Quilt Pieces Shirley Noe Swiesz I remember once as a child living in the upper Tway Holler, the mountains caught on fire. I was so scared. I thought the world was going to end. I remember looking out the door and crying. It seemed that we were surrounded by fire. I cried because I knew all the wild flowers were gone and the baby animals. The ashes were swirling around and all you could smell was fire. I don’t remember the year but perhaps about 1952. It was very frightening for a child. I cried and cried. Things are very frightening for a child. I am sure the grown-ups knew that the fire would be contained, but to me it was the end of the world…or at least my small world. I didn’t understand grownup things…for instance one little girl friend that I had whose father always stayed in bed. I asked if he was sick and everyone said that he was. One day he stopped by our house and he didn’t seem sick at all to me. It was a long time before I realized that his illness was that he would drink himself into a stupor and lay in his bed in a darkened room. His wife and child would sit outside on the porch. I also remember asking my mama where babies came from…Lord, I must have been about four at the time. I was a nosy child. She told me that the angels brought the babies to the hospital and the mother s got them there. “But I wasn’t born in a hospital!” I told her. How did you find me…finally daddy settled it all. “I sent you home from the war in a radio.” He told me. They had the radio to prove it. I smile now when I think of these things but they were real serious then. I can also remember thinking that I couldn’t wait until I was tall enough to get things out of the cabinet. I would climb up on things and then invariably get into trouble. Once my brothers and sister damned up a little creek and they said they were going to go swimming in it with their clothes on…but I was to go first. I did and got into big trouble…they knew better. It seemed to me that older people always knew what was going on. There was the time that daddy told me if I put salt on a bird’s tail then I could catch it…I tried it and it didn’t work. I remember that Mama told someone and pretty soon everyone knew it and I became the subject of a church service…little children putting their trust in their parents or something like that. I was just thinking of all these things…how we wanted to grown up so badly…someone mentioned catching tadpoles the other day and I remember when I was six and we lived in a holler between Tway and Grays Knob. It was probably a mile to the river and I spent a lot of time in it. Once I went swimming with my brother (My older brother was in the army at this time) and my sister and I was floating on an inner tube and looked at my feet…I was covered with leaches. I screamed so loud you could have heard me in Harlan I guess. But that didn’t stop me from playing in the river. I would catch giant tadpoles, fat little suckers, and carry them home just to have daddy send me back with them. I can’t imagine allowing a six year old go to the river and play for hours by herself, but it seemed pretty normal back then. I remember meeting hobos on the railroad. They would carry their clothes tied on a stick just like we used to see in the old movies. I would try to start a conversation with them but they never talked to me. Once a bunch of teen agers, wild ones, dynamited the river and killed hundreds of fish. They went to court and Mama was a witness, for she had seen them run away, and they said that Mama did it. I don’t remember who the judge was but he laughed at that one…and then sentenced them to jail. It was so sad…all those fish dead. I loved catching baby catfish. They ran in schools, hundreds and hundreds of them. I would catch them and then turn them back. I loved to go fishing with my brother, but I don’t think he enjoyed it much. I didn’t fish, just aggravated. Daddy loved to go fishing, well; I guess I am lying about that. He would go if he was really craving fish and my older brother wasn’t around. Hagert was one of the best fishermen in the County…actually he might have been The Best. Daddy didn’t really care for fishing. He would talk me into catching him some bait, which wasn’t hard for I loved to catch crawfish. I was good at it too; or I would dig some worms. I was pretty good at that too. I would trail after him and aggravate some more. Mama loved to fish but she was always busy. I would play with sticks and stones or pick violets for Mama, but I seldom fished. When I got older I would take a book along and read. One of the most beautiful memories was going fishing with Daddy and there was an old dogwood tree that had fallen down and it still bloomed. There were dogwood blooms all over the place, it seemed. I hope I shall never forget their beauty. I guess it is the simple things that lingers with us long after everyone we have loved in the old days is long dead. I remember how Mary Cox was so frightened of a rain storm that if her husband wasn’t home then she would rush to our house with her little girl. I baby sat that little girl and when she was perhaps in her late forties, I went to see her. Tears ran down her face for that was about all she could do. She had MS and she died a few years ago…that beautiful little girl with the big brown eyes. I remember Mrs. Garrison’s mother, we all called her grandma, who was nearly ninety and it was difficult to understand her some times. She lived in Clay County and it was difficult to understand her sometimes. I realize now that she was probably the first or second generation born in this country and she mixed a lot of her words with words from the old country, probably Scotland or Ireland. This was about 1958 or 1959 and she was probably 88. I loved her and loved to sit with her and talk. She called a house a hise and her words were all mixed up but she was a gentle soul. Every Friday on payday Mrs. Garrison and her husband would go to the grocery store. It was pay day at the mines. Payday was a big day back then and the women would dress up nice and going to Ball Brothers or the A&P was a big deal. Corrine Price always dressed in her best and I would babysit the children. There were three of them at the time…Kathleen, JoAnne, and Ralph Homer, Jr. I was only about twelve at the time. Corrine would visit with her sister, Kathleen and they would have a good time. I had a good time with the kids too. Once we dressed Ralph Jr. up in girl’s clothes and Corrine told us we better get that off of him before his daddy got home. Corrine was a great seamstress and she often sewed for me, making Easter dresses or back to school clothes. The simple things… My first real job, not counting baby sitting or ironing, was working at the Five and Ten cents store in Cumberland for Mrs. Fields. I truly loved it. It was at Christmas time and working there was like working for Santa Claus! I spent most of my money on Christmas gifts. I bought Mama a lamp among other things and I bought Daddy a red flannel shirt and a pair of really nice gloves. He wore them outside and came in a few minutes later and said, ‘they didn’t wear too good!’ he had worn them to pick up coal to sell. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were dress gloves and not to be worn for hard work. I remember going singing with my cousin Stella, up to Granny’s. We would take our song book and sing away. We spent a lot of time at Granny’s. She let us bake and sometimes we would bake as many as 45 or 50 cupcakes in that old wood stove. Holly and Clarence loved for us to bake. Clarence did the cooking and he didn’t know how to make anything like that. He made biscuits in a big ‘pone’. There were always plenty of eggs to bake with. We had to go find them though. The nests were all over the place. I remember once that Mama had a hen out setting away from the house. She worried about her being there, afraid that an animal would get her. Sure enough one night she heard her squawking and went out to find that an animal had nearly killed her. Mama said that some old quarn had nearly killed her. The word quarn was used a lot. “Hit smelled just like quarn!” or “that ain’t worth nothing…hit’s pure old quarn!” I can remember many times when Mama would take a little chick who was weak, to bed with her and keep it against her chest all night so it would stay warm. She loved her chickens. I also remember how Mama and Daddy would order them through the mail. Often they would drop like flies. I would sit and worry over them. Daddy said that I needed to not hold them for I was ‘wooling’ them to death. I can remember my granny, pap, or my uncles asking for some ‘sugar’…sugar being a kiss. Yes, it was the simple things…like looking at the Christmas catalog until it was worn out, or cutting out cutouts from the big Sears and Roebuck catalog or the Montgomery Wards. I can remember styling my house from the Sears catalog…you know if I was ever bored, I never knew it. There was always things to do…going berry picking in the summer, playing in the river, playing with our friends until it was dark and the lightening bugs came out, and then catching a jar full and letting them go, catching June bugs in the summer sun, watching lightening dance across a summer sky or the beauty of a snow covered mountain in the winter, or looking for dry land fish or spring sallet picking with Mama…or picking up coal from the railroad, or gathering walnuts with my brother, in the old sled with a mule pulling it, or sitting on the porch and listening to Daddy tell stories to the neighbors, or going to church at someone’s house, or going to church just before Christmas and getting a big bag filled with fruit, nuts, and candy. I have to say that the best thing for me would be to get a book to read. Sometimes someone would give me one and I would read it until I practically knew it by heart. I devoured books and since they were scarce I bought comic books. They were a dime each and you can bet that any free dime I had went for a comic book. Lordy those were the days…life was simple. Well, you all have a good week and don’t forget to smile at someone and to pray for your enemy. That is hard to do, but you know it might make a difference in this old world. Blessings to you and you can call or write to me any time…
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:39:50 +0000
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