Abstract

Robert Bard is a lifelong Cuyahoga Valley resident and former Cuyahoga Valley National Park maintenance worker. Bard shared memories of growing up in Cuyahoga Falls and memories of the creation of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Content covered includes Robert Hunker, John Seiberling, African American businesses in the Cuyahoga Valley, Terry Lumber, volunteering for the Peninsula Fire Department, SCVNP Superintendent John Debo, CVNP Superintendent William Birdsell.

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Interviewee

Bard, Robert (interviewee)

Interviewer

Jones Macko, Rebecca (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)

Project

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Date

8-2-2022

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

119 minutes

Transcript

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:01] All right, Today’s day is June 22, 2023. My name is Rebecca Jones Macko. I’m here with Eric Schnack on tech support. And today we are talking to Bob Bard, seasonal maintenance employee, but he’s a longtime Valley resident. So, Bob, we’re to start this with a tough question. What is your full name?

Robert Bard [00:00:27] Robert James Bard.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:31] And what year were you born?

Robert Bard [00:00:34] That would have been 1952.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:40] So. And I don’t know this. Did you grow up here in the Valley?

Robert Bard [00:00:46] I’ve always lived in the Cuyahoga watershed. I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:52] Okay.

Robert Bard [00:00:52] Lived in Richfield, Streetsboro, East Akron, Little Cuyahoga. I’ve always lived in this watershed. Peninsula.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:01:06] Peninsula. So we’re gonna ask some questions about growing up and your family, so.

Robert Bard [00:01:14] Oh, geez.

Erich Schnack [00:01:16] Sounds good to have some sound effects.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:01:22] The cell phone was ringing there. So what were your parents’ names?

Robert Bard [00:01:28] Robert Bard and Dorothy Bard.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:01:32] Okay. And did you have brothers and sisters?

Robert Bard [00:01:36] Yeah, I had an older sister. She just passed on Easter. And I had an older brother. We were three years apart from each other. So I’m the baby.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:01:52] All right. So how did your family come to live in the Cuyahoga Valley? Well, in the watershed, as you call it.

Robert Bard [00:02:00] Well, my mom came from North Hill, went to North High School, and I think my dad met her at a football game. And thank goodness or I wouldn’t be here.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:02:20] So where was he from?

Robert Bard [00:02:21] He was from Cuyahoga Falls, near Hudson Drive with the area they used to refer to as the junction. Front Street, Hudson Drive, Bailey Road. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:02:36] So- so your parents met at a football game and eventually romance happened and got here. So where did they start their life? And tell me about this journey that you were talking about, all these places. Where did you grow up?

Robert Bard [00:02:53] Where did I grow up? Cuyahoga Falls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My playground was the Gorge. Okay. If I wasn’t in the Gorge as downtown Front street, that’s where we played. And obviously we were off the leash and nothing bad ever happened to anybody. I mean, Lord knows. Just make sure you’re home at this time before it gets dark. And there we go.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:03:24] So did your family move around in the area?

Robert Bard [00:03:28] No, no, no, they stayed put. Yeah, they stayed in Cuyahoga Falls, I don’t think. No, they had never moved. After my mom passed. I think my father just came up with this brilliant idea. I’m gonna downsize. And went and bought some condominium unit that was. I knew who the builders were. It was like, you never, like, talked to me about this I was, like, really, really upset with them, like you- But he moved one time. He moved one time? Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:04:02] Okay. So what sort of work did your parents do?

Robert Bard [00:04:05] My dad was a plant manager at Reuther Mold Manufacturing Place in Munroe Falls. And then my mom was a housewife.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:04:20] Do you want to share what they were like?

Robert Bard [00:04:22] I’m sorry?

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:04:22] Do you want to share what your parents were like?

Robert Bard [00:04:24] Oh, they were good people. Yeah, they’re good people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good people. My dad was real active with the United Presbyterian Church. He was a deacon and an elder.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:04:39] And is that the one that’s there, close to Hudson Drive?

Robert Bard [00:04:43] That’s it. That’s it. Matter of fact, he was born and raised right across the street in the little house right across the street. My aunt, my dad’s oldest sister, she was the one that founded the church. And back then, you didn’t have that many churches, so this whole area of Cuyahoga Falls didn’t have a church, so they decided to build one. Now, you know, churches on every corner almost. I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:05:21] That’s the Presbyterian Church I was going to for a while.

Robert Bard [00:05:24] You did? Well, I’ll be darn. Really.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:05:28] So if you grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, is this. Is it safe to assume that you graduated from Cuyahoga Falls High School?

Robert Bard [00:05:34] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:05:34] Did you go on and go to trade school or anything after that?

Robert Bard [00:05:37] Went to Akron U. I think I studied sociology, psychology, and then eventually said, this isn’t for me. So I ended up in English, and I got real close to getting my diploma and got a job as a carpenter. I enjoyed that more so than the academics.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:06:04] We’re to come back to that in a moment, but. So you said earlier that you were off the leash growing up. So what did you do for fun growing up?

Robert Bard [00:06:18] You’re recording this? No, we had fun. [crosstalk]

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:06:23] What was your favorite outdoor activities. I’ll do that. How about that?

Robert Bard [00:06:28] Favorite outdoor? Well, we used to play street football and street baseball, and- I don’t know. That’s a good question. So, yeah, we hung out. Yeah, we hung out. We-

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:06:40] In the gorge.

Robert Bard [00:06:41] Yeah. Yeah, the gorge downtown. We hunted but that was later in life. Okay. I remember we’d go to. We’d take our shotguns to Cuyahoga Falls High School and not make a big deal out of it. You know, put- put it in the locker, lock it up. And after school, we’d go rabbit hunting. I was like, I don’t think he could do that anymore. No, no, no. Yeah. But I joined the Boy Scouts, and then quit in two weeks. Because I thought when you joined the Boy Scouts, you got to go camping a lot, but then all of a sudden, what the heck? This isn’t what I expected. So, yeah, got out of that.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:07:32] Made it two weeks.

Robert Bard [00:07:33] Yeah. Yeah, two weeks. Gave it a try.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:07:35] So did you visit the area that would become Cuyahoga Valley National Park?

Robert Bard [00:07:41] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:07:42] And did you, did you visit Virginia Kendall State Park when you were young?

Robert Bard [00:07:48] I’m sure I did, but for the most part. Why would anybody want to go there?

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:07:56] Why do you say that?

Robert Bard [00:07:57] That’s where all the people go. We went places that the people didn’t go and, you know, we explored the whole valley. But- but yeah, Virginia Kendall was a pretty place. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:08:11] So what was different about the valley back then?

Robert Bard [00:08:17] No people, no people. Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. I can always remember, and I can’t tell you what age I was, but all of a sudden we’d take hikes and in years to come, the deer arrived and all the understory brush was eaten and like you could walk through the woods. It’s like, I don’t remember the woods looking like this. I mean, literally. Literally. The white-tailed deer had a definite impact on the Valley.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:09:00] So did you have any stories about the area that became the national park or any stories about VK, if you were visiting there?

Robert Bard [00:09:13] Well, not to jump ahead of this, but when I first started working for the park, that’s where I reported to was Virginia Kendall. There was no CMA yet. When they did come up with CMA, it was a temporary CMA. It was in a plastic extrusion factory and BART came in, bought them out. It was right across the street from the Visitor Center on Boston Mills Road, right next to the railroad tracks. But.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:09:53] Somebody wants to talk to you.

Robert Bard [00:09:54] Yeah, I don’t want to talk to them, whatever. But yeah, what was the question again?

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:10:03] So do you have any stories about hanging out at VK or hanging out in the national park? What would become the national park?

Robert Bard [00:10:13] Well, we hiked and walked everywhere and you know, like Hampton Hills, that was a favorite place to go to. Peninsula. You know, when, when I lived in Peninsula, somebody told me, said, Bob, whatever you do, don’t talk about anybody. Yeah, you can start talking about somebody and chances are you’re probably speaking with their cousin, their uncle or their nephew. So just don’t do that. Don’t do that. And I found out, yeah, that was true. Everybody down there is related somehow or other. Same with Boston. You know, met a lot of people Met a lot of people down there. Later in life, after I left school, I made snow at Boston Mills. Yeah, that was fun. That was fun. So, yeah, coming down to the Valley, you couldn’t help. There were so many good people, you couldn’t help but make friends. Of course, most of them were my age or older, but good grief, there was people that lived down there that used to work with my uncle and it was nice. It was nice. Yeah, yeah, there was a couple colorful people, but you’ll have that.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:11:53] Yeah, we have to have cold.

Robert Bard [00:11:55] Exactly, exactly. You know, dealing with Hunker, a lot of people think nobody liked Hunker because he was a homosexual. I’m sure that had an awful lot to do with it. But nobody liked Hunker because he was a scoundrel. Okay. He would hire you, you would do work for him and then he would short you money. And it’s like, you know, eventually he needed my help and I realized, well, Bobby’s only going to short your money. You know, he would like not pay money and then you’d have to take him to small claims court. Well, most people, they don’t have time for this stuff. He could string you out for a long, long time. He seized tools of some of the workers and so I knew whom I was dealing with early. So I just jacked my prices up. Okay, if this is the way you’re going to be, then this is what I’m going to charge you. And sure enough, even to this day, I think he shorted me like $250. Yeah, you don’t come after somebody for that amount of money, that’s all. So anyway.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:13:20] And you were talking when you first got here, before Erich was able to join us, you were talking a little bit about some of the connections that you had with the Seiberling family.

Robert Bard [00:13:31] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:13:32] So you said your wife’s family owned property?

Robert Bard [00:13:37] My wife, her maiden name is Stone, but her mom grew up on the end of the valley, Merriman Road. There’s a plaque, a big boulder at the end of Merriman and Portage Path, and that’s called Courtney Park. They donated that just to commemorate the fact that this is where the portage was. And the Seiberlings didn’t want to donate any land to the Metropolitan park, but the Courtneys did. And I can’t really like tell you exactly, like how much or whatever, but part of Sand Run Parkway was donated by the Courtneys.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:14:27] And can you also say that the Seiberlings and Hunker were friends?

Robert Bard [00:14:35] Oh, yeah, yeah, Hunker’s mother. Yeah. Hunker’s mother. Yeah. Good friends. Good friends and quote, unquote, I can only say this rumor on the street was Seiberling told Hunker to buy what he could in Peninsula because a national park was coming to town. And he did. He did. And once again, he was a scoundrel. He- Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:15:02] But I never saw a more devastated group of workers than when he passed away. His staff was just in tears for days.

Robert Bard [00:15:11] Who. Hunker.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:15:12] When Hunker passed away.

Robert Bard [00:15:14] Okay, yeah. Wouldn’t know about that, but yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:15:19] So I’m gonna jump tracks a little bit. I’ll come back to some of this in a video, if that’s okay. But I want to jump. Jump tracks because. And I can’t remember if it was you or if it was another person I was speaking with, but were you familiar with the Cabin Club on Akron Peninsula Road? The Cabin Club?

Robert Bard [00:15:38] Oh, heck, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:15:39] Oh, my.

Robert Bard [00:15:40] Oh, yeah. So did I ever go there? No, honest. Honest. Never, ever.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:15:44] Okay, so just what can you tell me about the Cabin Club? Describe it. What did it look like? What time period are we talking?

Robert Bard [00:15:54] You know, that’s a good- I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. All I remember is it was a hunting club, and they had little shacks along. We always knew the place is Dude Lee’s. Dude Lee, he rented a house. I guess the land eventually was owned by Edison, but remember Tom Jones? Okay, Tom Jones. Dude Lee would, like, plow his land after a rain. He’d plow the land and then pick up arrowheads.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:16:30] Dude Lee?

Robert Bard [00:16:31] Yeah, Dude Lee.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:16:32] Dude?

Robert Bard [00:16:33] Dude, yeah. Like, dude, hey, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would sell his Indian artifacts of Tom Jones, and Tom put them in the Indian mill, and that’s just the way things were. But the Cabin Club was there before he was. But it was- It was a brothel. And if you wanted to go visit the brothel, you know, for a hunt, you go. And they used to make sure that when you were done, we sent you home with, like, a couple rabbits or a pheasant. Yeah, yeah. You have to, you know, convince the wife you were hunting. So, you know. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:17:23] Okay, so time period is this like, ’60s, ’50s?

Robert Bard [00:17:27] I think it was in the ’50s. ’50s and possibly early ’60s. Matter of fact, I always wondered about its demise. It was run by who knows what her name was, but she was Black, which there weren’t too many Black people in the Cuyahoga Valley. Harry Duncan down towards Boston, but there wasn’t a whole lot of Black people in the Valley. And yeah, they had the hunt club.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:17:59] Okay. So that was what there was to do at the Cabin Club. “Hunt.” And I’m using air quotes.

Robert Bard [00:18:06] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:18:08] And rent a “cabin,” I’m using air quotes again.

Robert Bard [00:18:10] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:18:11] So what was the client. Do you have any idea of the clientele that was at the Cabin Club?

Robert Bard [00:18:21] Well, I guess obviously you’d have to, like, show up with some money, but. No, down the Valley ways, there was another fella, he had hunting cabins up there, too.

Erich Schnack [00:18:41] Was his name Bill Johnson? Bill Johnson?

Robert Bard [00:18:42] No, this was Oscar. Oh, heck.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:18:49] Race. Was he a white gentleman?

Robert Bard [00:18:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. White fella. Oh, shoot.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:18:54] Was his actually a hunting club?

Robert Bard [00:18:57] Yeah, I think so. But no, honest to God. Really? Really? No. Yeah, Real hunting club. Yeah, yeah. Sylvan Pond up there. Okay. There was like little cabins all along the ridge top. And that was a hunting club.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:19:15] And this is in the ’50s also.

Robert Bard [00:19:16] Oscar Steiner.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:19:18] Steiner. Okay.

Robert Bard [00:19:19] Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:19:20] This was in the ’50s also, or ’60s,

Robert Bard [00:19:25] Probably. Yeah, yeah. I can’t be sure. You know, when I was. Heck, I was born in ’52, so, you know, I was still a kid.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:19:34] So this Cabin Club, did it mostly serve the Valley, or did it get its clientele from Akron, Cleveland?

Robert Bard [00:19:43] Probably? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just like, you know, you- Even today, if you wanted to hunt deer someplace, you can join a club and, you know, you pay fees and, you know, come shoot the deer.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:19:58] So was the clientele at the Cabin Club a mixed clientele? Was it a white clientele? An African American?

Robert Bard [00:20:05] I think it was all white. Yeah, it was all white. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:20:10] Was this- It sounds, from what you’re describing like this was an adults-only kind of hunting club.

Robert Bard [00:20:16] Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. You know, if you’re a salesman, here’s a chance to, you know, take your client on a hunt, you know, get a couple rabbits and make the sale. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:20:33] Maybe get some bunnies along the way.

Robert Bard [00:20:34] Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:20:37] Any other stories about the Cabin Club? You don’t- You said you don’t remember its demise.

Robert Bard [00:20:43] No, I really don’t. I really don’t. I remember, you know, Dude Lee used to, like, allow me to look for arrowheads in his field. And I think it’s what they refer to as a Wisconsin Terrace? 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:01] Okay. 

Robert Bard [00:21:02] Okay? This is a river terrace, but it was there before the glacier came through. But, oh, my gosh, all the trash. All the trash over the hill, you know, they threw stuff and, you know, there was times I’d go down there to take a hike and I’d leave my dog at home. There was so much broken glass. It’s like Lord knows. Yeah, it was pretty awful.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:28] So what was the relationship of Dude Lee to the lady who ran the Cabin Club?

Robert Bard [00:21:34] I don’t think there was one. I think, you know, he. He came along later.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:38] Later.

Robert Bard [00:21:38] Okay. Yeah, he came along later. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:43] Do you remember anything about any other African American sites in the Valley? Like Camp Mueller?

Robert Bard [00:21:49] No. No. Yeah. Really.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:53] And Erich mentioned Stonybrook, which was on Northampton Road. And there was also a- at one time a Lake Glen / Fountainbleu, near what is today Buckeye Sports.

Robert Bard [00:22:06] Oh, oh that’s- Yeah, the Salsa Lounge. The Salsa Lounge.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:22:14] Like Salsa or Sasa?

Robert Bard [00:22:16] Salsa. [crosstalk] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a Black-owned bar and it was a motel adjacent to it and right next to Buckeye Sporting Goods. And the fella that ran the gun department in Buckeye. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:23:43] Okay. 

Robert Bard [00:23:44] Okay, he later opened up a gun shop on State Road near Cuyahoga Falls. Dick’s Gun Room. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:22:56] Yes. I remember Dick’s Gun Room, close to Graham Road.

Robert Bard [00:22:58] He’s no longer in business anymore.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:23:00] No, I saw that.

Robert Bard [00:23:01] Yeah, he’s done. But he moved there because the clientele at the Salsa would break in Buckeye and steal his guns.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:23:13] And this is in the ’50s. 1950s or 1960s.

Robert Bard [00:23:16] Yeah, yeah, in the- probably in the ’60s. Yeah, yeah. The Salsa one, it was all Black. And back then I don’t think anybody that was white would go there because you might get killed. Whatever the case may be, the rumor on the street is, you know, please don’t go there, don’t go there. But I always remember they had a storm come through and part of the roof blew off and it was all copper. It was a copper roof under there. Within like a day, all the copper was removed and scrapped out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Salsa.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:24:06] I’m going to ask my colleague. Did you have any other questions about the Salsa Club, Erich?

Erich Schnack [00:24:12] I’m very interested in what you said because I’ve never heard of it referred to as the Salsa Lounge. Was that like a nickname? Or was that-

Robert Bard [00:24:21] No, that was the name of the place. Yeah.

Erich Schnack [00:24:23] It’s very interesting.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:24:25] So now we have yet a third name for that place. So earlier you mentioned that there was this Black African American woman who ran the Cabin Club. And there weren’t too many African Americans in the Valley. There was Harry Duncan. Were there any other Black families that you knew of that lived in the Valley?

Robert Bard [00:24:47] No, I really don’t remember any. No. You know, growing up in Cuyahoga Falls, Cuyahoga Falls always had a nickname, Caucasian Falls. There was nobody but white people in Cuyahoga Falls. And just the way it was, it was kind of nice to eventually see a Black person walking down the street or next thing you know, Asian people. You know, it wasn’t like anybody, like, stuck a KKK cross in their front yards, but it just- It was all white people. It was all white people. So even in the Valley, I don’t really recall too many Blacks.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:25:34] So you live- You grew up, and you’re mentioning Cuyahoga Falls. You grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, so. And then you graduated, you went to University of Akron, and then right before you get your diploma, you’re like, I don’t want to do this. So what kind of jobs were you doing along the way? What kind of jobs were you doing when you were young? And the reason I’m asking is because how did you get to. How did you get to doing maintenance work? How did you learn to do carpentry? What was the path to get there?

Robert Bard [00:26:08] Hmm. Well, kind of took a few detours, but used to be assistant. I- I got to use the word assistant because I can’t tell you. Like, I was a program director, but I worked at YMCAs. I worked in the YMCA at Cuyahoga Falls, the one in Town Ledge, the one in Firestone Park.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:26:37] Is this in college? Or is this-

Robert Bard [00:26:38] Yeah, that’s why I was going to school east over by- Yeah, the East. Why? It was fun. Drove school bus, which I think I- I was driving a school bus when I was 16. Oh, yeah, they needed me. But it was fun. It was fun. Yeah. I think I had one thing that happened, it was funny for me, was when I worked at the East YMCA, you know, again, do what you want, Bob, you know, within reason. And I had some friends that were in a band, and I figured, oh, they got a big gymnasium. Let’s put on a concert, you know. And, you know, I told my friends in the band, you know, I don’t know what kind of money they’re going to make, but for the most part, you’re donating it to the Y. Okay, we’ll pay a little bit, but most of it is going to the Y. Okay. Just kind of consider a practice session for you. So we put out flyers and everything, and come the day, the night of the concert, nobody showed up. Nobody showed up. It’s like that was the end of my promotional career. I’m not promoting any more concerts.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:28:13] So how did you get to- Where did you learn the skills to be a carpenter? How did that evolve over time?

Robert Bard [00:28:19] Oh, well, I worked with a fella, father and son outfit that built houses in North Canton and a bit of a drive. But I went where the houses were, Wyoga Lake, way in the back. I built a couple houses there and eventually learned that I don’t have to work for somebody else. I can do this myself. So I started building houses myself. And that was fun, you know.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:28:51] And do I remember that you worked at a mill at one point?

Robert Bard [00:28:55] A mill? A mill. Well, Terry Lumber.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:28:59] And how did you get to work at Terry Lumber?

Robert Bard [00:29:04] Like I said, every time I’d go down to Terry’s, I’d get even- if I didn’t need anything, I’d buy a couple two by fours, but you know, they turn me on to Mrs. Jones needs a new roof. So whatever the case may be. And then eventually, gosh, this was after I worked for the park, you know, picking up where I left off, getting jobs, and good grief, I’d go back and next thing I know, exchange stories with Clayton. I’m so sorry, Clayton Stanford. And next thing I know, I’m working with Clayton Stanford. It was great. I mean, Lord knows I look forward to going to work every day. And the stories he had, wonderful stories. I always liked the ones thing he used to always say, I can work with a yellow dog. I can work with anybody. He could work with anybody. He could work with a yellow dog. He was just a good guy. He was a good guy. Like I said, the stories we learned, some of them I got to keep to myself. [laughs]

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:30:29] And that’s valid. 

Robert Bard [00:30:30] Because you’re recording this.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:30:35] You went to Terry Lumber one time and somebody said something to you and you were telling a story earlier about hand saws.

Robert Bard [00:30:46] Oh, yeah, yeah. Terry Montaquila told me. He said, bob, why don’t you apply for a job with the national park? He said, they were just in here and they bought 40 handsaws. He said, I don’t know about you, but seems to me that you need a man behind each and every one of them. Okay, So I looked into it and sure enough, I got hired. And my-

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:31:21] What year was that?

Robert Bard [00:31:22] That was ’79. 1979. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:31:25] And the position you were hired into? 

Robert Bard [00:31:30] Carpenter. And I don’t know, back then, outside of maintenance, I never encountered interpretive rangers. I obviously ran into law enforcement rangers, but interpretive rangers, I don’t know if you guys even existed back then, But yeah, carpenter. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:01] So where were you living when you were hired in the national park?

Robert Bard [00:32:04] Peninsula.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:06] That had to be interesting to be a resident of the Peninsula as you’re working for the park service.

Robert Bard [00:32:13] I know, I know. Thank God I didn’t have to wear a uniform back then. Back then, you show up in civilian clothes so you know, I kind of, like, incognito. Didn’t make a big deal out of it and just went to work.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:32] What were you doing for the Park Service as a carpenter in 1979?

Robert Bard [00:32:36] Spending money. [laughs]

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:39] Okay.

Robert Bard [00:32:40] Back in 1979, that was the big goal of the national park. Spend money. Okay? I don’t know what their budget was, but let’s just say if it was a million dollars, spend it all. If you only spend 900,000 of your $1 million, next year, we’re only going to give you $900,000. So, you know. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:33:08] Elaborate on how you spent them, how this money got spent.

Robert Bard [00:33:13] Well, the park bought a road grader, though the national recreation area was not authorized to take care of any roads. But road graters are expensive, and spend, spend, spend. It was all spend, spend, spend. At one point, I was involved in a scandal, okay? That’s all I can say. And I recognized it then and wasn’t real happy about it. And eventually, after working for the park for one year, these people aren’t right. These people aren’t right. And I got out, and the rest is history. But no, they- We remodeled houses. You know, the story icon. The park comes in, we buy your house out. Next thing you know, we’re putting a park employee in your house. That happened all the- all the time.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:34:20] And I know that was the story with Birdsell. I didn’t realize that were others.

Robert Bard [00:34:24] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people, which it doesn’t- it doesn’t not make sense. Okay? You’re gonna stir the pot and make a lot of animosity with people. Anyway. Yeah, a lot of people. Without assassinating the guy. Birdsell was the worst thing that ever happened to the Cuyahoga Valley. The way he came in, the way he ran his show, the policies that he put out there. He could have been more diplomatic, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t that kind of a fella. The only thing good I have to say about Birdsell was he mentioned one time, he said, you know, if I ever catch any of my employees throwing a cigarette on the ground, you’re fired. What a wonderful idea. Yeah. You work in a national park, of course, you know, keep the cigarette butts where they’re supposed to be. Don’t throw it on the ground. But there was so much waste. There was so much waste. And I can’t tell you all the places I worked on, but all these places I worked on. A year after I worked for the park, all these houses were tore down. Like I said, it was all about spending money. It was all about spending money. We put a new roof on a house six, eight months later. It’s like, where is it? Where’s the house I worked on? It’s like bulldoze, bulldoze. They- at one point, you could buy a park house. There was a small period of time where, okay, this house is up for bid. You can. Highest bid gets it. If you by chance bidded on the job, you could bid less money. But if you cleaned up the job site, if you cleaned up the home site, walked away. Good grief. You could pick up a house for like $50 and back then, Hunker bought a lot of them. Imagine that. I don’t know who told him, but then there was a bunch of houses. Hook Cassidy, he was another colorful person that lived in the Peninsula. He bought quite a few houses, and they did that. Then all of a sudden, that went away, which was really.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:37:16] You could buy the right to demolish the house or just buy the house.

Robert Bard [00:37:19] You could buy the house. Yeah, you could buy the house. And if you agreed to, like, reclaim the land, didn’t make any difference how much money you bidded, you got it. Because Uncle Sam didn’t want, like, deal with it.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:37:34] So if you wanted, like, you could go in and strip everything usable out of it. And for $50. 

Robert Bard [00:37:40] No, you had to, like, take the whole house. Yeah, yeah, [crosstalk] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the whole house. Yeah, yeah. There was one house in particular. Oh, I always had my eyes set on. It was. I found out later it was in Boston. And park bulldozed it. They didn’t even, like, put it up. It was the butcher shop. And in the back of the butcher shop, the back was the butcher shop. In the front was the post office. And it’s like the park tore down.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:38:14] Where was this?

Robert Bard [00:38:16] It would have been approximately right in the middle of the intersection of Riverview and Boston Mills Road. You know how the road used to take a big curve right there? It was right on the southeast curve. Oh, it was a beautiful little house. Goofy looking, but, you know, I could have moved it. I could have moved it. And that’s what I wanted to do. But they bulldozed it. You know, there was a big barn. Speaking of bulldozing things, There was a big barn in Boston, right, The overflow parking lot. There was a big red barn. It sat right there. Okay. And somebody making decisions said, well, we’re the national recreation area. We’re not in the business of restoring barns. And they tore it down. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. It needed like, every barn needs minor, like, repairs and maintenance, but somebody to say, well, we’re not gonna, like, fix up that barn. And it’s like, yeah, then wouldn’t you know, years later, the Lindley barn. I work on that job. I do that job. It’s like, we don’t repair barns. You had a chance to, like, have this wonderful barn, and you bulldozed it. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:39:43] Wow. So what else do you remember about that time period of the late ’70s, early ’80s, when the park was being established?

Robert Bard [00:39:50] Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah, right. I remember as far as being a resident of Peninsula, we had two police cars and there was always one policeman on duty. So if the cop is going to Richfield, up 303, the speed limit going south on Akron Peninsula Road or East Hudson was reasonable and proper. How’s that? It was just the way it was. There wasn’t any crime, so to speak, in Peninsula. And then all of a sudden, I’m guessing here, 10 or 12. All of a sudden, 10 or 12 Ranger cars all appeared in town at the same time. It was like the Gestapo arrived. And some of the rangers, I didn’t really get to meet too many of them, but there was a couple of them that you would not want to meet. We had a, I’m not going to use this fellow’s name, but he used to be a Peninsula police officer. Him and this one scoundrel that worked for the park. They went driving down Akron Peninsula Road, two different vehicles chasing a car with the guns out the window, shooting at this car. It’s like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, what are you doing? What are you doing? And to say the least, the police officer from Peninsula was relieved of his duties, and the national park ranger just went away. Who knows where he went? But why? I don’t know. I don’t know why they were. I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know. There was a lot of stuff like that that went on. And there was a group of us. I don’t know, they used to use the term Valley Boys. Valley Boys. And it’s like, we aren’t talking, like the Oath Keepers or- or the Proud Boys or whatever that they call these things. If you lived in the Valley, I knew who you were. I know who you are. And, you know, we’d have, like, parties once in a while, and Lord knows I don’t think there was anybody I really ran into that I disliked. How’s that? Okay, you’re here. I’m here. Everything’s okay. But, yeah, there was. People really hated the park back then. As a matter of fact, for decades, like I said, Birdsell, he was the worst thing that ever happened to the Cuyahoga Valley. And I don’t think there’s anybody that would disagree with me on this one. People terrorized the rangers. Terrorized them. Put grease on their windshield wipers, put super glue in their locks. A lot of fellows out there had slingshots, break windows. There was a place on Akron Peninsula, or on Boston Mills Road. That was where the land acquisition office- You know, somebody attacked it. Oh, they attacked it. They broke every window. The vehicles that were parked there, all the tires were flattened. The next day - that’s when I was working for the park - next day, it’s like I’m repairing all the vandalism that was done to this place. And it’s like knowing darn well, I know whom could have done this. I know who. Yeah, one of our Valley Boys did this. And making work for me, making work for me, it’s like, oh, God.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:44:12] Well, job security.

Robert Bard [00:44:13] I guess so. But back behind this place was a place called Hattenback. Hattenback. When the park would come in and buy your house, they would look for anything valuable, anything valuable that’s still there that you didn’t take with you. They put it in Hattenback. Couple times I’d go up there. It’s like, you got to be kidding me. It was like a little warehouse of used house parts.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:44:48] I have heard stories.

Robert Bard [00:44:50] Right, right. Probably everything you heard is absolutely true. And again, I don’t want to repeat anybody’s names.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:44:58] Right. So where- Where did the materials in this Hattenback go to?

Robert Bard [00:45:04] Hmm? I’m sorry, ma’am. That’s a need-to-know basis. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:45:11] Okay. Yes. All right.

Robert Bard [00:45:11] Yeah, that’s a need-to-know basis. Like I told you before, I was involved with a real scandal. My work leader, my supervisor, they would take home the government dump truck and backhoe and do side jobs on the weekend, and they got away with it. There was some other people that- Again, I’m not going to repeat any names. You probably know who I’m talking about. As soon as the park house was bought, go in, take all the copper out. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:45:54] Yes.

Robert Bard [00:54] And he later became my supervisor and was like, that stuff went on. That stuff went on. And, you know, I’m sorry, I just- That’s not the way I operate. And. But who do you go to? Who do you go to, to tell Birdsell. Please, please. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:46:17] So did you have- So you’re living in Peninsula did you have friends or family who sold their homes or businesses to the NPS or had their homes or businesses condemned by the NPS?

Robert Bard [00:46:29] Oh, yeah, yeah. Not family. Not family, though. I didn’t have- Even though my grandpa’s buried down Peninsula. My great grandpa. No, I didn’t have any immediate family.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:46:40] Who was your great grandpa?

Robert Bard [00:46:42] Daniel Bard. Yeah, he’s down in Peninsula Cemetery.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:46:47] Cemetery, yeah.

Robert Bard [00:46:48] Yeah. But, yeah, there was a lot of cases out there of people that tried to not want to sell their house, and they were always threatened with will condemn your house, then you get less money for it. I mean, when I heard stories like that, it didn’t register like the park was, like, being that way. And again, again, this just adds to the love that people felt for the park. I knew one fella, he. He lived on Boston Mills Road. Just matter of fact, he was a neighbor of Doug Pollard and Mike James. He had his lawyer draw up a document and took it to the park, and they signed off on it. He got paid for his house. He could put an addition on his house, and he could do anything he wanted for as long as him and his wife were alive. And it was all legal. It was all legal. But for the most part, then I’m sure you’ve heard about the fellow sold his house to the park, and he owned the land across the street, bought his house, moved it across the street, and the park had to buy it a second time. I know, I know. That’s the kind of. That’s the kind of stuff that went on. That’s the stuff that went on. It’s like, God believable, you know? There was one builder, he knew the park was coming, and, oh, boy, did he, like, build himself a fancy house because he knew the park had to buy it. So all this extra material that he’d saved from working, he had the best looking house. I don’t know what the fella’s name was. He lived on Riverview Road near CMA. Was the CMA now? Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell you the toilet paper story at the temporary CMA one time? And who knows who did it, but somebody ordered a truckload of toilet paper. Yeah, we’re gonna need this. We’re gonna need this. And this big, huge semi pulled in full of toilet paper. We had, like a long semi. You wanted a truckload of toilet paper. Well, this is a truck full of toilet paper. And everybody, the plumber, the electrician, the carpenters, we all had to, like, put it away. We had a semi load of toilet paper, for God’s sake. What are we going to do with all this stuff? They put it up in the attic over the temporary CMA. And little did they know, the roof leaked. [laughs]

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:49:50] Oooooooooooh!

Robert Bard [00:49:52] Thank God I didn’t have to like help with the cleaning of the toilet paper. But yeah, that went on. Yeah, it was just like, you know, one thing after another. It’s like, wow, these people are. This is the way they are. This is the way they are. YACC? What is it? Youth Action Conservation Corps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that went on. That was actually for young kids. I say young kids, high school age. That was probably a big deal. That was a big deal. And they worked on the toboggan shoots, tore out the old ones, built a brand new set of new shoots and then decided, we can’t do this. They tore them down the second time.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:50:48] You know, that was in the late ’70s, early ’80s.

Robert Bard [00:50:52] That was in, like, yes, I think ’77, ’78. Yeah. By the time I worked there in ’79, the toboggan chutes were gone. Tore down the new ones, the new toboggan chutes.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:51:06] Well, wasn’t- It wasn’t the winter of ’77, ’78, the really cold.

Robert Bard [00:51:10] Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So I don’t know. Yeah, it was a- They also had another great plan over VK. They started building bird feeders with a 4x4 post and you know, bird feeders. And then somebody finally came along and said, you know, in the national parks we don’t feed birds. So here’s. I don’t know how they had probably 50, 50, 60 bird feeders. They looked really nice, you know, all painted up, really look good. But we don’t feed birds in the national park. I don’t know, I don’t know where the sense of direction who was like calling the shots, going, do this, do that. I don’t know. You know, they didn’t know what they were doing. And they were telling people that, okay, you know, do what you told us.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:52:09] So you came to work for the Park Service in ’79, you worked for a year and then you’re like, ummm no. 

Robert Bard [00:52:17] Yeah, right. I got hired. Yeah, I got hired. The hitch I did was you can work 12 months in a 24-month period. Okay. So I probably could have gone, worked six months, got laid off, come back. But they told me, as long as you’re here, stick around, you know, work a year. And a fella that I sometimes when I was self employed and I got in a job that was like, I need help. I had a fella that live on the same street, we’d help each other. If he needed help from me, I’d help him. Vice versa. He ended up replacing me. He’s Tim Gallagher and he’s. Yeah, he worked for the park for I think about a year and a half and then moved on to another park site. Anyway, so. Anyway, trying to think what else I can tell you here.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:53:29] So you worked for the Park Service for a year?

Robert Bard [00:53:32] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:53:33] Then you went back to being self employed?

Robert Bard [00:53:36] Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:53:37] How did the Park Service. What? Tell me about how you came back to work for the Park Service.

Robert Bard [00:53:44] I was working at Terry’s and, I don’t know, me and the family had a little dispute. I was working six days a week. I don’t need to work six days a week. You know, I can. I don’t mind.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:54:00] Can you say the family? Your personal family?

Robert Bard [00:54:01] No, no, no. The Lahoskeys, the. And I don’t know, you know, while you every week have a two day weekend. I’m got a one day weekend. A holiday would roll around. It’s like, oh, boy, look at this. I have two days off in a row. It’s like, you know, I get tired of that. Get tired of that.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:54:24] So you were working for Lahoskys at the lumber mill?

Robert Bard [00:54:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:54:28] After the Park Service?

Robert Bard [00:54:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked at Terry’s when they were in Boston and then they relocated to Peninsula. Yeah, it was a good job, but it was time to move on. And the wife says, oh, why don’t you quit? Go ahead and quit. We have enough money here. I’ll support your ass. Excuse me. I’ll support you for a while, but. Sorry, sorry. Tried real hard not to say anything bad, but anyway. And then eventually, I don’t know who it was, but. Why don’t you reapply for a job at the park as a seasonal?

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:55:15] So what year is this?

Robert Bard [00:55:16] That would have been ’80.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:55:18] 1980.

Robert Bard [00:55:20] Yeah, 1980. No, no, no, no. Excuse me, Excuse me. No, that would have been like 2001. The first job I did, we built the Rockside Road train station.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:55:35] So you came back with special projects?

Robert Bard [00:55:37] It wasn’t special projects there. We were all seasonals.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:55:40] Okay.

Robert Bard [00:55:40] Yeah, we were all seasonal. We built the Rockside Road train station and then the one right here. Hillside. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:55:48] Hillside? 

Robert Bard [00:55:48] Yeah, yeah, we did both those. Did the timber framing. We had so many fellows at Al Laser. Remember Al? Me and Al, we did all the timber framing and everybody else followed us up and did all the other stuff. So. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:56:07] So how long- So you work seasonally that year?

Robert Bard [00:56:12] Yeah. And the following Year. That particular year, somebody. And I won’t repeat their name, but they made a major mistake with the budget and didn’t realize we don’t have any money. I mean, here the crew is made up of all Level 9 Carpenters. And, you know, like, Lord knows, you know, you got to have some laborers. A couple fives, a couple sevens. We were all nines.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:56:41] Oh, my.

Robert Bard [00:56:42] And they only had enough money, I think it was, for, like, 19 weeks. To qualify for unemployment, you have to be able to work 20 weeks. The one assistant superintendent there, Bill Carroll? 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:57:03] Bill Carroll. 

Robert Bard [00:57:03] Bill Carroll. He was able to take my sick time, my annual leave time, because I didn’t use any of it. I showed up to work, and he gave me that extra week. So I qualified. I qualified and drew unemployment. The next year, I reapplied for the carpenter position and didn’t get it. And it’s like, I don’t know what’s going on here. And somebody was smart enough to tell me, Bob, you got to apply for everything. Yeah, you’re a 9 carpenter, but you need to apply for the 9 position, the 7 position, and the 5 position. So the following year I did that, and Lord knows I qualified for the five. No, I did that for, like, I worked with Gary Rose and Larry Stahl and Kenny Bowman over a period of like, maybe three years.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:58:09] So what projects were you doing with them?

Robert Bard [00:58:12] A lot of roofs. A lot of roofs. Yeah, yeah. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:58:13] Yeah, I remember Larry being a roofing person.

Robert Bard [00:58:15] Yeah. We did a lot of roofs. Window replacements. Yeah, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But then eventually I got picked up. Billy Davis, you know, he’s like, going, what do you mean, you’re a five, you’re not a five. He was able to, like, convince somebody to raise my score up. This went on for years. After years, there was a certain person that graded you. And so I did my resume, and the next year. Okay. Need to pick it up a notch. So, you know, worked on it. Next year, I get the same score. Next year I worked on my resume and proved it, and he gave me the same score. Jack Hensley, I think it was his name. Yeah. He already evaluated me once, and he didn’t want to, like, do the work over again, so he just went back to the old paperwork. ’92. ’92. ’92. I was like, come on. So anyway, Billy Davis helped, but I got hired by Kenny Pikes. And then I was on special projects.

Rebecca Jones Macko [00:59:46] When they said, what were you doing in special projects? What kind of things were you working on?

Robert Bard [00:59:50] Well, we worked on the Gleason house. That was the first place I worked On. Wow. Quite a few houses. We worked on the Visitor Center, or not the Visitor Center, but the Volunteer Center. The little red barn that was right next to it that was getting ready to fall on the street. You know, Alex and I, we worked on that.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:00:17] And that’s the one where they found all the money.

Robert Bard [01:00:21] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:00:22] Who was the. Who found that?

Robert Bard [01:00:24] Oh, well, that was Billy Davis. Billy Davis. This barn garage, it was just like a small barn with an addition on it. An addition on the addition, an addition on the addition. It was just like a hodgepodge of a building. And there was one box on the wall that Billy Davis told, I think, of his name. Okay. Terry Thompson. Get that off the wall. And the next day, Billy comes down and the box is still on the wall. Terry, it went in one ear and out the other. I’m not taking that box off the wall. Well, finally, Billy got so mad at him, he took the crowbar, he took it off the wall. And all this money. All this money, all this money is like. I don’t know, whatever became of it. Octavius was working as a dispatcher then. You know, he was telling me, like. You know. You know, they had to count it all the. The process of- process of it. You know, Billy being Billy, it all went to the ranger station. [01:01:39] You know, he didn’t, like, stick any of it in his pocket, but the other fellows wanted to, like. Let’s not tell anybody. Yeah. The money barn, they call that. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:01:54] And it did go. And the park did research and found the descendants.

Robert Bard [01:01:58] That’s good.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:01:59] And it went to the descendants. The thing was that some of that money was the 1920s, and it was silver certificates.

Robert Bard [01:02:05] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:02:05] So it’s not face value. It’s on war.

Robert Bard [01:02:09] Yeah. Yeah, probably. And there was an awful lot. There was. The mice chewed it up. Oh, well. But they stuck it in these old tobacco tins. Yeah, those. That was the stuff that made it. But. Yeah. 

ES How much did it amount to? 

RB I don’t know. It was 20. 20. Some plus. Thousand. Yeah, it was a- It was a substantial- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:02:35] Does it interest banks?

Robert Bard [01:02:36] Yeah. What else did I work on? I worked on the Edgar house. That’s down here on Canal Road, across the street from the fire department and police station. The farm in there. Yeah. Yeah. We worked on the Edgar House. Yeah. October. Yeah. Let’s see what else we work on, Edgar. Oh, the. The. The Kramer House. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:03:12] Which is today’s.

Robert Bard [01:03:14] Right next to the church down the valley of the. It’s a dormitory now, but right next to the church in the Valley down there. Yeah. You know, being in construction, the Kramer house was like the ugliest house in the entire Cuyahoga Valley. And Kenny Pipes sent me there to fix it up. It’s like, ah, thanks. Yeah. I mean, I could not be less proud to work on that house. But we did. So we worked on that. I- in between- in between trying to get in special projects, I know the South Ranger Station. I didn’t work on that, but Al Laser did. And I’d always drop in, like, you know, I knew a lot of these guys and once in a while drop in, like, talk with them, see how things are going. What are you working on next? Edgar House. The Gleason house took a long, long time. They had a plan, and then they changed their mind, and then they have a new plan, and then we changed our mind. It’s like, you know, people always talk like, why does it take you guys so long? Is the inside made out of gold or what? And it’s like, you know, the powers to be. I won’t use his name. I won’t use his name. But there’s a certain fellow that was in charge of maintenance at the time. And he said, well, we don’t want you to do that. I was like, we were going to, like, number the stones on the front of the house, dismantled the house, and then lay up the stones all over again. Okay, sounds like a big job. And it would have been. But what you had going on at the Gleason House was this house had a beam that ran the length of the house. And I don’t know. How old is Gleason House? 1840s? [crosstalk] Yeah. I’m not really sure. But anyway, sitting on a hillside, it didn’t sit on a foundation. They dug down. And when they hit firm clay, that was the foundation. And from one corner to the other was like 4 inches. And it’s like when we worked there, we didn’t use levels. You’d stand back with your thumb and go, little bit. And that’s the way I had to do that. But because it sat on a hillside, the hill freezing and thawing, freezing, it started pushing the center of the house away. And it was getting ready to fall down. You know, the two end gables, that was fine. You know, they weren’t going anywhere. But everything in between was like shoved out. And it’s like, ay yai yai. So we had to excavate it. Then we found out it was termite infested. At some point, when you do restoration work, you don’t know what you’re in for until you open it up and it’s like, oh, God. But they were bound and determined. We’re going to, like, save this place. So, you know, great. We had to- put in a footer in the front, and then we had to, with jacks, push the footer underneath the stone. And that was quite the endeavor. That was like a. The worst thing about that was we were actually told, like, if you. If you don’t feel safe working on this job, we’re not going to force you to do this. But all the time we’re working on this, we’re looking up because everybody’s in a sprinter position. If this thing makes any kind of noise, run, don’t stick around, run. Because the whole front could have fell on us. And finally we got to a point where even Al wasn’t sure about what we’re supposed to do. He’s like, well, doesn’t the park have an engineer? So let’s call the engineer out, and this doofus shows up with his Hush Puppies on. It’s a muddy site, and he looks at it, and next thing goes, I’ll get back with you. It’s like we never heard from him again. Never heard from him again. He was an engineer that. He knew where to put the stop sign, how many feet off the entrance. Yeah, he was a real person. But, yeah, Gleason house took a lot of work. Took a lot of work. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:08:37] When you’re telling me those stories and I’m thinking about the Frazee House, which is in an eagle- The Frazee House.

Robert Bard [01:08:43] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Don’t even tell me about that one. Yeah. Again, let’s bring in the outsiders. It’s like we had the people here in the park that could have done that job. And yeah. Do you remember when you could tour it? 

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:09:44] Yeah, I was stationed there many times.

Robert Bard [01:09:06] Okay. There you go. Yeah, it was great. And then it is what it is.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:09:13] I got Woody Howitt in there and Joe Crow and Billy Davis to take a look, and they were like, if this is a cancer patient, it’s in hospice right now.

Robert Bard [01:09:25] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:09:25] They were very concerned about the house.

Robert Bard [01:09:27] Yes.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:09:28] And the engineer came in and said, it’s fine, and now we don’t have people in it.

Robert Bard [01:09:34] Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:09:35] So this was after a private company worked on the house?

Robert Bard [01:09:39] No, it was a regional historical crew came in, and they did not know what they were doing. It’s like, my God, I could have that. I could have worked on their crew. I could have worked in their crew. Would have been easy. Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:09:59] That’s not what we’re here. So all the stuff you did in the national park, what are you most proud of accomplishing? It can’t be the windows in my office.

Robert Bard [01:10:13] What is the- well, I wouldn’t say it’s the most, but I was. I used to do the vault toilet runs. And then all of a sudden, Toby mentioned. He said, Bob, do you mind if I let Fred, old man Fred, who was 82 at the time, he’s got to be, like, 90 if he’s still alive. I hope he is. He replaced me as the vault toilet run, and my new job title was deep cleaner. Deep cleaner. Okay. It’s like, you know, what do you. What do you mean, you know, so our custodian staff, which consisted of one person to take care of everything. This place, you know, see the carpet that’s pulling away there? You know, I would, like, look for trouble, you know, like, man, you got to fix that. You know, whether I’d fix it or somebody else would fix it, doing this deep cleaning stuff. And then finally I decided, you know, the lack of supervision, you know, Toby never got out of his office, you know. You know, I’d give him, like, reports, and, like, he went in one ear and out the other. It’s like nothing ever got done. But deep cleaning. I work for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Deep cleaning, that means litter, too, don’t it? 

Rebecca Macko Jones [01:11:54] Okay. 

Robert Bard [01:11:55] We didn’t- There used to be the grounds crew over at VK. They didn’t do their job. They never did their job. I’d go down in the Brandywine Gorge and clean up all the stuff that people threw over the rail. A lot of times towards the end there, I knew where all the litter was. I knew where the litter was. I knew where all the illegal dumps were. If you ever take a walk across the street from the Visitor Center, there’s one heck of a dump right on the other side of Riverview Road. We started cleaning that place up. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:12:38] Across from the parking lot? 

Robert Bard [01:12:40] Yeah. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:12:41] Yeah. There’s a bottle dump over there.

Robert Bard [01:12:43] Yes, well, it’s a dump. It’s a plain dump. Yeah, yeah. And there’s a few places that, archaeologically speaking, it’s like I actually tried to cover it up with dirt. There’s a few, which is perfect. I mean, this is what a dump site looks like. You know, you throw it out the window, and you throw dirt on it, and there’s your dump. But, yeah, I think that it was fun. It was fun cleaning up the park. Down by the covered bridge, there was an illegal dump, and I’d go down there, and that’s where I’d do my lunch. After I did my lunch, work on it a little bit. And one day I go and somebody cleaned it up without my help. And it’s like, I’ll be damned, here the ranger showed up and said, yeah, there’s an illegal dump here. I went and looked. It’s not illegal. They put it right there so that the Park Service would, like, load it into their trucks and get rid of it. Somebody actually cleaned a site up and did a nice job. Yeah. But, yeah, deep cleaning the Cuyahoga Valley, I think I would say that was a good high spot for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Low spot was working on houses that they got bulldozed within a year. Never understand that. Well, I do understand it. It was about spending money. Spending money. Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:14:19] What era was this? Was this-

Robert Bard [01:14:21] This was in ’79. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the houses were gone in ’80. I remember the dispatcher, we built them a radio room on 303 and bulletproof glass and all - you know, they gotta protect themselves - bulletproof glass. And that one got bulldozed down, too. That was right next to Juravat. The only house I worked on back in ’79 that’s still there is Homestead. Homestead. That’s the only house that I worked on. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:15:14] Wow. So you’ve been sharing funny stories. Any other funny stories? Like, you know, I don’t know, the time somebody had said something on the radio or.

Robert Bard [01:15:25] We didn’t have radios.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:15:29] Okay. Or the time- I don’t know.

Robert Bard [01:15:34] Oh, here’s an interesting story. In ’79, I was on the Peninsula’s fire department. You know, I was a fireman, EMT, and there was only 13 of us, and we were all volunteers. So people work jobs, right? So this guy would go to Woodridge to teach, or this guy would go to work in Twinsburg at a factory. So during the middle of the week, during the day, I was the fire department. I was the fire department. So what you do when you don’t have enough people is immediately get on the radio. And our dispatcher was up in Richfield. You know, I would request mutual aid. I need help. I’m the only guy here. We don’t have anybody. Okay. And.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:16:42] You had arsons. You had a lot of arsons?

Robert Bard [01:16:46] Yeah, we did have arson. I’ll tell you about that guy in a minute. But, no, we had one guy. They always say, if you’re gonna, like, investigate an arson, number one person that you might want to investigate is a fireman. They like to keep busy. But anyway, I always remember one time the calls were, like, relatively light. Thank God I’m working for the park. Calls are light. Matter of fact, we had a couple episodes where people got hurt at work. And I’m helping with these people, and I don’t. I don’t really remember if a ranger showed up because we didn’t have radios. I don’t know how we did it, but I ended up getting on the phone, mutual aid. I didn’t leave work, but. But we had a fire, and I’m at work, work for the park. I respond to the call. I mean, you know, what the heck? The national park Peninsula. Of course they’re not going to say a word. I mean, if you want to dock me money, go for it. But I’m responding. I’m on the fire department. I got told, like, you’re not allowed to respond. And it’s like, really just one more feather in their hat, like, why? Why? The park doesn’t give a darn. And it turned out to be the way it was. But later, after I was done working for the park, responded to a call at headquarters, National Parks headquarters, and Birdsell had a heart attack. So we transported him to the hospital, you know, mouth to mouth. Kept pushing him, and, you know, he. We got him to the hospital, and they said, boys, you did a nice job. The fact that he was dead before he even left the headquarters building, he was gone. But you were able to keep oxygen in him. So he did the best he could. I was like, okay. But I often think about that. The national park. 

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:19:05] And he’s buried next to Hunker. 

Robert Bard [01:19:08] Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:19:11] You started to say something about arson.

Robert Bard [01:19:13] Oh, yeah, yeah. There was a fellow. I’m just going to use his nickname, okay. We used to refer to him as Pauly Sweetcorn. Pauly Sweetcorn. He lived down by Szalay’s, so he got the nickname Pauly Sweetcorn. He used to start fires, and guess who was the first one to respond to the fire?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:19:42] Pauly Sweetcorn.

Robert Bard [01:19:43] Pauly Sweetcorn. And then, you know, I think there was somebody out there that had suspicions that he was the one. But then eventually, he got a job with another national park, and there was no fires here anymore. But all of a sudden, whatever national park he went to, they had a little situation with fires happening, and that’s where they finally caught up with him.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:20:11] Oh, my.

Robert Bard [01:20:12] Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:20:14] My, my, my.

Robert Bard [01:20:16] But then I don’t know whom did it, but a lot of the national park houses, they got burned. Some people think the government did it. Some people think. Yeah, just pranks. Pranks. Oh, yeah. There was quite a few fires, but

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:20:41] You’ve touched on a lot of stuff.

Robert Bard [01:20:44] I know. I guess.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:20:45] And I. We may want to. We’re coming up on. It’s a quarter till noon. Do we want to reschedule and finish off some last minute or-

Erich Schnack [01:20:57] Theron actually canceled on Arrye and I, so if we want, we could stick around if you have the time.

Robert Bard [01:21:04] Yeah, I got the time. Yeah. Yeah. It’s up to you guys.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:21:08] So you’ve touched on some of the stuff that were challenges. What were other challenges? Working for the Park Service.

Erich Schnack [01:21:16] Working with people like me.

Robert Bard [01:21:18] Yeah, well, like I said, one of the joys of working for the park is the people I work with. And, you know, there’s a lot of people that, I’m happy they’re gone. I’m happy they’re gone. And it’s like, how in the heck did you. You know, there was always a saying, if you want to get a promotion in the national park, mess up somehow or other, if you messed up, it didn’t make any difference. You got promoted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, back in ’79, there was a fella, Carlos Mackey. Do you remember him? Did you ever get to meet him?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:22:07] I never got to meet him, but I’ve heard the name before.

Robert Bard [01:22:09] Yeah, yeah, he was a wonderful fella. He was the permanent carpenter and from Finland. Had a very hot temper. I was always on the good side of him, but I remember one time there was a person here that at first he worked with the law enforcement rangers and later became an interpretive ranger. I don’t even know what the guy’s name was, but I always remember Carlos got mad at him once and threw a hammer at him with the intent. He missed, but he didn’t mean to miss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carlos was a good fellow.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:22:55] So what have you liked best about the Park Service? Working for the Park Service,

Robert Bard [01:23:05] I guess I remember what it was like before they showed up. You know, sometimes it’s important to remember things the way they used to be. It was. They meant well. They meant well. But even today, I’m a little disappointed with the direction that the national park has gone. I can appreciate the saying that the people are loving the place to death, and they are, but I’m not a big fan of the Conservancy. Actually, I think they run the show more than the national park runs their own business. That’s my opinion. But. Homestead and Juravat, I think along with yourself, interpretive rangers, you’re very important people to have in there, you gotta have the law enforcement. But Homestead and Juravat, what those people do is very, very important to me. And the hiking trails and the ice cream shops, we can do without. We can do without. I’m a little disappointed with the direction that the park has decided to go, but it’s like. Like a train. You don’t stop them. I think one of the best things that took place in the park was the towpath. Developing the towpath. The towpath was always there.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:24:49] Yes.

Robert Bard [01:24:50] Yeah. Heck, we used to walk that all the time. And, you know, you tie your shoelaces and don’t touch your pants because you’re walking through poison ivy. But it was a nice trail. Yeah. But the train. Not a very good fan. Not a very good fan. I mean, maybe some of it had to do with- I used to live right next to the railroad tracks. At one time, the Visitor Center came up for sale, and the wife wanted to know if I wanted to, like, buy the place and move there. I was like, why. Why would I want to, like, move from a place next to the tracks to a place downstream next to the tracks? Why would you want to do that?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:25:38] So anyway, so in reference to what was Zelinski Corps.

Robert Bard [01:25:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:25:48] So what do you miss the most about the way Cuyahoga Valley was in the past?

Robert Bard [01:25:56] Hmm. Well, used to be just a big open preserve. Everything was, you know, fine. The valley never needed Uncle Sam to spend millions of dollars on. Was getting along just fine. And if I can say this, too, ever since the beginning of the park, the state of Ohio should have done all this. Okay, this. I was always under the impression that, why are you going to let people in Washington, D.C. run the Cuyahoga Valley? The state of Ohio should. New York was able to do it with the Adirondacks, Letchworth. But people in Columbus, you know the rest of the story. Let the feds do it. Even in Akron, the sewage treatment plant, there was a mentality in Akron. Like, we got a national park downstream. Let’s let the feds do it. It’s up. Always let the feds do it. It’s like, yeah, but no. I used to, like, walk everywhere I could. Okay. And if it meant, like, parking my car or truck someplace and then taking a hike, I would. A good friend of mine was the chief of police in Richfield and Peninsula, Keith Morgan. You know Russ Morgan, right? Works at Terry’s, his brother, and one time he’s listening to the radio and he says, Bob, they ran your plate. They ran your plates. I said, okay, fine. They do it all the time. Yeah, but they- the rangers are calling to find out who has this vehicle. I probably rode up more than 18, 20 times as a suspicious person. Now, Keith would say, listen, I’m in the law enforcement. If you are a suspicious person that many times, this is what we do. We park and wait for you to come back to your truck or your car and ask, what are you doing? But the rangers never did that. So if I ever went to the comm center sometimes, I always wished I would have done it when I worked there. I would love to see my record. Suspicious person, suspicious person. What the heck are you up to? Maybe.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:29:00] So what changes in the park or what changes in the valley do you appreciate the most?

Robert Bard [01:29:08] Well, it’s not. I know. One I don’t appreciate is watching the golf course go away. I’m not much of a golfer. It’s a fun game for some people. Some people really like it a lot. But losing that golf course. This used to be a recreation area, right. People, like, recreate with a golf club and golf balls. And that’s not the only golf course at the end of the Valley. There’s two more that opened up to development. And then even Summit County, you know, acquired a golf course. Whatever their claim to fame is, it was kind of sad to see that go. And, you know, living in Peninsula, I used to have a Doberman pincher. Just- It was full of vinegar. And, you know, I used to, like, let him run on the driving range, the little par three course. Used to let my dog run there. And he used to like to run down and chase down groundhogs. And the Yesbergers were more than happy to, like, let me walk their golf course with my dog. That was fun. Now it’s posted, you know, even I can’t go there anyway. Yeah, just getting out and walking. I’m not a. I shouldn’t say this, but I’m not a real big fan of all the trail systems that we have in the park. There’s a couple places that you like not put a trail through here. Can you, like, leap this seat section wild for a while? That’s really hard thing to do. Somebody constantly wants to build a new trail. And then you got the bicycle off the road bicycle people and the horse people and say, I don’t know. Like I said, they’re loving it to death.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:31:24] Yes, they are. So this past a Sunday, we had a thousand people through the Visitor Center on Father’s Day.

Robert Bard [01:31:34] Okay.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:31:35] Memorial Day weekend. I think all three days, we had more than a thousand. So I totally understand what you’re saying.

Robert Bard [01:31:42] Yeah. You know, there was a time when. God, we had how many visitor centers? Hunt was- Hunt Farm was a visitor center. This place was a visitor center. Happy Days was a visitor center.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:31:56] Boston.

Robert Bard [01:31:56] Boston. Yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they have to have one visitor center, and we’re going to put it next to the railroad tracks. It’s like, oh, come on. What kind of like, who thinks of this stuff? Who thinks of it? It’s almost like a comedy.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:32:16] Well, we’re safe now because the train’s not coming that far north.

Robert Bard [01:32:18] I know, I know. Thank God, huh? You know what else I heard about the train? They want to run it into Cleveland again. Again. They talked about doing that 20 years ago, and now they’re talking about, would it be nice? No. Yeah. No, it’s a nice place. I just. I appreciate the valley for the wild aspect of it. Okay. I guess that sums it up. Yeah. Even on the weekend, it’s such a challenge to go someplace where you can enjoy the place without a crowd. I’m happy about that. The pedestrian bridge down in Boston, because they’re finally going to, like, keep somebody from dying. Okay. Same with the. The waterfalls, having that parking lot on a dangerous curve and having children cross the street. That was an accident waiting to happen. And sometimes it just takes the park so stinking long to rectify things, you know? You know that’s right.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:33:43] Yes. We have to talk and we have to decide and we have to coordinate, and then. Yes.

Robert Bard [01:33:48] You know the one I’m really surprised by? It’s right here. How many. The canal lock. How many bicycles has anybody ever, like-

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:34:02] In, I’ve been here 24 years.

Robert Bard [01:34:03] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:34:04] And in 24 years, I am not aware of anyone going into lock.

Robert Bard [01:34:08] That’s good.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:34:09] But the year before I got here, there was an elderly lady that a bus came through from a senior center getting people off the bus. She was in a wheelchair. She started wheeling this way, and they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And she just kept. She’s like, oh, yeah. And she just kept going and went right into the canal. She was. You know, she got wet, got gunky up, but she was fine. But that’s the only one I know of.

Robert Bard [01:34:45] We had a rescue call once at the ledges. The rangers couldn’t get this guy out, so they called the fire department. So we show up. And I always remember, this was after. After I did my year of service. I can always remember my fire chief and the ranger arguing with each other. I’m in charge here. I’m in charge here. And my fire chief goes, not anymore, you called us. Not anymore. You called us here. There was a fellow that was climbing around the rocks and he got stuck in a crevice and every time he’d move or wiggle, he kept going deeper and deeper. And this guy was like starting to like panic. You know, you’d panic too if you were like stuck in the rocks. We’re not going to take a jackhammer and get you out. So we ended up- we up ended. We poured motor oil on him. Motor oil. And then put a rope around his arms and yanked and pulled and yanked and pulled. We finally got him out. But yeah, that was fun. A lot of times when I go up to the Ledges, I can’t find the spot. I can’t find the spot. I’ve walked around. I know I’ll find it someday, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that was fun.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:36:19] She put you and Blaine in a room together and let y’ all stage war stories.

Robert Bard [01:36:24] He was a good man. He was a good man.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:36:26] He is a good man.

Robert Bard [01:36:27] Yes, he is. I’m glad he’s still with us. Hey, another fire related incident with the park. The Stanford House, the one up on the top of the hill. I don’t know what they call that. There’s three Stanford houses.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:36:44] Yes, the one that’s up- Yes.

Robert Bard [01:36:46] Yeah. It used to be the caretakers of the youth hostel stayed there. That barn burned down. I don’t know how the barn caught on fire. We responded, we put out the fire and here comes the park going, well, go ahead and let it burn. We’re not going to like fix it up, so just, you know, so we stayed there all night, had a barn fire. And that barn was made out of the local wood. And you would not believe the- the timbers that were all black walnut. And it’s like, ah, God. You know, any, any normal person in the world would like salvage it and. Black walnut, for God’s sakes. Yeah, we burned it.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:37:47] The Knapp House.

Robert Bard [01:37:48] Oh. Across the street. That’s a- Yeah. Don’t get me started on that one. Yeah, yeah. Somebody told me this one is the oldest houses around.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:38:02] Although there is this half of- this half of Canal Exploration Center may predate the canal.

Robert Bard [01:38:14] Okay.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:38:14] Which will make it older.

Robert Bard [01:38:16] Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:38:16] Archaeology suggests but cannot prove that.

Robert Bard [01:38:20] Okay, so are you familiar with the house that it’s gone. The park tore it down too it was old. Just down here on Hillside Road. Beautiful, beautiful old, old house. Matter of fact, I don’t know this to be true, but somebody told me it used to be a brothel. And Lord knows when they went to do work on the place. And condoms everywhere. You know what, Whatever. Yeah. Yes. No, it’s just the way it was, you know? But yeah, beautiful house. Beautiful house. And it went down.

Erich Schnack [01:39:01] You know, we did have an oral history participant who said that he mowed the grass around that area.

Robert Bard [01:39:07] Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:39:07] He said his parents said, okay, never go inside there, but you can mow the grass and get paid for doing that.

Robert Bard [01:39:15] Well, that makes sense. That makes sense. I’ll be darned. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:39:23] So anything else you’d like to share?

Robert Bard [01:39:29] I had it explained to me one time, but it doesn’t make sense to me where Terry Lumber is today. That used to be Summit County Engineers’ location. That’s where all the limestone, everything, you know, that was it. That was it. And there’s a steel building just behind Terry’s that I think Peninsula Road department’s working out of now. Yes, that was all Summit County, limestone everywhere. There was your national park parking lot. The park didn’t acquire it. Instead they built that Lock 29 parking lot across the street. That was too small, so now they had to build another parking lot. Just one thing after another. Poor planning. Absolutely poor planning. I mean, I’ll refrain from using the word morons, but morons. Okay. Yeah, there was a lot of that stuff going on. What else happened? Oh, there was Blackacre, you know, used to be the Pittenger’s place. And my wife actually worked there for a while, while she was going to school and. Wonderful place that all. Both sides of Wetmore Road was mowed. They had thoroughbred horses there. It’s beautiful. Beautiful. It would have rivaled Quick Road as far as the open space there. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. But the park decided to let it go back. So it went. What was I going to tell you about Wetmore?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:41:42] There was the house there at the top of the hill on the Wetmore Trail.

Robert Bard [01:41:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a fine house. That was a fine house. The girls that used to work on the farm lived there. And there was one time Larry Csonka, football player from Stow. Okay. Played for Miami Dolphins. His sister approached the park with a plan to board horses there. And I don’t know what the paperwork said, but she never came through on what she told the park. They had a contract and evidently somebody from the park didn’t read the contract very well. Because all she wanted was the house for a rental property. That was sad. That was sad. Because it would have had good merit. Would have had good merit.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:42:40] Got a horse rental.

Robert Bard [01:42:41] I know you got the horse council and all that. Could have been nice. Could have been, would have, could have. But.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:42:53] You never worked at Jaite Mill or any of those.

Robert Bard [01:42:55] No, no. I knew people that did work there, but. No, no, no, no. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:01] And earlier today in discussion with Arrye and Erich, they didn’t remember the story about the Horseshoe Palladium.

Robert Bard [01:43:09] About the who?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:10] Horseshoe Palladium. If you remember, originally, they- they sold Jaite Mill.

Robert Bard [01:43:14] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:16] Make it into a horseshoe.

Robert Bard [01:43:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:19] And a shopping center and.

Robert Bard [01:43:21] Yeah. Well, you heard about Mickey Dover, right?

Erich Schnack [01:43:27] Dover Lake.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:28] Dover Lake.

Robert Bard [01:43:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s own Brandywine’s ski run. I’m not sure what year this was, but all of a sudden he- he took a bulldoze- took bulldozers and like leveled the hill. You can see it off Highland Road. It’s all the- He leveled all that, and he was going to build condos, you know. You know, I guess that was a big thing, condos and next to it-

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:43:59] The black soil that Josh has been trying to replant for years.

Robert Bard [01:44:05] Oh, yeah, yeah. 

Erich Schnack [01:44:06] No kidding.

Robert Bard [01:44:07] Yeah. He showed me. He showed me one time. I’m cleaning homestead up there and saying, what the heck’s this guy saving these cans for? And so finally I. What is this about? And he said, oh, that’s where we went up there and see how they’re all crushed. We couldn’t drive them into the ground. They took all the topsoil off and what’s left is just like rock hard. They ended up bringing in a heavy piece of equipment with prongs on it and just to try to aerate the soil. They’ll never bring it back. They’ll never bring it back. But that was Mickey Dover’s doing. Yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:44:51] Were you here when they were doing the stuff with Terra Vista and-

Robert Bard [01:44:59] No, no, I was here, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. What? That used to be a sand and gravel pit up there.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:45:08] And their hopes were to make a development up there too, were they?

Robert Bard [01:45:15] I know there’s a famous Indian site up there, Big Ottawa village. I don’t go there. I don’t look for areas in the national park anymore. But then you got Hillside south park, huh? Boy, I tell you what. Who was it that worked at- Bill?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:45:50] Bill Hunter?

Robert Bard [01:45:51] Bill Hunter. Yeah. Yeah. At one time he was discussing with me that there was hopes that some of the local Indian tribes, that they were going to, like, go up there and try to restore it. I doubt that it’ll ever happen.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:46:11] We gotta get relations started with those local tribes first.

Robert Bard [01:46:14] Right, Right. Yeah, yeah. Huh.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:46:20] I think I’ve kind of come to the end of the questions that I had.

Robert Bard [01:46:23] Okay. God, if I can throw out anything here, I will. But, yeah, it was an adventure working for the park, but, yeah, it’s. I- I guess it’s going to be around for a long time, they tell me. Okay, there you go. There you go. There you go.

Erich Schnack [01:46:50] I have some extra questions.

Robert Bard [01:46:52] Sure, sure.

Erich Schnack [01:46:52] I’ve written down. When you used to work at the park, you would always tell me great stories, and one of the stories that you brought up one time was that you canoed to work.

Robert Bard [01:47:04] Oh, yeah. Is that true? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:47:06] Canoed to work where?

Robert Bard [01:47:07] Where I lived in Peninsula, Terry’s was in Boston. I’d canoe to work, you know, end of the day, one of the fellows would throw my canoe in the back of their pickup truck, give him a few dollars for gas, and he’d drop me off on his way home, you know, I wasn’t putting anybody out, but, oh, yeah, that was fun. I could float. It’d take me 40 minutes, 40 minutes to get to Terry’s. Oh, boy.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:47:40] You weren’t worried about the water quality?

Robert Bard [01:47:42] Well, I’m not swimming it. I’m canoeing it. [laughs] Yeah, I was famous- [crosstalk] I was famous at not getting my feet wet or my fingers wet.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:47:52] Karen Walters was telling about some kid in her high school that fell in the water when she graduated from high school and wound up in the hospital.

Robert Bard [01:47:58] Right. I knew a woman that got-

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:48:03] Cellulitis?

Robert Bard [01:48:04] No, I forget. She got very severely sick, but if you fall in the river, keep your mouth shut, you know. Now this one time, I’m canoeing to work, and one of the fellows I worked with said, oh, I’d like to go canoeing to work. Be at my house at this time. We’ll go. And what a remarkable thing that took place. We get down there by Stumpy Basin, and I heard a dog barking. Look over, and here’s this tree. Here’s this big tree with a dog head sticking out of it. And it’s like, you know, we stop. We stop. It’s like, you know, the dog acted like he was ferocious at first, and then he kind of calmed down. He’s inside the tree with his head stuck out.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:48:58] And he was stuck in the tree?

Robert Bard [01:49:01] Yeah, he was inside the tree here. The- the top of the tree broke down the tree was rotten, it was hollow. And we kind of surmised that he was chasing a raccoon. Raccoon run up, went down inside the tree, the hollow tree, and he went out the hole. And with this black lab hot on his heels, he got his head stuck. He couldn’t get out. He couldn’t get out. So like I said, thank God my friend was there, because me by myself, I would have played heck getting them out of there, but we took my canoe paddles and dug at the base of the tree, which was kind of punky. And eventually we could see his legs. We could see his legs. So my friend reached in, grabbed him by the legs, and I pushed this guy’s head back in the tree. And next thing you know, he said, we got him out. We got him out. Oh, he was skin and bones. He was skin and bones.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:50:04] He probably had been there for days.

Robert Bard [01:50:07] He’d been missing for 11 days. And if you’ve seen this dog, that might have been the day he was gonna die. He was in a bad way. We gave him water and just went right through him, picked him up, put him in the canoe, continue the trip to work. And as I go, shit what am I going to do? What am I going to do? You know, I don’t have a truck. I got a canoe, you know, but this guy has to go to a vet immediately. And we get there and another one of the fellows I worked with goes, hey, that’s Seymour. That’s my uncle’s dog. And here he’s been gone for 11 days. And fella lived up on Stein Road. And, you know, we- we got him back. But I’d always ask my friend Jerry, so how’s Seymour doing these days? He go, Seymour never misses a meal, but.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:51:11] Yeah, that was chase raccoons either.

Robert Bard [01:51:14] Yeah. Yeah. Was that the story?

Erich Schnack [01:51:17] Yeah, that’s the one. I was.

Robert Bard [01:51:18] There you go.

Erich Schnack [01:51:19] That one stuck out in my memory. I have a couple more here. One is, there are so many legends and folklore that are abound in the valley. Are there any stories that you were told when you were a kid that really stood out to you? The ones that were told on the playground, so forth?

Robert Bard [01:51:40] Well, we talked about the hunt club. Hmm. I have to think about that. I don’t know. No, not really. Not really. You know, I know you used to be able to hunt ducks on the river because the river belonged to the state of Ohio. Okay. What you had on the sides were the national park, but the river belonged to the state of Ohio. And we do canoe floats and hunt. There’s got little nicknames for some of the places, like Wood Duck Alley, and, you know, Goosey Bend, and, you know, you name it. But I can always remember the last duck hunt we went on. Who’s at the end of the line waiting for us but a fellow named Ernie Delfredi. He was the Summit County. He was the game warden. And he said, boys, sorry to tell you, but the party’s over. And that was the last time we got to hunt on the Cuyahoga. Yeah, that was. That was fun.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:53:06] What year was that?

Robert Bard [01:53:08] I don’t know. I don’t know.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:53:09] ’80s?

Robert Bard [01:53:10] Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, probably in the ’80s. Yeah. I don’t know. Took a long time. Matter of fact, legally speaking, if you put your canoe in under a bridge, you know, park doesn’t own the bridge. That’s legal. But if you just pulled up any place else and got out of your canoe, they could rush you for having a gun in the national park. And a couple times, there was one fella in particular. He. Rangers wrote him up, and he went before the magistrate down in Akron, and the magistrate said, kick- kicked everybody out. Don’t be bringing people in like this. I think the man had to take- He had a pee. He got out of his canoe to go on shore and take a pee, and they. They arrested him.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:54:06] Yeah. You can. You can have a gun in the park.

Robert Bard [01:54:09] Can you?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:54:10] Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:54:10] Okay.

Robert Bard [01:54:10] I don’t know.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:54:11] You can’t have it within 50 feet of a federal building.

Robert Bard [01:54:14] Okay. Okay. I don’t know those rules.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:54:16] Rules have changed.

Robert Bard [01:54:18] Okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, sure have.

Erich Schnack [01:54:24] Okay. Two more for you. The first one is back to the Salsa Lounge, the African American club.

Robert Bard [01:54:30] Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:54:31] So from what we understand of that club in that area, there was illegal alcohol sales, but there was lots of music there-

Robert Bard [01:54:40] Probably. 

Erich Schnack [01:54:41] Gambling. Do you know of, you know, any music acts or-

Robert Bard [01:54:45] No, No, I don’t know. No, no, I don’t. It was just like a- It was kind of like a destination spot. One, one, Cleveland, Akron. I mean, this place is right in the middle. You’re halfway in the middle. You’re out in the country and. No, they had a motel and a bar, and.

Erich Schnack [01:55:16] The last one I have is about your wife, actually.

Robert Bard [01:55:19] My wife?

Erich Schnack [01:55:20] Yeah.

Robert Bard [01:55:20] Okay.

Erich Schnack [01:55:21] So back when you worked at the park, you told me a story about how she lived with Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey.

Robert Bard [01:55:31] Yeah, there’s. Yeah, she went to Naropa in the first year, and that’s out in Boulder, Colorado. Okay. It’s a Buddhist- You know the name, Jack Kerouac.

Erich Schnack [01:55:47] The School for Disembodied Poetics?

Robert Bard [01:55:51] Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah. But no, she met a lot of them people. Wavy Gravy. Yes.

Erich Schnack [01:56:04] Still around.

Robert Bard [01:56:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He ran for president once, but no, Allen Ginsberg. She used to cook for Allen Ginsberg. And who’s the other guy that wrote One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

Erich Schnack [01:56:20] Ken Kesey.

Robert Bard [01:56:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Knew him and a lot of people. A lot of those people. Yeah. She was at the right place at the right time, and I met these people. I don’t think she ever met Jack Kerouac, I think. I’m not sure what year he died, but yeah, she never got of that age, but- Gary Snyder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometime or other when you’re not doing it here. Yeah. She’ll talk to my personal collection. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Erich Schnack [01:56:57] That would be fantastic.

Robert Bard [01:56:58] Yeah, sure, sure.

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:56:58] So how did the two of you meet?

Robert Bard [01:57:01] How did we meet?

Rebecca Jones Macko [01:57:03] How did the two of you get started?

Robert Bard [01:57:06] I met her at the YMCA. She. We were both involved with a thing called ONE, Our New Environment. It was like. I still get a lot of people, like, laughing about this one, the YMCA, because it was all Caucasian Falls. They had a little program called Black Rap, Black Rap. We used to laugh about that. But ONE was like a racism awareness group that we got together. And I don’t know, it went pretty good. It went pretty good for a while. We opened up a couple coffee house, made money, money for the YMCA. And yeah, that’s where I met her. And, yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it was fun for a while. Yeah. But I remember at one point, I don’t think the fellows at the YMCA were too happy about it, but we raised money for Angela Davis’s defense fund. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was fun. Yeah. I don’t think any money went to her, though. I think the. The white boys seized it all. But yeah, it was- It was all good. It was all good. Yeah. The YMCA. Okay. Yeah.

Erich Schnack [01:58:40] Sounds like there’s a whole ’nother round of oral history.

Robert Bard [01:58:43] Well, there you go. There you go.

Erich Schnack [01:58:45] Or a Beatnik collection or something.

Robert Bard [01:58:46] There you go. There you go. Yeah. No, Shant’s got a lot of lot to tell you. How’s that? Awesome.

Erich Schnack [01:58:56] Thank you, Bob.

Robert Bard [01:58:56] Yeah, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. Yeah, it’s fun.

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