ConstanceElaineChildress.txt

-n -n -n I've got to do this stuff with the historical people here. Today is April 15th. It is a Friday, 1994, approximately 3.10 Eastern Standard Time in the afternoon. Full name? Constance. Line. Line, too? No, it's McKinney, Gapley, and Louis C., Cappalco, I am in the White. Childress, CHIL, Dairy, and... Right, address. Bands, Napa, June. I can't see. Okay, I should have done that first. My eyes got you dirty. No, we'll just get into some of this water. Is it hot in here? We're going to have a storm later tonight. Somebody said they had tornadoes somewhere. Bowling green or something? We don't get tornadoes. See, we get them a lot. You know, I know I've got a southern slang, I know that. But it's too far off. Do I have a southern accent? Not much, for one. I was raised in Ohio. I was part of the Great Hillbilly migration. And then I left there when I was 12. It's really funny, that's one of the things that... One of the cultural problems you run into is when I was living there, I was looking down on because I was a hillbilly. When I moved back, I was looking down on because I was an Yankee. So you're kind of culturally disassociated, no matter where you are. And I think that's one of the reasons I'm so interested in culture studies, is because I see it as important. And in fact, it's very important, you know, the idea of what you're connected to and how you're connected to it, and how long you've been connected to it, and what it leads to. I interviewed you, you're asking my questions. I interviewed Alice Chaney, who's a state true girl in Marla County. And, well, the interview was really difficult until we figured out why we were having such a problem, because she was used to asking the questions. And she just was very uncomfortable having to answer them, because she wasn't used to doing that. And after she figured out that that's what it was and she loosened up, then it went great, you know, the interview went great. And I talked from it, and still teach it at a junior college some, but the world's worst, I've always had people tell me, "Does the world's worst direction takers are teachers?" You know, when you have them fill out forms instead of they screw them up, because they're used to having everybody else fill them out. They're not used to doing it themselves. Okay, let's see, the first thing that we need to do for Kentucky Historical Society is we need to ask you who your parents were, who your grandparents were, how long they've been in the region and where they came from. If you, however much or however little of that information you know. If they're not in the region then... They're just part of their firm. Right. Okay. My mother and father were both born in West Virginia. My mother was born in Charleston, West Virginia. My father was born in Clarksbrook, West Virginia. And they eventually migrated here to Grundy when I was one year old. My mother's parents... Why did they come here? My dad was in the oil field. And at that time here in Buchanan County and surrounding areas, there was a lot of, they called rigs, you know, set up drilling rigs. And that's how he, you know, got here originally. Then he began working, making mining equipment. You know, at that time it was like mining cars and things like that. This was before you had the big miners, the great big machinery. But he worked here for many years doing that. Servicing the mines with equipment that they had been used in them. He built, he constructed the machinery. Okay. So he actually built it. He built it. I think he was a welder and was very good at his job. My mother, I think from Charleston, West Virginia, they don't even really know how they met, but of course she came here with him. What was your, what were your, first give me your grandparents' names on both sides, if you know them. Okay. My mother's side, my grandparents, were Helen, Marie Eddie, and Chester Eddie. On my father's side, it was, my grandfather's name was Alja McKinney, ALGIA, very unusual name. And my mother's name was Letty McKinney. I have two sisters, there were only three, you know, three of those, all girls. Let's see, we did your grandparents. On my mother's side and dad's side. Okay. And now what was your mother's name and your father's name? Well, my mother's name was Phyllis Josephine Eddie was the maiden name, and then McKinney. My father's name was William Algia McKinney, Jr. Okay. And how many brothers and sisters do you have? I have two sisters, only brothers. And their names are? Maria, Anise, McKinney, Woodward, and Rhea, Christine, McKinney, Sifley. Okay. Now, now we can do the, that takes care of all the biographical stuff. And getting back to the three questions that I talked to you earlier about. What was it like growing up in the Cullfields, going to school here and, and you, so you've been here since you said you were one year, one year old. What was it like? Well, as I recall, I guess my release, I actually lived in West Virginia until we moved here when I was a year old, but I stayed with my grandmother and so forth. But when I was in the second grade, I actually came and started school in McKinney County. And at that time, Cullman's business was down. It comes either up or down. 60s, 50s, 70s. Business was in, well, that was been in the mid 50s. Cull, business was down. People didn't have that many material things. I remember everybody having about the same thing. You didn't have the, you know, really rich people, so to speak. Most of us were kind of below average, I would say, in income. And then later on, say, the late 50s, early 60s, about the early 60s, early 60s, Cull took a boom. My father, along that period of time, began working, building my machinery. And they go to my-- Again, building it from scratch? Yes. Uh-huh. My father was talented. He was very talented at that point. I was late. And building my machine, working at a local company here. And Cull was very good. They were selling a lot of Culls. And I can remember all of a sudden, you know, we had plenty of money to do anything we wanted to do, practically. We didn't live above our means, but we, as children, we had anything that we wanted. And this would be during my junior high and through my high school years. And I graduated from high school in '66. You know, everybody had plenty. And I don't recall there being that many children in school with me that didn't have, you know, about what I had. Money was really good at that time. Grundy was a bustling. Booming town. Booming town. Yeah, big population. I'd say 60 to 70. Yeah. Okay. Now, let me ask you this. I've not asked many--you know, this is something that hasn't come up because we ordinarily don't think about it in relationship to women. But I graduated in '68 and, of course, '68 and '69 was a big time in Vietnam War. What was it like in '66? And in your--and, you know, when you got out, did you go to college right after? Where'd you go to school? I started at Clinch Valley College in Y, Virginia. I mean, that's a branch of the University of Virginia. And then-- Then from--I finished there. Then I taught school while I went and got my master's at Virginia Tech. And I taught school while I was taking classes in University of Virginia Clans. All in early childhood? All in elementary and early childhood. Okay. And so, getting back to the '66 through '70 period, what was it like here? Did Grundy lose a lot of young men in the war or did a lot of young men go or did you have draft dodgers or did you have-- If we had any draft dodgers, I wasn't aware of it. I was N-wise in college. Like, the fall of '66. So, a lot of people that I graduated from school, it did go to Vietnam. And some of them, you know, were hoped--I don't recall anyone being, say, paraplegic or anything like that. Did any young men kill you in the war? I can't really say how many, but I don't remember anyone that I actually graduated from high school with being killed in the war. So, I guess what I'm getting at is, as a young, young, old woman growing up, it wasn't a big issue then here. And those that were called went and-- Those that were called went. That's just the way things are here. Do you think it's different now? I think that being isolated, someone as we are with the mountains and everything, although we're not as isolated as we once were, kids are kids, you know, everywhere. And I think, you know, that we would have a lot of young men that would, that probably would protest at war right now. Do you think attitudes are different? Attitudes have changed somewhat. Now, we're a little slower to develop some attitudes that, you know, come--it filters down. It starts, you know, in the big place. Where does it start? At Bristol. No way for the man. You know, this part of Virginia, this thing called Virginia's backside. Yeah. I didn't know that. And so, she was talking about that one. Yeah. Did--okay, you got out of--when you got out of high school and started college, did you get married immediately or after you got out of college? No, I was married in 1968. While you were still in school? While I was still in college. And just back to the Vietnamese thing, my main experience with that was being in a college crowd I was with. You know, I was very volatile, you know, and we were just at the Clinch Valley College being small and steel, you know, a lot of protesting and-- Oh, was there a lot going on there? A lot of protests. So, you're saying even though there wasn't much protesting of the war here, just how far away is Clinch Valley College? 50, 60 miles. So, 50 or 60 miles away, then people did protest and did--what did they do? Did they burn their draft cars? Did they just get up and say, "Well, why don't they--how did they burn their cars?" Yeah, on a smaller scale than what you see on television, what's on television, that did occur. And then of course we had the marijuana and the-- That all got started in the early '70s, right? Mm-hmm. When I went to Clinch Valley in '60--I'd say around '68-- That's when I remember, you know, really getting-- Things starting. Your husband, what's his name? Jim Wayne Childress. Okay, and what does he do? He is currently head of PSI, which is Petroleum Solutions Incorporated, which he works in environmental protection. Okay, so it's a technical type of field? Well, as far as record keeping and reports that are written, it is technical, but it's just a lot of manual-- I understand. He keeps up with all the EPA regulations for the-- Why? That's it. --for the mines and-- For the mines, Eddie. --the mines that are used to determine what they-- Right, contamination gets away. These are not a cop. Okay, in a way, this is just an observation. He fulfills the same kind of role that your father did in the sense that he's very--it's a very unusual job and that it's a very technical-- You know, you got to be good at what you do. And so it's funny now, those things happen. But now that he wasn't in that one, he began as a teacher and wrestling coach. Oh, he did? And then got into this. Now, what was your first teaching job? This is really interesting. I am so proud of this. The first year that I taught, I spent the first half of the year in a--if there was a two-room school house, an outdoor toilet, you know, I-- I didn't cook the food, but I served the food. All the classroom teachers did that. I began the first kindergarten in the county that year at that school. We would have what they called a slot bucket. We emptied all the scrap stands, take it out behind. I didn't let the ducks come up and eat it. And it was wonderful. The kids liked it. Hot belly stove. And I taught kindergarten there. And then while we were there, we were waiting for the completion of the humongous and the multi-million dollar elementary school up on Slate Creek. And we're moving into that second half of the year, the best of everything, the most modern elementary school-- So it went from the absolute worst to the absolute best in one year. I bet the kids were in awe. The children were used to it. Yeah, they were used to the old way. I bet they were just overwhelmed. They were. And I had many children. This was in back in 1972. I had many children in my kindergarten who had never been five miles-- or rated five miles from where they lived, which was mainly up in my house. 15, 20 miles. So it was like going across the world. And to go to Grundy. Some of them had never been to Grundy. It was like the capital of Buchanan County. And for a child to never been to Grundy. That's really the same thing. Of course, things are different now. I'm starting to see, though, I think the thing that's interesting to me here is the idea of women's rights and new opportunities for women and things. You sound like you were on the cutting edge of it in the sense that you were the first kindergarten, the first wrestling coach. How many other firsts have you done? I bet there's more. I was a wrestling coach. That's one thing I haven't done yet. First women's wrestling for Jenny Riffery. I had to think about that a minute. It was just something that occurred to me. You were-- This thing was-- I like a challenge. And going back to the wrestling thing just briefly. I expected not to be accepted in the meetings that were held to the educational part. I didn't expect to even be allowed to take the exam, but it was not like that. I was fully accepted. Now, I started playing golf in the last four years. We have a local golf course. I wouldn't want this published because I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone making romance. But I'm the first woman at this golf course who has actually gone and played golf on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays when the men were there. And now, gobs and gobs of women are coming in and playing golf on Fridays. So I feel like I was kind of a pioneer in that way, too. I didn't let the fact that men didn't want you on the course to stop me from being there. How does he feel about the idea that he encouraged you? Kids. Kids. How many kids do you have? One. I'm a one-boy. He's now 25. He's coaching wrestling and teaching school in near area Pennsylvania, far away. I started saying that. So he's part of the outmigration. Right. And when did he go to school? He went one year at Indiana University and then he went and finished his degree at Lockhead University in Pennsylvania. Let me guess. He was a wrestler. Went to school and wrestling. Now did I know that coming from this town? He is the first young man who has actually graduated college that has gone through our wrestling program. From all these nine state championships? The first one to actually graduate. Oh, but others have. We've had a dozen go on scholarship. Who was the first one to actually go and get that? Actually go and complete a degree. That's the first. That's not my first. No, it is first. I mean I had to really forget. So you went into kindergarten and then you went to a new elementary school. Then what happened next? What did you do then? I remained there. I taught kindergarten there for six years and then I transferred to another school which is closer to my home. My parents in elementary school was about a half a mile from my house. When I went there I taught first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grades. I taught reading only. And I spent summers tutoring children. I tutored children up through seniors in high school. My whole life has been centered on children. So you like kids? I love children. What do you like about kids and what do you like least about kids? The thing I like the most about kids is that they're willing to accept, to be flexible, to change. They're willing to learn and they appreciate the things that you do for them. And then you see that final product at the end and you know you have something to do with it. That's the really rewarding part. I just like to be around kids, talk to them and work with them and I just enjoy them. I think they're funny. I get a kick out of my wife, teacher, second grade. And I was up there yesterday and some kids sitting in the back and made this paper airplane about this big. He was ready to go away. I told them, I said, "Do you see that one big thing with that giant airplane?" And what was it? She called me. What was that kid's name? He was a... Oh, it was such a strange name. She's had kids that had really strange names. Anyway, this kid had a really strange... Barbie or something. I forget what it was. He looks like a man and she says, "Oh, he's a horsebacker." Yeah. And let's see, the first year she talked kindergarten, she was going to spank this little kid and he crawled under a table where she couldn't get at him. And he wouldn't come out until she promised that she wouldn't spank him. And she said, "I had to. It was time for his bus to leave." So not that she's a big spanker anyway. She was on the rear. Well, I laughed at his little formation. No, they're not either anymore. And well, they are. But she rarely does it. You know, but I get it. They're funny. Now, what do you like least about them? Well, I have to say, if there's anything I like, this like about a child, it would be a poor attitude. What do you consider to be a poor attitude? Well... And where does it come from? Well, I was going to say, to explain that, you would have to go back to where they come from, where they've been. We don't have many children like this, but it's like anywhere else. Some of them feel like they've got beyond their reach. That doesn't make me dislike them. I dislike the fact that I feel like they get beyond my reach. But you can't help them. Yeah, that's whatever I try. Because perhaps maybe, say for instance, their environment is so bad that nothing you do at school overcomes the overall... Right, and that's true. That is really true. Well, I think that was probably one of the... When I was working with student teachers, we dealt with low-income kids and probably 60% or 70% of our student population, they were housing project kids. And many of them had... Some of them had great attitudes, but many of them had the same attitudes as you see in larger cities. And when I would work with student teachers, I told them, I said, "Now look, the thing that you've got to understand is that when these kids come here, I said, 'You can't change their life. You can work with them for the eight hours that they're here and you can be nice to them and you can be kind to them.' But I said, 'If you sit around and worry about what's happening to that kid,' I said, 'You're going to go nice.' Because you've got 20 of them that are in desperate straits. And I said, 'You've just got to try to figure out how to work with them while they're here and do what you can, because you can't change that life outside of you.' And a lot of them couldn't accept it, and those that could accept it. And in a sense, it's not like saying, 'Except the feet.' I mean, it's like, 'Except or you've got to accept reality.' And so it's really... And the thing that I learned to do when they would come in and they'd have a really... And you could tell in the morning when they'd walk in and they'd look like they're really quick in the world. And I just look at them and I'd say, 'I don't know if it's done something to you today, but it wasn't me, so don't take it out on me and they'd grant me a say.' Because it's hard for them to change gears, you know, when they... So, hey, you're seeing that. But you know, the most important thing I feel here is for a child to build itself a thing, not teaching it to me and the right. That's not the thing. I used to say that if I had my one goal for the end, at the end of the day was, if every kid left there and they felt better about themselves when they left, when they did when they got there, they would not accomplish something if they learned anything or not. And I believe that. And I still teach that way to college. I think that's important. But so you... That's still how you... That's kind of your approach to the approach, yes. And I think it's a practical... And it's important. I think so, it seems very important. Build yourself a thing. It's lots of times easy to give them to learn. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If they feel like you like them... Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went into the legendary friend of mine, he's taught 20 years or so, and he always said the important thing was, it was the most important thing from a kid's point of view was if they thought you liked them. He said, 'If they thought you didn't like them, what do you did or not?' It didn't matter because that was it. It was all over. That they had to think that you cared about them or you could forget it because they were just going to turn you off like a team. And I think he's right. Somehow or other you got to... And you can't connect with all of them. And you have to really like kids. I mean, you have to really like them because they'll pick up. They know. What do you do or not? They know. Yeah. Okay, we've gone into what you like and what you dislike about teaching. Then in the 70s, that was a big growth period for you in terms of your education. Is that when you got into the idea of refereeing, wrestling? No, no. Well, now, wrestling, I saw a work of wrestling in 1971. And what capacity? All right. Let me count the weight. I started out going to matches. I'd never seen one, but my husband was a culture man in high school. And then that developed into becoming a part of keeping sport matches. And that became, you know, working in head table internment. And then later on, like about 1981, well, I ran concession stands, I sell t-shirts, I did flea markets to raise money. How long was he the coach? He coached from '71 to '70. He resigned in '78. But we have been involved in wrestling because my husband, I started the first, the Little League, wrestling program that happened here in the county in 1972. And that has just become, it has a life of its own. It's just all, you know, modern. Does he not have built the gym? He's not the man that built the gym. The man that built the gym and his wife and my husband and I, it's kind of like, it's kind of like we were all in the right place at the right time. And it just happened. You know, same philosophy of what needs to be done. Commitment. Commitment with our own children. You know, we wanted to, you know, have a wrestling program for our kids and then for other people's children. And the wrestling facility, I would like to take you up there. It might be good to see you. Oh, but what will be your first company? Okay. And we're having a big wrestling tournament in the morning. Our Little League wrestling tournament is in the morning at the YMCA. Boys, girls, is there girls wrestling? Okay. We have had girls to come out to the wrestling team. At the beginning of this year, we had maybe three girls that came out. We welcomed them. They eventually dropped out due to whatever. But I mean, we didn't kick them out and we encouraged them, but they just didn't. It was rough in the wrestling room. I mean, not just that. The thing that would occur to me as a person who has watched wrestling, they grab each other all over. Is that a real, I would think that would be a problem. And I think that this was probably the main reason that the little girls, not little girls, these were junior high girls, fell a lot of weight now. Their dads or moms felt uncomfortable about it, or they did. I would. Yeah, I mean, I'm saying, you know, I can understand. Because I've watched them wrestling. I mean, they grab each other everywhere and turn them on their heads. However, in the area in other counties, there are, I mean, there's at least one girl that has stuck with it. Maybe this might be her second or third year. And she brainered her red bank one or one of the teams in Knoxville. I read it is either the history of Tennessee or the history of the United States kicked an extra point. Is their place kicker and was the first girl to score a point in a football game. I think in the history of the country, you know, she was her extra point kicker. And so, and I apparently was didn't kick the Elkos for them, but apparently it was a deadly extra point kicker. And because she kicked one against us, and it wasn't against us, but it was against somebody else. Everybody scores a difference. See, rattling rules of law says that when you weigh in for matches, you have to weigh in shoulder to shoulder, and you may wear one undergarment. So girls would have to be a single piece. Uh huh. Uh huh. But the boys usually weigh in without anything on. Oh, yeah. So as a parent. That's a problem. But you know, special considerations. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So then you got into that was from, from, so you kind of, you know, what he kind of came in it from a mom's point of view from a fan. Yeah. And then worked your way up from the concession stand on up literally and the scores table, which is obviously the best way to learn anything from the ground up. Uh, then your son was growing up and he was also an avid wrestler. He was in the wrestling with the first literally pro started with him. Uh, and your husband, now where did he come from? Was he from Grundy? Uh huh. He was born right here. And where did he go to school and get interested in wrestling? He went to Clinch Valley College and graduated as a history major came back to this county to teach in high school. And his friend was the head wrestling coach at the high school and he's been the following year. He says, "Hey, why don't you help me coach wrestling?" So they went to the library and they got books on wrestling and they practiced. Oh, so he had never wrestled before and he just got a book out and... He and the coach would get the book and they would practice on each other and they go to the practice room and they teach the boys. Now that's how they started. I bet their first match, I bet they wiped the floor out for the first time that they had a match. Grundy hasn't had a losing season since 1969 and that would have been two years before my husband. So even before that they were winning. But we didn't win a state tournament until 1978 and then not again until '87. But then you won. Eight in a row, ninth home now. I bet they hate to see you guys coming. Well, they said Grundy's here. But along with working tournaments and things like that, I now do that along with a video. I have video of every match Grundy has wrestled since 1981. I have a collection of close to 500 tapes and these are full. Do you have those at your house or whatever? I don't know. A suggestion at some point you might want to donate. That would be a tremendous donation. My husband and I had plans to construct a small place where we are going to put this wrestling pair of fanalia. And we're planning to co-author a book that will be right down the line. It's time to do it. Oh yeah, I see that. After about eight or ten more. I have clippings of everything that's ever happened in the world. Have you noticed this? I come from a community where we produced, you may have even heard of, I graduated with Kurt Watson. He was an all-American fullback in UT. He was a good fullback and we won lots of games. And then we went through like a 10 or a 15 year period where we didn't win anything. And I told the kids there, I said, "You know, before I would let that happen, I'd take a gun or a club out there." I said, "I wouldn't let people do that to me. I've got more pride than that." And do you think that winning begets winning and, I mean, like say for instance, whenever you come out with a new team, rather than them looking back and saying, "Oh my gosh, they've had nine state champions." Do you think they walk out there and go, "No one can win." Do you think it creates a self-assignment thing? You know, is it? It's sad among many people of St. Virginia, just putting on a Grundy Rathling for the shoes. Two points when you walk on that. Because the judges and the racer? Well, I mean, they're so well known and they're so good. Not always better than the other fellow, but the other guy thinks they are just because of the dinosaur. So if whenever that happens, then the other team is like, they're already looking up before they get over there and it hurts them. However, when we search out teams to wrestle, we wrestle schools that have twice the population. We don't want to wrestle people that we can beat. We want to wrestle people that can beat us. See how we can do it. Right. Get as good as you can. Now, since you've been so successful here, have they taken, have you all taken programs like other states and, you know, wrestling other places? Oh, we've been all over, East of Mississippi. We've been everywhere. Just unlike, are there tournaments like Christmas and Thanksgiving and things where they have? Yeah, and we have- What's the big one? Oh, you all have one. The big one. That is the one that's here. We have one here. And I brought you a program. This is something that- The big tournament's right here, huh? Well, not the biggest tournament, but we invite, we're very selective with who we invite in, but we also invite local teams if they want to come. Did the Colc companies I see here, are they very supportive? Yes. He's also a set of stickers done by the big Colc companies in the county. I'm going to do that from Colc's stickers. Oh, like these here? Uh-huh. That's a whole set. And what are they calling that? The, Grendy Golden Wave. The Golden, what? Yeah, someone asked that. Okay, when did you get into being the first female referee in what year was that? All right. I had to wake up on my son, graduate in high school, who had never stood for it. Yeah. So this would have been, and it would have been '88, '89. I just decided, I don't even remember how I got the idea. I was reading the rule book one day. I thought, well, you know, I can do this. So I went to the referee's meetings and then took the exam. And I scored higher on the exam than my husband did. He's been in the referee for 27 years. How did he feel about it? Did you kid him about it? Why? Yeah, we kid him. And then, then, you go through a period of like a training where you work with an experienced referee. So I went with my husband that year. And it was when he would referee matches. I was what you call be the assistant referee on the mat. And he did the actual, most of the actual calling, but, you know, I could call things too. But he had to actually want to voice it to the crowd. But, and that was, that was really the extent of my refereeing. I was never good enough to actually handle a match myself because I've never wrestled him. And I, the interesting thing, the most interesting thing about the whole deal was being there. When you're in the stands, you see it in one, in one way. When you're on the match, you hear all these noises and all these cuss words and all these, you know, growling and, you know, and you see them, these things are not supposed to do. You, I could see and he couldn't. So a lot of things going out there that you're not, you don't ever know about. How'd you feel about that, the idea that here you were out here with all these, all these aggressive, vocal, vulgar young men? Well, I'm used to that type of thing, you know, because I've been around mostly those Ratslers, you know. And that's just the way they are. That's the way any kid in sports is, any boys anyway. And I have been a basketball coach in elementary school. I've done that 70 years. What's the difference between coaching girls and coaching boys? There is a difference. Boys are much more aggressive, much more coordinated, a lot stronger. They handle things differently. The girls do like to get mad at the girl and the other team. They'll like fuss while they're out there. But the boy gets mad at the boy and the other teams all elbow each other. You know, the base that's handling a physical way. They carry it to a higher physical level. Right. The girls are handling a verbal way. This is what I found. That's interesting, you know, because I think there's a lot of, well, I don't know how much, but it's something that I've always wondered about. Now that they're talking about looking at men in terms of, you know, why are men so much more violent than women? And I think there's, I've always said they just had, it had to do with testosterone. They just had, and now they're actually looking at that in terms of like, well, if you've got more, are you more violent? And in a sense, what you're saying kind of backs that up from a personal point of view. It's like they're just that way. It's not like society makes them that way or they just start out, you know, they're just more aggressive. Maybe they're expected to be more aggressive. They've had to be more aggressive. Or they've had to be more aggressive. Throughout the ages. Yeah. And so, which did you enjoy more, coaching girls or coaching boys, or the same? When I've never coached, I did coach a boys basketball for one year. I don't have to say I enjoy the boys more. Why? Because they will listen to you. Is it more important to them? Does it, is it, you know, they realize? Boys are in it. I think boys are in it for an entire different reason than girls are. Why are boys in it? Boys are in it. Now, honestly, I believe it because, like I said, they're just like that. They love competition. It's like the old, you know, pecking order. Yeah, the idea is right. And girls are in it because they want to be involved in sports and that's important for girls, but they don't, they don't feel as, don't seem to feel as bad when they lose. And boys do when they lose. It's not, it's not important in the same way. Girls want to be involved. Boys want to beat somebody up. They want to win. They want to win. Girls want to play. Boys want to win. Girls like to win, but they don't seem to take it as hard. It's not as, you know. My daughter was a gymnast and they, they wanted to win. You know, they're a different breed of cash. This is maybe the thing about winning, you know, creates winning. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, they were in the Knoxville. Blake was in the Knoxville Gym Club and they, you know, it was expected that they would go to the regions and somebody would go to the, the nationals and, you know, not to necessarily win, but it was, they tried to produce scholarship athletes. Maybe I kids not Florida, Alabama, Georgia, you know, all over and maybe, you know, for everybody. So it's, uh, uh, athletes are, what do you think is the, the biggest difference between an athlete and a regular kid? You know, is it a regular kid? You know, one that doesn't, that doesn't participate in athletics. Well, it has, it has a lot to do with what we call their turn or personality. Some people are more passive or just that way. More passive don't, don't find it important or don't want to have a confrontation with someone else. On the other hand, some children just can't stand to see somebody in front of them or, uh, can do better at something that they, that they can do. I don't really know how to answer that completely. You know, women, it's the same way. You've got women that are outstanding athletes. I don't know if it's that they have more, not that they have more drive, they just have more drive to do that. Like you wanted to do this thing with the, the, the referee, you just focused all, now maybe that's what it is. Maybe, maybe, uh, most boys and some women focus, have the ability to, rather than it being a competitive thing, maybe it's being a, a focused thing. The ability thing is part of it too, because a passive young man is going to have a hard time wrestling. They might be able to, uh, be a gymnast, which is not like actually one or a baseball player. But now when it's like for wrestling, especially if one on one. Well, and when, as a referee, you judge them by how aggressive they are too. I mean, if they're not aggressive, they lose points. In college, they definitely do. They gain points by being aggressive and losing and all. I forget, I've not seen that many wrestling men, but I think the ones I saw, they start out like by slapping each other's face or something. That's big time. Now don't be sad because he's awesome. Big time is not real wrestling. That is the, I realize that. I understand that. That's our biggest foe, is big time wrestling. I understand that. And, uh, oh. In relationships, the wrestling, in relationships, the education we have is saying here that Grunty, instead of three Rs, Grunty has four Rs, reading, writing, arithmetic, and wrestling. And it's R-A-S-S-L-I-N. It's not wrestling, but it's wrestling. You have to enunciate correctly. Let's see. How do you see, and I think we've got an idea about growing up here and what your life's been like. Teaching. What do you see now you're still teaching? Are you, do you want to be an administrator? Do you want to be continuing in the classroom? I know my wife doesn't want to finish her PhD because she wants to stay in the classroom. She doesn't want to move her up. What do you want? Do you want to be a principal? Do you want to? I want to do different things. I have changed grade levels many times because I don't like doing the same thing all the time. I like change. I'm qualified to be anything that you can be. Except I do not have a PhD, but it is the goal of mine to go on and complete and gain a PhD. What would you get in? Administration supervision? I would get it. I would get administration supervision. I really like that field because I feel like I would have a lot to offer as far as supervision and instruction. With training people in various methods and strategies. I feel like that's the strength of mine. I don't ever want to get away from work with children. I think that's the problem you get into when you move up. You can be in supervision and still be involved with children. I don't think it can be done. That's what you're supposed to be. Everybody that gets into it, they end up letting the paperwork cover them up. I've never been a real fan of paperwork. In fact, where I teach, I've not looked at my email since the first day of school. I figure if it's anything really important, they'll call me. If I've got anything really important to say, I'll call them. There's nothing that's happened in my classroom that has depended on the email. It's just all stuff back and forth. The library opened and it's like gossip to me. I'm not a fan of paperwork. I plan to write a book. I think you've got an excellent opportunity to do it. Good substance. Summing it all up, one thing, this is your chance to speak to history. What would you, if you had to sum your whole existence, your life, your whole schmazo and coin, what would you do? You had one statement. Do you think that it's been good? Is there something that you want? I don't want to frame it for you. In terms of your past, your present, your future, the people that you live with, if you could reduce it all to one statement more or less, what's it been like, happy, sad, fulfilling? Well, I have to say that I've done, knowing I had this interview, it caused me to think back a little, you know, you do that every now and then. This was an opportunity for me to do that. And in reflection, I think that I've had a very fulfilling life to this point. I've been happy along the way, but there are still things out there I want to do. And I want to stay involved with children somehow the rest of my life. That's what you just said was fine. That last thing was great. There are still things out there you want to do. So you see yourself as a... I'm not satisfied, completely satisfied that I've done everything I wanted to. Or is this dissatisfaction come from? Is it a, it strikes me as a positive thing. You know, you're striving to... It's not I'm happy. It's just, I want to do more things. I want to do more things to help. What I'm trying to, what I'm saying though is you've got this, you've got this goal, you've got this drive. And I'm trying to figure out where exactly, you know, what causes that. What makes you that way and other people not that way is what I'm saying. I've had people asking me that lots of times. And I can't really, I can't tell you except to say that I've always been this way. Were your mom and dad doers of things? I mean today you're like... No. No? So it didn't come from that? No. But I am a doer. I'm a quiet doer. I'm not a flamboyant... Behind the scenes doer. But if you give me something to do or something needs to be done or I want to do something, I know how to approach it and I know how to get it done. That strikes me, that's a similarity I think that all of the women that we've interviewed have in common is that they identify a problem and they figure out a way to do it and they do it. Fear of failure. Maybe that's why so many of the women we interviewed are successful. Are you up when you try something? Do you think I'm going to fall flat on my face? Or do you assume that by following these steps that have always been successful? Those are also not the things I'm even interested in. So I think it's interest centered. So you go after the things you're interested in. Yeah. And you don't bite off more than you can chew. I do bite off more than I can chew. But... What makes you successful where others fail? What makes money successful where others fail? I've always felt if I wanted to do something, I wanted to do it the best way that anybody could do it. I want whatever I've worked with to have excellence to it. I want to do something half way. If I really think that I'm not capable of doing it, well... Have you ever had to back off from anything? Yes, this year. Have you ever walked in and said, "Whoa!" This year. What was it? Very quickly, I'll tell you, back in the fall, the golf coach at the senior high school resigned. He asked me to be golf coach. And everybody said, "Oh, you'll be golf coach. We'll help you." You don't have to... Yeah. Okay, I was golf coach for two days and I resigned because I got in over my head. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I had enough sense to say, "You need to find someone that can handle this." I didn't even have time for it, but I wasn't prepared. I didn't know anything about it. Just having played golf is not a formula for teaching. Being a player is not necessary. I'm not even a good player, but I did. I backed out and I felt good about it. A lot of these great basketball coaches I know that when you've had and, you know, they've come out of New York City and places like that, from the big East and all, they never play ball themselves. You know, apparently being a ball player doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a good coach. And it's not a prerequisite like your husband and the rest, you know, who sat down with his book and figured out how to do it. So apparently it's more of a personality thing perhaps than a... But now with the golf, I was not knowledgeable enough. So how do you know about that? Not being knowledgeable and... No, not about being... You've had all these successes about being... Well, I don't know if you can say you were unsuccessful. I mean, you tried something that didn't work. Well, it goes back to what we said before. I wasn't interested in being a golf coach. I was kind of forced to do it. And I don't... You know, anytime you're forced to do something that... So it was something that you say you weren't... Like you said, you always go to the first thing you're interested in. Yeah. And when it was something you weren't interested in. It's like children in school. They're going to learn things they're interested in and they're going to turn off some things that they don't interest you in. You can answer this. This is a totally different area, but it's something that I want to ask you. You've got some good insights here. Happiness and unhappiness. Women in the cold hills. Those that are happy, those that are unhappy. Are they doing things that... Is being a mom and a wife and a homemaker or whatever is happening with these folks out here, these women? Are those that are interested in it happy and those that aren't interested in it unhappy? Are those that are interested in it successful? You see what I'm trying to make a correlation between what we were talking about and just your average... You're not an average person. You're average woman out here who's maybe working... Say for instance, she's a single mom. She's got two kids. She's working at McDonald's or, you know, she's trying to get by on a little bit of money. Is that woman interested in that? Or is it just reality? Or do you see what I'm... I may not be making it. Uh-huh. Well, if it... I can't look at it from my point of view, but I would think she would be unhappy doing that. If there's not enough money to buy food for the children and those kinds of things, lots of times single women are forced into welfare, things like that. I don't think some of them may be interested in that. I can probably think of some examples, but I think the majority of them want to improve themselves and would not be satisfied... If they had other opportunities. If they had... That's right. The opportunity to be in there. Your average woman here in Grundy County, is she married and working or married and not working? Married and working? The average woman. Are you talking about the percentage of the population? Yes, you're general. I would say that the general female population in Bucktown County is not working. We have a lot of women in the workforce, but we have a lot of women who are not. There are still lots of what you would call "traditional families" and it says that dad works, mom stays at home, and kids go to school. We do have these traditional families with two parents and the kids, and everybody gets along and all that. But we have more of the broken homes, poverty. We have many, many people working in the county and in our school population. It's really affected that because now the majority, I would say at least a little more than half of the children enrolled in the school system are on the welfare rolls. And it used to be, you know, this little pod. Now it's a larger... What do you attribute that to? Are times harder than they were? Times are very hard. Very hard than they were. And the people that have money have moved away and taken their children and put them, you know, and they're in... Where did they move to? They go at least as far as Bristol, Abington, Roanoke, at least Bristol. I would say if you did a poll that you would find most of Bristol or... For private schools? Private schools or even city or county schools that have good funding because, you know, they can afford it. Right. Well, we can't. And living... The standard of living is higher. The educational level is higher. Now is Virginia getting involved in the same thing that Tennessee got involved with a few years ago that was now in the Supreme Court about the poor counties and rich counties? Yes. Is that happening here? That's happening here. And is Virginia happy about that? The state of Tennessee was not happy. Yeah. Well, it depends on what part of Virginia you're right. Our part of Virginia is happy about it. The facts is not. Right. We just last week in our local paper, a child has filed suit because he is not receiving, you know... Same quality of education. Same quality of education. His father's a lawyer here. So his kid's filed suit? His kid has filed suit. It would be interesting to see what happens there. That's great. We're just sitting here talking to half of you. I guess we need to go to our next interview and it's supposed to be there at four. We're half way away. I don't know. [BLANK_AUDIO]