Memorial Day Interviews

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These interviews of Sierra Madre citizens took place at the Veterans Wall ceremony on Memorial Day 2006, in Sierra Madre, California. Thanks to the interviewees, and to Sierra Madre police Sergeant Coyne, for their help creating it.

Dedication

"Special thanks to the Richter Family for their support. The Sierra Madre Photo Wall Memorial. Dedicated October 11th, 2003. Thanks, Alfred."

Bill Garr Speech

"In an official capacity in my role as President of the United States Navy League in October of 2003, when this monument was dedicated, and when we gave a proclamation to John Grijalva and his group for the work they did, I don't know if you all know it, but this was an entire volunteer effort, that cost fifty-thousand dollars to put together, and the entire fifty-thousand dollars was all raised by volunteer efforts, volunteer moneys, and it was John Grijalva and his group who had the idea and who built it with funds from the community.

"And I think the other important thing to point out is monuments such as this around the country, and days such as this around the country, are being used to celebrate, and to memorialize, the people who gave their lives for our country, who gave the ultimate sacrifice. This is Sierra Madre's monument. In every state, in every county in every state, there are monuments, but not every city. And Sierra Madre I think is unique in having this monument, thanks to the good and hard work of the volunteers, of John Grijalva, and others.

"You know, I'd like to give tribute, Fred and Naola Zimmerman. I didn't realize this, but they come by once a week to put flowers in this area, and to support this area, to clean it up. Fred I want to congratulate you and thank you. The unsung heroes.

"And again, it's an honor to be a Sierra Madrean, and it's an honor to be here today. John, thank you for all your work."

John Grijalva

You're John Grijalva, and you created this memorial wall.

"Just about. I tell everybody there's not an 'I' in 'Team'. Put a good team together."

Grijalva's Great Niece

"...this is John Grijalva. He's my great uncle. [The name 'Grijalva'] is from Spain. He came to Sierra Madre in '36 with his mom, and his two brothers, and his sister. His Dad died, he worked for the city of LA, and he died on the job. And so she came up here with the kids, and listen to him and his buddies talk about living here then.

It was different then?

"Oh, yeah, it was all dirt roads, and you know, that gentleman sitting over there in that blue Hawaiin shirt? I was listening to him tell a story, and he said, 'and then we grabbed our rifles, and we went over to Hastings Ranch to shoot some squirrels.' Because Hastings Ranch actually was Mr. Hastings' ranch at the time..."

Bill Garr Chat

"Yeah, this wall is great, the people that put all this together and did all this, they did a great job. That man, in particular, with the blue shirt, John Grijalva, it was his design, it was his idea, he had this idea and brought people together, then raised $50,000.

"The United States Navy League, of which I used to be president, gave a proclamation when this was dedicated, I think it was October of 2003. The Navy League of the United States is organizations, several hundred thousand members of civilians or former service people who support Sea Services, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Merchant Marine, and the Coast Guard. They have different chapters, if you go on the internet and Google it or something you'll see. Each run a chapter, and they adopt ships. For example, one of the councils recently, there was a Coast Guard cutter that the U.S. government buys them a small microwave for their galley, so instead, you know, private citizens get together, and bought them the big microwave they wanted. Another council bought a big, y'know, plasma screen TV for some guys on an aircraft carrier. They go around and do that kind of stuff. So it's pretty cool, check it out on the internet."

One thing that's interesting about this memorial is that these aren't all folks who died during service.

"No, many of 'em aren't, or I shouldn't say 'many', some are not dead at all, they're still alive, they're just people who are from Sierra Madre."

Joe, WWII Veteran

Are you on this wall?

"Yeah."

Oh yeah? Where'd you serve?

"Tinian Island, in the Mariana's. Seven months. Flying B-29's. That's the biggest bomber they had. We bombed Japan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinian

So you went on bombing missions.

"Yeah. I'm a pilot... It wasn't fun... bombing. You drop a 3,000 pound bomb over Tokyo, you know you're killing a hell of a lot of people... We bombed Tokyo, Yokohama, Ngoya, Ngoya's a big city. We killed a lot of Japanese. It wasn't a good idea. I hope we never have another war... wouldn't have to go through it again. ...men who have to go to war... no part of history I haven't read..."

Joe's Wife: "I been showin' off your pictures."

Joe: "My pictures? Oh, up there."

Wife: "Yeah."

Joe: "Oh, I don't know if there's anything to show off."

Bystander: "I heard the story of how you got your wings."

I didn't hear the story, can I hear the story?

Joe: "I don't know what story he heard."

Wife: "He's got a lot of 'em. He even had to bail out over, in the territory, when he, their plane was shot down. A B-29."

Joe: "We just bailed out over the Pacific ocean."

Wife: "Eleven of 'em, and they were all rescued. The Navy came in, and... they said 'don't bother, they're all dead', and the Navy said 'we will go in and see, and they did."

Joe: "Well, we screwed down our radio broadcasting button, they just kept sending out a signal. And the Navy--"

An SOS.

"No SOS, they just sent out a constant radio signal. And the Navy, when that happened, they knew there was something unusual going on, so they picked up and followed it, and found us. ....deep six, but found us. We were in, we had two life rafts, little 7-man life rafts. One side of the life raft, the side you sit in, was yellow, so that people from above could see the yellow. If we saw an enemy plane... turn the life raft over, and it was blue, it was sea blue. And you crawl under it so it's hard to see, you couldn't see. That was a good idea."

Wife: "I didn't know that, he never talked about it when he came home. So we don't have, we don't really know much about it, they didn't talk about it. He didn't have his rip, whattaya call it?"

Ripcord.

"Ok, and he had some o' the parachute for a long time, but I don't know where it..."

Joe: "Yeah, I, uh, it got all wet with salt-water, but when I picked it up and, you know, got it home, I washed it with fresh water. I was thinking of making something, or having something made out of it."

Wife: "We did make some scarves."

Joe: "Yeah, it never worked out."

What would you make out of it?

"Thought maybe my daughter or wife might wanna make a dress or something."

Wife: "Your daughter was a baby then, Daddy, ha ha ha."

Well, that's turning it into something good.

Joe: "But that was good silk."

Can I ask your first name?

"Joe."

And there were eleven guys on your plane.

"You had a pilot, co-pilot, bombadier in the nose, he's the guy that dropped the bomb, a navigator, tail-gunner, two waist-gunners, radar man... anyway, there were eleven on the crew, and everybody had a job. When you're flying 2,000 mile missions you have to know what you're doing, where you're going, and how you been."

2,000 miles, that's many hours in the air, right?

"A B-29 went 200 miles an hour, 260 or sumpn like that, yeah you'd spend eight, nine, ten hours in the air."

Wow, that is a long mission.

"Oh yeah... in fact, Japan was safe from bomb attack until the B-29 was brought into... the B-17, which is a four-engine airplane, Boeing B-17 didn't have the range. You could only go, well with a full bombload you could probably make, oh maybe 1,000 miles. 1,000 miles wouldn't reach Japan and come back to the base... 1,000 miles to go from Tinian to Japan. When Boeing designed the B-29, that was designed...specific...

"We did it. Whoever had to. Well, I'm glad we could just talk about it, and not have to do anything."

Yeah, Joe. Thank you.

William Betts, Chief of Police 1978-1995

Is there a story behind that t-shirt?

"Yes, I was Chief for so long, and ...they took the jail and made a bed-and-breakfast out of it."

Are you serious?

"And they gave me this t-shirt."

Can I ask your name?

"Betts."

Have you stayed there, at the bed-and-breakfast?

"No I haven't. I was thinking about goin' in and lookin' at it. See what they did to the two jail cells. ...Birkshire spent their honeymoon night there."

Great, so it's a nice place.

"They said it's real good, they fixed it up nice."

17 years as Chief, you must have an interesting story or two.

"A few, a few. Most of these people here, I've..."

...arrested at some point?

"Ha-ha, no, I should know, but I don't. I retired in 95... long time."

Has the work of the police department changed since then, do ya' think?

"Oh yeah, when we moved down there, there was a lot of changes."

How? What changes?

"Lot o' computers, mostly. A few law changes. Search and seizure changes."

Is there something about the police culture that changed?

"Well, somewhat, not too much. Yeah, somewhat. I joined department 30 years ago, 40 years. It grew... for a while there... population was around 12,500, and then it dropped back, and now it's back up to close to 12, I don't know exactly. But I don't even know why it dropped back-- off the beaten path...

"Mostly, we had to deal with traffic, burglaries, and drugs. That's most of the time, it's just pretty much the same. The drugs is not like it was, no way. Sierra Madre canyon was... heh, you ever been up there?"

Sierra Madre Canyon? How do you mean? What about it?

"Well, it used to be, these, they were not residents, the owners of the properties, they rented, those are all rentals. And all these kids would go in there, these were kids would get together and pay the rent on a place. They were party houses."

Like the 70's?

"60's and 70's. Oh, yeah, every drug problem. But now, most of the residents up there own the properties. Pretty tame up there."

Did you have any raids up there?

"All the time, heh! Oh, yeah."

What happened? What was it like?

"I don't know, much as they could they'd raid places."

Did you just go up and knock on the door?

"Knock on the door, or depending on when it was, you know, back in the 70's and 80's, you knew something was goin' on, you just went up and kicked doors down.

The laws were different.

"Search and seizures were different. Now you gotta knock and announce, and have Probable Cause to go in, has to be much stronger then it used to be."

Did you see some crazy scenes during these raids?

"Most of the people in town didn't know what was goin' on up there. It was wild. You know, in the late 60's it was a wild place. Used to go up there in Sierra Madre Canyon, you could hardly get up there..."

People camping out?

"Kinda camping out, in these houses, party houses, they'd party all night."

You could hardly get up there?

"'Cause of traffic. And we used to walk up the canyon. Heh, we had a lot, a LOT of experiences with that."

Which one comes to mind?

"Aha, I can't... any particular one. You know, you make arrests at night. In those days we had to go to court the next day... so we'd do raids as often as we could, but you'd get worn out, you're workin' nights and days. Here's my wife and dog."

Oh, hi there! I saw a sign in Bean Town today that says 'Hippies Use Side Entrance'.

"Ha ha, in Bean Town?

I figured that must come from that time.

"Maybe. Well, hippies were, but, no that was back in the 60's, you know, San Francisco was... Sierra Madre, and Santa Monica, and Laguna Beach."

Were these hippies up in the mountains?

"There was at that time, some hippies, and so-called hippies, wanna-be's."

Ok, I guess you would know the difference.

"Oh, yeah."