Kentucky Traveler by Ricky Skaggs Page A

Love,” by the Monroe Brothers, 1936
    N ot long after Dad’s accident, we left Goodlettsville and moved back to the old home place where I was born. Mom gave her okay after making Dad promise he’d renovate the old house so we’d have some of the modern conveniences we’d gotten used to in Tennessee. Our home on Brushy Creek was very small, and Mom gave Dad her list of renovation needs. Dad got busy making plans and recruiting folks to help out. He got some help from Papaw Skaggs and a few of his uncles and cousins, and they built us some more bedrooms and put in a new bathroom and a nice kitchen for mom.
    Goodlettsville had been pretty good to us. A lot of good things happened while we were in Tennessee, especially music-wise, and not just for me, but for the Skaggs Family band as well. We’d made some good friends, and we made some contacts in the music business, like Benny Martin. Despite our good fortune there, I think Dad was kinda disappointed bigger things didn’t happen. Still, he knew it was time to get back to Kentucky, and I think he was as homesick as the rest of us.
    Me and my brothers and sister, well, we were more than fine with heading back to the holler. I remember seeing the top of the ridges come into view when we got close to Brushy, and how good it felt to be home. I was at an age now when I was old enough to run the woods, and the mountains gave us plenty more space than the suburbs in Nashville. It was great to have freedom to roam the hills and run barefoot with your shirttail flappin’ in the wind, and to stay outside all day long exploring, getting chigger-bites on your legs, and skinning your knees. We kids would come home at night dirty and plumb wore out!
    Back on Brushy Creek, it really didn’t matter how much money you had. People around us were a lot poorer than we were, just scraping by. We had neighbors and relatives right down the creek from us who were as poor as church mice. In those days, we were all poor so we didn’t even notice.
    All the while Dad was trying to get the settlement money for his accident. For a time he had a job down at the Ashland Oil refinery, but the pain became too much to bear. He just couldn’t work anymore. We had to get some government assistance—there was even a time when we were on welfare—and we bought our groceries on credit. I remember my mom wanted to buy us some new clothes and couldn’t, because there was next to nothing coming in money-wise.
    I had just two pair of pants that I could wear to school, so my mom was always washing one or the other so I’d have clean pants for the next day. It was a hard time for us, but we always had plenty to eat, never missed a meal, and if we really needed something we’d go out in the woods and hunt it or raise it in the garden. We could always live off the land.
    Mom’s prayers really increased during this trying time. She knew the Lord would provide what we needed. But that period was awful tough on her. It got to where things were so lean, I’d catch her crying. One Christmas, we kids got one gift each. Mine was a toy Give-a-Show projector, which let you display pictures on the wall or ceiling. Mom was so sorry she couldn’t give us more. We didn’t mind going without, but I know it hurt Mom and Dad.
    One day, trying to be helpful, I suggested, “Well, Dad, can’t you just write a check?” He laughed, and replied, “Son, you’ve got to have something in the bank before you can write a check!” But we always had enough, really. Every Christmas, my mom’s folks up in Ohio, Grandpa and Grandma Thompson, would send us a big basket of fruit with nuts and candy and oranges. It was a lot more than Dad usually got at Christmastime when he was growing up—a piece of hard candy and a pack of firecrackers!
    To be honest, I was too busy being a kid to worry too much about the finances. Besides, I had my own troubles,