Stay tuned to B-Jack Radio for an interview with Mammy, a real mountain woman. I think you will enjoy it. My savior, hello. Hello, is this Mammy?
Yeah, who is this? This Buster Jack, you don't know me, but I heard about you. Yeah, I'm not going to get it. Well, I don't want to get it.
I don't want to get it. I'm not even going to get it to him. But let's start over again. Do you know about the Grand Ole Opry?
Yeah, you can do it every Saturday night. Well, this is kind of like the Grand Ole Opry, and you're going to be on radio. I'm going to talk to you, and you're going to be on radio, and you're going to be famous. Oh, no, radio?
I never got radio in my life. That's what you're going to do right now. That's what we're recording now. Mammy, I'm going to ask you some questions to see if I can find out and get to know you and can learn about you.
First thing I want to know is, where'd you get your telephone? I didn't know you had a telephone. Well, I guess I might ask you. I guess I got my telephone to know you.
Well, yeah, but I just didn't know that. Well, I just didn't know I had one. My girl put it in for me. She keeps it from night to night.
She's got a restaurant cafe up there. She wanted me to have one of them playing coach. She could call me. I don't know why.
I ain't had a phone in my life. Well, of course you need one, you know. I'm glad you got one because I couldn't talk to you. If you did.
Well, that's right. I'll make you laugh. Tell me about your family, where you live, and all about your family, and your kids, your grandchildren, if you have any, and I'm just going to be still and listen. Well, I'm going Irish.
I come over here. Well, I mean, I've been here all my life. But my baby, she come over here from Ireland all the time ago. She told me about it.
So I have to wait a bit over here. I got to play on brothers and sisters. And they just all kind of scattered around everywhere. I live down here in only Tennessee.
It's a little place in Tennessee called only. We got a couple of towers in the post office and a bunch of those old people. And so, I got two kids, two young guys. I got two babies.
My boy. And he got a bunch of youngers. I thank my grandchildren. And then I got a girl.
I didn't have any money. They didn't have no youngers. But anybody's a hard working woman. She wants a new restaurant.
And a great man. He had nine kids. Actually, really, he had two kids. He had one little girl that dad.
She was lost. She was sick. Oh, my goodness. They went in and there was an ass.
Oh, my little. They were going to have a little brother. I didn't have a brother or dad. No.
What were we talking about? Well, you were talking about your kid. But who was that? Oh, that was my girl.
A granddaughter. She steps across her brother. He's laying in the floor. And he steps across him.
And you know that if you step across somebody, don't step back across them. They're going to die. No, I didn't know that. Why, yeah.
Everybody ought to know that. I know that all my ass. I've always got to learn my youngers. But she ain't been around.
And she didn't know it. And I shouldn't have all of that. But she just scared me to death. And what else?
A lot of things. I bet you don't know that you don't take a hole in the house. Because if you do, somebody's going to die. A hole?
A hole? Like he's left the hole in the garden. You don't take a hole in the house. What in the world?
And you don't walk with one keyhole. The one keyhole. I've had to get on the right. And I don't know how many times.
They're all one keyhole and one keyhole. And I told him about it. And they're going to have bad luck showing more. And my boy died and I broke a mirror.
And when you break a mirror, it's the seven years, the seven years, the seven years, the man looked. And you don't even know what they start getting looked. So he's going to have some kind of luck. He's a good or bad?
That's right. That's a good or bad. That whole family. And they don't know if one baby, one baby, don't that.
Well, they're not really looking at youngers. Oh gosh, that's a terrible thought. Well, I'm telling you, it is a terrible thought. But it can show happen.
And the other night I was signing. I put something on the table and wanted me to come to the table. That was my dad. He came to the table with two hats on.
And they took one at a mouth and they said, I was sitting at the table with a hat on. Can you imagine? I mean, I don't want to worry about this younger. You know, you're going to have the table and you're going to have bad luck.
And the girl wants to sing it in the band. And the girl wants to sing it in the band. You know, you give out his hoods. And they said, the table is the thing at the band.
The mother man gets his mouth and their head. What's that now? Sing that again. We saw that table singing the band.
The booger man gets you about a hand hand. Who's the booger man? Oh, no, that's the booger man. He'll get you.
That's what they do. This is strange. I don't know who you young people have lived on your house. But I'm texting up all of my life.
And another thing you don't know when you're going to the floor or going somewhere. And you forget something. You don't come back and get it. You'll have to go to your house.
You have to go to where you were going and then come back. You can't stop all the way. Oh, I see. Let me ask you some questions, Mammy.
If you don't mind. Now, tell me about that. No, you don't get too nosy. I don't like people getting in my business.
Okay, I'll try not to get in your business. But I just want to know about, are you married? I mean, obviously you were married because you have these kids, these two kids. Tell me about your husband.
Oh, that's my new. My new name is Steven. My new age. Hey, what's that?
I've been married for now. I don't know. Forty-fifty years. Somewhere.
And he worked all his life. He worked in the field. And we had a garden. He has to work on the boat, but he doesn't know what he works in the field.
And he just don't care. Oh, I just worry me today sometimes. I don't know what I'm going to do. He just got me from crazy.
But I got two kids, claiming it anyway. And I got two. I'm even grand-guggin'. And, uh, my little wife's down there, I don't know what he's saying.
I don't know what he's saying. He's probably a colleague. Don't give yourself a deal. I hope he does.
You hope he gets killed? Well, yeah, I told him. He has that car. He ain't got no business in that thing.
Well, you know, maybe we're living in a good way times. And people really do need to have some means for transportation that will get them from one place to another. You know, pretty quickly, I would think. But maybe we got to have one now to get around.
Well, some kind of way of getting around faster than, how do you travel? I walk everywhere I go. But I do run the car with my boy when he goes, what would I get the car? I don't win.
Can he not drive? No, man. Run over the day, the other day. Well, I have a problem.
I keep driving. I never learned driving. I don't give a lot of sense to get mad at. I rather, I don't want to ride no cars.
Not going to drive no cars. Get out there and get to say it's killed. What do y'all have any horses? Yeah, we got eight horses.
Yeah, we got two horses. Yeah, we got two horses. Cait and Anna. We used to try to use the papers, but we used to try horses.
Oh, well, let me ask you about your neighbors. Do you have any people that come to see you, you know, that are friends of yours that you like? Oh, neighbors. Yeah, we got to meet a gentleman.
And they come over sometimes. But Cait and my lady, man, the other day, I hope we don't ever come back over here. Well, what do you do? I went over there talking to him.
That's not how to know what he's doing. And he said, oh, I wouldn't give anything before the whole push. I just got up next time. And now, he got the grand young and they got one named Prince Break.
And that young is going to give him some trouble now. You mind what it is? He can't have to throw a person in a carrying on. If I have your old young and a person in a person, this way he gets to be 12 or 13.
He'll be another Desi James. Is he that mean, really? Yeah, he's mean. I'm that person and talking, this way he's a token.
He's my young and I joke up a limb and he wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. I don't get your kids to do that. Behave that way. You didn't allow it.
He better know I didn't allow it. What? What are my young and they said anything like that to me? They'd be holding his bottom in for a month.
Okay. I will clear that. He could move. Did you have to quit your kids quite a bit to keep them in line, make them behave?
No, I just talked to them. And I tell them how they supposed to act when company comes. When we went to their house and they didn't do it. One time we told them, oh, it's somebody else's house.
Someone would, I told them, I can think that one was my name. It's been so long. But I told them to me, but not to ever eat somebody else's house. And she thought it meant watermelon and all.
And she didn't, they don't want me. And she wasn't eating it. I asked them why. She went when we got home and she said, well, I thought I wasn't supposed to.
That's how good my young ones were. Did you have now? I've heard that you did use some discipline. Like, what would you do if one of your kids worked a, you know, saying in the bed or do some of the things that you mentioned to me, you know, where two hats or whistling bed or what would you do?
I'm bringing the house. What would you do about that? Well, I talk about those bands and they did that whole, take it out. They might just stay out there all night long.
If they don't, but they know better than they do it. My young, they didn't do anything like it. They were good. My name, he was Washington, he was six years old and Cleveland.
He was out there playing when he was six. They were good young. They didn't do nothing like that. But I say, what, they say me, a lot of young and so I just, er, er, er, they're leaving.
It was over. My half-full time. Her name and, er, the old, the old and she, er, they had a girl like me. They needed her.
And they needed her use to wet the band every night. Her name is this. And she brought her over there. She said, I ain't, I fucked them, I fucked them, I fucked them.
They didn't do anything. I can't break her. I said, I don't break her by George. She won't do it.
But what? And she didn't. The next morning the name was Wet. I got my african and I tore her all sitting down plate-up.
And she never did do it anymore. She like, I made me a band-night horror. You made me a baby not a horror. I didn't know you could do that.
You mean you can actually stop kids from weting the bed by whipping them? Yes, well, what I'm leading up to, and we're going to have to, obviously, we're going to have to continue this conversation at another time because you've got a lot of information there that I'm sure our listeners don't know about. And so I'm sure it's going to call you back if that's OK. Is it all right if I call you back another time if we continue this conversation?
Yeah, you know what? Yeah, don't call. I just take the clock and I go to bed. Well, one thing I want to ask, one thing I want to ask you before you go, because I've heard people, well, I don't want to be a grandchildren.
And he told me about you mashing his mouth. And I wondered what that is. And he always talked about you mashing his mouth. And I don't know what he's talking about.
I wonder if you could let me tell me what that is. Yeah, I can't. I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll use that granddaughter. When my grand youngest was born, I told him, I told him, maybe I said, I don't let them call me grandma or grandpa or grandmother or anything like I want to be called, maybe.
And the reason I said that is because when I was a little girl, I called my man and baby and baby. And now they don't do it the more. They say, mom, I'm daddy and whatever. So whatever they want to say.
So I said, I want to be called, maybe. And granddaddy spoke up and said, and I ain't no grandpa neither. I'm granddaddy. So one day, I say it's good.
I'm not a parenty saying, but we call it a sister. We haven't heard of anybody named I already say it. Well, anyway, I already say it was outside playing. And she was standing in the doorway.
Her man, she said, we're going to the way that your grandma come in. And she did. And she said, hi, grandma, hi, grandma. I said, I'll match your mouth for you.
And that man, I said, I forgot my mouth. I'll say that again. Did you ever match anybody's mouth? Yeah, I did.
I hit one of them to hold on one time. It's the mouth, I didn't mean it. But they didn't touch me no more. Well, maybe I'm going to have to hang up and get this on the radio.
And I'll talk. All right, you do that. I like talking to you. I like talking about my grand-youngers and my boy and my girl.
And my, I said, oh, man, and my neighbors. I got some good neighbors. They made good to me. And I just think they come to see me.
And I try to go save them. And we just try to have one another down here, but that's we know how. And it's all good to talk to you. And I hope that you got what you wanted to know.
And I look forward to hearing from you. They're out there working on the road now. They're making an awful lot of noise out there. But you know, they're nice as man.
And the boss come up to me when they go to work on the road. And he said, now, man, we're going to be sitting working on the road. And I said, well, will I be in anything? Do you know what he said?
What, no, man? No, he's not a big, he just don't worry. He was saying, call me all right. And they have.
They've been out there working on the road. And that boss, man, he comes up here and speaks to me. And he just says, now, I'm the man that you can have wanted me. And he told me, well, I saw him out there.
He was climbing on the ladder. And he got down and walked under the ladder. And then he ain't outside today. He didn't make anything the world.
He broke his legs or something. Because you're not supposed to walk under a ladder. You know, I've heard that before, but I never did. I never did taking stock in it.
I always thought that was just a superstition. Oh, well, you come superstition if you want to. But I guarantee you, if you walk under a ladder, you break your legs or a black catwalk in front of you. You walk with one shoe out, one shoe out for you.
You break a mirror. If you were a hat, you were a wiffle saying in the bed. I wouldn't try to find you. Well, Mamie, I'm going to let you go.
It's so nice of you to talk to us. And I will be calling you again right now. I want to get this on the radio. And I will be talking to you again.
And it's so nice of you to talk to. We'll talk with us. Why do you not have to? You don't have to?
OK, well, I'm going to say goodbye to you. Bye for now. And I'll be talking with you at another time. Bye.
Bye. You have just heard an interview with Mamie, presented for your listening pleasure by Buster Jack. I hope you enjoyed it.