Q: Was there sex discrimination in graduate school?
A: Brenda and I were on a dig at Tallulah. We made minimum wage. The job paid per diem, but we didn’t draw it. We were furnished room and board in lieu of per diem. The principal investigator used our per diem for other purposes.
Q: What?
A: Don’t know. Weren’t allowed to ask.
We were screwed.
But we were equally screwed.
Q: That’s not so bad then.
A: On the other hand, instead of alternating with Brenda—we were both crew members—I rode shotgun and she rode in the back of the jeep.
It was colder in the back.
Q: Not good. Was that your doing?
A: Not entirely. George, the crew chief, felt more comfortable that way.
Q: Bad.
A: George didn’t object to his per diem being confiscated, because, when he was the principal investigator, he would do that to the people who worked for him.
Q: Bad.
Who did the shopping, cooking, and dishwashing?
A: Brenda and I shopped together, in town.
She did the cooking and the dishes and I did something with the plot books and the field book when she was doing that.
Q: Do you remember what?
A: No.
Q: How about your fellowship?
A: At FSU I had a University Fellowship and the GI Bill. Brenda had a graduate assistantship. She worked in the lab. I didn’t have to work.
Q: Were your circumstances different? Your backgrounds?
A: Not really.
I had better grades than she did. And I was more widely read. But I was seven years older, and had been reading in the service.
She was as smart as I was and had as quick a sense of humor. She was probably more committed to a career in archeology than I was.
Q: Why did you go to graduate school anyhow?
A: I got paid to go.
I was good at being a student.
I liked it.
At the time—Lyndon Johnson was president—it was possible to go to graduate school on fellowships and loans, get a PhD, get a job teaching college, and pay back your student loans from a teacher’s salary.
I thought I’d be an anthropology professor.
Q: What happened?
A: Nixon got in and shut the money to higher education off, to punish the hippies, and we got stranded in the pipeline.
Q: Did this just happen to you and Brenda?
A: No, it happened to Larry too. Our whole class, I think.
Q: Did you both make the same amount of money at Tulane?
A: No. I had an NDEA fellowship and a tuition waiver and Brenda had a tuition waiver and the chance of an assistantship later on, if things worked out.
Also, I could borrow an amount equal to my NDEA stipend every semester, and Brenda couldn’t do that, not having a stipend.
Q: But you could make it on two tuition waivers, one fellowship, and one loan.
A: We were rich.
We didn’t own anything, but we didn’t owe anybody any money, either.
We ate well, drank well, we could buy books and records, and go to concerts out at the school.
You could get anywhere in the city on the streetcar or a bus.
We sold our car and rode bicycles.
I have never felt freer than I felt not having to own a car, and pay upkeep, and insurance, and worry about it being stolen, or in a wreck.
I never felt freer than when I could walk away from our rented apartment and the furniture in it and move somewhere else, if we felt like it.
Q: So you were rich and free.
A: Yes. By being poor.
Our possessions didn’t own us.
Neither did our jobs.
A job is just a job.
Jobs don’t last.
They end.
Abruptly sometimes.
Through no fault
of your own.
Q: Nixon got elected and your careers in academia were over.
A: Like pulling a switch.