WEBVTT

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Well, it started off pretty early, because

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you had to be at Page school at 6:30. For me,

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that was a bus ride. Then we’d have class

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until about—I want to say 9:00, maybe 9:30.

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Then we’d walk across campus to the Hill and

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pretty much go to work. Although work was

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fairly quiet at those hours, because the House

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usually didn’t go into session until around noon.

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So we had a couple of hours to sit around,

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maybe grab an early lunch. I know we grabbed

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an early lunch because between Maggie’s cooking

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and the cloakroom staff that made meals,

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I gained quite a few pounds the first six

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months I was here. So then you’d just

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make sure you had plenty of pens and

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pads in the booths to take the messages.

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Then at noon, the House would go into session.

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The Members would start coming in. Phones had been

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ringing previously, but not that much. People that

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were calling knew that the Members weren’t there yet.

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But by noon, the phones—we had 13 phones,

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as I recall, and half or more of them

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were almost always lit up. So it was a

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pretty busy time for the four Pages,

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and then we had two supervisors.

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So there were six of us that could be

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answering the phones at once, if need be.

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Members were constantly in and out of the

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cloakroom getting something to eat. There was an

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area where we had large chairs and large couches

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that they don’t have anymore. But the Members

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would come in there and maybe take a nap.

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There might be a little meeting of the minds

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over some issue, some bill, some legislation.

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The cloakroom was a good place to get those

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kinds of things done. It was private. The eyes

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of the world couldn’t peer in and see who you were

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talking to or hear what you were talking about.