Vernon Tuckey

              Interview with J. Vernon Tuckey
                                                                                          
1985: 75th Anniversary of Glendale’s Incorporation.

Thelma Heatwole, interviewer for the cable television series, “Glimpses into Glendale’s Past,” has been a part of the Glendale scene since 1921.  Her abiding interest in this city started developing during the ten years her father, H. L. Renick, was mayor of Glendale.  It was her 39 years news and feature writing, first for the Glendale Herald and largely with the Arizona Republic, that really made her knowledgeable with Glendale and best of all she says, with its wonderful people.

TH:	Today we have a great memory shaker and absolute bell ringer when it comes to memories.  He is J. Vernon Tuckey.  He is a native of Glendale and there are not too many of those around our age that are natives.  He graduated from Glendale Grammar School, from Glendale High School and Arizona State Teachers’ College, as it was called then.  When it comes to Glendale’s 75th municipal anniversary, he has a real claim to fame.  We are going to talk about that.  But, before we get into the earlier days, I think everyone should know that you had quite a career as an FBI agent.  Tell use a little bit about that, will you Vernon?

VT:	Well, that’s quite a thing.  June the first, 1942, I took my oath of office as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D. C.  One of the memorable things that I think of back in those days, is that I had read all of the stories about the FBI, all the romance of the FBI and I thought it would be just a real easy thing.  We went to a real tough academy.  We went to school seven days a week from 9:00 AM until 9:00 PM. On Sunday, they were real good to us.  We only had to go from 1:00 to 6:00 PM.  Of all the time I served with them, that day until January 31, 1977, I had never had a day of sick leave.  Best of all, I had never been late except the first day.

TH:	What about that?

VT:	Oh, that was something?  As you know, war was in progress at that time and the railroads were not on time.  As a result, two of us in the class of 52 students were late.  They had taken all our things up.  We walked in and of course, the first thing we both said was, “We’re late.”  The class laughed and the instructor laughed and they asked our names.  They had our seats still there and they moved our things back.  They swore us in as special agents of the FBI.

TH:	What an introduction to the FBI!

VT:	What an introduction.

TH:	How many years?  That made 35 years?

VT:	That made 35 years and eight months to be exact.

TH:	I remember that a good part of that was here in Arizona, too.

VT:	Oh, yes.  I was the luckiest fellow that was ever in the FBI.  I was transferred back here at 2:20 PM, January 31, 1947.  I remained for all intents and purposes right here in the beautiful state of Arizona, which I enjoyed every bit of it.

TH:	That allowed you to keep up your relationship with Arizona and Glendale in particular.

VT:	That is absolutely right.  When I was working, I always worked in the Glendale area.  So, I was in Glendale, on and off, every week.

TH:	That’s great.  That really enhances your experience here.  Getting back to the claim to fame, your father, John Tuckey, was a member of the very first city council.  It was the Town Council in those days.  That was in 1910.

VT:	That is correct.

TH:	I understand that, naturally, you don’t remember too much about his city council days because of your age.  Your father must have been very, very active in the community as he also served on the school board, didn’t he?

VT:	He certainly did.

TH:	Therein lies something that you do remember.  There was quite a fracas in the community.  Tell us about it.

VT:	I certainly will.  All that assures you that change of time, today and then.  They had a squabble, as you would say nowadays, between the teaching staff, the administration and the Board of Education at the Glendale Grammar School due to the fact that the teachers wanted to play cards.  Not gamble, just play cards.  Oh my goodness, the whole neighborhood and the whole community were just up in arms over that.  My father took the side of the teachers and of course, he was a bad man for doing such a thing as that.  How that came out, I can’t tell you.  I’m sure today the teachers can play cards.

TH:	They can play cards.  They weren’t even asking for a dance, were they?

VT:	No.  Oh, never, never.

TH:	You couldn’t even consider that.

VT:	Oh, I should say not.

TH:	One of the teachers at the Glendale Grammar School was Mr. Isaac Imes.  A school was later named for him but you knew him in a different capacity.  What about Isaac Imes?

VT:	One of the finest gentlemen that ever taught a day of school.  He was, of course, in the course, in the vocational field at the grade school.  But he was also the athletic man, the coach of all the teams.  I was very interested in athletics and I played for Mr. Imes.  Everyone who came in contact with him thought he was the greatest fellow that ever breathed a breath in the state of Arizona or in the United States.

TH:	What happened at the Manual Training Shop?  Was there a fire or something?

VT:	Mr. Imes was a relentless worker.  Along about Christmas Time, various students had little presents they were making for their mothers, fathers and grandfathers and whatnot.  In order to be a little elf, at night he would put the finishing touches on something that might have been just a little bit rugged.  Lo and behold (Mr. Imes never smoked or anything like that), a glue pot overheated and burst into flames.  He had various paint and whatnot, that he had been working with.  Down went our old Manual Training Shop, as it was called in those days.

TH:	Is that right?  I didn’t know how that happened.

VT:	That is exactly the way it happened.  He burned his hands, but not seriously.

TH:	There is something that you may have forgotten, when I first knew you in the grammar school.  When I was in the fourth grade and you were in the fifth.  My first introduction to you was on the way home from school.  There was a big bunch of water and I didn’t know how to get across it.  You carried me across it.

VT:	Of course, that was what men were supposed to do in those days.

TH:	I have never forgotten.  Because I wasn’t very old, that has always stayed in my mind.  Speaking of girls, they once had a girls’ basketball team at Glendale Union High School before any other high school in the district.  What happened to that?  It was a good one, wasn’t it?

VT:	It was a good one, crackerjack.  They had some real players on that team and they were contenders.  But of all things, basketball was too vigorous.  It would ruin the health of the young ladies if they played basketball.  That team was taboo.  It was closed down because it was too tough on the young ladies.  I think of all the ladies in the Olympics today and all the professional sports they are in today.  They seem to be getting along.  But back in the ‘20s, no!

TH:	A few of those are grown women today in Glendale, aren’t they?  While you were at Glendale High School, there was a mysterious explosion that happened one night.  The story got all over town but I never did really get down to the grass roots of what happened.

VT:	I can tell you exactly what happened.  There were a group of upper classmen, upper classmen as far as I’m concerned.  There was a little event down at the Glendale Grammar School Auditorium which, at that time, housed all of the entertainment in Glendale in whatnot.  So, they were all down there.  After the event, they wanted to go someplace in one of the fellow’s automobile.  They had no gasoline.  The gasoline at the high school was more volatile than the regular gasoline that you buy at the service station.  These gentlemen thought, well, we had better go up and get some. So they went up to the high school, and of course this fluid or gasoline was used of heating purposes.  Someone struck a match to find out how much was in the container.  As a result, I don’t have to say anything else.  There were five of them that blew out.  It was obvious who was there because they had no hair, no eyebrows and plenty of singes.

TH:	The next day they were sort of earmarked at school, weren’t they?

VT:	Yes, they were.  That was an upset.

TH:	It seemed as though young people really don’t change all that much over the years.

VT:	They would do it today but they would be smarter and not use that high volatile gas.

TH:	That’s right.  One more thing relating to the grammar school.  This is a picture of the Glendale Grammar School Auditorium.  It was built in 1917, however, it had been refurbished by the time this picture was taken.  Do you remember every Christmas something major happened for the kids in the grammar school?

VT:	This is something that people couldn’t believe today.  Every Christmas, all the time I was in grade school, there was a family here in Glendale who liked the people of Glendale.  That was the Sands family.  They lived at Lateral 17 and Northern Avenue.  Of course, today that would be 51st.  Mrs. Sands always had a Christmas sock which contained fruit, nuts and candy which she gave to every member of the Glendale grade school.  Every student got it.

TH:	There were hundreds!

VT:	Yes, there were hundreds of them.  We had a big Christmas tree.  Mrs. Sands would be there and the teachers would assist and all of us would sing Christmas carols.  She would hand out a real nice, in those days they were called Christmas sox, of candies, fruits and all of those good things.       

TH:	That was all because one man had concern for all the children in Glendale. At the same time, he had two boys right there at the same school.  Did they line up for their bags of candy?

VT:	Two boys and a daughter.  They were just the same as the rest of us.  They never said a word.  I might add something here that might be of interest to you, Thelma.  I was her paper boy.  For years and years, I delivered to them at the Manistee Ranch at the location I just mentioned.  Every Christmas, every Christmas, I got a nice big box of chocolates and they were of the good kind.  Most always Mrs. Sands, herself, would give it to me.  Maybe someone else because, naturally you didn’t have control over that.  I was her paper boy for many years and got a box of candy every Christmas.  She was a wonderful lady.

TH:	There is still a reminder of that family here in Glendale, isn’t there? There is still the Manistee Ranch there on the corner of 51st and Northern and of course, the Sands’ Motor Company is from the same family.

VT:	Yes, same family.  Grandson.

TH:	They played an important role in Glendale.  Do you remember how you felt when you stood in that line and waited for you box of Candy?

VT:	My goodness, you would think that Santa Claus was right there and you had the greatest thing in the world, because they had all of that in boxes.

TH:	We couldn’t imagine anyone having enough funds for anything like that.

VT:	I know it.  Never, never.  I agree with you.  It was a tremendous feeling and everybody was talking about it.  The teachers would even talk about it.  If you were a little unruly, or something like that, the teacher would say, “Santa Claus doesn’t like little boys and girls not to be good.”

TH:	They played that one to the hilt.  When you were in Glendale High School, did they have football when you were first a student there?

VT:	No, no.  We didn’t have football until my last year, my senior year.

TH:	How did that come about?

VT:	This is something you wouldn’t believe.  All of us were scared to death for two members of our students body, Ernie Swihart and Olen Randall.  They were two great big giants.  Of course, now, they would be midgets.  In those days they were great big tough guys and they said, “We want football!” The superintendent said, “We don’t want football.”  Some of the board members said, “We don’t want football!”  The rest of us said, “Oh, you guys are going to get in dutch if you do anything about football in Glendale Union High School.”  Those two gentlemen went out on the streets of Glendale, went to every businessman, went to all the board members and talked it up.  In 1928, in September, we started practicing for football for the first time for many years.

TH:	You said that many years ago they had a football team?

VT:	 That’s right, but I didn’t even know it.

TH:	I didn’t either.  Were you on that first team?

VT:	 I certainly was.  I played right end.

TH:	 What kind of a season did they have that year?

VT:	We won more than we lost.  That tremendous gentleman was the coach, a gentleman by the name of Ed Tussey.  He was the social science teacher, a tremendous teacher and was coaching all the other things.  When I was a freshman, in the spring of 1926, we won the state baseball championship. At the time it was held at the University of Arizona.  We went down there with our little crew and came back with the state championship.  Ed Tussey, of course was the coach of that.  I was lucky enough as a freshman to have been a member of that team, so that is why I wanted to mention it to you.

TH:	Baseball was Glendale’s thing, wasn’t it?  It has always been a baseball town, hasn’t it?

VT:	Right.  To show you how it was, today the people would laugh at you.  Every business in Glendale closed on Friday noon for the baseball game that afternoon.  The place was lined with everybody in town.  So, if you had two thousand people there, you had everybody in town.

TH:	Yes, they really supported it.  You remember though, even during the depression, in summertime the church league drew throngs just to see the baseball game?

VT:	They made Glendale.  The churches got together and had softball.  They had lights for the first time, even before Phoenix.  They had lights!  But, with the help of everybody in town and the utilities company, they were able to have a softball diamond at the grade school.  The various churches got together and had a strong church league and believe it or not, there was lots of competition.

TH:	Yes, there certainly was.  One requirement was that you had to go to church to be a member of that team.

VT:	You couldn’t miss two Sundays in a month.

TH:	They adhered to it, didn’t they?

VT:	 Oh, they adhered to it.  The minister had to OK it, just like they did in school.

TH:	They had to sign for you?

VT:	They had to sign for you, that’s right.  When you went to church, you made sure that the preacher saw you.

TH:	Those were the good old days.  You told me something that I didn’t know before.  You said that it used to be that the young teenage boys lassoed burros out north of the Arizona Canal.

VT:	That is absolutely right.  What brought that back to me was all the publicity whenever they were trying to get the burros out of the Grand Canyon.  They were trying to get people to take them and everything.  We had them just across the canal.  There was a tremendous mesquite thicket out there.  In those days, there were what we called prospectors who would go out looking for gold and silver and whatnot.  They packed their food and all their tools and everything on burros, because they were tough and everything.  We were able to lasso these wild burros, no strings tied.  We all had a horse.  We would catch these and bring them into town and the prospectors would pay us 50 cents for each.  That was a lot of money in those days.  All the fun we had being bucked off of those.  We would all try to ride them and of course, everybody wanted to succeed.  Some of us took some pretty hard knocks, but we had a good time.

TH:	Did you take one for yourself?

VT:	Certainly.  All of us had one but that was a tame one.

TH:	There was nothing beyond the Arizona Canal?

VT:	Oh, nothing.  Just desert and lots of mesquite, greasewood as they called it.

TH:	It’s big metropolis area out there now.

VT:	All you had to do was go across the canal and look around in those mesquites.  Pretty quick you would hear them.

TH:	You would hear the burros?

VT:	Sure running.  Trying to get away from me.

TH:	Something else happened at the Arizona Canal.  That was Glendale’s first swimming pool.

VT:	 That is correct.  Nowadays you would all die with disease.

TH:	If you even got into the canal.

VT:	Yes, if you even got into the canal.  Of course, that was also the place where the juniors and seniors had they rope tug of war.

TH:	Tug of war across the canal?

VT:	The juniors versus the seniors; the seniors versus the juniors.  That was a big afternoon out there.  They would have all the yell leaders, everyone on each side of the canal.

TH:	Young people of that day really had a good time, didn’t they?  There was no lack of things to do and we didn’t have recreation centers.  We made our own entertainment.
VT:	Let me tell you.  You won’t believe this probably, but did you know that if they had a party at Glendale Union High School it had to be segregated? Meaning it would have to be all boys, in those days they called them boys or all girls.  I can remember one incident was the funniest thing in the world.  The superintendent called everybody together and said, “We are going to have a party for all the young ladies and it is going to be on this night here at the grade school.  There cannot be one boy, not one boy, on the grounds.  We are going to have the teachers here and you will be disciplined if you come.”  They had the girls’ party, but they had lots of boys and lots of trouble.  The teachers were chasing them, running them, trying to catch them and everything like that.

TH:	They just naturally wanted to be there.

VT:	Sure, Sure.  The interesting part, some of the young ladies would go up and say, “Listen, I got a boyfriend and as my boyfriend, I want him to take me home!”  “No, no, not for this!”  Of course, everybody got a big kick out of it.  I know some of the teachers would have been fired if it were known that they were laughing about the whole situation.  There were no school dances, no boy and girl parties, all through the time I graduated there in 29’.  Up to that time, not one.

TH:	Times have changed.

VT:	Times have changed.

TH:	Looking back, what was Glendale’s image during you high school days?

VT:	During the high school days, Glendale was highly regarded as a great baseball team.  We had probably 300 students.  We practiced in the fall and in the spring.  Glendale was highly regarded.  I’m speaking of Phoenix, Mesa and Tucson, because we were always a contender for the state championship.

TH:	Of the town itself, what kind of a reputation did it have?

VT:	 We were known as the egg basket of the world.  It was strictly farm and strictly poultry, because we had the biggest experimental station here, as you know.

TH:	I don’t remember the ostriches.  Do you?

VT:	The what?

TH:	The ostrich farm that they had here.

VT:	Oh yes, I remember that.  They had a big ostrich farm.  Of course, that was when ladies used the plumes.  One of the big things was that we had a fruit called quince.  We would feed the ostrich these quince and you could see it as it went down his long neck.  Everybody got a big kick out of that.  You had to be careful of them.  They could kick and they would kick.

TH:	Were there a lot of them?

VT:	Oh yes.  Most all of them were centered in what you would call a lot around Lateral 19, what is now known as Bethany Home Road.  They would have them and of course, it was a very profitable business.

TH:	Did you ever go to Chicken Day in Glendale?

VT:	I certainly did, right in the city park.

TH:	That was a big event.  Was held in the summertime?

VT:	Oh yes, in the summertime.

TH:	They did that because we had the poultry station?

VT:	We had barbecued chicken.  Everybody could have all the barbecued chicken and all the watermelons.  The people growing the watermelon furnished that and all the chicken people furnished the chicken.  We had it in the city park.  That was a big day.

TH:	What about law and order in those days?  Didn’t we have only one policeman?

VT:	Only one policeman.

TH:	He couldn’t corral the whole town!

VT:	He couldn’t corral the whole town.  Then, of course, it wasn’t a violation of the law to have fire crackers.  That was a real celebration, because everybody came from all over to eat chicken and watermelon.

TH:	They threw fire crackers at the girls’ feet.  I remember that, too.

VT:	That was worth something.  There’s a lot of people who probably don’t realize that we had a world contender for horseshoes.  He grew up here.  Jimmy Lecky, God bless him, is gone now.  Jimmy was taught by Sam Pullins.

TH:	Also a big horseshoe player.

VT:	Yes.  They would go to Miami, Florida, where they used to have the world championship.  They would compete there and Jim was quite an exhibitionist all over town.  Of course, they were featured.

TH:	Those were the good old days.  You really don’t actually live within the confines of Glendale now, but you are in Glendale often.  Does it seem like you still sort of belong here?

VT:	It seems like I should belong here, but it’s certainly different.  You would never realize that this had anything to do with when I lived out here.

TH:	You have kept pace with the police department all these years, haven’t you?

VT:	 Oh, I should say.  They have improved.  They have a fine one.  They have a fine fire department.  I know several members of both organizations.  They are here to make it the best and they do a fine job.

TH:	They really do.  You still have a good opinion of Glendale today?

VT:	Excellent, excellent.  From one to ten, we would rank it a ten.

TH:	That is really good. Vernon, we certainly thank you for coming out here today.  We will be interviewing some other old-timers.  I don’t mind being called an old-timer, do you?

VT:	I don’t either.  I’m proud of it.

TH:	I am too.  Thank you for coming.

VT:	Thank you very much and I certainly enjoyed it, Thelma.