The Way I See It: April 2009

I was born in Richmond, Kentucky, while my father was in the Army during WW II as an MP (he had a fierce German Shepherd with no tail) ferrying German POWs back from Europe and war brides from Australia (tough duty!). When I was about five years old, my father and another man built our home at what is still called the mouth of Mace Branch on Quicksand in Breathitt County, Kentucky. Up behind us in the branch, was the home of his parents which had been built after their original home a little farther up the road burned down completely on a dark, terrifying night of babies being tossed through windows, adults screaming and scrambling to save whatever they could, and running around to make sure all were safely out. Not much was saved, 'cept all the family members who were in for the weekend visiting. A faulty chimney was probably to blame.

My earliest memory is of living with Mrs. Hazel Bottoms in Jackson down the street from the old Breathitt County High School. I was a babe of two maybe and CAN remember that the two-story house had the open floor grates upstairs that let the heat downstairs rise. We lived upstairs. I remember calling Mrs. Bottoms while looking down through that grate. (Now, I didn't promise this was going to be interesting, people!)

Although I don't remember the next two stories, they are supposedly told as the truth by my mother and her sister, Aunt Edith. I guess I was about two and Mom and Edith had taken me "uptown" in Jackson and bought me an apple at the A&P I had decided I couldn't live without. We were walking down Main Street and I was blissfully gnawing away on my prize of a lifetime and as we crossed the street going down to Breathitt High School, I DROPPED my apple! It rolled and it rolled and it rolled about six blocks down the hill. I stood and cried, as the story goes, and when it became obvious no one was going to go get it and I was not going to get another one, I proceeded to lay down in the middle of the street and screamed and kicked and generally made my mother proud! I guess you might say I was sort of an acquisitive little boy, because the other story took place in Hazard and also involved a great loss or denial. Again, Mom and Aunt Edith took sister Judy and I to town and, on the way, we passed the big Red Goose Shoes building that was built in the shape of an actual goose -- a landmark to this day. I decided I must have that building to take home with me.... Reason meant nothing to me, I wanted that damn goose! Mom and Aunt Edith tried to explain we couldn't carry such a thing but I wanted no part of their excuses. My reaction was to lay down in the middle of the street and throw a temper tantrum making my mother proud again. After dragging me several blocks wailing inconsolably, Aunt Edith promised to buy me something special in the dime store. We soon spotted the goldfish and that was it. Forget the goose. I had to have a goldfish! They put it in a little bag of water and off we went with my nose stuck to that bag for blocks. Now, I'm not sure of the veracity of these tales, but based upon your own opinion of the integrity of my mother and Aunt Edith, you can draw your own conclusions. And just in case someone mentions something about my "blankie", I admit to it, but will never admit how old I was before I was too ashamed to suck on that old rag. It was easy to get confused about things at that age! Like the time we were at Grandpa Haddix's and they were butchering a hog down at the barn where they also kept his mule, Old Tom. I happened to wander down there and took one look that scared the bejeebers out of me. I ran screaming back into the house as fast as my chubby little legs would carry me, yelling, "Mommy, Mommy. they done kilt Old Tom and hung he in a tree!"

I believe from there we moved to South Jackson to a large two-story house owned by Gerald and Fleda Bach. Gerald had a dry cleaning business right there on the street and we lived upstairs in the house. Sister Judy was born there. We later lived in a large two-story duplex home next to the Greyhound bus station in town. This was where I discovered maraschino cherries. I couldn't have been older than four and certainly was given dire threats about getting in the street, let alone crossing the street to Jay Staton's grocery to buy bottles of maraschino cherries. So, every time I could get my hands on a quarter or so, I would charm the two little, but somewhat older, girls next door to cross the street and buy me some cherries. I ate oodles and oodles of cherries until my mother finally caught me doing the deed and found out where all the red stains came from on my shirts. It was also here that I discovered that one of my favorite and most beautiful and wonderful aunts "had feet." (Don't ask....) Sister and I also developed a strong dislike for having our pictures taken. (Some got over it and some didn't!) We were also introduced to those plastic balloons of yesteryear! I always loved that petroleum smell of the plastic -- remember those?

I believe it was from here that we moved to our new home on Quicksand. However, at some time about then, Daddy bought a small printing shop in Hazard and we moved there, but only stayed briefly -- I don't think business was sufficient. Of course, the Quicksand home was a grand place to us! I assume it had electricity but I know we did not have running water in the house at that time. Sometime later I remember the menfolk digging a hole in the back yard for a well and being afraid that the ground would collapse on my daddy! It never did and what a marvel it was to pump a handle on the kitchen counter and have water come out the spigot! I am guessing there were only two bedrooms because sister Judy slept with our mother and I slept with my father. And that was hard on both of us! He was always telling me to quit jerking my feet! In back of the house was the yard, then the chicken lot and coop, and THEN the outhouse. It was a long, cold, lonely walk on winter nights!

There are many memories I have of this time. Once, Dad's cousin, Gerald Bach, who was like a brother to all my father's family, came to go squirrel hunting with my dad. Daddy was a few minutes ahead of Gerald and walked out the door. A few minutes later, Gerald was loading his 12 gauge shotgun in the house and it accidentally went off. We weren't injured except for utter terror and he absolutely KILLED our new floor model radio! Everyone recovered from the fright and for the rest of his life Gerald, one of the most loving, careful, kind, and tender men ever on this planet, would be mortified whenever that story was told.

I remember my father having to go out at night with shovel and rake to join our neighbors in extinguishing forest fires just on top of the ridges above our home. Judy and I were always afraid our home would burn down and maybe our daddy wouldn't come back. But he always did, exhausted, sweaty, covered in soot and smoke, and satisfied the fire was out.

We also worried about flooding. Quicksand Creek was across the road from our house but a little tributary stream (Mace Branch) ran right along our driveway. When the floods came, the water always threatened to get in the house. I don't believe it ever did, but I know it got within a foot or so several times. When it was cold enough, the floodwater would freeze on the top, the waters would recede and leave this sheet of ice about 1/4" thick covering everything about 3 to 4 feet above the ground. I liked to sneak out and walk under the ice and hide from searching parents!

Although my father worked for the newspaper, The Jackson Times, as a Linotype operator at the time, that didn't pay all the bills or provide all the food. Mom and Dad raised a large garden that Daddy mostly grew and Mom always "put up" or preserved in some manner. She would scrape and boil the sweet corn and can it (later in life she put it in the freezer). She cooked and canned tomatoes, canned tomato juice, green beans, and they would bury or keep potatoes over the winter. It is regrettable that folks today don't experience digging up the rows of potatoes, sticking their hands down in the ground and scrabbling around and pulling out those wonderful big potatoes. Okay folks, here is a bit of Appalachian English for the day. I don't relate this to make fun of anyone (certainly me!) or my parents, but I will tell you, I was a young boy before my mother corrected my saying "Arsh potatoes"! The first person to translate that for me gets a free dinner in Chattanooga for two! She canned all manner of vegetables. If you have any country background, you will know what "shucky" beans, or leatherbritches, are and what fun they were to string and dry.

Dad raised chickens in the back and we grew up on fried chicken every Sunday and whenever special company came through the week. I ate enough fried chicken to last a lifetime and to this day eat it only once every other month or so. (I know, someone will want to have my Kentucky visa revoked because of that!) My dad and both my grandpas always managed to get a few smoked hams laid in for the winter also. A few chicken stories.... Periodically when we went to Lexington, we would stop at Southern States and buy a "box full" of baby chicks to take home and raise for frying chickens or chicken and dumplings. My sister and I would peep through the little air holes and watch them all the way back home to Jackson. We kept the little peeps in the hen house with a special incubator to keep them warm until they were big enough to let loose in the lot. The other story involves my mother that everyone in the family has heard too many times, so if you're family, just skip to the next paragraph. In my mother's family, they always killed chickens by using a hatchet and a stump (get the picture?). In my father's family, they always killed chickens by grasping their necks and proceeding to spin them around, thus "wringing" their neck. My mother was determined to show my dad and her father-in-law that she could do it their way too. So, with Judy and I watching expectantly (maybe ages three and five), we stood in the midst of the chicken lot and watched Mom grab the chicken and proceed to spin it round and round and this damned chicken just kept squawking! Mom was determined to finish it off so she kept wringing harder and harder! Finally the chicken flew out of her hand and hit the ground running for its life! What the hell? ('Course I didn't say "What the hell" at the time!) Boy howdy, you never saw a chicken run so fast and squawking to high heaven! Chicken Little would have been proud! We all looked in Mom's hand where we saw she was tightly clutching the chicken's -- wing. She had grabbed it by the wing instead of the neck because she didn't want to look the poor chicken in the eye! Mom couldn't bear to have her menfolk find out what she had done, so she swore us to secrecy and then we three proceeded to chase this maimed chicken around the chicken lot! What fun Mommy! We never told on her, but years later when she 'fessed up she said that our father had commented that night on how tough that chicken was!

I had some additional first hand knowledge of chickens. Other than our faithful dog, Ring, a black and white shepherd, my next favorite pet was a chicken named Pluto. Pluto didn't have a tail and stood out from the others and had the free run of the place. We were great buddies. she and I had dug out a hole on the side of the hill in the front yard and that was her own personal home. I promise this will be the last chicken story.... We had a rooster that also had free run of the place and whenever he saw me he would run me to the ground and flog me! Always bringing blood and leaving serious scratches. Nobody ever hated a rooster more than I did that damned demon from hell! (I was maybe 5 at the time) Remember how housewives used to drape their washed blankets over a clothes line to dry -- in an inverted V shape? Well, once, that was the nearest shelter I could get to before that demon caught me! I figured I would be safe. Nope, here he came, spurs flashing, flogging away, blood flying everywhere! The air filled with screams! 'Course no one heard me under there and gradually the damned thing tired of flogging me. After it was over and for about the 6th time I told my mom and dad, "I'm going to kill that old rooster!" And with the usual attention parents often give to kids when their mind is somewhere else and really aren't listening, my daddy said those magical words! "OK, James Alan, you do that." That moment STILL ranks up in maybe the TOP 10 best moments of my life! A few days later, on a Sunday, the preacher and his wife were eating dinner with us and afterward went out to sit on the front porch. I corralled my three-year-old sister and gave her the box of .22 caliber shells and told her to hush and follow me. I grabbed my dad's rifle on the way out the back door and the day of reckoning was at hand! We searched the back yard like Tarzan and Jane in the jungle and finally spotted him staring malevolently, sitting up on the hill, trying to decide which of us to flog first. "Judy, quick! Gimme me a bullet!" Just like Stewart Granger said to Deborah Kerr in "King Solomon's Mines" on the plains of Africa! I loaded up and made sure she was behind me so a ricochet wouldn't get her and blasted away! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! He started limping away and I swore, "No you don't, you damn rooster! (I suspect I knew "damn" by that age!) Judy, gimme another bullet! Quick!" By this time, she's crying and shaking and bullets are falling everywhere but she finally came up with another one and I loaded and blasted away. NO SQUAWK this time! KFC on the hoof! By now, my parents and the preacher and his wife were on their knees praying on the front porch when they heard the shots from around back. My mother knew instantly what had happened. She yelled, "Oh lordy, he's shot that old rooster!" And here they all came running. My daddy started in on me with a vengeance until I said those magical words, "But Daddy, you said I could!" I will never forget the look on my father's face. (I saw it only one other time in my life, but that's another story.) He just seemed to freeze and let the words soak in. "Well, son, I guess I did, didn't I? I don't approve of what you did. You could have hurt your sister. But I won't punish you for this because of what I said." He took the rifle and bullets and I breathed a big sigh of relief and watched my hero walk away with the preacher and his wife. My momma kneeled down with tears in her eyes and hugged us both for a long, long time.

My Grandma Landrum died before I was born as did my Grandma Haddix. Grandpa Albert Sidney Landrum never remarried exactly, and from stories I have heard, he was quite lost after his wife died at the age of fifty-seven. He was named for the commanding general in the Confederate Army, Albert Sidney Johnson, that his dad had served under. My memories of him are filled with warmth and happiness. He was a great harmonica player and whenever all the family was visiting with thousands of us little yard urchins running around, he would sneak off up the hill and hunker down behind some clumps of sagebrush and start playing his harmonica for us. It drove us crazy to not be able to see him! And then there was his smokehouse in the side yard where the adults all told us was the home of the "boogey man"! We never had the nerve to go in there. Until one day we had enough kids we figured we would be safe and sneaked inside. 'Never found a boogey man, but we did find a big wooden barrel brimming full of some kind of smelly, fruity liquid covered with a cloth and really tasted like blackberries! Whenever we went to his home, you always had to check the side porch 'cause you never knew what kind of wild creature you would find in a cage or under a washtub! I just knew one day I would find an elephant or a lion or a giraffe, but it never happened. They were either foxes, opossums, or raccoons from the woods nearby. I don't recall eating any of this exotic fare but that is what he had them for. And then there was the old wood stove in the kitchen that had the warming compartments on the top. I remember them because if I hung around long enough, my Aunt Cora would find an extra biscuit or roll there for me. I loved my Aunt Cora then and I love my Aunt Cora today! I liked to accompany my mother to his back yard and dig up sassafrass root to make tea with. (Goodness, I am certainly using a lot of prepositions to end sentences with!) I always went with Grandpa up the branch with a couple of buckets to pick up coal for the fireplace. As I think back I am just amazed at how much help I was at the age of 5 or 6! Although I have no memories of it, I guess my Grandpa Landrum was quite a fiddle player and in younger days played at all the local square dances. It was about this age that my daddy decided to build a garage out by the highway. 'Course he wasn't able to do it without my help and that garage still stands to this day. One evening when we got home and parked in the garage sister Judy placed her hand in the door jamb just as Daddy was closing the door. She couldn't have been over 3 or 4 years old. The pain and anguish filled the garage to overflowing. The next day the doctor said nothing was broken -- she was too tough to break a finger!

We lost our dog, Ring, one day. He was devoted to us and we loved him dearly. Daddy found him run over in the road and buried him but told my sister and I that he had given him to another family who really needed a dog and he would get us another one. Daddy said it -- we believed it! And he did. A Great Dane! Unfortunately, his appetite didn't endear him to those who made the decisions so his sojourn with us was short-lived. It was years before Judy and I learned the truth. Once, a cat showed up and sister Judy tried to adopt it or at least make it be still while she held it. They disagreed and the cat bit and scratched her badly. We took her to the doctor who treated her and gave them the dreaded news -- you will have to catch it again and keep it up for 12 to 14 days or so to ensure it didn't have rabies. Daddy built a little cage and we caught it and penned it up. But about 3 days before the time was up, it escaped and we had to chase it down again! When the time was up, my mother, without a word, got a burlap bag and two big rocks and said, "James Alan, come with me." I followed her to the cat's cage, she got it out and stuffed it into the bag, put in the rocks, tied it up and said, "Now, take this to the river and throw it in the deep part." I was aghast but could see a look in my mother's eyes that said, "Do what I say." I did what she said and to this day, my mother has had no love for cats, because she remembers what one did to her little girl.

I started first grade at Sugar Camp school while we lived here and Miss Napier was my teacher. The school, long gone now, sat at the mouth of the branch where the road now goes up to the airport. The building was one huge room with a little partition in the middle.

Sugar Camp School

She taught all eight grades here. I loved Miss Napier. (Actually I loved all the women in my life at the time and still do for that matter! :-) ) On one end of the building there was a curtain (spread?) drawn across the room that set apart a small area for the ladies to cook lunch -- I still associate the comforting aroma of soup with those days. Miss Napier would take turns dealing with each grade and ensuring that everyone had studying to do when she was with another grade. Bill Hudson and his wife, Georgia, ran a store just across the road and had a son, Mike, my age. We were big buddies and I have great memories of playing there. Everyday when my father drove to work in Jackson he would drop me off there and Mike and I would play until it was time to walk over to school. When school was over, we went back to the store and Mr. Hudson always let us go to the pop cooler and get a cold one. They were just great people in every way. My favorite was Orange Crush. The cooler was always so cold, the drinks had a little bit of slushy ice in them. I must have been in my teens before I discovered Orange Crush didn't automatically come with ice in it! Mike and I had just grand times together. On his way home, Dad would pick me up and we would often stop at the Hounshells (not Dixie's family) and buy fresh milk. It was 1951 and they began blacktopping the road for the first time. What a joy and what excitement for two little boys to watch the huge equipment. With the paving of the road, Mr. Hudson decided to expand and build a new store right beside the old one. It was built of concrete block and there were a lot left over that provided the "mountains" for us cowboys where we could ambush Indians. One day as I jumped off one of the mountains I dislodged a concrete block that fell on my ankle. Whoops!! Pain! When Daddy arrived we went on home, but I could put no weight on it. The next day it was worse and swollen and discolored. Time to go to the doctor. X-ray! Broken! Cast! Daddy carried me around for days wherever I needed to go. It was my badge of honor. After a few days we visited Grandpa Haddix and he went to the woods and fashioned two crutches out of tree limbs and "Aunt Bea" padded the top pieces in old cloth. It didn't take long for me to scoot around on those crooked little crutches like a lizard! We went to Cumberland Falls, and I surprised them all with how fast I was. After 8 weeks or so, the doctor cut off the cast and told me it was alright to walk on it. "Uh, no, I can't do that -- it hurts!" Eventually, Daddy let me keep my crutches "for a short time to get used to this." Well, I didn't want to give them up! It was several weeks later when we visited family in Dayton that it was decided a second opinion was needed. That doctor x-rayed and examined and pronounced me fit as a fiddle. I walked around the office a little and agreed to try it. In the confusion of the moment, SOMEONE pilfered my crutches and we left! Despite my pitiful pleas to the contrary, my father finally would brook no more about it and I began to use my leg as I was supposed to. I recall with smug satisfaction how tough and brave I was to manipulate those crutches so well! And no one ever had the heart to tell me what a a real wuss I was!

Anyway, back to Sugar Camp School. Every day after lunch we got to go outside and play for a while. Then we came back in and all of us went to the big grades side and doubled up and sat in those old time folding school desks, two to a seat, first come, first served.... Well, the most beautiful girl in the world was in the eighth grade and her name was Dixie Hounshell. Mike and I, in the first grade, were in love with her. There was a lot of rivalry every day to see who got to sit beside Dixie. Day after day, it was a mad scramble and pushing and shoving to get to Dixie's seat first. We would end up rolling in the floor punching, pulling, and kicking when Miss Frazier would come into the room and find us the spectacle with the whole school watching and yelling. She always wanted to know what was the cause of our fight but we never confessed that we were both in love with Dixie. But Dixie knew.... One of the fondest memories of my childhood was being snuggled up next to Dixie listening to Miss Napier reading from the Bible. (I stopped a couple of years ago, maybe 2006, and knocked on Mike's door. We hadn't seen each other since the 2nd grade. It was a little emotional but a great visit) Maybe some day I will get the nerve to stop and say "Hi" to Dixie! But not this year! (Now, today April 30, 2009, my friend Frank Arrowood, told me that Mike died last year. Another lesson to do today what you might want to do tomorrow. Posting these tales has been quite a good experience and evoked a lot of nostalgia -- makes me want to just visit with everyone I know for a month or so! But we will call you ahead of time and make reservations, OK?) (Addendum: Actually, Anne and I DID end up visiting with Dixie this May, 2009 in Jackson. We connected through a mutual classmate at Sugar Camp. But what I hate to report is that Dixie had absolutely no memory of me! She DID remember Mike fighting with someone to sit beside her, but she had no name nor face to attach to that person!) :-(

It was at Sugar Camp where my mother would occasionally substitute teach. The first time she came to teach, I immediately realized I was entitled to special privileges because my mother was the teacher. 'Like not going back inside on time right after lunch period and staying out with my buddies and telling them, "Don't worry about it! My mommy's the teacher." After my mother called us the SECOND time without results she came outside, grabbed me by the ear, paddled me and marched me inside and when we got home that evening I got another paddling. And thus James Alan became a star pupil! Miss Napier always threatened to paddle us when we sneaked across the road after lunch to swing on the grapevines out over the river. But she never did. I loved Miss Napier but she put me in a tough spot! I didn't want to disappoint her with bad behavior but I didn't want to appear to be a wuss to my playmates! But I got through it unscathed. In the fall there were several pie suppers and we would park at the Hudson's store and walk up the road with them to the school with a basket filled with a pie and maybe a cake and we knew we were going to have a treat. I remember that anticipation and the autumn smell of dry, musty leaves, and fresh tar and complete happiness. And thinking just maybe I might get a few minutes alone with Dixie.

I never took the time to say "Thank you" to Miss Napier. I always intended to. But I never did. I wonder if teachers know what an influence they can make upon young children. I suppose so, but certainly they cannot do it alone. Let me now give a feeble "Thank you" to Miss Napier, Mrs. Williams (Oh, what a beauty she was!) and Mrs. Albright at Bryan Station, Mrs. Grace Collins and Miss Frazier at Jackson City School, and Mr. Brassfield and Mrs. Easton later at Pilot View in Winchester. Later teachers will be another story.

Another night I remember, we went to someone's funeral. The only memory I have of it was after the service -- the viewing I guess, everyone walked in the dark down the creek bed (no road), some carrying the casket, and many had torches lit. I remember clutching on to my father's coat, stumbling down through the creek bed, and him reassuring me everything would be OK.

We always looked forward to family coming to visit. There was a lot of visiting in those days. I was always glad to see Uncle Ottis, Aunt Lee, and cousins Ann and Joe Curtis come. Ann was another beautiful girl that I had a crush on but again, I was too young for her to even deign to talk to. Joe Curtis and I would take to the woods or down to the little creek by the driveway. Assuming PETA has a statute of limitations, I will tell you that our favorite past time was catching turtles and lighting kitchen matches under their tails to see how fast they could go. One year Santa brought me a Daisy BB gun -- a slide action pump that was a pretty serious BB gun. I would search the woods for things to shoot and one day, although I knew better, I shot and killed a cardinal. I picked it up and held it and examined it and burst out crying. I hated myself and I hated that gun. I started to throw the gun away but knew that would really get me in trouble. So I took it home, put it up, and never shot another living thing with it again.

One beautiful summer weekend night, some of our family decided to go to the drive-in. I don't remember exactly who went. But Mom, Dad, Judy, and I were in our pickup truck. After it was over we started back up Quicksand, driving slowly due to the heavy fog. We rounded a curve and found a car parked diagonally across the road. Daddy got out and found the driver drunk, passed out in the driver's seat. He decided there was enough room to squeeze between the rear of the car and the outer bank. As he edged behind the car, bumpers clipped, and our tires slipped over the edge and we rolled over and over down the hill. I remember Judy crying, and Mom checking us for injuries. The glove box door had flown open and the corner slashed across my stomach (still holding on to that scar today), Judy had some minor scratches and Mom had hit her head pretty hard. Daddy scrambled out of the upside-down car and hurriedly climbed up the hill to warn the rest of the oncoming family. Within a couple of minutes the drunk driver awoke and got away.

Daddy would often get upset with the owner of The Jackson Times, Harold Holliday, and go to Dayton for weeks or more to work at the Dayton newspaper and come home on the weekends. Sometimes he would go and work for the Lexington paper, The Lexington Herald. Mom didn't drive very much at all, so we were limited in going anywhere and we really missed him. But there were times on a cool, early, summer morning when Mom would take us to the garden and get a big ripe watermelon. The elevation of the house was on a slope with lots of room underneath the side. We would go under there in the shade and slice the melon or maybe even two, and sit there together in the dirt eating watermelon, happy as clams.

Miscellaneous memories just to record but not of particular interest to others -- Judy and I playing on the front porch and I was her dog with a leash on and I would crawl around the porch "woofing" like a big dog and she would treat me like her pet! Grandpa Haddix and Bea and their son, Philip, would often come visit. Philip and I were practically the same age and were great buddies. He was just younger enough than me to follow me and often get into trouble, but we had wonderful times for so many years, until he was killed in a car crash in 1981 by a drunken driver who was never really punished. He left two dear, small children and a faithful, loving wife. I remember the very day Daddy came home and said, "They've killed Fallen McIntosh." Fallen was a local hero -- a Kentucky State Trooper who lived a few miles down the road and well known and respected throughout the region. Judy and I went to Vacation Bible School at the church we attended at Noctor, the same precious little church where the Rev. Sewell Landrum preached my daddy's funeral in November 1979.

In the fall, Daddy would borrow his father's mule and sled and we would go to the cornfield across the road and gather up all the ears of corn. That was great fun because I just knew he couldn't do it by himself. After he had gathered all the cornstalks and formed them into shocks, Judy and I would go over there and play cowboys and Indians and use the shocks for tepees. We quit eventually when someone found a dead man hidden in a corn shock in a field up the road.

Fall was also a time for crossing the swinging bridge to go visit Josiah and Liddy Watkins. They were fine country folk and we had outings where the six of us would walk down their field and gather paw paws. Now, I know some of you don't know what a paw paw is and even fewer have eaten one. They grow on fairly small trees and look like a black rotten banana. And they pretty much taste like one, but they taste very good if you don't have bananas! Thanks Mona for reminding me of the following story. One day in the fall, Mom heard Liddy yelling across the river and fields, "Eh, Blanche! You want some dally taters? Mom didn't know what she meant and yelled back to her. Liddy again said, "Some dally taters!" Finally, she realized Liddy was offering her some dahlia bulbs! My father's aunts, Florence and Mattie, lived about a mile up the road and we visited often. Mattie was the personal secretary to Kentucky governor, Simon Willis, and spent all her time in Frankfort while Florence stayed at home and took care of the farm. Of course I remember Aunt Florence very well, but the only memory I have of Aunt Mattie is visiting her there at their home when she was terminally ill and lying in bed. Someone raised tobacco on their farm and I remember my uncles working in it. They tried to find something I could do, but I quickly found out, no, this wasn't what I wanted to do. My uncle Ab, another one of the dearest, sweetest men in this world, called me over one day in the field and gave me some kind of fruit and told me to try it. Well, it was an unripe persimmon. Everyone ought to taste one of those in their lifetime.

Until I was in high school the only vacations we ever took were to visit family in the Dayton area. It was quite a trek then, long before the Mountain Parkway was built. There were three "hills" to navigate heading out of eastern Kentucky - Frozen, Pine Ridge, and Slade. The roads were narrow, the cars unreliable, and the weather unpredictable. One trip home from Dayton it snowed terribly. It was dark and we were trying to cross Frozen Hill. We made several attempts, but each time as we got close to the top, the car would start sliding backwards. Daddy got out and put chains on the tires but to no avail. It was cold and dark and scary. Finally, after sliding safely back down to the bottom, Daddy got out and walked to a nearby home and asked for help. I just remember how nice the people were and insisted we spend the night. And it was warm. Next day, we continued on our way.

From Quicksand, we moved to Lexington about 1953 - I was in the third grade I believe -- there was some confusion about me skipping the second grade at Sugar Camp so I can't say for sure just when we moved. Daddy got a job at The Lexington Herald and we moved to Carterbrook Lane, just off Paris Pike. To keep matters straight, we will assume I was in the third grade. But we also lived for a short while in Winchester on Belmont Avenue at this time. I doubt it makes much difference....

And thus began the third grade at Bryan Station Elementary School in Lexington with Mrs. Williams as our teacher. What a beauty she was! And a sweetheart. I was in love AGAIN! I don't have a lot of memories of the 3rd grade - but funny thing, I remember the names of some of the girls! The following year we would move back to Jackson and I would begin the fourth grade at Jackson City School there. But now, in the 3rd grade, there were still more young pretty girls - Bonnie Breault, Gay Leet, Nellie Innes, and my true love, Lynn Jennings! But I wasn't exactly her true love, much to my chagrin. Gay lived on Old Paris Pike in a large white home with a beautiful pond and swans. I did persuade Lynn to go to Gay's birthday there one time, but, alas.... But lest one believe I loved all the girls, the Mays girls lived next door. More bullies and scrappers. One day when Mom and Dad had gone somewhere briefly, name-calling and taunts ended up in a BB gun fight. I was crouched on the back porch and they were shooting from their porch and behind a tree. No one was really hurt, but it wasn't for lack of trying. It was also here that we got our first TV. What an amazing thing! Mickey Mouse Club and Home On the Range after school every day.

Joyland Park was an amusement park on Route 27 (North Broadway) coming out of Lexington. It was a combination of amusement rides, zoo, and a large public swimming pool. It was a great place for kids and adults alike. The pool was so much bigger than the ones today. We signed up for swimming lessons there. I remember the large bathhouse with the concrete floors, little pools of standing water, the wire clothes baskets, and the overpowering salty smell of chlorine. Judy did pretty well but I must have been paying too much attention to all the eight-year-old bathing beauties! For whatever reason, I didn't learn to swim. Later that summer, Aunt Eliza and Uncle Joe came down from Ohio and picked me up and we went to spend four or five days with her family, the Carnahans, in Manchester. Her brother, Leslie Philip, was several years older than me and I really looked up to him. We went night fishing, we played softball in the cow pasture every day and just had a great time. A bunch of us went for a walk one day (kids and adults) and having heard about my failure to learn to swim, decided the best way was just to throw me in this stock pond we were passing! They did and I learned to swim.

The following year, at age nine, we moved back to Jackson and lived in an apartment on College Avenue for about a year before moving to a house in South Jackson. Mrs. Grace Collins was our fourth grade teacher and no one ever motivated me as a student more than she! She was an exceptional teacher -- kind, soft-spoken, encouraging, helpful. Linda Hatton and I were buddies and made good grades and worked for several months together to complete the geography book and all its quizzes ahead of the rest of the class. We memorized all the states and their capitals. This was an outstanding school year. We lived across the street from the Christian Church and that was a gathering spot for a gang of us little neighborhood hoodlums. One day, someone brought a BB rifle and we were all examining it, someone held it pointing up and some little retard leaned over and looked down the barrel just as someone reached down and pulled the trigger. The BB landed right in the inside corner of my eye and was lodged there. A 1/4" to the left and I would have lost my sight in that eye. Another quick trip to see Dr. Sewell who performed his usual miracle.

But now folks, I was getting old enough by this time to begin to wonder now if maybe names are getting a little too personal -- after all I was nine years old by then. But then, there are several people who know this story and names but I think I will start to drop names from here on out.... :-) Well, heck, that won't work either -- not to name any of my classmates then?! So we will -- am I digging myself a sufficiently large hole or not? Anyway, some of my classmates were Jimbo Sewell (Dr. Sewell's son), Richard Gravely, Nelda Begley, Jack Hinkle, Delores Callahan, and Theda Walk. My second paddling in school occurred here. The bathrooms were downstairs with pipes running across the steps. Every one of us boys at one time or another would fly down the steps, leap for the pipes and swing out into the middle of the room -- just like swinging on a grapevine out over the river! We had been warned several times. The day it was my turn I almost leaped into the principal's arms -- Mr. Caudill. He had a large paddle with holes in it and proffered it to me six times on my outstretched, bent-back palm. I didn't know him at the time but there was a boy, Frank Arrowood, in the 8th grade then who would later in the 1960s become a most stalwart and dear friend at General Motors in Dayton. And remains so 45 years later. During the fourth grade, I took trumpet lessons -- Mom and Dad bought Stanley Napier's trumpet and expected great things but when we moved to Lexington the following year, I persuaded them I just wasn't cut out to be a horn player.

Judy and I got an allowance of fifty cents a week and without fail we spent it at The Jaxon Theatre every Saturday morning -- 25 cents admission and 25 cents for popcorn. It was usually a double feature with the Lowell Thomas newsreels in between. Several times we went with our parents there on Saturday night to see Flatt and Scruggs live on stage and other country stars who later went on to greater fame.

One day when Judy and I walked home for lunch, our parents told us we were going to have a new brother or sister in September! We just couldn't imagine. And sure enough, on the 8th of September, 1955, we were forever blessed with our sister, Mona Gail, who was born there at Dr. Lewis'. But I had my eye on the cutest girl in class. She was friendly and I was in love AGAIN! We put on a play that year about Johnny Appleseed and I got to play him with a kitchen pot over my head! I just knew I would grow up to be a movie star! For a few weeks, she let me carry her books about halfway home and life was good.... Sometime about then I became one of those safety crossing guards -- got to wear a white Sam Browne belt with a real badge on it! It also came with one of those yellow oilskin rain slickers with the hood that came down over the neck and had this little visor. But, alas, she was falling for an older guy -- a fifth grader! On dry days I would swagger out into the middle of the street like Boss Hogg with my bulging Sam Browne belt and badge (riding up in the back) and on rainy days I would waddle out in my little yellow rubber ducky outfit with that all-powerful whistle hanging jauntily from my lips. I knew it had to be that Homeland Security outfit that scared her off. But I always stopped traffic whenever they walked by just to show off my importance. By the end of the year, I was beginning to realize that for 5th grade next year, my teacher would be Miss Evelyn Frazier and, let me tell you, she had a reputation for chewing up little boys and spitting them out! You didn't get by in her class on a wink and a smile! I knew I would flunk out and end up being a hobo. But I had more pressing issues than to worry about next year's teacher! Early that fall, I persuaded Mom and Dad that Judy and I needed a pair of pet rabbits to be well-adjusted kids and teach us about animal husbandry and all. They were cute and great company, and Daddy built a pen for them in the back yard but upon our return from a trip to Dayton in December, we found them frozen stiff to the wire bottoms in the cage. It was not a sight for a fifth grader, let alone a third grader!

On that Christmas Eve during the fourth grade when we lived in South Jackson, Daddy had to mysteriously go into town on business. While he was gone, Mom suggested it was time for us to go to bed, but we weren't having any of that. An hour or so passed before I heard a car in the driveway. I looked out the window and yelled, "Mommy, it's Daddy and he's driving a brand new Chevy station wagon and there's a big red bicycle in the back!" She yelled, "Lord, you kids get in bed quick! Don't let your daddy know I let you stay up this late! Run! Now!" We scooted (you know as I look back, it seems like Judy was always scootin' or runnin' somewhere when she was little!) and Mom turned out the lights. But Dad had seen me peeking out the window. I had never seen my dad as mad at Mom as he was then. Christmas was always so special to him. Of course it was to Mom also. The plan had been for her to get us in bed and not see the car or bicycle. Daddy said for all to hear, "You kids may as well come on back out. You've seen it now! The surprise is ruined." Sheepishly, we slunk back into the living room and watched as he brought in the most beautiful bike I had ever seen. Judy and I were thrilled but we were very reserved because Daddy's surprise was ruined. I drooled over the bike until they made us go to bed, but nothing could make me sleep! I must have gotten up ten times that night to "go to the bathroom," sneaking a peek every time. And Daddy knew every time I was up. The new car was a 1956 Chevy Bel-Air black and white station wagon. During the once over, Judy and I discovered a silver dollar under each of the rear floor mats. It was a big mystery until a few years ago it dawned on me that Daddy had to have put them there in spite of his denial.

During the summer, a local bully and his gang of thieves caught me a couple of times and we had two awful fights. From then on, every time they spotted me on my bike they would chase me home! 'Don't remember the resolution of this problem. I surmised he probably got sent to reform school or "up Salt River" -- wherever that was.... I saved my money and bought a wire basket for my bike to carry my comic books in. I went everywhere to trade comic books -- in spite of specific places off-limits according to my parents. Another aroma of yesteryear -- old musty comic books. For her birthday in June, Judy got a bicycle and Daddy and I took turns for weeks pushing her up and down the street to teach her to ride! I had a playmate next door who had a wonderful place to play marbles in his yard. Although it was strictly against my mother's edict, we usually played "keepsies." One day, I won all his marbles! I went home to gleefully sort out my winnings and admire my afternoon's work with marbles stuffed in my box and pockets. I tried sneaking in to my bedroom, but one marble fell out and I will never forget the sound of that marble rolling slowly across the linoleum floor because I knew Mom would look and ask questions. She didn't disappoint! The jig was up because there was only one place I could have gotten so many marbles. "Young man, you march right back over there and give him every one of those marbles back", she directed. But "MOM, some of these were mine!" was my retort. "I don't care, you give him that whole box of marbles back! And I'll be standing right here watching you!" Needless to say, I was a pretty peeved and provoked personage. But I quickly figured out how to salvage something from the day. As I walked over, I slyly dropped a steady stream of them like a trail of cookie crumbs and by the time I got there I just had one good handful, which I figured was fair enough! I watched Mom and after she went back in the house, I walked back home and carefully gathered up the dropped marbles. Those same marbles are in the same box here at home today!

Sometime shortly after sister Mona's birth, as I routinely rummaged through Daddy's 1953 Plymouth station wagon, I found a box of cigars. My marble buddy, Jimmy the neighbor boy, and I were grown up enough to know we could smoke them. We gathered under the house and lit up. The first one was quite an experience and I didn't turn green until about half of it was gone. You really do turn green you know when you inhale a cigar at age 10! I realized I was going to die. The only thing that pulled me through was thinking of somebody else getting all my stuff! Did you ever try to throw up quietly? After a few hours I vowed never to smoke another one of those for at least two days. I couldn't resist such an illicit adventure. And the same thing happened again, but by then I had discussed it with Jimmy the neighbor boy who was knowledgeable about such things and who said if I kept trying it, it would get better. Jimmy the neighbor boy didn't have time to smoke another one though.... Well, guess what? Jimmy the neighbor boy lied! After the third time, I realized we were wrong and never again would I touch them. But by now it was too late! One happy, blissful, innocent day, my father towered over me me and said, "Son, do you know what happened to those cigars I had in the car?" Okay, now, dangerous ground here, James.... Do you lie and think he will believe you and then live with the guilt? Or does he already know what happened to them and is just waiting to see if I will tell the truth and if I lie, there will be a "switching" in store. Or has he really forgotten and just simply wondering? Quick, James Alan, SPEAK! My reply was, "Daddy, I'm sorry, yes, I took them and gave them to Jimmy the neighbor boy who said his brother would like them." And my Daddy believed me. And I lived with that guilt for months afterward. Jimmy the neighbor boy was becoming an integral part of my life.

On one exploratory trip sister Judy and I made around the side of the hill, we discovered where the hillside had washed out and left those little gullies or arroyos or washes or whatever you call them. At the foot was the highway going up Town Hill. Being the Gene Autry sidekick that I was, I decided to climb down to the highway (was their NO thought for what I would do then??). There was nothing to hold onto and about a third of the way down, I realized I was about to start tumbling head first down the hill with nothing to hold onto. And every little movement brought a downward slide of a few inches. STUCK! I told Judy, "Quick, run and get Jimmy the neighbor boy and tell him to bring a rope!" Well, Judy was never known for her quickness. This wasn't too long after I had won all of Jimmy the neighbor boy's marbles. After what seemed like 2 hours, Judy returned alone and blithely said, " Jimmy says he can't come right now, maybe after supper." After supper?! I'll be dead by then! Road kill on the highway below! Don't you understand? I won't be able to push you on your bike anymore?! You gotta get somebody NOW! "Okay, then go get Mom (oh no, another lecture!) and tell her for Christ's sake, BRING A ROPE!" Off she waddled and finally here comes my mother running lickety-split calling me. NO ROPE! Whassa matta u? Don't nobody unnerstand English?! I need a damn rope! Being a lot smarter than me, my mother grabbed a nearby limb, gave me one end and pulled me back from the brink of destruction. AND THEN, came the lecture. (The next time we drove past that spot, I looked at it and realized it probably wasn't 10 feet high and didn't come close to the road. But I never mentioned that to anyone.)

Dad worked with Uncle Ab at The Jackson Times and with Frank Trusty, Bob Smallwood, Al Brewer, and others. They were all part of a family.... One day when Judy and I came home from school, Mom was terribly upset and crying. Daddy had cut off a finger at work! They had taken him to Homeplace Hospital near Hazard. We were scared. When he got home that evening, he was in good spirits and still the same daddy he had been that morning. He lost part of his middle finger. It pretty much put an end to his guitar playing but it never interfered with his playing the jaw harp!

During the summer one day while riding my bike into town across the bridge over the North Fork of the Kentucky River, I could hear a car approaching closely behind and I waved for him to pass -- there was nowhere for me to go. He didn't pass, but hit me and knocked me sprawling along the pavement very close to the edge of the bridge -- there was room enough underneath the guardrail for a feller to slide off into the river and that would have been that. But I managed to grab hold. The car sped up and went on through town. Thankfully, people stopped, got a description of the car, and called the police and my parents. I wasn't seriously hurt; mostly scared but some cuts and bruises. By the time my parents arrived, we had pretty much gathered up most of the pieces to my bike. Someone had gotten the license plate number of the drunk and they caught him a few miles out of town and put him in jail. My mother was furious and went down to "visit" him in jail and would have lynched him for sure if the sheriff would have let him out! Later, I heard the sheriff said he had never heard a woman talk to a man that way!

Halloween of 1955 rolled around quickly. It was unseasonably cold and snowing lightly. You have to remember Halloween was a bigger event than it is today because candy wasn't as plentiful as it is today. It was serious business! Judy and I got dressed up and headed into town because there were more houses which meant a bigger haul and too, Uncle Ab and Aunt Cora wanted to see our outfits. Somewhere along the way, some thug ran up and grabbed Judy's treat bag. I gave chase but he was gone. And oh my, was Judy crying! When we got home, I divided my bag with her (perhaps I might have had a little encouragement to do so, but if I did, I choose not to remember it!) Some few months afterward, Mom and Dad dropped another bombshell on us! We were moving back to Lexington! And they would take me with them and I wouldn't have to face Miss Frazier any longer and those bullies hadn't yet thrown me off a cliff! O Happy Day!

We moved back to a different house on Carterbrook Lane and Judy and I enrolled again at Bryan Station. And there were my old girlfriends

. Lynn, and Bonnie, and Nellie, and Gay! Life was good. Once, our neighbors, the McGees, gave a birthday party for their son, Mike, and as soon as they turned their back somebody suggested we play Post Office! There was a stunningly beautiful girl, Paula Choate, there and all us boys wanted to kiss her. Somehow, I figured out her number and back behind the curtain we went! To my utter devastation, she suggested we not kiss, but simply say we did.... Well, a gentleman could only answer one way. But oh how the other boys were jealous of me! I remember nothing else about the 5th grade there. For the 6th grade, my teacher was Mrs Albright, a rather short, plump, older, matronly woman with grey hair dyed red. Another jewel of a teacher. About the only thing I remember of the 6th grade was that both times we moved from the Jackson City school to Bryan Station, I was much further ahead in our studies than at B.S. On the corner of Carterbrook Lane and Paris Pike, the McGees lived with their two sons, Billy and Mike. Dr. McGee was a well-known veterinarian in the area (mostly horse farms). Billy was 3 or 4 years older than Mike and I so he didn't pay much attention to us. Mr. and Mrs. McGee were wonderfully friendly and Mike and I became great buddies. We often rode our bikes to Dr. McGee's office on New Circle Road -- about 7 miles. One evening, Mike and I were playing and Dr. McGee came out and asked us if we wanted to go with him on a "house call". After getting permission, we piled in that big Cadillac and went to Spendthrift Farm. A guy met us at one of the barns and we went in. Dr. McGee then pulled out what I realized was a LONG rubber glove and rolled it up his arm to his shoulder. By this time, I knew the expression, "What the hell?" He then stuck his entire arm up the rear end of this horse! I just about fainted -- I always did have a vivid imagination! Don't remember anything else about that episode. The McGees had about 7 or 8 acres and a couple of horses and they bought one of those smaller Farmall tractors to mow the pastures -- and Mike and I were allowed to mow the grass on that tractor. These were heady days. We would talk our mothers into fixing our lunches, put it into our knapsacks, strap on our army surplus belts and canteens and our trusty six-shooters and take off across country (neighboring horse farms) and look for Indians in the haylofts in the horse barns. Mike and I made an attempt to start our own business. In December, we would canvas the woods and shoot mistletoe out of the tops of the trees with our BB guns and sell it door to door in little sprigs. But alas, the demand for mistletoe sprigs in January fell off drastically.

I had recently rediscovered my old BB gun here and one day I went out to target practice. I tacked my paper targets up on the garage doors and began firing away. Shortly, I heard a tinkling of what sounded like glass. I looked at the house beside me and the windows but all was well. And then I looked at one of the targets tacked right over the crack between the double doors. My heart simply stopped. I went to the doors, peeked through the crack -- couldn't see anything. Upon opening the doors, I was greeted with this heart-rending, huge panorama of glass shattered into a gazillion pieces. I stood there for 5 minutes wishing it to go away, looked again, and my horror and devastation were complete. I had shot through the crack and destroyed the rear window in that Plymouth station wagon! I am dead meat. Life was over. There is no way that Daddy will not see this. And he is sitting peacefully in the house reading the newspaper blissfully unaware of the cataclysmic, life-threatening, heart-stopping event going on right outside his window. OK, James Alan, run! Run forever. Don't ever stop running. They can't catch you if you don't stop running. Don't even stop to eat. Uh, whoa, now -- not even to eat? No, there's gotta be a better way! Who can I blame it on? Maybe I just feign ignorance and Daddy will never know it was me. No, he'll know.... There's no way out. It didn't take a lot of smarts to realize there was no way out, no excuse good enough, no lie plausible enough. So the only thing to do was throw myself upon his mercy and my Daddy wasn't famous for his mercy! I mustered up my best tears and rueful sobs and slunk into the house. (Judy may have done a lot of scooting, but I seem to have done a lot of slinking!) My parents immediately picked up on my hysteria. I sobbed out the life-ending truth. My daddy blissfully said, "Now, James Alan, it can't be that bad. Let's go look." But I knew what he was going to see and I knew I was dead meat. He opened the doors and his expression was probably much like that of the ancient Trojans when all those Greeks came piling out of that big wooden horse in Troy! After he absorbed the shock, he said, "Well, son, you really did a number on it didn't you?" Only sobs escaped from my mouth. His next words probably did more to make me love him than anything up to that point in my life. I always felt like we were a team after this moment -- 'course he was the coach, but we were in it together. He said, "OK, hush crying, accidents happen, it isn't the end of the world. I understand. It's alright, we'll get it fixed. I'm not going to punish you because it was an accident and you came and told me the truth. Now hush crying!" I always felt my father was a stern taskmaster, but now I always felt he was fair too. He would prove my faith in him over and over again during the rest of his life.

Parents are often hard to figure out sometimes. Our back yard backed up to what is today Whitaker Farm. One of my playmates and a couple of his younger brothers and I were inseparable. Their dad was a manager of some kind on the farm and they lived there. I don't remember all the circumstances, but they offered to give me a young colt! He was that beautiful red color with a white blaze. They would keep it on the farm but I could come visit it any time and it would be mine to learn to ride. Can you imagine a young boy's thrill? This was the most exciting thing to ever happen to me. Daddy didn't believe it so the boys brought their dad over who assured him it wouldn't cost us any money. What a deal! But in the sometime unknown ways of fatherhood, my daddy decided it was not a good thing. I never knew why he refused. I was heartbroken and probably pretty angry. A couple of weeks after this, Daddy brought home two Cocker Spaniel puppies, Judy's was red and mine was blond.

The sixth grade at Bryan Station is a complete loss -- I remember absolutely nothing about that year. Maybe there were no girls in the class, you think? Early that summer after the 6th grade, Mom and Dad announced we were going to be moving again -- this time to Winchester. It was an old, two-story farmhouse on 5 acres of land with a little pond and in the midst of a great country neighborhood. There were stacked stone fireplaces in the living room and downstairs bedroom. THAT was the heat source for the house. But Judy, Mona, and I took it in stride and were happy to move. Sometime later, a propane stove was installed but we used a coal stove for quite some time. It was always COLD in the wintry mornings and Daddy would get up early to build a fire so it was warm for the three of us when we got up. Christmas mornings here were that much more memorable because we shivered so much when we woke up -- a combination of excitement and being really cold. We couldn't get up and go downstairs until he had built a warm fire for all of us. Christmas was always special to our parents. My dad grew up being excited if they got fruit for Christmas. He ALWAYS bought fruit and scattered it all over the wrapped presents along with opened chocolate candy and Mom's special fudge that she only made for Christmas. There were opened boxes of all kinds of candy and apples, oranges, grapes, tangerines, and bags of nuts opened and strewn all around the tree and presents. My most special memories of Christmas are all about the smells.

There was a huge front yard -- LOTS of yard! The balance of the property was cleared pasture. This was GREAT! Daddy would have to commute to Lexington every day. He worked second shift by his choice. He would get home about midnight, get up early and work on the house or in the garden and leave again for work about two o'clock. This meant Mom was in charge in the evenings and dealt with lots of kids running around. Judy and I enrolled at Pilot View Elementary, I in the seventh grade and Judy in the fifth grade. The next year, Mom would be elected President of the PTA. The next six years were probably the most blissful of my life until March, 1998. It was an innocent time. We met our neighbors, Ann and Quinton Allen, and their two children, Peggy and Bev. Bev and I became best friends and remain that way to this very day, almost 50 years later. So many memories. Some I will relate, but some will have to be left unsaid.... :-) Other neighbors were June and Charlie Stephenson and their two daughters, Barbara and Vicki. Vicki and Mona became fast friends and Mona thrived, especially when she could hide behind her daddy's legs. She was her daddy's girl for the rest of his life. She had some chronic illnesses, nothing really serious, so she always got a little special attention, especially from her daddy. Judy, Peggy, and Barbara formed the neighborhood triumvirate. Other neighbors were the Carters and their daughter, Irene and Hartwell Crowe and their son, Doug, Bill and Lucille Christopher with their son Doug, the McIntoshes with their two sons, and the Aldridges with their daughter, Patricia. Across the road from us, the Ramseys lived -- they were an older, friendly couple who were real farmers - we always went over there in the fall when they made apple sauce, apple juice. apple cider -- it was a big neighborhood event! Mae and Russell Luck were also neighbors - he was a State Trooper (great guy) and his wife, Mae, was the most gorgeous, sexiest woman in the world! Bar none. Now you have to remember I was probably 14 or 15 at the time. Nothing pleased Bev and I more than when she would come and play Rook with the rest of the neighbors! And then SOMEONE had to walk her home at night because Russell worked nights. More heady days. :-) Bev and I became inseparable and filled our time with basketball down at the REA plant, baseball in the cow pasture across the road, badminton and croquet (serious stuff now) in the front yard, and Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, and especially Rook eventually. Mr. Eugene Brassfield was our teacher and was truly more interested in sports maybe than the classroom which suited Bev and I just fine. We played on the school softball (how clearly we remember those individual days of glory on the athletic field) and basketball teams with Fairley Sheffield, Bill Ashley, Louis Holmberg, Doug Means, and David Rainey, we made projects in the 4H Club, and flirted with the GIRLS! Jean Brown, Sandra Christopher were the cute, flirty, funny duo that comes to mind. Linda Pace was a classmate - a classic beauty, but very, very quiet, reserved, and well-mannered. I think Bev staked a claim on her! My first date was with Muriel Milligan who was in our grade but about three years older because she had missed time having to work on the family farm.

During the 8th grade at Pilot View, my Uncle Joe came from Ohio with tickets for the UKIT (University of Kentucky Invitational Tournament) and we watched the UK Wildcats, led by Johnny Cox and Billy Ray Lickert, do battle with the West Virginia Mountaineers, led by Jerry West who scored 36 points. For several years, Uncle Joe took me to the UKIT to see my heroes play.

I don't remember the time frame, but sometime I began selling Christmas cards door-to-door and sold a BUNCH! My award was a Marlin .22 rifle with a 4X scope. What a thrill. It replaced the trusty old BB gun that had gotten banged up over the years. It didn't take me long to introduce REAL stress back into my life. One Saturday afternoon, I tacked up those remaining paper targets and began target practice. Don't you think I would have learned by this time? It wasn't long before I again heard that crashing and tinkling of glass. Now where the hell did THAT come from? I looked down the barrel of my rifle and saw it was pointed straight to the big REA (Rural Electric Association co-op) plant in the background! OH MY GOD! I've killed someone! Run James Alan, Never stop running. They can't catch you if you never stop running! Hey, this sounds familiar.... This wasn't a BB gun, it was a rifle truly capable of killing someone. I casually went inside and put my rifle away and said I was going down to the REA to shoot (?) some hoops. I looked around my home, my family, and the refrigerator one last time because I knew the police would be waiting on me and I would never see these most precious things in my life again. Although it was a Saturday, I held out no hope that no one would be in the building. When I got there I saw no one, no cars, nothing. Nothing except the huge German Shepherd watchdog that was going beserk inside his pen. I kept thinking of all those wonderful hopes and dreams I had had and were now going to be unattainable in prison. I figured it would be voluntary manslaughter rather than murder since it was an accident. I checked out all the windows I could see looking for that telltale shattering or the neat little round hole of death. As casually as possible I looked at ALL the windows and could find nothing amiss. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I had overshot the REA and hit one of the houses beyond and across the road. I knew I would never get away with going there and CASUALLY peeping in all the windows -- "Excuse me, Mr. Toler, I wasn't really peeping in your windows at your daughter, I was just checking to see if I had shot her!" just wouldn't fly. I gave up, sat down and waited for the sirens and the arrival of the Highway Patrol to take me away. An hour later, I began to think maybe they weren't coming. Maybe the only one to call them was laying dead inside the building. It finally occurred to me to just go home and await Monday morning when the people would go to work and find the body laying in the middle of the floor. And 'course, the trajectory pointed straight up to our house. I knew they could check that because I had seen it on TV. I stuck close to home that evening and all day Sunday. Monday I finally decided to go on to school -- they would know where I was. I waited for them all day at school, but they never came. Is it possible? Let me tell you, one of the happiest days of my life (and there have been too many to ever count) was when I got home and everything was normal - no police cars, no handcuffs, no 3rd degree.... Finally, I realized I must have been mistaken. Either that or the police weren't as smart as the ones on TV. I gave thanks for months, maybe even years, afterward.

Doug C. and Bev introduced me to baseball and the Cincinnati Reds! I remember Smokey Burgess, Ed "Strawberry Plains" Bailey, Johnny Powers, Steve Bilko, Ted Kluzewski, Johnny Temple, Roy McMillan, Don Hoak, Gene Freese, Jerry Lynch, Wally Post, Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Rocky Bridges, Gus Bell, Joe Nuxhall, Bob Purkey,and Johnny Klippstein. They also introduced me to collecting baseball cards (and no, Mom, I won't tell what happened to my collection when I went into the Army!) These were undoubtedly the most innocent, blissful, stressless, naive days of my life.

For two years Dad decided to raise a hog and butcher them in the late fall. On a cold December day, we had to build a fire, heat large tubs of water and get all else ready. When it came time to shoot the hog the first year, he asked me if I wanted to do it. I looked around to make sure where the REA plant was and just where the hog stood and thought, "OK, I can do this." He warned me, "Now be sure to hit him directly in the forehead or we will have to chase him all over this field and he will be squealing bloody murder! Hey, this sounds familiar too -- from somewhere long ago.... SO, I proceeded to nail him right in the stomach! Squeal! Squeal! "Shoot, James, I said the forehead!" We chased him for 1/2 an hour before Daddy got a clean shot and dispatched that porker to hog heaven. Now, if you've never slaughtered a hog, there are so many treats you've missed --hanging him up by his hind legs and gutting him, catching all the warm, bloody "stuff" so it doesn't burst and smell even worse than you think it does at THIS point. Once you get him cleaned out, if my memory serves correctly, you have to pour scalding hot water on him and begin scraping all the hair off the skin -- bad smell, bad job, (getting too close to my food source), cutting off the parts not needed (there aren't many!) and finding out that my dad is planning on making something called souse out of his head! But by day's end we had a lot of pork and sausage in the freezer and had pork tenderloin for dinner that night.

A couple of years after we moved there, Mom and Dad sold about 3 acres of our property to Wendell Toler and he subdivided and built 3 houses on it. The Kenneth DeVarys with their daughter, Linda, and Jean and Bob Loy with their son, Ernie, and daughter, Donna, (she and Mona became fast friends at an early age.) and the Tolers were now also our neighbors. Linda was as cute as she could be but a couple of years younger than Bev and I. Hormones are a dangerous thing! With me, I don't think they just developed, I was BORN with them! OK, sorry for that outburst!

Because we are all getting a little older, and because most of what I write about in high school was relatively innocent, I will include names -- for those wanting a peek into upcoming foibles and teen-aged disasters, there was Bonnie Bedford, Georgetta Depue, Linda Wireman, Wanda Moore, Cherelyn Moore, Sue Scott, Ester Boler, Linda Quisenberry -- they were neither foibles nor disasters, they were angels and such sweet young girls -- I will be forever grateful they were a part of my growing up years and certainly they had an influence on me. But, confidentially, I always had a "crush" on Mary Lou Bratton. To all the girls I've loved before.... You don't know how special you were to a young bashful country boy.

High School Memories from Clark County High School. Class of 1963.

Some of our high school teachers were Mr. Goff, Mr. Ollie James Dykes (a suitor to my Aunt Edith during their youth), Mrs. Henrietta McDavid, Mrs. Elizabeth Scott, the Cawood sisters, Nancy and Thelma, who taught algebra and English, and at some time I had Mrs. Louella Parsons for English, Mr Brown also taught geometry, Mr. Ballard, Mrs. Paynter, Mrs. Nell Cheatham for Chemistry -- the only "C" I got in high school -- Mrs. Eastin, Mr. Basham, and Mr. David Temple.

The principal and basketball coach was Letcher Norton. A tough egg. I didn't go out for the basketball team until my sophmore year and then played for two years. Larry Conley set a scoring record for Ashland High School against Charlie Osborne and I. I was a big, slow, hesitant player and eventually decided my talents would be better served in the Drama Club! Sports can help young men grow up a little quicker. After my basketball career was over, we put on a play "Act Your Age", I think, and Gary Palmer and I got the lead male roles -- what a comedy! My senior year, we put on "Brigadoon," and I played the part of Mr. Lundy, the school teacher with the kilt! This was a great time and a most memorable event -- I will never forget Dewey Pope doing the sword dance! Patty Creech and Gary Spencer had the lead roles and were great. I also belonged to the Forensic League and took part in inter-high school debates, public speaking, and something called Oratorical Declamation. Again, that was fun but could be a little stressful. As I write this, our next high school reunion should be in 2013 -- whew.... I hope sometime I get the chance to tell my classmates how much they have meant to me, how many wonderful memories they provided, and how much they determined what kind of person I grew up to be. I cannot list everyone, but it certainly doesn't mean I have loved them any less than the ones I mentioned.

During my senior year, I worked downtown at the J.J. Newberry "dime" store as a "stockboy." I stocked the shelves, did the janitorial work, assisted the clerks, flirted with the women, and often just ran a cashier. I think I started out at .85 cents an hour. It was great fun and I got to skip a 6th period study hall because of it. A couple of fellow girl classmates worked there and it was fun. The following year, they hired sister Judy and when I came home for Christmas, from UK, we worked there together. This meant every night my mother had to drop whatever she was doing and drive into town to pick me up, but she was used to it because she had done the same thing when I played basketball for two years!

During the summer between my junior and senior years, I worked as a temporary summer employee at Kentucky Dam Village State Park in the far western end of Kentucky. Cousin Linda's husband was James O. King, the commissioner of state parks at the time and so Philip and I had an "in" to get summer work. Philip chose to work at Cumberland Falls and I chose to "go west." The parks hire extra help to handle the summer business increase and we all boarded in a small "annex" together -- two to a room. It was a lot of partying. I ended up being a dishwasher at the main lodge assisting the older regular dishwasher. It was great fun, but hot, sweaty, and heavy fast-paced work. The cooks and all the kitchen workers were like family. We would often start singing while we worked and, too often the manager would have to come in and tell us to keep it down! But we did get compliments from many of the diners too. My favorite song to sing at the time was Bobby Bare's "500 miles." The governor's daughter, Lois Combs, was working here for the summer also and we dated for a month or so. In the evenings, she would stop and check in on the phone with her dad and he said, "Hello" to me once. He was a hero to all good Kentuckians! Eating watermelon at night on the lawn was our favorite activity! We lost track and I think she is a teacher now at a college in eastern Kentucky. She married a Weinberg.... It was a good summer. While there, one of the cooks told me about working on the river towboats and made connections with and recommended me for employment the next summer. There is an earlier post about my experience of life on the river the following summer....

On January 3, 1963, during my senior year, we were again forever blessed with our brother, Stuart Craig. Stuart was and remains the cutest and dearest of men -- next to his brother of course!

The Way I See It

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Our darling GRAND daughter

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Nashville Trip

Saturday, April 18, 2009

A weekend in Dixie

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Still Trudging Down Memory Lane

Monday, April 6, 2009

Pocahontas ancestry

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Thoughts and Issues at the Moment

Bubba's Tom Clancy imitation

Contributors

Blog Archive

The Book Corner

Followers

Interesting links