WEISER, RICKY (MARTHA) RICHARDSON. Born TRANSCRIPT of OH 1788V

Transcription

1 WEISER, RICKY (MARTHA) RICHARDSON. Born TRANSCRIPT of OH 1788V This interview was recorded on January 19, 2002, and later donated to the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interview was conducted by two people whose first names are Mori and Toshini (last names unknown). The interview also is available in video format. The interview was transcribed by Julie Johnson. ABSTRACT: This interview was conducted in January of 2002, less than three months before Ricky Weiser s death on April 4. The interviewers were two Japanese visitors, one of whom was a Japanese lawyer who was in Boulder to study natural resources law at the CU Law School. The conversation covered a range of topics relevant to the students interests, including treatment of archeological artifacts on Ms. Weiser s land, wildlife found there and her interactions with the animals, and her conservation easement agreement with the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department for ownership of her land. In addition, she spoke of acting with the Boulder Shakespeare Festival, her love of theater in general and Shakespeare in particular, and gave her thoughts on aging and independence. NOTE: Interviewers questions and comments appear in parentheses. Added material appears in brackets. [A]. 00:00 [Recording begins in mid-sentence] neither of us will ruin this. We won t ruin it, and the state won t ruin it. We will preserve it and keep it. It didn t allow necessarily the people public access. There was no money passed from anybody to anybody. It was just an agreement that, If you do this, we ll do that, and that s how the natural areas program started. It now has a lot of places in the state which are so designated. There are some rock areas down south of Denver, Roxborough Farm, if you haven t been there, you ought to go. There are huge monoliths that stick up out of the ground like teeth. It s open to the public and has a very nice viewing place where you can go in and get questions answered and so forth. There s another one down in southern Colorado which is rather small but very impressive when you get down there. It s hard to get to. There are little patches here and there where something very special needs to be preserved. And this is a way to do it. natural area in Boulder ) No, just the first. It s the only one in Boulder. Yes. (There is another place?) It s the only one in Boulder. But there are other places where there are natural areas. We started something and they have it rolling along, picking up. But this one, it s interesting because we have agreements with the various and sundry groups that would like to use the area, and they understand that we don t allow anything that is going to disturb the agricultural nature of the area, Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 1 of 13

2 so that we have pastured cattle and have pastured horses and so forth, so that we don t allow the general public to go in down below particularly down below. Up above of course the horses don t come up here. They re pretty much sequestered in an area you ll see them when we go out just to the left of the road. They re all Arabs, none of them belong to be me, but they have been here for many years and the owners have not paid their fee for pasture, which means that I have what is called a grass lien on the horses. In other words they can t take the horses away without paying me for the pasturage. And I m delighted, because I know the people who own the horses, and we get along real fine, and I just love the horses, they re so sweet, they re pocket puppies, they want to know what you ve got in your pocket today. They re very friendly and very agreeable. And I like Arab horses, anyway. It did help the people who owned the horses, because the wife had just contracted cancer and had some expensive medical stuff that she had to do, so it gave them some kind of a. It s just constantly changing, never the same two days in a row, and you always expect to look out and to see something somewhere that s beautiful, and that I appreciate. I like it. I live alone, and I don t really get lonely, because I ve got much beauty around me. And, so many creatures. And some of the creatures are more friendly than others, but all of them are well, I can get up to almost any of the creatures in the area fairly closely, if I m careful. And that s nice. It s nice to know that they accept you. This is a special place. I like special places. I see where you re looking right now, one of the stones in Scotland, which are quite. If you ever go to Scotland, don t miss. To me it s much nicer, much more impressive than Stonehenge. Even though it isn t quite as regularized as Stonehenge, there s more of it, and it s more ancient. I like that. I like any signs that I find, and some of the Native Americans that have been out here have found signs of prehistoric things here. And I ve only allowed one dig, about 12 inches square, where they dug down, 12 inches, to see what they could find. And they found prehistoric things down there just down 12 inches. That s the cave. Did you find the cave? (Yes.) 05:36 It was just inside the cave was where we allowed them to dig. Apparently that was a water cave, formed by water, so it doesn t have stalactites and things like other caves do, and apparently it was used significantly by the Native Americans. (Did they research about the--?) Oh yes, oh yes, quite a bit. Because it s big enough and the stones that have been obviously placed at the entrance to close the entrance down are also something that the people who are interested in the artifacts, find interesting. They only, when they dug, the only dig that I allowed went down 12 inches. One foot. One foot square, and they found a number of things, just in that one foot, right inside the entry. So I know that things are there, and as far as I m concerned, they ll stay there. Maybe when I m gone somebody will, somebody will, uh, decide they want to dig them up and see what was there, but not while I m around. I look upon myself as kind of a guardian of this place, I want to leave it the way I found it. (I like that.) Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 2 of 13

3 It s so beautiful. It s hard to be angry in a place like this. It s just hard to not have something good to look at, because it seems no matter where you turn something interesting is going on. I have a fairly good relationship with the people who use the open space out there. We chat over the fence sometimes. Sometimes their dogs come over here, get shooed back again. They understand that this is an area that s kept almost for research purposes and not just as a playground. But as I say, when you go out, do stop and watch. If the horses aren t there, bang on the fence a little bit; they ll probably come. Whaddya got, whaddya got, me, me, me, me! They always act as if they ve never been fed, but of course, they feed themselves. [pause] So that s their doing. We ve got foxes, as well as (The red fox?) Yes, red fox. We ve got prairie dogs, of course. Did you see the great horned owl? Was the great horned owl in?) (I have never seen it.) Well, you would have noticed her, because she, in that, there s one cave that s very interesting because of sort of a rock coming over. You can climb up underneath it. Little kids love to do that. There s a hole that has bee things in, a big hole, and that s where the female owl sits where she s relaxing. (So we heard, the ) (Owl?) (I m not sure, but very loud?) Mm-hmm. It s entirely possible, because that s her well, see, that s where she would raise her babies. So she s protective of it. She s gotten used to me, doesn t generally. Might ruffle her feathers a little bit, but she doesn t. They recognize people. (So, they are living near the cave?) It s not far from the cave. It s on the other side. There s a place to the west of the cave where you can climb up. You probably saw that. There s a little sort of area where there s a track that goes up. And just beyond that is where the great horned owl nest is. 10:24 (Could in the tree, or?) It s in the rocks. Yeah, there s an upper part and then a white washed part it s called whitewash, which is the droppings of the owl. Yeah, that s owls. (That s owls?) Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 3 of 13

4 That s owls, yeah. An excuse to come out again. When the weather is nice, we may be able to go on the upper part as well. It s nice to go. I like to take people on the upper part and then you go down at the end There s a place where you can get down and come back when you come down. I m not quite up to it yet. My health is not quite there. (Next time I want to see.) (Evening or early morning is better to see?) Depends. It depends. She s not, I think, sitting on it now so it doesn t matter as much. I was down with some people the other day, not the other day, a month ago, and I was tired, so I found a good rock up near the cliffs, and I sat down on the rock. I was sitting there for the other people to look around, to see what they wanted to do. Then I heard this sort of plehhh. I knew what the sound was. it was the sound of an owl shaking its feathers. And it was right HERE, like if I stuck my elbow out, I would ve hit her. She was sitting right beside me ruffled her feathers up, and I just sort of sat there. I didn t look at her really. Eventually I went away and she stayed! It s nice to know that they accept you. It s very nice. It s flattering to know, that you can be close to a wild animal, and the wild animal will not panic or do other bad things. (When did you come here?) When did I come here, lets see. Uh, I m not good at dates, but it was hmm oh golly, it was at least 20 years. Twenty. Somewhere around there. I can look it up, but I never can remember exactly when we bought the farm. Because between buying the farm and finding an architect and building the little house down there, which we built so we could have someone on the place to keep an eye on it while we were in the process of building. Finding an architect who thought this would be an interesting place to put a house, and we found the architect, and getting the house built, and what all all of that took better part of a year. And we moved out. (So you built this house?) We built the house; yes, yes. (At first you lived down under the house? We saw a little house.) Yes, there s a little house right where you come in, and that s the house was built so someone could be on the place while we were building this house, so that someone would be present. My son now lives in that. He comes over, he has a place on the Western Slope. He lives there and everything that it in there is his. The other little thing that looks like a house is a horse shed where we keep the hay and other stuff for feeding horses. 14:53 (So at first you were rancher? You owned horses?) Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 4 of 13

5 We don t own the horses. We don t own the cows. The cows belong to a farmer who pastures them here, and he culls the herd just after Christmas and sells off the yearlings and so forth and then pays us for the year and starts all over again. The horses are different, because that arrangement was made under some, under a certain amount of duress, on the part of the people who had the horses. They raised Arab horses and the wife began to have cancer, and so I loaned them some money, and they still couldn t with it. Between the two of them, she was the one who was the expert in horses. But they couldn t handle it. So eight of the horses they brought over here. And I have what is called a grass lien on them, which means that because they have eaten my grass, they can t take the horses out without paying me for the oh, it s been 7 or 8 years, that the horses have been grazing on my property. (So you rent your pasture?) Yeah, it s like renting, except that it doesn t have you don t pay every month kind of thing. We don t pay until we take the horses out. Until then, essentially they re ours, and since they re such sweeties I don t mind in the least. And I don t ride any more. I used to ride, but not for some time. And I certainly wouldn t these are no riding horses, they are breeding horses. They are all Arabs, all full-blooded Arabs. They re for breeding purposes, they re not for riding. The boss of the herd is the little grey mare, what she says goes. She wants to get all of the horses out of the shed, they get out of the shed! So she has it to herself. [laughs] (Did you say grass lien??) Lien. L-e-i-n (sic). It s a legal term meaning that you have a degree of ownership, not full ownership, but you have a partial ownership. The law on liens is a little bit weird, but it serves my purpose. I m about to expire, I m going to move. It s hot, hot sitting in the sun. But it s been the house has has not grown, we haven t changed much of anything, and the only thing we added a little screen porch that you may have seen where you can have a little shade. It also screens the entrance a bit, which is a second-floor entrance. Otherwise, it s I would say it s an ordinary house, but it s not, because it s MY house. My husband and I separated not too long after we moved in here, but from the beginning, I was the one who determined what went where. Where you needed bookcases, and where you need. So I feel a certain maternal feeling about it. We had a spectacular architect; he was just wonderful. He died at a very early age; a shame. But it s been nice, it s particularly nice since the city purchased you see, the city owns everything, from the houses up above there, all the way to Valmont Road. (To Valmont?!) Yeah, all the way to Valmont. That includes this little house that s right down that you see you see with that awful cow, which they hate. Then beyond that there s a house on the corner, and the city owns that as well. 19:47 Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 5 of 13

6 And right now there s some argument going on about putting a water line from the sewer plant here to Lafayette, which is over there. There have been all sorts of thoughts about where that line would go. I m just riding herd on it to make sure that they aren t deciding it s going on my property, or if it is going to go across my property, they are going to pay through the nose. So I appreciate the fact that what the city has done is this whole big area in here is open for public play, dogs, whatever, but on the creek it s not. It s fenced off. You can get onto there and walk, but there are fences that you have to climb and so forth. You can get onto the creek from there s a parking area right on 75 th street, where you can walk down and get onto the creek there. And walk down at least as far as my, fences. (The state owns the creek?) You don t own the creek is the ownership of water in this state is the subject of books that thick. So I couldn t try to explain it to you, because I don t understand all of it. But that particular creek carries water during the wintertime, it carries water from one of the major ditches, the Northern Colorado water conservancy, which comes in through Gunbarrel and drops down into the creek just up stream of the bridge that crosses the creek. And then that water then flows from this creek onto the next farm about a quarter of a mile and then it goes back to its own, its own track. So mostly, it goes through my property and then partly through the property just west of the creek. But that s the way water is in Colorado. It s very tricky, it s probably more litigation has gone on to deal with water situations in this country, this part of the country, than almost anything else, because water is God here: you gotta have it, and it doesn t come as easily as it does in the east and other places. Here you have to take it where you can find it and send it to where you need it. But you have to do the work. Instead of God doing it. (You don t have water rights?) Yeah, I have some, but not. Nothing that would keep from doing anything dreadful. I have rights there s a creek that runs right through the middle of the farm, and that s mine. (Over there?) Yeah, it s just beyond where the little house is there. There s a pond there that is a watering pond for livestock, and that pond carries through as a minor creek right straight across the property to the next property, where it goes downhill. The people who own the property next to us sold the rights to gravel, and so it was for a couple of years just a mass of gravel mines down there. And when the gravel mining was finished, they were told they had to landscape it with trees and so forth. They planted Russian olive. Now, Russian olive in this country is a bad word, a very bad word. So they introduced all the Russian olives that you see on the east side of farm is their fault, because they were mad at having been asked to vegetate the thing. And so they chose something that was quite deliberately awful, but that s sometimes the way people are. They can t help it. Fortunately for all of us, the person responsible is now dead. Naturally I didn t have anything to do with it. It s this is an area that is both of my sons love it, I think. I know Scott does, and I know Kit would love to come out here, and will be retired here. Possibly when I go, he will, I don t know. He s my older son makes airplanes. Builds airplanes. Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 6 of 13

7 25:15 (Airplanes?) Yes, do you remember the airplane that flew around the world? The first one? The first airplane ever to fly all around the world? (Yes). My son helped build that. (Oh really?) Yes. He works for the man who flew it. Yeah. And so that s his profession. He s building airplanes. He s very good at it. Which means it s very hard for him to get away and get over here, which is where he d like to be, because his work is in California. He doesn t think much of, at least of that part of California. But they have to go there to do their testing, which is out in the desert. It s interesting, he did a plane a couple years ago for a company in Michigan that was, uh, let s see, it was a six passenger private jet, and it cost, uh, something, something, absolutely out of this world $485,000. I ve never seen that much. But he spent a year-and-a-half at this particular place that they hired him, designing and building this airplane. (So, now he s in California.) He s in California as we speak. But he has a home in Montrose, which is on the west side of the divide. (In Colorado.) Not too far from here yeah, in Colorado. You go over the divide and there are several little towns. Montrose is one of the four or five little towns along the first well, in the western area, the ground moves up to one level and then it moves up to a second level. Well, that first level is one desirable for building, because it s above other things and isn t so far above that it gets a lot of winter winds and so forth, so that s where his house is. My younger son also lives over there. He lives in a trailer. He s working now we have some property there. I was hoping he would finish and get, but he didn t make that. He s been working on a pipeline, which is paying him money, to work on the pipeline, so he s doing that. It s not too far from Grand Junction, that s the main town. The town that Scott lives in my younger son is a very small. He got the property when a lady, for some reason probably having to do with having done something she shouldn t have, had to get to Patagonia, of all places, and ended up selling a piece of property in order to pay her way to Patagonia. He didn t ask questions; he just bought the land. We figured it was something foolish. The thing I miss most, having reached this ancient age that I am I never can remember how exactly how old I am, but it s somewhere in the late 70s I think; at any rate, I was born in 1924, you can figure it out is the fact that I don t have the ability to remember lines well enough to do theatre. I really miss it. Because I was the first woman to direct at the Shakespeare Festival, and Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 7 of 13

8 I spent 10 years working for them, doing various and sundry roles. I ve played almost all the major roles in Shakespeare,. And I love it. But I can t remember the words now. I can remember some of them, but (quotes from Merchant of Venice): The quality of mercy is not strain d: It droppeth as the gentle dew (sic) from heaven Upon the face of youth. 30:12 You know, the theater is such a it goes by so fast. I mean, you do it, and it s gone. And rarely, I mean, in movies, of course, you have something to remember, but with live theatre you just don t. so you have to keep the memory in your head to enjoy it in the future. But I think just having done theatre and having been able to participate in it as an art has been a great delight for me. I love the theatre and I love the feeling of being up on the stage. And uh There have been moments, however with one play I was in oh dear, I don t remember which one. It was one of the ones, where Margaret was one of the characters. It was a scene I had to go on stage, sit down on the steps I don t know whether you ve seen the outdoor theatre up at CU, but there are stone steps. I sit down and make up my mind about something or other and then carry on. Well, what happened was that I sat down. Just as I was opening my mouth to speak, a large beetle flew into it. It was too big to swallow. I had to chew it to get it down. I will never in my entire life forget that experience wooh! There was nothing else I could do! There was nobody else on stage, I couldn t say Excuse me audience, and and take the beetle out of my mouth. There was nothing I could do! So, I can say I have eaten a beetle. It was a large beetle, too. But you know, that s your art, that s what you do. If you have to, you do it. But it s fun things happen in theatre too, not everything is a disaster. It has been fun working here because the Shakespeare Festival is quite different, since its outdoors, and it s on a stage that doesn t look like a stage so everything has to be done in a different way than in it s done in an indoor theatre. I did indoor theaters too. I like the outdoors. I don t know why; there s a difference about them. Sometimes the wind will come up, and it will blow the dresses and everything. It s a different world. (Hmmm.) That s the way that (Do you like especially Shakespeare?) Pardon? (Do you like? Shakespeare?) Shakespeare? Oh, heavens, yes! YES! Oh, gosh yes! Shakespeare, is is I can t say that I know every line of Shakespeare, because I don t. But I do know I can, by a little reading, turn up Shakespeare anything I ve done in Shakespeare. I would say half the books behind me are Shakespeare. The rest of the books are almost all medieval, having to do with my medieval bent. The Society for Creative Anachronism it s the one where I wear the costumes. Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 8 of 13

9 But Shakespeare, yes. The things he does with words and the way that he does them are just magic, absolute magic. Most plays most people, when they do theatre, they talk about theatre and they think about lots of different places they ve been, shows they ve been in, and so forth. But if somebody mentions Shakespeare, everything focuses down because that s, that s it. I don t think there s anybody who is truly an actor or actress or truly involved in the production of Shakespeare who doesn t believe that Shakespeare was the greatest playwright who ever lived. That to me is obvious. 35:08 It s one of those things that that you have to give up with age. There are things that you can t do. I can t run. There are times when you d like to just sort of get out and RUN, because it s a nice day, you want to run. I can t run. And that s okay, because I ve had a good life, and I don t find much dependent on circumstances. But it s an interesting life to be around livestock. That s horses, and cows, and stuff like that. It s interesting to see the inter-workings of groups of animals that aren t human and to watch the way they interact with each other. Sometimes, for instance, like that little herd of deer that was out when we stepped out on the balcony, sometimes they won t move they ll just stand there freeze as if, If we don t move, she won t see us. And I ll freeze too. Both literally and otherwise, and we ll sort of look at each other. Too far away to know that we have eye contact, but you can tell they re thinking, Okay, is she or isn t she? And I m thinking, Don t go away, don t go away! So it s been fun. It s been lots of fun to having these wonderful animals to. I try not to get near them, because every time I get near them they get frightened and they get worried. I want them to be aware of people but not frightened. I think that s true, because if you saw when the deer ran, they didn t run very far. They just sort of took off and got behind a bush. That s sort of the way it is, and that s nice to have the animals accepting of your presence. You have to sort of go around them. [She looks outdoors.] Oh goodness, what a sky! That s great! We can use that, because when we get a snowfall like this one, it can soak in and do wonders for the vegetation. I think there s a chance, it gives it a chance to soak in rather than freeze at ground level. So it s always a good thing. I think the horses like it too. The cows are something else again, I never know what they think. How long have you been around here? (We have been here since July So, two years-and-a-half.) That s wonderful! (We have to leave until (sic) this July.) You ve got a little time left. Time to do some fun things. (I am studying natural resources law and Indian law at the law school.) Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 9 of 13

10 My father was lawyer, so I have great respect for lawyers. (Thank you.) You have to have respect for lawyers. (I have been a lawyer since 1988 in Japan. ) Oh! Experienced then. (Yes, but I want to be environmental lawyer in Japan.) Oh wonderful! Yeah. (So, I m studying that.) 39:42 It s wonderful to have someone who is interested in environment and law, because so much of the law determines what happens to the wildlife and the natural things. And if there aren t people out there who know what they re doing, it s entirely possible for someone to make a law, and I ve seen it happen, that affects something on the ground, that destroys something up in the tree. And every now and then it s necessary to them and say, No, don t do that. Woodman, spare that tree, or something to that effect. I think it s good. I think that the more that the legal profession respects nature, the better off we all are. The legal profession is one of the most seminal professions in the world if not this country. it is the one, it is the maker of laws, whether or not the individual thinks it up and gets it done, sooner or later it s going to get done, and it s going to get done by someone who knows what he or she is thinking of doing. That s really good. I won t put it next to raising horses, as far as being fun is concerned. I d rather raise horses, than study law books, but who wouldn t? [laughter] But it s nice to be able to be in a place like this, and yet be able to have a library such as I have, which I didn t really realize the extent of my library until we had a disaster. We had a furnace blow up. An oil furnace that was under the house here. (What is that?) An oil furnace, a furnace that burned oil and heated the house. What happened was that the oil mixed with the air and the entire house covered with this mixture of soot and grease oil. And we had to have this house cleaned from top to bottom. They had a team of people from a company called Rocky Mountain Catastrophe. This paid for by the company that made the furnace. They came in, and a group of three to five women were here five days a week for fourand-a-half months to get this place clean. Every piece of clothing I had had to be cleaned. Everything. You take a basket like that hand cleaned. So I know the force of oil as a destroyer. again. Almost didn t want any heat, but we got propane [?]. That works well. They did a splendid job. I mean, every book the one thing I said was, The books put them back in the same order you found them, because they are in order. And they did, they cleaned Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 10 of 13

11 every book along there and everything in the library, and single one was put back in exactly the right place. But it was an experience that I do not wish to repeat. Anything. Wooh! I remember standing in this room and seeing that film of oil, and wooh! Am I breathing that?. 44:17 (Can I ask you about conservation easement?) Yes. (Do you have a contract?) No, there is no contract, there are conservation easements that have contracts. Some do, for instance if the city of Boulder wants to buy a conservation easement on someone s property, generally speaking, they will pay. Now, the City of Boulder has a conservation easement on this property, which was drawn up very carefully. What it does is to see to it that everything goes as it is going. Now. That is to say that the kind of uses that are made are all the things that are going to be done. We re not going to suddenly start a motel, or something like that. The conservation easement I will tell you, although isn t really public knowledge the conservation easement that city open space on our property gave us one million dollars. So it gives you an idea of the value of a conservation easement. And that gives them the right to come in, if for example each of my sons has a dwelling site, but if they choose not to use that site, the city has what s called right of first refusal. In other words, the city can come in and pay what would have been paid had my son built there. They can come in and pay that and then own the land. (I m sorry, I don t understand ) Okay, I ll take it back. The corner of the property up there, above the house, that corner of the property is where my oldest son has a dwelling site that he can build on. And it is restricted, it has certain limits and so forth. But if he decides he wants to build there, and wants to put it on the market, then the city is allowed to meet the highest price that he can get. So that he gets the same amount of money whether it is some private person or the city. But the city gets the land. And then that land is used as a conservation easement, which means it is not developed in any way, except maybe fixing fences or something like that. So the city has a conservation easement on this property. And any parcel on this property, or [if] my heirs, when I m not around, choose to designate [it] as a building site if they don t like that, they can pay them for it, and it won t get done. I know it sounds weird, but that s the way it works. It is something that says you can do these things. If you choose not to do these things, but you choose to do something else that will bring in more money for you, we can come in and say, No, and pay you the money. But then we get the land. And there are limitations with what they can do with the land. For instance, they couldn t take a conservation easement on Kit s home site and then build a house there. It would have to be taken out of the housing business entirely and become part of open space. Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 11 of 13

12 (How about this house?) The house (phone rings). Oops. Excuse me. [Break in recording. When recording resumes, it apparently picks up the tail end of an on-going conservation] because he s got. Mama is not something you want to put on the wall. She s not attractive at least I don t find her attractive. But then I m not the one going after her. (I see. You talked about your son s property?) Mm-hmm. Each of my sons has a designated parcel on the property. My son Scott Kit, my older son, has the extreme corner up there. Scott has an area that s right about the middle of the farm, where the gravel has moved up and is very bad it doesn t make good hay. So he picked that, because that s a good place to put a house, since you don t have to have good hay for a house. So that s his parcel. (So are all the parcels all the property?) It s just those three. There s the little house the one you passed coming in and there s the house site up on the corner, and the other site right in the middle of the main pasture. 50:00 (So city has conservation easement on the three parcels?) The city has conservation easement on the entire property. As I say, for that they paid us a large amount of money. That means that anything that we want to sell to someone else, they can come in and say, Okay, we will give you the same amount of money we ll match what it is that this person offered you, and then it will be open space. So it works out very well. (So, even this house? If you wanted to sell this house?) If I wanted to sell this house, I would probably have takers lining up in rows all the way down the road, because there are so many people would like to buy this house. I can t tell you how many people have made sort of remarks, Have you ever given any thought to moving? Nooooo, this is where I live, and where I m going to die, and when I m dead somebody else is going to do the work. This is home for me and it will continue to be. We may put in, depending upon how I age, we may put in a sort of apartment up above the second floor there. We have water plumbing up there, where we can put in a toilet and possibly a shower. And then there s a nice room on the corner, which has a beautiful view. And that would be a place for someone to stay who was taking care of me, for example. I don t look forward to that, because I don t look forward to having anybody taking care of me, but then if it makes my kids happy, if that s possible. I may reach a time when I don t make decisions for myself, and I just have this feeling that I m going to go off a cliff first. I don t want to fritter away I just don t want to be non-functional. So long as there s something I can do (You can do anything. You can drive!) Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 12 of 13

13 I can drive. But the possibility may happen when I can t and not be able to drive for one reason or the other. But I still can write and do poetry, which I do somehow, and you know, I can listen to music. There are a lot of things I can do to keep myself going. I don t have to take trips to England. Although I have I have been to England twice now. And I m very fond of Scotland. And the coastal areas. That painting was made of a campground where my father was hunting. Hunted. And it was painted by an artist who sold the painting to one of the western magazines, and it was on the cover of that western magazine. I never found a copy of it. And it s very it s valuable. I don t know how valuable, but I had an appraiser out here and somehow the appraiser, he was much taken with it. But he. He never did finish his appraisals. If you want to take a picture of it, I can take down the calendars and stuff. That s easy. (Where is this?) It s in Canada. (Canada!) Canada. [break in recording] I m rather proud of the ones over here and then the ones down here in the hall. Things that have been given to me for stuff I ve done by both the city and county. Plaques? P-l-a-q-u-e. They re things where they give you something nice saying we like what you do, in essence. And one of the ways there s two there, one above there, a couple in the come, I ll show you. June 15th Ricky Weiser Day. And this is one the county gave me, for conservation work. And there s a couple out in the hall. 55:41 [End of recording.] Transcript of oral history interview of Ricky Weiser, OH 1788V Page 13 of 13