Continuing My Journey

Until we moved when I was seven, we lived across the road from Red Linkous and his family. Red was a bluegrass musician of renown. My love for the old traditional music goes back to those days when my sister took me across the road to hear Red and his band, The Smokey Valley Boys, practice. I never got to hear them play in public because people looked down on the kinds of places they played, calling them "beer joints," or even worse, "night clubs." You have to remember that in those days most everyone took it upon themselves to judge most everyone else. Those were 'evil' places in most paople's minds, like my very fundamentally believing parents.
I will never forget when Red and his band were on the "Top of the Morning" show that came on every morning at 6:30 with Don Reno and Red Smiley. To see someone on TV that I actually knew was the biggest thrill this seven year old country boy had ever known. My mama had that show playing every morning while we were getting ready for school.
We walked to Midway to catch the bus until I we moved and I started second grade. Midway was a little gas station about 1/2 mile form our house. The buses then only ran on the main roads and kids had to walk to catch them at the nearest point.
Midway was where Sunshine Kanode ran his little station and grocery store and you could get most everything you needed there at inflated prices, even in those days. he had everything from chunk bologna and candy bars to hog feed and cigars. He always had one of those big King Edward cigars hanging from his mouth. Most of the locals traded there and helped make Sunshine a fine retirement in Florida. Ike Sowers bought the place when Sunshine retired and made himself a fine retirement in Florida too. In those days selling over-priced groceries to those who had no other choice or had some sort of mis-guided loyalty to the store was a very profitable situation. A big draw for many was the fact that they could get credit and pay up on payday, but they paid dearly in the end.
The very first time I had to make that walk alone to the bus, I was so scared that I rubbed mud on my pants and went back home and told mama that I had fallen down so I would not have to go that day. I went to the old Weller Baker school in Cambria and had Ms. Bell for first grade. We used to pay marbles until out knuckles would get raw and crack open and sometimes even bleed. They rang a big hand bell at the end of recess and one time my sister got hit in the mouth with it which caused her front tooth to turn dark. One time a girl peed in her pants in school. I remember even to this day who she was but would not mention her name and never have.
Those were the days when Aunt Beulah and Uncle Curtis would pick us up sometimes and take us to the drive-in tho see cowboy movies at Midway. Hop-a-long Cassidy was my favorite and I knew that if I had a big white horse like Topper that I would be the happiest kid in the whole world.
I don't know why I wanted a horse because the one time I tried riding a pony that John Linkous had, it bolted and ran off causing me to fall off, but my foot got hung in the stirrup and I could have been seriously injured but luckily my foot came loose and I only hit the ground unhurt. That still did not stop me from wanting Topper.