Oral History Interview with James Ashby

0:00K: This is Kelly Lally, and I’m here in Louisville, Kentucky, with Mr. James Ashby. Today is August the 19th?

J: 19th.

K: 1987.

J: [chuckles] Yeah.

K: When were you born, Mr. Ashby?

J: Central City, Kentucky, in Muhlenberg County, coalmining country. West Kentucky coalmining company, country.

K: And what year?

J: Oh, 1915.

K: Uh-huh.

J: Most people don’t realize we have two coalfields in Kentucky, and that’s why I said the west Kentucky, or that’s part of Illinois’s coalfield in western Kentucky. The eastern Kentucky is Appalachian field, which is a much larger coalfield, and a better grade of coal than we had.

K: Uh, tell me a little bit about your family.

J: Oh gosh, well, my family uh, or all of them were born in Kentucky. I come from a long line of—I came from hardy pioneer stock. I don’t know when my people came over. They may have come over on the Mayflower. But I had some that were in the Civil War. My grandmother was born in Kentucky around Calhoun, Livermore area. I forget what county that’s in, but that’s down the in Green River area, which is not too far from Muhlenberg County. In fact, Green River was part of the border between Muhlenberg County and Ohio County. Uh, I think—I heard that my grandfather Ashby came from Illinois. I don’t remember exactly. I don’t know whether he was born in Kentucky or not. My mother’s, uh, my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, her people came from Virginia, and she always said that she was related to the Lees of Virginia. I have a brother named Raymond Lee, uh, had an uncle named Jesse Lee, her youngest son. And she said that uh, Ben Lee was her uncle, and I think Robert E. Lee was supposed to have been his uncle.

K: Oh.

J: And uh, my mother’s people came from around the—They were all native-born Kentuckians too, farmers, all my mother’s people. Her maiden name was Grimes. And uh, she came from Warren County, around Bowling Green area, where you are. They were all—a lot of farmers, a lot of her relatives still live there, the Grimeses. They were all ignorant farmers. A lot of them couldn’t read or write, you know, back then. That was not too uncommon. They did literacy back when I was growing up. The same way in Muhlenberg County there. I tell everyone that I grew up in a sea of ignorance and poverty. And it was. A lot of people think that I’m bragging when I tell them that the average person now doesn’t know what real poverty is like. ‘Cause back then people went hungry. You didn’t have all this government stuff, which I don’t believe in too much. Only to a certain extent. I don’t think people need it now. But people had to get out and hustle to keep from starving to death, and raised gardens, and a lot of people would fish. I used to do a lot of fishing, and black people a lot of times, and white people too, for that matter, would catch those little bitty sunfish, you know, about that long, and cut their heads off and fry the whole thing and eat the bones and all. They’d fry real good, and eat the bones and all. A lot of people eat crawfish, crawfish tails. And if we hadn’t lived on a farm, I guess we would’ve starved to death. But it was, Muhlenberg County back then was a beautiful place. There must’ve been a lot of Indians there, because you could find arrowheads and Indian relics all over the place. It was all forested, it was hilly, most of it wasn’t too good farming country. But it was a beautiful place when I was a child. The streams were clear and pure, and almost every hillside in the woods would have cold spring water running out. There at Drakesboro, Kentucky, Muhlenberg County, there’s a big spring out at the edge of town there, and I remember when I was a child, they had a big horse [unintelligible] there. And that thing ran the year out. It was so cold and pure. Now it’s all gone. Uh, and people would haul, the farmers would haul water from there by the barrel, by the drum. And it was forested, beautiful forest, all kinds of game and fish and wildlife. The coalmines moved in. First it was the deep shaft mines, and what they called the slope mines, which would go back in the hill. Or some people called them drift mines, and would go back in the hill, sort of downhill into a hillside back then. And uh, although they weren’t stripping too much at that time, there was a few around, but most of them, the coal was too deep back then, and they didn’t have the technology that they have now, and the giant machines to remove the earth overtop. A lot of them went broke and closed down. But they pumped that—what we called it copper water back then. They called it sulphur water now. That copper water out of the mines, and that got into all the streams and the lakes and everything, just killed everything. Even killed the trees, even the crawfish couldn’t live in the stream. Pond creek was about, oh about a mile from Drakesboro down the railroad track, and there was a water tank. ‘Course back then, they had steam locomotives. There’s a water tank there, right by the creek, and they pump water from the creek back then to, into the water tank, because it was so pure, and it was such a beautiful creek, it was just full of fish, beautiful water lilies and flowers, and giant trees. I remember right near the railroad trestle there, there’s a huge stump where a huge sycamore tree had been cut down, and it was big enough to dance on, the stump. It was about six feet long. You couldn’t reach across it like that. And everyone said that people used to dance on that. [laughs] But it was beautiful country, but the coalmines, even in the ‘20s—In the roaring ‘20s, there, that was something else during Prohibition. But, Drakesboro was a wild town. Uh, most towns around there were. It was a coalmining camp, about ten, twelve hundred at its peak population. And ‘course coalminers led a hard, dangerous life back then. I don’t know if you’ve heard Merle Travis’s song, you know, [sings:] “Sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” And that’s so true. [sings:] “Saint Peter when you call me, I can’t go, I owe my soul to a company store.” [chuckles] And that’s very true, the guy worked, you know. They would draw, they had check—You could go to the company store and draw on your wages, and that, he’s, what they called “flickers”—Denomination, twenty-five, ten, twenty-five. A dollar checks. And they would go there and draw those things out on their wages, and a lot of times, they might need money, and they would sell them for about sixty or sixty-five cents on the dollar to get cash. And of course, that was their wages. That was cutting down on what they got paid. And you didn’t have too many machines back then in the mines. Oh you know people nowadays talk about women, you know, doing things that men could do. They couldn’t’ve done it. They couldn’t’ve loaded coal, stooped over all day, with a number three coal scoop. They couldn’t’ve done it. With modern technology, women can do a lot of things that men do now, that you know, that they couldn’t have done then. And I think the whole thing’s kinda silly, to say that men and women do it the same. I just don’t believe that at all. I’m sort of a dinosaur. Mentally, yes, but physically no.

7:28K: Well what were times like for your family during the Depression, and how many kids were in your family?

J: Uh, there was—Oh I was telling you about the roaring ‘20s, Drakesboro was—After World War I, you know, sort of after World War II, you know, things really picked up, and there was booming. And I remember my daddy back then, when I was real young, I think we only had about two or three children then, and he was paying fourteen dollars for his silk shirts, you know, those wild striped silk shirts back then, which they don’t have now. And uh, that was during Prohibition, of course, and there was bootleggers all over town, and on Saturday night, boy, I’m telling you, it was wild. Shootouts in the streets, and I’ve seen a lot of people get shot there. They had one policeman there, and he carried a big nickel-plated forty-five. His name was Ed Sampson. I think he was a cousin to my paternal grandmother. And wore a great—He was, had red hair and had a huge red mustache. And boy, he was rough. He had been shot several times himself. But he would just as soon shoot you as to look at you. I’ve seen him shoot at people with that forty-five, just shooting over the top of them, you know, and shooting right into houses and things. You know, it’s a wonder he hadn’t killed someone. [laughs] And a lot of them were shot down on the streets. ‘Course then, I remember when Prohibition was repealed, and how wild that was. That was in 1933, I think, after Roosevelt was elected the first time. And uh, it was really wild then. My daddy used to work for, help out at Elliot Kelly’s pool room downtown. That was one of the main entertainment centers downtown. They had four or five pool tables. And I remember they had a big Crosley radio. This was the late ‘20s or so. That was—in a big battle cabinet, and had the speaker that set up on top. And we boys, ‘course, there was no place to go back then, we didn’t have any money to go anywhere anyway. People didn’t have cars like they do now. Young people especially. I never owned a car ‘til I was forty-nine years old. Uh, and we’d all go down to the pool room and listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the Crosley radio, on Saturday night. This was in the late ‘20s, early ‘30s. And uh, ‘course when Prohibition was repealed, they—I’m always intrigued by these Sterling Beer things on the radio, commercials on the radio, because that was the beer they had. That was not too far from Evansville, and they had Sterling Beer in Elliot Kelly’s pool room. ‘Course everybody got drunk, my daddy included. [laughs]

9:54J: And uh, then the Depression came along. I remember Black Friday. It was October, 1929 when that happened. ‘Course people didn’t realize then how serious it was. And I remember the headlines, “Stockmarket Crash,” and people were jumping out the windows. Shooting themselves. Because people just lost a fortune over night, millions of dollars. Didn’t have all that government protection back then that they have at the banks. The banks, gosh, the banks went bust all over the place. We had a little bank there at Drakesboro, and it went busted. I don’t remember just—Probably it went broke in about 1931. And people lost their money. So anyway, they reincorporated and opened up again, and son-of-a-gun, it wasn’t too long they went broke again. People who had reinvested lost all, all their money. And of course they had a lot of property, owned a lot of mortgages, and uh, they paid the people off that they could with the property, homes and things like that.

K: Well what was it like for your family? Was it real tough?

J: Oh, you can’t imagine. You simply cannot imagine. We, many times, I missed a lot of meals. I know what it is to be hungry. We missed a lot of meals. We moved to the country. My daddy was sort of a boomer. He was always traveling. When the Depression hit, we had six children. I think my last sister was born in about 1930 I think. And there was three boys and three girls. And my mother, mother was a little bitty thing. She weighed about ninety pounds at that time. ‘Course back then, women had to wash on the washboard. We didn’t have washers and all that stuff. My mother had to get up before daylight in the morning and build a fire in an old coal stove, had a water tank on one end, didn’t have running water. Break the ice in the kitchen in a bucket of water, we got the water from a well, no running water, no indoor sanitary facilities. Outdoor toilets and all that stuff. And she would have to get up in the morning and fix breakfast for all of us, and then wash and iron by hand, heat those irons on an old coal stove. And wash outside, and boil the clothes out in a big cast iron boiler. People talk about women—She was nothing more than a slave. Women back then didn’t have too much rights. That’s the way it was, that’s the way it’d always been. And she just worked herself to death. And my daddy was rather irresponsible, as I say, but she took care of her responsibilities. But by the time she was sixty-five, she was just wore out. And she did live to be seventy-seven years old before she died. Uh, and ‘course daddy was gone part of the time, and many a time, the thing just broke my heart, our stockings were empty on Christmas. And that really, sometime my daddy would send us some money when he was out of town, sometimes he wouldn’t. As I say, he was rather irresponsible. He should never have been married in the first place. And in the second place, he should never have had six children. [laughs] That has made me—I was the oldest one, and back then, the oldest son, you know, is supposed to work and help take care of the others, so I did. Boy, I dug ditches, and I pushed wheelbarrows. When I was twelve years old—this is in 1927—the first north/south highway that went through Muhlenberg County. Before that time, the roads were all dirt, and in the wintertime, they were impassable. The only way you could get anyplace was by train back then. ‘Course we did have the L&N Railroad ran from Russelville up to Owensboro through Muhlenberg County there. At one time, they ran four passenger trains a day on that little thirty mile short line there. They had a cattle pen downtown there, and the people shipped their cattle by train. And just about everything. I know a lot of times, when we moved, we would ship our furniture by boxcar. You didn’t have those super highways. You didn’t even have un-super highways really back then. And uh, what was I gonna say? [laughs] 1:00K: How did you hear about the CCC?

J: Oh! Well, as I say, I finally got—I worked as a—I was gonna tell you about the highway. I got—I heard that they needed a water boy. And I got a job as a water boy. Didn’t have them coolers and all that stuff back then. And uh, I got a job as a water boy. It must’ve been one of the last construction crews that used mules and dump wagons. They used four great big mules—My goodness, their ears looked like they were that long. And these old dump wagons, and boy that was a tough bunch. They called the muleskinners. I don’t know if you ever heard that term or not. That’s what they called people back then that drove mules and horse teams. Called them muleskinners. And some of them were black from down South. I remember one black guy especially, he had one eye. One of his eyes was white. [laughs] And they, oh, they were tough. And I was twelve years old at that time, so I carried water, oh I guess for a couple of months during the summer. And bought my own schoolbooks. I think I was in about seventh grade then. You had to buy your own books then. Hot meals and all that stuff. No, whoever heard of hot meals? When I was ten years old, I think we lived in Cave City and I was going to school there. I think I was in third grade or something like that. And uh, my mother would give me a nickel, and I would stop at a little grocery store downtown, and get a nickel’s worth of pickled bologna and crackers. And that was all I got. And people never heard of hot meals for kids. Nutrition and all that stuff. I think in a way it was a blessing in disguise, because people back then, you didn’t see too many fat people. You see a lot now. Nearly everybody’s overweight. Well my sister now, always remarks—she’s rather skinny herself—always remarks about people that come into these restaurants, you know, most of them are huge. I feel like I live in the land of giants now. I’m rather small myself. I was about average height back in the late ’30s, 19 and—in the late ‘30s. I was—I think the average height for men was about five-seven. I was close to that, and I think I was about five-six in my stocking feet back then. Now the average height for men and women has increased by about three or four inches since that time. People just get more to eat. They get a better diet. But anyway, it was a blessing in disguise because people’s arteries didn’t get clogged up. All the rich foods that everyone has now. So I guess in a way it was—although I tell everyone I might’ve been larger if I’d’ve gotten more to eat. [laugh] And I’ve been a heavy eater ever since. I don’t know when—I don’t think I’ll ever get caught up. I’m still a heavy eater, and I don’t gain much weight. A friend of mine is Dr. Furnace. He was at the University of Louisville, taught at the University of Louisville for years and years. He was a doctor in World War I, and after he got out, he got chance to get a job as a professor at the U of L, so he gave up his MD practice and took that. He always telling me, he said, “Your metabolism must be something else.” He said, “Boy, the way you eat and everything, and no bigger than you are!” Uh, yeah, the—It was rough. 2:00J: Back then I worked on the WPA. We got on relief, of course, but you only got the staples. You got a bag of flour, you got your flour, and you got potatoes and things like that. But the government, they wouldn’t give you sugar. You had to work and buy your sugar yourself. But the staples, flour and beans. Go to a certain store in town there at Drakesboro was designated Landrums, Paul Landrum’s store, grocery store. And it was designated as a government relief station, and you could go there every week or two, or something, whatever, every week I guess, and pick up your little bag of beans and a sack of flour. And I don’t know—I think probably potatoes, they gave you potatoes too. But you had to work and buy your sugar. So I got a job on WPA, two or three days a week. I think it was three dollars and something a day, and an ex-policeman there in town was the foreman. He was an older man, and we did everything by hand, you know, all the roads were dirt. We used hand tools and wheelbarrows and things, and we would fill the—grade the thing for drainage, and dig ditches along the side, you know, for drainage, and fill in the ruts and things like that in the road. Three dollars and something a day. So finally, they, you had to work—Had to have somebody, member of the family—If you had an able bodied member of the family that was old enough, you had to work. And of course, my daddy couldn’t work, because he was the head of the household, and he was a barber, as I say. So finally, they, when the CCCs came into existence, they decided that the people, you either had to join the CCC, if you were young enough, the right age and all, and if you were already on relief, or they’d cut off your relief. So I had to go. I didn’t want to. [laughs] 3:00K: How were people selected in the area? Or did they just tell you to go?

J: Uh they just told you to go.

K: Really?

J: Yeah, yeah. Well, either that—They didn’t draft you exactly, but you had to join or else they would cut off your relief.

K: Oh really? Did they have an application process, or did you just //

J: Uh, yeah, as I recall, uh, I don’t remember where you put in. They had your name and all. I don’t remember how you applied. But anyway, I remembered, I remember we went to Greenville, which is the county seat of Muhlenberg County, and took our physical examination. They just gave you a rough physical to see if your hearing was alright. I remember that smart alec doctor that gave me mine. They would hold a watch out like that back then, you know. Not all this sophisticated equipment they have now. And they would bring that watch toward your ear and say, “Let me know when you hear that.” [laughs] And I asked that smart alec doctor one time, he did that, you know, and I said, “Yeah.” And he said, [unintelligible] [laughs]. He held it back there. Anyway, my hearing is still good. And still perfect. I can almost hear a pin drop across the street. My hearing is very sensitive. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t, ‘cause outside noises just drive me up the wall. 4:00J: So we went to Greenville, took our physical, and I don’t remember, uh, seem to me like that was August, and then I joined in the fall, in the CCCs. The first camp I was in was in Trigg County, in Cadiz, Kentucky.

K: How old were you when you first went in?

J: Oh gosh, when was that? 1935, I was twenty.

K: Twenty?

J: Mm-hm. Yeah.

K: What did you do in Trigg County?

J: Uh that was what they called soil conservation. That was a farming area there. Oh, that was a beautiful place then too, Cadiz, Kentucky was. We would go out, land that had been eroded, been cleared and eroded, and we would build dams and brush dams and things like that to keep some of the water down, so it wouldn’t finish washing the soil away, so the erosion would stop. Yeah, I was there almost a year. Uh, we all went through there, went through Cadiz, and uh, the commander there picked out the ones—he asked for the ones who had the high school education. And I think there’re about six of us out of that group, must’ve been a hundred, had a high school education. He said, “You all step forward.” And we all stepped out. And so he kept us, “I want you all here.” And they sent the rest—some of them went way out west, Montana and Idaho and way out there. [laughs] My brother was out there. He didn’t go in when I did, but some of them went way out west there, so I was really glad that I got to stay that close to home. So they kept us there because of our education. 5:00J: And uh, then I was there about a year, and then I got transferred to Mammoth Cave National Park. I worked in the field there. I got transferred to Mammoth Cave National Park, and I worked in the field there for a while. As I say, we built trails and steps in the New Entrance to Mammoth Cave there. I fought forest fires and things like that. What a beautiful place that was. And I haven’t been back there for years. All kinds of wildflowers, magnificent trees. It was just beautiful country. I’m afraid it’s all been ruined now, I’m afraid to go back there and look.

K: No, it’s still beautiful.

J: Yeah, they keep expanding parking lots and things like that. People and nature simply do not go together. The automobile was a wonderful invention, but it’s ruining the whole country. People are so mobile now. We’re poisoning everything. We have to clear trees and land for parking areas, superhighways, we’re polluting the air. People are just so mobile now that we’re able to go anywhere and destroy everything. We’re destroying the whole country, that’s what we’re doing. And it’s not only here, but America is probably the worst for exploiting the environment. I’m a rabid environmentalist. Because I see what we’ve done to the environment already. It’s fast disappearing. And it’s not exactly selfish, because when the environment is gone, we’re gonna be gone too. [laughs] Without the environment, what will we do? The cities are like a cancer. I can remember when a lot of the streams on the outskirts of Louisville, you know, were pure and clear and full of fish. There’s not a stream in Jefferson County now that’s not polluted. And that holds true for almost every place else. Especially in coalmining areas. Most of the streams have been ruined. 6:00K: So you were in camp number two, you say?

J: Uh, yes, uh-huh. Yeah, we were right near the new entrance to Mammoth Cave. Uh, I remember one thing there. After we’d been there for a while, they, ‘course they were always exploring—They discovered a cave—I guess it was part of the new entrance—back in the hills somewhere, not too far away. And someone was poking around, and they found the entrance to one of the caves there had been sealed. The land had dropped down. The entrance had been concealed over the years. So they got busy out there and dug all of the debris away from the entrance. And they went in there exploring, and when they got in there, they found, they found an Indian in there. They used to go in there to get saltpeter for the war paint. I think later on they used saltpeter for gunpowder in the War of 1812, and even after that, probably. Revolutionary War too. I doubt if they were over there at the Revolutionary War—And he had been chipping this saltpeter from a huge boulder up over him, and apparently he had been squatting down, almost right under that thing, and it fell on him. And he was all doubled up like this when they found it. And he was well preserved because it’d been so dry, there was not much air in there. And they got him out of there and put him on display over at the New Entrance Hotel there. I don’t know if he’s still there or not. And everybody called him “Indian Joe.”

K: Yeah.

J: Is he there? Well they found him while I was there.

K: Yeah, uh, I think a woman I talked to had to guard, her dad had to guard him overnight. He’s not there anymore. They put him back. The Indian people around didn’t particularly like him on display. So he’s back in the cave somewhere.

J: Oh really? Well for goodness sakes. That’s weird. [laughs] Yeah, it looked like his mouth was open, you know. He yelled, I guess, when that fell on him. ‘Course it crushed him. He may have died slowly, though, because it was sort of on his hips here, his lower part. He may have laid there and suffered a lot before he finally died. 7:00K: Well tell me how you were paid.

J: Oh! We were paid by the month. You got thirty dollars a month, a recruit. You got thirty dollars a month, and you got to keep a whole five dollars yourself, and send twenty-five home for the family. You had to do that.

K: How did you spend your five dollars?

J: [laughs] Well, uh, movies, and ‘course back then I smoked cigarettes. And they had a canteen. You could buy stuff in the canteen. Candy bars a nickel. Cigarettes were a nickel a package. You didn’t have to pay taxes on them, because it was a government post. Back then you didn’t have to pay in the Army posts and the government posts. When I was aboard ship in the Navy, you didn’t have to pay that tax. See, I think we got it for ten cents a pack when I was in the Navy. Uh, go to the movie, I forget what the fare was at the movie in Cave City there. Oh gosh, some of the old movies—I think that’s, I remember seeing, one of the movies I saw was Martha Raye was in it. I forget the name of it, when she was very young. I’m sure you know who she is. Big mouth. [chuckles] And she was a great singer back then. And oh, uh, oh gosh. Mm, one of those interplanetary movies. What’s the guy’s name that used to be in the old movies, rockets and all that stuff? I always kind of went for that, because I used to read wonder stories and amazing stories, and they were always about interplanetary travel. And people, “Oh you’re crazy for that stuff. Ain’t ever going to the moon.” [laughs] And I said, “I’ll bet you they do someday.” I never realized that I would live to see it. [unintelligible] And they were so realistic, those rocket movies, you know. Oh you’re going to Mars and the Moon and all that stuff. I think my first, my first talkie movie I saw was in Central City, Kentucky, in Muhlenberg County, that was the only place around there that talking pictures. They were still showing the old silent films in Drakesboro. And uh, the first movie I saw was “Gold Diggers of 1933” with Ginger Rogers. I think she was about eighteen years old when she made that movie. And I forget who else was in that. Dick Powell, and Joan Blondell I think was in it. And I forget who else. But anyway, those are the two most outstanding ones. Ginger Rogers always was my favorite. Her and Fred Astaire, especially, dancing. I guess I’ve seen just about every one of their movies from the first ones to the last ones that they made together. They were always my favorites. Ah, the old movies. I always liked, of course, back when I was a kid, Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson and Buck Jones, and all those, you know, the cowboys. I loved westerns when I was a kid. I’d always run around riding a broomstick, and had the little cap pistol and shooting Indians. [laughs] 8:00K: You were telling me that you worked a little bit with the new entrance to the cave. What other kinds of work did you do while you were in the CCC?

J: Oh! Yes, I forgot. I finally ended up, I got a job in the kitchen, washing dishes. Back then you washed dishes by hand too. Uh, and you didn’t have frozen foods and all that stuff. You made your food from scratch. And I got a job in the kitchen. I finally worked my way up, and I got a chance to, at second cook. And so I ended up being a cook in the kitchen. I was second cook in the kitchen. Uh, your second rating, I was cook, second cook. That paid thirty-six dollars a month. So I got a whole eleven dollars. And the first cook, and a sergeant and that kind of thing, a leader they called them, they got forty-five dollars a month. It was like a sergeant in the Army. Boy that’s a lot of money, they got a whole twenty dollars to themselves, and send thirty dollars home. So I was doing alright there. Eleven dollars a month. Eleven dollars back then would go a long way. ‘Cause as I say, back then, if you were poor, you didn’t have an automobile, you didn’t have air—well people never heard of air conditioning. Well most of the time, when I was a child, and when I was younger, we didn’t even have an electric fan because I’d say half, two-thirds of the time, we lived in homes that didn’t have electricity. You had to do everything by hand. And I know when we used to go to church and funeral parlors and places like that, you know, they would have these little cardboard fans with the little wooden handle on, you know, had commercials on them. Same way in the movies. Uh, you go to the movies, and I remember the movie that was in Drakesboro when I was child, uh, it’s way back in the ‘20s now, early ‘30s. Uh, it was way up on the third floor in a big old rickety frame building, and uh //

K: Let me change the tape real fast.

J: Sure.

K: But hold the thought. 9:00K: This is the second side of my tape with Mr. James Ashby. Go on with your story. Sorry to interrupt.

J: And yeah, way up on the third floor of an old rickety building there—I think there was a drug store on the first floor, and Saul West’s general store on the first floor. Uh, the movie, as I recall, it was way upstairs, it was on the third floor. And this was an old rickety frame building. They never had no fire escapes or nothing. If they ever had a fire in there, everybody up there would probably burn to death. Especially if it broke out between there and the ground. Little narrow stairway, that wooden stairway going upstairs. But back then in the old silent movies, they had—player pianos were very popular back then. And uh, they would play mood music for the film, you know, like the westerns and things like that. They would play a, make a noise of the horses hooves and that kind of thing. Uh, I remember my uncle and them had a player piano, and always loved those things. But they even had some young lady, she would usually come in and play the piano. Now there at Cave City, this is before I went in the CC’s. I lived in Cave City, by the way, before, when I was about ten, eleven years old. And then later on about, oh, about ten or eleven years later when I was about twenty, I moved back and went to Mammoth Cave National Park there, but my family didn’t live in Cavy City. In that movie, there’s a lady who owned the movie there. It was right across the railroad tracks, there was a little park downtown, and the train station there. And that was on the mainline of the L&N. And there was a little park between that street that ran right along the tracks and the railroad there. And the lady operated that movie house. But you had to have two projectors, you know. You cut one off—the film came in two, two rolls. Two reels to a roll. And uh, you’d have to stop and cut in your—You’d have to have two projectors, and you would stop one projector when the roll was exhausted and cut the other one on. You had to do it just right so it wouldn’t cut off. But she only had one projector. And at the end of every two reels, [laughs] they would have to stop the projector and rewind the film.

K: Oh dear.

J: Off of there and put the other two reels on. And she had some of us kids there, boys, we would—she got us to play the piano and we got into the movie free. We played the piano, she would pick out the music she wanted us to play. And she really had a sophisticated player piano there, because it had all these different sounds on it. Ordinary players did not. You just played the music. But she had the, as I say, the horses hooves and the drums and all this stuff on this fancy thing. And she would let us in to play the piano there. I was always fascinated by trains, and that was on the mainline of the L&N. ‘Course, I lived there, I used to love to watch the trains go through. Those fast passenger trains, the Liberties, the PanAmerican, the Dixie Flyer and all those. And they would just zoom right on through Cave City. Boy, the dust would swirl. They didn’t have any gates there, there was the main street crossed the railroad tracks there. There was a freight station right on this side, and then right on the other side, there was the loading platform and the passenger station was over there. And I remember one day, especially, this stands out in my mind, but I always—We lived right up on the hill behind the depot there in Cave City, and I always loved to watch the trains go through. And anytime I could hear one coming, I would run down to the station. I had me a little coaster wagon. So one day I heard the train coming, and all of a sudden it got down the track there about a mile or so, ‘cause they came through there doing about sixty with those big heavy steel passenger cars and those steam locomotives. Took a while for them to stop. And they had stopped down there, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, I wonder what’s happening.” And there’s a water spout right there where you cross at the end of the station platform there that goes over towards the town and to the park there. And uh, I started to run across there in my little wagon, and I looked down and here was this guy, young man, he was in a T-Model Ford dumptruck. It look almost a brand new one. T-Model Ford dump. Still had, the paint still looked new, and I don’t know if it’d ever been used or not. And he had been coming from town, and evidently, he couldn’t see that train. Just had crossarms, no crossing gates, not flashing lights, nothing. And he didn’t see that train coming, or didn’t hear it. And I don’t think the car was closed, because most cars back then were open, you know. But anyway, he pulled up in front of that Dixie Flyer, and that big steam engine hit him, and boy, it just tore that car all to pieces. And he was lying there with a great big hole in his head. That was, oh—I will never forget that as long as I live. And his lunch was wrapped in a piece of newspaper, and I remember he had an apple and a sandwich in it, and his lunch was laying over here wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and he was lying there dead. [unintelligible] [laughs] 10:00K: When you were cook—Tell me what your jobs were as cook.

J: Well, we had to prepare the meals. I think we had, gosh, around a hundred and forty men or something like that, usually. And ‘course back then you had canned food, but no frozen foods at all. We had to make our own pies, our own cobblers, peel the potatoes. We did eventually get a potato peeling machine, electric potato peeling machine. Thing, it would just rolling around in there, rub the—abrasive in there and it would rub the peeling off. We did eventually get one of them. Before that we peeled potatoes by hand. Usually some, one of the kitchen workers did that. But then we would cut them up and cook them and mashed them, and whatever. Fried potatoes or mashed potatoes. We had to make our own pie, made our own pie crust by hand. And uh, all that for a hundred and forty men.

K: How many people were working in the kitchen?

J: Well, we had two cooks on duty at a time. Uh, gosh, three or four I think we had. ‘Course they had to mop the floors and wash the dishes, those big pots and pans. You did it all—as I say, you did it all by hand. [laughs]

K: Well what kind of schedule did you have?

J: Oh golly, ‘course the cooks had to get up well before daylight, because the men had to—I forget what time they ate. Must’ve been seven or eight o’clock, something like that, ‘cause they had to get out in the field and work all day. They would come in for—I don’t remember. I don’t remember if we came in for lunch or not. I think maybe they may have. I don’t remember if they had lunch. I just don’t remember. I don’t think we had lunch in the field. But I don’t remember how we did that, lunch. But it was good food. As I say, when I joined the CC’s. I was hungry, and boy did I ever eat. [laughs] I had never had such rich food in my life. Potatoes and gravy and all of that stuff. ‘Course back then, you, everything you cooked was with lard. People holler about the cholesterol, all that stuff, but people didn’t know about that back then. Didn’t pay any attention to it. I don’t know if it’s maybe that bad or not. As bad as they say it is. ‘Cause my daddy lived to be almost eighty-five. He was almost eighty-five when he died, and he never watched his diet. He drank barrels of coffee, would eat red eye gravy. You know you make red eye gravy from ham, and you put coffee in that and called that red eye gravy. He ate that stuff. A lot of times the only thing we would have for breakfast when I was home would be biscuits and gravy. Many and many a time, we didn’t have bacon and eggs and all that stuff. That was pure luxury. And uh, fruit juices and that kind of thing. Whoever heard of such things? Only rich people had orange juice back then. But uh, it was a good wholesome diet. It was sort of—with the three-Cs, you had to, they did have, it was regimentation to a degree. They ran it something like the Army, but not exactly. You didn’t have a drill with guns and all this stuff, but you did have to line up for roll call and salute when they raised the flag and all this stuff. As I say, they usually had some retired Army captain—I remember especially the captain that was in Trigg County, awful nice fellow. World War I veteran. I think he was probably retired and he must’ve been in his fifties or sixties. And uh, he had a lovely wife. Gosh, I always thought she was—everybody in camp was attracted to her, ‘cause she was so pretty, and she was about twenty years younger than he was! [laughs] And she was good looking. She was a good looking woman. He was awful nice. I remember one time they sent two checks to my home there at Central City, and I don’t know how come they found out about it. He asked me to come in and sign up for a check or something, and I did. I didn’t know what they were doing. And they sent another check home. They come to find out that they had sent two checks. And so, so he said, “Well,” I said, “They probably done spent part of it.” He said, “Well could you have them just send it to me?” He said, “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “We’ll—“ –this must’ve been over the weekend—He said, “We’ll just, my wife and I, and we’ll just drive up to Central City and get the money, what money’s left.” So they did. It wasn’t all, so they deducted that from the next check. But he was awfully nice. That’s quite an experience for me. Because not many people back then had automobiles, as I say, and if you were poor you didn’t have an automobile. You didn’t have your own home, you rented, and lot of people rented furnished apartments. And you especially didn’t have two or three automobiles and your own home in the city, and a camp in the country, and all that stuff. People nowadays, our affluence is killing us. And as I say, I’m a dinosaur. I just can’t see all that stuff. Christophe said that, you know, that he would bury us. I tell everyone, he won’t have to bury us, we’re burying ourselves with our love of money, our love of affluence is killing us. 11:00K: Well let’s see. How long did you work as a cook?

J: Oh gosh, I guess I was there about a year a so. Uh, I shouldn’t’ve come out when I did, but as I say, this fellow Steve Keenan and I, we decided that we were gonna leave. He said, “Well I’ll get a discharge if you will.” That, we had been in, I had been in about twenty-eight months, I think, at that time, and in the meantime the family had moved to Louisville. They moved here in 1936. And they got—In late ’36. They got here in time for the ’37 flood.

K: Yes.

J: [laughs] And they lived in the first apartment down on Chester Street, not too far from the general hospital down here, the old general hospital. And the water got all around in there, daddy couldn’t go to work. And uh, as I say, my father was irresponsible, and he didn’t get out and hustle, and we got no assistance, no relief assistance at all. The Red Cross is gonna help some people, but we never got help from anybody, the city or anybody. We had to do it on our own. My mother was going over to general hospital and getting leftover food during the flood. And uh, that’s the only thing that kept us from starving to death, I guess. Candlelight. Had candlelight. The electricity was off for us. No gas. Nothing. And it was rather cold back then.

K: So //

J: So I got a job. I had got discharged in—I think it was October ’38 when I came out, and came back to Louisville. And ‘course there wasn’t much going on here either. You couldn’t get a job here. And it was strange to me. I’d never been, never lived in a big city before. [laughs] Country boy. And uh, gosh, it was, oh I guess it was a year or two before I did get a job. And my brother, my younger brother, the one next to me, my oldest younger brother, was working for an old paper hanger at the time. He was a paste boy for an old paper—As I say, back then you had to do everything yourself. Everything wasn’t prepared. You buy your paste, when you were papering, and paste the paper, and measure it and trim it and all that stuff. And that’s what he did, and then he would carry—the paper hanger would tell him the measurements and he would paste it and keep the paste, mix that paste when he needed it. And he would paste the paper and trim it, then cut it to the proper size in case he was at a corner or something like that. So anyway, I finally ended up getting his job. That was a dollar and a half a day. Uh, I never will forget him, Mr. Waltney. But he could do almost anything. He was a carpenter, pretty good carpenter, good paper hanger, uh he could do a little plumbing work. He was sort of a jack of all trades. He would do anything to make a dollar. ‘Course he didn’t make much. Things back then were so cheap, and wages were so cheap too, that he didn’t make much. He’d get hard up once in a while. I think when I finally quit, he still owed me about seven dollars, I think it was. And he got married and never did get my seven dollars. [laughs] He took all his money getting married. And I worked at that for a while. Then I got a job as a painter. Gosh that was a contract way out the old Bardstown Road somewhere. A friend of mine told me about it, and I got a job as an apprentice painter. Non union. Twenty-five cents an hour. That’s unheard of. I’d never made that much money in my life. And uh, got a job with them, and worked for them for a year or so. And finally got a nickel raise, I was making thirty cents an hour. I was still an apprentice. And then the—at that time they were building the powder plant across the river at Charlestown. And gosh, there were thousands of people working there. They came here from all over the country. Craftsmen from all over the country there. And so I heard that my uncle who was living, staying here with us at that time, Uncle Jesse Lee, asked me, said he heard they were hiring painters over there. And, got hired through the unemployment agency. I went down to put in my application and they sent a bunch of us over there, and you had to take an examination. So I passed and got a job over there. That was, uh gosh, they were paying union scale then. Although then you didn’t have to belong to the union to work on a government job. Open shop they called it. But they always did pay union scale, the government did back then. Dollar-twelve and a half cents an hour. And oh my goodness. That was just unheard of. I’d never seen that much money in my life. And back then they didn’t deduct too much from your wages. Small amount for social security and income taxes and things like that. Ain’t nothing to compare to what it is now. I was drawing b’gosh, I think about sixty-five dollars a week or something like that. Boy, that was wild. I worked over there, I guess, six months or so, and uh, got laid off there in October or November, I think, in 1941. And uh, then Pearl Harbor came. I remember that Sunday morning I got up and they had that on the radio about Pearl Harbor. I knew, boy, that was gonna be it. Because I wasn’t married, had no children, no dependents, no job. I was good cannon fodder. [laughs] They were looking for guys like me! [laughs] And so I joined then in January. Well I went down and put in my application for the Navy. I thought well, as I say, I do love to eat, and I thought, “Well I’m gonna join the Navy, and I get aboard ship, at least we’ll have a kitchen with us.” [laughs] I can always eat. And so I joined the Navy. And back then you had to pass a pretty rigorous physical to get in the Navy at that time. Much more rigorous than it would be in the Army. They tested you for color blindness and all this kind of stuff. I think at that time, boy, I was skin and bones, I’m telling you. I weighed a hundred and fifteen pounds, stripped. I was jockey weight. [laughs] I’d’ve made a good jockey. I thought, I didn’t think I’d ever pass the thing. Passed it with flying colors. [laughs] They took me right on in. My brother and I had joined at the same time, my older—Raymond Lee. The one I told you had Lee in his name, Raymond Lee. And so they said, “Well you go home, and we will let you know. We’ll send you to the Great Lakes for your training. We’ll let you know when.” So that was in January, and in February we went to the Great Lakes for our training there. And boy, the water was cold up there. Lordy lordy, oh that was rough. Get out there in the field and exercise. They were still using those old 1903 Springfield rifles, and those things weighed a ton. And we’d get out there and exercise with those. Go through the manual of arms and all that stuff. And jump up and stick that gun up in the air, and a lot of times there’d be snow on the ground and that cold wind coming off the lake. [laughs] I like to froze to death. And at that time you had to sleep in hammocks, and I never slept in a hammock in my life. They gave us all those shots. Gosh, I don’t know what all shots, tetanus, typhoid, and oh my—Gave ‘em all to you at once. And I had a little reaction from that, boy, I’d go to bed at night and I would be feverish and cold chills were running up and down my back. I felt miserable. That was terrible. Had to take a blood test and all this stuff. I was there about, I was stationed there at Chicago, Great Lakes about, oh gosh, I guess—We had to wait for a ship there, and they stick me over what they call the outgoing unit after I took my boot training. And that’s where they put everyone. And gosh, I guess I stayed there—when did I leave there? Uh, gosh it was—oh, gosh I guess it was the next September. Oh I know, yeah, they sent me to—I stayed there in the outgoing unit a while, then they sent me to Philadelphia. I think they were building our ship. It was a fleet oiler, they called them, a Navy tanker. They were equipped to refuel at sea. We would rendezvous with battleships and destroyers and cruisers and things like that out at sea before they went into battle. And while we were underway. We’d refuel them while—it was a ticklish operation, by the way. Anyway, that’s what this was, the Navy. I think they were building it when the war broke out for some oil company, and the government took it over and refitted it for Navy, Navy duty. And uh, USS Patuxent was the name. I got transferred, then I got transferred to the outgoing unit to Philadelphia, and I waited there for my, for my ship. It wasn’t ready. So I think they got it ready, oh gosh, end of November, December, something like that. We got—I was—gosh I must’ve been there at Philadelphia for a couple of months or so. This was after I got out of boot camp. I don’t remember when I got out of boot camp. It was several months before I finally went aboard ship. I stayed in Philadelphia there for a while. Oh I loved Philadelphia at that time. Oh, what a marvelous city. The girls all liked sailors. It was a sailor—Navy base there. And the marines especially, the marines and the sailors had a base there. And the people there were so friendly and good to us. They call that the City of Brotherly Love. And it was back then. People were just so nice. I just enjoyed every minute of being in Philadelphia. 12:00K: Let me uh, need to get back to a little CCC for a little bit.

J: Yeah! Sorry, I got off on that.

K: That’s okay, it’s interesting. Well I heard about your job and everything, and how much free time did you have, especially when you were a cook? Did you have much free time?

J: Uh, let me—We had certain shifts. You know, I don’t remember how they arranged that. But we would be off and on for a while, you know. Uh, I don’t remember whether it was off, on two or three days, then off two or three days, or just how it was. But we would get a rest in between there.

K: Did you participate in any of the education or recreation programs that they had in the CCC?

J: Uh, I don’t think so. Don’t think so. Uh, ‘course we had, back then, about the only sports we had was—oh, we had volleyball and tennis, baseball, and that kind of thing. I don’t remember if we had a team or not. I don’t think they did. Transportation back then, as I say, was bad. You just, people were not nearly as mobile as they are now. And if you did get around, you got around a lot slower than you do now.

K: Did you take any classes? I know they had an education program. Did you ever take any of the classes that they offered?

J: Uh, yes I did, but I don’t remember what it was. Uh, I know, I know when I joined the Navy, I got a job in the outgoing unit—The fellow in charge of the records department there let me work back there with him. He found out I had a high school education. And uh, that was a big help to me there. He found out I had a high school education. We would, uh, look through the records and see who was gone. And re-updated the records every once in a while, and see who was gone and who was still there, and this kind of stuff. And someone would want to call in to see if someone was there. And uh, they would send a telegram to people, money, you know, so we had a desk there in the outgoing unit. Telegram to see who—telegram their sons money or whatever they need, whatever there. And I would call out over the PA system the names of those who had telegrams at the outgoing unit office. I don’t think—they didn’t—I was never a great athlete. I was very agile, and I was fast for my size, and I was strong for my size, but I was not a superman. I tell people I never was macho, but I’ve outlasted a lot of macho men. I wasn’t muscular, but my body was just like steel, you know, what there was of it. And that stood me in good steed. But I never was a great athlete. I didn’t have endurance and all that. And back then I smoked, and uh, as I say, my diet had not been good, and I didn’t have a lot of stamina. Still don’t. I had more later on. ‘Course now at seventy-three, I still don’t. But I’m still in pretty good shape to be as old as I am. 13:00K: What did you do with your free time then?

J: Well, a lot of times we would—Sometimes there would be a carnival in town, Cave City or Glasgow. Not Cave City too often, it was too small. But once in a while there’d be a carnival over at Glasgow there in Barren County, and uh. We would walk around through the park a lot of times—Sometimes we would, a couple of us would go out exploring in the woods. There was a lot of little caverns around there, you know, almost every hillside would have a little cavern in it. You could be walking through the woods, and you had to watch, because sometimes you could step in those things, and they went way down there. Straight down. And we’d go out looking for those. And we would explore other caves. I remember a lot of times, there’s one big cave we went in there one time, I forget where it was. Just walk into it. Anybody could’ve gotten in it. But Lord, we walked in there, and a big black cloud flew over our head, and that thing—there was millions of bats in that thing. [laughs]

K: Oh! That would’ve been awful.

J: You know, they hang from the ceilings, just like you see them in the movie.

K: They didn’t like you coming in there.

J: Well, it alarmed them, you know. Then uh, we would swim. Green River was right down at the foot of the hill there at the old Mammoth Cave, which wasn’t too far away, within walking distance. A lot of times we would walk down there, and swim, and explore caves. And a lot of times we would walk over near the new entrance there, because a lot of times there’d be busloads of kids coming there, you know, girls, and we’d walk over there. [laughs] We’d walk, a lot of times, they’d be walking down the road, you know, and we would walk over there to watch them, girl watching, and flirt and whistle at them. That was entertainment!

K: Did many of the boys date local girls?

J: Ah, some did. Uh-huh. Yeah, Tommy Fleming, I say, he was a real good friend of mine. Now he lived in Powderly, Kentucky, which was between Central City and Bowling Green, about three miles, little coalmining camp. It wasn’t much back then. The coalmine started—I think there were strip mines there had already closed down. But he introduced me to his niece, yeah, niece there that lived in Powderly. And his sister, and her father was dead. And I would go home with him to his family, ‘cause as I say, my family was so poor, I couldn’t take anybody home, because we wouldn’t have any, couldn’t feed them and that kind of thing. But his family, they were farm people. They all lived together there in a frame house there in Powderly, and had nice shade trees in the yard and all that. I guess, I think they had their own chickens and maybe a cow and all that. And I would go home with him when we would get a leave, on the weekend, something like that. We’d catch somebody driving down there who had a car. And we’d always make up a carload. And he introduce me to his niece, Helen Gossett was her name. And I used to go down and see her. He could get a girl anywhere. [laughs] I say, he was an extremely handsome fellow. Great big blue eyes, his hair was wavy. And he looked like a movie star. He used to make me so mad, oh, we’d go out and all the girls would just flock to him. They’d just act like I wasn’t even there. [laughs] But Tommy was a nice guy. He was a nice guy. And he ended up marrying a little girl from down around, I think it was Cleaton, Cleaton, Kentucky. A little—Well, she was almost fat, pimply faced girl. She wasn’t pretty at all. And nobody could ever figure out why he picked her of all people. I guess that’s what love does for you. [laughs] I guess he’s still got her. 14:00K: Well um, did the CCC boys play many pranks on each other?

J: Oh my goodness, yes. Oh, listen, a lot of those guys had records. You know, some of them [unintelligible] and uh, always fighting and playing pranks on each other, yeah.

K: Do you remember any of the pranks?

J: Oh, I don’t remember what. Well, they used to do—One thing I remember especially, they used to do—I think they used to do this in the Army—They would short sheet, short sheet people. I guess you’ve heard of that one. [laughs] And they’d love it. A lot of times—Then other times, they would get drunk or something, you know, and come in, and the guy would be in the bed, and they’d turn the bed over, and turn it right on top of them. [laughs]

K: Oh no!

J: Oh, they were rough.

K: Oh no.

J: Yeah, this little guy as I was telling you, Steve Keenan, boy, nobody messed with him. He and I were pretty good buddies. And he used to tell me, said, “Ashby, I bet you if you and I got up in this ring, in the ring, and invited anybody to come up and take us on,” he said, “I betcha they wouldn’t do it.” [laughs] I said, “Well I hope you’re right.” I said, “I ain’t gonna invite them.” Oh he was mean. I’ve seen him knock—He was only about my size, but he was very muscular. And much wider chest than I have. And as I say, he was an ex-boxer. And I’ve seen him knock a big guy that weighed two hundred pounds, boy, knock him flat, knock him cold as a cucumber. He was a man. I thought I was a pretty good man, but I tackled him a few times, and I found out I wasn’t. [laughs] Wasn’t as good a man as he was. I was awfully strong for my size. I was above average, I guess you might say, but I was not a street fighter. A lot of those guys were street fighters, you know. You get in a fight with them, they’re not gonna fight you fair anyway. Do anything—Hit you below the belt, anything to, to uh, get the best of you. Some of them just as soon kill you. Oh, they used to do other pranks. Throw water through the window on people in their beds, you know, and stuff like that. Oh, I can’t remember any of the others, but those are two outstanding ones.

K: Well, was there much interaction among the different camps, you know, say two, three and four? You don’t think so?

J: No, no there wasn’t. As I remember, none. None. None whatever. Mean, they’re all just more or less on their own. Isolated.

K: Let me go ahead and get another tape in before I start with the next round.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES Tape 14.doc]