Oklahoma Six - Text
Recorded by Professor Rena Cook, 2004. Edited Paul Meier 8.31.04. Running time 00:04:58
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Oh, uh, born n’ raised in south-eastern Oklahoma, uh, you know. ‘Course we’s poor folk, right up through, you know, all that, then as time went along, you know, then my father, uh, got a—a good job at, uh, Wilson’s Packing House, n’ we just come up through the lifetime a little bit, you know, the family got some more money then and o’ course went through high school and, uh, and did all this and—and then I wrestled, we did all kindsa sports, you know, ‘course we’s in, uh, got up to where we’s in the good groups, you know, where, you know, where you is respected, which it, you know, you know, I, uh, uh, I’m fro—well, I don’t know whatcha call it, but I was a all state wrestler, you know, you know, comin’ outta the, outta the boonies, sticks, n’ stuff like that, you know, come up here, and then, you know, at first I come up here, you know, o’ course I had callouses on my feet like this, couldn’t wear a pair of shoes or anything else, and so I’s like a little animal, so, and, but I was always stout, so, they got me wrestlin’, and I got the basics o’ that, n’ done all that, n’ o’ course the family, you know, kept comin’ up through there, and then, and then I got in construction, n’ I started off ‘n neighbor’s this n’ that, all commercial stuff has b’n my life for thirty years, and then, and then got in the business for se—for myself n’ then kept comin’ up n’ up, n’ then finally I said I’ve had enough of this, then, so I’s buildin’, uh, schools and stuff and this architectural firm, the—the architect that was workin’ there, which worked—he was, uh, an employee of the architectural firm—they fired him and I finished out the rest o’ the job without the architect and I did all the drawings, n’ then, then when I got through that project, the gentleman I was in kinda partners with got cancer n’ two years later then he had passed away, n’ then, uh, Clarence Williams come to me n’ he said, “Ed, I wanna talk to ya,” n’ he said, “You got good field experience n’ you been in all s—for years n’ years,” I done a lotta core engineer work, been a superintendent, n’ kinda made my way up through the ranks, you know, from shuckin’ corn to workin’ for an architect, so—so that’s kinda the way it’s been . . .
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY SANDRA LINDBERG 21 APRIL, 2008.