Oak Ridge, Tennessee



ORAL HISTORY OF WILLIAM (BILL) MOEHL

Interviewed by Keith McDaniel

November 30, 2016

MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is November the 30th, 2016, and I am at my studio here in Oak Ridge. Today, for this oral history, I've got Bill Moehl. Bill, thank you for taking time to come in and talk with me.

MR. MOEHL: You bet.

MR. MCDANIEL: I was reading over your bio form, and I didn't know this, I realized that you grew up in Oak Ridge, so why don't you tell me, but you were born in Lincoln, Nebraska.

MR. MOEHL: I was.

MR. MCDANIEL: Why don't you tell me a little bit about where you were born and something about your family and growing up?

MR. MOEHL: Well, as I said, born in Lincoln, Nebraska. My parents are both from that area. My father's from Nebraska. My mother was from Kansas, right across the border. They met there, and then were separated. My mother was here during the Manhattan Project.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yes, so she came here after getting out of college and worked in the Manhattan Project, as did my grandfather. My dad was in World War II, was in Europe during World War II, and then after the war, they got back together. I believe-

MR. MCDANIEL: Now, were they married before then?

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, okay.

MR. MOEHL: No, and as a matter of fact, I believe they were the first couple married in the Chapel-on-the-Hill here.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Here in Oak Ridge, yes. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that's correct. I know they were married here in Oak Ridge at the Chapel-on-the-Hill.

MR. MCDANIEL: Your grandfather and your mother came to work here during the war.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Do you know what she did?

MR. MOEHL: She was a chemist.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.

MR. MOEHL: I'm not sure exactly what she did, but-

MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Sure, sure. Most people don't.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: I remember, years ago, one of the very first interviews that I did for my documentaries on Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge history, was Colleen Black. She was one of the very first people that I interviewed, and I asked her, I said, "So what did you do?" She said, "Well, it's been 60 years, I guess I can tell you." It wasn't anything special, it was just, they were indoctrinated.

MR. MOEHL: Just so ingrained, right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Just not to talk about what they did. Anyway, so your mother came, and your grandfather were here during the war. Then after the war, did they leave and go back to Nebraska?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.

MR. MOEHL: Well, my mother did.

MR. MCDANIEL: Your mother did.

MR. MOEHL: Went back to Nebraska and-

MR. MCDANIEL: Your father came back from World War II.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.

MR. MOEHL: Well, they were married here, I guess, and then went back to Nebraska.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. I see.

MR. MOEHL: Then came back here, because my dad got a job here and they moved back here in 1951 or '52.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. All right, so did you have any brothers or sisters?

MR. MOEHL: Two sisters.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now, were they born in Oak Ridge?

MR. MOEHL: They were both born here, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, and you were born in Nebraska, but you came-

MR. MOEHL: As an infant.

MR. MCDANIEL: As an infant, yeah. You came to Oak Ridge.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Like you said, your sisters were born here later.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Now, you said your dad got a job in Oak Ridge. What was his job? Where did he work?

MR. MOEHL: He worked at Y-12. He was a radiologist.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Did x-rays of parts to insure their quality.

MR. MCDANIEL: Was that something that he was trained to do in the service, or do you know?

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: It was just something he learned.

MR. MOEHL: Just, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Huh. All right, so, and did your mother work or did she stay home and take care of kids?

MR. MOEHL: She worked off and on, but mostly, she stayed home, and was a housewife.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Your first memories would be in Oak Ridge, I would imagine.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Where did they live? Where did they start out living?

MR. MOEHL: They started out living on Niagara Lane in Woodland in a small house, and I guess when, I guess it was the Atomic Energy Commission at the time, started selling houses finally-

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, in about '56.

MR. MOEHL: Probably '55.

MR. MCDANIEL: '55, '56.

MR. MOEHL: Something like that, when my youngest sister was born, they bought a house on Malvern Road.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh did they? Now, where's Malvern?

MR. MOEHL: Off of Michigan Avenue.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah.

MR. MOEHL: About halfway up Michigan Avenue.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, okay. Halfway up, yeah.

MR. MOEHL: I grew up there, in that neighborhood.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Did they live there for a long time?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right. You grew up on Malvern off Michigan. Where did you go to elementary school?

MR. MOEHL: Pine Valley.

MR. MCDANIEL: That's where the Administration Building is now.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, just, yeah. What do you remember about that? What do you remember about elementary school?

MR. MOEHL: Just it being so open. There was a, it was off New York Avenue. We were off Michigan Avenue, but there was a trail through the woods. They used to have the boardwalks and the trails went all over the boardwalks. I'd walk to school through the woods, between Michigan, and it was a very short distance. I guess I just remember there was no air conditioning. The windows were always open, and kids out on the playground, quite a bit different than today.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were born in '52.

MR. MOEHL: '50.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, '50, excuse me.

MR. MOEHL: Came here in-

MR. MCDANIEL: Came here in '52.

MR. MOEHL: In '52.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were born in '50, so you went to Pine Valley, and then you went to-

MR. MOEHL: Jefferson Junior High School.

MR. MCDANIEL: Jefferson Junior High. I guess that was up by the football field.

MR. MOEHL: It was.

MR. MCDANIEL: At that point.

MR. MOEHL: At that time.

MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember any teachers or coaches or principals, either in elementary or middle school, that had an impact on you and your life?

MR. MOEHL: Probably everybody in Oak Ridge remembers Coach Orlando, Nick Orlando.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was at the middle school.

MR. MOEHL: He was.

MR. MCDANIEL: He was the middle school coach.

MR. MOEHL: At Jefferson Junior, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. He was a football coach, and he's the one that sticks out by name, or whose name sticks out with me. I remember a Miss Chilcoat there that was a biology teacher maybe.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now, did you play football?

MR. MOEHL: I did not.

MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't. Did you play any-

MR. MOEHL: No, I was in the band.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, were you?

MR. MOEHL: Yes. Alice Lyman had been at Jefferson.

MR. MCDANIEL: At Jefferson.

MR. MOEHL: Was in the Jefferson band, and then the High School band.

MR. MCDANIEL: What did you play?

MR. MOEHL: Trumpet.

MR. MCDANIEL: Did play trumpet, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess, back then you had to pick, either play sports, play football or be in the band.

MR. MOEHL: Pretty much one or the other.

MR. MCDANIEL: Now, they got them both a little bit. This would've been around, you were in middle school around the early '60s I guess.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Something like that. What do you, since you were in school at that time, that was the great, I mean there was the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and everybody was afraid. Did they talk very much about that? Do you remember any drills or, you know-

MR. MOEHL: Well, I remember, in both middle, or Pine Valley and junior high school, I remember it. Oh, drills all the time. I guess we had the Cold War drills, where we would leave the classroom and hike up New York Avenue to evacuate the school.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: The drills, and getting under the desk and hiding. Yeah, I remember all those drills.

MR. MCDANIEL: Did it scare you?

MR. MOEHL: Not really.

MR. MCDANIEL: Not really?

MR. MOEHL: I think I was too young to understand the impact of it.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure. Mick Wiest, he talks about, he had a paper route during that time, and he says, he remembers the headlines of the papers, and he said it scared him to death.

MR. MOEHL: Maybe I was too dumb to be scared, I don't know.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, no, no. Probably just-

MR. MOEHL: Or too naive.

MR. MCDANIEL: They probably wanted you to be prepared, but they didn't want you to know so much that you would be frightened, I guess.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess you went on to high school, and so you were in middle school, I mean junior high, that probably went through the ninth grade, didn't it? At that time? Did it go through the ninth grade?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, went through the ninth grade. Seventh, eighth, and ninth.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, and elementary was first through sixth.

MR. MOEHL: Through sixth, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: The way God intended it to be.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: The way we went to school. That's exactly right. You went to the high school, and I guess this was the early '60s.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were in high school, and what do you remember about Oak Ridge High School?

MR. MOEHL: I was in the band in Oak Ridge High School.

MR. MCDANIEL: Who was your band director?

MR. MOEHL: Doc Combs.

MR. MCDANIEL: Doc Combs, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Everybody loved Doc Combs.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Quite a character.

MR. MCDANIEL: Now, he's no longer living, is he?

MR. MOEHL: No, he is not.

MR. MCDANIEL: No. Just a side note, my son, my eldest son, who graduated from Oak Ridge High School last year and is at Tennessee Tech this year, received the Doc Combs scholarship.

MR. MOEHL: Oh, that's great.

MR. MCDANIEL: Last year, yeah, so we're familiar with Doc Combs, and appreciative of his legacy.

MR. MOEHL: I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Doc Combs, so tell me about him. What was he like?

MR. MOEHL: He was a real character. He was a stickler. He made you practice, made you prepare, but he had some great shows. I think he was a pretty well known band director regionally. Then he, you towed the line, or got out. It seems like now, anybody that wants to be in the band can be in the band just about. Boy, you had to try out and if you didn't make it, you were out. You were out of the band.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, and if you misbehaved, you were out.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really?

MR. MOEHL: He was fun. I mean, everybody loved him, so it was really great.

MR. MCDANIEL: You did, so you played in the band. You had marching shows, for marching season, and the football season.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Then, I guess you did concerts?

MR. MOEHL: Concert season, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: In the Spring, you know. About how many were in the band when you were in high school? Do you remember?

MR. MOEHL: It was around 60.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MR. MCDANIEL: They have like 140 now.

MR. MOEHL: I know. Yeah, it's crazy.

MR. MCDANIEL: It had to be pretty good to be that small. You had to have good players.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were you pretty good?

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: No?

MR. MOEHL: I made it.

MR. MCDANIEL: You tried.

MR. MOEHL: I made it, yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. What else do you remember about high school then?

MR. MOEHL: Again, the schools were just open. People came and went. This was early on. I guess about the time that I, maybe my senior year, was about the time that boys started growing long hair. Up till that point, I mean you kept your shirt tail tucked in. You got a haircut.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah, but this was-

MR. MOEHL: There were always, you know, we talk about guns, violence, and all that now. There were some fights after school, but guys had shotguns in the back of their pickup trucks, where they'd come in and go hunting, so there were guns all over the place. I remember in-

MR. MCDANIEL: There was never any problems with that.

MR. MOEHL: No problems, no. I remember one year we did the 1812 Overture in the band in a concert, and a couple of boys brought a 12 gauge shotgun in, loaded with blanks, and fired the shotgun during the performance for the cannons that they had, in the high school. In the auditorium. I think you probably wouldn't do that today.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. I guess not. I guess not. My goodness.

MR. MOEHL: That was interesting. Shot a couple of holes through the curtain in the back of there.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Things are certainly different now.

MR. MOEHL: They are.

MR. MCDANIEL: You said your senior year was about the time that the long hair started, the hippie generation started. I guess this was also right before, what year did you graduate?

MR. MOEHL: '68.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so '68, wow.

MR. MOEHL: Oak Ridge was probably a little behind other schools.

MR. MCDANIEL: In that kind of stuff?

MR. MOEHL: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MR. MCDANIEL: Because Oak Ridge was fairly conservative.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: It may have had a left leaning intellectual air about it, but as far as the way-

MR. MOEHL: It could've been. Everything was pretty straightforward.

MR. MCDANIEL: Straightforward, yeah, yeah. '68 was a big year, so you graduated in the spring. I guess that was the year that Martin Luther King was killed, wasn't it?

MR. MOEHL: It was. We were, as a matter of fact, we had, I was in the band at the time. We had gone to Washington, D.C., for the Cherry Blossom Festival. We were going to march in the parade at the Cherry Blossom Festival, and the evening we got there was the evening he was killed.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: They canceled the parade, of course, and it was a pretty tense time up there. They let us, we went down into D.C., to the Smithsonian. I remember them letting us go to the Smithsonian, but the police were everywhere and it was getting kind of rowdy, so they just piled us back on the buses and brought us back, back to Oak Ridge.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Wow. Wow. That's an interesting story.

MR. MOEHL: It was.

MR. MCDANIEL: There was a, as a matter of fact, I interviewed a lady who was a teacher at Linden Elementary School, and they had taken a field trip to Nashville that day, and because, and I think they were on their way back when that happened, or something like that. They didn't know about it until they got back, and all the parents were worried because things were getting out of hand, and you didn't know what was going to happen. Of course, nobody had cell phones back then.

MR. MOEHL: Right. Well, same thing with us. I guess we got, we didn't know it 'til, it happened during the day, but we didn't know it 'til we got to the motel and were checking in that evening.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Oh, so you went there that day, and you were-

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. We were on the bus that day, headed up there.

MR. MCDANIEL: Now did you stay overnight, or did you-

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, you stayed one night, and then, just probably just came back.

MR. MOEHL: Best I remember, we stayed one night and came back.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. My goodness. My goodness. All right, so you graduated high school, you said in '68. Oak Ridge High School. What were your plans for after school? Were you going to go to college? Were you going to go to work? What?

MR. MOEHL: I was going to go to college. I went to Newberry College in South Carolina for a couple of years. Things got a little tense after, well, my dad had a heart attack in my sophomore year there. That was a private school, it was expensive, a church school.

MR. MCDANIEL: It was expensive, yeah, sure, sure, sure.

MR. MOEHL: I decided to drop out and was going to transfer to the University of Tennessee. I was going to work for a year. Got a draft notice.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. All right.

MR. MOEHL: I said, "Well, maybe that's not going to work out so well."

MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, exactly.

MR. MOEHL: I ended up going into the Army then.

MR. MCDANIEL: That's what I was about to say. You were the prime age for military service, and the Vietnam War was raging by then, or getting going by then.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: How long were you in the service, and what did you do?

MR. MOEHL: I was in the service for three years, in the Army for three years. I started out as an Airborne Sensor Specialist, which was a crew member in a two person turbo prop aircraft.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?

MR. MOEHL: We were operating spread ones.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Equipment.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right.

MR. MOEHL: Spent a year in Vietnam, and then-

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Where, is that what you did in Vietnam?

MR. MOEHL: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.

MR. MOEHL: Part of the time, and then part of the time in the infantry.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you really?

MR. MOEHL: With the, you got to figure the Army, you know, of course.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly. What was that like? What was that like, being over there? If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but-

MR. MOEHL: It's hard to describe. It was a, for many years, I guess until my kids were born, that was probably the event of my life. It was kind of like, after that, everything I measured was from that time. It was almost like a different time period after that. It was very significant.

MR. MCDANIEL: I bet, I bet. Did it, I guess it, obviously it changed you.

MR. MOEHL: It did.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. All right, well, we'll move on. You got out of the service, and then what happened?

MR. MOEHL: Well, I was back here in Oak Ridge, looking for a job. It was really hard to find a job at the time. Despite what everybody said, they really didn't want to hire veterans.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, because everybody was so, there was so much concern over the drug use, and there was so much emotion attached to Vietnam, that people shied away from that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Huh. That was true, what they tell you in the history books. People avoided veterans, Vietnam veterans.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yes. I remember going to one job interview, and talking to a guy, and it was going great. We talked for probably 45 minutes, and I don't think he'd ever even looked at my application. He was about ready for a start date. We were talking about the work schedule and all that. Then he started thumbing through my application, and he said, "So you were in the Army." I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Were you in Vietnam?" I said, "Yes," and the interview was over.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: He asked about two more questions to be polite, and yep, the interview was over and I never heard from him again. That was pretty much the feeling.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. Wow.

MR. MOEHL: I got a job with the police department. It wasn't a, all else failed, I'm left with this. It was actually something that I was interested in and something that I'd thought about before, but they were doing applications so I went in, tested, and got a job with the police department.

MR. MCDANIEL: What were you studying when you were at Newberry?

MR. MOEHL: I was actually wanting to go into forestry.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. All right.

MR. MOEHL: I think.

MR. MCDANIEL: You think? Oh, yeah, well-

MR. MOEHL: I thought. I thought. I thought, you know? I love the outdoors, but in reality, that was the college degree that seemed to go with the outdoors and stuff, but then the reality, a park ranger or the law enforcement end of the-

MR. MCDANIEL: Of the park?

MR. MOEHL: Of the outside of it was more appealing to me, so the police fit in with that.

MR. MCDANIEL: You had a desire for that anyway, didn't you?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: How old were you when you got your job at the police department?

MR. MOEHL: 24.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were 24. Okay, and how long did you work at the Oak Ridge Police Department?

MR. MOEHL: 31 years.

MR. MCDANIEL: 31 years.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: I bet you saw a lot of changes.

MR. MOEHL: Oh, yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: I bet you saw a lot of things.

MR. MOEHL: I did.

MR. MCDANIEL: When you started, who was the chief?

MR. MOEHL: Bob Smith had just taken over from Vettel, from Chief Vettel. Chief Vettel was the original Chief of Police for the police department, and Bob Smith had just taken over for him.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about your career as a police officer in Oak Ridge.

MR. MOEHL: I started out as a patrolman like everybody else, making $124 a week before taxes, and before insurance was taken out, and before retirement was taken out. So it was not much money at the time. It wasn't long before that started going up. I'm sorry.

MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay, that's all right.

MR. MOEHL: It'll be quiet.

MR. MCDANIEL: It's okay, that's fine.

MR. MOEHL: As I say, started out as a police patrolman, and it was a pretty stable department at the time. So it was quite a while before promotion opportunities came available, but working shift work, just riding and trying on.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess there were a lot of young, younger types like yourself, weren't they, or not older?

MR. MOEHL: Not at the time. There were quite a few of the older guys there.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, were there? Okay.

MR. MOEHL: There were quite a few officers that were original, end of the war era officers that were World War II vets that had come back and gone to work for the police department.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah.

MR. MOEHL: There were some characters.

MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. How many officers were there, about, then?

MR. MOEHL: Probably about, it was probably in the 40s.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right, and what year did you say this was, when you started there?

MR. MOEHL: '74.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, '74. Okay. All right. Go ahead, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Go ahead, continue on.

MR. MOEHL: I'm not sure where I was, was I?

MR. MCDANIEL: You were talking about your career path.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, working shift work, doing that. Eventually tested for Sergeant, was a Sergeant, then a Lieutenant, and retired as a Captain.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you? Okay. Back in the mid '70s, mid to late '70s, what were the big crime issues in Oak Ridge?

MR. MOEHL: We were seeing a lot of drugs at the time.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were you?

MR. MOEHL: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Heroin was big. Burglaries and fights and things like that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, burglaries kind of goes along with drugs.

MR. MOEHL: They do.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.

MR. MOEHL: They do. Not many armed robberies, I think. I think I've worked here probably three or four years, and we hadn't had an armed robbery, and then all of a sudden, things changed and I think we had 14 armed robberies in one year.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow!

MR. MOEHL: We went from none to, from zero, or maybe one every once in a while, to 14 in one year. It was a change time. I'm not sure what caused it. I don't know whether it was the drugs or society or whatnot, but things just seemed to change.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were there a lot of domestic cases? Were there murders?

MR. MOEHL: Not many murders. A lot of domestic cases. A lot of domestic stuff. We handled domestic violence quite a bit different then, than we do now, than police do now. They've changed, things have changed for the better, and it wasn't not caring. It was just not knowing.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.

MR. MOEHL: We've learned a lot.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. That was the late '70s. Talk a little bit about the trend over the years of things that you saw and things that you did and things that the department had to deal with.

MR. MOEHL: It seemed like there were quiet times, then, I'm talking six months or a year, and then really, really busy years. I'm not sure why. The drugs have always been present. I think there was, and Oak Ridge thinks a lot of itself, and I think there was a tendency to ignore that or not admit it, not admit the drug situation, but they've always been present, and it's a fact of society. It's not Oak Ridge is any worse than anywhere else or better, it's just there.

MR. MCDANIEL: Before the drugs, it was illegal alcohol.

MR. MOEHL: Right. Right. Same thing.

MR. MCDANIEL: From the war.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: From then even.

MR. MOEHL: There was still, when I first started at the police department, there was some bootlegging going on.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were they?

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Taxicabs delivering alcohol in the middle of the night.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, of course.

MR. MOEHL: We'd catch somebody bringing a trunk load of liquor in from Roane County every once in a while.

MR. MCDANIEL: Because Oak Ridge was dry.

MR. MOEHL: At that time, yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: At that time, you know. You had the common issues that were kind of common everywhere. Was there anything that you didn't see very much of that kind of surprised you over the years, because of, maybe, Oak Ridge?

MR. MOEHL: I think, because of Oak Ridge, things were more peaceful and quieter in the early years. That changed, probably, in the '80s, was probably the '80s. The '70s were still quiet. I grew up in Oak Ridge and we never locked our doors. We'd go on vacation for two weeks and drive back to Nebraska and leave the doors unlocked. The neighbors would come over and check on things every once in a while, or if the neighbors needed sugar, they'd come and get sugar. They took care of the house, so I don't think my parents knew where our door key was for years.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. Never locked the door at night. Out of town, it didn't matter.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. Yeah, I mean, and that was very common in Oak Ridge.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Yes. It was.

MR. MCDANIEL: Because there wasn't very much crime. Now, at that point, were there pockets of town that saw more crime than others?

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. There's always been those areas where people gravitate toward each other, that element gravitates toward each other.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.

MR. MOEHL: There were some old apartment areas, Hunter Circle, where there were really less expensive, cheap ranch-

MR. MCDANIEL: Let's be honest, they were low income.

MR. MOEHL: Sure, sure.

MR. MCDANIEL: They were lower income, lower socioeconomic status, so then you had a higher percentage of probably crime in those areas. Just, I mean, those are the facts. That's not being judgmental, that's just, those are the facts.

MR. MOEHL: Yep.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. We, my wife and I, this was in the early, this was in the late '90s, I guess it was. My wife and I bought our very first house on Pleasant Circle, and we backed up to Hunter Circle. We backed up-

MR. MOEHL: I know, yep.

MR. MCDANIEL: In there, and we were there seven years, and we had a newborn son, and when the police started asking our permission to set up, what do you call them?

MR. MOEHL: Surveillance?

MR. MCDANIEL: Surveillance in our backyard. We knew that there was probably time for us to leave, which we probably shouldn't have, now in hindsight, but it scared us.

MR. MOEHL: Sure.

MR. MCDANIEL: Anyway, I guess that's beside the point, but, so anyway, I guess I had asked, were there things that you didn't see very much of that, because of Oak Ridge-

MR. MOEHL: Particularly in the early years, of the violent crime. There just wasn't a lot of the violent crime, the person on person crime, other than guys that knew each other and get in a fight when they were drinking.

MR. MCDANIEL: Do you think that a lot of that was because of the type of the people who lived in Oak Ridge?

MR. MOEHL: I do.

MR. MCDANIEL: These are many professionals, because of the Lab, and also they'd lose their job if something like, they'd get involved in something like that, I would imagine.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, I'm sure they would've.

MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure, and those were good jobs to have back then.

MR. MOEHL: That's right.

MR. MCDANIEL: As more people, I guess as more of those workers started living in Knoxville, and more of those, more people that didn't work at the Lab started filling up that housing stock in Oak Ridge, I guess that things change.

MR. MOEHL: They do.

MR. MCDANIEL: That's probably in the mid '80s, wasn't it?

MR. MOEHL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We saw a real shift then. It was a lot of that outside influence. We saw the demographics change, so with the demographics change, came the trend changes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Was it mostly internal Oak Ridge, or did you have a lot of outsiders coming in to cause trouble, so to speak?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. We had some regulars that would come in from the outlying areas. I remember a couple of girls from Wartburg or Coalfield or somewhere that would come in every Friday night, drink, and get in a fight.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, so there were things open here at night that were not open other places. Shoney's, and McDonald's was a cruising place, and people would come from Oliver Springs and outside of Oak Ridge to hang out at those places, and bring some interesting times with them.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. I guess there was a lot of, like you said, drinking and drugs and was there, was prostitution ever a problem in Oak Ridge?

MR. MOEHL: Not a huge problem. We heard about it a lot. It was hard, that was one that was really hard to nail down. I'm sure it was going on, but not on a large scale.

MR. MCDANIEL: Not on a large scale.

MR. MOEHL: You didn't see the street walkers, the girls that were out on the street.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Not like you would on Magnolia Avenue in Knoxville, something like that. Not that I know anything about this.

MR. MOEHL: Cover yourself, right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Just from what I hear, what I read and what I hear. Anyway, so I guess you, I guess when you came back, were you, when you got your job at the police department, were you married?

MR. MOEHL: I got married about, well, probably six months after I got here, I was engaged.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Got married probably six months after I started working at the police department.

MR. MCDANIEL: Was this a local girl?

MR. MOEHL: No. It was a girl I met in school, in South Carolina.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. All right. Okay. She came, y'all got married, and she came, and y'all set up house so to speak.

MR. MOEHL: Yep. She taught school, first at Cedar Hill, and then at Linden for a while, and then in Glenwood.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Where did you all live?

MR. MOEHL: We started out, when we first got married, we were living in the brick apartments on Rutgers Avenue, behind where Walmart, across from Walmart, Penney's and that area now. Lived there for a year or two, and then moved up on West Outer Drive to an apartment, and then bought a house on Emerson Circle.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you? Oh, okay. All right. That's off of East Drive.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, at the very top, up there.

MR. MOEHL: Yep.

MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have children?

MR. MOEHL: I have two children, both born here.

MR. MCDANIEL: Boys? Girls?

MR. MOEHL: A boy and a girl. Went through the school system here, and both are still here.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, are they? Okay. All right, okay.

MR. MOEHL: Still around.

MR. MCDANIEL: You said your wife was a school teacher. Now does she still teach or is she retired?

MR. MOEHL: She's retiring this year.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is she?

MR. MOEHL: She's my ex-wife now.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, she's your ex-wife.

MR. MOEHL: We're divorced.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right.

MR. MOEHL: We're still good friends, and stay in contact. She told me the other day she was going to retire this year.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. All right. What was, as a police officer in Oak Ridge, how were you treated by folks? Were you treated with contempt, with respect, with what?

MR. MOEHL: You know, the first, in the '70s, particularly with the high school students, it was pretty much contempt.

MR. MCDANIEL: Was it? Yeah.

MR. MOEHL: The police were authority.

MR. MCDANIEL: Pigs.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, we were pigs.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were pigs. Well, that was the common-

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, oh yeah. In fact, I wore a pig tie tack for a long time. Just go ahead, call me a pig, it's okay. It went along with the Vietnam thing, that whole, it was a tumultuous time in our country.

MR. MCDANIEL: Absolutely, absolutely.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, there was-

MR. MCDANIEL: Any kind of authority, they-

MR. MOEHL: Right. As I say, that was mostly the younger people. The older people treated you with respect. Even people that I arrested were, I'd see them on the street, and they'd, "Hey, how are you doing?" It's like we're old buddies.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.

MR. MOEHL: They'd done something wrong. They didn't hold it against me.

MR. MCDANIEL: Personally, right.

MR. MOEHL: Personally, right, exactly. That changed. The high school thing changed, and we did a lot of things to try to change that. We'd go over and talk to classes and just sit down like we're doing here and having a conversation and try to get to know each other. I think that helped a little bit.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were there a lot of problems in the school back then, let's say in the '70s and '80s, other than, I guess, drugs?

MR. MOEHL: The drugs, particularly marijuana.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess you didn't have a school resource officer like they have now.

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: You'd have to, I guess they'd call you in if there was an issue, wasn't there?

MR. MOEHL: They would, but they were pretty reticent to do anything.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, were they?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, they really didn't like the publicity of that, and the image of it. In fact, I think that's gotten a lot better, too, particularly with the school resource officers. They really didn't like the idea of having police, and they like to police themselves. A lot of times they can do that effectively. I think there were some times where they probably should've reached out to us and didn't, but-

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I would imagine, back then, was a little bit different. All they have to do is call the parent, a lot of times, and that would take care of things.

MR. MOEHL: Same thing with us. There were a lot of times I just took kids home. We'd find kids doing something, call the parent and tell them to come get him or take him home.

MR. MCDANIEL: Take them home.

MR. MOEHL: Scold them, and the parents would scold them. Boy, that has changed dramatically, too.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. I bet, I bet. Now, it's like, "What are you doing with my kids?"

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, now if you call the parents, they're all, at the time I retired, and I think that's still going on a lot, you call the parents, and man, they want to know why you're doing that. It's very defensive right away.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure. What year did you retire?

MR. MOEHL: 2005.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, 2005, okay. What were some of the other issues that you had to deal with that were specific to Oak Ridge? Were there any, did you ever have to deal with any of the Federal Reservation stuff, or was that kind of hands off?

MR. MOEHL: No. We dealt quite a bit with that. In fact, it led to what I'm doing now.

MR. MCDANIEL: Which is? We'll get you in it.

MR. MOEHL: When I left the police department, I went to work for Wackenhut, the security contractor, in a law enforcement liaison position, to try to do some liaison between the, because there really was a mentality of, "The Feds will take care of everything inside the fence, police take care of everything outside the fence. We don't really need to talk to each other that much." We would, but it was fairly limited, but we had the protests that started in the '80s out there. We were involved quite a bit with those protests.

MR. MCDANIEL: Because it was right outside the fence.

MR. MOEHL: Every year, right. Well, they belonged to us. They belonged to the police department because they were outside the fence. Certainly is a huge concern to those facilities, particularly Y-12, which is where the protests typically were.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were these big protests? Like you said, they started in the '80s, didn't they, really?

MR. MOEHL: I think the biggest one that we had was probably around 800 people.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow! I had no idea.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. They started off fairly big and grew over years, and then just started dwindling.

MR. MCDANIEL: To where you'll have 20 or 30 maybe.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sometimes, on a good day. How common were those protests?

MR. MOEHL: They were typically annually, on Hiroshima Day.

MR. MCDANIEL: Hiroshima Day.

MR. MOEHL: That's associated with the Hiroshima anniversary.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Right, right. Did you have to make a lot of arrests, or did you have to bring in the paddy wagon, as they say, and round them up?

MR. MOEHL: Well, actually, yes. In the 30s, maybe 35 arrests, and we'd load them up on a school bus. Later, the Sheriff's department helped quite a bit, and they'd bring a couple of vans over. We have done anywhere from no arrests to 30, 35 or so.

MR. MCDANIEL: What typically would they get arrested for?

MR. MOEHL: Trespassing.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.

MR. MOEHL: Feds say, "Here's the line. You can't come across the line." They'll go across the line to make a point.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Right, exactly, and that was all it was.

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: It probably wasn't anything where anybody was really in danger, was it?

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. What else unique about Oak Ridge that maybe you can think of, that maybe other places didn't have to deal with as much?

MR. MOEHL: Well, I'll tell you, so early on in Oak Ridge, the, I guess Roane Anderson managed everything in Oak Ridge. If the light bulb burned out or the fuse broke, they'd call Roane Anderson to come and fix it, working for the city. There were some old people here who would still call us to come. "Oh, you know, my fuse, we got a fuse that's blown. Can you come fix my fuse," in the middle of the night, and call the police department, or call 911. "My porch light's out." That was a little different idea, and some of those older people were used to that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, they were used to that.

MR. MOEHL: They just thought that's the way we should still be doing that.

MR. MCDANIEL: That's the way it's supposed to be. Yeah.

MR. MOEHL: Again, that was the early years that I worked at the police department, but that was still there. Even though it had been 20 years since they had done that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure, exactly. Exactly. That's funny.

MR. MOEHL: Then, of course, the big dog and, of course, the federal government, the facilities. Everybody worked for one of the facilities, essentially.

MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.

MR. MOEHL: They controlled a lot of what went on in Oak Ridge. I don't mean that in a bad way, but they, I mean they were the key to Oak Ridge. The tax money, and then when those payments-in-lieu-of-taxes decreased or went away, that impacted us quite a bit budget-wise.

MR. MCDANIEL: Budget-wise, yeah. Yeah. You said that Bob Smith, is he still alive? Bob Smith?

MR. MOEHL: No, he is not. He passed away several years ago.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. He was the chief when you started. Who, talk about the chiefs you had.

MR. MOEHL: Well, let's see. Started with Bob Smith. He retired, and I don't remember the years. It was early '80s, I guess. Then Tim Braaten came in, a guy they hired out of Wisconsin. He was here for eight or 10 years maybe, and then he retired, or I'm sorry, he left and went to a police department in Texas, I believe. Then David Beams became the chief. He was a long time police officer.

MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, and he was chief when you retired.

MR. MOEHL: He was still the chief when I retired.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Was it, were you ever involved in recruiting or hiring or in, if you were or if you weren't, how difficult was that? Did you always have a lot of people that wanted to work for the police department, or did it become increasingly more difficult to find?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. I was involved very heavily in recruitment, all of it. Particularly in the later years, I guess I've been, reviewed every candidate for the police department in the last 10 years that I was there. Yes, it changed dramatically. We would have, we would announce a test for police officer, and we'd have two or 300 applicants early on. In fact, we'd have, we did the testing over at the high school cafeteria several times, and then to the gymnasium at the Civic Center.

MR. MCDANIEL: Because it was so many.

MR. MOEHL: Just because we had so many. We had to set up so many tables and chairs for them to test. Then that just, that really dwindled down and getting good applicants was hard. Getting minority applicants was hard.

MR. MCDANIEL: Why do you think that was? Do you think it was just a cultural thing, or was there some kind of sentiment that was common that people didn't want to do that anymore?

MR. MOEHL: It's probably a combination of a lot of it. I think there was a lot of opportunity, what a lot of applicants, I think, would see as a better opportunity particularly. So we had a lot of competition with the plants, because they're hiring security guards at substantially higher than what we pay. I mean they make a lot more money than a police officer. It's what you want to do. I had several opportunities to go out there, some really golden opportunities, but I loved what I was doing. I really liked working in the community.

MR. MCDANIEL: It's like being-

MR. MOEHL: I sometimes wonder whether that was smart, but don't think greater to be a-

MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of like being a school teacher in a small school.

MR. MOEHL: Sure, sure.

MR. MCDANIEL: You do it because you love it.

MR. MOEHL: Right.

MR. MCDANIEL: If you can live off of it, then that's fine, but you really don't do it for the money.

MR. MOEHL: Right. I see that the minority police officer probably has it rougher than a white male police officer because, from their own community a lot of times, they're just, they're given a really hard time.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that historical, or is that just something the last few years?

MR. MOEHL: Oh, no, that's historical.

MR. MCDANIEL: It's always been that way, right? Right.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, and it's very unfortunate.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were you, compared to others, I know you said the plants paid a whole lot more than the city does, but did, how did Oak Ridge compare to other cities, like Kingston or Lenoir City or Lake City or something?

MR. MOEHL: Usually better. Not always, and it went up and down. We would do a pay compensation study, they adjust the pay, and we would get fairly good pay, and then it would be five or six years, or eight years. Other cities were doing better. They'd do their compensation studies and bump their pay up, so it was an up and down thing.

MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have a lot of transfer people that came in from other departments, and people from your department that went to other departments?

MR. MOEHL: Early on, almost none. Then, over the years that changed, and I think, excuse me. I think a lot of that change was societal: younger people that just move around-

MR. MCDANIEL: A lot?

MR. MOEHL: Easier than what people my age are used to. We like the security of a job, and a lot of it's, something's flashy over here, and somebody will move over here where it's…

MR. MCDANIEL: They'll stay for a couple or three years, and then move on to someplace else.

MR. MOEHL: It was amazing, the number of people that were, about every two or three years, changing jobs.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. Now, early, when you first started, I would imagine, and I don't know if this is a requirement but I'll ask. I would imagine that most police officers lived in Oak Ridge. Is that correct?

MR. MOEHL: Most did. It was not, off and on it was a requirement. It was not-

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, it wasn't?

MR. MOEHL: It was not when I came to work here. They have toyed with it. They talked about making it a requirement, but they, I don't think they, the whole time I was there, I don't think they ever made it a requirement for officers to live in Oak Ridge. But they made a requirement if you got a promotion, so if you went particularly above a certain-

MR. MCDANIEL: Certain level, yeah.

MR. MOEHL: If you want this promotion, you have to move into Oak Ridge or live in Oak Ridge, but I've always lived in Oak Ridge. I think I'm probably one of maybe one or two officers that lived in Oak Ridge and had a listed phone number.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I would imagine that could be problematic.

MR. MOEHL: Occasionally. It never really was for me. I'd have people call me at night, a couple of times threatening, but most people just want information, asking questions. I didn't mind that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever have somebody call you, say, "Hey, I'm drunk, will you come and get me?"

MR. MOEHL: No.

MR. MCDANIEL: Were there, speaking of that, were there places in town that were hot spots for that kind of behavior?

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, we had quite a few little bars. It was interesting, when I came, when I first went to work here, because I'd never, I never knew these places existed.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you not?

MR. MOEHL: Little holes in the wall, back behind places.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, what were some of them? I mean, I don't want you to get in trouble, but these, you were a police officer, and they were here.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Everybody who was in the know knew about them, obviously.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah. Some of them were big, that were known. The Jefferson Tavern, AM-VETS Club down at the Turnpike, and then there were some small-

MR. MCDANIEL: Small.

MR. MOEHL: Small, really. Max Phoenix Tavern.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, where was that?

MR. MOEHL: It was in, off Central Avenue, behind where the new China Palace is now, where the cafeteria-

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right, yep, yep, yep.

MR. MOEHL: It was back in there. You had to go up a little gravel driveway to get to it.

MR. MCDANIEL: Just to find it.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, to find it. A small place, but-

MR. MCDANIEL: Little hole in the wall.

MR. MOEHL: Little hole in the wall, but there were quite a few. There have been some pretty good fights in a lot of those. Robinson's Crossroads.

MR. MCDANIEL: Where was that?

MR. MOEHL: At the corner of, it's on Robertsville Road, right where you turn up to go into Grove Center.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. What about that place out on Warehouse Road? I know there's a bar out there now. Has that always been there, that you can remember?

MR. MOEHL: No. It's not always been there, but it's been there quite a few years, and it was-

MR. MCDANIEL: It looks rough to me. I've never been in there, but it looks like it would attract a-

MR. MOEHL: I think right now it's probably not too bad, but boy, at times it was. It was a real dive.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. I guess you got into a lot of fights, or you had to break up a lot of fights. Was it mostly breaking up, or people trying to fight you?

MR. MOEHL: Both.

MR. MCDANIEL: Both?

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess you had to be in pretty good shape.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, and facilities have changed a lot, too. You know, the police have a lot of tools now. There were some people early on that we would fight just about every Friday or Saturday night.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. They'd get drunk and it would be a knock-down, drag-out fight. Always skinned up, bruised, and take them and put them in jail, and the next morning they'd apologize and, "Hey buddy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I acted that way," but next Friday night, they're, it's the same thing.

MR. MCDANIEL: They're back the same way. Well, that's that disease, as they say. Let me ask you about the court system. Talk about the court system over the years and how, I know some police officers that I've talked to, or people that I know, have expressed frustration about people getting off too easy.

MR. MOEHL: Oh yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Talk a little bit about that and maybe how that's changed over the years.

MR. MOEHL: Well, we used to have a city court in Oak Ridge. Well, we still have a city court, but it doesn't, it can only hear traffic citations now.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right.

MR. MOEHL: That changed quite a few years ago. Judges have changed.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess it depended on the judge.

MR. MOEHL: Used to be, it did. We used to have, I think it's Allen Kidwell was judge there, and first offense for shoplifting, you went to city jail for five days.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. No questions asked. First offense for shoplifting, you were five days in jail.

MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.

MR. MOEHL: You just don't see that anymore. You just don't see jail time anymore. It is frustrating when you see the same guys over and over and over again.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. I wonder why. Why do you not see that? I know it's a cultural change, but is it a practical thing, where the jails are full, or is it just people can just get away with stuff now?

MR. MOEHL: Probably both. Well, like, the chicken or the egg.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, the jails are packed, and we look at different ways of dealing with things. And then the drivers. The drugs are such a driver for all kinds of crime right now.

MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was the big, I guess you left after 31 years. Now, what is it, could you retire?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: After 30 years, I guess you could, is that right?

MR. MOEHL: Yes.

MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. After 30 years. Was there a specific reason why you left, other than you could retire? Did you have another opportunity? Was there something going on, or had you just had enough?

MR. MOEHL: It was a little bit of both. I had, I guess, there were a lot of frustrations with the job, and probably three years before I retired, there were some real frustrations. It started really getting to me. Actually, I could retire at that point, because I had credit for military service, and it just dawned on me one day. I said, "You can retire. You don't have to put up with this," but I didn't want to. I still loved the job, basically, and it took me about three years to really be willing to let go of it. Now, so I started looking. Not going out and beating doors down, but just looking, seeing what was out there. I had worked with the federal facilities out here, the security contractors, for quite a while. One of the guys out there offered me a position, and it just seemed right.

MR. MCDANIEL: You're still doing that, okay. I get the impression, I could be wrong, those last three years, you said it was very frustrating. I would imagine that there is an opportunity for a lot of politics to be played with the police department between, well, not only internally but external forces from maybe the city or politicians, whatever.

MR. MOEHL: I never really did feel a lot of that.

MR. MCDANIEL: Did you not?

MR. MOEHL: That was not as big an issue as you would think.

MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. Okay.

MR. MOEHL: I remember one time a city councilman came in to talk to me with, I don't even remember what the issue was, but he came to talk to me about some kind of issue. It was inappropriate. I said something about it, and boy, he, they put an end to it. That was stopped, and he eventually came back and apologized, said, "Hey, I didn't mean it." There really wasn't, was not a lot of that. When I left, I was the second.

MR. MCDANIEL: In command?

MR. MOEHL: Yeah, second in command. I was like the deputy department head, and really didn't feel a lot of that.

MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't?

MR. MOEHL: It was more, I was in an admin position. I still would jump up from the desk and go run out and chase bad guys, because that's what I was doing, but I didn't get to do much of that. It seemed like everybody was complaining.

MR. MCDANIEL: You were a paper pusher.

MR. MOEHL: Everybody complained. The public complains, officers complain a lot. Lot of it legitimate, lot of it not. Lot of the public complaints are legitimate, but there was a frustration with not being able to do anything about it. There's some real issues, but the gist-

MR. MCDANIEL: Not able to make a difference.

MR. MOEHL: Yeah. Your hands are so tied that it just got so frustrating, and the stress was enormous.

MR. MCDANIEL: I would imagine that you would have to have a fairly balanced emotional, you probably have to be fairly emotionally stable to be able to do that job without it really getting to you, because I would imagine that there's a lot of stress.

MR. MOEHL: Oh, it's huge, and I really didn't realize it 'till I left. When I walked out of there, I literally felt like I was five years younger.

MR. MCDANIEL: Really?

MR. MOEHL: People would come up to me and say, "Man, you look good." I'd look in the mirror and say, "I don't look that good right now. I must've really looked like hell before," but I didn't realize the stress 'till I got away from it. It's a real health challenge.

MR. MCDANIEL: I guess so. I guess so. Okay.

MR. MOEHL: I still work close with the police department. It’s part of my job, and just as an interest, and they've been very open to letting me come back in. I stay in touch with those guys. I miss it, a lot of it. A lot of it I don't miss.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I guess, as they say, there's a brotherhood there, and you can't just walk away from that, can you?

MR. MOEHL: No. No.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, what have I not asked you about that you want to talk about? Anything?

MR. MOEHL: Not that I can think of.

MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I always tell people, now this is going to live forever, at least 100 years, so if you've got something on your chest that you want to get off, I usually tell people that when they're a whole lot older than you, though.

MR. MOEHL: Sure.

MR. MCDANIEL: Like here's your last chance.

MR. MOEHL: It's your last chance, right.

MR. MCDANIEL: Anyway, well, thank you. Thank you so much for not only your service to our city over the years but for coming in and telling us about that service.

MR. MOEHL: Sure. It’s been entertaining.

MR. MCDANIEL: Good, good.

[End of Interview]

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