HOUCHINS: They rolled, you
know, get drunk, and they'd roll and everything else, you know. That's the
way they worked down there. Take their money they'd worked
hard for.
ALEX.: Yeah. It wasn't easy come but that way it
was easy go, wasn't it?
HOUCHINS: It was easy go all right. Some of them, you
know, had a big steak and they'd stay in camp for six months, nine months, and maybe a year, you know, before
they come out. Had a pretty good stake on 'em, you know,
wouldn't they?
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Draw it up, you know.
ALEX.: Have a good bit of money.
HOUCHINS: It didn't count up very fast a month, you
know, a dollar and a half a day, you know, and it counted up
pretty slow in a way, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah, yeah.
HOUCHINS: Take those extra months and make pretty good
stakes too, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: It was sure wild times when we were there and
that’s no maybe. Yes, sir. The railroad come up for
logs down there in a landing down here, you know, and go on
down that steep hill over here, you know.
ALEX.: Yes, uh huh.
HOUCHINS: They put that David Moore's, uh.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: I don't know how many he’d that skided logs
there in that place. Railroads pick 'em up there, you
know, a up from Hosterman, you know, up the hollow there, you
know.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: Picked them up.
ALEX.: When was, when was that? How long ago?
What year?
HOUCHINS: Uh, let's see. I think it was 1918, I guess
1919.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: Before I rode that road.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah.
HOUCHINS: There are cabins back in the foot of the
mountain, over here, across here. Mr. Curry's over there.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. Did they have a, some kind of a
lime works or something down here? I see some old ___.
HOUCHINS: They used to burn lime down the rock.
Limestone.
ALEX.: What did they do? I don't know a thing
about that. Tell me about it.
HOUCHINS: Well, that there lime, you know, is put on
the ground. That sweetens your soil.
ALEX.: Yeah, I understand that.
HOUCHINS: And they burn the lime and then sell it to
the farmers, you know, so much a ton.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: And then he spreads it over his ground, you
know. Why, you can grow anything when you put that on
there.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. Now that, did he get the lime
right there out of that limestone?
HOUCHINS: Yeah, right there at it, you know.
ALEX.: When was that?
HOUCHINS: Huh?
ALEX.: When was that? How long ago?
HOUCHINS: Well, let's see. That was along, that was
along about 19 and 20, I think that was.
ALEX.: How long did it go on?
HOUCHINS: Oh, it run about a year in all. It didn't
charge enough, and you couldn't make no money and they had to shut it down.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. You remember the company?
HOUCHINS: Well, it wasn't no company.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Bobby Heffner was a, was the one that closed
up there, you know.
*: Bob Heffner.
ALEX.: Heffner.
*: Oh, yeah.
HOUCHINS: He used to live down here and they moved to
Pennsylvania and he died up there.
ALEX.: I see.
HOUCHINS: Yeah. Yeah, I've got millions of tons of
that lime.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah?
HOUCHINS: Ninety-eight percent.
ALEX.: Yeah?
You've got a lot of limestone on this property here.
HOUCHINS: I mean on my own this land.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah.
HOUCHINS: Ninety-eight, you know, there's a world of
it. Millions and millions of tons of it.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: It'll be worth something someday and time.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: It will be operated on someday and time.
Coming.
ALEX.: Sure, sure.
HOUCHINS: Farmers have got to have that lime to
sweeten the soil.
ALEX.: That's right.
HOUCHINS: That's no joke.
ALEX.: Yeah, I put, uh, I put twenty-five tons on
my ten acre.
HOUCHINS: You did?
ALEX.: Yeah. Last year.
HOUCHINS: Well, I'll be dogged.
ALEX.: Twenty-five tons.
HOUCHINS: Ground lime or burned lime?
ALEX.: It was ground lime.
HOUCHINS: Ground lime, was it?
ALEX.: Uh huh. They spread it out of a truck.
They drove up in the field an drove it down through the
field.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, that's the way they do here.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: The old truck spreads it, you know.
ALEX.: Twenty-five tons.
HOUCHINS: Twenty-five tons. That's a lot of lime.
Can you get it close to your place or . . .
ALEX.: Yeah,
I have to get it about, uh, uh, I get it over in
Hamlin, West Virginia, and I have to bring it to Hurricane. They have to haul it about forty
miles.
HOUCHINS: Uh huh.
ALEX.: To get it to there.
HOUCHINS: Do?
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Oh, I see. You don't live in the city do
you, it's alone or outside?
ALEX.: Well, we live in the city and we have a farm
out in the country.
HOUCHINS: Out?
ALEX.: Yes, we do.
HOUCHINS: I want to tell you, this boy was making
wood. Well, his father used to police at Durbin, ____, ____. Well,
up here at Thornwood where I was telling you
about that mill you know . . .
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
HOUCHINS: They had a bunch of Italians, you know,
maybe a dozen or something. Well, they done the grading of
the railroad.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: This is on
payday, and this boy's daddy put a box of dynamite under their shanty and killed them
all. Blowed 'em up.
ALEX.: Is that right?
HOUCHINS: And the way it come, you know, he left here
and went to Oklahoma.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: And on his deathbed, he confessed to it.
ALEX.: When he was dying?
HOUCHINS: Yes, before he died. The Lord wouldn't let
him die until he . . .
ALEX.: Cleared his conscience.
HOUCHINS: Huh?
ALEX.: He wanted to clear his conscience.
HOUCHINS: That's right. He couldn't die if he didn't
do it.
ALEX.: Yeah. Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Now that's true.
ALEX.: What was his name? The boy's name.
HOUCHINS: Nacome. Nacome. Nacome. Woods.
ALEX.: Nacome Woods. Yeah.
HOUCHINS: He was up in my age. He helped us in a lot.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: We had a big trade, and . . . so I just
thought I'd tell you that.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's . . .
HOUCHINS: Things you know, come and go.
ALEX.: Yes, sir, they do.
HOUCHINS: Yeah, now's . . . I thought I'd tell you
that while it's on my mind. You give it back over there. Houstions.
ALEX.: Houstions. What's his middle name?
HOUCHINS: Clay Thomas.
ALEX.: And he's working there now?
HOUCHINS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was up there a week or
two ago.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. How long has he worked there?
HOUCHINS: I think thirty-seven years.
ALEX.: All right. You ask him next time he comes
you knew John McCormick.
HOUCHINS: Okay, I will.
ALEX.: Say, "Big John" McCormick.
HOUCHINS: Big John.
ALEX.: He retired in about 19, uh, sixty, about
1960, when did he retire, Jackie?
Jackie: Let me
think. Nineteen sixties. He worked there for twenty-five years. Twenty-six.
ALEX: I bet he would know him.
Jackie: He was a pipefitter.
HOUCHINS: Clay has five or six hundred, you know, he
looks after. He's bound to be in the bunch.
ALEX.: Yeah, sure.
HOUCHINS: I'll ask him the next time he comes up.
ALEX.: John McCormick.
HOUCHINS: John McCormick.
ALEX.: Yes, sir. He'll know him. He was a big
man. He had a ____.
HOUCHINS: Richard Eye.
ALEX.: Richard Eye.
HOUCHINS: He was an old fellow up there, and he was
runnin' on that green ____ bumpin' them all up there while
the assistant foreman was on vacation. Richard Eye, he
must be, he's up in his seventies.
ALEX.: Is he?
HOUCHINS: He went in about ____ and just whipped a
young man about fifteen or sixteen.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: And uh, he knows about that town. He's
forgotten more than he knows.
ALEX.: Oh, yes.
HOUCHINS: That old man. I know he can take anything.
ALEX.: Where's he live?
HOUCHINS: Uh, he lives over here in this Hevener
place. Over here in the Howard Hevener place back.
ALEX.: Where?
HOUCHINS: There on the other side of Boyer.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah. Okay, I know where that is.
HOUCHINS: Huh?
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: I cut logs in the pulp plant. I think Gail.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: Seems to me like they had a rock machine
there. Split most of it, too.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
HOUCHINS: Big blocks, you know, they split 'em so they
could handle 'em and put 'em cars.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah.
HOUCHINS: Ship 'em.
ALEX.: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go Jackie.
SIDE TWO - TAPE BAD
ALEX.: We'll ____ and play and record. Testing.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Testing. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 0.
HOUCHINS: It was around about, it was around about
1900, 1906, maybe 11.
Nineteen eleven. I'd say an old cement building, old rock house. Hey, when I remember that it
had a skating rink in it.
(Could not understand question asked at this time in
tape).
HOUCHINS: Well, it
belonged to, I can't think of his name now in Charleston. Some of Claude ____ people. It had a skating rink there. It was an old opera house. It
had a balcony all the way around. I guess it's still
there. Have you been down by there yet?
ALEX.: No. No.
(Could not understand reply given at this time in
tape).
ALEX.: What the, you don't remember the name that's
there now, do you?
HOUCHINS: Indeed I don't.
*: Dwight?
*: I was going to say now, that name sounds
familiar to me.
ALEX.: You're from, you're from the Comer, Cutter,
Comer? Are you . . .
HOUCHINS: Certainly glad to meet you.
ALEX.: You, you remember, uh, ____? Dark-headed
boy? His mother works at the dollar store.
HOUCHINS: The dollar store.
ALEX.: Cludder. Cludder.
HOUCHINS: Doc Cludder?
ALEX.: Uh huh. They're supposed to get me an
interview with, uh, is the grandfather, is that young man's
grandfather living about eighty some?
HOUCHINS: Yes. He
was living year before last. If he's still living, I don't know.
ALEX.: Yeah,
well, he better talk to me about getting an interview with him. You work
in the grocery business here?
HOUCHINS: Yes. Yes, sir. I'm starin' in ____. I've
put about four of them out of business. Sold 'em out, you know, more than they had.
ALEX.: Yeah. Yeah.
HOUCHINS: When I started out, I had a box building up
there. You know what a box building is. Just a single
boards. The cracks was stripped.
ALEX.: Yeah.
HOUCHINS: He was an old warehouse ____ for a logging
concern. Used to come, ride down here ____ before the
railroad nineteen fifty ____ 1900. The railroad first came
here in 1901.
ALEX.: Yeah. What your age?
HOUCHINS: Well, sir, make a guess.
ALEX.: I'd say about, uh, you must be approaching
sixty.
HOUCHINS: Sixty. Thanks for the compliment.
*: Huh?
*: That's my daughter over there.