North Carolina Three - Text
Subject is African-American male, born Walnut Cove, Stokes County, NC, in 1957. Was recorded by Pat Toole 12.08.99 and edited by Paul Meier 02.04.00. Running time: 00:03:01.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I grew up in a little town in North Carolina called Walnut Cove. I was born at the house place which I was raised at. Umm, I grew up with the love of horses, always wanted to own horses, so I did when I got old enough to afford ‘em, I w—bought me two, and, uh, I was—wasn’t able to pay for my way to college but I was good enough in sports to land a scholarship and I went to Elon College where I s—went for five years and I played football on two national championship teams, and…I met a young lady in college. We got married and, uh, we had a kid together, and...life has been good. God is in my life, and, uh, this is 1999 now, looking forward to the millennium. Like I said, I—I had a (unclear) love for horses, uh, all my life, I (ran to it?) from my father that he owned a horse befo—b—but I didn’t never ni—got to know him ‘cause he got—he was killed when I was young, but at fifteen years of age I worked on a (raven?) horse farm in Belew—Belews Creek, North Carolina which is right outside of s—of Walnut Cove. And I become the foreman of that ranch of a count of horses there about, I think was, uh, eight hundred to nine hundred horses on that ranch, and I was the foreman at fifteen years old. I had a lot of people working under me, so I knew so—learned a lot about horses. And, uh, I would get up in the mornings at five o’clock. We had to feed, had to go around just like any days and I had to check the fences and make sure they were fixed, you know, make sure everybody was doin’ their job, makin’ sure the stalls were gettin’ cleaned out and I was in charge of that. And, uh, I also learned how they umm, helped horses that was havin’ colts—they was havin’ problems with their—if they was comin’ out breeched I would help them turn ‘em around, you know? And, uh, we ha—had learned how to nurse horses that lost their mother during—during birth, you know? And, uh, and tragically we had to learn how to, I had to learn how to kill horses at that ti—at that age, ‘cause they broke a leg, or got real sick, you know? And, uh…but horses is—I think it’s the greatest leisure time ever, and I’ve done it—I love swimmin’, I like to walk, I like to ride around on motorcycles, but horses is the greatest love of all.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY KYLE BLAIR, 6 APRIL 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG