Thomas Burger and Renee Frymyer

00:06 I am Renee frymyer on 41 years old. Today's date is September 17th, 2018. We're here in Charleston West Virginia and I am here to interview my father introduce yourself.

00:21 My name is Tom Burger. I'm 72 years old. Today's date is September 17th 2018. Where in Charleston West Virginia, and I'm Renee's dad.

00:37 So

00:40 When and where were you born born March 29th? 1946 and I was born in West Lafayette, Indiana.

00:50 They were born in Indiana. But where did you actually grow up West Virginia? I was born in Lafayette because my parents were students at Purdue University and I was born there and then we came to Morgantown when I was 4

01:08 Do you know why they chose Morgantown?

01:11 Well, I asked my father that one time he was had just completed a doctorate in agriculture and he could go to Florida. He could go to Maryland I think and we could go to West Virginia and in his way of thinking West Virginian had a more diverse agriculture. It's not known as a big farming state, but there's food here. There's livestock here there grasslands here. There's corn hear their vegetables. And so he thought that would be a good place to teach agriculture.

01:47 So in your childhood memories of Morgantown, West Virginia, do you have anything that stands out a place to grow up? We lived in a neighborhood called Suncrest it was right alongside a park. It was not a developed park. It had Woods it had Trails. It had a creek. It had caves. I mean for youngboy going up there couldn't be a better place to ride your bike there. You could hike there you can play with friends there. You can hide out there a wonderful magical place to grow up.

02:27 And you are a baby boomer said there were lots of kids your age to play with us in the neighborhood and it was so for West Virginia a relatively flat neighborhood the streets early on in the 50s when we were there or Cinder roads later on they paid them, but we could ride our bikes all through the neighborhood in this was a time when our parents had no fear for us just to go off and we probably had

02:57 1520 square blocks that we could just had we just roamed all over I we often played tag on bikes so we would have blocks and blocks to hide it was it was wonderful.

03:10 Now being from West Virginia, there's some kinds of stigma attached to that and but you grew up in the University town and in a lot of your friend probably work children of people associated with the university do you think

03:30 Maybe explain how Morgantown is different than other parts of West Virginian how your childhood probably differed from maybe a traditional West Virginia childhood during that time Morgantown. I think is very different from other cities and towns in West Virginia. There was there were coal miners around so there were coal miner kids around we had probably a more diverse experience than you might think but still my parents were with the faculty and we they had their friends through the university most mostly and but we had the kids my two brothers and I would like I said went to school with everybody else. So it was more diverse than you might think but we truly were not in deep coal country that you might find in.

04:29 Southern West Virginian or where we particularly rural oriented. It was a more educated Community. I would think overall.

04:41 And your mother my grandmother. She had a college degree as well write a graduated from Purdue with a degree in home economics when she was first married. She was a kindergarten teacher and then after my dad came back from World War II and he finished his degrees and then moved the family to Morgantown if she was pretty much a full-time mother Homemaker and

05:11 We boys really benefited from that. She she ran a Homes and Gardens kind of home that she kept it. Nice. She we had home cooked meals every night. We had dessert every meal practically. Yeah. We were very lucky.

05:28 How would you describe yourself as a child?

05:31 I think it was a happy child. I have my introversion but I'm kind of an outgoing person. I think I make friends easily. I was shy and that bothered me through my childhood a bit. My my ears Burger trait is to have ears that the kind of stuck out from the head which is no big deal. I mean Andy Griffith's and lots of movie stars have ears that stick out from their head mine kind of locked over they pack some identify them as lop-ears. So I was always self-conscious about that which made me it's interesting though. I was not shy around girls friends since when I was in the primary grades, I had all kinds of girlfriends, but when I got into Junior on Heights Junior High and high school that changed a bit I got very self-conscious and then so on so, but I was I still had lots of friends.

06:31 Both boys and girls and we played touch football and I was pretty studious my parents made sure of that. I probably watched way too much television when I was growing up but I made good grades and made really good grades until the latter part of my high school years and we could talk about that if you want but I just got kind of overwhelmed it later on in high school and and got other interests and my mother wants told me that if if you don't like something Tommy you're just not going to do. Well, there's no one that can make you do it. So that's pretty much the way I was.

07:17 Do you want to talk about at your high school? Sure, I made a lot of friends. So in my junior year, I was in the band that was always a great outlet for me. I played cornet. I like to differentiate between trumpet and cornet and played in the bands work very hard at it part of my upbringing happened in Iowa for 2 years when I was in my 6th and 7th grade where in Ames Iowa dad took a job at the school at Iowa State College at the time now Iowa State University. So we were there for two years and that's when I really started playing cornet and then we came back and showing the band so it was all always an instant kind of community that you can have friends and so forth in it sure was that for me?

08:11 And in my junior year, I was elected student body president.

08:17 Which was a great honor not something that I particularly wanted. I was one of those kids that couldn't say no and you know if you want to vote for me and that's okay, you know it and but lo and behold I become student body president and there are responsibilities that went along with that. Well that I didn't have the ability to delegate.

08:42 I did way too much on my own the pressures of the jobs that we had. We had to sell programs for the football games and

08:50 And other fundraisers and exhausted myself and still trying to keep up the grades. I also had a girlfriend. Who is your mom. We met in high school.

09:01 And my parents didn't like it. And so there were differences at home about that relationship and I've often thought about and so my A&B average went down to a low B average and you can't stay in in Student Activities if your grades slip so I had to I was relieved of my job as student body president and some the vice president took over part of me was relieved. The other part was just terribly embarrassed about the whole thing, but

09:46 Came out of high school. Okay, and then went on to college.

09:50 And I'm so you and Mom dated in high school, but not college at home to have a relationship and not being able to be honest about it at home. And and where were you out tonight in the battles with with parents just got to be a little bit much so high.

10:16 Have Betty Jane your mother would say that she broke it off.

10:22 However, that happened it ended in high school.

10:26 We later and then in college, both of us went to West Virginia University in Morgantown. I studied journalism, and we would see each other in passing.

10:40 But they never got back together until after college.

10:44 And at that also is after you spent some time in Vietnam. Is that right? I graduated college in broadcast journalism.

10:55 But my first job was with the Air Force. This was Vietnam era.

11:02 And I decided to join the Airforce primarily because I was interested in learning to fly.

11:08 Why would a young man who is afraid of heights want to learn how to fly?

11:15 Well, that's a big question. I'm not sure except I wanted to challenge myself. I thought it was neat. I always had a thing about airplanes.

11:27 So in my senior year of college you go into a flight, and dr. I was in ROTC Air Force ROTC.

11:35 So I would have an obligation to serve in the service after college in my senior year. I was in the flight indoctrination program and you learn how to fly little single-engine airplanes and you solo meaning you fly the airplane by yourself by the time you finish that program in your senior year of college then so then I went to private school and that was in Arizona near Phoenix at Williams Air Force Base and I got started there but I always felt that the business with your mother was was left undone.

12:14 222 reasons I guess I wrote her while I was in Pilot training with the one was.

12:22 I told her I loved her when in high school my father never let us use the word love unless it referred to another person. I remember his saying you don't like ice cream. You don't love the park you love your mother your father your brothers.

12:41 And it said it felt like a commitment that I had walked out on that was one thing. The other thing was I couldn't get any other women interested in me probably feeling lonely. So I wrote her a letter and lo and behold she responded and said, yes, she was on her way to Honolulu Hawaii to go to school and at the University of Hawaii to pursue her English studies, and she stopped over infinity Phoenix and we had a great weekend and

13:15 The relationship rekindled and before the year was out we were engaged before I went to Vietnam Vietnam was the first at my first stop after Pilot School by the school was not always easy for me. I graduate in the middle of my class. I was not a person who was had hands made for flying I had to be trained. I mean I had to really work at it but got through and the plane that I was assigned to in Vietnam was the old c-47 the DC-3. It's a magnificent airplane. It's there playing at the airline started up in back in the forties and fifties the cargo airplane pretty easy to fly. You don't go much over a hundred miles an hour and has big old balloon tires. So even if you came in and landed hard, you'd have a nice soft Landing anyway, so good that plane and in my piloting abilities were perfectly matched.

14:14 And and so I was in Vietnam for a year and 68:19 7 a.m. Did you feel a duty because of the Vietnam War or was it something because Grandpa was in the military and in the Navy with something you always had in the back of your mind you would be interested in doing.

14:44 Those were those were tough times. So of course the campus so was not a hotbed of Revolution at the time not in Morgantown, but there were elements that were anti the Vietnam War and there were demonstrations. I was in ROTC. So I was kind of committed at the time my sense of things was the people making the decisions knew had a new things that I didn't it was their job to decide what the military should do and my job was to do my duty.

15:19 So I didn't go off to Canada like some of my friends did which I now that I reflect back on it and it wasn't long before I had the same opinion of that war.

15:35 And that it wasn't a good war that we did not belong there, but I didn't learn that until halfway through my tour in the service. But at the time that I went to besides I want to learn how to fly so I guess I wasn't so political that I gave that much serious thought the alternative to going in the service.

16:00 Do you have any favorite memory from deployment or any any just memorable moment soldiers that were in the Army and served in Vietnam? If they listen to this they would laugh at my experience. I was stationed at pleiku Air Force Base in Vietnam in the highlands of Vietnam and we had

16:28 Rooms that were in a kind of a Barracks but one of the rooms was reserved as a bar.

16:37 So the alcohol and the service was never far away. We had people to do our laundry.

16:44 How we slept well most night. So the Viet Cong who were the revolutionaries at the time in Vietnam would lob Rockets or artillery into the base every now and again just to remind remind us that they were there but I never felt very threatened and I don't think young young people even in a war situation. Thank very much about about dying. It's it's never won it does you no good to think about it. And the other thing is I don't they just don't have an awareness of it take three if you've never been in it before

17:26 So I didn't or don't remember being afraid very much we flew and I remember being shot at on occasion, but we were reconnaissance. We had a reconnaissance mission and I think that they the enemy as we referred to him, then it would do them. No real good to shoot us because it would just give away their position number one and number two. We weren't an easy target. We were slow but they didn't have the kind of rockets and so on that would really really could hit us if they want to so we weren't shot at that much and

18:07 Yes, I served in Vietnam, but I don't.

18:11 Talk about it very much sin. Nor do I consider it terribly heroic. We just did our job and then after a year and one day we came I came home.

18:24 How did you earn your distinguished flying cross staying alive and not doing certain amount of the distinguished flying cross you put yourself in a in a In Harm's Way over a number of days and number of times and hours in the air and you qualify for a distinguished flying cross. It was not based on any particular heroism.

18:53 And you came back and got married married right away by me. We were my your mother. My wife Betty. Jane did not want to get married. She didn't want to be a she didn't want to be a war Widow. So she didn't want to get married but a month is c a month after I got home. We were married in Morgantown. And how long have you been married now 48 years old.

19:25 Give each other a break.

19:27 Have I read somewhere one time? We're in a marriage particularly. The most of us are trying to do the best we can most of the time.

19:38 And if we criticize or let ourselves get angry over Ever every infraction of a relationship. I don't think it's going to go far if you just builds up resentments each other some slack I think.

19:58 Touch each other talk

20:00 If there are problems somehow work up the gumption to express how you feel and and be honest with one another.

20:11 And learn to have fun learn to make opportunities to have a good time so that the positives in a relationship outweigh the negatives.

20:21 Would you call Mom your best friend?

20:25 I would say she's my yes, I would say she's my best friend. I don't have a lot of close friends ones that you share about everything and I don't know much about how women's relationships work. But I always get the feeling that women somehow find it easier to have close girlfriends and they share just about everything. I'm not sure many men do that. I'm not sure. I'm not a psychologist nor a gender expert but it just seems like so I thought I would say yeah, there's no one.

21:00 In my life that knows more about me then your mother.

21:06 I always kind of found it interesting when we will go out to eat the couples that just eat and don't park and that has never been our family we over talk. I guess that's true, but I noticed those couples to and and I must be frank. I didn't want to be those people and even now I try to be a good communicator and then your mom and I when we those are some of our best times just a casual conversation across the dinner table.

21:41 So you were married for about 7 years and then you came along and let me tell you about that that you probably have some specific questions. But I tell you your mom she was part of the feminist movement which had a real influence in both our lives. But so natural childbirth was at the time of a home birth was at the time women taking control of their own bodies was beginning. Well, I won't say beginning because there have been lots of strong women and communities of women that have done things their way forever. But anyway, this was the 70s and so we

22:29 We studied hard about how it is 2 to 4 for me to support the pregnancy. And for your mom to be the perfect mother while you were developing and so she didn't take any medicines that eliminate no matter what kind of a headache she had or was feeling bad. She wasn't taking anything. No alcohol. No strong beverage of any kind. She didn't want anything to do to bother the fetus that was growing inside her and then, you know, we didn't do the home birth, but we did natural. I mean your mom didn't have any any painkillers and I was the coach

23:08 And we often laugh. Sometimes that during that experience of coaching interests. You were supposed to time the time. Between contractions so she can prepare and be ready for the next one while I would often fudge their the time so that somehow she would get a head start and it would it would feel like she was ahead of the game rather than behind a contraction when it came anyway, so we did all this stuff and had a wonderful experience when you were born and then when we got home and realized we haven't read anything about what to do now.

23:43 Behind the game in terms of how do we raise this child now that we've given birth to her.

23:50 Well, yeah, exactly exactly for me. I remember the first time I held you and I can remember this this day. I saw your eye. I saw your eye.

24:06 And I

24:07 I didn't want to scare you.

24:10 In fact, I thought you know, it's a good thing that babies can't bring everything into Focus cuz I mean, it's so different out here than it is in the womb.

24:20 But I remember saying I hope you are never afraid when I'm around.

24:26 Anyway, I do remember that.

24:29 But it was a year your birth was so.

24:35 A big moment in our lives as you could imagine here. The only one, you know, I've often said we didn't we don't talk about the kids. We don't even talk about the kid, but we always use your name. You're always Renee.

24:50 Hazard seem special dice

24:57 My childhood, there are so many.

25:04 Course everybody remembers when they first take you to school all the firsts.

25:10 Come to think of it. I can't remember your first step kept running, but I took a year off to be your to be a full-time father and at home dad from the time you're a one and a half to two and a half.

25:27 And lots of good times during those years. Your mom was teaching school. We had moved to Milford Delaware so she could teach school and support us while we did this so-called experiment.

25:39 And

25:42 I remember well.

25:45 At the time this was 1970 78-79.

25:50 There weren't a lot of full-time stay-at-home dad. There were not at all or in the circled that and I was we were always active in church and United Methodist Church and we joined the church there and I remembered taking you and to Bible study and their women with their heads around the circle and here's me with you and I wait we also often used to joke when people would ask me what are you doing? And I said, I'm a full-time at home father.

26:23 And people couldn't quite understand that I often joke that they said. Okay. What are you really doing here? Do you have some kind of terminal illness and you're just kind of waiting for? Okay, what are you doing? You're nobody's just stays home. Well, I learned later there lots of fathers who out of work. They're taking care of their kids at home there lots of circumstances where many men fathers would stay at home. Take care of their children. I certainly wasn't a Pioneer or the only one but we wanted to see I wanted to experience fatherhood.

26:55 I wanted to show your mom that I was committed to raising you. It wasn't just her job.

27:02 And it was a real blessing. I've often thought what if we could okay this set of Tom and Renee could do we wouldn't have the year off and it set did it the way we did and just see how what the difference is in our lives. We can't do that. We just know what we know now.

27:20 But I remember I had a bike. Can we had a little baby carrier in the back not baby toddler carry. It was a seat when we buckled you and it's not like today where everything is surrounded you and you're wearing a hard hat and everything out. The only thing you had on your head was a little wool woven. Beanie. I think no matter where we went but we would go that place to go grocery shopping and that the story this told about you is after groceries. I had baskets wire baskets on the back there just below your feet where I put the groceries on the way home and we were paddling through the parking lot and got a little old ladies in a car drove by and said I turned around and you had gotten the egg carton of eggs and it opened it and just watch them roll out onto the pavement blah blah blah are the eggs on the on the pavement.

28:13 Anyway one time you do here is my parenting. We were not free range parents, you know where he just let him do whatever they want. But I was we were natural consequences. There was a book I think children The Challenge and the idea was natural consequences. And if those consequences would hurt you, you know, you would get hurt while we have to come up with another consequence that would be a place that you weren't going to be hurt. So we you and I took a little walk down to the local pond that was not far from the airport apartment there and I told you that that stink there you might roll in. Do you know you could roll into the Barnwell you wanted to see the pond up close? So you kind of totaled over there at our sure nuff had first right into this fishing 3 Old Pond.

29:05 Well, I pick you up. I don't remember if you cried or not, but I pick you up and hurry back to the apartment. Your mom was right by the door sitting at her desk grading papers are doing some teacher thing and she said what's that smell I said that's fish your daughter fell in the pond.

29:24 Anyway, we got you cleaned up and we moved on we had a wonderful year. I thought I don't know if you were just a year-and-a-half till you probably have no memories.

29:35 I think you know it's it's hard to know if your memories are your memories are a picture, right?

29:43 Yeah, making pancakes.

29:46 My kite that was an interesting time. I remember one time flying a kite finally got the kite up and we were just in the middle of toilet training you and we came all of a sudden you had to go to the bathroom.

30:02 You were in diapers anymore. And daddy. I've got to go pee and it's 50 feet in the air the tightest fitting P. I was rolling like this daddy and we went upstairs so you could take care of your business. Anyway another memory.

30:19 With that always your plan is to have one child.

30:23 We toyed with the other numbers, but it came down to one but it's Jane often says one husband one house one child. I sometimes worry about that whether or not is that okay for you? I mean

30:42 Change it. And in fact, we've decided to have just one child. So that should tell you that I had a positive experience. But now you have a migraine. That's right. Now. It's wonderful.

30:58 Don't tell me about your granddaughter.

31:03 I can hardly talk about your guy tearing up or out smiling just outrageously.

31:10 Harold Levy

31:13 Play she's way cuter than I was.

31:17 She's cute though. He's wonderful. Well, we have the blessing since she was 2 months old you had to go back to work and we have taken care of her while you were tired of being at work and we've changed your diapers and

31:34 Who picked her up when she's falling you got to see her first step, which I thought was wonderful.

31:40 Livy

31:44 I guess most people would describe her as an easy child.

31:48 Love you you want said after she had got gotten some teeth pulled that I don't offer any gum cuz she likes this sugarless gum. And I said, okay, and then I texted back to you that, you know, if you would totally be that she wouldn't even ask and she didn't she wouldn't even ask.

32:10 She's such an easy child in the course. I think she has a pretty good to you know, where her Playmates I remember feeling responsibility when you were little that being an only child in some ways. I had to be a playmate on occasion until you got your friends of your own and so on but Levi, you know for those first years all day, you know, we were her Playmates and play with Barbies and the game. She loves to play that she still likes to play. I think the the most fun I have is just I've always liked to make children laugh. I enjoyed it when you would laugh I enjoyed it when I enjoy it so much when Olivia gets just big kick out what I'm doing.

32:59 In fact. I got short of material back when you were growing up and I start using things I'd seen on television. I remember that was a big wasn't a big Revelation to you or do you started seeing some of these old rerun? You said that I thought that was your original to choke. It was just off the TV. Most of my humor.

33:26 Raising me

33:29 You know, I

33:33 Sometimes I get the feeling that you know, we've had a really blessed life haven't had any big tragedies. You were such a good child growing up. I mean, even in your teenage years, you know, I can count the times that you were late from the time that you said you would be home.

33:54 Very few, but I want you to know that I didn't sleep much until you were home.

34:00 And

34:03 I think you turned out just right and I

34:07 One of the things we think your mom and I agreed on was let the child become themselves.

34:15 Don't put some in a must-see in their life. Let them grow.

34:20 And

34:22 I hope we did that you found your way pretty well.

34:29 I'm sure there were times when we weren't.

34:33 There for you, but I don't think in any major way you would be able to say that.

34:38 So no, I I think.

34:41 And what what is it to feel guilty about making mistakes? I'm sure we were human. We we made mistakes when you were growing up.

34:51 Still do

34:53 So I try not to dwell on those and maybe it's even the mistakes. You something so it was all good.

35:01 I think what you said about really advice for marriages realize people are doing the best that they are most people are just trying to do the best they can and I think that is good advice as a child to your parents that they did the best they can and even as a parent, you know, hopefully they realize the other some days that I just don't want to play no more responsibility and there's some days there are things that I just don't want to do but

35:36 You know you hope that they remember all the all the times you did. I mean our life revolves around our daughter now and the times that parents can be there to entertain could be very important for that child to figure out what do I do with the down time and to recognize that down time is good for you. Is it time to relax and just let your imagination go for a while?

36:05 Define being a grandparent is is easier or more fun than being a parent don't have jobs to worry about the schedules. We make our own schedules. They're not imposed and

36:24 No it it's a lot of fun. Sometimes. I just love to watch Lily. Just do her thing. It's just marvelous.

36:34 And I just

36:36 Really enjoy watching you be a mom hears such a good parent.

36:42 What are your hopes for?

36:45 Future of

36:47 Olivia

36:50 I hope this Earth doesn't get too hot.

36:54 How this idea of climate change

37:00 And and

37:02 Who are now we're living in an arrow went where the current leaders are starting to reduce or deny concerns about the Earth.

37:13 What are the stewards here?

37:15 And we need to take care of it if if our kids and our grandkids are going to have a decent placed to survive. Let alone just live live the way they want to I think that's my biggest. Hope is that we can somehow grapple with the consequences of humans being on this planet are and can reverse some of the changes. We've been seeing

37:42 And I hope that your daughter.

37:47 Olivia will grow to be who she wants to be and not feel pressured.

37:53 To be anything, but who she wants to be?

37:57 And to be selfless, you know, we were raised in the church.

38:01 I've never been too much in terms of what you have to believe or the doctrine of the church and so on.

38:08 I just wanted you and to remind myself to be to be selfless not to be so self-centered that we aren't concerned about other people and and the world around us.

38:26 Anyway, that's how we've tried to live.

38:31 Thank you for today. I wish I could be around when Libby could listen to this and learn about her mom and her Grandpa.