The Roy Keaton family normally went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Keaton every Sunday. Edna and Ethel usually brought their brood to Grandpa’s too. At the time I was six, there was a big herd of children between the ages of three and twelve – three from Roy, four from Edna, and three from Ethel. If it happened to be a Sunday fairly soon after Christmas, somebody might have a toy to play with. Otherwise there were ten kids and no toys.
We liked playing in the creek in Old Slab, but our parents did not share our enthusiasm for that activity. There were a few times I can remember a group of us skinny dipping at a swimming hole just upstream from the old Birchfield School. If we left our clothes on and played in the creek, it was hard to be believed if we later lied and said that we had not been playing in the creek.
The water in Old Slab was clear and unpolluted. However, the water in Slab Fork Creek near Grandma Cook’s house at Hotchkiss was polluted. Slab Fork Coal Company’s coal preparation plant discharged waste coal and coal refuse into the Creek five days per week. Telling a lie saying I had not been playing in Slab Fork Creek usually didn’t work. Mommy would simply ask me to explain why my normally white socks were black.
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