Contents
1. Transcript
1.1. Session One (February 15, 2014)
- FIDLER
- This is an interview with Anita Lee Coley. I’m Brad Fidler, and it is the afternoon of
February 15, 2014. Let’s start with your early life.
- COLEY
- Okay.
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me a bit about your childhood, to start?
- COLEY
- Yes. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, June 19th, 1947, and lived there a very short
period of time, probably less than a year, and then my family moved to Santa Barbara,
and then we lived there for two or three years and then moved to Santa Monica, and
that’s where I predominantly grew up and was raised, and lived there until I was thirty.
- FIDLER
- And what did your parents do?
- COLEY
- My father was in banking, in escrow, and then was in sales. He was originally from
Chicago. My mother was British, born and raised in Liverpool. My father and mother met
in England when my father was in the army, and my mother was a war bride and came over
on one of the war-bride ships and came to Chicago to live with my grandparents. And then
they, as I say, moved to Santa Barbara and then stayed in Santa Monica.
- FIDLER
- That’s where you’re from, then?
- COLEY
- It is, yes.
- FIDLER
- And you went to Santa Monica High School?
- COLEY
- Yes, I went to Lincoln Junior High School in Santa Monica, and I went to Santa Monica
High School and graduated in 1965.
- FIDLER
- Did you have any particular interests, electives that you might have taken, for example
in junior or high school?
- COLEY
- Well, in high school, you know, that was such a long time ago, but back in those days,
they had home economic classes and they had cooking and sewing classes, and I really
enjoyed those a lot. So to this day, I’m a very good cook, and sewing is one of my
hobbies and pastimes, and enjoy it very much, but that’s when you could really get
hands-on experience. It was an enjoyable time.
- FIDLER
- Then after high school, what did you do next?
- COLEY
- After high school—this is 1965—I got a job at the Santa Monica Mall. It wasn’t a mall
then; it was the Third Street where all the shops were. I got a job as a clerk in a
dress shop. Then I think at that time I was starting to take some classes at Santa
Monica College, just some general education classes, and then I moved on and got a job
at Sears, just down on Fourth and Pico. I believe it’s still there. I was upstairs in
the cashier’s office.
- FIDLER
- What year was Santa Monica City College and what year was Sears?
- COLEY
- I would say that was nineteen—well, I graduated in the summer of ‘65, so I’d say that
was the period between ’65 and ’67.
- FIDLER
- In a cashier’s office, there’s skills there that you’d have to learn particular to that
job?
- COLEY
- Yes. What would happen is all the departments in the store would bring in their receipts
for the day, and then myself and a couple of other clerks would take in the receipts and
account for the money and balance the books, basically. And it’s where I began to get
some experience in that vein, because from that job, one of the women that was working
in that office knew the operations manager at United California Bank, and that was back
in the day when that big bank was on Fourth Street and Wilshire, on the corner of Fourth
and Wilshire. So I interviewed for that job and became a bank teller. So that early
experience in the cashier’s office was real helpful.
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me anything more about your job at United California Bank?
- COLEY
- Well, I enjoyed it very much because I was right on the teller line and we had a lot of
businesses, vendors that would bring in their receipts, and I would get acquainted with
my customers, so they’d always come to my window. People that do banking several times a
week have their favorite tellers, so it was a very nice way to engage with people and
enjoy myself.
- FIDLER
- At this time, you were at Santa Monica City College?
- COLEY
- I believe so. I took courses there for a little while. I don’t think I stayed there too
long. It was while I was working at the bank that because of my relationship with my
high school boyfriend—his mother was working at UCLA. Her name was Imogen Beattie. And
while I was working at the bank, there was a very unfortunate event that happened to her
son, who was my former boyfriend. He had come home from the Vietnam War and was very
severely injured. So Imogen, his mom, reached out to me. We had been very close during
my high school years with her son, and so she reached out to me and told me what had
happened, and I made arrangements to travel with she and her husband to San Francisco,
to Letterman Hospital to visit her son.One thing led to another, and our relationship was rekindled, as unusual as that might
sound in that kind of setting. So I was reconnected with this family, and Imogen said
she had need for a keypunch operator in the engineering department at UCLA, and would I
consider coming in and working for her. So I did, and that was my entrée into working at
UCLA.
- FIDLER
- About when did you start at UCLA?
- COLEY
- Well, I remember very specifically because I started working for Imogen just before I
was turning twenty-one, because I know I spent my twenty-first birthday in San Francisco
at Letterman Hospital, so it’s very vivid for me. So that would have made it ’67. I’d
say the summer of ’68. 1968 was when I first was working at UCLA for Imogen. Then I
think I worked for her for a few months and then was interviewed by Dan Kerigan, and
that’s when I came onboard under Len’s contract.
- FIDLER
- It was key press operator, you said?
- COLEY
- Yeah, a keypunch operator.
- FIDLER
- Keypunch.
- COLEY
- Yeah.
- FIDLER
- So can you tell me about what that job is?
- COLEY
- Well, yeah. Back in the day, there were punch cards, you know, the manila punch cards
that data was keypunched into. So we had these big keypunch machines and we’d load them
up with these cards, and then we’d keypunch data in that we were reading off of
someone’s programming sheet, and then we’d keypunch that data into the cards and then
return that stack of cards or that box of cards to the programmer. And then across the
hall were keypunch card readers. There were probably three of us that were keypunch
operators at that time, and we would kind of be aware of those machines and we’d sort
cards there and clear card jams and that kind of thing.
- FIDLER
- So did you develop relationships with these programmers the way you did at the bank, or
was it just faceless?
- COLEY
- When I was working for Imogen, I didn’t have a lot of interaction with the programmers.
It wasn’t until I came up the hall to where the lab is, where the IMP was, that I began
to develop relationships with the graduate students and the programmers. I’d say that
was the middle, toward the end of 1969. I’m not sure exactly the month I was hired in
’69 by Len, but it was around that time.
- FIDLER
- Just before moving in with Len, with the punch cards were you exposed to computing in
that job in any meaningful way?
- COLEY
- I don’t think so. It was more just data entry into the punch card machine, so it was
more like typing because the punch card machines had a typewriter-like board, and you
would key in the information and then it would create holes in the punch cards. You’d
have your stack of cards there, and then that’s what the computer would go and read. But
I didn’t have any interface with the computer.
- FIDLER
- And what department was that for?
- COLEY
- Well, it was in the engineering department, but I think Imogen’s group serviced the math
science department as well.
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me more about the actual day-to-day, what you’d do at that job?
- COLEY
- Sure. We would get a job and that would be someone’s programming. We’d have papers where
they had written out their program, and then each of us—I think there were three or four
of us—we sat at a desk that had a built-in card punch, so it was actually built into the
desk, and it had like a typewriter keyboard. Then in the back of it was a trough, a long
trough, two feet deep, where you would load in the unpunched cards and then read from
the manuscript, read from the programming copy, and just key in the symbols. And then as
you keyed them in, this machine would punch holes in the card.Then we would deliver the boxed keypunch cards back to the programmer or give it back to
Imogen Beattie, and that would be completing the job. And then give them back to the
programmer, and then they could run them on the computer.
- FIDLER
- Was that a particularly gendered position?
- COLEY
- Gosh, bot that I’m aware of. One of my good pals, Mark Cirlin, worked there, and then I
think there were two other girls but, you know, we’d still laugh and joke and have a
good time. It was a fairly boring job. I mean, really, it was somewhat tedious, but it
was a very small room, and I think there were four of us in a line there. We just made
light of it, and Mark had a very wonderful sense of humor, and we just made the best of
it.
- FIDLER
- Socially, were you talking with or hanging out with people from nearby rooms or
departments or anything like that?
- COLEY
- Well, I’m trying to think. In that early time, I think that position, I was only there
for a few months because as my personal situation with Imogen’s son took a turn and I
was not able to maintain my relationship with him, and so that created just a parting of
ways for Imogen and I, and so I was in a position to be available for another job. It
was a difficult transition to make personally, and my relationship with her, I think,
was a challenge for her. It was a disappointment for her, but that’s just the path my
life took.
- FIDLER
- Before we move on to the Network Measurement Center, is there anything else about that
job that you want to mention that I’ve missed?
- COLEY
- Not about that job in particular, but just in general for the decade that I was at UCLA,
it was a really wonderful place to work. It was so much fun. There was so much happening
there, and it was a whole world that opened up just being on that campus. I can
certainly share more about that later, but I was delighted to be there. And at the time,
you know, I was young. I was twenty, twenty-one at the time, and I felt very honored to
get a job at United California Bank, and then the possibility of working at UCLA was
like, oh, my goodness. It was very auspicious, as far as I was concerned, so it was a
very pivotal time in my life.
- FIDLER
- Were you impacted at all by the politics of the late sixties?
- COLEY
- Absolutely. Of course, the Vietnam War had a very intense and profound effect on my life
personally because of the events that had occurred with this family and my high school
boyfriend. Chuck Young was chancellor at that time and he was chancellor for a very long
time. I think he was chancellor the whole time I was there. And my sister-in-law, Karen
Coley, my husband’s sister, worked for Chuck Young. She was his front office assistant
and receptionist there, and she recalls having that office just—there were sit-ins all
the time where people were, and the office was closed.I can remember one time going out on the top floor of Boelter Hall and looking out over
the parking structure, and the complete roof of the parking structure was covered with
police cars, and the parking structure across the street. So there was a lot going on
politically and socially and culturally. So I was kind of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
It was all kind of new to me, but the war protests and the Vietnam protests were very
intense and meaningful for me at that time because of my personal life.
- FIDLER
- Can you say any more about what that political activity meant to you?
- COLEY
- Well, I’ll tell you, when I went up to Letterman Hospital in the Presidio, I was still
living at home with my parents and I was a fairly naïve twenty-year-old. I was still
living at home and fairly sheltered life, but when I went up to Presidio in Letterman
Hospital and saw what was going on in that hospital and what these young men—I had never
felt the kind of—well, I’d never felt rage before. And when I saw these young men
absolutely shattered, not to mention someone who is very important to me in my young
life, it was awful.
- FIDLER
- What was the process by which you ended up at the Network Measurement Center?
- COLEY
- Well, I actually do have a really pretty vivid memory of coming out of my keypunch
operators’ room and walking down the hall and seeing Dan Kerigan sweeping the hallway.
[laughs] I really do. It’s like I have a few little snapshot memories. I think we’d seen
each other in the hall and said hello or something, but we got engaged in conversation,
and he said he was looking for a computer operator and would I be interested, something
like that, and we engaged in conversation, and then I got the job, and that was the
beginning.
- FIDLER
- For the record, is that Kerigan or Garigan?
- COLEY
- Maybe it’s Garigan. Dan Garigan, yes. I beg your pardon. It was Garigan, yeah.
- FIDLER
- And do you know what his role was?
- COLEY
- I don’t. I think he was like the lab manager, because I know he was sweeping, and that’s
one of the things I ended up doing was keeping the lab clean. But that was the
beginning. I remember that encounter because it was very pivotal for me.
- FIDLER
- You said that was late 1969?
- COLEY
- Yes. I would say that’s—well, maybe—April, May, June. Might be late summer, early fall.
I don’t know exactly what my hire date was, but toward the latter part of 1969.
- FIDLER
- How did you get trained there and how did you learn about what people were doing? Was it
an osmosis process, where you just picked up the customs and the practices, or were you
formally taken through and shown things?
- COLEY
- I don’t recall specifically. I had never mounted tapes on a tape drive, so I’m sure
somebody taught me how to do that, probably Dan. I picked a lot up by osmosis. You know,
my duties were not complex. That’s for sure. I kept the log and helped schedule computer
time and mounted tapes for people, and made sure that the maintenance on the machines
and the computers were scheduled, kind of oversaw that, and any vendors I had to work
with, if anything broke, schedule repairs and that kind of thing. So I kind of picked it
up, I think.
- FIDLER
- Well, let’s go through some of those tasks, because that’s a lot of things. So for
mounting tapes, I don’t know how to mount a tape. [Coley laughs.] Was it in response to
an immediate request or was it part of a broader schedule?
- COLEY
- Well, I did have a scheduled backup that I did every single night at five o’clock. And
so this SIGMA 7 machine, it was an SDS machine, I think. SDS, yes.
- FIDLER
- Yeah, Scientific Data Systems.
- COLEY
- Big, big refrigerators. They were huge. And I would back up that system every single
night at five o’clock. I think it would take one or two tapes, and these tape machines,
they were the size of refrigerators. They had glass windows at the top, and you’d just
slide the top down, slide the window down and mount the tape and spool it onto the empty
reel and set it up to go, then go over to the TDY machine and key in the
instructions.Then whatever new work that had been done that day, just key in the commands, and then it
would get loaded onto the tape and backed up, and then I would just put the date on the
tape. And then there was a rack of tapes, and would just date those so that any of the
software development was all backed up.
- FIDLER
- In the backing up, was there a command that would automatically put anything new onto
the tapes, or did you have to go through and manually select what had been changed?
- COLEY
- No, I didn’t manually select it. The process was pretty simple. I’m not sure what the
programming was, how far back it backed it up, but I know that it was essential that it
get done every night. And I’m pretty sure I made two copies. You know, this is
forty-five years ago. So it was something that absolutely had to be done every night.
- FIDLER
- And it sounds like it might have impacted your schedule. I mean, starting at five p.m.,
you weren’t getting out of there early.
- COLEY
- Oh, no. And then I got married. I met my husband at UCLA, and we were married in July of
1970. So when the IMP was installed, I was on twenty-four-hour call. So if that
crashed—in fact, my husband and I were talking about that just a couple of days ago. We
were newly married, and if it would crash, my telephone number was on the face of the
IMP, and I would get called. Then I’d come in and reboot it and get in contact with—I
think it was BBN. Yeah. And we’d reboot it. We were living in—gosh, my husband was
[unclear]. We were living on Sawtelle Boulevard in West L.A. then. Then go back home.
Yeah. But I didn’t care. It was fun. I mean, that part wasn’t fun, but it was fun to be
there.
- FIDLER
- So one of my questions was going to be about the schedules of the machines impacted the
schedules of the humans in that room. For you, how often were you on twenty-four-hour
call?
- COLEY
- Well, I didn’t get called very often. It was very rare that I got called, but I was on
call for a long time, I mean years. Once the IMP was installed—I’m not sure exactly what
year it was that was installed, but as other nodes came on, yeah, and I don’t remember
specifically who, but I know there were programmers that liked to work at night, late at
night, so they’d have their own time then.I have a really, a really vivid memory, one of those memories of Vint Cerf. Vint Cerf
would come in and have me mount tapes for him, very lovely man, very genteel and always
very courteous and thoughtful, would always engage in just social conversation briefly,
very genteel man. Whenever he’d walk in the room, I’d always think, you know, here comes
a really lovely soul.
- FIDLER
- So did you have different kinds of professional or social relations with different
people that worked in that lab?
- COLEY
- Well, you know, a lot of the graduate students, because they were in so much of the
time, they became some of my friends. My husband and I, who worked in the next building,
became friends with some of these guys and would do social events. We took lots of ski
trips up 395 up to Mammoth. And we had a sailboat. I think we bought a sailboat about
1975, something like that, and we’d go on sailing trips and invite some friends from my
contacts there. It was nice.
- FIDLER
- I’ve seen a picture of you at what looks like a lab party in Boelter Hall.
- COLEY
- Yes. Well, yeah, that would be a party that I put together. Every year I collected all
of the—there was a fellow across the hall named Bill McCullough and he had a different
lab over there, but, I don’t know, we were buddies for years and years. I would collect
all the computer printout paper, and he helped me. He was kind of my buddy in this. He
would find a storage room that I could just all year long pack this paper into, and we
had boxes and boxes and boxes of it. And then he would make arrangements for a pickup
truck, and then we would take it downtown L.A. someplace and sell it, and then that
would be what would finance our Christmas party.And then one of my pals, her father owned a deli in—I’ve forgotten her name now. But
anyway, so we’d get food for the party and then we’d have a wonderful Christmas party
every year, and we did that year after year.
- FIDLER
- Were you responsible for other social functions as well around the lab?
- COLEY
- I don’t know. I was pretty chatty and I liked to have a good time, so I do remember
those Christmas parties. I’m not sure—we had people over to our home, that’s for sure. I
remember Farouk Kamoun. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard—well, he and Fouad Tobagi were
real good pals of my husband and I. I know a whole big group of us—I think Mark was
involved, too, Mark Kampe and a whole big group of us, maybe fifteen of us, went out to
dinner a few times and just had those kinds of encounters.
- FIDLER
- So it sounds like, from what you’re saying, there’s a lot of socialization in but then
outside of the lab as well.
- COLEY
- There was, yeah. Well, we were all pretty young, you know. I was between twenty and
thirty when I worked there, and a lot of these graduate students were very, very young.
The programmers were young. They were all in their twenties.
- FIDLER
- I’d heard that there were, say, about forty people that were in some way working in 3420
in the lab. Did you get a sense, like, did it feel like one large team, or were there
certain groups?
- FIDLER
- Yeah. Well, I had exposure to certain groups. I mean, I was in meetings, but on my
daily, I would see Jon Postel a lot. I’d see Jon Postel every day. I’d see Charlie Kline
every day, Mark Kampe every day, and then later on, Jerry Popek and Vint Cerf was there
a lot. So those were kind of the core. And Dave Farber. Those were kind of the core
group that I would see a lot.And then there’s a lot of graduate students that I know by face now. I can see their
faces, but I don’t remember their names. Johnny Wong was there and—gosh, who else? Bill
Goodin. I think Bill Goodin is still at the university, I believe. He was a graduate
student when I was there. I think he’s the head of UCLA Extension now. And Lou
Nelson.Gary Fultz, I know he was working on computer graphics, and I remember it was very, very
primitive. We had a huge CRT tube in the lab, and he was working on his Ph.D. I remember
one day just sitting and watching him, and he had some kind of pad and a stylus and was
just drawing these really primitive marks, and then they’d show up on the computer or up
on the screen, and he seemed very excited about that. But I can remember now it was so
basic and primitive, but it was cutting-edge work at the time.
- FIDLER
- So did you have a sense of what most of these people were doing, how their jobs were
different?
- COLEY
- You know, I can’t say that I did real specifically. I mean, Gary stands out because it
was graphic, but I honestly can’t say I know. I know they were all working really hard.
I remember that. The people that I’ve mentioned, just very, very vital people and very
engaged in their work, and that was always very inspiring. And there was a lot of
laughter in that lab, you know, a lot of hard work, but a lot of laughter and a lot of
vitality.Gosh, I have so many images of Len. I spent time in meetings with him, and just the
feeling, in retrospect, that I have is he was so well respected and he was such a
leader. I remember a time when he had pretty severe back trouble, and there was a period
of time, I’m not sure how long it was, but he was immobilized. I can remember in his
office he had a big conference table in the middle of his office, and he would lay flat
on his back so that he wouldn’t be in pain, and we’d just sit on the floor in his office
and have meetings. I guess my point is, is he was not going to be stopped. Nothing would
stop him. I can see him striding down the hallways, always courteous, always had a
smile, but a man on a mission, always. I always had the feeling, and it was certainly
true for me, that he had the respect of the kids that were working for him. Because they
were kids. I mean, you look back now and, gosh, I look back now, we were all really
young.
- FIDLER
- Before we get back to the different roles that you had, we’ve moved into this area of
the people that you worked with, and you just mentioned meetings, for example, that
you’d be involved in. Is there more that you can say about the kinds of professional or
social relations you had with these people, or what these meetings would have been about
that you were attending and what you were doing there?
- COLEY
- Well, I know that we would have a weekly meeting where everyone would just kind of take
their turn around the room and kind of bring Len up to date on where they were on
development, and I typically wouldn’t have a whole lot to say, but if I was looking at a
new printer or something, I would share that, and if anybody had any requests of me that
they wanted me to look into anything, I would. But these were real technical meetings,
and Len just included me, I think, out of courtesy and continuity and just to keep me
involved.But I do remember when Jerry Popek—I’m not sure when he came into the department, but he
and Charlie Kline, very involved in data security. I don’t remember real specifically,
but we used to have meetings and we’d all sit on the floor in his office, and I remember
when data security started to be talked about, at least it first came into my awareness.
Obviously, they probably were talking about it a lot earlier. But then the meetings
would really be focused on that and the development of packet security.
- FIDLER
- I think Popek arrived around ’72, and then I think Charlie Kline’s work with him started
to get really security-focused by ’73, if those dates make sense to you.
- COLEY
- Yes, they do.
- FIDLER
- So is that about when those concerns started showing up in your world?
- COLEY
- Yeah. I mean, that’s when I became aware of it. Yeah, we would meet in his office, and
those were very regular meetings. Those were weekly meetings.
- FIDLER
- You mentioned briefly printers. Were you involved in hardware ordering or anything like
that?
- COLEY
- There was a long period of time where I worked for Ari Olakianan, and he pretty much
oversaw the infrastructure of that lab, and I was kind of his clerical person. So if we
needed a printer or needed some new kind of hardware, he would have me investigate and
check out vendors and report back to him. And then as I said earlier, I would schedule
repair work and kind of oversee that repair work. I was kind of the go-to person for
that.
- FIDLER
- You’ve mentioned security and then also the graphics work that Gary Fultz was doing. How
did you come to learn about the broader work that they were doing at the Center and, for
example, what the ARPANET was and how they were using it?
- COLEY
- Well, you know, I kept my eyes and ears open and I would have—at some point, I’m not
sure when in my career then I got an office, but even before I had an office, I’d have a
lot of conversation. Charlie Kline and I talked a lot, and John and I would talk a
little bit, but Charlie was—we had a real nice social connection, and I know he came to
my wedding, he and Lanaii. But I think I just kind of—you know, I wasn’t a particularly
technically oriented person, but we’d have conversation and I’d just pay attention to
what was going on.
- FIDLER
- I guess technically oriented or not, most people weren’t thinking about computer
security in 1973.
- COLEY
- Yeah. [laughs] Well, I know it was very exciting. It was a very, very exciting time, and
when the connections between our IMP and UCSB and SRI were happening, you could feel the
exhilaration. It was a time when Steve Crocker was very involved and Dave Crocker, his
brother, was around. I think he was working on his graduate degree at the time. I look
back now, and there was a feeling of exhilaration then. Everybody was working really
hard, long hours.One of the things, as I look back, I didn’t work elbow to elbow with anybody in any kind
of technical way, but it just seemed to me that everyone got along very well. There was
a lot of professional respect, and people were really working hard collaboratively,
really had a mission, you know, as I look back now. And I never saw any pettiness. I
just really didn’t. Everybody was very hardworking and earnest in their endeavors.
- FIDLER
- Did you have a sense of what the Crockers were up to?
- COLEY
- I knew Dave socially. I know his brother was doing something really important, but I
didn’t really know what—I know he worked pretty closely with Len, and he was in the lab
a lot, and I know David was doing lots of research. I think he was at the Annenberg
School at the time. But I couldn’t tell you too much more than that.
- FIDLER
- Let’s veer back to these different responsibilities that you had. We started with
mounting tape. You mentioned restarting the IMP. So was that something that you would do
for the length of your time at UCLA?
- COLEY
- I don’t know when the IMP was installed. I remember when it was delivered. I don’t
exactly when it was installed and up and running.
- FIDLER
- So in very late October, they had something of a connection with Stanford Research
Institute. By the end of the year, there was not only Stanford Research Institute, but
UCSB.
- COLEY
- Santa Barbara.
- FIDLER
- Yeah. And Utah.
- COLEY
- And Utah, right.
- FIDLER
- And then in January 1970, BBN was at it, and throughout later in that year, I think the
process by which BBN monitored the different sites became more formalized and maybe a
bit more rigorous. So I don’t know if during that time your IMP duties would have
shifted or became more encompassing, maybe.
- COLEY
- The duties that I recall I had were not encompassing in the way you’re alluding to. It
was simple and straightforward. I do recall if I did have trouble, I think it was Steve
Crocker that I went to or called if I had trouble rebooting, now that we’re talking
about it. Yeah, I can see him standing there and teaching me how to reboot it, yeah, but
I don’t remember it being more than I could handle at the time. I don’t recall it being
particularly complex.
- FIDLER
- And by encompassing, I’m also just meaning getting up in the middle of the night to
drive in to UCLA and restart this darn thing.
- COLEY
- You know, as I look back, I think youth, you can contribute a lot of it to youth, but
also I really felt very good working there and I felt privileged to work there. I didn’t
really know how auspicious an environment it was, but I really enjoyed being there and I
enjoyed the people I worked for. So it was just part of my responsibility and, you know,
getting up in the middle of the night. Now, forty years later, would be a different
experience than it was then, but it was okay. And as I say, there was a real culture of
respect and hard work, and that’s influential when you work in that kind of a culture.
- FIDLER
- You’ve mentioned that a few times, and I think that’s definitely a theme we should come
back to, because other people have noticed the kind of particular culture about that
place and time as well.With regard to these duties of yours, you also mentioned scheduling time on the
computers, for example. Can you explain that to me?
- COLEY
- Yeah. If a graduate student had a particular program he wanted to test or run, and it
was going to take two or three hours to do that, then that block of time, he would come
in and schedule that block of time ahead of time.
- FIDLER
- So was that schedule to sit down at a teletype or have the whole SIGMA to themselves?
- COLEY
- Yeah, they would pretty much have, as I recall, just kind of have the machine and have
the room and do what they needed to do, and then that would be their time slot. They’d
have a chunk of time and—
- FIDLER
- Oh, and you say have the room.
- COLEY
- Well, I mean have control of the TDY and the SIGMA 7, would be under their domain for
that chunk of time.
- FIDLER
- And is that the extent of the scheduling, people that would be coming in to use SIGMA?
- COLEY
- Yeah. I think it is pretty rudimentary.
- FIDLER
- There was more computers added over time. Were you involved in any of those other
computers connected to the IMP?
- COLEY
- Well, at some point we moved from the SDS SIGMA 7 to the DEC computers, and I remember
that was a big transition. I don’t remember what year that was, but I remember that was
a big transition and I witnessed it. I don’t know how involved I was. I know I was
involved in not overseeing, but kind of monitoring and helping schedule the maintenance,
the ongoing maintenance of that DEC equipment. I remember our maintenance guy, John
Goings. I don’t know whatever happened to John, but he was part of the installation and
would come in and do the maintenance.
- FIDLER
- I’ve seen a picture of you standing over people who were doing what looked like
maintenance or installation of probably those new machines that you’re talking about.
- COLEY
- Yes. That sounds about right, yeah.
- FIDLER
- And you mentioned repairs, scheduling maintenance or repair.
- COLEY
- Yeah. If the printer would break or any of the terminals would break or need repair,
then I would call the vendor and schedule that and then just make sure it got done and
completed and was satisfactory.
- FIDLER
- And in terms of these kinds of duties, am I missing anything, or does that largely cover
it?
- COLEY
- I think that largely covers it, yeah. That’s pretty much what I did.
- FIDLER
- I notice that on a whole bunch of the documentation, not only for the Network
Measurement Center, but for the network working group and other reports, they’ve got
contact information that’s listed for different people at different sites. You show up
an awful lot with a phone number. So it looks like you might have been getting—I mean,
this was distributed widely, so I’m curious how often you were contacted by people from
either other sites or BBN, because your name shows up everywhere.
- COLEY
- Well, I can’t quantify that for you. I certainly don’t have a memory of it being
problematic. I do remember being called a few times in the middle of the night, but as I
say, that wasn’t a problem.It was cute, you know, when the fortieth anniversary of the Internet festivities were
announced, my husband and I and our daughter Meredith went to that. That was a few years
ago. We walked into the foyer of the Faculty Center, and there were artifacts and
pictures and displays, and my daughter walked up to, I think it was a photograph of an
IMP log, and she just said, “Mom, that’s your handwriting.” [laughs]I was like, “Oh, it is.” So I don’t recall being disturbed. Let’s put it that way.
- FIDLER
- Speaking of the IMP log, one of the ways that Jon Postel’s rule was described—well, not
only making everyone use that thing, but also as a kind of enforcer of rules and
regulations. I don’t know if that’s accurate, though. Does that remind you of any
experiences with him?
- COLEY
- Well, Jon just had a special place in my heart. I just, again, have one of those
snapshots images of him flying through the door of the lab, and that’s what he would
always do. He’d just be flying through the door in his bare feet and his jeans and his
long black hair and a ponytail and kind of a scruffy little shirt on, and he was a man
that had someplace to go and something to do. So he had that real forward moving energy,
but he would always be friendly and civil. He was such a unique-appearing person.I’ve forgotten now his wife’s name, but I remember in contrast, he had a very tender
relationship with his wife. You could see, when anytime she would show on campus
sometimes, and you could just see they were sweethearts, and that was just a lovely
contrast to see. But he was in that lab a lot, obviously, yeah.
- FIDLER
- The things we’ve been talking about so far, do they span from, say, 1969 to 1979 when
you were there, or did some of these ebb and flow or disappear over time? Did new
responsibilities or relationships emerge?
- COLEY
- I think it spanned pretty much that whole time. I mean, the people that I’ve mentioned,
kind of the core people were there that whole time. It’s kind of just a general flavor
of my experience there. At this point in my life, I can’t really discern one period of
time from another, quite frankly, but most of those people that I’m mentioning were
there the whole time that I was there.
- FIDLER
- Something I forgot to mention was supervision of the work. Was it formal or informal?
Was it by multiple people or one person?
- COLEY
- It was by multiple people. I know I worked for Lou Nelson for a while, a handful of
years. I worked for Ari for a few years. They were my primary bosses that I remember. Of
course, I would report to Len in these meetings and so forth, but he didn’t supervise me
in any kind of direct way. So those are the two bosses that I really remember, and they
were very good friends. Ari and Lou were very close friends. Lou was wonderful. He was a
great boss. Ari was too. They were both interesting people and, again, very hard
workers.
- FIDLER
- When you were there, did you feel that you were working for the Network Measurement
Center or engineering or UCLA? Was there an identity?
- COLEY
- Well, definitely the Network Measurement Center, but obviously under the umbrella of
UCLA. We were definitely a unique group that was set apart from the university at large.
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me more about set apart?
- COLEY
- Well, it was just like this enclave of geniuses that were running about. I mean, I’m
looking back at it now, of course, but it’s like I knew that intuitively, and now I can
articulate what I knew directly then. I can look back and see, my gosh, these people
were really geniuses and mapmakers, really. But you had that feeling that you were in
the company of extremely smart, dedicated people. So I think in that way, I didn’t have
any other experience in the university in academia, so it just felt like a very special
core enclave.
- FIDLER
- Can you explain to me more about this special culture? You said there’s this unique
enclave. It’s been noted that there was something unique at least about that time and
researchers that were working on the ARPANET in different ways in 1969 to the early
seventies. Is there more you can say about that?
- COLEY
- Well, as I look back, just the feeling that I had is there was so much ambition being
driven and expressed. Let’s see if I can find a way to describe it. The people that I’ve
mentioned, they were compelled. That’s the experience I had. They were compelled. It
wasn’t about getting a degree. They just were driven. There was an excellence and, as I
said, an ethic and a devotion that was apparent, you know, even in my technically naïve
observations, but just the humanity of it is what I’m speaking to. These were people
that I really enjoyed and really respected, and I didn’t know what they were doing.
[laughs] I had a sense of what they were doing, but certainly not one that was in depth.
But just observing them as human beings, it was inspiring.
- FIDLER
- The environment sounds remarkable.
- COLEY
- It was a remarkable environment, yeah. That’s why I say these things of getting called
in the night, I just was very, very happy being there. And UCLA, aside from my
environment there, UCLA was a cornucopia at that time, you know, culturally.I remember going up to the Center and going swimming. I remember one time my husband and
I went to Royce Hall to see The Band. It was a group called The Band. And this was
probably in the mid-seventies, and Royce Hall was a very small theater, pretty small
theater, and we had great seats and it was really fun, and the opening act was Steve
Martin. I remember I had to look away, I was laughing so hard. He was opening for the
main attraction, and we just laughed our heads off. So we had those kind of
opportunities very often.
- FIDLER
- That’s interesting, because much of what we’ve been saying is focused on this one
physical room. Socially, but then also professionally, did you end up having to traverse
other parts of the Boelter Hall math sciences or campus as part of your work?
- COLEY
- Let’s see. What did I do? Can you just ask me and say a little more about what you’re
wanting to know?
- FIDLER
- I think there were other computer centers, for example
- COLEY
- Yes.
- FIDLER
- I think, especially by the late 1970s, there were some computers connected to the IMP
that weren’t in 3420 Boelter Hall.
- COLEY
- Yeah. I do remember going over to math science addition a lot and taking jobs there and
picking printouts up from there. That I do remember now that you’re asking, yeah. That
was just in the adjacent building.
- FIDLER
- I’m curious if you ever had an email address while you were at—
- COLEY
- [laughs] I never did. I never did. That’s a great question.
- FIDLER
- The Network Measurement Center closes in 1975. And before we move to the last bit of
your time at UCLA, I just had a couple more questions.
- COLEY
- Sure.
- FIDLER
- We talked briefly about the scheduling and the management, and there’s almost a sense of
it being—well, there’s an informal element.
- COLEY
- Yes.
- FIDLER
- And I’m wondering if you can explain that to me a little bit more.
- COLEY
- Well, if I could characterize it, it felt like an open-door policy. It was a lab, you
know, and so it was available to people to come in and hang out and do their work and
confer with other people, so an open-door policy. And I remember there was a period of
time—just to kind of give you a flavor of how people were together, in my observation,
right next door to the lab was—and I don’t know how that room is used now, but there’s a
big room there, and there was a big game set up there. There was a huge table set up,
and I don’t think it was Dungeons and Dragons. I think it was a game like that, maybe an
earlier kind of game. I don’t know. You’d know.
- FIDLER
- You showed me a picture and it almost looked like a European theater.
- COLEY
- Yeah, yeah. I forget the name of the [unclear].
- FIDLER
- Like some kind of war—
- COLEY
- Mark Kampe told me the name of that because he remembered that time. And that was set up
for a really long time. People would be in the lab and then they’d come in there. It was
almost like a green room in a way. People would just hang out and socialize, and a lot
of graduate students would come in and out of there. It was the social space. So that,
you know, if that kind of gives you a feeling. It was, obviously, very important and
intense work going on, but people were social with each other, and there was a
camaraderie. That’s the word I’m looking for. There was a camaraderie that I think
nurtured and supported the intellectual work that was going on. There was a culture
there of camaraderie. At least that’s what I felt.
- FIDLER
- That sounds like it lines up to the meetings you described where it’s once a week and
you go around a table with updates rather than micromanagement.
- COLEY
- Yeah. It was sharing updates. It was you’re bringing a contribution, yeah. It didn’t
feel like a management meeting. It felt like a sharing information meeting and a
platform for collaboration. Those meetings were not tense. They were rich and a lot of
information, but there was not a tension there. So, yeah. And they were well attended,
and they were probably at least an hour, and a lot shared and obvious movement. A lot of
bare feet. [laughs] I shouldn’t say a lot of bare feet, but some bare feet.
- FIDLER
- There’s a reputation of engineering work during that time as being predominantly white
and male. How much does that line up with your experience?
- COLEY
- I’d definitely say there was a predominance. There were a couple of female graduate
students. I certainly remember Evelyn Walton [phonetic]. I’m not sure at what period of
time, when she was there, but a few years she was around. I know she worked very closely
with Mark Kampe, and just a lovely person and, again, another hard worker, and I think
Mark may have been mentoring her or working with her. She was there for quite a while.
And then there was another graduate student, and I think she was only there for a year,
but, quite frankly, I don’t remember her name, a real pretty woman. But those are about
the only two women I recall, and the rest were white men, white boys. [laughs] They were
pretty young.
- FIDLER
- Do you recall anything about the closing of the Network Measurement Center? Was there a
shift in the kind of research that was being done or the people that were around, around
1975 when it shut down?
- COLEY
- Gosh, I don’t have any memory of that, quite frankly.
- FIDLER
- It does seem from what you’ve said that these experiences you’re describing traverse
that.
- COLEY
- Yeah, they really do. They’re just kind of memories and scenarios and impressions and
recollections that I’m kind of pulling from that whole decade, quite frankly. They’re
not sequential in my mind at this point.
- FIDLER
- It’s interesting, though, that these experiences would remain really rather consistent,
with or without that particular center.
- COLEY
- Interesting, yeah.
- FIDLER
- Before we move on, the post-UCLA life of yours, is there anything else, any anecdotes,
any impressions, anything at all about your time at UCLA that you want to share? And we
can come back to this at the end too.
- COLEY
- I had a wonderful time. I personally felt well regarded, respected, enjoyed as a member.
Always well regarded and respected by Len, no question about that. I made lots of
friends there. A lot of the girls and young women that were secretaries and
administrative assistants there became friends. I socialized with a lot of those young
women over that period of time. Aside from my family, it comprised really the base of my
work life and my social life. I saw those people every day and often on the weekends and
holidays. So it was a very rich time in my life. It’s where I met my husband. I felt
very privileged to be there. You know, looking back, it was a very prestigious position
to be in.
- FIDLER
- How did you come to leave UCLA?
- COLEY
- Well, my personal life was my husband and I were separating, and it was a time of
transition for me and I was seeking truth, as it is, as it were. So I investigated
Esalen Institute in Big Sur and decided to do a weekend there. And one thing led to
another, and I became aware of a work scholar program available there and decided to
just do some personal growth work. This was the late seventies, and I was
developmentally just moving into my young adulthood in a more accelerated way, and this
personal transition I was in, in my marriage. So that’s what I decided to do, and I made
this commitment to Esalen Institute.Soon after I left UCLA—I don’t know if this is accurate, but I think that was right
around the time Len was developing Technology Transfer Institute. I think that was right
around that time. Soon after I left UCLA, I got a call from Len and he asked me if I
would be interested in a position with him. I think it would be something like an event
producer or something like that, and it was such a lovely phone call to get, but at that
point, you know, I was taking this left turn and just going to do some retrospection.
And I’ve often wondered if that hadn’t been the case and I’d interviewed with him for
that position where my life would have gone. But it was very generous of him to consider
me in that way.
- FIDLER
- You mentioned seeking truth. That’s a big thing to seek.
- COLEY
- It is. [laughs]
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me more about exactly what that entails?
- COLEY
- Well, I had no idea what that entailed, and I kind of said that in a little flippant
kind of way, but just wanting to know more about how life works and how I’m wired up,
and Esalen was the epitome of where people do that internal investigative work. I’d
heard about it for a long time. That was around the time of the advent of est, the
Werner Erhard Seminar Training. That was very big in the seventies, and so people were
doing consciousness-raising kinds of work, and that was something I was interested in.
So Esalen looked like it had my name on it, so that’s what I did. It was a very
impactful experience I had there. I had many wonderful experiences there, and that was
the beginning of kind of a budding interest in pursuing some kind of path in psychology.
- FIDLER
- Can you tell me more about what you learned there, what you did there, and also just
when this was exactly?
- COLEY
- It was 1979. It was early 1979. I think I took up residence at Esalen in March of 1979,
and I was there for the remainder of the year. Then by that time, my husband and I were
beginning reconciling, and he had moved to Nevada County by then, and so we were
reconciling long distance, and then I decided to give up—we sold our properties in
Pacific Palisades and I gave up my apartment and decided to move to Nevada County and
continue our reconciliation process, which we did, and that worked out beautifully.
- FIDLER
- Do you mind if we stay with Esalen just for a bit?
- COLEY
- No, I don’t mind at all.
- FIDLER
- I’m curious about what you studied and what you learned there.
- COLEY
- Well, Esalen is right on the cliffs in Big Sur, and so there are natural sulfur hot
pools there and massage. Actually, in the world of massage, there is a particular kind
of massage called Esalen massage. I mean, there’s Swedish massage and Shiatsu and all
kinds of massage, but Esalen is a particular kind of massage technique, and so I learned
some massage there, took lots of hot-tub baths. In fact, I remember going down to the
baths one time, and that was a clothing-optional place when you’re getting a massage and
hot tubbing. I can remember going down really, really late at night to have a hot tub
and walked into the baths, and Linda Ronstadt and Jerry Brown were sitting in one of the
hot tubs. [laughs]So as a seminarian there and as a staff member there, you were able to take workshops
there, and so there was a lot of Gestalt workshops and there was a lot of bodywork going
on. Betty Fuller was there. Fuller bodywork is a particular kind of work, and
Feldenkrais bodywork was going on there. So it was kind of a smorgasbord of workshops
and bodywork.
- FIDLER
- What do you think you came away with?
- COLEY
- Well, in hindsight, I think it kind of set up the track for me to be a much more
reflective person because just the environment there and kind of the vibe there. I mean,
there was a lot going on with LSD research there. The Grofs were there at the time, Stan
Grof and his wife, Christina Grof, were there. I think Stan Grof was from Harvard doing
pretty intense workshop or research with LSD. I didn’t do any of that, but the point is
it was a time in life and an environment that really supported looking inward, and so
that kind of set a pace for me, a track for me that, heretofore, had not been set. I had
not been particularly introspective. I’d been intuitive and interested in people and
social and skilled in that way, but I hadn’t really done much self-exploration. So that
experience at Esalen I kind of embarked on, on a hunch, and it turned out to be pivotal
in terms of my personal life and my evolution as a human being, and then it turned out
professionally.
- FIDLER
- Can you take me through the professional career that that then impacted?
- COLEY
- Yeah. The realization of that was a little delayed because when I moved up to Nevada
County and reconciled with my husband, I’d sold property in Los Angeles and had an
opportunity to do something, to make some kind of an investment or start an
adventure—not an adventure, but a project in some way. The wife of one of my husband’s
friends in Nevada County, my husband thought she and I would be a really good match and
be good friends, and so I got acquainted with her, and she wanted to open a business. So
I thought, “Okay, let’s start a business.”So we started. We bought a building in Grass Valley and started an antique reproduction
business and sold oak roll-top desks and that kind of thing, and that was fun to set up.
It was very creative and very fun, and she and I had a great time together and enjoyed
that. But once the business was set up, I didn’t want to be a shopkeeper. So that kind
of began the push inside me to kind of think, “What kind of contribution do I want to
make in this life? What do I want to do?” And started thinking about professional
possibilities, and I considered going to law school and considered nursing, the medical
profession, and considered the world of psychology. So through a series of events, it
occurred to me that what I wanted to do was become a counselor, psychotherapist.So I finished my undergraduate degree. I transferred my units from Cal State Northridge
to Cal State Sacramento and finished my undergraduate degree, and then eventually went
into graduate school and got a master’s degree in psychology. And met someone in
graduate school that I really admired, and she was doing really good work, and her name
was Barbara Harris. In order to get the state license that I needed, I had to do three
thousand hours of supervised counseling. I was interested in setting up my own practice.
So a part of my internship was to work in her private practice under her supervision, so
I did that, and I also worked as part of my internship in Roseville Hospital. That was
an inpatient alcohol and drug treatment program. So I was an intern there for about six
months, and then did this private practice internship until I had enough hours. I sat
for my oral exams and my written exams and passed the first time, and set up my own
practice.
- FIDLER
- What years was—
- COLEY
- I did my internship in probably the two years of 1987, and then was licensed in January
of 1989, and I’ve been practicing ever since. So that’s twenty-five years or so.
- FIDLER
- That’s all in Sacramento?
- COLEY
- All in Sacramento, and twenty-two years of it is right here. Yeah, twenty-two or
twenty-three years.
- FIDLER
- What were your emphases for the kinds of therapy you did, both the school or schools
that you’re coming from and then also the kinds of services that you’d offer?
- COLEY
- When I was in school and during my internship—this is in the mid and late eighties—the
alcoholism treatment and the treatment of families that had been affected by alcoholism
and adult children of alcoholics, all of that was really foreground in the culture. That
was getting a lot of attention. So that was a lot of the—and I did an extended year in
my graduate studies in alcoholism and chemical dependency. So that kind of focus was
really big during the time I was getting educated, so that was a lot of my focus at the
time. So the first couple of—maybe I’d say the first two or three years of my practice,
maybe four years of my practice, was pretty traditional kind of approach. It was a
family systems approach, looking at people’s backgrounds, how they were raised, who
raised them, what were the patterns in people’s families that are carried forth. And I
noticed that that approach was very interesting for me and for my clients, but it was
not healing, in that not only did my clients not—it was seductively interesting, but
people didn’t seem to shift in their mood. It was helpful intellectually, but I didn’t
see vitality and I didn’t see people’s spirits lift.So right around that time—this was the early nineties by now—right around that time,
Barbara Harris, who is my officemate and was my supervisor then, we were starting to go
to seminars and trainings in something called Health Realization. That was life-changing
for me. It was really, really life-changing. Kind of the heart of that movement was a
man named Sydney Banks, who had some very profound insights—it’s now forty years
ago—about the nature of how people’s experience is created and that the experience that
everyone is having of their life in the moment is being created from the inside out,
uniquely, via these three principles. They’re just words, but he called them mind,
thought, and consciousness, that everyone’s experience is created via thought and that
that’s how the mind works in terms of creating psychological experience, and that we all
are innately healthy. We all have the innate capacity for wisdom and common sense and
what he described as deep feelings, feelings of love, humility, fulfillment,
contentment, happiness, that our capacity for those deep feelings is innate in us.And that was—oh, my goodness, that was so enlivening and hopeful and valuable for me
personally. I started getting all kinds of insights and could see that the psychological
suffering that I experienced and that other people were experiencing was created through
thought, and instantly created through thought, and that that phenomenon just was not
visible to people, or it wasn’t visible deeply enough for them, and that once people
started to see that for themselves, that this is just thought operating at the level of
principle, that created a lot relief for people and their minds would naturally start to
quiet down, and through a quiet mind, these deep feelings can come through.So I started to see, as I got insights and was able to start to illuminate some of what I
was seeing to my clients, I could see their spirits lift and I could see these deeply
ingrained patterns of conditioning be transcended. We all have conditioning, but we are
not our conditioning. We’re this capacity for health. And once people saw that, they
really could quiet down and relax and see. You know, it’s kind of like if you don’t know
how a mirror works, and you come in front of a mirror and make a scary face, you might
have a reaction to it. But, of course, you know how a mirror works. So even though you
make a scary face, it doesn’t influence you because you have an insight-based
understanding. And that was helpful.
- FIDLER
- With all this, on the one hand, training and then, on the other, insight that you were
gaining during this time, did that lead to reappraisals of experiences in your own life,
as you would then look back with this additional knowledge? It sounds like this is
something you’d have kind of innate talent for in the first place, but then what you
describe is these new and systematic ways of understanding people and their
relationships with each other and one’s self.
- COLEY
- Well, you know, I did enjoy a lot of good conversation with a lot of the folks in the
lab when I was there, and I know I look back now, and once I had an office, I know I was
pretty much doing sessions then. [laughs] I’m being facetious. But we would have lots of
visits. I mean, a lot of people would just stop by and visit. And what I’m suggesting is
the quality of the experience that I had at my time at UCLA really was based on this
innate health that was coming through in me and other people, and that’s what I enjoyed
relishing. It’s there in everyone. And then, of course, all these folks were doing this
incredibly brilliant intellectual work and discovery. But I think that’s this resonance
that was between me and the people that I encountered there, was that intellectual work
notwithstanding, if you see what I’m saying. And that’s the feeling, that good feeling
was pervasive in that environment, and I think that’s what I resonated with and that’s
why my time there was so rewarding and fulfilling, is because there was this health and
vitality and insight-based—I mean, I know all these guys that were developing all this
work were having hundreds of insights all the time about what they were developing. I
didn’t recognize it for what it was. Now, because of my professional life and my own
evolution, I have a context to put it in. I had the direct experience of it then, but I
wouldn’t have been able to articulate it.
- FIDLER
- It is fascinating to have someone who goes on to become a therapist be able to talk
about their experience. That’s not something one gets every day.
- COLEY
- Yeah. [laughs]
- FIDLER
- Is there anything else you want to say about that context and how you would understand
it with your particular—
- COLEY
- I mean, the genius that was unfolding there in these individual human beings that has
manifested and taken form as the Internet, to me, is a testament to the innate genius
and capacity for intelligence that is in everyone. It was just being manifest there, you
know, and look at what the result is. I mean, to me it’s a testament of our capacity as
human beings. And you get, I don’t know, maybe the fifteen or twenty people that were my
core people that I was around a lot.That’s the feeling that I was alluding to earlier, that compelled vitality and
exhilaration, really. That energy was there a lot, most of the time. And now, in
hindsight, I can see it for what it is. They were all working really, really hard, but
to me, there was a noticeable absence of tension and friction, which is pretty
remarkable. It’s really wonderful to be able to articulate this because I’m really
seeing it for what it is. It’s pretty spectacular.
- FIDLER
- You’ve mentioned genius and drive and vitality. When you speak to a lack of tension and
friction, is it more than luck of the draw that, for example, one happens to get ten or
fifteen people working together who have the capability for cooperative and inspired
work, or was there something else to it?
- COLEY
- It’s absolutely more than luck of the draw. I observe when this profound intelligence is
coming through people, whether it’s in writing music or creating an Internet from the
very beginning, there is an ease that I think is implied. It isn’t effortful, so that
obviates tension. It’s just there is an ease. There is a flow. And I think I was
privileged to witness many people that were consistently in that flow state, and to me,
that accounts for the synergy and the synchronicity that was apparent there. That’s the
creative genius at work and being channeled through all these kids, really, barefoot and
long-haired and some scruffy, but conduits. This is just the way I see it, but it was
sure wonderful to be around.
- FIDLER
- Does that experience change the way that you experience the Internet? You link the
activities and the profundity of that time to this outcome which is now pervasive in all
of our lives. Sometimes when you’re using the Internet or as maybe when you first went
online, does it remind you of that time?
- COLEY
- Well, it’s almost more than I can consider because it’s so astonishing. It’s more than
my personal mind can get around, really, quite frankly. As I shared with you, there’ve
been a few times in my life where I’ve—and I’m sure we all have—been in, in hindsight,
in very auspicious places where amazing things were unfolding right before our eyes and
we didn’t see it. And this is certainly a decade in my life where that was the case. So
to look back on that, and now when I check my email, to just see the origins of that is
almost more than I can acknowledge. You know, really, it’s hard to believe.
- FIDLER
- Do your family and friends know that you have this—or how much do they know about this
unique relationship you have to the Internet?
- COLEY
- My husband certainly does, because he was right there and he was right in the next
building, and he was right next to me when I had to go reset the IMP. And we socialized
a lot with these folks, and he certainly had a very cordial connection with Len. A few
people do, but, you know, it’s like any experience, you have to walk in that person’s
shoes. You can hear the content of the story, but people think it’s interesting, but it
was forming my young adult life at the time. That was ten years. From the time I was
twenty to thirty, those are really formative years. So it was very influential for who I
became as a human being, how I unfolded as a human being personally and professionally.
- FIDLER
- How much do you stay in touch with these people?
- COLEY
- Well, unfortunately, not too much, although it was really wonderful to see Charlie at
the fortieth anniversary. In fact, I kind of had my eye set for him, and I didn’t see
him but I heard him. I would know that laugh anywhere. So we had a nice visit.And then Mark Kampe was up to our home, I think the end of last summer and spent the
weekend, and we had a really nice time of visiting, catching up, went on a nice hike in
the foothills where I live, and that was wonderful.
- FIDLER
- What was it like to get online on the Internet, and when did that happen for you?
- COLEY
- Oh, gosh. I’m not still very well versed in it but—gosh, when did that happen? I don’t
know. Fortunately, my husband is very involved with computers still, and I’m sure he
helped usher me on to it at some point.
- FIDLER
- Is there anything at all that I’m missing or that you want to add about any of these
things we’ve discussed?
- COLEY
- Well, I’m just full of gratitude, really. In kind of recounting my memories and
reflecting on it, it’s just really wonderful. I feel very grateful for having had that
decade with those people and that environment. And I’m so glad that Len is still well
and healthy and so productive. What a genius. Very grateful to the time I spent with
him. I think that’s it.
- FIDLER
- Thank you. That was incredible.
- COLEY
- You’re very welcome. My pleasure. [End of February 15, 2014 interview]