b"formal training. The only thing I can do is give you basic cooking knowledge here, I can't write anything. There was oneparticular guy there, I'll never forget this guy. I really liked him, so I said: Listen, the one thing you always gotta remem-ber, no matter where you go, no matter what kind of cook's work you do, always work clean, have the area clean, makesure your uniform is clean, don't make a mess. Clean up behind yourself. He took all of that in consideration. I showedhim the proper way to use a knife, how to cut lettuce, how to cut cabbage, things like that, knife skills, I showed him allthat. One day I saw him in the street and he said: Hepbourn. He remembered me. Said: You Hepbourn, right? Youknow something, what you taught me, I got a job man. But some people didn't want to learn anything, others will wantto learn.What was most problematic for you?The most problematic was my co-workers, the other cooks. What does it mean to you to be a union member?It means that I have a strength behind me, I have a family, more or less, behind me. Ive been a union man all mylife, not just through Local 237.I'm for unions. Unions are what made this country. I don't know if a lot of people knowthe history of 14th Street and why they call it Union Square Park. A lot of bloody incidents went down in that park fromunion activity. There are a lot of unions on 14th Street. Why? Because Union Square Park was the rallying point, we meetat the park, yeah. One day, do you think anybody will know why they call it Union Square Park? Why a lot of unionsdown there. At one time, there was a butcher's union. I know the butchering industry is not what it used to be. It's gottencentralized also. It used to be down the street from here, that was the meat district and union officers were down thereand rally, go down to the park. Yeah, in the 30s, there were a lot of riots down there because of union activity. That's whythey call it Union Square Park.You retired in 2012. How old were you at the time of your retirement?Let me see, 57 maybe? 56, 57, about that.I retired through a disability. I fell one day going home on the bus.I remember reaching for the pole on the bus and the bus moved. I ended up falling and I remember breaking my phone.Instead of laying [down], I got back up, because I'm not that type of guy. People said I should have stayed there. No, I gotback up. Within two months or so, I could hardly walk. Going to all these doctors, every doctor was telling me somethingdifferent. I went to a union- sponsored doctor and they told me I had a hernia. They signed me up for surgery, but my insurance wouldn't pay for it at that hospital. I had to go to my doctor again. He said: You don't have a hernia.He sentme back to my orthopedist who had done my knee surgery. He took x-rays and everything, and he said: Mr. Hepbourn,your hips are shot. You had arthritis in your bones, so when you fell, it woke it up. It's not your fault, you would have gotten this anyway. The fall aggravated it. Its in my family. So I had to have double hip replacement surgery. Since I hadenough time on the job, I said let me see if I can retire, because I really was getting really sick of Rikers Island. It's a hostile environment all the time. You can get hurt out there. The workload wasn't getting any lighter and cooks don'tmake any money.So, I sat down and made a budget. I was thankful that I did not have a lot of bills. I went to Social Security, got papers from them. I went to NYCERS (New York City Employee Retirement System). They gave me some figures.I said: You know something? I can live on that. I got my union pension; I had qualified for all of that for 181 "