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Carol Schwartz reading from the back cover summary of her new book “Quite A Life!, From Defeat to Defeat and Back”~
“Carol Schwartz tells it like it was. Warts and all. . . if you want an outspoken, personal autobiography with pictures galore, that also talks about the history of DC since Home Rule, takes you behind the scenes of chaotic campaigns, as well as shows you the inner workings of government, all rolled together, come on this ride with me. . . It’s a journey of wins and defeats and coming back with hope.”
Andy Ockershausen: This is Our Town. This is Andy Ockershausen, and I’m so delighted, more ways than you’ll ever realize, and I hope sometime during this broadcast you know how much I appreciate this woman, what she’s meant to Our Town for over 40 years. What she has done for Washington. That’s Carol Schwartz. I always call her Mayor Tootsie. I think she should have been Mayor of Our Town many times. All the times she ran. What she brought was so much fire to our council and so much interest and so much of a woman that really cared about Our Town and Carol Schwartz, welcome to Our Town.
Andy and Carol: Police Boys and Girls Club Connection
Carol Schwartz: Thank you, Andy, and it’s nice to be with you again. We served together for, oh gosh, decades and decades on the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Clubs.
Andy Ockershausen: You were Chairman of the Board.
Carol Schwartz: I was. I was the first woman President …
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: … in their 61 year history. In fact when I got there in 1979, when I was on the School Board, Dick England, God bless his soul …
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: Oh I loved him. He brought me on and when I got there, women were just allowed on the board. Before that they had an auxiliary group of women that just baked the brownies. I actually bake a pretty good brownie, but that’s not the role I wanted to play there.
Andy Ockershausen: The club was the Boys Club and then we added girls as we went along. The Police Boys and Girls Club but at one time it was a Police Boys Club, so that hung over for a while but you certainly changed it and you did so much for Our Town and that club. We lost the police department but I think we made so many inroads with it.
Carol Schwartz: The police are still involved with that one group because they merged with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
Andy Ockershausen: of America, right?
Carol Schwartz: Yeah, which I always fought because I thought it was great to have our distinction and have …
Andy Ockershausen: A local group.
Carol Schwartz: … the police involved, local group involved with the police department and it still is today. They’ve left that alone, thank goodness.
Andy and Carol: Duke Zeibert’s Connection
Andy Ockershausen: What you did for Our Town, but that was just a sprinkling of all the things. Carol, we used to see each other all the time at a place that doesn’t exist anymore called Duke Zeibert’s.
Carol Schwartz: Oh I loved that.
Andy Ockershausen: We were in town and it was Our Town and you always saw people in and out of Duke’s and you were a big part of Duke’s.
Carol Schwartz: Oh I loved Duke’s. I didn’t go that often because it was a little far from where I worked.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: Whenever I went it was the biggest treat and he was so cute. He introduced everybody and he would introduce you and I even though we’d known each other about 30 years at that point, he would always introduce us.
Andy Ockershausen: He was a greeter.
Carol Schwartz: Oh he was a great greeter.
Andy Ockershausen: We used to kid him, he thought he was Toots Shor. He’s a Jewish Toots Shor.
Carol Schwartz: I think he was even better. He was wonderful, wonderful.
The Road From Texas to Washington DC
Andy Ockershausen: Carol, why in the world would a nice Southern girl from Texas come to Washington DC? A lot of people … I know, you told me that Texas story. Your dad was in business in Texas, correct?
Carol Schwartz: My mom and dad were in business. My father was a civil engineer from MIT and my mother was …
Andy Ockershausen: Is that right?
Carol Schwartz: … the number one journalism graduate from LSU. She was a Mississippi girl.
Andy Ockershausen: Wow.
Carol Schwartz: My dad was a Portland, Oregon guy and when they married he was a civil engineer. In fact I spent the first few years of my life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I was born in Mississippi because my mom went home to her mom to give birth which was normal in those days. Then we moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee where my dad worked on the Manhattan Project. He was a pretty tough guy and he didn’t like having bosses. He liked being the boss and so he went into business.
He and my mother both went into business and it was a small Western wear store and we ended up in Texas.
Andy Ockershausen: He was selling, right? He sold-
Carol Schwartz: Oh yeah, and I started working in that store when I was eight years old.
Andy Ockershausen: Is that right?
Carol Schwartz: Eight years old and I was required to be there.
Andy Ockershausen: Here’s an MIT graduate operating a store.
Carol Schwartz: A store in the poor side of town in Midland, Texas. We had moved there when I was eight, which had a very definite train track and there was one side of the train tracks and the other side and I grew up where all the people that worked in the oil fields … That is, the people that worked. A lot of them couldn’t get jobs.
Andy Ockershausen: One of the Bushes grew up in Midland?
Carol Schwartz: They lived on the other side of the tracks.
Andy Ockershausen: Was that the older Bush?
Carol Schwartz: Yes, the father of … George W. lived there but only briefly because he went off to one of those fancy private schools.
Andy Ockershausen: Midland meant something to them.
Carol Schwartz: Yeah, they really did I think-
Andy Ockershausen: Oil town. Boom and bust, right?
Carol Schwartz: That’s where I grew up. It was interesting. I worked all those years in the store and it was selling Western wear and work clothes to the people that worked in the oil fields.
Andy Ockershausen: Levi’s.
Carol Schwartz: Levi’s, absolutely. Toughen up.
Andy Ockershausen: Did you go to school in Texas?
Carol Schwartz: I went to the University of Texas.
Andy Ockershausen: In Austin?
Carol Schwartz: In Austin. It was $50 a semester. Tuition.
Andy Ockershausen: Wow.
Carol Schwartz: That was the only place my folks let me go. You’ll read about it in this book I wrote.
Andy Ockershausen: Carol’s got a book that we’re going to talk about but her life is a book.
Carol Schwartz: Yeah, no, it is.
Andy Ockershausen: It just goes on and on and on and on.
Carol Schwartz: You asked me how I got to Washington. I actually was engaged to a guy from Baytown, Texas and we’d gone together for years and I just talked to him this morning. He remains one of my best friends and his wife is one of my dearest friends.
Andy Ockershausen: Is he still in Texas?
Carol Schwartz: He’s in Dallas now. I was engaged, the wedding was planned, I had a job teaching special education in a junior high school in Austin and I came up to Washington that summer. Summer of 1965.
Andy Ockershausen: Wow. Long, hot summer!
Carol Schwartz: I just had graduated from college and had the job teaching and the wedding planned. I fell in love with Washington DC. Three days here, 72 hours, my head never hit the pillow. Never hit the pillow.
Andy Ockershausen: Carol, you left your fiance … He wasn’t with you right?
Carol Schwartz: No, no. I had come with a girlfriend and we were just going to go visit a friend here who had a summer internship job and then we were going up to New York for about 10 days in order to just have a little …
Andy Ockershausen: A girls’ weekend?
Carol Schwartz: A girls’ week in New York and then I was going back, starting the job, getting married, and my life was planned in Texas. I went so crazy about this City. I call it gaga. I went gaga. It was like a magnet pulling me here.
Andy Ockershausen: Our Town was a magnet, absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: It was a magnet. I had never had that happen to me since or before.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s love at first sight, right?
Carol Schwartz: I say it’s the only love affair I’ve not been able to get over. It’s true.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s still your town, right?
Carol Schwartz: Oh yeah, but it’s so interesting that I went back and I told the job the first day that I’d be leaving at mid-term. I didn’t want to leave them high and dry, so they had time to get some teacher to take my place. I told my fiance a couple of days later, but thank goodness, it took about five years but we’re still very, very dear, dear, dear friends.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s great because you let him down … Better do it before than after.
Carol Schwartz: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: You got him early.
Carol Schwartz: He’s a wonderful, wonderful man. It was a magnet, and I’ve never regretted it.
Andy Ockershausen: What did you do when you first came to town?
Carol Schwartz Gets Started in Our Town
Carol Schwartz: I lived in Southwest Washington. I lived at Capitol Park.
Andy Ockershausen: It was a different southwest than now.
Carol Schwartz: Uh-huh. Capitol Park development, and I shared a little apartment with two other women from Texas and I taught school. Special education and then I met my husband, got married, and et cetera.
Andy Ockershausen: You were not one of the government girls that came here to work for Uncle Sam. So many young women came to Washington over the years.
Carol Schwartz: No. I came and just kept on with my career being a special education teacher.
Andy Ockershausen: In Our Town.
Carol Schwartz: In Our Town, which is-
Andy Ockershausen: Then started having children. You got married …
Carol Schwartz: I got married. Met somebody and within about four and a half months of dating, I got married. Not because I had to then. I just wanted to. Then I had three children in three years and four months and then ran for the board of education when the children were five, four, and two.
Andy Ockershausen: In Our Town. What would lead you to that? Were you happy with the way things were going that you wanted to be an educator, because you brought some new ideas to the board?
Carol Schwartz: That, and our kids-
Andy Ockershausen: What moved you to do it?
D.C. School Board Appointment
Carol Schwartz: One of our kids was already in kindergarten. The other one was entering the next year and so I knew we were going to send, my husband and I both agreed, we went to public schools, we wanted our kids to go to public schools. I knew I’d be involved in the public schools and it’s a long story to why I ran. It wasn’t even an election when I ran, it was going to be an appointment.
I was a young gal who had a lot of … outgoing, always-
Andy Ockershausen: You still do.
Carol Schwartz: I didn’t have the confidence to run for office.
Andy Ockershausen: No way.
Carol Schwartz: Maybe, I got to tell you I didn’t-
Andy Ockershausen: Maybe the old Carol Schwartz.
Carol Schwartz: I didn’t grow up with confidence because of the working environment. My only sibling was 18 months older than I am, an individual with intellectual disability that I had to help take care of since I was about five. I started working in that store when I was eight. I had a very tough father. I just didn’t get much attention, between my tough father who demanded attention all the time, my brother who needed attention most of the time, there wasn’t any left over for me. As a result-
Andy Ockershausen: Right, there was none for Carol I think.
Carol Schwartz: There was-
Andy Ockershausen: What was your maiden name?
Carol Schwartz: Levitt.
Andy Ockershausen: Levitt, right. I heard that before, so I knew that.
Carol Schwartz: L-E-V-I-T-T. Because of those experiences, I didn’t grow up with much confidence and also I had a father that beat me down, literally and figuratively. I never thought of being the person who is a political person. I thought of being the role of the wife who would be the helpmate.
Andy Ockershausen: You didn’t want to be out front.
Carol Schwartz: I don’t even know if I didn’t want to be out front, it just wasn’t the role women played in those days. You’ve got to realize, this is the ’60s.
Andy Ockershausen: In the mid-’60s.
Carol Schwartz: I was pushing my husband to run for the council in the first Home Rule election of 1974. He was a lawyer in private practice making good money. Poor boy from the Bronx, was enjoying making money. He wasn’t so happy doing it and I said, “Why don’t you run for office? You’d be great and I’ll help you. I’ll run your campaign.” I had confidence to do behind the scenes stuff.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely. You were doing the grunt work.
Carol Schwartz: He said, “No. Why don’t you run for the council? You’re the one that’s such a bleeding heart.” I was big volunteer with drug addicts and everything, and he said, “You’re the real bleeding heart, you’re the one-”
Andy Ockershausen: Was this before the Board of Education?
Carol Schwartz: It was. This was in the early ’70s.
On DC School Board Elections and the Beginning of Home Rule
Andy Ockershausen: That was going to be your first run for office, was the education?
Carol Schwartz: Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: Was Tommy Curtis involved in the City at that time? He ran for something in the school board, did he not?
Carol Schwartz: I remember the name, but I don’t remember him.
Andy Ockershausen: You don’t remember Tommy?
Carol Schwartz: I don’t. I do not. My husband said. . .
Andy Ockershausen: Was Marion on the school board?
Carol Schwartz: He was just leaving to go run for the council.
Andy Ockershausen: He got elected to the School Board, did he not?Carol Schwartz: He did, he got … The School Board was the first elected office in our City.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s right.
Carol Schwartz: Congress gave us the ability to elect our school board in 1968.
Andy Ockershausen: Our Town was a company town. A child of the Federal government.
Carol Schwartz: That’s right. The only election we had was the ability to elect the School Board starting in ’68, and 1974 was when the Home Rule Act came in. That was signed by Richard Nixon. Passed by Congress but signed by Richard Nixon. My name was on the ballot of that first Home Rule election in 1974. That was-
Andy Ockershausen: Wonderful. Was that when they appointed Walter or was he later?
Carol Schwartz: He was appointed earlier but afterwards we elected our own. We elected our own, both-
Andy Ockershausen: Walter was appointed by Lyndon Johnson I believe wasn’t he?
Carol Schwartz: Yeah. He was.
Andy Ockershausen: But Carol, what an entry into Our Town though, to start. It’s not at the top but it certainly wasn’t at the bottom.
Carol Schwartz: Oh no, but that’s what appealed to me because education was my bailiwick then. Years later I got a tremendous interest in other areas of our government and ran for the council years later, but at the time when I first ran, education was my real passion. Still is, by the way.
Andy Ockershausen: What has happened to Our Town? It’s exploded now with people. Exploded from all over, and we’re going to come back and talk again. We’ll take a break now, Carol, and come back and talk to you about your advancement from school board to council. This is Our Town, this is Andy Ockershausen.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen. This is Our Town, and talk and chatting with a very dear and not old friend. . . a glorious . . . she’s a good-looking woman. Let me tell you that. I’ve known for almost 50 years.
Carol Schwartz: I’m sure glad your eyes are failing.
Andy Ockershausen: They don’t. I’m smarter now than I was, but Carol Schwartz was elected to the School Board and because of that she got connected with the political system and whatever made Our Town click and got the idea she would run for council. She’s written about it in a book that I found fascinating. It’s Quite A Life. She has quite a life and it ain’t over.
Carol, for you, it’s a big step from the School Board to running for DC Council.
Regarding Service On DC School Board
Carol Schwartz: Actually I didn’t leave one to run for the other even though that is done in political life. I spent two terms on the Board of Education.
Andy Ockershausen: Four year terms?
Carol Schwartz: Uh-huh. 1974 I got sworn in and served until January of ’82.
Andy Ockershausen: Wow.
Carol Schwartz: I hired two marvelous superintendents. Vince Reed.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh my god.
Carol Schwartz: Oh, gosh. He just passed away.
Andy Ockershausen: What a wonderful man.
Carol Schwartz: Just passed away a couple of weeks ago and I was privileged to be asked to speak at his funeral.
Andy Ockershausen: Is that right?
Carol Schwartz: There were only four of us who were asked to speak at his funeral, including-
Andy Ockershausen: Only the good die young. Vince Reed was so special.
Carol Schwartz: Including Donald Graham. No, he was wonderful, and we remained close friends throughout his life and what a magnificent life he had. Then I appointed Floretta McKenzie.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh, I remember her.
Carol Schwartz: I fired Barbara Sizemore. I don’t know if you remember her.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: We had a teachers’ strike because we were trying to approve the evaluation of teachers and have a longer school day for kids.
Andy Ockershausen: She did a great job.
Carol Schwartz: DC Public Schools who had the shortest school day in the country. Our disadvantaged population that needed more time was getting less time than any children in the country. I really was … Banneker Academic High School was the-
Andy Ockershausen: Banneker, absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: Was the baby of Dr. Reed and myself and we pushed it and pushed it and finally got … He left out of madness that it didn’t pass and then I delivered right after that, but I’m sure his leaving helped. People felt badly.
Andy Ockershausen: The combination of what you did for Our Town was unbelievable, Carol. Putting you in that political … because it is political and that’s the way you made things happen. Everybody loved Vince Reed. What he did for Washington Post after he got out of education.
Carol Schwartz: Became Vice President of Communications.
Andy Ockershausen: He was so important to the Post because the Post used to get a lot of people shooting at them, as you know.
Carol Schwartz: Oh, yeah, no he-
Andy Ockershausen: Vince was out there and he would go to the editorial meetings and as I’m told, try to tell them what’s going on in Our Town because they lived somewhere in an ivory tower and he wouldn’t let them get away with that.
Carol Schwartz: No, he was a down to earth, wonderful, wonderful man.
Andy Ockershausen: Wonderful man. Now that you’re elected …
On Working for the Federal Government
Carol Schwartz: What happened is I left the Board of Education and I went and did two other things. I was a full time consultant at the U.S. Department of Education, was brought in there. I didn’t seek it. They came and got me. Then I went to become a press secretary to a member of Congress. I had two really fun, federal experiences during that two year break and it was after that, I realized that my real love was DC and its government, not the federal government. Even though I had fun experiences and interesting experiences there. That’s when I ran for the City Council in 1984.
Andy Ockershausen: That would give you the ability to affect the City, but Uncle Sam doesn’t affect our City as much as the council does, correct?
Carol Schwartz: That’s right.
Andy Ockershausen: On the council you can get things done.
Carol Schwartz: We could, especially-
Andy Ockershausen: In your first race, you’re running as a Republican?
On Running for DC City Council
Carol Schwartz: I ran as a Republican.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s the way to get elected because the way that the City was charged was that so many Democrats got elected and one Republican as I recall.
Carol Schwartz: No, there actually … When the Home Rule came in in 1974, in order to get it through Congress and get enough Republicans to vote for it, two of the at-large seats were set aside. Not for Republicans but for non-majority party people. It’s been Statehood before, it’s been Republicans before, and it’s also been Independents before. I was a Republican for 50 of my voting years.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: For the last four years I am an Independent now.
Andy Ockershausen: But Carol, now that law is still in effect that there’s so many … I usually get very upset as a city resident and being born in the City and being here all my life. Thank God being connected with WMAL me interest to all these people and these names you’re talking about. I’d get furious when somebody would get on the council, they would have been a Democratic candidate, and all of a sudden they’re an Independent. I’m trying to think of … you know who I mean.Brown.
Carol Schwartz: Oh, yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: That was a gerrymander of the worst kind.
Carol Schwartz: Listen, they have a right to do it because it just said non-Democratic.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s right. I know they said … but they really weren’t Independents, but they got away with it. That’s their world. I don’t know how many Independents are on. No Republicans of course.
Schwartz Gives “Sick Leave to Workers in the Private Sector” and Loses Council Seat and Much More
Carol Schwartz: No, there are no Republicans …I got defeated, and I got defeated in 2008 because I gave sick leave to workers in the private sector. It had always bothered me and I didn’t bring this bill forward. This bill actually was brought forward by 12 people on the council and I wasn’t one of them. There were 13 members of the council. By all 12 people, not me. I was not one of the co-introducers at the beginning, or co-sponsors, only me.
Then it came to my committee and I guess they hoped it’d get killed off in my committee because I was the only person that didn’t sign on, but I bought into it because I’ve always been a person that believes in subsidizing the working poor. Not people that stay home who are able-bodied and able-minded and just collect checks, but people who are out there working every day to try to better their lives and the lives of their family.
Andy Ockershausen: They can’t keep up.
Carol Schwartz: They can’t keep up because you know what, all these major corporations, all the drugstore companies, the big ones, 51% of their workers are part time. Why are they part time? Then they don’t have to give them one day of sick leave. One day vacation. It is an abomination. I think it’s sinful. You see all those people in a drugstore working behind the counter and if they’re sick, their choice is go in sick or stay home and lose your pay.
They go in sick, they’re coughing. They’re handing you money. How is it in society’s best interest? Even more importantly, how is it in humanity’s best interest? I got into it, but I told the proponents that I was going to water the bill down. It was too extreme. It gave too much sick leave. It gave small little businesses who were probably going to go out of business. I said, “I’m going to water the bill down,” and I did. Everybody in the private sector now gets sick leave due to me and my pushing it.
Now I gave up my career because-
Andy Ockershausen: It’s something you believed in Carol.
Carol Schwartz: Yes, but those rich garage guys, they came after me. They came after me. The developers put buku money in to defeat me on the Council. I lost in the primary in 2008 and I came back and waged a write-in. I beat the guy who beat me in the primary by write-ins. . .
Andy Ockershausen: Carol, everybody knew Carol Schwartz.
Carol Schwartz: . . . but I wasn’t able to beat Michael Brown.He was number one on the ballot and was on the ballot. I was not on the ballot.
Andy Ockershausen: He was in the clique too, at the time.
Carol Schwartz: Anyway, you know what? I lost my career. I lost actually a big … my salary. I had to get through that one election to get the salary that all my colleagues had. My retirement is $35,000 less than anybody else’s and that’s because-
Andy Ockershausen: Serving the council.
Carol Schwartz: In every way, it hurt me financially, it certainly was … I don’t think it helped the City to have me gone.
Andy Ockershausen: No, it didn’t, Carol.
Carol Schwartz: I’ve been-
Andy Ockershausen: Carol you were a hair shirt to a lot of people. Everybody loved you, because you made people know who you are and what you stood for. You never hid from that, did you? Your vote was always out there.
Carol Schwartz: No and listen, I’m proud of my political career in the City. I’m proud of my loss because it was for a good cause.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely. Let’s talk about this mayor thing. I’m going to … This is your City Council job but I want to talk about the Mayor and where Carol has been with that. This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen, this is Our Town and having a conversation with a legend. Thank the Lord she’s still with us and still legendary, it’s Carol Schwartz who’s written a marvelous book about her life. Her life is Our Town to me. I know she had a life before Our Town but you’ve done so much Carol and to see you and know you all these years and watch you run for Mayor, has been delight for everybody in broadcasting because you were great copy. You never hid behind anybody.
On Running for Mayor – It’s a One Party Town
Carol Schwartz: Oh, I know. In fact I often … I did run for Mayor five times. I often joke though, I’m the gal that ran for Mayor a couple of dozen times because I think I’m known for my Mayoral runs. I even got close one time in 1994. You’ve got to realize … I’ve got to back up a minute. DC is a town that is 11:1 ratio. 11 Democrats to every one Republican. There’s no place in the country that has that …
Andy Ockershausen: No, never will be.
Carol Schwartz: … sort of lopsided
Andy Ockershausen: It’s a one-party town.
Carol Schwartz: It’s a totally one-party town and yet, me, with a big R next to my name … People always told me, if I just ran as an Independent. If I just switched an Independent I could’ve been elected Mayor in this town early on but I never did.
Andy Ockershausen: I believe that
Carol Schwartz: As a Republican in 1994 I got 42% of the vote. I was even leading the morning count. That remains the closest Mayoral general election in the history-
Andy Ockershausen: For anybody, right?
Carol Schwartz: Uh-huh.
Andy Ockershausen: Ever.
Carol’s Book – Quite A Life!, From Defeat to Defeat and Back
Carol Schwartz: In the history of DC. I’m so glad you mentioned my book. I’m mighty proud. I self-published it because you know why? One, the publishers weren’t ringing my phone off the hook but number two I didn’t want to have anybody edit my book. I wanted to say what I wanted in my book.
Andy Ockershausen: All you.
Carol Schwartz: I did it. I want to just read you the back of it a little bit.
Andy Ockershausen: Please.
Carol Schwartz: It just says, “Always a straight shooter, Carol talks about her life with characteristic candor and her opinions with unbridled honesty, and usually with humor. From her difficult childhood in West Texas to her unexpected political victories, to her losses both in public and private life including the sudden death of her husband …” You remember dear David?
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Carol Schwartz: “Carol Schwartz tells it like it was. Warts and all. As Carol says, if you want someone to give you a sugar-coated synopsis of a life, go elsewhere, but if you want an outspoken, personal autobiography with pictures galore …” 43 pages’ worth of pictures.
Andy Ockershausen: Wow.
Carol Schwartz: There are 369 pictures in this book. It talks about the history of … “With pictures galore, that also talks about the history of DC since Home Rule, takes you behind the scenes of chaotic campaigns, as well as shows you the inner workings of government, all rolled together, come on this ride with me.” It shows me standing by my … That yellow Pontiac Trans Am car, convertible I have.
Andy Ockershausen: All over town.
Carol Schwartz: “It’s a journey of wins-”
Andy Ockershausen: Where do we get … Where does the public-
Carol Schwartz: “It’s a journey of wins and defeats and coming back with hope.” In fact it’s subtitled. It’s titled Quite A Life! with the subtitle From Defeat to Defeat and Back.
Andy Ockershausen: Defeat.
Carol Schwartz: You can get it at Politics and Prose. You can get it at Busboys and Poets. You can get it at … There are about eight small bookstores around town where you can get it. You can also get it by ordering, by going to caroldc.com. I have my own webpage and you can just punch a button.
Andy Ockershausen: You got your own life, too.
Carol Schwartz: You can just punch a button and order it right there. Caroldc.com.
Andy Ockershausen: Amazing. Wonderful, wonderful story. Carol, I can’t tell you how much we enjoy you and that book has got to be a must for everybody that knows Our Town and knows what you brought to it. You have been here long enough to see the amazing changes to Our Town, which go on every minute. As we leave here, there’ll be a new building that we didn’t know before, but you made that all possible. What you did for education and our kids, you put Our Town on the map, Carol.
Carol Schwartz: Thank you, Andy. Listen I’m glad you’re still here talking about Our Town.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m doing what I can. Janice’s idea. We believe in Our Town and we believe that this is is important for you to be a part of it and everybody that I can now talk to is going to tune in. We’ll see to that. We get on, how many? 50,000 … Whatever they’re called Carol, we’re there. Our Town, to have Carol Schwartz has been a definite delight and Carol thank you.
The book Quite A Life, from mayor to mayor to mayor to mayor.
Carol Schwartz: Didn’t quite happen but that’s okay.
Andy Ockershausen: She never met a campaign she didn’t like.
Carol Schwartz: That’s true.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen. This is Our Town and we’ve had a delightful meeting and discussion and time with Carol Schwartz. Mayor Tootsie will always be our Mayor. Remember that.
Carol Schwartz: That’s what he always called me. It’s been fun, thank you.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Our Town Season 3 presented by GEICO. Our hometown favorite with your host Andy Ockershausen. New Our Town episodes are released each Tuesday and Thursday. Drop us a line with your comments or suggestions. See us on Facebook or visit our website at ourtowndc.com. Our special thanks to Ken Hunter, our technical director and WMAL Radio in Washington DC for hosting our podcast. Thanks to GEICO. 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.
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