“Boomer” Winfrey

Varmint County Correspondent

The ice storm and bitter cold temperatures that pummeled Tennessee, Kentucky and the rest of Central Appalachia in February did not spare Varmint County.   

The first storm dropped a half inch of ice on everything and temperatures then plunged to minus-four in Haig Hollow and Mud Lake while the weather service’s automatic monitor on McCracken’s Peak bottomed out at ten below with wind chills to minus thirty.

By comparison, the weather was practically balmy around courthouse square in Lower Primroy, where it only dropped to a low of five degrees on the coldest night of the week. Local wags naturally attributed the spike in temperatures to all of the hot air being generated by politicians in the courthouse, but truth is, most of the politicians were nowhere to be seen, all ice-bound at home for five days.

The major problem was predictably the ice, which downed trees and power lines all over the county. The Stinking Creek Utility District reported that over 4,000 homes lost power, which considering how many folks in the SCUD service area live off the grid or steal power from a neighbor’s lines, probably meant close to 100 percent of the utility’s customers.

With Varmint County schools shut down for the week, along with basketball games and practice, Coach Penny Haig decided to use her time checking on the welfare of her Haig Hollow relatives. Penny recruited cousins Corky, Lamance and Kermit “Doodle” Haig to accompany her and the four set out in Penny’s 4-wheel drive Chevy Blazer, loaded down with food, water, kerosene heaters and first aid supplies.

Power was predictably out all over Haig Hollow as close to eighty trees collapsed from the ice, taking out power lines and blocking roads. The situation could have been much worse except for the fact that many Haigs cling to old ways and reject modern conveniences such as basic electricity.

Penny found many families having to do without their electric lights and dish TV, but staying warm in front of their fireplaces and cooking meals as always, on their wood or coal stoves.

Not so her grandpa Elijah, who had used his profits from the government contract for spring run moonshine to build an antebellum mansion with all the modern conveniences. In times past, Elijah’s twelve bedroom home has served as a refuge of sorts for other members of his clan. He sheltered a dozen families after the tornado outbreak in ’12 and last spring, seven families from the lower end of Haig Hollow found Elijah’s home open to them when their homes were washed away in a flash flood along Shine Branch.

The flood took out over a dozen homes and in a devastating blow to the local economy, an equal number of moonshine stills. Elijah’s door was always open to folks in need. The challenge was getting them to leave once the disaster was past, since his home was luxurious by any standard.

Pittance Haig, a widow whose home washed away in the flood, had to be physically ejected. Pittance decided Elijah needed a woman’s touch around the house and determined to extend her stay indefinitely, but the old man would have none of it.

“I was happily married for over 50 years to my beloved Matilda, God rest her soul. I don’t want a replacement wife and I don’t need a replacement wife or a housekeeper,” Elijah told Pittance. “Time for you to go.”

“Where am I going to go? I lost my home,” she asked, sobbing.

“I just had the boys build you another one, complete with new furniture, a satellite dish and a big television to watch yer soap operas on,” Elijah announced. “Now, please go home and leave me in peace.”

This time Elijah’s mansion was no refuge for other Haigs, however. The electric heat pumps silenced, the windows frosted over and four-foot icicles hanging from the columns on the front portico, the Haig Mansion looked like something out of a winter fairy tale.

Penny found her grandpa resting comfortably, however, having taken refuge in Granny Haig’s cabin behind the mansion. Granny, you might recall, is the 105-year-old (more or less) matriarch of the Haig Clan. When Elijah built his mansion, she refused to move in, preferring the familiar surroundings of the little cabin where she was born and raised.

Now, Elijah found himself thankful for Granny’s stubborn refusal to go modern. Penny found her grandpa and great-grandma sitting down to a piping hot bowl of possum stew and cornbread while logs cracked in the fireplace and the stew simmered on top of the wood cook stove in the corner.

“Looks like I don’t need to worry about you, Grandpa,” Penny grinned.

“Nope. We got everything we need right here. Well, almost. It’s a mite of a cold trip out to the outdoor privy,” Elijah replied.

“Boy, ain’t you learned nuthin’ yet?” Granny piped in. “What do you think them chamber pots under my bed is for, anyhow?” 

One by one, Penny and her cousins checked on every home in the hollow, leaving off food, kerosene heaters to those few who had no fireplace or wood stove and patching up Sparkle Haig’s youngest boy, who had a nasty gash on his forearm from a sledding accident.

Finally the group worked their way to the head of Haig Hollow, where the gravel road gave way to mule paths and homes were scarce.

“Nobody left now except Uncle Em, I reckon,” Corky Haig commented as they left the last house, having dropped off a pot of beef stew and some kerosene.

“He’s probably alright. He heats with a fireplace and burns oil lamps for light. I doubt Uncle Em has even noticed the power is off,” Penny added. “Still, we’ve come this far, we need to check on him.”

Embodene Haig, or Uncle Em as the younger members of the clan referred to him, is Granny Haig’s youngest brother, a spry lad of not more than 85 who has lived by his wits and alone for the better part of 30 years, since his beloved wife Delilah passed away giving birth to the couple’s only child.

Tragically, the boy, Jeremiah, was one of the three young Haigs who died in a still explosion over on Connor’s Branch a few years back, leaving the old man with no immediate family to look after him.

As Penny nudged her Blazer into gear and began crawling up the mule track toward Uncle Em’s cabin, she recalled fondly the one time in over twenty years that the old man had left his beloved hollow, to watch her play basketball in the state tournament.

“I couldn’t hardly let my favorite niece play for a championship and not be here to cheer you on, even if I don’t quite get the purpose of this game,” Uncle Em told a shocked Penny when she spied him in the crowd. 

Penny suddenly felt a chill run through her as they rounded a curve and Uncle Em’s cabin came in to view. It was dark, and no smoke was wafting from the chimney. The one glass window in front was totally frosted over and there were no tracks leading through the snow from the woodpile to the front door, as one would expect.

Penny knocked on the door and hearing no reply, pushed it open a bit to reveal an icy cold interior.

“Oh, God! Uncle Em, Uncle Em! Are you in here?” she called out.

“Penny, is that you? I’m over here in the bed,” came the faint reply, barely a croak.

Penny rushed inside to find her great-great uncle lying in bed with only his face peering out from the blankets, frosty steam rising with every breath in the cabin’s icy air.

“Uncle Em, why don’t you have a fire going? It must be ten degrees in here!”

“Niece, I done gone and slipped on that ice and I think I broke my hip. I barely made it back in the house and I just run out of things to burn,” the old man replied, his voice barely a whisper. “I burned up all them old newspapers and every one of Delilah’s old books except the family Bible. I busted the kitchen chairs and table up as best I could and burnt them too. Even burned Jeremiah’s old baseball bat.”

While Uncle Em was talking, the Haig cousins were busily hauling in firewood and getting a blaze started in the fireplace. “I brought in the Coleman stove,” Doodle announced. “I’ll crank it up and get some hot coffee boiling in a few minutes.”

“Uncle Em, we’re going to get you warmed up and then we’re going to get you down the mountain to Doc Filstrup, let him look at your hip. What I can’t understand is how you’ve managed to keep from freezing to death in here all night without heat. It’s almost as cold in this house as it is outside.”

“Well, Penny, the good Lord just looked after me I guess. Plus it don’t hurt none when you’ve got a dozen good hound dogs,” Uncle Em replied.

He then lifted up the blanket to show his bedmates, his pack of prized Blue Tick Coon Hounds, all piled in around Uncle Em’s legs, arms and body. “I guess we all just kept each other warm,” he chuckled.

Later that week, Penny stopped by Doc Filstrup’s clinic, where her Uncle Em had taken up temporary residence.

“Doc, Grandpa Elijah is going to take care of Uncle Em for awhile once his electricity is back on and the house warms up. Granny Haig will come over and help feed and bathe him while his broken hip is healing and Corky is taking care of his hound dogs. Other than the broken hip, did you find anything else wrong with him?”

“Penny, the old man is amazing. A minor hip fracture, but no hypothermia, no frostbite, not even a head cold from that ordeal,” Doc replied. “There was one thing though. The poor old guy is absolutely eaten up with flea bites.”