Carla Aragon and Pete V. Domenici; Part 2 of 3

remember that? I don't know. I know. Is she in Arizona now? She's not in Los Cruces. Oh, that's too bad. Okay. Okay. Joining us on the set now is the wife of Senator Domenici, Nancy Domenici, and thank you for agreeing to be a part of this oral history. The first question right off the bat in both of you, I'd like to get interaction from both of you, but you were at the tribute in June. How much fun was that for both of you to see so many friends come forward and to honor both of you for the time that you've been in Senate. The Senate. Well, it was a terrific day. I mean, there were so many different kinds of people, old, young, some talented singers. I'm not quite so talented singers. And particularly because they think had a cross-section of the young dancers from different groups in

the city. And that made it a nice break, but it was good. All those people in the audience had paid to come and had to sit there through that. And there was a lot of involvement, I think, because one person in the Senate office was the coordinator. How did you feel after that? That was the one thing I loved about that tribute. It was fun. And you know, granted, you have a lot of accolades that are about very serious issues, but this one was just downright fun. Well, I'll tell you it's getting even though we're having more tributes. This one will stand out because of what we've just been talking about. It was great fun participation. But it's getting harder and to really believe that we're going to be finished. And we're not going to have these kind of things anymore. We're not going to be Mr.

Senator. It's not so much an ANSI. But I can just say it was among the best tributes you could have done and done up in spades. And we're so grateful to the people that participated in it. When I talked to the Senator last time, we talked a little bit about you. And he really says that you have been a part of this journey. How have the diminishes worked as a team? Well, I certainly wasn't part of the political paranoia or whatever we want to call that. I was more a supporter of husband, who also is a Senator. And I think that's probably the contribution. I did not, I'm not political myself. So I really didn't have strong opinions about various things going on. Or people that were involved that much. So I was more the cheerleader, kind of just listening to him sometimes, sometimes giving a criticism or two. But more a personal kind of friend. Would you agree

or is she selling herself short? She is selling herself way short. Well, for instance, she didn't mention, and I would have to mention for her, she has been very involved in the issue of mental illness. And the federal government is involved quite heavily. And there's a lot of other groups that are very involved. And my wife knows what's going on in all of those things and participates in many times in the events that occur on Capitol Hill where the issues confronting the mentally ill community of America are discussed. And she ends up knowing a lot of the people and knowing some of the doctors and knowing which ones are good ones and which ones aren't. And she's an advisor to some people who call up and ask her for advice. And it's just terrific to see the

confidence that people have in her. And it's right, it's it's rightfully placed. And from my standpoint, I would have to say and she would agree that her participation in what I do as a senator has become more or not less with the passage of time. I would say the last 10 years or maybe less. She knows what's going on and we have good dialogue and she gives me good thoughts. She's a very has a wonderful mind, but that's she doesn't like me saying that, but it is true. And great disposition and takes care of things easily. Big things she solves like nothing. And I'm just in awe sometimes of how she can get so many things done. And our family is big and she knows them all and is close to them and does things for them all that are sweet and nice. She just knows how to be

loving and she knows that you've got to use your will to be a lover. You've got to want to do certain things and that's what she does. Well, boy, you accomplished quite a bit because to raise eight children and to be supportive to a husband that was so involved not in just state issues, national issues, but global issues. That's a balancing act. You know, I appreciate all of his wonderful remarks, but when you're in a spot, you just do what you're supposed to do, right? And lots of times you don't do it very good and you just sort of wade through it. And if it works out, it works out. And we've had wonderful children. We have great grandchildren and his staff. So many of them have been over the years that they're very supportive. I mean, I'm not involved in the day-to-day things of the office on decorating the office or knowing who does

what. So it's been a it's been a good mutual situation. One of the things that both of you were involved in both of you in character counts. And tell me about your involvement in that and why it was so important to both of you. Well, I'll tell you, character counts is one of those things that come along in the Senator and the Senator's office has a real a real choice. You can just say, I don't want to do any of that. I'm busy legislating or I don't want to do that. I got it. I got too many other things. I'm very glad that my disposition and the way I think of things. I found that and I thought it was a rare opportunity to show some involvement and participation in making our young giving to our young students in Mexico. And if we're fortunate, more so in the country, but for me,

youngsters in the Mexico give them a chance to learn about character counts, which is just a simple program of six pillars, six words, which are called the pillars of character. And you know, when it's a matter of teaching them and getting the kids exposed to them, and nobody objects because it's not Christian, it's not Islamic, it's not Jewish, but look at it's responsibility, understanding, trustworthiness, trustworthiness, you know, imagine that. You're telling young people about you shouldn't lie. That's what trustworthiness is. And they go to big meetings and say, we want to do this program. And so they accept that that will be taught. And then the teachers get together and we don't want another program, but when you tell them this, you know what's happening most of the time is they say, you know, this is what we've been wanting to do all along, but we never

found a way. And so I was really thrilled to find it. And I found it in a newspaper clipping where a person that writes a column happened to write about this. And I called the founder. And then one of the big board members was Tom Seleck. And I called him up and asked him, how is this? He said, oh, it's great. So we introduced a resolution. The first one was a Democrat and Republican was Sam Nunn, Pete Tomenici, your vice versa. And by resolution, we adopted a character counts week or day. And at the same time, the activity by senators grew because I told them how I wrote them and said, boy, if you want to do one, and quietly some senators were doing this two years later, and I didn't even know it. One of my sudden friends had gone to the school system and got it put in their schools and he'd go around and visit. And ours was the model because the tell you the truth because I stayed involved with everyone. Each group that formed, I would

go visit them. Roswell became just a stellar example of what you should do. Albuquerque had a number of, well, all of the grade schools were carried to cons grade schools. And some places they composed a melody, a new tune. And their little band would be out there when I came and it was a character counts tune. And the band would be playing it. Now, I'm not here telling you, nor do I want to be so presumptuous that we're taking care of the problems that are heavy and tough for kids, especially teenagers. But we are at least giving them some cornerstone support. One of the toughest things going in the United States is the fact that parents are not able to say yes or no to their kids. Children, they just have to learn by a hit or miss and some bad things are happening to our kids.

No question. Well, it sounds so simple at Nancy, but it really is a program that has had a lot of impact. You know, I wish I was, could say I was very, very involved. My involvement, again, was seen at happening sometimes by tagging along with husband here to this different schools, sometimes being at a reception where companies had underwritten so other children could travel as a prize because of what they had done. And also I got to see how staff became so involved in our city in our state that it just kept on going as like a flood. So what I saw was the good part, even going up into the people that work. I mean, so it can go from young children into the high school level, which is harder, but into the employment area also. We need that as well. You've got to tell me before we leave about Tom Sellett coming here to speak on behalf of character cows. I believe it

was during balloon fiesta. Boy, it started out with a marvelous assembly at Garfield where you taught, taught school. What was it like having Tom Sellett can tell for you? You know, I don't know if I remember seeing him at that event, but I have seen him at others and all the women line up. I mean, is he ever an attraction to that? But in a very handsome, gentle way. I mean, he just, I think he is a role model just by looking at him. What do you remember of it? Well, I don't remember Garfield that well. So I remember Garfield very well. I taught school there for one year and I was coach. I had to get the job at Garfield. It was a lot of competition for jobs. It wasn't like it's so easy to get a teaching job and I thought it would be. It wasn't a big time thing. Make $3,600 a year and I just wanted to do it for a little while, but I had to coach for free coach baseball. So I did that and as a result, I kind of remembered. I remember doing some

special things for math to teach math to kids because I was so, so upset that many of the kids couldn't add in the eighth grade. I was just wondering how were they have a checkbook? They won't. How will they know about about credit cards and what it means they won't? So I worked myself into a little bit of a lather about that and I tried to change. So that made that school a little bit special, but I can't quite remember the SELEC visit other than it was. We did Garfield, we did an elementary school as soon as elementary where he spoke and then that night was the night we had the first church contraception at which he raised $40,000. How many? 40,000, which was, I mean this is 1985, it's 1985. Ninety-five. Ninety-five. In the next morning we took a tour of the room. You said no problems having staff at work for you. So it was a big deal to have Tom Selec and I have to share with you. I

have a picture because I worked the balloon yesterday that morning of you, me, Tom Selec and Tom Joel's. Anyway, we'll just put a little more on the tape that we used the visit of Tom Selec to Albuquerque to a fairly well. We didn't just go to Garfield Junior High, we did that, but the whole day was planned and he was very gracious to let us use him and we'd raise money for character counts, had a big reception as my staff, a wonderful staff person here, Lisa Breeden, who does all the character counts except in Roswell and Eastside. We have somebody else there. She really puts together a program and all I do now is say what does Lisa tell me to do and then I do it and it's a great success, but to be honest you have to have wonderful staff to take over and do programs like this. I also want to say the mayor, he's the mayor now, but he was the mayor then too, was really

active and that helps a lot in doing it if you've got the mayors and we used it as a model and got most mayors involved which wasn't normal or natural, but the next thing we did was the school boards were kind of Larry or these people, but after we showed them, exposed them to it and some teachers that were worried were shown, you don't have to buy any new books, you know just little pieces of paper tell you what to do, go to the school boards and get it approved and almost every school board in New Mexico has approved it and almost every school district has some character counts in it, which I think considering how tough it is to get any of this started is to really attribute not to me, but to the fact that people are longing, you know they want some of these kinds of things taught again. You know before you leave because I'm mindful of the time and unfortunately it's dwindling,

I have to ask you how is life going to be different for the diminishes after December 31st, Nancy? You know I'm not certain that it will be a lot different, Pete is still not going to take out the trash, he's not going to write the checks and he's may go grocery shopping and cook a little bit, but I don't think it'll be different so much in our relationship in the home. I think that there are some things that Pete has had done for him that we just have to make certain that there's those kinds of people out there now in his life. My hope is that we can plan our own weekends. We can look forward to three or four months ahead and not have someone else already marked in the days that maybe we had hoped to have family or do something special. So those plan times I hope get to be under our control. You can take that out of this tape and give it to me and it'll be in my instruction as to what I should do, right?

Okay, yes, well make sure that it's itemized. I think what Nancy has expressed is something to be hopeful, to hope for and shoot for for me, because my life was a little bit different than hers, there is another part that's bugging me and bothering me. That's what I do, what do I do to use up the energy that I put into this job. I do like to read, but you can't substitute reading for the kind of activities I've been through. So I'll have to find something to use parts not all my time, so I'm going to be for my grandkids that I haven't spent enough and for what Nancy's spoken to, but they'll have to be something that, well, it would use my mind and my capacity to think and work. And it might very well be because I love the field of energy.

It may be to work in nuclear power, it may be to work in energy issues. I don't think a president would ask me to do anything. They probably all think I'm all too old. I don't think I am at all, but I'm getting up there, so I'll have to find some things that fit me. And the diagnosis, how has that affected you and what you see in the future? You know, Pete's symptoms have really steadyed down. They're not going accelerating and the abilities that he have are working just as fine as they used to and any disabilities or symptoms. It seems like he's learning to cope with them or there are other people that can help him cope with him. So we don't see a lot of sudden changes in his symptoms or characteristics. So I don't think he quite fits under some of the terrible outcomes that people had talked about.

Well, that's good news, she's right. I've been talking to you and pulling out things from 25 years ago and I don't, you know, sometimes my mind is, my change is subject and you don't know it because I can't quite remember, but I don't, and it has affected my ability to, in certain ways, but not, you know, I'm, I still am capable of doing a center job. So I ought to be able to be able to be an advisor or accept, per pay or gratis responsibilities to share with people and help thoughtfulness to have thoughtfulness prevail. So we'll, we'll think things through. I think I can, I can find something like that to do and maybe serve on some board of directors of some companies. That would be fun. I haven't done that. I do serve with the permission of the Senate on, on a couple now. One has to do with what you asked a while ago when we were talking about the fall of the Soviet Union.

And then there's a great, great private company that works in nonproliferation and I'm on that board with Sam Nunn as the chief operating officer. And that's interesting. I don't do as much that might be a good example. Maybe I'll spend more time on that board, who knows, that's just one example. One of my greatest young friends is Alex Flint and he works for the NEI, which is the largest support, nuclear power in the United States, big group. And they might need somebody like me every now and then. I sort of turned on, turned on their enthusiasm by being their principal speaker starting back about six or seven years ago and I, I caused them to go from a little group that wasn't very excited to get grew and became more and more enthused and now they're a very big group, who literally respect me as the one who caused all these good things to happen

to them. I don't think that's true, but we did, we did, we did do two things that are really great that we close this conversation at one, the state of my health has been discussed. That's completely different, but it has stabilized, which is so interesting and I'm so grateful and I don't know how that happened, but anyway, it's good. And the second is that I think deciding about eight or nine years ago, ten years ago maybe to make nuclear power a reality. I mean, that's just an exciting thing that happened in my life and it's got some hold-ups and hang-ups and I might find myself dragging some of those to see if I can't cut them loose so that it'll move faster. We haven't heard the end of Pete Domenici, so there's more to come, so thank you very much for giving us this time and Nancy, if you wouldn't mind staying there, we'll go ahead

and watch you later. Yeah. I, you know, Doug, I wanted to ask you a fun question and I will at some other point that with all of the buildings named after your husband, you've got an entire campus already. I, you've got so many all over this, yeah, you, Doug.