Illinois One - Text
Subject is white male, retired computer analyst. Born and raised on a family farm in Earlville, Illinois; college educated in Illinois; lived in Bloomington and Frankfort, Illinois for short periods, but lived and worked in Chicago area most of adult life. Married to Illinois subject #2. Recorded by Paul Meier, 1999. Running time 00:03:20.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Earlville - or I was born in Ottawa, Illinois near Earlville where I was raised for the first eighteen years of my life. My dad was a farmer and, uh, he raised, uh, corn, beans and oats mostly and hay - had a few cattle, and I helped him on that, uh, endeavor as well as, uh, going to school, uh, grade school, high school in Earlville. And, uh, later I went to college at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, had a degree in English with a ma- or a degree - a bachelor's degree with a major in English and a minor in music. And later took some music training at Illinois Wesleyan University and finally, uh, got a degree at uh, a masters degree in computer science at Northern Illinois University De Kalb in 1976. And I spent my, uh, career - most of my career as a computer programmer, systems analyst, computer trainer and, uh, web developer. And, uh, first memory. The first memory that I think that I have- and I'm not-it's indistinct but I think it would be, uh, looking up out of a baby basket at a bunch of people looking over the edge and being at a party or something and then all the people would disappear and I would hear noise in the background and I would be alone there in the baby basket, uh waiting for somebody else to look over the edge, I guess. And, uh, on the farm, uh, maybe I could tell a couple of memories on the farm, uh, I yu, I uh, first started driving our- our Farm-all tractor, it was a "B" model, it was a very small tractor and that's what I learned on and I would pull the hay bailer, and I remember, uh, pulling my dad and my uncle, they were, they would be back pulling bales out of the hay bailer and putting them on the ra - on the uh, flat rack to take into the mow and, uh, my touch on the clutch was not all that good and sometimes I would jerk the clutch out and they would, uh not fall - but they would be, uh, stumbling for ber- stumbling for balance and I would get a little chewing out for that. Um, I had, uh, hay fever and, uh, was allergic to grain dust so I was not a good fit for being a farmer and so after many tight chests and many, uh, many times of, uh, uh, having reactions to that sort of thing, I realized that I would have to do something besides farming which was good because I didn't like farming too much anyway.