I said, “I will promise you this. If you lend us two pair of your birds to do a breeding program up here on the mountain, I will see to it as well as I possibly can, to be sure that we follow up your friend, Herbert Chip, I mean, Peter Scott’s suggestions to have a ecological study done on the birds, and I will keep you informed, and I will promise to tell the reporters the progress of this program, this restocking, restoration program, and I will continue to emphasize it’s all due to the fact that you’re lending us the basics, the breeders of this entire program, is dependent on your generosity in lending us these birds. I will see to it, I promise you that, Mr. Shipman.” And I was smart enough to stop right there. So we got in the car, and our mutual friend on the way down to Hilo, and flying back down to Honolulu said, “Well, I don’t know about Uncle Herbert.” He said, “Maybe you’ve gotten to him with that newspaper thing. But another thing I do, guys, is have Governor Steinback write him a nice letter saying, hey, we wanna borrow two of your birds, two pair of your nene, and we’ll do right by you, and make it flowery.” And Vernon said, “I’ll do that.” And so we went back. Less than a week later, we got word, it’s a go, we did it. And that was the basis. Now the fascinating thing, there was no money.
