Yesterday was the Grand Opening of the Panama Canal Museum at University of Florida. Here I am standing by the Bust of Balboa; I donated the money for this case. The only way knowledge of life on the Panama Canal Zone will survive in the future is by this museum that we started in 1997 & turned it over to UF about 5 years ago. We grew it as volunteers & needed to get Government grants & forever life. Since UF has a huge Latin studies dept., they were our best partner. There was never & is now no life or civilization any where in the world like the Panama Canal Zone. We needed no passports, we could not vote and had no representative in Congress or the Senate, our governor was appointed by the Pres. of the U.S. every 4 years, we have a bond only known to blood relatives, we were like small town USA & yet there were thousands & thousands of people living on the Canal Zone, etc. & etc. My family is ingrained in it. My uncle helped build the Canal & received the Roosevelt Medal; my dad left Indiana & joined his oldest brother, (who was 25 years older than he), when he was 18 or 19 years old & worked for the U.S. Government for 37 years before retiring at 55 years. My mom was an RN and answered the call for help from Gorgas Hospital on the Canal Zone when she was in her mid to late 20s; she headed up a new born nursery in a large hospital in Washington DC when she left to go to Panama where she met my dad immediately at a bachelor party for all the new nurses who had arrived.