We paid the families a stipend for having the student for probably about six weeks, so that helped buy our food. In Detroit and the other stays that was not an issue but for Appalachia that was very necessary. I remember sitting there and they said, “Well, what would you like to have? I’m going to go shopping.” The mother of the family said, “What would you like to eat?” And I said, “Oh, hamburger would be nice.” And she goes, “That would be really nice but I don’t think we can afford that.” And I remember feeling very embarrassed about that. It was pretty much a lot of fried bread and gravies and stuff like that. I was such a sheltered white boy and taking me into these environments was just — I wanted to talk about some of interactions with Gaudino out in the field, but oh my god, it was just an entree into the worlds that I would never have known. It changed my life. It absolutely changed my life.

John Neikirk '73