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| Nick Foster and his grandmother performing Doug’s Tune |
Friday, May 20, 2016
9:00-9:30
The introduction was a performance by Doctor Foster's grandson, Nick Foster, who played the banjo. He played a tune familiar to everyone that was played on the Andy Griffen Show, by the Darlings, called Doug’s Tune,” and he was joined by his grandmother.
Next, we watched a video about Katheryn Tucker Windham, she talked about going to the funeral home to make her final plans. She was now in her 90s. The funeral director asks for whom was the coffin and she replied for me. He showed her several coffins starting with the most expensive. That was more than she wanted to pay so she kept asking for a cheaper coffin. Katheryn thanked the undertaker and left. She decided that she was going to ask her friend, John, to make her a coffin. John said Kathryn I have never made a coffin. Katheryn said I want a solid pine box, the old fashion kind, with six sides. John measured Katheryn before the built the box to make sure she would fit.
When John finished the coffin, Katheryn had him bring it to her house and put it on top of about twenty boxes full of insulators she had collected over the years. She said I don’t know why I collected the insulators but when I saw one, I got it and took it home.
She also told me about collecting insulators. She said when I die to wrap me up in a quilt, put me in my coffin, and bury me, I do not want a funeral or anybody fussing over me. Then she read a poem by Jan Strutters
“She was twice blessed: she was happy: she knew it. “
Kathryn Tucker Windham died June 12, 2011, and she is buried at New Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Dallas County Alabama.
9:30-10:00 Donald Davis from Waynesville, North Carolina
Donald said I was the eighth of thirteen children from Haywood County.
He said the worst month of the year was February by April the family was out of food, with only half-year of the growing season.
His family had two large gardens where they grew four rows of corn and four rows of beans. He said the family grew every vegetable in the alphabet from A to Z. He said his mother’s sisters would come for a visit and they would always get the best can vegetables. His mom would order her chickens from Sears Catalog.
His side mom would not watch the chickens being killed but would listen.
He said when his dad chopped off the head of the chicken that his body would leave its head, his body would end up under the smokehouse. He would have to crawl under the smokehouse to retrieve the chicken. He said then his mom would cut up the chicken and then fry it up in a skillet. He said we recycled everything, we did not eat, we would give it to the pig, then we would eat the pig.
He said we had a cow named Helen, our neighbor's name was also Helen, she was a right fleshy woman. When the cow would get out papa would holler for the cow, and he would say, Helen, I am nearby! Mom would say papa why do you do that? Papa would reply I cannot help it if she knows her a cow.
He also told a story of when he and his brother went with his mother to can soup mix and apple sauce at the Cannery.
He and his brother played outside, throwing rocks, while his mother canned the soup. She asked Donald if he wanted to label the soup, and he said yes. He said when mom went back inside that he and his brother continued throwing rocks.
She came out a little later and ask if he had finished labeling the soup mix, and he said yes. His mom said I am ready for you to label the apple sauce.
He and his brother went inside to label the apple sauce but to his surprise, all the cans looked the same.
He said to his brother you label half apple sauce and the other half soup mix. They had no clue what was inside each can.
Everything was fine until the company came for supper and his dad wanted dessert. When we went to open the apple sauce, we got a soup mix. We open at least six or more but all was soup mix. Papa never asked the preacher over to dinner.
10:00-10:30 Tim Lowery from Summerville, South Carolina
He loved sweet tea, loved school and he grew up in Kentucky
He said he learned to drive a stick shift in the first grade. He was the first child the bus driver picked up. The bus driver had a cast on his arm and could not shift the gears. He asks him if he knew his ABCs. He said the gear shift was like the letter H.
He said his first-grade teacher was a woman with a mustache and she carried everything she needed, her money, spoon, makeup, and reading glasses, up there.
He said in first grade we learned to read from Dick and Jane Books.
See Jane, run Spot run.
He said one of the boys in my class was tired of Spot so he said died Spot die. His teacher took out her spoon, from up there and put it in his mouth. Everyone can remember having the spoon from up there put in their mouths.
10:45-11:15 Dolores Hydock from Redding, Pennsylvania
Dolores talked about her parents and how they loved to dance. She said when her mother was cooking, she would dance. She would take her in her arms and dance. She said every Saturday night her dad would take her mom out to dance the polka. She said I would shine my dad's shoes. My mom would wear a Cherry Red dress, and fog up the room in perfume. She said that she and David Doggett taught ACME dance for twenty years. She said that she learned three lessons. Never take up more than your space. Always wear comfortable shoes and I didn't write down the third.
She said that she was from Redding Pennsylvania. When she was in high school that they were going to use a computer to hook everyone up with their perfect match. There were to answer twenty questions about the type of person that would be their perfect match. But the computer program backfired on them giving them the least perfect match. Everyone had to dance the first dance with their perfect match but after that, they were free to dance with other people everyone was relieved.
11:15:11:45 Bil Lipp from South Charleston, West Virginia
Bil’s father was a Methodist preacher and their church never got excited. All the kids went to a Baptist church
11:45-12:15 We listened to Geraldine Buckley
12:15-1:30PM we ate our sack lunch. Peggy brought three of her friends, with her to the festival. Everyone shared what they brought. We sat at one of the tables in the hallway to eat our picnic lunch.
After lunch, Peggy and two of her friends went back to the Performance Center.
My friend and I went to the loft.
1:30-2:00 We listened to Rev Robert B. Jones from Detroit, Michigan he performed to praise and protest songs.
2:00-2:30 We listened to Donald Davis talk about his trip down into the Grand Canyon riding a Mule.
3:15-3:45 We listened to Bil Lepp talked about the Baptist and Methodist Churches. About visiting the Baptist church and wanting to see the baptism waters. The preacher catches them and tells them they were going to hell for disobeying him. He talked about how the girl and boys were trying to raise money. They were using tin cans that were balanced and the one who put in the heaviest money would win. He and his friend brought a large bag of pennies.
He talked about bats in the attic.
He talked about being caught in a vacuum while watching a train come through a tunnel.
3:45-5:00 We listened to Dolores talk about a true story of friendship, feeling, foreign, and finding your way home.
How she and a friend went to Europe thinking they could live on five dollars a day. How her friend fell in love with a German boy and did not want to continue on their journey.
How she learned several different languages and took a job as a nanny for 3 French children.
I had to leave at 4:30PM to be at my grandson's Wedding Rehearsal.
