• Glen Green

Page 1

IS:

Today is October, October, today is January 23, 1992 and we are here
to interview Mr. Fred Green about Reo memories.

Green:

Glen.

IS:

IA:

IS:

Glen.

Glen.

Glen, I beg your pardon, Glen.
22-nd? I thought today was the 23rd.

I know I think it is, isn't it the

Green:

Probably .... (can't hear)

IS:

From the Today Show, huh?

Green:

Yeah.

IS:

He was a vicious little ... I guess we could just start with some of
this stuff, maybe I'll get it~ Um, were you born in Lansing?

Green:• IS:

Green:

Yes I was, yeah.

Okay, and I remember at the lunch that we went to a few weeks ago
that you said you went up to the ninth grade?

Yeah, I think we changed schools, yeah, we went in to Lansing in '29
out to Okemos in '31 and out to Grand 'Ledge in '32 and we said we are
not changing.

IS:

I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Green:

•

So then I got laid off there then and they

Absolutely.
That's what it is for, but after moving out there then I
worked around various little jobs and got a chance to apply at Reo in
'37. So I hired in there in the ah, receiving department and I
worked there until after the strike of '37 and they started cutting
back on manpower and went to powered vehicles for trucking the stuff
throughout the plant.
weren't taking anybody back because that's about the time see, that
they quit making cars.
'37 they made model, show models for the New York show and that was
it. They didn't go over big, so they just dropped the whole thing
and they had a real nice car, but it wasn't for the public.
I mean
they, you know, they just didn't go for it. And I liked what I said
out there, they were built to last and something like seven years for
the first owner to hold on to his car.
turnover, you saturate your market and you are all done.
think that was one of the things, but ah, they started out trying to
make a good product and we always thought we had a real good product.
Sut then I came back in '41 to work for the summer.
My dad wanted me
to take a job at Reo, so I went in there and got into machine repair

In '37, I was I was telling Shirley then, in

No, I mean there is no

Then I

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Glen Green
Page 2

and I was there just a month and they asked me if I wanted to move
over to the tool room and I liked the sound of that better, so Iwertt
into the tool room.
Then in January of '42 I went into the Air Force
and came back in '46 . I went back to work and worked my way up
through the tooling division and ended up supervisor of tooling for
the whole plant.
including back into machine repair as foreman there for about two
years or so.
the plant and see
things and then past history from my dad and my grandfathers working
there and I have always felt a kinship and like we were talking at
that luncheon

Held various jobs on the iway through, you know, and

So I got a chance to get allover

IB:

Right.

Green:

a family feeling.

IB:

Right, right.

.'

Green:

IB:

Green:

People that maybe you didn't really like in the work area, but
outside you see them and they are old friends and I think that is the
key to the whole thing, all the way through and it is terrible that
Cappert put it through bankruptcy.
were really hurt.
get jobs.

People
We had people commit suicide because they couldn't

That's the terrible part.

In the seventies, when that started to go down.

That was after '74, after they went into bankruptcy.

IB:

'74.

Green:

Yeah.

IB:

Green:

They went into bankruptcy in '74?

I retired August 1 of '74, because they were after my hide,

Yup.
because I was trying to keep the place going.
I would drive allover
town and pick up parts from heat treating or something like that to
keep the line going and this friend of mine, he was engine plant
superintendent at the time and he went with me.
stuff to keep the engine assembly line going.
to do everything under the sun to put it into bankruptcy, so we
couldn't run.
my name was on their list.
said I'm retired.
months ahead.
affect.

So any time I wanted to I could just say put it in to

But I kept my retirement papers signed for three

We picked up that
And they were trying

And then they fired this friend of mine.

So, I took vacation and called in and

Then I knew

IB:

Were you able to get any retirement benefits?
the workers got nothing.

I understand some of

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Glen Green
Page 3

Green:

Yeah, we got our pension benefits, but what they did when this was
after the government took it over.
sometime just prior to this year or so prior.

See they passed that law in

IB:

Chapter II?

Green:

No, the ah, no the pension benefit guarantee.

IB:

Oh for the pens ions, I see.

Okay.

Green:

Yeah, and yeah, so but when they took it over, when the government
took it over, they come out with a ruling that they were going back
five years, then pay us off at the pension rate from five years
previous because they would, the law said in their interpretation-
that they could not pay any pension program that had been in effect
less than five years.
They cancelled
our life insurance policies that we had, that we had to pay our own
Blue Cross-Blue Shield, that takes all of one pension, all of my
hourly rated pension and so a little bit of my contributory pension.
So we are getting very little out of that pension, but if it will pay
for the Blue Cross-Blue Shield, fine.

So they went back five years.

I can survive on that.

IB:

Good, did they do.
the company do anything to help these people who were going to be out
of work, or were they slowly, slowly

Did the company, it doesn't sound like it, did

Green:

No, no, no.

IB:

Green:

IB:

Green:

IB:

Green:

laying people off and they didn't do anything to help them get new
jobs or retrain them.

They didn't have any concern about the employees.
do was to get the place into bankruptcy so they could collect money.
Because they made money out of that with their financing corporation
and stuff like that, trucks that had been sold and financed through
them.

They could care less about the factory.

All they wanted to

Compared to the previous types of management.

Ah
Oh the previous types of management ah, we had some good ones.
under White, the only thing was that I guess real employees always
wanted to be an independent company.
Aluminum and Brass took it over and I was there when White took it
over, I was there when they merged us with Diamond T.

And I was there when Bohn

Who was that about, I don't need an exact year, but

Gee, I don't really have a place for them, because I wasn't too
involved in any changeover because they talk about we merged with
Diamond T, but Diamond T came up here because we had much better
facility than they had, so everything was just merged in piecemeal

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Glen Green
Page 4

IB:

Green:

IB:

Green:

•

•

~nd they started building Diamond T trucks and then it went to
Diamond Reo, it changed name over.
shadowy feeling.
tells when it happened.
wasn't

And ah, so the thing is kind of a
I suppose it is some place in the archives that it
But it was a friendly type of merging.

It

It was a merge, it wasn't a takeover.

And some Diamond T people come up and worked in our plant, some

No.
of the engineers, some of the people that were in management
positions, so that it was easy to merge it in and go ahead and work.
They always kind of rankled the old-timers that we were not a private
company anymore and, in fact, when we heard that Cappert bought the
place, knowing that he was an Alma native, we thought oh this is
going to be heaven, you know, this guy coming in here, but their
program from the beginning, as far as I'm concerned, they went in and
wiped out the accounts payable, put in all new people that would do
what they were told. Wiped out old-timers in the purchasing
department, put in new people to do what they were told.
the financial end of it tied up.

So they had

They simply gave them their pink slip and those folks were out.

And he

So his wife called me that

That was something they

In fact, this engine plant

And I told him, I said go back and check with

You go back and take your personal stuff out of your

Oh yeah, they were out completely.
superintendent, they called him up to the front office at 3:30 ona
Friday afternoon and said you are fired, we want you out of the plant
before 4:00.
desk and don't come back on the property.
night and wanted to know if I'd come over and talk to him.
was really despondent.
the union because we have union rights.
didn't take, but they wanted to take it away and the union wanted to
do that because, you know, they don't want supervisors having any
preference of going back to work and stuff.
them and they agreed that they would let them accumulate seniority
So I
equal to the amount they had before they went on supervision.
would have had, I don't know, probably 18 or 20 years and Ernie had
about that same amount.
And so he went back to the union and they
said you bet he is going back to work.
closed up.
retired from there with his ten years.
troublesome feeling when these other companies wanted to take Reo.
Now as far as I'm concerned and I've got to believe what I was told,
that Bohn Aluminum and Brass milked the company.
out of the company and so when White took it over, I suppose to them
it was a bargain because the thing was down and we weren't really
sure if it was going to keep going or not, but White did, they put a
lot of their production down to us.
different outfits and so it went along real good under White.
Well
then Cappert, had apparently got them to sign some kind of a sales
agreement and pretty soon he called them on it and said I want to buy

But then he went to the Olds and got a job and he is

We built trucks for them and

So he worked until they

But I talked to a few of

But it was always a

Now they took stuff

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Glen Green
Page 5

that Reo.
And they said no, we know what you are, what your
situation is, what your program is and we are not going to sell it to
So he took them into court and they backed off and sold it to
you.
him.
I think White would have kept
So it was a forced sale really.
it and I think had they done it, we would both be in good shape now.
But, it didn't come out that way.

IA:

IB:

No.

You mentioned Bohn AI~inum

and Brass, is that Bowen

Green:

B 0 h n.

IB:

B 0 h n.

Green:

Yeah, out of Detroit.

IB:

Green:

IB:

Green:

Bohn Aluminum Brass out of Detroit, okay.

Ah huh.
But I can remember so many things that my dad would tell me,
you know, they didn't have any significance then at the time he told
me, but different things that went on in the plant like when the
strike, well of course, I saw a little bit of this when the strike in
'37 was over and they went back to work, and everybody was on piec~
work, they only got paid for the number of good pieces they produce.
People in the paint ovens, I mentioned that to you, the paint lines,
where they ran them through dips and painted parts, some of those
guys had six, eight weeks worth of work stashed and ... all ready to
go, but they hadn't turned them in and the company jus t said hey,
these are\ours.
so they are hours, you don't own anything.
real unhappy, they said we are not going to put out anything anymore,
but they came around and everybody got back to work.

They should have been turned in and they weren't,

Some of the boys were

Ah huh, what did your dad do in the plant?

Well my dad he started in along the assembly line, the truck assembly
line and during World War I they wanted him to become foreman in tank
track manufacturing of the tracks that they.
there and ran that until the end of the war and then he moved up into
ah, well like parts and service and then he went into tool grooving
and processing.

And so he was in tool processing when he retired.

Yeah, so he went in

IB:

You said he started in 1904?

Green:

I'm not sure if it was '4 '5 or '6, somewhere in there.

IB :

Okay..

.. years .

Green:

He had a total of ah, a little better than 50 years in there when he
retired in '55. So ah, how that is figured out, I don't know.

But

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Glen Green
Page 6

you see, when he started working there, he was only working part
time.
driving trucks from Lansing plant to Chicago, overland, they didn't
have any haulaways then.

Because they were driving trucks.

He and his brothers were

IB:

Ah huh, oh to deliver them for customers.

Green:

Right.

Deliver them to dealers, yeah.

IB:

Oh to the dealers.

Green:

IA:

IB:

Green:

But see Reo started in working winters, because they could

Yeah.
hire farmers that couldn't work on the fields and stuff and-then in
the spring when it came time for planting they'd shut down and maybe
And then pretty
build up a supply of parts to work the next winter.
soon the demand got up to where they started in working the year
around.

Ah huh.

But your father drove vehicles from the factory to where they were
going to be sold to the dealers?

Yeah, they were dealer orders, yes, they were dealer setup.
because he told me about one time they were going down and it was
somewheres down around Berrien Springs or down in that area, and they
got on the wrong road and they ended up on a farmer's barnyard and
had to turn around and drive back up the road and they could go on
down, so it was not very well paved.

And

IB:

I was just going to say probably an adventure

Green:

Oh you bet.e

IB:

that kind of traveling in those days.

The roads weren't good at all.

Green:No and those outfits weren't that road worthy, you know.

IB:

Yeah.

Green:

IB:

IA:

To just take off on your own, but I guess ah, he had done enough
mechanic work around so that anything that broke down on the way, ah,
if it was possible to fix, they fixed it.

I imagine they did have some breakdowns because the early cars would
do that.

Oh yeah.

Green:

Sure.

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Glen Green
Page 7

IB:

Ah they used to sell a tool kit or something when you bought a car ,
didn't they,

Green:

Always, always.

IB:

so you could, and I understand

Green:

Spark plug engine or stuff like that always had em.

IB:

And the parts in the early days, if you got a part it wasn't exactly
standard, you might have to gnaw off some rough edges or something

Green:

Oh yeah.

IB:

Green:

to make it, your vehicle like today you can run down to the store and
buy a fuel pump and it will fit.

Well you can go down now and buy factory authorized parts or
replacement parts that are supposedly as good as factor authorized.
Now everybody can manufacture these parts, they don't have to sell
them under that name.
they didn't have that.
monkey wrench.

But they will fit this model of car.
It is like the spark plug wrench.

Then
Now ,a

IB:

Right.

Green:

There was an L shaped wrench with an adjustable lower jaw and you
could make it fit most any nut.
would come in off the farm and start working around there in the
mechanic area, they'd send him for a left-handed monkey wrench.

They used to have fun with some kid

IB:

Oh (laughter)

Green:

IB:

Green:

Nobody had them, nobody had them, he'd come back and he'd say well
okay use this one, but put it in your left hand.

(laughter)

Was your father a farm boy before he started working there?

Yeah, yeah.

Ah, yeah he, his folks had two or three different farms

IA:

In the area?

Green:

Well out around south and west of Grand Ledge.

IA:

Grand Ledge.

Green:

Ah huh.

IA:

What was your father's first name?

Green:

Howard.

• Glen Green

Page 8

IA:

Howard, Howard Green.

Green:

Howard L. Ah huh.

IA:

Howard L.

Green:

That's where I got my middle name.

IA:

Oh what does it stand for?

Green:

No, Howard.

IB:

No, no, I mean you are Glen Howard.

Green:

No, he was Howard Leslie.

IA:

Okay.

Oh.
Richard Scott or those folks.

Did he in those early days he must have seen R.E. Olds or

Green:

No.

He didn't know Richard Scott.

He knew Dick Scott.

IA:• Green:

IA:

Green:

Oh yes, yes, that's right, that's right, he was known as Dick Scott,
wasn't he .

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that says even more.

I said how would you know him, he said he come down and talked to me
about a job that we are having trouble with.
disappointed when Dick Scott was let out.

Then he was really

IA:

Oh he was let out.

Green:

Yeah.

Yeah, well

IA:

I don't know my history well enough .

Green:

... politics.

You know what I mean.

IA:

Now he was general manager, was he or

Green:

Yeah.

IB:

Through the '20's mostly.

Green:

•

Yeah, yeah my dad knew him and anybody that was up, in the

Yeah.
upper echelon of management ah, had to at some time, come in contact
the

Because he was like I was as far as being allover

",with my dad.

plant.

And now there again, he had a fourth grade education.

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Glen Green
Page 9

IB:

Green:

Oh, but he was obviously very mechanically

inclined on machines.

he always had to estimate

He was and when he got up in processing
cost of jobs and stuff and he'd have a column of figures like this
and he'd shu, shu, shu, like this and people said, how do you know
that's right.
And he said, check it and they put it on the machine
and check it and one day they took columns of figures, gave one to
this person in the adding machine and the other my dad and he was
done way ahead and he was right.
And those things, you know, ah, I
suppose it is a natural talent that somebody is born with that, but
it is

the

IA:

But he honed it.

Green:

not.

him.

And he

that is wasted.

that came along.

He said absolutely

And then they ended

Because they found out that

And I said if you don't, I'm

Three or four days later they

My dad was pretty well broken because he

We don't need that kind of stuff, it is just

So then, after he was laid off for, I don't know,

Al Zimmer was plant
Yup, yup, they couldn't take it away f~
manager and he was going to cut cost, so he laid off all the people
out of processing.
paperwork
And I said well
said, I never figured that Reo could run without me.
now that you know it, I hope you are going to retire when you are 65
and he says, not if I can help it.
going to break your legs so you won't be in the next day.
says, well maybe.
five or six weeks, something like that, they called him and wanted
him to come back to work in a different job.
He says I don't have to work and if you want me, put me back on my
regular job or I don't come back.
called him and put him back in his regular job.
up bringing back the other guys too.
they had to have that to make, because they plan every part
manufacture
through the processing
what machine
of the manufacture
management,
it.
he was still working
call for somebody to go and get this particular
outdated for the job that it had been running and I happen to get one
So I called my dad and I
of those, you know, get it out of storage.
said, ah, where would I find that thing.
heat treat and he told me right where to go and he said, what bay
number it was and he said it will be back in on the last skid on the
bottom row of fixtures.
skid.
is.
there, sure enough there it was.
And other people would come to him and say, Howard, this old fixture
we used to use, well they are work on this particular
at it and say sure, I can tell you right where it is.
go down and get it, and check it out.

They had to determine
it would take, what tooling it would take for every step

He says I know that's where it
I went down

He said I had to look it up before I processed

There would be two rows of fixtures on a

me because I was in the tool room, while

to decide if they wanted to produce

and a print(?) would come down and

part, he'd look
The guy would

I said how do you know that.

And I just couldn't believe

Sure enough it was okay to

It came out of engineering,

He said you go down under

And then present this to

and routing department.

Well, he flabbergasted

old fixture that was

and the cost of it.

to upper management

in processing

went

it.

it.

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Glen Green
Page 10

work and ah , they'd alter it, that was our job mainly on some of this
If we had an old fixture we'd have to alter it. Maybe it
stuff.
would be a pump jig type with a handle that clamped the part down
while we drilled holes or something in it. And ah, we'd have to make
some new locators or something like that for it.
amazing to me what a memory the old-timers had.
computers today.

But ah, it was
Almost as good as

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

Because it was their life. And their whole lipe revolved around Reo.
I've known a lot of the guys that have worked up there with my dad
and everything and ah, they were all pretty well cut out of the same
cloth, you know.
They weren't highly educated people, but they knew
their job.

IA:

And you felt proud about

Green:

You bet.

Pride was the big thing.

•

IA:

Um, and so you say his whole life was kind of wrapped around Reo and
that included your whole family with activities?

Green:

Yeah, yeah, ah, we considered Reo as our second home, you know, of
course we weren't allowed to make tours through the plant.
But it
was something like that, if you don't like the Reo clubhouse, ah,
that was a must for every Friday afternoon.
because the folks lots 'of times they didn't care about going to the
movie or something, but it gave a place for us to go.

Us kids would go,

IB:

And they could feel like you were safe there.

Green:

Yeah, right.

IA:

It is just like after school you could go down for a matinee
performance.

Green:

Yeah, well yeah.

IA:

And was there a charge?

Green:

No.

No, you had to have the Reo clubhouse ticket.

IB:

But you were telling us though that some kids would sneak in though.

Green:

•

Yeah.

Stu Harton and he was the guy that ah, always watched,

Right.
you know, because you'd come in, you had to go through these double
doors and everything.
much.
face is here, we are going to have trouble getting in. He had a
long, quite a long face and he was a pleasant guy, if you ever caught

He'd stand there and he'd watch, wouldn't say
Everybody called him, not to his face, but they'd say oh horse

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Glen Green
Page 11

him laughing he was the jolliest guy in the world.
But he could put
on a mean looking face and scare kids, you know, they are trying to
sneak in and he'd kind of scare them in
I'm really not supposed
to be here, but go ahead. And he'd let them go in.

IA:

What was his name?

Green:

Harton, I don't know what his first name was, but they called him
Zook, Zoo

k.

IB:

IA:

Zook.

Okay, and the last name was?

Green:

H art

0 n.

IA:

Thank you.

Green:

Now that's a long ways back.

That's back when I were a children.

IA:

Ah huh, and how many brothers and sisters did you have?

Green:

Ah I had four brothers and one sister.
sisters.
Potterville in '29, was my sister died.
But then

The reason we moved back into Lansing from out by

I had well really two

She was only four years old.

IA:

She needed medical

Green:

IA:

Green:

IA:

Well, yeah, and ah, they said she died basically of strep throat, but
then there was some other complication and that was in, it was way
early in the knowledge about strep throat.

Yeah, yeah, they didn't have antibiotics or any of that.

No but we had the veterinarian out three or four times for her, but
he couldn't help her.

You touched on something I wanted to ask too. You were talking about
the Reo family and the things that you all did there and you talked
about your sister being ill and I'm just wondering, were there any
kind of medical ah, any kind of medical benefits or help for families
of the workers.

Green:

Oh good gosh, no.

No they had no idea of that at all.

IA:

So there wasn't

Green:

No that was, that'was something that came in in later years after the
union got in there and

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Glen Green
Page 12

IA:

Oh okay.

Green:

IA:

Green:

it was a negotiated item. And the company agreed to pay that kind of
stuff as a part of the wage package.

What other kinds of things would the company do for an employee
though, loans or

I didn't know, but Louie Garcia was telling me that they would help
you buy a house.
loan ,from a bank.

Now I think what they did was to ah, guarantee your

Now I think that is what it was?

IA:

Like a co-signer.

Green:

IB:

IA:

Yeah, I don't think they took a mortgage on your property.
they just said we will guarantee this.

I think

Can you imagine that happening now.

Oh no.

Green:

Well you couldn't do it now, because

IA:

Green:

No, there are so many people now.

If I didn't think the design would work,

And you have so many diversified people in a plant and like ~he
reason I didn't go to Olds was because I would just be a number.
while I worked at Reo, I don't care if I was just doing tool room
work and building fixtures.
I'd call the designer and he would come down and go over it with me
and he would say you are right and it would go back through
processing, get the approval of something and then come back down as
a change and we'd go ahead and do it. But if I went over to the
Olds, ah, I would have been better off today financially, because my
pension would have been higher, but ah, I didn't want to give up that
feeling of being a cog in the machine, you know.
place in the operation of this big machine and I didn't want to give
that up to become nobody over at Olds.

Everybody has a

And

IB:

All the people who worked on the things, knew something about what
they were doing.

Green:

You bet.

IA:

Obviously, you were appreciated for your worth then, you felt
appreciation or

Green:

That's what we always felt until Cappert's gang came in.

IA:

Yeah.

•

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Glen Green
Page 13

Green:

Then we were'nothing and

IA:

This was in the '60's or '70's or

Green:

Oh no that was well

IA:

Early '70's?

Green:

IA:

Green:

Ea.rly '70's, because I retired in '74, and I would say he got it
probably around '70 or '71. It wasn't too long ah, and I really
think that he thought if the place was going to make him a mint of
money in the first year or so, he would keep it running.
didn't, he was all set to bankrupt the thing and he was going to draw
It wasn't going to make any difference.
money anyway.

But if it

But, ah,

There were a lot of people then out of work, weren't there?

Oh gosh yes, yeah.
of qualifying for pensions.

And a lot of them with a lot of years just short

IB:

Oh gosh.

Green:

My oldest brother he ah, he stayed there until they quit
manufacturing and he drew a part of his pension.
yeah, he couldn't draw full, but he had enough years in in enough
years in and enough ah, working time there that he could draw a oh, I
guess he got about 70, 80 percent of his pension.

I say a part of it,

IB:

Ah huh, you were telling me earlier that the members of your family
that worked there, would you tell me again who worked for Reo.

Green:

Both of my grandfathers.

IA:

Oh your grandfathers too.

Green:

Oh yeah.

IB:

Golly.

Green:

IA:

That's what I said, we go back a long ways.

Both of my grandfathers

To the old Olds plants before Reo even, when it was Olds

Green:

No at Reo, just at Reo.

IB:

Just at Reo Motor Car Company.

Green:

Um, my mother's father had been a school
They just start into Reo.
teacher and ah, he went to work at Reo and my dad's father went to
work at Reo and that must have been well it was before 1924, because

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 14

in '24 we moved out to the farm by Potterville, so it would have been
in the late teens or early '20s.

IB:

Ah huh, were they on the assembly too?

No, my
engine
time.
engine
up the

grandfather Bigleston on my mother's side, he worked in the
build up, which was right along Washington Avenue at that
That was when they set them on a table or a cart and built the
piece by piece and shoved it to somebody else before they set
moving line over in the motor plant.

So that was like 1904 or something you are thinking?

No, no, I'd say probably in any time up until, well in 1926 is when
they put most of the machines into the motor plant.
motor plant was built was around '25, '26 somewheres in there.
Ah,
they were building John Bean when I was at Christensy Street School
and we left there in '24.

That's when the

And John Bean was just across the street from the 'A' side.

CASI

That was Reo, it was built as a paint, as a body paint shop and stuff
That's what it was built for and then they had the tramway
for Reo.
went over Cedar Street, over into the buildings over across the Lake
Shore Tracks and they come in on the fourth floor over there and the
body, they would pick up boxes, cabs and stuff like that going
through that stuff.
in '17, '18, somewheres in that era.

So, ah, my grandfather Green probably-went there

Green:

IA:

Green:

IA:

Green:

IA:

Green:

Yeah and ah

IA:

Or during the war.

Green:

Yeah, and then ah, my grandfather Egelston, I don't know exactly when
h.e started in there, but ah, probabl~some~eres
because my mother worked at the old
corner of Baker and Cedar and she, she sa~ my dad come and pick up
his sister who was working there with her and the next day she said
that's the man I want to marry.

High grocery store at the

along that area,

~

IB:

I remember that grocery store.
romantic trysting place.

But I didn't know it was such a

Green:

But ah, then she got a job working at Reo, but she didn't

IA:

IB:

What did she do?

Yes, what did she do?

• Glen Green

Page 15

Green:

I don't know exactly what she worked on, but I don't know if it was
in the seats or something, but

IA:

Green:

IB:

IA:

Did the sew, actual production work or

Yeah, she worked there until about the time they got married.

doing the sewing for the seats and stuff.

Yes that's right they did.

Green:

Yeah,

handwork then, but

.

IA:

Green:

Handwork, was that paid piece work too?

Oh I presume so.

I think everything along that line was.

IA:

And she quit when she married?

Green:

• IA:

Green:

IB:

IA:

Green:

Yeah, or maybe just before.
that.

I'm not just sure about the sequence of

I was just wondering if they didn't want married women working there
or she just quit so she could be home with the family.

I think so, I think so, but she ah, gee I almost told a family
secret, she thought it was a big joke and it was a big joke but

We can always turn the tape off.

We won't get sued now maybe.

No, but back in those days, the women didn't talk about such things
as being pregnant and like that, but ah, they were married
September 26, I believe in 1914, no yeah about, I think it was 1914,
And they went downtown and got married by justice
they were married.
of the peace, named Force and so she

IB:

Oh,

already.

Green:

Yeah sh~/)dgoaround and talking with friends and stuff and she says
well we were married in September by force and Charles was born in
November.
And at that time everybody was just shocked.
explained that it was year later and Justice Force was

But then she

IA:

I think I know where he gets his square'eyes (laughter) from his mom.

Green:•

You know, but she did work there and then my dad's sister that used
to work at the grocery store with her, she went there tp work for a
while.
some of my mother's brothers.

And different ones in the family.

She had three brothers, I think two of

All of his brothers and

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 16

IB:

Green:

IB:

Green:

them worked at Reo for a while.
as, you know, a family thing and ah,

So we had been associated with Reo

Did the family members get the other ones .... the shop on the jobs.

I think so, ah, my dad in '41, he asked me if I, he said would you
like a job at Reo and I said well not really, I don't want to work
inside, but I said if I can get a job for the summer, that's okay
with me.

But

That's right, you were saying that Reo was the longest summer job
that you ever had.

Come on you are going in.

Right.
And so he made the arrangements for me to go to the
employment office and fill out the application and when my name went
through, boy they picked me right off.
So, I didn't think anything about it until .... all of 10, 12 years
later, I went over to the drinking fountain and got a drink of water
and these two guys were standing there talking together and they saw
me stop there and I just straightened up and this one guy said, well
he said I don't suppose it bothers you any that somebody is going to
get laid off.
I said, hey,
He says your dad got you a job in here.
remember one thing, anybody can get you a job in here, but you've got
to make your own way and I said there is no way that I would ever do
anything that would jeopardize my dad's reputation.
was the biggest load I ever carried was being careful that I didn't
jeopardize my dad's reputation.
good in past, well in recent years.
St. Johns, he worked down there for years and we were at the reunion
up here at Coral ~ables and he was talking with a couple of guys and
I walked up by there and he said now there's a guy that um, how was
it, he made some remark you know, about me not working when I was
there.
was the greatest guy you'd ever seen in your life.
pretty darn nice, you know, for him to say that.
have to, but my dad was well respected and ah, I've always been proud
of being able to follow him.

He said he is a lot different than his dad.

He said his dad
I thought, that's

Because it has made me feel real

Um, Larry Coon lives up at

But it is, you know,

Because he didn't

And I think that

IA:

Now you said your family had a farm in Potterville?

Green:

Oh north of Potterville.

IA:

North of Potterville?

Green:

Yeah.

And my dad, he worked at Reo then.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

He would come home from work, jump on the tractor and go out

IB:

After work?

•

Glen Green
Page 17

Green:

After work and run until dark, come back up and milk cows, go back
out and run until close to midnight, get up at 3:00 in the morning go
down, he had 26 cows to milk by hand and milk those cows, go down to
Reo work all day and come back out and run the.
He was thankful for
a rainy afternoon, you know, so he could take a few hours off.
in the worst part was along in '32, this was after we thought we were
out to Grand Ledge which made him about a 12 mile drive, '32, '33 in
that area in there, '34 maybe, urn, they shut down.
They closed down
the work four hours a day.

But

IB:

Through the Depression?

Green:

Yeah, you come in and work as long as we have any work for four hours
or something like that.
work three eight hour days.
request, got the orders.

And you go home, he says well why can't we

We are not working unless we got the

IB:

Got the parts and stuff.

Green:

IA:

Green:

•

And so he would drive that 12 miles each way, work four hours.
I
don't know how he ever had anything left out of his paycheck, you
know.

What kind of a car did your father drive?

Did you have a Reo?

Dh yeah, I was telling you about that one Reo ah, this is when we
were, he had Reos previously, but he also had a Maxwell and a couple
It seems like he had a Star, but I'm
other cars, I can't remember.
not sure.

I know he had a Model T Ford and ah,

IB:

The competition.

Green:

Then in ah,

IA:

I was Just thinking,

Green:

Then in about 1926 or '27 he bought this Reo with a Brisco Body and
ah, gee, we thought that was just great, a Brisco Body was something
fantastic, you know.
wooden frame body,

Then it had roll up windows in it, it was a

IA:

Roll up windows were rather new then, weren't they?

Green:

Yeah, yeah, and ah, yeah his other cars had side curtains, snap-on
side curtains, rain or wind, you know, you snap on the side curtains.
And so, ah, but then he beught another Reo, gee, it seemed like it
was a '34, yes it was, it was a '34, a black one.
fenders about like that ah, Detrick body, it had flair fenders about
like that and the doors opened from the front.
They were hinged in
the back.

It had flair

•

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 18

IA:

IB:

Oh like the suicide door?

Yeah.

Green:

Right.

IB:

That's really dangerous.

Green:

Right, '33 Ford and them came out with it and they put all these cars
out without realizing if somebody starts to open that door when they
are going down the road, it is going to jerk them right out of the
car, and no seat belt.
But he had that car, I got a picture of him
standing beside it and the angle I took that picture, it looks like
it 'must be a 15 cylinder straight engine, you know, it looks like
that hood is 8 foot long.

IB:

Well they were big cars.

Green:

Yes they were a big car, but they weren't that big, it was just the
distortion of the angle.

IA:

IB:

Oh I see.

We had a touring car here that had a 16 cylinder engine in it, 1907
touring car, I believe it was.
And it is being restored in Florida
now, hopefully.

Green:

Oh really, huh.

IB:

Talk about the, the same thing.

Green:

Yeah, yeah,

IB:

IA:

IB:

Green:

For every.

Yeah.

The biggest engine ever built.

I think Cadillac came out with a V-12 and I don't,know if they ever
came out with a V-16 or not, but they had a V-12, but that was
shorter you know.
the side, it was a shorter engine.

Because you put just 8 cylinders, 6 cylinders on

But ah,

IB:

You were telling me, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Green:

Go ahead.

IB:

You were telling me that there is a picture of your family that was
taken at Reo?

• Glen Green

Page 19

Green:

And it seems to me, but I'm not sure, it seems to me we had

Yeah.
I know that Hilda Smith, used to work in Personnel,
like an 8 by 10.
and she called me and told me to ah, come up and pick up any pictures
I wanted when they were closing the place out.
through a lot of these and I've sorted out some of you and your
family and I'd,like to have you come and get them.
of them were ~~~-
family.
Items, they had two or three different papers that were published
over years.

But I know that in, I'm not sure if it was Reo Spirit or Reo

room gang pictures and some of them were the

She said I've gone

So I did.

Some

IB:

IA:

I ... Spirit.

The item was a paper, like a newspaper?

Green:

Yeah, oh yeah.
was

Well, not like, it was color print and everything, it

IA:

Did it come out once a week or

Green:

• IB:

No, once a month.
two months like during the summer or something.
variation but ah, Art Sinclair was the artist.
everything that I don't.

Usually, sometimes I think they put it out every

They had little
How come you know

Because I've read all this stuff already.
one involved with the clubhouse too.

Art Sinclair also was the

Green:

Right, right.

Yeah.

IB:

IA:

IB:

IA:

He used to manage the clubhouse.

He managed it?

Ah huh.

Okay.

Green:

And ah

IA:

I think I ... his name.

Green:

• IA:

IB:

So I got that picture, but I'm not just sure where it is.
done it, I
Florida, I told her I was coming down there and she said are you
going to take along our picture and I said I don't know where it is
now.

Because my sister called me yesterday from

I know he

I'd love to see it.

Yeah.

That would be great to see.

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 20

Green:

I will, I will find it and bring it down.
one of those things that it is someplace up there and our house isn't
that big.
Indian chief.

But my wife built or made a 16 by 20 crewel picture of an
She has put it away now where she can't find it.

But it is ah, it is not

IB:

I understand that.

Green:

IB:

Green:

IB:

So the picture may be hard to find, I don't know.
and bring it down.

But I'll find it

Now during the Depression, did, the Urm
little bit?

Because you know, you mentioned

help, having ~he fJfrmhelp a

fSrms.

We had some of our food from the farm like ah, beef or pork,
chickens, things like that, which helped out tremendously.
we always had a big garden spot, raised a bunch of potatoes and
things like that, ah huh.

And then

Because I read some letters to to from Reo people to the company
during the Depression, they had them in the archives.
from their farms in St. Johns and all the outlying areas saying we
are out here waiting, whenever you have the jobs for us, we'll come
on back, you know.

They wrote

Green:

Absolutely.

IB:

And they, you know, they at least knew that they could survive out
there on the farms

Green:

Right.

IB:

until they had

Green:

IB:

Green:

IA:

Green:

Well yes you can get by, but my gosh my dad sold some ah, good hogs
for very little money.
Whicll~little or nothing, but ah, he had to have it to pay the taxes.

I think he sold four of them, he got $32.

Yeah, so you could eat what you needed and then sell the rest?

Oh yeah, yeah, well and you'd raise grain and stuff and ah, and sell
that off.
Portland to the flour mills and trade it for flour.
the flour back and women would use the flour and stuff.

Or they used to ah, raise wheat and they'd take it over to

So they'd bring

What was it harder to wor~
think?

on the farm or in the factory, do you

It is kind of a toss-up.
was difficult because back then we didn't have all the mechanized
stuff they've got now.
like that but there was an awful lot of handwork

We had tractors, better tractor and things
involved on it.

You see harder, I don't know, ah, farm work

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 21

And then ah, but you were your own boss.
this today or that today, whatever you want.
you punch in that time card and there is somebody got an eye on you,
you feel that you are being watched and if you don't produce things
they are right on your back.

You decided you will do

You got to the factory,

IA:

IB:

Yeah.

So a bad storm doesn't ruin, you know, a whole season's worth of
work.

Green:

Right, right.

IB:

So it is a little more regular.

Green:

Making a living is easier in the plant, than it is on

Oh yeah, it is regular, but like I say, which is harder, I don't
really know.
the farm.
When we were out at Potterville in 1926, monsoon rains, I
say monsoon, that's from India, monsoon, the equinoxal rains came and
dad had 26 acres of beans, navy beans, all ready to pull.
The ground
got so wet they couldn't pull them.
rotted.

They stood right there and

IB:

Oh.

Green:

And so that was a little bit of a tough year.

IB:

IA:

IB:

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Green:

But that was the year beans were high priced.

IB:

That's probably why.

Green:

Right.

That hurt.

IB:

What kind of wages do you think your father was earning at the shop
in those days?

Green:

I don't know.
cents an hour.

I know that when I started there in '41, I got ah, 40

IB:

I wanted to ask you that, 40 cents an hour.

Green:

Yup.

IB:

Um, when you came back after your wartime experiences, what kind of
wage did you start out at?

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 22

Green:

IA:

Green:

We started out at 60 cents.
/lvdhl?J1sed

... 20 cents.
A

So when I, I worked

So I went along pretty near a year

I worked there for ah, oh well, of course, I worked in -the

Yeah.
tool room in the tooling business there for the rest of the time, but
ah, I'd say probably close to six months and George Barnett was our
superintendent then and ah, and I knew he knew my dad and I went up
there and I said George, I kind of think I deserve more money.
And
he says, ah, well I think you do to, he says I'll put it in for you.
So he jumped me up to 80 cents.
and Frank Keltz and I, Frank is dead now, and ah, Bruce Lozway, I
believe it was, he was working in there with us, all three of us
doing the same job in the tool room.
and we said, hey, let's go talk to them about getting a raise.
ought to be getting a dollar an hour.
day, he was in school.
He was a part time student and so Frank and I
went up there and talked to George and George said, ah, well, he said
the only way I can do that is if two of you guys can do the work.
Then I'll have to cut you back, take one man off and let the two of
you do that work.
and we'll let Bruce go.
day Bruce came in and we told him what George had said and he said,
that's fine with me.
not.
Police force.

And so I can pay you gUY$ each a dollar an hour
So, ah, the next

And Frank and I got together
We
So, Bruce wasn't there that

And the last I heard of him was that he had joined the Lansing

He said you guys are going to stay here and I'm

He is part time anyway.

IB:

Dh.

Green:

IB:

I don't know, you know, all the ins and outs of that or anything.
Ah, but that's the way you got your raises back then.
the boss in ... one.

You had to put

They didn't just come along automatically because of the good work
and

Green:

Oh no, no, no.

IB:

Green:

you had to go fight for a raise.

You had to go and talk to them and you know, nobody got mad, we just
talked about the situation and he said that's fine. Well then from
then on I got my raises pretty regular, but they weren't rapid.
You, you could work six months or a year before
weren't rapid.
they'd finally give you some more money.

They

IA:

Did they take things like how many children you have to support and
things like that into account?

Green:

Not to my knowledge.

•

Glen Green
Page 23

IA:

No.

Green:

And so ah , when I was married, but we didn't have any children

I, I, I say not to my knowledge.
that.
right then and so um, I think that supervisors in those days had a
lot more concern for their workers and if they were having a rough go
on the outside, I think they would say, well, hey we'll give you a
little raise here.

At that time I wasn't involved in

IA:

Ah huh, to help you along.

Green:

All they had to do is justify it to their boss.
And they were, they
were rather humane about the thing, you know, and caring and ah, but
things did get out of hand because inequalities.
spent one year on the ah, well, I mentioned Lester Washburn, and ah,

And that's why I

IA:

The union man.

Green:

IA:

Green:

•

Yeah, that year, the one they call the labor holiday, urn, that that
year he was up for, I mean I don't know if it was that same year, but
when he was up for reelection,

After the war?

After World War II?

He was up for reelection as president of the local.

Yeah, ahhuh.
And ah, a bunch of guys came to me and my brother and three other
guys.
trust.

They picked the biggest guys they could find.

Guys they could

IA:

Ah huh.

Green:

He said, we want you guys over there guarding the ballot boxes.
we had to go over there and stay all day and all night up there where
the Reo radio station used to be, above the showroom across from the
clubhouse.

So

IB:

Oh across from the clubhouse.

It wasn't in the clubhouse.

Green:

No, it was across from the clubhouse.
the election.

And ah, that's where they held

IA:

Was it a contract election or

Green:

Yes, well it was the office, union official, yeah, it was him, it was
him for election.

IA:

Okay.

Green:

And they had somebody running against him and ah, going up there and
watch those ballot boxes and they told us watch it because they are

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 24

apt to gang up on you and try to throw you downstairs.
together.

So stick

IB:

My goodness.

Green:

But we were five pretty good sized guys and they'd get

So we did.
together and talk, but they wouldn't, they didn't start anything.
Came out, he was thrown out.
they were just so shrewd they would stuff the ballot boxes.

The election went our way because and

IA:

And they might have.

Green:

And they could have very easily.
Because you never have 100 percent
vote and all they got to do is run in some more ballo.ts, voting for
him.

IA:

Let me ask you this about the union.
people who belong to the union.

There are obviously lots of

Green:

Oh yeah.

IA:

There are workers

.

Green:

I did.

IA:

But also who felt very, very urn, good about the company too.

Green:

Oh absolutely.

IA:

Green:

So they weren't contradictory, those things.

Well what has got me.

No, no.
when I went on supervision, I had to resign from the union.
they dropped me out.

I was in the union.

Of course, then

I was,

IB:

Right.

Green:

I said, aren't you.

And whenever we would have a problem, the guys would say you are a
company man.
said if the company doesn't make money, how do you get paid?
and they'd start thinking.
say, hey, you've got to do this. Wait a minute.
the enemy and I'm for the working people.
is to insure the future of the company for the future of the workers.

Well, the stewards would come tome

Well, no I'm union man first.

And I said, look, my job

I
Well,
and

He says, you are

IB:

Ah huh.

Green:

And if this is detrimental to that, I'm not going to sign it.
if you want to take it on up to Personnel and if they want to agree
to it, that's okay.
that management is not an adversary.

It is surprising how many people I got convinced
Management is som~body that has

I said

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 25

And an awful lot of people didn't want that

Some people thought it was just a cushy job, you

to keep the place going.
responsibility.
just sit around and look smart.whether you are or not.
had to make decisions that maybe was against your own ah, beliefs,
but it was for the good of the company you had to do it. And so, I
was on both sides of the fence.
autocratic rule by union, because of the fact that somebody has got
to protect management's interest to keep the place going.
instance, when there was nobody protecting management's interest, it
went bankrupt.
And I think that is just as true today and I really
feel that this is one of the reasons we are having all this problem
with Japan importing stuff is because the management and Oldsmobile
is guilty of this too, they don't want you rocking the boat

I never was a firm believer in an

Well, ah, you

For

IB:

Right.

Green:

IB:

Green:

And I think
Unions

They were to
But then you got, it

Pretty soon, now, I can't go buy a new car.

Because I don't want to dip into reserves to buy a car

Give them whatever they want and we will just raise
I'll buy a

with the union.
the price.
used car.
when I can get one that will run and do the job and ah.
that this is a factor that somebody is going to have to face.
in their original concept were good, really good.
insure that ah, workers were treated equally.
got reverted around to where we'll tell you what you are going to do.
And to me, the worst thing about the union was that
And that is bad.
they can brought everybody down to the lowest common denominator.
If
you had a crew of 20 people and three or four of them were super and
the rest, some of the rest of them were good and you had a couple of
bad apples.
bad apple because he is drawing just as much money as I am.
I've seen both sides of the picture and I can see good and bad in
I mean they've
But they each got to be in control.
both of them.
got to be controlled.
employees and the unions shouldn't force the company into doing
things that is going to jeopardize their future.
is what we are all looking at.

These upper people are going to drop right down to the

Management can't run roughshod over their

Because the future

So, ah,

What kind of changes did you see in the shop from what you did and I
guess I also want to ask you, what kind of changes did you see in the
way of ah, people, did they feel the same.
feel right from the straight, right on straight through do you think?

Did they have that family

When I first went to work

Oh there is no doubt in my mind yes.
And you
there, the first thing they did, does your dad work here?
know like my foreman, Ed Cavanaugh down in receiving, he said does
Oh,
your dad work here.
And as far as
I know him and I was a member of his family, you know.
It
the working was concerned, ah, and I think it held that way.
might have, no I can't say really that it eased off in the later
years.
We went through a lot of employees because we had the
military contracts and they boosted employment up to what somewheres

I said yeah, what's his name, Howard Green.

Glen Green
Page 26

around 4500, something like that. And so we got a lot of people in
that weren't real oriented.

IA:

Did they hire a lot of women?

Green:

Yeah.

Yeah, no problems.

IA:

Green:

Ob no problems, I was going to ask you about that.

No, the one problem that always came up it seemed was women had a
weight restriction.

Not their weight, not their weight, no,

IA:

I was going to go wait a minute.

Green:

Well maybe that

No, no, but like down in Department 32 in the engine plant where the
machine parts, they would put them in stock pans.
stock pan would weigh pretty near 50 pounds if you small bolts or
something like that and too heavy for a woman to lift.
the guy says well hey wait a minute, she is drawing the same money I
am, but management worked around it.
They got things set up so that
one thing, they put in some conveyors so the stockmen that put their
pan on a conveyor, she could just roll it right down the conveyor to
her machine, work on it. And the conveyor was moveable, they could
take it to another machine and set it up and things like that.
So,
ah, together they worked things out.
those people that were there for temporary type job.
they were there because we had

Ah, as far as family feel,

Pretty soon

You know I mean

IA:

Because of the war.

Green:

If you see one of them

high production, but when we dropped back down to standard
production, we had basically the old line people there and ah, and a
few, even a few of those people that worked there just maybe a couple
of years during the high employment period.
outside now, you know, out in the store or something like that,
You used to work at Reo?
they'd come right up and talk to you.
Yeah, yeah, and so you get reacquainted, but they still have that
Now, if they only work there two years, the rest of their
feeling.
work time was at some other place.
But they remember you from Reo.
So I think that Reo made a deep impression on whoever came there to
work.
Some employees weren't
satisfactory and they didn't stay maybe more than three, four days or
a couple of weeks.
But anybody that stayed there and worked, I think
made an impression on them because of management's primary attitude.
And that was that we make a good product, we need good people.
It
wouldn't just do anything to satisfy people's demands, I mean they
had to be reasonable demands if they wanted something.
that filtered down from the top.
there.

But I think
I think ..... good people working

If there was a satisfactory employee.

•

•

•

• Glen Green

Page 27

IA:

You are speaking about the top, I'd like to if you don't mind just a
minute and go back and ask, we touched on it earlier and I was asking
you if what your father remembered of Dick Scott, did he ever make
any comment aboutR.
or did he come out and talk to them or

E. Olds himself about how the men felt about him

Green:

See at that time, when R. E. Olds was there, my dad would have been
working down on, on the assembly line or in the tank track department
or even maybe, maybe he was still just driving cars to Chicago.

IA:

Oh okay.

Green:

But after he got to working into the plant is when he knew all,these
guys.

IB:

IA:

IB:

• Green:

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

There was a Doug Chapan that used to drive cars, .... or he used to
test cars or something?

Roy Chapan.

Roy Chapan.

Roy Chapan, now I've heard that name.

I have too, I'm trying to think

He did that um, ff1.°f.. ~ New York

Yes he did, yes.

You know I thought of him when you mentioned your dad, because he did
something like that too.

Green:

Oh yeah.

IB:

Green:

He was main engineer there.

Okay.

Yeah and you hear names like that, but a lot of them you don't
associate with them except in regards to what they did at Reo or
something like that, you know.
heard the name

Somebody mentioned names, hum, I've

IB:

Yeah.

But if they could say well he worked on this, oh yeah, yeah.

So you wouldn't have known ah, R. E. Olds to get back to what Shirley
said?

Green:

IA:

•

•

Glen Green
Page 28

Green:

I don't, I doubt that he would have known him personally.
because his workstation at that time, I would think, would have been
driving cars to Chicago.

Ah,

IB:

So you wouldn't have been

Green:

IB:

Yeah, and then when he first went in to plant to work he is a new
employee and probably wasn't ah, how do I say, hobnobbing with people
in all strata of the plant.

I'm kind of interest-l" too in the radio station and you were telling
me it was ~cross the street.

Green:

Dh yeah, WRED.

Side 2

Gr.een:

IA:

But we were just talking about WRED radio.

Green:

•

Yeah, as a kid, I can remember the folks sitting there

Yeah.
1istening to WRED and ah , I think they jus t talked about
generalities, you know, maybe a little bit of news, local news and
stuff like that and maybe some of the happenings in the plant or
something of that nature.
or something like that, you know, for music.
any vivid recollection.

I don't remember any jokes they told.

But ah, and probably played some records

But it ah, I don't have

IB:

Not everybody had radios back then.

Green:

Oh no, no, no.

IA:

Well that's a good point.

Green:

No.

IA:

I hadn't thought of that.

Green:

i(.E~~~

•

Like I said the old crystal set, where you

Not very many people did.
had to turn a crystal to bring it into frequency.
radio tubes and stuff.
'28, my dad's brother, he lived out there by Potterville too and he
was working at Reo at the time. And he ah, he had bought an Atwater
Then it had speaker standing up

I can remember in about 1927, probably '27 or

It is a real old one.

You didn't have

radio.

like this, you know, and he had to adjust about three dials to get
this in. And it was going to be a prize fight and I almost believe
it was Jack Dempsey, but I don't know.
there listening in to that radio you know, and some of us kids made a
little bit of noise and outdoors, shush, outdoors.
and...it was radio was sitting right by a window and we got right under

And they were all sitting

So we went out

t-flE

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 29

IB:

IA:

the window and sat down on the ground and listening to that thing,
but it, you know, we weren't really interested illthe fight.
they were listening to it, so we wanted to hear it, you know.

But

Yeah.

What kind of things did you see when you, were you taken to the
clubhouse for ah, oh like I was saying at the luncheon that Major

Bodes ~

came JIl.9.l:.e time.
euvE

Green:

No, no.

IA:

Did you go to see different things

Green:

Oh yeah, we went to see different things if they thought that we were
interested or if we thought we were interested.
were called
vicium(?) numbers.

Ah,they

IA:

Oh that's right.

Green:

IB:

IA:

Green:

IB:

And ah and they would bring these people, acts and stuff like that in
there and this is prior to the movies, I mean the colored movie.
And they would bring these people in and they would put on
Yeah.
their show, musical shows, anything like that that they could book
and ah, that was always on Thursday night, but I think it was only
once a month and when the Reo Spirit came out, one of the first
things they wanted to do was look down through and see what's on, you
know.

To see what's hopping?

That's right, everybody got a spirit.

I

Yea~.-,
They had good movies there too, because I used to watch to see what
they had showing.

Green:

You bet, first run.

IB:

I remember being taken

Green:

They had first run movies there and

IA:

Ah did they?

Green:

Yup and they were the first ones to have colored cameras.
colored movies.
was Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

Ah, I went there and the first colored movie I saw

Put on

IB:

Is that rightj

• Glen Green

Page 30

Green:

And that was back, that was about ah,

IA:

Now they must have had silents too?

Green:

Oh yes, yes.

IS:

Yeah with Chaplin and all of those.

Green:

Yeah.

IA:

What about some of the clubs and things, did your parents belong,
like your dad and then did you, like the bowling and baseball

Green:

My dad never ah,

IS:

He was farming though.

Green:

Never got into, yeah, he never seemed to have time to get into any
clubs or anything like that.

IS:

• IA:

Green:

Because the Reo baseball team was supposed to be very good.

That's what I wondered.
they?

Didn't they have a football team too, didn't

I mentioned Larry Kuhns talking about my dad.
Larry Kuhns came down
to the Reo ... Jerry somebody was the Personnel manager and he was a
great athletics booster and he hired Larry on the spot, because Larry
was a good baseball player and his main job

IS:

Are you thinking about Gy ~?

fi' IJ.-TII

Green:

No, no, I knew Cy Ralph, because he is one my dad talked to about
getting me in there.

rr/iTJI

IB:

Okay.

Green:

What the heck was

IB:

I'm trying to think too, but I can't remember.

Jerry.

He was there quite a while.
job was to be able to play baseball.
appearance, but he wasn't going to be working, yeah, he wasn't going
to be working on sheet metal or something ...

But anyway, he hired Larry and his main

I mean he had to put in an

And ruin those hands.

No he had

Green:

IA:

• Green:

• Glen Green

Page 31

IB:

Maybe he did an inspection job or something where he could walk
around

Green:

Well he ended up in the materials division, supervisor there but ah,

IB:

Yeah, because if you read the Spirit, that's such a big part of it is
all the different teams

Green:

You bet.

IB:

IA:

.... and baseball and

That's right, somebody mentioned a rifle range didn't they.

Green:

Yeah yeah.

IS:

Where was that?

Green:

It was up, I think it was on the I think fourth floor maybe.

They

IB:• Green:

IB:

Green:

didn't back of the main office building. revoirs

they mentioned also? ~i8~S, ~~e~es,

horseshoe pitching.

Oh is that what that is?

Yeah.
~tnJits

IA:

Clee~ts- is horseshoe, ah.

Green:

Yeah, yeah, they had tournaments and

IB:

They said that was very popular too.

Green:

Yeah.

IA:

That was outdoors someplace near the

Green:

I don't know exactly

IB:

They said they did it in the fields.

Green:

Yeah he had some other properties too, ah, they had a lawn mower
testing plot out south, I believe around Logan and Washington,
somewheres around in there.

Out by where the old fair grounds used to be, out that way, maybe.

• IB:

•

Glen Green
Page 32

Green:

IS:

Green:

Yeah, yeah.
about the only thing that I got into was our steering gear club, that
was all management.

And so it might have been some of it out there.

Ah,

Oh that's right, that's Louie mentioned that.

Yeah, any level of management went there.
to go.

In fact, you were expected

IA:

Now what was that, just a social group?

Green:

•

IS:

IA:

Green:

Lo Q ~A.J~/IIGG.f

Yeah, well and also the boss man, now like Claire -b9g8RsleggEW:', he
was always, he'd get up there and give us a standing of the company,
how we stand and ah, what we had to do and any new program that was
coming out, he'd let us in on it. And things of that nature.
ah, it wasn't a confidential type thing, but before they announced it
to the press or anything they would tell us.
was having trouble with finances, you know, we weren't getting
enough, he'd jump on to us about getting more production out for the
man hour and stuff like that. Ah, then we'd go into the program and
they always put on a big feed and um,

And ah, if the company

And

It makes me hungry.

Yeah.

Hum, the guy that had Ye Old Country Caterers out in DeWitt, he Leon,
he worked in ah, engineering in the chemical lab, metals testing and
stuff like that with ah, Ankosky, Clarence Ankosky.
of it. And ah, Leon, oh he made stuffed pork chops and you talk
about a meal, and we'd get all through, you know, everybody had been
served and some of them maybe even went back for a seconds, they'd go
up and grab the mike and say hey, still a lot of food left back
there, go back and eat all you want.

He was in charge

IA:

Did you all meet at the cluqhouse?

Green:

IA:

IS:

Yup.
enough.

Always did, well it was about the only place that was big

Yeah, right.

There must have been a lot of rooms in that building?

Green:

Well the main ballroom is where we had everything.

IA:

I see.

Green:

No, I say we had everything, no.
wanted to talk to his production people, he would have them in a back
room, when you went in the doors and around to the right and they had

Smaller groups, like if Claire

•

------------------------------------------------------~

•

Glen Green
Page 33

a room.back in there. Ah, if it was just a foremen's meeting, ah,
like when ah oh, the guy that was head of Diamond T, when he came in
there, I had his name before I started to talk. When he came in, ah,
they brought him in, they brought all the supervisors in and we were
in that back room back there and ah, Zenin ~sen,
and he come in there and talked to us and everybody thought well, you
know, this is going to be great because he was going to be president
of the company.
He had some
ideas, but ah, he couldn't cope with our style of production because
we had moving assembly lines and at Diamond T, they pushed them .by
"
hand.

Well, his ideas didn't last very long.

that's the guy,

IA:

In the '60' s still they pushed them by hand?

Green:

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

IB:

I didn't know that.

•

Green:

IB:

IA:

IS:

Green:

They would take the frame and set it on the axles.

They
Dh yeah.
had the wheels on them. They'd bolt them on and then they started
building up from there and when these guys got done with theirs and
they pushed it to the next station.

Dh pushed the body.

Oh I'm sure low electricity bills.

Right?

They did push the bodies, yeah, I do remember that now.

So ah, he just couldn't quite adapt to our process and things that he
wanted to do didn't go down well with White and so ah, he just left
there and went and took over Mac Truck.

IA:

Dh.

Green:

•

1 S11per, he was 1.0v'flv .3bJ(;C"'t

And he was good.

Now this Claire kala

I mean he wa.s the kind of

But then ah, the you know, we just

for a friend, because he could be a terrible
Anybody that you know that didn't want to produce, now, he
I mean you could tell him what

So ah , he still had a good job.
went along as a part of White.
the production m~~g~r.
a guy that you~~~
enemy.
didn't take things too personally.
you thought and he didn't get mad at you.
knew who wasn't producing.
He'd tell them either you produce or you are out the door.
they didn't produce, they didn't change their ways, they were out the
door.
anybody that he knew did the job for Reo, he'd go to bat for them and
he didn't care if he had to go clear through the top of White Motors.
They got a fair shake, which was very good.
I had him mad at me one
time, the year I was committeeman, it was a contract year, and\we
wanted to change from piece work to hourly rate and so they got up a

He could be quite ruthless, but he was loyal.' I'll tell you,

He didn't care what their level was.

But he ah, he would he

And if

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 34

slate of candidates.
I was one of them, my brother was one of them.
I don't know why we always ran in pairs, but the thing that happened

IA:

There is safety in numbers.

Green:

Yeah, and I think this dates back to my dad.

IA:

IB:

Green:

Oh.

Oh really.

You know, respect for my dad, they said well hey those two guys are
honest, we know we can trust them.

IB:

I think you ... ah huh.

Green:

But I was instrumental in negotiating the contract and we convinced
Herro Everhardness and the rest of them and Claire that the company
would be better off with an hourly rate and a production standard
than to have piece work where one guy could make $4.50 an hour and
another guy couldn't make a $1.50, we said that isn't fair.
So they
agreed to it and we put it in. Well then probably ah, six months or
so later, we had a job up on the cab line.
cab was put together in three pieces, they had the back and the top
came together with the front cowl and then you had your side panels,
but the ah, they would put them together, clamp them into place in
the fixture and spot weld them.
this far above the windshield, went right across the top of the cab.
It was spot welded together.
right, there would be a gap, maybe it would be three-quarters of an
inch wide and about this far back in. And they had to melt lead and
fill those in'and then polish them off.

But then if the dyes weren't quite

The solderers, now the

This seam went right across oh about

IB:

Yeah.

Green:

So they had him work, he'd work

And so this one guy up there, he was doing the leading part time.
Now they didn't need, I think they had two guys doing it full time.
They didn't need three guys full time, so they used a guy that was
working at a station right near there and he could, he could lead
them in and everything, do the job.
maybe three or four hours a day.
a nickel an hour more than his job called for.
Claire and talked to him as a union leader, you know, the
representative and so I talked to Claire and I told him about the
situation and I said I really think the guy deserves that extra
nickel.
And ah, he said okay, I'll check with the foreman up there
and see what the deal is and if that's right, he'll get his nickel.
The next day he called me and said the guy got his raise.
great, so probably a couple weeks later, I was walking from the motor
plant over to the shipping area and Claire met me right in the middle
of the railroad tracks.

Well the guys doing the leading got

And boy did he jump on to me.

And so I went to

He said what

I said

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 35

I don't know what you are

He said you talked me into giving that guy a nickel

He said now 16 guys down the line want the same raise.

are you trying to pull on me anyway.
talking about.
raise.
said ,Claire, as far as I'm concerned they don't deserve it.
said don't give in them.
doing the special Job for the company and I think that he deserved as
much money and then so they are using that amount of lesser Job, he
is always available to fill in for vacation or anything like that.
He looked at me and he said, boy I'm glad you said that.
He said i
that is exactly what I wanted to hear you say.
said, he could Jump on to you, but you prove your point, everything
was fine.
going.

He was without doubt the one guy that could keep Reo

They don't do that work.

But they fired him.

So, that's what I

This guy was

I
So I

IA:

Tbeydid,

why?

Green:

Urn, but

I don't know

Maybe it is scrap

And that he was sending

Some materials and stuff.

Whomever was up at the top, yeah.

Nothing really wrong with it, as long

Oh well, they trumped up, well I don't know if they trumped up a lot
of charges, but I mean they threw in a lot of things.
exactly who fired him.
they said that he had a little company set up to overhaul what they
called dummy trucks, the power lift trucks.
Reo trucks out there to be rebuilt and bringing them back in and then
the company paid his company.
as he was doing a good job and doing it cheaper, but then they said
somebody saw him stealing stuff or not stealing, he'd tell some guy
put this on a truck and take it up to my place at Houghton Lake on
the lake there.
material, but they didn't care, they just said he is stealing the
company blind, out you go.
couple of years or so, and he came back.
office upstairs, this was after I went up to superintendent of
tooling, and I was up there and Claire came in there and he looked at
me and he said well I hope I didn't hurt YDur feelings when I fired
your good buddy over, Ovard Bryd had come in as a specialist in
efficiency and everything and he was head of all this area and I was
had to
working for him.
do. I said you are going to have to fire other people.
to fire me, go ahead and do it. He looked at me and said, well I
thought you were on his side.
company side.
he mellow right down.
think that that is an attitude that everybody looked for when they
wanted to make somebody into a supervisor.
me he said you are never going to get a promotion until you get
Good thinking, so I did it.
somebody trained to take your job.

It wasn't too long, I don't know, maybe a
And I remember I was in the

I said no, the only side I'm on is the
Boy did

And I don't care who I'm working for or with.

I said no Claire, I think you did what you

Why I was one of his boys.

Of course, my boss told

And ah, and I

If you have

IA:

You said earlier that everybody in the plant was cut from the same
cloth, but

Green:

Well I'm talking about the old-timers, the guys that worked with my
dad.

•

Glen Green
Page ;36
/

IA:

The old~timers, right.

Green:

The guys that worked with my dad.
they are cut from the same cloth or if they are molded to the same
pattern.

And here again, you don't know if

IA:

Yeah, that's a good incident.

Green:

They can go either way.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

IA:

Working made them better people, working with these others made them
better people or if they just happen to get the type of people that,
you know, that had those values.

Right.
and things like that.

That's what you really mean, you mean values and attitudes

Green:

Right, yeah.

Yeah.

•

IA:

IB:

Green:

Okay.

And that came from similar backgrounds too, didn't they, and they
were probably raised in the same kind of mindset.

Then in later years, we had all

At that time they pretty much did.
kinds of experts come in that had done this for this shop or that for
that shop and boy, everybody thought they were going to cut a wide
swath and they couldn't cope with the complexity of our problems.
Because we built what the customer wanted.
line and they put out parts by the thousands and this part goes on
that car and that's it. Reo, if a guy wanted some little special
valve and we had a case of this out at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, this
little valve was made and this guy wanted it, we didn't normally
stock it, engineering had to find a way to incorporate that valve in
this truck for him for his.
trucks.

That was when they were building just

Oldsmobile goes down the

IB:

IA:

Wow.

When they would order an item, a car, they would specify if they
wanted something special?

Green:

Trucks, this is strictly trucks.

IB:

Just the trucks.

Green:

Right.

IA:

And then it would be built for their particular use.

•

•

Glen Green
Page 37

Green:

Right.

IA:

Would be built to their specifications.

Green:

We had a couple, well I guess we made six of them. We took the Reo
V-8 engine and modified it so that four cylinders could be used as a
This guy was
compressor or as a compression addition to the engine.
hauling dry concrete powder and he'd haul it to the silos and then
they had to have a blower that would shoot it up into the silo from
the tops.

Because they always had to fill them from the top.

IA:

Right.

Green:

And so he came to engineering and asked them if they CQuid give him
So they come up with this modification for a V-8 engine
something.
and they made him one. And we had the machine, the cylinder blocks
even in the tool room.
hand because they were experimental and nobody else had the equipment
that would do it. And we made special parts for it that they needed.
They weren't ready for production.
There wasn't enough call for it.
And so we made him up this one and he took that thing, I believe it
was in Ohio, that he took that thing and tried it out.
And he said
it worked like a dream.
off to these four cylinders

He had a switch that would cut the ignition

We had to set them up and machine them by

IA:

Oh but kept the other one.

Green:

And so the other four were running and they'd push these up and down
and as it come up on compression, it pushed air out and through the
pipe and that was his compressor for blowing that powder up in the
silo.

IA:

Right.

Green:

IB:

IA:

Green:

And we made him six of those, but then there wasn't any demand, any
great demand for it. This guy liked them, but ah, maybe there
weren't too many truckers in that situation.
in later years have gone to bottom dumpers on those things.
They go
over a pit and they bottom dump in there and they have a blower that
shoots it up.
for it I presume.

But this guy he wanted it so we spent money, he paid

Because a lot of them

Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure he did.

It was good you were willing to do that.

But it, yes, yes, no matter what they wanted engineering and that's
where Spartan Motors originated from out there in Charlotte is Reo
people.
and now they are going great guns.
chassis and ah, fire trucks, anything somebody wants.

They are building motor home
Like that

Reo engineers and stuff like that that have started that up

•

•

• Glen Green

Page 38

special equipme~t, ah, big power brooms for sweeping airport runways.
A lot of things like that.
Motors.

So Spartan Motors is an offshoot of Reo

IA:

Well isn't that interesting.
when I went to the new firehouse opening, grand opening just across
from Waverly High School

I just talked to somebody the other day

Green:

Oh yeah.

IA:

and it is either the new pumper truck or the new air, what they call
their new air truck was built there.

I think it was the air truck.

Green:

At Spartan ah huh.

IA:

Green:

• IB:

IA:

Green:

And so when you said that. Urn,
safety.
were for the employees who say they get hurt on the job?

Say when your dad was working there, what kind of provisions

I wanted to ask you, what about

Well there was one thing a Reo organization and I belonged to that at
the time I worked there too, for I don't remember, I think that went
out, they called it the Reo Benefit Association

Mutual Benefit Association.

Reo Benefit, ah huh.

Oh okay.

Green:

Where everybody

IB:

Like $50 or something like that.

Green:

Well I think that

IA:

IB:

,Oh you had to pay into it.

Yeah.

Green:

Yeah, I think I paid 12 cents a pay day.

IB:

Twelve cents a pay day.

Green:

• IA:

And then after you were
Yeah, that was taken out for Reo Benefit.
off work seven days, you could draw and it was only $2 or $3 a day
that you could draw, because it was based on values back in the way
early years, see.
an hour, $2 a day wouldn't mean a thing.
coke or something like that, but that's it.

So, I mean, for somebody that is getting $12, $15

I mean buy a couple cans of

Oh for $2 or $3 you could probably buy a sack of groceries then.

•

Glen Green
Page 39

IB:

Oh yeah.

Green:

And so that would make you $14 a week.

Well that's the thing of it. That did, see you could draw, I think
it was $2 a day.
Well that
kind of kept the wolf away from the door a little bit.
See at that
time, because in those days they didn't have all the prepared foods
You used to buy basic staples and they prepared it.
they have now.
So a little money went further in that respect.
Today it wouldn't
because $14 my gosh, you can't walk in and out the door for that.
But ah, that was the one thing.
federal compensation laws, workers compensation came in, until that
time, ah, I think that it wasn't an accepted policy.
that they did do things for people who were hurt in the factory.
like they would put them on as elevator operator.
could do

But as far as until the state and

Ah,
Something that you

But I think

IA:

Instead of not lose their job.

Green:

Right.

IB:

Yeah.

Green:

•

Ah, we had a guy who was clerking the tool room and he was very, he
took care of the orders called in and stuff like that for repair work
or anything and ah, then he kept the records of how much work was
done on this prQject and that project and he had polio when he was a
kid.
He only had this, his right leg was doubled up like this so he
couldn't get that anywheres near the ground and this one he had a
brace on it that came up here and fastened on just above his knee and
it had a pivot there, went down and hooked into the sides of his shoe
and had a strap across it to hold it in. One day his rods was
getting pretty well worn through and so ah, my boss, Herbert Swick
asked me if I could make him one.
So I took his old
one apart got my dimensions and I went and got the material and I
made it up and we sent it out and had it chrome plated and he put
that on so he could go with crutches.
since he was about five years old.
best working one I've ever had.
but this one here was free. We made it just for him, you know.
he told me that from the time he was 11, he was on his own.
folks abandoned him.

Now he had been on crutches
And so he said boy that is the
And his other ones cost him money,

I said sure.

And

His

IB:

Oh my.

Green:

And he was on his own and he told me about helping haul milk from the
far into town on a wagon, horse drawn wagon or a sleigh in the
wintertime, how going around on crutches and that guy had the
strongest arms and shoulders, oh, he'd tB;kea hold of you like that
and you didn't get loose. And he did, you know, I've always said,
Reo was full of characters, but they were good characters.

You know.

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 40

And we had an awful lot of fun down there.
the work, you know, at least we all got our jobs done.

It didn't interfere with

IB:

Kept every body's spirits up.

Green:

You bet, yeah.

That's where they got the name Reo Spirit.

Reo Spirit.
You know, thinking back on it and hearing what you have
been talking about, I think that was the perfect name for that house
organ, Reo Spirit.

Because they'd have little

And ah, he was getting up to

Oh I'm sure it was, I'm sure it was.
articles in there, little stories and stuff.
I remember one about
Con Mulger and he worked in the machinery repair for me when I was
over there, that couple of years.
retirement age then, had this little article about him.
a machinery repairman that people in the front office wouldn't know.
They didn't recognize him, but this, this told about him going up and
I believe it was up by Newberry and they were getting low on gas and
he saw this farmhouse and he says I'm going to go and wake them up
and see where there is a gas station.
So he walked up towards the
back door and here was a little like a lilac bush or something there
and a pumphouse and as he come up this way, he came face to face with
a black bear and just coming up from the other way.
And so he said,
he got back to the car faster than the bear got up in the woods.

Now here was

Boy that's good.

They can run pretty good.

That was to me was typical of Reo Spirit magazine.
the story about that little buy that, you know, didn't mean peanuts
to the company as far as management and like that is concerned, but
it was a human interest story.
And they had every issue had some
human interest stories, usually some little funny anecdotes about
people and ah, us kids always, we wanted to look at that thing as
soon as we'd get away from dad.
little cartoons and stuff.

We'd look at it, we'd look for the

They published

Or just add it to the family

IA:

Green:

IB:

IA:

Green:

IA:

IB:

Green:

Yes there were.

IB:

Green:

•

I'm going to go and get some out of our archives and look through
them.

I never had time when I was working here, I was too busy.

Yeah.
It is ah, well aren't we all in the same boat now.
little grandkids, a boy and we just look forward to the time of
spending with them.

That's what we are down here for this weekend to

We got two

•

•

•

Glen Gre.en
Page 41

And at the time I was

Ab, but I didn't have
And it seems such a

see her mother and her grandkids and stuff.
working, I don't know if I was so busy that I didn't have time when
our first grandson was born, he is 26 now.
time to play with him like I do with these.
great thing, you know, to have a little kid around to play with and
ah, I know that a lot of my work carried over to home.
And when I'd
get a call in the middle of the night and the guy that was on nights
down there, I didn't have a foreman, we just had a couple of guys in
each department working and he'd tell me about what the breakdown was
and I'd§ay
check it out.
an hour and I'll come in.
attitude that if it is your responsibility, you see to it.
I'd lay there and didn't know if I dared go to sleep or not but
pretty soon I'd go to sleep, the phone wouldn't ring, so apparently
it worked.
everything is going fine.
spirit of Reo.
fun, but you still had the responsibility of we had some great, great;
people in top management.
We had some lousy ones, but ah, the lousy
ones didn't last.

So, the next morning go in and the machine is running and

And I said, if that doesn't work you call me back in

this, now wait a minute, tell him just what to do to

So ah, that is to me that's a lot of the

That you took your job seriously.

I didn't get paid for it.

You could have

It was just the

And so

IB:

Now Louie said that one of the other things that was important about
the Spirit was that you felt you could take care of your family.

Green:

Oh absolutely.

IB:

Green:

That Reo let you take care of your family.

As long as you kept your nose

When you got a job at Reo, you felt that you could go right up
through the years and you had a job.
clean, you did your job and a little bit more.
right there and they'd find a way to keep you there.
department was cut out, they'd find a place for you.
always looking for certain ones.
had gone into production department and I told him no, I liked
tooling and I didn't·want to do that.
under his wing and I would have probably moved up maybe into a
production manager or something like that.
tea.

I don't want it.

You were going to be
If your
Ah, they were

But he would have taken me

Like I said about Al Zimmer when he

That wasn't my cup of

IA:

But you had job security.

Green:

You bet.

Ah, with here

IB:

And you could take care of your family.

Green:

You bet.

IB:

You didn't have to worry about your wife going~out or anything like
that, you'd take care of your family.

wiTlf

~

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 42

Green:

Ah here in about 1953, we just destroyed some old checkbooks

Right.
stubs and about 1953 they were packed in and I couldn't just burn
them, throw them in the, they wouldn't burn, so I'd tear them apart
and this one caught my eye, balance 14 cents on our checking account.

IB:

Oh no.

(laughter)

Green:

Fourteen cents.

IB:

That's cutting kind of close.

Green:

And we were paying $52.50 a month for our house on a mortgage.

IA:

IB:

Green:

Ah huh.

In the early '50's.

We had it built in '52 and we moved in in February of '53.

Yeah.
And ah , it just seemed like a and I had one of the better paying jobs
as far as workers are concerned.
getting more than production workers were because it was a skilled
trade.

You know, in the work force, I was

But ah, it was still kind of hard,

IB:

It was a little tight though.

Green:

yeah, but then as thing started moving up, the wage scale.
remember Larry Kuhns one noon we were eating lunch and he said
fellows I'm telling you, within ten years the average production
workers is going to make over $10,000 a.year.
way will that ever happen.
workers making $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year working on the line .

Production isn't worth that.

And we said no way, no

Now, Olds

I

•

IB:

They make more than college professors.

Green:

Yes.

IA:

Yeah, a janitor gets $15 an hour.

Green:

Sure.

IA:

Could I ask you how to spell Larry Kuhns last name.

Green:

K u h n s.

IA:

Oh good, okay, I ~ot it.
up.

It will be easy later on when this is typed

Green:

Yes.

IA:

'Who is typing say,

•

Glen Green
Page 43

Green:

Yes, right.

IA:

The other thing I wanted to ask you was um, in the Spirit you also
read about um, different types of people coming into the plants, like
I was showing Shirley when she came to my office the other day that
they had a big article about the Syrian workers.

Green:

Oh.

IA:

Green:

That there were Syrian workers and also there were some, a few black
workers, not that many, certainly not like in Detroit.

Bat they were not castigated, they weren't, they were treated like
everybody else.

IA:

Right.

Green:

They come in and ,they did their job.
really say that there was no ah, racism involved.

There was no, and I can't

IA:

Ah huh.

Green:

Because we had one, now see here is where I'm reserving the right to
not to name names.

IA:

Okay.

Green:

But we had one ah, personnel manager, no, no, no, no, he wasn't, he
was in charge of.hiring and ah, so he called me up there because see
here again, you are kind of a trusted person.
He knew we had a
requested him for maybe two or three men and he would call me up
Do you want
there and say, Glen, here is the people I got on file.
to go through these and see which one you want to interview first.
Sure.
he's black.

Then he'd start whoop wait a minute, I want to take that one,

IA:

Oh.

Green:

I said what difference does that make.
skilled trades that's got very many blacks in it. He said this guy
doesn't really have the qualifications, but he wants to work into it.
So he said if you can't get enough people and you want this guy,
okay.
his name,

I said how can you tell he's black.

He said you show me any

He said you can tell by

IA:

Where he lives.

Green:

by his address.

IA:

Yeah.

•

•

•

•

•

Glen Green'
Page 44

Green:

An.dhe said we don't want to get started into something like that
where we let him work his way up and then everybody wants to do that.
He says we can't do that because we got to have skilled people.
I'd go down through and I'd say okay, take this one first and then
this one, Jump around and okay he'd call them in and I'd go up there
and interview them and if they suited me, we'd put them on.
But the
other side of the coin a black committee man ....

So,

IA:

This was in the '50's and '60's already?

Green:

Yeah probably in

IA:

Later.

Green:

Probably in the '60's.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

Oh,

I said

I said I never

I've got people working for me.
So now he came down there with a burr

And this Korean man came down there and ah, he came right up to me,
he says, Glen, how many black people you got working for you?
gee, I don't know I'd have to think about that.
considered them black or white.
forget I even said anything.
under his saddle, but when he found out that I wasn't concerned, then
I got to thinking I had, I think, two of them, but they were working
in like compound, mixing and cleaning out and stuff like that.
And
ah, one was on that and one was oiling.
trades, they were just in a portion of the skd Ll'ed trades operation.
In other words, these people were assigned to the machine repair
department for work assignments and stuff like that.
not machine repairmen.
else.
worked on the cylinder blocks, he was the jolliest old guy and
everybody liked him and we'd talk with him.
holding the cylinder sleeves and things like that, he'd he ah lived
on Olds Avenue and one night going down Olds Avenue and he must have
been mad and just floored that thing, because he ran off the road and
hit a tree and killed himself.

I wasn't concerned about it because ah, oh black Joe that

But ah, this racism to me was always somebody

They weren't in skilled

Carl Dixon worked on

But they were

IB:

Oh dear.

Green:

So ah, but not you know you can go down through and I can recall
associations with blacks.
Had some people working right in the
department with me that I would never consider going to their house
or let them come to my house.
doing this than I would those guys, because to me they were kind of
trashy people and I just didn't care about associating with people
like that.
but you know, you have your likes and dislikes.

Not that I'm a paragon of virtue or anything like that,

I'd much rather have these blacks

IB:

Right, and it doesn't always correspond to skin color, yeah.

• Glen Green

Page 45

Green:

It has no bearing on it, either a person is a good person or

Right.
they are not and but when you mention Syrians and like that, ah,
these people were absorbed into the work force.

IA:

Green:

IA:

IB:

IA:

• IB:

IA:

Yeah, there was a lot about Americanization and these people wanted
to become Americans.

And what better way for them to do it than to get a taste of

Sure.
the work ethic and stuff like that.
they were fairly fresh or maybe first generation, ah, from'the old
country, had a good work ethic, they'd come in there and they were
workers.
mention the fact that well, if I don't have to work as hard as
somebody else, I'm making more money.
your mind, I'm making more money because I'm not working hard.

They didn't try to shirk their way.

But most of those people, if

Now that's a fallacy but in

I had several people

Shirley, do you want to take a break?

I was just

So you can get your tape going here again.

Yeah, I can put another tape in and I was just sitting here thinking
ah" are there some more things I wanted to ask, but Glen's covered so
many wonderful things.

There was a couple of things I wanted to ask too, but maybe we should
take a break, because you've been going strong.

Green:

I'm not worried about it.

I'm not worried.

IA:

Really?

Green:

No, no.

IA:

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

Green:

• IA:

Okay, let's let her do her tape and I'll just turn this off fora
second.

And I taped the whole evening of stuff, turned the tape over and got
it home to play it back and there was nothing on it.

Oh no.

And I don't know what happened.

You know,

I hope that doesn't happen to me.

I'll be really upset.

Well you can always get a copy of hers.

That's why we are both doing it. We figure both of us can't mess up
at the same time.

•

Glen Green
Page 46

Green:

Yeah.

IA:

At least we hope not.

Green:

Yes.

IA:

IB:

IA:

Um, one of the things that I'm very interested myself, for my own
research, is ah, how the work changed over time.

I'd like to know that too.

Yeah, Shirley is interested in that too.
been doing my work in it would have been your dad's time.
like the teens and the twenties.

The time that I've mostly

You know,

•

Green:Yeah.

IA:

And how the factory, you know, got the factory expanded tremendously
then

Green:

Oh yes.

IA:

and it went from being a very individualized craft where most of the
workers knew how to make a car almost from the beginning to the end.

Green:

Absolutely.

IA:

Til by the end when you entered the plant when it was much more
regimented, you know, where people know parts and bits.

Green:

Yeah, ah,

IA:

And I'm interested in how people felt about how those changes were
affecting them.

Green:

Well some people welcomed the change and others didn't.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

A lot of this stuff you are talking about was what we would call
layout and drill.

IA:

Okay.

Green:

•

Somebody would take a scribe and a scale or whatever they needed to
mark cross lines they center punch that, move over here so far and
lay that out.
that there can be some variation in which it is not as high a
quality, but then they'd make the other pfece to fit that.
if one hole was a sixteenth off location, the person would put them
back together had to rotate it one hole or the other to get all four

all these holes and you can understand

They'd layout

But maybe

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 47

of them to line up.
ah when I went to work there, because we had a lot of jigs and
fixtures that had been built and so those had drill bushings in so
all holes were the same.

So, ah, that:was somewhat, not heavily into it,

IA:

So all uniform.

Green:

And I think that in Frame Reo, even when I left there in

Right.
Frame Reo for special holes, they still had layout in drills.
early drill presses were hand operated.
hand.
revolution or whatever, but

And then after ah, I don't know if you call it the industrial

You 'had to pull them down by

But

IA:

The automation.

It was .. automation

Green:

After we went in to power driven machinery more, ah, then all a guy
had to do was push a button or pull a leaver to engage it and it went
through its cycle and back out.
So, ah, modernization eliminated the
handwork to a great extent and it kind of took away some of the pride
of production for those people who used to layout
holes in.

and put those

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

When I first went to the tool room, all of the machines in there were
driven by what they call a line shaft.
motor, a big electric motor running a belt, flat belt up on to a big
pulley up there and they ran oh, I'd say we had one that ran at least
100 feet and some more that ran like 20, 30 feet and then they'd have
drop belts out there for the different machines.

That was, they had a big

IA:

Like an'octopus .

Green:

Now that was in vogue in the toolroom when I firs~ went
Well then they decided to motorize each machine because here

Right.
there.
this thing is running all this time and made only one machine running
off of it. And what they could do is to motorize each one with a
motor big enough for that capacity of that machine and you could
start and stop that whenever you need it. But when it is shut off,
Horses you have to feed
it is like ah, tractor versus ah, horses.
them all the time whether they are working or not, but tractor you
shut it off, it isn't burning gas.
and they went through the whole plant and motorized all of the
equipment in the plant and that took away the hand operation and all
this sort of stuff because it is motorized, it's own power unit and
then in golly, I can't remember the year now.
'60's, early '60's probably.
that we went to not automation as it is known now.
automatic machining that all the guy had to do was to load the piece
into the fixture, clamp it down, make sure it is located properly,
clamp it down, push a button and the thing automatically fitted

I think maybe a little before that

Well the same thing applied there

But I'd say around ah,

But ah, more

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 48

through the machine and came back and unclamped and unloaded.
whether it was crankshaft grinding or whatever, ah, they were pretty
much automatic.

Ah,

IA:

Right and now they have the robotics that do the

Green:

Right, and ah, and we never really got into that stuff.

IA:

Right, because that's more recent.

Green:

Yeah, yeah, and I would be lost in today's tooling.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

Well like I said in '37,

It is just out of my category altogether.
major changes.
the receiving room at the end of Platt Street down by the tracks, all
the way out to Baker Street, across the tracks over at the motor
plant and we used to have to go up on the fourth floor and 4tgo over
into the John Bean Building with stuff.
And then after the strike,
they went to motorized equipment, they cut ,themanpower terrifically
down.

But that was one of the
we used to hand truck from

IA:

Yes, right.

Green:

But, when we went to these more or less automatic machines, I think
manpower jumped up because we were running more pieces.

IA:

Because the

.

Green:

Yes, and before, you see when we started in ah, machining parts with
a hand operating machines, maybe they would build 8, 10, 12 engines a
Well then, when we got through we might be building 40 or SOan
day.
And so, ah, where we'd have one guy maybe running 8 machines
hour.
down through there by hand, you'd run all these operations on these
Well, when we got the
parts and pass them to somebody else.
automatic machinery in there, we'd usually have to have a man
operating one machine or if it was a long cycle, you might run two
machines, because you'd alternate loading and unloading and keep them
going and so ah, I'd say that's probably the most change that I saw
and then, of course, the transportation of parts and stuff within the
plant went from single trucks to ah, ah, a tug pulling a whole bunch
of four-wheeled wagons with parts on them and stuff like that.
So,
the whole thing just evolved.
this changed over to this.

You don't recall a specific break when

IA:

I see.

Green:

It is something that just evolved up and pretty soon here they are,
guys just standing there watching the machines run.

•

Glen Green
Page 49

IA:

Alright, so guys who originally did the line drawing that you were
talking about would eventually end up doing

Green:

They could.

IA:

They could.

Green:

They could, ah, huh, yeah, but their job was easier.

But,

IA:

Not as satisfying sometimes.

Green:Right, right.

IA:

Yeah, did they get paid less too?

Green:

No.

IA:

Not necessarily.

Green:

IA:

Green:

•

No, I would say they probably got paid more because production was
up.

Or it went right on in to piece work yeah.

Right.

That's right.

They could do more

But I can remember ah, my granddad Engleston talking about over there
in that engine setup room they called it, over there along Washington
Avenue.
mother had a picture.

And I got a picture of him back in there someplace, my

IA:

Oh another good picture.

Green:

And ah, he would tell about oh terrible day we got parts that
wouldn't fit together, you know.
them or something like that and so it is a complete change from that
type of oper~tion to haviRg machines that will turn out hundred
pieces in a short period of time and they'd go over to the assembly
line, engine assembly and didn't make any diff~rence which one they
picked up, it fit.

And somebody would have to rework

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

•

You'd grind a crankshaft to exact sizes. All the pieces fit on to
it. And we had a little problem once with the risk pin in the piston
that went through the conRecting rod, it connected the pistons with
the connecting rod to the crankshaft.
the things.
anyway, but engineering called for a pound fit to push that risk pin
into the piston.
you to get a set of scales and a drill press and I want to know
exactly how much pressure it takes to push that pin in.
I don't believe you are going to find that out, but I'll try it.

And they couldn't get a fit on
Ah Al Zimmer was there, he was kind of a rough character

And so ah, he called me out there, he s,ld I want

I said, AI,
So

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 50

it in.

Ah huh.

So I said, AI, what is the big worry.

So, all you get is the pressure exertion.

he got the engine plant superintendent and tool designer down and
they come up with all sorts of things and he said I want you to
balance out this spindle on the drill press so it weighs absolutely
nothing.
So, I
tried it. We could not get the part lined up accurately enough so it
would go in. When you are doing it by hand you work it just a little
He said if
bit,push
we get the wrong fit, because they had seven different sizes of ah,
risk pins and seven different sizes of holes bored in there.
So you
had to fit them right.
So, I got a hold of the engine plant
superintendent, I said, Archie, I'd like to try something.
what do you want.
piston, the largest possible hole or largest possible risk pin.
can find them, so we went and got some.
pushed it in and it was hard getting in there.
make it in there.
going to hang this in the hot water tank on that parts washer.
is 180 degrees which is cool for inside the engine.
you going to do, I said I'm going to see what happens.
in there about five minutes.
it up and the risk pin dropped right out.
much faster than the risk pin it never could set up.
forget this thing.
to take a break.

He said what are
So I left it
I pulled the wire out of there, tipped

I had to tap it to
He says what are you going to do and I said I'm

I said I want the smallest possible hole in a

(laughter) We just cancelled out.

So I ah, I went up and I

The piston expanded so

Now I'm going

They said

He said

That

We

IA:

Okay.

Green:

Alright.

IA:

IA:

Okay, sure.

I'll leave that on in the Mutual Benefit Association booklet that I
have, because that I found it is fbrm the teens.

Green:

Ah huh.

IA:

Very early.
plant they would take your benefits away from you.

They had a clause that if they caught you drunk in the

Green:

Oh yeah.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

Sure.

IA:

I mean and no smoking either.

Green:

Right.

IB:

No smoking in the plant?

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 51

IA:

IB:

Green:

No.

You had designated

areas or

No, well when I went there, when I went there theah,
smoking in the plant, but ah, you had to go usually to a restroom or
something
used in the manufacturing

or in the dining room because of the oils and stuff that we

they allowed

processes.

IA:

Oh sure that makes sense.

Green:

Yeah.

IA:

Green:

IA:

IB:

Green:

What about cafeterias
did you have a decente.c~eteria
went there?

Or every~~wn-bagged

and urn, the snack carts that come around now,
and that sort of thing~hen

you first

it or everybody had~lunch

pail?

carried their lunches, but they did

Well I think that the majority
have the Reo cafeteria

in the basement

of the clubhouse.

Clubhouse.

Oh okay.

Now I think originally
know.

that it was operated by the company.

I don't

IA:

Yeah, it was.

In the beginning,

in 1917 it was.

Green:

But then the ah, they rented or leased it out to ah,

IA:

A private contractor.

Green:

IA:

Green:

He ran it and then
dropped off for them, because ah,

darn, oh Bob, I had his name on my tongue too.
his son ran it, but ah, business
like people up in the front office maybe they'd like to go out to a
restaurant,
and people in the plant weren't, we had what they call the canteens.
The real benefit canteens,
they were little stores that had ah, oh,
light lunch material
could buy stuff there or some tobacco products or

you know, someplace else and ah, just take a little break

like that, you know, you

or milk or something

So they were near your, was there one somewhere near in the area.

Yeah, there was one in the motor plant hum, there were two or three
of them, one in the motor plant, I know, because I went past that
every day for quite a few years.
would want and ah, all the proceeds
benefit.
It wasn't company sponsored.
space and made a secure room for them.

the profits from it all went into
The company gave them the

But it ah, the things that workers

•

Glen Green
Page 52

IA:

IB:

IA:

I also read about a collective store that one of the Reo people
opened.

What was that?

It was in the Spirit.
twenties.
Stanley.

It is a collective store.

Again, it was in the teens or the early

Stanley somebody opened. it or maybe his last name was

Green:

Not Jeff Stanley.

IA:

It could have been.

Green:

He was an old-timer back then.

IA:

IB:

Yeah, he um, it was a nonprofit thing where the Reo workers could
come and buy.

Oh could buy like groceries

•

Green:

Like a co-op.

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

Right, that's right it was a co-op.

Oh the beginnings of co-ops.

Yeah, just for the employees of Reo.

Just for the employees of Reo.

Green:

Yeah.

IA:

I only read about it once, so I don't know how long it went on for or
anything, but

Green:

Now see, I never heard anything about that.

IA:

You don't know about that. Yeah.

Green:

But I know the name, I know the name Jeff Stanley.
been some other Stanley, but

It might have

IA:

I'll check.

Green:

Yeah, but Jeff Stanley, my dad knew him.

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

See, I've got associations with old-time names like that through my
dad.

•

•

Glen Green
Page 53

IA:

Yeah.

Green:

All, when he first mentioned Cy Rath, it didn't mean anything to me.
Until I went in there and Cy hired me in.

IA:

I've read a lot about him.

Green:

Yeah, he was an old-timer.

IA:

A very big important guy in the .... Yeah.
interested in is urn,Reo as an important company in Lansing, y()u
know, and how it helped the city grow, you know, and how the, you.
were talking about this earlier how urn,people liked the fact that it
was a home grown, home owned company.

The other thing I'm real

Green:

You bet.

IA:

You know, and that you Reo was doing good things for Lansing, Lansing
was doing good things for Reo, you know, that they work together.
And that so many of the Reo people came from Lansing, or the
surrounding areas.
Reo, but helping to build a community.
when Reo first started.

And felt like their work was not just building

Because Lansing wasn't much

Green:

No.

IA:

Green:

IA:

Green:

I have some pictures of it, it was really not a big place.

If you go back to the reason that Ransom Olds formed Reo, it was a
conflict with the people that were taking over Oldsmobile is what
happened.
And I think
And he didn't want to knuckle down to them.
that he instilled that attitude in the beginning of Reo and I think
it carried all the way through ah, probably in the quality of people
they hired and things like that.
direction that Oldsmobile was taking us.
had this same type of thing.
Oldsmobile, Olds would have been the same way.
General Motors

And ah, they didn't like the

If Ransom Olds had stayed at

The Oldsmobile could have

But they got into the

Right, they were pulled into General Motors.

and so doing that, by all these plants combining, they had a
hodgepodge and no loyalty.

IA:

And the owner was, you know, somewhere else.

Green:

Some far away business.

IA:

Right.

•

•

•

•

Glen Green
Page 54

Green:

IA:

IB:

But there was no loyalty.
fact that if you are loyal to us, we are loyal to you.
showed their loyalty from the very beginning.
got a job at Reo, raise your family, you knew.

Now Reo seemed to be predicated

on the

And they

Just like we said, you

Right, and also, it said this in the Spirit a lot too, to patronize
and to go to the local church, go to the local
the local businesses
grocery store.

The workers were encouraged

to do that, you are saying?

Green:

Sure.

IA:

Green:

Yeah, because
better place for everybody.

that is how you built up the community

and made it a

So there was a lot of that

If everybody
small their contribution
community.

There is ah,

participates

in a community,
to the community,

no matter how big or how

it makes it a better

IA:

So it wasn't just you went to work and then you came to your house

Green:

No.

IA:

Green:

and had your paycheck

and your family, but it was a larger thing.

between workers

and their families.

And the other side of that, there never was any widespread
interrelationships
some, you know, some close friend, somebody
and if their family was compatible
and maybe go on a picnic or do something
or something.
conversation
these two guys, I wouldn't
I could put up with anybody for eight hours a day, because
rest of the time to myself.
ignore them or you cooperate,

want them near me.

that you liked at work

with yours, you could get together

or just have an evening of
But, so many of them, li~e I said about

So, ah , you just go along, you try to
but you don't get involved with them.

And ah, I always said
I got the

Now there was

IB:

It sounds like the Reo people were respected
because

they worked at Reo.

in the community

then,

Green:

Certainly,

certainly.

And

IB:

Or do you think the flip side was

Green:

•

thing, but when you talk to people and they say oh,

It is a nebulous
you worked at Reo, yeah, oh, and they seem to look at you with a
little bit more respect than they did before they knew where you
We had a guy that left, well when they closed the plant
worked.
down, he went over to the Olds in the experimental
machine
other and they said ah, well we'll have to get purchasing

shop and ah, they had to have a certain gear for something

or
to buy us a

engineering

• Glen Green

Page 55

gear, but that will take us probably six months to have a special
gear made.
you, yeah, you got change gears for it? Yeah.
Then why don't we cut our own gear.
thing.
special gear for them and he had it done in a day's time.

The guy said, well you got a milling machine here haven't
Yeah.
They said, never heard of such a

So he went around and got the stuff together and cut this

Dividing gear?

IA:

IB:

Called initiative.

That specifically tells you something though about the mindset of
both places.

Green:

Where did you learn that.

I said I worked at Reo, oh.

IA:

Oh I see.

Green:

IA:

Green:

Anybody that worked at Reo knows stuff that people didn't know from
someplace else.

Or at least has the get up and go to go ahead and try to do it.

So I went down

I had a guy that used to work for me on nights at Reo, was

Yeah.
over at Motor Wheel and he was a foreman over there in the tool room
and he called me up and asked me if I had a gear cutter that would
cut this certain gear and I said I'll have to check.
to the tool crib and checked and found the gear cutter, it was all
He said
sharp and everything, so I called him back and I said yeah.
You want to borrow it, he said yeah I'd
can I buy it and I said no.
like to uSe it for a couple of days.
I said fine, come on over here
and tell me when you are going to be here, I'll meet you at the gate
and give it to you.
So, he took it, went over there and had that
gear cut that theYUi>~eded. He brought it back to me and I put it
back into the ~.
he said boy and I a hero.
considered a hero because I could cut that gear.
Wheel that didn't have the equipment to do that, but Reo did.
a, but like I say it"is nebulous, you can't put a finger on anyone
thing and say, this was

He says you are the hero, but he ~aid I'm

"B He told me probably three or four months later,

Now here is Motor

It is

IA:

The~ way, yeah.

Green:

It was just a combination of a loyalty and everybody says the best
place to work in the area.

IA:

Ah huh, so you wanted to be there.

Green:

You felt secure, you felt a oneness and I don't care if you were
talking to the sweeper or to the general manager, you are now on a
common ground and you were able to discuss problems or ideas.

•

Glen Green
Page 56

IA:

Green:

Because of the open door policy, I think Louie mentioned that, you
always felt there was an open door, you could go in and talk to
someone who had a problem.

Well you know, some other places well, if you are working

Right.
here, you got to talk to your boss and then he's got to talk to his
boss and his boss and pretty soon you say forget the whole thing.
But, you know, ah, if this worker has an idea, it is better that he
can go to whatever level he needs to to see if that idea is
practical.
But if he goes to his boss and his boss tells his boss
and his boss tells, the story is all twisted. And nobody has got

IA:

two years later.

Green:

Yes.

IB:

Green:

•

Well and I was thinking too, I just was think that when you said
that, because I know at GM ah, an employee can make a suggestion on a
better way to do something to save the company money and if it flies,
eventually sometime down the road, he might get some money for it.
Um, but there at Reo could a worker suggest an improvement and get
urn,repaid for that or ah .... for that .

The biggest problem we had was in convincing the person that

At one time we had a suggestion plan and ah, and we got quite few
ideas.
had the idea that it wasn't going to work because this, this and·
this.
this on one job, one particular truck.

Maybe it affected some other pieces, maybe you could only use

IA:

They didn't have the big picture.

Green:

Right, right.
just pushing them aside and then put the thing into operation and
make the money.

And so trying to convince them that management wasn't

IA:

Yeah, well that's a good point.

Green:

So you have a problem trying to convince the people that you are on
the up and up.

IA:

Did you children go into Reo work too?

Green:

No.

IA:

They went to something different?
bit.

They've worked the legacy a little

IB:

Maybe because things have changed over the workplace .

Green:

Well urn,yes and another thing

•

Glen Green
Page 57

IA:

There was no Reo for them to go to.

Green:

There was at the time.

IA:

Still?

Green:

Ob yeah, they graduated in ah, hum, '64 and '66, I believe it was.

IA:

So there was a Reo going

Yeah, there was a Reo there.
want to go to work in the factory as they graduated from high school.
And the oldest one, he said well, I've heard about a program with the
State Highway Department where I can go to school part time and work
part time and then when I get through with my schooling, I go on full
time.

Ah, I asked them, I said do you guys

I said that sounds good to me.

Green:

•

~.