Notes from an Appalachian Boyhood — V

There Are Superstitions.

I have a small lump in my right armpit, just under the skin. Mom calls it a kernel; I suppose because it’s about the size of a kernel of corn.

Notes from an Appalachian Boyhood — IV

Catalogs

I don’t quite get it. Why can’t I have that girl?

We are leafing through catalogs, a common practice at our house where the only other external sources of entertainment are the…

Notes from an Appalachian Boyhood - III

Home for the Holidays

It is Thanksgiving, and the grownups at our house, and in the dozen or so houses down the hollow, are thankful that it dawns overcast with cold, wintry weather — the colder the better…

Notes from an Appalachian Boyhood

II — The Farm

It is an early-summer’s evening, and the tree tops on the hillsides above our narrow valley are basking in the last sheen of sunlight.

Notes from an Appalachian Boyhood

I — June 2, 1943

I am a boy.

That is probably no big surprise. Perhaps a tiny surprise, though, in this age long before ultrasound announces in advance the sex, size and positioning in the womb…