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SY: And then why, why is that you, at that point you decided not to go to college?

AM: Well, when my, I think I didn't have enough adult advice, because to me a doctor is constantly in, at the bedside or whatever and you need sharp hearing and using stethoscopes and things like that, or listening to breathing and all that. You had to be sharp, and with my ringing bothering me, that was one of -- but the other thing was when I came back I went to an ENT doctor and he said I'd go stone deaf, so he scared the heck out of me and I decided to learn a trade and then go back to school. Well, the school I went to paid too well.

SY: The trade school.

AM: I mean graduates of the trade school I went to.

SY: I see.

AM: It was a chick sexor. And we were making eight to twelve dollars an hour, and this is in '48 and early '50. Plus I said, told my dad, he wanted to buy a house and I said I'll pay the second mortgage.

SY: And did you end up doing that?

AM: What?

SY: You ended, did you end up doing that, helping your dad? With the money you made as a chick sexor. And how did you, so you just, anybody could apply to this trade school to become a chick sexor?

AM: I think so, because if you didn't meet the grade they won't let you work because there's a guarantee. And if you went beyond the guarantee, I mean lower than the guarantee, you have to pay the hatchery man, and so you have to pay more than you earn. Plus the reputation of that school that sent you out would be in trouble.

SY: So you, so people who went to school all worked, ended up getting --

AM: Yeah, well, we were, I think so. We were all offered a job. Because, depending on your grade, you were sent to different places.

SY: And where was the trade school?

AM: Pennsylvania.

SY: So you went away to Pennsylvania. And that was okay with your parents?

AM: That was what?

SY: That was alright with your parents, for you to go?

AM: Yeah, because by then they had another toy, Brian. [Laughs] So I have to thank him for the freedom I got.

SY: What, did they discourage you from going to college in camp, when you were in camp and this, your teacher told you, recommended this Midwestern --

AM: No, by the time I entered the service and all that I was on my own. The decisions were my own, and that's where I wish I had more adult supervision, because there's many things to do in medicine besides being a bedside doctor. You could be, what do they call those doctors who look for certain germs when they, while they're operating and all that? I mean, there's hundreds of positions. But in a way it's a good thing I didn't because maybe I wouldn't have had the memory capacity. I can't remember many things. [Laughs]

SY: That, but that started, did that start when you were young, your memory?

AM: No, no. [Laughs]

SY: Yeah, I think that's fairly common. But you, so I'm, would this, so this idea of going into chick sexing, can you explain what a chick sexor does?

AM: Sure. When the chickens are hatched, within twenty-four hours, that's the best time to separate the male and the female. And the reason they do this is because the egg farmers can't afford to feed both the male and the female. They can't do that, so they just buy the hen, the pullets from the hatchery, and they raise them and cage them and sell the eggs. The male, or cockerel, they'd either drown for the minks, the mink men would come buy them to feed the minks, or the range growers would feed them for about eighteen weeks or something like that, and then they sell them to the public. So none was, went to waste. And so here's a basket of a hundred chickens -- in fact, I made a folder for you -- and there's a coffee can in the center. We pick up one, we have a label here, pullets and cockerels, or vice versa, to put on the empty boxes. We pick up two chickens, bring 'em up -- or first we squeeze them, squeeze the dropping into the coffee can, flip it over under a two hundred watt lamp, and we go through the process of feeling the rear end and looking for the signs, and then we go pullets or cockerels.

SY: So what are the signs?

AM: The signs? Basically, basically the cockerels have an eminence and the pullets don't. And I remember the first assignment I had in South Dakota, I was working away, and there was a big window there and a man was watching me, and when I had a break he said, "Come here, come here." Says, "What are you doing?" So I told him. He said, "Impossible. Impossible. You cannot do that at the speed you're doing." I said, "Have it your way. I'm doing my job." [Laughs] So it depends on your skill.

SY: So how many would you do, say, in one day?

AM: Well, it depends on the capacity of the hatchery, so some places may only have a thousand to do, some places may have twenty thousand to do. It depends. So you may be working around the clock, so it's just rhythm.

SY: So it was that quick? I mean, like in an hour, how many, how many...

AM: I would say I was maybe averaging about eight hundred an hour.

SY: Eight hundred females? Finding --

AM: No.

SY: So dividing up eight hundred chicks.

AM: And sometimes a thousand, and if it's a certain breed maybe twelve hundred, because some breeds, chickens, have a marking on the shoulders and you can just pick 'em out like this. And we'd tell the hatchery men, "You could do it yourself. Why don't you do it yourself?" He says, "No, no, no. We depend on you people." And so with that kind of an income, you're not working constantly, you know. You had a territory or, if it's a huge place we don't even need a car. You just stay there all day, all season, or some places year round. And I couldn't go back to school, I thought.

SY: Because it was so lucrative.

AM: Too good. Lucrative.

SY: How much, so were you getting paid per chick?

AM: Piece. Penny, penny apiece.

SY: So that's why, it behooved you to go faster.

AM: Yeah.

SY: I see.

AM: And then if your accuracy was poor, all the money you made goes back to the hatchery.

SY: So you were, so you were successful. You were a pretty good chick sexor, then, not just an average.

AM: Well, I like to think that, because our accuracy was very good. We, in the beginning we'd go back to school and you'd take another test, and then I have a trophy at home, it was a hundred on the pullets, ninety-eight or ninety-nine on the cockerels, whatever it is.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.