Greeting to all and welcome new friends to the East Wing
One of the things for sure ya don’t get when ya live in a family of girls, is that early indoctrination into the manly arts of hunting and fishing, the slayer of eatable meats, being the provider of food for tribe. No, I didn’t get involved with that stuff at all. Then we moved to TipTop.
Today, near the end of a section of an Interstate Highway System in Southeastern Kentucky, just before ya get to a little town called Salyersville, a town it seems everyone in the whole world has heard of, at the very least everybody in Indiana. Ya take the last exit off the Mountain Parkway before ya get to Salyersville when ya want to go to TipTop.
In the mountains it’s such an experience to see the immediate result of exiting an Interstate Highway,, and the road to TipTop is no different. You’re on Tobacco Road in a heartbeat. As ya wander in a southwesterly direction the road gradually go up hill and gets progressively less traveled and smaller. Ya reach Royalton KY and turn right over the railroad tracks. After an underpass of a railroad, past a country store, ya come to the fork in the road, ya go left. All along this journey ya see little shack houses, log house, old trailers, new trailers, modular housing, and mansions all mixed together.
No place in our country can ya find extreme poverty and prosperity more close side by side. This is Appalachia. When ya drive from the Mountain Parkway to TipTop you’ll know what I mean.
After the fork in the road ya can’t get lost even if ya wanted to, ‘cause the road don’t go anywhere else, ya first come to Carver KY. Now Carver is almost as well known as TipTop mainly ‘cause ya can’t get to TipTop without going through Carver.
I have a grandfather , Floyd King, buried at the Bailey Cemetery nearby . I never knew Floyd King, my mother’s father, he died before I was born. I knew my mother’s mother. That was Lou, Lou and I played in the waters of Southfork.
Carver KY is such a big place, if there were signs, entering and leaving Carver would be on the same post. It’s real easy to go past Carver and not know it, especially if ya miss the sign.
From Carver to TipTop the road turns into one way, both ways. Not that there are two separate lanes, there’s only one lane it’s just wide enough for one car, no matter what direction ya go.
Unlike Carver, it’s easy to know when ya get to TipTop. The road ends. It just does. The road ends. Right there in front of you, the road just ends. TipTop is the location where three mountains come together at the base. Ya sit here at the end of the road and in front of you is a mountain, to the left and the right the same thing. The only place to go at TipTop is up. Ya have three hills, take your choice, they’re all steep.
Today should you drive to the end of that road, you’ll see how nature reclaims her own. There are minimum signs of people ever having ever been there, at TipTop. In another fifty years there will be no sign of people ever having been there, and that’s the way it should be.
If you think you’re so important in this world, just stand at the foot of the mountains at TipTop, you’ll have a different point of view. The world can get along without ya, very well, thank ya very much. Turns out you’re not even a bump on the radar scope of life, and ya thought you’re so important. You’re not, so don’t ever go there, and if ya don’t take my word on that one, go stand by the mountains at TipTop.
But when I came to TipTop, TipTop was alive. There were lots and lots of people and they all worked for a single employer. TipTop was a Company Town. A coal Company Town. There was just enough flat land to build a post office, a company store, a coal tipple (kinda like a loading dock for railroad car to be filled with coal) and that took all the flat land.
Everything else was built on the hills. The TipTop Church is built on the side of the mountain. The cemetery is on top of one of the mountains. To get to the cemetery most vehicles are unable to drive there, so ya climb the hill on foot. It is a trip to remember. All houses were on the hills. All the way to the top of the mountains were houses. The School house is on the mountain directly facing the end of the road.
My family and I moved into the second house up the hill to the left of the Company Store, on the same side of the road as the Coal Tipple. The first house up this hill was my Aunt Mag and Uncle Silas Cole. Aunt Mag was a sister to my mother, they looked much the same, Aunt Mag and my Mother, so much in fact, they tell me that as a little baby I had trouble telling them apart. I really didn’t care as long as one of them had liquid supper available for me.
Aunt Mag was such a special aunt to me. As was all my mothers’ sisters, I have only one precious aunt still living, my Aunt Gladys. I have a picture of Aunt Gladys and Uncle Hagins on facebook. Also a picture of Lou.
Aunt Mag and Uncle Silas had 17 babies, some were twins, most were not. When I moved to TipTop there were 12 cousins living the first house down the hill. More boy cousins than I ever knew I had. More girl cousins too. More boys cousins than I could count on one hand, I had to use some of my other fingers on the other hand just count my boy cousins. I was never more happy in my life. Finally after all these years, (6) I had somebody to play with besides girls.
Cousins, more cousins than I knew what to do with. I set about learning their names. Some were older, some were younger and I loved em all. Cousins are kinda like puppies, they make ya happy when ya have ‘em.
Now my Aunt Mag’s house was the same size as our house, 4 large rooms and a big porch. The only difference was the number of people in the house, Aunt Mag had 14 at her house we had 6. In no time our numbers went up.
With more boy cousins than ya could count on one hand it didn’t take long at all for those guys to figure out we had more food, and the cousins came to help eat, and were welcomed by my family with open arms. The same as I was welcomed to the house of Aunt Mag. Hurlas, Burl, Garland, Silas, Paul, Pilipino. Silas was called Junior and Pilipino was called Pino. It turned out that four cousins were older than me, I’m the same age as Paul, and Pino is the little cousin of the group.
The first night at TipTop I slept with my cousins, on the floor, in Aunt Mag’s front room. There was never enough beds for everybody so somebody always slept on the floor. Everybody took turns sleeping on the floor. I joined in and took my turn.
My sisters didn’t sleep on the floor, they had their own bed at our house. But the idea of getting a bunch of new cousins didn’t excite them nearly as much as it did me, after all they had each other to play with, and all I had was girls, and then I got a house full of boy cousins. Now cousins are kinda like brothers, but not quite, but when you’re six a lot better than sisters.
The second day at TipTop we went to the Company Store, my cousins and me. We didn’t have any money, just went in to look and smell, ‘cause that store smelled good, it just smelled really good. Country store smells were kinda a mixture of leather from new shoes, candy, kerosene, dairy feed, homemade lye soap, ground corn meal and apples. Cinnamon sticks, not ground cinnamon, cinnamon bark rolled into a stick. The same cinnamon sticks as in the country store on Southfork. Lou had the same cinnamon sticks in her store. Cinnamon sticks added to the aroma of the country store, both TipTop and Southfork.
They never had bananas at the TipTop Store when I lived there, maybe one time they had some bananas but everybody thought the cob was too big and they didn’t like the taste of ‘em, so they didn’t get anymore, but I’m not sure ‘bout that.
One of the things about being in a family of 12 brothers and sisters, ya don’t have much left of your pets. Imagine if you well, twelve brothers and sisters having to share one dog. Yes one dog for 12 boys and girls. The I come to TipTop and, you got that right, I have a dog of my own. One cousin, one dog.
Now the dog I bring to TipTop is the Golden Cocker Spaniel the Milk Man gave me for killing Bucky Boy with that little milk truck that looked like the UPS truck, ‘cept it was white and little. That damn milkman killed my rabbit, Bucky Boy. Gentile rabbit, that Bucky Boy.
Now it didn’t take long for the Cole Boys to figure out I got a lot more dog per cousin than they do. Less than two weeks of living at TipTop, when at the supper table at my house, Pino says “Aunt Ruth (my mother) can I have some of BobbyRay’s dog?” My mama says “Why sure, Pino, ya can have half of BobbyRay’s dog”
Whata ya gona do! Ya can’t say no when your mama just gave half of your dog away, so I said “I get the front half”.
And with that me and Pino went into the dog partnership business. But Pino was younger and dumber than me so we would get along, me and Pino, and we did. It ended up later that Pino got the best of the whole deal, ‘cause when I moved to Indiana I had to give my front half of the dog to Pino so he got the whole dog. Boy, was Pino ever happy to see me go.
Such a beautiful last September Summer Sunday in the East Wing. It almost rained today, but did not. The clouds came by and blotted out the heat of the sun, the wind blew and ya could almost hear the whisper “It’s almost fall”.
Come Tuesday a few minutes past 11 AM (11:09) the Autumnal Equinox happens and autumn arrives, not with a great deal of fanfare, but maybe some much needed rain. That’s one the things about the change of the seasons, the event itself very seldom has any special weather attached that single day, but the change is there never the less. The color has already started in some of the East Wing Trees. I’m looking forward.
Without your company the East Wing would be a lonely place. The East Wing was built to share with friends. I’m so glad that you’re one.
Stay Safe in Baghdad and Afghanistan
I wish you well
BobbyRay
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