Ralph Corbin, Jellico, Campbell County, Tennesse
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Ralph Corbin was from Jellico, in Campbell County, Tennessee.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
Ready? Folks, this is Ralph Corbin talking, I was born and raised in Jellico, right next to the state line, the Kentucky line runs right through one corner of my town, I went to school to fourth grade, I wasn’t so hot in school, I guess you all know, and then I got me a job in the mines working, I cut my coal one day nine feet back, and I went back the next day and knocked it, it all come out in one chunk, and they used six rails a-loading it, and it took me nigh but three days to load it, and after I got it loaded, why, it took six motors to pull it out, and after I got it out and let it over the incline, why, the rope broke and it run through the tipple and tore it down and out on the highway and busted, and it took six trucks and five freight trains nine weeks to move it, and the m- boss there, he told me I was just in his way, costing him for his tipple and things, so I guess you know I lost my job there, went on and got me another job at a little old mines, and I was working right under the schoolhouse, and all that year while I worked over there the kids didn’t learn anything, why, every time the teacher put the figures on the blackboard, and I’d hit a lick, a giant maul, and the county stopped me there, they said I was ruining all the kids, and so I signed up for the CCs in March, and I was lucky I got to come the April before, I come out here to Smoky Mountain, this is a beautiful place out here in the Great Smokies, and so I’ve been working on the White Rock Trail every weekend, what makes it so cool, I get on the KP, folks, well, when you get on KP, that’s hard too, working around here, you have to wash about a million dishes, scrub them spoons till you see yourself in them, so I've been working on the White Rock Trail, and I c- just can't get to xx, the bears carries my canteens off fast as I put them there, uh the leader tried to claim me eating them the other day, so White Rock, it's a beautiful place, I like the CCs just fine, and uh I'll just tell you a little trouble I had the other day, you know my boyfriends went to town, probably got a drink of beer or something, staggering on the street, they put them in jail, and my best friend was Herman Smith and George Baxter, they, George Baxter was in Sevierville jail and Herman was in Newport, and they just got out tonight, and they looked pretty sad and rough, you know, so I guess that'll be all this time. [YODELING]