<TITLE>09. Par 31-33</TITLE>L-31 I thought of that when I was standing there thinking about when we used to line up. And perhaps today, I guess I could go buy a whole box of chocolate Hershey's if I wanted to, but it'd never taste like that good, old peppermint candy then. That was really good.
I know it's cold in here. We'll hurry as quick as can. I love you, and some glorious day, maybe if not in this life, when we all cross over the river on the other side, I--I'll set down with you over there. We'll talk it all over then. It won't be cold there. No, we'll set down by the evergreen tree.
I want to tell you about me getting married. I... My father, making whiskey, and seeing people come there and getting the whiskey and drinking, and seeing the misbehavior of women, how young women would come there with other men, knowing it wasn't their husbands, I swore I'd never have nothing to do with a woman. I thought that was the littlest, lowest... And I haven't changed my opinion; it is. That's right. Oh, my. I thought, "That's horrible." I said, "Me, I'll be an old bachelor as long as I live."

L-32 They'd have little parties at the house, you know, and play these little old games about "hunt the buffalo," or whatever it is, you know, the old, Kentucky dances they used to have. And have the fiddler stand on a box, and saw the fiddle, and they'd all... Oh, I don't know. Every kind... But me, I never stayed to one of them in my life.
I had an old coon dog. Now, how many knows what that is? You mean me standing in Kentucky, and only about five man knows what a coon dog is in Kentucky? Say, is this Kentucky? I don't believe we're far enough down yet. You're too close to Indiana here. All right. An old dog, and I had an old .22 rifle, and there's where I lived in the woods all my life nearly. I'd go out, lay on top of the roof. Never went to a dance in my life.

L-33 When I was about seven years old, I was packing water one day. you've heard that part of the story. Sorry to say, packing it to a moonshine still for my daddy, two little half-a-gallon molasses buckets. And as I went up the lane, it was in a September. The leaves had begin to turn kind of brown, and I set down under the tree and was setting there, crying because I couldn't go fishing out to an old ice pond. All the other boys was gone out there to the ice pond.
And while out setting there, just as still as it is in this room from the wind, I could hear something a blowing, like a "Whoosh." I wondered, "Where was that?" And I couldn't see any leaves blowing. It sounded like leaves. And I squalled a few times. Had on a pair of overalls with a fodder twine across for a gallous, and a nail for a button, or for a button. I don't know whether you ever used one or not. It makes a good one. And I had my...
I stumped my toe, and I had a corn cob tied under it to keep from getting the dirt on it, you know, walking along with a corn cob tied under my toe. Oh, I was a picture. And I was squalling. I wanted to go out to fish and the rest of the boys, they was gone out there. I was setting there under the tree thinking, "Now, there daddies don't do this. And why would I have to do this? Pack this water to a moonshine still doing prohibition." Daddy made thousands a gallon of it, died a pauper, hungry when he died. That doesn't do you any good. Wrong will always pay wrong.


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