Interviewers: Okay. We’ll start from the beginning. Where’d you grow up?
VADM Nicholson (hereafter VADM): Well, I was born in Salt Lake City, but I don’t remember much of that. Then when the Depression hit, my dad’s business went to hell, and so we moved out to Nevada, in a little town of a hundred people. They had 18 kids in the school of eight grades, three of whom were Nicholsons. We then eventually wound up going to Elko, Nevada and then to Winnemucca, where I graduated be- fore going to the University of Nevada. I joined V-5 and then wound up getting an invitation to go to the Naval Academy.
It was during the war, in ’42, when my dad got a job to go down and build the ships in Oakland, and I was left without a place to live. So, I joined a fraternity two doors down. Immediately, the big brother they assigned me came back from the Naval Academy where he had an in- terview. He didn’t make it. So, I said, “Oh, you should be proud to even have the opportunity.” I’d never been anywhere. I’d never seen the sea or anything or heard about the Naval Academy.
He said, “I’ll get you an invitation with Senator McCarran’s secretary.” So, the next day, I wound up with an interview and the gal said, “I can give you a third alternate appointment.”
And I said, “A third alternate would never make it. I’ll just go ahead and continue college. I expect to get called up in the V-5.”
Out of the blue, just before I was to be called, I got something from Mc- Carran, “Are you still interested?” I wound up going and being accepted. I’d never seen the ocean. I’d never heard of the Navy. It was just a fluke, but it was –
Interviewers: Turned out to be a pretty good fluke.
VADM: – a pretty good start.
Interviewers: So, how did you enjoy the Naval Academy?
VADM: Very much. I really did enjoy it. It was only three years then, so that was good.
Interviewers: You were the class of?
VADM: Class of ’D7. I graduated in 19D6. It was difficult, but not too difficult.
Interviewers: Well, you’ve covered my first five Buestions very well. Thank you. So, what made you decide to go submarines?
VADM: I graduated and, of course, had to do two years before I could wind up in submarines, but I had never thought about it. I didn’t even know what a submarine was. I was assigned to a minesweeper tied up at that island off of San Francisco … Treasure Island. We never got under- way. There were two classmates. One of them was made Communicator as the ship is tied up doing nothing, and they assigned me as Engineer. They assigned me a boatswain mate, and I was told, “You’ve got to in- ventory every spare part there is on this ship.”
So, I went down there every day. I was so miserable. No help, no sea- men there. Then, fortunately, they sent me to Mine Warfare School. So, I went there for four months, and that went pretty good; but then I got orders to a DMS and went out to the Pacific. I was in New Guinea. Our job was to inventory (I was big into inventories those days!). I ran across this mail coming through, and it said something about volunteers for the Submarine Force. I thought, “You know, I’ve been in for two years now, and nobody knows where I am or gives a damn. That’ll be a small ship, a small force, so I’ll put in for it.”
So, I was in the next class of Submarine School, and the rest just picked up from there.
Interviewers: When did you qualify in subs and which boat?
VADM: 1950, on Tiru.
Interviewers: You were on there with Dean Axene, right?
VADM: Yes, Dean Axene was Exec at that time.
Interviewers: All right. Great guy, as we discussed on the way down here.
VADM: Yes.
Interviewers: Did you get any special training on your way to the sub- marine? Did you go to Submarine School, or —?
VADM: I went to Submarine School. Funny you mention that. When I Bualified for submarines in 195E, a secret message came out right after I got Bualified, asking for volunteers for the nuclear navy that was going to be happening. They put a team together in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific, and I wound up being one of the two in the Pacific. As a matter of fact, Jimmy Carter was one of the ones in the Atlantic.
So, they sent us to an interview with this Captain Rickover, who no- body had ever heard of – not a soul. I went up to COMSUBPAC and all around, and nobody knew him. They said, “All we know is he’s in the Bureau of Ships, and down in the bowels of the Bureau of Ships.” I walked in there, and I was really feeling pretty good about being select- ed. And Rickover said, “Did you study any nuclear physics to prepare for this interview?”
And I said, “I just got Bualified. But I did go to a radiological safety school two days.”
And Rickover’s face went like that, and he said, “Did you read any nu- clear physics books?”
And I said, “No, I didn’t. I had just Bualified.” “Well,” he said, “what books do you read?” And I said, “I read a lot of Mickey Spillane.”
[Laughter]His face just went like that, and he said, “How are the submarines oper- ating out there now? You’re in the Pacific?”
I said, “Well, we get underway about 8 o’clock, and then we do exercis- es, and then the skippers all race at 1 o’clock to get to the buoy, because the first one there gets to the bar first.”
Rickover just said, “This is terrible!” He said, “Have you been studying since?”
And I said, “Well, my wife and I went to movies quite frequently, be- cause they’re only 10 cents out there.” And with that, he said, “You’re out of here.” He said, “You’re wasting your goddamn life. Get out! I don’t want to ever see you again!”
So, I thought I was really done and couldn’t believe it when I got orders (again, with Les Kelly, the other one from the Pacific) to go to Westing- house.
Interviewers: So you didn’t go back for re-interview? You just got or- ders?
VADM: Just got orders out of the blue.
Interviewers: That’s fascinating.
VADM: The only reason I could think now, looking back and knowing how his interviews went and all, I think he thought, “He’s naive and lazy, but at least he’s honest.” [Laughs] I don’t know. Anyway – it was almost a miracle.
Interviewers: I think you’re right about he was looking for honesty. At a lot of those interviews – he didn’t want to be BS’d, I guess. That’s the bottom line.
VADM: That’s right.
Interviewers: Now, you’re selected to be a nuke. What happened then? VADM: We went to Westinghouse, and there were two officers and ten men, and –
Interviewers: Ten men being –
VADM: Enlisted. Chiefs and First-Class. One of them was Third-Class, as a matter of fact. Anyway, Westinghouse’s job was to train us. So, Les and I worked with PhD’s, and they’d tell us what to read. We went to some courses at the university there in Pittsburgh. Then we helped the enlisted kids, because they were in over their head completely. We thought we’d be there just six months, but it turned out to be 18 months. Then we got ordered out to the Nautilus prototype in Idaho.
Interviewers: During those 18 months, what were they teaching you?
VADM: Well, it was primarily basic physics, and nothing tied to a sub- marine. In fact, thinking about it, there was not that much nuclear. It was primarily basic physics and math.
Once that six months was over, Les and I worked on the staff with the Westinghouse people, it turned out, for another year.
Interviewers: What kind of work were you doing with the staff?
VADM: I don’t remember too much. They’d send us from one of the experts to another, both Navy people and Westinghouse people. It was helpful. At night we’d go to courses at the universities there. I forget which one. And finally, we went out to the prototype, and it was an iden- tical engine room to what we see now.
Interviewers: What year did you go to the prototype?
VADM: Let’s see. Well, January of ’51 was when we went to Westing- house, and it was 18 months, so ’52 or ’53. Our job then was to train the crew. We didn’t have any procedures at all. We got a steam plant and no diesel and –
Interviewer: No procedures whatsoever.
VADM: No, none whatsoever. That was my job. Because Les Kelly was senior, he made me MPA. So, I was sort of in charge of getting the procedures. That was the biggest job we had, and then training, learning about the plant and getting it all ready to go critical.
Interviewers: How many men were there?
VADM: I meant to mention. After our 10 and 2, there was Bus Cobean, who was a classmate, and 40 other enlisted. So, we had like 60 people – something like that.
Interviewers: And three officers?
VADM: Well, there were more officers. There were a couple of others, Bill Lehman, Bud Wood. He was, I guess, a warrant officer or some- thing. I’m not positive. But I was responsible then for the Primary Sys- tem, so I really had to know that thing. Later on, Rickover wanted to see me, and I thought, “Oh, he’s going to congratulate me for doing such a great job.”
I never change, I guess. He said, “Do you know that Primary System well?”
And I said, “I know every weld in that whole system, yes,” because we had to test them.
And he said, “Why didn’t you tell me that some of the pipe was a quarter of an inch and is liable to break?”
And I said, “Well, I just thought you guys, you were in charge,” and one thing or another.
Rickover says, “You’re supposed to tell me anything that’s going wrong, and you’d better not ever do that again. That’s what I want. I want all of your people to tell me what’s going wrong.”
And the crew did quite a bit of that. Some things were automatically started. You push a button, and the pump for the oil would go, then the sea water. The troops said, “This is ridiculous. That’s not going to be a positive. That’s liable to be a problem,” and they actually made changes. But that’s what he wanted to know … what the hell needed to be done. We finally got the crew trained and got the procedures going. I don’t remember the date now when we went critical. We’re getting ready to go critical, and one of the electricians, Wes Heddington, said, “I haven’t understood anything that’s gone on in the last two years, but, boy, can I do field day. I’ll take care of that.”
[Laughter]VADM: So, we did bring the reactor critical.
Interviewers: Was Rickover there for that?
VADM: Yes. And it actually worked well and actually provided power to Idaho Falls just to show that we could do it. Of course, that was the first reactor that had actually provided any power to anything. Most of us who had been there the longest went right to the Nautilus to be the commissioning crew.
Interviewers: How long did you stay at the prototype, just operating it? Very long?
VADM: I think – let’s see. Well, we went to Nautilus in January of ’54, I think. I’m not positive. I think we were there about two years.
I was on Nautilus through Operations Officer and XO, when I got orders off of there. I was the EOOW when we got underway the first time.
Interviewers: Tell me about that, the first underway.
VADM: The first underway, Rickover is aboard, of course. So, they ring up, “All back one third,” and suddenly we hear a hell of a lot of noise coming out of the engine room. So, I rang up, “All stop,” and reported. Rickover was in the engine room himself, fortunately. It was coming out of the reduction gear, and he said, “Well, just use the one screw until we finish getting out of here. I don’t think it’s really serious.”
So, we backed on out and got out alright on one screw. That was when Wilkinson, who was the skipper, sent the famous message “Underway on Nuclear Power.” So, that was really something.
Interviewers: What did you find out? What was the problem with the reduction gear?
VADM: I forgot the exact thing. It was very repairable. It was nothing really serious.
Interviewers: So, you eventually went and got the two screws for sea trials.
VADM: Yes, we got the two screws and went on and did the initial trials.
Interviewers: Did you do an emergency backing during the initial sea trials?
VADM: I’m not sure whether we did that the very first time, but Wilkin- son was gung-ho. “How fast can you go?” “How deep can you go?” “All ahead flank.” “All back emergency.” … all of that stuff.
Interviewers: All right. It was Wilkinson, not Rickover, who was doing that.
VADM: Yeah, that’s right.
Interviewers: [Laughs] I guess maybe Rickover learned something during that time. That’s great. What other submarines did you serve in besides Nautilus?
VADM: I was moved up to XO of Nautilus.
Interviewers: So, you relieved Dean Axene as XO?
VADM: Let’s see. I’m not sure. We went up, one after the other. First, I went to Operations Officer. Kelly may have [relieved Axene as XO]. I’m not sure. At any rate, we went up as Operations Officer and then XO, and then go off to another boat. I went to Skate, which was – isn’t that terrible? I’m forgetting skipper’s name.
Interviewers: That’s all right.
VADM: That’s awful.
Interviewers: Were you XO of Skate as well?
VADM: Yes, I was XO of Skate. I’ll have to fill this in later. He was a terrific guy.
We then were training to go to the North Pole. We had the equipment put on there from Dr. Waldo Lyon. We had the same things that Nautilus had, and I was a Navigator as well as XO. So, we were up off Norway and ready to go under and be the first ones at the North Pole, and sud- denly we got orders, “Do not go under the ice until further notice.” Over the BBC radio, we heard the Nautilus had just done that. That was kept so secret, that – Jim Calvert was the skipper – he was the only one who knew that that was the situation.
Interviewers: So, you guys were the backup?
VADM: We were the backup. They then let us go, and we went right to the Pole. We couldn’t surface right at the Pole. The ice was just too thick then. We then started surfacing through polynyas and letting the crew out and so forth. So, we learned how to do that … get in the middle of a polynya and then pump water out and surface.
Interviewers: Polynya being a place where the ice was very thin.
VADM: Yes. In fact, there was no ice. It was in the summer.
And so, we decided we’d go – they authorized us to go try to find Ice Station Alpha, which was manned by the Air Force. It was quite a long way away, but we managed to contact them. Then we rigged a thing to sort of get a direction where this island was, then contacted a Major in the Air Force. He said, “There is a big polynya right next to us today. I’ll get a motorboat to get close enough, so you can track it by sonar.” So, we did that. We got right in the middle of there and surfaced. That Major said he’d never seen anything so weird in his life as a periscope
suddenly sticking up right next to his little boat. [Laughter]
VADM: But at any rate, we wound up surfacing ten times, and we were the first to be able to go up in those polynyas. So that was a really good experience.
Interviewers: So, you were the first submarine to ever surface in the High Arctic.
VADM: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewers: Nautilus was the first to go under the North Pole –
VADM: That’s right.
Interviewers: – but you were the first to surface.
VADM: We were the first ones actually doing that.
I’m glad I remembered Jim Calvert. How could you not remember Jim Calvert? [Laughs]
Oh, the other boats. I wound up going to Pickerel as skipper. I was on there about, I think, ten months, which was great. Oh, we had a ball. Finally, a fun submarine. [Laughs]
Interviewers: What kind of fun things did you do?
VADM: Oh, I don’t know.
Interviewers: Or, maybe that’s classified. [Laughs]
VADM: Well, no. They decided – the crew was a big party thing, and one thing they liked to do was hold up a pole and then go under. You know how you go backwards like that?
Interviewer: Oh, yeah, the Limbo.
VADM: They were just wound up. All sorts of fun things, lots of parties. Then, suddenly, I got orders to Sargo. It turned out there were some problems with the previous skipper and, again, we were equipped with under-ice sonar. We tested all this out. There had been other submarines that had gone to the Arctic through the Atlantic. However, this would be in the winter with Sargo through the Bering Strait. That was an interest- ing thing. Very difficult.
Interviewers: Where was Sargo home-ported at that time?
VADM: Pearl Harbor.
We got through all right with this mine detector that had been rigged so you could tell whether you’d be able to go under the ice ridges that were ahead and a fairly good picture of where you could go between them.
Interviewers: How much room was there between the bottom of the ice, on average, right there in the strait?
VADM: In the Bering Strait at that time, we’d be eight feet off the bot- tom, if we were lucky. We wound up – I think it was eight days or so of this – going through.
Interviewers: Must’ve been a lot of tension.
VADM: Yes. We did rotate the XO and another officer with me. We finally got into the deep water. Then the sonar that we had been using failed. So, we are now in the deep Arctic Ocean, but how are we going to get out? Are we going around through the Panama Canal? The engineer who was responsible for the sonar suggested, “Maybe we can connect this up to the regular sonar to get back out.”
And so, we assigned our guys to it, and they did manage to get it to work. We went under another ice island to make sure that we could do that. Then, we’re ready to go out through the Bering Strait, and we hadn’t gone very far when suddenly there is ice on both sides. So, I picked one and picked the wrong one. We hit the ice and it drove us down, six feet off the bottom. Bent the scope over, but we were okay as far as watertight integrity was concerned. As soon as we could, we surfaced. The scope was bent, and the sail was smashed in. So, we got together with the sonar engineer, and asked, “What the hell happened?” It was determined that the fixes that he had made on the sonar had gotten rid of its side lobes. So, what we decided is, “Don’t go into 200 or 500 yards. Just get the picture out at a thousand yards and then just wing it. Time it.”
Interviewers: Dead reckon your way in.
VADM: Yeah, but then we made it out. It was a very significant accom- plishment, really, that hadn’t been done before.
Interviewers: That was the very first winter transit from the Pacific into the Arctic and back. No one had ever proved it could be done until you did it.
VADM: Right.
Then I had command of the Stonewall Jackson, so we finally thought, “Boy, we’re going to get some off-crew time. It’s about time.” We were going to go load up missiles for the first time up …
Interviewers: You went to the Jackson when she was still under con- struction?
VADM: Yes. I was Blue Crew and put her in commission. Then we went through initial sea trials.
Interviewers: Was Rickover onboard for those sea trials?
VADM: Yes. He rode when we were first going out. Being a Mare Island boat, we were going under the Golden Gate Bridge when Rickover sent word, “Send Nicholson here.” And he said, “I understand that you’ve got a rider on here that is telling you he’s going to be responsible for typing your letters.” Rickover told the rider, “That’s why you’re on here? Is to type the letters? You’re getting off of this ship immediately.” Fortunately, we were able to offload the rider. We got in touch with him after we finally got back and apologized.
Interviewers: Your yeoman had to do all the letters?
VADM: That’s right.
Interviewers: That’s great. So, from there, did you actually do patrols on Stonewall Jackson?
VADM: Oh, yes. We got one patrol. When the ship was in Bangor after leaving Mare Island, we took leave and went out to rent a place in Pearl Harbor with a wonderful view and everything. We were going to have an off crew there. Just before getting back to Bangor to start our patrol, Les Kelly, who was now in charge of personnel, calls and says, “Con- gratulations.”
And I said, “Uh-oh,”
Then he said, “You’re going to relieve Yogi Kaufman out in Idaho.” [Laughs] My wife was from Boise, Idaho. That’s where we got married, and she couldn’t stand Idaho Falls at all. It was pretty bad. She was really mad. Of course, we had to cancel everything because we weren’t going out to Pearl anymore. It was the only time I ever remember Pat was so mad. I never got a letter. I never got a word from her on patrol.
[Laughter]Interviewers: Remind me when this is over to tell you about my or- ders-to-Idaho story. Same problem. [Laughs]
All right. Who are the most memorable people – besides, obviously, Ad- miral Rickover – that you served with on submarines?
VADM: Well, Wilkinson has got to be one. I mean, he was one of a kind, and he was fun. It was just a really, really good, fun ship with him.
Interviewers: Did you and Admiral Wilkinson pal around together out here before he passed away?
VADM: Oh, yes. I also went to his memorial service, which was mem- orable. And then there was Jim Calvert. He was one of those who let the XO pretty much run the ship on a day-to-day basis, and he was very, very good. Those two stick out more than anybody.
Interviewers: They were two of the best that we had, along with your- self and couple of others. Based on your experience on submarines, what are the most important things you took away that you applied later on in life through your other senior billets and as a civilian?
VADM: Well, I guess the most memorable was COMSUBGRU 8 in the Med, where I was responsible for all of the NATO submarines at that time. That was a delightful tour, especially for Pat, who had not been happy with some of the others. She became essentially an Italian, with the gestures and everything else. So, that was very enjoyable. And we had a real interesting time when Sixth Fleet came down and said, “The surface ships here in the Med have got towed arrays, and they are not testing that equipment.” So, he said, “I’m going to make you in charge of a division that is responsible for making the surface ships successful.” And then the admiral who was responsible for the P-3’s – he and I were to tie these together. We wound up with a submarine tracking a subma- rine coming in past Gibraltar. We wanted to track him all the way in. We got the surface commodore together with us and said, “We’ve got to set up a barrier here, as they come into the bigger part of the Med.” Unfortunately, the first time we tried that, his ships go to refuel, so we lost contact. The submarine had to get contact again. Then we got into the major part of the Med and got the surface guys connected. Every time this submarine came up to look, why, he had a destroyer on his tail. So, one Sunday, he was tracking the VOGE … one of our surface ships. He suddenly headed full bore with his submarine out of the water, with all the people on the ship watching, when he decided, “I’m going to cut that [towed array] sonar.”
Meanwhile, the VOGE skipper for some reason slowed a bit, and the submarine roared right in and hit the VOGE, smashing into him. And, of course, we reported that to Sixth Fleet. It made Sixth Fleet a big success, because the towed array sonar had done the job. Harry Train was Sixth Fleet, and he wrote up this success. I’m sure that’s one of the things that was helpful for me. I was hoping to be SUBLANT or SUBPAC. But at any rate, I got sent to be Al Haig’s deputy. He was the head of SHAPE in Belgium, so we went over there for two years. And, incidentally, he was one of the best officers I ever served with. He told you what he wanted for the year. I mean, “I want to cut the amount of time it takes to get sup- plies to NATO from the U.S.,” and things like that. So, that’s all he’d tell you. You had to pull together a program and, of course, report it to him and all. He never once checked on the whole thing. You’re suddenly up, giving a presentation to all the NATO people. He never even reviewed it, but it was apparently alright, because he was one of those responsible for me getting third star, I’m sure; and so was Harry Train.
Interviewers: So, between Jackson and Group 8, what did you do then? VADM: Well, I was COMSUBRON 15 out in Guam.
Interviewers: Your wife probably didn’t like Guam either, did she?
VADM: She liked it. I wound up with a tour in the Pentagon when I made admiral. I was the deputy commander of BuShips and, in fact, it was the last time it was BuShips instead of NAVSEA.
Then I was in the Pentagon, responsible for reporting to SP [as the Di- rector of Strategic Submarine Division and TRIDENT Program Coordi- nator in the Office of the CNO].
Interviewers: What accomplishment or assignment in your submarine career are you most proud of? And why?
VADM: I guess the one that has gotten very little publicity or anything, was when I was a Lieutenant Commander in the CNO’s office. Dean Axene, who was on Tiru and now the skipper of the Thresher, contacted me for some reason. He said, “There’s all sorts of things wrong with the Thresher. I think you ought to come aboard and ride and see if we can’t get this thing fixed.”
So, I went out and rode, and he pointed out everything that was wrong. So, I came back and went to my boss.
At any rate, what we did was we managed, with a lieutenant commander and then a commander whose boss was important, responsible for all the ShipAlts and things like that. With my boss we told the head of BuShips, Admiral James, “This is the problem. You’ve got a ship that has got all sorts of problems, and we need to get this thing fixed.”
And he said, “I’ll not only sign this and get you some money, but I’m going to assign Jack Wakefield, an engineer, and he’ll honcho it.”
So, he came up with a modification to the Thresher, adding some 15 feet and – a major thing – and it wound up being the Sturgeon class sub.
Interviewers: You kind of initiated design of the Sturgeon class, and unfortunately, they didn’t get it retro fit into the Thresher in time.
VADM: Right.
Interviewer: That’s amazing. Speaking of Thresher, what do you think were the most important practices that you saw and in the Submarine Force that led to safe and successful operations of the submarines? … the most important practices that you learned, or practices that kept your submarines safe and made your operations successful, that you learned from someone else, or you did yourself.
VADM: I don’t know. It just seemed to me the lessons that were learned from Thresher were about the most important. They were felt on the Stonewall Jackson, where we had to change all of the welding and so forth.
Interviewers: So, Jackson actually fell under SUBSAFE?
VADM: Yes, exactly, and that was vital. It turns out there were some submarines that had experienced leaks in those systems and really hadn’t gotten the word to Admiral Rickover. And it’s a shame that it hadn’t, but once he grabbed a hold of that, it certainly made a big difference in safe- ty of the submarines.
Interviewers: Right. What advice would you give to a young midship- man, based on your experience?
VADM: Get into submarines as soon as you can, of course.
Interviewer: Why did you decide to get involved with the Naval Sub- marine League, and how did that come about?
VADM: I used to go to the annual meetings whenever we could, and my wife would go with me. A lot of times, many of our old bosses were there. So, I always looked forward to it. And then, of course, I was pres- ident of the chapter in San Diego early on, when we got that started. I was the chapter’s second president. And then, as far as the League was concerned, it would primarily be going back east to give the President’s Report, such as recommendations for how to get more people coming in to the League and so forth.
Interviewers: Nothing has changed. [Laughs]
VADM: But the most significant thing is my wife and I would go to sub- marine reunions on the various submarines that I had served in. It was always such a treat to see the crews over almost each of the submarines that we’d had. But as we got older, there were fewer and fewer of those. And then when my wife – this is several years ago – came down with de- mentia and was unable to travel, we were unable to go to those reunions. So, what’s taken its place for me has been the Southwest Chapter of the Submarine League. The combination of that and the squadron commo- dores has been a godsend. It’s not only to meet and see old friends. It’s also like going back to submarine gatherings. Submariners have been a huge help to me. The combination of the League and the commodores has been a really terrific thing. The Commodores have come up with some great ideas, and the Submarine League works hard to have the best speakers. I’m able to sort of keep up with things. It’s like a replacement for reunions. That’s what it amounts to.
Interviewers: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing subma- rines today that maybe the Submarine League could help with?
VADM: Well, I don’t know how the League is going to be able to help with the biggest problem, and that’s what’s happening to the whole Navy
– cutting back on the Navy – the amount of submarines and the number of other ships. I’m not sure how anybody can ever turn this around, so I honestly don’t know.
I think there has been some real improvements in the Submarine League in the last two or three years … a lot of attention to trying to get more people to join the League and have them contact people who might be able to help.
Interviewers: Admiral, we appreciate your time. Have you got any- thing else you’d like to add?
VADM: It seemed to me I forgot more than I remembered. [Laughs]
Interviewers: Well, I think it was good. I can see you’ve had a wonder- ful career.
