Melton's Mountain Memories
In memory of the late Dan and Muriel Melton
12/27/96-1/2/98
But they live forever in our hearts!
Below are a collection of fond childhood memories of Carol Melton Combs and Chyrl Melton Akers the two children of Dan and Muriel. For more information on the Melton family visit the website below. COME, REMINESCE WITH US!
Dwayne's homepage with more on the Melton family and Appalachian Heritage
THE CAVE
In 1975 my family (Mother, Daddy, Sister, Brother-in-Law, Niece and 2
Nephews) went
to a cave in a Kentucky State Park between Morehead and Ashland,
Kentucky called
Carter Cave. My childhood girlfriend from Perry County, Gloria Donahue
Miniard met us
there. She now lived at Cattletsburg, Kentucky .
My Daddy, Dan Melton, counted the number of people needing tickets. He
said that we
could qualify as a group and it would be cheaper. Daddy told the ticket
booth lady that he
wanted the group rate. She wanted to know the name of the group and he
said,“ Melton”.
Seven year old Danny Wayne Akers (oldest grandchild) spoke up and said,
“we’re not
Meltons. I’m Danny Wayne Akers”. The lady laughed and gave us the
group rate
anyway.
Then, Daddy handed out the tickets. Our daughter, Christin, wanted to
hold our 3 tickets.
I told her to give them to my husband, Wayne, because she might lose
them. Guess
what? When tour time came Wayne couldn’t find the 3 tickets. We had
bought sodas
earlier and he probably threw the tickets in the trashcan along with the
cups.
WRITTEN BY: Carol
THE BRIDGE
By: Carol Melton
The Norris Dam project was the first construction by the TVA (Tennessee
Valley
Authority) after governmental approval in 1933. The cement dam was
built in 1936 on
the Clinch River. The dam is 265 feet in height and is 1860 feet in
length. It is a multiple
purpose dam which means the benefits are irrigation, navigation, water
supply, power,
control of floods and sediment, and recreation. The nine major dams
on the main stream
of the Tennessee River create a series of narrow lakes that together
form a continuous
navigation channel from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Paducah, Kentucky; the
channel is 1045
km (650 mi) long and 2.7 m (9 ft) deep. Near Paducah, the channel
connects with the
Ohio River and the 21 State inland-waterway system. Recently, I
watched the History
Channel when they featured the Clinch River, the Norris Dam and the
Norris Lake. The
narrator said that 5,000 graves had to be dug up and moved from the
private land
purchased in order to build the man-made lake.
Beginning in the 1950’s, Daddy traveled from Kentucky to Knoxville,
Tennessee about
once a month on buying trips. He bought goods from Star Sales Company.
Daddy always
liked to take someone with him on the long trip. Usually, Mother
went with Daddy. At
various times, Daddy took some of my cousins down to Tennessee.
However, he only
took one at a time. I can remember Carlin Kilburn, Clinton Kilburn and
Paul Hall
traveling with Daddy. Perhaps, there were others who made the trip.
Before approaching the bridge which went over the wide Norris Lake,
Daddy would
always start telling a long, descriptive story about the Clinch River
and the building of the
dam and bridge. Then, when the car was about a third of the way across
the bridge,
Daddy would say that there was just one problem. He would tell of how
the bridge
wasn’t built right. Daddy would state that he never felt good about
driving on the bridge.
Of course, he was really setting-up his passenger for a great big
scare! Finally, Daddy
would steer onto the part of the bridge that had a huge drain. That
stretch of the bridge
made a seemingly never ending, piercing, vibrating whining noise
that sounded like
everything was falling in when a car drove over it. Daddy loved to see
the expression on
people’s faces when the ride suddenly became very noisy. Therefore,
Daddy told the
bridge story to many people when they rode with him to Knoxville in
the 1950’s and the
1960’s.
CUT LEG
by Carol Melton
When I was in the first grade at Hyden, we lived on Pound Mill in
Leslie County. I came
home from school one day and went to the back of the house to enter the
door. I noticed
blood on the cement slab-type patio back there. As I walked tracking
the blood drops,
fear filled my body. Once inside the house, I went from room to room
trying to find
someone. My Aunt Fan (Amanda) was living with us. She and mother had
been peeling
apples most of the day. Daddy was at work as a salesman for the
Cincinati Hat Company. My sister, Chyrl, was ridding her bicycle around
them. One of
them left a big knife in a chair and went inside for something. The
other person had gone
to the toilet. Chyrl rode her bicycle over to the chair and the knife
went into her leg.
They took her to the clinic in Hyden and returned home with her leg all
bandaged up an
hour or so after I got home from school .
FLOWER STAKE
BY: Carol Melton
I still have bits of black coal visible in my left knee from a bicycle
wreck the summer
before I entered the 3rd grade. When learning to ride, I took off as
fast as I could down
the street and ended up in the ditch in front of Heida’s house. Later,
my bike was stolen by
a Couch boy from Couchtown. I’m amazed that he was desperate enough to
steal and
ride a girl’s bike. Couchtown was the poorest section of Airport
Gardens. There were no
zoning laws at that time. The unpainted brown wood houses were little
more than one or
two room shacks with toilets out back. There were 7 or 8 houses on two
lots with no
grass around the houses. Grass and weeds would not grow because there
were so many
children running around their houses all day. My bike had been
missing for several days
and we had been hearing rumors that the Couch boy was riding it.
Suddenly, the bike
was spotted laying not far from the street in the bottom land across
the street from
Zreada’s house. The field was between the subdivision and the Grand
View Drive-In
Theater. Couchtown was on the opposite corner of the street where
Zreada lived.
One day a lot of neighborhood kids were ridding bikes. Chyrl had just
learned how to ride
a brand new mid-size bike. The blue and white bicycle that I was
ridding that summer
day was my first and only bike. It was a used bike bought from Arlie
Mosby’s
granddaughter, Zreada Yother. Zreada and her divorced mother lived with
the Mosbys on
the street behind our house in Airport Gardens in Perry County,
Kentucky. Among the
riders was Heida Harris, Zreada’s best friend. Heida and Zreada were 3
years older than
me. On a corner lot, Heida lived in the first house on our side of
the street. At that
time, the streets in the subdivision didn’t have names nor were they
paved. The roads
were covered with a mixture of coal and gravel. All of the riders
ended up in Zreada’s
back yard. Somehow Chyrl had a wreck on her bike and landed face-down
with her
mouth open in Mrs. Mosby’s flowers along the fence. A flower stake went
really deep
into her throat. Chyrl and I climbed over the fence and ran home
crying. Chyrl was
having trouble breathing because of the swelling in her throat. Daddy
was at work and
Aunt Grace was living with us. Mother and Grace took her to the
Miners Memorial
Hospital emergency room which was nearby. The hospital was within
walking distance.
The First T.V.
By: Carol Melton
The arrival of a General Electric television made our family very
popular. That summer
the neighbors would visit on Saturday nights to watch wrestling and
boxing. Daddy
would turn the heavy 17 inch black and white set around in front of
the side living room
window. The adult neighbors would bring either a lawn or kitchen chair
to our side yard.
The children would sit on the grass. Sometimes we would fall asleep
there.
A coal miner, Arlie Mosby, was the neighborhood drunk. When we first
got our TV (We
were one of the first families to buy a TV.) Arlie was very drunk and
came for a visit to
see the television. There was a girl dancer on the screen. I think
that we were watching
“Your Hit Parade”. Mother told Arlie that he could see up that pretty
woman’s dress tail.
I will never forget the sight of him getting down on the living room
floor by the television
set trying to see up her dress.
THE SMELLY FISH
BY: Carol Melton
When I was in the second grade my family moved from Leslie County,
Kentucky to
Melbourne, Florida near Cape Canaveral. The 4 door family car, a
maroon color
Studebaker, had a luggage rack on top. Daddy was advised by the doctor
to move there
because of a serious sinus condition. One day Daddy took us fishing.
I don’t remember
if he caught anything or not. I do remember that Chyrl picked up a
small “Blow” fish .
The Blow fish would get really bloated out of the water. They were
laying all around
our feet. We were standing near some houses that had a man-made rock
bed leading
from the back of the nice homes down to the Atlantic Ocean on Florida’s
east coast. The
rocks broke- up the waves. Chyrl took the fish home to our rented
trailer. She hid it
behind the divan. After about a week, the trailer had a strange odor.
The fish was
discovered after much searching. It was in the floor at the back of the
divan.
THE GRANDCHILDREN
By:Carol Melton
Mother and Daddy loved children. They were very proud of both their children and the four grandchildren. Mother and Daddy got the biggest kick out of taking the four grandchildren on a trip along with us. I’m not sure of the destination . We stopped in Jackson at a Mom and Pop type restaurant that was located in the parking lot where Wal-Mart is now. Mother and Daddy sat the 3 children on bar stools at the counter. The children were barely old enough to all sit on the stools safely. Then, they just stood back and admired their cute grandchildren.
Danny Wayne (Dwayne)
By: Aunt Carol
We were traveling in Danny’s car to Buckhorn Lake for a ride on his Pontoon Boat docked there. Wayne, Christin and I were in the backseat with Paul and Sissi. Chyrl and Danny Wayne were in the front seat with Danny. The cars back then didn’t have bucket seats. Danny Wayne is the oldest grandchild. Danny stopped to get gas at a country gas station and asked if anyone wanted anything from the store inside the station. Danny Wane told his father to get him a salty doughnut. He meant the powered sugar type. Christin by: Carol When Christin was in the 2nd Grade, we lived in a rented house in West Virginia. The telephone rang one day. She loved to get the phone. After answering the phone she said that it was for Miss Ivadine, our landlord. I said why would some one be calling on our number? Christin said the salesman wanted to speak to the lady of the house.
Sissi (Margaret Carol)
by: Aunt Carol
My favorite niece was always so perfect. Therefore, I can’t remember anything funny that she did as a child. Perhaps she would like to relate a story about herself or maybe another family member can fill us in. I do remember giving her a Home Permanent one time, which of course, was time consuming. That gave us a chance to be by ourselves and get acquainted. She was just old enough to start wanting to be beautiful. She lived in Kentucky and I lived out of state.
PAUL(Little boy)
BY: Aunt Carol
Paul was the youngest child. When we were visiting Mother and Daddy one time, he got into my Hot Pink nail polish. Mother baby-sit him while Chyrl worked. Paul painted nearly all of his left fingers and fingernails. He had been in the bedroom where we always slept and got the nail polish off Mama Melton’s old dresser. Paul came running into the living room to show everyone. Mother remarked when seeing the mess that he had been too quiet for a little too long. Paul was very young at the time. Perhaps, he was two going on three. Paul turned around and ran to the bathroom when he saw that his grandmother was not pleased. Soon, he came running into the room again and told his granny “Look, all gone”. Paul had gone in the bathroom and partially wiped the pink nail polish on her fancy white towels that nobody ever used because they were for display purposes only.
MURIEL'S METAPHORS
Granny Muriel always had metaphors or hilarious sayings for everything in life. When someone seemed to be feelin’ blue she could come up with the craziest things to say that you would have to crack up no matter how bad you felt. She never could stand to see someone down. She just loved to see people smile. Here’s a collection of some of the sayings she used as remembered by her children and grandchildren. If you’re feeling down maybe a piece of Granny Muriel could touch your lives in some way. This is dedicated to the late Muriel Melton. We love and miss you more than you'll ever know. (By the way, go to the bathroom before you read this! ;o)
Muriely Montrose - she used to call herself
Caudill mess - when you mixed up all your breakfast, eggs, taters, bacon,
bread, gravy etc on the plate.
Wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up the
fastest.
When we ask for money - a quarter or something-"I'll give you the first one
I find under a cowpile."
When at a loss of words she would say, "I don't know whether to hock or go blind!"
"He's 'pooped' for sure!"(except she used the other word...ha!)
When I sneezed at the table she would say,"Scat Tom your tails in the gravy!"
Granny often told people good bye like this, "See you later, be good and if you can't be good, just be purty(Pretty)!! Ha! Ha! She loved saying this to Louise and Mary Lou.
When Granny broke wind she would say "FREE JACK!"
When Granny was ask, "What did you bring me." Granny would say,” What the little boy shot at!" Meaning nothing!
Papaw used to pray at lunch and when he would say Amen, Granny would say, “Amen brother Ben shot a rooster, killed a hen." That would make Pap mad sometimes.
When Granny would think something was funny, but not funny enough to laugh about it she would just say, "AHHHH! Booger!!! Or "OHHH!!! HOCKEY!!
Granny loved to sing especially when she was in the kitchen, when she was younger she used to clog or dance around while she was cooking. I can still see her in my mind singing, "John Henry or Cripple Creek." Granny sure had a lot of energy, I never could keep up with her.
Enough is enough but too much is nasty
-Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.
See you later Alligator, after while crocodile
When finding out that someone’s husband got drunk - “Did he throw his hat in the door first when he got home? Granny said that was a way to find out if the wife was mad at the husband for staying out too late and it wouldn’t be safe to go in. If the hat was thrown back out the door that was a bad sign.
Chicken in the bread pan pecking our dough. Aunt Dote (Muriel’s sister) actually let the chickens clean the cornbread pan out. She would set the pan outside the chicken door. After they pecked the crumbs all out, she would take it inside and wash it. Granny had a relative (Aunt) who kept a rooster tied to the bed post supposedly for an alarm clock.
When someone or something aggravated her - Hells Bells
When there was an annoying noise - Sounds Like A Chicken In The Corn Bread Pan
When Chyrl and I would start fighting in the car on a long trip - Sing. She would start singing an old folk song or ballet and make us join in to get Chyrl and me settled down. Mother was a good singer. Her voice sounded so pretty singing congregational songs in church. She was a soprano.
When we needed to be punished (almost daily in Airport Gardens) - Go get me a little switch off the tree.
When speaking of dating - Going sparking
When speaking of panties - bloomers
When speaking of a boyfriend or husband - fellar; man ( Example: Carol’s fellar or Carol’s man)
When speaking of a bad mistake made by a man - “He done and pooped on his own gallowses’’
When speaking of sewing on Sunday - Any stitch going in on Sunday will come out on Monday.
When hugging and greeting her family members at Christmas –“ Christmas Gift!” She would try to be the first to say Christmas Gift. ( The custom was that if you were the first to say “Christmas Gift”, then presenting a gift was not necessary.) I especially remember her saying this to her aunt and grandmother. Her aunt lived alone in a house about 2 miles down the road in a grass sod -type house. I know that the roof had sod on it like the houses in the English country-side. I think that the sides had mud and sod. Perhaps, it was an old log cabin covered with sod. Her grandmother lived with mother’s family. She was a little old lady whose mother was Dutch. She used to tell us about her mother coming to the U.S. from Holland on a boat. I was a little scarred of her and for some reason, I thought that she was a little crazy. When Chyrl and I stayed overnight, our great-grandmother would tell us that the rats would carry off our socks when we put them under the bed. I always went to sleep with my socks in my hands. When I mentioned this in later year mother said that the grandmother was her favorite relative. Mother remembered as being a very sweet lady. Mother thought that she was just teasing us. Also, she was not crazy
Aaah, flitterbill!
Going up Cripple Creek, going in a run, going up Cripple Creek, gonna have some fun.
Paul said that if he came up behind her and said, “Boo, she would say BOO,YOURSELF, you’s the first one to say it.
You get a line and I’ll get a pole and we’ll go down to the Crawdad Hole.
When called and asked what she was doing, she would say, “Eeeh, just hoeing corn.”
I’m going to whoop your rump
flat as a flitter
When Chyrl and I were little, Mother would try to get us to be more lady-like. When we would sit down, she would say,” Pull your dress down before someone sees your flitter. -When I was very young this would confuse me because Mother called pancakes flitter cakes.
Soup beans, soup beans good for your heart. The more you eat the more you FART!! This was Granny's favorite saying!
I use to ask granny, "Who baked the cornbread?" (by the way Granny always burnt the cornbread) Granny would reply,"ME MYSELF and I!" I always laughed and she would yell SIS-TAR your fixin' to get it! You'll eat the cornbread and be glad jue (you) got it!"
Granny use to say,"your barn door is open!" IF you forgot to zip up your pants. This was always so embarrassing, she would yell it out in front of everyone. (Most people just politely whisper, but not Muriely Mert! (By the way Mert was what Granny's sisters called her.)
School days
By: Carol Melton
Three schools in 3 years and Carol got a F in Math on her report card. Carol's mom had a daughter premature. Betty Lou lived 3 days and then passed away. These were contributing factors. Grading scale in 1st grade - A B C D F; Grading scale in 2nd grade - E S ,etc.; 3rd Grade - A B C D F. Confused or naive Carol was proud of her F. -Carol asked the 1st Grade Teacher if she could go to the bathroom and the teacher wouldn’t let her. Carol peed in the floor beside the teacher.
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL FOR TWO SISTERS
by: Carol Melton
CAROL’S FIRST DAY
Something or someone made me and my sister, Chyrl, not want to begin attending school. There was no kindergarten back in the 40’s and early 50’s where we lived. When I entered the 1st Grade, Daddy drove me to school every day for a week. I would cry and not want to get out of the car and go into the building. Therefore, Daddy bribed me the 1st day by giving me one of the pens out of his shirt pocket. He said, “Little girls have pencils, would you like to have a grown-up person’s pen” (Lead Pen)? The 2nd day he gave me a little notebook like the ones used for travel expenses. The 3rd day he stopped at a country store before we got to school and bought me a snack only after I promised to go into the school building. The 4th day, he gave me a new, pretty white lady’s handkerchief with embroidered flowers on it. I would gladly take the bribes offered each day . However, when I walked into the classroom, I would start crying and want to go home. On Friday, the 5th day, Daddy gave me a piece of peanut butter stick candy if I would go inside. I started walking toward the building and I heard him come up behind me. I grabbed his hand. Daddy went inside with me and talked to the teacher at her desk after she told me to go sit down in my assigned seat. I suppose that he was at wit’s end and decided to get some professional advice from her. Evidently, the teacher told him to make me get on the school bus each morning instead of dropping me off. I had been riding the bus home anyway. My high school cousin, Andrea Kilburn, was on the bus and I sat with her. Unknown to Daddy was the fact that after he left school that Friday, the teacher whipped me hard with the paddle and told me to stop acting like a baby. On the following Monday, Mother and Daddy were totally amazed that I got on the school bus without an argument.
CHYRL’S FIRST DAY
by: Carol Melton
My sister, Chyrl, is about three and one half years younger than me. Therefore, I can remember a little bit about her first day of school. We lived in a different county when she started the 1st Grade. I went to the largest school building which stood atop a hill directly across from the hill that Chyrl’s school was built on. Her school had a large number of wide steps leading up to the door. Daddy got burned out with me on the “first” day of school experience. He had Mother to enter Chyrl in school. Of course, I rode in the car with them. Mother had to make Chyrl get out to the car and when she wouldn’t go in, Mother started spanking her. In fact, she whipped Chyrl up every step to the front door. There were two ways to get from my building to Chyrl’s. Students could either walk the long route around the top sides of the two hills on a dirt road or take the shortcut down through the valley on a narrow, well-worn path. The distance was not terribly great but the walk took a while. The busses loaded and unloaded to the side of Chyrl’s building. Anyway, I will always remember looking back each day as I walked down the path and seeing Mother and Chryl taking one step at a time with a whipping occurring on each step. If my memory serves me correctly, Mother whipped Chyrl up those steps everyday for a week before the teacher ran out of the building to tell Mother that Chyrl couldn’t attend school until the next year because of a new school age law. Evidently, a child had to have been born before October in order to enroll in 1st Grade.
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