Transcribed Recording of Conversation with Donald Hill on August 19th, 2023 5:16 p.m.

Don Hill: …I loved her. I wanted mom and you, myself to build a family here. Yeah.It worked out okay because I became a journey lineman for the Edison Company.

Michael Hill: Right.

Don Hill: Yeah.

Michael Hill: Is that like the first job you had when you got back, like working for Edison?

Don Hill: Yeah. I had a little smart-time…part-time jobs when I'm still there. Yeah.

Michael Hill: We've got a…we have a neighbor that's been…he was a lineman. He's been selling a lot of his lineman tools…

Don Hill: Yeah?

Michael Hill: …and I saw one the other day that I'd never seen before and I never heard of…

Don Hill: Yeah?

Michael Hill: …but it's a lineman’s knife…

Don Hill: Yeah?

Michael Hill: …and it's like it's…it's got to handle on it…

Don Hill: Yeah?

Michael Hill: …but it's flat. It's like it doesn't have any…it's just a flat blade and they say they use it to um, trim off the Insulation on the wire.

Don Hill: Hmm.That's interesting.

Michael Hill: Maybe it's something that newer linemen use but this guy was selling all of his linemen stuff, you know?

Don Hill: Hmm.

Laura Hill: Didn't you use your dad's boots with a cleat in it…

Michael Hill: Yeah.

Laura Hill: …to climb of palm tree.

Michael Hill: Yeah, I did. He didn't know about it.

Don Hill: Um-hum.

Laura Hill: Oh sorry. I'm sorry.

Michael Hill: I had to have like four pairs of socks...

Don Hill: Yeah?

Michael Hill: …but yeah, I…I tried. I tried going up the palm tree with his boots on.

Don Hill: Well, see uh…

Michael Hill: There's still a lot of things that I did that he doesn’t know about.

Don Hill: Like what for example?

(lots of laughter)

Laura Hill: This is a confession day.

Michael Hill: I forgot all those things.

Don Hill: No, you didn’t.

Michael Hill: Yeah.

Don Hill: Yeah, you need tree gaffs to climb up trees, not regular gaffs because they're only an inch and a quarter. You go up two, three gaffs, they're almost two and a half.

Michael Hill: Wow.

Laura Hill: Are gaffs, the spike things.

Don Hill: Yeah.

Laura Hill: Okay. So I know nothing about this.

Teresa DeMayo: I know, right?

Don Hill: So, how do you accomplish that?

Michael Hill: How?

Don Hill: Yeah? Did you have my belt too?

Michael Hill: I…I got up about 10 feet and that was as far as I wanted to go. I kept thinking that those things were going to go out for under me and I was just gonna…

Don Hill: Yeah.

Michael Hill: …go straight down the tree but yeah…

Teresa DeMayo: What is he talking about? I walked in and like feet kicking…

Don Hill: Did you kick out?

Michael Hill: A kick out?

Don Hill: Yeah.

(Laura Hill talking to Teresa DeMayo: Talking about climbing a palm tree with your dad’s equipment.)

Michael Hill: Was that when you…you do it on purpose, right?

Don Hill: No, a kick out is when you accidentally good drop down and you can't...

Michael Hill: Wow.

Don Hill: …can't (inaudible).

Michael Hill: Can’t the rope kind of secure you a little bit when you when you're falling down like that, not the rope but the big strap you use?

Don Hill: You can still kick out. See, when you…when you use those whenever you're climbing a pole like that you have to lock your knees whenever you uh, climb up and if one of your knees, you know, goes haywire, then you got a problem.

Michael Hill: And you haven't had any trouble with your knees?

Don Hill: Well, I mean…

Michael Hill: You haven’t had any surgery? You haven’t had pain? You haven’t had…

Don Hill: Well, I’ve had pain but no knee surgery.

Michael Hill: Wow, you’d think with all of that…you know, you think with all that like abuse to that part of your body that there would be consequences but…

Don Hill: Yeah.

Michael Hill: …like I was always I…I didn't…I couldn't…like when uh, Uncle Mike had his hip surgery it's like I couldn't understand how…how did he hit…how did he hurt his hip doing police work?

Don Hill: Well, it was probably an injury that he…an injury that he had uh, from an arrest. 

LAURA HILL: So mom explained something that I had been wondering for a while which was how you went from Santa Paula to North Carolina. And…and she's she told me that it was Santa Paula to Texas to Colorado to DC.

DON HILL: Yeah.

LAURA HILL: Is that right?

DON HILL: The military sent me.

LAURA HILL: So, when you signed up for the military, they sent you to Texas, or you went to Texas, and that's where you signed up.

DON HILL: No, I signed up in LA.

LAURA HILL: Oh.

DON HILL: Yeah, they…uh, you get inducted, you know, in LA, and then, and they put us on a troop train which was commercial, really. We had first class and, I'll never forget that clackity-clack of the rails. Well yeah, and I have basic training for five weeks and I was supposed to go eight but then they put me in school because they opened up the school in Colorado. So, when I did that then um, on the weekends we had to finish up the basic training. Yeah. Yeah, that was an experience.

MIKE HILL: So, you had to work all week and then do basic training on the weekend.

DON HILL: Well, usually Saturday. Yeah.

LAURA HILL: So then how did you go from uh, Colorado to DC?

DON HILL: Oh, well, they shipped me there.

LAURA HILL: Oh okay, so you were signed over there.

DON HILL: Yeah, I had my orders and uh, I had a…I bought an old, an Olds...Oldsmobile and Ray Dell, he didn't want to give me his money. He said he had just put gas in it and so…and then this kid that wanted to go to Chicago, I told him, “You could give me 25 dollars”. So, we dropped him off of Chicago. Went to Buffalo New York, because that's where Ray lived and from there we went to Washington D.C.

MIKE HILL: Now, Laura told me something I never knew.

DON HILL: Um-hum?

MIKE HILL: She said, you met mom when she was like 13.

DON HILL: Yeah.

MIKE HILL: And you guys corresponded with each other and then it wasn't, it wasn't, until a couple of years later that you saw and you guys spell in love and the rest is history.

DON HILL: Yeah.

LAURA HILL: Where was it that you painted, you…you and the guys in your, I don't know, barracks or whatever, that you painted your barracks.

DON HILL: Oh yeah!

LAURA HILL: You couldn't stand the color or something.

DON HILL: Well, it's a pea green, you know, and so we have blue, you know, and so, we went down to the base exchange and bought a can…a can of paint, you know. We painted our…our barracks a blue. You know. I thought that was cool, you know.

LAURA HILL: Where was that?

DON HILL: That was in Washington D.C.

LAURA HILL: Washington D.C. Okay.

DON HILL: And so um…um, then three months later they come into the barracks and repaint.

MIKE HILL: The same pea green.

DON HILL: Yeah.

LAURA HILL: Oh, no.

DON HILL: And uh, I asked the sergeant, the first sergeant, I said , “Sarge, we just spent this money and all this time to make this room look great and now you’re going to come in and make it the same ugly color again”.

MIKE HILL: That's right.

DON HILL: There's no wavering with those people and that's the reason…that's one of the reasons why I chose not…not to re-enlist even though I was promised to make sergeant. I didn’t want it anymore. I was tired of all the B.S., you know.People…people in the service uh, if you want a career then you have to put up with a lot of corruption. I mean I remember this one tech sergeant came into our barracks um, before (inaudible). He was a tech sergeant. He had seven, stripes…

MIKE HILL: Wow.

DON HILL: …and he was single. He was living in the barracks and he was always putting B.S. in front of us, you know, and uh, I just didn't like him. I mean, come on, you know. You gonna be a jerk and we're all working together as a team and you want to be a jerk. No, I…those two items was no, I'm not…I’m not doing this again.

MIKE HILL: Now, what um…uh Roger…Roger was a chief master sergeant. Is that…How far above the tech sergeant is that?

DON HILL: Well, they've changed the rank. It used to be sergeant, tech sergeant, master sergeant, chief master sergeant, no, senior master sergeant, chief master sergeant but they've got another rank in there, and that's what uh, Roger had. He was like a special um, not a special, but a rank that was higher than…than what I assumed.

MIKE HILL: Wow.

DON HILL: Yeah, and he was in the air force like 26 years.

MIKE HILL: Yeah, he was having a long time.

DON HILL: Yeah. Yeah. To get that kind of rank you got to…got to be up there in time and service if you can put up with it.

MIKE HILL: You think in…you think in that having that much time, you would have taken some classes in college and at least got a degree.

DON HILL: So you could be an officer, well, you could but there’s a division between the enlisted and the officers. Some people, I don't want what it is, they…uh, if they're enlisted, they don't want nothing to do with officers and vice versa. Officers don't want anything to with us because, the officers, and there are good uh, officers. I mean I met a few officers in the service when I was at the 95th and, they were really nice pilots and everything but if you get someone in there, there's a jerk, I mean, come on.

LAURA HILL: So what was your final rank? And what was it that you were doing while you were in the military?

DON HILL: Well, I was airman second. Yeah.

LAURA HILL: Did you fly?

DON HILL: Nope. No, I didn't fly.

LAURA HILL: Did you want to?

DON HILL: Oh yeah. I put it in put in…in for OTS. I didn't score high enough, so they said, you know.

LAURA HILL: You're probably just too tall.

DON HILL: Maybe.Yeah.Yeah.

MIKE HILL: You were doing radar systems, right?

DON HILL: Yeah, worked on radar. It was a radar computer system where the radar would search for enemy targets and the computer would uh, lock on the coordinates and…um, so, it was a dual system. It was a…it was the um, MA…MA-1 system. It was made by um…um, Hughes Tool company. You know, Howard Hughes?

MIKE HILL: Right.

DON HILL: Yeah, and uh, every time it seemed like one of the planes would come back and land it would jar the computer so you always have to work on it. The…uh, they had a rack inside for the computer that had about,30 component units that you would have to pull out and check and then on the radar, the radar was what you really had to, you know…for some reason…for some…some reason, it…in fact I put you in the pilot cockpit when we had an open house.

MIKE HILL:  Yeah, Mom, just…mom just told Laura that earlier and I didn't know that. Like, I was in an F-106.

DON HILL: Yeah. Yeah.

LAURA HILL: That's so cool.

MIKE HILL: Yeah.

DON HILL: Yeah.

MIKE HILL: That must have been one of those officers that liked you.

DON HILL: No, everybody was. It was an open house. Uh yeah. No, you couldn’t…you couldn’t take anybody inside the squadron unless you had permission. So, on the open house they allowed people to come in uh, of those that were working in the squad room.

LAURA HILL: So, was it…was it the Cuban Missile Crisis or what…what was it that there was a time where you couldn't be in contact with Mom and…

DON HILL: Yeah, for about two months.

TERESA DeMAYO: Oh wow!

LAURA HILL: Two months?

TERESA DeMAYO: Really? Oh wow! I don’t know that story.

LAURA HILL: Was it the Cuban Missile Crisis or was it a different event?

DON HILL: No, it was the Cuban…

LAURA HILL: It was a Cuban Missile Crisis.

DON HILL: Yeah. Yeah.

TERESA DeMAYO: In the 60’s?

DON HILL: Yeah.

LAURA HILL: Two months.

DON HILL: Worked in shifts.

TERESA DeMAYO: Wow!

DON HILL: Worked 12, off 12 in the squad room and so Mom didn't know.I couldn't visit anybody or….

TERESA DeMAYO: Oh, wow!

DON HILL: …Mom couldn’t visit me.

TERESA DeMAYO: Well, What year was that?

DON HILL: I…I would call her on the telephone. Um, October 1962.

TERESA DeMAYO: Oh, the year you were born, ‘62.

DON HILL: Yeah.

TERESA DeMAYO: You were just an infant, a young one.

LAURA HILL: So you guys must have just gotten married…when all that…was that…

NANCY HILL: We got married in August and it happened in October.

LAURA HILL: Oh, my!

DON HILL: Two…two months later, yeah.

LAURA HILL: So two months married and then two months out of contact because of the Cuban missile crisis.

NANCY HILL: Yeah.

DON HILL: I told mom she ought to go back home to be with her family. (inaudible) (talking at the same time).

NANCY HILL: I’m like I don’t know what…I thought we just got married.

LAURA HILL: You are my family.

NANCY HILL: I thought we just got married. You're sending me home already. What did I do? I…no, I literally thought what, what did I do? He's sending me home?

DON HILL: Oh, I explained to you on the phone that we were on the national alert. I can't see anybody.

MIKE HILL: And you can't tell anyone what's going on.

NANCY HILL: Uh-uh.

DON HILL: Yeah.

LAURA HILL: So 12 hour shifts staring at radar.

DON HILL: No.

LAURA HILL: No?

DON HILL: They had planes in the air.

LAURA HILL: No, I'm asking but you yourself, is that what you basically had to do?

DON HILL: I was a radar technician.

LAURA HILL: Okay.

DON HILL: The only time i looked at a radar screen was when I was doing a pre-flight before aircraft would go up…

LAURA HILL: Okay.

DON HILL: …you know, and they’d scramble two of our F-106’s up and almost shot down a Russian.

NANCY HILL: John Kennedy stopped him but they were already in the air. Right, honey?

DON HILL: Yeah, I'm sure.

NANCY HILL: They were gonna bomb, Cuba.

DON HILL: But no, they…honey, they were gonna bomb Washington D.C. and they turned around and went back to Cuba and then they dispersed some of her squadrons like uh, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, half of our uh, squadron went there and the other half stayed where we are.

NANCY HILL: And the rest of it, nobody's allowed to know.

DON HILL: No, you can now but at the time you, you know, you’re uh…

NANCY HILL: It wasn't a matter of hours, basically. It was a matter of minutes when they…when Kennedy stopped it right, honey.

DON HILL: You know, honey, I don’t know if that came to it but…but I'm sure a general would say, shoot ‘em…shoot ‘em down and then the air force takes over. That's what I think.

NANCY HILL: Presidential orders.

DON HILL: Yeah.

NANCY HILL: And now look where we’re at. Presidents are going to Cuba, smoking cigars and getting their rum. It's nuts.

DON HILL: (inaudible) and Cubans and cigars.