Communications 301 Oral History Project
Interview with James Rogers
Date of Interview: November 10, 2004
Interviewer: Casey Rogers
Transcriber: Casey Rogers
Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Casey: This is Casey Rogers interviewing James Robert Rogers for the Oral History Project for my 301 Communications class with Dr. Cressman. The Date is November 10, 2004. I am interviewing Mr. Rogers from the comfort of our own homes over the telephone. I am located in Provo, Utah and he is in Fairfield, Iowa. Can you tell me when and where you were born?
James: I was born in Mesa, Arizona, December 17, 1940
Casey: And what were the conditions like surrounding your birth
James: I was born breech is that what you want to know?
Casey: Well yeah, and what else do you know? What was your family like at the time?
James: Oh, of course I had a mother and a father and an older brother and sister and an older brother who had died years before with pneumonia
Casey: And what are their names?
James: Kenneth who is deceased, Bruce who is the oldest and Joyce who is next oldest and then myself.
Casey: Ok, so what was family life like back then?
James: Well when I was born of course I didn’t know that much about what my family life was like back then, but I would like to talk about the period. The period in which we were involved in World War II. Things happened at Pearl Harbor etc. I can’t remember if Pearl Harbor was 1944 or 1940. But anyway it was a period of time in which our country was at war.
Casey: How did the war affect your family? Do you have any recollection? Or the community in which you lived?
James: Well there were a lot of people in the community in military service.
Casey: Do you remember at all when Pearl Harbor happened?
James: It either happened the year I was born or a few years later.
Casey: What media did you have in your home? Did you have a radio?
James: Yeah, we had a radio. That’s what we always had until I was older.
Casey: Until about how old?
James: How old I was before we had a radio, or phonograph or TV?
Casey: Yeah.
James: I was probably 15 or 16 before we had a TV.
Casey: As a child did you spend a lot of time listening to the radio?
James: I had my own radio. More interesting than listening to the radio, I used to listen to programs like (titles inaudible), my interest was in crystal radios. We had what was called an umbrella tree; it had boards nailed in it so you could go up and sit. I had two or three crystal radio sets up there and I used to see what kind of signal I could get.
Casey: Why were you more interested in the crystal radio set?
James: Than what?
Casey: Than the normal radio set in your home?
James: Oh I’d say because it was more challenging, it was something constructive.
Casey: When you did listen to the radio what kind of programs did you like to listen to?
James: Those were entertainment shows, humor type shows.
Casey: Um, did your family subscribe to newspapers? Were there a lot of books in your home?
James: Before we leave the subject of the electronic media, are we talking about before 10 or after the age of 10?
Casey: Whatever you feel like talking about.
James: What was your question?
Casey: Well, we can go on to talk about TV if you want or talk about newspapers and books in your home.
James: Well let’s go on to talk about TV.
Casey: Ok.
James: I remember when the TV was introduced to me in the early 50s, although we didn’t have a TV until I was 15 or 16 years old. Our neighbors had one of the very first TVs made by Crossly, I don’t even know if they are in existence anymore, they definitely aren’t in the electronics business. I used to go over there and watch TV and what we foremost watched at that time was the elections between Dwight Eisenhower, and Aideli Stephenson. As youngsters we watched the tabulation and the propaganda and everything in hopes that our candidate would win, which was Eisenhower. We didn’t buy a TV until years after they came out, and it was when my sister Joyce moved from Arizona to Grand Junction, Colorado. She left us her TV and instead of putting the antennae up on the roof, that was a no-no, I wasn’t actually supposed to listen to it or watch it.
Casey: Why not?
James: Because it was my sister’s. But I hooked the antennae up in the front yard so I could watch programs on the TV. And of course later on we bought our own.
Casey: What do you remember about the first broadcasts they had on TV? What was TV like?
James: I remember watching the Ed Sullivan show. It was all black and white, the screens were small. A lot of the stuff was prerecorded and a lot of the stuff was live. There used to be a program called…let me think for a minute…where they…I don’t remember…sorry.
Casey: It’s ok.
James: Ask me another question.
Casey: What were the TV sets like?
James: What was what?
Casey: The TV sets.
James: They were made out of wood; there weren’t really any counter top ones. They sat on the floor. And, uh, it was difficult to get a good picture a lot of times. You got snow, and that would depend on the antennae. I remember old James Ray, that’s whose house I would watch it at, trying to adjust that TV. In order to do it, he set up a full size mirror in front of the TV so he could sit behind the TV, and play with it, because the adjustments were back there, to get a good picture. Compared with what we have today, they were pretty archaic. It’s interesting, you know, one of my best friends, Arles Church, had an uncle who was Philo T. Farnsworth. The man, who in the United States, that is credited most with the development of the TV.
Casey: Mm hmm.
James: But the original ones were archaic, small, the screen was like thirteen inches. Normally they were round instead of square.
Casey: Ok. That’s interesting your connection to Philo T. Farnsworth, was your friend his nephew or niece?
James: Nephew
Casey: At that time when TV was beginning to be developed and there was sort of a race to see who could develop the first TV, do you remember any of that?
James: No.
Casey: So it was relatively…
James: Now, my first acquaintance with TV was… (Inaudible)
Casey: And what did you think?
James: What’s that?
Casey: And what did you think of it?
James: It was an exciting medium. It changed things. You had to be careful with what you said because it could be reported all over the word. Whereas before it could be reported on the radio but there was a time period before that when it would take weeks to learn of something. But now we were watching the elections live, the conventions, not the elections.
Casey: Ok, um, so what would you say was your major source of news?
James: Major source of news? Newspaper.
Casey: Why was that?
James: Oh because we didn’t have a TV, we had to go over to the neighbors to watch the news, so we read the newspaper.
Casey: What was different about the newspapers back then?
James: Say that again.
Casey: How were newspapers different back then?
James: Well I don’t think they were political like they are today. The “New York Tribune” backed John Kerry for president…(inaudible)…political party or endorsed a political candidate. Ok.
Casey: Ok. Have you noticed any differences in like, the layout, the design of newspapers or how news is reported?
James: Oh, I think, uh, the main change in the newspaper industry more than anything else, maybe more qualified reporters etc, is the change in the method of creating the documentation of the story and the layout of the advertising. Where before it would be something that was typed out on a typewriter that would have to be type set in to the paper or whatever they did to it at the time. The ad would have to be either drawn or it would be cut out of documents that were prepared of the manufacturing of the product and pasted to the size of the newspaper so they could be copied and printed in the newspaper.
Casey: Okay.
James: Whereas now they do all that on the computer. Just, bingo, they type their story in on the computer, they spell check it, they grammar check it, they do all the other things they need to do to it. And for the ads they go out and find the art on the internet or from the manufacturer of the product and they put the ad together.
Casey: What events in history impacted you the most or you remember the most.
James: What events in history? The assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Casey: How did you find out about that?
James: On the radio, driving to work at the Anderson Store for Men. I remember it very well.
Casey: Were you married at the time?
James: The emotions ran high…
Casey: Sorry, go on.
James: You go ahead.
Casey: Just keep going on if you have more.
James: It just brought everything to a stop, to a standstill. People couldn’t believe what had happened. Then when Jack Ruby shot the captured Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald (he repeats himself); the country couldn’t believe what was happening, because it was just such a shock. Something we weren’t acquainted with.
Casey: Um, how old were you at the time?
James: Um, what was it 1960 something? I was 25 or 26, somewhere in there. I was a returned missionary; I had gone on a mission.
Casey: Where you married at the time?
James: No.
Casey: Um, you mentioned that it shocked the country, why would you say that it shocked people?
James: Well people loved John F. Kennedy. I dunno. They didn’t worship him, that’s not the word I want to say. But they all liked him, he had a beautiful wife, a young family and we were in the middle of a re-election campaign, getting ready for it. And this was America. There had been assassinations before, Lincoln, and who was it Grant?
Casey: I don’t remember.
James: This was right in front of us. It wasn’t like Lincoln being shot or whoever else was assassinated. This was at a time that television was here. You learned about it the moment it happened. You didn’t learn about it a week later or when you went and sat down to listen to the radio when you got home from work. This was a case when bingo it was right there. You’d walk down the street and there would be a group of people crowded around the TV store and you could go in and watch it. I remember that parade for the president, it took forever and forever, and it went on and on and on. A lot of respect. Okay?
Casey: Ok. What other events in history do you remember? Do you remember any other events?
James: Just to follow that one up there was Robert F. Kennedy, or Robert whatever-it-was Kennedy, got assassinated by…(inaudible)…he was running for president at a political rally in Los Angeles or wherever it was. And this guy walked up and shot him. Killed him. Then there was two, two brothers, both in political office, either aspiring to be president, or being president and somebody killed him.
Casey: Okay, um what do you remember about, as far as that goes, the affect that the Cold War had at the time?
James: Well there was this great fear…of possible fear between the United States and Russia. And the buildup of atomic (coughs), excuse me, warheads and other warheads. There was thought to be a buildup in Cuba. That’s right next to our country. It was scary. You worried about it. The Cold War was one where you weren’t in command of all the facts. There were too many variables. It could start unintentionally. Go ahead.
Casey: Do you think the media capitalized off of the tension and the scare at all? Did they play it up at all? Or did they tell it like it was?
James: Oh, in that time period they told it like it was.
Casey: Ok. Um, what else do you remember from history and how you learned about it? What was the time during Vietnam like?
James: Well the successor to John F. Kennedy was the vice president was Lyndon B. Johnson. And Lyndon B. Johnson was en ego-head. He had a head the size of a blimp. And he was not kind to people. He was a politician from the word go. He got us into the Vietnamese and couldn’t get us out.
Casey: Where did you get most of your news about the war from?
James: Oh learned about it from the very beginning? Probably from the get go from the draft. And everybody had to register for the draft. More than likely you were at the age of 19-20 some odd you were going to get drafted to go to Vietnam. It was scary.
Casey: As the war went on how did you learn about it?
James: Over the TV more than anything else.
Casey: How do you feel that TV presented the war?
James: How do I feel about what?
Casey: How did TV present the war? Did you feel like the war was brought into your home from what was on the news?
James: Well the reporting of the war…there was one movie made about the Vietnamese war, made I think during the war. That was a John Wayne movie, “Green Beret” I think or whatever it was, I dunno. But there was this fear of having to go to Vietnam. Students went to Canada to avoid the draft and have to go into the service. Others went because they felt it was their duty to their country. And the conditions over there were horrible. They had…they were fighting in the tropical jungle. It was just a horrible war. Go ahead.
Casey: How did you know what the conditions or horrors were like?
James: One through that movie with John Wayne, two after the war was over, or near the end of it. There was a movie called “The Killing Fields” were literally hundreds or thousands were killed. And the vividness either came from a movie or the TV. You wouldn’t get the vividness through the print.
Casey: So would you say the images that you saw were more powerful than what you could have read?
James: Yes.
Casey: Let’s jump forward a couple of years and talk about 9/11 for a little bit. How did you hear first about what happened on September 11?
James: I was listening to the radio in the car.
Casey: Where were you going?
James: I don’t know whether I was going to work or what. 9/11 happened when I wasn’t working, I was already on disability. I can’t really remember whether I heard about it on the radio or I saw it on TV, I think I just saw it on TV. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The reproduction, you know somebody filmed it, the crash. I couldn’t believe that minutes later this magnificent, multi-storied structure just totally disintegrated and fell to the ground. But before that the second plane had hit the other building. And within just minutes after the first building collapsing the second building collapsed. And the horror and the concern for all those people just rushed through your body, into your system, into your intelligence. To think that somebody had done that…
Casey: What was the climate like of the people?
James: You mean what was the attitude of the people or the weather?
Casey: The attitude of the people.
James: Again they couldn’t believe this happened. It happened so fast, so quick. Your heart just went out to people that you knew had no way of escaping a terrible tragedy, plus the people on the plane. And then to learn of another plane striking the Pentagon and another one that, I can’t remember what happened to it. It was just numbing. It just froze your feelings. 9/11 was a horrible tragedy and the main thing you wanted was to get even. And you don’t blame the president for acting in declaring war. And frankly even declaring war in Iraq. Mainly he didn’t want to fight a battle on American soil. So do you fight it in your friend or in an enemy? So he chose Iraq and Saddam Hussein to fight it.
