I never had time off. No, anytime I wanted to go on vacation they needed me for something so I kept staying there. I didn’t get paid extra for it but I was there. In fact, when I retired they says they weren’t paying any back pay for anybody. I said I was hoping that if you took a month – like your vacation time and you worked that one and you took the following off they would pay. I said, “To hell with it.” My wife says, “I’ll talk to them!” I says, “No honey, just keep going.” I said, “They did me a favor to take care of things.”

She wanted a house. I had an old house, but 700 sq ft with five kids and my wife and I was a little bit too small. So, then I built this one for her in 1966. My dad chewed my ass out, he said, “You can’t afford that.”

I said, “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself!” He says, “What happens if you get sick?”

I said, “The Army will take care of me.”

In 1967 my back gave out and I had to get back surgery. They didn’t think I was going to walk. I forced myself to. It got injured in the service but I don’t know what part in the service, but I am not going to blame nobody.

I started having trouble with my back right after I got out of the service. So, I had a ruptured disk and it almost cut the sciatic nerve off and if I had of done that then I would have been crippled the rest of my life. So, I consider myself lucky on that. So, I can’t blame nobody. But, you know, I blame somebody, like a lot of guys at the tannery when they heard it was going to be the last day they started having back problems and this and that, you know…? They know nobody can prove what it is, so I blame somebody! If anybody could have gotten away with that I could have gotten away with it.