My name is Francelle Robinson Collins and I am
with the Kirk County Historical Commission
Oral History Project.
Today is December the 21st, 2016 and I am here
at 190 Kelly Creek with Bonnie Flory.
We are talking to Bob Blackburn who understands
that we are making an audio and video recording
of this interview and that a typewritten
transcript of our interview will be provided so that
changes can be made.
The audio and videotapes, however, cannot be edited.
This information along with copies of any
family pictures and documents provided by
you will then be turned over to the History
Center, the Portals to Texas History at North
Texas University and Shriner University.
These restrictions will be noted in the release
form after you have had a chance to review
your manuscript.
Are you clear on what we're doing today?
Yes ma'am.
And what is your given name?
Bobby D. Blackburn.
When and where were you born?
I was born in Comfort.
In what? Comfort.
Oh, Comfort.
And what was the date?
March 16th, 1939.
And were you born at home or in a hospital?
Well, it was a little clinic then, with Dr.
Charlie Jones.
And was it at a lady's house?
No, it was a clinic.
A clinic?
My brother was born there and he was born at a
lady's house that had people come there
or something.
So that was different.
And what was your father's name? Howard.
And where was he born?
In Junction.
And what was his profession?
He was of all trades, they had four restaurants
at one time, two in Kerrville and two in Junction.
And then my mom fell out into one in Kerrville
with a heart attack.
And so they sold the restaurants and bought the
ranch out here.
And we've had that since 1945.
What were their restaurants in Kerrville?
It was the nook where the, not the post office,
it was where the city hall is.
Oh, okay.
Not the city hall.
What's that news building there?
It was where the old hospital was.
Right downtown then. Yes.
Next to Lehman's right there?
Across the street from Lehman's, it was next to
the RKUT.
Oh, okay.
The nook.
No, that's where the nook was.
The Cozy Grill was next to the RKUT.
I remember that name, Cozy Grill. Yeah.
And so was your father a cook or no? No.
He just liked to have restaurants.
Well, he also had cigarette machines to jute boxes.
And that's what he did in later years as well
as the ranch.
Did any jute boxes survive in your family?
Oh, yeah.
I've got 13 of them down there in that old shop.
You do? Mm-Hmm.
Oh, the ones that have colors in them?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
13 of them.
You could have a dance in there, huh? Probably.
Oh, Gosh.
Those Wurlitzer.
That's what I'm thinking. Yeah.
It's Wurlitzers and rock holders.
Oh, my goodness.
13 of them.
That just makes my heart pound.
Those old 78 RPM.
Oh, yes. Yeah.
We danced on those at the teen tavern. Mm-Hmm.
We certainly did.
And what was your mother's name?
Tommy Jefferson.
I think everybody called her Smitty. Smitty?
Was that her maiden name?
Smith was her maiden name. Uh-huh.
And was she a cook, or did she just like
running restaurants? No.
She was just a provider.
She would close out the books at the two
restaurants here in Kerrville, and this was
during the war.
And then get on the bus and go to Junction and
do the books there, and then get on the
bus and drive back and come back to Kerrville.
So they were running four restaurants at the
same time? Yes.
Oh, my goodness.
That's enough to kill you.
Well, it almost did.
There's nothing more undependable than people
that work at restaurants sometimes, so- Correct.
That was the-
I forgot to turn it off.
I'm sorry.
That was the hardest part of it, was the people
who worked for them.
Oh, yeah.
Not showing up, and then you just-then people
think you have bad people working for you,
and it's not that.
You just don't-they didn't show up.
They had all the service clubs, they had a
restaurant upstairs, I mean, they had a dining
hall upstairs, and that's where all the service
clubs, the Kiwanis, the Rotary, and all that.
Oh, met, uh-huh.
And they provided lunch for them then at that time?
Okay, all right.
Give us some endearing qualities of both of
your parents that you'd like to pass on.
Hard working, it sounds like.
They were hard working.
My dad could fix anything.
He would spend more money getting a tool to fix
something than he could buy a park car.
It was that challenge.
Oh, yeah.
He was quite something.
He was a very quiet man, but he was very talented.
Had there been restaurants in his family
before, or was that just something that he just had
thought about doing?
That was just something he decided to do.
Decided he wanted to do? Uh-huh.
He ran a skating rink for a while when he was
growing up in Junction.
Just a real entrepreneur is what he was, you know.
Yeah, of all trades. Uh-huh.
That's great.
And your mother, what about her?
What can you tell us about her?
Well, she was a talker in the family.
She was redheaded, and she would talk the arm off.
And was very active in my school activities.
And she was a character.
With red hair. Uh-huh.
Yes, to say the least.
That usually goes together.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? No.
Only child?
Only child.
Were you spoiled? Absolutely.
When did you get your first car?
When I was fourteen, because we could get
driver's license.
Get our license then? Uh-huh.
What'd you get?
Had a DeSoto.
And then I learned to drive in an Oldsmobile,
which was the first Oldsmobile Hydramatic
in Kirkham.
It was a 41 Oldsmobile.
Did you pick that out, or did they pick it out
for you?
They had it.
Oh, they had it. Yeah.
Well, did you know your grandparents are on
either side?
Oh, yes.
I had a grandfather and grandmother in
Junction, and he was a rancher.
And he put together a ranch from fourteen
different properties. Wow.
And we still have that ranch. Really?
How many acres is that?
Uh, 4,200.
Oh, my goodness. Wow.
And then when Mother had the heart attack in
the Cozy Grill, Dad bought the ranch out
here and stocked it with the sheep from the
Junction Ranch. Mm.
Well, who runs your Junction Ranch for you?
It's been leased since nineteen...
Well, the guy that leased it went to work for
my grandfather at seventeen, and he's
at ninety-four now.
Oh, my stars.
I would say he's a good man, a very dependable man.
We've never signed a lease.
He's always been the shake of the hand.
Oh, my goodness.
Well, tell us what his name is.
That's interesting.
Preston Wright.
Well, he's somebody we all need to know. Yeah.
Sounds like somebody that would do that for
that many years and stay in the family, really,
is what he is. Yeah.
He was part of the family, basically. Yeah.
So that was your daddy's dad? Yes.
My daddy's dad.
And my mother's mother came to live with us
when I was born, and I never knew my grandfather
on that side.
He was quite a bit older than my grandmother.
They married when she was sixteen, and he was
up in his forties.
Oh, my stars. Yeah.
Oh, and goodness.
People say that wouldn't have lasted, but it
did, didn't it?
It did. Yeah.
Oh, goodness. Yeah.
You said she lived with y'all? Yes.
She basically raised me while her parents
worked in the store in the residence. Uh-huh.
Did she stay with your family until she passed away?
She had two sisters, and in later years, she
went to live with one of them.
Oh, okay.
After I graduated from high school and went on
to college.
Now, where did you start school?
Texas Tech.
Where did you start grade school?
I'm sorry.
Oh, at Tyvee.
At Tyvee.
In the first grade?
First grade. Uh-huh.
And were y'all living in Kerrville at that time?
Yes, we lived on Earl Garrett.
Oh, okay.
And you had a family home there. Uh-huh.
And how'd you get to school?
Well, I walked then in my first grade, and then
we moved out here in the second grade,
and I never did go to school out here.
I always went to Kerrville.
And later on, I rode the bus until I was 14,
and then I drove the car.
So out here is Kelly Creek.
Your parents bought this land at that time. Correct.
And was there another house on here then at
that time?
No, they built a house, the first house that
you passed down there coming up Kelly Creek Road.
The cream colored tile house.
Is that still in your family?
Oh, yes. Yeah.
Somebody live in there?
Yeah, my foreman. Yeah.
So you have somebody that helps you.
That's nice.
I have to.
Yeah, sure.
It's a very, very nice place, but you always
wanted to come back to this area when you
left Kerrville?
Oh, yeah.
That's the only reason that I worked for many
years as I did is I was working to get back here.
So you started school at Tyvee, and then you
said y'all moved out here, and you would still
go into Tyvee.
Did you go in a bus ever, or did your parents?
Oh, yes.
Oh, you took the bus too?
I was in the first class at Starkey.
When Starkey first opened. Uh-huh.
And can you remember any of your teachers back then?
Oh, yes.
Mrs. Farverly. Farverly?
Was that an elementary teacher?
Oh, yes. Yeah.
It started in the fifth grade there. Uh-huh.
And then Mr. Talley was, of course, the teacher
there, and I think it's called Talley Elementary now.
It is. Uh-huh.
So then you moved over to Tyvee when you were
in, like, seventh grade or something?
Seventh grade. Yes.
And what were you involved with at Tyvee?
Well, I was one of three first, or one of three
seventh graders, first time ever in
the band, in the advanced band.
And then I was a-
Was that Mr. Armstrong? Yes.
John Armstrong. Uh-huh.
And what did you play? Trumpet.
And then later on, Baritone and Wayne Rogers
and Gary Ebensberger.
And I was three out of the elementary school in
Starkey that went over to the advanced band.
And those were your friends through school? Yes.
Well, I tried football, but I was too small and
too slow.
And I tried basketball, but I was cut because
there wasn't enough jerseys, I was told.
Which was one way of getting rid of me.
But I was vice president of the student body.
I thought you were in the student body. Yeah.
I was in student council all the years that I
was at Tyvee.
And that was about it in high school.
What about your high school teachers?
Did any of them really-you remember it as-what
about-did you have Miss Hardy?
Everybody always-
Oh, yes.
Yes, I had Miss Hardy.
She was my English teacher. Uh-huh.
And, of course, John Armstrong. Uh-huh.
And some of the Wilsons, I'm sure.
Jesse Wilson. Uh-huh.
And, gosh, that's been so many years ago now
that it's still in my mind. Yeah.
And what year did you graduate from Tyvee? 57.
And then where did you go to school?
I went to Texas Tech.
And why did you pick Tech?
For any particular reason or-
Because my aunt was in charge of-she was in
charge of food and housing at the University
of Texas. Mm-Hmm.
And that's all I heard from the time I was
growing up was UT, UT, UT.
You were going to go there.
And I was determined I wasn't going to go there.
I went to Texas Tech sight unseen.
Steve Drayton and I did. Uh-huh.
Were y'all roommates? Yes.
To start with. Uh-huh.
And you were a classmate, correct?
He was a classmate. Yeah.
And what did you major in when you were there?
What year and what semester? No.
I majored in petroleum engineering to start with.
And then went on through three or four
different things.
And then I got a letter one day from the dean
of men saying perhaps I should lay off a semester
and reconsider my academic interest, which was
a nice way of saying don't come back.
You're saying you're on SCO Pro? Yeah.
But you got your degree from there.
Uh, finally.
I went to Washington, D.C. to work for the FBI.
And where did that culminate?
How did you get interested in the FBI?
The president of my alumni association for the
fraternity got us in, which is Sigma Chi. Uh-huh.
He was an agent.
Oh, okay.
And I said, can I work for the FBI here in Lubbock?
And he said, no, I got a better deal.
You can go to work for the FBI in Washington, D.C
. and go to school at the same time.
So I did that.
I went to school at the University of Virginia.
Was that another degree after Tech?
No, no, no.
Oh, you were finishing up your degree there,
isn't it? No.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I was just going to school.
Oh, just going to school.
Just having fun.
And then I went through my junior year at Tech.
And then went to Washington to work for the bureau.
And as a lab technician and the assistant
director in charge of the lab there was from
Texas, Dr. Briggs' wife.
And so he kind of took a fancy to me and got me
into the laboratory because we were both
from Texas.
In fact, his wife's name was, he called her Tex. No.
Was this fingerprinting in the lab?
No, no.
It was firearms identification. Firearms?
What you probably think of as ballistics. Yes.
But it really wasn't ballistics.
It was identifying a bullet from a gun it was
firing from.
Oh, okay.
Were you real familiar?
I mean, I guess growing up in the hill country
you did a lot of hunting or you knew a lot
about guns, correct?
Well, I was in the first group from Kerr County
to get the law enforcement, not law enforcement,
but the first Texas State Rifle Association champion.
Out at 4H.
Oh, at 4H. Uh-huh.
And the ballistics that really appealed to you
then in the FBI, Huh?
Well, my experience with shooting.
And I always liked guns.
And I just, just in my dad's ability as a
machinist and being able to fix everything,
I was familiar with tools.
And so it kind of, kind of fit. Uh-huh.
Now were you called in?
Kind of tell us what you did there at the FBI.
I mean, were you called in to a, to a murder or
something to, to check out?
No, primarily the law enforcement would do a
crime scene and bring the evidence into
us at the lab.
We only had one lab in DC at that time.
And they would bring in, and then we would work
in a microscope and try to identify either
firearms or tool marks, and we would, uh, we
would do both of them.
Somebody breaking into a safe or, uh, then, uh.
So you could identify what bullet, what size
the bullet, what kind of bullet and what kind
of gun it came from.
Is that, am I following you kind of there or?
Yes, we did.
That was called class characteristics, but
based on the individual tooling in the barrel
of the rifle or pistol, you could identify that
it came from a particular gun to the
exclusion of all others.
And that was a specialized type of tool mark exam.
Uh, tool marks also, we did, uh, Bang
burglaries, screwdrivers and pry bars and that
type of thing.
We examined and compared those and, uh, I don't
guess you call it fortunate,
but I was involved in a Kennedy assassination.
Oh, tell us how you were involved in that.
Well, he was shot with a gun. Right.
So, uh, I worked for, uh, an agent.
This was before I was an agent.
Oh, I was a lab tech.
And so I was in charge of all the, uh, evidence
and responsible for taking the evidence up
to the Warren commission, and I would take it up.
They would tell me what they needed and what
they wanted and I would take it up one day
and then they would let me know the next day
what they needed.
And I would go up and pick up the one I'd taken
the day before and, uh, take the
new stuff that they wanted, the new evidence.
And so it was, did you go to Dallas or did they
bring everything to you?
We had, we were in the process of, of, uh,
packing up comparison microscopes to bring
down to Dallas.
And then they came up with, it was a 30 30
Winchester, uh, Italian Carcano, and there
was no such thing.
So finally my boss said, just wait till they
bring it up here.
And so we unpacked everything and they brought,
brought it all.
We had, uh, FBI numbers.
We had Warren commission numbers and we had,
uh, we had, uh, there are three different
sets of numbers.
And so trying to get them all straight to take
the stuff up to Capitol Hill was, uh,
quite a, quite a test, particularly after the
politicians got involved with it.
And they'd mix everything up.
So in the middle of all that, they were saying
there was more than one gun used too, right?
Didn't they?
No, no.
They never, that never came into it.
No, it didn't. No.
The guy that, the agent that I worked for was
the unit chief of the firearms tool marks
unit and, uh, he did the gun, the rifle,
Italian Carcano.
And then another guy that I worked for did the,
uh, gun that, that Oswald used to kill
Tippett, the officer Tippett.
And he did the examination on that.
And then, uh, both of them testified at the
Warren commission and both of them testified
at the trial.
Well, there wasn't any trial before the trial,
Oswald was dead.
So, uh, everything that you did went to the
Warren commission, you said? Yeah.
Was your name on all of that? No.
You don't get credit? No.
Just the FBI does? No.
Just the FBI and Bob Frazier and Court
Cunningham, they were the agents that did the examination.
So, um, everything that the Warren commission
wrote up, was, was that exactly what you had
turned in?
You would say?
Uh, I had taken that up to them, yes.
And Frazier and Cunningham testified at the
Warren commission and, uh, it was quite a,
quite a thing.
I remember one time I took evidence up there,
uh, to the Warren commission and I was sitting
in the, in the any room waiting for the
prosecutors to come back and get the, and there
was a
cute little girl back in the back, curly-headed
and, and looked around and, and smelled and
I smelled at her and, and, uh, this of course
was before I was married, uh, and it turned
out when she came out, she said, good morning,
and it was, uh, Marina Oswald.
Oh my goodness.
And, and looking at all of Oswald's photographs
and everything, I, I recognized who it was
at that time.
So she was up there for the hearings? Yes.
Uh huh. Interesting.
So, um, any other high profile cases that you
worked on?
Well, uh, after I was an agent, I worked on the
fountain belly golf course massacre, which
was a murder of, of, uh, seven tourists down in
fountain belly golf course in St. Croix.
And, uh, had some rather well-known defense
attorneys that, that, uh, were involved in that.
Uh, I can't even remember their name now, but
they were well-known in the defense field
and, uh,
Did Washington have the only ballistic, um,
We had the only laboratory.
Only laboratory.
Which included ballistics, firearms, serology,
hairs and fibers, metallurgy. Yeah.
Well, we were the only laboratory.
Were you, were you in Washington almost your
whole career?
All but three years.
And where were you those three years?
Right after, uh, agent's class, I went, was
assigned to, uh, they said, where, where would
you like to go?
And I said, I'm single, I don't care, I go
anywhere you send me.
And so I was assigned to, uh, Seattle,
Washington, and then eventually over to
Spokane, Washington.
And then I was in, we only stayed one year in
the first office at that time.
And so then I went to, uh, Detroit, Michigan,
just in time for the riots in 67.
It was a rearranging city of Detroit. True.
Well, at what point did they bring the FBI in
after something has happened or, or is
that mainly, uh, government?
Well it's, it's, there's probably 130 or 40
federal crimes that we were responsible for,
but the laboratory did most of their work for
city and state law enforcement that they
got upset with the state laboratories or upset
with, besides we made a better witness than
Joe Blow at the state laboratory. Yeah.
Now were you trained, uh, somebody trained you
in all this or did you know a lot of this
on your own about firearms and all that?
We were trained and we went through a year of
training, uh, under the direction of examiners.
Then we, uh, went on from there and went
through several moot courts and learned about testifying
in trial.
Did you have to do that a lot?
Uh, testified in over 150 different trials.
Oh wow. Yeah.
Uh, in, in I think, uh, 20 different states.
So they, they would just introduce you as a
ballistic expert when you were...
Firearms identification.
It wasn't ballistics.
Wasn't ballistics?
Ballistics, ballistics is the study of the
motion of the projectile.
And what it does, what it hits.
Arms identification is in fact looking at the
tool barks of the surface of the border
to determine if it was fired from that
particular gun.
Now if you were walking out today and you found
a bullet, would that just spur your
interest still?
Would you pick it up and...
Oh yeah. Yeah.
I would look at it, I, I don't have a
comparison microscope, but I do have a microscope.
And, uh, I'm lonely to a friend right now who's
taken the gemology course.
Oh, okay. Uh-huh.
But yeah, it, it, uh, I still think I have an
eye for it. Uh-huh.
I, I imagine so.
I mean, that's, that would be something that, I
mean, if something happened in Kerrville
and say that there was a murder and they were
thinking about what kind of gun or something,
I'm sure that would make you start thinking, I
bet I know how to do that.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Now were you under Hoover?
Hoover was the head of the agency at that time?
For 30 and a half years.
And then the inconsiderate old man died right
before I got in my tibia right at Mercer Quay. Uh-huh.
So I got it from old Patrick Gray.
That was the next...
The next. Yeah.
Well, it seemed like Hoover set all kinds of
standards when he was in there on, you
know, like fingerprinting and all that.
I think I've read stories on that.
Well, he didn't set the standards.
Oh, he didn't?
He just set the, uh, conduct.
You didn't drink coffee while on duty. Really?
If you drank, if you got caught drinking
coffee, it could be a, end up in Butte, Montana.
You were an idler then, huh?
He wanted you at work all the time.
Yes, exactly.
And when we first, uh, first got cars with,
with, uh, air conditioning, he had them.
They were Danish Ramblers and they came
standing with air conditioning and Hoover had them
take the air conditioning out because he didn't
want his agents riding around in a, in a car
that, uh, was that comfortable.
Did he have air conditioning in his?
Oh, I'm sure.
What else can you tell us about him?
Was he, did you see him very often?
Uh, I run into him in the, uh, elevator going
to lunch.
He would go down in the elevator to the
basement to get his limo and his driver and his friend
Clyde Tolson and they would go off to, uh, to
lunch at one of the hotels and, uh,
Would he acknowledge you? No.
Not really.
He was above you, huh?
He was above everybody.
Not well liked, I would say, huh?
Oh, he was respected.
He was respected, yes.
He was very much respected and we never had
trouble getting, uh, a budget through because
he had, uh, enough, uh, notes and, and files on
all the Congressmen to where we never had
trouble getting a budget through, which is, had
a trouble since then, but. Yeah.
So, um, after, after you, did you just decide
that it was time to retire when you were,
when you did or?
No, it was mandatory.
It was mandatory at what age? Fifty-seven.
Fifty-seven, okay.
And wonder why.
That was just.
Well, we, we got, uh, special stipends for, for
carrying a gun and I guess it decided
that we were too old to carry a gun after fifty-seven.
And how did you dress?
Did you dress in a suit or did you dress in a,
every day?
And when do you put the jacket on that says FBI
on the back, when do you put that on?
On during a raid.
Oh, just a raid. Yeah.
Did you have a jacket that said FBI?
Would you like to see it?
Oh, we would. Mary?
How many raids did you do?
Not very many in the lab.
Would you get that FBI jacket out of the
closet, please?
So did you know when you were going to do a raid?
Oh, absolutely.
How, how many days ahead of time?
Well, sometimes it was only hours. Hours?
You know, if a bad guy was fast moving and
wasn't saved at the same place, we had to
do it fast.
What type of raids were these?
Well, arrests.
Were you called in because of firearm
identification or just FBI?
No, no.
It has a big FBI on it.
It has a big FBI on the back.
On the back.
I watch those movies.
And it's in gold.
It is.
It's in gold.
It's just a shell.
It's a windbreaker.
Isn't it a windbreaker?
It's a windbreaker. Yeah.
Just a shell. Yeah.
Well, that, that, that is a sense of pride.
Do you have boys?
I have one boy.
Has he ever been interested in the FBI?
He is now a, he was a deputy sheriff.
He still is a deputy sheriff and a firearms
instructor for the city of Ingram.
And he used to work for Kerr County.
And he was, went up to detective at Kerr County.
And then he went, was in Bandera as a deputy
sheriff over there.
And then in, as a deputy sheriff in, let's see
what, Castle Hills.
Oh, Castle Hills and San Antonio.
In San Antonio. Yeah.
Well, 57 was pretty young to, to retire.
Were you ready to retire then?
Oh, no, I wouldn't, wouldn't have if I hadn't
been forced to.
Forced to? Yeah.
And so then what did you do?
I retired.
Came back here. Uh-huh.
Built a house here. Uh-huh.
That's exactly the way I, I remember it.
When, when you were in, on the raid, or were
you the subject of a raid?
Got it. Yeah.
That's cool. Yeah.
It's an honor to touch it.
I know.
It is.
So, but you had to wear a suit and tie every
day, you said?
Uh, yes.
Which was, which was crazy because we were
often working with the bloody clothes from
a victim, or clothes that an individual had
rendered out in, and it was not the best thing
for wearing a tie. Yeah.
So you didn't have a scrub suit to put over it
when you were messing with all.
Not, not then. Uh-huh.
You never were squeamish about blood?
Can't afford to be.
I was gonna say.
I'd like to be in the FBI, but first time I'd
see the blood, I'm afraid I'd go, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom.
Well, the blood wasn't as bad as the people
that had rendered out in their clothes.
Oh yeah.
Because they were quite odiferous. Uh-huh.
And, in fact, we had a balcony outside the.
Just keep talking. Yeah.
We were, had a balcony outside the office
window on the seventh floor.
and when it was really bad,
our fellow agents would make us take the stuff
set out on the balcony and work on it
so that we didn't smell up the place.
Oh, well.
But what was the worst that you probably saw
when you were working a murder scene or the
knifing or? Mm-Hmm.
No, probably, well, there were murder scenes,
of course,
but generally with a large-bore gun
where they'd been shot in the head or something
like that.
Wasn't much left, huh? Yeah.
Wasn't much left.
Well, you think things have gotten a lot more
violent since you left in the...
I would say probably.
I mean, they now have,
using explosives. Yeah.
Which is something that they didn't use that
much of
when I worked there,
but it's,
an explosive can make quite a mess of a person. Yeah.
A human body. Yeah.
Like in Boston is what you're talking about,
stuff like that, you know.
Now, would y'all have been called in immediately
like at the Boston?
As long as it was determined to be a terrorist activity.
Oh, terrorist. Yeah.
Okay, uh-huh.
Yeah, if it was local, then...
Not necessarily. Yeah.
Who makes the decision to call the FBI in?
Uh, generally, a United States Attorney.
Okay, yeah.
We'll evaluate and see whether or not it fits
within the guidelines of a federal crime.
Like I said earlier,
it's probably 120-30 different federal crimes,
terrorism happens to be one of them. Mm-Hmm.
What about mobsters back in the day?
Uh, oh yes, the mobsters were,
we did those too. Yeah.
The mafia, La Cosa Nostra.
Were they prevalent in the Washington area
or did you go into Chicago or someplace like that?
Chicago and New York.
Uh-huh, okay.
But they had agents there too, correct?
Oh yeah, they had hundreds of agents
in New York and Chicago.
Uh-huh, but all the lab work was brought back
to Washington then, right?
Yes, Washington, DC.
Yeah, so you would go in
and take the lab work back with you?
No, I wouldn't go in.
We'd have another agent pick it up
and then send it in to us or bring it to us.
Yeah, okay, gotcha, all right.
How many agents, are there still as many agents,
are there more agents today than there were
when you were in the...
I think there are more now.
Uh-huh, okay.
But that's by an act of Congress
as to whether we increase the agent population.
Yeah, did you have trials or whatever,
every year to make sure that you were fit?
I know you would have a doctor examination,
but what about staying fit?
Did you have to run?
Yeah, we had to run.
I remember one time when we were out
doing our physical fitness test
and the guy that was in charge of it said,
come on, Bob.
You haven't got that much harder to go on.
I said, I still got a lap to go.
I was not a runner.
Oh yeah, that's true, yeah.
What do you think was probably the best thing
about being in the Bureau?
Knowing what was going on.
In the world?
In the world, particularly in the United States.
Not trusting the newspaper to get it right.
So that's the one thing that I guess
I miss as much as anything is not being
in the know of what's going on.
Could you do that when something happened
like an awful thing that happened in a city?
Could you go in and read up and find out
everything you wanted to on it?
It was generally sent in to us.
It was, so all agents could?
Well, it was a different kind of information,
a different kind of communications.
We had teletypes and we had memos.
We had what they called Airtales.
And each one of those demanded
a different type of attention.
Teletype, of course, during the Detroit riots,
we had to send in the teletype every hour. Wow.
As to what the situation was and the powers
that be.
So somebody was telling you higher than you
what else needs to be done then?
Or did you make the own decision?
You make your own decision and then you just
use your own judgment as to what needs
to be in the teletypes.
Okay, yeah.
Were you ever scared?
Not when I was armed.
So you never walked into something that you went,
oh, Holy Crap, huh?
Oh yeah, we had, when I was out in the field,
a year and a half out in the field,
I was a little concerned at times
when we would find out that we were gonna hit,
when I say hit, raid this house that the guy
was a known bad guy and carried a gun
and didn't hesitate to use it.
So there was some concern.
So were you always safe?
You never?
Well, we rarely went in anything by ourselves.
We usually, the best thing we did was we had
enough people
to- Have your back?
Have your back, uh-huh.
Okay, yeah.
Rarely would we- Did you have a partner?
Everybody was your partner.
Okay, so you didn't, when you- We had a squad.
And the squad would be responsible for certain,
like we had a bank robbery squad.
That was one of the shakiest things that we did
was chase after a bank robber.
And the thing about it was is the first car there
had the ticket, what we call the ticket, had
the case.
Okay, you were the bank robbers,
case you worked the bank robbery.
Okay, the first person there wrote up everything
that had just happened, is that what you're saying?
Okay, and so then when you got in you were,
you kind of made your judgment on where to go
from there,
kind of thing. Correct.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
So were you pretty right most of the time?
Right all the time.
You went to Tidy.
I went to Tidy, that's right.
I was on the student council.
Yeah, right.
All right, and so now, since you've been back,
what have you done?
Retired, what have you done?
Very little of anything.
Built a house.
Raised some stock.
What type of stock do you have? Cows.
And sheep.
Had sheep then, don't have sheep now.
It's just a softer kicking of sheep than does a cow.
Yeah, we got Barbados, I know all about that. Yeah.
Barbados and the coyotes love them, so, you
know, yeah.
So what kind of cows do you have, you have
Angus or?
No, I had a friend that gave me a longhorn.
Oh, good.
A low blood longhorn. Uh-huh.
And before that I had a Hereford and a combo
Angus and Hereford
and now just mostly, he's a white longhorn
and you can certainly see the genes coming out
in him
because most of the calves are white now.
Oh, that's neat.
How many head do you have?
About 22, 23.
Just enough. Yeah.
Get your ag exemption. Right.
Keep your ag exemption.
Okay, and what year did you and Mary get married?
We got married in November of 81.
Okay, and you met her here in Kerville, correct?
Yes, I came back to give a speech
at Sam Houston State University
and came over here to see my folks
and she had a hill spa at the end of the hills.
Oh, Mm-hmm.
And had a friend that was having a birthday
and so I was waiting around for the birthday
party to start
and went to the end of the hills
when they had a happy hour every Friday afternoon
and so I met her there and Carrie Spar was there
and said, I graduated from high school with him.
That's Bob Blackburn.
And so we were introduced and I said,
I've got a birthday party to go to, would you like
to go with me?
And she said, I can't.
I've got a daughter that is in high school
and I've got to go home with her.
But as luck would have it,
some of the relatives came over
and picked the daughter up to spend the night
with him
and so she said, yeah, I'd love to go with you.
Oh, great.
So that's how we met.
Okay, so she has a daughter from a previous marriage
and your son, is that you and Mary's son?
No, it was a previous marriage.
Okay, and is that the only child that you have?
It's the only child that I have.
But I got Christie when she was 13
and she got bride when he was 10.
So they were pretty much raised together.
Sure, yeah.
And would you, I didn't ask you this
when we were back there,
but maybe if somebody came to you today
and said, I'm thinking about going in the FBI,
would you say that's a good choice?
It was a good career then.
It would probably be a good career now.
It was certainly a different career now.
But I would have to recommend it.
Good, yeah.
It was still a good salary.
Yeah, it's very prestigious too, I would think.
I mean, you know.
I'm not as much as it once was.
Oh, you think so? Yeah.
What do you think changed about that?
Hoover died.
So Comey is not a Hoover then, I guess.
No, there's never been a Hoover, but Hoover.
And never be another one, I'm sure, yeah.
He set the standard, the gold standard, yeah.
Pretty high standard. Yeah.
Well, and it seems like Comey's gotten a lot of
heat too.
It just seemed like, you know,
maybe he's not strong enough to be in, I don't know.
But it's a shame that somebody with that,
that's the director of the FBI has to get that much.
Yes, it is. Flak.
Because I think it's as high as you can get.
I mean, I've always felt that way.
Being six foot eight inches solid is pretty visible.
Sure, absolutely, yeah, okay.
And so what's the greatest thing
about being back in Kerrville?
Being back a bunch of old friends.
Still get together with your old friends?
Classmates and old friends.
And still get together, of course,
with retired agents that I worked with.
Do you have any that lived around here? No.
No, we got a good friend that worked in the lab
in Oklahoma and he comes down two or three
times a year.
There's one that lives at Camp Verde.
John, I can't remember John's last name, but
he's already. Waters.
Waters, yes, Waters, yes.
I used to see him a lot when we went to the
store there. Yeah.
Yeah, he, we have a retired agents association.
In Kerrville? No.
Oh, in Texas?
In San Antonio.
Oh, okay, so you get to those.
Get to those.
I used to get to them quite frequently
until I had trouble getting around.
And it's in the top floor of the petroleum building.
And that's a little harder to get to. Yeah.
And so you and Mary enjoy it out here then, correct?
She's involved in the Sweet Potato Queens.
Oh, I've seen that, yes.
And so that's,
she's got some good friends in there.
Did y'all do a lot of traveling after you retired?
Yes, we did a lot of cruises. Cruises?
Yeah, cruises, we really enjoyed the cruises.
Yeah, I bet.
The last cruise we were on,
I rented a little moped thing,
and I could get around the ship pretty good.
And getting off the ship was a little hard,
but generally the people that are involved
will help you off. Sure.
So that's, we've traveled quite a bit
since my retirement.
Unfortunately, we are unable to do it that much anymore.
Yeah, well, you had a good life though.
Yes, we have, a good life.
Anytime you get back to Kerbal, it's a really
good life.
For sure.
You have any questions for anyone? No.
No, okay.
Well, thank you.
It's good seeing you again.
Good to see you.
All these years, yes.
How's your brother?
He's good, yeah.
He likes to fish.
He likes to fish?
Yeah, he fishes a lot, and any chance he gets,
so he goes out, and he's got a, he lives in
front of me.
We live on our family ranch,
and I'll turn that off so I'm not putting
all my garbage on here, it's done.