Grandpa ...kentucky backwood writer... (standard:drama, 2107 words)
Author: stanley mcqueen kentucky backwoods writer	Added: Apr 24 2007	Views/Reads: 3478/2117	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
spiritual intent...

Backwood stories by Stanley Mcqueen Grandpa 

My name is Cleve Bishop i.,m the only son born to walter and Mary
Bishop, our small log shack set surrounded by tall pine trees, here in 
Muddy Fork we grow corn for our living and like most everone here we 
are poor folks.. 

Maw or Pa neither one of them can read  or write nor can Grandpa Bishop,
grandpa lives a little way around the ridge from our place, he is nigh 
eighty years old now and since grandma pass away  about a year ago he 
just hasn,t been the same , he set around on the porch stoop and want 
go fishing or nothing, he just sets and watches his old mules pick the 
grass in the paster near his shack, 

I,m worried about his and somehow he has lost the will to do anything,
he misses Grandma so bad, pa sent me over to stay a while with him , it 
hopes that i might cheer him up but it seems its going to be a hard 
things, he told me just yesterday the only reason he had for living was 
for Grandma and that her dieing has killed something inside his heart, 
pa said some sickness of the heart could,t be cured by doctors, 

We,re setting on the porch and its evening and he isn,t talking much and
that worries me a lot, grandpa i said  don,t be so sad , grandma would 
not want you be so sorrowful i remind him , well Cleve here is how it 
is me and your grandma was like two peas in a pod, we had been married 
fifty years and did you know that she help me clear this old hillside 
farm , we bought this land and both worked so hard getting it cleared 
for corn growing, i tell you boy your grandma was quiet a worker for a 
woman she cound swing an ax as good as any man could , grandpa smiles 
at his words. 

son  if the good master would do me a favor he snatch me up dead and
then i could be with your Grandma, she was a God fearing woman, a good 
hearted woman with plenty of smarts, she new who made these pretty 
green flush ridges , she was the one person who taught me about the 
good master, her pa was a mountain preacher who could read and write 
and he read the good book to her and brought her up to fear the lord 
God ,, she knowed enough to live by the words of God she was a smart 
industrious woman fer sure “ 

how about you and me and pa going fishing tomarrow i asked ? boy fishing
use to me my love and i was usually scunked when your grandma went she 
was a fisherwoman could out fish me and that hurt boys he addmitted” i 
tell you boy everthing here reminds me of her those old red chicken of 
hers running about in the yard a reminder of her he said” they just 
ain,t not way i can get her out of my head and my heart he addmited” 

yesterday i walked up on the ridge to visit her grave and i set there a
good while and visited her and i picked here a mess of flowers while i 
was going  up there , she loved mountain flowers so you know boy, how 
you granny was about such things before she died she told me if 
anything every happen to her to bury her on that ridge of ours over 
looking the shack , i done as she asked “ and that would have pleased 
her so boy, she new i would thow he added... 

your pa is missing her too son i seen his tracks on the ridge he has
been going up there too to visit his mammy, he want let on so much boy 
but his is missing her nigh as bad as me and i new he would , but hes 
the type that hold in his feeling ,, you grandma was like that too boy 
she kept things to herself alot and i was use to her being mannered 
like that ..you pa is a good solid man a good worker and that man is 
aimed at growing the best corn in these parts and has proved he can as 
well..... 

he  is a farmer above several men here and about” summer before last me
and her went and fished that place we alway called the popular hole in 
the river where them big cat fish thrive in the river . did you know 
that woman caught a seven pounder in about fifteen minites she drug 
that big cat fish in and  moked me for being slow in getting my hooked 
rigged with worms, only fault i had about her when we went a fishing i 
couldnt. get her to leave the river grandpa laughed and smile a little” 
i tell you boy that woman was a site for any eyes.... 

it seemed to please him talking about grandma it had brought a few
smiles to his face at least , but i love him and respect him so it was 


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