(Transcript continues)
INTERVIEWER: Other people. Did you? The train in Newark is sort of important. Did you go on the train much?
JOHN: No, because if I wanted to come to Snow Hill, we walked. It was only 7 miles.
INTERVIEWER: Only 7 miles he says, only 7 miles. (laughter) I couldn’t make it. (laughter)
JOHN: And it was 27 cents from Newark to Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: That was the fare. And then they used to have excursions.
INTERVIEWER: Yes. I’ve heard of that.
JOHN: I don’t know once or twice a year and then the people would gather up and they’d go up to cities and they load the trains down (inaudible speech). Just as far as going to Newark we never … (inaudible talking over each other)
INTERVIEWER: Snow Hill you just …
JOHN: Snow Hill and all …
INTERVIEWER: Right you just walk.
JOHN: We just got down to the railroad and just walk.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, you walk down the track (inaudible speech).
(Recording cuts out.)
(Inaudible speech.)
INTERVIEWER: Alright now how often would you come to Snow Hill? Cause you had to walk it you didn’t make too many trips.
JOHN: Well I … My sister lived here.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: And I would. I would come here not too often, until when I moved down here. Then I stayed (inaudible speech) then I worked on the highway then when I wanted to go back home I wouldn’t catch no train (inaudible speech).
INTERVIEWER: How long would it take?
JOHN: I haven’t the slightest idea because I didn’t have a watch. I didn’t even know what a watch was really. I mean I knew the word.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t need one really.
JOHN: I didn’t need watch.
INTERVIEWER: No.
JOHN: No, I didn’t need a watch. I just. I just say. Just like from our house down where we used to go (cough) crabbing.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: That was almost as far as Snow Hill from Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Now where would you go crabbing?
JOHN: We would go down to … You know Vic Townsend in Newark?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
JOHN: Well that would be the same bay.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: Now he lived to the same bay but it would be a different. It would be a different place. I mean it would be the same bay but it would be a different angle.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
JOHN: Now where we lived we could go and just take go to the mailbox and turn a little bit right and just go out on to the woods and go out to what they the call the old Potts Farm and that was the largest farm there is that I know. In Newark the roads from the house to the woods is exactly one mile and when we used to scratch potatoes there they had to cut the roads in half. They had groups of people there that there they would let one group carry one half another group have another half. Then from their house to the bay is where you had to really go catch the crabs was at least I’d say a quarter of a mile because the rest was the marsh.
INTERVIEWER: (Inaudible speech.)
JOHN: But now they’ve got it so the last time I was down there I was deer hunting oh I’d say oh a long time ago about 10 or 12 years ago. I went down there and I just decided that I was (inaudible speech) and I went down there and they’ve got now it’s a beautiful place people go down there they have picnics. And it’s a beautiful place to go swimming, you can wade out there and everything.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go swimming much when you went down?
JOHN: Wading, I really couldn’t swim. We used to. We had a boat my brother and I and they were gonna have a picnic someplace and we kept our boat hidden in the seaweed and we would go get our boat and then we would go in our boat and paddle across where they had the picnic.
INTERVIEWER: Now that’s good.
JOHN: When they had the picnic they would cook fried chicken, make cakes, make muffins they wouldn’t they wouldn’t make a layer cake they’d make muffins and everything (inaudible speech) and then they went in a horse and drove a wagon and the people would load up in horse and wagon so (inaudible speech).
(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)
.JPG)
.JPG)
