Raisin' Cane in Appalachia

By David Osborne

Author David Osborne has brought to life the difficult experiences and carefree joys of growing up in Appalachia. The family consisted of thirteen children plus Mom and Dad, and they lived on the old home place that the family referred to simply as The Holler. The children worked tirelessly alongside their father, Steve, and mother, Thelma, to coaxor perhaps forcea living from the hills and the small amount of level land that they called a farm. We all had full-time, yearlong jobs, Osborne remembers. The kinds of work that we did often varied from season to season, but the work itself was always there.

Osbornes ancestors, having come from Southwest Virginia through Pike County, Kentucky, and settling in Southern Ohio, always lived a difficult life. There was hunting and fishing, hog killing, cane grinding, and plowing the rocky land to raise a garden. His grandfather was always full of hair-raising stories and tall tales that would curl your toes. He knew that all his ancestors were not thoroughbreds, and he also knew that some could have been considered nags, so he knew that the tall tales were not far from the truth.

Life was not always about work because above all, there were the children and their attempts to have fun. Through their relentless efforts by the rambunctious, irrepressible, and in many cases, irresponsible children to amuse themselves, they played as hard as they worked. They survived in spite of everything life could throw against them.

These were simpler times when the family grew up. There were no phones or television sets in the house. They had no electricity or running water, therefore making the outhouse a significant part of their lives.

Those that grew up during this time will remember and may linger a moment to compare their lives with the events and situations in this book. Some may tend to look back fondly at the memories, but just keep in mind that there were many memories that we all would just as soon forget

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466988330

Book preview

RAISIN’

Cane

IN APPALACHIA

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DAVID OSBORNE

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©

Copyright 2013 David Osborne.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-8834-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-8832-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-8833-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013905890

Trafford rev. 04/17/2013

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Disclaimer

Prologue

Chapter One:   Can You Ever Go Home Again?

Chapter Two:   Pound, Virginia

Chapter Three:   I Can’t Tell You That

Chapter Four:   The Hills and Valleys of Appalachia

Chapter Five:   The English Ancestors

Chapter Six:   Ancestors in the New World

Chapter Seven:   Road Trip to Grayson, Virginia

Chapter Eight:   Osborne’s in and Around Grayson County, Virginia

Chapter Nine:   Pike County, Kentucky

Chapter Ten:   Osborne’s in Kentucky

Chapter Eleven:   Grandpa and Grandma Osborne

Chapter Twelve:   Mom and Dad

Chapter Thirteen:   Brothers and Sisters

Chapter Fourteen:   Scioto County, Ohio

Chapter Fifteen:   Geography of Scioto County

Chapter Sixteen:   Pond Creek

Chapter Seventeen:   This Ole House

Chapter Eighteen:   The Other House

Chapter Nineteen:   Living Conditions

Chapter Twenty:   A Typical Day in the Life

Chapter Twenty-one:   Union Elementary School

Chapter Twenty-two:   Northwest High School

Chapter Twenty-three:   Football Comes to Northwest

Chapter Twenty-four:   Northwest High School Class of 1961

Chapter Twenty-five:   Work

Chapter Twenty-six:   Feeding the Family

Chapter Twenty-seven:   Hunting and Gathering

Chapter Twenty-eight:   Farming

Chapter Twenty-nine:   Entertainment

Chapter Thirty:   Cowboys

Chapter Thirty-one:   The Hokiest Country Songs

Chapter Thirty-two:   Music, Movie and Radio Personalities

Chapter Thirty-three:   Television in Appalachia

Chapter Thirty-four:   Scioto Breeze Drive-In

Chapter Thirty-five:   Politics

Chapter Thirty-six:   Religion

Chapter Thirty-seven:   Medicine

Chapter Thirty-eight:   Moonshine

Chapter Thirty-nine:   Sports

Chapter Forty:   Pop’s Shenanigans

Chapter Forty-one:   Advertising

Chapter Forty-two:   Christmas

Chapter Forty-three:   The Good Ole Days

Chapter Forty-four:   The Unexplained

Chapter Forty-five:   Catch Phrases

Chapter Forty-six:   Appalachian Comfort Food

Chapter Forty-seven:   Appalachian Humor and Wisdom

Chapter Forty-eight:   Appalachian English (Translations)

Chapter Forty-nine:   I Remember

Chapter Fifty:   Burma Shave Commercials

Chapter Fifty-one:   Knock-Knock Jokes

Chapter Fifty-two:   Redneck Quotes and Jokes

Chapter Fifty-three:   Signs that You are Getting Old

Chapter Fifty-four:   Letters I Wish I had Written

Chapter Fifty-five:   An Appalachian Love Story!

Chapter Fifty-six:   The Osborne Family Tree

Epilogue

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FOREWORD

F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, in 1940 his writing career was cut short when he died at the age of forty-four. I am not an authority on Fitzgerald but I do remember one of his quotes, You do not write because you want to write something; you write because you have something to say.

I hope that I have something important enough to say that others will learn from or just enjoy reading. If either of these happens, then I will consider this work important enough for me to have written it.

It has been many, many years since my ancestors first touched and helped to settle the United States of America. During my research, I have been able to obtain much information on the family but exact dates are difficult to come by. However, there is information suggesting that my ancestors were in the country as far back as 1620. That date may not be exactly accurate but it can be used as a guideline. In addition, if that date were accurate it would indicate that my ancestors have been in the country for close to 400 years. Unfortunately, even though the Gutenberg printing press had been invented, and books and pamphlets were widely used, the rural areas of Appalachia did not use them very much because many of those folks could not read. In addition, of course during that period, record keeping wasn’t the most important thing in the lives of Appalachian folks.

Therefore, I am not claiming that everything in this writing is true nor is it a pure historical document. In fact, some folks may consider some of the stories legends; maybe so, but, H. L. Mencken, American Humorist states, a legend is simply a lie that has attained the dignity of age. Therefore, I am not considering the work in this book a legend or a historical document or a lie.

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DISCLAIMER

When I started writing the first book, ‘Appalachian Childhood’, I added a disclaimer in the book about truth, fiction, exaggerations, innuendos, etc. I have actually found that part of the book was not only fiction but it disturbed some relatives and created questions from others. At this time, I want to clarify some of the inaccuracies or fiction, and I apologize deeply if anyone was or will be offended. Again, keep in mind that the past book and this current book are mostly made up of memories from my childhood and stories that I heard from friends and relatives. These events took place many years ago, and the memories of those involved may be different from mine.

One of the things that I talked about in the first book was a city or town in Kentucky called Kingdom Come. I had heard that name, and I mentioned it as one of the unusual names in the state. After doing some further research, I cannot find a city or town by that name anywhere in Kentucky. I did find a Kingdom Come Parkway that is located in the eastern part of the state. I also found a Kingdom Come State Park and a Kingdom Come Elementary School but no town. The Kingdom Come State Park is part of Pine Mountain near Cumberland, Ky. The story goes that it was named after a Civil War novel called The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, by John Fox Jr. Because of my search, I am therefore recanting that name unless someone can assure me that it actually existed.

I also related a story about the time our family lived in a building on the property that belonged to my Aunt Flossie and Uncle George Burke. While we lived there, some of the members of our family came down with the measles. One of the comments that I made in jest was that this was probably why they suggested that we move out. I got some feedback from my cousin that chastised me by even making that comment, and again, I apologize for that comment. Aunt Flossie and Uncle George were always great to all of us, and they never would have suggested we move out. The family moved many times, and I never really knew why they moved. I do know that none of my relatives would have forced us to move.

Another story that I told was about Uncle Newton. One of the comments I made was that his death might have been a result of alcohol. I wrote based upon stories that I heard as a child, and I certainly had no proof that it happened. I should not have put it in the book, and I deeply apologize for making that comment. It was thoughtless and insensitive, and I should have known better.

In addition, I made a mistake with the date of Uncle Newton’s death. I reported that he died in 1955, when actually he died in 1960 in a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Upon his death, he was transported back to Pond Creek and buried on the hill in the Swords Cemetery, which is just a short way into the Shawnee State Forest.

I also reported that the Osborns moved to Pond Creek from Kentucky in 1932. Actually, they moved to Greenup, Kentucky in 1932 and moved to Pond Creek in 1940.

I reckon that the biggest mistake was my mother’s birth date. I reported it as January 18 when it was actually January 17. This was not a fault of my young or old memory; it was just poor editing on my part.

I hope that I did not make many more mistakes, but if I did, I am apologizing for those also, in advance.

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PROLOGUE

Tom T. Hall was born in 1936 and raised in Olive Hill, Kentucky not far from where my family lived in Scioto County, Ohio. Hall is considered one of the most famous songwriters in country music and a legend in his field. Because of his outstanding writings, he is nicknamed The Story Teller. He is not only famous for the many ballads that he has written and performed, but for the songs that he has written for other performers. The list is too long to mention in entirety, but it includes Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Bobby Bare, Alan Jackson and the smash hit by Jeannie C. Riley called Harper Valley PTA that sold over six million records during the late 1960’s.

I enjoy classic country music because normally the songs tell a story about someone, some thing, or some event. In addition, I enjoy them because I can hear and understand the words. Anyhow, one of Tom T. Hall’s songs that I can really relate to is titled, Back When Gas was Thirty Cents a Gallon ([e-mail]). One would have to be of a certain age to remember thirty cents a gallon gas, and I happen to be one of those. Anyway, the song begins as follows:

I was so in love, strong, and brave

Back when gas was thirty cents a gallon

And love was only sixty cents away.

I remember when gas was less than thirty cents a gallon, and of course I remember when I was first so in love, and gas was thirty cents times twenty miles, (that is, even if I could get a car to get where I wanted to go: a farm house located between the villages of Otway and Rarden, Ohio).

Well, that was a good song; another I can also relate to is one called Me and Jimmie Rogers. Shel Silverstein wrote the song and several people, including country music legends Ray Price and Bobby Bare, recorded the song. Bare was born in Ironton, Ohio, twenty or so miles from Portsmouth, Ohio.

This song echoed my childhood and many others during that time, because I was always thinking or daydreaming about the actors, ball players and others that I considered heroes. I love to put myself in the shoes of the cowboy, the ball player, or the war hero. The lyrics to this song go like this:

Me and Jimmie Rodgers used to ride them

Rollin’ boxcars in the summertime.

Jimmie, he’d play his guitar, I’d lay back

And watch the stars and sip my wine.

The song goes on a few more stanzas, but I am sure that you get the message. Now I am sure that many of you will not remember the original Jimmie Rogers (not to be confused with the pop singer Jimmie Rodgers), because he lived and sang during the early years of the great depression. However, for you country music lovers, Jimmie is considered by many to be the Father of Country Music. Unfortunately, he died in 1933 at the age of thirty-five.

By the way, Audie Murphy, who is mentioned in the song, was one of the most decorated war heroes in American history. Later he became an actor starring in several westerns and some war pictures, most notably To Hell and Back, his biography.

Phil Rizzuto, also known as The Scooter, was an outstanding shortstop for the New York Yankees. His thirteen year career spanned from 1941-1956 with two years out of baseball while serving in the United States Navy during World War II. His prowess turning the double play was legendary. Just a side light, on the road, Rizzuto roomed with the great Joe DiMaggio the Yankee center fielder. When DiMaggio decided to marry Marilyn Monroe, a reporter asked Yogi Berra if he thought that the marriage was good for baseball. Yogi quipped, I do not know if it is good for baseball, but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto. Yogi is famous for his inaccurate quips, but I believe that he nailed this one.

Everyone that is or was a football fan knows about the coach from the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi. He was a hard-nosed coach who expected his players to be the same. No doubt, he was part of the reason that the team won championships on a consistent basis.

John Wayne was one of my heroes even though he never served in the military. As an actor, he fought more wars than anyone could imagine. He always did it with flair and style.

Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the best boxers that ever existed. He fought in four divisions: lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, and light heavyweight. He had 131 fights as an amateur (winning 128) and had another 200 professional fights. As a professional he had 173 wins, 19 loses, 6 draws, and 2 no contests.

Coop, referred to in the next stanza is for Gary Cooper and the movie High Noon. This movie is considered by many to be the best western movie ever filmed.

Betty Grable, singer and actor, was considered the top pin-up girl of World War ll. It is reported that her legs were so important to her and the studio that they were insured for a million dollars with Lloyd’s of London. Of course, many people (especially men) paid good money to see her and her million dollar gams.

Living in the past can spell disaster, but remembering the past allows one to look back at the journey that we call life as we lived it. Even if we do not recall all of the events correctly, that is okay, no harm done. For most of us, when we are looking back, we tend to remember the good things and forget the bad things that happened to us. I suspect that the people that are stuck with the bad memories of the past are the ones that have problems living in the present.

I used to say; when I grow up, I am not going to make a living plowing a field with a mule or hoeing corn. I am not going to cut tobacco and hang it in a barn. I am not going to chop sugar cane in order to make molasses. I am not going to cut wood for a wood stove for cooking or heating. During the times when you get a break from the hard work that we had to do, we could plan our lives. I dare say that the ideas in the previous song are much more appealing than what we had to do day after day.

For many of the kids I knew, the ideas in this song were not just fantasy—they were options. Should I be a professional baseball player like Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio, or should I fight the Krauts and/or the Japs like Audie Murphy and come home a war hero? If that did not pan out should I use my fists like boxer Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson? If all else failed I could be an actor like John Wayne, Rock Hudson, or Kirk Douglas. They were famous, did not have to endure danger, or work behind a plow pulled by a mule. They did good deeds and, of course, always got the girl. It might not have been Betty Grable, but there were plenty of others, including Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Lana Turner (The Sweater Girl), and more.

Like other kids during the fifties, our family seldom traveled any distance from home. We had to dream big to get to places like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, or any other cities in the United States.

Personally, I had no idea that I would travel to all of the states in the United States plus several locations in Europe. We were so sheltered that our only option was daydreaming about places and other people’s lives. I always thought that if I was going to daydream I might as well dream about someone or something that is important, have fun, and make money at the same time.

Although the previous paragraphs talk about fiction, this book about my childhood is not fiction. It is about my ancestors, friends, enemies, and acquaintances. It is about remembering the way it was, or at least the way it was to me. It includes names, events, and places that I remember. I cannot prove all of the things in the book, and it is not my intention to try to do so. Keep in mind that many of the people that lived out their lives with me have passed on. Unfortunately, in terms of my ancestry, there is very little history recorded for me to use as a resource, so in addition to what I could remember, I tried to use whatever methods I had at my disposal to learn as much as I could about the family.

In order to ensure that the information is as correct as possible I have spent many hours using people, documents, places, and events to gather material. The research includes several of what I call road trips, to places associated with my ancestors. Some proved to be informative, others not so much, but in all cases I enjoyed the search.

At the beginning of each chapter, I have tried to come up with an appropriate quote for the topic. Some of the quotes are from famous people and others are from infamous people. Still others are people that very few people have ever heard of. My hope that even if you do not enjoy the quotes, and you do not remember the authors, you will at least think that I am intelligent because I can quote them.

From this comment, you should understand that I do have a good sense of humor!

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CHAPTER ONE

CAN YOU EVER GO

HOME AGAIN?

Memory is like the Fountain of Youth.

—Anonymous

In the late 1930’s, Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel called You Can’t Go Home Again. The popular phrase by the same name became a general statement in society meaning that if you leave your county, state, local area, or even country, you cannot go back without being considered a failure. Of course, there is more in that novel than meets the eye. The novel tells about a man named George Webber, a beginning writer that writes about his hometown of Libya Hill. Unfortunately, what the man wrote was so distorted that the people were extremely unhappy with him and his book. Some were so unhappy about the contents of the book that they took to writing menacing letters and death threats to the author.

George Webber could not go home because he was disliked immensely and felt threatened by the same folks about whom he wrote. Of course, in this book I do not intend to write such distortions so maybe I will be able to go home again. In addition, since most people in my hometown will not know that I am alive, I will not feel threatened. Moreover, I am already retired, so I do not have a need to impress anyone.

Anyway, when the question is asked, Can you ever go home again? most folks may suggest, well of course not. That is the easy answer, but let me suggest that the answer may be more complex, especially if you consider the true meaning of the question. Certainly, one cannot go back to his childhood because of his age and the fact that things change from year to year or even week to week. People and pets die, houses are torn down, friends and neighbors move away, roads and highways change and at some point, it is even difficult to recognize the old home place. Those things happened to me. There is no sign of the two houses that I lived in as a kid. However, going home again in triumph rather than failure is certainly possible if you can use your imagination.

Our mind is a wonderful thing. It allows us to drift back to any place or any time, just like a time machine. It allows us to remember the old days. It even allows us to change history, at least our own personal memories of history. The worst events in our lives can be tempered by time and imagination. Often times our memory allows us to remember clearly the good times and to blot out or alter the bad times. Does that not mean that we can go home again?

Consider my own situation; the old four-room shack that I lived in as a child could be romanticized because of a wonderful mother and a large and happy family. It could also be defined as good times with young children playing around the house, or under the house in our case, in a creek near by, or one of the many local mud puddles or swimming holes.

I dare say, not everything about my childhood was fun. When I got old enough to work, the days were filled with difficult chores. However, it was not just about the hard work, it was also the lack of conveniences. I think about the old outhouse (toilet) that we had to use as children. On cold and snowy winter nights, the distance from the house always seemed extremely far away. I can still picture that old building made of coarse slab wood with cracks in the walls and floors that invited the snakes and insects to come in.

Yes, I remember I had to visit the outhouse before anything else in the morning. In fact, I had several things to do before going to school. Waking up before six o’clock in the morning, I had to milk the cows, slop the pigs, and feed the mules. If that was not enough, I had to go to the well for water and to the woodpile to carry in wood for the kitchen stove and the big heating stove in the living room. Then I had to change into my best-worst clothes and head off for the school bus, and hope I did not miss it.

As an adult though, none of these chores seem as difficult and inconvenient as they did when I was a kid. After working for years in different jobs, different locations, and in different situations, those chores appear to be a piece of cake.

We all have heard folks say ‘bring back the good old days.’ I say forget it! No one in his or her right mind would want to go back to that place, at least permanently. However, I am sure that many of us may want to go back, if only for a short time for a brief glimpse of what our childhood looked like. Moreover, keep in mind that for most of us, this brief childhood period helped to create the adults that we became. No matter how old we are, or how many years we live, those years were our foundation, good or bad.

Now my earliest memories are of living in a holler some ways from a gravel road called Pond Creek. Pond Creek Road, a rural route, was several miles from town and, in the early years, were several miles from blacktopped roads. I remember when the big yellow Scioto County trucks came through to grade, level the gravel road, and spread the black tar. No more mud holes in the road and no gravel that hurt your bare feet when walking! Nevertheless, even a brand new road still had some drawbacks, if you did not have shoes.

Since we often had no shoes to wear during the summer, going barefoot was the norm around our house. Nowadays many folks go bare-footed because it is fashionable, but I can assure you that fashionable had nothing to do with why we went bare-footed. Anyway, I can still feel the hot tar, especially in July and August when the temperature was the hottest. The tar would bubble up and would get so hot that it would blister the bottom of our feet.

The black top road was not all bad, and you may not know this, but some folks rolled up the tar and chewed it as gum. Wow! I was never into that but I do know that it happened.

I do not remember when I learned to spell the name Scioto. I guess that I never really knew what living in a county meant until those big trucks came through with the name of the county on them. It did hit home later on during the sixth or seventh grade of school when my classmates and I had to memorize the map of Ohio; it was then that I realized that the state of Ohio had eighty-eight counties, and Scioto was just a small chunk of the state. The class’s job was to memorize the names and locations of all of those counties. It was a chore for most students, but I loved history and geography, so it was a pleasant task for me.

As children, we were very much sheltered from the outside world. While I was learning the counties and their locations, I had no idea that in the future I would eventually visit all of the counties in Ohio and several foreign countries; especially since during my first seventeen years I went practically nowhere. Now this may not be a big deal for many outsiders, but many folks in Scioto County and other Appalachian regions never even visited other places much less lived outside the Appalachian region. It was, and still is, not unusual to find families that were born, lived, and died in the same small area of Appalachia.

We were not among those families that lived our entire lives in the same house. We moved several times from Ohio to Kentucky and back but those moves were early on before I was six years old. Unfortunately, I have very few memories of those times. From the time I was about six until I graduated from high school, we lived in only two houses. The original house was in a holler (hollow for you discerning folks). The distance of the holler from the road was about a quarter mile in length, and our house stood at the head of the holler.

If you are not familiar, a holler is a narrow little valley with a creek running along the bottom of it. The creek was also called a branch. The one we lived in was deep and narrow, and we spent many years trying to widen it so that cars and trucks could get up to the house. Unfortunately, it never worked very well. Some time later, Dad hired Don Pertuset to grade a road along the hillside so Dad could get his car up to the house. The down side to that was it took away part of the garden.

I do not know exactly how old I was when we moved out of the hollow, but I was probably about eleven. Grandpa and Grandma decided to move thirty miles away to Waverly, Ohio, and live there. When they moved, we moved into the big house on the main road. This, to us, was just like the Jefferson’s television show, where we were moving on up or down out of the hollow. There would be no more walking up the hollow, carrying things, driving the mules, or hauling stuff in a sled or a wagon. We could walk on gravel and blacktop without getting mud on our feet. We could see the school bus in the morning from our front porch rather than hoping that we got to the bus turn-around before it left us. Unfortunately, that luxury was not to last.

One day Dad announced that we had to pack up and move back up into the holler. It seemed that the grandparents decided to move back to Pond Creek. Having spent some time at the house where the grandparents had moved to, I for one could not understand why in the world anyone would want to return to Pond Creek when they had finally gotten away. Anyway, we put all of our meager belongings on a sled pulled by a mule and carried them back up in the holler. What we could not put on the sled, we carried on our backs. We moved in November, and it snowed several inches while we were moving. As far as I remember this was the worst snowstorm that we ever had in southern Ohio. Remember, the road was a creek bed that flooded constantly and froze during the winter, and it was very seldom in shape for automobile traffic anyway.

When I talk about being sheltered from the outside world, it was not just being far from town or civilization. We had no television, phone, running water or electricity at the house. We were not on any bus routes to get anywhere other than to school. Probably even more important was that we had very few friends or neighbors for miles around in any direction, except for our cousins, who lived a hundred yards or so down the road. Hills and valleys isolated us from the outside world.

To sum up my early years, I was born, grew up, worked at home and in the fields, went to school, and dropped out of college. In 1961, I got a job in Columbus and a couple years later, in 1963, I got married. Later in that same year, I was drafted into the U.S. Army.

Of the Appalachian three R’s (readin’, ’riting and Route 23), I took R number three and moved to Columbus. In the early years of adulthood, I tried my best to forget about the fact that I ever lived on Pond Creek. I tried to forget because many of the memories were so unpleasant. As the years rolled by, I began to look at the times differently. I wondered if I had been born in Cincinnati, Columbus, or another urban area, would I have grown up to be the same person that I am now? I decided that it would be extremely unlikely that I would. Maybe this is just an example of me re-writing history in my own mind.

Anyway, I am now certain that the successful person that I became had its beginning on Pond Creek Road. I did not like being poor or impoverished but doing without material things taught me many important lessons. One of the things that it taught me was patience. I was going to live on Pond Creek until I could get myself out. No one was going to do it for me. Wearing hand-me-down clothing taught me humility. The discipline that I received from my parents has held throughout my lifetime. The hard work that I was required to perform became a life-long habit for me. I must say that the kind of work that I did early on was very different from what I decided to do as an adult. The difficult times that I went through as a child influenced me to get an education and allow me to have a career that would securely provide for my family and me. In addition, because I always had empty pockets as a child, I was determined to save money for the future.

As I got older, I tried to remember whom I was, where the family and I came from, and how we came to be the family that lived up in the hollow on Pond Creek Road. Unfortunately, I did not really listen and remember all of the stories that my relatives told, and now many of the older members of the family have passed on. A lot of the information that affected our lives has been lost forever. In spite of the research that I have done, facts are lacking and what we have left is memories. Even the memories are tempered by some small amount of reality and a large dose of emotions. Still, I believe that remembering the past should be important to all of us even if the good old days were not always so good.

One of Webster’s definitions of nostalgia is longing for something past. I suspect that everyone dabbles in nostalgia from time to time, especially when things just do not go the way they planned. The initial reaction is to blame society and the current state of affairs for the problems or concerns that they are facing. We all know that we cannot change the past, but we still yearn for the good old days.

In case you have forgotten, think about this. If you lived in the 1950’s, telephone booths were available on almost every other street corner. Not that the phone booths are important for phone calls, but think about poor Superman, and I’m talking about the real Superman, George Reeves. If he were to come today, he would find no place to change into his uniform. He probably would have to find a Verizon cell phone store. If not, how could the man of steel save the world without changing clothes in a phone booth? It probably would take so long to find one that the world would certainly explode before he could find the villain. Oh! You mean that Superman was not real. Well, so much for that thought!

Often times when we are feeling melancholy we yearn for the good old days. You will hear statements like, Things were so simple then; We did not have crime problems or drug problems; Kids did better in school. Kids were not fat or obese because we did not have McDonalds or Burger King to sell all of the fast Fat food."

I would suggest that many of the same problems that we have now were also prevalent in the good old days. There was smoking, drinking, fighting, killing, and many other problems that we see today. It may have been that many of those problems existed, but we may not have known because of the lack of communications. In those days we had no cell phones, fewer phones, fewer televisions, and farther to travel. In other words, lack of communication could have blinded our memories.

Change for most people is difficult to live with. I remember my father and grandfather telling stories about their childhood and then they would add, Not like the old days. Well, it was not like the old days, but was it better or worse?

We can rationalize by saying something like, Well that’s just progress, or maybe even, You can’t stop progress. If we have a scholarly person around, he or she may say, Change is inevitable. All of these things are true, but change has brought on its own set of problems.

These cliché’s remind me of going through college in the 1960’s and listening to people say that they were trying to find themselves. I never really figured that out. How did they get lost? I always thought that one of the reasons for that search might have been because of the many philosophy classes in college. If not that, then it could have been people just learned to be a philosopher because of too much time on their hands. My impression of a philosopher is just a person that sports a beard or mustache, long hair, and he considers himself a consultant. (That is not exactly true. Some do not have beards or wear their hair long.)

Why, you may ask, would I classify the philosopher as such? It is simple. It is my opinion that a college degree in philosophy is about as worthless as a confederate dollar in 1866. Philosophers usually only ask questions or make observations and seldom provide any reasonable answers.

Come to think of it, I believe that my father was a philosopher. He did not of course have a college degree and did not have a lot of time on his hands, at least early on, but he often made what I considered worthless observations. As a kid, I was prone to using other names to call him other than a philosopher but fortunately, I got over that stage in my life.

Anyway, consider some of Dad’s observations such as, You kids only get hurt when you are playing. If you were working you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I heard that for weeks when I got hurt playing football. I thought the injury would get me out of work, but guess what. It did not.

He was also not above using timeworn phrases such as, Do not run with that stick (or sharp object); you will poke your eye out. Fortunately, I still have two good eyes. Well, after seventy years they are not that good. Stay away from that swimming hole, you’ll get polio. We continued to swim in those old dirty swimming holes and never got polio. My favorite was, Forget about education, and find a job. I never really found a decent job until I got an education! So much for Dad being a philosopher (and of course he never had a beard or long hair).

In many cases, however, Dad was a rational thinker. For instance, he stayed away from securing credit when he could. He chose not to buy a new car or a car that he had to buy on credit. He also never learned to write a check and never had a credit card. His motto was if you could not pay for it, you did not need it. Most folks could benefit from that advice, because these issues have gotten many people into trouble. Anyway, I am digressing from the major issue. What was the issue? Oh yes, now I remember, it was progress.

Sometimes we mistake change for progress. Certainly, things are different from 1960 to today, but some may argue that it is no better. An example of this may be switching political party affiliations from Democrat to Republican or vise versa. That would be a change, but I would suggest that it is not progress, because there is very little difference between Republicans and Democrats. The only significant difference is that the elephant is bigger than the donkey. Now this is an observation from one who has a degree in Political Science. Go figure.

Actually, there are some other distinctions between the two. Check out the dress code. Republicans wear red ties and green sports jackets, especially during the Christmas seasons. (Note that I said Christmas and not happy holidays). Democrats do the same except they wear them all year long. Republicans see nothing wrong with letting their children play cowboys and Indians. Democrats do not either, as long as the Indians win. That goes for Blacks, Hispanics, and everyone else except white males. Democrats let their kids open all of their gifts on Christmas Eve. Republicans make their kids wait until Christmas morning. Democrats do much of their shopping at Target and Wal-Mart. So do Republicans but, they will not ever admit it.

Some may not appreciate my humor or sarcasm but keep in mind, I have lived through The New Frontier (John F. Kennedy), the Great Society (Lyndon Johnson), Racial Segregation, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, Watergate (Richard Nixon), major inflation with nice guy Jimmy Carter, the Contra Scandal, the First Iraq War (or was it a conflict?), I did not have sex with that woman (Bill Clinton), the Second Iraq War that may still be going on a hundred years from now (George Bush), and the worst depression since the great depression (Obama the Obamanator).

If that is not bad enough I had to live through Lady Bird and the Beautification of America, leisure suits, hippies, beatniks, the flower children decade, disco music, the X generation and Hillary Clinton. In the immortal words of actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan, Are we better off now than forty years ago? On the other hand, was it four years ago? Does not really matter, I guess.

Anyway, getting back to the nostalgia; awhile ago I had the opportunity to return to my childhood home on Pond Creek in southern Ohio, or at least, the property where the home used to stand. This trip was not planned but occurred by a stroke of good luck when the opportunity arose.

Pat, grandson Aaron, and I left our second home in Portsmouth and drove some ten miles to the property on Pond Creek. By the time we started driving down the hill called Cut Rock Hill, I felt a yearning to see the property up in the holler. Keep in mind that it would be the first time in thirty years. I knew that the old house in the holler had been torn down, because I helped tear it down, but I was anxious to see how much the place had changed.

We turned off the black top road of Pond Creek and started up the dirt road to the old homestead. Several things struck