Kentucky Shadows

NOSTALGIA Kentucky Shadows Dianna Hart As a kid living in Franklin County, Ohio, I got a bad gash in my heel from a piece of glass after jumping off the roof of an old outhouse into a haystack. I also have a large burn scar on my arm, but I don't remember how it came to be there. I do remember the smell of my Kentucky-bred grandmother's yeast rolls. They would rise to the size of softballs and were so good that I could eat a whole one by myself, even as a skinny little eightyear -old. I can't for the life of me, however, remember a single thing my mother baked. In the sixth grade, I had a teacher who liked me in spite of the fact that I was one of those "hillbilly kids." She helped me to know there was such a thing as potential, and I owe her a debt of thanks. She looked beyond the exterior of a little girl who wore flour sack blouses and skirts and hand-me-down, cramped, dilapidated shoes to school. All of these things were meaningful in the proverbial developmental process, but two elements have provided a greater impact in my life than all the rest put together. Thoughts of Aunt Lizzie and Eastern Kentucky tug at my heartstrings in such a sweet and melancholy way that, at times, I find myself dreaming of turning the clock back just for a day. Lizzie was an icon, even among her life-toughened Appalachian peers. Nobody could work as hard or as long as she could, and there wasn't a soul who would stand in her way when she made up her mind about something, not even Uncle Albert, Dad's brother. After she had finished some chore or another, she liked to sit in an old paintchipped rocking chair on the rugged front porch of her mountain shack. The shack's rusty tin roof just barely kept the rain out in some of the rooms, and served no more useful purpose than a sieve in others. But that ramshackle cabin with its wide-board floors, ragged linoleum rugs in the kitchen and two bedrooms was heaven on earth for us kids. There was no indoor plumbing, but none was needed. A wonderful primitive kitchen was furnished with an old plank table covered with a ragged plastic cloth that featured a faded blue rose design, an old pie safe, a hand-painted turquoise refrigerator, and a huge wood-burning stove. A dented, rusting slop bucket, kept beside the stove, was filled to the brim with scraps frombreakfast, dinner, and supper and at the end of each day was carried to the hog out back. Lazing on the rough-hewn planks of the porch, six or seven fleabitten , scrawny hound dogs usually surrounded their mistress, who showed them little affection. It was an unwritten rule that dogs weren't to be coddled. Neither were children. Lizzie always prepared an abundance of food for us when we visited. Hers was Kentucky hospitality at its finest. Home made jams, fresh-churned butter, fruitcake and pies, and a myriad of delicious dishes liberally laced with bacon grease were among the many rewards of the trips too good to pass up. On the long ride back to Ohio, Mom, who believed she was better than the folks she had left behind in those hills, always maintained there were too many flies buzzing around for any of the food to be fit to eat. Even so, none of us ever suffered any noticeable repercussions from our culinary experiences. In the 1950s, Lizzie was in the habit of smoking a pipe—a corncob pipe—and she sometimes chewed tobacco. She spat shiny brown juice into a soup can when she needed to empty her mouth. A single, heavy black braid fell down her stooped back, over a frayed and stained, hand-embroidered apron she never took off during the day. I remember wondering if it was she who had stitched the faded roosters with proud tail feathers that marched above the hem. An imposing but far from beautiful woman, Lizzie already seemed old...