Interview of Tom Edens
Transcript Number 115

INTERVIEWER: I'd like to introduce you here to the Veteran's Heritage Project. It's a project being done on World War II veterans of Wilmington, and people that were involved in the World War II cause. I'd like to start off your interview today, if you don't mind, with some piano playing, if you'd like to play the piano for us today. 

EDENS: All right. Tell you what I'll do. 

INTERVIEWER: O.K.

EDENS: I will... if you'll take that cane, I'll play you a World War II song.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. I'll take that cane. Very good.

EDENS: Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.

INTERVIEWER: Very good.

EDENS: I don't play by music; I play by note. I mean by ear.

INTERVIEWER: Very good.

EDENS: ___.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: (Plays piano).... You will know this.... That was popular about when the invasion started; right along about... I believe Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover tomorrow. Just you wait and see. That was popular at the time the invasion began.

INTERVIEWER: Now can you tell us a little bit about your history? Where you were born and where you went to school and things like that. That's what we'll start the interview off with.

EDENS: All right. I was born in Hampstead, North Carolina just right down the road in Pender County. Grew up there. Really was a country boy, except during my school going years when I went to the North Carolina School for the Blind. By the way, I was there before Ronnie Milsap became famous. I was there in the 1930's. I went there in 1927 and graduated from the School for the Blind in 1939. I went from there a very restricted place where, boy, all we did was study. We couldn't go anywhere and were campus restricted; and so all we had to do was study. I mean we had to do it. Got a good back-up education. Went to the university from 1939 to 1943. And I love sports; and they're always talking about these people making ___ or something on sport... back and forth scholarship.

INTERVIEWER: Right.

EDENS: Okay. When I went I took this S.A.T . score... the equivalent of it, way back then and I made enough, high enough score so that... I have never been able to write my name, by the way....

INTERVIEWER: Really?

EDENS: I've never been able to write my name except in braille and that is illegal. That's the only illegal thing.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). Yeah, right.

EDENS: And I scored high enough... I scored 1600 points, but they took 400 points away from me because I... said, " Look, you know all this Latin, Greek and math and you're so stupid you haven't learned to write your name?". They took 400 points away but I still had 1200. That shows you how good they... at the School for the Blind. 

INTERVIEWER: Right.

EDENS: So I had it made as far as with what little ability God gave me to get through school. My one war story began this way; in 1940 I went to Burgaw to get drafted , and they told me that I was blind. I said, "Look, please draft me. Send me to ___ and teach me how to instruct, I can earn my stripes; I can even earn my Captain's bars in ___." But they said, "No, Sir. We are not going to let you go up there... put you in the Army. You can't see. The first day you're in there, a big wheel will come down the street and you'll spend you'll spend your career in jail.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: They told me that. They said well we can't draft you. I said, "Well, can't you use me as a cannon fodder. You see, back in those days, we were extraordinarily patriotic. We were very patriotic and we knew that God had blessed America and we were willing to die. I'm talking about these people in Kosovo. President Roosevelt, in the flicker of an eye, would have had our boys over there... gladly gone in and cleaned this mess up. Just like that. It would have been that sort of thing. Anyway, they told me I could not go into the Army, but they said, " I'll tell you what, you just wait... you go on and get your school teachers degree like you say you're going to do. We won't draft you now, but as soon as the war is over, or nearly as soon as the war is over, you'll find out where the reconditioning center, or reorientation center, for blind people are going to be..." Now, they said, "I conclude there will be some, 'cause this is going to be a vicious war. You find out where that is and you go there. And you can give as much a service that way by waiting as you did before you... as anybody that's going to serve anyway." "You won't even throw me in there as cannon fodder? I was really serious. We loved that country dearly. People don't love it these days the was they should. And it's the craziest, topsy-turvy world; but that's what I've been dealing with all my life, being a blind man willing to make his own way.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

EDENS: But I did interrupt my school career in the mid forties to go to Old Farms Convalescent... no, Old Farms Veteran's Administration Hospital at Avon, Connecticut.

INTERVIEWER: You say Connecticut you went?

EDENS: Yeah, I think there's a golf course up there now. I hope Tiger Woods stays away from there.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: Because it gets mighty cold up there. Well I had the tremendous association and affiliation with those blind boys who had gotten wounded overseas. Some of them buy bad liquor and worse women, but some of them... most of them by wound. And those boys, they loved their country. Most of them had one purple heart, and I think... one time I wanted to be with them and I said, "Well, I got one too". They said, "Well hell, you ain't never been in the Army. You can tell that". 

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: But I taught there. I went to school... I saw these boys fool and fiddling around with learning braille. And they did their best. They wanted nothing. They had lost everything they had in the way of communication; and I was their link. I was their communication direct link... between me and the rest of the world. I got my appointment, civil service appointment, and I served there until I like to have frozen my private parts off. Then decided I had enough.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: But then I learned to know the meaning... and the real first class sort of Americans my generation turned out. Maybe I'm prejudiced. I have a right to be. Those people knew... well, It's printed in the school, but they really knew which end was up. Some of them had been to ___. Some of them had been to Hickam field, and had been convalescing ever since Pearl Harbor, with no work to do until the V. A. hospitals and this convalescent program. And I'm proud to be affiliated with them. When I first got there I stayed at a little place called Farmington, Connecticut. Farmington, Connecticut... that's right between Avon and Hartford. But I had to stand out on the street too long and wait for a bus to come in from Hartford, and so I got a place in Hartford where I could get under a shelter and wait for the bus. But, those were the greatest years that I ever lived. And if I wanted to live any part of my life over again, I would. We boys would go down... and I'd go with them down to New York. Some of them wanted to go to mass. A group of us counselors would take them to mass. Some of them wanted to go to a bar... and that's where I wanted to go.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: So we'd go there and, see I was just a regular old country boy who happened to be working in a cosmopolitan atmosphere, but I would do anything I wanted to.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

EDENS: I was doing what I had saved my talent and my hopes to have done; because, honest to gracious, I would have gone willingly for them to thrown me into Normandy as part of the original, not worth much of anything people to clear the way for the better certain troops. Like I say... cannon fodder. Now, we taught those blinded veterans how to use a cane like this. Only they had metal canes... made out of metal. We taught them the braille system and.... Later on I'll get a braille thing and read some to you. I'm reading a good western. And I'll show you how to write with the system. You can cut off when we do that. Now, would you like to ask me some specific questions?

INTERVIEWER: In the classes that you were teaching, how many people did you have usually? How many....

EDENS: Anywhere from six to eighteen.

INTERVIEWER: And you've had...

EDENS: At one time.

INTERVIEWER: At one time.

EDENS: And I was.... You see, we had braille typewriters then. I would call off to the group the lesson I wanted them to do; and I'd go around to each typewriter and would inspect it, and would turn it up and feel of it. And they said, "Damn, you can feel those dots?"; and I said, "Yeah and so can you." And they'd be kind of discouraged because they didn't know anything about braille. Then I patiently say, " It's a six dot system and very simple. If a man as stupid as I am, and you know how stupid I am..." 'cause I'd kid with them a lot, you know after class, and they'd slip me a drink every once in a while and say, "I know we know this is against the law." But, they got to be real good friends. But, I had anywhere from 6 to 18 people at one time, but I could help them because I was used to teaching school already. Like I told you already earlier in the interview. I got my degree; and I still have my diploma, after all these years. And I got my degree in social studies, English... majored in American history... almost majored in English; and French and Latin. So, I've got a good education.

INTERVIEWER: Sure.

EDENS: How well I have used it, you can see by where I am.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). Now, what was the hardest thing you found that the students you were teaching in school... what was the hardest thing to teach them? What do you think?

EDENS: How to learn to feel; to learn to communicate with their fingertips, rather than with their eye.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

EDENS: I think that was the most difficult because they'd say in the morning that they couldn't see anything. And I'd cry. I'd come back after the thing was over. I would cry because those boys had given everything they had. They had given everything they had.

INTERVIEWER: Wow.

EDENS: And I would go back and cry because... I said, "Lord, help me. In my inept way help me in your best way to show these people how to learn the art of communicating with their fingers." Once I got the idea that they could feel it; and once I got them away from trying to see it and when I knew they couldn't see a darn thing. 

INTERVIEWER: Did you have .... What's.... Were all your students successful, you feel? How do you think they succeeded in....

EDENS: No, I have to do this. I used to learn to grade on the old A, B, C, D...

INTERVIEWER: Right.

EDENS: There were none of them alike. That one thing they had the most difficulty with. That was a common denominator. But every individual had his specialization area, and some of them were brighter than the other. Just like I've got an I.Q. of 2 and you've got an I.Q. of 300. But some of them caught on quicker than others but they all had the same difficulties... the idea of learning to visually communicate with their fingers instead of their eye. Have you ever heard it put that way before?

INTERVIEWER: Not really, as far as communicating with their touch, but that's a unique take on it. Did you... do you still keep in touch with anybody at all, or not?

EDENS: What?

INTERVIEWER: Do you still keep in touch with any of the students at all?

EDENS: I have lost touch with everyone of them.

INTERVIEWER: Wow.

EDENS: If you ever know of anybody, tell them my name. Tell them Edens. And anybody in North Carolina that went to the old Farms, or that knew about it . Tom Edens. And I'd be willing to. Now, you want to cut that thing off just a minute?

INTERVIEWER: Hang on. Yeah. I'm going to turn it off for one second. Hang on. I usually leave it on. (Turns tape off; then back on again). Oh. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were on Pearl Harbor day?

EDENS: Yes, sir. I will never forget. I was at the University of North Carolina that day that Pearl Harbor took place. I was... I heard on the radio. I was at the University of North Carolina, in my room, just listening to the radio, you know; and somebody turned of on electric razor. Back then electric razors were... you couldn't filter them out on the radio like you can now. So I yelled... I heard them interrupt the regular news program. She said, "We interrupt this program for an important bulletin. The Japanese have attacked....".
And I yelled down that hall, "Turn of F that blankety-blank", only I used the real thing.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: Because I wanted to hear it. I knew that was history, when they did that. And the next day after Pearl Harbor, they gave us off from school. You know, the President declared war on Japan. So, I'll never forget that. They cut off that radio. And I said, "There's an important announcement". And I was afraid that our fleet had been destroyed at Hickham Field, I was afraid that none of them had got away and, you know, they didn't. Well, I will always remember the pure trauma that took over the nation. You know, the next Rose Bowl game, they had over here in Durham. And thank God that Duke lost to Oregon State or somebody. One thing I learned at Carolina if I didn't learn anything else... I learned how to hate Duke. 

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: And so anyway, I knew that the World War was... I was very unhappy about it, as far as I knew they had already turned me down at draft; and I wanted to go so bad and be over there. I mean you never known in person in their life that wanted to give everything they were worth for a flag. I was raised that way. I learned the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag very early at the school for the blind over in Raleigh. I was an Eagle scout. I learned... I got my merit badges and did well. Being a Sagitarian, I love to go outdoors. So, I love all that and I didn't want to see any of it destroyed. And we were really very afraid. That's where they played the Rose Bowl game the following New Years Day at Duke Stadium. Because they were afraid the Japanese were going to hit the west coast. 

INTERVIEWER: Right.

EDENS: I think there really was a possibility of it, but they couldn't get a real good firm hold and those islands and jump over very easily. And from Japan to Los Angeles is a long ways, but still it was the thing. I remember the blackouts began immediately after Pearl Harbor. I remember how we knew we would soon... we would be having to face submarines on the east coast because we automatically just went all the way ____both sides. I'll never forget for a second about the guy having the electric razor on and I had to make him cut it off so I could hear the announcement.

INTERVIEWER: Were you in Wilmington at all during World War II, or were you...?

EDENS: I was... let's see, from 1941, that's right, I was in Wilmington... part of Chapel Hill until '43 to get my degree. And then I went and I taught school various places; one place in Pender County; one place in Onslow County, waiting until these veteran things were opened up. I knew what I wanted to do.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

EDENS: And so I was saving "the best part of me" for that...What I knew was going to happen.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any memories of Wilmington during World War II, when you were here? Any particular memories?

EDENS: Yes sir. I lived out here during the summer. We knew about gas rationing.

INTERVIEWER: About what; I'm sorry?

EDENS: Gas rationing.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yes. Yes. Okay.

EDENS: You had to have coupons to get gas. You had to have stamps to get food. You had to have special permits to get an automobile; and that was very unusual. And the black market thrived. Don't ask me if I ever participated in it. I might have to tell you the truth.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). 

EDENS: I was... at D-day, I was with my brother-in-law, over there on Jacksonville Avenue; and he and I the night before that, for no reason, had gone to a place we used to call Anchor Inn. You ever heard of Anchor Inn?

INTERVIEWER: No. No, what is it?

EDENS: That's an old place up the street, not far away... up the road.

INTERVIEWER: What's it called? Antler Inn?

EDENS: Anchor Inn.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Anchor Inn. Okay.

EDENS: And we went... We had gone there. There was a bar there. The night before. And of course I hadn't had too much to drink, but I'd had enough. And on D-day I was... I woke up with a big head... You know, from the night before. And I heard them say something about our boys had just landed.... I said, "Hey, wait a minute, Joe. This is important. My God. This is the day I've been waiting for. And then I stuck to that radio all during the next 12 hours. No sleep. No nothing, 'til all the report. Prayed for those boys at the beach. Prayed to know that they had gotten securely in place... and so very sad that I wasn't with them. And that's where I was on D-day. 

INTERVIEWER: Huh.

EDENS: Now, do you want to cut it off a minute?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I'll turn it off in one second. Hang on. Alrighty. (Turns tape off, then back on again).

INTERVIEWER: And tell us a little bit about towards the end of the war. Where were you and where were you when the war ended?

EDENS: Well, before I do that... You know, I'm surprised that my grotesque physiognomy hasn't broken your camera yet.

INTERVIEWER: Listen, you look great. (Laughs). You look great.

EDENS: Crap! I was hoping I'd ____ the equipment a new one.

INTERVIEWER: No, this is pretty heavy-duty stuff (laughs).

EDENS: Yeah, so is my ____.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: Now, let's see, what's your next question?

INTERVIEWER: Towards the end of the war; where you were; what you remember about the war ending.

EDENS: Now as you say there were two ___, right? I was still down here. The people in our community weren't glad as particular that the war was over until after they'd had second thoughts about it. I was down in Hampstead then. Let's see May and... May and ... let's see... the Germans surrendered.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it was... the Germans surrendered in May.

EDENS: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Right.

EDENS: Yeah. I was home from school then. And we were particularly glad of the fact that now all the restrictions would be off; and we admitted the fact that weren't going back to eastern-standard time, altogether. See, before the war there was no day light savings time. But we got that so the people could work longer.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

EDENS: And in connection with this time; let me say that we built Liberty ships down here at Wilmington. I know you've heard of those, haven't you?

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

EDENS: The liberty ships we built down here? And everything was crowded, man, up until the V.E.day they kept on building those ships. They kept on and people from all over was here. And wouldn't even come to work.... came to Camp Davis. I'm sure you've heard of Camp Davis, our military base. There were people from all over. Wilmington was crowded. Hard to get a place. That's why I moved back out to Hampstead during those war years; and I was down in Pender County with my people; with my family during that time. When both __ sides of the war were over with. We were glad... you know the Japanese came last, right?

INTERVIEWER: Right. That's right.

EDENS: We hated to hear about so many people being killed at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but we realized it did shorten the war.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

EDENS: Which in our opinion it did. Now but President Truman seemed to... They knew that.... Truman and Roosevelt... those people that knew that the war had been shortened by the dropping of those bombs. We were getting there though. They were going up the under-belly of the Japanese Empire, and were literally, piece by piece... Wainright and McArthur were destroying that thing. Little by little they took back the Philippines, you know... took back where they established themselves in Hawaii, and drove the Japanese out of New Guinea in the South Pacific. They were doing it; and they would have won it eventually, anyway, because we had just... see, now we just take all of our resources and put them over in Japan and work together and not to have to worry any more about Hitler and them all.

INTERVIEWER: Right. That's right.

EDENS: But we would have gotten there. If maybe, I think, in my opinion, as a historian, as a major in it, it would have taken another year, Nagasaki. And despite the loss of life, I was glad to see it over with, for the reason that our boys could come home and go back to what was left of the old ways of re-establishing things as they were. When they did come back, they were all rough and ready and even to fight at the drop of a hat. And I joined them.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). Yeah?

EDENS: I wish I was with them.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). So, how much... after the war did you continue teaching the blind soldiers, or how much....

EDENS: Yeah. I taught over there until the mid-forties.

INTERVIEWER: Really!

EDENS: Yeah. And finally it got so blankety-blank cold that I had to quit.

INTERVIEWER: Really, so what year was that?.

EDENS: I just got so cold and so homesick. I was in love with a little old girl down here; and she wouldn't come join me. She was afraid to leave her home and drop into that rough new world. But that was the biggest... the biggest error I ever made in my life was not eloping with that little girl.

INTERVIEWER: Really.

EDENS: Jean Sidberry was her name and I wish I had eloped with her and told her Daddy after we got to Connecticut, 'cause I think we'd have made a way.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Yeah.

EDENS: I mean, people respected marriage back then. They would. But I was afraid to bring her into that new world. It would have been a brand new world for her and she would have been happy. Women are like that. I think women are more adaptable. Talking about women... Do you remember the Waves and the Wacs? There were a couple of blind women who had been.. but you know I never had the good luck to teach them. Man, I would really love to teach them the braille system.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). So, after the war... after you finished teaching, you came back down to this area, right?

EDENS: I came back and resumed my career in other fields of activities; teaching and so forth.

INTERVIEWER: Did you continue... when the Korean War came up did you teach __?

EDENS: No. I had already gotten... by that time I had gotten enough of a teaching... and I didn't want to get involved. I guess I must have had better things on my mind.

INTERVIEWER: Right (laughs). Okay. I'm going to turn the camera off for a second and...

EDENS: I'll play this and I've already told you what it is, but see if you recognize it anyway.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

EDENS: (Plays Piano). I'll tell you what we're gonna do now. I'm going to play you what Glenn Miller played during those World War years.

INTERVIEWER: Great!

EDENS: See if you recognize this. (Plays piano). That's ___ in the movie.

INTERVIEWER: Excellent!

EDENS: Hey! Let me play you one more.

INTERVIEWER: Go ahead. Take your time. Go ahead.

EDENS: This is the one gospel ___ I know and it's not a hopped up version. Have you got it on now? 

INTERVIEWER: Have I what?

EDENS: Have you got it off or on?

INTERVIEWER: On. It's on. It's ready to go.

EDENS: Okay. See if you recognize this.(Plays piano). Do you know that one?

INTERVIEWER: Yes. Excellent. The camera's still on so I just want to talk. So, you learned to play?

EDENS: Yeah. All I did ___ was at the School for the Blind. I learned in '88 you know. And I ___ I didn't have anybody to push me; in a state school like that __ Raleigh and they were in Wilmington. 

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

EDENS: And so, I wanted to get out and play... I wanted to take that time that I was devoting to music to sit down and play for __ and the children. And so I dropped out as soon as I learned the keyboard. So I taught myself.

INTERVIEWER: That's amazing.

EDENS: And I think for having no lessons, I do a commendable job.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah (laughs). So do I. That's great.

EDENS: Oh, and I love life still as much as I did when I was sixteen. I remember when I was __ I was playing then and the little girl... they had a piano in their house, but they didn't have anybody to play it, and so I did this way almost... I almost went in ___ romantic. It was just playing the piano. When I got around to so sure I could do other things better than I could to play the piano,. that's when she said no.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). All right, I'm going to turn the camera off now. I want to thank you very much for a great interview, Mr. Edens. I appreciate it and it'll be a big asset to the collection. Hey, can you tell us a little bit about Wilmington history? About Lumina and Wrightsville Beach and ....

EDENS: Yeah. I'll just zero in on Wrightsville Beach. Haven't I broken your camera yet?

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs) No. It's still on.

EDENS: Let me walk over there and see what I can do. Hello there.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). No it's still working. It's not broken.

EDENS: I know you... you've had rough-necks from way back to deal with. Getting back to Lumina. They used to have to go through Wilmington down to Lumina.... And Wrightsville Beach; we'll assume everybody knows where that was.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

EDENS: But what we had is what they called trolley cars. And on Sunday afternoon and go down to Lumina and they had big bands. They had people like Artie Shaw, Joanie Long, Harold Kemp, ___, Stanley Chase, ___ . All those people. They'd come down here. And we would go down what we called a Sunday afternoon excursion, on those trolley cars on the way down to Wrightsville....

INTERVIEWER: Where did the trolley cars run? Wrightsville Avenue, or where did they run?

EDENS: Now, I'm not sure where they did; because where I'd get on was... We'd always go down to Front Street.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Okay.

EDENS: So I don't know where....

INTERVIEWER: How long did it take to get out from Front Street to....

EDENS: I was too busy romancing the girl that was with me.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs).

EDENS: It didn't take too long.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

EDENS: Thirty-five to forty minutes. I really... I have; listen, you know, I hadn't thought about that question, but I have no concept of time.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

EDENS: That far back. Let me find somebody that went with me and I'll ask them. That would boggle my feeble mind. But we'd go down there and we would dance; or they would dance and I'd ... I would follow her leading act. I would be with a girl and try to follow the best I could. Funny about that; I have all the rhythm in my fingers but I cannot dance; but I love the music.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

EDENS: We'd sit there and listen to the music 'til late at night over that beautiful Atlantic Ocean down there where the sea breeze was absolutely like a zephyr straight from heaven.

INTERVIEWER: Wow.

EDENS: And we would listen to the band and they would play so late... because they had a curfew about twelve. And we, you know, we enjoyed it. By that time they were beginning... you could get a little bit of booze from some places at the beach down there. They were beginning to sell alcohol. Of course I never drank any.


INTERVIEWER: No. I don't think so. Yeah right (Laughs).

EDENS: ___. Hey, when I woke up I never said, "Oh, my aching back."; I said, "Oh, my aching head." And I never worked hard enough to break my back, anyway.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs) So, what other things about Wilmington do you remember, you know, about the city; how it changed and things like that?

EDENS: Yeah, from... starting in about 1938, when they established Camp Davis at Raleigh Ridge until the end of the war, there was an absolute __ of population from the outside. I don't know any place where I taught school, down here in the country... they were the children of war veterans; brothers and sisters and children. And they were a rough bunch; undisciplined, but we learned to discipline.

INTERVIEWER: So, now I want to understand something. You taught school to non-blind students also, right? 

EDENS: Yes, sir. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Now, how was that teaching... did they give you a hard time or did they listen to you or what? 

EDENS: That was another... no. That was another kettle of fish. You know, they were younger and they would... no. I never had any difficulty with different ___. You know why? They said, "Mr. Edens, a 3-year-old child could teach you." said, "You can't see what they do." Said, "This little boy could teach you." Said, "We're going to pick on the other teacher." And they did... they left me alone.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). That's great.

EDENS: They did. I mean it was no fun.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you teach school here... or teach school?

EDENS: Well, off and on from 1943... My career was broken. See I had to go down there... Oh, about ten years off and on. But my career was broken by my staying in... up there. But when I came back, I could never get really happy at teaching again because I guess my heart was still in Hartford.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, Hartford's a nice city. I've been through Hartford. It's a nice place.

EDENS: You like it?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I...

EDENS: Have you ever been to Bristol or New Haven?

INTERVIEWER: I've traveled through there but I... I'm familiar with that part of the country. It's nice. This is... I like it down here though. I like it better down here.

EDENS: Yeah, well, you know, those Connecticut __ residents; they are a little more provincial than New Yorkers.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Yeah.

EDENS: They have those doggoned old New England ways. ___. But when you get one of them on your side, you've got a good friend.

INTERVIEWER: Right. That's right.

EDENS: I was euphoric about that period of life, because I enjoyed it the most of any other... any other thing I've ever done. I've worked in the records library at the Cape Fear Hospital... and other jobs. But, you know... I don't admit... only man I ever knew that and carried out trash for a cafe. And that cafe's still in operation here. I used to work for that man out there. I emptied trash... and I bumped my head on the garage can. If I hadn't cursed my way into hell before that, I did it.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). That's great.

EDENS: But I loved it. I loved being the blind person with a job teaching; with a job raking leaves, carrying out trash and helping. But that isn't why I took the job; I love helping women get back in the cars.

INTERVIEWER: (Laughs). I don't doubt that for a minute. I'm gonna wrap things up now. Do you have any final words you would like to say, or anything that comes to mind?

EDENS: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. Go ahead, sir.

EDENS: Well, I wish I had written this myself, but I didn't. God bless us everyone and that's it.

INTERVIEWER: Thank-you, sir.