Mike Wildman Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Phyllis Noble
Interviewee(s): Mike Wildman

Phyllis Noble: This is Phyllis Noble. I'm in San Lorenzo, California, tonight interviewing Mike Wildman, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran from 1972 to 1974 as a technical education teacher in a vocational high school. Did I mention today is February 23rd, 2017? Hi, Mike.

Mike Wildman: Hi.

Phyllis Noble: So, um, Mike, let's begin with, uh, let's go way back. Let's talk about who you were before you joined the Peace Corps. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. Where were you born?

Mike Wildman: Born in Oakland, California, and grew up there until high school time and then moved to Piedmont, which is right next to Oakland.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh. And did you have brothers and sisters?

Mike Wildman: I have one sister.

Phyllis Noble: Older, younger?

Mike Wildman: Younger.

Phyllis Noble: And so it was just a family of mother, father, two kids.

Mike Wildman: That's right. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. You go, you went to school in Oakland?

Mike Wildman: I went to school in Oakland. And then in Piedmont for high school.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Public schools?

Mike Wildman: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And what did your parents do for a living?

Mike Wildman: My dad was a engineer, and my mom didn't have an official job.

Phyllis Noble: Oh yes, she did. She took care of the family.

Mike Wildman: Took care of the family.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Good. So did you take, with your family, did you take vacations together?

Mike Wildman: We did. We went to places like Lake Tahoe. And, um, hmm. Let me see. I don't know if we actually went to Yosemite. Yeah, we went to Yosemite also. That sort of thing.

Phyllis Noble: In the family car?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Sounds very good. So you go to high school in Piedmont. And what kind of high school kid were you? What did you, what were you interested in?

Mike Wildman: Well, um, I didn't really have strong interests. I think the most interesting class for me was one in mechanical drafting. Um. And I have a recollection of taking driver's ed there and having some challenges with that in high school. But anyway, um, so I was kind of quiet, pretty quiet. I didn't really get involved in, in school activities.

Phyllis Noble: Sports?

Mike Wildman: No, no.

Phyllis Noble: Did you study a foreign language in high school?

Mike Wildman: Well, I think we had to. I think I studied Spanish.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And the only language in your home was English, right?

Mike Wildman: English, yes.

Phyllis Noble: So you studied Spanish?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: It doesn't sound like it was memorable.

Mike Wildman: No, no. I never used it much so, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And then you. So did you have part time jobs when you were in high school? Summer jobs?

Mike Wildman: I think I did. I got to remember, um, the timeline for that. I don't know if I actually had one in high school. When I was in college I did.

Phyllis Noble: What'd you do in college?

Mike Wildman: You mean for summer jobs, you mean?

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And yeah.

Mike Wildman: I had, for a couple of summers I worked on the BART system, you know, the rapid transit system.

Phyllis Noble: Oh yeah, sure.

Mike Wildman: They were building that.

Phyllis Noble: Hmm. And what kind of work was that, construction?

Mike Wildman: Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely construction.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: So I was just a, you know, an assistant to an engineer and whatever things he asked me to do, I did. Um, had a job with PG&E, a summer job, and another one with Bechtel. They're both, you know, PG&E, you know who that is? That's the, or maybe you don't. Our electrical utility company.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. The P would be Pacific maybe?

Mike Wildman: Pacific Gas and Electric.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: In Wisconsin we have MG&E, which is Madison.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah, that's pretty much it.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And so what about in college? What did you major in?

Mike Wildman: Majors in engineering.

Phyllis Noble: And what school was that?

Mike Wildman: University of California at Berkeley.

Phyllis Noble: At Berkeley.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. So that was electrical engineering. And I got a bachelor's degree in that.

Phyllis Noble: Electrical engineering?

Mike Wildman: Electrical engineering.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. And then at some point, you got an interest in joining the Peace Corps. Was that right after college or was there an interim thing?

Mike Wildman: Well, it's interesting because I had this desire to ride a bicycle across country. And I, when I graduated from college, I did that. So that took a couple of months.

Phyllis Noble: So you bicycled from California to?

Mike Wildman: Actually from New York to California.

Phyllis Noble: The other way around. Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: By yourself or did you have a buddy?

Mike Wildman: No, I found the person through a want ad.

Phyllis Noble: No kidding.

Mike Wildman: That also wanted to do that. Yeah, I didn't. I know. To do that alone is very difficult.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: You know, it's just not very easy to watch everything and take care of everything. Just one person.

Phyllis Noble: And it's much more fun with a buddy too.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, yeah. So joining the Peace Corps. Well, um, after the bicycle ride, I had another job with Bechtel as like a junior engineer. And I just realized that it wasn't really something I felt like doing as a lifetime sort of thing.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm.

Mike Wildman: And the Peace Corps, for me, was a chance to, um, look at something different, you know, see the world. I thought maybe I would like teaching and it would give me the chance to do that. So those sort of things pushed me to join the Peace Corps.

Phyllis Noble: So you applied. Did you send in your application after the bike ride or even before?

Mike Wildman: Afterwards. It was after that and after I had started working.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you sent in your application. Did you tell your folks that you were doing this?

Mike Wildman: Uh, I think I did, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Were they pretty supportive of the idea?

Mike Wildman: No. Well, you know, they already knew from the bike ride that I kind of had this independent way of doing stuff. So I guess they kind of figured that I was going to do it no matter what. But, you know, their, their, their hope was, I think, because, you know, my dad's an engineer and parents want their kids to have a stable kind of not dangerous life. So, um, yeah, they didn't like it so much. But when I, when I did go, they were, you know, we're always connected by letters. You know, there's, we didn't have the ways of communicating that we have now

Phyllis Noble: Right. That's right. Blue aero letters, is that?

Mike Wildman: That's exactly right.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. So you get, you send in your application and then you had to wait for a while. Did the app, do you remember if the application asked you if there was any part of the world where you would not want to be assigned? Or if you had a preference for a particular place?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember. I think it was more like they wanted to assign me to a technical teaching sort of thing. And maybe it was like, here's the choices.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, okay.

Mike Wildman: Maybe there were several countries that they said it was possible. And I don't remember really if I said, what I said.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, that's all right. And then eventually you get a letter. Did it come, did the news come to you via letter that you'd been accepted to train for a particular place?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember. I suppose it did.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. And, um, then you had to say goodbye to your family.

Mike Wildman: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: And to your, I can't remember, was it a sister?

Mike Wildman: Sister.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Did you have a big party?

Mike Wildman: I don't think we did. No.

Phyllis Noble: I didn't either. And then, um, off you went. And so was the training here in the United States or was it in-country in Iran?

Mike Wildman: Well, the way this worked is that we, our group to Iran, gathered in I think it was Philadelphia, and there was like a four day sort of orientation thing and.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah. Shots? Did you have to line up and get immunizations?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember. Probably had to get some done before that.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. Yeah. And the orientation would have been nuts and bolts about Iran or something?

Mike Wildman: I just don't remember.

Phyllis Noble: It's hard to remember, right. What do you, what do you remember? What? How many people were there?

Mike Wildman: Well, I know our group had about 150.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, huge.

Mike Wildman: And, um, I guess one of the main points was they wanted to sort out, you know, who was really qualified and, you know, like able to go to Iran and manage there, I think.

Phyllis Noble: And they were able to figure that out in four days?

Mike Wildman: I don't know. I guess they figured some of it out.

Phyllis Noble: Were there some people who didn't get past Philadelphia?

Mike Wildman: I don't know for a fact.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And this group of people, were they, um, they're all going to be teachers?

Mike Wildman: Yes, they were going to be either English teachers or vocational type teachers like me.

Phyllis Noble: Mixture of men and women?

Mike Wildman: Yeah. And there were some married couples also. Just, just a few, two or three, I think.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So then you all get on a plane in Philadelphia or New York, you flew out of?

Mike Wildman: Well, I guess it was Philadelphia.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh. And did the plane take you directly to Iran, or were there some stops along the way?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: I mean, basically, it was like that plane was our plane.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. You filled it? Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Had you been abroad before? Had you been in Europe?

Mike Wildman: No. No. The most I've been out of the country was Canada. You know, very limited.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So now you're crossing the ocean. That's a long, long flight.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And eventually you land in Tehran, I assume?

Mike Wildman: Yeah, that's right.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember your first impressions when you stepped off the plane?

Mike Wildman: No. Uh. We were just there for maybe one day or something like that. And then we all went to Rezaiyeh, which is on the west side of the country.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Mike Wildman: And the government had given us a, I think it was like an elementary school that was for our training people to live there and have our instruction there. And that lasted all summer.

Phyllis Noble: So you went over at the beginning of summer?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: June, maybe?

Mike Wildman: I guess.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And what's summer like in Iran? What, is it hot? I've never been there.

Mike Wildman: Oh, yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty hot. It wasn't extremely hot. I don't know what to compare it to, though, but it wasn't outlandish.

Phyllis Noble: And in Rezaiyeh at this elementary school, what sort of accommodations do they provide for you during training? Were you living with a family or were you in a dorm?

Mike Wildman: I think we were in a dorm, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Uh huh.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you'd be paired up with another guy or a couple of guys?

Mike Wildman: I think it was like a big room full of guys.

Phyllis Noble: Really?

Mike Wildman: I think so, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And you'd eat dorm food?

Mike Wildman: Whatever they cooked for us. What did we have? You know, like the big round loaves of bread for breakfast and honey and cheese, I think. And, gosh, I think for dinner they, like, pushed us out the door. You know, they wanted us to go and see things. So I think we got dinner on our own. I think.

Phyllis Noble: So they must have provided you with a little pocket money.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So in training, what was training all about? What did you learn in training?

Mike Wildman: Well, the big thing was the language.

Phyllis Noble: And the language is?

Mike Wildman: Farsi.

Phyllis Noble: Farsi.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. Yeah, that was the main thing. That was like at least half of each day, maybe more. I don't remember exactly. But then they also gave us some training in how to prepare like slides and even how to develop slide film, you know, with chemicals. They showed us how to do that.

Phyllis Noble: For teaching purposes? Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: How to make your own slides.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. The whole thing.

Phyllis Noble: This is assuming that you'd have a slide projector available.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, it does assume that, doesn't it?

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: No, but I never, I never actually did that. I don't know if any of us did that.

Phyllis Noble: Oh. Um, let's go back to learning Farsi a little bit. How was that taught? Were you in, there's 150 of you, so they divide you up into small groups for language instruction?

Mike Wildman: I guess they did. I'm sorry, I don't remember. But we had like a half dozen teachers there. So they must, they must have done that.

Phyllis Noble: And the teachers were native speakers of Farsi?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Iranian people.

Mike Wildman: They were Iranian people.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of the summer, when training is over, did you feel that you could converse a little bit in Farsi?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Well, that's awesome. Do you remember a phrase or two of it?

Mike Wildman: Uh, [speaks Farsi]. My name is Mike. I learned a little bit of Farsi. [speaks Farsi]. You know, like, but see, that's the thing that's amazing is that because I used it, you know, then I can remember some of it.

Phyllis Noble: Right. So, yeah, we'll get into how you used it in a minute. Yeah. So what else? Let's see. So in your training, your training consisted largely of learning to understand and speak Farsi.

Mike Wildman: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: And was it a written language? Did you learn to read and write it too?

Mike Wildman: We did.

Phyllis Noble: Wow.

Mike Wildman: Well, they tried to teach us that, whether we learned it or not is another story.

Phyllis Noble: Okay.

Mike Wildman: But, but there was a big effort, you know, like immersion kind of training. And like I say, you know, making us go out and get meals and stuff.

Phyllis Noble: Sure. And then there was technical education, in your case, learning how to make slides, even though you might not have learned it later. Did that give you a glimmer of a certain kind of teaching and learning experience of actually hands on making things?

Mike Wildman: Well, I've got to remember what else they showed us. I mean, that was so unique. It kind of stuck in my mind. But I'm thinking that they also, like how to do flip charts and, you know, other teaching aids, what you could do. That's the one that I really do remember.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah. Did you do any practice teaching in the course of that summer?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember. Probably. That would make sense, wouldn't it? But I don't remember.

Phyllis Noble: Okay. So eventually training comes to an end and there must have been a swearing in ceremony and something.

Mike Wildman: Did we do something like that? I don't remember. Probably had a going away party, but.

Phyllis Noble: I think there was probably a swearing in thing where you raise your right hand and.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: And that would either have been in Philadelphia or more likely in Iran.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: And then they send you off to an assignment.

Mike Wildman: Right.

Phyllis Noble: Where did they send you?

Mike Wildman: Well, mine, mine was Isfahan. And that's the second largest city.

Phyllis Noble: Isfahan.

Mike Wildman: It's, you know, a main tourist city. It has these old buildings there. Um, so there were two of us, a guy from Texas and me, and we were sent to two different schools to teach this vocational electro technique.

Phyllis Noble: Vocational electro technique?

Mike Wildman: Well, what it means is that it would, ideally would qualify the person to be an electrician to install wiring, you know, like in a home or building, that sort of thing. All electrical equipment.

Phyllis Noble: Training people for a trade.

Mike Wildman: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And so you were both doing the same thing, but in different schools?

Mike Wildman: Right.

Phyllis Noble: Did you room together?

Mike Wildman: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Talk. So before we talk about what went on in the classroom, let's talk about how you lived.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: What? Describe the house or apartment or where did you live?

Mike Wildman: Well, we, we had a, rented a house. And the, uh, the Peace Corps volunteers. You know, it had been like several years’ worth of Peace Corps volunteers in Isfahan.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, there had been. So there was a Peace Corps house identified?

Mike Wildman: No, no, there wasn't a Peace Corps house. But there was one person in particular that was Iranian that was very friendly towards Peace Corps volunteers. And he helped us to find this house. The woman really didn't want to rent it to us because we weren't Muslim, but he kind of persuaded her to do that. It was an older house. It had a, well, I guess it's typical for really for houses in Iran, but the house is built around a central courtyard and it has the big door, you know, it's kind of like you have a walled house.

Phyllis Noble: And the wall, the door opening in that wall to enter the compound?

Mike Wildman: The door is opening to the street.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: And once you get through that, then you, I think there were no more doors to get through the main way of the, of the home.

Phyllis Noble: And then rooms opened off, onto a courtyard.

Mike Wildman: Onto the courtyard.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And so.

Mike Wildman: But it was.

Phyllis Noble: Did the woman?

Mike Wildman: It wasn't glamorous or anything like that.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, yeah. And then the woman who owned the house also lived there?

Mike Wildman: No.

Phyllis Noble: No. So it was just you and your Peace Corps mate. What was his name?

Mike Wildman: John Swanson.

Phyllis Noble: John?

Mike Wildman: John Swanson.

Phyllis Noble: Swanson. Okay. So it was just you and John in this house?

Mike Wildman: Well, yes and no. I mean, the house had maybe like four bedrooms at least, and we were like in this central location. And a number of volunteers were in smaller towns or villages around the area, so frequently, and we were happy, you know, to have these people drop in and.

Phyllis Noble: Yours was the place where they'd crash.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. So that was good. So we had, we had visitors a lot of times.

Phyllis Noble: I can see the parties right now. And what? So you and John each had your own room.

Mike Wildman: Right.

Phyllis Noble: And then was there a kitchen there?

Mike Wildman: Yes.

Phyllis Noble: In the house.

Mike Wildman: There was.

Phyllis Noble: Who cooked?

Mike Wildman: I think we took turns. The Peace Corps had given us this cookbook that was prepared by Peace Corps volunteers in Iran. So they kind of knew what worked, you know, and simple stuff. So we used a lot of those recipes.

Phyllis Noble: What a unique thing. Do you still have it? Do you still have that cookbook?

Mike Wildman: Maybe. Somewhere in a box in my garage maybe. I don't know.

Phyllis Noble: It sounds intriguing. So you and John would cook for yourselves. You took turns cooking and that. And where would you shop for food?

Mike Wildman: Um, well, let's see. There was the, right outside of our house down a couple was the store where they had fresh yogurt, a small store. And he was a friendly guy. So we would buy yogurt and eggs from him. And for other stuff, I think we had to go like about a half mile away to a Armenian store, a grocery store. They would have kind of more Western shopping sort of stuff. But I don't remember all the details. I think we would buy meat from a, well, you know, one of these butcher places local to our house. And definitely you cooked that a lot. You know, you don't want to eat that raw.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Wildman: It's been outside and all that stuff. But we survived somehow, you know.

Phyllis Noble: What did you cook on? You had a stove of some sort?

Mike Wildman: What did we have? I think we had a little stove, a little gas stove. And it worked on those propane cylinders.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah.

Mike Wildman: So we would have. I think that's how it was. I think we had one of those in the kitchen.

Phyllis Noble: And did you have refrigeration? Oh, you did. So you had electricity. Was it kerosene, the refrigerator, or electric?

Mike Wildman: No, we had electricity there. This is the second biggest city.

Phyllis Noble: That's right. Oh, okay. So you had electric lights?

Mike Wildman: Yeah. First class.

Phyllis Noble: No kidding. And how about running water?

Mike Wildman: Yes, we had that too.

Phyllis Noble: So you had flush toilets right there in the house?

Mike Wildman: Well, you know, the kind you squat on. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, but still.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: You didn't have to go outside.

Mike Wildman: No. Sounds pretty good, huh?

Phyllis Noble: [inaudible] Well, wow. If you had electricity, did you have radios? Some contact with the outside world?

Mike Wildman: Um, I don't remember listening to a radio so much. I mean, there wasn't any. Were there Western stations? I don't think there were. Our music was more like cassettes.

Phyllis Noble: Oh yes, sure, yes.

Mike Wildman: So we had cassette players.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And you had brought your music from home?

Mike Wildman: Well, yeah, we could buy it also. We could buy cassettes.

Phyllis Noble: Early seventies.

Mike Wildman: Something like that. Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Well, that sounds pretty, like a pretty good. Did it seem like an adequate living arrangement too?

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. And when you walked out the door. When you stepped out the door, when you opened that door in the wall and stepped out onto the street, um, what did you see? What was going on in the street? What was the neighborhood like?

Mike Wildman: Well, it was a side street off of a main street. So there were people coming and going, you know, some people riding bicycles. And that was our way of getting around.

Phyllis Noble: You had a bicycle?

Mike Wildman: We each had a bicycle.

Phyllis Noble: Peace Corps provided the bike for you?

Mike Wildman: No.

Phyllis Noble: You had to buy it?

Mike Wildman: Well, they gave us money to.

Phyllis Noble: I see.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. So there'd be that, you know, people walking with groceries and kids and, you know, just people walking.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Not so many cars.

Mike Wildman: Not so many cars. Some cars. I mean, it's not like Iran had a scarcity of cars, but, you know, these kind of back alleys. It wasn't like people would be driving through there unless they live there.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you and John have different schools. How far away was your school from where you lived?

Mike Wildman: Like a ten minute bike ride, something like that.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, that's very doable.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Was it dangerous riding the bike in traffic and so forth?

Mike Wildman: Well, somewhat. I don't ever recall getting hit, but I just remember it wasn't like America, you know, where we kind of. Drivers are supposed to look out for bicycles. You had to be careful that people were not going to do something.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: I guess the most dangerous thing was in the winter when it was icy that I did fall off my bike at least once in that situation.

Phyllis Noble: Right in traffic?

Mike Wildman: No, not in traffic. Just falling off and getting bruised.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. So, yeah, you talked about getting there. It was pretty hot in the summer, but winter comes and there's ice. Snow also?

Mike Wildman: Snow, a little. It didn't snow a lot there, but it did some. I mean, enough to leave build ups on the roads and they didn't really do like ice melting and, you know, snow plows and stuff. I think it was people shoveling as I recall.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Or tromping through it.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you get to your school. Let's walk in the door of the school. The school's a high school, a vocational school, at the secondary level. How old are the students?

Mike Wildman: Well, I guess like 15 or something like that?

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. You didn't have people in their twenties there?

Mike Wildman: I don't remember that, no.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: I think they're pretty much all young.

Phyllis Noble: Same high school ages here.

Mike Wildman: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. Okay. And so what was that like when you first got to the school? If you arrived there at the end of, you arrived in Isfahan at the end of the summer, so does their school year begin as ours does in September?

Mike Wildman: Mm hmm.

Phyllis Noble: Okay, so you're there, and somebody must have given you a list of classes and?

Mike Wildman: Well, the way it was, they did have classrooms and they had like workshops and I was assigned to be in a workshop. It was, it was challenging for me to be able to contribute something because the school had been there for a while and it had teachers for a while already. And to have some youngster come in and, you know, try to suggest how to do things didn't fly too well.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: And I, my understanding is that the central government, you know, kind of assigned volunteers to schools.

Phyllis Noble: As opposed to the school requesting a teacher with a particular skill?

Mike Wildman: That's right. That's right.

Phyllis Noble: Hmm, that's awkward, isn't it?

Mike Wildman: So it is. And, you know, I certainly got the feeling that they, the other teachers. We had two or three, maybe two. Sorry. There were two, two teachers in this workshop that had been there for a while.

Phyllis Noble: Iranian teachers?

Mike Wildman: Iranian teachers, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Had they had a Peace Corps volunteer on staff before?

Mike Wildman: I don't think the school did. No.

Phyllis Noble: And so were you given your own class to teach?

Mike Wildman: No.

Phyllis Noble: Or were you sort of just there helping out?

Mike Wildman: It would have been extremely difficult for me to do that really. The, the, you know, the place that I found that I could fit in ironically was, it was in the auto mechanic shop, which is not what I was sent to do. But the person in that shop had acquired like engine tuning equipment, some other equipment from, from Europe, from England. And he wanted help to translate the instruction manual.

Phyllis Noble: Ah, yes.

Mike Wildman: And so I spent at least half my time there with that, the person that helped rent the house, you know, because I know English and he knows my English is good and his Persian is good. So together we would translate pages out of this manual.

Phyllis Noble: Manual. Yeah.

Mike Wildman: And the instructor very much appreciated that.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, good. Good. Yeah. So now they're glad you're there.

Mike Wildman: Well, he was anyway.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So it sounds like the person that you're mainly talking to and working with is the guy who was a friend of the Peace Corps, the same one who helped to find the house.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, that's, that's true.

Phyllis Noble: He had some English or?

Mike Wildman: His English was, was pretty good. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: But you were using, you were also using your Farsi?

Mike Wildman: Right.

Phyllis Noble: With other people on the staff?

Mike Wildman: Yeah. And just with daily life, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that went on for a while. And then? Eventually you finish translating the manual.

Mike Wildman: Well, I don't remember the sequence of stuff, but it seemed like I was always working with him some way or another. And in the electrical shop, I was able to repair some experiments and get some equipment going. And, but I felt it wasn't, it didn't make so much difference really. You know, I tried. But the, uh, the reality is that. So engineers are kind of respected in Iran. But here in the U.S., you know, if you go to UC Berkeley and get an engineering degree, you know, to install a circuit for a light fixture is like, where do I start, you know? You know, they don't teach stuff like that.

Phyllis Noble: You had a more highly theoretical technical level.

Mike Wildman: You know, the higher areas. And, you know, ideally they would have had like licensed electricians go over there and teach this stuff. But anyway, you know, the Peace Corps does the best they can with the people that they get, right? So that's the way it worked.

Phyllis Noble: So they get an intellectual engineer from Berkeley trying to teach the basic electrical mechanics.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. So it's just, it was a difficult combination.

Phyllis Noble: But you're smiling when you say that.

Mike Wildman: Well, because for me, you know, it was, the whole thing was an experience, you know, a life experience.

Phyllis Noble: Yes.

Mike Wildman: I don't, I don't regret that. I mean, it was very valuable for that.

Phyllis Noble: For sure.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: In that first year that you're there, how was your health holding up?

Mike Wildman: I don't think I ever had any major problems. I mean, every so often, you know, you had to be really, really careful. And every so often, if you eat some unwashed vegetable or, you know, you just don't pay attention, then you can get pretty sick. And I think that would happen to me every couple of months.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. Of course, you had to probably boil your water and filter it.

Mike Wildman: We had to boil it or put some, you know, stuff in it. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: So you'd occasionally get sick, but nothing life threatening?

Mike Wildman: No.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Did you have, uh, when there would be a break in the school year for some sort of holiday, um, did you? What did you do? Did you travel or did you have a side little secondary project to work on?

Mike Wildman: No, they, they just, you know, we had the summer off, actually. So it was pretty amazing, you know. We still got the Peace Corps salary too.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: So, um. I, where did I go traveling with? I, there were different occasions, but the most memorable was, was going to this village above the Caspian Sea. And it was really rustic. You know, if you talk about no electricity and running water, this was that, you know, and I went with another Peace Corps volunteer that we were kind of friendly. And he was, I think, working in one of the villages in the area. But this was very fascinating. The people were very welcoming to us and they wanted to even, uh, at one point they were having some celebration for something or another, and they wanted us to sing and dance together.

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Mike Wildman: And it's like, wait a minute, I just, I don't think so, you know?

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, well, their concept of dancing would be very different from yours.

Mike Wildman: I know, but it's like, they're very free, you know, and happy to, you know, and they grew up like that. And it's like, oh, let's have fun, you know? And I guess I just, anyway, I mean, I enjoyed it, but I just wasn't as free to be able to do that sort of thing. Kind of a regret, I guess, you know. But just that's the way it was.

Phyllis Noble: So you are. Yeah.

Mike Wildman: But that was, that was a nice experience just to see people kind of enjoying themselves, you know, without all the television and, you know, all the stuff, you know. They just had a good time together. That's kind of for me very amazing, you know, to see that sort of thing.

Phyllis Noble: I'm going to ask you about that, about how that might have affected your life later on. But let's stay in Iran for now.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: So were there any other trips you took?

Mike Wildman: I guess we just had the one summer in between and then. I forget how the schedule worked exactly. But after that, you know, that was the end of the two years, you know, the one summer between and then another year of teaching. And then the two years was finished.

Phyllis Noble: That's right.

Mike Wildman: So after that, I did kind of take my time and I think I went part ways with another, not a Peace Corps volunteer, but a guy that taught in a, somehow in a Christian school. But you can't really be a Christian school in Iran. I don't remember how that worked, but somehow they. But he and I traveled together through Turkey and Greece, and at some point we went our different ways. I don't remember when that happened, but that was also a new thing for me.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. A unique opportunity for a man who was still in his early twenties.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, that's right.

Phyllis Noble: Back in Isfahan when you're teaching, did you have, did anybody from Peace Corps come out to see how you're doing and talk to you?

Mike Wildman: Probably. I don't remember.

Phyllis Noble: So did you have a sense that you had a supervisor who was checking on you, or were you pretty much on your own?

Mike Wildman: Oh, we felt connected. I felt connected. And, you know, one of the things we would do anyway was to, uh, to go to Tehran every so often, you know? I don't remember how often, once every month or so, you know, we'd get on the bus and it's like an overnight, unpleasant thing. But anyway, go to Tehran and we could visit the Peace Corps office and talk with people there and.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Go to the American embassy and get all kinds of goodies, you know, the shopping there. And there was this interesting hotel that we stayed at. Goats running around in the hotel.

Phyllis Noble: Oh my goodness. In Tehran?

Mike Wildman: In Tehran, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Suddenly it breaks the image that I had.

Mike Wildman: Oh, yeah. Well, this was a unique hotel. This was like the, the world traveler backpack person kind of hotel. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: I love the smile on your face. I wish this were a video recording.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, well, I'm trying to remember the.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: The things, you know. But yeah.

Phyllis Noble: You mentioned that, you mentioned a Peace Corps salary. In the sixties, they called it a living allowance, which was very modest. Do you remember about how much did you get and how did you pick it up?

Mike Wildman: Uh, I don't remember, but it was really like a lot. I mean, I actually bought a lot of rugs and goodies and stuff there, you know, that, you know, the copperware and stuff like that.

Phyllis Noble: How did you get that home?

Mike Wildman: Uh, we, the Peace Corps knew people that we could ship it with. But actually, I got some stuff stolen, so it didn't work out all that great. But anyway. In other words, we had enough money to do more than our needs.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Some, a couple of people bought motorcycles. And I don't know if that was really supposed to be, but anyhow, I won't say any names then. It wasn't me. But yeah, just if you lived basically it was fine.

Phyllis Noble: You could save up a few.

Mike Wildman: Yeah. And they had some money also, a couple thousand dollars ready for us when we finished.

Phyllis Noble: Right. Readjustment loans.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Used to call them.

Mike Wildman: It sounds about right. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Meanwhile, you've got a family back in California. Your mom and dad and your sister. And you were writing letters and getting letters from them.

Mike Wildman: Right.

Phyllis Noble: So it was that blue air letter.

Mike Wildman: That's what it was. The air grams. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Try to cram as much as you could. Yeah. You still have them? Or does your mom have them?

Mike Wildman: I may. Well, my mom is, is at an adult community place, so whatever I salvaged from her home and I have it, I may have it somewhere. But I even had some, uh, one of the things in Iran for crafts was to make these tablecloths, you know, where they would stamp, you know? They would carve stamps, you know.

Phyllis Noble: Oh, yeah.

Mike Wildman: And you would stamp the blue and then the yellow and then the red, you know, and make these really pretty designs.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: And I still have some of those tablecloths. Well, anyway, one Christmas I got the idea that I would bring a bunch of these aerograms to one of these shops where they're doing the stamping and said, can you stamp these for me?

Phyllis Noble: Oh.

Mike Wildman: So I got these really nice designs stamped on the aerograms.

Phyllis Noble: How lovely.

Mike Wildman: Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: And then you sent them off?

Mike Wildman: Sent them, yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, you're getting letters from your folks. They're writing to you too.

Mike Wildman: Right. Well, they actually came and visited one time.

Phyllis Noble: They did?

Mike Wildman: They did. They were in Europe for some convention or something or another, and they decided they would come. And so they stayed at a nice hotel in Isfahan. And when they saw our house, it was like, what the? You know, because the hotel is nice. They have like Western toilets and.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: You know.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: I mean, our kitchen featured cockroaches that would come out at night, you know, out of the drain, you know.

Phyllis Noble: Sure.

Mike Wildman: When you turn the light on.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Wildman: So my mom was like kind of freaked out about the situation.

Phyllis Noble: But she wasn't sleeping there.

Mike Wildman: No, she wasn't sleeping there. But it was nice. And one of the things that she remembered was going shopping with me in the bazaar, and she wanted to buy this pair of shoes. She saw these shoes that she liked and negotiate, you know, try to make a deal.

Phyllis Noble: Ah, so in the bazaar, you don't pay what their first price.

Mike Wildman: No, no, no. So we made some kind of deal and I wasn't satisfied with it. And I told my mom, look, we've just got to walk away from the person, okay? And she's all upset. I want the shoes. Mom, just got to walk away from the person.

Phyllis Noble: It's not how you do it. Right.

Mike Wildman: You know? So we walked away and he came after us and said, okay, okay, you know.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: And so my mom was happy about that. She remembers that one. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Is there anything else that you'd like to say about your time in the Peace Corps? Would you recommend it?

Mike Wildman: Would I recommend it?

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: I guess it depends who I'm recommending it to.

Phyllis Noble: Well, a kid graduating from Berkeley today.

Mike Wildman: I'd would say that it's definitely a good experience and a good way to see people in real life in a different country. But it also is going to mean some sacrifice and discomfort. So you've got to be okay with that.

Phyllis Noble: Mm hmm. Do you think it changed your perspective on the world in any way?

Mike Wildman: Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it. Dramatically.

Phyllis Noble: Does it affect your own perception of your own country, of the United States, having been abroad, having been there?

Mike Wildman: Absolutely.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: Yeah, no, I gave you that moment of going to the village, you know, and the people kind of enjoying their life.

Phyllis Noble: Yes. No TV. That's right.

Mike Wildman: And all that stuff. And another thing I noticed was that the families were very close to each other. And, you know, when I, one of the things that struck me when I came back to the U.S. was this kind of casual way of parents picking up their kids from the airport. You know, like no big deal, you know, like from the international terminal at the airport. And contrast that to Iran, where it is a really big deal, you know, to see one of your family people coming back again.

Phyllis Noble: Embracing.

Mike Wildman: Very close. Yeah. And another thing was the contrast between someone in Iran who really was qualified. I met one person who wanted to be a doctor. Very, very good person. Not, not, you know, a not a Peace Corps volunteer. But somehow we met. I don't remember how. But he wanted to be a doctor and it was just very, very difficult, almost impossible, you know. And it just, I realized, you know, it's like an unfair situation, you know, because I can come back to the U.S. and I can do whatever I want, you know? But to be a doctor in Iran is like this tiny number of people can go to school there for it.

Phyllis Noble: And would you have to be a member of the moneyed elite in order to get that education?

Mike Wildman: That I don't even know about. Probably so. You know, you probably have to be connected somehow to.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah.

Mike Wildman: So that struck me. It's like unfortunate, you know, that people couldn't have the opportunities that we have.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. When you came back, what did you do with the rest of your life? Did you go back to school? Did you get an advanced degree or did you go right back to work?

Mike Wildman: What did I do? Well, I think I had taken some aptitude tests at some point that suggested that physical therapy would be a good career for me. Because I did have, I didn't want to live like I saw all the people at the companies that I work for, kind of these large companies. And it seemed like not so much of a joyful sort of career. And I realized that it's much better if you can do something that you're interacting with and helping people directly.

Phyllis Noble: Yeah. Do you think your experience in Iran helped you see that about yourself?

Mike Wildman: Well, it at least helped me to see that I needed to do something different than trying to go back to one of those companies or environments where I was before. So, um. So what? I started studying physical therapy, and to do that I had to take prerequisite courses at Cal State Hayward, now Cal State East Bay. So I was doing that. And, you know, Carol is a member of the Unification Church and so am I.

Phyllis Noble: Carol is my cousin, which is how we're mentioning Carol.

Mike Wildman: You know, yeah. I was going to the Berkeley campus to, after I got back, to do some research in the library. And I actually met one of the members of our church there on campus. They had a table there. And so I got connected that way. And, you know, I was, I was looking for something more than just kind of a small, selfish sort of lifestyle. And so I did want to meet this community. So I was introduced to the church and I continued to go into the, to continue with the physical therapy prerequisite classes. But eventually I realized, you know, really what I want to do is just be a full time missionary for the church.

Phyllis Noble: Ah.

Mike Wildman: So that's, that's, that's what I did. I didn't get another job with an engineering company for quite a while. Yeah. Yeah.

Phyllis Noble: Well, thank you, Mike.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: Is there anything else that you'd like to say?

Mike Wildman: No. Ask your next question.

Phyllis Noble: I think I'm out of questions.

Mike Wildman: Okay.

Phyllis Noble: Thank you very much. It's been wonderful getting your story.

Mike Wildman: Well, that was just one hour. You said 2 hours, not that I wanted to stay. Okay, that's, that's fine. All right.

Phyllis Noble: Thank you.

Mike Wildman: Okay. Well, thank you.