As I said before, I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where we lived until the year that I was to turn six years old. For me, as for many children the age of six ushers in the first grade and learning how to read, write and interact with other children of the same age.
This was a problem for my father who was extremely prejudiced against blacks. My father was always civil to blacks but he made the decision that no child of his would be subjected to having to go to school with blacks, so we moved from Cincinnati, Ohio to the coal mining camps of Harlan County, Kentucky.
I had an aunt and uncle who lived way up on the top of a mountain where there was no way of getting a car up to. At the time we moved there they had eight children; by the time they had their last child they had a total of eleven children.
We had a cabin at the foot of another mountain. The cabin was built in the popular shotgun style with the rooms running in a straight line from one to another. Downstairs, there was a pot bellied stove with a flat topped trunk. This trunk was where any courting was done.
The cabin had a ladder up to the attic where there were wall to wall iron beds, with feather pillows piled up high. I have really fond memories of all of those pillow fights when we were suppose to be going to sleep.
Our bathroom was a log across from one side of the creek to the other. My uncle and my father had hewed the top off and we could walk across; stopping in the middle to use the bathroom. If the water was running in the creek then the bathroom was flushed; or, if the creek was low, our “deposits” stayed during the dry spell.
My oldest cousin and I argued a lot. One day she threatened to shove me off the log and I told her that if I went she would be going with me. Sure enough she tried to push me, I grabbed her and we both went into the dry creek bed with its odorous holding. I tell you what we both stunk to high heaven. We had to carry our water all the way from the branch above to our tubs. Usually the water was allowed to warm up for a bath but, because of our high smell, there was no time for the water to be allowed to warm. Our mothers would pour a bucket of water over our heads, scrub a while, then whip a while, scrub then whip, scrub then whip. Believe me there were no more arguments that took place on the log in the middle of the creek. We settled our arguments way before we got on that log.
There were lots of maple trees in the forest above the coal camp. My father went into the forest placing a drip spout into the maple trees in the early spring. I was allowed to go too. The syrup dripped into our buckets; we would take the syrup home to my mother who would boil the syrup down for us to use. Uncle Cecil had a cow who gave fresh milk. My aunt and my mother would make butter from the fresh cow’s milk. Then my mother would make biscuits that our two families shared. We would slather butter on the biscuits, and then pour the maple syrup over the biscuits too. I wish I could set once more and share one of my mother’s good biscuits, slathered with fresh cow butter and rich with maple syrup with my family.
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