“My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward … So I went to aircraft-mechanic school. I still had to prove to people that thought I was genetically inferior that I wasn’t too stupid to drain the oil out of an airplane.”

— Bill Withers

On entering the US Navy in 1956.
Rollingstone interview (2015)

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American singer-songwriter and musician 1938–2020

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“My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward … So I went to aircraft-mechanic school. I still had to prove to people that thought I was genetically inferior that I wasn’t too stupid to drain the oil out of an airplane.”

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Bill Withers 7

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