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Wallins Creek Kentucky   

Welcome to the Wallins Creek, Kentucky website. The "gathering" place where "Creekers" re-connect and communicate with one another.

Wallins Creek is nestled in a small valley with beautiful mountains lifting up to the sky.  It's a small town by any standard, just 1.01 sq. kilometers. One thing for sure, Wallins Creek has its share of nooks and crannies.   Wallins is 124 miles, as the crow flies, from Frankfort and is positioned in the southwest corner of Harlan County ... 36.82 degrees north of the equator and 83.41 degrees west of the prime meridian.  Here is a Map of the town and surrounding area.

Click to View  over 1000 Project Plans

Wallins Creek Weather - Get present temp, dew point, humidity, visibility, pressure and wind information. Before going further, this is a good time to take
Roger Burke's famous Nickel Tour of Wallins Creek, a trip you're sure to enjoy! Y'all sit down and stay for awhile now and before you leave be sure to

Read & Sign The Creeker's GUESTBOOK

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Email Ben Jones

Was Wallins Creek named after Daniel Boone's companion? Back in 1776 when Daniel Boone came throught Cumberland Gap, a man name of Wallin came with him exploring the country. It is said that Wallins Creek was named for him. What do you think? Wallins Creek Fire Department - Check out their neat website. Wallins Spirit - A website for and by the kids of Wallins School. The spirit of knowing who you are, where you came from and where you are going is more important today then ever before. Helen Carter wants to remind everyone that the   Wallins Elementary School web page is updated weekly. Stop over to see what the kids are working on and for the latest school news. This page features pictures of all 12 grades taken during 1948/49 school year. This is a real trip for anyone that went to Wallins Creek High School during that era. The first grade class picture would have graduated in 1960. Check it out and see if you can identify entire classes for us. 2005 Wallins Creek Reunion Pictures Click HERE to view. Read about folks from Wallins Creek Wallins Creek Biographies History of Wallins Creek Coal Mines -  This report Contains findings of a literature Survey and reconnaissance field Survey in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field concerning historic company-owned coal towns. Most of the news from Wallins Creek and around the county is printed in the Harlan Daily Enterprise newspaper. Wallins Fellowship Center The Community Center was founded in 1976, and is located on School House Hill (and all Creekers know where that is).   For more information on the following activities, contact: Sister Nancy Casey, Director P. O. Box 131 Wallins Creek, KY 40873 Email: rfcom@harlanonline.net  Tel. (606) 664-2836. Wallins Creek Baptist Church Website: www.wallinsbaptistchurch.org Address: PO Box 26, Wallins Creek, KY 40873 Telephone: (606) 664-7422 Wallins Creek has a couple of small creeks that empty into the Great Cumberland River. Visit the homepage of the Save The Cumberland River movement. It is a terrific effort underway to try and return the river to its natural state.  Jim Phillips Wallins Reunion Website - Check out photos and get the lastest news on the Annual Wallins Creek Reunion. Nice job, Jim!

More Links Here are some helpful websites that mention Wallins Creek and the surrounding county of Harlan. Harlan History and Facts - All about Harlan County Harlan County Church Directory - Attend the church of your choice Harlan County History - Also includes some history of Wallins Creek. Harlan County Vital Statistics - Search birth, marriage, divorce and death records Official Harlan County Homepage - Some information about Wallins Creek. Old Railroad Maps - Including those that were in Harlan County and Wallins Creek Kentucky State Government Websites - Links to all agencies by name. State, County and Local officials - Where to call or write them. U.S.S. Harlan County -  USS HARLAN COUNTY was decommissioned on April 14, 1995, and was leased to the Spanish Navy the same day. Since then, HARLAN COUNTY is serving with the Spanish Navy as SPS PIZARRO (L 42). NEWPORT - class Tank Landing Ship and was last homeported at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Va. Complete demographic profiles of the 257 residents living in Wallins Creek at the time of the 2000 census. Very interesting reading. Requires Adobe Acrobat 6.0 PDF Reader. Click to Wallins Creek General Characteristics Happy Top - Elevation Map Bob Lowe Knob - Elevation Map Reynolds Mountain - Elevation Map Harlan County Courts - Includes juror information and county history. Genealogy of Wallins Creek Researching your family history? Well, if you have "Howard's" in your family --- and a lot of Wallins Creek folks do, including me --- then this is the place to begin. Howard Family Genealogy Forum. Here is another Genealogy Forum that covers other family names in the Wallins Creek area. Harlan County Genealogy Forum. Blanton Forest Blanton Forest is by far the largest old-growth forest in Kentucky.  It is owned by the descendants of a family from Wallins Creek. Covering 2,350 acres of Pine Mountain's south slope in Harlan County, Blanton Forest is a diverse ecological treasure discovered in 1992. It is one of thirteen large old-growth tracts in the eastern United States. The trees that tower 100 feet above the forest floor are the same ones settlers saw as they came through the Cumberland Gap and moved westward. The area is a virtual bounty of wildlife, old growth forest, nut trees, wild flowers and fruit. Natural history sites of  the area include:  Pine Mountain Fault (Wallins Creek Quadrangle).

The Big Rock - A Wallins Creek Legend
By Ben Jones
     Hardly a boy that ever grew up in Wallins Creek missed the opportunity to swim and fish at the infamous "Big Rock" along the banks of the great Cumberland River.  It's allure beckoned one and all to its magical mystery, wrapped in parents tales so scary, young knees knocked in terror.  Nevermind that its torturous undertow and deep abyss would suck the very life out of you. Heck, we even ignored the fact it was home to a catfish so huge it could swallow small boys for lunch! 
     Perhaps no other landmark created such anticipation as when a friend would utter, "Hey, let's go down to the Big Rock."  When Gerald Baute said that to Bobby Lee and myself back in 1954 ... Bob and I looked at each other, smiled and the three of us were on the railroad tracks in minutes. Our destination:
the Big Rock.
     Thoughts of never returning entered my mind. Being the smallest of the three I was certain I would end up in the belly of "Old Shooter", the 12 foot long catfish; or that one of my older brothers would soon be fishing my body out of the water down near Pineville!
     It must have been 50 feet tall! We decided to swim to the sand bar on the other side. God only knows why I insisted on being first in the water. We stripped down to our underwear and within minutes were in the water frantically swimming to the other side. Gerald made it first while Bobby and I struggled against the strong current. All I could think as I felt something brush against my leg was "If I don't kick it in gear, I'm lunch."
    Gulping and gasping, Bobby and I arrived on the sandbar about the same time. We beat the odds and soon were splashing about thinking this was not near as bad as we had heard.
    After a few hours of bravada, the danger disappeared and when it was time to leave Gerald swam back across. Bobby Lee and I decided to go upstream a ways where we managed to near walk back to the Wallins side.
    Years later during my New York days, I wrote and entered a story about catching Old Shooter in the Gladdings Tall Tales writing contest. Gladdings is a manufacturer of fishing lines and sponsors this annual writing contest for the biggest fishing story lie.
     I wrote that I used three strands of stagun line, a foot long fishing hook crafted from a railroad spike, on which I skewered one of Mom's Rock Island Red laying hens, and tossed it off the Big Rock into the deep home of Old Shooter.
     Upon taking my bait, I wrote how Old Shooter came 10 feet out of the water and just as he was about to drag me off the Big Rock, a train came by. You guessed it. I ran up the hill, tied my line to the train and the train dragged Old Shooter out of his deep hole and down the tracks. I recounted how three days later we read in the Knoxville News Sentinel paper that a railroadman found the bones of a 12 foot long catfish tied to his train. From that day on Wallins Creek boys spent their summers swimming free of fear at the Big Rock.
     Well, I won first place, which was a huge box of fishing line and $25. I spent the $25 on the biggest steak dinner in New York and I still have some of the fishing line. Best of all, I still have my memories of the Big Rock.

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Dictionary of Mountain Dialect, Euphemisms and Sayings 

Folks born and reared in mountain towns like Wallins Creek have a unique language all their own. 

-A-
Adder- after... I'll be back adder while.
Ahr (Hour)  - How many ahrs to Lexington?
A-Fixing - (Getting ready to do something) -  It's a fixing to rain
A-Mite - (A little) - He looks a mite peaked today.
Awe - (Fear) - When he saw the bobcat he was in awe

-B-
Bacon -  (Wages) - Janie brings homethe bacon.
Bank (keeping fire all night) - I got t take ashes from the ash pan and bank the fire so it will keep all night.
Beholden (In debt or to owe) - Paw won't be beholden to anybody.
Better Half - (Spouse) - I've been blessed with a better half.
Book Read (Educated) - I went to college, so I'm book read.
Boon-Docks - (Rural) - Joe lives back in the boon-docks.
BootLeg - (Illegal) -We will  go  by wallins buy some bootleg beer.
Bout To - (About to) - I'm 'bout to go to church.
Bread and Butter - (Living) - Mike makes his bread and butter working on cars.
BriarHopper's - (Southern People) - There are a lot of briarhopper's in ohio.
Briches - (pants) - Have you got my britches ironed?
Brownbag - (Sack or Poke) - You can brownbag your lunch today.

-C-
Camp House - (Company Owned) - We use to live on Cotton Stocking Row in a camp house.
Canned - (Preserved) - We have our fruit and vegetables canned for the winter.
Cat Nap - (Short nap or  snooze) - It's about time for a little cat nap.
Cellar (Storage Bin) I'll go down to the cellar and get a few taters.
Chaw (plug of chewing tobacco) - There he goes with a big chaw in his jaw.
Chewing Gum Hollow - (Twila Chreechs) - Uncle Byrd lived at Chewing Gum Hollow.
Cipher (add or count) - He can cipher to 100.
Clinker's - (Hard Clump) - This coal is making a lot of clinkers.
Cobbler - (Thrown Together) - The last carpender I hired was a cobbler.
Coffin Tack (Cigarettes) - Every time I smoke I put another tack in my coffin.
Commissary - (Company Store) - Go to Creech Commissary buy a can of Clabber Girl baking powder.
Crick (stiffness) - I got a crick in my neck.

-D-
Dadburn - a euphemism of the word damn and is a form of a curse.
Doozie - a regular fine example.
Drop the hammer - a term for shooting someone (as in the hammer of a pistol being "dropped").
Dub-ya  (W) - J.Dubya (J. W.) got drunk Saturday.

-E-

-F-
Flurry - The great white bird will come back there and flurry on you. Mr. Paul Noe's saying for "I'm going to wear you out"
Fly Paper (Sticky) Time to change out the fly paper.
Flyin' low- (speeding):  He come 'round that corner just a flyin' low.
Founder (Full) I ate so much I'm foundered.

-G-
Gawking (Looking) The boys are gawking at us. 
Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise - is a mockery of the Lord's sovereignty. As a matter of fact He does control the creeks, therefore, the two are not contrasts.
Graveyard Shift - (nightshift) - This graveyard shift is killing me!
Greydog - (Greyhound Bus) - We'll catch the next greydog to Cincinnati.

-H-
Hafta (have to):  Am I gonna hafta spank ya?
Haint (ghost) - I'm afraid of haints.
H'aint- (I ain't):  I h'aint gonna do it!
Hand to Mouth - (Consuming all obtained) - They are living hand to mouth.
Hankerin' -(having a desire)  I've a hankerin for some cornbread and buttermilk.
Holler - a place up between two mountains, used like "that coondog ran all the way to the top of that holler".
Howd-ya (how did you):  Howd-ya do that?

-I-
Ice Box (Cold Storage) We need another block of ice for the ice box.
lll -  (being angry) -  He was right ill with me.
Inkling (Hint) I have an inkling Roger knows what's going on. 

-J-
Juice - (electricity) - If I don't pay the juice bill, they'll cut it off.

-K-
Kicked the bucket - referring to someone that died.
Kilt- (killed): He was kilt in the war.
Kindling - (wood) - I'll go chop some kindling for a fire.

-L-
Lag - as in "leg" to the rest of the world.
Lick (not one, any)  He doesn't have  a lick of sense.
LollyGagging - (Wasting Time) - Will you kids stop lollygagging around.
Lookum- (look them over) - Take this bowl of beans and lookum over. Jewell Saylor Carder's grandmother, Josie Saylor, said this when she wanted her to look through the dried beans and pick out the stones before she put them on to cook.
Luke Warm - (Barely Warm) -The water on the cook stove is barley warm.

-M-
Mind  ( remember )  I mind your daddy,  he was a good man.
Moonshine - (alcohol) - This moonshine will knock your socks off.

-N-
Nanner -  (Banana) - Mom makes a good nanner pudding.
Nary - (not a one) -  She has nary a tooth in her head.
Nekked - (naked) - He was running around the house nekked.
Nightwork -  (chores) - Do you have your nightwork done?
Number 2 Hollow - (This side of Creechs) - Alvin Gooden and Bob Neal were long residents of Number 2 hollow.  

-O-
Outhouse (Toilet) Visits to the outhouse were fast on a cold winter day.

-P-
Pail - (Bucket) - Go to the spring get a pail of water.
Painter - (panther) - A painter got my chickens.
Pea Pickers (Hands) Wash your little pea pickers before you eat.
Pert Near - (very close) - He pert near shaved his head.
Pert-ner t- (pretty near) -  He pert nert got run over with that truck!
Plumb Tickled - for being amused.
Poke - (a bag or sack) -  This is also a springtime delicacy, along with some Ramps and a few Hickory Chickens.
Ponde my honor -    to be plesantly suprised.
Ponder - (Think) -  I like to go on the mountain and ponder. 
Pop - (soda) - We'll stop at the next country store and buy us a cold pop.

-Q-
Quare - (like in the sense of weird) - Ain't it a quare thing that it rains on a real sunny day
Quilled- (curled) - I seen a rattlesnake all quilled up.

-R-
Reckon - for guess, as in "I reckon I won't do that just now".
Roll Your Own - (cigarettes) - Hand me the Prince Albert so I can roll one.
Runt - (Stunted) -  I want the runt of the litter.

-S-
Sang - gingeng.
Scrubbing (Bath) You need a good scrubbing.
Shot Gun Hollow - (Twila Creechs) -  We lived at shot gun hollow in the early fiftes.
Skinny Dipping (Swimming) Let's go to the Big Rock and go skinny dipping.
Slop - (food scraps) - Time to slop the hogs.
Slop Jar - (Bucket) - It's your turn to empty the slop jar.
Smack Dab  (middle of) - He got hit smack dab in the stomach.
Smokehouse (Out Building) I'll go to the smokehouse and get a ham.
Sugars (kisses) - Give Gran some sugars. (My favorite!)
Sup - A small drink eg. I'll take a sup of that moonshine if you can spare it!
Swan - Such as. I'll be swan, I can't believe that.
Switch - (tree branch) - I'll get a switch and whoop you.

-T-
Tarnation- (entire nation) - What in the tarnation are you doing!
Taters- (potatoes) - We're havng fried taters for supper.
Tejous- (tiring) - Housecleaning is tejous work.
Tradin'- (shopping) - I'll go do my grocery tradin' today.

-U-

-V-

-W-
Warsh - (wash) - I am going to warsh the clothes today.
Wherdya (where did you):  Wherdya put the keys?
Whoop (spank) - I'll whoop you when I catch you.
Winde  - (For window) - Please raise the winder.

-X-

-Y-
Yeller (Yellow) Big fat hens make the best yeller dumplins.
Yens- (you guys):   Where yens goin'?
Yinder - a place you're going to, as in "guess I'll head on down yinder to the store".
Younguns- (young ones, kids)  Get those younguns in the house.

-Z-

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From the Pen of ... John Paul Rhinehart
Americana Stories, Essays, Poems & Thoughts

By John Paul Rhinehart
©All Rights Reserved. John Paul Rhinehart

Finding Ephraim

On a late winter Saturday in March 1865, Private Ephraim Osborne of Wallins Creek, Kentucky, died in the Union military hospital at Jeffersonville, Indiana.  An army doctor listed the immediate cause of death as a "hemorrhage of the second intercostal artery".  The rupture of this vessel buried deep within his chest may have been brought on by a massive infection contracted while he was on service with the 26th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry near Nashville, Tennessee, some four months before, but the records contain no exact explanation as to why Private Osborne's artery split open.  It just did, and with fatal result.  Perhaps Ephraim found a degree of comfort in the fact he did not die among total strangers. Two soldiers from the Wallins Creek area who survived the war, James Brock and George Gross, were at his bedside when he passed away.

We can imagine, we can believe, that Ephraim's last thoughts were with his wife Lucretia Creasy? - and eight children who were at that moment at their home hundreds of miles to the south, awaiting his return.  The children ranged in age from 19 to one, and their vulnerability doubtless weighed upon him during his final hours.

An army burial party, perhaps civilian contractors, placed the remains of Ephraim Osborne in a wooden coffin and transported them eastward several miles to a cemetery at New Albany, Indiana.  And that is where he has lain the past 136 years, and that is where on a cold and windy February day, we found him, separated by the miles and by the years from his family, his friends, and his home.

There are those who believe that the dead never really leave us. Their earthly form fades from our view, but in living, they have become part of us.  Their voices speak to us through the years, fall gently upon our ears, and remind us of whom they were, and who we are, and we are the same.  We curl in the laps of our mothers and grandmothers, the coal-fired stove warms our backs, and we listen to the murmured stories of those who have passed.  We play at the feet of our fathers and grandfathers and hear of the lives of their own fathers and grandfathers.  In this telling, there is a moment of eternity, a glimpse of mortality, and immortality, the recognition that we are travelers on the same
road, and that perhaps somewhere between where we now stand, and where we are going, there is a promise of reunion.

Ephraim Osborne was the fourthin a direct family line of men of the same name.  His grandfather and great grandfather served in the Virginia militia during the American Revolution, one as a Lieutenant, the other as a Private.   After the close of the war, the elder Ephraim settled permanently in Virginia, while the younger man moved first to North Carolina, then back to Virginia, thence to Tennessee, and finally, about 1802, to what is now Harlan County, Kentucky.  About 1785, while living in North Carolina, the younger Ephraim and his wife Polly Brock,  sister of Jesse Brock, the first white settler at Wallins Creek - had a son born to them. It was the custom of the frontier to name children after those who were loved and admired.  The belief was that the child would inherit the qualities of the person whose name he or she carried.  Polly and Ephraim Osborne named their son Ephraim, after his paternal grandfather.  Young Ephraim was in his mid- to late teens when his family moved into the midst of the thick-forested valleys of southeastern Kentucky.  Many of his Brock and Howard cousins were already there, or would be soon.  This place, close by the headwaters of the Cumberland River, was to be the Osborne family home for the next 200 years, and it was there that the third Ephraim Osborne and his wife Lucy had a son born to them in 1822.  This son became the husband of Lucretia Saylor, the father of eight children, and finally, a soldier in the Union Army.

The groom, black-haired and blue-eyed, nervously stamps his boots, packing hard the snow beneath. He wears a homespun linen smock cinched around his waist with a leather belt, and a heavy coat of woolen cloth spun by his mother, and dyed dark gray by boiled sumac berries. It is late February 1844, and the snow comes down hard.  He glances toward the house.  His friends gather close about, slap him on the back, tease him about the shivaree to come, and he grins nervously.  Some pass a jug of peach brandy between them, but he does not drink.  There will be time enough for that later.  Now, he wants his wits about him.  His bride-to-be is inside with her parents, sisters, friends, and a Justice of the Peace.   Her father opens the door and motions the men into the house.

In April of the following year, the first child of Ephraim and Creasy Saylor Osborne arrived.  Given the name Jane, her parents called her "Lovey", as parents of that time and place often nicknamed their first-born daughter.  It was an eventful year in other ways as well.  Former President Andrew Jackson died near Nashville, the United States and Mexico went to war,and the printing press of prominent anti-slavery activist Cassius Marcellus Clay was seized by citizens of Lexington and shipped north to Cincinnati, as Clay's newspaper "The True American" was judged by slaveholders in Fayette County to be  "dangerous to the peace of our community, and the safety of our homes and families."  Over the next nineteen years, the Osborne household welcomed another seven children, five girls and two boys, and in each one of those years, the cursed issue of slavery and its expansion continued to disrupt the peace of Kentuckians, and of all Americans.

He is old and solemn and spends most days in his rocking chair. He lives in a white frame house at the foot of the Happy Top road, jus tacross the L&N tracks, with his daughter, "Aunt Ellen" Steele, and her daughter Joanne.   When in his presence, we are quiet.  He gazes at us with watery eyes,strokes his white handlebar mustache with his fingertips and smiles.  He tilts his head upward and greets my mother.  During her teen years, she spent many hours at his side, confiding in him, asking his advice, and learning.  His usual dress is a starched white shirt and blue dress pants with suspenders.  Not long ago, I found among the effects of my mother one of those white shirts, still in its packing from the cleaners. The wrapper bore the date of May 12, 1957.

February 1861 marked the seventeenth wedding anniversary of Ephraim and Creasy Osborne.  Less than two months later, the Civil War, then called the "War of the Rebellion",  broke over the nation like a violent spring storm.  The causes of our national tragedy are known well enough not to bear full recounting here.  Slave-owners representing a small proportion of the southern population desired to export the institution to other parts of the growing nation.   Alleging "states rights", they sought protection of their "property  residing in the ownership of fellow human beings",  through their particularistic interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In the view of those who "owned" others, as property a slave could be taken anywhere within the United States. Those Americans who disagreed lived mostly in the north and west, and these Americans sought to restrict the "slave power" to its present boundaries in the south.  None but the most radical sought the total abolition of the "peculiar institution".

Lying as it does between north and south, and being neither one nor the other, Kentucky experienced in 1861 a crisis unparalleled in its history. Slavery was legal within the Commonwealth, but unlike most slave holding states, Kentucky forbade the importation of slaves from other states.  Since the1820s, abolitionists had found an audience in the Commonwealth,and some of the most determined opponents of slavery had Kentucky roots ... Cassius Marcellus Clay, James G. Birney and Abraham Lincoln.

Indeed, slaveholding had never taken hold in the eastern one-third of the state.  The mountainfolk of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia lived in a world very different from that of the planter aristocracy in the Bluegrass, the plains of west Tennessee and the Tidewater area of Virginia.  When the crisis came in 1861, the overwhelming majority of mountain people in the mid-south remained loyal to the Union. By the end of the war, Kentucky had provided 100,000 men to the cause of preservation of the Union, over three times the number of men from the Commonwealth who fought under the flag of the rebellion.  Before the conflict ended, the lives of 620,000 Americans,  2% of the total population  were swept away. One of those lives was that of Ephraim Osborne.

We cannot count the Sunday afternoons we spend in Resthaven cemetery, or in the small burial grounds on the ridges surrounding Wallins Creek. We do not come here to mourn our kin. We celebrate them, resurrect them, feel we are in their presence for a few hours more.  It is not in our hearts to let them go for good.  We walk among the tombstones with our elders, place flowers on this grave, then on that one, pause to pull away the covering grass from the footstones, while those hovering over us remember aloud the love given by those resting here.   I put my ear to the ground, strain to hear a voice, a sound, perhaps of someone sleeping. But there is no sound except the whisper of the grass brushing across my cheek.  It is enough.  This is a place of life, not of death, and although most of those among whom we walk left this world before we entered it, we know them all, and we are very, very sure that they know us.

No corner of the Commonwealth escaped the effects of the War of the Rebellion. At the beginning of the "unpleasantness", 400 pro-Union Harlan County men, who lived mostly on the Poor Fork and the lower Cumberland  River in the areasof Totz, Nolansburg, Cumberland, Putney, Baxter, Wallins Creek, and Loyall, organized under order of the state a detachment of  "Home Guards" to defend against pro-secession guerillas in the county, and from Confederate regulars from Virginia and Tennessee.  These "Home Guards" were men named Howard and Nolan and Lewis and Lee and Daniel and Lansdown and they resisted those who would take their livestock and food.  In the context of the times, they were "Union Men",  and nothing less.

I sit on the floor playing with several other boys.  I am related to most of them, but am not quite sure how. At age nine, it is beyond my capacity to understand anything but the basics of cousinhood.   "I was helping Daddy down in the garden when we heard horses coming up the creek",  he said.  We looked up to the source of the voice.  He rocks slowly in hischair.  " It was the springtime, March or thereabouts, I reckon."  We stop playing.  He is talking to us.  "When they saw us, they ran up on us hard and circled all around.   They were soldiers, with guns and swords.  The horses were all hot and breathing hard.  They asked Daddy his name. 'Ephraim Osborne'," he said, "and This here is my boy John."  One of the men got off his horse and said "Walk on up to the house with us."   "The rest of the soldiers followed on behind, still up on their horses and looking all around.  I watched them real close.  I didn't know if they were Rebels. It was hard for me to tell. The soldier walking with us talked to Daddy, but I didn't hear what was said. When we got to the house, mother came out and asked what the matter was. Daddy said he was going away for awhile, but he'd be coming back soon enough. Mother began to cry, and so did all of us young'uns, all eight of us  just bawlin'.  Then they put him up on the back of a horse behind one of the soldiers and he was gone.  Just likethat."   He is staring out the window, toward the field, eyes fixed on a distant place.  We look at him in silence. We see the tears pool in his eyes, but do not - cannot - comprehend their depth.

Ephraim Osborne, age 42, of Harlan County, Kentucky, was mustered into the service of his country on Monday, 19 September, 1864, in London, Kentucky.   Assigned to Company C of the 26th Kentucky Infantry, his regiment was soon dispatched to Franklin, Tennessee, near Nashville. On 30 November, the army of which Ephraim was a part engaged in a fierce battle with John Bell Hood's Army of the Tennessee.  It is not clear whether Ephraim participated in this bloody battle. Records of the Surgeon General and existing muster rolls make it clear that he was ill almost from the start of this army career.  By 9 January 1865, he was in the Union military hospital at Jeffersonville, Indiana, having arrived there from Nashville by riverboat.

We look at the floor and remain silent.  The only sounds are thecreaking of his rocking chair and his shallow breathing.  "Come the spring, mother got fretful.  There weren't no word from Daddy at all, and the more time that passed, the more she was sure something had happened to him.  One evening, the chickens went to roost, and they crowed into the night . . . a sign of something ill about to happen.  Mother was up all night crying and walking the floor and wringing her hands and saying over and over again 'Oh Ephraim! Oh Ephraim!'  We were scairt, so I ran down the creek to get some help, but no one could do anything for her.  Next few days, she didn't hardly move from her
chair, and then a mail rider came up the creek.  He had a letter from Washington, D.C. He read it to us.  It said that Daddy was dead, buried up in Indiana somewheres. Mother sat in the house for a year, maybe more.  She wouldn't talk to hardly anyone.   Us young'uns did the plowing and   plantin' and hoeing, and come the fall, we did the harvesting. Even Lucy and little Wash helped out all along."  Again he is looking toward the field.  Aunt Ellen comes in from the kitchen holding a bowl in her hand.  "Is everything all right?" she asks.  "It sure is quiet in here for there to be such a room full of boys."  He looks at her and says "We were just thinkin'  little."  I look at Aunt Ellen and say, "We were just thinkin' some with Uncle John."  She throws back her head and laughs. "Well, you ought come on here in the kitchen and do some workin' with me!"

Creasy Osborne never remarried.  All of her children - one of whom was my great-great grandmother Lucy married and had children of their own.  Lucy married Stephen Howard in 1873, and when their first son was born in 1875, she named him John L. after her revered older brother.

Uncle John L. lived to be almost 102 years old.  He was much celebrated during his lifetime.  In 1950, he was named National Father of the Year, and on his 100th birthday in 1955, he received a congratulatory telephone call from President Eisenhower.

My mother used to tell me that Uncle John never traveled more than 100 miles from the place of his birth, and that he never expressed a desire to do so, with one exception.  He always wanted to visit the grave of his father.  In the 1950's, while a student at the University of Kentucky, my mother's brother, Billy K. Howard, drove from Lexington to Jeffersonville, Indiana. He took with him a camera.  He located the military cemetery where Ephraim Osborne is buried and took photographs of the headstone.  When he returned to Harlan County a few weeks later, he presented Uncle John with the picture of his father's headstone.  Uncle John wept profusely. He later had the picture framed and hung it on his wall, and there it remained until claimed by one of the periodic floods that plague the upper Cumberland.

And so here I too stand, grandfather Ephraim, your great-great-great grandson. My twenty-year old daughter is with me and holds in her hand a bouquet of nine lilies, one from your wife and one from each of your eight children.  My daughter, your granddaughter, places them on your grave.  I recite the prayer I usually repeat when honoring loved ones who have passed on.  "Oh Lord, give to the departed eternal rest.  Let light perpetual shine upon them."

Now, Jim Phillips, your great-great-great nephew, joins us. Your son, John L. told us about you, grandfather, when we were boys.  You are not forgotten.  We are bound to you by what President Lincoln called 'the mystic chords of memory'  Forever."

After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.

A Rite of Passage Football season was over, neither one of us were playing basketball that year - and in my case, in any other year either, and the days and nights were passing more slowly than usual.   We were on the cusp of 18, and it was the coldest winter in memory.  Along with the creeks and the river, time seemed to have been stopped dead in its tracks by the cold.  Since we didn't have to worry about being "in shape" for spring training, it seemed like the perfect time to get drunk.

We lived in a "dry" area of the county, which meant folks who wanted booze had to put a little more effort into buying it than folks who lived in "wet" areas of the county.  So,  there were a few details to be worked out. Should we go to a bootleg joint?  Or should we buy it from one of the men in town who sold it from refrigerators sitting on their back porches?  Should it be beer or moonshine?  If the choice was moonshine, should it be "red", given that color by aging in a wooden bucket for a day or two - or splashed with a little food coloring- to get the right tint?  Or should we stay with the common white variety?

The going rate was $.50 for a can of beer, $1.00 for a half-pint of white and $2.00 for a half-pint of red. Red was more valuable presumably because it had been aged a day or two and was therefore of better quality.   As usual, the small amount of money in our pockets limited our ambitions.  We knew we could each scrape together $1.00 over the next few days, but definitely not $2.00.  That meant that our options were two beers each, or a half-pint of white each, or a half-pint of red to share between us.

We discussed the alternatives for several days.  As usual, we agreed that we would do "exactly" the same thing, and also as usual, we disagreed about the details.  He preferred the two beers each, but being the more cautious of the two, I preferred the half-pint of red, which I suggested we split between us.  Neither of us had more than a secret swig of wine or beer before, and we weren't sure how much it took to reach the target state of "drunk". To me, two beers seemed like a lot, and a half-pint of red seemed like less.   To him, two beers seemed like the ideal amount.  "Two of anything is better than half of something", he said.  He was always better at math than I was, but even so, I wasn't persuaded, and in the end, my cautious nature dictated restraint, and we could not agree on what to buy.  Finally, we decided to submit the issue to someone we knew would have the right answer.  Damon Alred.

Damon was a couple of years older and in our minds, had done everything worth doing.  We all admired him.  The two or three years he quarterbacked the Purple Devils, we at least broke even for the season. He was tougher than rocks, a born competitor who communicated his will to win to the rest of us. No matter what the situation, he always gave his best effort.  During a pickup football game in the gravel lot beside Wallins High School one evening, he was so intent on catching a pass that he slammed full-speed and headfirst into the side of Stan Woods' pickup truck, punching a head-sized dent about a quarter of an inch deep into the side of the cab.  Although he was disoriented and plainly hurt, Damon played out the rest of the game shaking his head now and then to "stop the ringing" in his ears.   In a week or so, he was back to normal, but the truck kept that dent for the rest of its days.

Damon still showed up at Sarah's Café once or twice a week, so we knew we would see him soon.  After he graduated, he hadn't drifted northward as had so many others.  A prisoner of love, his girlfriend was tied to Harlan County, and he was tied to her, and that was that.

Damon didn't have to think about our problem much.  Get the straight moonshine, a half-pint for each of you, he said.  That's the best value. And, he added, you'll each need an RC for a chaser.  He also told us the best place to buy the stuff, just up the road, two miles or so.

As he turned to leave, he suddenly stopped and said, "I almost forgot to tell you the most important thing.  If you start feeling sick, just drink as much warm salt water as you can hold and that will calm your stomach right down".

The next afternoon after school, we set off up the road.  It was spitting snow, so we walked at a quick pace, hunkering as deeply into our school jackets as we could get.  In about 45 minutes, we reached our destination and knocked on the door.

"Come in, come in", Cousin said.  As we stepped inside, he spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the stove.  As it sizzled and popped, he said "I 'spect you're here for something to wet your whistle".  In two minutes we were back on the highway, a dollar poorer but ready to do our duty as we understood it.

We stopped on Park Howard Bridge and discussed our next step.  We had to get the chasers, that was for sure, but first, we agreed to try just a "little sip".  That was a mistake.  The moonshine scorched our lips and mouth.  With tears in my eyes I asked,  "Is this what it's supposed to taste like"?  "I think so", he gasped.  "Let's go get those RC's".

We didn't say much during the walk back into town.  Once in Sarah's, we put down our dimes for the RC's and then headed for his grandparents house on Backstreet.  It seemed to be getting colder.  When we reached the front porch, we looked at a thermometer mounted there.  It read -3.   We went inside and climbed up into the attic where we began playing gin rummy, and of
course, taking small swallows of our moonshine, followed closely by large gulps of RC.  Although it was not -3 in the attic, it was still well below freezing, and the moonshine was going down smoothly.  We agreed there wasn't much to this getting drunk business.  A bad case of giggles was all that had afflicted us so far.  We discussed a few of the better-known drinkers in town
and decided we were at least the men they were.  Ah well, time to go to Sarah's and see what was happening there.

Sarah was closed, but not really.  She saw us standing outside and unlocked the door, wondering aloud what we "fools" were doing out there in that cold.  Sarah had the coal furnace turned as high as it would go that night.  It must have been 90 degrees inside.  In ten minutes, we were both sweating a waterfall and feeling dizzy.  He was sitting right across the
table from me, but I couldn't focus on his face.  My eyes kept bouncing around in my head.  I knew then how that Saylor boy must have felt when he got kicked in the head by a mule out behind the gym when we were in first grade.   It took everything we had to push ourselves out of the booth and stumble out into the street.  Sarah advised us to "get on home before you get
in trouble".   We decided to follow the advice.  He started up Front Street, and I headed toward Hatmaker's grocery store and turned onto "Side Street". Home and safety were just a few steps away.

I climbed the stairs to the rooms where my grandmother and I lived.  I tiptoed into my room.  It was not heated - the stoves were at the other end of the building and my room was not connected to them - but there was a stack of eight or nine handmade quilts on top of my bed.  I flopped down fully clothed on top of them and watched my breath steaming up toward the ceiling . . . a ceiling that was beginning to spin slowly around and around and around. And around.   I recalled Damon's advice.  I needed some warm salt water.  I quietly navigated my way down the hallway and entered the kitchen.  We didn't have a hot water tap, only cold.  But there was an aluminum kettle on top of the stove, and I was in luck.  The water was still warm.  I got a glass, dumped about half shaker of salt into it, and dissolved it in warm water.  I gulped it down, and went back to my bedroom.  I stripped off all my clothing and dug in under the quilts.  I had learned long ago that this was the quickest way to warm the bed.  I closed my eyes.  My head began floating up off the pillow like a helium-filled balloon, or so it seemed.  I opened my
eyes.  The stamped tin ceiling and the plaster walls were jiggling.  I felt a powerful force gathering deep within my body.  I leaped from the bed and ran down the hallway toward the door as fast as I could.  Outside, I did not have time to open the door to the small outside closet where the commode sat.

Anyway, I knew the water in the bowl was frozen over and I didn't have time to punch through it with a stick we kept beside it for that reason.  So I leaned over the wire fencing that was strung the length of the steps and heaved saltwater and moonshine half the distance to Terry's Fork.  I repeated this three times, cursing Damon Alred with every breath I could draw.  It was then I remembered it was Damon who "taught" me to chew tobacco two years before.  "Just go over to the county bridge, stuff your mouth full of this Beechnut, get it all good and wet and slick in your mouth, and then swallow the whole thing".  I did just as he said.  Of course, I got violently ill and
hung over the bridge railing throwing up for what seemed an eternity.  But Damon was right.  I never had trouble with tobacco making me sick after that.

Once I was satisfied that I had nothing left in my stomach, I turned to go back inside.  There was a small problem.  I hadn't noticed that the door had slammed shut and locked behind me.  And there I stood,  naked, drunk, and the temperature at -3.  My options were few, to say the least.  I could stay where I was and freeze to death.  I could go into the closet where the commode was and freeze to death more slowly.  I could  cover myself as best I could and run down to one of the neighbor's houses on Backstreet, but I learned some time ago that most people do not react well to a naked person on their porch.  The only choice left was to knock on the door and try to wake grandmother, who was all the way at the other end of the building.  To be honest, I probably spent three minutes making up my mind.

The prospect of waking grandmother to this particular sight was not something I really wanted to do.  But the longer I thought about it, the shorter my life span became, so I started banging on the door, gently at first.   I did not want to give her a heart attack.  There was no response.   I gradually increased the force of my blows against the door until they reach the decibel level of spring thunder.  At last, a light came on at the end of the hallway.  As she hobbled toward the door, squinting to see who could be raising such a racket in the middle of the night, I hunkered over, crossed my arms in front of myself, and tried desperately to think of an explanation, something that was at least partly truthful, but I could think of nothing.  I hated lying to her.

As she opened the door, she asked "What happened, son"?  Without thinking, I blurted out something resembling the truth: "Well, Mamaw, I felt sick, got up to throw up, and locked myself out".  With my arms still crossed in front of myself I hopped down the hallway and ducked left into my bedroom and tunneled under the quilts.  I woke the next morning with a blinding headache, a taste akin to burned chewing gum in my mouth, and wondering if my explanation had been accepted.  Staring into my bowl of oatmeal, I told her that I was still too sick to eat, but that I was going to classes anyway.

My friend was not at school that day.  I stopped by his house on the way home.  His grandfather told me that he had been "very sick last night" and had vomited for a couple of hours.  I learned later that his grandfather, realizing how drunk he was, had cradled his head in his lap all night to keep him from suffocating.

A few days later we encountered Damon in front of Sarah's.  With a smirk, he asked how "it" went.  Not wanting to admit that our first "drunk" had been a miserable nightmare, we said "Great.  We're going to do it again sometime soon".  That, of course, was about as far from the truth as Wallins Creek is from Beverly Hills.  And truth to tell, I haven't been much of a drinker since that night.

"Damon", I said, "I did what you said, you know, with the warm salt water". He grinned and braced himself for a cussin'.

"Good advice", I said.  "I'm glad you told me what to do".

He looked surprised, but I meant every word of it.

At The Gate", A Wallins Creek Poem

On the hillside above our town
we often played long past sundown,
built fortresses large and small,
fought the Indians, killed them all,
like Daniel Boone at Cumberland Gap,
we roamed our mountains without a map,
believed ourselves men-to-be,
the forest was our academy.

We stood tall at age eleven,
had no doubt there was a heaven,
saw everything in black and white,
had no fear of the storming night,
hunted down the timid sparrow,
dropped them dead with hand-made arrow,
bloodied noses without regret,
wore our youth like an amulet.

We knew each hollow like a book,
gave no girl a second look,
then scorned our elders and their creed,
in schools and books saw little need,
strength and speed defined our games,
set our order, and gave us names . . .
"Lightning" for the one who was slow,
"Schoolboy" for he who would never know.

Ours was indeed a happy lot,
life followed a certain plot. . .
this world we knew would never change,
the creeks, river, and mountain range
all had been here a million years,
and that one truth calmed our fears . . .
the days passed by in faithful order
our place was here, within this border.

But soon the nights wore much longer,
the want of love grew much stronger,
our manhood mocked by loneliness,
we fought against our prejudice,
tasted heaven in a woman's kiss,
and marveled that life could be like this
we set aside our boyhood games
we now had new and different aims.

Love came to some but not to others
and still, we thought ourselves as brothers,
idled away the summer days,
lingered in the sun's bright rays,
stood poised and ready at glory's gate
not knowing that the hour was late . . .
that what time gives, it also devours
nothing escapes its wrathful powers.

At age eighteen, in our majority,
we outlived our serenity,
some went north, and others west,
most took flight to meet the test,
tried new wings on angry winds,
thought this can't be what life intends
surely all was better back then . . .,
when we just played at being men.

Now here I stand at midstream,
suspecting Wallins was just a dream,
a distant field in which I played -
and one in which I might have stayed -
but golden youth's inconstancies
bid me sail on different seas,
but this thought now in memory rests,
our days together were truly blessed.

---

Growing Up In Wallins Creek

By Jimmy Phillips  ©Jimmy Phillips. All Rights Reserved.<>

Introduction
        You know, Wallins Creek was a great place to grow up. I was not born in Wallins. For that I am regretful. It would have been my personal choice to have been born and raised in Kentucky. But just as we don't choose our parents, we also don't choose the place of our birth. I do, however, consider myself a native Kentuckian, even if I am not under the strict interpretation of the law, Kentucky is in my blood.
        There were so many things to do in Wallins, most involving outside activities, as there wasn't a lot to do indoors. It wasn't like kids today who watch, perhaps too much TV or play too many video games. Without these distractions it was risky business to be a boy growing up in Wallins. I have been thinking a lot about my boyhood years in Wallins ... memories have flooded my mind, even making it hard to sleep on one occasion. I have been privileged to experience a rich and full early life in a small town with a lot of bigger than life characters. This is a small town American-tradition which I intend to keep alive.
         I am sharing these memories with the hope others may be prompted to share their memories with their loved ones and pass on this rich heritage we have been blessed with. There are so many stories to tell and pass on down for future generations. Unfortunately some of the details have become blurred. So if I miss something or leave someone out, please forgive me. What a joy it it to re-live my memories and I hope it sparks some of your own.

Chapter I - The Games We Played

         I grew up on Back Street just a stones throw from the center of down town Wallins. I remember dreading the long walk to school each morning. What a surprise to see how far that walk really was from my house when I grew up, and had more size perception. I think being lazy impacted that quite a bit also. I never walked anywhere I could hitch a ride. I remember the football team practiced at the field at Number One. It was the field next to Bill Blanton's house. We were required to get dressed then run to the field for practice. We weren't allowed to hitch a ride with anyone. I was always looking for a ride to take me to a safe spot where I could get out without being seen. I would then either walk or run the last few yards. It's funny the great lengths I would go to, to get out of work.
         My nickname was "Lightning."  I'm not for sure, but I believe Bobby "Lassie" Lee, pinned that one on me. As he observed, I was not endowed with blinding footspeed. It's really funny, but some years later I became a better than average distance runner. I ran several thousand miles for fun over a span of fifteen years. I'm sure Big Jim Howard or Wendell Adkins would be amazed to hear this.
         A favorite game among Wallins Creek kids was (and probably still is), "Kick the Can." This was a game played much like "Hide and Go Seek", with one minor deviation. Home base was a can. The person that was"It" would try to catch the hiders. When someone was caught they were caught until they were set free. They were set free by someone kicking the can. This reset the game. I can remember a large group of people playing this game on many occasions, mostly after dark. It ranged over a large area of town, usually. What fun and exercise we had.
        Another favorite pastime was climbing trees. One of the best trees for climbing that I remember was the large old gnarled pear tree that sat behind "Aldies" house. I never really liked the fruit too much. This tree produced the large green hard pears. They were not too good for eating.
       As a boy, you needed to be a pretty decent tree climber. This was one of the basic skills needed to pass the time in the spring and summer. It also helped to get at the apples for eating. We also knew all the best apple trees, starting with the first apples of the year. We called these "June apples." Some were soft and sweet. Others were hard and sour. These usually were the ones that your Mom said not to eat because the would cause you to have a belly ache. They were nice for throwing. Stung like the dickens when you got hit by one. We ate them anyway.
       I have since learned as an adult, "That the power of sin is in the law." What this means is, the quickest way to get someone to do something is to tell them not to. This was especially true in my case as a boy growing up in Wallins.
      We played baseball in the field behind Paul Blanton's house on Back Street. There was a ditch that separated two small fields. I played mostly with Jimmy Decker, Bruce and Bobby Wayne Howard. There were others that we played with also. But I especially remember that we would bat left handed so we wouldn't hit Paul's house. Still, we sometimes did.  On the other side was Jesse Herrell's house. We were less likely to hit his house batting left because it sat farther to the right.
      Many times the game had to be suspended while we searched for the ball in the high weeds. I can also remember knocking the cover off the ball, and covering it with black tape. I can still see the ball after it was hit high in the air with a tape streamer waiving behind.
      Bill Smith, who was a few years older and bigger than me, tied me to a tree. He then let Garrett Robbins cut a long switch and beat the heck out of me. I can't remember what this was about, except that I was bigger than Garrett, and Bill was allowing him to beat me up. After Garrett beat me but good, Bill told him to take off and run home. Bill waited to give Garrett a pretty good head start, then he untied me. Well as I said before, they didn't call me "Lightning" for nothing. I was unable to catch Garrett before he got to the old white bridge going up toward Happy Top. So, as he beat me there, he commanded the high ground. He used this commanding position to lob rocks at me. As I recall, he was quite a rock thrower. Needless to say, I received no satisfaction on this day.
       I remember the first TV in town. We carried it up on the mountain and ran an antenna up a tree. I remember that it was Pearl Hensley who did the work. The reception was so snowy that you could see only shadows.
       Here's what we used to do when it snowed. Us boys would catch a slow moving car after it stopped for the red light in town. We would hold on to the bumper and let it pull us down the road. Sometimes we would ride it all the way to Creech's. It was harder to catch a ride back because the cars were going too fast to hop a ride. When this happened we would slide and skate our way back to town.

Chapter II - My Career As A Paperboy

        John Abraham delivered papers in Wallins. He was a very good paper carrier, not like me.  I  have the distinction of being the worst paperboy that ever delivered papers in Wallins. I am not sure if anyone ever received their paper. I lasted only a week or two. If anyone remembers this who didn't get your paper, but paid the bill, please send it to me. I will gladly reimburse you to ease my guilty conscience.
        John was met each day and accompanied by The Killgore's white boxer dog, Ajax. Can anyone remember him. He belonged to everyone in Wallins. He had a built in clock which told him when to meet the arrival of the papers that were dropped off in front of the school each day. If I remember correctly, someone eventually shot Ajax. Nothing but meanness. We were all broken hearted.
       You will remember that I seemed to be accident prone. I remember having a bike wreck, where I was thrown over the handle bars on my head. Where else?
       It was John Abraham who carried me on his back for a mile to bring me back to Doc Boone's office in town. I have no idea when this was. But I remember that the Doctor's office was across the street sort of catty cornered  from the Baptist Church. I survived, I'm happy to say. But you already knew that.

Chapter III - It Was hard To Fool Mom

        Mom always erred on the cautious side if she erred at all. Like when she would say, "Don't go near that river until you learn to swim."  She would tell me not to go near the river because she was afraid that I would drown. Came real close on a couple of occasions, but for the grace of God, not the fear of a whipping from Mom to keep me away from the water. As a matter of fact I did what I really wanted to do, even knowing that I had one coming when I disobeyed her.
        I am sure that even if I would have convinced her that I could swim, she would have found some other reason to tell me not to go near the river. So what was a boy to do surrounded by all that water on a hot summer day? I would go swimming, then lie out in the sun until I was completely dried out.
       There was one other check which remained to be completed. That was having your swimming buddy check your eyes for the tell-tell signs that you had been swimming. We would ask each other, "Does it look like I have been swimming?" This didn't always work. When I got home, my Mom would give me an inspection that any US Customs or DEA Agent would have been proud of. Many times I was betrayed by bloodshot eyes. But as I said, it was hard to get by Mom.
       I remember wanting to go camping on Laurel Branch with our scouting group, (it wasn't actually the Boy Scouts of America), but a group like it that was organized in Wallins. Mom said that I couldn't go. Did that stop me? Not on your life. I slipped off and was gone for a couple of days. All the while I had a sense of doom hanging over me. When I got home I remember that I got a good one. But I told my Mom that it was worth it.

Chapter IV - It's A Wonder I'm Still Alive

        Not only coming close to drowning on a couple of occasions, but I seemed especially vulnerable to being hit by cars. As I remember, I was hit by 2 cars and the VTC bus in downtown Wallins. Did I go to the hospital? No way.
        I remember on one of these accidents when I was with my cousins in front of Ben and Katherine Trails old place, the one that burned down. They ran across the street, I followed but didn't make it. I hit a man's car fender so hard with my head, the wheel would not roll until they bent it back out. You can imagine what my head looked like. Large knots all over my head. We call these hematomas today. It almost killed me, but I survived.
       One thing that really struck fear in my heart, happened when I was watching my younger brother Ronnie who was almost 10 years younger than me. Mom had asked me to watch him. And knowing that she was quite fond of him, I knew that my well being was tied to his continued good health. With my usual risk taking and life on the edge, I did a stupid thing.
       We went with Pearl Ed Hensley in his Willys Jeep truck to move some furniture. One piece of furniture was an easy chair. Of course I had to ride in the chair with Ronnie in my lap. As we were going up Back Street, Pearl Ed turned left and me and Ron went right. Right out of the back on my head of course. Fortunately, Ronnie's fall was cushioned by my body. What else?
       The only thing I could think of was, " I had got my brother killed." I knew Mom wouldn't be thrilled about this. Never mind that I looked like I had just been run over by a runaway locomotive. Again I recovered without medical help. Thank you Lord.
       Upon reflection of my boyhood, one might say that I was lucky to be alive, given all the situations that I placed myself in.. I like to think of it as divine intervention instead of luck. God had a bigger plan for my life. I was only to discover this later on in life.

Chapter V - Let's Go To The Movies

       How about going to the movies. Do you remember the show music that would play over the loudspeaker. This would tell you the show would be starting shortly. This was hopefully enough time to try to find enough money to get in. It wasn't easy finding 20 cents in those days.
       The quickest way was to get the money was to beg Mom, but it didn't always work. It also consumed a lot of useful time I might have to try to get the money elsewhere.
       Another way that sometimes worked was to chop kindling to sell. I had an uncanny gift that allowed me to stack, what appeared to be a bushel basket full of kindling, but was in reality a half bushel of wood precisely stacked. One customer that learned my scheme was Burvel Howard. I think he learned after a time or two, to inspect the bushel before paying.
       The Wallins Creek theater not only showed movies, but had a lot of stage shows. These stage shows featured traveling stars from the silver screen and also other unique showmen. Some of the people that I remember on the stage at the theater where Gabby Hayes, Tim Holt and Lash Larue to name a few. If you remember Lash Larue, his claim to fame was his bullwhip. I was so enthralled with him as a kid, that I carried a whip around. I used this to whip imaginary guns from the hands of the bad guys. Needless to say,  I was very enthralled with his stage visit. All of these stars from the westerns that I watched on the screen were quite a thrill for a young boy to see in person.
       As a kid I was fascinated with seeing them in person. One show in particular I got to be personally involved. It was a Indian who billed himself as the greatest shot alive. He was shooting cigarettes out of a female assistant's mouth, and doing all types of other trick shots with his rifle. He was also using a mirror to shoot targets behind his back. At a point in the show, he asked for a volunteer. I was sitting up close to the stage and very eager to participate. He chose me to be his assistant.
      I can't believe now in retrospect that I placed myself in the hands of a stage performer that I didn't know, who intended to use me as a target. This man was also an expert at knife throwing. I remember that he first threw knives at a board to demonstrate his skill to the audience, then placed
me with my hands tied to this same board. He then added an additional element of difficulty by having his assistant blindfold him.
      The Indian proceeded to throw knives at me. What was I thinking? Obviously I was not wrapped too tight.  I survived this incredibly stupid decision to place my life in jeopardy. He threw several knives, sticking them very close to my limbs and torso. One of them was landed between my legs very close to my groin. When he came over to remove the knives from the board, he got a big laugh from the audience when he made a commotion in trying to work the knife out from between my legs.
      Another thing that happened at the theater was the weekly drawing for money. I bet a lot of you remember this. It happened every Tuesday night, I believe. Each seat in the theater had a number painted on the underside. Some time during the movie, a drawing would take place. It was done most of the time by G.D. Saylor, the owner. He would have someone draw a numbered ticket from a jar that held all the corresponding seat numbers. If you were sitting in the seat number that was drawn, you won the jackpot. If no one was in the seat, the jackpot grew until next week.
     As you can imagine, as the pot grew larger, people packed the theater. I never won this drawing,
but my Mom won it four times. I always thought she was a very lucky person as a result of this. I was never able to understand about this concept of luck. I was convinced that I had no luck, as I never won anything it seemed.
     Upon reflection of my life, one might say that I was lucky to be alive, given all the situations that I placed myself in.. I like to think of it as divine intervention instead of luck. God had a bigger plan for my life. I was only to discover this later on in life.
     The Saturday Matinees were particularly memorable. It was usually a double feature. There would also usually be one or more cartoons, a newsreel, and a serial feature if you were lucky. I remember this as a special treat. This was an on-going adventure or mystery thriller. I remember these as taking you up to the point of imminent danger, then leave you hanging until next week. You had to see the next installment to see if the hero survived. You knew that they would, it just didn't seem possible, though. I recall that I would spend all day at the movies. They would just play everything over and over. You could come late and stay to where you came in. This coined the phrase, "this is where I came in." What a forgotten concept in today's culture.
      Another well known feature of the theater was one that we didn't pay to see, but was present anyway. This was the rats. Yes I said rats, enormous rats. I never sat with my feet on the floor. I always rested them on the seat in front of me. It was not uncommon to have the rats scurrying across your feet as you watched the movie. What is a movie without popcorn, right? I love popcorn, but I never ate it in the Wallins theater. The reason I didn't was a well known fact to most of us boys. On many occasions we looked through the front window of the theater after hours to see rats inside of the popcorn machine feasting. Needless to say I never had popcorn again in the theater.
       There were lots of times that I didn't have the money for admission to the theater. I remember
that there was a side door near the alley. It had a small opening at the bottom. I could not see the movie. but if I lay on my stomach, I could hear the sound. I could also feel the rush of cool air in my face. Many times I lay there listening to the sound of the movies.
      Scary movies were both a treat and a fright. I can remember going to scary movies, then running home through dark alleys and streets. It was especially bad to pass a vacant house. I remember the house that sat next door to where I lived. It was the Aldie Howard house. We called it "Aldies."  For some reason this house stood abandoned for years, but was completely furnished. It looked as though the inhabitants just walked away.
      It was vandalized over the years and things were stolen or destroyed by people that entered. The house had a certain fascination for a young boy, but also was spooky. I entered the house on many occasions, not to steal or destroy but to look at pictures and other personal possessions. I was always with someone else. It was too spooky to go in alone.
      There were other houses that were surrounded by tales of ghosts and other strange occurrences. I remember the two-story brick building that sat close to the turn off to Little Creek. "Dog Charlie" lived just behind it. The story goes that a ghost that would look out of the second floor window as you passed. Needless to say, I never passed that building after dark unless I was running. It was be scary to pass some of these buildings after dark, especially after watching a movie that conjured up all kinds of scary thoughts.
      On passing these houses "Old Lightning's" feet barely touched the ground. I remember all the good scary movies, classics such as, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy and others. Orson Well's, "The War of the Worlds", was one that really frightened me. My imagination ran rampant about an alien invasion.
      Movies truly had the ability to transform and entertain you. Too bad Hollywood has chosen to go for the non-family oriented type films.

Chapter VI - My Basketball Career

       One of my great regrets in my life is that I wasn't a better ballplayer. I really didn't get the opportunity to play much when I was in school. I don't think that any of my friends and classmates had a greater love for the game than I did. I can remember getting a lot of splinters in my rear from sitting on the bench. As I remember, our motto was not necessarily, "It's not who wins or loses, but how you play the game".
       It was in the words of "Big Jim" Howard before we went to Lexington Lafayette, "A chance to make a little money." This was important to a small school struggling to pay the bills. I remember what a treat it was after a road game to sometimes stop the bus at a restaurant, where they would feed the team. This didn't happen too often. By the way Lafayette beat us 55 to 0. I might be off a couple of points. I remember their band had more members than our high school had students. It was not pretty. If I remember correctly, we couldn't afford to stay in a hotel, but stayed in peoples homes. I don't think you would ever see that happen today.
       One of my highlights of playing basketball happened before the whole school. We were having a school tournament. All of the school was in attendance. I was very proud to get a chance to show my stuff. Boy did I ever show it. While going up for a rebound, I heard a sound that struck fear in my heart. It was the sound of fabric tearing. I prayed that it was not me, but discovered that it was, when my trunks fell to the floor in pieces.
        People in a position to know, stated that it was the loudest ovation ever received in the storied history of the Wallins gymnasium. My trunks were also exhibited on the bulletin board for all to see. I'm glad that I was able to do my part to add to the lore of our gym. I'm sure some of you remember this.

Chapter VII - Snipe Hunting

        I recently returned from California, where I met John Paul Rhinehart. We had not seen each other for about 35 years, best we could recollect. He remembers all the details that I have forgotten. He even remembered every dog by name that lived on or near Back Street. I can't remember my kid's names half of the time.
        One story that John filled in the blanks on was the time that several of us boys were taken up on Happy Top to go "Snipe Hunting." This all started in Sarah's Cafe when Bill "Pole Climber" Tidwell and Pete Killgore, (there might have been another person), talked us into going "Snipe Hunting." Best we can remember it was me, John, Jimmy Decker and maybe Bruce Howard. They explained to us the virtues of the sport and how much fun we were going to have. We didn't let on at the time, but some of us were veterans of prior Snipe hunts. We played along with them and soon set out for Happy Top. We were taken to the place where we were to hold the bag and wait on the Snipes. What we really did though was to beat them back to Poles jeep. We coasted back down off of Happy Top, then jumped out leaving it on the side of the road. We then ran back to Sarah's, getting there ahead of them. When they came back we acted as if nothing had happened. After a while we couldn't hold it in any longer. We razzed them and had a lot of fun with the telling of the tale.
        As I said before, I was a veteran Snipe hunter. My first snipe hunt was on Pine Mountain while on a camping trip. We were camping on Laurel Branch. If any of you have ever been there before, you will understand when I describe it. It was a virgin forest. I always got the feeling that no one else, save Indians, had ever laid eyes on this place before. It had many pools of water including a water fall, and a place we called Slick Rock. The water was ice cold and crystal clear. We would swim in the pools and slide down the slick rocks until we slid into the water at the end. My memory for details is somewhat lacking, so I can't remember for sure who was with me on this Snipe hunt. I believe it was Jimmy Decker and maybe Damon Allred.
        We were dropped of at the top of Laurel Branch in the darkest night that God ever created. After holding the bag for what seemed like an eternity, it finally dawned on us that we had been had. We started to make our way off the mountain by staying in the stream bed. We had a harrowing trip off that mountain in the dark. We stumbled and fell many times. When we finally did make it to the highway we were very skinned and battered. I don't think I ever mentioned this to my Mom for fear that she would truly never let me near the mountains again. I guess you know what that would mean to a "mountain boy." Only more disobedience. You can't take a Wallins boy out of the mountains.

Chapter VIII - Chiggers 'n Snakes

        Another story regarding Laurel Branch. I think it was Damon Allred and me, (Damon if it wasn't you , please let me know). We were climbing the mountain peak which had a shear cliff on the front of it. We climbed up the back through dense undergrowth. I guess you know what happened. We got eaten alive by chiggers. We were scratching and digging so bad that we decided to get down the fastest way. You guessed it, over the shear cliff. We were making our way down by holding on to small trees and vines that were growing out of the face of the cliff. I know if you have been reading my other stories, you know what happens next. I fell off  the cliff, probably half way down, maybe 60 feet. I landed on a large rotten tree on the ground which cushioned my fall. I wasn't hurt. I guess you know by now that the Lord has had a full-time job looking after me. Thank you Lord. Damon and I tore our clothes off and jumped in the ice cold water to ease the itching. What a relief.
        Those of you that know my Mom will have to promise to keep all these stories from her. I don't think she had a clue about all the close calls I had as a boy growing up in Wallins. I don't know if her heart could take it now. We'll just keep her in the dark, OK?
        I also had a few unwanted encounters with snakes, as all of us probably did growing up. I remember catching crawdads to go fishing. I was in the creek near the Spout in Terry's Fork. I saw this nice big crawdad back in under a rock. I eased my hand very carefully up under the rock and grabbed what I thought was a very large crawdad. It turned out to be a very large snake that I pulled out instead. It wrapped around my arm. I took this as a signal to move on down the road. Lassie (Bob Lee), you would have been proud of "Old Lightning." I split the creek wide open and ran for some distance before the adrenalin subsided.
        I was Riding my bike on a sunny day down the railroad track toward Dixietown, I ran over several copperheads that where sunning themselves on the gravel. A couple of them struck at my legs. I held my legs up so they couldn't bite me and kept going. You got to be kidding. What's wrong with this picture. I must have been eating loco-weed. We didn't know you could smoke it back in those days.

Chapter IX - Wallins Creek Personalities

      Wallins Creek, like any small town, has had it's share of people with unique personalities. Here are a few that I remember.
     Elijah "Lige" Buell - Lige was someone that a young boy could look up to. Among his many other attributes, he was a very gifted basketball player. I remember the night he scored 58 points in a basketball game. At least I think it was 58. I may be off a point or two. It was the single greatest performance that I have ever witnessed by a basketball player. I remember the game really well, but had
forgotten what team we were playing. Ben Jones filled in the details. It was against Loyall. I found out that Ben was very impressed by that performance, also. Lige was dating my cousin, Joyce Osborne, who later became his wife. I recall when they were dating, I would hang around them. One time when they were sitting on our front porch swing, Lige gave me a quarter to get rid of me. It wasn't easy to court with a young boy hanging around. Years later after his retirement from NCR in Ohio, Lige returned to Wallins. He became a town fixture. He was the consummate storyteller. I loved to hear him spin his yarns. I always thought that he missed his calling. He should have been a stand-up comedian. Unfortunately his life was cut much too short by a heart attack. I miss him very much.
     John "Peg Leg" Hensley -  "Peg Leg" was the Town Marshall of Wallins. I think his tenure ran from the late 40's till the early 50's. I was a very small when I first recall seeing him. He walked around with a great amount of difficulty because of a wooden leg. The leg was not jointed, so it caused him to have to turn his hips to thrust the leg forward. Couple this, with a long barrel pistol in a holster slung low on his hip, and you see how a young boy might be affected. There were also the other stories about him, whether right or wrong, that circulated. Thus he was quite an imposing site to behold. I recall his death. We got the word that he had had a heart attack. I remember going down in front of his apartment. It was located upstairs in the apartment building next to where John and Bea Ashurst lived. I also remember his wake. It was one of the first of many that I would attend in my life. We called it "Setting Up With the Dead." It was scary for a young boy seeing him lying in his coffin.
     Bill Burke - Bill was one the Town Marshal's that we had when I was growing up. I think this was during my early teens. The thing that impressed me about him was that he was an old man when he took the job. I never understood why anyone would want this job. It was a thankless job. No matter what you did, you could not please everyone. I found out later on in life, when I became a policeman, that this goes with the territory. I personally witnessed several of the times that Bill had to arrest disorderly drunks or break up other situations in town. He seemed to be fearless. You had to consider that he was on his own. There would be no back up if he got in a jam. I remember on one occasion, I witnessed him arrest and pistol whip a drunk. The blood flew everywhere as he struck this man in the head with his gun. I remember feeling that he didn't really need to do this. But now in retrospect, I do not judge him quite as harshly as I did then. He was always nice to me. I was not afraid of him, but gave him cautious respect.
     Norman Preston - Norman was also the Town Marshall. I remember him previously when he was a
town drunk. I was very skeptical at first when he got the job. I later came to think that he did a very good job. I think that he either quit drinking completely, or kept it well hidden. I know that he looked very good in his uniform. He was spit and polish. Must have been his old military training. Up until this time, none of the town police had worn a uniform. I can't say that I respected him, but I can say that I feared him. In the story my brother Ronnie Osborne wrote, "Norman Preston's Prize Bird Dog", he talked about how we all were scared of Norman. I remember my greatest fear during this event was that he would find out what happened. We swore each other to secrecy. Everyone that was involved in this escapade evidently kept this vow of silence. We dared not to even discuss it until after his death.
      L.C. Scott -  L.C. as well as his brother, were confined to wheelchairs. L.C. lived up towards Creech's, but spent a lot of time in town. He occasionally got a ride from someone, but most days rolled himself to town and back. His legs may have been paralyzed, but he had tremendous power in his upper body and arms. I learned very early on, not to get too close to his wheel chair. He had a vice grip, and loved to put the clamps on anyone who got near him. This was not meant in a mean way by him, but was very scary for a young boy.
      Peppermint -  I don't know what Peppermint's real name was, nor how she got the nickname. Everyone just called her Peppermint. She was very old. I don't know that anyone knew for certain, just how old she was. Legend had it that she was over one hundred years old. She was very small, with deep wrinkles in her face. She wore several layers of clothing and an old fur coat. She always had a walking stick. In the winter Peppermint would wear bags on her feet. She was quite a sight to behold.
      Legend had it that she was a witch. We thought that she could cast spells on people. I think she thought that she could also, as she would make terrible faces and utter strange sounds. She also would attempt to strike at us boys with her walking stick.
      Peppermint spent a lot of time in town begging money. I am sorry to say that a lot of us would taunt her. But we also were a little afraid that maybe she really could cast a spell on us. After I had been gone from Wallins for a few years, I heard that she got sick and was taken to the hospital. When they took her clothes off, they discovered thousands of dollars pinned to her clothing in tobacco sacks. She eventually passed away. I don't know how much money she had or what happened to it after she died. She was one of the most unique individuals that I have ever met.
      Muscles Osborne-  Everyone called him "Muscles" but his name was Ernest Osborne. His wife Sarah ran the town café. He was a hulk of a man. He drove a tractor-trailer for G.D. Saylor's beer distributorship. He was actually a very gentle man as I remember, but he was someone that you wouldn't want to run afoul of. He gave me a ride to Louisville one summer vacation. I was going to spend a couple of weeks with my Aunt and Uncle, Ruby and Norman Morgan, who lived in Louisville. I caught the ride in his Mack diesel truck. It was a very loud and bumpy ride. It also took about eight hours. We didn't have the road system that we have today. The trip to Louisville was a real adventure.
      Fred Stanley -  He was the original "Pinball Wizard." I remember watching him play the pinball machine in Sarah's Café. He would feed whole rolls of nickels into the machine to increase the odds. He would then step back and use "Body English," as he would call it. What this really was, however, was some extraordinary body gyrations in which he didn't even touch the machine. I can't remember who it was, but I remember one day when he was playing the machine. He drew a large crowd as he usually did. He had fed a large amount of money into the machine, only to have it tilt when one of the town drunks fell into it. Needless to say, Fred was not a happy man.
      D.Y. Little - D.Y. had a terrible accident when he was a boy. I can't remember all the details, because he was several years older than I was. If I remember correctly, he lost his leg when he fell off a train he was trying to hobo with some other boys. It must have been a terrible experience forhim. He never let that stop him though. He lived up Little Creek. This was quite a task to navigate that hill on a crutch. I remember that he did all the things that his friends did. He was a friend of my uncle "Greasy," Lowell Osborne. I have seen him run through town on his wooden crutch. Another good friend of mine, Don Hensley, used to say that there was not another person in town that could outrun him. It was a familiar sight to see him on the wooden crutch, which he obviously preferred. I know that he had an artificial leg, but seldom used it. He actually seemed to function better on his crutch. I know that it would probably have been easy for him to wallow in self pity, but that didn't seem to be his way. I know that he went to college. I'm not for sure, but I believe that he became a schoolteacher. I have not seen or heard anything from him in years. I hope he is still alive and well.

Chapter X - Wallins Folks That Influenced My Life

        Many people have influenced my growth as a person. I did not realize this until much later in life. Many people were involved, some individually, but all collectively whether they realized it or not. I recognize that anytime you mention someone, you run the risk of leaving out others. So I will apologize up front for those that I unintentionally leave out.
        Some of the people that had the most influence on me were my teachers. The same ones that many of you had. You know them. Most all of us had Mrs. Edna Baute in the first, Mrs. Brackett in the second and Mrs. Ward in the third. They laid the foundation for learning.
        But what about some of the other activities? Do you remember the Bible Stories from
Mrs. Hoskins? She made the rounds through the classes with her felt board. Remember how she would tell us the great Old Testament bible stories with heroes of the faith. I never got the chance to thank her properly. I have no idea if she is still alive. If not, I will thank her when we meet again in heaven.
        Mrs. Adkins helped me discover and enjoy books from the school library, even though I wasn't very responsible for returning them on time. Books opened up a magical world to me. Some of the books that I read and enjoyed, were Robinson Crusoe, A Tale of Two Cities and the entire works of Sherlock Holmes. The author that had the greatest impact on me was Jesse Stuart, the poet laureate of Kentucky. I read all of his books that I could get. My favorite all-time book was his, "Hie to the Hunters." This was a book all mountain boys could relate to. I was also fascinated with the book about the first settlers that came to Harlan County. It was I believe, "Harlan County, A Dark and Bloody Ground."
        I also have a special place in my heart for Mr. Maxwell, our band leader. Do you remember our band which he labeled, "The Biggest Sounding, Little Band in Kentucky." I feel very bad that I didn't personally thank him before he died.
        Many of our teachers were also our friends and family members that we grew up with. Some were only a few years older than we were. People that come to mind were Pete Killgore, Bill Lee, Tuney and Pat Scott and Lanny and Carolyn Saylor. I should have paid more attention in their classes. Carolyn you
don't know how much I wish I had followed your instructions in typing class, especially the one about not looking at my keys. I really need those skills today that you tried to impart to me then.
        One person that deserves my eternal gratitude is Priscilla Nails. I don't want to embarrass her, but I need to publicly say thanks to her. My last couple of years in school, especially my senior year, was very hard. Times were hard and money was very short. She provided a lot of things that I would not have otherwise had, including a winter coat. I'm sure that she never knew how much I appreciated that. The coat she gave me belonged to her brother Wes. He never even realized it at the time. I didn't really know him when we were growing up. I later met him through work at United Parcel Service in Louisville. We have become very good fiends. He also is a very generous person. It must be a family trait.
        When I graduated from high school in 1964, there were not a lot of options open to me. I couldn't afford to go to college. I needed a job right away. The tragedy of our mountain economy is that there are no jobs for our youth. This means that families are ripped apart and friendships are lost when people move away to seek their fortune. One thing is for sure; this builds a hardy and industrious people. Some who leave, and others who scrape out an existence any way they can.
        Others in the community that had a big impact on me were people in the church. I grew up in the Wallins Baptist Church. I mean that a big portion of my life was centered around church activities. I was baptized into the fellowship at the church by Pastor Roscoe Douglas when I was eight years old. I have never moved my letter from that church, and I never will. I am still a member of that fellowship, even if only on the books.
       This church held a lot of memories for me. Pastors came and went as they are subject to do. This was especially hard when you are friends with their kids. I remember the Daves'. They had daughters, Hope and Muriell. Do you remember them? I really hated it when they left town. If anyone knows anything about them, I would love to hear news of them.
       As a kid in the church, I remember special times we had. The watch services on New Year's Eve. We would stay up late in the church to ring in the New Year. The games we played in the basement. The Christmas Plays we had each year. As you can see, all the memories I have are centered around activities, not content. Even though I heard many preacher's sermons, I can't tell you too much about them. But I think that even though I was not aware of this, God hid these things in my heart. He used everything at a later time to reveal himself to me. God is so good. I remember some of the music also. Even today when I hear songs that we sung from the old hymnals, I can remember the words. I recall some of the people in the church that were often called on to sing. Bernard Wood and Pat Scott were a couple of my favorites. Mrs. Boone was called on for one song that I remember. It was "In the Garden." A big song for such a little old lady.

Chapter XI - The Wallins Creek Barbershop

        Lloyd Stokes was a town fixture for many years until his death. He was the Pastor of the Wallins Methodist Church on Back Street. But the thing, which distinguished him, was, that he was a one-armed barber. He lost his arm on the railroad tracks in his younger years, but adapted tools that allowed him to cut hair.
        The barbershop was originally located in downtown Wallins. Lloyd and his Father staffed it. The senior Mr. Stokes was getting on in years.
        Once my Mom sent me to the barbershop with the instruction to wait for the younger Mr. Stokes to cut my hair. As fate would have it, the first chair that became available belonged to the elder Mr. Stokes. When he asked me to climb into the chair, I responded, "My Mom told me not to let you cut my hair because you are old and can't see, and you gap hair." Patrons of the barbershop and Lloyd himself got a huge laugh out of this. Needless to say, my Mom was embarrassed. The moral of this story is don't tell your kids anything you don't want them to repeat.
        My brother Ronnie was terrified of getting his hair cut. Mom speculated that when he got his first haircut he had a bad experience with the clippers. This created a situation where the dreaded word, "Haircut," was never spoken aloud in our house. Mom would eventually ask me to take him to the barbershop for his haircut. I usually found a way to trick him into getting his haircut. But after a few times, he knew all the tricks I employed.
        Once he played along with me until we got to the barbershop door. He then broke from me and ran all the way back to town before I caught up with him. By this time the barbershop was located on Front Street across from Ross Booth's house.
        Haircut time for Ronnie also meant entertainment for anyone in the vicinity of the barbershop. When it was observed by townsfolk that a haircut for Ronnie was imminent, a crowd of onlookers would grow.
        In order for Lloyd Stokes to attempt the job, there also needed to be someone to assist me in holding him down in the chair. This was a thankless job, as Ronnie would kick and scream to high heaven. It was hard to find volunteers who had not had the pleasure previously. Those who had, learned to find an excuse to decline.
        Remember the old hand clippers?  I remember that they would sometimes pinch. Sometimes, even drawing blood. My haircuts as I remember were not works of art. In those days, they were mostly Burrs and Flattops. Haircuts had to last for awhile. A boy generally needed a style that was low maintenance.
        Hair dryers and hair sprays were not in vogue in those days. For a Flattop, you needed some Vaseline or maybe some Royal Crown pomade to keep it standing up. I remember one photo in particular taken when I was wearing a flattop. It looked like I had a pound of grease on my hair. For a Burr, it was handsfree maintenance. Nothing else needed. In reality, it would have been better for me if I could have worn my hair longer to hide my ears.
        Richard Carmichael use to say that I looked like a taxicab going down the street with both doors open. I took a lot of teasing because my ears stuck out. Long hair for boys or men was not fashionable in those days, so I had to suffer these insults. I just tried to return the favor by finding some fault with them. So it is with young boys.
        Like many of the barbershops in the small coal-mining towns of Southeastern Kentucky was the bath house in the rear of Lloyd Stokes' shop. It was used by a lot of the local coal miners. They came in all black with coal dust. They would shower and change into clothes that they kept in lockers. They would come in the back door, but would generally exit out through the front. This allowed a cloud of steam to enter the barbershop. I'm not sure what it cost, but I seem to remember that it cost 25 cents for
the shower which included a clean towel.
       Bill Blanton later became the town barber. Bill and I graduated high school together, but I was gone from Wallins before he went to barber school. He ran the same shop that belonged to Lloyd Stokes. Bill moved on after a few years as I recall. He now is a dispatcher for The Kentucky State Police. I'm not for sure if Wallins even has a barber now. In a way that is sad.  A lot of socializing takes place in a barbershop. You don't necessarily have to be getting a haircut to stop by. It is a gathering place in a small town. Especially when you have so many bigger than life characters.

Chapter XII - Family Life in Wallins

       My Mom, like many other young people from back home, left to work in the war effort. She met my Father in Baltimore, Maryland. They divorced when I was 3 years old, and she brought me back home to live in Wallins. I never really knew my Father. I never saw him again after that, or had any contact with him.
       Like many other kids of the time, I was raised by my Mom with the help and support of my grandparents. My grandfather, Stoke Osborne, was the only father I ever knew. I called him Poppy."He was a larger than life character, known by most people in Harlan County. He was the elected 5th District Magistrate, for many years in Harlan County, until his death in 1960. I was 13 years old at the time. It was a crushing blow to lose him. I somehow thought that he would never die. But he did, and this left a huge hole in my life.
       I would follow him around on his daily travels. He had an office in the old bank building on the second floor. Whenever he would see anyone on the street, his trademark greeting was, "Tell It, Tell It."
I also got to know all the hiding places for the bottles that he conveniently hid out of my grandmother's sight. He had the taste for an occasional nip of strong drink. She would not allow alcohol in her house.
       My grandmother, Martha Blanton Osborne "Marthie", was a fine Christian woman, and a member of the Wallins Baptist Church. As most of you know, most Southern Baptist are teetotalers. Thus, if there were to be any drinking, it would not be in her house.
       My grandfather deferred to my grandmother's wishes when it came to any matters around the house. He may have been the head of the house, but she ran the day to day operation. I only saw him one time when he appeared to have had too much to drink. I t