Wendy Kaysing Interview
Legend: AG = Albino Galuppini; WLK = Wendy Lynn Kaysing (Bill's elder daughter)
AG
Wendy, where did your family live when you were younger?
WLK
My father was born in Chicago, Illinois; however, he grew up in South Pasadena, California. My mother, Carol was born in Los Angeles. My mother and father met while still children. They got married when he was attending the University of Redlands. After I was born-in 1949- they found a little apartment in Manhattan Beach, CA -just south of Santa Monica. My father had finished college by then and was making reproduction antique (early American) for a friend of his brother’s.
In 1954 the family moved to Topanga Canyon, just before my sister Jill was born. My father then began working at a lumber yard/home improvement center. While living in Topanga my father was hired by a division of North American—at their Rocketdyne Jet Propulsion Field Laboratory located in the mountains of Santa Susana, above the San Fernando Valley. We later moved to Canoga Park to be closer to my father’s work-- and lived there until 1962. My father began searching for a new place to live, after realizing the smog in the San Fernando Valley was becoming a serious health issue. My dad could see the smog layer sitting over the Valley on his way home from work every day, and knew it was bad for our health. We took a leisurely trip through the Pacific Northwest, including stops in Utah to visit relatives, and also Idaho. My dad eventually decided on a little town just south of Seattle, Washington. I was very beautiful, with lush pines trees, many large lakes, and plenty of big blackberries—free for the picking. We lived in Seattle for just a few months, but then when the rains started coming down on a daily basis, my father had a change of heart--he missed the Southern California sunshine. We returned to California, this time settling in Santa Barbara--100 miles north of Los Angeles-- in 1963. While I attended Santa Barbara High School, my father worked as a marketing executive for a dental products company in addition to doing advertising work for various other companies in Santa Barbara. After my parents’ divorce in 1969, my father and his new wife, Ruth moved to West Point, in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, in central California. He invited me to live there, which I did for a number of years.
AG
Which memories do you like most of Bill as father?
WLK
My father loved my sister and me very much--he loved to swing us around, and was always building things for us to play on or with. He build me a little electric car, a little carousel, for my sister and I, and also a little play house make out of bamboo when I was about 10 or 11 years old, which I made into a little library! My father always liked to have fun--for him life was like one big adventure--even going on a picnic at the local park was an adventure for him. He loved nature and would point out something he found especially beautiful, whether it is tree, a leaf, a flower, a rock or a sunset—he thought nature was simply amazing in all its beauty and intricacy. He would say, “Who could make something this intricate or this marvelous?” Explaining that this was the work of an extremely creative intelligence (e.g. God). My appreciation of nature, and my belief in God, comes from my father's love and awe of wonders of nature, and of life itself.
My Dad also had a huge passion for riding motorcycles. He spent many days riding alone in the desert or hill climbing in the foothills near our home in Canoga Park (California), located in the west end of the San Fernando Valley, in addition to racing them whenever he had the chance—that included desert racing, track and hill climbing--I would occasionally tag along, sometimes riding on the back his motorcycle before or after a race, the wind whipping my hair as we went up and down the hills together. I remember one time stopping to walk to a woodsy area to pick mushrooms which we later cooked in butter and were delicious.
My dad was a great lover of music –when came home from work he loved to listen to classical music, musical from Broadway musicals (Carousel, West Side Story), and also jazz—especially Dave Brubeck. His appreciation of music definitely rubbed off on me. One of his favorite composers was Rachmaninoff and is also one of mine to this day.
AG
How was your dad’s character?
WLK
My dad was very social—he had lots of friends, both young and old. He was always willing to help anyone in need—no matter what the task—from fixing a friend’s motorcycle, to helping someone move, or even investing in a friend’s company. He loved animals and had a special affinity for cats...he thought they were one of God's best creatures. He hated cruelty to animals, and was also sickened by anyone taking advantage of or hurting animals or human beings! Though not involved with organized religion, he would often quote the words of Jesus...e.g. he took to heart his words:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” And “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.” He also believed that “Faith without works is dead” and “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
As a result, my dad was always inviting strangers to dinner and when he and his wife Ruth, lived in Soquel, in Monterey County (just south of Santa Cruz) they regularly made sandwiches to give to homeless people who congregated in the local park. My dad was constantly working to find homes for homeless people, and even produced a booklet called “Homes for the Homeless” which he gave away freely to homeless individuals.
My dad was also the most honest person I ever met. "Truth though the very heavens crack" was one of his favorite sayings...he told me that Benjamin Franklin once said, "Honesty is the best policy" and then my dad gave me his own version, saying, "Honestly is the best - period!" --explaining that people should be honest simply for the sake of being honest, not because they might get something out of it. I he used to always tell my sister and me: “Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal” --that really sunk in to the point that I passed that saying on to my own children.
AG
Tell us something about your present life and work. Where do you live and which is your work? Do you have any children?
WLK
I have four children, one boy and three girls, who are now all adults and who live on their own. I currently live with my mother in Santa Barbara--I came to live with her after my children left home.
My background includes working as a newspaper reporter in Hartford, Connecticut. After moving back to California, I worked as a publicist for a Boys & Girls Club. More recently I worked for a Public Relations firm. Currently I am working on a movie script with my eldest daughter, Angelica. I have also written other scripts, which include a romantic comedy and an animated feature for children. Someday in the not too far future I hope to write a book or two.
AG
Since you mentioned your intention of writing books, I'd be eager, I suppose along with other people, to read a Bill's biography. Do we have any hope someday somebody will write one?
WLK
I would love to write a book about my father--I have kept all his papers and there are some very interesting stories and even some beautiful poetry that he has written that would be wonderful to include in a book about him.
AG
Like many others, I heard first about Bill Kaysing in connection with his most famous book We Never Went To The Moon. But later I appreciated lots of his writings on various subjects and his open mind. When and how did he become a writer?
WLK
My father was always a voracious reader—he told me he spent the first two years in the Navy constantly reading. I believe he read every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica when I was growing up. He also loved to read to me and my sister--both fiction and non-fiction. His favorite book for children was “The Wind in the Willows.”
My father started writing professionally as a technical writer for a jet propulsion laboratory in Santa Susana, California (Rocketdyne). He was responsible for writing proposals and technical reports. He worked closely with the scientists who worked in the field laboratory. After nine years working as a technical writer (and turning down a big promotion), my dad decided to leave the Valley as we called it—in his words, he wanted to quit “the rat race.” He sold our house, bought a small travel trailer, and moved us to a town just south of Seattle, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest--he took the whole summer getting us there, visiting places in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Oregon along the way.
The summer was beautiful in Washington and my dad loved the trees and delicious over-sized blackberries, which we picked every weekend, between his working on getting a real estate license. But after the days turned gray, and later after the rains came, my dad decided he had enough rain to last him the rest of his life and so we returned to sunny southern California, this time settling in Santa Barbara. My father did advertising and promotional work. That is when he decided to start writing freelance articles. Because of his love and knowledge of motorcycles, he wrote a series of articles called “Intelligent Motorcycling” which was published in Cycle World Magazine. Later these articles were published in book form, using the same title. My father then received an offer to write a book for Straight Arrow Books (a division or Rolling Stone Magazine) called The Ex-Urbanites Fully Illustrated First Time Farmers Guide. This was a very successful book about buying land and starting a small farm.
AG
Can you tell us about the fields in which his writing interest spanned?
WLK
My dad loved to address alternative lifestyles in his many subsequent books...he encouraged people to leave behind the "rat race" of life in the city, and create a more relaxed type of living for themselves in either a rural or wilderness setting. He also wrote about living on a boats including refurbishing old boats-- which he actually did himself--he lived on a 64 foot converted Coast Guard Cutter for about five years, during the time he was married to his second wife, Ruth Cole Kaysing. Ruth was his best friend, mentor, and also his editor. Together, they wrote a series of books: Great Hot Springs of the Western United States, How to Eat Well for a Dollar a Day, The Dollar a Day Cook Book, The Robin Hood Handbook, and The Senior Citizen Survival Guild, to name a few.
AG
Cau you tell us some anedcdote or interesting facts involving Bill Kaysing life?
WLK
My dad loved hot springs with a passion—he was always searching out new hot springs particularly in Nevada…he loved the desert for its peacefulness and beauty. One day he found a large “hot” lake in the middle of the Nevada desert— it was a wonderful find for someone devoted to relaxing in warm water and the fact that is was located in “the middle of nowhere” made it that much more amazing to my dad…for as much as he loved people, he also loved solitude.
AG
Bill Kaysing said he attributed his interest in “blowing the whistle” on Moon shots to a young man named John Grant from Vietnam wars. Which other people had influenced most your dad in his career of writer?
WLK
The young man to which you refer, John Grant, was one of many young war veterans who became disenchanted with the Vietnam War, and the government that got the United States into it. My dad never liked the idea of war--he thought it was both a terrible waste of both talent and resources, plus he was vehemently opposed to the killing and maiming of innocent women and children that was taking place on a daily basis in Vietnam. In talking with John and other Vietnam veterans about how and why the war got started in the first place, my dad was inspired to ask--and answer--some really hard questions about the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam, basically critically questioning the government's actions and motives concerning the war, but my dad didn't stop with the Vietnam war. He started looking at other government programs and projects, including the Apollo project and the possibility of a faked moon landing. My dad threw himself completely into the research and began collecting information from individuals all over the world corroborating his theories, which resulted in the book, "We Never Went to the Moon," first published in 1975.
You asked who else influenced my father's writing career, I have to mention his favorite authors: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Thomas Jefferson, Marcus Aurelius, William Shakespeare, but I think his favorite author of all was Jack London, for both this style of writing and for his subject matter, though he loved many other authors as well, including writers of poetry.
AG
Leaving out “We Never Went To The Moon”, which books, written by Bill Kaysing, in your opinion should be recommended most to younger readers?
WLK
I personally loved the Ex-Urbanites Fully Illustrated First Time Farmers Guide (subtitled "A Useful Book") because it was simply and beautifully written –and contained a lot of very practical knowledge—this book is also appropriate for anytime, especially for people today facing financial difficulties. My dad always believed that people should be connected to the earth for what it can provide—indeed, he was one of the first advocates of sustainable living! Around the world, so many people live unsustainable lives in over-crowded cities, subjected to polluted ground waters; our oceans, air, and earth are all polluted with toxic chemicals. My father would say, “Sell everything you own and move back to the land!” But he also believed that people must be prepared, and stressed that they learn as much as they can before they make such a radical change from urban to an agricultural based life style, hence the reason for this and his other books. He believed that farm or ranch life may not always be easy, but he found that those who live close to the earth tend to experience a greater appreciation of the simpler, purer things in life –e.g. compare a child living in a noisy city spending hours alone playing violent video games, to another child caring for animals or picking vegetables out of a garden--the fact is, too many of us have become overly dependent on an electronic world to serve and satisfy our basic needs—my dad would say we have not only lost touch with the earth, but with each other.
AG
According to your feelings, do you think your father ever felt threatened, in any moment of his life, by US governmental bodies or private organizations or individuals as result of his strong points and opinions exposed in his books?
WLK
Yes, of course, he sometimes felt threatened--however, he was never one to be afraid of anything...he used to say something like, "They can kill me, but they can't eat me." I think he was quoting someone there. But he was a man on a mission, and nothing, not threats or investigations, ever stopped him...in fact, threats had the effect of making him work that much harder to expose what he believed to be the truth.
AG
It is amazing to discover that Bill was an early ecologist in the Seventies. Going beyond current US Administration statements and actions, do you think environmental issues have a very strong influence in today’s political concerns in US?
WLK
I believe the answer to your question is an emphatic “yes”. So many Americans are now aware of the fact that our environment has been compromised and sacrificed in the name of productivity. The fact is, if we don’t take care of the environment, it cannot take care of us! The fact is, our oceans are dying, and when they die, we die. Simple as that! The people who elected Obama did so with the expectation that he would product our natural resources, our air, our water and our land, in addition to finding ways to implement sustainable energy for both industry and the private sector. Currently, many companies who are jumping on the “green” bandwagon, saying: “Go Green” “Eco-Friendly” “Energy Efficient!” Personally, I hope it is not too little too late…but I believe it is only when individuals start “voting with their dollars” that things will change and on that note, I recommend the book, The Better World Shopping Guide by Ellis Jones –a University of Davis Professor-- who has rated companies based on how social and environmental responsibility. He says, “Every dollar you spend is a vote for the world you live in” -- that statement mirrors what my dad was telling people all his life.
AG
You stated that you do not know much about space exploration and you are not involved in the Moon Landings Controversy. However, in your opinion, what would be the US public opinion reaction if the moon shots were revealed as really been faked?
WLK
I cannot speak for other people—but obviously some people might be shocked and others would not. However, because it has been revealed that during last eight years the U.S. administration openly deceived the American public, I wonder if anyone would truly be surprised if was eventually revealed that the moon landing never occurred. Since the Bush years, people are far less trusting governmental activities in general, and especially of what went on during (and before) Bush went into office. Obama says he is committed to governmental transparency—and if so, maybe we will find out more about what happed during the Apollo years, e.g. allowing people to the exercise the Freedom of Information Act, and also by generally creating an atmosphere of openness –including the declassifying of many government documents.
AG
What did your father do during his latest years? Finally, let me ask you, what main lesson we should learn from life and work of Bill Kaysing in light of present times?
WLK
After living in southern and central California, and also a short time in Nevada, my father and his wife, Ruth, settled in Monterey County—first in Soquel where they lived many years, and then inland, near Kings City. They did a lot of traveling together, including to Europe, but especially the back country of California, and Nevada, and New Mexico—I believe those were the happiest years of his life. Following Ruth’s death, my dad was very depressed—he was very devoted to Ruth, and when she was gone, he missed her terribly. After Ruth died, my dad moved to a little town outside of Los Vegas, helping a friend manage a refuge for abandoned cats—where he continued to write and explore the surrounding wilderness until his death in 2006.
The first lesson that comes to my mind is my dad's unrelenting questioning of those in authority. As Albert Einstein said, "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth,” my father fervently believed people need to ask questions, to think for themselves, and not let themselves be swayed by the influence of advertising, false doctrines, or unproven reports of any kind. He also believed life was a gift to be enjoyed to the fullest…summarized by way he always signed his letters: Love, Joy, and Action. To my dad, everything in life was an amazing adventure and his irrepressible positive spirit was still active while he expressed a few of his final words admiring the beautiful mountain view from my sister's patio in Santa Barbara shortly before he died. "This is a nice conclusion," he said , followed by, "Now I am off to the next big adventure!"