Exploring the child's world II Program 10
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The Duquesne University Alumni Association presents.
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Exploring a child's world.
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The child is father to the man. And as we hope for a world of men of good will we must
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look to the conditions of the towns where to achieve it. So we search for the
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laws ways and means the sources of the capable spontaneously whole adult.
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It is not strange that the world of the disturbed child throws light on childhood in general. Although
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Father Francis Duffy Professor of Sociology at Duquesne University was not at first looking for
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this light when he started working with a disturbed child. He found however
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that it is not that the disturbed or delinquent child is completely removed from society
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rather that his position is more extreme and so its obviousness offers us
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a sharper clearer insight into the world of children to share the
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fruit of his research. Father Duffy and the Duquesne University Alumni Association
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present a series of recorded interviews with delinquent children followed by a short discussion with
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Father Duffy's guest in which the child and his problems are explored for insight.
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And now here is Father Duffy.
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Children are not little adults. We have different generic names for children and for
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adults. An old man is not an aged boy nor an old baby. It even
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sounds strange when an adult retains a nickname that he acquired as a child.
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Adults often drop the suffix junior when the father dies. The same
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thing kind of applies to clothing. A child never looks quite right when he's dressed as an
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adult. And on that point girls may dress up to look like mother.
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Boys rarely if ever dress up to look like Dad. Boys prefer
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fantastic costumes that are indicative of some kind of calling or career or
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occupation which is pretty far removed from their real future job.
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Men are oriented around their work. Women are oriented around their husbands and their
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homes and their children. It's a different can of worms However if there is
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no father in the home or if the mother has made him an object of ridicule
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contempt whether present or absent then the little girl in a way follow
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suit. She will not begin to prepare herself to be a mother and a wife.
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Very often she will begin to substitute some kind of career to replace marriage.
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If the parent's marriage hasn't worked out. In the following interview
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Fanny's mother and father are divorced. The mother has often ridiculed the Father within
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hearing of the child. The girl has already veered away from thoughts of marriage and
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home. She wants to be a nun or a nurse. She chooses to do her deep thinking in a
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cemetery. She runs away when placed in an institution. The
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family has had few successes to give her satisfaction or courage. She wants desperately to
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return to her fatherless home. Here then is the story of Fanny.
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What's your first name again Fanny. How did you happen to
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come here this time.
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You were here we talked before to get together doing
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what happened since last time we talked you know nothing
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cept I cry and everything.
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I guess you have a lot of company A lot of the children here cry.
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Not all of them just some of them may come back when visiting usually cry.
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My mother came yes I mean last night and she asked me if I would be good when I
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came home and I told her yes I said. She told me I'd have to go to school and
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everything and I told her I would.
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That's agreeable to you to go to school. Originally they thought though you try to
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run away who's not. Yes you were in some kind of home
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Protestant home.
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Yes. Until I think it was just temporarily until school was over or to June or
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May.
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And I thought you try to run away from home and one of the men there so you brought you over here.
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Yes. He's a father a parent everything that I have. I went down to the shopping
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center as I told you before and I called up and I didn't have any intentions of running away.
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You were calling your mother from the shopping center.
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Yes. And I started calling up and she says wait down there. And I
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says Do you know where I'm at. She says Aren't you in this in the drug store.
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My daughter yes. And she says wait down there and I'll send down after you.
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And so I walked out and I didn't see nobody. So I went back and I went behind the car that
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I was looking at things and I saw this man coming up and he came up to me and he grabbed my
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arm and he says What do you think you're doing Fanny.
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And I says I don't know. He says No I says I wasn't going I was
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going to run away. And he says well what what was you going to do.
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And I jotted down just one comment and we got in the car and
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I back up to the homies and he called my probation officer and said that I
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try to run away and she says well let her stay there and don't get her on
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dressed or anything and I'll call you back. So a little while later she called back and she told
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him to for me to get my stuff I mean everything I see and it should be
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here a juvenile court when I got here and he says all right you hung up.
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They both hung up and he came in and told me and I went up stairs and gathered up my pajamas and
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Bob and things came back down and we knew we was right here and
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when we got here I was sitting in the office. I think Mr. A Mr. Wright was there
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yes. And he says he told me he says What's your name.
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And then after a while he came in and he says I just talked to your worker on the phone and
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she said she can't come in tonight. She said she'll be in the first thing tomorrow morning to see
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and I says all right and then I sat there and you came me and I was talking to me. And
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then after Mr. Ray came over and he asked me if I had anything to eat and
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I told him No says I didn't eat very much for supper. He asked if I
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wanted something and I said as just a glass of milk and a piece of bread or something
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and he says all right and then I came and misallocating
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Mrs. Allen came in and took me back to the party. She checked me and everything and then I went in and went to
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sleep.
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And before that should you have been at school when you were down this drugstore.
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No yeah that was it night after school and you weren't allowed out from a
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place where you were. Yes we were allowed out. I mean it was
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just like oh we're going to hell. But if you want to go out you have to tell them where you were going
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how long you'd be and had you told them where you're going.
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And that well maybe that's what got them confused made them think you're going to run away.
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How do you do in school for me.
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OK I've been doing good in this school locker junior high school.
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What grade you didn't know anything. And how old were you again.
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Fourteen. How did you get along at home.
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Did you all at school except for the teacher. But nobody will believe
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me about that but it's true.
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The teacher gives you a difficult time and makes life hard for you.
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If they want to go home I think I'd go better because I'll probably be in my cousins room in high
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school.
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What would she do would you make fun of you were you my cousin you know the teacher
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or the teacher or did I have now if I wouldn't have the one you had before that one that you had the
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trouble with well what did she.
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Well yes if I went back there now I'm going back to the grade I was in. Yes I
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think she would. But in a way I don't think she would. And the way I did.
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What did this teacher do that made you feel unpleasant or uncomfortable in her class.
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Well just before every time we used to have a test she used to call me up in front of the room
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and she went so fast on the problems that it got me confused in everything and if
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I missed one she says Well that's right you're the stupidest one in the room and you
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turned me around and everybody was staring at me and everything and laughing and then she
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says if you don't want to do your homework I bet I bet you can do it in juvenile court.
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And I just got tired of it and I tried to explain to my mother and she begged me to go to
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school to go to school and everything and I will listen because if I
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go home this time I listened to her.
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So how was it home before. Do you have a big family or a small
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family.
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We used to live in a bad neighborhood. Oh my mother has four rooms and a
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bath and she lives in an apartment going mother and my sisters have their
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room and I have my and there's the living room and then there's the kitchen.
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You have these three little sisters. What about you father whatever happened to him
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worse.
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Well I don't know I don't care about my father just as long as I'm with my mother.
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But he ran away too or what.
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No I think he walked out on my mother or something.
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But she says that she could do without a second I or she has you and
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the other girls no.
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You know the person people I want to be with is my mother and my grandmother and my sisters.
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Does your grandmother live with you.
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She Lucy has a place. She comes up sometimes to visit us and
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she stays the night she guess. Sometimes she sleeps she
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stays she sleeps on the couch.
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Oh where's her husband. Your granddad died
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and did you have a lot of girlfriends.
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Yes I have a boyfriend. Oh I don't care for boyfriends because I think I'm too young
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to go with the many you know I'm going to weigh in Tom about 16.
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Let's say you're 14 now.
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I came up to the hoss and play records and everything. When I was home on Easter these boys
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from my class thanking him played records and everything was out in the
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new house or the old one or the new one.
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And they brought pop potato chips. I mean my sisters had a nice time. My mother did to
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my mother made a cake that my grandmother may have pie. We was having a nice time I said.
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And I I it's hard for everybody to leave.
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Yes it is I guess you really were never away from home before where you know
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almost I stayed away from her I was three or four days that's all.
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Do you have a career in mind what you like to be when you get older. A nurse would you
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as a Catholic I think I'd want to be a not something where you
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you think it's because you want to be alone or is it to be with a lot of people who would like you
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and do pleasant work.
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I want to be a nurse because then I want to help people make their families well
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make their families happy and everything.
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Would that be because you needed help and couldn't get it.
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Wow now I just want to make it sound as if there is a little
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boy that got hurt in everything their family was his family this poor anyway.
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I think a nurse could do better and try to make them well take care of them and
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I want to be a nun because I don't have this because I want to be a nun.
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Do you know much about what nuns do. What kind of lives they lead.
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Well some of them only lead a lonely life. Some of them do. And I
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used to talk to nuns on the street I used to talk to Sister Mary and sister Virginia.
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Did you ever feel all alone yourself. Up to now. Yeah there are a
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few and nobody wanted you. Well somebody want you now with your separate from.
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What about being here is it true that the longer you stay the less pain for this most
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painful must be the first day you get here. Next day isn't so bad.
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All of them are good. There's never getting better.
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But I notice you don't seem as depressed now as when you first came in. Were you scared then or what.
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Yes just a little bit. You never been here before.
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No I mean you mean for tape recording. No I mean in a detention home.
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Excuse me. Yes I was here before when they sent me to the house.
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Is there anything that scares you or worry you for your age.
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Yeah. Nothing.
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This program has been transcribed using automated software tools, made possible through a collaboration between the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Pop Up Archive. Please note that no automated transcription is perfect nor is it intended to replace human transcription labor. If you would like to contribute corrections to this transcript, please contact MITH at mith@umd.edu.