Robert: My Life

At age 62, Robert Glandian actively works as a health inspector and chemist in Glendale, California. He has a wife and two children, and has a successful financial life. He was glad to tell me stories of his life in the small town of Abadan, at the south of Iran. There was much culture, diversity, and brotherhood in Abadan. One reason for this might have been the cruel teachers back in Iran. In fact, Robert says, the teachers were very special in those days, they were very lively, very punishing. Abadan was not your average Iranian town. There was a river filled with sharks, oil problems between England and Iran, and local stories of pains and pleasures.

I spent the first 18 years of my life there. We were raised in the city Abadan. It’s a city in the south of Iran, not big, and I was someone from a small city. There was an Armenian community of 2,000… 2,500 Armenians, not more than that. Compared to Glendale, its population is about 160 to 200,000. So Abadan has ten times less people than Glendale.

The famous people that we are still remembering together with friends of the same age are the teachers, the principles, in the school that we were going, the Armenian school called Adab school, it was Armenian.

  Robert and his son, Ron.

The teachers were very special in those days; they were very lively, you know, very punishing.  They were punishing like they meant it, they were not gentle. We had celebrities then that we remember now but in those days we were scared, we were very afraid of them, they were very strict and very tough. Those days, when the news was- there was no TV yet. Well, not in our country in Abadan. So, there was no TV. There was radio but I don’t remember listening to the radio well, the news, there were newspapers, and basically that was all and talking with conversation month to year, and calling each other on the telephone. Well we were not very much informed of the news these days we were just talking with friends, and it was just word of mouth. Abadan was in the south of Iran so it had a warm, hot climate and six months a year we were in the pool swimming pool so, I used to swim a lot. I was participating in matches here and there collecting trophies, and there were some other sports, and then there were what we called them bashlam (clubs).

The clubs were where we were spending the weekends, and they had open air movies always in English in those days. So in Iran it wasn’t in Iranian. No, it was in English, so we were listening, and this is how we learned. Most of our generation learned English this way. Not on the TV, but in the movies. Cowboy movies and John Wayne movies in those days. We were going to whenever there was Norooz, or Persian new year. In Persian No means new, and rooz means day. New day for New Year. So when there was Norooz there was two three weeks of vacation, and there was Armenian New Year, another three days of vacation.

There was 3 months of vacation four months of vacation. So the activities were mostly besides the sports water, swimming, we were going to picnics for whatever the occasion was, Persian holidays, Armenian holiday. There was an Armenian church and an Islam church, only one Armenian church. So we were working, most of the Armenians, not all but the majority were working in the oil company, and the oil company took the majority of the workers the oil refineries, and their oil support.

 Well, not that we were following the prices of oil in those days. We were teenagers, your age, and we were not really following the oil price. But yeah the oil company—this was earlier—

there was a British petroleum company that was handling and managing and then, the oil with the, there was the prime minister nationalized the oil company. And oil became the national Iranian oil company NIOC. National Iranian Oil Company.

 People were busy with their daily activities and we were students, we had homework, sports, and I was a teenager, and it was party time in there and we had parties, yeah, boys and girls, yeah, boys and girls together, and they were having snacks, and music, and you know the beginning we were shy, but little by little we were dancing with each other, girls and boys  party time. So it was you know party picnics and swimming, and school, and homework, so we had, we were not following the oil price and it was busy enough growing up so it was just a distraction.

There was a river, a big river, joining water that was joining the Persian gulf. So this was interesting for me to see the river of the Persian gulf and that river was a stopping point. The ships came into the river, and stopped at the coasting where there was a refinery point. To take the oil and go back to the ocean. So these big tankers, big ship liners, yeah, coming in from the ocean to the river, freshwater. There were sharks in the ocean. So this boat, you know the spectaculars that were coming from the ocean into the river, yeah, were dumping the food in a big liner there was rubbish and waste and all that they were dumping through the ocean, yeah. Sharks were following the boats to eat the, whatever they were dumping, so they were following the boat, the big ship, into the river. They were very dangerous.

So I liked to build boats. I was a boat person, yeah. I made a boat, you know the size of a table. I spent one summer, the whole summer to make it. So it was a nice little boat, and then finally it was done, finished, I wanted to put the boat in that river. So, I was very excited, but my dad, well first was not you know, he was not okay with it. The sharks, the dangerous shark, he did not approve. He said it in a very diplomatic way. There was a boat club there, it was for boats and recreation, so we went there, with my dad, and my little boat to test the boat in the water, and then my dad went, he talked to the manager and he came back and he said “the manager well he likes your boat very much and he said he would like to have it as a present. It is a big honor to give that boat to the manager.” And I said but I want to test the boat in the water! And he said, yeah, ok but not now, later. Right now lets give it to the manager. So he managed to take the boat and keep me from using it.

Interviewed by Orrin Ohanian