Stanley, L.L. 1971. A Rough Road in a Good Land. Chapter XXVI pp. 130-134.
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVI
Quaint People in the Georgia Mountains
Many of the people who were neighbors and friends of the writer’s family in the Georgia Mountains were not just ordinary run of the mill individuals. They could and did discuss politics, farming, wars, religion and manners of living with the best educated people of their day.
They welcomed to their simple homes, people who could tell them about the big world outside the mountains. They often said and did things that were entertaining and amusing, to strangers who visited with them.
Their interpretation of the meaning of good morals were sometimes different from the urban people who saw and knew them. There was the case of the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear. Then he proceeded to embellish his language with such bad words that listeners often wondered if the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear knew the meaning of swearing or in the language of the mountains, “cussing a blue streak.”
One of the most fascinating and most entertaining mountain men known to the writer was a man named Jessie Keener or as his neighbors and best friends called him, Uncle Jess. He had a habit of using cuss words in everyday conversation and he would have been insulted had one of his friends asked him why he swore so much. This man wore a flowing beard that made him look like a picture of Santa Claus. His voice had a high pitch which could be heard a long distance.
He had a son he called Johnny. His daughter was named Lovie. He called his wife Reely, what her real name was no one knows today. Even the neighbors called her Reely Keener. Uncle Jess was the best cooper in the county with white oak staves he split out of the fine white oak trees growing on his mountain side farm, he could make a barrel that would hold syrup. Almost every farmer in that valley grew a patch of cane. In the fall, he cut and hauled his cane to a grinding mill and spent a day or two boiling down the cane juice into syrup, which was put into the wooden kegs made by Uncle Jess.
White oak staves had to be air dried for about one year, before they could be turned into kegs that would hold syrup. Uncle Jess usually cut the blocks from a large white oak tree, split out the staves and stacked them up in the woods to dry through the winter and the next summer.
Uncle Jess had split up a large oak tree into staves and stacked them up on a steep mountain side. One day in the fall when the staves were very dry some one set the woods on fire. The blaze in the dry leaves fanned by a stiff breeze headed up the mountain side.
The old man seeing the smoke and remembering his stacks of staves, grabbed his hoe which was the major fire fighting tool, he yelled to his wife and daughter to run after the neighbors to come and help and he started up the mountain side as fast as he could run toward his stave timber.
A few minutes later, when he came in sight of the stacks of staves he was just in time to see that the flames had run faster. His bone dry staves were a mass of flames. In despair, he turned away, back down the mountain side to meet his wife, daughter and the neighbors with fire fighting tools in their hands.
When the old man was near enough, he turned toward his wife, and said in a high shrill voice, “The Reely, huh, the God, huh, every bit of that dam stave timber has burnt up and gone to hell, huh.” His neighbors laughed for years afterward as they remembered the old man’s style of cussing.
One day Uncle Jess was out with Johnny who was a big strapping young man. They were building a fence near the house when by accident Johnny struck his father with a tool they were using. The old man thought the blow was on purpose and jumped on Johnny’s back. In the wrestling match that followed, Johnny rapidly forced the old man down on the ground and caused him to yell for help to his wife and daughter.
The two women came running from the house and up to the struggling men on the ground. The shrewd old man looked from under Johnny’s strong arm where he was pinned down and shouted, “Hold Johnny, Lovie, Reely can hold me, Huh.”
Upon another occasion, one of Uncle Jess’s neighbors decided to go up past Uncle Jess’s place on through Stanley Gap and to Cherrylog, a railroad station in Gilmer County. He started with his mules and wagon early that morning and in a few minutes arrived in front of the Keener place to find the road blocked.
Roads in those days were very narrow. There were no highway right of way lines, such as we have today. Farmers along the roads fenced both sides of the road at times, leaving a narrow lane barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other.
Uncle Jess had built a barn with a wide hallway so that he could drive his wagon into the barn in bad weather. This barn was so close to the road that when he built a fence on the other road bank, it took a lot of maneuvering to get a wagon out of this hallway and into the road.
He was not the best driver in the country and had a quick temper which he lost completely, especially, when his team acted up as they had been doing on this particular morning. The old man was in the midst of a struggle to turn his wagon and team around in this narrow space, when his neighbor drove up. Of course, he could not pass the wagon, which was across the road way with the team up in the hallway of the barn.
While the neighbor sat in his wagon and watched the old man drive across the road, up into the barn and backed out again. This driving and backing up that never quite cleared the road and continued for several minutes.
Finally, the old man in despair over his inability as a driver and very angry at his team and himself for having blocked so effectively the public road, climbed down from his seat on the wagon box, tied his driving reins to a fence post on the road side, approached his neighbor saying as he shook his long beard, “There won’t be any going to town today, huh.” The neighbor much amused said, “Why Uncle Jess?” The old man spat on the ground and shouted, “By gent, because we can’t get our dam wagon turned, huh.”
Another interesting man the writer knew years ago was a man named Joseph Nathan Honeycutt or Hunnicut. He was born in Yancy County, N.C. His family had lived on Beans Creek at one time.
He moved to Fannin County, Georgia where he lived for a number of years. He moved back to Mitchel County, N.C. and the writer was told in 1968 that the old man died and was buried at Buladean on Big Rock Creek.
When he preached at the Big Creek Baptist Church, the writer remembers his shrill voice which could be heard at a long distance. He also remembers the shaggy beard. It might be well to say that before the days of microphones, that mountain preachers shouted at the top of their voices when they stood before a congregation.
This old man was much troubled by what he called the waywardness of a son who was a grown man, and who was called Little Joe, his wife may have been named Marie, but he called her “Mariar.”
Once he told some friends about Little Joe’s courting experiences and the story ran as follows, “We watched Little Joe leave home one morning and I told Mariar, that this would be the last time Little Joe would go through that gate single and sure enough when he came back he brought Rosetta.”
The best story came from the old man when a neighbor asked him about Little Joe. The old man’s response was, “Little Joe is just goin’ to the dogs, upon the Pigpen Branch making liquor on a five gallon still.” The neighbor expressed some surprise to hear such news and the old man added, “The old revenue (meaning prohibition officers) ain’t no account, they let everybody make liquor that want to, and everybody wants to.”
In the nineteen twenties there still lived in the Georgia Mountains several members of a pioneer family by the name of Wilson one of the amusing stories told around North Georgia area is about a member of this family.
It seems that this old man went to Atlanta to see this city before the old trolly cars were converted to buses. The trolly car tracks were in the pavement of the street. The motive power was furnished by an overhead wire.
One day the old man who had made the visit to Atlanta appeared in a country store in Gilmer County and when he had found a seat in the circle around a big old heating stove which stood in the middle of the room, one of the neighbors said, “Ed tell us about the trip you made to Atlanta last week.”
Ed took out his knife and a plug of tobacco, cut himself a chew and rolled it around in his mouth for a minute or two, he leaned forward and said earnestly, “I’ll tell you this, I was not as big a fool as they thought I was down there in that big city. You see, the first thing I did was to get on one of them cars with no hosses a pulling it, I axed the man how much it was, and I paid him. I sorter wondered how I would know where I was going and how I would know where to get off.”
“Well, we went flying down the road and directly that fellow up in the front seat said, ‘Broad.’ Old man and old woman Broad got up and got off.”
“In a few minutes, the man up in front said, ‘Mitchell.’ Old man Mitchell and some of the children got up and got off. You know they must have had some slaves once, for some colored Mitchells got up and got off.”
“In a few more minutes, that man said ‘Wilson.’ I knowed that was me, and I got up and got off. I was standing in the middle of the road watching that thing I had been riding in go on down the road, when I happened to look down at my feet and there was a pocket book lying there. I reached down and picked it up and looked inside and there was forty dollars in it.”
“Now there I was, I had a good ride and had forty dollars to boot. About that time a fine looking woman came running up to me and said, ‘Mister, is this Wilson?’ I said yes, mam it is and I took off my hat. She smiled and said, ‘Can you tell me where forty is?’ I said, ‘Yes mam, I got it right here in my pocket’, and I pulled out the pocket book and gave it to her. You see I wasn’t half as big a fool as they thought I was.”
They welcomed to their simple homes, people who could tell them about the big world outside the mountains. They often said and did things that were entertaining and amusing, to strangers who visited with them.
Their interpretation of the meaning of good morals were sometimes different from the urban people who saw and knew them. There was the case of the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear. Then he proceeded to embellish his language with such bad words that listeners often wondered if the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear knew the meaning of swearing or in the language of the mountains, “cussing a blue streak.”
One of the most fascinating and most entertaining mountain men known to the writer was a man named Jessie Keener or as his neighbors and best friends called him, Uncle Jess. He had a habit of using cuss words in everyday conversation and he would have been insulted had one of his friends asked him why he swore so much. This man wore a flowing beard that made him look like a picture of Santa Claus. His voice had a high pitch which could be heard a long distance.
He had a son he called Johnny. His daughter was named Lovie. He called his wife Reely, what her real name was no one knows today. Even the neighbors called her Reely Keener. Uncle Jess was the best cooper in the county with white oak staves he split out of the fine white oak trees growing on his mountain side farm, he could make a barrel that would hold syrup. Almost every farmer in that valley grew a patch of cane. In the fall, he cut and hauled his cane to a grinding mill and spent a day or two boiling down the cane juice into syrup, which was put into the wooden kegs made by Uncle Jess.
White oak staves had to be air dried for about one year, before they could be turned into kegs that would hold syrup. Uncle Jess usually cut the blocks from a large white oak tree, split out the staves and stacked them up in the woods to dry through the winter and the next summer.
Uncle Jess had split up a large oak tree into staves and stacked them up on a steep mountain side. One day in the fall when the staves were very dry some one set the woods on fire. The blaze in the dry leaves fanned by a stiff breeze headed up the mountain side.
The old man seeing the smoke and remembering his stacks of staves, grabbed his hoe which was the major fire fighting tool, he yelled to his wife and daughter to run after the neighbors to come and help and he started up the mountain side as fast as he could run toward his stave timber.
A few minutes later, when he came in sight of the stacks of staves he was just in time to see that the flames had run faster. His bone dry staves were a mass of flames. In despair, he turned away, back down the mountain side to meet his wife, daughter and the neighbors with fire fighting tools in their hands.
When the old man was near enough, he turned toward his wife, and said in a high shrill voice, “The Reely, huh, the God, huh, every bit of that dam stave timber has burnt up and gone to hell, huh.” His neighbors laughed for years afterward as they remembered the old man’s style of cussing.
One day Uncle Jess was out with Johnny who was a big strapping young man. They were building a fence near the house when by accident Johnny struck his father with a tool they were using. The old man thought the blow was on purpose and jumped on Johnny’s back. In the wrestling match that followed, Johnny rapidly forced the old man down on the ground and caused him to yell for help to his wife and daughter.
The two women came running from the house and up to the struggling men on the ground. The shrewd old man looked from under Johnny’s strong arm where he was pinned down and shouted, “Hold Johnny, Lovie, Reely can hold me, Huh.”
Upon another occasion, one of Uncle Jess’s neighbors decided to go up past Uncle Jess’s place on through Stanley Gap and to Cherrylog, a railroad station in Gilmer County. He started with his mules and wagon early that morning and in a few minutes arrived in front of the Keener place to find the road blocked.
Roads in those days were very narrow. There were no highway right of way lines, such as we have today. Farmers along the roads fenced both sides of the road at times, leaving a narrow lane barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other.
Uncle Jess had built a barn with a wide hallway so that he could drive his wagon into the barn in bad weather. This barn was so close to the road that when he built a fence on the other road bank, it took a lot of maneuvering to get a wagon out of this hallway and into the road.
He was not the best driver in the country and had a quick temper which he lost completely, especially, when his team acted up as they had been doing on this particular morning. The old man was in the midst of a struggle to turn his wagon and team around in this narrow space, when his neighbor drove up. Of course, he could not pass the wagon, which was across the road way with the team up in the hallway of the barn.
While the neighbor sat in his wagon and watched the old man drive across the road, up into the barn and backed out again. This driving and backing up that never quite cleared the road and continued for several minutes.
Finally, the old man in despair over his inability as a driver and very angry at his team and himself for having blocked so effectively the public road, climbed down from his seat on the wagon box, tied his driving reins to a fence post on the road side, approached his neighbor saying as he shook his long beard, “There won’t be any going to town today, huh.” The neighbor much amused said, “Why Uncle Jess?” The old man spat on the ground and shouted, “By gent, because we can’t get our dam wagon turned, huh.”
Another interesting man the writer knew years ago was a man named Joseph Nathan Honeycutt or Hunnicut. He was born in Yancy County, N.C. His family had lived on Beans Creek at one time.
He moved to Fannin County, Georgia where he lived for a number of years. He moved back to Mitchel County, N.C. and the writer was told in 1968 that the old man died and was buried at Buladean on Big Rock Creek.
When he preached at the Big Creek Baptist Church, the writer remembers his shrill voice which could be heard at a long distance. He also remembers the shaggy beard. It might be well to say that before the days of microphones, that mountain preachers shouted at the top of their voices when they stood before a congregation.
This old man was much troubled by what he called the waywardness of a son who was a grown man, and who was called Little Joe, his wife may have been named Marie, but he called her “Mariar.”
Once he told some friends about Little Joe’s courting experiences and the story ran as follows, “We watched Little Joe leave home one morning and I told Mariar, that this would be the last time Little Joe would go through that gate single and sure enough when he came back he brought Rosetta.”
The best story came from the old man when a neighbor asked him about Little Joe. The old man’s response was, “Little Joe is just goin’ to the dogs, upon the Pigpen Branch making liquor on a five gallon still.” The neighbor expressed some surprise to hear such news and the old man added, “The old revenue (meaning prohibition officers) ain’t no account, they let everybody make liquor that want to, and everybody wants to.”
In the nineteen twenties there still lived in the Georgia Mountains several members of a pioneer family by the name of Wilson one of the amusing stories told around North Georgia area is about a member of this family.
It seems that this old man went to Atlanta to see this city before the old trolly cars were converted to buses. The trolly car tracks were in the pavement of the street. The motive power was furnished by an overhead wire.
One day the old man who had made the visit to Atlanta appeared in a country store in Gilmer County and when he had found a seat in the circle around a big old heating stove which stood in the middle of the room, one of the neighbors said, “Ed tell us about the trip you made to Atlanta last week.”
Ed took out his knife and a plug of tobacco, cut himself a chew and rolled it around in his mouth for a minute or two, he leaned forward and said earnestly, “I’ll tell you this, I was not as big a fool as they thought I was down there in that big city. You see, the first thing I did was to get on one of them cars with no hosses a pulling it, I axed the man how much it was, and I paid him. I sorter wondered how I would know where I was going and how I would know where to get off.”
“Well, we went flying down the road and directly that fellow up in the front seat said, ‘Broad.’ Old man and old woman Broad got up and got off.”
“In a few minutes, the man up in front said, ‘Mitchell.’ Old man Mitchell and some of the children got up and got off. You know they must have had some slaves once, for some colored Mitchells got up and got off.”
“In a few more minutes, that man said ‘Wilson.’ I knowed that was me, and I got up and got off. I was standing in the middle of the road watching that thing I had been riding in go on down the road, when I happened to look down at my feet and there was a pocket book lying there. I reached down and picked it up and looked inside and there was forty dollars in it.”
“Now there I was, I had a good ride and had forty dollars to boot. About that time a fine looking woman came running up to me and said, ‘Mister, is this Wilson?’ I said yes, mam it is and I took off my hat. She smiled and said, ‘Can you tell me where forty is?’ I said, ‘Yes mam, I got it right here in my pocket’, and I pulled out the pocket book and gave it to her. You see I wasn’t half as big a fool as they thought I was.”
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