The Hollow Transcript
- [Interviewer] What'd you say about people killing themselves up here?
- Well, you know the dead, they don't speak about it to ya. I don't know what they killed theirselves for, but they shot themselves. I don't know their minds. They must be out of their heads. They must be crazy. They must not know what they're doing. That's wicked. That's a sin. You must not murder. The Lord said, "You must not kill." And the Lord said, "You shall multiply," and he didn't say who with. So it don't make any difference who we multiply with, I don't believe. Boy, I'm a gonna fulfill his words. I'm a gonna multiply.
♪ Up on the mountain ♪
♪ There once lived a boy ♪
♪ Whose heart was full of joy ♪
♪ Down in the valley ♪
♪ Down there below ♪
♪ He filled his heart with his old mountain brew♪
♪ Oh Molly, I love you ♪
♪ You been so true ♪
♪ I'll sing the love song you are good to me ♪
♪ I'll sing my love song to you ♪
- They wouldn't get on that lake if you give them $1,000. I hate it! It ruined the town. No good. Some people cried 'cause they took the farms away from them. Put on prices, give you so much for it, flood it with water. Ah! No good! No good.
- Then we'd see we had all kinds of work. All kids could work. Everybody could work. There was farms to work on, haying, planting, or cleaning stables and feeding cattle, and all such as that. Well, when they put the dam in, they ruined the whole place.
- What?
- [Alma] What kind of work you do in the olden days?
- What kind of work we did?
- [Alma] Yeah, back when you-
- Picked berries, sawed wood. Split wood.
- [Alma] Yeah, what kind of work?
- Put in a wood shed.
- I said what kind of work was there that you used to work at?
- [Lincoln] Them days?
- Yeah.
- Them days wasn't. My days hadn't come yet to work when I picked berries.
- [Alma] Well, when you got old enough to work, where'd you work?
- Well, I worked in the mill. The IP.
- I know one time Daddy said, "We only got $1 an hour or something." You'd have to-
- [Lincoln] Oh, well, actually that was later.
- No, well when-
- That was after that. When we got laid off.
- [Alma] I don't remember it.
- We was laid off three months down at the mill, shut the water, then we had to go to work somewhere, so we went down to the PWA. That's where they took us. Put us on there. Said, "You boys, you'll have to get cut down to $1 an hour." Cut brush along the road and pull out stumps that's in the way. Cut trees. By Jesus, you worked them days. You didn't play.
- I and her's made maple syrup to help live when it was sugaring time on the stove. No sugar, boys.
- Made maple syrup sugar right on my stove, cook stove, and make syrup that way.
- Buy a brown sugar and put half of it in, they didn't know the difference. Tell 'em, "Maple syrup."
- Yep.
- We lived back here on my uncle's farm then. Come sugaring, I tapped the trees and she boiled it on the stove and made it. Put the brown sugar in and I'd take it out and sell it. Made some money, we did that way no work.
- The olden days, they were poorer than they be today.
- [Relative] Yeah, but times were better then!
- I don't see where.
- Years back in the older generation, people got out and they had gardens. They had what they wanted to grow. They went out, they made a living by hunting and trapping and these other things like this. Today, how many do you find that does this?
- The neighbors used to help one another. If they'd start piling wood like me, I got wood there to pile, the neighbors would all come and give you a hand, you know? And help ya. If you had wood to split, they'd help ya. If you had your hay to cut, they'd come and help ya. If you was building up a building, they'd come and help ya. Today, you can't get a child, not even a child even to wheel you up some wheelbarrow with the wood. You have to pay 'em good money. No, they're not today like they used to be. No!
- You gotta take care of yourself! You gotta figure for yourself! Ain't nobody coming up here and give you your stuff. Not us. If they take in a night's full of wood, I gotta give 'em five or 10 cents. So this is my life! They don't do nothing for me! Well, I have to pay for it! Now, if I didn't have anything to eat up there, my wife will bring me up something to eat. That's all. All the rest of 'em, "Dad! You got a dollar?" "Dad! You got some pancake flour?" "Dad! You got some potatoes?" That's all that helps me.
- Jesus Christ! Ask 'em to do something. Do you suppose you'll get anything to help me to do it? No! Just the way I'm gonna be when they want anything. Watch me help them. And that by God damn sight!
- What do you want me for?
- Get them boys to help me. Supposed you get anything out of them, they're gonna get it! They'll get worse than that son of a bitch of a club.
- What'd you want me up home for?
- Got kids and then what never God-damned son of a bitches, they want none of them help ya.
- What did you want me home for?
- Well, I thought maybe I'd get a little help outta you. Maybe not. Don't wanna help me, say so!
- What you gotta do?
- I've gotta put those windows up in that shanty.
- Oh! Okay.
- All the way.
- Okay. One second, boy. You better mend your ways or you're gonna be living alone. Well, everybody think it's good fun. Don't come crying on my shoulders.
- [Upset Man] What the hell?
- [Walter] The old timers, when they was younger, they used to be a rough, boy, but not this younger generation.
- Nah!
- Take this younger generation, they not like the old timers used to be. Boy, that used to be a rough place, I'm telling you.
- Didn't Dad ever tell ya how they used to act like when they was old around here? And you old settlements was around here? You have him tell it to ya sometime. Ask him how they acted, how they went.
- Now you wanna know how I broke my leg. Well, I went into the hotel and I got pretty drunk and I sat up on that stool, and I was a visiting with a woman. And I guess somebody was jealous of the woman or something. Somebody come up behind me and yanked me right over back. There was a big rod went across the bar. My slipper got caught in that and broke my ankle! And I went over back! Well, I didn't notice my ankle was broke, so I jumped right up and went right out in the dance hall and fit! Fit! Had a real fist fight. And then I drove the bone right straight through there. Boy! How it felt! They got me to the doctor's as quick as they could and the doctor had it fixed, fixed it, and I jumped right off of the operator table and walked again right out the door. Broke it right out again. Well, that's how I broke my leg. And I ain't walked now in 35, 40 years. Why don't I go on crutches? I can't do nothing on crutches. Only walk. I have to do chores. I have to get the wood in. I have to feed the hens. I have to feed the dogs. Can't do it on crutches. So I go the way I go and I get along pretty good. Might just as well be dead if you can't have any fun. Sure you have! I like to have fun. Oh, how I wish I could dance with my foot. Boy! I could show you how to dance. Fun! Oh, I like fun. I like music, quick and devilish. I don't want nothing slow. I want something quick and devilish. Yeah! Something quick and devilish!
- I'd go to school and start home from school and he'd throw snowballs at me all the way home.
- Well-
- I never thought we'd grow up and get married.
- I was a trying to get acquainted with ya.
- You was? Well, I wasn't getting acquainted with nobody, was I then?
- Yes. You got mad at me.
- I got mad at him 'cause I wouldn't get acquainted with him. Well, all right.
- [Gordon] Wasn't neither one of us old enough when we got married.
- No! We didn't know nothing, did we?
- No.
- Would you do it again?
- No!
- You wouldn't?
- Not if I knew what I was doing.
- Well, I don't know whether I would or not. And again, maybe I would.
- That ain't what they wanna know! Run away with her. Went way back in the mountains. I had a cousin back in there and we stayed in there for a week and a half. And when I come back, I married her.
- We left. Or I left up in here when my daughter was a small child. I was gone for quite a few years around seeing the country. I came back up here. Gordy says, "Can I come back and stay with you?"
- [Gordon] I didn't say no such thing!
- Yes, you did!
- Now don't put that on that tape! You know better.
- Yes, you did too!
- I didn't!
- You did! Yes, you did! Tell the truth on it.
- I didn't!
- Now you're ashamed, aren't ya?
- There's gonna be some big trouble.
- Now you're ashamed.
- I didn't wanna come back.
- So anyhow, this was three years ago and here he is.
- Now don't tell that no more 'cause it ain't so.
- Well, it is the truth. You know it.
- You do, I won't stay with ya at all.
- You know it! If Henry was here, he'd tell ya so too.
- It ain't so. You as a woman.
- Oh, he's a bashful old fella.
- [Child] Shut up!
- [Child] Shut up!
- Ah, you get out hunting and mind gets on hunting or something. I forget all that and all this and this and that. I'm real interested to get in the woods. Like if you had a place you'd like go off a while, you can judge it by that. My best place is in the woods with a gun in my hands, expecting, looking where I figure there's some game coming. Like you enjoy yourself to some party or something, or something, I enjoy myself just as much if not more in the woods looking for something to come. And I don't get discouraged if I don't see nothing. I guess I take after the Indian. I like the woods, I like the animals. Although I like killing to eat, but so does an Indian. Yeah, that's my enjoyment. I used to, when I was young, liked go out once in a while to a moving pictures, a circus or something. Now I wouldn't care to go at all. No place, only just to hunting and first tramping. Africa's the only place I ever wanted to go, and I still would like to go. What? I just can't tell you only the animals. The animals. I'd like to go there and stay. Yep. Be so I could live there. Aesop! You're doing all right!
- A poor man makes a rich man rich. A poor man does. That's what makes them rich, a poor man! The poor man. Poor man's got a dollar, you gotta get down there and give it to that rich fella. Gotta have a loaf of bread. Gotta have something to eat. Well, you gotta get down and give it to him. He laughs at ya and put it in his pocket. You get out there and earn another dollar, he's looking for it. He wants it! Now, he wants that dollar. He knows you gotta eat! He knows you won't starve to death. So why don't the poor make the rich man rich?
- How many times have you been on a dump and picked up stuff that rich people has throwed away and got ya a dollar or two?
- [Harmy] Well, I never did.
- Oh, ya did.
- I never picked up nothing. I wasn't ever to the dump very much. Once or twice in years and years and years. But these campers up in here, you know they've got money. They come up there through the summer and they go back to Florida in the winter. So there's where you got your stuff, from a rich man. They was rich or they wouldn't put nothing out there. What'd you get? Just a little junk to take over to the junk yard. Some old junk like that. Didn't find any good gadgets, any shirts, any good pants, any good shoes. Did ye? Did ye?
- [Car Attendant] Hello!
- [Car Attendant] Did you get the picture of that school bus?
- [Child] What's that for?
- Quit the hollering, your mother says! You be a fireman? You'd be worse than firemen.
- You wanna come and greet us?
- Yes!
- Good.
- Oh, good!
- Calm down, sweetheart.
- Don't push me, Mommy. Please don't push me.
- I'll push ya. All of our families live here. Our uncles, our aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces. From generation to generation, we've been brought right up, might as well say together. I mean, my father's lived here, what? All of his life, 76 years. And of course I think my mother's lived here all. Was born and raised here too. I mean, once you get used to one place now like Allentown here, they call it, once you get used to it, I mean, and then you move out in another place, it gets kind of lonesome and boring till you get used to it. Of course, it gets lonesome and kind of boring here once in a while. Nothing to do. But I mean, you're always tickled to get back where you was born and raised. You know, it makes a difference. I moved out here for a while when I was about 16, 17 years old. Went to work down in Corinth. But I was tickled to get back here on weekends from, well, Friday night to a Sunday. Of course it was nice to work and having what you wanted, earning your own and having what you wanted. But soon I still got homesick. I was tickled to go back on the weekend, meet my friends and go out and things. Now, like me, I'm not proud of living on the welfare. I'd rather be out working, supporting me, myself and my kids if I could find a job where I could get to, earn money enough to meet the ins and outs. As I say, it's not easy when you got a man living with them, the man you live with is 72 years old. His day's work is done. So what else you supposed to do? It ain't that I'm proud of it. It gets kinda miserable once in a while, so now he's a father. Mother can't bring up kids alone. They need a father too. We're the way the Lord wants us. The Lord wants us be poor, we're gonna be poor. He sees that we shouldn't be poor, then he'll help us.
- Oh! What was that?
- [Susan] This?
- Put it in the food where it was.
- [Susan] Spoon!
- You give it to me.
- Stop arguing!
- Susan!
- I get you kids on a-
- Rusty. Uh-uh!
- Did you go on for a trip too?
- Yeah!
- You and Susan both?
- At the same time. She went first down there.
- Where'd you go, Susan? He went to Corinth Lake. Where'd you go?
- Same place.
- [Susan] Corinth Lake!
- Quit fanning your hat around. Put it down!
- Yeah! Well, just 'cause I have to.
- Well, you look pretty smart telling somebody. That girl wasn't enough.
- We're paupers! Half of the town's paupers! Ain't got money enough to buy a cigarette. Ain't got money enough to buy a piece of bread. Paupers!
- To be poor is an awful way to live. I know that. Head out the door and you think, "Well, maybe I can get me a slice of bread this way." Once you get let down once, boy, it is hard then. Somebody said, "No, I can't help you." And then you don't know what to do. Be poor, you're dead! Right? You are dead! Don't know where to go. Ain't even living no more. I have to make it as I go. I never think about the future. I always think about now. I don't worry about the future. Take care of it when it comes. In other words, Gary, if I can live today and eat, that's all that matters. I might not be here tomorrow. I figure for tomorrow when it gets here. The only way I can. Right? Can you live any other way? Not in this town you can't.
- You celebrating going away?
- This won't be your last night. You'll be around being around. You'll come around. You'll be back.
- When I get down there, I don't want leave that trailer.
- [Relative] You won't?
- When I get down there, when I let downpayment on it, went down there and see about stuff, didn't wanna leave it. I wanted to stay right there.
- You wanna be careful, John, when you get down there. You spit on a sidewalk and they'll jail ya. Can't spit on the sidewalk down there. I ain't moving you back!
- I don't mind! I ain't coming back.
- Don't ask me to. I ain't moving ya back when I move you outta here.
- [John] I ain't coming back.
- [Relative] You'll come see us, won't ya?
- I ain't moving you back.
- [Relative] You'll bring us back, Cody, if we get so we can't stay down there.
- No! Because I tell you, when you get down to the truth of it, there's nothing in here for a poor man. You gotta get outta here.
- [John] Yeah! That's why I'm going out.
- Learn to grow up and get used to being away from their people. If they can swing the payments. The payments is what would worry me.
- He can't afford that to pay that amount of money down there for that trailer. You know he can't. Poor man, working by day's work. Take care of his wife, food. God can't, well, he can't say it.
- [Lifter] Almost full!
- Sure, it is.
- John, you want your toolbox to go?
- [John] No! All I wants is my big pipe wrench.
- Grab him one of them boxes!
- [Child] We can lift it!
- Oh!
- [Relative] Where are the glasses, John? Put them where they won't get broke.
- [Relative] Here's the glasses! Want them when they're closed? Or no?
- [John] No. All right now, I'll be back up.
- [Relative] Ready?
- [Child] You gonna get in there now?
- He's gotta pay, what is it? 150 or something a month? Well, he can't do it. You know he can't do it. You'll see him back there in less than three months.
- It's gonna be lonesome without him. After having him raised right up with him from babies up. I don't like the idea of it, but they'll be back. They won't be gone too long.
♪ Well, I was brought up by kind parents ♪
♪ I once was their pride and their joy ♪
♪ But I took to drinking and gambling ♪
♪ Wild life got the best of their boys ♪
♪ Some fellas took me out on a robbery ♪
♪ I thought just once would be fun ♪
♪ But one crime lead to another ♪
♪ Now it's back to the use of my gun ♪
♪ In my pocket I carry a pistol ♪
♪ It's never away from my side ♪
♪ And an object that's carved in its handle ♪
♪ Tells how more than one man has died ♪
♪ I'm living a life that is crooked ♪
♪ My folks looked around every bend ♪
♪ I know someday they will get me ♪
♪ Oh, I dread to think of the end ♪
♪ I wished I had listened to mother ♪
♪ She said there'd be days like this ♪
♪ I've lost my two friends and my sweetheart ♪
♪ No more will I know what love is ♪
- Lonely lonesome, day to day! Today was a lonely, lonesome day! Nervous, lonely, lonesome day!
- Don't you ever have days you get lonely, lonesome? Don't you? Never get lonely? Never get lonesome? Well, I guess. Everybody does!
- Gotta do some work tonight. Rest of my chores. Then I'm gonna crawl into bed and if Mel starts to touch me, I'm gonna send her kiting.
- [Mel] You are, are ya?
- Yes. You're gonna leave me alone. I feel awful gummy today. Oh, I just feel sore again. Also mean inside. And it just seems if I start to move, it hurts me. And I'm in pain. Got a headache. Suddenly my soles feels itchy all the time inside, and that cold. I don't know. My lung's gotten to ache. I just feel like a fool, I guess. Norman went just like I be and they operated on him. Didn't find out what ailed him till they operated on him. They took x-rays and the next day he diagnosed cancer to us. He had to go on crutches. He couldn't walk. So sore.
- I all done, done!
- What? Huh?
- [Sister] I said look at all I've got over here!
- [Brother] I can get mine over here!
- You know what this for? Halloween. We go Halloween?
- [Brother] That's what mine's for too!
- You guys will be up here on Halloween too?
- Halloween. Good. Halloween. We come up. We come up there too, okay? Ah! Oh! Oh! Ah! Oh! My guy's sleeping! Mine's falling apart! That wasn't fair!
- You graduated two schools, right? You wanna bet me 50 cents that I ain't just smart you are? And you know how far I went in school? Now you wanna get your mathematics, you wanna get your spelling words, you wanna get your history, your social studies, whatever you wanna bring out here. You don't wanna bet me 50 cents, I ain't just smart you are. And I can answer everything you answer? And you graduated! I didn't. I never done a thing in school. I sat back in the back of the classroom, read magazines. I'll be honest and tell the truth what I done while I was in school. Graduation. That's what they want today. No matter where you go. But how's he gonna graduate? In the school that he's in, how's he gonna graduate? He's in a school where it's hard for him to learn, I guess, or hard for him to teach. How's he gonna graduate?
- [Interviewer] Hard for him to teach?
- [Howard] Hmm!
- [Interviewer] What do you mean?
- For children where they figure that children might be retarded. You know what I mean? Or off a little bit. Well, that's what they got that school for. They don't teach him natural schooling. This boy's 16 years old next month. I'll show you what I mean. Like this. He knows what that word is, right Howdy? What's that spell, Howdy? See what I mean? 16 years old. Where's he gonna go? What's he gonna get? What's he gonna gain? So there's one way that boy's gonna learn, and the only way he's gonna learn! Somebody's gonna have to take him around and make him watch things. Let him learn by heart. 'Cause he ain't gonna learn by a pen and a paper. He's some people like that. And when he gets all done the learning, he'll know more than the one with a paper and a pen.
- Do it! There she goes.
- Well, get some water then.
- Look at his head!
- Put the head down there.
- [Child] Where does it go?
- Get it in a box.
- Eric, got a box?
- [Howard] Come on!
- Eric!
- [Eric] What?
- You got a box?
- [Child] Here.
- You done yet?
- Want a book?
- Look at that. Come on, you big book. I'll book your nose there. Come on. Come on!
- Get a box, Howdy! Go get something else! What's the matter with you?
- Eric!
- You see? You see? See? Chicken's all bloody, isn't it? [Howard] Turn him around!
- [Child] The chicken's all bloody, isn't he?
- [Howard] Been a long time since I've done this.
- [Child] The chicken's all bloody, isn't he?
- Yeah. He's all bloody. Hold him up! Come back around here. Slow.
- So his wings ain't no good to eat, ah? Them things, are they? That meat part?
- [Howard] Turn around!
- Gonna cut his neck off?
- [Howard] No! Neck's good to eat. What's the matter with you? Now hold him. Where's the kettle?
- [Howdy] Eric! Should bring a kettle out here!
- Got some water in it? Set it right down here.
- What is that? That his liver? Yeah, what's them things? Worms?
- Hold him up this way! Get him by the wings.
- [Howdy] There's one of them wings.
- Hear him cackle? Here's what he ate, Howdy.
- [Howdy] What? In there?
- [Howard] Yeah. See all that grass and grain?
- That?
- [Howard] Yeah.
- [Howdy] What is that thing?
- [Howard] That's the gizzard.
- Is that good to eat too?
- [Howard] Sure! That's something you ain't got.
- [Howdy] What is his liver?
- [Howard] Gizzard! You ain't got a gizzard!
- [Howdy] Is George and them?
- Yeah, they got a gizzard. This takes the place of a stomach. Now, the only thing is I can't eat him but I killed him.
- [Howdy] You can't eat him now?
- Why, no!
- [Howdy] That's his neck part right there, ain't it? You're taking off now, aint it?
- [Howard] Turn him over.
- He can't hop now. Can he, Dougie? Can't do nothing now, can he? Doesn't he, Doug? Huh?
- Think that poor chicken laid right there and cackled and tried to get up. Couldn't get up. No, he sat there and keep teasing him. Tease that guy? I'd rather kill a human than I would one of them animals.
- [Howdy] He's going down!
- [Child] Thank you.
- At least a human can tease ye. He might even have a chance to save his life. He might talk you right out of it. That poor rooster had to lay right there and just take it.
♪ Oh, I was brought up by kind parents ♪
♪ I once was their pride and their joy ♪
♪ But I took to drinking and gambling ♪
♪ Wild life got the best of their boy ♪
♪ Some fellas took me out on a robbery ♪
- I'll deal it to ya!
- [Harmy] Deal it to me?
- Yep!
- [Harmy] For what?
- That puppy.
- Oh, you just can't have my little puppy. I'm gonna keep him.
- [Child] What would you give me for it then?
- I'll give you 10 cents.
- [Child] No! Gotta have a quarter.
- No! I ain't buying that thing.
- [Child] I'll deal ya a little duck!
- I've gotta buy me a pack of tobacco and a can of milk.
- Get there. You wanna?
- Well, I'll trade with ya for $5 to boot. $5 to boot!
- I ain't got no money.
- Well, I gotta have the money. I gotta have money. Hello, Becky!
- [Child] Here, puppy! Here, pup!
- Leave the pup alone!
- [Child] You wanna deal with me?
- Yes! $5 to boot!
- I ain't go no! I'll tell you what! I'll give you this net dollar off of me.
- No, you want Lily, you'll give me five! Otherwise, I keep the puppy and you keep your old sewing machine.
- [Child] Well, you want one of them chickens?
- Why? I guess that old sewing machine is worth more than a chicken. I'll give ya two big donuts for your machine.
- [Child] Nope.
- [Harmy] Well, I'll give ya three.
- [Child] Nope!
- [Harmy] Well, a big cucumber.
- Nope.
- Well then, I guess we can't deal.
- He deals for maybe potatoes, loaf of bread, or maybe you would deal for something that you figure you could sell and make a dollar, and draw a dollar into it. You know what I mean? In the deal. That's what you deal for. You deal to make yourself a living. That winch and them things brand new, you see? But I still lacked a couple here. I'll show you what I mean. I bought them things brand new but I lacked a couple. The one here and these two holes here. I bought them brand new.
- Huh? Did you make it?
- No, my brother made it. One you dealt with, Emery there?
- [Buyer] Yeah. Emery.
- He made it. Boy, this one's solid though. We brought a whole house on it.
- Ah, do you wanna trade your trailer for the truck?
- Truck? Yeah.
- All right, I'll bring the truck up.
- It's all nice. Nice little truck. Dandy little truck. Nice one. If it runs. Does it run?
- No, don't run. Does it, George?
- Won't run? Why won't it run? How's it gonna run?
- Sure that truck would stop before it gets out the dooryard.
- You guys! All right, you guys keep still up there.
- I'll let you go.
- Yeah. Now let me see if it runs. Now all we do is push here. What's the matter with you? Yeah, it runs nice. It's a nice looking little truck.
♪ You will get paid ♪
♪ Where the sun don't never shines ♪
- [Child] You buy the man?
- No!
- [Child] Why?
- I'd wake up in the night and it'd scare me to death!
- No, it wouldn't. I just sewed them the bloomers on here.
- I'd give ya two donuts for your sewing machine.
- No!
- Then I'll give ya two donuts and a jack knife!
- What jack knife?
- [Harmy] One I got in the house!
- Let's see it!
- [Harmy] Two-bladed!
- For a sewing machine?
- Two donuts? Yes. And the jack knife for the sewing machine. Give me the sewing machine. We made a deal! Let me get your donuts!
- [Child] You want him?
- [Harmy] Now I'm gonna go hungry.
- [Child] You want him?
- No! I don't want him! There's your donuts.
- [Child] All right!
- Deal's all made.
- Going as far as I can go till I get some money! I'm gonna sell that automobile! You wanna buy it?
- [Neighbor] What about $5?
- Gimme your money!
- [Neighbor] Just get the car! Bring it right down here in the road!
- He told ya, didn't he? That he was all down and out and hungry and offered to sell me that car for $35. Well, he's poor! He ain't got nothing to eat! We've gotta do something to get him something to eat.
- Well, I just did! I sold a car back there, right out of a car! Sold it for a dollar and a half. Run over to Alvin. Get me some bread with it.
- [Neighbor] Yeah?
- Well, Jesus, I needed a battery too. Now I gotta go out and pay $10 for one probably.
- Well, he's on his own. I don't know what he's got to do or whether he's gonna draw wood or what he's gotta do. I don't know. He's just gotta do it with your first sale. The same as you have to do if you didn't have nothing.
- You didn't have no more than what I got to eat, you wouldn't laugh!
- [Neighbor] What you want to eat?
- Anything ya got! I ain't a fair bit particular.
- [Neighbor] Well, I can get you something to eat!
- [Neighbor] Well he's got to eat!
- He's gotta do something! Some kind of work or some kind of something that will bring him in some money. Now I don't know what he's got, what he's gonna do. I don't know. He's on his own and so beyond on it.
- Can't even buy up a cigarette!
- [Neighbor] I'll buy ya a pack of cigarettes!
- Will ye? Come on, I'll take you down the store.
- Well, I ain't kidding ya! I'll take you down the store, buy me a pack of cigarettes.
- He told you up there, he told you all along that didn't have money enough to buy, he said he'd take me down the store if I'd buy him a pack of cigarettes. You heard him all. You heard it all.
- You get right there on the bank and I'll back right up there to you. You slide that on there just like a horse.
- Hey!
- Oh, I wanna get in on that side!
- Look out! Stay outta there!
- Get!
- Hey!
- All aboard! Ready to go!
- [Child] All aboard!
- All outside!
- [Child] Whoa!
♪ I'mma going downtown, I'mma going downtown ♪
♪ I'm going down to Lynchburg Town ♪
♪ To carry my tobacco down ♪
♪ I had an old gray horse ♪
♪ He weighed 10,000 pounds ♪
♪ And every Tuesday on his head was 18 inches round ♪
♪ I'mma going downtown, I'mma gonna going downtown ♪
♪ I'mma going down to Lynchburg Town ♪
♪ To carry my tobacco down ♪
♪ I took him to the blacksmith's shop ♪
♪ To get his mouth made small ♪
♪ And every time he opened his mouth ♪
♪ He swallowed shop and all ♪
♪ I'mma going downtown, I'm going downtown ♪
♪ Going down to Lynchburg Town ♪
♪ To carry my tobacco down ♪
♪ Yeah, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter ♪
♪ In a cavern on a hill in Butcher Holler ♪
♪ I don't know why I drink that awful stuff ♪
♪ I don't know what the hell I could've been thinking of ♪
♪ But I'm still proud to be here in Frog Holler ♪
- [Child] I liked it down there. It was a nice trailer and everything but I'm still glad to be back, Pa. If it wasn't your people in this town, it would be all right to go. But when you know all your people's back here, I don't know, it seems funny leaving them. So we come back.
- Ah, boy! That's a nice chunk! Dandy. What am I gonna do with all this wood? You never know. I gotta have some. Oh, it's coming cold. Coming cold weather. I woke my daughter up one morning, didn't think she'd get out in the winter. She got turned just as black and blue and purple could be. She almost froze. Right in bed!
- I don't like the winter at all.
- [Interviewer] How come?
- Because it's too cold. Too cold. I drug that coal, boy. Out here shoveling snow. Next thing you know it turned off the coal. Be all right if a man had his own money to buy kerosene, a lot of clothes and stuff to keep him warm. It'd be all right then. But if you ain't got the money, ain't got the fuel, you have to work night and day carrying in wood and getting water, shoveling snow, working for the other fellers. Means a lot of hard work, don't it Gary? Man wants a lot of wood up in the winter. I'm telling you. Obviously the snow's much scary here. I didn't where to throw snow when I get over here. Had some up on the bank, I get up on the snow bank, throw it on over to get the snow out of the driveway. Why don't you come up around here in the winter? Just for fun of it. You're gonna be a surprised boy if you've never been up here in the wintertime.
- Ah! Back in there! Back! Well, that's gotta. Ah!
- [Interviewer] Harm, did you read that article?
- Yes! That paper here. I bought it. I give him 50 cents for it. Got it here! You had one, eh?
- [Interviewer] What do you think of it?
- Putting us down pretty low, ain't it?
- We was up the Clayton's when they come up. And they gotten to visit with Carolyn here and they asked her if to ask Walter Kathan if they come down to visit with him. I said, "Sure! Tell 'em to come on down any time." And this news reporter jumped it up, wanted to know if he could take a picture and I told him I didn't care how many pictures he took. Take all he wanted to.
- Chicken coops! We live in chicken coops, it says here. Rags stuffed in the windows!
- And that one little article in that paper, that picture of Ernie's house, he's the one that's real hurting more than anybody else in this town. His place was given down years ago when Joe and them lived in it. The only home he's got. Now it comes up in that paper. Nobody give them city people permission to take picture of that house or not. They just went on and done it.
- Now everybody's gonna beware of strangers. Ain't gonna trust nobody up in here. And they've got it write down the dog coops and everything else. They couldn't put us down no worse. I don't believe it's right.
- The Hollow residents who rarely marry outside their own group can expect to marry at the very last, their second cousins. About 25% of all marriages he found are between first cousins! Dozens of stories circle in Saratoga County about the Allentown.
- Curse 'em! Come in here and start a bunch of shit and this and that. You go right around Glens Falls, Saratoga, Bolston, out there any place and you'll find places just as bad as up in here, if not worser. All the time people come in here and they write up papers. Heck, quite a while ago there was a write up in the paper about Allentown. I don't see myself what's so bad about it. Great for a lot of fellers. Great for campers even comes right up around here. They live right around us and everything. If you need any work, if they got any work over there they want done, they come get us. Now if everything's so bad about the Allens and stuff, hey, campers would do their own work. They wouldn't trust us to do it. They say we're all so bad. Marry amongst our own people, ah, but they ain't over seven people up in there that's married to their cousins. At the most.
- It said in the paper too that children attending the Hadie Luthern Central School, the biggest share of them are Allens and they're in a special class. My son isn't in no special class. There is children there is in the special class. Patrick, he goes to speech 'cause he has trouble with his pronouncing different words. But he's not to blame for that.
- Shouldn't be running all the time on us. Pitiful to have kids to go to school and get run on. You can't buy 'em new clothes every day. And most people have to be on welfare. They won't give 'em no work. Can't work. And it tells about welfare in there. Most people have to.
- [Teen] We're them dummies, Peach.
- I know it!
- Don't know nothing. 18 to 30 something! Guys, we can't read or write or spell.
- Yeah, but-
- Don't know the value of money or anything, the way they talk.
- Yeah, but some of these people-
- Don't come up in here. I figure we're the best goddamn man they'd ever figure.
- They said that there was a lot of skills up in here. We had a lot of good skills. They was good woodsmens, good automobile mechanics. But they didn't have no education or they couldn't speak plain. Now if they didn't have no education, how could they be a woodsman especially? I'm gonna use a woodsman 'cause that takes real education. 'Cause if you ain't careful, you might get a tree fell on ye. You might have a tree take after ye. You have to know what you're doing and you also gotta know where you want that tree. You look! That's education. You say, "Well, I want that tree right down there on top of that snowball that lays right down there across that road." Well now, a good woodsman he'll put that tree right atop of that snowball and there won't be no hesitation. That takes education. That's gotta be real education 'cause everything is unsafe and they're dangerous. You gotta know what you're doing, right? Anything it goes takes an education. Anything ya do, you gotta know what you're doing. 'Cause if you don't, you get hurt, won't ye?
- We don't make these guys come up in here just to look at this hollow and stuff. They called it Allentown but it ain't Allentown. It's Hollow! If they'd stop and read a few signs around here, they'd find out that it ain't Allentown, it's Hollow Road.
- I've lived here all my life in this town. I was born and brought up here. I like all my town people and I like my town and I don't like to hear this gossip about it, and talk about it, running on the people.
- It was the truth that they was telling about. But yet the people... The people themselves didn't like that. See what I mean? They object to having their homes and things criticized. Whereas if they'd have went at it a little bit different. I don't know just how it would've been, but just a little different, they might have accepted it. Now if outsiders now like the welfare or social services or anything up in here to help them or anybody tries to help them, they're gonna be afraid of them because they're gonna be afraid that they're going to say or do something that's going to harm them instead of helping. It ain't gonna work. Not these people up here.
- They don't like looks of places, let 'em stay outta here. We ain't gonna be able to trust nobody, I know that much.
- I don't like such things! Would you?
- I said, "When I go outta here I like to feel proud of myself, sure. Just as proud as the next guy." Does anybody else say they any better than I am? I'm human just like they are. I'm only a man. Don't bother me any what they think of me or what they think of my place. That's the least of my worries. As long as I can keep dry and keep warm, have what I wanna eat, that's all that matters.
♪ First let it get right at the cross ♪
♪ Right hand round, right hand round ♪
♪ Lady at the shutter, shove the man around ♪
♪ Do, da, do, da, day ♪
♪ Swing that lady as you go around ♪
♪ You go around, you go around ♪
♪ Swing that lady as you go around ♪
♪ Do, da, do, da, day ♪
♪ Allemande your corners all ♪
♪ Corners all, corners all ♪
♪ Allemande your corners all ♪
♪ Ah, do, da, do, da, day ♪
♪ Right then left, the other way ♪
♪ The other way, the other way ♪
♪ Right then left, the other way ♪
♪ Do, da, do, da, day ♪
♪ Meet your partner with a grand right and left ♪
♪ Grand right and left, grand right and left ♪
♪ Meet your partner with a grand right and left ♪
♪ Do, da, do, da, day ♪
