Fay Hawkins | Interview 1 | June 2, 2003

HAWKINS: My name is Fay Hawkins and I live Point Richmond, California. I was born in November 13, 1922 in Mulberry, Arkansas, which is about twenty miles east of Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the Arkansas River. We moved here to Richmond, California in about 1925--24, 25. And my family--that was my mother, my dad my two sisters, and myself. One of my sisters was a twin sister of mine. And when we got to California, my father worked for the Certainteed Company, which is in 00:01:00North Richmond. And he worked there for a year, a little over a year, and then he joined the Police Department in Richmond and became a police officer; and worked as a police officer in Richmond until he died in 1941.

At that time I had graduated from high school and was working at the Mechanics Bank in Richmond. And that was in 1941. And in 1943, I joined the United State Navy--World War Two had started--and I joined the United States Navy and was stationed with the Naval Intelligence Unit in San Francisco, California. And I 00:02:00spent most of my Navy career there in San Francisco at that office. After leaving the Navy in December of 1945, I went to work for the Greyhound Bus Company and drove Greyhound Bus for a couple of months and decided that wasn't for me, you're gone from home too much. So, I left there, and went to toll collector on the Richmond-San Rafael Ferry, which has been replaced by the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. I worked for the Ferry Company for about six months and then joined the Richmond Police Department in June of 1946. Worked there as 00:03:00a patrolman, working all of the shifts: day, graveyard, and swing shift. All my career, actually twenty-five years with the Richmond Police Department. Worked there as a patrolman in 1946, and about 1950 I guess it was, I got promoted to sergeant. But our police station at that time when I joined in 1946, was here in Point Richmond at 145 Park Place, in Richmond, which was the number one firehouse here in Richmond and we had half the building. We had our office, the Police Department was downstairs, and the Fire Department was one truck, and the crew slept upstairs. And behind the Police Department was our jail division, 00:04:00which wasn't part of the same building, but they expanded it, adding more cells during wartime because they had an influx of personnel that occupied the cells from time to time. Then in December of 1949 we moved everything over to the new Civic Center buildings at Twenty-seventh and Barrett, where it still is located. I understand now at the present time they are relocating their offices--all of the business offices--to South Harbor Way in Richmond. Because they're remodeling and refitting the present city buildings at Twenty-seventh and 00:05:00Barrett. My career as a police office was very varied. I worked in the Traffic Division. I worked at the Patrol Division. The Patrol Division was very enjoyable actually, because it was outside and you worked all three shifts. You varied from month to month most of the time. And it was enjoyable. We used to have a foot beat, which was all of McDonald Avenue from First Street to Twenty-third Street. And you would walk the beat, going in back alleys and up and back places.

WHEELOCK: Was that when you first started in '46?

HAWKINS: That's when I first started as a patrolman. You hit all of those. You'd walk the back alleys, and some were pretty dark and scary, but you did what you had to 00:06:00do, regardless of what it took. But actually that was a very enjoyable time on their because basically you had only yourself to look out for--you and your partner. Had no other responsibilities except that. Then as I progressed over the years I became a sergeant. Then I was in charge of a group on a particular shift of the officers who consisted of about six or eight patrolmen, if we were lucky. Sometimes we were down to only two or three on the shift because of sickness or vacations or whatever. So you made do with what you had. And I think 00:07:00the hardest part after becoming a sergeant was letting the officer do his job and not taking over. Just being a supervisor more than actually doing the work. As a sergeant, I worked in the Detective Division for a short while, and kind of went back and forth between the Detective Division and the Patrol Division. And as I progressed--as I got more seniority--I would work up to where I had good days off, say weekends or good shift. I would get a promotion and then I would be back down at the bottom. I had bad days off and I worked a graveyard shift again. And you work up, and you become swing shift and a day shift if you were lucky. And if you got another promotion you started all over again. Which was 00:08:00interesting. We went through a very big strike the Standard Oil had a large strike that was in the mid-1950s. We had quite a bad deal out there at that time with the people on strike and so forth. And you were trying to keep them calm, and let the cars and the traffic go through. And you had to try and part these people and without making them too mad. And so one day I wound up on my butt. [laughs] I was trying to push these people out of the way as the car was going by, and I would be pushed up against the car. And all of a sudden the car weren't there any more. [laughs] And I wind up on my butt. But no damage done. Got back up and ahead with your duty. As the strike went on things kind of 00:09:00calmed down a little more, as far as the pickets were concerned, and we got to know quite a few of them as individuals, and they were nice guys. They were working stiffs like anybody else. We wound up by patrolling where they were and they were congregated at the different gates, and we got to know some of the individuals, would talk to them and so forth. The next day we would come to work and be out there again and say, "Hey, where's Jim? Where's Joe?" All those so-and-sos went back to work. So, I'm talking to them, in some cases I guess it did some good because they went back to work and so forth. But overall you don't really look at the bad times, you look at the times when things were enjoyable. The same thing as when you were in the service--in the military. There were a 00:10:00lot of bad times, but there were good times too. And fortunately, those superseded everything else. As time went on, as a sergeant I then became promoted to lieutenant, then I was in charge of the whole department, on some shift. And actually as I progressed, I was back on graveyard again. With bad days off and everything else. But, when you're there as a lieutenant at the time, you were the man in charge, and whatever went down or went up, that was your responsibility. And the worse thing you could do is pick up the phone and call the chief for some advice. [laughs] That was very embarrassing if you had to do that. Fortunately, I was able to take care of things and not have to do that. Then I was in Patrol Division again. Then I went down to the Inspector's 00:11:00Division where I was in charge of the investigation personnel down there in the Investigating Division.

WHEELOCK: That's different than the detectives? Is that the detectives?

HAWKINS: The detectives yes, all of the detectives. As we progressed through the years we originally had the ranks where the chief, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and inspectors. Inspectors were the detectives. And then there were just the regular patrolmen. As the years progressed they eliminated the name inspector, and it became the same as the sergeant. So sergeants and inspectors became one in the same. Some of the older personnel in there didn't like the idea of not being able to be called an inspector. It was a better sounding name than a sergeant. 00:12:00But they survived. Those were the old timers on there. And in those days, actually, when the department was big and expanded during wartime, the present officers were automatically promoted to the next rank by seniority. Of course the chief was aware of their abilities also, but there was no examination or anything. You became the next one as the inspector, lieutenant, or captain or whatever, just because you'd been there longer than the next one. After 1946 things changed, and you had to take a written and physical examination in order to qualify to become a police officer. Then after you became a police officer in 00:13:00order to go up in rank you again had to qualify, with written and oral examinations were concerned to be promoted to whatever rank it happened to be.

Here again, some of the old timers didn't particularly like this and I can't blame them because they were now being supervised by personnel that to them was inferior because they didn't have as much experience as I had. So, and here he is, and he's supervising me. My attitude always was, that it's not that I'm smarter than the next guy, it's just that I was luckier. And so when I went on the department in 1946, the shipyards, which had blossomed into Richmond--. We 00:14:00had three or four shipyards along Cutting Boulevard adjacent to the waterfront. And we had all of this influx of people coming from all over the country in order to work in the shipyards and make good money. That put an added burden on the Police Department. Where again we had to deal with the personnel when they were not working and with this traffic situation. Fortunately, in town at that time in 1940--well during the war and through 1946, and even into about 1947 we still had quite a number of theaters in town. And often as not, during the war 00:15:00times particularly, the theatres became bedrooms for a lot of these workers at the shipyards. They weren't able to find anyplace else to live or to sleep. So they'd buy a ticket to the show and go in and immediately go to sleep.

WHEELOCK: So it was a late night, kind of an all night? Yeah.

HAWKINS: It was a late night. They were open all night long. The shows were opened twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And a lot of people work in shipyards, that was their bedroom. That was where they did their sleeping. And there were a lot of restaurants. Some of the restaurants were innovative. They were made out of old streetcars--railroad cars. There would be one or two hooked together. They would be refurbished inside with dining tables. And as you probably see some old pictures, the diner was actually, generally, a railroad car that had been converted to a restaurant. Some of those became quite 00:16:00elaborate; they had more than just one car hooked up. And there were a lot of bars, and a lot of--what? Junkyards and everything else. The town had blossomed from about twenty or twenty-five thousand people to over a hundred thousand during the peak of the war years of say 1940, 1941, '42 and so forth. We even had what we used to call a Toomerville Trolley that ran from Oakland along what is now 580 and the SP Railroad track, just bringing shipyard workers to the shipyards, which were located on Cutting Boulevard. They ran hourly. They ran 00:17:00all day and all night, and carried personnel--shipyard workers back and forth. Generally, it was a lot of fun and rather dangerous too, directing traffic at some of those intersections. At those times, during the war, and just after in '46 we only had maybe one or two traffic lights in town. The rest were just stop signs and intersections, which our police personnel had to man certain key intersections during shift changes. That was in morning, day shift, and on swing shift. Like Twenty-third and Barrett, Twenty-third and Macdonald, Carlson and 00:18:00Cutting--all of which is now 580. That one had over in one corner there was a platform. You stood on the platform and crank this crank around and that changed the signal light in the center of the intersection that was hanging there. Change it from red to yellow to green. And this controlled the traffic flowing along 580 or Hoffman Boulevard at that time. So you'd see somebody coming along pretty fast, particularly a truck or something, and you'd flip it over to yellow. But, you'd be sure that you didn't change from yellow until the truck was sure to be stopping. But they would slam on their brakes and the smoke would go out of the tires. You would then change to red, the official stop. But, at least you give them a chance. If somebody violated the signal light, you blew a whistle at them, and very often, which surprised me, they would pull over and 00:19:00stop. On beyond, maybe fifty yard beyond the light.

WHEELOCK: You pulled them over with a whistle?

HAWKINS: Yes, just blow, just blow a whistle and they would pull over. It would kind of surprise you. So, you'd let him sit for a couple minutes and the wave them on. Go on. Get out of here. You didn't have time, you couldn't leave your traffic post to go over and write a ticket. You had to take care of the traffic. But at least they blew in and they did. Once in awhile you would have to get out in the middle of the street and you would regulate the traffic one way or the other by blowing your whistle and waving your arms one way or the other, which you wouldn't stop. And sometimes it got kind of dark and some of the officers would pick up a lantern. These are one of these oil type lanterns. And they would have that in each hand, and this to light themselves up a little more. Some of the 00:20:00traffic drivers were on the playful side sometime. They'd see how close they could come to your feet with their tire or their fender. They were hoping that it would make you jump back. Well, some of the officers got wise and take a piece of iron pipe and wrap it up in a newspaper, and this they would direct traffic with. And when somebody did this to them they would just reach out and off would go a headlight as the guy was coming. They wouldn't slow down they would just keep going twenty-five, thirty-five miles an hour, and you'd kind of reach out and tap on the fender. If you hit the headlight that was their problem. Of course that's when the days you could do a lot of things that you can't do now.

WHEELOCK: Oh yeah? Like what besides that?

HAWKINS: Oh, like you would take some vagrants. They used to have what was call a vagrant law, which is no longer on the books. But some of these derelicts you'd take and you'd kind of transport them to the city limits, and tell them, "Get lost. Don't come back in town again." So you'd transfer your problem from one city to another. I heard that in the old, old days, when the ferry was still running, there sometimes would escort one of them and put them on the ferryboat to San Rafael, or the San Quentin area. And of course, San Rafael was doing the same thing, only coming this way. So, they were just exchange vagrants. But there are kind of fun things from time to time that happened. That's like as if before you 00:22:00kind of remembered the lighter things and so forth instead of the others. Of course, during my career of twenty-five years, I was into a lot more than just that. Some things were pretty serious, particularly when I was in the traffic division I did a lot of checking of accidents--fatal and so forth. Either two cars or a train and a car, or a pedestrian and a train, and so forth. They're not the best of sights, but they were something that you did. And any of these things you had to learn that you didn't take anything personal or get emotionally involved, otherwise you'd might as well go into the chief and say I quit. You did things that you had to do regardless of whether you had to do them 00:23:00or not because that was your job that time. One time my partner and I, we were working in traffic car. This would be when I was still patrolling, and we'd just kind of float all over town and cover off on a lot of different calls because we were a two man car, and lot of them had only one man in them at that time. And my partner, I worked with for quite awhile--after you work with a partner for quite awhile, you know what each is going to do. You go into a situation, you automatically know that he's going to do this, you're going to do that. We went on one call as a cover-off that the call came in about this fellow being an escaped convict from I think it was Alabama or Georgia--chain gang or something. And he swore he wasn't going to be taken alive. And he wound up at these people's house, and the lady was scared and she ran out and called the police 00:24:00because she looked at her husband who was talking to this guy at the table. And the last time she looked at him he was covered with what she had thought was blood. And so she put in the call to the police department, and the officer was detailed out to take it. So, my partner and I decided we'd just cover-off on that call and as we got to the address and got out of our car, walked over to the sidewalk, this fellow walking down the street turning in the walkway just ahead of us. And so, we didn't know who he was and we asked him, "Do you live here?" And he said, "Oh yeah. Just visiting to see what the people's problems is." So, as he knocked on the door, the party opened the door and said, "That's him!" Well my partner and I luckily hit him from the back, and drove him up into the wall. And in his right hand pocket he had a loaded revolver with his hand 00:25:00around it, and in the other pocket had a fist full of shells. So, luckily we'd had covered-off and got this man into custody, and turned him over to the officers who were inside who were at that time kind of white faced because of the possibilities. But luckily, my partner and I were there and took care of that part of the situation. We'd turn them over to the officer doing the reporting and we left, went back on the beat, again. And just one of those things that happened. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

WHEELOCK: And you just went back to the rest of your shift?

HAWKINS: Oh, eventually he wound back up with the chain gang in either Georgia or Alabama or some place wherever it was. And so then one time as the sergeant, we had a call. One of the officer stopped this man in driving a car, and he didn't like 00:26:00the answers he was getting from this guy about the car. The car didn't belong to him. It belonged to somebody over on Twenty-seventh and Roosevelt, some place in there. And so he wound up down at the field hospital, which was down at Fourteenth and Cutting. And then I cover-off down there to check and see what was doing, and the guy says something about that he was from Twenty-seventh and Roosevelt, and so forth. And then a call came in this woman was screaming in the same location. From what this fellow said, I kind of recognized the duplex on the corner. And so I took off and went over to it, and went in and heard this gal screaming, and went in the building. And she was in bed with an alarm clock 00:27:00tangled in her hair, and this guy was draped on the side of the bed, had been stabbed about twenty-seven times, and she was in bed there screaming her head off. We got the inspectors down, detectives, and then one thing led to another, and found out that this gal and the suspect that was stopped on the south side of town were in cahoots together. They had killed her husband. And she had crawled back into bed and started screaming her head off to distract anybody else. But anyhow they both wound up in prison. They may still be there, I don't know that, that was a long time ago now. We had a large riot situation in Richmond back in the 1960s, where there was quite a large fire down on Macdonald 00:28:00Avenue. One of the fire of the stores, was completely destroyed, I think was Travellini's, which was a furniture store, and these were ignited by the riotous people with fire bombs, so forth. So we had out hands full taking care of Richmond as far as the riots go. And these went on and off for about, oh, four, five days, before they finally subsided and everything got down to what you may say is normal. I'm trying to thing of some other situations. It's hard, it's been quite, a little over, see I've been retired from this police department for 00:29:00over thirty-two years, surprising enough. So the town I would say actually has been good to me. And the wife and I, after I retired, we said we would just stay right where we are, in part of Richmond on the hill. We didn't know of anyplace we wanted to go in than here. And so here we are. We're still here. And she and I just celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary, and spent the night at East Brother's Light Station on the Bay by the San Rafael Bridge, and had a wonderful evening, dinner and so forth. In January 1972, I decided well, it was time to retire, that my pension had come and so forth, and it would be sufficient, and I 00:30:00wouldn't have to go out and work, digging ditches right at that time. So, if things kind of kept within reason, I'd be able to make it and we could go ahead and do pretty much what we wanted to do. And that's about it I guess.

WHEELOCK: I'd like to ask you about your parents. They're from Arkansas, is that what you said?

HAWKINS: Yes, they were born and raised there in Mulberry, Arkansas.

WHEELOCK: How did they decide that they wanted to come to Richmond? Do you know what made them?

HAWKINS: I don't know. I guess it was just the job opportunity back there at that time. This was back in, you have to remember, this was back in the early 1920s, which was before the dust storms in Kansas and so forth. So you can't blame it on that. But, I think that, probably, my father's sister living out here probably 00:31:00encouraged him to move to California and here to Richmond, and seek employment here.

WHEELOCK: What made him decide to become a police officer? Do you know?

HAWKINS: I think probably the job opportunity as much as anything. You see, in my opinion as a police officer, you're pretty well secure in your position as long as you keep your nose clean, so to speak, and do your job. And the pay at that time, even when I went on in 1946, the pay was not that good. The pay at that time was only 175 or 180 dollars a month. While my father was on, and back in 1936, they 00:32:00didn't even have a retirement system at that time. But they did--the police offices and the firemen in town got with the public and petitioned so forth, and got a retirement benefit package voted in by the people that covered all of the present police and fire at the time. And at that time that consisted of--if you worked for twenty-five years and retired, you would then receive half of that rank's salary for the rest of your life. Or your widow would receive the same thing if you passed away afterwards. And along with that was what they called an escalator clause that meant that every time the present working police and 00:33:00firemen got a raise, you got the same thing on your pension. So, if they got ten percent, you got ten percent on your half-pay at that time. So, that was a pretty good deal. They did not have medicals at that time. Whatever you contracted with some hospital or some medical group to have. Here the predominant one is in, who is with Kaiser. Of course not everyone has Kaiser. I didn't join the medical group at first after I went on, and I wound up with appendicitis, I had to take time off. And so, I decided to have it taken out, since I couldn't afford to have any more time off.

Right after that I joined medical group, naturally. As they say after the horse 00:34:00is gone, you close the barn door. But, like I say, here again, to me this city has been, I think in my own case, more than fair with my life and my father's life. When my father died, he died in 1941, and that was about five years after the retirement plan had gone into effect, and his wife at first was told that she didn't have any pension coming to her. So, they paid her back what my father had paid into the pension system. Each employee at that paid in a certain amount of his salary per month into the pension system. It was only less than ten percent, six percent, seven, eight percent, something like that. And so, she was 00:35:00told that she didn't have any pension coming at that time. So, she did housekeeping work for Kaiser Hospital and other odd jobs. And at that time, there was she and my twin sister, and my brother--younger brother, myself, living at home. That was about the time that--I graduated high school and went to work for Mechanic's Bank. And naturally you went home, you turned your money over to your mother, and she used it! But, we were fortunate enough to be able to maintain the house and our own living at that time. A number of years later, going over the retirement system and so forth, some attorneys had told me, "No, statute of limitations rules about your mother getting anything." Now, so, but I 00:36:00went in ahead and applied for it anyhow for her on the assumption that it was regulated buy a pension board set up by the city and employees of the city. And as such nobody had ever ruled one way or the other that she officially should or should not have a pension. I applied for it and luckily, they were surprised that she wasn't getting a pension because she should have gotten one then. So they ruled that she should get the pension and she was entitled to the pension now. And I gave 'em one stipulation that we didn't want any back pension lump sum for her. Just the present pension and for it to continue for the rest of her life, which is what they did, and so enabled my mother to at least relax a little bit in her older life. She died, subsequently died at age ninety-five. 00:37:00So, she was forty-one or forty-two when my father died. So she lived until the age of ninety-five, and all of the time drawing that pension, able to least put food on her table and pay her bills, and so forth.

WHEELOCK: You were about eighteen when your father died?

HAWKINS: Nineteen, I think, at that time.

WHEELOCK: Do you remember him--did he ever tell you any stories about his job?

HAWKINS: No, no, he never did. I was just like my kids when they grew up. I was a police officer all the time they were growing up in school. And they complained, "I can't never do anything in this town unless you get know about it." I was the 00:38:00same way when I was a kid. In those days, the police officers knew all of the other police officers. They generally knew their families and kids, and kind of look out for them and chastise them if it was needed. If they found them doing something they shouldn't be. And it was accepted by the families. And my family, my three kids, were the same way. [laughs] But, no, he never, said a lot of stuff he that he'd been into. But in the days that he was on the Department, the early days and that, they had backyard stills or basement stills in the area, which they periodically they would raid and confiscate or destroy the wine. Mostly, it was wine and so forth, and we had a few, very few after I went one. 00:39:00Most of those had been eliminated in the earlier years.

WHEELOCK: I was curious if you had a sense of how your career was different after the war as opposed to his? You know before?

HAWKINS: To his before the war?

WHEELOCK: Yeah, how your two--you know, you had the same, theoretically you had the same job, but Richmond had changed so much, I was wondering if you had any--.

HAWKINS: Well in the days when he went to work as a police officer, they--the city did not furnish cars for patrol work and so forth. If you got to that point you used your own car. You were reimbursed gasoline. You used your own car for beat work. They had no radios. Telephones were few and far between. They had call boxes listed, situated in various places in town and you would go over to the call box 00:40:00and open it, and take the receiver and pull the lever down and it would automatically connect you with the radio room over at the police department. As far as calls were concerned, they had a light system in this town, and on a tall poles it was probably six or eight of them around various parts of the community. They could be seen by officers and they would look up, and if the light was on and blinking a certain number it meant they wanted beat number so and so. And you would hit one of the call boxes and you'd call in and they'd give you your assignment. Here again there was no communication after you got there, unless the people happened to have a telephone, which as I said in those days, in the late 20s, telephones in the town were few and far between. Even 00:41:00when I went on in 1946, we had beat cars and we did have radios. But, you were not always in the car or with a radio. Particularly, if you were walking the avenue. When you were walking the avenue you walked very carefully and you kept track of your partner if you had a partner. And if the storeowner was kind to you, he'd let you use his telephone. Otherwise, you had to find the call box, which generally was a number of blocks away from you.

WHEELOCK: The storeowners, did they generally cooperate with the police?

HAWKINS: Most of the time, yeah. Most of the storeowners, yes. Very few of them were reluctant, but most of them they would, sure. But, this is all part of--to me--was all part of being a police officer, and particularly if you were walking 00:42:00a beat in downtown area or in a business area, you got to know the storeowner and you got them to know you. And you did what you could to help them out. Sometimes, what you did for them was not official. But it was out of the kindness, out of the goodness of your heart. You did for them, not for favoritism, and I know that we had a few business people, entrepreneurs I guess you call them, would locate here from back east. And I understood back east that they used to pretty well take care of a beat officer with clothing and everything, you name it. The officer didn't have to pay for anything. Well, they would try that out here and it didn't work, because we had a pretty strict command system--chief and captain, and so forth, that that was a no-no out here. 00:43:00They want to give you a suit or something, oh no, no, no way. You did accept a cup of coffee, but that was about it. Once in awhile the officers would overboard and not pay for a meal and he got kind of called up on the carpet the next day when it was found out. But I can't say to my knowledge, most of the time, the officers were pretty good about paying for their meal and different things about that nature. Not taking bribes so to speak.

WHEELOCK: So, your father died in '41?

HAWKINS: Yeah, he died--he was forty-six when he died.

WHEELOCK: And that was early 1941 that he died?

HAWKINS: June. I had just graduated from high school and was working at the Mechanic's Bank at the time, and I got notified by the manager of the bank, you better get yourself home. So, I did and he was there. Dead by the time I got there. Whether 00:44:00it would have done any good to take him to the hospital, I don't know. He had just gone to work that day, and that day, let's see I think he used to ride the bus. We lived on Barrett and Key Boulevard in Richmond. Another thing in those days, to be a police officer or a fireman in Richmond, you had to live in Richmond, and you had to stay living in Richmond while you were on the job. Sometime in the 1950s they relaxed that, and due to constitutional lobbying they said it was unlawful for them to require you to live within the city. That you could live any place you wanted to. It was just your responsibility to be able to get to and from work when you were supposed to. So, they relaxed that. First 00:45:00off, you could live, just outside or you could live within a certain mile radius. Now you can live any place. But my own feelings again on that, is that I firmly believe that police and firemen particularly, should live in the community that they are working at. To me it becomes their home and their property, and they're more out to take better care of it, I think. And in the days when my father was on, they were truly police officers twenty-four hours a day, and they were expected to take action, that is on serious crimes. Not on little petty things, but on more serious things.

WHEELOCK: So 1941, sounds like it must have been a really terrible year for your family 00:46:00and for everybody obviously, after this happened.

HAWKINS: Yes, I guess it was. What it was like--. Police work in the 1920s and 30s, I don't think it was quite as bad because most people, as I said, the community knew each other and all that, particularly with police and firemen. And the average police and firemen was pretty well loved by all the community, and very well respected. It was years after that, and over the years things, I think, gradually broke down there. What the reason for the breakdown is, I don't really know. You could speculate all kinds of things. I think it's the upbringing of the kid. The kid responsibility for upbringing is with the parents and they 00:47:00should teach them to respect their elders, respect their teacher, their pastor, their police officer and so forth. Regardless of what they may think personally, whether they should be respected.

WHEELOCK: I was wondering how quickly did you see the city start to change after December 1941? Because you--.

HAWKINS: Oh, you said '41?

WHEELOCK: Did you notice things start to change right away?

HAWKINS: No, I noticed that there big changes came, I guess with the shipyards coming into town in the late, well let's see, in the '40 to '41, '42, with the shipyards coming into town we had an influx of people from out of town. At that 00:48:00point then you had a bunch of strangers, and in some cases the no good parts of the strangers from the other communities would come here because they worked in shipyards and make good money. Many the fight we refereed or broke up in back of bars. And the attitude of people was, there are no weapons involved, don't bother us. And so, in a lot of cases you made sure it was a fair fight and that was it. Sent the party off to the hospital that was needed. But as long as it was a fair fight, and this was their bringing up back where they came from in Oklahoma, Arkansas, New York, or wherever it was. This was the creed that they lived by. As long as it was a fair fight, don't bother us. And as such, in a lot 00:49:00cases we kind of respected them because you didn't go in and try to break up a fight by yourself when there was a half dozen people down there. You went in with, all of them want--you wanted them all on your side. Not on the other side. That happens every once in awhile, you get in and you're doing good, and all of a sudden bang, everything turns against you.

WHEELOCK: So, having, you know, obviously having lived here before the war, and then once everyone starts to come in because of the shipyards things really start to change. Did you like the change; I guess is what I'm trying to ask with all of the new people or was it?

HAWKINS: Well, in a great respect I wish it was back to the small community again of maybe thirty, forty, fifty-thousand people. It seemed like in some cases the 00:50:00wrong people stayed here. The right went back to their homes, so forth. So it left us with a lot of wrong people here, with some money, and various opportunities. But, I think that one of the biggest things with our communities now is the lack of respect that the general public has, particularly towards the police, the fire. They don't stop to think that a police officer has a job to do, and you may not like what he's doing or how he's doing it, but in theory he's a professional. Leave it up to him and just respect him, and do as he asks you to do. He generally does not have time to try to communicate to you in a 00:51:00manner that you understand that you will accept. All he has time to tell you to move or to do this or that. He doesn't have time to sit down and draw you a diagram, or to really go through a big explanation of why you should do what you have been requested to do. So, they sometimes, the officer gets a little abrupt. But, just stop and think, he's a human being like you are, and so forth.

WHEELOCK: When you joined the Navy, you ended up working in Naval Intelligence right? And that was out of San Francisco?

HAWKINS: Yes, in San Francisco.

WHEELOCK: Were you living in San Francisco, or were you--?

HAWKINS: No we were living--we had got married just after I went in the Navy. We got married, and we moved, and lived in Berkeley, off of Hillegass Avenue. You know where that is?

WHEELOCK: Yes, I do.

HAWKINS: Okay, we lived on--not to far from the Sather Gate, is it? And we lived there on 00:52:00Hillegass. We lived in an apartment house there, upstairs. And her sister-in-law lived downstairs, and another couple lived in another. There were three units in that apartment, and we lived there. And we lived in there until I was sent to Honolulu. The war was almost over with, and further out--and this officer was being sent. I went to--from here--went to what they called a JICPOA, which was Joint Army-Navy Intelligence in Honolulu, at Pearl Harbor itself. And, then we, she came and lived with her mother and father. And at that time we had our daughter. She had another one on the way. So, while I was over there, she had 00:53:00our first son, and he was born while I was over there in Honolulu. And then I came back and got out of the service in December of 1945. And then a few months after that she became pregnant again. I don't know why, but she did. And we had our youngest boy, who at the present time is six-foot four, and weighs as much as I do, two hundred and some odd pounds. And he is, at present time, he's a fireman in Vallejo, California, and with only a couple more years to go before he's going to retire from that. Our daughter, just retired from her job with the county--Contra Costa County. At the time she retired she was a civilian employee 00:54:00working in the Jail Division of the sheriffs department, in charge at that time of the other personnel that had to do with the computers and keeping track of all the inmates and so forth. And so, she just retired from that two years ago. Our oldest boy is a mechanic in refrigeration, and hydraulic, electric and so forth. And is presently working for Sealand, which at the present is, I think it's owned by Marsky. M-A-R-S--something or other. You see it on the side of their containers at the Port of Oakland. And he works there. He works graveyard shift. He prefers to work the graveyard shift, and which he does. But he's got to work a few more years before he's at home.