Delbert Gray ( Updated )

8/9/2019 Delbert Gray ( Updated )

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Coming Up theHard Way

ByDelbert Gray


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BOOK TITLE

Collinwood, Tennessee, USA


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2009 by New Sound StudioAll rights reserved.

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Printed in the United States of America.
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Introduction

I am Delbert Gray, I was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama,near Killen; a small country town on May 22, 1928. This isabout my experiences growing up when times were hard as I

remember from the time I was about 3 years old through thosetimes until the present time. I hope you enjoy reading about thegood and bad adventures as I recall them.

Delbert Gray

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1EARLY YEARS

The first I was old enough to remember, I was about threeyears old, we had moved to Athens Alabama. The thing that

stands out in my mind was y dad taking me to the Milky WayFarm which was between Athens Alabama and PulaskiTennessee. This farm was a dairy farm. I remember there weremany Holstein cattle which there werent any in the area I hadbeen. We only lived there as I remember for less than a year.

We later moved to Elgin, Alabama. Some people call itCrossroads because two highways cross one another at this littletown. Elgin was a small community of about three hundred people. They were building the Joe Wheeler Dam on theTennessee river during the time we lived there. There was a lotof traffic each day as people went back and forth to work.

Times were hard during those days. My Dad was afarmer and since we didnt own a home, he was a sharecropper.This was working land that was owned by another person fordividing a share of the earnings with that person. Usually a forth

went to the land owner.

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Coming Up the Hard Way

During this time, many people were coming to the arealooking for a job at the dam that was being built. I remember

that they would stop at our house and ask if we had somethingwe could give them to eat.

Lots of them hadnt eaten for one or two days. Wewouldnt have had it to give them if we didnt raise a largegarden. This was the only way we could get by since we had nomoney to buy other than the little we received from our share ofthe proceeds of our crop. It took most of this to buy flour andother items, as well as clothing.

We had several neighbors that lived close to us. Theywere good families and would help you anyway they could, butall were poor back then but most were in the same condition.

One of the families was Vornia and Tom Belue. Iremember Dad had an old guitar. It only had three or four stringson it. I would go out on the back porch and make up songs aboutmy cows, hog, mules, etc. Mr. Tom would come out on his

porch and listen to me sing about my animals at this time. Ididnt know until later that Mr. Tom was listening to me.Mr. Tom and Mrs. Vornia had a daughter and son. The

daughter was about the same age as me. She was the only onethen that there was to play with since there wasnt any boys myage to play with, but we got along well.

Dad was not able during this time to buy me a littlewagon, so he cut out of a log, bored holes in them to make

wheels and lumber to finish the wagon.We had a dog that was obtained after we moved to Elgin.

He was mixed with Curr and Bulldog. He was very playful, butvery gritty. I would tie a rope to the tongue of the wagon. Iwould shake it at the dog and he would take hold of it and runbackwards around the yard. Lots of time we would pull a limbdown from a tree that would hold him off the ground until wemade him turn loose.

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CHAPTER ONE

During this time I had an uncle living at Elgin. He wasmy mothers brother. Also, he was one of the people helping to

build Joe Wheeler Dam. He had several children, as I remember;there were one boy and four girls. The boy and oldest havepassed away as of the day I am writing this story.

At the last of my fifth birthday, we moved from Elgin tothe area of the little town of Center Star, Alabama. We lived inan area known as the Swamp. It was called this because fromCenter Star you ad to go through a swamp to get to where wehad moved to Center Star.

Like Elgin, it was a small community, but where we hadto move to, we only had one neighbor. They were a coloredfamily but were very good neighbors. Any time we needed anyhelp; there were there to help us.

I remember one time we had a dog come to our house, itstarted going round and round until it fell over with a fit. Dadhad me go to our neighbors house to get him to come see what

was wrong with it. He immediately said it had Rabies. He tookhis shotgun and shot it. We were very glad he did this, for wehad never seen a mad dog before.

It was here that I started to school, since I was six yearsold and required to go to school. The bad part then was wedidnt have school buses and I had to walk three miles each wayto and from school with about a mile of it through the swamp.This was very bad during the winter. Two occasions still stand

out in my mind. One winter we had a lot of rain and frozenweather. My Dad came to get me. Bing that the swampy roadwas about ankle deep, Dad took me straddle of his hops andcarried me through the swamp. On another time my Dad came toget me in a wagon. The Swampy mud came up tot the boltersbrake. This was a rough time for a six year old boy!

By the way, I have come this far in the story andalthough I spoke of my parents, I hadnt told you their names.

My mother was Evie Jones Gray and Dad was Herbert B. Gray.They were wonderful parents. Both were good Christians andgone on to be with Jesus. Dad passed away in 1989 and Mother

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in 1993. I have three wonderful sisters living and one passed onwhen she was about five months old.

Getting back to the school days, I remember we had alarge pasture with part of it in swamp grass. My Dad went to getthe cows since they didnt come to be fed and to be milked. Thesun was about to set. The pasture in the swamp had a narrowpath where cows had walked going through the swamp.

I had never as a child heard my Dad say a cuss word, butDad came to the house out of breath. Mother looked at himbewildered and said, What in the world is wrong with you?Dad breathing hard and white as cotton replied, I stepped on aG_D_ snake stretching out arms about three and a half feet.Mother with mouth wide open, what did you say? Dad, Oh Istepped on a big snake. This was the only time I hard my Dadsay a cuss word.

One other incident that stands out in my mind while wereliving in Swamp was as I came out to get the old cedar water

bucket that was hung out on the front porch (since this was aroutine back then). I saw two men pass by the end of the porch.One of them grabbed the dipper from the bucked and carried itwith them. I ran in and told Momma that they had taken ourdipper. Momma called Dad down at the barn and told him whathad happened. He came to the house in a hurry. Since the menwere not too far away, Dad hollered and told them wait there,that he wanted to talk to them. When he started toward them, he

saw on of them toss something in a plum thicket that was nearthem. Dad told them that his son said that they had taken ourdipper out of our water bucket on the front porch. One of themen had a shot gun on his shoulder. When confronted, the otherman started pulling his shirt off and said anyone said they tookour dipper was a damn liar. Dad told him that his son saw it andhe didnt lie. Mom saw that things were not going well so sherushed up there to back Dad. When she got there, the man that

had pulled his shirt off threw two quarters at Dad saying, Wedidnt take your dipper, but take this and buy you another one.

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CHAPTER ONE

Dad being mad threw them back at him saying, I dont want themoney, I want the dipper. Then Dad and Mom went back to the

house. Dad looked back and saw one of the men go back andpick up something out of the plum thicket. The next day, Dadwent back to see what they might have done with the dipper.Following the path, he found aluminum shavings where they hadcut the dipper up. This really upset Dad, he sent word by anotherperson that knew the two to never to come by the path throughour yard again. And that he would shoot them if they did. Wenever saw them again.

At the end of the crop year we moved from the Swamp toa farm known as part of the Holden farm. This was about threemiles north of Center Star, which was the opposite direction ofthe Swamp. Dad again was a sharecropping on this farm. Thiswas my second year in school and I still had to walk three mileseach way to school. The road that I had to walk on was a lotbetter than the Swamp; however, we lived out a little lane about

an eighth of a mile that didnt have any Chirt on it. Also, themain road had a lot of red clay that made it muddy and slipperywhen it rained.

I dont remember a lot of unusual things happeningduring the year we lived here except two things. There was abranch or small creek near. There was a waterfall that had abouta seven feet drop. At the top, you cold walk out about one thirdof the way to fish below in the waterfall; since the water was

about six or seven feet deep, I decided to see if I could catch anyfish. Boy was I surprised, as soon as my bait went in hole of thewater, my line tightened up with a tug and I brought out a largegreen Perch. This continued until I had caught about a dozenabout the same size. It was more than enough for a good meal.During that year, I had returned several times having goodresults each time.

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The other thing that happened was quite humorous. Dadand Uncle Solon Gray worked together cultivating about fifty

acres of bottom land. My two first cousins that were UncleSolons sons would help hoe corn while Dad and Uncle Solonplowed it. We took lunch with us since it was about one milefrom the house. One day as we had sit down to eat lunch, Dadand Uncle Solon told us that there was some little black fellowsdown below us that would give us a good whipping. We thoughtthey were talking about some little colored boys about our agethat lived below the bottom land we were working in. This hadgot us stirred up and we didnt believe they could do it and werejust about to take off to see about it. Then they started laughingand said we had better not go because those black fellows werehornets and in their nest. So as you probably guessed, we didntgo down there.

By the way, I thought of another thing I wasnt going tomention, but though it was embarrassing, it did happen. One

evening as I started home from school, a short distance from theschool I had severe pain (excuse the language) to wee-wee andhouses were real close, no place to go, no bushes, or weeds and Ididnt want to do that in my pants. So the only place I could getwas in the water ditch. Though embarrassed and hoping no onewas looking, I got relieved.

Later on that year, since it was about two miles a daycloser to walk, as I had changed to go to school at Lexington

Alabama. I did this because Dad was moving to a little farmabout three quarters of a mile closer to the buss that carried meon to Lexington School. There was one thing that happened onemorning as I was going on a path through some woods on myway to catch the bus, I saw several squirrels. I was amazed to seeone that was solid white. I saw it quite often during the time Iwas going this route. To this date, I dont recall seeing anotherwhite squirrel.

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CHAPTER ONE

We moved to this little farm spoken about above. Thisplace consists of only fifty acres of land. On it was a log house

we would live in. It had a board roof and logs that had gapsbetween them, some as much as two inches. They had beenfilled in between the gaps with split sticks of wood and plasteredaround the wood to seal up the gaps, yet a lot of it had come outleaving holes you could see out of.

This made it hard to keep warm during the winter, but wemanaged to make it with putting on extra clothes in the daytimeand more quilts at night. I remember seeing the stars sometimesas I lay in bed at night. The thing that amazed me was when itrained it didnt leak, but when it came a snow, sometimes snowwould blow through and be on the bed the next morning. By theway, this house didnt have a ceiling in it, but back then in thispart of the country, people had to do without until times werebetter.

At this time as I recall, it was the year of 1937. Thisplace of fifty acres only had a five acre cotton allotment whichwas the amount allowed for this small place. This was one of thehardest years of this young persons life. We cultivated this fiveacres of cotton and raised corn for meal and to feed our livestockand chickens. It rained practically every day: Most of the time itrained about one or two oclock in the evening. It was about twofootball fields length from the field to the house. We would

have to take off and run as fast as we could, trying to get to thehouse before it started raining real hard. This was hard work;there was water standing in the middle of rows every day. Wewould hoe the grass out of the cotton rows; it would startgrowing in the middle. When it got dry enough to plow and Dadplowed the middles, it would rain and set it to growing again inthe rows. It seemed no way to win.

Finally the rain slowed and we had killed most of

the grass and the cotton survived. A lot of people will find ithard to believe, but our gross cash crop of cotton for the yearwas $250 dollars.

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This was rough and if we hadn't had a good garden ofvegetables, hogs for meat and lard. Also, our cow for milk and

butter plus eggs from our chickens, we probably couldn't havemade it.

I remember later when I was going to catch the bus it hadbeen real cold; near twenty degrees that morning. I had to cross asmall creek that had a waterfall of about one and one half feet.The water was only about 1 inch deep above the fall. The rockswere two or three inches thick to walk across on. That morningas I stepped on the first rock to cross the creek it was frozen withice on it, so I slipped and fell off in waterfall on my side. I waswet on the side that I fell on. I got out of the creek I was verycold when cold air hit me. I was only about one hundred yardsfrom where I would catch the bus. I wondered if I should goback home but it was about one and a half miles back home, andthe bus would be on in about ten minutes. It probably would bebetter to catch the bus where with the heat on the bus would dry

me out. What I didn't realize was that by the time the bus came,my clothes on the side I got wet were frozen hard.I thought it would make me sick, but with the

heat on the bus, I dried out alright. I didn't have this problemanymore since the winter was over soon after this incident..

One funny but serious thing happened before we movedagain. There was a very steep hill on the road that went by ourhouse. A lot of the old cars had the fuel tanks in the font under

the windshield and since the hill was so steep that when the fuelwas low, they would turn around the care and back up the hill.

One day I was out in the yard and heard the sound of acar trying to get up the hill. After few tries and not making it, Iheard a loud roar, sure enough they had backed up on a smallerhill coming down to approach the large hill. He had held the gaspedal to the floor, but what the driver didnt know a hundredyards after topping the hill was a very sharp curve and there was

steep woodland hill on the outside of the curve.All of a sudden I heard a loud crash/ I knew immediately

they had wrecked. I ran down there to see if any of them were

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CHAPTER ONE

seriously hurt. When I got there, since the old car was aconvertible; it had turned over and thrown all of them out of the

vehicle down the hill. Some of them were thrown about fifty feetdown the steep hill; most of them were just bruised andscratched up, but one of them had some broke ribs. The comicalfact came when one of them said to the driver as they were pretty much intoxicated, you said I bet we would make thenext hill in high gear and we did. After looking at that old carthat had wrecked, I realized it was a model that I hadnt sawbefore. It was an Erskine that had wooden spokes. And a lot wasbroken out.

Soon after this, we moved to a farm known as theThigpen place. This was about seven miles west from where wewere living. This cause me to change schools since the bus I wasriding didnt come by where we had moved to. I would now begoing to school at Greenhill Alabama. The farm we moved tohad more crop land of about eighty acres, also we had a nicer

and larger house. We had closer neighbors and they were verygood neighbors.I remember that after we moved, that I was twelve years

old and that Dad had bought me a bicycle. I didnt know how toride it. There was a chirt road near the house, so I decided to gothere to learn how to ride it. It was slightly down hill so I wasgoing to get on it and coast down the hill. The problem was ithad some pretty deep water ditches. The first time I started off I

got over balanced and down in the ditch I went, with a fewscratches from the briars on the bank. After several trips Imanaged to stay in the road, finally learning to ride as I should.

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2CHAPTER

I remember that year as school started I had to catch thebus and ride it for about seven miles to Greenhill School. Lateron as winter was starting to begin, the gravel road we had to

travel, because of rain that we had for several days, begin tofreeze and then thaw out. This caused the road to be soft andgive way. In the evening as we were to return home, the buswould stall in the mud and we would unload until they managedto get it out. We dreaded this because it happened several times.We were glad when the road finally dried out.

One day Dad sent me with some corn to a small grocerystore about one mile from where we lived. I had to walk andcarry the corn on my shoulders, it was a half of a bushel of corn.They had a small grist mill that would grind the corn into meal,the man would keep one fourth of it for grinding it.

The store manager also operated the mill. A funny thinghappened while I waited for the corn to grind. A small boy camein the store and asked the store owner for five cents wroth ofbologna. The owner said I cant slice it that small. The young

boy asked, can you slice it ten cents worth? The merchantsaid yes. The boy said, then cut it into and you have five centsworth. The merchant grinned and said, youre right and gavehim the bologna.

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CHAPTER ONE

About the next year as I went to school and arrivedentering the school, a young boy at school came in with a bloody

nose. That morning a new boy student had started school atGreenhill. He was from Detroit Michigan and already stared afight bloodying a boys nose. The teacher, since this was thestudents first day, gave him a stern talking. The next day anotherboy at recess came in with a black eye caused by the same boyfrom Detroit. This time one teacher held him while anotherteacher paddled him good. The reason he was so bold, was thathe had took boxing while in Detroit. The teacher called a few boys in and told them not to start a fight, but if he startedsomething not to give him the chance to get the first lick and toprotect their self. This is one of the reasons he was successfulbecause he got the first lick. One morning soon after he staredsome trouble with one of the boys, the teacher had to. Before theyoung man from Detroit knew what happened, the other boy hadworked him over good. From that day forward, there wasnt

anymore trouble from the boy from Detroit.They didnt have football at Greenhill at the time Iattended. It was probably fifteen years later before they hadorganized football. They had a good basketball program and Iattended as many as I could.I remember that even with no football program, we boys duringrecess would choose sides and play what was suppose to betouch football, but occasionally we would tackle one that was

about to get around us. I was tackling a boy bigger than me withlarge feet. When he went down his feet came up and hit meunder the chin. This stopped me from wanting to play anymoretag football.

Greenhill School at this time only went through the ninthgrade. I continued to go to this school until I finished the ninthgrade. After this, we moved to what was known as the ForsythePlace. By this time Dad found out this was for sale. Dad bought

this farm that consisted of eighty acres with a big house andbarn.

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Mr. Edward Forsythe was still living in the house at thetime that Dad bought it. Mr. Forsythe was building a new house

to move in. He was going to need another month to finish thehouse. He told Dad since the house was so large, that we couldmove into have of the house and they would live in the otherside. This we had to do because we had moved so the man couldrent the farm that we were moving from. We moved in one sideof the house we were purchasing.

We lived there with the Forsythes until they moved totheir new home. They were good people with two children; thesame as in our family. Since I had a sister named Earline thatwas born when I was six years old. I was the only child oldenough to help Dad plow and plant our first years crop.

I remember dad told me to get some new plow lineswhen I got out of school at the store in Center Hill that was twomiles from where we lived. Since he was planting corn andneeded them for the mile, I would be using. I forgot to get them

and Dad was very angry.The bus I was riding had to go to a dead end road about amile below where we lived. I t would return the same route backby the store. Dad said, you catch the bus, get the lines and youhad better be back in fifteen minutes. Knowing how angry dadwas, I ran the two miles back to the field. We then planted asmall field of corn. We had about a fifteen acre cotton allotment,the amount you could have on this farm. We also raised about

fifteen or twenty acres of corn plus about five acres of hay.Cotton was the cash crop. Our farm had two forty tracts. One ofthem had the blue water creek on the south border. The creek inmost area was thirty to forty feet wide. On days when we didnthave to work on the farm, I would go fishing on the creek. It hadplenty of brim, blue and yellow cat, also some good bass andbuffalo fish. I caught some good strings of fish nearly every timeI would go.

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CHAPTER ONE

During these times I would occasionally ride my bicycleto a night basketball game at Greenhill School. It was seven

miles from our house to the school. I had reflectors on the backand used a flashlight for the front when going home at night.

I remember one night I decided to try and get a head ofthe cars going the same road I was traveling. I was amazed that Iwent about three miles before the first car passed me. It makes alot of difference being young and strong from working all day inthe fields.

Another time when riding the bus to Lexington, it was inthe winter time and that afternoon rain started freezing on thehighway. We stared home on the bus; there was a steep hill atCenter Hill. We started up the hill and got within a hundredyards of the top when the bus stopped still just setting there notmoving. The bus driver was afraid it might start to slide backdown hill which was about of a mile to the bottom and about a20 foot fill on the right side of the road that if the bus went off

would turn over. He had us get off. A few of the boys got to theside and pushed on the bus. It gradually started to move forwardand made it over the hill although some of us was still shaken upa little.

A little while ago I spoke about going fishing on the BlueWater Creek. There was a large hole of water that was about sixor eight feet deep. Several people had fished there and caughtblue catfish weighing about four or five pounds. I was there to

fish one Saturday. There was a large rock that stood out aboutfour feet from the bank over the creek. I was sitting on this rockfishing when I got a tremendous tug on the pole I was fishingwith. I raised my pole very quickly, but I didnt have anythingon my line. I put my line back in the water. The same thinghappened three more times with the same results with no fish onthe line; making me wonder what I was doing wrong. I had beenfishing on this creek dozens of times and never had this to

happen before. I thought a few minutes what I might dodifferent. It came to me that maybe I should go side ways insteadof upwards.

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When I did this to my surprise, I caught the fish. It was alarge white buffalo fish; I carried it home and put it in a wash

tub. Its tail would turn up in the tub because it was about threefeet long. I didnt weigh it but people that saw it said it wouldweigh fifteen or twenty pounds. That was the largest fish I hadcaught at that time of my life.

In the summer across the creek from where I fished was acow pasture. Some of the men and boys in the communitywanted to play some baseball. Since we didnt have a ball field,we decided to play in the pasture. The problem we had was therewere rocks as big as your fists and the cows had left a few baseswe didnt need. So if you went sliding into a base you had bettermake sure you were going to the right one. By the way, after thatgame, we decided we didnt want to play in the cows pastureanymore.

During the summer, I had ridden my bicycle to visit mycousins that live in the community called Springfield. It was six

or seven miles to where they lived. That evening, my uncleSolon told my cousins to take the horses to a creek to waterthem, since the lot they were in didnt have water. One of mycousins told me to get on the horse he was riding behind him.The lot had an opening in the fence with the post staggered at anangle. You could ride a horse through it going in the lot with theright angle.

The problem was you had to be careful not let your legsget caught by the posts. My cousin knew this but he didnt tellme. The cousin pulled his legs up so as not to hit the post. Thehorse was going in a gallop. So not knowing this I didnt get mylegs up in time. The post almost dragged me off the horse but Imanaged to stay on barely stopping on the hips of the horse. Nomore would I climb on the horse with him.

One day I was retuning on my bicycle from visiting my

cousins. About one mile from home was a long hill going downa steep incline. Near the end was a sharp curve. Starting downthe hill, my chain came off my bicycle. There was a web wire

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CHAPTER ONE

fence on the outside of the curve going down the hill. This reallyscared me because I was going to fast to jump off and I had no

brakes since a car could only turn this curve doing about thirtymiles per hour. Im sure I was doing about this as I entered thiscurve. Luckily I made it okay, but it took about three hundredfeet dragging my feet on the ground to get stopped. I put thechain back on and rode home.

We had a neighbor that lived on a farm on the backsideof our farm. On e spring, his cattle had gotten out and had gotinto young corn that dad had planted. At this time, the corn wasabout knee high. They had eaten and damaged it a lot. Dad drovethe cattle back to the neighbors house. Do told our neighbors torepair his pasture fence so they wouldnt get out anymore intohis corn. The man had a little dog that acted like it might bite myDad. The man hollered at the dog. Come back here, did he biteyou?, Dad said, no, if he had, I would have cut his head off.What Dad didnt know was that this was what the man had

named the dog.One school day I asked Dad if I could come stay overafter school was out to see a basketball game that night atLexington School. Several other boys and I played softball onthe field at school until close to the time for the game. I knewthat some parents of the children that had transferred fromGreenhill would go back by Center Hill and I could ride withthem to Center Hill and walk the two miles from there to my

house. What I didnt know was it would be the darkest night thatI had ever seen. If when they let me out, I hadnt seen the roadfrom their lights to get started on the road, I really would havebeen in trouble. It was so dark you couldnt see your hands outin front of you. The only way you could stay in the road was tohold your arms out in order to feel the bushes near the ditch lineson either side of the road. The ditches were not very deep so youdidnt have to worry about stepping in a large ditch. It was about

two miles to our house. The only way I would know when I wasgetting close to home was there was a sharp curve before gettingto the house and I kept getting in the ditch on the right until the

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curve straighten out. I was from there about 150 yards to ourhouse. There was no ditch in front of our house. I stayed in the

left ditch line until it ran out. I knew then I had come to whereour house sits. I turned left and walked not seeing the house untilmy knees struck the front porch. Boy was I thrilled to knowthrough the dark I had finally gotten home. I made sure that afterthis, I had some kind of light with me at night.

During the time I attended the Greenhill School, a groupof students wanted to start a bluegrass band. Three of the boyslast names were parker. Two were brothers, the other was theircousin. Anothers last name was Clemons and then there wasme. One of the Parkers played a mandolin, the other two playedguitars. The Clemons played the fiddle and I played the bass. We played at chapel programs at the Greenhill School. Wecontinued to practice for about one year. We then got a programon the radio station at Florence, Alabama. The program was forthirty minutes on Saturdays.

One Saturday, as we were on our way to the station, Mr.Clemons was driving the car we were riding in. The car was anA model. It had cross springs. At a street, we had to make asharp right turn. As we turned, the springs shifted catching thefront wheels so that he couldnt straighten the wheel up causingthe car to jump the curb going in the edge of the field. Some ofus were hit by musical instruments in the back of our heads, butalthough it shook us up, none of us were hurt.

We were very careful from then on when we went on our way tothe station. We played on this station until we were finishinghigh school.

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CHAPTER ONE

3CHAPTER

While we were playing on this station, it brought aboutthe means of me meeting and eventually marriage of the girl thatbecame my wife. One Saturday on our program, since I waschosen to be the speaker for our group, I was reading the requestfor different songs and the names of the ones that made therequest. I noticed that when I had gotten home, I had skipped

one of the requests. This troubled me, so I sit down and wrotethis young lady a letter apologizing that I missed her request. Aweek later, I got a letter from her.

We wrote to each other a few times. I then got a letterfrom her telling me they were having a home coming at PineyGrove Church where a lot of her people were buried. She saidthat she would like to meet me and to go with her to thedecoration. She told me how to get to her grandmothers house.And her brother would meet me there and shower where theylived. It was called the Cummins Hollow. This was about May1949. After finishing school, we started going steady and Iwould borrow Dads car about every two weeks to go toCollinwood, Tennessee where she lived with her parents.

One Sunday, as I was on my way up there between IronCity, Tennessee and Collinwood, it was about 8:30 in the

morning, when I came upon a man laying in the road. Thiscaused me to be scared. He had been run over by a car. I got outof the car and cautiously walked to him. He was asleep. I shookhim until he woke. He seemed to be somewhat intoxicated. I

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talked him to get him over to the side of the road, so he wouldntget run over. I couldnt get him to let me carry him home, so I

left him there. When I came back that afternoon, he was gone. Inever saw or heard of him again. The girl that later became mywife was Patsy Cummins. She had one sister named Marie andbrotherss Hoyt, Roy, Johnny and Prince Jr. and Tommy.

Patsy and I continued to go together until the last ofAugust 1949. We had planned to get married several monthslater: About a week before September. Her family were going toMO to pick cotton. She said she had rather go ahead and marrybefore they left. I dont think she wanted to go to MO and pickcotton. We then set the date of September 9th, 1949 to bemarried. At that time if you didnt want to wait several days forblood test and marriage licenses, you could go to Mississippi andget married on the same day. I had a close friend that him andhis girlfriend were going to Iuka to get married, so we went withthem and married at the same time.

The funny thing was that there were several magistrates,with each on of them wanting to perform the ceremony. Theyfinally agreed on which one to do the honors. At this time, thiswas a common thing because most couples were not able to havea fancy wedding. We came home and lived with her parents Mr.and Mrs. Prince Cummins. We lived with them for severalmonths until we found a house to rent. During this time, I helpedMr. Cummins and his sons make billets from hickory timber

used to make handles to go in hammers. We would cut thetimber into logs and haul them to tan open shed. This shed had atin roof on it and tin on all sides but the front was open.

We would cut the logs into about sixteen inchblocks and then with a mall and chisel split them into stickslarge enough to make ha handle for a hammer. We would on agood week, make three or four thousand billets. It usually takesabout two days to cut and haul enough timber to work five days

making the billets. At this time (of 1949) a thousand billetswould bring forty dollars a thousand. I remember this was in thefall and winter, part time. One morning we went to cut some

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timber. The ground had snow and frozen rain on it. One of Mr.Cummins sons laid the ax down and it was on a hill side and it

slid all the way to the bottom of the hill. This is the only time wetired to cut timber in this kind of weather.

I guess by the time youve read this far about my life,you have decided, Im a very humorous person. I guess I getsome of this from my father. I remember one morning when Iwas about ten years old. I came into the living room where dadwas listening to Lum and Abner. There was tears streamingdown his cheeks with laughter. I asked him what was so funny.He said, Abner had gotten up that morning. Abner came in theliving room where Lum was, all bent over. Lum said, whatswrong with you? Abner answered, Lord I dont know, I cantstraighten up, I dont know if Ill ever be able to see the sunriseand set again. Lum got up to check on him to see what waswrong. He found that Abner had put his long handle underwearon backwards. He had the arms on his legs and the legs on his

arms with the straddle on his neck. Lum helped him get it right.So this I guess is the reason I like a little humor. I thinkwe should be happy and enjoy life although we go through a lotof trouble in life, but there is also a lot of good times.

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4CHAPTER

Getting back where I left off about my life at this time.We found a little house to rent. It had a bedroom, living roomand a small kitchen. But it didnt have electricity. We had somefurniture that our families and other shad given us. This includeda wood heater, wood cook stove, bed, table & chairs and other

items that we needed to start house keeping. A few monthsbefore we moved, my wife gave birth to our first daughter. Sheweighed about eight pounds. We had gone down to Patsys dadand mothers house that day. It was about 1:00 a.m. that nightwhen she went into labor. Since we didnt have a hospital inCollinwood and most of us called a local town doctor to do thedelivery; most of us not having medical insurance couldntafford to go to the hospital.

I was very nervous, since this was something I had neverexperienced. At about 4:00 a.m. the baby still hadnt been born.My wife was having tremendous pain. Several months beforethis, my wife and I attended a revival at a local Church. Webecame Christians and accepted Christ into our lives knowingwe had a child soon to be born. I know needed guidance to raiseour child the right way.

Since the baby hadnt arrived by 4:00 a.m., I decided togo out behind a small smoke house behind the main house. Thiswas a time I felt the need of my Lord. So I knelt and beg myLord for help.

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I will never forget this experience. As I got up from myprayer, it seemed the skies lit up. When I stepped on the back

porch, I heard the cry of that little daughter. My heart leapedwith joy for my prayer had been answered.

As I guess you can realize she became my pride and joy,but I guess I spoiled her as a lot of the first born are. We took herhome being proud parents and loving her as a precious little doll.I got a job with Lee Moser, working at the saw mill and cuttingtimber. It was in the beginning of spring. That winter before itcame a bad ice storm, breaking and damaging a lot of timber.We were cutting any timber that could be used for lumber, evenif it was only one 2x4.

Sometimes you got 1x2x4 when it sawed out you hadtwo slabs and two strips when it was run through the edger. Itwas very hard to keep them out of the way. When we started,Mr. Moser only had one man on it. One of the men carrying theslabs bet Mr. Moser that he couldnt carry them out one day, that

he would give Mr. Moser back his weeks pay check. Mr. Mosertook the bet and the next day started carrying the slabs and threwthem over the end of the stack. Youve never seen such a mess,he had them scattered off the side and everywhere he could putthem. At noon after we ate, he quit and put two men on carryingthem. I worked there until March. After this a good friend ofmine, Hobard Risner helped me get a job at Genesco Shoe Plantin Waynesboro, Tennessee. During this time my little girl was

growing like a weed and we were so proud of her. One week as Iwas working at the shoe plant and she was nearly six monthsold. She had bronchitis and we were afraid she would getstrangled when coughing, so we left the lamp burning. We didthis for several nights.

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At this time our little girl name Oleta Marie was sixmonths old. When she had gotten over the bronchial trouble, she

would play and not want to go to sleep. When we would turn thelamp off she would cry and scream until we turned it back on.Then she would start playing as if it was daylight. Sometimesaround twelve or one oclock, she would get drowsy and go tosleep.

The problem was I was having to get up at 4:30 to getready to go to work and wasnt getting enough sleep. After twoor three nights of this, I had to do something to break her fromthis habit. I was aggravated and I had never scolded her. She hada thick cloth diaper on, so I spanked her lightly one time andsaid to her in a harsh voice, hush. After sobbing a while, shehushed and went to sleep. We never heard a peep out of herwhen we turned the lights out after this. My mother-in-law saidshe was too young to be corrected. I told her if she knew to cryfor the light, she also knew not to cry for it when she was

corrected. At this time, she for her age learned fast.Her little legs grew strong and I would stand her in myhands by her feet. She would stand with her arms spread forbalance. I would keep my left hand out behind her in case shewould lose her balance. I never once had to catch her. Shecontinued to grow and before she was a year old she waswalking and going all over the house.

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CHAPTER ONE

5CHAPTER

Ill tell you more about my little girl later, but first Iwant to tell you about an adventure I had one morning as I wasgoing to work. I rode to work with Mr. Earl Butler and severalother riders. It was winter time and in 1951 was worse thanusual. We were about halfway to Waynesboro when the 1940Ford of Mr. Butlers started freezing up. Mr. Butler couldntbelieve it. He said his radiator only held two gallons and he had

one gallon of antifreeze in it and it shouldnt freeze. He put asack over it and let it run idle for a while. It thawed out and withthe sack left over it, we made it to work. What we didnt realizewas that it was twenty degrees below zero and it was the coldestplace in the United States according to the U.S. weather report.To my knowledge, it has never been this cold here again. Also, Ibelieve a couple of years later, we had the largest snow that Ihave ever seen. I measured it and it was seventeen inches. Icouldnt move my car, the snow would push up over the front ofmy car when I tried to move it. Im glad we havent had anotherone like that again.

Back to my little girl, Oleta. After she begin walking,my wife had items on end tables and shelves and theres whereOleta wanted to get her little hands on them. Some of the itemswere made of glass and we were afraid she would break them

and cut her hands. After the first or second time she had gottenin them I begin to spank her hands and tell her this was a no-no.I did this two or three times and she would go the other way.From then on all I had to say was no-no & she got the message.

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At the church we attended I met

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