Then we started raising our family, and we had a big family. There was Juan [pronounced Joo-ann], Gene, Ruth, Jimmy, Jo-Ed, Bobby, Homer, Gail, and Alice. Then we had two twin boys at the last part of it, and I lost both of them. Well, I had Jimmy, Juan, Bobby, and Gail while we lived here at this house. We had one little hospital, that was all. We had doctors that come to your house. They come to everyone who was expecting a baby. The doctor give you something just before you had your baby to keep your kidneys straight. One little bottle of medicine was all he give you. You eat for the health of your baby, so that it would make it. But now, whenever you go to have a baby, he don’t give you nothing for your kidneys.
Then we moved from that place on down here to the Billingsley place, where Jim’s father and mother’s family lived. So one day, Jim, he come out in the country here to the store. We had killed a young-like hog, and then we put it in the smokehouse. The smokehouse was right outside the kitchen, so you just stepped right into the smokehouse. I was ironing one day, and I only had two children then. I had Ruth and Juan; they were my babies. Well, I was busy ironing and I smelled smoke, and I thought, “Oh! The smokehouse is on fire!” So I run out the door there, and the flames were flaming up, and my babies was in that house asleep. I saw there was nothing I could do, so I remember that I sat the iron down, and I went up the hill so that the Vinsons could help me. They was eatin’ dinner and they had company, and they just throwed down everything. Arthur and George Vinson and Priloh came to help me, and Violie asked me, “Lillie, where’s the children?” And I said, “They was in the bed asleep.” “Lord!” she says, “let’s get those children!” So we run down the hill and we got my babies out of the house, and they were all right.
I had some nice furniture in the living room and some even nicer stuff upstairs. Me and Priloh went and got what we thought was best, and we got my kitchen buffet out; I liked it pretty well. We lost everything we had at that time and moved from there on up here. We didn’t have no house to move to, just more or less a shed. We stayed with Dub and Dolly that summer while we built our house. We worked on it, Jim and me did—we worked on our house till it was good enough to live in. We came up here and worked at night on the house. We just put our babies to bed and went and worked on the house. We lit our lantern. We didn’t have power through here then. I mean, Dub and Dolly stayed with our babies at night, and we came over here to work on our house.
My parents were very strict on me. I didn’t get to go nowhere. I only got to stay out until ten o’clock, and I never had dates with very many boys. The first date I ever had was with Fred Dryman, a feller that lived down below us. He walked me home from the Church of God. Then I met Jim. I liked Jim better. I’ll never forget what L.C. [someone Lillie used to date] said one time. He said, “I used to go with Lillie and I loved her very much, but that d—— Jim took her away from me.” I liked Jim the best; he was a sweetheart. Us young people, we didn’t have no cars, and we’d get out and run around ’bout like you do now. After church, you know, we went to the Baptist church when we weren’t up here at this church down here [Church of God]. Jim and me would go up there to Salt Rock Gap and sit on them big picnic tables until it was time to go back to church that night. Ever’ Sunday, that’s what we did because, you know, there wasn’t no cars. Poverty days was something else.
The young people in our community used to get together and dance—for fun, you know. I was too young to fool with any of that, so I’d just watch. All I remember was that the man used to say, “Get your partner and round ’em up.” And around Christmas, they’d have candy pullin’s. [Editor’s note: See the explanation for candy drawings in Foxfire 2, pages 372–74, and Foxfire 3, page 322.] I was just a kid; I wasn’t even datin’ anybody because I wasn’t big enough. I’d go along with my sister or brothers. So we’d go to the dances, and they’d have candy pullin’s. All the young boys that had girlfriends, they’d buy a box of candy to take. Some of them would get peppermint; some got sassafras and all different kinds of candy. They would put the candy in two dishpans and put a towel over each dishpan. And then the couples would go side by side and put one hand under the towel. If they got a piece of candy that was the same, they got to keep it and put it in their pockets. If the candy was different, you would have to put it back. They worked at that all night long, and they had a good time and enjoyed that. I’ll tell you, when we was kids, times was rough, but we always got through it. And we had fun doing it.
Editor’s note: We lost Mrs. Lillie Billingsley in September 2010. We feel blessed to have had the opportunity for her to share her friendship, recollections, and stories with us. She will definitely live on in our hearts and memories.
“He had his head stuck up, and Mama shot him.”
~Memories from David “Lightnin’ ” Callenback~
David Callenback is a true individual whose stories are classic Appalachian folklore and tall tales. I have known Lightnin’ (my family and I have always called him Lightnin’) for over ten years. My family has enjoyed late nights listening to stories of his childhood: getting a “whoopin’,” deer hunting, fishing, and pulling childhood pranks.
David grew up on the outskirts of Clayton, Georgia, in a small community called Chechero [pronounced Chur-cha-row]. He describes the rough times he and his family survived and what they had to do to make ends meet. David’s father, Ralph Callenback, worked at a local sawmill while his mother cooked and cleaned their small house, worked in the garden, and tended to other children and any animals they had at the time. North Georgia was in an economic recession during most of David’s earlier life. He speaks of the lack of jobs throughout the community and the desperate attempts of its residents to make money. Ralph Callenback, in an effort to support his family, ran moonshine for years before he was caught by revenuers. He, however, was sentenced to only a fine because he was the sole support for his huge family.
Despite a childhood of hardships, David Callenback has a congenial and humorous personality. He always greets everyone with a smile and sends them away laughing because he has a gift for storytelling, a gift evident in the following pages.
—Russell Bauman
The name’s David Allen Callenback. I was born in Rabun County on February 5, 1958. Well, there wuz eleven of us. We all grew up on Chechero, and most of ’em moved out when they got big enough. I stayed on Chechero until Daddy got so old till he couldn’t go, and he moved in with my brother Clifton. My other sisters and brothers, they moved to south Georgia, and I moved over here to Clayton. It got so cold down there a lot of times we had to go out and saw up wood, but there weren’t no chainsaw, and we had to bust it. I wrung a lot of chicken necks and catched ’em and eat ’em. I killed hogs. It got so cold that your hands would just freeze, and you couldn’t hardly scrape ’em. You cut ’em up and hang ’em up in the smokehouse and sawed ’em down.
My daddy worked at a sawmill for about twenty-eight years, and he didn’t make a whole lot of money. I think he told me he made a dollar an hour, and when all the rest of us got big enough, we had to work. A lot of us that weren’t big enough to work went to school and come in and worked in the garden all evenin’ and busted wood. Startin’ Sunday, we went fishin’ and deer huntin’.
PLATE 16 “I could keep up with him … he could lay about four or five hundred [cement blocks] a day. He named me ‘Lightnin’.” David Callenback and his wife, Glenda
He bought that place from my grandpa for ten dollars. Most of us were raised up in that one house there. I caught the school bus at seven thirty every morning, had to wait out there and it rainin’ and cold, and everything else. When I got back to the house, I’d coon hunt—stay out all night; then I got to chasin’ the women. My daddy barred me. He put me up for about two months. He took my gun, and I couldn’t hunt. My dad was making moonshine early down there on the creek in the morning, and we went down there and loaded it [the car] down, and he was supposed to meet us. So we loaded the car and come on, and come along two o’clock, the sheri
ff come up to the house and said, “Your daddy’s in jail,” said he caught him down there and blowed his still up. He had all his liquor hid up under the leaves; it cost him a hundred seventy-five dollars for making moonshine, so we quit making it. I quit helpin’ tote sugar to it and everything ’cause I didn’t want to go to the chain gang neither.
Then I got a job on the Youth Corps. I believe I was nineteen. No, I was sixteen on the Youth Corps workin’ for Casey Jones, and I was helping him pick out tires. He give us forty dollars a pop. I’d take twenty, and I’d give Daddy twenty.
I wanted a shotgun, but Daddy said, “No, you can’t have a shotgun unless you pay for it ’cause I’m not buying you one.” So I saved my money; Daddy signed for a shotgun, and I went squirrel hunting. The first squirrel I shot, it flew all to pieces and the gun kicked me off the hill. I come home with my mouth busted, cryin’, draggin’ my gun. Daddy said, “Well, you’re gonna have to be tougher than that if you want a gun. If you want that twelve gauge, you gotta grow up, or I’ll just buy you a small BB gun.” I was sixteen then, so I quit fooling with it, and I got tough enough to shoot it.
Daddy said, “Well, I need to get up the hill to the chicken house,” ’cause he had his whiskey hid up there under his hay, but it was so slick, he couldn’t get up there. He finally got up there, and he was gone and gone. After a while, Mama heard him a-singin’. Mama said, “I thought he was feeding the chickens.” I said, “I thought he was.” She said, “Go up there and see.” So I went up the back way, up through the woods to the chicken house. He ’as setting up there drunk, a-singin’, and the chickens just a-cacklin’. Mama said, “How’s your daddy?” I said, “He can’t make it!” She said, “What’s wrong with him?” I said, “He’s drunk!” Daddy said, “I can make it. Just hang on.” There was a big car hood layin’ there. Daddy started gettin’ on the car hood and said, “Boy, give me a push.” So Daddy got on the car hood, and I give him a push, and he went down the trail. There was a big bank, and he went down the bank. He went right down through the yard right off the bluff there. He’s layin’ down there, and he’s skint, but he’s still a-singin’. My other brothers, Cliff and Frank and Junior, drug him back up there and put him in the house. Mama said, “What happened to you, Ralph?” Daddy said, “Well, I got up there and had an upset stomach, and I sucked some eggs,” and said, “It made me happy.” Mama said, “You got any more of them eggs?” Daddy said, “No, I ain’t got no more of them eggs.” Ma told me, said, “Go up there and look under one of them boards.” I went up there, and he had him a hole dug and had him some boards over it and there it was—half a gallon—and it was half empty. Ma said, “Bring it down here.” Eugene was sick with the cold, and we couldn’t take him to the doctor. She made him some medicine with it and stirred it up, and he drunk it. He got over being sick.
Let’s see, I went to work for Kenneth Dailey. I was about twenty-two then. I went to work for Kenneth Dailey layin’ block, and he was one of the best block masons I guess there ever was. He had a knack for it. I could keep up with him. I toted mud and block, and he could lay about four or five hundred a day. He named me Lightnin’. That’s where that name come from, and it’s just been like that. We built a lot of houses. I worked for him about four years, and I moved to south Georgia. I worked in a cotton mill, and I didn’t like it ’cause down there it was ninety degrees every day, and the skeeters [mosquitoes] was bitin’. So I come back to the mountains up here to stay with Daddy and them.
Me and my brothers and sisters, there was eleven of us. All the boys slept in one room, the girls, another. The boys would get out and have pillow fights and pinch each other. “Oh God! No, please, they’re bitin’! Oh Lord!” They’d go to hollerin’ and jerkin’, and here comes Daddy with a big hickory. I mean, there was so many of us, it ’as just like a herd of cattle, you know. We’d all be out in the yard playin’. One’d be in the creek; one’d be in the garden; one’d be in the rosebush; one’d be up on top of the house; one’d be up tarin’ [tearing] the wood out; one would come out with chocolate all over his face so you couldn’t see his eyeballs. Mama runnin’; Daddy runnin’. Poor old Daddy had to drink to make it. I mean, his nerves were shot. Poor old fella, he would start hollerin’. He’d start with the oldest: “Bill, Pauline, Junior, Frank, David,” and he’d go on down the line, “Whar y’ at!” We’d go, “Here, here.” Dad said, “Thar’s one of ’em gone, missin’ one—Johnny!” Johnny said, “Here I am.” He said, “Whar you at?!” He’d be up under the floor diggin’ in the dirt. He’d come out with dirt all over him. Daddy’d get him a hickory. “David, what are you a-doin’?” I said, “I ain’t doin’ nothin’!” I’d be up thar just a-pullin’ corn. It wasn’t even ripe. Daddy said, “What are you doin’ with the corn?” I said, “We’re gonna cook it!” And, boy, he’d fly up thar with the hickory, and he’d strike me. He said, “The corn ain’t ripe!” I said, “But it’s long and green.” He said, “Yeah, but it ain’t ripe.”
We made a garden in the bottom, and it did good, but the creek down below, it belonged to that T. B. Lee man, and he told us we could make a swimmin’ hole. We dammed the creek up with big rocks, and we forgot about the garden up thar. We got it so high that the water backed up over Daddy’s garden over there. He come in that day, and all his pretty taters and everything were under about two or three inches of water. Daddy said, “Boys!” Here we was down there doing belly busters, jumpin’ off the rocks just like a stair step in a line, just like ducks just a-laughin’ and a-kickin’. Pauline said, “Watch me go in the air!” She’d go in the air and hit the water, and here comes Frank, fall on y’ and nearly kill y’. Dad said, “U-hoo!” There he was with a hickory, and I said, “Oh Lord!” Daddy said, “Who flooded my garden?!” I said, “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.” Every one of us said, “No, Daddy, no. Somebody did it this morning, but none of us had nothin’ to do with it.” Daddy said, “Oh sure, look at the mud on them hands, boys. Look. And the moss all pulled out of the bank. Look. And the big rock y’all rolled. Tar [tear] that thing down!” We had to tar it down, and he said, “Now! Go up yonder and ridge all them taters back up.” Daddy said, “When they get ripe, you gonna have to dig it.” And, Lord God, it was a big garden!
Come fall of the year, it was ripe, and I wanted to go fishin’. Daddy come up from sawmillin’ and said, “Y’all better have them taters ridged.” I made up my mind. I said, “I ain’t ridgin’ no taters.” I said, “I ain’t doin’ it.” I said, “I’m goin’ fishin’.” Mama said, “You better ridge those taters, or your daddy’ll beat you to death.” I said, “All right; I’ll ridge ’em.” Went down there and took a hoe and covered the whole tater up with dirt, and there was about four big rows, long as from here to that house over yonder. Frank said, “I bet that ridged ’em good enough!” We went down there. Boy, we was jerkin’ out trout! Frank said, “I got eight.” I said, “I got nine.” Frank said, “I got ten.” Boys, here come Daddy with a pole, said, “Yeah, and one or two is gonna get a big strikin’!” Said, “Who done them taters?” I said, “I didn’t do it. It was Linda and Pauline.” He said, “Frank and David, up here, up here, stand up here.” And, boy, you a-talkin’ about getting’ a whoopin’! I was a-jumpin’ and a-bouncin’ and a-hollerin.’ Frank dropped my fish in the creek and left me. He went up there and was a-yellin’, “Mama, Mama!” Dad said, “Come here, boy”; he struck Frank. Had to get down there and uncover every one of them taters. By God, next time Daddy said to ridge the taters, we ridged ’em. We didn’t cover ’em up. We sat way back and looked. Frank said, “That looks pretty even. Dad will like that.” I said, “I hope he does. We’ll go fishin’ now.”
If you did good all week, he’d get paid on Friday, and he’d take you up to the store. There was a store about two miles, and you walked up ’ar [there]. You could get a co-cola then for a nickel and get a big Sugar Daddy for about six cents, and I mean you could chew two hours on a big Sugar Daddy. Oh, it was worth it, boys. A co-cola was rare back t
hen. Turn that baby up and drink that baby and chew on that big Sugar Daddy. You come around that road just right behind Daddy with the overalls on. We wore overalls and the brogan shoes, and, you know, we always got our hair cut in a flattop, nearly off. All our ears stuck way out ’cause we didn’t have no hair. Here we was right behind Daddy with a big Sugar Daddy. Linda said, “Mine’s about gone. Wanna trade?” I said, “I ain’t a-tradin’ you! You eat your Sugar Daddy. I’m just a-easy suckin’ on mine. Move outta my way! I work with this Sugar Daddy!” Linda said, “I’m gonna tell Mama that you were mean to your sister.” I said, “I don’t care what you tell Mama.” She got down there and said, “Mama, David wouldn’t trade Sugar Daddys.” Mama said, “What happened, Linda?” Linda said, “I ate all mine and David wouldn’t give me a lick.” She said, “David would just barely lick his with his little bitty, short tongue.”
Linda told Jesse Faye to take the meanest dawg I ever had in my whole life and let him down in the well in the bucket. Said, “We’ll fix that thing,” said, “we’ll get rid of that thing, and Daddy’ll never know it.” Linda reached over to catch the dawg (a big walker) and got him by the collar, and, when she went to put him in the bucket, that thing took ahold of Linda’s finger, and Linda had a big mouth. You could hear her half a mile: “Whaaaaaooooooo, Lord have mercy!” Daddy came runnin’ out of that house. “What are you doin’ to that dawg?” And that dawg said, “Yalp, yalp!” waggin’ that tail, and Jesse Faye always told the truth. She never lied. She said, “Linda was gonna put the dawg in the bucket and drown it.” “Well, Linda, come in here.” We had iodine back then, baby, and, boys, he poured that thing full of that iodine, hit Linda like fire, and she was a-screamin’, jumpin’ around the house. He told me, said, “Didn’t you step on a nail the other day?” I said, “It’s fine, Daddy. Thar ain’t a thing wrong with my foot.” He said, “Come here, David, and hold that thing up thar.” I said, “No, it’s fine, Daddy!” He said, “That thing looks black. Come here, Mama, with a needle and open it.” I said, “No, it’s fine, Daddy.” Mama took that needle and opened that thing up, and he poured it full, and I took a hot foot jumpin’ around the house, screamin’ and hollerin’.
The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book Page 8