Death is hard to face, hard to think about, and hard to talk about. I have outlived so many family members, friends, and enemies I can't count them. Some I can hardly remember. Others I cannot forget. My best friend from childhood. My parents and their parents. And their parents. Old Sam and Mary Creech. Sam who built his coffin twenty years before he had any use for it. Some say he was a hundred-twenty-five years old when he died. He presided over the annual hog slaughter, from the front porch of his log cabin, built by John Shell, said to have fought in the civil war, on which side I never heard. The folks in Southeastern Kentucky were about evenly divided in that war. The legend of John Shell was still fresh in the 1950s. He had many descendants in Leslie and Harland Counties. Mary Creech was one of his daughters. She swore that he was a hundred-sixty-five when he died. We lived in one of his son's house when we first moved to Greasy Creek. No plumbing and no electricity.
The way of life was much as it had been through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leslie County was the least populated county in America back then. Speaking of death, that way of life ended in one generation. Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty pretty much killed it. Welfare killed self-sufficiency. The invasion of drugs followed the welfare providers through the region. The hardiness of the people melted down a culture formed and sustained by the pioneer spirit that had wrestled a wilderness from an indigenous people that had lived a prehistoric life of tribal warfare and subsistence economy and savagery.
Coal mining had not reached Greasy Creek yet, but the big lumber companies had swept through, removing the old forest, without replanting. The hills were pretty much tangled branches, stumps, and rude temporary dirt roads built only to transport logs to distant lumber mills. Forest fires swept through the underbrush at least annually. There was no old forest left standing since before and during WW I. The hardwoods are always the slowest to recover. There were many good sized poplar, beech, and other softer wood trees, but few oaks, hickory, and no chestnut trees anymore. All of the large animals were long gone. Deer, Elk, Buffalo, and bears were gone. On Greasy Creek there were only two loggers left. There was but one sawmill left, and the owner of it burned it down in the mid 1950s and did not rebuild it. The was no industry. One abandoned coal mine sat empty. A few men travelled several miles, usually for weeks at a time to work in coal mines and gravel pits. The rest worked their farms, mostly for their own family's consumption. A few grew tobacco commercially. No one went hungry.
There are worse things than dying. A death of a culture is one of the worst. A proud people, self-sufficient, and wise had a much better way of life than modernity. Electricity and indoor plumbing cannot take the place of living free and industrious. Hard work and overcoming poverty makes a different, stronger, and brighter culture than one of dependence on government and living on the dole. As one of our forebearers said, "Give me liberty or give me death."
That is beautiful.
I'm sorry to hear about your loss, Diamond-Michael. And thank you for this powerful phrase:
“In the absence of a crystal-clear yes, it has to be a no.”
Beautiful tribute. A reminder that we are only here temporarily and to use our time and words with wisdom. Thank you.
Death is hard to face, hard to think about, and hard to talk about. I have outlived so many family members, friends, and enemies I can't count them. Some I can hardly remember. Others I cannot forget. My best friend from childhood. My parents and their parents. And their parents. Old Sam and Mary Creech. Sam who built his coffin twenty years before he had any use for it. Some say he was a hundred-twenty-five years old when he died. He presided over the annual hog slaughter, from the front porch of his log cabin, built by John Shell, said to have fought in the civil war, on which side I never heard. The folks in Southeastern Kentucky were about evenly divided in that war. The legend of John Shell was still fresh in the 1950s. He had many descendants in Leslie and Harland Counties. Mary Creech was one of his daughters. She swore that he was a hundred-sixty-five when he died. We lived in one of his son's house when we first moved to Greasy Creek. No plumbing and no electricity.
The way of life was much as it had been through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leslie County was the least populated county in America back then. Speaking of death, that way of life ended in one generation. Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty pretty much killed it. Welfare killed self-sufficiency. The invasion of drugs followed the welfare providers through the region. The hardiness of the people melted down a culture formed and sustained by the pioneer spirit that had wrestled a wilderness from an indigenous people that had lived a prehistoric life of tribal warfare and subsistence economy and savagery.
Coal mining had not reached Greasy Creek yet, but the big lumber companies had swept through, removing the old forest, without replanting. The hills were pretty much tangled branches, stumps, and rude temporary dirt roads built only to transport logs to distant lumber mills. Forest fires swept through the underbrush at least annually. There was no old forest left standing since before and during WW I. The hardwoods are always the slowest to recover. There were many good sized poplar, beech, and other softer wood trees, but few oaks, hickory, and no chestnut trees anymore. All of the large animals were long gone. Deer, Elk, Buffalo, and bears were gone. On Greasy Creek there were only two loggers left. There was but one sawmill left, and the owner of it burned it down in the mid 1950s and did not rebuild it. The was no industry. One abandoned coal mine sat empty. A few men travelled several miles, usually for weeks at a time to work in coal mines and gravel pits. The rest worked their farms, mostly for their own family's consumption. A few grew tobacco commercially. No one went hungry.
There are worse things than dying. A death of a culture is one of the worst. A proud people, self-sufficient, and wise had a much better way of life than modernity. Electricity and indoor plumbing cannot take the place of living free and industrious. Hard work and overcoming poverty makes a different, stronger, and brighter culture than one of dependence on government and living on the dole. As one of our forebearers said, "Give me liberty or give me death."
You have had such an interesting life Jesse. Can’t wait to take face-to-face or voice-to-voice someday.
I would love that!
Thank you, this is beautiful and I am sorry for your loss. I love "Death is not an interruption of life, but a continuation of the Way."
🙏