Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Cola?

“Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Cola”, Grandmaw Ev hollered as she saw our truck pull into her driveway.

All of us kids hollered back, “Pepsi Cola!"

Granddad Opie and Grandmaw Ev

I remember we used to go visit Grandmaw Ev quite often when I was a kid. Her real name was Eva Lena, but everyone called her “Ev”. She was really my great-grandmother, but since her daughter (my grandmaw) died when I was really little, Grandmaw Ev became my only Grandmother on that side of my family. I remember her as being really loud. Grandmaw Ev only had one volume to her voice, gentle talk or whispering were not in her repertoire. It didn’t matter if she saw you in a crowd of a hundred people, she’d holler out at you at the top of her lungs and come and discuss some recent event that she just had to tell you about. People said that’s where we Burns kids got our big mouths, that when we got to going, we were almost as loud as Grandmaw Ev! In retrospect, I don’t reckon we were any more or any less loud than any other passel of kids, unless you count the fact that most times, people heard us coming long before that saw us.

I suspect that’s how Grandmaw Ev knew we were coming, she heard us coming up the ridge long before we wound our way around the mountain road to her house. She always made sure she had pop to give us, and she was a Pepsi drinker. I remember how she used to look at the bottles of Pepsi Cola and say, “I have sugar so bad the doctor won’t let me drink real Pepsi anymore, that’s why I have diet.” Even at my young age, I found this funny since Grandmaw Ev would say this while drinking a Diet Pepsi and eating a big piece of chocolate pie.

My Dad lived with Grandmaw Ev and Granddad Opie up until he was 10 years old. That’s when Granddad Opie died from an accident while working on the State Road Commission. So my Dad had a special place in Grandmaw Ev’s heart, and since I was his child, I reckon I got some special attention from her as well.

Grandmaw Henry

I remember one Christmas, it was right after my Grandmaw Henry died (Grandmaw Henry was Grandmaw Ev’s daughter), we went to visit Grandmaw Ev. I can still remember as plain as day us pulling up in that old truck and seeing Grandmaw Ev standing there in an old cotton dress with her hands on her hips and hollering, “Well, if it ain’t the Burns family. Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Cola?” It was never, “Hello” or “How do you do?” it was Grandmaw Ev’s way to just cut right to the meat of the matter with “Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Cola?”

I recall as we got out of the truck bed (yes, even in the wintertime, we traveled in the truck bed) she gave all of us kids a hug and a kiss, and told us to go on into the kitchen and get us something to eat. I suspect Grandmaw Ev knew we were coming for a visit, but I don’t know that for sure. In any case, she had her kitchen table plumb full of cakes and cookies and pies, and bottles upon bottles of Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Cola. After talking outside for a few minutes with my Granddad, my Dad and my Mom, Grandmaw Ev came into the kitchen and she had tears in her eyes. All of us kids looked at her, kind of puzzled-like and wondering what was the matter, but she reassured us by saying it was just because she was so happy to see us all. I reckon it was probably more like she really missed her daughter Bunny, as this would have been the first Christmas since she had passed away.

Winter in Germany Valley

All of us kids were really laying our ears back eating all of those cakes and pies and cookies that Grandmaw Ev had made, and we had all had at least two big bottles of Pepsi by then, when Grandmaw asked us all to come into the living room. We did, of course, and I remember Grandmaw Ev grabbed me up and carried me in since I was the youngest. In the living room, around her little cedar Christmas tree with the handmade ornaments, she had a gift for each of us. Well, we thought we had all died and went to heaven, because even though Grandmaw Ev was so nice to us, she had never gotten us anything for Christmas before this. I now know she probably didn’t get gifts for her grandchildren because there were simply so many of them and you couldn’t very well get one something and not all of the others.

Grandmaw Ev went to the presents and picked them up one by one and handed them out to each of us kids, telling us to wait until everyone had their present before opening them. Soon, all of the presents were handed out and she gave us the go-ahead to tear into them, and soon our vision was obscured by a massive cloud of floating paper and ribbons.

To our surprise, in each of the packages was a little bag of loose candy. Various flavors of hardtack, peanut brittle, circus peanuts, little caramels with cream in the middle, filled candies and the like filled each bag. Even I understood what this meant, this wasn’t meant to be just a bag of candy, it was Grandmaw Ev’s way of reminding us that my Grandmaw Henry was still with us. You see, every year for as long as any of us could remember, Grandmaw Henry would go down to Rig, West Virginia, at Dick Riggleman’s store and she would buy all different types of loose Christmas candies to give to the kids as a gift. That wasn’t part of her gift, that was her whole gift, and everyone loved it. And this year, even thought it was our first Christmas since Grandmaw Henry had passed away, Grandmaw Ev’s thoughtfulness reminded us that Grandmaw Henry would never truly be gone from us as long as we remembered her. Looking back, that little sack of candy may have been the best Christmas gift that I ever received, and to think of it still reminds me of the kindness and love that Grandmaw Ev had for all of us kids.

Christmas Day at the Burns household.

So this Christmas, I wish you and yours the very best of the best, and I hope you will take a few moments to ponder on the past and count your blessings. I, for one, will be remembering Grandmaw Henry, Grandmaw Ev and all of those who have passed on since them, and when the family is gathered together on Christmas Day, I just may rekindle more memories by shouting, “Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Cola”?

Guardian Angels

Today I'd thought I'd post the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, "Guardian Angels", and include some of my old family photo's to go along with the lyrics.

Guardian Angels
Written by Naomi Judd, John Jarvis & Donald Schlitz Jr.

A hundred year old photograph
Stares out from a frame
And if you look real close you'll see
Our eyes are just the same,

My great-great grandparents Charley & Jennie (Cunningham) Burns & their son, my gr-granddaddy Don.

I never met them face to face
But I still know them well,
From the stories my dear grandma tells.


My great-grandparents, Don & Mary (Kile) Burns.

Elijah was a farmer.
He knew how to make things grow.
And Fannie vowed she'd follow him
Wherever he would go.


My gr-gr-gr-grandparents, George & Phoebe Jane (Bennett) Cunningham

As things turned out they never left
Their small Kentucky farm.
But he kept her fed,
And she kept him warm.


My gr-gr-grandparents, Fon & Rosie (Nelson) Lawrence.

They're my guardian angels,
And I know they can see
Every step I take
They are watching over me
I might not know where I'm goin'
But I'm sure where I come from.
They're my guardian angels
And I'm their special one.


My grandparents, Richard H. & Virginia (Thompson) Burns.

Sometimes when I'm tired
I feel Elijah take my arm
He says, "keep a-goin, hard work
never did a body harm."
And when I'm really troubled
And I dont know what to do
Fannie whispers, "Just do your best,
were awful proud of you".


My gr-gr-gr-grandparents, Anderson & Dianna (Lantz) Lawrence.

They're my guardian angels
And I know they can see
Every step I take
They are watching over me
I might not know where I'm goin'
But I'm sure of where I come from
They're my guardian angels
And I'm their special one.


My gr-gr-gr-grandmother, Phoebe Jane Cunningham.

A hundred year old photograph
Stares out from a frame
And if you look real close you'll see
Our eyes are just the same.


My gr-gr-gr-gr-grandparents, Joseph & Catherine (Andrews) Lantz.

Storms A-Comin'

Storms a-comin’! Those words used to fill me with delight like none other. When someone called out those words, it usually meant that there wouldn’t be school for a few days, and that meant that we could spend the day sled-riding and playing in the snow.

Since we lived way up on the mountain, we could see a storm coming over Spruce Knob long before it ever reached us, so when someone hollered, “Storms a-comin’”, it wasn’t because they had heard about it on the news or radio, but rather because they could see it breaking over the mountain to the west. You see the mountains are so high where I come from that when a storm comes over Spruce Knob, it always drops its precipitation before it crosses North Mountain, since the mountains somehow affect the way the air flows, and creates a micro-climate. This unique weather pattern has been studied by professional climatologists, to the east of North Mountain there is what is called a “rain shadow” caused by the mountain, and they don’t get the weather than we do in Germany Valley on the west side of North Mountain. All I know is how it generally works and that when someone hollers “Storms a-comin’” it means just that.


A storm a-comin' over Spruce Knob.


I remember the snows that we got when I was a kid. The kids and adults would all get together at the old homeplace and a huge bonfire would be built at the top of the hill. We’d all bundle up in layers of clothes, and sled-ride all day and sometimes into the night, warming up by the fire. The hill we sledded down was actually the road that led up to the house, but when it was bad you had to park your vehicles down at the mouth of the holler and walk up the hill, or else you’d be stranded. The road was very fun to sled-ride down, when you first started it was really steep so you’d pick up speed, and just as you were going really fast there was a sharp turn that you had to maneuver or else you’d end up down in the creekbed. After you rounded the turn, you had a gradual decline for several hundred yards. If you were on a good sled, you could ride all the way out to the state road. I remember the old homemade wooden bob-sleds went the best, they went really fast and really far, but we only had two of them and there’d usually be around 15 or so of us sled-riding.

We’d sled-ride on anything that was slick. I remember using old pieces of house tin to ride on. It went really good, but you had to be careful not to cut yourself on it if you wrecked and it was hard on your posterior if you know what I mean. I remember one time my Aunt Clucky was riding on a piece of house tin and was clipping it off at a good pace, but the tin was hard to steer so she didn’t make the turn and ended up down over the rock pile and into the creek. We all ran to see if she was okay, and heard her cussing before we ever got to her. So we knew she was okay. However, the house tin had cut into her rear-end. She had a pretty bad gash, but she was most upset about cutting a big hole in her blue jeans. She said they were her best pair.




Burns Holler covered with snow. The upper part of this is where the turn is located.

One time we didn’t have enough sleds or house tin, and we’d run out of garbage bags (which also go really well in the snow), and someone wondered if a truck hood would go well in the snow. We went to an old junk truck that my granddad had for parts and some of the older boys removed the hood. We figured we’d try it out first down through the garden before we started down the holler road since the garden wasn’t nearly as steep. Well, we all piled on the truck hood, and we even used some old pillows to cushion our butts. It was really comfortable. Well, once we got the truck hood sliding real good, we were off. We just kept picking up speed the further we went so we figured it was good that we tried it first in the garden rather than the holler. About that time, somebody noticed the guide wire for the TV antenna directly in our path. They hollered “Duck”, and we all did…all that is except for my Aunt Pat who looked up to see what we were hollering about. Well, she looked up just as we passed under the low-hanging guide wire, and it caught her right at the neck. Everyone kept going except Pat who lay gasping in the snow. “I caint breathe” she kept saying, only to us it sounded like she was saying, “I caint breeze.” Well for some reason, my Dad got tickled at her and started laughing, and then we all just busted out laughing. Aunt Pat didn’t see too much humor in this, but it was one of those moments where even if it had killed her, we’d of had to laugh. Aunt Pat wasn’t seriously hurt, Dad helped her up and we tugged the truck hood up to the top of the hill and took off on it down the holler with Aunt Pat riding alongside the rest of us. As I recall, my Dad and Uncle Fudge took the first run down the holler road to make sure it was safe and to break a path for us in the snow. We rode on that old truck hood all winter after that. It was one of the best sleds ever.

I also remember one time a bunch of us were racing down the holler on our makeshift sleds. There were about 4 of us in this race and we rounded the turn at a pretty good pace. Just then we noticed our Cousin Toomey coming up the holler road in his 4-wheel drive pick-up. He saw us about the same time we saw him, but there was nowhere for us to go. We thought about bailing off the sleds but we were so close that we’d probably still have run into his truck, so we done the only thing we could do…run over the hill into the creek. So we all steered ourselves over the hill, through the raspberry briars, down over the rock pile which dropped off into the creekbed. I tried jumping just as the sled went over the cliff that dropped off about 10 feet into the creek, and I landed on the other side of the run bed. The other three were smack dab in the middle of the creek. We were all laughing like we had good sense!!!


Me, Jason, my Aunt Nawa and Cousin Bub in the last days of sled-riding.

Nobody sled rides down the holler road anymore. The last time that I know of was in the late 1990’s when my Cousin Bub was little. It’s a shame too, but I guess it was inevitable as we all scattered out to make our own way in the world. But the memories of sled-riding down that holler road come back to me every time I watch the weather on TV and am reminded that a storms a-comin’. When these thoughts come to me, I find myself scouting around for a piece of house tin, a garbage bag or even an old truck hood.

Thinking Outside of Box

Below is the news from back home, only it is from 1918. The community where I am from has went through several different names. The first name of the area was Buffalo Bottom, due to the abundance of woods bison in the area. Now the name would only apply to some of my Aunts (That was bad, I know). After the buffalo were extirpated it ddin't seem like Buffalo Bottom was such a good name so the area became known as North Fork Hills. Since that name was confusing because there were hills all over the North Fork Valley, the name progressed into the community of Box. People didn't like living in a Box so the area started being referred to as Bland Hills, but as Bland Hills became more populated, our end of Bland Hills became the community of Hopewell. A few years later, Hopewell was given the name of Monkeytown by my great-grandfather, Don Burns due to all of the children hanging out of the windows of the houses. It seems that the name Monkeytown stuck, at least for the past 80 years or so, and most people still know and refer it by that name. However, to add to the confusion we do get our mail in Riverton (7 miles away), vote in Circleville (8 miles away), and are listed in the county newspaper as Hopewell (though nobody calls our area Hopewell anymore). So, who knows exactly where I'm from, the only thing I am sure of is I didn't come here and I ain't leaving. My granddaddy used to say that.

The Pendleton Times
Friday, December 20, 1918

Box News

The health of this section is very good now.

The Hopewell school has begun with an enrollment of about thirty-five scholars. Mr. Biby is the teacher.

A.C. Thompson has moved to Osceola, a cold country.

C.J. Landis, the photo man, has quit farming and gone into the picture business again.

Miss. Mucie Burns has gone to the wild western country to teach school. We wish her a successful term.

Charlie Burns was hauling hay from W.D. Simmons’ one day last week.

Don Burns has purchased a horse of Erving Hinkle & Bros. He says he can go see his girl now.

News reached us that Virgil Hinkle while in Franklin Thursday was arrested because of failing to register on Sept. 12, and will be court-martialed at Parkersburg.

Don Bland has gone to the lumber camp to work for awhile.

Fred Lambert was a recent visitor at the home of Harness Teter at Osceola.

God hath made of one blood all nations of men, and we are his children, brothers and sisters all. We are citizens of the United States and we believe our flag stands for self-sacrifice for the good of all the people. We want therefore to be true citizens of our great country and will show our love for her by our works. Our country does not ask us to die for her welfare, she asks us to live for her, and so to live and so to act that her government may be pure her officers of her territory shall be a place fit to grow the best men and women who shall rule over her.—A Bland Hills wife

Thinking of the Past

Today has me thinking about my grandfather, Garvin Wallace. He was my mother’s father, and according to her, my brother and I were his pride and joy, but I don’t remember him. He died when I was around 2 years old. I do however, know stories of him, and it is these treasured stories that I’m going to share with you today.



My Grandfather Garvin Wallace.

My Wallace family story begins in Scotland, where they came from. There are tales that we are direct descendants of Scotland’s most famous son, William Wallace, the man who was popularized in the movie, “Braveheart”. While I have never been able to make a connection to “Braveheart” Wallace, William is a very popular name in the family, and was the name of my great-great-grandfather, but William is a very popular name, especially for true sons of Scotland, so I don’t know if this is really any kind of clue. Still, it is a matter of pride for my family. My first known Wallace ancestor was Professor Alexander Wallace who was a professor of Latin at Oxford University. It was Alexander who came to America around the time of the American Revolution, and his son Charles was born in Ohio in the early 1800’s. Many of the Wallace relatives had long been established in the South Branch Valley in what is now West Virginia, and it was these family ties that brought my Ohio Wallace’s to West Virginia.


Back to Charles Wallace, who was born in Ohio. Charles married a woman who is only remembered by the family as Grandmaw Susan. They lived in Fayette County, Ohio. Charles & Susan had a son, which they named William Wallace. It was this William Wallace who sometime in his early years, moved to present-day Hardy County, WV, to be near family, and it was in Hardy County that William married Catharine Miller and lived out their lives on their farm near Moorefield. William & Catherine had a son, which they named Charles, who once reaching adulthood he, like many young men of his day, was lured to the American West to seek his fortune.


Grandpaw Charles wound up in western Louisiana, near the Texas border, where he built a trading post and traded with the Indians. By this time, the Comanche Nation was in decline and they were taken advantage of by many traders and especially at Army outposts. Grandpaw Charles always treated the Comanche honorably and fairly and he gained their trust. It was because of this trust that the Yamparika band of Comanche’s traded almost exclusively at his trading post, and made him a very prosperous man. It was at this trading post that a young Indian maiden named Lily Hightree, caught his eye. They fell in love, and he married Grandmaw Lily in both a Methodist and a Comanche marriage ceremony. A few years later, the Yamparika Comanche were removed to a reservation in Oklahoma, and the army bought the trading post off of Grandpaw Charles and Grandmaw Lily. Rather than go to Oklahoma with the Yamparika’s, they decided to return to West Virginia. Soon after they departed Louisiana, they received word that smallpox laid waste to the Yamparika’s and all of Grandmaw Lily’s family perished in the onslaught. Charles and Lily bought a big farm in Hardy County in the Old Fields area, and lived out their days there. For the rest of her life, Grandmaw Lily talked about her people and made sure her children knew about them.



Charles and Lily had three children, Uncle Brooke, Aunt Lola and my Grandfather Garvin. Aunt Lola and Uncle Brooke never had any children, and my Grandfather Garvin was nearly 50 years old before he fathered my mother. They said that Grandmaw Lily was so ecstatic over finally having a grandchild and would sit and rock my mother in a rocking chair and pet on her and say over and over, “My baby, my baby”. Sadly, Grandmaw Lily died when my mother was only 3 years old.

Grandpaw Garvin was a character. He became a wealthy man, undoubtedly because he was an avid moonshiner. In his younger days, Grandpaw Garvin and Uncle Brooke bought an old hearse and hauled their moonshine all over, selling it to people. One of their biggest clients was a grocery store in Keyser. People still talk about Garvin and Brooke having the old hearse loaded down with ‘shine’ and driving all the way into Keyser. They didn’t fear the local law because the judge, the sheriff and other influential men in Hardy & Mineral Counties bought moonshine off of them. One time, a federal revenuer got wind of Garvin & Brooke’s operation, and made it his duty to catch them. Grandpaw Garvin said that he got really close to finding the ‘still’ one time, so they moved the operation into the basement of Garvin’s house. They hid the ‘still’ by building a secret wall between the ‘still’ room and the rest of the basement, and it was undetectable to the unknowning eye. Mom said that she remembers when she was a young girl, Garvin would take her with him on his “Shine” trips, and he’d drop her off at a store with a friend and then make his deals. She knew what he was doing, but he said that it wasn’t something that a girl ought to be involved in.



My mother.

Mom recalls that there were many old things in Garvin’s house, including several old items brought over from Scotland when the Wallace’s first came to this country. Mom remembers that the kitchen table was several hundred years old. She said that she remembers a kitchen cupboard that had several deerhides in them, undoubtedly inherited from Charles and Lily, and that she would take them out of the cupboard and, using a knife, would cut them up in little pieces so she could make purses and other playthings out of them. The woman that gave birth to my mother, a gold digger of the worst kind, would yell and her and tell Garvin, “She’s ruining those things”. Garvin would simply say, “Leave her alone. She’s learning.”



Mom.

My mother also remembers there always being several jugs of moonshine always being in the kitchen, kept high up on a shelf. Mom said she’d sometimes climb up to the shelf, and using a tablespoon, would sample the goods. She said that Garvin would have gotten angry if she drank a lot out of each jug, so she was careful to only get a little out of each jug. She also adds that since it wasn’t a big deal to drink moonshine in the house that the mystery was taken away from it so she didn’t really want to drink when she got older.



Garvin, Mom, Aunt Wanda, and the woman who gave birth to my mother.

Sadly, Mom didn’t get to live with Garvin for very long, the woman that gave birth to my mother soon grew bored with Garvin and as usual, moved on to the next man. She threw my mother off at her mother’s house yet again, and Garvin would only get to see my mother on the weekends. Once my mother and father were married, the lived with Garvin for a year or so to take care of Garvin when he was dying, and it was during this time that Garvin got to know me and Jason. We are told that Garvin always said he regretted that he would not being able to see us grow up, and that he hoped that we would know how much he loved us. Thanks to the stories, we did grow up knowing Garvin and the whole Wallace family. That, to me, makes us truly fortunate.




Me & Jason

Christmas on the Mountain

This evening Shirley and I are leaving on our annual Christmas excursion. We are heading to Wyoming County to visit until Christmas Eve and then on to Monkeytown until December 29. We are looking forward to spending Christmas with our families, and to relaxing now that the new book is in to the publisher.

I thought I'd share some old Christmas photo's with you in this post, which will be the last one until we get back around the first of the year.


In the above photo, you can see that I pee'd on myself but wouldn't let mom change me until I opened some of my presents, namely that gigantic lollipop!! My brother Jason is in the background in his undies, along with my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Allen, who always was a bawl-baby!



In this photo, you can see that I am all decked out in my pink hand-me-down-mom-said-it-was-a-good-coat-so-I'm-now-justified-to-put-her-in-a-home coat. Not that I'm bitter or hold a grudge or anything! Just kidding Maw!!!Jason, on the other hand, is in a spiffy Pittsburgh Steelers jacket! Also in this photo is the woman who gave birth to my mother, my Uncle Allen, my cousin Emily and in the background, my Aunt Aim.

In the above photo, Dad is trying to put together a simple snap-together bird feeder. As you can see, he is using a hammer and screwdriver!! And biting his tongue as all the Burns' do when they concentrate on something.

My brother Jason, eating as usual. I tell him everytime he eats like this to "Keep eatin' Andrew, and we're gonna have to go back to Quality Farm & Fleet to buy you some more abnormally sized fat farmboy pants!"

Pure excitement and insanity when I got the CD set of the Hammon's Family!

Jason quit eating long enough to revel in getting a cow bell! And you all think I'm weird??????


Above: My Dad and two of his sisters, Tam and Aim. As my Granddad used to say, and which angered all of his daughters, "All Rich Burns' girls are hefty bitches!" Is it any wonder they liked to beat him up when he said that? Or wanted to beat him when I reminded them all that he said that?? It's a big joke now to say that when they are all together.

The Christmas Tree on the mountain.

I hope you liked seeing a little of what Christmas on the mountain is like. We have lots of fun, and get to catch up with everyone. I'm looking forward to it again this year.

I hope all of you out there have a Merry Christmas, and a prosperous New Year to come.

Winter Memories

Today I'm going to post an old photo from Pendleton County. The photo comes courtesy of my cousin Darlene Wilton (we're cousins several different ways), and this photo is one of my absolute favorites. I think the photo just says so much on so many levels. It says "Welcome Home", it says "Remember", it says "Refuge", it says "Family", it says "Winter".

The two men in the photo are relatives of mine. As I understand it, the man leaning on the fence is Clint Thompson, the other fellow with the squirrel on his chest is Clinton Bennett. Clinton Bennett was Darlene's (who shared the photo with me) grandfather. The photo was taken near Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia.

What does this photo say to you?

Photo courtesy of Darlene Wilton

Happy Birthday Jason

Today, December 6, is my big brother Jason's birthday. He turns 33 today. So I thought I'd devote this post to him.


Jason and me.

For all of you who know me, you know that I like to pick on people, especially if I like them, so I thought this would be the perfect time to jab at Jason a little bit. Growing up, we were best friends and we were about as close as two burrs in a mules tail.






Jason was always tall and skinny when we were kids, and I was short and fat. I remember he used to bounce me on his lap and call me his "little fat buddy". He was pretty much the only person who could get away with that. I remember when I was his little fat buddy, he'd squeeze my fat belly and contort it from side to side. He even had a little song that went:

"Little Fat Buddy, Little Fat Buddy, Little Fat Buddy, too"

All the while keep rhythm with jiggling my fat!!! I'm sure Mom and Dad wondered if the polio hadn't affected our brains, but hey, when you grow up in the middle of nowhere, you make your own fun.






I remember how me and Jason used to love sticker books. We'd each get one every payday when we'd go to the Moorefield Foodland for groceries. Foodland had alot of good sticker books and we usually got them there, but sometimes we'd get them next door at the old Heck's store. Speaking of Heck's, I remember one time how Jason, always a bookworm, got left at Heck's. It was on one of those occassions where all of us kids were loaded up in the back of the truck and we were all supposed to keep an eye out for each other. There must have been 15 or so of us. Well, we'd all been to the Heck's store and after shopping, we all went out to the truck. As usual, Mom asked us, "Is everyone in here?", and we all hollered, "Yeah!", most likely because we were on our way to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream. Well, with that many kids, it was nigh on to impossible to keep track of all of them, which is why we were all supposed to watch out for each other. Well, I must confess, I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Jason that day, but "little fat buddy" here was wanting that ice cream, so I forgot all about him. So we pulled out of the Heck's parking lot and started up the road and my Aunt Tam hollered, "Where's Jason"? She had missed him because he usually rode on her lap. Mom stopped the truck and we all got to thinking who had seen him last, and someone remembered seeing him in the book aisle in Heck's. Well, Mom about freaked, she wheeled the truck around and tore back down the road to Heck's, scared to death. She ran in the store and searched frantically for Jason. She alerted the manager and they were gonna put the store on lockdown, that is until Mom found Jason...right there in the book aisle...reading a book! He was oblivious that we had even left him there. Mom was so upset, she took us straight home that day, and I didn't get my ice cream. So Jason, you still owe me an ice cream cone...plus interest!





I know dirt on Jason that not even he remembers, and I just may use it to blackmail him one of these days. Sure, he may know some juicy dirt on me too, but the difference here is I never was one to care what people think about me, but "Mr. Wile E. Coyote" does.






When we were growing up, when either of us would have a birthday, the other would get what Mom called a "brother present". This brother present was not as nice as the present for the birthday boy, but it was usually something that we'd been wanting. Jason and I shared everything pretty good so whatever either of us got, both of us claimed.




Jason (left), me & Dad. Jason hates this picture, so of course I have to put in on here. See, if I cared what people thought of me, I wouldn't have put this picture on here. And to think, we were the cool kids at school!!!!

Jason is only 18 months older than me, and because we are so close in age, we were meaner than striped-eyed snakes. People always said what one of us didn't think up, the other one did. I remember how we used to get away with stuff at school. He was one year ahead of me, but it was a small school so we saw each other several times a day. Whenever something happened at school, I usually got the blame because the teachers all thought that I was trouble with a capitol "T". Jason, on the other hand, was a goody two-shoes and was never suspected by anyone when something was done. But what the teachers didn't know was, Jason was just a bad, only he was more sneaking than me. If I was gonna do something, I'd just up and do it, and be damned with the consequences, but not Jason. He'd scheme and plot and finagle. Now, sometimes we did join forces and go into cohoots together to achieve many of our mischievous plans. Many's the time, he'd watch out for me while I done an ornery deed that we'd both cooked up, and then lie to protect me when the heat came a-callin'. Since he was perceived to be a "good" kid at school, the teachers would always take his word when they questioned him about me doing stuff. He got me out of a lot of trouble that way, even though we were both in it together. He'd tell the teachers, "No, it couldn't have been Matthew that done that, he was with me the whole time". They never did catch on.




I'm sure Jason's wanting to do this again right about now!


So, we had some good times growing up, and I just want to let Jason know, I'll keep my lips sealed about all the dirt as long as you keep the hush money flowing my way. Of course, the only problem with this is that Jason know's my only weakness...hot sausages. But as long as he doesn't remember that, I still have a chance at conning him. Now that I think about it, just last week Jason bought me a half-gallon jar of hot sausages, so maybe I'd better come up with a better plan. Drat, foiled again!!



Me (left) & Jason (right). Summer 2008.


So, Happy 33rd Birthday Jason, from your Millenium Twin!

Times Past

This is one of my favorite photographs of all time. It is of haymaking time in Nelson Gap in Pendleton County, WV. This photo was taken about 1910. The men in this photograph are (left to right) Will Wimer, Martin Vandevander, Roy Lambert and John Lambert.

Will Wimer was the 1st cousin to my 2-great grandmother Sidney (Wimer) Teter. Martin Vandevander was the first cousin of my 3-great grandmother Ruhama (Nelson) Nelson. The Roy Lambert & John Lambert in this photo are first cousins to two of my other grandparents, Cullom Cassel and Elizabeth (Cassel) Nelson. Cullom and Elizabeth were siblings. Cullom Cassel married Mary Jane Nelson, daughter of the aforementioned Ruhama (Nelson) Nelson. Elizabeth Cassel married Esau Nelson, who was the 2nd cousin of Martin Vandevander and of the aforementioned Ruhama Nelson, so you can see, all of these folks are my people. You can also see what I mean when I say I'm related to everyone in Pendleton County.

To me this photo captures a simpler time, I’ve often wondered about many different things in this photo, for example, what were the names of the horses? Whatever happened to the old hay rake? Does it rest in some lonesome holler up Nelson Gap? What were these men were thinking about? Were they annoyed by having to stop to pose for the photograph, or delighted that someone was taking an interest in their livelihood?

I remember back when I was a kid, one time my granddad, two of my uncles and my mother went into the fence stake business. They cut locust logs for the stakes up in Nelson Gap, where these men farmed decades before. My brother and I went along and explored the farm there. The old man who owned the farm was friends with my granddad and was happy to get rid of the locust from his fields. I remember that while we were in Nelson Gap, my uncle Wood got cut by a chainsaw and refused to go to the doctor. He was bleeding pretty bad and we needed something to stop the blood. The only thing my mom could think of that was handy was a Kotex that she had in her purse. She slapped that pad on Uncle Wood’s arm, and it sopped the blood right up and eventually stopped the bleeding. We then went home for that day, and Uncle Wood was still refusing to go to the doctor for a tetanus shot and stitches, but he did let mom sew him up with a needle and thread. He said it got pretty sore, but he did put sheep dip on it (that we used when we banded lambs on the farm) and miraculously it didn’t get infected. I remember the next day Uncle Wood was back at work but was put on light duty…loading locust poles into the truck.

As I recall, we sold 2,000 fence stakes out of the locust that we cut in Nelson Gap, and got $2.50 each for them. The money was split equally between the 4 workers. We ate good there for awhile, but eventually other people found out about the money to be made in the fence stake business, and soon underbid us so the Burns fence stake business went defunct.

Though most of the now vacant farms are still in family owned, their owners have moved away for new opportunities. I wonder what these men in the photo would think if they could know what their progeny would do with the land they worked so hard to build up? These men were part of the land and the land were part of these men, how humbling and rewarding that must have been to see the fruits of your labor be borne in every season. I know that time changes everything, but somehow I wonder if our lives are worth all that we have lost in this great transition?

The Tale of a Southern Belle

I never met my great-great grandmother Rebecca, but my mother did. This may not seem remarkable but it is. You see, my grandma Rebecca was born before The War of Northern Aggression (that’s the Civil War to all you Yankee folk) and she was a bonafide southern belle. Like everyone else in that time and place, Rebecca’s family had strong southern sympathies.

Petersburg, WV, circa 1900.

Grandma Rebecca told of how when she was born in 1853, it was customary for a father to give a slave girl to each of his children to care for them and to be their mammy. My grandma Rebecca said that the slave girl done everything for them, she'd dress them, wash them, feed them and even cleaned them after using the chamber pot. When the War came, life forever changed for my grandma Rebecca, her family lost its money but they did retain the land. A few years after the War, Rebecca’s father, Aaron, was killed in a farming accident and the family was forced to sell the ancestral farm and move to town. Through it all, Rebecca said the most difficult thing about life after the War was learning to lace up and tie her own shoes, she said neither her nor her sisters knew the first thing about common everyday tasks.

After moving to town, Rebecca met and married my great-great grandfather, Jacob. While his family name was respected, he certainly didn’t come from a poor genteel family like Rebecca’s. For all of you who aren’t aware of the class difference, poor genteel is used in reference to people who were wealthy and came from good families before the War but lost their money in the War, and it was used to differentiate them from the common poor. The poor genteel were welcome in all society circles, regardless of their economic woes. After the marriage, my grandfather Jacob worked a small farm in Hardy County until the rails and the mills opened up the Potomac Highlands, and they moved to the then growing town of Petersburg, WV. Jacob then worked as a brakeman for the railroad and they lived in a row house for a few years until Jacob could afford a house on Virginia Avenue, which they lived in for the rest of their lives and where they raised their 7 children. Jacob died in the early 1900’s, and Rebecca was left a widow for the nearly 50 remaining years of her life.

Above: Building the Railroad Bridge below Petersburg, September 1910.

Above: Petersburg Railyard where Jacob worked, about 1920.

Later in her life, Rebecca shrunk up so until she was a tiny slip of a woman, and she slept in baby bed. When my mother visited her as a child, she said that Grandma Rebecca’s skin was so thin that it was almost clear and that you could see the blood right in her veins but she was very clear minded. One of the most memorable things that my mother recalls is how Rebecca took up chewing tobacco and could spit several feet and hit an old coffee can that she used as spittoon. Rebecca had a little ole housedog that was nearly as ancient as she was and she called him “Old Blue”. Her and Old Blue had some exploits, which may appear in a future post.

Virginia Avenue in Petersburg, circa 1940.

Many remnants of the teachings of my Grandma Rebecca still live on in my family. For example, you have to have clean shoes, only “trashy” people wear dirty shoes. Rebecca said that it doesn’t cost hardly anything to keep your shoes clean and clean shoes say a lot about the person wearing them. Even today, when I meet someone for the first time, one of the first things I look at is their shoes. You can really size up a person that way. Another teaching from Rebecca was anything that you write, you have to write it in black ink, you can’t use blue ink or a pencil, it shows good breeding to use black ink, I think this probably has roots in both her antebellum upbringing as well as her devout Presbyterianism. Yet another thing passed down from grandma Rebecca is the rule that you have to eat everything with a fork or spoon. There is no such thing as finger foods. You always have to have a utensil no matter what the food, and whether you use them or not. “It’s a matter of culture”, Rebecca said. I drive Shirley crazy with my quirky always-having-to-have-a-fork, I just smile and tell her, “Thank my grandmother for that.”

Petersburg, WV circa 1910

My grandma Rebecca died in 1966 at the age of 113, she died peacefully in her sleep and was the pillar of her family and community. It makes my head spin to think of all she saw and the knowledge that she must have had from living through several decades of American life.

George & Phoebe Jane

Tales of George and Phoebe Jane abound in my family. Their handed-down stories continue to cast a long shadow of honor and pride on multiple generations of their family. I’ve been thinking about them for the past few days so I’d thought I’d share some of their stories with you.

The George & Phoebe Jane (Bennett) Cunningham Family in 1877.

My Grandpaw George was born on the 15th of November 1843 and he was the son of Daniel Cunningham and Sidney Sponaugle. Daniel and Sidney weren’t married until later in life even though they lived together. George went by the last name of Sponaugle most of his life although you can find him listed on various historical records as both Cunningham and Sponaugle. The odd thing about his surname is all of his children and his wife went by Cunningham but apparently George didn’t, his tombstone has Sponaugle on it. His family remembers him as Cunningham.

Pendleton County Timber Cutters. Left to Right: Unknown, George Sponaugle Cunningham, Dewitt Bland, Bob Cunningham.

My Grandpaw George was a timber man. He cut timber all over in Pendleton, Pocahontas, Randolph and Tucker Counties in WV. Stories maintain that men would cut the virgin timber in the wintertime while standing on snowdrifts, and in the summer they’d go back over and get another 6 foot log off of the stump. George’s time as a timber man was a little before the great timber rush where the forests in those counties were completely denuded.

Phoebe Jane Cunningham & Alpha Burns, Easter 1911

My Grandmaw Phoebe Jane was a very strong-willed and outspoken woman. During the War (note the Civil War is still called “The War” in Pendleton County), a regiment of Yankee’s traveled up the Dolly Path on their way to Franklin following the Battle of Riverton. They stopped at Phoebe Jane’s house and asked if they could water their horses. Phoebe Jane told the Yankee captain “I’ll see any of you damn Yankees in Hell before I give you even a drop of water from my spring, why don’t you go steal from some other poor family because you done stole everything from here thatyou’re going to get”. The Yankee captain must have realized he’d have a fight on his hands because he ordered to regiment to move to a water hole located further up the mountain. Later Phoebe Jane said she would have shot the Yankee’s where they sat and she that had made up her mind that they weren’t going to take any more food out of the mouths of her family. Like many residents of Pendleton County, George and Phoebe Jane were strong Confederates.

My Grandmother, Phoebe Jane (Bennett) Cunningham holding my gr-granddaddy Don Burns, abt 1900.

An interesting fact about George and Phoebe Jane, they were not racist like many southern sympathizers are depicted. In fact, one of George and Phoebe Jane’s best friends was a black man named Solomon Mills (locally known as Black Saul). Black Saul was a blacksmith and a shoemaker in Circleville and after the War he became a valuable member of local society. As Black Saul got up in years, he had no family to care for him so he moved in with George and Phoebe Jane. I found it odd that Black Saul left a Last Will and Testament, and it was witnessed by Mrs. Phoebe Jane Sponaugle. He left most of his “estate” to Phoebe Jane for caring for him in his old age. His estate, such as it was, consisted of a feather tick and his cobbling tools. My brother, Jason, now owns Black Saul’s shoemaking tools, they were handed down through the family along with the story.


Black Saul was laid to rest in the Bennett Cemetery beside of George and Phoebe Jane and he is listed in the cemetery register as “Saul Mille”. It took quite a bit of digging to find anything about him in historical records, like I said I was quite surprised to find a Will for Solomon Mills. Without it I never would have connected that Black Saul, Saul Mille and Solomon Mills were one and the same man.


The Bennett/Cunningham Cemetery where George, Phoebe Jane and Black Saul are buried.

Phoebe Jane passed away in April 1923 at the age of 80. She was cared for in her old age by her son-in-law and daughter, Charlie and Jennie (Cunningham) Burns. Charlie was also Phoebe Jane’s first cousin (their mother’s were sisters). After Phoebe Jane’s death, Charlie and Jennie left Pendleton County and moved out to some Burns property in Red Creek in Tucker County. Charlie and Jennie’s only son was my granddaddy Don. Granddaddy Don stayed on part of the old Burns homeplace on North Mountain where my family remains to this day. Our roots run deep in that land of rocks and clay, it is part of us and we of it.

Tales of the Panther

On the farm there were always tales of the panther. You’d hear its screams in the late evening and night, but we learned to live with it.




The above photo appears courtesy of: www.qnet.com/~saddleup/mountainlion.htm

One time Mom and Granddad said they seen the panther leaping through one of the meadows, and they said it was coal black. They said they were in the truck when they saw it, and when they stopped the truck it would stop, and when they would move a little bit, it would move a little. Other people who had seen it said the panther was brown like a paper poke. I’m thinking there was probably more than one of them.

Below is a photo of the farm, where they saw the panther leaping through the field.




The panther could make itself sound like any animal in the woods, it could also scream like a woman in pain, whimper like a baby or slap its tail and make a sound like somebody stacking lumber.

It seemed that panther sightings and the frequency of hearing its mournful screams seemed to increase when a baby was around. My Great-Granny always said that a panther was drawn to a baby’s crying. She told of how when she was little and her family lived at Fiddlers Green, one time when her brother Vern was a baby they saw the big paw of a cat reaching through the logs towards the baby’s crib and it was trying to snatch uncle Vern out of his crib. Granny said that her daddy took off after it with a garden hoe and would no doubt have killed it too if he got ahold of it, but that the panther got away. Granny’s daddy was a very strong man, people still tell stories of my great-great-granddaddy Alfred and how he stopped a charging bull by hitting it in the head with his fist and knocking it out.

Below is a photo of Fiddlers Green, the house my great granny grew up in.




Now that I think of the panther, I remember another story that involved Rob Bennett. This happened when Rob was walking down the lane one night at about 10 O'clock, he was returning home from visiting neighbors. He said that right about where the old cemetery is, he started hearing the loose rocks in the road scuffling around and a light growling noise a few yards behind him. He said he turned around but didn’t see anything because it was a pitch-black night. He said he then started walking again and heard the sound again, and again when he turned back to look, he seen nothing. He said he knew then and there that he was being followed by the panther. He said he just started walking toward home and started singing and waving his arms to make himself look bigger than he really was, he knew better than to run because even as a child, you are taught not to run when being followed by a panther. The old saying went, “When you walk, he walks; when you run, he runs”. Rob said when he got near his house he hollered out to his brother who lived with him to come out with the lantern. He did and Rob walked on into the house but the panther stayed at the edge of the ring of light put off by the lantern. Rob then said that when they looked out at the side window into the yard, there sat the panther a-lookin’ in at them through the window. Rob didn’t have nothing but an old smooth-bore shotgun that would probably have pissed off the old panther more than anything if they tried to shoot it, so they went upstairs and locked the stairs door in case the panther was to break in on them by coming through the window. Such tales as this were pretty common on the mountain.

Every so often on the farm we’d find the carcass of a cow or a sheep that had been an obvious victim of the panther. We all just made sure we didn’t go out of a night unless we had to, although we now know that what is out there in the night is also out there in the daytime.



Above: The Burns Brood

Of course, looking back now I’d pity the panther who tried to take on a Burns kid, we were all twice as mean, three times as wiry and had ten times the grit of any ole panther. It would have been a sorry day for the old panther.