-day hot tub, but they would put me in that and have me do have me do exercise is it was a thing to get the weight off my legs that I can move my legs. And so I did that very regularly and then eventually worked my way up to where I was walking the the rails that you see people that are trying to pair. Let me know people have leg problems are trying to walk at work my work my way up to that. So did you where you at were paralyzed did you ever experience the paralysis? I couldn't walk for almost a year.

13:30 And I remember my mom telling the story of the first time. I walked she but she had me outside and some friends of ours came and parked at the end of the sidewalk and I took a few steps down the sidewalk toward then I started walking not doing this time and I'm doing therapy was when my sister was born and died. So that was a rough year for my family.

13:59 I wore corrective shoes for many years after that. I never had to wear the metal leg braces that you say eat a lot of polio victims wear but I did have to wear high-top corrective shoes. I remember my parents invite those shoes cost like $40 back in this was back in the 50s raise a lot of money and I was growing so they would have to buy the every few months. They would have to buy me another pair of these $40 shoes and and they would come in the mail. And so I had I wish it was always kind of embarrassing cuz I had to wear this to school all the way up to you like the fourth grade, but I gradually got better and better and better and

14:48 Eventually, I had no symptoms at all. I was behind physically, but but I really never develop any symptoms and then as you know, I as an adult, I became a runner and ran several marathons today, but the the problem is

15:16 That there's a any ailment called post-polio syndrome that many people who have had Polio at one time in their life the symptoms come back when they get old enough. I thought it's not really very well understood but the nerve the nerves die during polio and get damaged and then some more nerves grow back and some nerves are overloaded. And so they really, you know, they think it's maybe from living a lifetime of having those messed up nerves that eventually the symptoms come back and so I've known several people who have had that but

15:54 Now put it on a timeline.

16:00 1954

16:02 There was no cure no treatment no vaccine for polio April of 1955. Dr. Jonas Salk announced that he had developed a vaccine for polio. And so

16:18 He became a national hero and people started getting their kids vaccinated in it. Drop it drop rapidly. The number of polio cases dropped rapidly until the the 90s that the United States was declared polio free.

16:38 Hit it really bothers me nowadays to hear people say they don't want the kids to get vaccinations because here we we have a disease that crippled people all through history until the vaccine was developed and the vaccine was was

16:59 You know responsible for eliminating polio almost entirely to last year. There were just like a handful of polio cases in the world is like 17 or something is really really really low now because of the efforts primarily of the Rotary Club the Rotary Club decided many years ago that that was going to be something they were going to focus on was to eliminate Polly on the world. So they they started putting a lot of their money toward that it's really been helpful to of course, you know, when you think about the State of Mind of people with polio back in those days Franklin Roosevelt, the President had polio lot of people didn't know that but because he he often hit it but he had polio and couldn't walk could hardly walk and it's the origin of the term refers to turn poster child.

17:59 Comes from because Franklin Roosevelt started with the March of Dimes program and they have a poster child every kid that had Polio. So when I was in school, we would collect dimes and put them in these little holders and and if he collected 10 dimes and you turn it in and then they went toward matured Palio. So anyway, probably over had a real impact on the life the my family and our church and did you know anybody else that cited mean outside of your family that had gotten it to or any friends are there were there were several. In fact for several years when I was younger in our County they would have a they would do a Christmas party for kids who had polio and some other things to Down syndrome kids and whatever and so it was always a time when we would get together and you know it always

19:00 Did it always made me feel kind of bad because I can walk. Well and a lot of these kids are in wheelchairs and paralyzed for life. There are people today my age who are still crippled because of polio but there aren't any any younger because the polio is virtually eliminated after my age and you talked about your sister that happened right around that time to Berlin died in December of 54 in a while. I was doing rehab for the from the polio it had the previous summer.

19:40 That was a spina bifida, you said.

19:45 Her mom. So you're going to lose that kindergarten you were in when you had Polio Central, Illinois. Kindergarten was real popular when I was a kid. So most kids did not go to kindergarten in a so I started my first year of school was first grade Edison school in Westville, Illinois. It was an old school building that had one room for each of eight grade. So originally it was only six when I was there, but my mom was a schoolteacher. My dad was very interested in education.

20:25 So before I started school, my dad would have taught me math and I was doing adding and subtracting and things before I started school. I can read relatively. Well, my dad was on the school board at the time and so even though he didn't go to college. He was very interested in education and taught me a lot at home. I was I was always a good student the best student in my class generally.

20:55 Press you were an interesting thing about the school where I went was the first and second grade teachers. One of each were old teachers. And in fact, my second grade teacher. My dad had had in school 35 years earlier. So they were neither one of them were certified teachers. They never received their certification in back of those days. They were grandfathered in one.

21:24 There were a lot of teaching methods in those days that would never go over today. And I know you're you're a school teacher. So he's one of the things that they used to do is because I was did so well in first grade the second grade teacher would come to our class occasionally and ask mrs. Guess the first grade teacher cuz she borrow me and she would take me into the second grade class.

21:50 And she would have me read something that someone in second grade was not able to read to embarrass them and then she would say she would say look you're the first grader. She's going to read this and you're in the second grade and you can't read it and coarse corporal punishment was pretty, and my first grade teacher. If you turned around in your desk very often she would make you take your clothes off and put them on backwards headed you ever get in trouble the prom with

22:29 You know, you've got kids to the the problem with being intelligent is you can figure out a lot more ways to get in trouble in trouble. Occasionally the one the time I got in the most trouble. The only time my parents got called to school was when I was in the sixth grade at Edison school.

22:52 They are in our town. They had a junior high spelling bee every year was County Spelling Bee and it was for the junior high age kids. But if somebody in the sixth grade was a good enough spell are they could try out for the junior high spelling bee will my sixth grade teacher decided he was going to make a name for himself by having one of his sixth graders make Bob somebody out and make the spelling bee team in the junior high. So he started he decided his method was going to be he was going to keep me in from Recess every day and drove me on spelling words, of course, I don't like that very well, so

23:34 The first practice the first trial test they did I intentionally missed every word so that I wouldn't have to be in the spelling bee and I could go back to doing recess again. So

23:50 He got pretty upset with that. He called my parents and told told my mom. It was a school teacher in the same school system at the time that I had intensely messed up the spelling thing. And so anyway that was in Westville. But back in those days. It was still right after the the real one-room schools have been closing down one by one and so the elementary school districts were not always the same district boundaries as the high school district. So I lived in an overlap area and so after 8th grade, I was required to go to the next town down the road to go to high school, which was good and bad, but it meant that I had had to start all over with friendships in high school, even though I hadn't moved because we had to go to completely different High School.

24:50 So we went to Georgetown and I went to Georgetown to a high school for four years between my Junior and senior years in high school. My dad died.

25:08 It was it was really quite a shock because he was a very he was a farmer. He was a plumber a ditch digger even with all these physical activities, you know, he was very very strong man and appeared to be in good physical physical condition, but one day that summer he did not digging ditches the day the day before he got up in the morning. I decided to he always wear bib-overalls. He decided to change it all of these all the things out his pockets for one pair of bibbed overalls to a clean pair of bibbed overalls and he dropped a handful of change on the floor and woke my mom up and she saw him kind of stumbling around trying to pick up this money and she asked him to come back to bed and he kept insisting. Nothing was wrong I said is the morning drug on my mom could see something definitely was wrong his mouth begin to droop on one side and it is arm wasn't work.

26:08 Ride, and so she took him to the hospital and he had a stroke.

26:15 He was in the hospital for 5 days was beginning to get better or they were they were scheduling for rehab and had another stroke and died back in those days. They didn't know how to didn't know what to do with Strokes. He had real high cholesterol. That is not a treat that the doctor told me one time. The problem was he grew up on a farm eating red meat and eggs and raw milk is sold near me sells child and an adult life. So anyway, that's left left us with no Dad. How old are you again? I was 17 how to change my Junior and senior in high school and we were you know, I told you how close we were as kids. We were three years in a row in high school. So we were stacked up ready to go to college and my mom was a school teacher. She went back to teaching after we get in school school teachers. Don't make much money. She had three kids ready to go to college.

27:15 My dad, we didn't know really know my dad's finances much but we found out after he died that he had more debts than money and he had no life insurance. So that left my mom with with debts to pay and kids to go to college.

27:38 So how were you able to go to college then? Cuz you went so well before I was always I was always a good student in school. I was first in my class in high school and

27:54 So I was my plan was to go to the University of Illinois, which was nearby and major in electrical engineering. Can I pick that up from my dad being electrician and but a couple of the guys in the year before me had applied and got in an army ROTC scholarship, which is a full-ride scholarship to any school that has Army ROTC.

28:20 And so I applied for that scholarship and I'll keep in mind this is 1968 which was the height of the peak of the Vietnam War. And so I applied for the Army ROTC scholarship and I got it. One of the things I had to do was get an army physical. So I went with all the other guys who were getting ready to get on the bus and go to Vietnam. And that was real. That was the right. That's a whole nother story. But that was really interesting. And then I had to be interviewed by a board of Colonels and Generals. There were three of them which was kind of in a member one of the questions. They asked me was do you think Nixon's position on the Vietnam war is right. And so I had to answer that question before I left but I got that scholarship and because it was a full-ride scholarship I did there was a expensive engineering school Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, which was about the same distance to the University of Illinois.

29:20 It was an expensive school. It was very focused on engineering and so I decided I would go there so they paid all my tuition. They paid my books. I paid for pencils and paper they paid for and they gave me spending money to the hitch was it when I graduate of the army for years of of Duty and so I can keep in mind is Vietnam or so I was I was 17 years old signing on the line in 1968 that I would agree to go into the army for 4 years when I graduate from college not really knowing what the world situation was going to be then so we're in there. Did you meet Mom?

30:15 Mom and I are you went to went to high school together. We we knew each other. It's a small high school. We knew each other enough to say hi in the hallway, but that was about it.

30:29 We didn't really didn't know each other well and

30:35 So we we it's kind of missing now looking back at our pictures because they put us in a in the yearbook. Alphabetically. My last name is black or last name is Boland. And so we ended up next to each other in the yearbook alphabetically.

30:52 But the summer the summer after we graduated from high school or church was having a youth rally. I was at the Cool Spot drive-in ice cream restaurant and we have been encouraged to invite schoolmates to this youth rally and your mom and one of her friends was at the cool spot. And so I went over and invited him to this youth rally.

31:23 As fate would have it after the youth rally. They the kids would come to my mom's house just sit around have refreshments and talk and so they came over there and I got to know I got to know your mom and

31:40 So I went I went I went off the car. So we've known each other for 4 years like this and as soon as we graduated, you know, I went off to college.

31:50 Back, then they were phone long distance phone calls are very expensive and and I was going to share anyway, so I wrote her a letter asking her if she'd like to go out on a date from college. And so there when I came home this would have been September 69 and I came I came home and we went on our first date we went to a movie and when you got some lemonade after the movie and that's almost 50 years ago. Now it was a movie called The Learning Tree which was not a very good date movie, but that's so we went we went to that movie when you guys get married we dated for 2 years after about one year we decided we were going to get married but we we

32:39 That we will wait till I graduated from college. We kept moving it up and moving it up and moving it up cuz we didn't want to wait and we ended up getting married between my sophomore and junior year in in college kind of an interesting story that goes with that is in Illinois at the time. It seems odd now but in Illinois at the time when we could get married at 18 years old without parental permission, but men have to be 21. And so that meant we were we were I was 20 and your mom is 19 money got married. So that meant that my mom had to sign for me to get married and neither one of our parents her parents or my mom that none of them were real happy about us getting married because they they thought I might not finish college if we get married so we had to show up at the county clerk's office and meet my mom there.

33:39 We were kind of holding our breath to see if she was to see if she would sign the the permission slip and for me to get married, but we got married between my Junior and Senior year and in college.

33:57 And I'm

33:59 I did I did end up finishing college. So tired being married in college. Actually, I did better in college because I was running back and forth dating your mom at the time accident better. But yeah, it was hard. She worked and I had three part-time jobs while I was in college, even though my school was paid for we had to pay for better housing expenses and everything cuz I couldn't live in the dorm. So I had three part time jobs. I worked at Kmart in the evenings. I worked at the bookstore School between classes and I did photography work on the side, but we made it there. Okay.

34:39 So you went to college for those years and then you owed the Army Gordon Georgia and it was while we were at Fort Gordon. Just three months there that we learned that to your Mom is pregnant for you. And we had we had no way to have a child because we want to wait for the Army to pay for it. And then first Duty assignment was Fort Hood Texas in the middle of Texas and both you and your brother were born there at darnall Army hospital I later when I got my Master's Degree while I was in the Army and extended for a couple years to pay that back and ended up spending 7 years.

35:29 How to get I don't know anything about your Masters, where'd you get your masters from my masters in the evening from University of Southern California extension in Europe when I was stationed in Germany, and that's what I do, you know most of the rest of story cuz you were here.