Beth Durham's Blog, page 23

Too Much To Swaller

From 'Pon my Honor by Callie Myers Melton

One time there was this here preacher holding a meetin’ down in the Modock Bottom.  He was sure some preacher, and everbody from far and near was going to hear him preach.

Back in them days the men and women never set together at meetin’.  The men would always set on the left side facing the preacher, and the women would set on the right.  Up in the corner on the men’s side was called tha A-Men Corner.  This was where the old men and the leading light...

Who Stold the Corn?

When Grandpa Smith lived up on the Head of Wolf River he said that one of the men in the settlement had raised him a fine crop of corn one year.  He stored it in his crib, waiting till he could raft it down to Nashville and sell it.  But before long somebody stold most of it.  The other people in the settlement begin to have their own corn stold, too.  This was very uncommon, since everbody knowed everbody else, and nobody locked anything up.  Fact is, to lock your door or your corn crib was...

The Time Levi Lost His Bible

Here’s the thing I love about the mountain…if your family’s been around here for very long, their liable to pop up in anybody’s tale.  I never knew Callie Melton and don’t know that I’m aquainted with any of her family.  But the subject of her story which I’m featuring this week is in fact a relative of mine!  That made this one particularly interesting to me, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Also, if you’ve read my first book, Replacing Ann, you may recognize some of the geography she talks...

Cord and the Mutton

Following is another of Callie Melton’s stories from her book ‘Pon my Honor

As usual, this is presented just as she published it.

 

Grandpa purely loved to tell about the jokes he’d played on people.  He was as full of fun as a dog is of fleas, and he was always ready for a prank of some kind or another.  His pranks were always good natured, but also always good for a laugh.  The tale us young’un liked the best was the one about the time he got Cord Hull to eat the mutton.

When Grandpa and Grandm...

The Scalded Preacher

 

Everybody loves a story on the preacher – and knowing we’ve got 2 or 3 preachers who read these stories, I’m hoping for your comments at the end. 

This is from Callie Melton’s “Pon my Honor” and is presented verbatim.

James Watt Raine from The Land of Saddlebags book

One time I had the Shiloh Methodist Church Record looking it over.  The membership roll was fairly familiar, but her and there would be a name that I could not place.  The list of pastors, however, was a horse of a different co...

The Gully-Washer and Dam-Buster

Excerpt from Callie Melton’s ‘Pon My Honor

Photo used by permission of Sharon Brewer
 

Youg’uns may learn a lot more things at school now than they used to, but I’ll guarantee they don’ have half as much fun.  Why, we all laugh fit to kill ever time we think about one day when we played meetin’ at Windle.

Now the Methodists always held their protracted meetin’ at Shiloh just about the time that school started at Windle, so we’d always play meetin’ ever recess time all fall.  There’d always be...

Grandpa Smith – Part 2 from Callie Melton’s ‘Pon My Honor

Following is an excerpt from ‘Pon my Honor by Callie Melton:

 

Since I’m dedicating this book to Grandpa Smith, I think I should tell you a little more about him other than his name and dates… names and dates don’t tell much about a person really, but they are important just the same.  Grandpa was known far and wide as Uncle Alex… and I don’t guess he ever saw a stranger in his whole life… he probably met a lot of people that he’d never seen before, but to him they were simply friends he’s ju...

‘Pon My Honor

Back in July last year I shared here a couple of newspaper article written by Mrs. Callie Melton.  Mrs. Melton had the same passion for preserving our history and culture that drives me back to this keyboard week after week.  She had the foresight to record some of the tales she’d always known and publish them back in 1979.  This self-published book is no longer available so I want to share some of it with you over the next few weeks.  Today we’ll start with the preface of the book in which...

Tupelo Homestead

A couple of years ago I wrote here about a treasured landmark on the Plateau, the Cumberland Homesteads.  After a little research for that article, I knew that the New Deal plan that created our homesteads was repeated in dozens of other locations around the country.  The homes south of Crossville, Tennessee were built of indigenous material that give them a unique look among the eleven floor plans all covered with our Crab Orchard stone and paneled with knotty pine.  Somehow it’s hard to im...

Civet Cats

Sometimes we use words on the mountain that seem so common we just assume everyone everywhere would know them; other sayin's we know for sure aren’t used anywhere else.  Well as a child I heard of Civvy Cats and having never heard that on TV or read it in a book I guess that was one of those things that I assumed was uniquely ours.  So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a whole article about them in the Tennessee Wildlife Magazine.

Okay, the authors didn’t actually call the critters Civvy...