Interview Date: June 11 (5:45
p.m.)
ALEX.: Now, read that for me again. I don't
believe you can read that.
HOUCHINS: Dr. Robert P.
Alexander, Ph.D. Professor
and Chairman of Management.
College of Business and Applied Science. Telephone number, 696-2312.
ALEX.: You're reading pretty small print there for
your age.
HOUCHINS: Ah, never gets
too small for me. Thank you for the card.
ALEX.: You're welcome, you're welcome. I couldn't
raise Odey. When I got over there, I guess he'd gone to
bed.
HOUCHINS: Well, I'll be.
ALEX.: And,
ah, it was a little late now when we got around there, and I just didn't try to disturb him
too much. Every light in the house was off, and I was
afraid to disturb, ah.
HOUCHINS: So you took off.
ALEX.: I went up to the door and kind of looked at
the house and I left because I knew he hadn't been well, and I thought, well, maybe he'd forgotten and he'd
just lay down to rest and I'll get him, I plan to get
him, uh, tomorrow, oh, sometime by early afternoon
tomorrow.
HOUCHINS: Early, early. Yeah, that's the best time.
ALEX.: Yeah,
after he's had a night of rest. He'll take a better picture maybe.
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: But you're strong. Those are good pictures
I take of you.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, it's been a long time.
ALEX.: Yeah.
*: What'd you say? You were what?
HOUCHINS: Two year old.
ALEX.: Just two year old, huh?
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: We'll
get you out here and see if we can get you. There's a little haze on the mountain here.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, ain't no good evening, in a way.
ALEX.: Well.
HOUCHINS: No sun shinin'. Shinin' like it's trying'
spittin' rain, ain't it?
ALEX.: Yeah, it's trying to spit a little rain.
You felt that before I did.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, I caught 'er. Yeah, I got a good
feeling here.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: You know up in that yard where put them
pipes down in them holes, and, uh . . .
ALEX.: Come on Mr.
Houchins, we'll get right here,
right here.
HOUCHINS: And, uh, and dumped 'em, hung 'em
in those holes? Fourteen, sixteen day and night. And it
used to take 'em hundred and some days to get through.
ALEX.: And now it's only fourteen to
sixteen.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, they put
them in there and then a hundred some days gettin' 'em out. Law, that's how much
they speeded up on 'em. Well, where you want me,
brother?
ALEX.: I
want you right there. I'm going to shoot from up here.
HOUCHINS: You, uh, hear anything interesting flip that
on, brother.
ALEX.: Okay. I just want to get the soft, soft
tones of your face and so on out here in the light, you
know.
HOUCHINS: Uh huh.
ALEX.: So.
HOUCHINS: Which way you want me to stand, how to
stand? Facing you?
LISA: Dad?
ALEX.: Naw. Naw. I'm going to take about three or
four shots out here. The other night I was afraid of
myself.
LISA: It is on, Dad. Want me to turn it off?
ALEX.: It's pushed up?
LISA: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, feeling good now.
ALEX.: That's good.
HOUCHINS: Wasn't feelin' too hot when you were here
before.
ALEX.: Yeah, well.
HOUCHINS: I got over that. Went over to the doctor
and got a shot of habakulgun*?
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Medicine.
ALEX.: That ought to help you along a little bit.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALEX.: Well, you're coming out in the yard. That's
a pretty good walk. You're going to have to have
some, you're going to have to have some beans.
HOUCHINS: Cornbread is better.
ALEX.: Cornbread is better?
HOUCHINS: Yeah. It's better than beans. Cornbread is
better than beans.
LISA: He needs an ear of corn to eat.
ALEX.: He needs an ear of corn to eat, my daughter
said.
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
*: He has original pieces. This is all his
original pieces.
LISA: She goes, "All right." I went over there
and I turned it off and then she looked at me and goes, "Who are
you?"
*: Who are you?
*: And I go, I go, "I'm with my dad and he's
interviewing Mrs. Powell," and she goes, "Well, what's
your name?" And I go, "My name is Lisa," and she goes
"Umm," and she is so sweet. She looked like, she looked
like something off the comic strip. She's, she's cute.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, I know
Ira. I used to ____ with her man, you know. Grain, you know.
ALEX.: You thrash for him.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, yeah.
All the time. Yeah, and then if it was night you stayed there. I
stayed there all night sometimes.
ALEX.: They
have a, they used to have a gristmill over the mountain there, didn't they?
HOUCHINS: Huh?
ALEX.: Had a gristmill over the mountain?
HOUCHINS: It was up by here.
ALEX.: Was it?
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: It was up about two miles above here.
ALEX.: Ah, I see. Yeah.
HOUCHINS: I thrash corn and buckwheat up there a lot
of times.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: Iris done run it down and gone. No more.
ALEX.: Was there a lumbermill at
Nottingham? Was there a lumbermill at
Nottingham?
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: When would you say it was?
HOUCHINS: Well, I 'spect
it was July. I think it closed down about July. Along about twenty-seven, I
think.
ALEX.: July 27.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, yeah. Somewhere along in there.
ALEX.: Was it single, what was it a band mill, was
it?
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: It was a band mill.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, a big mill.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah.
HOUCHINS: They got their logs, uh, back on the
Allegheny Mountains, you know, somewhere in Virginia,
you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Where they got their timber, their saw
timber.
ALEX.: I see.
HOUCHINS: I think I have a, it ain't a book, it's a
paper in here on the Winterburn mill.
ALEX.: Okay. Paper on the Winterburn mill.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, the history of it.
ALEX.: The history of it, huh?
HOUCHINS: Yeah.
ALEX.: Well, who published it, you remember?
HOUCHINS: I don't know. Leo Young, up there at Durbin
had it.
ALEX.: Leo Young.
HOUCHINS: Yeah. Paul Wellman was the one who wrote
it.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Paul Wellman deserved it. He wrote the
history of it. The beginning and end, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: When it first started and then when they
finished. It was a long finishing.
ALEX.: Well, maybe Mrs. Powell will have that. She
collects a lot of encounters. Your mentioning it to me
is a great _____ help to me.
HOUCHINS: Published once a month, I think.
__________ tells us things in
West Virginia.
ALEX.: Yeah.