Sunday, December 5, 2010

Stories of Life & Labor: Oral Histories from Portsmouth, Ohio

     For our last assignment in Digital History we were to interview people who worked for the railroad around the late 70's here in Southern Ohio.  My assigned worker was a man by the name of Buck Flesher; Mr. Flesher lived in Chillicothe and worked for the B&O railroad from the late 1970's to the early 90's.

     On December 1st I drove out to Mr. Flesher's residence to conduct an interview with him about his time with the railroad.  He currently resides in Waverly, OH and in his home it is evident that he is a railroad man.  He showed me some of his collection of historical railroad items that he keeps in storage and it was very impressive.  Everything from tools, pictures, tickets, and the like; Mr. Flesher is very proud about the time he served in the railroad industry.  After viewing this memorabilia and filling out paper work it was time to do the interview.

     This is my first interview so it does have some faults with it; but all things considered I feel that the interview went very well.  Mr. Flesher and I had a discussion on a broad range of topics from everything about his job in the railroad, his personal life and views about the railroad.  Although it is probably not one of the most purely fact filled interviews done for this project, it does give the employees of the railroad a more personal touch, and I thank Mr. Flesher for sharing his views with me.

     I have attached a audio clip from our interview; it may seem like it jumps around from subject to subject a lot and that is because it does.  When compiling this clip I wanted to take something from the various things we spoke of in our interviews and the colorful montage that I have put together I feel best represents that.

    I hope everyone that listens enjoys; and this won't be my last interview, I enjoyed the interview process immensely.

WB