UNCA Special Collections ; The Sandy Mush Chronicles Oral History Collection OH-SMC R44 D6

Don Reeves

Interview with Don Reeves
Reeves General Store
Leicester (Sandy Mush), N.C.
Conducted by Stephen Cain Friday, Aug. 7, 1998

(Tape 1, Side A)

(Note: Interview was in the store, which was also a BP gas station, and was subject to frequent interruptions).

Cain: Interview with Don Reeves, 1 p.m. Friday, August 7, 1998. Don, do you consider yourself a mountain man?

Reeves: Absolutely!

Cain: Okay. What's that mean to you?

Reeves: It means I like 'em.

Cain: And that means you are probably a little bit different from the average person you might run into in Asheville or down in the flatlands?

Reeves: Sure. I think so.

Cain: Some of the ways that might be?

Reeves: My ways of making a living.

Cain: That means farming and.

Reeves: Farming and growing things.

Cain: How long ago, about your guess, would be when your ancestors first came to the Sandy Mush area?

Reeves: I have no idea at all.

Cain: Sometime before the Civil War?

Reeves: See, I never knew my Grandfather Reeves. He died at the age of 53,1 believe, and I wasn't born when he passed away, but I do remember my grandma on the Reeves side. I remember my grandma, I'm sorry, my Grandpa Duckett, but I don't remember my grandmother on that side. She was a Clark.

Cain: All names that are familiar from roads and coves and grave stones.

Reeves: Yeah, sure. That's where these roads and mountain tops got their names from.

Cain: You figure you are kin in some way to most of the old-timers here?

Reeves: Especially Reeves and Ducketts, Wells.

Cain: So you're kin to Eric (Wells) also? (Wells, a dairy farmer, owns property across Leicester Highway and Sandy Mush Creek Road from Reeve's property).

Reeves: A little. I don't know how much.

Cain: We won't talk about that. Are there any family stories of doings of your kin that were kind of handed down that people would tell?

Reeves: What maybe my daddy might have done or what his family might have done?

Cain: Sure. Yeah.

Reeves: Well, we had this mountain place. I might go ahead and say it was steep as a mule's face. And we raised tobacco, and we brought tobacco off that mountain by means of a wire stretched from one point to the other, stretched from the tobacco field up on the mountain to the barn down in the lower land.

Cain: How long was that wire, do you think?

Reeves: It was probably, it was probably 500-600 feet.

Cain: I haven't seen much tobacco grown on mountains. Usually it's in the valleys, the flatland.

Reeves: Yeah. Well, it was either that or brought it off with a team (interruption).

Cain: You'd sometimes bring it off with a team of mules and sled, okay, you said. How big a field was it up the mountain?

Reeves: Possibly somewhere in the neighborhood of an acre.

Cain: This was, how long ago was this?

Reeves: Around during the war, 1943-4, somewhere around there (interruption).

Cain: So where was this mountain tobacco farm? Which mountain was it?

Reeves: Ah there was two partials. One side was called Sheep Knob. The other side was called Fox Mountain. And the Sheep Knob side is the one that was brought off on the wire. The other side was brought off with a sled and a team of mules.

Cain: Who's idea was it to string the wire? Do you happen to know?

Reeves: It wasn't our idea. We bought the place. My daddy bought the place in 1941, and it was already there. So the family that lived there before us. They was also Reeves. They had had that wire up, and we continued to practice it.

Cain: And that was Burley tobacco?

Reeves: That was Burley tobacco. The first year. I don't know whether you want this in it.

Cain: Go ahead.

Reeves: My dad gave, this is a little finance, $1,000 for 74 acres. The first year that we raised tobacco, we brought $900 of tobacco off the mountain. So almost paid for the place in that one year.

Cain: That's kind of a measure of how important tobacco has been to this area.

Reeves: It sure is, and it should be still important, and it is important (interruption).

Cain: That wire for coming down: Was it two wires so you could haul things up too?

Reeves: There was one single wire. It had two hooks. Would send two sticks off at a time. Had a hook on each side over the top of the wire with a stick of tobacco on each side of the wire, on each end of the stick you had the wire hook.

Cain: How much would a stick weight?

Reeves: Depending on the size of the tobacco, of course, but some of them got pretty heavy.

Cain: Sort of the range?

Reeves: Oh maybe 25-30 pounds.

Cain: So you wouldn't carry too many of those at one time.

Reeves: No. The ground was so steep, it would take you longer to go back up the mountain with the team of mules than it would to bring 25 sticks at a time off with the sled.

Cain: How many years did you use the wire?

Reeves: We probably used it maybe three or four year. I'm not sure.

Cain: It was pretty unusual to grow tobacco on a mountain side, or were a lot of people doing it?

Reeves: That was our life back then.

Cain: You were one of how many kids your parent had?

Reeves: I was one of seven.

Cain: Can you tell me what became of your brothers and sisters?

Reeves: I have one brother and one sister still alive, still living.

Cain: Let me start with the oldest.

Reeves: Start with the oldest? My older sister, she died when she was 12, of some kind of paralysis. It might have been called polio. And an older brother.

Cain: What was his name?

Reeves: His name was Fred, and he lived till he was 53 years of age, same age as his Grandpa Reeves. And he died of a heart attack.

Cain: Did he stay in the area?

Reeves: In Buncombe County, yes. He went to Avery's Creek.

Cain: Still farming?

Reeves: He was still farming some. He had a farm when he passed away.

Cain: Was he also doing public work?

Reeves: He was a disabled veteran, and he got work for several years with soil conservation. And then, from then on, me and him got together on this store.

Cain: Cinder block. Did you actually build it yourself or did you have somebody do it, or a little bit of both?

Reeves: Well, neither one of us could lay block, so we just supervised.

Cain: And you ran the store together?

Reeves: Between him and my wife and me, and maybe sometimes his family, some of the kids would step in and help, so it's just been more or less a family affair.

Cain: And your next relative would be, your next brother or sister.

Reeves: My next sister, Ruth. She married Frank Hipps. He was from Spring Creek. And she died of heart failure in 19 and 88.

Cain: She was about how old then?

Reeves: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, 68 years old.

Cain: That's a fair lifespan. They farmed?

Reeves: They farmed over on the Spring Creek side.

Cain: About how far is that from here?

Reeves: Probably 10 mile.

Cain: So you'd see a lot of her?

Reeves: Yes. Yes. We seen one another right frequently.

Cain: Still got some kids to go?

Reeves: Next would be Dewey, my brother. He died when he was 38 years of age. He was in a truck accident and got killed accidentally.

Cain: Was that here or?

Reeves: Yes, it was within a mile of my place.

Cain: Was he farming too?

Reeves: Yes he was farming at that time, yeah. He had six kids. Five boys. One girl. And that left his wife, Pauline, with all those kids to raise. They was young. And I think done a very good job, too.

Cain: Did people help out on her farm?

Reeves: The year that Dewey got killed, neighbors. He had a big tobacco crop. Neighbors and friends come in and helped a lot.

Cain: And she farmed after that?

Reeves: She kept the farm and still has it.

Cain: Did she have to hire help, or did the boys get old enough to help?

Reeves: Well, the boys had to start doing it themselves.

Cain: Geez. How old was the oldest when they started doing that?

Reeves: Probably 10-12 year old and then dropped on down.

Cain: They all grown now, the children?

Reeves: Yeah. They are all married except the older one. He's been married, but he still stays at home.

Cain: Are most of them in the area, or did some move on?

Reeves: There are most of them local, yeah, yeah. There is none out of the state.

Cain: To people in the mountains, how important is kin?

Reeves: They seem to stick together very close.

Cain: It doesn't mean you all necessarily get along.

Reeves: It means blood is thicker than water.

Cain: Right. Okay. I was reading about the reunion every year in Catalooch, where the people had gotten evicted for the national park. They go back. They are mostly the sons and grandsons of the original families, so when they come together, they don't know each other, a lot of them, and they play this game, sort of, "Who are you?" which means "Who's kin are you?" "Who are you related to?" It is that way here too?

Reeves: That's very common here to have these reunions, decorations, and get-togethers.

Cain: The decorations are grave decorations?

Reeves: Sure.

Cain: Once a year?

Reeves: Once a year. I believe our particular one right here is the first Sunday in September.

Cain: Do you locate people by who they are related to? Is that how you tell where someone fits in?

Reeves: Yeah. Yeah. That's.

Cain: You gave me an example with Dewey's daughter of, or Dewey's wife, rather, of people pulling together to take care of neighbors.

Reeves: Yes. It was more common back then than it is now because it seems like we are getting away from our heritage.

Cain: Why do you think that is so? Are people different?

Reeves: I guess it is a change in the way we have to live and everything, you know.

Cain: It is easy to say that that's because everyone has a wage job, 9 to 5.

Reeves: Different ways, means of making a living and all.

Cain: It used to be, if people didn't have money, they'd help each other.

Reeves: That's true.

Cain: Now they have money, so they hire help.

Reeves: Yep.

Cain: Is something missing because of this change, people not helping each other as much?

Reeves: Well. I'm not sure how to answer that one. Of course back when people really helped one another, there were bigger families. And it seemed handy for people then, who had more time than they had money, see. We worked hard, but it was just as common for people to, if somebody got sick in this family over here, the neighbors would go help clean their crops out.

Cain: We were talking before. You told me about a barn raising that you were on before the Korean War, late '40s, maybe '50.

Reeves: Yeah. That was at our local community.

Cain: Over at Doggett's Mountain?

Reeves: Next to Doggett Mountain, the foot of Doggett Mountain. Had one guy on each corner of the log barn, and they notched it out as the logs went up, settin' up on the corner of the barn. (Interruption).

Cain: How many men were working on the barn itself? (Interruption). So about eight or 10 men. About four working on the corners and the others helping out down below.

Reeves: Yeah. You'd have to pull those logs up. You'd have to have enough men to pull, roll those logs up to the guys that was notching on the corners.

Cain: And you did the notching right up as it built up.

Reeves: As it went up, yes.

Cain: Saddle notch?

Reeves: Yes. Fit right in.

Cain: About how big was this barn?

Reeves: Oh probably 30-40 foot by, I don't know how far it was wide.

Cain: And that was for hanging tobacco?

Reeves: That was for hanging tobacco, and then, of course, years later, there was sheds built onto that barn for purposes of keeping tools, hay.

Cain: Who's barn was that?

Reeves: That was Archie Clark's.

Cain: And did, would he then help you out on things?

Reeves: Sure, sure. He was good neighbor.

Cain: Other than that barn you told me about, the only one I heard about ~ a barn raising — was after
Bill Gillespie's barn got hit by lightning three or four years ago.                                                                                                                                                                                          I

Reeves: Yeah, burned his barn and hay. Well, that was local community helping the neighbor.                                                                                                                                                                                      J

Cain: But that was kind of the exception.

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: Because it hadn't happened for quite a while.

Reeves: It hadn't happened.

Cain: Tell me about your old homeplace.

Reeves: You mean the one that I was raised in?

Cain: Right.

Reeves: Well it was logs. It had a shingle board roof. It had a living room and, of course, a fireplace and an old chimney where we burned wood. It was chinked with mud, and it had an upstairs to it, but you could see daylight through the roof. And when it snowed, those that had to sleep upstairs, the wind blowing, blow snow through one of those shingles, you'd have to get up in the morning and shake the snow off your bed. But we was tough back then.

Cain: Did you have a quilt or a comforter?

Reeves: We had plenty of quilts. In other words, it got colder, we laid another quilt up there. On those snowy mornings, you could track yourself downstairs.

Cain: Now the heat for the house was from the fireplace in the living room.

Reeves: From the fireplace and the wood cook stove. Carried all the water from the spring.

Cain: Was the spring uphill or downhill?

Reeves: It was elevated downhill a little. Not too bad. When you had to bring it back, it was more uphill when you had your load, you see.

Cain: How many, your father and your mother and, I forgot how many kids again.

Reeves: There were seven. (Interruption). You remember we started to talk about. (Interruption).

Cain: We were talking about the homeplace, and not all the kids lived there at once. But what was the most kids that ever lived there?

Reeves: Umm, I guess probably six, probably six because that old sister died before I was born.

Cain: It was crowded, but did you feel crowded?

Reeves: We just all ganged around the fireplace to keep warm, warm on one side, turn around and warm the other.

Cain: But somebody today live like that they'd feel deprived.

Reeves: They would be, today.

Cain: But back then, for you?

Reeves: Back then, why, it was just common for people to live that way.

Cain: What became of the old homeplace?

Reeves: It eventually deteriorated.

Cain: Do you ever go back up to where it was?

Reeves: Very often, go by, because I have this mountain place up there above it, and I go up there occasionally.

Cain: You got good memories of that?

Reeves: Sure do.

Cain: Your daughter, does she have a homeplace?

Reeves: You mean where she was.

Cain: Everybody was raised somewhere.

Reeves: No. No. It was here in a two-story house connected to an old store building. She was born in 1960, and I built another house in 1968.

Cain: For the older generation, the homeplace was not just a place but it was also kind of an attitude, an emotion, an attachment.

Reeves: Yes.

Cain: And I didn't know whether the kids today had the same kind of attachment to where they were growing up.

Reeves: I think she does because she really loves coming back over here.

Cain: That answered my question. In your family. Well, a lot of what has been written about mountain families portrays the husband as the patriarch, as the big boss that rules things, and his word is the law. I don't know how much that's myth and how much that's real.

Reeves: Well, the man's supposed to wear the pants, (laugh)

Cain: Supposed to?

Reeves: Of course you might not get some of them to think so.

Cain: Is that something that has been changing over the years?

Reeves: I think it has changed to a certain extent, yes.

Cain: For the better or the worse?

Reeves: (laugh) I don't know whether it's been better or not.

Cain: When women are making their own money and whether that kind of changes things.

Reeves: This day and time, there's as many women working about as there is men. It seems to be a necessity.

Cain: Oh yeah, but even more than that. It used to be that you could make a living off a farm.

Reeves: Yeah. It's pretty hard to do now on a small scale.

Cain: And that would mean most of the farms in Sandy Mush.

Reeves: A lot of these farms here on Sandy Mush, I guess you could call them a hobby farm, something we'd always done and just continuing the trend.

Cain: Now you did public work?

Reeves: Yeah, I worked on public works for 19 years.

Cain: If you had the choice, if you could have made enough money off the farm to do the things you had wanted to do, would you have worked for the plant?

Reeves: No. I liked the outside life, farming.

Cain: You had a fair amount of land. Had some tobacco and some.

Reeves: Yeah, even when I was doing this public works, I was doing my farming also.

Cain: Pretty long days?

Reeves: Yeah, some of them were.

Cain: Anybody to help?

Reeves: Yeah, you had to hire a little help along.

Cain: Burder uses Mexicans to help him.

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: Were you able to find local help or did you have to.

Reeves: So far, well, I'll have to rephrase that. I have used Mexicans to help me cut my tobacco and put it in the barn when my health deteriorated some. And I'm 69 year old.

Cain: You had a bypass?

Reeves: Had six bypasses. Also had a prostate cancer. I've had an operation for that.

Cain: How many years ago was that?

Reeves: Well, the bypass surgery has been about five year, and the prostate has been about two-and-a-half, three years. Everything is well.

Cain: I was going to ask you a little about changing times. Some things are nice to have and some things you kind of regret losing. I think one of the things you probably like having are the health care.

Reeves: Yes, I very much like having the health care.

Cain: Because if it was 50 years ago, you wouldn't be here.

Reeves: That's true.

Cain: So that's one advantage of change.

Reeves: If we didn't have the health care, Medicare, I guess I would have been as some of these homeless people.

Cain: Medical costs a bit.

Reeves: Because of the medical expense.

Cain: But you're here, your store is open how much?

Reeves: It's open six days a week, 12 hours a day, seven to seven.

Cain: That's usually you running it?

Reeves: Usually me and my wife running it.

Cain: And you still have farm?

Reeves: Yeah, I do about an acre of tobacco and keep somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 head of cattle and put up my hay for those, make all my feed, you know, do a garden. Watch it grow up. When you get old, you watch your place grow up.

Cain: You ever thought about retiring?

Reeves: Yeah, I have. I've wondered how you could retire.

Cain: Buy Microsoft stock 20 years ago (laugh) Do you attend church?

Reeves: No, not regular. Used to. I was raised up to attend church.

Cain: Which church was that?

Reeves: Methodist Church.

Cain: Payne's Chapel or the one out Big Sandy Mush?

Reeves: The Little Sandy Methodist.

Cain: Oh, Little Sandy, okay. A lot of these churches, I look at the membership. They are kind of getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and I don't know whether that's people moving away or people losing their commitment to it.

Reeves: I don't think it's people a moving away. We have people moving in the same as we have people moving away. I don't know what, just people with different activities, different things that detains them or something, that they don't take as much interest in church as they should.

Cain: I was talking to some older people, and looking back quite a few years (interruption). Someone told me there were all these little churches because people didn't have cars, so they walked or took a horse or a mule to church, but that was their only entertainment. The rest of the time, they were working, and church was the one time where the families could come and socialize.

Reeves: Oh yeah. Back when I was just a young boy, there was more people in church. There were pretty good crowds, young people. I guess, somewhere to go. And then here in this local community, back when I was not big enough to go by myself, go with my dad, they had a little ball club here on Little Sandy Mush. They didn't have a good place to play, but they had a good little team, and they'd go different places and play these different teams, and Saturday evenings, why most people would take a half a day off to go to the ball game.

Cain: How long has it been since that stopped?

Reeves: It's probably been 50 years.

Cain: There was an expression I heard that would refer to someone as a "good liver." They'd say someone was a good liver. Does that mean anything to you?

Reeves: I'd like to be. Well, you know, there's people that's had better chances through their parents or their inheritance or something, that put them a little step higher than the family that didn't have much, (interruption)

Cain: When you're thinking about someone's worth as a person, what kind of things are important to you?

Reeves: Having good health.

Cain: Okay. That's something you want.

Reeves: That's something I want.

Cain: Right. A person who is a friend that you think a lot of, you think that's a good person. What makes him a good person?

Reeves: Well, I guess his ability to express himself and get along with his neighbors.

Cain: That's important, being neighborly?

Reeves: Very important.

Cain: Is that one of those things that kind of gets lost a little bit with the younger people?

Reeves: Well, your younger generation now, they're not looking at the way of life that I had or my daddy had or my grandpa. They've got new ways and different ways of making it. Probably much easier ways.

Cain: To me, though, it's still nice to be able to count on a friend helping you if you need help.

Reeves: Yeah. That's really important.

Cain: We talked about barn raising. How about corn shucking?

Reeves: I been to a few corn shuckings, not too many. I've been to a few where they've had in the bottom of the pile half a gallon of corn whiskey.

Cain: Not store-bought whiskey.

Reeves: And when you got all corn shucked there was that ~ no, it wasn't store-bought. (Laugh).

Cain: Then it would be passed around.

Reeves: Then it would be passed around, yeah, (interruption).

Cain: I kind of forgot where we were at. We were talking about. Oh yeah, the corn shucking. I understood people picked at different times so you could go from one shucking to another.

Reeves: Yes, that's true. If you had 'em all at one time, you wouldn't have enough people to get your corn shucked.

Cain: Seems to me, though, that you could get pretty hung over by about a week of that.

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: Women would cook?

Reeves: Women would cook, yeah.

Cain: And party at night?

Reeves: Not too much partying, (interruption, boy enters store)

Cain: Grandson?

Reeves: Yes.

Cain: What's his name?

Reeves: Josh. Joshua (interruption). Two boys: Joshua and Benjamin.

Cain: It means your end of the name is going to continue for a while. No, but she (Don's daughter) is married to.

Reeves: She's married to Hodges.

Cain: I forgot that. Do you remember when electricity came in?

Reeves: Yes, I can. They was, most of the people took it when it come around, but me and my mama and daddy, we didn't live under electricity until 19 and 53. We lived on this mountain place I was speaking of, and we had no electricity. We had running water —gravity water. But we had no electricity. We still used the old lamp light.

Cain: Could you have brought electricity up if you'd wanted to?

Reeves: Yes, it could have been, but the expense of it would have overroad, you know.

Cain: You were glad to see it come when it did come.

Reeves: Sure. Sure. It spoiled us. Hard to do without it now.

Cain: In Sandy Mush, a lot of the young people over the years have moved out.

Reeves: Yeah. Moved out to different jobs.

Cain: Because you couldn't really support yourself here?

Reeves: Not a good support.

Cain: But now you have new people coming in.

Reeves: From outside, from different states, and I guess I call them the money people. They seem to have money.

Cain: Well, do they spend it here?

Reeves: Well, yes, they spend some of it.

Cain: Sandy Mush used to be a community, together.

Reeves: Yes, yes.

Cain: But that seems to have been changing.

Reeves: Well it seems to be getting away from a community, a little bit. I guess it is because we are getting more not-local people, see.

Cain: Me, I'm stopping to chat because I got a reason to. But do the new people stop to chat?

Reeves: Yes, yes. Just yesterday, I talked to some people from New York, you know. They seemed to enjoy it.

Cain: There has been a lot of stereotypes of mountain people, anything from "Beverly Hillbillies" to "Deliverance."

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: Do you ever get people looking down at you because you're from here?

Reeves: Well, of course I've been called a hillbilly, (laugh)

Cain: In a friendly way?

Reeves: In a friendly way. Just like we call a Yankee a Yankee and a hillbilly.

Cain: Of course you could call him a damnyankee, and that would be something else.

Reeves: I would like to put that through, a damnyankee (laugh).

Cain: Burder's younger daughter Robin works down at the hospital. All the time people are assuming she's dumb because she's (tape end).

 (Tape 1, Side B)

Cain: If you had your choice of living anywhere, where would that be?

Reeves: Right here in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Cain: Because of the mountains? Because of the people? Because it's what you know?

Reeves: Yes, a lot probably what I know. Of course, I've been to different parts of the country in my service time, but I've never been nowhere I liked any better than home.

Cain: Is the Sandy Mush that you grew up in changing? (interruption) I know what I want to talk about. The law. I was talking with Jim Hannah. He said you don't talk about the sheriff or the police. It's always the damnlaw.

Reeves: (Laugh). That was Jim.

Cain: Is there an attitude toward outside authority?

Reeves: Not too much, I don't think, because we can't do without 'em.

Cain: I understand. I'm thinking, though, there was a time when an awful lot of folks did moonshine.

Reeves: Yeah. Yes. I don't remember too much about it, not like my daddy would remember, but I never seen a still operating. I've seen places where they have been set up, but I never seen one operating. We have, we used to have what we called the bootlegger around over the countryside.

Cain: Well, they are the folks that delivered it.

Reeves: Yeah, no, well they were the ones that sold it to individuals.

Cain: And the moonshiner was the one that made it.

Reeves. Right, (interruption).

Cain: I don't want any names or anything, but if you wanted a half-gallon of moonshine, you'd know where to get it? Who to ask?

Reeves: Not today, I wouldn't know where to start.

Cain: Really? Okay.

Reeves: It's just not a common thing any more for anybody to be making moonshine.

Cain: So times really have changed.

Reeves: They have changed, yes.

Cain: I was talking to one gentleman, he was doing it about 30 years ago, partly for the excitement, partly because he didn't have a tobacco crop and that was the only way he could get some money for himself.

Reeves: That's the way some of 'em made a little extra money.

[Section edited.]

Cain: Sandy Mush used to be a pretty rough place?

Reeves: Well, they had a few fistfights around, a little shootings going on at different times. It always seemed to me that one end of Sandy Mush didn't get along too good with the other end.

Cain: So it was the head of Sandy Mush up in there, Surrett Cove and what not.

Reeves: Yeah. Yeah, (interruption)

Cain: I'd heard particularly a lot of young men coming back from the Second World War, not a lot to

do — always farm work to do ~ drinking a lot.

Reeves: Well, that seemed to be the trend to a certain extent, yeah.

Cain: I know Sandy Mush had gotten a reputation of being a pretty rough place.

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: Not that you would be in trouble if you minded your own business.

Reeves: That's right. But if you got out of hand, somebody would take care of you.

Cain: But if you minded your own business, people wouldn't bother you.

Reeves: That's true.

Cain: But it's kind of mellowed of late?

Reeves: It's not that way as much as it used to be.

Cain: You still carry something up there in your store (a loaded .38 caliber revolver).

Reeves: Yeah, well, I hope I never have to use it. It's just a policy that I've had it since I started to do that.

Cain: A .38 caliber deterrent?

Reeves: Yeah. That's more or less what you call it.

Cain: Everyone knows that you have it?

Reeves: Yeah.

Cain: You run a tab for people you know?

Reeves: Yes. I run a little tab. Try to keep it to a minimum, you know. I've been very fortunate in it. I've never been taken too bad, you know. But occasionally you lose a little. You call it credit.

Cain: It also brings you some business, too.

Reeves: Yes. Yes. It helps people. It helps me. And you got, kinda got sorted out as you go along.

Cain: Looking at the kinds of changes that you've seen over the years, what do you miss?

Reeves: (long pause). Of course you miss family, thems that's moved away. And you miss your friends that's been coming, the older guys passed away and gone on. I've seen a few of them go since I've been in this store business.

Cain: But that's true everywhere. People get old and die. But some of the ways of life are changing, too.

Reeves: That, to me, is the big thing. Life-style, life-change. We've got all these new things that's come along, and machinery and new ways of doing things. New vehicles. Beats the buggy right smart, wagon. But all that costs money, too.

Cain: That's true.

Reeves: Sometimes I wonder which is the best way to be, now or then.

Cain: I don't think there's an easy answer..

Reeves: Then, you didn't have to have a lot of money. You couldn't get ahold of a lot. Now, you got to have some money to get through.

Cain: That's true. What about someone who has all the money they could want but not enough time to talk to a friend?

Reeves: I believe they're miserable.

Cain: Amen, (interruption). You didn't like cornbread for breakfast?

Reeves: No, not really. When you think back over it. When you think back over the rest of your life, you think them was the good old days. Had all your family there, and everybody worked together and pitched in. And what little we had to live off of, it makes you appreciate it after you grow older.

Cain: Right. Okay. But I would never wish for hard times just so I could appreciate it later.

Reeves: Well, of course, as you grow older, you know you can't do the things that you used to do. But back in those days, young and full of vinegar, and things worked out pretty nice. Had a good momma and daddy, and they tried their best for right, along with the support of the family, and good cook. You didn't have all these things to go to the store and buy, but people always seemed to come up with a pretty good meal with what they had. Of course we'd have chicken if the preacher'd come, (interruption). It takes a little of the enjoyment out of it.

Cain: I love talking to people. So chicken when the preacher came. So you liked it when the preacher came?

Reeves: Well, a little extra, a little extra.

Cain: Of course that's something that's changed too. They don't seem to come by as much?

Reeves: They don't seem to come by as often as they used to. Maybe they don't get an invitation, (interruption).

Cain: Well, we've got all your family except for two, the two that are still alive.

Reeves: I believe we got down through Dewey.

Cain: And after Dewey comes?

Reeves: My sister.

Cain: Maud?

Reeves: Yes. She was married to "lawyer" Teague. They left here approximately 40 year ago and went to Cincinnati, Ohio. She's one that got away.

Cain: Where did she meet the lawyer?

Reeves: Aughyer, A-U-G-H-Y-E-R Teague that's his name.

Cain: Oh, okay. What's he do?

Reeves: He left from down here. When he went up there, he worked with Western and Southern Insurance Company. They stayed up there, and he died this past June, and she's still up there. She has a daughter up there, and she's married and got a little girl.

Cain: So she's not going to come back here?

Reeves: I don't much guess she will.

Cain: Does she ever talk about being glad to get away or missing.

Reeves: No. She always said she didn't want to die up there. But you know, family and everything makes the change.

Cain: And she's got family up there now, too.

Reeves: That daughter and granddaughter, five year old.

Cain: And the last one of your.

Reeves: His name was J.R., brother next to me. I'm the baby. He's been down in Rutherfordton County.

Cain: Can you spell that for me?

Reeves: R-U-T-H-F-O-R-D-T-O-N.

Cain: What's he doing down there?

Reeves: He's been in the wood business down there for the past 40 years.

Cain: Running a saw mill or what?

Reeves: No. More or less in the pulp wood. He had cutting crews, buys and sells.

Cain: So how did he end up doing that?

Reeves: Well he got off of Champion Paper Mill, in Canton.

Cain: That's only about.

Reeves: That's only about, what, 15 miles, it ain't 15 miles over there. Worked for them scaling timber, marking timber for them. Then he got in his own business.

Cain: But he couldn't run the business here?

Reeves: No. It had to be down there. That's where the jackpine was at. He'd cleaned out several of them pine fields down there.

Cain: You have hardwoods up here.

Reeves: Hardwoods up here mostly.

Cain: Is he still alive?

Reeves: Yeah, yeah. He's not in good health, had a heart attack and prostate problems. Been wearing a pacemaker for about 15 years.

Cain: Does he come back at all?

Reeves: Oh yes. He conies up here. It's only a short drive down there. He comes back pretty regular.

Cain: Do you think he'll ever move back?

Reeves: No. He's got one daughter, like myself, and she's got two girls. So they've been raised up down there. It's home to 'em. They've been there so long, it's home. I don't anticipate they ever coming back here to live. So I'm about the only one except for my cousins, the nieces and nephews.

Cain: You got a lot of those.
Reeves: Oh I've got lots of them.
Cain: And cousins.
Reeves: Cousins by the dozen.
(End of interview)

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