A Mixture of Memories of the 50s and 60s

by Keith Gibson

Back in 1958, the difference between the two-room school at Lyburn and the new school at Earling was like night and day. The Earling playground was roughly 150 to 200 feet long and about 75 feet wide, behind the school, and on top of the river bank. Compared to the tiny playground at Lyburn Grade it looked like a football field to me. One end was designated “the little end” (1st. to the 3rd. grade) and the other “the big end” (4th to the 6th grade),   and one thing you learned real quick was that if you were in the third grade or under you didn’t trespass on the”big end” because a certain 6th grader and his “gang” of 5th and 6th graders would rough you up and send you back down to the “little end”. The third grade went well for me though, our teacher, Mrs. Hutchinson, really cared about her pupils. One particular day that comes to mind was when she allowed me to sit in class and do whatever I wanted because I had got 100% on a spelling test. The rest of the class didn’t do very well and had to study. Definitely one of my better days.  “Oh yeah”, and then there was my 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. Noon, the teacher with the candy. Every day at lunchtime we could go in her classroom and buy everything from “Sugar Daddies” to “Milk Duds”. I’m sure that a lot of future dental problems were the result of our daily trips to the “candy store” at Earling Grade.

The fifth grade, as far as I can remember, was uneventful, except that all of us fifth-grade boys thought our teacher was pretty and gawked and giggled the first two weeks. Our sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Huddleston, was a very good teacher. She cared about her pupils and would put you in mind of a mother hen and her chicks, watching out for us and making sure none of us got hurt or in trouble. Accidents do happen though, and I guess one of the reasons I “shied” away from sports in my early years was the little incident that happened one day on the “big end”. We were having a friendly little game of softball that was being supervised by some of the teachers, and everyone was having fun. No arguing, no fighting, just good clean fun. The guy that was batting had two strikes against him. One more strike and it would be my turn to bat. I was standing there, waiting patiently for him to strike out, when suddenly the stars came out early for me. In other words, when he swung the bat for the third and final time it slipped out of his hands, “soared” through the air, and hit me squarely in the mouth.  That was the day I got turned off to sports. Not long after that I became interested in music and joined the Logan Jr. Hi band, and now that I look back I’m glad I discovered music because it’s been a big part of my life.

Spring of 1962 was the beginning of the end of my grade school years. I had volunteered to attend summer band class at Logan East Jr. High,  so mom and dad bought a used trumpet and I began band class at the beginning of the second week of summer vacation. After driving everyone crazy for the first two weeks with the trumpet, I finally got to meet our band instructor, Mr. Belcher, who taught us the basics so we could start out with a good foundation in music. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I really liked being in the band, but the second year came with a new band instructor. Les Duncan was one of the best band instructors in the state. He didn’t play games when it came to playing music. He was very serious about it. If you were in his band class you didn’t goof around, you memorized your music and you practiced, and practiced, and then you practiced some more. He wanted the best you could give, and the results were having a band that looked good, sounded good, and represented Logan county well in concerts and parades.  When the ninth grade rolled around we had a new instructor that demanded excellence just as much as Mr. Duncan did. I remember marching in formation on the Logan football field until I thought my legs were going to fall off. When Don Elkins was your band instructor you practiced and practiced until you got it right, which paid off, because in 1966 we were invited to participate in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

I’m sure I can speak for all the band members that studied music under Don Elkins and say he will always be more than just a band instructor to us. Even though that was over fifty years ago, rather than refer to him as “Don,” I feel more comfortable calling him “Mr. Elkins.” He is the type of person whose presence demands respect, and he always got it from his students.    In New York, we stayed in the Sheraton Hotel, if I remember correctly, on the 23rd floor, and our chaperones had to keep a close eye on everyone to make sure we didn’t get in any trouble. In fact, everyone was checked at the elevators to make sure that no one was sneaking any booze up to the rooms. One guy did get caught and had to give up his bottle of wine. Mr. Elkins and the chaperones knew that we were young, full of energy, and sometimes not too smart when it came to staying out of trouble. However, they failed to recognize some of our guys “creative thinking.”  I don’t remember who it was,  but one of our band members bought a six-pack of beer, gift-wrapped it, and told the chaperone it was a Christmas gift for his mom. He enjoyed a cold one that night.

When Thanksgiving day came the Logan High School Marching Band was the band that marched down the street in front of Santa Claus ushering in the Christmas season at the end of the parade. Of course, this was in 1966.

Getting back to 1962……… Among all the other things dad liked to do, planting a garden every spring was one of his favorites. He had a  “Gibson” riding tractor that had a turning plow and cultivator attachment, and every year he would plow up almost an acre of flat land in front of our house and plant every kind of vegetable he could think of. Dad and mom knew what they were doing when it came to planting a garden, I remember the big red beefsteak tomatoes, full ears of corn, and a variety of other garden food that would make your mouth water. Of course, I was in my early teens and gardening was the farthest thing from my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the food, but I didn’t like working in the garden. Many evenings after I got off the school bus and crossed the river in our boat, I would try to sneak up the road to my cousin Harold’s house to get out of working in the garden, but dad always caught me before I got out of sight. Mom and Corky were already in the garden hoeing and pulling weeds, and of course, there was always an extra hoe for me. We also had a couple of pigs, some chickens, and a cow. When dad got the pigs they were just piglets and Corky and I were given the job to feed them table scraps every evening, or as dad called it, “slop the hogs.” After a while, dad sold one of the pigs and Corky and I turned the other one into a pet. He would come up to the fence and we’d scratch his head and talk to him as if he were a dog, and we even named him “porky.” Everything was going great until fall came, and it started getting cooler outside. That was when dad decided it was time to slaughter “porky.” My brother and I were devastated. “Not porky !!”  “Go kill a chicken or something, but not porky.” I don’t remember if my brother had tears in his eyes or not, but I sure did. In fact, I got angry. Very angry. When uncle Elzie came to slaughter porky and put him in the freezer, I wanted to ….well, I’m not going to say what I wanted to do, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. A week later I had forgotten about porky and was enjoying some delicious fresh pork chops, compliments of porky.

Another incident that was kind of funny happened between my brother Corky, and one of moms roosters. Mom loved her chickens, and she had this one rooster that wanted to fight anything that moved. If you didn’t watch him he’d sneak up on you and flog the daylights out of you, so I dreaded to go out in the yard.   He was relentless!!  But as the old saying goes, “You reap what you sow. ” One day Corky was walking across the yard and didn’t see the rooster sneaking up behind him. Unknown to the rooster, Corky had just found a  short piece of a wooden 2×4 he had been looking for, and when the rooster jumped on his back Corky spun around and hit him upside the head with the 2×4. Well….., the rooster hit the ground and flopped a couple of times and didn’t move anymore. Corky thought, “Oh gosh, I’ve killed mom’s rooster,” so he went into the house and brought mom outside, pointed at the rooster, and said: “mom, I’m sorry I killed your rooster, but he was flogging me.” As corky was speaking, the rooster flopped a couple of times, shook its head, stood up, and staggered off. Evidently, the rooster had been knocked unconscious. I think it learned a lesson though, we never did have any more trouble out of that rooster.

As I’ve said in previous articles, my dad loved sawmills and owned a number of them over the years, and one in particular was up Davy Branch, just above the Church. One day during early fall as he was sawing some boards, he noticed my uncle and one of his friends coming out of Davy Branch walking so fast they were almost running.

When they got to dad’s sawmill they each grabbed a shovel and began shoveling sawdust as if their lives depended on it. Dad had no idea at the time what was going on, but they were acting as if they had been working there all day. A few minutes later, two West Virginia State Troopers walked out of Davy Branch dragging a moonshine still. Now it all became very clear. These two characters had almost got caught making moonshine. Dad shut the sawmill engine off and one of the troopers walked over asked, “do you have something we could use to destroy this moonshine still,” (pointing to a pole ax that was leaning up against the shed)?  Dad said, “not the poleax, it’ll dull it all up, but you can use my sledgehammer.” Uncle Elzie and his buddy kept shoveling sawdust and never looked up as the Trooper walked out to the moonshine still, but you could see the pain in uncle Elzie’s eyes every time he brought the sledgehammer down.

The trooper pounded on it for a good two or three minutes and then threw it to the side. My uncle and his buddy continued to shovel, but as soon as the troopers left they threw the shovels down, ran over to the destroyed moonshine still and began trying to salvage some of the copper tubings and straighten out what was left. I’m sure it wasn’t very long until they were back to making moonshine again.