The Company always had a Fourth of July picnic for the miners up Slab Fork Hollow. They would put the watermelon in the stream which ran out of the mountain to keep it cool. This one year all the grown-ups got real drunk. There was this one couple who decided to pick a fight with my parents. The wife yelled at Dad (for what, I don’t know) and Mom got mad. She yelled back at her. And then the husband yelled at my mother which caused Dad to yell at him. The next thing you know everybody was running around a large table, the size of four tables put together, and they were throwing food at each other. All the children just stood around, stunned, as these grownups fought.
Uncle Noah’s sister was our neighbor on one side, boy, was she a bad neighbor, but then again so was my parents weren't great neighbors either. I certainly wouldn’t wanted to live next door to them. Anyway, she was a bad neighbor and When the kids from the camp would play games it would be in front of her house in the alleyway. The reason was because there was a wide spot in the alley and we could play baseball. Her yard was fenced in and when our ball went into her yard, she would not give it back. Typical old lady stuff. We always had to find another ball or stop playing. She never had any children of her own.
Her husband's garage was next to our fence and when my parent’s had their parties the men would park their cars in front of his garage so he couldn’t get his car out. One time he wrote in black paint across the garage doors “DO YOUR SPARKING SOME PLACE ELSE.” That didn’t help Shirley’s and my reputation. Other than the sign on the garage doors, I don’t ever remember if they ever complained to Mom and Dad about the noise or the parties.
About this time, I had a boyfriend. He liked Shirley first but she didn’t want him so he latched onto me. I would meet him in church or at the movies, let him walk me home, and kiss me good night. All he wanted to do was sing country songs and kiss. When we sat together at the movies, I would have to buy a soda and put the straw in my mouth so he couldn’t kiss me. I never took it out of my mouth until the movie was over. I would always pay my own way in the movies and, can you believe the gall, his sister had the nerve to say I was only using him. I told her sure that’s why I paid my own way to the movies. He couldn’t even afford to pay the fifteen cents for me to go to the show.
Well, he joined the Army and while there I wrote him a “Dear John” letter. When he got out of the service, he came up to the house and asked for all of his pictures back. And if I would go to the caravel in Logan with him that his stepbrother would drive us. I said that I would go, It was the worse mistake of my life. When he picked me up Shirley’s boyfriend, Dave, called from the porch to be home early and not to do anything he wouldn’t do. Dave was just trying to embarrassed me because it was my first date going anywhere with a boy. But I wish he had hit me over the head and made me stay home.
My date was all hands, I had to fight him off all night and it was worse when we were in the car with his brother. When I first got in the car, his brother made the comment he wished I was his date, and by the end of the evening, I wished I was his date, too. When his brother stopped in front of my house, I got out of the car fast, and said goodbye. That was the end of that boyfriend.
Once this one woman from Dabney came up to our house and stood by the gate; she did not come into our yard, but yelled at me, calling me a whore and other names. When my neighbor heard her, she came over and told her to leave. My neighbor told the women she was talking to a baby and it wasn’t my fault if she couldn’t keep her husband home. My parents weren't home at the time or this woman wouldn't have called me names. Later, after Shirley’s oldest daughter grew up and moved to Ohio, she married this same woman’s son. Small world, huh?
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