THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM ......  APPALACHIAN STYLE


    My cousin Ronnie Rollins and his friends were an adventurous lot in the early 1960s.
    Ronnie lived with his maternal grandmother and grandfather, Willie Mae and James
    Lockhart at Coal Camp #2 in the  little town of Kenvir, Kentucky (commonly referred to
    as Black Mountain by the locals.) And the only things that Ronnie and his friends
    feared were God and Willie Mae Lockhart. God, because he is their savior and the
    Master of everything, and Wilie Mae because she kicked ass instead of taking names.
    When she said "Jump" you were smart if you answered, "How high?".

    The group that Ronnie was a member of and ran with, which I call the Black Mountain
    Mafia, usually consisted of Jack Canady, Jerry Massengill, Dale Gilbert, Jerry Rogers,
    Steve Malakas, and Freddy Davis. (Occasionally there would be an interloper or two.)
    They were not genisues but when it came to plotting and scheming they were up there
    with the best of them and they all could have been successful politicians if they had
    so desired. Governor Rollins has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

    One day the members of the Mafia were roaming the hills that surrounded Black
    Mountain. As they were descending they got to an area where slate, a waste product
    from coal mining, had been dumped for decades. At the spot where they stopped there
    was a long piece of tin about 8. feet long and about 2.5 feet wide. Well one of the
    guys got the "brilliant" idea of riding the piece of tin down the slate covered hill.
    Hey! Why WALK down a hill when you can rapidly ride down a hill and get a thrill in
    the process. They all thought and agreed that was the thing to do. So they did!

    The slate dump was sleep and was about 75 yards wide by 100 yards long and at the
    bottom of it ran a shallow creek. (And for all of you not familiar with the slate of
    which I am writing, it is a thin, brittle, and SHARP piece of rock that is not worth
    anything at all.) The Mafia thought about their impending ride down the tons of slate
    and moved forward..

    Excitedly the members of the Mafia discussed where they wanted to be positioned on the
    tin and proceeded to their selected spot. Then  one of the guys reached back and
    pushed them off and they were going, like bats out of hell, toward the bottom of the
    slate dump.

    Of course it did not take long for the Mafia to realize that this ride was not one of
    the smartest decisions the group had ever made. They had not gone 10 yards when one of
    the guys fell off and was hollerin' and screaming due to the cuts and bruises that the
    slate was putting upon him. This did not make the ones still on the tin feel any
    better, but it was either fly or die.

    About every 10 or 15 yards the tin sled was lighter by one individual body which made
    it go ever faster downward. Pretty soon there was only one individual left on the tin
    and that was Freddy Davis. Freddy was excited about how fast the was traveling and
    about him being the only one left on the sled.

    Freddy's excitement about being the only survivor did not last long. When the sled got
    to the bottom of the slate dump, it abruptly stopped, causing Freddy to become
    airborne. Even though Freddy had pretended many times to be Superman when he was a
    small kid, in reality he was anything but Superman. He could not fly and he had no
    superpowers which was even made more obvious by the gash he got on his head from a
    rock he had met head first when he landed in the creek. The rock was fine but Freddy
    was not not.

    When the ejected and dejected members of the Mafia finally made it down to the bottom
    of the slate dump they found Freddy in a daze, mumbling and stumbling. Their clothes
    and shoes were torn and they were cut from head to toe. They all looked as if the had
    been in a hatchet fight without a hatchet, but they were all in better shape than
    Freddy. And this worried them.

    They all talked with Freddy in an effort to determine how coherent he was. It soon
    became evident that Freddy was in bad shape and needed medical attention. They all had
    tried to persuade each other to be the ONE to take Freddy to his dad, Fred Sr. (aka
    Blab), so he could be taken to a doctor for much needed medical attention. No one
    wanted to be the ONE to tell Blab about the accident so they decided they all would
    have to go, explain what happened, and catch whatever hell they were going to catch.
    It was a tough job but it had to be done.

    They walked up the road, got to the house, knocked on the door, and as soon as Blab
    saw Freddy he knew something was wrong. He immediately started screaming and hollering
    and wanting to know "What the hell was awrong with Freddy?". Jerry Massengill, always
    being not afraid of anyone or anything, proceeded to tell Blab about the events that
    had led up to Freddy's predicament. Well the more he explained the more Blab cussed,
    but the cussing did not phase Jerry because he kept on talking and explaining
    throughout the entire barrage of chastisement The more Jerry talked, the more Blab
    cussed.

    And "Stupid" was the dominant word used by Blab during his chastisement of the group.

    Finally Blab stopped hollering and screaming, put Freddy in a car, and lit out toward
    a doctor Then the mafia each departed heading toward what they all knew would be their
    own minute of hell.

    Since the members of the Mafia came from poor families they each caught hell for
    hurting themselves and for destroying their clothes and shoes during their hillbilly
    bobsled ride. The boys knew that money was not plentiful and that one's
    parents/grandparents expected you to take care of what you had. Waste and wastefulness
    was frowned upon so you took care of what you had.

    After been given "down the road" for their misbehavior they each apologized for their
    wrecklessness and promised never to do anything that stupid again. And I actually
    think they meant to keep their promises but since they were an adventurous bunch they
    all of course failed to do so. It was hard, in fact impossible, to stop the dynamic
    energy that that group had. And when you have unthrottled energy, you have trouble.

    As for what I can recall about Freddy, he survived his close encounter of the worst
    kind but he had to take it easy and stay out of the grasp of the Mafia for a few days.
    But after a few days he and the Mafia were, as usual, plotting and scheming again. And
    you know what, that made life in Black Mountain FUN. ....................    Nuff said.
    Copyright August, 2003 by Fred Lockhart


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