memory lane (a.k.a. barker ridge)

for a long time now, my dad and i have been talking about going out to where he was raised so he could give me a little tour and tell me some stories. we did this when i was young, along with my great aunt anna lee. i remember bits and pieces but i've been wanting to go now, as me all grown-up, when i can appreciate it so much more. greg wanted to do this too, especially since he, blake and luke hiked the kanawha trace and went through that part of the area. the boys came along too, because whether or not they appreciate it now, they will remember going with their pop and seeing where he was a boy and listening to him tell stories. (and he can tell a story!) we roamed all over the place on big 7 mile and 9 mile. at one point after a few twists and turns mom said, "max where are we?" and he said, "i have no idea. but we're not lost." this particular entry may not mean diddly to anyone else who may read it, but it means so much to me.

dad: "where that IGA is used to be a beer joint. that's where grandpa bought me my first one."

us: "how old were you?"

dad: "oh, not 14 yet."

me: "you'd been smoking 4 years by then." (anna lee taught him when he was 10)

dad: "yep."

dad said his mom and dad rented this house with uncle russell and aunt annabelle when he was very small (he was born in 1929). the rent was $10 a month. they had to give the house up because between the two couples they couldn't come up with the money. during the 1937 flood my papaw, burman blake, walked to work at the nickel plant from this house.

this was a mill where my great-grandfather, grover blake, took corn and wheat to have them made into meal and flour. he would leave some there as payment.

"dad helped build this road"..."i walked this road uphill both ways to school"... =)

grandpa blake's road. it wasn't called that when he lived there, only since they got 911 in that area. but i love that sign!

grandpa's house, only fixed up a LOT. i don't remember big details of it from when i was little but i know it didn't look like that.

"up here's a store where you could go to get ready-made cigarettes. they were 6 for a nickel."

papaw built a house on the opposite side of the road from this trailer. he eventually moved it across to the land where that trailer is sitting now and he added a floor to it. that house burned.

dad said he used to stand around where this tree stump is and sell cornbread and buttermilk to truck drivers who were there when the road was being built. (it made me smile all over again just typing that!)

this is where my mamaw, naomi, grew up. i have a painting of this place that she gave me. it has lots of little kids running around. she used to point out one little girl to me and say "that one's me." of course i believed her. it was kind of strange to see it "real" and not painted. made me miss her.

we heard all kinds of stories from dad from his growing up years. he told us about aunt mag bobbing the tails off of 3 dogs she had using a big knife and her kitchen table as a guide. all 3 got bobbed to different lengths, one ending up with no tail at all. "there was something wrong with that one. he ran into things...last time we saw him he was runnin down that road right there." i asked if it was the dog who's hiney got painted with lipstick by anna lee and he said no. that was a dog that belonged to someone else. (turns out that was the spence's. we saw their house later on.) that cracks me up. i've always loved that lipstick story. we were driving along at one point and i heard him say "i never thought it'd be so built up out here. everybody's got a swimming pool. indoor plumbing. they've ruined the whole place." he was kidding. or at least i think he was. when he was 14 he and mamaw and papaw moved from the country to town (huntington). dad said he's been lucky. "i've lived in two worlds."

i want to go again. i imagine some other memories might come up for him to share.