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Transcription: [00:00:00]
{SPEAKER name="Catherine Purge"}
This is tape 1 side 1 of an interview of Carvester Booth by Catherine Purge on June 29th, 1996 at the Smithsonian Memories tent of the 1996 Festival of American Folk Life.

{SILENCE}

[00:00:16]
Mr. Booth, and you can just talk right into that. Would you state your name and where and when you were born and what was your occupation or occupations?

{SILENCE}

[00:00:29]
{SPEAKER name="Carvester Booth"}
Okay. My name is Carvester Booth. I was born, Laurel, MS. My occupation, um, military. I entered the military in 1945, World War II. And I was discharged from the military 1968.
[00:00:57]


In 1968, I was discharged at Scott Air Force Base Illinois; and in Scott Air Force Base Illinois there was a big panel there. And they was helping us transition from civilian life -- from military life to civilian life. And most of the merchants around the city was offering jobs to the retirees during their service parade.
[00:01:23]
And as I was approaching the benches, the uh, one retired warrant officer asked me, he said, "If you come work with me in the hospital", he says "we'll give you training, we'll give you everything". And I said, "Well, I don't want to work too hard. I want to take it easy".
[00:01:42]
He said "What we'll do is, we'll make you a medical tech rep." He said "What we'll do is we'll train 4 hours a day, and we'll work 4 hours a day". Better yet. Well, there St. John's Mercy Hospital, Ballas Point, the work was difficult
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