The Moment Of Truth- With The Carter Family’s Hello Stranger In Mind

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

 

In the fall of 1941 young Thornton Easton did not know which way to jump, didn’t know what he should do. His father, venerable Preston Eaton, had just gotten him a job in the mines back in the spring, the coal mines outside their hometown of Hazard, Kentucky. Yes, that Hazard of hoary almost civil war battles “which side are you, boys and girls, union or death,   between the hard-struck miners and the distant coal barons, their cops and their hangers-on who controlled life in the hills and hollows [“hollas” down there come Saturday night when the wine and liquor flows but we Northern boys even with a solid Southern pedigree hidden in our names will stick with hollows, thank you] of the Appalachian mineral rich valleys written up in story and song). This had been Thornton’s first job, first paying job anyway although he had worked his ass off since the age of twelve tending to the small no account acres of farmland that kept the Eaton’s from famine’s door in hard times since the job was passed on to him by his older brother, Jeffrey, who had in turn taken it over from an older brother and so on as each older brother joined Preston in the mines. He had done many chores for neighbors and some town’s people but that was strictly done on a barter basis, or rather done for no money but maybe some candy or cakes, stuff like that.

So Thornton was beginning to get used to the idea of having his own money in his own pocket (minus the family share pool money each working member of the family put in the kitty each payday before anything else).Yes, getting used to the money if not the work, the work that had left him exhausted the first few weeks, and if not used to the dirty fingernails that would not come clean despite the borax soap that he used to get the black out. Probably would never get it out completely as a look at his father’s fingernails and Lamont his grandfather’s too before he passed away in 1937 of the black lung, which always lurked in the back of the miners lives. And that last part, that hard life, short pay, black lung, and forever dirty fingernails was what had Thornton not knowing which way to jump. 

One of the best things about having some money was to be able to get a few miles away from Hazard, a thing he had never done except once when he was about ten and his father had taken him to Prestonsburg to some come you damned sinners-repent-and be one with the Lord revival meeting. Get out to see the whole wide world, see Louisville and places like that, get out to see something except death-head coal mines, hills and hollows and tar paper shacks. He had gotten out a few times since the spring, gotten out to attend the big dance at Red Roger’s barn over in Prestonsburg where all the pretty girls were if you wanted to know. And where he had cut something of a figure with all the guys, the ragtag guys drinking their corn liquor put the moniker “the Sheik” on him half in honor half in jest although if you asked those comely girls who kept eying him and his coal-black hair, fierce blue eyes and cleft chin they would speak of the former reason. That is where the jump part really comes in. See part of the dance scene in Prestonsburg was a talent show sponsored by Diamond Records out of Lexington. That company was looking, some say desperately looking, for new talent to be the next Jimmy Rodgers, or the next Bob Wills, or the next Milton Brown now that he had passed away in a car crash and so the contests. The winner, male winner anyway, to get to try-out for the famous Ohio River Valley Boys and if successful go play with them on tour which extended through the whole rural South and parts of the Mid-West (some people sneering called it the “hillbilly circuit” but that is where the hillbilly nickels and dimes were).

At first Thornton feared to enter the contest, in fact did not do so the first time he went to the dance but somebody persuaded to give it a try at the next dance. See along with the lonesome job of tending to the family farmland acres (only two acres really all the rest was hard-scrabble no account earth but plenty for a young boy to handle) Thornton would pick up the guitar that his grandfather had left to him when he died and play to the flowers, plants, pigs and chickens. And not just any no nothing song because Lamont Eaton had been locally known as the best guitar player (and a pretty good singer although not usually the lead) around when he played with the Sill Hill Mountain Boys at the weekly Red Barn dances in Hazard in the 1920s (discontinued when Prestonsburg started having its weekly dances). And could sing, sing from the sheet music that he would sent away to Louisville to get. So Thornton had some “breeding” in him. He was pretty good at that guitar at least with the dozen or so chords that he knew cold but what captured everybody in the family was that voice, that voice that sounded almost like Jimmy Rodgers.            

See too Thornton Eaton was on the handsome side, not he movie star Douglas Fairbanks-Clark Gable handsome but more the lonesome cowboy type which many country girls were crazy for. So that somebody who persuaded him to enter the contest had been a gal, Lorna Lee, whom he had meet at the first dance and whom he had a date with for the second dance. This was the way she put it –“Thornton Eaton if you want anything out of me, anything I know you want if you know what I mean, then you had better try out for that contest because I am not going give anything to any no account coalminer with dirty fingernails and no prospects.” Well what is a guy to do when the imperial woman imperative is thrown your way.  

So you know that night that Thornton warbled to the stars, sang well enough to win although his guitar work was off. You also know that he tried out with the Ohio River Valley Boys and got a spot as a vocalist in that band (with a promise of a guitar slot if he got better). So the first two weekends in September once the “hillbilly” circuit got running up again Thornton had gone to Wheeling in West Virginia with the Boys. And that was his dilemma-stick with the mines or chance his stars with the Boys.

As fate would have it Thornton would not get a chance to roll the dice of his future. On December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor out in Hawaii, a place that he could not point to on a map with ten chances, the Japanese made that decision for him as the next day he went over to the Marine recruiting station and signed up for the duration. Signed up and saw all the action he wanted with a hand in a lot of the battles of the Pacific War you read about in the high school history books. He would tell his son, Sam, many years later when they were still talking to each other before the family cold war estrangement set in between them said that when he had a choice between the coal mines with their rotten coal barons lording it over them and fighting the “Nips” (Thornton’s term in common usage amount the soldiers and Marines who fought the Pacific War) he joined up with both hands and feet. Said he liked his chances better against the Japanese.

As for Lorna well he never saw her again after he stopped writing, or she did it, was never clear which one kind of let the thing fade away in the throes of the war. Probably him since he wound up before being discharged at the end of the war being assigned to the Naval Shipyard in Hingham, Massachusetts where he met Sam’s mother Delores who worked in the offices there at a USO dance and, good or bad, never looked back. Mostly bad times although he never complained much despite never drawing a lucky breathe in his whole damn life up North. As for the singing career that was reduced to serenading Hank Williams’ songs with his broken down second-hand guitar to his five sons after he had had a few drinks of store-bought whiskey. Yeah, Hello Stranger.