Wiley Oakley, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
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Wiley Oakley, 53 years old when recorded in 1939, was living in Gatlinburg, in Sevier County, Tennessee. He had four or five years of formal education, as well as some self-education. He worked as the owner of a gift shop.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
This is Wiley Oakley, Roaming Man of the Great Smoky Mountains, I’ve been a guide now for quite a few years, and I was borned and reared in the Great Smoky Mountains, at the foot of Mount LeConte, and when I was a boy I didn’t do anything but hunt, one day I went out to, to shoot some turkey, and just as soon as I entered the woods, here I saw a big flock of turkeys up on a limb, and I had this old cap and ball gun, well I was a little bit choicey, and I w- didn’t want to just shoot one and all the rest of the flock would fly away, so I tried to figure out some way that I could line these turkeys up and kill more than one, as this cap and ball gun, it takes you so long to load them, why the uh whole flock of turkeys is gone, and I was a very good shot at that time, but the trouble was that I always made the m-, the meat, uh the feathers fly, but the trouble was the meat went with it the most of the time, so I decided I couldn’t line these turkeys up, and I just decided that I’d just pick one out or aim at the middle of the limb probably would be better, so I just aimed at the middle of the limb where these turkeys was setting, at the crack of this gun, why I split the limb open and all these turkeys’ feet fell right down in the crack of this limb, and it closed in on them and fastened the uh whole flock, here I had about a dozen or two of them fastened in this limb, by sh-, aiming at the limb instead of picking out one turkey, why I got the whole business, but I had a hard time in climbing up the tree to get the turkeys out, course when I yodel to the end of a story that means you don’t have to believe it unless you want to [YODELING], Lord, Lord, this was about the best turkey hunt I ever made, well now then I have true stories, and when they’re true, why I don’t yodel to the end of the story, but uh when I was a boy I did do quite a bit of hunting and, and we had these old-fashion kind of guns, the first kind of gun was called the flintlock gun, you had to carry a powder in the horn and they had the little pan where you pour the powder in, and then the flint lock goes down and sets the powder off, and of course of a rainy day you couldn’t do much good a-hunting, this was the first kind of a gun that I ever owned, then a little later I had the cap and ball gun, and you could go out on a rainy day and kill turkeys, but you wouldn’t kill them by the dozen, you’d only kill one at the time, and the most of the time it was like I said before, they, usually you would do a lot of good shooting but they always knocked the feathers out, but the meat went along with them, so I’m not very good at story, story telling, not today, I beg to be excused.
[128b]
You’re now listening to Wiley Oakley, the Roaming Man of the Great Smoky Mountain, I have now different kind of stories to tell, I have some true and some is not true, and when I yodel to the end of the story, that’s the signal you don’t have to believe it unless you want to, but if, if I don’t yodel to the end of the story absolutely [SCRATCH], so one time I went out a-fishing, and I caught a fish so big that I couldn’t hardly carry it in home and it wallowed me all over the river, [YODELING] Lord, Lord, believe it if you want to, is that enough, huh?
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Hello, folks, this is Wiley Oakley, Roaming Man of the Great Smoky Mountain, now I uh, I’m a great bear hunter, one time I went out a-bear hunting, and just as I entered the woods, why I looked up in a tree and here was a big black bear up in the tree, seemed to be a-chewing the buds off of the end of the limb, so I up with this here big old hog rifle, cap and ball gun, and I took good bead at him and, and I hit him right where I missed him before, [YODELING] Lord, Lord.