Legacies Project Oral History: Don Simons

Mon, 08/29/2022 - 11:49am

When: 2022

Transcript

[00:00:12] FEMALE_1: [POOR AUDIO SECTION - START]
[00:00:12] Don Simons: You guys are professionals should look, do I think my hair [inaudible 00:00:14] brush my loop [inaudible 00:00:15] [LAUGHTER] I guess if you were asked you about Flint, I get to know it [LAUGHTER].
[00:00:36] FEMALE_1: Everything on first.
[00:00:40] Don Simons: How long does it go?
[00:00:42] FEMALE_1: We will take a break. There's a bell at 10:48 and then another one at 10:53. [OVERLAPPING] a couple of minutes before it will sound [inaudible 00:00:55].
[00:00:55] FEMALE_2: [inaudible 00:00:55] any shadows?
[00:00:59] FEMALE_1: Yeah [inaudible 00:01:00] got on his side. A little bit [inaudible 00:01:07].
[00:01:08] MALE_1: Darker or lighter?
[00:01:09] FEMALE_1: Lighter.
[00:01:16] MALE_1: Is it too bright?
[00:01:21] Don Simons: How much have you do is you from here up or here up.
[00:01:25] FEMALE_1: Here up.
[00:01:27] Don Simons: Here, up?
[00:01:27] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
[00:01:28] Don Simons: I shouldn't have [inaudible 00:01:30]. Much nicer. Had a nice a better, presentation.
[00:01:45] MALE_1: You don't look, like me looking at her.
[00:01:47] FEMALE_1: Most of the time I'll read it. Here just a few pointers to. To the best of your ability, [inaudible 00:01:58] the camera and with it mean most of the time. Your ice cream wander. Try not to look directly at it. Each video tape is about 75 minutes long. If you're in the middle of answering the question and we have to change the tape. I'll ask you to hold onto your thought and then we'll come back to that afterwards.
[00:02:17] Don Simons: You're 75 minutes recently session. [inaudible 00:02:19]
[00:02:22] FEMALE_1: This is just like the instruction that so storyteller, it's time for cell phones to be turned off. If there's envy any beats or chides [inaudible 00:02:32] [LAUGHTER]. If you ever need a break and he's got a bathroom, get a drink, just tell us, we can always stop the tape. If you don't feel comfortable answering certain questions, you can decline to answer. That's totally fine. If you want to stop the interview for any reason at any time. Totally do that. I'm first going to ask you a few simple demographic questions. With these questions, while these questions may jog your memory, please keep the answers brief and to the point because this is just an introduction. We can also just elaborate on these topics and questions later. Please spell your name.
[00:03:15] FEMALE_1: [inaudible 00:03:15]
[00:03:16] FEMALE_1: Say and spell your name.
[00:03:18] Don Simons: Donaod Lester Siomons. D-O-N-A-O-D, Lester, L-E-S-T-E-R Simon's S-I-M-O-N-S.
[00:03:33] FEMALE_1: What is your birthday, and including the you were born?
[00:03:37] Don Simons: March 31st, 1943.
[00:03:39] FEMALE_1: How old are you?
[00:03:40] Don Simons: 75.
[00:03:42] FEMALE_1: How would you describe your ethnic background?
[00:03:45] Don Simons: Multi-ethnic, combination of Indian, German, F American, primarily Afri-American.
[00:03:53] FEMALE_1: What is your religious affiliation, if any?
[00:03:57] Don Simons: Multiple also.
[00:03:59] FEMALE_1: What is the highest level of formal education that you have completed?
[00:04:05] Don Simons: Special Education Certified above a BA degree from Eastern Michigan. The degree was in physical education, in health education. But I'm also a certified in special education but retired. Obviously.
[00:04:21] FEMALE_1: What is your marital status?
[00:04:25] Don Simons: Widower.
[00:04:26] FEMALE_1: How many children do you have, if any?
[00:04:29] Don Simons: Three, I lost my son. He died six years ago. Two daughters and one son.
[00:04:36] FEMALE_1: How many siblings do you have?
[00:04:38] Don Simons: One.
[00:04:43] FEMALE_1: Well, would you consider your primary occupation [inaudible 00:04:45]?
[00:04:48] Don Simons: I don't recall it occupation, but number one job and the word was being a parent. But I was a special education teacher working with at-risk youth and the Maxey Boys Training School, for 32 years in nine years at would you cross Boys School.
[00:05:03] FEMALE_1: At what age did you retire?
[00:05:08] Don Simons: Sixty three or four.
[00:05:13] FEMALE_1: Now we can then begin the first part of our interview, beginning with some of the things you can recall about your family history. We're beginning with the family name in history. By this we mean any story about your last word family name, family tradition or family traditions in selecting personal names . Do you know of any stories about your family name and where it comes from?
[00:05:32] Don Simons: I've heard the names I am in comes from salmon, the fish, but I don't have a lot of substantive evidence about that.
[00:05:43] FEMALE_1: Are there any naming traditions that had been passed down when your family.
[00:05:48] Don Simons: Naming traditions?
[00:05:50] FEMALE_1: To name your son after yourself or your father?
[00:05:52] Don Simons: Yes, correct. Other Donaod S Simons. I'm Donaod L. Simons. My son Donaod E. Simons.
[00:06:03] FEMALE_1: Why did your ancestors lead to come to the United States?
[00:06:07] Don Simons: I don't know if they did.
[00:06:10] FEMALE_1: Do you know any stories about your family for somebody in the United States at all or like where they settled?
[00:06:16] Don Simons: Far as I know, three generations are newer. Whole word from either Hannaba or Canada.
[00:06:26] FEMALE_1: And you said your background? Germany you said?
[00:06:29] Don Simons: My mother was the least hazard half-German.
[00:06:36] FEMALE_1: I will say if you don't know any of the answers to these questions. The time but do you know like what their occupation was, how they made a living? Either like when they came your ancestors or something?
[00:06:47] Don Simons: Well, as far back as I can go with just my immediate parents. My dad worked at a wholesale grocer. He was a manager of this company called Salomon Brothers was not related to our family. They're based in Jackson, Michigan. My mother worked as a nurse technician and she worked with in the dental school tied into the University of Michigan.
[00:07:13] FEMALE_1: To your knowledge, does your family or ancestors, make an effort to preserve any traditions or customs from their country of origin?
[00:07:24] Don Simons: No.
[00:07:31] FEMALE_1: Do you have any stories that have come down to you about your parents and grandparents or more distant ancestors?
[00:07:39] Don Simons: None that I can really immediately recall, other than the fact that my mother came up with a very poor welfare system, her and her sister had to walk twice a month over the Broadway bridge to get two loaves of bread and two cans of meat. Her mother discernibly pinched pennies to get them up through high school.
[00:08:05] FEMALE_1: Do you know any question stories about how your grandparents or your parents or other relatives met?
[00:08:10] Don Simons: No, I don't.
[00:08:16] FEMALE_1: Okay. Today's interview for this section is about your childhood and up till when you started attending school. If these questions are memories about other times in your life, please only respond with memories from the earliest part of your life. Try to stick to like, very young child of age. Where did you grow up and what are your strongest memories of that place?
[00:08:40] Don Simons: I grew up and 900 Fuller Street and Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is your long array with track. The strongest memory of coming up with his playing cowboys and Indians. I had a heck of a horse that was hopping along Cassidy in Lone Ranger at the same time. At that time we played a lot of cowboys and Indians and hide and go seek.
[00:09:05] FEMALE_1: How did your family come to live there? Did your parents you [inaudible 00:09:08] as well?
[00:09:10] Don Simons: He grew up in Ann Arbor? Yes. It may be required to house from the grandparent.
[00:09:16] FEMALE_1: Okay. You have a long memory history in there.
[00:09:18] Don Simons: My mother lived in this house for 77 years up until a little over a year ago, and we had to sell the family home for her. Taking care of her in assisted living.
[00:09:31] FEMALE_1: What was your childhood home?
[00:09:34] Don Simons: The home itself?
[00:09:35] FEMALE_1: Yeah.
[00:09:35] Don Simons: It was a shotgun home? You walk up the steps, you open the front door, you take eight steps and you want to back door. It was very small home. Shot gun and it's really cool. Shot gun to go in front door to the back door.
[00:09:49] FEMALE_1: How many people were living in that house?
[00:09:51] Don Simons: Four. I made a mistake is more and more they 12 steps [LAUGHTER] to get to the back door, walk through the kitchen to us, probably 12.
[00:10:00] FEMALE_1: How many siblings do you have, that were living with you?
[00:10:03] Don Simons: One.
[00:10:06] FEMALE_1: What languages are spoken in or around your house?
[00:10:10] Don Simons: Strictly in English.
[00:10:11] FEMALE_1: Does anyone else in your family any other language?
[00:10:13] Don Simons: No.
[00:10:14] FEMALE_1: [POOR AUDIO SECTION - END]
[00:10:19] Interviewer: Did you grow up in a neighborhood where there were different languages around you with like different cultures, stores, neighborhoods.
[00:10:26] Don Simons: Neighborhood a group was entirely Afro-American and there's nowhere different languages that I'm aware of.
[00:10:35] Interviewer: What was your family like when you were a child?
[00:10:38] Don Simons: Was a family like?
[00:10:39] Interviewer: Like what were the relationships like what was did you like I'll close with you can.
[00:10:47] Don Simons: We were close but I probably spent more time playing outdoors with the neighborhood kids. We didn't have computers and technology and laptops and things you stick into it. We went outside and playing.
[00:11:00] Interviewer: Is that when you started trying some basketball?
[00:11:03] Don Simons: I started playing sports when I was about seven or eight, even write in elementary school. Then we would go down to some history part which is now Wheeler Park. We played a lot of basketball down there and there's a slider house down there. He used her house with her. I remember them killing halls and pigs and the guys coming out with blood all the way up their knees. Bad song. But we still played basketball, bad sound and bad smell quite frankly, as I recall.
[00:11:35] Interviewer: What work did your mom and dad do?
[00:11:37] Don Simons: I answered that earlier.
[00:11:41] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:11:41]
[00:11:45] Don Simons: My dad was a manager of a wholesale warehouses for food. My mother was a dental technician.
[00:11:56] Interviewer: What is your earliest memory from here for child hood?
[00:12:00] Don Simons: Well, I have a couple of early this but I remember very clearly my first day of kindergarten. I went to Jones School, which is now Ann Arbor Community High which school was 85%, primarily minority. I remember coming out of the school with the very first day, and no ones that have picked me up. I remember it basically how to get home. I walked down Kingsley down State Street, down the Forth street, made a right-hand turn. I got there. My mother was raking leaves and says, what are you doing? I said I'm walking home, mom. He forgot to pick me up. She was see to this day. She will admit that she just blew it, but I was fortunate to find my way home. That's pretty vivid.
[00:12:49] Interviewer: You said earlier that your mom had grown up struggling economically with her family. Did that give us down when she had children or do you think that you had [OVERLAPPING].
[00:12:59] Don Simons: We didn't have to struggle quite like that. Both parents did work. It was a struggle with that and realize a struggle, but we never missed a meal. We'd never went without, basic needs. We even drove once a month and where to get a hot dog from A and W, which is wishes reality for us.
[00:13:25] Interviewer: If you remember anything from your preschool years prior to kindergarten, do you remember what a typical day would be like?
[00:13:32] Don Simons: Preschool before kindergarten. I don't recall what happened. Pretty school wise. I just remember being outside tricycle. That's about it.
[00:13:49] Interviewer: Did you do any other activities for fine, like reading or games or other times I know you said you played sports.
[00:13:57] Don Simons: I read as little as I had to tell the truth. I do remember reading a book called The Wire. I went I got an elementary school. That was my favorite book. I did have a dog. I had to pick. His name is Toughy. He's a German Shepherd.
[00:14:15] Interviewer: Were there any special days or family traditions that you remember from that party childhood?
[00:14:22] Don Simons: No one went to very few family reunions at the time. The family chain rule in this came later. I can't remember anything.
[00:14:29] Interviewer: What holidays did your family celebrate?
[00:14:32] Don Simons: Pretty much all of them.
[00:14:34] Interviewer: You celebrate holidays like Christmas?
[00:14:37] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:14:41] Interviewer: The next section, we're onto more of like not as early childhood when we're starting to go to school. For the school experiences. Did you go to preschool and what do you remember about it?
[00:14:57] Don Simons: Did not go to preschool.
[00:14:59] Interviewer: You said you went to kindergarten at an Ann Arbor.
[00:15:03] Don Simons: It was Jones at the time, but not within our community high school, and division street.
[00:15:08] Interviewer: What [inaudible 00:15:08].
[00:15:11] Don Simons: Other than that first day, I remember in kindergarten and remember us having melt and crackers and laying down on a little blanket asleep. That was sleepy time. Some asleep some were not and I do remember every now and then guys were trying to bully me.
[00:15:32] Interviewer: Did know why?
[00:15:33] Don Simons: Just because that was in nature and they wanted to establish their territory. Finally, in third grade, the body of the class in the school hit me or to hit it with a yard stick in and stick broke. It went out the window because the windows are up. I just said I had enough had jumped up. I turn them inside out. Class was applauding me. After I got done doing it. I haven't said what did I do here wide, but he was a great friend of mine after that.
[00:16:09] Interviewer: Did you go to the same elementary school like after [inaudible 00:16:12].
[00:16:12] Don Simons: I went through dealing with school all the way up to sixth grade.
[00:16:16] Interviewer: Then where did you go to high school.
[00:16:20] Don Simons: [inaudible 00:16:20] high.
[00:16:22] Interviewer: What are some things to remember about your high school?
[00:16:26] Don Simons: Awful lot. I don't know where to start.
[00:16:28] FEMALE_3: Stop here just little time [inaudible 00:16:30].
[00:16:35] Don Simons: At High School gets to be a whole bunch of stuff that you guys will recall more in high school and anything else? You're not recording this. She said turn it off.
[00:16:46] FEMALE_3: You just keep for a moment.
[00:16:47] Interviewer: It's not going to get anything that we actually use.
[00:16:53] Don Simons: You guys are in the frame of your left hand more memories in high school and college and anything else?
[00:17:00] Interviewer: If there's a question about like he's already answered, you don't have to go buy everything, dig deeper and tiny. I know but like if there's a question that's already been answered, should I not ask it? [inaudible 00:17:11]
[00:17:11] Don Simons: The bell rings at 10:48.
[00:17:22] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:17:22].
[00:17:22] Don Simons: How many sessions are we going to have?
[00:17:24] Interviewer: Three.
[00:17:25] Don Simons: Three more? I gave Ms. Jenkins assume seats for you guys. I really suggest you read them for an interview. It was a write-up on the family and my professional. It's not long, is one sheet, gives you some key questions you could ask that they would help me to dialogue with your better. This is just a one base. This represents copies of it.
[00:17:54] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:17:54]. Which they have good images to use for my lots of visuals into product.
[00:18:09] Don Simons: Which I will shoot too low and slow down.
[00:18:13] Interviewer: If you want or the other shirt next time [inaudible 00:18:15].
[00:18:17] Don Simons: No more presentable. I'm scared to come in. I think October 11th, the next week.
[00:18:24] Interviewer: We don't want the teachers to organize everything for us. Just [LAUGHTER] statewide. Will just start going more in depth now that he's like we're getting too old, they're interested in high school.
[00:18:41] FEMALE_3: [inaudible 00:18:41].
[00:18:44] Don Simons: I also, even though reserve, how much I should tell you about my high school days too. Because I had some real experiences in high school.
[00:18:57] Interviewer: Well, if you think that it would make the final product.
[00:19:03] Don Simons: It'd be the truth. It will be what it was.
[00:19:07] Interviewer: We'd love to hear anything.
[00:19:10] FEMALE_3: Don't worry about saying anything showing up being PC [inaudible 00:19:15].
[00:19:15] Don Simons: There are a lot of stuff.
[00:19:23] FEMALE_3: [inaudible 00:19:23].
[00:19:33] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:19:33] my arms arrest.
[00:19:37] Don Simons: You probably should just do that now. Understood. I'm sick.
[00:19:43] Don Simons: Half time you got to be like.
[00:19:45] Interviewer: Exactly halftime show.
[00:19:46] Don Simons: Yeah halftime. Don't forgotten all your sports. One was tennis, one was lacrosse, one was women, one was I forgot.
[00:19:59] Interviewer: Tennis.
[00:19:59] Don Simons: [inaudible 00:19:59] In basketball.
[00:20:03] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:20:03].
[00:20:09] Don Simons: That's all good. Student athletes all meet the world around it and refund school. Did you tell me about 70% of student athletes? That's pretty good.
[00:20:19] Interviewer: There are a lot of sports.
[00:20:22] Don Simons: There you can also read the other hand now they gave us Jenkins on the memorial. I said up here in Ann Arbor. I started here in higher that will come over here to help student athletes for the play program. That's also right now my son.
[00:20:38] Interviewer: We'll definitely go over that in detail, [inaudible 00:20:40]. I had freshman year and I'm just like must be hungry and then I would come home after school and I don't want to eat a whole meal at 3:00 o'clock.
[00:21:05] MALE_2: There's no like [inaudible 00:21:05].
[00:21:08] Interviewer: Not Monday at dinner at like six or seven you to wait longer.
[00:21:11] FEMALE_3: [inaudible 00:21:11] when you were in high school?
[00:21:16] Don Simons: Yes. You know what seemed like it was because we had done the over 2000s. How many students go here?
[00:21:25] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:21:25] It was just like one class.
[00:21:31] FEMALE_3: They did is they started at like one class and 1,2,3,4.
[00:21:35] Interviewer: But I was just trying to figure out. Can you imagine. [inaudible 00:21:43].
[00:21:44] Interviewer: After the school just going to be used.
[00:21:48] Don Simons: That's where it was because I remember they took a long time to build this school, and when they finally got it completed, quite frankly it was a little bit too late because I think student population started going down and now they took away from a lot of sport programs because I know coaches over in Arbor High bind here and here so the dominance in Ann Arbor our head, they have more state championships than any other school in the state.
[00:22:14] Interviewer: Yeah, absolutely spread out.
[00:22:15] Don Simons: It was spread out and after they lost, one of my best friends who was the track coach of the year 2015, his name is Brian Westfield, he and I played football and ran track together and he was recognized by USTD in 2015 as coach of the year, he died in July.
[00:22:36] Interviewer: Thinking about all the outstanding athletes as they were put together. That would just be an amazing team.
[00:22:41] Interviewer: Yeah, and it's with the culture going to the game, being everyone from your town is taken away from that because it's all separated so it's right.
[00:22:55] Interviewer: That's true.
[00:22:55] Don Simons: You said you don't have competition in.
[00:22:57] Interviewer: Like there's a huge rivalry between pioneers. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:23:06] Interviewer: It's like when you're playing a sport as observer it's not like asthma. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:23:11] Interviewer: I know there's nothing. [inaudible 00:23:12] There is more significance depending on what sport it is too late.
[00:23:21] Don Simons: I don't ask me a football. Well, I guess we're going to get into this. I'll get in.
[00:23:27] Interviewer: What are some things that you remember about got in high school [inaudible 00:23:32]
[00:23:34] Don Simons: Well, a memory is really fascinating, going to Ann Arbor High I was so new had a lot of things to offer and the classes, I was on a college preparatory classes to begin with and actually transferred into a general curriculum in my last year and I don't know why, but I still went to college and because I was told that I was going to likely not making in college and it was overall a 3.4 or 5. When I graduated and I was on the dean's list because I was scared into studying more. I remember that. I also remember my sports. I played football, basketball, and ran track. Our football team was outstanding we went in the state every year. My senior year, I started as a half back and full back. We beat the number one team that was ranked at the time, which is in Central. I was fortunate to have one of my better games. I actually had more yardage during that game then the entire offense. There's about 7,000 fans at which stadium in Flint. Our home games, we averaged at least 66, 67 and 100 also, you don't see that in Ann Arbor anymore. That's because Ann Arbor High was the school. But when you went to high school games on Friday night, it was packed. People would try and had to jump fences are trying to get in because it's so crowded.
[00:25:05] Interviewer: Did you like school, did you do well in school? Were you motivated to do well in school or did you struggle with that aspect?
[00:25:12] Don Simons: I didn't really struggle. I wasn't over highly motivated. I basically just did what had to be done at the time. In hindsight, I did not complete my assignments. I didn't spend that extra time.
[00:25:28] Interviewer: Were you an introvert or an extrovert? Did you have a lot of friends, did you go in social outings or [inaudible 00:25:32]
[00:25:33] Don Simons: I was not a social butterfly. I might have been a little bit more introverted.
[00:25:40] Interviewer: You think that's from maybe for your parents were reserved?
[00:25:44] Don Simons: No. I think it was just my nature at the time. I became more social later on in college and beyond. But no, I just stopped myself set men's sports. I'd interact very well with all the guys I played ball with. I actually hit from girls for awhile. Very bachelor went to between my junior and senior year.
[00:26:10] Interviewer: Did you have a girlfriend in your senior year?
[00:26:13] Don Simons: That brought me to a point that is very hard to difficult. Yes, I had a girlfriend. She was on the homecoming court and she was White. Quite frankly, brought a lot of problems in school. A lot of problems. I actually was called out of three months for our graduates called down to a counselor's office. I won't use his name, but he is a command down and he called me out of academic class. I was thinking, wow, this is special, when you're called out on academic study halls one thing. But when I got in there, he said Don, "Please close the door. I'm really happy at some special coming my way. You've done a great job representing the school Don, and we really appreciate it. The teacher staff last night and asked me to talk to you about this" I said, "What's coming? Come on, get to the point." He said, "I had to ask you something that we talked about in the teacher meeting." I said, "Oh, and what is that?" "We asked you to stop walking up and down the hallway with your girlfriend." I said, "Come on one more time." He said, "You causing too much problems. The interracial stuff we can't handle in your school." That was a bomb. She caught a lot of flack. I won't even tell you cover finished she'd run into because it was very demeaning that I had to go back during the lunch hour and confront. We had a big area there were headed glass and they dance and play music, and they basically called her a nigga lover and she came crying to me and she was hurt. I say come on. I took her hand. She said, "No, I'm not going back." I said, "Yes, we are. " I went back and walked into a room, and quite frankly, it got very quiet. Mac and use a term that I usually use because I'm on video. But they all got very quiet and I say, "Now, here I am. Let's find out who has the mouth that wants to put it into the young lady." I said, "Take out to me if you have any issue." No one came forth. People knew who it was. People told me years later who it was. Years later. But that was a really unfortunate that to happen like that. That's the nature of our schools in our city at the time.
[00:28:30] Interviewer: What year was this?
[00:28:32] Don Simons: This was '60 and '61. The '50s or '60s was bad.
[00:28:38] Interviewer: What like percentage of African-Americans were your parents [inaudible 00:28:42]
[00:28:46] Don Simons: Well, my dad was probably more than 50 percent Indian, but Afro-American. My mother was at least 50 percent of German and in White and very little African-American. That's why I call myself a multi-ethnic.
[00:29:10] Interviewer: Did you go to school or career training beyond high school? Where did you go to college?
[00:29:15] Don Simons: Went to Eastern Michigan.
[00:29:17] Interviewer: Did you face any racial problems when you were in college as well or did it change?
[00:29:22] Don Simons: Didn't face any there because it didn't have hallways and stuff to walk up and down. My girlfriend and I we only survived two years because she actually ended up having emotional mental breakdowns because it just destroyed her quite frankly.
[00:29:44] Interviewer: What was your main focus in college or what did you want to pursue in studies?
[00:29:48] Don Simons: I pursued a physical education and I worked two part-time job to get through college. I was offered a scholarship to go to Arizona State for football, I had injury three games before season is over. I was offered to come out and try out with the team. But I chose to stay in that town partially because of my girlfriend, I guess and partially because I wasn't willing to take off without knowing the schools won't be paid for.
[00:30:16] Interviewer: Do you regret that choice that you made to say or do you think that?
[00:30:19] Don Simons: That's a good question. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't gone. Yes. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't gone out there.
[00:30:27] Interviewer: How much different do you think your life would be if you had made that decision?
[00:30:36] Don Simons: Well, I don't know. You just don't know. You can always have a rich or a hindsight and I did go to Eastern, but I played a little football over there, but I don't know how much difference there would have been.
[00:30:48] Interviewer: Do you think you would have gotten pro at football? Did you want to do that?
[00:30:52] Don Simons: No. I never had that aspiration. No, I don't think I would. Somebody guys to Arizona State recruited did turn pro in the same class I was in so who knows? I really don't know.
[00:31:12] Interviewer: What about your experience going to school in that day and age is different from school as you know today.
[00:31:19] Don Simons: The biggest difference I know as it is today, is that I would go to classes and usually three days a week, I'd go to a library at 3 o'clock, in stay in the library to 05:30, and have to go get my resources and going to get books, checking them out and make it my notes whereas they didn't have access to all the technology. But I remember many days looking at that clock and seeing what time it is and say I'm still here.
[00:31:47] Interviewer: Did you have [inaudible 00:31:48]
[00:31:49] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:31:50] Interviewer: How many hours a night?
[00:31:52] Don Simons: Well, I tried to get much done at school before I went home from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor, and a couple of times, a certain whatever that hitchhiking because I didn't have it right. I hitchhiked from yesterday Ann Arbor then I get home and I worked at a job at the University of Michigan Hospital, Washington Test 2 between 10-12 at night, three nights, maybe four nights a week. Then they go home and study from 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock go to bed and get them to go to school.
[00:32:25] Interviewer: How much did you get paid? What was minimum wage during your time?
[00:32:29] Don Simons: I don't remember minimum wage but I remember working for about, my first job I started as 11, 12 years old working at a golf course in either working for or $0.40 an hour? In the next year I got a dime raise. I remember my dad, I still had the Big Book. I remember the first $15 I deposited with my dad's signature that I started saving as 11, 12 year old. I started saving money then, which not too many families teach their kids then to do that now. I've taught mine well enough to do it that way, but that's what I did. I took money and I see they put so much weight as 11, 12 years old.
[00:33:11] Interviewer: Did you and your dad have a closed spot or something [inaudible 00:33:13]
[00:33:13] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:33:20] Interviewer: [inaudible 00:33:20]
[00:33:22] Interviewer: Now we're going to go into the popular culture at that time. Was there any popular music, what genres did they listen to? Was there any dancing or stuff like that that kids did?
[00:33:37] Don Simons: They did the monkey.
[00:33:39] Interviewer: What's the monkey?
[00:33:40] Don Simons: The monkey is. Monkey this monkey that. They imitated monkey. [OVERLAPPING]. There's a monkey then there was the dog. The dog was something else. It was the only thing that I remember and that wasn't much of a dancer. I had two left feet. I didn't dance much as long as it along the wall and watch. [LAUGHTER]
[00:34:12] Interviewer: What was the popular style and clothing right there at that time? What did you wear on a daily basis? [NOISE]
[00:34:17] Don Simons: I can't even remember. I don't know, blue jeans or doubling their pants. Nothing fancy that I recall. Two pair of shoes to my name, and two pair match shoe that last all year. I don't remember any particular styles. Not at all. I had one shoe. That's it. I remember the girls wore sage dresses.
[00:34:51] Interviewer: Sage dresses?
[00:34:52] Don Simons: Do you know what sage dresses were?
[00:34:53] Interviewer: Were they made out of like potato sacks?
[00:34:56] Don Simons: No really. I think they call them sage because they're just straight down. You really didn't ever saw a figure, you had imagined what they had underneath the sage. [LAUGHTER]
[00:35:06] Interviewer: I think it comes in during the great depression. Those dresses.
[00:35:13] Don Simons: I just remember I do remember that. That's a lot for the imagination, but.
[00:35:19] Interviewer: Were there any slang terms or phrases that you remember kids using? Was the language any different?
[00:35:27] Don Simons: I'm sure there was, but I can't remember any particular phrases. I know every now and then. The guys would play the dozens. Paranoid, I'm aware of the dozens are.
[00:35:41] Interviewer: What does that mean?
[00:35:41] Don Simons: The dozen was that you'd make comments about the person's parents. Make certain comments about this and certain that, certain rhymes and not necessarily appropriate for the video. But if it was a guy thing, imagine the girls into it too.
[00:36:07] Interviewer: How devoted to like sports you could say that you were? Because your main focus. Like going to college for sports or were you just you were just doing it for fun?
[00:36:15] Don Simons: I wasn't even thinking about going to college or sports. I played any sport there was. Actually, hockey was too cool, and didn't like the cold. Did I skip that Greek? But actually, sports was my main love and my main passion, and actually, I was credited as being recognized as the most athletic athlete in Ann Arbor High School graduating class at that year. Which I didn't get for novelty of it until a few years later. But I was proud that it came forth that way.
[00:36:56] Interviewer: Did you ever run into any racial problems, like in your athletic career or with teams or coaches, or other players?
[00:37:03] Don Simons: Oh, yes. I can identify and going up to Lansing and so on. There are only three black and the basketball team maybe four. I remember a friend of mine was at the foul line, and he wouldn't take a shot, and I heard coming right out from the audience. "Shoot that ball nigger." He stopped and looked at me as if what are we going to do about this. I told him quite frankly. I looked around. I said, "Shoot the ball, we can take on the whole crowd, play ball." I do remember that that was very, very clear and it was shocking to hear it come out like that because everything is quiet. Nowadays, they make a lot of noise when you shoot in a foul shot, powered pumps, jumping up and down, screaming. Back then, it wasn't so much the case, not that as much as there is now.
[00:38:02] Interviewer: Was there any way to cope with hearing and being surprised or shocked by those comments, or you just ignore them? What was it like? Like how did they affect you? Did they impact you a lot?
[00:38:13] Don Simons: I ignored most of the time until the guys call me at two O'clock in the morning, 3, 4 weeks in a row, and threatened to kill me. I offered to meet them at the park, which is West Park. Want to meet me at high noon the next day at West Park? My dad suggested that because he got tired of being woken up. The next morning I woke up, I said, "What did I do? "I did have to show up. I went out there and I stood on the picture diamond, and I waited around and I had no time to watch. I looked at real close. I said 12 O'clock, 12:15, they didn't show up, and I started saying, Okay, I'll give them five more minutes. I said I did what I was going to do. Then I went in to sit in the dugout, on top of the dugout, looked around at the wooded areas, but what a fool were they, if a guy was really crazy. I think there's two or three of them. There's never one because they really couldn't shut me. But I can't get caught that means I need to put an end into this, and we never get more phone calls on. This you're probably still asleep and I think they're probably drunk. They know who they are. They knew who they were. I had guys come up to me in the last 10, 15, 20 years, I say or make comments, that someone said they can't decide the position he had in relationships back in high school. Can let me know they're wrong beyond what they felt back in high school, how they view things. Matter of fact, the girl I went with her dad's on get it. Oberlin is be historical because he uses hashes. About six years after we broke up, he howard my name, "Simon, Simon? " as I turned around and I saw him, and I said, oh, what now? He came up to me. He said, "I'd like to apologize to you. I was so highly influenced by the very wealthy people in town here, including Burton Heels and other social groups, and my wife, that I realized you were the best thing for my daughter." In hindsight, I apologize for my conduct because he came over to the house instead up with his one to offer to help him away to college if I needed to go out of town, basically, he was getting to guiding me away from his daughter. He did realize he was under pressure from the society.
[00:40:44] Interviewer: Do you think that the society has changed a lot in America from the time you were in high school, like any different in racial problems?
[00:40:52] Don Simons: I think it has changed a great deal and quite frankly, but by the same token, those are have that deviant bias had to cure a great deal of anger. I see that periodically I see how it comes out. It's improved. Things happen at the University of Michigan campus that trickles down to the rest of the society. It's pretty much Kotlin place to see a mixed couple of walking around, in dating and going into restaurants and stuff like that. From that perspective, that has improved, and if I could continue to improve but this deep-seated anger in racism in our society that don't know how it can be eradicated. There's not a shot you can give for that. You clear that up.
[00:41:48] Interviewer: Have you been following recent things like Black Lives Matter [inaudible 00:41:50] background and heritage, influence here? Like emotion about that?
[00:41:59] Don Simons: Oh yes, oh yeah. Black lives matter. All lives matter. The Black lives are always more at risk than any other ethnic groups other than maybe Michigans. It really identified with. There is no question. Absolutely in my opinion, too many times. Definitely comes on the doorsteps, that justification and justice does not take place. Too many times, too often.
[00:42:34] Interviewer: Do you think that like earlier when talking about your decision to go to Arizona State, and how do you think that if you were to have taken that position in regard to Arizona, do you think that like you would have faced a lot more racial problems because of your background or do you think that just like that wouldn't have?
[00:42:54] Don Simons: I don t think there has been much of a factor. I read off. I don't think that I don't know. I don't think I really don't know.
[00:43:09] Interviewer: Assumptions have just about your family and is called full quinsive family life. Did your family have any special sayings or expressions or stories that were like unknowing throughout your Java?
[00:43:24] Don Simons: Can't recall any right now.
[00:43:28] Interviewer: Were there any significant or big changes in your family during your high school years?
[00:43:35] Don Simons: No.
[00:43:36] Interviewer: Could you ever lose any close relatives in your family that you remember?
[00:43:40] Don Simons: Some of my relatives I lost I was young when I was
[00:43:48] Don Simons: Her name is Maggie. I forgot exactly what she was. My grandmother or a great grandmother. Can you hear me thinking now? But I was only 13. I didn't lose anyone close. After that until I lost my dad in 1985.
[00:44:07] Interviewer: How did he pass away?
[00:44:08] Don Simons: He died in 1985, he had a cancer.
[00:44:17] Interviewer: Is there any other traditions that your family had, like social foods that maybe your mom or dad would make for you or [inaudible 00:44:29] and things like that that you remember?
[00:44:33] Don Simons: No, I don't remember any special food. I know my mother made a very nice rice and hamburger dish that was put into green peppers. Also, I like that. A lot of people didn't like the liver and onions was awesome. For some reason, it depends on how it's fixed. It was very good back then.
[00:44:56] Interviewer: You still eat it until today?
[00:44:58] Don Simons: I hadn't had onions a long time. I think I had put down the menu and go find someplace, but you had to have a certain ingredient that go with it that helps it. Have you ever eaten it?
[00:45:08] Interviewer: No, my mother [inaudible 00:45:09].
[00:45:09] Don Simons: Anybody else?
[00:45:12] Interviewer: Never mind, that stuff like that, he still want to eat.
[00:45:17] Don Simons: Yeah.
[00:45:17] Interviewer: You said you had one sibling f growing up in [inaudible 00:45:19]?
[00:45:19] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:45:20] Interviewer: Was that a brother or a sister?
[00:45:21] Don Simons: Younger brother.
[00:45:23] Interviewer: Did you guys have a close relationship right then?
[00:45:25] Don Simons: Not that real close at the time? The three years different in age at that time was monumental. My buddies were older and I played some place else. But he had his younger group.
[00:45:42] Interviewer: Did he play sports too?
[00:45:45] Don Simons: Yes, he played a lot of sports also. Matter of fact, he played on the 1962 state championship football team at [inaudible 00:45:52] high, and he went on to college to play basketball. He was co-captain in Eastern Michigan basketball. He coached basketball at Herron High for 25 plus years. He coached at Eastern Michigan for maybe five or six years. He was athletically connected also, which will reflect on the handout that I shared, you'll see there.
[00:46:18] Interviewer: Is he's still alive today?
[00:46:20] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:46:21] Interviewer: Does he live in our gray zone?
[00:46:22] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:46:23] Interviewer: Do you see him often or a couple?
[00:46:28] Don Simons: Maybe couple times a month to call once or twice a week.
[00:46:34] Interviewer: Do you have any grandchildren?
[00:46:36] Don Simons: Yes.
[00:46:37] Interviewer: How many grandchildren?
[00:46:38] Don Simons: Five.
[00:46:40] Interviewer: Perfect. You said, you're born down and lived in [inaudible 00:46:42]?
[00:46:43] Don Simons: One that lives just a little bit north of Albany, New York and one lives up in Norway. There's three in Albany, ages 13, 11, and 8. In Norway is 13 and 11. The 13-year-old in Norway is already 6'3. He's quite an athlete and student. Matter of fact, they're all very good students and very good athletes and very socially adapted for their age. Very manually. Their parents had done a great job socially bringing them in the realm of being polite and having social skills beyond what mine were at that age.
[00:47:34] Interviewer: Did you, being a father you said that was the most important job you had?
[00:47:38] Don Simons: It actually is the most important job a person has being a parent. Yes, I like being a parent.
[00:47:45] Interviewer: You were married, Ethan for?
[00:47:48] Don Simons: My wife died after 35 years of marriage.
[00:47:51] Interviewer: What was her name?
[00:47:52] Don Simons: Carolyn.
[00:47:54] Interviewer: Was she African-American as well?
[00:47:56] Don Simons: She was African-American totally.
[00:48:04] Interviewer: What parenting style would you say you had because I know you said you worked at Maxey for a long time which probably, do you think that influenced the way you [inaudible 00:48:13]?
[00:48:13] Don Simons: Yes, I did. I learned a long time ago that it's best to be a little harder and discipline and then loosen up rather than start too soft and then try to harden up on anyone. My grandmother had a saying that, a young child or middle age child is like a tree. As a tree grows, you can work with the stems and then the branches, but when you become fully grown as a trunk, it's hard to move that behavior.
[00:48:48] Interviewer: How many kids did you have at the time?
[00:48:49] Don Simons: I had three.
[00:48:54] Interviewer: Now, we're going to go back to your childhood, high school age. What were some important social or historical events that you might remember from that time?
[00:49:07] Don Simons: I remember in 1960, Speaker of the House, Neo Stabler met Kennedy Don at the train station. As they're doing their political tour, one of my best friends right now is Neo Stabler's son, Mike Stabler. He was a very successful lawyer. He's retired a year ago December. He was a general partner in a company that their company service 13 major cities in the United States. I remember that event sitting on the hill at that time, listening to the political gathering. I could have cared less about it at the time, but I knew it was something special.
[00:50:03] Interviewer: I know we've been talking a lot about racial problems in your high school. Were there any huge events that happened other than the one with your girlfriend that you remember?
[00:50:14] Don Simons: There were so many events and a couple of young men met me at the door one morning with a chain in my hand and they told me that they want to let me know that there was another African-American who was dating a White girl in school that was very disrespectful to her. They didn't have an issue with me, issue was with that person and that they would want to take them out after school. I said, well, you got to do what you got to do. I didn't understand a little bit of it, but I don't know if anything really did become of it. But not enough respect. I guess they considered to give me a heads up that I didn't fall in that category and I know I didn't because I was more private and respectful.
[00:51:09] Interviewer: Do you remember any like, events that were happening during that time period that may be impacted your family maybe your parents were [inaudible 00:51:16]?
[00:51:24] Don Simons: No. I guess there was a major event but I don't know if it impacted the household. I was coming home. I know you said high school, but I was coming home from middle school and there was a big movie at the time, a couple of years called The Wild One with Marlon Brando, and he bought a motorcycle with a beautiful leather coat. I asked for leather coat and I had a beautiful book on my leather coat. I walked to school and I received an honorary highly regarded character of the year at Tappan Junior High with three other persons. Three or four weeks later and I'm coming home from school from practice. I'm walking down the back hill where I lived at and I see a flashlight, it was dark. I saw a badge, flash off the badge, and I said, who is that? Police officer come on young man, he came down and he said, who are you? I told him my name. Where do you live? I said, right behind you, in this is my backyard. Well, come up to the police car, we have some questions to ask you. Why shouldn't I notify my parents and I need to let them know, no, don't worry about that. They got me into police car and they drove off. It took me up to headquarters. They interrogated me, they took my wallet and they looked at the pictures of guys I had. Half of them were dogs, lie them hetero where they were stealing. They recognize all of them, but they didn't know me. I was fortunate that I had the year before then and that was a pitcher and third baseman in first vision for Fernanda Ripley's baseball team, hardball. Two guys interrogate me. When an officer walks through and looked in the window and I thought I might recognize him. But I wasn't sure he called these two officers out. Within five minutes they came back in all red faced, all apologetic, and said we obviously made a mistake. It was the baseball coach and Ann Arbor Police team never spoke up for me. Like I said, I had just received a new character award from Tappan Junior High several weeks before that. But they just abuse of power like that.
[00:53:43] Interviewer: Why did they want to take this car?
[00:53:45] Don Simons: A good question that they wanted to take me there because someone had reported that someone's stealing something two blocks up towards the University Hospital, St. Joe Hospital. Their calves in the neighborhood for who it could be, but they had call in.
[00:54:02] Interviewer: Were the police officers White?
[00:54:05] Don Simons: Oh, yes.
[00:54:06] Interviewer: Do you think that they may be where it had suspicion because of racial bias?
[00:54:11] Don Simons: I think the racial bias had a little bit with it and they're eager to satisfy their phone call property. But the bottom line is, they should have or at least not mean that my parents know, and they just snatched me.
[00:54:32] Interviewer: Let see. How much time do we have left?
[00:54:36] FEMALE_3: About 10 minutes.
[00:54:38] Don Simons: Wow, we've been going, aren't we? It is time to eat. How your arms feel? [LAUGHTER]
[00:54:48] Interviewer: Back into Tappan Junior High school experiences? What was your main interests were you more of a math science type of student or were you more just in social studies literature English?
[00:54:58] Don Simons: Well, I guess the question I definitely wouldn't mess science student. I wasn't social study, I wasn't English. In high school. I basically just a straight C+, B-, I took whatever I had to take. I wasn't in the shop, so I went into the art. I just did everything and went into the shop. No, I wouldn't even shops. Particularly doing that shop where I wasn't in a mechanical drawing. I hated that class. Name, mechanical joint at the high school.
[00:55:31] Interviewer: There are stuff like that.
[00:55:33] Don Simons: Yeah, Sorry. I wasn't good at that at all. Come to think about it. There was not any subject in particular that I really enjoyed. I was decent at math, I was good at math though.
[00:55:45] Interviewer: If you had chosen to go into any other career, what do you think you would have chosen? Or was there anything else that interested you when you were that age?
[00:55:55] Don Simons: At that time, I didn't have a scope on anything else other than my skills from being an athlete and teaching physical education to youth. I didn't realize I was going to teach to at-risk youth and Maxey until I worked at Maxey's junior school part-time going through college. When I graduated, just jump right into a full-time teaching job. At the time when I retired from actually, I remember there's like 500 and some kids there.
[00:56:25] Interviewer: Did you participate in any other extra curriculars like music or clubs or anything like that, and they have those options?
[00:56:32] Don Simons: Yes, I was in the band in junior high. Played the clarinet. High school had to give it up because of the sports. It's hard to do the instrumental, once you get into high school, he just did not work out.
[00:56:47] FEMALE_3: After [inaudible 00:56:50].
[00:56:54] Don Simons: Yeah. I said yeah. I said yes. I said yeah, didn't I?
[00:57:01] Interviewer: It's okay. Did you have a lot of friends in high school. You said you weren't super social person, but did you have your close group?
[00:57:12] Don Simons: Yes. I had a close group but not a whole lot.
[00:57:19] Interviewer: Were there any significant people from that time period in your life that you remember looking up to being your role model or anything?
[00:57:27] Don Simons: I looked up to all the coaches. The coaches were a great group. They really did either make you or break you. There's a lot of student athletes, coaches, and sensitive in regards to how he communicates to one and, or answer some of the questions they have has a major impact on the self-esteem of a young person. Maybe even more so than I'm looking in the mirror to see what's wrong with them. Most people aren't satisfied what they see. I wish I was this, I wish I was that, I wish I was this. You got what you have, you need to take it and roll with it, so no special groups. [NOISE] [OVERLAPPING]
[00:58:26] Interviewer: [OVERLAPPING] But yeah, there's nothing else that you really want to just talk about from that time period?
[00:58:38] Don Simons: Trying to see if there was something that lost my thought as I was going through. I do remember the sport riding on the bus. Come back from the ball games. We ate top restaurants back then where you rode in a greyhound. Not a regular school bus. They started modifying the budget though, but when we went out of town, we were addressed up and you thought we were playing in college or an NFL, or NBA because we dressed up appropriately, we had a pre-game meal. I'm wondering if they had pre-game meals here for student athletes.
[00:59:16] Interviewer: They don't have for all sports, but they do for football.
[00:59:22] Don Simons: Football is king, isn't it? Yes. Actually, that was the primary. I remember the meal is from pre-game meals.
[00:59:36] Interviewer: What were some struggles that you remember this happening throughout your entire childhood? Did you stop all my friends or struggle in school? Self image or was there anything like that you remembered taking?
[00:59:53] Don Simons: No. I didn't feel like I hadn't had any struggles other than sometimes just transportation getting back and forth to school and to take a bus back and forth school.
[01:00:04] Interviewer: They had public transportation in Arbor?
[01:00:07] Don Simons: Yes.
[01:00:08] Interviewer: Did you use that a lot?
[01:00:09] Don Simons: Pretty much we get on the bus. Most of the time when you get a transfer bus at the corner here in the main. I remember the transfer was very interesting because prettier girls were on this transfer bus, even on bathroom. I do remember that.
[01:00:27] Interviewer: Did you live in the same home that you've talked to us about earlier throughout all year?
[01:00:32] Don Simons: Yes. I lived there all the way up to through my second year of college. Matter of fact, no one lived there until my senior colleagues and I got an apartment.
[01:00:43] Interviewer: Is that house still there?
[01:00:46] Don Simons: That house unfortunately was the last Afro-American house sold in that whole area, the area was Fuller Street and Wall Street. That is the Northeast side of town. In that area, but not really all Black at the time. It was neighborhoods from the railroad tracks back in that day. If you lived close to the railroad tracks, that's where minorities live. That has since changed. If you go to the Ann Arbor News two weeks ago, they have a huge write-up on how the predominantly black neighborhoods had been taken over by the huge, wealthy society and build homes, condos, and making money off with locations, which was called the Old West Side years ago. I was co-founder of the old neighborhood reunion, which we can talk about either now or later. But I found that with a rustle Calvert. In '93, I asked for round up for all the guys that grew up in a neighborhood. We had a picnic. A couple of years later, we extended it out to the females. It was a all old neighborhood reunion as basically the West side of Ann Arbor. Those I grew up in Berlin street, Fuller Street, and Wall Street predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Today, we still have that picnic. The first August of every year. We used to have fun when some people show up. But we've had so many people who have died and loosen the numbers. We've had over 350 people who have died since then that we acknowledged at the picnic every year. One of the problems with our society since I haven't here, you don't have neighbors anymore. You don't have neighborhoods where you start as a kindergarten and go through high school and know your group. Most of the time, someone moves away or gets another job, and is transferred to another school, or they have opened schools. You don't have that basic strong support group of people you grew up with. This becomes important later in life.
[01:03:15] Interviewer: Do you stay in contact with the people you grew up with other than going to the picnic?.
[01:03:20] Don Simons: No. The whole neighborhood, we all know each other and we stay in contact. Unfortunately, at funerals we always attend as much as possible. Various occasions like that.
[01:03:38] Interviewer: Do you know similar neighborhood, living in the same area?
[01:03:42] Don Simons: Not even folks. I even moved out myself. I lived near Domino Farm area. Me and my wife, we build a home back in 1985. [NOISE]
[01:03:56] Interviewer: Perfect.
[01:03:59] Don Simons: Time to eat. That is long.
[01:04:00] Interviewer: I know. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:04:05] Don Simons: We have two more of these?
[01:04:06] Interviewer: Yeah.
[01:04:07] Don Simons: If I wear my other white shirt is okay next time?
[01:04:11] Interviewer: Yeah, if you want to.
[01:04:12] Interviewer: Sure.
[01:04:12] Don Simons: Why not? See when you get older, the longer you sit there, the harder to get up.
[01:04:21] Interviewer: We'll just go over the thing. Try not to look at the camera, try to focus on me.
[01:04:25] Don Simons: Is camera on now?
[01:04:27] Interviewer: It's like running, but we don't use this stuff. It's just always running. It's about 75 minutes long. If we change the tape in the middle of that, which I don't think we'll have to, you can just pause, hold your thought and we'll come back to it. [OVERLAPPING] Yeah, we'll pause during the bell, you will tell us when. If then in a cell phone, turn it off if you need a break or don't want to answer questions. The main focus of today is towards the more recent years of your life. We're going to be talking about work. Just to recap, what was your primary field of employment and how did you first start showing interests?
[01:05:17] Don Simons: Well, my primary job was working with at-risk youth. I was a special education teacher with a degree in physical education and in group science. I taught and worked with adjudicated youth that were committed by the court to Maxey Boys School for 32 years. After that, I worked down at Boise for another nine years in the same film. Year-round, quite frankly, didn't have the privilege of having summer vacation, spring vacation, Christmas vacation like public schools. My 41 years of working in this field equates out there 49 years of hours that public school teachers work. I'm like a burnout battery run in a long course.
[01:06:13] Interviewer: Which do you prefer working at Maxey or the [inaudible 01:06:15] ?
[01:06:17] Don Simons: Boysville. Maxey had more teeth into program, had more control. It was able to get more respect at the Youth. Boysville was a little looser with the staff and that is experienced. When you work with teams of youth, you have to have strong support with you, not just you. Boysville was lacking in having strong staff.
[01:06:46] Interviewer: Were they both all boys schools?
[01:06:48] Don Simons: Yes.
[01:06:51] Interviewer: What do you think was one of the biggest challenges of working with troubled youth? Do you think that there was something that you specifically struggled with or what were some of your strongest and your weakest?
[01:07:02] Don Simons: I think my strongest asset was being able to connect with the youth, and over time would be able to build the trust. Without the trust you can't work with youth. It's not that they have to like you, but they had to trust you. If there's no trust, it's not going to work. The biggest challenge was probably working year-round because it was a very most difficult youth to deal with and the program of 52 weeks a year with only two weeks off was extremely exhausting. That was the most difficult part. Plus, there'd be a lot of incidents where it would trigger up and inflame and manifest, there was a lot of fights.
[01:07:46] Interviewer: What kind of stuff would people fight about?
[01:07:50] Don Simons: It didn't make much difference, they fight about just by looking at you wrong, sometime why are you looking at me? They had little paranoia, little problems, little distortions, a fight about stepping in front of me and being too close to me, so many things they would fight about. Something said that's misinterpreted more times than not. Often, it was something that was misinterpreted that they'd have a fight, and when they got done and we processed it, you find )out it wasn't so much what they thought as to why they got angry.
[01:08:26] Interviewer: To work at Maxey, did you have to go through a specific training program?
[01:08:30] Don Simons: They had training. Basically, you just had a degree, but when you were employed, there'd be ongoing training periodically with different issues that they train you on.
[01:08:42] Interviewer: You said taught health and physical education?
[01:08:45] Don Simons: Physical education primarily.
[01:08:47] Interviewer: Primarily. Did you have to have a teacher's degree to teach there?
[01:08:49] Don Simons: Yes. I was a graduate from Eastern Michigan. You had to have that.
[01:08:57] Interviewer: What would a day look like when you were working at Maxey?
[01:08:59] Don Simons: What a day looked like? In the wintertime, the day was dark when I got up, dark when I got there, dark during the day because where I worked in the gym in the swimming pool, they had no windows, so it was a very long, dark day with a lot of noise. In the spring it was better, but by the time I got out of work, I'd come home in the dark also. That dark pays a toll on you if you don't have sunshine and windows like this to look out off, the beautiful colors you have right now. There is a big difference when you're not seeing anything. It takes a toll on you.
[01:09:36] Interviewer: Do you think that working at Maxey was emotionally hard for you?
[01:09:40] Don Simons: The first 10, 15 years probably wasn't, but after that, yes. It took a toll on me, but I stayed the course and finished it out though it definitely paid a toll. It took a toll on me, yes.
[01:09:52] Interviewer: Do you think that has affected you now? Do you think that toll has made you a different person?
[01:09:59] Don Simons: Oh, yes. It has made me a different person in regards to understanding things that occur, and how some youth don't have access to the support system that they need to help them mold into becoming a productive adult. But also periodically, I had dreams, you probably should put this on the video, I had dreams working with the youth. In my dreams, I can't seem to resolve problems within me. They acting up and I give my best shot at how to resolve and defuse the situation, in my dreams though, I can't get them to do anything and it's like, wow, then I wake up. It's almost like a post-traumatic stress disorder, very close to that. It might be. I hope this is being taped so I can take it to a shrink someday in case I need it more. [LAUGHTER]
[01:10:55] Interviewer: What was the diversity like at Maxey?
[01:10:58] Don Simons: That's a good question. When I first started at Maxey, the diversity was roughly 50% African-American, black at the time, and Caucasian, very few of others. I started at Maxey in the '60s, by the time the mid-'80s came, the population changed to about 80% Afro-American Black/Caucasians then all others were mixed in too. Then by the time I was at Boysville, I had several groups where it was 100% Black. So that was quite a trend that I probably shouldn't put on this tape as to what's happened out there that it became so predominantly overloaded with a minority, the Afro-Americans were being committed.
[01:11:53] Interviewer: Do you think that your multiracial background helped connect? Did the kids know that you were biracial?
[01:12:02] Don Simons: Yes. Quite gravely sometimes they'd often ask me, what are you, coach? Especially the Blacks would ask me, what are you? I'd say, I'm a guy, I'm a man, what do you think? That's how I'd deal with them a little bit. They'd say, you know what I mean, coach, what are you? I would tell them, I'm [inaudible 01:12:18] and the smarter ones would recognize, coach pulling your leg. The other ones would say, I've never heard of that, so fancy [inaudible 01:12:29] no, I'm a little bit of everything, a little bit of German, Indian, Black, whatever you want to throw on the table, I'll be a piece of that, so I think it did help. It may have helped the way I answered the question to them because people have a tendency to want to gravitate and be part of whatever you are. You see that around the world in all the countries, all the biases going on right now, it's horrible. Quite frankly, I'm going to back up on something I said earlier. I think things are somewhat better, but I think there's been a U-turn. When I say a U-turn, progress has been made in regards to race relationships. Over the last few years, I think it made a U-turn and it's coming out in different events that's happening in this country, devastating events which I don't need to mention on the tape, but anyone who's cognizant of current events or anything the last 3, 4, 5 years, would understand what I'm talking about.
[01:13:38] Interviewer: What about diversity with things other than race like religious diversity? Was there diversity with any other categories?
[01:13:50] Don Simons: That didn't seem to be much of an issue because most of them didn't have much of a religious background basically. Very little.
[01:14:00] Interviewer: Is Maxey, just to clarify, it's like you go and you have school while you're there and then you sleep there at night so it's like it's a detention center, but it's almost like a boarding school at the same time?
[01:14:12] Don Simons: Yes. It was a 24-hour facility, that's where they lived and they had their own little private room at Maxey. At Boysville, there was a dorm where they had eight or nine guys was sleeping in one big area with bunk beds, but Maxey, they had their own little private room and they'd be there anywhere from nine months to a year and a half.
[01:14:32] Interviewer: If you finish your education at Maxey, you can still graduate from high school?
[01:14:38] Don Simons: The schools would accept most of what came from Maxey and quite frankly, the growth at Maxey exceeded the growth at the [inaudible 01:14:45] public schools. A lot of young men could come in at 14, 15 years of age with a fourth-grade or third-grade education, he come out with eighth and ninth grade in less than a year. They would grow that much because we had their attention and we had expert teachers that worked with them. They really progressed while they were there, most of them.
[01:15:06] Interviewer: With your job of teaching in physical education, what was the lesson plan like?
[01:15:14] Don Simons: The lesson plan would start out with calisthenics and stretches and we have various curriculums, The Benefits of Exercise was the big one I taught. The one I loved to teach was on every other four years when they had the Olympics program out there. But the basic benefit of exercise, something that they would take when they left Maxey or Boysville, they'd understand there is the benefit of exercise and it's up to them to find some way to do it if they could.
[01:15:46] Interviewer: Were there athletic teams on Maxey? Were there sports teams?
[01:15:50] Don Simons: A long time ago there was, but not in the last 30 years, it became too expensive. I did have a track team. I was a track coach out there and I was able to compete with other institutionalized schools. From '82-'87, we'd never lost a beat, and we never lost a relay. A four-by-four and the four-by-one, we never lost them. Had a couple of other men that helped me who had track backgrounds as I did and we were very good at tracking field.
[01:16:28] Interviewer: Do you remember any boy in specific that you really connected with and you remember? Can you tell us the story?
[01:16:47] Don Simons: Not anyone in specific. There was a couple that I connected with early when I was working there, that I drive back to their community even when we terminate to check on them to see how they were doing. But there are FR stare at my kids and other responsibilities. I didn't do that as much. But I can't think of any right offhand. I had one super athlete. Now that mortgage bill that I tried to get him into the football program here in Ann Arbor. But paperwork and red tape kept him from coming and getting him out into a field that I know he would excelled in. He was extremely athletic, quick, strong, fast. He would have been good.
[01:17:44] Interviewer: Random, how do you judge excellence within your field? What makes someone respected in that field?
[01:17:52] Don Simons: Respected or excellence?
[01:17:54] Interviewer: What would make a good education teacher at max, or good, healthy dress. Someone is, what were some values of a really good worker in your field?
[01:18:10] Don Simons: A good work that would be one that would be there on a regular basis to begin with. They would connect with the youth to help them progress into whatever you're teaching. Have them at least buy into what you're trying to present. You're not going to reach everybody in the youngest soon to just listen to it within that buying into what you're saying. It's hard to measure what's good. But the students can tell you better who's good and who's not. Then teach again. It's common knowledge. Well, that's a good teacher that's a great teacher why? You have your own reasons why he said that teachers good.
[01:18:54] Interviewer: What do you value most about what you did for him and why?
[01:18:58] Don Simons: What did I value most? Now that's a heavy loaded question. I guess the lack of value most was I was never out of a job. Nowadays. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:19:17] Interviewer: It's fine. Just come back in five and I'll just ask that.
[01:19:20] Don Simons: Now that is still running.
[01:19:21] Interviewer: Yeah, it's still running, but we're just going to be part.
[01:19:26] Don Simons: You're just going to be part of my three-hour or tape it that I can retain.
[01:19:29] Interviewer: Yeah.
[01:19:29] Don Simons: Good. I won't be able to give this to my family or other people.
[01:19:31] Interviewer: Yeah. No, we'll definitely not. Just warning them, a lot of it will be just like this, you know what I mean? But you can skip to certain parts to show them.
[01:19:40] Don Simons: But it'd be a three-hour thing.
[01:19:42] Interviewer: Yeah. Will be broken down into three one-hour segments. I don't have all of them.
[01:19:48] FEMALE_4: Then I think we go through and we tag parts of it. If someone wants to hear you talk about what you did for a living, they will be able to find the time code through something that we do by 5:43 and they can skip to that and watch.
[01:20:05] Don Simons: Yeah, that's good. Is being addressed and how you take on how you come down with four minutes after three hours.
[01:20:12] FEMALE_4: Yeah.
[01:20:12] Interviewer: We don't have to figure that one out. [LAUGHTER].
[01:20:16] FEMALE_4: It's different for I guess, if next time we're doing more interviews.
[01:20:19] Interviewer: Yeah. We didn't know that. I don't know.
[01:20:22] FEMALE_4: Yeah. [OVERLAPPING].
[01:20:23] Interviewer: I think there's just a lot of communication between the teachers and us, but we thought that we were going to be using these interviews to make the final product, but we're going to be using this as well. What we're gonna do an interview based on one thing that we think is the most important.
[01:20:38] FEMALE_4: Not the most important [OVERLAPPING] just know it'd be interesting to get the yield.
[01:20:44] Don Simons: Maybe addressed and how you come up with it.
[01:20:46] FEMALE_4: I know.
[01:20:46] Don Simons: Yeah, that's like wow. Because you had to come up with it yourself.
[01:20:55] Interviewer: I had to write our own questions.
[01:20:57] Don Simons: You come up with it yourself. I won't be able to necessarily repeat when I'm repeating the same way every time you talk.
[01:21:02] Interviewer: Yeah, I know. It's fine.
[01:21:04] FEMALE_4: That makes it more interesting. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:21:08] Don Simons: The things start to change. By the way your granddad. There's a guy that lives in New York that I connected them with also. We all graduated together.
[01:21:19] Interviewer: Yeah.
[01:21:20] FEMALE_4: Is that funny?
[01:21:21] Don Simons: Yeah. That was pretty nice.
[01:21:22] Interviewer: Did you remember him after [inaudible 01:21:24].
[01:21:24] Don Simons: No.
[01:21:24] Interviewer: No.
[01:21:26] Don Simons: No, I didn't. I didn't remember him. But we had a nice talk. Where do you say you work at?
[01:21:32] Interviewer: Finger Lake
[01:21:34] Don Simons: My company. That's right.
[01:21:35] Interviewer: Yeah.
[01:21:35] Don Simons: My company. That's right.
[01:21:36] FEMALE_4: What's great?
[01:21:38] Interviewer: Grandpa George?
[01:21:39] FEMALE_4: The one [inaudible 01:21:39].
[01:21:42] Interviewer: If he does cats when he goes out of town.
[01:21:44] FEMALE_4: I know all of her grandparents violate certain things like the OneDrive ventilating me to secure package [inaudible 01:21:49]. The one grandma who lives on that one street but just [OVERLAPPING].
[01:21:55] Don Simons: Yeah. Your phone didn't receive the picture that I took with you last time?
[01:21:58] FEMALE_4: No don't I don't have.
[01:22:00] Interviewer: Her phone situations very often.
[01:22:01] FEMALE_4: Yeah. The the phone that works doesn't always work. Yeah, because it's expensive. You can get similar to free lunches at school. You can get a phone, a simple phone from the government as well. That's not very high-quality. Sometimes it's difficult for it to. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:22:22] Interviewer: I actually have an iPhone, but it's not. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:22:24] FEMALE_4: But it's not connected to data yet. I just got a job. I've been paying for gas. I'm figuring out how to pay a phone plan right now too.
[01:22:34] Don Simons: Yeah, that's good. That's part of the reasoning. Yeah. When I'm done, I need to get my wallet out and look at the phone numbers that I had to make sure they're the right phone numbers because I didn't want to buy that everybody with the picture. I just deleted the [OVERLAPPING].
[01:22:57] Interviewer: Most of the time I went. [inaudible 01:22:58]. [LAUGHTER]
[01:22:58] Don Simons: Maybe I'll do that before I leave today because this picture I took it. We do that right now. You don't need them anymore questions.
[01:23:13] Interviewer: Yeah. We can do one as long as you want to.
[01:23:19] Don Simons: Let me get my wallet.
[01:23:22] FEMALE_4: Give me a chance to stand up.
[01:23:23] Don Simons: Yeah stand up, give me a chance too.
[01:23:25] Interviewer: My arm always gets tired after a while.
[01:23:27] FEMALE_4: [inaudible 01:23:27]
[01:23:27] Interviewer: No, I had it myself situated though before I could work though.
[01:23:36] FEMALE_4: But I knew I had them. Why would they have that. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:23:50] Interviewer: Why not at all? The questions that are good at the end that they wrote. No one's getting here just like, what's your name? Your wife's name? [LAUGHTER]
[01:24:26] Don Simons: That was a long time ago. We had that picture.
[01:24:28] FEMALE_4: I was two or three.
[01:24:35] Interviewer: Yeah, the last question or just having our last question.
[01:24:43] Don Simons: People just not started with the interview.
[01:24:46] Interviewer: It's different for everyone's schedule.
[01:24:50] Don Simons: Well, there's more probably be gone when I see you, hopefully you didn't scar up. It just kept growing and growing and growing. I had a biopsy on it. [LAUGHTER].
[01:25:04] Interviewer: That happens.
[01:25:04] Don Simons: One text came in, I can go two days without one text and I just had this all for 35 minutes. There's something. Bang.
[01:25:25] FEMALE_4: You notice again an app with unilateral onto their phones back on and the long-range build up.
[01:25:33] Interviewer: Yeah.
[01:25:33] Don Simons: Yeah.
[01:25:33] FEMALE_4: I was like dang, I didn't know that.
[01:25:38] Don Simons: No. Pictures like this of my son and my daughter had to have higher copied pitch to bring or no.
[01:25:48] Interviewer: You could just. [OVERLAPPING].
[01:25:50] FEMALE_4: I don't even know.
[01:25:51] FEMALE_5: That's nice picture.
[01:25:52] Don Simons: That's my daughter wedding.
[01:25:55] FEMALE_4: Did she get married somewhere tropical?
[01:25:56] Don Simons: She went down to Florida.
[01:25:58] Interviewer: Yeah. That's where our close family friends just recently.
[01:26:01] Don Simons: Yeah. That was my son before he passed away. But you don't know if he should be taken off the phone here or they need to be hard copies, probably.
[01:26:14] FEMALE_4: I think you need to have hard copies because we're going to use a scanner and making it electronic version of it.
[01:26:20] Interviewer: Yeah. But if you send us the pictures, we can make the hard copies for you. Is that easier?
[01:26:29] Don Simons: I see what you're saying. When the pitches come, you can scan them that day?
[01:26:34] FEMALE_4: Yeah. [OVERLAPPING].
[01:26:35] Interviewer: You like an entirely detailed but. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:26:37] FEMALE_4: Yeah, once maybe another few months before that happens, I will make sure that we get all the details in really.
[01:26:47] Don Simons: Jumped him. This stuff is too fancy. Too much. Come on. I had the picture here. I should've stayed here when I had it.
[01:27:23] Interviewer: What? [OVERLAPPING]
[01:27:24] FEMALE_4: Yeah.
[01:27:26] Don Simons: How did you see did I send that to you?
[01:27:28] Interviewer: Yeah. Because this button right here.
[01:27:31] Don Simons: Yeah.
[01:27:32] Interviewer: Then message and then I'll send it to myself [inaudible 01:27:39].
[01:27:39] Don Simons: Yeah.
[01:27:40] Interviewer: The texts is so big. [LAUGHTER]
[01:27:42] Don Simons: That's good.
[01:27:43] Interviewer: That's nice you can read it.
[01:27:44] Don Simons: Oh, yeah.
[01:27:44] Interviewer: [LAUGHTER] Okay.[OVERLAPPING] Now i have it, and then i can
[01:27:50] FEMALE_5: She can get to the rest of us
[01:27:52] Don Simons: Okay. Your name is here. What's your name again?
[01:27:55] Interviewer: My name is Ruby.
[01:27:56] Don Simons: Ruby?
[01:27:56] Interviewer: Oh, i didn't add my name.
[01:27:57] Don Simons: Yeah. Put your name under.
[01:27:59] Interviewer: Okay. Oh, wait, you do have it. Ruby Skyline. It's right there.
[01:28:04] Don Simons: I have got Ruby Skyline? [LAUGHTER]. How did that happen? [LAUGHTER]
[01:28:10] Interviewer: Maybe we put it last time or maybe you did it.
[01:28:12] Don Simons: No I didn't do it.
[01:28:14] Interviewer: That's really weird.
[01:28:16] Don Simons: That's really scary. Ruby Skyline. That means that sound like somebody who's named Ruby Skyline. [LAUGHTER] I mean Ruby.
[01:28:25] Interviewer: How did you know my name?
[01:28:26] Don Simons: Ruby and I know your name because you're already got one. But i forget your names sometimes.
[01:28:30] Interviewer: How is it on the phone?
[01:28:32] Don Simons: The phone knows where the picture was taken.
[01:28:34] Interviewer: Yeah. It knows Skyline, but i still do not understand how you know my name. [LAUGHTER]
[01:28:39] Don Simons: That it's scary.
[01:28:44] Interviewer: Let's move on?
[01:28:45] Don Simons: Yeah let's move on. Let me turn my phone off where it rings. You know off the record. You know what I was talking about his biasness. You heard about the people getting killed down at the center guide. You heard about two years ago a person who was invited to come and sit in the Black church and kill 9 Black people.
[01:29:17] Interviewer: Where we should get this on record.Okay.
[01:29:20] Don Simons: Those are incidents that happened that shows you how biased or country is full of heat. But just recently there's 11 people being killed, six injured down. When was that incident and anyhow, wow. Are you aware of what was that? You guys don't listen to them.
[01:29:40] Interviewer: Wait when did that happen?
[01:29:42] Don Simons: Just recently, just two or three days ago. Man. Is Pittsburgh. Yeah. We're letting people were killed and there was a bias about Jews. Two years ago, down into a church down south. The Black conveyed in the person and to sit with them and took out a gun and killed nine people. That's the deep-seated hatred and in bias and racism become surface more the last five years, I think. Is this on tape? It is what it is. You got to look in the news and it's a sad commentary.
[01:30:25] Interviewer: Okay?
[01:30:25] Don Simons: Okay.
[01:30:29] Interviewer: What did you value most about working at Maxey?
[01:30:35] Don Simons: What i value most is that, I would see the benefit of my time on task with somebody. You've seen them develop character, more honesty, but also more ownership of why they were committed. There's lots of times people do things and you're in denial. But then you recognize over a period of time, you have to take ownership for your behavior and for your actions. Now, when they get to verbalize it, that's one thing. But when you can act it out and try and modify their behavior, that's even more of a positive thing. I was able to see some turnaround in some of the youth behavior. Some have very quick tempers and had worked with him to learn how to cool themselves off before they jump to conclusions alive.
[01:31:30] Interviewer: After earning your teaching degree, what made you want to work? Detention facility rather than just a school?
[01:31:39] Don Simons: When I say maybe I didn't have a good sense [LAUGHTER] . Know the truth of the matter is I was working part-time at this facility, was going to college. I was already acclimated to that type of population. When I graduated, it had just built a brand new school building in Jim over there. When I graduated, I became a physical education teacher. I taught recreation while I was going through my last two years of college there. I just stayed there and taught.
[01:32:16] Interviewer: Resident's communities as talking about like where you live during your years of work, you made any moves or did you live in the same house?
[01:32:29] Don Simons: No. I lived over on the West Side of the van. I refer from 7085. Then when my son was born in 83, my wife and I built another home out by Domino farms. I've lived in that home ever since. Massage, probably about Mount Airy East of Domino farms.
[01:32:57] Interviewer: You left her home, are you living on it?
[01:33:00] Don Simons: I like it, but it's lonely. Because my wife and my son had passed away. The home was a grief. There's too much home for me right now until the truth. But it's too hard to get rid of also because of the memories.
[01:33:14] Interviewer: You might build a bigger house because we're starting to have more kids.
[01:33:19] Don Simons: Yes. Ms. Summers, third one born, so I had to have more space. If I'm property and in-built where I'm at right now, my one and three-quarters acres in the home is almost twice the size. Just not used, but it was almost twice the size as we were living in.
[01:33:42] Interviewer: When I what age did you retire?
[01:33:45] Don Simons: I retired at 62.
[01:33:52] Interviewer: 62.
[01:33:52] Don Simons: 62 or 63.
[01:33:54] Interviewer: What year was that?
[01:33:54] Don Simons: 2005. But that worked part-time. Couple years after that. It seemed facilities by 2005, 2006.
[01:34:11] Interviewer: What's it like being retired, do you like being retired?
[01:34:14] Don Simons: Oh, it's great. To some extent, but our society fails then another area in my opinion.
[01:34:21] Interviewer: What is that?
[01:34:22] Don Simons: Society should provide semi-retirement, because they're retired totally. You have too much time on your hands. After I've worked 41 years full-time, that was too much. But retirement is to void.
[01:34:41] Interviewer: What kind of things do you wish that they provided?
[01:34:44] Don Simons: I wish they would develop in some jobs where they say you put it in for you're going to retire in three years and have an option for him to work three days a week, two days a week, or work out a flexibility of your still being engaged, but not full-time.
[01:35:05] Interviewer: Where would you want to work and you can still work?
[01:35:09] Don Simons: Where would I want to work with?
[01:35:10] Interviewer: You want to work back the same person at least that you retired for?
[01:35:14] Don Simons: I've been away so long now. I don't know if that ever want to go back there. Quite frankly, my son warned me he's said, "Dad you get a little bit too old to deal with that type of kid". Verbally I could deal with it, but in case I had to do it, good. Otherwise, it might be a bit much. Because when young people are very angry and had a lot of buildup frustration, they sometimes have inflammatory behavior.
[01:35:50] Interviewer: What year did your wife passed away?
[01:35:52] Don Simons: 2004.
[01:35:54] Interviewer: Before you retired?
[01:35:56] Don Simons: Yes.
[01:35:58] Interviewer: Did she retire or did she still working?
[01:36:00] Don Simons: She had another year to work before she was going to retire.
[01:36:05] Interviewer: How does she passed away?
[01:36:06] Don Simons: She passed away of cancer. Like one of a reason I retired because I couldn't deal with that population after she died. I would go to work and I didn't have the same patience. Sometimes you youth would test you. I didn't have the same patience that I had prior to her passing away.
[01:36:28] Interviewer: [OVERLAPPING] Did you think you kept working a lot longer?
[01:36:32] Don Simons: Not a lot longer, but I probably would've put it in three or four more years. I didn't.
[01:36:41] Interviewer: What is your typical day of your current retired life? Real quick.
[01:36:52] Don Simons: I don't really have a typical day, I think. I wake up and sometime I have some plan ahead of time. Other times I'll text her, talk for some of my buddies to see if they want to go up to the gym. I shouldn't say buddies only have one or two guys right now that will go to the gym, walk and talk and do a little exercise. I tried to do that two or three days a week but i fall short some time on that. I used to golf, but I've been done golf for 70 years. It depends. Isn't this is not a whole lot that I do do not look back at it and I can't stand domestic house cleaning and keeping things that eat many people. Especially when we say there's so much you can do in every room in your house. I said, "Sure. I can do a lot"
[01:37:42] Interviewer: You did the bear minimum inside?
[01:37:45] Don Simons: I keep the dishes clean, I keep the floors clean and I had someone come in every now and then. The new deep-seated cleaning, but
[01:37:56] Interviewer: What are some of your hobbies other than working out?
[01:38:00] Don Simons: Hobbies? That's something I felt shortening. My son told me before he passed that you need a hobby. I used to have hobbies. You just go to restrict them to having to watch her horses? The horses. Father horses. I used to play golf about really don't have a hobby. I don't read much.
[01:38:17] Interviewer: You watch movies?
[01:38:19] Don Simons: I go to the movies. Yes. I enjoy going to the movies.
[01:38:21] Interviewer: What kind of movies do you like?
[01:38:24] Don Simons: It varies. It varies nothing in particular. I like movies that has some substance to them and have a story reason for the movie being made. This is based on the life experience. I like those type of movies more so than the fantasy and horror movies.I don't particularly care for those.
[01:39:07] Interviewer: When you think about your life after your retirement, like were there any like historical or social events that have shaped you or affected you, was there anything?
[01:39:18] Don Simons: One thing that really shaped me, a historical event is the loss of my son.
[01:39:26] Interviewer: How do you keep that?
[01:39:27] Don Simons: I said a memorial in his name and trying to keep his name alive. But it shaped me in point that I'm not as happy as I generally would be. I'm more of a void in my heart. When you ever see stories of parents who have lost a child who passed away, that's a club that you don't ever want to belong to. It's just a big void. I'm not the same. Not to say I was happy he got lucky, but I don't reach out and I know how the same smile at times and sometime I may put on them false face, that's not really being happy, you just mean in the group. I have several friends who have lost their child also and they've called me when the child has passed away and they said now I know what you're talking about. But I do have two other beautiful daughters, I must say right now and five grandkids. It was not all doom and gloom. My daughter is doing great and my grandkids are all doing great also.
[01:40:39] Interviewer: How often do you get to see your grandkids?
[01:40:46] Don Simons: I'm in New York right now, I usually go twice a year to see them. I have a daughter who lives nearby and probably see them at least twice a month. I do see them fairly regular.
[01:40:59] Interviewer: Did the passing of your son affect, really take a toll on your daughters as well of losing their brother you think?
[01:41:08] Don Simons: I think it did. I think it take a toll on them. The difference is that they had their own children and they were married. You can't measure a loss sometime, but it couldn't have impacted them like it impacted me because they do. When you do have your child, they had to deal with the children every day, you can't ignore your children.
[01:41:36] Interviewer: It may cause distraction.
[01:41:38] Don Simons: Mingle that gives you a vowel and their husbands.
[01:41:42] Interviewer: If there was one thing that you think your son would've wanted you to do or to continue to do like after he died, what do you think that would be?
[01:41:54] Don Simons: I think I'm doing it right now, quite frankly. His three cars are my grandchildren. To keep his cars up. He was at a high level auto engineer and very good at technology. He wasn't a general just car repair person that we worked in a dealership. He was capable of working in domestic military in foreign cars. He did research on them for a company that is working for and he took his skills and he upgraded his cars that he had. Those are the cars I had right now. They are cars that basically had about 350 horsepower that now are over 500 horsepower and very unique in the class that they're in. That was his hobby along with the love of his family was not a hobby, but he love weightlifting, bodybuilding, working on his cars.
[01:42:58] Interviewer: What did you know most about your son?
[01:43:05] Don Simons: That's a good question because there's several things. He was very intuitive and perceptive. He was beyond his age as far as being able to read people, anticipate things that were about to occur. He was very quiet and reserved. He actually taught me a lot of his age. I've learned a lot from him actually.
[01:43:33] Interviewer: What kind of things did you learn?
[01:43:35] Don Simons: Well, he taught me how to stay away from situations that would be more dangerous that I shouldn't expose myself to. For one instance, there's a gas station down where he lived at, he told not to go to that gas station because it's $0.03 cheaper per gallon. Because I've seen people drive through there very undesirable, and it's not a good thing. About four months after he died, and Channel Seven News and Detroit, that gas station had the yellow ribbons around it. The person that I used to go in and talk to, somebody came in and blew him away. That's just one of a number of things that my son gave me for a warning about.
[01:44:22] Interviewer: He was very self-aware.
[01:44:23] Don Simons: He was very perceptive, self-aware, a very mature for his age. Mature in many areas. Crazy by the sisters. They didn't really know how much he loved them. Since it's on tape down my mixes as a matter of public record, that he was really crazy about his sisters, he just some time wouldn't let it be exposed, but he talked about them all the time.
[01:44:56] Interviewer: What are the age differences between your kids again?
[01:44:59] Don Simons: The age difference is about six years. The oldest daughter was born in '70. Diana was born in 1970, Elena was born in '77, and my son, Donald Eugene, was born in '83.
[01:45:29] Interviewer: For historical or social events it says, what family heirloom or keep sakes do you have or possess like if you know what I mean, valuables that were passed down through families?
[01:45:43] Don Simons: That were passed down from my family?
[01:45:46] Interviewer: Or from your wife that your children may have?
[01:45:50] Don Simons: My daughters had most of the things that my wife had. Other than that, I can't recall anything particularly passed down.
[01:46:05] Interviewer: Thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
[01:46:12] Don Simons: Most proud of
[01:46:17] Don Simons: I'm very attentive in bio parent. All three of my children came out to be fantastic adults. Are three of them, now they finished high school, but they all have college degrees. They all did the right thing. That's what I would say is first, thing I'm proud of. Secondly, I developed a program called inbound which work with youth at risk, youth. This is the slogan of my program, to play your game and live life inbound is registered in trademark with a Federal Patent and Trademark Office. I can see the program working with golf, teaching kids life skills in golf skills at the same time. Quite frankly, is now mirrored in the First Tee program that came to service in 1997. My program I started in the '89 and I did it up through '95. I curtailed it at the time because I had life threatening blood clots so I had to stop at that time. I was in dialogue with the golf industry to collaborate together to develop my program nationally. Which I have letters invalidation said that was going to happen. By design or by accident, it didn't happen. Me and my associate with Jim Dickerson we're not part of it. It's a very big program out there now. It's got 14.5 million youth and it's in six countries. It's called the First Tee and I mirrored my program of inbound.
[01:48:18] Interviewer: What would you say has changed most of the time you were our age to [inaudible 01:48:23]?
[01:48:25] Don Simons: What has changed most you mean me physically or mentally or in society?
[01:48:31] Interviewer: All three.
[01:48:33] Don Simons: I set myself up with it. Didn't I? You good. She came back amigos. I don't remember what I said.
[01:48:40] Interviewer: Society with you.
[01:48:43] Don Simons: What has changed is the society?
[01:48:47] Interviewer: Draw in physically.
[01:48:48] Don Simons: Well, the dollar bill doesn't go nearly as far as it used to go. It's actually pathetic. Gas usually goes $0.30 a gallon. Now it's $3 a gallon. People having families, the amount of money that has to go towards food, and rent is almost prohibitive. Many people who have to work two jobs, 25, 30 years ago, maybe longer that. You didn't always have to have the woman in the house, or you didn't always have two incomes. Nowadays, it's very difficult to have a household where not both people have to work to maintain. That was awful lot of stress on the household. It takes a lot away from kids. Kids had to spent too much time on their own when both parents have to work. That's the biggest change I think.
[01:49:41] Interviewer: But your family wasn't that wasn't your wife [inaudible 01:49:44].
[01:49:44] Don Simons: She didn't work originally.
[01:49:46] Interviewer: She didn't?
[01:49:47] Don Simons: No she know in the job she did she had a midnight job working as a registered nurse. When my kids were young, she would come home and before they would go to school, she would keep them at the house and make food and watch them.
[01:50:03] Interviewer: Did you ever consider staying home with your kids and having your wife work or do you think that wasn't an option for you?
[01:50:10] Don Simons: I never considered is afternoon because I was too entrenched when I was doing and no I couldn't stay at home. When my kids were in school. No, I couldn't stay home and watch him like that. No, I don't think so.
[01:50:29] Interviewer: It was mostly the women who would stay.
[01:50:31] Don Simons: Mostly women with maid the one that will stay home. Nowadays all that has changed. There's lot of proud dads are glad to be the housekeeper. But some of the wives are making 89 $800,000 a year or two. When I was coming up women didn't have jobs where they make as much money as they're making now. Know even though they're not on equal pay with men there're women who had professional jobs that make a good long dollar bill. But it wasn't like that at all. Which back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, not as many. Now, that's the trend that has really changed.
[01:51:08] Interviewer: Do you think if your parents were to see that change they'll be shocked?
[01:51:13] Don Simons: Yes. They'll be shocked. My mother's still alive, she's 94 years old. Quiet frankly, I'd highly recommend that you guys secure someone her next year. She has the history of Ann Arbor, like no one that I know of. She's an assisted living right now, but her mind real sharp her recall is fantastic.
[01:51:36] Interviewer: That's really great. How often do you see your.
[01:51:39] Don Simons: Weekly. Sometimes a couple times a week.
[01:51:42] Interviewer: That's very nice. What about mentally physically and another one he said?
[01:51:53] Don Simons: You forgot it because I've never remembered you forgot it. I don't know what the third one was.
[01:51:59] Interviewer: Sorry we're just fine.
[01:52:00] Don Simons: We just talked about society the way the trend of employment and things. I think we've covered that. I don't remember the other one was.
[01:52:09] Interviewer: Magically, mentally and physically.
[01:52:13] Don Simons: Mentally, physically how old it has changed in me. I used to have a 6,8 pack now I got to kick [LAUGHTER]. I don't drink. Well, I used to have the pictures was absolutely the pieces when we have the rough picture thing. What used to be in what becomes later it does change. But in flexion of some of my other friends, I hadn't done too well or too badly with my cake here. I have a couple of two or three friends you can't even see their shoe when they stand up.
[01:52:55] Interviewer: What advice would you give to people that are in our generation?
[01:53:02] Don Simons: In you generation life is at it. Exposures of an educate yourself to many things as you can along the way. If you get in relationships, just don't dwell on the negative that caused the relationship to split. Remember the positive things that were in that relationship and grow from that. Because you're limited in your exposures. I run it into a number of men and women who were very bitter about having failure in two or three relationships, interpersonal, marriage, or otherwise. It's a tough road emotionally to get into. If that happens and you have a failure, don't dwell on the failure because you got started because something was positive about it. Try and remember the positive a don't let outweigh the negative, which is easier said than done.
[01:54:07] Interviewer: Do you think that relationship is important for people to get married?
[01:54:14] Interviewer: So people will have that chance if they're not in a relationship.
[01:54:20] Don Simons: Would you repeat that, please?
[01:54:23] Interviewer: I'm sorry, this is confusing. Do you think that marriage is an important thing? Do you think that marriage shaped you and your life? Do you think that it was important or that it is important for people to be married? Or do you think that?
[01:54:35] Don Simons: I think marriage is a natural thing for people to work towards because of the society, but our society is another trend. Fewer people are getting married, but they still maintain or having families or relationships without the marital bond. I think the marital bond is more powerful and more beneficial in the long run from old school, but I do see a few what appear to be successful relationships that didn't go through the marital process. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
[01:55:17] Interviewer: If there's something that you want to do before you pass, what is it?
[01:55:24] Don Simons: I would like to be able to travel and get exposed to seeing part of the world. I have friends, a few friends who have been to two-thirds of the states here in the United States. I might have been to six of them, maybe, but I don't look down upon that because I know also some people who that have never left the State of Michigan. But I would like to see more of what's out there. There's an awful lot out there that you don't realize it not until you start traveling. I would like to take a couple of more cruises. I couldn't afford that, so I shouldn't even be. I like to travel on an ocean for about two or three weeks to different places, if that was possible. That's a beautiful experience.
[01:56:13] Interviewer: You've lived in Ann Arbor all of your life, so you've never lived anywhere else, right?
[01:56:16] Don Simons: Correct.
[01:56:16] Interviewer: Have you enjoyed living in Ann Arbor and seeing all the changes or do you wish that you have lived somewhere else?
[01:56:22] Don Simons: No. I've visited other places but there's not too many places like Ann Arbor. As far as cleanliness and have opportunity in culture. Ann Arbor is quite a place. That's quite prejudiced in '40s, '50s, and '60s. Not a whole lot different than South, quite frankly. I'm sure people in the South who came up here would differ with me, but Ann Arbor had a high level of prejudice in those years.
[01:56:57] Interviewer: Does anyone else have any questions or is there anything that you'd like to add that we didn't talk about?
[01:57:04] Don Simons: I can't think of any. We've talked about my son, we talked about my children, my grand-kids. Now they said that my grand-kids are doing exceptionally well right now in school and athletics. I'm very proud of that. I guess I should mention their names on this tape that's there. Her name is Layla. She's 13 years old. She's vice president of her class already. She's extremely good in soccer. She's on the elite soccer team on the East Coast and she runs track and plays basketball. Her brother named Abert, who is 11 years old. He's a good student and fantastic little football player. Joseph is eight years old. He loves baseball and playing a little football. Here in Michigan, I have a six-foot 3.5 inch grandson who just turned 14 last week. He's a very good student and basketball player, and just a very good person. He's very wholesome, he's very empathetic and sympathetic towards people. Very compassionate. He's a football player, he plays quarterback and wide receiver. Then I have a young grandson named Brendan, who is 11 years old. And as a sixth grader, he's playing with seventh and eighth graders and he is the Number 1 tackler on the team. He's built quite a bit like my son. He is going to be a brute quite frankly. He's going to be a brute. If he has the heart, he'll go a long way in athletics. He's a very good student also. I'm glad I got that as a matter of record.
[01:58:50] Interviewer: Is there anything anyone else wants to add?
[01:58:54] Don Simons: I have two great son-in-laws. Since this in on the tape, I better let that be known. [LAUGHTER] One son-in-law, he's a football coach for Auburn University. He's been coach of football for years, and the other one, he has quite a diverse number of fields he has worked. He's been always very good at everything he does.
[01:59:13] Interviewer: You've got a big family. [LAUGHTER]
[01:59:18] Don Simons: Can be. I was a little guy physically. You want to talk about physically for a second?
[01:59:24] Interviewer: Sure, go ahead. [LAUGHTER]
[01:59:25] Don Simons: When I got married and as my daughters got married, I had the big three as my body guards. That's not General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. The big three was my son, who is 6'5'', 255 pounds. That was my other son-in-law. He is 6'5'', 300 pounds, and the other one was 6'2'', 310 pounds. He played for Washington Redskins for a while. They surrounded me, it made me feel like a little peon. [LAUGHTER] Yes, they did.
[02:00:04] Interviewer: How tall are you?
[02:00:05] Don Simons: I was 6'1" and at one time, now I'm only 5'11" and three quarters. With age, I have shrunk.
[02:00:10] Interviewer: [inaudible 02:00:10] [LAUGHTER]
[02:00:12] Don Simons: I had to get the three. I actually told the nurse she doesn't know what she's doing. I turn around and she says, no, this is what you are now. As few of my friends have shrunk. I had a friend that shrunk almost two-and-a-half, three inches from what they were 20 years ago. I had a friend that she was 5'1'' that went down and now she's 4'11".
[02:00:44] Interviewer: I think we've covered all the sections and more. We're almost out of time. We got like five minutes.
[02:00:50] Don Simons: Now we can all stretch. You're going to be in afford these two [inaudible 02:00:56] .
[02:00:57] Interviewer: The image? Yeah. Awesome.
[02:00:59] Don Simons: Thank you.
[02:01:02] Interviewer: Let me show it to you.
[02:01:04] Don Simons: I'm glad. You should have told me this is all wrinkly.
[02:01:08] Interviewer: It's okay.
[02:01:08] Don Simons: Are you going to show from here up?
[02:01:10] Interviewer: Yeah. Exactly.
[02:01:13] Don Simons: Oh, well. It is what it is.
[02:01:13] Interviewer: We're going to figure out which background color we want to do.
[02:01:17] Don Simons: What? Background you say?
[02:01:19] Interviewer: We're having trouble deciding which background color to use, but we'll figure it out.
[02:01:26] Don Simons: I'm sure you will. Are you folks having a good Thanksgiving? Are you going to take some of this and put it with the other?
[02:01:32] FEMALE_3: Probably. It will all be archived through the library. However, to make ours and Utopia film, we will only be using this interview.
[02:01:39] Interviewer: You can wire this if you want.
[02:01:42] Don Simons: Okay. The first three hours, which is going to be used for May 19th?
[02:01:46] Interviewer: [OVERLAPPING] This one.
[02:01:48] Don Simons: This one?
[02:01:48] Interviewer: Yeah. Then we might use some audio from the other ones, but mostly this one.
[02:01:53] Don Simons: I was probably more sharper mentally on the other ones than I am today. That's why I'm wondering.
[02:01:59] FEMALE_3: We'll see.
[02:01:59] Interviewer: We're going to [inaudible 02:01:59] a lot of stuff to it. Don't worry about it. [OVERLAPPING] If you do want your sweater, we'd rather you be comfortable then.
[02:02:10] Don Simons: Let's get done. What you guys got long sleeves on too? I guess I'm going to have to put Michigan on. Everybody's saying, why are you wearing Michigan? I graduated from Eastern. [LAUGHTER] I wear it because it's warm and it was given to me. It's none of your business, the third reason. [LAUGHTER] You see that piece here? They gave me that.
[02:02:33] Interviewer: Oh that's cool.
[02:02:33] Don Simons: Yes. I said, so what? Mind your own business.
[02:02:40] Interviewer: Make sure all our phones are on silent [inaudible 02:02:45] .
[02:02:48] FEMALE_3: Then [inaudible 02:02:48] ring during this hour?
[02:03:01] Don Simons: That is better. That' a whole lot better. It feels more comfortable.
[02:03:08] Interviewer: That's fine. We all need you comfortable.
[02:03:09] Don Simons: All right.
[02:03:10] Interviewer: How have you been? How was Alaska and [inaudible 02:03:16], we haven't seen you in a while?
[02:03:17] Don Simons: Been cold. I took a trip to Las Vegas and then it was the coldest weekend in 33 years in Las Vegas. I'm going to play lotto machines? I don't think so. My luck was bad. But I did win a bet on the horse races there. But it's snowing in Las Vegas and they de-iced airplanes in Las Vegas the week I was down there. Yes, I've been, that was a highlight and I was going to get away from weather in Michigan. You can get some warmth, wrong week. Other than that, fair in [inaudible 02:03:49] .
[02:03:54] Interviewer: This interview is going to be like recapping some of the stuff we've already talked about in our previous interviews. We wanted to talk about and focus on maybe what it was like, or learn about what it was like growing up bi-racial in Ann Arbor. We were wondering if you could tell us of a time that you were subject to discrimination as a teenager.
[02:04:16] Don Simons: Do you have that much time on this mic?
[02:04:24] Don Simons: Truth of the matter is, even though you're biracial, they're always put in the category of being whichever the brown skin is, the person of color. You could be 85% white, 50% anything else, you're always categorized. My family background has German, Indian, Afro-American, Swedish, and several other ethnics. But because I was Afro-American, basically which I'm proud to claim that's what I basically am and had been, I grew up in Afro-American neighborhoods, because they only allow the blacks to live by the railroad tracks. We never knew that was the reason, but I grew up along the railroad tracks down, but again, it answer. It wasn't till I got out of college, I recognized why we were all down there, because the person's are wealthy, primarily the white, went to live away from the tracks. Because the trains are loud, they had suit and it wasn't a pleasant place to live. Now, that has totally reversed. They have taken over the whole area that was owned by black. Incidence yet exposed.
[02:05:46] Interviewer: Wait one second. Try your best to look at the camera.
[02:05:46] FEMALE_3: [inaudible 02:05:46] .
[02:05:46] Interviewer: Also can you just shift a little bit.
[02:05:46] Don Simons: Look at the camera? Now where were we at? Discrimination faced off a lot of it without recognizing it. The primary school I went to was Jones School, which was 85% of minority, which is now Community High School. That was Jones School back in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. I didn't face a whole lot of this in junior high. I didn't recognize it. I had a lot of access with friends and sports, and I never felt that I was facing race issues. But in high school, it became different story. My first girlfriend and only girlfriend I had was between the junior year going into high school and she was on the homecoming court. She was white, beautiful, quiet, very compatible. We just started seeing each other dating. We caught a whole lot of turmoil and she literally caught hell. They called her nigger lover, they called her everything under this guy. There are incidents where I wasn't with her walking in the hallway that she was targeted. I was actually called down to meet with the head counselor three years before I graduated in high school, maybe four months. They took me out of the academic class. I thought there's some special award I was going to get because I was one of the top athletes, which actually was voted. Well, I won't say it was a racial issue. I was voted the most athletic in the class, but I was not acknowledged that I won that until 35, 40 years later. They guy who won it told me that it was manipulated by the people, and that actually I won. He was white, a very good friend of mine. He had to carry their pain all his life. He let me know there are about seven, eight months before he died because he had terminal illness. I can't say it was racial, but it may have been. But the racial thing I do know for a fact is that the counselor asked me to sit down. I'm sitting here, patting myself on the back and feeling great about it. He said the student, their principals, and school staff had a meeting that evening before he called me and he was asked to have me not walk down the hallway anymore with my girlfriend. Stay clear of her and don't walk with her. I said there must be some mistake here. What's going on with this? The fact that you two are together, a beautiful looking couple, it's causing too much chaos in the school and school cannot handle it. Now in hindsight, since I've grown up, I have other ways there could have been addressed, but that's what I faced. Then when I left, I was floored. He told me you represented the school, you got a good student, you're great athlete, but can you please just stay away from her. Her and I faced incidents out in the public all the time. I won't share all those because there's not for videotape because it'd be pretty hard to deal with. Also my mother had me go to a white barbershop. I don't know if I want to mention their name, but they are closing down this year. Leave it like that. But they refused to cut my hair. I was 12, 13 year old kid and I went to the barbershop. I sat there and they stood there and I watched the clock go, and watch people come in and get a haircut. I said they must have had an appointment. Well, the guy called me up there and say, come her young man. I was about 13 years old. I remember playing baseball for an Ann Arbor Police baseball team. He's says what do you want? I'm looking at I'm like, what do you think I'm sitting here? To shine your shoes? A hair cut sir. He says come here. He walked me through the door, stood out, and pointed up, you go to blocks up there and make a left-hand turn. They'll cut your hair. We don't cut your hair here. That's another discrimination. Another discrimination I faced was I was a very good swimmer. I loved to swim. My family, we went out to Whitmore Lake . It's called Grooms Beach, I think it was back in the '50s also. My brother and my mother and I walked through the gate. My dad was a more of a darker brown complexion but Indian hair. They stopped him and they told my mother, and told us, come back. You're not allowed to swim in Whitmore Lake, period. I didn't know what the heck they're talking about. What do you mean I can't swim? Just gets some type of something going on, bacteria? No, I didn't find out later. They didn't not allow brown skinned people to swim in the lake out there. Now, I don't want to take up any more time, but there are many incidents that as a biracial or non biracial, as long as you were a person of color, you caught a lot of flacking in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One last name. I formed the basketball team here in Ann Arbor. I was older and the sponsors had me to dinner because I was the coordinator of the team. We ended up having a very good team. This is just for the record, I guess for my own ego, we won 132 games only lost 24 in seven years. But during that initial meeting, I'm sitting at a table and I'm being told that you're likely the only black to ever eat in Elk's Club, which was up on Main Street at the time, at the corner of main land or something like that. But it was there. I'm sitting here thinking, well, are you kidding me? I say so what? But after that, I realized even at that point in the late '60s, there's that separation bias. Now, like I said, I asked you how much time you want to hear that. That's enough. There's a couple of incidents I won't bring up. We might have to move on.
[02:13:02] Interviewer: How do you think this affected you? Especially after the administration address you at your school about your girlfriend, did you stop seeing that girlfriend?
[02:13:15] Don Simons: No, we had to go more and a little bit. I just stopped seeing her. Pioneer High School, we actually had to go up to the fourth floor where the clock is at, just to sit for 20 minutes and have lunch to avoid a mess. One day, she came crying to me. I was not done in school building because she walked into the room where they were having lunch and their dancing and having music, and two or three people shout she's a nigger lover. She came crying to me, I said, what's the problem? I probably shouldn't give it a name, but people in Ann Arbor in '60s and '70s all knew who we were. I gravitated. I said let's go back down there. She says, no, I can't face it. I said listen, I'm going to put the end of this now. We walked in the room and it got so quiet. You could drop a penny on cotton and you would hear it land. I said, I am here now. You deal with me. Leave her alone. You have an issue, come to me, stop bullying her. Leave her alone. If someone wants to step out here in the hallway now, and have a conversation, we can do that or whatever you have to bring. That was it. I don't know if it did her any good or not, but that's what I did. It may have coiled a little bit of that.
[02:14:42] Interviewer: How do you feel that you overcame all this issues? When you were subject to discrimination, how do you think that you as a teenager were able to overcome this situation?
[02:14:53] Don Simons: I was okay because I was basically so much into sports. I was always releasing that stress. I was playing football, basketball, running track, swimming, playing golf. I became all that stuff because it didn't impact me as badly as impacted her. Her family member actually came to my house when they offered to pay my way to college out of town to get me to go out of Ann Arbor. She had an awful lot of difficulties after that. Seven, eight years later, her dad apologized to me out at Oberlin parking lot. He said Hello, Mr. Simon, he hollered at me, probably about 30 yards away. I turn around and I say, what now? He said I just wanted to come up and apologize to you. You were the best man for my daughter. I realized after it's too late. I was under a lot of pressure from the people of entitlement, of means, and my wife, and everybody to do what I did, that was wrong. He apologized to me, and I thanked him for that.
[02:16:22] Interviewer: We can revisit this issue or this topic later. I think we are going to move on to another key point that we wanted to touch on was you had the fun that you created in commemoration of your son and their relationship that you had with your son. If you want to talk a little bit about your relationship with your son,.
[02:16:44] Don Simons: My beloved son went through school, very quiet and to an extent, he always had to sit at the back of the room because he was big, which took him out of interacting with the teachers or things because any type of student go to the back of the room, they're not going to engage. I always can tell through my teaching where students sits, talk, walk if they're going to involve or not, so I'll find a way to get them in, but that didn't help him because he became very quiet, he was not communicative, but he was extremely perceptive. He's perceived extremely proud, private, and protective. Anybody who he cared for, he really took care of and he could read things as a young kid and a teenager and many adults couldn't see, but he'd tell me things were about to happen and people were doing certain things and he was seldom ever wrong. We had a very good relationship, especially after he graduated and then got out of college and had a job. We had a very good relationship, we'd differed on some things, but we're always able to come back the next day and say man up and we move forward. I miss him dearly. I did set up this memoir to fund in his name to help student athletes at here in Hide to started out with, but with hopes to expand it to skyline and Pioneer.
[02:18:28] Interviewer: Do you see yourself in your son, do you think you share a lot of qualities with him?
[02:18:39] Don Simons: Well, yes. The apple does not fall far from the tree or vice versa. He was known as a silent slater in football. He's the strongest as he did go through Michigan football camp in 2017, athletes. He never bragged, or boasted about it. I found by two days later from some of his core players and went down to the stadium and saw his name on the board. He was extremely strong. He was a hard worker. You wouldn't know about this, but as 17 years of age, he bench press 225 pounds 21 times at 17. There's college athletes that can't do that in their junior and senior year, many can't and some pros couldn't either so I need not to go there. He had a work ethic that was unbelievable. When he committed to do something, he was very good with it. He was a brilliant, outstanding auto engineer and his car where his kids and now that his cars are my grandkids because he spent so much time upbringing his cars from someone with 350 horse power when he got them, raised them up to slightly over 500 horse power. He was extremely good with that. Yes, we had a lot alike. He said that because I taught him to be honest in so many areas it often would come back to haunt him because this society does not really reward you for your honesty. He went out to Arizona to interview for a high profile job for the federal government. When he got out there during the interview, they asked him how many years he had worked in his area of auto engineering. He said two years and seven and a half months roughly. They used it as an excuse to say we can't use you, we have to have three years yet they contribute to fly him out there for the interview. They use that rather that was the reason that if they see you sometime you don't know if there's racial or you don't know why, but that's what they told him. I felt bad too, because some people can lie and people are lying in our society right now. From the politicians down and getting away with it. The truth is it lost virtual.
[02:21:26] Interviewer: When did your son pass away?
[02:21:28] Don Simons: In 2012.
[02:21:34] Interviewer: Talking a little bit about the fun that you created [inaudible 02:21:37] system, we know that you also worked for Maxey and we were wondering what correlation was there between your work with kids from a lower socioeconomic status at Maxey as the PE teacher to the creation of the fund in memory of your son?
[02:21:56] Don Simons: What relationship?
[02:21:58] Interviewer: Do you think that maybe because he worked with these boys for so long that maybe you wanted to be able to help people like them.
[02:22:08] Don Simons: It may have been a contributing factor, but it wasn't the primary factor. The primary factor is, I recognize there's a lot of families in this society that they don't qualify for free lunch program, they're still on the borderline of collapsing as a family. I did not want students and not to be able to participate in sports because that's a hook that keeps you in school, helps you stay more eligible and it helps to release stress. No matter what sports you are in, teenagers need a stress release. You have too much energy and not enough to do with it instead play with technology, in my opinion.
[02:22:55] Interviewer: What are the biggest things that you've learned from facing adversity in your lifetime, specifically relating to racial prejudice?
[02:23:02] Don Simons: Any things that I?
[02:23:07] Interviewer: What are the biggest things that you've learned from facing adversity? And this could be from the discrimination that you faced growing up or from the loss of a loved one.
[02:23:20] Don Simons: I guess, I've learned to weather the storms. I recognize mankind itself, bent on not accepting each other. Mankind is probably worse than animals in the jungle. There is wars everywhere, conflict everywhere. Everybody is got a border. Everybody got a guideline. Everybody has an issue. Everybody has jealousies. Everybody I shouldn't have said because no such thing as everyone, but those are the things that if you look at them clearly, is things everyone be peaceful, I don't things so. Two men were killed in Afghanistan yesterday, they're just all around. Often the underlining my thing is the lack of faith and trust or as money driven. Often money driven might be the main focus.
[02:24:24] Interviewer: We could talk a little bit about how you've watched Ann Arbor develop over the years and see like what type of changes have you like really noticed growing up?
[02:24:37] Don Simons: Ann Arbor structure wise I used to go to a larger cities, but there's really nothing that coming back in Ann Arbor, strike cleanliness, things to do, culture. Ann Arbor is something very special. Even though things I face, I wouldn't leave all the other towns in Michigan and other states that I've visited but Ann Arbor is cream with the top.
[02:25:05] Interviewer: Are you happy that you've lived here for all during your life or that you would've liked to live somewhere else?
[02:25:12] Don Simons: Well, I would like to suggest if I had an opportunity, I would love to be in about eight, 900 miles South of here where it's warmer. I always have a problem with cold. That's why I liked basketball better than football, although I think I might've been better in football. I like it because it's indoors and it's always the same climate. If anything I would have done differently, I wanted to relocate the Atlanta in '80s and it didn't work out. I was trying to get out this cold winter, ice, snow, wind. When the wind blows the hawks saying, why are you coming up here? But some people love it. Some people like seasons. Seasons are nice, but I still think I would like to have when they find themselves with the seasons, have a longer period of summer and fall. We don't have good springs anymore. The spring is not wrong. Spring is lost somewhere. I know back in the '60s and '70s, I had a convertible. I dropped my top marks on a regular basis. No, not anymore, you can't count on it. Even though there's global warming, which I do believe, the seasons have changed and it's time to jump. It may go from two weeks to spring into immediately a hot summer, they used to be a nice transition. March winds, April flowers, temperatures in the '60s on a fairly regular basis. I don't know if I went too far with that.
[02:26:55] Interviewer: Touching back a little bit to the first talk we discussed about growing biracial, remember, what was the diversity like at your high school? Were there are a lot of other people who were also biracial or who was there a lot of mixture of cultures and people hanging out with or there were other cultures around that were very separate?
[02:27:16] Don Simons: I was pretty separated. And pretty separated, I mean, in that athletic arena, there's interaction, which to this day I have a strong bond with a lot of guys I went to high school with, played ball with. In fact they shared information with me that find out five or six years ago that not by their doing that, I wasn't even allowed to part of. They didn't know anything about it. I'm going to put this on the screen, it's not necessary. But no, I had a good relationship with all the guys that I played ball with or against.
[02:27:50] Interviewer: What about the teachers, were teachers mostly white at your school during that time?
[02:27:56] Don Simons: Mostly, that's an understatement. There might have been two in the whole school that might have been black. One science teacher. There might've been two. Correct.
[02:28:07] Interviewer: Does anybody else have any questions they want to touch on? Because I covered everything I think on the [inaudible 02:28:15] .
[02:28:16] FEMALE_3: Is there anything else you want to add or anything you think is important on your mind?
[02:28:23] Don Simons: No, I'm sure I'll think of something when I leave, but that's the way it goes. [LAUGHTER] That way it should go. I can't think of anything to add other than follow your passion as students. People, cultures, and family will guide you into a direction to better yourself, but have more than one thing to choose from. Don't limit yourself to one thing until you get a little older, then your passion will tell you what you really want to do. There are so many students that go to school after high school. They do the schooling, but they don't realize that is something they really may not want to do and financially it may not compensate them for their time. So you have to weigh that scale as to passion, enjoyment, and compensation for it. There's some people who go to college and come out with a $35,000 debt and they don't even like what they're doing. So that's the only thing I can pass off for now.
[02:29:34] Interviewer: Okay.
[02:29:38] Don Simons: Are we off the screen?
[02:29:39] Interviewer: Yeah. [OVERLAPPING]
[02:29:43] Don Simons: I started to call somebody out here, but I left him alone. [LAUGHTER] You guys know what I'm talking about?
[02:29:51] Interviewer: No.
[02:29:51] FEMALE_3: No.
[02:29:52] Don Simons: No [inaudible 02:29:52]
[02:29:55] Interviewer: Obviously, it's between us, sir.
[02:29:57] Don Simons: Yeah, that's right. Some things you do leave in your own pockets and you don't expose it. That's right. Okay. How has your team been doing this year?
[02:30:12] Interviewer: Well, spring just started so our first game is today. We're playing Plymouth. Last year we did pretty well, but we lost a lot of good senior players.
[02:30:24] Don Simons: Plymouth is a big system.
[02:30:27] Interviewer: It's like Plymouth, Cantons. I don't know.
[02:30:30] FEMALE_3: It's not like the giant, it's like one big school.
[02:30:35] Don Simons: They have three high schools in that one area.
[02:30:37] Interviewer: I think so. I think it's called like [inaudible 02:30:38] something like that and it's 4,000 or 5,000 kids or something like that.
[02:30:44] FEMALE_3: It's like Plymouth, Canton, and something else.
[02:30:47] Don Simons: I should have wiped my lips, so I feel like they're wet and dry. You got a replay? I need to see that. It's not that close, is it?
[02:30:56] Interviewer: No. I didn't notice on the screen.
[02:31:00] FEMALE_3: Under the screen it's like the small on the camera.
[02:31:02] Interviewer: Yeah.
[02:31:02] Don Simons: Oh, well, how big it would be at the theater?
[02:31:06] Interviewer: Theater service. [LAUGHTER]
[02:31:09] Don Simons: Rocket scientist, isn't it? [LAUGHTER]
[02:31:10] Interviewer: So we should talk to him about the screening.
[02:31:16] FEMALE_3: Yeah.
[02:31:18] Interviewer: So part of the process of these interviews is to meet with the client and have them bring in some photos or items, something that will be sentimental to you, and we can include them in the video if you like. Is it the week after spring? Yeah.
[02:31:35] FEMALE_3: Right. Spring break is next week.
[02:31:38] Interviewer: Not this week that's coming up, but the following week.
[02:31:42] FEMALE_3: Or maybe a week after that.
[02:31:43] Interviewer: Yeah. We'll email you. And we'll let you know.
[02:31:45] Don Simons: Yeah, because I have a birthday coming up and so I probably won't be around approximately after April 5th, I think. What week is spring week?
[02:31:55] Interviewer: Next week. [OVERLAPPING] That's actually perfect.
[02:31:58] Don Simons: This is the last day of school?
[02:32:00] Interviewer: Yeah, this is the last day of school. We don't have school next week.
[02:32:02] Don Simons: You should be walking on your toes, tiptoe and everything .
[02:32:07] Interviewer: Oh, trust me. [LAUGHTER] I'm so anxious to get out of school.
[02:32:08] Don Simons: Wow.
[02:32:08] Interviewer: We're almost done here.
[02:32:10] Don Simons: So it will be sometime after, let me see, then the 31st is on a Sunday. It won't be that week, it'll be the week after that you think?
[02:32:18] Interviewer: Yes. Or it could be that week. We're not exactly sure. We'll contact you. [OVERLAPPING]
[02:32:23] FEMALE_3: There are a couple options.
[02:32:25] Interviewer: We're thinking of some photos, we're looking for some things that you might want to bring in.
[02:32:29] Don Simons: And these things will be attached to the video or will they be scanned here?
[02:32:35] Interviewer: Yeah. You'll get to keep the original copies. We'll just scan them.
[02:32:38] Don Simons: We'll scan here, then I can take, whenever I bring back?
[02:32:41] Interviewer: Yeah.
[02:32:42] FEMALE_3: Yes.
[02:32:42] Interviewer: I think you can bring pictures from your high school or your childhood, or your family.
[02:32:47] Don Simons: On family.
[02:32:47] Interviewer: Just things that are important to you that you think you want to include.
[02:32:52] Don Simons: Okay. So it shouldn't be just me, it could be I understand, something that I think maybe six or eight things that I think.
[02:32:59] Interviewer: Yeah. Some things that you talked about, like you have a picture of you and your basketball team or something like that.
[02:33:04] FEMALE_3: [inaudible 02:33:04] your high school friends, stuff like that.
[02:33:05] Interviewer: Yeah.
[02:33:07] Don Simons: The basketball team.
[02:33:08] Interviewer: Or like a picture of you and your family. I remember you brought in a sheet that was about the fund that you created. Maybe we could take a picture of that and add that in there too.
[02:33:17] FEMALE_3: We'd like to have something at the end of the video, kind of, endorsing your fund and giving information about it, and showing a logo, and possibly showing how people could donate to it. So people see this video, and would like to contribute, we'd like to have materials like that as well.
[02:33:35] Don Simons: That's really great. I started when my son's shirt, I had special shirts made with his picture on it. I started to wear that for the video shoot but I said, well, I won't do that. But that's very great. That's very thoughtful.
[02:33:49] Interviewer: If you want to bring your logo shirts, you're free to bring them, it's okay.
[02:33:54] Don Simons: I made shirts with my grand kids. All his daughters, I had special shirts with them on the front and some on the back also. Wow, you guys come with these questions yourself?
[02:34:08] Interviewer: Yeah.
[02:34:08] FEMALE_3: Yeah.
[02:34:09] Don Simons: Very compassionate, you got me very thoughtful, really. You really are. That's very thoughtful of you. So in the meantime, you guys enjoy your spring break and make sure to bring me two or three days of 50 degree weather with us. [LAUGHTER] Let's do a 10 degrees short, much better.
[02:34:28] FEMALE_3: Yeah.
[02:34:30] Don Simons: All right. Yeah, so I'll bring you the information about that too. So thanks a lot. Are those canvas shoes?
[02:34:37] Interviewer: These? Yeah.
[02:34:38] Don Simons: Canvas, yeah.
[02:34:39] Interviewer: Yeah.
[02:34:40] Don Simons: Oh, yeah. They were dying to buy those for years. [LAUGHTER]
[02:34:43] Interviewer: They're good.
[02:34:44] Don Simons: Those are all times shoes.
[02:34:45] Interviewer: [inaudible 02:34:45]
[02:34:50] Don Simons: Yeah. You could. First [inaudible 02:34:52] wear whatever you want. [LAUGHTER] You see, I never got hung up with, you couldn't do that, can't do or you can do this. I'll do what I want to do. [LAUGHTER]
[02:35:03] Interviewer: [inaudible 02:35:03] [OVERLAPPING]
[02:35:03] Don Simons: That's for marketing, for money.
[02:35:12] Interviewer: Yeah, marketing.
[02:35:13] Don Simons: And they give you something to wear specially for that, so you feel like you need to spend the money. [LAUGHTER] Everything is money driven. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, right. I have some people who have played barefoot and still whip you. [LAUGHTER]
[02:35:27] Interviewer: That's terrible. Thank you.
[02:35:31] FEMALE_3: Thank you.
[02:35:32] Don Simons: Yes, the purpose of that was a prevention is for intervention program to enhance character in youth. They teach the character of responsibility, honesty, sportsmanship, and that's what I found in the '80s. I did that for several years. In '93, I was a co-founder of the old neighborhood reunion picnic. People when they tell you was in Ann Arbor papers two weeks ago, is a big write-up, a whole two-page spread on the neighborhood, the black neighborhood. It used to be predominantly black. I'm a co-founder of the picnic we have every year. We used to have over 400 people over there. And many, many, many have died. People have come back from the United States. But now it's [inaudible 02:36:22] . Those are the things that I can go through if you want to ask certain questions. And if you looked at the paperwork I gave you last week, there are some things there.
[02:36:34] Interviewer: Yeah, we looked at those and we went them all over. We watched [inaudible 02:36:37]
[02:36:38] Don Simons: So would you get from here up?
[02:36:46] Interviewer: Yeah. [inaudible 02:36:46] . We thought about playing your game of card.
[02:36:51] Don Simons: That will make you laugh.
[02:36:52] Interviewer: No.
[02:36:57] Don Simons: Well.
[02:36:58] Interviewer: If you have any cell phones or anything that needs to be make sure you keep it off. [LAUGHTER]
[02:37:05] Don Simons: Yeah.
[02:37:06] Interviewer: Of course. If you want a break at anytime, just let us know. We will ask you that little break in the middle again.
[02:37:14] Don Simons: Because of the bill.
[02:37:15] Interviewer: Yeah so [inaudible 02:37:16]
[02:37:17] Don Simons: There's somebody missing today. Seemed like we used to have six?
[02:37:22] Interviewer: No.
[02:37:22] Don Simons: Dingo [LAUGHTER] I want to get a picture of all of you also, when hit my camera it can take a picture of [LAUGHTER] of you, I heard you're saying it because three out of four you're going to go way up high. Sometime, maybe all of you, three out of five I can't even count this morning [LAUGHTER] This is going to be pretty bad. Let me know when you're ready.
[02:37:48] Interviewer: Further context. This other question covers are relatively long period, like part of your life from the time you completed your education, entered the labor force or started a family until all of your children left home, and you and your spouse retired from work. As we're possibly talking about as much as four decades in this thing. There'll be more guidelines throughout the questions.
[02:38:10] Don Simons: Mystery long.
[02:38:12] Interviewer: We're going to start with residents community. After you've finished high school, where did you live?
[02:38:20] Don Simons: I stayed in [inaudible 02:38:20] and I stayed at home for three years. I went to Eastern Michigan University.
[02:38:29] Interviewer: [inaudible 02:38:29]
[02:38:31] Don Simons: I lived at home and I got a ride or I hitchhiked back-and-forth some time to school.
[02:38:37] Interviewer: Why did you still choose to live at home?
[02:38:39] Don Simons: Economics.
[02:38:41] Interviewer: That's really expensive to say.
[02:38:44] Don Simons: No, but at that time, my family had very little money. I was actually working for $0.90 an hour.
[02:38:53] Interviewer: Your parents both still have their jobs that they had ?
[02:38:56] Don Simons: They still had a job but there was very difficult to maintain anyhow. I was fortunate at that time, my whole first semester at Eastern Michigan was only $103. Can you imagine that now it's $300 per hour so it's quite different.
[02:39:16] Interviewer: What year did you graduate yourself?
[02:39:19] Don Simons: I graduate from high school in 1961, and I came out at Eastern Michigan with a degree in physical education, and a group science minor, and I was certified in special education in 1967.
[02:39:35] Interviewer: Did you have always all those within other parts.
[02:39:38] Don Simons: Never lived anywhere else. Always a local Yoko.
[02:39:41] Interviewer: Did you think that you'd [inaudible 02:39:42]?
[02:39:44] Don Simons: No. I didn't think that far. Not really didn't.
[02:39:54] Interviewer: Who was your wife what was she like to tell us about her?
[02:39:57] Don Simons: My wife was from Toledo, Ohio, I met her while I roller skating and college, I'd go down to roller skate, and I saw her down in Jackson, Michigan a few weeks after then, then I started going back to date her. She was a very determined, strong-willed woman, and she was very much active, and support the woman liberated movement back in the '70s. She finished her degree at Eastern Michigan University of Michigan as a registered nurse, and she ended up working two jobs at St. Joe Hospital and the senior unit and she also worked in psychotherapy and did shock treatment for psycho parents. But above that, she was a fantastic mother. She has come home from work after working in night shift, and take the little kids that were preschool or babysitter. She would do the baby sitting at home, going without sleep some time so she was a great mother.
[02:41:07] Interviewer: It sounds like she had a pretty intense job.
[02:41:09] Don Simons: She did have an intense job.
[02:41:11] Interviewer: Did it ever take a toll on already [inaudible 02:41:12]
[02:41:14] Don Simons: No. I think it did take a toll working mid nights for so long, yes.
[02:41:20] Interviewer: Did you work late like that too?
[02:41:22] Don Simons: No. I always had a day shift. No, I haven't started working 7:30-4:30.
[02:41:26] Interviewer: Then you would be home from school?
[02:41:28] Don Simons: No they'd beat home, yeah they used to beat me home.
[02:41:32] Interviewer: Who was the cook in your house, were the cook or was she the cook?
[02:41:35] Don Simons: No I was far from a cook. I couldn't boil water without burning it [LAUGHTER] so no, she was the cook.
[02:41:47] Interviewer: Were you engaged? Did you guys have a big wedding?
[02:41:51] Don Simons: Yes. We were engaged, and we had relatively big wedding down in Toledo Ohio.
[02:42:02] Interviewer: Tell us about your kids. How many kids did you have?
[02:42:05] Don Simons: Three. First daughter was born in 1970. Donna Carol Simons named after me and my wife, whose name was Carolyn McDonald's. She is a graduate from Tennessee State University. She is in Civil Engineering, and she's a project manager for major projects for the development for the city of Detroit. Second daughter, Alina Adele. She was born in 1977. She was a students and athlete also. She was the first athlete at Huron High School to get a letter four years in three sports. She laid her in basketball, volleyball, and track. She was all area in all of those sports, and she got a Fulbright Scholarship, she went to Howard University. She graduated with a degree in international business, something that I'm missing. She is very well liked by the student body, always able to communicate, and she was homecoming queen also. She was laid upon her, and then I repeat it back then. My third child was my son, is born in 1983. He was an average student going through high school, but he was a super athlete. He was the only football player on his team to get a division one scholarship with football, and when he got to college, he became an extremely a good student. He light switch clip for him. He became an excellent student, he graduated with a degree in Auto Engineering from Ferris State University, and he was much more than just a mechanic. He was engineer, he worked on cars, and high performance cars. He modified them, he worked for a private company that would investigate domestic, military and foreign cars, and he did research on how they would break down and find out the problems before basically was announced to the public. I unfortunately lost my son in 2012 so that a big part of my heart at a loss.
[02:44:33] Interviewer: If you don't mind us asking you, how did your son die?
[02:44:36] Don Simons: Natural causes.
[02:44:41] Interviewer: After your son died, you started a memorial program? You started the fund?
[02:44:47] Don Simons: Yes, I started a memorial for the handover education system has now been transferred over to another non-profit organization St Ann Arbor Area Foundation in the memorial fund is set up to help student athletes in the pay-to-play programs. Right now is exclusively adherent high, but within two years with funding, I intend to expand it to airline into Ann Arbor Pioneer.
[02:45:22] Interviewer: When did you start this?
[02:45:24] Don Simons: It started in 2013.
[02:45:26] Interviewer: Shortly after. [OVERLAPPING]
[02:45:28] Don Simons: One of the student athletes. Actually, she continued her basketball and she ended up going down to Miami and she's paying for division one basketball team right now.
[02:45:38] Interviewer: She was one of the recipient.
[02:45:39] Don Simons: She's one of the recipients. Yes.
[02:45:42] Interviewer: How many people does it like?
[02:45:44] Don Simons: It depends. We're set up to do maybe allocate 2-4 year, but last year we didn't have any new to the transfer of funds into another organization. We're up involve this year to try and generate finding someone for the winter, and spring semester. Sometimes we may find two people each semester, but we haven't determined that.
[02:46:10] Interviewer: Do you feel like sports was a big part of your whole family's life and big part of culture, and family?
[02:46:15] Don Simons: I think it's pretty clear. It was more than a part of it. It was every other breath. Kept people in line, kept you condition, discipline. Talk to you a lot about sportsmanship, which sometimes is not reflected very well. Today, you see program every appearance or fighting, Pee Wee football types of things have changed so but yes, it was a very big part of bringing the family.
[02:46:48] Interviewer: How old are your kids now?
[02:46:53] Don Simons: You guys are still in high school. You should do the math. Let me see me. You asked me that in class, my oldest daughter is 48. My youngest daughter is 41. My son would have been 35.
[02:47:12] Interviewer: There is a big age difference between three of them.
[02:47:30] Interviewer: You worked at Maxey for a long time. Did you consider that your main job throughout your entire life?
[02:47:35] Don Simons: That was my primary job as a physical education teacher, semi counselor and coach. As a counselor because every day you're counseling students, basically you're counselor and you connect first before you actually deliver your teaching. I worked at Maxey 1965-97.
[02:47:58] Interviewer: What would you say was the hardest part not working at Maxey?
[02:47:59] Don Simons: Hardest part, for me as an educator and a teacher was year-round teaching. We never got to break. The administrators of the state never saw we needed a 46 week program which was offered in the correctional prisons. We actually had more staff attacked, and injured at our facility than they do in the prisons. No. It was very difficult. It was not as many attacks just before I retired. But it was very difficult working with 14, 18 year old.
[02:48:39] Interviewer: What were some of the day difficulties you would struggle with?
[02:48:45] Don Simons: To diffuse personal vendettas and fights. Some time if you would have distortions, they would think that someone is picking on them or says something they didn't interpret and they get offended at it when it wasn't the intention of what someone was saying. That's not what was intended, but it's been misinterpreted. Communication is very delicate. Self-esteem in teenagers and adults is very delicate. That was probably the most difficult part. Probably getting them all on the same page, sometime to too was difficult. But when I first started working at 22 youth in my group, which is equivalent to having 40 in physical education class or more because there's always problems. These kids didn't come in here for stealing popsicles or getting into a Mickey Mouse fights. There's rough individuals who had a difficult time. They're born into an environment with little bit support economically and emotionally. They were often hang out to fend for themselves. But on the other hand, there are some that had everything in place to help keep them from being institutionalized, but they chose another direction.
[02:50:13] Interviewer: What things would kids be centinizing for?
[02:50:16] Don Simons: Everything from lengthy liasonees to assault. Killing, a rape then the whole gamut of offenses.
[02:50:31] Interviewer: Just a question about Maxey, if you go through the age of 18, and then continue to have [inaudible 02:50:39] are you released or you sent to an adult?
[02:50:42] Don Simons: Generally they are released prior to their unlisted committed offenses so bad. But they have aftercare counselors that sometime they report and you get the help they needed and something they wouldn't. But they weren't automatically released just because of the age.
[02:51:03] Interviewer: Did you teach physical education?
[02:51:10] Don Simons: I taught physical education, and ahead of three or four-year period, I've also worked health education also.
[02:51:15] Interviewer: Which do you prefer teaching there?
[02:51:21] Don Simons: I would love to have the combination, maybe hit for classical physical education, two classes health end, but it never worked out that way. I don't know if I had to preference. But if I have a preference, I'd rather be in physical education classroom and than in an enclosed classroom.
[02:51:42] Interviewer: Did you have be really controlling and take your stand and stuff?
[02:51:47] Don Simons: I had to start out controlling. The same thing when when I left Maxey in 1917, I went to Boys Bill down in Clinton and I worked down there 97-2006. You have to go in controlling set limits because it's always easier to set limits and back off rather than wait to college out of the barn and gone and then try and pull them in. You can start with understanding limits. I will say I was controlling but flexible.
[02:52:26] Interviewer: Do you think that your styles for teaching students at Maxey reflected on your parenting styles or was there difference?
[02:52:37] Don Simons: I think there's similarity. The parent has to do is to set boundaries and controls. Just knowing that your mouth rited check that you can't cash.
[02:52:49] Interviewer: Did your kids know what your job was?
[02:52:52] Don Simons: Yes.
[02:52:52] Interviewer: Were they interested about it?
[02:52:52] Don Simons: I would take them out to my job periodically and I would take them out every now and then to play in the gym or swim. My kids learned to swim at the Maxey Training School.
[02:53:05] Interviewer: [BACKGROUND] Do you need water or anything?
[02:53:15] Don Simons: I'm fine. Thank you. Don't let me forget to take a picture of you guys when I leave.[BACKGROUND] Most of you go to lunch after this?
[02:53:37] Interviewer: We have to leave lunch period.
[02:53:41] Don Simons: Really crowded down there, isn't it? I just found out there's 1,480 students in this building and I bet you guys didn't know that, did you?
[02:53:52] Interviewer: [OVERLAPPING] No.
[02:53:55] Don Simons: Now you know.
[02:53:55] Interviewer: There's a person you see every day that you think you saw before.
[02:54:00] Don Simons: Yeah,1,480 students. I think when I graduated from high school, we had close to 2000 at Pioneer.
[02:54:10] Interviewer: I wanted to ask you, my grandpa was also a born in the '43 and also went to Pioneer. I asked him if knew you, he said he did. His name is George Fisher.
[02:54:21] Don Simons: He said he does know me?
[02:54:22] Interviewer: Yeah. If you don't remember I'll be offended.
[02:54:28] Don Simons: I'll look him up my yearbook, but I don't recall him.
[02:54:35] Interviewer: Quieter.
[02:54:39] Don Simons: People know me for various different reasons. Being the asset eating. Quite frankly, I went with the traffic girls in high school were the time that there a lot of people didn't like because in a racial thing, although I marked the FE, so I was a target and people knew me. His name is George Fisher? I'm going to look him up. But I think I knew what he said. Tell him I said hi. Asked him, did he go to anywhere high school reunions because they don't do them anymore. Because the people that were doing the reunions, they're just too tired. It takes too much energy. The last one we had, I think we had almost 200 people there, which was pretty good, so 50th-55th. Has he lived in [inaudible 02:55:31] ? I remember thinking that I'm a company right down there by the University of Michigan Ice Arena. Wow. He worked there a long time?
[02:55:49] Interviewer: Probably like 30, 40 years.
[02:55:52] Don Simons: I guess. Just wow.
[02:55:54] Interviewer: Using one out of state to go to school, he went Boston and then he got drafted. He did have to go to Vietnam, but he was stationed in Germany and then he came back and started working.
[02:56:11] Don Simons: Wow, that's nice. I can get his phone number. I really like to give him a call because I have about 70 people are still connect with. I'd love to give him a call if you can give his phone number.
[02:56:22] Interviewer: Sure.
[02:56:22] Don Simons: That's interesting. I'm going to tell you a story that will blow your mind. If you remember my daughter is working at Albany State University in New York. Last year and she was working in diversity department. They have a meeting once a year with all the department heads. She got to a meeting early and then there's another gentleman who was he was headed economic department of the whole university. He was asking her, what would you go and do the summer salmon go back down Anaba. He said, "Anaba? I know a little bit about Anaba" And she said, "Well, what do you know about Anaba?" He said," I'm went to Anaba high school and graduated in 1961." My daughter scratched her head. She said, "That's when my dad graduated." She said what is the name? She told him he didn't quite remember me very clear. I don't remember him at all. He was a nerd for sure. I went to the yearbook. We're on the same page. Every time I go to New York and I just got back two weeks ago, we went to lunch. He's still working as the head of the Economics Department at the University of Albany in Albany, New York.
[02:57:40] Interviewer: It's a small-world. That's crazy.
[02:57:41] Don Simons: Wasn't there something? We came to find out we went to the same camp as a kid. As 14 year old we went to Camp Baggett.
[02:57:47] Interviewer: I went to Camp Baggett. [OVERLAPPING].
[02:58:00] Don Simons: Oh Jesus, Camp Baggett. I went to for five years. You can ask him that he can't break the thing in here because I wanted to discuss.
[02:58:14] Interviewer: [OVERLAPPING] The bell's going to ring in 30, 52 minutes.
[02:58:21] Don Simons: Well, I can tell you when you've been in the video. Oh, yeah. And just asked me to send your questions. I went to Camp Baggett in from the ages of 11-15 and rode horses is still off to offer Silver Lake road. Mr. Endocarditis is out there. Wow, I thought I drove out there about 5, 6 years ago as all trees grew all over the place. In the places that we had a more narrow range. We had a rifle range, which I bet they don't have that anymore.
[02:58:59] Interviewer: Yeah. It was another one.
[02:58:59] FEMALE_3: Did you ever hear of camp [inaudible 02:58:59] ?
[02:58:59] Don Simons: No.
[02:59:04] Interviewer: I've heard of it.
[02:59:04] FEMALE_3: It was an all boys camp. I think it's not the '50s, like '58, I think it started, close to the '60s. It's an all boys [inaudible 02:59:10] camp. It's a lot like [inaudible 02:59:12].
[02:59:16] Don Simons: Wow.
[02:59:16] FEMALE_3: We stayed at [inaudible 02:59:17] as well.
[02:59:17] Don Simons: Wow. No, I didn't know that. You went out and spent the night out in the cabins?
[02:59:20] FEMALE_3: Yeah, we go now. Us we go, did you guys ever go?
[02:59:24] FEMALE_5: No, I didn't. [inaudible 02:59:27].
[02:59:27] Don Simons: Do they still have the reptile pit?
[02:59:30] FEMALE_5: Reptile pit?
[02:59:30] Don Simons: No. [LAUGHTER] They had a reptile pit when I was going and they had snakes, big turtles and everything. It was a big reptile pit. That was something to see.
[02:59:43] Interviewer: That's great.
[02:59:44] Don Simons: Are we on video yet?
[02:59:49] FEMALE_3: Yeah.
[02:59:50] Don Simons: Oh. [LAUGHTER] I remember a lot of things about camp [inaudible 02:59:54] , but I remember being as a 12 or 13-year-old, I swam across Silver Lake and they had a guy in the boat and there was only about eight or nine of us, but I was the youngest in the group swimming. Quite frankly, it would have been nice [inaudible 03:00:11] , but I didn't do that in high school. I got over the other side of the lake, they picked us up, I came back. I remember walking through my [inaudible 03:00:21] and getting in my bunk bed. I was so tired, I slept through dinner into the next day.
[03:00:29] Interviewer: They let you do that?
[03:00:30] Don Simons: They let me do it.
[03:00:32] FEMALE_3: They would never let you do that [OVERLAPPING] . That was great.
[03:00:32] Don Simons: No. I slept all the way through. I was so wiped out, but I did it and they said, wow, we never had anybody that young swim all the way across the lake. But I did. I was proud to be camp champ an archery. I kept my little medal for years. I don't know where it's at. I kept it. We moved and I just lost it. I kept the arrow. [NOISE] I was camp champ in bow. Decent with a rifle, but a camp champ with the bow. They had a contest, cross-country running then. Do they still have that up there? Probably not.
[03:01:12] Interviewer: They don't let people swim across the lake anymore. I definitely tried to do that and they were like, no, you can't do that.
[03:01:19] Don Simons: No, that's probably too high a risk and liability but they had one or two people in a rowboat with us that they could have helped us. They had all types of contests out that I remember. I remember some crazy kids out there too. This one young man, he tried to pretend he was a fish. He stuck a hook in his mouth and got caught. That was a little goofy. [LAUGHTER] I remember we had overnight horseback ride, about six of us rode in our horses, camped out there and the camp counselors told us there was a bobcat and wild cats up in the woods. They woke us up about 2 o'clock, guys be quiet. We heard a howling. We'll be right back. They left us in the tents, and we said what? They played a little game on us. There are some real cruel games they played. I do remember also, they took the trucks out there with big barrels of food that had been thrown away and they take it to the farmers and dump it in for the hogs. I remember those hogs were big vicious hogs and when they dumped that stuff, you wouldn't want to fall off the truck into that food because those hogs were vicious. Those are a few highlights. Food was always good up in the dining hall. Is the dining hall still on the hill?
[03:02:46] Interviewer: Yeah. [inaudible 03:02:46] .
[03:02:49] Don Simons: Wow.
[03:02:50] Interviewer: I haven't gone there since I was six or seven.
[03:02:55] Don Simons: When I went through, that was '55, '56 or '57. I was 12, 13 or 14. Yes. That camp's been around a long time.
[03:03:09] Interviewer: Did you do any other things like that? Like other summer camps or fun things during the summer?
[03:03:14] Don Simons: No, never do anything. In the summer, I worked at a golf course. When I was 12 years old, I worked at a golf course.
[03:03:20] Interviewer: Do you play golf now?
[03:03:22] Don Simons: Not now, but I played it a lot of golf up until about 7, 8 years ago that affect my program that I funded and found called In Bounds to enhance character in youth. I was the founder and president of In Bounds Inc. In that program, I taught golf to the youth, and I taught the correlation between golf and life experiences. That's what the shirt stands for, play your game and live your life in bounds. That's the analogy that I used and I trademarked that. That program of mine, I went down to the PGA of America in 1989, and I presented the program to the golf industry. The best way to word this is that the industry adapted that concept and they are known as the First Tee right now in America, and they are in six countries for the 14.5 million kids. If you ever see golf tournaments and you see the advertisement, the First Tee, in my opinion I'm the originator of that concept, which was also agreed by defamation lawyers and other people who looked at my paperwork. I started at Maxey Boys School and went and did it at the Boys and Girls Club, Ypsilanti. Me and my associate went down to West Virginia, did a program for the golf industry, the PGA curriculum, and we went down to North Palm Beach, the PGA of America, which is the teaching wing of the golf industry. They have about 28,000-29,000 instructors there. We met executives and we put it on a program called The Sand Traps of Life. In that program, when you play golf, you get into sand traps. You had to negotiate yourself out of that. We parallel life itself. We had youth identify sand traps that they're going to face to keep from getting out of high school and becoming productive adults. We would identify them, we'd give ways to maybe work your way out of them. Mostly it's about communicating and don't be afraid to share your issues with someone because there are people who are willing to help. A lot of the details through which we won't take any more time with that.
[03:05:57] Interviewer: You go ahead. We have plenty of time.
[03:05:59] Don Simons: Oh, I didn't know you had more questions.
[03:06:01] Interviewer: Oh, yeah, these are just guidelines. They're like not super strict. You don't have to [inaudible 03:06:04].
[03:06:06] Don Simons: With that organization that I conducted and funded myself up through '95. In 1995, I had a life threatening blood clot, so I had to stop. I stopped there for awhile. I couldn't even work.
[03:06:23] Interviewer: Were you at home all the time?
[03:06:24] Don Simons: Yes.
[03:06:25] Interviewer: Sorry.
[03:06:25] Don Simons: For about six months, yes. It was pretty difficult. Then when I got myself together and went back to work full-time, and I made sure my children all got through college, that was the main focus at that time, to make sure they got through college, so I didn't do the In Bounds, but I kept my paperwork alive so the organization is still identified. I turn in the taxes every year. The paperwork is currently in review, that's all right. It's still operational as far as turning in my paperwork and the trademark of Play Your Game and Live Your Life is still active.
[03:07:11] Interviewer: You liked working with kids, didn't you?
[03:07:14] Don Simons: Oh, yes. I love working with kids.
[03:07:16] Interviewer: Did you think you'll work with kids when you're growing up or is that not something you were interested in?
[03:07:20] Don Simons: No, I just fell into it after I came out of high school, went to college. I felt I had a knack for it, and felt I could connect and work with youth.
[03:07:35] Interviewer: What was your family's dynamic like? With you and your wife and children, were are you all very close or was it more just civil with each other?
[03:07:47] Don Simons: Well, as you identified, the kids were spread out, five-and-a-half, six years apart, but yet they were close and we were close in the family. My wife and I would always come to the parent-teacher meetings. We always supported our kids up through high school. Whereas lots of times parents were starting in grade school, elementary school, maybe in junior high, then they wean off or there's a lot of divorces that take place. At the time kids do need that support, sometimes it's not there.
[03:08:28] Interviewer: Where did your kids go to high school?
[03:08:31] Don Simons: They all went to Ann Arbor Huron.
[03:08:34] Interviewer: Where did you live with them when you had your first home?
[03:08:38] Don Simons: My first home? My first home I lived over off of Ferris Street, I lived over on the Pioneer side of town. But when my son was born, I decided to build a home and I moved over towards Dixboro area, not too far from Domino's Farm.
[03:08:55] Interviewer: Thank you. I have a friend who lives up there. Let's see.
[03:09:05] Interviewer: Favorite things to do outside of work and sports maybe.
[03:09:12] Don Simons: Outside of work in sports, went to enjoy it. I used to love to go to a restaurant.
[03:09:17] Interviewer: Restaurant.
[03:09:19] Don Simons: I love to go down or handicap the horses, substandard bred horses, not the thorough bred with standard bred. My middle daughter, and I shouldn't say middle daughter, middle child, that's one of the highlights that she has in her daughter's book as well. She remembers going to race track with me to watching the horses and I bet the horses and treats and to drink. She remembers that.
[03:09:45] Interviewer: You said you roller skate when you're not in work.
[03:09:47] Don Simons: I used to roller skate, yes.
[03:09:49] Interviewer: Where did you roller skate?
[03:09:53] Don Simons: Almost everywhere except for Abert, even though Abert had a road skating rink. I just like to go to Jackson, to Battle Creek, to Toledo over Windsor.
[03:10:05] Interviewer: How did you get there?
[03:10:07] Don Simons: Usually buddy up with somebody to drive.
[03:10:09] Interviewer: Then a lot of your friends in high school have cars?
[03:10:14] Don Simons: Not a lot.
[03:10:14] Interviewer: What about in your adulthood, did your family have a car?
[03:10:18] Don Simons: Yes.
[03:10:21] Interviewer: When you were in teenagers, did your parents both drive cars?
[03:10:25] Don Simons: When I was a teenager, when we had one car that's it.
[03:10:27] Interviewer: Was it your father who used it?
[03:10:30] Don Simons: My mother would walk back and forth to the hospital on Fuller Street. She walked the Veterans Hospital which is about two-and-a-half miles. Even in the wintertime. She used to walk back and forth to work.
[03:10:46] Interviewer: Where did you learn how to drive?
[03:10:50] Don Simons: Well, I first got into car when I was 16, but I wouldn't say I learn how to drive then. I got in the car. Let me take that back. I had a very good driver education class, which I think is lacking now.
[03:11:06] Interviewer: Not at school.
[03:11:07] Don Simons: It's not at school anymore. [OVERLAPPING].
[03:11:07] Interviewer: It's not part of school curriculum.
[03:11:10] Don Simons: It used to be part of school curriculum and it was very good. I learned to drive. It was a driver's education class at the end of high school.
[03:11:24] Interviewer: When you were raising your children, did you have any traditions, religion and forms of things that you would practice with your family?
[03:11:37] Don Simons: Not really. Not that I can recall.
[03:11:40] Interviewer: Your wife come from a religious family?
[03:11:44] Don Simons: Not really. I belong to the Bethel AME Church. I turned there. But not on a frequent basis.
[03:11:54] Interviewer: You still ever go there?
[03:11:56] Don Simons: I just started up going to number of churches. I have friends all across Ann Arbor. There's about five or six churches I'll visit every now and then, because I personally don't feel that there's any one church that no, it has all the answers. I circulate around.
[03:12:18] Interviewer: When you were working at Maxey, and you were a parent, and that time of your life, did you follow the news? Did you consider yourself politically active? Were you interested in social justice?
[03:12:32] Don Simons: I didn't have enough time for all that, social justice stuff. Unfortunately, when I retired or fortunately I retired, I just found out how much social in politics play in everything.
[03:12:47] Interviewer: You said your wife was really interested in the women's rights movement and she was pretty active with that?
[03:12:53] Don Simons: She wasn't so much as active as she practiced. It brought me up just enough that would be expected.
[03:13:05] Interviewer: Let's see. What were struggles throughout your family that you remember being a part of?
[03:13:32] Don Simons: Struggles?
[03:13:36] Interviewer: Or any like did you lose any close family during that time?
[03:13:39] Don Simons: I didn't lose any close family during that time. I take that back. My dad passed away in 1985. That was a training period for a couple of two or three years. Other than that, there was no major struggle. You went to high school. I never had to monitor their homework or anything. He did it on occasion. My son would get the work done but he forgot to turn it in. The teacher say, well, we didn't assess this assignment. I'd go ask him where I did. Just didn't turn it in. Any setting in school beyond, I guess people get distracted. I mentioned it happens today.. Sometimes I see the smile on some of your faces.
[03:14:37] Interviewer: Did you travel a lot? Did you like to go places?
[03:14:40] Don Simons: We didn't travel much.
[03:14:44] Interviewer: Do you remember going out on vacations that you remember?
[03:14:51] Don Simons: No, actually not as a family. Couldn't afford a family trip. My son and my wife went down to Disney World. But my Alina, my youngest daughter, took her down to Florida during winter break. She worked on the beach, playing volleyball and she ran the beach, and she came back to the school. The next game, my brother called me says he's jumping higher and faster from training in the scene. But other than that, we didn't get very many family trips at all. There was one travel I did this year. My son ran into a capitalist slash chemistry teacher in high school. He had lost a living or motivation due to being not uniformly treated. That football coach with Brahma, certain dangers going to happen. The coach would say things and not follow through with it. A coach has a huge impact on motivation of young people. He wasn't really into this particular class. The Christmas break, he was at a D- threatening E. When I spoke to him, get to talking to him, I was able to motivate him. He went from being about the third lowest in this class till he took a final exams in January. He had the third or fourth highest grade in that class, and the teachers still gave him a D. Now, as an educator, I always reward progress and went to speak to her. She told me quite frankly, she raised on the so-called Currer Bell. She couldn't see give him a C- instead of C. When you go to college, C- is just like a C, C+ is like a C. But she couldn't go above a D because where he was at. All she did is she said I made a graduate from the University of Michigan, and this is what I do. He quite frankly, I'm here to six o'clock at night. As a man with all due respect, I don't give you sleep here. I've been in education 20-some years. I said you really should give more credit to people who show that they turned the light on and they do a good job. That's my position. I talked to the principal about it. He agreed with me, but no notes are done about it. I said I don't want your names out, but sometimes you'd run into certain teachers that are so rigid that they don't get any reward that should be given to a student that doesn't prove. I don't know if it'd be individual. Yeah. I'm glad it's done the video. Guys, it should be shared.
[03:18:16] Interviewer: I have a question..
[03:18:27] Interviewer: It's usually important for coaches to motivate their kids, and as a coach how did you do that?
[03:18:34] Don Simons: I usually motivated them and find out what they like and to find out what their likes and dislikes and let them know that they are just as important and especially, if it's a team squad. If they are important in a team, they had to know their place in that team, and they have to buy into that place. A lot of coaches are very good with x's and o's and talking strategy, but to build a team takes a certain skill that bring people together to work on the same page. There's no real magic formula, you acquire it and you learn it as you're working. Some coaches know about this, but they lack that intuitive skill to do it. But they're very good x's and o's. You find a lot of players and a lot of athletes will not play up to where they could be, because they feel they've been shunned. Some time that happens, it's difficult. You die out of sports because they feel they haven't been given the attention or sometime they over their skill level. That's difficult, because sometimes the parent plants the seed that the athletes better than they are. That's difficult. I don't know if I answered your question or not, but approaching almost like addition to the parent. His counselor and just than the parent. To some extent, you're going to want to do some works though.
[03:20:19] Interviewer: What do you say that people say sports is not important as other things in the child's place?
[03:20:27] Don Simons: Is not as important?
[03:20:29] Interviewer: Where people would who enforce academic system is most important part going to high school and participating in athletics, isn't going to help in the long run?
[03:20:42] Don Simons: I would say that the motion of those that will say something like that, that didn't have experience in athletics. Academics should be the focus, there's no question about that. But what part of the academic is the most important? Because if you look at your curriculum is all important, but as you go out of high school into college, you absorb and you learn things that you don't realize you're going to use in life. There's academic books yields, and their social skills and you really need to have them both together. In the sport arena, you learn a lot more about the social skill piece and the discipline. Is good for your lifetime skills. Certain sports you've taken on right now you may be knowledgeable and you may be participating them up to your 40s or 50s. A few people for athlete active basketball into our 60. There's a rarity though, but I played until I was 60.
[03:21:46] Interviewer: How much different do you think your life will be now if you never went into athletics, you never pursued that?
[03:21:51] Don Simons: I really don't have a cool opportunity. One thing I'd probably be walking around about 40 pounds heavier. That don't have a little bit now, but I'd be heavier. Cardiovascular system would not be good at all. Many people who didn't work out, I didn't realize at the time, but plenty of sports as long as I did, I think give me an immune system and the cardiovascular system, that is as far as I know, it filled this out. Now something happens to me two or three years from now you have this videotaped to say that I guess I might be wrong, but as far as I know it's your cardiovascular and all parts of the body, which can be used. You can overdo it, some people become addicted with the sport and just go over the line. Like some distance runners, they overrun, some weight lifters over lift, because they get addicted to their sport.
[03:23:03] Interviewer: Have you ever going up [inaudible 03:23:04] somewhere else?
[03:23:11] Don Simons: No. I really don't wish I lived in place else because I could academically and even though Ann Arbor had a lot of social challenges back in the '50s and '60s, awful a lot, I think Ann Arbor it was a pleasure. I was laid out. I grew up in Ann Arbor.
[03:23:28] Interviewer: What social issues are you talking about?
[03:23:31] Don Simons: A lot of discrimination, quite frankly, a lot of prejudice. Some of them I didn't realize how bad it was until actually, I became an adult.
[03:23:46] Interviewer: What changed about your perspective on being older?
[03:23:50] Don Simons: I realized some things were not correct, for instance, they wouldn't cut my hair at a barbershop here in Ann Arbor. I will mention that on the screen here, but my mother didn't like the Black barbershop because they're messing up my hair because I was multi-ethnic. I didn't have the typical way to go Afro-American hair. She sent me around to the White barber and I went around I was 13 years old and I sit in a chair for a hour-and-a-half, so people come in and get their hair cut and I just sat patient, I said this guy must have appointments. But finally, the barber called me up and said, what can I do for you, young man? I said, what do you think I'm here for, sir? I'm here for a haircut. He grabbed me by the shoulder and took me outside and pointed up the street. You lived two blocks or two left, we will not cut your hair here, you have them cut you here. I was so disgusted about that incident that I actually looked at the alley across the street and I was a baseball player, I was a pitcher in the first baseman, someone come back in a couple of weeks and throw a brick through this one. But I felt better then, but I didn't do it. But that's just one of many. I got justice on that though, because four years later, there was a big picture of me in the bake next to the barbershop being athlete of the month. I just smile and I say, I want to take this picture and just say, well, you didn't cut my hair but looking here, but it wouldn't have any difference. But I was proud that I became athlete in a month. I didn't threw a brick through the window.
[03:25:40] Interviewer: When was the year that you started to realize that Ann Arbor was changing, in that you started to realize that the amount of discrimination was starting to not be as prevalent?
[03:25:52] Don Simons: It's probably sometime in the '70s when I'd go up on campus. The college is far ahead of its residents of the city of Ann Arbor. It is more interracial mixing and it's probably sometime in the '70s. But the incidence I faced in high school and college, I wasn't the only one. You can bring a lot of Afro-Americans in here that we shared the experiences. They wouldn't even let me swim in [inaudible 03:26:19] more lake.
[03:26:20] Interviewer: Really?
[03:26:21] Don Simons: Family went out and were late to swim and they had a huge slide out there. It was called Grooms Beach. They let everybody in and we're walking through it and my dad was darker complected. He was 70% Indian, dark complex with straight hair, they stopped him because he was too dark and he told us we had to leave. He wouldn't let us swim in [inaudible 03:26:44] lake , that's another incident.
[03:26:47] Interviewer: Did you leave?
[03:26:48] Don Simons: We had no choice. We left. I didn't know what it was about until I got back in town, my parents didn't discuss it until much later on. I was like, what's the deal with this? Because that was really the sport that I was really best at, why couldn't we swim in [inaudible 03:27:05] lake , but back then you couldn't even swim. I had to be there in the 50s, between '55 and '60, 1955. There's a whole list, wanted to repeat a whole list of things, but there was an awful lot of things.
[03:27:21] Interviewer: I think that's [inaudible 03:27:22] Did you ever face anyone when you were a little kid ? Did you find ultimate friend because of?
[03:27:29] Don Simons: No, I've never had trouble making friends because I went to a predominantly all Black school.
[03:27:34] Interviewer: You grew up in a predominant place?
[03:27:36] Don Simons: Correct. But another instance I had, I already discussed the incident about the school counselor, right? He called me down to his office and there's a lot to do with things that propped up that were racially motivated.
[03:27:57] Interviewer: Were you friend in high school were your friends predominantly one race?
[03:28:00] Don Simons: Yes.
[03:28:00] Interviewer: Which race?
[03:28:02] Don Simons: Afro-American.
[03:28:04] Interviewer: Are you still in contact with any of those friends?
[03:28:06] Don Simons: Awful a lot. In 1993, I'm the co-founders of neighborhood picnic, which was a picnic that started with Russell Calvin and I. I called him and said let's get a bunch of guys together. That was the year I turned 50, and we had about 45-60, 55 guys, maybe 45, 50 guys come up and we had a picnic at Gala Park. The ladies that we rode with took offense with that, and they didn't like it. Why were we not invited? I said because guys need time to get together in a guy talk, well ladies usually get their way and do things that make it more attractive. It became male and female on all neighborhod picnic, which started in, first one is 96. It's still going today, it's the first Saturday in every August. It's predominantly Afro-American show North, West side of Anabor all the black neighborhoods which included got streaks on the street 4th AM.
[03:29:12] Interviewer: I live in Gash Street.
[03:29:14] Don Simons: You live on Gash Street now? Mexico? Well, that was phenomenally old black. That was a problem that all black moved there minor. My section at a time which Fuller Street in Glen have in Wall Street, Wall Street, in which denominator black along with Fuller. Back in the '40s, '50s and '60s, the blacks lived in a neighborhood because, whites didn't want to do by the railroad tracks. The trainings that would come by in the '40s and '50s had black soot. There's outdoors when the trains comes by, you go outside, just black suit, although there's snow. That has changed now, the neighborhoods are changed. I refer you to the Ann Arbor News article that's written about three weeks ago now. It's at least two pages. It has quotes and pictures for the people that I know neighborhood board, which I am still around, and that was Audrey Lucas, Diane McKnight. Shirley Beckley and Russell Calvert. There'll be feature quotes from them individually. I wasn't at the picnic or dated. I didn't select me to give my input on it. But I remember living at Fuller Street and it was all black. I remember when highlights to live in a Fuller Street is I put a golf ball in my front yard and I headed over the street. I hit her with the railroad tracks. I'll hit her with a river here in river over into Riverside Park. I got such an excitement of doing that. Then I walked into golf course. I worked at the golf course which was called the rock pile. Right now the rock pile is University of Michigan where they had the soccer field, right there along Fuller Street. Is it playing soccer or or or cross or whatever? That used to be all golf course nectar. When I used to work that golf course, and it used to be called the rock pile. If you drive along there now you see a pile of rocks, walls. That's where they got the nickname, Rock Pile. One of my best friends that I worked as kids and he lives in Florida now. He was a president of the Gary Player group at one time and he is also well-known across the nation as a golf course developer. It's been in development for a long time, which I was a field rep for Gary Player also.
[03:31:51] Interviewer: What is that mean?
[03:31:52] Don Simons: I want to feel right for a golf design company. From about 90-95. The golf course the Eastern Michigan, is a Gary Player design course. But they had to take his name off of it because he is South African. He did not know where students and staff. I did damage to the green as the course was being developed, enforce his name being taken off, because he would have us apart that day was very high and it made visible at the time. They thought he stood for that. But he transcended politics and you get any players known as the International ambassadors to golf?
[03:32:43] Interviewer: I'm not subjectively political ideology. How did your up-bringing affect that?
[03:32:51] Don Simons: How did my up-bringing an effect which.
[03:32:53] Interviewer: Like you're frugal ideology and growing up in a black neighborhood, growing up during that time period, do you think that has somewhat influenced the movements and things that are happening now?
[03:33:12] Don Simons: It seems to me like there's always going to be moments because it doesn't seem like there's every move be a real coming together as a people. Yes, It's just a sad commentary. You find very few people seem to be in-between either one way or the other. I just think it's very difficult even though I think there's more together this now in some respects. But on the other hand, some of the things that are going on today, reflects that there still are some very deep-seated problems with race, ethnic groups, even gender. There's just problems.
[03:33:57] Interviewer: I know you said that they saw discrimination because you're multiracial background, but did you ever like face and he really scary things where you felt threatened for your life because of your background? Or maybe your friends [inaudible 03:34:11] and anything very scary?
[03:34:13] Don Simons: I did it. She has a stroke but to police pick me up in my own backyard. This is already on the script that was kind of scary. In hindsight. It's my first meet and feared for my life. Other than threatening phone calls, I would come into the house because I didn't negro I was going with you guys threaten my life.
[03:34:35] Interviewer: Teenagers that you were part of.
[03:34:37] Don Simons: I went to the park and they didn't show up and I was stupid to show up maybe they didn't show up. I was 17 at the time. You remember the story so you're listening quite attentively? Yes.
[03:34:56] Interviewer: Where did you said from something called gender or were there any like was that a big thing when people were starting to come out and like the LGBTQ community was becoming more popularized.
[03:35:08] Don Simons: That wouldn't hardly known at all back in my day. It came out to clause in just the last 10, 15 years really. Is this visible as it is now? It may have been more so back then. The Olympian 1960, I forgot his name now, but the superego is all around.
[03:35:29] Interviewer: Bruce Jenner.
[03:35:30] Don Simons: Bruce Jenner, we should change the name and everything else as the shot because I loved the Olympics in 60s. I taught the literature as part of my curriculum as a teacher. In the Olympic games every fourth year, I always teach with the steward for the five circles and everything. But it was it was more a clothes shop thing at the time and I wasn't aware of it. But as I said, it's probably the last 15 years is become very likely visible, even TV programs. But my grandmother was on TV now she would've been just shocked.
[03:36:07] Interviewer: What do you mean shocked, like different?
[03:36:10] Don Simons: Just how open it is, and how as part of their curriculum, how the prior program, no interracial mixing on TV stories and in different things that were not even discussed are known back in the '50s and '60s. It was known broadly, but.
[03:36:29] Interviewer: Is it strange to think about how you moved through every stage of it?
[03:36:33] Don Simons: Yes, and I wonder where he's going to go next. When it was going to happen next? Nationally and internationally. Today as all heck of a program at Good Morning America received an award as the best place in America to live in Southern Knoxville, Tennessee. He came over here several years to go from Syria. He was really embracing of how, not only did he win this award, White Robertson, they surprise and present him with the award. He said this award is for America as a whole and for Nashville, Tennessee. He said this country needs to come together. Everyone says this that is great to hear it. But there's some people who have such heavy baggage from things they experienced or have been taught that they did not want to choose to change. See the mind is like a parachute. If your mind is not open, it will not work. Parachute doesn't open. You're not going to add safely. So that's what I think.
[03:38:11] Interviewer: I think its a good place to end. Thank you so much for coming today.
[03:38:14] Don Simons: When is my next date and wear chef, take a picture you.
[03:38:16] Interviewer: You can take anywhere [inaudible 03:38:19].
[03:38:23] Don Simons: Which just now. I just realized that's for somebody to wear green. I just now.
[03:38:33] Interviewer: A woman, Another client.

Media

2022

Length: 03:38:31

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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Legacies Project