Hobson, Dave

              
ORAL HISTORY OF DAVE HOBSON
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
July 23, 2012 
MR. MCDANIEL: Alright. This is Keith McDaniel and today is July 23rd, 2012 and I'm at the home of Dave Hobson here in Oak Ridge. Mr. Hobson thanks for taking the time to talk with us.
MR. HOBSON: You are very welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let’s go back to the very beginning. Why don't you tell me a little bit about where you were born and raised and your family and where you went to school.
MR. HOBSON: Okay, I was born in a little town near Tupelo, Mississippi, called Pontotoc, one year before Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo. I remember that Sunday when the announcement of Pearl Harbor came over the phone, I mean over the radio. And pretty soon after that Dad went on construction work, munitions plants, and we moved from Pontotoc to Memphis, Tennessee, to Albany, Indiana, to Birmingham, Alabama, to Leads, Alabama, and then Dad was offered a job, in 1943, at this place called Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And Mother and I went to live with my grandmother in North Carolina and Dad lived in a dormitory here. Then in early '44, he got a house and we moved here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. HOBSON: I started out--
MR. MCDANIEL: And what did he do?
MR. HOBSON: He was a millwright on construction. Then he was hired in permanently at the Lab and eventually became a supervisor, craft supervisor.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you and your mother came here in '44.
MR. HOBSON: April of '44.
MR. MCDANIEL: And how old were you at the time?
MR. HOBSON: A month before my 10th birthday. You can do the math.
MR. MCDANIEL: I will. That's alright.
MR. HOBSON: So anyway we caught a train, came into Knoxville. A bus picked us up, took us to what was then Solway gate. A guard gets on the phone, on a bus and apparently Dad had the papers so anyway we came. We ended up getting off a local transit bus on Hillside Road walking up to Hunter Place, which is probably not the best neighborhood now, but it was a brand new house. And I would walk up the board walk to Waddell Circle to Highland View School, and so I went to Highland View. 
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you think of Oak Ridge? Or did you have any impressions. I mean, you were awfully young.
MR. HOBSON: It was paradise.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it?
MR. HOBSON: Yeah, it was safe. It had what the 8th largest bus system in the United States, and I think initially, it was free. So I could get on, eat breakfast, and disappear. Might come home for lunch, but you know, my friends and I would just roam everywhere.
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you an only child?
MR. HOBSON: Only child, yes. And I can remember walking down to the lake at Grove Center, watching people fish. And then the Army came in, and put sand down so you can go swimming. Anyway, I grew up in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was the pool, that's where the pool is now.
MR. HOBSON: That's the pool, yeah. So anyway--
MR. MCDANIEL: So, growing up in Oak Ridge in the 40's and 50's was great--
MR. HOBSON: It was great. And we moved to the corner of Robertsville and Illinois, which is right across the intersection from Jefferson Junior High, so I went there. Then I went two years at Jackson Square at the High School. Then my senior year was the first full year in what I still call the new High School. And I still remember the smell of that place, fresh concrete.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. HOBSON: Graduated, went to--
MR. MCDANIEL: In '52?
MR. HOBSON: In '52 and went to University of Tennessee studying chemical engineering. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Why did you study that? Was that just something you were interested in or you knew you'd get a job?
MR. HOBSON: I knew I'd get a job. Actually when I hit organic chemistry I decided that I really don't like this all that much. And they had a metallurgy option. They didn't have an undergraduate metallurgical engineering degree. So I graduated that way and I did summer work, the first summer was in 1954, and I was Y-12 at swing shift running the calutron, and Stable Isotopes Division.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HOBSON: And that was fun. I really enjoyed the, the night shift. Eleven to seven because I could go out on a date then come home in time to go work then sleep half the day. 
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, that sounds like a typical college student.
MR. HOBSON: Typical college student.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was perfect.
MR. HOBSON: Anyway, I hired into Metallurgy Division in '57. 
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was at the Lab?
MR. HOBSON: That was at the Lab, yes. That was in the big Quonset huts up on the hill that have now been torn down. I feel very old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Not too long ago, it hadn't been too long since they tore those down. Well let’s talk a little bit before, I want to get to your work, but let’s talk about, so you grew up in Oak Ridge. Now, in '57, when you went to work, were you married yet?
MR. HOBSON: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you were still single, but you knew Oak Ridge. You grew up in Oak Ridge, what was it like in the 50's for a high school/college age person in Oak Ridge. 
MR. HOBSON: Well--
MR. MCDANIEL: Was there a lot to do?
MR. HOBSON: Yeah, there was a lot to do. Actually, when I was in high school and part of the time I was in college, I played in the symphony orchestra here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did you?
MR. HOBSON: Yeah, in the eighth grade they had a string program and I started playing viola. I'm blocking the name of the conductor. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Cohn, was it?
MR. HOBSON: No, anyways the orchestra was a pretty good orchestra, but it was just bad enough that I could go in and play.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh there you go, I understand.
MR. HOBSON: Of course in high school I played trombone in the band, so it was typical except there was this feeling that Oak Ridge was sort of an island of culture in East Tennessee. I don't know who I'm going to insult by saying this.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh nobody, that's okay.
MR. HOBSON: But you know we had orchestra, we had the chorus, we had ballet, I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: The Playhouse.
MR. HOBSON: The Playhouse and I've done ten or eleven plays or musicals at the Playhouse, so it was just a pretty full life. And most of the time I could just commute to UT. In fact, I put in 40,000 miles in on Oak Ridge Highway.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HOBSON: I lived sometime over there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HOBSON: But Oak Ridge is just a fascinating place. 
MR. MCDANIEL: So you graduated from UT and got a job at the Lab. Tell me a little bit about your work. What did you start doing?
MR. HOBSON: Oh, I did many things. When I first hired in, it was on the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program. Which turned out to kind of be a political thing. But one thing I am very grateful for is that we didn't have a C5A or a 7407 at that time or they would have tried to fly that thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: They would have tried to fly that thing wouldn't they?
MR. HOBSON: So, but anyway the technology that came out of it was fantastic. It was used for many other things.
MR. MCDANIEL: So for people, who don't know anything about that, tell me just real quick what the purpose of that program, or what the goal of that program was and why it was canceled.
MR. HOBSON: Okay, well the goal.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because that was kind of a big thing in Oak Ridge's history, science history.
MR. HOBSON: Well the goal was to have a reactor that was small enough to go in a plane and that would supply heat of some kind to drive a propulsion system. And it used liquid metal-- 
MR. MCDANIEL: So a nuclear airplane that would be flown by nuclear power. I mean, powered by nuclear power.
MR. HOBSON: Right, basically flown for as long as you want to fly it. Of course there is a little thing about radiation to the pilots, but I think ultimately, it was canceled because there was no use for it and probably other military technology was such that it sort of did away for the need of it. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, Sure. You know I've heard, and you can correct me, but there were just the kind of things that I've heard why it's been canceled. One is to shield the radiation you had to put so much lead in that plane that it was too heavy to get off the ground. And secondly politically, they didn't think they wanted an airplane flying across the top of the country with a nuclear weapon on it basically, nuclear power on it.
MR. HOBSON: That's true.
MR. MCDANIEL: Those were the two real reasons that I heard.
MR. HOBSON: And I think the program was started in competition with the Russians.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, sure.
MR. HOBSON: That we needed something, maybe that would scare them. But then we had intercontinental ballistic missiles so we didn't need the plane.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you worked on that project until it was canceled.
MR. HOBSON: Right, and probably I went through in the 43 years that I was at the Lab. I went through probably half a dozen big projects. But the biggest ones occurred in the late 60's and that was the reactor safety work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HOBSON: And we did, we studied what would happen to the fuel cladding on these U-2 pellets, like that are in all the power reactors. What would happen if there was a loss of coolant and of course what we studied later happened in Three Mile Island. But I was involved with the hearing on emergency core cooling in Washington.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HOBSON: Do you want to go through?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah let’s talk about that a little bit.
MR. HOBSON: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I'm going to cut your story in here and I'll use what you did before.
MR. HOBSON: Okay alright. One thing that I probably could be used in the other as well as this is the inside story. And until I taught that ORICL class, there were probably only five people who knew what had happened.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HOBSON: So it was pretty much a secret because we could have been fired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, yeah.
MR. HOBSON: But it all goes back basically to Weinberg telling us at the hearing that you have to act responsible and tell the truth. Well, the only way that we could get the truth out was to be asked the right questions. And none of the four rector manufactures or the DOE, I mean AEC was going to ask those question. So we cooperated with the interveners. We met with them and went over our reports because they did not in the time schedule of the hearing, they did not have time to review everything that we had done.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, what were the interveners? Were they like the jury, the judges?
MR. HOBSON: They were, Okay let me back up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay sure, go ahead.
MR. HOBSON: The participants in the hearing, we had three judges. This was like trial and we had the four manufactures, GE, Westinghouse, Babcock Wilcox, and Combustion Engineering. They each had the opportunity to cross examine any of the witnesses. We then had the consolidated national interveners, which you've heard of the Union of Concerned Scientists? Okay they were a partner of this conglomeration of interveners. Then you had the AEC attorneys and the utilities. And each of these entities had their prerogative to cross examine any witness.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. HOBSON: So, the AEC had its own set of engineers who had written an interim criteria for the emergency core cooling. When we got a copy of it, well our first remark I probably can't say on TV.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, I understand.
MR. HOBSON: But we totally just disagreed with it. Anyway, the AEC and all of the participants cross examined that committee and they got their testimony of record. Then it was our turn and Phil Rittenhouse, he and I were in the same group. He was the group leader who had done all this work. Then there was Bill Cottrell, who was over the entire Reactor Safety Program at the Lab and George Lawson. But anyway we were cross examined and the interveners knew the right questions to ask us. So we got our testimony into the record and our results in. And to me, when Alvin Weinberg said act responsibly, we figured we were acting responsibly because we were doing the only thing we knew to get the truth as we saw it. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Those were wise words on his part weren't they?
MR. HOBSON: Oh, absolutely because at the end of each day's hearing, we could retire to the Holiday Inn bar and whoever was doing the questioning, whichever manufacture or whatever, they would grab something to eat and go back up to their rooms and go back over the questions they wanted to go over the next day.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HOBSON: And we were allowed to have any documents furnished to us so we didn't have to worry. All we had to do was not contradict ourselves because Westinghouse had engineers going over the previous day’s transcripts and putting it on their main frame computer to catch us.
MR. MCDANIEL: If you contradicted yourself.
MR. HOBSON: It was very hostile. So anyway my friend Phil was on for 80 hours and I was on for 40.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did Weinberg go to any of this?
MR. HOBSON: Weinberg did not. Boy, I'm blanking, blocking names. A few ORNL management people would show up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. But like you said it lasted a year.
MR. HOBSON: It did. Well, yeah. There twenty-two thousand pages of transcript and there was a little man sitting in the middle of the room with a mask over his face. He spoke every word that was spoken, plus put the names on the speaker into a record.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. HOBSON: And there were about six typeset in the back room and he'd raise his hand. He was in absolute control of the hearing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. 
MR. HOBSON: He would raise his hand, everything would stop, they would come out. He would hand them the disc and an hour after the hearing was over, there would be a two hundred or three hundred page transcript available.
MR. MCDANIEL: At that days?
MR. HOBSON: At that days.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HOBSON: I don't even want to think about what that hearing cost.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I'm sure. So that was one of the big things that you did in your career.
MR. HOBSON: That probably changed my career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. HOBSON: Because it was so traumatic that I don't think that I published another open literature publication after that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HOBSON: I published a lot of reports.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HOBSON: But it, in fact my friend Phil left and went to Europe for four years working on programs over there.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, but you stayed here and what year did you retire?
MR. HOBSON: 2000.
MR. MCDANIEL: 2000. Well, let’s go back a bit and talk about when you first went to work and your life, your personal life here in Oak Ridge. So you came back and you went to work in '57. Where was your, where was the first place that you lived in Oak Ridge on your own? Or were you like me and stayed; you stayed at home with Mom and Dad until they kicked you out?
MR. HOBSON: Part of that. Three of us, two co-workers and I got a Garden Apartment. And then in 19-- late '59-60, I met Martha and then in July of '61, we were married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, was she here? Was she working here?
MR. HOBSON: She was teaching English and Journalism at the High School.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HOBSON: And some of our early dates were in her apartment grading papers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HOBSON: But as soon as we got married, I think she was ready to stop. She became a technical editor at what was then DTIE. Which is what now?
MR. MCDANIEL: I don't know.
MR. HOBSON: Yeah, but she did that for a while and then our children came along.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HOBSON: Then I guess, ten or twelve years ago, she got interested in financial planning and she's a certified financial planner.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, that’s where I've seen her name before.
MR. HOBSON: And is still doing that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's good. So now what kind of activities did you get involved with. I know when you have work and family it's awfully busy, but you know in the community where you involved in any groups or activities or things.
MR. HOBSON: Yeah. I sing, sung in the choir at the Chapel on the Hill for about sixty years. But I did a lot of stuff at the Playhouse. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MR. HOBSON: I was in plays and some musicals--
MR. MCDANIEL: What was your first play and what year was it? Do you remember?
MR. HOBSON: Well, actually the first play I was in was Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury. There was a group called the Savoyards here in the '50's. And we actually put on that show in the old High School Auditorium.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right?
MR. HOBSON: But the first one I was really in, gosh hard to remember. All of them were directed by Paul Ebert.
MR. MCDANIEL: Paul Ebert, sure.
MR. HOBSON: Oh, yeah. We did a Sherlock Holmes, and I guess the ones that were the most fun was we did three Gilbert and Sullivan’s. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. HOBSON: I got to be Dick Deadeye in H.M.S Pinafore, and Sargent Merrill in Gillian and the Guard. That was fun, but about 15 or 18 years ago I got it all out of my system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand. You get to a point. You know my wife and I actually met at the Playhouse, 22 years ago this year. And we met there but we didn't have children. We were married 5 years before we had children. You know we were doing 6, 7, 8 shows a year over there. You know, every year.
MR. HOBSON: Oh, my gosh. Were you actually on stage?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, we both were on stage a lot. She did a lot of backstage work and she'll say my ego’s too big to carry a piece of set so I was on stage on most all the shows. I mean, early 90's, you know. Early-mid 90's, so.
MR. HOBSON:  Well, we overlapped probably a little bit. I'll be darned.
MR. MCDANIEL: But anyway. So your kids grew up in Oak Ridge and they were active in everything.
MR. HOBSON: In everything. Our daughter Laura graduated from Georgetown University and then got a job in Washington with a company that put U.S. AID money in third world countries. And she spent time in probably 21 foreign countries including January and February in Kazakhstan. She said the ice never got less than four inches thick. But we thought, she will never come back to Oak Ridge. She lives five minutes away from us with our two grandchildren.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Well there you go. I guess Oak Ridge is just a great place. 
MR. HOBSON: And our son graduated from Earlham College in Japanese Studies and we thought, look at those Tennessee companies, Japanese owned companies. He could be a liaison there. Well, he came home and waited tables for two years and I finally told him I didn't delay my retirements to send you and your sister to private schools for you to wait tables. He was fighting the idea of going to seminary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HOBSON: And he ended up going to Chicago Theological Seminary and he is now a UCC minister in Michigan. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HOBSON: And Chaplin of the volunteer fire department.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh well good for him.
MR. HOBSON: Well anyway, so it’s a great family. 
MR. MCDANIEL: So you moved to Oak Ridge in, when you were 9 and almost 10 and have been here ever since basically?
MR. HOBSON: Yeah. I haven't seen a real reason to leave. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Nobody has run you out of town yet.
MR. HOBSON: You know, when we got married Martha is the daughter of a Methodist Minister. And for four, five years after we got married, she was thinking aren't we supposed to be packing? 
MR. MCDANIEL: Aren't we suppose to be leaving? Exactly.
MR. HOBSON: But she stuck with me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Any stories you want to tell?
MR. HOBSON:  I think I'm about through. Oh, one thing I might mention. We attend the Chapel on the Hill United Church. And back in the late 40's and so on, my dad was head usher there. And one Sunday morning an African American gentleman showed up. And of course we were a very white congregation and Dad, I'm not sure exactly what he did, but probably spoke to the minister. And the minister said bring him in. And the church welcomed him. And but it's sort of a sign of how Oak Ridge was back then with Scarboro. And you know when I was in high school there were no African American students there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure exactly.
MR. HOBSON: It wasn't integrated until what '56?
MR. MCDANIEL: Well it was--
MR. HOBSON: '55--
MR. MCDANIEL: -- yeah '55. Oak Ridge integrated in '55. 
MR. HOBSON: And I love the story about after the Clinton High School was bombed they were welcomed to the old Linden school, with the Oak Ridge Band playing the Clinton fight song. I get goose bumps when I think about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: I made that movie and every time that scene comes up in that movie I still get tears in my eyes.
MR. HOBSON: Yeah. I don't think I've seen that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I need to give you a copy of the ‘Clinton 12’.
MR. HOBSON: I would love that. Well, I think you've about run me dry.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay well good. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
MR. HOBSON: You’re welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: Appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
MR. HOBSON: We'll I've enjoyed it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well good.

[END OF INTERVIEW]