Laugh along with the author as he relates humorous anecdotes about growing up in the Eastern Kentucky town of Lynch which is located in Harlan County. Everyone should find something that relates to humorous incidents that occurred during his or her childhood. Learn the art of rat fishing, how to be a barber and make wine. Also reflect for a few moments as the author pays tribute to the brave young Marines he fought with in Vietnam and now see their names reside on a black granite wall in Washington, DC for eternity.

Stories from a Kentucky Boy

By R. Kenley Elliott

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 R. Kenley Elliott
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-5429-5

Chapter One

Sometimes You Need Your Space

I suppose my friends and I were like most preteen boys growing up in a small southern town in the fifties. We all wanted to be cowboys. All it took was a mop handle or carefully chosen branch off a tree, and you had a good horse. Add a ten-gallon hat, a cap pistol or two, and a good piece of rope, and you were all set. Of course, I always had to be a little different from the other guys.

They all wanted to be some white-hat hero with a palomino horse. Everybody wanted to be Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tom Mix, or the Lone Ranger. Well, that run-of-the-mill stuff wasn't for me. No, sir! I wanted to be Lash LaRue, the good guy who never used his gun. Nope, old Lash didn't need a gun. He'd just flick out his thirty-foot-long bullwhip and disarm any bad guy within two counties. If he happened to miss one, his partner Gabby Hayes would ride the desperadoes back until Lash came to help. Lash was also a man of fashion after my heart. He wore only black clothes with, of course, a lot of silver tacking attached around. His hat, shirt, pants, and boots—even his horse—were as black as coal. When Lash walked in the sun, he was a coal mine pit with diamonds flashing in it.

Well, I digressed a bit there. All that stuff about my hero Lash and other cowboys doesn't have a damned thing to do with this story. Oh yeah, I guess it does just a little. Being a good cowboy, you didn't go anywhere without your lasso. A boy can find a lot of uses for a lasso. You never knew when you might need to rope a raging bull, pull a drowning damsel from a swollen river, or leash a stray dog to take home with you.

Anyhow, here I was on an early Friday morning with little to do when my best friend Jim showed up.

"Hey, Ken," he said.

"Let's go to the fillin' station and get some cigarettes then go up to the cabin and smoke."

"Good idea," I said. "Mama hasn't turned her back all morning, so I couldn't sneak one of hers out. Which way we goin'?"

Which way we were going was an important question. Walking to the filling station was not a saunter down to the end of the block (as if we had blocks in Lynch, Kentucky). We could take the long way. It was an easy four-mile walk. You went down the holler (hollow for those of you who may not be familiar with mountain vernacular) to the main valley for a mile and then hung a left. It was an easy three miles the rest of the way. The short way was a harder walk but only two miles long. You just cut up over the mountain and down the other side—almost a straight shot. Of course, there were a couple of creeks to navigate, and you might have to do in a timber rattler or two on the way. I didn't mind the rattlers so much. They made a noise, and they were slow. It was them sneaky ass, fast-as-lightening copperheads that I hated. Anyhow, snakes are another story or two. I better not stray from this one.

So, Jim and I, being full of youthful energy, decided the short route was right at that time. I made sure my lasso was properly looped on my gun belt, and the whip I'd made out of a kindling stick and piece of rawhide was on my other side. We started up the mountain trail, and I heard the last thing I wanted to hear.

My little brother Don was yelling: "Hey, Ken, I wanna go with you."

Damn, I did not want that little pipsqueak tagging along. He'd tell Mama I was smoking.

"No," I said. "Me and Jim are going alone this time."

"I can go too. Mama told you to watch me," Don retorted with stubbornness.

"Not a chance," I said. "You stay here this time."

I started on up the trail and saw the little shit run into the house. Of course, you know what was next. Mama was on the steps yelling at me.

"Kenley, take your brother with you. Robert Kenley, did you hear me? Answer me, or I'll bust your ass when you get home, and Dad will too."

"Okay," I answered, and we waited for Don to catch up to us.

"I told you so," the little shit laughed.

Only self-preservation kept me from punching his lights out while Mama was still watching.

"Don't follow us, Don. We don't want you along this time," I said. "Go play with your buddy Jerry."

"No," he said. "Mama said I could come." That was it. All the way to the top of the mountain I told him to go back, and he refused.

We came to the resting spot at the top of the mountain. It was a nice place. Big hundred-year-old oak and beech trees were shading a little spring that seeped out of the soil. There were a few nice sitting rocks, but you'd better check around them for those low bellies before you sat. All God's creatures liked that cool spot, and the snakes would lurk under the rocks in hopes of ambushing a hapless rodent.

Don wandered over to the spring.

"What are we gonna do?" Jim whispered.

"Let's grab his ass and tie him to the beech tree," I said. "We'll let him loose when we come back."

See, I told you a young boy had a thousand uses for that lasso he carried around. So we grabbed Donnie Wayne and tied his ass up good to the beech tree and took off down the far side of the mountain.

I don't know how we went so brain dead. Somehow, being rid of Don made us forget all about him. We bought some smokes—a big can of them that had a hundred in it. If I remember right, the can was red, the brand was Cavaliers, and there was a picture of a swashbuckler on the side. The best thing was they were the first real long cigarettes—a good extra half inch over the other brands. For some reason, we went back the easy, long route and then up on the other side of the mountain to the log shanty we had built that year. We built a new shanty every year out of young poplar trees that we cut with an ax.

So Jim and I spent the rest of the day up there. We smoked to our heart's content; raided a garden for corn, tomatoes, and a cantaloupe for lunch; and spun yarns and dreams all day. We didn't even think about going home until close to suppertime, and nary a thought of Don on the other side of the mountain entered our brains.

We went home, and I hadn't been there long when Dad came home from the mines. Mama was getting supper on the table. I think it was a law that supper had to be on the table and ready to eat within five minutes after Dad got home. Anyhow, everyone took his or her place waiting for the grace. It didn't happen right away. I looked at Dad and saw a puzzled look on his face, like he was trying to remember something. Then he lifted his finger and began counting around the table and the hog trough. The hog trough was a bar along the side of the far wall, and all the kids under twelve sat on stools there at meals. After a minute, his light came on. "Where's Don?" he said.

Oh my God!

Have you ever felt your stomach turn inside out? Have you ever had a dark cloud of doom roll through your soul, and you know you have met the Grim Reaper? Oh, yes. Death was imminent, and it was going to be very painful.

Somehow I managed to croak out a few words as I kept my stomach lining pushed down out of my throat.

"He went up on the hill to check out a new apple tree," I said. "He probably lost track of time. I know where it is. I'll go fetch him." Then I took off like a Fourth of July bottle rocket.

I literally clawed my way up that mountain. The visions I had were all catastrophic. A bear or a pack of wolves had attacked Don. It didn't matter that Daniel Boone shot the last wild wolf seen in Kentucky in 1810, and the last bear we had seen was...