The song says, Way down yonder in the land of cotton, folks like mine are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land…..How true it is…..Folks like mine are not forgotten, Granddaddy Bonner, Big Momma, Uncles Horace, Lloyd, Shorty, Dee, Buck, Ren, Aunt Noit, Aunt Vera, Uncle Stillman, Mom and Dad, Sam, Gent, several more Uncles and Aunt that did not live right there in Coalfire and a host of cousins, plus the nephews and nieces and close friends…..There was something about living in that close proximity to all those kin folk…A kid could not get away with anything. Aunt Noit figured I would spend a lot of my adult life in prison as mean as she thought  I was. Well, I guess I was a stinker….maybe a little worse…Later on she professed her love for me, I mean really…Aunt Vera is the reason I can harmonize so well, er, I mean, I do pretty good anyway, teaching cousin Cecil and me to harmonize around age nine. and she is also the reason I eat all the food on my plate and the reason I love all the vegetables. Her thoughts were if she cooked it, you ate it, you took some of everything and ate everything you took. That was a valuable lesson. Uncle Dee gave us a love of fishing and of sports and always had a job for us. Uncle Buck taught me a lot, lessons about life, giving, loving and doing the job right. I was pretty young when he put me on his tractor and told me to disk up that field. He left. I plowed. I plowed half then turned and did the other half. I was so pleased when I finish and had Uncle Buck look it over. He said, “how come you plowed that ditch down the middle of the field? You need to fix that.” “How do I fix it Uncle Buck?” “Well, he said, you changed directions, throwing the dirt one way on a pass and the next pass you threw the dirt the other direction. Now you need to plow that ditch out of my field.” And then he left. I fixed it….He didn’t get mad or upset he simply said for me to fix it. Things like that shapes lives. Uncle Stillman loved frog legs and told us boys, *I don’t care what time of the night you come in, bring me all the frog legs you get.” He is the only one who ate them and we brought them to him. I never ate one, since he said they taste like chicken, I just kept eating chicken. I could tell you stories about everyone of my folks and you can read in my downloads, Chapter Six of Cousins, to read about our Big Momma. What a wonderful lady she was. And on and on it goes about them all……No sir, folks like mine are not forgotten….they are alive and well inside my heart and mind and the heart and mind of all my cousins…..Look away, look away, look away….Dixie Land…Pete Hester