Blue Lakes

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All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Appalachian Imagination. Today we're in the home of Mr. Blue Lakes. Thank you for letting us in, Blue. You're certainly welcome. Even though we did have to beat on the door for a while. That's all right. You knocked on that door and I was coming in here and the doorbell rang. Yeah. I said, we're walking him to death in there. So.

Tell us where you grew up at, Blue. I grew up, I was born in 1947, Sand Gap, right across from the school. And that used to be a rock house, and they painted it. Right there by the school. Where the steel boy lives. Okay. He used to live. Yeah. And I lived there until I was in the fourth grade. And we moved to McKee. Did you feel like he was moving uptown back then? Oh, Lord. I remember the first time I was ever in McKee. Yeah? And...

I thought I was in another world. Now, did you go to school at Sand Gap, the school on the hill there? I went to school at Sand Gap. When I was a kid, I used to watch them bill at school. You know, when you drive a nail and you hit it and it takes a second before you hear the noise. Yeah. I'd stand out in the yard and I'd see them guys hammered on that building. And I remember that. I can remember when I was little, I went to kindergarten out there in Heisle. Yeah.

We called it the big school then, and I'm a little person. Yeah. You know, it was the big school. I'm going to the big school. Now I go in the big school and if I got a sign hanging on the ceiling, even I have to duck. I love the gap, but it's just not very big, is it? No, but they've added on to it, I don't know, several times.

Oh, yeah. My question, Blue, is a question I bet a lot of people wonder about you. Where did you get the nickname Blue? How much time you got? We've got about an hour, looks like. When we moved to McKee, they're where the funeral home is now. There was a white house. It wasn't very big. And Jess Baker had opened a funeral home there. And his father-in-law had moved in with him. And his name was John Hugh Smith.

He's all the time talking about killing bears and stuff. Claimed he killed, I forget how many bears. When I was little, my mom was always real sick, and Emmanuel, my oldest brother, he had polio. They was all real sick, and as soon as you got up in the morning, you got your apple or a peach or whatever was handy. And you would go outside and get out of everybody's way, let the people take care of the sick people. Yeah. And...

So I'd always go over there at hometown there and get a pop box and sit on in the sun where you stay warm. Yeah. And here come that old man. walking down from the funeral home up there, dragging his feet. There wasn't no blacktop then. And I remember him scooting his feet, coming down through there, and his hands behind him. And dust flying up where he was scooting his feet. And he'd get a pop box and he'd sit there and want to talk to me. Well, I was afraid of him. Yeah.

So he'd always get his knife out and he'd whittle. Making it even worse. Yeah. The one that killed the bears. Yeah, the one that killed the bears. Grizzly bears. That's what he killed. Out in Montana. Anyway. It's funny how you remember stuff like that. Yeah. So he'd get him a pop box, and he'd sit there, and he'd say, give me a bite of whatever I was eating. You know, and I just sat there with my head down. And I cut it short. He said, why don't you ever talk to me, little boy?

He said, why are you always so quiet? I just sit there. And he said, You're the bluest little boy ever I've seen. He said, why don't you ever talk? So I wouldn't say nothing. One day he said, if you don't tell me what your name is, he said, I'm just going to call you a little blue boy. Well, Roy Vickers and Junior Hayes and them guys that work at the service station. Back then, that's what it was. They started calling me Little Blue Boy.

When these kids would get off the bus out there where I lived across the road there, and so they'd hear them calling me Little Blue Boy, so it went from Little Blue Boy to Blue. Wow.

It's an interesting story. Yeah, it is. Did it aggravate you when they called you blue at first when you was a little kid? No. Didn't pay no mind to it. I didn't care what they called me. As long as I got my peach or apple. So has your family been in the... funeral home business your whole life uh well biggest part of my life that i can remember they have been yeah of course i was like the

grade school when my dad bought Baker out. And Baker came to my dad one day and he said, you got a boy, Emmanuel, that's had polio. said he's real interested in this business. And he said, you might think about buying it back then, I mean it's cheap. He just rented that house up there. And so I lost my train of thought. You ever do that? Yeah. You were saying that. My dad wound up buying the funeral home off of Baker. Right. And Baker lived in that little house.

run his funeral home out of that house. Of course back then everybody had their funerals at church. They never had chapels and stuff. So I grew up doing that. Picking up cigarette butts and washing cars and stuff like that. I see. So was that three of you brothers? Is that right? Three of us, yeah. You, Manuel, Merle? Merle. Merle, Manuel, me. Yeah.

No sisters? We got four sisters. Oh, okay. Two of them died. And then I got two still living, Margaret and Marie Rader. Used to be the state representative. Yeah.

and your name is melvin yeah a lot of people probably don't know that no just know you as blue no now i heard a story about you one time i got to know if it's the truth and No better person to tell me than you, I guess. But I do commentary on TV for basketball games. Yeah. And we were doing a game one night. It was North Laurel and Redbird.

yeah and red bird had a bunch of guys whose names is hard to pronounce and the guy i was doing the game with said just do like blue used to do and i said what what did he do he said blue used to just call him henry jones and john smith and whoever because he said he nobody anybody listening to the broadcast wouldn't know the difference no well what happened was uh

Jackson County was playing a team from Louisville. And they had these wild, big, wild last names. Yeah. Me and Robert Lakes was doing the... the tv thing yeah so uh the radio thing right and uh so uh I was calling the game, you know, I'd say Smith or whoever scored two points or whatever. And we had to do a commercial. robert put his hand over and he said you're not calling them guys with their right name i said i said robert these people are from louisville

I said, this station probably don't get past Bree at the time. You're right. And I said, ain't nobody going to listen to it. I said, they care less. Nobody know the difference. That's what happened. So I actually did that. I thought, well, I'll just do like blue. They didn't fire him. They won't fire him. No, they wouldn't. I've done, I do a lot of horror shows announcing for them. And if I can't read the writing.

I'm making up whatever I think sounds good and go right on. Yeah, it won't matter. Some guy filled his paperwork out wrong. person come in on the horse and there's a guy and i called him brenda for the whole show and he finally come over to me and he said he told me his name made sure i knew i said well i was going by what i was reading here

Yeah. And I worked at the funeral home after school. I needed to go back further than that when we lived at Sand Gap. Jerry Dean, his parents had a lot of money evidently. He had toys, tractors and plows. He'd come over to the house after school every day and want to play. We didn't have time to play. We had to work. We had animals to feed and this sort of thing.

So Jerry, he'd come over there and he'd just hang around waiting to see if we had time to play. But we never, we didn't have time. We had to. Shelled corn to the chickens. Yeah. That's something I think would do the whole world good if every family went back to having chickens. or whatever animals they tell us to in gardens in their yards jason we always had two chicken houses we had one where we had the little chickens uh-huh then we had the one where the laying hens were yeah

But we had to work. Yeah. I grew up working, too, and I appreciate it more now than I ever did, I guess. I know. I listen to you. Yeah. I listen to you every day. Well, I appreciate it. I do too. I think that would really help the whole world. Oh, my. People just kept a few chickens to get their own eggs and grew just a few vegetables. Yeah. Just make the world a better place and teach the kids something. Yeah. Whether they want to learn it or not. I remember.

Everybody hung their tobacco in the barn, and then we would take... brown paper sack stuff and roll us up a cigarette. Yeah. Well, we was afraid that mommy or somebody would smell it on us, so we'd sneak to the garden and pull us up an onion and eat it. You ever do that? I've eaten plenty of the onions. I can't. Sassafras leaves, usually what I'd grab a home of to kill a smell or something. Yeah. Yeah, we did that a lot.

And I remember one time our big chicken house was up on top of a hill, and they was a hill straight over on the other side. And Ronnie Lakes, that's Les Lakes. I don't know if you remember Les Lakes. No, I don't know. I mean, they're passed away now. Daddy was working at the farm store at the time.

And he was supposed to have went to work. Something happened and he had to come back. Earl and Ronnie was catching them chickens and handing them, me and Manuel, and we... throwing them over there they fly all the way to the bottom we got caught he wore us out you needed it

So how long were you in the funeral coroner business? Because you was a coroner, too, for many, many years. I was a coroner for 21 years. In 1997, I retired from the health department. Worked 29 years there. And I retired. You wasn't a doctor, was you? No. You want me to do your blood pressure? Anyway. In 1997, I retired from the health department and I started working. Merle had me appointed as a deputy coroner.

then uh then merle retired and i i ran for corner never did lose a race so what's the secret to being re-elected for 21 years. That's a rare thing to hear. Just don't tell nobody. Don't ask nobody to vote for you. That's right. But I... I worked 21 years as a coroner and I worked 29 years for the state at the health department. The whole time I was working at that.

health department i was working at nights and weekends and everything at the funeral home yeah so um that's a long time to be at work jason it is yeah

Something I always noticed about you from when I was a kid, and that's been a while since I was a kid, but you was always positive and you was nice to everybody. That's what always stood out about you to me. Yeah. And I didn't know you that well. Even when I was a young man, when I voted, I'd vote for you. Blue. Thank you. It's like he's nice to me, and we'll vote for him. Yeah, he talked to me at the store the other day, so he got my vote. You're the man, son. Yes, sir.

That many years of being in the mortality space, we'll say, there had to be some interesting moments. Oh, there's some pretty bad interesting moments. So can you give us... One or two just wild stories from... Yeah, without calling names. Yeah, of course. I've had to work several murder cases. Some of them double murdered. Yeah. And I remember early one morning having to go to this house. They said there's two people that had been murdered.

And I went there and there was snow on. And back then you used to drive a hearse to pick up the dead. So I remember driving this blue hearse over there. Drove up the top of this hill. Put it in part. State troopers was there and everything. And we were standing there talking and all of a sudden that... Her decided it was going to go to the bottom of the hill. Oh, no. Slid down its solid ice. So I remember that state trooper moving his car down there real quick.

And it slid all the way to the bottom of the hill and stopped. But anyway, I remember... This man was sitting at the counter in the kitchen. He'd been shot, killed. And this woman was laying outside. And where the snow started melting, blood and everything. I don't get into all that. But anyway, she had a comforter wrapped around her. We thought she'd been shot. And what it was, they'd beat her in the head with a shotgun or rifle or whatever they had. Oh, mercy. And it wouldn't.

Bet you it wasn't six weeks after that. I had a double murder just about rock throwing distance from that house. I'm trying not to call nobody's name. Yeah. Because it's not good. No. But anyway. Makes it more interesting to know if you know. But I remember. This woman had went to work, and she'd come home, and... And they had set the trailer on far. And then there's smoke coming out the windows. That's how come they found out about it.

And I remember the state trooper asked me if I'd film it. They had a camera. As he'd walk along, he'd tell me what he wanted me to film. And I remember this woman that was laying on the bed. And we'd already got the guy out. And, um... A state trooper told me, he said, I want you to film where her head was. Her head had a pillow over it. And he'd move stuff as a family. And...

And there was a cord, extension cord, tied around her neck where they strangled her to death. Oh, man. Just stuff like that. You run into stuff like that all the time. How do you deal with looking at stuff like that every day? This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down right now. Loads of people are searching the following on Depop. Low-rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, puka shell necklace, disc belt.

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I would be a basket case, I feel like, at this point. It'll drive you crazy sometimes. Go to bed at night and all that stuff on your mind. Yeah. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't be good at all. No way. Yeah, me neither. Something else with the corner job there, that'd probably be one of the worst jobs anybody could have. Yeah, and got paid less. You didn't get paid nothing early for that. But you're always on call.

Always. And I'm sure the whole time you're hoping and praying that you don't get caught. Yeah. One good thing about it is people are dying to see you. I'm trying to uplift the conversation a little bit. It's not a fun game. I'll tell you that right now. I would say not. It's a bad seer situation.

Always on call, the wrecks, you know, no matter what happens, somebody leaves this world, you have to be the one there to report it. Yeah. And I do obituaries, and that ain't nothing, you know, I read that. obituary and I hate that so bad and I'm not looking at nobody but if anybody asks what part of my job I don't like it's that because it's

I don't want to be the last person to kind of give them a send off there, you know? I mean, you run into some bad situations. That was early one morning. That was... going to work and I'll tell you another one here in just a minute. And down there right before you turned up lower clover on the other side of St. Gap Hill. Yeah. There was a mail truck. I don't remember which way it was going or nothing else. And there was this guy driving an S10 pickup.

Had two women in with him. And they worked at the re-dryers in Lexington. Yeah. And they was running late. And that man... passed a bunch of cars and stuff in there. Son hit that mail truck, killed all three of them. And there I was. So I said, i'm gonna call jason see if he'll help me i made that up I was going to tell you nothing, but I almost catch myself calling names and I have to be careful.

I'll say this. Anytime I had family members in the funeral home, it's never a good situation to be in. But I will say that you made it a little bit better. You'd always come up and joke or, you know. i've appreciated that about you yeah because i mean you were trying to make things a little better yeah i mean that's a that's a tough gig too on top of the the corner job you know

You're in a somber environment all the time. Now, being around stuff like that, do you get to where bad stuff just don't even bother you? No. No, it always bothers you. Really? I mean, it'll always bother you seeing people having a hard time and people being killed. And most of the corner cases is not good. There's something bad about every one of them. Yeah.

I'm gonna turn it around. It's a little brighter, but I actually Which I know blow who he was forever, but I guess we kind of got to know each other down at the funeral home. I got hard to play somebody's funeral, and I don't remember even whose funeral it was. But after it was all over, there sat me and Blue up there, and we talked.

Handed a guitar back and forth and that's where we got to know each other and that's been a Long time. I don't know how many people have told us that Your name to come up and say do you ever hear him saying him his wife? No I said, buddy, you're missing it. You guys are awesome. Well, I appreciate it. We just have fun when we do it. But you're good. So you play guitar too? Oh, yeah.

Have you ever heard Blue sing? I have not. He's a great singer. Oh, let me go. Well, going back, you said he was born in 1947. Yeah. We kind of talk about the history of Jackson County. um had 421 been blacktop yet yeah i know it was kind of late 40s eric come in is when they developed that road through the best eye the only road that was uh Gravel was 290 across the Anvil. That was the gravel road. And 421 was Blacktop.

And all the rest of them was gravel, like Andy and Creek. Every one you could name was a gravel road. Yeah. 421 would have been, that was the only main artery through the county at the end of time. Yeah. And that's... And that 421, that's a federal road. Yeah. The rest of them are state roads. Yeah, it runs from Michigan to Florida, don't it? Yeah. Is that right?

Yeah. So back in the day, that was the big highway before the interstates and stuff. Yeah. I can't imagine 290 gravel. Oh, I remember when they black topped it. Oh my goodness. Kenneth Moore was my school teacher. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, three years in a row I've had him for a teacher. And he'd got out of the Army. Got a job teaching. And he bought him a 1955 Chevrolet. And it was sharp.

I mean, all them cars were back then. Oh, yeah. And he lived on 290 over there, about a mile and a half before you get to. Highway 30, 3630. And he'd drive that little car in there in the morning. putting oil on the road black topping huh it would be black i mean black is your hat and i always wondered how you ever got that stuff off his car

That's probably eating him up inside to having a nice car like that and that oil all over it. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess 30 through anvil would have probably been gravel too, right? 30. No, as a matter of fact, Highway 30 was blacktop. 3630 now. Yeah. It was blacktop. I misspoke there a minute ago.

You know, and it's still the same way just to, I mean, even right now today, I call the red light down there in McKee, the great divide. Yeah. Because the sand gap side is. Completely different than the other side, you know, McKee and Tynor and Anvil side. Yeah. And it's two different counties. Yeah. They're a little more greedy the farther north you go, ain't they?

Yeah, a little more, seemed like a little more mean at times. Used to be anyway. I think that all started back in the, probably back in the 20s. And the stories keep carrying on with it. I can remember when we were small kids living at Sand Gap. I remember this man come by our house late one evening. He said, Bart, you better put them youngins inside and lock your doors. He said, there's been a killing up Sand Gap. He said, you could hear them shooting. Yeah. He's having a shootout up there.

And that's when you was a little kid. Yeah. Was the movie theater and all that still running in the same gap when you were a kid? Yeah. Did you ever visit any of that? No, no. We weren't allowed to go to the movies. Well, the parents and the people back then, it was a little more of a strict world, which I don't think is a bad thing. Yeah. No, you ain't going up there. George felt it was a sheriff. That's exactly, I pulled that up.

On my phone, it's so weird you say that. I have a question I was going to ask you, but you go ahead. He thought World War I, George did. Yeah. And him and... Bud Hughes. Yeah. On that theater up there at Sandgap. Somebody throw the dynamite in there and blow it up, and they never did open it after that. Threw a stick of dynamite in it? Yeah. Well, I didn't know that.

I mean, it was, there was nobody in there. Yeah. They just turned the business up anyway. Yeah. Must have overcharged somebody. It cost you a quarter to get in. But we were looking at the poster for his, when he was running for sheriff in 1957, and it says a crime wave is threatening Jackson County.

And we were trying to figure out what that crime wave would have been, and the best we could figure it was moonshining. Now, or was that people throwing dynamite? Well, that just happened that one time. Yeah? Yeah. I don't know. You'd have been 10 years old. Yeah. You know, and he's talking about locking your doors and stuff. People didn't have locks on their doors. Right. We never had no locks. We never locked a door in their life.

I remember when Santa Claus came to her house one time at Christmas, and it scared us kids to death.

We got under the bed and everything in the world. We didn't know who Santa Claus was. Yeah. Right. Wow. Did y'all go to church as children? Yep. One up there where Wayne Carpenter preaches, Sangap Baptist Church. Sangap United Baptist Church. Yeah. Well, my papa was a pastor there for 28 years. Yeah. And I remember we had Sunday school outside under a big tree. You know, you didn't have no room for nothing.

That's probably still the same tree that's there in the parking lot. It is. I can take you right to the tree. Yeah. We'd sit on them roots out there. And have Sunday school out there. Have Sunday school outside. What about that? That's, well, that would have been in the 1950s, I'm sure. Yeah, it was. 1980s. I played under the same tree, you know, going to church there.

it's pretty see and right there even that tree and nobody never give it a thought people see it every day and never pay attention to it but just imagine the stories that's been built around that tree oh yeah Trying to think of her teacher's name. He was Isaacs. Shoot. Boys, when you get my age, you can't remember nothing. I mean, I can see his face and everything right now.

Well, boys, I've buried a lot of people over the years. Do you have any maybe funny moments that you can remember that might have happened? Something that kind of... There's something mean you've done as a kid other than throwing the chickens over the mouth. Oh, Lord. We did have a big pond and we'd catch these chickens and take them down there at that pond and they'd fly all the way across that pond.

Keep blow away from your chicken houses. Set them all free. Yeah. But we used to have to slop the chickens and milk the hogs. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you, oddly enough, you probably miss those days, don't you? Yeah. It's hard to work. I heard my papaw one time say they called that the golden... age or whatever, or the good old days, he said, there wasn't nothing good about it. It about killed us, he said.

So not everybody worked back then. Well, they had to. Yeah. That was survival. Yeah. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive. reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion, Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season.

And only for a limited time. Sprite. Obey your thirst. You know, you shared that with me about President Garfield. Yeah. Being the only president that was a preacher that was elected. Yeah. Six months later, he was executed. You can remember, I'm sure, when they landed on the moon and all kinds of historical stuff. It's over.

I remember we used to gather up at people's houses just to watch them land. Yeah. Everybody didn't have a TV. Right. A lot of people back in that day didn't have electric, I'm sure. No. The only electric we ever had, Jason, was a light bulb in the ceiling. Just a light? Just a light bulb. And if you wanted any more electric, you have to.

Take that bub loose. Plug a thing in there where you can plug the cord into it. Yeah. And we never had a TV. Lord, I was in the eighth grade probably before we ever got a TV. And if Marie hadn't got a job at Jackson Energy, which is Jackson County or ECC then, if she hadn't got a job doing that, we wouldn't have had a TB then. So...

You've seen a lot of innovation since 1947, especially in the county. I mean, things look totally different then than they do now. Yeah. The one thing that's come along that's just been, I guess you could say the most amazing invention or... innovative thing that's come along in your lifetime that you can say, man, that really was something else. Broadband. I'm joking. Internet. Well, I mean, I'm joking. You know, that's a legitimate answer. Yeah, but that wouldn't.

That wasn't right. Would it have to be something to do with TV? Mm-hmm. Because I don't know how many stations you get now watching TV, but you get bored. Yeah. Yeah, get bored looking for something to watch. Yeah. And I guess back then you were gathering around listening to the radio a lot. We did. And I'll tell you what we listened to. Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger. Things like that. It was on the radio. Radio shows. I loved them. It was interesting back then. We'd gather around the radio.

And I remember on Saturday night when the Grand Ole Opry was on, you had Lonzo and Oscar and a lot of these old ones like that. Yeah. With a Grand Ole Opry back then, I mean, that was kind of a family event, everybody together around listening to the radio. It was. We didn't have no doors on our bedrooms or nothing. Yeah. We'd all go to bed at dark.

Oh, yeah. And then Mommy and Daddy would say, all right, youngins, turn that radio off. I said, it's time to go to bed. It's time to go to sleep. And we'd say. Just let us listen to Alonzo and Oscar. What's that guy that used to be on Yeehaw that was a barber? Archie Campbell. Archie Campbell. Oh, yeah. Let us listen to Archie Campbell, and we'll turn it off. I'll tell you what, Archie Campbell was a funny guy. He was. He was good, clean, and it's just funny.

yeah you can still watch uh he also remember reruns come on yeah uh is it the id channel or something but i watch it all the time yeah i do too yeah it's it's still funny to this day um i guess A lot of Gunsmoke and Rifleman and shows like that whenever you did get TV. I remember the first time I ever seen Andy Griffith's show. Yeah. It was down at Les Lakes. You all don't remember Les, but Les was a crippled man. He retired from ASCS office. my mommy babysitted their boy and uh and uh

I remember being down at their house one time when that come on. I remember Ronnie saying, let's go in the house and watch Andy Greenfield. I didn't know who that was. I never heard of it. We never had a TV. That's the first time I've ever seen Andy Griffith's show. Still a great show. It sure is. It's got a lot of... of real important points. Yeah, good moral lessons in it. Yeah, life lessons. It's funny. Yeah. It's entertaining to me. I'd watch it.

I could leave my TV on it all the time and be fine with that. Well, I do, too. I mean, I still do. Yeah. One of the youngins there at the house, and I let it play. One of them channels you can get over the Internet, you know. Yeah. I just put it on, let it go. Yeah. He said, will you please turn that off? He couldn't whistle, but he said, all I hear is woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. I told my dad a long time ago, I still live with him. I said, I don't know why in the world we bought a color TV.

Because we don't watch anything in color. It's all black and white, everything we watch. So in 1947, when he was born, who would have been the president then? Dwight Eisenhower, I'd say. Dwight Eisenhower. I'm trying to sit here and think of how many presidents you've lived under. That may be something you know right off the top of your head. I looked it up. I didn't use gum. I mean, there's a lot of history right there. Oh, my God. I reckon. I mean, you're talking.

Me being the history nerd anyway, I love to ask questions about things like that. Blue, he likes history too. He stepped away a minute, but he'll be right back. Who was president when you were born? In 1988, it would have been Reagan, I guess. Reagan, then Bush, Jr. Senior, yeah. And then Clinton. Yeah, then Bush Jr. Bush Jr. and Obama and Trump back. I guess I was born right before.

Desert Storm happened, I guess. Was that 90? Yeah, it was just before that. Yeah, just before that. Well, I'd add one to mine, I guess, because Carter was president when I was born, and that's why my boy's named Carter. Oh, okay. One boy. So blue has brought us a... It's about tore up. an american president history yeah that's where i get some of that stuff out of Have you always enjoyed History of Blue? Yeah. As a matter of fact, I was going to be a history teacher. That changed my mind.

I never was a good student in school, but I always liked history. I liked reading about it. Charlie Norris used to be the basketball coach at McKee. He was a history teacher, and he made things really interesting.

Yeah, I was always interested in World War I and II and the Vietnam War. Yeah, I had an uncle, Hillard Lakes. He died. this past year he died this past year yeah how old was he 92 maybe he uh Me and Warren Lakes and Phillip Christman went down to his house at Morristown, Tennessee. And we was going to take him out and buy his dinner. And we got down there and we did. And he wanted us to go over to his house. So we went over there and I'd heard stories about him my whole life.

And he came up in the living room and sat down and he had a big... thing hanging on his wall that every kind of metal you could think of in that. And I said, Uncle Hillard, I said, I want to ask you something. I said, you don't have to answer me. We won't even talk about it if you don't want to. I said, I've always heard my whole life that a bad looker, wasn't he? I said, but you getting that little...

shovels shot off your side during World War II. He said, Little Blue, that ain't the half of it. He said, we was fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. And he said, and my best friend got shot. He said, and we jumped down in this foxhole. And he said, He said he needed morphine real bad for pain. Yeah. He said, I got out of that foxhole and I run across that battlefield. He said, I got over to where the medic was.

And he said, and I got his medicine, and I looked, and he said, my shovel was shot off of my side. That's where he digged his hole. Yeah. They call it something else. Didn't even know it was gone until he got stopped. He said, I got that morphine, and he said, I ran back to Foxhole where my buddy was.

He said, and I got over there, and I looked down, and he said, my canteen was shot off on the other side. He come in that close to getting his gut shot out. My goodness. I think the good Lord carried him across both ways there. That's my daddy's youngest brother. And how long was he in the military? Do you know? He was about 18 or 19 when he went in. Yeah. And as soon as the war was over, they let him go home.

I'd say it's still probably a pretty fresh topic, World War II, when you was a kid. Yeah. You know? Yeah, 45. The world ended in 45. Well, you know how things are around these parts. People talk about one subject for 25 or 30 years. Yeah. Okay. i see dwight eisenhower there one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten let's see Clinton was 10, 11, 12. There was about 14 or 15 presidents I was alive under. Who's the best one?

He's a Republican. Well, I never could understand that, and I don't know if you're a Democrat or Republican. It don't matter to me. But...

You look at some of them. Tell us what year they was. So I'll tell you a video I saw the other day that I thought was interesting was a video of the Vietnam. or draft yeah now you lived through that i did and you did not get drafted my lottery number was two Let me tell you a little story right away. Tell you a story. It blowed my mind to watch the video. I was going to Eastern and... and we was studying about people's rights and they was talking about

The government can't make you do anything without giving you an opportunity to appeal. So I got to studying up on all this stuff. Yeah. So when they put my lottery number two, I mean, I was a goner. I had a little baby. and lottery number two. So I got to studying about that, and I go to the local draft board and I said, What happens if you appeal your classification? And they said, well, we'll pull your folder. So then you have to wait till the board meets and they'll decide on.

whether it'll leave you where you're at or whatever. So I waited down to, you got 30 days in which to appeal your classification. I waited down to. Almost 30 days was up, and I hand-delivered this letter to the draft board. I said, hereby appeal my classification for the following reasons, and I'd list one or two. And they would pull my folder. And this went on for some time. Then they'd put me back in one and two again.

1A2. So I kept doing that. I remember Paul Markham called me one time down there and he said, we've got to quit doing this. But people, you know, it's going to catch on thinking we're doing you some big favors. I said, well, am I violating the law? No, no. So I kept doing it. Oh, yeah. I was a goner. And that big army sergeant done told me that as soon as they got to Vietnam, he was going to train me to get back and go back in these tunnels. Yeah. Said with a knife.

I was a dead man. So I kept doing that until I was coming home from London one night and had the radio on. Nixon was suspending the draft. So as soon as I got home, I called Duck Morris. Duck said, I already heard about it. So that kept me out of Vietnam. That was kind of a narrow escape, though. Yes, sir. And if you hadn't done the study and know what to do, you'd have been gone. I would have been gone. I'd have been dead. Yeah. Did Duck do the same thing you did?

No, he was way down the line. He didn't have to do anything. They probably know him a little bit and decided against it anyway. Just kidding. Maybe if they let you take the bear killer guy with you, maybe it would have been a little bit better, but going by yourself, that would have been a scary situation. John Hugh Smith. You can watch the video of it on YouTube.

And it is so, it's crazy to think that happened, to watch them sit there. And I mean, your fate is just at the, it's at the look of the draw. They draw your birthday and, or the one I saw seemed like they were drawing birthdays. if your birthday was a certain day boom you're out of here and i sit there and watched it and i thought i'm gonna see if my birthday would have came up and it was my birthday is november 13th november 12th

So it shot around it, but that would have been a crazy moment. Woodrow Wilson was the first president wherever they had that draw and that draft. I'd say that there had to be a lot of terrified families around during something like that. I mean, I would be with my kids, you know. I've got kids that's right outgrown. i'd worry i'd be worried sick sure but you know bart never did open his mouth to me about what are you going to do son he never he let whatever happen happen yeah

So your dad's name was Bart Lakes. I wondered. I never did know what his... What was your mother's name? Maggie Morris. She was from Rock Castle County. Okay. Got you. Well, I'm sure it had to be. But at one point in time, when they was trying to find the seat of Jackson County, it was argued over.

horse slick down there and mckee yeah and horse slick used to be a heavily populated area that's what i was going to say i've always heard it was a happening place it was horse slick was so it was basically like mckee Yeah. I get it. That was your family that was down there, right? Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was. Now, you take Laurel County, East Bernstadt. It used to be bigger than London. That was a big town. Trains.

I can remember when I was a little kid, East Bernstead was a lot more than it is now. Yeah. It's amazing how places like that can be at one time just so big and booming. Sand Gap, Kentucky, for instance. I mean, that was a crazy populated place. And now you would have never thought anything. One time, Sand Gap had seven restaurants in it. wow they might not have been very big ones but they lost yet one of them no it comes 1958 oh okay i know it been there a while so this may be kind of a

A dumb question, but what caused horse lick to just dry up and McKee kind of become Metropolis? Well... You left. It's hard to say. uh horse lake was just where people settled in down there and uh Things got worse and worse and worse. It's hard to make a living. You had a farm. Wasn't too good at farms down there. Well, I would imagine it would flood pretty easy down there, right?

You got the river running right through the middle of it. Yeah, and in the wintertime, the creeks would freeze over and they'd use the creek bed as a road. Yeah. Wow, just drive right down the creek bed. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. To anybody listening that don't know, you go through horse lick right now, you would have never, ever thought anything had been there. No.

It's just wilderness. Yep. Yeah. Four-wheeling trails. That's all it is now. Yeah. And it seemed like I was told at one time that Jesse James might have come through there on a train. Is there any truth to that, or do you know? Well, I doubt it. Just to tell you the truth, I don't know that. Okay. I don't know. Well, just the horse-lit gossip, you know. You're not able to hear anything.

Or slick gossip. It's a bit. I love going down through there, which I don't ride four-wheelers, nothing. I just take off on foot, or I used to ride horses. I guess one of my most favorite places in the world is going down Horse Lake Creek. Yeah. That's mine, too. Now, I ride a side-by-side down through there, but I love it down there. Around Bethel Church.

That's where my family all went to church in Bethany. Yeah. It's hard to imagine, like you said, that that was a big booming city. Yeah. It was a lot of them. people down there that went into World War II. And they would meet up at that church once a week and pray, these old women would. Pray over their boys and husbands that was gone to fight. Yeah. I know Earn Lakes got shot and didn't kill him. They several got wounded, but didn't kill him. Yeah.

Raleigh Lakes, that's my dad's brother. Huh. Back when they come in out of, well, probably even Vietnam as well, but like... World War II, Korean War, Vietnam. They didn't have a lot of therapy and stuff for them old boys coming back in at that time. No, uh-uh. They'd come back in shell-shocked and... I just imagine, you know, half lost your mind, if not all of it. Yeah. Head right back into life. Had to be just bad business. Ain't nobody could win in a war. No. Presidents that died their ages.

Benjamin Harrison was 68. Grover Cleveland was 71. William McKinley was 58. Theodore Roosevelt was 61. 74, 68, 58, 61. Herbert Hoover was 90. Franklin D. Roosevelt was 63. It was hard to believe that Abraham Lincoln was just 56 when he got murdered. Yeah. Sounds like that's a stressful job. A lot of people didn't live long back then. Right. Well, I mean, medicine and... And, you know, the doctors and all that health stuff has come miles since then. Oh, yeah.

I'd say the innovation and the science behind health and wellness is, you can't imagine what a leap it's taken since then. Yeah.

Back then, you said it'd be tough. What is that? It goes on my water bottle. It's just the lid. Blue, if you had anything that you'd want to tell... the younger people of today with all your experiences through life what would it be i would suggest now i'm i'm 76 years old yeah but uh If I was going to give anybody any kind of advice, I'd tell them to not only go to church, but read the Bible. We're not here alone. No. Not here alone.

I'd say there ain't no more solid advice to give nobody than that. Well, I think I can speak for everybody in the county when I say you're one of my favorite people that live here. And it's been a delight to know you for as long as I have. I'm always glad to see you and see you in a restaurant and you speak or smack me or whatever.

I can speak for everybody when I say that. Everybody has always got a smile on their face when they see you. I think that's a testament to what kind of fellow you are. Does that mean you're going to buy flares when I die? I'll see you back then. Spring for some. I would rather buy you dinner while you're here. That'd be good. That'd be good. Blue, we appreciate you letting us come and hang out with you. I feel like I've not done nothing.

Well, you've done a whole lot. We've learned quite a few things. It's a lot of stuff I can think of, but you don't want to put it in there. But thank you for making the community a better place. We appreciate you. Thank you, Jason. Know that. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yep. And, folks, I guess that's about all we've got for this episode. We thank you for tuning in once again, and stay awesome. Stay awesome.