Q: You worked for Burt for a lot of years, didn’t you?
A: Yeah, a long time.
Q: When did you first go to work for him?
A: I went to work for him, I was hanging around the funeral home when I was like a freshman in high school. I’d want to make some extra money. “I’ll give you 50 cents to wash the hearse.” I knew his daughter real well. We were all in school together. That’s where I really got involved in the funeral home. I just kind of worked my way in it.
Q: He basically taught you the trade and all that.
A: Oh, yeah. My folks weren’t in the funeral business.
Q: The reason I was curious about it was because when I went back... I’m one of these guys that goes to Washington and then gets fed up and leaves and swears I’m never going to go back, and then I go back anyway. But the last time I went back and did that, I shared a townhouse with a guy for awhile who was a mortician from Michigan. But he had to go through all this formal training and all this rigmarole...
A: No. That started in (inaudible). Maybe you don’t want to hear this, but I was in the 9th grade, and this teacher was going around and wanted us to write a composition on what we wanted to be when we graduated from school. What were our future plans. I was kind of a wise guy, I guess I must have been, but I said undertaker, and I don’t even know why. All the girls squealed, so I got a little attention. Then she said okay, if that’s what you want to do then you’ve got a week, you bring me your composition. I want to know why you want to be an undertaker.
So I went to the funeral home. They didn’t have any books in those days or anything, but that’s where I went. That’s why I got involved in it, started.
Q: How long were you in that business before you... I know you ran the Wortley Hotel up in Lincoln [N.M.].