Читать книгу LIVING THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS - Donald E. Wilson - Страница 9

Following graduation, another phase of Dad’s dreams came true, as he obtained a job teaching history and coaching football at Greenup High School in the mountainous edge of North Eastern Kentucky. There he roomed with another bachelor, the principal, Jesse Stuart, the future author and Kentucky Poet Laureate. During their time together on and off the Greenup campus Dad knew that there was something special about Jesse, especially his interest in writing poetry. As the two men walked to school through the woods they shared their interest and love of the Appalachia mountains and the wonders of the East Kentucky wilderness. They shared memories of their rise from near poverty to become the first members of their families to leave their mountain homes behind and seek a future beyond them. But, while they left that environment, it never left them. And Jesse even took that love a step further and created his future expressing in writing his deep seated devotion to mountain life.

Dad realized Stuart’s passion for Appalachia life firsthand as he noticed how deeply he was absorbed in the various scenes of nature, from the sounds of the birds, the beauty of the countless types of wild flowers, the sounds of the wind rustling through the leaves of dozens of types of trees, or the position of morning and evening shadows on the path. They would pause occasionally while Stuart composed poetry, and then used him as a sounding board for the result. On one occasion he remembers Jesse stopping suddenly transfixed with the sight of a large tree and the wind rustling the leaves. "Listen," he said. Dad replied, “its just the sound of the rustling leaves.” “Its much more than that” Stuart said. Then he pulled off one of the tree’s large leaves, and since he did not have his writing pad with him, scribbled a poem on the leaf’s surface. Whether or not the words he wrote appeared in the 702 sonnets he later put into his first book, Dad never knew. But in that book Jesse wrote several sonnets constructed around the wind and leaves, and wrote, The leaves are green and winds are blowing through. Such was the simple but profound manner of a man who was to became one of Kentucky and America’s most gifted poets and authors. That simple observation and so many more similar scenes taken from the Kentucky mountains were the sources to find their way into Jessie’s sonnets.

Jesse told Dad that some day he was determined to publish his poetry. That "some day"was in 1934 when his compilation of 702 sonnets in Man with a Bull Tongue Plow was accepted by a publisher. The title and first line of his first sonnet in that highly acclaimed book came to him while plowing a field when he stopped and scribbled out the opening line: “I am a farmer singing at the plow.” The book was an instant success and was described by Irish Poet George William Russell as “the greatest work of poetry since Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Other critics called Jesse Stuart, America’s Robert Burns. In addition to three other books of poetry, Jessie went on to write eleven short story collections, seven novels, and five autobiographies.

After serving in the Navy in World War Two, Jesse took Dad’s advice and wrote a book on his love for teaching, especially his years as Dad’s principal in Greenup; years he claimed were among the most rewarding years in education. The book was published in 1949 and is titled The Thread That Runs So True. In July of that year he wrote Dad a letter alerting him to the book’s release the following September; reminding him that it was the book he had encouraged him to write. He asked him to stop by Stewart’s book store, in Louisville and introduce himself to the owner and “tell him we worked together at Greenup, Kentucky. Tell him we were young fellows kicking up our heels and were ambitious in those days. But you can also tell him what we were up against. I think you will like this book Charlie. It really tells the story…it just really tells a story that should have been told years ago, and the story is this: it tells of a man’s struggles, the struggles of his associates, his little death-colored wages for a great work he had before him school teaching.” Then Jesse wrote a comment Dad and other thousands of Jesse’s followers heard repeated so often: “I believe school teaching is the greatest of all professions because it is the mother of all. Yet teachers are paid such low wages they leave the profession.” Then he paid Dad perhaps the most meaningful compliment he could have given him. He wrote, “Why aren’t you teaching? Coaching? You were a good teacher, one of the best football coaches, yet you were never paid enough to keep the wolf from your door.”

Like most successful writers Jesse was curious as to how successful the book would be, and even asked Dad to add his comments to the Book Review section of the Louisville Courier Journal after the book was released. Whether Dad followed through on that request, I will never know. But it was not needed anyway, since the book received glowing reviews and even today is the primer for aspiring writers.

While the book was accurate as to the reality of teaching, he did not use the actual names of his characters, and therefore the book was officially labeled fiction. However, years later he did tell Dad that he was the Coach Watson he wrote about in the book.

I must make a final comment on Jesse Stuart’s influence on Dad. Though the two old friends went their separate ways, that book, “The Thread That Run’s So True,” describes the cement that kept them together. While a family of four combined with very difficult circumstances kept Dad from the teaching profession for over twenty years, that “thread” was a critical part of his fabric as a person, and Jesse Stuart was always his inspiration. Twenty-three years later Dad returned to the classroom in Shepherdsville, Kentucky for the final years, sadly, of his life.

However, If Dad had a choice of how he wanted to leave this world, I believe it would have been in the classroom.

That devotion to teaching was so strong it had a major impact on my life, and especially my love for teaching. The year it was published I entered college, and in my first semester in a literature class the professor asked us to write on the person who had the greatest influence on our life. I stated that it was my dad and in my comment, referenced the book that told of his life, “The Thread That Runs So True”, by then a best seller. Needless to say, the professor who unbeknownst to me, was a devoted fan of Jessie Stuart asked me to see him after class. I thought, oh, oh, I have messed up my first day of college. The professor wanted to know what I knew about Stuart. I was happy to tell him and I received an “A”on the paper.

When Dad was seriously ill in 1964, I wrote Jessie and informed him of his condition. He wrote back with some advice for taking care of him and told me that “Dad was the best teacher he had ever known." I passed that on to him just before I left his bedside for the last time.

In the summer prior to beginning teaching in Greenup, Dad pursued another priority, one he developed during his final year in school. On recess from school work he had returned home to Corbin where he dated a recent graduate of Corbin High School, Minnie J. Burton. Now, with a teaching contract in his pocket and with some money he had managed to save, he asked Minnie to marry him. She was a beautiful young lady and he did have competition especially from one other suitor. Her father, Tip Burton helped her with her decision when he demanded that she pick one or the other. At the time she was pondering her decision Dad also was dating another young lady. Unfortunately, due to lack of information, I cannot take that romantic interlude any further, than to say Minnie won the conclusion to the love story, and on September 30, 1929, became Mrs. Charles P. Wilson.

The same year on June 6, approximately 200 miles Northwest of Corbin, in Louisville, Kentucky, James A. Watson married Viola Headley.