<Begin Segment 16>
SY: And what kind of people became chick sexors? What were your colleagues like?
AM: Well, you kind of have to be handy with your fingers, and you have to be, what's the word? You cannot finish your duty for the day, go home and drink, because they may call you and say, "Hey, we forgot three boxes here that you have to come back and do," so you got to go back to work.
SY: So it's good to be single, not have a family at home.
AM: Some people do, and they work together. And there are, some territories require two person, some more, or some single. The problem is when you get sick like I've been sick and you're just sittin' on a chair, I don't want to work, but the chickens are coming so I got to work. [Laughs] You know, it's, you have to, that's the kind of person you have to be.
SY: And did they recruit people to become chick sexors?
AM: They have, they used to have advertisements, fancy advertisements.
SY: In the regular paper? Or where would they, where would they...
AM: Yeah, I think, yeah. In the newspaper, I think it was.
SY: How did you hear about it?
AM: Well, when I was looking for a place, a trade to learn, I was asking here and there, and one of my second cousins was a chick sexor, so I asked him to send me a catalog. And in the catalog it said chick embryology, and I said, "I have to take that someday anyway, so I'm gonna go to this school." I didn't, that's all I knew about it. I didn't know anything else. I didn't know about the high pay or whatever. And I think the kind of thing you may have heard is all these sexors are buying a new car every year. But I used to drive to Las Vegas with, I don't know how much I had, but stashed all over the inside of the car, hidden, and I wouldn't stop in Vegas. I'd just go, drive right through. [Laughs] Because I think, I think I've been cross country about thirteen times by car, and a couple times by airplane or train. I went by train first, the first one.
SY: So you had to travel from place to place.
AM: Yeah, depending on how the manager of the school, where he sends, places you.
SY: So you constantly got placed by the school people, so you got to, so whereabouts did you go?
AM: I went to South Dakota first, then I think I went to Illinois, Pennsylvania, Amish country, New York, Virginia, New Jersey. The last place I went to was Ohio. That's when I got sick. Yeah.
SY: So you ended up buying a car and then traveling to all these places?
AM: Yeah, when I graduated the head of the school bought me a car. I mean, I had to pay for it, but he had enough confidence in me to help me buy a car. And I went to, I went to South Dakota with that.
<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.