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A Matchmaker for a Kentucky Girl

NORRIS: David Greenberger has been traveling around the country interviewing older people. One of them is Anna Trout, he is going to share her words with us now as well as some music to go along with it.

(Soundbite of music)

DAVID GREENBERGER: I was born in Kentucky, right along side of Cincinnati, Ohio in Newport - Newport, Kentucky.

It was a gambling town, always had lots of money I picked them good. Makes life pretty interesting, it's good until you got caught and shut down and they raided us and shut us down. But then we opened up again, can't keep a good gambler down.

And Newport's crooked, not the whole town but the gamblers came in and took it over. It wasn't much fun for the children, and I was a child at that time.

I stayed there until I was 39, I got married to a snooty guy from the upper class. They had money and name, and he married beneath him. His family said that too to my face. They were very rude to people.

My husband's people were snooty and I wasn't - right at that time, maybe I am now I don't know. I was just always just lower class.

They moved to Ohio, I stayed in Kentucky though, he didn't want to stay so I let him go. We had one beautiful daughter, she is with me. Actually you'd like her, she is very smart she got a scholarship. When I was in school and got a scholarship but my mother wouldn't let me go she said it was too snooty.

But you can't fight with your mother when you're that age. See it was a scholarship for Villa Madonna Academy that I was offered. And it was a high class school in Covington, Kentucky.

Everyone that went there had high class clothes, but I didn't have them. We couldn't afford them so my mother just said I couldn't go. Let me tell you it was a bummer, a (unintelligible) bummer.

I wanted to learn, you really would like my daughter though, she is very smart and pretty too. If you will be coming back I could arrange for you to meet her. See what I'll do is I'll call her tonight, you know you really should meet her.

Are you coming back again, you could meet her then. What I'll do is I'll call her tonight. And then you let me know when you're coming back and then you'll meet her.

NORRIS: David Greenberger's latest CD of monologues with music is called 1001 Real Apes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

David Greenberger
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