Oral History Interview with Ben Moore & Taylor Hay

“Stories From the Balcony”

Interviews about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort, Kentucky

Interview on Video with

Ben Moore and Taylor Hay

On Location at The Grand Theatre

Tape 1 - 0007JTH_DV

Conducted by Joanna Hay

October 31st, 2006

This project has been supported by the Kentucky Oral History Commission

And Save The Grand Theatre, Inc.

Interview with Ben Moore and Taylor Hay begins with them seated in balcony chairs with Joanna Hay attaching the microphones to Ben Moore.

MOORE: That’s it. Boy! What a voice.

HAY: This…I’m going to tuck this wire…away.

MOORE: Away. Do you want to come in from behind?

HAY: No, because it looks ok. Let’s tuck it right in there.

MOORE: Oh, ok. Or I could put it in my pocket.

HAY: Could lie it down and put the box in your pocket if you like.

MOORE: Just so it won’t fall.

HAY: Just so it won’t fall. Exactly.

MOORE: That’s the only thing I have in mind.

TAYLOR: Did you mike yourself, Joanna, for questions? Not that we need your questions.

HAY: Not on this one, no.

TAYLOR: Because I think Billy hassles you. [Technical interruption]

HAY: So tell me about what you all did for fun when you lived on Murray Street.

MOORE: Played “kick the can.”

HAY: Yeah? In the street?

MOORE: Sure.

HAY: Did you beat up your little cousin? Did you win all the time against your little cousin?

MOORE: I never thought to beat anybody up. Except in the sixth grade, there was a boy named Greared Garrick who had lived in Frankfort, and then he left. You know how the change in administrations forces people out and in and out and in. He came back in the sixth grade. And so he was standing there in the schoolyard at the Second Street School, so I thought, “I’m going to beat him up.” [Chuckle] So, I got somebody to stand behind me, and I pushed him over, and he fell over the guy. And he got up and beat me up. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: That was the end of that.

MOORE: So that was the end of my boxing career.

TAYLOR: I will say this though, that Ben was considerably taller than the average person, especially if he was three or four years older. So in my case five years older. And I used to go to Murray Street when Ben lived on Murray Street just up the street. I went to Murray Street…

MOORE: School

TAYLOR: School. And I think I was in second grade as it turned out, and there was a guy named…it was either Paul, who was an Italian, or it was Ben Chandler, Sr. because Happy Chandler’s, the Governor, children went there, Ben and Dan. And one of them used to beat me up. He was about a year older. And so I told Benny about it and so Benny waited until after school was over. Walked down the street as the kids were getting out, and I was standing there. And he towered over this kid about a foot and he said, “Don’t you ever…” [Chuckle] I forget what you said to him but it was pretty tough.

MOORE: That was probably Podgie.

TAYLOR: No, that was you.

MOORE: I wouldn’t threaten anybody.

TAYLOR: Yes, you did. You threatened him and he never touched me again. In fact, he wouldn’t even look at me.

MOORE: Ben Chandler would never hurt a flea. He was such a nice person.

TAYLOR: Well, Ben used to run around…he was real fast…and he’d run around and hit you, then run off. But then Paul had a brother…two Italian boys…and they would grab you by the head and beat your head against the ole brick wall down there on the playground. Anyway, Ben was a…So I want to tell a story. Benny had a paper route. And this paper route…

MOORE: Oh, no.

TAYLOR:…was one where you had these little cards on a big ring and you’d go around and you’d deliver the papers all week. And then on the weekends, he’d go around and collect the money. Thirty cents, forty-five cents, a dollar twelve, whatever it would be. And on this ring he would carry it. And he had a bicycle. And I would go around with him sometimes to collect money. And I’ll never forget, he had a dog named, Gyp. It was one of these orange dogs about this long and about this tall. And Gyp had a curly-Q tail. So he would hang the ring of cards on Gyp’s tail. And Gyp would go along with a ring of cards on his tail. [Chuckle] And we’d go around and collect the money. So Benny always had money. He was the moneyman. And I’ll never forget one time Benny said, “Taylor…” Teller. He called me Teller. “Teller, let’s go see the Sea Boys at The Grand.” Well, Sea Boys means Cowboys, and of course, he had the money so we just popped over to The Grand and got to sit down there and watch the Sea Boys. And so, that was my memory of Ben soliciting me into enriching my life. You know, by taking me to the movies. Do you remember that?

MOORE: Of course not!

TAYLOR: I didn’t think you would.

MOORE: Being as it was not true. [Chuckle] There’s not an ounce of truth in anything you…

TAYLOR: That’s exactly right. Everything’s a fabrication.

HAY: That’s ok. I want to hear what Ben’s handle on the story is. Or was it even any angle at all?

MOORE: No, I…the only thing I remember about the Sea Boys is that was Red Rose’s invention. He called it that. Red Rose was a genius. He taught me everything I knew.

HAY: And who was Red Rose?

TAYLOR: Ray Rose

MOORE: Frederick Raymond Rose is his name. He lives in Cincinnati now.

TAYLOR: He’s an architect isn’t he?

MOORE: Close. He was an engineer.

TAYLOR: See I do remember things.

MOORE: Well…Ray is an engineer for Proctor & Gamble, and he taught me how to do everything. Everything that was worthwhile. How to burn an electrical wire in two by hooking it in between two batteries. [Chuckle] That’s very useful. [Chuckle] And he taught me how to drive. He was fourteen. I was fifteen. And so we went out and bought a car. It was twenty dollars…total. And Red collected ten dollars off his paper route and I collected ten dollars off my paper route, and we went and gave Barney Stanley twenty dollars, and he gave us the car. Keys. It had keys. And it was a beautiful car. Orange and blue. FHS’s colors. And we were so enthusiastic about it. It had a rumble seat. It was a 1929 Model A. It had a rumble seat, and it had a chain to keep the door shut. And it had “Fools Rush In” on one side and all that kind of stuff. And originally it had “Blitzkrieg” written across the top, and it was such an unpopular name being as that’s what the Nazis inflicted on Europe, or were in the process of doing. It said “Blitzkrieg” on there and so the police made Barney take that off. They wouldn’t allow him…

HAY: What year was that?

MOORE: Uh…that was ’39 and ’40, but we bought it in 1940. So we thought this was such a marvelous car. So we drove it around town and we’d load it up with some boys and we went…Lafayette Drive at that time was brand new. That’s the street that goes up from the Capitol.

TAYLOR: Up like this. [Chuckle]

MOORE: And so we said, “We’re gonna show you what good brakes we got.” And so Rose was driving. Red Rose was driving. And so we got up to the top. We went up the Louisville Pike hill and got to the top, and Rose shoved it into sss…We went down the hill, and he noticed that we were going too fast. And he had the brakes clear to the floor. He shoved it into second, but he couldn’t get it into second so we were freewheeling.

TAYLOR: There’s a brick…there’s a stone wall down at the bottom.

MOORE: Well, what was down at the bottom was…pardon me ladies, but a dumb woman driver was [Chuckle] down there, in between a cement mixer and a brand new car. And so she pulled into that aperture and stopped like a cow. [Chuckle] So Rose took an inch off each side. And then we got to the bottom of the hill. And Rose could get it into second. He shoved it into second then! And I said, “Rose what are you doin’ puttin’ that into second?” He said, “We’re gettin’ out of here.” [Chuckle] And so we said, “Well, let’s take it down to my house.” And we went out in the backyard and started painting it green. [Laughter] Because it was red…uh…orange and blue.

TAYLOR: That’s what’s called camouflage from the police, right?

MOORE: And it was…I’d say we had two fenders painted by the time the State Police were there. And I heard the front doorbell ring and I peeked around the side of the house, and there was Johnny Fifgune. He was the State policeman and he had a…they had a motorcycle. And he was the motorcycle man. And I can still rem…I can still recall that sound of that motorcycle. It was idling going, “tick a tick a tick a tick a” [Laughter] and so we failed to answer the door. But the jig was up. [Laughter]

HAY: They came back later, I’m sure.

MOORE: They did. And so we had to pay for the damage. And we did it by collecting from our paper route. Without our paper route, we were penniless.

TAYLOR: See Ben…Ben did verify that I wasn’t completely off when I was telling my story. He did have a paper route, and he did have money.

HAY: Did you have a dog with a curly tail?

MOORE: Oh, yeah, Gyp.

TAYLOR: So, so far…

MOORE: Gyp, the Blood. He was named for a Chicago gangster. Gyp, the Blood. Ann Howard, Taylor’s mother’s sister and my mother’s sister, lived in Louisville, and she always made it a point to send a dog to my grandmother, with whom we lived. So Gyp arrived in a…what would today would be called a tractor trailer…and pulled up in front on Murray Street and opened the door and out came Gyp.

TAYLOR: A little, baby puppy dog. [Chuckle]

HAY: You remember that. When he arrived. When Gyp arrived.

MOORE: Yeah!

TAYLOR: See we’re closing in on Ben, you know. So far, every fact that I’ve mentioned, he’s admitted to. And we’ll get a little closer.

HAY: So Gyp did help you collect your money on your paper route?

MOORE: Gyp was a great aid in anything you wanted him to do. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: However, Gyp did decide he had to stop and drop. And it dropped right on Benny’s cards on the ring. The ring is on the tail and the cards were here, so it dropped right on top of the cards. And that was the last time Gyp got entrusted with the…isn’t that true? Do you remember that?

MOORE: Oh, yes!

TAYLOR: [Chuckle] See! I couldn’t remember.

0: 1:00 -0: 2:00HAY: Taylor? What’s your first memory of coming to The Grand Theatre?

TAYLOR: My first memory of coming to The Grand Theatre. Now this may be a makeup, but I lived on a farm that…I lived with Benny at my grandmother’s just like he did. Benny lived at Grandmother’s for how many years?

MOORE: All my years.

TAYLOR: All your years.

MOORE: That I can remember, until I went into the Army.

TAYLOR: Alright, I lived there…at least a year…

HAY: Where was that?

MOORE: 503 Murray

TAYLOR: You know, it’s interesting that “Blitzkrieg” was on that car. Benny ended up in the worst battle in Germany in United States history, which is the Battle of the Bulge. He was right up in the front lines with light mortars…memory […]…and the average life span of a light mortar man was two and a half minutes. And so he’s living on borrowed time. Ironically, they painted “Blitzkrieg” off and then he had to go to the war, and “blitzed.” But, he came back and the only scathe he has is his memory. He came back all of a sudden scathed. Did you ever get nicked or anything by any shrapnel?

MOORE: No, I was careful. When you get in the Army, they give you a shovel, and as soon as you get anywhere, you did a hole and get in. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: So here’s my memory. Made up or not. I lived when I was five years old, on a farm outside…five miles outside of Frankfort.

MOORE: It was the greatest farm in the world. It was so nice. It had an avenue that went up. It’s still in existence.

TAYLOR: It was about a mile then. Now it’s a half-mile. Yeah, it’s still there.

HAY: What’s it called?

TAYLOR: Scotland Farm. It’s still in the family.

MOORE: It had it’s own town.

TAYLOR: It was bought with the last drop of whisky money back in 1923. It was an inheritance. My grandmother’s father bought it for her. My great-grandfather. And I lived there when I was five, and I lived there when I was eight. And on our farm, we had a sign that advertised The Capitol Theatre and The Grand Theatre. I remember those two. And we got, I think, four tickets a month, or something like that, free, in return for having that sign on the farm that advertised the movie houses. And I remember my grandmother loved to go to the movies. In fact, my granddaddy Hay died in 1936 outside a movie. He had a blood clot and “Bang!” But they used to go to the movies.

HAY: Where was that?

TAYLOR: Uh…this was in Frankfort.

HAY: Where did your grandfather die?

TAYLOR: I should say The Grand, but it wasn’t.

MOORE: I would say probably Chicago.

TAYLOR: No, it wasn’t. No, it was right here in…

MOORE: It was probably the Black Hawk in Chicago.

TAYLOR: No, he was…Yeah, he was a friend of Al Capone’s and Jack… He was a different kind of guy. But anyway, they tried to get the digitalis cabinet open in the Frankfort Hotel, which is right across the street. And the cabinet was locked, and he was lying there, and they couldn’t bring him back to life so…I lost my granddaddy a year after I met him. I met him in 1935. But anyway, Granny had a lot of servants at that time, comparatively speaking, and it was a big house…ole mansion, which is still there. My brother lives there. She had one guy named Jimmy, who was sort of her chauffer. And Jimmy…I forget his wife’s name, or his girlfriend’s name…but Jimmy would drive us to Murray Street to school. And every now and then, Jimmy would take us to the movies here. And Jimmy would come upstairs here because black people had to be upstairs, and white people had to be downstairs. But, I think, Jimmy brought us upstairs here, because I was a neutral. I didn’t have anything one-way or the other. But I remember The Grand only by virtue of Jimmy taking us to the movies.

HAY: How old were you?

TAYLOR: I’m going to guess…I’m going to guess I was eight. I’m guessing that. And again, that may have been prior to The Grand. They keep talking about the early forties of The Grand, but that may have been another movie. But the interesting thing about The Grand is, is that I do not remember walking in here, except that we used to come here and watch the Sea Boys, as Ray Rose said. By the way…good memory…Mother is driving me, and you, and my sister across the bridge, the Singing Bridge, the metal bridge in Frankfort here. And it was snowing, and Ray Rose came by and bicycling in the opposite direction, had a snowball in his hand, and hit the windshield of Mother’s car right square. Why, you were enraged. You got after Ray Rose and just gave him until “Who Laid the Rail” because he had thrown a snowball at Mother’s car. Anyway, so getting back to the ranch. I feel…and this is my ruminations this morning when I was out mowing the grass. I wore what I would have probably worn in the old days. Blue jeans, a pair of old shoes, and I probably had a little bracelet on or something. These are just brass, or copper, because it’s good for your old joints. And, just everyday clothes is what you would have worn to the movies. But I remember in those days everything was black and white, and I probably learned more about right and wrong from the Cowboys, the Sea Boys, here at The Grand, than I did from my mother and father, or Sunday School, or church. Because you had black hats and you had white hats. Now, there was…let’s see. Johnny McBrown. There was Hop Along Cassidy, whose name was William Boyd who Daddy had met and knew out in California.

MOORE: Tim McCoy

TAYLOR: Tim McCoy

MOORE: Bob Custard

TAYLOR: Bob Custard. Tex Ridder, whose John Ridder of “Three’s Company”, that was his father. And these guys were all super athletes. Remember that?

HAY: Do you remember live shows here?

TAYLOR: No

HAY: Do you just remember movies here?

MOORE: Live shows? There were no live shows in Frankfort.

HAY: Jim Morris remembers the horses coming in the back door, and live cowboy shows here.

TAYLOR: Well, that was before maybe we got to it.

HAY: That’s what I was wondering.

TAYLOR: That was Vaudeville, I bet. That was Vaudeville.

MOORE: Jim Morris has a rich memory too. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: But, that’s Vaudeville. We weren’t here for Vaudeville. Benny and I were more of the cowboy time, and you had…let’s see. Who else did we have? Let see. We had Hoot Gibson. Hoot Gibson and…But all the guys that were good guys had white hats. All the bad guys had black hats. All the good guys smiled, and a lot of them sang. They were all great athletes because they had to do their own stunts and jump up and down on their horses and fall down. They were all respectful to women. Never saw them smack the women around like they do today on the stage. And the bad guys always paid for the crime. Today, the best movies are the ones where the criminals get away with it, and the bad…the good guys get shot. So we learned our values of black and white. Now, everything’s gray, so you never have a real standard for behavior or anything else. It’s all gray. Well, maybe we can help the gray people. But we had black and white back in the old days. And that’s why Benny is such a paragon of it’s either right or it’s wrong. There’s no in between. Yes or no. Correct?

0: 3:00 -0: 4:00HAY: Hey, Ben. What’s your first memory of The Grand Theatre?

MOORE: Well, The Grand Theatre in those days had a clock. And it was an electric clock. And the wire that came down to feed the clock had a mouse that would go up and down on that and entertain everybody.

HAY: Do you mean it would go across the main room?

MOORE: Yeah

HAY: Point. Where did the wire come from do you think?

MOORE: Right there. Seventy-five feet from where we’re standing.

HAY: Out from the side of the wall?

MOORE: Yeah

HAY: And it would run where? To the…

MOORE: It would climb up the wire and go back down. It would slide down, you see.

TAYLOR: Was it a replicable mouse that was…or was it a…Yeah, it would have to be.

MOORE: It was a walking, talking mouse.

TAYLORL: And it would go up and that would be the pendulum for the clock. Is that it?

MOORE: It had nothing to do with the workings of the clock.

TAYLOR: Hickory-Dickory-Dock, the Mouse Ran Up the Clock. The clock struck nine, the mouse ran down. Is that it?

MOORE: The mouse got a charge and went clear to the top, and then he would come sliding down. He was entertained by that. The floor was composed of mostly popcorn. [Chuckle] So if you were hungry, you could always get a meal at The Grand.

TAYLOR: It was a crunchy floor.

HAY: Where do you remember sitting when you used to come?

MOORE: I never came to this show in my life.

HAY: Never came to The Grand?

MOORE: Never came to The Grand. It would have been a “come down” for me to attend this place, except that I had the paper route right here. There used to be three, ten-cent stores on this block. And Penny’s was at the corner. And across the street, I had customers all up and down St. Clair, and then came back. The only thing bad about this paper route, it was the Louisville Times, an afternoon paper. The Louisville Times took care of the afternoons. And then, this paper route had a requirement that I come and meet the train on Saturday night. So I had to come down here and meet the train every Saturday night and pick up what we called the “bull dogs.” Those were the newspapers that they printed on Saturday which were Sunday’s papers. And I’d take the “bull dogs” and deliver them to the people who would not be here on Sunday morning because the whole place was closed down on Sunday mornings. I’d come down here and deliver my papers on Saturday evening.

TAYLOR: So you saw the mouse then, or did you see the mouse when you were going to the movies?

MOORE: I never saw the mouse. [Laughter] But, it was a famous mouse.

TAYLOR: Isn’t it amazing? Ben has the most amazing imagination. He could imagine what that mouse would be like, even though he never saw it, because it had a reputation.

HAY: I’m going to pause you for a second here.

MOORE: I was in Louisville yesterday playing tennis at Seneca Park, and a little girl came onto the court where we were. And her father brought her out. And she was this tall, and she was swinging that tennis racket and she would miss it completely. And then she’d swing it, and then she’d hit one, and her father would go to pick it up about fifty feet down the way. And she would start bouncing up and down. She was so excited. I was so pleased to see that she enjoyed it and her tennis.

TAYLOR: This is a side. This is grandchildren talk, but Taylor Williams Hay, Douglas’s son, who’s twelve, when he was eleven, and they lived in Delray, Florida, Chrissy Evert is one of their friends down there. And, Taylor and Chrissy Evert’s son went to school together. And Chrissy Evert’s son, of course, plays a lot of tennis. But, Chrissy Evert showed Taylor how to adjust his backhand, and the next time they played, Taylor beat Chrissy Evert’s son in tennis. He’s a pretty good tennis player. But, Taylor’s younger sister, a sister who’s younger, Sarah…

MOORE: That’s Douglas’s son?

TAYLOR: Douglas’s son and…

MOORE: And he’s down there […]

TAYLOR: Well, they are right now, yeah.

MOORE: Are they going to move?

TAYLOR: No, I think they’ll stay there. They like it. But anyway, Sarah now is playing people way older than she is because she’s so good.

MOORE: Well, they’ve got a goooood club there at Laurel Oaks.

TAYLOR: Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, we had a lot of fun there. Go ahead and ask questions, Joanna. Get us back on track.

HAY: What movies do you remember seeing?

MOORE: My favorite show was “How Green Was My Valley”.

HAY: When was that?

MOORE: It was set in…it was set in…I think…it was either Scotland or…what’s the little country? Wales. I think it was Wales. That was about 1936.

TAYLOR: Who was in it? Do you remember?

MOORE: Uh…it wasn’t so much the actors, although they were good, it was the story line.

HAY: What was the story line?

MOORE: It was about the coal miners, and how somebody came out of the coal mine and went to another place and got educated. In London, I’m sure.

HAY: How old were you when you saw that movie? When it first came out or…?

MOORE: I have no idea. Great Scot!

HAY: Where do you think you saw it?

MOORE: At The Capitol Theatre. I didn’t go to the…I didn’t go to The Grand! I can’t impress that on you. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: Sure he did, because I was with him. He paid my way in once. I know he came once, because he saw the mouse. And that was fascinating. And he probably came here and went to the movies prior to the train coming in. And you probably folded papers in the back while you were watching the movie.

MOORE: Oh, no.

TAYLOR: Ben can throw a paper better than anybody I ever saw.

MOORE: We had more fun delivering papers.

TAYLOR: He could get on a bicycle and be peddling with no hands. He taught me how to peddle a bike and ride it with no hands. And he would do the papers, and he would throw them, but if he didn’t like the person, he would throw it into the bushes. So he could throw it right there on their doormat, or he could throw it in the bushes depending on who it was.

HAY: Taylor, did you usher…I heard…you said you ushered […] Tell me about that.

TAYLOR: Yeah. That was…

MOORE: It’s a cush job.

TAYLOR: I’d say it was a cush job. It was like going to Hell for about five days. I lied about my age. I was fourteen, and I really wanted to earn some money, because Ben had set an example of a person who was productive, and that was paid for services. And I thought, “I’ve got to get a job.” So I went down and lied about my age and got a Social Security Card when I was fourteen. And I’m not going to tell you the number because you might use that for medical reasons. But, I got this Social Security number. Taylor Hay, Jr., 1944, when I was fourteen. And the first thing I did was I went to work at The Capitol Theatre. And I’ll never forget the manager’s office was about the size of my briefcase, which is about two paces out and about two paces back to this shelf here. And I sat there and he interviewed me for a minute and he said, “Ok”, and he said, “You start…” I forget what I was paid; it was so quick and so little I don’t remember. But I remember he handed me my uniform, and it was a uniform with some real tight pants and I could hardly get them on. I was fourteen. I was pretty slender. I could hardly get them on. And I got the shirt on, and the collar, and I got the coat on, and it was cutting off the blood flow in my armpits. I finally got it buttoned. I had my hair all slicked back with Lucky Tiger. Remember Luck Tiger hair stuff?

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: It was pure grease and smelled good. I had my hair Lucky Tiger’d back. And after I got it on, I started sweating, and I realized that I was activating three generations of sweat that had been in that uniform before me and had never been cleaned. And there was a movie on and I’ll never forget it because if a child at fourteen, who had everything going for him and nothing against him, could have a nervous breakdown and shoot themselves, it would have been me. Because they were singing, “Yes, sir. That’s my baby. No, sir. Don’t mean maybe.” And that was the theme song of this movie and it went on and on and on. And I saw it twenty-one times. And the twenty-first time, after all of my friends would harass me and put their feet on the seat and then wait for me to come with a flashlight, because I was quite efficient just like all us ushers were. I said, “Please get your feet off the seat.” And they’d give me all kinds of bad words and stuff. And then Brandt Berman would have his arm around his girlfriend and say, “Ah, Taylor! You monkey suit!” Anyway, after twenty-one things of “Yes, sir. My Baby,” I de-donned…is a way…when you don a uniform…I de-donned the uniform; took it off. And that’s the last time I ever ushered. But I’ll never forget that experience because it had…it was bittersweet. It was my first job. The first time I was ever paid for anything, formally. And it was the first time that I had ever been publicly harassed and embarrassed, and uncomfortable. It was in four or five days, twenty-one times, and they sang that song, and I could almost…if it weren’t for the pain…I could sing the whole thing to you right now.

HAY: Ben, what was your first job? Was it the paper route or did you have another job?

0: 5:00 -0: 6:00MOORE: I guess the paper route was the first one I had.

HAY: How old were you when you started it?

MOORE: Probably ten or eleven. I carried the State Journal. That was the morning paper then. It was twelve cents a week. It was a good paper, and we would pick up our papers in the morning. We would skate. I would leave my house, and then I’d go past Red Rose’s house, and I’d see there was no light in his window. And so I’d throw something at the window and wake him up, and he’d get his skates on. We’d skate over to town and pick up our papers, and go on our particular paper routes.

HAY: You’d do it on skates?

MOORE: Yeah.

TAYLOR: That’s why Ben is in such good shape today. He started early.

HAY: What were the skates like? Describe them. How were they made? What were they like?

MOORE: They were first-rate skates!

HAY: What were they like?

TAYLOR: We could hear them a mile off.

MOORE: Four wheels on each skate, and they were duel wheels. Two in front, and two in back. They were Union Hardware was the name of them.

HAY: And they were made of metal?

MOORE: They sure were. Steel!

HAY: How did you put them on? Did they have a shoe, or did you strap them on?

MOORE: No, they strapped on over your ankle. They had an ankle strap.

TAYLOR: And clamps…and you also had clamps on the toes. And you had this key that screwed them. Here’s your clamps, put your foot here, and then you had your clamps here. And then you had to take a skate key to tighten…

HAY: To your shoes…

TAYLOR: Yeah…”kkk…kkk…kkk” Everybody had a skate key. You loose your skate key, you had to take your shoes off, because you couldn’t get the skates off.

HAY: Would you keep your key in your pocket?

MOORE: Are you speaking to I?

HAY: Yes, I am. How did your skates work? I’m curious.

MOORE: They worked like a million dollars! Skates were one of the greatest inventions there ever was. And they’d go, “Skee…skaw…skee…skaw…” and make a noise. So you could tell when somebody was coming. And so, one of the things you could do with skates, if you wanted to make a push mobile…that’s say an orange crate and you’d put some…nail some skates…you’d take a skate and pull it half in two and you’d nail that to the bottom of the orange crate. And then you’d play like that was a car, and you’d roll down the hill.

HAY: It made lots of “kkk…kkk…kkk…”

MOORE: Yeah. You’ve heard of the derby up there in Akron, Ohio?

TAYLOR: They call it the Roller…the Soapbox Derby.

MOORE: Yeah, the Soapbox Derby. That was a big thing. Still is. They still hold it.

HAY: And they take…what is it?

MOORE: Well, they went from skates to balloon tires. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: Remember Spanky McFarland?

MOORE: Oh, yeah.

TAYLOR: What were the names of the boys?

MOORE: Our Gang.

TAYLOR: Our Gang. They used skates. They had skates on their boxes.

MOORE: Sure

TAYLOR: Remember they’d race with them.

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: And remember they had a side, like a fire truck where you’d have in the comedies the guy would be holding onto the ladder and he’d go way out. Well, Our Gang, Spanky McFarland, they had one that went down the hill. And they had one attached to it that would go way out too.

MOORE: I don’t know about that. But…

HAY: Wouldn’t you wake up the neighborhood on your skates at…? What time did you go out on your paper route? Weren’t you waking up the neighbors?

MOORE: About six. About six o’clock in the morning. No, we didn’t wake anybody up. People slept soundly in those days. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: And the concrete was fairly rough, and you had the joints. But your legs would get a great massage. It was almost like having a Niagara Chair. Because you’d get this great vibration all the way through your body as you would skate.

HAY: Did you have a pair of skates?

TAYLOR: We used to skate in Chicago. Mother had roller skates and we would go out into the parks and skate up and down the parks.

MOORE: Chicago was a safe city in those days.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: I remember the one time I visited. They lived at 65 West Jackson Street in Chicago. In a building. A big building.

TAYLOR: A big hotel.

MOORE: So Ruthie said…Taylor’s mother, Ruthie, said, “Ben, you can take Taylor and Marybell…” This is at nighttime in Chicago. I was about fourteen. And she said, “You take Taylor and Marybell and go to the Black Hawk Theatre and see a picture show.” Which we did. And we just walked over there. I didn’t know where I was going.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: I assumed that you all must have known.

TAYLOR: Yeah. Yeah.

MOORE: And then when the show…this was at nighttime…it was probably nine-thirty or ten o’clock.

TAYLOR: This was down in the loop. This was right in the loop.

HAY: How old were you, Ben?

MOORE: About fourteen. Taylor was probably ten.

TAYLOR: Nine or ten.

HAY: And Marybell?

TAYLOR: That was 1940. It was 1940. Yeah.

HAY: So you would visit Chicago to see your aunt and your cousins?

MOORE: I did that one time. And when we got within shootin’ distance of Chicago, Ruthie said, “Can you see that horizon light up?” And it was Gary, IN. The steel mills. And that was a great thrill for me. Just like when I go down to Tennessee. I went down to Tennessee about two years ago and I rode down the Sergeant York Trail. And that was a great thrill for me just to ride down the Sergeant York Trails. One twenty-seven, I think is the number.

TAYLOR: For those who may…in a hundred years from now…Sergeant York was a Medal of Honor winner in World War I for wiping out, and capturing, one hundred and forty-some odd Germans and doing stuff. And it was played by the great, Gary Cooper. It was a great movie. But, Ben was a hero too. Now, do you notice what he’s got on here? This is…can you see his shoes on this thing? You can’t see his shoes? Stick your shoe up in the air. Please.

MOORE: There it is.

TAYLOR: Alright. That’s a tennis shoe. He’s got tennis ties on. At this point…and tell me if my memory’s correct…in tennis over eighty, would it be AAU? Is it the AAU?

MOORE: No, the USTA.

TAYLOR: USTA, US Tennis Association.

MOORE: It’s sanctions.

TAYLOR: Sanctions. He’s number ninth in the United States in tennis right now. And he just started as an eighty.

MOORE: That’s in doubles. I’m number ten in singles.

TAYLOR: Number ten in singles. Number nine in doubles.

MOORE: Ten in singles. Number nine in doubles.

TAYLOR: How long before you’ll be number two or three?

MOORE: And I’m number one in the South. For eighty year old men. So, I can run like a deer. No, I can’t run like a deer, because I never could run like a deer. But, I haven’t lost anything. I can still run as fast as ever.

TAYLOR: And the other guys can’t.

MOORE: I remember when you were VMI. We were out on the football field and it was a Saturday afternoon. And it was like a general hubbub. Everybody was having fun out on the VMI football field. So we decided to have a race. And I couldn’t even carry your shoes you were so fast. And I could never run you down.

TAYLOR: I didn’t know we had a race.

MOORE: Yes, we did. You showed me how fast you could run. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: You probably gave me twenty yards head start.

MOORE: No

TAYLOR: Thanks interesting. I was fast. I was the fastest guy on the football team. Nobody recognized us, so consequently. [Chuckle] It’s interesting how things are DeJaVu-ee. Last night, I had to go to Louisville at seven o’clock at night to get an MRI on my right knee because it was starting to hurt me enough that it was not fun to walk. It’s got a lot of mileage on it. And the lady there was a little, small, nice, little, quiet lady, and I said, “Where did you grow up?” And she said, “Gary, Indiana.” [Chuckle] I said, “Oh, Gary! I remember that.” And just what you said. I said, “Every time we’d come through Gary, it would just be a halo of fires and stuff coming out of the smelters and stuff from the steel mills.” And she said, “It used to be a nice place to live.” And I said, “Yeah.”

MOORE: Turn it around.

TAYLOR: Yeah, but it’s interesting how everything’s coming around. But, I can’t remember that, Ben. That you were at VMI. What were you doing there?

MOORE: I lived in Lynchburg.

TAYLOR: Oh, my goodness gracious! Ben worked for Kraft Foods.

MOORE: I lived in Lynchburg. And I was very interested in you, so I came over to see how you were doing, and you introduced my to Luke, your roommate.

TAYLOR: Rufus?

MOORE: Oh, Rufus.

TAYLOR: Yeah, Rufus. Yeah, he ended up being a General in the war. The Cold Wars, not…

MOORE: And you all would…whatever you wanted to keep fresh, you’d just open the window and put it out on the windowsill. I’m sure it was against the rules.

TAYLOR: Yeah, here’s what happened though. We had…Benny had cheese that was too old to put in the stores. And so, any cheese that was too old to put in the stores he would save for me, and I’d get these great big boxes of it. Well, that was my contribution, through my lovely cousin, because Bud Spellings, who lived in Texas…Marshall, Texas…was a multi-zillionaire, and his grandmother would send him big boxes of fancy stuff like cans and stuff. Well, I’d get old cheese. Most of it was delicious, but Philadelphia Cream Cheese, too old, was…

MOORE: Forget it.

TAYLOR: It’s something that’s indescribable. It was so indescribable that we would take it out and put it on people’s doorknobs. We would take a piece of paper and squeeze it on their doorknobs. Or, one time I was able to angle and throw some Philadelphia Cream Cheese all the way through a guy’s window so it stuck on is wall. But it would stink up the whole place, and if it got on your hands, you would have to go to the infirmary thinking you were dying of leprosy or something. But, anyway, I’d forgotten that because Benny lived in Lynchburg. You played tennis then.

MOORE: Yes.

TAYLOR: And I remember sitting on your bed there, in your apartment, and I forget what we were doing there. But he supplied me, and made me at least half as important as Bud Spellings because I contributed food too.

HAY: Tell me about your mother…Ben, sorry, you…and life at Murray Street. Tell me about your mother.

MOORE: Growing up in Frankfort was the greatest place in the world to grow up. I figure that. We had a river. Everybody swam in the river. There was no other place to swim. And so, when my mother would get home from…she worked at the Capitol in the Attorney General’s Office…and she’d get home, and she’d go swimming in the river. [Chuckle] That was summer time and there was no air conditioning.

HAY: And it was at the end of your lawn, right? The river.

MOORE: It was at the end of Todd Street.

HAY: The end of Todd Street.

MOORE: That’s where the access was.

TAYLOR: There’s a platform there, and Jane was a good diver. She would dive very gracefully, go underwater, and then swim around the river.

HAY: Tell me your mother’s entire name.

MOORE: Jane Lenier Williams she was born. Jane Lenier Williams. And she was married to my father, Rogers Thomas Moore, and that’s who Rogers is named for.

TAYLOR: Ok

MOORE: And then she said…she had three children. Rogers, my brother, who would beat me up on schedule. And Janie, my older sister, who would beat me up on schedule, and sometimes off schedule. And so we three lived there. It was a marvelous place. Always something going on because we lived with my grandmother. My grandfather died in 1930, and he died of pneumonia upstairs at 503 Murray Street. And in 1933, that house burned. It was a two-story house until then. So, it burned the top half off. So, Grandmother got them to put a roof over the first floor, and so, that’s the construction that’s there today at 503 Murray.

TAYLOR: The Chairman of the Board of The Grand Theatre, to regenerate The Grand Theatre, Bill Call, lives there now. Again, a full circle. DeJaVu.

HAY: Tell me your grandfather’s name and your grandmother’s name.

MOORE: His name was Benjamin Garner Williams. He was originally from Morgantown. He was twelve years old when Grandma…and they had nine kids. Eight of which lived. One, her dress caught on fire and she died at age five. My grandmother never got over that. She would always tell me. They called her Patty. She inhaled the flames, and that’s what was the end of her. And she’d say, “Just another sup.” And Grandmother would give her another spoonful of water. So, they had nine children. And you know that picture that hung on the wall that had Grandmother and Granddaddy up there?

TAYLOR: Yep

MOORE: And when my mother died…

TAYLOR: Do you have a copy of that?

MOORE: When my mother died, that picture was supposed to go to me. So Ruthie and I had an argument…

TAYLOR: Who won?

MOORE: …in the front room of 503 Murray. And I knew that it belonged to me because mother said that everything in this house belonged to me. We’ve sat down together, Ruthie and I have, and she’s taken everything out of this house that belongs to her, so whatever’s here belongs to you three children. And so Ruthie said, “No, it mine!” She asserted that. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: What did you do?

MOORE: Ruthie had a strong will. And so I thought to myself, am I going to argue with Ruthie? One of the persons that I love more than anybody? She was so sweet to me, and so kind and good. And Taylor’s mother. I mean Taylor’s…yeah, your mother. And so I said, “Ruthie, you take the picture.” So she took the picture.

TAYLOR: Who’s got it now?

MOORE: I said, “Just give it to me when you’re through. I mean, I’ll take it when you die.” And so she hung it on the steps at Scotland.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: And so instead of giving it to me, Marybell took it up to Chicago, from wince all things good emanate.

TAYLOR: Yes, right.

MOORE: And had it done over by some photographer up there. And so I never did get the full picture again.

TAYLOR: Who’s got the original?

MOORE: I have if it’s…you know, it was torn up.

TAYLOR: You’re kidding!

MOORE: In a way. You know it was…it was not handed to me the way it was.

TAYLOR: Really?

MOORE: And so…

TAYLOR: What was missing?

MOORE: It was taken apart because he wanted to refurbish the individual pictures, you know, things like that.

TAYLOR: That’s not very smart.

MOORE: Well, I forgive anything that happened for Ruthie because she gave me so much. She used to come get me and take me out to Scotland Farm where we would have more fun out there with Bill McClain and Jakey…

TAYLOR: Yeah, that old convertible she had…

MOORE: …and C.W. That was the most…that was a real fun place.

TAYLOR: That’s interesting. Now, I want to ask you a question, which I remember…Was I ever at 503 Murray before the top burned down?

MOORE: Well, that was in ’33, so you were about…

TAYLOR: I was two or three. One or two or three.

MOORE: I don’t think so.

TAYLOR: The reason I asked…

MOORE: The first time I ever saw the California group, you all were living in San Diego, and Taylor came back with a green Chevrolet.

TAYLOR: It had wheels on both sides.

MOORE: Yeah [Chuckle] You mean spare tires?

TAYLOR: On both sides, yeah.

MOORE: Boy, that had to be sporty.

TAYLOR: And it had the trunk. It had the trunk.

MOORE: So that was the first time I ever saw them. And you were known as “Tay-Baby.”

TAYLOR: Yep

MOORE: It was a good name. It lives!

TAYLOR: The only reason I asked is I remember…because I remember when I was older…when I was in rubber pants, and someone made fun of me in California…so you have snatches of when you were little. I remember dumping marbles over the balcony into a foyer…a second fl…way down, and they were bouncing on the floor and you were looking up…it looked like you were looking up and going, “What?!” You were sort of disconcerted as if I had been up there playing with your marbles and had dumped them over the…through the railing…and they were bouncing on the floor. It was a wood floor. That’s just what I remember.

MOORE: I thought you said that was in a hotel.

TAYLOR: No. This wasn’t in the hotel. This was…I remembered at…in Frankfort, but that was probably wrong. It was probably imagination.

0: 7:00 -0: 8:00MOORE: Could be. Tell me about how you dipped Marybell.

TAYLOR: How I what what?

MOORE: How you dipped her.

TAYLOR: Dipped her?

MOORE: [Chuckle] To cure her of her…when she was in San Diego.

TAYLOR: Dipped her?

MOORE: In the tar.

TAYLOR: Oh! We used to chew tar because they’d have these big tar things. They had these big uh…

MOORE: Fifty-five gallon drums

TAYLOR: They were drums and they would have a fire under them…gas or gasoline fire…and they would melt it and then they would take out and they would patch the streets. Well, Marybell was very good. She loved to chew on things. She’d get mad at me if she were sitting here right now, but…In the old days, everybody would chew their gum and throw it on the sidewalk so there would be black spots all over the sidewalk from chewing gum because that was a big deal. But, Marybell found that you could pick it off with your fingernails and you could reconstitute it, you know, and chew it. Make new chewing gum out of it, but the tar…because she loved to chew things, and I did too, and the tar came in blocks. And they would take the blocks of tar and throw it in there and melt it. And so I remember us breaking off little pieces when nobody was looking and chewing them. And I think one time I dipped Marybell’s hair in the tar bath, and they had to cut her hair a little.

MOORE: I think that’s a fitting punishment for a sister. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: But anyway, those were the days. I remember going up to the filling station and I remember the colors. There were these…when I was a little kid. I forget what year it was. Maybe you can tell me. And there were green and white, little tins this long with a little bent thing. And you could take them and put them on here. And this one said Roosevelt. And the other one said…and it was brown and sort of yellow letters that said Landon. Alf Landon, but it was just Landon. And I took a whole bunch of Landon buttons home because I liked that color, and Mother and Daddy said, “Take those back. We want Roosevelt’s.” So I remember going back to the filling station, put in a handful and reach in…what year would that have been? What is Roosevelt?

MOORE: ‘36

TAYLOR: ’36? So I was six years old.

HAY: In Chicago?

TAYLOR: No, this was right before we left California. And I’d go up to the filling station…so we had a lot of fun. Benny was very nice to me, but I do remember he was the first person to introduce me to the frog. That’s where you take your knuckle and you hit…and he used to hit me on the arm and frog me. And I forget what I did wrong, but he would frog me. But I remember one time getting him and he never got me back, and I hope he doesn’t remember this. We were throwing pears. There was a big pear tree in the back yard at 503 Murray, and…

HAY: Hold on. You just knocked your microphone off. [Technical interruption]

TAYLOR: Alright. Is it on? Is the camera on?

HAY: Hands down. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: So Benny and I were having a pear fight. You’d have to understand how the house was built at 503 Murray. There was a walkout basement. Now, Benny could play the drums. Boy, was he a drummer. He was a drummer when he was younger, and now he’s a singer, but he used to have a little pad…a little rubber pad and he’d go, “rump…pump…pump…pump…”

MOORE: Practice pad.

TAYLOR: Practice pad. He’d hit those drums all the time. He was real good drummer. He was in the drum band. But anyway, so Ben was growing up around the house and I was trying to grow up around the house. I forget how old I was at the time. But, this particular time, Benny and I got into a pear fight. Well, he was outside sort of underneath a pear tree, and I was on the steps on this long porch that was on the back. It was a floor off the ground. Underneath was a walkout. So it was a two-story in the back. Sort of a nice, sun porch. And I remember taking a pear…it was a big hard one…and I threw it…whistled it…and rarely do I ever hit the mark when I whistle something. Caught him right between the eyes. The pear hit him so hard, it broke to pieces. Well, he was a lot faster than I was, contrary to what he said. In those days, he had longer legs and he was tough. And so I remember immediately running to the bathroom. Now, there were two bathrooms in the house. One at the front of the house was my grandmother’s bathroom. It was a small one. And there’s this nice size one that had a window that opened up to the porch in the back. Well, Benny came up the porch after me, and I ran through the kitchen, turned around, ran in the bathroom, locked that door, and then ran and locked the window before Benny could get through the window off the porch. And I remember for hours I’d see his shadow. It’s like in a horror movie…going back and forth. Stalking the windows. Stalking the door. Waiting to beat me up. And I think finally…I stayed in there so long…that he forgot I even existed. But anyway, that was the only time that I really got Ben good that he didn’t get me back. But, I remember the frog now. You’re the one that introduced me to the cramped arm. I don’t think I’ve ever been the same.

MOORE: I used that in Latin class. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: I have permanent bursitis because of Ben’s thing. Anyway, so much for that.

HAY: Back to 503 Murray and let’s see…how many sisters were there and brothers.

MOORE: One sister and one brother. And also, when…Aunt Rose had a daughter named Lylie. And Lylie lived there too. She did not live past fifteen.

HAY: What happened to her?

MOORE: She did away with herself. She shot herself. Why, I’ll never know.

HAY: Were you about…what age was she compared to you?

MOORE: Oh, she was probably ten or eleven years older than I was. She was in Frankfort High.

TAYLOR: What was she like? Tell me.

MOORE: She was very personable, and I was talking to somebody the other day because I never was able to form an opinion about Lylie other than you love all your cousins.

TAYLOR: Sure

MOORE: Cousins are your greatest friends when you get your families together. And I saw somebody the other day and she was somebody who knew Lylie at Frankfort High. She was saying that Lylie always had a good time, and it was inexplicable to her…to this lady that I was talking to…that Lylie would do away with herself. But she did.

TAYLOR: Now, what did she look like? Can you remember what she was like?

MOORE: Of course she was gorgeous, just like all girls. All they have to do is keep their face clean.

TAYLOR: Comb their hair.

HAY: Who was her mother?

MOORE: Rose

HAY: Tell me about all of your mother’s generation. Sisters…

MOORE: Well, there was Priscilla, Virginia, Rose, Ben, Jane, John, Patty, Ann and Ruth.

TAYLOR: Alright. I don’t want to distract this, but I have to finish something about Lylie. I have an essay she wrote…

MOORE: You do?

TAYLOR:…just a few weeks before she died. I also have a typed copy of the letter she wrote just a few weeks before she killed herself. And I know why she killed herself.

MOORE: I don’t.

TAYLOR: You know how I know?

MOORE: No

TAYLOR: It’s just a guess because nobody can argue, and she can’t tell me.

MOORE: By those letters?

TAYLOR: Well, the first thing is the…

MOORE: Because you weren’t around. You weren’t even born.

TAYLOR: I know. I wasn’t born. And the essay…when you read the essay, and then read the letter, you can say she was…you might say uhhh…crushed by her mom.

MOORE: Oh, I understand now.

TAYLOR: And you remember Rose. She’d tower over you, “Don’t you do…!” [Laughter] Anyway, I’ll get you a copy of that letter if you’d like to have it. And the essay.

MOORE: I would like that.

TAYLOR: Alright. So that you can decide for yourself. But, after I read the letter and the essay, and first of all…the essay is genius. It is one of the best essays I’ve ever read. When I found out how old she was, I said she was on the…what’s the word…she was close to being bi-polar in her genius as far as writing and poetry and all that kind of stuff. Because people who are poets and top writers have a suicide rate of double or triple that of people who are not. That’s just the way it is. According to statistics. And when you consider how many of our cousins have killed themselves…

MOORE: Three out of that generation.

TAYLOR: Out of that generation, plus a cousin or a nephew? Would David be your nephew or would he be a cousin?

MOORE: He was my nephew. Yeah.

TAYLOR: Nephew. So suicide runs in the family.

MOORE: But, he was not of that generation.

TAYLOR: Yeah. Right.

MOORE: He was the next generation.

TAYLOR: Right. But the genes kept coming down and it’s a proclivity to want to go “Bang! Bang!” because it’s a…I don’t know the answer to that. But anyway, I have those two things and I’ll make copies and send them to you.

MOORE: I’d like to see them.

TAYLOR: Ok, and then you can have them and you can pass them on to anybody that’s interested. Because…

MOORE: Well, she’s buried up there at the cemetery, and hardly anybody else even knows of her previous existence on the world.

HAY: She left so soon.

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: This is an essay that every parent should have before they have children.

HAY: Where is she buried in the Frankfort Cemetery? With…?

MOORE: In the Williams lot.

HAY: In the Williams lot.

MOORE: Priscilla’s buried there. Her husband, Douglas Brushear, is buried there. And their son, Douglas Brushear, is buried there. And he has wings. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force before the United States got into the war. And then when the United States entered the war, they shipped him over to the Marine Air Force of the United States because they thought that would be fitting.

TAYLOR: Oh! I have a letter that he wrote too about what he thought of those people.

MOORE: The Canadians?

TAYLOR: No, the English. He liked the Canadians, but there were English in that RCAF.

MOORE: This was the Royal Canadian Air Force that had English people teaching them?

TAYLOR: No, they had some English pilots in there. But, I’ll copy all the letters.

MOORE: [Chuckle] Don’t! I can’t read.

TAYLOR: No, you’ll like these because there’s only two or three of them.

MOORE: My wife’s a librarian. I can’t read.

TAYLOR: No, there are two or three of them. One’s his, that he wrote. And then I’ve got one that Podge wrote. So, I’ll send you copies. You know how I found them?

MOORE: No

TAYLOR: I went through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters that were stacked in the stone house at Scotland Farm by John and Cindy…and there were just stacks of them that had been taken…that Mother had taken and…you know how you divided up all the letters and all the records? And I went through every one and just read.

MOORE: At Murray Street?

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: I was not aware that they had done it, because Mother didn’t say anything to me about it. It’s interesting to know about it.

TAYLOR: Ben, there’s stacks of them, but I went through and through. There was one in there of Grandmother Williams castigating on no uncertain terms, boy…I met your grandmother when she didn’t have rough edges. When Johnny was going to marry Mun…

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: Whow! You saw what Rose…you saw triple barrel…you saw a double barrel with a magnum under it when she wrote Johnny Williams about…

MOORE: A letter about Mun?

TAYLOR: …about Mun before he married her. And, I read some sharp letters and I thought, “She wasn’t like that to me.” Well, she was about eighty when I met her. [Chuckle] So she’d softened up in her seventies.

MOORE: Listen! Grandmother had a lot of guts and she had a humor. She had a sense of humor that wouldn’t quit.

TAYLOR: You know what Jane said to me? Your mom? She said, “She did not!” See they spoiled me when I went to Frankfort High School. You were already gone.

MOORE: My mother didn’t think Grandmother had a sense of humor?

TAYLOR: No, she didn’t believe that she did what I’m about to tell you.

MOORE: Oh

TAYLOR: Jane just fussed at me about this. But Jane and Grandmother would spoil me. Here’s what I got for lunch when I would come home from Frankfort High because we didn’t have a cafeteria. I’d have a little chocolate cake. They’d make me a…they’d have a…you know, they bought these little chocolate cakes. I’d eat chocolate cake. I had cottage ch…everything I liked…soup. Cottage cheese. And they’d sit there and talk to me. But here Grandmother Williams didn’t like me to stare. And I’d be staring thinking about, “Oh, I’m going to flunk my Latin in school” or “What am I going to do in football?” And she’d say, “Taylor…” And she’d be across the table in the kitchen. And Jane, at this time, was sitting over here, I was sitting here, and Granny…Grandmother was sitting there. Us three. I was fifteen. Fourteen. And she said, “Taylor, don’t stare.” “Taylor, (tap…tap…tap) don’t stare.”

MOORE: “Podge, get your elbows off the table!”

TAYLOR: [Laughter] “Don’t stare.” So all of a sudden…I’m sitting there…and all of a sudden “Bang!” I’m hit in the face with cold water. And I went like this. And here was Grandmother Williams like…watch her…she was dabbing her lips. She had taken a sip of water and spit it all the way across the table and hit me in the face with it. Jane…I told that story and she said, “She never did that!”

MOORE: I agree with Mother. You didn’t see it.

TAYLOR: I was the recipient.

MOORE: You didn’t see it. You were too busy staring.

TAYLOR: I was staring. I got hit. I looked up, and she was dabbing the water off her lips and her mouth and just laughing. She was laughing. Uh huh

MOORE: She was dedicated to good manners.

TAYLOR: I know.

MOORE: And we pulled our chair out for Mother and Grandmother for every meal.

TAYLOR: Now here’s one. The only thing I ever did to torture Grandmother with…

HAY: We have to change the tape.

MOORE: Well, that’s enough isn’t it?

TAYLOR: Alright, let me just finished this one.

HAY: And I have another question for you.

TAYLOR: The only thing I ever did to torture Grandmother Williams was she had an acoustican and it would whistle sometimes.

MOORE: [Chuckle] Heartless, you. Heartless Hay.

TAYLOR: So she’d sit there and I would put my hand over my mouth and go “whisssssss”, and she would start beating it and every time she’d hit it I would go “whis…whis…whis” until finally I’d start laughing and start going “whis…whis…whis…” Then she’d get real mad at me because I would do it. She’d laugh.

HAY: I just…I want Ben…

END OF TAPE 1

1: 9:00 -0: