Early Memories – The Farleys and Hales

Clark and Roy

I was ten, I think. I had, during the previous several months, become addicted to hillbilly music, as it was called then. I had been kept home from school with a sore throat that wouldn’t go away, so during the long afternoons I would listen to local radio — AM only, of course, and country music was the fare. That led to my discovery of The Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights, so I soaked it up. The sound of a mandolin really got me. Banjo, fiddle, all the rest. I listened from 7:30 until the final show closed at 11:00. That final show was a thirty-minute segment featuring Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys. He was famous at the time, and had several big hits to his credit. They billed him as “The King of Country Music.”

I could go on and on about the Opry, but this is a more narrow story. It’s about Roy.

The ad hit the Charleston Gazette: Roy Acuff was coming to town, to the Municipal Auditorium, on a Sunday afternoon, in just three weeks. I whooped. Asked Mom if I could go; told her I had saved enough — well, almost enough, to buy a ticket. She said that wouldn’t work, she didn’t think I should go all the way to Charleston on the bus by myself. I begged. I pleaded. Finally she said OK. (I think she intended all along to go for it; she just wanted to impress on me the importance of taking care of myself.) So, along with the few cents I had, I saved enough for the ticket, with a dime to spare. I think the ticket was either 50 cents or a dollar, don’t remember which.

That Sunday, I dressed in my best green sweater, caught the bus. Bus driver looked at me, a small kid, asked where I was going. Puffed up, I told him “Municipal Auditorium.” I sat right behind him, looking out all the closest windows. He said “Here we are,” I got off in front of this monstrous building with all these people out front, and momentarily froze. Then I got my nerve up, bought a ticket and went inside. A cavern. Dark, huge. I found my way to the top, where there weren’t any people. I moved down two or three rows and got my seat. There was no one even close. I waited and waited, then finally the curtain went up and the show started.

The first act on the show was a fiddle contest. There were two “finalists.” The first was a country guy called Natchez the Indian. Evidently, he was famous and traveled with the show. His competitor was a local man named Clark Kessinger. The crowd roared at his introduction. Someone could write a short story about that fiddle contest. I’ll keep it simple. Natchez went on first. He played an old-time hoe down, and everyone clapped. Then he did his big number: “Listen to The Mocking Bird.” He made his fiddle sing. Pretty bird songs, nice fiddling in between. Up the fingerboard, back down. Tremelo, acrobatic stuff. I was entranced. When he finished he received a huge applause from the crowd.

Then Clark Kessinger stepped up. While Natchez had come out in a fancy costume with spangles and a wide hat, Clark stepped up to the microphone in black trousers, white dress shirt, no hat. He proceeded to play his regular fiddle tune, matching Natchez with fast-flying bow work, all over his fiddle. The audience yelled its approval. Then Clark stepped to the mike and said something like this: “Natchez is a fine player. But he played ‘Listen to The Mocking Bird,’ which I had planned as my feature song. So if you all don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and give you my version.”

And he did. He not only played the sweetest, various bird songs, interspersed with a fiddle version of the song, he then put the fiddle behind his neck and continued to play. Then the fiddle went behind his back. The crowd roared. By that time I was transfixed. Finally, he took the bow, placed it between his knees facing forward, and played by moving the fiddle upside down, back and forth. That did it. The crowd rose to their feet, Clark took a portly bow and walked off stage. Of course he was named the winner of the fiddle contest. By that time I was in a trance.

And then: then, the show started. Out came Roy Acuff himself (also in dress pants and white dress shirt — none of that cowboy stuff — and the music began. The Smoky Mountain Boys played and sang all the familiar hits that I’d been listening to on the Grand Ole Opry. I can name the songs, the band members, the comedy, all of it. But that’s not important here.

I simply can’t tell you how I felt that day. I suppose “magic” fits. That I can tell you about it now, some seventy years later, may help you see me, young, green sweater, with a dime left over, going to Charleston alone, seeing and hearing all that music, forever tied to that kind of music. As it turned out, not just that kind of music. That was in fact my first “live” music experience. While I loved listening to the radio, the live experience made sense of it all. Music is music, in the end. Roy helped me understand that. Note: It turned out that Clark Kessinger lived in South Charleston. I went to high school with his son and daughter. Clark was locally famous, and in his later years won national championships for senior fiddlers. I have many of his recordings. Look him up.

Dickie Cole

The Coles. The Coles were a large family who lived close to Sycamore Street. The senior Mr. Cole, whose first name I never knew, had come — from Canada, I think — to work at the “Carbide” chemical plant. He was half-Canadian Indian, half Caucasian, perhaps French. His wife was either full Indian or half French; her speech was heavily accented. They lived in a large, farm-like house on Kanawha Terrace. The children were “Hummy,” the eldest, then Bob, then a sister Patsy, then Bill, Don and Dick. Hummy was killed in WWII action, I think. Bob was 6’8”, a giant at the time and obviously a legend. The younger three were in my age bracket, more or less. Back then, most all boys had an ‘ie’ or ‘y’ at the end of their names. Thus, Hummy, Bobby, Billy, Donnie, and Dickie. The Cole Boys.

As a family, they lived in virtual isolation from other families. However, the boys, Billy, Donnie and Dickie, were involved in all the neighborhood and school stuff. Billy — whom I later knew as just Bill — was quiet, studious, and went on to become a well-known commercial artist with Ringling Brothers. Donnie — Don — went on to become a valued Carbide expert in facilities management. Dickie — Dick — was the youngest, and that’s who this tale is all about.

Dickie was a year or so older than I. We kinda linked up. He was tall, angular, dark-skinned, dark-haired and had an infectious grin. He was kind of a loner, would hang around the neighborhood without ever being anyone’s “best bud.” He had this quiet, stealthy way about him, and my Grandmother Farley, who lived with us, called him — derisively — “that Indian.” He would have grinned at that.

I remember with laughter one summer night when I was upstairs in bed, reading — Zane Grey, probably — when I looked up at the dormer window, and there he was. Dickie, with that grin. I grinned back, and he disappeared, down the roof into a tree and to the ground. I thought “Dickie, why and how did you do that. ” But it was funny. Afterward, it never came up. Done and gone. That was Dickie. We always just grinned at each other; no “best buddy” stuff: sharing innermost thoughts, etc. Dickie and I were an unspoken pair; there was never a need for us to do all that talking stuff.

Here’s the story.

One day, when we were about 11 and 10, we decided, without parental knowledge, to go down to the railroad yard and climb around some cars that were idle on “the side.” The side was about four rails where railroad cars of various us were sent to await future destinies. Mostly, they were coal cars — hoppers — and tank cars, which in our area were mostly used to transport chemical products.

Dickie and I were having fun. Climbing around the wooden walkways on tank cars, climbing up to look down in coal hoppers, etc. As we rounded the front of a tank car it happened. Dickie fell, and his leg caught on a metal abutment. He went to the ground and grunted. Then he said, “I’m hurt.”

Dickie was larger than I. But I went to him and saw blood pouring from his upper leg, which had been torn open, with raw flesh hanging by the skin. He was in great pain, but, being Dickie, was not in panic.

My distinct, never-to-end memory is that at first, I was terrified. I stood there, stunned. The sight of the wound, with all the blood, had me in a state of fear: not knowing what to do or how to do it. His face, now pale with shock, the blood. Then it hit me. He was badly hurt and there was no one but me to help. Somehow, I got him up and, with him leaning on my shoulder, we walked — stumbled — about a hundred yards to the nearest house and onto the porch. He laid down on the porch floor and I pounded on the door, yelling and crying. A woman came to the door and I screamed at her to call an ambulance. She did, and the ambulance arrived. They laid him back and applied what I later learned was a compress and took him to the hospital. The guy who was in charge looked at me and said, “Son, you may have saved this boy’s life.”

I never saw it that way. What I did was get Dickie to help; they did the rest. It didn’t even click with me immediately when he said that. I was just happy that it turned out OK. I went home, told Mom the short version: “It wasn’t a bad thing, mom,” and that was that. Mom, of course, never told Dad.

The event was on my mind constantly the next few days. I was worried about Dickie, and I went to the Cole’s house and knocked on the door. No one came. No surprise; they weren’t very responsive. A couple of days later I went back, knocked on the back door. Mrs. Cole came, small, direct, said “Come.” She led me upstairs to a bedroom where Dickie lay. He grinned, said he had to stay in bed another two or more weeks. We talked for a minute or so, and I left. Mama showed me out. It was only later that I learned that I was perhaps the only person outside the family to ever be allowed in that house. When I learned that, I felt honored. The Coles — the parent Coles — were not an inviting neighbor, but they were extraordinarily good people.

It took about three weeks for the wound to heal enough that Dickie could get around. I saw him as always before: now and then, we’d play mumbly peg with the gang, and all the rest.

Dickie didn’t need to say “Thanks, Farley.” I didn’t need to hear it. We were just two kids, doing what we did, but we had a bond that was different from all the other bonds I’ve known. Dickie Cole. He went on to serve in the Air Force, got a job at Carbide, raised a large family, bought and ran a nice farm. I didn’t see him after high school.

His older brother Don passed away about ten years ago. I heard about the service, and drove to Richmond to attend, with the hope that Dick might be there. He was, and after all that time he hadn’t really changed. We spotted each other at the same time, and there was that infectious smile. And in both our eyes was the fleeting shared memory of that day. We talked for a few moments and then the service began. Driving home I reflected on all of it, and how really good it was to see Dick. About four years ago Dick passed away. Dickie, I’ll never forget that day, and I’ll never forget the night you looked at me through my upstairs window with your silly grin. Funny how hilarious times and serious times are paired in one’s mind.

Mumbly Peg and Sleeping Out

During my early teen years, the summers were a time of laziness (except for the jobs, which took only part of the day) and being useless. I’d help around the house, which wasn’t a big deal, but for the most part I just engaged in a number of activities, none of which got in the way of doing just nothing. Beginning at about 12, I started to read in earnest. I’d read any novel I could get my hands on — in my house there were, among many standard works, a lot of westerns, mostly Zane Grey. I immediately fell in love with each of Grey’s heroines, and read with great envy of riding horses, drawing down on the bad guys, falling in love, fighting Indians: the standard stuff of western novels of the day.

The real fun was hanging around with my neighbor buddies and finding stuff to do. We played a lot of mumbly peg, or “root the peg.” This was a game played with a two-bladed pocket knife in which one had to flip the knife and get it to stick in the ground. There was a pre-set sequence of hand tosses and finger flips you had to achieve without a miss — about 15 tosses in all. We’d play until only one player was left without finishing the sequence. That player had to “root the peg,” which meant digging a short stick — about three inches long and a quarter inch in diameter — out of the ground with his teeth. The non-losers of the game got to use their knives to drive the peg deeply into the soil, usually about an inch deep, so getting it out with your teeth wasn’t easy. How well I remember being the loser my share of the time. Dirt in my mouth and up my nose while the other players hooted and made fun of me. But if you lost enough you’d get good at digging dirt with your teeth, spitting it out and going back for more until you reached the peg and pulled it out. You can imagine that several games with six or so players could last through half a day.

Actually, the smell and taste of dirt — earth, that is — is okay. If you’ve never tried it, you wouldn’t know. There’s something about the feel, taste, smell of earth that is elemental. Anyway, after rooting the peg I’d go rinse out and take a big drink from the garden hose and go back for more. But you need to understand that I only lost part of the time; in fact, I was better than most. Such was entertainment in those days. No TV, electronic games, computers, skateboards, stuff that today’s kids have for amusement. Just knives, slingshots, apple trees, wrestling, going to Joplin Hollow, and the rest.

We would roam the neighborhood, climbing trees in the local apple orchard when the apples were not quite ripe, running foot races, sometimes playing touch football . . . you get it: we did a lot of nothing and that was huge fun. But the real deal — I mean The Real Deal — was sleeping out on someone’s front porch on a warm night, laughing with your buddies. Most often, it was my front porch. Four or five of us, sometimes more, would get parental permission to “sleep out.” Everyone would bring a quilt or blanket from home sometime shortly after it was too dark to continue our game of Capture the Flag, we’d pile in side by side, think up games to play and ornery stuff to say, until we’d fall off to sleep with an adventure yet to be had: going to the railroad. At about 3:30, we’d get up and quietly, with the sultry night laden with airborne reminders that we lived in the “chemical city,” walk about a mile to a low cliff that overlooked the C&O Railroad at the South Charleston freight yard. From there we would watch the trains below, chuffing back and forth, until the time — I think it was 5:20 — that the famous Fast Flying Virginian passenger train came roaring through, going westbound toward Cincinnati. Oh Boy. That train was like a rocket. Big engine with thirteen or fifteen streamlined passenger cars, each emblazoned with the words “Fast Flying Virginian.” And each car with its own special name. Easy to understand: it was a thrill to imagine oneself riding on that train to some distant city. On some nights, we would wait a little longer and watch the George Washington flyer going eastbound. Then we’d sneak back to the porch and sleep till someone woke us — often my Dad coming home off of midnight shift. And he always frowned. Imagine that! After his summers as a kid on the Greenbrier river? C’mon.

We never really tired of that adventure — sleeping out, capped off by the magic of the railroad and the steam locomotives — stinky, noisy, powerful, fast, mysterious, as they pulled their streamlined passenger cars through the night to exotic destinations.

Actually, the sleeping out wasn’t so much about sleeping out as about the railroad and the trains that provided us with dreams and excitement. But just sleeping out was good in itself, and we didn’t always go to the railroad. Railroad or no, it was a great way to spend a summer night, totally oblivious to all but the immediacy of the moment itself: young boys being just that.

When we became 15 or so, believing ourselves wholly adult and mature, we were disdainful of such juvenile stuff as sleeping out and watching nighttime trains. New fish to fry. Too bad, that; I’d do it tonight if my body would permit and I had a boyhood companion. And if there were still steam locomotives. It was just that good. I’ve slept out time and again — and yet again, since those days, beside whispering streams and roaring rivers, in warm weather and cold. And often at night, lying on the ground or cot, I’d think about those warm nights on someone’s neighborhood front porch, and smile.

Joplin Hollow

As a kid growing up in a valley full of chemical plants and related industries, one would think that my young life would be centered on neighborhood, factory-town stuff. Not so, at least not very much.

In spite of all those factories, our neighborhood was about a mile away from real woods. And through those woods ran a smallish creek named Joplin Branch. Somehow we never called it “branch,” rather we called the entire area — woods, creek and all — Joplin Hollow.

I tagged along after older brother Dave to the hollow when I was about seven; he was eleven. And he often chased me home — who would want to put up with a seven-year-old who asked dumb questions? But I learned the way to “Joplin.”

My mother was always willing to let us roam, explore, move around. She trusted that we wouldn’t do anything too stupid, and that we’d always get home at the expected time. For the most part, we lived up to that. And so, by the time I was eight or nine, I was allowed to go to the woods alone. And I did.

Almost daily in the summertime. I played in the creek, chased lizards, crawdads, frogs, even small water snakes. And I climbed the very steep wooded hills, crawled on rock outcroppings, turned over rotting logs — the whole works. I was in wonderland.

Our neighborhood gang of four or five boys would sometimes go together, and about a mile up the creek there was a swimming hole — at least we called it that. About the size of a large living room, and about four feet deep. We’d strip and jump in, splash, play water tag, all the stuff that’s part of a boys’ swimming hole.

By age ten, I would often rise before daylight, take a skillet and food and go to the woods. I’d build a small fire and cook my breakfast — usually eggs and warmed-over meat, along with white store-bought bread. And hot tea, using creek water. Those early mornings, with my breath showing, and that small fire, were a magical time for me. Joplin Hollow was very much my second home. It was there that I learned to love the woods, the waters, the sounds, scents, and sights that together were “nature” as I understood it then.

Later, one day when I was about eleven, I went to the swimming hole alone, stripped, jumped in. About five minutes later I heard voices — Girl Voices!! I was terrified. Here they came, early-teenagers, four of them. I had never seen them before, had no idea where they came from. But they came to the edge of the water, made great fun of that “nekkid kid,” and then saw my clothes on the large rock where I had left them. Yep. They took my clothes (not my shoes) and ran down the creek, laughing. I yelled at them but without any hope of getting my clothes back.

I came out of the water, got my shoes and went up the bank, looking desperately for something to put around my waist. Luckily, just beside the creek was what we called a banana tree with very large leaves. Holding a leaf in front and one behind, I started down the creek with the prospect of going through the neighborhood to get home burning me with fear. Oh Lord, I thought, help me please help me please help me!!!!

As it turned out, I had not gone far — perhaps a hundred yards — when I saw my clothes, in the path where those “vicious” girls had left them. I never told a soul about that day until I was in my forties. Oh no. Not mom, not anyone. My secret was sacred. As time went by, I was able to deal with it: just forget about it; no one will ever know. I know all this sounds fabricated, but every word is the honest truth. To this day, I remember that horrid moment when they said “what’re you hiding under the water, boy?”

During those early years, I discovered wildflowers at Joplin. On shaded hillsides, usually in deep loam caused by rotted wood and leaves, I found my favorite: trillium. I took one home to show mom; she knew immediately what it was and told me. She agreed that I could bring home trillium and other flowering plants and plant them in a shady area beneath a small pine tree in our front yard. I did this every spring for five or six years, digging up trillium — white and deep red — along with a red flower I mistakenly called Indian Paintbrush, Jack in the Pulpit, Lady Slipper, and others of various size and color. Many of them didn’t survive the trip from Joplin to the house, and the soil beneath the pine tree was hard and poor. But some did survive, and I got a big kick out of my wildflowers. My mother was a walking dictionary on wildflowers, and in her later years had a locally famous flower bed on the river bank where she and Dad lived beginning in 1961.

Did I mention smoking? I learned how to smoke at Joplin. Yeah, it was brother Dave, my outdoor mentor, who taught me. Not cigarettes, not Indian stogies (dried seed pods from a Catalpa tree), it was much more creative. Dave showed me how to take a big acorn, slice the top off, hollow it out, and insert a stem — a local hollow weed — into the lower side. Then take dried leaves and crumble them in my fingers and stuff them into the acorn/pipe. Light up. Lots of smoke. Probably toxic. We all did it, and in the fall, when the really large acorns had fallen and the leaves were very dry, we had contests to see who could sport the most colorful pipe. Of course, from there I graduated to cigarettes, my first being Wings, a cheap WWII brand you could buy for 12 cents. Ah, Joplin.

When I was twelve or so, we “graduated” from Joplin Hollow (although I returned there many times) to Little Creek. Little Creek was in fact a much larger stream which flowed through much larger, wilder forest country. It was about four miles from home, so we couldn’t go there as often due to the time it took to get there and return. My brother Dave was again the “advance scout” who got there first with his crew, to be followed by me and mine a couple years later. Little Creek was truly wild. The water was incredibly cold; to swim was to go in the water and back out as quickly as possible. No splashing and water tag in Little Creek. It also had fish: sunfish and rock bass we sometimes caught.

The place was kind of snaky. Very, very large black snakes and a few copperheads, although no one was ever bitten or attacked. To get to Little Creek we usually went on Sunday morning to the railroad, which was only about five minutes from the house. There was a scheduled freight train that always slowed though the South Charleston freight yards, and we would hop that train and ride it for about three miles, jump off at a spot close to the path to Little Creek. Then later that day we would return by hopping another (scheduled) freight and jumping off close to home, and get there in time for Sunday dinner. Of course, we never told our parents about the railroad part of the day; only that we went to Little Creek.

I was a Little Creek kid until I finished high school. But during that same time, I often went to the more tame but closer and more familiar Joplin Hollow.

I can still see the sunlit swimming hole, the Christmas-card-views of snow-laden branches and white-capped rocks in the creek bed. I can still smell the fall leaves, the damp path following a spring shower, the smoke from those small fires built by a young boy who learned to love the woods and waters by being there, most often alone.

That love of woods and waters never faded, and later, many of my happiest times were spent on the rivers and lakes of West Virginia and Virginia. As I write this at age eighty, I have no intention of giving up my annual camping trips with Patrick and some longtime friends. And it’s mostly because of Joplin.

The Blue Panthom

In the summer of 1939, when I was approaching my eighth birthday, kids across the country were taken up with a string of superheroes — known now as Action Heroes. The comic books and afternoon radio were alive with such names as The Green Lantern, The Shadow, The Human Torch, The Blue Beetle, and many more. We would talk about the latest episode while sitting on the curb eating newly-ripened apples.

And then, the craze hit. In our neighborhood at least. Every boy in our age group wanted to mimic the heroes and “ride” after dark through the area, sneaking up on imaginary bad people. We had our own hero names. Actually, I got into it a couple of weeks late, and good names like The Target, accompanied by a homemade cape and mask, had already been taken. But undeterred, I told Mom that I had a name, and I wanted a mask that covered my head and a matching cape. She asked what my name was and I told her: The Blue Panthom. Of course, it was “Phantom,” but what did I know. She smiled and said OK.

My outfit was the greatest. All blue, including dark overalls (in those days, all overalls and jeans were of very dark blue; what we called overalls were actually jeans), blue shirt, blue cape, and blue head-covering mask. So immediately after dark, the Blue Panthom rode! Around the back alley, through the Bowyers’ yard, down the side street — you get it; I was RIDING.

Just as it was getting good, it was decided that Alice and I would go to Alderson and spend some time with our grandparents. I was a little disheartened about that — I had just established the Blue Panthom as a bona fide neighborhood night rider, bumping into The Target, The Dart (The Target’s brother), The White Mask, as we roamed the streets. But we were going to Alderson. I asked Mom if I could take my mask and cape with me, and she relented. I stuffed them into my bag and off we went.

We’re in Alderson. Quiet country town with sidewalks, a short walk from the Farley house to downtown — John Alderson’s furniture store, Mick or Mack grocery, the drug store and so on. Sitting on the front porch all day. Boring doesn’t come close. So without any mention to anyone, even Alice, I went to work on a great idea: I would RIDE!! I would be a complete unknown in Alderson, fighting bad guys and being a hero with people wondering “who is that guy?”

The next afternoon all was quiet at the house. Alice was in the kitchen with Nanny, Granddad was out of town, and my moment had arrived. I sneaked upstairs, put on the jeans and shirt, went out the front door, hid behind a tree and donned my cape and mask. The Blue Panthom was riding. (I need to say this: I actually remember vividly my excitement and my feeling of invincibility as I went chest-first through yards and behind hedges, crossing sidewalks and arriving downtown. I was in a world of my own; a state of absolute fantasy.) The Blue Panthom entered Mick or Mack Grocery, crept through couple of aisles, left with a couple of people staring behind me.

Bursting with pride, I rounded the corner and was just getting ready to go into the hardware store when I heard a voice: “ALAN KEITH FARLEY!! Come here this minute!” I died. The Blue Panthom had been unmasked, in public. My embarrassment was unbearable. Nanny. Not Granddad, who would have protected my identity and played along until he got me home, who would have understood the horror of my feelings. No, it had to be Nanny — tall, severe, unsmiling, unknowing as to the value of fantasy, unable to relate to a kid’s world, jerking off my mask, whipping off my cape, grinding her fingers into my shoulder and marching me home. She had discovered that I wasn’t at the house, and both angry and worried, had set out to find me.

I guess Nanny had the mistaken notion that a superhero in her home was an affront to her southern gentility; that the masked kid in a downtown store had destroyed the family reputation. And maybe prepared to say to the church ladies, “Child in a mask? Certainly no grandson of mine!”

Not a word was spoken at supper or after. Granddad knew that it was too late to console me, and I knew that he understood — had probably been a hero himself way back in the 1890s. Needless to say, the remainder of our visit was strained, and Alice and I were more than happy to get back to Sycamore Street.

Following my adventure, I really wondered whether I’d ever wear the cape and mask again. Somehow, there was doubt about that. I had been outed. So after being back home for a day or so, pondering, the matter was settled. Late that evening, around dark, a shadowy figure crept outside and down the sidewalk, eyes shifting, dodging behind parked cars, creeping past doorways. The Blue Panthom had returned, and it was a night for riding! He Rides Again!

Note: Several years later, Mom told me Nanny had talked with her about the incident, and that Mom, my own superhero, had told Nanny what was what.

Additional Note: For many years, I remembered being the Blue Panthom, but I remembered it properly as the Blue Phantom. I guess I was forty or so when Mom recounted the story, telling me I had invented a new word (panthom). Funny thing, not one person ever laughed at me or teased me about my mispronunciation. I never went through the embarrassment of being corrected. Goes to show you that good families take care of their own. Finally: I must say here that Nanny Farley, following the death of her husband Fred, came to share her time among her children: Paul (and Rook), Ruth (and Dick), and Dad (and Mom), all of whom lived in the South Charleston/St. Albans area. She was a lonely widow with no home; only the homes of her children who accepted her gladly. She would rotate every few weeks from one home to the next for about eight years, and when she stayed at our house all was well. Her treatment of the Blue Panthom was long forgotten, and she and I were great friends during her final years. The event itself, happily, never came up. If it had we would both had laughed and laughed.

The Farm

“The Farm” was in Raleigh County, near a small mining town called Princewick. My Hale grandparents lived there and raised most of their children in the rather large house with white siding and a large screened front porch. From my earliest memories, the Farm was a magic place. Of course, by then we lived in South Charleston, and visited our grandparents only a couple of times a year — or so it seemed. Uncles Pat, Joe and Don, along with aunt Rook, still lived there, so it was a full house. Granddad was still working in the mines, as were Pat and Joe.

Outside, there were several acres of hilly farm land. They had a couple of milk cows, chickens, pigs, a grape arbor, a large garden. Out back the property sloped down toward a gully — a “wet weather creek.” Immediately behind the house were a granary, tool shed, chicken coop and woodshed. Further back and down the slope, away from all other activity, was the outhouse/privy, and on a rise about seventy five yards to the right was a large barn.

Inside the house, a wide hallway went from the front door to the back porch. These hallways were common then, called “dogtrots.” On the left front was the living room, with bare wood walls and little decoration. This room was rarely used by the family — most of the time was spent in the kitchen and dining room, farther back on the left. On the right side of the hall were stairs, and two large bedrooms, each with an open fireplace. (There were fireplaces throughout which were coal-burning and the source of heat for the house.) Upstairs were three bedrooms. I always slept on the living room floor (a treat I loved), and don’t remember anything about the upstairs. The back porch was a work area, and a place for the coal bucket/shovel, churn, kindling, water bucket for drinking water with a dipper, wash tubs, etc.

There was no indoor plumbing; water came from a dug well (as opposed to drilled) in the back yard, with a crank handle to raise the water container. As I said earlier, heat was from coal in open fireplaces, along with the wood-burning stove in the large kitchen. But — there was electricity, so there were lights, and a refrigerator in the kitchen.

No bathtub. Instead, a large galvanized wash tub. They would place the tub in the middle of the kitchen floor, pour in heated water from the stove, and bathe. I distinctly remember one time when Joe and Pat had both come home from the mines, black with coal dust, along with sweat, grease and dirt. They went to the kitchen, pulled a cloth curtain across the door, and took a bath. Before they started, they flipped a coin to see who got to go first — easy enough to figure that out. I was about seven at the time, was in the kitchen with them before I got chased out. Thinking back, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t refill the tub after each bath — that would mean extra trips to the well, etc. Can you imagine a family of ten taking baths in the kitchen? But Nanny was the original “Little Dutch Cleanser,” and her children, like her home, were given the spotless treatment.

I guess that was the family routine for a lot of years. In today’s world it’s hard to imagine that many people lived like that when I was a small kid. And unless you think about it, it wouldn’t occur that things were that way. (I note here that in today’s America there are still many people whose circumstances are as described above, and you can find in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky whole communities of abject poverty. The shame of a nation.)

The Farm was a place of constant activity: menfolk going to and coming from the mines, Nanny in the kitchen constantly, daughters helping with housework, never-ending cleaning. All this along with the summer garden work — about two acres of vegetables which were worked by shovel, hoe, and pitchfork — no motorized tractor in sight, only a workhorse for the plow. Once the crops were harvested, the work of canning the vegetables began. a large open fire was built in the backyard, and a huge washtub of water was put on to boil the glass jars. The women would then take the sterilized jars to the back porch and fill them with all manner of food, from beans to corn to peas to carrots to pork to chicken and on and on.

During those summer months, the garden workers — that was everyone who was available at the time — would go to the fields early, work until midday, and go to the house for dinner (lunch). Nanny would have cooked fresh pole beans and new potatoes together, tomatoes, some kind of meat, and bread: either cornbread or leftover biscuits.

A very full meal for people who were working really hard. Supper would often be more of the same. Of course, there were jams, jellies, honey, etc., so the meals were both filling and tasty. As a small boy I was wide-eyed about all the stuff that went on, and although they wouldn’t let me work in the garden, I could get a real feeling for the farm atmosphere. How else to raise a large family on coal miner wages?

Mother told me more than once that it was her job to bake biscuits every morning, before daylight, of course, for the men who were going to work in the mines. She started this responsibility when she was eight years old. And she said that there were days when she would bake as many as six dozen biscuits. (At that time there were eight children living at home.) Those of course, were for both breakfast and the lunch “buckets.” A lot of hungry men. And many years later, her biscuits were still simply as no other. Light, browned on top and bottom, fully cooked, waiting for butter and/or honey, consistently the best biscuits I ever had. The difference, among other things, was lard. Those biscuits were mixed with lard: not Crisco, not anything else. Lard, rendered from the hogs that were killed each late fall on a cold hillside, with the help of neighbors who in turn killed their own hogs. Pork fat was in those days a most cherished product, used for many, many processes in cooking. Try to find lard today, in your favorite food store.

All in all, even for those times, the Farm was a little rustic. But it was a beloved home place to Henry, Effie and their large family — ten kids. My mother told me one of her earliest memories was waking up to the sound of Granddad working the coffee grinder — you’d enjoy seeing a picture of one of those; quite antique. And then smelling the coffee brewing on the wood stove.

I spent most of one full summer at the Farm. I was ten, I think. I was ecstatic to think about a whole summer. Of course, my uncle Don was there; the older uncles and aunts were grown and gone, although they would come and go, sometimes just to pitch in with the work. But that was the summer that Don and I connected; bonded, as they say. He showed me how to use an ax, cutting kindling in the woodshed against the winter need; doing daily chores like getting water from the well, collecting eggs, feeding the farm animals, milking the cows, exploring the farm buildings, playing with the two hounds that lived in the side yard . . . just being a couple of young farm boys. I learned a little about what life on the farm was like. Constant work. He was 13, so we were close enough age-wise to get along like a couple of cronies. What a summer. I cried the morning Nanny said goodbye and we walked through the fields, chill and covered with dew, to Princewick where we caught the Greyhound bus for Charleston and home.

Little did I know that life would never be the same: the Farm would be no more.

Don Hale at The Farm – about 1938

I may have visited for a weekend a time or two, but that summer experience was never repeated — the Farm was on a limited lifespan. In about 1943, Nanny, Granddad and Don left the farm and moved to South Charleston, where Christy and Edith had purchased a small home for them in a community called Rock Lake Village, in Spring Hill, WV, just outside South Charleston.

Nanny and Granddad were no longer young; the children were gone, and life on the Farm had become a burden — especially with the infirmities of advancing age lying in wait. Nanny looked out her small kitchen window across the rooftops of the community and cried, every day, for years. In her mind, she still spoke to her beloved animals, the wood stove, and the rest. Granddad had no woods to walk in, no chores, no dirt to rub between his fingers, no wildflowers to gaze upon, no wood stove to fire up in the mornings — all that was gone. Although I know it hurt him terribly to leave behind a life that was so full of challenge and beauty combined, he was stoic about it, and I came to understand that he kept up a positive countenance, mostly for Nanny’s sake.

For me, an occasional visitor for just a few short years, the Farm has been an important part of my life. I can only imagine what it was for Nanny and Granddad Hale and their family: the life, the burdens, the challenges, the rewards. The hilarity, the #6 wash tub baths, the winter night trips to the outhouse, the frantic bustle of eight or ten people living there at once, the constant, never ending, grinding, ubiquitous work. But because I was there briefly, and of the wonders shown me by Nanny, Granddad and Don, I’m not that far from knowing, and that’s a good thing.

Winding Gulf, Alderson, and South Charleston

I should say that these pages, in total, comprise a series of sketches, not a highly detailed family history. I’ve been intentionally brief on several topics; my real purpose is to give you a profile, not an in-depth report. So as you read, do so with the knowledge that these are the “high spots” in my memories — hopefully just enough for you to get a fair understanding of who we were.

This entry is about just what the title says: my earliest personal memories. I have just a few memories of my very early years: When I was two-three, we lived in a “company house,” as did most coal mine families in those days. The company provided the homes (I think they charged rent, in the form of scrip), they were all built on the same plan, they all looked just alike. Tiny, frame structures. I have no specific memory of the layout of that house, but I do remember, of all things, a door knob. It was white, ceramic. And I remember a small refrigerator with a round motor on top. I also remember my father at that time. He worked at night — the “hoot owl” shift, and he would light his carbide lamp (which was mounted on his cap) before he left the house for work. I remember his showing me how he struck the flint that lighted the lamp, and the live flame that resulted. As best I can tell, I was two.

I know that “carbide lamp” is foreign to you, so look it up. These lamps were the state of the art in the early twentieth century; before that miners had very small oil lamps with wicks, that looked like very small pitchers and hooked onto their hats. Carbide lamps were fueled by calcium carbide, which formed acetylene gas when mixed with water. The lamp fed water into the carbide ‘rocks,’ pushing gas into an orifice and then lighted by a spark created by a metal wheel scraped against flint. Got that? No? Look it up.

Another two-three-year-old memory: Alice, my twin sister and I were trained to use a small toilet “potty” which was white and had a red handle, and a red rim around the edge. Mother had her hands full: Dave, who was seven, along with the two of us, were full-time. She taught Alice and me to take care of each other in small ways; in this instance, we would take turns on the potty. While she sat, I would turn around and she would undo the buttons that kept my shirt and pants together.

Then it was my turn to sit. And I remember that.

Bet you’re thinking “I don’t think I’d’ve told that.” Well, I just did.

When my mother (as I learned later) told Dad that she was NOT going to raise her family in a forlorn coal camp, and for him to get another job, mother and we kids moved in with Dad’s parents in Alderson while Dad went to the Kanawha Valley to find work. This was in the middle of the depression and jobs were virtually nonexistent. I remember very vaguely that year in Alderson; Alice and I were three. In addition to my grandparents, great-grandmother Mammaw was there, as was my aunt Ruth, who was a teenager. I remember Ruth in her high school band uniform — maroon and white. She played clarinet. Ruth is about 90 now, and I’ve seen her at her Florida home a couple of times in recent years. She was and is a beautiful, good-natured, funny, good-hearted person.

Alice “Mammaw” Jameson Hite with Farley grandchildren – about 1935

Back to Alderson. I remember a dark closet beneath the staircase, with a door. I think it was used for kitchen storage — food, or pots and pans. Once as I started to open the closet door, Mammaw barked at me, “Don’t you dare! There are goblins in there!” I had no idea what goblins were, but no matter — Mammaw knew how to frighten a little kid.

Sometime during that year, Dad was lucky enough to get a job with Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation — CCCC, in South Charleston, WV. He told me later that the line to the personnel office stretched down the highway for more than a mile — that got my attention; with unemployment at that level, it was miraculous that he was hired. (CCCC later became Union Carbide, an internationally famous chemical company.) On my and Alice’s fourth birthday we moved to South Charleston, into a tiny house on Franklin Terrace, which was part of the old Kanawha Turnpike, and was on a hillside overlooking the Carbide plant, which was on the riverbank. The exterior of the house was brown; there were two bedrooms. During our time there Dad’s brother Paul and Mom’s brother Christy both came to stay with us and get jobs at Carbide. Counting Paul and Christy, there were seven of us in that tiny house. I have no idea where we slept. But I do remember a green daybed in the living room, and I remember playing with Alice in the side yard, rubbing pieces of soft sandstone against a piece of screen wire, making what we called “brown sugar.”

We were about four. By today’s standards we were living in poverty. By Great Depression standards we were among the fortunate: Dad had a job. But we barely made it — nothing to spare.

I’m sure you’re getting it: these memories are for the most part absolutely unimportant and unremarkable. But they’re mine, so I suppose they are part of who I am. And except for the Mammaw episode, all my memories of those early years are very happy. I think that’s so because mother was a comforting, encouraging person, who didn’t show the troubled face that comes with poverty, hard times, and hopelessness. Dad was a worrier, taciturn, and stern. But caring, too. He worked shift work at the plant for thirty-six years, being rarely at home during “regular” hours, so our main parental contact was with our mother.

Alan and Alice at the Franklin Terrace house, about 1935

Franklin Terrace was a grimy place. Across the road and down at the bottom of the hill was the railroad, with coal-fired steam engines spewing black smoke and cinders as they worked in the freight yard. On the other side of the railroad was the highway, and then, across the highway was the Carbide plant, which belched fumes beyond description from its stacks. I can remember the pervasive, nose-burning odors: oil, coal, gas, chemicals, traffic: all in combination to produce a lingering heaviness and a stench which can be neither described nor replicated.

We lived at Franklin Terrace until September 1937, when my parents rented a larger home nearby, but away from the plant and railroad. The house was at 123 Sycamore Street, and Alice and I were so proud that our address was 123 — one, two, three. We moved in on the first day of school for the two of us. So that day in 1937 was a really big deal — we walked — with Mom — to Zogg O’Dell Elementary School from one house, and walked home from school to another house. You guessed it: Alice and I thought we were the most unique kids in South Charleston: who else had possibly had that experience? That rented house was home to Mom and Dad until they finally built a home on Coal River in St. Albans in 1961. I recall that the rent at some point was twenty-five dollars a month. The Sycamore Street house was a frame two story house with two original bedrooms upstairs and a downstairs bedroom which was actually a converted kitchen, about 8‘X10’.

Alice and Alan at the Sycamore Street house, about 1940

My childhood there was full of joy, and no one ever gave our crowded quarters a second thought. Over time, we had as part of the extended family uncles Paul and Christy, aunts Rook and Edith, Uncle and Aunt Dick Zopp and Ruth (Farley), along with infant Carolyn; a family friend named “Cotton” White, a cousin Ed Hale, and, of course, Nanny Farley (Lelia Hite), who stayed with us after granddad Farley died in 1945. Somehow, my mother saw to it that everyone was comfortable — and fed. So it seemed there was a steady stream of “room and boarders,” they would stay for two-three years until they got established with work, and enough ahead to find another place to live. I don’t remember any friction within the household; it was just accepted as our normal lifestyle. I liked all those people, they were friendly, and they were family. We got along just fine. Looking back, I’m without words to say how Mom did it: washing and drying clothes for that gang. Cooking, packing lunches for three, four or more workers, taking care of three kids, cleaning house (no vacuums, dishwashers, etc. in those days), and the rest. I don’t remember any of the men pitching in — I guess back then that the division of labor was based on a different standard.

First grade was exciting — just being in school, getting to know other kids, going to the playground for recess, eating lunch from home at our desks, and the rest. Our teacher was “Missis” Shaffer, as we all called her, who was kind. I don’t know if we learned anything at all — curriculum-wise, that is; maybe how to read a little. But we had already memorized the alphabet and numerals 1 through 10 from the red and blue letters and numbers on the edges of our cereal bowls. The principal was Miss Pearl Wheeler, a cranelike, stern, bony lady of about 40, so we thought she was probably about 80. I never heard her say one word. Never saw her smile. And being the principal, she was uniformly disliked and feared by all. Who knows? She could have been — probably was — an okay person. But even today, I secretly doubt it.

In the second grade I fell in love with Maggie Triplett; she lived close by, had golden hair and a big smile with a gap between her front teeth, and we were in the same classroom. I think it was the smile that got me. But she never showed any interest in me at all; her dreamy eyes were always somewhere else. So that was that; I think my love life with her lasted a week or so. After that I didn’t think much about girls until much later, maybe when I was about thirteen, when I fell in love with my history teacher — I don’t remember her name, but she sure was nice to me. And pretty. Every day I left her class with my mind unable to see or comprehend anything other than my romantic fantasies of the two of us, looking at each other, never kissing.

Going back a little: when we entered the third grade, the school was so crowded they decided to “double promote” some of us to make more room the coming year. Alice and I, along with about fifteen other kids in our class, completed the third grade in one semester, thus becoming “double promoted.” That meant we started the fourth grade in January, and it stayed that way until we graduated — one semester early — from high school. There’s no doubt this caused scheduling problems at our schools, and besides, we in all likelihood didn’t actually complete that third grade stuff. Anyway, it worked out OK; Alice and I stayed an extra semester in high school as “post graduates” and finished with our original class. In the end, it didn’t matter. Just caused scheduling problems for the administrators. I could pass along a few more lines about all this, but somewhere “early memories” become not so early, so I’ll let it go at that. The memory gap between this and other entries is between the ages 8 and 11 — so you’ll see me beginning at age 11 in other writings.