These old hills they cradled me when I was but an infant. And when I was bigger they let me play in and around them. Oh yes, these old hills..Oh how I love them. And when I was older they let me hunt in them taking rabbits, squirrels, coon and sometimes a deer. Oh yes these old hills...Most of my people left these hills to get jobs in the factories but not me. If I have to leave these hills to make it then I won’t make it. Oh these hills... The old people say if the hills could talk oh the stories they could tell.
Tony Smith , born in 1960 wrote these words during one brief time in his life while he was away from his beloved hills. He has always listened to the old people tell stories and he remembers the good times while they were happening in his life. In this collection of short stories Tony, the old people and the hills are talking and telling great stories of earlier and simpler days .Many times they had to leave the hills but they never left them behind in their thoughts, dreams and memories. Tony has stayed to tell the tales .Read along with Tony, those who grew up here will cherish the old days. Those who grew up in other places will learn how to cook ground hogs and squirrels, hunt rabbits, butcher a hog, and truly enjoy family life on a farm in the Kentucky hills.
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What inspires Tony to write his stories
Well the time is 6:30 am. I have been awake for about three hours now. I sometimes wake up in the night or early morning hours with people that I used to know on my mind. I can see them all so clearly and I remember us all talking together. In my mind I can hear them and see them just as good now as I did back then. When I woke up this morning it was still dark out. As I was laying there I was thinking about some of my friends that I camped out with for weeks at a time down on the Red Bud River.
We would camp out and fish in the middle of the day and we would squirrel hunt of the morning and of the evenings. Oh, I can see all their faces so clearly and I can still hear their voices just the way they talked with me and each other. Yes, I can see them as they talk. I can see Virgil Houndshell and his brother Cecil, Art Wynn, old man Fee Spurlock and Joe Gilbert. Now they are all dead and gone and I miss them all.
