In restaurants, there was a lot of restaurants we couldn't go to. I don't think it was fair; it wasn't fair but I didn't make a big stink out of it because if I wanted to go some place and eat I wanted to go some place they wanted me to be and let me enjoy my food than have them do something to my food that I can't eat. So I never made that a big issue. I didn't like it, but there was nothing I could do about it, and I didn't feel that it was in my place to go out here and picket in front of some restaurant businesses and for me them to feed me and then do something to my food to the point where I can't eat it. That's the way I look at it, but I didn't think it was right that I had to do that, but that's the way it was at that time. That's the way that most the people was raised, and then there was a lot of guys that I run around with the doctor's children, the lawyer's children that I knew apologized. And a lot of them wouldn't even go into a restaurant because I couldn't go in. They said, "Well Charlie, I'll go in and get it and we'll sit out here and eat; we'll eat going down the street." They wouldn't leave me standing outside and they go in and they would bring their's out and we'd all eat together. So, but that was one of the guys, you know I was just a person that was raised up with the lawyer's son and the doctor's sons and so forth, so I had a little more, I guess favoritism. I don't know if you want to call it that or not but it's just that we got along, was raised up together and they didn't look at me as a black child.

I recall when I was younger, one of Mrs. Crogan's granddaughters, we was there in the garage playing and she said "Charlie I want to look like you" and there was some pipe blackened and I fixed her up so when her nanny came out...the lady that worked at the hotel that took care of us...she like had a heart attack when she seen her. Well, I got spanked for it. My daddy gave me a little spanking for it, but they laughed it off. But Mrs. Crogan used to take me to Hagerstown. They used to, women's had their rummage sales and the yard sales and stuff like that and I was one of them that would go. Once I was in the car and I was just about everywhere so in a way I had it made. I can't give you a lot of complaining. I just feel sorry for a lot of other people who didn't have the opportunities that I had. But in a way I still got it. I mean because I try to treat people the way I want to be treated, that's the way I was brought up. You know if you want to be treated like a fool, you act like a fool, they're gonna treat you like a fool. You act like a young man, they're going to treat you like a young man and that's the way that my parents brought me up. And believe it or not; it works because I have no problem with a lot of people and a lot of people don't like me when they first see me or get talking to me but later on we end up being good friends, you know. So that's the way I've been doing, that's the way I raised my children to be like, some listened, some didn't, you know, so I can't do anything about that.
 

I think, I hope, I helped you for what little I could give you. That's the way I see Frederick, I tell them my mother came up here and she enjoyed it, we went out to Peter Pan because my sister's working out there. And where they put the trash at my mother says, "Charles what in the name of the devil is that smell?" I says that's where the devil lives at, this is God's country but we do have a little place for the devil. But everybody that comes to Frederick they want to stay here and you notice yourself Frederick has grown tremendous. Everywhere you look they're building houses and stores and post stations and shopping centers and apartments and all this stuff and it scares me because when you add this much concrete and black top and we get some big rains like they get other places, we got a big problem because [the] Monocacy [River] is not going to hold all this water. And a lot of people are going to wish they built some boats instead of these houses because we're not going to have enough place for the water to go. Frederick has just grown too fast, way, way too fast.