Sarah Milligan 00:00
All right. So, this is Sarah and Milligan. I'm talking with Bob Gates for the
second time. Today's date is August 17, 2011. The first time we talked last Monday, we talked a lot about Bob's career in life before he moved to Kentucky, and today we're going to talk about the early years of the folklife program, when he started working as a state folklorist in Kentucky and see where we can get--see how far we can get. I'm trying to think what we actually talked about this with on Monday, I know we talked about the fact that that's Betsy Adler wrote the grants and was kind of, you know, the figurehead to certain extent of getting it together. But it was a consortium of people and organizations that really wanted to see a folklife program built and that there had already been a state folklorist who was attached with the Center for the Arts but wasn't really doing folklife programming anymore---was more doing musical performances specific to something the Center for the Arts wanted to do. So, it seems like that's why this group of people said, "we need somebody that's really just dedicated to the folklore--folklife for the state.Bob Gates 01:12
Yeah, I think they got their taste buds--
Sarah Milligan 01:18
When he did the programming for the World's Fair?
Bob Gates 01:20
Yeah, well, when he did the---he did two festivals down there on the Belvedere.
Sarah Milligan 01:26
Right. That's right.
Bob Gates 01:26
And they were about river lore between Louisville and Cincinnati. Basically, he
used that area.Sarah Milligan 01:34
Right.
Bob Gates 01:34
So, I think other parts of the state wanted to see more, and then---they got
their taste buds wet. I guess, is that the right thing?Sarah Milligan 01:42
Yeah.
Bob Gates 01:42
And they wanted more. And that was gone. I think it was like '65 and '66--it
wasn't when that was done. So, it was-- wasn't around by the time---it had--.Sarah Milligan 01:56
'65--'85.
Bob Gates 01:57
'85, yes.
Sarah Milligan 01:58
I was like, woah, that's a huge--. [laughter]
Bob Gates 02:00
Yeah, geez, sorry. That's what it's gonna be like today [laughter].
Sarah Milligan 02:04
You would have been like eleven.
Bob Gates 02:07
[laughter] '85 and '86. And so when they wrote the grant, it was an '89, I
guess? No '88--.Sarah Milligan 02:15
'88.
Bob Gates 02:16
--I think is when we moved here.
Sarah Milligan 02:17
That's right.
Bob Gates 02:17
Yeah. Janet said we moved here, my wife--on--in December of '88.
Sarah Milligan 02:22
Okay.
Bob Gates 02:23
We packed up the kids and moved to Beverly.
Sarah Milligan 02:26
So, they wrote to implement the grant for 1990---1988, probably.
Bob Gates 02:31
Well--.
Sarah Milligan 02:33
Or that's when they did implement the grant.
Bob Gates 02:34
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 02:34
That's when they hired you. So that was the end though. So '89 was really.
Bob Gates 02:40
I'm trying to find that.
Sarah Milligan 02:42
I know you had dates--.
Bob Gates 02:43
Dates--I had.
Sarah Milligan 02:44
You can just give me a copy of the dates too.
Bob Gates 02:46
Oh, well. Okay, December of 1988 is when we--we moved here from Louisiana, and
she thinks the grant--we actually--I actually started at Berea January 1st.Sarah Milligan 02:59
1989.
Bob Gates 03:01
'89, yeah. My son was like, a year and a half.
Sarah Milligan 03:10
Aww, cutie Robert.
Bob Gates 03:15
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 03:15
Okay--started Okay, So--so let's talk a little bit about what, what that first
year was like at Berea. I know you talked a little bit about the infrastructure and the fact that you were under Loyal Jones, but he didn't really supervise you as much, he gave you support with people and helping you--introduce you or whatever, but didn't really--maybe didn't really understand one hundred percent what's your--what you were supposed to be doing there. So, kind of left you to do it.Bob Gates 03:45
Kind of--yeah, I remember moving into the office at night. Unpacking up the
truck, to move my office furniture up there, and really didn't get any--didn't get much help. I don't know why I was doing it at night. But I remember the director of the museum there at the time, stopped by and saw me and he helped me with some things, and he's a nice guy. We became friends. They had--they had a small museum in Berea in the back of one of the shops, around the corner from where my office was. My--my office was above the pizza parlor, right in that area.Sarah Milligan 04:28
Oh, so is this the same area, like where Boone Tavern and stuff is?
Bob Gates 04:31
Yeah, it's---.
Sarah Milligan 04:31
That little strip.
Bob Gates 04:32
--On that block that block. If you look at that block, and you go, it's on the
left going--right before it takes around a turn. There's a little doorway that goes upstairs--.Sarah Milligan 04:40
Yeah.
Bob Gates 04:40
--And you walk up the steps and open this--it was a large triangular-shaped
building--shaped room. I mean, it's like wow, a lot of space here.Sarah Milligan 04:49
Nice.
Bob Gates 04:49
And I had my little trusty, what is that computer--Compaq computer that I had
brought with me, and I remember--there's pictures of one of my helpers. So, one of the things that they gave me was a --was, you know, they have student workers there, that's part of how they pay for their tuition. So, I had--three or four student workers working as soon as I got there.Sarah Milligan 05:16
Oh, that's great.
Bob Gates 05:17
It was nice. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 05:18
What did you use them for?
Bob Gates 05:20
Inputting information.
Sarah Milligan 05:23
Like data management. Like--
Bob Gates 05:24
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 05:24
When you would go out and survey, you'd come back and be like, "hey, type this
up," or what?Bob Gates 05:27
Yeah, I mean, it took--I didn't get them until I really needed them. The first
couple of months, I was just trying to get my feet wet. I know, one of the first things we did was organize an advisory group that would, and I probably have a list of who was on that advisory group. I know that it was probably representatives, of all the people who were in the consortium who applied for this grant.Sarah Milligan 05:52
Yeah.
Bob Gates 05:53
I remember the Center for the Arts guy be in there. And that Dick Vankleek and
his boss at that time, who, whose--it was called the Center for the Arts, Kentucky Center for the Arts.Sarah Milligan 06:03
Okay then, what is now the Kentucky Center?
Bob Gates 06:06
The Kentucky Center.
Sarah Milligan 06:06
Gary (??).
Bob Gates 06:07
Yeah, and I remember him taking me aside after the meeting saying, "you got to
have a business plan, if you want this to work." And he was probably right, I should have had a business plan [laughs] But I think we established with that--the first meeting what our goals were. The first year is just a kind of inventory, what kind of surveys, what kind of work had been done in the state. I had already told the people who had interviewed me the first time--when they interviewed me for the job, they asked me if I wanted to do a folk festival. And I said "no, I think we need to spread out and see what's going on in state." So--.Sarah Milligan 06:41
Yeah.
Bob Gates 06:42
It was--and I think--did I tell you, I talked about--talked to the president the
day I was interviewed, the president of Berea. They introduced me to him; they took me over to his office. And he was kind of interested in me coming there. Because they had--Berea just been called the--Sarah Milligan 07:01
Oh, the--Folk Arts Capital of--.
Bob Gates 07:03
Folk Art Capital so--.
Sarah Milligan 07:04
of Kentucky, yeah.
Bob Gates 07:05
He kind of saw my job a little differently than I did, coming from Louisiana
where I had a lot of representatives across the state, worked with a lot of people.Sarah Milligan 07:14
Did he know what a folklorist was, do you think?
Bob Gates 07:17
I think so. Yeah, he did. He was very interesting, very intelligent guy. He got
to know the Dalai Lama, and he was just really progressive for that time, I think.Sarah Milligan 07:27
Oh, wow.
Bob Gates 07:27
Yeah. He brought him to Berea. His wife still--still works at the--Stevenson.
She, I think she's the Brushy Fork Institute. She is est--I think helped establish that. But like I said, Loyal was there, and was helping me. But he, he realized, and you know, as part of, I felt it was my job to make it clear to both the president and everybody else that this was a statewide program. And I was running it on a model of what I had done in Louisiana. So, I was looking for other folklorists, who were doing things. Trying to start a network of them, trying to figure out what, what resources hadn't been researched. And where we could go from there. And I think it was early on is when NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] called me. And you know, when I first got in there, within the first couple of months, is when Barry Bergy (??) called me and said, "you know, we got this grant from--that we had given to the Center for the Arts to do this river thing. What can you do with it?"Sarah Milligan 08:27
And that was the Kentucky River?
Bob Gates 08:29
Yeah. So, I---I scrambled on it and tried to rewrite it to fit us because we
didn't want to have Raymond Hicks, who I didn't even know, build a boat and do a series of--I was still clinging to well, we need to do research. We need to find out what's there and get to know the communities better. And [clears throat] the way I've--I've always done that is to do survey work. You know, get some folklorists. And I knew Western wanted to help work with us--they were one of the consortium[s], I think, and--.Sarah Milligan 08:59
That would make sense.
Bob Gates 09:00
Yeah. [clears throat] And I always knew that if we didn't have a lot of
folklorists there, at least we had students who could work with us on projects.Sarah Milligan 09:08
Did you work much with Gerald Alvey, wasn't he a folklorist at UK at that time.
I don't know how active he was in public stuff.Bob Gates 09:14
Yeah, he welcomed me. And I remember going to his office at UK when he was
there. And seeing--I was just amazed, his office was full of the prison art at that time, because he was--he had just done a project with prisoners, and he was collecting the art that they do in their cells. Models--of things, pretty neat stuff. And he was working on this book at that time. [Sighs] Oh, what's it called? It was published--it was on that same series--folklife series. Do you know what I'm talking about at all?Sarah Milligan 09:57
The UK folklife, yeah, I've seen Gerald Alvey. He's got a couple of small books out.
Bob Gates 10:02
This was--this was a pretty good I mean, he'd already done--.
Sarah Milligan 10:03
Oh, really?
Bob Gates 10:03
--The Loyal Jones thing.
Sarah Milligan 10:04
Okay.
Bob Gates 10:05
This was a book that Lynwood [Montell] had done one, too, or did one later on.
And it was called---"Folklife of the Bluegrass."Sarah Milligan 10:13
Oh, I know what you're talking about.
Bob Gates 10:14
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 10:14
Yeah.
Bob Gates 10:14
It' a pretty, pretty nice book. And he was interested in that time of working
with me to get things I knew, which I didn't know much yet. And he knew I was going to do a survey of the Kentucky River. So, he wanted my results--he wanted--.Sarah Milligan 10:28
Yeah.
Bob Gates 10:28
--You know, wanted to get some of that and see where I--where I fit in that--I
mean--where--what I was doing would fit into what he was doing. He wasn't as helpful in terms of helping me [laughs] I don't think, but he did introduce me to Bill Ellis, who was a folklorist or not folklorist, historian at EKU, who also was doing things on the Kentucky River, at that time.Sarah Milligan 10:51
And did a lot with oral history in Appalachian studies, correct?
Bob Gates 10:54
Yeah, and I think we also got a little bit involved with Tom Clark through Kim
Lady Smith.Sarah Milligan 11:00
Oral history commission, yeah.
Bob Gates 11:02
And when I first got here. I remember. What's her name--Ether (??) Betsy Ether
arranged to take me--to have a party for me, to introduce me to people. So, it was in Lexington, and I'm not sure what--I think it was on UK campus, or. No, I think it was actually at the Humanities Council.Sarah Milligan 11:29
Okay.
Bob Gates 11:30
And they had a building there.
Sarah Milligan 11:32
Was her husband Tom working at UK at that point because they're both
folklorists, right?Bob Gates 11:37
I don't know if he was working there or if that--if that had been dismantled.
There was [were] three or four folklorists working trying to kind of get a department together, I think in the English Department. And I understand that, and Alvie was one of them. Tom, and there's like three other people who had [a] folklore background, but from what I understand that was falling apart then or he was already gone from that.Sarah Milligan 12:04
Okay, I was just curious--.
Bob Gates 12:04
Because I don't remember being introduced to that group--.
Sarah Milligan 12:07
Okay.
Bob Gates 12:07
As a group. If they had been, they would have, you know. So, I think that might
have been the reason they wrote the grant is because they were losing ground. I think they--I'm thinking that's right--a little bit before that is when the Kentucky Folklife Association or society--Folklike Society has kind of dwindled out too. So, it was like maybe a last gasp to keep folk like going. That's how I interpreted anyway, she took---she had this party and then I got to meet some people there. And then not too long after that, she and Kim picked me up at Berea and took me or I met them in Lexington, and we took the old road back. What is that thing called? 416--614Sarah Milligan 12:56
Frankfort Pike or 421. You mean from Lexington to here?
Bob Gates 13:00
Yeah, Lexington to here. The back road in here.
Sarah Milligan 13:03
Yeah.
Bob Gates 13:04
Not Frankfort Pike, but the other one.
Sarah Milligan 13:06
Leestown?
Bob Gates 13:06
The one that goes through Midway. Leestown--Leestown Road. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 13:13
Yeah.
Bob Gates 13:13
I always get the number wrong, but it was Leestown Road from downtown.
Sarah Milligan 13:16
Yeah.
Bob Gates 13:16
So, they wanted to show me the scenic way they get to Frankfort, and I just
remember, we were coming in there and there was [were] skunks--were dead skunks in the road. And I've seen this since, there's a season when the skunk start walking across the road--and they get hit. There was like 10 skunks we saw, and Betsy or Kim made a remark about politicians, and this is [laughter] "you're gonna see a lot of this when you go to--when we go to Frankfort." So, I remember coming here and I think meeting people here at the Historic Society and maybe the Arts Council. Well, the Arts Council was up on--up on the hill here.Sarah Milligan 13:56
The Berry Hill?
Bob Gates 13:57
Berry Hill. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 14:00
Who is the director then, do you remember?
Bob Gates 14:03
It was a young man, younger man. And he later took on the directorship of the
Children's Museum in Lexington, and I can't remember his name.Sarah Milligan 14:14
That's easy enough to f--I mean, you know.
Bob Gates 14:15
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 14:16
That stuff's easy to figure out.
Bob Gates 14:17
And Anne somebody was assistant director. And a Lanette (??) somebody--Lanette
Thurman was kind of the director-- was made director during that time.Sarah Milligan 14:33
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 14:34
I remember that because, I guess I should tell you this story. She had found out
about the Folklife program and came down to visit me.Sarah Milligan 14:42
In Berea.
Bob Gates 14:43
Yeah and, and people were really afraid of her, and she was like brought in and
didn't know a lot about arts I guess, or.Sarah Milligan 14:50
So, she was kind of like an appointee?
Bob Gates 14:52
Yeah. And while she was at my place, the ceiling fell in, right above where she
had--right above the water fountain. So, she had gone over to get a drink of water. Came back and [makes a crashing sound] the ceiling fell.Sarah Milligan 15:02
Into your office?
Bob Gates 15:03
At my office, yeah, it was like--. Oh, I guess it was a leak from above. I
hadn't noticed it, but it fell down and it was kind of a close call. And I always thought of that because I could have been a folk hero, for her dying at my place [laughter]. --From what people said is that she--they didn't really like--I didn't--I wasn't that hooked in with state government. I wasn't part of state government. But she [laughter].Sarah Milligan 15:26
Nice.
Bob Gates 15:27
But it was Yeah [laughter]. But I remember getting introduced and getting
connections and then starting on this project. So, we must have done that project that summer. Because I remember that's when I got two students from Western--.Sarah Milligan 15:43
The Kentucky River Project.
Bob Gates 15:45
Luanne Curale (??)--I think and Teresa Hollingsworth.
Sarah Milligan 15:48
Yeah. And Teresa Hollingsworth was she--I'm trying to think, was she housed at
the time with Jennifer, well Jennifer Rose now, right. Jennifer Rose then?Bob Gates 15:57
I think she did stay with her during that time, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 15:59
Because you--you found places in the community for the students to stay while
they were doing the work.Bob Gates 16:04
Yeah, Jennifer Rose's dad was pretty influential at Berea.
Sarah Milligan 16:08
He's like the dance guy or something.
Bob Gates 16:09
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 16:09
Yeah, the Scandinavian exchange--dance--folk dance group.
Bob Gates 16:13
Well, yeah, he had helped get that center, the big--
Sarah Milligan 16:17
Yeah.
Bob Gates 16:17
--Folk center down there. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a big, round
building, where they all dance and.Sarah Milligan 16:24
Yeah.
Bob Gates 16:24
I mean, it was very, so he was--he had been, I think he was like a provost or something.
Sarah Milligan 16:29
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 16:30
--At the--at the college, and he's--
Sarah Milligan 16:31
Okay.
Bob Gates 16:31
They had, I've never went to their house, but Teresa described it as a great big
house you could get lost in, and she had a room there. Because she got to know the family. And Jennifer Rose was actually one of the students that we hired at summer, too.Sarah Milligan 16:48
Oh, really?
Bob Gates 16:48
Yeah. Well, we didn't hire them. They were . . . they got school credit to
be--to do that.Sarah Milligan 16:54
So, like internships or something like that?
Bob Gates 16:56
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 16:57
Okay, so you--you hired to Western students, and you had some Berea help for
their work study or whatever, or school credit. So how did you--I mean, like, how did you know where to send them? Because you were so new, like, how did you figure out like, what the work plan was going to be for these students? Or do you just say, "go out and find stuff and come back?"Bob Gates 17:20
Well, I kind of did some writing, driving around, and we knew we wanted to do
the Kentucky River, because that's what the grant was. And when Barry called, it was--I thought about it for a while and said, "well, well, we could take this money and turn it more into a survey work," with a finish pro--I always--when I write grants to any--a or arts council would always have some kind of public program at the end of it. So, our public program instead of a boat going up the river and doing festivals, was to do a traveling exhibit of river culture. And I remember actually coming here with--so I think we got an oral history grant to--to supplement that grant.Sarah Milligan 18:00
Yeah, I think you're right, actually.
Bob Gates 18:01
Yeah. Yeah. And Kim did that a lot with us--we would, we would get an NEA grant,
but--we the oral history grant. And it was pretty straightforward with oral history, $65 or $50 per hour.Sarah Milligan 18:14
$60.
Bob Gates 18:14
Was it? Whatever it was.
Sarah Milligan 18:15
It still is.
Bob Gates 18:15
Is it still there?
Sarah Milligan 18:17
I know, it's embarrassing.
Bob Gates 18:18
So, we would have that amount that we put on top of here. And it all got kind of
mixed in. But it--we paid--to pay it--kept track of it pretty well. But Kim was in favor of using our history for that. So I remember going--coming here to the Historic Society and meeting Nicky Hughes. Because we were going to talk to him about how to do a traveling exhibit and if the Historic Society wanted to travel it. --And I remember sitting in his office, and it was at the Old State Capitol and wanting to do that. And trying to talk him into doing a different kind of exhibit then. Because what they had is Museums to Go, at that time, and they were--that was easy to do.Sarah Milligan 18:59
Just flat panels boxed up.
Bob Gates 19:01
Flat panels boxed up. And that was the first time I remember, not having an
argument, but trying to try to get them to think about doing a traveling exhibit that would fit a library because that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to go along all the libraries along the Kentucky River. And none of them had--you know, a lot of them were small and I've been to a couple of them and none of them could hang things in their lobby [chuckles]. So, we talked about getting panels and he really didn't want to have anything to do with that.Sarah Milligan 19:31
Panels like the door panels at that time, is that what you're talking about--.
Bob Gates 19:33
Yeah, yeah, it's still up in--upstairs. The exhibit is.
Sarah Milligan 19:36
They're red--that red one, right?
Bob Gates 19:37
No, that's that was--that was a festival sign--idea that I brought from
Louisiana that I used when we did the Ohio River Project.Sarah Milligan 19:45
Oh, okay, well, anyway, you're talking about like--I'm know I'm gesturing but
it's---you're talking about like a six by three --six foot tall by like three-foot-wide kind of wooden panel that--Bob Gates 19:56
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 19:56
--Things could be put--things could be hung on or exhibited from, that you can
put in different spaces. That way, they don't have to have free wall space--it's free-standing.Bob Gates 20:04
Yeah, it hinges together, and mostly they went--.
Sarah Milligan 20:07
Like a serpentine
Bob Gates 20:08
Like a serpentine, zigzagging design. And I remember--since he didn't want to
really get involved with that, we went ahead and did it at Berea and we--.Sarah Milligan 20:18
Berea helped support that?
Bob Gates 20:19
--Well, no, we just did it in Berea--Berea gave us a building to work on it. And
I hired a designer. I remember he was a designer from Richmond, young kid, and he--younger kid. I remember, he, he came up with the idea of the water. And then we also worked with some fabricators in--well, they were designers, I guess. And he was a fabricator, somebody in Lexington, who was good with photography and making bigger images and helped us design. So, it was kind of neat because I remember now, we had a fish sign hanging on it. And it was--it was a replica of a fish sign that was down in--Gratz, Kentucky where we had--we had a round part of a barrel--whiskey barrel because Teresa had interviewed Nestlerod (??). What's her--you know? He was a master distiller down here.Sarah Milligan 21:20
Melissa Nestlerod's dad?
Bob Gates 21:21
Yes. And he had interviewed her and him--she had interviewed him. So, we had
artifacts--I remember there was on--there was a---there was a handkerchief set Loyal Jones had that he contributed. He--we had pictures that he had taken of a water baptism--of a river baptism. And these were handkerchiefs that they put over your head to keep your hair from. So, there was neat artifacts, and there was a tobacco basket. That became kind of a problem after a while [laughs] when we moved it around and--.Sarah Milligan 21:51
Flaky, moldy, stinky.
Bob Gates 21:53
Yeah. It’s got a little mold on it.
Sarah Milligan 21:56
Well, I think---I mean, I think.
Bob Gates 21:59
But that was the finished product after we had done the--.
Sarah Milligan 22:01
Yeah.
Bob Gates 22:01
Project.
Sarah Milligan 22:01
That's what I was gonna say.
Bob Gates 22:02
You want to talk more about how we did the project?
Sarah Milligan 22:04
Yeah, I want to talk more and a little bit of what they found. Because part of
what's going to be in the archive, what is in the archive, is the finished product. And so, like let's talk a little bit about what the students did, you know what their regions they were assigned, whatever you remember from that because (??) it was up there.Bob Gates 22:19
It was going to be a summer project. Because that's when I could get to
folklorists, and I think we--it was two months that we were going to work on it, maybe three and Teresa--we--the grant paid for Teresa Hollingsworth and Luanna Carvelli, (??), I think her name was. Both students at Western, I think they weren't not graduated yet, or they were close to graduating, but it was like an internship for them. So, I had to work out a place for them to stay. We found places for them, and then we--we had to figure out how works study students could do this because I didn't think we could--we could go from Beattyville, all the way to Carrollton, in that much time with---with only those two folklorists.Sarah Milligan 23:04
Yeah.
Bob Gates 23:05
And we didn't have the idea of community scholars that time.
Sarah Milligan 23:08
Right.
Bob Gates 23:08
So, we thought, "let's try to use the work study students." There was--so I
think there was like six or seven, maybe eight of them. We worked it out that in one of the buildings at Berea, they could come back and enter the data. So, we had a bank of computers, I guess it may have--it might have been a computer lab already set up. But the idea is that they would use that. I tried to figure out what was going on in the field with keeping track of data. How--do you--how do we archive this stuff? How do we keep track of it? That was really a concern of mine. I remember working with a guy in Carolina, he was the state folklorist for a while, and he was also, and I had met him at some of the art AFS [American Folklore Society] conferences. So, he had his--he--and he had worked with a project in the Library of Congress. When they were doing these regional projects. I think he had worked with them on the--this may be not the right project, but I think it was the New Jersey project, where they did the barren lands, barren area.Sarah Milligan 24:18
Yeah.
Bob Gates 24:18
Of New Jersey. Anyway, the idea was--.
Sarah Milligan 24:21
Land barrens.
Bob Gates 24:22
You know, I'm still using this old computer and using, not Word but--.
Sarah Milligan 24:27
A word processor or whatever it is.
Bob Gates 24:29
WordPerfect.
Sarah Milligan 24:30
WordPerfect, yeah.
Bob Gates 24:30
That was the big deal back then. WordPerfect. So, we're trying to figure out how
we could do that. And he came up with the idea--it wasn't Frank DeCaro (??) it was another--he had an Italian name. But his design was to use the--the file names that were already used in DOS, and that was with--so using WordPerfect. So, it was like--KR for Kentucky River, 001 for the tape, and then the interviewer's initials, then a period and then TAP or--. So, we did all those things, and we did it in WordPerfect and save them that way. But what was kind of neat about WordPerfect at that time was, it had this function that, that you could index everything. So that's why of all the ones we have, that's the only one that's really indexed. And what I've learned is, I was making these students do way too much of this input stuff, because they would come back, and probably work three hours, just trying to input and.25:38
Like their field notes, their summaries and just--
Bob Gates 25:41
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 25:41
--Logs and thing.
Bob Gates 25:42
Yeah, that's what Teresa Holl--helped me after she, Teresa. After she did this--.
Sarah Milligan 25:47
The survey?
Bob Gates 25:48
Yeah, and then I hired her to be--my assistant for a couple years. So that was
part of what she was doing is making these more readable.Sarah Milligan 25:57
Yeah.
Bob Gates 25:57
And indexing them all. So, I was pretty proud of that one. But it was also very
hard for these students to get out in the field and do this. I remember we had Michael Ann [Williams] come up and do a training. So, before we started getting in the field, we had like a week of the training. So, Michael Ann [Williams] came up and talked about this, I think--talk about doing field work, basically, I think. And Tommy Adler came up and talked about Bluegrass music and what--what you see an area. There's three or four people. So, we were kind of just getting this institute idea too. Remember the students varied in how good they were.Sarah Milligan 26:38
Yeah, well, you had undergraduate students who had no training--.
Bob Gates 26:41
No training at all.
Sarah Milligan 26:42
---In ethnography and you had two graduate students who had some training in
ethnography but were still very green. That was my question too is, what were some of the problems that they faced? And what do you think that were some of the successes that they found for that survey? What are some of the things that you've taken away from it?Bob Gates 27:00
Well, I think the two folklorists were really good. And I think they, we tried
in the very beginning, with the students, to do this work with them. But then we--we instituted kind of an apprenticeship or going out in the field and watching us do it. So, I remember going out with a young Black woman to Garrard County. And I think we interviewed the librarian there one--and then she gave us all these people like Pauline Profitt (??), and we went back and saw Pauline Profitt. I know going to Garrard County with her---Garrard County with her. Did I say Garrard County right?Sarah Milligan 27:34
Yeah, Garrard--.
Bob Gates 27:34
Okay. I remember going Nicholasville and interviewing a woman who did great
quilts, because there's a picture of that student and I holding the quilt up, or she's holding the quilt up with the student. So, I remember trying to get them to watch how we did it. So, they weren't on their own that much. It was kind of--they were being helpers to the folklorists. And Sarah, I mean not Sarah.Sarah Milligan 28:02
Teresa.
Bob Gates 28:03
Teresa, when as--she went way down here into this area.
Sarah Milligan 28:07
She came all the way up to Frankfort.
Bob Gates 28:09
Frankfort--I remember her doing Lexington area--.
Sarah Milligan 28:13
Estill County and all that--.
Bob Gates 28:14
--Versailles--.
Sarah Milligan 28:14
Yeah.
Bob Gates 28:14
And so, we kind of divided it up in different sections. I don't remember who did
all the way down to Carrollton. But we did have some help later on with a student, too. Who---from Cincinnati, who was taking a--one of the--there was a school or a college up there that was basically, you design your own classes, and you get a degree. So, she did a book, like we have here on the Folklife of commercial fishermen.Sarah Milligan 28:47
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 28:49
Boatmakers, you know, it wasn't real[ly] scholarly, but it helped her--she did
it as her thesis. And we--so, she was a good photographer too. And so, I think that helped out with that area because there was some gaps in--in what we were doing. But basically, we tried to go from Beattyville on down. I remember Teresa Carvelli (??) did a lot of in the--Sarah Milligan 29:10
Luann. Louellen.
Bob Gates 29:11
Louann. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 29:12
What was her name?
Bob Gates 29:12
Louann Corelli (??), I think.
Sarah Milligan 29:14
Okay.
Bob Gates 29:15
And she was from Canada, if I remember right, I think that's where she went back
to afterwards. Nothing against Canada [laughter].Sarah Milligan 29:22
No.
Bob Gates 29:23
Some of my best friends are Canadian [laughter]. No, I mean---but--she--that's
where she ended back [up], I think. Cause, I haven't heard from her for a while. But I remember her doing Ravenna and, you know where Ravenna is?Sarah Milligan 29:36
I don't.
Bob Gates 29:37
It's, they call it the twin city of you know where the mushroom festival is?
Sarah Milligan 29:44
Estill County, it's in Irvine.
Bob Gates 29:46
Irvine--Irvine and Ravenna are right next to each other.
Sarah Milligan 29:49
That's funny.
Bob Gates 29:49
She was, yeah--the twin city.
Sarah Milligan 29:51
Yeah.
Bob Gates 29:55
But and I remember before we started out on the project, or maybe part of it is
I, you know, I went out and did a lot of visiting libraries and visiting places. And I was on the river once with Warren Bruner. He's a photographer from, from Berea area, who I actually nominated to be a community scholar. When---when Smithsonian came out with the idea of Smith--of community scholars and they asked us, folklorists to--. And we were on this boat, way up on the Kentucky River. Between--well, it was close, close to Ravenna in that area. And we're out here--way out nowhere and all of a sudden, I see this out of the hill, a bomber comes out. The U.S. bomber, and--it just--and it's so gigantic, it just--just flew right over top of our heads.Sarah Milligan 30:49
That's bizarre.
Bob Gates 30:50
You know, and you're thinking this is--this is a--we're doing the culture of the
river country and what's going on here, along the Kentucky River. And that--the idea wasn't just along the river. It was just--it was--the way we wrote the grant was to look at traditional--traditions within counties along the Ohio River, or along the Kentucky River. So that's why when you look at that, we have people who did fruit, canning fruit, and a horse. We did somebody with a fox hunter, who raised fox hunting dogs. It was pretty neat, I mean, we had a lot of different things in there.Sarah Milligan 31:26
Well, it seems to me you still utilize a lot of that information you did from
even that original survey. Because I mean, you're talking about the woman, Polly, didn't she do--did she do tablecloths or weaving or something? Was she--Bob Gates 31:38
Pauline Profitt?
Sarah Milligan 31:39
Yeah.
Bob Gates 31:40
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 31:40
And that's someone you're going to use in the exhibits you're just doing right now.
Bob Gates 31:43
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 31:43
The Making of a Master exhibit. So, I mean, it's that's--that's kind of what I'm
curious about too is, those really long lasting? I mean, talking about from that original 1989, 1990, 1991 survey and then exhibit, I mean, some of the people and the connections and the information you're still utilizing.Bob Gates 32:03
Yeah. I mean, I was just at her daughter's house a couple of weeks ago.
Sarah Milligan 32:07
Profitt. Yeah.
Bob Gates 32:08
Profitt.
Sarah Milligan 32:10
That's not her name. That's not the daughter's name. I know, but.
Bob Gates 32:14
Eve Profitt is one of the daughters who worked with us a lot. She was--actually
worked down here at the Board of Education--.Sarah Milligan 32:20
Oh, here in Frankfort?
Bob Gates 32:20
The Department of Education. But for this exhibit--is her younger sister,
youngest sister in the family, and she lives in Richmond, but she had cutouts of pictures, newspaper articles and pictures that we had showed her mother in different things. There was one article that predated us, and it was about her. And I think it was an--a Berea paper. So, that might have been how I found out about her. But she--you know, we used her in exhibits. I think we even tried to get her to go to the Smithsonian Folk Festival one year to represent Kentucky, but she--I don't think she went, but she did other--she did a lot of things. And she was always fun to be--. We--called her the Recycling Lady of Paint Lick, Kentucky. Because she always--everything she did, she recycled and, and then one of--her best pieces that we used a lot was the bee rug. Do you remember that?Sarah Milligan 33:18
I don't.
Bob Gates 33:19
It was a rug that she had woven, hand woven, and it was made up of her husband's
[sighs] mail.Sarah Milligan 33:31
Oh, like his---.
Bob Gates 33:33
He was a mailman.
Sarah Milligan 33:33
Postman. So, he--.
Bob Gates 33:35
--And--he had blue wool.
Sarah Milligan 33:37
Yeah.
Bob Gates 33:38
And so, she used that with some other colors that she got from other people in
the family. So, everything she made was recycled. It--was funny that the daughter was telling us that she had gotten the idea from a little picture in a magazine. So--that she had cut out this picture of this bee and--and did it, but the daughter found the picture. And--which sneak into her mom's area and take the picture out and use it in her Barbie doll thing, as a rug for her [laughs]. Because her mom had made a rug out of it, so she was going to make a rug out of the picture--she laid the picture down. They have a lot of good memories of us of--working with--and she was at one of our--first and second folk festival here. I remember Eve bringing the loom down here and putting under a tent for us and.Sarah Milligan 34:24
Yeah. So, where did she end up learning to do the weaving? That was the
traditional art part of it right?Bob Gates 34:30
Yeah--it was kind of a combination of learning from her mother, but also
learning from Berea. She--she was--had a connection to Berea--.Sarah Milligan 34:37
Yeah.
Bob Gates 34:37
And learned some. This--I think the Swedish lady who came in--so it was kind of
a Berea-style of doing it and--.Sarah Milligan 34:46
Yeah.
Bob Gates 34:46
--Her own family, so.
Sarah Milligan 34:47
Interesting. Yeah, so I mean things like that--that's what I think is great
about like the history of all of the survey work and you choosing to do all this research early. You can see the direct path of how it builds on itself. I mean just--.Bob Gates 35:01
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 35:01
---It really has the last 20 years--20 plus years has just built on all the
research that you did. Every year just kind of culminated in more and more.Bob Gates 35:10
Well, I think the survey work helped us develop that exhibit, and that exhibit.
Sarah Milligan 35:15
The Kentucky River.
Bob Gates 35:16
The Kentucky River exhibit helped later when we did a folk festival. Those were
some of the first people we tried to present as people along that area.Sarah Milligan 35:25
How did you end up reconciling the fact that the Kentucky River covers so much
land in the state, and you had--really had to graduate students, yourself and some people help with data entry, but as far as physically getting to those locations, was it hard to accomplish a kind of thorough survey of all those different counties and communities? In a summer?Bob Gates 35:44
Yeah, it was. It was kind of Blitzkrieg. [laughter] hit and run type stuff.
We--knew we weren't gonna cover everything. But--but I think we--we established in the beginning, how much--that we wanted to do this well, and the fact that we were in--putting all this information down and I think the students took it. I don't know if you ever listened to any of the student's interviews.Sarah Milligan 36:12
You know, I haven't.
Bob Gates 36:13
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 36:14
I haven't.
Bob Gates 36:14
They're pretty good. I mean, I--Teresa Hollingsworth's, much better. And, and I
think they stepped up---theSarah Milligan 36:22
Undergraduates.
Bob Gates 36:23
The undergraduates, they saw they, they said, "well, these students can do these
kind[s] of interviews, we'll do these other ones," the more in-depth ones, and we kept track. We knew it wasn't going to be everybody. But I think it was a thing where we thought, if we do this survey, and we make an exhibit that goes through this area, and goes to the library, it's going to help us find more people. And that--kind of goes back to what I learned when I was at the arts consortium in Cincinnati is. If you--if you establish trust with communities by doing--using their stuff, in a way that looks--that they feel good about and that they have a hand in it somehow, then they'll want to give more stuff to you and they'll wanna. And I think that's what happened when we started taking--I remember taking it to Beattyville and exhibit there and people coming out of the woodwork and say, "oh, I got that I do that." So, we met more people that way. And that's what Teresa and I followed up on the following year. You know, and that kind of lead into what we did with the Ohio River project. Can I go to the bathroom real[ly] quick?Sarah Milligan 37:30
Yeah, of course, hold on.
Bob Gates 37:31
Sorry, talking too much.
Sarah Milligan 37:33
No, that's okay. All right. So, I don't know if we have anything else to say
about the Kentucky River Project exhibit. But I do want to say that Teresa Hollingsworth, the reason why we keep talking about her so much is because she has gone on to do really awesome things. She's like the folk arts and---and accessibility coordinator for South Arts, which is the regional arts organization for the Southern area of the United States.Bob Gates 37:58
Yeah. And before that she had gone to Florida and worked there with a big group
of folklorists.Sarah Milligan 38:02
Folklife (??).
Bob Gates 38:03
And she worked with Sandy Ives (??) up in.
Sarah Milligan 38:05
I didn't realize she did that, yeah.
Bob Gates 38:06
Yeah, she was helping him for a couple years.
Sarah Milligan 38:08
That's great.
Bob Gates 38:09
I remember her complaining about they didn't have iced tea up there.
Sarah Milligan 38:13
That would bug Teresa, yeah. [laughter]
Bob Gates 38:15
And she's always--always been a UK fan, so she's always taking her blue stuff up
there with her--wherever she goes.Sarah Milligan 38:20
That's true.
Bob Gates 38:20
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 38:21
And from Bowling Green, but yeah, Teresa. And has continued to support you. And
you know, the--the joke is that she's, you know, part of the Bob Boot Camp group. You know-.Bob Gates 38:32
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 38:32
She got her start with Bob, and there's--that's part of this too, is that so
many folklorists like, Greg Hanson, I mean, all those people, you know, they kind of have this bond of the fact that yeah, we've been through Bob Boot Camp, you know [laughs].Bob Gates 38:45
They call it Bob Boot Camp.
Sarah Milligan 38:46
To certain extent, you know--.
Bob Gates 38:47
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 38:48
There's a joke about--not in a bad way at all, just the fact that so many
people, especially that came out of Western, went through the folklife program since you've been, you know---.Bob Gates 38:58
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 38:58
Since you've had it that.
Bob Gates 39:02
Yeah--and we've been tied to Southern Arts Federation, even when I first went to
Berea, whenever the first couple months I was there, it was--one of the retreats that they were doing down there.Sarah Milligan 39:13
Yeah.
Bob Gates 39:14
--Down south. And Betsy Alder (??) was gonna pick me up and go to the retreat,
but I got a kidney stone that night.Sarah Milligan 39:20
I'm so surprised.
Bob Gates 39:21
Yeah, the first time.
Sarah Milligan 39:22
God, Bob.
Bob Gates 39:22
I didn't know what it was [laughs]. But Loyal Jones gave me a book and I made it
through it, but it was funny. Janet was trying to find somebody that watch the kids, watch, watch the kid, and had--just there and I'm over in hospital and she said, she called the student person who's in charge of getting student workers and said, "can we get somebody over here to help me and," and she said, "well, yeah, we can, where are you," and Janet described where she was, and she said, "oh, you're in the ghetto." And it was called--.Sarah Milligan 39:55
In Berea?
Bob Gates 39:56
--It was called 'The Teacher's Ghetto,' or 'Professor's Ghetto,' because
all--the area a lot of--and it wasn't--it wasn't and Janet thought, "oh, no, we're in the ghetto. Bob's sick and we live in the ghetto." [laughter]Sarah Milligan 40:10
That's a booster. Thank you. [laughs]
Bob Gates 40:13
Yeah. But it was a--it was neat, being in Berea, too. I think that--that project
was a good start for us. It gave us some visibility and doing the exhibit. I think we were doing the exhibit while we were working on the Ohio River project. But you know, you--do the research, then you try to see what it says. I think Betsy Adler helped with some of it. We--and I have a long history of hiring, getting the other folklorists involved and writing and--.Sarah Milligan 40:40
Distilling that information, yeah.
Bob Gates 40:42
Distilling. I mean, that's a project--process we're going through right now.
It's---it's a lot more structured here than it was there.Sarah Milligan 40:49
Right, making it the master exhibit?
Bob Gates 40:51
Yeah, the same process of trying to say what you got and take the--take the
things we learned at Western about what folklore is, trying to figure out what you want the public to learn out of that.Sarah Milligan 41:06
Well, now you have--.
Bob Gates 41:07
Make it interesting.
Sarah Milligan 41:08
--Mark Brown has been doing it for 10 years for you.
Bob Gates 41:10
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 41:10
So, you got him thoroughly.
Bob Gates 41:12
Yeah--
Sarah Milligan 41:13
--Trained in distilling information.
Bob Gates 41:14
He is the master--I we got to have him in as the master writer.
Sarah Milligan 41:18
Yeah, there you go. He just needs an apprentice.
Bob Gates 41:21
Copywriter, yeah. [laughter] He's an apprentice.
Sarah Milligan 41:24
Badly. [Laughter] So--so following that Kentucky River, and then Teresa was
working with you some and then you started the Ohio River, but this is--. Okay, '89, you started in Berea. So, this is the first couple of years working in Berea, you're doing the Kentucky River Project surveys, working on this exhibit. So, '91-92, you started working on the Ohio River. This is also the same time where the discussion is going, where's the program gonna go, right? So, you don't know that--it doesn't have to stay in Berea?Bob Gates 41:56
Right. And in this time, we had met with the Arts Council--I had met with the
Arts Council about whether or not--what they're doing, how we can work, you know, they were one of the consortium members. So, they wanted something from me and Kim was--wanted to work with us. She was already working with us by doing the---helping to fund a project. Mary Winter came down with, with her one time.Sarah Milligan 42:23
From the [Kentucky] Historical Society.
Bob Gates 42:24
To see how we could work together. And the Arts Council wanted to work together.
And that's kind of how we established the folk arts grants at the Arts Council.Sarah Milligan 42:34
And they start that early?
Bob Gates 42:35
Yeah, it was pretty early.
Sarah Milligan 42:37
Before you even worked in state government.
Bob Gates 42:39
Yes. Oh, yeah. We had it going before.
Sarah Milligan 42:41
Really?
Bob Gates 42:42
Yeah. Let's see, one of the directors at the Arts Council have come from
Appalshop. What's his name? Gosh.Sarah Milligan 42:58
I don't know their history very well.
Bob Gates 43:00
They had hired--the Arts Council had hired him to come up, they wanted somebody
from eastern Kentucky. He was pretty good. I think the bureaucracy kind of was rough on him. But he did a good job. Did a lot of projects, and I remember seeing--going up to Berry Hill, at the time that they were moving down from Berry Hill to--they had a space [sighs] at the play as a--you know where that little shop is? On the plaza where they sell sandwiches?Sarah Milligan 43:35
The Cheesery (??).
Bob Gates 43:37
Cheesery. It was right next to there. That was.
Sarah Milligan 43:38
So, down in the plaza shopping area?
Bob Gates 43:41
Yeah, in the plaza shopping area.
Sarah Milligan 43:42
By the fountain.
Bob Gates 43:42
It was a--that's where the Arts Council when they were moving down there. Marty
Newell, that's his name. And I remember picking him up, I had an old pickup truck that my brother had given me, and he was getting in the truck with me and we were gonna go eat lunch or something. And I was just getting to know him, and he saw my Led Zeppelin tape in--in the tape player. And he says, "I didn't know folklorists listen to Led Zeppelin. I thought all they did was listen--." [lauhgs] So, I thought that was pretty cool.Sarah Milligan 44:11
Common misconception.
Bob Gates 44:12
Yeah. But I remember working with him, and I think at that time, they actually
had the circuit writers. That's when they established the circuit writers and I think Judy Sizemore was in that first group--Sarah Milligan 44:22
Really?
Bob Gates 44:23
--Of circuit riders.
Sarah Milligan 44:23
That far back, huh?
Bob Gates 44:24
Yeah, maybe not, but there--was there was circuit writers, and we would meet at
the--at Frankfort like once a month. And they would--they would call it 'The Circuit Writers and Bob.' [laughter] "We got to get out--a meeting for 'The Circuit Writers and Bob.'"Sarah Milligan 44:39
So, the circuit writers were essentially, I don't know how many there were at
that point, but they were regional outreach people for the Arts Council that would be out in the field and live in communities, but have an outreach like of eastern Kentucky or southeastern--.Bob Gates 44:50
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 44:50
--Kentucky and they would try and work with those communities to engage in Arts
Council grants, programs, all that kind of stuff, and they would report back to the Arts Council.Bob Gates 44:58
Right. And I think there was like seven or eight of them at that time, and I
think Jerry Combs was one of them. That's how she got she, I know---know, she was a--she was there, at least when I was going--trying to get the thing at Western, because I remember her being at one of the workshops they had, and I was saying, "well, we might be going to Western." She said, "oh, I don't think so." Because she knew what they were talking about.Sarah Milligan 45:26
And she was later the Arts Council director.
Bob Gates 45:28
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 45:28
The director of the Arts Council.
Bob Gates 45:29
And she became the director. But that--in that time when Marty Newell was there
is when we established the folk arts grant.Sarah Milligan 45:38
Okay.
Bob Gates 45:38
And the folk arts apprenticeships.
Sarah Milligan 45:40
Okay.
Bob Gates 45:40
Based on how NEA, so even though I wasn't there, it's similar to how Mark
was--is doing it now, where he's the liaison. He monitors what's going on with the grants. I was doing the same thing, only I was in Berea. So, that's why we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the apprenticeships this year, because it was there before I came in the state government.Sarah Milligan 46:00
So, '91.
Bob Gates 46:01
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 46:01
So, it was right before you came in, but at the same time you[‘re] establishing
these state connections, and you're working as a sort of quasi-associated outreach person for the Arts Council, because you had grants, but you were independent. But you're also having the conversation of whether you're going to remain in Berea, who is basically--been your fiscal agent up to this point, is that what I understand?Bob Gates 46:21
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 46:23
So, let's, let's try and get into that just a little bit, since we're at that
point chronologically. What were all the discussions on the table? I mean, you mentioned Jerry Combs, who knew more than--more of the back side to some of the discussions than maybe you did about whatever, but you know, let's talk about what were your thought processes. What--where were you looking at?Bob Gates 46:41
Do you want to skip to Ohio River project? Because that was before that.
Sarah Milligan 46:43
Oh, that was before.
Bob Gates 46:44
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 46:45
Oh, I was thinking the Ohio River was right during the same time period.
Bob Gates 46:48
No, Ohio River was, I think in '90.
Sarah Milligan 46:51
You weren't associated with the Historical Society then when that was going on?
Bob Gates 46:55
I was--I mean, that's, that's why Mary Winter came down.
Sarah Milligan 46:59
Yeah.
Bob Gates 47:01
And---see, it was coming down the pike. Bessie Elder was more involved, too, she
was kind of a supervisor in a way. In fact, she, at one point, she--she arranged for me to have an office in northern Kentucky that I could stop in---at a coll--at the north--at a community college up there, but I never got to do it. And--.Sarah Milligan 47:22
How are you continued funding? I mean, as the--have you been writing grants for
your program as well?Bob Gates 47:26
Every year I wrote, wrote a revision of the--the grant to NEA.
Sarah Milligan 47:32
Okay.
Bob Gates 47:33
You know I--that's why when I came here, I had more travel money than anybody
else had, because I had [been] putting it in the grant.Sarah Milligan 47:40
--At the Historical Society.
Bob Gates 47:40
--And when I brought it here, I I said, "that's what we need." So, some of the
people here were saying, "well, we don't get that much. We never--." I said, "well, write your own grants [chuckles] and you can get the stuff."Sarah Milligan 47:53
So, you had been on soft money.
Bob Gates 47:54
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 47:55
Those first three or four years.
Bob Gates 47:56
Three years. When the Ohio River project came up, it was a big project that the
humanities councils, all along the Ohio River, from Pittsburgh on down, had gotten together and they were writing a grant in the National Endowment for the Humanities, to do a big project where they would come down with a--they would outfit a barge, pushed by a tow boat. And the barge would be an exhibit of, of Kentucky, of the Ohio River of culture along the Ohio River. They had a lot of historians involved. I got--I've got a book here with some of the--written about it. But the exhibit itself, you know where that is now? It's at the--right across from Louisville at the Falls [Falls of the Ohio State Park]--using the falls.Sarah Milligan 48:45
Oh, I didn't know that.
Bob Gates 48:46
That was based on that exhibit, they took a lot of that stuff out of the barge
and put it in there. So, there was some folklife things in it. I think some other folklorists were involved. Trying to think of the one in Pittsburgh, I think she had some involvement in it.Sarah Milligan 49:01
Doris.
Bob Gates 49:02
Doris, I think--.
Sarah Milligan 49:03
Yeah.
Bob Gates 49:03
Maybe not. I don't know if she was there or not. But the idea was this big barge
would travel to different places along the Ohio River and stop there. And whatever the local people could do, to make it a great stop would be--it would be gravy, you know. That's what they were trying to do, is have the Humanities Council all together fund this big thing, through the humanities--the National Endowment for the Humanities, but the local humanities councils would--would try to help the local communities do some things. So, it was a big project. everybody was tying their wagon--their horse to, you know. [clears throat] And Betsy said this was coming down--this, this would be a good opportunity for us to do something. So, we wrote another grant to NEA to do a folklife survey the year before this was going to take place. With the idea that we would do the survey along all these counties, and then the next year, when the barge stopped, we would have a folk festival there, at each one. Emphasizing the local folk culture from each place.Sarah Milligan 50:08
Like a one or two-day event. Yeah.
Bob Gates 50:11
--And you had to figure that this barge is going to be moving here, so it'll be
here this week and the next week, it'll be down here, Covington. Next week, it'll be in Louisville next week, it'll be in Henderson.Sarah Milligan 50:21
Oh my gosh, Bob, that just makes me tired thinking about it.
Bob Gates 50:24
I know. [laughs] and so---I wrote that grant for the National Endowment for the
Arts to do that. I also wrote a grant to the Humanities Council here in the state to do signage. Because I knew I wanted--I was gonna do--okay, wait a minute. First, it was a grant to do the--.Sarah Milligan 50:41
Surveys.
Bob Gates 50:42
--Survey, then I'll follow up with a grant NEA to do the festivals. So, the
surveys was [were] the first thing. And with those surveys, that's how Mary Winter, here at the Historical Society wanted to piggyback on that and use some of those folklorists to--to do the Ohio River Portrait Project, which was a separate project. And--and I came in and kind of consulted on that, because I had done a lot of copying old photographs.Sarah Milligan 51:13
Do you want to say with that was, the Ohio River Portrait Project?
Bob Gates 51:16
Yeah, if I remember, right, it was a project that would go out and--to river
cities. And Nathan Pritchard was a folklorist--a photographer here. [clears throat] He would take a two and a quarter camera with a setup.Sarah Milligan 51:38
Like a copy stand.
Bob Gates 51:38
Copy stands, lights, and take along three or four--Gretchen, I guess went, and
Mary, and like maybe a couple other people, sometimes.Sarah Milligan 51:50
KHS staff?
Bob Gates 51:50
KHS staff, and we would meet him with a folklorist who were at these places, too
[clears throat]. And I remember help and kind of consult on, since I had did [done] this in Tennessee. What--what we need to capture, how do you capture that? And--but Mary really came up with a form, but I kind of helped out with the idea that--because I had tried this in Tennessee, where you--somebody brings their picture in. And it's kind of [an] assembly line, where somebody interviews them about all the pictures, and marks each number on the picture and then--.Sarah Milligan 52:22
Assigns a number to each.
Bob Gates 52:23
--Assigns a number and then--then Nathan takes a picture, and within an hour,
you got your picture back and we got all the negatives.Sarah Milligan 52:29
Okay.
Bob Gates 52:30
All in one go. So, that was a project they were doing, and I was kind of
involved with that, but my main thrust was to get these folklorists together and have them do surveys, in the counties from Maysville all the way to Paducah.Sarah Milligan 52:46
So were a lot of the people that brought in pictures, were those people that you
were working with on survey stuff anyway, or was it a good mix of community, just general community--.Bob Gates 52:54
I think Mary reached people we didn't reach, but we also added people that--we had.
Sarah Milligan 52:58
Okay.
Bob Gates 53:01
Like, I remember in Maysville, the folklorists who was working up there, she had
a German name, I can't remember, but she--she got a couple farmers to come in--tobacco farmers that I got--Sean Klee had introduced her to, you know, and [clears throat] and quilters, and that. She got them to bring their pictures in, along with what Mary--so it was helpful. It wasn't a main--I mean, I think it--both of those programs going on raise consciousness about--about it. And that helped the publicity and helped bring people in and do it. So, I think they both helped each other out. It's kind of like when we did the [sighs] Highway 23 thing later on, the idea of getting those local communities to all work together, helped and raised the--what was it--publicity. But this project, to do the National Endowment--to have--to do the survey, that was kind of, you know, built on the Ohio River or the Kentucky River one. Only it was a much bigger river and much bigger area--and--and I guess--I learned from that is you got to have real folk students doing it. And I say real students because I've taken hits from people like [sighs] oh, can't I think of his name. The independent folklorist who writes on pub lore all the time.Sarah Milligan 54:26
Dale.
Bob Gates 54:27
Not Dale, this is a guy from, oh anyway. We used to have a joke that he was so
and so.com, and I'll think of his name.Sarah Milligan 54:38
I think I know what you're talking about, I just can't figure who it is right
now either, which is probably okay.Bob Gates 54:42
But--he was a member of--he was like other independent folklorists who got their
degree, and they were out there trying to make a living out of it and then couldn't understand why I was hiring students.Sarah Milligan 54:52
Oh, right. That was a discussion that you all would put out you know, a call for
students to come in and work and independent folklorists who were trying to do that as a living--.Bob Gates 55:02
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 55:02
--Were frustrated that you weren't hiring them, but the wages were different,
and what you were trying to help with was a--was a relationship with the university and helping to train, right?Bob Gates 55:11
I was trying to get their feet wet, the young folklorists and you know, we had
mixed results, as you can see in the archive. --Some of them were really good, some weren't too sure of what they were doing out in the field.Sarah Milligan 55:24
Yeah.
Bob Gates 55:25
But, most of them were really good and you know, I always depended on the
Western Kentucky University professors, Michael Ann or Cam to say which ones they recommended, and they always sent good ones my way. For the Ohio River project, we only had one Western student.Sarah Milligan 55:41
Which was.
Bob Gates 55:42
That was Tim--I mean--.
Sarah Milligan 55:44
Chris Antonson (??).
Bob Gates 55:44
Chris Antonson, he did Henderson and Owensboro area. The rest were Indiana
University students.Sarah Milligan 55:57
Wow, that's a big change.
Bob Gates 55:58
Yeah, it was, and we were trying to branch out and just see what we could, you
know. And I don't know, I mean, we had---we had Teresa and Louellen (??_ the year before, and I guess we just wanted to see, what we could get.Sarah Milligan 56:13
Was Teresa still working with you?
Bob Gates 56:15
Yeah, yeah. So, she was working in the office with me [clears throat]. And she
helped figure out the training that we did. I remember getting all these folklorists to come to Berea, and there's a picture of us there with my kid--with Robert and we, you know, we did a workshop on what we were gonna do. I remember going to a--the Center for the Arts and meeting there too. Because we were, you know, we were trying to build a little bit off of what Dick Van Kleeck had done. So, he gave us some of the--his research that he had done, when they did the Ohio River. So, he was down there at the--still at the Center for--.Sarah Milligan 56:52
Arts.
Bob Gates 56:52
--Center for the Arts. So, I think we met down there one time and looked at that
information. The reason I remember that is us being in the Belvedere and Chris Antonson doing an imitation of the statue of--that's out there of Lewis and Clark. He was going like this [makes gesture] point--pointing in the distance, you know.Sarah Milligan 57:13
Yeah, like an elbow and an arm and--.
Bob Gates 57:15
Yeah, he was doing a parody--.
Sarah Milligan 57:16
Forward through (??) Yeah.
Bob Gates 57:16
Kind of like people do of the Heisman Trophy [laughter]. Kind of thing. So that
was--that was a--.Sarah Milligan 57:24
Did you take applications for that with students? I mean, how did you choose?
Bob Gates 57:28
Well, I remember we were trying to get a relationship with--there was--.
Sarah Milligan 57:30
IU.
Bob Gates 57:30
--At IU there was a woman up there who worked with students. You know, and it
wasn't really easy because they didn't have a public sector. And--.Sarah Milligan 57:37
That's I was wondering.
Bob Gates 57:38
And Rory was from there.
Sarah Milligan 57:43
Rory Turner?
Bob Gates 57:44
Rory Turner, he worked in--northern Kentucky area, and one who did the most in
the Paducah area. I can't remember her name right now. But--/Sarah Milligan 57:55
Oh, yeah, the super--she did like, three times or ten times more interviews than anybody.
Bob Gates 58:00
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 58:01
[She] was off the chain (??)
Bob Gates 58:01
So--so we would meet, kind of like I did in Tennessee, when I was a member of a
group like that, we'd meet and share what we were doing, and everybody look at her and say, [whispers] "why is she doing so much, she's making me look bad?" And it was, I know Rory, afterwards, he, he never finished writing out his field notes, and he always felt guilty about that for years. [chuckles] but she--she did everything.Sarah Milligan 58:29
Yeah.
Bob Gates 58:29
She did, and we were also trying to work with the Humanities Council on that
grant--not the humanities, the Heritage Council. So, there was a folklorist working there--.Sarah Milligan 58:41
Oh!
Bob Gates 58:41
Working and she was, she got her degree in [sighs] North Carolina.
Sarah Milligan 58:52
At Chapel Hill?
Bob Gates 58:53
Chapel Hill. Her background was mainly in architecture, but she was a folklorist.
Sarah Milligan 59:04
Yeah.
Bob Gates 59:04
So, vernacular architecture. I remember one of her main, I think she wrote her
thesis on--was how box houses or--in Appalachian communities, they have, like a square or rectangle house, and that the trailer was--.Sarah Milligan 59:24
The double wide.
Bob Gates 59:25
The double wide was--.
Sarah Milligan 59:26
Reminiscent.
Bob Gates 59:27
Well, it was replacing that.
Sarah Milligan 59:29
Yeah.
Bob Gates 59:29
It was the same tradition, but they usually went to the double wide and, oh it
was pretty interesting.Sarah Milligan 59:34
Interesting.
Bob Gates 59:35
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 59:35
So, you started a relationship with the Heritage Council at that point?
Bob Gates 59:38
Yeah, and yeah, you know, and Michael Anne had been talking with--I think she--I
don't know if she was on their advisory board at that time.Sarah Milligan 59:48
She might have been, yeah.
Bob Gates 59:49
But she was later, and I remember she was involved more in the cultural
conservation talks on the national--national level. And--and so what we were trying to put here was cultural conservation with architecture. And the main buzzwords were. [sighs] What is it? Tangible and untangible [intangible]?Sarah Milligan 1:00:13
They still are.
Bob Gates 1:00:14
Yeah, so--.
Sarah Milligan 1:00:15
Are you talking about cultural conservation or historic preservation?
Bob Gates 1:00:19
Cultural conservation? We were trying to use that--that idea in, in the Heritage
Council with historic preservation. So, they would look at more than just buildings, they would look at the history and culture of that building.Sarah Milligan 1:00:33
The intangible culture of--.
Bob Gates 1:00:34
And the intangible culture that produced it. So, I remember talking with David--.
Sarah Milligan 1:00:41
Morgan.
Bob Gates 1:00:42
Morgan, this was before I was asking him to move the program there. I was
talking with him about how we could do something together, and, and Kim was, you know, trying to push me in that direction. And, you know, I'm still in Berea, but we're trying to work with state agencies as much--as much as we can and trying to get them on the bandwagon with us. So, they said, "yes, we'll, we'll have this folklorist work with you on this project." And I think she--they put a little bit of money toward the project, but mainly she was going to work with them to have a hist--a building aspect--a vernacular architecture aspect of their survey. So, it's like, they're doing folk artists, but we're also going to do some buildings. So, the guy in Covington did buildings that were at a--it was a recreational building along the Ohio River where a lot of people had gone and the buildings were still there. And it was--you know what he--probably would have been better is--that I learned later, if he had done the German American stone buildings that were in that area. But he didn't do that, he did this. So each person along there tried to do something and I think Chris did the barbecue pits, as you know, [clears throat] and what the church--and the one that was--stood out to me was the one that got them mad at me, I guess was it or dissatisfied with the project was, a woman in Paducah and she was looking at images of, of castles. How it was a reoccurring theme in that area, at the locks, they were all--they all look like castles, a lot of the things in Paducah had a castle thing to it, and she was trying to make a connection there, and I don't think he ever made it strong enough. And I think the folklorists at--she kind of felt like not betrayed, but that we hadn't come through. And she had to kind of put it--that--but she wasn't reviewing what they were--what was coming in. She wasn't helping them as much as she could have either.Sarah Milligan 1:02:44
Just from that one survey--just from that one student not being able to make a
clear statement--.Bob Gates 1:02:48
Yeah, yeah, I was like, you know, "come on, help us out here. What do you want
us to do?" And we're trying to add things on here but we--you know--. We later did an architectural thing in---was that, Stearns, there. Where it was a combination of folklorists working with an architectural--.Sarah Milligan 1:03:09
Historian.
Bob Gates 1:03:10
Historian, and I think that worked--worked better because it was from the start,
there was two of them working together. But this one, I don't feel like they ever really--and David really never understoo--he confided to me that he doesn't really understand cultural conservation. It wasn't that hard of a concept [lauhgs]. If you want to, you know, with the Historic Preservation Office, they've got all this money from--from the from--National Park Service, I guess that's where they get a lot of it, to document buildings. And that money goes, they can see where that money goes to pay this, to do this, to do that. There wasn't that with folklore, and folk culture, it wasn't--that money wasn't coming in the same way. So, your allegiance is going where the money is, rather than with this concept that didn't have money to back it up. And so we were trying to put money with the NEA with it, but it's--just didn't. That's one aspect that I thought could have been stronger [clears throat]. But when you know, when you get in the middle of a survey, things happen, and you know, you can't keep track of everything that's going on.Sarah Milligan 1:04:14
Well and---you're documenting a lot. I mean, you're--you're trying to figure out
what those traditions are and document those and interview everybody that needs to be in negotiate--.Bob Gates 1:04:22
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:04:22
--The community hierarchy and---and then you're looking at buildings and if you
don't have any training, looking at buildings, then and you see castles everywhere, I guess. [laughter]Bob Gates 1:04:30
I guess, I mean, you can't deny when you look at the body of work, she did, she
did a lot of great stuff, especially this. I mean, she came up with the idea of emerging traditions, like the--the church that was doing the men's cake baking contest, that was her id--you know, she documented that. She documented Land Between the Legs, how there was a--memorial services to people in--you know, who had gotten moved off of there. Which later, I think, kind of--Connie Alexander took off with some of her ideas. So, I think we planted some--she planted some seeds, or we planted some seeds there that later were documented in other ways. She also did something with the hairdressers, and my favorite one that she did was looking at a folk group that was riverboat pilot's wives.Sarah Milligan 1:05:26
Which they did an oral history project with later.
Bob Gates 1:05:28
Yeah, and I remember Doug doing a radio program with it one time, [clears
throat] when he was doing those--.Sarah Milligan 1:05:33
Radios, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:05:34
Yeah. So, I think she came up with great stuff. It's just that architecture part
wasn't, gave us--gave us a bad name for some reason.Sarah Milligan 1:05:43
Too bad.
Bob Gates 1:05:43
I just remembered that--Karen was her name. She was the folklorist at the
Heritage Council. I can't remember what her last name was, but I remember her being mad at me about that and saying, "why is she sending this stuff? And David doesn't like this. And okay."Sarah Milligan 1:05:58
So, is this your first experience with David Morgan and the Heritage Council?
Bob Gates 1:06:01
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:06:01
Because he was the SHIPO [State Historic Preservation Officer] for a long time.
Bob Gates 1:06:03
Yeah, he was there for years, yeah. He actually got me to do a festival--got me
in the mode of doing a festival by doing--when we did the State Fair. Years later, he did this--he actually brought in people, who did a shotgun house--built a shotgun house here--there and I suggested rocks fence guy---or I worked with--and I guess that might have been his idea. The Rock fence guy actually demonstrating the rocks, but I said "well, why don't we rent the rocks and do it?" And--but we also did a rolly--whole marble yard there.Sarah Milligan 1:06:40
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:06:41
With the guys playing every day. So, we had to rent dirt to bring in to put on
the floor of the--in the B Building.Sarah Milligan 1:06:48
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:06:48
But you know, that's when he--he said to me, "you know, you ought to be doing a
folk festival." And-but then he didn't really support it. [laughs] I don't know--we had kind of strange a relationship, I guess.Sarah Milligan 1:07:00
I believe it was almost ten years between when they hired you on and before you
did your first festival, right?Bob Gates 1:07:05
Yeah--yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:07:06
Okay, so Ohio River portrait, you were working with KHS, helping them with The
Always a Rive--well, helping them with the Ohio River Portrait Project. The Arts Council, you were doing grants with the Historic Preservation Office--you were working--.Bob Gates 1:07:20
Yeah, the Arts Council, we were doing grants. We were actually given out folk
arts grants was a folk arts panel.Sarah Milligan 1:07:24
During that time period.
Bob Gates 1:07:25
And starting the apprenticeships.
Sarah Milligan 1:07:26
And working with--with Western, just in general, working with their students and
having some kind of consultation on the surveys and things like that. So, you're collecting all this data, and you're doing these many festivals? Let's---let's talk. I mean, unless there's anything else you want to say about the actual survey work, let's talk about the festivals you did along the way.Bob Gates 1:07:43
Yeah, the only thing about--I think, again, what I learned from the Kentucky
River was, I was giving them too much, and we are also starting--you know, I never knew what database to use.Sarah Milligan 1:07:57
Wow.
Bob Gates 1:07:58
--You know--[chuckles]--you know, it kept migrating and it's so--. I think we
were still using WordPerfect, but it wasn't [clears throat] it wasn't--we weren't trying to [clears throat]--. What do you call--[clears throat]--index it. And [clears throat] I--I was trying to, you know--I think that's why some folklorists did a better job [clears throat] than other--let me get some water.Sarah Milligan 1:08:19
Yeah, go ahead, please.
Bob Gates 1:08:29
Yeah, I was talking about how she was doing all this, Linda, I think it was
[clears throat] in Paducah.Sarah Milligan 1:08:35
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:08:36
[Clears throat] She also had her husband there with her, and he was--he was
taking photographs, driving around. He was helping her out. So, it was like a dual thing going on. Some people did amazing stuff, and other people spent more time inputting, some people were afraid of the inputting, like, and it's a bit time--what's his name in--in northern Kentucky?Sarah Milligan 1:08:59
Rory.
Bob Gates 1:08:59
Rory found a northern Kentucky brotherhood.
Sarah Milligan 1:09:02
Oh, wow.
Bob Gates 1:09:03
[Clears throat] He--he went to the churches and did some original research there
that helped us kind of reunite and put them on the map. So, he did some great stuff. He did things on, what's that river, it comes into Cincinnati. Licking River, Cincinnati used to be--what's called Losantiville at one time, which means land across from the Licking River. And the Licking River was you know, that's the same with Blue Licks, that's the same way. Anyway, he was doing things with riverboat people who lived there and he did things with--he got us involved with some of the riverboat pilots and back hands--.Sarah Milligan 1:09:46
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:09:46
--Out there. So he--everybody did a lot of stuff, neat stuff. It was all a
little different, and the job was to try to--the next year, was to take that--I always knew I was gonna do a folk festival, a series of folk festivals. Whether it was to write a grant that could--could do this. So, the Humanities Council grant--got a road paid for signage, and that's what those red signs are upstairs.Sarah Milligan 1:10:03
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:10:04
They were made in such a way that the legs could come off. They were based on
something that we---had been done in Louisiana when I was there, for our folk festival down there. You know, a wooden frame, maybe two feet wide, with wood coming down, framing a sign that was--it wasn't--it was made by sign maker. And it had a picture on it, and then had signage on it. So, I remember one was about foodways, had some women from--who were serving burgoo at, at the at Owensboro, church picnic that Chris had taken, and that was made into a sign for that. They were very, we tried to make general signs that could be used almost every place, based on research that had been done on all the places. Does that make sense? So, I had these signs, I had this pickup truck with a top over--over it, and the idea of it [laughs]--it was, I would drive up there to each festival each week and--and organize the artists from that area to meet me there. So, we had a group of artists who were riverboat pilots that stretched all along there so, I remember--what's his name?Sarah Milligan 1:11:25
The pilot.
Bob Gates 1:11:26
The riverboat pilot, do you remember his name? He's a good--
Sarah Milligan 1:11:29
The one from the Belle of Louisville?
Bob Gates 1:11:31
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:11:31
Is it Dave something? No, Dale? Or--
Bob Gates 1:11:35
Lou. Lou Webb.
Sarah Milligan 1:11:37
Oh, right, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:11:38
Lou Webb, the connection with him was, remember I talked about Ben Sandmill (??)
in Louisiana, who I used for the folk festival. He was our music guy at the folk festival down there [clears throat]. Well, he introduced me to Lou because they were both--worked on the Delta Queen together when they were young, and Lou kept working on the river and got his pilot's license and was a pilot on the river. Lou was a cool guy and loved to go down to the arts and the festival down in Louisiana. That's why I met him the first time.Sarah Milligan 1:12:08
I see.
Bob Gates 1:12:09
Drunk as a skunk, walking down the street, singing at the top of his lungs at
the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. That was his favorite--it was his pilgrimage each year. So I met him down there. [laughs]Sarah Milligan 1:12:22
I can picture that too.
Bob Gates 1:12:23
Yeah, I mean, he was he later got off--stopped drinking so much and--but he--you
know, he really let loose [at] those times, I think. He was--he's a very good pilot. I think he's still working up in the harbor up in, they call it the harbor and Covington area. [clears throat] But I met him down there and then when we were going to do this Ohio River thing I said, "Ben, can you come up and do some of these things?" So, he--he came up with this [these] narrative stages and--Lou did too. Lou organized interviews with riverboat pilots, who I would bring to different places. So, the same riverboat pilots that might do Louisville and Maysville also probably did Henderson. But we also tried to get people from that area. It was--it was kind of neat. We would do foodways, demonstrations, we'd have people demonstrating arts and crafts, I mean, their traditions. I remember having quilters in Maysville, and it was right along the flood wall there, and now they have murals there and they have an entrance that goes out. They had just opened up that hole through the flood walls that took you out. So, they had gotten some money to do--the city had put money into it, to match what--so that they would have a neat place for the barge to stop.Sarah Milligan 1:13:40
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:13:41
And I remember working with Klee--Klee.
Sarah Milligan 1:13:44
John.
Bob Gates 1:13:44
Klee--John Klee took me down there and we walked--walked, we met some people and
people who were putting money toward it, I guess and--you know, he helped me get some tobacco farmers in there, Black and white, and they would talk. So, I remember having a little mini section, and this was an idea that I guess developed later, where we gave grants to communities to do a mini folk festival, within a bigger festival. So that's what this was--it wasn't--it was a local community doing something they already wanted to do, with a folklife component to it.Sarah Milligan 1:14:18
So, they were--the communities were already invested in receiving the barge and
having the exhibit and that was kind of the focus, but you would bring in traditional arts components and do like the same signage every time, with a couple of key people that would come in and do narrative stages or demonstrations.Bob Gates 1:14:33
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:14:34
So, it wasn't like you were having to coordinate this entire event, you were
just showing up with your stuff and had--well I mean to say this--.Bob Gates 1:14:41
Well--.
Sarah Milligan 1:14:41
Makes it sound (??).
Bob Gates 1:14:42
I didn't have to support it--the whole thing, I'd say--.
Sarah Milligan 1:14:43
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:14:44
"Can you give me a section with tents. And this is what we want to do." I would
meet with the organizers of each one.Sarah Milligan 1:14:50
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:14:50
And said, "this is what we can do with it, and it'd be free because I'm going to
pay with the NEA grant. I'm going to pay for these artists to be there. I'll pay for some other folklorists to be there as presenters. And we'll do an--we'll work with you." And so, Maysville was the first one, and it made a stop in Ashland, but we didn't have anything, I probably did--.Sarah Milligan 1:15:11
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:15:11
--But that was the first one where I remember [clears throat] and that's where
our folklorists had worked out of. So, that's where the concentration of people were [was]. I remember having a quilter up there, and or it might have been a daughter of a quilter, who had died recent--since the interview--since they had done the interview. Because I remember they were talking about the memory quilt and how--she had quilted in every--in her quilt, she had things from people who had died in her life. And it was kind of that burial, memory quilt kind of thing, and I remember being--having a foodways demonstration with the woman who owned the McGee's bakery, and that was kind of neat, because we got pictures of it, and--and that's, that's where she told me this you know, will relate to the story about the guy coming in and wanting--a guy coming into her shop, and then he was a truck driver, and then she was worried about what he wanted And then finally he said, "Ma'am, do you have these invisible pies I've been looking for?" Well, that's, that's who I got her--from interviewing her. But she---it was kind of neat, because she was demonstrating transparent pies, and I didn't think anybody would come for this, because everybody knew how to make transparent, but it was everybody--there was like 50 people in the audience. We didn't have enough chairs for them all--and they're--most of them had note--were taking notes [laughter] about how to make her transparent pie. It was like, everybody's wanted to steal it. And that was the first time I ever saw anybody reach in, and, you know, and a knead, from a bakery. And she's, you know--.Sarah Milligan 1:16:53
Oh, instead of having an industrial mixer, she actually reached in and just did
everything by hand.Bob Gates 1:16:56
Well, I think had the industrial mixer, but she also said, "well, you have to do
this too." And you don't you--don't--"you have to go in with your elbows and bring it out." And I thought, "wow, that was pretty neat."Sarah Milligan 1:17:08
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:17:08
That's she--so, that festival was pretty neat. And then so every weekend,
wherever it moves, I would meet it. I remember Covington was a great one.Sarah Milligan 1:17:19
Why?
Bob Gates 1:17:24
Let me see. Which one--oh, okay, I'm getting Tall Stacks--and we did Tall Stacks
later on.Sarah Milligan 1:17:39
Where's tall stacks?
Bob Gates 1:17:40
Tall Stacks is a thing that Cincinnati does every four years, where they invite
these big river boats to--to Cincinnati and they--it's a big festival and people can take tours on--the boats. But it's--.Sarah Milligan 1:17:54
Oh, that's a different program that you did later.
Bob Gates 1:17:56
That was a different--that was another year, so that--but when we did it in
Covington, we did it at the park in Covington, at the foot of the river, it was a small park. I can't think of what it was. When I was a kid, we always looked at that area--it was supposed to be associated with the Underground Railroad, because it was right by the river's edge and there was supposed to be tunnels that went down. But--it was by the Mike Fink, that's a boat that's in the river that you can eat at--I think it's still there. The park's right there, but it was a very small park. But we--they had--we had kind of--the music--we had programmed a lot of the music on there. We had a northern Kentucky no, we didn't have the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, we had another gospel group that was based in Cincinnati that had influenced the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood. So, it was this--gospel group up there. I know the gospel (??) Bluegrass Singers, I think were there, a couple other groups we had. I think Homer Ledford might have been there, but I'm not sure. I remember John Lozier was there though.Sarah Milligan 1:19:02
A fiddler, right? Was he a fiddle or was he--?
Bob Gates 1:19:04
No, John Lozier was this interesting guy that--I didn't mention Steve Green.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:10
No, you didn't.
Bob Gates 1:19:11
And I was at Berea at the same time I was and Jeff Titan (??) was there for a
little while, and we all work--kind of work together. And Steve Green --intro--and--introduced me to John Harrod (??) and John Harrod took me and introduced me to John Lozier, who was--he was a harmonica player.Sarah Milligan 1:19:28
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 1:19:30
His wife was a Tatar (??) and they were all--they had been discovered by a
professor in Ohio, who taught at Ohio University, I think and, and kind of toted them as folk.Sarah Milligan 1:19:39
Ohio State University with the Folklife program, folklore.
Bob Gates 1:19:42
I--don't know if it was that, and I think it was before that.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:46
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 1:19:47
I don't think folklorists were involved; they were--they were kind of anthropologists.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:50
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:19:51
And they were--so, John had already thought of himself as a folk artist, yeah.
Which is--.Sarah Milligan 1:19:58
John Lozier.
Bob Gates 1:19:58
John Lozier did but, he was really cool. He--he was--his dad had taught him
no--he wanted to play fiddle, but they wouldn't let him touch the fiddle. So, he'd watch these guys around and play all these fiddle tunes. So, he got a harmonica and started playing fiddle tunes on his harmonica. So, all his songs, he played for fiddle tunes. His fame, you know, he was known for this fox hunting one, where he would actually, when he played, you could hear the fox, huffing through the woods and the guys running after the fox were[ makes a panting noise], and the dogs. It all came out through his thing, and you know, he’d kind of talk while he's doing it. Great stuff, and he had a couple different harmonicas, so he played different styles. But, he was funny kind of---very eccentric. Later on, when I took him for a tour of Kentucky folk music, he was in the back of the car, talking to himself, in a kind of religious way. You know, he was scared I was going to kill with a rocket, actually, but we need to talk about that sometime. The--.Sarah Milligan 1:21:00
The Tour of Kentucky. We'll definitely get into that.
Bob Gates 1:21:03
But John was up on that stage, and I remember, I'm running around trying to make
sure the artists get on stage and everything. I think that was me--with us. And--I heard---and all of a sudden, I heard my name mentioned on the stage, and it's John saying, "yeah, Bob Gates helped get this together. And he, you know, he's, he was, he stayed up with my family one time we--we brought him up to stay with my--." This is an old joke, he was--he was using. He said, "yeah, we brought Bob in. Said he could stay here for a little while--and, but we were getting kind of tired of him being there. So we said, "Bob, I think it's--don't you want to be with your family for a while." And he said, "oh, yeah, I'll bring them up too."" [laughs] but you know, he was a good storyteller, and I think he was kind of--we were using him as a master of ceremonies at--that day. So, he was talking--he was talking in between acts and he's said great story and I just fell down laughing, [laughter] it was so cool. [clears throat] But--so, we had that at Covington, and I think the next thing we did was at--in Louisville, and it was at--by the Bellle of Louisville, it wasn't a real festival. But it we had the, the captain of the Belle of Louisville, who, Lou had gotten, wangled me to be able to go out on the boat with before. So, I got to know him, I can't think of his name. He's not there anymore, but he was great guy, because he was always up for doing something. He actually let me steer the Belle of Louisville, for a while.Sarah Milligan 1:22:32
Oh, that's terrifying.
Bob Gates 1:22:32
--While we were out--. Yeah, and then you'd look behind and you could see
your--your thing and it was all over the place. It [was] zigzagging down the river. I couldn't tell, but [laughs] and I don't think he was--supposed to let me do that, but he let Lou and I up in the you know, and that's where we learned that the folklore that you can only--if you go--if you go in one door, you have to go out the same door. It's bad luck, all the--all this folklore--the Calliope was up there and all that.Sarah Milligan 1:22:59
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:22:59
But, when we did the--when we did the program down there, it was cool because he
came out and throw [threw] the line. So, we were really getting into the occupational folk culture of the riverboat pilot and a deck hand. And Lou would come along, and he would demonstrate doing a bumper.Sarah Milligan 1:23:22
Weaving, right?
Bob Gates 1:23:24
Weaving a bumper.
Sarah Milligan 1:23:25
Weaving a bumper.
Bob Gates 1:23:25
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:23:26
A boat bumper out of rope.
Bob Gates 1:23:27
And it has different names, it would sometimes be called a possum because you
could hang it--the way it was be--hold--held, it would look like a possum.Sarah Milligan 1:23:34
From its tail?
Bob Gates 1:23:35
Hanging from his tail, and Lou was actually, he did so many of those on this,
this--these folk vessels, that his ar--his hands were hurting. By the time we got to Henderson, he didn't--"Yeah, I don't wanna do this anymore [laughter]. Let's do more narrative stages and less demonstration." But, you know, we would get someplace, he threw a line up over the tree and start working on it. So--I can't think of all the other genres that we had, but it was often river related, but--and it was also foodways and demonstrations. When we had the--had it in Henderson, along the river, I remember having a great narrative stage going on and we brought Grandpa Jones, who was--lived in that area and brought him up on stage.Sarah Milligan 1:24:21
Wow.
Bob Gates 1:24:21
And.
Sarah Milligan 1:24:23
Legend.
Bob Gates 1:24:23
Yeah, and we had like a couple hundred people out in the narrative stage. One of
our biggest narrative stages. So, we--these signs went every place, we had a banner that said, "Kentucky--Ohio River Folklife Festival," that went with us and then all these signs we set up. Janet would often go with me--and my wife and kids and--.Sarah Milligan 1:24:43
Was Madeline born by that point?
Bob Gates 1:24:44
No, Madeline wasn't born yet.
Sarah Milligan 1:24:45
Robert was still an only child. (??)
Bob Gates 1:24:46
So, it was just Robert and I remember doing something with Mammoth Cave when I
first got here too. It was the 50th anniversary of Mammoth Cave and Roby Cogswell was kind of in charge of that. Helped out with that, and some of the Western people, I think Eric was in it. And I remember picking up the fiddle player from--.Sarah Milligan 1:25:13
From where?
Bob Gates 1:25:15
[Sighs] From Monticello, Clyde Davenport. I picked him up his at house, we
picked him up and drove all the way across the bottom part down there on 80 to Mammoth Cave. And we had a hotel room outside of Mammoth Cave, where he stayed in the room and we had a room next to him, and that's where he had--Robert was on his lap, and he was showing him how to fiddle with. [laughs]Sarah Milligan 1:25:40
God.
Bob Gates 1:25:41
You know, I got a name I guess for being the narrative stage guy. So, when--we
did the Mammoth Cave 50th anniversary, I made sure we had a--I said, "Roby, can I do the narrative stage?" You know, so we had that. We had guides on there, we had administration people who had worked in--the---as directors, they were on the narrative stage. We had marble players.Sarah Milligan 1:26:07
Cool.
Bob Gates 1:26:07
Lynwood Montel, and they--actually, they had built a marble yard up there at the--.
Sarah Milligan 1:26:13
Just for that event?
Bob Gates 1:26:14
Yeah. You know, that's where I kind of got the idea that, well we could do it
here too. But the Ohio River project, it went Maysville Covington, Louisville, Owensboro, Henderson, and Paducah. So, we did a festival on each one of those things.Sarah Milligan 1:26:34
That's a lot, like a whole summer long--.
Bob Gates 1:26:36
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:26:37
--Events right there.
Bob Gates 1:26:38
One of the neatest things I remember was when we were in Owensboro [clears
throat] or Henderson, I can't remember which one. Lou was there, and we had a hotel room for him because he had organized the commercial fishing--the not the--we always had a commercial fisherman too, Billy Netz (??). And we sometimes brought the boat maker along, too. So--Sarah Milligan 1:27:00
Not just Raymond, just whoever--.
Bob Gates 1:27:01
Raymond.
Sarah Milligan 1:27:02
--Was in the area--. Or it was Raymond.
Bob Gates 1:27:03
We brought Raymond, there wasn't many--not many. But the thing about bringing
the guys from other places [clears throat] wasn't expose them to something different, but it also usually brought up people who did the same thing there, yeah.Sarah Milligan 1:27:15
And helped you find?
Bob Gates 1:27:16
And they said, "Oh, yeah, we did that." But I remember one night when we were
there, [clears throat] Lou said, "we can get on a barge tonight, if you want to. There's a barge coming down the Green River, and if you want to do that, we can go ahead and do it." He could [have] arranged it. It was like 11 o'clock, we had to meet him at a lock on the Green River. If you took a road between Owensboro--Owensboro and Henderson, it was like one of the main small roads, before they put in the bypass that's--so it was closer to the river. But as you--when you crossed the Green River there, there was a block there. So you get off [clears throat] and I remember [clears throat]--for some reason, I remember us almost hitting a deer that night, late at night, because--but once we got there, to the lock, we met the lock master, and the barge had just come in. And we went down the steps--went down the--not--the rope, but the ladder onto the barge and we actually got to ride on the thing, and it was so cool. Because I--[clears throat]--we got--[clears throat]--started and we're heading toward the Ohio River on the--and the river is going like curves back and forth. And--and Lou's in--you know, up in the--house talking to the guy, he's just watching. It wasn't an official you know, ethnographic thing, but I could have, I guess. I think we had a couple of beers before we went out. I could write up something about it if we wanted to, but I remember Lou saying, "be careful, you can go into the head of it." The head of the barge, so it's like there's the tow boat, and if there's three barges in front of it tied together. And so, he went up with me, and I guess another deckhand, to make sure I didn't fall off. Because you had to go in between--the barges are tied together, so you’re kind of making it a step from one barge--.Sarah Milligan 1:29:15
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:29:15
--To another, and I remember going the very front of it and--and the thing's
going down the river and you couldn't hear the machin--you couldn't hear the towboat, because it was behind you. So, it's just like you're gliding, like you're doing a surfboard down the river. It's just--you're gliding through this area, it was so cool, and it’s [a] beautiful night and everything. And I had always been interested in river--when I was--when I was doing the mud river thing in Memphis, one of my favorite guys I got to interview was an old, older Black man, really old, I guess he was his 80s, who had been on a towboat in the days when they didn't have radar--that's or sonar to see how deep they were. And he was actually one of the ones who did the line, threw out the line in the front, and he had a megaphone, he and another guy, the other guy with throw the line out, and I got one--one that he made for me there. And it has four different plates, five different marks on it tied in there, and one is Mark Twain. And that means it's, if you throw the line out, and it goes down to that, you're in the dark, and you're pulling it up, and you can feel that, and each one has a little bit different leather attached to it. So, like one has three piece[s] of leather, one is four and you can feel like, if it's three, I think, it's--it's Mark Twain, and, and that means it's deep enough for you to--for the barge to go through that portion of the river. If you go even farther, the next one is called no bottom, and this guy would sing this through the megaphone, he would sing, [singing] "Mark Twain," or he'd say [singing], "no bottom," and he'd sing that and through the megaphone and that--loud enough that the guy in the--the boat, the towboat could hear that. And so the guy in the towboat would put a light down on him, and--and he would sing up to him and say, "no bottom," and I actually got to record him singing that. So, I've always really liked riverboat stuff. I haven't ever been, one of my things I wanted to do is go down to the Ohio River with--with a tow, we never arranged that. I never could get enough time off to do that, but I got to know a lot of captains because and pilots through this. So, I remember was doing that, getting on that boat. And then the next week, we were--I think we were in Paducah or maybe a week later, or week and a half later, and that's--that's when I remember having those signs out. I always use it an example.Sarah Milligan 1:31:50
That's a good one, though.
Bob Gates 1:31:51
Everybody says, "well, nobody'll read signs." I think [clears throat] my
argument is, well, if you're in a museum where there's lots of signs, yeah, nobody's--everybody wants to get through. And they don't want to read a lot of things. But if you're in a special event, like where you have artists demonstrating, they want to know more about it. Oftentimes, they do, and so, I had laid these signs down sidewards what--so I was going to meet this one guy, one of the guys we were presenting was a--he was a hobbyist whose tradition was, he had been a pilot, but he made model towboats. And he put them in the river and--remote control. So, we were going to discuss and I was meeting him and his family or something. So, I put this down, and I came back and there was like eight or nine people standing there reading the sign sideways, and they weren't even up yet [laughter]. So that's my argument that people will read things in--settings if you--you know.Sarah Milligan 1:32:45
Especially if they're gonna be standing there for a while watching people anyway.
Bob Gates 1:32:47
Yeah, it's the context of what you put it in.
Sarah Milligan 1:32:50
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:32:51
That was the last one, and I remember, I got--in Louisville, I got to meet the
guy who wrote the book about always a river, and we went out and drove with him in--. One of the things we were talking about is, in Louisville was the--the factory across the river that made towboats and actually made barges and we went out looked for an original shantyboat that somebody had told us about and we found it. I'm always looking for shantyboats.Sarah Milligan 1:33:22
Yes, you are.
Bob Gates 1:33:23
I didn't tell you this, I kind of got in trouble when I was doing the mud fest,
that festival and had done all this work, got all this stuff together. But I had this tendency to want to make everything perfect, or make everything a certain way, you know? And so, we went out the day before the festival to try to get this artifact that was in this guy's--or yeah. What was it. It was a johnboat that he had--had was in the sand, and we thought we could get it out and bring it in to be--to go along with this demonstration. I spent all afternoon trying to get that thing out, and at the same time I was supposed to be at Mud Island welcoming people and to set up their booth for the next day. So, he was a little--George was mad at me about that.Sarah Milligan 1:34:12
So, that's not a new trait is what you're saying.
Bob Gates 1:34:14
Right. [laughter] The other faux pas I had is that you know, I had done all the
research and finally realized the night before that I really didn't have a setting for everybody---where I was going to put everybody. I mean, I knew sort of, but I didn't exactly have it all set up. So, like a couple days before the festival--the tents are set and it's like two o'clock in the morning and it's really pretty because Mud Island was in the Mississippi and--and the channel for the boats were like 10 feet away from that. So, we're standing there working on this, and towboat would just glide past, because it's--and current--current's going real fast and it just glides and you can almost touch it, it was that close And that was the setting we were putting this festival. But I was also panicked because I didn't have everything together, and my girlfriend Barb was there. And I--we brought her down to help with this, and so she helped me. So, "this is where you want it--this you want it." I thought that was good.Sarah Milligan 1:35:19
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:35:19
But I panicked. It worked out--.
Sarah Milligan 1:35:21
I would have too.
Bob Gates 1:35:22
Yeah, it's like there's so many details to doing these things, and it's easy to
let one go and not think-- So, I like to think in terms of general and I think you got--used to get frustrated with me sometimes because I didn't narrow down my vision. But I think sometimes you have to think of all the things because you can get burned if you don't think of every little thing.Sarah Milligan 1:35:43
I think you think of things in terms of really big and big ideas and big scope,
which is good. You have to have people that do that, but you also surround yourself with people who can--.Bob Gates 1:35:54
Do it.
Sarah Milligan 1:35:55
--Who can kind of have to narrow down to the minutiae as well. So, I think that
that--you find people who work well with you--.Bob Gates 1:36:03
Yeah, I think--.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:04
--To support your strengths.
Bob Gates 1:36:06
I think that's been--what's been helpful about having people working here with
me. Yeah, I agree.Sarah Milligan 1:36:12
And that's not a criticism. I mean, people do really have to think big.
Bob Gates 1:36:15
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:15
--I don't think big, I know that--but I kind of workhorse things through, so.
Bob Gates 1:36:20
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:21
Well, so you finished the Ohio River, and you did all those festivals, which
just is crazy to think about for me, because I mean, there's just so much that goes into each one--but--but you successfully did it, because people still talk about it.Bob Gates 1:36:36
And I can't remember if we were doing the photo thing. No, we must have had the
photo stuff the year before.Sarah Milligan 1:36:41
During the surveys.
Bob Gates 1:36:42
Yeah--but I can't remember, I think Mary brought some of that stuff out to these
festivals--things too. So, it was--we were doing folk festivals, and she had the exhibit there too.Sarah Milligan 1:36:51
It seems like I've heard that.
Bob Gates 1:36:52
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:52
Yeah. So that was--you were already partnering---.
Bob Gates 1:36:56
And I was driving from Berea all the time.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:58
Oh, God. [laughter] Oh, my gosh.
Bob Gates 1:37:01
--in a little--in a little Datsun pickup truck--I just crammed those signs--I
Sarah Milligan 1:37:05
And a camper on the back.
Bob Gates 1:37:06
--Crammed those signs in there. And it was enough room for Robert and
Madeline--Robert and Janet and I to go.Sarah Milligan 1:37:12
Your wife had lots of patience.
Bob Gates 1:37:14
And she didn't always go because she was a--she was a teacher--or she was
working at the library.Sarah Milligan 1:37:21
Right, as a library's aide.
Bob Gates 1:37:21
In Richmond--.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:22
Assistant.
Bob Gates 1:37:22
Well, first it was in Berea, and then she worked--they moved her up to the
library in Richmond, for big[er] pay. (??)Sarah Milligan 1:37:28
So, after--if you're ready to--I mean, if there's anything else you want to say
about the Ohio River portrait, I do think it's a big part, but you had the signage, we could talk a little bit about the decisions that you were making on where to go from there, with the program, and then maybe we'll finish there for the day and start there the next time.Bob Gates 1:37:44
Yeah, well, I can't remember if the advisory committee was still around, then.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:50
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:37:57
I--I think we had some meetings and talked about what I should do the next year.
I know Kim was really good at helping me figure out which direction.Sarah Milligan 1:38:08
And she'd been running the [oral history] commission for ten--.
Bob Gates 1:38:10
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:38:10
--Ten, eleven years by that point.
Bob Gates 1:38:12
And you know, writing a grant every year helps you organize what you're going to
do the following year. So, those three years that we were doing that helped me you know, and we started talking about where were going to move this thing. What we're going to do. When did I move it? '93--so--'92 we still did the tour of Kentucky folk music, which was part of the response to the bicentennial, right 1792?Sarah Milligan 1:38:44
It was part of the bicentennial.
Bob Gates 1:38:45
Kentucky's bicentennial.
Sarah Milligan 1:38:47
Oh, sorry. I was still thinking the oral history bi--. Anyway--.
Bob Gates 1:38:51
It was 1792, right is when--.
Sarah Milligan 1:38:53
Yes, you're correct.
Bob Gates 1:38:53
--Kentucky became a state. Well, so I got hit with that and--.
Sarah Milligan 1:38:58
So, you were still an independent agency when you did the tour of Kentucky folk
music, is that what you're saying?Bob Gates 1:39:02
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:03
I was thinking because I--the oral history commission came into the Historical
Society in 1992, I was thinking that Kim brought you along at the same time, but was it later than that?Bob Gates 1:39:11
When did she come in?
Sarah Milligan 1:39:12
'92.
Bob Gates 1:39:13
Yeah, that's when we came in.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:14
Okay, so you did--.
Bob Gates 1:39:15
But the actual event was in '92, so I had to plan ,and I mean, that was getting
folklorists and musicologists together and saying, "who do you recommend to be on this tour of Kentucky folk music," and making this roster up and everything. So, it was like a year before that.Sarah Milligan 1:39:31
So, is that partnering with the Arts Council primarily?
Bob Gates 1:39:34
Yeah--yeah, I think it was an NEA grant to do it through the Arts Council, and
then it became part of--the Arts Council did it every year for a long time--for a while.Sarah Milligan 1:39:45
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:39:46
If I'm not mistaken, I think we did like 14 stops that year.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:50
Wow.
Bob Gates 1:39:51
Yeah, it was crazy.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:53
In 1992 for the bicentennial?
Bob Gates 1:39:55
Yeah, well see what the idea was, is the Humanities Council was coming up with a
Chatauqa idea, and we came up with the idea of a tour of Kentucky folk music. With the id--you know, it was and we're trying to do it now, again, we're trying to bring it back for this exhibit, actually a brand of this making, making kind of a menu of, of artists from different regions and writing a little biography, a little piece about why that--why they're part of this region--what--what why this region's a little different than that one. And then having this--these artists who could--then the sponsoring area-- agency could--. People would write grants, write for this grant, and if they got, which it was pretty easy to get I think, at that time. They, what they got out of it was enough money to bring the tour there, to pay and then they--they were going to pick out who they wanted to have it. They would get a presenter with it, and they'd get a little brochure-- program that would talk about the artists that were coming. So, we had designed it as a program. We also had--you know, when I first you know--okay.-- I think, even before we got here, we had a logo. You ever see that logo of the river and the hill? I think Gary Redmond did that for me. Even before I was a part of the state government.Sarah Milligan 1:41:23
Okay, I didn't realize that so far that went back.
Bob Gates 1:41:25
Yeah, I think that's when I was in Berea, we had a letterhead.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:27
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:41:28
And that's where that came from.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:30
All right.
Bob Gates 1:41:31
Yeah. Go ahead, sorry.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:36
--So--you were doing the tour of Kentucky folk music, you were planning it as
you're doing Ohio River, then. You had to have been--.Bob Gates 1:41:42
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:42
--That was all at the same time period.
Bob Gates 1:41:44
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:44
And you--so let's talk a little bit--do you want to talk about that, and finish
up today, or do you want to talk about that next time? It's your choice, how you wanna.Bob Gates 1:41:56
Yeah, can talk about it a little bit.
Sarah Milligan 1:41:57
Okay. Like who was involved and what I mean, I think you've explained at least
about why it was going on, and that you toured 14 places first year, but explain a little bit about who was involved. You know, how someone would go about utilizing it. What was--what was the kind of setup.Bob Gates 1:42:19
Well, it kind of reminded me of what I'd gone through with Tennessee homecoming
event, where it was going to be a big event that year and--and the state agencies wanted people to take advantage of them and do things. I don't know if Marty Newell was director, then still or if it, what's his name?Sarah Milligan 1:42:46
At the Arts Council?
Bob Gates 1:42:49
Yeah, you--know--Mary--who was a woman who's in charge of the Artisan Center.
Lou, her husband is Lou.Sarah Milligan 1:42:57
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:42:57
Lou DeLuca was director--.
Sarah Milligan 1:42:59
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:43:00
--Of the Arts Council for a while. I think he might have bought into the--the
tour of Kentucky folk music.Sarah Milligan 1:43:06
He was married to Gwen Henderson--.
Bob Gates 1:43:07
What.
Sarah Milligan 1:43:08
Is it Gwen Henderson that's at the Artisan Center.
Bob Gates 1:43:10
No--it's no, that's she's not the director.
Sarah Milligan 1:43:15
Oh, he's the artist--she's the exhibit person, though.
Bob Gates 1:43:17
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:43:18
Okay, sorry, yeah. Anyway, Luca DeLuca was at the Arts Council, maybe.
Bob Gates 1:43:23
Lou DeLuca, I think--and the--and that was, that was before Jerry Combs. So, we
wanted to have a splash--we wanted to do something that was cool and use up artists. I remember John Harrod was on--on it, Erica, I think. There was [were] a couple other ones. You know, we're starting to do more research with thumb pickers and other musicians across the state, John Lozier. All these people were on it, the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, we had started doing, I remember doing a concert with them. That kind of got them started at the Carnegie Center, but I don't know. That was before the tour of Kentucky folk music, because that was the first time they ever played together, and it was based on what Rory had done, and me contacting them and say[ing], "can we--you guys play at the center? Would you want to sing at the center?" And they did, and they are kind of a group. And then once they were a group, we said, "okay, you want to be on the tour?"Sarah Milligan 1:44:23
So, that was the first time they--had--they had played outside their church
together, as a cohesive group? Is that what you're saying?Bob Gates 1:44:29
Yeah, they were members of Eighth Street Baptist Church and a couple of other
churches, and they hadn't really sang as a group. And---but when we brought him to the Carnegie, we paid them, and they actually organized as a group, and then--from then on, they kind of stayed as a group.Sarah Milligan 1:44:46
Okay. Wo.
Bob Gates 1:44:48
And I remember--so we had to do field work with all these people, to see if they
actually wanted to be on the tour and negotiate what a price would be, I think it was like $100 hours per member in a band up to--$500 or $600 was the highest we would pay. Individuals if they were by themselves, like Roger Cooper, he would get like $150 or something, make it worth his while. Homer Ledford's band was definitely on there. "The Mighty Gospel Harmonizers," from--from Lexington were on it. Carrie Norris.Sarah Milligan 1:45:30
Eddie Pennington, probably.
Bob Gates 1:45:31
Definitely Eddie Pennington. You know, I got the list here, oh somewhere of who
was on it. There's like--.Sarah Milligan 1:45:41
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:45:41
--There's like 15 groups---and we had it marked out. So, there's northern
Kentucky, eastern Kentucky. Ray--Ray Bowman, not Ray Bowman--Ray, the one--died recently, Lee Sexton. So, there was a pretty good group of people who, who signed on to it and so, we got the gr--the money from NEA. And they funneled it through the Arts Council. So, people--it was a fast turnaround grant, I think, if I remember right, and I think you can get it all year long, actually. So, the--the year, people were apply[ing], and part of it was that we would have this hand--hands on. Help--me helping them pick out what they wanted.Sarah Milligan 1:46:34
The venues.
Bob Gates 1:46:34
The venues. I mean, whoever got it, now, they, they would have to call me, or I
would call them when they got the grant and say, "oh, okay, you got the tour? What would you like to--I'll send you some stuff, or you've already got it. Who are you thinking about doing?" And a lot of times they'd say, "oh, I don't know, what should I do?" And so, I'd kind of recommend, and I wanna say, "well, do you--would you like to have something that represents what you've already got in your community? Or would you like to have a whole different experience." Like there was an oompah--oompah band on there. You know so, if you got northern Kentucky, you might get a north--and actually, a good example of this is Middlesboro, down there by Pine Mountain area, they had a concert, and they wanted the northern Kentucky because they--that's way up there in Kentucky and we--.Sarah Milligan 1:47:20
They'd seen Lee Sexton a lot--.
Bob Gates 1:47:21
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:22
--So then, they wanted something completely different.
Bob Gates 1:47:23
"We want something different." So, we had the "Mighty Gospel Harmonizers," and I
think, Roger Cooper, and--because he's from the northern Kentucky area and the "Gospel Way," singers, I think we’re all there. So that's kind of--the idea was, let's cut--if you're going to get from a region, let's--contrast a little bit. Let's have different things, maybe a little bluegrass, a little of this, a little of that. And then so, we helped them figure out what's going to work and--.Sarah Milligan 1:47:55
Did you pay for the musician's travel?
Bob Gates 1:47:57
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:58
You reimbursed them?
Bob Gates 1:47:59
We put a little bit in for that too, and I think they got the money, the
organization and paid them directly. So, we were granting them the money, but they had to show the budget and what they were going to do. So, I did that on the phone, but I also would go down, if I had time, and look at their place. Because we didn't want them--people would say, "I have a sound system." But what would be was an auditorium.Sarah Milligan 1:48:25
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:48:26
You know, speakers in the ceiling or something like that. So I'd go down and
kind of see what they had and see if we needed to get a sound--and I think that's when we started using the guy from Owensboro. What's the name of the guy there? Joel, who helped us out with the festival for a couple of years. He started helping with the tour. I don't know how early---if he did it that first year, but if somebody didn't have a good sound system, we'd do that. But like, the one in Middlesboro it was a big festival that was always part of their festival already, so they had a good sound system. And they were just--they were basically using the tour to fill up one night of their--might have been Friday or might have been Saturday, but that was fine with us, as long as they got exposure for the artists and--.Sarah Milligan 1:49:10
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:49:11
And the main part of this that I always thought was important, was pairing them
up with a presenter. So, Erica--we used her a lot. John Harrod--I can't think of his name from--from Berea. There was four or five people I think we used and, and it was kind of based on what their specialty was. I never had confidence in going up there myself and---and leading one of these things. I felt like my--it was better for me to set up things and have somebody else. When I got up there, I usually talked too long or tried to preach or sets--you know. So, I realized that you know, it was good to have presenters and--and that's what we're trying to do again with this one, is make sure there's a good presenter there. And I was always--I was impressed a couple years later, I think it's--New York State did a workshop at their folklife society for the whole state on how to present artists, and I've been trying to push that here.Sarah Milligan 1:50:12
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:50:12
Because, you know, some of these places still say, "give a big hand for," you
know, when there's a subtle art to it. I always thought--I thought the best one at it was Nick Spitzer, when he does--when he actually engages the guy in between numbers in the same---talking about what he's doing. So I've always encouraged that and had mixed success with some of the people that have done it, some people just aren't real good--. Erica's great.Sarah Milligan 1:50:41
Well, Erica's great at it.
Bob Gates 1:50:42
Yeah, she's great.
Sarah Milligan 1:50:42
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:50:45
So, I mean, most of the time, she could make it, and sometimes she couldn't.
Sarah Milligan 1:50:49
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:50:50
But it was, it was great to have those guys do those things. Never knew--so, the
one in Middlesboro was kind of like that, where it went off pretty well. And it was--I remember the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood up on stage. The al--whole thing about it is you've got a gospel group who's out of context, and how do you make people realize how cool they are? And not just have them think, "oh, now what's, okay."Sarah Milligan 1:51:18
"I'm not at church."
Bob Gates 1:51:18
"I'm not a church."
Sarah Milligan 1:51:19
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:51:19
"Why are these guys singing?"
Sarah Milligan 1:51:20
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:51:20
I think they were really good at--they were--the trick was to get groups that
were lively, too, and they were great and Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, but then sometimes, you'd get a group that couldn't do that. But most of the time they were. I remember my--being an Elkton. Because I drove through there the other day [clears throat]. Elkton is a little town between Russellville and Hopkinsville.Sarah Milligan 1:51:48
Oh!
Bob Gates 1:51:48
Somewhere out there, and this guy who [clears throat] called up--he was never
you know; he was--I think he was a lawyer in town, and he was made in charge of their bicentennial celebration. And he saw this grant and he said, "okay, we can do this, I think." But he had no idea about music or what, what would be good to present, and he had, this place was a school building, old school building, kind of. And so, I had to give them a sound system because, it just wasn't going to work there. But I remember being--trying to get Homer Ledford to meet us out there with his band. And he finally--he showed up in time. But it's like, "where are we, Bob? What are we doing here?" [laughter] He did a great show.Sarah Milligan 1:52:36
Did people show up?
Bob Gates 1:52:38
Yeah-I can't honestly remember all the ones we did. I know--.
Sarah Milligan 1:52:44
That's okay.
Bob Gates 1:52:45
--I know we did a lot of them, but just when I tried to think of the X ones, the
ones that stand out are the ones are, oh, I remember doing one in [sighs].-- I don't know if it was that year or next year, but one of the Arts Council's people in the field. Casey, remember Casey, he was down in--got it to go in his town, which is Stanton.Sarah Milligan 1:53:12
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:53:14
--Along in that Red River Gorge area. And I remember helping him that--I was
going to be a part of their--some kind of days, I can't remember what it was, but I remember they made footprints in the oh, Banana. Not banana, it was some kind of vegetable, it wasn't a banana [laughs]. But they--they had a stage out in the park, but they had like these footprints that you painted on, you know how sometimes they'll paint things on--. That just stood out in my mind. But I remember being there and Northern Kentucky Brotherhood was supposed to come up and I'm out in the parking lot calling them--trying to get them. I didn't have a cell phone, but I'm just waiting for them to get there, and they were like an hour late. It was driving me crazy.Sarah Milligan 1:54:01
Oh.
Bob Gates 1:54:02
Yeah, but they showed up. We actually--one of the things the Arts Council later
did was to do--with the Southern Arts Federation was to do training on how to prepare your group for things like this, and I made sure that he went to that.Sarah Milligan 1:54:21
[laughter] Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:54:23
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:54:26
Those are good tools, though. So--but I mean, you carried that on past the I
mean, why did it live on past '92, if it was a bicentennial event?Bob Gates 1:54:36
Because the Arts Council is always a success, and thought it was--it just became
a part of the grants. You know, we kind of negotiate with the Arts Council. So, we got folk arts grants. You know, at one time we had community scholar grants, but this--back in that day, "let's--let's do a performing arts thing, and--let's do it as a tour of Kentucky folk music and keep it alive." So, I--it's just one thing that kept going, and then when they--I think when Jerry Combs was director and they had some other people there working--doing the performing arts directory, they thought, "well, why don't we combine them?" So, they had them separate and it killed it off.Sarah Milligan 1:55:16
Oh.
Bob Gates 1:55:16
I really--I think--I think it was much better for folk artists to have that much
input from me to do it, than have them in a book where you had to write a grant and no input. And you know, and no, we suggested--it was suggested that you have a presenter, but you didn't have to. So, we--the only ones that really made it in the PA were people who were I guess, better at promoting themselves and--.Sarah Milligan 1:55:51
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:55:52
Sometimes less authentic in a way.
Sarah Milligan 1:55:54
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:55:56
I was thinking, we had people from Berea--a white gospel group. Shorty somebody,
and he was really good. But these KET [Kentucky Educational Television] did a series Did you know that? Yeah. And I think that was like the year after or two years later.Sarah Milligan 1:56:16
They did a series called "Tour Kentucky Folk Music," right?
Bob Gates 1:56:19
Yeah, and that was basically doing the same tours, only bringing KET with us,
and having them interview me or somebody and the artists, mainly--mainly me interviewing the artists. And in between, in between the--.Sarah Milligan 1:56:34
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:56:34
Shots.
Sarah Milligan 1:56:35
How did that come about, did they approach you, or did you negotiate, did you
approach them? Do you remember?Bob Gates 1:56:44
You know, that was part of being with the Heritage Council and being with Kim
and that is--we--we kind of stayed abreast with what KET was doing. And they had done some things without folklorists' input that were folklife related like--. They were pretty good, but they also thought they could, "yeah got a state folklorist. Let's--work with him. Let's do something."Sarah Milligan 1:57:08
Great.
Bob Gates 1:57:08
I mean, we later did that "World of our Own," with them.
Sarah Milligan 1:57:14
Yeah, we'll talk about that.
Bob Gates 1:57:15
I mean, that's always a little frustrating because I was a photographer, and I
always wanted to dabble with videography. And I always thought, even when I was at Western, a student at Western, I did a--instead of writing a paper, we did a videograp--of a gospel group. And another--another student, I can't think of her name right now. But I always thought that folklorists don't hold a camera differently, but they aim at things differently. They're looking at different things than a videographer does, you know it's. And that point of view should be looked at, too. And also, what are you--when you--when you design what you're going to do, how you treat, it should be. And I always found that a little frustrating--with working with KET or other videographers, is that they wanted your--your stuff, but they didn't want your input as much. You know how it is. [chuckles] So it's been a struggle with that, ever since. I've learned things, but I still feel like it's--we should be involved in some of the editing decisions. Right?Sarah Milligan 1:58:28
No comment. [laughter] I'm going to meet with them this afternoon.
Bob Gates 1:58:31
Oh, really, KET?
Sarah Milligan 1:58:33
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:58:34
Well, tell them I'm still here.
Sarah Milligan 1:58:35
Yeah, right.
Bob Gates 1:58:36
Because--.
Sarah Milligan 1:58:37
I'm trying to tell them I'm still here.
Bob Gates 1:58:38
Everybody I used to work with is gone, I think.
Sarah Milligan 1:58:42
Probably, yeah. Well, anyway, yeah, that's an interesting--and so that's still
around, though. I mean, people can still--and you're gonna have the video--you have some of the VHS that can go into the archives and people can reference too.Bob Gates 1:58:56
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:58:56
To actually see a lot of the performances that were done in the part of this project.
Bob Gates 1:59:01
I think we did the one in Eddie's---Pennington's festival grew out of us doing
the tour of Kentucky folk music at the Black Patch Festival, like four years in a row--.Sarah Milligan 1:59:13
Oh, wow!
Bob Gates 1:59:13
--At least three years in a row.
Sarah Milligan 1:59:15
So, the Eddie Pennington's the thumb picking festival, right?
Bob Gates 1:59:17
Yeah, Eddie, well, it's not Eddie Pennington's Folk Festival is really a little
bit of thumb picking, but it's--it's all kinds of music.Sarah Milligan 1:59:25
Oh, I've never been to it.
Bob Gates 1:59:25
And it's based on and, and he uses some of the people that we--you know, he
brings some people in, and he brings big names in too, but what happened was we did the Tour of Kentucky Folk Music, at least three years in Princeton, and as a part of their Black Patch Festival.Sarah Milligan 1:59:42
I see.
Bob Gates 1:59:44
Yeah--so--we had the stage for like--two days maybe, one--I don't know,
depending on how much they paid. I know "The Mighty Gospel Harmonizers," played out there. Which is kind of a--it was kind of neat because they hadn't had much luck in getting the Black community to be a part of the Black Patch Festival. And I think having those guys up there brought out this whole African American contingent--who later--. Oh, I know, one of the groups they really enjoyed was the blues group from Franklin County. Franklin--it's a--it was a big, heavyset Black man who played saxophone, and he had a blues group behind them.Sarah Milligan 2:00:28
That was before me, I don't know.
Bob Gates 2:00:33
God, what was his name?
Sarah Milligan 2:00:34
But they were at some festivals too, so you could reference--.
Bob Gates 2:00:37
Yeah. Right--. Yeah, we can find--you can find them. He died not too long ago,
but he had been, he had played in the Negro Baseball League, hurt himself--in California and started playing saxophone. Played in--played at the Quonset Hut in you know?Sarah Milligan 2:00:56
In Bowling Green?
Bob Gates 2:00:56
Bowling Green, but I remember them being at Eddie Pennington's festival, too.
Not Eddie--at the Black Patch. But that's--out of that success of that festival, they said, "we ought to do honor Eddie." Besides him getting the National Heritage Award, I think that helped too, but they said, "we ought to do a festival here." Because that was one of those pl--one of those examples where, finally they realized--where cultural conservation really works, where you actually got people in the local community to think how important their person was. I got off stream here.Sarah Milligan 2:01:33
No, [that's] really good.
Bob Gates 2:01:34
But I think next time we might want to talk a little bit about the tours that
were videotaped.Sarah Milligan 2:01:40
That--by KET, you mean.
Bob Gates 2:01:40
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:01:41
Okay.
Bob Gates 2:01:44
If you want to.
Sarah Milligan 2:01:44
Yeah, maybe we could actually pull them out.
Bob Gates 2:01:46
Because we did the Leeds Theater, we did one in Hodgensville, one in Eddie's
place, someplace else. And it was, it was kind of a struggle trying to figure out who--we'd have there, that would be good. H-Bomb Ferguson.Sarah Milligan 2:02:04
Who?
Bob Gates 2:02:05
H-Bomb Ferguson.
Sarah Milligan 2:02:08
Who is that?
Bob Gates 2:02:09
He was a Black man who sang blues up in northern Kentucky area. He was wild, he
had red hair, or he had--he wore different wigs. And he played the piano. He had had been a--he had to learn how to play by being--playing Bluegrass or early--I guess during music, in South Carolina.Sarah Milligan 2:02:32
Cool.
Bob Gates 2:02:33
When he was a kid--and then he--he came here [to] the Cincinnati area. And
played--probably at the Cotton Club or places like that. I mean, he's a pretty old guy [laughs].Sarah Milligan 2:02:46
H-Bomb.
Bob Gates 2:02:46
But he's (??) very good. You know, we put the word out that we want[ed]
traditional artists from all across the state, and we were getting all kinds of people.Sarah Milligan 2:02:53
People were just writing in, huh?
Bob Gates 2:02:55
Well, we did field work with all of them, we went to visit them. I remember
going to northern Kentuc--each one--a lot of their houses and prac--and documenting their practice sessions. The one that sticks out in my mind is "The Gospel Way." I went to their--basement while they were practicing and--Sarah Milligan 2:03:17
Did you record that stuff?
Bob Gates 2:03:19
I think I did.
Sarah Milligan 2:03:21
You think it's upstairs?
Bob Gates 2:03:22
It might be [laughs]. You know, some of the stuff I put in there, they didn't
know what to do with because it wasn't--I didn't have enough notes, or I wasn't part of it. I mean, now I'm looking at---and this is my last year here. I want to go back and put out ethnographic descriptions of each event that I have up there. But sometimes, Kim--who worked for Kim, what's his name?Sarah Milligan 2:03:49
Enoch.
Bob Gates 2:03:50
Enoch, let's say, "that's not an oral history. What's this doing in here?"
Sarah Milligan 2:03:54
Yeah.
Bob Gates 2:03:54
And what it really was, a documentation of an event.
Sarah Milligan 2:03:57
Yeah, I think that's always a struggle.
Bob Gates 2:03:59
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:04:00
Well, I also think is they--is the NHPRC [National Historical Publications and
Records Commission] grant person goes through and starts trying to organize it. There'll be a lot of individual types that they'll be like, "what is this," and at that point, you will be able to say, "this is what that is," and that will be a huge help.Bob Gates 2:04:17
Yeah, I think so.
Sarah Milligan 2:04:19
Yeah. But--
Bob Gates 2:04:20
Well, this was good, it's making me remember things.
Sarah Milligan 2:04:22
I'm learning of stuff that's interesting.
Bob Gates 2:04:23
Am I talking too much? Okay.
Sarah Milligan 2:04:27
No, I think we'll go ahead and end for today. I've got notes to start with the
KET filming of the folk music tour next time, and then we'll move on to transitioning--to moving to state government.Bob Gates 2:04:40
Yeah, there was a lot of liaisons going on back then. I mean, trying to--trying
to get into working with different people. I always, always felt like "well, who are we missing and--how we can we get this group to be more involved."Sarah Milligan 2:04:57
Which is good.
Bob Gates 2:04:57
And then, you got this random--these random things for people just call you up
and say, "what can we do and?" Like what's-his-face? Morris? The guy---the Marine who called both of us up and--.Sarah Milligan 2:05:11
Oh, Morris (??).
Bob Gates 2:05:12
I'll have to tell you about that.
Sarah Milligan 2:05:13
Okay.
Bob Gates 2:05:14
Or did I already tell you?
Sarah Milligan 2:05:15
I think you did. About going to his house and having dinner?
Bob Gates 2:05:18
No, but I had actually went [gone] down and int--videotaped last week.
Sarah Milligan 2:05:21
Oh, no, I didn't talk about that.
Bob Gates 2:05:22
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:05:22
I'll turn this off.
Bob Gates 2:05:23
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:05:23
And you can tell me. All right. So, stop.
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