b"lady be retired. But in the end, I was told, Well, just leave it alone Mr. Fox and just do that and you'll get your samesalary. The assistant director wanted me to follow it through and get rid of the director. They said a lot of people wantedher out of there. They knew, but like I said, the personnel director in the front office, they all calmed her down, Leave Mr. Fox alone. I was about to retire and I think she moved to Coler Hospital, the other hospital. It was because of her I wasnever promoted. When I went on vacation, she gave somebody else the promotion I was supposed to have had. Headcook made more money and gave out the assignments. The person who she made head cook had somebody else makethe assignments for him, because he couldn't comprehend reading or writing or something like that. Everybody said,Mr. Fox, you're supposed to be the head cook, you're supposed to be the head cook. And people knew that. The front office said, How come a person with a evaluation like this isn't the head cook? They start to question it then, because,she whited out all the good parts. Like I said before, the dieticians say, Mr. Fox, we gave you a great evaluation, but thisperson told us to white it out. I saw the evaluation, I was bragging about this evaluation, I should have just xeroxed itright then. Then when it got back to me, they saw the white out. I don't know why personnel or the front office didn't sayanything then. They saw the white out and so I justdid the job I was assigned. I enjoyed the job.What did you like best about your job?Just seeing the people happy, seeing people eat food. Seeing them like my cooking. They liked me on the grill inthe cafeteria. But it was for the same salary. Then they put me on the sandwiches. I got along with everybody back there.When I retired, there was a lot of tears and cheers and they said, Mr. Fox, when you retired, they had to hire somebodyelse, two people to do that. When I started, there was only one kind of sandwich. Then, I had to make individual sandwiches for the patients diet and requests.How many sandwiches would you say in a shift?Maybe about 200, 250, 300 sandwiches. I made them and then put them on the truck. People wanted a sandwichfor lunch, they wanted sandwich for dinner. I mean, for a snack at night. Diabetics sometimes had to eat in betweenmeals. Maybe, ifsomebody come in new after meals were served, they might want a sandwich. I never counted.When did you retire?2002? I think so, about 2002. I was 62.I was getting bugged; I had a song in my head: 62 I'm through and that'swhat I did. I could have stayed longer, but it got on my nerves after a while. All the sandwiches, I didn't take a lunch houron many days. I couldn't because the job wouldn't get done. They said, Take your break, let somebody else do it. But I wouldn't.Do you remember your starting salary at Goldwater Hospital?I don't know, whatever the basic was at that time for a cook. I don't know what the answer is.Can you tell us more about being a shop steward?Yeah, if a problem came up, I would straighten it out. There might not have been something every day, but whenthere was, I'd straighten it out. The manager would come to me, say: Man, he's got to be on time. I'll pull him to the129 "