WEBVTT 1 00:06.000 --> 00:14.000 Mr. Rutledge, would you tell me when and where you were born and a little bit about the area that you grew up in? 2 00:14.000 --> 00:19.000 Yeah. Perry County, Marion, Alabama. A place they call Sprott. 3 00:19.000 --> 00:36.000 What did your family do for a living? 4 00:36.000 --> 00:40.000 We're a sharecropper, what little bit we did do. 5 00:40.000 --> 00:42.000 What kind of crops? 6 00:42.000 --> 01:26.000 Well, cotton, corn, peas, potatoes. Cane, make syrup out of. Velvet bean, peanuts. Think that about covered it, I guess. There's okra, collard greens, cabbage greens, tomatoes, pumpkins, raised all of that. Watermelon, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, raised all that down there. Yeah. 7 01:26.000 --> 01:28.000 Did you have brothers and sisters? 8 01:28.000 --> 01:36.000 Yeah. I got one sister living, one brother living. 13 of us in all, but all of them gone but three. 9 01:36.000 --> 01:43.000 Wow. But you grew up with 12 other brothers and sisters? 10 01:43.000 --> 01:47.000 Yeah. I was younger than a whole lot of them. Yeah. 11 01:47.000 --> 01:49.000 What year were you born? 12 01:49.000 --> 01:58.000 Born in 1914. 13 01:58.000 --> 02:01.000 What was life like in Perry County? 14 02:01.000 --> 02:49.000 Well, it was out in the country. Well, we were out in the country a long way from any town, city. Of course, the city's in Perry County too, but where we were, we're way out in the woods, like edge of the woods. A whole lot of woods around where I was born at, but at the edge of the woods. Used to possum hunt at night, rabbit hunt in the daytime. Squirrel hunt, fish them little creeks and things around there. Did all that, but would possum hunt at night. Had possum dogs there, hunted at night with torches, a lot of torches. We enjoyed it in that time. We had a good time in that time doing that. See what I'm saying? Yeah. 15 02:49.000 --> 02:51.000 Who would you go hunting with? 16 02:51.000 --> 03:19.000 Me and my brother, we used to go. Then after that, after I got grown, got up here, me and some old friends, we'd go together, rabbit hunt. Me and my brother used to do a whole lot of possum hunting at night. Had possum dogs scare them up a tree. Shake the tree and they'll fall out, then we'll get them. A whole lot of fun in that. Yeah. 17 03:19.000 --> 03:20.000 Did you know your grandparents? 18 03:20.000 --> 03:55.000 Yeah. His name's Bob Rutledge. I remember him, yeah. Now, how old he was, I don't know. When he was born, I don't know, but I just remember him. Yeah. I can't remember when he was born and things of that nature. 19 03:55.000 --> 04:01.000 Do you remember him telling you stories as a child? 20 04:01.000 --> 04:08.000 I wasn't much on telling them fairytales. I wasn't much on that, nah. Yeah. No, I wasn't. 21 04:08.000 --> 04:12.000 Would he ever talk about his life growing up? 22 04:12.000 --> 04:14.000 You're talking about my granddaddy? 23 04:14.000 --> 04:16.000 Yeah. 24 04:16.000 --> 04:41.000 I can't recall, it's been so long. Yeah. We kept his picture a long time, but it disappeared somewhere. I don't know. That's a little bit too far back down the road for me. I can't answer too many questions about him. Yeah. 25 04:41.000 --> 04:54.000 Was there a place or a time in Perry County or an event that would bring people together? 26 04:54.000 --> 04:56.000 Like a family reunion or something like that? 27 04:56.000 --> 04:57.000 Sure. A family reunion. 28 04:57.000 --> 04:59.000 You mean bring White people and Black people together, is that what you're talking about or just— 29 04:59.000 --> 05:03.000 Just Black people. 30 05:03.000 --> 05:30.000 Most of the way they come together back at that time, that family reunion thing, that started here since then. We'd come together at churches, have what they call soul sessions, conventions, and dinner on the ground and all that kind of stuff. That bring them together a whole lot. Yeah. Come up these late years, family reunion, that's where they'd meet up. All that kind of stuff, yeah. 31 05:30.000 --> 05:34.000 Was there ever a time when Black and White people would be together? 32 05:34.000 --> 06:13.000 Not back in that time. Sure didn't. No more than the Black peoples had to go work for the White people in the field. They'd pick cotton together then, things like that. That's the only time. Other than that, they didn't get no get-together. They didn't go to church together. At least, they don't do it much hardly now. They didn't go to school together back in that time like they do now. Of course, you already know that. That's the late year when they started Black children and White children going to school together. 33 06:13.000 --> 07:16.000 Way back in that time had it rough. White children would ride in the school bus and the Black children had to walk. They'd pass them on the road in the school bus and holler at them and yell at them. The fact we had to walk—Back in that time, Black children, wouldn't let them ride no school bus, and Uncle Sam was paying for all of it. See what I'm saying? That's the way it was back in that time. I remember that well. Yeah. White children been having school buses, been busing way back. Long as I can remember, they had buses to haul them, but the Black people's children back a few years ago, desegregated that. So all of them have to ride the bus. You ride the bus. You go to the same school and things like that. Back at that time they didn't do it, no sir, no. 34 07:16.000 --> 07:16.000 Do you remember as a child watching that bus go by? 35 07:16.000 --> 08:03.000 Yeah. We used to be on the road walking, going to school, and the bus would pass us with a load of them going to they school. We'd be walking, they'd be on the bus. I remember that well. Yeah. But you think about that, but it's different now. Can't look back. You can think about back, but ain't nothing you can do back there. Ain't nothing we could do about it. But thank God, they got it now where they can go, they ride the bus too and go to school. That's all we can thank God for. But back in that time, just look at them and that's all. 36 08:03.000 --> 08:09.000 What were race relations like in Perry County? 37 08:09.000 --> 09:15.000 Well, let's tell the truth about it now. Some of the White folk was just as nasty as anything you'll want to see. They'd get in front of, in the public with Black peoples and take leaks and things, and Black women and all that kind of stuff. I remember all of that. They'd do that. Matter of fact, they'd say things to Black women and get away with it, but it wasn't nowhere in the world for a Black man to say something like that to a White woman and get away with it, back in that time. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. The White guy would get drunk and take a leak anywhere, didn't make any difference who was looking at him. He did that. But it's different now. We don't hardly look back and think about back there now. I don't think about what went on back then, but I know what went on. Nothing you can do about it, you see. 38 09:15.000 --> 09:31.000 What were some other memories that you have with Perry County, your earliest childhood memory? 39 09:31.000 --> 09:53.000 Well, we had a good time when we had it. Yeah. Enjoyed the way we had it. That's the best we could do. We enjoyed it. Yeah. 40 09:53.000 --> 10:07.000 Did you ever hear anybody when you were growing up, any of the elders, talk about slavery? 41 10:07.000 --> 10:26.000 Oh, yeah. My daddy and them used to talk about it. I think my granddaddy, I think he was in slavery times. I believe he was a little bit. They used to talk about it. 42 10:26.000 --> 10:56.000 They had a fairytale. I don't know whether it's true or not. They had a Black man jumping a rope for buttered biscuits. They enjoyed seeing him jump that rope. They had a big container thing there full of buttered biscuits. If he jumped that rope, he'd get a buttered biscuit. Heard them talk about all of that. Yeah. 43 10:56.000 --> 11:20.000 Then I don't know, they tell me they used to kill slaves. I don't know now. I don't know nothing about that. Black slaves, used to kill them, trade them and all that kind of thing. I think they got history on that though. Yeah. 44 11:20.000 --> 11:29.000 Yeah. I mean, they do have some history, but I'm wondering about the stories that don't get recorded. That's why I asked you. 45 11:29.000 --> 11:29.000 Oh. Well— 46 11:29.000 --> 11:40.000 Because a lot of those stories just haven't been recorded. 47 11:40.000 --> 12:36.000 Probably did a whole lot they didn't record. Because with slave pictures and things, I'm pretty sure that there's something to that where they'd tie folks to trees and things and whup them. Slaves, whup them. I'm pretty sure they did that back in slavery time. But Black folk lived through all of that. The Lord blessed them, took care of them. They lived through all of that and made good peoples out of them. I don't know why. I don't guess it, some parts, I don't know whether any place into slavery now nowhere in the world, I don't know. It might be. 48 12:36.000 --> 13:16.000 I've heard of some places in Mississippi, way back in Mississippi Delta, somewhere back there, that they got people still under slavery, but I doubt it. It's a terrible thing to look at the story of the slave, the slave story, to look at that picture. I couldn't stand to look at that picture about slavery time, what he was doing. He was tying them to them trees and things and whupping him with a big bull whip and whup him and whup him and whup him. 49 13:16.000 --> 13:25.000 Do you remember violence against Black people in Perry County when you were there? 50 13:25.000 --> 14:24.000 Us boys, we used to fight and wrestle and all that kind of stuff. We'd fight. We'd shake it off and go ahead on. Every once in a while, very seldom, you heard tell of another Black guy killing another Black guy, very seldom you heard tell about that. Yeah. You wouldn't hardly hear tell about that. I know a White guy down there in Perry County, I never will forget. He did a lowdown thing. He was running a grist mill, and it was a White schoolteacher come up there, was teaching school back up in there in the country, rooming with him. They had a Black guy working for them, I guess, about a day for wages or something. 51 14:24.000 --> 15:26.000 That room that the schoolteacher was in, that night he'd taken some smut or something, painted his face all black. I remember that well. He tried to break in there and ravage that woman and lay it on that Black guy, what he had working for him. He had it going until this man that did it, before trial time he got drunk and was up at that school. Met another guy. This guy was named Ben Stone that he met. A bunch of brothers of him, they were rough fellows. Them Stone were some rough fellows. They didn't take no wooden nickel, and they treated Black folk fair long as they stayed in their place. I'm going to tell you right now. 52 15:26.000 --> 16:00.000 He didn't believe it to start with. This guy asked Ben Stone, was he going to the—What they call it back in them times, you had to call it hanging. Some of them used to call that neck breaking, but they call it going to the hanging or hang the Black guy up trying to ravage that White woman. Ben Stone said, "I ain't thought nothing about it. I don't think I'm going. Really, as a matter of fact, I don't believe he did it." That's what he told him. That's where the thing got started. 53 16:00.000 --> 17:01.000 He said, "Well, you don't believe he did it. Who you think did it?" Said, "I don't have the least idea, but I don't believe he did it." One word to another, he got mad. This guy who did the deed, he started up on Ben Stone with a knife or something, and Ben Stone had his shotgun around there hung. Ben Stone had to stop him. He shot him. Before he shot him, he told him, said, "I did it, but that nigger going to be charged for it." That's what he said and told this chap, Ben Stone, said, "You may not be living to testify and say I said that." He started up on him with a knife, and Ben Stone shot him and killed him. 54 17:01.000 --> 18:08.000 Ben Stone testified. What he said and everything, that cleared that Black guy. Yeah. That lady said, to start with, she was tussling with him and feeling his head and things. The average White man, he got a little longer hair than the Black man. She said that Black man's hair wasn't as long as that hair that she was grabbing of that man up on his head. But they didn't pay that no attention. They still was going to hang, that Black guy name of Miles Griffin. That was his name. If they hadn't got to fighting and that man said that, and that's all what cleared that Black guy. They was carrying him to jail. Police arrived on a horse. They had him handcuffed, leading him, like you do a cow, send him to jail. That was down in Perry County. But that cleared that Black guy right there, kept them from hanging him. Yeah. I remember all of that. 55 18:08.000 --> 19:01.000 I remember another case down there. I had a first cousin. Back in those days, you had to meet the postman down there to get a stamp and mail a letter. Can't just go up and buy stamps now. You had to get the stamp from the postman, meet him down there and get that stamp from him and get the letter back to him and put that stamp on it, give it back to him. She went down there to mail a letter, and he tried to ravage her. She broke loose from him and run. They're ginning cotton at that time. Down at the gin, this Black guy had nerve enough to tackle a man about what his wife said. A whole lot of Black guys wouldn't have had that kind of nerve. 56 19:01.000 --> 19:53.000 She said, "Your wife told a damn lie. I didn't do that." One word to another. They had some old brake sticks on them wagons, hauling cotton in wagons then. He took that brake stick, I think, and hit that Black guy that came in. I wasn't down there. I was just listening at them telling it. Knocked him out. Knocked him down and going to hit him again, but the Black guy got a knife or something. He opened his mouth and he cut him. They got the Black guy and put him in prison and everything. He get about 15 years, I think, for that. Don't be able to get out, they was going to kill him after he got out. He had to get out and leave there, leave away from down there, keep them from killing him. 57 19:53.000 --> 20:36.000 A whole lot of them things I know happened down there in Perry County. But other than that, some of them White folk down there was all right. Some of them was all right. You worked for them, they treated you just as nice as anything you ever want to see. That's just one of the things that happened. I haven't known anything like that to happen no more down there. Yeah. 58 20:36.000 --> 20:48.000 When it came time for your parents to settle up with the landlord— 59 20:48.000 --> 21:31.000 My dad never. Was kind of poor sharecroppers, I'll tell you that right now. They wasn't no big farmers. He'd mostly sharecrop a little bit and did work for the White folks for a living, day hands and things, working by the day and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. He didn't ever raise no cotton. I'll be fair with you. My daddy didn't. Some of them Black guys down there, they raised a whole lot of cotton, but our daddy, he never did do that. He raised all them children and things, real poor and come up poor. 60 21:31.000 --> 22:05.000 But I left away from down there. Working at the steel mill and I made it good after I started working at that steel mill. Yeah. Made my pension. Made a good pension. If I'd have stayed on down there, I wouldn't have made nothing. Didn't have no land. I had to buy me some land and things. 61 22:05.000 --> 22:23.000 The war broke out, about all of them young guys left away from down there. When they drafted a whole lot of them into the Army, they didn't go back. Some of them went back. The other ones went all around these big states, like California, New York, different places that had good jobs, Fort Holmes and everything. The war was the cause of that. It's a good thing that war broke out in a way. 62 22:23.000 --> 22:43.000 They never would've did it if that war hadn't of broke out. They didn't know what was going on in the other world. Draft them and they would travel around through all these big states and things and find out what was going on. All that money was circulating, all them good jobs and things, and they went for it. A whole lot of them made money and went back down in the country. 63 22:43.000 --> 23:00.000 After they retired, they went back down there and built homes and everything, living good. Go down through there now, some of them. Some of them doing all right and some of them ain't doing no good. Yeah. 64 23:00.000 --> 23:09.000 Did you go to school when you were growing up? 65 23:09.000 --> 23:11.000 Went a little. Yeah. You said school, didn't you? 66 23:11.000 --> 23:14.000 Yeah. 67 23:14.000 --> 23:20.000 Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, I went a little. 68 23:20.000 --> 23:20.000 What kind of school was it? 69 23:20.000 --> 23:37.000 We had school in churches. 70 23:37.000 --> 23:42.000 Did you go two, three months out of the year? 71 23:42.000 --> 24:41.000 Something like that, yeah. Sometimes we didn't go that long because we had to stop and go to fields, work, and take days out of school sometime. Some children would go regular, and some of them wouldn't. Different parts of the country, things like that happened. Some people's children lived so far back from any school really, some of them didn't hardly go, period. School was so far from where they were living at, too far for them to walk, way back in the woods and different things like that. But they made it, made it somehow. Yeah. 72 24:41.000 --> 24:59.000 Who was responsible for discipline when you were growing up? 73 24:59.000 --> 24:59.000 Who was responsible what now? 74 24:59.000 --> 24:59.000 For discipline. If one of the kids did something— 75 24:59.000 --> 24:59.000 If one get into something? 76 24:59.000 --> 25:06.000 Get into some trouble. 77 25:06.000 --> 26:12.000 They had polices, I mean, what you call it? It wasn't a whole lot of them, but they was riding horses back in that time. Police were riding horses back in that time, sheriff and different things like that. Yeah. Yes, sir. They all rode horses, different kind of horses, but the biggest of them I'd seen was riding a red horse. High sheriffs and deputies and things, getting themselves and ride through the country with them heels and things, get you. Didn't have cars and things in the '40s, around in then. Yeah. They had the law now, and some of them fellows could get in some deal on them plantations. That old man like you, he'll keep the law from getting you. Yeah. The law here did nothing to a White man. Doing something to one another, he could keep you out. Yeah. 78 26:12.000 --> 26:38.000 What kinds of values, what kinds of teachings did your parents give to you? 79 26:38.000 --> 26:39.000 Talking about our daddy now? 80 26:39.000 --> 26:41.000 Yeah. 81 26:41.000 --> 27:37.000 Oh. They'd tell you to stay out of trouble, don't pick up nothing that doesn't belong to you. That was a good teaching. I think children need that kind of teaching now. All you do is stay out of trouble and don't be putting your hands on nothing that don't belong to you, like children stealing and going on taking things. That stayed with me. Yeah. Yeah, I never did. Like possum hunting at night, a lot of children got to do some devilish thing, go into sugarcane fields and go in the watermelon patch sometime at night possum hunting. 82 27:37.000 --> 28:18.000 As far as stealing money, I never stole nothing out of the store or anything. But stealing is just stealing. But I never did get in jail about nothing. That's the main thing. Yeah. Never did get in jail about no stealing, no picking up nothing that didn't belong to me. He taught us that. We stayed out of trouble too. We didn't get into trouble. Yeah. That's a good thing. 83 28:18.000 --> 28:21.000 How about your mother? 84 28:21.000 --> 29:26.000 Yeah. I remember her. She was named Helen. Yeah. I was a little-bitty fellow when she passed though, but I remember her though. She died when I was small. A mule was pulling hearses then. You know, it's been a long time. Them horses and things get to them old wooden bridges and they'd go, "Whoa, boy. Easy, boy." Ease on across there. Some hearses had seats on the side of where the captain was for the children to sit in back in that time. Yeah, I remember that. A little rough back in that time. They didn't have no undertaker. Sometimes you had to make boxes to put the peoples in. It was lumber, they'd make a box to put the peoples in. 85 29:26.000 --> 29:29.000 Who would make the box? 86 29:29.000 --> 30:43.000 The guys that are around get together and make it, get nails and hammers and make it. Yeah, your own wood. I don't remember no undertakers. Yeah, they had horses and things, wagon and things, buggies and things with the horse with the undertaker. But I don't know nothing about the embalming and different things like that. I guess they did, but that's the way they had to do it. Yeah. You'd get lumber and made that body. That's what they do, take and made that body. Get that lumber and then make that, put a lid on it, put that body in there. Couldn't keep them out no long time either, like they do now. Get them on to the graveyard, bury them. 87 30:43.000 --> 30:52.000 Was there a separate graveyard that Black people would be buried in? 88 30:52.000 --> 31:22.000 All them that belonged to that same church, the graveyard would be close to that. Members of that same church, they bury all them in that graveyard now. They didn't have no segregation between the Blacks to bury in no certain grave. They're like that now. That grave close to that church, you belong to this church, you bury all of them in that grave. Yeah. 89 31:22.000 --> 31:34.000 Mr. Rutledge, you were talking about when somebody would pass and they'd be buried. What kind of ceremony would happen? 90 31:34.000 --> 32:04.000 Oh. They'd have a funeral and have your funeral at churches. And folks would sit up with you all night, sit up with the body all night in the country. A whole lot of times when they're sick, they'd sit up all night. Different ones would fan them. Folks was good back in that time, showing up, cooperating back in that time. But when someone passed, we'd go sit up with the family all night. They'd sit up all night and drink coffee and things of that nature. 91 32:04.000 --> 32:37.000 Yes, sir. When somebody's sick, they'd take turns to go be with them, all that. You go home and take a nap. Go on home and go to sleep. You all get y'all some rest now. We going to sit up for the rest of the night. We're going to take over from here. Yes, sir. They'd do that in the country. Yeah. I remember that. They sure would, yeah. That's the good thing about it. Yeah. 92 32:37.000 --> 33:05.000 They would be sick. Folk would have fan, a big old fan in the country then. They didn't have no ceiling fan or no fans in the house or put air conditioning in your house. They had them fans where they'd fan them sick folk and leave the door where the fresh air would come on in the house and things like that. That's all they had back in that time, way back in the '20s and first '20s and things like that. 93 33:05.000 --> 33:14.000 Did you ever do that for neighbors? Did you ever go and help out like that? 94 33:14.000 --> 33:36.000 No. You see, I had some people who were sick. Some sisters and brothers got sick like that, and they'd do the same thing there at where I be living. Yeah. 95 33:36.000 --> 33:43.000 When did you leave Perry County? 96 33:43.000 --> 33:48.000 1933. 97 33:48.000 --> 33:51.000 At the time, you had been farming? 98 33:51.000 --> 34:25.000 Yeah. See, I'm going to tell you. See, you ever heard of work for wages? Wages are what you call work by the month and pay you by the month. That's what you call working for wages. See, I used to work for wages down there. I was working for a man. See, it was a bunch of them Stones. He was named Joe Stone. Now, me and him got along just fine. See what I'm saying? But I had to leave. I wasn't making nothing. I wasn't getting nowhere there. 99 34:25.000 --> 34:53.000 He said, "You get through farming, you get through laying by, then you don't have nothing else to do until you started gathering again." There was a whole lot of idle time there. I was ready to leave there anyhow because there wasn't no future in it. Wasn't no future in that for me, but while I done it, I enjoyed it. 100 34:53.000 --> 35:38.000 See, people down there now kill their own hogs and milk their own cows and raise everything they needed to raise, all the syrup. Kept plenty to eat all the time. That was a good thing, but it wasn't no future there for me. All my other folk was gone. Sister and brother had left down there and come on up here. I took the blues, I said, "I'm going too. I've got to leave here too. I'm getting lonesome. Got to leave this place." Heard tell of what was going on up there. I come on up there and struggled a while, but it paid off down the road. Yeah. 101 35:38.000 --> 35:56.000 Do you remember in Perry County what would happen when people would get sick, have an ailment or something? 102 35:56.000 --> 35:58.000 They'd do what now? 103 35:58.000 --> 36:02.000 What would happen, like if you got sick as a child, if you got— 104 36:02.000 --> 36:03.000 Oh, sick. 105 36:03.000 --> 36:06.000 Yeah. 106 36:06.000 --> 37:02.000 Well, they had a very few doctors, a very few doctors. The doctors didn't know what doctors know now. Most of the time when people got sick, some old women had home remedies that they could cure a cold. They'd get what they call chamomile tea and all that kind of stuff and hog hoof tea. And fix that stuff up and some stuff in the woods that's called bluegrass, take that and boil it. They had a way to survive back in that time, and they could just about take that talon on a beast and all that stuff. And they just about cure a cold if ain't got you too—Cured the pneumonia if it ain't got you too bad. 107 37:02.000 --> 38:08.000 That's the way they did it back in that time, but doctors was scarce. There's so many folk and the doctors was so few. They had to stay up some kind of way to do something. The doctor down there was named Dr. Pry. I don't know if another doctor was around there in that neighborhood. I wondered why he drove a horse with a cart to it. Had a horse pulling a cart, a two-wheeled cart, going around through the country to them folks' houses and different things like that. Later on, he bought him a car. Yeah. Had his son to drive it around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember all of that. 108 38:08.000 --> 38:24.000 Did those remedies, you mentioned that they could cure pneumonia, sickness. Did you see a lot of that as a child? 109 38:24.000 --> 39:42.000 No, I didn't see no whole lot of it, but then I heard of a whole lot of it that people would tell about people would get sick. I know about all that stuff they made their medicines out of because my daddy used to get all that bluegrass, boil it, and it worked on a cold like I don't know what. They'd take that chamomile tea. A whole lot of folk say it's nasty, but it did a whole lot of folks good. Take that hog feet and get them hoofs off them hogs' feet and boil it. That make tea out of all of that, things like that. Make that moonshine liquor, put a little of that in some of that stuff. Take turpentine and drink a little of that, all of that. That's the other remedies. Do folks a whole lot of good. Yeah. 110 39:42.000 --> 39:49.000 Did people ever talk about spirits or—? 111 39:49.000 --> 40:28.000 I used to hear them talk about it a little bit. I never did believe in it too much because I used to come by graveyards at night, I ain't never see nothing. Had us scared to come by graveyards at night, haints and all that kind of stuff. A whole lot of fairytales was told about that, but I never did see it. And I used to travel all the time at night and didn't see nothing. A guy was down there telling a fairytale about possum hunting one night, and a dog struck something and came to the cemetery and treed him up a big cedar tree. 112 40:28.000 --> 41:16.000 That's why the dog was there when they got there in that tree. They had heard of him, something talking like a man. Made a speech, said, "Y'all been treeing possums, but you done treed your daddy, now." Said, "The dogs outrunning the man folks home." (laughs) All of 'em left running, the dogs beat them to the house. (laughs) "Well, y'all been treeing possums. They done treed your daddy tonight." (laughs) The dog took to tail and beat them home. All that kind of stuff. I don't know. 113 41:16.000 --> 41:24.000 Do you remember other stories like that that people would tell? 114 41:24.000 --> 41:39.000 Yeah. (laughs) I would tell all kind of fairytales. (laughs) Yes, sir. Yeah. I guess they had another fairytale about a place down there where they'd baptize at a creek. 115 41:39.000 --> 41:39.000 Could I turn the radio down? 116 41:39.000 --> 41:39.000 Okay. 117 41:39.000 --> 41:39.000 I've got you. 118 41:39.000 --> 41:48.000 You get it. Cut it off. 119 41:48.000 --> 41:51.000 Okay. Whoops. 120 41:51.000 --> 41:53.000 It's all right. Yeah. 121 41:53.000 --> 41:55.000 Okay. 122 41:55.000 --> 42:46.000 They said, "Men are riding along with a horse, and it was the shape of a person, but it didn't have no head on the body. Dressed in white." When that horse got there, he grabbed the horse, get that bridle of the horse and would let the horse go. The horse reared up and threw him. He got up there, he run and left the horse like nobody's business. I don't know if all that is true or not. That might've been fairytale too. Yeah. We used to tell a whole lot of fairytales in the country. Yeah. 123 42:46.000 --> 43:00.000 Did you ever hear anybody talk about magic or casting spells on anybody? 124 43:00.000 --> 43:03.000 Do what now? 125 43:03.000 --> 43:13.000 People talking about spells or casting bad luck against somebody. 126 43:13.000 --> 43:21.000 I might have heard of a little bit of that. I heard so much down there. Yeah. They used to talk a whole lot about haints. 127 43:21.000 --> 43:21.000 Haints? 128 43:21.000 --> 44:26.000 Haints. You know, like a dead folk's spirit and things. Yeah, would get you. Coming by cemeteries and things like that. I used to be scared of cemeteries. I used to be didn't want to come by there by myself at night, no, no, not no cemetery. No. Haints would come out of them cemeteries and they get you. Yeah. They'd scare you like that. Remember a long time ago down there, we're little-bitty children, said a bear was out. They said a bear was out. We're scared of them bears. There's a bear out. That bear's going to get you. Yeah. They had fairytales and things like that in the country. I never did see none of them, what they was talking about. Yeah. 129 44:26.000 --> 44:30.000 But you remember those as a child? 130 44:30.000 --> 44:51.000 Oh, yeah. No, we was all children then. They'd tell us that. Yeah. 131 44:51.000 --> 45:01.000 Down around 1933, you ended up going to Birmingham. 132 45:01.000 --> 45:06.000 I left the country and came up here to Birmingham. This is Birmingham here. Yep. 133 45:06.000 --> 45:07.000 1933? 134 45:07.000 --> 45:09.000 Yep. 135 45:09.000 --> 45:11.000 Where did you live? 136 45:11.000 --> 45:44.000 Well, I first, I had some peoples down there below Bethlehem. I don't guess you're not familiar with them places around there. A place down there that's called McCalla, Alabama. A place down there that's called Gophite, Alabama. Another place down there called—You might be familiar with that Tannehill State Park or that place that's called Tannehill. I had some people that lived down there. That's where I first stopped when I came from down in Perry County. 137 45:44.000 --> 45:48.000 Some relatives? 138 45:48.000 --> 46:39.000 Yeah. I had sisters and brothers down there, and I stayed there a little while. Then I left there and moved on up here, come on up here. When I come on up here, I worked for—weighed slag in a gravel company a little while. They laid us off, and then there wasn't nothing there. That was 1937. Then met another guy, and I expensed a whole lot. Caught a freight train, went to New Orleans, Louisiana.