[QUOTE=WillowGrove;852668]Wow. So I guess I owe you thanks Hank for coming out with the CD. Do you (or does anyone) know if there are any photos of the interviews or of the subjects themselves? I would love to see where Hans Lobert was living and to see that creaking chair? Also - in the Goose Goslin interview it sounds like Ritter had his son with him - is that true?
And where is Babe's bat the Chief Meyer speaks of?
That's a great question about photos from Ritter's journeys. I never thought to ask him, and now I wish I had. I'm guessing Larry never took any, or he would have shown them to us at some point during the process of making the audio set. We interviewed him at great length about his experiences with each of the players, and then edited the results to create his introduction to each player segment. I think he would certainly have shown us corresponding photos if there had been any. The only reason he recorded the interviews, he told us, was so he wouldn't be distracted by having to take notes, a brilliant decision in retrospect, not just because the interviews were preserved intact, but because I'm sure they would have gone much differently if the players had been forced to repeat things, or speak more slowly, etc., so Larry could get them written down. He never dreamed there would ever be any interest in hearing any of the interviews, he said. In fact, he never really thought there would ever be a book!
As explained in the booklet accompanying the set, that is, indeed, Stevie Ritter being grilled by the Goose at the end of his interview. Then in his early teens, Stevie was the technician for the interviews, charged by his dad with the responsibility of operating the German tape recorder, the best portable recorder money could buy. Larry told us he mostly wanted his son, who lived with Larry's ex-wife, along for the bonding experience between them. Also heard prominently in the Goslin segment is Larry's girlfriend at the time, Barbara. Her participation worked fine in the Goose's case, because the pretty young lady brought out his flirtatious side and really brought the old man to life, but Larry told us he soon decided that she was ruining the interviews with her interruptions and inane bantering, so he barred her from the interviews. Unfortunately for Larry's love life, she took it personally.
And where is that bat, the one the Babe gave to the Chief?
Hank Thomas
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