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.

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

Continue SCROLLING down for more!

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.

---

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-

---

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 think this was when Pearl Hensley, his close friend and constant companion, and he returned from a trip across the mountain. Pearl and Poppy would make these occasional trips across the mountain to electioneer, as he would call it. Grandma put him directly to bed. He woke up a few hours later at dusk and thought that it was morning. I never before or again saw him in that condition. Poppy had strategically placed a few bottles around the place. I always followed close on his heels, so I was in position to see where he hid them. They were in the pump house, chicken house and the coal shed to name a few places. It goes without saying that it was a dry county during those years. I think that he had a lot of his friends who dropped by from time to
time for a little taste.
       Poppy was an interesting character. In his younger years he had made a couple of trips to Africa. He was working for a logging company at the time. On one of the trips, he was a passenger on the sister ship of the Titanic. He said that they received the distress calls from the Titanic as it was sinking, but could not get there before it sank. He said that they picked up some of the survivors who were in the boats.
       Family was very important to me when I was a kid. My mom had seven brothers and sisters. Some of them lived out of town, but would frequently come home with all their kids for visits. There always seemed to be enough sleeping room, no matter how many were there at the same time. The downside to this was that many times I had to sleep at the foot of the bed, or between two grownups. This was not a pleasant experience. If you have not had the privilege, you won't know what it was like.
       The extra people also impacted other things. All the family could not be accommodated at one time for meals. So the grownups ate first while the kids waited for them to finish. We were instructed to go outside and play until they called us to dinner. It was very hard to do this, as we were smelling the good smells from the kitchen. I know that this will sound foreign to most of us today. I think most parents today make sure that the kids eat first, before seating the adults. I can also remember getting stuck with doing the dishes for the meal. After all, the adults had to take a nap after a large meal.
       Other things, which required some coordination, were bathroom facilities. We had an indoor toilet, but were not allowed to use it except for emergencies, because it would not flush very well. We also had an outhouse which we were instructed to use. This outhouse was located inside the chicken yard. You
had to open a large wooden swing gate to enter. You then had to navigate the last twenty yards through "hostile rooster" territory. I would keep a stick near the gate to help defend against this attack by the barnyard rooster who was protecting his harem. I remember that we wound up having fried rooster for dinner after one of my uncles was attacked. Inside of this fence we also had our smokehouse and pigpen.
       Bathtime was an adventure. Nothing like 2nd or 3rd water in a number two washtub. For those of you that have never experienced that, let me explain. Bathtime for kids was mostly accomplished in the kitchen where it was the warmest. Usually the heat was provided by a wood-cooking stove. Water was
heated on the stove and poured into the tub to an acceptable temperature. The washtub size was important. It was hard, but possible, to get your legs folded up enough to get into a number two tub. The number one was impossible, and the number three not practical because it would require too much water. If you were the first one bathed, you got clean water. I hated to be the second or third to use the same water. But hot water was hard to come by, so you just added a little fresh and inserted another kid.
       We had a couple of grates in our house that we used during really cold weather. For those of you who have never seen these I will explain. Older houses were built with small grates, (miniature fireplaces), which we usually burned coal in. Some people may have used wood. But coal was available and burned very hot. I loved sitting in front of the grate, feeling the warmth and light of the fire, while I used a poker to poke through the openings in the grate. Many evenings were spent in front of the fire exchanging stories or playing games. At bedtime we would bank the fire. This was a process using coal and ashes to dampen the fire and keep it going until we woke up in the morning. We would then shake and poke the embers in order to get the fire restarted without having to build it all over again. This was very important when you had to get out of a warm bed into a cold room. It was not a very pleasant experience trying to build a fire from scratch when you were cold and shaking. In either case, you really didn't want to be the first person to get up in the morning
       It was such fun for me to get to play with all my cousins. There were so many things to do. In the summer time we could get out and about. Our house had a big porch on three sides with a swing. It was also fun to sit on the porch during a rainstorm and feel the dampness without getting wet and smell the fragrance of the rain.
     We had a large bush at the end of the porch. It was a brightly colored bush with blooms that attracted hummingbirds. It was not unusual to see dozens of birds at one time on this bush. I enjoyed watching them so much. I was fascinated by the speed of their wings. Today it is unusual to see more than a couple of birds that are periodically attracted to a sweet water feeder on our patio.
     In our yard were six large mature water maples. They provided much needed shade in the summer, but the leaves which fell required much raking in the fall. You can guess the enormous amount of leaves they generated. In the fall I would rake up the leaves and throw them over the fence into our
garden. I would then jump off the fence into the enormous pile of leaves. This was so much fun. Do kids still do this?
     My boyhood years were entirely shaped by family. My grandma also had a lot of brothers and sisters. I think her mom, who was called "Mammy",  had thirteen children. Most of the siblings were sisters. I think that there were four brothers. Two died in their youth, Milliard was shot and killed by his sister's husband. This caused a lot of bad feelings against this sister from that day forward. Another one of the brothers, John Blanton, was released from prison because he had terminal cancer. He died a short time after being released. He had been sent to prison for killing a man who he suspected was seeing his wife.
     The other great aunts that I remember were as follows:  Sarah who we called Aunt Diddle, Vestina, Vina, Ida, Dora, Nora, Suda and Shirley. All the names were pronounced as though they ended in "ie". So what you had was Vestinie, Vinie, Idie, Dorie, Norie and Sudie. They were all characters. The two aunts that I was closest to were Diddle and Vinie. I remember Diddle as a big woman with a very loud voice. When she came to stay, I especially liked for her to cook. As I remember, she made very good gingerbread. Vinie was married to Carlo Brock. They raised a large family, then helped raise a large family of grandkids. They always reminded me of Ma and Pa Kettle.
     My Grandma, Martha or "Marthie" as she was called was a very strong woman. I remember her before she had a devastating stroke which left her paralyzed and bedridden. She was a very good cook. I remember a homemade white layer cake with white icing that she made from scratch.
     She was a worker. In those days, "A Woman's Work Was Never Done." You had wash day and ironing day. There was cooking and canning. It took the participation of all to get the
work done.
     For the almost 10 years that my grandma was bedridden, she was cared for by my mom. She took very good care of her, evidenced that in all those years she never developed a bedsore until the very last days of her life. This is very unusual due to the fact that she was unable to turn herself, thus intensifying the pressure on her backside.
     I remember that my grandma would fill out her church envelope, which she sent by me to the collection plate each week at the Wallins Baptist Church. God mercifully took her home in 1963.
    This was the year of an intense flood in Wallins. We had 4 1/2 feet of water inside our house. When the water rose and we had to evacuate our house, Muscles Osborne carried her out in his arms. She stayed at her sister Vinie's house until she could be brought back into the house. I have already told you what a strongman Muscles was in listing him as a town personality.

Chapter XIII - Home-Grown Food Was Bountiful

      Like most residents of Wallins Creek, our family grew and raised most of the food we ate. Planting and harvesting was both a joy and somewhat toiling. Our property was larger than average which gave Poppy the ability to grow plenty of fruit and vegetables, along with ample room to raise a hog or two.
      A favorite was the grapevine. We didn't call it an arbor, but only a grapevine in those days. When the grapes would turn dark purple, they were at their prime for eating. We often ate them when they were green and made faces because they were sour. We would pick all the grapes at the end of the season to make jelly. I really liked eating them better than picking them. I can remember cooking the grapes until my mom determined that the jelly was ready to be poured into the jars. I'm not exactly sure how she determined this except that the consistency would change. The jelly had to get firm. Otherwise it would not be good. No one likes jelly that is runny.
      One particular apple tree that sat in my back yard produced three different kinds of apples. I think it was a special tree that had been grafted together. My favorite was the large sweet green apples. They were almost like a golden delicious, but they never got yellow. This tree would be so laden with fruit that we would have to put boards under the limbs to support the weight. I'm sad to say that this tree eventually was destroyed by a storm that split it down the middle
      One of the things that Poppy taught me that I didn't appreciate until much later was gardening. He taught me how to raise a garden. In the spring of the year he would hire someone to plow the garden. This was always with a mule-powered plowman. I don't think there were many tractors or even tillers
back in those days. We had a very large garden, which required a lot of work. A lot of this work was required at a point in the summer when young boys would have rather been playing. There was always hoeing and weeding.
      Then there was the harvesting. I remember picking corn. I learned that before you went into the corn patch, you needed to wear a longsleeve shirt with the neck button secured. This was to keep the sharp corn blades from cutting. This was like a paper cut, very painful. Also this helped to prevent getting stung by the packsaddles. This was a wooly type worm that was on the corn. This was a very painful sting.
      We would usually eat almost exclusively out of the garden when the crops would begin to ripen. A typical meal would be comprised of green beans, corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, green onions, potatoes and cornbread. Every meal except breakfast consisted of cornbread. My mom made the best cornbread that I ever tasted. It was consistently the same. She made it with buttermilk and white cornmeal. It was made in a black iron skillet. I don't think she ever measured anything. A pinch or this and a handful of that was her recipe. Practice makes perfect. And believe me, she got plenty of
practice.
      When the crops came in fully, it was time for canning. I can remember picking bushel baskets of green beans. We then spent long hours in the evening on the front porch stringing or braking beans. We would also string thread through several of the beans that were whole. We would then hang them up to dry. They would later be soaked in water before cooking. These were called Shuck beans. I never liked these too much because they were too stringy for me. We always canned enough beans to last us, hopefully until the next crop in late spring or summer. I don't remember eating too many store-bought beans when I was a kid.
      We didn't eat a whole lot of meat. If we did eat meat, it was on Sunday. It would be a frying chicken or sometimes a hen. We usually killed one of our own chickens. I still remember plucking out the feathers, then rolling up a brown paper bag, which was set on fire. We would then use the flame to singe
all the small feathers off. When I got older I was sometimes tasked with doing the deed. I mean that I was told to go get a chicken and to kill it for dinner. I would catch the unlucky chicken, after which I would proceed to chop its head off with my hatchet. I would then let the chicken flop around on the ground until it stopped. This sounds pretty grisly. We didn't think of it like that. It was our way of life. It's really good now that we can have our meat and never give a thought to what took place in order to
provide it for us. I don't think I could kill any animal now unless I had to. I was a hunter for years, but gave it up. I no longer had the stomach for it.
      This reminds me of the Passover story in the Bible. The Jews in celebrating the Passover are required to select a lamb without blemish. They bring it into the home until the time of the Passover. In the intervening time the whole family gets attached to it. On the day of the Passover, they must kill
the lamb to provide for the blood sacrifice to be used on the doorposts and lintels. This was to point them to the coming Messiah who would be the perfect lamb who would be sacrificed to provide an atonement in his blood. I have participated in the benefits of my Savior, but I shutter in the thought of the price that he had to pay.
      We couldn't afford beef very often, but we raised our own pork. Thus anything in our house that didn't have feathers usually oinked. We always had one or more hogs that we raised from little pigs. I was tasked with getting slop to feed them each day. We left a bucket with some of our neighbors to collect their slop. I collected this daily along with our own scraps, which I fed to the pigs.
      A big event was hog killing day. This was always a day in the fall, which was sufficiently cold in order to keep the meat from spoiling during this process. Poppy had several people that helped us. One person that I remember was John Moore. I remember that he lived near "The Big Rock." I went to school with his son David. He was an excellent butcher. Poppy would always contact him to help.
      My brother Ronnie thought that John Moore was "The Sack Man." Someone had told him that the sack man would get him if he were bad. Ron thought that since he always seemed to have a sack slung over his shoulder, he must be "The Sack Man." I have no idea what he carried in the sack. Maybe it was bad little boys.
      On hog killing day, we built a wood fire to heat water in a large black kettle. This would be used to soften the hair before we scraped it off with sharp knives. This may be more detail than anyone would want to know, but others will find it rekindles old memories. Hardly anything on the hog was not used. We always stripped off some of the tenderloin to fry as the first meal from the hog. I also loved to see the cracklings frying in the pot over the fire. The hams would be salted and hung in the smokehouse along with the sides of bacon.
      The other meats were taken to Mrs. Hatmaker's store to be ground for sausage. There they were seasoned with the just right seasonings that made it smell so good when frying and taste so good when eaten.
      We also rendered containers of lard to be used for cooking and frying. All the other cuts including chops and roast were processed. In those days we did not have the capacity to freeze a lot of packaged meat.

Chapter XIV - The 1963 Wallins Creek Flood

     Just as those who live near an inactive volcano can never completely escape from the fear of a future eruption, people living near a river must occasionally deal with the effects of flooding. So it was with a lot of Wallins townsfolk. I personally experienced two floods first hand. The first one was in 1963. It had rained for several days and nights straight without letting up. We anxiously watched as the Cumberland River rose and eventually overflowed its banks. This coupled with all the runoff into the creeks caused deep flooding in parts of Wallins.
     I remember watching the water back up and rise as it approached through the bottoms near the main highway. We also were scared but fascinated by the speed and force of the water as it swept debris along in its swift current. I was fearful as I watched that I could accidentally fall in. This would have meant being swept away to a certain death. The river eventually overflowed the Wallins Bridge, cutting off the town from the outside world. I remember that another route out of town was found by going over Happy Top to Dixietown.
     We stayed in our home on Back Street for as long as we could. We eventually had to be evacuated by boat. This presented problems as my grandma was an invalid and was confined to her bed. We wrapped her in blankets, and Muscles Osborne carried her out in his arms. She stayed with her sister, Vinie Brock, who lived on the other side of the bridge near the turnoff from Highway 119 into Wallins.
     Before we evacuated the house we raised what furniture we could, hoping that it would be above any invading water. We also tried to take a few other things that we could carry. Other personal items were picked up off the floor and were placed on top of furniture to hopefully protect them from
water damage.
     An evacuation shelter was opened at the school for all the displaced persons. The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army provided surplus army cots and blankets. They also provided food and other necessities. At first I thought it was pretty neat, but after a few days I was ready to go home.
    There were quite a large number of people using this facility. We were very appreciative of the volunteers and other services that were provided. We later received additional financial assistance from the Red Cross to help us replace the things that we lost. I really don't know what we would have done without their assistance. God bless the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. I have not forgotten their generosity.
     After the water had receded enough to allow us to get back inside the house, we discovered the magnitude of the devastation. By measuring the watermark inside the house, we determined that the water was 4 1/2 feet high in the house. All of the precautions that we had taken went for naught. All
of the furniture that had been raised, had been toppled, spilling all of the other items that had been placed on top. Everything was ruined. The most heartbreaking loss that we incurred was the loss of photos and other irreplaceable documents.
     When the water receded, it left a layer of mud throughout the house. This mud created a distinctive sour smell. I don't think that I will ever forget this smell. It also swelled and warped any furniture or other wooden material. All appliance motors including the stove and refrigerator were ruined. All rugs or linoleum had to be taken up from the floor and thrown away. We had to move everything out of the house in order to shovel and hose the mud out. This was repeated over and over, as the mud and dirt would
simply re-appear when it dried. Throughout this process we were dealing with cold and dampness. It was bone chilling.
     I remember that we had a lot of people that came to our aid. Some were family, others were friends and neighbors. There is no time like a flood to test the mettle of a small town. I was very grateful for all the help we received. I can only remember a couple of the folks who helped us. They were Delbert "Deb" Long and his wife, Edna. I think my Uncle Syl Osborne had sent some other people to help us.
     We eventually were able to get back into our house again with the help of our families, friends and relief agencies. It was never the same however. We had lost so much. The ravages of the flood had left scars on the house that could never be healed. It had also taken away from us personally something that could never be replaced. I think this was our dignity and sense of well being. There were other things, which I mentioned previously, such as the photographs and family treasures. These were irreplaceable. Money could not buy these back. Our lives were forever changed.

Chapter XV - The Flood of 1977

      Our second experience with a flood was in 1977. My Mom had re-married by then and was living in Dayhoit. Her house was located just across the Dayhoit Bridge, near the river. I was living in Louisville with four children of my own. When we were notified of the flood, we left our children with Paula's family and immediately headed for Dayhoit to help. My wife Paula had no idea what to expect. Having been certified as a flood expert by ordeal, I brought her up to speed while driving back to Harlan County.
     I'm not sure how this flood compared to the one in 1963, but basically it affected the same areas as before. We joined my mom and her husband Ray Miller at my brother Ron Osborne's trailer. Fortunately the trailer was located on airport road. It would have taken a flood of biblical proportions to reach us there.
     After the river receded we went in to survey the damage. It was strikingly familiar. One saving grace was that the house was a two-story. This allowed them to save some things by moving them to the second floor. We spent the next couple of weeks trying to re-claim the house. The house showed the same ravages that I described in the 1963 flood. Again I can't remember all who helped, but there were several people who came to our assistance. Ray Miller was incapacitated by Black Lung and emphesema, so he was not able to help very much.
      After the flood, the government helped the residents with aid to allow them to raise their homes above the level of the flood. Mom and Ray's house was raised, as were all the others on the street. It just didn't seem right, however. The homes looked strange sitting so high on blocks. I hoped and prayed that I would never have to deal with another flood.
     My luck did not hold however. In 1997, Paula's parents were involved in flood at their home in Louisville. Until this time, no one had even considered that they lived in an area that might flood. But torrential downpours for several consecutive days, along with other favorable conditions, caused their home to flood. It was just the same as the others. Floods are floods are floods. Only the location was different. We had to replace even the drywall in their house. They were not able to get back into their home for over a month. I guess I am getting to be some kind of flood reconstruction expert. This is a designation that I do not desire to have added to my resume'. I hope that I am never called on again. But if I am, I will do what has to be done.

Chapter XVI - A Hard Lesson In Life

     There was an incident that happened during the 1963 Wallins Creek flood that helped to shape my life in a very positive way. I am not proud of this incident, but I feel the story needs to be told. One day while the cleanup process was still going on, a close friend and I had made a trip to Harlan.
     I don't remember why we went, but I speculate that we wanted to get away from the mess that we had at home. His house, which was in the same flood plain as mine, had also went through the worst of the flooding. I'm sure we thought that we needed a break. Anyway, we went into the A&P Store. I don't know what possessed us to do this, but we got caught shoplifting. Of all things to take, we took some chip dip. You heard me correctly, "Chip Dip."
     What followed was both funny and little scary. A store employee held us while the police were called. When the policeman arrived, we were taken outside. He had us turn and place our hands on a wall while he frisked us. This occurred while people were passing by us on the street. He then told us that we were going to walk to the jail. He warned us that if we tried to run, "He would blow our legs off." Nothing for him to worry about. That thought did not occur to us, I assure you.
     The officer marched us to the Harlan County Jail. When we arrived, we were taken upstairs to one of the cells. He opened the door and placed us in the cell. There were five  inmates. All were adults, and by their appearance, we immediately determined that we didn't move in the same social circle as they. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down on a vacant lower bunk. I was informed rather forcefully by one of the inmates that I was sitting on his bed.
     "No problem," I said, not knowing that I had just violated cell etiquette. I also determined by evaluating my current situation, that Harlan County apparentlydid not see any contradiction with placing juveniles and adults together. Actually staying alive was my more immediate concern.
     One thing "Old Lightning" did know, however, was to put my back against a corner wall. Must be some kind of caged animal instinct.
     We were treated to lunch during our stay. The menu was very limited. The main course was Hominy. I didn't like it before and I sure haven't eaten any since. To this day, whenever I see hominy, I remember my visit to the Harlan County Jail.
     We spent four hours in jail, before my Mom got us released. I was very happy to see her. I also vowed that this would be my last view from the inside of a jail cell. I can assure you that I have made good on this vow.
     Actually as it turns out, I have been responsible for putting a lot of others behind bars in my 22-year law enforcement career as a police officer. I can also assure you that I have never even considered shoplifting an item at any time.
    So, as you can see, a stupid childish decision resulted in a very positive character lesson for my life. I haven't discussed this in detail with my friend, but it obviously made an impact on his life. He currently is a practicing attorney in Kentucky.

Chapter XVII - A Wallins Creek Christmas

     When I was growing up, I always looked forward with great anticipation to Christmas. But as the bible tells us, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things, 1Cor 13:11". I still look forward with great anticipation to CHRISTmas.
    I remember the fascination of Christmas in Wallins Creek when I was a small boy. Today, when I see the classic movie, "The Christmas Story", like for so many people, it takes me back to my childhood. You remember, it's the one with the little boy who wants a Red Ryder BB gun.
     When the boy finally musters up the courage to crawl up on Santa's lap and tell him he wants the BB gun, Santa tells him, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." I can really relate to that. My Mom would tell me things like that. I would always try to work on her so that she would know what I wanted. You never knew when she got the message. You also never knew for sure what you were getting unless you were able to scope it out ahead of time. This was very risky. If you got caught looking for presents, there were serious consequences.
     I really believed in Santa Claus. That was when Christmas had the most magic. That is when it seemed that all was right with the world. I think when a child finds out differently, it is the first reality that hits their whole belief system. I remember when I found out. Pearl Ed Hensley told me one day when we were playing in the field next to the Herrell's house on Back Street. It's almost like, "where were you when you heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot."  It had a crushing blow to me. I couldn't believe it. I immediately asked Mabel Herrell if it was true that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I think she told me to ask my Mom.
     I remember one Christmas in particular after I found out the crushing truth. Mom sent me to bed, "So that Santa Claus could come."  Instead of going to sleep as I always had, I pretended to be asleep. I peeped through a crack in the door to watch Mom and my Uncle Norman Morgan place my gifts under the tree. Even though I had been told that there was no Santa, this drove the reality home to me.
     Another thing that really disturbed me when I found out was, "who ate all the cookies and cokes that I had left out for him?"  I also had left Santa a lot of notes that he had replied to. I was so thrilled to get the return notes. My imagination ran wild with the thought that he knew me personally. I had also sent quite a few letters to the North Pole. I had been had, plain and clear ... but the magic of Christmas always stuck with me.
     When I was really small, there seemed to be enough money to provide a nice Christmas. This was generally when my grandpa was still alive. But later we did not have the money to spend on a lot of gifts. Little boys do not always understand this. I remember in the early years there was a train set. I loved that train. It was probably an expensive gift even for those times.
     Another gift that had special meaning for me was a bike. It was a lot like the one that was stolen from Pee Wee in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." The irony was that someone stole my bike too. I can't remember the details about it. I think I have blocked this out. But I felt hopeless and helpless. It wasn't like I could make a police report or anything like that. No one was there to help me recover the bike.
     Later on, the Christmas gifts were hard to come by. There wasn't a whole lot under the tree. I told my mom that it was okay, but inside it hurt a lot. mom did the best she could. Not having a dad impacted Christmas also. There was no man around to know the things that men and boys take for granted. Once Mom got me a bat and a baseball glove. Only one problem, the glove was for a left hander. I don't recall why we could not exchange it. I felt pretty silly playing with a glove on my right hand. I had to catch the ball, and then remove the glove to throw with my right hand.
     I loved the magic of our Christmas lights and ornaments. We used them year after year unless we accidentally broke them. I really liked the bubble lights. There was no such thing as an artificial tree, as far as I knew at least. I had never seen one. I loved to smell the tree. It is a smell that I still associate with Christmas. We mostly had cedar rather than pine.
     Christmas always meant church plays. I can remember being a shepherd in one. I had a little trouble finding a proper staff. A bathrobe and towel around the head completed the costume. I remember that the church congregation always seemed to truly enjoy these plays. No Christmas spirit could be properly felt unless one first saw the annual Christmas play.
     The Christmas caroling was also something that I looked forward to. We would go around to houses to spread the cheer. Church music was also an integral part of instilling the Christmas spirit. We sang a lot of carols in church preceding and up to this wonderful celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ..
     Oh, I still believe in the magic of Santa, but I long for those days when I believed he was bigger than life.

Chapter XVIII - Wallins Creek Winters

     I've had my share of special memories of growing up in Wallins. Some of the most memorable of these were of wintertime. It is appropriate that I remember them at this time. As I write it is Christmas Eve 2000. It is very cold outside here in Louisville with a couple of inches of old snow on the ground.
     Winters in Wallins Creek always seemed to have just the right mix of weather conditions. It was seldom, bitter cold, but occasionally we had stretches of very cold weather. We also got frequent snowfall, but seldom got dumped on. I remember that this did happen occasionally and we enjoyed a number of white Christmases. This always had a very special magic for a young boy.
     Fresh snows always meant sledding. I particularly remember one time when there was a fresh new snow. A whole gang of us went sledding. The hill sat at the top of a field, which belonged to Stan Wood's grandpa, I think. It was situated somewhere up from Stan's house in Mexico. What made this day special was that there was a whole gang of friends there. We were kids that knew how to have good clean fun together.
     Stan Wood, Mary Janet Saylor, (now Wood), Barbara Crider, Judy Saylor and Carolyn and Shelia Lee ... were all there. I wonder why I remembered all the girls but not the guys.
     After a while we became exhausted and cold because it was a very cold day and a very hard and tiring climb to the top of the hill through deep snow.  We had also gotten wet from falling in the snow. We went to Carolyn and Shelia Lee's house to get warm. The Lee house was nearby. There is nothing like the exhilaration you feel while playing out in the snow. I have never been snow skiing, but I imagine it is the same feeling, maybe more intense. There were always the snowball fights that ensued. Of course we usually made a snowman. I think what enhanced the whole experience would be if it was a school day that was cancelled. School days that were cancelled because of snow was something all of us dreamed about.
     I was always looking for slick places to slide. Once a place was found, due to frozen puddles or packed snow worn slick, I would take a running start and then slide as far as I could. The trick was not to fall down while doing this. This was not only embarrassing, but would require you to do it all over again.
     When it was cold for a long sustained period, the creeks would freeze over. We would play on the ice. We could slide for long distances. Remember the classic movie, "It's A Wonderful Life". I had never seen that movie as a kid, but when I saw it as an adult, I could relate to the scene in the movie where the boys are sliding down the hill on a shovel. One boy went too far, though, and fell through the ice. Nothing would end this fun like getting wet. This would send you home to change clothes. It was extremely hard to get in the house for a clothes change and get back out again. This would involve an interrogation from Mom about the circumstances of how I got wet. She would say, "I think you had better stay inside, or you will catch your death of cold." I was constantly pursuing my death of cold, but thankfully "Old Lightening" never caught up with it.
    The beauty of a fresh fallen snow with the backdrop of the mountains was near breathless. It was always such an awesome picture. Straight out of a Currier and Ives post card. I especially loved to walk in the snow catching snowflakes on my tongue. The quietness and serenity of the landscape was so peaceful. The only sound that you could hear would be the snow crunching under your feet, with each step that you took. Sounds were also muffled. You would have to scream to be heard at a distance.
     Another of my favorite things to do was to catch hold of a car bumper and slide behind the car. I would squat down behind and ride sometime for miles. I never gave too much thought to the shoe leather I must have scraped off, never mind the danger of falling off and getting hurt. Roads were seldom plowed or salted, so they stayed slick for long periods of time. This was great to a young boy, but must have made life very dangerous for adults. Funny, but kids don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about how things affect adults.
     Another time that was fun to me was when the electricity would go out. This was always a fun time for kids. No chores to do. Everything was placed on hold. Once we had an ice storm that preceded a snowstorm. The ice caused a lot the electric power lines to snap. No one in Wallins had electricity for days. The Herrell's ...  J.T. and Mabel and their children, Jesse, Mary Rose and Betty ... lived across the street from us. As I recall, without electricity, they had no way to keep warm. So they came over to stay at our house. If you may recall, our house was equipped with grates. These were not just for looks, as we proved at this emergency. Even though they could not heat an entire house, they provided enough heat to survive without any other heat source. Light to see by was provided by candles and lamps. This always provoked thoughts of how it was for early pioneers before electric lights.
     The few days that we spent together with the Herrells during this time were so much fun.  Our time was spent in front of the open fire, talking, playing games, working puzzles or other such activities. We also slept like cowboys all huddled around an open campfire. We pooled our food together to have our meals. We actually didn't even miss not having electricity.
     I had my first taste of snowcream during this time. This is a mixture of snow, sugar and vanilla as I recall. We just scooped up a pan full of snow from an undisturbed spot. I don't think it would be wise to even attempt this today, because of the acid rain and other pollutants captured by the snow as it falls from the sky. It is sad that our children will never be able to experience this simple treat. This time ended all too soon for me when the lines were fixed. I would have enjoyed doing this for a long time.
     Wallins Creek winters brought many other simple pleasures, like breaking off a hanging icicle to suck on like a lollypop. You couldn't do this for very long without gloves because your hands would get too cold. You also had to be careful not to get your tongue stuck to anything that was metal. I never got permanently stuck, but experienced it momentarily.
     I remember the best snowball fight I ever had. It was one night as we were leaving the Baptist Church after services. It was snowing very hard. The flakes were very large and wet,  the perfect snow to make a snowball. When we scooped it up in our hands, we could mold the snow into perfect snowballs. Sometimes the snow would be dry and powdery, but not this night. The conditions were perfect. I don't remember who threw the first snowball, but it set off a running battle. It was not a team sport. It was every boy for himself. Girls were not involved other than trying to stay out of the line of fire. It wasn't gentlemanly to intentionally hit a girl anyway. Usually what started a good snowball battle in the first place was showing off our snowball-throwing prowess to impress the girls.
     Another thing that I enjoyed doing during the cold and wintry days was, hanging out in Sarah's Café. It was a good place to find a game of Hearts or a game of Chess. I liked having a hot steamy cup of hot chocolate while playing or watching. The person that taught me how to play chess was Winston Abraham. To me, he was the master. I don't think I ever came close to winning a match with him. But he did show me how to checkmate an opponent in 6 moves. I used this tactic many times to beat others who were not alert.
     Sarah's Café was also a good base to hang out in cold weather. We could use it as a place to get warm or to figure out our next activity. I am thankful to Sarah for not tossing me out. I'm sure that she knew that I usually didn't have any money to spend. I was just taking up space. But I'm sure that there were others in the same position. Actually, most of us we were in the same condition. I guess we were poor, but proud. I don't think we thought about it that much. There were a lot of people in town that were very generous to me. I will never forget them. I won't embarrass them by naming them. They were the ones who shared pocket change to buy me a soda, or included me in their activities.
     Wintertime in Wallins Creek usually put a damper on all the other outside activities. There was little roaming around. Bike riding was out. No loafing on the street.
     One thing we could always count on was that Spring and Summer was always just around the corner.

Chapter XVIV - Thumbing A Ride

     When I was growing up, I didn't have the luxury of having a car like a lot of kids do today. Not only did I not have a car, there was no car in my family. Sounds unbelievable given the culture that we now have. But during those days many other people were in the same boat. If you wanted to get anywhere you had only a few options. These were catch a ride with someone you knew, take the VTC Bus or hitchhike. I left out walking because I never seriously considered that as an option at that time. If you were going to Harlan, or anywhere in-between Wallins, you could catch the bus. If you were going toward Pineville there was no bus option.
     I have on a few occasions walked from Wallins to Harlan or back. This was always a last resort. You could most always "thumb" a ride with someone you knew. I hated to spend the money to ride the bus. I would rather have the money to use for other things. I believe the fare was 25 cents. Do you know what that would buy? You could play five games on the pinball machine. You could play three games of pool. You could eat two chilidogs with a soda pop. You could even buy a pack of cigarettes. With this in mind, there was no way that I was going to spend the money my mom gave me to ride the bus.
     The best place to catch a ride was always at the main highway at the stop sign. When cars from Wallins Creek stopped for the stop sign you could stick out your thumb and give your best hopeful look. If they passed me by, it usually caused me to mutter a few things regarding their parentage, and a few other choice things. It was especially bad when someone I just knew should have stopped, but didn't. I usually swore that someday I would manage to return the favor.
     On the return route from Harlan to Wallins, the best place was on the corner where the Harlan Baptist Church was situated. I never really paid attention to what street location this was. It was the last straight shot and last traffic light before getting out of Harlan. Hopefully, I could catch a ride from someone I knew.  If not,  I might only get a ride to Baxter or even Loyall. It was harder to get a ride on home from there. If I got to Loyall, I waited at the light on the corner. When cars caught the red light, it improved your chances of getting a ride. It was hard for the drivers to ignore such a pleading figure of a boy.
     I guess I have literally traveled the width and breadth of Harlan County by thumb.  Once I caught a ride with Ned Breathitt when he was campaigning for governor. He later won the election. I also recall that I was thumbing with my cousin Bob Morgan. A man in a brand new car picked us up. Bob, who was a few years older and a lot wiser than I, was expounding on the beauty and other virtues of the car to the proud owner. When the owner asked how I liked the car,  I replied that I preferred the other well-known competitor model. Needless to say we were unceremoniously put out of the car. I received a much-needed lesson in diplomacy from my cousin Bob.
     I remember thumbing the highways with my friend Earl Gooden. We would thumb to Loyall or Harlan to meet girls. Earl was pretty good at this.
     I only did it a few times when he got me fixed up with a date with someone to go to the Loyall Theatre or to visit with them at their house. She was usually a sister of the girl he was dating or maybe their close friend. Earl was definitely the ladies man.
     Never dated much when I was growing up because I didn't have the money or the other things that would impress the girls. I was thought of as a friend to most of the girls I knew. They didn't seem too interested in me romantically. Some of the other guys in town had the material things that impressed the girls. I guess it says something also that I felt that I needed to go to Loyall or Harlan for a date.
     We have lost a lot of the innocence we took for granted during those wonderful days. People are afraid to pick up hitchhikers these days, and for good reason. We read in the paper about folks getting carjacked. That's too bad.  Frankly, I don't know what I would have done if no one would have given me a ride. Maybe I would have stayed home more. Nah, this wasn't really an option. I had to be moving around. It was in my genes.

Chapter XX -  Fishing & Skipping Stones

     When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time patrolling the creek banks. Young boys seem to gravitate toward bodies of water. It could be a stream, drainage ditch or even a puddle. There is just something about water that seems to draw in a young boy. I don't particularly think that girls were similarly drawn. There could be exceptions to this, I'm sure. But as a general rule, it would be safe to say that most boys feel an irresistible pull toward water.
     There also seems to be an exploration need that is inherent in all boys. Not only are we drawn to water, but we also must explore every ounce of it to see what we can discover. This may include lifting up rocks to check what's underneath. You never know what you may find. You may want to alter the course of water also by diverting its flow.
     And last, but most definitely not least, a boy has to throw rocks at the water. It may be to skim stones to see how many times you can make it skip. Or it may be just to see how big a splash you can make.
     On skipping the stones, you need first of all to select the right stone. You can tell when you pick it up. I prefer one not too fat or heavy. I also like smooth rather than jagged edges. You then develop your throwing style. I always threw side arm or almost submarine style. You learn also precisely the right spot to strike and the angle of trajectory to maximize the performance of the stone. To boil all this down, you learn by throwing a lot of rocks, how to get the most skips out of each throw.
     Another activity which was fun to do in the summertime was dam building. This was essential to making the creek deeper for swimming. There weren't a lot of deep pools in the creek, so we helped to construct our own. This was always a lot of fun. Everyone interested would assist in stacking rocks so as to cause the water to back up. This worked very well, but was only temporary. The water would gradually erode the dam, so we needed to provide constant maintenance and rebuilding to keep the water level static.
     I always enjoyed swimming in creeks and rivers much more than in ponds or lakes. There is something about running water that refreshes and soothes. I love the sound of water cascading over the rocks. It was also fascinating to watch how the water ebbed and flowed. You could place an object in the water, then follow its travel. It would go through a series of starts and stops in backwater before it was finally pushed over an obstacle and was swept away.
     While playing in the streams I also loved to catch minnows and crawdads. There is definitely an art to catching crawdads. This required a slow steady hand. A couple of rules had to be followed.  The first was, when lifting a rock, you must lift it gently and wait for the muddy water to clear. If you discovered a crawdad underneath, you then moved the rock to a different spot and sat it down gently. The next move was a slow hand from the rear with the final swift grasp of the crawdad. This procedure was repeated over and over. The second thing to remember was to try not to muddy the water up too much. It was important to move upstream when catching crawdads. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
     Catching minnows was a little harder as they were much faster and more elusive. It was very hard to catch minnows with your bare hand. The best way was to seine them. The next best way was to dip them up with a container. If I was catching minnows or crawdads for fishing bait, it was best to use a seine. Seining worked best when you had someone walk through the water to drive them to the net. The harder way was to try to use the seine as a dip net. The catch was always much smaller.
     Catching minnows and crawdads was sometimes done just for fun. But most of the time it was done to obtain bait for fishing. I discovered fishing at a very early age. Most of the fishing tackle that I had consisted of line, hooks and sinkers.
     The line was the black line that was wrapped on the white cardboard holder. I would just cut enough off for my pole with a little extra. This excess line would be wrapped around the pole. I would attach the line to a cane-pole if I had one, or a suitable sized stick that I would cut for a fishing pole. If I needed the extra line, I could unwrap some. A small container of assorted sizes of fishhooks and sinkers completed the tackle.
     The sinkers, if store-bought would most of the time be split-shot sinkers that I would bite together on the line with my teeth. I wouldn't want to try that today. "Old Lightning", still has his teeth, but would like to keep them just a little while longer. The other sinkers would be made from the lead picked up near the railroad track. I would always look for this lead whenever I was walking on a railroad track.
     In speaking of railroad tracks, let me digress for a minute. I remember my wife and kids always asked me why anyone would lie down on a railroad track to sleep. I never did have a very good answer for that question. I think that most occurred as a result of strong drink. They asked this question because, when we would go home for visits they noticed that many people were missing limbs. When they asked what had happened, I invariably replied that they had lost their limbs while sleeping on a railroad track. Using the railroad tracks to get from point A to point B was a favorite way get there on foot. Usually it was convenient. It was well maintained, not overgrown by weeds. It was also a lot of fun to walk the rails. We would try to see how far we could get before falling off. This was not only fun, but also necessary. Otherwise it became very monotonous walking on the crossties.
     Getting back to fishing. I was always trying to locate and land the elusive "Big One." I would patrol the creek banks focusing mostly on the pools of water. There was an especially good stretch of water between the bridge going up Little Creek and the White Bridge going up to Happy Top. You could either fish from the ground on one side or walk the higher bank on the other side. I caught several fish there.
     This is the same stretch of water that would attract a large group of people each year attempting to snag the Sucker Fish during their annual run. I'm sure that many of you can remember this town event. People would line the banks trying to snag the fish with treble hooks. This could be a hazardous time on the banks, as hooks and lines were flying in all directions. The fish run would only last a short time, and then the fish would move on.
     Another favorite fishing hole of mine was "The Culvert." You got there by walking between G.D. Saylor's house and the Pressing Shop building. This was the convergence of Wallins Creek and Terry's Fork Creek before it emptied into the Cumberland River. This was a great place for both fishing and swimming. Remember the concrete wall that ran out into the water? You could fish off of it, but it was primarily used for diving into the water by swimmers. The water flowed through the culvert, hence the name. It had a railroad track on top. The top was a good place to fish from, but it required a long line to get down to the water. You could also fish from the sandy beach-like area underneath.  I can remember catching some nice catfish there. They were mostly mudcats or yellowbellies which lay near to the concrete wall. I remember catching a whole bucket full of little black colored catfish that were only about 2 inches long. They were fun to catch but not much good for anything else.
     Another interesting stretch of water was the stretch that ran under Hammond's store, the roadway and Hatmaker's store. The buildings and roadway were built over the creek. It was great for exploring, but was sort of dead because of the darkness and the runoff from all the houses that lined the creekbanks. It was sort of weird, wading the creek beneath the buildings. It would be hard to describe unless you have been there. The dilapidated shell of the Hammon's store sat as an eyesore for years. It was finally torn down, and a small park made out of the property. I remember Hugh and Lottie Hammonds. They were very nice people. I can remember my mom taking me to their store to buy shoes and clothes. They were also very generous in extending credit to us when we didn't have the money to buy needed things.
The store had the distinctive smell of a dry goods store. This was a good rich smell. I remember that clothes and shoes were wrapped in heavy paper and tied with twine. Another lost forever piece of small business lore.
     Another way that I tried for fish was by gigging. I was not very successful. This was accomplished at night by wading the creek and using a carbide light for illumination. The gig is a sharp pronged instrument used for stabbing the prey. It was affixed to a pole, which extended the reach of the gig. A carbide light is not the best light to use, but it was the only light source that was available. I guess for all the purists, it was the light of choice. I did not have a whole lot of luck, because I could not see the fish very well. They blended in quite well with their surroundings. Another thing, which distracted me, was the snakes. They were a constant problem. They did most of their hunting and swimming at night. They were also attracted to the light. I spent most of my time looking for snakes rather than fish.
     One night while gigging, I saw the biggest bullfrog that I ever saw. It was enormous. Just as I was ready to stick it, it jumped and swam away. As far as my gigging career went, "The Big One" that got away was a bullfrog, not a fish.

Chapter XXI - Trips To Harlan

     Growing up in Wallins, I had more than enough activities to keep me occupied. But occasionally I looked forward to trips to Harlan as a change of pace. Even though, as I now realize, Harlan was a small town, it seemed to me to be a place much more sophisticated than what I was used to. Harlan was large enough to have the things that I could only dream about. For instance, I was always very envious of their Little League Baseball. I always dreamed of playing in this league. Wallins boys were not allowed to participate, however. As I recall, Loyall kids could participate. That doesn't seem fair does it? I used to go to the baseball park to watch the games. I could only dream of what it would be like to play Little League. We did have pick- up teams in Wallins, but nothing like an organized league.
     Another thing that I could only dream about was the city swimming pool. I got to swim there a few times. I usually couldn't afford the price of admission. I remember getting to go to a couple of swim parties at night. These were parties where the pool was rented out. I don't remember what the occasion was, but only that I had a fun time.
     Some of the places that I would go when I was in Harlan, if I had enough money in my pocket, would be the pastry shop, which was located just up the street from Sam Pete and Grace Killgore's store. Their store was next door to Belk's. Can't remember what the street name was, but I'm sure most of you know where I mean. As I said, if I could find the money, I would get a cream puff or a cream horn. Talk about heaven. A Wallins boy only could dream of such delicacies.
     Spent a lot of time just walking the streets and going in and out of the stores. I usually had no money to spend, so I just experienced the sights, sounds, and smells associated with commerce, as I made my rounds. There were always visits to the Lee and Howard Drug Store. I loved to check out the merchandise in the glass cases. They each had a counter and soda fountain. I would have a cherry coke if I could manage the required change.
     There was Newberry's five and dime. I would check out all the toys and other things that I could only dream about. I loved to smell the hot cashews and other nuts. What a tantalizing sight and smell. The nuts were in bins under a hot light. The clerk would scoop out the nuts into a small bag by the weight you specified. If you could get fifty cents worth, you had a nice sized bag. Unfortunately, fifty cents was a lot of money. I seldom had resources that would even approach that figure.
     The Belk and Powers and Horton stores always got a walk through. It was usually to check out the clothes and shoes on display. It was also a good place to run into someone you knew.  This might result in a ride back home when my trip was finished. If I found someone going back to Wallins, they usually told me when and where to meet them. I could then continue my exploration of the town.
     Sometimes when I was in Harlan, it was for official business. This was when mom sent me for something. This could be to get medicine at the drug store or maybe clothes that couldn't be found elsewhere. It was also home to two dentist offices. One of the dentists was Mayhall and the other was Smith if I remember correctly. Unfortunately for me they both graduated from the "Pull-em-all and let God sort-em out" school. If I would have tarried in Harlan County for very long after high school, I would have been putting my teeth in a glass of water each night. In those days the accepted practice seemed to be pull rather than fill. I did manage to escape with a few teeth left. I have been very protective of these ever since. Another advantage we didn't have was fluoride in the water. The only thing we had in the water was sulfur, which was unwanted. Somehow I don't believe this helped to secure healthy teeth and gums.
     The pool hall or the theatre didn't hold any allure for me as I had these at home. I was only in the pool hall a time or two without even shooting a game, and I can only remember going to the Margie Grand one time. That was to see "The Ten Commandments". You remember these, the ones that Charlton Heston, aka Moses, brought down from the mountain. These are the same ones that they are currently fighting in court for the right to display in Harlan County schools. My oh my, I never thought I would see the day that God's name could not even be whispered in school. It's fashionably called separation of church and state. What a lie from the pit of hell. (My opinion).
     I'm sure that the Harlan bypass has changed the town chemistry. It is for all practical purposes, a dead town. The life has been sucked out of the downtown business district as it has in town after town. The business has now moved out to the outskirts and is centered in the large Wal-Mart store. Wal-Marts have been the kiss of death to small business owners who can't compete with their prices or their one stop shopping. I'm sure that we all are less fortunate for it. We have lost the local flavor and down-home atmosphere. I'm sad to say, that our kids today will not have the experiences that we did. We worship now at the altar of progress. Never mind what it has done to our way of life.

Chapter XXII - My Second Home .. The Pool Hall

     I'm a little sorry to say that my second home in Wallins was the Pool Hall. Whenever I couldn't be found around the house, my mom knew where to look. From my house to the pool hall was probably about 200 feet. No wonder I spent so much time there. It was too convenient. I was known to slip off from home whenever my mom turned her head. She knew where to check first. It was always very embarrassing to have your mom pull you out in front of all the guys.
     Yes, pool halls were an all male bastion. I can't ever remember seeing a female in our pool hall. But, upon reflection, I can't imagine any civilized, or rather let me say cultured, person really wanting to hang out there.
     The pool hall was located on Front Street in town. It was situated in one of the old buildings that lined the street. All of the other rooms on either side of the pool hall were abandoned boarded up shells. It didn't have a sign or any other markings on the outside. It was a long bare plaster walled room with a high open ceiling. It was not lighted very well, other than lights, which hung low over the pool tables. It was heated by a pot-bellied coal stove, which sat in the back of the room. The floor was black and oily.
Cigarettes and other debris were tossed onto the floor. There was no workable plumbing. The restroom was the ground outside of the rear door. You can imagine what it smelled like. There was broken glass and other trash, which littered the ground. The railroad track was just behind the rear of the building.
     There were three pool tables. The middle table was reserved for gambling games. This table provided the most revenue for the house. You could find a game of "Go Back" being played on this table most of the time. This was a board game with numbered holes. The shooters drew a numbered pill from a bag. They then attempted to shoot a ball into a numbered hole on the board. If the total of the ball and the hole on the board equaled the number on the pill you were holding, you won. Sounds easy enough, right?
     There were some spirited games on this table. I very rarely if ever played, because I didn't have the money. But I did watch, and sometime I would rack the balls. These games were very fast paced. The house charged ten cents for each game. I sometimes earned free games of pool for racking the balls and doing other things for the manager, Garrett Robbins.
     Another gambling game was "Double Check." Each player drew two pills from the bag. A player had to have both of his balls made that corresponded to the pills he had drawn. You tried to shoot them in, but also won if someone else made your balls. You started out with the 1, 8 and 15 balls being live. That means that you must hit those balls before hitting another ball. Otherwise it was a bad hit. In this case the ball that was made was re-spotted and the shooter lost his turn.
     One last gambling game was "Nine-ball." You only played with the 1 thru 9 balls. The 1 was the only live ball to start. If you made the 1 ball then the 2 ball became live, and so on. You had to hit the ball that was live before touching another ball. Any ball was good that was made off of a combination from hitting the live ball first. The only ball that counted, though, was the 9 ball. This was the money ball. You only won by making the 9. You could make all the other balls and still lose without making the 9 ball.
     Garrett ran a pretty tight ship. He wouldn't stand for a whole lot of fooling around. He was subject to run you out of the pool hall for the slightest infraction. I was thrown out a few times. You never knew what
might set him off. He was an old man in his eighties. I think he was retired from the railroad. I think running the pool hall probably gave him something to do. His son, Garrett, was a classmate of mine. He got plenty of free practice shooting pool. He was a pretty good shot. I think he probably beat me more times than I beat him, but I became a pretty good player. I can still hold my own in a game with anyone, despite the fact that I haven't played in years.
     As stated, I seldom gambled when playing pool. I usually played games for fun when I could pay for the games. A game cost ten cents, or you could get three games for a quarter. We played a couple of different games. One was called "61", or also known as "Rotation." The other game was "Eight-ball." I won't describe these games in detail, because you probably already have received more information than you ever wanted to know about pool.
     I guess what attracted me to the pool hall was that I could hang out and watch even if I didn't have money to participate. Even when the town was otherwise deserted, there was someone at the pool hall. There were a lot of genuine characters that hung out at the pool hall. I would like to mention them, but might be speaking out of turn without their permission. Suffice it to say, there were some stories in that place.
     The pool hall was one of the places I used to kill time. Other things I could do were hang out on the street or check out Sarah's Café. I could hangout on the street and swap stories and talk. I could also check out anyone driving in or out of town. At Sarah's I could listen to the jukebox, watch someone play the pinball, play cards or chess, or just sit and talk.
     The best thing to do was to keep a check on all three locations. I could just go where the action was, unless there was no action. In that case, I had to create my own action. That was usually when I managed to get into trouble. Not bad trouble, just mischief.
     Sitting at home was not an option for me. I only came home to eat or sleep. I thank God that I didn't get into anything bad. I was raised to know right from wrong. I clearly knew the difference. I knew not to stray too far from the straight and narrow. And by the grace of God, I survived with my reputation intact. That is with the exception of a wide lazy streak. I tell people that when I was growing up, "I wasn't worth two dead fly's." Fortunately, I found my work ethic as I got older. I just needed a little training. Pay helped a whole lot. I've actually been very fortunate, in that I have been working constantly since I left Wallins. I left town about two days after graduation, and had a job in about a week. And if the Lord is
willing I will be retiring soon for the third time. This time I am not looking for another job. I hope this retirement takes, as in "Takes Hold."

Chapter XXIII - Trouble With Girls

      My earliest recollection of my relationships with members of the opposite sex would make most boys, who have an interest in girls, green with envy. Little did I know, however, that most of my irresistible charm would play out by the third grade. In telling this story, as Sgt. Joe Friday used to say on "Dragnet", the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I will go one step further, by not mentioning the names to protect the privacy of the participants.
     Suffice it to say I was quite a ladies man in my early youth, which was roughly years 4 through 8. I remember playing under the dining room table at my grandparent's house where I lived. This was a large table with a low hanging tablecloth. My playmate stole a kiss from me right under our parent's noses. I was not real enthused. I was more interested in playing a hiding game while exploring the underworld that grownups seldom see. Little did I know that my playmate had other intentions.
     I remember school in the first, second, and third grades. It was tough going with so many admirers. I remember one day when I was in the first grade. I was playing on the playground. It was there that several girls, who fell under my spell, tore my shirt to tattered shreds. Even at that early age "Old Lightning" was too slow to get away from his admirers. Unlike most mortals, I kind of know what "Elvis"and "The Beatles" had to deal with.
     Remember the contests that they had at the school to select the King and Queen? I won the contest for King of the Wallins School in both the first and third grade. If you remember, the contest was to see who got the most money in contributions. When the money was counted, I discovered that I had won. It must have been the legions of admiring girls that put me over the top.
     But alas, fame is fleeting. All good things must come to an end. Most boys go through the early years with only a passing interest in girls. Girls on the other hand, have an interest in boys from early on it seems. Whoever said that God does not have a sense of humor? Just about the time that hormones kick in with boys, and their interest level in girls start to climb, the girls get oh so selective. This is some kind of weird payback. My advice for all little boys is to be kind to all little girls. You heard me right. I said "all". You remember that little girl that you thought was so ugly. No way. It can't be the same person. But it is! Treat them all with special kindness. It will pay dividends later on. Trust me.
     You may also end up being the guy that all the girls consider as their friend. No guy who has girls on his mind wants to be regarded as a friend. This is so benign. It's like kissing your sister. No feeling involved. It is definitely a dilemma. It also can be contagious. Next thing you know, all the girls like you as a friend. It is very hard to change that perception in a small town.
     You know, this whole boy likes girl, girl likes boy thing is a very awkward time. There is so much posturing that goes on. It can be the best of times, and also the worst of times. Girls mature much faster than boys. Sometimes they also grow faster. Nothing worse than to wake up one day and the girl you like is now taller than you. They are usually interested in the older guys as this takes place. This in turn causes you to concentrate on the younger girls. Something is not right with that. But yes, in the grand design or the great scheme of things, this is what makes the world go round.
     There are a few positive things to say, however. You don't have to worry about leaving anyone behind when you strike out to seek your fortune. No commitments to hold you back. Nothing to tie you to your hometown. No excess baggage to carry with you. Just a clean start, with exciting possibilities. Funny how things work out for the best. Let the dating games begin.
     And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Rom 8:28

Chapter XXIV - When Basketball was King

     To a small boy growing up in Wallins, I could only dream about playing basketball at the University of Kentucky. At that time I never dreamed that basketball was played at any other school in Kentucky. I found out much later that there were other schools in the state, which had teams of their own. But to me, there was only one team, the Wildcats. At the time I first started listening in the early 50's, the Wildcats were already legend.
     I can remember listening to the games on the radio. By this time they had already won three national championships. I was especially proud of the players that came from our region of Eastern Kentucky. Players that come to mind were Wah Wah Jones, Johnny Cox, and Dicky Parsons. WahWah's career was over by the time I started listening, but I knew all about him. I took a lot of personal pride that he was from Harlan. I read all the books that I could get my hands on. These recounted the exploits of the "Fabulous Five", the 1948 Olympic team which was comprised of the "Fabulous Five" team, and the Championship teams in 48, 49, and 51.
     I can recall nights spent listening to the radio as Cawood Ledford, also from Harlan, called the games. Radio reception was a little spotty at that time. The signal would waver in and out. I listened to many of these games while in bed. Sometimes I would have to place my ear against the radio to try to hear the weak signal. My special treat was to listen to Cawood interview "The Baron" after the game. All Kentucky fans know that "The Baron" was Adolph Rupp. I loved to hear his comments. He seldom held anything back. My fantasy was to be able to go to one of the team practices. I had read so much about how the practices were conducted. He was legend in his methods of precision practices. I didn't think too much about going to a game. To me this was completely out of reach.
    I think that this inspired me, as it did most young boys growing up in the mountains of Kentucky. I remember playing basketball from daylight to dark. These games were played rain or shine, cold or hot weather. Most of these games were played at Jesse Herrell's house on Back Street. We had a lot of games that were two on two or three on three. It was hard to get ten people together at one time for a regulation game. We also played games of Horse, Pig, and Around the World.
     These games were played sometimes complete with sound effects. These were the ones every boy knows, "Time is running down and the score is tied."  "The ball goes to Phillips."  "He fakes, he shoots, he scores."  "Kentucky wins!"
     I can remember that in the winter my hands would be red and cracked from playing in the cold weather. I can also remember that my hands would be caked with mud from playing when the ground was wet and muddy. We would play until the game broke up because someone's mom would call them home. If it were only to eat, the game would resume later. If it were for something else, like work, then the game would be temporarily postponed. You can be assured that the game would go on again as soon as we could slip away from home.
     These games were intense. We gave no quarter. I'm sure that there were more than a few skirmishes as a result of this intensity. The players were Jesse Herrell and Jimmy Decker for sure. I think also that Bruce and Bobby Wayne Howard also played. I can't remember the other players for sure. I learned, as did my playmates, the fundamentals of shooting and dribbling. Some of them went on to be fine players. Jesse Herrell turned out to be one of Wallins' finest players ever. He went on to play at a small college. Unfortunately, God didn't endow me with the natural ability to fulfill my dream of playing basketball in high school. I made the team, but saw only limited action in my career.
     It was also a real treat to go to the games at the Wallins Gym. Even for a little school, we had the second best gym in the Harlan County school system. The best gym was at Cumberland High. I remember on game night, the atmosphere was electric. Most of the games were intense rivalries. They were usually close, which increased the drama. The popcorn would be popping before and during the game with its tantalizing smell. It was almost impossible to resist. The pep band would be there providing the fight song and other rousing tunes, which kept spirits at a fevered pitch. It was a community event. Standing room only. The "B" Team was the prelude to the big game. We had good "B" Teams so the audience would usually come early to see this game too. After the game if we won, we would go downtown to receive the approval of the adoring masses and to recount all the exploits of the game. If it was a loss, then we went downtown to commiserate with each other. This was always a much shorter night.
     Wendell Adkins coached the "B" Team, and "Big Jim" Howard coached the "A" Team. One year when I didn't make the team, Wendell allowed me to help him with the team. This amounted to charting the shots during the game and other bench activities. I got to listen to all the coaching instructions in the huddles. I really got to see another side of the game that I hadn't seen prior to this time. I found out that Wendell was a very good coach. This was proven on the court, as his "B" Teams were consistently at the top in the league.
     I didn't get a chance to observe "Big Jim" like I did Wendell, but it was generally accepted that he was a good coach also. I know that over the years we enjoyed a lot of success for a small school. When you stop to think about it, it really is pretty incredible. Our whole school, first through twelfth grade consisted of approximately 400 students. Some senior classes in the bigger schools are that big. Again, I think this shows both the heritage and hard work that made the difference. I think we made the 13th region tournament, but we were never able to win this to allow us to go to the state tournament. That would have been a large dream come true.
     I was very sad to see the high school consolidated in 1966. There was so much tradition lost. Sad to say, future Wallins students would not get to experience the excitement and pride in your high school team, in your own home town. I will always have these memories to keep me warm when I sit in front of the "Big Screen T.V." in my basement and watch the Wildcats play. It won't be as exciting as placing your ear close to the radio to catch Cawood's play by play, but it will have to do.

Chapter XXV - Simple Pleasures

     I was reading the story that Dorcas Jane Ward wrote recently for the web site. I received a very warm feeling of nostalgia while thinking back on some of the things she mentioned. I had completely forgotten some of them, but had an instant recall when prodded by her remembrances. I want to touch on some of the things that she mentioned with my own memories of them.
     Brown bags. These were given to the children in Sunday school at the Baptist Church at Christmas. I do remember these. This was one of the simple pleasures taken for granted, but looked forward to. It was like receiving a grab bag. I would dig in immediately to find out what I had gotten in the bag. Nothing was wasted. The entire contents were eaten, which included cracking the nuts.
     Halloween Carnivals. Yes I remember these. It was not because I won the contest for King, but because of all the fun things to do. I remember the gym was decorated. There were all kinds of booths set up for games and other things. The boy's locker room was set up to be a "House of Horrors". You went in on one side and exited out the other. In between there was a gauntlet of ghosts and monsters. There was bobbing for apples. I almost drowned while trying to bite onto an apple. Just kidding. Actually this was almost impossible to do without dipping your head under the water and pinning the apple to the bottom or side of the container.
     Classrooms where also set up for other activities. You could go fishing. After paying the fishing fee, you would hang your fishing pole over the sheet, which blocked your view of what gifts were stored behind. Someone behind the sheet would attach a gift to your pole.
     There were all kinds of good things to eat. There were all kinds of cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and homemade chocolate and peanut butter fudge candies. My personal favorite was the peanut butter roll candy. Does anyone still make that? I would love to have some of this today. Not that I need it, goodness knows. But it would be sure to bring back some memories.
     People would also dress in costumes. There were some very good ones. The night would end with the announcement of the winner of the King and Queen. I'm sure that there was a monumental cleanup job the next day because of all the confetti and trash on the floor. This was a total town event with a very large crowd in attendance.
     Show music. I spoke about this before in a previous chapter. But let me add that most of the music was "Country". At that time I didn't have a true appreciation for Country Music. This was something that I took for granted, but came to realize that it was part of my heritage. Today, I like traditional "Country and Bluegrass". This was music that had a message. It was everyday life for us. We lived it every day. I don't particularly like today's watered down music developed to appeal to mass audiences. Not pure enough for me.
     Dorcas, you have a good point about Juanita Saylor knowing when to increase the price of admission to the theatre. I remember when she first asked me about turning 13. She told me that she would have to start charging me 40 cents. This was a blow to me, as I already had trouble enough locating 20 cents. She was definitely in control of the business. The theatre, that is.
     James L. Howard's store- You talked about running over to get candy at recess. I also remember going there before school. I was trying to remember some of the candy that we bought. Do you remember the orange colored wax French harp or whistle? You could blow different notes by running your mouth over the different openings, while blowing air through the thing. If you did this really quick and blew really hard, you could make quite a racket. After tiring of playing with it, you could chew on it until the flavor was gone. You would then just get rid of what was left without swallowing it. Hopefully, I didn't gross anyone out.
     Then there was the wax lips. You wore these until you got tired. These also could be chewed to extract the flavor.
     How about the little wax bottles of flavored drink. You bit the top off, then poured the liquid into your mouth. You didn't chew the bottles, however. These had no flavor.
     Gold and silver candy coins. You peeled off the aluminum foil, which looked like a coin. You then ate the chocolate candy inside. I always felt like a Pirate who had found buried treasure when I had several of these coins in my hands. These came in a little string sack. You opened the sack to get the coins out, then pulled the strings to close the top of the sack.
     I also liked the candy wafer rolls. This was thin wafer like candy of different colors and tastes. My favorite ones were the brown ones. My least favorite was the black ones that tasted like licorice. I never was a big fan of licorice. I tried to like it, but couldn't quite handle the taste. I would occasionally chew it, while pretending to be chewing tobacco. It would turn your teeth and gums really black. How weird is that? No wonder I had trouble with the girls.
     Jelly beans. I liked these with exception of the licorice ones.
     Candy cigarettes. I also thought it was cool to puff on these. After smoking them, you could eat them. What's not to like?  As you can see, I must have been influenced by smokers and chewers. I think this is further proof that, as children, we act out adult behavior. I went on to develop both habits.  I thank God that He set me free from bondage to the fragrant weed. I have been free for almost 25 years from smoking. I hung on to smokeless tobacco much longer. I have been free from that bondage, which in many ways was stronger than smoking, for a few years.
     There were the little rolls of candy. These were different colored wafers that looked almost like a small button, which were sweet and also tart. And how about the packages, and what looked like soda straws that were filled with different colored sweet and sort of tart powdered sugar.
     Lastly, there were the different candies associated with certain holidays. Halloween was a good example. There were a lot of different candies, which you only saw during the holiday season. They would be pumpkin color or orange and black. They might have to do with witches or other Halloween characters. After Halloween was over, they were gone until next year.
     I have one other observation about James L. Howard's store. Do you remember the two deer heads he had mounted on the wall? One was a spike buck, the other had a bigger rack. James L. killed these deer while hunting in Harlan County. This was when deer were first re-introduced to Kentucky. They were probably two of the first deer killed in Harlan County. Deer had become almost, if not totally extinct, before being re-introduced. I was fascinated by these heads. I would stare at them, while letting my imagination run wild. I had read a lot of books about how it was when the first settlers came to Harlan County. Deer and other game were very plentiful. They later became almost extinct through mismanagement and overkill.
     One last thing; Do any of you remember the plum tree that was just across the street in front of the school. The tree was always loaded. When the plums were ripe you could just reach up a pick one off. I can't remember the last time I saw a plum tree, can you?
     Thank you Dorcas for letting me embellish some of the things that you wrote about in your story. They brought back a lot of special memories. And as you are probably well aware, when something moves me, I just have to write about it.

Chapter XXVI - Mountain Flora and Fauna

      One of the special memories that I will always keep close to my heart is the experience of relating to the natural beauty of the mountains that I learned to love while growing up. However, I think I did take a lot of this for granted. Later in life I grew to appreciate these experiences even more, when I no longer had access to them other than in my memories.
      I always loved to be in the mountains. I especially loved to camp overnight. The allure of exploring unspoiled forest areas was powerful. So much of this had to be experienced not only with your five senses, but also with your imagination. I always seemed to be lost in imagination of what it was like during the time that the first settlers discovered it. But I even went farther to think about when the Native Americans roamed this area that
some referred to as "The Dark and Bloody Ground." I loved to read books about what Kentucky, and especially Harlan County, was like. I carried these accounts over into my explorations of the mountains.
      Some of the special things that I remember about camping are very compelling.  The smell of wood smoke from a campfire and the warmth of a fire on a cold night. You had to keep turning to warm all sides of your body. There were the inevitable scary stories told around the fire. There was something magical when all these components came together. It also didn't hurt that the woods provided a very dark and secluded spot, which added a
bit of tension to the setting. It always caused our imaginations to run wild.
     We began to hear strange sounds that brought up visions of all kinds of ferocious wild animals. Most of us were aware of the stories that constantly made the rounds, of sightings of wild animals that weren't normally found in our mountains. Because I was an avid reader of adventure and other books about the early settlers, I was very impressionable with these kinds of tales. You also heard the stories about bears and wildcats. I believed the stories, as I had seen a dead bobcat that someone shot in Wallins. I had never personally seen a bear, however I believed they were out there.
      Cooking over a campfire was not complicated. We are talking about hotdogs and beans. You could throw in a potato and cover it with hot embers. This would come out baked to perfection. I guessed there were Coleman stoves, but I never saw one. We did everything over the fire.
     There wasn't a whole lot of sophisticated equipment. I never had a tent or a sleeping bag either. It was any old blankets that mom would let me use. I can remember how cold it would get in the middle of the night. One night that I remember in particular, was a cold and breezy night that seemed to last forever. I kept sliding down an incline. I only had a blanket, which was insufficient to keep me warm. I was awake most of the night shivering. I kept hearing the leaves rustling and the trees swaying in the wind. I was never so relieved to see daybreak and a campfire.
      Daytime activities included mostly exploring. It was at this time that I noticed the beauty of my surroundings. There was always the Mountain Laurel. It was especially beautiful when in bloom.
     Let me digress for a moment to tell a story. After Paula and I were married I told her the story of the time that I attended the Mountain Laurel Festival. It was my one and only time there. But I was so impressed with the natural cove and rock seating at Pine Mountain State Park, that I evidently recounted the story many times. Paula on the other hand was very impressed with a trip she took with her aunt to New York City. She also recounted this story many times. It became the joke in our family that if I attempted to tell the story again, she would say, "Mountain Laurel, Mountain Laurel." I would reply, "New York, New York."
      I never knew all the names of the varieties of trees that I saw. I did know the oaks, walnuts and hickories, and the pines and cedars. I found out much later when I was in college, the difference between deciduous and conifer trees. To me, they were just trees. I also found out later through books that much of Eastern Kentucky's vast hardwood resources had been squandered for mining timbers and other less than desirable purposes. Most of this clearly involved greed, with no thought to what it would do to our mountains.
     The mountains were also a sight to behold in the spring when the red buds and dogwoods were in bloom. There were also other trees closer to home, like the chestnuts and the mimosas. I loved the chestnuts, but didn't care too much for the smell when they were in bloom. They also made a big mess with all the husks that fell.
     We also had several mulberry trees that would be loaded with berries. These trees were a bird magnet. The birds would flock to the berries, while leaving their droppings behind. Many people didn't like the trees for this reason. I liked eating the large black mulberries, though.
     Any fruit tree proved to be a messy proposition. This was a given that you tolerated in order to get the fruit. I remember the most wonderful cherry tree in my Aunt Ruby's back yard on Back Street. I spent a lot of time
eating cherries and spitting pits. The birds liked this tree also. I remember the tree secreted a thick clear sap. I loved to pull clumps of this off the tree. This probably was not good for the tree, but who knew?
     I also spent many hours playing under Aunt Ruby's house. The dirt was a type of clay that was very pliable. It was very good for making car tracks to move our small make believe racecars and dump trucks on. It was also really cool under the house on a hot day. I also spent a lot of time playing on the ditch, which ran through her property. This ditch emptied into Wallins Creek, which ran behind her house.
     There were a lot of things to do, which kept us occupied but not necessarily out of trouble. I remember one simple game that entailed fighting the swarms of gnats that flew around the ditch and creek. This was accomplished with a rag tied to a stick. We would whip this through the swarms of gnats as we ran up and down on the ditch. So much time, so much energy. This tires me out writing about it now. I played these games with my cousin Damon Morgan and others. Damon was the leader of this rag-tag outfit, as he was 2 or 3 years older than I was.
    We also explored the creek bank looking for other things to do. This might involve checking out anything that might have washed up on the bank. We might also do some prospecting for gold or other precious metals. We might also excavate the bank looking for buried treasure.
     Unfortunately, the Morgan's moved to Louisville when I was about 8 or 9. I was crushed. This had been my home away from home. As it worked out, I eventually went to live with them in Louisville, when I left Wallins looking for a job. This worked out very well for me, as there was only one person who was a better cook than my mom. This was my Aunt Ruby. She took good care of me for the first couple of years until I got my own place.
     Back to the flora and fauna. Not all the plants were beautiful. I remember all the fields filled with ragweed. These sprung up wherever they could. I developed an allergy or hay fever when I was about 15 years old. I had never had a problem until this time. But after my allergy developed, I was miserable with all the symptoms whenever I was outside. This slowed me down quite a bit.
     Also in the fields were the burrs and stickers. These would stick to the legs of your Levi's something terrible. After walking in these, I would have to stop to pick  them off. This was time consuming and cut into time that could have been spent on fun activities.
     I usually managed to pick up a few chiggers too. These provided additional fun times. These felt so good when you scratched them, that you kind of hated it when they went away. I also had the uncanny knack of finding poison ivy wherever it was. It could be invisible to the naked eye, but I would manage to find it. I knew I had found it when I developed a rash. I would always get it in my eyes somehow. There were times that my eyes swelled so much that I could hardly see. After a few of these sessions, I consciously avoided any weed that vaguely resembled poison ivy. It didn't make any difference. It always managed to find me.
    The other constant irritation that had to be endured was the mosquitoes. In the summer it was too hot to stay indoors. The mosquitoes took full advantage of this. They especially delighted in singling me out for attack.
These mosquitoes flew in attack formation, and were so large, that if I managed to squash one of them, they would fly the missing man formation.
     In the summertime you also had to be constantly on the lookout for snakes. This was simply a fact of life. They were always lurking where you least expected them. They were everywhere, be it dry ground or water. I was never really able to completely rid my mind of them. Anytime I was wading through a weed patch, I was scoping out the terrain for them. There were many times that I was saved because of this. If not from a bite, at least from fright. I come to regard that the only good snake, was a dead one. I only later was able to recognize that non-poisonous snakes were beneficial to mankind.
     I felt the same way about bats. We seemed to have a lot of them. I guess I had seen too many vampire movies. I'm sorry to say that I killed a few of these in my time. These, as I later found out, ate their weight in the dreaded mosquitoes. I'm sorry to say that I didn't have the correct regard for all of God's creatures when I was a kid. A lot of it was misinformation. The rest was boyish mischief. I was always trying to find a way to kill a bird. I tried with BB guns, sling shots, and salt on the tail. Fortunately, the Good Lord is a bird lover. I was never very successful. I later became quite a bird lover, myself. I now prefer to watch them rather than hunt them.
     I remember the abundance of creatures that few people are privileged to see today. A couple of examples come to mind. I remember the little screech owls. There was a tree that sat near the creek. It was literally filled to capacity with these little owls. I remember that it wasn't uncommon to see large numbers of hummingbirds getting nectar from flowers and blooming bushes, while their tiny wings beat faster than the eye could comprehend. Today I feel privileged to see one of these tiny creatures at any time. They are so delicate, yet hardy it would seem, to be able to survive.
     I remember my first experience with trapping. I set a trap baited with a piece of salt pork. I set the trap in the woods near Little Creek. I remember that I had very high expectations that when I checked the trap I would discover an exotic fur-bearing animal. Actually when I checked the trap, I discovered a possum. He wasn't real happy to be in the trap. You don't normally regard a possum as a dangerous animal, but this possum growled and made every attempt to bite me. This proved to be my one and only attempt to become "The Great White Trapper." I determined to do all my trapping vicariously through the books that I read.
     The only game animals that I remember seeing in the mountains were squirrels, rabbits, possums, coons, and an occasional fox. I never did see a bear or bobcat, except for the dead one.. These animals would have required a measure of stealth that I didn't possess. If there were any of these nearby, I'm sure that they gave me a wide berth when they heard me stomping though the underbrush. I also regret that I never got to see a whitetail deer. These were long gone when I was a boy. Fortunately they were reintroduced to the mountains, but were very scarce.
     I wrote about this before, but it is worth mentioning again. The most beautiful place that I ever saw for its natural beauty and untouched condition was Laurel Branch. This was located on Pine Mountain. To get there, we hiked down the highway toward Dixietown. At a point where the branch ran across the highway, we would enter the woods. We would then proceed to make a pretty hard climb up the mountain to reach our destination on top. The forest growth was phenomenal on this mountain. The trees were large, and the vegetation thick. The forest floor was very thick with leaves. There were a lot of crawly creatures, like centipedes and millipedes. You had to constantly keep an eye out for these to keep them from crawling into your bed.
     After the campsite was established, the fun began. This was the exploration. We discovered a series of pools of clear, ice cold water. There was a waterfall with a deep pool of water suitable for swimming. There also was an area we named, "The Slick Rock." This was a green mossy covered rock suitable for sliding down into a pool of water. Little did we know that years later someone would take this simple idea and market it. Today, thousands of waterslides dot the landscape.
     Something that was a little closer to home, was the old water tank that sat down the railroad track near the Wallins Bridge. This had the drop down funnel that was used to fill up the water tanks on the steam locomotives that used to operate on the railway lines. This was a little before my time, but the water tank was still there. This was a prime pigeon roosting area. I remember all the pigeons that used to be there. It was a big loss to me when they tore the tank down. I don't know where the pigeons went, but it was never really the same. There were a few that hung out on the buildings and ledges in downtown, but the numbers dropped drastically after that.
     For some reason I associate a friend of mine with the water tank. I think it is because we used to play around the tank occasionally. His name was Floyd Bishop. I remember that he was quite an explorer and woodsman. He told me stories of how he had found Indian artifacts in a cave in the mountains. He said one of the items that he found was a pipe. I was never really able to verify this because Floyd was tragically killed while squirrel hunting. It may only have been boyish exaggerations, but I guess I will never know.

Chapter XXVII - Marbles and Tops

     I guess no story of a boy growing up in Wallins Creek would be complete without some mention of the games that tend to capture most of our waking thought processes. Why it only attracts boys, but not girls, is a mystery I will leave to geneticists and other behavioral scientist types. I only know that boys and girls are different. This is much deeper than the obvious things that are apparent to all that have eyes to see. Maybe it is as simple as modeling the behavior of others we are in contact with. No sense getting into a deep discussion on this. That is not what I had in mind.
     I did want, however, to discuss some of the games little boys play. I�m not talking about the mind games we all use to manipulate others to get what we want. No I�m talking about simple but fascinating games of skill.
     I remember shooting marbles at a very young age. This was some time before I started the first grade. But the most fun that I ever experienced playing marbles was on the playground of the Wallins school. I remember, that before there was a grass lawn or other landscaping at the school, there was plenty of good old earth. Ground if you will. You could draw circles and squares, or lines that are needed to play marble games. This would be impossible to do in today�s culture. There seems to be plenty of grass, concrete and asphalt to go around. But where do kids play marbles today? Please don�t tell me that today�s kids no longer play marbles.
     When I started in the first grade, I was introduced to the marble games that went on all over the playground. There were groups playing in many separate games. All you needed was marbles. You learned quickly what the rules were. You have heard the old saying, �Playing for keeps.� I�m not for sure, but I think this phrase was probably taken from the marble vernacular.
     As I said, the only thing you needed in order to be accepted into a game was marbles. The challenge was to keep what marbles you had. Most of the games were played for keeps. As in any game, there are the good shooters and there are the wannabes. You had to be careful of who you were playing with. It didn�t take long to learn whom not to play for keeps with. Some of the older boys also took advantage of the younger ones. Disputes and other skirmishes were a part of the games.
     To be a successful marble player, you needed the right tools. These were the right marbles for the game you were playing. When playing �Ring�, you needed a sticker taw. A taw was the marble you used primarily to shoot with. In order to find the right taw, you had to try out a lot of marbles. A sticker taw was generally a bigger marble. What you desired in a sticker taw, was a marble that stuck when it struck another marble.
     To play �Ring�, you first took a stick or other object, and drew a circle on the ground. If there was no stick to be had, you could make a ring by using the edge of your shoe to draw the ring. All the players anted up some marbles for the middle. The shooters then took turns shooting from the edge of the ring. The shooter tried to knock the marbles outside of the ring. If your taw stuck inside the ring, while knocking another marble outside, you could continue to shoot. All marbles touching the line were considered out. A good shooter with a good taw could get all the marbles without losing his taw. The worst-case scenario would be to leave your taw inside the ring where someone else could get it. To lose your taw was your worst nightmare. This did happen, so it was essential to have more than one favorite taw.
     There is just something about marbles that appeal to a boy�s eye. You know when one looks good to you. Most of the good ring taws had to be a �Cat Eye.� I think �Cat Eye�s� had the most variety also. Different sizes and different colors were available for the choosing. You didn�t know what you had until you tried them all. This selection process was all-important in finding the right taw. Then there were the common marbles. These were mostly ones that had no singular value, except to shoot for. They did need to be ones that other players might desire, however. This would entice others to stake their marbles as a prize you hoped also to win.
     Another marble game was called �Fatty.� This game used a small square or rectangle in contrast to the ring. Marbles also are placed inside the square. Players Shoot from behind a line in an attempt to knock the marbles outside the square. You need a different kind of marble for this game. This marble is called a �Fatty Taw.� This marble is smaller in size. In contrast to the �Ring Taw�, this marble must not stick in side the square. If it does, it must remain. Any marble on the line is considered as in.
     The last marble game that I am going to mention is a wide ranging game, where each player tries to kill the other player. To kill another means to shoot and hit their marble. If you try and miss, but leave your marble too close, you become vulnerable. This game requires a high degree of skill, because the players are shooting from a greater distance.
     As you can see, there was much about these games to attract a young lad. The main problem was that you didn�t want to quit when the bell rang to end recess. Many times the games were resumed during lunch, at the expense of eating. Games were also continued after school and on the weekends. But for sheer fun, nothing equaled marble games during recess at school.
     Another game that I really got involved in was �Top�s.� This game was played using a small wooden top. These came in all varieties and colors. It also required a lot of practice. The top had a metal tip on the small end. There was an art to knowing how to wrap the string around the top in such a way, that when you threw the top out with a snap motion, the top spun upright on the metal tip when it hit the ground. You could either spin the top just for fun, or you could play �Top�s.�
     This game involved a ring drawn on the ground. If you played for keeps, the winner was the player who knocked your top outside of the ring. This had to be done while the tops were spinning. I remember that a top cost a lot of money in those days. If you lost your top, it might be a while before you could buy another one. This could also be a vicious game. I remember that one of the players, who shall remain anonymous, really enjoyed splitting our tops. I think he filed the point of his top to a razor sharp edge in order not only to knock us out of the game, but also to also totally destroy out top. I learned quickly not to play this person. Only problem was, that since he was older and bigger, participation was sometimes mandatory.
     I never really got in to yoyos like I did the marbles and tops. I played quite a bit with them, but never took it to the same level. They were a nice to fool around with, but lacked the gamesmanship that was required in the others.
     It's funny how a young boy gets drawn into different pursuits. I don�t know why we choose what we do. We just pick something up and go with it. I remember that for a time, I got into playing the spoons. Anyone out there remember that fad. I somehow talked my mom out of a couple of old spoons. These I meticulously taped up on the ends to keep them from wearing a blister on my fingers. I gave this up when I finally realized that I had no latent talent. Must be something to do with rhythm. I guess this would appeal to a person with an aptitude for percussion instruments. Something maybe Theo Belcher could have mastered. I remember that Theo was a very good snare drummer.
     These games were some of the pursuits of a young boy growing up in a small town. I�m sure that many others could tell similar stories. But let me pose a question that begs to be asked. Where are we today in our country? Do boys still engage in games such as these? I don�t think that they do. Life is more complicated now. I think we have stolen the innocence of our youth. There is too much violence in our culture. I think we have stolen something from them. I think What we have stolen from them is the time to be a child, playing childish games, before the pressures of life have to be addressed.

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Other Wallins Creek Stories

Pajama Party in the 60's
By Judy (Looper) Meade

I grew up in Wallins in the 60's, where life in a small town was much like that in towns and villages all across america.  I came of age in the era of security; my parents never even had a key to their front door.  Daily living was infused with gossip, no one had a secret, and everyone knew everyone else's business.  Outdoor life was a vital part of growing up, and teachers and mentors instilled a sense of right and wrong in young people.

Memories of growing up in Wallins bring back sounds of the L&N Train whistle through the air. In my mind I can still smell black berry cobbler baking in my mothers cook stove and that could instantly halt even the most rousing game of cowboys and indians to which my brother made all his four sisters play more than he played paper dolls with us, but we always enjoyed the outdoors no matter what the weather or game my brother made us play with him. Much of the community life focused on the local school Wallins Jr. High which at Wallins Jr. High we had no drivers training and no guidance counselors yet out of all the hundreds of students that graduated from Wallins became teachers, top executives, military commanders, successful investors, lawyers, physicians, and ministers of the gospel.

Some of my most fondest memories as a young teenager was my friend Debbie Howard Pillions Sleepovers.  She was everyone's favorite friend because she had the best pajama parties in all history of parties.  Debbie's brother had a chicken farm at Twila and he had a house trailer he would let Debbie use it for PJ parties.  We would have at least 15 girls.  We always had a blast.  We were all scared that a bunch of boys would raid our parties but we never did see any but we were always hoping.

We would play records and lip sync to the mama's and the papa's, beach boys, sonny and cher, etc, etc.  We made hot dogs, home made pizzas, no home delivery then.  I remember a code for trouble if anyone came to the trailer and bothered us, was to flash the front porch light on and off since the trailer was across from Debbie's mom's house.  Debbie's brother (Mike Howard) would come to our defense.  Well every noise we heard we flashed the light on and off.  I know he got tried of running over there all night.

Even after all the years of friendship all of us stayed close.  We had a gathering for years each fall after we all got married.  My mind floods with laughter of all the girls giggling all night telling stories of all the cute guys we talked to and who we had kissed at birthday parties playing post office or spin the bottle.

I can remember some of the group I hope I don't leave to many people out but if I do forgive me but we had a ball growing up together, Swann Saylor, Lexie Crider, Vendetta Haywood, Judy Leach, Debbie Howard, Gwen Ward, Jean Middleton, Brenda Ball, my sister Loretta Looper, Jan Rose Long, Donna Vaughn, Vanessa Brown, Libby Smith, Linda Bird,  Alpha Bloomer, Lanell Haywood, and so many more  (These are all maiden names).  I can remember my first experience with hair color was at a p.j. party, we were at Judy Leach's sister Wanda's house and she used me and my sister and Judy for models.  Well nonetheless we are still blondes 35 years later.  I can remember my first year at high school was trying to grow out blond streaks down the middle, I looked like a skunk for months but we were cool.

Well just a few memories but good ones. Oh yeah I forgot the phone calls, most of the girls didn't have a phone and if we got the chance at our friends house that had a phone we would make pranks.  I remember a old neighbor a very old man, he is dead now so no names to protect those involved me especially, we meaning a few other girls called Loyall Funeral Home and told them our husband died and we wanted them to come and get him. We sat on the front porch and watched them come and go to the door and he came out and we laughed so hard we wet our pants. My word I would lock up my grandkids if they did this today.  That was horrible but we at the time thought it was funny, oh if my mother would have known I wouldn't be here to write this today.  I would be still grounded into the next life. Well that's a little bit of the 60's at Wallins Creek for me.

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Wallins Creek's "Funny Rock"
By Donnie R Looper

One of the greatest experiences I had while growing up in Wallins was a "spur-of-the-moment" trip (if you want to call it that) to "Funny Rock".  If I leave someone's name out of this story or don't get the facts quite straight I apologize in advance. I'm not a good story teller. I'll tell this as best I can but might have to change some of the names or activities to protect the innocent. Myself included.

It was in the fall of 1968 or 69. One Friday, during lunch at JACHS, the conversation turned to the plans for that Friday night. Well, you had to know this group to know that normally nothing was planned and we usually pulled that off without even trying. After several ideas were offered and dismissed we settled on getting together for an "overnighter" at "Funny Rock".  "Funny Rock" is located near the head of Camp Creek beyond where the Whitehead's used to live. It's a huge rock about the size of a two story house with a natural camp site under one side. I'm sure it's not nearly as big a rock today as it was then.

I'm not a 100% sure but I believe Doug Noe, Eddie Carmack, Billy Roger Howard, Bill Bloomer, Bobby Whitehead, Benny Meade and I were on this trip. We did a lot of stuff back then with different combinations of this group so I'm not 100% sure if anyone else was there or not.

What to bring on this trip? I didn't have the slightest idea. I believe this was my first camping outing. We had hamburgers for supper that night at home and I somehow managed to slip two or three into a bread bag and I was ready to go. Whoever heard of a sleeping bag. I sure didn't have one. I didn't take anything other than the clothes I was wearing and a jacket. We had arranged to meet at Benny's house at Louisville Lane (Mrs. Meade mom still lives there.). We got there as quickly as we could but it would soon be dark and we were just getting started down the road.

Since we were all under age and selling alcoholic beverages was against the law in those days I'm going to skip the part about us purchasing adult beverages from someone not licensed to do so but for some reason we had brought along this metal Coke-Cola cooler.....with limited resources among us I think we had enough money to purchase 2 or 3 "cold-ones" each. (Remember, they charged more if they were cold.) The hard part was leaving the Whitehead's house and not being found out what was in the cooler....

As luck would have it, it started raining shortly after we got started and by the time we got there we were tired, cold and soaked to the bone. First order of business wasn't to build a fire while we had a little bit of daylight left, it was to have a beverage......you don't walk that far without an appropriate reward. What a sight! Given our ages (16-18) and experience, none of us had any tolerance for alcohol so you can imagine what one cold beer did to most of us....

It made us smarter, of course! We immediately recognized the need build a fire and dry our clothes. A plan was devised to gather wood, wish it dry automatically, create a drying rack to dry our clothes and find a bench to sit on. All the while we were down to our shorts and I believe one flashlight. What a great bunch of guys!

If memory serves me, XXXXX turned into a wild man after 1 beer (I believe we talked him into thinking he was a lot more under the influence that he really was). YYYYY got a whole lot more taller.....and ZZZZZ practiced
sledding down the side of the mountain backwards on his stomach, holding his beer can high enough to not lose it in one hand and our only flashlight in the other. All the while clad only in his shorts. Talk about athletic ability.

Well, we finally got the fire built and clothes semi-dried...but not after thoroughly smoking all of us, our clothes and the immediate surrounding 50 acres......things were calming down and most of us were tired. Those that still had food shared with those who didn't. Although, I remember not very willingly or graciously. Then I smelled it! The distinct smell of whiskey. For a while every one denied having anything. Some smelled it, some didn't.
Eventually it was determined that my future brother-in-law had slipped a 1/2 pint of the current popular choice...if I remember correctly it was YELLOWSTONE. (why did I remember the name of it after all these years.....go
figure...)

The remainder of the night was pretty uneventful accept for Eddie trying to convince everyone he was in charge of telling us who had "fire watch" at any given time.

We came dragging out of the mountain the next morning stiff, scratched, reeking of smoke and wearing wet clothing but we had the best time. I hope the guys on this trip remember this story like I do. My friendship with each of them was further strengthened on this trip. Unfortunately, I didn't know that at the time. I'll never forget how much fun we had.

I hope my telling this story makes you laugh. It did me. Once, when it happened. Again, whenever I tell it. And today, when I shared it with you.

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The Wallins Creek Firetruck
Ron Osborne
     In the early 60's, a group civic minded men formed the Wallins area rescue squad. Some of these men the best I remember were Everret Jones ( the captain), John Ashurst, Bob Osborne, Burl Saylor, Ken Gross, Bernard Wood, Rodney Blanton, Billy K Howard and several more I can't recall. The location was a building on Sherman Brock's property on Back St which survived after his house burned. Since this was near my home, I hung around there often watching the men play cards, etc. Seems like Set Back was the big game.
     In the mid 60s around '65 or '66, the men decided to add fire fighting to the rescue squad.  They secured a fire truck from the state government and went to Frankfort to get it. It was about a 1937 model I believe. We were all hanging around the rescue building waiting for it to arrive. One of the members was waiting at Coldiron and gave a description of the truck as it went by on his CB radio. There was a lot excitement in the air and when they arrived, they loaded up all the kids on it and took us up to Creeches and back.  Kids were hanging on everywhere,  just lucky some didnt fall off, I guess. That was surely a big event for a 10-year-old in Wallins.

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Oh, The Things You Can Do With Carbide!
Roger Sharp

     Your website is incredible!! I just discovered it this past weekend and have enjoyed it immensely!  I'd like to submit a short story. First, I want to own up to being a ring leader in the Bird Dog story - and no one can tell it better than Jimmy Phillips! I was raised on Terry's Fork along with my best friend Freddie Saylor, Carl Helton, Ronnie Saylor, the Trail boys, Jerry Evans, Donnie Saylor, Bud Simpson, Bill Smith and many others that I can see but not immediately name in my feeble mind!
     There was an old man who lived on the hill, named Anthony Gamble "Aintnee" to us!  It was common knowledge that he was very scared of thunder storms!   Some of us coal miner's sons learned several ways to "shoot" our dad's carbide (the gravel-like chemical that powered the mining head-lights) and the result was a pretty healthy explosion!
     One method was to place one piece of carbide in a Clabber Girl baking soda can, with a nail hole in the end, spit on the carbide, replace the lid, put your foot on the can and light a match to the hole BOOM!! the lid would  blow about 50 feet!
     Well, for an "experiment" we decided to up-scale it to a five gallon lard can, lots of carbide and a few drops of water - on a stormy day - behind "Aintnee's" house on the hill!  He came out screaming and praying!  And, thank God he was too old to see who we were as we ran around the mountain!  I don't remember just who was with me on that day, but I would like to hear from them!
     Another method was to place on piece of carbide in a small jar, spit on it, replace the lid and throw it! In about ten - fifteen seconds it would explode with glass going everywhere! (I'd kick my kids butt for such actions, but my dad was killed in the mines years before and my mom had no clue!)
     Once, I  learned that the local pool hall owner had made a lewd remark to my girlfriend (Jean) and a friend (again, I don't remember who - call me!) up-scaled this method to a one gallon brown Clorox bottle and rolled it into the back door of the pool room and ran down the railroad tracks!  I heard about that one, along with some threats as to "If I ever find out who....."
     And Jimmy - the stories about the river could go on forever from all of us, but you tell them best - keep telling PLEASE!!  Best Wishes to all of you !  Rodger Sharp, class of '64

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Norman Preston's Prized Bird Dog
By Ron Osborne

     Jimmy Phillips, class of 64, tells one of the funniest stories about a science class project in Tuney Scott's class.  The class had a project to mount the bones of a dog. The plan was to get a stray dog, snuff him out with formaldehyde, boil him in a big iron pot behind the school, remove the flesh and mount his bones.
     So when the search for a dog began they came upon a stray but didn't have the heart to kill him because he hung around the football practice field, seems like he was the team mascot. Then they came upon a dog with the mange and this seemed liked the perfect canidate, they could put him out of his misery and finish the project.
     As the dog was boiling behind the school in the iron pot, Norman Preston, who was the city policeman came by and asked if anyone had seen his prized bird dog. He said the dog had been lost and he just had paid $100 (quite a sum of money in the early 60s) to get  him back and the dog had the mange.
     After assuring Norman that they had not seen him, they packed the dog, in the pot, to the creek and dumped his remains. Then they took an oath of silence  in fear that Norman would kill them. Since Norman has passed on, I guess it is safe to tell this story.
     I think Jerry Clower could have took that story and made a fortune with it. Is there anyone else that admits to being in that group?

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Tuney Scott's Dog Antics
By John Paul Rhinehart

     Concerning Ron Osborne's story about Norman Preston's dog . . . I remember THAT one all right . . . the carcass of that poor critter washed up on a sandbar where Wallins Creek and Terry's Fork meet just behind the place I lived in with my grandmother (the old concrete building where Howard's Dry Cleaning used to be), and there the remains of the dog stayed for a couple of days.  Tired of looking at it, and afraid that Norman would discover it and begin asking questions, or accuse me of being involved,  I eventually waded out and knocked it into the creek.   It floated off toward the river.
     It was Tuney's ambition to have a dog skeleton to display in his classroom.  So, he had some students keep an eye out for a likely specimen, and soon, one was located.  As I remember, Mike and Rex Taylor helped in the enterprise;  I am not sure who else was involved.  I was in the school building that evening for some reason and heard a commotion upstairs.  When I got to Tuney's room, the dog was already dead (chloroformed).  They swore me to secrecy.  Tuney figured that once the dog was captured, dispatched, and boiled clean, putting the skeleton together would not be much of a problem.  Just how he planned on assembling all those small bones into a free-standing skeleton I do not know.
      The dog proved tougher than anticipated and the remains ended up looking like a really rugged hair-covered suitcase.  At that point Tuney and company dumped the critter into Wallins Creek, where, as mentioned, it washed up.
     Thirty-five years afterward,  it's still one of those things that I remember with some sadness.  Wallins was no place to indulge sympathy for animals. People had it tough enough and worrying about animals was a luxury no one could afford, harsh as that may seem.

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Wallins Creek Marble King
By Ben Jones

     Speaking of Norman Preston, it reminds me of a few stories about him. He lived next door to my family when we lived in the old Horn Place up from the Baptist Church. Norman would sit on his front porch and play his trumpet. You could hear it for miles around. He was a pretty fair hornblower from what I remember.
     Norman played mostly when he had been drinking, and folks would say upon hearing his horn, "Well, Norman must be drinking again."
     Specially remember when he would give me marbles. Norman had an old trunk that was just loaded with marbles. On occasion when he would see me, he would yell, "Hey, Benny, come on over here. I've got something for you."
     I'd  traipse over and Norman would give me a handful of marbles. Then I would head down to the school playground and lose most of them to a few of the older boys in those marble games where you draw a big circle out on the ground, put up so many marbles each, lag for who goes first, and then you get to keep all the marbles you can 'shoot' outside the circle.
     Yep, no doubt, Norman was the 'King of Marbles' in Wallins Creek. At least back in those days when I was nine and ten years old.

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Dad's Wash Tub
By Alton Johnson     

 After seeing the stories from Jim and Ron, I remembered something my brother  Jim and I did when we were about 9 or 10 years old.
      A friend of ours, Claude Wayne Middleton, came down to our house with some dynamite caps he had "borrowed" from his grandpa. We wanted to see what they would do when we lit them. Another friend, Johnny Kirkland, was also there.
     We went to a shed that was in back of our house, We ask Claude Wayne if there would be damage to the shed, He said, he wasn't sure what they would do, so we decided to do damage control and put them under a washtub, My dad kept to water a cow we had. Once again we decided to do damage control by sitting on the tub. At the last minute one of us ( I don't remember who ) had a rare moment of common sense and said we shouldn't sit on it. So we ran out of the shed about the time the caps blew. when we went back to see what had happen, we found the tub full of holes. So now, we are really in trouble, if my dad found out what we did to his tub. So we returned it to the pasture and all took a vow of silence.
    The next day dad told me and Jim to go water the cow, so we carried about 5 or 6 buckets of water, knowing it was just running out the bottom. A day or so later when we were in school, Dad went down to water the cow himself, he kept carrying water and it would be gone in no time. He then noticed the ground around the tub was soaking wet. He then checked the tub and saw it was full of holes. That evening at the table he told Mom, that somebody had shot the tub with a shotgun. We never did tell either of them what we had done.
    I have other stories to tell but the statute of limitations hasn't run out on a lot of them, So they will have to wait until later.

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Town Nick Names

There's more Wallins Creek people with nick names than any other place on earth. These are not merely nick names, but replacements for first names. These people are known by their nick names, and lots of folks don't know their actual given name.

-A-
Ace- Bobby Wayne Howard
Alfalfa- ? Howard

-B-
Baby Face- Bill Abner
Banty-? Hensley
Berger Deb- Delbert Harris
Big Bill- Bill Blanton
Big Champ- Charlie Howard
Big Dewey- Dewey Simpson
Big Jim- Jim Howard
Big Lee- Lee Osborne
Big'un- Rick Howard
Bimbo- Bernard Ellison
Black Jack- Robert Lee Blanton
Blackie-? Howard (brother to Santa Mike)
Blue Goose- Jack Bloomer
Blue Jay- Frank Howard
Bobcat- Robert Duncan and Bobby Napier
Bone- Dewayne Hensley
Booger- John Gross
Booter- Charles Brock
Bootlegger- John Saylor
Boots- Burval Howard, Hillary Smallwood
Bubba- Brandon Arvin
Bud Bailey- Bob Howard
Bud- Hurston Simpson
Buddy- ? Clontz
Buggy-? Harris
Bull- Tony Durham
Bullhead- Richard Carmical
Burl- George Saylor
Buster- Gerald Smith
Butch- John Taylor and Marion Middleton Jr

-C-
Calf Leg- Earl Burke
Carbide- Laurence Howard
Casey- Robert Simpson, ? Jones
Catfish- Eli Brock Jr.
Chick - Charles Arrington
Chief- Ben Saylor
Chin- ? Asher
China Bill- Bill Dozier
Chisel- Charles Simpson
Chuck- Charles Hensley
C.I.- Charlie Wilson
Cincinnati York- Cousin to Sarge (Gary York)
Coconut- John Lilley
Codger- Bob Smith
Cotton- James Helton, ? Hensley, and Glen Brock
Cowboy- Daniel Wilson Jr.
Cowtail  Damon Alred 
Crawdad- Donnie Hensley
Cuz- Charles Saylor

-D-
Dad- ? Weaver
Daddy's Girl- Pat Lankford
Dickie- David Noe
Doc- Dorsel Saylor
Dog Charlie- Charlie Hensley
Dood- Mary Lucille (Burke) Saylor
Doodle- Jesse Jump
Droopy- Clarence Noe
Dude- Hayward Nolan

-E-
Eight Ball- Dennis McCoy
Eyes- Roger Howard

-F-
Fat- Ova Howard Cole
Frosty- John Ashurst

-G-
Gator- Alvin Watkins
Gete- George Kilgore
Goat- Eugene Fowler
Greasy- Lowell Gene Osborne
Gums- Charlie Lankford

-H-
Ham Bone- Freddie Brigmon
HamHock- Charlie Ward
Happy- Jim Price
HenHock- Ronnie Ed Hensley
Hickory- Henry Gibson Bennett
Hog John- John Saylor
Honey Bee- Elvin Honeycutt
Honey Bill- Bill Saylor
Hoss and a Half- Charlie Satterfield
Hoss- Floyd Disney
Huker Johnson- Eugene Young
Humpy- Mitt McCoy

-I-
I Got A Bicycle In Baltimore- Nolan Hill
Ickabod- Jimmy Craig

-J-
Jake- Harold Blanton, and Terry Osborne
Jeep- Zelphalene Dingus
JG- George Hackler
Jiggs- Nova Howard
Jimbo- James David Farmer
Judo- William Brock
Jug- Lonnie Hensley
June Bug Duncan- William Duncan Jr
June Bug- Rice Jones Jr
Junior- Charlie Belcher

-K-
Ken Hoss- Ken Hammons
Khrushchev- Roy Blanton

-L-
Lass- Bobby Lee
Lefty- Norman Morgan
Lightening- Jim Phillips
Lil Abner- Harlan G. Abner
Limber Neck- Barry Carmical
Little Champ- John Howard
Little Turtle Farmer- Carl Vernon Farmer

-M-
Meanness- James Hensley
Moe- Marsha Hensley
Monk- Andrew Walters
Moose- Gary Helton
Moscow- Bobby Knuckles
Mud Cat- Roger Meade
Muscles- Ernest Osborne
Muskrat- Ernie Gene Osborne
Mutt Kelly

-N-
Nick- Herbert Osborne

-O-
Ot- Arthur Cottrell

-P-
Paddle Foot- Daniel Caldwell
Pal---Frank Gambrel
Pap- Oliver Howard
Pappy Cole- Anderson Cole
Peg John- John Hensley
Peppermint- Minnie Hensley
Pig- Paris Simpson
Ping- Pauline Hensley Jones
Pink Rowlett- John Rowlett (ran the pool hall)
Pino- Joe Felosi
PK- Sandra (Lankford) Arvin
Pole Climber- Bill Tidwell
Pollock- Stanley Orick
Pooh Bear- Jimmy Neal
Pop Bottle Otis- Otis Davis
Pops- GD Saylor
Poss- Paris Burke
Possum- Ronnie Brock
Preacher- Willie Crider
Prof- Woodson Smith
Punchy- Oscar Haywood Jr
Pup- Dog Charlie�s son

-R-
Rabbit- John A.Johnson and Bernard Weaver
Rah-Rah- Rhonda Arvin
Rawhide- Roy Brigmon
Red- Clifford Farmer Sr. and Robert Abraham 
Ring Eye- Don Hensley
Rink- Troy Taylor
Rocky Mountain Red- Bobby Sanders
Rube- William Alred
Runt- David Carmical

-S-
Salt- Jim Morgan
Sarge- Gary York
Scooter- Scott Arvin
Scrick- Lee Howard
Seymour- Greg Blanton
Shade Berry- Dennie Slusher
Shadrack- Johnny Chadwick
Sheb- Shelva Dingus
Sheroot- Eddie Hendricks
Shoe Shop Bill- Bill Howard
Si Gib- Gib Smith
Silver- Marion Slusher
Sirhan- David Cerra
Sissy Doll- Virginia Taylor
Skinny- Ronnie Simpson
Slick- Marion Middleton
Slim- Jesse Jones
Smoke-? Coldiron
Snake- ? Howard
Snook- Clifford Farmer Jr
Snorgel- Harvey Simpson Jr
Squib- Roy Scarbrough
Stosch- Stanley Brigmon
Sugar Pop- Jesse Simpson

-T-
Tater- Ashley Taylor 
T- Chris Knuckles
T-Bone- Charles Eldridge
Thirty Beard- George Howard
Toddle- Charles Hensley
Tomcat- Lovell Gregory
Tookie- Feledra Howard
Tough Ham - Mike Howard
Tubby-? Hensley
Tuck- Tim Howard
Tuney- Clarence Scott
Tump- James Skidmore
Turnip Greens- Delmar Blanton
Turtle Farmer- Vernon Farmer
Turtle Tom- Tom F. Jones
Twinkie- Mike Watkins

-V-
Vern- Vernon Howard Jones

-W-
Wash- Washington Osborne
Weasel- Harry Rhinehart
Windy-? Spurlock
Wock-Wock- Jerry Niday
Woody- Woodrow McCoy
Worry-Wart- Billy McClain

-Y-
Yo Han- Johnny Smith

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©Ben Jones. All Rights Reserved.