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From: Bill Utterback <>
Subject: [KYJP] Dr. Gordon Wilson - "Fidelity Folks" - 'East Side - West Side'
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 16:16:05 -0600


My friends -

Today, we are looking at another of the delightful essays composed by the
late Dr. Gordon Wilson. This one comes form his little book, "Fidelity
Folks" and is entitled, 'East Side - West Side', referring, somewhat
tongue-in-cheek, to the subtle differences between the land and the people
who resided on the west and east sides of Calloway County. Dr. Wilson was
an "east-sider", since Fidelity was the village of New Concord, where he
was born and raised. Dr. Wilson's ability to conceptualize and reduce to
writing those simple pleasures and attributes of an era gone by have made
these essays one of the most positively commented upon series that I have
brought to the lists.

I expect to be about fully recovered from this pesky respiratory ailment in
another day or two, and I will hope to be able to bring a miscellaneous
file offering to the List in the next few days. As is now customary, there
will be no data posts tomorrow or on the weekend.

-B
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
EAST SIDE - WEST SIDE
-Dr. Gordon
Wilson
“Fidelity Folks”

The county where I lived early became divided into east side and west side.
The west side was fertile and level, with soil especially adapted to the
raising of the big black tobacco that was for generations the chief money
crop. Though the roads were poor, they at least led across level stretches
to the county seat and allowed people to make this journey without killing
their horses with fatigue. Young people on the west side thus came to know
something about town life and felt at ease whenever they ventured forth on
Saturdays or county court days or when candidates were to speak, On the
east side the plateau broke down into rough hills, with exposures of red
mud and washy, sandy banks. Going to town was a severe task, not to be
attempted except after long planning. The east-siders were rugged
individualists, always suspicious of the better-dressed west-siders as well
as of the city folks. When some country-looking fellow came into the county
seat, he was usually branded without investigation as from the east side.
And long after the west-siders had put up modern houses and bought
rubber-tired buggies, the log houses were still plentiful on the east side,
and families made the long journey to the county seat in farm wagons or, at
best, old-fashioned steel­tired buggies.

In spite of the Sunday admonitions to love those who despitefully used us,
I felt a keen disdain of the smart-alecs from the county seat and the west
side who drifted into our community and looked down on us. We may not have
been so stylish as they and may not have been so much at ease, but we could
plow corn the longest summer's day without batting an eye; we could lift at
the end of a handstick until our eyes bulged; we could cut tobacco all day
in a temperature of a hundred in the shade. Our hair did need cutting a
little oftener than it was cut, but we could allow a good-sized boy to
swing his weight on it and never wince. And our daddies usually owned the
farms they lived on and, like Longfellow's village blacksmith, "looked the
whole world in the face," and for the same reason, "for they owed not any man."

Old Fidelity was poor but proud, It had never been other than a small
village, but, like so many of us, it had seen better days. As long as the
railroad kept away from the county seat, that is, until 1891, Fidelity
remained much as it had been in pioneer days, a self-sufficient village.
Then came the railroad, and gradually the village began to show signs of
deteriorating. Proud yet, in spite of being off the railroad, it was
lacking in any importance except locally. Some of the citizens moved to the
county seat or on to even more remote places. Enough ties were left,
however, to draw many old-timers back, especially in summer. Heads of
families often came back to show their children, born elsewhere, just what
Fidelity had been like in the old days.

Local citizens, proud of their city company, brought them to church and
Sunday School. One returned native dropped a dollar into the collection
plate and almost created a scene. If any of our visitors could be induced
to talk, they were asked to teach the adult Bible class or comment on the
lesson after the classes had reassembled. Most of them declined graciously
and preferred to sit in their old places and listen to the same old
comments that were being made before their exodus. Housewives vied with
each other in doing their fanciest cooking and showing the visitors a good
time. We polished up on the grammar we had learned in the Fidelity school;
we also remembered our best manners, such as they were. In every way we
tried to make a good impression on the people who had come to see us and
tried also to hide a little of the contempt we felt for people who lived
outside the Fidelity neighborhood.

If visitors came on week days, we sometimes took them to see the haunted
house, over on Panther Creek. Or we drove down to Marse Jeffy's tobacco
factory to listen to the Negroes sing as they worked in the stemming room.
Sulphur Springs, with its alluring woods and fine spring water, was always
on our itinerary. Rarely we gave a party for our company, but that was only
when the visitors were all young people.

Most of the people who sought us out on the east side were family groups,
That meant a weekend visit, with many of us having to sleep three a bed or
even sleep on the floor. I got so much experience then that I can still
stretch out on the ground in a pup tent and go to sleep as if I were on the
downiest couch a poet ever raved about.

Viewed several decades later, the distinction between east-siders and
west-siders seems pretty small. All of us were crude, east and west alike;
all of us were poorly educated; none of us had traveled more than a county
or two away; nearly all of us were hedged in by inherited prejudices and
taboos. A visitor from a more enlightened area would have found us equally
interesting and equally funny.

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