Return to the Land

my left heel to the house from the woodpile dripping blood and calling to Mother. She screamed for Pa and she wrapped my foot in a towel. Initially the toe didn’t bleed much. Mother sent Pa up the road to fetch Fayette who had an old 1937 Chevrolet sedan which carried us to the hospital in Bluefield. While traveling to the emergency room through the wilderness section of the county the bleeding became rather profuse and soaked through the towel. Fayette pushed the accelerator harder and across the East River Mountain we went. On arrival at St. Luke’s Hospital I remember saying to the doctor and nurses “Please don’t cut my toe off”. The ax had severed the toe in such a manner that it was dangling from a piece of skin. In those days reattachment of limbs was not a consideration. It was felt that once the blood supply was interrupted the distal reattached part would undergo gangrene. So the inevitable was to snip the skin and reconstruct the stump. I was taken to the operating room and was given general anesthesia. Just before I went to sleep I felt the pain of the skin being cut and heard my toe hitting the bottom of a bucket. I recovered in about a month but I surely missed my toe. It continued to trouble me through life if I walked too much. That fall I entered the third grade with Mrs. Porterfield as my teacher. I had to recount my experience before the class in a Show & Tell session. The next three years at East End School was spent being paddled before the class for talking when I was supposed to be quiet. I next entered Ramsey Junior High School uptown having to walk 2 miles daily. By now the dairy barn had been constructed on the farm and Mother was running this. We still had the apartment in Bluefield but Dad and I began to commute daily to and from the farm. The seventh grade at Ramsey was not a happy one. We now rotated to different classes. My close friends were dispersed and because we commuted daily I couldn’t participate in after school activities. I was not allowed to have any girlfriends and I also had trouble with math that year. I had a poor teacher who had little patience with me. Dad often worked my problems at home but I didn’t understand how he did this. One day the teacher called me to the blackboard to work a problem that Dad had solved for me at home and I couldn’t do it again. I was embarrassed in front of the class of students I didn’t know. I became more withdrawn in school and pleaded with my parents to permit me to go to school in Bland the following year. After completing the eighth grade in Bluefield I transferred to the eighth grade at Bland High School. Bland had eleven grades in school while West Virginia had twelve. I repeated the eighth grade because of the difference in grade levels between the two states. I was actually ready for the more advanced subjects of a higher grade. Now for the first time in my education I could ride to school on a bus where before my legs were my transportation. The trip was about 15 miles and we had to change buses at Crandon and it took about 45 minutes to reach school. Mr. Fayette Faulkner drove the first leg of the bus trip. Now a whole new life was exposed to me. I made wonderful new friends, liked all of my teachers, and was able to participate in a few sports. My biggest enjoyment was being able to take agricultural classes under the direction of Mr. Ralph Reynolds. He became my mentor for the next 5 years, even after high school. Associated with the agricultural class was an organization known as the Future Farmers of America. I joined this club and became an active member. Now I belonged to something I could identify with and my interest in farming grew even greater.

118