We moved from Hotchkiss to a company house in Slab Fork when I was very young. I don’t remember living in Hotchkiss, but I do have a few memories of the second company house in Slab Fork. I have been told that I solemnly watched our furniture being moved across the road to another house without saying a word. However, when somebody started out the door with my bed, I started crying. It was actually a folding cot-size bed.
One of the neighborhood boys named Tommy went under our house and got an apple out of a bushel basket. I had strict orders from Daddy to leave the apples alone. When I told Mommy what Tommy had done, she wasn’t concerned and told me Tommy could keep the apple and eat it. I remember being confused. I fully expected Tommy to get a switching.
Our next-door neighbor was Otto Graham. One of his daughters had recently married and lived in a house nearby. I could walk down a path behind the houses to visit her without getting near the main road. Otto’s daughter introduced me to iced tea one afternoon. She was amused that I liked it so much. She would pour some in a glass and giggle as I drank it down.
My only sister Joyce was born April 25, 1950, while we lived at Slab Fork. My brother Wayne was born May 17, 1951. Wayne had jaundice and spent some time in the hospital. I can remember waiting in the car near the Beckley Hospital while Wayne saw the doctor. During one hospital visit, Daddy went into the hospital and left Joyce and me in the car. He came back a while later with two small bottles of Coca-Cola. He asked us if we wanted to share one. Of course we did. Why wouldn’t we? He gave me the bottle and I started drinking it the only way I knew how. I stuck the bottle into my mouth about an inch and tilted my head back. After some liquid had run into my mouth, I brought the bottle down and tried to retain as much of the cola in my mouth as I could while removing the bottle from my mouth. Daddy was horrified. He showed us how to put the bottle up to our lips and close them when we had enough coke in our mouth.
Daddy learned to play the banjo when he was young. His older brother Henry taught many of his brothers and sisters to play a musical instrument. Daddy spent about $135.00 for a Gibson RB-100 banjo in 1951. That was a lot of money then. He really loved that banjo. He played music with others in the area. The sessions were usually at somebody’s house, but they would occasionally play Saturday night at a school. Daddy sometimes took the whole family with him and sometimes we stayed home.
One of Mommy’s friends and her daughter came to visit us one hot summer afternoon. The daughter was about my age and we began playing in the house. We were running and somehow managed to knock one of the family’s most precious belongings off the top of a chest of drawers. It was a General Electric oscillating fan about a foot in diameter. Remember, this was a long time before air conditioners were in common use. A big chunk of the plastic (Bakelite I think) enclosure around the fan motor was broken off. I was relieved when Mommy picked it up, plugged it into the outlet, and it worked. We continued to use that fan for many years and every time I looked at it, I remembered that I was responsible for the fact that it wasn’t pretty any more.
I can remember visiting a Milam family who lived in the upper part of Slab Fork. It was in the afternoon while Mr. Milam and Daddy were working. I think Mrs. Milam was called “Boots” and her son was “J.D.”. J.D. had the best toy I had ever seen. It was a car big enough to ride in and it had pedals. I could not imagine how it would feel to be rich enough to own a toy like that. Somewhere there is a picture of me sitting on a fence in front of our house in Slab Fork. Mr. Wender who ran a jewelry store in Sophia took it. His wife would be my fourth grade teacher. We didn’t have a refrigerator in Slab Fork. Daddy would go to the company store two or three times a week to buy milk and other perishables. I went behind the counter to admire the candy display during one visit. Daddy told me that the storekeeper kept a gun behind the counter to shoot people who go behind the counter. I still feel uncomfortable behind a store counter.
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