b"together a survey and a questionnaire and circulate it to the nurses that covered the school districts, to ask them whattheir needs were. I got such a great response from them. They had this system where they could borrow VHS tapes forhealth-related things for the students. I set up a library system so that they could borrow tapes at a particular time andthen return it at such and such a date for the next person. The biggest request that I got was for me to come out and speakto the students about personal hygiene. So, I put together a brochure that I wrote. I got this brochure from the statehealth department, how to write a brochure. So, I wrote a brochure on personal hygiene for these children and I had ittranslated into Spanish and English. I brought it to the kids when I was doing these classroom presentations. We had a really cute tape that the kids would watch, and then I would talk to them about hand washing and, keeping your hair and teeth clean, your body and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, that was good. We also had this program called Open Airways for kids.It was for third grade asthmatic kids and it was in partnership with the American Lung Association. They used thehealth educators to take the third grade asthmatic kids out of the classroom and take them into the teachers lounge orwherever it was. It was a six-part or eight-part lesson. We would meet with them once a week and go over these thingswith them. What are your triggers? What are you supposed to do when you have an asthma attack, and so on. I really enjoyed doing that. Getting back to your question, the other thing I enjoyed doing was making my own schedule. I spent maybe 30 percent, 40 percent of my time in the office. I liked to be there on Monday to map out my plan for the week. I was covering Brooklyn West and Staten Island. A couple times I had to go to Staten Island because they had this, um, what isthat illness? I had to do an assembly. Anyway, I had to go out there and speak to the children in the auditorium during anassembly about how to avoid, it must have been rabies, because I think there were raccoons out there. A typical day reallyentailed scheduling appointments for presentations. I drove, so I could drive there. I had a sticker, so I could park in frontof the school. And sometimes I would use public transportation. We got reimbursed for all of that. What was problematic about this job or these series of jobs that were related to public health education?It's a little bit hard to say. Interpersonal relationships with your colleagues can sometimes be problematic to say the least. You really do have to know how to get along with people and that's not always so easy. Towards the end, when I moved to the Bureau of Immunization, I thought that some of the things that I had done, the things that I developedwarranted a promotion. I wanted to come out and retire at the top of the ladder in terms of the title. I was at a two; the top was at a three, the Public Health Educator Three. My supervisor was in that title. Eventually they disbanded the whole program, which was terrible. They said there's no money, the Mayor's office cut the funds.Did they disband it before you retired?Well, soon after. They sent all the public health educators to other locations in the Department of Health, which is really too bad. I didnt get the promotion. So, once they decided they were moving out to Long Island City, I said, Umph, that's it, I'm out. I had the age and the years. I didn't really have to deal with that, so, just said I'm going.Did you have assistants? Did you supervise anyone?I supervised a public health advisor. She was dynamite. She was really good. This was when I was at Immunization.187 "