Oral History with Eugene Lawson and Scott Sterl, October 23, 2014 (Ms2015-007)

Interview with Eugene Lawson and Scott Sterl

Date of Interview: October 23, 2014

Interviewer: Carman Bolt

Assistant: Samantha Shires

Place of Interview: Comfort Inn and Suites, Blacksburg, VA.

Length: 1:26:58

Transcribers: Carman Bolt, Samantha Shires, Dara Green

Part 1: Interview with Eugene Lawson

Length: 24:01

Carman Bolt: Ok we'll go ahead and begin. My name's Carman Bolt and it's October 23rd, 2014. We're in Blacksburg, Virginia, and I'm sitting down with--would you please state your name?

Eugene Lawson: Eugene Lawson.

BOLT: Mr. Eugene Lawson. And we are just going to go ahead and dive right into it, if that's fine with you.

LAWSON: Yes go ahead.

BOLT: So you've already told us your name but could tell us about your date or place of birth, and about your family and how you were raised?

LAWSON: Ok, I was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 11th 1947. Richmond has been my hometown, forever, and I'm very proud of it even today. I started school in Richmond at Highland Springs Elementary School, which is the same school my mother went to. Shortly thereafter my father had been recalled into the army for the Korean War. He served in Korea and came back and decided he had spent enough 1:00time in the army that he would just stay in the army. So we started traveling around. So I started the school in Richmond and twelve years later, eighteen schools later, I graduated from high school in Richmond, from Huguenot High School. I spent a lot of time in the mean while traveling all over the world. My father was in the medical corps so we lived a military life that was not totally military. It was fairly protected because medical corps people were looked after with kid gloves because no one ever knows when they might need them.

Then I was involved in theater when I was in high school, at the Virginia Museum Theater, which was an equity theater, which got me involved in stage lighting and set design and that sort of thing. I was very interested in theater. Went to 2:00work in the summertimes doing some theater stuff in the outdoor theaters in Richmond, which we did children's theater stuff in the summertime. Then in 1965, I graduated from high school and came to Virginia Tech.

The previous year I had been selected as part of a high school program in computers and math that was taught at the Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond by Virginia Tech staff. That got me somewhat excited about coming to Tech. I came to Tech in '65 and was part of an initial program that the YMCA has that brought student leaders to the campus early to teach you among other things the Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi cheer, which would get the spirit going. It was also the first year that Lane Stadium was open. The year I was here, the year I came 3:00to school was also the same year that Frank Beamer came here, he was the class of '69 as well, and Tom Tiller, who's in charge of the Alumni Office was also a class of '69. So, I came here and was very involved with the theater group, the corps music group, and basically was involved in the student body. The campus was gorgeous even back then.

An important lesson that I learned the first year I was here was that--when you're crossing the Drillfield after a big snowstorm and you had a 30 inch inseam, and there's 36 inches of snow [laughs] you have a hard time [laughs] getting across the Drillfield.

BOLT: I still struggle to learn those lessons.

LAWSON: But it was great fun. People were jumping out of third-floor dormitory 4:00windows into the snowdrifts and that sort of thing. Of course you're not supposed to do that but, what the heck, we did it anyway. One of my favorite things was also going to the Lower Quad, which was the Agricultural buildings, primarily back then, to the Dairy Science Center where a Tech student with a Tech ID card could get ice cream anytime they wanted [phone rings] as much as they wanted [phone rings]. I'll be back in just a second. Hello?

[Tape paused during phone call.]

LAWSON: Okay. Then-- I guess, basically, I went to school. The school part was interesting but not, not interesting, you know, it was just the school part. The music and theater stuff was interesting and exciting. It was also an interesting 5:00time in the world because we were in the Cold War and the U.S. was planning on building a supersonic transport plane, which Boeing was working on, and just before I was supposed to graduate the SSD program was cancelled by the government. Because of that, about 20,000-30,000 engineers were put out in the open marketplace, and there was no place to do anything.

So when I got done with school I opened up an electronic store here in Blacksburg and sold stereo equipment and that sort of thing. Then later, when students didn't have as much money as I thought they might to buy that sort of stuff, I branched out into doing construction work. I did construction work, remodeling, mostly commercial, but some residential, and stayed here in Blacksburg. Then one summer, Scott Sterl, my partner of 42 years, and now legal 6:00husband in Virginia, came to look for a summer job and I hired him and we worked the summer together, and then had an important opportunity to actually do a design competition for a friend of mine, Bob Hederick, who was a computer science professor on campus. Scott and I both were doing designs for him, and we were going to go to Europe that summer, but got a telephone call while we were at home taking some time off, wanting to know if we'd be interested in building the house that Scott designed. Which was an incredible opportunity--

BOLT: Yes.

LAWSON: So we took the opportunity and started that summer and built the Hederick House, which is still there. Bob has died of a heart attack since then 7:00but his wife--his widow is still there, Molly, and we saw her a couple years ago, and the house still looks gorgeous.

BOLT: We'll have to look it up, absolutely.

LAWSON: It attracted attention so we had other people who wanted houses. So, we started building another house and then another house. So, before it was over with, we were building more custom houses, but also some speculative houses, developed a subdivision called Forest Hills, well, the first one was, what was the name of that place?

Scott Serl: Mount Tabor.

LAWSON: Oh! Mount Tabor Village, which was out going toward--I don't know the name of that subdivision--but anyways, we built houses there. Then later developed Forest Hills, which was in town. Then, toward the end of the 70s, the Tech Board of Visitors made a conscious decision to stop growing, for whatever 8:00reason. But that also meant that our business was going to slowly die, so we actually left and went to Washington at that point and have been in the D.C. area ever sense.

But getting back to our life on-campus, it was a strange time to be gay because there was no Gay Rights Movement. We were in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement but Civil Rights were mainly racial. At the same time, being in a small town, and a college town, I never felt any particular discrimination. Never felt being attacked for being gay or whatever. We had social organizations. We had an organization in the new Squires Student Center where kids got together to meet each other. We had Christmas parties and holiday parties at our house where 100 9:00people would show up, faculty, staff, in-town people, in-school people, whatever. It was just overall a good social time.

There were important rights things to be dealt with, but they weren't being focused toward the gay people at the time, they were still being focused toward racial minorities. Tech being as conservative as it was, we really didn't have the riots here. We had one incident: the occupation of Williams Hall, which didn't last very long because the state police came in with buses and moving vans, and just booted the students all out in the moving vans and hauled them away. That was about the end of it [laughs].

BOLT: Well I would say so!

LAWSON: but--

BOLT: What was the reason for that particular--the taking of Williams Hall?

LAWSON: Frankly, I'm not sure that they knew, and I'm not sure that we knew 10:00then--it may have been a reaction to the Kent State thing. I've never been much in the realm of a movement to go out and riot and do things like that. In fact at the time, I still had my retail store. Most of the merchants were concerned about people coming downtown and breaking windows and things like that, which didn't happen. But it was, you know, for us it was an activist time. Most other places would have looked at us and been bored because we were just engineers, and farmers, and whatever.

BOLT: Yes so, it wasn't quite as volatile as other locations?

LAWSON: No, no, certainly wasn't. No.

BOLT: And outside of the Virginia Tech community, which you were saying was more 11:00of a little-c conservative area, not as much going on, in the broader community did you ever encounter any hostility or any issues or did you find that that kind of conservativeness carried through the broader Blacksburg and Southwest Virginia community?

LAWSON: You know it was sort of an unspoken acceptance. I think, especially with Scott and I after a while, being together, people thought of us as a unit, talked about us that way, treated us that way, and yet nobody ever overtly said anything about the fact; 'Are you gay?' Or, you know, 'what's the deal here?' It was sort of a live and let live atmosphere. But I didn't feel uncomfortable and didn't feel like we needed to do a whole lot about it. But I've since figured out that a lot of that also had to do with being a small town. Small towns tend 12:00to know people, and they know them before they find out their sexuality. The fact that they turn out to be gay doesn't turn out to be a big deal--

BOLT: That's nice in a way.

LAWSON: Yeah. I think it would have shocked people in that era to know some of the faculty and staff that were gay, and they didn't because no one was overtly out there. I think they would've just been shocked. Nowadays it's much more open; like the Lavender Commencement that Tech has now. We were invited to a couple years ago. It was one of those things that we couldn't have thought about back then, but I'm not so sure it would've mattered.

BOLT: So that actually leads me to ask, because you say it was almost as if everybody knew but wasn't--there weren't perhaps open conversations happening 13:00about it. Were there any LGBTQ community organizations on Tech, even by another name, at the time you were attending?

LAWSON: Actually there was--there was a gay organization [coughs] that was sort of under the wing of the Squires Student Center. I don't--it certainly did not have all those letters because back then it was--it was a Gay Rights Movement, period.

BOLT: Right, yes.

LAWSON: I'm not so sure I even know what all the letters mean these days when they strew them around. David Sedaris had some interesting comments about that last night in his program [laughs], which I won't go into but [laughs]. When you go out to the I-T-Q--whatever it was--he didn't quite understand all these things either. But back then it was simply that there was a Gay Rights Movement, which we did follow somewhat in the news. Some of the newspaper articles that I sent indicate that we had ministers on campus who were helpful in getting panel 14:00discussions going about gay rights and that sort of thing. But it was--I don't know. It was not something that we thought about at the time. Looking back on it, it was probably odd that we didn't have a whole bunch of stuff. But I do know there was a fight in Richmond over VCU having a gay rights organization within their student union and they went to court and the court--in conservative Virginia--ruled that they had the right to organize and the right to be there. The school didn't have to fund them, which happened here too, I mean, we had the organization here at the time at Virginia Tech was primarily social. We really weren't into the Civil Rights sort of stuff but we were also not hidden. We were 15:00sort of out in the open but it wasn't something that we were marching up and down the streets with banners.

BOLT: Right. So during your time here did you have any specific mentors or allies that you recall?

LAWSON: Well there was some interesting faculty people who helped a lot. This is an interesting situation about whether I should mention names or not because today I'm not even sure how open some of them are.

BOLT: Right.

LAWSON: But there were several professors who were very open to the gay community. They were, and they helped, and they mentored if you had questions and problems and whatever. But I probably shouldn't out them.

BOLT: That's--

LAWSON: Without them granting permission.

BOLT: But at the time you did know of some that were involved or--

LAWSON: Oh there were a bunch. A lot more than people would've given credit for. And some of them were married, so it was not any different than it is today in some respects. Except today, when you're married, you can be really married-- to your same-sex partner.

BOLT: Which you were saying you are now legally.

LAWSON: Right.

BOLT: Officially married.

LAWSON: We got married in Delaware last year, in October, after we've been together 41 years now--or 42 years now. We decided to get married. We were going to get married in Maine, where we spend a week every summer, but then Delaware changed from civil unions to marriage last fall--or fall two years ago. So we decided since we have a house there, we'll get married there. So we got married 17:00there. So we were officially married in Delaware in 2012, right? Or 13? 13 because this is 14, this is a year. And then about a week and a half ago, because of actions by the Supreme Court, our marriage became legal in Virginia. Which was a surprise in some respects, but at the same time our life is not a whole lot different.

BOLT: Well I think that's wonderful, I will say. So, in class discussion, we've been talking a lot about the idea of identity, and you were just saying when it gets into all these letters, you have no clue--I think everyone's deciding which letters need to be added to this acronym, but really, it's been about the topic of identity. Do you have any particular feelings about your own identity or do 18:00you have a specific way in which you would identify yourself as a person? And that could mean anything really.

LAWSON: I've been gay as long as I can remember. I'll also say being--as I mentioned earlier--an army brat, being brought up in the military. It was strange in retrospect, looking back on it, that I felt always safe and somewhat protected because the military was--sort of a nurturing organization. A lot of black people will tell you that it was the military that did the most for bringing the Civil Rights Movement together and integrating the troops. And even though it may not have been openly thought of, I think they protected the gay 19:00dependents, and I always felt like there was no problem being gay, with my dad being in the army or whatever. I will say that I've always had a little bit of a problem with the movement becoming more than simply a Gay Rights Movement.

I thought that through the 60s and the Civil Rights Movement, that when the Civil Rights Movement started to branch out into abortion rights, women's rights, things like that, it started losing its clout. And I think it wasn't until its leaders decided they needed to focus on what their real, core purpose was, Civil Rights, that they--they eliminated essentially all of their letters and went back to Civil Rights. That's when they became effective again.

I think the Gay Rights Movement has been, in a lot of ways, equally sort of 20:00--unfocused. It was focused originally on gay rights and then it started moving into all these letters. When we were in school, you had "gay people," that encompassed men and women both. Then all of a sudden we couldn't say "gay women" anymore. We had to say "lesbians." Never quite understood that either. Then the transgendered stuff came in, and that confused things even more because I'm not even sure most people can figure out what it is, much less define it. I think now we're getting to the point where the civil rights are getting close to equal even though it's going to be another generation, I'm sure, before it's totally settled down. But--by diversifying so much, I think we don't have the clout, the 21:00political clout that we should have. We just--in my opinion--we have to get back to the basics. It's not to demean all the letters and what they stand for, but I think when you get to the point where you're trying to support or do something for such a small group, as some of the letters are, you're just not effective anymore.

BOLT: Yeah, we've discussed how many--how the evolution has occurred, and how sometimes within movements there are fragmentations and different visions of what needs to happen. So it sounds like you've kind of witnessed that yourself, looking at it over the years.

LAWSON: Yeah, and I will say that I was very active in Republican politics when I was here, in Blacksburg. Still am, as a matter of fact. Which seems sort of 22:00strange, we have friends that say; "how can you be gay and Republican?" I just look at them and say; "how can you not?" But at the same time, I think the way that we help is by being in those groups, being ourselves, working hard, and you know, being useful and active in the community.

BOLT: Well, I mean, you've covered actually a lot of what I have here. I would like to open it up to you, if there is anything more that you have to add, or questions I didn't ask you, or things--anything you would like to add to this interview.

LAWSON: I'm not sure I've got anything else to add. It's one of those things where, after I've done this, if I were to do it again I would probably do it 23:00like I'm preparing for a trial and I would outline things to put up a better--this was, not necessarily without a program, but it was sort of loose as to what was going to happen so, I feel a little uncomfortable not being as organized as I normally am, but--

BOLT: Well, in a way we were hoping not to have to kind of enforce a structure for you. That way you could come and tell whatever story you wanted. But I particularly am one of those people who always likes to have my list and my organization. But a lot of, I think, what was hoped to accomplish in this was that anything and everything you wanted to talk about, you could. So I just wanted to make sure you had the opportunity while you're still--

LAWSON: Well I appreciate that.

BOLT: Well, if that is all, then I would like to thank you again. We appreciate you coming and agreeing to do this with us, absolutely.

[End of first interview]

Part 2: Interview with Scott Sterl

Length: 22:00

Carmen Bolt: Alright, I'm Carman Bolt and I'm back here in Blacksburg with--

Scott Sterl: Scott Sterl.

BOLT: Mr. Scott Sterl, and we are going to start up by perhaps you telling me about the date and place you were born, maybe about your family, how you were raised. Who's important to you?

STERL: Ok. I was born in Reading Pennsylvania, September 18, 1952. Let's see, we have a sister and a brother. We had a normal child upraising [chuckle]. And I never really had an idea of where I wanted to go to college or what I wanted to do. But long about--my father was in construction and my grandfather was in engineering, worked for the city of Reading as an engineer.

Probably about ninth or tenth grade my father said to me "you've got good printing; you should be an architect." So I thought about that and I'd never kind of gotten into that before. He got me a job with an architect he knew who was semi-retired and I did drafting for him. It turned out to be an invaluable experience for college. Then the idea was to--how do you, where do you go to college?

I didn't want to go to Penn State because everyone else was going there from my high school. So a guy that was a year or two ahead of me in high school went to Virginia Tech, so I kind of knew him. So that led me to apply here at Virginia Tech. And also applied at Clemson and Auburn, I think it was. All farther away 26:00from Reading. I never visited the campus before I [laugh] got here in September for, you know, the fall semester. But I did meet my--I did find out who my roommate was. We got together. He was from Amber, Pennsylvania, so not too far away from Reading. We got together beforehand. So I knew him. Then we came here in the fall and started architecture school, which is a totally different experience from anything I'd ever done before. It was the days of Louis Ferrari[?] and Tom Regan was there, and Harold Hill, and who else? Jan Holt came a little bit later and I think he's still at the Alexandria center. So that was 27:00just a great time. I really had a good time in school, which some people don't have [laugh].

BOLT: It's true.

STERL: It was just a lot of fun. It was an all-consuming experience too because we had to be there like 24 hours a day almost. I'll never forget the end of my first semester. You work on your projects and they're done, and they're on your desk, and you're dead tired. I said I'd go back to the dorm and sleep for a couple of hours. Well, I slept for like 16 hours [laugh]. I couldn't believe it was the next day when I woke up. So that's kind of how I got here.

A little about my background otherwise: You know, Reading was kind of normal-- Nothing really. I didn't do much in high school. I was kind of a recluse. I was very quiet in high school. I think during my senior year I was in the senior play. It was kind of the first time I had done anything like that before.

BOLT: Were you able--I know even now I have a couple friends who are in architecture and they tell me it's studio until whenever, you know, and it's constant. Engineering also I'm sure. But did you have an opportunity to get involved in anything else when you were here? Or was it just because how encompassing architecture was that you didn't have much time?

STERL: I did a little. Not really anything. I didn't join any clubs, anything 29:00like that, but I remember I went to my first classical music concert. It was in the Coliseum, and it was a Beethoven 5th, I think it was an Australian symphony. I had a little bit of interest in classical music in high school. I think I remember my French teacher, I think she kind of led me there. That was a neat experience. I had never done anything like that before. I didn't--football was not on my agenda [laugh] when I was in school. I may have gone to one or two games in my five years, I think. So, I can't remember much other socially that I did.

BOLT: Well you'll make up for the football now

STERL: [laugh]

BOLT: With some night-games. That's always exciting. So, yeah that's a bit how you came to come to Tech. Did you find--well I guess I can ask you the question. I discussed how we had been discussing identity. Did you or do you specifically have a way that you identify? Or do you feel like this is the person I identify as?

STERL: Well, I guess, I would certainly identify as an architect because that's what I do, and that is a big part of my life. I obviously identify as being gay also. That's just--it's all in the mix. Nothing is ahead of anything else. I 31:00think I probably realized I was gay probably in the high school, but certainly in college, when I got to college. I never had this major 'Oh my God I'm gay,' you know [laugh], 'what am I going to do?' I never had a mental thing about it. It was always just a very natural thing.

BOLT: And you felt comfortable about it? Did you have any specific reactions from family, or friends, or anything of the sort?

STERL: I had a very, very interesting birthday card from my mother. I think it was my second year. I don't think it was conscious to me yet but, she said at the end she said 'have a gay birthday.' So--[laugh].

BOLT: Wow.

STERL: So, and certainly that--and my father was fine too. I don't know if he 32:00had--he was never said anything bad about it. Negative.

BOLT: So in your experience at Tech, do you feel like that--or those identities certainly, architecture because that's what it was, you know, what you were doing all the time, but do you feel like any other parts of your identity enhanced, or altered, or impacted your experience at Tech?

STERL: I don't think so, no. Like I said, I really enjoyed the school, it was just a fun time. Even though it had kind of an interesting beginning. I think I have an aptitude for it also, which I never knew before, and wouldn't have been developed if my father hadn't said that. And I also think that the education 33:00that I got in the architecture school was incredibly invaluable. I was talking to somebody the other day about going to Tech too, and I think about ten years after me, but he said we're going to teach you a totally new way of thinking, and that's really what they did, and it's really helped because you do think about things outside of the box, in solving those problems.

BOLT: I imagine so. Absolutely. Did you have any similar experiences crossing the Drillfield with the wind chill or jumping out of windows into snow?

STERL: [laugh] I didn't have to cross the Drillfield too often because I was in Monteith and we were in what was then called the old high school building but I don't know if that's still there.

BOLT: It's expanded so much. It's hard to tell for me whatever was anything.

STERL: It was across the street from Squires, kind of.

BOLT: Oh yes, yes, it's called the Architecture Annex now. Yes.

STERL: It was a great old building because it was a high school, and it had tall ceilings, and we built platforms in there. You could do anything in it, really. It was just neat to have that as a framework to work within, so.

BOLT: Yeah, I enjoy how you say you did enjoy it, because not everybody does, and that's very true, but it seems like you got a lot out of your time here.

STERL: I think a lot of people just come to school, and they just go. And they don't go to classes because they need to. What I really looked forward to--and that's not always the case either--but I looked forward to going to class. It was--we did a few outside classes but not a whole lot. At most everything was 35:00with the architecture department. Design studio was everyday, I think. Maybe like a half a day everyday.

BOLT: I imagine it was very intensive. So in the outside Blacksburg community, did you get involved in anything? I know at one point you got hired on.

STERL: Yeah. That was my second year. Between my second and third year, I decided I was going to stay in Blacksburg because I had gone home between my first and second year, and I knew I wasn't going to do that again, so. A guy that I knew in architecture school knew Eugene and said he's looking for people to work for the summer. So I went to talk to him and got hired. We built decks, and we did really interesting things like he knew a guy that owned some grocery 36:00stores and he would buy equipment, like, you know, deep freezers and coolers and those kinds of things, walk-ins, from grocery stores that were out of business or were moving. And we'd drive, you know, we went to Chapel Hill, and we went other places in a truck, with a couple of guys, and we loaded the equipment onto the truck and brought it back to Blacksburg to this guy could use in his grocery stores. So, that was pretty [laugh] unique I'd say.

BOLT: Absolutely.

STERL: Not the kind of thing that everybody does.

BOLT: So you remember that as a positive working experience and environment?

STERL: Oh yeah. It was.

BOLT: So I guess that goes ahead and answers the question how you met your 37:00partner. Do you want to go into how that evolved? Or we can wait until the two part if we want to do that as well.

STERL: Well, I mean, that's how we met. I think he was pretty much immediately smitten [laugh]. Took me a little while, but I came around. We started, you know--we moved in together while we were working together. That probably helped strengthen our relationship.

BOLT: Absolutely. And then he was saying you eventually started throwing Christmas parties.

BOLT: Yeah we had really good parties. They were huge. You know, we were just the hosts but it was a fun time. We had a townhouse that we bought on the south 38:00side of town, right? Yeah, and actually that little community we had some neighbors, two straight couples and we did a lot with. We had dinner with them. They came over to dinner. We played bridge. It was a very great place to be there.

BOLT: Sound really nice. Did you--well I don't want to open this up too soon to both of you yet but I was going to ask if there were any of those excellent decorated rotating trees or anything like that at the parties.

STERL: [laugh] No. We didn't get that far.

BOLT: That's ok. Well that seems pretty intensive as well. I understand [laugh]. So back to your time at Tech. Did you have any specific mentors? Or allies during your time here, maybe within the architecture program?

STERL: Yeah. Tom Regan was. Ferrari[?] a little bit. Let's see what else? Teneger[?] was around too. That's--that's all I can remember.

BOLT: Well yeah it's always interesting to see if anyone--I know a lot of people get really strong mentors when they're at school. Even now I'm starting to realize who is a good mentor in my own program and I think that really can impact the way your time at a school can go. So I think it's always interesting to see. So kind of moving into modern day, or not even modern day, but post-Tech. You both eventually moved to D.C. Did you get involved in anything when you moved to D.C., in terms of different communities or organizations?

STERL: Not right away but when the Log Cabin Republican group, local in North Virginia, got started. There had been one in D.C. and they went and expanded into Virginia. We got involved in that. That was oh, least ten years ago-- It used to be pretty active. It's kind of dissolved now but we, the group members, still stay in touch but there's not really anything, you know, officially no more meetings. But for a while there it was very active and we had political fundraisers. We would do stuff to work for the campaigns.

BOLT: Wow yeah. But you said it's kind of dissolving now or has since--

STERL: Well I think part of it is, again, the whole acceptance more. We may not need that wing of the--you know, so.

BOLT: That makes sense yeah. So this might be kind of an odd question but, having gone through Virginia Tech at the time you did, and having had the experience that you did, do you have advice for generations that are now at Tech on either how to survive or how to get involved or anything?

STERL: I guess if you can pick something, and it's difficult to know when you're eighteen or nineteen how you want to spend the rest of your life in terms of a career, but if you can pick something that you're [strange noise] really 42:00passionate about or have an interest in, that's, you know--because then you can start on a path earlier. For me it was really beneficial to have some direction, and also to have that experience I had. It was great experience to work for an architect before I actually got into school. It did help me in my schoolwork also to have drafting experience, and some practical, a little bit of practical experience in the practice of architecture.

BOLT: Yeah definitely. I think also getting involved so early it could give you an indication if that's not something you want to do--

STERL: That's true too. As I said, I guess I really had an aptitude for it. So I feel very lucky in that respect.

BOLT: So do you have anything more or something you would like to answer that I didn't have a question for, or some story you have that I didn't touch on, or we haven't touched on?

STERL: There was something else I thought I was going to say but--oh I know what it was! This is kind of a social thing

BOLT: K.

STERL: Since it was for me a long trip back to Pennsylvania, it was eight hours of 81, I stayed here for Thanksgiving usually. And one year, we--friends in architecture program, we decided that we would have a Thanksgiving Dinner, and we would invite whoever was here, and we'd make the food, and it was like a five dollar contribution or something like that. We had it in the hallway, this huge 44:00hallway in the high school building. It was probably a hundred feet long and it was a very wide space because it was probably twenty feet wide. We set up tables in there and we brought chairs, and we made all the food in a little kitchen off campus somewhere. I'll never forget. And we trucked all the food over there. That was just a really neat experience, and you know something that I would put in a memoir if I wrote it. So it was a really neat, neat time. It was just a great communal thing to do.

BOLT: Did you cook the food to perfection?

STERL: I actually do cook. That's something else that I kind of have an avocation. I started cooking when my mother--when I was about twelve years old my mother went to work, and so she won't have time to cook dinner. So I started cooking dinner. That just evolved. When I got to college I would always cook 45:00meals too--so it's really a passion. I like doing it a lot.

BOLT: It sounds like they were lucky to have you cooking that Thanksgiving meal.

STERL: [laugh]

BOLT: Absolutely. But it is kind of hard to imagine it happening right in the middle of some hallway of one of the buildings on campus. It speaks to the camaraderie I guess of--

STERL: I guess in retrospect. May we should have--we never told anyone we were going to do it. I mean, we just did it and [laugh] we didn't ask permission to do it, we just said we were going to do it.

BOLT: Spontaneity is good sometimes. Well if there isn't anything else you in particular would like to add.

STERL: No I think that's all.

BOLT: Ok, well thank you very much.

[End of second interview]

Part 3: Interview with Eugene Lawson and Scott Sterl

Length: 40:57

Carmen Bolt: Ok, we are going to pick up speaking with both of you now. I thought we could start back maybe at the time you both met. You [Scott Sterl] were just telling me [off tape] that you Eugene had already left Tech at the time that the two of you met, but you came back for sometime?

Eugene Lawson: I actually did go back to school primarily to be close to him. He's right, I was smitten first, and it took him awhile to come around, but it obviously worked.

Scott Sterl: He's persistent.

LAWSON: [laugh]

BOLT: That counts for something.

LAWSON: Always have been [laugh], and patient--.Trying to the think where we should start-- Well why don't I get started. We won't be in any particular order 47:00because things I'm thinking about are sort of out of order. But we met here. We did a lot of social stuff here. We didn't do much in the way of athletic stuff like ball games and basketball games and stuff like that.

STERL: We did go to that.

LAWSON: Some.

STERL: You had baseball tickets, we used to go do that.

LAWSON: That's true. Ok that's right. It was right behind the home team. Which is an interesting place to be. Oh and when I was mentioning earlier about Tom Tour, Frank Leer, being part of the class of '69, so was Chuck Steger. So it was an interesting class. We didn't know it at the time, that it was going to turn out to be such an interesting class of people. But we also were part of a sad part when one of our class of '69 football players, Frank Loeria, was one of the 48:00coaches at Marshall that died in the plane crash.

BOLT: Wow.

LAWSON: That struck the campus hard, because he was an All-American, one of our first All-Americans, and he was truly a great guy. But, over the years the athletic stuff has helped us understand what the deal is about the Hokie Nation, and what it is to be a Virginia Tech Hokie. It's more than just having attended school here. It's more than just having a ring here, which I do have and I wear proudly, more than just wearing maroon and orange and whatever. There's this kind of camaraderie there, that we especially pick up on when we go to bowl games. We've gone to a lot of the bowl games, including the National Championship Game against Florida State in 19--or 2000, I guess.

STERL: Yeah.

LAWSON: When Michael Vick almost won us the National Championship. We have 49:00discovered that when we go into the cities, whether it's New Orleans, which we've been to a number of times, or San Francisco, Scottsdale, Arizona, or Ft. Lauderdale or Miami, there's something about hokies getting together. You walk down the street and you see people dressed in their stuff and you say hello they say hello back to you, and you sometimes run into friends. In fact, we've got a friend that we're going to meet later this afternoon who lives in Richmond who's a hokie, who we met in New Orleans, when they were down for bowl games.

Part of that Hokie Nation stuff has also actually moved into my law practice, because I do a lot of estate planning. After the horrible tragedy of the shooting here, it's very interesting, I've had a couple of clients who have 50:00purposefully put bequests in their wills, and their estate plan for Virginia Tech, because they were so impressed with the way the Tech community handled the whole thing. As weird as it seems--and it was something that I was glued to the television with for a number of days because when I was watching the stuff, they were filming places were I used to be and I used to walk and I used to do whatever. But it's interesting that the hokie attitude, and the spontaneity of the students when they went out on the Drillfield and did their tribute sort of thing, which is now encompassed in the permanent monument that's there. To hear people talk about that who had no connection with Virginia Tech, but they said 'there's just something about those people.' And watching it on television when President Bush was down, and Nikki Giovanni making her speeches and reading her 51:00poetry and whatever, that was just--it's one of those things that's hard to put into words, but hokies know was it is to be a hokie. It's just a different world. You have anything to say about that?

STERL: No [laugh].

BOLT: That's fine, I would absolutely agree with it though. It is, it's just a feeling and that's part of identity right there. That's part of my identity. Just being a hokie. It's just a special thing. Absolutely. So yeah, you have gotten to see that both from within and without. But at the time that you were together here you weren't really--you went to the basketball games, you were saying, but not really into the football. That's been a more--later thing?

STERL: Yes.

BOLT: So what did you do instead?

SS/LAWSON: [laughs]

BOLT: I mean; Saturdays here always just revolve around football. So I always wonder what everyone else is doing.

SS/LAWSON: [more laughter].

STERL: I think we did entertain a lot.

BOLT: Yeah.

STERL: We probably went to movies, because as you said there wasn't the Arts Center then. I don't think we traveled too much.

LAWSON: No we didn't.

STERL: Well we did a little bit.

LAWSON: Now I'm going to go off on a different tangent: When we moved to Washington one of the things that we got involved in almost right away was going to the Kennedy Center, which was an arts place. We both love music, opera, ballet. So we started going. And then on top of going, we got involved in donating and becoming patrons of the Kennedy Center. Eventually got more 53:00involved as members of a couple boards and committees, which we still are, which helps out-reach programs to raise money for the center. Because even though it is a national monument, the federal government pays no money for the performing arts parts of it. That has to be totally self-sustaining. So we help raise money for them.

People are also not aware often that its biggest out-reach is educational programs, which they're involved in in all fifty states. They provide teaching-guides for all elementary and high school teachers. They provide a free performance in the Center every single day, 365 days a year, called the 54:00Millennium Stage, which is also simulcast every single day. There's also a new organ in the concert hall, which is near and dear to me because I love organ music, always have.

As an aside, growing up in Richmond, I never thought twice about it but we had five theaters that had theater organs when I was growing up. And we thought they were perfectly normal, and it wasn't until afterwards that I found out that it's a real oddity.

BOLT: Yes.

LAWSON: Fortunately they still have two theater organs there. They've got one in the Byrd Theater, and one in what used to be the Mosque and the Land Mark Theater, now it's the Altria Center.

But getting back to the Kennedy Center, one of the reasons we were excited about the Center for the Arts here on campus was because of our involvement with the Kennedy Center. We were actually here yesterday talking with Ruth, the director 55:00there, about what the Center is doing here and what it's going to be expanding in and thinking about ways we could help in that regard because it's only been open a year now. It takes a while to establish donor programs and what your leads are and that sort of thing. So we had a nice conversation with her. The Center is quite spectacular. It's neat that it's where it is because it's a nice transition between the city and the university. The road was sort of connecting but separating. Now I think it's more connecting because the center is a place where people can come together, which is a good thing. We hope it does very well.

STERL: You asked about the parties. When we moved to Northern Virginia, I guess 56:00we've, as I said, always kind of liked the entertain. We're not big social butterflies but we do enjoy having people over for dinner, and I do like to cook. I like to have good wines too. One year we decided we would start a little New Years Eve tradition, and do black-tie New Years Eve parties. I would cook and we'd have a few people. I think it started out maybe--we probably started out about twelve because that's how many would fit in our dinning room. And then, you know, we had more friends and we expanded it two tables. Then we had three tables sometimes. That was thirty some people. That was a lot. But they were fun, but it starts with the invitation. We would always come up with a 57:00unique invitation. I don't know how that started. I don't remember the first one but some of the other ones we had. One year we did the thing that you pick a number and you open up the--

BOLT: Oh yes.

STERL: the folded paper and inside--I think on the outside it said--and this took forever to put together because you have to unfold this thing, and put it back together, and make sure that all the pieces work together.

BOLT: Yes.

STERL: It said 'who, what, when, where' I think on the outside. Then on the inside, you would open this up and in each square inside it would give you the date, and the time, and you know, the location.

BOLT: That's so clever.

STERL: That one was the best one we ever did. Then for the tenth year we did a split of champagne and on the label was actually the invitation. We 58:00hand-delivered each of those invitations because it was too heavy to send, for one thing, through the mail. Fortunately most of them were local. We spent a whole afternoon handle-delivering them in a little gift bad with some confetti coming out of it [laugh].

BOLT: That's so original. We should have been on those lists [laugh].

STERL: [laugh] The thing I remember that probably took me the most time to make was I made a goose. It's a ballotine of goose and you--I don't know if you debone it but you probably do debone it and you stuff it with all this stuff and then you cut it up. I would always do neat desserts too, because that was part of it. I did a cake with--it was on the cover of Bon Appétit in December and it was wrapped with some kind of a fondant, I think a chocolate fondant. But it had 59:00a white chocolate icing--not icing but, I made bows out of the white chocolate. So that was the bow on the top. So that was one I remember, that was pretty cool.

BOLT: Sounds beautiful. Now do you cook as well or do you kind of let him to it and reap the benefits and enjoy that?

LAWSON: A little of both. I do cook but I tend to do different things.

BOLT: Right.

LAWSON: In fact one of the things I was going to mention. We were talking about food and wine being a major part of our life. We go to Maine every summer, the first week of August, and we go with the same group of people, or generally the same group of people, and we've been doing it for like twenty years. And we're in this big house on a lagoon in Maine that has a huge kitchen. Everybody that comes is into food and wine, and we attack the kitchen and have great stuff.

STERL: And alternate between couples cooking nights.

LAWSON: One of the things that I do is a big southern breakfast every year with 60:00fresh made biscuits, sausage gravy, a Southwestern Virginia thing called 'egg butter,' which is an interesting combination of stuff, eggs and bacon and all this stuff. So I do that sort of thing.

BOLT: Wow.

STERL: He's, at our house in Rehoboth, he's the griller. So in the summertime we tend to grill.

BOLT: Yeah.

LAWSON: We have people--a woman who use to be our law[?] partners and her husband. He's a major cook. Not that she's not a cook but it's sort of like us, he does more of the cooking. Scott will put--when they come to visit us in the summertime, Scott will put together a menu of what we're going to have and Fritz[?] comes with wine [laugh]. So it really is something at the center of your life.

STERL: It's collaborative.

BOLT: He'll bring the right thing to match whatever it is?

STERL: Yeah.

LAWSON: Yeah, and the other thing that I was going to mention, over time, that's 61:00been advantageous to the gay community is people no longer being afraid to let the world know that they're gay. I mean, you look around now and it's almost like they've always been there, but nobody knew it. Michael Kaiser, who until recently was president of the Kennedy Center, is openly gay. He did a magnificent job of running the Center and is world renowned for helping organizations that are in financial trouble. American Ballet Theater was one. Covent Garden in London was another. Helping them survive and be able to do things. Other people like--and we were fortunate to meet a lot of these people. Leonard Bernstein, who was obviously well known in the music world, was also gay, which is not very well known to the world. But now the Chairman of Apple, Tim Paige [Tim Cook], is openly gay. One of the more powerful people in the 62:00world, David Geffen, the President of Disney Motion Pictures. It's just--it's nice. Although, frankly, we thought we had lived in a situation like that most of our lives. We've known a lot of people who were in the Regan White House, a lot that were in the Bush White House, both Bushes as a matter of fact. They never were hiding in the closet. They weren't out waving flags either. It's one of those things we sort of touched on a while ago, which you had gay pride parades. Most of our friends would not go to gay pride parades because they don't feel like they need to. It's not part of their life. Their life is to be normal and to live a life. And it's also amazing how many of our friends, now that it's available, have actually gotten married. It's like everybody.

BOLT: Agree.

LAWSON: It's like you read this stuff about destruction of marriage or whatever. 63:00I think we may have saved it, because everybody we know is getting married. Including the guy that's coming to visit us at the game this evening that we're going to meet for dinner later on.

BOLT: He already got married, or he's about to get married?

LAWSON: No, he and his partner got married.

BOLT: Ah.

LAWSON: They lived in Richmond. So they've only been legally married in Virginia for a couple of weeks like we have.

BOLT: Right.

[Coughing]

STERL: He also he had--he was married and had a son with his wife, who is very supportive and actually gave a wonderful speech at their wedding. It was just very touching. They've also adopted a boy from--who is from Utah.

LAWSON: Yeah we know lots of gay couples now that have children, which is something we never thought about back in the days when we were at Tech and 64:00afterwards. The fact that we were comfortable being a gay couple was one thing, but it wouldn't have been as comfortable back then having kids. And now it's a normal part of things. Of course being a lawyer, I've followed the legal battle very carefully, and it's been nothing short of amazing how quickly all of this stuff has come about. I lived through a lot of the Civil Rights era, which was slowly starting in the 60s. It probably isn't even finished yet as far as getting the equality dealt with. But to watch, in probably a quarter of the time what's happened with the gay community and the gay marriage business. It's just mind-boggling, in a good way.

In fact, one of the things that we've talked with the Tech Development Office 65:00about for a number of years now is making sure that they do an outreach to gay couples, because we're not the only ones that exist in the Virginia Tech community, and to make sure that when they put out the brochures and they put out their mailings, that they've got gay couples in there. It's one of the things that the Kennedy Center started doing early on that was really very helpful was when they were listing their patrons, they were not afraid to put "Mr. and Mr." in there. Which, you know, if you're in a development world, you're in there to raise money. And you want to raise money from people who have money. Well, gay couples tend to have money [laughs].

STERL: And like the arts.

LAWSON: And they like the arts.

STERL: [chuckling] And support them.

LAWSON: Exactly. But also, you know, working with the Kennedy Center has enabled us to go to the Honors pretty much every year, which is one of the highlights of 66:00the artistic world in America.

BOLT: Mhm

LAWSON: Because it's the national government telling five people every year that you are somebody special in the arts world. And the President's there. In fact during the Bush years, it was the first time in history that at every single Honors the President and the Vice President were there. We actually took our mothers a couple of times and we took Scott's grandmother once. I remember one time when George Herbert Walker Bush was President, we were there with his grandmother, and we were coming down the stairs, and we had to stop for Mrs. Bush, Barbara Bush, and her secret service detail to go to the elevators. She was like, you know, this far from us. It was quite an amazing thing. His grandmother thought it was neat [laugh].

BOLT:I would have thought that was neat as well, yes.

[Laughs]

LAWSON: What else?

STERL: Well the--I don't remember what it was. In the late 90s, I guess, was the March on Washington. That was, you know--we went and we walked down the street. It was really kind of neat to be in that throng of people that was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. Then, I think a quilt was there too.

LAWSON: I think there was.

STERL: That was a very moving thing to see. It just covered the mall from the Capitol all the way to the Washington Monument. Just these panels are all over the grass. You just see the amount of--what the kind of draw was there to bring the people to walk around there too was really neat. To read the--these are--the 68:00panels are made by family members, or friends, or you know, partners. So it's a story of the lives of each person that's died. It's really just great to read some of them. It takes--it would take forever to do all of them so you have to kind of--you park in an area and you walk around and you look at them. But it's very moving.

LAWSON: I think one of the most moving parts of it was seeing a panel of somebody that you know or that you knew, because that was a time period when people were dying right and left. It was a sad time to have to go through but, as I mentioned earlier, I think it did a lot for us in the long run because it did point out to a lot of families that this is not something that's out there for other people. It's something that involves everybody.

BOLT: Did you have that experience of seeing the quilt of someone you had known?

LAWSON: Yes, as a matter of fact. In fact, they had people stationed in various places along the quilt where you could go and they could look up the names and tell you where the quilt part is and I thought that was neat.

STERL: I think because we were here in Blacksburg. We left to move to the Washington area in, not '89?

LAWSON: '79.

STERL: '79, right.

[Laughter]

LAWSON: What's ten years?

STERL: Right. Well, I think because we were here, and then we moved to Washington, or Northern Virginia, and we weren't--we had some friends, but we didn't have a whole lot of friends, you know. We knew people that had many, many more friends than us that were lost. I think we feel a little fortunate--I mean we did have, certainly, friends who died but it wasn't every week we were going 70:00to a funeral. So, it was more--

LAWSON: That's actually getting to be more of a situation now, as you get older. You know, when you're young you go to weddings. When you're old you go to funerals.

BOLT: Right

LAWSON: It's a sad situation but--

BOLT: Yeah

LAWSON: --it's life.

BOLT:I imagine that was very moving. We were saying we saw maybe a little video footage of the mall when all the quilts were on it and pictures certainly, but that can't possibly give you the-- that can't paint the picture for you. Being there I'm sure was very moving and very incredible to kind of see all of that.

LAWSON: It was the quilt and also the people, because the people were all there for the same reason.

STERL: And very diverse, you know. It brought lots of people together to see it.

BOLT: So in terms of--you said even when you were living here and you had your Christmas parties. That was more of the social aspect of things that you both enjoyed kind of doing. Did that increase when you went to Northern Virginia? I feel like, like I was saying geographically there are different types of environments, I guess this is more small, but when you got to DC did you find yourself--you said getting involved in the organizations you were listing but anything else once you got to Northern Virginia?

LAWSON: I think one of the things we discovered over time was that gay couples tended to socialize with themselves. [Coughs] It was always a little bit of a problem because it's one of the reasons we weren't as recognized as being everywhere because we were sort of isolated. We would have parties among ourselves, and you know, the rest of the world didn't know we existed. We knew 72:00lots of couples, and still do, that have been together 20 years, 40 years, 50 years, [Coughs] and it still seems when we meet people and we tell them we've been together 42 years, they're amazed. It's not something that they should be amazed at because there are lots of us out there. It's just that you don't know it because we sort of fade in with everything else, or blend in with everything else.

STERL: Since we got our house in Rehoboth, we tend to be there on the weekends so that's our entertaining place now. We don't entertain very much in McClean [Virginia]--which I miss. I really enjoyed--it's a different kind of entertaining at the beach, [Laugh] you know, it's less--it's more causal but it's--

LAWSON: It also points out one of the things that I hope is not unique to us but it's something that we've had to deal with. When we started, we got out of school here, we were both building houses together. So I was sort of the entrepreneur and he actually had a real job for a while. Then we moved to Northern Virginia and for a while we both had real jobs. Then I sort of went out on the entrepreneur route again and he still had a real job. Then there came a point when he became self-employed as well and I went to law school, because I was in my mid-forties when I went to law school. Then I got out and I was regularly employed with a law firm. Then I branched into Rehoboth with actually originally an office of my law firm in Arlington, but we decided ultimately it 74:00was better to spin off. So I spun it off and I've been over there since. Being self-employed again, so we are both self-employed now. It's sort of like relationships are asked to bend with the times and what's going on, and we've been able to pull the off. Some people can't pull it off or didn't pull it off but--

BOLT: That sounds very accommodating. Each person kind of getting to go in the way that they see is best at the time and the other person kind of working with that. I think there is a lot to be said for that. You don't always see that, absolutely not. And you were saying the bit of surprise that comes with learning about 42 years of marriage, I think that is just kind of a testament to this day and age. I think people are surprised to hear a lot of people, anyone ending--I mean, being together that long because it seems like there are so many break ups 75:00in this day and age so. Well, as you were talking about the kind of ebbing and flowing of jobs and moves, what's next? Or is this relaxation?

[Laughs]

STERL: I don't think retirement in the conventional sense is in the books. It's just not the way we are, but I think one of the things that would have to be said would be that we don't know what the future brings because we sort of move with what the future is and whatevers going to be. Virginia Tech will certainly be part of it because we are strangely dyed in the wool hokies.

LAWSON: [laugh] Even though I'm a Yankee.

[Laughs]

STERL: There is that.

LAWSON: I've been in Virginia now for two-thirds of my life now, so [laugh]

STERL: And speaking of the Virginia thing, one of the interesting things is we've provided for a place for us to be eternally, and it's in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Hollywood Cemetery is a great place because of the big Civil War part. It's been there since 1826 or something like that. We have plot that is right next to a former governor of Virginia, and about 50 feet across a walk way from Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. [claps] To me it's going to be an irony that there are going to be two gay hokies that are going to be there with an ex-governor of Virginia and the president of the Confederacy.

BOLT: That is Virginia right there.

STERL: It is. It is. But strangely enough, I think the gentility of Richmonders will be such that it won't be a problem.

BOLT: Is this area near where you grew up?

STERL: Well, Hollywood Cemetery is actually near downtown, almost in the middle of the VCU campus.

LAWSON: It's right on the James River too.

BOLT: It sounds like a lovely place.

STERL: It is and it's one of those old cemeteries that has sculptures, and mausoleums, and headstones, and whatever. It's a really neat place to wander through. It's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Richmond, strangely enough.

LAWSON: It has two former presidents.

STERL: Two former presidents, president Monroe and president Tyler. Actually they do saay in the brochure three, but they count Jefferson Davis [laugh].

BOLT: Jefferson Davis. I was going to ask.

LAWSON: We always stay in our home away from home in Richmond, which is the Jefferson Hotel. I don't know if you have ever been there, but when Charles Kuralt was doing his Sunday morning show on CBS, he proclaimed it to be one of the most beautiful indoor spaces in the world. It's a hotel that's been restored to incredible elegance. If you ever go to Richmond, that's where you should stay. Don't let people talk you into anything else. It will cost you a little more, but it's the most gorgeous place. It is worth it. And what really separates it is the Southern manners and the way you're treated when you're there. You're a special person and they know what it's like. You notice I did say Southern. There's something about the way that Southerners treat people good. Sorry about that [laughs]

STERL: It's ok. I've been assimilated.

[Laughs]

LAWSON: It's true.

STERL: Actually, Gene had his 50th birthday party at the Jefferson, and they were so accommodating. We had to go over what was then the Lemaire restaurant, which is their major dinning room. We had thirty-six--I think--people, and it was just really wonderful. They gave us--upgraded us to the presidential suite. So after dinner everybody came up to the room and we just carried on the party and brought all the liquor upstairs [laugh]. It was really, really great.

BOLT: The presidential suite. So let me write that down, Jefferson. I must actually go there and request the presidential suite.

LAWSON: [laugh].

STERL: I don't know if you want to request that, but--

BOLT: Might be above my--

LAWSON: Interesting little story about that: We were in the room and it had a balcony on Franklin Street. I was out on the balcony, and one of our friends who 80:00was coming to the party was driving down the street and he happened to look up and he said; "Is that your room?" I said "yes!"

[Laughter]

BOLT: Perfect.

STERL: It was. It was perfect.

BOLT: That's wonderful.

STERL: One other thing that I was just going to mention because I think it's a unique thing. We did, earlier in our life, take a trip on the Queen Elizabeth, the ship from England to the U.S., on a vacation that we had, and had a wonderful experience. Strangely enough and luckily enough, a few years later the Q.E. 2 was getting ready to be taken out of service, and we were able to take a trip on the final voyage from New York to England on Q.E. 2. And we have lots of memorabilia from it, but that was just--

LAWSON: Leaving New York harbor they had the Queen Marry was there as well.

STERL: Sitting there watching the Queen Elizabeth as we were coming.

LAWSON: It was a big deal thing.

STERL: Fireboats were there, colored water streams and all this stuff. It was really neat.

LAWSON: Yeah. But also having to say, when we did the crossing from South Hampton to New York, the first time, coming into New York harbor and seeing the Statute of Liberty is--[cellphone noise] you imagine people doing that when they were coming as immigrants, you know. You have to get up really early in the morning because it's about 5 o'clock, but it's really an amazing experience.

BOLT: It sounds incredible. And you said that you took it on the final voyage to England?

LAWSON: From New York to South Hampton, yeah.

BOLT: How long did that take?

LAWSON: It's five days.

STERL: It's a great trip. Really, I mean, you're captive on the boat. You can't do any excursions, but it's just--they make it so there's lots of stuff to do. 82:00It's really--we really enjoyed the crossing.

LAWSON: And by doing it you also don't have any jet lag because you're crossing the time zones as you're doing it.

BOLT: That was kind of a moment in history as well, to have been the last voyage.

LAWSON: It was. It was.

STERL: We were seated with--he was at the table next to us in the dinning room, a gentleman, British guy, his mother used to take him on trips on the Queen Elizabeth. He made a speech--and he's done it many, many times, you know, traveled on the Queen Elizabeth--made a really impassioned speech one night in the dinning room because he was--you could tell he was moved to and he was really going to miss it.

BOLT: That is incredible. I can't even imagine coming in and seeing the Statue of Liberty. So do you both do a lot of traveling? You said not so much when you 83:00were living in Blacksburg but since then, you said you go to Maine every year.

LAWSON: We do that and we go to bowl games. It sort of depends on where Tech is playing. Of course they better get their act in gear or they won't go anywhere this year.

[Laughter]

BOLT: Let's hope tonight starts a good pattern.

LAWSON: Yes let's do.

STERL: We have traveled but not recently.

LAWSON: Frankly, part of the reason is my Parkinson's Disorder has slowed things down a little bit, and we're still working on it. About a year and a half ago I had brain surgery to have some implants put in. Which you can see the tops of it here. They're connected to a neuro-stimulator, which is like a pace maker, down here. That programing, I have to go back to [Johns] Hopkins let them dittle around with it a little bit. I don't move as fast as I used to. I have muscular 84:00problems. I have balance problems. And hopefully we're going to get that straightened out in another six months or a year, and I'll be back to normal and we can do a little more traveling then.

BOLT: Ready to take off on the next ten years of bowl games that Tech will hopefully be participating in.

LAWSON: Two things we did do though. We did take our mothers to Europe, twice.

BOLT: Oh wow.

LAWSON: It was a great time.

STERL: It was a really neat experience because they had never been before. Never been across the Atlantic Ocean, or any other ocean for that matter. And the places that we went to, we had been before, at least once, so that was helpful to know a little bit about the cities we were going to. Went to Salzburg and Florence.

LAWSON: Took The Sound of Music tour.

STERL: Yeah.

LAWSON: Went on a bus to all the places that were in The Sound of Music, and of course the mothers recognized all that stuff.

STERL: Oh then Venice also. And then second trip we went to Paris and London. And we took the train through the chunnel, which was neat, a neat trip. They loved it. They had a terrific time. Then we gave them an album when we got back of the pictures, and menus, and itinerary. Everybody that we encountered on the trip--hotel people, and restaurant people, were just very helpful, and very nice to the mothers.

STERL: And I will say, on planes, going over and coming back, we took them first class so that they could be treated well. As soon as the stewardesses or 86:00stewards found out that it was two gay guys and their mothers, we spent the entire trip doing what we felt like and they were pampered like there is no tomorrow. So there are advantages to being gay sometimes.

BOLT: Sounds like a wonderful trip. Those are the memories of a lifetime. Often people don't get to take those trips at all or just once. Incredible. Well that's awesome.

STERL: Well I guess I'm storied out.

LAWSON: Ok.

BOLT:I was going to ask if you had anything left. I mean you guys have given us wonderful stories. Stories of food, and parties, and your time at Tech, and the Hokie Nation. It's been really wonderful and again we appreciate it so much. If there is anything left that you had to add?

STERL: I don't think so.

BOLT: Storied out?

STERL: Yep.

BOLT:[Laugh] Alright well thank you very much