Blue Ridge Heritage: An Informal History Of Three Generations Of The Family Of John Nicholson Idol

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. 2005 Parkway Publishers, Inc. Boone, North Carolina

Copyright 2004 by John L. Idol, Jr. All Rights Reserved available from: Parkway Publishers, Inc. Post Office Box 3678 Boone, North Carolina 28607 www.parkwaypublishers.com Tel/Fax: (828) 265-3993

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Idol, John L. Blue Ridge heritage : an informal history of three generations of the family of John Nicholson Idol / John Lane Idol, Jr. p. cm. ISBN 1-887905-41-3 1. Eitel family. 2. Idol, John Nicholson, d. 1897—Family. 3. Mountain life—North Carolina. 4. Appalachians (People)—North Carolina—Biography. 5. North Carolina—Biography. I. Title. CT274.E38I36 2005 929'.2’0973—dc22 2004021126

Book Design by Julie L. Shissler Cover Design by Aaron Burleson

For John, Thirza, Rufus, Nancy, Lane, Annie and their descendants

Table of Contents Foreword

vii

Map of Deep Gap

xii

Boundaries

xiii

Acknowledgments The First Generation

xv 1

The Second Generation

12

The Third Generation

39

Family Photos

52

Lane as Hunter

68

Lane at Table

83

Lane as Churchman

88

Lane as Singer

107

Lane as Farmer

119

Annie

163

Foreword If Deep Gap, North Carolina, were to hire an advertising agency to suggest a nickname, a defensibly apt one would be “Gateway to the High Country.” Deep Gap takes its name from a gash in a mountain some twenty miles west of Wilkesboro and a little over ten miles east of Boone, North Carolina. As seen by animals and humans heading west out of the Piedmont, the dip meant an easier, faster way through mountainous terrain and then into Tennessee, Kentucky, and the trans-Mississippi River territory. The gash saved wild creatures and wagoneers a climb of some 300 or 400 feet up the rock-thick area called Stoney Fork. Once past the gap, beast and men stood on the western slope of the Eastern Continental Divide. In the broadest sense, they found themselves in the Mississippi River Basin, for if the streams, Meadow and Gap Creek, draining Deep Gap were traced through their serpentining course, they would join forces with the South Fork of New River, near Fleetwood, and meander out of the Tar Heel state, glide through a stretch of Virginia, cascade and white-water through West Virginia, kiss the shores of Ohio and Kentucky, and become the companion of the Father of Rivers long before as it flows by New Orleans and empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers mark the highest point of the gap at 3,100 feet at the intersection of U S Highway 421 and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Beyond the gap, on the western fringes of Watauga County, some peaks rise to nearly double that altitude and help the county claim the highest average altitude of any county east of the Mississippi River. Mountains near the gap, however, lack the loftiness of their distant cousins and could justly be called hillocks and knolls if one cared to measure them from the plateau from which they emerge. Time-and weatherworn, these knolls and hillocks, like the gap itself, have nothing rugged or severe about them. Once covered with stately white pines and scatterings of maple, chestnut, oak, and tulip trees, they now find themselves bedecked in Christmas trees or cleared as pasture-land for beef cattle, although, for a time they grew patches of cabbage, green beans, Irish potatoes, corn, buckwheat, and other crops for family, livestock, and small-scale truck farming. The dairies that once put on view small herds of Jerseys, Guernseys, or Holsteins now turn their pastures over to Angus, shorthorn, or some exotic line of beef cattle. Once a source of both pride and vittles for the table, vegetable gardens are becoming rare in Deep Gap as homemakers hang up their vii

hoes and head to grocery stores for fresh or canned goods. All this is to say that Deep Gap is rapidly transforming itself into a bedroom community, its present-day inhabitants holding down jobs in Boone or Wilkesboro, although it is home to a large warehouse facility and a produce trucking company. Before that transformation began, it provided work for many of its citizens, most of them tilling soil, tending livestock, or foraging the fields and woods for herbs and pollen. A few earned a living by working in lumber. Some wage earners punched a time clock at the Virgil Moretz and Sons Lumberyard, near the gap. Others took their paycheck from Monroe Nichols, whose sawmill and planer lay a half mile farther west on US 421. These two firms helped to mark time in Deep Gap. They did so by blowing steam-whistles as the workday began, at noon, and again at quitting time. The Moretz whistle was high-pitched, a kind of mezzo-soprano, the Nichols’ whistle close to tenor. They sometimes sang a duet, but more often sounded off solo. Singly or paired, they filled Deep Gap with sounds that bespoke industrialism, even as they beguiled us into imagining that trains were there to carry us to the grand places lying beyond our mountain fastnesses. The whistles marked time by sending us to work, announcing our lunch breaks, and giving us reason to argue it was time to lay down hoe or rake and call it a day. To our chagrin, we learned that a farm boy’s day is longer than a lumberman’s. When the wind was right, we could hear other sounds from the lumberyards: the whir of blades cutting logs, the high-pitched whine of planers as boards were fed through them, the slap of board on board as lumber was stacked to dry, the crash of rough-sawn boards as trucks dumped their loads near the planers, and the thud of front tires as the rearing truck slammed to earth again. There were no forklifts or cranes to remove lumber from truck-beds. To dump their loads, drivers put their trucks in reverse and then stomped on the brakes to stop. The lumber, which had been packed on lengths of water pipe, scooted backward and dropped noisily to the ground, lifting the cab of the truck skyward as it slid off. A bucking bronco would surely give less of a jolt than the truck driver felt as the cab bounced heavily back to earth. Winds coming from the south or east brought more than noises: the sweet or acrid smell of burning sawdust or chips, depending on whether white pine or oak had been recently sawn or planed. Smoke drifted up the valley from the lumberyards and blurred our vision as it burned our nostrils. It continued to do so year after year until strange trucks appeared to cart off chips and dust for recently developed uses. viii

The boys in the neighborhood were sorry to see the trucks, since they reduced the piles of chips and dust to small heaps rather than mounds good for tumbling or adventurous climbing. We were unaware that the smoke which sometimes clung to the meadows and hillsides was pollution. Smoke was simply another of the climatic conditions sometimes associated with Deep Gap weather, something like the fog that crept in from Stoney Fork and Elk and spread from the gap northward to a point some four miles east of Boone. As children, we imagined that Stoney Fork and Elk cranked up fog factories and sent their great, grey pillows over the mountaintops to plague us. Climatologists have since explained that Deep Gap lies in a borderland between Piedmont North Carolina and weather affected by the Great Lakes. For this reason, Boone can have snow or ice while Deep Gap escapes them or has lesser amounts. . But its mixture of hot and cold weather fronts makes it a place where fog likes to show its supremacy to human will. It goes not on little cat feet but on the swollen legs of herds of elephants. It builds and builds until it drops a grey curtain over the whole of Deep Gap, stretching all the way from the gap itself to a point some five miles from Boone and reducing traffic to a crawl, at least for prudent drivers. These fogs could well vie with the notorious ones of London for thickness and persistence. Once they settle into the valley, they cling tenaciously. One of the knolls lying slightly over a mile northwest of the gap unofficially bears the name “Idol Mountain,” a christening I fostered to honor John Nicholson Idol, into whose hands most of the acreage at its topmost part came when he bought it shortly after the War Between the States. With almost equal justice, I could have called it “Watson Mountain,” since a large chunk of the knoll rises from property once owned by my maternal grandfather, Jerry Watson. His acreage abutted, on the ridge top, the acreage bought by my paternal great-grandfather, the aforementioned John Nicholson Idol. The Watson family came into the area long before John Nicholson Idol did and had spread out along Meadow Creek as they hewed out farmland, built houses and barns, or started a country store. They had intermarried with other early settlers, the Greenes, Hodges, and Greers, raised large families, and joined other neighbors to form a Baptist church and to start an elementary school. A residue of classical learning led them to name their community Virgil, the name appearing on letters written and received by John Nicholson Idol. Later they decided that “Yuma” suited them better. Finally, geography prevailed, and “Deep Gap” became the name that stuck. Family letters tell an ix

interesting story, since both sets of my grandparents were born in “Virgil,” both parents in “Yuma,” and my siblings and I in “Deep Gap.” No one had moved an inch during all this time. The story unfolding in the following pages traces the experience of John Nicholson Idol as he left his home near High Point, North Carolina, and married into a mountain family, taking as his bride Thirza Greene. Through family letters, entries in Bibles, and remembered bits of family lore coming to me from Rufus and Nancy Watson Idol, and John Lane and Annie Watson Idol, Aunt Mae Idol Howell, John V. Idol, and my siblings, I recount a portion of the Blue Ridge heritage of my family. The time span is from the late 1860s to the late 1980s, but I focus on three generations, treating only incidentally my own generation. I’m primarily interested in presenting the story of an outsider, a Piedmont man, and how he and certain of his children and grandchildren were absorbed into Blue Ridge culture. The pivotal figures thus become Rufus, Nancy, John Lane, and Annie. I hope I have done them justice. A Note on Dialect I have used a Southern Appalachia branch of the South Midland dialect in recording speech practices of the older (and some younger) members of my family, their friends, and their neighbors. I wanted their voices to be heard as they talked or told stories, sometimes breaking in parenthetically to offer standard spelling or pronunciation in cases where misunderstanding might occur. The speech I record reflects usage more typical of 18th century English and American speech than 19th or 20th, owing principally to the linguistic isolation of families dwelling in coves and byways of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A few expressions, especially of my paternal grandmother, hark back to the 17th century and beyond. For example, her use of “I’m going to the barn for to milk the cow” would have sounded natural to the ear of the poet Robert Herrick, a polished writer of the 17th century. Interestingly, the written English of most of the persons I treat here provides but scant indication of how they sounded as they talked. The most marked exception was my mother’s practice of using “was” following singular “you”, a construction found in standard English as late as the time of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Lord Byron. She saw no problem in writing “You was a curly-headed baby,” logically, according to our rules of subject-verb agreement, a better use of language than our “correct” “You were a curly-headed baby.” Her letters do not reflect her practice of adding or dropping sounds. Her written English would read x

something like this for “He was laughing so hard I couldn’t understand him.” Her spoken version should read: “He was a-laughin’ so hard I couldn’t understan’ ‘im.” Since the spoken form of Blue Ridge English is what I aimed to capture as I recorded the stories, conversations, and talk of my relatives and their friends and neighbors, I have tried to be faithful in rendering my linguistic heritage. I like to think that I’ve imposed no insurmountable barrier for readers unaccustomed to Blue Ridge talk.

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Boundaries Of the Idol families living in North Carolina’s portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I treat only the family of John Nicholson Idol, who settled in that area of Watauga County called Deep Gap following the War Between the States. Members of the Idol family have called these mountains home for at least five generations, but I offer here only a highly personal account of three generations, mostly members of my immediate family. For that reason, I often enter these pages at will, not behaving as a trained historian or genealogist. Generally, I disregard clocks, calendars, or courthouse records. Someday I may write a researched account, but that’s far from my purpose here. At the outset, I conceived of these pages as a place for certain family members to breathe and live again, at least so far as they were alive in my memory or in their letters. I wished to bring to paper enough of their words and deeds to make them living presences for their descendants, regardless how distant. I have let them keep their given names, believing that reducing them to the generic terms of father, mother, aunt, or grandparent robs them of much of their essence. My focus here is on Lane, my father. He seemed, upon reflection, to be a product of what the Blue Ridge Mountains did to shape how people thought and behaved before the outside world began to impinge heavily on mountain ways. Although I have attempted to explore some of the contexts of his living and being, I don’t pretend to have taken the measure of the man who passed his name on to me. For the present, I simply wish to see him as a part of my mountain heritage. In looking back at him and at those who formed part of his circle, I realize that I’m also attempting to record mountain ways before they were heavily scored by travel, mass communications, or what passes as the pursuit of happiness by the general American public. What all this comes to in the end, at least in these pages, is that Lane emerges as a man quite typical of Deep Gap ways and uniquely himself. Of course, I don’t claim that the words I have coming from his mouth, or from the mouths of others, were precisely the ones I heard. So far as memory served, I attempted to recover voices as I knew them. Many of the events date back to my childhood, some seventy years ago. As I wrote, I found voices coming to me. When that happened, all I needed to do, I thought, was to record what I was hearing. I claim only that my fingers were faithful to what my ears heard as I wrote. The

xiii

result to my work here, truth be told, is creative non-fiction and not a memoir. I try to be the agent through which others live. Whether for good or evil, I have merged several previously written poems with my prose. These poems, and I no doubt should be hanged for calling some of them poems, help to advance my story or record how I felt about a particular event. They can usually be skipped if anyone prefers to get on with the story. Copies of this idiosyncratic account of the John Nicholson Idol family will be deposited in special collections at Appalachian State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh, and in the genealogical files in Salt Lake City. Hillsborough, North Carolina 4 August 2004

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Acknowledgments For challenging me to get on with my Deep Gap stories, I first of all have Darlene O’Dell to thank. For their longtime interest and encouragement, I’m especially indebted to Jim Skinner and Skip Eisiminger. All three read the work as it progressed and made many suggestions. To Susan Weinberg of Appalachian State University I am also grateful for encouragement and comments on the material I was treating. To Sonya Idol Hoxie, I say thanks for asking a simple question: “What were my grandparents and great grandparents like?” Much of what I’ve written here is my answer to her query. Once more, I stand in Margie South Idol’s debt for forbearance, abiding interest, help with deciphering family letters, and exacting proofreading. For their help in refreshing my memory and sharing stories that I hadn’t heard, I thank my brothers Ken, Jim, Bill, Joe, Bob, and Steve, and Joyce, our sole sister. For their answers to my letters I thank Mae Idol Howell and John Vernon Idol. I also am deeply grateful to Aunt Mae for sharing family history when I visited her. I’m truly sorry now that I failed to listen more attentively when her father, Rufus, whose memory was wondrous, spun stories of family history when I was growing up. I hope I’ve dredged up a fraction of the history he knew. To Cousin Lee Sherrill, I am especially grateful for a batch of letters and extracts from notebooks and journals relating to John Nicholson and Anderson Matthais Idol. To Kim Bryant, a fellow Hillsboroughian who works for the University of North Carolina Press, I say thanks for drawing a map of selected sites in Deep Gap.

xv

THE FIRST GENERATION JOHN NICHOLSON AND THIRZA (THURSA) GREENE IDOL Deep Gap was not yet the official name bestowed on a community of scattered farmhouses, a small Baptist church, a country store, and a backwoods school house that lay beyond a natural cleft in one of the minor sub ranges of the Blue Ridge to the west of Wilkes County when John Nicholson Idol left his home near High Point, North Carolina, and rode west. To one of the small post offices in the valley beyond the cleft the name “Virgil” was attached. Another small post office bore the name “Gap Creek,” the name also identifying a Baptist church perched on a hillock near the flood plain of Gap Creek. Along this creek and its major tributary, Meadow Creek, spread some of the best soil in eastern Watauga County, but there was precious little bottomland, since mountains and hills encircled the valley. A few miles west and fewer miles northwest, along the New River, bottomland was much more plentiful. Understandably, it had been claimed or bought and sold earlier, by settlers who pushed into the mountains soon after the Revolutionary War. (Hunters and trappers had ventured into the area earlier, and one group of settlers, the Wataugans, had founded a community west of the mountains before the Revolutionary War. These pre-Revolutionary pioneers had learned of the New when they crossed the Blue Ridge into Tennessee. A few plunked down some of their change to buy property along the New, paying in some instances only five cents an acre. Later, they, or their heirs, would parcel out the land to newcomers, charging up to a dollar an acre or more.) One of these newcomers was John Nicholson Idol. On horseback, he and his brother, Ance (Anderson) came to the Blue Ridge looking for work not many months following the Civil War. Volunteering for service in the Confederate Army, John enlisted in Forsyth County on May 24, 1861, along with his cousin Herbert Idol. Too young to join, at the same time, though his heart ached to do so, Anderson later left his parents behind and enlisted in Raleigh. John underwent training and eventually became a member of Company B, 1st Battalion North Carolina Sharpshooters and saw duty in eastern North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. One of his letters to his parents, Jehu and Hannah Nicholson Idol, survives, a portion of which follows:

1

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. April 25, 1864 Kinston, North Carolina Dear Mother and Father, We are still in our old camp. They have had a fight at Plymouth, they captured the place and all that was there.1 Our Brigade suffered very badly. I have not heard who was killed and wounded. A South Carolina Brigade came here yesterday. We have about 25,000 troops in Eastern North Carolina. I think they are going to try Newbern in a few days. The gunboat started from here the other day, but did not go far before she ran against a sand bar and is there yet. I don’t think they will get away until the river rises again. The troops have orders to be ready to march at a moment’s warning, but we have had no orders and I hope will not. There will have to be a guard left in town. I think it will be us as we are doing guard duty in town. I think this is one of the dullest places I have been since I have been in service, but still I am very well satisfied here. I am very satisfied we will whip the Yankees out this summer and all get home again, or give them to understand they can’t whip us. His unit was later to become part of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He and Ance were with Lee at Appomattox, where they received parole and began the long walk back to the High Point area, memories of horrifying battles at Gettysburg and Petersburg fading slowly as they began thinking of what they would do when they reached the home of their parents in Abbott’s Creek. Knowing that an ax would come in handy when they built their campfires, John concealed one in a pant leg and pretended to be lame. “Who knows,” he whispered to Ance, “we may come upon a stray pig or heifer somewhere along the way and enjoy some good eatin’ for a change.” One of the stories he told his son Rufus was that he had limped back to North Carolina with his brother, a few cousins, and neighbors he had fought alongside for years in the Confederate Army. “We kept warm enough,” he said, “but we didn’t feast on beef or pork or even a chicken. The livestock that hadn’t gone to feed home guards or Yankees was hidden away, and we didn’t fancy addin’ to the hardship of families who’d had their bellyful of thievish soldiers, whatever the color of their uniforms.” After several days on the road, John and Ance once again slept beneath the roof of Jehu and Hannah Nicholson Idol’s house. It was 2

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE good to be home, but how could they find work? How could they escape being burdens to their family? Where would they find sweethearts or wives? Would they ever have homes of their own? Prospects looked bleak for these battle-tired veterans. Would their outlook be brighter if they did as others of their cousins and neighbors were doing: go west? Westward they went, but not to Missouri and Kansas as some of their cousins and one of their aunts did. Their westward push took them to Watauga County, where cousins from their grandmother’s line had already settled. They would visit William Welch, their kinsman. The Welch homestead was only a few hundred feet westward of the log cabin of pioneer settler Solomon Greene, among whose many offspring were three daughters whom the Idol brothers were to meet Thirza, Margaret, and Celina (Selena) Adelaide. (As in earlier days, the spelling of words, including names, was fluid. The spelling of Thirza’s name in the census of 1870 was “Thursey,” a form that no doubt reflects how her name was pronounced in the Southern Appalachian dialect.) A few of their surviving letters provide glimpses of their lives during the early years of Reconstruction. These letters came in the wake of their visit to their Blue Ridge kinfolk and reveal that John and Ance had a strong bond. One brief letter, dated 10 August 1866, presumably to John, sounds a happy note: “I am having a bully time with the girls about here.” Another letter, written ten days later, is clearly addressed to John, who apparently had remained in the mountains. Ance happily reported that he had gone to Abbott’s Creek to see his girl and had had “the bulliest time you ever saw.” While there, he had seen John’s girl, who expressed the wish that John was now in good humor and asked whether he had found his shoes. What events lay behind these remarks by John’s girl must remain a mystery until other letters come to light. If Ance had been a tattletale, he could have told the Piedmont girl that John had another girl on the string in the mountains. He implored John “to write me as soon as you get this and let me know how you and Maggie is getting along.” Less than a month later, 18 September 1866, Ance scribbled another short letter, reporting this time that he had little news to report other than he had been going to “meeting” and to a big sale at Henry (HN)utt’s place. The content of the extant letters suggests that Ance returned to Virgil when John came back to Abbott’s Creek and that later they exchanged places. In a letter dated 8 June 1867, John responded to a recent one from Ance:

3

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. I take this opportunity of answering your kind and welcome letter which I received the other night. I had almost gave out the Idea of your ever writing to me or it took you a long time to get in the notion Well Ance I have nothing new to write you Times is dull and hard hear at present Nothing going on so a man can make any money I have no [illegible word] but very little work since I come home nor do I intend to do much this summer My occupation is gathering strawberrys, cherrys, apples and going to see the girls. I went to see Miss JAC last Sunday night well you ought to know I had a fine time I have not seen JAW [Julia Welch, whom Ance later married] and did not taulk with her JAC said she wanted to see you particular . . . . We was going to Possumtown today but it rained there is a singing at Pine Stump tomorrow I think I shall attend I want you to give Miss LMG [Margaret Greene?] my love and respects & tell her I am coming up soon, witch I am I want you to put WP in the notion to send me a horse I am afoot I want you to come down soon & we will have some fun Wheat crops looks fine [Several indecipherable lines follow.] Your affectionate brother, John N. Idol This letter offers evidence that John’s wallet remained thin, that lack of work was forcing him to live off the land. A letter posted to his first cousin Columbus Swaim a couple of weeks later (16 June 1867) reveals that he had to depend on the kindness of others to get around: Mr. C. F. Swaim, Sir I think we had better go to Waughtown to morrow if you are willing to go as we can’t work in the crop I will go and try to get Sarah’s buggy this evening if I can get it I will let you know in the morning. Yours & etc John N. Idol That Ance had indeed been smitten by Celina Adelaide Greene appears an epistle addressing her as Miss S[elena] A. Greene: This lovely evening proves to be my delightful task to drop you a few lines once more I have written you twice but have had no answer It looks it is useless for me to write and not get no answer But I hope ere this reaches you I will receive a letter from you. Oh! 4

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE that we could meet and enjoy ourselves as we once have But I hope some future day will soon come that we will meet When I think back of the past I cannot express my feelings to you It seems like I am forsaken when I am not with the one I love so dear But “Alas” we are a long ways apart and perhaps we have parted for the last time on earth But if we have I hope we may meet in Heaven But if we ever do meet again which I think we will I hope to be greeted with a loving smile from you I never can forget you . . . . Perhaps these words never reached her, for they could well be a draft of a letter, another draft of which begins: Dearest Selena, I once more grasp my pen with a heavy heart for the purpose of trying to write you a few lines to tell you my feelings toward you. But I cannot tell you my feelings towards you But I cannot write it as it is nor I cannot tell you Pen cannot describe nor tongue cannot speak the love I have for you Not to be outdone in the fervency of romantic epistles, John wrote an unnamed addressee in a similar vein: I have read your very kind and welcome letter of the 18th. And am very much pleased to hear from you I am sure you never find a more devoted friend or more loving hart I am never so happy as when my thoughts revert to when I spent so many delightful hours in your company All my words and actions have come from the hart If you knew how unhappy I have been for the past three months I am sure you would pity me. I will cheerfully do anything you request except to forget you which will be impossible Know that my whole hart is yours I feel that I will be rewarded with a loving smile when we next meet Till then adieu remember one whose whole hart is yours I shall expect an answer soon I remain your devoted friend, J. N. Idol It gives me a touch of modest pride to know that I descend from an articulate, if cliché-ridden, Victorian swain. I like to think that these words of endearment were meant for the eye of my great grandmother, Thirza Greene Idol. 5

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. How and when these affairs of the heart were sorted out, I don’t know, except that Margaret (Maggie) married Harper Hayworth, Celina, Sam Hayworth, Harper’s brother, and Thirza, John. Maggie and Celina migrated to Indiana with their husbands, and Ance descended from the mountains and wed the patient Julia. Whether his ongoing search for work or the strength of his love (or both) brought John back to the Blue Ridge, I don’t know. When he returned, he found a job at Cowles’ country store, located near Gap Creek and on the road to Jefferson. It sat on near the intersection of what is now US 221 and Idlewild Road, in Ashe County, some four miles from the cabin of Solomon Greene. The store was a two-story frame building (still standing but sagging again to Mother Earth). Here it was that John found work as a factor, in modern parlance a purchasing agent whose duties as a buyer took him to Hickory, Asheville, Wilkesboro, and other towns to keep a supply of goods flowing into the store. Ance, wanting to be a builder and seeing little hope of becoming one in the area, returned home and eventually moved to High Point to enter the construction business. (Ance did return to the mountains to help John build a house in the Cranberry section of Ashe County, a house that one day would become the home of Snow Idol Miller, Ance’s grand niece.) John’s marriage with Thirza united him with a member of one of Deep Gap’s earliest settlers, Solomon Greene. Solomon had been part of that eastward migration that filled up Gap Creek, having left the Meat Camp community, where his father, Isaac, had settled. Isaac was the son of Jeremiah, who had been named for his father. That older Jeremiah’s father was William Greene, who migrated from England in the late 17th century, coming first to Pennsylvania (in 1693) and then acquiring a homestead in Ewing, New Jersey. His son Jeremiah, one of the younger boys in the family, chose to move with a group of other New Jersey farmfolk to North Carolina. They bought and split amongst themselves a tract of land near Salisbury, their venture receiving the name “Jersey settlement.” Solomon first married Nancy Hodges, who bore him thirteen children before she died. His second wife, Mary Sherrill, added eight more children to his household, among whom was Thirza. She and John were married March 1, 1867, John a few months short of age 30, Thirza, a few months past her 21st birthday. They lived first in a rented cabin on a mountaintop virtually opposite of where Lane built his home on U. S. Highway 421 (old NC 60). Soon, however, John sought property to buy, finding it off the main road through Virgil. He bought a hundred acre spread from John M. Miller, whose deed 6

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE shows that the farm had once belonged to a man from Tennessee, who purchased it for five cents an acre. John shelled out a dollar an acre. It could be reached by a footpath that ran from Parks Watson’s place or by a wagon and sled route that followed a small branch of Meadow Creek. The wagon trail that led by property held by members of the Greene and the Watson family is now called “Hot Rod Road.” The tract included a portion of the top of what I’ve called Idol Mountain, a steep slope ending abruptly at a branch, and then approximately 60 acres of rolling and level land not exactly bottom land but about as flat as anything in that area except a few stretches along middle and lower Gap Creek. In one of the leveler spots, John chose to put up a log cabin and outbuildings. Cutting trees on his new farm and sizing them up for his buildings, he then hewed wooden pegs and chestnut shingles. His work with his father and brother served him well, for he was able to do almost all the carpentry himself. In the style of the day, he built a cookhouse behind his log cabin, since fires from cookhouses were much more frequent than fires in the main house. To this log cabin, Thirza and John welcomed seven children: Estella, born 12-27-1868; Joseph Anderson, 12-31-1870; Julia Margaret, 12-19-1873; Mary Naomi, 11-1-1875; Martha Ann, 11-171877; Rufus Wesley, 7-19-1879; Elzora Ida, 9-29-1881. In time, the children would make good farm hands, but they needed some schooling, too. Pressed as the family was to scrape up money to run the farm and keep the household going, the cost of education was something of a burden. Happily, an understanding schoolmaster, L. H. Michael, offered to let John and Thirza worry about paying him later. In a note to John dated 1-5-1886, the teacher scribbled Your notice received. To be sure I will not contend for you to send, but would be glad to have your children in school. So far as the pay is concerned I will wait on you, but use your pleasure about sending. Where Professor Michael held school, I’m not sure, perhaps in his own home. A public school would eventually be built on property sold by Jerry and Myrtie Watson (Annie’s parents) to Watauga County. The schoolhouse, a two-room frame structure with a small front porch and a shallow entrance hall, housed seven grades and bore the name Rocky Point. Rufus had altogether about four years of formal education, spliced between harvest and planting season. (Joseph Anderson Idol’s 7

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. son John V. would one day become principal of the school building that replaced the Rocky Point structure.) John became active in Watauga County politics. For his services to the Democratic Party, he was named justice of peace for Stoney Fork Township. When his fellow Democrats put him on the slate for county commissioner, he won, even though he didn’t actively seek the office. Writing to Ance, he reported We had a grait deal of taulk and some excitement about the election. Our county went democratic. Dr. W. B. Councill was elected in the commons and Maj Bingham in the Sinate I was elected one of the county commissioners though I did not want the office they run my name without my consent I got next to the largest vote in the county I am going to Except the office and do the very best I can. (Letter to Anderson Idol, dated 12-1-1876) How seriously he took his allegiance to the Democratic Party is evident from his half serious warning to his sons: “If I knew you’d turn out Republicans, I’d wring your necks.” As tough and as devastating as life could be during Reconstruction days in the Blue Ridge, the family sometimes looked back with laughter at a few events that happened on the hardscrabble farm, the most notable one being the day the cookhouse burned down. As flames consumed it, recalled Rufus, some of the younger children ran and danced around it, shouting, “Whoopee, we are finally warm enough! Whoopee, there goes the goose eggs!” He loved to tell the story, chuckling as he narrated the children’s antics. “Whoopee, whoopee! There goes the goose eggs!” John tried to hold firm to family ties in the High Point area. He exchanged letters with his parents and with Ance and perhaps with his sisters, though none from them to him survive. One letter from his parents, a joint effort written April 21, 1876, is extant. In it Jehu reports that his health hasn’t been good: I am failing very fast am never well anny more it seems like have no use of my legs . . . Me and Esthers boys [Jehu’s grandsons] has bin planting my corn and not quite done yet. . . . we have got some nice garden our beans coming up wheat crops looks promising we will have much fruit this year I will give you the price of produce corn is 70 to 75 cnts per buckwheat one dollar and quarter bacon 8

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE from 15 to 18 cnts per pound butter twenty to 25 cnts coffee 25 to 30 molasses 40 to 60 calico from 8 to 10 cents a yard. . . . John I want you to come and see us this fall if you ever expect to see us. On the opposite side of the sheet, Hannah responded to news about the birth of Mary Naomi. She wrote We received your very welcome letter last sounday week gave us great satisfaction [to] hear you was well and doing well I suppose you have a fine young daughter. I was proud of the name but wish you to call it Hannah Eliza if it would suit you both. John I do want to see you the warst that I ever did since you left me but fear I never shall this side of eternity. He had further news from home when he received a letter from C. F. Swaim, who wrote John an account of how things were in North Carolina when C. F. came back to visit the homefolk after his move to Missouri: The old country has changed so much in appearance that I scarcely knew any Place. They have a stock law consequently all fencing is gone down & pines have grown up on all waste land. Our old homes have changed as much or more than any others. I could hardly recognize the old places at all. . . . Your Nephew, Dick Brown lives in your old home. Dick is a very large man has seven children I believe. Staid with Dick three nights had a good visit with him. . . . I was to visit your sister Ella she looks better than 22 years ago. . . . also visited Esther [another of John’s sisters]. Took supper with Anderson the evening I started home. I saw quite a number of our old friends. Namely Jap Welch Harrison McCoin Sol Panye Wilse Pickard Newel Sapp Nat Crowder Wesley Idol. Yes and Tam Ellis & Wes Wood & many others. Financially, most all seem to be doing well. Tobacco is their staple crop. They raise immense quantities of it. (Letter from C[olumbus] F[ranklin] Swaim to John N. Idol, March 26 1894) Since his work as a carpenter took him away from home for days or weeks, he and Thirza turned to their pens. Her letter to him on August 2, 187? reveals that she shouldered the responsibility of running 9

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. the farm as well as the house. As haying and harvest time came on, she told John I have paid Asa one dollar for hauling the rye it took him a day and a half and I paid John Church and Rily Miller for help cutting the rye which was a dollar and a quarter. . . . I want you to bring enough money to payoff our debts around here if you don’t send anything Else I have got $.75 cts of the money you sent us yet. I am saving it to pay to get the grass cut, that is if you don’t come home in time. Estella said she wanted a Red wool worsted dress Anderson wants a suit of cloths. . . . you dont know how bad we all want to see you come I dream about you most every night. [PS] The children is gathering bittersweet leaves Cowles give 1 1⁄2 cts per lbs. When John was home, he tried to clear more land for crops and pasture. He felled trees, sawed some of them into lengths for his fireplaces, and burned others in the fields. One day as he worked in a patch of new ground, he was struck by a limb from a chestnut tree that he was cutting down. The limb struck his face and “terribly disfigured him,” recalled Rufus, and brought on partial paralysis, as he wrote his sister Elvira. Having heard the news from her, Anderson wrote to express his shock and sadness: We certainly are sorrow to hear the sad news. I hope you may yet recover so you can get about again. It is a sad affliction and surely do feel sorrow for you and your Family. (Letter from Anderson Idol to John, January 3, 1897) In a desperate move to bring in some money, John wrote to a cousin to ask help in getting another kinsman to pay off an old debt. John suffered the fate of Timon, no money to come from those he had befriended earlier. Now difficulty was piled on difficulty, for he could do nothing to bring in cash. His battle to keep everything together ended July 3, 1897, the date of his death. Whether he had picked the spot himself or Thirza and the children chose it for him, he had the choicest burial plot on the farm, the top of Idol Mountain, the side nearest his log cabin. From where his grave was dug, a mourner could look back towards the gap that had been John’s point of entry over thirty years earlier. To the naked eye, the cabin where Thirza was reared would not have been visible, but it stood there in the gap (to be reclaimed by 10

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE the white pines during my lifetime). Turning to look to the southwest, the mourner could see Grandfather Mountain. Almost due west was Howard’s Knob, and to the northwest there stood Snake Mountain and Mount Jefferson. Beyond them, darkly visibly because of the blue haze, rose mountain peaks in Tennessee and Virginia. Below the mourner, some 400 yards away, was John’s log cabin, and it was to this building that Thirza and her children made their way when John’s body took its place amidst the soil of the Blue Ridge. A few years later (March 29, 1899), Thirza’s body would be brought to lie beside his, and in time, children and grandchildren and a few in-laws would be given a final resting place in Idol Graveyard. Two flat fieldstones were put up at the head of their graves, on which Ida Idol scratched the names and dates of her parents. From John’s necessity of combining jobs in a store and on a construction crew with tilling the soil to make a living emerges a pattern that his sons and grandson Lane would follow: plying a craft while still clinging to a plow or hoe handle. Although to a lesser extent for Rufus than for Lane, carpentry put bread on the table and clothes on themselves and their families. It was a skill passed to them by John, a skill he had learned from his father, Jehu, himself a farmer and a carpenter. Hammer, saw, plane, and chisel: plow, hoe, pitchfork, and rake: tools needed to make a go of it in the haze-beshrouded Blue Ridge Mountains.

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SECOND GENERATION RUFUS AND NANCY WATSON IDOL JOSEPH ANDERSON AND FLEETIE WATSON IDOL The second son and seventh child of Thirza and John, Rufus Wesley, joined his elder siblings on July 17, 1879, in the log cabin that John built. It was to be his home until after the birth of his son, John Lane. Rufus loved the woods and fields and enjoyed working with livestock, especially horses. When he was strong enough to handle a plow and team of horses, he not only turned furrows on the family farm but on the farms and gardens of neighbors as well. He quickly became a mainstay for his parents and sisters, taking the burden of running the farm by himself as he approached his eighteenth birthday. John’s death on July 3, 1897, left Rufus the man of the house, since his older brother didn’t fancy himself a farmer. When his brother, Anderson as the family called him, moved away to find work and his sisters married and settled into their own homes, Rufus remained behind to look after the homeplace. He did, however, venture beyond the Blue Ridge once. Like many a Tar Heel, he heard the siren call of the west and got as far as Arkansas, where he took a job helping put down railroad tracks. It was hot, hard work, and he was far from home. The prospects for the pursuit of happiness as part of a gang of track builders looked dimmer every sweltering day, and the mountains around Deep Gap, for all the hardship he’d endured there, looked better and better to his inward eye. It didn’t take him long to turn in his pick and head back to the farm. Later he was to wed a neighbor’s daughter, Nancy Watson, whose father, John, owned a farm on the other side of a humpback mountain and ran, in partnership with his twin, Joseph, a small country store. Because his hard work had kept the family going since his father’s death, Rufus inherited the homeplace, except for thirty acres that his brother bought from his parents before their deaths. Apparently, most of Rufus’ siblings believed that Rufus should inherit the homeplace, feeling that they owed him something for caring for their mother and baby sister, Ida. It was to the log cabin where he had been brought up that he took his bride; it was here that they experienced one of the oldest rituals of nuptials, the shivaree. (Nancy insisted that serenade was the right word.)

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Shortly after Nancy and Rufus were married, a group of serenaders came to the house in the middle of the night. They carried with them all manner of noisemakers: pots, tubs, boards to slap together, and guns, both rifles and shotguns. “Such a racket, such a rumpus, such clattering, banging, and shooting you’ve never heard,” said Nancy as she told this story. “Why, Rufus and me counted over 90 spent shells the next morning. It maybe wouldn’t have been so bad, if they’d stopped after the first round, but some of them got the bright idea of walking out to Laxon for to buy some more ammunition, and, later on, towards morning, here they broke out again, shootin’, shootin’, shootin’. It might have been fun for them, but it sure did cost us a good night’s sleep.” Any evil spirits conspiring to keep Nancy from conceiving were, however, frightened off the Idol homestead, for here, in the log cabin John had built, was born a son, named John Lane, John for his grandfathers, Lane because she liked the sound of the word. And here, also, was born the idea that Rufus would build them a new house. He would build it with his own hands. Lumber came from white pine trees growing on the farm after he felled them, hauled them to a sawmill, where they’d be cut into two-by-fours, two-by-tens, and all the other sizes a carpenter would need to put up a house. He could afford to have them sawn only. For those pieces requiring a finished look, he pulled out one of his dad’s collection of planes and dressed planks for walls, floors, and ceilings, weatherboarding, doing most of the dressing after he’d put in a full day tending crops, feeding livestock, milking, and mending fences. “What I could, I did myself, and what I could make here on the place, I didn’t have to buy,” he said. “Ended up costing me $40.00. I put out that for doors, windows, locks, knobs, nails and brick and mortar for the fireplace.” He bought some of his supplies from the store operated by the Watson brothers just across the mountain from him. For shingles, he cut down chestnut trees, then abundant, and split the chunks up into enough roofing to cover his two-story, four-room house, which had a porch running all the way across the front. Its central chimney was meant to heat all the rooms, except the kitchen, which, along with a pantry, made up the lean-to attached to the rear side. Because he could never stop leaks where the lean-to was fastened, he eventually tore it down and built a combined kitchen, pantry and porch that formed the leg of what now became a T-shaped house. The top of the T had a living room and bedroom down stairs and two bedrooms upstairs. On a couple of shelves in the living room he put a copy of a book bought from some peddler on the sinking of the Titanic, a few well-thumbed 13

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. almanacs, and a hand-hewn box filled with old letters, a few to his father, a few from Thirza’s sisters who had moved to far-off Indiana. Also placed here was a toy, an acrobat, his dad had whittled out of white pine. With wooden pins placed at its elbows, knees, shoulders, and feet, John’s toy would do handstands, knee bends, and flips if the moveable part was pushed up and down. Brown and glazed with the body oils of three generations, the acrobat performed his act time and again for Rufus’ children and grandchildren. Now in the possession of Rodney Howell, the acrobat entertains his grandchildren. The upstairs bedrooms were reached by a stairway that attached to the far wall of the downstairs bedroom. Not one of the rooms was painted and neither was the outside of the house. The inside wood slowly darkened to a brownish gold; the outside weatherboarding, beaten by wind, rain, and snow, turned gray or black except where it was protected by eaves. The house had a venerable look, something like that of a New England house dating from Colonial days. Situated in a valley just a couple of miles from the deep, natural cut in the mountain that gave the community its name, the house lay in the path of wind headed towards Wilkesboro and points east after roaring out of Tennessee and Virginia. When the winds were strong, a few of the looser boards would vibrate until they hummed or moaned. When the winds sped along at more than a gale’s force, a few boards reached a higher pitch, making noises like a baby’s cry. According to my mom, the earliest memorable words I spoke came the morning after a fierce wind swept through during the night. A little over two at the time, I had declared at the breakfast table, “When I get old, I’m going to build a house that don’t cry!” (Before our family grew so large, we spent Christmas Eve with Nancy and Rufus.) After some years of heating the house, or trying to heat it with fireplaces, Rufus decided to close the fireplaces up and buy a small wood-burning stove. Oval-shaped with thin sides, the stove was hardly any more efficient than a fireplace, but it had the advantage of offering more space for people to gather round. The stove was placed in the living room and made the room cozy, so cozy, in fact, that he and Nancy moved their bed into that room and deserted their former sleeping quarters. Among the pictures in the room was an enlarged photograph of Thirza. To us kids, she looked more like a little old man than a woman, probably because her hair was pulled straight back and she looked sternly ahead. “Who’s that little man up there?” we’d ask. “That’s not a man; that’s your great-grandmother.” “Looks like a man to me!” 14

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “Well, it isn’t. She was a nice lady, and she wouldn’t like for you to be asking ‘who’s that little man up there?’” At the split-up of Nancy’s belongings, Thirza’s portrait came to me. It’s my firmest link to the family’s Victorian past. Another link to the past, finally cut when the Watauga County Health Inspector insisted it must go, was the outhouse that perched on two locust logs above the stream that ran from the spring house. Between the spring house and the jake was a thick growth of peppermint, fragrant and cooling to the nose in spring and summer months. The outhouse, a two-holer, unlike outhouses sitting over dugout pits, had no stench because the crystal-clear spring water flowing beneath it washed away all signs of urine or feces. The only remaining sign that anyone had done his/her “business” was a lingering page of a Sears Roebuck catalog that a spring or summer thundershower hadn’t swept away. Rufus didn’t like it when he was told to move the outhouse. “Why, it’s been there since I was a boy, and we’ve done nothin’ that our neighbors haven’t been doin’ for long as I remember.” Tradition lost to decree, as it should have in this case, but urinating or defecating without the natural air freshener supplied by peppermint or rushing water was never as pleasurable. We all finally agreed that moving the outhouse was good science but poor hedonism, though we lacked the vocabulary to put the matter in such terms. Much of the venerable look of Rufus’ outhouse, and other buildings, was lost when black, mildewed, and mossy chestnut shingles were replaced with sparkling sheets of tin roofing. Had a devastating blight not hit the native chestnut trees, Rufus no doubt would have continued to hew his own shingles and replace those that had rotted through. Yet, on the day the shingles came off his home and a tin roof went on, Rufus seemed pleased with the change, for he realized that he’d no longer have to scramble up a ladder, rip out decayed shingles, and fit in new ones snugly enough to prevent leaks. From the day his house was re-roofed, I regretted the change, for when I climbed the mountain from where we lived and looked down on the glistening tin roof, the house looked tawdry, out of place in its setting of towering maples and surrounding wooden fence, which still wore its weathered old suit handsomely. Lane and his brothers-in-law, Rad Howell and Herman Miller, worked together with Rufus to redo the roof. I was among the children old enough to help with the job. Our task was to pick up the chestnut shingles, remove any nails that might have come out with them, and carry them to the woodshed, where we stacked them neatly to be used as firewood for Nancy’s cookstove. 15

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Placed on the wall at the bottom of the T, the cookstove became Nancy’s command post. Imperial in its massiveness, its cast iron weight a challenge to the floor’s foundation of locust pillars perched on nearly flat rocks that Rufus had found on the farm, the stove had a mixture of glistening white and grayish porcelain on its oven door, handles of heavy wire that looked like coiled pine cones, a warmer divided into three sections, each with its own door, and a reservoir for heating water. The flue, shielded by a metal housing as it passed through the wall, had a gun-metal blueness about it and sometimes emitted little puffs of smoke when swirling winds hit the outside pipe just right. Not until years later did Rufus add a chimney to draw the smoke from the cookstove. At her stove, Nancy baked corn pones, biscuits, pies, cakes. Her corn pones were heavy, covered with a thick crust. Her biscuits were light, flaky, and rather small. She usually made far too many for breakfast, but with a purpose we came to see later when she would serve up a dessert made of split biscuits covered with layers of applesauce or canned wild strawberries. Never one to waste anything, she put precious little sugar into her sauce or berries. When she spread one or the other fruit on the biscuit, the tartness seemed to penetrate each molecule of the bread. When we took our first bite of our dessert, our mouths would pucker and we’d soon say, “Please pass the cream and sugar.” Drowning our tart dessert in cream and gingerly sprinkling on a little sugar made the dish palatable. As children, we were afraid to heap our spoons too high, for Nancy’s sugar bowls were small and the amount of sugar in them just enough to cover their bottoms. Over the years we came to see that the rich, tasty desserts on the table at Christmas time were the creations of Aunt Mae and my mom. Nancy’s Christmas pies had heavy crusts, just enough filling, usually chocolate, to cover the bottom, coats of meringue as thin as dimes, and a hint of bitterness that reminded us of those layered cakes made of fruit and leftover biscuits. Desserts, in short, were not her forte. But she was queen of vegetables. Perhaps she earned that title because she was also queen of the buttery. Her mashed potatoes put the label of “creamy” to shame. They took on the color of butter and had little pools of butter resting in depressed spots after she sat a dish of them on the table. Those spring potatoes sliced in half or left whole— Red Bliss I think they were called—came to the table swimming in butter. Butter also smoothed the way of tender green beans or baby sweet peas down the gullet. Wholly in charge of milking—Rufus complained that his rheumatic hands were too stiff to squeeze a cow’s 16

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE tit—Nancy skimmed off most of the cream and once a week sat down to churn it, eventually pounding the butter she got into a wooden mold from whence a cake would emerge with a shock of golden wheat embossed upon its top. The one churning rhyme she used over the years was “Come, butter, come, St. Peter’s at the gate a-waitin’ a butter cake.” The cakes she didn’t use in cooking and baking she sent off by Rufus to sell to neighbors or to Deep Gap Cash Store. But not all her vegetables required butter to win applause. She knew how long to leave tomatoes on the vine to get them to offer up their best flavor. Her stewed cabbage, chopped fine and prepared with a touch of fatback grease, made an excellent companion to her cornpone, especially when there was enough broth to drench a portion of the cornbread. She had a way with “shellies” (beans shelled from pods that had not been gathered soon enough to serve as snapbeans.) To set these before us she opened a pint of homemade sausage and threw in chunks of it thinly covered in coats of white lard. With a dash of black pepper to enliven them, these “shellies” were a treat to the palate. But they were surely not better than her creamy sweet corn, picked fresh from the garden, shaved with a sharp kitchen knife, and heated slowly on her cookstove. Had the gods tasted it, they might have mistaken it for ambrosia. We couldn’t finish off this treat before the gods got wind of it until, after coming in from hoeing or haymaking, we joined Rufus on the side porch to wash our hands in the chilly water from a spring that bubbled up near a large maple tree overhanging the spring house. On a board running the length of the side porch sat a bucket (above which hung a dipper), a small wash pan, and a soap dish. Into the pan he poured several dippers of cold water, instructing us to wash our hands and, that done, to dab a little water on our hair. He insisted that we comb it before we came to the table. “I don’t want to see any of you younguns look like a wild man,” he chuckled as he passed a big-toothed comb around for us to use in flattening our locks. Presentable enough to take our places at his table, we heaped our plates so high that we kidded each other about our appetites: “You’re gonna need sideboards, Jim, if you pile your plate any higher.” “Speak for yourself, John; I don’t see no space left on yours either.” Hearty as we were, Rufus was just the opposite. He was not what we all called a “big eater.” His portions scarcely covered the bottom of his plate, whether he was seated at the festively loaded table 17

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. at Christmas or at the more sparsely furnished one when Nancy’s cookery alone sat on the board. His wiry, almost gaunt, frame didn’t require much food. He stood about 5 feet and 10 inches, had a 32 inch waistline, and must have worn a size 38 suit. Almost everything about him appeared disproportionately small except his hands. His shirt collars always lapped over a couple of inches, his coats, no matter how heavy for winter, left him looking hollow-chested, and his face appeared almost skeletal, something accentuated by the loss of teeth, for only a few tobacco-yellowed teeth remained (until they all had to be pulled and he had “to gum it” for the rest of his life.) When he sat down to eat, no matter whether all of us were there for Christmas or easing hunger after a sweaty day in the hayfield, he pulled his chair up to the upper corner of the table (the side nearest the cookstove) and ate with a table edge pointed directly at his ribcage. Thus, he was near what might be called the head of the table and on the side of the table. He talked little as he ate, watching instead how his tablemates were faring and handing around plates or bowls within his reach or commanding someone to pass a dish beyond it. “Here, Bill, take another helping of potatoes. Here, Jim, pile on some more beans; you’ve hardly et a thing.” To see his guests eat well, to watch them drink another glass of milk from pitchers chilled by springwater in the springhouse, to hear them say as they rose from his board, “I’m so full I couldn’t eat another thing,” seemed to give him great pleasure. Could that pride and joy in being a host be a link back to Johann Bernhardt Eitel’s days as a tavern keeper in Kernersville area, I’ve asked myself, after learning what our ancestor did following his move to North Carolina from Pennsylvania a few years before the War for Independence. Whatever the reason, his graciousness as a host had a most enjoyable afternoon payoff on Christmas day. When all the dishes had been done and all the womenfolk had come to the living room, and sometimes after the family had sung a few carols and Rufus’ favorite hymns, he’d step into the closet beside the living room fireplace and bring back a pound box of peppermint sticks. In what became a ceremonial act, he went around that crowded room, holding the box in his right hand, offering it to every man, woman, and child. “Have a stick of candy,” he said. “Thank you, Papa,” from all the kids. “Thank you, Dad,” from all his children. “Thank you, sir,” from in-laws. 18

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE His circle made, he closed the box and retraced his steps to the closet. In all the years of this ceremony, he never offered a second stick to anyone. He wasn’t a stingy man: that peppermint was to top off a good meal and leave a fresh taste in the mouth. If he’d served his own favorite, it would have been a bitter, lip-puckering stick of horehound, for that’s the kind of candy he carried with him to suck on when he climbed the mountain path home after his Saturday morning trip to Deep Gap Cash Store. That Saturday morning trek resulted from a week of hard work readying himself, or, rather, it was the result of his and Nancy’s hard work. Into a handwoven basket made of split white oak they packed fresh eggs and butter. Dressing in a grey or blue cambric shirt, a pair of bib overalls, unpolished brogans, and donning a weather-beaten pancake hat, he slipped his left arm under the handle and headed over the mountain towards Lonz Miller’s store in Deep Gap, a good two miles away. His first stop was at Lane’s house, where he usually lightened his load by at least one cake of butter. Pocketing the money from its sale in a snap purse, he picked up his basket and continued on towards Lonz’s. When neighboring housewives spotted him, they’d call, “Got any more of that delicious butter left, Mr. Idol?” Or “I’d like a half dozen of your eggs this morning.” On some Saturdays, he sold everything before he reached Lonz’s. If he hadn’t, he and Lonz would engage in the oldest form of trade, bartering. For his produce, Rufus would get the salt, sugar, pepper, or soda Nancy needed, as well as her supply of Scotch Sweet snuff. For himself, Rufus wanted a plug of Brown Mule tobacco, to give him something a little more enjoyable than his everyday chew, twists of homegrown stuff that he’d chopped off in plugs and carried in the bib of his overalls. If money remained over from his sales along the way, or if Lonz had found that Rufus’ eggs and butter were worth more than the value of the goods swapped for them, Rufus asked Lonz to throw in a few sticks of liquorish candy or hand him his change in pennies. He had a use for that candy and those leftover pennies. They’d go to Lane’s boys for treats, for rewards. When Annie needed something from Deep Gap Cash Store, she sent me or one of my brothers along with Rufus to shop for her. On one such occasion when I walked to the store with him, we found John Greer delighting the ear of every man and boy in the store. A thin, tobacco-chewing, earthy and high-spirited man, John had won fame for his stories (his “lies” as many of his listeners called them). Folklorist Richard Chase had collected some Jack tales from him and they had appeared in print. Seated on a nail keg near the front of the store, John 19

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. was telling one of the Jack tales as we came in, the one about Jack’s hunting trip. Facing a tough winter and having few eatables in his pantry, Jack had gone hunting but had had no luck and was down to his last bullet. Trudging homeward wearily, Jack spotted some game fowls perched on a limb high overhead. With one shot left, he might bring down one duck, turkey, or pheasant, but one bird would hardly do to help his family stave off starvation. Before he pulled the trigger he must think. He thought a good long while and then hit upon a plan. If he were to shoot the limb at its base, perhaps the whole bevy of fowls would fall at his feet and he could catch several. He squeezed his trigger, hitting the limb where he aimed but with unexpected results—the limb split open and then snapped back together quickly but not before it had snared the feet of every fowl perched on it. The limb then fell, striking a bear and killing it, and tumbling on to the ground where it smashed deer and squirrel and dammed up a trout stream. Jack hustled quickly to dress the meat and clean the trout. He went home loaded down with more than enough meat to last through the winter. As he finished his story, John spat, slapped his thigh, and declared, “You never could stop that Jack; he’d figure out a way to win every time. Some boy, that Jack.” He then took off his grimy, sweat-stained hat and ran his bony fingers through his thinning hair. “Tell us another lie, John,” said one of the boys sitting at his feet. “Another lie? Why, what I jist told you was the truth I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles.” “Tell us another anyway, John,” insisted several voices. “Well, maybe jist one more,” said John, winking. “Hit had better be the truth this time, John,” said one of the men in the group, winking back at John. “Then, I’ll give you the truth, gospel, I swear,” John said. “If hit ain’t, weuns’ll never believe another thing you say,” said another man, also winking. John then started another tale. “You all know Ol’ Solomon Greene’s place out here might near right smart dab in the gap. If you’uns go jist a few steps above his cabin and stand on the crest of the gap you can do something you may find hard to believe, but, trust me, hit’s the gospel truth.” “What is it, John?” asked a curious young man. “Well, to do it, you have to pull out your pecker and piss as you look down towards Wilkesboro and turn right around and piss towards 20

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Boone.” Here he paused, seeing a few blushes flare up on the faces of his youngest auditors. “You young fellers want me to say ‘pee’?” he inquired mischievously. “Well, if you pee off towards Wilkesboro and then towards Boone, that pee is going to meet one day out there in the Atlantic.” “How’s that, John?” asked a teenager. “That Wilkesboro pee’s gonna head off down Stoney Fork and then join up with the Yadkin River down in Wilkes County. Atter a while hit’s gonna sneak off into South Car’liner and end up in the Atlantic. One day hit’s likely to meet up with the Gulf Stream.” “That makes sense, John,” said an older man. “Now, that Boone pee is going to be in fer a long trip,” said John. “Hit’s goin’ to hit Gap Creek, join up with the New River, and then head north. Give it enough time and hit will come to the Ohio. Down the Ohio hit will go, mingling with all sorts of stuff along the way. And hit’s jist begun to travel. It has all the length of the Mississippi below Cairo to go even before hit hits the Gulf of Mexico. Hit’s likely to loll around down there for weeks before hit drifts over towards the Gulf Stream.” “Doin’ a leetle sunbathin’, I reckon,” cracked one of John’s peers. “Something like that,” said John. “But hit’s still got some travelin’ to do. One day hit’s goin’ to get caught up in the Gulf Stream and head north. Now this is where the wondrous part takes place. Hit’s goin’ to meet that Wilkesboro pee.” “No, no, John, no way,” shout many voices. “That Wilkesboro pee would be too far ahead; that Boone pee would never catch up!” “Who’s talkin’ ‘bout hit’s catchin’ up with Wilkesboro pee? That Wilkesboro pee has already made hit’s run up the Atlantic, across to Europe, and back agin. Hit’s catchin’ up with the Boone pee!” Amidst shouts of glee, John slapped his thin thigh, pushed himself up from his keg, and said to his son, “Hit’s time we was headin’ home.” “I swear, John, that’s the biggest lie you ever told,” said Rufus, who had joined the circle of listeners around John. “Now Rufus, you’ve knowed me all your life and you know I never lie,” chuckled John as he headed out the door. Deep Gap Cash Store was a wondrous sight, filled as it was with shoes, overalls, nails, buttons, work shirts, snuff, chewing tobacco, hoes, pitchforks, axes, lamps, lanterns, twine, threads, nuts, sugar, candy and scores of other goods for household or farming. Out front was a gasoline pump, yellow and red, resting beneath a sign reading 21

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “Shell.” A hand-operated lever lifted an amber-colored fluid into a glass bowl sitting atop the pump, markings on the bowl showing whether a customer had drawn 5 or 10 gallons of gasoline from the tank beneath the pump. Cans of oil stood in a rack near the pump, yellow cans from Shell, green ones from Quaker State. The front of the store had two bays for displaying goods, goods not easily seen because of dirty windows and advertisements: signs for Dutch Boy Paint, Martha White Flour, Bon Ami Cleanser, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, Coca Cola, Royal Crown Cola, Lucky Strikes, Camel, and Carter’s Little Liver Pills, to list some of them in the windows or nailed to the store front or walls inside the store. The artwork on these signs, commercial as it was, amounted to a kind of pop-culture museum, giving us about the only examples of art outside what we found in illustrated bibles and Sunday school lessons. Here were shapely lasses raising Cokes to their crimson lips, a handsome man puffing away on a Chesterfield, a bright-eyed, flaxen-haired lad wearing a sailor’s cap, a dapper, top-hatted fellow carrying a doctor’s satchel, a mule delivering a swift kick, a man-in-the moon gleaming down on us, all of them a sight to behold, all of them telling some story, all of them enticing to one degree or other. Yet, enthralling as they were, these advertisements could not entirely capture our attention. There was too much country living going on for art wholly to absorb us. Customers had orders to fill, Lonz Miller or his wife and children scurrying to find everything on their list. A few customers, their goods already in hand, stood around trading news or enjoying their purchases, especially the kids. Candy, crackers, peanuts, soda pop, and ice cream sandwiches disappeared almost as soon as they were bought. Some eating was pretty messy, especially around Christmas time when doting parents or grandparents purchased boxes of chocolate-covered cherries. Eager to taste their delicious sweetness, some inexperienced child took one of them from his elders and bit into it, and, untutored on how to hold the bitten piece so that its luscious core would not spill out on chin, shirt, or floor, stood with an embarrassed grin as the slippery cherry left a syrupy trail as it rolled from his chin, down his overalls, and onto a floor that had already suffered far too many eating or drinking accidents and unclean treads of boot, brogan, and slipper. The oozy cherry simply added to the patina of the yellow pine flooring, as it was crushed by heel or sole by unwary customers. On rainy or snowy days when trade wasn’t so brisk, a few customers pulled up “cheers” [chairs] close to a pot-bellied stove, rolled 22

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE a nail keg near it, rounded up a sufficient number of pop bottle caps and asked Lonz to bring out his checkerboard. Then began a roundrobin of games, loser yielding to a fresh challenger until a champion claimed his prize, usually his favorite soda pop. Youngsters gathered round as competitors studied their moves, saying nothing aloud but whispering among themselves about who was about to break through his opponent’s defenses or sweep away a pair of kings. They were caught up in the action and longed for the day when they would be allowed to step forward as challengers. Meanwhile, they watched and learned—defense, offense, escape routes, winning attack strategies. Their elders might not be masters but they knew a thing or two. The eye-filling variety of stock on shelf and floor and in display cases was but one of the attractions of the store. During the middle and late stages of World War II, an area to the left of the entrance was set off to pile metal scavenged for the war effort and burls of rhododendron pressed into service as smoking pipes, because briar burls had been taken for other uses. Digging these burls and hauling them to the store was a way for young Deep Gap boys to earn a little pocket money. Uprooting and trimming them for sale became a joint enterprise of the Greer and Idol boys, who poached most of them from Rufus’ woodland. The northeast side of Idol Mountain had a thick covering of rhododendron, a few of them sporting burls big enough to harvest. Our family horse, Ol’ Joe, had the double duty of helping uproot them and then pulling a sled loaded with them to the store. There Lonz placed each on a weighing scale, figured its worth, and, when all were weighed, handed us a few greenbacks, a virtual fortune we thought until we had to divvy up the money. Our income, we concluded, was not worth the effort we put into digging burls. Our decision to quit was made simpler by a sharp fall-off in demand as the war drew to a close. The Greer-Idol team of diggers quickly and quietly folded. The Greer boys were sons of neighbors Walt and Viola Greer. Next to the store was another building in which Lonz kept fertilizer, feed, seed, and farm implements. For a time, he housed a grist mill there as well. Here Rufus and others brought bags of shelled corn to grind. The stones were turned by belts leading from a salvaged car engine positioned out back. Dust from the mill settled over bags and implements and gave the interior a frosty look. And the mixture of dust and exhaust fumes was unpleasant, yet the workings of all the gear to run a mill held our gaze longer than was good for our health.

23

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Knowing that our curiosity was doing us no good, Rufus, his corn ground, put his hand on our shoulders and said, “Come, boys, it’s time to get back.” Often, when Rufus had not taken a load of corn to the mill, he stopped on his way home where Lane and his grandsons were working, his basket now filled with the supplies he was toting back to Nancy. From that small pile of stuff, he pulled a small poke, unrolled its folded top, and said coaxingly, “Come here, boys, I got you something.” We surrounded him eagerly, waiting to see whether he’d fished out his bag of horehound, hoping that he hadn’t, since it tasted too much like medicine to our tongues. Sometimes, it was horehound, when his eggs and butter failed to yield enough money to allow him an extravagance. Most often the bag contained liquorish, sticks of it about three inches long, glisteningly black. “The first one who can tell me who the sixteenth president was gets a stick of this,” he said. “James K. Polk,” one of us would yell, expectantly. “Andrew Jackson,” another would say, uncertainly. “Abraham Lincoln,” said another, pretending to guess. “Here’s a piece for the winner,” he said, “but I have another in here for the one who knows who the current president is.” “Franklin D. Roosevelt!” we all shouted, certain of our answer as he was certain we’d know, for he wanted us all to bid him a blackmouthed goodbye as he headed back over the mountain to Nancy. Rufus loved history almost as much as he loved the Democratic Party. From the filler columns of his almanacs he gleaned little known facts about all the presidents: who was tallest, who, fattest, who, youngest at the time of his election, who, oldest, who, most prone to veto. These facts stuck like carpenter’s glue to his brain. “Now, sonny, you’ve had a lot of schooling, studied history, and done well in your classes, but can you tell me how many of our presidents were graduates of Yale?” All of us were asked similar questions; most of us flunked his tests. But his queries prompted us to be more attentive in history classes. He wanted one of us to grow up and run for congress. “Why with the education you’re gettin’, you’d make a good congressman. We need all the good Democrats we can get in Congress. And you are a good Democrat, aren’t you?” From the cradle we’d been taught to be nothing else, for he and Lane would say to us as toddlers, “Whose little Democrat are you?” “I’m Daddy’s little Democrat,” to Lane. “I’m Papa’s little Democrat,” to Rufus. 24

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE (We said this without knowing, of course, what label we were accepting, but if Lane and Rufus were delighted to hear us say that we were their little Democrats, that was pleasing to us. Little Democrats we would be as toddlers, Democrats we would be as teens when we learned what the party stood for, Democrats we would be as adults since we continued to work for what Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt, Truman, and Stevenson wanted for the nation.) Sometimes Rufus reached into his pocket and pulled out his snaptop change purse and shake a few pennies into his hand. Holding one of them up, he’d say, “If you can tell me whose head is on this coin, I’ll give you a brownie (his term for a penny).” “Abraham Lincoln!” we’d shout together. “And where was he from?” he asked. “Illinois,” one of us piped up. “Yes, but in what state was he born?” “Kentucky,” said those of us who had memorized the order of presidents and what state had been their birthplace. “When was he president?” “During the Civil War,” we older ones chanted. “Was he a Democrat or a Republican?” “A Republican,” we said. “Then there was at least one good one,” he said, smiling, putting into each waiting paw a brownie with Lincoln’s bearded face embossed on it. As much as we valued the candy and the brownie, we were much more eager to have him unwrap his plug of Brown Mule and give one of us the tin tag pressed into it. The tag, a brown mule, had prongs on each end that could pierce a shirt or thin jacket and thus serve, in our fantasies, as a medal. Medals were priceless items in our schoolboy games, in which we pretended to be heavily decorated war heroes. On our chests we and our classmates wore mules, foxes, roosters, tobacco leaves, apples, whatever design we could beg from Deep Gap tobacco chewers. Placed alongside caps from Pepsis, Royal Crown Colas, SevenUps, and Cokes (which could be made to work by carefully prying out cork liners and then pressing cloth between cork and cap), these tobacco tags gave our shirts or jackets a military look. Of course, the greater the number of such “decorations” the higher we stood in each other’s envy. The plug unwrapped and the tag removed and bestowed upon the one who correctly answered his presidential query, Rufus then took his knife and sliced off a piece of tobacco, rolling out his lower 25

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. lip to receive the modest sliver that he had allowed himself. Working it over with his remaining teeth and gums, he then spat out a wad of homemade chewing tobacco (his everyday plug). Brown Mule was his treat, his liquorish, his reward to himself, his one extravagance. For he was a frugal man, a man who earned scarcely more money than it took to buy seed, fertilizer, feed for his livestock, and pay his taxes. If his potato crop went well, he sold a few bushels, heaping each one lest he be charged with giving short measure. From his hog, he sold the hams and sides of bacon. Unless he intended to keep a newly born heifer to replace an aging cow, he soon let a cattle trader buy his calves, and he sometimes had an extra stack of hay for sale. Though he needed two horses, he kept only one, a small silver colored gelding that he must have bought from Flem Snopes, or his North Carolina cousin. He named the horse Dan and teamed him up with Lane’s Joe or Herman’s Prince when he had work demanding two horses. Dan never took to the role of a farm horse. He was western and wanted to be free to roam. If we mounted him, he twisted his head around and snapped at our feet or legs. He tried to brush us off against barbed wire fences. If a tree with low hanging limbs were close by, he trotted rapidly to it, ignoring our shouts and mighty tugs at his bit, and ran beneath any limb that left him just room enough for passage. Seeing disaster ahead, most of us dismounted and let him run free. He had other mean-spirited tricks, the most obnoxious of which was his habit of farting. Somehow, he seemed to have stashed a bellows in his guts. Working behind him was hazardous duty, since when Dan broke wind he sent turds the size of baseballs flying from beneath his upswept tail. He saved his loudest, longest volleys when he had to pull a load that strained him a bit. No sooner had he bent himself to the task he was called upon to do than he flipped his tail high and “let loose.” We knew to jump back when he did this. Immediately, we yelled, “Whoa, Dan, whoa!” He stopped at once, tugging his tail back in place, and stomping as if to say, “I’ve won again.” His “fart trick” gave us boys an expression when one of us broke wind. Hearing the blast, we’d yell in unison, “Whoa, Dan, whoa, boy!” Rufus never seemed to be bothered by Dan’s tricks or mean spirit. Dan hadn’t cost much and he was not a big eater, like Joe or Prince, and he had a toughness that kept him going for a good twenty years. Rufus considered him one of his real bargains. Dan could be an embarrassment, especially on those periodic trips that Rufus made to a local miller to have corn ground. Loading up ears of white corn for Nancy’s corn meal and sacks of yellow corn 26

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE for the livestock, Rufus hitched Joe and Dan to his wagon and headed for a mill, a trip that took most of the day. One or more of us boys would go along, glad to miss a turn at heavier work that Lane had in store for that day. Dan would announce his disapproval of the trip by “letting one fly” as soon as Rufus said, “Get up.” He befouled the wagon tongue with that first volley, or, sometimes, his “shot” would hit the front panel and bounce off. When we reached US Highway 421, after a bumpy ride over an unpaved, rocky country lane, Dan left tokens of his unhappiness everywhere, especially at the mill. Dan hated to stand still, something he had to do as Rufus waited his turn to have his corn ground. Soon tiring of tossing his head or pounding the earth with his hoofs, Dan geared himself up for some more rump music, inevitably, it seemed, when the greatest number of men and boys stood around swapping news and gossip. Up would fly his tail and out would come a hiss of wind and a string of turds, tumbling off wagon tongue or rattling against the front panel. All talk would cease as everyone turned in wonder at the sound and the stench that filled the air. “Whoa, Dan, whoa, boy, easy, easy,” one of us would say as we rushed forward to calm him. On our ride back home, Rufus fell into a talking mood as Dan and Joe clopped along U S 421. “Long a-fore your day,” Rufus said, “we didn’t have a fine road like this. Back when I was a boy, it wasn’t even graveled, just some rocks split and tossed here an’ there in the deepes’ ruts and holes. Sometimes wagons would sink in up to their axles, an’ horses would sink until their bellies an’ rumps stopped them from goin’ further into the mire. Back in those days, there wasn’t no state highway crew to come repair the road. If it was fixed, you had to join in with your neighbors and spend a day or two workin’ on the road, haulin’ rock, splittin’ ‘em up, and fillin’ in holes. Had to do it, too, or else pay somebody else to do it. If you didn’t pay, you was fined by the sheriff. An’ you had to bring your own tools, a horse or two an’ a scoop pan if you had ‘em. Finally, the state took over the road, numbered it North Carolina 60, and straightened it out some, and hauled in tons of gravel. We didn’t have to work on the road no more. We thought it was a good road, but not anywhere good as this un. You boys is lucky. You don’t have to bounce around so much that your rump is sore,” he chuckled as he reached for his plug of Brown Mule. In horses and in other ways Rufus showed his frugality. He wore his “Sunday suit” for years, varying his outfit for church or funeral services by wearing one of the new ties he always received as Christmas gifts. His hat and belt saw long-term duty, too. Since he never seemed 27

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. to gain or lose an ounce, he didn’t have to break out a new dress shirt often. He had two pairs of shoes, dress slippers and brogans, and a pair of rubber boots for early morning wear or for ditching in swampy areas. Brogans he’d have to buy from time to time, since everyday use eventually wore a pair out, but his dress shoes must have lasted him his entire adult life. Nancy proved every bit as frugal as Rufus. She used her sewing skills to make bedspreads or aprons from feed sacks, many of which came in prints. The prints she’d make into aprons; the bedspreads were made of heavier cloth. Washed and bleached until logos or firm names were gone, these sacks became the cloth on which she’d lay out a design for chenille work, sometimes doing all the “turfing” ( tufting) herself but getting help occasionally from Mae and Snow. She earned a few extra dollars by making spreads and quilts, and she was enough of a seamstress to keep herself and her daughters in stylish outfits. She converted her Scotch Sweet snuff glasses into containers for jams and jellies and into tumblers for milk and water. These served for everyday glassware but were set aside when company came on Sundays and replaced by a set of goblets that Nancy had somewhere acquired. Most of his watchful frugality we could understand, for throughout much of our childhood times were tough, the Great Depression lingering longer in the Blue Ridge than in many other places about the nation. But when it came to his idea of cutting down on the wear of his radio battery (or later on the cost of his electricity) by keeping the volume knob turned low we considered him something of a Scrooge. Somewhere he heard or read that the louder a radio was played the greater amount of juice it took. When he played his radio, a small table model, he and Nancy pulled their chairs close to the table on which it sat. He turned it on, tuned it to catch the news, the obituaries, or an early Sunday morning sermon, and barely twisted the volume control, advancing it just enough for it to emit a hearable sound if he and Nancy cupped their ears and listened attentively. When one of us boys switched on the radio before he or Nancy left the kitchen and turned the volume knob up enough to hear good country music across the room, he or Nancy would come quickly and say, “Turn the volume down; you’re going to run the battery down (or burn up a lot of juice).” When that command came, we’d have to huddle around the radio and listen to the latest hit out of Nashville as if we were hearing some dirty joke whispered in church while preaching was going on. (This anecdote has appeared in print already. Ray Barfield used it in his book on listeners in radio land.) 28

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE In military jargon, Rufus had to run a “tight ship” if he and Nancy could keep the farm and household going. His pastures could not support beef cattle, his lack of a second horse or a small tractor forced him to till only a few acres for corn or potatoes, and his dependence on an exchange of labor and equipment kept him from working his land fulltime. Even if he’d been able to work it fulltime, days came when he needed help, help he couldn’t afford to pay. To get the hands he needed, he traded labor and/or equipment for them. That meant that he’d leave his farm as soon as morning chores were done and head for Lane’s, Herman’s, or Rad’s place. Sometimes he hitched Dan to a sled, loaded on a plow, seeder, or cultivator and spent the greater part of the day plowing, putting in seed, or cultivating a corn or potato patch. At other times he’d shoulder a hoe and join Lane (or Herman or Rad) as they fought weeds, Johnson grass, and blackberry briars. Still on other days, he’d have ax and wedge in hand as he left his work to help bring in a supply of winter firewood. For his labor and equipment, he usually got a crew of boys, especially during the hoeing and haying seasons. The crew consisted of Bill, Jim, Joe, John and, sometimes, Ken during weekdays. Lane would not usually be part of it until Saturdays, unless he took a day off, as he occasionally did, from his job. It was a rare event when Herman or Rad formed a part of the crew, but Rodney could sometimes be freed up to become a member. More needed than any of us, however, was Lane’s broad-shouldered gelding, Ol’ Joe, for without him Rufus could not have plowed, harrowed, mowed his meadows, or harvested his crops. Where Dan was mean, Joe was sweet tempered, where Dan was balky, Joe was steady, where Dan was hostile, Joe was friendly, where Dan practiced all sorts of vulgarities, Joe was a gentleman. When Rufus saw that he needed Joe, he arranged with Lane to come get him or have one of us, usually Bill, bring him over for one or several days. If Joe could not be turned over to Rufus, he made plans to get Herman’s Prince instead. As we worked Rufus’ meadow, we built huge appetites, for we knew that Nancy was getting our dinner (lunch) ready. A large woman in the Watson mold (if Watson women took after their fathers, they had big bones, stood 5’ 8" or 9" tall, and often weighed up to 140 lbs.), Nancy had grown “fleshy” over the years and must have pressed the scales at 165 before sugar diabetes forced her to lose 60 or more pounds. Her skin was smooth, fair, and practically wrinkle free (Watsons rarely show their age, looking ten to fifteen years younger than their peers from about age 45 on). Her eyes were blue, her nose straight and of medium 29

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. length, and her hair dark with a slight hint of auburn in it. She had what we all called the “Watson forehead,” a high and wide expanse of bone and skin that gives Watson faces a solid, firm look. If Rufus and Lane worked like they were “fightin’ fire,” the tortoise would have been a hare to Nancy. Her deliberate pace pleased us boys, since we’d have to “wait dinner.” That meant time to relax on the shady front porch or beneath a breeze-stirring maple near the springhouse, where we cooled our sweaty bodies with dippers of cold spring water. Rufus and Lane would want her “to get a move on” so we could return to the fields and get the hay up before a summer shower stopped us. They knew better than to tell her “to get a move on,” but their restless stalking about the kitchen spoke volumes. To speed things along, Rufus helped set the table and pour milk and water. As you can tell from my earlier description of her cooking skills, our wait was amply rewarded except for those mouth-puckering desserts she sat before us. Even when we hurried back to the meadow soon after eating, summer showers sometimes did catch us. Unhitching Joe and Dan, we rushed back to the barn to wait them out. If the rainfall was light and the sun popped out again soon, we could return to the fields. Meanwhile, we could talk as we rested beside Rufus’ wagon in the barn shed. Leaning on the wagon, he one day told us of a trip he’d made behind a team of horses to peddle produce: apples, potatoes, cabbage, and corn in Statesville. Like other farmers in the Blue Ridge, he looked to Piedmont towns to market his surplus farm goods. Before the days of produce dealers in the mountains, those goods had to be carted by wagon to places like Winston, Statesville, Salisbury, or Concord. If the harvest was good, he made two or three trips down the mountain, carrying with him a provision box, into which Nancy packed cornpone, canned vegetables, slices of bacon and pork shoulder, coffee, a frying pan, cups, spoons, forks, and other items needed to prepare meals along the way. The trip began early on Monday morning and ended with their return Friday evening or Saturday morning, depending on weather, speed of sales, and condition of roads. The story he shared was of a trip to Statesville, one that Lane had made with him. They joined a kind of caravan as they rolled off the mountain and into Wilkes County. When night fell, the wagoneers drew their wagons together, built a campfire, and fried bacon and potatoes, pulling out pones of cornbread and jugs of water they had brought with them. To top off their meals, they took apples from their wagons. In just over two days, they made the 80 mile stretch to Statesville and found buyers for their goods. The trip was going well 30

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE and they were enjoying the company of other farmers also returning to Watauga County. Rufus now had a few greenbacks in his pocket after buying flour, coffee, salt, pepper, and other supplies for Nancy’s kitchen and those items he needed to keep the farm running. “Some money for taxes, some for my savings account,” he thought as they rode along. Lane’s head was filled with memories of new faces, streets lined with scores of houses, and trains whistling by in the dark (a sound he’d heard only a few times when logging trains came to Deep Gap or when Rufus had gone to Brownwood to buy his fertilizer.) They both had marveled at the speed of cars and trucks passing them as they looked over the rumps of their lumbering horses. They little expected that they’d feel the force of that speed and weight. But that’s what happened. As they plodded along, a truck driver, approaching from the opposite direction, attempted to pass a vehicle in front of him. He apparently had not gauged his distances well, for he plowed into Rufus’ wagon before he could enter his lane again, sending Lane and Rufus tumbling off in the grass and demolishing the right rear wheel. Though jolted hard, the horses weren’t hurt. But the wagon was “a mess.” Lane’s bruises were slight, but Rufus had taken a couple of hard knocks and had a few abrasions. He arranged “to come on back home” with a fellow wagoneer, leaving Lane behind to bring the wagon home when it was repaired. “And this is the very wagon we was riding in when we got hit by that feller in a Model T truck!” Standing here by the stables and remembering his trip “down the country” reminded him of the times his uncle Ance (Anderson) came to Deep Gap to visit John, Thirza, and their children. “Our folks came from down the country, near High Point, you know, and Uncle Ance rode up a few times to see us. We’d put his horse up here. I got all sorts of cousins down there, for Uncle Ance had a house full of younguns; they’d be my first cousins and he’d tell us about them when he came, but I’ve never laid an eye on a single one of them. One day before I die I want to go to High Point and visit all those cousins—never have.” He never did. When he had a chance to meet and talk to two of them, Velma and Verna, he never recrossed Idol Mountain to spend an afternoon, as planned, with them. On their way to Boone to participate in one of Appalachian State’s summer programs for teachers, Verna and Velma saw Lane’s name on his mailbox. They had stopped to ask about our lineage and were delighted that they had come upon Uncle John’s family. Lane asked them to come spend a Sunday afternoon with him and his 31

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. family and told them that he’d tell Rufus that they would be there. Rufus went with us to Laurel Springs Baptist Church that Sunday morning but refused Lane’s invitation to dinner. “Better get back home; I told Nancy I’d take dinner with her.” “If you must go, go, but do come back about two, for that’s when your High Point cousins will be here,” said Lane. Rufus climbed Idol Mountain alone, his seventy-eight years visible in every step. (The year was probably 1958, my last one at Appalachian State.) By this time he complained of an irregular heart beat and kept nitroglycerin tablets handy in case he ran short of breath. Verna and Velma came, two wellspoken, tastefully dressed, well-bred ladies. As we gathered in the front lawn beneath the shade of Lane’s maples, we introduced ourselves and began trading accounts of family members. We expected Rufus to show up momentarily, for if he couldn’t go to High Point, High Point had come to him. Our view of the path he would have to take was blocked by the house, so one of us was posted as a lookout. No sign of Rufus. We worried about him, tried to think of excuses, and finally apologized to Velma and Verna, suggesting that he must not have understood that this was the day of their visit. He never came, and they drove away, a look of disappointment lingering on their faces. His explanation, later, was vague—something about having to help Nancy with the chores. This he never failed to do, but Sunday evening chores didn’t begin until 5:00. That excuse didn’t wash. We speculated that he might have felt somewhat embarrassed by his lack of teeth, by the mountain way of talking that he’d picked up from Thirza’s and Nancy’s families, by his failure to get an education beyond the fourth grade. Perhaps closest to the truth was the suggestion that he’d truly become a mountain man, shy of strangers and valuing solitude over society. But it could have been that his heart acted up and he didn’t want to tell us because he knew we’d be upset and force him to have his doctor give him another going over. He’d spent much of his life without calling on the services of a physician. “Watch what you eat and drink a gallon of spring water a day and not much can happen to you,” he told us. Good health had been his lot until chest pains began to bother him in his middle seventies. A trip to Boone to see a doctor was the last thing he wanted to do, but he finally bowed to family pressure. “A hale man, the doctor called me, except that he found the old ticker a little tired. Told me to take these pills.” Rufus took them for the rest of his life. And it was the ticker that failed him. Nancy told how it happened. 32

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “Me and Papa sat around the table here [in the living room] listenin’ to the radio, checkin’ on the weather, hearin’ that a big snow storm was expected to hit the mountains. Rising from his cheer [chair], Papa said, ‘Guess I’d better get in the livestock and slop the hog before the bad weather gets here.’ He got up, walked to the kitchen and picked up the bucket of slop I’d made for the pig. My little dog, that stray feist that I took in, tagged along atter him (You know Papa never liked dogs but this one liked him and enjoyed goin’ with him when he went for to drive in the cows from the meader). “’You come up atter awhile,’ he said, ‘when I’ve driven the cows into the barnyard.’ “I told him I’d be there in a few minutes, as soon as I gathered my pails and got my wraps on. I usually waited ‘til I heered him drivin’ the cows into the yard. That usually took a while so I was in no hurry. “But atter a good long time I hadn’t heered nothing, so I become concerned, especially when that little feist come on back to the house by hisself. That’s not right, I thought, for that dog always stays with Papa and the cows. “I walked to the barn thinkin’ that that stubborn heifer had run off the wrong way, as she sometimes did, and that he’d gone to the far meader for to get her. “When I got to the barnyard, I seed that wasn’t the case at all. I wish it hadda been. “There was your grandfather, down on his knees in front of the hog trough, both hands graspin’ the top plank of the opening to the pig pen. “The slop bucket stood, unemptied, beside him, and that hog was gruntin’ and squealin’ for its food. An awful sound, I tell you. “Papa,” I called to him, “what’s the matter? “But there wasn’t no answer. “I rushed to his side, put my hand to his mouth to see if he was breathin’, and then tried for to find his pulse. “There was nothing there, nothing, and his hands clutchin’ into that plank like a vise. He was dead, dead, gone like that.”

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JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Rufus on the Day His Cows Weren’t Fed Far up Watauga’s hills he gazed, until their peaks engorged the sky. A north wind rattled the windows as he looked out on fields he’d plowed. Now winter lay heaped on his fields and crusted grass curled to the earth. His trees bent stiffly in the wind. He wrapped himself in his denim coat and said, “It’s time to feed the cows.” He took his cap and left the house, but he buckled near the pig trough. His cows stood hungrily about and bellowed as the sky grew dark. Having no telephone, Nancy walked to a neighbor’s house and called for help. Soon Lane, Snow, and Mae were by her side, shocked to see their father dead, relieved that he had gone so soon. “No suffering, just quick and sudden.” The threat of the predicted storm led the family to bury Rufus’ remains in the Laurel Springs Baptist Church graveyard. He’d wanted to rest, finally, on the top of Idol Mountain, in the plot where Thirza and John and other members of the family had been buried. “If the storm rolls in, we’d not be able to get his coffin up there,” said Lane. (A road to the Idol graveyard would not be built until after Lane’s death.) Funeral services were held at Laurel Springs, the church he’d attended since his childhood when his mother left Gap Creek Baptist Church and joined with others to found Laurel Springs. (A week later the storm struck, dumping in three successive weeks over 60 inches of snow on Idol Mountain.) Nancy later bowed to her children’s wishes and moved to a room atop a combination cellar and wellhouse at Mae’s home. Though she would be safe and lovingly looked after there, she was not truly happy. She longed for the old homeplace for the remainder of her life, always pleased when someone said, “Let’s go back to the old house and see how it’s doing.” Crowded into a space roughly 12’ by 20’, her furnishings never looked right, and she complained of never having enough space when more than two or three visitors called. “I’d go back and live there in a minute, if they’d let me,” she said repeatedly. “You can’t do any decent entertaining in a scrunched-up place like this,” she apologized 34

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE when guests had to stand for the lack of a chair. “I never had to worry about places for cheers when I lived at home,” she said. Reaching for her glass of Scotch Sweet and pulling a fresh twig of birch chewed so that it formed a small brush from her apron pocket, she dipped the brush in the snuff, pinched her lower lip to form a cavity, and filled it with snuff, smiling plaintively as she did so, “The old feller in the song was right—there ain’t no place like home.” She didn’t spend all her time in her cramped quarters. Sometimes she stayed with Lane and Annie and once, with Annie, she rode a Greyhound bus from Boone to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I was enrolled in graduate school. Always fretful, Annie developed a headache during the long ride and had to be nursed and encouraged by Nancy. “I stood the trip much better’n Annie,” she reported after we settled down at our apartment. “You’d better get Annie to bed right away; she’s been purty sick.” We did as she advised, and then, bright-eyed from her longest trip, she told us of how Annie had suffered one of “her awful headaches” and had to depend on her to get them through depots in Memphis and Little Rock and on up to Fayetteville. “I tell you, we had a time, but we made it,” she proudly concluded. For supper Margie had done something special for Nancy, a lemon pie. Knowing that Nancy always had to say no to pies, cakes, and puddings because of her diabetes, Margie found a recipe that called for artificial sweeteners. “I want your grandmother to have the same dessert we do,” said Margie as she baked the pie. It emerged from the oven looking every bit as good as any lemon pie we’d ever seen. “That will surprise her,” said Margie. “I hope she’ll be pleased.” “I’m sure she will be,” I said. “She’ll be impressed that you went to all that trouble.” Annie awoke from her nap feeling better and joined us at the supper table. Always a light eater since the days when she learned she had sugar diabetes, Nancy finished eating while the rest of us were still stuffing ourselves. “I have a special dessert, Mother Idol, and you can have it now or wait until we’ve finished.” “I don’t care if I take it now,” she said. “Hold on just a minute and I’ll get it for you,” said Margie and she stepped to the refrigerator and pulled out her special pie. She cut a small slice and brought it to Nancy. “I hope you like it,” she said. Nancy cut into her slice and began eating, downing every morsel, but not saying anything. That wasn’t surprising since she usually didn’t talk much at table. Meanwhile, the rest of us ate and talked on, coming finally to the end of the main course. 35

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “All right,” I exclaimed, “time for some of Margie’s special pie!” Margie cut three slices and put them before us. As soon as we took a bite, we practically dropped our forks. “This is the sourest thing I ever put in my mouth! Mother Idol, why didn’t you say something? How could you stand to eat it?” Seeing our lips puckered and watching as we tried to wash the sourness away with water or coffee, she laughed quietly. “I didn’t want to say nothing, since you’d gone to all this trouble for me, and I thought, maybe, it was supposed to taste this way.” “No,” said Margie, mortified. “It was supposed to be good, and this is awful, awful.” Annie and I agreed. In later years, when we told this story, Nancy would grin in the same sheepish way she had when we put that first bite of pie in our mouths and tasted it. “That was a special pie,” she agreed, “but I didn’t ask for no seconds!” Nancy lived on into her 85th year, dying of heart failure. After funeral services in Laurel Springs, the family and friends went to watch her remains placed beside those of Rufus in the church graveyard. As the graveside services ended and the undertaking crew threw back the artificial grass covering the mound of dirt dug from the grave, a blacksnake that had been sunning itself crawled from its bed on the grass and slipped away into the nearby woods.

Joseph Anderson and Fleetie Watson Idol Rufus’ only brother married Nancy’s first cousin, Fleetie, and eventually moved closer to Boone, where he was sure to find more opportunity to follow his chosen occupation, carpentry. Like Rufus, he received a rudimentary education, but chiefly his learning came from his father, who passed on the traditional family skills as a carpenter. Before he settled in the Sands community closer in to Boone, Anderson tried to find work near his kinfolk in the High Point area. Later, he and Rufus headed west. They both found work in Arkansas. Anderson held out longer than Rufus, who could not push the Blue Ridge Mountains out of his mind. A letter to Rufus from Anderson offers a few details about their Arkansas experience and reveals that Anderson’s wanderlust was strong.

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Boonvill, Ark. Wed. June 6th 1900 Mr. Ruben Idol Ex “Snipe” My Dear Friend & Comrade, I thought that you might be lonely & and would like to see or hear from some of your old friends back in Rackensack, So here goes. I suppose you have heard from Wm Watson. We all heard your letter read & was glad to hear you were not on one of The County Farms but had made it home all O. K. Suppose you are hardly married yet. How was your little sweetheart who you used to talk of so much in your dreams Glad to see you? Suppose you are getting fat by now, eating “Tar-Heel” hoe cake & sour butter milk I lift Boyle on Friday the first of the month made 31 days Bill & Louis & the hardshell preacher were still there but said they were going to leave Monday havnt heard from them yet.I am working in Boonville now it’s a fine place to work, beats Waveland all to h— I think I will get Will to go with me up to Kansas City about next pay day I wrote to him to come along payday & we would go. They are making $1.75 per day & it is a fine country to work in. You struck the worst part of this western country when you stopped in Ark. You said you would get me a girl to write to. I wish you would Rufe. You must pick out the prettiest in that country even if she is your own. You can tell her I am a good looker, a good cooker, but hard to catch. Oh! Well, you can tell her I am one of your best friends & that will go, I know. them 2 old friends of your we had so much trouble with along about bed time have got up and walked away. We are sorry to loose them but the said they were going to hunt up Rube Well wait till I light my pipe Must close till tomorrow for its so dark I cant see the lines. Good night Idol R. Well I will try & finish this here the 7th Rufus you don’t know how hot it is here now. You can congratulate yourself you ain’t here. I will leave this place for Iowa & Minnesota next payday. Well, I don’t think of anything else to say. I will close for this time. Hoping to hear from you soon Yours truly Joe Anderson Write so I can get your letter before I leave here the 18th

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JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. His western travels over, Anderson returned to the Blue Ridge Mountains and eventually married Fleetie Watson and bought land about a dozen miles from his old homeplace. Continuing in the family tradition, he cleared the land, built a house and outbuildings, and combined some farming with carpentry. In his home, he welcomed his namesake, Uncle Anderson from High Point, and six children, Dillard, Beulah, Vera, John V., Margaret, and Lucille. He became a finish carpenter and found work in Boone, Blowing Rock, Linville, and Asheville. In Blowing Rock, he helped on building projects on the Moses Cone Estate. When he worked in Asheville, he joined a labor union. To make sure he had steady work, he built a workshop and turned out chests, cupboards, and coffins. He was set up to dress lumber to be used as ceiling, and he could turn out brackets to give houses a stylish, gingerbread look. Busy as they were with their families and jobs, he and Rufus saw each other infrequently, perhaps once every two or three years. When Bright’s Disease struck him, Anderson began to think of where he’d like to be buried. He wanted to be near his father and mother. His resting place lies not fifteen feet away from the graves of John and Thirza. His son Dillard carried on the family tradition by doing some farming and carpentry. John V. proved more like Uncle Anderson’s offspring in High Point, for he wanted to become a teacher. To that end, he attended Appalachian State Teachers College before pulling a hitch in the army. Upon his discharge, he took a job in Deep Gap, as principal of its elementary school in 1946-47. From there, he moved on to a principalship in Millers Creek in Wilkes County, serving finally as Dean of Admissions at Wilkes Community College. In his retirement, he enjoyed his return to his farm, where he happily spent his time among a small herd of beef cattle. He married Etta Triplett and became the father of John Franklin Idol (born 1-17-1944) and Sharon Idol (born 11-19-1950).

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THE THIRD GENERATION JOHN LANE, SR. AND ANNIE LULA WATSON IDOL The first and third generation of Idols in Deep Gap had in common a log cabin, since the lad who entered the world on May 27, 1909, was born in the house his grandfather had built. He was the only sibling able to make that claim, since his sisters first saw light in the new house Rufus built with his own hands. Blood from builders flowed into John Lane’s body, for Jehu, John, and Rufus had considerable skill as carpenters. If the youngster wanted a reminder of the family tradition, all he had to do was to open a handmade tool chest sitting on Rufus’ front porch. There (as his children would later find) were saws, awls, chisels, planes, augurs, braces and bits, crowbars, hammers, chalk and chalk lines, plumb bobs—the whole array of a carpenter. This was the chest that his namesake had taken when he left the farm to augment his income by following the carpenter’s trade. These were the tools that Rufus had used to build his house, the tools he took with him when he helped neighbors with some building project. (This would be the chest that Lane inherited at Rufus’s death, and, sadly, it was this chest from which John’s antique tools were stolen from a jobsite next door to where Lane lived. The chest was left behind, and, at Lane’s death, it went to Bill, the only one of Lane’s children to carry on the family tradition of carpentry.) Towheaded, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, Lane looked more like Nancy than Rufus, but as the lad grew he revealed himself to be a true son of Rufus, resembling him in his brisk pace, boundless energy, and temperament. Evidently, Lane was a good, healthy baby. But he did not get to enjoy being the little prince of the household very long, for his sister Snow came along about 18 months after his birth. She never became the playmate that a vigorous, robust boy would have enjoyed, for she had delicate health, preferred staying in the house to romping in the yard or fields, and suffered from bouts of asthma. The playmate he longed for he found in his teenaged aunt, Clemmie, who came to live with Rufus and Nancy for a time. He pulled practical jokes on her, she taught him childhood games, and they teamed up to carry out a command from Rufus after Lane’s dog turned into an eggsucker and chickenkiller. “Get rid of that dog, and do it now!” said Rufus. “How?” asked Lane, now somewhere between four and five years of age. 39

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “I don’t care,” said Rufus. “Just get rid of it.” Too young to handle a gun even if Rufus had owned one (he never did) Lane found a rope and asked Clemmie to help him carry out Rufus’ order. As they walked away from the house into a clump of trees, they discussed what they should do to the dog. They ruled out bashing its head, smothering it, or tying it to some tree and letting it starve. The rope around the dog’s neck then gave them an idea. “Let’s hang it,” said Clemmie, “since death comes quickly that way, and the poor thing won’t have to suffer.” Not wanting to lose the dog by any means whatsoever, Lane first objected and then agreed to go along with her, since he knew Rufus did not want to see that “eggsucker” ever again. They found an oak sapling, bent the top to the ground, tied one end of the rope to it, the other in a crudely made noose around the dog’s neck, and let the sapling spring upward. Up went the dog as the sapling was released from their grasp. Clemmie and Lane ran towards home when the dog left the ground, both thinking that the misery-causing job was over, that the dog would die. When they returned to the house, they reported that they had gotten rid of the dog. “Hanged him,” they said. Less than a half hour later, the dog was back, wagging his tail and wanting to play. There was no rope around his neck. Only a few tousled hairs close to his ears gave any hint that he had been strung up and left to die, for he had wriggled free, chinless creature that he was, and now showed all his eagerness to resume his favorite spot under Lane’s bed. Seeing Lane so delighted to have his dog back, Rufus lacked the heart to do away with the pet. “Keep him if you must, but keep him out of Mama’s eggs!” Most of his practical jokes on Clemmie escaped punishment, since they were harmless pranks, but when he sneaked up behind her in the kitchen and doused her head with molasses he crossed a line that Nancy and Rufus couldn’t condone. He got a spanking for that, and “he deserved it,” said Clemmie, recalling the event just months before Lane died. “I like to have never got that sticky stuff out of my hair,” said Clemmie, chuckling as she ran her hands through her thinning grey and silver hair. As he grew older, he helped with household chores—bringing in wood for the cookstove and fireplace, carrying water from the spring, taking milk and butter to the springhouse, and gathering vegetables and berries. In time, he began hoeing in the corn and potato fields, 40

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE shucking corn, and feeding the horses and cattle. Still later, he put his hand to the plow, both at home and in the fields of neighbors. He probably earned his first pocket money by helping Rufus plow for others. His schooling began when he was six years old. To get to Rocky Point School, he walked across Idol Mountain, past the burial spot of his namesake, and came by the house of Jerry Watson, his uncle, whose daughters Zella and Ella joined him in his trek to school. On cold winter mornings, he was glad to arrive at his uncle’s house, for he could step inside for a few minutes and warm his ears and hands. Uncle Jerry was his grandfather Watson’s identical twin brother and always gave him a warm welcome. Lane felt much at home there. At school he enjoyed playing ball, foxes and hounds, tag, and other childhood games. He formed friendships with Nick Keller, Ernest Hardin, and Grant Greene and invited them to come spend a night with him. He sometimes went home with one of them. As a scholar, he liked arithmetic, but little else. He never became an avid reader, and writing was always a painful struggle. His adult reading was limited to the Bible, Sunday school lessons, and blueprints. He was an easygoing, outdoor-loving lad whose formal schooling ended when he completed the seventh grade. The life of a farmboy and farmer appeared to be what lay ahead of him, unless he sometimes donned an apron and picked up a hammer to help Rufus tackle a building job somewhere. He especially liked spending time with his aunt Julia’s children. Seven of her nine children survived, the closest in age to Lane being Willard. He and Willard went rabbit hunting together, and, later, started courting the girls. Lane had dates with Mabel Day and Florence Greene. Willard’s Model T got them to Boone for treats or to Brownwood for swimming in the New River. But he didn’t need a car to go see the girl he really enjoyed being with, his cousin Annie Watson, Uncle Jerry’s third daughter. She lived just over Idol Mountain. He could be at her house in fifteen minutes or less. Or she could be at his, for, since her father’s untimely death, she had found a kind of second father in Rufus, as two of her siblings found a second father with their uncle John Watson, now living in Coshocton, Ohio. (Having lost his first wife to typhoid fever, John had remarried, taking Margaret Greene as his second wife. He started a second family with her and continued his occupation as farmer and half-owner of a country store with his twin, Jerry. He sold out in Deep Gap and left for Ohio after a scandalous affair with his sister-in-law in a corn patch. While hoeing his corn patch, he saw Nora Greene walking by. She came into the patch 41

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. to talk with him. He did more than reseed his rows of corn, for in due time Nora gave birth to a boy, Ransom, and John Watson deemed it prudent not to stay in Deep Gap.) Tall, raven-haired, and musically inclined (she played a guitar; Lane could do a few chords on a hammer banjo), Annie loved cooking and was used to farm life (She did most of the milking for her family). She had finished elementary school in Deep Gap and was going on to high school in Boone. He fell in love with Annie, but saw no way for them to afford to be married. He knew little else besides farming, and farmers in Deep Gap, with the exception of Jason and Walter Moretz, were subsistence farmers who depended on large families to get farm work done. From Grandfather John in Coshocton, Lane knew that Ohio farmers needed farm hands. Perhaps if he went to Ohio he could find work. He decided to go and went in the company of Russell Trivette, Armfield Waters, and Nancy, who wanted to visit her father and her half-brother and half-sister. They left Deep Gap in the spring of 1931. It was a sad day for Annie, who didn’t know if Lane would return anytime soon. They promised to write each other. Lane became a hired hand on the farm of a Mr. Barton, whose soil was far richer than anything Lane had ever seen and whose rows of corn never seemed to end. The work was hard, the pay slight, and the distance from Annie was sufficient reason to sweat out answers to her love letters. His heart was growing fonder but his wallet no thicker, for his pay was scarcely enough to keep him in cigarettes and candy. By Christmas time he knew he was not cut out to be an Ohio farmhand. He returned to Deep Gap, proposed to Annie, and exchanged vows with her before Preacher Ed Hodges, pastor at Laurel Springs Baptist Church. After they bought their wedding license and paid the preacher, Lane had a quarter left in his pocket. They arranged to move into Jerry Watson’s homeplace where Annie had remained after the death of her father. It was a two-story building with a lean-to attached to the back. Off the central hallway on the ground floor on either side was a large room, each serving as both a bedroom and a living room. Later they shared the house with Annie’s sister Ella and her family, since times were hard and the Greers (Ella had married Fred Greer) lacked money to rent a house. Upstairs were two bedrooms, in one of which, in time, slept the Greer sisters, Betty Ruth, Virginia, Mary Sue, and Ruby. Across from them slept Kenneth Watson and the Idol boys, John, James, and Bill. The leanto was separated by a wall and housed the cooking and eating areas. All the rooms, except those in the lean-to, were heated by fireplaces. 42

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Those fireplaces might well have cost both families a shelter over their heads. Out of some childish notion that a big enough fire in one of the fireplaces (the one on the Idol side of the house) would send flames shooting out of the flue, a group of us gathered wood and piled it high on the fire, watched the flames leap ever higher and higher, and rushed outside to see if they had reached the top of the flue. Seeing that their goal hadn’t been gained, they scurried around for more fuel and tossed it on the roaring flames, which leapt ever higher. With a sense that their mission had at last been achieved, the imps dashed back outside and watched as a few fingers of flame glowed into view. Their gleeful shouts brought Ella and Annie sprinting from the garden, where they had been gathering corn. Of course, they immediately realized the danger the imps were causing and began yelling for buckets of water to douse the flames. When the fire was at last put out, the hottest place around was the butts of the devil’s little helpers who’d dreamed up the experiment. Mine, deservedly, was one of the hottest. Farm work and odd jobs kept Lane busy, but the pay was not enough to cover expenses. Like thousands and thousands of other young men across the country, he saw a chance to keep his family going when the Civilian Conservation Corps was formed. For his work in this job-making measure of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he would be paid $30.00 a month, most of it withdrawn and sent to Annie. The camp he was assigned to was in the Globe section of neighboring Caldwell County. Here he joined farm and city boys and young men in barracks and donned his uniform. Their work was to build roads in a national forest, clear ditches, mend bridges, and remove diseased or fallen trees. Volunteering for the CCC meant that he’d leave Kenneth (called Jack) and John behind as well as Annie, now big with another child in her womb. That child would forever carry a name that Lane encountered in his work with the CCC. One of his assignments took him to McDowell County. As the second name of his second son, the word “McDowell” would enter the family and be passed on, becoming “Dowell” when James McDowell shortened James Junior’s handle to “Dowell.” Lane disliked being away from Annie and his boys, and, when he had an offer of 25 cents an hour to work for kinsman Walter Greene as a carpenter’s helper, he resigned from the CCC and rejoined his family in Deep Gap. That association would last for years, during which time Lane developed into one of the best finish carpenters in Watauga County. He did his part of the rough construction, but his chief role came to be the more exacting work of finishing out a house, hanging doors, laying floors, building cabinets, and putting up molding. 43

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. With growing families on either side of the Jerry Watson house, Fred and Lane talked often of how they could afford to build their own places. Working for wages that hardly covered household expenses left them little to put into housebuilding funds. They briefly considered becoming moonshiners. There was money in that as well as the risk of jail terms. But that, too, took capital, and buying sugar and moonshining equipment would take far more money than they had. Moonshining was out. Meanwhile they awaited the parceling out of land to Jerry’s heirs. To make the parceling possible, Fred and Lane saved money to pay off back taxes. Then the land was divided up. When that finally came about, Fred built a small four-room house on the acreage that Ella inherited, a tract next to Deep Gap Elementary School. The Greer girls moved out. Lane started buying supplies for the house he wanted to build on property Annie inherited, approximately eleven acres about 600 yards from Ella’s. By now Lane was comfortable in his trade as a carpenter. Rufus could help and Walter could be counted on to haul in supplies and lay the bricks for the chimney. On the day Walter came to build the chimney, a frigid day in the dead of winter, brisk winds sped out of Tennessee and almost froze the mortar. It might have frozen except for the fire that Lane built to heat the bricks. Dressed in the heaviest clothes that Annie could wrap us in, Jim and I went to see how things were going. We found Lane and Walter busily at work but shivering sometimes when a big puff of wind hit them. Walter was reaching a point above the roof line as we came to the site, and Lane was rushing from fire to chimney trying to put warmed bricks in Walter’s hands. Lane saw that we could save him some steps if Jim and I piled the frosty brick next to the fire. Here was light work and here was a way we could keep warm; above all, here was a means of doing a man’s work, and that made us feel big. In the late winter of 1938, the four-room frame house was far enough along to occupy. The outside was board and batten, unplaned, unpainted, and fragrant white pine. The two finished rooms inside, the living room and kitchen, smelled of white pine, too; they were covered with beaded ceiling. An oval-shaped tin stove heated the living room and little else; an inexpensive cookstove became Annie’s command center. The house was lit by oil-burning lamps, which scented the rooms with something close to the exhaust of the Greyhound buses that passed through Deep Gap about three times a day. (Electricity was not available in Deep Gap until lines built by the Rural Electrification 44

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Association reached the community sometime in 1939 or 1940. The switch from oil to electrons was a welcome change, since Annie could be freed from scrub board and flat irons and milk could be kept deliciously cold.) Lane, Annie, and baby Joe slept in one bedroom. In the boys’ room, two beds, supporting ticks filled with straw, held Kenneth and John, Jim and Bill. (Later a third bed would be crowded into the room for Joe and Bob after Joyce joined the family. Joyce got the room formerly occupied by Lane and Annie, whose bed was moved to a corner of the small living room. Much later, Lane added a third bedroom, enlarged the living room and kitchen, and put in a bath; still later he enclosed the back porch.) With those additions, sleeping arrangements changed, Kenneth and I sharing the front bedroom, Joyce getting the boys’ room, and the rest of the boys moving to the big new bedroom on the west end of the house. By this time, I was in my junior year in high school and Ken was a college freshman. In the quieter surroundings, I spent much more time reading and listening to the radio. As a key member of Walter’s crew, Lane went wherever Walter found work. During World War II, Walter won a contract to build houses in Roxboro, North Carolina. Like his carpenter grandfather, Lane packed his tools and went away, leaving Annie to run the house and to oversee the farmwork. None of us had ever heard of Roxboro; it might just as well have been a city in China for all we knew. Even when Lane told us that it was somewhere near Raleigh, the place sounded as far away as the moon. The extent of our travels had been rare trips to Boone. Roxboro was hours away, not minutes, and the prospect of having a father not sleeping under the same roof with us was a little scary. “You’ll be all right,” he said, “and besides I’ll be home on weekends. Just help your mother and be good boys. If you’re not, and I get reports that you haven’t behaved yourselves, you know what you’re gonna get.” We knew, for if Annie had to spank us, we got another one when Lane got home. (This double jeopardy extended to school spankings, too. A whipping at school meant a second one at home even if the one at school was without just cause.) Another contract, some years later, took Walter to Mountain City, Tennessee. Again Lane packed his tools and went away. The man for whom Walter’s firm built a hardware store had ambitions to start a construction company of his own. To get it going, he needed a topnotch foreman. He quickly saw that Lane was just the kind of man he wanted. He made his pitch and suggested that Lane would have things easier if he moved his family to Mountain City. Lane found the offer appealing 45

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. and discussed it with Annie when he returned home. “Sure, the money would be better, you’d be your own boss, and Mountain City ain’t all that far from home, but we’d have to sell this place in Deep Gap to be able to buy one in Tennessee, and, besides, we’d have to uproot the kids,” said Annie. “I know all that,” said Lane, “and I’ve thought about it a right smart, but something like this don’t fall in your lap everyday, and a man’s got to think long and hard about turning something down that brings a chance to better hisself and help him do better by his family.” They weighed the pros and cons on weekends for a few months, seeing not a golden opportunity in Tennessee but something that possibly would make life a little easier. Meanwhile, Mr. Blackburn (the Tennessee store owner) waited for Lane’s answer. He figured, finally, that he needed to talk with Annie, too. That decision led him to make a Sunday afternoon drive to Deep Gap. He told Lane what time to expect him. He showed up at the appointed hour, but the sales pitch he had in mind was never delivered, for, as he was turning into Lane’s driveway from US 421, a Greyhound bus clipped the back bumper of his sedan and sent it spinning round and round before it slammed into some locust fence posts. He crawled out, banged and bruised, and in no condition to argue his cause. The upshot was that Deep Gap won, for, at bottom, neither Lane nor Annie could picture themselves living anywhere else. Deep Gap was home, and they meant to live out their lives there. It seemed to them, after Mr. Blackburn’s accident, that fate meant the same thing. Sometime in the late 1940s Walter took on Perry Greene, a native of Boone and a civil engineering graduate from North Carolina State College, as a partner. Typical of the engineers of that era, Perry came to the jobsites with a slide rule attached to his belt. It was the tool he could handle best, since he was awkward with hammer and saw and square. If there was something to figure, out came the slide rule and shortly thereafter a pencil and notepad. He had absolute dependence on the slide rule when he figured the pitch of a roof or the rise of stairs. His claim was that the slide rule saved him time, that it made his work far easier. He said “I’d be lost without it.” Lane had no use for one. “Give me a square, a pencil, and a plank to figure on, and I’ll figure a pitch sooner than he will,” Lane boasted. Putting his square on a wide board and reading the dimensions of a house from a blueprint, he quickly determined his scale. By moving his square along his scale markings, he saw what the pitch angle should be. Meanwhile, Perry was pumping 46

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE the slide bars in and out, writing down the numbers, and hastening towards an answer. But he never got there as soon as Lane. “What’d you get, Mr. Idol?” Lane would give his number. “That’s right that’s what I got, too.” Lane was proud to beat him. But experience wasn’t enough to help Lane carry the day in everything. He felt particularly at a loss because he could not handle a surveyor’s tools beyond establishing a level. In other words, he saw that college training helped Perry do things that made life easier for him. Seeing that made Lane think that if his sons were to follow his footsteps they would be better prepared if they had degrees in civil or building construction engineering. If there was ever to be an Idol and Sons Building Company, it would be wise to have one of his sons do things Perry was able to do. The family sometimes talked of Lane’s going out on his own, to be something more than an hourly wage-earner. “You’re pulling down only a dollar an hour,” said Annie, “and everybody under you less, and look at how the workers have to live—no fancy clothes, no big cars, no fine houses. All of you just barely able to make ends meet. It ain’t fair. Without you and the other men, where would they be?” she asked. “They’d be in a fix, I know,” said Lane. “But I ain’t got no money for equipment, and it takes a lot to buy trucks, scaffolds, cement mixers, wheelbarrows—all that stuff. And where would I get money to pay wages until I got a job finished and paid off?” “With your reputation in the business, I’m sure a bank would give you a loan,” said Annie. “You could use that to get yourself started. After that, money would start coming in. You’d be on your feet.” “If everything went right, I would be,” said Lane, “but building’s a risky business and I’d have to carry insurance on my crew. That means more money. All I have to make a debt good is this place, and I don’t want to lose house and home if something happens and I can’t pay off the loan.” “We’d just have to trust that nothing bad happens. With your skills, you’d make a go of it, I’m sure. But I don’t want to be the cause of you losing this place. You do what you think’s right, but I’ll always think that you’d be better off on your own. They’re making good money off your hard work.” “I know that, and sometimes I feel a little bitter, but I can’t bring the whole family down by taking on something that maybe won’t go. It’s just too risky. You know how it is in the winter here; sometimes there’s not a job from late November until mid or late March. I’d be out of work, and the bank’s going to want its money come snow and cold 47

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. weather or sunshine. I’d have to go to Dad again and ask him to help us out, and he ain’t got much to start with.” The discussion would end with sighs of resignation but with no lingering bitterness about being paid too little for the quality and quantity of work. “Nobody can never say that they ain’t got everything paid for, and more,” said Lane. The pinch of low wages finally convinced Lane that Perry gave him less than he could make if he went to a rival construction firm. His first move was not exactly to a rival firm, since he took a job as crew chief on a project that his brother-in-law Fred Greer and his partner, Jerry Coe, had planned for some property in Boone, some modest three-bedroom houses near Greenway Baptist Church and the TRW plant. Fred’s role was to see that supplies were on hand, Lane’s was to oversee the construction while still wielding his hammer, and Jerry’s was to sell the houses. The project would end when all the “spec” houses that Fred and Jerry ventured to build had been completed. That project carried them through a summer and fall. Lane was thus left to look at other offers. He decided to go with Bub Teams, who headed a construction firm in Boone. Bub made sure that his crew had year-around work by taking contracts in Florida. When Watauga’s winds became too fierce to begin another store or house, off the crew would go to Florida, usually after Christmas, returning in late March or early April to start the building season around Boone or Blowing Rock. Lane packed up his tools and went to central Florida for a couple of winters. Although he now had a year-round income, he hated to be separated from Annie, Steve, and his grandchildren (by now the rest of the children had married and moved out.) When a better offer came from Edsel Hodges, he took it, though it meant that he sometimes went without work for a few weeks in the deepest part of winter. He reached retirement age while working for Edsel. Still, he couldn’t put down his tools altogether. As soon as neighbors, friends, and relatives learned that he was no longer punching a clock, they descended on him, begging him to do repair and remodeling work. For five or more years, he continued his trade when a job appealed to him or the plea was especially convincing. He was enjoying being his own man, but failing eyesight (macular degeneration) finally forced him to put aside his hammer, except for the crudest kind of work. He was far too proud to do a job and leave behind the sign of an unskilled carpenter, hammer tracks. “If you can’t hit a nail on the head, you ain’t got no business being a carpenter,” he said. “Anybody can beat up a wall or a door casing.” 48

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE In February of 1979, Lane fulfilled a promise to me and Margie. He’d said, “When Bill runs out of something to do up here, we’ll come down and finish your basement.” That time came after more than eight years of waiting. Margie and I wanted his hand to be a part of our home, too, since he had helped Bill, Joe, Bob, and Steve build their houses. We could bide our time until he could pack his tools once more and head out of Deep Gap. Though failing somewhat, his eyesight was still good. He hit all his nails cleanly on the head. And he worked circles around me and nearly kept pace with Bill. In less than two weeks, they framed and finished a library (with three stacks of shelves), a laundry room (with a built-in sewing center), a half-bath, and an English pub. They began work about 7:30 a.m. and with less than an hour out for dinner and supper they stopped around 10:00 p.m. Margie and I were exhausted by their pace. When they finished, Margie and I felt that at last we truly had a home, for we had shared in the tradition of family carpentry, of Idol helping Idol put up a house. Lane sometimes wished that he had a woodworking shop, especially when cold winds whipped around Deep Gap and Boone and all outside work had ceased. He liked to build cabinets and no doubt would have specialized in them had he built a shop. Two factors probably kept him from going into a shop full time: buying woodworking equipment would have meant borrowing money (something he tried to avoid) and a shop would have kept him indoors. “I hate being cooped up,” he said. “Besides, I enjoy being around people. Shopwork can get pretty lonely sometimes.” He managed a kind of compromise, however, because he often built cabinets on site. He scoffed at most ready-made cabinets, finding them too flimsy. “What I make is going to be here as long as the house stands,” he said. “I don’t believe in shoddy workmanship, but that’s what I see in most of these things,” he complained, as he put up cabinets turned out by a factory somewhere. As much as he liked building cabinets he loathed working in a house or store damaged by fire. “Messy, stinkin’ business,” he griped. “I come out lookin’ and smellin’ like a nigger.” Although he spoke favorably of such African-Americans as Rhonda Horton, a preacher and fellow foxhunter, and Sam Horton, a cement dresser and general handyman on Walter’s construction crew, and enjoyed many Negro spirituals, Lane never overcame prejudices that began as early as a childhood trip to Brownwood with Rufus, who tried to control Lane’s boyish rambunctiousness by pointing to the first black man that Lane had ever seen and saying, “If you don’t behave, that black man is going to get you.” The seed for prejudice thus planted, Lane usually called 49

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. African-Americans “niggers,” “chocolate drops,” “jigs,” or “monkeys.” Yet, he remained largely ignorant of African-American intellectual or cultural abilities. When I began teaching at Clemson and told him I had African-Americans in my classes, he was curious about how they stacked up against my white or Oriental students. He expressed surprise that I could not tell the race of the writer if I read an essay without first looking at the name of the author. “I thought there’d be a big difference,” he said. “I thought all jigs were pretty dumb,” he added. He began seeing for himself that they weren’t all “pretty dumb” when Black contestants did well on his favorite game shows, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Seeing one of them win, he’d say, “Well, that’s one smart chocolate drop.” Even though he came to respect the intellectual ability of some African-Americans, he couldn’t purge his wordhoard of degrading terms nor appreciate cultural differences. When Black singers gave their own treatment to one of Lane’s favorite hymns, he said, “it’s still good, but it’d be better if they hadn’t niggered it up.” In thinking and speaking as he did, he was behaving as most of his peers in Deep Gap did. As a group, he disliked African-Americans, but he found the company of individual Blacks enjoyable, especially those who had good foxhounds and loved to listen to their baying. With those he broke bread, shared coffee and bacon, and traded tales of wonderful foxraces. Here were men he could understand. At such moments skin color became invisible. On the worksite, Lane moved briskly, driving more than his share of nails, cutting more boards than anyone else, scampering up and down roofs faster, hanging more doors than his nearest rival, keeping his helpers busier fetching supplies. Despite his pace and that of his co-workers, he enjoyed bantering with them. As a helper on one site, I recall a volley of joshing that went something like this. Lane: What’s wrong, Clyde, can’t you lift your end of this beam? Clyde: That’s because I’m lifting more than half of yours, old man. Lane: I know what happened—you knocked off a piece last night. Clyde: Well, you can’t blame me—gotta keep the little woman happy. Lane: You should lay off that stuff—it ruins a man for work like this. Clyde: You should talk. Ain’t you got a houseful of boys? And a girl, too? Talk about layin’ off—you’ve laid it on, if you ask me. 50

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Lane: Well, as you say, gotta keep the little woman happy. I figure mine’s pretty happy. Now let’s try lifting this beam one more time. One, two, three, go! A mighty heave, accompanied by grunts and groans, got the beam in place and then began a tattoo of hammer strokes tap, tap, tap, tap, TAP that secured the beam in place with big square-cut nails. With this big job behind them, the men would yell for me. “Johnny, it’s time for you to run to the store to get us a drink and something to eat.” “I’ll take a Coke and a pack of peanuts,” said one worker. “Bring me a Sebn Up and a Baby Ruth,” said another. “Make mine a Grapette and a pack of cigarettes,” said a third. “You know what I like, Johnny, an RC and a moon pie,” said a fourth. “Git me a Powerhouse and a pack of gum,” said a fifth. “One of them dime cups of ice cream, if they have ‘em Johnny,” said a sixth. “I need a pack of Goody’s and something to down it with; hit don’t matter, jist something wet,” said another voice. “The usual,” said Lane, “a couple of mint patties. Make it snappy; these men are hungry and thirsty.” Off I trotted to the nearest service station, trying to remember how much money each man gave me and what each had ordered. Lane had me serving as a go-fer and water boy, my first real job during the summer that Greene Construction Company built Boone’s largest tobacco warehouse. As I think back to that job, I see Lane building forms for concrete walls, I see him straining to lift heavy oak columns and beams into place, I see him walking, sure-footed, on rafters as he helped put on sheeting, I see him silhouetted against a bright morning sun as he snapped a chalk line to begin laying shingles, I see him measuring, sawing, hammering, I hear him whistling, singing snatches of hymns and country songs, watch as he pours steamy coffee from his thermos bottle, listen as he cracks jokes with other carpenters, feel hunger pangs as he unwraps little raisin cakes, close my eyes with him as he relaxes for a moment before “hittin’ it again” for four hours, and pity him for lighting up one more cigarette before heading back to work.

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John Nicholson Idol

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Thirza Greene Idol

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Anderson Mathias Idol, 1914 (September 1849—January 1924)

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Jerry Watson

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Joseph Anderson Idol

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Rufus Idol

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Solomon Greene’s Cabin

Rose Waters Beshears and daughter, Mae Idol Howell, Rufus Idol and Nancy Idol at the Rufus Idol home

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Laurel Springs Baptist Church

Rufus and Nancy Idol

Rufus, Snow, Nancy, Lane, and Mae Idol

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Myrtie Watson with the Greer and Idol grandkids (1940)

Rufus and Nancy Idol

Rufus Idol

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Mae, Lane, and Snow Idol

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Lane Idol

Jim, Lane, Bill, Annie, John, and Ken Idol

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Annie Lula Watson Idol

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Lane and Annie on the porch of their newly remodeled home

Rufus, Nancy, Margaret, Jim, Lane, Annie, and Myrtie at Margaret and Jim’s wedding reception

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Joyce, Bob, Lane, Jim, Annie, Ken, Steve, John, Joe, and Bill Idol

Lane and Annie with Annie’s Cortina

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Lane Idol with his foxhounds

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John Idol, Jr., second grade, Deep Gap Elementary School

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LANE AS HUNTER A hunter’s blood ran through Lane’s heart. Of one of his grandsires, Al Watson, Deep Gap folklore reports that animals knew they had no chance when Al took to field or forest. So widespread was the knowledge of his skills and tenacity among animals that all he had to do, when he’d won his fame, was to yell from his cabin door, “Come on in from field and wood—Al Watson’s here.” All the game animals within hearing distance would obediently come forth and await his choice from among them. He had the reputation of being a great provider, a more fear-inspiring hunter than even Daniel Boone. That it was Watson blood instead of Idol that made Lane the hunter is clear from Rufus’ dislike of dogs, his decision not to own a gun, and his belief that hunting was a waste of time. He had better things to do, thank you, than to traipse through fields or lose a good night’s sleep by listening to fox races. From childhood Lane thought differently. Much to Rufus’ disgust, Lane brought home a foxhound and began caring for it. He liked to turn the hound loose at night and listen to it bay musically as it chased a fox in the woodlands surrounding the house. He would stand on the front porch and hear the chase, or, better yet, he climbed to a spot near the Idol graveyard on Idol Mountain to enjoy the voice of his hound as the race warmed up. When he reached his middle teens, he took his hound and joined other foxhunters in Deep Gap. Now the music was much richer, the voices more varied, the excitement greater, for it was possible to discern soprano from alto voices, tenor from baritone. With a pack of hounds hot in pursuit of a fox worth his salt (one that wouldn’t hole up somewhere and leave the hounds to bay in frustration), the hunters could pick out the voices of individual hounds (“That’s my dog, that’s Ol’ Gyp, leading the pack.”) or praise the harmony of blended voices (“We’ve got it all tonight soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone”). The object of the chase was to hear the music of the hounds. These hunters did not want to catch or kill a fox. A good fox would not “hole up early” and would live to run another day. A fox that went to its den after a short chase cheated the hunters out of a full night of music; that, to Lane and his friends, was not sporting behavior. The lowest form of bad sportsmanship, however, was digging a fox out of its den and killing it. Foxes, especially females, could be excused for holing up early, particularly when they had pups to protect, but a man who’d kill a fox was about the lowest form of human scum. Just slightly above that 68

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE level was the man who shot a fox on the suspicion that one was raiding his chicken house. “We’d make sure it wasn’t some no-count dog that was a doing it a-fore we shot,” said the hunters. “No-count dogs are a dime a dozen but a good fox is one of God’s best gifts to men.” Although he cut back on it sharply in the early years of his marriage, foxhunting and foxhounds remained Lane’s passion. With his brother-in-law Fred Greer and their neighbor Raleigh Greer, he continued to enjoy the music of the hounds. He kept a foxhound, named Joe, tethered by a chain to a stake near the springhouse at Jerry Watson’s old homeplace, where he and Annie spent their first years together. A good natured hound, Joe played with Fred’s children as well as Lane’s. He enjoyed having his head rubbed and his belly stroked. He rolled over obediently and wagged his tail in friendly greeting, seemingly always happy to see children. But he had a vicious streak, one that I met one evening when, after Lane had fed him, I toddled towards Joe’s food bowl to rub his head. Just over two at the time, I had no clue about how protective animals are about their food. Greedily lapping up table scraps as I approached, he stopped, growled angrily, and then, when I toddled even closer, lunged at me, teeth bared. Too innocent to read these warning signs, I waddled on, coming closer to his bowl. Then it was that he snapped at my legs and ankles, drawing blood and sending me yelping back towards the house. In the poem that follows, I’ve attempted to tell the story from Lane’s point of view in the weeks preceding his death: Firstborn and Foxhound: Images after Fifty-Five Years My child, firstborn my dog, sleek Walker toddling child, hands outstretched, stumbling towards my hound’s full dish, babyish voice coaxing, “Here, Joe, here.” Rattle of chain against doghouse door rush of Joe and gleam of fangs snarl and lunge and fang-fixed leg screaming son and dog in heap my hands grabbing, right foot kicking, my son’s sobs wetting, quaking my chest, Joe trembling, yelping, quizzical, hurt blood spouting strong from my son’s left leg 69

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Annie, crying, claiming her boy. A swift fetching of shotgun and shell and Joe’s riddled body coiling in dust a great voice hushed that I still hear. For many years after this episode, Lane kept no dogs of his own, obviously fearing that his other sons might be as stupid as I had been. But his friends invited him to go along with them and to enjoy their dogs. Eventually, he bought hounds again, building a kennel for them near the barn and becoming a breeder. To give his sons a sense of what foxhunting was like, he asked Joe Hodges to let him bring along those old enough to leave Annie’s side when Joe invited him to go hunting one autumn evening. At that time Joe was living at the Jerry Watson homeplace (where I’d been the cause of Lane’s gunning down a favorite foxhound). We met Joe there, excited to be heading to the woods, to the top of Idol Mountain, with the grownups and the foxhounds. Just beyond Rufus’ house, the hounds struck a trail and followed it to a point near what we all called the Will Watson place, a homestead long ago deserted. Then the fox turned and went towards Aunt Mae’s house, about a half mile away from the Will Watson property. The hounds continued in close pursuit, chasing it through a stretch of recently cut white pine timber. After a few minutes, the hounds seemed to be no longer moving but bunched together. “That fox’s gone in somewhere, holed up,” said Lane. “Sounds like it,” said Joe. The dogs bayed louder and more fiercely. “Good lord, have they caught the thing?” asked Lane. “If they ain’t, they’re mighty close to it,” said Joe. “Just too much excitement for them to be still chasing it.” “I bet that rascal’s gone in, and them hounds’ll be there all night trying to dig it out,” said Lane. We listened a few more minutes, getting a fix on where the hounds were. “Let’s go down and see what all that fuss is about. Maybe it’s just a coon they’ve treed. If that’s the case, them dogs is in for a good scoldin’,” said Joe. Joe shouldered the ax he’d brought along to chop wood for our campfire and led the way down to the recently harvested pine forest. The hounds remained where they were, their baying still at a fever pitch. Our lanterns added an unneeded glow to stumps and saplings as we entered the patch of pines, for a bright moon shone overhead. We came closer and closer to the hounds and saw them circling a mound 70

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE of something. Still closer, we saw what it was—a pile of sawdust left by the mill when the forest was cut down. Beside the heap of sawdust was a huge stack of slabs. It was underneath the slabs that the lead dogs were furiously digging while the rest bayed in angry frustration. “That scamp’s gone under there,” said Lane. He and Joe tried to calm the dogs and pull them away from the little heaps of sawdust that they’d scratched out. The dogs refused to give way completely, still baying and scratching even when they were being yanked back by their collars. They were going for the kill. Reynard was just inches away and they wanted to sink their fangs into him. Their blood was up and they were not to be denied. “What should we do?” asked Lane. “Leave them here to dig out the fox or get them on a leash and drag them away?” It didn’t seem sporting to drag them away, nor did it seem sporting to leave the fox holed up with most of the night left. “Let’s dig him out of there and let the race go on,” suggested Joe. “We got only this ax to dig him out with,” said Lane, “but a strong end of a slab might help.” With ax and slab they went to work digging out the fox while my brothers and I held onto the dogs’ leashes. That was far from easy, for the hounds wanted to be free, to claim their reward. On Lane and Joe dug, the hole in the sawdust becoming deeper and wider. Suddenly, something leaped forward, diving between Joe’s legs and heading out of the slabpile. Its leap brought it into the fangs of the lead dogs, which broke our hold on their leashes when Reynard attempted his break. Over and over, down the sawdust pile they went, the fox firmly in their grip, his blood covering their faces and darkly crimsoning the sawdust. Into this mix of hound and fox, Joe leapt, but it was too late. One of the hounds had pierced an artery in the fox’s throat and it sank to the ground, its limbs quaking, its body trembling. “Well, I be damned, if they ain’t killed it,” said Joe. He and Lane now helped the boys control the hounds. When everything was finally quiet, Lane said, “This is not the way it was supposed to end; you should never kill a fox.” Nevertheless, we had a dead one on our hands. Joe draped its carcass across his shoulder and we made our way back to Deep Gap, passing through Rufus’ meadows, climbing and descending Idol Mountain, and coming to Joe’s place, where he put the fox’s body in the woodshed. “I’ll skin him out tomorrow,” he said. “Someone will 71

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. want his tail for sure, and I may be able to get something for his hide from Mr. Wilcox.” (Wilcox ran an herb and pelt store in Boone.) With Lane, we walked on home, sensing in his demeanor that this was no way to introduce his sons to the sport of foxhunting. When he started keeping foxhounds again, he found a kindred spirit in one of our contemporaries, Johnny Ray, who lived about three miles away, on Meadow Creek Road. About Brother Joe’s age, Johnny had overcome childhood polio and had turned to foxhunting with a fervor that matched Lane’s. Lane and Johnny talked dogs, dog lines, and hunting events for hours. They took pride in training pups to become good fox hounds and entered field events in hopes of winning medals and trophies. They had their pictures made with their dogs and trophies. They subscribed to Chase and read it faithfully, increasingly aware of the value of pedigree and the worth of good foxhounds. They bought premium dogfeed, a practice that Annie fretted about at times. “Them dogs eat better than the children do,” she complained. (Measured against grocery items bought in stores for us, the dog food was no doubt more expensive, for Lane depended on the farm to give us practically everything we ate.) They traded dogs, between themselves, and with other foxhunters, bearing in mind the pitch of voice and the tenacity of the dog. Having a variety of pitches among the pack was important. Dogs that all sounded alike in the chase were not as much fun listening to. It was far better to have a full range if possible. “Would you be willing to trade me your Bess for my Trixie? I don’t have a strong soprano just now, and you’ve got Bess and Nellie, and they’re both mighty fine sopranos,” said Lane. “You don’t need ‘em both. My Trixie’s going to grow up to be a great alto, you can tell, so why don’t we swap even?” “Well, yourn’s a pup and mine’s a trophy winner. She’s a bitch that’s already the mother of champions, you know that Lane. I just can’t swap, even, you know that. Gotta have something extry,” said Johnny. “Trixie’s good stock, too, you know. Just got her papers the other day. She’ll give you a lot of fine litters one day when she’s growed up. You know Bess’s got some years on her now. So I think you might be gettin’ the edge here. She’s a little long in the tooth, if truth be told.” “I don’t see it that way; here’s a great soprano, one of the best in Deep Gap and you’re wantin’ to git her for a mere pup. I can’t make a deal like that, no way.” The haggling was part of the sport and would go on until one or the other agreed to throw in another pup or come up with a few greenbacks. An even swap was rare. 72

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE The Missing Alto The rest of the pack now safely kenneled, back to his campsite slowly he drives, eyes scanning fields, front yards, and porches, food mixed in bowls in back of his truck, water jug filled, leash placed beside him. Campsite reached: “Here, Mamie, here,” a call, a yell growing louder and louder, sung in high tenor, meant in his heart. “Here, girl, here!” But there is no answer, no weary, torn bitch who gave it her all. “I’m leaving you food and water, sweet woman, and tomorrow, old girl, I’ll be here again.” Nights come and go, come and go, come and go. Great races and music from Ike and the gang give him much joy, but still it’s not right; that low alto part is lacking its leader. Many weeks later comes a telephone call: “Your dog’s mighty poor but she come in here.” A sound of rejoicing in whistle and step as he heads for his pickup to go claim his alto. Throughout most of the 1970s and early ‘80s his favorite hunter partner was Frank Beshears, a man closer to his age than Johnny. Frank lived across the gap, in Stoney Fork, and had a greater interest in breeding hounds than did Johnny. He also liked to camp out all night, something that Lane found a rewarding way to relax after a week of hard work. Packing eggs, bacon, bread, coffee, and other supplies in a basket or box and loading his dogs into their cage, he drove to a spot in Ashe County not far below where his grandfather John had found work. The campsite was near a small graveyard, which bordered a field of Christmas trees. In the middle of the campsite was a small heap of stones surrounding a hole for fire. At distances of eight to ten feet from the pit, Lane and his friends rolled sections of tree trunks or placed folding chairs for places to sit and listen as the hounds gave their serenade. Here was a place to roast wieners or toast marshmallows during dull moments of the chase. “The growl 73

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. of a man’s gut shouldn’t git in the way of listenin’ to his hounds run,” declared Frank. “That’s why we gotta eat a time or two in the night. A man’s belly works overtime when he ain’t doin’ nothin’ but settin’ round listenin’ to his dogs.” It was to this site that Lane invited his sons once when Ken was home from California for the first time in years. “Let’s all go foxhuntin’ like we did when you’uns was young.” I came up from Clemson to join in the family outing. When I arrived in Deep Gap, Lane and some of my brothers had already gone to the campsite. Bill it was, I think, who pulled his popup trailer onto the site and intended to use it with Bob and Joe when bedtime finally came. Lane would spread his bedroll in the back of the pickup. Ken and I would sleep in borrowed bedrolls near the campfire site, Lane had decided as he planned the reunion. The reunion wouldn’t be right unless he asked some of his old friends to join us. One of them was his longtime neighbor Raleigh Greer. Ken, who had gone by “Jack” throughout his boyhood in Deep Gap, and I came in late. The campfire was blazing, casting a reddishorange glow over the faces and necks of the hunters. They had eaten their fill of wieners and marshmallows and were hoping to hear the hounds get back on the trail of a particularly wily fox. As a result, they were unusually quiet when Ken and I rolled in. As we came into the orange glow of the campfire, the men around it recognized us. “Well, I be damned, if it ain’t Jack,” exclaimed Raleigh as he saw who we were. He hadn’t seen Ken since he’d moved to California over twenty years ago. “Well, I be damned, if this ain’t sumpun,” shouted Raleigh as he jumped from his seat to grab Ken’s hands. “How are you, son?” he asked in eager curiosity. “How you been doin’? My God, it’s been a long time since I seed you. You’re lookin’ mighty good. California treatin’ you all right?” “’Sgood to see you, too, Raleigh. I been doin’ fine. Can’t complain.” “I do declare,” Raleigh exclaimed, “you’re a sight for sore eyes. Drag up a log and have a seat by the fire so’s I can git a better look at you.” We both settled around the fire, now practically completing a ring. In a few minutes, Raleigh’s excited voice quietened down, and the distant baying of hounds began to hold every ear. I pulled out a tape recorder that I’d brought to the site and punched the record button. I wanted not only to catch the singing of the hounds but also the comments of the hunters as they talked about how their dogs were doing in the chase. 74

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE The men cupped their ears and spoke softly about the pitch and frequency of a dog’s bark. They seemed to know the voices of all the dogs in the pack, not just the voices of their own. “Listen, now, ain’t that Betsy that just broke into the lead?” “Her, or Jackie one. Can’t be none of the others.” “I’m purt nigh sure it’s Betsy. You hear how many yelps she’s lettin’ out? Ol’ Jackie never got all that worked up, never made that kind of a fuss.” “You ain’t never been here when Jackie got out ahead. She’s hot on the trail for sure. I bet you a Coke she’s the one out front now.” “No, it’s Betsy. You hear that high note she hits. ‘Snot another dog in the country can hit one that high. It’s Betsy for sure.” As the analysis went on, Betsy or Jackie obviously lost the trail, for the high-pitched voices gave way to a robust tenor. Again the men cupped their ears. “There ain’t no mistaking that voice,” said Lane, “that’s Ike for certain. The others have gone cold on the trail and he’s just picked it up. Listen to that rascal run!” “Hit’s Ike, all right,” the men agreed and grew silent to catch every note of his rapidly disappearing baying. Soon the whole pack was out of hearing, and we began to think of bedding down. As was his custom, Lane spread out his roll in the covered bed of his pickup. He bid us goodnight and turned in. I crawled into a borrowed bedroll and placed the tape recorder by my head, the record button still on. Characteristically, I never got around to writing up the experience of that night by drawing material from the recording I made. But I held onto the tape. I remembered it and brought it to Deep Gap when Lane’s cancer and emphysema forced him to give up foxhunting. Bad as the recording was, he could make out the faint music of the hounds. Those sounds seemed to bring rest to his pain-racked body. And Raleigh’s hearty and profane greeting to Ken, which came through loud and clear, gave him a good chuckle. The naming practice of Deep Gap foxhunters centered on who occupied the White House when a new litter came. During the Eisenhower years, popular names for foxhounds were “Ike” and “Mamie,” for the Nixon era, “Dicky” and “Pat,” for the Carter, “Roslyn” and “Jimmy.” Of course, other names were used, many of them diminutives ”Ted,” “Bob,” “Jake,” “Sam,” “Trixie,” “Betty,” “Bobbie,” “Maggie.” A registered dog sometimes had a high-flown name ”Reginald” or “Clementine,” but these would be shortened to “Reggie” and “Clemmie” in the field. In the heat of the chase, hunters invariably added “Ol,” to a dog’s name. “Listen to Ol’ Sam get down 75

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. to business”; “don’tcha know Ol’ Betsy’s runnin’ her legs off tryin’ to keep up with them younger dogs!” In calling their dogs, the hunters often dropped names altogether and simply yelled, “Here, girl, here!” or “Here, boy, here!” When the dogs were in hot pursuit, the hunters often shouted, “Lissen to them boys run!” or “Ain’t them girls gettin’ down to it?” “Mighty sweet music them girls and boys are makin’ tonight!” They never fell to parlor English by referring to their hounds as “hedogs” and “she-dogs.” To them, a bitch was a bitch. “Them dogs ain’t got nothin’ on them bitches when it comes to runnin’ all night. Them bitches’ll lay right in there with ‘em.” These terms, this language, belonged to Lane, too. He put aside his Sunday school English when he took to the woods. He wanted his sons to love the woods as much as he did. But for some of us, and especially for me, he had a major challenge, since the Al Watson gene seems to have been pushed aside by the Rufus Idol gene. To prepare us for hunting, he showed us how to handle a shotgun, how to avoid hurting ourselves and possibly killing others, how to unload it before crossing a fence, how to keep the trigger locked until we meant business. I was an apt enough student in all these safety measures, but I was to discover a case of mistaken identity when I took to the fields with him on a Christmas day rabbit hunt in Rufus’ lower meadow. Together with Rufus, Rad, Herman, Lane and several of my brothers, I walked to the lower meadow, noticing as I went along the many clumps of broom sedge that Rufus had yet to remove from the field. As we reached the meadow, Lane said, “It’s time to unleash Ol’ Ted.” Ted was a beagle that had come to live with us after having discovered our house when he became lost. He loved to chase rabbits. It didn’t take him long to strike the trail of one on this outing. The rabbit headed for the nearby woods and went a few hundred feet into them. “He’ll turn and come back in a few minutes,” said Lane. “Just lissen to Ted and you’ll know that that’s what he’s a-doin’.” Lane was right, for after four or five minutes we could tell that Ted’s voice was coming towards us. We stood listening in the middle of the meadow, guns still resting on our shoulders or cradled in our arms. “Now, Johnny, if you’ll slip down there by the fence, Ol’ Ted’ll drive that rabbit back out here in the meadow. Go stand down there and cock your gun. That’ll give you the first shot.” I did what Lane suggested. I took a place twenty or more feet away from the fence and waited. Within seconds, a large rabbit scurried into the meadow, stopping quickly beside a tall clump of broom sedge but fully exposed to me. 76

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Had I swung my shotgun butt at him, I could have almost hit him. I had a clear shot, but instead of squeezing the trigger, I started running towards him. He swiftly hopped off, heading for the middle of the meadow where Dad and the others were standing. Dad waited until the rabbit was directly in front of him and fired; the rabbit tumbled forward a few feet and then died. I rushed onward, gun by my side, and heard peals of laughter greeting my return. “Why, Johnny, you’re better’n Ol’ Ted,” Herman said. From that day on, Lane enjoyed telling the story of how I had started my career as a hunter and invariably ended with the laughprovoking conclusion: “John, there, is the best rabbit dog I ever had, bar none.” A few months later, Lane gave me a chance to redeem myself on Idol Mountain. Near the family graveyard, Ted once again jumped a rabbit, followed it into the woods, and then tracked it back to the open field beside the cemetery. “Watch carefully, Johnny, that rabbit’s gonna pop out of the woods any second now. Get your gun ready,” advised Lane. I cocked my gun and waited, but not for long. A fully grown rabbit crept from the blackberry briars along the fence line and started hopping towards the graveyard. “Fire,” said Lane. This time I did squeeze the trigger. “Bang” went the gun and down went the rabbit, squealing at the top of its lungs. The sound unnerved me, and I could not rush forward in triumph. “My God, I’ve taken a life,” I thought. Lane saw how the fatal encounter with the rabbit had hit me and never asked me to go rabbit hunting with him again. He knew that I lacked the heart of a hunter. Lane knew how the heart of a true hunter felt towards his dogs. They were more than his best friends; they were his chorus, his serenade as he stood around a campfire, tromped through a snowy field, or lay curled in his sleeping bag in the back of his pickup. That knowledge was what led him to seek out the owner of a young beagle that came to our yard one spring morning. We boys took instantly to the dog and he to us. Within a few minutes of his arrival, we had a rope around his neck and raced around the house with him. When we paused in our jollity, we sneaked into Annie’s kitchen to find some choice morsel for the dog. He gulped each piece wolfishly, as if he hadn’t eaten in a few days. We gave him water, removed burrs from his tail, paws, and long ears. He amply repaid us for all our ministrations by licking our noses, 77

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. chins, and fingers. We had never seen a friendlier, happier dog, and we rushed to tell Lane about it when he came home from work. “Whose dog is that?” he asked. “Don’t know. He just showed up here today, and we’ve been taking a-care of him.” “Anybody been around askin’ if you’ve seen a lost dog?” “No, nobody.” “Well, I must find out whose dog it is and get it back to him. Looks like a mighty fine dog. Somebody’s paid a pretty penny for him.” We boys hoped that what seemed to be a gift from heaven would prove just that, that no one had lost him nor had him stray from home. The dog had quickly become one of us. But Lane warned us not to become too attached. “You’re gonna have to give him up when I find his owner.” Lane asked around and soon discovered that Ralph Moretz, who lived three miles away on Gap Creek Road, had posted notices of a lost beagle. He got word to Ralph that a beagle had come in at our place. Ralph drove up to see whether the dog we had was his. He took a look and said, “Yep, that’s my dog; that’s Ted all right.” He thanked us for taking good care of his dog and loaded him in his car. Ted whined and looked forlorn as he was driven out of our yard. “Bye, Ted,” we yelled. Within a couple of days Ted was back, a heavy rope around his neck, the end of which had obviously been chewed apart. We shouted our welcome, found him more tasty morsels, and led him many a merry chase around the yard. When Lane came back from work, we excitedly ran to tell him the good news. “Ted is back, Ted is back!” “I know you’re glad to see him and he’s awful happy to be here with you, but we got to git him back to Mr. Moretz.” Later that evening, he found someone to drive him and Ted back to Ralph’s house. He reported that Ralph would lock the dog up in a stable to make sure he stayed at home. “But Mr. Moretz again thanks you boys for taking good care of his dog.” For a few days we complained more loudly about our chores, since we knew we would be without our frolicsome playmate. There’d be nothing to break up the monotony of fixing firewood or washing dishes. When we’d resigned ourselves to living without Ted, he came bouncing across the pasture in back of our house. “Ted’s back! Ted’s back! we all shouted as we saw him running to greet us. He leapt on us, tail wagging, tongue kissing every finger and nose in sight. We all rolled and laughed in glee as he ran in spirited circles around us. 78

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Lane thought far less of the joy of the reunion than we did. “I must take Ted back to Mr. Moretz tonight,” he said. Again a neighbor drove him and Ted back to Ralph’s house. This time we cried to see them go. We should have spared ourselves the tears, for when Lane showed up with Ted a second time, Ralph was prepared to do something that made all parties happy. “That dog and your boys obviously belong together; they can’t be happy without him, and I can’t find no way to keep him from wanting to be with them. He gnawed a board through in the barn to escape this time. I don’t see no way to keep him and your boys apart. So take him and give him to your boys.” Lane returned with Ted, who jumped from the car and scampered to kiss us. Amidst our shouts of joy, Lane told us that Mr. Moretz had said that his dog and Mr. Idol’s boys belonged together. “The dog is yours now. Take good care of him,” Lane told us. We did. Ted was our playmate, our companion, our friend. As much as he loved us, he had to have some time to himself to do something he loved as much as he cared for us. His second passion was chasing rabbits. When the mood struck him to give chase, he’d steal away from us and jump a rabbit in a nearby wood or meadow. His tenor voice would ring out loudly when he first struck the trail and then quieten down as he tracked the rabbit. When the trail became hot again, Ted would burst forth with loud yelpings. At such moments we could sense that he was going all out to catch the rabbit and bring it home for his own private feast. Sometimes he did just that. Most often, though, the rabbit escaped him. Ted would then return, tired, torn, and disappointed, ready to rest and reluctantly willing to resume his role as playmate. On one of his hunting expeditions he crossed US 421 as we hoed in a cornfield beside our house. The field rose several feet above the level of the highway. We watched Ted as he made a safe passage across and listened to him as he struck a trail and joined the chase. We were happy that he could have a little fun while we sweatily worked our way through the rows of corn. When his chase was over, he left the pasture where he’d been running and came back to US 421. We watched as he checked the road for traffic. As was his custom, he stood well back on the shoulder when he made his check. This time was no different. He came to a stop, began looking, and held his ground when he saw traffic coming towards him, heading towards the gap from Boone. What he saw, we saw, too; a 1937 Ford coupe. He backed up a step or two to let the car go by. In an act of demonic cruelty, the driver of the black coupe swerved 79

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. onto the shoulder just as he reached Ted and rolled both left-side tires over him. Ted was left crushed and bleeding as the driver sped away. Dropping our hoes, we rushed to Ted’s side. Ted had died instantly, his head and ribcage flattened when the tires struck him. We picked up his lifeless body, sobbing and cursing at the same time. Not used to profanity, we nonetheless had a term ready. “Why did that son-of-a-bitch run over Ted? He oughta be killed hisself.” We didn’t want to give Ted up, didn’t want to dig a hole and put his carcass in it. For most of the rest of the day, Ted’s body lay close to the cornfield, his blood turning a darker red, his crushed face taking on all sorts of grotesque features. Finally, we could not look at all that marred beauty. Ted would have to be buried, but he’d be given a Christian burial, we decided. That meant we’d have a prayer, a couple of songs, and a sermon. It fell to me to preach. After we dug a grave, we dragged Ted’s stiffened body into it. I called upon my brothers to join me in prayer and asked God to receive our friend Ted into whatever heaven he’d built for pets. Then we sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” I then read the passage in the Bible about dust to dust and reminded us all of how loving Ted had been and how sure I was we’d all see him again on a better day. As I said these words, we all had a good cry and not a one of us was aware of just how soon we’d see him again. We told Lane of Ted’s death when he got in from work, and he said, “You’ve done the right thing by puttin’ him away like that.” He added, “Now that you’ve buried one animal, I want you to kill and bury that sick rooster before he infests the rest of the flock. Do it first thing tomorrow.” Overnight my brothers and I had got to thinking how hard Ted must have found the rocky soil that we’d put him in. “He needs something to rest his head on,” one of us said. “We could pick some grass and put that under his head,” someone said. “We could get some of those worn-out socks that Mom wants to get rid of,” said another. “Hey,” another said, “why not use that sick rooster for his pillow? That would be a great place to rest his head.” We all thought that suggestion was brilliant and rushed off to catch and kill the rooster. He was so droopy that catching him was easy. His head was off in a second. We then ran to Ted’s grave, dug up his carcass, looked at it lovingly for awhile and then placed the rooster’s body at the head of the grave. Next we carefully picked up Ted by the paws and lowered his head onto his feathery pillow. He now looked 80

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE comfortable, more at rest. We shoveled dirt over him and his feathered companion and replaced a crude cross. “Rest in peace, Ted,” I cried as we walked back to the woodshed to return Lane’s shovel. Lane grieved with us over the loss of Ted. “There’s never been a better rabbit dog, I reckon,” he said. “Never knowed him to take after a possum or coon. And he stuck with a chase when he stirred up a rabbit. He had the best voice I ever heard on a beagle. He’s a dog we won’t forget. So good with children, too.” As long as his health held up after retirement, Lane spent most of his Friday nights and Saturday mornings with his hounds and foxhunting buddies. Annie didn’t like it but finally grew used to his heading out to meet Frank Beshears and others. “He’d rather listen to those hounds than eat,” she said. “I never seen a man who likes to hunt as much as he does. Looks like the poor fellow would stay home and get some good rest, for he ain’t as well as he used to be. But, no, he’s gotta be out there listenin’ to them dogs.” Annie died before he did, but his hunting days didn’t last long, for he grew so weak from emphysema that he could not care for his hounds or stand the rigors of camping. He sold his hounds. Left to him were his trophies, pictures of his favorite dogs, visits from his foxhunting friends, and vivid memories of chases dating back to his teen years. They had to do.

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JOHN LANE IDOL, JR.

For Lane: Two Years Down the Trail You knew what it was to have a favorite foxhound sing out through the night and gladden your heart and puff your chest out more than a little. You knew what it was to drift off to sleep around your campfire and awake to have your hounds, paw-sore and briar-torn, look hungrily up to you. You knew what it was not to have your best singer among them as you coaxed them back into their cages in the bed of your pick-up. You knew what it was to go time and again to the campsite in hopes that Ol’ Mamie would be waiting for you and the chow you carried. We now know what it is not to hear your voice ring out among us and gladden our days and nights with tales of your best dogs and chases. November 17, 1989

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LANE AT TABLE If I polled my siblings and those nephews and nieces old enough to have recollections of Lane at table, they would probably speak with one voice as to Lane’s most memorable trait—how he doctored his desserts. Whether sons, daughter or nieces and nephews, we all watched in amazement as he heaped mounds of sugar on all his desserts, no matter how sweet they were from the outset. Onto jello, cobblers, cakes, cookies, puddings, custards, and pies, even Annie’s extraordinarily rich butterscotch, he spread spoonful after spoonful of sugar and then added a coating of sweet milk. Then he went to work blending it all, beating everything into a syrupy paste before he began to eat it. He had the biggest “sweet tooth” that any of us ever saw. This practice began in childhood, perhaps in response to Nancy’s sour and mouth-puckering fruits and desserts. As a boy, he must have pledged to himself that once he moved into a household of his own he’d never eat a sour thing again. Until the final days of his life, he kept this promise to himself, despite the ribbing he took from all of us. “Are you afraid you’ll turn into a sourpuss if you don’t sweeten up that butterscotch pie?” “What’d Annie forget to do—put sugar in that cake?” “Save us a little sugar for our coffee.” “Aren’t you afraid you’ll develop sugar diabetes?” “I bet you can’t see your pie for all that sugar you put on it.” “How many pounds of sugar did you add to that pudding?” “What are you trying to do set the world’s record for eating the most sugar?” These remarks bothered him not the least. Under a barrage of jests and statements of genuine concern for his health, he dug into the sugar bowl until he’d thickly covered whatever dessert he was eating. Then mixing it to the desired consistency, he relished every bite. “You’re truly our Sugar Daddy!” Sugar rationing in World War II hit him where it hurt: in his sweet tooth. Trading and begging for sugar tokens from neighbor and kin in order to make jams, jellies, and apple butter, Annie needed practically every ounce of refined sugar she could get her hands on. Lane now had a problem, and he solved it quickly, though the work that grew from the decision was far more demanding than he detailed to us when he announced that we’d plant cane and make molasses. Make molasses we did, a story I give in a later chapter. Brought to table at last in a pitcher, the molasses substituted for sugar. He poured them 83

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. on his pies, cakes, and cookies, mixed them in as he did sugar to make a paste, and then fell to eating, visibly disappointed that the blend was not quite sweet enough. In most respects, he was a finicky eater. Peas he loathed but could have eaten a barnful of mashed stewed turnips. Carrots were for rabbits, but pinto beans, soaked and simmered all day, were a dish fit for royalty. Tomatoes, either red or yellow, were one of God’s blessings to men, but peppers were not fit for human consumption. Corn-onthe-cob was a treat until he lost his teeth and had to wear dentures. Mashed Irish potatoes were a favorite but the world could have gotten along well without rice. If he could have had his way about growing seasons, cantaloupes would have grown all year. He enjoyed shopping for them and had great success in choosing good ones. Cornbread was no good unless it had a heavy, tough crust, but biscuits had to be light and fluffy. Sweet potatoes were in, okra out. Cucumbers were fine, but broccoli, squash, and eggplant had no place in the garden or on the supper table. Pork and chicken ranked far above beef, and seafood, after a couple of bad experiences with it, he concluded was unfit to eat. Chopped cabbage, stewed and flavored with bacon grease, he ate with gusto, but forced feeding would never have gotten Brussels sprouts down his throat. Cornbread, crumbled into a glass of cold milk and sprinkled heavily with black pepper, a standby in hard times, he never tired of eating, even after he and Annie could afford to set a sumptuous table. Coffee and biscuits had to be piping hot, and gravies weren’t good unless they were creamy and thick. Fried foods were better than baked or stewed ones. Annie knew his likes and dislikes and largely cooked to please him. We sometimes kiddingly accused her of cooking for her “spoiled brat,” since none of us were nearly as finicky as Lane. Most of us, for example, much preferred Grandmother Watson’s crusty biscuits to Annie’s, for Myrtie’s biscuits would not crumble into small pieces when we put jams and jellies on them. If Annie’s biscuits were ever hard, she’d made a mistake and quickly baked another batch if she had time. If she couldn’t stir up another batch, she apologized to Lane for the tough biscuits she put before him. Meanwhile, the rest of us were fully enjoying her “mistakes.” During spring, summer, and early fall evenings, Lane would not linger at the supper table, for there was always work to be done: an attack on garden weeds, fences to be mended, sick livestock to doctor, dogfeed to carry in, pigs to be castrated, bulls to be dehorned and castrated, manure to be mucked from Joe’s stable, and sex-crazed cows 84

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE to be led to Jason Moretz’ bull for quick bursts of bovine dalliance. All this and more, since he tried to be a carpenter and part-time farmer as well. But when winter came and many chores went into hibernation, he sat at the table longer, cigarette in hand, blue smoke from his Camels or Winstons growing thick around us. Then it was that he told of besting Perry with square and level, of his pride in the cabinets he’d built for the new Wilcox home, of his experiences working in Roxboro, and of dogs he’d like to sell or buy. He sometimes recalled events from his childhood or some assignment he’d had in the CCC camp. He’d remind us of our duties at home and of his policy that we’d get a second whipping if he got a report that either Annie or our teacher had spanked us. It was at these times that Annie would list any problems she’d had with us and report on who’d received a spanking. Lane called the criminal before him, reached for a switch, or removed his belt, and meted out punishment. If our troubles involved a falling out, he’d spank the still-sullen combatants and then require us to do something we truly didn’t want to do—hug our brother’s neck and say “I love you.” Those words came hard when we were still harboring anger. But they worked wonders. Within minutes, we were playing together again as if we’d never had a feud. Only on weekends did we see Lane at the breakfast table, since he ate and got off to work before we schoolboys rubbed sleep from our eyes and staggered to breakfast. Weekend meals were much the same fare as on weekdays: biscuits or pones of bleached wheat flour, cream gravy (often with bits of homemade sausage stirred into it), bacon or patties of sausage, jams, jellies, and milk or coffee. Sometimes we had oatmeal but more often rice, to both of which we added sugar and cream. Pancakes appeared more often than boxed cereals (usually cornflakes or cream of wheat). Lane was not much of an early morning talker, his subjects ordinarily limited to what work lay ahead on Saturdays or on Sundays how quickly we’d have to get ourselves ready for church (since we had a two-mile walk ahead of us to reach Laurel Springs in time for Sunday school. In all ways except in conversation, he was an autocrat at the breakfast table. When Annie learned to drive and had her own car (thanks to the joint efforts of most of her sons), she went to Sunday morning services at the Jehovah’s Witnesses hall. Oftentimes, she returned home later than Lane. To put dinner on the table as soon as possible, she did most of her preparation on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. She knew that Lane didn’t like to wait. He helped speed things along by buying her a microwave oven. This new piece of kitchen gear did much to keep 85

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. harmony in the household, since she could set a steaming meal before Lane quickly. Her car and the microwave, together with the naturally occurring empty nest, did much to free her from bondage to the kitchen. Now, in the oldest sense, she could be Lane’s companion. In his retirement, he spent far more time at table, especially at supper. During the last years of his life, he was far more relaxed than he’d been in his working days. He’d grown used to having Annie join him at table rather than acting as serving maid. With the marriage of their children and with Annie’s bout with leukemia, he’d learned to pull KP himself. Since he knew by now that everyone would pitch in and help with meals and clean-ups, he enjoyed lingering at the supper table, especially if two or three of his sons were there with their mates. On one such occasion, the conversation turned to our collective memory of who among the people of Deep Gap had earned reputations as big eaters. “Mr. Phillips, old man Phillips and not his boy, was a big eater,” Lane said. “After a hard day in the hayfield, Jason Moretz could put it away, too,” said one of us. “I think you’d have to put Jim and me in the running when we hoed corn or stacked hay for Rufus,” I said. “Now, your grandfather Jerry was a pretty big eater, too,” Annie said. He was a big man and needed a lot of food to keep him going.” “Those Kahoulis boys from Stoney Fork were about the biggest pigs I ever saw,” offered Bill. “I think the one that takes the cake as far as I’m concerned,” said Lane, “is Grant Greene. Why, when we was a-growin’ up, nobody could ever find enough bellytimber to fill that boy up.” His use of “bellytimber” came as a great surprise to me, since I had just done a radio program down in Clemson on obsolete words and had included that one as an example. “’Bellytimber,’” I repeated, “where did you pick up that word?” “I can’t rightly remember; I’ve knowed it all my life, I guess.” “The dictionaries say it’s been out of use for centuries.” “I don’t know about that. It’s a good word as far as I know.” “It is, for sure, since Shakespeare and his contemporaries used it, but it was supposed to be gone.” I later submitted his use of the word to American Speech as an example of words surviving in Appalachia from earlier English. My citation was then picked up and used in the Dictionary of American Regional English. If nothing else survives Lane, this word will be linked 86

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE to his name as long as that great scholarly work remains extant. That, I think, will be a long time indeed. Following Annie’s death, Lane usually took his suppers with Joe and Zola or Steve and Kathy. Sometimes he went to eat with Bob and Evelina. On special occasions his daughters-in-law would plan a meal to be cooked in his kitchen. They’d bring in some dishes and prepare others there. He liked these gatherings best, since, like Rufus, he was happiest when surrounded by his family at table. Seeing his family enjoy putting away bellytimber as he led the way was one of his greatest pleasures, ranking right up there with listening to foxhounds or driving a nail home cleanly in a fine piece of cabinet work.

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LANE AS CHURCHMAN Lane pointed proudly to Thirza as one of the founders of Laurel Springs Baptist Church. If she was part of its foundation, he became one of its strongest pillars. Rufus joined Laurel Springs and was a lifelong member. Nancy, however, held on to her membership in Gap Creek Baptist Church for years after her marriage to Rufus, and her elder daughter, Snow, also became a member of that congregation. Eventually both of them moved their membership to Laurel Springs. In his fifteenth year, Lane had a conversion experience and was baptized in February, 1924. Since the church had no baptistery, he was immersed in the chilly waters of Meadow Creek (a stream still used until the church built a baptistery in the late 1940s). It was this same stream in which his sister Mae was baptized in November of 1929 (a frosty experience, she reports). Lane expressed his faith most concretely in his singing with the church choir and attended church-sponsored singing schools to learn to read music (shape notes). To reach Laurel Springs, Lane could walk over Idol Mountain on the path that led to the home of Jerry Watson or, skirting the mountain, could take a wagon trail that went by the home of Arthur Greene before it intersected with the highway that passed in front of the Watson place (North Carolina highway 60, now US 421). Either way, the distance was close to two miles. Rufus never owned a buggy or car. If the family rode, someone with spare room in a buggy or motor vehicle would have to pick them up along NC 60. (Walking to and from church remained a part of the family tradition until well into my high school years.) When Lane went by his uncle Jerry’s place, he could enjoy the company of his cousins Zella, Ella, Annie, Joe, Max, and Ted as they made their way along the dusty or muddy road. At this time, the church building resembled an oversized box with a modest steeple attached to it. Of wooden construction, it served a congregation of fewer than a hundred souls, mostly from communities known at that time as Laxon, Rutherwood, and Deep Gap. Too poor to afford a fulltime preacher, the congregation engaged preachers to come once or twice a month. On the other Sundays, members met for Sunday school lessons. Once or twice a year, revival services lasting for a week or so were held. Weeks of revival cost a good deal of shoe leather since there was a daily trek to and from the church. But revivals also meant more time to socialize, a time to get to know people better. They meant, too, a time to become more fervent in God’s work. For many of the wives in the congregation, revivals meant getting the house 88

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE spruced up and showing off the best family recipes, for leading church families were expected to invite the pastor and the guest evangelist to dinner or supper. That tradition meant that many fine roosters in Deep Gap would yield up their heads on the chopping block, since the meat most often served was fried chicken. For the men of the church revivals meant digging deeper into their pockets, to come up with something other than quarters and half dollars. It was at this time that collection plates had a show of green instead of silver, nickel, and copper, for one dollar bills, and even a five, sometimes appeared. If, after the collection was counted, the pastor and deacons deemed the offering too small, a plea for more money was made, accompanied by longish prayers and emotion-wrenching hymns, both intended to show that God’s spirit was mightily at work and that Satan stood no chance when Laurel Springs Baptists threw themselves fully into rescuing sinners for God. “You have seen the spirit of God at work in this church this week, and a great week it has been for the Lord. Brother Moody has brought us wonderful messages and has wrought mightily for God. Now we must show him how thankful we are that he came to bring God’s word to us and to renew our spirits, to awaken us to serve God better, to show us how to boot Satan and his minions out of this church. Now let us stand and sing ‘Rock of Ages’ as the deacons pass the plate again,” said the preacher. On this second pass, more greenbacks slipped out of purse and wallet and joined the quarters and half dollars that many felt pinched to give. As Lane entered his adult years, he began to indulge in some of those things that Laurel Springs considered the work of the Devil. First among these was corn whiskey. Prohibition made hard liquor about the only drink of choice among the young men of Deep Gap. If they wanted whiskey, bootleggers in and near Boone sold it, or they had but a short drive to be in Wilkes County, known, rightly or wrongly in the region, as “The Moonshine Capital of the World.” He and his cousin Willard Lookabill sometimes chugged off to Wilkes in Willard’s Model T to help the county earn its notorious title. (Lane’s drinking days carried past his courtships and into his early married life. Learning that Annie was pregnant with his first child was sobering news. He promised her that “no child of mine will ever see me high.” He held to his word. Between that pledge and his final months of life, he wet his throat but a few times with wine. Nearing the end of his life, he followed his physician’s advice and drank a few ounces a week to aid his circulation and help him relax. Although he knew of Paul’s advice to Timothy and of Jesus’ winemaking miracle at Cana, he voted 89

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. against beer and wine sales in Watauga whenever the question of making sales legal came up. The pews at Laurel Springs would never become wet if his say meant anything.) In the middle ‘30’s the leaders of Laurel Springs began talk of building a new church. With a growing congregation, the small box would not comfortably hold everyone who wanted to attend. Trying to run a Sunday school in such cramped quarters proved virtually impossible, since, with everyone still in the sanctuary, teachers with loud voices drowned out those with weaker ones, and students found their eyes roaming from class to class. Walter Greene, part-time preacher and building contractor, led the group wanting a new church. When the matter was put up to a vote, the “Ayes” carried the motion. A new church would be built. Meanwhile, services would be held in Deep Gap Elementary School. If Lane ever took me to the old church building, I don’t recall it, but I do vividly, even painfully and shamefacedly, remember walking to the school with Lane, Annie, Kenneth, and possibly Jim (Bill must have been a babe in arms). Decked out in our Sunday best, we climbed the steps to the auditorium and took our seats on the sixth or seventh row in the bank of seats nearest the entrance. Designed for adults, the seats proved a challenge for me. Annie saw my problem and helped me climb up. I settled down and remained as attentive as a four-year old can be when services go on and on and on. Uncle Walt was preaching that day and got pretty well worked up about the support he needed to get that new church under roof and into God’s service. He was a slender, wiry man, rather short and always bustling. Behind his back, people called him Bantam Greene. He had a fiery spirit, especially when he got going on the sins of the unconverted and the ungodly ways of backsliders. In the heat of his sermon, he seemed ready to flog the sinners and backsliders into heaven. Though his body looked like a Bantam’s, his voice had a serpent’s sound, since his s’s never issued from his mouth without a loud and lingering hiss. My fascination of imagining a bantam and snake in one skin proved less strong than my need to pee. I squirmed and squirmed, held my legs tightly together, hoped that the sermon would end quickly, wondered whether I should ask to be excused, feared that I would get a spanking for making a disturbance if I got up and left the auditorium, wanted to ask if anyone knew where the outhouse was (I certainly didn’t), and pressed down hard on my groin to prevent myself from wetting my pants. 90

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Suddenly, I could not hold the flow. Out it came, hot, sticky, relieving, rolled down the seat, dripped off the edge, and dropped, much too visibly, to the floor, which was white pine planking that had been treated with heavy coats of some wood preservative. Instead of being absorbed into the wood, my pee formed little pools beneath my seat (as I saw when the preaching was over). Little sinner that I was, I had baptized myself in my own urine, and at that moment I never wanted to go to church again. Leaving the auditorium, I clung to Annie’s dress, trying to hide my wet britches from my brothers and cousins. On this day, Lane was not proud of his namesake. “Why didn’t you pee before you went in there?” he asked. “I didn’t know where the outhouse was at,” I mumbled. “You could’ve asked,” he said. When the new church building was dedicated and the congregation returned to worship there, Annie no longer went with Lane and her boys. Having a new babe in arms every two years and little ones too young to walk to Laurel Springs and back (approximately a four-mile round trip) meant that she had to stay home. Though she couldn’t go, she had to see that everyone who could was dressed and ready by 9: 00 on Sunday mornings and by 6:00 p.m. on weekdays when Laurel Springs was running a revival. She laid out clean shirts and either trousers or bib overalls for the boys and checked to see that we’d polished our shoes and combed our hair. The older boys were expected to help the younger ones, to see, especially, that they didn’t get their clothes dirty after Annie had finished dressing them. Sometimes we proved unwatchful as overseers, for a younger brother would begin playing with a dirty-pawed pet on the front porch or in the yard and end up with streaks of mud on the freshly donned clothing. If that happened, Annie tried to wash the mud off. Failing that, she had to rush about to iron a new shirt or pair of trousers or overalls. She wanted us to look both sharp and clean. When we all stood spruced up together before her, she exclaimed, “My, what a handsome bunch of boys I have!” Lane, too, needed her help in getting dressed for church. He handled everything but a knot in his tie. However many times he tried, he couldn’t do either a half or a full Windsor. His knots simply would not work: one would be so tight that he couldn’t close the loop around his neck snug, another so loose that the knot wouldn’t cover the collar button. He was dogged about learning to do knots, and Sunday after Sunday worked and fretted to get the hang of it, but he’d always give up and call Annie (or later one of his sons). “Annie, please come and help me tie this knot.” 91

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Dad and his Wembley Ties Never one with patience enough to learn Windsor or half-Windsor, but quick to tie a bow behind his back to hold up a laden nail apron, he looked to wife or child for Sunday knots. Those Sunday clothes had to be the best Boone’s men’s shops had to offer: Stetson, Curlee, Florsheim, Arrow, Hanes. Those he chose, those he donned. Those he wore with shoulders high and head thrown back. But the Wembley got him every time. Hands that could drive nails into the finest woods and leave no scars, hands that fit joints and left no sign the wood had met sawtooth could not twist a Wembley into shape to present to Sunday school students, sisters, friends, fellow deacons, or preacher. “Come here, Annie, and tie this tie.” And she would work it under his collar, tug it until big and little end fell where they should before the knotting started. Then over and under and wrap around again before shoving the big end under the loop and settling the knot in place against a collar just a tad too big, against an Adam’s apple just razor-nipped, and beneath a chin shorn of a three-day’s growth. “There, Daddy, you’re fixed up again, and, my, don’t he look nice today!”

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Sometimes before she saw Lane and her sons off to church, she’d tell us to line up in the front yard for a picture. “You look so good, I want to get a picture before you leave,” she said. “Now line up by age,” she urged us, “and you, John, stop that pouting and put a smile on your face.” “Yeah, John, pull in that lower lip or somebody’s gonna step on it,” joked one of my brothers. “Hold still, now,” Annie commanded as she looked through the viewer of her box camera. “That’s it; now you may go.” Off we went, leaving her behind, but one of us would stay with her to help look after Bob or Joyce as she switched from groomer to cook. Once we were on US 421 we usually walked two abreast, Lane staying in the rear to see that we moved to the shoulder when traffic was approaching or passing. Spring and summer walks were pleasant outings, except for lingering dew at 9 a.m. Sometimes we’d meet up with other walkers and enjoy their company, and, if we were lucky, Clay Norris or someone else with a pickup truck would come along and ask us to ride. On a few occasions we all tried to crowd into the back seat of Uncle Herman’s Model A. The bad part of getting rides was that we’d end up in the churchyard and thus miss a stop at Dwight Stansberry’s store (which also housed the Laxon post office). If we walked all the way, we usually arrived at the store/post office fifteen or twenty minutes before church services began. As we entered, Lane handed each of us a nickel and told us to spend it as we pleased. Mr. Stansberry greeted us as we slid in behind Lane. A slender, almost rawboned man, he rubbed his hands together, long fingers working over palms like some sort of piston. His blue eyes shone as he talked, and he stopped to be sure he’d heard what we wanted. “By golly, boys, what will it be today? By golly, is it going to be soda pop or candy?” All the while, he continued to rub his hands as he walked rapidly to fill our orders. “By golly, which one of you wanted a Grapette? And which of you asked for the Orange Crush?” Others of us would want candy, a Powerhouse, Baby Ruth, or Butterfinger. These, we soon learned, would be gone before we reached the church. We could prolong our treat to our palates if we asked for chewing gum. But chewing in church was considered boorish. Far better than chewing gum, since it lasted a long time and would melt in the mouth and give no hint of ill-breeding, was something called Sen-Sen, a product meant to help imbibers of alcohol conceal the fact 93

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. that they’d been drinking. It looked leathery, tasted somewhat liquorish, and came in little chips about the size of a lady bug. Nursed wisely, a packet could last through both Sunday school and preaching. For those of us who could forgo pop and candy and gamble on something bigger, Dwight had a punchboard. We could plunk down our nickel, take a small peg that came with the board, and punch out a number. If the wheel of fortune spun in our favor, we might win a whole box of candy, a watch, or any number of wonderful prizes. Lane had more gamblers in his midst than he expected, for the lure of instant riches drew us time and again to Dwight’s punchboard. “By golly, boys, I’m sorry you didn’t win this time,” he said, as we drew blanks. “But you don’t know, by gum, when you’re going to hit one of those lucky holes.” All the while he kept rubbing his hands. Then he stopped and said, “If I’m going to get to church today, I must close the store.” Hearing those words, we filed out behind Lane and walked the remaining seventy-five yards to Laurel Springs for the opening of Sunday school. The church was just a larger box than the one it replaced, only this time it was brick and had stained glass windows. Its interior was finished in knotty white pine, sidewalls as well as ceiling. Over the years the varnish darkened to honeycomb gold, except in areas near the potbellied stove where wood smoke escaping the mouth of the stove and settling on wall and ceiling left them a dull amber. On either side of the central aisle stood heavy oak benches, about twelve rows deep; on either side of the pulpit were three rows of benches. To the right of the pulpit, after Roby Eggers became pastor, was a Rubens-sized painting of the Jordan River done by the pastor’s daughter. As in the building it replaced, Sunday school classes had to be scattered about the sanctuary. Despite the greater distance between classes, the result when everyone was holding forth once again became babble. In 1947 the situation grew more and more intolerable as Sunday school attendance increased. After Lane had been ordained as a deacon and was chosen to serve on the building committee, Laurel Springs would undertake a major addition, a Sunday school wing. Walter Greene’s construction firm was given the contract, and Lane was to be foreman of the crew. Many of the men and boys in the congregation volunteered to give free labor, I among them. As a fifteen-year-old, I acted mostly as a helper and go-fer. That second job opened an opportunity for Lane and Russell Wellborn, a longtime fellow carpenter of Lane’s and a lover of practical jokes, to test my gullibility. 94

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Their ploy took some planning and they handled everything expertly. As they worked to put together the framing for one of the sidewalls, they lay all the needed lumber on the subflooring. They nailed all the pieces together except one. At that point they called me and started giving their orders for sodas and candy, which I was to get at Dwight Stansberry’s store. When I turned to leave, Russell said, “Oh, by the way, Johnny, ask Mr. Stansbery if we can borrow his wood stretcher.” Pointing to a 2 x 4 lying at the end of the sidewall they were working on, Lane said, “You see that this one is about a half-inch too short and it’s the last one we have.” Russell added, “To get this framing up today, we’re going to need to stretch this one to fit.” They both saw the quizzical look on my face, for I had never seen nor heard of a wood stretcher. Lane said, “Mr. Stansberry will have one, I’m sure. Just ask him if we can borrow it and hurry on back.” Wondering what one would look like, I hastened down the gravel road leading to Mr. Stansberry’s store. First I gathered the treats that the crew wanted and then said to Mr. Stansberry, “Daddy told me to ask you to lend him your wood stretcher.” “Wood stretcher?” “Yes, that’s what he said he needed and that you had.” Rubbing his hands together and looking me in the eye while trying not to laugh, he said, “By golly, Johnny, they’re pulling your leg. There’s no such thing as a wood stretcher.” Burning with shame, I headed back to the building site, upset enough to have thrown every piece of gravel at Russell and Lane if they had met me on the road. I cooled off, however, by the time I reached them, blaming myself for being so stupid. As I stood before them, they inquired, “Where’s that wood stretcher? You can still see that we need one.” Indeed, I could, for they had not put up the sidewall they had been working on. “Mr. Stansberry doesn’t have one. He says you’re just pulling my leg.” Now, howls of laughter. “We’re awful disappointed in you, Johnny,” said Russell. “We figured you’d bring one back to us, seeing as how you saw how bad we needed it.” 95

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Lane then stepped over to a pile of lumber and dug out another 2 x 4. “Here, Russell, is one that looks like it won’t need stretching.” Taking the 2 x 4 in hand Russell said, “Next time we need a wood stretcher we’ll have to send someone other than Johnny. We just can’t depend on him to deliver the goods.” They continued to chuckle as they sawed off a few inches and then nailed the 2 x 4 in place. The joke was too good to be kept a secret from the rest of the crew. For as long as I worked with them, someone would break up the monotony of the day by yelling, “Hey, Johnny, seen any wood stretchers today?” “Yeah, dozens and several sky hooks, too, in case you need one of them,” I yelled back. (I quickly learned that the worst thing that can happen to an innocent is to let the others believe that they’ve “got your goat.”) “Take it and dish it out,” said Lane, in a bit of fatherly advice following the episode. The Sunday school addition was added to the back of the church, giving the building a T-shape. This addition would be followed several years later by another. Still later the sanctuary was redone, central heating installed, and a parsonage was built. In all of these Lane had a direct hand, both as chairman of the building committee and crew member. Much of his work was voluntary. He wanted the facilities to meet the needs of a growing congregation and to keep pace with the facilities being added to neighboring churches. After his health failed and he could no longer serve on the building committee, he was pleased to see his grandson Bobby Idol take an active role in that group and lead the effort to build a fellowship hall at Laurel Springs. From the proceeds of his estate, his children donated $1,000.00 to jump start the fund to build that facility. Although he poured much energy, time, and money into the building, he knew that a good church requires more than a shell to house worshippers. Believing with James that faith without work is dead, Lane became a Sunday school teacher, a member of various pulpit search committees, a shepherd or king (as need dictated) in Christmas plays and pageants, a deacon, and leader of the church choir. He also visited the sick, gave aid to orphans and widows, and tried to lead others to commit themselves to a Christian life. And together with fellow deacons and inhabitants of the Rutherwood community, he helped found Rutherwood Baptist Church. 96

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE He sought to have his children make the same strong commitment to church work that he’d made. As he looked back over his life, he took considerable pride in the fact that his sons Kenneth, Jim, Bill, Bob, and Steve became church leaders, Kenneth as a Presbyterian elder in California and the others as deacons, all at Laurel Springs except Jim, who was chosen to the deaconry at his church in Jacksonville, N.C. He was pleased greatly that Joyce served her church as pianist. (Had my finger not landed on a particularly telling passage in First Corinthians one Sunday afternoon in my seventeenth year, he might have added a preacher to his line-up. While wondering about ways to make a living without having to do heavy manual labor, I had started giving thought to whether I might become a preacher. Even though I knew Baptist preachers were supposed to be “called” to serve in the ministry, I began examining myself to see if I were worthy material. For some weeks I had been weighing the matter and doing some praying about it. My youthful idealism led me to picture preachers as pure, upright servants of God, dedicated men willing to suffer poverty and insult in order to carry the word into a sin-blighted world. The preacher’s life would be one of self-denial, unworldliness, sacrifice, and ceaseless toil as he visited the sick, brought solace to the poor, wiped away the tears of widows, found food and shelter for the hungry, clothes for the naked, housing for the victims of fire and flood. The Baptist preacher that I envisioned myself becoming would give up movies, parties, Sunday ballgames, and anything else smacking of sin. And to be able to do all of this he should probably not marry, I concluded. To ask a woman to live a life of poverty and self-denial would be demanding too much. To bring children into a household with too little to feed and clothe them would be wrong. These matters weighed heavily on my mind one Sunday afternoon when I was home alone, the rest of the family having gone to visit at Aunt Ella’s. Attempting to find an answer, I reached for my Bible and did what many fundamentalists have done for ages: I sought an answer by opening the good book at random and running my index finger down a page of scripture before stopping and reading the passage thus found. When I focused my eyes on the line my finger had landed on, I read the following: But if they have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. [I Corinthians 7:9] As a seventeen-year-old youth, I knew what it was to burn. “So, I see what God has ahead for me: marriage, not preaching. After that Sunday, I began to wonder whether electrical engineering was right for me. I had more of Saint Augustine than Paul in me.) 97

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Had he helped Annie take an active role in church doings at Laurel Springs, he might have spared himself, his children, and his kinfolk a sectarian tug-of-war. Constrained to the role of groom and cook, Annie had too little outlet for her religious yearnings. It started in the spiritual isolation that Annie felt after she’d gotten Lane and the boys off to Laurel Springs. When we had them, she took an active role in family devotions, reading scripture to us, commenting occasionally on it, encouraging us to read it on our own. When one of us underwent a conversion experience, she received the news joyfully, discussed what the commitment to a religious life meant, and attended our baptisms. She listened to church services on the radio, one of her favorites being one broadcast from California by Charles Fuller. In a sense, he was her pastor for a few years. She would not miss Fuller. She sent away for some of his publications and scraped up a little money to help keep him on the air. But still there was an emptiness, a lack of communion. That emptiness was filled later by visits to newcomers to Deep Gap—Jehovah’s Witnesses. Few welcomed their coming. In fact, they were a scorned, spurned sect, their teachings unsettling, their latter-day Puritanism puzzling, their seeming quest for martyrdom inexplicable. Their visits disrupted the routines of gardening, canning, cleaning, washing, hoeing, gathering berries or apples. They carried pamphlets, books, and copies of Watchtower and wanted money to cover the expenses of publication. Having little or no money for anything except essentials, Annie gave canned goods or bags of fruits and vegetables instead. She read everything she was handed, impressed by the fact that practically every point had a scriptural citation in support. The more she read, the more she wanted to discuss religious questions with her new visitors. It seemed that they were opening up scriptural visions that she had but vaguely glimpsed. A new world was coming, a world free of pain, sickness, poverty, hate, death. Satan would at last be defeated and Christ would reign forever with his chosen in a world filled with endless bliss. What was wrong in this world would be made right, and those who were alive today could possibly welcome Christ’s second coming without having to die. Only the shortsighted and worldly gave allegiance to the nations of this earth. True allegiance was to God, and no banner but his should be followed. Jehovah was the greatest of physicians and would cure sickness, stop the spread of diseases, and eliminate the need for blood transfusions. Those strong enough in their faith and fortunate enough in their election would help him build a perfect earth. Theirs would be a paradise regained. Armageddon would surely come, the Devil would falsely believe he’d 98

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE won, and then Christ would descend in all his glory to reclaim his own. And then the joy, the bliss, the everlasting peace, the end of sickness, pain, and despair, the beginning of Jehovah’s uncontested reign, the realization of Heaven. During summer visits these tenets of Christian mythology (recognizable in large measure as the same beliefs espoused at Laurel Springs) were discussed by Annie and the witnesses for Jehovah on the front porch or under apple trees in the front yard. Too busy with our work or play, we boys seldom paused to listen. If we did, much of the talk was over our heads: Armageddon was nowhere near Deep Gap and Judge Rutherford was not anyone we knew. When we did understand the talk, it sounded threatening to our favorite events, particularly Christmas, since we had grown up decorating Christmas trees and believing that our Christmas pageants and plays at Laurel Springs celebrated the birthday of Jesus. Annie did not force us to listen; we could stay or not as we chose. To most of us, it became clear that Annie liked what she was hearing, was beginning to spend more time reading the material she was handed, was eager to share with us some of the teachings she was starting to accept. To those of us old enough to read with much comprehension, she pointed to articles that might be of interest—essays of what the earth would be like when Satan and sin no longer had a role in it, essays on what form governments would take if nationalism was not a factor, essays on what gardens, schools, and cities would be like if mankind lived purely for Jehovah. “Here’s a piece that you’ll like; it tells about how beautiful the earth will be when Christ resumes control. Why don’t you read it?” She hoped that we would discuss the pieces we read or ask her to comment on them. “Isn’t it wonderful to think that we’ll never have to die and that the world will be filled with beauty, with no wars, no hunger, no sickness, and no suffering?” she would say. “It will be a glorious time for all, for Jesus will be lord and master and God’s plan to let us share in the bounty of his love and grace will at last be fulfilled.” She said these words with such conviction, with such a depth of love, with such a yearning to keep her circle unbroken that we looked upon her as a spiritual guide. But still there was something troubling in her behavior. Why was she not talking with Lane about this wondrous time ahead for true believers? Why did she put copies of Watchtower in our hands during his absence? Why did she lose her excitement about helping us decorate Christmas trees or Easter eggs? Why was she reluctant to attend funeral services for friends and kin 99

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. at Laurel Springs or at another of the churches in the Deep Gap area? What explained the urge she felt to join other Jehovah’s Witnesses in spreading the word? Since Jehovah’s Witnesses would not have a hall for many, many years after these early visits to Deep Gap, Annie would not have a church as such to attend. She did sometimes speak of gathering with her friends for Bible study. She did not, however, at this time make an overt effort to be with them. She continued to be at the center of the flurry of activity to get Lane and the boys off to Laurel Springs. Uncomplainingly, she returned to her kitchen when Lane and the boys headed out the door, and then she began getting Sunday dinner ready. But there was a rift through which troubled waters were spilling. The rift became evident when Lane discovered that she gave canned goods or fruit to Jehovah’s Witnesses in her effort to support the publication of that group’s tracts, pamphlets, and books. “You’re taking food out of the mouths of your own children,” said Lane when he learned what she had done. She took the rebuke without charging him with the same act, though, away from Lane, she pointed out that he gave much more money to Laurel Springs than his slender means could afford. “If he cut back on what he gave the church, you kids could have warm lunches at school instead of having to carry a cold snack.” (During our days in Deep Gap Elementary, we always walked home for lunch, but when we went off to Boone we had to pack a lunch, earn money to pay for lunch at school, or go hungry, for Lane never gave us an allowance for anything. The food was there, he insisted, and if we were too proud to carry a lunch pail or a paper poke, the fault lay in us.) Money was less a cause of the rift than a lack of tolerance. Lane wanted Annie to remain faithful to the church of her childhood and youth. She was bringing discord into the household by switching her allegiance to Jehovah’s Witnesses. He felt the discord deeply when she stopped observing holidays like Christmas in the traditional way: she no longer sent out Christmas cards, refused to put up a Christmas tree or to decorate the house (after 1960), and insistently referred to Christmas gifts to her from family and friends as acts of love. Most unsettling, however, was her refusal, ultimately, to go to any church other than her own. But intransigence and intolerance surfaced on Lane’s side as well. He never drove her to any of her hall’s functions, never read any of the materials she gathered, and never approved of her going to assemblies 100

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Atlanta, or elsewhere. Lane had no charity for her beliefs. The bridge over these troubled spiritual waters was their bond of love. The bond was both physical and spiritual. Their sexual relations were wholly satisfying to them both, so confided Lane a few months before his death. When they stripped away all their sectarian differences, they discovered that they had an abiding faith in the teachings of the Bible and unwavering belief in God. Yet, the bond could not prevent a spiritual tug of-war. Even as Lane was glorying in the fact that his sons were becoming deacons and leaders at Laurel Springs and elsewhere, Annie was bursting forth in the joys of her faith in letters to her sons. Occasionally, her letters read like a short sermon. As Lane prepared to teach his Sunday school classes with guides furnished by Southern Baptist presses, Annie was deep in her studies as set forth by leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She kept journals of her readings and entered marginal comments in her Bible. Though he came to like a few members of Annie’s kingdom hall, Lane felt uneasy when, during the years of Annie’s battle with leukemia and cancer, her church friends visited her. They were not his kind of people. And he felt uncomfortable in later years when the pastor of Laurel Springs came calling, for he knew that Annie had misgivings about his asking his preacher to pray to God to heal her. If Lane’s pastors had dropped in on snowy winter days, especially on weekends, they would have found him with cards in hand and intensely involved in a game of setback or Rook. He’d played Rook in his youth and continued to do so until his health became too frail for him to sit at table. His partners and opponents came from within and outside the family. Although he sometimes used a single deck, he much preferred the added excitement that a double deck brought. Bids could be higher, play more dramatic, and “shooting for the moon” more fun. He proved to be a kind of high roller, for his bid usually topped everyone else’s. The kitty was a magnet to him: he had to see what was in it, if the hand he was dealt was halfway promising. Unlike most players, he turned cards in the kitty face side up and began figuring what to call trumps. If the kitty sported the Rook card and a couple of 1’s, his partner smiled and his opponents started hoping that he had little in his hand to support the “old bird” or the 1’s. Unless his hand were loaded with the color he’d called trumps, he often led with another suite, hoping that his partner could take the lead. He could win big or go “set” by big margins. Rarely did he just squeak by. Those narrow wins often came when his partner took the bid. 101

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Whether he played setback or Rook, the games were always for fun. No money ever passed hands. If the games were played at his house, Annie added to everyone’s pleasure by serving coffee and desserts. If rubber matches resulted from an evening of play, she sometimes went on to bed and left Lane to finish his game. He didn’t like to leave the issue undecided. “Let’s play this rubber game off,” he urged, as partner and opponents sometimes tried to wipe sleep from their eyes. He enjoyed “rubbing it in” when he won and would tease his opponents for their timidity. “If you’re gonna win, you just can’t sit back and not take a bid.” An occasional loss didn’t bother him, but a losing streak left him glum and determined. He wanted to play on until his luck changed. When it did, he smiled and teased again, happy to be winning. Nothing pleased him more than to turn every trick. He came very close to gloating whenever that happened. But his gloating was rarely verbal—his beaming face and sparkling eyes revealed how triumphant he felt. Had his pastors seen him then, they would have agreed that he wore a most undeaconlike look. Throughout the 60s, 70s, and early 80s Lane continued to give Laurel Springs dedicated service, working in tandem with deacons and pastors to lead the congregation. His skills as a carpenter and his vision as a planner made him a key figure on the building committee. He spent much time looking after the existing physical plant and argued successfully for expansion as the congregation grew. He surely would have given more time to Laurel Springs if Annie had not suffered failing health. In the late 70s she began a long battle with leukemia. As she struggled to control it, she found herself a victim of breast cancer and had to undergo a mastectomy. Later, she had an onset of shingles, a mean bout that encircled her entire waist. Her lowered immunity also led to the development of tuberculosis of the bone, centered largely in her lower back and excruciatingly painful. Treatment of her various maladies went beyond the scope of Boone’s medical facility. For treatment, she went to North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. There she eventually became the patient of Donald Jackson, who oversaw her chemotherapy and watched her general health. Dr. Jackson’s decision to prescribe four ounces of wine a day for her general well-being led to an amusing story, as Annie and her daughter-in-law Evelina later told it. Not knowing the first thing about wine except that preachers railed against it, they had no idea where it was sold but guessed that it must be carried at “one of them stores that had a big red circle on it,” 102

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE an ABC store. On their way out of Winston-Salem, they spotted such a store and stopped, hoping that no one saw then going in, trying to be invisible as they hurried to the door. “Why, lordy, honey,” said Evelina, “if someone sees us goin’ in a liquor store, they’ll tell on us for sure.” They went in, amazed by all the bottles they saw, and asked for wine. “We don’t sell wine here,” a clerk said. “Why, lordy, where do they sell it?” asked Evelina. “You’ll need to go to a wine shop or grocery store for it,” said the clerk. As unobtrusively as possible, they made their way back to the car and headed for a grocery store. When they found the shelf where wine was stocked, they once more stood in amazement. “Why, lordy, Annie, they’s hundreds of bottles here. What are we goin’ to do? What’s a good wine?” Annie had no answer, for she was as confounded as Evelina. They spotted a stocker, a teenager, working in a nearby aisle and asked, “What’s a good wine?” “Depends on what you like,” he said, “red, white, or, maybe, fortified.” “We don’t know nothing about wines,” Evelina said, “and we was hopin’ you could tell us what would be good.” “I don’t know much myself,” said the stocker. “You’ll just have to choose something.” Annie and Evelina chose something, stepped quietly to the cashier, and then hastened back to their car. “I hope nobody saw us,” Evelina sighed, glad to be in the privacy of her own vehicle again. For the next several months, they bought wine in grocery stores until a thought struck them: why not make wine themselves from the Concord vine that grew near Annie’s back porch? Winemakers they became, producing pints of sweet wine, drinkable but not something they told friends about. Once, when it was my turn to drive Annie to Winston-Salem for her checkup, she decided to take a pint to Dr. Jackson. “Now I don’t want nobody to know I’m givin’ him a jar, so we’d better put it in a poke.” We found one and carried the jar to my car. At the hospital, I asked for a wheelchair and helped Annie into it. Then I placed the smuggled jar of tax-free wine in her lap and rolled her off to Dr. Jackson’s office. Dr. Jackson was pleased to see her. “You’re looking good, Mrs. Annie. How do you feel?”

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JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “Fair to middlin,” I reckon, she said. “I brought you something,” she quickly added, as she pulled the pint of wine from the bag. “It’s some wine me and Evelina made.” Her doctor took the jar and held it up to look at it, a dark garnet brew that turned almost ruby under a bank of bright fluorescent bulbs. “Thank you, Mrs. Idol, and thank Evelina, too. I’m sure I’ll enjoy your wine.” When we left North Carolina Baptist Hospital later that day, Annie said, “I think he was happy with my gift. I hope he likes it.” “I’m sure he will,” I said. It was to the same hospital that Lane came several months after Annie’s death to have a biopsy of a black spot on his lungs. His physician in Boone, Dr. Beeson, had seen the spot some years before and had kept track of its size. Recently, it had begun to grow. “Better have that thing checked out, Mr. Idol,” he advised. Lane decided that he’d have the biopsy in Winston-Salem. He made an appointment, and I drove up from Clemson to go with him. We left Deep Gap early since he had a mid-morning appointment. On the way to the hospital, we talked of many things, but never of the test he was to undergo. After clearing administrative hurdles, we made our way to the outpatient center, where Lane was to have a sliver of his lung removed and examined. On hand to greet us was, among others, a nurse with strawberry blonde hair. She told Lane that she would prep him for the biopsy. “Come with me,” she said as she led the way down a long corridor to a group of small rooms near the outpatient operating room. Pointing at me, she said, “You can stay here until Mr. Idol gets back.” She took a couple of steps toward the cluster of small rooms but then turned on her heel and said, as she smiled at Lane, “We’re going for a little stroll this morning. Don’t you think it’d be nice if we held hands?” “That sounds good to me,” said Lane as he took her left hand and walked away. “And I think it would be nice if you held my hand while they cut on me.” “If that will make you feel better, that’s what I’ll do,” she promised as they moved out of my hearing, his gaunt frame a striking contrast to her youthful robustness. They soon reached the “prep” room and disappeared from my sight.

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE In a half hour or so, Lane returned to his seat beside me. “She kept her promise,” he said. We sat quietly, then, awaiting word from the surgeon who’d performed the biopsy. Within a few minutes, the strawberry blonde reappeared. “How you doin’, Mr. Idol?” “I’d be a good deal happier if you were still holding my hand. Come to think of it, I might just ask the hospital here if I can take you home with me so you can hold my hand all the time,” he joshed. “That would suit me fine, but I don’t think they’ll let me go,” she parried. “Nice woman,” he said to me as she walked away. “Very good with people.” Several minutes crept by as we waited for the pathological report to come back. Lane began talking about his options. “If it’s cancer, I don’t want them to give me chemotherapy like they did to your poor mother. She suffered something awful every time they gave her one of them treatments. I’m not gonna go through that. And radiation don’t give a man with lung cancer much longer to live than if he had no treatment at all. I’ve knowed a couple of men who chose radiation and they was miserable—didn’t live but a few weeks longer than some friends who took no radiation at all.” “What about surgery?” I asked. “Would you let them remove the spot if it’s cancerous?” “Depends on my chances. If the doctors could get it all and I could have some good months or years ahead, I’d think about going under the knife. But you know what they say about lung cancer—not much can be done.” Our talk was interrupted by the voice of the strawberry blonde. “The doctor will see you now,” she said. She pointed to an office and told us to go in and have a seat. “The doctor will be with you shortly.” As we settled into chairs, a tall, grimfaced man in his middle 50s walked in and pulled out a chair behind a large desk. “I got your report here, Mr. Idol. That spot we just looked at is malignant.” I turned to look into Lane’s face. His expression didn’t change in the slightest. He took the doctor’s words stoically. The surgeon continued. “We have a couple of options, as I see things. We could try chemotherapy. Or we could see if radiation would be able to check the spread of that cancer. Surgery is something I couldn’t honestly recommend in your case. You think about your options and let us know what you want to do and we’ll work with you in any way we can.” 105

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Lane thanked the doctor and left his office. Once again we saw the strawberry blonde. “I’m goin’ back to Deep Gap now and I wish you’d go up with us. I ain’t got nobody as nice as you to hold my hand up there,” Lane said teasingly. “I can’t believe that, Mr. Idol; there must be dozens of nice women up there who’d be happy to hold your hand.” As we left, Lane and the strawberry blonde smiled at each other and said goodbye. “Nice woman,” he said as he turned to walk away. On our way home, Lane gave further thought to what he would do as the cancer worked its fatal will with his body. “I don’t want to spend my time in hospitals having chemicals poured into me, and I don’t want to have my chest burned up with radiation. I want to live as free as I can from a surgeon’s knife. We’re all appointed to die and I want to die in whatever way my maker has in mind. I don’t think we’ll be coming down here again.” He was to die in his own bed. Despite his devotion to Laurel Springs Baptist Church and despite the fact that Nancy and Rufus and his sister Snow were buried in the church graveyard, he chose to have his remains placed in the family cemetery. Working with his sons, he had reclaimed the burial spot of John and Thirza and a few of their descendants from brush, saplings, and briars in the middle 70s. From his boyhood on, he had spent much of his life near the Idol graveyard, tending crops, hunting rabbits and foxes, walking to school, or going courting. After the burying ground had been cleared and re-fenced, he chose a plot beneath some white pines for his grave. It was to this place that Annie’s body was brought in 1985 after her death on May 3. His came to rest there November 26, 1987.

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LANE AS SINGER Lane loved to sing. Rufus loved to sing, too, especially the old hymns, those printed with shape notes. Rufus could run the bass line in a mellow baritone, and he expected Lane to jump in with the tenor, while looking to his daughters, Snow and Mae, to pick up the soprano and alto lines. Sometime, I never learned exactly when, he’d sent his children off to a singing school. They’d learned to go “do, fa, mi, re, do” from a traveling music teacher, who’d come to some church in Deep Gap area and drill students in reading shape notes and singing without an instrument of any kind. Instruments were fine for ballads and folk songs, and even for hymns if the hymns weren’t sung in church. Inside a church, instruments were tools of the devil, at least that was the thinking of many old-timey Christians in Deep Gap. The talk over just how sinful an instrument was, especially an organ, lasted until my teen years. The choir leader at Laurel Springs, Bill Day, stood foursquare against instruments. The only thing resembling an instrument in his tenure as choir leader was a tuning fork, which he pulled from his shirt pocket before launching into a hymn. He’d tap the fork gently against the back of a pew, hold it close to his left ear in his farm-calloused and hairy right paw, and begin humming the first note of the opening line. He held the note until everyone else in the choir harmonized with him as he hummed. Sometimes he’d say “Let’s sing the notes first and then we’ll come back to the words.” He stood by the notion that singing notes was the fastest way to learn music. He beat time, but did so sitting on the middle row of the threebench section set up for the small choir at Laurel Springs. Holding his hymn book in his left hand, he beat time with his right. But to say it was his right hand is to distort what we really saw, what really held us. He clenched his fingers tightly and curled his long thumb into something resembling an awkwardly bent fishhook. With his right fist held in a firm vertical position, he swung his right arm to and fro, steady as a metronome, his woolly, hooked thumb appearing to be its only digit. Since the sopranos and altos sat in benches ahead of him and thus couldn’t see his beat-keeping thumb, they were left to keep time as best they could. The tenors, who sat on the same row with him, could catch the beat out of the corners of their eyes. But not all of them remembered to give a sidelong glance now and then. The basses had no problem. They sat directly behind Bill and nailed every note, starting with him, stopping with him. Lane, usually seated next to Bill, kept 107

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. a close watch but also beat time with his Sunday slippers. The other audible tenor in the choir, Edgar Hardin, didn’t watch and frequently stopped a full half note after Bill had ended a verse. So Edgar regularly had a half-note tenor solo for the first two verses of any hymn. By the third or fourth verse, he’d internalized the beat and so ended with the basses and tenors. If the sopranos got off to a slow start they made up for it by holding the final note in a verse four or five beats after everyone else had breathed and started on the next verse. There would be momentary clashing of notes and words when those holding notes began to be drowned out by those embarking on a new verse. Bill finally despaired of getting them to do counting of any sort, and learned to wait until they had whined to a close before he tried to move on to the second or third verse. Why Bill didn’t stand before his singers, or at least sit on the front row, we never knew. Perhaps he wanted us to listen to each other and to pay strict attention to the music as written. If that’s what he wanted, he seldom got it, for the choir had a mind and will of its own. But perhaps it was because he didn’t want to put a wen on the side of his forehead on display any more than it was. When he strained to hit a high note, the wen flushed with blood and momentarily turned into a reddish bud of a Satanic horn. (Satan was much despised at Laurel Springs and took a few good licks every Sunday morning.) There were members in the choir who thought that a piano could provide the strong beat that would bring everyone together. One or two of the better-trained ones even whispered that it would be nice to have an organ. Bill pooh-poohed every proposal that the church buy a piano. “We don’t want to bring one of them things in here, not in God’s house,” he argued, swiftly wiping away sprays of saliva that had dampened his bushy moustache during his denunciation. “God gave us all we need to sing, voices to raise to the glory of Him and his angels. When God’s in your heart and his voice is in your ear, you don’t need no pianer.” “But Bill, all the churches in Boone’s got pianers, and one or two of them has put in organs. I reckon they don’t believe that the Devil is behind them doing that, you reckon?” “I can’t rightly say that he did, but I know that the Good Book tells us to lift up your voices and sing. It don’t say nothin’ about pianers and organs. If it does, you show me chapter and verse and I’ll head the committee to go pick out a pianer!” 108

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Not a soul could cite such a passage, of course, but the group wanting a piano was not to be put off any longer. The time had come when Laurel Springs would bring a piano into the house of worship. Bill and his supporters were voted down, and a committee, made up of deacons, was named to buy one. A used upright of one of the church members sounded good to the ears of the deacons. They had it hauled to the church and placed along the wall where the choir sat. For some weeks it just sat there, while Bill kept on with his tuning fork and trusty right thumb. Living on faith, the church had bought a piano before it found a pianist, but there was hope that one of the Hardin girls could move along fast enough in Thompson to play simple hymn tunes before many Sundays passed. I don’t recall whether the congregation looked to Helen or Joann Hardin to bring Laurel Springs out of its habit of doing everything a cappella. From where I sit now, some sixty or more years from the time of the switchover, the Hardin girls might not have been the hope of the piano faction. What I do vividly recall is that Bill and the pianist, whoever she was, had a different understanding of how much time to give notes. Bill’s quarter notes were as long as half notes, sometimes longer. His half notes often took the time of wholes. Trained to strict count, the pianist soon left Bill far behind. For a few Sundays, there was much slippage between pianist and choir director, who sometimes stopped her and started over again. If the choir had taken time to rehearse with the pianist, the music service wouldn’t have been out of joint as long as it was. With practice, the choir would have bettered its attacks and minded Bill’s cutoffs. For some months the joyful noise sent up to God’s ear must have been heard with great patience and tolerance. It could not have been pleasing to his ear, unless it was a tin one. The pianist proved flexible and thus learned to move her fingers more slowly from key to key than the notes in the score called for. At first, she’d been terribly mechanical, thumping out everything with vigorous regularity, as if trying to force the scripted rhythm upon Bill and the choir. She surely thought, “If I can play loud and hold to the lines exactly, Bill and his singers will learn to keep pace.” She’d be a bar or more into a hymn before Bill sang his first note. A good many of those who had backed Bill wanted to return to the way it was before the piano arrived. Others thought that the pianist, with her hard, driving style, was overpowering the singers. A few looked to the day when Bill would say he’d served the Lord long enough as choir director and would turn the duties over to somebody else. That day came sooner than 109

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. anyone thought it would, for, after three or four frustrating, clamorous Sundays, Bill put down his hymnal and resigned his post. That somebody else was Jim Idol, who had taken seriously to singing in high school, performing with the mixed chorus and in an octet chosen from its ranks. He looked forward to going on to college at Appalachian State Teachers College (as it was called at the time) and majoring in music. When he took over, he lacked Bill’s knowledge of shape notes. And though he’d gone to a singing school or two, he was accustomed to the so-called “round notes” that he learned from Mrs. Erneston, who directed the Appalachian High chorus. Because he was a novice at reading keys and hitting pitches, he bought a pitch pipe and blew into the right hole before beginning a song. He expected his singers to hum in harmony before he gave the downbeat. When conducting, he stood in a spot beside the piano and waited for the pianist to play the refrain through and then pause for just a second before hitting the opening note. He’d heard that sort at school, at other churches, and over the radio. If the choir could feel the rhythm during the refrain, and if his singers would watch his right hand, that first note might be sung on time. And the last note might end on time. As months of Sundays passed, pianist and choir got together. Faced with no help beyond room and board at home, Jim dropped out of college and joined the army. The choir found its new leader in Lane. Lane liked peppy songs, not draggy old hymns. (Draggy hymns like “Just as I Am” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer” were fine when sinners came to the mourners’ bench during revival or when some sister or brother had gone on to heaven.) He put aside books like his dad’s Southern Harmony and the Broadman hymnal that Uncle Walter Greene had given the church except for revivals, funerals, and invitations to the altar (those times when a preacher asks if some person in the audience wants to come forward and “Get right with God”). He wanted his choir to sing with spirit, verve, feeling. He liked the way Bill Monroe and other bluegrass groups sang hymns, he enjoyed hearing a quartet of gospel singers called the Harvesters, and he found inspiration in the gospel singing of African-American choirs from North Wilkesboro and Boone. He’d heard other groups at gospel sings that he’d attended do hymns from a songbook put out by a music company in Tennessee. That songbook was no Southern Harmony or Broadman hymnal, but, instead, a blending of old standbys and the latest hits: “Turn Your Radio On,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “Keep on the Sunny Side,” and others. Later, he would buy sheet music, having been led to that format because he 110

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE loved George Beverly Shay’s rendition of “How Great Thou Art” and because he wanted to bring to Laurel Springs some songs he’d liked at so-called “all-night gospel singings,” where he listened in rapt attention to the singing of touring gospel singers, mostly quartets. With one or more of his children and a couple of his friends, he piled into a car and drove to Hickory, Winston-Salem, or some other nearby town to attend these “all-nighters,” which usually would last until sometime between midnight and 1:00 a.m. These singings pumped him up, gave him fresh materials, and made him wish that his choir would shape up. His prospects for changing the choir were slight. If he were to have something a bit more disciplined, it would have to be smaller, to be carefully selected. He hit upon the idea of forming a quartet. His earliest choices for that select group were, besides himself, his sister Mae, alto, Minnie Nichols Wellborn, soprano, Big Joe Coffey, bass. He was glad to get back to the tenor line, since as choir leader, he had to do the soprano line at an octave lower than all the sopranos. The ones he chose had shown some knowledge of music, especially the handling of shape notes, and they were able to listen to each other. Perhaps best of all, they were willing to put in a little rehearsal time. Their little practice made a difference, not such a difference that the Laurel Springs Quartet would have been offered a recording contract. Instead, invitations from neighboring churches came in for the group to sing at revivals, funerals, and Sunday afternoon singings (events sponsored by churches in the area and featuring invited singers from Wilkes, Avery, Ashe, Caldwell, or other nearby counties). The quartet as first constituted was short-lived. Minnie moved away to Millers Creek. Big Joe, to the chagrin of many Laurel Springs Christians, loved amateur baseball far better than he did amateur singing. He went to games on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday afternoons. Saturday games were not sinful, but Sunday’s were, and reason enough, thought some, to church Deacon Coffey. Though there was talk of churching him, the matter never came to a vote, for he was a pillar of the church, a deacon, secretary, Sunday school teacher, and tither. Lane loved baseball himself, but he needed a bass he could count on. Minnie he replaced with my brother Jim, whose young tenor could be stretched to reach the soprano line. I came off the back bench of basses to sub for Joe and finally replaced him altogether. With everyone in the group of the same blood line, we began to think of ourselves as the Idol Quartet. By the time I joined the line-up, my sister, Joyce, had advanced far enough in her piano studies to accompany us. 111

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Practice was not such a tough matter now, for everyone except Aunt Mae lived under the same roof. She usually spent much of her Sunday afternoons under that roof, for Lane insisted that she and her family come have Sunday dinner with us. (He expected Annie to have dinner on the table when the church crowd came rolling in Aunt Mae, Uncle Rad, and their three kids, Aunt Snow and Uncle Herman, and Rufus, who rarely stayed to eat since he’d promised Nancy that he’d come back to eat dinner with her.) Before the dinner dishes were stacked, Lane rounded up his quartet in the living room and began singing, turning to his newest songbook from Stamps and trying out new pieces. Sometimes Ed Hamby, who attended church in Stoney Fork but who lived close by, dropped in to join the quartet. He had shape note singing down pat and poured forth his joy in one of the richest bass voices I’d ever heard. If Lane could have bumped me, I’m sure he would have, but Ed could not be swayed from his allegiance to Stoney Fork Baptist. A gracious man, Ed helped me over many tough spots by sounding out the notes for me. His do-re-mi ’s were always on the money; mine were sometimes flat. When our voices grew hoarse and Joyce’s fingers tired, we ended our impromptu rehearsal. Out of them came new songs to share at Laurel Springs or to carry to other churches when we attended Sunday afternoon singings. Lane and Bill Day brought many new songs to Laurel Springs when Bill directed the choir. Often, about dusk, Bill would drive up in his black roadster, greet the family, and then pull out a new songbook just in from Tennessee. Then he and Lane would work their way through several songs before settling on one they’d ask the choir to tackle later.) We were now the Idol Quartet, stiff and unshowmanlike in our performance, but musically more adept than any group that had come out of Laurel Springs. We still loafed a bit in our attacks and didn’t always listen close enough to have a true balance, for Aunt Mae’s alto sometimes overpowered the other voices and my bass lacked the power to make the low notes really come through. Despite our failings, Lane wanted the Idol Quartet to make a name for itself. He was happy to get invitations, and, no doubt, he would have been happier to be called by a recording company. He accepted all the invitations he could, taking pride in being asked to sing. His dream of lifting us higher abruptly ended when I enlisted in the Air Force. There was not another member of the Idol Family except Rufus who could sing the bass line. The group would have to be Laurel 112

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Springs Quartet again, with Big Joe singing when he could (on those days when the Watauga County baseball league wasn’t in action). Following Joyce’s marriage and move to Clemmons, North Carolina, Lane found a new pianist in Betty Lois Watson and a new lead singer in Bob. This quartet stayed together longest and sang to many more audiences than any previous line-up had. At the invitation of former pastor Donald Wilson, now working for the Three Forks Baptist Association, the newly constituted quartet had many engagements, none for pay but all for the joy of singing and for the pleasure of hearing other groups perform. Pressed as he was for money, he nonetheless occasionally stretched it far enough to buy tickets for himself and his sons for concerts at Deep Gap Elementary School by touring country singers. Shaved and scrubbed after a day on the job, he led us to the schoolhouse and enjoyed the picking and singing of some of his favorites: “I’m Walking the Floor Over You,” “Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait,” “The Tennessee Waltz,” “Ol’ Joe Clark,” “Good Ol’ Mountain Dew.” As much as he enjoyed the bands that played in Deep Gap, nothing measured up to a performance of Bill Monroe. When he heard that Bill Monroe would appear at the courthouse in Boone, he said, “We mustn’t miss him. He’s the best.” He pinched his pennies until Lincoln cried “Uncle,” but when Bill Monroe rolled into Boone and took the stage, Lane was there to drink in “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and other Monroe hits. “What a picker and singer he is,” Lane said as we made our way out of the crowded courtroom. There ain’t nobody better.” I would have agreed with him but for an experience that Lane never had—hearing Doc Watson pick and sing at Deep Gap Elementary School. Among the good things we did there on Friday mornings was gathering in the auditorium to sing. We children loved “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” But rounds weren’t the only joyful noises we made. Stephen Foster occupied a warm spot in our hearts. We rambled off to Louisiana with banjoes on our knees, caring not a whit whether Susanna cried, we defied the strait-laced morals of the community by hurrying away to Camptown Races, and we grew slightly maudlin in our rendering of “Beautiful Dreamer.” Expectant looks spread across our faces as we sang “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” and we drifted off to Mexico or Spain when we lifted our voices to serenade Juanita. And of course our little rebel hearts reveled in the melody and lyrics of “Dixie.” Lost in song, we didn’t notice the drabness of the auditorium, its pine floors still oily 113

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. from the compound spread on it to help clean up the dirt and cinders tracked in from outside, its windows without drapes, its little stage without curtains, and its laminated seats losing their outer layer of veneer. A battered piano, banged repeatedly before and between classes by students playing “Chopsticks,” stood near the small stage. Urged on, however, by a teacher capable of playing it, the piano yielded up melodies for us to follow in the worn and grimy songbooks we held in hand. The heavenly choir couldn’t have been much happier with its hymns and hosts of accompanying harp players than we were on those Friday mornings when fractions and parts of speech gave way to song. Happy as we were to create our own entertainment, we were far more delighted by the pleasures of music when Doc Watson and Uncle Ben Miller came to perform for us. Doc was not yet famous, and many years would pass before he harvested the fame his talents so richly deserved. He was already the master of the guitar and the harmonica, even though he was scarcely ten years older than most of us in the sixth and seventh grade. Uncle Ben Miller (I refer to him by that title because he was the uncle of my grandmother Myrtie Miller Watson) was a country fiddler, and, in the idiom of Deep Gap, a “cut-up.” He played the fiddle behind his back, between his legs, above his head, and, sometimes, under his chin. As he and Doc played old-timey dance tunes, Uncle Ben bounced around the dwarfish stage as if he were a puppet in the Punch and Judy show. We laughed at his antics until our little sides hurt. Doc’s guitar and harmonica were unembarrassed accomplices in Ben’s comic capers. But Doc by himself was something else: a balladeer, a folk artist, a storyteller, a pop and blues singer. “Enthralling” would have been the word I would have used if my vocabulary had been what it is now. “Spellbinding” is another word I could have used. I know for certain that Doc kept us quiet, attentive, interested. We became involved in Frog’s courting adventures, in Frankie and Johnny’s misadventure, in John Henry’s heroic attempt to prove himself a steel-driving man. We practically pinched our noses when he asked, “Muskrat, oh muskrat, what makes you smell so bad?” In his voice, as needed for the songs he shared were drama, fun, anger, jollity, love, and faith. His songs were not from a worn and grimy songbook but from a living man, from whom music flowed captivatingly. 114

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE I don’t recall how many times Doc and Uncle Ben came to perform for us, and I’m sure the correct number would have little bearing when my memory confronted it. The important thing is that I was privileged to hear Doc sing and play and to have him authenticate, by his singing and playing, the beauty, mystery, and richness of Blue Ridge Mountain life. I’ll go to my grave thankful that he performed for us before he won the distinction of being a national treasure. The H-shaped, clapboard schoolhouse became too small and outmoded to serve Deep Gap and surrounding communities and suffered the indignity of conversion into a chicken house before being demolished. Still, memory carries me back to those glorious Friday mornings when Doc’s voice lifted our spirits and gave us pride in our heritage. For one of my classmates, Rosalee Carlton, Doc was to become her personal treasure, her husband, and she was to give the nation one of its greatest guitarists, Merle Watson. It pleases me to think that, as she sat listening to Doc, her enthrallment went immeasurably further than mine. Yet, be that as it may, Doc has been, and remains, one of the joys of my life. When I told Lane how happy I was to hear Doc and Uncle Ben perform, he said, “You’re a lucky boy. I’ve driven nails and hummed hymns on the job with Doc’s dad and brother. They’re all good folks, mighty good folks.” Doc and his family did Lane’s kind of music. Lane didn’t like classical music, especially the soprano arias of opera. “Such screeching I’ve never heard, and their voices wobble. What’s so pretty about that?” True, he’d never heard those sounds until I joined a music appreciation class at Appalachian High School and began to tune in the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons. Coming into the living room, where we had a console model Firestone radio, one with a vividly green tuning eye, he’d say sternly to me, “Turn off those cats, John. Why, my dogs sing better’n they do.” Inside and outside the house, his word was the law. Off the radio went. Fortunately, for my musical nurturing, my brother Ken bought a small table model Motorola for the room we shared. With volume kept low enough not to penetrate our bedroom door or walls, I listened to opera, Italian, German, French, preferring in the early stages of my introduction to that form the rich sounds of Puccini and Verdi. When I opened my bedroom door to go for water or a snack, he inevitably heard a soprano at the top of her register. “Close that door and shut Miss Linney up,” he demanded. (Miss Linney was a voice teacher at Appalachian State Teachers College as well as the choral director. Her singing was too 115

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. marked by vibrato wobbling in Dad’s terms and he hated to be reminded of how much he despised the sounds she made.) If he hated her singing, he enjoyed her ability as a pianist and choral director. He admired her quick reading of a new song, for she didn’t stumble as Joyce did when she faced a new piece of music. She could move right on with a piece. Lane was never one for dawdling and fumbling. He wanted things done right and quickly. He granted that she was “mighty good” at the piano, especially since she could show that the Laurel Springs piano had more in it than Helen Hardin or Joyce could get out of it. He gave ground, too, on his distaste of classical music when he went to hear Jim sing The Messiah with the ASTC chorus. He had trouble stomaching the soprano solos, but he felt good about Jim and other members of the chorus when they responded obediently to her baton. Here was someone who got young singers to do beautiful pieces together, with no whiny nasals and no footdragging. He had to hand it to her, he admitted, when it came to directing a chorus. “She’s good at it,” he said, “but fightin’ cats don’t make as much fuss as she does when she tries to sing.” He led the Laurel Springs choir, altogether, for more than seventeen years. During that stretch he worked with Connie Ray, my sister, Joyce, and Betty Lois Watson as pianists. He was there for Sunday morning services, for revivals, funerals, even those funerals for people who’d not lived in Deep Gap for decades and had no real claim, except kinship, to a burial spot in the church graveyard Those funerals cost him, for he had to take time off from work, time he wouldn’t be paid for. That meant he’d have to leave his job early, come home, shave, bathe, and dress to conduct the song service. For members of the church, the loss of pay he could accept, but he felt that he had been put upon by families who brought their dead back from Ohio, Florida, California (or wherever) for burial at Laurel Springs. He didn’t like it and few if any at Laurel Springs liked it, but at times of bereavement, a little Christian charity seemed the only acceptable response to families wanting to plant their kin in Deep Gap soil. When he decided that he’d directed the Laurel Springs choir long enough, a decision made with Jacob-like wrestlings but, perhaps, brought on sooner than it otherwise would have come because he had now started experiencing macular degeneration and needed enlarged pages to see notes and words well. He feared stumbling over notes and mumbling words he could but half see. He knew that a new leader had to be found. 116

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE And another son was standing in the wings, Bob, who had shown his singing talents early. His range enabled him to sing the lead part or reach down to help out the basses. Bob seemed a natural-born singer, having a feel for pitch, rhythm, and balance. Besides, he enjoyed going off to all-night sings and listening to the latest numbers by popular gospel ensembles, The Statesmen, The Blue Ridge Quartet, The Florida Boys, and other quartets and trios. (Bob took over the post and held it until his oldest son, Bobby, followed in family footsteps. Bob remained the director for over 15 years, beginning his tenure in the early 70s). Lane, meanwhile, resumed his place among the tenors, or perhaps I should say that he became the only tenor in the choir. On a few occasions he did step in for Bob when trips, sickness, or some other reason prevented his leading the chorus. He continued to sing with the choir until several months before his death, even though emphysema robbed him of breath and brought on the embarrassment of coughing spells. He didn’t want to put down his songbooks either. When Joyce lingered around long enough on a Sunday visit, he asked her to play for him and his boys and grandchildren, who gathered around him at the piano and moved from old favorites to some new composition that Lane wanted to learn. If Joyce didn’t come up from Clemmons, he stirred Michael, Bob’s younger son, to the piano, saying as he did so, “Let’s sing a few ones, younguns.” That practice was to continue until emphysema and lung cancer stopped his singing altogether. Even if he did wheeze and gasp for air during these sessions, he threw himself wholeheartedly into his singing, beaming appreciatively when everyone seemed to be getting the hang of a new song. The choir leader in him died hard, as he himself did with the pinched flow of air that made its way through his cancerous lungs and clogged throat. As his physician, who looked over him days before Lane died, remarked, Lane had a strong heart, one that wanted to keep on beating. But his much abused respiratory system—Lane smoked up to three packs of Camels or Winstons a day until his doctor found a spot on his lungs—took its revenge and essentially smothered him. We marveled that Lane could stop cold turkey on hearing that news and wanted to kick ourselves for not conspiring with his doctor to give a report of that nature years before the spot appeared. Our begging, pleading, and arguing had never fazed him, for he puffed away, taking quick, deep drafts of smoke and tossed away half-burned cigarettes. “How sinful, how wasteful!” Annie would say as she watched him light up one after another, take a few hearty puffs, and sling the butts away or half crush them in an ashtray, leaving them to smolder and fill the house with a foul odor. 117

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. He seemed not to enjoy smoking; it was not something done for relaxation. Cigarettes were a stimulant, a shot of nicotine to his system, a bother but a reliable pick-me-up, too. If he ever did find much pleasure in smoking, it came just after supper when his pace slowed for three or four minutes. In the last months of his illness, he spent many Sunday mornings in front of his television set, the channel switched to a station in Bristol, Virginia, that featured an hour or more of gospel singers, among them a good many that Lane had seen and heard in person. Seeing them was, for him, like meeting an old friend, differing only because he now felt free to comment on how they looked, stout or thin, well or puny, stuck-up or still humble. “Why, Naomi has put on another 20 pounds since I saw her a few years back in Winston-Salem; if she don’t watch out she’s gonna get too fat to breathe and that’s gonna kill her singing. But what a voice she had . . . still has. The Lord’s really blessed her.” During weekdays, he pulled many of his favorite gospel albums from his growing collection and loaded them on the spindle of his record player. Then he would lie back, close his eyes, and hum along with some and burst into song when one he loved and knew well came up. “What a group, what a song, what a blessing to hear!” If Joyce or some other piano player, usually Michael, dropped in, he’d seek out a hymnbook, hand it over opened to the page he wanted played, and hummed and sang as much as his faltering and oxygen-enriched lungs allowed. That song over, he’d say, “Play the one on page 45,” not bothering to give the title since he knew where his favorite pieces were to be found. Those songs, recorded or played live, often comforted him more than did the powerful painkillers he now had to take. In tribute to his love of getting everyone involved in singing, at his funeral, the family asked that everyone stand and sing together “Amazing Grace,” all the verses. Had his physical self been there, it would have heard a moving, heartfelt rendition, would have seen that there were few dry eyes in the congregation, would have felt that Laurel Springs was now hearing the sound he had worked so hard to reach.

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LANE AS FARMER Although he took up hammer, saw, and chisel to make his living when he found a job with his uncle Walter Greene, the husband of Nancy’s half-sister Ola, Lane could not keep shoes on his children’s feet or enough bread on the table without being a part-time farmer. He’d worn many a blister on his hands and hardened his muscles by helping Rufus tend his fields and by hiring himself out to neighbors when his dad could spare him. There was scarcely any money to be made on Rufus’ farm, since much of the arable land served as pasture and meadows. Rufus planted corn, potatoes, and buckwheat, kept an apple orchard, and proudly tended two Concord grapevines. He put out a few tobacco plants, just enough to supply his annual need of chewing tobacco, and helped Nancy with her vegetable garden. As I’ve recounted earlier, he peddled some of his unneeded produce in foothill towns. The meager income from his peddling trips was barely enough to cover the cost of his feed, seed, and fertilizer. He used fertilizer sparingly, depending mostly on manure to enrich his soil. His corn, consequently, never would have reached an elephant’s eye, his meadows were thin, and his pastureland had a yellowish cast. If his cows dropped bull calves, he kept them a few months and then sold them, and, when he butchered his hog, he prepared the hams and sides of bacon for sale knowing that he could bring in much needed cash for them. His yearly income could be measured in the hundreds and, even with frugal management, would have provided Lane with little more than pocket change if Rufus had split it with him. Lane looked elsewhere for money. He thought he might do better if he followed the lead of several Wataugans and went to Ohio to look for work. Nancy’s father, John Watson, had moved to Coshocton in the Buckeye State and would welcome his grandson. Lane packed a few belongings and headed north. Within a few days after receiving his grandfather’s greetings, he was back on a farm, this time a farmhand with a farmer named Barton, who had many acres of corn stretched out along the side of the Muskingum River. The rich bottomland there had rows that never seemed to end and yields Lane could scarcely believe. Rich as the soil was and bounteous as the yield, the Barton farm could boast of no cooling breezes or blanket-demanding summer nights, as the Blue Ridge frequently did. The job was a sweaty one, the workday long, and the pay little more than he needed for cigarettes. A hired man, he thought, could never get ahead in a job like this. The Bartons were good folk, and he didn’t mind giving them more than a full day’s 119

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. work, but there was no future in being a farmhand. He enjoyed running around weekends with his uncle Herb and his aunt Pearl, half-brother and half-sister to Nancy, but the coal-filled hills of Coshocton were no match for the hazy blues and greens of Deep Gap’s mountains. He longed to be home again. Among the lessons he carried back to Deep Gap was Mr. Barton’s practice of liberally fertilizing his crops. “Fertilizer will more than pay for itself,” Mr. Barton had pointed out when Lane expressed surprise at how much he used in planting and “dressing” his corn. (Dressing is a term designating the practice of spreading more fertilizer at or near the time the corn is laid-by, that is, hoed for the final time.) When Lane later had crops of his own, he said, “Don’t be stingy with the fertilizer; it will put more hay in the barn and more corn in the crib. It’s worth every cent you pay for it.” As proof he pointed to the fact that his cornfield usually yielded double that of Rufus per acre. Cornstalks in Lane’s fields were tall and thick and sported big ears of corn whereas those in Rufus’ field were short, thin, and lightly burdened with the ears of corn they bore, except where barnyard manure had been heavily spread. Lane didn’t have any land to till until the farm of Annie’s father, Jerry Watson, was parceled out to his heirs. Annie’s portion fronted US Highway 421 for about 150 yards and then took in a small apple orchard, fields covered with broom sedge, blackberry briars, chinquapins, some forested area covered in a mixture of hardwoods and white pine. About seventy feet of the frontage lay flush with the highway and headed a space of nearly an acre that might be called bottomland. At the back of this area, about a hundred yards from the highway, Lane built a four-room house, behind which ran a small stream fed by a spring and swelled by rains during summer downpours. (In the flood of August 1940, the stream leapt over its banks and swept under the house but never rose high enough to enter it.) As he could afford the supplies, Lane put up buildings needed on a farm. Beyond the stream were a building doing double duty as a woodshed and meat house, an outhouse, a pig lot, and a barn. Later a granary was added with a cellar for storage of apples, potatoes, and canned goods. All these structures were situated on a slight slope. Beyond the barn, the incline became steep and extended 500 yards before rounding off into a ridge. For Jerry Watson, this area had served as pasture land. To his regret, as I note later, Lane tried to do something else with it. In the still wooded portion lay the rotting remains of white pines and chestnuts, some of which must have had diameters well over a yard thick. The hearts of these virgin pine, when 120

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE sawn and split, cooked many a meal and warmed many a cold morning, and the hollowed-out oaks and chestnuts provided tunnels through which to crawl or homes, so we boys thought, for rabbits, foxes, and possums. Marking the boundary on the ridge was a split rail fence, in time reduced to ashes when it was sawn and fed into Annie’s cook stove. The rail fence was replaced by barbed wire, far better suited to keep cows from straying. The compact that Lane made with his cows, pigs, and, later, a horse, to feed them meant tilling as much soil as he possibly could after he’d marked off about half an acre for a garden some fifty feet west of the house. By tilling all the space in front of the house, except a narrow strip serving as a road, and a steep bank above the garden, he could put out something over two acres in corn. Such a small plot fell far short of growing the corn he needed for his family and livestock. He turned to the steep slope behind the barn for more corn, arranging with Rufus to have it turned over, harrowed, and laid off for planting. The space was ill fitted for anything but pasture, since it was split by a little valley that ran between two ribs of ancient Blue Ridge granite. The ribs were barely covered by topsoil. When rains fell, the water rolled from the two ribs and gathered in the depression, gaining speed and force as it rushed to the small stream below. Had Rufus not plowed the depression as well as the ribs, the result would not have been so ugly. A couple of frogstranglers made short work of the corn planted in the valley, pulling it up root and branch and cascading it down the mountain side. But not only corn was lost. Gone too, after these two cloud- bursts, was most of the soil in the depression. Some holes were three or four feet deep. We boys thought we had a canyon in the making, but it was not a pretty sight. Lane knew he must repair the damage quickly, else the cut would go even deeper. He assigned us the job of dragging in limbs lopped off pine trees, carrying or hauling rocks to throw in holes, and raking up leaves and briars—anything to slow the water and contain soil. It was a project that kept us busy for almost three years. Gradually, grass began to heal the wound and anchor the soil. After this one attempt to plant the hillside in corn, the area once more became pastureland. But it also was a play-lot for us boys and our friends, especially in winter when we pulled our sleds to the top and raced headlong towards the barn, swept through the gate just below it, swerved to miss the house on its east side, and ended our breath-taking ride at the highway—and not always there, for when snow covered the highway and halted wheeled traffic, we could coast a quarter of a mile down the highway to Deep 121

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Gap Elementary School. Had Lane known of this, he would have impounded our sleds, since the highway was off-limits. II The school was the site where Lane learned much about modern farming methods. Two activities drew him and his sons to the school for demonstrations, presentations, and discussions, some of the programs conducted by the North Carolina Extension Service through its farm agents, the others the result of programs organized by a chapter of the Grange which brought many people of the community together to learn how to be better farmers. The farm agents, led first by Harry Hamilton and followed by Woody Richardson and L. E. “Tuck” Tuckwiller, shared bulletins and pamphlets written at N. C. State, showed hundreds of transparencies, and told anecdotes about farm life. The pamphlets advocated such measures as crop rotation, strip farming, high-grade seed, soil testing, and the use of the proper fertilizer. The transparencies helped us to see how strip farming prevented the loss of topsoil during heavy rains and how the other means of good husbandry explained in the pamphlets and bulletins improved both production and the appearance of farms. Lane watched as the slides revealed how uneducated farmers made eyesores of their farms by abusing the land. He listened as one of the agents told the story of a high school boy who thumbed his way home one day, catching a ride with a man who talked about the appearance of farms as he drove along a country road. The driver praised farmers whose homes, barns, and fields looked good. As he approached the farm where the hitchhiker lived, he began to lament how some farmers took no pride in their places, permitting their barns and houses to rot and sag and letting their pastures and fields become covered in briars and weeds. The boy, ashamed to admit the driver was describing his passenger’s home, told him he lived on up the road and stopped him in front of a nice looking farm, where he got out and thanked him for the lift. Some years later, the storyteller continued, the lad, who had learned much from his activities in Future Farmers of America, once again was thumbing his way home. The same man who’d stopped for him years before rolled to a halt again and asked if he could take him home. “Yes, sir,” the boy said. Again the talkative stranger complimented good farmers as he drove along. This time there was a difference, however, for as the driver approached the boy’s home, the lad eagerly told him where he lived. 122

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE The scene was quite different this time: the house and barn had been repaired and painted, field and meadow sported well-fed livestock, and there was a look of prosperity about the place. As the car rolled to a stop, the boy proudly said, “Here’s where I live.” The parable was something Lane and his sons understood and didn’t demand a defense of coincidence or ask for the rest of the story. The story’s appeal to pride and better education helped, in its own quiet way, to transform the appearance of Deep Gap. Yet, for all its didacticism, it would have done little if the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration had not assisted farmers through programs enabling them to buy lime, fertilizer, farm implements, and seed with the government’s help. Democrats in Deep Gap, the few families of them that lived among the staunch Republicans that held the upper-hand in elections, warmly praised Roosevelt, insisting to their Republican neighbors, “You know Roosevelt’s made all the difference; just think of what Deep Gap looked like before he took over nothin’ but briars, chinquapins, gulleys, cattle with their ribs stickin’ out their hides, and horse’s thin as paper. You know very well you didn’t have a dime when Hoover was in the White House, and now your wife and children can wear somethin’ to church that ain’t made out of flour sacks. I reckon you orta be mighty happy ‘bout that.” Lane and Annie learned to fill out forms for assistance with lime and fertilizer. Lane began to practice strip farming and never tried another crop of corn on the steep hillside beyond the barn, although he did clear off an acre or so of the woodland near the top of the fill for a potato patch and a second garden. It took only one growing season to show him that he’d simply made life easier (and safer) for rabbits, for they feasted on his beans, carrots, corn, and lettuce. Lane knew that his few acres could not supply the food his family and livestock needed. To solve his shortage, he turned first to sharecropping, renting about three acres of bottomland that lay across US 421 from his farm. The piece belonged to Raleigh Greer and had served him as pastureland or rental property. For some years, it had been rented as a cabbage patch. During that time Johnson grass had infested nearly half of it. That was a condition that Lane hadn’t given thought to when he arranged to use it for a corn-patch. Rufus turned the soil over for him and noted how hard his horses strained when they tugged the plow through the infested area. “You boys are goin’ to have a big fight on your hands when you hoe in here,” he said as he stomped on a furrow still held vertical by the wiry roots of the grass. “This soil 123

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. just won’t crumble down; you gotta smack it down, but it will get back up by the time you fellers start hoein.’ You mark my words.” He was right. It was back up and ready to fight when hoeing time came. Lane led his crew through the infested patch with as much encouragement as he could muster. “Dig hard, chop it up, and pull it out,” he told us when he first came across it, attacking it fiercely by way of example. His hoe bounced back like he’d struck a tightly strung coil of barbed wire. He struck again, harder this time, his hoe rebounding higher. For a third time, and with mightier effort, he chopped down, with only slightly better result, for this time his hoe cut through a root or two, the blade becoming wedged between the cut fibers and the coils of vegetable wire that remained intact. He yanked on his hoe, pulling the cut fibers from beneath the soil as he freed the blade. Some beads of sweat ran down his face, escaping from his hatband. “Now watch as I show you what to do.” He separated the short, yellowish wires from the soil and flung them out of the corn-patch. “They’ll just grow back,” he said, “if you leave them in the corn rows.” He told us to return to our own rows and really bear down. “You can git that stuff out if you hit it hard enough.” He’d shown us that it could be done at least by an adult with an arm made powerful by years of swinging a hammer and wielding a saw. Neither our bulk nor muscles proved a match for Johnson grass, at least for its roots. When well sharpened, the blades of our hoes sheared the spears of grass competing for food, sun, and rain with the corn, but we knew that upon our return to the field, the spears would be as thick as ever and the roots more tightly coiled in seeming acts of defiance. Johnson grass took our measure and found us puny. Even Lane resorted to shearing since digging up even a small patch of it was the work of hours. Lane well earned the bushels of corn he harvested from Raleigh’s fertile bottomland. Despite the sapping hunger of Johnson grass, the fertilizer Lane added to Raleigh’s bottom produced corn much higher than an elephant’s eye. Giraffes could have comfortably munched on its tassels. “Why, some of them stalks are as tall as Mr. Barton grew them in Ohio,” Lane bragged. “And look at how long some of them ears are, more’n a foot long, some of ‘em.” III When shucking time came, we forgot about the hot summer days when Johnson grass transformed us into weaklings. Lane spoke 124

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE to Rufus, Myrtie, Uncle Fred and his daughters and made a deal to trade shucking days. If they helped us, we’d show up at their shucking, except for Myrtie, who had no corn patch beyond the sweet corn she’d plucked and canned earlier. These shuckings blistered our thumbs and exhausted our backs and arms before a day’s work was finished, but they were fun. Gathered around shocks that had been hauled together and stacked near the center of the corn-patch were our cousins, Betty, Virginia, Mary Sue, and Ruby, Fred’s daughters; Myrtie, our maternal granny; Rufus, our paternal grandfather, and Lane and six of his sons—Steve having been born too late to form part of the crew. As frosty morning air gave way to the warmth of a cornstalk-fed fire or the brightening rays of the sun, we ran forefinger-mounted shuckers (made of whittled locust limbs) into the shucks and began peeling them back. These shuckers were sharp instruments and glistened from years of body oil and much use. The whittled locust was stuck through a piece of old leather, which had enough play for a finger to fit into it. Held firmly and jabbed at just the right angle, the shucker ripped open a patch of shucks, which then could be torn from the cob and pitched to one side as the corn was tossed into a pile located in the middle of the encircling crew. The work might have been dull and indeed often was except for the banter, teasing, and games that went on as we shucked. The game we liked best was one in which we reaped rewards for finding red, black, white ears of corn. Most of it was golden yellow. The finder of a different colored ear could claim a prize, often a buss on the cheek. “Now, Jim, you git a chance to kiss Ruby.” “No, not Ruby; John kissed her when he found a red ear. It’s somebody’s else’s turn,” several voices shouted at once. “Kiss Sue, it’s her turn” said someone else. “No, it ain’t,” shouted more voices. “Isabella’s been here all morning an’ ain’t been kissed once.” Isabella was Myrtie’s friend and much sought out at harvest time because she was a hard worker, especially good at shucking. Her wizened, wrinkled face had greeted far too many days on Deep Gap farms to have a smooth place to plant a kiss. Except for the traces of snuff and chewing tobacco that spilled from her lips onto her pointed chin, her face could have passed for an oversized corn shuck. “Kiss, Isabella, Jim it’s her turn. Go on!” Like the rest of us, he shrank back, and found the glowing cheek of one of the Greer girls, an act that Isabella took good-naturedly. “Well, Jim, you’re never gonna find out how sweet a kiss can be. Ain’t nothing sweeter than a kiss sweetened up with Scotch Sweet Snuff.” 125

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. We cheered her good humor and shouted, “Learn from your mistakes, Jim.” He laughed along with us as he settled back to his callus-making chore of shucking corn. IV Good as the yield was from Raleigh’s bottomland, Lane wasn’t happy seeing half of his crop end up in Raleigh’s granary, for that was his agreement to rent the field. “If I had some more land of my own, I wouldn’t have to give a bushel and take a bushel,” he said. “But I can’t pasture my cows and horse and still have space for more corn. About all I can raise on that new-ground is spuds, for rabbits, crows, and coons take a big bite out of everything else I put out there.” Rufus mulled Lane’s comments over and later came back with a plan: he’d give Lane a piece of his farm, some four or five acres of mountain-top property used as pasture. The soil was not as good as Raleigh’s bottom-land, good only for dewberries, rabbit tobacco, sedge, wild strawberries, Spanish nettles, and scattered clumps of clover where cow turds lay. Near the fencerows, colonies of blackberry briars threatened to advance farther and take over the mountain- top. The only spot that regularly got attention from Rufus was the family graveyard at the northern end of the mountaintop field. Here rested his father, mother, three sisters, a brother, a daughter, and a few nieces and nephews. Much work would be needed to make the soil ready for corn and potatoes, but Lane had a crew of steady farm hands, his sons, and the habit of broadcasting fertilizer like it was the cheapest thing on earth. The more Rufus thought of the idea, the more he realized it was the right thing to do, but before he acted he’d have to check with Lane’s sisters, Snow and Mae, and see if they would approve of his plan. They were heirs, too, and would expect a fair share of his property. When they said, “Yes, that ‘s fine with us,” Rufus and Nancy deeded the mountaintop to Lane, an area amounting to 5 3⁄4 acres.(The date of the deed is 1946.) Lane immediately began to prepare it for corn and potatoes, putting up a fence, clearing out briars, chopping down chinquapins, and deciding where he’d plant potatoes, where he’d put his patch of corn. But first he’d need permission to cross a short stretch of neighbor Cliff Ray’s property, for the mountain-top parcel lay two hundred yards or more from the northernmost edge of the land that Annie had inherited. He came to an understanding—nothing put in writing—with Cliff and opened a gap in a fence, cleared out a few trees, and then followed an old logging road to his own acreage. He was now a man of property in his own right. No longer would he do sharecropping. No 126

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE longer would he have to fight Johnson grass, but briars were another story. The mountaintop lay perhaps 3,300 feet above sea level at its highest point, the family graveyard. From its backbone his property sloped slightly on its northern and western sides, fairly sharply on its eastern and southern sides. A small depression cut through a portion of it, running towards land owned by Arthur Greene and providing an outlet for a spring among rhododendron bushes a hundred feet or so on the Greene side. The cool water from this sunless spring wet many thirsty throats over the years. As winter ended and Rufus found time to plow and harrow the field, Lane started preparing to plant potatoes, selecting a flat stretch of land close to the southern slope. Off to his potato bin he went, sons in tow, and sliced several bushes of potatoes, some of them beginning to wrinkle and shoot out sprouts as spring approached. Slicing was a messy job, the sticky juice of potatoes combining with lingering dirt and dust to coat fingers and palms with a grimy glove. The job of slicing them went swiftly since so many hands and knives took part. Out of the wind and cold and amidst the shelves of canned goods that Annie had remaining, we had no gripes about this phase of the planting season. The cause of our complaints lay elsewhere—on the blustery winds that whipped across Idol Mountain as we dropped the sliced potatoes into furrows and on the flurries that sometimes rode on these penetrating winds. Planting spuds was something not easily done with gloves, for they would come off readily when we slipped our hands into the pocket of an apron fashioned from burlap sacks for a slice to plant. Even if they stayed on, they would have been little protection from the cold, since juice would have soaked them and chilled our icy fingers even more. We’d have to tough it out, we found, getting chillier and dirtier by the moment as we worked. But Lane, on the coldest of our planting days, stopped our griping by building a fire and letting us warm our hands from time to time. For reasons the rest of us never fully understood, Jim always dropped more potatoes than anyone else. Perhaps, he was the eagerest to warm his hands. When it came time to help Rufus plant his spuds, we could not look forward to the comfort of a fire. He was as tough as a locust post, we knew, and expected his grandsons to be hardy. We were comforted by the fact that his potato patch was always smaller than Lane’s. Potatoes were a cash crop for Rufus, but he gave most of his land to corn and pasture, since selling calves and butter were better sources of income. 127

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Lane also planted more corn than potatoes, for he too needed fodder and chop for his livestock and cornmeal for his family. The planting season for corn was later than for potatoes, and preparation was far easier, especially after Lane bought a corn sheller. He looked through his corn bin, chose the best ears he could find, and supervised the shelling as we boys took turns cranking the sheller, happy to see its wheel spin and to watch the yellow grains of corn fill up bucket after bucket. Sometimes, when he’d heard that a new strain of corn had come on the market and would likely increase his yield, Lane bought a bag of seed corn and tried it. Since Rufus and Lane had corn planters, the job of dropping seeds fell to one man or boy at a time. Lane, and later Bill, usually manned the planter in our field. Rufus did his own planting. The rest of us got involved in planting only after the corn had sprouted. Depending on how much crows had eaten, replanting was not a hard job, mainly a boring one. Lane showed us how to dig a hole with a corner of our hoes and then drop two or three grains of corn in it. For those stretches where corn was peeping through, we covered ground quickly. Near the edges of the patch and close to trees where crows pilfered their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we had more work to do, for only a few grains had escaped their hungry gullets. Scarecrows rarely kept the wise old feasters away, but repeated planting usually fed their craws and provided for a decent stand of corn. Sometimes, we boys carried this redundancy too far, for we’d empty handfuls of grains into holes and marvel, later, at the thick cluster of tiny blades asking for space in the sun. That practice came not so much from budding interests in biology as from pure laziness, for we wanted to be able to report that, “Yeah, we done all the replantin’ and used up all the seed.” Biology gave us away, of course, and we had to return to the patch and do things right. So much for laziness, we reckoned. Figure some other way to goof off that won’t tattletale on us, we agreed. Lollygagging was something that neither Lane nor Rufus could abide. As Annie described their work habits, “They done all their work like men a-fightin’ fire.” They kept a swift, steady pace, knocking off for breathers only for lunch and a round of water midmorning and mid-afternoon. “They work circles ‘round a feller,” Myrtie said after trying to keep up with them while hoeing a corn patch. Indeed, they would often circle back to catch up the slowpokes amongst us. I was the undisputed laggard in the bunch, unless Nancy happened to be in the field with us. Like Nancy, I couldn’t give a stalk of corn “a lick and a promise” but instead worked up the area around a stalk until it was free of weeds and puny neighbors. My practice in the cornfield was too much like mine in the 128

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE potato patch: I tried to raise a little mound of dirt around each stalk, thinking, for some reason, that the roots would fare better if I gave the stalk a lot of dirt to feed on. The explanation for my laggardness among my siblings was that I was too lazy to keep up and intentionally waited for Lane or Rufus to catch me up. Like Nancy, I was slow and steady, and that work habit has remained to this day. Being a turtle among hares has its cost, mostly in teasing. “Molasses in January would whip you by a country mile,” Rufus would announce as he caught me up. He knew better than say this to Nancy, for he had learned that her pace, to her, was no joking matter. Perhaps I could be taught to keep pace; she was so “sot” in her ways that no teasing would ever change her. Lane said little about my pace, having seen its like from childhood when Nancy took up hoe or pitchfork. Lane surely must have hoped that one day I’d hoe out a row of corn as swiftly as he and my siblings did, but that day never came. Given a fresh start, I’d soon fall behind and would have to be caught up again. “You and your grandmother are like two peas in a pod,” he said, and resigned himself to catching me up whether I was hoeing corn, potatoes, or beans. “Johnny’s just slow,” he said by way of explanation to my brothers, “but he comes by it natural.” I didn’t like being called “slow” but the shoe fit snugly and no amount of will power or effort ever changed it. Had the adjective been meant to describe my mental state, I would have been deeply wounded, but we all realized that my motor skills had a genetic link to Nancy: some people just work like they’re fightin’ fire, and some don’t. “There ain’t much a feller can change when Ma Nature says you’re goin’ to be this way or that way,” Lane remarked. “We might as well get used to Johnny laggin’ behind.” Tradition dictated that corn be cultivated three times before it was “laid by.” That meant hitching a horse to a cultivator and gathering up a crew with hoes to move across the corn patch after the horse and cultivator had loosened the soil. Rufus, Lane, and, later, Bill, manned the cultivator, trailing along after Ol’ Joe or Dan and making sure that the cultivator stayed in the middle of a row. The hoeing crew waited until enough rows equaling its number had been cultivated and then began chopping, attacking weeds, briars, or lingering grass, thinning out shoots of corn growing too closely together, and reseeding areas where corn hadn’t sprouted or been eaten by crows. The cultivator tore loose most of the weeds, grass, and briars between rows. The choppers had to take care of anything remaining, doing so with sharpened blades, being careful as they swiped not to shear off the most promising looking shoots of corn. When grass, weeds, or briars had been cleared away, 129

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. they pulled some of the upturned soil around the roots of the corn stalk. During the first hoeing, they didn’t have to worry about injuring the root system. Later hoeings demanded care that the root system be left unharmed, at least by the hoers. The third hoeing, which usually came when corn stood waist high or higher, presented a challenge. In order to remove competing growth the hoer had to deliver wellaimed blows to weeds or briars, usually with the blade tilted to one edge. If roots were so well established that that maneuver imperiled them, then the hoer had no choice but to yank the offending weed or briar up by its roots. The object to hoeing was not only to remove competing vegetation but to leave a field clean and the growing corn free of suckers. As Lane and Rufus handled growing a field of corn, it was a labor-intensive operation. We all earned our bread by the sweat of our brows. Dan and Ol’ Joe earned every ear fed to them.. With the third hoeing came two additional chores: dressing the corn and spreading grass seed. For Lane these were important steps. “Dressing” meant taking up buckets of fertilizer and walking down each row and broadcasting handfuls of it as we walked along. This additional fertilizer, Lane explained, would help grow bigger, fuller ears of corn. The grass seed, a mixture of red clover and meadow grasses such as “dogfoot” or timothy, would help control erosion and enrich the soil for next year’s crops. The name “dogfoot” came about because of the shape of the blossom heads at the tips of blades of a meadow grass that grew especially well in the Blue Ridge. When Lane no longer planted corn in his mountaintop field, these grasses pastured the beef cattle he raised to supplement his income after he retired from carpentry. Wrapping up the third hoeing meant that the corn was “laid by.” It was a time to rejoice, for me and my siblings. No more digging under a blazing sun, no more stooping and bending except when we returned to the field to pull off suckers or pinch off dried corn silk for the stuff of homemade cigarettes. A chain-smoker until three years before his death, Lane set an example for his sons, although he didn’t put us on to corn silk as a substitute for tobacco. That practice we learned elsewhere. We tried making a corn silk cigarette with the rolling paper Lane used when he fashioned his own cigarettes from cans of Prince Albert. Our unskilled fingers and the instability of the silk led us to other paper, bigger paper, usually torn from the brown paper pokes from grocery stores. A rectangular piece of brown paper perhaps four by six inches worked very well since a fairly good-sized wad of corn silk could be entrapped within it. Held firmly between thumb and index finger, a corn silk cigarette could be lit, puffed on 130

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE in soft draws, since flames would erupt and fill the air with the foul smell of brown paper and corn silk if the draw were too strong, and passed around for a drag or two by accomplice siblings. The smoke neither smelled nor tasted like that from tobacco, being free of any of the additives that give tobacco its savory odor and taste. It was rather a sickening sweet and seemed to cling to the mouth and tongue for hours. It was a poor substitute for rabbit tobacco, a plant we found growing in Rufus’ pastureland. What a botanist called the plant we never knew. It grew to be a foot or fifteen inches tall, with clusters of oblong leaves spreading from its slender stem. In the growing season the leaves were a silvery green; following frost, they curled in upon themselves, those from earlier seasons still clinging to the stalk. This older growth is what we plucked, for nature’s curing process made it combustible. These dried leaves could be crumbled or crushed and in that compacted state rolled in commercially produced cigarette paper. Rabbit tobacco burned far more slowly than corn silks and presented far less danger of having lips, eyebrows, and face singed by bursts of flame. Both taste and smell were agreeable, at least for three or four puffs. Short as our pleasure was, it was satisfying enough to show us why Lane and others smoked. Had it not been for all the work involved in gathering the leaves and rolling them, we might have become habitual smokers of rabbit tobacco. I don’t remember getting a rush of any sort from it. It never made me dizzy as real tobacco was later to do. If it had harmful qualities we never knew. It was just there to be enjoyed on the sly and as a way to act “growed-up.” After laying-by the corn, Lane returned to see how ears were forming and whether he could remove any late-forming suckers. The next critical moment would be to watch the weather, for he wanted to cut and shock the corn before the first frost. Frost would burn blades to a crisp and thereby spoil them as fodder for his cattle. Weather news not being what it is now (2004), Lane watched for signs of cold weather the migration of birds, the bite in night or morning air, the color of the sky, and the absence or presence of rings around the moon. He also glanced at a farmers’ almanac or asked Rufus when to expect frost. He always beat the first killing frost by a week or more. Getting the jump on Jack Frost ensured gathering much-prized fodder for our cattle. If Lane waited until a killing frost, blades would be turned black, brittle, and unharvestable, besides being inedible. When, after shucking, the stalks were hauled to the barnyard and bundles of them were spread before the cows, they were devoured hungrily. To see them tear into the bundles was a treat for us, since they pushed, 131

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. shoved, butted, and behaved more like pigs when stalks were tossed out to them. Their porcine behavior cost them a good deal of their usual bovine dignity. As in the case of many hungry humans, they forgot their manners when goodies were passed out. They fought over their feast. Their battling was a harmless amusement for us, but a few of the cows must have suffered sore ribs and bruised heads after a few rounds of shoving and butting. They battled more intensely when, for the two years we grew sugar cane during WWII, we fed them bundles of blades harvested from the cane-patch. Humans, obviously, are not alone in liking the taste of sugar. The cattle had one habit that was in no way amusing to us. Even as they were stripping the stalks clean, they befouled them, a practice that made cleaning the barnyard of beshitten stalks a nasty chore. Try as we would to balance turd-covered stalks on the prongs of pitchforks, we usually chose to grab hold of the befouled stalks in order to speed our work so we could get on with some sport or game. We’d fling them on the bed of our wagon or sled and carry them off to fill in some eroded spot above the barn. Ridding the barnyard of them ranked near the top of our hated chores, mucking out the stables being the worst of them. The muck often contained even fouler cornstalks than the ones in the barnyard since cattle that had been given stalks in their mangers pulled parts of the stalks through the manger bars and trampled them in with the rest of their beshitted bedding. Before the cattle could enjoy or befoul the stalks, the corn had to be cut. To prepare for that task, Lane sharpened home-crafted corncutters, devices that had blades six or more inches long fastened to a sturdy handle of oak or hickory about thirty inches long. The blades sometimes were recycled butcher knives, but, more often, they were crafted from some broken crosscut saw, a portion of which was taken to a welder to be cut into strips of metal 2 inches by 6 inches. A strip was then attached to a handle, which was split far enough at the bottom to accept the steel. The split was then closed by nails and bands of metal or leather or by tightly wound wire. The secured blade was then taken to a grinding stone and sharpened. Corn-cutters left over from earlier years were file-sharpened before the cutting began. Once in the field, Lane pulled a whetstone from his bib pocket and renewed the edge of a cutter. Depending on the size of crew available to cut the corn, Lane sometimes borrowed corn-cutters from neighbors. Nearly everyone in Deep Gap had one, in many instances ancient ones used by parents and grandparents, the blade worn to a concavity like any frequently used 132

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE knife-blade. When we came to the corn-patch, Lane showed any new crewmember among us how to use the cutter. “Grip the cutter firmly in one hand while you take hold of the stalk you want to cut with the other hand. Then move the cutter blade to a spot about a foot or more from the roots of the stalk and turn the blade to an angle. Then pull upward swiftly. Don’t turn loose of the stalk. Hang onto it, go on to the next stalk in your row, and cut as many as you can hold. Then take ‘em to the nearest shock.” The new crew member quickly saw how to slash a stalk, leaving behind a stump if the blade cut cleanly through before the roots gave way. In the Johnson grass-infested corn patch of Raleigh Greer, the corn stalks stood their ground. In the looser soil of Idol Mountain, a stalk under attack often came up, root and all, spreading dirt down boot or brogan and forcing the gatherer to complete the job of cutting by stepping on the base of the uprooted stalk, wedging the cutter beneath the stalk, and jerking upward angrily, since dirt in boot or brogan gives rise to no stars in a cutter’s heavenly crown. Had the Idol boys not been the sons of a deacon, they might have uttered their curses aloud. If every stalk had been uprooted during this time, another chore would have been left off their duty roster, for, before the field could be plowed again, Lane sent his sons back to the corn patch to chop off the remaining stumps and clear them from the field. Slow to decay and a nuisance at next planting, the stumps had to be removed, usually when the ground was frozen and a stoutly wielded hoe could bring them down. The stumps were to be deposited in some eroded spot or piled to be burnt. They were welcome fuel on those icy, blustery, finger-numbing days when potato planting was on the duty roster. As the cutting crew moved, row by row, across the cornfield, they stacked the stalks in shocks, making sure that the shock was no larger in diameter near the top than the length of a tall stalk, for to prevent the wind from blowing stalks down or gravity from returning them to Mother Earth, Lane wrapped two sturdy stalks around the shock, just beneath the tassels, and intertwined encircling bottom of stalk to the tassel end to make a kind of bracelet. If the chosen stalks broke or the supply of sturdy ones fell short, he then wrapped shocks with twine made of burlap fibers. The twine could be pulled much tighter than the stalks, but the tightness came at a price, for the rough fiber of burlap twine sawed our hands raw if we allowed it to slip as we tugged to make the bracelet tight. We learned to wrap the twine around our fingers a few times before pulling the line taut, but that practice had its hazards, too, for hard tugging cut off circulation to the fingers and left them feeling numb for a few seconds after we’d helped tie a shock. 133

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. To our eyes, the rows of shocks looked like a settlement where dwarfish Indians had raised their miniature teepees. If they were not to be homes for some pigmy tribe of Native Americans, they nonetheless provided temporary shelter for us on cold, windy days when we crossed the corn-patch on our way from our house to Rufus’ for butter or eggs. To escape cold blasts of wind, we pushed stalks aside and crawled inside a shock on the downwind side. Thus sheltered, our body heat eventually thawed our fingers, noses, and ears. They also served as hiding places if we wanted to surprise someone in our games of cowboys and Indians with our friends, Brook and Kent Greer and C. B. and Newland Watson. We were unhappy when the shocks were later gathered in huge clusters for huskings, since our shelters and hideouts were lost in the move. I’ve already described a husking and will here add only some words about making a stack of stalks following husking. Those stalks not immediately taken to the barnyard were gathered up and stacked, like hay, around a post, usually one between 15 and 20 feet tall. If carefully stacked, the stalks shed water and thereby escaped molding and could be fed to the cattle later. They had the appearance of a haystack with exposed ribs or spines, rough affairs to be sure. But they had value as fodder, a fact that my older brother, Ken, learned when he accidentally set one ablaze with a firecracker one day. As he went towards Uncle Fred’s house, he shielded himself from the wind behind a stack of corn stalks belonging to Uncle Walt. He needed protection from the wind to light a firecracker. Pressing himself close to the stack, he put match to firecracker. The wind had other plans for the flame, however, and pushed it into the stack and fanned it into a blazing roar. The stack was too far from our house, some 200 yards or more, for Ken and the rest of us to run back for water. The stack was gone in moments. Only a blackened pole remained. Annie watched the fire from our front yard, concerned mostly with the safety of her children. But she knew that the family would have to pay Uncle Walt for his loss. The concern that Ken and the others of us would ordinarily have had at the moment was how Lane would take the news. We had tasted hickory tea often for our “foolishness” and feared his switch or belt, for he was not one to spare it if he found us guilty. A trial, if any, and punishment, if justified in this case, would come later, for Lane would not be coming home to hear the news of the conflagration on the day the stack went up in smoke. He was working in Roxboro on a wartime building project for which Uncle Walt had won a contract and would not be home until the weekend. Until then, Ken would have to stew, hoping that Lane would spare the rod. Paying Uncle Walt would 134

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE be fair and just, Ken thought, and he was eager to begin settling his debt as soon as he knew how much he owed. He could pick up odd jobs as a farm hand, helping hoe some neighbor’s corn, cabbage, or beans, stacking hay, milking cows, anything, just so long as he could earn a nickel, dime, or quarter here or there. Annie favored this plan, and Lane, after a round of mild tongue-lashing (“You know better than to play with firecrackers, young man. You could have hurt yourself, lost a finger or eye, or put out the eyes of one of your brothers. Never do anything that stupid again”), Lane told Ken he’d ask Uncle Walt to price the stack. “You’re gonna have to pay him ever’ red cent yourself.” “I’ll do it, ever’ penny of it,” said Ken, tears of relief streaming down his cheeks. It was at this moment that Ken entered into the world of adults, for he became a wage earner and added on to his chores at home as much work as he could find in Deep Gap. He paid his debt, a sum fixed at $12.00 by doing odd jobs around Uncle Walt’s yard, barn, and house. More valuable than stalks were the golden ears of corn brought into the bins in the granary, located between our house and the barn. They could be fed to Ol’ Joe as they were, but the cows lacked his kernel-crunching prowess and needed to have their corn ground. Joe liked the taste of meal, too, and earned the right to more than any cow on the farm, truth be told. In that symbiotic bond that links man and his domesticated animals, there was more work ahead for us—going to the bins, picking out ears to be shelled, and then feeding them into the corn-sheller until we had a load of shelled corn to carry to a miller. Revving up the flywheel of the corn-sheller was fun for the first few minutes and even for the first two of three bushels of grain. After that, turning the handle became work, muscle-tiring work, sweaty work, brain-numbing work. Plain work, in short, a task we’d gladly trade for chopping wood or sawing logs. Once the corn was shelled, fun was in store, since we would go to a nearby miller with Rufus. He asked us to help him shell and load his corn on his farm wagon, a sturdy rig with a green bed and faded red spokes in its wheels. It was the most expensive piece of farm equipment he owned except for the mowing machine. And he took good care of it. He then hitched the horses to the wagon and headed for Lane’s to collect his sacks of corn. Riding the wagon, getting to be the brakeman as it bounced over rocks and roots and slid down the steep road leading by Arthur Greene’s place, or, sometimes being handed the reins and allowed to shout “gee, haw, and whoa” to the horses provided an adventure we enjoyed time and again. Milling was not a stable occupation in Deep Gap, and, as a 135

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. result, we went to several mills over the years, first to one driven by a waterwheel near Fleetwood, some seven miles from Rufus’ house. The wheel turned slowly, spinning the grayish grindstone as it rumbled across the corn being fed into it from a hopper above. The stones seemed to go whump, whump, whump as they rotated and the building, its interior coated in a heavy dusting of powder, shook to the rumbling of the waterwheel and grindstones. We watched the whole process from the moment Rufus pulled his wagon alongside the loading platform until he stacked his bags of meal back on the wagon and headed for Lane’s and then home. From the platform, his bags of shelled corn would be carried up a few steps and then, one by one, emptied into the hopper, its rectangular mouth capable of holding a couple of bushels at a time. But the hopper was a hungry maw and kept demanding food. A wooden tube led down to the grindstones, and down it tumbled a stream of corn, which disappeared between the whump, whump, whumping stones and came out, crushed and powdery, into waiting sacks on the opposite side of the feed tube. As a sack filled up, the miller or one of his helpers reached for a scoop and took as many scoops of the meal as had been agreed to as the cost of grinding. These scoops were emptied into a bin or waiting sack. Then the miller unhooked the sack that had been filling, tied it, and reached for another receiving sack. This process was repeated until all of Rufus’ corn had been ground. Then it was time to do Lane’s. This old-fashioned mill was a victim of a flood that struck northwestern North Carolina in August, 1940. It was not rebuilt. From that time on, the mills Rufus carried his and Lane’s corn to were driven by gasoline-powered engines. Alex Ray operated one for a few years near Watson’s Garage. Lonz Miller ran one briefly at his store in Deep Gap. Allie Watson tried his hand for a few months in Laxon a mile or more beyond Laurel Springs Baptist Church and Conley Greene set up a mill on his place two miles or more from the Lonz Miller store. Getting to a mill and back was the work of a half-day at least, often longer if other customers were in line ahead of Rufus. There was work involved, to be sure, but trips to the mills were adventures—seeing other people, watching the workings of mills, sharing apples or biscuits with Rufus, and, sometimes, being treated to sticks of licorice or horehound candy, favorites of Rufus. He never splurged and bought us a coke or candy bar. If we got those treats we paid for them with coins we’d earned elsewhere, for going to the mill was like every other job he did with us, shared labor, tit for tat. No bonuses, no surprises. Had we gone in for fair labor statistics, we’d have seen that he was getting 136

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE a good deal, many hands for his two. And the same could be said for Uncle Herman, who came sometimes to work with us in exchange for our work for him. But we were not into arithmetic that heavily, and, besides, spending time with Rufus had rewards other than his sweat in our behalf. He was a good mentor on farming practices, a pleasant companion, and champion of education, always asking questions and, when necessary, giving answers, especially about figures and events in American history. During the summer months, we often spent more waking hours with him than with Lane, helping with his crops and enjoying his work alongside us as we did our own. V His most pressing need of our help came during the haying season, for Deep Gap weather could rot mown hay in the field if we didn’t “shake a leg and get a move on.” Putting up hay is not a one-man job, at least it wasn’t in those days preceding mechanized bailing and storage. A crew was needed after it was cut. Rufus mowed his grass and Lane’s and then led us to the meadow, pitchforks in hand, to scatter grass too thickly piled and to turn it over so that the sun could cure the under side. Unless he were lucky enough to borrow someone’s rig that tossed the hay and hastened its drying, we had to turn it with pitchforks, working our way down each row and flipping the grass over. If rain held off, the tossed grass dried quickly and could be raked into windrows and, later, into small piles by the hay rake, usually manned by Bill, whose handling of horses and machines was far superior to that of any of his siblings. These piles were later loaded onto sled or wagon and pulled to a cluster of stackpoles near Rufus’ barns or some corner of Lane’s meadows. Loading the wagon or sled involved much teamwork. The fastest way to move hay onto the sled was to slip two twelve or fifteen foot poles under a pile or mound of hay and, with a boy or man at the end of each set of poles, tote the mound to the wagon bed, where one of us stood to spread and tromp it in preparation for the next mound. Meanwhile, Ol’ Joe or Dan would be pulling the sled across the meadow, being stopped at a mound so that Rufus or Lane and others could pile hay on with pitchforks. The piling continued until the hay reached a height of four or five feet. Anything higher than that would likely tumble off if the sled hit a rock or bump in the soil. Reloading meant extra sweat, or, worst of all, delaying the whole business long enough for a thundershower to pop up. Once the sled reached the stackpole, all hands began pitching hay around the pole, attempting to place it in a rough circle. When the hay 137

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. rose a few feet from the ground, one of the crew leapt on the growing mound and began tromping it down and directing others where to place the hay to maintain the circle. The job of hay-stacker fell to me as I entered my teens. Before that, Lane and others had taken on the job. Although I’d watched hay-stackers at work, I had much to learn. A good stacker shapes the rising pile of hay into a cone, one without bulges, low spots, and a flat top, the object being to keep rain and snow from seeping in and causing molding. Stacks that bulge or slope too much can bend, even break, the pole since unevenly packed hay can slide and thereby shift weight. If there’s not enough room in the barn loft to store the hay from a crippled stack, it must be stacked again to prevent rotting. Rufus and Lane taught me to avoid the mistakes some stackers made. “Make sure you keep that circle, Johnny, and don’t let one side get lower than the other. Stomp it down hard. It’s gotta be firm. It’s gotta be like a Lucky Strike round, firm, and fully packed; you know the song. And make that pitchfork handle your ruler. At the bottom, put one end against the pole and let the other end tell you how far the circle should reach. As you get somewhere above the middle of the pole, start tampering off, a leetle bit at a time, drawin’ that circle in. When you reach the top, you should have only enough hay under you to support one foot.” Of course, the directions quoted above didn’t come in connected discourse but in bits and pieces, more in phrases than sentences, more as commands to correct my mistakes, sometimes in disgust because I wasn’t getting the hang of stacking as fast as I should. Lane was a more patient teacher than Rufus. He took care to place hay so that I could keep the circle going and watched to see that I had time to spread the hay forked up to me evenly. Not so, Rufus. He stood in one spot, forked hay rapidly to one spot on the stack, didn’t wait for me to spread it evenly, and jabbed my legs repeatedly if I happened to be tromping in the spot where he was tossing it. I won many red badges of courage on my punctured legs, which were sometimes still bleeding when I slid down from my lofty perch. Rufus forked and pitched, forked and pitched, forked and pitched, like some machine, never looking up, chewing rapidly on his tobacco, spitting now and then, more an automaton than a man, I thought. That was until time came to cap off a stack. Then he was all mentor, a model of patience, a joy to work with. Capping a stack takes teamwork. While the stacker becomes a cross between a tightrope walker and a sweaty farmhand, the men flinging hay up to him must place hay where he tells them to as he 138

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE continues to stomp and pack while clinging to the pole until it stands only a couple of inches above the hay. Finally, he must give up his hold altogether and, jamming both feet as close to the pole as he can, and perch uneasily on the wobbly hay. To add challenge to his balancing act, he must fashion a wreath of sorts to twist around the remaining length of pole. It is the tightly wound and securely mounted wreath that will help turn rain off to the slope of the hay and keep it from seeping down beside the pole. The hay for the wreath must be hoisted up to him on a long-handled fork. Long as it is, it still forces the stacker to bend at the waist to reach the hay, putting him at risk of tumbling unceremoniously to the ground. Here is where teamwork really counts, since the feeder must stretch to his full height, stand on tiptoes, or call for the sled to be pulled closer to the stack so that he can step on its bed to extend his reach. Rufus understood his role as well as the stacker’s. Between pauses to chew his tobacco and spit a brown stream of juice off to the side, he instructed me. “Keep your feet tight agin that pole, Johnny, and stoop over slow, real slow, not too far, and grab the hay I’m feedin’ up to you. Then take and stretch it out like you seed me do tobacco a-fore I roll it. Then twist it tight. Then make a leetle wheel out of it. Put that wheel over the pole and tug it in tight. Then stomp on it hard, pushin’ it down as fer as you can.” Once I’d done that, my footing was even less secure, but my job wasn’t over. I’d need another wreath or two to cover the remaining pole and one more fork of hay to tie into a bow at the very tip of the pole. By this time, I had space for only one foot, since my circle had diminished to practically nothing. As soon as I tied the bow, Rufus helped me dismount, a procedure that put him at risk also. Reversing ends of his long-handled pitchfork, he took the tined end in hand and held the handle up for me to grab. As he looked up to me, he stared into the sharp and glistening tines. They could have gored him if I dropped too quickly and heavily unto the end of the handle. “Take it easy, Johnny, when you grab the handle. Just put both hands on it and hold on tight. I’ll let you down a leetle bit at a time. Just act like you was rollin’ slowly out of bed and let your legs start towards the ground. Not too fast, boy, or else you’ll lose your grip on the handle or drive this business end through my skull. Easy does it.” I saw the danger in not being an apt student and did as I was told. Rufus brought me down about half way, to a point where my brothers had thrust their forks into the stack and formed a kind of ladder. I shifted to it and scrambled on down to ground, happy to find I no longer 139

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. needed something like sea legs, and then stood with Rufus and my siblings admiring our handiwork, a stack of hay that was to settle into a rain-defying cone and a midwinter’s night treat for Rufus’ cows. Any hay remaining on the sled or in the meadow we then hauled to the barn and spread it out in the loft. Good as new-mown hay smelled in the loft, Rufus warned against storing much of it in the barn. “It needs to be good and dry before you put much in the loft. It’ll steam and smoke and maybe get moldy if it can’t get air.” He waited until the stacks were thoroughly dry and the weather nippy before hauling stacked hay to the barn. Lane did the same. So did the other farmers in Deep Gap. Lane and Rufus did a fair amount of bragging about my ability as a stacker. “You rarely see a body that can top off a stack of hay as good as Johnny, and they’re nice and round, too.” Those words brought me work in other hayfields, not in my usual capacity as one of the pole-bearers, the haymakers who slid spear-like poles under a mound of hay and, as a team of two, carried it to sled or stack. That job was for strong backs, coolie work, as I came to think of it when I looked down from my lofty position on the stack at my brothers as they heaved and stumbled their way across the meadow. No longer just one of the grunts but instead a kind of rustic artist building huge cones and topping them off with wreaths of my own weaving, I found myself in demand by neighbors and stacked hay for Joe Coffey, Short Clawson, Clifford Ray, and Jason and Jake Moretz. Before I left to join the Air Force, I did more than 60 stacks in Deep Gap. When I returned home on my first leave, a few of our neighbors said, “We missed you in the hayfield this summer, Johnny.” I wouldn’t have been missed many summers, for soon tractors and hay-balers moved into Deep Gap meadows and hay-stacking in the old way was left to those farmers who couldn’t afford tractors or scrape up enough money to hire someone with one to take up their hay. The coming of mechanized haying, efficient and sweat-saving as it is, removed something eye-catching and romantic from the landscape, for haystacks, standing solitary in some field, or clustered in a colony close to a big barn, appealed to artists and photographers. They were some rustic icon linking man, animals, earth, and sky, an image of shared labor and pragmatic lore, a symbol of man’s urge to create, a poor man’s spire. Their going has taken something both picturesque and poetic from our land. Stacks of bales covered by tarpaulins or rotund cylinders wrapped in glistening sheets of plastic and pushed off to edges of meadows seem alien to the landscape, objects few artists or photographers pause to paint or snap. No Bob Timberlake or Eudora 140

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Welty would put on an easel or set up a camera for rectangular or rotund objects as hay has become with modern methods of baling. No Ansel Adams would pause to record these unnatural piles, no Brueghel waste paint or canvas on them. VI If Lane wanted his stock to eat well and produce the milk and meat, or do the work he required to keep his growing family going, he could not ration what he fed them. Hay, ears of corn, chop, slop they had to have, and they got fed by a liberal hand. But rationing did enter his life, mostly by way of the rationing quotas put in place during WWII. The shortage of sugar proved the most intolerable crimp to Annie and Lane, for she needed sugar for cooking and canning while Lane’s consumption of sugar, if it had been measured, no doubt would have set a world record in Guinness. To provide for his sweet-tooth and his children’s as well, Lane bought cane seed and planted it in a stretch of land lying between our house and US Highway 421, some ten or twelve rows. In time, clusters of pale green spears inched slowly skyward. The spears, when thinned, grew swiftly into stalks and shot out broad leaves, which arched across the rows, creating a cool place to sit during warm summer days. The rows had to be kept free of weeds, and that meant hoeing. As the cane matured, weeds had little chance of getting sunlight, for the canopy formed by the thick foliage absorbed almost all the energy the sun showered upon the cane patch. Weeding was a lesser chore than in the corn patch, but the sweat we didn’t have to work up in hoeing we felt dripping from our faces when we were told to go to the cane-patch and cut and gather the seedpods that crowned every stalk. Dried and fed to cattle later, these pods put meat on their bones and milk and butter on our tables. As summer at last began giving way to fall, Lane watched the sky and then gauged the crispness of the air, waving his hands about, breathing deeply, letting it wash over his face and neck. He was trying to reckon when frost would come. He had to sense when frost would come, else his hope of gathering the blades of cane before they were turned black and useless would be dashed. After he’d waited as long as he dared, Lane led us to the cane patch and showed us how to strip blades and press them between stalks to dry. A few days later, he took us back and showed us how to gather the dried blades and tie them in a small bundle, one or two of the blades being taken from the cluster in our hands and wrapped around to secure the others in place. The bundles were tossed onto a 141

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. sled and later taken to the barn for fodder. The stripped stalks stood nude in the field until after the first frost, absorbing as much of the sun as possible while the juice within them sweetened. Meanwhile, Lane borrowed a cane mill and laid blocks to build a furnace. The furnace was a rectangle about three by eight feet, open at one end and closed off at the other by a crudely laid chimney about four feet tall. At the open end, wood was fed into a fire that glowed beneath a vat of cane juice. A supply of wood had to be dragged in and sawn and chopped into pieces small enough to feed into the furnace. These preparations came before we cut the cane. To have sufficient space for the entire operation, Lane talked to Myrtie and got her permission to set up the mill and furnace in a far corner of her front yard. When the day came to hack the cane down, everything was ready in Myrtie’s yard. Lane then led us back to the cane-patch with the same knives we used in cutting corn stalks, although one or two of us might have borrowed or bought machetes for the job. Cutting a stalk of cane required two actions—first to whack it off near the root and then to behead it, removing its crown of seeds with our second assault. These crowns were allowed to fall to the ground, later to be gathered and hauled off as another much-appreciated treat for the cows after being dried in the granary and carted off with ears of corn to a miller to be crushed into chop. Lane told us to be careful as we cut the stalks. “Broken stalks are hard to feed through a cane mill, and you lose some juice ever’ time you break a stalk. Just cut off a few at a time and then carry them to a pile and put ‘em down slow and easy. We’ll hitch Ol’ Joe to the sled directly and pick up some of them piles and haul over to your grandmother’s. Some of you can haul while the rest of us go on cuttin.” If we were awkward enough to break a stalk, we rewarded ourselves by slicing off a short piece and sucking juice from it, learning quickly that we weren’t treating ourselves to a Baby Ruth or Butterfinger. The juice could be described as sweet when it first hit the tongue but changed into something almost acidly sour as it mixed with the chemicals of our mouths. Spoiled as we were by candy bars and soda pop, we were puzzled that some of our classmates brought slices of cane stalks to school and sucked on them during recesses or a lunch break. “How can they stand that stuff?” we wondered. “How can juice as sour as this be turned into molasses?” we asked Lane.

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “That’s where the furnace and the bilin’ come in,” he said. The bilin’ gets rid of all that sour stuff, steams it away, and leaves the sweet stuff behind.” By mid afternoon we had slashed down the last stalk and hauled it to the mill, an apparatus with two geared metal drums turned by a long crank. The crank was a slightly curved pole attached to the top of a gearbox on the mill. The other end was rigged to a singletree. A horse then was hitched to the singletree and sent pacing ‘round and ‘round the mill, some youngster holding one strap of his bridle and leading the horse around the circle. Beneath the slowly turning drums was a tray to catch the juice pressed from the stalks being fed into the machine. A spout in the tray emptied the juice into a bucket shoved under it. The operation demanded much labor. Someone kept a supply of stalks within reach of the person feeding them into the mill. Another person, dashing in and out as the horse and his guide made their circuit, gathered up crushed stalks and carried them to a pile. The fire had to be kept going, the horse unhitched and fed and watered when, at long last, he was replaced by another one, and the vat had to be filled before it was hoisted to the furnace and watched over by Lane and Myrtie, our brewmasters in a sense, because they had the know-how of when to declare we’d made a run of molasses. The wearisome tasks of poking stalks of cane into the mill and guiding or driving the horse called for replacements. The vat was placed near the furnace and slowly filled with cane juice. Once full, it was hoisted slowly over the hot flames and left to boil, being stirred now and then with a big wooden paddle. The yellowishgreen juice roiled and roiled and became a seething foam that sent sticky clouds of vapor onto faces and hands of onlookers who pressed close to see the boiling brew. Long-handled scoops in hand, Lane and Myrtie stood by the vat and skimmed off the foam. Removing it was a sticky, sweaty job but a critical one, since skimming removed bitter or tart elements and ensured that the molasses would be a dark amber and not a murky brown. Skimming was a process that seemed to last for hours. Eager as we were for a taste of molasses on biscuits and butter begged from Myrtie or especially prepared by Annie, the Idol boys; the Greer girls, our first cousins Betty Ruth, Virginia, Mary Sue, and Ruby; the Greer boys, Brook and Kent; the Watson boys, C. B. and Newland; and other neighborhood children grew restless waiting. We discovered other things to do. Some of the younger ones climbed atop the pile of crushed stalks and slid down on their butts, wetting their 143

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. rears with the residue of juice remaining on the stalks. Another group, mostly older boys, searched among the same pile for an uncrushed section of stalk, which could be heated at the furnace until it became steamy hot. Then they ran to a nearby tree and smacked the hissing tip of the stalk across its trunk. The resulting sound for a small piece was similar to that of a small firecracker. If a large piece of cane could be surreptitiously snitched from the uncrushed cane and similarly heated, a hefty whack across one of Myrtie’s oaks sounded like a shotgun blast. Lane quickly put a stop to such antics, since the resulting explosion scared the horse and hurt the ears of everyone close by. A frightened horse could well have bolted and toppled the mill, injuring the operator and breaking the mill. “Cut out that foolishness!” Lane yelled. That rebuke sent us back to the more innocent pastimes of hideand-seek and storytelling. One of the stories we told was based on the fear that the glow of our furnace and the light streaming from the bulbs we’d strung across Myrtie’s yard to enable us to continue our work into the night would provide a beacon for German or Japanese bombers. We’d heard somewhere that all lights should be turned off and fires doused if we should hear a plane at night. The Heinie or Jap pilots could easily spot us and rain destruction on our heads if we failed to act. (I use these derogatory labels for our WWII foes because those were the words in use in that time.) The planes might well be flown by American pilots, but no one could tell for sure, especially at night when determining by its profile whether it were friend or foe was virtually impossible. Better be safe than sorry, we’d heard. That tale caused us to perk up our ears and scan the skies for a few minutes after we’d embellished it with a few imaginative touches, some of them inspired by horrible things we boys had heard on a radio show called Hap Harrigan about the atrocities of Heinies. The state we worked ourselves into was, momentarily, far worse than we could do to ourselves by creating ghost stories. But, of course, we soon forgot that we were to be the Deep Gap branch of the Civil Air Patrol. We were children waiting for that seething vat of cane juice to simmer down to molasses and growing sleepy as the foam continued to roil. The adults sat around the furnace, told stories of their own, sang songs, and peered into the boiler to watch for the foam to change color. When it became light amber rather than yellowish-white, the promise of ambrosia was not too distant. The transformation to amber was a signal to begin a series of tests. First of all, Lane held aloft the paddle he used to stir the brew and waited for drops to form along its bottom edge. If they slide down the paddle quickly and dropped back 144

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE into the boiler, the brew needed more boiling. If, after cooling a bit, they hung like glue to the paddle, the molasses would be too dark and thick. Finding the state in between was the object. To reach it, Lane kept to his post and ran other tests. He took a ladle of the boiling brew from the vat and emptied it into a bowl floating in a bucket of cold water. Within minutes, he could tell whether the molasses would be too thin or, perhaps, too thick. He would err on the side of caution by running his tests early and often, for dark, thick molasses pleased no one. To prevent that state, he and three other men or large boys removed the boiler from the furnace to a crude platform fashioned from lengths of logs and placed it there until he’d determined whether the molasses had reached the right color and viscosity. Leaving the vat on the furnace while he ran his tests could result in a bad batch. Returning it to the furnace for a few minutes more took care of a toothin state. Nothing repaired the damage of waiting too long to make the tests. It was during these tests that Myrtie’s more experienced eye was a real help. She worked alongside Lane to determine when the tests should begin and how long the boiler should remain on the furnace in case it had to be returned. During the testing, adults and older children found pieces of white pine to whittle into spoons to use to sop the boiler once the molasses had been removed and poured into waiting crocks and jars. “Stand back, boys, stand back, girls,” Lane and Myrtie warned us as the boiler was lifted from the furnace and carried to the platform. “Your turn’s a-comin.’” When it came, we were like bees around the first flowers of spring, running our flat spoons along the bottom or sides of the boiler and lifting still warm molasses to hunks of biscuits or to our mouths and enjoying a taste that the gods surely envied. Deep Gap ambrosia it was, for sure. Baby Ruths and Butterfingers were the stuff for mortals; just at this moment we had robbed the immortals of something unmatchably pleasant to our mouths. But the day was far from over. More buckets of juice had been squeezed and a second run had to be finished before we could stop. Neighborhood kids headed home at this time as did the younger offspring of Lane and Annie. The crew remaining settled down to watching the second batch change from yellowish-white to amber. Sleep was exacting its power, on youngsters and adults alike, and the eager crew of soppers was willing now to let the gods have all of the second batch that they desired, for no one would remain behind to challenge their claim to Deep Gap ambrosia. Sleep, Morpheus, was now king of the gods and could expect rebellion only from Lane and anyone pledged 145

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. to help him see the second run successfully crocked and jarred. Lane rubbed his eyes, flung a few more pieces of wood into the furnace, and waited for the second batch to roil away until its yellowish-white foam turned to amber. Now no more songs were sung, no more stories were told, no more hissing cane stalks were slapped against Myrtie’s oaks. No more concern for Heinie or Jap, no more scanning of sky for planes, no more begging for one of Myrtie’s biscuits, just keeping sleep at bay. And, finally, the all-important tests and the jarring and crockering of the second run. Only then could the accumulated residue of vapor and molasses be washed off and Morpheus declared supreme ruler. VI When Lane could spare his sons for odd jobs in Deep Gap, the work they most often found was with Cliff Ray or Jake Moretz, truck farmers and small-time operators of a vegetable delivery company. They needed help setting cabbage plants, and, later, hoeing, dusting, and harvesting them. For their beans, a small crew served to plant and hoe them, but when the time came to pick them, many hands were hired, including Annie and Myrtie, for beans not picked at just the right moment grew too big to satisfy shoppers in grocery stores. Bean picking was a form of torture for backs and legs. To get at the beans, the picker squatted or stooped while lifting the leaves to search out likely pods to gather. Since beanstalks were short and their canopy of leaves thick, and because removing pods too forcibly resulted in uprooting the stalk, pickers had to be both sharp-eyed and wary. That meant that work could not go swiftly, and it meant that an inexperienced picker could rarely show more than three bushels of beans for his whole day in the bean patch. The going rate for a full bushel measure of beans was 25 cents. While Annie and Myrtie might garner $1.25 or $1.50 for their effort, the Idol boys rarely earned a dollar each for a long day in the bean patch. They left it with few coins to rattle in their dirty overalls, looking like some ill-clad apes in a Darwinian exhibit on evolution. Standing up straight was painful for two or three days after working a bean patch. After bean and cabbage season came potato harvesting. Jake and Cliff called on us then to help pick up spuds in the field and grade them at their warehouses. For this work, the going rate was a nickel an hour. Gathering potatoes in the field was a strain on neither back nor legs, since we used peck buckets to gather them in. The buckets were emptied into burlap bags scattered at intervals along the rows. These bags had to be loaded on a sled or wagon or the bed of a truck 146

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE later, but since two or more persons worked together to do this job no one had to strain. Strains came later, especially to the person who lifted bags of potatoes to the front end of the grader or took filled bags off at the opposite end. As the largest and oldest of the crew that Cliff engaged to do grading, I had the job of loading potatoes onto the belt or stacking the hundred pound bags at the other end. My younger brothers stood alongside the conveyor belt removing damaged or sunburnt spuds. Occasionally one of them, most often Bill, the strongest one of us, helped me lift bags to the front end. We all received the same pay, regardless of the type of work. The more I sweated and strained over the work I was being asked to do, the more I came to believe that the few cents I earned for it was not enough. I’d rather not work if my pay was so low. That would mean less to give Annie and Lane when I needed to buy school clothes or supplies. It could mean that I would go without lunch at school. I decided I had my price and would work for nothing less. The price was 25 cents an hour. When Cliff sent word that he needed us again, I didn’t rush off with my brothers. Instead, I stayed in my room, a book in hand. Before they left the house, I told them what I’d have to be paid before I helped Cliff again. Minutes later, one of them ran back to the house and burst into my room. “Come on; Cliff needs you and will pay you what you said you’d work for.” I put my book down and changed into my work garb. Although I was a junior in high school at the time, I hadn’t heard of Karl Marx and the unfair treatment of the laboring class. I discovered the advantage of a strike and thereafter enjoyed the increased volume of clinks coming from my pockets. Fresh from this triumph, I told Lane that he should demand more for his services. “After all,” I said, “you are the best of Uncle Walt’s finish carpenters and deserve more pay than you’re getting.’” Annie agreed with my argument, but Lane was not a forward or demanding person and so never presented his case. The best he ever drew from Uncle Walt was $1.50 an hour, an amount that marked Lane as another of the Southern Appalachia craftsmen whose earnings would not pay all their bills, the result of which was having to do part-time farming to meet expenses. Men such as Lane worked for less than subsistence wages and fell back on the old practice of subsistence farming to augment their income, not in the form of money very often but in food to put on the table. In effect, they had two jobs, one demanding that they punch a clock and draw hourly wages, the second demanding that they take to field or garden when they returned 147

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. home in the evenings and requiring that their Saturdays see them in garden or field from sunup to sundown after their work week went from 45 to 40 hours. The acreage that Lane tilled called for more care than he could give on evenings and Saturdays. Much of it thus fell to Annie to do and oversee. She led her sons to the fields and urged them on by example until she had to leave to fix lunch or supper. When she couldn’t go, most often in the last term of her latest pregnancy, she laid out what Lane wanted his boys to do and sent them off to earn their meat and potatoes. Her buoyant spirit and pride in her work showed in everything she did, for she had a cheerful disposition and a deep regard for the appearance of any garden or field touched by her hands or those of her sons. No doubt she would have been far happier in a flower garden, for she loved to grow flowers, but she was a nourisher and provider and willing to hold down two jobs (or more) at the same time. In short, as a worker, she was a true companion to Lane. VII She proved her ability to do as much as (or more than) Lane time and again, especially when Lane and Rufus butchered hogs. As fall days turned colder and crisper, Lane and Rufus spoke of a time they could undertake the yearly ritual of slaughtering hogs and dressing them out. The preferred time was near Thanksgiving, but if late November days had a touch of Indian Summer about them, butchering was put off until December, but always before Christmas. To set things in motion, they gathered wood and rolled out a 55 gallon metal barrel, its bottom still sooty black from the past year’s slaughter. On the agreed-upon day, the household rose early and sons and grandsons followed Rufus and Lane to the spot where the blackened drum sat upon a bed of large stones or cinder blocks. Kindling and sticks of wood were piled around its base, kerosene drizzled over it, and a match cautiously applied. Up shot yellowish-red flames, much welcomed by most of the crew since frosty morning air had already sneaked under our garments. Before butchering began, the water in the barrel must be boiling hot. The time needed for the water to boil meant that we’d be fairly well toasted, at least on our front sides, when the sun came up. While the children stood by fire-worshipping, Rufus and Lane were gathering buckets, knives, sawhorses, and planks, checking a wooden vat for leaks, testing the pulley that would hoist the hog’s carcass high enough to remove its lights (innards) when its hide had been scraped clean of bristles and dirt. 148

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE The commotion near the pig lot aroused the intended victim, which grunted in expectation of its customary bucket of slop. But this was not a day to eat but to be eaten, at least choice parts of it. Rufus and Lane opened a door on the back of the hoghouse, coaxed the oinker out, Lane standing with a rifle in hand as the hog stepped heavily to the ground. One of us stood nearby with a freshly sharpened butcher knife clutched firmly and ready to give to Lane after the hog had been shot. If the hog paused long enough during its emergence from its pen for Lane to take aim, his shot was deadly, the hog pitching forward to the earth as its death throes overcame it. Hastily taking the proffered butcher knife from the son who held it, Lane leapt to the squirming hog and slit its throat, blood gushing on his shoes and pant legs. If, however, the hog wobbled its head or flung it back and forth as it tried to force its way out the door, Lane tried to time his shot so that he’d hit the hog squarely between the eyes. Once or twice, he didn’t hit his mark, with the result that the hog took a staggering step or two, squealed, regained its footing, and backed away from the door. That meant that he’d have to climb into the pen with the hog and shoot it a second time. It meant also that we’d have to fasten ropes around the hog’s mid section and pull it from its pen in order to slit its throat. All of this was ugly and almost enough to make vegetarians of us, but the thought of tasty pork chops, bacon, and smoked ham cured us of incipient tender-heartedness. Its blood finally drained from its body, we rolled the hog on a sled, ordered Ol’ Joe to pull it to the waiting vat, now steaming with boiling water carried to it by Lane’s older sons and Rufus (or some neighbor who showed up to help with the butchering.) Another rope or two now was wrapped around the hog as Lane and his crew prepared to pull it into the scalding water. All action was now in slow motion, for fear of sloshing scalding water on ourselves. As soon as the hog was safely in the vat, more buckets of scalding water were poured over it. As steam rose from flanks, hips, shoulders, neck, head, and hoofs, Lane and his crew scraped bristle and dirt away, having little trouble on flanks, back, and hips, but struggling mightily on head, hoof, and ears. When Lane was satisfied that we’d scraped and cleaned enough, he reached for his sharpened pocket knife and asked a couple of us to hold the hog’s back legs steady while he made incisions near the hoofs and uncovered the tendons leading to them. He then told Rufus to place a singletree between the hog’s outstretched legs while he ran a half-crescent hook beneath each tendon. A pulley was then attached 149

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. to the singletree and a thick oak board nailed to two locust posts. Tugging rhythmically with Rufus and as many sons as could find a place behind them, Lane helped pull the hog skyward until its nose no longer touched the ground. Its stomach now fully exposed and stretched by the singletree, the hog was ready for disemboweling. Starting near the juncture of its hams, Lane drew his knife along the stomach as Rufus placed a large washtub beneath the hog to catch the lights as they issued from a still steamy cavern. The more experienced ones among us then urged Lane to remove the bladder and give it to us. One of us had scouted out a hollow reed and another a piece of twine. A few hardy puffs through the reed and a firm knot on the sphincter of the bladder gave us a football, a heavy balloon, a volleyball until the tissue dried, cracked, and collapsed. To us, this was the fun part of a pig. Long before we could frolic with our homemade toy, Annie had begun her preparations for hog-butchering day. There were cans to wash, knives to sharpen, canners to borrow from neighbors to augment her own, pans and tubs to clean to receive the meat she and Myrtie would have to work up. She would have to borrow someone’s sausage grinder, buy sausage flavoring, check to see that she had enough eggs for scrambled eggs and pig brains, round up buckets and jars for the lard she would render later that day and night, and fix dinner (lunch) and supper. The main dish for supper was a given: she’d be expected to serve fried “tenderline” (tenderloin). Scrambled brains and eggs would wait until tomorrow’s breakfast for those who could stomach the dish. The first sign of the work of rendering lard appeared when the tub of lights minus kidney, heart, and certain portions of the intestines was lugged into her kitchen. She and Myrtie immediately began removing bits of fat and tossing them into a boiler. Meanwhile, Lane and Rufus had moved the disemboweled hog to a rough cutting table formed of 2 x 6s or 2 x 8s and sawhorses. Now Lane the meat-carver went to work, cutting away shoulders, hams, head, belly, flanks, and hooves. Most of this carving could be done by knife. Ribs and back required something heavier, a cleaver or ax. These instruments had already been sharpened. Asking Rufus, a helpful neighbor, or one of us to assist him, Lane turned to the hog’s ribs and spine, cleaving or axing them into smaller sections, most to be carried to Annie and Myrtie, some to be fetched to neighbors as tasty treats. The next step was to treat the meat with salt or a purchased mixture of sugar and herbs. Rufus and Lane and some smaller helping 150

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE hands now spread salt or sugar mixture on the meat, salt on flanks and belly, sugar mixture on shoulders and hams. The job was not easy since these “cures” would have to be rubbed in to prevent spoilage. Loin and ribs were not treated, but instead taken to Annie for cooking or canning. The treated pieces of meat were now removed to the meat-house, hams and shoulders strung by their shanks to nails in the rafters, other pieces placed on shelves. Often only one shoulder made it to the meat-house, since Lane liked his sausage lean and thus trimmed the other shoulder for the sausage grinder. The sugar-cured hams rarely graced the dinner table at either Rufus’ or Lane’s, for they were sure to be sold to raise cash. Clean-up work remained to be finished before Rufus, Lane, Ol’ Joe and the rest of the crew moved their butchering operation to Rufus’ house. Here a fire was already going, water boiling, and a hog awaiting his fate. Except that Nancy and one of her daughters now formed the kitchen crew, the events I’ve just described were repeated. A long day, a hard day thus ended for the men and boys of the family. But a busy night lay ahead for Annie and Nancy and children. The rendering of lard, the grinding and canning of sausage, the slicing and canning of tenderloin, and the cooking, frying, or baking needed to serve favorite cuts or delicacies were exhaustive work. But as Lane put it, “Good eatin’ is ahead of us now, and for that we can be thankful.” As grateful as they were, they still had to think ahead about measures they could take to make their small farm supply the family’s needs. VIII Their efforts to find ways to make their limited acreage more productive led them to join the Grange when a chapter of that association of farmers was established in Deep Gap. Meeting with other farmers from Deep Gap, Laxon, and Stoney Fork at Deep Gap Elementary School, they heard agents from Watauga County, hosted officials of the state and national offices of the Grange, watched films on such farm practices as contour plowing, strip farming, crop rotation, and talked among themselves about what worked or didn’t work for them. They planned demonstrations by members of the Future Farmers’ Club at Appalachian High and Cove Creek High School on such techniques as shearing sheep and staking bean or tomato crops. Occasionally, they presented programs of their own, one of them being a report that I was to give on the future of farming. 151

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. I went to the school library at Appalachian High and then on to the college library at Appalachian State Teachers College and read articles on what farming machines in future years would be doing to reduce the sweat and strain of farmers. Among the pieces I found was one on radio-controlled tractors. The author reported on experiments involving remotely controlled or programmed tractors capable of plowing and harrowing fields while the farmer did other chores or simply sat on his porch and sipped a cold glass of lemonade. I thought that was pretty darn cool and so made that article the center of my report. At that time, I was dreaming of becoming an electrical engineer and had an interest in the magic of radio. Futuristic sketches of planes, cars, and model cities were exciting stuff to me, and to learn that futurism had a place down on the farm grabbed my attention. I worked up an enthusiastic report on how different life was going to be for farmers if the engineering projects presently underway succeeded. I looked forward to the night when I’d give my report, expecting my fellow Grangers to share in my belief that life was going to be easier, and less dirty, when the new equipment came on the scene. My enthusiasm showed in my report. Here I was, John the Prophet declaring that better days were ahead for us all, and I felt confident about my message. My auditors heard me out, and Annie, out of both motherly love and a lively respect for futuristic thinkers, declared how wonderful it would be when those unmanned tractors lifted many of the burdens from a farmer’s back. Others in the audience agreed with her, although their eyes had a mild look of skepticism. But I was not to meet skepticism head on until Uncle Fred spoke. He wanted to know, first, whether I’d made up all this nonsense about remotely controlled tractors, and, second, if I hadn’t fed them malarkey, how could “a feller a-rockin’ on his porch and sippin’ lemonade operate one of them tractors.” I knew far too little about the details of remote control to explain how the tractors would work. “It seems to me, Johnny,” he said, “that you got to have somebody on that tractor. Why, who’s to keep it from runnin’ away, bustin,’ down fences, and plowin’ up things you don’t want plowed. I jist don’t see how it’s gonna work.” My enthusiasm was fading by the moment in the face of his practical questions, but I remained convinced that a better day was coming. “It’s going to happen,” I insisted, “because there are people out there who are smart enough to pull it off.” “Well, I guess I’ll jist have to stay a dirt farmer,” said Uncle Fred as he pointed to some dirt on his brogans, “for I don’t believe we’ll ever see nothin’ like you told us about in my lifetime.” 152

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE The Grange was not all business. Far from it, for it arranged to have people help with our cultural and social life. One of the most pleasant evenings we spent together was the night when a young woman showed up to show us how to do the Virginia reel. I knew enough about Thomas Jefferson and the plantation society of Virginia to feel that Deep Gap folks were finally getting somewhere if they could dance the Virginia reel. What it lacked in the energy and intricacies of square dancing it made up in stateliness and grace. A curtsy seemed far more gentlemanly and genteel than a vigorous stomp or a backstraining “swing-your-partner.” It was high society stuff, even if it were two centuries out of style. The social event that turned into a fundraiser for the group was something called a “Pie Supper and Cakewalk.” To put one on, the women had to take to their kitchens to bake pies and cakes, and the men had to arrange for some music and to save enough money to bid on pies. A committee was formed to get out the publicity, another one to decorate the auditorium of Deep Gap Elementary School, a third one to clean up afterwards. One of the women would be asked to make a special cake —the prize to be won by the lucky couple who won the cakewalk. The cake was displayed on a small stage at the front of the auditorium—the same stage that had earlier been used during the sheep-shearing demonstration. Now, however, it was crowded with tables covered with white sheets on which sat pies bearing labels telling who’d baked them. The cake to be won had the place of honor, a smaller, taller table located in the center of the stage. It was no ordinary cake, but a triple-decker at least, thick with frosting and decorated with sugary ribbons and flowers. The winners of the cakewalk would claim it as their prize and then share it with their family and friends when the time to eat came. Before the cakewalk began, the pies were auctioned off, Uncle Walt serving as auctioneer. Picking up one of the pies and reading the attached label, he said, “Now, here I have a lovely chocolate pie made by Annie Idol. How much am I bid?” “One dime,” someone called out. “One dime, I have one dime; do I hear a quarter? Who’ll give a quarter?” “A quarter,” someone else yelled. “A quarter, I have; who’ll make it fifty cents,” said Uncle Walt, the sibilants issuing from his mouth with a decided hiss because his false teeth were a little loose. “Fifty cents,” cried out another bidder. 153

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “Fifty cents,” whistled Uncle Walt through his teeth. “Anybody willin’ to go higher?” “I’ll go fifty-five,” said Lane. “Anybody want to outbid Lane?” asked Uncle Walt, as he looked over the audience. “Fifty-five once; do I hear sixty; sixty, anyone? Fifty-five twice; do I hear sixty? You mean you’re gonna let the best chocolate pie in Deep Gap go for a measly fifty-five cents? Fifty-five twice! Goin,’ goin’!” “Sixty, sixty, I’ll give sixty,” shouted a young voice. “Sold to Jack Idol,” said Uncle Walter as he winked at Lane. “I’m sure Jack will let you have a piece of his mamma’s cooking.” Pies usually brought no more than fifty or sixty cents, unless bidders got caught up in a bidding war. Wages were low, especially for children in the community, and adults had only small change for discretionary spending. Being watchful of pennies was a trait advocated and practiced by almost everyone in Deep Gap. Franklin’s adage was gospel and less often disobeyed than most of the Ten Commandments. Hence it was that I earned the reputation of a spendthrift when I bid $1.50 for Aunt Ola’s pie when it was auctioned. Her pies were legendary in Deep Gap, especially her apple pies. “Here we have an apple pie baked by Ola Greene,” bragged Uncle Walt when he came to hers. “What am I bid? But before you start, I’m gonna say ‘fifty’.” “Seventy-five,” yelled someone. “We can’t let Walter get away with fifty cents, can we?” “Eighty-five,” I said. Before bidding began I’d made up my mind that I’d go as high as a dollar, but I was hoping that eighty-five would win. “Ninety,” called someone else. “I’ll make it a dollar myself,” said Uncle Walt. “Do I hear more?” “A dollar five,” I shouted. A bidding war was now on and others were getting caught up in the action. “Dollar ten!” “Dollar twenty!” “Dollar thirty!” I couldn’t turn my head fast enough to see where all the bids were coming from. All I knew was that if bidding went higher than $1.50 I’d not be eating apple pie with Aunt Ola. Uncle Walt had dropped out by this time. If he stayed in, I had no chance, since his pockets were deeper 154

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE than anyone else’s in the Grange. I made a quick decision. Jump twenty cents rather than a dime and see if the other bidders will drop out. “A dollar and a half,” I called. “Johnny Idol says he’ll lay out a dollar and a half for his aunt Ola’s apple pie. Anybody gonna top him?” The auditorium grew quiet as people looked around to see if another bidder was still in the war. No hands shot up, no voice called out. Uncle Walt waited. “A dollar sixty, do I hear a dollar sixty?” Still silence, still gazing around the room to see who’d bid. “I have a dollar fifty once; any more biddin’?” Not a sound from the expectant crowd. “A dollar fifty twice! Any more bids? A dollar fifty three times?” The war was over. “Goin,’ goin,’ gone to Johnny Idol for a dollar and a half.” Later, when I sat to eat a piece of it with Aunt Ola, she said, “I’m happy that you think so much of my apple pie, but you shouldn’t have spent that much for it.” “I’m not sorry,” I said. “The money’s goin’ for a good cause, and I’ve never had my fill of your apple pie.” We chatted as we ate together, probably about flowers, since hers was the greenest thumb in Deep Gap and Laxon for flowers. I wanted to know how she managed to keep such a lovely flower garden. I had a weakness for flowers that topped my weakness for apple pie. I wanted her secret for growing them and not her secret recipe for the best apple pies in the community. “Good soil, hard work, unmerciful thinning, and bushels of love,” she said. “Not much of a secret, is it?” In time I was to see that learning which plants to pluck and which to prompt was the most important part of her secret. Gaining the wisdom and the heart to do unmerciful thinning and pruning was something that came with experience, I found. The bushels of love must be balanced by a healthy respect for the superior performance of the fittest. A select few will do much better than a much-cared-for multitude. Here was a practical application of Darwinism, but I was too ignorant to recognize it as such, and I doubt if Aunt Ola, a pillar of Laurel Springs Baptist Church, would have viewed Darwin’s theories favorably. Yet, she knew what she knew—that coddling of plants resulted in puny specimens of flowers. To do the kinds of floral displays that brightened Laurel Springs Baptist Church on a Sunday morning, she needed vibrant, healthy, well-groomed flowers and foliage. 155

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. The pie auction, although it was a good moneymaker, failed to create the excitement of the cakewalk. For it, partners would have to be chosen, a ticket bought, a chalk line drawn on the floor in front of the stage, musicians tuned up and ready to play, and, for those wishing to cut a rather sedate rug, some footsteps rehearsed. Our mountain version of this African-American form of celebration had melded, musically, with the square dance. Hired to play for it were Uncle Ben Miller, a country fiddler, and a guitarist friend of his. They warmed up as we lined up to buy tickets, Uncle Ben showing off by playing his fiddle between his legs, behind his back, and over his head. Tickets in hand, partners got in place behind the chalk line and waited for Uncle Walt to give the signal to begin the walk. Tickets sold for a nickel a person, a dime for a couple. Most of the contestants were couples, wives with husbands, fathers with daughters, sons with mothers, cousins with cousins, beaus with their sweeties. A few sprightly couples pranced or strutted in place while they waited. All were hoping that they would be on the chalk line when the music stopped, for the couple or person standing on or nearest it would win the cake, the grand prize. Their walk would lead them in front of the stage, down the aisles on the outer walls of the auditorium, and back in front of the stage. At last, everyone who wanted to compete had a ticket and Uncle Walt shouted to Uncle Ben, “Strike up the dance music!” He and the guitar player had a medley of old-timey tunes ”Turkey in the Straw,” “Ida Red,” and “Buffalo Gals” or some such old favorites ready to go. “Off you go,” yelled Uncle Walt when Uncle Ben nodded his head that he was ready to begin. And off we went. Some as sedate as judges in the courtroom, some as frisky as colts on a fall morning, some keeping time with the music, a few prancing and strutting like princes and princesses of the earth. Around we went once, each couple hoping the music would stop when they approached the line. But Uncle Walt had more than one circuit in mind. Around we went again, a few more now caught up in the spirit of Uncle Ben’s fiddling. They began promenading and swinging their partners in a cautious way, since they didn’t want to lose their place in line. One complete circuit of the small auditorium must have taken five or six minutes. After two rounds, some of the older folk began dropping out, perhaps because of tiredness or a strategy to boost the chance of their children to win. On the remaining contestants went, their faces growing flush with the energy they were burning. On and on flew Uncle Ben’s bow, on and 156

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE on strummed the guitarist. Then, suddenly, the music stopped, and Uncle Walt stepped forward to hoist the arms of the winners. I wish I could remember which couple won. I can’t, and my faulty memory forces me into an anti-climatic ending. Of course, I could write that my partner, Cousin Mary Sue, and I won. But since I’m committed to telling the truth most of the time in these pages, I will not here puff myself up. I’m happy to recall that the proud winners, whoever they were, called for a knife and plates and saucers and happily shared the cake. We all went home with gorged sweet teeth and the knowledge that our Grange had raised some much-needed cash. The Grange eventually folded in Deep Gap, a victim of the shifting nature of agriculture activity in the community. Corn, potatoes, cabbage, and beans gave way to beef cattle and Christmas trees. And Deep Gap subsistence farmers began drawing better wages in Boone, North Wilkesboro, and Lenoir, wages and salaries decent enough for them to raise a family without doing little more than tending a garden. Important as this higher income was, it was perhaps less a force than the in-migration of new families, people who bought up land for summer homes, people from Boone who taught at Appalachian State University and wanted homes in the country, people who defined Deep Gap as a pleasant bedroom community. IX Lane was among those who became small-time cattle farmers. From childhood, he tended milk cows on Rufus’ farm, and, when he married, he soon bought a cow. The number of milk cows increased as family did, and for years, thanks largely to Annie’s efforts, he sold his excess milk. Except for me, his sons learned to milk and took turns helping Annie do barnyard chores. I came to be seen as the “inside” boy, the one who’d help with household chores and babysitting. I didn’t mind that label, since I could sneak in a few pages of reading or listen to favorite radio programs. Still, I was not always free of duties involving cattle. When Jack, three years my senior, entered the world of wage earners, I had to take the responsibility of leading cows in heat to Jason Moretz’ farm, about a quarter of a mile from our place. Some of our neighbors sometimes kept a scrub bull on their farms to breed their milk cows. Lane wanted his cows covered by a registered bull. Jason kept a Hereford for his herd and, for a fee, allowed his neighbors to bring their cows to be serviced. We Deep Gappers didn’t have euphemisms for bulls and thus didn’t refer to them as “Male Cows” or “Sir.” 157

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “Catch that Jersey in heat, Johnny, and take her down to Mr. Jason’s bull. Tell him I’ll settle with him later.” Catching cows in heat isn’t difficult. Somehow they seem to know that relief from their sexual burning is in prospect and are willing to have a rope wrapped around their necks. Leading them is another matter. They refuse to be led. Instead, they want to trot ahead, rocking and bobbing in a way peculiar to cows, and to pull their “leader” along. So hot were they for the bull’s “services” that some broke into wobbly gallops when we got near Jason’s barnyard. Their lowing as we went along alerted the bull that some all-too-willing cow would welcome his short-lived amour. His answering lowing, gruff and fog-hornish as it sounded to us, was a turn-on for the cow. Not at all demure in her behavior, she dragged us along, minding not in the least the choking that our slipknot caused. Once at Jason’s house, while we found him and told him what we wanted, the cow jerked, jumped, twisted, and lowed with a loudness and frequency that betrayed her impassioned state. The bull trotted to the corner of the barnyard nearest Jason’s house and bellowed like a Zeus who had come upon a sex-crazed Europa. She nearly knocked Jason flat as she leapt after him while he led us to the barnyard. “Easy, girl,” he drawled, as he puffed on his big-bowled pipe. “You’re gonna get what you need in jist a minute.” He opened the gate swiftly and jumped aside as the cow brushed past him. “Let ‘er go, boys!” he yelled as we came stumbling through the gate. His shaft already half-exposed and glistening in the sun, Zeus mounted Europa and fell back to earth in what seemed less than a second or two. His “servicing” done, he ambled back over to his feedbox and began eating again. The cow seemed far less satisfied than he by the quick encounter but was more lady-like on our walk back home. She still refused to be led, but she didn’t try her best to drag us along US Highway 421. If the product of this brief tryst was a bull, Lane usually kept it for a few months before selling it to a cattle trader. A heifer was a different story, since she possibly could replace an aging milk cow. In time, she, too, could “drop” a calf and thereby bring in some extra income. A young bull, born of a Jersey and a Hereford, would be fine for slaughtering but not wanted for stud service. Thus, Lane’s hope that any new calves would be females. If he had no immediate need for a heifer, she’d be snapped up by a cattle trader when he was ready to put her on the market. 158

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE When Lane retired, he bought a couple of yearlings to fatten. One of them could be slaughtered for his own use, the other sold. The sale of one might possibly pay for the expense of raising both. Gradually, he increased his holdings in beef cattle to fifteen or more head. Since he no longer used his acreage on Idol Mountain for corn or potatoes and had 25 more acres of pastureland that came to him on Rufus’ death, he could graze a larger number of steers. The acreage nearest the house could be turned into meadowland. Looking after a small herd of steers would give him something to do and not seriously cut into the time he wanted for fox hunting or church work. “Besides,” he said, “I enjoy being around cattle.” He built feedboxes near the barn, repaired fences, limed and fertilized his pasture, learned to give shots to his steers for ordinary problems like the runs, and pampered and petted them, singling out one to grace his table and grill. Raised on chicken and pork, Lane never became a steak and potatoes man. Potatoes, yes; steaks, no, or at least not often. His children, though, became beefeaters. The sons who remained in Deep Gap or in nearby Boone sometimes went “halvers” with him on a steer, sharing the cost of buying, feeding, and slaughtering one. The sons took away their side or quarter. Lane and Annie stacked their steaks and ground beef in a freezer, drawing upon their store for family cookouts but more often for gifts to other members of the family. It was rare for Margie and me to leave their house without choice steaks or hamburger after Lane started raising steers. Lane’s pasture ran from back of his barn yard to the top of Idol Mountain and thence down a steep hillside to a small stream and on up a gradual slope to a fence that ran across a ridge between his property and that of Clay Norris and Aunt Snow. Altogether, he had close to thirty acres for his steers to ramble over. Keeping his fields free of briars and invasive trees, especially white pine, gave him light work and an opportunity to spend many hours outdoors. During the time he tended the pasture that lay on Idol Mountain and beyond it, Annie worried about his health. “He’s not a well man, you know. That emphysema’s gettin’ worse all the time, and his heart’s not as good as it used to be. I’m afraid he’ll get over there and forget to take one of them nitroglycerin tablets. Or get too hot working and have a stroke. I wisht the poor feller would take better care of hisself.” Lane’s health did fail him in his middle seventies. He no longer had the strength to watch after his small herd, but beef cattle remained on his property. He rented his pastureland to Sammy Critcher, a neighbor 159

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. and husband of Cousin Gloria Greer, and admired the fattening flanks of Sammy’s herd when they came to feedboxes in Lane’s barnyard. Despite the loss of steers to sickness and lightning strikes and the difference between the cost of buying and feeding a few of the annual herds he fattened for the market, he did little better than break even as a cattle farmer. Sometimes he lost money; sometimes, when the market was good, he made a few hundred dollars. Most of the time, he found the work an agreeable way to fill his retirement years. All of the time he beamed with happiness when he and Annie shared the bounty of their freezer. X To feed his ever growing family as well as the kinfolks and preachers that he invited to share his table, Lane spent much time and energy in his garden. Except for the time he tried to put in part of his garden in a patch of new-ground, his gardens were located only twenty or thirty yards from the house. They were not small, since he used them for lettuce, onions, radishes, squash, tomatoes, beans, sweet corn, cucumbers, peas, potatoes, turnips, strawberries, carrots, beets, and rhubarb. He planted them as soon as Deep Gap’s nippy weather gave promise of coming spring. The promise of spring was not always a sure thing in the Blue Ridge, for frost or snow could sneak in as late as May and June. Occasionally, a garden that got off to a great start learned not to be forward and awaited a second seeding. As soon as the plants began to flourish, Lane shouldered his hoe and ordered his sons to round up theirs. He would not tolerate weeds in his garden, attacking them with his entire crew after eating supper on workdays or on a Saturday morning. He taught them to tell a germinating bean or other seed from some uppity weed, how to thin, stake, rid of bugs and worms, and harvest, and how to enjoy a freshly gathered vegetable in the garden. One of the chores that wouldn’t await a post-supper attack was finding and killing bugs and worms. He hated insect damage, and, refusing to let a dusting of the latest insecticide keep his garden free of pests, he handed us pop bottles with several drops of kerosene in them and told us to find every bug or worm. “When you catch one, stick it in the bottle and swirl it in that kerosene. That’ll stop ‘em.” It did. Because no bug seemed to him to be a good bug, he failed to tell us to let ladybugs alone. Down into the hell of kerosene they went with every other bug we found. Since they didn’t die as quickly as wooly 160

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE worms or potato beetles, we felt sorry to watch their tireless struggle to escape. But die they must. Before hoeing, Lane usually harnessed Ol’ Joe and hitched him to a cultivator. The loosened soil made our work easy. Much of the soil near the house was so friable that the use of a cultivator was not absolutely required. If we were so minded, we could walk between the rows and press the corners of our hoe blades in the ground and spare Ol’ Joe the trouble of leaving the pasture, since pulling the hoe while pressing it downward turned the soil easily. The same kind of crumbly soil that we had in the garden was also found in the stretch of land lying between the house and US Highway 421. One Saturday morning as we worked in that field, an idea struck Jim, Bill, and me. We could play like we were a team of horses and pull the cultivator instead of Ol’ Joe. We ran to Lane to tell him of our plan. He heard us out and decided to humor us. “First, we got to tether Ol’ Joe and then find some ropes to tie to the singletree.” One of us rushed to the barn to get a rope while Lane tethered Ol’ Joe to a nearby apple tree. To each end of the singletree we tied a rope and then took our places between the ropes, bending forward and stomping like mighty steeds, imagining ourselves with flaring nostrils, and swishing tails. Taking hold the cultivator’s handles, Lane shouted, “Gitup, boys, gitup, John, gitup, Bill, pull your weight, Jim. Let’s be a team out here,” he said as he lifted the cultivator so its blades wouldn’t spear too deeply into the soil. Off we moved, as quickly as Ol’ Joe might have, shirtless, tanned, happy, and as proud as the warhorse in the Book of Job. As we neared the highway we became aware that passersby weren’t probably thinking of a biblical warhorse but of poor redneck boys being forced by a cruel father to plow his field. A couple of cars slowed down, their passengers and drivers craning their necks to get a better view. A Greyhound bus went by, its driver also stepping on the brakes and slowing the bus. Noticing their slowing down, we paused and imagined their response to our show of might. “Did you see that? Well, I never.” “I knew these hillbillies were something else, but I didn’t think that I’d ever see a thing like this. It’s horrible!” “White trash—what else do you expect? That man should be taken out and whipped!” “And did you see that big black horse grazing under that tree? He coulda plowed with him. That cracker must be punishing his boys for something.” 161

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “We ought to call the sheriff and tell ‘im what we seen.” Inwardly, I laughed at this imagined conversation and pawed the loose earth more vigorously. Much later, when I closely read the Book of Job, I enjoyed a quiet second laugh, murmuring to myself, “What mighty steeds we were on that day when Lane was both playmate and farmer.” He was relishing in our might, giving us our head, allowing us to prove to ourselves that pulling together was one of life’s greatest needs.

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ANNIE “Yes, some of us took after Dad and some after Mom. Me and Zella and Joe, and Ted and Josie a little bit, took after your granddaddy. He was tall, had a high forehead, and a Roman nose. Like mine. All of us with the Watson nose got teased a lot. People said we come from eagles, but they didn’t mean no harm. We was proud to look like Dad. He was a good man, good to us and good to Momma. You’da loved him. He’da put you on his knee and rocked you, or took you up in his arms and tickled your face with his long moustache. He loved kids, both sets of ‘em, them that he had by his first wife, and the nine of us he had by Momma. I’m jus’ sorry you never got to know him, died when I was only eleven, an’ I ain’t never got over how hard he suffered a-fore he died. Got pneumonia. Poor feller had lost one lung in the flu epidemic that killed so many in 1918 and didn’t have no chance. But, my, how he fought to live. Me and Zella told you about his last days an’ I know you wrote it down somewhere.” Indeed, I had written it down, after hearing them recount the manner of Jerry’s death as we sat on Lane and Annie’s front porch one summer evening. “Please go ahead and tell me how he died,” I had said. “I don’t know why he was so glad to see me I’d come home just the week before from Boone, where I was staying with Cousin Ben. There weren’t any school busses back then, and, if you went to high school, you had to walk, catch a ride with somebody, or find room and board with somebody. Thanks to Alice, who paid my room and board at Ben’s, I was goin’ to school in Boone,” said Zella. (Ben was a cousin.) “We all cried when you went off for the firs’ time. Boone seemed way off then, an’ the thought of not seein’ you for a month really hurt,” said Annie. “Well, as I started to tell you about your granddad’s death, John, I came walking down the road from Claude Watson’s garage. I’d caught a ride from the drugstore in Boone. Daddy was standing on the porch of the store when he saw me. He come to meet me, almos’ a-runnin’ by the time he got to me,” said Zella. “’Zella,’ he says, ‘I’m so glad you come home!’ He hugged and kissed me, his long black mustache ticklin’ my cheek and his deep hazel eyes glowin’ with happiness. He then headed for the house, yellin’ as he went, ‘Zella’s home! Zella’s home!’ He even rushed out to the barn to tell Momma when he found out she was out there milkin.’” 163

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. “Yes, I remember that,” said Annie. “He saw Mom firs’ out in the shed and told her and then stepped into the barn and told me, too, jus’ to be sure I’d heard.” “He’d never been so happy to see me, an’ I’m glad I made him happy. I’d made Ben’s wife, Sadie, mad by comin’ home two weeks in a row. I reckon she wanted me to stay there and give my room a good cleanin’, but I told her I felt I should go home. So I went up to the drug store hopin’ to find somebody to ride with.” “I know you’ve never been sorry you come home,” said Annie, “for that’s the day he took sick. Right after supper when we all was a-talkin’, a-laughin’, an’ havin’ a big time. Papa started a-shiverin’, an’ nothin’ could be found in the house that was warm enough to keep him from shakin’.” “Papa finally said, ‘Look’s like I’m gonna have to turn in an’ see if I can get over this chill in bed.’ I helped Mom put Mary, Josie, and Alfred to bed, an’ I guess you lit a lamp and took the others off to bed upstairs, didn’t you, Annie? Or maybe it was Ella who done that,” said Zella. “I forget how it was,” said Annie, “but I know Papa never left that bed again. He was mighty sick when we come downstairs nex’ mornin’, and things got worse during the day. We was gettin’ worried ‘cause we knew Daddy had jus’ one lung. An attack of flu or pleurisy, wasn’t it, Zella? had taken one of his lungs years before. His coughin’ during the night sounded awful bad.” “Yes, we knew by that afternoon he had a tough fight ahead when we learned that he had pneumonia, an’ the doctor from Boone, who painted his chest with a coat of iodine, wasn’t very hopeful. In those days people with two good lungs didn’t stand much of a chance with pneumonia. We got somebody to send telegrams from Boone to all his children by his first wife, Delia Greene,—you know, of course, we were his second set of younguns. Well, Alice, his oldest wired back to say she was leavin’ Coffeyville right away to nurse him,” said Zella. “In the meanwhile,” said Annie, “I’d been put in charge of Josie, Ted, an’ Mary an’ told to take ‘em to Rufus Idol’s house—that was long before me an’ your daddy was married—so the noise of their playin’ wouldn’t bother Papa. I did that an’ come on back home, for I was the one Momma was a-countin’ on to do the milkin’.” “Of course, I didn’t go back to school on Monday,” said Zella. “Some of us had to run the store, Ella an’ me, I guess. You helped Mom, didn’t you Annie?” 164

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “As much as I could. She was still a-nursin’ Alfred, who was not a year ol’, an’ Momma had to fix poultices and hot herb tea for Papa. She was a-tryin’ to break his fever, but nothin’ was workin’.” “In a couple of days, or maybe it was three, Alice got in from Kansas, an’ she took over the nursing. She made us be quiet. She’d have no loud talkin’, no runnin’ in an’ out of the room where Papa was, no fannin’ the air, but absolute quiet. ‘You don’t won’t to kill your daddy, do you?’ she’d say,” said Zella. “So we’d tiptoe to the eas’ bedroom—the room you was born in—an’ look at Papa beneath the layers of heavy quilts an’ watch Alice, who looked so much like him, with her high forehead and large nose, wipe his brow or hold water to his lips. He’d try to smile, but he was gettin’ too weak to do anything ‘cept fight for his breath. An’ that’s when he got so we could hear him all over the house, especially at night. He was fightin’ for air, an’ he was a-coughin’, but the coughin’ was doin’ no good, no matter what poultices was put on his ches’ or what kind of brew Momma was carryin’ in to Alice,” said Annie. Something would have to work soon,” said Zella, “for days were runnin’ out for him. The old folk in Deep Gap said that you had to break the fever by the ninth day or the person with pneumonia would die. More than a week of brews an’ poultices hadn’t broke Papa’s fever, and mounds of quilts and blankets hadn’t either. Alice kep’ on a-tryin, an’ we kep’ on a-prayin’ that something would do it soon. “By the eighth day Alice told us we’d better not go in his room again. ‘He’s too weak, an’ needs every ounce of his strength to breathe,’ she said. We could not even step to the door and wish him well. Alice held firm to the end,” said Zella. “There was no gettin’ in.” “An’ the en’ was not far off,” said Annie. “It come on the ninth day. We could hear it a-comin’. The gasps we’d been listenin’ to each day, hopin’ they’d quieten down as a sign of recovery, now turned to death rattles. Now we knew we had only to wait until the rattles was over for Alice to bring the dreaded word from that hot and darkened room.” “Before the rattles stopped,” said Zella, “Alice come to the kitchen for a bite of breakfast. She was gaunt, tired, too weary for tears. As she ate, we heard the rattles stop, an’ she said softly, ‘It’s about over now; his sufferin’ is about to end.’ When I stepped to the bedroom door this time, she said nothing, and I went on in. I was the first to see him dead, but I didn’t want to believe it. Alice and Mother came in after I told them I thought he was gone. I had read somewhere that if you stick a pin or needle in a knee and there is no reflex, it is almost certain there’s no life. Somehow I had the nerve to try it—there was 165

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. no reflex. Momma then pushed by me and flung herself across his silent chest. ‘Go, children, go, and leave me here with him. My dear companion is dead.’” “I rushed out of the house,” said Annie, “an’ headed across the mountain to bear the news to the younger children. Then I led a heartbroken bunch of kids back home in the company of Rufus Idol, who tried to comfort us.” “Rufe and Dick Watson, who come later, laid Papa out for burial. They sent off to Boone for a coffin, a wooden box without lining, put a black suit on Papa, shaved him, and brushed his thick mustache. They had to do all the laying out. There was no funeral home in Boone in those days, so people had to be laid out by family or neighbors. They got him ready for the funeral, an’ Momma said we’d have it nex’ day on the front porch,” said Zella. “That night,” continued Zella, “neighbors and friends come in an’ sat around an’ talked, an’ then some of them started singin’ songs, mostly religious ones. Even now when I hear some of them, I can’t help cryin’ ‘cause they take me back to that night. Sometime that day or night, Harvey got in. Somebody met him at Riverside or Brownwood and drove him home. When he saw Dad, he cried and cried. “Preacher Levi Greene, you remember him, of course—lived up the road half mile or so—preached the sermon. On a chilly day in March, he stood there on the front porch and preached. There was no flowers by the coffin, an’ Momma sat there by it an’ cried. The rest of us, the children by Delia, and all of our brood, stood there in the yard an’ listened to Levi’s words. I don’t remember any of them, jus’ the usual things preachers say at funerals, I guess. But I do remember there was no flowers,” said Annie. And she continued, “But we haven’t forgot either the sound of Papa’s ol’ farm wagon rattlin’ over a bumpy gravel road to the Watson family graveyard as it carried Papa to rest beside his first wife. An’ we haven’t forgot the sound of them cold lumps of earth as they were tossed onto his coffin.” Annie was the fourth of Jeremiah (Jerry) and Myrtie Miller Watson’s children, their third daughter. She was born on May 5, 1912. She wanted her children to know their maternal grandfather and when she had an opportunity to tell us something about him we stopped to listen to her and asked questions. “What was he like?” “Jolly and serious. Jolly when he lifted us off the ground and held us over his head. ‘Look at my leetle birds fly,’ he’d shout as he swung us around, rising, dipping, pausing in mid-air, like some hummingbird. 166

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE My, but wasn’t that fun? Him a-laughin’ and swirlin’ ‘round on them long legs and sayin’ ‘Myrtie, you ever seed a bird fly so high?’ And her a-standin’ there, afraid ever’ moment he’d drop his leetle bird and break ever’ bone in its body. She wasn’t one fer foolishness, you know, an’ feared he’d lose a-holt of his leetle bird and let ‘im come crashin’ to the floor. ‘Kerful, Mr. Watson,’ she’d cry, “yer gonna hurt that baby!’ “Of course, he never dropped nobody. He jus’ liked to jolly us up, make us smile, laugh, have a big time, but he had a serious side. We seen that when we went to the store he run with his twin brother, John. Here was candy, nuts, suckers, all sorts of wonderful things, but he kep’ us away from ‘em. Maybe a piece or bite oncet in awhile, but never as much as we wanted. My, how good all that stuff looked, caramel and chocolate ever’where. We coulda ate barrels of it. ‘Stay clear of that candy,’ he’d bark, gruff and forgivin’ at the same time. An’ bags of coffee beans, bolts of cloth, brogans for men, fancy slippers for ladies, hinges, hammers, nails, barrels of pickles, wheels of cheese, why, it was a showplace, so many things to see. An’ the smells—the new leather in harnesses and halters, the coffee beans in the coffee grinder, the oranges at Christmas time, the sticks of peppermint candy—they was jus’ wonderful. Us younguns wouda stayed in that store all day jus’ lookin’ and sniffin’ if he’da let us. But he’d shoo us away an’ make us go back to the house. “We didn’t want to be shooed away, of course, and took our time gettin’ back across the road. But there was one day he didn’t have to shoo us—we took off a runnin’ as fast as our legs would carry us, all because we seed somethin’ we’d never seed a-fore, some elephants. Here’s a tale I never told you before, an’ it jus’ come to me. “One day as we was fixin’ to cross the road, we heard somethin’ a-comin’. We looked up the road, Joe, Zella, Ella, an’ me an’ saw what it was comin’ tords us, teams of horses pullin’ the brightest colored wagons you can imagine. Out in front of the wagons was some clowns, a couple of them tootin’ a horn, an’ one of ‘em grindin’ an organ as a monkey hopped an’ strutted beside him. A cyclone couldn’t have moved us from where we stood, I tell you. We was bound and determined to watch the parade go by, a circus headin’ out tords Wilkesboro. Pretty soon some of the wagons rolled by, an’ we could see that they was really gaily-painted cages on wheels. Inside was a tiger in one, a lion in another, jus’ lyin’ there quiet like. They didn’t scare us one bit ‘cause we knowed they couldn’t get out of them cages. Then along come prancin’ horses, with pretty girls and nice-lookin’ fellers ridin’ ‘em. My how handsome they all looked in that finery they wore! It was 167

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. like somethin’ in a dream, let me tell you. We’d never seed anything that looked so fine. “We stared so long at them that we forgot that more of the circus would be comin’ along purty soon. When we looked back up the road agin, the ugliest, biggest creatures was a-bearin’ down on us. They was a-pullin’ big wagons and waddlin’ along. ‘What’s them things?’ yelled Joe. Zella had seed pictures of ‘em and yelled, ‘elephants!’ Joe wasn’t a-mind to take a closer look an’ took off a-runnin’ tords the house, yellin’ for momma. The rest of us tore off after him, a-feared somehow that the elephants was goin’ to get us. “Me an’ Zella laugh at our swift flight now, knowin’ the elephants was purty harmless creatures, but we was scared younguns back then. We took a lot of kiddin’ from Dad. He said teasingly, ‘The next time I want to shoo you younguns back home, I’m goin’ to get me an elephant.’ “I know younguns can do silly things, but what we done takes the cake, I’m sure, runnin’ from elephants jus’ ‘cause they was big an’ ugly.” Jerry’s house was located on the opposite side of North Carolina Highway 60 (much of which became US Highway 421) from the store. The house stood about 200 feet from the highway on a spot leveled by a team of horses pulling a scoop pan. The front yard sloped off to the highway; the backyard rose at a higher angle, forming almost a bank near the rear of the house, and then gave way to woodlands that rose still higher as the southern slope of Idol Mountain. A little more than a hundred yards behind the house was a spring which fed cool water to a springhouse on the west side of the house. To the east stood a woodshed and a large barn. Near the woodshed was an orchard of cherry trees. Beyond the barn was the apple orchard. Still farther away were meadows and fields for corn and potatoes. Behind the barn was pastureland. Jerry had grown up on a farm, and, despite setting up with his twin brother John to run a country store, he continued to work the soil. As Zella, Ella, Annie, and Joe grew big enough to help around the house and barn and in the fields, they had chores to do. Annie became good at milking. Her strong hands and gentle ways with cows were to serve her well throughout much of her life, for she continued to milk into her sixties, sold milk to Coble Dairies for years, and made butter and cheese for the family table. She learned to scamper up cherry trees, bucket in hand, and then helped pit and can cherries. Myrtie taught her and her siblings how to prepare apples for drying, how to do scrubbing and 168

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE ironing, how to embroider and quilt, and Jerry showed her the uses of rakes, hoes, and pitchforks. She became a good farmhand. If she dreamed of becoming something other than a farmer’s wife, she never spoke of having a different goal. Yet, there must have been an active merchant’s gene somewhere, for in her late fifties she began selling Avon products. (More about this later.) At school, she was no daydreamer, keenly interested in reading and excelling in handwriting. She studied the Palmer method of writing, mastering its graceful curves and artful linkings of letters. She was studious, a trait that carried over into her adult life, particularly in her thoughtful reading of the Bible and materials published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although she had fewer than ten years of formal education, she wholeheartedly encouraged her sons and daughter to get as much schooling as they could. I’m glancing ahead here and thereby interrupting my hasty account of her life before she married Lane. The sketchiness of the next paragraph or so results from my ignorance of how she fared following the death of Jerry. She rarely spoke of those days, except to say that times were hard. With no breadwinner, Myrtie couldn’t afford to keep a family of nine fed and clothed without help. To get it, she had to agree to breaking up her offspring: Zella went to Kansas to live with her half-sister, Alice, and was later joined by Mary; Joe and Max were taken in by their half-brother Harvey in Coshocton, Ohio; Annie, Ella, Ted, Josie, and Alfred remained with Myrtie. When Myrtie married widower Armfield Waters, she relinquished any claim to Jerry’s estate, since his will stated that all his personal property would go to his children should she remarry. Armfield had small children needing care and small means of supporting them because tuberculosis kept him from steady work. The addition of Ted, Josie, and Alfred to his household imposed hardship all around. Ella and Annie, now in their early teens, fended for themselves, keeping a garden, milking a cow, making a nickel or dime here and there as farmhands. They had to drop out of school. They looked to Alice and Zella for hand-me-downs and learned to make their own dresses, redoing garments that had gone out of style and turning to feed sacks for material for house- and work-dresses. The stylishness of the Flapper Era was something they couldn’t afford, but photographs of them show that their hair-dos had a touch of Flapper Age flair. As she entered her teen years, Annie lost her childhood chubbiness and became a willowy brunette. Her attractiveness and sexual ignorance, at age sixteen, in a case of statutory rape, resulted in the 169

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. birth of a child out of wedlock, Kenneth Jackson Watson, who was adopted by Lane after his marriage to Annie. With little help (and then none at all) from Ken’s father, Annie was strapped for money. Ella and Annie and their younger siblings ranged over nearby fields for strawberries, blackberries, chestnuts, and watercress to put something on the table or in the larder besides produce gathered from garden or orchard. In the fall, they could count on Rufus Idol to share his Concord grapes for jelly, marmalade, and juice, for his vines always bore more fruit than he could use. Annie, thus, learned to look to the land for provision, and the lessons she learned there prepared her to be a valued helpmate to Lane when they began their married lives with only a quarter left after paying the preacher. The hard times brought on by the Great Depression lingered practically unabated in the Blue Ridge when Annie and Lane married. Work was scarce and pay low. The lack of steady work forced Lane to make a tough choice, leave the mountains and search for a job in the North Carolina foothills or sign up for service in the Civilian Conservation Corps. With John a babe in arms and Annie pregnant with Jim, he had to act. Lane enlisted and donned a uniform. He was assigned to a unit working on projects in nearby Caldwell and McDowell Counties. He arranged to have most of his check sent to Annie, keeping enough pay to buy bags of Bull Durham tobacco and cigarette rolling paper. Annie hated to see him go but saw no other way of getting money to feed and clothe the family. She cried openly when he kissed her goodbye. Lane sometimes found a ride back to Deep Gap on weekends. Annie welcomed him, patting her swelling abdomen and asking Lane what name they should give the baby if it should be a boy. They settled on “James” as its first name, but what about a second name? Annie liked the sound of the county where Lane was then working: “McDowell.” They tried the two names together ”James McDowell.” It had a nice ring to it but no family association. Sound won over blood and thus James received, indirectly, a second name from a Revolutionary War soldier, Major McDowell, who won fame in the battle of King’s Mountain. After James’ birth, the economy of Watauga County improved enough for some families and businesses to build houses or stores. Walter Greene, who had a small construction company, needed a couple of carpenters and offered Lane a quarter an hour to come work for him. Glad to be able to return home to Annie and his boys, Lane accepted, even though he knew that the harsh winter months 170

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE in Watauga would likely throw him out of work. Annie could help them survive both cold weather and joblessness by “puttin’ up” fruits, vegetables, and meat. With the coming of summer (James was born 10 April 1934), she joined Lane in the garden and orchard and then canned beans, peas, carrots, cherries, and corn. She rambled the nearby fields and picked strawberries, blackberries, blueberries; she climbed Idol Mountain and helped gather Concord grapes from Rufus’ vines. Doing all her canning on a wood-burning stove and without a pressure canner meant long, sweaty hours of work. It also meant having food for the table when there was no money to buy groceries. Without her larder of canned goods, her family would doubtless have been forced to stand in lines waiting for handouts from whatever county agency had foodstuffs to distribute. Even when he was qualified to draw checks for unemployment, Lane hesitated, considering, first, that the weather would open up and he could return to work and, second, that receiving money for not working was somehow wrong. Annie had no such scruples. “If you can’t find a job, then you’re entitled to draw an unemployment check,” she argued. Lane’s ears were not always open to such reasoning. To him, an unemployment check was not a benefit but a gesture of charity. He had too much pride to ask for a handout. He’d much rather ask Rufus to lend him money than to appear in the line of the unemployed at the Watauga County Court House. Rufus he could repay when times were better; the shame of admitting that he was out of a job could never be erased. “I will not be a beggar,” he declared. In time, he came to understand how the system worked and filed for unemployment benefits, but he never overcame his feeling that the system obliged him to feel like a beggar. To escape that feeling, he later packed up his tools and joined a work crew from Boone that built houses in Florida during the winter season. Being separated from his family was painful, but, as he said, “There ain’t enough money in unemployment checks to feed my family and stock, and there’s no pride settin’ on your hin’ end when you could be out workin’.” In the early years of their marriage, Annie and Lane had no occasion to debate whether he should register for unemployment checks. Workers across the nation lacked security nets. Breadlines and soup kitchens might keep the body together but did nothing to boost a worker’s sense of self-worth. While Lane questioned his self-worth, Annie reminded him that things could be worse. “After all,” she said, “we have a garden and the fields and orchards. We ain’t gonna lack for food. I’ve been puttin’ up things ever since Momma remarried, an’ I’m a good han’ in the garden or corn and potato patch. We’ll get by.” Milk 171

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. and butter came from Rufus and Nancy most of the time. That meant climbing Idol Mountain and fetching them, an errand that Alfred often ran, for he was back under Jerry’s roof after Arm’s death. The wintry winds sweeping across Idol Mountain left Alfred with no choice but to bring milk home “frozen in pail,” to filch a phrase from Shakespeare. Sometimes they had a cow to milk. That happened when a farmer named Roy Blackburn, whose home was in Idlewild, allowed people to milk one of his open-range cows during the winter if the person who had caught it agreed to feed it until the next spring. The Jerry Watson house was now crowded: Fred and Ella with their four daughters squeezed into the upstairs bedroom on the west end. They shared the kitchen area in the lean-to with Myrtie, who had brought Alfred and Josie back with her to the homeplace following Arm’s death. Annie and Lane and their four sons brought the number of persons living under one roof to fifteen. They lived under the fear that the homestead and fields, woodlands, and orchards surrounding it would go up for bids at the courthouse in Boone because of delinquent property taxes. Jerry’s will had not been probated, a situation leaving his heirs uncertain what portion of his 100 acres would be theirs. Nothing could be done, however, until the tax collector received back taxes. Fred and Lane began saving money to pay off the taxes, and, when the bill was settled, they oversaw the division of the land into nine parcels, the homeplace going to Alfred. Annie’s parcel lay east of the home place. The best part of it was planted in apple trees, Virginia Beauties, Buckingham, and Dixie, an early apple, and other varieties I never heard named, mostly hard, winter apples, a few of them a deep burgundy, another a brownish yellow, a third a rusty green, good for drying and apple butter. Beneath a knoll and near a spring-fed stream, Lane built a four-room house, a board-and-batten structure put up in the winter of 1937. It sat behind two apple trees, which gave welcome shade on many summer afternoons when Annie needed help snapping beans, capping strawberries, or shelling peas. The rooms were finished with beaded pine, overhead and walls. Between the living room and kitchen was a truncated chimney. It was built from bricks and stood on a wooden base just below ceiling level. A pipe from an oval-shaped tin stove in the living room and another from a wood-burning kitchen stove fed into the chimney, which was a crude affair laid by Uncle Walter Greene on a cold winter’s day. Once the chimney was in place, Lane pushed on to lay oak floors and to cover walls and ceilings with beaded pine boards. If insulation were in use at that time, he built without it. Although the beaded pine 172

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE boards seemed to fit snugly, they were no match for the strong winds that swept out of Tennessee and Virginia. Sometimes we awoke to a light dusting of snow in our bedroom and in the hall leading to the living room. I don’t know how the matter was settled between them, but Annie always rose first and laid fires in the oval-shaped tin stove in the living room and the cook stove in the kitchen. During winters, it was a frosty job, since the stoves would not hold fire all night. (Much later, when Lane could afford a stove capable of keeping a fire going all night and when an electric stove replaced the old wood-burning kitchen range, Annie had an easier time getting her day started.) Most of the time, Lane or her sons brought in kindling and pinecones rich in resin for her to use in starting fires. But, on far too many occasions, she had to depend on old newspapers, magazines, or catalogs to get a fire going. Lane didn’t keep a sharp eye on the wood-house after piling it full of sawn slabs or trees. The pile dwindled away to nothing after a few weeks, and his sons sometimes failed to spend enough time with crosscut saw and ax after school days to replenish the pile. Annie, pushed beyond the limits of her patience, would say, “If you expect to eat, you must bring me wood.” Lane marshaled his troops, ordered slabs or cut down trees, sharpened crosscut saws, rounded up wedge and sledgehammer, and filled the wood-house to overflowing again. Then the cycle repeated itself. And it would not cease until his sons pooled their resources and installed propane heaters and Lane bought an electric range for the newly remodeled kitchen. Among our schoolboy projects to bring wood in from the slopes of Idol Mountain was the building of a wooden wagon. Our first goal was to find a blackgum tree having a diameter of 12 or fourteen inches. Once we found a suitable tree, we cut it down and then tried to saw off four chunks of equal width and roundness for wheels. That done, we took a large auger and bored out holes, through which we ran two axles of white pine. They had to be long enough to extend beyond the wheel and sturdy enough to hold a wooden peg in place. To put in the peg, we bored small holes and tapped the peg securely in. We then built a frame from scrap pieces of 2x4s and fashioned a bed from scraps of boards. To make the wagon steerable, we needed a long bolt, washers, and a nut. These we rounded up and used to attach the front wheels and axle to the frame. Now our wagon was steerable, but only with strong effort. To reduce the work of steering it, we cut off a slice of Annie’s Octagon soap and lubricated the washers. And while we were about it, we pressed slivers of soap between the wheels and the axle. 173

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. The steering apparatus consisted of a rope tied to the front axle just inside the wheel and beyond the bed, which was approximately three by six feet, big enough to seat four of us scrunched together. The driver sat in front, rope in hand and feet spread to rest on the length of axle between the bed and front wheels. The weight of the wagon and its crude steering gear made the driver’s job tough. With boyish energy to burn, the work of building the wagon and pulling it to the mountain top to gather wood seemed more like fun than otherwise. One warm summer day when our fellow mechanic and cousin Ira Watson was visiting us, we heeded Annie’s request without the usual pokiness and eagerly went in search of wood, teaming up to pull the heavy wagon up the steep hill behind the barn. Beyond the pasture was a stand of trees, oaks, blackgums, maples, pines, birches, and locusts. We huffed and tugged our way to the stand of trees and stopped to rest beneath some white pines. As our heavy breathing subsided, we heard trampling noises in the woods below us. “What’s that noise?” one of us asked. “Don’t know,” came a reply. “Listen, it’s gettin’ closer. Reckon what it is?” “I don’t see nothin’, no cow, calf, or nothin’.” “You think it’s gonna get us, whatever it is?” “Could be bears!” someone whispered. “It’s comin’ closer. I think we’d better get out of here!” We piled onto the wagon bed, Ken grabbing the rope and bracing his legs on the axle. One of us gave the wagon a shove and then, like some clumsy bobsledder, leapt aboard. The wagon gathered speed, flew down the mountain, bouncing over field rock and rough places, rushed by the barn and pig lot, and headed for the back door where Annie stood, mouth agape, wondering what had brought us back empty-handed at such a breakneck pace. “Momma, we heard a bear in the woods, or maybe two of them. We couldn’t tell ‘xactly. All we knowed is that we’d better get out of there before they got us.” “You sure it was a bear you heard?” she asked skeptically. “Sure sounded like one, but we didn’t see nothin’. It was too scary to stay there.” “I’ve never heard of no bears in these woods,” Annie said. “Must have been something else. Maybe our cow or somebody’s horse that got out.” “Didn’t sound like no horse or cow,” we argued. 174

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “I wouldn’t want you to be grabbed up and carried away by a bear,” said Annie, a smile coming across her face as she looked up the mountain slope and saw our dogs just emerging from the woods. “Where are your dogs?” she asked. “They took off when we got to the woods,” we said. “And you didn’t see them when you heard all them tramplin’ sounds?” “No, we told you we didn’t see nothin’.” “Well, I think you have your answer. Them dogs was your bears,” she chuckled. Annie had a merry chuckle. At this moment it was a bit muted, since she was reluctant to ridicule us for our scaredy-cat behavior. But if the cause of laughter was something absurd, she often laughed until her chuckling doubled her up. Steve recalls witnessing such a fit of laughter when, during a visit to the North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, with Annie and Cousin Katie Howell, they found themselves in the basement of the hospital instead of on the floor where they intended to visit someone’s room. “Somehow, when they found themselves in the basement, that got their tickle boxes going and they laughed and laughed. They laughed so hard I got right embarrassed to be seen with ‘em,” said Steve. An event that made Annie fearful for her sons was the declaration of war on Germany and Japan. She gathered all of us in the living room and stood by the kitchen door as President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the nation. “Listen, boys,” she told us, “the President is about to speak.” We grew quiet, sensing the somberness and seriousness of the opening words, without fully understanding them. But Annie knew what he meant and raised a corner of her apron to wipe away tears. Far better than we, she realized what war would do to the nation, and she feared that it would last long enough for her sons to be caught up in it. “I pray to God,” she said, “that this war ends before any of you are asked to go fight, and I’m afraid it’s not gonna be over soon. I don’t want to lose any of my precious boys to the war, and I don’t want your daddy to be taken from us. I’m afraid it’s gonna be a long war.” In our innocence, we boys thought the war would be over in a matter of days or weeks. Her tearful concern for our well-being seemed melodramatic, for we were sure that our enemies would be quickly conquered. That we’d end up wearing uniforms and being shot at didn’t appear likely. We were eager to hear Roosevelt stop speaking so that we’d be able to leave the living room and go back to our games. Playing soldier was now an alternative to our games of cowboys and Indians with 175

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. our friends. In time, I’d become a master sergeant in the service of Captain Bill Moretz and Lieutenant Bobby Miller in the fighting force of Deep Gap Elementary School. We were fearless, successful, and proud warriors, adding these ranks to our names on papers turned in to our teachers. I even wrote a poem about our capturing a Jeepful of Japs in one of our battles. Annie was more impressed by my writing ability than my warlike demeanor. She’d rather have a poet than a war hero in her house, she said. Our four-room house lacked not only central heating but running water and an indoor toilet. For a few years after Lane built the house, water had to be carried from the spring-house at the Watson homeplace, a distance of more than 300 yards. The chore of carrying it fell to Annie’s sons, who fetched buckets of water for everyday use and tubs of it on wash days. Being water-boys was in no way fun but, instead, a dreaded task. Toting a bucket had its risks, especially if the pail were filled to the brim. Water sometimes splashed out and wet trouser legs and shoes. But fetching a tub of water was far riskier and, for obvious reasons, painful. Try as we would, we could not find a rhythm that kept the water from rocking back and forth and finally sloshing out, drenching pant legs and socks and shoes. In frigid weather, we sometimes arrived home with pant legs frozen stiff. That was bad enough, but far more painful was the bruising pressure on curled fingers and unprotected palm from the tub handles. Round as they were, they nonetheless felt like blunted knives cutting into every nerve as we jiggled and joggled along. When the pain was too terrific to bear, we stopped, rubbed our fingers and palm, looked around for leaves or grass to use as a cushion, and hoped never to hear Annie say again, “It’s washday; I’m gonna need some water.” A happy day in our lives was to hear Lane say, “I’m going to dig a well and put in a pump so you boys won’t have to carry water all that far.” He dug one twenty feet from the upper side of the house and struck water, plenty of it, not more than fifteen feet down. He built a heavy cover for the well, warned us about falling in, and installed a pump, a bright red one, above the cover. Primed and coaxed to do its job, it brought up a steady stream of water. “No more trips to fetch water,” we yelled. When he could afford a sink and worked out a plan to remodel the kitchen, he moved the pump indoors. It would still have to be worked by hand, but it removed a chore from our daily routine. Annie could now get water whenever she needed it. Cold water she had aplenty, then, but hot water for washdays and 176

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Saturday night baths was scarce. Big washings and grimy boys required much hot water. She had to heat it on the kitchen range and on the living room stove. Some of our neighbors heated washday water in huge pots over an outdoor fire. Annie didn’t like to mess with smoke-blackened pots and feared for the safety of her sons, since a toddler could stumble into a fire while she worked at her scrub board or hung clothes to dry. Washday meant that every inch of the range and stove top was covered by a tub or pot. In mild weather, hot water was carried to a large tub outside. On wintry days, the tub had to be set up in the kitchen. Into the tub went overalls, many pairs of them, shirts, socks, underwear, diapers, sheets, pillow cases, not all at the same time, but sorted and scrubbed in Octagon soap or in some lye soap given to her by some neighbors who still brewed their own soap. The work of scrubbing was backbreaking, since she had to bend over the board, fish some item from the tub, rub it many times over the scrub board, wring it, place it in the rinse tub, wring it again, and then put it in a basket or large dishpan with other items to be hung on the clothes line. We boys sometimes helped with the scrubbing, but the monotony of the back-and-forth action, the slight sting of the lye soap, and reddening of our hands soon drove us to beg her to let us hang clothes on the line, carry more wood to the house, or, more often, to let us go play. Hanging clothes to dry in good weather was an easy job and for that Annie usually had plenty of help. Her challenge to dry them in winter left us with engineering feats that Christo might have envied, since she strung cords, ropes, and wires from walls, chairs, bed posts, and tables to hang clothes on. Getting through the living room or a bedroom proved to be something like solving a maze as we wound our way among overalls, sheets, shirts, and long johns. If a wintry day began fair enough to venture hanging clothes outside, Annie had us carry them outside. A few times, however, the weather turned foul or sharply colder. Then the clothes would have to be brought back inside. Years ago I tried to capture the experience in a poem, which I here include.

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JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Winter Visitors Hung beneath cloudy skies turned wet and cold overalls, shirts, and long johns freeze stiff on clothes lines stretched along the backyard. “We must have them for school tomorrow!” In the living room they hang from makeshift lines, beside a red-hot wood-burning stove, developing limpness in arm, leg, tail, no longer some Viking hero on watch at some distant Nordic outpost, but mere garments ready for Mom’s flat iron. When electricity came to Deep Gap, sometime in 1939, Annie didn’t immediately get a washing machine, since money for something so costly would have to be saved for a down payment. One of the happiest days in Annie’s life came when Lane said, “You can go to Boone and look for a washing machine.” It freed her from much drudgery but brought a new problem, one that Brother Jim and I created for her one washday. I’m sure I engineered the problem. I often helped feed clothes through the wringer of the new machine, finding the job easy and fun. One day I decided to see if I could get a towel to go, not only between the two rubberized rollers, but over and under and then back through between. I needed an accomplice to carry out my plan. Jim was game. He was to stand opposite me and feed the towel over the top roller. He was up to the task I assigned him. The towel went through and then, thanks to Jim, back over the top to me. I then fed the leading edge back to him and watched as the towel made a complete circuit. Not satisfied with going between and then over and back through, I wanted to feed the towel under and back through again. The trick was to get the limp leading edge to come up far enough for Jim to grab it. Numerous attempts failed. I studied the problem for a few seconds and then decided that I could wedge my fingers far enough under the bottom roller to get the towel to Jim. My plan didn’t seem hazardous for the first two inches of my fingers. The towel went almost far enough for Jim to reach it. He could see it coming “Just a little bit more,” he said. I pushed my fingers a little deeper, trying to curl them upward to keep the towel from dropping away from him. “A wee bit more,” Jim said. 178

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE I pushed harder. Then suddenly my fingers and arm were thrust sharply forward as my arm wedged more deeply under the roller; the wringer popped loose from its release mechanism, a good thing, too, since, had the wringer continued to roll, I would have received a far deeper gash than I did. My cry of pain and the snap of the wringer from its mooring alarmed Annie, who was busy with something on the stove and had her back to us. She turned to see me entangled with the wringer, blood spouting from my right wrist. She freed me, took a look at the twoinch gash in my wrist, and told Jim, who was ashen white, to go see if a neighbor could drive her and me to Boone to have a doctor sew me up. Meanwhile, she bandaged my wrist as best as she could and said, “Johnny, I never expected you to do such a foolish thing as that. You could have lost an arm.” The doctor stitched me up, put on a bandage, and told Annie to have me carry the arm in a sling for a few days. I was so proud of my bandage and sling that I couldn’t wait to show it to Ken. Some years earlier, I had envied all the attention he got when a rambunctious cow dragged him across a field and left him needing stitches and a sling. Impatient to let him know that I too had been wounded and had to wear a sling, I couldn’t wait for him to get home from some job he was doing for a neighbor. To give him a chance to see me earlier, I went to Myrtie’s and stood by her mailbox until he came back. He looked me over but wasn’t impressed when I told him how I’d hurt myself. I quickly gathered that he agreed with Annie: I’d done a foolish thing and had no right to parade my wounded wrist. I bear to this day the sign of an engineering feat gone awry. Next on Annie’s want-list was a refrigerator. Since we had to carry milk to Myrtie’s springhouse to keep it cool and then go fetch it at mealtime, take bowls of Jell-O there to congeal, and rush off for butter if she found herself short of enough of it when she was baking, she wished time and again for a refrigerator. Once more, she put aside enough money for a down payment, sometime around 1948, and went to Boone to look at refrigerators. She came back with a big one, a Frigidaire, a gleaming white box sparkling with chrome trim. It was a welcome sight to us boys. No more trips to the springhouse, no more half-congealed Jell-O, no more lukewarm milk or gooey butter. Now we could enjoy cold milk, beg Lane to buy ice cream, slice off a patty of butter, and make lemonade and Kool-Aid. And if we dared, we could snitch a small slice of one of Annie’s celebrated chocolate or butterscotch pies. 179

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Everyone lucky enough to have a piece of her special pies wanted her recipes. “I don’t have ‘em wrote down,” she’d reply. She would gladly have let the requester copy either one, not being the kind of cook unwilling to share her secrets. Her daughters-in-law were particularly eager to learn how to make the pies, because, try as they would to make pies as delicious as Annie’s, their spouses would always say, “Nice try, but it’s not up to Mom’s.” Singly or in chorus together the daughters-in-law suggested that Annie take time and write down a list of ingredients and the directions when she next made the pies. She never got around to that. Determined to learn how to make them, Margie asked if she could watch her sometime when she made pies. The recipes below are Margie’s record of what she saw and heard as Annie baked her famous pies. Annie’s Butterscotch Pie 2 1⁄2 cups of dark brown sugar not quite 4 c of milk dash of salt 1 stick of margarine 4 eggs separated 2 tsp vanilla 6 heaping tbsp flour Heat brown sugar, flour, salt, milk, and margarine. Mix up yolks. Add some hot brown sugar mixture to them first. Then pour them and the hot brown sugar mixture into a pan (preferably a cast iron skillet) and stir for 20 minutes or until thick, adding vanilla last. Pour into a pre-baked pie shell and bake at 325 degrees until the crust is brown. Cool thoroughly with oven door down before topping with meringue. Makes 2 pies.

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BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Annie’s Chocolate Pie 1⁄4 c cocoa 2 c sugar 5 eggs separated 3 c milk 1⁄2 cup flour 2/3 stick margarine, added last 2 tsp vanilla pinch salt Mix sugar, cocoa, salt, and flour in a bowl. Add egg yolks and milk and stir together. Put in pan and cook until thick, stirring constantly for about twenty minutes. Use wooden spoon and cook in cast iron skillet, if available. Don’t remove skillet from stove until the chocolate has a certain gloss or sheen. Add vanilla and margarine near the end of the stirring. Pour into prebaked pie shell and bake at 325 degrees until crust is brown. Let cool slowly with oven door open and then add meringue. Makes 2 pies. Annie’s recipe for Meringue 4 (or 5) egg whites, the difference depending on the pie being made 1/8 tsp cream of tartar 1⁄4 c sugar, adding gradually as the whites are being beaten 1 1⁄4 tsp vanilla Stir the egg, butter, and cream of tartar together in a mediumsized mixing bowl. Beat the whites (adding sugar gradually) to a fluffy stiffness (but not dry) and then spread on thoroughly cooled pie, sealing edges where the meringue meets the crust. Decorate by using table fork to make large crosshatch marks # in center of the meringue. Bake at 350 degrees till light brown (about 10 minutes). Leave in oven to cool slowly with door down. She prided herself on her coconut pies as well, and, on occasions when visitors or relatives came calling, she usually had chocolate, butterscotch, and coconut pie ready to serve. Annie’s kitchen was a busy place, not only when she baked pies but also at practically every meal time until her hungry sons and 181

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. daughter found companions. With few exceptions, breakfast meant biscuits and gravy, but since Lane and a few of the boys liked pone bread, she made what amounted to giant-sized biscuits in a separate pan. Lane wanted his bread fluffy, and biscuits had more crust than he liked. As long as her canned sausage held out, she mixed some of it with her gravy. Bacon was not a breakfast staple, since the supply was limited by the fact that Lane usually sold one or more of the slabs of side meat used in making bacon. Annie didn’t buy much bacon until after Lane stopped keeping hogs. In addition to biscuits, she often served rice as a bed for the gravy, her supply of biscuits not always keeping pace with our appetites. For our sweet tooth, she gave us jams and jellies: strawberry, blackberry, cherry, apple, grape, and peach. She set molasses and honey before us as well. Lane made sure that the honey she served him came from sourwood blossoms. He had little appetite for any other kind. A favorite sweet of Annie’s boys was a mixture of molasses and golden butter, churned and molded by Nancy. The trick to getting the molasses and butter just right to spread on a biscuit was to pour a couple of spoonfuls in a plate, slice off some butter, and then beat the butter and molasses until the blend was a deep amber. Then it was ready to adorn the biscuit and disappear down our gullets. She usually kept boxes of corn flakes or some other cereal on hand, and, for the sake of variety, she sometimes prepared pancakes or mush, the former a favorite, the latter sure to be met by a chorus of groans, even though Annie said, “This is not mush—it’s cream of wheat, and the kind the announcer brags about on Let’s Pretend.” Most of us loved that radio show, but we couldn’t pretend that cream of wheat was anything but mush by another name. Breakfast time also called for her to pack Lane’s lunch box. His chief demand was that she get his coffee in his thermos steaming hot. She sometimes made sandwiches for him, but he generally preferred to have some slices of bread or crackers, a can of Vienna sausage or potted ham, a can of pork and beans, and three or four small raisin and crème cakes. He wanted extra cakes for his morning and afternoon snack breaks. If he came home without eating all his cakes, as he sometimes did when his job was close enough to a store for someone to go for cokes and candy bars, we boys rushed to meet him and begged to be allowed to look through his lunch pail. If a cake were there, we happily and quickly devoured it. The rush to find a cake became something of a ritual, one that served as a kind of bonding ceremony. Lane enjoyed seeing us excited about discovering a cake. He liked to see us sprint to meet him. “Looks like I’m raisin’ a bunch of track stars,” he jested. 182

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “And here I was a-thinkin’ I had a basketball team with a couple of subs and a cheerleader.” Midday meals during our elementary school days, especially when Siberia extended its territorial claims to Deep Gap, usually warmed both our faces and our gullets. Annie put before us bowls of homemade vegetable soup and steaming cornbread. We often topped off our midday meal with an apple or a slice of gingerbread fresh from the oven. We didn’t dawdle over lunch since we wanted to get back to the playground before the bell rang for afternoon classes. An inning or two of baseball, a spirited chase of hounds after foxes, a chance to win a marble or two in a marble-shooting contest, and a minute or two to spend gazing at the object of our puppy love of the moment prompted a quick departure from Annie’s table. We were happy that Lane didn’t have a KP roster for midday meals. Sunday dinners were far more demanding on Annie’s talents and time. Because Lane believed that a Sunday dinner should feature pinto beans, Annie’s work for that meal actually began Saturday night after she’d spent much of Saturday afternoon baking her celebrated pies or one of her much praised pound cakes. She put several cups of pinto beans in warm water and let them soak overnight and then began boiling the pot during Sunday breakfast. Lane disliked whole pinto beans, preferring instead a kind of mush or soup. To reduce them to that state, Annie had to boil them for several hours. As they bubbled and roiled all Sunday morning, the house smelled of beans, an aroma that Lane sniffed approvingly before he went off to church and which built his appetite once he returned from Sunday services. Chicken on a Sunday he could do without, but not pinto beans. But if many Sundays went by without chicken on the table, Annie believed that she had not prepared enough food. In fact, she didn’t stop with chicken and beans. She had fresh pork tenderloin (“tenderline” was her pronunciation) when Lane butchered hogs and canned tenderloin at other times. When Lane began keeping beef cattle, she added roast or stewed beef (and sometimes broiled steak) to her menu. To offer still another choice, she sometimes made salmon patties and found a place for them on her crowded Sunday table. Annie liked variety in vegetables dishes, too. Sunday dinner meant creamy mashed potatoes, peppery hot green beans, sliced or canned tomatoes, fresh corn in a creamy sauce or on the cob in season, sliced cucumbers, lettuce wilted with hot bacon grease, mashed turnips in season, baby peas in a buttery sauce, golden slices of cantaloupe, 183

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. steamed squash or cabbage, and an assortment of pickles or chowchow. Celebrated as they were, she wanted more than her pies on the table or within close reach. She kept cans of peaches on hand, since Lane fancied those too, especially Georgia Belles. Not many Sundays passed without a bowl of her favorite Jell-O: strawberry-flavor with sliced banana. She was fond of pound cakes, as well, and vanilla-rich bread or rice pudding. It wasn’t just a pretended hurt if a guest refused to sample all of her desserts. She truly wanted everyone to eat “a little bit at least” of everything she’d made. Her idea of “a little bit” was at least a half-inch wedge. Her knife refused to slice anything more slender. In her hands, a knife was an obedient instrument. “I made all your favorites,” Annie said, “and it would be a shame if you didn’t have some of each.” Stuffed as we usually were, we said, “OK, bring us a small slice.” She smiled happily at this concession and went away to let her obedient knife go to work. “I knew you’d be disappointed if I didn’t fix your favorite pie,” she would say as she came back bearing a half-inch wedge, “so I baked butterscotch, chocolate, and coconut.” The fare I’ve been describing appeared on Sunday tables, not during weekdays. More often than not, especially after spring and summer vegetables were no longer available for evening meals, we ate cornbread and milk. Annie sat before us a cold pitcher of milk, a pone of cornbread, sometimes a jar of molasses, a teaspoon, a snuff glass (claimed from Nancy and scrubbed for table use), and a box of ground black pepper. We crumbled the bread into the glass and liberally sprinkled black pepper on it unless we wanted to shift off for a taste of something sweet. If that were our choice, then we poured a tablespoon of molasses in our glasses after crumbling the cornbread into them and, spoon in hand, swirled the molasses around until the mixture turned a pale amber. The clink of spoon against glass was not pleasant music, but the taste of molasses on tongues that rarely experienced the sweetness of candy was a treat. The first meal I recollect eating at Annie’s table was cornbread and milk. We still lived in the Jerry Watson house at that time, and Annie baked cornbread in a cast-iron skillet in the fireplace. Her cornbread never tasted as good when she started baking it in a wood-fired range. In a tradition that lingered long in the Blue Ridge, Annie saw her role as both cook and server. She did not join her guests at table but remained afoot to replenish emptying serving bowls, platters, glasses, or cups. This was certainly the case when we had guests, but she often refused a seat when just her family sat at table. That meant having to 184

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE forego any chance at a choice bit of meat or vegetable. She had to settle for seconds or thirds or forego some item that her guests or family devoured before she came to the table. Being the dutiful wife, she also did her best to prepare sumptuous meals for preachers (and sometimes their families) who came to Laurel Springs Baptist Church to participate in revival services. Like other leaders in the church, Lane wanted to invite the visiting evangelist to have a meal at his house. Preacher after preacher came, feasted on drumstick or breast, and must have wondered why, of all the hostesses that served meals during the revival, Annie never showed up at any of the meetings. “A deacon’s wife, a first-rate meal, and still a no-show at our preaching; what could the matter be in the Idol house?” they must have mused. If Lane ever told them he was married to a Jehovah’s Witness, I don’t know. In any case, none of the preachers returned to talk religion with her. When, after her nest had emptied, she began attending services at the kingdom hall between Deep Gap and Boone, she no longer spent her Sunday mornings cooking for family and in-laws. And Lane’s dinner hour was postponed until she returned to set a meal before him. During the last two years of her life, she rarely felt well enough to enjoy cooking, although she often pushed herself to put her traditional spread before her guests. She gritted her teeth, sighed heavily when waves of pain struck her, uttered soft-spoken prayers, and pressed on until she was satisfied that no one would go without his or her favorite dish—creamy mashed potatoes, steamy turnips for Lane, piping hot pinto beans, golden fried chicken, roast pork or beef, her usual lineup of pies, sliced tomatoes and cantaloupe, biscuits, cornbread, and, in season, strawberries or peaches. To these she’d add two kinds of beans, green and “shellies,” relishes, and pickles. To our protests that she was doing too much, Annie replied, “I love to have my family together to eat, and I done the bes’ I could.” “You’ve done too much.” “You should take it easy, and let us do the work.” “No, I’m goin’ to do it as long as I can hold out. It makes me happy to see how much you like my cookin’,” she said. Insufferable pain finally drove her from her kitchen but failed to stop her from feeling obliged to be a good host. “I didn’t feel like fixin’ nothin’,” she would say, “but I want to take you out to the Two Sisters for a meal.” As her back pain intensified during the last year of her life, her sons and daughters-in-law, and even Lane, took over much of the cooking, 185

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. especially for family gatherings. To reduce their work to an absolute minimum, Margie and I went to the Stouffer outlet in Gaffney, South Carolina, and bought dozens of frozen meals to take to Lane and Annie. Other members of the family carried plates of food to them. Neighbors and relatives pitched in as well as church folk. Long before her illness began, she enjoyed listening to the radio, particularly on Sunday mornings when Lane had gathered up his sons and led them off to church. She enjoyed hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and song services during a Lutheran broadcast. Her taste in religious music was far more eclectic than Lane’s. She turned on the radio during weekdays, too, especially liking game shows. One of them, Stop the Music, gave her an opportunity to compete with a studio contestant for prizes. It was one of the many shows that Burt Parks hosted, this one inviting home contestants to send in information about themselves and their families. The staff would then take the received information, formulate questions, and then choose a studio contestant to compete by answering the questions before the music stopped. Any question missed by the studio contestant would make the home contestant the winner of whatever prize was being offered during that round of competition. Annie included in her information the number of children she had, the acreage of our farm, and the name of the nearest town, Boone. I remember only two of the questions posed: “Mrs. Idol has the same number of children as Henry VIII had wives, and Mrs. Idol’s husband has the same name as the ruler of England when the Magna Carta was signed.” The studio contestant’s reply of “six” and “John” meant that Annie would receive only a perky thanks from ebullient Burt, for, at the time she entered the contest, Joyce and Steve were waiting in the wings. Annie’s offspring gave her many occasions to test her nursing and doctoring skills. Living in such cramped quarters as we did, any childhood disease contracted by one of us soon targeted the rest of us and rarely missed. We seemed to have come down with whatever disease was making its rounds through Deep Gap. When whooping cough hit Deep Gap Elementary School, we were a pack of baying hounds. When mumps struck, she worried about their “sinking” and ruining our chances for full manhood. That meant keeping us especially quiet. To discourage us from getting up and moving around, she pulled down shades, hung sheets or quilts over windows, and ordered us to use a chamber pot rather than go to the jake. When measles came calling, she admonished us not to scratch ourselves. “You’ll leave ugly scars on your face and arms if you scratch. Just pat the itchy spot and tell the itch 186

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE to go away,” she said. Against such sage advice, we sometimes sneaked a scratch on a tormenting spot and hoped we wouldn’t be “ruint” for life. Whooping cough brought out jars of Vicks Vap-O-Rub and bottles of patent cough syrup. For all the good either did, she might as well have spent her money on earplugs. Our fits of coughing responded to no remedy except time and our bodies’ own curative powers. We made ourselves miserable with our constant hacking and braying. Annie saw us through this onset as patiently and lovingly as she did with our other childhood maladies. She had to deal with ear aches, toothaches, beans stuffed up nostrils, cuts, bruises, and twisted ankles or sprained wrists. For ear aches, her first line of attack was to warm something like baby oil to a point several degrees above body temperature and then with a dropper put the heated oil into the affected ear canal. Sometimes, the remedy worked. If it didn’t and the poor sufferer continued to bawl, she asked Lane to blow cigarette smoke into the victim’s ear. If that failed, she held wash cloths soaked in warm water against the offending ear. Depending on the age of the squalling patient, she wrapped him snugly in a blanket, found a seat beside the living room stove, and rocked and sang softly until sleep did what no other remedy could effect. But when soft cuddling and low lullabies wouldn’t work, she had to take more drastic action, as Brother Bill recalls. Once when he was suffering from an earache that had reduced him to screams and tears, a neighbor, Cliff Ray, stopped by for a visit. Bill’s squalling didn’t stop at the sight of our visitor. Annie asked Cliff if he knew of something she could try. He’d known children to be cured with a drop or two of their own pee in the aching ear. “Mom told me she was goin’ to try it,” Bill said. “I went and found a little cup and peed in it and brought it back to Momma. She put a dropper in my pee, had me tilt my head over her lap, and then dropped a couple of drops of pee in my ear. The pain soon stopped, and I’ve not had an earache since.” For sore throats and chests she kept a good supply of Raleigh salve on hand, a mentholated concoction somewhat like Vicks, but cheaper and delivered by a man representing the Raleigh Company, Her supply would have lasted far longer if Brother Jim had not developed a taste for it. He ate it like it was candy. She always ran out of it before the Raleigh man made his round again. Then she had to keep an eye on her box of Rosebud salve, for Jim took a fancy to it as well. She used it for chapped lips and rough, dry spots caused by frigid weather. Winter weather called for remedies to help us recover from numbed fingers, ears, and noses. Because we lived too close to Deep 187

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Gap Elementary School to ride a school bus, we had to walk, a distance of almost 500 yards. We made the trek to school and back twice a day, since we always came home for lunch. On days when winds seemed to sweep straight from the North Pole to Deep Gap, we came home with fingers, ears, and noses we swore were suffering from frostbite. Had Annie not watched us, we would have held our hands and faces as close to the stove as possible. “No, no, you mustn’t stand close to that stove. You’ll burn yourselves, ‘cause you’re so numb from the cold you can’t tell how hot that stove is.” She then poured steaming water into a pan, mixed in a little cold water, and then, after inspecting it to see if it were lukewarm, she allowed us to thaw our hands. Meanwhile, she held lukewarm wash cloths to our ears and noses. For our bouts with diarrhea, usually a malady of summer when we took too hungrily to raw fruits and vegetables, she had a tested and proven cure: parched flour. She put a cup or two of flour in her skillet or in a cake pan, heated it until it turned a light brown color, and then told us to eat two or three tablespoonfuls of the driest stuff we’d ever tried to swallow. Getting it down was not an easy matter, for it stuck to lips, tongue, and throat, soaking ever bit of moisture in our mouths. She didn’t want us to drink water, since any liquid would defeat her purpose. We learned not to try too much at a time, rather to handle it as Nancy or Myrtie did their snuff, a little bit at a time. Even a small pinch of it was hard to swallow. A tablespoonful at once could have gagged us. It didn’t taste good either. Naturally, we fussed about having to eat it, but we were happy to have our trots ended quickly. Annie didn’t put much stock in Myrtie’s remedy for removing warts—going to the woods, finding a stump filled with rain water, washing our hands in the brownish water, turning and walking away without looking back. “I tried it when I was a youngun and it didn’t work for me,” she said. “Why don’t you find yourself a string and tie it around the wart as tight as you can, tight enough to raise a little blood on the wart, and leave it on as long as you can. If you do it right, that wart’s gonna come off. Or you might put some iodine on it, a little ever’ day. If you keep doin’ it, the wart’ll dry up and go away. I don’t think you’ll get them off by prickin’ one with a grain of corn until it bleeds and then burying the grain. Never knowed it to work.” Looking after a phalanx of injured or sick sons and a late-arriving daughter left her little time to care for her own health. She suffered from hay fever, the chief cause of her misery being ragweed. During its heaviest period of pollination, she sneezed, coughed, wiped teary eyes, and practically turned her aquiline nose beet-red from wiping it 188

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE with a handkerchief or Kleenex. Antihistamines gave little relief. She always dreaded to see ragweed come to bloom, for she knew she had many rough days ahead when that ubiquitous plant began developing its pollen pod. Pollen from meadow grass also bothered her. Despite the misery she endured because of it, she tried to gather some meadow grass pollen to earn some extra spending money, as her sister Ella and her daughters were doing by going into meadows, gauze-covered dishpans in hand, to shake stalks of meadow grass to release pollen, which they brushed gingerly from the bottom of pans and collected in small jars to take to Boone to a dealer in roots, herbs, and pollens. Annie’s allergies drove her from the fields. As bad as hay fever hit her, she suffered much worse from “sick headaches.” These periodic attacks must have been migraines, although she never called them such. She may not have known the term. She did have all the symptoms, and when they came upon her she had little or no respite, since she had to push on to prepare meals or do chores around the house or barn. If her pain and nausea were wholly debilitating, she pulled herself together enough to tell one of us where to find some canned stuff for a meal or how to bake a corn pone. If she could settle down to rest in a darkened room for a few hours, she usually found relief. Aspirin or more potent painkillers seemed powerless to help her. Her suffering during these headaches was a portent to the unrelenting pain she would have during the final three years of her life, when leukemia, breast cancer, and tuberculosis in her lower vertebra racked her day after day, week after week, month after month. In a journal she kept in 1984, the year before her death, she describes her fruitless attempts to find a remedy for her pain, now made more widespread by the occurrence of arthritis. I here quote her entry for May 21: I did my laundry this morning and it always hurts me when I try to get it done. I’m just not able to do anything my back hurts me so bad. Oh, dear Jehovah God help me bear the pain. I beg in Jesus’ name. Sure is terrible to be in pain most of the time but I know it will be gone someday because God has promised that in his due time all pain will be taken away. Please help me dear Father. Rev. 21-1-4. Until leukemia struck her, she had relatively good health, except for the migraines and hay fever. She had to be strong to feed so many hungry mouths, wash and iron huge stacks of clothes, pick, prepare, and preserve fruits and vegetables, render lard, grind and can sausage, take 189

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. turns hoeing corn, potatoes, and beans, go with us to pick strawberries and blackberries, get us to doctors in Boone to have our cuts and bruises patched, sit beside our beds when we had tonsillectomies, help us with our homework, dust, sweep, and mop the house, and all those things that must be done to keep a house going. Besides all these tasks, she took on the job of barber. After making do with scissors and comb to keep us from looking like sons of Tarzan, she saved some money and bought a pair of clippers. She mastered the use of them. Eventually, other boys and then their dads began coming to her for haircuts. She had several regular customers but no posted hours or appointments. When someone needed a trim, he simply showed up and asked if she could give him a haircut. She usually dropped whatever she was doing, pulled out scissors, combs, brushes, and clippers and went to work, doing for a half dollar or 75 cents what would cost two or three dollars in Boone. She didn’t want to have the word spread too far that she was in the haircutting business, since she had no license to operate a shop. Her barbering gave her some pocket money, and she was glad to have it, but she often wished that her customers would come at her convenience rather than theirs. When she found time to do something she truly enjoyed, she usually spent it gardening. She especially liked dahlias. Over the years, she collected, usually as gifts from fellow gardeners, dahlias ranging from the size of ping pong balls to eight- or ten-inch dinner plates. She planted them alongside the driveway from US 421 to the point where the driveway turned to become a parking area. At their peak, the dahlias added a rainbow of colors to our driveway, reds, pinks, yellows, whites, maroons, and oranges. Closer to the house, she liked to plant petunias, phlox, and daffodils. In the last decade of her life, she began using iron pots or automobile tires turned inside out as planters, especially for petunias. Anyone who saw her planters instantly recognized that she had one of the greenest thumbs in Deep Gap. Both the foliage and blossoms of her petunias could have posed for advertisements for Vigoro. She planted her phlox in a bed on the right side of the driveway and her daffodils on the lower side of the house. Compared to her other plants, these were puny but tenacious. They remained to be transplanted after she died. She liked the pleasant smell of hair lotions, soaps, and facial and body creams. When her nest had practically emptied, she filled up much of her free time by becoming a sales representative for Avon. The lack of a car and her willingness to sell to her friends and family at cost 190

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE kept her from earning more than a few dollars a month. She depended on phone calls for most of her sales, although a few times she found a friend or relative who’d drive her on her rounds. She enjoyed taking orders for special offers from Avon. “Look in that new catalog, John, and see that special on after-shave lotions. It’s in a Model A roadster bottle. I know how much you like old cars. It’s just the thing for you. Smells good, too. Wild Country, I think. You know how much Margie loves that scent. Why don’t you get yourself a bottle? You can have it for what it costs me.” Although I hated the scent of Wild Country, I couldn’t resist the cars the Model A, an Auburn, a Duesenberg, a Stutz Bearcat. When illness finally forced her to turn over her Avon business to another woman, she continued to take orders for Avon products and passed the orders along to the new representative. When Joe, Bob, and I pooled our money and know-how, we put her in a car of her own, a moss-green Cortina that I bought from a colleague in Clemson. With driving lessons from Joe, she passed her tests and could go calling with her Avon products. She was as proud of the Cortina as if it had been a Duesenberg. It served her well for a few years, not only for her Avon route but for trips to the grocery store, to her doctor, to the kingdom hall outside of Boone, and to meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Greensboro and Atlanta. She also used it to visit friends and family, once venturing to Clemson, accompanied by Snow Idol Miller, to see Margie and me. She even got the pleasure of chauffeuring Lane around after macular degeneration stripped him of a driver’s license. Since he’d always sworn he’d never ride with her, he took a lot of kidding from his sons and friends. “Well, Lane, I see you have a chauffeur. Looks like you’re enjoyin’ bein’ drove around. Good to see you out. Don’t do any backseat drivin’ now.” Knowing that everyone remembered his declared intent never to ride with her, he smiled sheepishly and said, “She’s doin’ purty good, fer a woman.” If she had been able to drive his pickup and to take him and his hounds to join his fox-hunting pals, he would have been willing to give his chauffeur a big tip. He hated to depend on his fellow foxhunters to haul him and his dogs around. “Worse thing that ever happened to me,” he grumbled, “was losin’ my license.” After their nest emptied, Lane spent much time listening to fox races, mostly on Friday nights. Annie filled the hours when he was away with Bible study and publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She kept records of her reading, noting the dates she read certain passages and commenting on the meaning of some of them. Some readings were keyed to subjects being discussed at the kingdom hall she attended. 191

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Other readings reflected her eagerness to find comfort in scriptural passages, especially those that spoke of cessation of earthly woes and pains and the prospect of joy and freedom from suffering when Jesus returned to claim his own. She had a scholarly turn of mind and a devout belief that some believers would never experience death but would be gloriously united with Christ upon his descent back to earth. Hope and trust are evident in her notes and marginalia. The marginal comments in her Bible and her notes praise God for comforting assurances of an eternally blissful life free of pain and sorrow. Lane did a fair share of Bible study, too, as the teacher of the adult Sunday school class at Laurel Springs Baptist Church. But since there was little ecumenical spirit in either of them, they seemed to have had few conversations on how to interpret scripture. Unlike Annie, Lane left no paper trail and apparently lacked a programmatic approach to his Bible studies except insofar as they were tied to his Sunday school quarterlies. Although both of them started their religious lives following conversion experiences and baptism at Laurel Springs, their spiritual paths parted, as I explain in another chapter. As lovingly and earnestly as she tried to lead her children down the path she chose, not one of them followed her, a circumstance that must have deeply saddened her. Perhaps her failure was owing to the assertive and argumentative edge to her convictions, sweetly expressed as they were, that kept her on her chosen path alone except when she was with other members of her faith. Something in her faith bespoke exclusivity, radicalism, relentless zeal, the peacebreaking militancy of Matthew 10: 34-38. Peaceful co-existence underwent its toughest test when her youngest son, Paul Stephen, married Kathy Lambert at Laurel Springs Baptist Church. Her unwillingness to attend funerals of friends or kin at any church other than her kingdom hall had been recognized both as a matter of principle and a source of ill will, since it was difficult for Lane and her offspring to understand how she would be sullied by attending a funeral ceremony. She always stood her ground, yielding neither to calm reason nor verbal abuse. In matters of faith, reason often gets about as far off the ground as pigs with wings. A Jehovah’s Witness simply didn’t attend any church other than a kingdom hall. Whether she would set aside her obedience to this belief was a question the family discussed as the day for Steve’s wedding approached. The signals she gave during this time were ambivalent, since she was busily and happily preparing for a reception for them following the wedding. Yet, she said nothing of a dress for the groom’s mother, as she had in 192

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE the mid 50s when Marjorie and I were married in the Boone Methodist Church. On Steve and Kathy’s wedding day, kinfolk dropped by the house before the ceremony, including Annie’s baby brother, Alfred. When it became clear to all of us, as the wedding hour neared, that Annie was not dressing to go with us, Alfred spoke to her about her intentions. “Aren’t you goin’ to see your baby get married?” “No,” she said quietly. “Why not?” Alfred asked. “My church doesn’t believe in us goin’ to other churches,” she answered. “That’s the most foolish thing I ever heard, Annie. Here’s your own flesh and blood on what should be the happiest day of his life and you’re not goin’ to see him married. How do you think that makes him feel?” “I hope he understands why I can’t go,” she said. “You mean you hope he understands why you won’t go? There’s nothin’ keepin’ you from goin’ ‘cept some foolish notion you took up from them people. I never heard of anybody who’d turn against their own fam’ly like you have. I’d be ashamed if I was you, lettin’ some fool belief spoil my youngun’s weddin’ day. He’s never goin’ to get over the hurt, and think of what Kathy’s goin’ to think of a mother who won’t even come to her son’s weddin’.” “I jus’ can’t go, Alfred, is all I can say,” Annie said. That’s terrible, Annie, just plain disgustin’, if you ask me. Somethin’s got to be the matter with you and them people to think the way you do.” By this time, Alfred’s remarks were spoken with heat, with anger at her intransigence. Annie seemed to take them as still another instance of persecution. She was stung, hurt, yet intractable. She didn’t go. When Steve and Kathy came to the reception, she went to Kathy and welcomed her to the family. As guests milled around in the living room, the telephone rang. I answered it. Someone wanted to speak to Lane. He took the phone from me. I stood at the hall door as he talked. I soon made out the subject of his conversation—Annie’s absence from Steve’s wedding. “It’s all owin’ to the way them people think,” he said. I couldn’t hear what his caller was saying. Lane’s next words were: “Yes, I’m heartbroken. I never had anything hit me so hard. Now you 193

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. know why I ain’t never had anythin’ good to say about them people. There’s somethin’ just plain unnatural about ‘em.” Annie’s commitment to the teachings of Mark Rutherford was matched by her eagerness to see that her children did well in school. She followed the progress of each child, encouraged good study habits, helped with homework, attended meetings of the Parent-Teacher Association, and took much pleasure in hearing good reports of her offspring’s achievements at school. A good speller, she was happy to see us bring home high scores in that subject. A near-master of the Palmer method of writing, she could only lament the ugly scribbling of her offspring, none of whom ever wrote as artistically as she. She made every effort to be on hand whenever one of her children won an honor for scholastic achievement. Through special effort, she was in the audience at Appalachian High School when I was tapped for membership in the National Honor Society. She wanted all her sons and her daughter to do well in school and cheered us for good grades, asked us what went wrong when grades were not good. She stood unwaveringly with Lane on his policy that if we misbehaved at school and received a spanking, another one awaited us at home. “Do everything your teachers ask you to do and don’t make trouble,” she said to us. She was as happy to read in a teacher’s appraisal of her sons that Bill was “well-behaved” as she was to see that Bob was “an allaround good student.” It mattered greatly to both her and Lane how we conducted ourselves. “Don’t go gettin’ in fights and do what your teachers tell you to do,” Annie warned us. She was certain to keep after us to do well in spelling. That was a subject she’d excelled in during her school days. She “gave out” words on our spelling lists, kept track of our scores, and praised us when we did well. She also liked to listen to our reading lessons and must have known the adventures of Dick, Jane, and Spot by heart since she heard about them so often. My love of reading brought on a cautionary note from her when she found me reading under the covers with only a flashlight. “You’ll put out your eyes, Johnny, readin’ like that. Wait until morning.” I didn’t always obey her because I wanted to find out how a story ended before going to sleep. As supportive as she was of our teachers and schools, she objected strongly, without voicing her disagreement publicly, to the morning ritual of pledging allegiance to the flag. “Your allegiance should not be to a flag,” she said, “but to Jehovah. We should serve under his banner, under the cross,” she argued. Had her sons been younger when she became a Jehovah’s Witness, her stance might have swayed us to 194

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE her belief. We were already schooled in patriotism when she raised her objection. Four of her sons eventually served under the Stars and Stripes, three of them voluntarily. Her letter-writing campaign to keep Steve from being drafted failed, and thus her baby son saw duty during the Vietnamese War, a conflict, she feared, that might be the long-anticipated Armageddon. She lived in dread and hope of that apocalyptic battle, dreading that Steve might be killed, hoping that Jesus would return in glory to gather his own about him. Annie didn’t believe that women should be involved in politics. She never registered to vote despite our urging her to do so. “You’re always saying how bad this country is being run, but you don’t help decide who’s running it,” we argued. “Voting is a man’s business,” she insisted. “You’re just afraid you’ll cancel out Dad’s vote,” we said, teasing her. Lane was among the yellowest of Yellow-Dog Democrats, and Annie had come from a family of strong Republicans. “You just don’t want to upset him,” we said. “You’ll never have to worry about that, because I ain’t goin’ to vote. I’m goin’ to leave votin’ to the menfolk.” “But there’s an amendment to the constitution allowing women to vote.” “I know about that, but still I don’t think it’s right. Women don’t know enough about politics to be votin’,” she said. “They could learn,” we said. “I know they can,” Annie answered, “but I think they have no business gettin’ involved. “They have enough to worry about already without gettin’ all mixed up in politics.” Here the discussion would end because Annie was never going to get mixed up in politics. Yet she was far from being apolitical. Like antisuffragettes of the 19th century, she believed that she could influence votes on issues or projects about which she had strong feelings, such as referenda on school bonds. By her principles, suffragettes had carried things too far. Whether those principles owed anything to her articles of faith as a Jehovah’s Witness I never asked. I suspect they did. Annie assumed the role of family correspondent, a role that many women must take if family ties are to be maintained through letter writing. The best Lane mustered by way of correspondence was a Christmas card bearing his signature after Annie stopped mailing Christmas greetings in conformance to her religious beliefs. But Annie wrote, often on postcards in such a small hand that a postcard carried the same amount of words as a two- or three-page letter. She gave news 195

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. of what was happening to both her and Lane and news about other members of the family. Sometimes she forgot to mention big events and reported, instead, that one of her sons had come to Sunday dinner, forgetting as she gave that detail that the selfsame son had been rearended in a collision on New River bridge near Boone. Sometimes her letters became missionary missives, so full were they of the preachments of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite her occasional sermonizing, Annie provided the link that held the family together. She was far more open-minded about what we read than was Lane. When he thumbed through From Here to Eternity and came across some dirty words, he wanted me to “take that nasty book back where I got it from and not bring anything like that into this house again.” Annie pled with him not to ban it. “Johnny’s heard all them words for years and he don’t go around sayin’ ‘em. I’m sure the book ain’t goin’ to do him no harm. He knows them words are just a part of the life of them army boys.” Lane backed off and allowed me to finish the book. “I’d be happier,” he said, “if Johnny spent more time gettin’ up his Sunday school lesson.” Lane didn’t back down on one thing—his duty roster. “Your mother needs some help around the house. Here’s how I’m gonna see that she gets it,” he said, holding up a slip of paper on which he’d written our names and beside them some chores. “When I was in the CCC, we had a duty roster. You boys are gonna have one, too.” The chore that we most disliked, washing and drying dishes, topped his list. He posted it and told us to keep a close eye on it. “If you see your name on it, then you help with the dishes for a week and then you rotate off. You can trade days, but the only time you can miss is when you’re too sick to work. You can expect a spankin’ if you shirk your duty. Understood?” We understood. We took our turns, not always happily when some of our friends dropped by to play tag football or ride sleds. If Annie was in a rush to get on with some other work in the kitchen such as canning or baking, she sometimes relieved us of our duty and told us to take the day off. She didn’t have to repeat herself on those occasions. Her turtles suddenly became hares on those days. The duty roster also assigned us to help with picking vegetables or fruits and then working alongside Annie to prepare them for canning. She led us to the garden to pick beans and peas; to gather cucumbers and beets; to slice off heads of cabbages and then chop them for kraut; to pull ears of corn, shuck them and remove whiskers before whacking off the golden kernels from some ears and choosing other, usually smaller, ears for pickling, and to pluck tomatoes from their vines, wash 196

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE them, put them on the stove to boil for a few minutes to loosen their skins before putting them in cans whole or mashing them for tomato juice. If the weather was fair, we enjoyed sitting with her under the two apple trees in the front yard to string beans, shell peas, or shuck corn. On rainy days, we crowded around her on the front porch and did our preparations. Sometimes a summer thundershower drove us from the porch because gusts of wind threw rain in our faces and over whatever vegetable or fruit we had in hand. The next move would be to the kitchen, where we drew up chairs around the table and carried on with our work. Gathering and canning fruits gave Annie a sense of adventure. She liked to climb a cherry tree, pail in hand, and fill it to the brim with red or black cherries. Clad in a pair of Lane’s overalls and wearing one of his old work shirts, she mounted a ladder to the fork of a cherry tree at her old home-place and ranged nimbly about the tree as she filled her pail. Meanwhile, she kept a close lookout on her sons as they ventured, none too sure-footedly, onto nearby branches and tried to keep pace with her as she picked. She would have been crowned champion cherrypicker if we had held a contest. She worked swiftly, refraining from pausing to eat the garnet red ones that her sons had learned were the sweetest on the red cherry trees. As they popped the most luscious looking ones into their mouths, she held to her steady pace. “Your work ain’t done when we’ve picked a few buckets of cherries,” she said. “We’ve got to pit them before we can can them or make cherry preserves or jelly.” We didn’t mind turning the crank of the cherrypitter and enjoyed pouring them into the mouth of the contraption. What we didn’t like was fishing around in a bowl of pitted cherries to find a stone that had slipped through. That job stained our hands and fingers a murky brown. The stain didn’t yield easily to soap and water and thus stayed on for days. “You sure was eager to climb a tree,” said Annie when we complained of our stained fingers, “but you lose your taste for cherries fast if you have to sit down and look for stones. You’ll like ‘em a lot this winter when you don’t have anything else sweet to eat.” She led us on many trips to pick strawberries and blackberries. The best strawberry fields were alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway, on farmland that had been abandoned when farms had been sold to the federal government. These fields were within walking distance, but the trek on foot would eat up about four hours. To get to them, we sometimes piled into the back of Uncle Fred’s pick-up and went with our cousins and Annie with her sister and nieces. At other times, our 197

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. neighbor Cliff Ray, breaking the law prohibiting commercial vehicles on the Parkway, drove us to the fields on his flatbed truck. He had to hope that a park ranger didn’t happen upon him during the drive and he pulled his truck off to some out-of-sight spot to park while we picked. The strawberries we found were delicious but small, most of them no larger than the tips of our little fingers. Once we’d filled our pails, we came home and began capping them, taking chairs to the shady spot under the apple trees in our front yard and gathering around Annie to begin the finger-staining job of pinching off the caps. Despite our complaints, Annie held us to the task, mildly reminding us that the pies, jam, and jelly we’d get from our labors would be a welcome treat. Years later, when strawberry fields became a commercial venture, Annie went with family, neighbors, or friends to pick several gallons. She looked forward to the strawberry season and traveled to Wilkes and Yadkin Counties in North Carolina and to Mountain City, Tennessee, to gather berries. It was a special treat for her to set before her guests a strawberry shortcake or to present a jar of jam or jelly to a daughterin-law. Blackberries were near at hand, in Rufus’ fields or just beyond his house at the old Will Watson place. Annie and Myrtie led us on many trips to these fields, Annie wearing one of Lane’s old shirts to protect her arms from prickly briars and a patched pair of his discarded overalls to shield her legs from scratches and insects. She wore a large straw hat “to keep her freckles from poppin’ out,” she said. Myrtie was similarly outfitted, although she didn’t have to worry about freckles. “Them freckles come from the Watson side,” she insisted. Neither Annie nor Myrtie had a proven formula for warding off chiggers. My observation that chiggers seem to invade areas where belts and tight socks made it possible for them to brace themselves to plunge their snouts in met smiling frowns of disapproval when I suggested that the best way to avoid getting chigger bites was to go naked. The thought of going nude to pick blackberries didn’t appeal to them. Since blackberry cobbler pies, jelly, and jam ranked high on everyone’s list of favorites, Annie and her blackberry-picking crew spent many hours among briars and many uncomfortable nights scratching chiggers. Annie enjoyed visiting her children after they’d established homes of their own or were away pursuing their studies. For years, after Ken settled in California and married, she talked about taking a bus to see him in San Diego. She saved her money, enough for her own fare and Steve and Joyce’s too, and caught a bus in Boone. The ride was wearisome and long. “I never imagined the country to be as big as it 198

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE is,” she said. The prospect of seeing both Ken, her sister Zella, and her half brother Harvey, helped her endure the pain moving up and down her legs and across her back. She crossed the continent by bus again when Evelina decided to go with her. During the trip with Evelina, Annie, a wiser traveler now, arranged for a layover in Oklahoma City to visit the son of her half-sister, Alice, and she came close to being called as a contestant on The Price Is Right, one of her favorite game shows. When she next visited San Diego, she flew, accompanied by Myrtie. Dottie and Ken met them at the Los Angeles airport, where they had arranged for Myrtie to get to their car on a wheelchair. Still spry in her middle 80s, Myrtie told them to get rid of wheelchair, that if they were going to walk, so was she. When she visited Ken for the fourth and last time, Annie had another traveling companion, Mae Idol Howell. Mae especially wanted to see her first cousins, Herman and Vernon Waters, who had settled in California following World War II. The special treat of this visit was an outing to take in a show by the Lawrence Welk orchestra. Annie came away with autographs from some of the performers. She came to visit Margie and me when I was in graduate school in Fayetteville, Arkansas, another long bus ride, this time accompanied by Nancy. Somewhere around Memphis, another migraine hit Annie, making her so sick that she had to depend on Nancy to see that they got the right bus to Fayetteville. Nancy didn’t fail her. A day of rest in Fayetteville put Annie in good shape again, and she and Nancy enjoyed an outing with Margie and me to Missouri to a favorite restaurant. Later, she would go on to Oklahoma City with Charles Gillespie and his wife. Charles was the son of her half-sister, Alice. Then she and Nancy returned by bus to Boone. During our childhood, Annie, her sister Ella, and two or three close kinfolk enjoyed getting together at Myrtie’s house to make quilts. Mostly of patchwork, they were meant for warmth and not for beauty. Annie knew, and admired, traditional designs—wedding ring, little Dutch girl, log cabin but lacked the materials and time to do them. Annie’s interest in quilting returned after her nest emptied. When Brother Bob began working as a cutter for Shadowline in Boone and could claim scraps left over from his job of cutting materials for nightgowns, pajamas, and panties, Annie saw the possibility of turning the scraps into pastel-colored quilts. She sewed the scraps together, arranging them as vertical or horizontal stripes or checkerboard patterns, and then bought cotton filler and backing. Instead of pulling out a quilting frame, she turned to her sewing machine or tied knots. 199

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Among the happiest events of her life was presenting a quilt to one of her offspring or grandchildren. So eagerly did she pursue this hobby that she ended up giving two or three quilts to each child. These quilts remain her most visible legacy. As health problems mounted in her final months, she was forced to give up quilting. Besides the leukemia that she’d fought since 1977, she had breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy, arthritis began to stiffen her hands and legs, she developed tuberculosis of the bone, a malady that manifested mostly in her lower back, and she suffered from unrelenting pain. Her chemotherapy sessions fell closer and closer together, necessitating longer and longer stays in the hospital. The potent painkillers that she now took failed to give relief, and she prayed fervently for God to heal her or to lessen her pain. She found distraction from pain in visits from children, kinfolk, neighbors, and fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses. She deeply regretted that Lane was sometimes “hateful” to her church friends, for she found much comfort in their shared belief that Jesus was coming soon to bring an end to all suffering and pain. Her check-ups during the first quarter of 1985 revealed a downturn in her hemoglobin count. That meant another round of chemotherapy, something she dreaded going through again because of the sickness that always followed each round. Before she left for Winston-Salem for still another round, she asked Joe, “How long do you want me to live?” She knew the treatments prolonged her pain even as they extended her life. When I learned that she was back in the hospital, Margie and I drove to Winston-Salem to see her. “These treatments always make me so sick,” she said, as I sat beside her bed, looking at the tubes feeding a deep amber-colored fluid into her arm. She looked pale, the rosiness of her cheeks and forehead having long since faded, leaving her skin a chalky white. Little beads of sweat popped out on her forehead and upper lip, the result of painkillers she was taking. “I feel a little sick at my stomach,” she said, but I always do when they put this stuff in me.” I glanced from her tortured face to the bag from which the tube led. Instead of some laboratory-brewed fluid, I wanted to see water brought in from the Fountain of Youth, sparkling water capable of changing Annie back to the person who rambled through fields picking berries, scrambling up trees for cherries, taking up a hoe and leading us to a corn or potato patch, smiling happily as she insisted that “one more slice of pie won’t hurt a thing.” I came out of this fantasy to ask her about a question I knew we must face if the treatment didn’t 200

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE work. She had been talking about final things before she came to the hospital. She’d asked Steve to take charge of looking after the Watson Family Cemetery, a charge she’d had for years, serving as fundraiser, caretaker, and treasurer. “If this treatment doesn’t work,” I said, “we’re going to have to know where you want to be buried. You’ve looked after the Watson Family Cemetery so long and may want to rest with your mother and father and other Watson kin.” “Yes, I done the bes’ I could to keep it lookin’ nice. I’ve wrote many a letter askin’ for money, and I built up a pretty good account. Steve’s promised to look after it now, and that makes me feel better, to know it won’t grow up in weeds and briars.” “Do you want to be buried there?” I asked. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it, John. I jus’ don’t know.” “Dad has already said he wants to be buried in the Idol Family Cemetery,” I said. “He’s picked the spot.” “I know,” Annie said, “and it’s a pretty spot, under a big white pine in the upper corner.” “Would you like to be buried there?” I asked. “Give it some thought. You don’t have to decide anything today.” We dropped the subject, and she asked to have the head of her bed lowered. “I need to rest,” she said quietly. I continued to sit beside her as she drifted off to sleep. I knew where I wanted her body to be, on Idol Mountain, where, one day, I wanted my ashes to be. But I’d had conflicted feelings about that decision. I loved my Watson kin and throughout my schooling at Deep Gap Elementary School had looked at the knoll near the schoolhouse where the Watson graveyard is located. I could see the headstones rising above the close-cropped grass, one of the stones bearing the name of Grandfather Jerry, another the name of his father. I felt connected to their plot of earth, but I felt an even stronger bond with the Idol graveyard. From it, I could look to distant mountains and through the gap from whence Deep Gap takes its name and imagine the places where, to the east and north, other ancestors lay. Somehow, from the Idol graveyard, I felt a bond with distant places where they lived, died, and were buried. Instead of donning the Watson tartan, I somehow could wear lederhosen, poorly imitate a Swiss yodel, taste English tea, sip a glass of French wine, feel the power of words in a Welsh poem, even play the role of a fierce Viking beserker, as German, Swiss, English, French, Welch, and Viking blood as well as Scottish coursed my veins. 201

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. Mountains are a place of visions, I thought, as Annie sank more deeply into a drugged sleep. She should rest on a mountain, not a knoll, I thought. A person with her hopes and beliefs should be in a place of visions, I felt certain. “But I don’t want to pressure her,” I said to myself. I wanted her remains to rest beside Lane’s one day, a faraway day I hoped. I had convinced myself that Lane had announced his wish to be buried on Idol Mountain in an act of appeasement, for he knew that Annie would not want to be buried in Laurel Springs Baptist Church graveyard. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she’d not like her body to rest in Baptist ground. Burial in a family graveyard would prevent any denominational clashes, I surmised, and would signify that the love Annie and Lane had for each other triumphed over and trumped any theological issue standing between them. Remembering a bit of Latin, I repeated over and over to myself, “‘Amor vincit omnia’” as I waited for Annie to wake. “Love shields from metaphysical thorns, love means union, not separation, love brings hope that the beloved will be donned in the garb of immortality beyond the grave,” I whispered to myself as I sat meditating beside her bed. Her waking state returned slowly, a yawn, a sigh, a partly opened eye at times. At last, her eyes focused on me. “You’re still here, John,” she said. “That’s nice. I guess I drifted off.” “Yes, you did; you’ve slept for a couple of hours. That’s good. I know you haven’t had sound sleep for days. I’m glad you rested well.” “About that matter we was talkin’ about when I dozed off on you, John I’ve decided I want to be buried in the Idol graveyard. Lane and I should be together.” “Yes, Mother.” I said as I reached for her free hand and squeezed it. “That’s the way it should be.” I held onto it as she drifted off to sleep again. This round of therapy had good results. A few days after returning to Deep Gap, Annie felt much better, although she still had considerable pain. She began to talk of getting another car, the Cortina she had been driving having been sold for spare parts since the Ford Motor Company was no longer stocking the parts Joe needed to keep it in running order for her. Larry brought a car for her to try out, and Annie talked of buying it. The good results, however, lasted only a few weeks. Annie’s hemoglobin test showed a sharper dive this time than in past check-ups. Her condition had never been so critical, her oncologist, Dr. Jackson, told her. Since the therapy she had undergone a few weeks earlier had not given her much of a reprieve, Dr. Jackson said, “Our options 202

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE are extremely limited now; we’ve tried just about everything. There is an experimental treatment now that’s helped some patients have a few good months after taking it, but it’s a risky drug, too, since some patients have died fairly soon after taking it. Taking it is a gamble, that’s for sure, but we’re down to few or no alternatives. Think about it, talk it over with your family, and pray about it, and let me know what you decide. I’ll have to have you sign a consent form, since the drug is experimental, so you have a big decision ahead of you.” After receiving the experimental treatment, Annie returned to Deep Gap, hopeful that the new chemicals would work. Upon being discharged she had been told, “At the first sign of trouble, we want you back down here right away.” She soon had a serious problem: internal bleeding. Back to the hospital, back to a room, back to tubes, monitors, and queries. The news of her re-admission took me back to WinstonSalem, and brought Jim, Margaret, Sonya, and Margie to her bedside. We found her propped up in bed, alert, happy to see us, full of questions about how her youngest grandchild, Tara, was doing. Our visit was interrupted by a trio of residents making the rounds. We were asked to move to the family waiting room while this young crew of physicians checked on some procedure Annie was undergoing. We walked down the hall and stood before the door of the family waiting room, talking quietly, encouraged by Annie’s alertness and appearance of comfort. We were but moments out of her room when something sent the residents scurrying to the nearby nurses’ station to check Annie’s charts. Their faces revealed concern, fear, uncertainty. She was hemorrhaging, we later learned, and needed a transfusion instantly, but Annie’s chart informed them that, as a Jehovah’s Witness, she could not be given blood. The young doctors huddled just inside her room and obviously discussed what step to take next. What she most needed they could not give her. Their conversation was soon over, and they came to where I stood, their doleful expressions telling me how desperate her condition was. In words softly spoken and with looks of frustration on their young faces, they told me that their hands were tied, that they could not give her blood. They didn’t have to say it, but I knew that death was certain without a transfusion. “We’d have to have authorization from her husband or one of her children before we could give her blood.” They were now as speechless as I had become, their medical training not preparing them to express sorrow or give sympathy. I went to the others and told them what the young physicians had said. If we honored Annie’s beliefs, our hands were also tied. We obeyed her wishes. In obeying them, I felt the sting and victory of death. We 203

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. then asked if we could return to Annie’s room. They granted our wish. She appeared to be sleeping. Jim and I took positions on either side of her bed, near where her head rested on two thick pillows. Margie, Margaret, and Sonya stood near the foot of the bed, tears streaming down their cheeks. Suddenly Annie bent forward, as if startled, her voice loud and full of entreaty. “Somebody help me! Somebody help me!” she shouted, as she flung her legs to the edge of the mattress in an effort to spring from her bed. Jim and I grabbed her and stopped her movement, not an easy thing to do since her muscles still had some of the strength that had taken her up cherry trees and across corn patches. We fought with her momentarily. Then she began to relax, to lose consciousness, to sink heavily into her pillows. Our struggle over, Jim and I looked questioningly at each other, wondering at her strength, wondering who could help her. Annie was now breathing deeply but appeared to be at rest. Jim stared into her face and said, “Praise God; she’s going to glory.” But she was not going just then. After a rest of a three or four minutes, she again raised herself from her pillows, stared wildly about the room, and once again shouted her entreaty, “Somebody help me! Somebody help me!” Jim and I grabbed her again to keep her from leaping from her bed. Once more, we struggled with her. “Relax, Mother,” I said. “Lay back, Mother,” Jim said. “Try to rest, Mother,” I said. “She’s coming to you, Jesus,” said Jim. “Glory be to his holy name.” “It’s all right, Mother. Just relax,” I said. She still fought to pull away but then her body lost its motive power and sank downward again. She faded once more into unconsciousness. Except for light breathing, Annie seemed to have wrestled free of mortal coils. Jim said, “She’s going to rest with Jesus. Praise God.” I said, “She’s still breathing, Jim. We still have her.” The others looked on hopefully, but still stunned to silence. Jim and I remained by her side, wiping her brow with a cool wash cloth and noting its change from life-affirming pink to death-announcing white. Her paleness also told us that her brain was not getting enough oxygen to function except when she lay wholly at rest. Annie remained unconscious for several minutes. When, at last, she opened her eyes, she looked about the room, and made out the face of Margaret, who had moved to where Jim had been standing. Annie said quietly, in words that to this day still haunt Margaret, 204

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE “You came too late.” Once more she closed her eyes and entered the foggy, hallucinatory realm of morphine-induced rest. She seemed to be slipping into a coma. Margie and I left her in her comatose state to drive back to Clemson, where I had a class to meet early next morning. Jim and Evelina stayed with her. But the midnight of Annie’s soul was just beginning. They remember their vigil as the toughest night of their lives. Annie drifted in and out of consciousness, once or twice emerging quietly and expressing an interest in family news. She wanted to know how Jim’s daughter-in-law, who was expecting her first child, was doing. “Susan’s gettin’ along very well,” Jim said. “She and Dowell are very excited.” “I know what she’s goin’ to have,” said Annie. “A boy.” (She was right.) She sank back to rest again. Later, Annie awoke, once again startled but this time screaming, a scream so loud that it carried up and down the length of the hall. “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” she yelled, struggling again to rise from her bed. Jim and Evelina tried to calm her, reassure her. “God has not forsaken you, Mother,” Jim said. “He’s right here in this room with you.” Annie found no comfort in Jim’s words. Again she screamed, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Jim and Evelina tried to lower her to her pillows again. She fought back, wanting up, trying to escape their hold on her. Jim began singing to her, some hymn he knew she loved, hoping that she would be soothed and comforted by the words he softly sang. Her screams drowned out his song. He found a Bible in her bedside stand and turned to some scripture, just what passage he no longer remembers, and began reading to her. The words he somehow managed to read as he continued to restrain her efforts to get up failed to soothe her. In her walk across that lonesome valley that you have to walk all by yourself, as the old song has it, she had come, in her drugged state, to Calvary and had obviously found that she didn’t want to be there, at least not yet. “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” she screamed even more loudly than before. “A terrible scream,” recalls Evelina. Exhausted at last by her screams and vigorous attempts to free herself from Jim’s and Evelina’s grasp, Annie relaxed while Jim sang, prayed, and read scripture. Jim’s journal entries about his efforts to calm and reassure her reveal his attempt to understand why Annie found no solace in words from the book she valued above all others, the Bible. 205

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. He wondered if someone of her friends among Jehovah’s Witnesses had misinformed her and whether the message she’d heard brought fear rather than peace as she confronted death. “Why is she wrestling so?” he asked himself. She remained restive most of the night but had fallen to sleep before her doctor made his morning rounds. To check if she could still respond to voices, her doctor spoke her name and then, having no sign that Annie heard him, yelled “Annie” loudly. Her answer was another loud scream. From that time on, the rest was silence. Before Joyce and J.L. came to relieve Jim and Evelina the next morning, Annie was comatose. When Jim left her, he knew he wouldn’t see her alive again. I returned alone to Winston-Salem on Wednesday leaving Clemson early enough to catch Dr. Jackson on his morning rounds. Annie’s condition had apparently changed little since I saw her Sunday afternoon. She didn’t respond to my greeting, not that I expected her to. Her room was so quiet that I had to fill it with a living sound just to choke or smother my grief. “Hello, Mom,” I said, “I’m back.” I then pulled a chair alongside her bed and began once more to wipe her brow, thinking, as I did so, how much it resembled the brow of her father, high, sweepingly curving back towards her ears, smooth like some piece of statuary. I then reflected on the stupidity of my greeting. Annie hadn’t known I was going away. Why should she care that I was back? Back from what? The appearance of Dr. Jackson rescued me from any further inane questions I might have posed. He held her chart in his hands, picking up details as he read. “Your mother is a fighter. She doesn’t want to die. Something is asking her to hold on to life. She might have a chance if I could only give her some platelets. But you know her wishes. I can do nothing, but I’d like to see her have a chance to recover.” All the while he was speaking, my head and heart were at war. Should I grasp the slightest straw of hope and tell him to go ahead, or should I say, “I can’t go against her wishes”? My head was whispering a twisted version of a Dylan Thomas line: “She doesn’t want to go gently into that good night.” She’s hanging on, fighting, fighting with something so elementary, so fundamental, so basic to life that no philosophy or theology can in any way nay say it. It’s the very root of life that’s at work here. It’s a green fuse that won’t burn out and turn brown. Bits of poetry and philosophy were flitting around in my brain like some caged bird trying to regain its freedom. I wanted to believe that something in Annie wanted to free itself from the talons of death. Both my head and my heart now seemed to say, ‘It’s the force that 206

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE impelled her to call out twice on Sunday, ‘Somebody help me! Somebody help me!’ That entreaty was telling you, John, that she didn’t want to go, was willing to dismiss all objection to receiving blood and would have welcomed it. You were stupid not to listen.” My heart then wanted to say, “Honor thy parents all the days of their lives.” Ordinarily, I would have listened to this commandment, but this was not an ordinary moment, for here was a prospect, however remote it might be, that Annie could live to see the day she had so fervently believed might come that Jehovah’s people could be gathered up to him in glory and never have to die. Would she not approve of a transfusion if she knew she possibly could live to that moment? What should I do, how answer Dr. Jackson, who stood by Annie’s bed saying, “Your mother does not want to die”? My heart and head once more seemed to be at one: “John, you have the chance to return life to the woman who gave you life. You can’t let her lie there and not be the somebody she called to help her.” Her entreaty for help had haunted me all the way to Clemson and back (and to this day still haunts me). The power to help her was just a transfusion away—how could I deny her the help she had so desperately sought on Sunday? My head now said, “Decide quickly while there’s a chance she’ll pull out of this.” I said to Dr. Jackson, “I think she deserves a chance, and I would like for you to give her the platelets, but I want to see if Dad and my brothers agree with me.” When those words came from my mouth, I knew I’d have to live with the decision I’d made, for I could have said, “I must honor Mom’s wishes.” To have said the latter was to accept death’s claim upon her. As long as Dr. Jackson didn’t consider her condition terminal and believed platelets would help, why should I bind myself to a religious scruple that I’d argued against dozens of times with Annie. “Before there was religion, there was life, and when all religions have had their day and disappear there will be life,” I said to myself. “The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Nordics have had gods, goddesses, temples, churches, and devoutly held beliefs, but where are they all today? Where will Jehovah’s Witnesses be tomorrow? Can I permit a life-denying stance of theirs to cut short Annie’s life?” To Dr. Jackson I said, “ I’ll go make that call and let you know what we’ve decided.” I had seen pay telephones in the hospital’s lobby and went there to dial Dad’s number. I told him what Dr. Jackson had said and asked if he were willing to go along with me and approve a transfusion. “If she has a chance, why not give it to her?” Lane said. “If she pulls out 207

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. of this because we give her blood, we don’t have to say anything about it, and if she don’t, well, she’ll never know we give it to her.” I next talked to Joe and asked what he would do. “Go ahead, if she’s got a chance,” he said. Without polling my other brothers and Joyce, I sought out Dr. Jackson’s office and told him to start the transfusion, for I believed that I would have the support of all my siblings. I then returned to Annie’s room and awaited the arrival of a nurse to carry out Dr. Jackson’s order. I suppressed a feeling of betrayal as I looked upon her chalk-like face and arms. “If you are clinging so tenaciously to life,” I said to myself, “you need something to help you in your battle.” I couldn’t rationalize away my decision to disobey her wishes. I believed in living wills and had one of my own on file. But the condition of mine was that I must be classed as terminally ill for it to be in force. Annie’s vital signs, though weakening at this time, were good enough to enable her to recover if all went well. Shortly after I sat down beside Annie and started wiping her brow with a cool washcloth, a nurse entered, a pouch of platelets in her hand. She suspended it from the wheeled pole bearing all the other pouches and ran a tube to Annie’s arm, attaching the tube to a needle and adjusting the flow of platelets. As the unwanted platelets slid into Annie’s arm, I knew that there was no turning back on my disobedience. In not honoring her long-held and firmly stated wish not to be given a transfusion, had I dishonored myself? That thought ate at me but was, by far, not my uppermost thought at the moment. Would the transfusion work? How long would it be before I could see signs of recovery? Would Annie merely be brought to a longer vegetable state of existence by the transfusion, considering how long her brain had been deprived of a normal flow of oxygen? Was God waiting to perform a miracle until Dr. Jackson had the go-ahead to give her platelets? As these thoughts raced through my brain, I recalled a sentence from the poet-preacher John Donne, who somewhere says, “All divinity is love and wonder.” Would God once again show his love for Annie and restore her to health: would he have me gaze in wonder at his power to heal? Annie had fervently prayed for his help for years—would her prayers now be answered? I wanted them to be and soon, but with the emptying of the first pouch, I could see no change. The second of three prescribed bags was now affixed. I watched as the platelets from it oozed into Annie’s body, thinking again of words from John Donne’s most famous meditation: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” My own mortality was growing heavier and heavier. I renewed 208

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE my efforts to detect some sign of change in Annie’s condition. “Mother, John’s here with you. Can you hear me?” I heard no word, saw no nod. I squeezed her free hand and hoped that she would squeeze mine: no movement. I refocused my eyes on her brow and was sure I saw a faint flush of pink break through her chalky whiteness. “Am I seeing what I want to see, or is she getting some color back in her brow?” I reached for the cool washcloth and wiped her brow again. “Yes, there’s some pink here,” I told myself. “The platelets are doing their job.” Dr. Jackson came for a look just then and examined her closely. “Yes,” he agreed, “some color is coming back, but I don’t see anything else to be encouraged about. She had not responded to his check of her reflexes or any of his questions. “We’ll go on with the third unit,” he said, “and I’ll check back later.” The third unit did bring a bit more color to her face and even some to her arms and torso, but she remained in a coma. When Joe and Lane arrived, sometime after noon, Joe could see that her color was better. Lane, who had looked upon the face of death more often than either Joe or I, stood at the foot of her bed and said softly, “She’s dying.” He was observing the irregular pattern of her breathing and hearing the first faint sounds of rattles in her throat. He then moved from the foot of her bed and stood by the window, silent, lost in his own thoughts, perhaps saying goodbyes that he could not share with Joe and me. He and Joe remained with me until Steve arrived to keep vigil while I rushed back to Clemson, where final exams were in progress and where I’d need to be to finish out the spring term. Before I left, I once more squeezed her hand and leaned over to kiss her Watson forehead. Death was only minutes or hours away now, I realized. It would be her baby’s lot to be with her when she breathed her last. I had a tear-drenched ride back to Clemson, knowing I had seen her in her final hours, fighting a sense of guilt because I had acted against her will not to be given blood. Early the following morning, May 2, we received the call that Annie had died, perhaps about 2 a.m., Steve didn’t know for sure. He’d listened to her death rattles until around midnight and then had fallen asleep. A nurse awoke him to report that Annie was gone. Margie and I received the expected news before breakfast. I called a friend to arrange for him or another colleague to proctor an exam I was scheduled to give that morning. We then packed and headed to Deep Gap to help with funeral arrangements. Where to hold funeral services was an issue we had to discuss with my siblings and their spouses. Everyone, including Lane, agreed that services should not be held at Laurel Springs Baptist Church, 209

JOHN LANE IDOL, JR. even though Annie had been baptized there and was a member for many years. Her kingdom hall was a possibility, but no one from that congregation requested that services he held there, assuming, probably, that an invitation would be met with a firm “No.” A neutral site seemed most fitting, one that would not involve denominational claims upon Annie’s remains. “If we arrange for the services to be at the chapel of the Hampton Funeral Home, there should be no reluctance from Annie’s friends among Jehovah’s Witnesses to attend,” one of us said. Our assumption was wrong. No one from her church came, but a memorial service was later held there, so Bob learned. Lane wanted the pastor of his church to conduct the services, the Reverend Bob Honeycutt. Since he didn’t know Annie and would say the traditional things and read the traditional biblical passages, I told Dad and my siblings that I intended to speak at her funeral. I’d made that decision on my way back from Winston-Salem as she lay dying and had pieced together a draft of my remarks before leaving Clemson. I wanted both to celebrate her life and to extend thanks to our relatives and neighbors who had helped Annie and the family during her years of failing health. I spoke of her role as nurturer, as champion of our schooling, as a celebrated maker of pies, and as a tireless homemaker. I said that she’d been able to find religious fulfillment by following a different drummer from the others in her family. I ended by reading one of her favorite Psalms, the 121st. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee shall not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, even for evermore. 210

BLUE RIDGE HERITAGE Annie’s grandsons were pallbearers. When services for her ended, they carried her coffin to a waiting van, and the family followed it to Idol Mountain and the family graveyard there. We had to travel over the property of kinsman Clarence Greene to reach the cemetery, since there was no road to the graveyard at that time. Here Preacher Honeycutt read the familiar passage about dust to dust and Annie’s coffin was lowered into a grave beneath a large white pine. Spring was just coming on and fresh leaves were forming on oaks, birches, and maples that grew near the graveyard. A cool breeze moved across the mountain top, and distant crows cawed. Months later, I wrote the following poem:

In the Pines: For Annie For she is dead beneath these oaks and pines Comes a shiver when the cold wind blows who prayed she’d never lie in earth’s cold crust, In the pines in the pines, where the sun never shines but would welcome Christ in her living flesh Comes a shiver when the cold wind blows and lose the wracking pain in bone and blood, Comes a shiver when the cold wind blows while her happy brood around her ate and sang. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines. Comes a shiver.

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Children of Annie and Lane: Kenneth Jackson (adopted) - September 22, 1929 John Lane, Jr. - October 28, 1932 James McDowell - April 11, 1934 Rufus William - January 24, 1936 Joseph Jerry - March 24, 1938 Robert Leonard - November 24, 1940 Joyce Anne - December 15, 1942 Paul Stephen - July 28, 1950