Growing Up Hard in Harlan County

Eleven

-----.---_4__ ELEVEN FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, I went to every place in town, asking for any kind of work I could get. I went to both wholesales and the lumber yard and got promises of work at each of them to unload boxcars as they came in, starting the next week. I knew I couldn't work at all three. H.T. Hackney being the oldest and largest, I thought I'd better take their offer. I knew all the workers there. They had two big teams of horses and big, wide wagons for delivering locally. I told JoJo and his Mom of getting me a job, and Mrs. Walters came over and gave me a big hug. JoJo started slapping me on the back and said, ''This calls for a celebration. Mom, tomorrow is Red's birthday. Let's make it a double celebration. He'll be a sweet sixteen and ain't never been kissed!" We all got a laugh out of JoJo's ideas. I said, "It's just another day, so don't go making any plans on my account." Mrs. Walters worked all morning in the kitchen preparing dinner . This being Sunday and JoJo not working, a large group of his friends and mine gathered under a big sprawling oak out front, pitching horseshoes and telling girl tales, some good and some dirty ones. Two of the boys had a quart of colored moonshine wrapped up, laying at the roots of the tree. They had put a few cinnamon berries in each jar and it gave the liquor a golden color and a sweet taste. Every time one of us threw a ringer, he'd get to take a snort of it. When Mrs. Walters called us to dinner, all of us were feeling our oats, laughing at each other, staggering around like a chicken with its head cut off. I wasn't expecting anything to be different from any other Sunday dinner, but when I looked at that table piled with food my eyes nearly popped. We got seated and Mrs. Walters gave the blessings. She thanked the Lord for about everything you could think of and 99 she started in thanking Him for looking out for me and to forgive my mother and father for the way they had treated me. Amen. After her talk with the Lord, all us boys sobered up and started eating. Everyone tried to out-eat the other one, stuffing our bellies with all the good things before us. Then she brought a big white cake with red cinnamon berries spelling "Happy Birthday, Red." I still think that was the happiest birthday I ever had. The local set two boxcars on the wholesale siding sometime during the night, loaded with cases of tinned foods. The shipping clerk assigned me and one more man to start unloading and stacking on the third floor. Six cases were all that could be placed ~::m each cart, and we had 300 cases in each car. We worked two extra hours getting done. That, I think, was the hardest day's work I had ever done, but in later years that job seemed like play. I worked all summer unloading cars and filling orders to be stacked on the loading dock. Early in the fall one of the drivers took sick and stayed off from work two weeks. Meeks, the shipping clerk, put me to driving his team, delivering around town. I sure did take a fancy to sitting up high, moving from one store to another, dropping off food of all kinds. The ex-sheriff came up to where I was unloading my last item one day and told me Mr. Ford had passed away with a heart attack. The government agents had raided his home and confiscated over 300 gallons of moonshine. The heart attack occurred en route to the federal jail in London. I drove the team back to the wholesale and told Meeks about it. He said, "Mr. Ford is going to be missed." Mr. Ford had gotten a contract from them for the fall and winter hauling across Pine Mountain. I had lost a good friend. Meeks let me stay off work two days for the funeral. He knew of our close friendship. During the funeral time, Mrs. Ford said, "I'm going to sell the farm, the stock, and everything that would remind me of all the hardships and planning we have done over the years...