Never Felt Better

One of the many things I love about my Kentucky heritage is the abundance of such wonderful, flavorful, sometimes comical but always meaningful phrases. When spoken with that special accent, comments like Uncle Edgil's oft-uttered phrase, "this area is so poor, even the crows carry a lunch when they fly over," can be both comical and painfully true.

There are many others, but I was recently reminded of a reply my father often used when asked, "how are you, Greene?", he quite often responded,

I've never felt better, needed less or expected more. 

I often wondered if that phrase was due to his humble upbringing in a poor, rural Appalachian coal town, his job working at the Elk Horn Coal Company Store (Tennessee Ernie Ford was right*) and how he was able to move away to quasi-affluent living in Detroit and suburbs. I should have asked him when I had the chance.

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*Mr Ford's popular song, Sixteen Tons, included the refrain I owe my soul to the Company Store. The miners were usually paid in "scrip", that could only be used to purchase items at the Company Store, thereby trapping those folks in that hard, dangerous life. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip)

Sixteen Tons

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood

Muscle and blood and skin and bones

A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine

I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine

I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal

And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain

Fightin' and trouble are my middle name

I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion

Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me comin', better step aside

A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died

One fist of iron, the other of steel

If the right one don't a-get you

Then the left one will

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

King Coal

As I’ve mentioned before, the past three generations of my family lived and died in southeastern Kentucky, the area that is now known as Appalachia. It is an absolutely beautiful place with the Cumberland Mountains and plateau, part of the great Appalachian Mountain chain, its most striking feature.

Back in the early 1990s I began a genealogical search that took me to those mountains and the people that still inhabit that area. Coal was king in those hills for generations, until automation and regulation dried up the only type employment those folks had ever known. You can see a photo of my paternal Grandfather in an earlier post–http://paul-griffith.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-rootsmy-foundation.html–in his mining hat, complete with carbide lamp.

My genealogical search revealed my great-grandparents, on my grandmother’s side, also lived and worked those hills, eking out a living in one of the most difficult and dangerous occupations one could find. Here they are posing for a photo, circa 1920, sitting in the front yard of their Floyd County Kentucky home. They raised ten children in that home; no wonder they look a bit tired in this photo.

John and Rosa Campbell

I love this photo…from the wide-brimmed hat on Grandpa’s knee, to his bushy mustache, to her long white apron, and of course the stone pipe I’m told Grandma Rosa always had close at hand. Then, look at the lay of the land behind them; a house carved into the Kentucky hills to be sure. John (1849-1934) and Rosa (1855-1930) were the epitome of the hard-working and hard-living folks I call my own. 

The Early Years

Heeding his father’s advice to “leave these Kentucky hills, there’s nothing for you here”, my dad and mom left Kentucky with my sister and followed a number of their siblings to find auto industry jobs in Detroit. This was about 1939-40, just prior to the U.S. entering World War II.

Dad did go off to support the war effort, serving his country in the U.S. Army in the Pacific theater on the island of Saipan but spending most of his time in the region on Peleliu (in the Palau island group), east of the Philippine Islands, due north of Australia.

His return home in 1946 made possible my entrance into the world the following year. Mom and my older sister were living near relatives on Webb Avenue in Detroit. When I was still a toddler, we moved to “the ‘burbs” in Center Line, into a cooperative development called Kramer Homes. This move took us around 10 miles north of downtown Detroit and into a very nice, middle-class area.

My earliest memories are of those years in Kramer Homes, playing with Bobby McIssack, Billy Sheridan, and my best friend, Tom Marley. We rode our bikes everywhere, played ball in the summer and ice hockey in the winter whenever we had free time. During those years of our youth it seemed we had nothing but free time.

During my year of 5^th Grade, my parents decided to transfer me to a parochial school. We were relatively new members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Warren. In fact, I was nine years old when I was baptized, since we had not been attending any church until then. I didn’t like leaving my school buddies, but I soon found there were many more friends to be made at Trinity School. I have no doubt I received a much better education due to the smaller class sizes and more difficult curricula offered by the parochial schools I attended.