| COUSINS & BEST FRIENDS 1st Row: Portia Cloud, Sheila Grubbs, Terry Cloud, Donnie Cloud. 2nd Row: Tony Cloud, ?, Dennis Cloud. 3rd Row: Tilman Cloud, Lanny Walls, Straley Asberry (Berry) Cloud, Leona Cloud, Roger Cloud Picture taken on Mamow & Papow Cloud's front steps. In the back ground you can see our house in the lower left corner. |
| School always ended around the end of May and resumed the middle of August. The reason for this schedule is that children needed to be free to help with the planting of the crops and that usually was done at the middle to end of May. Everyone waited for the end of May with such anticipation. We would be free of school and after helping with the crops we were able to do whatever we wanted to amuse ourselves for two and one half months. My Aunt Pauline's children and me and my brothers were very close because. We lived at the top of the holler below Mamow and Papow Cloud and Pauline lived at the beginning of the holler in Will Cloud's house. We all loved the mountains and would head for the hills at any opportunity. It was cool under the trees on a hot summer day. Most of the time we could not see the sky the trees were so tall and thick. I could not imagine letting my girls go to the mountains at any age. There are rattle snakes, copper head snakes, deadly spiders, wild animals and all kinds of accidents could happen. The ground was usually soft from leaves falling in the fall, pine trees shedding their needles, rotting branches and other matter. It was always noisy in the forrest. The animals would be warning each other of us entering their domain. The buzzing of the bees, drone of the flies, chirping of the crickets, squirls and rabbits chatter. Most of the noise were from the birds. There were too many variety to count. There were bluebirds, cardinals, finches, doves, phesants, blackbirds, crows, mocking birds immitating other birds, wood peckers pecking on trees, turkeys, and hawkes soaring on the wind looking for small animals to swoop down and capture for food. The other animals in the mountains were foxes, squirrles, chipmunks, rabbits, snakes (copperheads, rattlesnakes, blue racers, black snakes, garden green snakes, etc.), possums, mountain lions, panthers, bob cats and a more. Most of the animals would not bother us. They usually would find a place to hide except for the snakes. When we were preparing to go into the woods we would take along some water and somesort of sandwick. If we got hungry after the sandwich we could always look for some wild strawberries, rasberries and strawberries. Lots of adults went to the mountains to hunt for gen sing, ramps, or berries. Anything to sell and make money. We knew to keep to the mountains surrounding our holler. If we went over the mountain to another holler there was always a chance of getting lost. We would pretend that we were explorers or indians. Mostly these were cherokee indians. The trail of tears set up to walk the indians of the souther states to reservations in the west. Most of these indians died enroute. The indians in the mountains of south eastern Kentucky intermarried with the white settlers. My greatgrandpa Andrew Jackson Presley's mother was a full blooded cherokee. That made me and my cousins 1/8 cherokee. There are hirogliphics written on rock out croppings in these hills. We discovered flints shapped into arrow heads. Lots of clues that the indians lived in these mountains. We would never go over the mountain into the next valley, we were afraid of getting lost. We usually made sure we could see some of the houses in Stretch Neck or had a good idea where they were. We usually followed existing trails. If you got off the trail you could walk right off a cliff before you knew what was happening. We would encounter lots of obsticles to get around or climb over. Usually old broken down fences from houses long gone. I was as tough as my brothers and as far as I was concerned no body was leaving me at home. Sometimes it was a struggle and my brothers would have to stop and wait for me. They were so used to me that no one every made the escuse that because I had polio I could not follow them anywhere. I also played follow the leader with them. Once we were swinging on a grape vine in the hills above papow Cloud's house. Everyone had grabbed onto the grape vine. The idea was to back out the side of the hill or up the hill, leave enough room to run to where the hill slopped down, jump out into the air and swing around to the opposite side of the hill and let go. Everyone had done it safely, I never thought that I would not. When I ran and swung into the air, half way around to the other side of the hill, the grape vine broke and I landed in a bunch of sharp blars. That was the end of my playing that day. But no matter how many times I went home crying and hurt, mom or dad never said I couldn't go play in the hills surrounding our home. Home continue |
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