The following is a full transcript of this episode:
Rob Smith: One thing I know about the last name Smith, is that it makes you hard to find. I've always seen this as a benefit, but now I'm trying to find a random Smith. Larry Smith. I've been thinking about this guy for several months now. Ever since I learned he helped write a book that's long been out of print. I found a copy of this book on eBay, bought it for $25. It's called How the West Was once a history of West Olympia.
On phone: Hey, my name is Rob Smith, and I'm calling for a Larry Smith who used to be a English teacher in Olympia at Jefferson junior high school. And I have no idea if this is the right Larry Smith, but he wrote a book called With some students and I wanted to talk to him about that book that he wrote. So, if that's you, Larry, if you're the Larry Smith..
Rob: Here's what I know. Larry Smith was an English teacher at Jefferson Middle School in West Olympia. In 1974, his last year teaching at that school, he assigned his eighth graders a collective writing project. How the West Was Once is the product of that assignment.
On the phone: Hey, my name is Rob Smith. I'm calling for a Larry..
Rob: The book is small. I'm holding it here it's about eight by five, and just under 100 pages, black and white. My copy has this blue binding material holding it together. The cover's yellowing and only slightly thicker than the books pages. It's clear it was made on a budget. And yet it's well done. Those hundred pages are full of accounts of life on Olympia's West Side, from the mid 19th to mid 20th century. It's not definitive by any means. Some of the stories read a little like legends, and there's a few cringy passages. But the book adds real personal color to the history of West Olympia, a place I learned, once known as Marshville.
Ever since I got my hands on this book, I've been thinking about the people who wrote it. I wanted to talk to them. What sort of teacher takes on a project like this? A lot of what I like to do with my audio work is record stories of older people. I see it kind of like time traveling, or preservation at least, it struck me that that's exactly what this project was doing. 45 years ago, in book form.
I pay for this service that I use to look people up. It's kind of amazing. You can get phone numbers, addresses, email addresses. The problem is there's a lot of false positives, old numbers, dormant email addresses. Most of the time, you're just reaching out to the wrong person all together.
So I went to Jefferson Middle School, the place where this book was written over 45 years. ago, I talked to the principal. He'd never heard of the book. The one who worked there the longest, a woman at the front desk, said she must have just missed Larry Smith. She started in the late 70s. I was told to go see the librarian. She knew the book, had a personal copy herself, but didn't know what had happened to the teacher who orchestrated it. I called the district offices, talk to someone in archives. They had nothing.
So I decided to go back to the book, knowing i'd have better luck finding one of the couple dozen students listed in the credits. The first page is a list of names. And at the top of the alphabetized list is Rick Aarts. AARTS. I looked him up, called him, left a message. He called me right back!
Rick was great. We talked a while about the book. and what he remembered about his teacher. He said Smith left an impression Only had good things to say about him. I asked him if he knew what had happened to Mr. Smith. Rick remembered something about California. Maybe he moved there for health reasons. He couldn't remember. Rick didn't want to talk on tape, said he'd be a lousy interview. I disagreed. But he gave me another name. So I stopped bugging him.
Ray Houser just turned 60 he was one of the eighth graders that put together How the West Was Once
Ray Houser: I lived on Decatur Street, which was probably a block and a half from the elementary school, and maybe 8-10 blocks to the junior high. Walked to school pretty much my whole life - typically with my buddy Bruce and Rick and, you know, we built these and developed these relationships and it was back in an era where you could ride your bike anywhere you wanted and you coiuld stay out late at night and we'd go to the park and... It was a little Mayberry.
Rob: Bella biagio was also a student of Larry Smith.
Bella Biagio: I was considered basically, maybe the class clown. Just because I am who I am and I continued. (laughing) I just you know, I'm, you know constantly.. things make me laugh and everything's comedic to me. So sometimes that got me in trouble.
Rob: Ray and Bella both remember Larry Smith as an exceptional teacher. Bella, who as an adult would be diagnosed with ADD found relief in his class.
Bella: He was one of the people... if anybody, you know, you didn't think you were done. He... you know what I mean? I f you had that in your mind, that was completely eliminated when you were in his class.
Ray: What was unique about Larry was, he was a younger teacher back then, and I was a younger student back then - and he really took a genuine interest in his students and knew something about his students and And genuinely cared about his his kids.
Rob: I interviewed Ray and Bella separately on separate days,
Bella: Even though I am who I am, and I have this personality and everything. I also am very insular and somewhat shy,
Rob: But they both landed on the same word to sum up their eighth grade English teacher 45 years later.
Bella: But he just, you know, he was able to like, just take you and just make you feel really safe. I think that's a very good word for him.
Ray: It was safe, it was safe physically, it was safe intellectually, and it was safe emotionally.
Rob: Obviously, many of their memories have faded. But this feeling of safety has stuck with them all these years. Other memories have stuck around as well.
Bella: He had a very distinct smile, a very distinct nose. It's it's weird that I remember this. Like I remember some of the clothing he wore. Like he would wear shirts with the little tie maybe, sports jacket maybe, a sweater or something but he was just always so like... Look he's so cool! And just just like little, the twinkle in the eye and the smile and lanky, sort of tall guy and his wife was beautiful.
Rob: Larry's beautiful wife was another clue I had. I knew her name was Nikki. I'd left about a dozen messages for people I thought might be Larry, but none of the contacts had a Nicki associated with them.
Then finally, one night as I was making dinner, the phone rang. The caller ID said Smith, Larry. I answered. An old voice told me that he was indeed Larry Smith. And he really wished he was the Larry Smith I was looking for.
That night in kind of a fit of desperation. I just googled something like Larry Smith, English professor, California. And as you'd expect, I got a lot of hits. But I found this one in LA, a teacher, an English professor at LA City College. I clicked on his rate my professor page - years and years of glowing reviews. I knew it was a long shot - I mean, Larry must be retired by now. But I emailed this professor and went to bed.
The next morning I had a new email. I hit record on my cell phone just before opening it.
Rob reading email: ...and just based on the subject line, I think I might have found him… Ha. Cool. "Rob, haha, you hit the jackpot since I’ve never had been on Facebook or MySpace. I'd assume I'd be hard to trace. After Olympia. My wife and I moved to San Jose for four years. On to Coos Bay, Oregon for 16 at a high school, with two in the middle to work in Papua New Guinea to give our three kids a true cultural experience. Paso Robles, California for six, California Youth authority prison, then down to LA area in 2000. Where I continued with high school and adjuncted at several colleges. Now I'm in my fiftieth year with no plan on retiring….
Phone message:Thank you for calling the Whittier Union High School District. Please listen closely to the following options as our menu has changed. Para Espanol oprima a nemero 8. If you are calling from a touch tone telephone and... # Wait while I transfer your call…
Larry Smith:Hey, morning, Rob.
Rob on phone: Hey, Larry. How you doing?
Larry: Good. Great. Hey, let me go grab Patty. She had a she had an event and so she's around here somewhere. She's the one with a phone.
Rob I got ahold of Larry Smith in his classroom. He recorded his end on a colleague's cell phone.
Larry: Okay, we're on.
Rob on phone: Okay, well, um, can you just start, Larry, by introducing yourself, and maybe where you are right now?
Larry:Yeah, my name is Larry Smith. I'm a teacher. This is my 50th year. So I've been teaching starting in Olympia, Washington and now I am in Whittier, California teaching at an alternative high school, and Los Angeles City College and living in Pasadena.
Rob: Larry grew up near Seattle. It's where he expected to start his teaching career after graduating from Seattle Pacific University. But he finished school during a big recession.
Larry: Nobody was hiring. And so I just started going further and further south until I finally found a district that did have an opening and I found the first one in Olympia. And so I had literally never stopped in Olympia. I'd never been on the Capitol grounds. West Olympia, I had no idea what that was. So the first time I really saw where I was going to be living was for my job interview and ended up really enjoying the area, rented a house. It was on Plymouth Street, a two story house in West Olympia for $65 a month! That's how bad the house was and how the economy was in those days.
Rob: Jefferson junior high, it was a junior high then not a middle school, wasn't in great shape either. Larry says./
Rob: It was pretty rundown, actually, you know, there was like three trees on the whole property. In fact, I think my second year there, we did a big project where we got a bunch of trees donated and the kids planted them along the front of the school and on the side. And I believe if you drive by Jefferson today and see any fairly large trees along the front, they were planted by my eighth graders that year.
Rob: I asked Larry what he did for fun. Like, did he go downtown?
Larry: No, I didn't. Downtown, my goodness? No, that's where the Washington and Reeves kids hung out. And I wouldn't dare do that. No I was pretty much Westside. I mean, You know, I would eat probably three times a week at Bob's Burgers, which was right across the street from Egan's drive in, which had the worst worst ice cream in the history of humanity, which was so grainy that it would literally sand your teeth down and would go to Peterson's Food Town to buy my food. And then went to church at a little church actually was built during probably my second or third year there, Westwood Baptist Church.
Rob: He still had friends and family up north. He'd visit them on the weekends.
Larry: So I would jump in my Volkswagen bus, hippie mobile and drive into Seattle and then come back on Sunday for church and then, you know, kind of that was sort of the ritual but yeah it was pretty much West Olympia.
Rob: Larry started teaching here in Olympia at 22. closer in age to his students than to their parents. Far from home for the first time, he just folded himself into the west side community.
Larry: It was just pure fun. You know, and as a bachelor first year teacher I mean I lived right in the middle of where all my students lived and you know, my door didn't have a, my house didn't even have a lock and I would come home from school and five kids would just be hanging out in the living room and I would be invited to dinner all the time. And, I mean, it was just really a big family thing.
Rob: The Bachelor days were short lived. In his third year teaching, Larry magically reconnected as he puts it, with a woman he was engaged to years before at SPU. Within three weeks, the two were married. over winter break, Nikki resigned from her teaching position in Santa Cruz.
Larry: And then she moved up and shivered for a year and a half before she talked me into moving south.
Rob: It was Larry Smith's last year teaching in Olympia that How the West Was once was written.
Larry: I knew it was going to be my final year. I just wanted to try something really unique. And I just happened to be really blessed by an incredible group of kids and wanted to do more than just daily and weekly assignments. And so we just took on this virtually a year long project.
Ray:He explained it to us and said that we're going to, we're going to write a book as a class and it's like, oh, okay, well, what does that mean?
Rob: They had to decide what to write a book about.
Larry: We listed all the possibilities, and I remember one of them was all the uses of ivy. But that didn't seem like a book that would really sell and might have been a parent came up with the idea that we should do a history of the local area because West Olympia is really a distinct geographical region from the rest of the city.
Rob: Larry says the first topic was wild John Tourneau, a mass murdering man of the woods that one of his students had told him about. A story he'd passed off as legend.
Larry: We looked it up. And sure enough, this guy was a real person who was killed in a gun battle. And so he became sort of our first story and then it just took off.
Ray: Everybody in the class got assigned different, different jobs, editors, interviewers, researchers, etc. And we kinda launched into this giant project.
Larry: Different kids got more involved. Some of them were involved in every single aspect. But nobody was uninvolved. It's like the entire class picked up the vibration and parents were actively involved. I would get phone calls from people just out of the blue suggesting somebody to go interview. You know, the kids didn't have cars. They were eighth graders. So, their parents would drive them out to the middle of nowhere up to the end of Cooper point or somewhere and sit in the car while the kids went in and did the interviews.
Rob: This was all on top of the regular duties of eighth grade English - reading, writing vocabulary. A lot of the work on the book, like the interviews took place after school or on the weekends. Ray and Bella did some of those interviews.
Ray: My role was to actually go out and meet with the elder community of West Olympia. They were so gracious and so interested and willing and eager to share their experiences and many who had lived there their entire lives.
Rob: Ray remembers a couple of those interviews in particular. One was with an old man that lived near the water and mud Bay.
Ray: He wasn't a curmudgeon by any means. But he talked about how the changes and the you know the bringing of new businesses had kind of altered the community feel. And then the other was just an elderly woman who like I say she had cookies and lemonade and it was just exuberant and excited and wanted to meet with us. It was a little intimidating. I was in eighth grade and I was with Larry and my buddy Rick. And we really enjoyed spending time with her and just very gracious and very interested in sharing her experiences.
Bella: Oh, they just thought it was so great. I mean, they just thought it was so exciting that one, we we're writing a book and two, what it was about, because, you know, nobody was gonna ask them the history of West Olympia. And they were really excited about, I think, I think people really enjoy telling the history of where they've lived, probably all their entire life.
Rob in conversation: Yeah. Some of my favorites are the personal ones like the guy that did the ark, built the ark.
Bella:Yeah. Why did he built the Ark? I don't remember
Rob in conversation: I think he was waiting for the second flood?
Bella: Yeah, you know that really live in it up, didn't it? (laughing)
Rob: Each chapter of the book is a different topic or story. There's a chapter on the different incarnations of the Fourth Avenue Bridge, The story of Harry Beechy, a hulk of a man who lost his arm working as a longshoreman. I love the story of the streetcar that used to run up Harrison Hill, and take a right on Rogers, how kids greased the tracks one year as a Halloween prank.
Each account was recorded by the kids during the field interviews, some on tape, some handwritten notes. The stories were written up back in class, then edited. Larry says plenty of the work didn't make it into the book.
Larry: Certain stories, we couldn't verify. And so they were eliminated. The stories that weren't as well written and we just wanted it to be a crisp, concise, only the very best. And so the story about Harry Beechy, the guy that built the ark, and the plane that crashed into St. Peter's hospital, you know, they made the cut and so we really focused on them.
Bella: Here's the art guy! Here it is! Oh my god, (reading)“Bill started work on ark II in 1922 and worked on it for four or five years before he finished it” (laughing) "Bill was an average man except for one thing, he built an ark". Oh, that's great!
Rob: When the writing was done, Larry's wife Nikki typed it all up. This project wasn't over yet though. Students helped collate the pages and learned how to bind the books. There was marketing. They built wooden display cases to put in shops around town.
May 16 1974, the students finally had finished products to show for their work.
Larry: We just sold it I think it was for $1.25, which probably today would be about $15. Of course, every kid in the class had family members who wanted to buy them and the Daily Olympian published a story about it. And that developed some interest.
Rob: The book sold out in no time, 1500 copies before school was even out for summer. Summer was when Larry and Nikki packed up their house on Plymouth Street.
Larry: I basically put a fairly large group of them in charge of whatever was going to happen with a book. And they authorized and supervised another printing, continued to sell, continued to meet and determine where the money would be distributed after I left the school. I mean, this group was so responsible and incredible.
Rob: Larry didn't know it, but he wasn't done with this group just yet. The following year, they won an award.
Larry: Yeah, it was, it was like a new author prize that was given every year for the entire state of Washington. And it was so exciting to them and I, of course didn't know about it, and this was way pre-internet and nobody had my phone number but I got a... somebody, I think I had a forwarding address probably in the personnel office. And so I got a letter from the kids confirming that it was me and once they knew it was they purchased and sent me down a round trip plane ticket from San Jose to SeaTac and back to attend the, it was a governor's reception at the Capitol, and all the kids, it was funny because there were just probably 10 other adult authors and then like 50 kids (laughing) at this thing, that were still actively involved in this book, and they all got some kind of a metal certificate. I can't even remember what. But it was great, you know, best reunion I've ever had, even though it’d only been a year to just see, see how these kids had grown and just continued to be an enthusiastic bright group.
Rob: In the end, about 60 Kids helped in the production of the book. 2500 copies were printed and sold. And much of the money from the sales was donated to help local senior citizens. Bella and Ray, both tell me that they think often about this eighth grade project and their teacher, Larry Smith.
Bella: He really just made this thing happen. Like we wrote a book.
Rob: Bella - whose last name in the book is Sabella, by the way - Bella has made a career in the performing arts, both on stage and in the restaurant industry. She says that Larry's class, that feeling of safety, helped her out of her shell and gave her a feeling of accomplishment.
Bella: You know, feeling so like important and proud that we did this, you know? And, you know, I think it's a really wonderful thing that we all had that opportunity. 'Cause I don't think a lot of people get to have that kind of opportunity. They just don't.
Rob: Like Larry, Ray Houser went into public education. He's worn a lot of hats over the years. From teacher to assistant superintendent. One of his roles had him traveling the country researching effective teaching strategies. It gives him a unique perspective on Larry's approach to teaching.
Rob: I gotta say, Larry was lightyears ahead of his time when it comes to effective teaching strategies. And I've, I've done a ton of research. The whole idea of relevance, real world experiences, collaboration opportunities, engagement strategies, it was, now that I look back on it, I didn't know then obviously, as an eighth grader, it was, it was pretty incredible that he had kind of discovered how to engage his students, how to ensure that their learning was, was relevant and required them to work collaboratively. That's, that's the stuff we've been focusing on for the last 10 years and we're still trying to get into most of public education, he was doing it 40 years ago.
Rob: Larry was modest when I asked him if he had any secrets to great teaching.
Larry: Yeah, the secret is when you teach Junior High they're, they're too clueless to really know how bad you are. And if you tell jokes and give fun assignments, they might like it. But, you know, I don't know. It's hard to tell. I mean, teaching in some ways is hardly, it's not like a job for me because, it's like the old saying that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And it's… I got a, received a card from a student in that class that I tucked away somewhere that said "Mr. Smith promise you'll never grow up". And, unfortunately, my wife says that's the case.
Rob: After the self deprecation. Larry got a bit more real.
Larry: But really what it boils down to, it's kind of a 50/50 thing. You have to love the material and you have to love the students. And if you love the students, you're going to make sure they learn the material and if you love the material, you're going to make sure the students you know, have access, learn to love it as much as you do. And you just can't take things too seriously. When kids are in bad moods, you can't think that they're doing it because they're angry with you, but there's probably something going on in their home and, and a lot of that whole philosophy came in my very first year teaching probably three or four months into the year, a student who was a foster girl, her name was Valerie Good, was shot and killed by her foster brother in their home. And it just shook me to the core realizing how fragile life is and how special these kids are. And that stuck in my mind forever that you know, every single kid is really valuable and full of potential. And to this day, I think, after 50 years and probably 50,000 students I don't think I've met one kid who didn't have vast potential and some of them never realized it. Some ended up in prison, some ended up dying of drug overdose, some ended up suicides. But the possibilities were always there and, and since you don't know who's going to just blossom and potentially be the next, Michael Jordan or Barack Obama or, you know, great author, you just treat all of them as if that's going to happen.
Rob: These days Larry and Nicky Smith live near Los Angeles. They have three children and six grandchildren. One of the things that Larry loves about Southern California is all the different cultures. He tells me that LA City College where he works is the most culturally diverse college in the world. Another obvious difference between here and there is the weather. Larry can't seem to get enough of the warm, sunny climate after his early years in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe this is the origin of the rumor that Larry and Nikki moved to California for health reasons. Despite the weather, Olympia holds a high place in Larry's mind.
Larry: Of all the schools I've taught in, the class of 1974. Jefferson Junior High is the most memorable. It was that group that, I mean, all my kids in Olympia were great, but for some reason, it's like a convergence of the planets or something. But I still can look over the names and picture every single kid in that group. Great, great memories, and I wish I had been a more experienced teacher and had done a better job academically, but I'm sure if I could find out what you're doing. I would be so proud and so impressed and so amazed, and just, you know, blessed that I got to be a part of your lives for nine months, and that was the best nine months of my life. So thank all of you for sure. From the bottom of my heart.
CREDITS:
Rob: Thanks to Rick Aarts for calling me back. Thank you, Larry for checking your email. And on that note, Larry says if you're a former student of his, he'd love to hear from you. His email address is [email protected]. Thank you to Ray and Bella, for allowing a total stranger to come into your homes and talk with you. Even if it was against the better judgment of your friend, Bella.
Bella: My friend's like "hey, do you know this man?" I'm like, "No". he's like, "you're letting him in the house?" I'm like, "Yeah." He goes "Do you have something that if you need to kill him..." (Laughing)
Rob: You heard music today by, in order, Lucas Gonze, two pieces by Northwest band Ditrani Brothers. The psychedelic track was by local artists Ronnie Tana, courtesy of Olympia's own 2060 Records. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. Ending theme music by skrill Meadow. More info and links on all these artists in the show notes and welcometoolympia.com.
I first came across the out of print book How the West Was once in the bibliography of a book that's very much in print. Understanding Olympia is a really funny and (smiling) mostly accurate guide to Olympia by David Shearer Water. You can buy it at Browsers, Orca Books, or online at buyolympia.com. Ending Theme Music by Skrill Meadow.
With permission I posted the chapter on the ark builder, Bill Greenwood at Welcometoolympia.com. It's under the show notes for this episode. Also, this book wasn't the only extracurricular activity that Larry Smith did with his class. They also made silent films. Ray still has one of these and he shared it with me. Honestly, it's just a bunch of teenagers goofing around on the Capitol campus, but it was 45 years ago. Check it out. Welcometoolympia.com. It'll also be in the show notes.
Finally, I thought it only fair that I give Egan's a second chance on Larry's behalf. It has been 45 years. I took my five and seven year olds recently.
Rob at Egan’s: Does it taste grainy at all to you?
7 year old: No, it tastes like ice cream a tiny bit melted with chocolate and vanilla mixed up together good.
Rob: There you have it. I'm Rob Smith.
