Gary Lance Young
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Gary Lance Young was born on November 19, 1947 in Memphis Tennessee. His parents were Mary Sue Cash and Buron Patrick Young. He is the oldest of 3 children. He has a younger sister named Sandra Sue Young and brother named Ivan Buron Young. He was raised in Tennessee till he was four years old when his family moved to California. He lived in the Los Angeles area and also in Orange County, California. When he was 17 his family moved to Batesville, Arkansas. At 17 he joined the Air Force and came to San Antonio, Texas and has continued residing here till present., He is a graduate of Southwest Texas University with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration. He married Maria De Jesus Ovalle on March 31,1966. He has three children, Theodore Young, Jason Young, and Rachel Young. Gary Young is my father. This interview took place in my kitchen on Tuesday afternoon. The recorded interview was about an hour and 10 minutes.
What was it like growing up in the 50's in California?
It was very
nice. I remember starting kindergarten and first grade in California. We lived
close to the beach and I liked that. The weather was very nice it didn't get hot
it didn't get cold. I didn't like to be carried or driven to school I always
preferred to walk even in the rain. I asked my mother to buy me a rain coat.
Always just wanted to take myself to school and I liked it.
Where in California did you live?
We lived in the Los Angeles area.
The first house was in kind of ..uh in south central Los Angeles and that wasn't
close to the beach in a suburb called South Gate and then from there my parents
moved to Manhattan Beach and that where I started school in 1953 and that's
where I remember being close to the beach. We stayed there until my dad bought
his first house in Torrance California. And I think that was in 1955.
What is it like growing up in the 50's?
It was ..when I got old
enough to realize it was the 50's it was nice. I was in… I liked it…I was in the
3rd grade, I mean I remember all the grades 1st and 2nd and 3rd grade and what I
remember the most is that I had a 3rd grade teacher who was very good at
explaining history…we studied the Mexican history and we had a party at school
with piñatas and made little miniature adobe houses and we studied the Hawaiian
culture and we made a little grass hut inside the school room and had a luau and
we brought pineapple and coconuts and made homemade ice cream. In 6th grade I
got interested in the music and that's just when the rock and roll was coming
out and I remember hearing like Rock around the clock was probably the first
song I remember hearing and this was in like 1955 1956 and then Elvis Presley
became famous and I remember seeing him on TV when he appeared on the Ed
Sullivan show and sang Hound dog and so I really liked growing up in the 50's
there and I started listening to rock and roll and l liked it a lot. Of course
it kept on getting more and more popular and being in California it seemed like
everything that was popular always started there first.
Do you remember the Cold War?
Oh ya the Cold War was …well I guess
it was scary for the adults. In the 7th and 8th grade during that time I mean
all that period was the Cold War. But what I remember about it was everybody was
scared of being bombed. The Atom Bomb and that somebody like Russia which I
guess was considered to be our biggest enemy would somehow make a sneak attack
and bomb us. So at school we would have drills, Atomic Bomb Drills. Every time
they would ring the bell a certain way we all had to get under our desks and
cover our heads and not look towards the windows because there was a lot of
glass on the windows. That was going to protect us from the Atom Bomb. Now of
course we know that it would not have done any good at all but that's what they
had us do and we did those pretty regularly. And at that time from the military
bases that where in California there were a couple of bases out in the desert
where jets would fly, where they tested the first rocket plane. The X 15 would
regularly fly over what they call the bay area in Los Angeles, and all the cites
close to the ocean and you would hear the sonic boom. Now a days it's against
the law for jets to make a sonic boom. The sonic boom is caused when the sound
barrier is broken, but they were always breaking the sound barrier when we were
in school in the 7th and 8th grade. And when it happens I mean, I don't think
many people have heard that but it's really loud and all the walls vibrate and
the windows shake and you think they are going to brake. And they are sudden you
don't hear anything coming until you hear this huge boom. Part of the Cold War
included the Cuban Missile crisis and that happened when I was in the 8th grade,
I can remember that day specifically and all us kids on the playground where
just joking around about it because President Kennedy was president at that time
and he had told President Khrushchev of Russia that they had to take the missiles
out of Cuba or risk going to war with the United States. We knew there was a
naval blockade preventing supply ships from getting to Cuba and they had the
satellite pictures to prove the missiles where there. Of course that was a very
scary time for adults but for us kids we just joked around about it.
Do you remember your mom and dad being scared?
No I don't remember
my mom and dad being scared but I think they were probably worried. As far as us
kids were concerned we weren't worried at all. The big thing back then was
selling bomb shelters. And this was as early as I could remember like in the 6th
grade these companies would come and build you a shelter in your back yard. We
didn't have one but I know my dad thought about getting one, I think it was
probably too expensive. What they did was just come and dig a hole in your back
yard and lined it with concrete blocks and but dirt over it and an air vent and
put a little closet in there with bunk beds. They used to advertise them on T.V.
and you would have like 30 days worth of groceries and incase there was an
atomic bomb you would be or they said you would be safe and have food to live
off of for 30 days, I don't know what happens after that but a lot of people
bought them. A lot of the houses in California still have a lot of those
shelters in their backyards.
What did your mom and dad do for a living?
Well my mom was just a
housewife. She never worked she just stayed at home and took care of her
children, me and my sister and later on my brother. My father when he first went
to California..before he left Tennessee and I know he worked as a Policeman, as
a highway patrolman and as a bus driver for the Greyhound company in Tennessee
but when he went to California he changed completely and he went to work in the
air plane factories. I know at one time for Hughes, Howard Hughes Aircraft. He
also worked for Douglass Aircraft and of course they are all still around they
are still companies. He got into what they call the tool and dye business and
what that is is the parts that are used to hold the airplanes up while you're
building it like the wings and fuel and the tail and he did that kind of
work.
What did you do for fun when you where little?
I did a lot of
things. In California when I was too young to go by myself my mother used to
take us to the beach and I really liked to that except that I was so fair
skinned I usually got a sunburn pretty bad and so did my sister and that wasn't
any fun but we still liked to go nevertheless. As I got older there was a
swimming pool in the city that we lived in, in Torrance and we would ride our
bicycles to go to that swimming pool and we always did that a lot during the
summer. I really liked playing baseball I started playing when I was like only
years old in the little leagues. I was pretty good and even though I was only 8
they put me on the major league team rather than the minors. But I didn't really
like it because I was the youngest one and though I played pretty could they
would only let me play as a substitute and not play every game. I stayed playing
little league for four years until I was about 12. Then as I got older 11 or 12
of course I got to play every game and I did well. I played the all star team in
the outfield, my best positions where in center and left field. I played center
field more often because I was a pretty fast runner and had good eye
coordination and didn't drop the ball. Did a lot of that. I used to like to
bowl. I used to make extra money working in the bowling alley before they had
electronic scoring. They had the adult leagues and they would hire you to keep
score for a team and they paid about 25 cents a person and there where 10
people, 5 on each team, so you could make about 2.50 a night keeping score for
the leagues plus if they wanted to buy you any cokes or anything or give you a
tip later so you could walk away maybe with 3 bucks and that was considered
pretty good money. That was around 1958 and 1959. I liked to bowl myself, they
had a junior league and I was good and I bowled quite a few 200 games. Which is
a good score in bowling and my average was up around 150 160 and I was only like
13 years old.
When did you start going to high school?
I started going to High
School in California 1961, we were living in Torrance, and I went to South
Torrance High School. It was right on the Pacific Coast highway, again within
walking distance to the beach. I was on the track the team and if fact my coach
didn't make us have our workouts on the school grounds since I ran on the cross
country team which is about a two mile race and for all the runners he would
have us jog to the beach was about 5 miles away and the beach we went to was
Redondo Beach and the sand on the Pacific ocean in California was pretty deep so
we didn't consider that to be any fun at all because to work out in the deep
sand trying to run was pretty hard. So running on that beach in deep sand and up
cliffs it made you feel like your legs were on fire so telling us we were
running to the beach was no fun, it was like agony.
What was high school like, like the people and so forth?
It was
pretty good. The high school was big there like cities, my high school had a
total population of about 3 or 4000 kids, so there was no way you know
everybody, you knew the people from your neighborhood and it was pretty much the
way school are now you go and sign up for courses and you got your locker and
books. They had a pretty good school system, they had all the sports that you
wanted to participate in they had tennis courts, and swimming pools and
basketball courts and really nice stadiums. California just had a good school
system. I learned to drive and took my driver's education in high school before
I turned 16 and they teach you how to drive on the freeways, that's where you
learned which was good training because it's so dangerous on the highways over
there it's the only way you will survive. I was also a pole vaulter in High
school. Me and my friends had taught over selves to pole vault at home using old
bamboo poles that we got from the carpet store. We would throw ourselves over a
chain link fence, and there is no return with that either you make it or you
crash and fall back to the other side so it was either do it or don't do it with
our training so we got pretty good where we could always do it. So when we got
to high school and they asked us if we could do it in a sand pit and break away
bar with a fiberglass pole it was a piece of cake so we all made the pole vault
team. They also put us on the wrestling team. My worst experience on the
wrestling team was when I made the mistake of thinking was pretty tough in the
10th grade and had a match with this little 98 pound guy and I was 140lbs so I
thought I had him beat….turns out he was the California State champion and he
had me pinned down in about 5 minutes till I couldn't move. Taught me a lesson
don't underestimate the other guy just because he is smaller than you (laughs)
that was kinda neat.
What kind of people did you hang out with?
Well I was athletic but
I wasn't a hard core jock. They types of people in school where fairly diverse.
There weren't a lot of African Americans but there were lots of Hispanics and
Anglos and Asians, but primarily Anglo and Hispanic people. Everyone pretty much
got along pretty good. The two distinct groups a guess at that time where they
called them and I don't know where they came up with this name but it reminds me
of the old Grease movies with John Travolta….if you wore your jeans pretty
creased and pretty tight you wore grease in your hair and combed it back they
called you a Hodaddy for some reason and ho in those days doesn't mean what it
does now but you were called a hodaddy or hodad and that was the group you hung
out in. The other distinctly different group was the surfers. They hung out at
the beach and did a lot of surfing. These guys didn't wear their hair extremely
long because this is the time before the Beetles so long hair wasn't in yet. So
long side burns and maybe hair on you collar was as long as it goes. Surfers
didn't use any grease on their hair they bleached it if it wasn't blonde to
begin with. They all had tans and they COULD SURF and surfing was starting to
get really popular at the time. They would have championships, the biggest one
was at Huntington Beach in California and I didn't live far from their either.
As far as me personally I was independent I would switch back and forth between
the two groups. At one time I had the tight levis and the leather jacket with
greasy hair and another time I moved to another school so I changed my persona,
I bleached my hair and bought me a surf board and the only thing that
disappointed me is again I'm so fair skinned I couldn't get a tan at the beach.
I either get burned or not burned no in between. I liked surfing and I did it a
lot. All together I had friends though in both groups. Before I left California
I worked as a magazine salesman and made enough money to buy a motorcycle and I
did that because I couldn't get my license till I was 16 but I could get a
motorcycle license at 15 and a half so that's why I bought the motorcycle. I
drove that thing all over the place, in the mountains and it was great fun. I
never wore a helmet or any protective gear and I had some close calls for
accidents' and I was lucky I didn't get killed. Coming down the mountains,
scraping the sides of the motorcycle when you lean over into the turns doing 60
mph, is great fun as a kid, but now that I think about it that was pretty damn
dangerous.
When did you leave California was grade where you in?
I left
California when I was a senior in high school. I got pretty upset about it
because I was at a different high school than South Torrance. I was at
Westminster High School in Orange County close to Huntington Beach and I really
like it there. It was at this school when I remember President Kennedy being
shot and I was in my English class, at the time they said he was still alive but
I remember by the time I had drafting class the period before lunch they told us
he had passed away. I remember being very sad and all the girls crying, sad day
everyone seemed to really love President Kennedy. Anyway I really like school at
Westminster I had been there for 11th and some of the 12th grade, so I didn't
want to move at all much less to Arkansas. In October my father decided he was
going to move the family to Arkansas. That upset me but I again what could I do
so I helped get everything ready, pack up the house load up the truck and he
moved himself with a trailer and a pickup truck and we moved to Arkansas. And
that was a real experience because it was like culture shock. I mean here I was
used to being a greaser or a hodad and a surfer and hanging around with a lot of
the Hispanic kids who used to call me the white bean, so going to Arkansas I
considered all of them to be farmers (laughs). So when I got their it was a
whole different world. I went from a school that had about 4000 kids to a school
with about 400 kids grade 9-12. My graduating class in California had over 1000
and this one barely had over 100 much less 1000. The first day of school I had
my parents drop me off and registered myself and in fact I may have just
hitchhiked to school that first day because I didn't like my parents to drop me
off. I went into the principal's office and registered and he laid out my choice
for classes, and he asked well what where you taking in California. And I said I
was in a blue collar curriculum like in drafting, auto shop, and metal shop.
Well he said we don't have any of that here. So I said ok what do you got? He
told me we got chemistry, agri, or home economics. So I knew what chemistry was
and I knew what Home ec was so I asked him What the heck is agri? And he says
well that's agriculture. Well I said I don't want to grow any pigs or anything ,
and I hate chemistry I know I don't want to be touching anything I don't know
what it is, so put me in home ec. Well he got mad and told me I couldn't be in
home ec that it was only for girls. And I says you said there was home ec,
chemistry, or agri ….so I'm saying put me in home ec I don't care if it's all
girls…if I got to make a dress I can make a dress if I have too…of course I was
just beings a smart a** and he knew it so he put me in freshman civics so I
could be embarrassed because I would be the only senior in the class. So I told
him that was fine by me because I wouldn't be around a pig or in chemistry. So
he put me in freshman civics and it worked out just fine and I kinda got to
liking it there in Arkansas. I started hanging out with what they called the
rowdy bunch. They didn't have hodads but I guess they had the well behaved kids
or the rowdy kids and I preferred to hang out with the rowdy kids and we had a
lot of fun. I enjoyed that last year there eventually. I even surprised myself.
The little town was located on a river in North Central Arkansas, name of the
town was Batesville which I thought was the most ridicules country name for a
town I ever heard. Of all the places to wind up I ended up in Batesville
Arkansas. But anyways it wasn't that bad it was one the White River, and the
river created a sand bar so it was like their own personal beech. That's where
all the kids hung out and I went along with 'em. Great place for fun. Enjoyed it
to the point that I graduated on May the 25th and left town on the 26th to join
the Air Force. I left and never been back since and its 2007. (laughs)
How was life different in Arkansas compared to California?
Well
like I said it was very different. The schools didn't have the budget to offer
the same things like they had in California. They did just a good job teaching
though as they did in Californian with what they had though. The only thing I
noticed in Arkansas was that there was A LOT MORE prejudice. The school was
segregated it was Anglo only. The African Americans had a totally different
school somewhere else. I'm not even sure where it was I just know they weren't
allowed to go to school with us. I don't think they had ever even seen a
Hispanic person before or an Asian unless they had been on vacation somewhere.
It wasn't like we see today where there are a lot minorities working in small
rural towns and this was basically a small primarily rural community. I guess
because there were not a lot of minorities other than African Americans the
Anglos really discriminated against them and amongst themselves. They based it
on the side of town you lived on and this town like a lot of towns was divided
by a bayou and a railroad track and depending on which side of the track or the
bayou you lived on determined what class or group of people you belonged too.
The so called snobs or upper class depending on how much money their parents had
or how big their house was, or how many cars they had the tended to group
together in school and look down on the other group of Anglos that came from the
other side of town who had maybe a much smaller house and maybe only one car for
the entire family to use and where I was livin' happened to be the side of the
have nots so not many people from the nice side wanted to associate with me. My
only claim to fame was that I was that kid from California and then to make it
worse I used to like to walk around town barefooted which just was not done in
this little town and skateboarding was just getting popular so I took great fun
…oh yeah and I also bleached my hair just to stand out…but I took great fun in
getting the attention by skateboarding barefoot down the main street of this
little town just to watch all the locals look and gawk and say "what the hell is
that?" (laughing). That was fun It was my claim to fame in town.
Did you yourself experience or ever witness issues concerning racism in this
little southern town?
Um, no the only thing I came close to with an
issue is…because like I said this little town was segregated so I can't remember
ever even knowing anyone may age who was African American in Arkansas. The only
time I ever came close was like I told ya I used to hitchhike to school for the
first few months for the last few months my dad let me take his car to school
but I didn't want to ride the bus with a bunch of farmer with a bunch of cow
caca on their boots …I'm sure that wasn't true but that was my smart ass answer
to not riding the bus. I was the cool kid from the big city there was no reason
I couldn't hitchhike a couple miles to school. As luck would have it not very
many people would stop to pick me up except this old guy who happened to be
African American and he and I became great friends and he was an older man he
wasn't a young guy and he was on his way to work, must been about 40 or 45 years
old. I don't know what kind of job he did but he had an old ratty car and he was
African American but I had no problem with it I thought he was great guy and he
probably got just as much enjoyment as I did when he dropped me off at my
segregated school every day with everyone staring. It created just as much
attention as my bleached blond hair. I did that for a while and I guess that was
about the only racial issue I ever had. I'm sure they talked about it behind my
back but no one ever said anything to my face and certainly nobody ever bothered
him.
Do you remember the civil rights movement while you were in school? Like them
talking about integrating the schools or anything?
Well in California
schools were already integrated it wasn't talked about there. If you lived in
the district you went to the school. Everybody got along. In Arkansas if they
tried to integrate it would have been a huge problem but they never did while I
was in school. I didn't hear about the civil rights movement until after I
graduated and was in the military. Of course the military was integrated already
and I had quite a few military African American friends and I remember being on
duty the night they assassinated Martin Luther King. The only negative
experience I ever had was the day I joined the Air Force and I was in downtown
Little Rock at the recruiting station and there were a few African American guys
there enlisting as well. So I made friends with a couple of em and their where
some other white guys there, so about 4 or 5 of us all together went out to
lunch while they were processing our paper work before we got on our plane to go
to San Antonio for our basic training. So we had a couple of hours to kill so we
went to a pool hall to shoot some pool and we were there for about an hour and
we didn't pay much attention to anything going on but then the owner came up to
us and said you white guys are welcome to stay here and play but you blacks have
got to leave this is a segregated business. And I thought that was pretty
insulting and I said well if they gotta leave I'm gonna leave too and the other
Anglo guys felt the same why I did so we all left. It didn't get ugly or a fight
or anything but that was just the way it was, it was 1965 in downtown Little
Rock. So umm ya we got kicked out of the pool hall just because our friends were
black and I thought that was pretty disgusting.
Why did you decide to join the Air Force?
I joined the Air Force
the day after I graduated from high school because I was ready to leave town
(laughs). I didn't want to stay there. It got to the point where I was a very
independent person even though I was only 17 and where you're a person like that
you want to do things your own way and my father was also a independent person
and he wanted things his way and it got to where we weren't getting along that
well and so in addition to leaving town I thought it was a good time to leave
home as well. I was old enough to take care of myself. My dad understood that so
there was no animosity he signed the papers for me to be able to go. I left on
good terms. My dad had always told Great War stories about World War II and he
liked the military so I figured I would too. I came within an inch of joining
the army but the Air Force recruiter sucker punched me into it better. This was
the time when Vietnam was beginning to become an issue and escalating by
President Johnson at the time but it still had a long ways to go before it got
as serious as it did. That wasn't the reason I joined but I was prepared to go
there if they were to send me I didn't see that I as being a big deal at
all.
Did you like being in the military?
Well no , not really I mean
again for somebody I can't believe I had been so naïve for wanting to be
independent and all that to go and join the military, into an environment where
every decision is made for you. It was a kind of a shock and did require some
adjustment. So no I didn't really like it but I adjusted and I did my duty and
did everything they told me to do good and I got promoted and worked my way up.
So again you learn from everything and I learned from that just like everything
else but when it came time for me to get out I felt just the same was when I
came in time to go and I went and I left.
What did you do in the Air Force?
Again when I went in the promise
you different things and give you a battery of different tests. During training
I did pretty well and they made me a squad leader and when they took me to the
qualification range on weapons I was naturally a pretty good shot so I got 60
bulls eyes out of 60 shots with the old M-1 Rifle which was the old
weapon they used during World War II and the Korean War and then they were
getting the new M 16's which I thought looked like Mattel toys and they told me
I want you to shoot with this too. So they let me qualify with that too, which
was a lot easier to control than that M-1, as far as shooting and aiming it. The
M-16 was a fantastic rifle, but I aced that too and scored another 60 out of 60
bulls eyes and that got me a special recognition for being an expert marks man.
So when I picked a specialty I wanted originally to be an airborne radio
operator, but they offered this other duty in the languages department so I did
that instead. I did it basically because where I was gonna work there were a lot
of pretty Hispanic civilian girls working there….so I said ILL TAKE IT…turns out
it wasn't that fun but I got stationed here in San Antonio and didn't leave. So
I did that for two years. Then Vietnam started getting really bad and I friend
of mine went over there and came back and told me about it. He told me it was
just as boring there as it was on the base we were on, the only ones who were
getting a lot of action where the army grunts and the marines who were having to
walk around the bush in Vietnam. All the people in the Air Force were hanging
out in the bases, the bases where coming under mortar fire but that was no big
deal to him and if you wanted to be extra careful you would dig a hole
underneath your bunker to be safe…which he did. Well that didn't sound all that
appealing to me. So I knew a guy in assignments and he told me after 2 years
they start considering were to send you, and by that time I had gotten married
so I really wasn't in the mood to get send anywhere. So went I found out my
number had come up for 18 month assignment in Greenland ,which aint green at
all, I didn't want to go there. So they were taking volunteer assignments if you
can qualify but it was very tough to get in but they needed people. So I could
either be a survival instructor out in the desert in Nevada or be a Basic
Training instructor her at Lackland AFB. I went for the basic training position
even though they tried to tell me I would never get it because they only give
that to the lifers on their second enlistment or higher. I put in my application
and they took it and again I was a good soldier, I looked good in my uniform,
well conditioned and I knew all the military rules and all that so they started
interviewing me from the sergeant level all the way up to the colonel and they
finally said there's nothing wrong with this guy he will make a good instructor.
So they gave me the assignment so I had to go through 2 or 3 months of
instructor training to see if I could make the cut or not and not only did I
make it I received the honored graduate certificate and put all the old
instructors to shame. I even got called out by the commanding general of the
base at that time who awarded that award and got my smoky the bear hat and all
the nine yards and made the record for the youngest basic training instructor
the Air Force had ever graduated, I dunno if that record is still there or not
but I did it.
How old were you?
I was 20 years old. The only problem I had after
I became an instructor was that was too tough for their standards. They told me
the Air Force didn't need to be as tough as I wanted them to be (laughs). So I
really enjoyed that assignment and I liked training the troops. My squadrons won
awards. It turned out pretty good for me. Plus if you were an instructor on the
base you were pretty much king of the base so you did whatever you wanted to do
when you wanted and that was great by me. AND the best part was when It came to
food in the mess hall, and the food was pretty good in the mess hall at
Lackland, you got the best of whatever they had . Every Friday I got as much
scallops and jumbo shrimp as I could eat and it only cost me off base rations
which was 65 cents. So I was king of base and that's how I spent my last two
years in the Air Force. They assumed I was going to reenlist and offered me and
8,000 dollar bonus which was 3 years of pay right there but I didn't want to
enlisted I wanted to be an officer. They said they would put me In a program
that would send me to college then I could become an officer but they couldn't
guarantee it so I said NO WAY and left the 8,000 dollar bonus to get out and
work at the tire shop for a dollar and a quarter an hour………which makes me
question my brilliance.(laughing)
When you were a drill sergeant where you training people that were going to
Vietnam?
Well most of the people coming into the Air Force were coming
in to escape Vietnam, because most of the people going to Vietnam were being
drafted into the army and so the people who wanted less because it was a sure
bet if you went into the army just like now you will go to Iraq that you were
gonna go to Vietnam. So it was like drawing a target on your butt after you got
drafted into the army and wait for someone to shoot it in Vietnam. So most
people joining the Air Force didn't want to go that route except for those blood
and guts kind of guys who went on into the army and marines willingly. So all
the rest who wanted to escape the draft came into the Air Force. Even the ones
graduating from college were coming in as enlisted men and so to answer your
question were most going to Vietnam…NO unless they had some very specialized
training were they worked with the army in a unit called Combat Control units
which were really doing more of the covert operations in Cambodia and Laos where
nobody was suppose to be. Everyone else in the Air Force if they went to Vietnam
generally went to the bases if they were support personal. Like maintenance on
planes and stuff. Now the Air Force Pilots flying combat missions over north
Vietnam, now those guys were the ones who were subjected to the most dangerous
parts of being in combat because north Vietnam had missiles and most of those
kept in the POW camps where Navy and Air Force Pilots.
Well that's all my questions is there anything else you would like to add to
this interview that you haven't mentioned?
I learned a lot of interesting things about my dad and what he was like as a young man. I never knew that he had gone to a segregated school or all the things he was involved in while in high school. I am glad i got the opportunity to do this with him, I feel like i got to know him better because of this interview. I am very glad I have something like this to be able to keep forever and be able to show it to my family for years to come. I really enjoyed seeing all the photographs he had and hearing about how life was during the era he grew up in. I'm glad I got to do this because without this project I wouldn't have known any of these things about him, and now I have it recorded forever. It was very interesting to hear history from the point of view of somebody that really lived it rather than just reading it inside a book. I had a lot of fun doing this and also my Dad felt very special that I decided to interview him and I'm glad I was able to do it. I had a lot of fun doing this project and would do it again for all my family members if I could.
No…..I can't think of
anything else.
Moved to Los Angeles, California in 1951.
Memphis, Tennessee. Gary Young was born in Memphis Tennessee and lived there till he was four years old. The official website of Memphis, Tennessee. Copyright © City of Memphis 2003-2005 .
Torrance, California. Gary Young lived here from age 5 till age 15. The official website of Torrance, California © Copyright 2004 City of Torrance
Bomb ShelterGary Young talked about the usage of bomb shelters during the Cold War era. This is a picture of one.
South Torrance High School Gary Young attended this high school in California. The official website of South Torrance High School. All information on this site is provided and supported by South Torrance High School and its staff. Any questions or concerns, please contact the webmaster.4801 Pacific Coast Highway, Torrance, CA, 90505
Redondo Beach Gary Young talks about doing track practice on this beach close to school. Copyright © 1999-2007 Gary Wayne All Rights Reserved
Huntington Beach Gary Young talks about going surfing here and living close by. The Official website for Huntington Beach, California. Copyright 2002-06 City of Huntington Beach. All rights reserved. Surf City USA is a registered trademark of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau.
Batesville, Arkansas Gary Young lived here for his senior year of high school. The official website for Batesville, Arkansas. Copyright ©2006 the City of Batesville, Arkansas, all rights reserved. Pleth: Web Site Design & Managed Web Hosting
M-1 Rifle Gary Young talked about qualifying with this weapon in the Air Force. This site is owned & maintained by Mark Flowers, copyright 2004, all rights reserved
Lackland AFB Gary Young was stationed here at this base. The official website for Lackland AFB. Lackland Public Affairs 37th TRW Public Affairs 1701 Kenly Ave, Ste 102 Lackland AFB, Texas 78236-5053
Photographs and/or documents on this website were provided by Gary Lance Young and Maria Young.
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