LIFE'S REALTREASURESSELDOMMEASURED INDOLLARS, CENTSLine Fork, KY.- The porch of CecilCornett's small cabin, deep in themountains of Letcher County, is a goodplace to spend h<strong>our</strong>s listening andlearning.Cornett's stories are seasoned with seldomheard,old mountain words and phrasesthat mark his cultural heritage and hisplace in time."I wouldn't delight in a school," he saidof his boyhood. "It seemed like I had mymind on something else all the time andjust couldn't hardly learn a thing."But Cecil Cornett has learned plenty inhis 82 years on the banks of WolfpenBranch.He learned his mother's love of flowersand her ways of gardening, and his father'sway with horses and tools. He learnedthat a good name was worth more thanwealth on Line Fork. He learned to cuttimber in the log woods, and to makerocking chairs, straight-backed chairs andtables from tree limbs that he cuts longWolfpen Branch.He has learned to enjoy the small thingsaround him that are beautiful, and toaccept, without bitterness, those thingsthat he cannot change."I get awful lonesome sometimes, juststudying about my people all dead andgone," he said. "I've got a radio that I32listen at a lot. They'llsing them pretty songsand it gets me prettylonesome sometimes.I study now, and wishI would've married. Mymother wanted me tomarry, but I never did."He was in love once,years ago, with a prettywoman whose wordsand laughter linger inhis memory."I liked her better than anything, andshe did me, too," he said. "I would havemarried her if she would have had me,but she got killed in a car wreck. Hername was Ellie Jane Turner. That's theonly woman I ever did love. I never didlike another one good enough to marry."He treasures a short-handled cuttingscythe that Ellie Jane hung on the frontof his f<strong>our</strong>-room cabin many years ago,after they had been working in the yard.The scythe, along with a small, weatheredbag of his mother's garden seeds, a rustyf<strong>our</strong>-pound lard bucket that once servedas his father's lunch pail and a dippermade from a g<strong>our</strong>d are among Cornett'smost prized possessions. His father andmother hung the bag of seeds, the pailand the dipper on the wall of the backporch well over 50 years ago, and theobjects have never been moved.Cornett's mother died in 1948, but Cecilcared for his father until his death manyyears later at age 96. Cecil has outlivedthree brothers and two sisters.Although he remembers traveling to sometown in Indiana with his family yearsago, and he was once hospitalized inLexington, he has never seen Louisvilleor Cincinnati or very many of the townsaround Kentucky.Nearly all of his life has been spent onthe 144-acre farm that his family carvedout of the woods around the cabin."I know every crook and turn of it," hesaid. "I can't climb these hills and I ain'table to work now, but I make a gardenand cook for myself and try to keep theyard mowed."He still tends a pink, fragrant patch ofsweet william, which his mother plantedin the yard 60 or 70 years ago, and whichhe moved to a spot beside the cabin afterher death.About seven years ago, while barefoot inhis kitchen, Cornett was "nibbed" on thefoot by a small copperhead snake, but hewas treated for the bite and suffered noserious effects."They made a moving picture here awhile back," he said. " 'Fire Down Below'is what they called it. They floored myporch; took everything out- foundation,sills and everything- and refloored it, andnever charged me a penny. Some of themsaid that the man that did it was a brotherto that man with the ponytail (actorSteven Segal). They paid me $2,100."He would not trade his little cabin onWolfpen Branch in Letcher County fora mansion elsewhere, Cecil Cornett toldme as we said goodbye. Everything thatmeant something to him was there."Don't forget me," he said.I promised that I wouldn't.Byron Crawford is a resident ofShelbyville, KY. He is the KentuckyColumnist for the C<strong>our</strong>ier J<strong>our</strong>nal andthe Cincinnati Enquirer. He is alsothe host of the Emmy Award winning"Kentucky Life Series", a weeklymagazine seen on KET. He has writtentwo books, Kentucky Stories andCrawford's J<strong>our</strong>nal.Editor’s Note: Byron Crawford will bethe luncheon speaker at this yearsNOWRA Conference.
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