l.r. Linda Gunther, daughter of Ralph and Becky Gunther, Aunt Lena Bailey, Kenny Ray Bailey (holding money from the Christmas haul), Uncle Delbert Bailey, Pauline Gunther Armstrong (Mom), Aunt Anzie Gunther, Betty Bailey Land, and Me, L. Darryl Armstrong in my new Bibbs with a packed bag, in my red rocking chair, and ready to go!

“Ain’t seen this place in a coon’s age,” she says as we try and navigate a former road into the homeplace. Calling it a road would be generous.

Rural western Kentucky.

Four sandstones are all that remain in 1974.

At one time, a log cabin somehow balanced on them. My Mom lived there as a child. Out we get. She sighs—Mom’s home.

She points to an ancient Oak tree. Squint hard. You can imagine a hanging tire rope swing.

To the left, weeds overcome the remains of a falling smokehouse. Get close enough and smell the oak-hickory wood used to cure the meats. Undeniable and haunting.

Ancient engine and tractor, truck, and plow parts lie here and there as if awaiting their renewed importance.

She believes the grape arbor was at the back. It is too overgrown to venture there.

Outback was the mill and chicken house. Under the smokehouse, well, she won’t say but grins. The well had the coldest limestone spring water.

Across a field of soybeans is a pond where she remembers fishing with her Daddy.

He worked to fish, she chuckles. Loved noodling for catfish even more. Loved eating them, too.

She smiles again. She got the fishing gene from him. Of course, she says, not so much baiting the worm on the hook. I smile.

Despite the creeping jungle, you can imagine the home. And you can see her memories of love everywhere she looks.

In the recesses of her mind, she returns to her youth. To her family.

Her siblings Lener (Lena), Bazel (Basil), and the twin boys Ralph and Ross.

Hardscrabble. Timbermen. Marked, cut, and sawed timber are all trades in one family.

Plowed the red clay and planted the crops using mules.

Old Sally, she recalls. The old mule would sit on her haunches for Daddy’s amusement and the kids’ frustration.

Here, she learned to plant by the signs and garden as a master. Mom could raise a tree from a twig.

Loved growing and giving away flowers. She sees the Cherokee Roses. We dig up a few to carry back.

She learned to cook and bake on a wood stove food that is so darn good that my college roommates paid me to take them to Sunday dinner.

Can vegetables and fruits, and smoke meat.

They sewed their clothes, built quilts, chinked logs, chopped and hauled wood year-round, and loved one another, always holding on to family.

Hillbillies, some might say.

A deep and abiding love of family, for sure.