Hahn, Lawrence

              ORAL HISTORY OF LAWRENCE HAHN
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
March 21, 2013
 
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is March 21, 2013, and I am at my office today with Mr. Lawrence Hahn.  Mr. Hahn, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us.
MR. HAHN: Oh, my pleasure, Keith.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, let's start at the beginning.  Tell me where you were born and raised, something about your family.
MR. HAHN: Well, that was a long time ago.  I was born and raised in Sunbright, Tennessee.  I always refer to it as the little metropolis of the South.  But Sunbright, as you probably know, is over in Morgan County, 500 or 600 people, but that's where I grew up and got my education.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, what year were you born, if you don't mind me asking?
MR. HAHN: I was born in 1934.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, 1934.  So, you went to Sunbright Elementary School and Sunbright High School?
MR. HAHN: I certainly did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  Now, how big were those schools?
MR. HAHN: Well, my graduating class in high school was 36.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.  Well, that wasn't tiny-tiny.  It was small, but it wasn't super tiny.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your mom and dad do?
MR. HAHN: My dad had a little country grocery store there in Sunbright, and, later on, he added some dry goods and hardware, and that type of thing, but really just general merchandise.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess you probably grew up in those aisles, didn't you?
MR. HAHN: I grew up there, and I, of course, worked in the store, and made deliveries and learned a lot about people in that little country store setting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Now, did you have brothers or sisters?
MR. HAHN: No, I'm an only child.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right, and your mother, I imagine she was a homemaker, wasn't she?
MR. HAHN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did she work in the store with you?
MR. HAHN: Well, she worked in the store, too, but really she was primarily a homemaker.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.  Okay, so you graduated, and Sunbright is not very far from Oak Ridge.  I mean it's --
MR. HAHN: No, it's about 35 minutes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's what I was thinking, it's about 30 minutes up in the mountains, up in Morgan County.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you were young when the war was going on, but can you remember any of that?  Can you remember any of the talk about that?
MR. HAHN: Oh, I remember talk about it, and there were ration stamps, I remember for sugar, for gasoline and that type of thing, but I was a little bit young to digest a lot of what was going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure, sure.  I understand.  So, what year did you graduate high school?
MR. HAHN: 1952.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so you graduated in '52, and did you have plans to go to college?
MR. HAHN: Well, I think I always had plans to go, if I could, and I got the opportunity through a football scholarship to East Tennessee State.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. HAHN: Then it was East Tennessee State Teachers College.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it?
MR. HAHN: Mm-hmm.  I think, again, it was a small setting, which suited me, and I think they had about 1,600 people then.  Now, they're in the thousands.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.  Now, I guess to get a scholarship, you were kind of a football standout at Sunbright, or a football star, weren't you?
MR. HAHN: Well, I was a member of the football team, and it wasn't too hard to get playing time because there probably was only 25 or 30 of us on the team.
MR. MCDANIEL: Just barely enough to have two teams, right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  I was just fortunate to get the opportunity, which doesn't happen much when you're in a small setting.
MR. MCDANIEL: What position did you play?
MR. HAHN: I played offensive/defensive end, but it was a short-lived career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. HAHN: I want you to know that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, tell me about that.  Tell me what happened.
MR. HAHN: Well, I played the first year, and I don't remember all of the particulars, but there was a switch from two-platoon to one-platoon football, which eliminated a lot of scholarship needs and so forth because they could basically cut the squad in half, and I got caught in that and [they] wanted to reduce me to a partial scholarship, and I decided that I would just find me a job and go to school like that because I was trying to carry a pre-med curriculum and play football.  But the pre-med didn't last too long, either, after I experienced some of the afternoon labs, and so forth.  There is when I saw an ad in the paper, and the Red Shield Boys Club in Johnson City needed someone to perform janitorial services -- clean the building up at night -- and I went down and I got the job, and that started my career.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, did you finish?  Were you able to finish college doing that, or how did that all work out?
MR. HAHN: Well, it worked out well for me.  I was there just a short period of time, and they needed a Games Room Director. So I was able to keep my nighttime job and then, after school, be the Games Room Director, and somewhere within a year, they had a turnover and I became the Interim Director at a very young age, and then I was the Managing Director of the club for, I guess, the last three years I was there.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how long total were you there?
MR. HAHN: I was there from September '53 through the end of December '57. So, I guess, that's four or five years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, four or five years.  Now, how many kids did that Boys Club serve?
MR. HAHN: At that time, as I remember it, it was 800 to 1,000, something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, wow.  Sure, sure.  So, I guess in that career there, I guess you found that you really liked that, you liked doing that, didn't you?
MR. HAHN: Well, yes, I think so.  Well, obviously I must have liked it or I wouldn't have continued.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. HAHN: But, in the meantime, of course I got married while I was in college.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?  Okay.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I married a gal from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she was an only child.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, so you can imagine the trials and tribulations of two only children being married to each other, but we had three children.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess they say only children are a little bit spoiled, you know?  So, I imagine that would be kind of difficult for two only children.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  Well, it really wasn't all that bad.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. HAHN: Both of us had been raised by some parents that had good values and saw that we appreciated things as we grew up.  We were not handed a lot of things that some of the kids nowadays are.
MR. MCDANIEL: Also, back then, when you were growing up, I mean it wasn't an easy time in this country, either.  I mean, not a lot of people had a lot.
MR. HAHN: Well, that's true.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know it's true.
MR. HAHN: Oh, absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you made use of what you had and appreciated what you had, didn't you?
MR. HAHN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right, so you were there and you got married.  You said you got married while you were there in college.
MR. HAHN: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: You stayed at the Boys Club there until '57.
MR. HAHN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: What happened then?
MR. HAHN: Okay, we were, of course, a member of Boys Clubs of America at that time, and they made me aware of a new club going be formed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, so immediately, I was interested in looking into that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HAHN: I thought, "Hey that would get me back to my old stomping grounds…” 
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, absolutely.
MR. HAHN: “…and get me close to home, and maybe mooch a meal or two off my folks." So I applied for it.  At any rate, I got the job, and at that time, I found out later, I was the youngest Executive Director in the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: How old were you?
MR. HAHN: I was 23, and as far as I know, I'm still the youngest director in the history of Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, when you took that job, who did you interview with?  Who did you apply to?  Was that a local thing, or was it the Boys Club?
MR. HAHN: Well, here are some names that some people will remember.  On that committee that either came to interview me in Johnson City, or when I came down and met with them, it was headed up by Artie Addison, who was with the Oak Ridge police force, and Paul Griffin, Leland Mann, who was the Charter President of the Boys Club of Oak Ridge, and Nick Orlando.  Now, there's a character that was a big part of my life, and there were other charter board members that I won't start to mention because I'll forget some names.  But they came to visit on a Saturday, and then the next thing I knew, they offered me the job.  I remember that it really wasn't an advancement.  If I remember, I think it was $100.00 less on the year than I was making where I was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: But it was a chance to go into a new situation.
MR. MCDANIEL: And build something on your own.
MR. HAHN: And build something, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure, building something yourself.  Well, good.  So, you came in you said it was '57.
MR. HAHN: I actually signed the contract in, I think, somewhere around mid-December '57, and then my first day on the job was January 2, 1958.
MR. MCDANIEL: In 1958, and since we're talking about dates, we're going to go back and talk about a lot of different things, what was the date of your last day on the job?
MR. HAHN: That was --
MR. MCDANIEL: Officially.
MR. HAHN: -- August 30, 2009.
MR. MCDANIEL: So that's, what, 40 --
MR. HAHN: That was 51 years here --
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HAHN: -- and then four or five in Johnson City.
MR. MCDANIEL: But 51 years with the Oak Ridge Boys Club as the Executive Director?
MR. HAHN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was your job?
MR. HAHN: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.  I would imagine you were probably the youngest Executive Director in the history, and you may have the longest tenure at one place.
MR. HAHN: Well, I know that I do have the longest tenure at one place, and maybe the longest tenure --
MR. MCDANIEL: Anywhere.
MR. HAHN: -- anywhere, because that's 56 years, I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, absolutely.
MR. HAHN: I joke about it sometimes in talking to people that I was the youngest Executive Director, and then, when I retired, I probably was the oldest, because here I started in Oak Ridge at 23, and then I was 75 when I retired, or when they ran me off.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, it took them a while to run you off, though, didn't it?
MR. HAHN: Well, yeah, it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right, so let's go back to when you first came to Oak Ridge.  You mentioned some of those folks that were on the committee.  What was it like?  You were starting from scratch.  I mean, you were building from nothing, I'm sure.
MR. HAHN: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, talk about that a little bit.  What was it like in Oak Ridge, and how was that different from the Kingsport, Johnson City area?
MR. HAHN: Well, I remember my wife and I drove down with our young son on a Sunday, and they wanted to show me their Boys Club, and their Boys Club to-be --
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did they have one already?
MR. HAHN: -- no, no.  They had a little building that had been donated to them.  It was right next door to the Atomic Energy Museum.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. HAHN: At one time, I think it was just a shelter where you gathered to catch the bus from there, and then, later on, I think it became a little radio shack of some kind.  It was in horrible condition.  Every window was broken out in it because it had been sitting empty.  It needed a new roof on it, it was leaking all over, but that was the beginning.  But, due to a lot of volunteers and so forth, we got that spruced up, got a roof on it and got it painted, and I think we actually opened up in March of that year to kids, and the first member that I issued a membership card to was Johnny Atkins.
MR. MCDANIEL: Johnny Atkins.
MR. HAHN: See, the club was located in a section of town where the city and the police had determined that that's where the greatest need was, and so a lot of the kids that I had were from right there in the west end.  Back then, none of them had cars, very few of them had bicycles, so they had to walk there.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, Johnny Atkins.  Where is Johnny Atkins?  Is he still --
MR. HAHN: -- Johnny is now retired, and, as far as I know, he's living in Morristown.  He became a public accountant and was with various companies over the years, did well for himself, and he grew up right there on Jefferson Circle.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you had this little building that was next to the museum down on Jefferson, that area, and how big was the building?
MR. HAHN: I used to know the answer to that.  It really was just one room, and it had a little office space, maybe a third of the size of this room.
MR. MCDANIEL: They had a closet that they called your office, is that it?
MR. HAHN: That's it, that's it, and what the restroom was, was just one of these big urinals, and so forth, but I forget now how we -- it was some kind of heating stove.  I think we had an oil heating stove.  But we did a lot in that little building, and it wasn't too long until we were able to add a paved basketball court outside, and that served, particularly for the older kids in the evenings, basketball, and even touch football on that, and so forth, and then next to the property that we had was the Masonic Lodge, and they were in Galesburg Hall, and half of that dormitory had burned down somewhere before I got here, so you had that one half section of a dormitory with the brick part in the center, you know?
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Now, that was down like kind of behind there, wasn't it?
MR. HAHN: Well, it just abutted the property we had.  It was between our property and the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike.  Right directly across the street was the skating rink.  It was a big green building, and that was one of the few things that was available to the kids in this city for them to do, particularly the teenagers, and that was another reason the club was formed here.  So, the Masonic group had bought land at their present location up here on Lafayette, and they sold us that property for just nearly nothing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, in order for the club to expand, and then, to make a long story short, we operated out of that building, which was quite a step up for us, until we built the first phase of the present building in 1965.  I remember of names -- I guess while they come to me, I better mention them now.  But one of the movers and shakers of that was John Smith, Captain John Smith, and Ken Sommerfeld.  Now, Ken headed the fund drive for that, and I believe that Mr. Smith was the President of the Board at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, why was he Captain John Smith?
MR. HAHN: Well, that's just something --
MR. MCDANIEL: Was he former military?
MR. HAHN: -- no, that's just something that he adopted, and he was a great big man.  John stood about 6'4" and weighed well over 400 pounds, and he of course was very much a Republican, and I've got to throw this in because I'll never forget it.  We went down to the dedication of the new club in Nashville, Tennessee, and Dick Nixon, who was on the board of Boys Club of America, and John said, "Let's get our picture made with Nixon."  Well, he didn't know Nixon, and I certainly didn't.  He said, "You just sit back here in the back, and I'll wave to you."  So, I saw him up there shaking hands and talking to him, this was before his speech began, and he waved to me.  So, I went on up, and he said, "We're going to get our picture made with Mr. Nixon."  He said, "I told him I was the biggest Republican in Tennessee," and physically he probably was.  But a wonderful man, very active in the Elks, and we've got a baseball field down there named after him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.  Well, how was the response from the community when you first came and you opened your club?
MR. HAHN: Well, when we first came, or when I first came, no one knew what a Boys Club was.  Many people -- well, so if any of -- 
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
MR. HAHN: -- my early members hear this, I think they're going to understand.  We were located in an area of town where there was a great need for activities for kids, and the kids just didn't have a whole lot to do, and many of them didn't have any spare change in their pocket, and then several of them had problems with the police in one way or another.  But I think we had a reputation that people said, "Well, I don't want my boy to go down there with that group of thugs and gang members," and so forth, but an awful lot of those guys have turned out extremely well, and I won't go into mentioning names because I'll forget someone.  So, it was a little difficult, or quite a bit difficult, I guess, in the beginning, but one of the first people that I visited when I came to Oak Ridge, I wanted to go see and meet Rabbit Yearwood and Shep Lauter, because I knew that they were providing activities for kids, and I wanted to see that we didn't duplicate, and what could we do to supplement what was going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now tell me, I know that Shep Lauter, he kind of ran the recreation program for the city, and what about Mr. Yearwood?
MR. HAHN: Mr. Yearwood was the Director of Parks and Recreation, and Shep was the number two man, I guess we'll call him the Athletic Director, and he was best known for the head of the Wildcat Den, and of course, that's where the teenagers gathered at, and he was a very popular man.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, when you first came to town, you wanted to go meet with them, so you did.  Tell me about that.
MR. HAHN: All right.  I went to meet with Rabbit Yearwood.  His name was Carl, but he was called Rabbit.  I'm not sure why.  I don't think he was that fast, but --
MR. MCDANIEL: There's a baseball field named after him here in Oak Ridge --
MR. HAHN: Oh yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the Carl Yearwood --
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  
MR. MCDANIEL: -- Fields.
MR. HAHN: -- I met with, I met with Carl and I said, "Look, I think the best way to start building this is some sports activities for these kids to get them off the street and doing something productive," and I said, "What is being done in the sports end of it?"  Well, number one, there was nothing being done in football.  The only baseball for kids of any form was what Shep was doing on Saturday mornings for three or four hours, the Shep Lauter Baseball Camp, and, in basketball, nothing was being done for the younger kids, and even for the teens it was strictly church league basketball that churches would sponsor, but then if you've got kids that aren't involved in church, they were being left out.  So, we took it from there and formed the first kid’s football program in Oak Ridge, and then the first baseball leagues for kids, and the first basketball teams for kids.  Right now, I can't remember where the church league -- it seemed like that they wasn't doing anything for the kids 11 and under --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. HAHN: -- so we started off that way.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- started off that way.
MR. HAHN: We started off that way, and then, and if we had some older boys that wanted to play, we would enter a team in the church league.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how long did it take?  You started football, baseball, and basketball, and how long did it take for you to start those programs and get them going?  Did you do that pretty much immediately?
MR. HAHN: Well, I did it as fast as I could because, I guess, the first year I was here, I was working strictly by myself; I didn't have anyone else.  I remember who my first employee in the summertime was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?  Who was that?
MR. HAHN: David Fitzpatrick, and David lives on Kentucky Avenue here in town, and he was a member of the famous Wildcats football team that won the National Championship.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Oh yeah.  This was primitive, keep this in mind --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. HAHN: -- we didn't have a baseball field, so we kind of made one out of some property next door that had the foundation of an old dormitory still in the ground.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. HAHN: But we started little baseball leagues and softball leagues, and then football we got started in that first year, in '58.  We had one team, and then I think within a year or so -- we started off with a team for 13 and under, and then we added a Peewee Team, and it wasn't long until we had several football teams.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did these teams play like other Boys Clubs, is that what it was, or did they, you know?
MR. HAHN: Okay, once we got it established, we really didn't have to play outside except just occasionally.  See, there were eight elementary schools when I came here, so [in] each elementary school, we formed a football team, not just a football team, but one in each age group.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. HAHN: So, at one time, well, let's see, we had 23 or 24 --
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HAHN: -- new football teams, but now there's probably eight teams now --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: -- and the only thing that these kids had in the summertime, the Recreation Department was doing a good job with the playground activities, and each playground had organized, structured activities in the summer.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, but during the school year, I mean, there wasn't much going on --
MR. HAHN: No, there wasn't anything going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- except for what you were providing.
MR. HAHN: That's true.  Now, there were Boy Scout troops of which we had our own troop that met at the club --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: -- but there was not a lot for them to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: At that point, at that time, it was just boys, wasn't it?
MR. HAHN: It was.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was just boys.
MR. HAHN: It was boys.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did it become boys and girls?
MR. HAHN: I can't remember the exact date of national --
MR. MCDANIEL: But it was a long time.
MR. HAHN: -- yeah, it went from boys -- we were a member of the national organization and they eventually bought the name from Girls Clubs of America and became Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see, I see.
MR. HAHN: Then it was up to each club to admit girls if they chose to, and so forth.  We were one of the last clubs in the Nation to go from serving boys only to boys and girls club.  Now, that was done, I think, July 2008, was when we signed up --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, wow.
MR. HAHN: -- the first girls, and now, that has grown to where there are I'd say 200 or 300 girls or more in the club.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. HAHN: It's worked out well, but one reason that we delayed it for all this time in Oak Ridge, we felt like that we had a good -- initially, it was the Girls Club of Oak Ridge, and then it became Girls, Inc., and they were doing a good job for the girls, and they were not interested in a merger.  I was concerned that if we tried to start serving girls that it would look like to them that we were being bullies and just going out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. HAHN: But it's worked out well, I mean, the Boys and Girls Club are serving a lot of kids, and then Girls, Inc. is still serving a lot of girls.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm going to interject my personal opinion here.  Sometimes today, people don't realize the importance of young men and young women as separate groups having activities.  I think there's something to be said for that sometimes, you know?
MR. HAHN: Well, I think so, because it's almost a thing of the past --
MR. MCDANIEL: It is.
MR. HAHN: -- for anything to be for gals only, for women only, for men only.  Look at your civic groups and just run on down the line --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. HAHN: -- so there's something to be said for that, but also community pressure, whatever.
MR. MCDANIEL: As leaders of those groups, sometimes you can say something to a group of boys that you wouldn't say to a group of boys and girls, you know?
MR. HAHN: Boy, that's absolutely right.
MR. MCDANIEL: If you're going to be leaders and you're going to teach them how to grow into responsible young men, sometimes you've got to be honest with them about certain things, and it would be uncomfortable to do that, wouldn't it?
MR. HAHN: Yes.  Yeah.  Well, I think it was for me because for all these years, I had been dealing with boys, and sometimes you've got to get explicit with them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  So, you grew, you built new buildings, you eventually ended up in the building that's there now, I guess.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  In '65, we built the first --
MR. MCDANIEL: You said the first phase of it, right.
MR. HAHN: -- phase of this building, and then we came back in '69, and actually got it open in, oh, about mid-year 1970.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  Now, did the first phase have the gymnasium, or was that later on?
MR. HAHN: No, the first phase, I think it was 3,500 feet, and that had office space, a games room, arts and crafts room, a kitchen, that type of thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which is kind of still where it is now, right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, your game room and the offices, and things such as that.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, it's been re-shifted some, and then we came back in '69, and started the construction of a building that kind of wrapped around what we had.  It included a full-size gymnasium, a much larger games room, a library, meeting rooms, and just a nice facility --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh sure, sure, I understand.
MR. HAHN: -- and we did it in a unique way.
MR. MCDANIEL: How is that?
MR. HAHN: We knew that trying to build a gymnasium and all those things was going to cost more than we could afford. So, I can't remember who all led the charge, but thank goodness they did, a number of people, volunteers from unions and so forth, worked it out where that the labor for the building was practically all donated.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you worked with the local unions, which there were a lot of, and you had electricians and bricklayers and all those kinds of folks.
MR. HAHN: The electricians took care of all of that, the plumbers took care of all of theirs, the painters all of theirs, but the one thing we didn't succeed with was the brick masons.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, but we had a contractor that was willing to work with us, and as I look back on it, Jim Galloway built that building, but here he was having to do it, and I would be down there at night coordinating electricians and so forth.  They could only work after they got off of work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: But we wound up and we built that building for probably 20 to 25 percent of what it would have cost otherwise.
MR. MCDANIEL: Otherwise, you couldn't have afforded something like that.
MR. HAHN: No, we couldn't have done it.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, has the support from Oak Ridge been pretty constant?  Has it ebbed and flowed over the years?  You can look at it over the course of 50 years, 51 years and kind of look back and see how it's been.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  Well, we got so we were always able to pay our bills.
MR. MCDANIEL: How did you get funding?  How does the Boys Club get funding?
MR. HAHN: Well, it wasn't too many years after I got here that we got into the United Way.  I guess, then it was called the Red Feather Organization, I think, is what it was.  But we got into that, and we eventually became the largest agency in that.  That wasn't a tremendous amount of money, but, at one time, what we were getting from United Way made up probably 40 percent of our operating budget.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?  Okay.
MR. HAHN: Now, that's not true now, as things have escalated, and I would say, now, that maybe they get 15 to 20 percent from the United Way.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where does the other money come from?
MR. HAHN: The other money comes from individuals and companies sponsoring activities or making contributions.  There are a number of fundraisers during the year, and we have a reverse raffle.  We have a gala.  I think everybody has a gala now.
MR. MCDANIEL: Everybody has a gala, that's true.
MR. HAHN: The other thing, before I forget it, you asked about support.  We never depended on the kids for our support because Boys and Girls Clubs of America believed strongly that the club should be available to everyone, regardless of their walk of life, so the membership dues have been kept very low over all those years.  Now, it's only $15.00 a year for a boy or a girl to participate in the Boys and Girls Club --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: -- and when I came here, and I may mention a name or two now as I think of them --
MR. MCDANIEL: That's fine.
MR. HAHN: -- I was looking through some old applications, and Randy McNally I think that his was .75 cents.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. HAHN: The way it scaled was is if you were a little guy, we didn't have as many activities then for, say, a six- and seven-year-old, so that was .25 a year --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: -- and then the next age group, which probably was 9, 10, 11 maybe, it was .50 cents.  So, Tom Tuck, Tom is now president of TN Bank, and he grew up on Johnson Road there, and I gave Tom his application just the other day, and I believe he only had to pay .25 because he was real young when he signed up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  But you said Randy McNally had to pay .75 cents, huh?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, yeah, he did, and Randy was one of these guys he had a good home setting, and he lived in probably I'm not sure now if it was Michigan or somewhere in that area, so it was far enough where that guys like that couldn't come to the club right after school, but maybe he would be there on a Saturday, or in the summertime.  But the beauty of what I've been doing all my life and what I liked about it is the fact that it was a club for kids from all walks of life, and even though you kept records on them, you wasn't overly concerned about who their mama or daddy was and what kind of job they had, or if they'd been into some little troubles with the police.
MR. MCDANIEL: I want to come back and I want to ask you, when we wrap things up here in a minute, about that a little bit.  So, we were talking about the support.  You felt like you've always had pretty good constant support; however, like any non-profit, I would imagine, one of the toughest things you have to do is make sure you go out and find enough money to keep operating and provide the services.  That's probably something that, you know, you're trying to provide these services, but then you have to worry about having enough money to be able to provide those services.  I'm sure that's a tough balancing act.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, that was a big part of my job, but I was blessed to have a very good Board of Directors through all those years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?  Okay.
MR. HAHN: So, they are the ones that, ultimately, take the lead on things like that and see that you have something where that you can fund the activities, and so forth.  I think we're blessed in this town to have some quality volunteers, and I think anyone that's headed a non-profit would salute the volunteers, because I couldn't be sitting here talking about how many kids that we've served, and how many of this and that because, in all those cases, you had to have volunteers.  If it was a football team or if it was a guitar class, or whatever, you had to have a volunteer leader for it, and I've been so blessed to have people like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: I would imagine one of the things about Oak Ridge was there was a lot of competition for those dollars that you were trying to raise, but, on the other hand, there were a lot of, like you said, volunteers.  They're a lot of people with a lot of specific skills that could offer them to the Boys Club, to your organization, and others, I would imagine.
MR. HAHN: If you wanted to start a photography class, we had a little darkroom in this building, and you could find someone that could teach photography, that knew how to develop film and that type thing, and if you wanted someone to -- I know we had a little choir there in the beginning, and I think it was called the Singing Atoms.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: So, you could find volunteers for all of that, but what's happened in recent years, with the economy downturn, that we've had with the club here, well all of the non-profits have really been strapped, now, for I'd say, the past three or four years.  I think it's getting better now, but --
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, but it was tough there for a while, wasn't it?
MR. HAHN: -- it was very tough.
MR. MCDANIEL: When you first started, let's say the first couple of years you were here, how many kids did you serve, and how many do they serve now?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  I had, or we had to have 100 kids registered, enrolled before we got our, oh --
MR. MCDANIEL: Your charter?
MR. HAHN: -- charter.  Yeah, charter that you put on the wall, and we achieved that.  We opened in March, and by April we had that.
MR. MCDANIEL: You had that.
MR. HAHN: We had that.  There was a lot more kids in Oak Ridge when I came here than there are now.  Oak Ridge High School was a lot larger in enrollment.  So, we reached an enrollment figure of probably 1,000 at our peak, and then for years then, I'll say the last ten years or so I was there, that was more in the 600 to 700 figure, and now I think it's grown with the girls and so forth joining.  I believe that they're up there around the 900 to 1,000 now.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yes, uh-huh.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  Well, I mean you don't expect it just to keep growing and growing and growing, because kids grow up, and you've got new kids coming in, so --
MR. HAHN: Oh yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- unless there's a major expansion in the community itself, it's going to kind of stay relatively static throughout the years, I would imagine.
MR. HAHN: You've got to look at when I'm talking about, back in the late '50s and in the '60s, there wasn't much for the kids to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh sure.
MR. HAHN: I can remember that hardly any teenager had any type of job or employment.  I had one boy that he had his own car --
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he?
MR. HAHN: -- and the rest of the kids, they either walked there or rode a bicycle, and in the homes, it was a very fortunate home if they had two cars in the family.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: Then, it was a kind of a one-car situation, and one parent working and one staying at home, if there were two parents in the home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.  I want to talk about two different things.  One is social changes through the years, I mean kids are influenced, things happen in pop culture or in the cultural environment.  I'm sure in the '70s, as in every community, drugs kind of came into town, and then you had all kinds of things that affect culturally.  Let's talk about that first, and then I want to ask you about political changes and how that might have affected your organization.  But I mean, what kind of influence did those cultural, societal changes have on the way you offered services, or did it at all?  Did it have any influence?
MR. HAHN: Well, of course there are a lot of things that have changed.  If you were here interviewing, talking to any of our present teachers or principals of the schools, you would hear what they have to say about one of their biggest problems, and it became one of my biggest problems.  I have to digress for a minute.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, but I want to come back to that.  I need to know the answer to what that is.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I'm going to give you that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. HAHN: I'm going to give you that, but when I had a problem with a boy in the club, most of the time they lived within a mile of there, I'd give them a choice.  I'd say, "Now, do you want me to call your folks or do you want five licks from my ping pong paddle?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: Now, you know --
MR. MCDANIEL: You can't do that.
MR. HAHN: -- well, no.  You know what would happen, I'd be in jail.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course you would.
MR. HAHN: But they almost every time would choose the ping pong paddle because they didn't want me to call their parent because, if I called the parent, they had enough confidence in me -- it's not like today, and I'll tell you about that --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. HAHN: -- but they would say, "Look, you go ahead and use your ping pong paddle, and then, when he gets home, we'll have a little talk --
MR. MCDANIEL: Have a discussion, won't we?
MR. HAHN: -- with him, you know?"  The next day then, of course they'd march the boy back down there and he'd make an apology, and that was about all there was to it.  But now, first of all, you've got to forget the ping pong paddle, and then, when you call home, in a lot of cases, not every case, but you call home, and if you say, "Hey, I need you to come and pick up Johnny," or Mary Lou, or whatever, "Well, what's wrong?" and then I'll say, "Well, he got in a little fight down here and he needs to go home."  Well, rather than responding like they used to, they'll say, "Well, what did you do about the other boy?" or, "What did you do about the other girl?" which really has nothing to do with this, and then just the parents in this day and time, they tend to want to blame --
MR. MCDANIEL: Blame somebody besides --
MR. HAHN: -- they want to blame the school, the club, or somebody other than the fact that just maybe they're lacking in some way.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: But that's just the way the society is that we live in now.  You've got to worry about getting sued, personally and your organization, so you get where that sometimes maybe you don't handle things probably in what you think is the best way, but you've got to handle it the way that is acceptable --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly, exactly.
MR. HAHN: -- and it's a fine line.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean that's, just like you said, not just with the organizations like yours, but the schools, as well.
MR. HAHN: Oh yeah.  They deal with it.  We have the same problems.  Theirs are just --
MR. MCDANIEL: During the day.
MR. HAHN: -- yeah, during the day --
MR. MCDANIEL: Yours is after school.
MR. HAHN: -- and theirs is probably certainly larger than some of the problems maybe we would have.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.  My goodness.
MR. HAHN: But that's one of the biggest changes is dealing with the parents, and so many times now, again, it's a reflection of our times, and I don't know what the latest stats are on it, but every year it grows, the number of kids growing up in broken homes, single-parent homes, or in some cases, no parents, being raised by grandparents.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you see a lot of that, and was that trend reflected in Oak Ridge through the years, too?  I mean, did you feel like it was?
MR. HAHN: Well, it was later on.  It seemed like when I first came here, and I know this is true of the kids that lived in our neighborhood, many of them didn't have a lot but they had both parents in the home in, I think, the majority of the cases.  But sometimes in those situations or in most situations, just one of them was working, and sometimes they didn't have the greatest jobs in the world so they didn't have a lot of extra money in their pocket.  Then, as time went along --
MR. MCDANIEL: But they raised their kids.
MR. HAHN: -- they raised their kids, but then you reached a point in our society that it became almost necessary for both parents to work, and so when both parents went to work, then some of the parenting certainly had to break down because there was nobody there, a lot of latchkey kids, nobody at home when they came home, and that made it even more important for someplace like the Boys and Girls Club or Girls, Inc., or whatever it might be.  Then, with that, in this day and time, staying together is --
MR. MCDANIEL: Certainly optional, isn't it?
MR. HAHN: -- it is, and it's kind of few and far between.  Now, it's so easy to get a divorce, they just get a divorce, or they don't marry in the first place --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. HAHN: -- so it just leads to a lot of broken homes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which leads to a lot of kids having problems.
MR. HAHN: It does, it does, and I'll tell you, raising a child in this day and time is very, very challenging because of all the things they are exposed to.  When I came here, and I'd say for the first 10 or 15 years, I didn't have to worry about drugs of any kind.  I really didn't have to worry about the alcohol part of it.  Oh, I had a few kids that they'd get to be 16 and 17, and I'd hear them talking about having them a beer or two, but that's the worst thing they did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, which seems kind of mild these days, doesn't it?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, and then if they had disagreements, they'd settle it with their fists, rather than a switchblade or a gun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HAHN: We live in a permissive society now, where that many things just it seems to be okay that I still don't think are okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.  I understand, I understand.
MR. HAHN: But I'm a dinosaur, as you can see.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, there's nothing wrong with that.  So, you saw a lot of changes over your tenure here.  What about politically?  I mean, did you ever have any pressure from politicians to do certain things, not do certain things, or did they kind of appreciate what you did and left you to do your business, or did they try to get buttinski a little bit sometimes?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  I mean, you had a certain degree of that but, by and large, our local politicians -- we've mentioned Randy, and I could have mentioned some others -- I think they were supportive of us, and of course, there's things that happened that can be challenging on the national political scene.  You know, one right now that thank goodness I don't have to deal with what the Boy Scouts of America is going through, so there's many people divided on that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, and the gay issues are what you're talking about.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, and so I can't think of too many ways that it affected things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so let's talk about -- you said you retired in 2009.
MR. HAHN: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: You were 75 when you retired.
MR. HAHN: Yes, and I'm 65 now.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I don't know, my subtraction is probably not right.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's all right.  So, was it just time?  Had you been doing it so long, I mean, did you decide it was just time for you to quit?
MR. HAHN: I think so, and I know that the organization, because like I say, here I'm a dinosaur, or sometimes someone would call me a legend, and I thought, "Boy, that sounds good," and I looked it up in the Webster dictionary and the definition is myth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  But no, I think, collectively, they thought it was time, and I know now that it was, that you need the injection of fresh thinking and young blood, particularly to deal with some of the issues that you have to deal with in this day and time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. HAHN: So, DJ Jones is the gentleman that was chosen to succeed me.  He came here from Raleigh, North Carolina.  He grew up in a Boys and Girls Club, so he was chosen out of several candidates that they went through in the national search.
MR. MCDANIEL: You did that for a total of 55 years, 51 years in Oak Ridge.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why did you stay so long?  What did that do for you, personally?
MR. HAHN: Well, that's a little hard to answer, but one thing about it, I really feel blessed and honored that I've had the chance to be part of thousands of families and get to know -- as I was talking to my alumni group just this past weekend, I remarked that in the room there, "I first met you guys when you were about that high, seven to eight years old," and, believe it or not, several of my alumni are now in their mid to late 60's that were in those first years here.  I know the product that what I was trying to do and what the national organization was trying to do was to develop boys into productive adults.  Well, in many professions, they don't get the opportunity to see the end result of their product.  So, in all those years, I've had that opportunity to see what this little guy grew up into, and without calling any names, I have one that I had decided that, "I have failed completely, the club has failed and there's absolutely no chance for him," and I truly believed that, because he was one that I knew the home life he had, and he would be one that I would pretty well have to put out of the building at night, and I knew he was going to curse me and call me names, and all that.  But, at any rate, he'd be back in the next day or so, and I'd take him back, but then he drifted away when he got on up in high school, and I just felt like that he was headed for either the cemetery or prison, or something like that.  But, one day, years later, a guy walks in with a three-piece business suit on, college ring on his finger, and he told me who he was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: He said, "I know you'll never believe it," but you talk about making my day, that's just one of many, many times that I've been -- it's better than any check somebody could have given me.  But he went on to be quite a success, and there are a lot of stories --
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there are.
MR. HAHN: -- like that.  So, I mean what I was doing, you didn't make a lot of money so you weren't attracted by the money, but I've got a lot of memories that I wouldn't take anything for, and my relationship with some men and women in this community, I wouldn't take anything for.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HAHN: It's like an extension of my family.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HAHN: You ask me how many kids I've got, they're not kids anymore but --
MR. MCDANIEL: Thousands.
MR. HAHN: -- yeah, yeah, many thousands.  So, the good Lord has been good to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, you said that you and your wife, you had three kids, is that right?
MR. HAHN: I had three kids, and my firstborn was killed in an accident hang-gliding --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, goodness.
MR. HAHN: -- when he was 30 years old, but then my next born was a girl, and she's married and she's got three or four kids, and I've got grandkids now and great-grandkids, and then my youngest was a boy, and I say maybe he's going to be the smartest one in the family, he's never gotten married.
MR. MCDANIEL: How old is he?
MR. HAHN: Well, he's 52, I believe.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, there you go.
MR. HAHN: He's a confirmed bachelor, I believe.
MR. MCDANIEL: Isn't that right?  I was 35 when I got married --
MR. HAHN: Is that right?
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the first time.  That's what I say to my wife, "The first time," you know, I call her my first wife even though we've been married this will be 20 years this year.
MR. HAHN: Oh, is that right?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MR. HAHN: Oh, well congratulations.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever think about leaving Oak Ridge?  Did you ever think about maybe going off and doing something else?
MR. HAHN: Oh yeah, yeah, many times.  One of the better opportunities, I guess, that I had, it was a position out here at one of the plants in the recreation field, but I thought about it, and of course, I could have instantly have doubled or tripled my salary at that time, but I thought, "No, I wouldn't be dealing with kids there.  I'd have to be dealing with men and women, trying to organize activities," so I turned that one down.  Then, there were numerous opportunities as you get listings of clubs, and I had some clubs that called me and offered me the job, and at more pay, but I don't know.  I was here in an area that I grew up in, and I just kept thinking there's a lot more to do here that I could accomplish.  I was speaking somewhere and someone asked me a question like that, and I said, "Well, I haven't been able to find another job."
MR. MCDANIEL: You must have been doing something right; otherwise they would have got rid of you a long time ago, wouldn't they?
MR. HAHN: Probably so.  I think maybe as they went along, they got smarter and said, "We've got to get rid of that old codger."
MR. MCDANIEL: It just took them 51 years, is that what it was?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, yeah, it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I doubt that's the case.
MR. HAHN: As I say, I was truly blessed to have a very, very good Board of Directors the whole time that I've been here, and thank goodness for the men and women that have volunteered in this organization over the years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: There was a lot of them.  I wish I could remember some of the names of that charter.  I remember Dr. John Crews was a charter member, and David Fitzpatrick's dad was a charter member.  I know you asked about that little football team.  I remember, now, who gave us the biggest boost of all was Nick Orlando.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, tell me --
MR. HAHN: We didn't have -- 
MR. MCDANIEL: -- yeah.
MR. HAHN: -- any uniforms.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?  So, tell me who --
MR. HAHN: We didn't have anything.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- for people who don't know, tell me who Nick Orlando was.
MR. HAHN: Well, Nick Orlando, I think he was one of the people that helped to shape this community as much as anyone I can think of.  Nick was a little short Italian, and primarily, the whole time that I was here, he was the Athletic Director and Head Coach of, I guess, in the beginning, basketball and football at Jefferson Junior High School.  So, we wanted to have a little football team that first year, and we didn't have anything. So Nick got us pads that he had.  Maybe they needed a little repair, or they were getting old, and so he provided us with enough pads and uniforms, but of course, he was dealing with bigger kids than we had, so it was kind of comical to see some of these kids holding those shoulder pads on as they ran.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because they were just flopping all over the place.
MR. HAHN: Flopping all over the place, just flop, flop, flop.  Oh, and the helmets then were the leather helmets.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Oh yeah --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, wow.
MR. HAHN: -- the old leather helmets.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, goodness.
MR. HAHN: In fact, I guess talking about going to play football myself, of course we had leather helmets at Sunbright, everywhere at that time --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, sure.
MR. HAHN: -- and then I got up there and here was, I guess, it was a plastic helmet then, and still no face mask on them.
MR. MCDANIEL: "Say, how do you play in one of these things?", you know?  I'm sure.
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, man.  So, Nick Orlando helped you a lot?
MR. HAHN: Nick Orlando helped out tremendously.  Jack Armstrong.  Jack was Head Football Coach at Oak Ridge High School, and I guess he's the most famous football coach that we've had, and due respect now to other guys that have done an outstanding job, but Jack, he would try to -- then the government was providing a lot of these things, so the schools, they'd get equipment --
MR. MCDANIEL: Regularly.
MR. HAHN: -- regularly, that's true.
MR. MCDANIEL: Regularly, so they'd have hand-me-downs regularly.
MR. HAHN: They'd have hand-me-downs, but they weren’t supposed to give it to anyone, but there'd be a little hiding place.  I'd get a call, you know --
MR. MCDANIEL: Saying, "We're going to store it at this place."
MR. HAHN: -- "We're going to store it behind the dumpster this afternoon, and I think maybe some of it just might fit your kids."  So, we had some help like that.  Another guy that everybody in this community knew, Ben Martin, Ben helped us an awfully lot.  When I was here, he was the Head Track Coach, and of course, I think Ben was the first Basketball Coach here --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: -- and either the first or second Football Coach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. HAHN: I wanted to do something for the kids in the summertime in track there at the club, so we built a pole vaulting pit and a high-jumping pit, and so Ben furnished us with a pole vault pole, which was a cane pole thing, and then with the high-jumping standards that he had that just needed a little repair.  This is just some examples of how people helped us, and I think I'm right in this, and I know he did his first pole vaulting there at the club, that was Mack Stevens, and Mack then was the State Champion at Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. HAHN: So, I still to this day, I said, "Boy, look what I taught Mack Stevens."  Well, I had never pole vaulted in my life.  But the point is, he --
MR. MCDANIEL: He had an opportunity.
MR. HAHN: -- got a little taste of it there, he probably didn't learn a lot there, but he took that and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's kind of like me when I tell people about when I made my first documentary.  I said, "I won't show it to anybody because it was horrible," I said, "But I fell in love with it," and so I understand that feeling of being exposed to something.  You may not be very good at it, but you have a love for it, you get a love for it.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, and if somebody just opens the door --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, absolutely.
MR. HAHN: -- and again, that's kind of another way to describe the organization I've been in.  You leave the door ajar, and some of them will come on in, some don't, but many of them that come on in and then they find out that there's something good that they can do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Being in the community for as long as you have, and being actively involved in the lives of the young people of Oak Ridge for as long as you have, I'm sure this is what happens to you as you get older, people start saying, "Thank you," and they start recognizing you a little bit, so I'm sure you've had some of those experiences, haven't you?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I have that all the time, and, again, I mean I guess everybody enjoys a pat on the back.  I get a lot of pat-on-the-backs from the efforts of some volunteer or something, but the last time I'd get credit for it.  But yeah, you get that and it's rewarding, and then it helps to make things more complete, as I was talking about, growing a boy into manhood, and I had that happen a time or two this week that I ran into one young man up at the high school.  I was at the Welcome Joe Gaddis Back --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, yeah.
MR. HAHN: -- and he came up and told me who he was.  He said, "You don't realize how much it meant to me for the Boys Club to be there for me to go to after school."  He said, "Both of my parents were working," and said, "They didn't want me to go home to an empty house," but he said, "I looked forward to going down there every afternoon, and I can remember that you or someone did this for me," and there he was, and he had his kids with him there.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was genuinely appreciative --
MR. HAHN: He was.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- he wasn't just saying that, was he?
MR. HAHN: He was --
MR. MCDANIEL: He meant it.
MR. HAHN: -- and this was a young man that, well, I know he had a complete home, active in church and so forth, but still the so-called good guys, they need a place to go to, too --
MR. MCDANIEL: That's exactly right.
MR. HAHN: -- and that's what this is, good guys, bad guys, in between.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: Of course, that's the way our world is.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.  Well, thank you so much.  Is there anything else you want to talk about?  We talked about a lot.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I know that.  I've got three dogs.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what are you doing now, now that you're retired, or are you retired?  Do you still cut the grass down there?
MR. HAHN: Yeah.  Yeah, I do that.  I've been doing that each summer, and then I take an active role on their fundraisers -- the reverse raffle, the galas, that type of thing.  Yeah, I've still been doing a lot of volunteering there.  I'm still active in the Rotary Club.  I don't have a lot of hobbies like other guys do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you didn't have time for hobbies for probably 51 years, did you?
MR. HAHN: Well, probably not.  That's a good excuse, anyway.  So, it's been tougher on me than the average retiree --
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure.
MR. HAHN: -- because I know that there are guys that right now could tell you that, "I'll be retiring in three years, so many days and so many hours --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. HAHN: -- from now."  I never even thought about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: Just one day, I guess, they retired me, or I retired myself.  I'm not sure --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.  But at any rate --
MR. HAHN: -- but it was time.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- you quit getting a check, didn't you?
MR. HAHN: Yeah, I quit --
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess that means something.
MR. HAHN: -- yeah, I quit getting a check, and boy, you sweat that.  You think, "How will I make it?" you know?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Sure, sure.
MR. HAHN: So far I've made it, but yeah.  That's just another stage in my life.
MR. MCDANIEL: But it's hard, you know, obviously your heart was in it for so many years, and it's hard to turn that off, isn't it?
MR. HAHN: It is.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you probably don't want to turn it off.
MR. HAHN: No, and I really miss the association with the kids.  I didn't miss the association with a lot of the parents, or a lot of the other things that I had to put up with, but my time has come and gone now.
MR. MCDANIEL: My sister, she just retired from being a schoolteacher for 35 years, and she said, "The thing I'm going to miss the most is the kids, but I'm not going to miss the parents." So, I'm sure that's the way it is when you work with children, though.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, and it's gotten a lot worse in the last several years.  All you've got to do is just talk to any teacher or any principal.  So many times, we don't fully appreciate a good teacher, and, in my case, I was so blessed to have some teachers that helped form my life, but I didn't realize that at the time because I had one or two that I couldn't stand, and I thought, "Boy, you're too tough on me," and so on and so forth.  Well, they became someone that I borrowed on that all of my life, and that was in a little small school, but I had a football coach and a principal that they were genuine role models in my life, and that's the other thing, if I was going to mention the greatest need, and I guess the lack of in this day and time is positive role models for our youth, because so many times now you see a big sports star –
MR. MCDANIEL: It's celebrity now.
MR. HAHN: -- or you see a politician, whatever it may be, and you think, "Oh boy, there is someone to pattern your life after," and then you read where that for whatever the reason, that athlete or that politician or that school principal has been doing some shady things.  So, I think a lot of kids, it puts doubts in their minds about, "Who can I trust?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. HAHN: That is something that if a young person, if they can find someone that they can truly trust and believe that, it'll be good.  But it's --
MR. MCDANIEL: That means a lot, doesn't it?
MR. HAHN: -- it does, but I had other heroes -- John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.  I look back on it because they stood for what was right, you know?
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly, exactly.  Well, Mr. Hahn, thank you so much --
MR. HAHN: Oh, I've enjoyed it, Keith.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- for taking time and talking with us and sharing about your time and your life here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HAHN: Yeah, well I hope I haven't offended anyone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, if you have, that's all right.  There's nothing wrong with that.  All right, well thank you.
MR. HAHN: Oh, sure thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
 
[END OF INTERVIEW]