Gravel Switch and Caney Bridge

The Forkland Community gets its mail out of Gravel Switch, Kentucky. “The Switch” as a lot of people call it is about five miles from the Fork. During the time I ran the store there was somewhere around a thousand people in the Gravel Switch area. The town had a bank, post office, and a country store called “Jerry’s Market” named after Jerry Lanham, the owner. The store had a big sign painted on the roof saying, “Hi, If You Can’t Stop, Wave.”

The town grew up around a gravel quarry on a spur line of the L&N railroad. The trains would stop to pick up gravel and this is how it got it’s name. Penn’s Store served as the post office and doctor’s office as well as selling food and clothing up until Gravel Switch Post Office opened in 1870 when the town was established. The People’s Bank of Gravel Switch was not founded until around 1911. I used to hear tales about John Dillinger robbing the Gravel Switch Bank. I don’t know if this is true but I heard it more than once from some of the old timers in the area. Most of the time, if you tell someone you are from Gravel Switch, they will say, “Isn’t that the home of Minnie Pearl?”

Minnie was from Grinder’s Switch not Gravel Switch. It is a totally different place.

Two or so miles outside of town you come upon a big, old, rusty, iron bridge looming above a right deep hole of water. Another swimming hole! I took the girls down to Caney Bridge from the time they were three or four years old to go swimming. We would picnic on the banks and jump off the rocks, lay in the sun, and visit with other swimmers. If you crossed over the bridge and made a sharp left turn, then followed a narrow gravel road about half a mile, you came upon a huge gravel bar that could not be seen from the main road. My girlfriend, Bonnie, and I used to spend entire Saturdays lying in the sun in the creek listening to country music tapes on my old, black, battery operated, “boom” box. We always took a cooler of beer and soft drinks along to quench our thirst. It was a great getaway from the store for me on days that I could get Carolyn to work. When I look back on these times, it amazes me how the creek was such an area of socializing. It was nothing to be lying in the sun and along comes fifteen three and four wheelers grinding and bumping over rocks, climbing in and out of the water. The riders always stopped to chat or have a beer. Trucks also ran back and forth through the creek beds and farmers would fill up huge water tanks to use on their tobacco crops. Cooking hot dogs, hamburgers and roasting marshmellows on an open fire built on a big flat rock was not uncommon and sharing was the normal thing to do.

A couple of incidents always stand out in my mind when I think of Caney Bridge other than the great times we had down there.

One day I took Anne and Leigh and some friends swimming under the bridge. We had been there for a while and this jeep with no top came down to the creek, pulled out into the shallow part of the water and the driver, a guy, we all called “Groundhog Wheeler”, (I have no idea where he got this name and never knew his real name) wearing only swimming trunks laid his seat back, rested his head on the head rest, put his feet up on the steering wheel, inserted a tape, and closed his eyes. A song started playing. The song was, “I’m Lying Here with Linda on my Mind.” It was a popular song about that time but after the damned thing had played the same song about twenty times, I told the girls, “He is going to be lying there dead with Linda on his mind very soon, because I am about ready to kill him and destroy that stupid tape!” Maybe, you call this “river rage” because I was furious. I managed to control my temper and we got our stuff together and left. Linda stayed on my mind for all these years when I think about Caney Bridge!!!

Another incident involving the girls and I took place very close to the bridge. One warm, sultry evening after closing hours for my place, we decided to drive over to Jerry Lanham’s store and pick up three chicken boxes. His place was the only one in the area where you could get something like that to eat. We got our boxes of hot, fried, Chester chicken and went down to Caney, crossed the bridge, went up the road to a little church and pulled over across the road, spread out our food on the hood of my old green, chevy wagon. We were enjoying the chicken, the time of day, and the cool breeze, when I glanced back toward the bridge. It was lined with men in camouflage, armed with high powered rifles, and they were looking through the sights on the guns. I said, “Get your chicken and get in the car right now!” We quickly gathered up our stuff. I had to drive across the bridge to get back home. We started to cross and I rolled the window down and asked if there was a problem. One of the men told me they were watching a marijuana patch up the creek. Needless to say, we wasted no time getting back to the Fork that day.

The Amish Visit Judy’s Market

The Amish came to Forkland to build a huge, metal barn for Jo Allen Hayes during the time I was running the store on Minor’s Branch. They would come in for lunch and all sit around the table and eat and talk in their first language which is German. They speak in many different dialects of German and English is their second language. They do not drive automobiles but paid someone to drive them around to their places of employment. Usually, there would be ten or twelve Amish men working on the Forkland project and one pickup truck driver. Most of them road on the back of the truck. The driver spent the day running errands or just waiting for their work to end. Sometimes, he would leave and come back after them in the afternoon.

These people are very friendly but do not like to have their pictures taken. They avoid all modern technology and live a very simple life separate from the rest of the world. Amish people have no telephones, electricity or modern conveniences. They use horse drawn buggies for transportation and farm with horses. They are also skilled craftsmen.

They would talk and laugh and tell jokes while enjoying lunch. The Amish children only went to the eighth grade and many times there would be young boys ten or twelve years of age in the group. I had a television set in the store and the younger children were totally fascinated with it.

They could not wait till lunch time to get to my place and watch tv and ride Anne and Leigh’s bicycles.

Kristz Koblentz was sort of an overseer of the group during the working on the barn. He told me all about his family in Casey County. He and his wife had a son that was becoming of age to date and they were going to send him to Pennsylvania so that he could meet a nice Amish girl there because he was related to so many of the Amish girls in Casey County. Kristz and his wife had a total of eight children. I would keep a supply of packs of small filtered cigars that looked like a cigarette but was brown, on hand, just for them. I was always telling them how much I liked their straw hats and one day they brought me one. I used to keep it hanging on the wall behind the counter.

Once they completed the barn for Joe Allen, they built me a deck on the back of my house and they did it for about half of what it would cost me to get anyone else. Kristz had the lumber delivered and they all started work around 8 a.m. one morning. This was a good sized deck going on two sides of the house with one side facing the creek in back and a railing around the entire structure and steps leading up from the yard. It was connected to the house. Around noon, the day they started one of the men came into the store and asked me to come out back and take a look. I could not believe it when I went outside and walked around the house. They were finished! They built that deck in four hours and it was very study and looked great. The girls and I enjoyed sitting out there in the evening when I closed the store. Anne and Leigh would shoot at fish and cans that floated by with their BB guns.

I had visited the Amish community in Casey County for many years before ever moving to Forkland. They raise and sell the most wonderful produce, homemade butter, and breads, and jams in their bulk food store and a walk through the Amish furniture store will make you appreciate their craftmanship. If you want to take a step back in time just follow the backroads in the spring of the year when the redbuds and wildflowers are in bloom through steep knobs and over rolling hills of the bluegrass to Casey County. Amish country is about ten miles out of Liberty on Highway 127 to a left turn on Highway 910 and on to South Fork Road. Anyone in or around Liberty can give you directions. You will know you have arrived when you see women in bonnets and aprons and men in blue shirts with black pants and straw hats. Time seems to slow down and the world seems at peace in this beautiful place.

In the spring, my children and I all make a trip back to Amish Country. We look forward to it every year. We stop at the Bread of Life Cafe on Highway 127 out of Liberty for lunch and then continue on our journey to visit a quieter, more laid back, simpler way of life. We buy tomatoes, apples, spices, cheese, and enjoy the friendly atmosphere. My son’s wife, Sarah, and my wonderful new grandson, Thomas Wyatt, and my significant other, Bob, now join Rob, Leigh and Anne and me on our trips. It is a wonderful tradition.

The Man in Black

Very early one morning I had just opened the store while Anne and Leigh were in the kitchen having breakfast before school. It was still dark outside. I knew it was almost time for the school bus so decided to go into the house and see if they were ready. You walked out of the store into my living room and to the right off the living room was the kitchen. If you walked straight ahead when you were in the living room you would enter two bedrooms that belonged to the girls. If you were in the kitchen and facing the living room door you could see anyone that came out of the store into my house.

I walked out of the store and toward the kitchen where the girls were standing by the table finishing their breakfast. I took one look at Anne and asked her what was wrong with her because she had the strangest look on her face and seemed to be looking right through me into the room where I was standing. It was kind of a startled look coupled with one of fright. I asked her a second time what in the world was wrong with her. In a voice that sounded like a whisper to me, she said, “a man just walked out of the store right behind you.” A chill ran down my back as I quickly turned and saw nothing. I went directly to the girls. Anne breathlessly said, “he had on a black hat, shirt, and pants and he went toward our rooms. I knew Anne had seen something or someone because she was trembling.

I told them to go into my bedroom off the kitchen and if they heard me scream to go out the back door and run to the neighbor’s house as fast as they could. I went back into the store and got my pistol from under the counter. I knew the store was open and someone could have walked right in out of the darkness and could be in one of those rooms. Walking as quietly as I could, I slowly entered the first bedroom and looked around the room. Then, I checked under the bed. I entered the next bedroom and checked the bed in there and the closet. There was nothing. There was no man in black to be found and nothing looked different or out of place.

I returned to the kitchen and told the girls everything was fine and there was not anyone in that area of the house. Anne was still visibly upset and did not want to come back into the store but they both followed me back to the counter and I put the gun away.

The school bus came in a few minutes and they boarded and left for school. I, still felt very uneasy about what had happened because Anne was not someone to say she saw something unless she actually did see something and the look on her face told me she was totally scared.

I, again, got the gun out and went through the entire house and searched every closet, under every bed, went into the stock room and again there was nothing.

Peg was in the store later that morning and I told him about this incident. Of course, being scared of everything, he totally thought this was the ghost of some confederate soldier, since some of those old boards used to build the store came out of a house used for a hospital in the Civil War.

I am not a person that believes in ghosts but I know that Anne saw something or someone that day. She was nervous and upset over this for days afterward and has not wanted to discuss it since it happened. The man in black was never seen again by any of us while we lived on the Fork.

My Son, The Graduate

Leigh, Rob, and Anne

My son, Charles, was in school at Eastern Kentucky University during the first years I spent in the store on the Fork. Charles has always been called Rob or Robbie by Leigh, Anne and me but a lot of people know him as Chas. Rob would explore the creek and visit with the people hanging out in the store on his visits. We would load him up with goodies to take back to school with him. I remember getting a cardboard box and going around the store filling it with juices, nabs, potted meats, peanut butter, chips, nuts, and anything he could easily prepare or eat at school. He would take what we called his “care package” and off he would go back to school.

When I fell and broke my foot and was on crutches, Rob was there at the hospital, and spent the night at my house after I came home.

Rob majored in art in college and started drawing when he was big enough to pick up a pencil and put it to paper. I remember his dad and I gave him art lessons when he was only six or seven years old. He loved to draw and would draw on anything! He even made the girls his canvas on one occasion when they were all a bit younger. He used a magic marker to draw all over their arms and legs and it did not come off for days. No amount of scrubbing with soap and water would take those drawings off the girls. Of course, they thought it was lots of fun to have big brother drawing pictures on them.

The day Rob graduated from EKU was one of the proudest days of my life. He was the first and only member of my family to graduate college. I remember getting Carolyn to work in the store and the girls and I being so excited to attend his graduation. There was lots of posing for pictures and he was so handsome in his cap and gown.

Shortly after graduation from Eastern, Rob moved to Florida and from there to New York and then California. He became sort of a gypsy for a while and also bought a motorcycle that he rode back and forth across country.

Today, he has a wonderful wife, Sarah, and the most adorable little boy on this earth, Thomas Wyatt. He is a great husband, father, and son.

He is also a very talented artist, has acted in movies, enjoys writing, and is employed with Kentucky Educational Television in Lexington, Ky.

Hey Mom, You Sunk The Truck!!

Leigh, Maggie, Annie

Leigh, Maggie, and Annie were great friends when we lived on the Fork. They were always at my house or at Maggie’s house. Maggie lived about a mile from us and the parents either drove them back and forth, they rode their bikes, or sometimes they even walked. We never worried because in those days everyone knew everyone and watched out for each other.
One particular evening, Maggie’s parents, Kay and Harold Dean, was having a cookout and barbecue at their place and we were all invited. The girls went down early and I was to follow as soon as I closed the store for the day.

I was about thirty minutes from closing when Red stopped in the store to say hello.
Red is a character and you would have to know him to appreciate him. He lived about two miles from the store, up and over Mule Hill, in the cutest house he built himself on twenty some acres of land. The house was like a cabin with a huge downstairs living area and kitchen with a big, old wood cooking stove and bentwood cabinet handles. He had an eating table he made and inlaid old coins in the top. The upstairs was a big bedroom and bath with french style doors leading to a little porch and there was a big porch on the front of the house. Red’s place set a good distance off the road with a gravel driveway back to the house. He loved animals and was always bringing home strays. I knew Red even before I moved to the Fork and he had been to my house to dinner with mutual friends, Billy and Judy Gorley. Once I bought the store, Red and I became the best of buddies and often hung out together. We were both single and enjoyed each other’s company but we were not dating. We were just good friends and buddies. Often on Sunday afternoons, we went to the movies because it only cost a dollar to go to the matinee. One week I would choose what we saw and where we ate dinner and the next week Red would choose. Some of the movies he chose left me bored to death. He may have felt the same. Red usually stopped in the store in the mornings on his way to work and often in the evenings on his way home. If the girls had left any breakfast Red scarfed it down. He would always check for leftovers. He always looked out for us, also. I remember one time when some guy was causing a rukus outside and was trying to leave without paying for gas and Red was in the store. He politely went outside, grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt and told him in no uncertain terms to get inside and pay for the gas and remove himself from the premises! Red was a pretty big guy and nobody messed with him. The guy paid for the gas and left. This one evening, I was tired and almost ready to close and I asked Red if he wanted a beer. We had several. I told him I was going to the barbecue and asked him if he wanted to go. Red always wanted to go if there was going to be food! We jumped in his pickup and for some reason I still don’t understand, we decided to drive to Maggie’s house through the creek. We went down to the old, iron bridge and drove down into the creek. We made it about two hundred feet and drove right off into a deep hole of water that came up to the windows. Red had a big bag of dog food in the bed of his truck and a basket of clean laundry he had just picked up on his way home. Needless to say, I think we had too much beer before our grand idea. I managed to get the window down and climbed out onto the tool box in the back of the truck. Red was wading around in the water trying to collect his laundry.
Mark Morgan was the first person to drive by on the highway and see us down there stuck in the creek. He stopped and asked if he could help and I told him to go get Hubert and tell him to bring his tractor. Mark takes off to get Hubert. About five minutes later, here comes Hubert to save the day with his huge tractor. By this time, the entire creek bank was lined with people watching the show! I could hear them asking each other where we ran off the road. They did not know we had decided to use the creek for a highway….. Hubert gets the tractor into the creek and hooks a chain onto the truck. He tells me to get off the tool box because the chain could break and fly back and hit me. Red decides he will carry me to the bank so I won’t get wet.
He took one step on a slick rock and down we both go into the water. Those people lined up on the side of the road were hooping and hollering and having a ball watching all this take place.
I finally get to the bank on my own, looking like a drowned rat, with jeans on that feel like they weigh at least fifty pounds they were so water soaked. Hubert cannot budge that truck with the tractor. Next, Hubert sends someone to get Decker and his tractor. Decker lives in sight of where we were. Fifteen minutes later, Decker has his tractor hooked to Hubert’s tractor and we now have two big tractors trying to pull Red’s truck out of the creek. After much grinding and sliding of tractor wheels the big blue truck is pulled out of the water and drug by a tractor down to the store where they unchain it and leave it. Water is pouring out of that truck on all sides and continued to drain for at least three days.
By this time, everyone on the Fork knows what is going on up the creek and Leigh and Annie was not at all happy about their mother and her shenanigans. Someone dropped me off to change clothes and then took Red home with his collected laundry all soaking wet. I don’t think I ever made it to the barbecue that night but I sure did hear some choice words about my behavior from the girls. I remember them telling me I should stay home and do things like knit and stuff like other mothers. Beeler Cox lived right near the hole of water where we sunk the truck and every time he came in the store for months he would look at me and shake his head like he could not believe what he saw that night. Then, he would laugh like crazy. (To be continued)

The Forkland Heritage Festival

The people of the Forkland community bought the Forkland school after it was closed in 1971 and the children were transported to the new Boyle County Elementary school in Danville. The school had always been the hub of the community. Now, it would be the Forkland Community Center and the home of the annual “Forkland Heritage Festival and Revue”. The object of this center was to “create, cultivate, and promote an interest in the heritage of people of the Forkland Community”.

Each year the festival is host to people from far and wide. There are wagon tours of the Forkland community where you can watch sorghum molasses being made, see Penn’s Store, view wildlife, and see a water fall.
The festival is usually held on a Friday and Saturday in October. The leaves are beautiful this time of the year and the drive thru the winding countryside is worth the trip in itself.
I would usually close the store on Friday afternoons and sometimes on Saturday mornings so that I could attend the festival and visit with all the people.
There was lots of country music, a pancake breakfast, a bean supper and drama, and a 5k race called the Fox and Hound.
I ran the race the year before I moved to the Fork. It is over hill and dale and across streams. It is usually held around 8 a.m. in the morning and you had better be in good shape if you want to finish this race. The morning I ran it, the dew was on the grass making it slippery, there was shale rock near the stream and I ended up on the ground a couple of times before I finally made it to the finish line. My friend, Margaret Foley, ran with me and my doctor, Don Hamner, from Danville was also in the race. I remember Don telling me not to try and run up the big hill at the beginning or I would not be able to finish. He said to walk up the hill and then run the rest of the way. I took his advice and was totally spent when I hit that finish line but it was a great experience and something I am glad I was able to do. My twin’s dad also ran this race a couple of years later and they hope to carry on the tradition maybe this year in October. If you run this race, you get to eat pancakes afterward and they are the best pancakes you will ever eat! I was so hungry after that race that I will never forget how good those pancakes tasted.
The food at the festival is outstanding and ranges from burgoo to chicken to barbecue and pies.
Hubert ran the harvest market booth when I was on the fork. He had pumpkins, squash, persimmons, corn, nuts, dried flowers and other items for sale. Marjorie, his wife, would paint faces on some of the pumpkins and they sold like hotcakes.
I remember one year when I stopped by Hubert’s booth and he was selling hedge apples three for a dollar. I could not believe it. They were laying in the road all over the fork and all you had to do was stop and pick them up. I asked him if he was having any luck with the hedge apples and he said he had almost sold out. Hubert said some people from Japan had stopped by the booth and he told them they would keep spiders out of your house and they bought almost all the hedge apples he had. Since then, I have read somewhere that they are supposed to ward off spiders but don’t know if this is true or myth. Hubert was like a fixture at the festival and everyone stopped to see him and sit for a spell and talk.
The local area schools always transported all the elementary children to the festival on Friday. The children loved this trip and looked forward to it every year. Leigh and Anne loved it as well even though we lived less than a mile from the community center. One Friday they went off to school excited about their trip back to the Fork to the festival. I forgot to give them any money that morning so I called them and told them to go by Hubert’s booth and ask him to give them some money and tell Hubert I would pay him back after the festival. They did exactly as I told them and had the biggest day at the festival they ever had. They asked Hubert for money and he gave them all they wanted!! Everytime, they ran out, they just asked for more and Hubert gave it to them!! I am sure Hubert thought this was totally amusing. They paid for their friends to fish in the fish pond and ate until they were ready to pop. When the school bus let them off at the store that afternoon, they were so excited at what a wonderful day they had at the festival and showed me all the stuff they got from the fish pond. Hubert loved children and I am sure he got the biggest kick out of giving them this money. I paid him back every dime but made sure the next year that everyone understood about the money situation. I, never again, forgot to give them money on the Friday morning of the festival and to warn them not to ask Hubert for money.

This year will be the 37th annual Forkland Festival. It is certainly worth one’s time to take in this event and visit with all the lovely people “down on the fork”. (To be continued)

Ski Masks, Robbers, and a Guardian Angel

I have always thought there was guardian angels amongst us and most of the time they are in the form of our friends or neighbors, relatives or loved ones. It seems to me when I most needed someone in my life these were the people that came to my rescue.

Such was the case one very cold, wintry morning on the Fork. I had just opened the store, built a fire in the stove, and it was beginning to get daylight outside. This particular morning, I was alone in the store and it was so bitterly cold out that no one seemed to be up or moving about but me. I happened to glance out the window and a man was crossing the old, iron bridge a ways up the road. The man was wearing a ski mask and was on foot. He was headed for the store.

I have always heard the expression, “ignorance is bliss” and on this day I did not have one thought in my head that this guy was going to try and rob me. In fact, I thought he was walking to the store from a farm owned by Joe Hays that was located almost within seeing distance from my place. Joe was in the process of stripping tobacco and had brought tobacco hands in the store for lunch several days during this week. The man walked in and I could see by the openings around his eyes on the ski mask that he was black. We had no black people living on the Fork during this time but they often worked in our area and there had been two black guys in the store for lunch with Joe’s group.

The area farmers would often go to the nearest larger town of Lebanon and just hire guys off the street that were willing to work or they went by the pool halls and local markets and offerred employment in their crops. Often times, they did not know these people they just needed help with their tobacco.

The guy did not remove his ski cap but started walking around the store like he was checking things out. I said, “It sure is cold outside this morning”. He did not answer me. I wondered why he did not answer because I just knew this was the guy that had been in the store the day before for lunch. I said, “Where is your buddy this morning?”. The two of them had been together every day they had been in my store. Again, he did not answer and again I did not think anything about it except that maybe he was so cold or was just not in a good mood!

He went to the pop machine and got a drink and walked to the counter and set it by the register.

I rang up the pop and told him he owed me sixty-five cents. Then, a car drove up to the front steps of the store and Monkey jumped out and ran through the door. The man said in a very low, deep voice, “I don’t have the money to pay for that”, and ran out the door almost knocking Monkey down. Monkey screamed to me, “Where is your gun, they are trying to rob you.” I quickly handed Monkey the pistol I kept under the counter and he ran out the door after the guy on foot. A few minutes later, he came back and said the guy’s friend was parked on the other side of the iron bridge with the motor running waiting on him. Monkey had seen the car as he crossed the bridge but did not realize what was going on until the guy ran out of the building. I had called the police by this time and was in total shock as to how close I came to being robbed and did not even know it!

A state trouper came to the store and asked questions and said they would try to locate them. I told him I thought it was the two guys that had been in the store previously. The trooper told me it was against the law to enter a place of business with a ski mask on your face. He told me if someone came in the store wearing a ski mask to ask them to remove it and if they didn’t, to hold them at gunpoint and call the law. I learned later that the same two guys had been hanging around another market over in Gravel Switch that same morning but left probably because there was people around and going in and out of the premises.

Monkey worked for Hubert. He lived in a little trailor on Hubert’s property and helped out on the farm. He was in and out of the store often to pick up cigarettes, bread and such and we got to know each other. He was always pleasant and loved to watch the Discovery Channel on tv and talk about what he saw on there. I never knew him by any other name than Monkey but on this day I called him My Guardian Angel. I don’t know what would have happened had he not drove up at the very moment he did. Someone was looking out for me on that day and many other days in my life.

I don’t think they ever caught anyone because I never heard anything about it if they did. News travels fast in a small community like Forkland and people called to see if I was o.k. or needed anything. Other small groceries in surrounding communities were on the lookout for these people.

Mike Gorley came in my store and asked me why I did not lend him my car since I was so nice to him! He also ran through the door of the store in a ski mask later in the day as a joke! I guess they all thought I was so naive about the situation, they got a good laugh out of it. I didn’t care I was just so happy everything turned out the way it did. I guess there are angels without wings all around us. (To be continued)

A Dump Truck, A Hot Seat, and A Broken Ankle

Bruce and Barbara Crain were two of my very best friends. I knew them before I ever moved to the Fork. I used to live across the highway from their place on Craintown Road before I bought the store and they were such wonderful neighbors. Bruce did not live on the Fork but he worked on the Fork. He drove a dump truck and hauled gravel from the banks of the creek. He had a backhoe parked in the creek to load his truck and he sold the gravel to anyone that needed their driveway done or needed gravel on their place anywhere. Bruce was always in and out of the store between hauls and if there was not a fire in the old woodstove he would “plop” down across from the counter and tell me how his day was going or visit with Peg or Hubert or whoever happened to be there when he came in. Sometimes, Bruce, would stop by several times during the course of a day. One morning, he came in early, sat around for a while and left. It was pretty chilly that morning and I decided to build a small fire in the woodstove to take the chill off the place. Two or three hours later, Bruce was back and as usual “plopped” himself down on the woodstove. Well, the store counter was across from that stove and he hit that counter running!

I went into a fit of laughter which did not go over well at all with Bruce. Evidently, he really got himself one hot seat that day. He never did “plop” down on that stove again without checking it out first.

Bruce was delivering me a load of gravel for the parking lot one morning and I ran out the door to show him just where I wanted it dumped. I started to step off the porch and turned my ankle falling with my left foot doubled up under me. I heard the bones breaking when I hit the concrete. Bruce jumped out of the truck and ran to me. I was crying and telling him to call 911. Lewell and Jewell Mills came by and stayed with me until Bruce went inside to call an ambulance. They put blankets over me and cold compresses on my head.

The ambulance came and Mike Gorley cut the leg of my jeans all the way to my thigh and they put me on a stretcher and took off to the hospital in Danville.

I spent thirteen days in the hospital with every bone in my foot broken from the fall. Ten screws and a plate in my foot was the result of the surgery. I was on crutches for months and months.

The Forkland community went all out to help me during this time. My best friend, Bonnie McCarty, a registered nurse, stayed with me the night I came home and took me back and forth to the doctor to get my cast changed. Bruce and Carolyn ran the store without pay and Barbara Eisenbeis did laundry and helped out whenever she could. Anne and Leigh cooked meals and waited on me. I was in bed for several days after coming home and then had to run the store while on crutches for a long period of time. The girls were trying to cook dinner one night right after I came home from the hospital. Bruce had brought some fresh asparagus from his garden and I loved asparagus. I was in bed, not able to even get around by myself. I could hear them in the kitchen. One of them said, “fix her some of those sticks she likes so well”. Another time, I saw a lizard on the wall of my bedroom and started screaming for them to come and kill it. We lived right on the creek bank and there was all kinds of critters around. The first thing they did was go get Miss Kitty and try to make her climb up the wall after it. When that did not work, they got their BB guns and tried to shoot it. The thing got away and, Susan, one of Carolyn’s girls found it under the bread rack in the store about three days later and picked it up and carried it outside.

Anne and Leigh would fill up the pop machines at night and help clean up the store before closing. If they were not at home, any customer that happened to be in the store would do it for me.

Marjorie Ellis cooked meals and sent them to the house for me and my girls. Hubert, her husband, would knock on the door around dinnertime, the girls would run to the door and there would stand Hubert with a picnic basket.
He would come into the kitchen and the girls would immediately start looking to see what he brought them. Usually, there would be homemade biscuits, casseroles, and some kind of pie. They were delighted with the goodies. I am sure everyone that knows Marjorie knows what a great cook she is and her food was delicious. I could never thank everyone enough for all the wonderful, helpful, things they did during this time. (To be continued)

Courtships, Coondogs and Convertibles

It seems as if people in the community enjoyed coming by the store to get their picture taken if there was an event and they had to get dressed up or if anything unusual happened. They liked showing off their dogs, horses, buggies, children, and anything that made a good picture. I loved getting out the camera and seeing everyone pose for that snapshot of themselves.

The children used to bring me school pictures every year and I would put them on the bulletin board in the store for all to see. They liked seeing their picture when they came in to buy something.

Sometimes, if someone was just going to church, they would stop by so that I could see them in their church clothes and get a picture. I took pictures of anything and everything!

Once when Monkey and Allen took the top off an old car they had to make it into a convertible, they drove it to the store and I got a picture. That car looked like it was a mile long.

We had a lot of draft horses in the area used for farming as well as just trying to outpull the next guy’s horse. The horse pull was a big thing to a lot of the guys. They loved entering their horses in competitive driving where they are judged, in harness, pulling various types of carts and wagons and would travel for miles to county fairs, and state fairs to these competitions. Local horse pulling events in someones barn or field often took place at night and on weekends.

Coondogs were also a big thing on the fork and coon hunting a sport that many enjoyed. I knew all about blueticks, redbones, black and tans, and walkers from listening to the conversations of the hunters. These were all breeds of coonhounds. A coondog has a voice that carries a long way and is bred for hunting. A reliable hound had the instinct to tree game and remain until the owner arrived.

Buster Tapscott liked his coon hounds and would bring them by the store to get a picture when he had a new one or wanted to sell one of them.

Buster also had a new wife when I was in the store. No one knew where he got Pauline but some thought she was a mail order bride. She was a lot younger than Buster but was totally devoted to him. They built a little house down off Little South and seemed to be very happy. They often came by the store to visit. Buster had been a previous owner just like RayBoy but Buster had left his mark on things around the place. According to the locals his first wife had preached in the building next to the store and held church services there. She passed away before I moved to the Fork. Buster, evidently, fancied himself as a carpenter but if you ask me he was a jake-leg carpenter. The cabinets in the kitchen looked like they had been trimmed out with a chain saw and he built a closet in the bedroom and left the light switch inside the closet. He cut a square hole in the wall and trimmed it with quarter round and you had to stick your hand through the hole to turn the light on in the bedroom. Buster’s way of fixing things left a lot to be desired! (To be continued)

A Forkland Halloween and Trick or Treat

Halloween was always a fun time on the Fork. The Community Center had a halloween carnival in the gym for old and young alike. Everyone dressed up in costumes and enjoyed the evening. There was homemade cakes for the cake walk, a spook house, costume contests and lots of door prizes.

One year they had a real goose and the kids could try and ring its neck. The line was long and Hubert Ellis and Frank Gorley was in charge of the goose. The goose was getting poked and prodded and yelled at by the kids and was becoming more agitated by the minute… Then, it somehow, managed to get out of the roped off pen they had it in. The goose began running through the crowd biting everyone that got near it. It was hilarious. The more they chased it, the madder it became and not only was it biting but flogging everyone in sight! Someone finally caught the thing but that was the end of that event for the night. Frank made the comment he would go home and get Clarice (his wife) and they could ring her neck.

They also had a “most hen-pecked husband award”. Several men was nominated and whoever got the most votes got the award. A vote was a penny and you could vote as many times as you wanted. The winner got a nice apron. This particular year the winner was Jo Allen Hays who won by a landslide.

I remember taking my girls, Anne and Leigh, Patty Westerfield, and Stacy Edwards trick-or-treating and Jo Allen was home by himself and he gave them beenie weenies for a treat. That same year, we stopped at Mike Hay’s place and he was home alone and gave the girls chocolate pudding! I was driving them around and laughing like crazy at the stuff they got from the houses where the women were not at home. We always had to go by to see Marjorie Ellis because she would dress up like a witch and decorate her back patio.

If the store was open on Halloween, we always had treats for the children that stopped. We took pictures of the costumes and had fun getting dressed up to go to the carnival.

One year my girlfriend and I got dressed after my twins left and went down later. They did not know who we were and kept calling my house and wondering where mom was and I was following them around the entire time. (To be continued)