Hillbilly Days...Ya'll Come

When I was a little girl it would embaress me for someone to just say the word'Hillbilly". To me that was someone from the backwoods with broken black teeth, bibbed overalls, big dirty bare feet,and a corn cob pipe stuck in the mouth. That scared me so much. Also use to the head of the hollow was usually full of old shacks hanging off a hill with chickens clucking around the porch, and old ladies churning butter and swatting flies. Also kids with rotten teeth and barefeet running around the barn chasing a rooster....Well my grandparents owned the whole head of a hollow and they had cows, horses, hogs livestock, and they owned a saw mill and had about 50 hired hands. The evening freight train would load up all the livestock eggs, cattle or whatever and it would be shipped on toward Ashland. My Mom told me a story once about her dad putting her pet rooster in a cage and shipping him off. She was so hurt over this. When I remember this things were not flourishing as much, but they gardened on both sides of the mountains as far as you could see. They canned and gave a lot of food away to friends. I use to climb the mountains and go inside the caves and go inside his coal mines. It was damp under there and water dripped. It was scary. Now that estate has been bought by a prominent lawyer and a mansion sits there and it looks quiet and reserves. Little do they know or woulnn't even care to know that happy times were known throughout the mountains and that every flower imaginable covered the lane, lilac bushes, rose bushes,weepimg willows, dogwood trees and fruit trees and walnut, beechnut, mulberry and also popow trees. I am proud to be from our mountains, I just do not like being labeled as a hillbilly.........In April our town celebrates "Hillbilly Days". Country music , clogging, foot stomping music and folks with billybob teeth and overalls greet you with a "Howdy". We have a carnival, beauty contests,venders saling everything from dried apple old people to Indian jewelry, leathers, straw hats. Also the food....OH the food. It smells soooo good. It is the best ever and the funnel cakes with strawberries and powdered sugar make my mouth water. This event last 3 days and I enjoy every minute of it. On the last day , on a Saturday we have a parade, and it is exciting.I have gone to Hillbilly Days for years and so has my whole family. Our town is very neat for after it is over the town is totally cleaned up as if it never happened. Maybe there are some true hillbillys around here some where and maybe they still enjoy the rough life, I don't know. But I am from the hills and love it here. I have seen the ocean and other cities and there is no where like home here in the mountains. Ya'll Come