CHAPTER 1

The Trip from Hope Road

A brilliant sheen of anticipation blanketed Hope Road on analready bright day in May, 1952, when Preacher McClure,our mission pastor from Booneville, Kentucky pulled up at ourhouse on the head of the holler on Long Shoal in his heavy dutystation wagon.

Of our location, my father often said, "Boys, this is it. We'llbe all right here."

In making this statement, Dad had to be uttering more ofa prayer than dealing with reality; for to my knowledge, noone has ever prospered from living at the head of our holler.What my father meant was that this could be our last stand.He had already spent most of the money he had saved fromworking at the Kings Powder Company in Ohio during WorldWar II, where the work was so dangerous those employedthere were not sent to fight at the front. In fact, my earliestmemories as a child are of standing in front of a window inour living room every day worrying whether Dad would comehome and adding to my mother's concerns by saying, "I hopehe doesn't get `bwode up'." Once there was an explosion at theplant that blew out the windows of houses in South Lebanon,which was located five miles from the powder mill. Imagineour anxiety that day.

Although he was not saying it, my father was making notethat our house was as far as anyone could go up the holler.Behind us was a mountain, and there was a mountain on eachof our sides. The road to our house was mostly on creek bed,which meant when the water was high we could only get outby riding a horse or walking over the hill. And sometimesthe creeks did rise. Once when Dad came home from "CourtDay" where he had been trading horses, he brought homea clear light fool of an unbroken horse. Somehow the horsewas accidentally startled which caused him to break free fromwhere he had been tied. When we tried to catch him, he ranright by us and straight into the raging creek. That horse hasnever been seen again. With further regard to what my fathersaid, had anyone actually tried to find us, it is for sure no onecould have done so by any road signs; for there were none.The road did not get its name Hope until fifty years later. I amsure my uncle Ben was being sarcastic and not idyllic whenhe named it.

Preacher McClure, however, knew where we lived and howto get there. And he had business on this day; for he was totake me to visit Buckhorn, about twenty-five miles away—tovisit the school. If things worked out, he was also going to helpme make arrangements to attend boarding school there for myhigh school education. Prior to this trip to Buckhorn, one of thebiggest thrills of my life was to play in a softball game PreacherMcClure had arranged between some of us on Long Shoal andplayers from Cow Creek, which was another mission churchunder his care as a Presbyterian minister. The game had to bescheduled at Cow Creek because where we lived there was notenough level ground for a playing field. Nor did we have batsor balls. Mr. McClure did not feel sticks and gum balls, ourusual equipment, were suitable for this big time event; so hegot the real stuff from somewhere. When the game ended, thefinal score was something like 15-2 in favor of the home team.Those of us who played still felt like winners for just getting tomake the trip. We had traveled probably fifteen miles to get tothe Cow Creek ball field; by far the longest most of us had beenaway from our homes at the time. At least it certainly was forme. Since my family had moved back to Kentucky from Ohiowhen I was nine years old, I had never been out of the LongShoal Holler except to trek across the hill to Coal Branch wheremy Granny Bowman lived.

To be totally accurate, there was one other exception:each year all Long Shoal school children and their parentsboarded a flat-bed truck for the trip to Beattyville to attendthe Lee County Fair. Lizzie Fox, who believed it was sinfulto not have her hair covered, suffered months of remorsefollowing one of those trips because the wind blew her hatoff and away. At Beattyville, we joined schools from all theoutlying communities to march up Main Street. At the end ofthe march, we competed in foot races, broad and high jump,and in reading and arithmetic. One year when I did not havemoney for the carnival rides, I sold the ribbons I had won in thecontests to one of the carnival vendors. Almost immediatelywhen I got on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the speed of the turns threwmy money out of my hand to be found no more. That annualtrip had been both exciting and disappointing for me, but itwas nothing compared to the nervousness I felt about the tripI was to make this day.

As a faithful follower of Preacher McClure, I had greatadmiration for him. But he was in many ways prone to fantasticthinking. Sometimes his ideas could be a marvel. Once, forexample, in conceiving perhaps his grandest scheme, he askedmembers of his congregation in Booneville to bring rocks fromtheir fields and place them in a pile at the church. For weeksthen, in addition to and sometimes instead of tithing, thoseattending church also brought as many rocks as they couldcarry. When the pile of rocks reached the prescribed amount,they were used to construct a new church that stands eventoday as a monument to all these efforts. This plan of Preacherhelped to clear fields for plowing, and additionally resulted ina building that turned out to be architecturally unique.

Other plans of Preacher McClure did not always turn out sowell. One year he announced to our congregation that he wasgoing to bring in a battery-powered movie projector to showthe film King of Kings. Since there was no electricity up our way,this would be the first time many local citizens had ever seen amoving picture show. Word spread like a sage grass fire for...