Requiem For A Friend, Willie Elwood Isaac, 1928--2023

 

Willie Isaac and his new car--Photo by Cakes For You and Roger D. Hicks

My neighbor for the past 30 years was Willie Isaac who lived nearly his entire life on a small hillside farm about a mile and a quarter from my house.  He was born in 1928 and died in 1923 about one month before what would have been his 95th birthday.  Willie and I had known each other ever since I moved to this community in 1992 although we did not become close friends until  after his wife, Flora Cook Isaac, died in October of 2018 after 66 years of marriage.  Willie and I had frequently encountered each other in our home town of West Liberty, Kentucky, at local stores and other public places.  We had always been friendly but not close until a couple of weeks before Flora died and I saw Willie's truck parked in the local ARH Hospital parking lot and inquired if he or his wife were in the hospital.  I visited them there as he stayed by her side during her final hospitalization and transfer to a nursing home where she actually died a few days later.  But I had known for about three or four years that her health was failing and Willie was taking care of her diligently, cleaning the house, mowing the yard, and driving her to her appointments.  He had finally stopped driving a couple of years before his death and, although he had no children, his nephew Jimmie Wireman had selflessly driven him to all his medical appointments, bought his groceries, took him to his bank and to the local utility companies to pay his bills.  Willie had finally stopped mowing his own lawn at about the age of 90 and Jimmy had taken care of that also.  But Willie had continued to maintain contact with his widely diverse group of local friends and extended family until about three weeks before his death. He spent a large part of most days on the telephone talking to his relatives and friends. He had continued to live alone with support from Jimmy and his wife Brenda Smith, and I also assisted him at times with minor tasks once in a while, almost daily contact in person or by phone, and one occasion when I had assisted him in getting back up after a fall in his living room.  Amazingly, until just a few days before his death, Willie had maintained his cognitive capacities and still had conversations with Jimmie, Brenda, and I as we visited him in the hospital during his final three week stay due to kidney failure.  Sadly, Jimmie, who was 79 himself, only lived about 9 months after Willie's death.  But he had managed to complete the job of caring for his uncle's needs before his death. 

Willie Isaac, about 1951--Photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Willie and Flora had no children other than a son whom Flora had before they married and adopted to a couple from the area who lived in Ohio and raised him.  After Flora died, Willie continued to live in the little three bedroom brick house he built many years ago and where they had operated a used shoe and clothing business for more than forty years.  As a trained and retired mental health professional, I was worried that Willie would suffer from the grief, loss of socialization, and loneliness which often afflicts the elderly following the death of a long term spouse.  So I had begun to visit him regularly.  It turned out he actually had a fairly large support system for a man his age with no children.  He had two nephews who lived in the area and they visited him regularly as did several members of the church  he attended weekly until he stopped driving.   A previous minister of that church also visited with him frequently until his own untimely death due to suicide.  He had a few friends and a sister who also called him nearly every day to check on him. But that sister also died in July 2021 at the age of 100 almost three years before Willie's death. We had developed a system quite informally where I either visited him or called him at least every day or two. At times, Willie would also call me to remind me of a UK basketball game or some other issue in which he knew I was interested.  Since I knew that he was having regular contact with several others, I didn't always visit or call every day but we stayed closely in touch and I made sure he knew that he was free to call me anytime he might be in need of assistance.  

Willie Isaac, Korea, photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Not long ago he brought out a collection of photographs which he and others took during his time in the Korean War in 1950-1952.  He agreed to allow me to post them on this blog although he had never used the internet and didn't have a clear idea of exactly how a blog works.  But his mind was still sharp until shortly before his death.  He loved University of Kentucky basketball, watched every game which was available on his limited plan with Dish Network, and read every issue of "The Cats Pause".  He also maintained subscriptions to the local newspapers in both Morgan and Magoffin counties in Kentucky because he had friends in both counties and lived within sight of the county line.  His memory was well above average for a man his age and he loved to talk about his life, extended family, and his years spent "in the shoe business".  He and Flora had built a little building in the edge of their yard on US 460 and sold used clothing and shoes for over 40 years. Willie would drive as far as Columbus, Ohio, to buy a pickup load of shoes and clothing at a large Goodwill sorting center and also often bought large lots of new shoes from shoe stores which were either reducing unsold stock or going out of business. He also managed at some time during their selling days to buy a used shoe repair machine and also repaired shoes and other leather work both for his own sales and for customers in need of repairs.  He eventually sold the shoe shop equipment to one of his nephews after he and Flora had stopped their selling activity. I actually have met dozens of people in this community who talk about having gotten nearly all their shoes from Willie and Flora as they were growing up. And after I posted this blog post, one person commented on Facebook that he had bought all his shoes for many years from Willie.  And, interestingly, he also said that Willie had cut hair at times and only charged a quarter for a hair cut.  But, in all the time I knew him, Willie never mentioned cutting hair to me.  My first blog post about Willie was primarily about his service in the US Army during the Korean War and the stories Willie had told me about his time in the Army  during the Korean War.  First and foremost, Willie always made a point of saying that he was attached to an engineering unit which built bridges and roads during the war.  He always said "nobody ever fired a shot at me and I never fired a shot at anybody" since the engineering unit he was assigned to was always working behind the front building roads and bridges.  He also talked sometimes about one R & R episode he spent in Japan during his Korean duty but he apparently had no photographs from that trip.  Willie did have a few photographs of other soldiers some of whom he remembered their names and some he did not.  I have added the names he either remembered or wrote on the photos. Some will have to be nameless.  But maybe some of their relatives might recognize them and I will add their names if you recognize a member of your family in his photos and contact me on this blog.  Willie also never mentioned a unit name and number for his engineering unit but a retired Army person I know says that it might have been the 103rd Engineer Regiment.  If you have a definite answer other than this please tell me what it was and I will add that to this post also until we can come up with a more indisputable answer.   

Walter H. Handley, Alabama--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

 

 

 

One of the photographs is of a local man who also was assigned to the same unit and Willie now says that man is dead.  Here is his photograph as identified by Willie. 

Bill Ison, Crockett, KY--Photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Willie also loved to tell a story of being classified as a truck driver during his time in Korea.  He said "They told us they were giving us driver education and we were in a classroom for about a half a day.  Then we went out in a parking lot and had to drive a truck around the parking lot one time and they let us go."  Later he says, "One day my sergeant came to me and told me to report to the motor pool.  I asked why do I have to go to the motor pool and the sergeant said 'They need a truck driver and you are a truck driver."   Willie says he told the sergeant, "I'm not a truck driver.  I never drove a truck in my life."  He says the sergeant said, "It says right here you are a truck driver.  It's in your record.  You're a truck driver."  Willie said he reported to the motor pool and they put him in a big truck and told him to drive twenty or thirty miles down a river to pick up supplies.  He said, "I tried to tear the transmission out of the truck on the way there but I couldn't."  He also saidnnb that on the way back to his unit he met two men in a jeep whom the motor pool had sent out looking for him afraid that he had driven the truck into the river.  But when the entire thing was over, Willie was a truck driver and was proud enough of it that he sent the photograph below to his parents with the caption, "This is my truck."  It seems most likely that the truck Willie drove was a 2 1/2 ton truck commonly known as a Deuce And A Half. 

The Truck Willie Drove--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Being able to survive driving the truck apparently got Willie a promotion since he also sent home a photograph of another soldier driving a jeep and added the caption, "This is the jeep I used to drive."  

"Hauser from Alabama" driving the Jeep Willie used to drive--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Willie also sent home a few photographs of himself with other soldiers whom he could not name or simply did not write their names on the shots including this one below.  It might be "Hauser from Alabama" since they are standing behind a large flat bed truck.  

Willie Isaac & Baker from Central or Western KY--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Willie was assigned to a bridge building unit and also took a few photographs of a bridge they were building over an unnamed Korean river including the next two, one with an unnamed soldier in it.  Willie told a story that his unit was getting their water from the river a mile or so below this bridge and "one day after they pumped a truck load of water they found five dead Korean bodies in the water upstream above where they were pumping the water."  He said that he tried to not drink anymore water for several days after that.  He also always said that he hated rice and would never eat it after his time in Korea.  He said that the Korean civilians which worked for the US Army would "roll rice up in balls about the size of a softball and walk around eating that rice all day long.  I couldn't stand to eat rice after seeing that."  One of his favorite foods was boiled chicken feet and as long as he was able to do his own grocery shopping and cooking he would go to Wal Mart and buy multiple packages of fresh chicken feet and freeze them.  At his funeral visitation, several people and I wound up talking and laughing about Willie's love of chicken feet and I was the only one besides the deceased minister who ever admitted to having eaten chicken feet with Willie.  I had actually been present at Willie's one day when that minister was sitting at the kitchen table eating chicken feet.  Honestly, I never really cared for the feet but my mother had eaten them with gusto and I figured I owed her and Willie the one honest effort I made to eat them.  Willie also talked often about how in his young days his family frequently went opossum hunting and ate a lot of opossum which few people eat or hunt today.  Willie also loved turtle and in the first years of our acquaintance while he was still able to clean a turtle I would sometimes catch female common snapping turtles crossing the highway to lay their eggs and catch them and give them to Willie.  He never turned one down until he became too physically weak for the job.  I also love turtle but I hate to clean them so I quit eating them many years ago. 

Bridge Over An Unamed Korean River With An Unnamed Soldier--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger D. Hicks

The photo below, although unlabeled, is of Willie Isaac in front of what appears to be a mess tent.   Since it is a tent, I have to assume it is also from Korea.  

Willie Isaac In Front Of A Mess Tent--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

When Willie returned from Korea, he spent some time at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and eventually left the Army in 1952. He was discharged from Fort Knox at the end of his hitch. He still had his discharge in a frame hanging in one bedroom of his home until the day of his death.  He also had one photograph of himself in what appeared to be a barracks building at Fort Knox with a friend but did not remember that man's name.  

Willie Isaac and a fellow soldier at Fort Knox 1952--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger D. Hicks

 

Willie also sent home one photograph from Korea of what he described as "an 8" gun".  Maybe somebody with military experience can tell me exactly what this weapon was called.  

"8 inch gun"--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

 

Despite my fears about Willie after the death of his wife, he managed remarkably well for a nonagenarian widower living alone in Eastern Kentucky.  He did his own laundry until he was past 90 and his nephew Jimmy's wife, Brenda took over that job and also began bringing him home cooked meals regularly, At some time past 90, he got out a small steam cleaner he owned and steam cleaned his carpets.  He also adopted and took care of a stray dog who showed up at his house and ate the food he offered but wouldn't let him touch it.  The dog, a pit bull cross female, seemed to have a serious history of abuse but I have seen her follow Willie in his yard and dart from behind him just close enough to brush a hand in passing.  I also never saw anyone besides Willie ever get close to her before she died. One of Willie's favorite photographs was an old black and white shot of himself and a long dead brother in their yard as boys with a favorite dog from his childhood. He loved dogs but always said he didn't like cats and "never owned a cat in my life".  He drove to church every Sunday as long as he was able and did his regular trips to town for groceries, medical visits, and bill paying in his brand new car he bought a few weeks after his wife Flora was buried.  

 

He loved words and had a strong vocabulary for a relatively uneducated man in Eastern Kentucy and kept several dictionaries.  He had actually returned to high school in the 1940's to graduate as he had promised his mother when he dropped out for a year to follow an older brother to Ohio to work.  It was an incredibly rare event in 1940's Eastern Kentucky for a young male to return to school after having dropped out.  He kept a wooden chair on his back porch which he had built in a high school shop class and given to his father.  He pointed out to me a groove in the right arm of that chair which he said had been made by his father's habit of sitting in the chair smoking his pipe and lighting it with kitchen matches which he always struck on the chair arm in the same spot for many years. He was also proud of having used some of the first pay he ever earned in a regular job to buy his mother her first washing machine.  Shortly after his marriage to Flora, they had ordered on the same order from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue a sewing machine for Flora and a single shot, bolt action rifle for Willie.  He still had the rifle at his death and had killed thousands of squirrels with it on the farm which he inherited from his parents.  

 

To say the least, I think about Willie every day and will miss our friendship as long as I live.  This is a photo of the tombstone which Willie and Flora paid for along with their funerals several  years before Flora's death.  Willie's date of death has not been inscribed on the monument yet but you can bet that Brenda Smith and I will see to that it  gets done sometime soon.  They are buried in a little family cemetery which is located on Willie's family farm and holds the graves of Willie's parents, a few of his siblings, and a lot of his friends and neighbors including a few of my other neighbors in this community who have died since I moved here thirty years ago.  Willie, who owned the cemetery property never refused to allow anyone to be buried on the cemetery and had even allowed some people he knew in Magoffin County to have an unmarried friend of theirs buried on the cemetery.  Sadly, his grave is still only marked with the common metal temporary marker which funeral homes use at the time of a burial.  

 

 

A Cross Cultural Experience

I recently spent two days completing continuing education for my Indiana Auctioneer License.  Any time you spend two days in a room with more than 20 auctioneers, it is a cultural experience in itself.  You have a room full of story tellers who actually have stories to tell.  But the real cross cultural experience has to do with the fact that I was able to spend a day in the company of my two closest friends among the Amish, Jesse and Steven Yoder, who are also auctioneers.  We went through our auctioneer pre-licensing course together and became good friends during that time.  We spent 80 hours over several weeks in a classroom together and for most of that time I drove them to and from class.  We have spent many hours lined up across the seat of a pickup together which tends to be a male bonding experience in itself.  They are roughly half my age.  But we never had any problems becoming friends either because of the age difference or the cultural and religious differences.  During those hours together, we have talked about most subjects which adult males talk about in any small group.  We know each other well.

Jesse and Steven are members of a more liberal sect of Amish which still practice all the old religious traditions with some mild shifts toward the mainstream.  They now have telephones in their homes but do not own cell phones.  When we spend time together, their wives call my cell phone if they need to pass on information.  But there are no time wasting calls.  When I first met Amish people in Southern Ohio in 1989, they were members of the same sect to which Jesse and Steven belong.  But at that time, these people did not have phones in their homes.  If they had a legitimate need for a phone, they had a pay phone installed in their yard, garden, or pasture in a small black building which looked much like a one hole outdoor toilet.  They would have an answering service in Cincinnati and would go to the phone twice a day to pick up messages and make necessary calls.  If they felt it was necessary, they returned a call.  If it was unnecessary, they never returned it. 

Today, they have telephones and use them for what they consider legitimate business or family calls.  They might call distant relatives once a week but not usually any more than that.  Jesse and Steven also have a web page on Auctionzip.com which is maintained by an "English" friend. The Amish refer to all non-Amish as "the English".  When it is spoken with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent it sounds more like "the Englitch".  When I am with my Amish friends, I tend to pronounce it the same way.  Steven and Jesse do not listen to radio or watch television.  When we travel together, the radio in my truck is never on.  They have two or three regular "English" people in each Amish neighborhood who drive for the Amish.  They will not operate a car but they will ride in one if it is necessary.  They have no electricity in their homes but they will use propane or natural gas.  They avoid as much technology as possible. But if Jesse and Steven were hired to sell a large "English" farmers assets, they would be willing to sell a $100,000 combine or tractor.  I know some Amish in Southern Ohio who own and drive propane powered fork lifts in a cedar processing business.  But they will not operate a gasoline or diesel powered machine. 

They go to church on Sunday and do not perform any kind of unnecessary labor on Sunday. This is rooted in the Old Testament quotation about "getting an ox out of a ditch".  If work does not involve a necessity or emergency, it is never done on Sunday.  Since the continuing education class was set for Saturday and Sunday, the instructor made arrangements to meet them at another time and place to do the class which everyone else did on Sunday.  They still speak Pennsylvania Dutch and use High German in church.  Their children only learn to speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home and do not start to learn English until they enter school which they leave at age 16.  Even today, English is a third language for them.  We have talked once or twice about whether they could perform as auctioneers in Pennsylvania Dutch.  They say they could but all auctions, even for the Amish are performed in English.  We have the shared experience of having grown up wanting to become auctioneers.  They say they practiced their auction chants while driving horses in the field or bringing the cows in to milk.  I learned, like most auctioneers, by "selling fence posts and road signs" while driving.  This means that you practice by starting a chant on a road sign and selling it when you get to the next and starting over. Their "English" auctioneer friends often kid them about how high the prices were for the road signs they sold since they were practicing while driving a buggy not a car. 
We generally do not maintain telephone contact on a regular basis and only spend time together when we are in the same place.  If it is not a necessity, we do not get together or call each other despite the fact that all three of us enjoy spending time together.  When I am with them, I try to adhere to as many of their lifestyle norms as I reasonably can.  When it necessary for them to tolerate a few of mine they do so.  We are genuinely friends because of the many common elements we find in our lives and because we all work to overcome the differences and do not allow them to interfere with our friendship. We accept each other at face value and understand that we are not likely to ever live our lives in a manner which would be akin to the other.  Knowing the Amish has been very instructive to me in terms of being able to deal with people from many other cultures. 

Observations On Reading The Poetry Of Albert Stewart Once Again

This past week I reread Albert Stewart's "A Man Of Circumstance & Selected Yellow Mountain Poems 1946-1996" and reaffirmed many realizations about Al Stewart as a man and a poet.  I might have also come to one or two new, or at least revised, conclusions.  The long poem "A Man Of Circumstance" is most probably about Albert Stewart's father.  But it is also somewhat a compilation of qualities and observations about many of the positive male role models to whom Al was exposed during his early life.  It is also a compelling representation of Al Stewart's broad based knowledge of the area, the land, and the people around him.  His use of Appalachian metaphors and aphorisms in the poem show him to have been as much a common man in the mountains as he was a poet and educator.  Albert Stewart never forgot that he was a member of the community and culture which had produced him. 

The poem "The New Mule" is a wonderful story about how a man and a mule could change each other and form a relationship over the course of several years making lateral trips along the furrows of a hillside farm.  It is truly a work of art.  The mule progresses, over the course of 23 linguistically spare lines, from an uncontrollable, wild beast to moving "a careful inch in the furrow to my asking".  The man progresses from "goddamning voice" to being able to will "myself to patience".  It is a wonderful poem by a man who understood animals, land, and people and was able to express that knowledge in a minimal expenditure of words.  It is a wonderful poem about slow, positive change in a place where change was generally unwelcome.

Albert Stewart's poetry is a the poetry of an educator, environmentalist, farmer, neighbor, and friend.  It is a rare, wonderful kind of work which has received far too little recognition on the greater world wide stage.  Just like Al, it has had a tendency to stay on Yellow Mountain.  But those of us who knew Al as a friend and mentor keep taking it with us into the wider world and showing it to people who never had the good fortune to know him or his poetry.

Albert Stewart

Jim Ferrell, Appalachian Hero

When I made the decision to write on this blog about Appalachian Heroes, I made a sizable list of men and women who had done admirable work in the area to write about.  I also began to think about several people I have known who deserved recognition for their lives but have generally had none.  One of the first to make that list was James G. "Jim" Ferrell of Chapmanville, West Virginia.  Jim was well known in the Logan County area for many years. Jim was born March 15, 1924, in Chapmanville, West Virginia, and died in Logan, West Virginia, on February 15, 2004.  He lived the great majority of his life in or around Chapmanville except for a few years when he moved to Cleveland Ohio to find work after going out of business in a store he had owned for many years.  Jim later returned to Logan County and worked for the state of West Virginia until he retired as a wage bond enforcement officer for the West Virginia Department of Labor.  A major portion of that job involved enforcing state laws regarding the posting of wage bonds by coal companies intended to prevent them from going out of business without miners being paid.  Jim took his job seriously and worked diligently to assure that the requirements were met so that miners and their families never had to face unemployment without being paid for their work.  It was common for "punch mines", small contractors operating in risky leases owned by large companies, to go out of business overnight and leave crews unpaid much like circumstances had been many years before union activity and public protests caused the laws to be changed.  Due to his diligence,   Jim often bore the brunt of the anger of shady coal operators and, I believe, of the political appointees in Charleston who ran the Department of Labor. 

Jim Ferrell was the best friend I ever had.  Rarely does a day go by that I don't think of something he said or something I learned from him.  My father, Ballard Hicks, who also ran a country store in Floyd and Knott Counties in Kentucky, died when I was 20 years old.  I met Jim many years later when I was about 33 and knew him until his death.  In many ways, Jim was a second father to me.  He was one of the kindest, most considerate, caring, and giving human beings I have ever known.  He was also one of the funniest and loved to tell stories.  Many of his stories were based on self deprecating humor and his history of heavy drinking before he achieved long term sobriety which continued nearly thirty years to the day of his death. I wish I could remember every story I have ever heard from him.  Hopefully, I can fit a few of his favorites into this piece.  Jim was an amazing man who loved and cared about many things.  The most important things in Jim's life were sobriety ( he was a recovered alcoholic) and his wife Phyllis.  After that came his family, friends, the Democratic party, Irish culture and history, community service, golf, bowling, bocce ball, and story telling. 

Jim was a member of a relatively large Irish Catholic family and always said his mother had believed "there are only two kinds of people: the Irish and those who wish they were Irish."  Jim's mother was a school teacher in the Logan County school system and nearly every one of her children graduated from college.  Many of her grandchildren are doctors, lawyers, engineers, or teachers.  Jim was born a twin along with his brother Pete.  At some time during childhood, Jim lost an eye to an injury and was one eyed most of his life.  This was generally not a problem except when World War II came along.  Both Jim and Pete were attending West Virginia University when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Pete, who was in engineering school, immediately joined the military.  Jim, who was a pre-law student,  also volunteered and was rejected due to the eye.  He kept volunteering through different branches until he got to the Army. He said at the Army physical the eye exams were being performed in a hallway with the recruits standing in line in a perpendicular hall.  He always said that he managed to sneak and peek around the corner and memorize the first several lines of the eye chart.  He passed the test and was inducted.  He made it through basic training and was sent to advanced individual training as a head gunner in an artillery unit.  After finishing this training, he was sent to a pre-deployment physical and as he put it "the doctor was an old officer and he caught me about my bad eye."  Jim said the doctor reached for a form to sign to muster him out due to disability.  Jim began to beg and said, "Doc, I may be blind in that eye.  But I'm the best gunner in this unit and my twin brother is over there fighting and I want to go too."  Jim said the doctor hesitated a few moments and said "Son, if you want to go that bad, I'll let you", and tore up the form.  Jim was then sent to the island hopping campaign in the South Pacific where the US fought the Japanese over the ocean island by island until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He would rarely eat canned corn and always said that during that military campaign he had been under constant artillery fire for forty days.  During that time, hot meals weren't possible and he said he had bribed a company cook to give him an institutional size can of corn each day because he liked corn and would eat it cold. But after forty days, he said he didn't eat corn again for several years and only rarely ate it for the rest of his life. 

Another story about Jim Ferrell and food which I will never forget involves pizza. Jim loved pizza and we often went to Pizza Hut in Stollings, W. V., on Saturday nights.  Jim would order his pizza and then begin to complain about "all the money these people make off of a little bread dough and tomato sauce".  Nearly every time I eat pizza I remember that habit.  He also had a strange quirk in his face which he said was due to a botched facial surgery in the past.  He claimed that the surgeon had damaged some facial nerves and as a result, when he was eating something he enjoyed, he would sweat along one side of his face in the same way most people salivate.  He would eat with one hand and wipe sweat with the other.  It was always easy to know when he was enjoying his food. 

One of Jim's favorite stories to tell on himself involved food and drinking in the days long before he achieved sobriety. It was also during the time before Jim and Phyllis were married.  He owned a store in Chapmanville and lived in an apartment over the store.  He said that he was drunk in the store one day and decided that he wanted to have some canned chili.  Jim never knew how to boil water.  But he said he got a can of chili off the store shelf, closed the store, and staggered up the stairs to his apartment.  He said he had no idea how to cook the chili and placed the unopened can in a sauce pan full of water on the stove and proceeded to pass out on the couch.  Shortly thereafter, the can exploded when the pan boiled dry.  Jim said chili with beans was all over the kitchen walls and ceiling.  He said he just turned the burner off, put the remains of the can in the garbage, and went on about his business.   Jim said the next day he was sitting in the store and heard his regular cleaning woman going up the stairs to the apartment.  Just a minute or two later, he heard her slam the apartment door and come running down the stairs.  She came running into the store and said, "Jim, I have cleaned up everything in the world behind you, but there is no way I am going to clean crap off the ceiling. How in the world did you get crap on the ceiling? "  Somehow he managed to convince her that the ceiling only contained chili and she stayed on the job. 

Another of Jim's favorite stories to tell on himself involved both his drinking and the fact that he was one of the first people in West Virginia to own a Volkswagen.  Jim nearly always drove Volkswagens right up to the last car he owned which was a GM product he had bought for Phyllis because she refused to drive or ride in his Volkswagens.  Jim always said he had been on a major drunk once in Chapmanville  and went into what must have been a serious and extended blackout.  He said the last thing he remembered was drinking in Chapmanville and the next thing he remembered was coming out of a blackout and hearing Spanish all around him.  He was in Juarez Mexico and actually still had the Volkswagen within sight.  He said he immediately wondered what was going on at his store so he went to a pay phone and called collect to the store.  The highly dependable woman who worked for him took the call and naturally asked "Jim, where are you?"  Apparently, she could also hear the Spanish in the background.  Jim said he told her "Just decided to take a little trip.  You just take care of things and I'll be home in a few days."  He said that he had no idea how he got to Juarez but that the trip back to Chapmanville was the worst few days in his life driving across the desert Southwest in a Volkswagen with no heat or air conditioning. 

During the early years that I knew Jim, I was a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman for Electrolux in Logan.  I worked all over several counties and often met people who would know Jim.  Once I ran into one of his old friends who said, "I've got something I need to show you".  He went into the house and brought out an old campaign poster of Jim running for magistrate and the photo showed Jim riding a mule.  The friend said, "I always called my mule Mr. Democrat and when Jim started running I told him he ought to put out posters showing him riding my mule with the slogan "Vote for Jim Ferrell, Mr. Democrat's friend" and that's what he did."  The man said the photo was actually shot on Stratton street near the court house during a meet and greet for candidates.  He and Jim actually loaded the mule in a truck and hauled him from Chapmanville to Logan and Jim rode him around town meeting and greeting the voters. 

Jim lost that election by a wide margin because Logan County practiced what is known as "slate politics".  A local political power would put together a complete ticket for every race on the ballot and each candidate would generally be required to pay the head rat a lump sum in order to be on the slate.  Then paid voter haulers and vote buyers would haul people to the polls.  They would pay the voter before they went in and hand them a slate, much like a bookmark, with the names of the selected candidates.  Jim always said a distant relative of his was running the slate that year and asked him $40,000 to put him on the slate for a job that payed about $10,000 a year. Jim didn't have the money, wasn't put on the slate, and lost the race. I doubt if he would have paid the money if he had it.  Jim would always become angry any time that man's name was mentioned and said that his mother, when she was a teacher, "had walked way up to the head of a holler and talked him into going to school when he was about 12 years old and hadn't been to school a day in his life. If it hadn't been for my mother, he couldn't even read and write."  He never got over that slight.  But, at a time when I was looking for a job, Jim still took me to that man's house to try to get me a politically connected job.  It didn't work.  But, to Jim's satisfaction, the man was eventually convicted of voter fraud after years in power. 

Jim and I also knew another Logan County politician who was eventually convicted of a similar political corruption charge who also claimed to be a sober alcoholic.  He would often be seen in public under the influence of pills and, to my knowledge, died after serving time in Federal Prison without ever being sober.  This man's dishonesty about sobriety always made Jim very angry and he never cared for the man.  Jim never made any attempt to hide the fact that he had been an alcoholic and had no respect for anyone else who lied about their own substance abuse or sobriety. Another of our close friends, was convicted of a bribery charge but was always sober to our knowledge.  Jim never shunned that man because he was a sober alcoholic who made a mistake.  In fact, the three of us spent several days traveling back and forth to another part of the state when someone else close to Jim was on trial.  Jim Ferrell would always go out of his way to help family and friends.  I have also seen him, at times, helping total strangers who appeared to be honestly in need. I have seen him contribute money to charity at times when he needed it more than some of the people who benefitted from it.  He was a lifetime member of the Kiwanis Club and also showed up anywhere anyone asked him to go to help a good cause. 

Jim was a member of the Catholic church and regularly attended mass with Phyllis.  However, I believe he was really a lapsed Catholic and actually didn't like to attend church.  But because he loved Phyllis, he always went to mass with her.  He was also active in church activities and fund raising.  Jim also served several years as a member of the board of directors of the Chapmanville Library.  Due primarily to Jim's intercession on their behalf, the local AA group was allowed to meet in the library for many years.  Jim loved to do work which he felt could help alcoholics and addicts. 

During his younger years, Jim owned two stores in Chapmanville as well as holding a taxi franchise.  When Jim lost his business and left for Cleveland to work, he sold the store to a woman who had worked for him for many years and left the taxi business in the hands of a man who was apparently bootlegging with the taxi franchise in Jim's name.  A friend called him in Cleveland and told him he needed to get rid of the franchise before he took the blame for the bootlegging.  Jim cancelled the franchise.  The story he told about going out of business and going to Cleveland was always the same and Jim never varnished the truth.  He said that in the early days of the food stamp program he would allow customers who received food stamps to charge at the store and pay him in food stamps when they received them.  He also often sold unapproved items for food stamps.  This was a common practice for small store owners at that time and I have known several, including my own parents, besides Jim who were caught in the practice.  Jim said that on the first of the month he would leave the people who worked for him to run the front of the store.  He would take the credit accounts and go to a dry goods table in the back of the store where he sat and collected off the customers who came in with their food stamps.  One month on the first, Jim said he noticed a stranger in the store but kept doing business. He said, "I had my books and several thousand dollars in food stamps stacked on that dry goods table."  The man watched for a few minutes and came back to the table.  He flashed a badge and introduced himself as a USDA agent.  Jim said the man said, "I guess you know I've got you."  Jim always said that he told the man, "All I have in the world is on that table.  I promise you if you walk out of here you can come back next month and somebody else will own this store."  Jim said the man paused to think for a few moments and finally said "OK", and walked out of the store.  Jim sold the business and went to Cleveland.  In a genuine incident of irony, just a few weeks later Jim had a job as an eligibility worker at the food stamp office in Cleveland where he worked until he retired to come home to Chapmanville. 

During that time in Cleveland, Jim met and eventually married Phyllis.  He always said that she wouldn't marry him until he achieved some long term sobriety.  It is my belief that support from Phyllis made it possible for Jim to become and stay sober.  Although they were both middle aged by the time they married, they were genuinely in love until their deaths.  Neither of them had been married before and they had no children. Phyllis worked as a legal secretary and they had a loyal group of friends in Logan County who loved them both.  They were active in the church, local charities, the Kiwanis Club, the Chapmanville Country Club, and several other worthwhile activities.  When he wasn't working or performing charitable work, Jim loved to play golf, bocce ball, and bowling. He was never a good athlete and his blind eye made matters worse.  But not long before he became unable to golf, Jim managed to get his first hole in one on a short par three at Chapmanville. 

I never golfed in my life and had no real interest in it.  But once Jim asked me to join him on the practice tee at Chapmanville "and we'll hit a bucket of balls.  When you can hit one a little piece, we'll go out and play nine holes."  I agreed and we took the clubs and balls to the practice tee.  I hacked and beat and chopped for a while and never hit a ball 30 yards.  Jim finally just reached in his pocket and handed me his Volkswagen keys and said, "Come back in about 2 hours and go to the clubhouse.  Order anything you want and sign my name to the ticket."  That's what I did and Jim never asked me to go golfing again. 

But, for several years, Jim, myself, and three other friends had a bowling team in a Thursday night men's handicap league at Chapmanville.  We were never good.  Sometimes, we weren't even ordinary.  Most seasons, we finished at the top of the bottom half of the league.  But we had a lot of fun and provided some entertainment for the better bowlers.  Jim also began to play bocce ball at Chief Logan Park very late in his life with a group of elderly men, mostly Italian Americans.  He came to love the game.  In the last several years of his life, his vision became so bad he was nearly legally blind.  But, he never gave up any of the three sports.  He loved the games themselves, the physical activity, and, most of all, the socialization they provided. 

Jim Ferrell was a fallible, funny, generous, loving human being.  After he became sober, he worked every day of his life to be the best human being he could be and to make the world a better place.  He always tried to know about important causes in the world and to do what he could to improve any situation he encountered.  Jim spent his life giving away much of what he earned.  It made him happy and gave him a sense of self worth.  Jim Ferrell was one of the finest human beings I have ever known.  Jim Ferrell was an Appalachian Hero.