The old house is gone now -- the two-story gray house with morning
glories climbing the porch posts. It didn't burn and it didn't die from old
age. What destroyed it was a thing called progress.
Which seems strange, now that I think about it. I mean, when I was
growing up, I never dreamed progress would ever find our house. We were too
remote for such a thing to happen, I thought. It was more than two miles
from our house to the nearest community with a post office, more than twenty
miles to the nearest town.
Of course, I couldn't see into the future, so I had no way of knowing the
changes that were going to come. But now, as I look back, I'm glad I didn't
know. I'm glad there was a time in my life when I believed my home was
permanent and indestructible, and I viewed Jarrell's Branch as the center of
the universe.
In case you never heard of it, though, Jarrell's Branch is a hollow in
southern West Virginia. The road up the hollow had been ripped from the
earth by a bulldozer, exposing rocks of many shapes and sizes. There were
ruts in the road, and the creek crossed the road twice between my home and
the mouth of the hollow. There was no bridge across either creek...
Daddy was an electrician for the Wharton coal mine. He worked both inside
and outside the mine. Most of the time, he worked in a repair shop on the
other side of the mountain from Jarrell's Branch ...
When the weather allowed, he liked to sit on our front porch in the
evenings. This was his favorite place for chewing tobacco and pestering our
chickens.
I couldn't tell you how many times I witnessed the following spectacle:
A white leghorn hen comes strutting by in our yard. Majestic, cocky, its
head held high, it looks around like a queen surveying her domain. Its
feathers are sleek and immaculate, its comb a bright red, its eyes
sparkling, intense, challenging.
Daddy watches it for a minute, then rears back his head and lets fly a
stream of tobacco juice that zings through the air like an arrow. It makes a
direct hit on the arrogant chicken, sending it flapping and squawking back
to the henhouse.
Oh sure, he could be that way at times. Downright mischievous and ornery.
But most of the time he was gentle and kind and understanding.
"Boy, you've got one of the finest daddies in this country," people would
sometimes say to me.
But they didn't have to say it. I already knew it.
Mommy was quiet, introverted and deeply religious.
I can see her now, taking a walk in the apple orchard behind our home.
She always went alone on these walks, and they usually took place in the
evening, after sundown. She tried to slip away from the house without anyone
knowing, but I often caught her at it and followed her.
I seldom interrupted her, though. I liked to watch her from a distance,
wondering what she was thinking about as she strolled beneath the apple
trees, her hands clasped behind her back. Sometimes she would sit down on
the soft carpet of grass and gaze off into the distance, her eyes dreamy and
thoughtful.
She read her Bible at least once every day, and she always prayed at
night. There were times when I crept down the stairs at night and, in the
moonlight streaming through the window, saw her kneeling beside her bed.
What a strange feeling this always gave me! It was like I'd barged in on
her privacy when I had no right to. Or I'd entered a sanctuary as an
unwelcome guest . . .
"Roger, I need you to run to the store for me," Mommy said.
It was a hot summer day, and I'd been thinking about walking out of the
hollow and going swimming. So why couldn't I do both? I asked myself. Why
couldn't I run to the store and go swimming?
I asked Mommy if that would be all right, but she said there wasn't time
for such foolishness. "I need that quart of buttermilk as soon as I can get
it," she said, "so you be sure and come straight back home. You hear me?"
I heard her. And I knew she meant it.
So I went straight to the store and got the buttermilk. Not Charley
Bradley's store at the mouth of the hollow, but Green Brothers' store, down
at Bim. A two-mile walk under a hot sun. Sweating. Craving to jump into the
creek and cool off.
As I came back past the swimming hole at the Big Curve, I saw a dozen or
so kids splashing around in the water. Squealing. Laughing. Having the time
of their lives.
