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And I wanted to be a stenographer...shorthand. I wanted to learn shorthand for some reason...I don't know where I picked it up or what. I wanted to do one of two things. You knew it was coming...stupid! Changed my mind...I always to be a stenographer or a professional prize fighter. And I had good qualifications for the boxing stuff...some of them, but not all of them. I didn't have much stamina and a very small face and jaws. I had to take after my little bitty 65 pound grandmother. And so I decided not to go into that. I had a little of it in the Navy and that's too rough and so on and so forth. So I went to bookkeeping...decided I'm going to try to be a CPA. And I want to take shorthand after I get through with bookkeeping...well I did that. And I did excellent in shorthand. If I'd of done shorthand in the Navy...which I didn't see very many guys...I only remember ever talking to one that knew shorthand...and I would of done well in it I think in the Navy. 'Course shorthand wouldn't of been all you would of you'd of been a feather merchant...you'd of done other things too, you know. But I think I would of progressed...and might have been a different deal if...if I had of gotten into that, but who knows...no regrets! But I got to work going to...got a job at a railroad doing shorthand...and promoted real quickly up to the Executive
Interviewer:
Department...worked at that and it was nerve racking to me. These old men that turn their heads and mumble and mumble and here you trying to get it...write it down, you know. And then I went to South Texas College of Law in...on Louisiana Street here in...let's see, you live in Houston, yeah! Right.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Nels Farmer. He was born in Wortham, Texas 24 December 1924 and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. Completing boot camp at San Diego, California, he was sent to Farragut, Idaho as assistant gunnery instructor. After nine months he was assigned to the USS Willard A. Holbrook (AP-44) working in various capacities. After arriving at Hollandia, New Guniea he was assigned as a machine gunner to USS PT-146 in Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 12. He served on board for nine months and saw no action during that time. He returned to the United States and was discharged March 1945.
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