Larry Cook

Interview with Larry Cook Leicester (Sandy Mush), N.C. Conducted by Stephen Cain Monday, Aug. 3, 1998

(Tape 1 Side A)

Cain: Larry Cook, and it is, what day is today, anyway? Monday, Aug. 3. This is going to look dumb on the tape, but we'll let that go. The first question is, I spent my childhood in Tennessee, but I was raised in Michigan, so I'm a Yankee. Other people call themselves city folk or country folk. Are you a mountain person?

Cook: I've lived here all my life.

Cain: Does that make you different in some ways than somebody that, say, lived down in Asheville or the Piedmont?

Cook: I don't think so. They're just people, even Yankees.

Cain: (Laugh)

Cook: Some of my best friends are Yankees. I ain't really got nothing tied against them.

Cain: I know some folk put down people from the mountains. I was talking with Burder's daughter (Robin Reeves), who works at Mission-St. Joes Hospital, and, boy, she was just going off like a firecracker because people would say, "Oh you're from Madison County, you're not very bright. You're dumb."

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: I was wondering whether you had ever run into people who were putting you down or not paying any attention to you because you are from the mountains.

Cook: Yeah, you run into that quite often.

Cain: Get mad? Shrug it off? What?

Cook: I try not to pay it any attention.

Cain: Figure they don't know what they're talking about?

Cook: Not really.

Cain: Where did your people come from originally?

Cook: My father ( Tom Cook) was from Alabama, and he married my mother in the service.

Cain: He was in Asheville when?

Cook: Yes, he was in the hospital here.

Cain: He was, what, Normandy? And you were in Viet Nam?

Cook: No. I didn't go. Thanks to Nixon, I got out in the nick of time.

Cain: I lucked out, too.

Cook: I was awaiting the day, but Nixon ended it.

Cain: I'm a few years older than you, and I missed it on the other end, got married, had kids.

Cook: Well I was counting down the days before I had to go, you know, and they had been contacting me, and then he stopped the war.

Cain: But your mother's people have been around for a long time.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: They named Hog Eye Road.

Cook: Yeah. I think it was my great grandfather. She (his mother) might have told you the story.

Cain: Yeah. That it looked like a hog eye, and for years she could never find another hog eye, but I guess she came across one in Arkansas, one other. Are there any family stories from years ago that you remember, stories about your ancestors, what they did or didn't do?

Cook: Not too much, you know, didn't talk a whole lot.

Cain: Tell me a little about your growing up. Your dad was a wood worker.

Cook: Yeah. He built furniture and things. Mom, she kind of farmed, you know, did more of that. He wasn't really a farmer. Tobacco made him sick, green tobacco, the scent of it. Anyway, he didn't like that too good, but he worked everything on the job and really didn't have time for that, and he spent most of his time doing that (building furniture) and made a living off that.

Cain: I saw some of the material your mother still has, stuff he built, nice.

Cook: Yeah, lot of stuff all over the country.

Cain: He taught you that, taught you woodworking, too?

Cook: All I would learn, I guess. That wasn't my real interest, you know. He tried, but I guess I just couldn't stay in one place that long, but he did try.

Cain: How far did you go in school?

Cook: I finished the sixth grade.

Cain: Okay. What kinds of things did you do growing up?

Cook: Well, we didn't have a lot of things to do around here, you know. Just get out and coon hunt and fish in the creek down here.

Cain: In the Sandy Mush?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: They still have fish in it?

Cook: Some.

Cain: I thought the erosion would kill off the trout.

Cook: There's not what there used to be. There's a few in there. That was mostly how we passed the time. Evenings and Sundays.

Cain: Jim Hannah and a couple of the people I talked to said, Sandy Mush has changed a lot but that it was pretty rough, could be pretty rough sometimes.

Cook: Yes. It was pretty rough country back then, you know. They had some good parties back there, you know, and everything, and had big get-togethers down Sugar Creek, had a meeting there along what they called the Gap of the Ridge, where we turned down Sugar Creek, and we had a pretty good get-together, and some people was pretty rough, but most people would do anything in the world for you.

Cain: Everyone I found out here has been just nice as anything. When I was doing that barn thing, I didn 't know anybody. I was just knocking on doors, and not one person turned me away.

Cook: Most of 'em are pretty nice.

Cain: Always going to get a few.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: For a while, though, you did some moonshine?

Cook: Yeah, back in my earlier days I did.

Cain: Back in the'60s?

Cook: Yeah. And just try to make a living any way you could.

Cain: Because there weren't many jobs.

Cook: No, you could cut pulp wood or make moonshine, a little spending money, make a little money so you could go out on weekends.

Cain: I heard that there were quite a few folk in the hollows that would make a little bit to pay the bills.

Cook: Oh yeah.

Cain: Hog Eye?

Cook: Not that many on Hog Eye, but they was all around.

Cain: Kind of what to watch for were you walked.

Cook: Yeah, you could run into quite a few of them. They mostly made it out on the mountains, you know. And you could look on a good still morning and see a few smokes coming up around.

Cain: Was the sheriff much trouble?

Cook: Not... at times they was a little trouble, you know, but they wasn't really that bad until somebody's wife got mad because he stayed out too late and called in and got him stirred up a little bit, and they'd get 'em going a little bit, then, and they'd crack down on 'em somewhat.

Cain: Mostly just leave them alone.

Cook: If they didn't cause any trouble, they wouldn't cause you too much trouble.

Cain: Did you have any trouble?

Cook: We had some tore up, and, fortunately, we wasn't in 'em.

Cain: It's a fair amount of work.

Cook: A lot of work.

Cain: Got to buy the ingredients.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: And a little bit of risk?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: And discovered there were other ways, couldn't make much money at it, unless you were really big time.

Cook: No, we wasn't no big time. It was just something about the thrill of it. That was part of it. It's kind of interesting.

Cain: I should ask you: Was your stuff good?

Cook: I would like to think it was.

Cain: No one went blind, eh?

Cook: No. Nobody went blind, at least not for long.

Cain: (Laugh) You can knock yourself out on Wild Turkey.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: How did you get into the road building and the grading and stuff like that.

Cook: Well I just stopped down and asked the man for a job one day. They started this road coming up Sandy Mush.

Cain: Which road?

Cook: Big Sandy Mush Road, from Early's Mountain to Willow Creek, and they was building that road, and I asked the man for a job, one of the Ledbetters, you know, Damn boy, you ain't, how big, how are you going to hold out?

Cain: How old were you then?

Cook: I believe I was 13, so he hired me. Been doing it ever since.

Cain: What did you start off doing?

Cook: Pushing a shovel.

Cain: When was the first time you started using equipment.

Cook: Probably a few months. My first permanent piece of equipment was a truck, was a dump truck.

Cain: How old were you when you bought that?

Cook: That was for working.

Cain: Okay.

Cook: So I drove that truck for a while and, on rainy days, we would pull, they had tractors

here. The cars didn't have no way through, and we had to hook to 'em and pull 'em from Early's Mountain to Willow Creek. Then we'd bring some back over the mountain, so people could get out. We spent nights and rainy days doing that, you know. That's the only way people had through. They had the whole road tore up.

Cain: How long was that, they had the road tore up?

Cook: A year, I guess.

Cain: It was dirt then; then that's when they paved it. About when was that, what year, do you know?

Cook: They paved it?

Cain: Yeah.

Cook: In '77,1 think.

Cain: That's only 22 years.

Cook: No, '67. Around '67 they paved it. They started in '65, and I think they finished it in '67.

Cain: So all that time people had to have their cars pulled?

Cook: Most of that time. They'd get stone on some of it, you know, and it got better all the time.

Cain: When you were working for Ledbetter at the time

Cook: Asheville Contractors. Ledbetter was the foreman.

Cain: Oh, okay. So he was from up here.

Cook: Yeah. The whole Ledbetter family, the foremans and superintendents.

Cain: They kind of had it locked.

Cook: Yeah, they's kind of locked in.

Cain: When did you start on your own?

Cook: I have to think about that. That's probably in '74,1 guess.

Cain: You would have been how old about that time?

Cook: I have to count back up. I don't know. I was born in 1952.

Cain: In your 20s, early 20s.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: So you've been working for 7-8-9 years for somebody else.

Cook: Yeah. I worked for Ashville Contractors, and then I worked for (inaudible) and then I worked for Biltmore No. 9 on Interstate 40 while they built all that, and then I worked for Taylor and Murphy for about two years.

Cain: Were those the bridge people?

Cook: Yeah. They built bridges. I worked for them for two years. When I worked for 'em, they didn't have a really big operation. They're big now. At that time, they really weren't that big. The original owners worked there: Don Taylor, Ken Murphy.

Cain: You mostly work in the mountains?

Cook: Mostly? Yeah. Mostly in this area, within at least 50 miles of here.

Cain: And you do an occasional bridge, like for me.

Cook: Occasionally we work on things like that.

Cain: But more often you do roads.

Cook: Mostly roads, subdivisions, house.

Cain: Pond or two.

Cook: Yeah we do a quite a lot of ponds.

Cain: How much equipment do you have now?

Cook: Right now I've got a track hoe and back hoe and a dump truck.

Cain: Couple people working for you?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: As much work as you want to do?

Cook: As much work as we can do. We've been real lucky. Plenty of work.

Cain: There's not an awful lot of jobs around that can pay a living wage?

Cook: A lot of people work in these factories, but it's kind of touch and go. A lot of them shut down, and I just take my chances. It's kind of what I know.

Cain: You've done okay. But you look at the kids, the people you grew up with. Have many of them left the mountain?

Cook: Not many.

Cain: They've stayed, then.

Cook: Yep.

Cain: Have they found jobs or.

Cook: Most of them do the work in the factory or farming or something of that nature.

Cain: Then you have a lot of people coming in from the outside, though.

Cook: Oh yeah.

Cain: One of the things I wanted to ask you about is, how important family is to people in the mountains.

Cook: It's real important.

Cain: It's really not all that way out there, you know, kids move around, and you maybe see them once every couple of years.

Cook: Yeah. Well, I think everybody's kind of individual in what they think about family. Some you want to see more often than you do others.

Cain: That's true. Well, you were talking about the Ledbetters, each of them taking care of their own.

Cook: Yep.

Cain: And it seems like, almost everybody that's been around Sandy Mush for any number of years is kin to somebody else.

Cook: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly! (laugh) Yeah. Quite a few kinfolks.

Cain: Do the younger people put as much stock in kin as their parents did, do you think?

Cook: Is what, now?

Cain: Do the younger people put as much stock in kin as the older people?

Cook: I don't think so. They kind of changing, you know. Not as quite as close. They can go easy. It don't seem to bother them.

Cain: You've got one boy?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: And he's working with you?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: What's his name?

Cook: His name is Larry Cook.

Cain: He ever talk about moving on, or going somewhere else.

Cook: No.

Cain: You raised him right, did you?

Cook: Well, I don't know. About as far as he wants to go is Yancy County, and we got a little place over there.

Cain: Cabin, for hunting?

Cook: Yeah, mostly hunting.

Cain: Is that an old cabin?

Cook: No, I built it. A log cabin.

Cain: What kind of notching?

Cook: Dovetail.

Cain: Where did you, how did you learn dovetail?

Cook: I learnt myself and looking at these old barns.

Cain: Did you do it with a saw or an ax or both?

Cook: I done it with a chain saw, an electric chain saw. Runs a little slower but did a good job. Did I show you a picture of the cabin?

Cain: You haven't. We'll go look at it in a little while. Is it just a one-room cabin or.

Cook: No. I got two bedrooms upstairs and like a master room down stairs with kitchen and everything together, and a bedroom and a bathroom.

Cain: How much land is there.

Cook: I got about 29 acres.

Cain: And you've got land here, too?

Cook: Ah yeah.

Cain: About how much?

Cook: About, I don't know how much is here and, about 75 acres over on North Creek here, and I've got (inaudible) and I've got 14 on top of (inaudible).

Cain: You're farming as well as doing.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Tobacco?

Cook: No. No tobacco. That would take all my fishing time, (laugh). I had to give that up or quit fishing.

Cain: Tell me about your old homeplace.

Cook: Well, there's not a lot to tell about it. It was just down the road here, and we lived there until I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Then we moved here.

Cain: What happened to the old home place?

Cook: It was tore down a few years ago when other people bought the land, and they tore it down. It was pretty well gone anyway.

Cain: Were you sad to see it go, or was that just another thing?

Cook: Ah, that's just life, I guess. I've got a picture of it.

Cain: If you could live anywhere at all, where would that be?

Cook: It would be in this area.

Cain: Okay.

Cook: That I've seen.

Cain: Why?

Cook: I ain't seen nothing else better.

Cain: Okay. People? Family?

Cook: The people are just as good here as anywhere I've been, and I've been quite a few places. I can't stay long without coming back.

Cain: You were in the service?

Cook: No.

Cain: You weren't? I asked you that, and I was confused. Oh. So the picture on your mama's wall was of your dad in uniform.

Cook: My brother. He was in the service. He and my dad.

Cain: I'm asking the same kinds of questions of everybody, and it's just kind of their perception of things and how they view it. A lot has been written about mountain families that portrays the man as the patriarch, and he's the boss.

Cook: (Laugh)

Cain: I don't know whether that is always true or not.

Cook: I doubt that. It don't always work that way. We try to give and take a little bit.

Cain: So you don't boss your wife around too much.

Cook: No, not if she don't boss me too much.

Cain: (Laugh) Has that changed from years ago?

Cook: No. I think it was both ways and still is today.

Cain: I've seen a lot of different families, and I'm trying to imagine someone bossing your mom.

Cook: Yeah, (laugh). No, I think it is kind of individual people, you know. Some people do tend to be the boss one way or the other. And I've seen women and men.

Cain: The, does your wife work outside the house of.

Cook: No. She just works on my, helps me with my bookkeeping, errands, and all my running I've got to do. Saves me a lot of time where I can be working full time.

Cain: So she's working.

Cook: She does a lot of the things I would have to quit work to do, you know, and I make more money if I can stay on the job.

Cain: Then you can go fishing.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Then she and your mama do the garden together?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Do you attend church regularly?

Cook: Not regularly, no.

Cain: When you do go, where would you tend to go?

Cook: Ah, Jones Valley.

Cain: I'm going to see Gillespie. The flood took the old church in '77. Did he, did they hire the new church built or did the people work on that?

Cook: No, there were some people donated time. I donated time in grading for it and building roads. A lot of people donated their time and labor in building it, and some people came from a ways off and donated time.

Cain: And it's on top of the hill now.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: I figured it would take Jonah's, Noah's flood

Cook: To get it off there now, but it floated away, floated across the road and then down the creek.

Cain: Was it a frame church?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: It's got a lot of rock in it now.

Cook: Yeah. It was a frame wood thing, kind of like Payne's Chapel.

Cain: But that hasn't been used for quite a while.

Cook: I don't think they've had services for a while.

Cain: Do people around here put a lot of stock in church?

Cook: No, I don't think so. Sometimes the preacher gets a little bit hungry, sometimes.

Cain: Seems to be an awful lot of churches around here.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Larry, if someone was called a "good liver," what would that mean to you?

Cook: I don't know. That could mean two or three things.

Cain: That's okay.

Cook: I'd be afraid to get into that one.

Cain: Let me put it a different way. What do you look for in a person? What do you think is important? What is an important way for a person to be, in your view?

Cook: To me?

Cain: Yeah.

Cook: Be honest, and just be what he is.

Cain: Years ago, barn raising, house raising. You hardly had a house built that wasn't, you know, the guy would go out and cut the wood off his place, and all the neighbors would come, and in the next day or two, they would put it up.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Or barn. They'd have shuckings. The last one I heard about was when Bill Gillespie's barn burned.

Cook: Barn burned down, yeah.

Cain: That was about three years ago. But other than that, the last one I heard before that was back, Don Reeves told me about one just before the Korean War. There just doesn't seem to be much of that going around any more.

Cook: Well, back when I was younger, you know, they had a lot of tradeout. You know, if you needed help, we'd all come and help you, you know, and it happened both ways.

Cain: Was that real tight accounting or kind of loose accounting?

Cook: Well, nobody did it for the money. They did it to help somebody out, you know, and in the end they got some help back.

Cain: That was in a place where there wasn't a lot of money.

Cook: There wasn't a lot of money.

Cain: That's the only way you can really function.

Cook: Yeah. And you needed quite a few people to help you get this thing to a certain stage, you know, and get the crops in, and we'd swap help that way.

Cain: But they don't do that as much any more?

Cook: Not, no.

Cain: What changed?

Cook: Well, I don't know. More people got other jobs, you know, and they have a little money to hire help. And now, it's the bigger time farmers, you know, and they hire help. Their laborers, you know.

Cain: You just can't pay enough to get somebody here to do it?

Cook: Well I don't know. The Mexicans charges about as much as anybody here does. There ain't many people here wants to work, it seems like.

Cain: Is it they don't want to work or they don't want to work doing.

Cook: Well I don't think they want to do farming, the younger people, anymore. Doing something else. Not many interested in farming, and usually that's where people hire help, in farming.

Cain: Tobacco, that's put money in a lot of people's pockets.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: If you didn't have that, you wouldn't have much money up here, eh?

Cook: No. It's changed a lot now, but, no, that was really kind of what we lived on, you know, get things and depended on, that was tobacco. Counted on it for a payment of some kind, and you had to make. It bought me my first backhoe. Or made a payment on it anyway.

Cain: Then the backhoe paid for itself with you working it.

Cook: It made my down payment for the first one I had.

Cain: You did some sawmilling too?

Cook: A little bit. I just did it more in my spare time, rainy days. It just don't, you don't make

enough money in it to do it unless you get into a bigger operation.

Cain: These people up Little Sandy Mush. I see this place on the right hand side with all the logs. What are they doing?

Cook: He's selling veneer timber to Japan, or no telling where else. He's the one that's making money.

Cain: He just goes around buying trees from people and then cutting them.

Cook: Yeah. He's got different loggers who cut 'em, and then he ships them to different companies. Some of them go overseas.

Cain: Unless you're a pretty big farmer, it looks like it's pretty hard to make a living farming in the mountains.

Cook: Oh, yeah. I don't think you can without at least 50 acres or something like that.

Cain: So people have to do public work, or they can't stay or they live poor.

Cook: Real poor.

Cain: I guess Social Security has made a difference for the older people?

Cook: Some difference, I think.

Cain: Do you see much change happening in Sandy Mush.

Cook: Yeah. There are lots of people coming in here.

Cain: Well, that's good for business in once sense.

Cook: It's good for business.

Cain: But is that also changing what Sandy Mush is?

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: For better or worse?

Cook: (Laugh). I would have to say it is probably the worse, and average for the worse. Now I don't mean all of it. I ain't saying that, but the average is for the worse.

Cain: What I'm hearing is, the people will come in, maybe because they like the mountains, and they talk to each other, and they don't talk to anybody that's been there.

Cook: There's a lot of that. They kind of pick their groups, you know, people from where they're from, and they relate to 'em better, I guess. And they's some of them don't, but quite a few of them do.

Cain: That means that, over time, the Sandy Mush that you know is going to disappear.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: I think that's, oh. When you were doing the moonshine — not any real details — but about how old were you when you started?

Cook: About 12.

Cain: Hah! And you quit when?

Cook: About 14 or 15.

Cain: Oh, you only did it for a couple of years, then.

Cook: Yeah.

Cain: Somebody taught you?

Cook: Yeah, good teachers.

Cain: How much would you put out at one time.

Cook: We had like five barrels running.

Cain: And a barrel would contain how much?

Cook: 55 gallons of beer (fermenting mixture).

Cain: Beer?

Cook: Yeah, and then you run it, and you would only come up with 6-8 gallons of moonshine.

Cain: Okay. How much would you get for it back then?

Cook: I don't know if I can even remember that far back. It wasn't much.

 (pause in tape)

Cain: And this is about reputation: How important is a person's reputation in the mountains?

Cook: Well, I guess it's pretty important to most people, you know. If he has a pretty good reputation or you get to know him, you learn whether he's pretty shifty or what, he's pretty much on the level.

Cain: If you get a reputation, that kind of carries through.

Cook: I think it lasts longer in places like this.

Cain: Does it also count whose kin you are?

Cook: Naw.

Cain: It doesn't, no. Just the individual, then.

Cook: Yeah.

(tape end)

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