Foxfire 9

by Foxfire Fund, Inc.

  One I had put in at Central America drifted to the Philippines. It had to go about six thousand miles. It was twenty-three months from the time it was put in till they wrote me about the time they found it. I had some put in around up in New Jersey. Well, six months later, I got a letter from someone that had found one of them in the English Channel. What had happened was it had gotten into the Gulf Stream.

  In the Tennessee waterworks, all these here dams and lakes head for New Orleans. I’ve put [the bottles] in this little branch over here and they end up in New Orleans, and when they get to New Orleans they get all over the world. I had six of them put in the Tennessee River. Well, some officers come up. They asked me what I was a-doin’. I showed ’em. One of’em said, “You can’t do that. They have boat races here. Somebody might get hurt on a bottle.” Naturally it was the truth, so I just said I wouldn’t put ’em in. I went right up the river to my mother-in-law’s place, got in some bushes where they couldn’t see me, and put ’em in there.

  I’ll tell you one thing. In the state of Washington on the Snake River, there was a man who worked in a lumber business up there. He was walking along one Sunday morning fishing, and he happened to see one of my bottles washed up on the shore. I put ’em in half-pint whiskey bottles then. His eye got a glimpse of that cross. “Aw, some fool’s littering up this river,” he said to hisself. He went to walking on and he got to thinking about that cross. He said, “I’m going back to see what that fool’s got to say.” He picked the bottle up and read the message. My wife’s name was on there then instead of mine. He wrote her a letter and said, “Listen, I’ve never been to church in my life. I’ve never done a thing in this world for the Lord, and if you ever did pray for a man that needed it, I wish you would [pray for me].”

  PLATE 361 At his workbench, Mr. Mayes forces the stiff cardboard message into plastic drink bottles. He fills each bottle temporarily with lead shot so that the message will be pressed tightly against its sides. After a few days, he pours the shot out, inserts a cork with glue, and twists on a cap.

  PLATE 362 Note the letters hanging from clips above his workbench. People from all around the world find his bottles and write to him. He keeps a record in his files of each bottle with its coded message and where and when he sent it for distribution.

  PLATE 363 One side of the message put in the bottles that go out to prisoners and missionaries and others to be distributed around the world. Note the handwritten code number 56626 and the year ’84 at the top.

  PLATE 364 The other side of the message.

  I wrote him a letter, I did, and I never did hear from him. Now I’m just as confident as I’m a-sittin’ here that he never did get right with the Lord and died. When he comes up before the Lord, he’ll begin to make excuses, so to speak. “Lord, I’ve never been to church and I’ve never heard a preacher,” and so on.

  “Yes, but I had a man in Kentucky to put a bottle in the Snake River purposely to give you the warning and you didn’t take it.” Now, the Lord don’t have to give you a thousand warnings. If he gives you a special warning, that’s enough. Sometimes you may get thousands of them before you leave, but one direct warning is enough.

  I also send bottles to jails. I’ve got to send the messages in plastic bottles to the prisoners. They can fight with ’em all they want to and they can’t hurt one another. [I send a box to] the ladies’ department and one to the men’s. My wife and I are praying for the prison force, the prisoners, and their families. Of course, I send these in care of the jailer. Now he can’t accept a bribe, but I’ve got two brand-new dollar bills in every one of those boxes that goes to the jail. I tell the jailer, “This money’s not for you. It’s for your father and mother.” [That way, though, it shows my appreciation for him getting the messages to the prisoners.]

  I am eighty-six years old and I started making signs and putting them up sixty-six years ago. God has helped me to get these sacred messages in fifty states, eighty-two nations, and on the seven seas, all the big rivers and lakes on earth.

  I don’t want to stop with putting signs up all over the earth. If we don’t do something to stop poisoning our air here on earth, we are going to have to go to [living] on other planets. We can go to the moon with the speed that we’ve got, but I tell you, the moon ain’t the best. There are nine planets and I’ve got nine grandsons. Each of my grandsons [is responsible for placing one of those crosses] on each of those nine planets after I leave.

  I want this work to stay here as long as there is people anywhere. I want it in all the universe. I want it everywhere. I’ll try every possible plan to get around to set signs on the moon and planets.

  Me and my wife, Lillie, had four children and we’ve got eighteen grandchildren. All but one of the grandchildren are married. I expect my children and my grandchildren to carry on my work. When I leave here, when I’m through, my oldest son’s daughter, my granddaughter, is to take over the reins of this thing—not to finance it, but to see that it is financed and that [the family continues to put out signs and that bottles are still mailed out to jails and missionaries and others]. That my work is carried out.

  PLATE 365 This cross reads, “Erect this sign on the planet Mars, 1990.”

  Nobody pays for me and my wife; we pay for all the postage and everything we do [making the signs and putting them up on roadsides, and getting the messages into the bottles and the bottles distributed] out of my paychecks when I worked and now with my pension. [I have solicited small contributions occasionally from local businessmen for special projects.]

  I’ll tell you this. Me and my wife have got $75,000 in our own money in this business. The Bible says the Lord awards you fourfold. It don’t mean with money—maybe health, maybe everything. [I know he didn’t reward me in beauty, because I’m no beauty.] Make that $75,000 fourfold, and me and my wife are worth a lot.

  I heard Jimmy Swaggart [a radio evangelist] this morning say that his expense is a hundred thousand dollars every day to carry on the work he’s in. That’s a lot of money. He’s a wonderful preacher but I’ll say not one-sixth of the population of the world ever listens at ’im. Now Jimmy’s a-preaching worldwide and costing a hundred thousand dollars a day. Well, my work costs ten dollars a day for all this. That is what it comes up to for paying the postage for [getting] the bottles [out to all the world]. I’m honored to say that just as many people see these bottles as listen to Jimmy Swaggart. And it’s costing them nothing.

  PLATE 366

  PLATE 367 The bicycle that Mr. Mayes rode around town before his heart attack.

  PLATE 368 A U.S. map hangs on one wall of the workshop. The dark heavy lines indicate the routes he took across America to erect signs, along with the years he went.

  The Lord has called me to do this work. God has made me a universal watchman of the world. I am nothing except what God has made me. You’ll find that story in [the Old Testament of the Bible] in Ezekiel, chapter three. If the watchman posted [on the wall to guard the city] sees the enemy coming, he warns the people. If he don’t do it, they’ll be lost. He’ll lose his own life and the ones he should have warned will be lost with him. We must warn all people of the evils that surround them in this world. All church pastors are more or less watchmen of the world.

  I ain’t nothing. What God has got me doing is something you better not monkey around with or you’ll be in trouble. Thousands on top of thousands of people will be turned away on the last day. The Bible says they’ll come up and make all kinds of excuses saying, “I done this. I done that.”

  [God] will say, “Yes, but I had a little old man to warn you and you didn’t heed it.”

  PLATE 369 One of Mr. Mayes’s signs on a local barn.

  “LIFE IS GOOD”

  –D. B. Dayton

  My grandparents are D. B. and Sadie Dayton. They live in Hiawassee, Georgia. They are very close and they’ve been married for forty-five years. They get along together the best of any two people I know. They mean a lot to me—more than anyon
e can imagine.

  When I first decided to interview Papaw, I mentioned it to Kim and she liked the idea. I wanted to interview him because when I’d go visiting, he would tell me all kinds of things that happened when he was a little boy. I thought that the things he told me would be enjoyable to someone else also.

  Papaw and Mamaw live in a trailer that has been bricked over. It has a cement porch with a roof over it. Their yard is very small with shrubs set out along the edge. On the porch, Mamaw has flowers set out in pots and there is a swing on one side. When you are sitting in that swing on a very hot day and the breeze comes and cools you off, it feels so good. Behind and beside the trailer are hives of bees. In Papaw’s spare time, he makes racks for bee gums and sells them, and of course he makes racks for his own use also.

  Beside the trailer, about twenty feet away, there is a big, long grocery store. Papaw has owned the store for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl, if I wanted some candy or something to eat or play with, all I had to do was ask him and run in that store and pick me out anything I wanted. On one end of the store are living quarters that Mr. and Mrs. Lag rent from Papaw. On the other end of the store is a shop where Papaw has his woodworking tools and makes his bee racks, washstands, cabinets, and tables. Aunt Bug runs the store now, and so Papaw and Mamaw spend lots of time in the shop. They go out there together whenever they like, but Papaw still enjoys tending to the store whenever Aunt Bug has to go to town for something.

  Papaw also likes to go down to Red McKinney’s, a little country store in town and play checkers with the other men his age who gather there.

  Back not too long ago, he had a severe heart attack and he isn’t allowed to pick up anything heavy or work too hard, but both of my grandparents were told by the doctor to walk down the road by their house every day. I’ve always been told that where Papaw went, I was always there. He reminds me every once in a while how mean I used to be when I was a very little girl. He always got tickled at me because he aggravated me until I’d get mad at him and then would go off and pout.

  PLATE 370 Dana Holcomb with her grandfather.

  PLATE 371 A view of the Daytons’ store with their house at the left. The Lags live in the right end of the store building.

  PLATE 372 Left to right: Mrs. Lag, Mr. Lag, D. B. Dayton, Sadie Dayton.

  While Kim and I were over there, we got out the family Bible and looked over the family tree written up in it. There were pictures of the family stuck in the Bible and we looked at them. Mamaw started telling us stories like the one about the time when I was small and the family was visiting in Atlanta, and I threw my little red shoe out the window of the building where we were staying.

  When we went over to interview Papaw the first time, it tickled him to death. He was real eager to tell us all kinds of stories. We got almost two tapesful that time. After we came home and transcribed them, we found there were some more questions that needed asking. I went back over there and asked the list of questions that I had made out. While I was there, Mamaw had some sowchy cooked for dinner. I had never tasted of it before and at first I didn’t want to. I finally got up enough courage, and it was good. I thought it would taste like spinach or turnip greens, but it didn’t. It was better.

  In doing this interview, I found that it made me appreciate my grandparents more than ever before. I hope you get as much out of it by reading it as I did by doing it. I would like to thank my parents for making it possible for our transportation over there.

  DANA HOLCOMB

  On a Saturday morning, Dana, a best friend of mine, and I drove over to Hiawassee to do a personality interview on her grandfather, D. B. Dayton. It rained early that morning but from about dinner time on, the sun was shining. Finally it turned out to be a beautiful day to do an interview.

  I met her grandfather, her grandmother Sadie, and her aunt, Elaine Bonner, known to everyone as Aunt Bug. During dinner they got to talking about all of their relatives and other people that I had heard Dana mention before.

  During the interview he talked to us about his parents, brother, and sisters, and mischief he had done while he was little, courting, jobs he has had, and things he does in his spare time now. The things I liked and remembered best are his stories about mischief and his daddy at Christmas.

  D.B. has the talent of getting you to listen to him even though you’ve already heard some of what he is talking about. Sometimes he will tell you things that would make you laugh, but if someone else told you, they wouldn’t be funny at all.

  Sadie makes you feel right at home, just like you were one of her grandchildren. She is the kind of lady that makes you feel loved, and someone you will remember for a long time.

  Aunt Bug is very friendly and reminded me of someone between a teenage girl and an older sister. She wants us to grow up and do things on our own, yet have fun and do things the safe way, too. I never did find out how she got the nickname “Bug.”

  I ate dinner with them and between the fun I was having and not being too hungry anyway, I didn’t eat much. They wanted to make sure I had all I wanted-to eat, just like when I go to a best friend’s house to spend the night.

  Before we left we all got told good-bye and to come back as soon as we could. On the way back we were all tired, even though the ride home didn’t seem half as long as the ride over there. But for some reason you can’t ever get to where you are going quick enough.

  KIM HAMILTON

  Interviews and photographs by Dana Holcomb and Kim Hamilton.

  My parents were Sam and Rosena Dayton. She was an Eller before they married, old man Alf Eller’s girl, from up on the head of High-tower.

  My parents, they was strict. I don’t know how long it was before they ever let me go anywhere unless they went with me. I never did have a dream. I knowed they wasn’t no use of it. I knowed I couldn’t never go anyway, never did think about going.

  My daddy’s been dead about thirty years. He had high blood pressure and he wasn’t allowed to eat no grease, nothing with grease cooked in it. My wife could always make good biscuits and she put grease to ’em. He’d come up by our house and he’d have to have a biscuit. He’d eat ’em by theirself [plain]. They wouldn’t let him have none at home, you know, but he’d slip and eat ’em at our house.

  My mommy was crippled most of her life. When she was nine years old she was sitting in a girl’s lap, and the girl was sitting thisaway. Mama had her legs up like this and the girl squeezed her up some way. She cried because it hurt her. She never did walk another step. She grew up crippled in one leg. That caused her to go on crutches all of her life. They didn’t take her to the doctor when that happened. They didn’t know. If they had to go to a doctor, they had to ride a mule ten or fifteen miles, and they just didn’t know anything bad was wrong. The doctors here lately say she throwed her hip out of place. That’s been a long time—ninety-something years ago. She was nine years old when that happened and she raised eight children and lived to be a hundred and two years old.

  My mom and dad got along best you’ve ever seen till Christmas. Daddy’d get drunk ever’ Christmas. He worked like a slave through all the rest of the time. When Christmas come, we’d have two peppermint sticks of candy, a orange, and a apple in our sock. We hung our socks up then, all of us. That’s what we’d have. My daddy went off to the store one time and he got our Christmas that day, and he got him a new pair of overalls. Somebody gave him some liquor—enough to get him drunk. He walked home. It’s four miles from town to where we lived, and when we seen him coming, Mommy says, “He’s drunk.” She could tell just as well when he got drunk. We went out to meet him. He had a box of candy and one leg of those new overalls under his arm. The other leg of ’em was a-dragging in the dirt. He had that candy strowed everywhere. We went back down the road and picked up the sticks of candy where he had spilt it—them long, hard sticks of peppermint candy. Then they wasn’t no sugar sticks.

  When he got home, Mommy got on him. Just as sure as he got d
runk, she’d get on him right then, and make it worse. If she’d just a’ waited till he’d got sober, it’s been a whole lot better but she’d get on him and they’d quarrel. They’d have a cuss fight just as sure as he’d get drunk. They wasn’t a Christmas that passed hardly that he didn’t get drunk but through the other times he hardly ever did.

  My daddy didn’t have no money to pay his tax. We had to pay poll tax back then. He wasn’t worth much, but he wanted to vote. You couldn’t vote if you didn’t pay your poll tax. If he got ahold of one dollar from one year to the next, he would pin it up in his overall pocket with a safety pin. It’d stay right there till tax-paying time. He’d keep it a whole year in that there bib pocket. He’d go pay his poll tax and then he could vote. He was like my granddaddy, a strong Democrat, and he wanted to vote. I stayed with my granddaddy for a while. He told me, “Son, if I’d knowed you’d be a Republican, I wouldn’t a’ fed you another bite.” He’s told me that a many a time and just about that strong, too.

  When I was old enough, I had to pay a dollar a year poll tax to get to vote, too. Most of the times about a third of th’ folks, when they went to election ground, they’d get with the others and get drunk. Somebody, some candidate, would furnish ’em enough liquor to get ’em drunk on. They’d have a fight, somebody would, before they ever left the grounds. They had to stay there till seven o’clock. They had a slow way of counting votes then. They had to count ever’ individual’s vote. Had three a-counting, so one wouldn’t cheat. If one come up wrong and the other two right, they’d have to count ’em over and make it tally out right on the votes.

  I had one brother and six sisters. Birdy was the oldest, Dorabelle the next, Addy, Clyn, I was next, Geneva, and Maggie was last. There were two year between all of us but Maggie and Geneva, and they was five year between them. I was born on upper Hightower (in Towns County), April 4, the year nineteen hundred and fourteen.