Interview with Clifford Parsons

William H. Berge Oral History Center

Coal Company Towns Project

Interview with Clifford Parsons

October 16, 1981(1981 oh 129)

Conducted by William Berge

Transcribed by Laurie Wilcox

[The sound level and muffledness of the voices makes this a difficult interview to hear. -- LW]

WILLIAM BERGE: Cliff I want to than you for coming in here today, taking some time off from visiting your friends and son and everything and give me this interview. Let's start off by you telling me your full name and where you were born and when you were born.

CLIFFORD PARSONS: Well my name is Clifford Ronald Parsons and I uh was born 1936 in a place called Kenvir, Kentucky.

BERGE: K-E-N-V-I-R

PARSON: K-E-N-V-I-R, it's in Harlan County.

BERGE: Was Kenvir, was there a hospital there or were you born at home?

PARSON: There was a hospital but I was born at home. As a matter of fact I happened to just run across a receipt the uh doctor wrote out to my parents. When I visited for Christmas that wrote out for them the day I was born.

BERGE: What did they charge them?

PARSON: $25 I think.

BERGE: Is that right. I wonder if you're worth it really [laughter]

PARSON: [laughing] I don't know I'm about afraid to ask them.

BERGE: Who was the doctor do you remember?

PARSON: No I don't.

BERGE: What was your folks doing in Kenvir?

PARSON: Well my father was, uh came there to work for the mines. Of course he spent all his life working in the mines, about 25 years there. But he was brought in from Virginia, recruited in to play baseball.

BERGE: At Kenvir?

PARSON: At Kenvir for the, ah, uh, the name of the company slipped my mind. . . I'll think of it in just a second.

BERGE: Okay, tell me when you think of it. Now what was your father's name?

PARSON: Rox, Roscoe.

BERGE: And what was your mother's name?

PARSON: Verda

BERGE: What was her maiden name?

PARSON: Opal Kelly.

BERGE: Where was she from?

PARSON: Both were from Virginia.

BERGE: She was from Virginia too. That's southwestern Virginia.

PARSON: Southwestern, between Pennington and Big Stone Gap.

BERGE: And then they came to uh Kentucky they went to Kenvir first.

PARSON: Yes.

BERGE: Do you remember what year that was or approximately?

PARSON: I think Dad came in there about '32, or '33. Mother came a year later I think.

BERGE: Where exactly is Kenvir?

PARSON: Kenvir is ah, about twelve miles east of Harlan.

BERGE: Okay near Cox, Toward Cumberland?

PARSON: No it's up another, up another branch. Cumberland goes off one direction from Harlan and Kenvir and Everts goes up another.

BERGE: Was Kenvir a company town?

PARSON: Yes, it really wasn't a town. Kenvir was a post office. They had a company commissary there; we had a theater, a drug store, a café.

BERGE: Did the company own all them?

PARSON: Uh yes, it was all company owned.

BERGE: Was your house a company house?

PARSON: Yes.

BERGE: And how many brothers and sisters do you have?

PARSON: I have two sisters and one brother all together.

BERGE: All younger than you are. Were they born in Kenvir?

PARSON: Yes.

BERGE: Okay, now what kind of work did your dad do at Kenvir?

PARSON: He uh he, I'm not sure what he did at first. Uh I think he sorted coal 3:00or did something and then ah he moved up as a coal weigher, what they call a--

BERGE: Weigh master?

PARSON: Weigh masters what they call the head house where they dropped it off, weighed it just before they dropping it down through the conveyor down into the tipple. And then after working that a year or two he become the head house foreman. He worked at that for 15 or 20 years, 20 years I guess.

BERGE: So you remember that pretty vividly then?

PARSON: Yes, yes.

BERGE: Now ah you were raised in Kenvir, lived there all your life?

PARSON: Until I was, uh well until I came on to college at 17. And my family remained there until around 60, and I visited back and forth.

BERGE: You happen to remember how much rent your dad paid when you were kids?

PARSON: I don't remember off hand, but I think maybe twelve or fourteen dollars a month. I'm sure it wasn't more than that.

BERGE: How would you compare the condition of Kenvir as a company camp to some 4:00of the other company towns you've been in or seen?

PARSON: Well as I remember it back at that time, the company provided most of the services. Uh the water, I think was free, the electric was very nominal and they of course collected all the garbage and trash and everything. And they did that quite meticulously. Uh they would come around and paint the houses once every two or three years. They made an effort to keep them up.

BERGE: Were the houses pretty good?

PARSON: They were adequate, ah; of course the house I lived in till age 16 did not have indoor plumbing. We had a pipe, we had cold water in the house but uh no bath facilities in the house.

BERGE: That was fairly common though even with people that didn't live in company towns. I guess

PARSON: Oh yes. The was the uh, that was the rule rather than the exception. Uh 5:00the only people that I that, that really had the indoor plumbing were the higher officials. Uh we did, when I was 16, my Dad was able to purchase, that was, in the early 50s they began to sell some of these houses off and my dad was able to buy one of them and it did have indoor plumbing.

BERGE: Do you remember what he paid for the house?

PARSON: I three, somewhere between three and four thousand dollars.

BERGE: And that included a piece of property as well.

PARSON: Yea it was just a small lot, there really wasn't but there was a garden space over on the side of the hill there across the road from it. Uh I don't know maybe 100 by 200, something like that.

BERGE: Did you all garden?

PARSON: We did some gardening.

BERGE: Did you ever keep any animals like chickens or anything?

PARSON: Yeah, well we had a cow. When we lived down in the house that I was born 6:00in and live there for 16 years, we had a milk cow. And uh we had a little uh barn like facility there in the yard that we kept it in to milk and to breed. And of course if that ran--

BERGE: Catch him every day. . .

PARSON: .every morning, every morning and the evening I'd have to go looking for it.

BERGE: When you were a child and went to school, where did you go to school?

PARSON: I went to Black Mountain uh elementary grade school there. It was grades one through eight.

BERGE: Was that a county school?

PARSON: Yes, a Harlan County School.

BERGE: Did you walk to it or ride a bus?

PARSON: Yes, walked.

BERGE: How far was that?

PARSON: Ah, half to three quarters of a mile. It wasn't uh enough, we weren't far enough away that they would let us ride the bus. It brought students on down to high school. That I attended I got into high school.

BERGE: Did you go all eight years to Black Mountain?

PARSON: All eight years, walked I guess every day of those eight years back and forth.

BERGE: Did you remember your teachers?

PARSON: I remember several of them. I remember a Mrs. Wilson that I had about 7:00the uh second grade. Mrs. Hannaman I had in third grade, fourth grade a Mrs. Parsons, in fifth grade my mother.

BERGE: Oh was she your teacher?

PARSON: Yes.

BERGE: How long did she--go one and tell me the rest of your teachers.

PARSON: Ah, well I remember a Mr. McNabb in seventh grade, Mr. King eighth grade. Ah, Mr. Lee in the sixth grade. A couple of others.

BERGE: You had quite a few teachers then didn't you?

PARSON: Yeah well, see the sixth grade was the first time we had a man teacher and--

BERGE: [unclear]

PARSON: and from sixth, seventh and eighth grade were males.

BERGE: Did ah, did they have much of, at the school now how many grades were to room?

PARSON: How many?

BERGE: Did you have one grade to a room?

PARSON: Yes, yes. This. . .

BERGE: There were eight rooms there?

PARSON: Yeah. Ah we had. . .

BERGE: That was a pretty big school in for there wasn't it?

PARSON: Yeah it was, it was a pretty big school. And it was a WPA project; it was made out of the rocks and. . . .

BERGE: rock and stones, I bet it was pretty. Is it still there?

PARSON: It's still there, oh yes. Now they had an elementary building made out of wood that was much much older in the back of it. Now I haven't been up there in many years so I don't know if it's still there. I always thought it was a fire trap even when I was a student there. But I know they kept students in it for years after I left there. But I don't know if it is still there or not. But, ah, it was pretty large school.

BERGE: What did they have in the way of extracurricular activities?

PARSON: At, in the elementary?

BERGE: Uh huh.

PARSON: Recess was about it.

BERGE: Did you play basketball?

PARSON: No they didn't have that when I, they started teams uh later when I was in high school they started some teams up there. No we, we just uh . . .

BERGE: You didn't have gym class and stuff?

PARSON: No, we just devised our own play and everything. They'd turn us out for 9:00I think a 15 minute recess and I think we got a 45 minute lunch. Seemed like a long lunch.

BERGE: How about lunch, how did you have it? Did you carry it or?

PARSON: Ah, no we had a cafeteria. A cafeteria that we ate in and as I remember the food was . . .

BERGE: Do you remember what it cost?

PARSON: . . . quite adequate.

BERGE: You remember what you paid for a meal?

PARSON: Twenty cents.

BERGE: I can remember fifteen cents [unclear] twenty cents.

PARSON: I remember twenty cents. It seemed like it was very nominal. I'm not sure my mother being there, I can't really recall in those early years of actually paying for the lunch myself. I think my mother brought enough to pay for [unclear] the last several years. . .

BERGE: That's the reason you couldn't remember then.

PARSON: Yeah, fifth sixth and seventh grade it was 20, 25 cents or something.

BERGE: Tell me this, Cliff, uh how did your mother become a teacher?

PARSON: Well she, ah,

BERGE: was she trained at college at all?

PARSON: Yes she uh went to college .In uh I think in Ratford in Virginia, for a 10:00year or year and a half or so. Then so when she came back to Virginia and taught there in a one room school for a year or two. . .

BERGE: Um hm, before she married.

PARSON: Yeah prior to marriage. And uh then she came on to Kentucky and started teaching there I think after I got into the second grade, I think she wouldn't teach.

BERGE: after the children, or your younger brothers and sisters

PARSON: Well after I got into school. The others, they were younger than me they were still at home.

BERGE: Yeah but they were born.

PARSON: Yes.

BERGE: In other words after she had her children.

PARSON: Yeah after the children came along.

BERGE: Did she teach long enough to retire?

PARSON: Oh yeah. She continued to work on a degree. She continued to pick up hours and she's got hours from half the colleges around Northern Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and eastern. Then she put it all together and went back. As a matter of fact she got her degree the summer they went to Florida, in 1960.

BERGE: Is that right.

PARSON: And she went down and got a job and she just retied last year from Florida.

BERGE: Huh, that's good. The--what do you remember about your school? Do you 11:00think you had a good education in that elementary school?

PARSON: Yeah I uh do. I can remember uh times back in the early grades, third or fourth, uh I don't think that I was all that serious of a student. I remember I'd think of ways of getting out of having to do things. Like everybody else I think I spent more time avoiding [unclear] try to do it. But uh the people were very sincere I think and as far as I know they were all educated people and uh I felt like I had a pretty good education.

BERGE: What year did you go to high school?

PARSON: I entered in 49, Evarts high school in 49 and graduated in 53.

BERGE: You went to Evarts?

PARSON: Evarts' High School.

BERGE: Alright. Uh how far was Evarts from Kenvir.

PARSON: Evarts was three miles and we rode the bus. That was my first bus ride experience.

BERGE: What did you think when you went down there, was it a big deal?

PARSON: Oh yeah, it was a big deal and a uh little scary I guess. Because um we were coming in contact with people from a lot of other --

BERGE: Other camps

PARSON: directions. Other camps, other communities and, of course we all had a great deal in common. Most of our parents lived and worked around the mines, in mines.

BERGE: But your horizon did broaden in the since you met people from other places?

PARSON: Oh yes.

BERGE: You knew that Kenvir wasn't the only place in the United States then.

PARSON: Yeah well we knew that before, before going uh down there but being with these people every day and everything it uh broadened the experience is probably the best.

BERGE: Do you remember any of the teachers very well from Evarts?

PARSON: Yeah I remember a few, a number of them.

BERGE: Tell me some of them.

PARSON: Some of them are passed away. Mr. Finnington I remember quite vividly, he was a history teacher. Um Mrs-- I started to say her name, the algebra teacher. I started to say it and it just flitted away. Uh Mr. Howard math teacher I remember. Mr. Smith ah, some other names I want to say but these are some people I worked with when I came back there to teach.

BERGE: When you were at Evarts did you uh get involved in extracurricular activities or anything?

PARSON: Yeah I played football and baseball.

BERGE: That was a big thing then wasn't it?

PARSON: Oh yeah.

BERGE: In those schools that was really important in those days?

PARSON: Yeah. We uh, but you know football baseball, basketball, but the big 14:00thing was football primarily and uh we didn't have too much uh, few clubs that went on during the day as part of the curriculum, I don't know of anything went on at night that with getting kids to come back at night except for a football game on Saturday night I'm not sure.

BERGE: Like when you go to football practice how did you get back from school?

PARSON: Hitchhiked.

BERGE: there were no bus for people like you?

PARSON: No there was, there was a bus that ran.

BERGE: Public bus?

PARSON: Public bus, but of course by the time I was a senior or junior in high school that bus wasn't running as often as it had in earlier years. But uh we always seemed to make better time hitchhiking.

BERGE: Plus everybody knew you and [unclear]

PARSON: There was never any problem with that, of course we never, not the fear that, that one would have hitchhiking on public roads today.

BERGE: Or picking somebody up that was hitchhiking [laughing]. That's the big thing

PARSON: Yeah back then you wouldn't hesitate about doing it because generally it 15:00was someone that you knew or lived around that area there was never any concern about it.

BERGE: Do you uh remember uh that, uh were the kids like yourselfer who were on these teams, were they sort of like local celebrities, there was it important to the community. I guess that's what I'm asking?

PARSON: Yeah, yeah it was, um well I, in a, in a sort of [unclear] way. You 16:00know, certainly local now outside the community uh I don't know that we had anybody that was really well known like a Jim Bowie or something like that you read about in the paper with your high school in sports, but certainly in the community uh we were looked up to I think. Regarded you know favorably by other students and other people in the community and the teachers.

BERGE: Did the people in the community like parents attend those games, was it important to them?

PARSON: Yes, yes I'm sure that's still true. Although I haven't been back to, I went back to a game there two or three years ago uh not at Evert but at Harlan, it was [unclear] at Harlan, I'm sure that's true. That was usually a big social event as a matter of fact on Saturday nights. Something for people to look forward to is seeing the local team play on Saturday night.

BERGE: Who was your big rival?

PARSON: Harlan.

BERGE: Harlan city?

PARSON: Yeah, yeah I'm sure it still is. It's always been a rivalry; we'd have to go through Harlan to go anywhere you had to go through Harlan. And uh it was always a big rivalry. It was a friendly rivalry. [unclear] go to Black Star uh there was a rivalry uh but it was a different kind of thing, [unclear].

BERGE: It wasn't as friendly.

PARSON: It could be vicious sometimes, it wasn't a friendly rivalry. Uh of 17:00course Lynch was always a, a rival too that was true with all of the teams that played in the CVC conference, but not like it was with Harlan, just a different kind of...

BERGE: CVC, Cumberland Valley?

PARSON: Cumberland Valley, yeah.

BERGE: Let's go back in time now, back to when we were kids. Uh, let's say preschool or elementary age. Did you get into Harlan much?

PARSON: About once a week. Uh, this was a big uh weekend affair. Of course, 18:00Evart's at that time did not have large grocery store. Since then they have [unclear]. Harlan had a Kroger store and A&P, A&P down there was a big store at that time, and I remember going I, our parents going down on Saturday evening after Daddy came home from work, make an afternoon or evening out of it, and mom would buy groceries and dad would go down uh and meet some friends, maybe shoot a game of pool or something. That was a pastime for fellows. Us kids weren't allowed in there.

BERGE: You would walk around the square there in Harlan.

PARSON: Well we'd go to the movie. The New Harlan or the Margery Grand. And uh sometimes set through two movies, uh you know while our parents shopped and it was a leisurely kind of a thing, but uh that was about a once a week affair.

BERGE: Did you uh go to the company store or the commissary very often?

PARSON: Yeah uh we had, there was one with Black Mountain that's where the miners with dad worked then they had a larger store at what they called 30 which was Kenvir. That's where the post office itself was, that was a little bit larger and wider variety of--

BERGE: Clothes

PARSON: general kind of thing. Shorts, uh shoes--

BERGE: Did your folk shop there much?

PARSON: Uh, not a whole lot, just, just day to day necessities. I remember, I 19:00remember as a matter of fact the first time mom sent me to the commissary to get something. She needed some salt and bread I think and I thought that was the biggest deal ever. I was about 4 years old.

BERGE: Did you charge it?

PARSON: No we didn't, uh we didn't do that.

BERGE: Didn't get into the hole, huh?

PARSON: No I think other people did.

BERGE: You had an advantage of having another income.

PARSON: That, that too, that partly and, and my dad was a foreman whose income a might have been little bit better than the others. But I had two parents who were uh very conservative, who were saving conscious, who were --

BERGE: Frugal people.

PARSON: Frugal and had four children. They were all looking ahead to the family or each of us had an opportunity to common on to school try to make that [unclear]

BERGE: Yeah. Of course your mother having been a college person, made them. Probably made them more cautious of that then a lot of people, do you think?

PARSON: I think so. Right, now there were others I guess did get into hawk with 20:00them uh in a manner of speaking, you know. They, they had a system there , Were you could check your money out a little at a time, you know a little part. Because I can remember sometimes when uh mom would need some bread and milk or something in the middle of the week, may be uh. Now they didn't keep a lot of money on hand, cash around the house. And uh take the card and check out two or three or five dollars I think was the most I ever checked out

BERGE: Did they give you script?

PARSON: No they'd give it in cash. Now [unclear]

BERGE: Did they ever deal in script there?

PARSON: They did, ah; I can't remember uh specifically when they did it. I know they did and I remember seeing some of it when I was a kid. I remember him talking about it, but--

BERGE: You were just a little late for that weren't you?

PARSON: Yeah it was just a little bit before. I came along just a little after 21:00the widespread use of that, and uh I remember Dad, Dad and I are closer now then I guess we've ever been except back when . . .

BERGE: I think that happens.

PARSON: Yeah [laughing]. And he gets a big kick out of telling me all the time that he uh caught me doing things and blistered me with a switch. And I laugh at that and tell him about all the times he didn't catch me, that I got away with it. But um he's telling me about uh when they didn't have the script and things that some of the guys uh that weren't quite as frugal and weren't as good money managers would borrow from him but uh, uh it was their choice or their, their proposition to pay him back a percentage more than what they was buying at and he said that he didn't take advantage of the system, but you know at the same time he can remember doing that because he uh can remember he was just more of a money manager than [unclear]

BERGE: Of course because he was a good money manager you didn't have as much money as some of the . . .

PARSON: Well right that's true, Right some of the other kids had things that I 22:00didn't have . . .

BERGE: You can remember kids charging stuff from the commissary they shouldn't?

PARSON: Yeah.

BERGE: That was pretty common wasn't it?

PARSON: Yeah it was common with other kids. I knew better uh than to do it. I knew that I'd get clobbered real good.

BERGE: You knew kids that did it tough?

PARSON: Yeah, oh yeah.

BERGE: Yeah I have heard some stories. Someone last week was telling me that she had one girl who was a classmate used to buy stuff for everybody that way from the store.

BERGE: Yeah, they, some kids get in trouble with their parents that way. I, I knew better when I say clobbered. Uh I knew, I guess I almost had a feeling for what my parents were doing and had an appreciation for it and, and uh...

BERGE: Did you always know you were going to go to college?

PARSON: Yeah I think it was, uh just never considered anything else.

BERGE: Did your father ever talk about he wanted his children to go to college so they wouldn't have to work in the mines or anything like that?

PARSON: Yeah. Favorite saying I want you to have it better than I had it. I want 23:00you to have it better.

BERGE: Yeah. A lot of children have been ruined because of that too. In recent years I think.

PARSON: Yeah I think so.

BERGE: We've all done it.

PARSON: I, I don't know that I've ever said that to my kids.

BERGE: But you've thought it haven't you?

PARSON: Yeah, you know, I guess every parent wants their kids to have something more and better than what you have, But uh when I think back I'm not so sure that, that uh some of the experiences that they've had were [unclear] that they were exposed to, were not as good as those that I had. So I can't say that I want them to have it better. I wish they could have had a lot of experiences that I've had. I think it might have been better. . .

BERGE: What do you remember as having been big deals, like you said going to Harlan on [loud sound] Saturdays, anything else?

PARSON: Um.

BERGE: Was there anything like carnivals or anything like that?

PARSON: Yeah they had carnivals that come in. we, I don't remember as a kid going, I remember going to a circus when I was a small kid. . .

BERGE: Where?

PARSON: Down in Harlan. And I know they had carnivals coming in but uh my folks they--

BERGE: A little too frivolous, huh?

PARSON: Yeah they could see that that was a you know rip off and everything. It wasn't that they wanted to deprive us, we movies probably once a week at, at Kenvir.

BERGE: Oh they, you went to movies at Kenvir too as well as Harlan.

PARSON: Well yes, uh huh. Kenvir had a theater there that they showed movies I guess every night of the week, trying to think when they had a ma--excuse me, matinees on Sunday and an evening show on Sunday nights even. And as I think back that kind of surprises me

BERGE: About the Sunday?

PARSON: That they had [unclear] Sunday night.

BERGE: What about churches, were there church in Kenvir?

PARSON: Oh yeah there was.

BERGE: What kind?

PARSON: There was a Baptist church just down from where I lived and uh of course they had Baptist, Holiness, Methodist, I guess the only church--I started to say the only church they didn't have was Catholic. They had Catholic Church in Harlan,

BERGE: Probably a mission.

PARSON: They didn't have one for sure up where we were. Baptist, Holiness, Methodist were the three primary churches in the area.

BERGE: Uh huh. Were your parents religious?

PARSON: Uh, they, they are. . .

BERGE: You wouldn't categorize them as being religious I guess?

PARSON: Not in the fanatic since is what I'm trying to say, you know. They believe in a supreme being and they encourage . . .

BERGE: Yeah but that that they weren't preoccupied with religion like some of the people you knew.

PARSON: No. No preoccupation with it. They did encourage us to go to Sunday school and for the first few years, you know, it was required to go to Sunday at least Sunday school, you know

BERGE: When you were a kid do you ever remember seeing a snake handler?

PARSON: One time. Um, you know you hear about that, read about them and everything and uh I remember one Sunday afternoon they were handling snakes up at what we called Punkit Center it was busy. My Dad, uh I don't know I guess he'd seen him before but anyway, I guess he thought it might be a good experience for us. So we went out and watched them, and uh but other than that that's the only.

BERGE: Were you surprised by it?

PARSON: I was intrigued by it. I uh couldn't quite understand the religious 26:00significance of it particularly. And uh what they were really proving by it. I'm sure they felt they were.

BERGE: Oh yeah.

PARSON: In their religious beliefs but I thought well that's not . . .

BERGE: Did you ever see any baptisms in creeks?

PARSON: Oh yes. That was the . . .

BERGE: Were you baptized in a creek?

[Berge and Parson speak at the same time]

PARSON: No I wasn't.

BERGE: but you'd seen it though.

PARSON: My family most of the members of my family were.

BERGE: Mhmm

[End of Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

PARSON: That's all they had. Well the Methodist church--

BERGE: Sprinkles.

PARSON: I'm not sure it had any baptismal fountain or

BERGE: they just sort of sprinkle didn't they?

PARSON: Well, no they had a, they had a . . .

BERGE: You mean the Methodist did?

PARSON: Yeah they had a baptismal fountain or whatever you want to call it, in the back of the uh, the uh what you call the--

BERGE: Oh

[Berge and Parson speak at the same time]

PARSON: rectory or whatever you call

BERGE: Oh, yeah I know.

PARSON: Where the minister stands. And it was glassed in and everything.

[Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: And the Methodist had that?

PARSON: Yeah they had that.

[End of Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: That's very rare.

PARSON: Yeah I think it is. I remember that one having that. Uh, but the Baptist 27:00didn't have anything like that they'd use the creek.

BERGE: You'd go and watch it.

PARSON: Yeah it was . . .

BERGE: Was a big socials event wasn't it?

PARSON: It was a social event and many people would come around. Usually it would be tied in with a, maybe the ending of a --

BERGE: Revival.

PARSON: Revival service.

BERGE: Getting toward Easter, something like that?

PARSON: Yah they had--

BERGE: Bunch of them?

Parson: Had ten, fifteen, twenty people that they would baptize. It was interesting, interesting thing.

BERGE: When you were in school and you knew you were going to go to college, why did you pick Eastern?

PARSON: Ah--I have.

BERGE: Did you know somebody that went here?

PARSON: Ah--

BERGE: That was before the days when there were a lot of councilors or anything like that.

PARSON: Yeah we didn't have anything like that when I was in school. It was just sort of a random thing I guess. I really didn't know that much about Eastern. . .

BERGE: And you couldn't get to Morehead from there.

PARSON: .. . . and I heard about UK. Well I never heard of Morehead [laughing] 28:00Uh. I'd gotten a lot of stuff through the mail, you know you get on mailing lists and, and I got things through the mail. I may have got something form. . . .

BERGE: Any of your teachers ever go to Eastern?

PARSON: Um.

BERGE: How about Union?

PARSON: Perhaps they did--

BERGE: You know you went right by Union to come up here.

PARSON: Yeah, I never considered that at all. I, to be honest I really can't think of a thing that motivated me to come, ah. It was a teachers college at that time. Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College.

[Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: In fact they called it Eastern.

PARSON: Eastern what they called it.

BERGE: No they just changed it about that time. [unclear] Eastern Kentucky State College.

PARSON: You're right

[End Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: About that time.

PARSON: Dropped it just a little bit before that [unclear]

BERGE: But it still was a teachers college

PARSON: Yeah, uh but I can't think of what motivated me to come here in particular. I'd never been here, I'd been through Richmond a couple of times but never on campus.

BERGE: Anyone ever told you that in seven or eight years after you left they'd have a community college would you have believed it?

PARSON: No, no.

BERGE: It seemed so remote then didn't it, the idea?

PARSON: It was really remote. And of course the roads that have opened since 29:00then have opened up an awful lot, but uh [unclear]--

BERGE: When you first start coming to Richmond from there, how long would it take you, to come from say when you'd leave your house at Kenvir and get to your dorm at Eastern how long would it take?

PARSON: Well the first time, first time I came down I was riding an old black brother's bus that came across Pine Mountain and down through Hyden and Winchester and that way. It seemed like an all day trip. I, I can't remember exactly when I got on the bus but it was very early, early in the morning and it was late in the afternoon, evening when I got down here as I recall. That was the only time I rode the bus because I would manage to get a ride back with somebody with a car [phone rings]

BERGE: hold on just a minute.

[Pause]

PARSON: but ah it was, uh even by car it seemed like a four or five hour trip back. And that's driving pretty hard. And there wasn't a traffic.

BERGE: When you got down here to Richmond where they had all that high living and stuff, were you surprised by it? Did you ever go to bars and that kind of thing?

PARSON: Uh yeah, yeah a little bit.

BERGE: Let me turn this around. [tape noise] That was quite a temptation in those days for kids who came out of some of the hollers up there in the mountains to get in here where they could spend their money and get in trouble, wasn't it?

PARSON: Yeah, uh of course if you wanted alcohol up there badly enough you could get it.

BERGE: Oh yeah.

PARSON: [unclear] bootleg and it was a little more expensive, but we had no trouble getting it, no problem--

[Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: But it was different though being able to and talk to people and stand in a bar. . .

PARSON: [Unclear] sit down without having to look around and see if somebody was looking at you, watching for you and hiding behind a tree or something. It was different. And it was an exhilarating feeling. . .

BERGE: felt like a big guy. . .

PARSON: [unclear] anybody watching out looking for you.

[End of Berge and Parson speaking at the same time]

BERGE: Tell me this, there was an incredible high percentage of people from 31:00Harlan who went to college that did come to Eastern, and so in that, in a sense it wasn't, it wasn't like you were going away to the ends of the earth or anything when you came here but it was still a long, still a different kind of a place wasn't it?

PARSON: Yeah, it was quite different than anything of course I'd known growing up, and you asked why I came, the only, if perhaps the knowledge, that I think maybe a fellow by the name of Jim Brown uh that I, graduated the year before I did came down here. He and I played football together and now that I think back I think I was aware of the fact that he came here. But I did not talk to him, he did not talk me into it or anything of that sort but other than that, that maybe the only thing, the only reason I can think of for coming down. But uh there were a number of students that came down and uh, we became even closer friends uh you know by being here. . .

BERGE: By being here?

PARSON: Yeah. Having something in common from back home you know that . . .

BERGE: What was your impression of this place when you came did you like it or did it take you a while to get used to it?

PARSON: Uh, no I liked it from the very beginning. It uh, Eastern has always 32:00been a seeming like a close place. The people have always been very friendly and back then that was very much true. It was much smaller, you got to know everyone and. No I never had any regret, well never any doubts that I would stay, ah, I just enjoyed it from the minute I got here--

BERGE: Let me uh sort of skip ahead and then maybe we got back to when you were a child in Kenvir. Now you graduated, what year?

PARSON: I graduated in '58.

BERGE: In 58.

PARSON: A bachelor degree in '58 and--

BERGE: Then what did you do?

PARSON: Well I ah I want to ah.

BERGE: You got your degree in social sciences?

PARSON: Yeah. I had, I had taught a semester at Harlan at Evarts back in [unclear] home high school, before actually received my degree. I dropped out the second semester of my senior year and went back and taught . . .

BERGE: Yeah it seems like I remember that.

PARSON: Yeah. And uh this was a time when they were looking for warm bodies 33:00[unclear] Sputnik, you know . . .

BERGE: Yeah I know it . . .

PARSON: [unclear] thought they were going to run out of money at the time. So I went back and taught for a. . .

BERGE: Did you like that experience?

PARSON: Yeah it was very uh very interesting and, and very educational. Uh and then of course I came back the first semester of the next year and finished up and went back to Benham and taught for a semester. After finishing my coursework, the [unclear] came back in the spring and got my degree. And then summer school started and I started work on my masters, went to Ohio [unclear]--

BERGE: Where, where did you go?

PARSON: Went to Hamilton Ohio, Fairfield. I taught at Fairfield um for a couple three years. Then went to Florida then back to Fairfield and back to Florida. . .

BERGE: Where did you teach in Florida?

PARSON: Ah, my first year was at O'Gally junior high in Brevad County. Then I came back to Fairfield where I was and then I went back to um Hidisvill I lived in [unclear] for some time, I was there and taught and was a councilor there for a year prior to coming here as a teacher.

BERGE: At eastern?

PARSON: Eastern as a councilor. . .

BERGE: And you came to work what year at Eastern?

PARSON: I came here in '70--'67.

BERGE: And stayed till '75

PARSON: And stayed until '75

BERGE: And then where did you go?

PARSON: Lebanon Ohio.

BERGE: And have you been there ever since?

PARSON: Yes, I've been there ever since.

BERGE: What do you do in Lebanon?

PARSON: I'm the director of Guidance and placement services for a vocational school district

BERGE: And you were a councilor here at Eastern?

PARSON: Yes councilor and taught some of the [unclear] department.

BERGE: Of all the jobs you've had what did you like best, what you do now?

PARSON: Ah, well you know there's aspects of any job that you like and, and 35:00there's some good and some bad. Uh the job I have has been very very challenging and I've enjoyed it you know very much so. I enjoyed the work I had here at Eastern. Um, I miss the people in the area very much, but I. When I came here, for the 8 years I was here that was an very important developmental period for me and, and uh it broadened myself concept on college and everything in very many ways. It was a growing period for me and I think it, its was during that time that I felt that I became prepared to even take on the job that I'm doing now.

BERGE: In other words if it hadn't been for the experience here that job would have been much harder for you.

PARSON: It perhaps wouldn't have even been available to me. I think you know what I had here was a building block to going there and if I had not had this experience I probably would not been available to . . .

BERGE: I understand. When you get thinking about it, you know one time you and I. well just today while we were talking you mentioned that living out of the area people sort of give uh you some of that oh you're one of those deprived people from Appalachia kind of things. How do you react to that?

PARSON: Well a lot of times it depends on . . .

BERGE: Who it is?

PARSON: Who it is and what I sense in the tone of voice and the inflection. 36:00Sometimes I feel a little bit angry with them because I think they are talking out of, out of lack of knowledge. They're very ignorant, I think, in a lot of ways about uh the people from Appalachia. They're talking I think from uh an experience of some the stereotypes, you know, that they read about.

BERGE: They see a TV show or watch a movie. See Coal Miners Daughter and they know all about it.

PARSON: Yeah. And, and uh they think they are speaking out of a lot out of a framework of ignorance about it. Sometimes its intended I think to be somewhat derisive, you know, it's like--

BERGE: Brier hopper, Brier hopper.

PARSON: Somebody has to be a pecking order; somebody has to be on the lower end 37:00of it. But when they start talking about uh people from Appalachia being deprived, ah, deprived in the sense that we did not have the opportunities to visit airports and large new motels or hotels or uh or big fancy restaurants and things. Perhaps some of them may have had access to back in some of those times. Uh, deprived in that we didn't have large public libraries maybe to go to and we didn't have uh concerts that may have been available to some of them even back 15 20 years ago maybe in [unclear] areas. But when they start talking about me being deprived I, I kind of believe that it's my kids that are the ones that are deprived in a lot of ways because my kids can't go out and hunting anytime he wants to. Anyplace he wants to; he has to get permission this very little place to hunt anymore. He can't just get out and walk around the woods, spend an entire day in the woods, making his way on berries and, and hickory nuts --

BERGE: And if he did you'd be worrying about him where your parents didn't worry about you.

PARSON: That's exactly right. And uh we, I think because of that freedom and 38:00because our parents, they did, you know, they were concerned maybe [unclear] get smashed up or something like that, or fall off a cliff or something. But uh I think because of that it built a stronger sense of independence I think.

BERGE: You were born in the mid 30s weren't you?

PARSON: Yeah 36.

BERGE: Alright. Do you remember any strikes?

PARSON: Um I remember some uh vaguely uh.

BERGE: Do you remember any labor violence at all?

PARSON: No I don't. I remember a lot of talk about it. And, and Dad fortunately remembers some of it, and you know some of the names of people that were involved in it and everything, but that, there may have been some of it still happening at the time I was born but the time [unclear]

BERGE: I wonder if your Dad ever saw the film Bloody Harlan?

PARSON: I am not sure if he did or not.

BERGE: I wonder how he would have reacted to it.

PARSON: Ah. I don't know uh I think he would have identified with a lot of it. 39:00Some of it may, he may have been somewhat removed from it. He was, I think after about the first five or six years he was a, a foreman....

BERGE: Company man then?

PARSON: [unclear] company man, you know. He was still very empathetic with the miners.

BERGE: Yeah a lot of those guys like your dad were torn, you know, they. . .

PARSON: That's right, very much so because uh. . .

[phone rings]

BERGE: hold on.

PARSON: By the time um, I think by the time he uh took employment with them, the company uh they were organized at that time. Though, they had wildcat strikes and, and they had company strikes, and you know industry strikes. Um, I don't think he was too much involved with a lot of the struggle went on, you know getting organizations started.

BERGE: When you were young like say up to about the time you started elementary 40:00school or maybe from the time you started in high school , did you ever get to travel at all, did you father take you anywhere?

PARSON: Yeah. Um of course, we went to Virginia quite often--

BERGE: To visit relatives?

PARSON: Families were still there and we'd go back over there once every two or three weeks or a month or something, and visit. But uh when I was in seventh grade, we didn't do any traveling prior to that except going back and forth to Virginia; uh we went to Canada for the family--

BERGE: That was a big deal then wasn't it?

PARSON: That was a big deal that was just that was a something else.

BERGE: Blew you mind huh?

PARSON: It really was and this was in forty [phone rings].

BERGE: I'm sorry.

PARSON: This uh trip to Canada I think was in 47, about sixth or seventh grade. 41:00First time I ever saw TV, first time my parents had ever seen a TV. And uh we had to stop in the evening maybe around nine or ten o'clock.

BERGE: That was awful early for TV.

PARSON: Well ah, well.

BERGE: That was in the late 40's

PARSON: It was in the late 40's yeah, this was in Canada, maybe it was in Michigan or Canada somewhere, where we saw this. And uh very few people had them, this [unclear] was in a bar. And Dad uh for some reason had stopped here in a motel or something, I don't remember what it was, but anyway there was a fight going on, and he had never seen a tv. So he took us all in--inside the building inside the building inside the doors so we could all see the TV, and see it. And that was the first time I've ever seen it.

BERGE: I was in the service. I came back from I was 51 or 52 before I ever saw it.

PARSON: Ya this, I'm trying to think trying to put the times together, I think I was in the seventh, sixth or seventh grade which would been around forty years [unclear] . . .

BERGE: That was very early for it, very early for it.

PARSON: Yeah. And then of course the next I believe it was the next year, I 42:00believe it was the next year we went to Florida on a vacation and those were the only two vacations trips that we really ever had.

BERGE: When you were a small kid did you have a telephone?

PARSON: No, we didn't have a telephone till they moved up into the house that I was telling you about earlier that had indoor plumbing. We were able to get a telephone at that time.

BERGE: I can remember back in the 50's here when kids came to school here who had never used the telephone, can you?

PARSON: Yeah. Uh I had used the telephone because while we did not have one at that time, my mother's sister living in Penyton Gap about a mile out of town had a party line phone and we uh used to like to listen to the conversations on the party line phone make a few calls but a lot different than the phones today. But no we, I'd never had very much experience with using a phone. [unclear]

BERGE: Well Cliff I want to thank you for letting me do this. It's been a big 43:00help for us and I'm uh I'm really thankful that you let us do this. Did your son who goes to school here, a freshman hear, does he have--even though he spent some of his life in Kentucky. You know he's really sort of come of age in Ohio, does he still think of himself as a Kentuckian?

PARSON: I think so. Yes I think so.

BERGE: Do you?

PARSON: Oh I do. I think of myself, I think of him as being a Kentuckian even though he was born in Ohio. He was born [unclear]. . .

BERGE: I know [unclear]

PARSON: He came and uh spent, came in here in 4, at the age of four after having been in Florida for a year, but uh there was during his formative years I think that he can remember that he lived here. And I think of him and I think he thinks of Kentucky [unclear].

BERGE: You probably have friends in Ohio who were born and raised in Kentucky don't you?

PARSON: Oh yes.

BERGE: Are they still Kentuckians, or have they become transplant. . .

PARSON: Yes, yes I think for the most part they are. Of course they uh, you know they have to adapt to the area you know new to them and everything but uh many of them do return to visit family and friends from time to time.

BERGE: This is sort of unrelated to this uh project were dealing with company towns but it's something I have a great interest in. Do you think there's any difference in the was a man who has gone from Kentucky to Ohio and women who have gone from Kentucky to Ohio feel about Kentucky. Which do you think has the strongest ties the man or the women? Who becomes more Ohiofied, the women or the men?

PARSON: I uh, I suspect its women uhh...

BERGE: I do too and I don't know why.

PARSON: I think that women do. My wife was born in Kentucky down near Knox 45:00County and uh her mother died at an early age and her brother uh and his wife um went to Ohio to teach. And she went up there and lived with them at, at uh an early age, I think five or six years of age and went to school up there and everything. And I tease her an awful lot about it because when uh I introduce her she doesn't want me to tell that she was from Knox County but I do anyway. You know, it's kind of [unclear] thing us and everything. I tell her that she's, she's a transplanted Kentuckian and not the uh Buckeye States and everything. Seems to me like she not as emotionally attached to it.

BERGE: I find it's true with people who were born and raised here and didn't leave here till they were young women with families. They sort of, they uh don't seem as eager to come home and stay a week as their husbands do [unclear].

PARSON: I think, I think that's true. At least, of course I can only speak out 46:00of you know personal experience, personal expereince with my wife and maybe some observations I've had with some other people, nothing scientific or anything. But I don't feel like they [unclear] adapt, become Ohionoed.

BERGE: Yeah, yeah I think they like more of the existence, more than the men do. I think men long for the hills or something, strong sense of place there. Do you think you may ever retire back to Kentucky?

PARSON: I don't know, I might. Uh this, I like this area awful well. I don't know that I would go back to into Harlan county or not because its still it's somewhat remote. They've, there's an awful lot of progress up there and everything but still lot of ways remote in a lot of ways. I have given thought to the possibility of retiring back into Virginia in the area where mom and dad came from.

BERGE: Yeah those mountains down there.

PARSON: . . . that's still somewhat removed. But it's a quiet slow, uh existence 47:00over there. People don't seem to getting any big hurry about anything and seem to enjoy simple kind of life. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not but I'd thought that maybe I might retire there.

BERGE: Well I sure want to thank you for letting us do this and its really been a help.

PARSON: Well thank you Bill. Glad to be of help.

[End of interview]