By Sharon Kirk Clifton
Lisa Says: I'd like to welcome to the Inkwell today a dear friend and wonderful writer, Sharon Kirk Clifton. In Up the Rutted Road she brings 1950s Appalachia to life through the eyes of a young girl, complete with revival services, grape Nehi, and coon dogs. The story is poignant and beautiful in their presentation of a way of life that finds joy in simple things. Although targeted to middle graders, I frankly enjoyed it and I think our readers would too. And now, without further ado; here's Sharon.
Sharon:
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| Sharon Kirk Clifton Writer and Raconteur |
In late 1990, three years into my
career as a professional storyteller, I applied for, and received, a grant to
travel through southern Appalachia, researching the oral tradition and culture
of the area for my Jack’s Mama program. With my younger daughter, Dawna, at my
side, we set out in June 1991 to travel up many a rutted road, interviewing
scores of folks, from college professors and regional storytellers to coal
miners, cultural center staffers, folks hanging out at senior centers, and
anyone else with a story to tell.
Below are snippets from some of
their stories, accounts I treasure because they enriched not only my Jack’s
Mama storytelling persona, but also the characters readers encounter in my
first middle-grade novel, Up a Rutted Road,
set in eastern Kentucky in 1950.
* * *
“How old do ye reckon me to be?”
Only a little younger than God, I wanted to say, but courtesy
required me to understate my guess. I scratched my chin with my thumbnail and
studied his leathern face. Life had etched wrinkles around his eyes and mouth,
creases so deep one could drive a jolt wagon through them.
“Seventy something?” I said,
shooting him a half grin. I glanced sideways at his wife, sitting in a rocker
nearly identical to his. She looked over her spectacles at me, grinned, and
went back to her mending.
He straightened his spine and
leaned back. “Ninety-two!” His face said this was a game he liked to play.
“And, come spring, if’n the Good Lord lets me linger, I’m leadin’ another mule
train over these here mountains. Northerners, flatlanders, pay good money to
let an ol’ mule skinner like me take ’em acrost.”
When he admitted this might well
be his last trail ride, sadness darkened his chicory-blue eyes for a fleeting
second. He quickly moved on to another subject.
“’D’I ever tell y’uns about how
we used to shoe turkeys?” Now he wore that special grin we taletellers don when
we’re about to launch into a story, albeit, a true one in this case.
* * *
I watched as the elderly Melungeon
woman lifted aside the chintz drape that served as a door to the inward parts
of her humble cottage. With halting steps, she soon returned to the cluttered
front room, cradling in her arms a mountain dulcimer. It could have been a
newborn baby for all her care. In her right hand, she held a turkey feather and
something else I couldn’t see well. Whatever it was, she laid it on the little
table beside her chair. Then she smoothed the fabric of her worn cotton apron
and gently placed the instrument on her knees.
“This here’s my dulcimore.” She
drew the feather over the strings, pausing to tighten the wooden peg of one that
had gone flat. As the fingers of her left hand pressed the wire strings in
front of the frets, she got a rhythm going across the worn strum hollow. For a
moment or two, she just played. Then her voice joined the sweet melody.
“In Scarlet Town whar I was born,
thar was a fair maid dwellin’. Made ever’ youth cry, ‘Well-a-day,’ for love of
Barbr’y Allen.” A quiet peace washed over me, as I listened to her sing the
soulful “song ballet.” She graced me with a couple more Appalachian folk songs
before setting aside the dulcimer and handing me the object she had carried in
along with the feather.
“A record?” I said. “You’ve made
a record of your beautiful playing?”
She chuckled at that. “Well, not
me, exactly. Some folks come down from a museum and recorded my playin’ and sangin’.
I cain’t for the life o’ me figger out why.”
“Who were they? What museum were
they with?”
“Uhm…” She thought for a moment.
“The Smithsonian. You heard of it?”
My grin was so broad, I thought
my face would crack. “Yes’m. Indeed I have heard of the Smithsonian.”
She handed me the 45 rpm record.
“I want you to have this. They gave me several so’s I could hand some out.”
*
* *
“Stand still.” I spoke softly, so
as not to agitate the dog. “Smile for the sake of the old man. He’s watching
every move we make from behind that curtain. Don’t show teeth.” The dog soon
quieted, stretched, yawned, and sauntered toward us. As we gave him a good
scratching, the door to the ancient single-wide opened slowly. A tall man who
looked to be in his 80s filled the entrance. No gun in sight. Good. The dog had
accepted us, so maybe the master would, too. He hadn’t shot at us, at any rate.
His granddaughter had warned that he might, being wary of strangers.
I introduced myself and Dawna,
and soon we were inside the dim, stuffy trailer sipping sweet tea, while I told
him of our mission.
“Is it all right with you if I
record our talk?” I said.
He wiped his hand across his
mouth and chin. His whisker stubbles made a scratching sound. “I reckon so.”
As I reached into my bag to get
my little Sony cassette recorder, he unfolded himself from his chair and went
to the kitchen. He opened an upper cabinet door and lifted a large hand gun from
its shelf. Dawna and I looked at one another. Is this our cue to exit? I wondered. But we stayed seated and
smiled.
He held the weapon out as one
might display a pie for approval. “This here’s my gun.” As if we needed to have
the object identified. What was I expected to say?
“It certainly is a nice one. I
can tell you take good care of it.”
“Yup. Gotta keep ‘em oiled and in
good working order.”
“Are you a good shot?”
“Yup.” I didn’t doubt it.
He set the gun on the coffee
table that separated us. For the next hour or so, he told us about his
childhood and life in the mountains. Though he didn’t mention the gun again, I
never forgot it was there. Perhaps that was the point.
* * *
As we journeyed through eastern
Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Georgia that June, we fell in love with a
people. Early on, I met with Dr. Loyal Jones, founding director of Berea
College’s Appalachian Center, who adjured me not to portray the people as
ignorant clodhoppers, à la The Beverly
Hillbillies and Li’l Abner.
“We have a rich cultural
heritage,” he said. “Honor that. And listen to the language. Listen closely.
Get the idioms right. Realize you’re not hearing uneducated rustics who don’t
know ‘proper’ English. You’re hearing echoes of Elizabethan English—no, even
earlier than that. Chaucerian English. Especially in the speech of the older
generation.”
Dr. Jones and I also discussed
the oral tradition of the predominantly Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, and
German people who settled the region. One can learn much about a people from their
folktales and lore. Both reveal core values. For example, the stories that
comprise the Jack cycle of tales reinforce highlanders’ esteem of:
·
Home and family, for, though Jack is always going
off to seek his fortune, he invariably returns to hearth and home.
·
Helping others less fortunate or in need of
rescuing, whether it be an old, hungry hunchity woman or a beautiful princess
in peril, for Jack is no respecter of persons.
·
Setting things akilter to rights, for when Jack
leaves home, he enters a troubled world and takes it upon himself to fix the
parts he can.
·
Sowing good seed, believing “what goes around,
comes around” and “what you sow, you’re going to reap.”
·
Independence, for Jack leaves home to make his
own way in the world; however, though he first tries to solve his own problems,
in the end he’s not too prideful to accept some help himself.
·
Eschewing charity, for one can accept help or
needed provisions only if one gives in return something of equitable worth.
Readers of Up a Rutted
Road will see all of these values expressed in the lives of the McCain and
Holcomb families and one mysterious hermit who keeps showing up in the most
unexpected places.
Lisa Again: Thanks for coming to the Inkwell, Sharon! I always love it when we have a chance to visit. When I was little my great grandma lived in a "holler" in Kentucky. This post took me back there and I could hear her voice again.
Up the Rutted Road is available on Amazon here.
And if you'd like to learn more about Sharon, you can check out her blog here.
