BITS AND PIECES OF MY LIFE
By Harry Wells

DURING THE DEPRESSION


In the early 1930s things were hard for everyone. Plus, not having any money or any way to make it caused the rationing of just about everything. Everything made went to the government for the war starting in 1941 as well. We were given welfare stamps to buy all sorts of things from sugar, lard, gas, tires and clothes. However, for us, it wasn’t much different than the way we lived before the war and before the depression. We were always poor. It was the only life we knew.

About all I can remember of living on Mammoth Cave was we had a dog named Shep and a white hog that ran free around the house. It slept under the cabin we lived in. The cabin was on stilts. I can remember feeding the hog out the window in the kitchen. They both belonged to my brother Teamon. He left them there and went off to fight in the war. Dad ate the hog at some point and we kept Shep until he died. He was the best hunting dog in the whole country. Dad was offered a lot of money for him but we couldn’t sell him. We needed him to hunt our food. You could pick up a gun and say “let’s go hunting Shep!” and he would tear the door down wanting to go.

I guess the other thing I can remember from my early childhood was when my other brother Conard and I set Uncle Linc’s tent on fire. It was a large tent. He and Aunt Verna were living in the tent until they could get settled in someplace for some reason. While playing we knocked over a kerosene lamp and it burned up in minutes.

Mother died one morning while we lived in the cabin on the Park and that left dad with me, Conard, Wanda, Ella, Teamon and Dad’s niece Maud. Maud was going through a divorce about that time so I guess dad asked her to live with us. She brought Bud and Dean with her so we were one big family. Teamon went off to war. Ella kept fighting with Maud. She did not want her to spank me and Conard so Dad ran Ella off. Now we were down to five kids. Maud stayed with us until I was ten years old.THE FIRST MOVE I REMEMBERWe had to leave the park because the government was taking the land to create what is today Mammoth Cave National Park. So we got someone to come over in a horse drawn wagon and load up everything. Not much but we still had the dog and the hog at that point. Our new home was just across the hollow. I still had to walk a mile to get to it or go on horseback. Here is where I realized I had to work at anything just to survive. I was three years old. Things were no better for us after the move. I guess the only thing we had was a house full of love, just no one knew how to show it. I don’t remember anyone telling the other one he or she loved them but the feeling was always there.

Dad managed to buy an old mule that was about 29 years old and we made a harness for it and put a little garden in with corn. The first garden we ever had until the old mule laid down and died. We did get a few chickens but could not eat the eggs. We had to sell them to buy flour, beans, salt, pepper and lard.

I did go fishing with my dad at a nearby pond and caught the yellow bellied catfish and brought them home. Maud would clean and cook them. That was a treat over rabbit and squirrels or anything else we could kill or catch. We had to make our traps, snares and dead fall because we could not afford the shells for the gun.

The old house was not very much, just three rooms. And when it would rain we grabbed the buckets and put them under the leaks. If a bad storm came up dad would grab us all up, run us to a cave and we got in until the storm passed.

Ella came back and I was so glad to see her. She was having a hard time trying to make it too. She was only 13 years old when Dad ran her off. She had a boyfriend that came across the hill to see her. He would stand out side the door and talk to her and take out his pocket knife and whittle on the house. I think if he would have dated her for a year our house would have been nothing but kindling.

Here is where I started school. We had to walk about two miles to school and when winter came we all got a new pair of shoes. We went barefoot the rest of the time. They had to last the whole winter. We would stick paper in them and would take small wire and sew the soles on them when they wore out.

Our lunch was just a couple of biscuits. I had never seen white or light bread until I was 8 or 10 years old.

Here is where I met my first teacher, Ramada Woods and fell in love with her on the spot. She was so pretty and trim. I sure wanted one of my older brothers to marry her. Bud and Dean were still with us and we were as one family and we really had no mom and I had hoped Ramada Woods could be our new mom.

On the way to school we had to walk through a cow pasture where a man had some milk cows. The five of us decided he didn’t need all of the cows. I was 6 then, so we tore the fence down and drove one of the cows home and made a coral out of logs. We were going to have some milk until Dad came home and made us take the cow home.

I need to share more about my sister Ella. Dad would be out wandering and not working all day. We never knew when he would come home. If Maud had a problem with one of us she would say to my dad, “I want you to whip so and so”. Dad would reach in to his pocket and get his knife out, give it to you and say, “go cut a switch” and he would whip you without questioning Maud’s accusations. Ella, being the oldest at home, felt she had a responsibility to be a mother to the rest of us. In fact she is the only mother I ever knew and was until I got married. We were very close. Jean, my first wife never could understand why I was so close to Ella. Anyway, Bud, Ella and I were outside and Bud came up behind me and started a fight with me. I mashed his nose. He ran into the house and told Maud I started a fight with him. Ella saw it all. When Dad got home Maud told him she wanted me whipped. He reached for his knife. Ella spoke up and said “Dad, don’t whip Harry. Maud is lying”. Maud said, “I want him whipped!” When he reached for the knife again to cut a switch Ella came out of that chair like a ball of fire and said, “Dad I said you are not going to whip him”. He looked at her and said, “Sit down!” She then went to the back of the pot belly stove and picked up a piece of wood and said “If you whip him I will kill Maud!” She was dead serious. I don’t know if I got the whipping or not but after things cooled down Ella was getting her little things together again and out the door she went again. Dad must have been in love with Maud because she could do no wrong. Ella on the way out turned and looked at Maud and said, “If you mistreat my brothers I will return and kill you”. I have felt bad about that all my life. Seems like I played a role in getting her kicked out again. She never returned to live with us.

NEXT MOVE

In 1941 we moved again. I can remember the cold weather and the talk about the Japs bombing Pearl Harbor. I kept thinking to myself, “My god, they are going to kill my brother Teamon!” Not many people now remember you could not buy a car from 1942 until 1946. They only made them for the war. You will not see a 43, 44, or 45 car unless it was a military car. The body style never changed during World War II.

Little did I know but shortly after that I had six more brothers in the service. If you had a family member in service you hung a flag in your window with a gold star. The flag only came with three stars. Dad had to get three flags and cut the stars out and put them on one flag. I can remember that flag like it was yesterday. People would stop and say, “ Jim you got 7 boys over there?”. Dad’s chest would pop out and say, “Yep”. I was so proud of them. When they came home one by one with their shinny brass buttons and medals my chest would pop out too. I would stand and look at them for hours. My thought was if I join the military they will be just as proud of me too. I have often wondered if that influenced me into going in to the service.

This time the move was to the largest city I had been in. There must have been 40 or 50 families living there in Rhoda, Ky. Our new home was a large open feed store and no rooms. We stretched wire and hung up sheets and made our own room. Doesn’t sound like much but it was heaven to me. I was out of the mud and close to school and had other kids to play with. Food, clothing and other things were no better though. That did not matter. Here is where I learned to hustle. You have got to realize I was only a 3rd grader but I could scrounge a meal here and there and mow a yard for 15 or 20 cents with an old push type mower. Some say I wore dresses but that is not true. I only wore them when I was in diapers. We still had no electricity or plumbing inside the house.

Two things of interest come to mind here. I once played hooky from school and was sitting in front of Carl Wells’ store and Dad came up and said “Why aren’t you in school boy?” I said, “I don’t feel good”. He said, “I will take care of that”. He went into Carl’s store and bought a bottle of castor oil and a Dr. Pepper and poured out half of the Dr Pepper and filled the bottle up with caster oil and stood there and made me drink it. I like to never got that slimy stuff down. I was sick after that.

Here I got my first taste of whiskey. I got the chicken pox and would not break out. Someone told dad to give me a shot of whiskey and that that would take care of it. He gave me two table spoons of whiskey. I haven’t drunk whiskey since….beer yes, but not whiskey. It was as bad to me as the castor oil.

A GOOD MOVE

Here at Rhoda I begin to understand life a little better. Up to this point it was a little like living like a caveman. Earlier being cut off from the rest of the world, here I was able to see and meet a lot of my uncles and aunts, learn new ideas, and play with new kids. My whole life seemed to turn around for the better – food, clothing and things we needed were still bad but the change in the environment made a big difference. (Bud and Dean were still with us, including the old dog).
Carl Madison who lived down the road was my age and we became close and played together every day. Now we are four boys running around the countryside and just as tough as they come. They only toys we had were a ball and jacks and a bunch of drop sticks. I often wonder how we could stay so busy all day from daylight to dark.

Over the many years later that I would drive down and visit people in Rhoda a very nice little old lady would come up and be so happy to see me and say she was so proud of me. She would tell me how we could sit on the floor and play jacks for hours. I don’t remember it as well as she does. We never got in any trouble but we liked to play tricks on each other or anyone else we could.

Carl had a dog named Bounce and everywhere we went the dogs went. Bounce and Shep did not like each other. They would always get in a fight. We ran in the woods all day long swinging on grape vines, climbing small trees and swinging out over the grounds. Sometime they would break (the vines) and you would fall and go rolling down the hill or one would not make it close enough to the bank you would jump from and you would fall to the ground. Someone would have to climb up and help you ride it over the ravine if you couldn’t swing out far enough.

The creek that ran close to the house became a good place for us to play in. We would skate on ice in the winter and fish, turn over rocks and catch crawfish. There was a steep bank by the water hole. We would take buckets and pour water on the bank and make a mud slide down into the water. I often wondered if anyone ever saw us four boys down there naked playing in the water?

Carl came up with a billfold and we would tie a string to it, lay it in the road and hide in the bushes. When a car came by he would only be going 30 MPH in an old model A and see the billfold and would stop to pick up the billfold. While he was stopping to get out we would drag the billfold back into the bushes. He would come back for it and could not find it and he would stand there scratching his head as we were snickering in the bushes. It’s a good trick. Try it.

There was a field nearby of sage straw we used to make brooms from. The four of us got into that field, drove rows of sticks about four inches apart in eight foot squares and filled them with broom straw until the walls were about three feet tall and put sticks across the top and then covered it with straw. It was a beautiful house. We worked for a week on that thing. Just as we got it finished Carl brought a kerosene lamp and put it in it and it all lit up with a wonderful soft glow. I was crawling in the new straw house and knocked the lamp over with the fuel. It took off burning like I had burned it with a blow torch. We set that whole country on fire that day.

(At this point my dad Harry was getting tired of typing and asked that I type up some of the things he had told me. He did not know that I was actually saving or using his e mails to me to actually be the story. Below were some of his ideas.

Jeff,

This is a small overview of my life up to about when I was 8 years old. There were several highs and lows in my life. If you want to put something together here are some things you might want to ad-lib about.
Cutting wood for cooking and heat.
Snow and rain blowing in the house.
Just as much ice on the windows inside and out.
Staying in bed until you almost bust to go to the bathroom because it was too cold to get out from under covers.
Cracks in the floor that you could sweep the dirt in them.
Mattress on bed was filled with straw called straw tick.
Frost bitten toes from walking to school.Nose running all winter.
No gloves.

You will see how my life will change from here on out.
Love Dad

MOVE NUMBER FOUR

After about a year of living in the pole barn house, Maud went to court and got child support for Bud and Dean of $40.00 a month. Dad talked Maud into buying this huge house across the creek. It had four large rooms painted white with red trim and fifteen acres that sat on a hill with a creek running around it like a horseshoe. It also had a swinging bridge about fifteen feet above the water for a shortcut to go to Rhoda. The house was great but it did not change our living style because all of Maud’s money went to pay for the house which cost a bunch…… $900.00. Here is where things changed for me. I was the youngest but the first of us boys that wanted to stop playing with the boys and start playing with girls. I would get in tight with them and con their dad into giving me little jobs that I could do and get me around the girls. What little I made, say 50 cents, I would keep a dime and give the rest to Dad. If I made a quarter I would keep a nickel and give him twenty cents.

This was a fun place to live and I felt I owed my dad for my part in order to live in style. Conard would not hustle up any money. He was very shy and could not talk to people. I never had that problem. I would beg if necessary. I got the title as a sneaky kid at a very early age.

I managed to get some rabbits, a goat and some “banny” chickens. Conard and I made a harness for the goat and pulled things all over the hills. I wanted some more chickens but I had no way to buy or work for them. One day I was sitting in Carl Wells’ store and heard two men talking. One said to the other one “You have a chicken that keeps coming over and roosting in my barn ever night”. The man that owned the chickens said, “Well, I guess you are going to haft to eat him”. They both laughed about it and went on to talk about something else. A few days later I came up with an idea. I went to the man that was boarding the chicken and said the owner didn’t want the chicken any more. He said, “Ok, come back tonight and get him off the roost if you want him”. I did. Everything was going great for about three days until the two of them met up again. The owner told the neighbor that he had not given the chicken to Harry. Of course Dad found out and I was in a lot of trouble for lying. And I had to take the chicken back to its owner and home.

About a week later I found out Mr. Tarter down the road was selling chickens for a quarter each. There was no way I could come up with the quarter and felt for sure Dad would not give it to me. The next day I saw Dad leaning against a tree in the front yard. I walked up to him and said “Dad, Mr. Tarter is selling chickens for a quarter”. He looked down to the ground for a minute and never opened his mouth. I knew I couldn’t say much more to get him to help me get the chicken. Then, out of the blue, he reached in to his pocket and came out with a quarter and gave it to me. Off to Mr. Tartars I went to buy my chicken. I said Mr. Tarter, “I want to buy one of them chickens”. He said “one”? I said “yep”. “Harry I won’t sell just one chicken. You have got to buy a pair!” I couldn’t talk him into it. It took me five minutes to walk to buy the chicken but thirty minutes to return home. I was heart broken. As I approached the house Dad was sitting in a chair under the tree now. Dad said, “Harry, where is the chicken?” I said “Dad, Mr. Tarter won’t sell one chicken, just a pair”. I handed Dad his quarter. He took it with his left hand and kept it in his palm of his hand and just looked at the quarter and never said a word. I sat down in the grass by him and directly he went into his pocket with his right hand and came out with another quarter and put them both together and handed them to me. I jumped up and cried worse than if he had whipped me. Even when I think of it today I get tears in my eyes. I don’t think I stopped running until I got to Mr. Tartars so I could buy my two chickens.

Dad and I were very close. I could do more and get by with more than my other brothers and sisters. They would use me as their spokesperson when needed.

Things went bad between Dad and Maud. She packed up Bud and Dean and headed to Louisville. I did not see Bud or Dean again until we were all grown. They are both dead now. I miss them.

Dad had to get rid of the house to give Maud her money back so now just Dad, me, Conard and Wanda were at home. So now move number five is coming up.

MOVING AGAIN

It seems like we had met our high point in life with Maud gone. With Bud and Dean out of the house as well it was just the three of us guys now, Dad, Conard and me and then my sister. It had so happened that my brother Rumsey had bought a fifteen acre farm next to Gladys with a small barn on it and a 2 room rundown house. By this time the dog had died from old age. I still had my goat, rabbits and chickens which I had to get rid of. My chicken had grown to 13 chickens. One hen had hidden a nest out back and one day strutted in with thirteen baby chicks. I think Dad got $4.50 for all of them. He said the money was to pay for the move. I understood.

Dad hired a man with an old model A truck to haul our stuff over there. Wanda, one of my sisters, Conard and me had to ride in the back because there was only room for Dad and the driver up front. It took three hours to get to Gladys and then the truck could not get all the way to the house. We got Mr. Hoffman with his team and wagon to take us up the rest of the way.
Here we were again living with leaks and using buckets to catch water. We were now living four miles from school. We were the only kids to play with my other sister Gladys’s kids. They were all girls. Conard and I got in a lot of fights there mainly because I was so unhappy. Poor Wanda did her best to cook but she could only make flap jacks, boil beans and make oatmeal. Conard and I finished that year of school up. When we took our lunch to school it was just a big piece of bread. At lunch time he and I would go hide to eat lunch. We were too embarrassed that the other kids would see what we were eating.

After school was out that year (I had just completed the 4th grade) I told Dad I had all I could take of school and I was going to go find a job for the summer and get us some money. I started out walking and wearing every thing I owned. I was going south to Brownsville. I was knocking on every farmhouse I came to and asking if they could hire me for fifty cents a day and board. They said, “Why you are just a kid”. Some would even say I was just a baby. I’d say, “I know, but I will work from sun up til sun down and do a man’s work”.

I did not make it all the way to Brownsville. Before dark I came across an old barn and crawled up in the roof and slept the night. Bright and early I was on the road and hadn’t eaten a bite all the previous day. The very first door I knocked on an old but real friendly lady came to the door. She said, “ I don’t need help, but are you hungry child?” I said, “Yes mam I am”. She said, “Come in” and she fixed me a big breakfast with milk and made me 2 sandwiches to take with me. My walk was all the next day clear through Brownsville and on to the park. I knocked on Leslie and Ruth Wilson’s door and she said, “Yes I will hire you”. I worked my heart out for them. My first pay day was $2.50 cents. Ruth said I will give you the $2.50 or shoes. The shoes I had were too small for me. My shoes were totally gone. I took the shoes. We took the wagon to go to Pigs Store to pick up supplies and the first person I saw said “Look at you. You are wearing woman’s shoes”. It didn’t matter to me. They felt good.

We all got along real well and I lasted the whole summer until the school year began. That last week was disappointing to all of us. Ruth came to me and said they couldn’t come up with the money to pay me any more for the last week. She had tears in her eyes. I said if you will feed me for the week I will stay and help you. She hugged me and said that is great. Little did she know that if I went home I would not have a thing to eat. At least this arrangement would keep me full until I started school.

Time came for me to leave and Leslie would drive me to Brownsville and I would hitch hike the rest of the way. Ruby cried like a baby when I left and begged me to come back and see them. I never did.

I had saved every penny I could. While in Brownsville I bought me and Conard a pair of shoes, two pants and two shirts to start school with. I had $17.75 left and I kept 25 cents for my lunch and when I got home I gave the $17.50 to Dad. I said, “Dad this is for the two chickens.” I could see what looked like tears in his eyes. (Dad worked very hard not to show emotion.) He just turned and walked real fast into the other room not saying a word, but, I knew.

While I was working, Dad had met this woman named Edna and married her. That was the worst thing he could have done. She was sick. She had never been off her dad’s farm and couldn’t cook, read or write. She was just an added burden. The only thing I could understand as to why he married her was because her Dad gave them a cow for marrying. At least we had milk now.

We started school. I am in the fifth grade and Conard is in the sixth grade. By now, just before I was to complete the fifth grade, my pants and shoes were worn out. We wore them every day and while playing at recess I bent over and busted the seat out of my pants. I backed off the playing grounds and signaled for Conard to come over. I told him what happened and I was going home and that he was to tell the teacher.

I got home and got out the bottle with the sowing kit and while sitting sewing my pants I was crying. (I don’t think there was a child that wanted an education more than I did. I wanted to read and write but I knew I just couldn’t stay in school). Dad came in and asked what happened? I told Dad what happened and I couldn’t go to school any more. I had to get out and make some money to get something to wear. (I was never able to go back to school again).

The next day I was on the road again looking for work. I must have been eleven by now and a little bigger. The only thing I had going for me was my looks. I had jet black hair, big brown eyes and white teeth that some even said made me have a friendly smile. The reason I had white teeth is Teamon would tell me how he had to gather little willow sticks for mom and she would chew the end of them and make a little brush and use soap and brush her teeth. They said she had white teeth. That is what I did.

It didn’t take me long to learn that I needed to talk to the women instead of the men. Here in my life is where I would walk up to someone working and ask “do you need help?” If they would say, “Yes, but I can’t pay.” I would say, “Don’t matter” and I would jump in and work like a fool. Most times they would at least give me something to eat or the change in their pockets. I was sleeping in barns and washing in creeks. I would wade in and wash my clothes while they were still on me. This lasted for about two months.

When I returned home Dad had sold Edna’s cow and they had moved over next to Roy Ashley’s store. We did not stay there very long either. The biggest thing I remember about this place is a man had a bicycle for sale for $7.00. I told him I would work for seven days for it. He took me up on it and I rode that thing everywhere after I bought it. It was the only thing I ever really had. (I was just thinking about my childhood and I never had gotten a Christmas or birthday gift at this point in my life. The only thing I got once was at school when the teacher put an apple, orange and a couple of candy bars in a bag and gave it to us.)

( My dad, Harry, had been sharing these stories via e-mail and then one day I got the following e-mail from him.)

Jeff,

I am not storytelling. All of this happened, word for word. I am only touching upon a few things. I could fill a five hundred page book if I covered everything that happened to us during these times.
(I responded back to him.)

Hi Dad.....

I know you are not stretching the truth.......this is your history and I love it. It tells me more of who you are, what you have been able to accomplish and where my roots are. I can already tell that our family has traits you have passed on to us. As I mentioned to you before, one generation can impact future generations for even hundreds of years. Your desire for education, work ethic, ingenuity and resourcefulness and yes....even pride, are attributes that you or our posterity will want to hang on to.........and they will be stronger for it.......

At your convenience keep writing........I am not a bit bored. Your life is very interesting.When you mention places or stories, where would they be today on maps?
Love, Jeff

A MOVE TO RHODA, KENTUCKY


It came time to move again. Dad must have had itchy feet because he kept us on the move all the time. Every thing was packed up, put on a little truck and back to Edmonson County, Kentucky we went. This time a little country house halfway between Rhoda and Mohawk. It was two miles in any direction before you could come to a road. The only way we could get to it was to walk or ride a horse or wagon. School was about four miles away but that didn’t matter to us because we had already quit school.

The place really wasn’t that bad. It had a barn, smokehouse, wood shed and a real good spring about 100 yards away. This must have been around 1947 because I was beginning to chase girls.

Retuning to Rhoda, Carl Madison and I got hooked up again. We were not running around the hills and playing in the creek anymore. We were chasing little girls. Carl was a good looking boy so we had no problem wherever we went getting a girl to like us, but it was a lonely life in those hills. I would get up at the break of daylight and head out. Most of the time I wouldn’t return until after dark. I don’t think anyone ever knew I was gone. I was sitting in front of Carl Wells’ store wanting something to do and a young lady pulled up in new car, got out and said, “ I am looking for someone to work for three days. Do you know anybody?” “I sure do” I said. She said, “Who?” I said “Me!”. She said, “You have got to tell everyone I said no, but
let’s go anyway.” She took me about thirty miles away on the other side of Bowling Green, Kentucky to her dad and mom’s farm. They were real nice people. After three days she brought me back, and no one ever knew I was gone. (Which was fine because they probably would have wanted some of my money.) Brownsville, Kentucky is four miles north of Rhoda. Bowling Green is fourteen miles south of Rhoda.

Carl Madison and I would meet at Carl Wells’ store early in the morning when we did not have a job and sitting on a bread box outside the store, I would say, “Carl, what are we going to do today?” He would say, “Wait on the next car.” The first one came by we would thumb a ride. If it was going north we would go to Brownsville, if it was going south we would go to Bowling Green.

Carl and I stuck together like glue. We did every thing together. Any time we heard of something going on we went to it like the little carnivals that would come through the area. There were a lot of them in those days. Just about every weekend the old people would pick out a school house, push all the chairs around the wall, get out the fiddles and gentries banjo. They would come from all around square dancing until the floor would bounce them off. Carl and I were right in the middle of it swinging the little girls.
Edmonson County is a dry county. You can’t buy whiskey then and still can’t now. But the old timers made moonshine and home brew (beer) and the nights would get pretty rough late in the night. Some one would flirt with a man’s wife or say a bad word in front of them and the fight was on. In fact, while Dad was dating Mom Carl Hanson insulted mom and the fight was on. Carl Hanson took his pocket knife out and started slicing at Dad and cut out part of his liver. They had to wrap Dad in a sheet to get him home to keep his insides from falling out He just about died. I come close to not being here.

Dad had a law that there would not be a loaded gun in the house. We had a single shot rifle. That was all you needed was one shot if you were hunting in our household. You had to get your target with one shot to save shells and there was a single shot, shot gun. One day there was a young rabbit running in and out of the weeds in front of the house. Dad got the rifle out and was going to kill our lunch. Dad was standing in the door waiting for the rabbit to come out again but the rabbit didn’t. Dad sat the rifle down by the door and said boys “leave this gun alone. It is loaded.” That seemed normal to us. The rabbit did not ever come out again and the rifle sat there all night.

The next day Carl was coming over. We were going over to the next hill to see some Lindsey girls and Dad, Conard and Wanda, at about nine in the morning, went down to the creek to catch some Catfish for that day’s meals. I stayed home waiting on Carl. I was out back doing something in the smokehouse. Carl came and went into the house. No one was there so as he was walking out he picked up the rifle. He knew the law- no loaded guns in the house! I thought I heard someone and walk around the corner of the house and there was Carl pointed the rifle at my head and said “stickum up”. For some reason I stepped back around the house. He walked around the house holding the rifle down at his waist and said “stick um up” again. About that time every bone in my body tingled. I felt something run down my leg. Carl’s face turned as white as snow. I started to take a step and fell down. I did not hear the gun go off. I didn’t know what just happened. Then Carl hollered “O my god I have shot you. Where is your dad?” I said “fishing at the catfish hole”. He broke in to a run and ran over the hill. In a few minutes here came Dad, Conard and Wanda with him, running with their tongues hanging out. I think they were in worse shape than I was.

Someone went and got someone to bring a wagon and haul me to Rhoda where they loaded me up and took me to Bowling Green in a car. I stayed over night while they cut the bullet out.

Dad must have notified every one because the next day after I got back home all my brothers and sisters started coming in, even Teamon from North Carolina. I thought man this is great. They all are coming just to see me. I wish I would get shot again. Plus, when they left, they gave me a little money. Wasn’t but about two or three days I was up and running again. Luckily Carl’s dad paid the hospital bill. I think it was fifty dollars.

In 1948 my older brother Rumsey, who was working in Louisville, about a mile and half north of Rhoda bought a small piece of land. He, Conard and I built a nice four room house on it. (He built it just for us.) Shortly after moving in Edna died. Now we are down to Dad, Wanda, Conard and me again. While we were living in the hills Wanda started dating one of the Lindsey boys, Ples. And shortly they married. Now we are just Dad, Conard and me.

Since we had lost the only thing that resembled a cook, you can just imagine how we got by.

At this time things weren’t going too well so Carl and I decided to go to Louisville and work. We each got a one room apartment to sleep in. It sat next to a White Castle hamburger joint. (This is where and when I saw the recruiters) The hamburgers cost eight cents. I ate White Castle hamburgers three times a day.