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My name is Nori Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center at Fond Library at Rice University. I am interviewing Judy Weiser. Today is Wednesday, November 7th 2018. This is part of the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. Can you tell me about your early life? I

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certainly can, but I don't think you have enough hours. Um, I was born in Houston, uh to parents who were Jewish and, um, uh immigrants from Romania and Russia. Um I grew up in a, a family that was very conservative. I'm an only child. Um, I

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didn't know much about the world out there until I got older and was in school and started meeting other people. Um, we lived close to the Jewish Synagogue and the Jewish Community Center which I know is gonna come up later in our conversation. And when I

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was 10, we moved to, um, Brace Heights, which is the southwest part of Houston. And I started attending junior high school at Pershing and then high school at Bel Air. Um, I had a pretty ordinary life at that point, like I said, I was sheltered. I

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didn't know that there was much else out there and as I got into high school and started meeting other people, um you know, fellow students, uh some of whom I think are in your archives. Um I'm still in touch with some of the people. I went

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to junior high school with Thorn Dreyer, Dennis Fitzgerald, who uh um worked on one of the underground newspapers. Thorn, of course was Space City. But, you know, I knew them as people and I just sort of went to school every day and came home. I then

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started to know more and more people in high school. Um, the nerdy kids, um, being Jewish in Houston in those days was not far from being black. The Ku Klux Klan made sure that the Jewish people were hassled a lot and I grew up knowing I

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wasn't white and, uh, the consequences of that. I, I think informed a lot of my interest in later politics and protests and, and anti discrimination stuff and all of that. And because I was one of the, the, the smart kids, the nerds, um, on the debate

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team and all of that through high school, I started being, um, in a, a group of people that were sort of self selected, uh, um, we were different and we knew it and it was ok, but other people weren't too sure they liked us and that

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was all right. So I, I entered, uh, high school. I graduated in 63. I started um after um a side trip uh with the wrong university, I started into rice, I graduated Rice in 67 um at rice. Um It's hard to believe it, but in those

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years it was free and it was not integrated. And in my third year of university, the first black students, African American students came in and um I thought it was great. I worked with the Foreign Students Association. So to me it was like more interesting people.

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And then I watched what they went through and I got very quickly sensitized to uh a bit more awareness of injustice and all of that. So through going to Rice, um I was majoring in psychology and anthropology. Um I was still being Jewish going to synagogue

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with my parents doing things in the community and the Jewish community center which was near Herman Park, um, had a bunch of activities. I'd gone to summer camp there as a kid and they started having folk music. Um I don't know if it was every Sunday

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night or every, I don't know, but they used to have folk music concerts and I, I sing, I was in my own kind of, uh, or a different kind of, uh, folk music group and dance group for the, you know, Jewish folk music. Uh So when

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I started doing folk music things at the, at the Jewish Community Center, I went, most of those evenings I met very interesting people. Um some of whom appear in, in my later life when the events are going on that we're gonna be talking about that. I

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photographed, um, I met a whole lot of people who sang or like to listen to people singing and play guitars and, um, gee, wow, it was a new world for me. And I think that's where some of my interest in folk music started. Um You're interviewing

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me about the fact that I'm not a folk musician. Uh I'm a groupie. I, I went to a lot of the things and I photographed what caught my eye. I photographed the moments I wanted to hold on to from what I was seeing people do and

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hearing them sing. And so in the early part of my life, I was not a photographer. I was just like anyone else. I had a camera, you know, we went on trips. I took pictures of things. I wanted to keep memories of uh in my field.

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It's called me at, you know, me at the zoo, me at the Grand Canyon or whatever, but I had no interest in, in art photography in those early years. So that's sort of my early life. I don't know when you want to interrupt me with your

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next question. So you, it's your turn now. OK. So, um you said that you started to do, um you were in like a little folk music group. What first actually drew you to folk music. Why did you like it? I have no idea. Ok. Why did

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you like it? Yeah, I, I go about my daily life. The things that interest me are fun. I go do more of, I know that, um, when I went to high school, I did have a car and so I would go out to events that were

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happening. I'm trying to remember when I started going over to Herman Park on Sundays to listen to people jamming in the park there, there was a whole period of time where on Sundays, people who played folk music um would go over to Herman Park and, and

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gather in certain locations there. Um Often more than one gathering per day. Um And I used to go and listen and sit there and think, oh, this is cool. I'm meeting those interesting people. I wouldn't meet any other way and listening to them play and there

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was a lot of, um, I guess it was the early hippie years where people were, were be becoming aware that there's a bigger world out there and Herman Park sort of a melting pot. And if you go there on Sundays, you meet really interesting people. Um

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There were a lot of white folks, um primarily guys, there were also the occasional group of, you know, two or three or four. The word I use is black because that's how I grew up African American. Um really good musicians doing a bit more jazzy things

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than folk music and everybody sort of had their own little territory on the hill there and you just sort of go and sit down and listen for a while and wander off, listen to someone else. Um, I don't know that I knew I was becoming interested

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in it. I think it was just something that I liked to do. And so I did it. Ok. Um, you had talked about going to, um, full concerts at the GCC. Do you remember who you saw there? Can you maybe describe what the room was like

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when you would hear that you're asking me? I am 73 years old. You're asking me about something that started when I was about 17 or 16. Um, the building, as I remember it was, I think a two story rectangular building. You went in the door at

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one end and then you turned left and there were all these rooms down the hall and there was two floors, there was a swimming pool in the back. I remember going to summer camp there. I believe they had a little restaurant. But the concerts that I

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remember going to in the evenings were at the far end of the hall down on the left and either upstairs in that location or on the main floor. And I don't remember, um, I do remember the room was fairly big and anybody was welcome. Um, I

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would go and just whoever was gonna be there. I don't remember even if it was formal concerts or just people getting together and playing. I mean, I really have a very vague memory of that. I did meet people there. Um, one of whom comes to mind

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is Rita Shelton. Um, who was ba basically um very brave young woman. She's a black woman from Southeast Houston, her house, her, her family lived near the University of Houston and she played and sang. She was really good and we became friends and, you know, in

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those days, um I could go to her house and her mother loved me, but I wasn't allowed to bring someone back to my house, which I thought for considering my family was Jewish and immigrated to escape oppression. Uh was rather odd, but that's how things were

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in Houston in those days. Uh Rita went on to become Rita Shelton Deverell and she lives in Toronto and she works for public television. And I'm actually, until recently I haven't been in touch with her in a while, but we stayed in touch for years. Um

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I met, um I can't remember if that's where I met. Um Amy good enough who later sang as Crow Johnson because we were also at the same school and we became really good friends when we were about 13. So I think she just started going there

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with me occasionally. Um I don't remember who I saw there specifically, possibly lead Belly I don't know, uh, because that began to blend in my university years with going over to a home in the Montrose where Peter Gardner and his partner Mary Helen Cheney and her

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nickname was Mah for her. Mh Mary Helen. Um, they had a home in the Montrose and it was a place that everyone went, I think on Wednesday evenings where they just opened their living room up to whoever wanted to come and jam. And I believe Lomax,

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Alan Lomax Gentleman was there recording most of those for future archives, which I never even understood. I just went and sat on the floor in the living room and listened. Um, I don't remember who I met at the JCC versus who I met at Peter's. But

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I think Peter arranged the concerts at the JCC. So it's a little bit confusing. You are correct. He was the director of adult activities at the Jewish Community Center. And then he was also, um, having those kind of, uh, uh, picking parties at his house and

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then recording the sampler, which was his radio show. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Uh, we just got in, um, his reels, his son had to sent them off and we had them digitized. And now we have those recordings. So those, those things, those recordings that you're talking

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about, we might actually have those where you were sitting listening. Hopefully, I didn't make loud noises. I don't know, I haven't listened to everything yet. I was rather well behaved in those days. I didn't become a radical until much later. Um, well, then can you, um,

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you've talked a little bit about, um, going to, um, Herman Park? Can you talk a little more specifically if you remember about going to Peter Gardner's home? What it was like? Oh, you, you walk in, um, old Montrose house, um, living room, main floor, kitchen in

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the back. Um, it's just a Montrose house but everybody kind of just gather in the living room, the couch just got filled first and then the chairs and then the floor and it went on for hours and then people eventually left. I don't know, I have

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heard that they went on afterwards into later night, more serious jamming, but I had to get home. Ok. And do you remember any of the people that you met there or is it kind of just a little hazy ba ba? Ok. The people I know I

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saw them on Sundays at the park. I saw them later at concert. I don't know the names. Um I know when people came through to perform, they would end up there. Like if some, I, I know I remember Lead Belly, you know, was, had been in

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town and was there one evening. Um No, no, me memory is not working there. Sorry. That's ok. That's all right. Um It, so I assume then at the same time you were doing this uh about the time that you were going to rice, correct that you

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were attending rice. Um Did you see kind of a connection between this like folk life and your rice life? Or were they very kind of distinct and different? Boy? That's a good question. Um Sometimes you don't think of things until you're asked later in retrospect. Uh

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I was simply living my life and going to school and going to folk music events because they were fun. Um I think that the whole time I was at Rice, I was waking up intellectually um becoming more aware of, you know, the nice little comfortable suburban

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life I was living was not the life everyone had. Um uh This was the sixties and I, I was not originally a hippie political activist. It just over the four years, I was at Rice more and more things were happening. I mean, this is just like

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I said, it was the sixties politics were starting for protests were starting um injustices were starting. Um I didn't really radicalize until the last year of rice and after I moved away, which is the next part of my bio. Uh But I do remember when I

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was at Rice that the people I hung out with my and my psychology student colleagues and all that, we were not an ordinary bunch of people. We would, we would end up in, at Rice in the um cafeteria eating room, whatever you call it, um, for

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hours, political discussions and debates and, you know, intellectual cha, you know, we, we got into, into long conversations because we enjoyed them. Um, and I think the last year I was there, I think that's when Ken Kesey's magic bus came through Rice and I hadn't even

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no idea who it was or what it was. And I, I sort of went over to see what it was. There was all these weird people called hippies. Um I wasn't one yet. So, you know, when I graduated Rice in 1967 in June, um I was

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still a pretty conservative person. Um I was engaged to marry the young man that I had been dating all through university. David Weiser, which is why my last name is Weiser. Um I graduated one week, we got married the following week he enlisted in the Air

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Force. I thought it was the right thing to do. So, like it was still pretty conservative. Um, and, you know, six weeks later he went off to basic training in San Antonio and I'm living sort of by myself in our apartment in Houston. Having never lived

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alone, however, having left my parents' house to, to marry and go live in with him. Uh, still very sheltered. So my, my, my years at Rice were not terribly connected with the later, like I said, radical hippie that I became OK. It started after that. That's

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cool. There's, there's not always there's never been a lot of radicals at Rice. So they're very well hidden even those. Um So you had just moved on to talking about um your husband enlisting and then you both, um you moved on to New York with him.

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Can you explain the event that caused the move in your life there? Um He was in the Air Force. He would not have been drafted. He really, you know, we, like I said, I campaigned for Barry Goldwater for God's sakes. Yeah, we were conservative Jewish young

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adults. Um And so he uh enlisted in the Air Force because he was an architect, architecture student. Um They put him in the engineering. So it wasn't that he was in active duty and they stationed him in Plattsburgh, New York, which we have never heard of.

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Um It's almost in Canada, it's north of New York City, north of Albany, 30 miles from Canada, which becomes very relevant later. Um because we learned about politics from the Canadian news as well and it sure didn't match the US reports. Um So we moved to

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Plattsburgh, New York um late summer, early autumn of 67. Um uh He was my husband, that was my job. I was his wife, you know, I mean, you just do, you do what you're supposed to do. Um We ended up living on an air force base.

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Um We had a house, um he went to work every day and I was so bored, I finally thought, well, I'll see what the graduate program is like at the State University of New York and the other side of town and I was accepted into the

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Masters of Counseling Program there so I could get my master's degree while he was in Plattsburgh Air Force Base. And I started in the graduate program, which is where I met a whole lot of very interesting people. Um, a lot of people who are already very

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radicalized and couldn't believe that I was as naive as I was. And, uh, I started reading about the Vietnam war and that all the news stories we were hearing about the good guys and how good the American soldiers were doing actually didn't match the facts that

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were being reported in Europe and in the Canadian newspapers and we moved into a house on the Air Force base that had become vacant, so we got to have it. Um, I'm gonna tell you a little true story that that wasn't in the, the written bio

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I sent you in advance. We were in, we, we were in housing and then a house became available and we moved into this house where the previous owners weren't there anymore. And what they didn't tell us is that the man who had been living in this

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house earlier Air Force officer, um, had been killed in the crash of a B 52 bomber in Greenland. Now you can, you can go into history and find this story. It did happen. Um, in 60 seven, I think, um, and the American public was told that

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it was a B 52 bomber. It crashed in Greenland, but there was no problem because, you know, in order to set off a bomb, it took like four people in different places on the plane, all pushing a button at the same time and blah, blah, blah.

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And when we started reading the Canadian reports of this, we found out that that wasn't true. And that actually Greenland was one step away from having a nuclear bomb or a bomb of some sort uh uh explode in that crash. And this is the kind of

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things started getting us to go, hey, wait. Um We're being sort of not given the straight stories here. Um That was when um we were there from 67 to, to 70 and Kent State was 1970 protests were all over the place in those years. And although

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of course there were protests on the Air Force base, I was going to graduate school in counseling and I had to do practicums where I was going to counsel students in the university about their life problems and everybody was complaining about the draft and I'm getting

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ahead of myself. I just realized because you asked me if it was hard to leave Houston at that time. No, it wasn't. I it wasn't. You just, you, you did what you're supposed to do. I, I forgot to answer that question. So let me stop here

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and find out where you want me to go next. No, you're, you're going just fine. Keep, keep, forge ahead. Ok. So, um we're living in a house on an air force base and we have friends from the Air Force, but we also have friends that were

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my friends in the graduate program in counseling. Uh they were increasingly long haired marijuana smoking, um, hippies that we found very interesting. They were intellectually stimulating. I got into great conversations with most of these people. Um, there would be, um, you know, radical filmmakers would come

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to campus and bring films and we'd all go and we'd go out and talk for hours over beer later. And we just, uh, my social network in Plattsburgh where left leaning hippie looking intellectual. People were very, very interesting. At that point. There wasn't any folk music

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going on there. It was a part of my life. But because I had always had a camera as a kid on trips and taking pictures all these years of things that, you know, it basically you take pictures of things you want to keep memories of. And

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I got very interested in photography. And when I was living on the Air Force Base with my first husband, um, there wasn't a whole lot to do and they had a, um, like a little community center with hobby shops and stuff. So I started learning how

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to use a dark room and, and taking photos uh taking film and developing and printing my photos. And um it was great fun. It was magic to watch this piece of paper turn into a photograph right in front of your eyes and some liquid in front

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of you. Um And I still, you know, I was taking photos but I was starting to print them and I have them up in, in the, the home I lived in and having a camera with me knowing that I could make pictures later, I started taking

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pictures of the events I went to which were increasingly protest marches um gatherings where people got together in the park and just talked or played music or whatever. Uh I still wasn't a photographic artist, but I began to realize that my camera was able to record

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moments that that might be important later. Um There were protest marches and II I took photographs of people were gathering and a couple of times I was able to identify the people that were uh police plants. Uh because everybody in the photograph knew who everyone else

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was except for that guy who went away as soon as he started a fight going and then he walked away like that kind of thing. So I became aware that my, my camera could document but also help tell stories. I got very interested in just wherever

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I went. I took pictures, I took pictures at parties, I took pictures of, you know, protest marches, whatever. Um I was in a master's degree for counseling and I had to have supervised uh clinical practice learning how to do counseling while somebody is supervising me and

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most of the people I was counseling, the young men were all dealing with, you know, they're trying to plan for a future and the army wants them to get stolen away and sent to Vietnam to kill other people's kids. Um which is my version of the

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version of the Vietnam War. I didn't find out for decades later, it was all about oil and we were all lied to at the time, we knew something was wrong. And I'm, I'm not a religious Jew, but I have some basic ethics and some of those

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have to do with AAA similar concept that the Quaker concept of bearing witness that when you're around something where you know it's wrong, what's happening. You at least don't let it pass in silence. You at least make sure that the people doing the injustice know that

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it's been noticed and witnessed and, and it, it can't be done in secret because you're there and you're witnessing the camera is a great tool for that. So over the two years that we were in Plattsburgh, um and I was doing my counseling uh of, of

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students uh became increasingly aware that there was not a lot of information for these people about their guys uh about what are the legal ways to not get drafted? What is conscientious objection? How do I go to a draft board and say, I honestly do not

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believe that I have the right to kill someone else and I don't mind serving my country, but I'm not going to carry a gun and I'm not going to shoot someone. Um And there was a training in New York City at a university, possibly Harvard. I

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don't know, I don't remember where, where a whole bunch of radical draft protesters were setting up counseling to teach people how the draft board made its decisions from its own rules and how to learn those rules sufficiently to help people avoid. Um going to Vietnam and

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I went to this training, I came back highly trained as a draft counselor, how to keep people from being drafted. Um We didn't talk at that point about people who were deserting deserters from the army or the military, but I came back to a graduate counseling

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program, counseling students who wanted to know about draft information. So a bunch of us set up Plattsburgh University's first Draft counseling center. It was open every afternoon and it was approved as my counseling practical. And so being that I was an air force officer's wife, he

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was in the Air Force, not me. I was very clear about that. His supervisors and his people who later got upset with me. Were, were saying this is your wife, you know, rein her in and he's like, I don't own her. She's a person. Um I

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didn't know I was a feminist at that point, but I was learning quick and I never did anything that was completely exactly illegal. I just pushed the boundaries a lot. And for example, I ran the Draft counseling center with the help of other volunteers. And at

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that point, if I had been caught and charged with aiding and abetting a felony which is avoiding the draft or helping a deserter get to Canada, that would have been five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, which in those days, $10,000 is about 50 or

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60,000. Now, I knew I was at risk and just like any young radical hothead, it was like, this is fun and I'm just going to be very careful, but it's not gonna make me stop. And so what I did with the Draft counseling center is I

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invited the recruiters, the, the army recruiters to come in two afternoons a week so that the people who wanted to join the army could get correct information. And the other three days a week, we helped people who didn't want to get drafted, learn the legal ways

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to, to avoid that. And because I had the recruiters there two days a week, they couldn't touch me, they couldn't bust me. I'm an air force officers, why providing information on both sides of the question. So it was, it was, those were heady days, they were

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dangerous. Um I participated in peace marches and then there was a day where we were gonna have a peace march and no one would organize it. And I did and I led that peace march to the gate of the air force base. Now I'm an air

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force officer's wife. I'm leading a peace march of hippies through town to, to the Air Force. Uh on. So things like that at, at the time they were fun, they felt right. I felt very ethical. I felt very proud of what I was doing as a

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citizen with the right to protest in a country that permitted it. Um And I had them do some things that hadn't been done. That peace march, which was covered in the newspapers. We didn't shout protest. We marched two miles in utter silence, just holding signs and

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the fact that we were silent and well behaved, uh totally shocked the community and it got us speaking engagements in churches and places that we would never have been invited into any other way. Um If I was asked if I was an air force officer's wife,

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I would say yes. And then I would go on to other conversations. I never involved him or endangered him. But I learned very quickly through all of those years that if you don't bear witness to the wrongs that you are thinking like the United States has

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had, I'm gonna date our interview. The US big midterm elections was yesterday. Um, you know, people, people are yelling and screaming but if they don't follow through with their actions, that's just yelling and screaming. So I began to get very sensitized as a hippie, leftist politics,

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fairly radical person. Um, those years I hung out with the people everyone else thought were radical danger, leftist, you know, pot smoking. Uh Bolshevik quoting really interesting, neat people. They were my friends, they were our friends and because they were our friends, they were often at

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our house on the Air Force base which they had to get through the gates and we would go bring them in and we would have a party and people would visit and it was just a really weird, surrealistic reality. I started doing a lot of draft

00:30:55.050 - 00:31:17.900

counseling and I then got involved with what is shorthand word for it is underground railroad. There are people who are deserting the military, who'd been to Vietnam and just couldn't stomach it. And we're not just refusing to go back to, to have to do what they

00:31:17.910 - 00:31:33.510

did. Um, it is illegal to aid and ab about a desertion from the military. Um, they were trying to get to Canada and the reason they were trying to get to Canada and, and also people who were trying to avoid being drafted is that Canada although

00:31:33.520 - 00:31:51.739

it has an army, it does not draft, it does not grab people unwillingly never did. And so if they could get to Canada, they would not be criminals because avoiding the draft or deserting the military under conscience purposes was not illegal once they were in Canada

00:31:51.750 - 00:32:13.180

physically and my town was 30 miles from the Canadian border. I'm an air force officer's wife. My car has an air force officers sticker on the bumper. I go through that border to go shopping in Montreal every few weeks. Anyway, Montreal is culture restaurants, um, music,

00:32:13.189 - 00:32:28.020

uh symphonies. My husband and I went to Montreal often for social events. We retracted the border, we go there all the time. That car went over the border all the time. Those were the years when people hitchhiked and I often picked up Hitchhikers. Never mind what

00:32:28.030 - 00:32:51.540

the reasons were. Everybody was hitchhiking in those days. Um You know, those, those were the years where, I mean, um major folk festivals, the, the, the, the, the music gatherings, um Woodstock, I mean, everybody was hitchhiking, everybody, everybody was friendly, hippies were everywhere. And often when

00:32:51.550 - 00:33:04.859

I drove to Montreal, I picked up Hitchhikers who wanted just to go to Montreal. I never asked each of them, you know, like, oh, why are you going to Montreal and going shopping if you want to ride along? You're welcome. That's fine. There was very carefully

00:33:04.869 - 00:33:28.089

tuned, very carefully structured underground railroad. They got military deserters from the south and the east coast through New York, through Albany, through Plattsburgh and into Canada. There were safe houses along the very much like the underground railroad for escaped slaves long ago. And those of us

00:33:28.099 - 00:33:41.050

who were involved in it knew that we were at great risk of being arrested and charged with a serious felony. And so we were, most of us were very, very careful. It was not illegal for me to pick up a hitchhiker. Sure. I'm going to Montreal.

00:33:41.060 - 00:33:55.410

You wanna ride a lot? As long as, I don't know, they're a deserter. You and if the person who gets in my car says gee whiz, you know, thank you so much for what you're doing. It's like I'm just going shopping. No, no. You know what

00:33:55.420 - 00:34:14.199

I mean? I don't know what you mean. Although I did, um, I had three instances where there was a guy that I picked up that was wearing a, uh, an, um, audio recording, audio tape device trying to, uh, bust arrest, charge all the people who were

00:34:14.209 - 00:34:28.060

aiding and abetting the transport of deserters to Canada. And three times I picked up innocent looking young men who seemed really nice. And halfway there they start talking about, well, you know, I really appreciate what you're doing and I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:34:28.260 - 00:34:39.909

But, you know, I'm a dessert. You're what, I'm an air force officer's wife. You got to get out of my car right now. We're in the middle of nowhere, ma'am. I don't care, I don't take deserters over to the border to Canada. I don't know who

00:34:39.919 - 00:34:56.189

you are but Hitchhikers. Yeah. I literally had to go through that three times and every single one of those times I was the only person in the entire chain that was not arrested. It makes you question your country, it makes you question your, your, your whole

00:34:56.199 - 00:35:11.290

life and your ethics and your values and my photography and my music and it had nothing to do with this, but it made me a strong believer in bearing witness doing what you think is right? Making sure you do it legally enough to keep yourself protective.

00:35:11.300 - 00:35:30.540

And so that is a side chapter of the me that you are gonna be interviewing in a few minutes about documenting music in Houston. Um, I had that part of my life firmly in mind when my husband then asked, you know, at some point, you know,

00:35:30.550 - 00:35:43.909

conscience is objection. Gee, you know, I wished I'd known about that. I wouldn't have been drafted. Well, you know, in those days you would have been enlisting anyway. What do you think I can get out of the Air Force as a conscientious objector? Yes. Are you

00:35:43.919 - 00:35:58.399

serious? Do you know what the rules are? I got an envelope upstairs that's been waiting a year for you to ask me. This is not something I should ask you when you, when you ask me about it, of your own free will and volition. I'm ready

00:35:58.409 - 00:36:08.850

to give you all the info you want. I've got it all ready for you to fill out the forms, but I would never bring it up. I, that's just my efforts. And he got to that point and he said, bring me over and we sat down

00:36:08.860 - 00:36:22.469

that night, we went through it and he applied for conscience, his objection discharge as an air force officer. And we made sure everything was complete because we knew that when he took it into his commanding officer the next day, pardon? The language of the ship was

00:36:22.479 - 00:36:37.780

gonna hit the fan and it did and it spread like wildfire. I was at school. My first husband went in, turned in the application to his commanding officer at 10 in the morning, I came home for lunch at the gate. And because it's an officer's car

00:36:38.149 - 00:36:52.739

when you drive in and the guy guarding the gate sees it, he salutes the car because it's an officer's car. I drove in at noon and I got this as my salute. And I just looked at the car. Oh my God. It spread quickly from that

00:36:52.750 - 00:37:07.370

point on our mail was open. We were followed, our phones were tapped. We heard the stupid, the stupid people on the phone tap were having you could, you could hear in the background they, of a of, of a spoon and a coffee cup and you could

00:37:07.379 - 00:37:20.050

hear them talking and we would be on the phone and we click the phone down to make another call and we couldn't get a clear line and you could hear someone sneeze and someone say bless you. And then would you bring me a coffee, Joe? 00,

00:37:20.060 - 00:37:40.209

I think they're listening. Click, you know, really terribly then military intelligence called the C ID, the civilian Intelligence division of the military. It's like the FBI. We were not playing small stakes and I didn't care. I felt so strongly about if people want to enlist or

00:37:40.219 - 00:37:55.409

people believe in something, I'll support it. But when they're being forced to do something that they don't want to do, it's ethically against their, their, their entire morals. Um, I'm, I'm on board to help. So my husband got out of the Air force. I stayed on

00:37:55.419 - 00:38:14.070

for six months to finish my master's degree and I went back to Houston in spring of 1970 and so Kent State was, was 1970. That's what it was like right then. And for people who are watching this, who are younger and don't know what Kent State

00:38:14.370 - 00:38:31.820

is about. It's where the US army murdered a whole bunch of students in cold blood because they didn't like the protesting. Um, that's another story for another time. I moved back to Houston from Plattsburgh, leaving behind a huge family of radical hippie friends. Most of whom

00:38:31.830 - 00:38:49.620

I'm still in touch with. Um And I missed them terribly, but I went back to Houston not to live permanently. But so that my then husband could do his two year residency as an architect get licensed. And then we planned to move to Canada. We didn't

00:38:49.629 - 00:39:02.060

want to live in a country where people were literally grabbed out of their homes and sent off to do battles for old men who had oil interests. But we were sent off to battle to kill people of their own age in another country who hadn't done

00:39:02.070 - 00:39:18.459

anything wrong to them. We were very, very strong about that belief. We returned from New York, not the Children, our parents had sent off. There were several family discussions, but do you realize what you're doing? Um When my first, when, when my husband first applied to

00:39:18.469 - 00:39:33.129

get a conscientious objection, discharge his family actually set up one of the uncles to talk him out of it. They were so worried about his future. Now, the reason is they're Jewish immigrants. They knew what happened when, when people raise up and get visible and protest.

00:39:33.139 - 00:39:44.409

They were terrified for us. We went back to Houston. They thought we were going to settle down and have babies and live in the Houston Jewish community. And we said, no, we're immigrating to Canada as soon as we can. And it was like we're both only

00:39:44.419 - 00:39:56.550

Children. I I my parents never talked much about it. That generation of parents didn't talk much about feelings, period. You know, I look back now and think, I wish my mother had asked me more. I would have been glad to tell her, but I didn't want

00:39:56.560 - 00:40:17.729

to like, try to lecture her. So off, we went in 1973 to Canada. But between 70 when we got back to Houston and 73 we lived in Houston in the early seventies in Bel Air. I got a job. My, my husband was apprenticing as an architect.

00:40:17.739 - 00:40:36.719

I got a job as a counselor at the Inlet Drug Crisis Center that was just starting in those days. It was a place that people with drug problems. Uh questions about drugs needing to get treatment. It was the sort of pass through old hippie house in

00:40:36.729 - 00:40:55.979

the Montrose. I'm trying desperately to remember the street but Vicky Moreland, John Cleveland, Jack Kling and some of the people who later were connected with the Anderson Fair crowd. Um We were three blocks away from Anderson Fair or ETA or restaurant um which I didn't know

00:40:55.989 - 00:41:09.260

existed at that time. I just went in as somebody who moved down from New York. I'm a counselor. I'm a hippie. I like the feeling in here. Let's talk to the people who need our help in the drug crisis Center was funded by the mental health

00:41:09.270 - 00:41:24.939

department. But we also got funding from the local drug dealers because we saved them one of their lives. We, we don't talk about that when you do the history of that place. And one afternoon a week I got to have a room to do draft counseling

00:41:25.540 - 00:41:44.149

very quietly. It wasn't announced and often the people are so paranoid that I would meet them three blocks away at Anderson for a coffee and we sit there and do our talking. Now, I was living in Bel Air with my then husband. He's been an architect

00:41:44.159 - 00:42:01.879

doing an ordinary life. I'm working as a counselor in the Montrose at a house helping people with drug problems. We sound like suburbia except it was still radical hippy times. Now, inlet was a place where even if you're working, you might hang around in the evenings

00:42:01.889 - 00:42:16.659

because people start jamming music and then I found out there's a place called Mason F. So I went over there, um, and started hanging out there, like I said, doing some counseling there and while I would be eating there or just hanging out there and visiting,

00:42:16.669 - 00:42:31.469

there's all these musicians that started coming in and Judy always has her camera. I mean, I wouldn't take pictures of the people. I was counseling. That's unethical. But I'm going to this neat place called Anderson Fair. There's all these hippies playing music while I'm eating lunch

00:42:31.489 - 00:42:48.399

and I'm gonna take pictures. So that's where I met Rebel Rev Smith. Um, Tony who had the steel guitar whose last name I don't know, um I met, you know, Pat Pritchett and, and Marvin Anderson and Gray Fair, the people who did the restaurant, Pat Pritchett,

00:42:50.429 - 00:43:04.280

then husband and then ex-husband who still helped out there, Joe Pridget uh was an artist and he saw some of my photos that I was showing this, you know, in the restaurant. And he arranged for me to have an exhibition of my photos on the walls

00:43:04.290 - 00:43:18.870

of Anderson Fair. And there were art photos and there are also photos of rebel and Tony and whoever whatever caught my eye and landed in my camera that I thought was worth showing. People were the prints that I put up on the wall there. And that

00:43:18.879 - 00:43:35.830

was my first photo exhibition. The musicians was like, oh my God, that's a great picture of, oh my God. Can you do an album pick for us or can you do? We need promo post? I started because we were living in Houston. I had a dark

00:43:35.840 - 00:43:53.750

room in my garage and I started taking paid gigs to photograph concerts or posters for bands. Um you know, go out to some place in the country and photograph a bunch of guys and they use it for publicity poster and album covers and Anderson Fair had

00:43:53.760 - 00:44:12.330

all these wonderful parties, uh street parties and I photographed those and I just kept showing my photos there. So I was known as a counselor and a photographer, primarily of musicians and protest marches. And hippie events because at the same time, those two years, there were

00:44:12.340 - 00:44:26.520

peace marches through Houston, there were anti-war marches. I have a whole bunch of photos. It's part of what you and I have been talking about, about me donating my photos, not necessarily the music ones, but also peace marches down main street with, with, with protest signs

00:44:26.530 - 00:44:44.159

in front of the shamrock. And um people who went to Vietnam dressed in their fatigues with toy guns looking like they're armed soldiers. And in those days, the black protest movement growing, um, there was a, a fellow named Karl Hampton who was a very just lovely

00:44:44.169 - 00:44:57.229

man in the black community who was known to be a pacifist, was known to not go into a place if he knows that, you know, there were guns and the police shot him and killed him saying he was armed and everyone who knew him knew that

00:44:57.239 - 00:45:13.280

was a lie. And there was a huge protest march down Main street of a lot of photos from that day. Um, some of them are gallery quality. Um And I was photographing a peace march and noticing the police on the roof of the stores across the

00:45:13.290 - 00:45:28.350

street. And this guy didn't quite look hippy enough to be real. And I, I documented the, the undercover agents, I documented the police on the roof. I documented things that probably would have gotten me in trouble, but I was too stupid to care And so I

00:45:28.360 - 00:45:43.850

was Judy with the camera. Everywhere I went, I took pictures. It happened but I went to a lot of places. There was a lot of musicians and Walter and Harry. Um, Harry Oswald, Walter Spinks. Um, you've already interviewed Walter, um, the people who played Anderson Fair

00:45:43.860 - 00:45:56.629

in the evenings. I was there taking pictures. Um, I took pictures of the bands, I took pictures of the sound guys. Um, I know there was just something on the folk music archive on Facebook about Shake Russell. I have a photo of his sound man who

00:45:56.639 - 00:46:11.510

was a friend of mine. I have photos of the early people like Amy, good enough who became Crow Johnson in the, even before I went to New York, I photos all these people that were my friends and they were playing music and if I didn't like

00:46:11.520 - 00:46:29.899

their music or I didn't feel friendly, I didn't photograph them. So what I have by accident is an archive of the early years of folk music development in Houston between, you know, 70 73 when I moved to Canada and then when I came, when I moved

00:46:29.909 - 00:46:43.209

to Canada, I came back every few months and it would continue. So some of my photos are from later times and you know, I am now, like I said, I'm 73 years old. I'm trying to downsize it all these photos and all these negatives from Herman

00:46:43.219 - 00:46:57.050

Park and Peter Gardner's and the start of Anderson, I mean, all of this stuff, which I'm quite, you know, I've been talking about once I can find a way to get them scanned that I can afford. Um, I'm gonna give them, I'm gonna donate them as

00:46:57.060 - 00:47:15.949

long as I can keep using them myself because they're part of Houston's history. But the folk music archive for me overlaps the protest hippie archive and they can be separate collections or I can donate one and not the other. But to me, they're all involved because

00:47:15.959 - 00:47:29.560

the people doing the folk music were doing things at protest gigs and the Anderson Fair street parties where the music was happening and the dancing was happening. But there were also people doing draft counseling very quietly in the background. But the parties at the street parties

00:47:29.570 - 00:47:44.010

at Anderson Fair, I didn't just get the musicians. I got people that, for instance, I have a picture. Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with Thor and Dryer. Uh You can grunt. Are you there? I'm here Thorn dryer, space cities. Now in you? In, in Austin rag

00:47:44.020 - 00:48:00.919

radio, I have some pictures of his mother dancing at the street party there. She was an amazing woman. Um So I've got what people usually like to see which is really nice, warm photos of really kind, nice people who played music or went to music events

00:48:01.300 - 00:48:16.800

and those photos. We're just sort of what I did. That was my art I can't draw a dog or a horse or give me a piece of chalk and, or a paintbrush and tell me to draw something. It's like, what do you want me to draw?

00:48:17.070 - 00:48:30.050

You asked me, you know, do you play music? I took piano lessons as a kid. You know, here's, here's, here's a guitar and why don't you play? I have no idea how to play it. And if I did, I wouldn't know, I don't have that thing

00:48:30.280 - 00:48:47.219

that most musicians have a spontaneous playing of just thinking through music. I can't do it. I use a camera. So those are the years that we were back in Houston. Um That's where a lot of my photos come from. That you and I have been discussing

00:48:47.739 - 00:49:10.600

um I then moved to Canada in 73. I became a Canadian citizen in 78 and true to my radical hippie beliefs in 1978 when I became a Canadian citizen. The same day, I walked into the US Embassy in Vancouver where I live and renounced, formally renounced

00:49:10.610 - 00:49:25.000

my US citizenship. And II, I think back now, I think my God woman, you actually did that. And yeah, I did, I felt very good about it at the time. Uh It has kept me from being able to teach without a permit in the United States

00:49:25.010 - 00:49:39.260

has caused some issues around taxes because I'm a Canadian citizen. But I sometimes work in the States. There's been some complications. Do I regret it? Not at all. I walked into the US Embassy saying I wanted to renounce my US US citizenship. And they said, lady,

00:49:39.270 - 00:49:51.580

do you know what you're doing? People would pay lots of money for this. And I said, give it to one of them. I really don't want to be a US citizen anymore. I felt that strongly in those years. So backtracking a bit now at the community

00:49:51.590 - 00:50:04.360

that I left in New York to come to Houston, I left because I had to, it felt really sad. The community I built up in Houston before we moved to Canada. I, I miss them terribly. I came back to visit as it you can visit. You

00:50:04.370 - 00:50:20.510

just can't work. I came back to visit and visit my parents as often as possible. They were still playing music. I would come back six months at a time and who's playing what this weekend? I'm still taking pictures. Now, the side part part of this, that

00:50:20.520 - 00:50:33.070

is irrelevant to my own career and I'm gonna do a little segue for a moment is that when I started hanging my photos on the wall at Anderson Fair. And I mean, later I've had, I've had several exhibits now in major art galleries, but in those

00:50:33.080 - 00:50:49.780

days, it was not even imagined I would go in and sit and have a coffee while people are looking at my photos and I would hear them talking about things that just sort of like, oh my God, what, what is that woman doing? I can't believe

00:50:49.790 - 00:51:06.330

there's a photo of her showing us her tattoo on her butt. And I'm like, I'm listening. They don't know, I'm the photographer. What's wrong with that, sir? And, and you hear them giving their responses to the images that you know, very, very well. And you believe

00:51:06.340 - 00:51:24.310

that they are seeing the photograph that you put on the wall for them to see. And I learned very quickly that the image that they are seeing, the story of that picture isn't in the picture, it's in the viewer. And many times people will be standing

00:51:24.320 - 00:51:36.320

in front of one of my photos and arguing about, oh, that, that girl must be a hooker though. She's not gonna hoo her just because she said, well, no, look at that though, I could see in her face and they would be projecting what they believe

00:51:36.330 - 00:51:52.840

to be the story of the photo. And I got as a psychology uh grad and a future psychologist. I got very fascinated that I have photos that I selected, you know, out of these 10, I put up that one because I have my reasons and I

00:51:52.850 - 00:52:06.290

want people to see this picture of Walter looking like this. And when those people come in as strangers to the, the restaurant at Anderson Fair and they look at Walter's picture, they, they aren't seeing what I thought. They were going to see they were projecting, they're

00:52:06.300 - 00:52:23.840

looking at the visual surface details and creating the story and the emotions that they believe, make that come alive in their mind and and in their heart. And I got absolutely fascinated. So when I moved to Canada, I started exploring this more and more and started

00:52:23.850 - 00:52:38.100

using photos as a way to better understand people when I'm counseling them. And by then I was a licensed psychologist and I would have people come to see me who have problems that the way they were considering, the problem is very different than the way that

00:52:38.110 - 00:52:54.159

their partner or their parents were looking at it. And I started using photos in much the same way to get them to tell me the story of the photo through their filters, their unconscious ways of understanding things in the world and therefore in a photograph. And

00:52:54.169 - 00:53:13.820

it evolved into something called phototherapy techniques, which I published my first article on in Canada in 1975. And I have been pioneering these techniques for 30 40 years. Um The field is huge. It's international with several other people. We all thought we invented it because there

00:53:13.830 - 00:53:27.110

was no internet in the seventies and we didn't find each other until a conference in 1979. When here I thought I was gonna be famous for inventing something that someone else had, had the exact same feelings and, and we became a family, but there is a

00:53:27.120 - 00:53:43.399

huge field now called phototherapy and and therapeutic photography. That, that I started, at least I thought I did and then so did everyone else I met at that conference in 1979. But we're all friends and together we have brought the world the ability to improve counseling

00:53:43.409 - 00:53:56.600

and mental health practices by getting people to show you the photos that they think are important by, by looking at family photos where they tell you their own stories of them, by having them go out and take pictures to show you things. They just can't tell

00:53:56.610 - 00:54:13.629

you in words. And I feel very proud of all of that and had I not been a photographer showing photos that I thought were obvious and realizing that they weren't. Um And my whole career as a professional wouldn't have happened. So it all goes back to

00:54:13.639 - 00:54:33.689

photographing musicians in Houston. Now it's your turn with more questions when I got trained in drafted military counseling in New York while I was at Platt Ford University graduate School. And I told you I went down to this university in New York City and had my

00:54:33.699 - 00:54:57.370

basic training. Um One of the side stories I think I didn't even put in this type thing that while I was living in Houston between 70 73 Pacifica Radio. Mhm um Had a program run by a fellow named David Lamb L A am Ble who eventually

00:54:57.379 - 00:55:13.530

moved to California. I stayed in touch with David Lamb was on the air. Um I think he came out as gay on air, which in those days was just like nobody did that. Um, but he ran a program, I think once a week and I don't

00:55:13.540 - 00:55:31.709

know if it was about draft counseling or about sort of leftist politics, but I would go on the air with him on a regular basis and take calls, you know, I, I'm this, I'm that, um you know, what would be my draft status, what regulations. So

00:55:31.719 - 00:55:44.860

and so says this and if you have that, you need a doctor, like I would answer questions legally from the military's own rules. And I'm very, it was very clear to say this is my interpretation of the regulations. Make sure you check it out with someone

00:55:44.870 - 00:56:02.929

in the military. But I did a weekly broadcast. I believe that was during the time that Pacifica got bombed. Um We Pacifica Radio was fairly radical and not everybody liked it. This is Houston, Texas. Um But what I do remember is me feeling like I needed

00:56:02.939 - 00:56:20.790

to get more information. Um It had been, you know, five or six years since I'd had that first training and I found out that um um there was gonna be a major conference of people that did drought counseling in of all places, San Francisco, of course.

00:56:20.850 - 00:56:37.679

Um and I wanted to attend it and I um did not have the money to go. And he started talking during one of my shows saying this woman's been coming in here every week, giving creative advice, helping lots of people she doesn't charge for it. She

00:56:37.689 - 00:56:52.550

wants to go to this uh conference in San Francisco in a couple of months where she's gonna get a whole lot more learning and training. Um And we're gonna try to fund her trip and he raised money online and online on air. And I got to

00:56:52.560 - 00:57:13.270

go to the conference and in traveling to the conference, I met a woman named Tanya, uh black woman, equally radical, really neat, wonderful woman. And we hung out during the conference and when we got back, she said, you know, you do all this, all this counseling

00:57:13.280 - 00:57:27.360

about the draft in military, all these white boys. You doing anything in the black community? I said I uh would love to go in. She said, well, you just can't go in. I mean, this is University of Houston area and that would have been the 71

00:57:27.370 - 00:57:39.959

72 to I, I, I got this little white lady, get in the car and drive to that part of town and try to do something. I mean, it's like, it's just wasn't possible. And she said, I'm gonna bring you in. We're gonna, we're gonna meet on

00:57:39.969 - 00:57:51.750

Saturday mornings for four weeks with the guys that do the draft counseling training and you're gonna train them. I said, fine she picked me up every Saturday morning, drove me in, I didn't find out till later she was armed. She had a gun and she had

00:57:51.760 - 00:58:08.479

a knife strapped to her leg because she was expecting danger. Hm. Sometimes you're just too innocent and stupid to breath. But Tanya, you have seen a photograph of it because in one of the photos I sent you of the march protesting the killing of Carl killing

00:58:08.489 - 00:58:24.129

of Carl Hampton, there is a black woman with a protest sign. That's uh what is the quote? And it was a beautiful quote about. I can't remember it exactly. It's on the picture. I'd have to look it up on my computer while you go on pause.

00:58:24.139 - 00:58:39.709

It was something about you can kill a revolutionary but you can't kill the revolution. That woman got me into the black community at the University of Houston to train their draft counselors. That wasn't in my little printed story right now. One side story that I forgot

00:58:39.719 - 00:58:56.659

to mention that I think is important way back talking about Anderson Fair and Pat Pritchett who was one of the first people there and did a lot of the cooking her, then husband and then ex-husband, Joe Pritchett, who is himself an artist whose artwork I photographed,

00:58:56.830 - 00:59:17.229

we traded photos for artwork. Um um Joe and Pat had a daughter named Holly and Holly Pritchett. You've probably seen posting messages on the Facebook groups for the archives and stuff Holly was eight years old when I met her. Um, and Joe and I became very

00:59:17.239 - 00:59:35.360

close friends. Holly was just like a pretend be we hung out all the time. He lived in the Montrose quite near where Peter Gardner was living. And Holly has stayed in my life. Um And I, I made contact with Holly and we reestablished our connection. It

00:59:35.370 - 00:59:52.649

was a quite a lovely uh re encounter and we're talking away about Pat and the old days and my photos and she said, you know, do you know this guy Bruce Bryant? He runs this thing called ghost films. They're making a movie about Anderson Fair. And

00:59:52.659 - 01:00:05.969

I'm like, oh, that's nice. I think they want some of your photos. They don't know it yet. And I said, well, put me in touch. And so, uh Bruce Bryant and I can't think of the other fellow. There are two partners in the company and I'm

01:00:05.979 - 01:00:18.679

just spacing the name they, they were making for the sake of the, for the, you know, for the sake of the song, the Anderson Fair story. I don't know if you've seen the film. OK, about 15 of the photos that you saw in, in her mind.

01:00:20.250 - 01:00:39.199

No, I've recognized some of the ones that you've sent me as being ones that are in the dock. Yeah. And so what came of my connection with Holly through Joe through Anderson Fair from the seventies Bruce Bryant. And what's the other fellow's name. I'm so embarrassed

01:00:39.320 - 01:00:56.929

it, Jim Barnum. Barnum. Barnum. Jim Barnum Barham. Anyway. Yeah. And Jim and I had more of the contact than Bruce and that's why I was so embarrassed. But anyway, um, but I know I said, Poly said, Judy, you gotta show them your pictures. And she said,

01:00:56.939 - 01:01:07.709

Jim and Brooks, you gotta see these pictures and they said, well, you know, send us some pictures and I sent them up like what I did you a folder of like 30 images and they phoned me immediately. They said, oh my God, how do we, you

01:01:07.719 - 01:01:18.199

know? And I said, I don't need money, I just need credit. And I want to continue to be able to, you know, the same as I've been talking to you, you can have them, you can have the negative, you can have the, I just wanna be

01:01:18.209 - 01:01:32.169

able to use the photos in the future till I die, you know. And so they used, they wanted to use about 30 of them. They couldn't, they used about, you know, 10 or 12. And I got to go down to the opening for the film at

01:01:32.179 - 01:01:46.840

the um um in the museum launch of the film where all of these people were. And I saw all these musicians I hadn't seen in like 30 years and we've all gotten old and fat and wrinkled. Um, but they're still them and it was such a

01:01:46.850 - 01:02:01.219

great reunion and all of that came from Judy has a camera. She takes pictures wherever she goes of things she wants to remember. It was just a very simple summary of my life. I love doing it. And here we are talking about archives and at rice

01:02:01.229 - 01:02:04.939

where I went to it all came full circle.