World of the rockhound #12: Recreation for Servicemen
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It gives the birth of a beautiful wader been
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adopted.
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The second largest craft hobby in America today is said to be rock counting with all of its
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branches of interest some of which are Jim cutting making jewelry and the
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collection of gemstones rocks minerals and fossils. This universal
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hobby has grown to astonishing proportions in the last 25 years and shows signs of
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even more rapid growth as the need develops for more people to pursue more leisure
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time activities due to the fact that they are working fewer hours have more days
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off and get more vacation time. Rocks and minerals as specimens are
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extreme importance to the rock column. Most people do not realize the
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important role rocks and minerals play in everyday living. For example fluorite used in
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toothpaste and clothing. This series of programs is designed to give an
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overall picture of the rock on. Offer encouragement to the newcomer of this hobby
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and present information of general interest to everyone. All of this will be examined
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as we explore the world of the rock.
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Today's program is entitled recreation for servicemen but
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narrator is Len folk.
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Last week the discussion focused on GM cutting and polishing and the making of jewelry.
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There's lapidary days of the rock around how he is extremely popular with civilians in the United
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States but it's equally enjoyed by servicemen as recreation at bases here
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and overseas. A general picture of this activity is presented here in
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an interview with Staff Sergeant Lynn Travis and Chief Master Sergeant Robert
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McGowan. Sergeant Traven he was influential in establishing the
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lapidary hobby shop at Stewart Air Force Base when he received orders
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to go elsewhere on temporary duty. Sergeant Allen took over in his place
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at the time of the transition. We talked with both Sergeant McGowan who is
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from Michigan and Sergeant Traven whose home is in Pennsylvania
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have been the airport being now almost 17 you know.
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You say you're from Pennsylvania where in Pennsylvania O-Port friends than a coal
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mining town actually got wound up in Iraq looking for
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fossils in different parts of the NFLs late in the cold war in
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Iraq above and below the coal and by a lot of potholes I went home last
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summer I gave them to the scouts in Murfreesboro.
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You are currently facing that through air far thanks but not for money.
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I'll be there I'll be there for quite a while but I'm going on a three
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month TDY to get there and get that temporary duty so
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I'll be coming back in three months.
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My name's That Madonna. And she and I didn't live a fix but field
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maintenance out at Stuart and I've been there in just a bit over two years now
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and my home is in Lansing Michigan home of record but it's been for many years that since I've lived
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there really I can't comment home where I'm at.
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Do you want to say how long you've been with the air.
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I finished 20 years with the service. Getting close to
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retirement age.
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Thanks.
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For doing. This.
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If you know that you're only interested in my own interests.
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I plan to major in geology Avon retiring and three
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more years at the present time a rock running at that
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family deal. Their whole family enjoyed that six
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children my wife and we all enjoy looking for rocket.
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You're quite an active summer every weekend every time I'm up and
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running for snow. That's part of it that the other part is the
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most fun in finding your stone an app you find of its kind of an turning him into a
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beautiful gem and then I used to give him way for gifts or Salem or somebody
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interested in a particular stone I'll go and get a book but that after the stones credit
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it's to me it's no good anymore. All the fine is been gotten at a
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majority astound you get a
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printed gemstone it turned into a gemstone is that.
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Women feminine stones mostly and babble for the girls
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more than any thing else. Are your children interested in that
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operation or do they mostly do the collecting now in the regular
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cutting the tech that some not too awfully much whenever they get a chance and from that.
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They can. And they get sort of bored at a they can't sit still that long they'd rather hunt for
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stone. My youngest are twins or
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two and a half years old and then I have a boy five and a boy six in that tween
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girl 9 years old.
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Well you have a lot of people to carry on a collecting tour of the
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brain that would have been to Iraq. More rockin gemstone
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I guess they haven't reached the age where they really know what to think that they
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think of mostly everything you had to go through and decide what you want to.
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Well I go through it and decide but there they are in the
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process they're really learning the definition between them and it's
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quite simple to determine what is a gemstone and what is a good stone and what isn't and but
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they look for the beauty more than anything else. They don't work for half and
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Clare they each have their stone and junk like that. They're more interested in just
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what it looks like it to them and to their own eyes. Pretty stone and they think it's pretty or it could be just
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a piece of slate.
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But to them it's very and this isn't one of the things that makes a gemstone is a beauty
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and.
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I have four children the oldest. They're twins and they're 14 and younger is
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7 now. They've taken some interest in the hobby
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in cutting stones not happening. But it's a new hobby in the family I've only
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been at it less than five months and I just became
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rather involved more on request perhaps than Then I would
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have been normally but I really enjoy it and I'm not much
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on the Rock Around the end of it yet for having this done that I do enjoy cutting them and
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and seeing what I can do specially in fasting where I would
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say that I haven't had nearly experience and it has been my primary field of interest doesn't
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lie and yell at you so if it were quite widely separated there
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without him dragging me out you said you wanted to.
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Take up the g when you retired when you had to go.
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Well. I'm afraid of a role in the spring semester that
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my crackers that try to get some of my courses at away at but that
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I should be able to complete quite a bit of it within the next three years prior to me retiring and then
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I can devote a lot more time to the present time it's quite difficult to devote
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too much time to it because you've got a job to do and my job is actually
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an engineer. 130 so you go but I
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get a lot of opportunity if I am not a gemstone and travel around the country.
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And in the past year I've been on about eight exercise
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eight or nine exercise.
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Traveling are you able to collect anything when you're out of the country.
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Well I don't break them. I find out where they're at and
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majority crew some of the crew that joke around with me on don't go
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get a bunch of rock and and if I get a lot of gemstone I
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anywhere you go in you're interested in finding stones or you're going to find them you're going to find out where
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the source is and where it really can get him very cheap and
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you really pick up some beautiful gems are you able to tell me from the country he's
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in right down to your country.
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Korea I picked up some beautiful dope that some of the
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golden Herb brownies Topaz but it's really fabulous.
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Japan most of the stuff I picked up in the country have come from other countries.
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So in Bangkok I picked up sapphires of Ruby stars that
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some jade that I picked up in Korea they come from
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Southeast Asia. Some of it even from the state is exported over there
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and sold them and then they turn around and carbon credit and sell it as
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Asian jade which it isn't really came from Wyoming or.
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Things like that.
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This is quite true. You have considerable amount of time you could divide into quite a bit.
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Now the pope as I got the fear was that by me I had traded a couple
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pieces of sapphire for the chance that I got out of it but it was an enormous crystal
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and the gentleman had got it taken salted into slabs and
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then pre-formed each lab and had it ready for fastening when he came back to the states.
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Remember.
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Your way with rock ending we never get the opportunity to get out of Iraq and
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go ahead and take a.
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Sharp right turn of a lapidary.
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That more so in other countries in the western
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states than we have in eastern states. But as far as the lapidary shop to go I
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will say you know all the shops I've been in we had the finest lapidary shop near for us and
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your store and we're just getting started.
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Really operation that
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sort of thing.
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It took me a year to almost a year to get them to go along with that.
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And to get enough interest in it. This was the thing airports was ready to
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buy the equipment that they wanted that they wanted to see how much interest could be brought up and and
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it took that long to get it organized and then to buy the equipment and we
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open in January and we've been a tremendous amount of attendance since
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January. We closed down for a while with about a month.
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Then no more equipment we were so crowded we had to buy more equipment
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so we get a pretty good shot going up at
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the present time or only open two nights a week but there were so crowded we're going
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they're revamping at the open out more nights a week.
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Well we've got a sale store there we buy raw material from
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different areas different and different countries
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even and be taken slab it up into a smaller life where a
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man can afford it and more afford it than what it would cost him in a large
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town. And we can get it cheap by buying in a large chunk and then we still have
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it and we can. Cut the price a way down so the
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average person can buy a chunk of jaded for as much as.
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Much cheaper than he could ever get it anywhere else and it gives the service
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woman a beautiful way to spend his off duty time.
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Well I'd like to add to what the linnet said that hobby shop work on the
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bases throughout the airport and other services are a nonprofit operation.
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They're a fine fit for this come out of the non appropriated fund
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activities such as our commissary and
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post exchanges provide the money for and it's no cost to the taxpayer. It's a
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program that we ourselves are paying for and the interest is much wider
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overseas where many men are separated from the family and hobby shops
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and therefore are quite a popular item in the state. There's somewhat less interest and
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for that reason we are limited in many areas to lapidary and
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there are other interesting hobbies that they pursue Of course we have hobby
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shop areas for woodworking that are crap and ceramics as well on the base
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of the hobby shop was added recently.
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So this is one of the many interests you might say in the hobby area and
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that paper to carry away you get no profit involved in it.
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Yes that's right. Everyone paid for their material but we
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don't mark up for a profit because we don't have an overhead
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and listed are all military dependent
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military personnel and their dependents.
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There is no definition in rank for you on what we try
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to do or what we are in process of doing just trying to get the children on Friday nights
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when the children comes up when the other nights were open and were not that busy they can go ahead and
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order the same thing with the adults if one of them comes up Friday night there's not that many children in
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there and with that you go ahead and get your
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shopping and work.
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In a longer time like can you can I think in general we get a wide variety I think
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I think they're gone really by really good mouth and an interest in a new hobby
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right then and then by their age. We find quite a number of men
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have married men have come in because they're white. We're working in ceramic work or something of this
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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.