Doom and Gloom! That’s all we hear when we turn on the TV. But what does it really mean? Perhaps it means that we Americans will have to start showing some common sense and self restraint. Instead of putting that pretty dress or pair of cute shoes on plastic, maybe we will have to wait until we have real money to spend. Just maybe, we will have to recycle those shoes that we were going to throw away because they didn’t look so good now. What happened to shoe polish?? Could we cook a meal from scratch? No pre-packaged, microwavable junk. You know, millions in the world would love to have enough to cook a meal from scratch. Could we give up our fast food lunch? If we packed a sandwitch we would save money and calories! Maybe it means we have to use our brain to plan better so we don’t waste gas on excess driving. Would it hurt us to sweat a little in the summer or wear a sweater in the winter so we would save on energy cost. Do we really need that satalite TV programming that cost nearly 100 dollars a month for that 200 channels with nothing on! We need to tighten our belt and remain positive. Even at the worst here, we are better of than any other country in the world! Our economy will recover in time.
Here is some more interesting history that may cast some light on The missing years of Burhead. Note that Jesse and gang was robbing in Kentucky in and west virginia at times during his missing years, please click on the below link to view:
There is a nation wide stereotype of appalachian people as ignorant and backward. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who first settled the Appalachian mountains were pioneers who sought adventure and were not afraid to face new challenges. If one explores the life style of the early settlers they will find them to be innovative, creative and extremely intelligent.
Actually, many who settled in Appalachia were moderately to very well off land holders and small business owners who managed to make a good living. Their children were well educated for the times. Beginning with the first expansion into Appalachia in the late 1700’s until the Civil War era is actually known as the golden age of Appalachia.
When the war came, the Appalachian people throughout the mountain chain, even down into Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia were typically against slavery. This developed for two reasons: The mountain people were fiercely independant scotch-Irish decendents who valued personal freedoms and the terrain did not lend itself to big farming endevors where large amounts of cheap labor were needed.
In contrast, the flat areas of the states were dependent upon just such agriculture. The south was almost totally dependent on the cotton industry. Large plantations and farms needed great amounts of cheap or free labor to survive. Therefore, their economy promoted slavery. Kentucky’s population was one of the most deeply devided on the slavery issue. It was truely the state of brother against brother. In general, the deviding line ran north to south along the western foothills of Appalachia.
After the end of the Civil war, Kentucky was considered to be a “southern” state by the northern controled government because of the slave holding practices of the central and western part of the state. Therefore, it was punished by policies which hindered the distribution of federal funding for education and roads. The Bluegrass area of the state was the political seat and politicians there controlled the distribution of the available funds. Those in control knew the people in eastern Kentucky had supported the abolition of slavery and the union, because of this, funding for roads and schools were completely cut off from the people of the mountains. It was only after this double injustice that the people of southern Appalachia became poor and less educated.
Yet, 40 years after the end of the Civil war my father (who was born in 1903) recieved an eighth grade education and my mother who was born in 1905 recieved a seventh grade education. By todays standards this may seem meager, however, the average person in Appalachia by that time could not read and write or had ony rudimentary primary schooling. While an education was harder to obtain then, the real keys for a child then as now were the aptitude and personality of the child and the commitment and determination of the parent.
My father was a whiz at math and geometry. He was interested in current affairs both locally and nationally. He could read and had neat hand writing.He was excellent at spelling. He was skilled with his hands in wood craft and blacksmithing. He was a carpenter and could compute various angles and designs.He could play the banjo and read music. He taught singing school by shaped notes. His list of accomplishments and skills could fill this page.
My mother was also gifted. Besides raising 10 children with very little conveniences, she could look at a dress in a catalogue and create one just like it without a pattern. She could have been a fashion designer if she chose, instead she sewed clothing for her children, made lovely quilts and other items to beautify our home. She was a better cook than Julia Child and knew how to grow and preserve every kind of food. She was very industrious and intelligent. As a child she has recieved formal training as an organist.
This is just two examples of many who overcame the lack of educational opportunities in Appalachia. After about 1920 the rest of the nation seemed to “re-discover” Appalachia and the mission schools began to appear. Service minded people, usually christians of one brand or the other, began to arrive to educate and save the poor mountain children. Pine mountain Settlement School, Redbird Mission, and Oneida Baptist Institute were a few examples of those institutions.
Many Appalachian children even as late as the 1950’s and 60’s did not go on to get a high school education. All of my brothers quit school after the 8th grade. Many others dropped out of school long before this. However, as these young men began the exodus to the north to find good jobs in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan they were valued workers because of their honesty, intelligence, loyalty and strong work ethics. They all developed good careers and made a good living for their families. While they were not formally educated in a school system they were educated non the less by being brought up in a manner that prepared them for life.
By the mid 1960’s, it was more common for children of Appalachia to complete high school and a few were attending college. Those who dropped out of high school or finished high school but didn’t go to college were still able to go immediately into the work force and be successful because they possessed an inititive and drive for a better life born of a strong Appalachian work ethic . This was to end by the70′ and 80′ due to another “war”.
President Kennedy toured Appalachia as part of his bid for the presidency in 1960. By this time the coal mining industry had began to slump and attention was called to increasing poverty in Appalachia. Johnson became president when Kennedy was assinated. He carried through with declaring a war on poverty. The welfare system was expanded and programs were created with the intent of lifting people all over the nation out of poverty. Sadly, policy makers failed to realize that giving free money and food handouts for an unlimited amount of time would destroy the initive and work ethic of Appalachia and the poorer sections all over the nation. Children grew up in households where nobody worked and everybody was on the “draw”!
We are about to elect a new president. Obama wants to expand the government to take care of everybody who has a problem. I know from personal experience that a welfare state destroys instead of saving. Short term assistance in a disaster or illness, assistence with education and a few other types of assistance at times of need are the humane thing to do and our government should have some of these programs. However, people need to have to work for themselves and accept personal responsibility. We have enough badly ran government programs. We need to have less government interferance and a better economy. That’s why I am for McCain.
Early Saturday morning dad turned the light on in my room and said “It’s time to get up Sug”. Now, when I say early I mean about 4 am! He always wanted to be in the mountains sitting under the hickory trees before daylight. I was the only child still at home of the 10 us. I was born when mom was 45 and dad was 47. By the time I was big enough to go hunting with him the rest of the older ones were long gone and mom worried about daddy going off into the woods by himself. I was always a Tomboy and loved guns. I had my own 22 rifle when I was 12 and could out shoot all the teenage boys on the creek. So, I was tickled to death to get to go with dad.
We would slip out before mom got up, taking our guns and nap sacks with extra shells and room for the squirrels we talked about killing and head for the hills. We would walk for three or four miles back into the head of Short Fork or somewhere else where he figured the squirrels would be cutting. It would be dark as a dungeon and dad had the flashlight. I walked right behind him in his very footsteps almost. He would look under the logs we stepped over to make sure there were no copperheads before I stepped over. I wore an old pair of his work boots laced up to above my ankles just in case he missed one!
He would talk about how he loved squirrel meat as good as anything he ever eat if it was cleaned right. He said if somebody cleaned a squirrel and didn’t know what they were doing that they wouldn’t be fit to eat. He would talk about people hunting them with shotguns and say that the only way to hunt squirrel was with a 22. He said if they were shot with a shotgun they were just tore all to pieces and you couldn’t eat’em. He would talk about how he loved to get under the trees and find a good spot to sit and wait for day to start breaking. This was when the squirrels started cutting. As we got closer to where we were going he would stop talking and tell me to be real quiet.
We would walk the last few 100 yards in silence. The only sounds would be the soft squishing of dew dampened leaves as we carefully placed our feet. Occasionally you cound hear the plop of dew droping from the trees or branches swishing as they glided of our arms and legs as we walked through the underbrush. Just before daybreak the night bugs had stopped chirping altogather and the day creatures had not yet started to stir. Dad would find me a good place to sit either on a rock or a log with a tree trunk for a back rest and then he would get about 10 or 20 feet away and find him a suitable place to sit and wait. We would each be alone with our thoughts and the dark as we waited for the morning.
Just before the glow of morning began to lighten the eastern sky we would hear the first squirrel cutting. Dad would whisper” he is over there in that big ole hickory” but we couldn’t see him yet so we waited. Actual daylight comes pretty fast once it starts. Withing about 15 minutes from the glow of first light we could see good enough to make out the branches above and any movement. Dad would whisper ” I see him way over there in that tree. Can you see him?”
“Where?”
“Right up there on that first big limb, can’t you see him now?” I would finally spot him and whisper ” Yea, I see it!” and if I didn’t I would say that I did anyway because I knew daddy wanted me to see it. He would ask me if I wanted to take the first shot. I always said “no, you go ahead”. I really had no heart for killing them and I knew daddy loved to! He was a dead shot. He would take a bead and fire and the squirrel was in the bag! I would always go get it and he would look at it to see if his shot was true and there was always a grin and look of pride when he saw it was a well placed shot and a clean kill. Sometimes he would get two from this spot and then before it got to light we would slip around the mountain to another spot and he would get another one or sometimes a couple more.
By then, the sun would be about ready to come up so we would start back. The birds would be awake and chirping to each other as we walked home. As the sun came over the mountain and the day started to heat up, the steam would start rising from the forest floor and shafts of sunlight became visable as they knifed between the trees. Spider webs of spectacular design would sparkle with tiny jewels of dew. How peaceful and special were these moments I spent with my daddy! When we finally got home mom would have breakfast ready and we would eat and then daddy would sit down with a cup of coffee and cut off a big chunk of apple tobacco for a relaxing chew and spit session.
Mom would get a dish pan full of cold water ready and go out on the back porch to clean the squirrels. I wound watch her take a sharp knife and cut the squirrel across the back about middle ways between its front and hind legs. She would cut just enough to get two fingers from each hand in the open cut, she inserted them like hooks and started pulling in opposite directions, the hide would peel back and would be turned inside out so there was no hair anywhere near the meat. When the hide was peeled back so it was just attached at the feet and head she would cut the hind feet off and throw the hide away. Next, she would cut the front feet off and continue to peel the hide off the head. the snout and hide was cut off and thrown away. All that was left was the whole animal meat without a hair on it!.Then, mom would put it in the pan of cold water and gut it, cut it up and either fry it or cook it and make squirrel gravy in it.
Now, after watching mom skin the first squirrel one day I decided that I could do it. As usual, she let me! Well, I couldn’t figure out how to hold it and cut it’s back. The skin was loose and kept moving under the knife. I finally wrestled it around and got the cut made but it was full of hair. Then when I put my fingers in the cut, it was too little. I had to cut it some more. By this time it was wet with blood and wet hair is sticky hair! When I went to peel the hide back my hands were slick with blood and the squirrel flew out of my hands and hit the dirt. I put it in the water to wash off the dirt. I tried again. I pulled and tugged, slipped and slid. Inch by inch I got the hide peeled back but by the time I did there was more hair embedded in the meat than there was left on the hide. The whole thing had to be discarded! That was my last attempt to clean a wild animal. I went hunting with dad every time I got a chance but there was no more mountain woman training for me!!!
I am a bird lover and a bird watcher. This is a fairly new thing for me. That is, in the last twelve years or so. Birds are such beautiful creatures, especially the songbirds! These is no better thing for me to enjoy than getting up early on my day off, making a good pot of coffee and sitting on the front porch or in front of a window and watching them at my feeders. If it is warm enough to be outside their singing is as relaxing for me as anything I know.
As I sit there and look and listen, it brings me closer to God. I will never understand how anyone can look at a rose or a little chickadee, or snow falling and deny there is a creator! I am reminded that Jesus told his deciples to not worry about material things and to consider the lillies of the field and the little sparrow, he clothed and fed them and he values each of us more than these. He tells us not one hair ever falls from our head without him knowing it! How can we worry?
I got in the bed to early tonight and my eyes got big as saucers. I got what we called the “big eye” when I was a kid. That’s where you turn over and over trying to go to sleep because you know that time to get up for work comes too early and you really need your rest but the harder you try the more awake you get! Your mind goes round and around and you get to thinking about all kinds of stuff.
Anyway, I got to thinking about how hard it must be for Beverly to have to worry about her baby having cancer and how with her red hair she probably looks a lot like Gladys did when she was little. Then I thought of how sad Maggie must be with losing Tommy and how she had made him such a good wife. I prayed for all my family and friends and hoped I never had to lose a child and thought of Dorothy Gail and Dorothy. Then I thought about Vance.
I remember when I was to little to go to school. I remember him bringing home Ina Jane Day once. They had walked up Big Branch and it was during the day. I guess mom or somebody told me she was his girlfriend because I remember knowing that she was. What I remember was they sat leaned up against the living room wall in two home made chairs side beside. I bet Vance wished I hadn’t stood there looking them both in the face until he walked her back home!
I remember when he brought Gladys home too! It must have been just about near the same time. It was after dark and there was more than just him and Gladys that came in. I don’t remember who all but I remember Gladys leaning up against moms sewing machine and she had on a long straight skirt, dark colored, maybe checked, a light colored sweater, bobby socks and long red hair! And, she was skinny!
Then I got to thinking about our log house on Big Branch and how that there was eight of us and mom and dad all home at once in two (maybe) 14X14 feet front rooms, about an 8X18 foot kitchen and about an 8X8 tiny room for mom & dads bed and a small canning room and unfinished loft. Man! Everything we had was used and useful! There was no room for frivolity!
The best I remember, the first room where the front door came in had two full size cast iron beds, mom’s treadle singer sewing machine and the chifarobe which was actually a tall cabinet with shelves that dad had made with a curtain over it for doors and that was it! The other front room had two full beds, one walnut that dad had made and one cast iron, the battery radio cabinet, a walnut dresser that he had also made, the heating stove and 3or 4 homemade, straight back chairs. A quilt rack hung from the ceiling.
In the kitchen was a coal and wood cook stove, a dish cabinet that dad had made (Shirley still has it) , a small table for the water buckets, a long, homemade dinner table with a homemade bench behind it and several homemade chairs around the end and front side. At the end of the kitchen was the 8X8 room with mom and dads sassafras bed on one side and the dresser and chest on the other (he made these too, I still have them). There was barely enough room to walk in and open the drawers. There was a long stick in one corner which held the hung up clothes. At the back of the kitchen was a little room with shelves all around 3 walls for the can stuff. A ladder went up into the loft. There was a bed up there for some of the boys!
We had cheap linoleum on the floors, flowered wall paper on the walls, plastic curtains on the windows and two coal oil lamps. The walls had one calendar hanging behind the heating stove and one picture of a little blond haired girl with red pajamas sitting in bed praying on the wall over one of the beds. Delphia and Bill had brought it to mom for Christmas.
We also had soft feather beds and beautiful handmade quilts to sleep under. We had gorgeous crochet doilies mom made and starched and molded around jelly glasses until the ruffles stood up by themselves until the next washing. We had country smoked bacon and ham and fresh eggs, milk and butter. We had green beans, corn, tomatoes, apples, blackberries, krout, chowchow, apple butter, jams and jelly, all canned by mom and the girls. We had strings of shucky beans hanging on nails behind the kitchen stove. We had potatoes buried in a hole under the floor with straw over them to help them to keep all winter.
We had a mule and cow in the barn, hogs in the lot and chickens anywhere they wanted to be except in the house or on the porch and steps. They always got shooed off there because they were to messy. We had a rooster that flogged me every time I had to go out to the toilet. Shirley would have to go with me with a broom to keep him from spurring me!
Well, I digress! Back to the point! The point is that I, like everyone, have 7 rooms of junk and 90% of it is useless. Maybe I need to downsize. Well, I am getting sleepy now so I will have to think about this another time. I sure do love all my stuff!!!
When I was little we didn’t have all this material stuff like kids do today. There was no computer games, Ipods and cell phones, etc. Instead of ten or twenty gifts at Christmas we always got just one each and nothing expensive at that.
Mom went out to town about once a month for sewing supplies and such. She would go to Keen’s Dime Store. They had small toys for 10 cents each. She would bring me and Shirley back just one! It would be either a set of bobby jacks, a bag of marbles or a little bitty china cupie doll that had arms and legs held on by a rubber band. We were more tickled with these toys than kids are today with everything they have. We appreciated what we got! And birthdays, just another day.
We didn’t have television. We didn’t even have electricity! All we had was a battery radio that only got two or three stations: WKIC at Hazard and The Grand Ole Opery on Saturday night and maybe Whitesburg and that was with fuzzy reception.
When WKIC decided to put Uncle Remus Tales on every evening at three, that was equivalent to having Cartoon Network!
Now, I loved Burr Rabbit! Every evening I watched the clock. At three, everything else was put on hold because I had to listen to Uncle Remus. That went just fine until Elvis came along!
Now, Shirley is almost five years older than me so when I was seven or eight and loved good stories, she was becoming a teenager. All the bigger girls at the Big Branch school loved Elvis and the Jitterbug. Opal Baker and Jewel Callahan was always singing Elvis songs and trying to do the jitterbug when we had recess. Shirley wasn’t ever great friends with them because they were always kind of uppity to everyone else but she was just as bad over Elvis.
This is when the ghost of Cain and Able raised it’s ugly head; sibling rivalry. I would turn the dial to WKIC, Shirley would turn it to Whitesburg. We would fuss and carry on like all kids do. Mom was usually back in the kitchen getting ready to cook supper and didn’t know what was going on. She never would allow us to fuss and fight if she knew about it. Shirley was the biggest tattle tale! If she couldn’t convince me to let her listen to music, she would run to Mommy. I guess mom was diplomatic and would let me listen one evening to Uncle Remus and Shirley to music the next, I don’t remember that specifically but mom was always fair. All I remember was the consequences of Shirley’s tattling; Mom went back to the kitchen, I hit Shirley in the belly with my fist and knocked the breath out of her, she cried, mom whipped me with a little keen switch and I got sent to bed.
I have always been hard headed so I never gave up. Every day that was Shirley’s, I tool a whipping before I would let her get away with it. This trait got me in trouble many times. However, not being a quitter has been a blessing to me after I got grown. It has helped me be successful in everything I have tried to do.
If you would like to read these stories or introduce them to your children here is a web site dedicated to Uncle Remus Takes: http://www.uncleremus.com/
Hey everyone, at Renda’s suggestion, I have started an on line family tree. I don’t know everyones birthdays, etc. If you will review and tell me who I have left off I will add them. Also, I didn’t know everyones grandkids names, etc. I have no plans to leave anyone out and will be thrilled to hear from you all with new data. There is a link to the Tree on my blogroll. Thanks. Hoping to hear from you soon! If you are new to the blog format, here is the link http://www.myheritage.com/site-21395272/bowling
My daddy was a carpenter. He was known to be the best in the county. He never owned a car so he always walked out to work unless one of the boys were working with him and they had a car. One cold, snowy winter evening he came home way after dark. I was 3 or 4 at that time. Our house had a long narrow kitchen and the back door was at the end. The big coal and wood stove that momma cooked on was at the end of the kitchen near the door. Mom was cooking when dad came in. He was grinning from ear to ear. He wore a heavy Macanaw jacket and he had it buttoned up and was holding something in it. As soon as he got the door closed he said “looky here Rachel at what I’ve got” and started opening his coat. He brought out the cutest little white puppy with black spots all over it . That’s how Reno came into the family.
Reno and the puppy I drowned are the only two dogs I can ever remember us having until we moved off of Big Branch. We might have had more but I don’t remember any. In any case, Reno survived for many years. He was the laziest dog. He usually wouldn’t even bark at strangers. When he treed brother Roy on the front porch was his one claim to fame!
Back then we had an outside toilet. Folks just referred to these necessities as “the out house”. Well now, the out house was way down the hill away from the house so if the boys had to pee it was mighty inconvenient to go all that way when they could just pee off the front porch. This was a nightly parade at our house since there were 3 or 4 of the boys home at the time. This was nothing new to Reno and he usually never moved from his favorite spot on the front porch.
On one particular night he must have been sleeping to soundly and was startled because when Roy went out to pee, Reno went wild! He started growling and raised his hackles, no doubt for the first and only time in his life, and started going after Roy.
We had a long front porch across the front of the house with a handrail around it. Roy couldn’t get away from him. Reno was trying with everything in him to eat Roy up! Finally, Roy decided he had ran out of options and had to climb upon the handrail to escape. Reno wouldn’t back off and let him down!
Now, here was Roy’s dilema, what to do? Stay upon the rail untill Reno went away, which was not looking likely, or holler for someone to come and get the dog off him which would provide ample amunition for ribing for weeks to come! Being the practical sort, he chose the ribing and woke up the house. Daddy had to go get Reno so Roy could come back in the house. Daddy loved a good laugh so the good natured teasing began. This story has become a family favorite. When all us kids get togather and talk about old times, someone always brings up Reno and Roy. Truely, it is the little things that seem so simple that over time become the source of treasured memories
I don’t know if you have been to Hyden, Ky. lately or if you have ever been there before but I have to brag a little about my home town! When I was growing up in the 1960’s Hyden was essentially the same size that it is now. There has been a little growth out toward the mouth of Hurts Creek and up toward the high school but that is about all. Hyden was a great place to be young in. All us teens would gather up at Joseph’s resturant or in front of the bank and sit in the few cars we had or sometimes even on the hoods of them. Everybody knew everybody else and we all had a great time there. We were not harrasses by the town police, in fact, they were our friends. We showed respect by not damaging anything that was around. We didn’t know what drugs were. We only heard about them from the TV. We really thought we were doing something if we drank beer or hit the cherry vodka!
The hyden drive-in was the place to be come Friday and Saturday night. When we weren’t at the drive in or just hanging around in front of the bank, we would gather up down by the river at Wendover and park. There we did a great deal of teen socializing or necking, which ever was the mood. The boys were always in the mood! Actually, the girls were too but “good” girls weren’t supposed to act that way. What our parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them!
When I got married at age 18 I didn’t think with much sorrow about leaving. Hyden was just a place to be from then. A few years later I was back, divorced and raising 3 boys as a single mother. I became a nurse and gave 16 years of my life, body and soul, to the Mary Breckinridge Hospital. I lived in and around Hyden almost all of those 16 years. After that I moved to Hazard and then to Manchester. I only go back to Hyden ever once in a while. The city officials have done well for years with keeping it clean. In fact, it is one of the cleanest small towns that I know of in southeastern Kentucky.
That being said, I have been suprised, amazed and proud of the job the city is doing now to beautify Hyden! The new lamps, cobblestone sidewalks and veterans square beg to be visited! Everytime I drive through I wish I had time to get out and walk on the streets and sit a while in the square beside the fountain. I plan to take a day this summer to do just that! I want to go over to the new parking garage and look at it and I would love to have the time to take some music lessons at the bluegrass/traditional music college there. Maybe I can when I retire if I am still able to function! Anyway, as you go through Hyden, slow down and take a look. All you Leslie Countians who have left the area, you should see our hometown now!!
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