Troubled Waters, Page 4

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  I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of east Tennessee in the small community of Slick Pig, about five miles from Barefoot, North Carolina. Barefoot was the largest town close to us. At the intersection there sat an old country store on one side, and across from it was a post office and a barbeque pit. A church sat about a half mile down the road along with the local garage. The bus came through once a week; nobody ever got on or off.

  Daddy and I always went to the country store, and he would buy me candy. The storekeeper would take a butcher knife, slice him a piece of bologna, and place it on crackers. Sometimes he would buy a slice of cheese on crackers with a dash of hot sauce. We would top off our treats with an ice-cold soda drink.

  Slick Pig was a spot in the road at the Junction of Highway 6, about eight miles from Heady Ridge in Gilmore County. It wasn’t much, but it was home. I grew up there. I wouldn’t change it for anything, from gathering eggs to planting, cutting, and stripping tobacco. I thought getting my divorce was enough in one year but I lost my mama, and that was almost more than I could bear.

  Mama was a big woman with long auburn hair that she always wore up. She had the prettiest face. Daddy had wavy black hair and always wore overalls. He had a small mustache that accented his upper lip. Daddy was still handsome for his age of sixty-three years.

  Life in the Appalachian Mountains was good I thought, now that I look back on it. They were probably the happiest days of my life. It is funny when you’re young you see things one way, and years later, you look back and it’s completely different. I remember helping Mama hang out clothes on the clothesline. I would always hand her the clothespins while we did laundry. Her auburn hair would blow dry in the wind after she washed it, and she would sing with a voice of an angel. Daddy would come home from the fields. We would sit out on the front porch, talking, as the wind whistled through the screen door.

  For me, I wrote songs. I spent a lot of my time writing and playing with my best friend, Bessie Mae. I loved to hear Mama sing. I guess that was why I fell in love with music. On Saturday night, we would listen to the Grand Ole Opry. Mama, Daddy, Aunt Kay, Uncle Jim and some of my cousins would all sit around, eat popcorn and listen. I always believed Mama could have been an Opry star. She was an extraordinary person to me. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Daddy was good, too. He worked all the time. She kept the house, washed and ironed, took care of the garden, canned, filled the freezer and took care of me. I remember when she got saved and was baptized in the creek. Daddy didn’t go to church much. But Mama sang in the choir every Sunday. I got my first taste of song writing from church hymns. The first song I wrote was The Sheep Know the Voice of the Shepherd. Mama put music to it and sang it in church.