My name is Carl Lincoln and I am a backhoe operator. I born and grow in Plymouth. I born 1950 and I leave Plymouth 15 years ago. I think I did the right thing, of leaving Plymouth! When you look at the world, all about has changed � but Plymouth has changed rapidly. The younger heads start living a type of life of drugs. Music take over the village. I don't know why the young people adopt this kind of attitude. I feel the reggae music could have a part of it. Children, these days, you cannot speak to them, as elder people. They have no respect. I went to school at Plymouth EC. But my head was a little bit too hard. Everybody don't get the light to keep going forward. Three-quarter of the elderly people died out. Now you have younger mothers by themselves, fathers by themselves. So the children cannot get the kind of training. I didn't have that. I grow with parents.
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I got married when I was 21. My wife died, so I married again. Doing my job, I need to get a companion. I can't leave my job to go home and prepare meals. And, if you doing a tractor-work, you have to eat. It's a hard work. My father was a fisherman. One day he came home, wasn't feeling well. The doctor give him a paper to go to the hospital. He told my mother, "Well, I going, but I not sure I coming back". And he went in the hospital and all we got was the message that he pass out. That was it. I leave school at 16. I get to work with [a construction company] when they first come to Tobago as a chain man. The white man, which was a guy called "Simbo", he push me on the machine. I got my [backhoe operator's] licence at 18, which is 42 years ago. There has nothing about these machines I don't understand.
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I went Trinidad when I was 20. I stayed about a year. I didn't like it. I came back, I got married, built a house in Plymouth. The house was a board house. Well, you know, you trying. I keep extending it little bit but it was on my father-in-law's property, so, after a while, I went to Black Rock, which my father had a piece of land. I leave my children on that property because I got married again, to make myself comfortable. Right now I live at Bagatelle. I was never in fights. I always stand up on the cool side. With the Baptist faith, if you go to church 9 o'clock in the morning, you may not go home until 8 o'clock in the night. And my body need the rest, because of the work I do. So, what I did, I ease them off and find a next church. I believe there are different faith but there is only one god.
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I does work for money. But I don't want to have money in my pocket to walk down the road. Once I pay my bills, I'm one happy man. I drive to the job on the road in the machine. It come like a motor-car to me. If other drivers want to pass, I give them the room, because they faster than me. They have some operators who would hold down other drivers but I wouldn't do that. If I leave to go Charlotteville 8 o'clock, I could reach 1 o'clock. This is how I put it: I have no whip behind me. I could work from morning until next morning. I do not have a pressure. The hardest part of this job is the driving between the jobs. Otherwise you could spend your whole day and whole night just sit down, cutting your trench, cool and comfortable. It is very satisfying, to see your trench coming.
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Everybody know me now. For the longest while now, nobody don't call me by my name, "Lincoln"; they call me, "Carl Backhoe". They could send me on a job, they don't have to look at me. I know my job but I want my job to finish, so I could go home. Because me and my wife live real good. No problem, no hard feelings. I never smoked cigarettes. I play the ass at times. Pretend to smoke. I drink a lot. If I feel for one, I take one. I drink any type of drinks, once it ent poison. I wouldn't call myself a drinking man. I'm a sipping man. If I drinking, I drinking home, so I don't have to drive anywhere. It's not a good thing to drive in alcohol. Sometimes nothing ent happen to you but somebody else get kill. I wouldn't drink and drive a vehicle. I'd take a sip.
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A Tobagonian is born in Tobago, relatives from Tobago, mother and father born in Tobago, grew up and spend actually all their years in Tobago. You can't come from Trinidad or Grenada and they call you a 'Bago; unless is a ill-name, a back-name. They will say, "Don't study he, he pay to come here". A 'Bago man, they will say, "He drive to come here." If you come to Tobago from Trinidad, after you live a good long time, good long years, real long time. They going to still call you a Trini. Tobago means a lot to me. If I go Trinidad, is like I missing something. I don't know if is because I born here and my entire relatives? born here. The time I spend in Trinidad, I get sour. Here, I could walk in a man' place, cut a bunch of fig; is food you talking about. That man wouldn't tell you nothing. If a stranger go, he will ask, "Who give you that, boy?" But, you, as a Tobagonian, "Man, cut what you want". Because you are one of us. Is so we live.
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