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my Grandfather's experience as a boy |
My Grandpa, George W. Stewart was a heck of a man, he was as lively an individual as you would ever see. He was full of life and lived every moment of it. Why even when he was in his eighties, he walked around town morning and night. He never had a drivers license or a car, but he got around better than any one I knew. George had children living all over the south, he loved to go and visit them. He would jump on a plane or even a bus and travel to Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and even to Texas. He would stay at the homes of his daughters; a month here and a month there, until he had visited them all. At which point he returned to his own home in Harlan Kentucky. Now George loved telling stories and you could count on them for being cute, of which I will tell one now. George who was born in 1908, was raised by Granny Stewart, who was a tiny little woman. But she was not weak and feeble, she could do back breaking labor, and she worked hard all the days of her life. One time little George was in school and the teacher ask him where his tablet was,and George replied that he didn't have one; therefore, the teacher took out a large wooden paddle and proceeded to beat young George. Now when George got home from the school house, he was unable to bend to do his chores. Granny Stewart ask him what was the matter with him? So he told Granny what had happened, and sure enough he was bruised. Well I'll be, if Granny didn't explode with anger. She grabbed George by the arm and dragged him down to the school house, where the teacher was still inside preparing lessons for the next day. "What do you mean beaten this youngin this-a-way", Granny asked "The boy wasn't prepared, for school", replied the male teacher, "he had no tablet on which to do his work". "Well I got no money fer buyin the boy a tablet, I have to feed these youngins, clothe them and provide every thing by my self." At that point Granny, who was wearing a long ankle length skirt and apron and of course a bonnet; pulled from beneath her skirt a gun and shoved it right up to the teachers chest. "Now if ye ever lay a finger on that there youngin agin I'll blow a hole right through ye." The teacher was so shocked by the four foot granny that he moved from town that very week. And no other teachers ever dared lay a hand on young George. True to life tale! |