John Barker Head interviewed by Richard Ade - February 2, 2001

• Head, John Barker

Richard Ade Interviews

WE’RE IN BETHEL, MAINE AT THE BETHEL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ROBINSON’S HOUSE

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

I was born in the hospital, about 25 miles from here and I lived there for three days in Rumford, then I moved back to Bethel, with my mother.

HOW MANY MEMBERS WERE THERE IN YOUR FAMILY?

Two brothers and a sister.  A total of four children.

FATHER’S OCCUPATION?

My father was…he ran a general store and he was postmaster for 43 years.  

YOUR MOTHER’S OCCUPATION?

My mother was a schoolteacher by trade and a housewife after the children came.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME?

Well, you’ve got to remember in the years before television, we watched much more community type activities.  My father ran his general store as I mentioned and was the postmaster for 43 years, here, in West Bethel.  And, the entertainment for the evening, people came to store, and listened to the things that were turning…it was World War II.  It was a very interesting period.  A lot more reading then as opposed to laying back now and watching the t.v. set.  Open discussions.  Very interesting conversations.  Particularly, evenings.  I know my father would have to close the door and turn the lights out otherwise all those guys would have been there all night talking amongst themselves  But, I feel I was very fortunate to have been brought up during that period.  Having seen both sides of the…media.

DO YOU HAVE ANY MEMORIES OF YOUR GRANDPARENTS?

Oh, I have very fond memories of my mother’s father, my grandfather and grandmother.  They owned a farm in Andover, Maine.  Unfortunately, they both passed away in 1937 so I was only 5, but I still have strong memories.  My grandmother on my dad’s side of the family died when he was only 12 years old.  Obviously, I didn’t know her.  She died in 1911.  But, my grandfather passed away in 1947 which that means I was 15 years old.  I have very, very fond memories of my grandfather.

WHAT OR WHO WAS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT INFLUENCE? 

Oh, I think a lot of influencing…probably the steadiest and most consistent was probably my mother.  My father was sort of a distant type person.  My mother was an old school teacher…you couldn’t kid her.  She had a good mind about how much your homework was…so, there was not getting away with anything.

WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL? 

I went to elementary school in Bethel and graduated from Gould Academy and Burdette College and did post graduate work at the University of Maryland and University of Hawaii. 

CAN YOU DESCRIBE ANY OF YOUR CLASSES OR TEACHERS?

High school…sure.  I can’t describe all the classes, but the ones that benefited me the most…I have very fond memories of David T. Thompson who was the head of the English department of Gould.  I remember that name…the initials are DTT and DTT was a brand new innovation at that time and so you can imagine what Mr. Thompson’s nick name was….DTT.  But, he taught me to write which served me well as I went forward. 

DID YOU PLAY ANY SPORTS OR HAVE ANY HOBBIES? 

I was a musician.  Sports didn’t interest me that much.  I played, sure.  I got my varsity letter but I was more interested in music.  I was a percussionist.  And a member of a band and a dance band.

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS?

Old Dixieland tunes.  You don’t smile much, do you?  (LAUGHS)

DID YOU HAVE ANY UNPLEASANT MEMORIES?

No.  I can’t think of any.  Oh, I’m sure there were some, like a normal person.  

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?

Oh, working in my dad’s store and working as a postal clerk.  I think I was the youngest postal clerk in the State of Maine.  Fourth Class office so there was no wage so I was sworn in to be u US postal clerk at the age of 15. 

HOW MUCH DID YOU EARN IN THOSE DAYS?

(Laughter).  Precious little.  Oh, I had farm jobs in the summer and all that.  That’s mostly piecework.  Then, by the time I was 16 or 17 I worked in the woods.  Oh, working in the woods probably was the best job ever.  Or, fighting fires…They had great forest fires in Maine in 1947 and they closed all the schools and all the roads so we could fight fire.  That’s when Bar Harbor burned completely and Brownfield and in these towns around here there was smoke in the air, enough to make you eyes water around the clock.  I was very offended, I was only 15 and you had to be 16 to go on the line crews so ended up on an Indian pump and went around that with the fires and essentially ended up wetting down the hot spots.  But, I remember what I made.  It was 87.5 cents per hour.  It was a king’s ransom.  I had never had that much money in my life.  We worked 12 hours at night time and finished when it became day light.  That was in September or October…the fall of 1947, so, that was goodly amount of pay…$12.00 per day at 87.5 cents per hour.

WHAT WAS YOUR WORST WORK EXPERIENCE?

Oh, getting shot at.   We’ll cover that later when you get to the military part.

DO YOU REMEMBER SOME OF THE GREAT EVENTS OF THE 20^TH CENTURY?

Around town and the world?  I guess, of course, the War and the service men returning.  I remember meeting the trains with the bodies coming back…..

DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE GREAT DEPRESSION?

I probably…yes, well, I guess we had it very good compared to a lot of families.  You know, we never went without food. My mother taught school part time and my dad had the store and all that.  But, you know, there weren’t many presents at Christmas.  We’d get one or two things…always useful things.  Boots or caps or things like that.  Both my grandpa’s made me tables, once.  People just made do with what they had.  They helped each other.  There was a lot of bartering going on.  Some family would get groceries from my dad’s store and my dad would get five quarts of milk a day from him.  People had great difficulty paying for commodities, like flour and corn meal and things like that.  They would charge them in the store and in return, they would turn in potatoes or something that they had raised on an exchange basis.  No one starved to death.  Families stuck together.  The church and the grange were the central activities up there in West Bethel.  Then came the war years.  You know, buying toys or something was just out of the question.  Everything went to the war.  The Christmas trees going up was always the joyous time of year but I’d go and see what some of my nephews and nieces would get and all of that under their Christmas tree.  They would have more under the Christmas tree in one year than I had in a lifetime. But, I don’t think they were any happier or any less happier than we were.  We were fin and didn’t expect a lot.  What we received had meaning. 

HOW WAS WORLD WAR II? 

Well, I was too young to go into the service.  I was born in 1932.  You know, there was a lot of shortages here on the home front.  But, the sacrifices you made here were nothing compared to the service men.  You followed it very closely in newspapers and what have you and the front page of the newspaper showed exactly what the front was and there was a number of boys that I knew who didn’t come back.  There were a few from West Bethel who were killed…all of them had been students of my mother, so, there was some sense of loss when that happened.  But, the other things, oh, rationing cigarettes, sugar, can goods and stuff like that was rationed.  Gasoline.  But, that was the thing to do.  You just did it.  The A card was five gallons a week.  Everybody just went on and were happy when it was over with.

DO YOU REMEMBER EVENTS OF THE 1950’S? 

I certainly do.  I graduated from Gould in 1950 and went to college and then went directly out of college into the army.  Went to Korea and back to Japan and then back home.  There wasn’t much going on here.  Those were the Eisenhower years.  I got out of the army in February of 1955 and I was a business administration major and there just didn’t seem to be those kinds of  opportunities around here.  So, I already had been in the far east and enjoyed it so I wound up taking the civil service exam and went back to the far east as a civilian for the department of defense and worked there for 17 years in Japan.  I made trips to many other areas.  I spent six years on Okinawa at the United States Administration which was the equivalent of the state government.  We governed an island population of 1.1 million people.  I was deputy controller and chief funding officer for the United States Civil Administrator.  Before that, in Japan, support of all the forces of the far east and that entailed a lot of travel like to Japan, Cambodia, Louse, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines.  A lot of opportunities to see a lot of the world…the eastern world.  Hong Kong… 

WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT? 

In my life time…it was probably Ronald Reagan.

AND THE LEAST FAVORITE?

Just left office.  Couldn’t stand the man.  Absolute zero tolerance for him…the military gives you that mind set.

WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE THAT YOU NOTED IN YOUR LIFETIME?

Oh, I guess I’d have to toss mobility in there.  As a kid growing up, I had an Aunt and an Uncle…actually, three uncles and three aunts and they lived in a town just outside of Boston…it was a great treat to go there.  You are looking at a seven or eight hour trip which today you can get there in about three hours.  So, it was an all day affair.  Now, everything is as easy to get to like it’s next door.  That’s one of the things…Something else may occur to me.  People are far more cosmopolitan today then they were then.  People were just born, lived and died and they never travelled for more than 100 miles or more.  The world always fascinated me.  One of the magazines that was always available at home was the National Geographic.  My dad had a complete run of National Geographic from 1911 on.  As a young person I would sit there and fantasize about all that and visiting this or that. 

WHAT CHANGES WERE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU? 

Changes?  Oh, I guess communication.  You know, the internet today.  Phone services.  My brother of mine who was married in 1963.  I had to book a call from Tokyo so I could get some time to talk with him….Today, you just pick up the phone and dial it and 10 seconds later the guy is answering on the other end.  Speed of communications…When I first wen to the far east, I went on a ship.  A cruise ship.  From Seattle to Sushebowl in Japan in 14 days.  Today, I can leave here and go down to Kennedy Airport and be in Japan in 14 hours.  The world has shrunk and we have gotten faster.  

DID YOU EVER GET MARRIED?

Yes.  In 1960.  Once. 

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR WIFE?

She was working at an officers club in Japan.

DESCRIBE WHERE YOU LIVED AFTER YOU GOT MARRIED?

I was fortunate.  I received a number of promotions so I lived in government quarters.  So, all my career, I lived in government quarters and received all the benefits that went with it.  So, when I retired and came home, we bought our first home together.  I never had bought a home before.  You know, you wanted the light bulb change, you called somebody and they changed the bulb for you.  Sort of a pampered life at that time.  It was modest living.  Course, you didn’t have five or six different stores to go to.  You missed a lot but you gained a lot.  I never had to pay rent but I had to buy a home.  We never got into it much, but you could have servants there if you wish.  But, all we did was have yard man who came in once per week to mow the lawn and bring in plants and take care of it around the house.  I think, if I remember right, I’ll have to ask my wife, it was $2.00 which was a big day’s pay for them.  But, at that time people were working for $30 or $35 per month. 

WHAT WAS YOUR WIFE’S OCCUPATION? 

She was a cashier in the officer’s club and then I think she was assistant manager of the US Army Office at Camp Greg.  And, a housewife.

DOES SHE HAVE ANY HOBBIES?

Stamp collecting.  That’s how we met. 

DO YOU HAVE ANY LIKES OR DISLIKES ABOUT LIFE?

Oh, I just enjoy very honest and very frank people.  I have no room in my life whatsoever for pompousity.  I dislike people who carry around airs…who think they are better than somebody else.  Racial things, what have you.  Bigots.  Dislike?  I don’t know…

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN?

No.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN THE BETHEL AREA?

Oh, since 1970…30 years.  Well, I lived here 68 years with the absence of 20 years when I was in school and in the service…  I’d come home every two or three years for vacation.  For all practical purposes this is where I lived except for the stint with the government.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGED AROUND TOWN?

Oh Boy.  Well, I didn’t mind Bethel the way it was.  But, it’s not going to be that way again.  A lot of the community is depending upon a tourist trade, skiing and all that.  I enjoyed Bethel the way it was but I’m also a realist.  The trains aren’t going to start running again.  The planes are not going to stop flying.  Automobiles are not going to stay with a maximum speed of 50 miles per hour.  But, I like life in the slow lane.  There is no longer the slow lane, but, I could live without it.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE REMAIN THE SAME?

Oh, the architecture.  The populus of the town.  The natives who have been here for generation after generation.  I’d like to see more of this before we disapear. 

DID YOU DO ANY COMMUNITY SERVICE ACTIVITIES?

Well, let’s see.  I ‘m a charter member and president of the first rotary club in the town of Bethel.  I helped establish it.  I served on the airport authority as chairman for many of the years…since 1976 I’ve been president and treasurer of the Bethel water district.  I’m the finance for the local American Legion post.  I’m the fund raising chairman for the Annual Fund Challenge at the Historical Society.  Lord, been treasurer of the library since 1974.  None of them paid, which is fine.  The devil has a debt to the community.  Pay that debt as best you can.  Some people wind up driving bull dozers or raking.  Business administration turned out to be my easiest way to service work. I do handle the investments for both the historical society (which is about a half a million dollars).  I was chairman of the board when we built the new health center down here to the tune of $700,000 which we just retired the mortgage on it, three months ago.  Funny, when they are releasing the mortgage I looked to see who had signed the mortgage and it was me as the Chairman.  There was always an absence of doctors.  They came and the went here in Bethel.  It’s hard with a little, small, private residence on Main Street with one doctor who you can barely afford.  So, we had this opportunity to buy this other property and went out to the community and contributed heavily.  We got some assistance through a foundation.  The next thing  you know we had a half a million dollar facility with a $200 thousand dollar mortgage.  I guess the sense of accomplishment…the sense of being a part of something.  Making things happen.  People must make it happen. 

WHO WAS YOUR MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER?

Does it have to be a character?  I’d hate to have to single any one out.  The world is full of characters…good characters…and a few character characters.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS?

Here in Bethel or in my years with the military?

DURING YOUR LIFE.

I guess to get out of the fast lane and retire early…Travel with another war going on.  Almost on a recurrent basis, putting yourself in harm’s way.  I finally got to the point wee I said I’ve done my share….and enough is enough.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK IS MOST IMPORTANT TO PROVIDE YOUNG PERSONS BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCES?

Oh, three things.  Education.  Education.  Education.  Don’t short it.  Do it.  Make sure you know what direction you are going in.  Get involved with something you are going to be happy with.  Just because and aptitude test indicates that you should be an accountant or you should be an engineer of some sort and all that….I help all the young people I can down here emotionally and sometime financially, what have you.  Particularly, youths who really don’t have a chance.  Those that don’t have a home life.  So, anything you can do to encourage them…Ask for this scholarship.  Ask for that scholarship.  If they are not acclimated to a four year university, discipline…for goodness sake, think about a technical school or something. It takes all kinds of people to make this world ….we need welders just as much as we need rocket scientists…truck drivers as much airplane pilots.  So, don’t waste your time.  When I graduated from high school, a lot of my friends went right into something…paper company…did quite well and made good money and all that.  But, those type of jobs simply aren’t around anymore where you can step out with a high school education and get something that’s going to pay you 40 or 50 thousand dollars a year.  Without that education, this is not world for working hard anymore.  This is a world for working smart and just do everything you can.  Even after I graduated and all that.  It came hard but I continued to study while I was working for the government at the University of Maryland and the University of Hawaii.  I didn’t attend them on the campuses.  I did at the Far East campus.  They had a contract with the United States Government to run university level classes, full credit classes, in the Far East.  So, I did a class here and a class there and worked it into my plans.  It’s tough going to school   In fact, I learned about computers and stuff like that I went to University of New Hampshire up in Berlin.  To show you the horse and buggy days, we learned on a Comodore computer.  I don’t think anyone has heard of it.  Have you?  They were state of the art at that time. They had their own language.  But, anyway, to this day, I do not own a computer. I probably will at some time.  I have one here and it serves me quite well.  I guess to get back to your basic question…I just cringe when I hear kids say “I can’t wait to get out of school for good in June!”  I came out from Gould pretty sharp as some of these kids coming out of college today.  Maybe sharper.  But, I mean, we studied.  Four years of English…Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry…the third year you had to have two languages…

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY WILL BE LIKE?

Oh, I think you have to be optimistic.  I certainly hope that we have seen our last war.  I just wish I could be around to watch a lot of it.  It’s going to be up to us.  Up to you more than me.  It’s a wonderful world we live in and there is no limit to what man kind can do to create this kind of world.  I’m not a big t.v. fan but I do watch the national news at night and every time I see the things going on in Bosnia and Palestine and the Middle East in general, I just feel that people should live together in harmony.  One of the changes I see now….when I was kid growing up, you had the Klu Klux Klan active in this area…did you ever realize that?  But it wasn’t white supremacy, it was Protestant supremacy.  And people felt very strongly this way.  The best black man I ever knew or ever met, I liked him immensely, he was an old, old man.  He was good and modest.  His name was Robert Ruben.  He had a camp over in Littlefield.  You know, there’s just not room enough in this world for all of this…who’s better…Catholic…Protestant…who cares?  I think everyone should have their religion and leave the road map out of how you get there.  It’s not something that we should fret about and I do think that we slowly have to learn in peace in harmony.  I was brought up during the war time period…My ancestors lived during the first World War.  My name is John Barker Head and John Barker was the tailor and I have another ancestor who was a Colonel in the War of 1812.  Another brother on my mother’s side died in the Marines but he was at Gettysburg.  Simple thing.  A shoulder wound.  Only flesh deep.  But blood poisioning…that’s another great thing.  Medicine today…My father mentioned that my grandmother had died when he was about 12 years old of something today that would be out patient.  Some antibiotic….But people just died in those days.  A shoulder wound!  They didn’t know.  If it could have been cleansed and closed the guy would have been back out there in three days.  The progress we’ve made in medicine is really mind boggling.  I expect we will see more of this. 

DO YOU SEE A BRIGHT FUTURE IN THE BETHEL AREA?

I see change in future for the people…gradually.  It’s happening already.  The paper mills in Rumford where people had good jobs.  Today, they have about a third of the employees they had 30 years ago.  These are very rough numbers.  Yet, the tonage of paper they are producing is probably three times what it was then.  Growing up here they had small trucks or skidders or tractors. Cutting wood was done with buck saws and axes and the 1950’s brought power saws.  Now, I think the two fellows who work in the woods you have one fellow in the trees and the other using the skidder.  They probably produce more wood for the mills in a day than they would have in a week 30 years ago.  I see fewer and fewer people going into the woods business..paper business.  The upper aspects of the woods business the lumber, what have you, I see that as quite constant.  The finished wood products and all that, the competition from over seas is furious.  I lived here in Bethel and the lumber mills we used to have were five.  Now we have one.  The hard wood mills we had five or six.  Now there’s one in just Bethel alone.  But yeah, there’s going to be tremendous change.  Maine is not the friendly state in the business.  It’s unfortunate that we are one of the highest taxed in the northeast…income tax.  So, employees have to pay inflated wages just to get them to come here.  I’d like to see things come in with high tech business.  But, any heads up business manager will not move to the State of Maine.  Well, look at it.  You’re at the end of the supply lines here, you’ve got an almost anti-business legislature, you do!  Tax rates are sky high.  Eight and one half percent personal income tax right here in the State of Maine after you’re making about $25,000.  Eight and one half percent!  It’s outrageous!  Massachusetts is what…five and one half or something like that.  We used to call Massachusetts “Taxachusetts”.  Well, its no longer.  It’s Maine.  I don’t look for Maine to be gaining this high tech or the quality jobs or all that.  The tax structure is such…the real estate taxes are extremely high.  Are you both from New Hampshire?  So, there, they have this new nomenclature coming out…Were you born in New Hampshire?  And you lived in Maine all your life?  Friend of mine…we were just kidding the other day.  He bought a house in Berlin and came to Bethel when he was three days old with his mother.  He’s not eligible for that new plate.  Deep, deep Democratic thinking…the legislature down there.  You’ve got to show him your birth certificate that you were born in the State of Maine to get this new plate…So, here’s a guy who’s 70 years old and lived all of this life in Maine, except for three days….I don’t know.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?

No.  I’m done, I think with the conversation.  I’m happy to shut up or else I’ll just keep right on rambling.

DO YOU HAVE ANY HUMOROUS STORIES? 

Oh, many of them.  Guy walking down the street the other day and he bumped into Clinton.  Physically bumped into him. Said, “Pardon Me.”  Clinton said “You’re five weeks late.” 

Bad, huh?  

Oh, I’ve got some observations.  I think I had some great experiences being brought up around the general store in my day to listen to these people.  You know, the things that stick in your mind.  My dad was postmaster so you’d have to beat the trains with the mail.  You know, I was doing that in the age of steam engines and what have you.  We’ve been brought up a lot in the quality of life area, I think.  But, yet, you gave a lot for the quality of life.  So, I guess it’s just constantly evolving.  Like that thing on medicine and people dying of simple things many years ago that today…there was a joke of where my grandpa and grandmother are buried.  I think there were eight children and three of them reached maturity..became adults and the rest…well it was around 1867 and there was the Scarlet Fever epidemic which was terribly harsh on the children. 

We’ve lost what I consider some of the quality of life…you know today, memorial day….if you get a couple hundred people out here it is a big deal.  As a kid growing up, everybody, I mean everybody, came out and also on the fourth of July.  I think it would be the same for Christmas.  

But, I’m an eternal optimist.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY EXPERIENCES? 

Oh yes.  Several a day.  I guess I couldn’t high light any particular right now.  You know, if you don’t laugh, you’ll lead a terrible life.  Find something funny about it, the way I look at it.  See the funny side.  If you don’t laugh, you’ll have problems.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE?

Things that wills stick with you forever….I was nine years old during Pearl Harbor and I had to live with the Japanese.  Where I was living was right near the grounds of Pearl Harbor.  I was living at the USO administrative building the day Kennedy was assassinated.  You have to remember, there is a 14 hour time difference.  So, I got up Saturday morning and got up and got the newspaper.  Turned the stereo on and I was sitting there reading the paper and all of a sudden they started playing this strange music for a Saturday morning….so I started paying attention and then the phone rang and then I just went off the work.  So, we went in at 2:00 Saturday afternoon and they decided to send us home.  It was only 1963 and then five years later Robert Kennedy was killed.  Very difficult thing to understand.  Why did this happen…type of thing. I remember when Mr. Nixon resigned.  Why did he have to resign?  Well, he lied to the American people.  Well, we know that, but why did he have to resign?  In other parts of the world it’s just accepted that politicians are liars and rodents and what have you.  I never did fully comprehend that.  They all do it,  you know.  Why was Nixon different?  What was his lie?  What was so bad? 

DO YOU HAVE ANY WORSE MEMORIES? 

Oh, war is always a bad memory.  Count yourself lucky that you didn’t have to be a part of it.  I have never known a professional solider who’s goal in life is not peace.  That’s what it’s all about. 

THANK YOU FOR LETTING US INTERVIEW YOU.