Man of the Mountains
As a physical therapist who sometimes provides home care, being neighborly can be a pleasant obligation of my work.
Recently, I've said goodbye to one elderly gentleman-neighbor after having a therapeutic reason to visit his remote mountain home twice a week for almost two months. We ended up doing more therapeutic conversation than rehabilitation at times, and I always enjoyed the adventure of getting to his "can't get here from there" frame house on Diamond Knob--not more than a mile as the crow flies from our place here. It always put me to mind of those L'il Abner frames that showed Snuffy Smith in the middle of a plank that connected one ridge top with the next'un--it's that steep; and the narrow, winding road that snakes its way up the mountain from Shawsville Pike makes ours look like a tame super-hiway.
Having lived here all his life, John knows way more about our valley than we do, and if his hearing had been a little better and the conversation easier to direct, I'd have loved to have steered the talk toward the history of our place here. He did tell me that the old foundation just round the bend of our pasture was once a house, not a barn as we had supposed. Ann--in her archeologist's hat again--had excavated the remains of an old ornate woodstove there, which made us wonder if somebody lived in the structure at one time. John named the family. Son kilt the father, son went to jail, somebody up and kilt him in prison--so John tells me.
Not ten feet behind John's house stands the small square two story log cabin that I think he was born in; it was built shortly after the civil war, just like our place here. I'd always imagined getting a picture of him standing beside it, but the weather and my patient's unsteadiness didn't allow it the couple of times I had my camera with me. Oh the stories he could tell. (He said it'd be okay to put his picture on the web, though I rather imagine he hasn't much notion what the internet is all about, and certainly no interest in it.)
Maybe someday before winter, Ann and I will stop in on ol' John with a loaf of bread or some cookies. They aren't making 'em like him anymore, a man who plowed the sides of Diamond Knob with a horse, and "done more walking on this mountain that any man alive."
Comments
I am sure the conversation and visit was more therapeutic than the PT. The passing of this generation and its stories will be a great loss.
Posted by: Susan | September 21, 2006 7:07 AM
Fascinating photo, Fred. I wish I could see more detail - the everyday objects that surround us can tell such a story. Is that a shortwave receiver to John's left?
Posted by: andy | September 21, 2006 8:11 AM
Thanks for introducing us to John. He sounds like a salt of the earth kind of guy.
Posted by: colleen | September 21, 2006 11:16 AM
PERHAPS IN 25 YEARS, SOMEONE WILL TAKE A PHOTO OF YOU, SITTING IN YOUR HOUSE, SURROUNDED BY YOUR LIFE'S WORK. LET'S HOPE.
KEEP A SMILE READY....
MARK
Posted by: MARK | September 21, 2006 1:14 PM
You must be in the Locust Grove area. My grandmother's family has resided there since the Revolutionary War. She tells of her grandfather burying all of his money on his farm after the Civil War because he didn't trust banks anymore. The story goes that a lot of the buried silver money was never found because he couldn't remember where it all was when he got old.
Glad you found a real local who has plowed with a horse. My father has done this when he visited his grandfather in the Little River area long ago. He said when he'd get to the end of the row he would have to yell "Heeve!" or "Haw!" to get the two horses to turn right or left and come back into line for the next row. He said it was pretty difficult physically.
Posted by: Jim | September 21, 2006 2:42 PM
What a treasure you have been visiting, Fred. I'd be making that 'crooked road' trip as often as I could manage to hear all the stories that he surely has to tell.
Photos of that log house would be a page for a new book, I would think.
Hmmmmm....ever thought of a collection of life stories of the elderly in your area?
That's what we love to do when we are in the Blue Ridge area: to talk to the old folks that have been there forever.
Posted by: norma d | September 22, 2006 4:27 AM
That's my Uncle Johnny (actually he’s my great-uncle). He and my father were born within a year of each other. I love it when Uncle Johnny tells me stories about my father (Howard McNeil) that my dad wouldn't dare tell me. The old log home behind his house was built and occupied by my great-grandparents (Grandpa Benton and my Grandma Florence who I was named after). I have spent the last three years writing a book about my family including the culture and traditions of the Blue Ridge Mountain people, other historic sites in Floyd County, and sites across the state of Virginia. It’s about people and places that were so vital to the community including the country stores, gristmills, churches, one room school houses, barns, outhouses, springhouses, Virginia’s historic timber covered bridges, corn cribs (my great great-grandmother was locked in ours by Civil War vigilantes) and much more. Memoirs in my book date back to the 1700's. I plan to finish the book in Nov. or Dec. of 2006. I have also designed a quilt pattern of these historic sites that I will publish (see a photo at www.cuniquec.com, click on “order quilting patterns”). It goes hand-in-hand with the book but they will be published separately.
Posted by: Camelia McNeil Elliott | October 6, 2006 9:08 AM