Interview with Paul H. Perkins

              CHARM INTERVIEW PAUL H. PERKINS INTERVIEWERS: CRAIG PIPER, MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SCOTT CAGLE, CHICKASAW COUNTY EXTENSION SERVICE DATE/LOCATION: FEBRUARY 11, 2005, STENNIS/MONTGOMERY ROOM, MITCHELL MEMORIAL LIBRARY, MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY PIPER: We are interviewing Paul H. Perkins, birthday, July 25, 1910, born in Belden, Mississippi, and there's a lot of interesting facts and a lot of interesting stories that I'm sure you have to tell. I'm sure the interviews will probably have more, as we said earlier before the recording. I'm just going to start with a list of questions, and, like I said before, if we get somewhere you want to expand on or expound, you just tell us. We are all interested. Were you a member of 4-H? PERKINS: Yes. PIPER: What type of animals did you show when you were in 4-H? PERKINS: Jersey cow, calf. PIPER: Now did you, did you ....? PERKINS: I won a state championship. PIPER: Now were these raised on your farm or . . . .? PERKINS: Yep. PIPER: How do you, how does one breed cattle; how'd you do it back then, or .... PERKINS: Well, on the farm, my Dad, well they just, we had just about everything, all kind of cattle. You know, and it bred ..... Now this particular one that I showed, we bought it, and I won a state championship. But, uh, as far as breeding the other cows, why we had the sire and everything right there on the farm, you know. PIPER: Was the competition in the county or was it down in Jackson? PERKINS: No, it was at Tupelo, at the Tri-State Fair, Mississippi, Alabama, so it was an experience for me, and I enjoyed it very much, and just to tell you a little, this was a little funny side of it-when I got down there that day to show that cow, you never seen such a mess she was in. I had to give her a bath [laughter] before I could show her. And the

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prize for that was supposed to be a Jersey bull, but are you familiar with the Evans farms up near West Point? PIPER: I've heard of them, but I'm not too familiar with that. PERKINS: Well, I wound up, they give, well the prize I got was a Jersey heifer, from Jersey Island, they're full blood. And of course I thought then I would be a farmer, and so checked the cows, and we, I entered the next year. I didn't get first prize the next year, but I got second I believe. Then I finished high school, and that was about all my farming. PIPER: Right. What was high school like for you? PERKINS: Well, I finished twelfth grade, and I didn't finish at Belden. Now Belden, there was some question whether there would be a twelfth grade there that year, and I had a brother and a sister in the City-Hill community which was a Smith-Hughes school. And I got some good training in that school. PIPER: Training....? PERKINS: Well, Mr. Underwood, who finished school down here, I think I'm right on that, he was the agriculture teacher.... PIPER: Okay. PERKINS: And I was taught how to trim orchards, and stuff like that, you know, shrubs, Of course with my Dad, I had seen him trim, course he just really couldn't [laughter]. He didn't learn that. CAGLE: What year was that that you won that....? PERKINS: Well, let's see, '29, '27 or 8, '27 I guess it was. CAGLE: When did you graduate high school? PERKINS: In '29. CAGLE: '29. PERKINS: Yep. PIPER: What was your school bus like? PERKINS: [laughter] Not like it is today, oh boy! Well, let's see. My brother carried a school bus that my Dad fixed up and run there at Belden for one year. And when I went to City Hill, I don't know, they didn't have a school bus I don't reckon up there. I don't

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remember about that, but he carried that truck up there and run it. It was pretty crude. Of course you'd go in and sit down; they had benches down each side you know. As long as you could get folks in there, haul `em. [laughter] CAGLE: And what were the roads like? PERKINS: Well, gravel roads mostly, and some weren't even gravel but around the school building in that area. Where we lived, we lived with, we had a couple of rooms we rented, and he was the supervisor of that district. They was real nice folks, and to show you what he would do, he worked the community. He didn't do, just build the roads by my house. He had one road coming out, angled into the other just before it got to the house, and one of them gravel, had a little gravel on it, and the other one was dirt. You couldn't go through it unless it was dry you know. CAGLE: You didn't want to get stuck in the mud. PERKINS: Yeah. CAGLE: Talk about playing basketball on a dirt court. PERKINS: Yeah, I've done that too. CAGLE: What did you use for a hoop? PERKINS: Center was my position. You may not know what that means now, but back then every time they made a goal, you had to go back and jump center again. CAGLE: Oh, right in the middle of the court. PERKINS: Yeah, right in the middle of the court. That was my job, and I was pretty good at it. CAGLE: You've got the height. You certainly got the height. PERKINS: I never did have too much trouble with folks. But I recall playing one time, all of it, well I did play some in gyms, but mostly all I played was on dirt, and we was playing a team up close to New Albany, and those red clay hills, and that was the meanest bunch of boys I ever seen. Every time you'd jump up, they'd kick your feet out from under you [laughter], [officials] never did call it. You could do anything. The coach, well he was just a teacher; he really wasn't a ball coach, he told me, he says, "Slow down, there ain't no use of killing yourself out there," said, "they gonna kill you." [laughter] But I was skinned up all over, that old red clay. PIPER: Not the fancy wood floors like they play on today. What did your family farm, and how did they make other money to make ends meet?

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PERKINS: I had four brothers, I mean three brothers, and two sisters, and I was the last one, and I was five years younger than my [next] youngest brother, and when I come along, my Dad had 158 acres of land, and he had some timber on it, and we had, course as I remember, I didn't remember when he cut the big horses, but he was a horse man. He wasn't too fond of mules. We had one mule, and he finally got rid of it. But we farmed cotton, corn, and he would listen; he was a progressive farmer you might say, because if [he heard of] anything new, and he thought it'd work, he'd try it. One year I know we had, oh, I don't know, how many acres of sweet potatoes. That come in, the county agent down there enlisted [?] sweet potatoes. We didn't have nowhere to put them, and we cut logs and built a log potato house out in back of the house, and he made a dirt mill that he mixed mud up with and we chinked that thing and put a flue in it and kiln-dried those potatoes. We lost a lot of them; course back then had a disease and didn't know what to do for it much. PIPER: Yes, I guess that was before the Extension Service started catching on, so you had to kind of sort them out, I guess-before pesticides and everything else. What kind of farming equipment did your family have? PERKINS: Well, it was all horse-drawn stuff. I guess my Dad, we was in a little better shape than some of our neighbors. Some of our neighbors wouldn't change. They had one horse deal you know and plowed with it. But my Dad, when I come along, he already had a cultivator; I don't remember when he bought it. But my goodness, that was something. You could go one time and fix that row, you know, where the other guys had to go two and three times. PIPER: Cause they just had the one horse. Talk about milking the cows, raising your own meat and vegetables and just sustaining your family. PERKINS: Yeah, like I say, when I come along they had already advanced a lot in the methods of farming. Still, it was all horse-drawn stuff. We raised meat; it wasn't no such thing as buying meat, cause we had plenty of it. We had a bunch of hogs; we had a bunch of cows, and of course had a big orchard. I just about lived in that orchard all through the summer months cause there'd be something to eat in it all the time you know. CAGLE: When y'all slaughtered an animal, how'd you store the meat? PERKINS: Well, we'd salt it, salt it down, you know. CAGLE: In the smokehouse? PERKINS: Yeah, in the smokehouse. My Dad, I don't remember him ever smoking any meat. Course it was always called the smokehouse, but he just.... CAGLE: Salted it and hang it up in the rafters.

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PERKINS: Yeah, it would stay so long in a box of salt, you know, and then take it out and brush it off and hang it up. CAGLE: Well, there was no electricity. PERKINS: No, we didn't have no electricity. CAGLE: A pump outside, no lawn mowers. How'd you keep the grass down around the house? PIPER: Yeah, how'd you keep the grass down without a Murray mower? [laughter] PERKINS: Us kids would wear it out. [laughter] PIPER: What did you, when you were kids, you know, no television, what did you do with your siblings, you know, to keep yourselves entertained? I'm sure you had to work and everything, but then what did you do with your free time? PERKINS: Well, you'd find something to do if you could get out of work. [laughter] PIPER: Was working pretty much a constant everyday something y'all had to do? PERKINS: There's always something to do, there's always something to do on a farm. My Dad wasn't no slave driver, and thank goodness he didn't want to get up like some of our neighbors that'd be up at daylight and going to the fields. My Dad wouldn't get up at daylight, but it might be black dark when you got to the house, and have to go milk the cows. Quick as you got through milking, you ate supper and hit the bed; you didn't have to have no entertainment. PIPER: I'm sure you were tired after that whole day of working. What did you do after you graduated from high school? PERKINS: Well, when I graduated from high school and made a crop with my Dad there on the farm; when I got through that year, I didn't have no money. I didn't make any that year; just had a bad crop year. I went to Memphis; I had some cousins that lived in Memphis. I just went up there to see them. We lived 100 miles from Memphis, well about 110 they called it then. One of the girls said, "Why don't you go into work in the morning and put in an application, this was on Sunday, at Sears and Roebuck?" And I said, "Oh, well, I guess I could." I went down there that morning, on a Monday morning, and the employment office, they was just chugged full of folks. This was the fall of '29. PIPER: Ah, Yes. PERKINS: And I said, "Well, I ain't got no business in here," and I started to leave, but I sat down, and I hadn't been there but a few minutes, and they called my name. I had gone up there and give my name at the desk, do I did. What I didn't know, this girl had

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already talked to her boss man. And I went over there, and they carried me back there and the guy said, "Put your coat in here in the cloak room"; cause it was warm in the building you know. We walked around all through there, the shipping department, you know, and he walked over to this guy that was running one of the departments and says, "Well, this man's starting to work." I said "When?" And he said, "Right now, you're already working." That's the way I went to work at Sears & Roebuck. PIPER: Well you mentioned, what can you remember when the crash came [Great Depression]? What were you doing? What did you hear? What was it like? What was your reaction, and things like that when you heard about that? PERKINS: Well, I don't know, and there's a little more to it than that. This was just before the crash really here. The next year, me and a friend of mine went to the wheat harvest. We was in Oklahoma; we was getting, I don't know what, seems like two dollars an hour, unheard of what it was back home you know. And they was talking about it out there, and we didn't really know it until that fall when we went to sell cotton. PIPER: Right. PERKINS: And it's tough when cotton's 5-6 cents a pound. But, everybody was in the same shape out there, so we just ..... CAGLE: What did it cost y'all to make a pound of cotton back then? PERKINS: Oh man, it wasn't much. [laughter] We didn't ever figure it like that. PIPER: I guess you knew that you all were doing it, and it wasn't much overhead if you all were doing it. PERKINS: That's right. We didn't hire anybody to help, you know. CAGLE: You remember what you paid for a sack of seed? PERKINS: Sack of what? CAGLE: Seed, cotton seed. PERKINS: We didn't ever buy any. CAGLE: You just kept them, produced your own. PERKINS: Yep. PIPER: When did you get electricity?

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PERKINS: Well, 1936 I believe, '36 or 7. I hadn't thought of that in so long. I think '36. PIPER: That was the year my father was born. (could not transcribe next comment) PERKINS: See, in the meantime, I got, before I went to work, see I was with TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority], I got married in the meantime. I mean, she was a country girl, just like me, you know. PIPER: When did you begin? You mentioned the Tennessee Valley Authority. When did you start working for them? PERKINS: I think it was '36. I think that's right. And I had a brother that worked with the power company. Tupelo was the first TVA city. PIPER: Right. PERKINS: After a while, he got back, well he got without a job when they first took it over. And then he got started working; that was when World War II was coming on, and they was putting all the old steam plants back on the line. And, well my brother came out to my house, and told me what was gonna happen, they was going to hire some temporary work paying 45 cents an hour. Man, whatta are you talking about? PIPER: Was that good? PERKINS: Oh, was that good. PIPER: That's a good wage. PERKINS: He said, "If you want the job, you better be down there in the morning, cause they gonna hire somebody." I said, "Well, I'll be there." So I went to work, and we worked, and there was another, well there was two more guys, there was three of us that they hired. We worked there in the old steam plant, re-fluing the boilers, you know, and getting her ready to put on the line. And then we got through with that plant, they sent us to Corinth. I was still hanging on see; course they paid my board while I was up there, three dollars a day, a room, and three meals, and I'd get by on it too. PIPER: Now, did you hear about, you know, TVA, with the fireside chats? All those things on the radio. What were you thinking when you heard old FDR saying you needed to get involved [?]. PERKINS; Well, I saw FDR at Tupelo. PIPER: Yeah, I was going to ask that you if you did, cause I know [could not transcribe]

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PERKINS: Yeah, I went to that, that football field, the old football field, Robbins Field up there. It was full of folks. And he was talking about what he could do, and he did it too, what he predicted. PIPER: What did you think of when you saw him speaking? Were y'all talking amongst yourselves? What were you thinking when you were watching him talk? PERKINS: Well, we were just listening. We were just listening mostly. There wasn't no commotion, whatsoever. I think everybody was listening, cause they was wanting a new day. We wanted to do something. Like I say, everybody was in the same shape out there. Neighbors would help neighbors. If one got sick, why you'd go in and work their crop or plant it or do things like that. PIPER: Sure, they would do the same for you, because you were all in the same boat. That's true. How old were you when first got indoor plumbing? PERKINS: What? PIPER: When you first got indoor plumbing, how old were you? PERKINS: 20, I don't know. PIPER: When you got electricity in your house, what was that? You know, flipping the switch? At night, did you go to bed at the same times or were you staying up later or were you still excited about having the lights? PERKINS: Well, at my home place, I'd already [could not transcribe] married. When I got through back to the [could not transcribe] of boilers, when I got a chance to go with the construction, people came in at Tupelo to build a 44,000 volt line up to New Albany, and I got on with them. And it led from that right on up to-I finally got back to Tupelo with a maintenance crew, and I worked in Tennessee and all around. PIPER: Do you think, was TVA a good, I mean how did you, what was your view? Some people got upset, because even though the flooding or whatever, they got mad because the government took their land and some felt, you know that it wasn't fair. Even though it was their home state, they were going to deal with the flooding, but for the government was going to come in and build these dams for electricity. Did the people ever say anything to you about it when you were gone? PERKINS: No, I never heard anything. Back when I left, got through at Tupelo and went to work with the construction department, I got a raise up to sixty cents an hour. I thought I would be rich in two or three days. [laughter] PIPER: Yes, because it went far. How much was a gallon of milk at the time?

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PERKINS: Well, I don't remember; back before that, I sold, after me and my wife married in `31, why we sold milk for seventy-five cents a hundred pounds. PIPER: [laughter] Not that much now is it. PERKINS: That's the way it was. The Carnation Company come into Tupelo, and it was a life saver. We didn't get much money, but it was a few dollars cash money. And it helped a lot of folks. CAGLE: Were y'all milking twice a day? PERKINS: Yeah. CAGLE: How many head of dairy cattle did you and your wife have? PERKINS: Well, we had, we milked about ten or twelve I think at the time. When you're young, you hadn't got any sense. You got to learn. I bought an old farm [unable to transcribe], but when I got on with TVA, I let the farm go. I sold it. I didn't need to fool with that, and I should have kept it, because it was worth money in later years. PIPER: When you were working for TVA, you know the power lines, how did you cut the poles, lay the poles, climb the poles, and things like that, that work? PERKINS; Well, I did all of it. I started out when I first got on with the construction department. We had to dig all the holes by hand. That wasn't easy either. Some of the holes would be nine feet deep. They looked like a well down there you know. I recall one time working out of Columbia, Tennessee, and building eight structure line. Had two poles, one twelve and a half feet apart, long beam across for a cross arm. This guy over here digging, and I started and I hit rock to start with. It wasn't solid, but just boulders like your fist and some others and I worked with that, and that other guy just digging and he was laughing at me you know about hitting that rock, and he hadn't hit any. And about the time I struck through the rock where I was digging, he hit his in the bottom of his hole. PIPER: Wasn't so funny then, was it? PERKINS: No. We worked the rest of the day there, and the next morning they come got me and moved me on down the line. I'd got through with my hole you know. [laughter] Well, we had fun. PIPER: How did the equipment; you mentioned the equipment you used; how did it change over the years when you were working for TVA? PERKINS; Well, back, we set most of the poles back then, early, with what we called a falling jim, with a pair of mules or horses. I don't know, you may not follow me on that falling jim.

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PIPER: What is that? PERKINS: Let me see your pencil. Well, it was a deal, like the pole laying here, put that right on the end of it with a pulley up here and a cable, pole back here, and guide them off ropes you see. I was back with maintenance in Tupelo when we first got a truck with a digger on it, boom you know, put out your anchors to lift up a pole to set her in the hole. Boy, I'm telling you...... CAGLE: What year was that when y'all got the truck? PERKINS: Oh, I don't know exactly. I hadn't even thought about that Scott, but it was, it must have been, I'd say fifteen years after I started. PIPER: So, how long did you work with TVA altogether? PERKINS: A little better than forty years. PIPER: That common work turned into forty years. PERKINS: Yep. CAGLE: Where did y'all get your poles back then? PERKINS: Well, we got western cedar, which I didn't like. It was hard to climb, that ole sap. Right underneath the sap, half an inch thick, and lot of times you step in that and the hook would still go on down, you'd slide. You'd have to watch for that. And then creosote poles, we had a lot of them. Course, at the time, I think they got most of them out of Columbus; they had a kiln down there then to treat them. CAGLE: So there was somebody producing poles. Y'all just ordered them, and they brought them to the site. PERKINS: Yeah. Yeah. PIPER: How much did your first home cost? PERKINS: Let's see, seems to me it was twelve or fifteen hundred dollars for a four room house. But understand, we wasn't making all that much money. Well, when I went back to Tupelo with the maintenance crew, I started out driving a truck at $120 a month, oh, I thought I was doing well, and was. I drove a truck for maybe a year, and I couldn't stand it. I had to climb them poles, I got me some hooks, and the foreman let me whenever I wanted to you know, and it wasn't long until he got another truck driver, and I was on the apprentice program. I worked, oh, about a couple of years on that. Then, I had a good teacher, my foreman, well he was a graduate of State. CAGLE: Good stock.

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PERKINS: Yeah. But if you got him out away from lines, he was just lost, but he knew lines. PIPER: Did you ever have any experiences where you would restore power during storms, or anything like that? PERKINS: Oh, man, I wish I could forget them. I worked as high as forty hours without stopping, only long enough to get a little bite to eat. And was glad to do it. Man, back then, if you had a job, you was in good shape. PIPER: You appreciated it. I remember my grandfather telling me; he worked for Magnavox in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he had invented all the things and helped with all these patents and Magnavox got all the money. He made about $35 or something. I asked him one time, I said, "Weren't you mad; why didn't you get a lawyer." He said, "You don't understand. Thirty-five dollars was a lot of money. I had a family to feed. I had a job, just like you were saying. I'll never forget that. PERKINS: Yes, sir. CAGLE: You mentioned storms. When did the tornado come through Tupelo? Remember the big tornado that came through Tupelo? What year was that? PERKINS: That was in '36. CAGLE: '36. So you were just started with TVA when the tornado came through. PERKINS: When the tornado came through Tupelo, I was working with the construction department. I was in Columbia, Tennessee. And that was the main office at Columbia. I had been working out of Pulaski, which is thirty, thirty-five miles down there. I knew we was going to move to Columbia, so I tried to get ahead of the hounds and went up there and found a room that I could rent where I could carry my wife with me. And we left Tupelo on Sunday morning to go to Columbia, and it took right all day then, gravel roads, you know. And that tornado came that night. Well, I got up Monday morning to go to work, and I had to drive down to Pulaski. I got down there, and there wasn't nobody down there. I said, "What in the world's going on here?" I went uptown where I'd been eating; I had been boarding near there you know, and they was the ones who told me about the storm in Tupelo. I just got in my car; they got everybody they could find that worked for TVA down there and sent them to Tupelo. So I went back to Columbia; I went to the main office, and I told them, I says now, I said, "I missed my bunch of folks, they moved out, and they said they had gone to Tupelo," and I said, "If you got anything else to go to Tupelo, I want to go." I said, "I got a brother that lives down there and a sister." They said, "Well, you just stand by because we're loading a truck up now to go." Material, and says, "You can lead them down there." The truck driver didn't even know where Tupelo was [laughter]. When we got started, why, got up on the highway; you know you've heard of the mule day in Columbia, well that was a mule day on a Monday. You've never seen the like of mules [laughter]; they was having a parade you know. And

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we just finally got out of that. But we got into Tupelo, it was after night when we got there. And we hadn't stopped, either, we drove as fast as we could you know. My brother, he was all beat up, leg broke, and his wife. Well, he was in the Amory hospital, and his wife, they had sent her to Memphis. They just sent them anywhere they could, you know, that they had a place for them. And he had a boy and a girl. The boy had a, he said it looked just like an ear of corn, a big slab of a 2x4 just stuck in his neck But the telephone would ring, and he would run to answer it, and everybody was calling him to work. And he said, "Man, I can't come to work, I'm in a cyclone right now. And he just threw the telephone down and made his way back in the bedroom, and that little girl hadn't gone to bed, and she just grabbed him around the leg, and he just bent over her. She wasn't hurt. But he was beat up, I'm telling you. But he got over it; it took a while. PIPER: So the town was just devastated, I'm sure. PERKINS: Yeah, and my sister, her house was damaged, but it wasn't hurt or anything. PIPER: Funny how those things work; it'll get one side of the street, and the other side will be fine. PERKINS: But where that thing went across Tupelo, everything was down. My sister was just in the edge of it, you know. PIPER: One final question. There'll be more questions coming out later; I'm already thinking of those. Talk about building furniture by hand, how you learned to do that, and what kind of tools you used, and what all you made, and just kind of give us a review. PERKINS: Well I don't know, my Dad was a carpenter by trade, too, he knew how to do carpenter work. Of course that's where I learned what little I knew about it. But as far as building furniture, I just had my own projects. The first piece of furniture I built after me and Casalene[?} married, that's my wife. Well, we'd moved up in the Cedar Hill Community. This was before I went to work for TVA, you know. So we got a crop, through with it. So this cedar lumber that my mother had; well it came out of the cemetery where her people was buried So she gave me the lumber, and I built a bed, and I didn't have nothing but a hand plane and a handsaw and a drawing knot. Of course it took me I don't know how long to build it, but I didn't have nothing else to do until cotton picking time. That was the first piece that I made; of course I've made several since then. I made, I made, the best piece of material I ever worked with was Honduras mahogany. I made my daughter a bedroom suit out of it. But, man that was the best wood. There wasn't a knot in it, and it wasn't too hard. You could work great with it. You know about that stuff? CAGLE: I didn't know that. PERKINS: That bed's in the guest room.

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CAGLE: Okay. He also, this Christmas, he and my brother-in-law built my wife a corner China cabinet. So we have a Paul H. Perkins original in our house. PIPER: Oh, that's great My father-in-law really does a lot of wood work, so hearing you talk about it, I think of him as well. PERKINS: I enjoy itg, I never did, course I got a saw now, a table saw, and of course a jig saw. I'll think I'll go buy something, and then I say, "Well, there ain't no use of that." PIPER: My father-in-law will say, "I'll make it;" he'll make anything you want. PERKINS: But I enjoyed it; I turned the legs out for that bed, and everything, I made a turning light. You had to do the best you could. PIPER: Certainly. Certainly. CAGLE: I want to interject just a little bit and tell you what he's up to lately. He's 94, gonna be 95 pretty soon. PIPER: Spring chicken. CAGLE: He builds furniture, still in his shop. He has a fishing boat that he hooks to and goes fishing when he gets ready, which is usually once a week. If he doesn't fish at least once a month, he gets upset. So he has to go at least once a week. He still bird hunts. He still has a 27-foot Winnebago that he drives, and is a member of the Good Sam Camping Club, so he camps all over Mississippi. Now on Sunday afternoons, he donates his time to go around and visit what he calls "old folks." He goes to nursing homes, and private homes, and visits with elderly people. PIPER: Well, that's much appreciated I'm sure. CAGLE: At 94, he's still going strong. PIPER: You look great; I guess we can just stop here and other questions will come up. I'm already thinking of some other questions that I'm curious about. PERKINS: Okay, I hope I've helped y'all. PIPER: It's a tremendous thing...... END OF TAPE ONE

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TAPE TWO MARCH 4, 2005 SAME INTERVIEWERS PERKINS: This hollow flattened out, and where he was was behind the school building, old [could not transcribe] school, and they was up of the hill, and he could look over you know, and that whole football field plus bleachers where they were, didn't have too many at the time, but they'd stand as close as they could get. PIPER: Did they start lining up early in the morning or whatever? PERKINS: I guess they did, because I know when we got there, it wasn't too early, there was a lot of folks there. PIPER: It's amazing. It's amazing. PERKINS: Yes, and he went on up to the Homestead, you know, we called it the Homestead then, and that was the name of it, a building built up there, and got out, and I moved up there later on and lived up there maybe a couple of years. PIPER: Was there any security check before you went into the stadium or anything? PERKINS: Oh, no. There wasn't nothing. Boy scouts running all over to direct traffic. CAGLE: Everybody carried a knife back then. PIPER: We had some more questions come up from the last time. Of course I'm sure that you will answer them as great as you did last time. The details and everything are really appreciated. These are the kinds of things when scholars write, you have the big picture, but the little details you offer enhance it and everything else, and it's very much appreciated. All right, what crops did your family plant, and what were the yields per acre? PERKINS; Well, cotton was originally number one, but of course, my Dad, when I come along, of course I was the last one in my family, he had, I think I stated before, 160 acres of land. But cotton was the main crop, but we raised our own sorghum to make syrup, and we also, we raised potatoes, we raised peanuts, everything to eat, popcorn. I've seen them go to the field with a wagon like you hauling corn to bring up popcorn. But cotton was the big deal. They began to buy cows to raise them for what not. My mother back in the early days before Carnation plant came to Tupelo, she sold butter, carried it to town. PIPER: How did you market these things that you were growing on your farm?

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PERKINS: Well, had to carry them down to Tupelo, which was eight miles from my home place, and that was a Saturday job for my Dad. PIPER: And was this your primary source of income? PERKINS: Yes, yes, it was. CAGLE: How many bales of cotton to the acre did y'all raise back then? PERKINS: Oh, my, course this is the hill section now. About half a bale to the acre was a real good crop. The cotton that we grew, my Daddy used a miller, big bole cotton, and it'd take about 1800 pounds of seed cotton to get 45-50 bales of cotton [could not transcribe]. PIPER: Now was there ever like a competition to get it to the processor in town to see who had the most or taking the first one? PERKINS: Well, you lined up when you went to the gin; is that what you're talking about. This was a wagon deal, you know. I know my Dad sent me to the gin, I couldn't have been over twelve years old, and he said, "Now when you get down there, if it's crowded, register on the book, come on back home and leave the cotton," you know and I'd just get on a horse and go back home and then go back the next day and then they'd check my number when it come up, I'd just go right in. PIPER: So there weren't any problems leaving the cotton there, nobody would steal it? PERKINS: Oh, no, we didn't even think about nothing like that? CAGLE: Y'all picked all that by hand, too, didn't you? PERKINS: Man, yeah, yes siree, it was picked by hand. PIPER: How long did it take you to pick by hand? PERKINS: A bale? PIPER: Yeah, a bale. PERKINS: Well, I tell you, most folks if they got 200 pounds a day, they was doing pretty good. PIPER: Right. PERKINS: Now we had some in the community, we had an old colored fellow, well he wound up living on our place, but he got 300 pounds a day, especially when you was

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paying him twenty, I don't know, fifty cents a hundred, what it was now, but it was real cheap. PIPER: Yeah. PERKINS: But he.... PIPER: Quick. PERKINS: Yeah. Yeah He didn't even have gloves [?]. PIPER: Cut your hands on the...... PERKINS: Oh, man, yeah, when it got cold weather, you'd have burrs that would tear up your hands. PIPER: I bet he was proud of himself [could not transcribe] PERKINS: Yeah, folks don't remember that word now, but what it used [could not transcribe] PIPER: I don't think, yeah, they don't. PERKINS: Of course, I'm proud they don't have to do it like we done it. PIPER: Right. PERKINS: I'm proud of the advancement in, that was one thing about my Dad about farming. He'd check with the county agent a right smart; he depended on him, and if there was some new deal come out where he thought he could make a go of it, he'd do it, he'd try it. PIPER: When did your family get a tractor, and what kind was it? PERKINS: Well, the first tractor we had was, and the only one we had while I was coming up, was a Fordsome [?-could not transcribe positively] tractor, steel wheels. We didn't have nothing but a disk, but my that helped so much you know. That thing, why you could plow the field in a hurry with it, you know. But, it had its faults, but it was an improvement all right. CAGLE: Y'all had the only tractor in the community, didn't you? PERKINS: Yeah, had the only one. CAGLE: Remember what year that was?

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PERKINS: Naw, let me see, I'd say '26 or 7 somewhere, because it was before I finished high school. I finished in '29. CAGLE: You were telling me about an auxiliary buffer [?] y'all had, with a drive shaft. In that smokehouse building you had. PERKINS: In the shop? CAGLE: In the shop. PERKINS: Well, well if you want to know about it, I'll tell you. CAGLE: Sure. PERKINS: My Dad, we had a gasoline engine and he had a grist mill, gasoline mill, and our well was down there, we pumped water. We ground corn at the same time, you know. Then after the dairy herd began to grow bigger, we got a cream separator. My Dad come up with the idea of moving it down to the shop, run it, because it got old turning that thing by hand [laughter], and so he, I don't know how he found out about it, but he went down to Tupelo and he come back, pulling with a wagon, and come back pulling an old T-model car that somebody had bought, had plugs out of it, and it was just rusty, it'd never run again. Well, he cleaned that thing up, took it out, set it up in there to run that mill and everything with that motor. So to have hot water, we didn't have a radiator, of course we had water, we had a water tank, which was the only one in that country that done it, so we piped water over there, run it through that motor, and just keep it running, well, if you wanted hot water, just get you a bucket and go over there and get it, and it'd be hot, and you could get it where it'd scald you if you cooked it slow down, why it'd heat [laughter], and after moving the separator down there, why we'd wash up everything in the shop, you know. PIPER: That's efficient use of ..... PERKINS: That was a real need. [inaudible] PIPER: Where did the lumber come from that was used to build your houses and barn? PERKINS: Well, course I don't know really where they got the lumber for that house shown there; they got it in Tupelo I guess, I'm reasonably sure they did. That I hadn't never thought about where that lumber come from. I wasn't very old when my Dad built that house. PIPER: So, you mentioned earlier about going to town, going to Tupelo. How'd you get to town, and what was that like? How long did it take?

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PERKINS; Well, if we went in a wagon or a buggy, it'd take an hour and a half or two hours, I guess, two hours, I guess. Be my guess. PIPER: Was it eight miles? PERKINS: Yeah, that's about right. My Dad, he wouldn't run them horses. He'd keep them moving along, but no he didn't run them. PIPER: Did you see people along the way, your neighbors, would they go with you? PERKINS: Oh yeah, you'd see them. Yeah. PIPER: Do you remember when you first saw a car on that road? PERKINS: Well, my brother in 1918 had to go into the service, my older brother, and I don't know how he got up enough money to buy a T-model car, `13 model, T-model, and he hadn't had it but a little while, until he had to go in the service. So that rocked [?] along there, put it under a shed down at the barn, you know. So something happened to the gasoline engine, and he needed a part for it, couldn't run on that, so he went to the house and he told my mother, says "I'm going to town, I need that part right now." And he says, "I'm gonna crank that car up," so we never had tried to drive it or nothing. Course I wanted to go, course I was 8 years old in 1918. My mother said, "No, you not going." But my two older brothers got in with him, they was five and seven years older than all of us. They go that thing cranked up, come out from down the barn and took off going to town and got back. CAGLE: In one piece. PERKINS: In one piece. Well, I don't know whether they ever met another car or not I don't guess they did. PIPER: Now the roads were still dirt at the time were they not? PERKINS: Well, where we was, they was gravel up to about a half a mile before they got to our house. That's where they quit with the gravel, and they run for years on dirt roads. PIPER: When you went to town, what stores did you go to, where did you go shop? PERKINS: Well, R. W. Reed Company, which they are still in business in Tupelo, was where they bought most of the clothes; course my Dad used him, my Dad was originally from Itawamba County, and the Reeds was from over in Itawamba County, and so he traded with them. Of course groceries, all you bought was you'd buy some sugar and flour, and that's it, coffee you know, but other stuff if we had raised, why we had it, we didn't....

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CAGLE: Did y'all have a type of refrigeration at home, with everything in a root cellar? PERKINS: No, wasn't no refrigeration. They dug a well down, cut a hole in the back porch, they dug a well down when they was selling butter, and they put that butter down in there, and it stayed cool. Oh, it was about six foot deep or something like that. PIPER: Now, do you remember any kind of CCC projects going on or what was developed around the time you were working for TVA, and what they were doing? PERKINS: That's Civil? PIPER: Civilian Conservation Corps. PERKINS: Yeah, before I went to work, Tombigbee State Park was built by CCC. PIPER: How about WPA projects; you remember those? PERKINS: Well, I never did work on that, but I remember it very well. PIPER: What kind of projects were they doing? PERKINS: Well, I know they did some road work with just men and wheel barrows. Back then they didn't give away anybody any money, you had to work for it some way or another. PIPER: Oh, yeah. PERKINS: But I remember that very well, but I never did work on anything like that. Of course, my Dad had me busy at home [laughter]. CAGLE: Didn't you tell me the road to Saltillo, wasn't that a WPA project? PERKINS: No, that was the first paved road in the South was Tupelo to Saltillo. PIPER: That was the WPA? PERKINS: No, I don't know; really that was before my time that was built, and I don't know. CAGLE: That'd be about where highway 45, old 45, runs now. PERKINS: Yeah. It's on old 45. There's some sections of it you can still see, if you know where to go. PIPER: Now you worked for Sears as well. What was your job at Sears and why did you leave Sears?

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PERKINS: I worked in the shipping department. They had other stores scattered around the country, and I packed goods to go to these stores, you know. Occasionally, they had what they called a packing line over on, of course it was a huge building you know, and they would get behind with their orders. We had these orders that folks would send down, and I worked some in that. They would come over and get me to help with those orders. Cause they were kicking out 13 orders every 20 minutes, you had to stay busy. Oh my goodness. PIPER: Must have been hopping. And why did you leave that job? PERKINS: Well, I just didn't like it. I just wanted to be back out in the open. I'd been building all the time, and I hadn't ever been used to that, you know. I just went back home. I might have stated this before. The old colored fellow that had the place rented died. So I told my Dad, "Don't rent it, I'm coming home." I did. I went back. PIPER: Did you buy your first vehicle at this time? What was your first vehicle, or car? PERKINS: Well, I bought a, while I was working in Memphis, I bought a '29 A-model car, making $15 a month, I mean a week. I don't know how I expected to pay for it. But I made it. Well I didn't pay for all of it, because when I went back to the farm, I had to go to the bank, borrow some money. Then the bank went broke; that was from the Depression really. PIPER: How much was the car? PERKINS: About $500, a little better or a little less, I really don't know for sure. CAGLE: I think there's a certificate in there; I think it was 1933 when you bought that car. That certificate in there, road and bridge, privilege tax paid, it was paid in 1933 on that first car installment, copies of that in there [sound is not good, so this may not be an exact transcription] PIPER: The Depression, you've talked about that, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, where were you? PERKINS: Oh, I was working for TVA. PIPER: Did you hear it on the radio; oh of course you heard it on the radio, but where were you just outside working when you heard about it? PERKINS: Oh, let me see, where was I? Oh, no I believe we was getting a little better.... If we did.... Evidently I was home, because I know that night our TVA group, office folks, everybody, was out at Tombigbee State Park, getting together to picnic [cannot transcribe], and Roosevelt spoke, and we all listened to it at Tombigbee Park. That's when I knew we was in World War.

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PIPER: [Sound too low, could not transcribe-something like "empire had been attacked, a war to be won"] PERKINS: I can just hear that man. He was great. CAGLE: One thing about TVA back then. They may still do it to an extent now. They used to have all the line crews, they'd get together with their families, and they'd have picnics. They weren't just working folks; they brought families, kind of a family environment. They went on camping trips and fishing trips and everything else. These guys climbing 75 and 95 foot high poles dealing with high voltage [could not make out rest of comments-sound is low, now sure if the foregoing is an exact translation]. PIPER: Where did you serve during World War II? PERKINS: Right here [?] in Tupelo. PIPER: Okay. PERKINS: I never did have to go. They was keeping me out. Every month I would get a card, you know. Deferment. There wasn't anything I did to try to stay out. They thought it was important that we kept the lines going. And of course that Prairie plant down there then was a big way. CAGLE: Prairie built ordnance out there where the research station is now; 7,000 acres where they built munitions. PIPER: Now who was the first president you voted for? PERKINS: Oh, [Laughter]. PIPER: Wilson was in when you were born, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower. PERKINS: I can't remember to save my neck. CAGLE: It would have been 1928 or later, cause you were 18 at that point. PERKINS: Let's see, Roosevelt was elected, who was just before him? PIPER: Hoover, Hoover. PERKINS: I might have voted for him; I don't remember about that. PIPER: [Laughter] That's fine. I just... PERKINS: Couldn't tell you [?]. I do remember voting for Roosevelt.

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PERKINS: A funny thing happened. Of course, I guess you don't want to know all of this. PIPER: Of course. Yes. PERKINS: We was boarding out of town, we used to have to board out of town and we left if we had much work to do, you know. A little town above, name of Myrtle, which is above New Albany up there, and it was raining one morning we got up. They had a barber shop there. Some of our boys was getting a haircut. There was an old man in there talking, "yep, yep, yep." He was talking to one of our lineman. He said, "Don't you think we made a mistake when we elected Roosevelt again?" The old boy had a dip of snuff in his mouth and he was spitting it out; we was sitting out on the front, and he said, "I know you did." Said, "We oughta made him king." [laughter] PIPER: [Comments on material covered in Tape One] Oh, here's one. Why did Time magazine interview you? PERKINS: Well that wasn't Time magazine that interviewed me. That picture of me; this was a credit company there in Tupelo. And I had a little money in there. They wanted a picture of me with some of my equipment, you know. It was a sales pitch, what it amounted to, you know. It's a wonder TVA hadn't questioned that thing, but I never did hear nothing from it. But they shown it on TV and all that stuff. PIPER: I figured it was part of a promotional..... PERKINS: Yeah, for that credit union you know. But that piece of equipment, that was the first real line truck we had. Now that was a doozie. Had a 70 foot telescope boom, a hole digger, man you could..... PIPER: Didn't you say before you had to dig the holes by yourself? PERKINS: Yeah, by hand. PIPER: How deep were they? PERKINS: Depended on their height; anywhere from 7 to 9 feet. PIPER: In that wonderful clay soil. [Laughter] PERKINS: And it wasn't just regular old hole diggers, what we used for that deep, we had a spade, course the line couldn't handle that, just a spade, nine foot handle. And you'd dig it up when it got down, dig it up. Then take that, called it a spoon, and it was just shaped like that, you know.... PIPER: And scoop it out[?]

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PERKINS: Yeah, dig it out. Now you didn't just run out there and dig a hole right quick. CAGLE: Took a while. PIPER: I'm sure it did. PERKINS: With that truck that I got, finally got, course it had a hole digger on it. You could dig a 9 foot hole in five minutes. PIPER: [Laughter] So the poles went up faster obviously. CAGLE: When y'all started building lines, power lines, first off they'd have somebody go through and purchase right of way, right? PERKINS: Yep. CAGLE: And then you'd have a survey crew come through and lay the line out and stake out the poles. PERKINS: Oh, Yeah. CAGLE: Then y'all would come through, dig holes, mules and wagons would bring the poles in? PERKINS: Yeah, we'd use-see, back in the early days when I was with construction, we didn't have very many trucks. We had trucks to haul the poles out. And crew trucks to haul the crew out. But the actual building of the line, as far as getting materials to the right place, was wagons and mules. We didn't have trucks you know like they have now that could go nearly anywhere you know. PIPER: The war was over and you were still working for TVA? PERKINS: Yep. PIPER: What kinds of changes were you seeing taking place where you were living as far as technology in farming and things like that? PERKINS: Oh, it was changing, there wasn't no question about it. And things was looking up. Cotton, I don't know what it cost, but back during the Depression, we sold cotton for 6 cents a pound, those that was doing well, some of them didn't get that much. After the war, it was, of00 course cotton got higher during the war, of course it leveled off and went back the other way, and a few years after the war. But back to that '13 model Ford, it was 1925, my Dad made a good crop, he went to town and come back with a '25 model Ford car. PIPER: Brand new.

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PERKINS: Brand new. A touring car, you know they called them. Wasn't no such thing as a closed car; had curtains you could put up if you wanted to. But, oh man, we was proud of that car, went to town Saturday evening. If we wanted to, now me and my brothers we didn't go to town every Saturday, we'd rather go to the swimming hole. We didn't have one of ours. We went to a neighbor's up about two miles from where we lived. PIPER: Now were you driving or walking? PERKINS: Walking [Laughter]. We'd go up there and stay in the pond all evening, just playing, we was having fun. PIPER: Bring a picnic with you? Bring a picnic dinner? PERKINS: No, no, it'd be after dinner before we could get off, we might go earlier than that, but.... PIPER: Did you still have the family farm throughout your whole TVA time or did it get sold off, or were you still working it at all? PERKINS: Well, my Dad, he'd sold off after all the boys left home and after I got married and left and started my own home, why he sold off, let's see, the back 80 acres, and he sold off another 40, and he only had 40 acres later, but it was the best part of the whole place where the house was. PIPER: Right. Is it still in the family? PERKINS: No, they sold it. My brother, he wound up with it, cause I had a job and after my Dad died, my brother, well really, he made a preacher, he was supposed to have been preaching a long time before he did, but he didn't give up to it. So I told him, and of course the rest of the family agreed with me, I said, "You go on back and take your mother, and you can have the farm." I didn't want no part of it. [Laughter] PIPER: I was going to ask you if you felt sad or anything when it was.... PERKINS: And I had a chance to buy it back in later years when my brother sold it. But I didn't want it. PIPER: You had enough growing up with it and you knew what it took just to run it. PERKINS: Well, I tell you, it wasn't easy, but we, we had fun, and folks would help one another, and there was no such a thing as locking up anything. PIPER: What did you do for fun?

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PERKINS: Well, when I got old enough to get out, you know, run around a little, we'd get somebody in the neighborhood, we'd call it giving a party, you know, and we'd just go there and play games and talk you know. Then, some of the folks they'd give dances, and my mother didn't like that one bit. She didn't want me going; course I went some anyway [Laughter]. I didn't do no dancing, cause I couldn't, unless I stepped on a hot coal. [Laughter] PIPER: When y'all would just sit around and talk, would you tell stories? PERKINS: Yeah, just anything you know to keep the party going. PIPER: Would the older folks talk about their families and how they got to Tupelo and things like that and carry that down? PERKINS: Yeah, it's an interesting thing to think back over those times, and I didn't think I'd ever remember them [could not transcribe]. CAGLE: What about Christmas time. What kind of stuff did you get for Christmas, from Santa Claus? PERKINS: Well, an apple and an orange; if I needed a pair of socks or a pair of britches, I'd get them. I was gonna get them anyway, but I was so proud of them. Toys, that was just out. Firecrackers, I wanted some so bad, but they couldn't buy them, they couldn't buy them. PIPER: Had to have the necessary stuff. PERKINS: That's right. The necessary stuff, it come first. PIPER: That's true, those oranges and the fruit. Cause you know when I did my dissertation, I would read about the migrant camps out in California, and those kids, you'd read those newsletters, and oranges, that was a huge thing for Christmas, to get those oranges. PERKINS: Yes sir. PIPER: It would make them so happy. PERKINS: Yesiree. CAGLE: Did y'all have Christmas trees back then? PERKINS: Yeah, we'd go cut down a cedar tree, put it up, hang up a sock. [Laughter] CAGLE: Compared to today's commercialization of Christmas, there was a little bit less involved back then. Have church services, and that was about it.

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PERKINS: Yeah. Of course everybody at Belden, as far as Sunday was concerned, we had two churches, the Baptist and Methodist church. Of course we belonged to the Methodist. We'd go to the Methodist church this Sunday and next Sunday go to the Baptist church. We was having a half-time service you know. You'd see the same people at both places. And they call it good ole days. [Laughter] PIPER: But you lived the good ole days. What are some of your fondest memories growing up, some of your happiest memories, fresh with you today? PERKINS: Well, I guess if you really boil down to it, it would be the community working together, friends you know. If you needed something, you could go to your neighbor and say I need something, and you'd get it. You didn't have to sign no piece of paper or nothing that you was gonna pay it back or nothing, cause they knew you was gonna pay it back. PIPER: Or you were going to help them. PERKINS: Yeah. So that was something, I think we've lost a lot of. PIPER: Whether or not we'll get it back[?] PERKINS: Well, I saw a deal, something in the paper, not long ago about a deal where they shook hands, you know, on a deal. Now my brother, back to that, when he lived at Tupelo, he worked at the power company at the time, and he built a house, and the fellow that run the lumber yard, he'd [his brother] would go by and just get lumber you know, and he done a lot of the work himself, and he told this man, said "we'd better fix up some papers." And he said, "Son, you're gonna pay for it, aren't you?" He said, "Well, I aim to." He said, "Well, okay go ahead," and he never did draw up no papers. And he built a house. That Puckett Lumber Company there in Tupelo now, it was his granddaddy. They don't come any finer. Of course Puckett don't own it now, they sold it out, but that son Puckett's still there in Tupelo. I knew him. CAGLE: Your first house, you got from [could not transcribe] in Tupelo, another handshake deal. PERKINS: Well, almost, back before I bought the house, when we left, had been living up at the homestead We was going, they changed policies, what they wanted to do was sell those houses, but they wanted you to just as a group, you know. Well, I didn't see that myself. If I coulda bought one, just me, alright. Didn't none of our boys work, well, there was several of them working for TVA living up there. I bought a lot from a man on Blair Street, close to where you live, and built a, well, it was going to be my garage, really, for the building, make two stories, where I could cut out later, you know. We lived in that for about a year, I think. I got a chance over there on North Madison Street where I bought this house. Well, I knew the man, come from Fulton over there and was going to work for the city of Tupelo. As he got that house built, he decided he wasn't gonna take that job. Come over to my house and wanted to know if I would buy it.

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"Yeah, I would like to have it," cause it was right between the schools, you know. Of course Marideth was small at the time. So I went over there and looked at the house. Mr. [could not transcribe] built it for him, so I went to see Mr. [could not transcribe]. I told him how much, well, he knew how much he had in it you know. I said, "If I was to buy that, how much a month would I have to pay?" He figured and figured around there, and he said, "Fifty dollars." PIPER: [Laughter] I'd be a rich man, we'd all be rich.] PERKINS: So, I said, "Well there's just one little hitch. I got that little deal over on Madison Street, and it's not paid for." I said, "Will you take it in and put it all together?" He said, "Yep, yep." I thought he was going you know to make one note, but he didn't. So I paid $10 a month on that deal and $50 for the house. I was making $120 a month. CAGLE: Half of it going to the house. PERKINS: Well, that's right, half of it went to the house. CAGLE: You keep referring back to the Homestead, those are those houses up on the Natchez Trace, right? PERKINS: Right. CAGLE: How much do they sell for? END OF TAPE, SIDE A SIDE B

BEGINS WITH TALK OF A COMMUNITY-SOUND IS NOT GOOD, COULD NOT TRANSCRIBE CAGLE: [CANNOT PICK UP ALL HE IS SAYING] That homestead was a little ole community. I don't know how many houses are up there. PERKINS: Yeah, there's been fifteen, twenty, I don't know. I don't remember. What it was designed for for low-income folks who had some acreage. First place I moved in up there, I had about three acres, had a good place for a garden and a place to keep a house, and I moved over on a bigger deal over there, it was a bigger house. Had seven acres of land over there, joined a lake down there. I had a pond, had a cow. CAGLE: You went fishing I'm sure.

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PERKINS: Oh, yeah. Had a boat down there. I carried my daughter. She was a little bitty ole thing like [could not transcribe]. She'd sit down between my legs, and we'd fish, and I'd say, "Now be quiet Marideth," She'd whisper you know [laughter]. PIPER: Is there anything else you wanta add? I know it. Treasure trove of information. I just love to hear you talk. PERKINS: I just hope it's what you wanted. PIPER: It's more than what we wanted. If you think of anything else, we'll do another one. You be thinking on it, and we'll do it again. Let's stop right here. END OF INTERVIEW

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