I just wish a lot of them things I bought way back when I was young, I had kept because it’d be worth somethin’ now. Them ol’ barlow knives now is worth a lot of money. I bought a lot of ’em for fifty cents when I was a boy. Now, if you’ve got a regular Barlow, the original, and it’s old, it’s worth money. You can still buy ’em new, but they ain’t like the old ones, you see. The old ones was made better, and they had better metal in ’em. I was like any other boy; I just throwed ’em down.
When old-timers was raised up, a dollar was a dollar. They didn’t go out and just spend it like you do now. I’ve seen Daddy make a hundred dollars, seem like to me, last six months ’cause he never would let go of much of it at one time. You could take twenty dollars to the grocery store, and two people couldn’t tote it [what you bought]. Now you can take twenty dollars, and I can tote it ’cause it’s only one bag full, and it ain’t full, you know. I mean, groceries was cheap, you know. You could buy a big ol’ slab of meat for it seemed like thirty-five, forty cents, and people was just barely gettin’ by on that. Granny would can stuff and then sell it. She’d take blackberries and beans and stuff, and people in the community would come by and buy them.
Daddy never did drive, and I often wondered how he raised eleven children and went through all that and still lived to be eighty-two years old. He’s a tough un. He ain’t got no teeth now, but that’s the way it is, you know.
PLATE 18 “I often wondered how he raised eleven children and went through all that.…He’s a tough un.” David’s dad, Ralph Callenback
If it come, you know, like Christmastime, usually you got an apple and an orange and maybe a fire truck. We never did really have a big tree or an artificial tree. It didn’t matter to Daddy what it looked like, just a pine tree. He’d just stick it in a bucket of sand and put anything he could find on it, like balls and socks—you know, to sort of decorate it up. That dang ol’ heater would get hot and get to smokin’, and it’d put your eyeballs out in there, and I told my brothers, “We’ll see if ol’ Santa comes tonight. That heater pipe’s red-hot. Let’s see how he get down that.” He said, “You got a point. We’ll peep.” Well, we was a-peepin’. It was Santa Claus all right, but we didn’t think it was Daddy in a Santa Claus suit. Junior leaned over and whispered, “It’s Santa. It ain’t Daddy; it’s Santa. He got that big ol’ long beard and that red suit on, black boots.” I said, “Well, how in the world did he get down the heater pipe then when it’s red-hot?” Junior said, “I don’t know, but he’s in here.” Linda said, “Yeah, that’s Santa!” Boy, Daddy heard that and here he come, and I jumped in the bed snorin’. I wasn’t movin’ a muscle. He said, “Linda, what are you doin’?” Linda said, “In the bed,” said, “is that you?” Daddy had the door shut. Said, “Yeah, that’s me. You stay in that bed.”
I woke up the next mornin’ and had me a big ol’ stick of peppermint candy, and I had me a big ol’ orange. I opened my present, and I had me a wagon. Best Christmas, I guess—ol’-timey Christmas—where all the boys got a wagon and the girls all got dresses and stuff. No, we all had a wagon but Eugene. Eugene had a BB gun. He wanted a BB gun, and he got a BB gun. We was all ridin’ around, and I thought it was just a miracle to get a wagon, a red wagon. We went down that hill, and comin’ around that curve there, I could do good guiding the wagon around the curve. Frank said, “I’ll tell ya what we’ll do. Let’s get up here on this hill and make us a racetrack. Here’s the checkered flag.” He went in there and got a pair of Mama’s new panties and put them on a stick. “That’s the checkered flag.” I said, “Frank, I don’t know about this.” He said, “Yeah, it’ll work.” He said, “Now here’s the line. We all start. Linda and Pauline, Jesse Faye, you push, but push us at the same time.” Boys, I’m a-tellin’ y’, we was a-comin’ down through there! I passed Frank! I cut the corner in front of Eugene, and Eugene and Frank run over my wagon. Boy, it just knocked a big dent in the red paint, and I was sick, cryin’. Lord God, I was up there: “Whoa, Lord, my wagon!” There was a dent in my wheel, and me up there tryin’ to fix it. Frank was down there and had the pole up: “I win! Champion!” Boys, here comes Mama. “Where’d you get them panties?” she said. “Don’t jump on me. Frank got ’em.” She said, “They’s mine, they’re new, and you drived a hole in ’em.” Frank said, “Oooh, Lord!” Boy, she got in there, and she wouldn’t whup you hard. What she’d do is take a hickory and give you three or four licks—wham, wham, wham, wham. “You sorry?” Frank said, “No.” Wham, wham, wham. “You sorry?” “Yeah.”
But I mean, if Daddy flew in on y’, I mean, he’d pick you off the ground. So we got out there, and I told Daddy, “I wrecked my wagon. Eugene run over it.” Daddy said, “What ’us you doin’?” “Racin’.” “Well, I’ll tell you what. We’ll take a hammer, and we’ll beat it out.” He took a hammer and beat the side of it out. I got my front end fixed back, and I went up there to my uncle Jess’s. He said, “I got some red paint, boy; I’ll fix you right up.” Uncle Jess was cross-eyed. He was born that way, and he had one big ol’ tooth in the front was all he had. He just was grinnin’, and he painted it. Jess said, “Now I tell you what let’s do; you get in your wagon, and I’ll pull you behind my horse.” He had a little ol’ buggy. I got my wagon, and I tied it to his buggy and just drivin’ along purty. We was fine just drivin’ down the road with th’ wagon hooked to it [buggy], and he pulled me and that little ol’ buggy around through there. There was this snake come off the bank and coiled up. It was a copperhead layin’ on the side of the road, it bein’ summertime, and that dang horse seed [saw] that snake, and he went straight up in the air and let out a big kasnort [snort]—went down through there and come loose—throwed the dang buggy, Jess in it. Threw Jess plumb down. There was big blackberry patches on the side o’ the road, and he went rollin’. I took off behind him and I went rollin’. I got tore all to pieces that time. I had a big ol’ knot on the side of my head, just a-bellerin’. Daddy said, “Wh’d you do now?” I said, “Uncle Jess was pullin’ me behind the buggy.” I said, “The horse stepped on a snake and took off.”
Daddy said, “I tell you what, Jess.” He said, “You gonna have to do somethin’ with that horse. He’s wild. You can’t do nothin’ with that thing.” He said, “I don’t believe he would have done nothin’ if he hadn’t seen that snake.” Dad said, “No, he’s wild. He was jumpin’ like that.” Jess said, “Did you ever ride him? Did you put a saddle on him?” Dad said, “No, I’ve got a saddle out there in the barn.” Jess said, “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s never been rode. Maybe he needs to be broke, and he’ll be all right.” They was sittin’ at the table passin’ the jug around. Jess took a big drink and give a big toast, and Daddy took a big drink and give a toast. Ma said, “Look at the two old fools sittin’ there.” And, you know, after a while their eyes got to rollin’ and said, “Yep! We’re gonna ride him now!” Ma said, “Get in the house, kids. Get in the house ’cause they gonna get killed.” They said, “We got him!” They got him with a bridle and a saddle on him and tied him up under there. Jess said, “Now you hold him!” So Daddy had ahold of the reins, and Jess got up on him and said, “He’s holdin’, no problem.” He give him the reins, and what does he do now, he set there. Now, Daddy had a big ol’ bullwhip, a big leather bullwhip there. Daddy reached over and got that bullwhip, and went kapowow! That thing took off, and he was a-buckin’, Jess a-hangin’ on. Jess got him an ear. That thing ’ar gon’ through the woods and throwed Jess up through the barbed-wire fence, down on it. Daddy run down there, and it kicked Daddy right in the belly and just rolled Daddy down on the ground, Daddy just layin’ there. Dad said, “Ruby, Ruby!” Ma said, “I ain’t a-foolin’ with you drunks!” Ralph said, “Lord, we gotta go to the doctor!” Went down there, and that barbed wire just cut him all to pieces. My neighbor over there had an old forty-one truck, it seems like it—I believe it was—and we went over there and put him in the flatbed. Took him over to Doc Dover. Daddy come up here, and he was gonna gi
t patched up. Went in there, and, Lord have mercy, you know back then, they just sewed you up with catgut or anything. I mean they just sewed them up, and Jess come out there and said, “Lord God, where’s Ralph?” I said, “Daddy in thar gettin’ patched up.” Daddy come out there, and they sewed his ear up and his nose. Daddy said, “I tell you right now. I been thinkin’. I believe we did somethin’ wrong with that horse.” Ma said, “Well, ye’, fools.” Dad said, “Well, there got to be a way.” Ma said, “Y’all ain’t got a bit o’ sense.” She said, “You gotta coach it.” Walked out there, he [horse] stood there, and I took corn and stuck it up to his nose and I’d pet him and say, “Whoa, Brownie. Whoa, boy.” I got on him and rode him, and you had to be gentle with him; then you just pet him and be gentle with him and put sugar in your hand and give him corn, but if you took your foot and tapped him in the side, he’ll take off, boy! He’d stick that tail up, a-lobdy, lopdy, lop. He’d jump a fence higher than this trailer. That thing, I wouldn’t ride him much, you know.
One time when me and Daddy was fishin’, I looked, and here come a big storm. I looked, and we was about three miles from town. I said, “Oh, mercy.” Lightnin’ just a-poppin’, and they ’as a big rock cliff down there. Lightnin’ was bad here’n scared me! He said, “We gettin’ under this rock cliff down there.” We eased right under that rock cliff. Daddy always had a big army coat on, and he always took cornbread and onions with him in his coat. He had all kind of goodies under there, you know. We was sittin’ up under there eatin’ onions and cornbread. Daddy got to movin’. He was wearin’ them big ol’ baggy overalls, and he got to pinchin’ somethin’. Said, “Wait a minute.” And, boys, there was yellow jackets pourin’ out from under there. I looked, and it was a-hailin’ so hard you couldn’t see. It was either the hailstorm or the yellow jackets, and Daddy said, “Which one should I do?” All of a sudden, one got up under there, and, boys, it popped Daddy right up under the neck. He moved, and he went out in that rain in that creek, and I got up on the bank. I was a-beatin’ them off my britches, and I mean, my britches was yellar [yellow] with ’em. He said, “Where’s that big paper you had?” He said, “I got a match, and if it ain’t too wet, I’ll burn ’em out of there.” The nest was on top of the ground, and we burned the nest. He walked up there and burned it. We was on the lower end, with others comin’ out in the air. They’d turn around and fly off. Mama got worried and called the sheriff to come look for us. We got up on the road, and here come the sheriff. Sheriff asked, “Are y’all all right?” Dad said, “Yeah, it was a bad storm.”
Well, the real good times was seein’ Mama cook on the woodstove and Daddy killin’ a deer and bringin’ it in, the family reunions, takin’ us squirrel huntin’, fishin’, all the time, goin’ to the store and buyin’ candy, and the first guitar I got and I learnt how to play, and people comin’ by on Sund’ys and sittin’ under the old tree and havin’ picnics. We’d talk about coon huntin’ and how many coons we caught and just everybody bein’ a neighbor, you know. Those were the good times, you know, just bein’ with your brother and sister, your family, you know. We’ve had a good life, and that’s just the way it is.
“I don’t feel like I’m Republican; I know I am.”
~An interview with Carlee Heaton~
Carlee Heaton has always been a man on a mission, first being inducted into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame and now for the Lord. After a big ol’ hug from him, as we walked through the door, I began to notice that his induction was well earned. Every wall of his living room, even overflowing into the bedrooms of his home, was filled with trophies from all over the United States and photos of Mr. Heaton with all-time-great race-car drivers. However, as Mr. Heaton reminisced upon the good ol’ days, with some occasional added details provided by his wife, Joan, I quickly knew that he was a man who would teach me not only about racing but also about how to handle what life throws your way. Mr. Heaton describes his hard childhood, which was filled with labor; his unique experiences in the Army, including spending major holidays with General Eisenhower, later President Eisenhower; and most of all giving up the hobby he loved so much to serve the Lord.
—Casi Best
My name is Carlee LeRoy Heaton from Salem, South Carolina, and I was born in 1928, the fourth day of November, so I’m eighty-one years old. Got almost six years in the Army; got two honorable discharges. I retired from BFGoodrich chemical company after seventeen and a half years on swang [swing] shift in Louisville, Kentucky. Then I came down here and went to work for Duke Power, and I worked eighteen and a half years for them and then retired from them. I had perfect attendance ten, twelve, or fifteen years out of the eighteen. Never was late a minute. Me and my boys both worked for them, Dwight and Eddy. Eddy got killed in ’97 right over here between Walhallar [Walhalla], South Carolina, and Westminster, South Carolina, and things ain’t been the same since; they sure ain’t. He was killed when he was forty-two. I never did introduce you to my boss there [pointing to his wife]; we met in 1991, and we didn’t get married till 2008. Anyways, it’s been a long time [laughs].
I went to the school in Salem, but it burnt up in 1942 or ’43, somewhere along in there. They took us over to Salem to a Baptist church. They went in there, put curtains up for the fourth grade and fifth grade, and they had four or five classes in the church. We done that till they got the school built back.
Growing up was real hard around here because it was the Hoover days, and there wasn’t no jobs. All my uncles run sawmills, and I worked at a sawmill after I was eleven years old. My daddy made me quit school and start workin’ in the sawmill helpin’ him haul the lumber and stuff. I worked all of these mountains up in here pullin’ logs with a one-horse team of horses. Both of my uncles, my mama’s brothers, were well off, and one of ’em was a police officer here in Oconee County for forty-two years. I worked with him at the sawmill till I went in the Army, but I’d go help Daddy in the sawmill to keep it from being so hard on him. He’d go to town on Saturdays with the paycheck, come back, and get a quart or gallon of kerosene to go in the lanterns, a piece of fatback meat, and a sack of flar [flour], and we’d make that do us. Sometimes we’d get a pack of pinto beans, and, once or twice a week, we’d eat pinto beans. The rest of the time, we’d eat gravy and sometimes gravy and biscuits. Me and my mama and sisters would go down on the creek and get blackberries, strawberries, and grapes and make jelly. She’d cook ’em biscuits, and we’d have jelly biscuits. Mama made our clothes for us. My sister’s bloomers [underwear], petticoats [slips] and stuff were made out of flar sacks. We went to the corn mill and had our flar and meal ground. My daddy and uncle would raise wheat and stuff, and we’d get wheat from them and have it to make flar out of. They’s a flar mill in Salem and a corn mill, too.
PLATE 19 “I never did introduce you to my boss.” Carlee and his wife, Joan
We didn’t have electricity. We had an outside bathroom and used kerosene lanterns. We grew a garden, too. We’d go pick cotton, peas, corn, and work in other people’s fields, hoe their farms, and pull the weeds and the dried leaves off the stalks of corn. Take some strang [string], tie it all up, and when it dried put it in the barn for the horses and cattle to eat. We plowed with a mule. My daddy had one ol’ mule.
We had an icebox and there was an ice truck come from here in Walhallar. He had a wagon with a mule pullin’ it, and he’d chop us off a twenty-five-pound block of ice. We’d keep it in our icebox and keep our milk and butter there. We’d take that box to the creek and pond up the creek. Me and my sisters would get our water from a spring. We would build a fire and fill that tub full of water, so Mama could boil our pants and stuff. We worked at the sawmill, and all that rosin and stuff was hard to get out of ye clothes. You had to boil them and take a paddling stick and beat ’em. We’d pick probably one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds of cotton at Christmastime and would come out here and sit at the gin. We’d pick blackberries and cotton and everything else to get enough money to get us a little sack of
oranges at Christmas and a little bag a’ candy and an apple or two. And, we thought we was in Heaven when we got all that. We really did. We’d pick cotton after everybody else had done quit pickin’ it, and they’d give us the cotton left in the field just to get it out. We’d pick it every evening after we come outta school and brang it out here and sell it in Walhallar at Christmastime to get us something. Back then if you had a pair of overhaul [overall] pants and a white shirt, you was in Heaven. But, even though it was hard, it really was better back then.
PLATE 20 “That’s why I drove for Eisenhower.” Mr. Heaton’s Army photo
I was nineteen when I went into the Army. My basic training was in Fort Jackson for thirteen weeks. Roosevelt was in office when I went in the Army. He died in 1948, see, and I went in in ’48. I was goin’ to Seattle, Washington, whenever they had his funeral. I was Army training when I got to Spokane, Washington; the Columbia River was ’bout three or four miles wide, and the deep hole was ’bout four foot deep. We couldn’t even get off the train; we had to ride on up there. We’s just a-hopin’ that the railroad tracks wouldn’t give away. Truman was president after Roosevelt. Truman stayed in there until 1951, and he went and fared [fired] MacArthur. He messed up the whole world when he done that because MacArthur would have whupped them Koreans. He had ’em ’bout halfway whupped when Truman fared him. Truman fared him because he knew MacArthur was gonna win that war. I think Reagan was the best president we ever had. He was the best and the smartest one that we ever had. He’d tell it like it was, and the rest of ’em is just liars. Ronald Reagan and Nixon—if they hadn’t impeached Nixon, then things would have been differ’nt. I don’t feel like I’m Republican; I know I am [laughs].
The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book Page 10