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(Note: This tape was transcribed by Nicole Bissett. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
Busy signal, followed by dial tone. Call placed. Phone rings twice.
Girl: Hello?
Woman Caller: Yes, I’m trying to get a hold of a M– Miss Margarite Esposito [phonetic]?
Girl: Uh, hang on one moment.
Caller: Uh-huh, thank you.
Girl: (calls) Margie. Marge.
(Pause)
Margarite: Hello?
Caller: Is this uh, Mar– Margarite, a little girl who babysits?
Margarite: Uh, yes it is.
Caller: Well, this is Raydi Holsom, and I’m sorry to bother you, honey, it’s so late, but a lady gave me your number, said you did babysittin’ work, and I have a– two little girls I was tryin’ to get a babysitter for, and I wonder what you’d charge me for something like that.
Margarite: Well, I usually charge a dollar an hour.
Caller: A dollar an hour?
Margarite: Uh-huh [Yes].
Caller: Uh– uh– lady, I just met her, she’s real nice and she gave me your number, I reckon you know who she is, so– tryin’ to think of her name now– (Laughs) But Miss uh– Miss Joetta?
Margarite: Yeah, Gossie.
Caller: Gossie, yeah, that was she. She said you’d taken such good care of her children.
Margarite: Uh-huh.
Caller: See, I have three girls, and she has one little boy, don’t she?
Margarite: Right.
Caller: Yeah, she and I had– she was to given me your name, told me you’d been such a babysit– good babysitter, and– What nights do you babysit for her on, honey?
Margarite: Uh, well, usually when her husband’s home, uh, whenever they wanna go out on Sat– like on Saturday or Friday night. And uh– Well, she calls it babysitting, I don’t, but when I take her out to the grocery store and stuff, uh, uh, that’s when I usually babysit for her.
Caller: Uh-hmm. She was telling me her husband’s in uh, government work.
Margarite: Yeah, he’s Civil Service, like my dad.
Caller: Boy, that really sounds interestin’. Is– Is your dad in this– the same group he– they’re in?
Margarite: Yeah, exact same thing.
Caller: For heaven sakes! She was tellin’ me about that, I thought that sounded so interestin’. What they call that group, honey?
Margarite: Uh– I– I don’t know.
Caller: (interrupts) Is it T–
Margarite: The DNI Squadron.
Caller: They’re what, honey?
Margarite: Uh, they were in the DNI squadron–
Caller: Uh-huh–
Margarite: On base, but I don’t know what they’re in now, they got transferred to some new office.
Caller: Oh, for heaven sake. And your daddy is a Espos– Esposito.
Margarite: Uh-hmm [Yes].
Caller: Well, she was tellin’ me her husband’s in the TDY group or somethin’ like that.
Margarite: Yeah, well, that’s what they’re on now, they’re on TDY.
Caller: What does that mean, TDY?
Margarite: Uh– temporary duty.
Caller: Oh, temporary duty away?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Oh, the Y stands for away, isn’t that somethin’?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Well, for heaven s– does your dad go with her husband like out to those kind of jobs?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: She tells me her husband travels all over the world.
Margarite: Yeah, my dad does, too.
Caller: That– It sounds really interestin’. I wish my husband would get in somethin’ like that. Where– Where– Does your daddy go uh, to a different state?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Well–
Margarite: Uh, right now, let’s see, he’s over in uh, Italy or some place like that.
Caller: Your daddy is?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Isn’t that– Boy, wouldn’t you love to do that kind of work?
Margarite: I’d love it.
Caller: Well, what kind of– What do they do when they go away like that?
Margarite: Okay, the last time I heard, they were fixing it– they had some sort of interference, you know, and so forth–
Caller: Um-hmm–
Margarite: –with the radar, and they go figure out what’s wrong and tell ‘em what to do and how to do it.
Caller: Interference with the radar.
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: I thought that they– she said they did somethin’ about phones.
Margarite: Yeah, well, that’s the same stuff.
Caller: Oh, I see.
Margarite: Uh, phones and uh, radios and radar, you know, it’s all considered the same stuff.
Caller: Uh-huh. Is– Is that government, you know, work? The Civil Service work?
Margarite: Yeah, that’s Civil Service work.
Caller: Is that– are these men with the uh, Air Force, are they just–
Margarite: Yeah, they’re– they’re uh, attached to the Air Force, yeah.
Caller: Isn’t that– Can you tell me uh, a name of it, ‘cause it sounded like somethin’ that my friend was in, but it had a different name than TDY, it was uh– EMC1315 branch.
Margarite: EMC branch?
Caller: Uh-huh.
Margarite: Yeah, that’s– That’s what they’re also associated with.
Caller: What is– What’s that called?
Margarite: I don’t know. (Laughs).
Caller: It’s M C or EMC?
Margarite: EMC.
Caller: EMC branch.
Margarite: Right. That’s uh, uh– Mr. Uh– Oh, I can’t remember his name– (Long pause). Berge– Mr. Burgess is our office. He’s the head of that.
Caller: Oh, is Mr. Burgess out here at uh, Kessler?
Margarite: Yeah, he’s out here (unintelligible end of sentence).
Caller: Well, then, uh, she was– she said that the Ste– Senator [John] Stennis, is he the uh, head of this whole thing?
Margarite: Yeah, he’s the sen– uh, he’s the senator that’s keeping us down here.
Caller: Oh, he’s keepin’ you there.
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Well, isn’t that somethin’? I guess he’s getting’ up in years, isn’t he?
Margarite: Yeah, and if he ever gets uh, out of– out of the Senate, uh, we get shipped some place.
Caller: You get shipped some place?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: How come, honey?
Margarite: Because, uh– well, they– they don’t really want us down here now (Unintelligible word). That’s all that’s keeping us down here.
Caller: Who– Who don’t want it– who don’t want ya, honey?
Margarite: Uh– I don’t know, I really don’t know who doesn’t but– they just, you know, don’t want us down here, because they want us someplace else like– when we were transferred down here, uh– like some of ‘em were sent to Rome, New York, others were sent, uh, out in the middle of nowhere, I don’t– can’t remember the name of the place.
Caller: Where was your daddy before ya’all came here?
Margarite: In Sacramento.
Caller: Sacramento.
Margarite: California.
Caller: Oh, California! Lord, that’s a long ways away, isn’t it?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Well, then, uh, this uh, Senator uh, Stennis is keeping ya’all here in Mississippi, right?
Margarite: Right.
Caller: Well– well, he probably likes ya bein’ here, don’t he?
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Wonder where the home base is for all these people.
Margarite: I really don’t know.
Caller: It must be a nice group. What’s in Sacramento? Is that a group, too?
Margarite: Uh, that’s– it was uh, sort– some sort of uh, organization– organization called GIA, and they broke it up into these little, uh– little things, and so forth.
Caller: The group– The group– The group in Sacramento was called the GIA.
Margarite: Yeah, yeah, right.
Caller: Oh, and they broke that up into little groups to go all over the world.
Margarite: Right.
Caller: Well, isn’t that interestin’. And– And now is this– Is Burgess like a lieutenant or–?
Margarite: Uh– I don’t know what he is.
Caller: Well, that’s nice that that– I wonder how many men’s in there.
Margarite: Oh well, let’s see, I know, uh– I don’t know, about eight, uh different people in that– that uh, little– whatever it’s called, squadron or whatever it is, I don’t know.
Caller: It’s called a TDY.
Margarite: Yeah.
Caller: Isn’t that somethin’. Well, I just uh– Course, you know, they have so many (Unintelligible word), I suppose they just all men employed there, not many of (Unintelligible word) women, huh?
Margarite: Yeah, they– they have the women, uh, there just to do the secretarial work.
Caller: The men do the regular work.
Margarite: Right.
Caller: Men do the– Well, I couldn’t figure out when she said phones, so it’s– it’s radar equipment they repair or phones?
Margarite: Uh, they’re all the same stuff. They– they classify probably under radar– uh, interference and transmission.
Caller: Uh-hmm.
Margarite: You know like, if– if like, uh, something’s interfering with the radar, they have to find out what it is.
Caller: Uh-hmm.
Margarite: And uh, if– if it happens to be like a– well, it could be anything, really. (laughs) And they just fix it. Like it could be an interference of some radio station or something like that, or a– a piece of equipment’s gone bad, and they tell ‘em what to do and how to do it.
Caller: Oh, I guess I misunder– I thought she said telephones.
Margarite: Yeah, well, it’s the same stuff. It’s– It’s radar and telephones and– uh, just communications, totally.
Caller: Yeah, yeah, I suppose your– your mother’s one of those TDY widows, too, huh?
Margarite: Yeah, sorta.
Caller: What does the Y stand for? That don’t– that’s temporary duty away?
Margarite: I really don’t know, all I know is it’s temporary duty.
Caller: Well, it’s interestin’ to learn all those things. I wanted to get back to this babysittin’. Do you think that, could you babysit like on a all day Saturday?
Margarite: Uh– some Saturdays I could.
Caller: Okay. Well, I’d like to talk to my husband about this and uh, I’ll give you a call back and a dollar isn’t very much. I think it’d be worth a dollar and a half. And I’ll talk– talk to my husband, and I’ll call you tomorrow evening.
Margarite: Oh, okay.
Caller: And it’s so nice talkin’ with you, Miss Margie.
Margarite: (laughs)
Caller: Bye.
Margarite: Bye.
End of tape
Tape originally posted July 2011