Massachusetts 5

Listen to Massachusetts 5, a 46-year-old man from East Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 46

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1959

PLACE OF BIRTH: Cambridge, Massachusetts

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: African-American

OCCUPATION: firefighter and former retail worker

EDUCATION: one year of college

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

He lived for one year in Somerville, Massachusetts. Other than that, he has spent virtually his entire life in the neighborhood of East Cambridge.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Rebekah Maggor

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Cambridge; lived here 47 years.  I’d gone to the high school here, which is Ridgetech.  It’s now just plain Cambridge Ridge and Latin.  Uh, I played sports.  I did wrestling.  Uh, I became a firefighter, probably about 13 years ago.  I did retail for 17 years.  Uh, married with four kids.  Uh, what else do I have?  I work with children in the school, teaching about fire safety.  Uh, next, next week I will be doing a camp at the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Department, uh, which is taking inner-city kids and giving them one more week before they go back to school.  I teach them about fire safety, first aid, uh, and a little bit about the police department also.  I gotta tell ya, one of the first fires that I was involved in, while bein’ a firefighter, uh, was the second day that I worked.  We had probably the largest fire that we’ve had in the city, uh, which was an eight-alarm fire.  Uh, our truck was first-due truck, so we were the first truck that was there to, uh, go into the houses and check to see if there was anyone in there.  Uh, after we got out of one house that we’d checked, that all went up in flames.  So as soon as we got in there, and we got out maybe five, ten minutes, that house was fully involved. So that was one of the stories that, uh, that I hold dear to my heart, because it, uh, safety-wise, and … like I said, just bein’ on two days, to see a big fire like that. Um, tell you another story: I teach fire safety in the schools. I go around, uh, teachin’ them how to do stop-drop-and-roll, how to call 911 and when to call 911.  And I really got involved as soon as I got on the fire department, so I hold it very dear to my heart.  Uh, I think it’s a good way of lettin’ kids know when to do things and when not to do things, and also, in case you get an emergency, who to call and when to call.  It has helped a lot.  It has cut down on fires in the city, uh, over 50 percent.  Actually, the numbers are actually higher than that, uh, more like 75-80 percent.  So, it’s a good program that we’ve had for about 13 years now.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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