Nostalgia meets techno thrills
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I put up a little store before I got
married.space. I was
about 20 years old and I had 30 some dollars and believe I sold a pair
of steers for some 30 some dollars and I put up a store in
daddy's
barn loft. He had the barn down below the road and the road was
just
about level with the door that went in the loft. I done real
good. I
had lard flour, sugar, and stuff like that. I would trade all
week
except on Saturday. My brother had that old 28 Chevrolet truck,
and I
hired him to take me the Hiawassee with my corn. They'd bring
corn in
about all the time. I taking corn and buy my groceries from Frank
Duckworth. I wouldn't get them wholesale-you had to go to
[somewhere]
to get them wholesale. I wouldn't get them wholesale- I couldn't
go
there, but Frank would give me a discount on the groceries. I'd
bring
them back and sell 'em. I hauled in lots of corn that
people traded
to me. I made good money.
Later I box up one end of Mommy's old
long porch
and had my store there. Then I got able to build me one. I
built a
store 8 foot wide and 12 foot long below the road, and a lot of trade
their. Then I rented Frank Korn's house, a big old longhouse out
there. I put a store in one end of it, and I lived in the other
hand.
That's where I live. When we got married. Has been a long
time ago.
I put up at store and I had little money. My brother had a family
and
he ain't have any money. He wanted me to go with him to Clayton
in on
the truck with him, where he could get my money. He was a little
sharper than I was and I did it. Well, it didn't turn out
right. I
couldn't drive and he kept the truck all the time. He had me out
one
day teaching me to drive the truck. [I ran into the bank of the
road]
with it, and that's the last time he let me drive. I swapped in
my
part of the truck for two little steers after that was the first
time
I ever tried to drive.
When I got able, I bought me A-model and Paul Hornsby learnied me how
to drive. He wouldn't get in it with me. He said on the
fender and
told me how to drive. He was afraid I would react. So he
stood on the
fender. He said a bit in their where if I had started to rack, he
could have jerked it back in the road, but he stood on the
fender. I
learned how to drive that a-model. Bracket. [The next thing
we got
was an old 41 Chevrolet truck. I bought it off the county, they
had
already wore it out.]
Read from "Life is Good",
page 365,
Foxfire 9
I'm still all excited about
Dragon ,
but don't quite know what to do with it. I grabbed a book off the
shelf at random and talked a few paragraphs. The Foxfire series, of which that was
an excerpt, is a
real treasure. At one time back in the 70's I had the whole collection,
buying as they came out. Over the years I loaned copies to
friends who
never returned them; I'm left with only 6
volumes. What they are is
this guy Wiggington went down to Appalachia, and in a
continuing
series of interviews set to recording the culture's history.
Alas, here's
what I just discovered.
In 1992, Wigginton
pleaded guilty [1]
to one count of non-aggravated child
molestation of a 10-year-old boy. He received a one-year jail
sentence, and 19 years of probation. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/13/us/foxfire-book-teacher-admits-child-molestation.html
He admitted the molestation rather than face 20 accusers of his
misdeeds. Required to leave the Foxfire project, he moved to Florida.
Wiggington is required to be registered in Florida as a sex offender-Since
then, the Foxfire project has continued under the auspices of the Foxfire Fund
Jesus! Anyway,
Wigginton
certainly didn't record in print that aspect of Appalachian culture, if
indeed the folklore is true. If you want to learn how to make lye
soap, or get rid of tapeworms, bore a rifle barrel, or dance with
snakes, these books are a great resource.
Also, The WPA Folklore
Collection is rife with great first hand stories of olden times.
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