Viewing post #312374 by fiwit

Memory Lane is a nice place to visit, on occasion. Sharon, all my roots are from the Hocking Hills/Athens county area of Ohio -- anywhere near y'all? Closest KY town was Ironton, I think? And it was an easy trip to Parkersburg or Charleston for shopping, if Athens didn't have it. Both my grandpa's were coal-miners, and both my folks dropped out of high school at 16/17-ish. (Mom had 3 main goals for her kids -- we would all graduate high school, we would all learn to swim, and we would all learn to drive. We all did, but she used to tell stories of walking my brother to high school with a big wooden paddle in her hand. He had a habit of leaving for school in the morning but never quite getting there, and Mom wouldn't know until the truant officer called looking for him). When Coal-Miner's Daughter came out, I took Mom to see it, and she said it was like watching her childhood.

Other phrases that were common -- a honky-tonk (bar or tavern, to other folks), For the longest time, Grandma/Grandpa had "slop-jars" in their house, and an outhouse in the back yard. I'm thinking it was mid-60s or later before they had an indoor bathroom added to their little house. The coal furnace was in the livingroom, and kept the house warm-ish in the winter. They pretty much stayed in the downstairs and closed off the upstairs. There was a cistern on the back porch that provided their water for the longest time, until they finally got "city water."

She told me once that a relative was in "the workhouse," and it took me 2 days to realize someone had been sent to the penitentiary. Folks with Diabetes had "the sugar."

Language was certainly more colorful then, if a little incomprehensible.