Oral History Interview with Marsha O'Hair

Ann Cox: O.K. This is Ann Cox interviewing Marsha O’Hair on October 30, 2003. Okay. Do you just want to start out by telling me a little bit about yourself? Where you were born, what year you were born. . .

Marsha O’Hare: O.K., my name is Marsha O’Hare and I was born, my name was Marsha King and I was born in Airy, in Perry County, it’s just across the Breathitt and Perry County line. But my mom and dad always lived in Breathitt County and I lived on Frozen, it’s called Frozen, it’s called Colt Fork, Strong Fork, it’s been called a little bit of everything. I lived there all of my life except for five years. My mom and 1:00dad are still living there. I went to Breathitt High School and graduated in 1981. I have one child.

Ann Cox: O.K. Did you say what year you were born?

O’Hair: No, I was born in 1963.

AC: Can you tell me about the different places you’ve lived since you were born?

O’HARE: Most of my life I’ve lived right in front of where I’m living right now. On Strong Fork, or Colt Fork, that’d be like, when I first got married the first time I lived in Perry County for a short time and I lived at Law’s Creek for a short time and then I moved to Indiana where I lived for about five years. And then I came back to Breathitt County and lived almost about a mile 2:00from where I live right now on Strong Fork and then I bought the house where I’m living right now and I’ve lived there for about six years.

AC: When did you move to Indiana?

O’HARE: It was in 1984.

AC: Why did you move there?

O’HARE: For a job. My husband had to have a job so. . . And the coal business went out, but he was working for it so we went to Indiana.

AC: What sort of job did you have in Indiana?

O’HARE: I worked as a secretary for a while for like a Iron Grit shipping place and then I worked in a trailer factory where they built trailers, and then I worked in a ( ) factory. And I worked there until I came back here.

AC: How did you become a nurse?

O’HARE: I always wanted to be a nurse so 3:00when I moved back here there was nothing for me to do so I went to vocational school and got my C and A license, or, so I could be a nurses aid and then that fall I registered for nursing school.

AC: Was there a reason why you decided to move back here?

O’HARE: I got a divorce.

AC: Oh, Okay.

O’HARE: And I hated it. There’s nowhere like here.

AC: Can you talk a little bit about what it was like growing up here?

O’HARE: I think it was the best, I mean, there wasn’t a lot of traffic, there wasn’t a lot of drugs when I was growing up, everybody was friendly and sort of laid back and everybody visited everybody else. You know, everybody would always come to our house, you know, and we played, we just played kick-ball and softball and of course I had 4:00to work, my dad was a tobacco farmer, so I worked a lot in the tobacco, ever since I can been big enough to walk through the fields, you know, I worked. And it’s fun. It was fun growing up here.

AC: Did you have many brothers and sisters?

O’HARE: I have one brother and that’s all.

AC: What does he do now?

O’HARE: Nothing.

AC: Okay. [laughter] all right. So your father was a farmer, did your mother do anything?

O’HARE: No. She was a housewife and she just, she like raised the garden and she worked like a man in the tobacco stuff. She’d have a lot of tobacco cut by the time my dad would come home from work. She’d have a little ( ) tobacco cut.

AC: Was that your dad’s main business?

O’HARE: It was when they first got married and when I was first born 5:00it was, and then he worked as a janitor for a while at LBJ school and then after that he worked for the University of Kentucky Agricultural place then he retired from there.

AC: Have you seen a lot of people you knew when you were younger leave?

O’HARE: Yeah.

AC: When did most of those people leave?

O’HARE: Really a lot of them left after graduation. Even the parents of the kids that I grew up with, a lot of them left after graduation.

AC: Why do you think they left?

O’HARE: I would say it’s because of jobs. More than likely. 6:00AC: Do you think if there were more jobs that people would stay here?

O’HARE: I think so. I think if there was more jobs they would stay here.

AC: Can you remember growing up, changes that were happening to the way people were living around here?

O’HARE: Yeah, I guess I can if I think back on it, because when I was little I can remember the girls at Breathitt High had to wear dresses and I don’t remember what year school I was in, but I remember that they started letting them wear jeans and stuff. But I was in school when that went on so I remember that and. 7:00. . Seems like you don’t pay that much attention to things happeneing and changing when you’re young. It’s after you get older that you start paying more attention to it.

AC: Was there any changes in technology?

O’HARE: Oh yeah. Just, yeah. With computers, I mean, like, it was near my last year of high school when they just introduced the computers, you know? I mean everybody else I guess had them but we didn’t here. So I didn’t get to learn a lot about computers, but, like, my son knew more about the computers. Let’s see, what else was there? As far as technology, I mean, we never had a telephone on us. All my life we never had a telephone. You just didn’t need a telephone and t.v.’s, you know, 8:00cable t.v., we didn’t have cable t.v. We had an antenna up on the hill so we didn’t get any local news other than the radio so I, now there’s cables and dishes and, so yeah, there’s been some changes with technology. Even vehicles, you know, there’s a difference in vehicles now.

AC: Have your parents been a part of that change? Do they have those like computers or satelite dishes and things like that?

O’HARE: They have cable t.v. They have a decent vehicle, my dad has a tractor, he used to use a mule for the farming.

AC: Can you remember him using a mule?

O’HARE: Uh huh, uh huh.

AC: Okay.

O’HARE: ‘Cause I was pretty big when he, I was pretty good size, maybe about ten, 9:00eleven, when he got a tractor and he still used the mule for years after that ‘cause it’s hard to change. You know, I mean, to plow with a tractor. And he really in the last five years was when he started plowing with the tractor. Like cultivating the tobacco instead of using the mule to go two first through the row when you could do like three, three rows with a cultivator. So yeah, they slowly parted to change. They have a telephone, an inside bathroom. That was a big thing too. Didn’t used to have an inside bathroom.

AC: You didn’t when you were. . . ?

O’HARE: (Indicates no) I was probably, I was probably ten, twelve when we first got an inside bathroom, running water.

AC: Have your parents, so they’ve, other than 10:00Perry County they’ve been here their whole lives?

O’HARE: Now, see, they didn’t even live in Perry County, they lived here. Yeah my dad, he’s from Wolfe County, but he’s lived here all his married life and my mom was raised in Breathitt County.

AC: What about your, like, cousins and aunts and uncles, where do they live?

O’HARE: My aunts and uncles, they were raised here on my mom’s side but now they live in Lexington and northern Kentucky and then my dad’s family, there’s some of them that live here and some in Winchester and some in Florida, and they lived in Indiana and Michigan before.

AC: Why do you think your parents stayed here when other people in their family were moving.

O’HARE: I 11:00don’t know, and I never did ask dad, I know he didn’t have an education. And he just, I guess he just loved to farm. And I think he went maybe north one time and he didn’t like it and he just come home. But I’d just say for the farming and they just liked it here.

AC: Were most of your aunts and uncles gone when you were really little? Like out of Breathitt County.

O’HARE: Yeah.

AC: O.k. They left before ( )?

O’HARE: Yeah, yeah.

AC: ‘Cause you hear about all the people who left like after World War Two, like in the ‘40s and ‘50s.

O’HARE: Yeah. Yeah, that’s when they left ‘cause my dad was born in ‘35 and most of them were older than him and they left probably I’d say ‘50s.

AC; Did they ever come and visit you?

O’HARE: Mmm hmm.

AC: Do you have any, did you ever think to yourself that they 12:00were different in some ways?

O’Hair: They talked different. They had lived in, like I had an Aunt that lived in Michigan and an Uncle who lived in Indiana and they talked different, they had lived there so long, you they just, and even my family in Lexington talked different than we did here.

AC: Did you have any family like you that went away and came back?

O’Hair: No.

AC: Do you think the, how do you think the population has changed over the years regarding how old people are? 13:00O’HAIR: Well, I think it has increased, I mean there’s more people here now than there was when I was younger. And it’s probably due to the fact that, you know the hospitals that are here now and there’s more doctor’s offices, there’s just more businesses here. Now there’s not a lot, not as much as they have like in Lexington and all that, but there is more. And I guess people just live here and they just travel, you know, to wherever they have to go. ‘Cause I mean like, I worked in Lexington. I drove it every single day. I didn’t want to live in Lexington so I just drove. And my husband did too.

AC: When did Jackson get more hospitals and . . .

O’HAIR: I think it’s been here like, 15, 16 14:00years, 17, somewhere in there. Less than 20, but I think it’s more than 15. It’s in between 15 and 20.

AC: Do you think now that the population is pretty equal between older people and younger people?

O’HAIR: No, I think there’s probably more younger people than older people.

AC: Yeah. Do you have any idea why that is?

O’HAIR: No, not really, I’ve never thought about that.

AC: Okay, that’s what everybody says when I interview them.

O’HAIR: Yeah, I just didn’t think about that.

AC: Do you have, and are you still friends with any of your friends from high school?

O’HAIR: Mm-hmm.

AC: Are the people you’re friends with, do they live here? 15:00O’HAIR: Well, one of them is my boss.

AC: Okay.

O’HAIR: But there’s more of them that don’t live here. I mean there’s several that live here but there’s probably more that live somewhere else. As far as friends. I’m trying to think, it’s been a long time ago. [laughter] AC: Do you think when people left to go to high school it was mostly to go to college, or to get a job?

O’HAIR: They left and went to college and then wherever they got their job you know, was basically where they stayed.

AC: Do you remember before you had left and gone to Indiana, or when you were little, how 16:00the community was? Like what, like, sort of community did your family fit into?

O’HAIR: It was a good community, I mean it was, I mean you didn’t have to lock your doors or anything and everybody trusted everybody and everybody was willing to help when somebody was down, you know, there were people there to help. And you could get more help then than you can now. People ( ). Gee, I don’t know what I can say about that, it was just a good community I lived in. I don’t think, I think it was probably, to me it would have been the best community to live in. But that’s just my opinion because I live there.

AC: When did that start to change?

O’HAIR: I’d say that probably started changing in the 80s. 17:00The mid 80s. Because everybody used to kind of know everybody and then people started moving in that you didn’t know. And you really didn’t get to know.

AC: Why did people stop getting to know people?

O’HAIR: I think people are too busy to take the time to just relax like they used to. I think everybody just goes at a run.

AC: So where you live now and where your parents live is sort of near Sara Jane’s house?

O’HAIR: Mmm hmm. Right beside it. I live right beside of Sarah Jane. On the same side of the road. My mom and Sara Jane were really good friends. And when lived in Indiana see, Sara Jane, that was the telephone we had you know? Sara Jane went and she would, if I had a message to tell mom she would come and tell mom. 18:00She was mom’s best friend. She was a good woman.

AC: So was your community as big as that area where you lived or was it, all Jackson like… O’HAIR: No, no, it was just the area where I lived.

AC: What sort of elementary schools did you go to?

O’HAIR: I went to LBJ, and that was like grade 1-6 and I went the very first year it was opened and then I went to Little Red my seventh grade year and that was the last year that it was open, they tore it down after that and they built the new ( ) middle school. So I went there the first year 19:00that it was opened. Then I went to Breathitt and I went the last year of the old Breathitt high school and then they built the new one. It’s pretty wild.

AC: So would you, I just interviewed Hubert Hollon. Do you know him?

O’HAIR: Yeah, I know Hubert.

AC: And he was telling me how when he went to school, he went to school just in a one room school house where just people would run around where he lived. But when you went to school it was with people from all around Jackson.

O’HAIR: Yeah.

AC: Okay. How do your parents keep in touch 20:00with the people who have left in your family?

O’HAIR: They really don’t other than with their immediate family and then they just telephone. But I mean like friends and neighbors that we’ve had, you just don’t hear from them. You know every now and then they’ll pop in on your front door, but you know, other than that, you rarely hear from them.

AC: I’ve asked you a lot of these. What do you think has stayed the same 21:00in this area since the time you were small?

O’HAIR: To tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s anything that’s the same as when I was small. I mean, because some of the people have died and just everything’s changed. And you know what I think the, just the everyday living has changed. I mean, I don’t know what’s happening, time, I guess it just seems like time goes by too fast and it didn’t used to go by that fast.

AC: Things were slower?

O’HAIR: It was just a slower paced place and now even where I live it’s faster paced, you got to meet the deadline, you know? And I don’t think any of it is the same. 22:00AC: Do you wish it was?

O’HAIR: Yeah. I do. ’Cause I think things were better. When I was a kid I think things were better. But maybe that’s because I was looking at things through a kids eyes.

AC: When you were a kid? Yeah. Who did you play with when you were little?

O’HAIR: Well, we played with, we played with Hubert Hollon’s kids. And then we had neighbors who were Smiths and they were the same age as me and my brother. And then my cousins, they were all the same age and we played. Just, it seems like there were a lot of kids there at that time growing up.

AC: Do you think the same amount of people live sort of up 23:00where you live and Hubert Hollon lives as they did when you were small?

O’HAIR: No there’s not. Well, maybe there is the same amount of people, it’s just a different group of people. But I mean, a lot of them are gone. Like all my cousins, they’re gone and yeah there’s a lot of them gone and the Smiths that lived next to us, they’re gone. Yeah, it’s just a different group of people than lives there now compared to then.

AC: Are most of the people who, like do you know most of the people who live around you?

O’ HAIR: The majority of them I do, but not all. 24:00AC: But you know all the people you grew up with?

O’HAIR: Mmm hmm, yeah. Older people, yeah.

AC: The people who, like you were saying, the Smith’s where did, do you know where they went?

O’HAIR: Well, the husband, he died and the mother went to Mississippi and then the kids are scattered. In Mississippi and Lexington and Cave Run and Ohio and different places.

AC: Why do you think the population keeps getting bigger? Oh yeah, you told me, because of the things that Jackson has now.

O’HAIR: I guess. That can be my only. . .

AC: Yeah.

O’HAIR: That’s the only reason I can think of, I mean, there’s lots of people who lives here now that, you know, that didn’t live here when I was a teenager. 25:00Maybe this is the place to live when you don’t want to work, I don’t know. [laughter] I don’t know because it seems like there’s a lot of people drawing checks that you never heard of before.

AC: Do you remember any sorts of organizations that would come in when you were little to help out families?

O’HAIR: No.

AC: Okay. So you think that, or how have the roles of what members of your families did 26:00when they were, when you were young, like how have they changed?

O’HAIR: Well, my mom and dad’s gotten a little older and they’ve gotten sick, so a lot has changed, I mean, and then I have, then you have your children, you know I mean, everything, every part, I mean it’s all changed. Your roles change. You know, without kids you don’t have anything to worry about. And then after you get out of school and you get married and have kids, then you have a lot to worry about. You know, so ever, that’s all changed. You kind of understand what your mom and dad was worried about.

AC: How old is your son?

O’HAIR: He’s 18.

AC: IS he a senior?

O’HAIR: He graduated this year. 27:00He’s in the marine corp. But he loves Breathitt County. It’s been real hard for him. Real hard.

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO O’HAIR: He gets real homesick. ‘Cause we’d go on vacation, and I mean, he’d be gone a week and he’d say, “Oh man, I’ll be so glad to see them hills.” So he’s gonna have to adjust to that.

AC: Do you think most of the kids who are in high school now, do you think most of them are going to stay around Jackson?

O’HAIR: If they had their choice I think they’d stay around. But I just don’t think they have a choice. I mean, if you want to, if you’re gonna have a career, you know, you’re gonna have to do it somewhere else unfortunately. 28:00AC: So you wish that there were more jobs out there?

O’HAIR: Oh, I wish, I wish, yeah. I mean, I wish we had factories and offices and I mean just, ever, I just wish we had more like Lexington has here as far as opportunity here but it’s been like this a long time and I guess it’s hard for us to change.

AC: Since you were, since the time you were little do you remember ever living through a time where it was really economically hard for you?

O’HAIR: Oh yeah.

AC: When was that?

O’HAIR: Most of my childhood it was hard. I mean, my mom and dad, they always tried to, I mean there’s just two of us so they could do a little more, I mean I had 29:00what most kids had except for extra spending money. There wasn’t extra spending money to give you, you didn’t have five or ten dollars to spend with you, you know, like kids do now. They just didn’t have it.

AC: So really it was like that before you got married?

O’HAIR: Yeah. I’d say it was. I got married when I was still in high school so yeah, it was.

AC: So how did you, so you met your husband in high school?

O’HAIR: No my husband, my ex-husband, he was about seven years older than I was. But I met him where I lived and I mean, he was some relations to Hubert and then he always came over there.

AC: Oh, okay. Did most people, do you 30:00think most people met their spouses that way?

O’HAIR: No, I think a lot of them me them at school. The majority of people I think did meet them in school.

AC: Can you talk more about, like the responsibility you had when you were growing up? Like I know you said you helped farm. . .

O’HAIR: Well, you know, during the day unless there was something in the garden to do, I mean it was pretty care free. I mean it just, we just played. Then you could swim in the creek. You know we got to do that a lot, I mean, you didn’t have ( ) going into the creek or anything. And there wasn’t trash in the creek, but, like with farming and stuff a lot of times we’d have to have like tobacco plants pulled 31:00by the time my dad got home so we could go sit in the evening, you know, until dark. But that wasn’t an everyday thing. And sometimes we had to be ready to go like, chop the tobacco, ‘cause he used to make us chop it. Now we don’t but we used to have to chop it and fertilize and amonia by hand, which we had to do that and we knew that, or I should say I knew that was my job. He didn’t make my brother do it much, but. . . But I had to do it. And we used to set the tobacco by hand so you know, it took a while. A lot longer than it does now to set it. And then it just in the garden, you know, mom had beans we had to pick and like, work up the beans, like string them and break them. I always hated that. But that was our responsibility.

AC: Would they do that all day? 32:00Would your parents do that all day?

O’HAIR: If it took all day. Mom always made us get up real early in the morning though so you could get it done before it’d get really hot. You’d pick the beans or whatever, or pull the plants, and then you’d have, pretty much have the rest of the day. But now, as far as working with the beans and stuff, you could do that on the back porch where it’s shady and that would take all day sometimes.

AC: Yeah. Would she raise the garden for you? Your family?

O’HAIR: Mmm hmm.

AC: Would you sell anything from the garden?

O’HAIR: They did a little bit but not much. They used to sell milk quit a, they had milk cows and they would sell milk and buttermilk. She would churn and make butter and buttermilk. Now they sold that when I was small. And we had chickens and I think they sold some eggs. But garden stuff, they never sold much of that because she always put that up. 33:00AC: Would you mostly eat what was in the garden, or did you go to the market too?

O’HAIR: They did some but not a lot. I mean they started later after Dad got a regular, you know, was working regular. They’d go like every two weeks to town and get groceries. I thought it was so great to have a can of spaghetti and meat balls. I can remember that and I loved them so much. And you know it was just special because mom bought a big can of spaghetti and meat balls.

AC: How old are your parents now?

O’HAIR: My dad is 68 and my mom’s 62.

AC: So they’re about as old as my parents actually [laughing]. I just think that’s funny. My parents had me when they were older. 34:00Would the families that lived around you, would they sort of live like your parents lived?

O’HAIR: Yeah. The majority of them did in that area. I remember when I was a little girl, in the bottom that my house is in, where Ken and Blanche lived and where Sarah Jane lives, her house, they used to, there was a little man who lived at the mouth of the hollow that farmed all of that with a mule. He planted corn there. And I remember that when I was little.

AC: Are there people who still do that around?

O’HAIR: Yeah, but they use modern, you know.

AC: 35:00I already asked that. So did your relatives who left, your cousins and aunts and uncles, did they ever offer any sort of support to your parents?

O’HAIR: Oh yeah, my mom’s family would. My dad’s family didn’t much but my mom’s family did. They were kind of a close family and they, I mean if they were there they always helped and they’d just do whatever they could if my mom needed something. 36:00Which my mom would, I guess she’s kind of stubborn, very proud I guess. She would never ask for anything. Her nor dad would never ask for anything. I guess they just ( ) it out before they’d ask.

AC: Do you know how they met?

O’HAIR: Well not really. I really don’t know how they met. I sure don’t, I mean, I never have asked mom. I know they went together a long time before they got married. My mom was getting ready to leave home and go to Northern Kentucky and my dad asked her to marry him, finally. Took him that long.

AC: What was she going to do in northern Kentucky?

O’HAIR: Just get a job. ‘Cause that’s where my aunt had went and several of my uncles and gotten jobs. 37:00AC: What, do you know your mom’s maiden name?

O’HAIR: Mm-hmm, Stamper.

AC: Stamper?

O’HAIR: Mm-hmm.

AC: So, just to make sure I have it right, when life really started changing, like when your parents, when your dad got a job, when was that, was that in the early ‘80s?

O’HAIR: No, that was probably in the early, that was in the ‘70s.

AC: In the 70’s? Okay. 38:00O’HAIR: Yeah. When he really got a real job. ‘Cause he worked for a program called the Happy Pappys and they went around and just done little odd things. Like they put in a bridge for somebody or they cut off spread off of a hill side or build something for somebody and they didn’t make a lot of money doing that. I remember dad said he made like eighty dollars a month. But now before that, like when I was born, he didn’t even have a job. And I remember him saying that one morning they was out of coffee and they didn’t have any money to buy coffee and he went down the lane and in the ditch lying, was like a full three pound can of coffee or bag of coffee, or whatever they had it in then that somebody had lost off of their vehicle going up the road. And like a refridgerator, like he didn’t, they needed a refrigerator and then 39:00you could, y ou know you sort of, word was better than anything, you know, and he’d buy like a refrigerator, I guess “on time” was what they called it. Like he’d buy it now and then when he sold his tobacco, he’d pay for it. Like in November or December or whatever. That’s how they, and my daddy never did believe in debt. He never went in debt for anything, you know, so they just lived without it if they couldn’t afford it.

AC: Wow. Did you say he still grows tobacco?

O’HAIR: Mmm hmm. He still has some, you know, he’s older now and he’s, he lost a hand in an accident and he just don’t, he can’t, he just gets old he can’t do like he used to. And then you can’t get people to help, 40:00you know, like when your kids are all grown and your grandkids is growing up, you know, you just can’t hang it and all that stuff by yourself anymore.

AC: Did your mother go to school?

O’HAIR: Mm-hmm. My mother graduated from Breathitt.

AC: Oh, okay.

O’HAIR: In the ’50s I think it was. It was probably like ’58 or ’59 that she graduated from Breathitt.

AC: Mm-hmm. So do you think you’re gonna stay living here?

O’HAIR: Oh yeah. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Not unless 41:00I absolutely, I mean it would just be an act of god for me to go anywhere else.

AC: Can you describe how it was living in Indiana?

O’HAIR: Miserable.

AC: Miserable. What was so miserable?

O’HAIR: It just, I was, I mean when I went up there probably the biggest thing was that nobody’s like they are here. I mean, they are just like whiz, whiz, whiz, whiz, just like that. And you don’t have time to talk to nobody. You don’t even know your neighbor. I mean, I lived there five years, I did get to know some people but you don’t socialize really. Not like you did here.

AC: Where in Indiana did you live?

O’HAIR: I lived in a little town called Tippacanoe, it’s like a township and I guess in Marshall County. But there’s some bigger places around, like Warsaw, Indiana 42:00and Michawaka, South Bend. Right in that area. It wasn’t far from Michigan’s border and it was closest to Chicago. You didn’t have to go far to get to Chicago.

AC: I went to school in Bloomington.

O’HAIR: Bloomington?

AC: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When you came back you were really happy to be back?

O’HAIR: Yeah. I was happy to be back, I was sick but I was happier to be back. You know, I mean I ended up getting pneumonia so I put me down for a while because of stress I guess my immune system got down. Going through a divorce, just agrivation. But I was happy to be back.

AC: When you lived there did you come back and visit a lot?

O’HAIR: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

AC: All the time?

O’Hair: Yep. Every chance I got. And I got real homesick. But now my son was born in Indiana. 43:00But you don’t call him a hoosier, you call him a hillbilly.

AC: Yeah [laughing].

O’HAIR: ‘Cause he don’t like the idea of being born in Indiana.

AC: Uh huh. Mm hmm. So you think he might, when he, I don’t know, get a job he might come back here?

O’HAIR: He’s already said where he’s gonna build a house.

AC: Mm hmm.

O’HAIR: Yeah, he’ll come back here. If he stays in the military until he retires, you know, then when he retires he’ll be back here. Or if he decides to get out when his years are up, you know, he’ll be back here.

AC: Mm hmm. Where is he now?

O’HAIR: He’s in North Carolina right now. And he’s hopefully, he’s hoping that his M.O.S. training will be in Fort Knox. Yeah, it will either be in Fort Knox, Maryland, or California. So he’s hoping Fort Knox. 44:00And see, he was the mascot for Breathitt.

AC: Oh really?

O’HAIR: Yeah, yeah, so, and he played in the band. He was real, he was more active in school, he’s not as shy as I was when I was in school. I was, I guess I felt sort of insecure and everything but he didn’t. He was just a go-getter. And he always wanted to be the mascot so he was the mascot. The, he was a good mascot. It’s hard to fill his shoes I think ’cause he’s kind of a nut. [laughter] ( ).

AC: So the bobcat, is that the ( )? I just met Hubert’s grandson who just graduated from Breathitt.

O’HAIR: He and my son are the same, they went to school together AC: Oh yeah. He’s a big football player.

O’HAIR: Mm hmm. My son played football until the ninth grade and then he decided to quit, which I was glad 45:00because he’s, he’s a, he’s a tiny build, I mean, he’s just a little guy, he didn’t have a whole lot of muscle on him, you know? He didn’t have no fat on him. And, but now he’s muscled up a little bit and Casey, the one that just graduated, when he come home on break he and Casey went somewhere and he was showing Casey some of them Marshal Art moves that they’ve been learning and he said, “Hey Casey, let me show you this one Casey,” ( ) “I don’t want no more” [laughter] AC: That’s funny.

O’HAIR: But he’s always a strong little fellow. And he wanted to play like on the line and he just, and he would hit hard, he was just little. I was afraid he was gonna get killed. You take 250 pounds falling on 140 pounds, I mean. But now he’s, he’s, I can tell his shoulders have broadened up 46:00and he’s gotten a little more weight on him. Can’t tell a lot, but a little bit. But now he had, I think it was hard for him graduating because he said, you know, when you’re in school everything’s simple.

AC: It’s true [laughing].

O’HAIR: But then he’s finding out now, you know, like even with shaving lotion and stuff, shaving crème, he tried to buy the cheap shaving crème and he says, “Mom, you always bought me the best,” and he said, “now I see why.” ‘Cause his little face was a mess. You know, from cheap shaving crème.

AC: Uh huh. That’s funny.

O’HAIR: But he was the only child and me and him are really, really close ‘cause me and his dad’s been divorced since he was five years old. You know, so it was sort of us 47:00for a while until I met my husband now and shew, you know, God was just watching over me ‘cause he’s a good man and he’s done a good job helping to raise my son. I mean he just done everything that a dad’s supposed to do with their son.

AC: How did you meet him?

O’HAIR: At a party. Yeah, I worked with a girl who had been aggravating me to meet him about three months and I really wasn’t ready for a relationship or anything, but finally I went and met him and we met on December 31st and we got married on February the eighth. And we’ll be married twelve years.

AC: Wow!

O’HAIR: My son was seven years old when we got married. Turned seven on the 4th of February and we got married on the eighth. So it was, 48:00it was pretty fast we got married [laughter].

AC: But it worked.

O’HAIR: Oh yeah, I mean, we never argue or anything and we just like to, we both really like to travel, you know, so my son got to see a lot of stuff that I didn’t get to see. You know, like I didn’t get to see the ocean until I was married to him, my husband. Just about nine or ten years ago, I’d never seen the ocean. And I mean, look, he’s eight years old when he first gets to see the ocean and go to the smokies, I didn’t get to go to the smokies. He got to do, he got to see a lot of things.

AC: Were there roads ( ) like now here?

O’HAIR: I remember when the road that goes by my house, it was gravel. And then you go up the road about half a mile from my house 49:00and there’s a road that turns to the right that went to the church. Now I remember when that road wasn’t there. You had, there was a little footpath that went up the side of the hill ‘cause my uncle’s mom and dad lived up there and you had to walk or else drive up the creek. So the roads are definitely different.

AC: When were they changing?

O’HAIR: It was probably in the late ‘60s. Early ‘70s, it started changing. And I feel like I had a sheltered life, you know, I mean I didn’t know a lot about Breathitt County, I mean, I didn’t know where Turner’s Creek and all these places were. I didn’t know until, really until I got this job.

AC: Yeah.

O’HAIR: Then I find out, you know, a lot of places in Breathitt County. 50:00It’s really a big county ‘cause you can drive for, I mean I’ve drove all day in Breathitt County and not been in every place, I mean, it’s a pretty good sized county.

AC: Is Hazard still in Breathitt?

O’HAIR: No. No, it’s in Perry County. But then a lot of people go to (lots of background noises) AC: Well, I don’t really have anything else to ask.

O’HAIR: Well, it wasn’t too bad.

AC: No, it was good.

O’HAIR: It wasn’t bad at all. [laughter] END OF INTERVIEW