Child Hood Vacations- Hungry Mother State Park

0:02 You going to say hello? Yeah, I am. So say it now actually. Wait, we're gonna be cut the whole I wait on it and now we can add it. We can edit it. But um, already three, two, one. Yeah, welcome back to another episode of a record of my father. Today, we're going to be talking about childhood vacations and what those look like, both in my life. And also, in my, my Dad's life. What was an example of a vacation, when you were kid, Oh me, I for me. My biggest memory of childhood childhood vacations was the first one. I remember we took was probably like 67 so I was like, seven, eight years old. We would go down to Hungry mother State Park, which is down near Mary in Virginia.

0:50 And my mother's relatives live down there, it's very odd because we would hit the first time we would doubt. It was me my sister and two brothers, and my mother and my father stayed home too. Watch the house. Which we'll get into that later or the dog or whatever. The hell it was. Anyway, we went down there. We'd stay there a week you could rent. You could literally rent a, what do you call it? A cabin for about 100 bucks for a week that it was like, really, it's still pretty cheap to rent. I think it is to be to rent hotels like that. I mean cabins, they still have heat, they running water you. You you cook on a stove so they have gas and they have a fireplace and stuff like that.

1:37 And it's a great place to take a bunch of kids and go there, we climbed the mountain there, there's a mountaineer called Molly's knob and it was named after this, Indian lady that ran away from being tortured by white men, climb the mountain or something like that. It was, you know, they had a big lake there, we used to Grant paddle boats and and then we would horseback ride. And then we visit mostly what we do is visit relatives or invite relatives out, you know, a lot of a row. Elves lived in the Marion Area, and they would come down or they wouldn't, you know, depending upon there's a whole lot of fang, Li family angst, and strife over, who was more of an asshole in the other person and stuff like that, we were younger. So we always kind of dealt with that, you know, it was it was very, very different. What do you mean by different?

2:24 Well, it's very, very different. I think that I think that that part of it, you know the fact that we never went on a vacation with my father. Never, he never went to this state park. No, not even one time, while not want to. And and you think there's a reason for that, right? There's got to be some reason, what we found out years later and When I'm at my new stepsister, I guess you would call her. She's 72, she's older. She's from his second marriage. He actually met her in the mid-60s.

3:05 She stopped and said hi to him and because they were worried that he was going to come back and and do things, you know. So and they technically weren't divorced. So she's older than you were. Yeah. She's got ya by like 50. Years over 50 years old and my brother by largely you know, she's mid 70s now. God, but I mean sweet lady, nice because you and open it. There's no she was in the Fairfax County School System. She was a teacher for 35 years, she know she came back and was weak mad and we talked about that. And so yeah, I was down there in 67. I saw him at the Bob's Big Boy and all this and you're just thinking, like, weird, you know, but you know, I mean you meet a relative, you never knew you, you kind of thought you had One, but you weren't sure and then you meet them.

3:53 And then that's the thing. And this is about my vacations as a child, right? Anyway. Anyway. Think well, yeah, she was pushing them to sign the divorce papers and 67. He signed the divorce papers. So there was definitely a separation from him and her mother. And she, we were born. And I was born in the 50s. So then my mother and father got married in the late 60s, the dressing. I can't. Yeah. Yeah, that. Well how did you how did you figure out this woman? Was your sister. How did you? Initially because you've I'm assuming you found that out much later on. Oh yeah.

4:33 No, no. I kinda knew that we had a sister somewhere but then my brother died and she when he died his obituary. She saw his obituary in his father and she came up with that. She was like, oh my God and she reached out she reached out to me and I was like, wow, this is weird and she you know, and I said, I knew that he had two previous marriages and I knew they had a kid. Here there but I had know how the hell you gonna track down. Somebody named Brown shit. Yeah. You just can't, you can't do that. There's it's a lifelong thing, but it was some cool shit out of the Woodworks. Is really nice loves dogs animal person, just wonderful stuff.

5:14 Anyway, that was just from the death of your brother, she figured that out. Yeah, yeah. How did she? Did she say that like, how she figured that out? It was a just, just like, well, weirdly. She must have had some kind of alert. Ah, dad would be proud. Bud Tudor be a third, or whatever the hell else. Do you know my father's day? Because I'm sure in the Fairfax County area, they number of last names that are brown. She knew that he lived in Northern Virginia didn't aware, but Brown is brownie shit. I mean once again you know there's there's it doesn't mean anything am within a five mile radius of where I am. There's probably six Phil Browns weird, believe it? Yeah it's not it on.

5:54 One of them is Phillip Lee which is like really the hell does that There's somebody in order to keep stealing your identity. God, we used to go down there. We would hang out at the park. Sometimes we camp, you know, they live in tents for a week but it was just you know, you cook out every night. You cook over a fire every night at dinner was like, really like hot dogs hamburgers. No talking about a fun. I mean and you know, my mom would leave us to sort of beat or own Meats. Like we always stick mirrored home. We were left to do whatever the hell we want to do pretty much. About stay out of too much crime, or, you know, it didn't matter. If you committed a crime, just couldn't get caught, you know what we're good at. And look down there.

6:38 I remember that she had relatives, come over and one was this guy named Max, and he would come over, and he picked her up and took her and we left and then later, I found out that that was her first husband. Wow. Yeah. They used to drop as of the park and then she would leave for like the whole day's leave us at the park and it's like you're at a national park and you can go hiking and walking, you can do anything you want. There's no TV. So what you gonna do? You gonna go outside? You chop wood for this, there wasn't any wood but they, I mean they had some big rounds of wood that you could shop so you can make a fire and we would make fires because we're you know, we could make far home.

7:18 So what makes you so confident that your These are all from your biological father. What makes you confident? And then I mean, I have pictures of when they were born when my parents. Okay? That's okay, frankly, that's the only reason why that I was just I thought that was a pretty good question, a little bit, but it was a good question. I mean that I mean, when you look at it, you look at the pictures. Also, you look at the character, not necessarily characteristics. As I think characteristics can be taught, you know, you can, you know, you can develop certain ticks that you're, you know, you're Adoptive parents have picked or whatever the case, but mine were like, I look. What is it? My brother's spy, my one of my?

7:59 Brother's, I look a lot like, and I sound a lot like them, my sister, and my other brother have many similar characteristics and they're also like, there's a, you, there's a understanding or whatever it is. I don't know. You know, when you're younger, you feel. I would say that. All of you look smack like one another as well. And that's that's very key, I think. Yeah, and I'm looking at a family. But what else, what else was hungry, mother State Park was the number one? How many people like you're saying a lot of? Well, there were, there's five of us. Fucker in the beginning. But then like the very next year, my brothers would go off to Camp Goshen.

8:43 So they went off at Camp Bastion and there were scouting sounds a bit. The cap think it was like 1354 yeah they would go down to Camp Goshen and stay there for a week and they went we would go and that was our vacation and it was like it was really very neat. We would always eat food that we never ate, we get like peppermint candies and all this kind of stuff that we never had. Home and you would save money. So you would have that opportunity to spend stuff like, you know, you better not spent that now because then you won't be able to ride a horse, when we go down to Marion because, you know, my mom would pay for certain stuff but I mean she was a gs1. So you can't, you know, we're there was there were six people living off six thousand dollars a year seven thousand years. So we were, we were scraping Knuckles to get by, you know. And that's the whole, you know, hunting for bottles and all that kind of stuff like that.

9:41 And everybody had a job. All like paper boys and stuff like that. So you would always save your little bit of money. So when you went down there that you could buy a candy bar that your brother couldn't buy your sister, couldn't bust, you could eat it. Robin eliminates right and just be a total shit because that's what kids do it is I have this you don't know what's always a great story of my brother when he went to work for a restaurant. Any and he used to get a sub and he would come home, and my mother asked him. And I remember we're all sitting table. It's like why do? You have to bring it home, to eat it. Why can't you just eat it there? And then I bring it home, he goes, well, you know, it tastes so much better when I bring it home.

10:24 Well, it's not when you he brings it home, it's when he eats it in from the right. He stood in front of his exactly. That mean that was it, that was it. So and I mean, when you think about that, it's like, when somebody desires something and you have it and it's yours, it's an especially when you're a little kid, I mean, he was what 15 minutes. So, you know, I have shit. You don't know if I was that evil when I was 15 and I don't think he's pretty fucking evil but uni of sibling, so it's different but there's a photo of you in the house and no providing Pony. Oh yeah. Is that where that is? Is that? No no no that pony, was it Potomac View Elementary School they used to have like this Carnival down there and they had a pony ride one year and I got on the ponies and have like six of them or something and it was like a quarter nickel or something like that, okay.

11:14 A jumping on the pony and got a picture. You know, I did I rode in Southwest Virginia rode horses. I can still remember want to run a palomino but they were like horses, he hopped on and they knew the trail and you just sort of following them and their Giant and maybe they weren't. That's every horse I ever room, you know I was like free foot five then so you know, they picked you up, put you on a thing. You stay on this giant horse, you know and it just walk along the trail and go along the mountains and stuff like that. It was it was just wicked cool because shit you couldn't do anywhere else. And also it's like that it's a story that that other people would say like wow, you got to ride a horse, you got to do this, you know what it's like when your kid, those are the kind of things that you look for to do to say that, you know, like your life is wonderful and it differentiates you from other people and lives. A lot of people look for that stuff. I didn't kids in particular look for that because you're looking for this validation is like wow you know my life is great until you learn to self out self-validation. Yeah.

12:19 Well yeah, some Ever learn that skill. That is true that some people never learn do validate, but I will say that. Um, yeah, no, I think it was kids specifically. Yeah. Validation on places that they've been or things that they've done. Oh, gosh, a humongous. But that was, that was a very singular moment as well. Like, you did not get these vacations for your often. I don't want to at least see your recollection once here. Yeah, yeah. What a other than that, what do you do? You remember anything later on you guys used to do? I mean, The weird thing is that I don't try to remember. We never had a vacation that wasn't down in Southwest Virginia.

13:03 I mean, my parents whole life and never went like AA. Let's go to Ocean City or let's go to Rehoboth or let's go to, you know, anywhere, let's go to New York City. Let's go to, let's go to Chicago, let's nothing, zero zilch, not gotcha, only there, that was it. Hmm, and it was going out as before 81. So he always took these little back roads and it was always funny because it was six hours to get there. And now it's like for my mother would always get lost for hours. Yeah she would always get lost at least once we got down to the Tasty Freeze and we all get tasty fries, burgers. And it was like, just the most amazing thing because when you eat, when you shitty food all the time and you know poor people food You know, we need that all the time and all of a sudden someone takes you like a McDonald's or something.

13:55 It's like, wow, it's a treat because you can't afford that and that's not stuff that you do every day and you do, the it's really really unusual and once a year you would do this. So is so amazing to me. If you get that like, wow, it was such a special tree, you know. You look forward to it. Oh yeah, yeah, if you would like any but you pick and choose because you knew that you got, you got 75 cents. What do you need? If you're not going to get, you're not going to get them, you're going to have to get food that you can fill you. And then you really just want the milkshake. It's like, no, you can't do that. You have to have a, you have to eat like a burger thingy, you know? In the burgers were like, whoa, no one kills burger. Oh my gosh, it's on the grill.

14:37 So it has, it has tomato and lettuce and onion nothing. I mean, when you're a kid, we didn't have that on, you know, you know, different not exactly. You know, so that was kind of like, wow. And going down there, we went to my head like gradient Majid lived out, Chilhowie. We went to Chilhowie way. I want to hear how chill alley. Well, that is where Mr. Theater is, are you from your evil with all those a person you as an actor should know this? It's where a lot of really go. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a huge Shakespearean theater. Right. Right. No no no. It does a lot of different plays, not only Shakespeare.

15:19 It does change me of one. I saw last shot right there. I saw Dracula there. I saw a martyr thing. It's called barter theater. Yeah, it's inch a powder jigna, the whole town closed down on Sunday. Is there still blue laws down here? You can't drink on suntory can't buy beer on Sundays or whatever it is. You have to go. We used to go out to the the what was it? There was a trailer across the state line that we would go with Bob and bye. Bottle by jars. Mason jars of moonshine. Why were you down there? That's what. I don't know how when you were nine. Okay. Yeah. Okay guys I was like, it was like, we gotta get something to drink someday, you know, you don't Pile in his truck and his truck was like one of those old three Cedars. And there was five of us in the front and we would go there and it was and you would go and you put money in the front door. And then, you know, you went around the corner to the to the tree and it was in the hollow, the holler of the tree, you know, when you pull it out and hold it up to the Sun that sun shine through it, it was blue, black. Nothing you ever saw hose?

16:29 Blew it wasn't clear. No, no it was you could see the Blue Sky. Oh, this blue skies do clear. You know, what? I remember going back to their house and pour in the a port, a couple drinks and they gave my brothers, and they were like 11 at the time and they give him a like maybe a little bit. Oh, God. They were, they were, they were screwed up. It was funny. I can't imagine. It's funny to watch because I was like, seven, all I wanted, you know, but they're like, no, you're you're already brain-dead. They don't need to encourage that you're a brown. I mean, yeah. Yeah. We had a lot of Regulation, around the Mind goes. Yeah, very little, it's so much fun. So much time. Where is that in relation to the the vacation spot.

17:11 How a virgin. So that would be about an hour and a half South down mouth. So still we used to go To Pulaski is where she had her brother lived and he was work for Coca-Cola Bottling for like 35 years. He's a truck driver and did that let me stop there and stay the night. And then we would go down to an area in Virginia and we had the place there and then she had her other brother that lived across and The heck was it West Bluefield Bluefield? West Virginia he lived in a trailer park there, he owned the trailer park, I think, and he would come across and visit us there and bring his wife and it was just, you know, Hillbillies reunite and I guess, you know, and then come back. Yeah.

18:00 Do keep in contact with any of those, the bloodline, the the that man's daughters. Daughter on Facebook friends with okay but that man is dead and that means daughter's death and that means daughter's daughter is someone who's a Facebook friend that I mean Edwin linked up with her somehow. He has been doing that recently. He's been saying about all these peoples. Yeah, that's my oldest brother. He does that. He's got this thing about reaching into the past and understanding more and I'm just sort of like, I think it's, I don't know, we're tracking out these people and what they're up to. Like, if I go back and look at friends of friends of friends, and I think about that one person. I'm at this one time when they be interesting to see what they're doing now.

18:45 Like, I think they are pretty pretty fascinating, especially with how far you guys went back and to see what those Those people are doing like 30 years later God. Well, yeah, I mean, it's like you go to your high school reunions. See the people. There were like six. They have an annual golfing tournament where you see him, and I don't see him that often. And I mean, I hadn't seen him in the high school was everything about the high school reunions, golf, trip something like a decade. You got you see what other kind of? I mean that was that was the vacation we have we have that every year and we would go into downtown Marion, we go into the marrying drug and he'd sit at the counter and we'd all order ice creams. These with it with whipped Maple, walnuts on top and they were 35 cents, you know, and you would get one of those there was there was he's like be calm things that we did.

19:32 There were treats then we go we go to Preston, it wasn't. I think he lived and show how I just on the outskirts where my mother's Farm some point where her grandmother owns this Farm across the street, and the kill bees were there and they were just the sweetest older. Apple at the time, I think they're dead now but they were in there. My God, they're in there so demands and son. He had a pool table upstairs, we used to play pool, you know, and just things like that, you know, chain-smoked. Like many people know he used to mow the used to mow the the cemetery behind his house. Everyone find his house.

20:17 Was he the keeper? Or was it just a few things? Kind of the, I think it was the keeper. And I think that one time they had dug a grave because somebody had died and he passed out because of the Heat and he was as tall man. That just Very thin always smoked. sweetest guy, you'd ever meet Preston, but he passed out and the grave and it was like, I remember the story and it was sort of like, oh my gosh, that he was digging it, he's taking the great. Well, you had to dig the grave, he dug the grave for somebody else, and this is back and they didn't use backhoes, they use shovels. So I was little, yeah, I mean up here we use a backhoe and it's 50 Scoops and you're done. But they were that's they still use shovels, you know, this was in 60.

21:06 So but and also he and he was, I think it was in the 70s then so Super, super active person, and a little store there. Preston store, you know, the kid know the kill bees store there and in, and they had all this five and dime and candy. And, you know, it's just sort of like a regular General Store that bolts of clothing. I mean, cloth there, that people come in and buy because they're right on the edge. I wonder if it's still there. The real know, the real country, they were right on the man, kids, maybe move the kiss before. Got a little, you know, well, there's a whole lot. Horrible stories about children down there too so really we don't need to come here.

21:51 We can we could ignore the yeah yeah those are more stories about, you know, you know, wondering if the the convenience store still family owned the be interesting to think about now, they have kids family members. The one that he he didn't he didn't do well and died early, the family he was with, I think. One of them survived of the whole family and that would be someone that would be about. probably in her 40s today that, you know, so What these were when you go down there and you and you go to that part of the country.

22:34 Whoa I mean alcoholism do it everywhere everywhere and not just like not just Virginia, Aurora lie. I would say that. Yeah. But I mean and they didn't go to liquor store. They made it so it's like twice as potent. Just like West Virginia, and I'm going occasionally, it's not good and they die. So, our you're blinded or something? Yeah, yeah me, you're talking dry counties, and if the counties dry? Well, no, it ain't, ya know, somebody's got. That's where the best place to sell liquor is to the people that don't have can imagine where you can mark it up a premium to provided. You don't get caught.

23:17 Are you think about the Dukes of Hazzard and I'm running through the but he's like, Yeah, but you see the like what happened from that? Hold it. This is about my childhood vacations right? Yeah This is what we do that. We Splinter. Yeah, entering we going to start off. And it's like, you start going One Direction and then you go left, you go right? And you go straight and they come back. That's what the shows about. Yeah. That's kind of neat. That's what the show is all about. Yeah, I'm trying to think like, my sister had one. She went to Florida and went to Disney World, but that was like when she was 11, And that was the only way I can ever remember. We're we went somewhere else that no one did. It will?

24:04 She did. I mean but we always every year she went with your family. She won't friends friends friends that year and got to go to Disney World and I remember she saved up like a hundred bucks and now which I must take a long time. Yeah. No. She was like amazing at that. She just like Very, very good at looking to the Future and the, you know, the hardest working person I've ever met. You know, my brother was really hard but she work twice as hard as he did. But you know, we can argue what they were. Gosh, that's a great story though. I really want.

24:46 Yeah. So what's next? What about your childhood? Never have any stories and you have any choice ones that I specifically remember. I, we used to go to the beach all the time. I remember that. I think that was really the first Rehoboth in the fine. We go roll with every year. We probably been every year since 1991, maybe this. You whenever you're not really, yeah, welcome a long before you're there because she had an uncle Uncle John, that had a house up. There we go. Oh yeah, yeah why I remember it? Born in after that but we rented our own places and then over time it's like we looked all over because we want to get a beach house and all this. We looked at a park city were going to go skiing and then luckily, we didn't because she stopped skiing, you know, we looked in. We look at Florida.

25:32 We looked at all up and down the still so much to do though other than ski there. Yeah. And then we went, we ended up, I mean I've been cool for you bought that house were looking at data, been a great money, which one I remember going. And it's funny that you mentioned Park Center wiper going out the back door. Or oh my God. I remember going in there. I'm like, I really hope. But if you think about it yeah we would have never gone there. We would have never gone there. Never do, we would have forced ourselves once a maybe more, so maybe it's so different. Why are there that we noticed myself? The fly out there twice season. We would have spent more time too because it's so far away and also, I would have done it in four during the Summers. A tag on their Journey said Dusty stuff and also our city during the summer is ridiculous. What is it, son?

26:18 What is it called? Oh, Sun Valley or something like that. Now what? That holds the big, there's a big Hugh Hidden Valley, Hidden Valley? No, not it randomly. Yeah. Yeah. The ranch coming. Where is that? Based on, I think I drove the wedding. I don't know what's the movies. They do the movies out there. They all come in to Park City. Oh Sundance Sundance. That's that's where it's at. Its importance. City. So we would have been like front routine. Rented, the damn Haute or house for a million dollars and paid for half them. We could have shot our own films man. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean we still can we still got me? That's kind of what we're doing here. Yeah gosh. But I think on that note, we're going to wrap up or reach our time here.

27:00 Yeah. And I think this was a very, very incredible character. I think it was like, always and we love our viewers as always. And look out for next week's episode. Because it's coming at you, hot. You have anything else to say the question is, should we dress differently? I think we're actually matching right now, I didn't wear my summer talk today we're probably going to rob a liquor store later so we want to make sure that we're dressed properly. Exactly, I need for my ski mask next time. Alright well thank you party on man. Haha bye.