John Ries, Walkerville Mayor
Photo Credit: Montana Standard
Oral History Transcript of John Ries
Interviewers: Aubrey Jaap & Clark Grant
Interview Date: February 19th, 2021
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed by Clark Grant, October 2022
[RECORDING BEGINS WITH SETUP & CHATTER]
John Ries: All the time. Never did get it. Never got it.
Aubrey Jaap: Isn't that weird?
Ries: Daughter didn't get it. My son-in-law didn't get it. The other granddaughter didn't get it.
Jaap: Well, good.
Ries: But yeah. Yeah, it's good. But it's just, that's how it hits people.
Jaap: So, John, this is an interview agreement. So if you wanna take a look at it - but it's saying that this oral history will come to the Archives. If you have anything you want to restrict at the end, just say so and Clark will mark it. And I'm Aubrey. I don't think we've met before.
Ries: I don't think so. John Ries, how are you Aubrey?
Jaap: Good.
Ries: Do you want my address and that too?
Jaap: Yeah, that's great. [long pause while John signs agreement] Today's the 17th, 18th, 19th? God, when you're retired, you lose track of days.
Clark Grant: Nice.
Jaap: Yeah, I'm sure that's nice. But are you busy? Are you like, keeping really busy?
Ries: You know, I just run around with the grandkid some and then I've got a place out Divide, so I run out there.
Jaap: Nice, did you retire this last year?
Ries: No, I retired -
Jaap: When did you retire?
Ries: ‘09.
Jaap: Oh God, shit, sorry! You’ve been retired for a while now.
Ries: So I've been out for a long time. Yeah.
Grant: So John, with this mic, the closer, the better, you know? So feel free to move it until you're comfortable.
Ries: Yeah.
Grant: That's fine.
Ries: Yeah. Okay.
Jaap: And then these are really casual. We'll just kind of walk through your history and then Clark will think of - so I'll start and then Clark will ask some questions and we might go back and forth. We just - it's pretty casual. I don't have anything really prepared, so.
Ries: Okay. Fine.
Grant: Ready to roll anytime.
Jaap: Are we ready?
Grant: Yep.
[00:02:00]
Jaap: Alright. It's February 19th, 2021. We're here with John Ries. John, I'd like you to start and just tell me a little bit about your family, your parents, grandparents, a little bit of their history.
Ries: My parents on my dad's side were from Ireland and his mother's side was the Duggans and they were from Ireland. They were an Irish family. On his father's side - we really have never gone and traced the history as to - they were Dutch German, because the name Ries is Dutch German. So that was kind of the connection there on the Irish side - of course they migrated to the United States and then came here. His mother died very young. Her name was Irene and she died when he was nine. And I think my aunt was seven. And then he was raised by his father, who was a miner in Virginia City and then came here into Butte and mined here too. So there was a connection between Virginia City and here on that side.
My mother's parents were both from Italy. They were both Italian. They had migrated here. My grandmother's mother actually came here first and her sister - her brother, her older brother had come before them and he ended up in Chicago. My grandmother's mother, which would be my great-grandmother, and her sister Minnie, came here - and then she came over on the boat. She was 16 and came over by herself and then she migrated here. My grandfather's story was a little bit different because his mother and dad both came to Butte. And she had a boarding house in Burlington in the early 1900s when the mining was big. And they actually came here in the 1800s, late 1800s - and she had one or two boarding houses in Burlington, which is between here and Rocker - and sent my grandfather in with money to buy property, which would've been Part Street - that she had made.
And he managed to get into one of the local bars, got pretty well lit, bought a buggy and two white horses. And on his way back to Burlington turned them over, killed the horses - didn't have any of the money. So dunno if what he did with the money, but anyway, she sold the boarding houses, loaded up, was pregnant with my grandfather at that time, loaded the kids up and went back to Italy - and she never did come back and they never did really ever see the father again.
Jaap; Really?
Ries: So then he never - my grandfather never migrated back until later. And he had four brothers - there were five brothers that all ended up back in the United States at that time. Wow. So it's an Irish-Italian mix more than anything, I guess. Anyway.
Jaap: Yeah. Can you John - now tell me a little bit about your parents. What were their names? And tell me a little bit about each of them.
Ries: My dad's name was Bill - William Francis Ries and my mother's name was Ashley Phyllis. Well, it was Philla Chita Inez on her birth certificate, but they always called her Leia. My Aunt Minnie in fact - that I was talking about, came over with my great-grandmother - when she was little, she lived with my grandmother and grandfather. She never did get married. And she started calling her Leia, so that stuck. So it was always Leia. And she was - she went to school, graduated from Butte High in ‘36. And she met and married my dad in ‘41. And he was a miner, and she had my sisters - they were 11 months apart. And then I was born three years later. But my dad had both of his pelvises crushed in the mines. He never did finish school. He actually went to work in the mines after finishing the eighth grade.
Jaap: Sure.
Ries: Lied about his age. And then after he had his pelvis crushed, he ended up at the assay office, which was at the High Ore mine, which is gone now - it's actually into the pit, the Berkeley Pit. But he ended up as an assayer at the High Ore. And he died fairly young too. He was 57.
[00:06:53]
Jaap: How - can you tell me about the accident he was in then?
Ries: You know, he was underground and it was just a cave-in that he was caught in - had both of his pelvises crushed. And so he was on crutches for a long time. And he’d get on and work for the union handing out pamphlets, you know, whatever he could get to - the union would help him out that way and then they'd pay him. So he was a union member and that was - in fact, that accident happened when my two sisters were just, I think one [year old] and an infant.
Jaap: Oh my God.
Ries: You know? So he wasn't working during that period of time very much until he recovered, went back to work.
Jaap: That is wild. So where did your family - where was your family home at?
Ries: Mom and dad lived - god, let me get this straight. Mom was born and raised in Walkerville. Okay. So she was a Walkerville native. Grandma and grandpa had a house on Daly Street, the 300 block, and she was born - my two uncles were both born and raised in that house. And dad lived down in Corktown. In fact, after his mother died, he lived with - they called her Gram Duggan, which was one of the Duggans. It wasn't actually his grandmother, I don't think. It might have been his grandmother because he lived with Gram Duggan and my aunt ended up in Whitehall - living with an aunt that was in Whitehall.
So they kind of got split up for some time. And when mom and him met, they lived - I think they lived in Corktown for a little while, but then they moved to Walkerville up on West Daly, and rented a house, and then eventually bought a house on the 400 block on West Daly Street. In fact that's where I was born when they were living at the 400 - and then later moved to the 600 block, which is the house I'm still in.
Jaap: So your mom just hopped down the way.
Ries: Yeah. They just kind of moved down the street, yeah. [laughter] But yeah, I was born and raised in Walkerville. Well, the only time I was really gone was when I was in the Navy, in the sixties.
Jaap: So let's start with you then. John, when were you born?
Ries: I was born on October 15th, 1946. So I was a - there goes my mind. I would've been a war baby of sorts because it was after the war. One of the boomers, I guess. Yeah, because the boomers, I think, went to ‘47 - the baby boomers.
Jaap: And so you grew up on Daly Street?
Ries: Yeah, grew up at 406 West Daly until I was seven. And then we moved down to 605 West Daily and I spent the rest of my life there, like I said, until I went into the service, of course - went to school at Western. And we lived down there most of the time and we'd come home on the weekends and get food of course, to bring back, so we'd have food for the week. And then I came back after graduating from Western in ‘71 and got a job with the school district and worked there for 38 years. So I taught and coached for 38 years while I was at the district.
Jaap: Yeah. I'm gonna back up a little now, because that was your life history in a very quick sentence.
Ries: [laughter] It was, it was kinda a quick synopsis.
Grant: And thanks!
Jaap: [laughing] Where'd you go to grade school?
Ries: I went to the Sherman. At that time back in - I would've been five, I guess - so I would've started in ‘51 because I was - there were two of us there. I was born in October and a friend of mine was born in November. We were the two youngest ones and I think I was actually one of the youngest ones that graduated from Butte High in ‘64, but I went to the Sherman [school] for six years and was the second class to go to East Junior High. They opened East Junior High when we were in the fifth grade, and then we went to the sixth grade, and then the next year, we went to East as seventh graders - and so then we went to East for three years, because at that time they had split the town up and everybody north of Front Street went to Butte High. No, I went to East for two years, because everybody north of Front Street went to Butte High their freshman year and everybody south of Front Street stayed at East for their freshman year. So then I went four years to Butte High and graduated in ‘64.
[00:11:45]
Jaap: So as a kid in Walkerville, can you tell me about some of the activities you did growing up? Did you have neighborhood gangs, things like that?
Ries: You know, there wasn't - it wasn't so much gangs. You had your neighborhood group that you ran around with. And then a lot of us are still friends, you know, that went to grade school, and high school. Some of us even went to college together and so, still relate to each other and talk to each other. Bob Liva, who I think did some research on the Italian side for the Archives - he and I are really good friends. So we still do a lot of things together.
Jaap: I've been trying to get Bob to do one of these [oral history recordings].
Ries: Have you?
Jaap: Forever.
Ries: Yeah. He's got some great stories.
Jaap: He does! And he refuses- but he took me driving around Brown’s Gulch.
Ries: Oh yeah.
Jaap: And I - it was fun, but yeah. I'm like, ‘I wish he would come in.’
Ries: And they have the ranch out at Brown’s Gulch. And so we go out there. I go out there sometimes - he'll call and say, can you give us a hand? He'll run out. I have a place in Divide. So I'll call him and say, ‘Hey, I gotta get out and check the place.’ In fact, we did that yesterday. So yeah. So he'd be good. But anyway, there was a group of us that ran around together, and it was typical at that time in the fifties and sixties that, you know, you had names like Butch. There was Butchy Church, and Beaver Bolton, and Boo Boo Bugno. So you had those typical nicknames of kids, just a group that ran around together and did pretty much everything together. There was, you know - of course you're going back to those days. There was no computers. There was actually no TV. I think our first TV - we got it when I was seven.
So you did a lot of things out, you know, you were active. You were out - you were either on your bike, or you went out and played pull away on the rink during the winter, or played football games or baseball games, you know, in empty lots. So it was pretty much that type of childhood growing up where it was friends and family. A lot of picnics - families would all go on picnics generally every weekend during the summer. And I spent a lot of time up at the Columbia Gardens. They would make pasties after work. We would just go to the Columbia Gardens and take the pasties and go up there and eat 'em and then we'd ride the rides or do the cowboy swings and the equipment that was up there. So it was a lot more family oriented period of time during that.
Jaap: At Butte High, did you - or even before - did you play sports?
Ries: You know, I played one year of football at East and then did not even go out for anything in high school. Yeah. Uh, I was a party animal.
Jaap: Were you ?[laughs]
Ries: Well, Walkerville kind of had a reputation of doing the partying thing, the keggers and stuff like that. I told my daughter after, when she was going to the high school, I said, ‘don't try to get away with anything because I've already done all that kid shit. So you're already, you know, doomed.’
Jaap: You’re not fooling me.
Ries: Yeah. So, no I never did play - some of my friends wrestled, Bobby and Danny Liva were both wrestlers. I was a wrestling manager for a couple years. When I was there, I was in the band for three years and then my senior year decided I didn't want to do that. There was too many things that - to have to do senior year.
Jaap: Sure, of course, like you mentioned earlier. [laughs] So you graduated, did you say, in ‘64?
Ries: Yeah, Bob and I both graduated in ‘64.
Jaap: Well, then you went to Western?
Ries: You really wanna know this? [laughs] We went to [Montana] Tech. We graduated from high school, went up to Tech. Danny Liva had already been up there a year, because he was a year ahead of us. And we went to Tech, we registered, and then we spent - at that time they were - I think Tech was quarters too, because Western wasn't when we ended up going back there. We registered for the quarter and then tried to see how many times we could not go to class. So it was just a waste of money because we did that for a year. And I think my grade point average was like 0.06 or something. I mean it was, you know, it was absolutely ridiculous. And so the next year we registered for Western, I did pretty well the first quarter. And then again, because I had transferred that year from Tech, which was stupid. I shouldn't have done that, but I had transferred that and got a couple low grades, so they asked me not to come back. So then I went to work. I actually ended up going to work for the Forest Service that next summer. And I got an appointment to the forest service by Mike Mansfield. And the reason was that his brother-in-law worked at the assay office with my dad, and he talked to him and the next thing I knew, I was going to work for the Forest Service. But that was my dad. That was kind of my life with my dad.
[00:17:17]
I never ever in my entire life, rustled for a job. If I came home - even when I came home from the service in ‘69 - I could have gone on unemployment, you know, and thought, ‘yeah, that’d be great.’ And I don't think I was home a week, and my dad said, ‘well, you go to work Monday for Boyle’s Brothers Drillers.’ And I was off working for the Boyles Brothers. So, he ended up getting me the appointment for the Forest Service while I was going to college. And then when I returned to college - and then I went into the military for two years - and when I got out, he got me the job at Boyle’s. Then I went back to school on the GI bill. And I finished at Western in ‘71.
Jaap: What made you wanna be a teacher?
Ries: My uncle at that time was a teacher. He had gone back to school and became a teacher. In fact, he graduated from Western in ‘64, the same year that I graduated from high school. And after I came back, I knew I wanted to go back to school after being in the service. I knew that I had goofed that up before, so that was one of my goals - was to go back. And I just kind of settled on - I think I would enjoy being around kids and doing that type of work. And so I went to Western. And I have a degree in Elementary Ed. I think I was like five credits short of a minor in English, but I never did go back and get that. I just kept the Elementary Ed degree.
Jaap: Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about your time in the service?
Ries: I went in the Naval Reserve here in Butte and then went to basic training in San Diego for 14 weeks. And then I came home on leave and went back to radio school. Well, I went to basic electricity and electronics and radio school and became a radioman. And then after getting out of radio school, I got orders to report to Guam. And so I reported to - I flew to - I was in the Navy, but I flew to Guam. I spent a year, a little over a year, in Guam. And during that period of time, there was a capture of an American. Well, they called it an American spy ship, but the Russians had a run off the coast of Guam too, the same thing, which were information gathering ships. And the Pueblo was captured by the North Koreans. And we received all the traffic from that, from the ship, as it was being boarded, at the radio site, at the receiver site in Guam.
And they - at that time, after the Pueblo, I think they took like 50,000 reservists to active duty, thinking that this was gonna escalate. And then about a year later - I guess I was in Guam about three or four months when that happened - they took all the people on active duty and about a year later decided, well, nothing was going to come of it. And so they started letting the Reservists go back home. And I ended up being given the option as to whether or not I wanted to reenlist for four years and go to Vietnam with a friend of mine, because that’s what we were going to do - or get out. And he said to me, ‘don't be stupid. Get out.’ So I came home and then I went back to school.
Jaap: Mmm hmm. Good. Where'd you start out teaching?
Ries: My first teaching assignment was the Hillcrest [school]. And I taught there for five years and then I took a PE job when they started having the traveling PE teachers for Elementary Ed. And I had the PE job at the Hillcrest and the Hawthorne. So I did that for one year. And then I went to the Kennedy [school] and spent five years up there. So I had 10 years of elementary. And then I had coached grade school track and flag football and girls basketball when I was at Hillcrest. And then I did the same thing at the Kennedy. I coached girls basketball and flag football. And then I put in for the freshman girls coaching job at West Junior High. And I got that. So I got that, and the next year transferred to West as a teacher. So I went down there and taught at West until West became an elementary school. And then a bunch of us were transferred to East [middle school]. So then I went to East and I think I was at East probably four or five years - I'd have to look back. And then I had the opportunity to go to Butte High. Bob Holman at that time was - he had been the principal at West when I was there. And then he got the principal's job at Butte High and he said, ‘why don't you come up to Butte High and teach title one?’
Because I only had an elementary degree, so I didn't have a secondary endorsement, but at that time, if you were a title one teacher, you could teach at the high school. And so I went up to the high school as a title one teacher, and actually started teaching English and then eventually, became the title one math teacher at the high school. And I did that until 2006. And then I took the Dean of Boys job and did that for three years until I retired.
[00:23:46]
But when volleyball started at the high school in ‘83, I put in for that job and got the head coaching job as the volleyball coach. And I did that for 26 years. So I was the head volleyball coach from ‘83 until 2009.
Jaap: Did you have some good years?
Ries: You know, we did - we had some great years. We only won one state championship, which always - in the back of my mind, I blame myself because, you know, as the coach. You always think back - well, maybe if I did this, if I did that - but volleyball is a unique sport, if nothing else. Because it's the only sport that I know of - and I've coached volleyball, basketball, track and flag football - it’s the only sport out of any of those, that if the momentum shifts, you cannot get it back. I mean it’s just - it's phenomenal. You can be beating somebody the first two games and blow 'em off the court. And all of a sudden that team will get the momentum shift to their side - they beat you the next three and it's over, you've lost the match. And it was just frustrating that way.
I was very proud of my volleyball coaching career because we were always competitive. Teams were always kind of afraid to play us because they knew we were gonna be competitive. [We] had some great success, had some great players - kids like Jamie Holstein and Annie McCue. Jamie ended up playing for Missoula. Annie McCue ended up playing for Missoula. Heidi Hemer ended up playing volleyball for Bozeman - and Heidi Hemer was just a phenomenal athlete. She could have played basketball, volleyball, or been a track star. She was a track star in high school, and chose to play volleyball. So we just had some great kids - had Sarah Rhodes - and I don't know if you know Sarah's story. Sarah went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis and was the first female F-18 fighter pilot, and flew several missions over Iraq.
Jaap: Wow.
Ries: And then she came out and Sarah - in fact she was on the ‘94 championship team, so they were inducted into the hall of fame last year. She came back - Sarah right now is the head of Amazon’s aircraft in Europe and America.
Jaap: Really?
Ries: So she's the head of them - both of his fleets - has a great job, just a great kid. I mean, she was just a phenomenal, good athlete - but just a great kid, just a four point student, very sincere about everything she did, as were many of them. Like I said, Jamie Hope, Jamie Holstein - I could go back and just say a lot of those kids. Maureen Boyle, who was head coach at Caroll, played for me, and actually is a cousin. So she went on to coach high school and had a couple state championships and has coached college for several years now.
So that was - it was enjoyable. I enjoyed the coaching. I was an assistant basketball coach forever at the high school, coached with Dale Bergman and Maryanne Paull, Ackerman. I was assistant - either sophomore or JV - coach for all of them. So I have a long coaching career.
Jaap: Yeah. That's really great. I think it's special and I like that. It sounds like you kept some of those relationships, you know?
Ries: Yeah. You see those kids, it's just fun. It was really fun last year during the induction of the hall of fame, to see that whole team come back, you know, because there was Karen Jolly and like I said, Sarah and Jamie - Jamie Hope didn't make it back, but all of those kids were just fun to be around.
Jaap: And then you retired in 2009.
Ries: I retired in 2009 from teaching and coaching, and I just kind of bummed around doing things with my daughter and her husband - we built a garage up at their house. So we remodeled a couple - their first house, added a room and a bathroom and enlarged the master bedroom and did stuff like that for them. Then we built a big garage, a 30 by 40 metal garage. We ordered the metal garage not knowing that it was metal beams and everything, you know, because I had worked with wood, but never worked with metal. So that was kind of a challenge and we put that up and , you know, just puttered around. My uncle passed away four years ago. So I ended up with his place out at Divide. So I run back and forth out there and do that.
Jaap: Can you talk to me a little bit about - how did you get involved in Walkerville politics?
Ries: You know I wish I could tell you the years - my dad had been an alderman in Walkerville for years. He was there with Jimmy Shea, who was a mayor forever. And I think some of the people that he was there with Jimmy Shea and Mr. Bowden and Jack Bolton and Spud Murphy - you know, just a lot of the old names, the old Irish names that were up there. And then after I was teaching, there were some things that I wanted to see done and they asked - I had been asked by a couple people if I would be interested in even doing it. And so before I did run for alderman in ‘76, they had the study commission, and that was their first study commission. And so I ran for that just to see what it was like. And I ended up on the study commission with Bernard Harrington, who later - both of us were on the council and he became mayor for a number of years up there too. And so that kind of introduced me into Walkerville politics. And then after the study commission, a few years after that, I ran and got on the council.
And then when Bernard died, I was president of the council. And they appointed me to finish out his term…and then I've run twice since then. So I've been elected twice.
Jaap: Can you talk to me - I know you were really active, weren't you, in the St. Lawrence Church?
Ries: I was a member of the first - Bernard and I both - we were both on the council and joined in with the committee that was going to save the St. Lawrence. And of course, we went to Helena and talked to the Bishop about the St. Lawrence. And being on the council - we asked two council members - they said, ‘we can't just turn it over to a committee.’ And Bernie and I both said, ‘well fine, turn it over to the town of Walkerville and let us assume responsibility for it, and have it run by the committee.’ And so they decided that they would do that, but in the agreement, they made it known that we would assume ownership and we would maintain ownership only if there was never a Catholic service in the church, which I think is a ridiculous way to handle it. And I've talked to priests since then - I mean, that was years ago - who said, ‘well, it's crazy that we can't go in there and perform a wedding.’ They do it in other places like the chapel, St Thomas' above Georgetown Lake. And I agree. I think it's really kind of ridiculous that they won't let them do a Catholic service. They won't even let him do a mass. But we have had - John Eugene has gone up there and performed a service, not a Catholic service, but a service for burials and things like that. And they do perform - we do rent it out for weddings.
And so that's when I got involved in that. And then after Bernard died, who really kind of ran the whole thing even after he was mayor, with some of the members that are still on the St Lawrence Committee - it’s kind of dwindled. In fact, we've gotta get - because I don't know if I'll run again, but I've gotta get that set up so whoever does it has, you know, some help to make sure that everything is being done.
Jaap: And then I can't recall the year you guys got a roof put on it, didn't you?
Ries: You know, I have to think - which shows again - it should have been a slap in the face to the diocese in Helena because - you know who came to the forefront to raise over $30,000 to put a roof on that - it was central junior high. They approached me and asked me if they could help. And I said, God, you know, we'd take any - I mean, yeah. ‘We'd be more than welcome to have you come in and help us.’ And they came in and just did a phenomenal job getting donations and raising money with the kids donating their nickels and dimes every Friday - and they raised over $30,000.
And then at that time - oh god I’m trying to think of his name - anyway, he had his roofing company at that time before he went out of business. And he did the whole thing.
Jaap: What's his name? [trying to remember]
Ries: Oh God. Yeah. It starts with a V.
Jaap: Is it Vaughn?
Ries: Vaughn, Vaughn Taylor. That's it. And Vaughn Taylor brought his company in there and did the whole thing for just the cost of the materials - didn't charge us anything for the labor. And he had a great, just a great crew. A lot of them were pre-releasers. But they would go in that church and I'd go up there and bring water and Gatorade and stuff, because it was hot during that summer. They were doing it and I'd be up there and they'd be at the altar praying. I mean, the one guy said, ‘it just amazes me that they would ever want to tear this down.’ And I've had a lot of people, you know, say, ‘well, this is ridiculous that they won't let have a mass in there, and they wanted to destroy it and put up a plaque.’ Because it is a very unique building.
Jaap: Were you involved with the teachers union at all?
Ries: I was. I was the president of the teachers union.
Jaap: Okay, a little involvement! [laughs]
Ries: Yeah. I had a few different things that I've gotten involved in. I started out at the teachers union as the negotiating chairman and then became the president of the teachers union for several years. I think I was that negotiating chairman for two, and then I think I was the president for seven. And so I was involved in negotiations with the school district and with Anne Boston and Mike Kujawa, who's still in the union now. He was on our negotiating committee. Brent Huntsman, who's the principal up in Glasgow - he was on our negotiating committee. Bob, of course, became the - when I became president, he became negotiating chair. And Kathy Foley. I mean, there was a bunch that, over those years, were on our negotiating committee.
[00:35:55]
And so I did that. And then I retired in ‘09 - I don't know what possessed me. I think it was Ann Boston. Ann has gotten me into several different things. I think Ann convinced me to run for the school board. And I think there were like eight people that ran. I think it had to be the largest contingent of people that have ever run for the school board. And there were three openings and - lo and behold - I was thinking, ‘I don't have a prayer.’ And I thought, yeah, that's good. Well, I ended up, I think, third. And so I was on the school board. And so I did that for two terms. And so then I was negotiating on the other side of the table, which was kind of interesting. From being negotiating for a union to being a lead negotiator for the district - so that was kind of interesting.
Jaap: Yeah. Was that difficult at all for you?
Ries: You know, it didn't. Because we were - I think for Ann and I, it was a little bit easier because we were aware of the negotiating process. We were aware of where the unions were going because we had done it for nine years. And so we pretty much had a heads up as to where they were gonna go and how they were gonna come in and what they were gonna do. So they couldn't really surprise us with anything, you know? And it was funny because they came in with some of the same basic ideals that I had professed to them when I was the head of the negotiating committee. And Ann said, ‘they're gonna come in just like you used to.’ And I said, ‘yeah, and I'm just gonna laugh.’ So it was kind of interesting. It was kind of fun.
Jaap: Yeah. Were you on the negotiating committee - wasn't there one year that there was a really difficult negotiation where the teachers were striking and school might not have started on time? I don't recall what year that was.
Ries: Uh, no, there was the ‘96 negotiations. I think it was ‘96 or ‘99, where they had done - instead of doing collective bargaining like they had always done, they did - and I can't even think what the name of it was. Anyway, they met in groups and came up with a plan, and that was the year that the union gave away their retirement benefit. But the - so much money for your insurance that you would get it - and they gave that up, which caused a big rift in the union. And so there was an organization called The Bees. And they were taking away - they had negotiated it in a way that if you didn't retire, you were going to lose this benefit.
And The Bees got together and said, ‘well, that's really age discrimination.’ You're basically saying, if you don't retire at a certain age, you're gonna lose something. And so The Bees got together and filed a suit against them. And when the district found out that they were going to be joined in that endeavor by - and I'm a member -
Grant: AARP
Ries: American Association of Retired Persons. That was going through my mind. Thanks. And the AARP was gonna join in and give us money and attorneys. They said, ‘let’s go back in and renegotiate this.’ So that was when I went back in because of being the president of the union, as a negotiator for that article. And Ann at that time was a business agent for the union. And a couple of the members that were on the negotiating committee that were not in very good standing with the teachers at that time were - because they had been involved, they had to go in with us. And it was after that we all decided that it was time to get rid of the people that were heading the union, and we all ran for offices. And every one of them got beat. We ended up all winning the offices in the union.
So yeah, that was an interesting - and in fact that, you go back to Bob Liva. Bob Liva had coached wrestling for years at the high school, under Jim Street the whole time. And they still don't talk.
Jaap: Really?
Ries: Because Jim Street was the one that was negotiating chairperson for that contract that they gave everything away.
Jaap: Yeah. That does create - I imagine - some hard feelings.
Ries: So, yeah. And you know, that's kind of, I guess, it's kind of a Butte mentality. It was the union against the world. It was actually the first place that a teacher's union was organized in the state of Montana, was here. So there was a lot of history in it.
Jaap; Clark, did you wanna ask some of your questions?
[00:41:00]
Grant: Sure. John, it seems like everything you do, you know - school district: 30 plus years, volleyball: 20 plus years, Walkerville town council: 30 years. You know, you do it for decades on end. What keeps you committed?
Ries: Um, well if you listen to my wife, I probably should be committed. [laughter] I've always had - I don't know, I've always had a desire to help in some way that I could. And I think what aggravates me is to see - whether it's political groups, regardless of party, whether it's union organizations - who end up being controlled by people who are in it for themselves, and not for the organization. And that was my biggest thing when I ended up in the union was - I was gonna negotiate for what was best for the majority of the people, not for what was best for me when I retired.
I think with politics, same thing. I just want to get done things that are going to help the community or help people. And I see so much - I see so many people out there that are so concerned about their own power and greed that it just aggravates me. And I think more so now than ever in the history of our country. I think if you look at some of the things that have happened over the past four years - to me it's just ridiculous. And I've come to the conclusion that people are very easily led, and very easily persuaded to do things that are ridiculous. I think about some of the things that have gone on like the storming of the capitol and the QAnon and the hate groups and the people who went to the marches after the untimely death of George Floyd - or the way that that has gone down - and the people that take advantage of those situations, rather than trying to help those situations. And that's something that really, really gets to me, I guess, over a period of time.
And I see - I guess it'd be no secret that I've been a Democrat all my life. And I think that's part of the union movement too, but I think when you see some of the things just even in this legislature that are taking place right now - it's very frustrating and very annoying to see that they're pushing for the right to work bill. Yeah. They're pushing to do everything they can to discredit the education system and bring in charter schools. But what gets me is people will sit back and not take notice of that until all of a sudden, boom, it's done. It's a done deal and it's over and they can't do anything about it. And it frustrates me.
So I think that's why I've probably stayed in some of the things longer than maybe I should have. [noise in background]
Grant: I wanted to ask too about - were you involved in the historic preservation plan in 2013?
Ries: I was.
Grant: Yeah. Can you tell us about that? And just your thoughts on preservation in general.
Ries: Are you sure?
Grant: Yeah. Let us have it.
Ries: Uh…you know, there was some - again - we sat through a lot of those presentations by people who came in and told us how great having these historic buildings of Butte, Montana was and how you could revitalize Uptown Butte and it could become a very profitable commodity for the community.
[00:45:12]
And I didn't believe that then and I still don't believe it now. I think that in some cases there are buildings that could become revitalized, but I don't foresee somebody coming in here and putting literally millions of dollars into a building that's ready to fall over - and I think the fact that they're tearing one down on Park Street that already did fall over and they're having trouble getting that organized and done. I look at the other hand of what you've done with revitalizing the buildings that you're working on because you're serious about actually getting them - and I agree. It's something that you just don't do overnight. But when I look at some of these other buildings - I look at Park Street at the one that's all boarded up and it's been that way for I don't know how many years - I think to myself, ‘why not just tear it down?’
History is great, but there are only so many people who are really interested in seeing history. I mean, you've gotta - just a number of people that are willing to go back and do historical things. I don't believe that it's - it's not like Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia or a place that is constantly in the history books. Butte, Montana is never gonna have that recognition. And you've only got so many people that are interested in mining towns, you know. And I think a prime example of that is Virginia City, Nevada, Virginia City, Montana. People come and visit, but people aren't interested in investing a lot of money there. I mean, it’s just a fact. You know, I've been at both. Like I said, my grandparents and my aunt lived in Virginia City, and my cousin, for years, and we were there all the time. Well, I go out there now and then, and it really hasn't changed that much. And that was 70 years ago. So you know, Virginia City, Nevada - we went there and it's great, great to visit, but you're not going to see a lot of economic development around there. It was a mining area too.
So, I listened when I was on that committee. I agreed that there had to be some kind of guidelines. And my biggest push - and there were few of us on there whose biggest push to get in there was that - if you are going to sell these buildings for literally nothing, then you you've gotta have some kind of control that says you've got a period of time to actually show some work is being done and that it's gonna become viable to be worthwhile for the community. And that was probably the biggest thing that I wanted to see in there. I do think that they - in fact, they did include something that gave them a little bit of control over what they did with some of those buildings.
But if you go down Park Street - and you know that because you're - I mean, you're [Clark] doing great work over there at the old - where we used to have our union meetings. In fact, it's the old carpenters union hall. And I saw the stuff you're doing and that's, you know - if you've got people that are dedicated and really want to get that done to the effect that it's going to be a viable interest to people, that's fine. But the other one that's boarded up on Park Street? You can't even go in there. So what purpose does it serve? And can you see yourself saying, ‘okay, I'll take over that building and I'll redo that.’
Jaap: He's [Clark] the wrong person to ask that question to. [laughter]
[00:49:03]
Ries: I mean, really! I mean, it's not feasible, for one thing. It's gonna be the next one that ends up falling down and they're gonna end up having to take it down eventually anyway. I may not be around, but I think it will have happened.
Grant: Sad. The neglect, I hate neglect.
Ries: And that's what's happened and even - you know that. If you get down Park Street, even those buildings on the south side that those people own - they've done nothing to the upstairs of those buildings. One is just a store building. I think the guy that owns it just stores junk in it. I don't know what's in it. I don't think I'd want to go in it.
Grant: Well, that plan, the Historic Preservation Plan - if you read it nowadays, there were a lot of great ideas that were just never implemented.
Ries: Exactly.
Grant: What do you think about that - spending time and money to make the plan and then no one implements the plan?
Ries: I think it's a typical government philosophy- to sit down and discuss it for six months, write up a plan - make sure you have it because that was the idea of going through the six months - and it put it in a shelf and never look at it again for the next six years, until you say, ‘gee, we better come with a new plan.’ And how many times do you see that happen? That’s the other thing that just sends me right over the deep end. I just think people cannot really be that stupid. Sorry. They are. I look at it - going back to what I was saying about - you look at people. I can understand how Jonestown took place now. I can understand how the people committed suicide waiting to grab the tail of the comet - because people are stupid! I mean, if you can convince them that that's gonna happen, you can convince them of anything. And I think a prime example is what's going on right now - because people are just stupid. [laughter]
Grant: That's why we need better paid teachers.
Ries: Oh, exactly. Exactly. And give teachers the vaccine. I mean, come on. I know that all those statistics are saying young kids don't get it [covid] as bad. And it's easy to say that because if you're looking at a number.
Jaap: But what about the teacher's families?
Ries: Well, what about the young kids that did get it? And the athletes that statistically are saying they're having heart problems now because they had COVID. What about the young kids that are having mental problems? You know, the younger kids - my granddaughter had it. She’s 10.Well, you don't know. You're guessing right now, what this thing is gonna cause. And then you'll have all of these variants now that are stronger and more - they don't know. So why not give the teachers - and develop the vaccine for the younger people too? I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it right.
[00:52:09]
And give it to the teachers. Let 'em go back into the classroom and then you're not giving - they're not giving it to the students and the students aren't giving it to them. I don't care what the numbers say.
Jaap: I agree with you - teachers. I think it’s disgusting that they're not on that essential list.
Ries: Yeah. Yeah. Well Gianforte took 'em off the one Montana. Mm-hmm don't get me…I can't even.
Jaap: This could get real fun, John.
Ries: I'm sorry. And, and it…you know, this bill he signed yesterday, this stupid bill, I have a concealed weapons permit, but tell me why you have to carry a gun on a college campus. Tell me why you should be able to carry a gun in a bar. Because of the second amendment? No! The second amendment had said nothing about that. It said you have the right to bear arms to protect against a fraudulent government. Well, I'm sorry, but the guy at the end of the bar that's ticking you off…and you put three into his chest…that doesn't mean that he's trying to take over the government. No. My way of thinking must be very different than the rest of the world, I guess.
Jaap: I just keep wondering what the breaking point is gonna be.
Ries: Yeah. I do too. I'm with you because I - at what point do we become smart enough to say, ‘Hey enough is enough.’ Isn't there a line that you've gotta draw that says we have to get smarter? We have to just be more - more common sense. I don't say that it's intelligence. It's just a total lack of common sense.
Grant: It's upsetting. What about - I wanted to ask you about being mayor of Walkerville. What is that like for you? What are your duties? Where do you see yourself fitting in the larger government in the state? What's it like to be mayor?
Ries: You know, it's kind of unique because you're in a very small community. I think the census I was looking at right now in 2019 was like 706 or something like that. I think it was 600 and something in 2010. So you have a very small community with a very small budget. And you provide services that I think are great to have in a community of that size. For example, I think just the fact that we plow all of the roads is a boon to the people that live within the town of Walkerville limits. Because I go downtown and pull off to a side road and wonder if I'm gonna get to the end of it alive. And I see these poor kids at Tech up there, you know - I went to pick Bob Liva and there's this poor girl from outta state. She’s just buried in a snow drift, you know, on the side of the road. And we ended up helping, pushing her out. And she was telling us, ‘oh, you don't have to do this.’ And I thought, no, we'll probably both have a heart attack, but we'll get you outta here. But anyway.
It's just - Walkerville provides a lot of things that aren't provided for, for people - what we can't provide. Unfortunately - and we have tried to, through passing ordinances that match Butte-Silver Bow’s because people are - people are under the impression that because you live in Walkerville, you don't pay taxes. Well, you do. And the majority of the taxes still goes to Silver Bow County. You know, Walkerville gets a very small percentage of the actual property tax that's paid.
So Silver Bow County is still responsible for police protection, community decay - what's that department. I guess it's the Community Decay Department.
Grant: Enrichment?
Ries: Enrichment. Thank you. Yeah. I hate to even say the word because that sends me off the deep end too. [laughter] Probably the hardest job of being the Mayor of Walkerville is getting somebody that's supposed to be doing their job to actually do their job. And Enrichment is a prime example. That is like talking to a suitcase. You know, you call 'em and tell 'em, ‘Hey, we've got a problem. We've got cars in the parking lot there. They're unlicensed. They've been there for six months.’ We don't have any money to tell 'em - and you're probably not gonna be able to tell 'em because your rear end hasn't left your seat for two years. So you probably don't even know where the cars are to start with. But yeah, it just aggravates me that people take these jobs and do nothing. So that's probably the biggest setback of being a mayor of a smaller community - that you're relying on other people. That's probably my primary complaint is people calling saying, ‘well, they dropped off more cars.’ And it's two or three homes up there. But I start driving around in Silver Bow - and it's apparent to me that Enrichment is not doing a great job of doing anything in Butte-Silver Bow either. Because I see places where there's 20 cars parked in lots that are known by those people and nobody's doing anything about it.
And I am amazed - people are easily led. People become attached to a useless piece of metal that they park it a lot and will not get rid of it. Again, maybe my train of thought is different than everybody else's, but it just - it amazes me how people are. And so that's - the toughest job is to clean up areas that you know are problems. We've got houses up there that - I'm sure they are drug houses. And you probably know where they are too, just by being up there and working on your place. You can't get anything done. ‘Well, we really, we really have nothing on 'em.’ Well, no, you probably don't. Because the only time you see 'em is if we call you when there's a problem and you come up and take a look at it and say, ‘well, we can't do anything right now.’ Oh, okay. Just get in your little cruiser and take a ride. And that's the frustrating part of being a Mayor, I think, or being somebody that cares. At times, I don't think that a lot of people that are elected really care. I think their goal is to be elected and that's it - and collect whatever monetary amount they get. I'm not gonna get rich staying as the Mayor of Walkerville, so when I leave, I'm not gonna starve to this. It just - I mean that's the frustrating part of being there.
We did accomplish getting garbage service though. And that only took us four years. We accomplished getting the Ryan road paved - that only took us 15 years. In fact, I resigned from the council over that and then ended up going back, but we did finally get it paved. And so, we have accomplished some things, but the time allotted to do something that should be very simple just is frustrating.
Grant: Does it shake your confidence in the system and the process?
Ries: Yeah. And it's - I don't think - Clark, I don't think it's really so much the process. It's the people that should be regulating the process, I guess, enforcing the process. It's like - why would you pass another law when you don't enforce the laws you already have on the books? I mean, that's my pet peeve. You've got something there that says you can do this. Why not just go out and do it? Instead of saying, ‘well, uh, we can't do it.’ Well, yeah, you can. It's right there. It's written, it's black and white. So I know you can do it, but I'm not gonna argue with you - you're not going to do it. So at this point in my life, why even bother talking to you?
Grant: What challenges do you think Walkerville faces, other than the ones you've touched on as mayor, personally? What about the town as a whole? What challenges are up there?
Ries: I think our biggest one - and you probably see that too - is trying to get any roads redone because we don't have - we're not financially stable enough to actually (with the cost of repaving a road) to repave a road ourselves. It was kind of nice - in Butte-Silver Bow - and when I complain about some of the departments like Enrichment and some of the other departments - some of the departments actually worked with us to do some things. Now, the one thing I'm on now is trying to get the property that ARCO is going to turn over with this consent decree - to turn over the property within the town of Walkerville limits to the town of Walkerville. Well, I'm bucking heads with Hassler over that, because they passed some kind of ordinance that you have to survey the entire lode.
[01:01:56]
You can't just turn over this piece of property that's within this - you how they separated the loads into -
Grant: Yeah, parcels.
Ries: And so anyway, you have to survey the whole thing. So that's in kind of a negotiation process. We all talked to one day and ARCO said, ‘well, we don't see why you couldn't turn it over to him.’ And Hassler had five reasons why Silver Bow couldn't. So that's the thing. But getting back to - where was I with -
Grant: The challenges facing…
Ries: The challenges. Well, the roads are one of the main ones, trying to get some of those paved. And with them now shutting down their capabilities of producing asphalt, like their hot plant. So they shut down their hot plant, which is where we would get some material to patch every year. I don't know how we're going to work that. If we can work some kind of a deal with another like Hollow [Contracting] or somebody that has a hot plant - to purchase some of the material from them, which is gonna cost us a lot more than - but Butte-Silver Bow did actually provide us with a few truckloads at no cost to us. So it's gonna be a little different to do that. We are trying to get them to - when they redo some of the streets that are closer to Walkerville - use the ground material that they've ground off and pave a couple of the areas up there, like finish the Ryan Road, which is a haul road, and do some of that. So that's some of the things that we’re looking for down the road.
The biggest thing is that we just don't have the finances that do a lot of the things that you would like to do. And then people will say, ‘well, why not just consolidate with Butte-Silver Bow?’ And I said, ‘well, you know, if they decide that they wanted to do that, they could do that.’ And they said, ‘well, we could do that and still have everything.’ And I said, ‘well, don't go there.’ Because number one, if you consolidate with Butte-Silver Bow, they say, ‘okay, we'll convince them to consolidate by saying, ‘we'll leave a maintenance man up there to take care of all your roads.’’ And I say, ‘and how is that gonna go over with Ramsay or the south side where you don't touch a side road?’ And me on [KBOW’s] Party Line saying, ‘gee, it's great that Butte-Silver Bow plows every road in Walkerville. I don't know how the rest of you feel in Butte-Silver Bow, but you're getting screwed.’ And I would - it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the people. So, I mean, I think that's something that before they decide to actually do a consolidation, they better think about.
Grant: Do you think that's a real consideration?
Ries: Over the years Clark, a lot of the old timers are gone. You know, Al Beavis was the one who convinced me to stay, because he was afraid that that was the thought of some of the people that at one time were on the council. And even people that I think considered him their friend - he knew that in the back of their mind they would consolidate with Butte-Silver Bow. And they're still up there. So I never say never, you know, I just don't know. I can ride around Walkerville now - where years ago I could go down and tell you everybody that lived in each house. I can't do that anymore. You know, most of us are gone.
So yeah, times have changed. And I don't know how - I don't know how interested people are in getting involved. I think you've got a lack of involvement, other than, like I said, those who are looking for a monetary value.
Grant: Well, I wanted to return to the subject of teaching unless you had anything else about Walkerville. Ok. It sounds like you taught a lot of different subjects. Did you have a favorite?
Ries: I guess probably math was my favorite. Like I said, I didn't have a secondary degree in math, but there was one year when I was teaching title one at the high school that they ended up losing a math teacher and they couldn't find anybody with a degree to take the classes. And at that time I was teaching early bird math, title one. So I had a class before the regular classes started. I was teaching first and second period math at the alternative school. And then I would come up and teach third, fourth and fifth math at the high school. And they asked me, ‘well, can we change your schedule around?’
[01:06:53]
‘Can you pick up another math class and we'll pay you for that extra period?’ So I said, ‘well, yeah.’ So I ended up teaching early bird general math, two alternative classes, [I] would hustle up to the high school to get there for third period and would be late - and I had a math teacher that turned me in for my door not being opened while I was trying to get up there from the alternative school, who I wanted to trip and knock down the steps, but I never did.
I ended up teaching pre-algebra one and algebra two at the high school. So I had - I actually had 1, 2, 3 - I had five different preps that year. And I said to myself at the end of the year, ‘self, you're not gonna do this again.’
Jaap: No.
Ries: And someone said, well, you were getting all that money. And I said, ‘yeah, right, right. I can retire now that I took that extra class.’ It was just way too much.
Grant: Oh, for sure. That sounds like way too much.
Ries: Yeah. When you do seven classes and without a break - and teaching - people say, ‘well, those that do, do. Those that can't, teach.’ I don't think they realize the mental stress that you have every day in the classroom. You know, it's not physical. It's mental. And you worry about things. You know, I worried about the kids. When I was Dean, I had teachers come down that wanted to throw kids outta school and I wouldn’t, and they wanted me to. They said I was useless. I mean, teachers would say that, but they didn't know what the home life for these kids were like. You know, they didn't, and they didn't take the time to find out. And I wasn't gonna do that. I wanted everybody that was capable to have a chance.
Jaap: I think that's so great that that's how you felt. Yeah. I mean, the last thing kids need is to be kicked outta school. That's just gonna make it worse.
Ries: Right? Because they don't have - and the ones that are being kicked out were the ones that didn't have anything at home. You know, they didn't have anybody that cared whether or not they went to school, for one thing. And teaching, you know - my sister's a teacher, a retired teacher, in Hawaii. She taught for over 30 years, she started here at St. Mary's, teaching for the Catholic schools with a two year degree out of Western. At that time, you could get a two year degree, back in the dark ages. And she taught for the school district for seven years and then moved to Hawaii and retired after 30 some years, teaching in Hawaii. My uncle taught here. My daughter and my son-in-law are both teachers at the high school.
It's a rewarding profession that you're never gonna get rich at. But you better enjoy what you do every day. And when you get to the point that you don't enjoy it and you don't care, it's time to get out and do something else. And so, I've had a lot of great experiences with kids saying to me - I had a kid who was - I stopped at one of the Town Pumps, in fact, the one on Excel[sior Street]. And I walked in and this kid said, ‘Mr. Ries. Of course, when you have, you know, a couple thousand or a few thousand kids over a period of 38 years of teaching, you don't remember everybody. He said, ‘I've gotta tell you something.’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘I dropped outta school and I can, to this day, I can remember you saying to me, when I told you I was gonna drop out, ‘don't drop outta school, tough it out stay. But if you do drop out, come back and tell me in 10 years, just how successful that decision was for you.’
And he said, ‘I went back and got my GED,’ and he said, ‘I'm going to Tech now, and I'm gonna be an engineer.’ And he said, ‘it wasn't that I was stupid.’ He said, ‘it was just that I was dumb.’ Yeah. He said, ‘I just will always remember you saying that to me. So I wanted to let you know.’ Yeah. It was not a good choice. And it's amazing. It's those kids - it's those kids that struggle, those kids that had the hardest time, that if you've been fair to them, they're the ones that will always talk to you. They'll come across the street to talk to you. You know, it's a lot of the kids that were straight-A students that - they'd rather avoid you than talk to you sometimes. Not all of 'em - because like I said, Sarah and the kids I had in volleyball overall, I mean, I had more four point [GPA] students that played volleyball for me over the 26 years that were just really smart kids and just great kids.
[01:11:52]
And I still call 'em kids and god, they're 50, or going on 50. [laughter]
Grant: Do you think a lot of kids in Butte have it tough at home?
Ries: Yeah, I think we're a poorer community. We have - if you just drive around - and Clark, you probably see that. You [Aubrey] probably see it too. If you just drive around and you go to places, you can see that there are some families that are struggling, and not just because of COVID, but just because of the employment situation. We don't really have high employment - we don't have a draw to bring people into the community. And every time I hear, well - you're gonna have this big warehouse for Murdoch’s and that’s gonna bring you all these jobs. Well, it’s a warehouse, it's not a corporation. I mean, it's a corporate warehouse, but it's not - they're not producing anything. They're just shipping stuff in and out, you know, supply. It's not gonna be a mega job opportunity for a lot of people. They've gotta - they've gotta find a way. And our problem is because of our location and because we're so far north, because of our winters and the cold weather. Corporations would rather build their factories in a place where they don't have to worry about heating 'em 24/7. Because that's an additional cost and that's something that is negotiated. You could negotiate for higher wages because they're not paying those costs out here. You don't have that opportunity. So I think it's hard to bring major corporations into this area.
Grant: I wanted to ask about the - it's kind of tied into poverty and lack of jobs - the closure of schools in Butte. That's something you probably saw quite a bit of over the years.
Ries: God. Yeah. When I started - when I was going to school, you had three schools in Walkerville. You know, you had the Sherman, the Blaine, and the St. Lawrence. All of those are closed. You had St Mary's that my sister taught at - that was torn down. Now it's all those trees that nobody will give you to plant. I don't know why they're just growing there, but whoever's in charge of them doesn't want to give 'em out. Because I asked for some to plant on the hill of Walkerville. Well, you might as well be asking for somebody's oxygen. Like you're gonna take their oxygen away. They're gonna fall dead right there. I mean, these trees! It’s become like the old cars that we don't want to get rid of. You know, we don't want you to plant them, leave it there. Now see, now I get off on a tangent.
Grant: That's fine.
Ries: Where was I?
Grant: The closure of schools.
Ries: Oh, the closures. Yeah, god, you had Washington. You had the Hawthorne. I mean, you had the schools all over, and Catholic schools. You had the IC, Immaculate Conception had a Catholic school. There were Catholic schools, but you had the population base and you had a lot of kids. Again, you had the baby boomers, you know, and people had large families. You had the Rices with 16 kids and the Tuttys with 10 kids, or nine and the McGees with 10 and - they had big Irish families. You don't have that now. And so, as your population base, or your number of children per family went down, then you had no need for a lot of those schools. And so I think basically - and I think you probably see the writing on the wall too - which I, in no uncertain terms, mentioned to Anne Boston, the chairman of the board - I do everything I can just to aggravate Anne with things that are going on with the school board. And when they were adding the gym at East and they were doing all this stuff, I said, ‘well, when are you gonna make it a true middle school?’ She said, ‘well, that's not the plan.’ I said, ‘Ann, you're talking to me. You're not talking to somebody that you're gonna convince that that's not gonna become the sixth, seventh and eighth grade school. And your grade schools are gonna be kindergarten through fifth.’ And that's, I would say within three years, that's exactly what they'll do as soon as that's done. Which, if you look at it, would actually be the smart thing to do, because then you don't have, you know, portable classes - you wouldn't need portable classes because you're freeing up those sixth grade classes and putting them down at East and your numbers are a lot lower than they were when I was, when they opened East and then when they had West going too.
Again, you had the population to have the kids in those schools. So yeah, the closures were done because of the lack of students. And now I think the reorganization is going to be done so that they can project maybe a student increase, but still be able to handle it without building an additional school.
Jaap: Yeah. I feel like this last couple of classes or something was maybe the first increase, or I'm making that up.
Ries: Well, the graduating classes of Butte high are still -
Jaap: Well, the incoming one. So I think this was like the first incoming -
Ries: Yeah. Some of the kindergarten classes coming in, like you said, are getting larger and that's true. You're right there because I - we used to have coffee every Thursday, and Anne and I are great friends, and Steve Donaldson. And so we used to have coffee every Thursday and solve all the problems in the world. But yeah, I give her a bad time. But I think you're right. The enrollment in the kindergartens is going up. So you are gonna have an increase in enrollment. It's not gonna be a boom where you're gonna just over flood the market, but you're gonna have more students going to school. And again, if you could bring in something to create jobs and have more families, younger families staying here - we really have - when you talk about the people of Butte struggling - there are several struggling, but I think what Butte’s become is a retirement community. Or it's become a subsidy of Bozeman - people who can't afford to buy a house in Bozeman are coming here and buying a house and commuting back and forth. And I've heard a lot of that going on.
You know, I think they said the average price of a house in Bozeman - this is a single family dwelling - was what, $480,000 or something ridiculous. I don't know why I wanna say 600,000, but it's something totally ridiculous. And people can't afford that.
[01:18:53]
So I think that's part of the problem too - you've got kind of a suburb mentality of people that are living here and working other places. And then you've got the retirement people that - a lot of them wanted to come back and retire here and become snowbirds where they go to Arizona in the winter and come back in the summer. But they purchase homes here and you know, they have someplace to come back to. So I think that's part of the reason why you don't see an influx of people or an influx of students, a large influx of students.
Grant: I understand that there's a very real process that played out that led to those closures, and it's gotta be tied to the decline of the mining industry here and, you know, depopulation de-industrialization - but still, I mean, how does it…I guess what I'm asking is: how does it make you feel to drive past these shuttered schools?
Ries: Oh, it's sad, in a sense. Because I was here in the fifties and sixties when the mines were going, and the whistles would blow at the end of each eight hour shift. And as you walked down Main Street going to school, you would see the guys coming out of - or when you were going home, you'd see the miners coming out with their buckets under their arms and their hard hats on, going home. Or if they weren't, they were carrying stuff, because they had taken a shower in the dry and done that thing. But it was active. There were people. You had three shifts a day in every active mine in Butte. So that was the main industry. I mean that was what brought people here. And even though it was - I can't say it was a gradual decline because when they actually shut down underground mining, it was a big hit. And the pit wasn't going to - you know, the pit was - one of the reasons that they shut 'em down is because they didn't have to pay for underground miners. They could just dig a big hole and have less people working. So yeah, I saw it all. I saw the beginning of the Berkeley Pit. I saw the viewing stand. I saw Meaderville and McQueen disappear. I just saw the transition from a booming mining community to where we are now, where MRI [Montana Resources Incorporated] is - I think they may be the second or third largest employer, or they’re maybe even lower than that. I don't know what - I think they might have 300 or something. I think the school district has more working for them than MRI.
So yeah, I think back in my childhood - it was a lot different then Clark. The whole community was a lot different then, but that has to do with modernization and computers and social media and everything else that's taken place during that period of time too. And it was such a - it’s amazing. If you think of the Wright brothers flying the first plane - to the period of time it took to have commercial air flight - it was this long [gestures]. If you go from commercial air flight to where we are in social media, it was about this long. [gestures]. It was just so quick. Everything just happened so quick.
So it’s hard for older people to get used to using laptops, computers. I mean, and they weren't laptops when they first came out - they took this whole desk. Remember the desktop where - you don't remember, God. You weren't even around. The old desktops. Did you ever see any of the old desktops? They were like this - they had a screen like this and they were this long. And there were the old floppy discs. You ever see the old?
Grant: I used to play a game called number munchers on a floppy disk.
Ries: Yeah. Or they had the one that was the Oklahoma trail.
Jaap: No, the Oregon trail.
Ries: The Oregon trail! Yeah, the Oregon - how the hell did I get to Oklahoma?
Grant: Brian died of cholera.
Ries: Yeah, the Oregon Trail. That was one of the first computers I bought for my daughter. And that was back in ‘80 - oh god - that was back in the eighties. She was born in ‘85. Yeah. I bought it from Sharon Bond who was a tech person. In fact, her daughter played volleyball for me, Jill. She's married to one of the Sampsons and - see, I go back. My mind isn't totally shot yet. But yeah, things went so fast that I think you didn't have time to really think about it, until now. As you get older, and you drive around and you look at it and you think - good god, I remember when all this took place, you know, when Butte was just booming, when it was going. Uptown Butte - I can remember - every store on Park Street was a major - you had stores all over where you could buy dresses and clothes and suits.
And you had Wein’s and you had, oh God, I can't even remember what the dress shop was on Park Street there. You had the Atlantic Bar, which at that time had been condensed - because in the early 1900s, it took that whole block on the south side of Park Street. And Yeah, as I go over Park Street and I think of all those places - Penney’s, before it burnt down. I mean, Hennessey’s - every floor, it was just a major department store. You don't have that anymore. You know, and you're gonna have less of it now because everybody orders online. I don't think - if I go two days without going out on the porch and having somebody throwing a package on my porch, I think my wife must have quit buying.
[01:25:07]
Jaap: I'm sure it's not all her fault. [laughs]
Ries: Well, I've got two granddaughters that are in dynamic dance. And I think that the only clothes they can wear is Lulu Lemon. And so grandpa will probably be - you'll probably be donating funds to buy me food by the time they get out of dance because -
Jaap: But at least they'll look good in their yoga pants.
Ries: Oh God. I don't think I would - it's cheaper to have 'em play club ball than it is to do that Dynamic Dance.
Jaap: I believe it. And does she travel?
Ries: Oh, my granddaughter. The oldest one is 12. She will be in - they're gonna go to a competition in Provo at the end of this month, but only one person could go in and watch. So my wife and I - we went for years, since they've been in it, but I said, we'll just stay home and watch it on the laptop, because you can't go in anyway. I think she's in - by the time they get to Vegas in July, which hopefully, we can go then over the 4th of July - I think Reese will be in like 21 to 28 dances. And Brooklyn will probably be in about - Brooklyn's 10. She'll probably be in 18, 12 to 18. So that's 12 to 18. That's a different costume for every one.
Jaap: That’s a lot of costumes and a lot of hair.
Ries: Yeah. Different hairdo for each dance. I said to my daughter, ‘good luck.’ And the oldest one is - she's possessed. I mean she's good. She is good. I mean dances - they literally go to school - they go to dance at 3:30, and Reese doesn't get outta dance till 9:30. Well, they're in dance longer than they're in school. I said, ‘this is ridiculous.’ Brooklyn - she’s a little more like grandpa. I don't think she's - I think she does it and she does a great job, but I don't think her whole - she's not gonna be upset if she doesn't get the dancer of the year. Let me put it that way. Where Reese, you know, wants to be the best of the best. 12 and 10. And they're just - again, you can lead him to the poison Kool Aid…Jonestown.
Grant: You had mentioned earlier that you were a party animal. So I wanted to hear just about that. Did you have favorite spots? Were there things that happened? Stories you remember?
Ries: Oh God.
Jaap: Uh-oh
Ries: We used to have keggers. I shouldn’t probably tell you this. I remember I was - when I was a freshman, I was 14. Because I graduated, like I said, one of the youngest ones at 17. And the You & I Bar was on Park Street. It was right - you know where the taco place is now on the south side, across from the Pita Pit? It was just down the street from there. It was called the You & I. And I had a fake ID that said Johnny Rivers. I'll never forget that because he was a singer. And a friend of ours made these fake IDs. They looked just like a driver's license. He was - he didn't have anything else to do because he was not a good student. He was like the rest of us. So we all had fake IDs and we're in there one day - and now I'm 14, right? And I'm sitting at the bar having a beer and there's like all of us from Walkerville - there's a whole gang. And all of a sudden, I hear this guy behind me say, ‘get these guys one more, cause it's gonna be his last.’ And I turned around and was my dad. And I went ‘oh shit.’
[01:29:04]
So I drank my beer, went home.
Jaap: I drank my beer and went home! [laughter]
Ries: And waited for the old crap to hit the fan. That was one story - but we'd have keggers. And if you walk down - you know how you go out towards Tech? Well, there was like an old - I don’t know if it was for the railroad or it was from the mining, but it was a big platform with ties. So we went down there and we had a kegger one night and there was all kinds of people. And Bob Liva’s grandfather owned Seansberg’s Bar, right? Okay. So where did we get the keg? But we got it from Seansberg’s Bar. Well, unbeknownst to his grandfather. He didn't know it was for us. We had somebody that was 21 order the keg. Well, you had to bring the keg - you had to return the keg. You know, it was a big 16 gallon metal keg.
So the party got over and everybody left. Well, Boo Boo Bugno and me, and I think Beaver Bolton, Butchy Church - there was probably about six of us. We're carrying this empty keg from that platform back up to Walkerville. You know, we're not exactly the soberest people in the world, but we're having a good time and we're laughing - and it was the middle of the night. And all of a sudden, we get to this place and we see this car just coming, storming up to us. And Boo Boo’s got this keg and he throws it over this bank. The guy stops and he says, ‘Come on with me, you're going to jail!’ And we said, ‘For what?’ ‘You stole our hub caps!’ And we said, ‘your hub caps?’ And he said, ‘yeah.’ And I don't know which one, but one of them said, ‘wait a minute, I'll get it for you.’ He went down in the gulley, grabbed the 16 gallon keg, come up and said, ‘here, put that on your tire. I wanna see what it looks like.’ And the guy sat down the keg, shook his head, and he left. And I thought, ‘oh, we're gonna die. We're all gonna get killed.’ But we'd do that.
Or we'd go out back behind Walkerville and find a place out - towards Brown’s Gulch or someplace - and have a keg. Boy Scout Lake. We did that a few times. I don't know how somebody didn't drown. We’d end up swimming after everybody was drinking from Boy Scout Lake. But in the summers, yeah, keggers every summer. And it was kinda like Walkerville was kind of the organizational center for the keggers in the summer. We had our senior keg, and it got busted up behind Walkerville. And do you remember Moon LaBreche? Do you remember that name?
His son was the coach for Tech, that was the golf coach that just died.
Jaap: Okay. Yeah.
Ries: Moon was one of the police officers that was in the Bad Boys of Butte. In fact, he went to jail. He used to train Labradors with Beaver Bolton and I. So we're up at the kegger and we got this big bonfire going. All of a sudden, here comes the police cars all over the place. And I, of course, had my car there and Beaver had his car there, and all these seniors were taken off, flying out of there - and we're sitting around the fire. He said, ‘what are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I'm not going any place.’ My car’s here - They're gonna know who I am anyway. So who walks up to the fire, but Moon? And he goes, ‘oh Jesus.’ He said, ‘Why did you send somebody back in to get more beer?’ I said, ‘we didn't send anybody in.’ He said, ‘well, somebody went in and got beer. They opened their mouth about where you were. So they reported that to us.’ He said, ‘pick up that keg, throw it in that truck, get in your cars and get outta here.’
So we loaded it up. Out we go. We haul everything out of there. None of us got busted. They busted a couple - the other police chased ‘em down through the forest. And we drove out with the keg in the back of the truck and about four cars, and nobody said anything. But yeah, crazy stuff. We did some - that's what I said to my daughter, I said, ‘don't try anything. Been there. Done that. You’re up a crick.’ She never did. She never did get in trouble for anything. It was probably her mother's fault. Not mine.
Grant: What did Moon [LaBreche] go to jail for?
Ries: Uh, remember - did you ever read the book The Bad Boys of Butte?
Grant: I haven't read it yet. Need to.
Ries: There was a group of police officers that were robbing pharmacies. And he ended up being in the middle of that and took the fall for a couple of them, who again were pretty good friends of mine that I knew was the head of it. And very mean, and very scary, I think. And they were afraid of him and Moon ended up taking the fall for all of them. Sullivan ended up getting killed, which they said was an accident. His shotgun went off when he was crossing a fence, hunting. And I never believed that either because he was right in the middle of it too. But yeah, he was involved in that. Great - Moon was a great guy. I'll never forget. We went - The Rumpus Room. Did you ever hear of The Rumpus Room?
Grant: Yeah.
Ries: And it moved different places. It was downstairs - oh, that the movie theater -
Grant: The Rialto.
Ries: Yeah, it was down at the bottom of the Rialto when it first opened. And then when that closed or burnt down or whatever happened, it went across the street, upstairs on Park Street there. You had to go in the back, and again, I think I was like 17. I think I had graduated though. And my sister was out of school. She was the one that was teaching at St. Mary's and she was teaching at St. Mary's there. So she said, ‘we're gonna go to Rumpus Room,’ her and her friend. And so Beaver Bolton and I said, ‘okay, we'll meet you.’ Well, unbeknownst to us, she picks up my mother to take her down to show her the Rumpus Room. So we’re walking in the Rumpus Room and they had a police officer at the door, checking. We walk in - Beaver and I walk in, and my sister’s there behind me and I didn't know - my mother's behind them. And we walk in and the guy goes, ‘let me see your ID.’ And the cop goes, ‘oh, they’re ok.’ And it was Moon. So Beaver and I walk in, we go to the bar, we order a drink. And all of a sudden I turned around and the guy says, ‘let me see your ID’ to my sister and her friend, who are 21. And my mother, ‘let me see your ID.’ And she came in and I said, ‘boy, mom, you really look a lot younger than I thought.’ She goes, ‘I'm gonna kill you when you get home.’ I said, ‘oh, okay.’ [laughter]
But yeah, they were - I mean, just - it was crazy back then. And that was in the sixties. That was ‘64-’65. And then I think ‘66 is when I went in the service and got out in ‘69.
Grant: Your friend that you were in with - you had a plan to go to Vietnam together. Did he go?
[01:36:24]
Ries: He did - Eric Schnedecker. He was a four year guy, and we were there - we were stationed in Guam. And I just said - the thing that everybody said is ‘Guam is good, but hell is better.’ And I mean, it was an island, you know, it was 10 miles long and two and a half miles wide at the furthest point. So you could go around the island in a couple hours if you had a - none of us had cars, so we went down to the house - he put in to go to Vietnam. When I got the orders to get out after the Pueblo crisis had been settled, we had gotten the orders to go to - I can't remember now whether it was the transmitter side or the receiver side in Danang. And he had orders to go there and I was gonna re-up for three years to go. And he said, ‘no, you're not.’ He said, ‘just go home.’ So I just - I came home. Never did hear from him again.
Grant: Oh really?
Jaap: Oh, wow.
Grant: Well, I just had a couple more questions. I wanted to hear more about your dad - just get a sense of who he was. You said he was injured in the mine, but I was curious - was he strict? You know, did he drink?
Ries: Um, he did. And, and it was a typical - we've talked about this, a bunch of us, for years. Anne Boston’s dad worked in the mines, drank every day. Miners, after every shift, all stopped at the bar. I mean, you didn't go home without stopping at a bar and having a drink. And I think my dad probably drank - he drank every day that he worked. And he worked at the assay office, so he was straight days. So he would stop at the bar and drink. And that was probably what all the major arguments were in our family - was my mom and dad arguing over his drinking. And dad was probably - he was an alcoholic. Probably because he'd have three drinks and he'd be pretty well smashed, but then he could drink the rest of the night and he didn't get beyond that point. I mean that was, you know, the point of intoxication he was gonna reach. But he drank every day .Typical Irishman - very sensitive, very loving. Probably kind of like - I guess that's one trait I got from his side. My mother's side, the Italian side, makes me the - let's kill ‘em first and ask questions later.
You know, I find myself - I can remember being a kid and watching Lassie on TV - when she gave away her puppies - sitting in front of TV and the tears coming down my face, just watching a TV show. And [we’d] watch shows and do that, even as I got older. So it was the Irish side that is very sentimental. Irish were given, you know, the fighting - the characteristic of being fighters. But the Irish people are very emotional, very emotional people, you know. They cry and they're very family oriented, and the Italians are too. And grandma of course, [was] religious, you know. We were raised Catholics and had that from both sides, because they were not from Northern Ireland. The Duggans and the Teddys and - Kay Teddy is my first cousin. So yeah, he was very emotional - they never denied us anything. And I think that was because they had so little when they were kids and [they] wanted to make sure that their kids got basically what they could afford to give them. And my dad died in ‘72 and that was the first year that he made over $10,000. It was the second year I was teaching and I started at $7,200, in ‘71. That was my teaching contract for that first year.
So wages weren't very high, but, but things were a lot less expensive than they are now, too. I think I bought my first Jeep in ‘72 after I started teaching. And I got a brand new Jeep Renegade, the little - they don't make 'em anymore - the small one, like the old army Jeep, with a cloth top. And I think it was like $5,100 for a brand new Jeep. Now they're $30,000. And so he - we never wanted for anything. I mean, he was just a very loving - he cared. But he was - he was primarily an alcoholic. And Anne Boston - I've talked about that - you probably had very few families whose father worked in the mines who weren't probably considered alcoholics. You know, if you think back about it - because they did drink every day. He was on the council and he never made it home from the council meeting up to the 600 block without stopping at Seansberg’s Bar. You know, I mean, that was just - it was just a given. Now I don't even stop because I'm afraid somebody would probably stab me in the back.
Grant: He's the Julius Caesar of Walkerville.
Ries: After being mayor…but yeah, he was typical Irish. And like I said, his mother was Irene Duggan. His uncle Jack Duggan's father started Duggan mortuary. That was actually - and then Jack ran the mortuary and was night chief of police. I'll never forget his funeral. It was at Duggan's, that was on Montana Street, you know, the old Duggan's - and when we came out of there - god, I was only…oh, I betcha I might have been eight or nine - because we had been in the house that I'm in now. I can remember Jack and Irene coming up to that house. He came up every Sunday to see dad and mom. And we walked outta that mortuary and every - that's when you had both police - you had the Sheriff's department and the Butte Police Department - there were cop cars lined up all the way down Montana Street. It was the longest funeral I've ever seen. To this day, it was the longest funeral I've ever seen In Butte. But again, he was an Irishman, well liked, and knew everybody, you know, from being involved in Duggan's mortuary.
I had a laugh. Jack Perry, who took over after Jack died - remember Perry, George Perry? He was the one that ran Duggan’s for years - after that he owned it. He bought it from them. And he used to say to my dad, ‘yep. People are dying to come to see me.’
Grant: So was it a Duggan that fell on your dad or does a Duggan have to kill you?
Ries: Uh, no. A Duggan is just a big rock that's supported up above. And you don't know when it's gonna come down - and all of a sudden it comes down. I really don't know the whole - I just know he was caught in a cave-in and had both of his pelvises broke.
Grant: Oof.
Ries: I don't know - that probably had to be in late ‘42 or early ‘43. Well, that would've been probably in ‘43. And he was born in 1919. No, he was born in 1915. So he was 20…what, 7? 28.
Jaap: Wow.
Jaap: Yeah, he was young.
Grant: Damn.
Ries: He was 28. And mom was born in 1919.
Grant: Well, I wanted to finish, at least for my part, by asking about your mom. I just want to get more, a better picture of who she was and hear about what the household was like and what she was like.
Ries: Well, mom was five foot one. She was Italian, and she had the Italian temper. She was a housewife who - we went to the Sherman. We'd come home for lunch at that time. You know, you didn't bring your lunch to school - come home for lunch, lunch would be on the table. Get up in the morning, breakfast would be on the table. You know, she was a typical housewife that stayed home until all three of us were raised.
[01:45:37]
And then [she] went to work in the little corner store, which Kate Church, Butchy’s mother, owned. It was right on the corner of Daly Street, the south side, furthest west, in the 600 block of Daly Street - it was just a little neighborhood store. She worked for her, some days. And then she went and got her nurse's aid certificate, and worked at the hospital for a while. And she did that - but primarily just - never denied access to - I mean, we had friends in and out of our house constantly, but you could eat off the floors. I mean, she - kinda like my wife is now - a clean-aholic, but knew that a house was to live in, but always kept it spotless. Again, she was a character. She would do and say things that just totally amazed me.
I'll never forget - I don't know if you've ever seen the movie, the French Connection, with what's his name? I forget the actor. I'm trying to think. But it was - at the time when the movies were coming out, every other word outta their mouth was F this and F that. I didn't know that that's how this movie was. So I said to her - can't even remember what year it was - I said, ‘mom, we'll go to movies.’ And dad had passed away. So it was after I was teaching. And so we went to show and geez, every other word was this and that. And I come outta the show and I said, ‘boy, they talk just like you do at home. And she said, ‘I'm gonna kill you.’ [laughter]
But yeah, she was a character. She was, like I said - she had a temper. Her and dad argued a lot about the drinking and stuff like that. But a great mother - just, you know, would do anything with us or for us and enjoyed everything she did and always had the big meals at our house for the holidays where [there were] 15, 20 people around the table with the kids at a coffee table and the adults at the other table. It was a typical Italian meal where everybody was talking at once and all the hands were going. Everybody was louder and - it was just fun growing up. I see some of the things on TV when they depicted Italian families. And I think been there, done that. I know what that was like. [She] took care of her mom. Grandpa died in - in fact, both my grandfathers died in ‘67. Grandpa Ries was in his eighties. Grandpa [surname inaudible], I think was 60…he might have been around 65 or 67, but had emphysema from working in the mines all those years. And then my grandmother, my mom's mom, got Alzheimer's. And my uncle had moved out to Divide and so she moved down and stayed with Gram, and I lived in our house. And she took care of my grandmother until she died. And then mom got ovarian cancer and went through all the treatments. But they didn't - I think they got more now, but ovarian cancer is kinda like a pancreatic cancer. You don't - you're not gonna cure very often. And she died at ‘65. So dad died at ‘57 and mom died at ‘65.
But just - just a great mother. I think that was probably my most devastating loss because her and I were so close. Because I stayed at home and lived there, and after dad died, I would, you know, pay for the groceries we’d order up at Manza’s. And I had worked up at Manza’s as a kid in high school, delivering groceries in Walkerville as a kid. So we still got the groceries there and I'd stop every payday and pay their grocery bill. Because she got very little retirement from dad as an assayer because he was not a union member. They were days pay. So I think she was getting like $140 a month or something back in ‘72.
[01:50:05]
And so I lived there and then she lived down with my grandmother - and my uncle gave her money for being down there. She gave her Gram’s social security and then she got her social security. Well, in fact, she took it at 62 and then died at 65. So she didn't really have it that long. But I think that was probably my most devastating loss to date, losing a family member. You know, dad was hard too because that - I remember lifting him up at the hospital to put him on the table and it was mom's birthday. And he had had a massive heart attack and said - the last thing he said is, ‘I'll be okay.’
And you could just feel his body was cold. So, you know, he had the massive heart attack at home. But yeah, they were - you know - that's tough, and it's tough to lose parents. I don't know how these people survive losing children. I think that would probably be the hardest thing that anybody ever goes through - is to lose a child.
Jaap: Yeah.
Ries: But mom was typical Italian with the Italian dinners and the Italian - and Bobby Liva is typical Italian. He's got some great Italian stories too, about his family.
Grant: We’ll have to get him in here. Put in a good word for us.
Ries: Yeah. Yeah. He’s not - he doesn't go around too much now.
Jaap: Really?
Ries: Yeah. He'll go with me. But sometimes he won't even go with some of the other people. I think he's kinda worried about his health and everything he's gotta get done for these kids. I think we all get to that point now, especially when I pick up the obituaries.
Enjoy life while you can. You get old fast.
Jaap: Yeah. Yeah.
Grant: Well, thanks John. That's it for me.
Jaap: Yeah.
Grant: Good?
Jaap: John, thank you.
Ries: Yeah. Thank you guys.
Grant: Yeah. I enjoyed listening to you.
Ries: My ramblings?
Jaap: I thought it was great.
Grant: That was.
[END OF RECORDING]