Audio File
Transcript
My name is Devin Igles. I am 17 years old.
My name is Raymond Johnson. I am 12 years old.
We interviewed Odell Minniefield, Jr. on June 13th, 2018.
I was born January 23rd, 1976, and I was born and raised in Hazelwood. I wouldn’t say I really had any struggles growing up. For me, it was pretty structured. All I knew was work and so, I go to work and come home. We weren’t allowed to go too far, you know, by the time you get home from work, how much do you really want to do? You know, other than sit down and sleep?
I had good grades. I was a high honor roll student. I went to Burgwin, Gladstone, then Allderdice. I love that I went to school with all everybody from the neighborhood I knew. College… It was pretty good for me. I met my wife in college. I went for accounting. That was my major, and I had a minor in mathematics. Math came easy to me. It always did. I only did two years though. What I’ve been looking into here lately is going back and finishing my degree.
Me and my younger brother, we own the company Jadell Minnifield Construction, and then my two youngest brothers, they have their own trucks, they have their own businesses, but we all work together. We demolish residential, commercial structures all throughout Western Pennsylvania. I would say this would be my dream job. This is what I was raised in. We have machines. You operate the machines. Excavators just reach up and rip them down. Occasionally, you have to get up on them and take a roof off or cut a wall or something. But for the most part, we just sit there with a machine and rip them down. I don’t do too much of it anymore. I’m usually in the office, so I’m not out there on the equipment anymore. But yeah, we have a crew. I mean, it’s still cool for me. I mean, it never gets old, never gets boring, because every house, even though it’s the same process, every house has a little different challenge to it.
Hazelwood hasn’t changed that much with the exception of, you know, a lot of buildings on 2nd Ave. is gone now. The mill’s gone. But as far as the people, there’s a lot of new people coming in. It’s still the same principles. It’s a close knit neighborhood, you know everybody. Like, I know everybody on my street, I know people throughout the neighborhood, so I like the closeness of the neighborhood, and I like the direction the neighborhood’s going in also. You see a lot of money coming into the community. They’re fixing up a lot of the houses and they’re getting new people coming into the neighborhood. You got the bakery down on 2nd Ave. You got the Almono site that’s booming. It’s going to bring a lot of business and hopefully a lot of jobs to the community.
First and foremost, respect your parents and your elders and work hard in school. Get the grades. Try to minimize the distractions, and you guys will be alright. But one of the main things is be a man of your word. You know, do what you say you’re going to do. That-that’s the main piece of wisdom that I live by.