Kentucky Two - Text
Subject is a white female, mid-forties, born and raised in Fulton, Kentucky, on the border with Tennessee. Parents both Tennesseans. She had lived the last several years in Paducah, Kentucky, working as a legal secretary when Paul Meier recorded this interview in 1999. She speaks of the local industries, climate and agriculture. Running time: 00:02:35.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Fulton, Kentucky. ‘M forty-three year old white female. Uh Fulton Kentucky is on the s—state line um the state line of Tennessee and Kentucky running straight through it. It’s South Fulton, Tennessee and Fulton, Kentucky. And I actually went to school on the Tennessee side but I lived my adult years on the Kentucky side. I have lived in Fulton most of my life. Uh a few years in Saxton Missouri. The last eleven years I’ve been in Paducah, Kentucky. I’ve been a legal secretary most of my life. For the last eight years I administered federal housing grants and I’m not working now. In my spare time I like to sit out on the deck in my hot tub. I just got a new hot tub (laughs). My dad’s from Dresden, Tennessee and my mom is from South Fulton, Tennessee. Their parents are from the same area. We have some Irish in us but we’ve been in these parts for as long as we can remember. We’re descended of Mary Todd Lincoln and Sir Isaac Newton. Um Paducah has a summer festival each year in addition t’ that we’re also famous for being quilt city USA. We have a big quilt museum in Paducah that uh people flock to every year. Paducah is located approximately one hour west of the Mississippi River. We lay between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. We’re ‘bout two and a half hours away from Nashville Tennessee which lies to the east uh Memphis, Tennessee three and a half hours to the south and we’re ‘bout twenty minutes away from the home of Superman and the Merv Griffin (laughs) Merv Griffin River Boat and contrary to popular belief we do wear shoes in Kentucky. And we have some cold winters. We have uh probably a high of around a hundred with heat index a hundred and ten in the summers and sometimes as cold as twenty degrees below in the winter. Normally though ’s low teens in the winter. We have a nuclear plant called Union Carbide. A couple big tire tire plants around. We grow wheat, corn, uh soybeans, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, okras …
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY HANNAH KRAMER 31 MARCH, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG