Any accidents?
I never remember anybody getting hurt. I went about 10 years without seeing the lake during the summer. I was just during the wintertime. In college we’d take friends up there, so I got to see the lake during the summertime. But it’s interesting how one thing can change your life. You just never know. These little things, an advertisement or something. I remember I was in drafting class at Southern Oregon College, during my second year there. My good friends Henry (Scott) and Raymond (Swingle) were there. Henry was always an explorer and he was reading bulletin boards. He came up rushing over in the middle of class and he said “Hey, they’re giving interview for Crater Lake over at Churchill Hall. Why don’t we go be interviewed?” That was Harry Smith and Pop, who were running the lodge (2). My brother and I thought we had a real in, because our last name was Smith. I don’t remember if Pop was there, but I remember Harry. We went down, went rushing over during a break in the middle of class, not having any ideas of what we were getting ourselves into, just very impulsive, and interview for a job at the lodge. All four of us were rejected. I couldn’t believe it. We were good people and hard workers, as knowledgeable as all the people they had up there. It was a good thing they didn’t hire us, because something much better came along. I saw Harry making notes and said my dad worked for Tucker Snow Cat and I’d been up there many times during the winter. I saw him write that down. That would have been in ’59.
