When I was really little, maybe 3 or 4, I got my first pet, a puppy named Pancake. I’m not sure why I named him Pancake, but I did. I was a sensitive child and I remember that one morning my mom asked me if I wanted a pancake for breakfast. I remember crying [...]
I was in a hospital owned by the coal company that my dad worked for. After growing up and trying to see the world and finaling coming back home. I started working in the mine in Harlan County and after a couple of years there I went to the same company where all of my [...]
In the 1980’s everyone got chicken pox. Some children’s parents would even send them to play with kids who had it just to get it over with. My mom was not one of those people. She did her best to keep me and my brother, who was three years younger, from getting in. She was [...]
When I was small in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, my mom used to take me to a pediatrician in Ashland, KY for all of my doctor’s visits. I think that most people just went to a regular family doctor, but we would travel about 45 minutes to the pediatrician’s office. It seems like every [...]
Summer has drawn to a close and the morning air in the hills is crisp. As soon as I finished feeding the chickens I was able to sneak away. The only thing better then a Saturday is one when you can get away from your three brothers and spend the day with your imagination and [...]
My great grandma Lucy (we called her Maw), was a pistol. I think I get some of my stuborness from her. If she got her mind set on something, you might as well accept it. She was very strong in that way. My dad, her grandson, was like a son to her and she treated [...]
I was born in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky to a coal miner and a house wife. The county was poor to say the least and my first sight of anyone that was deemed very important was the president of the United States of America. President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at our county seat [...]
My Papaw Howell died when I was 6. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and only lived a short while. The last time I saw him alive was at school. My dad was taking him to the hospital and he stopped on the playground to say hello to me. It is a moment that I will [...]
My grandparents used to live in a hollow in Martin Co. KY known as Pigeon Roost. They lived in a white house on the hill. My Papaw used to raise chickens. He had a building for them. It was red and had a few tiny doors for the chickens to go in and out of [...]
I was born in 1976 so indoor toilets were the way of life in households. I attended church at Old Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Gay, WV. It was a small, rural church with no indoor plumming (we did get indoor plumming when I was in high school in the 1990’s) The church had [...]