Mildly Amusing
Where hearsay meets heresy. James Spragens hosts Mildly Amusing, a podcast of small-town stories, unfiltered conversations, and plenty of good fun.
Mildly Amusing
Bars, Berries, and Bickett Stories: Tales from Raywick with Charlie Bickett
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In this episode of Mildly Amusing, James sits down with Charlie Bickett, author, artist, and lifelong storyteller. Charlie shares the history of Raywick, his family's deep roots in Marion County, and a few stories connected to the Cornbread Mafia. As he puts it, he was born into a family of storytellers, and that tradition shines through in his recently released fourth book, a collection of memories and anecdotes from years gone by.
Charlie talks about the land his ancestors settled, originally totaling 1,300 acres, with about 500 acres still in the Bickett family today. He also reflects on Raywick's colorful past, recalling a time when the town was "a little Vegas" in the 1980s and 1990s. Along the way, you'll hear stories of a 1957 robbery, life behind the bar after more than 40 years in the business, and how three to four generations of the Bickett family have made their living as bar owners.
The conversation also explores Charlie's work as a folk artist, whose hand-painted "Creek Berries" were even sold through Cracker Barrel. And be sure to stick around until the very end to hear Charlie sing a song his mother used to sing.
Welcome back everybody. This is uh I think episode 22, is that right? Of um twenty-three. Mildly amusing. I'm James Spraggens, your host. Special treat today. Um our guest is Charlie Bickett. So about two weeks ago, um I forget what day of the week it was, doesn't matter, but it was about 10 o'clock in the morning. And um I get a call from Kurt Mattingley. Uh and he says, Hey James, it's Kurt. I'm standing here with Charlie Bickett, and he would like to he would like to give you a copy of his new book. Um and uh I kind of felt like I knew where this was going. He said, And maybe you would consider having him on your podcast. I said, Well absolutely do that. So um and I said uh I tell you what, just uh give me his number and um I'll reach out to him and we'll we'll make arrangements. We said, Well, his phone's not exactly working right now. We're we gotta do something about that. He said, Well, what are you doing right now, James? I said, Well, I'm nothing. Where are you? I'm at home. Well, how about we just stop by? I said, Okay, give me 10 minutes. Okay. So I got myself presentable and everything. And um uh they rang the front doorbell and we stood on the front porch for a while. I'll um I'll get Amy the picture that uh that Charlie and I took um and we'll post it on the Facebook page. But um so we um uh made arrangements and I said um well okay, well let's do a show. I said, Well, Charlie, what are you doing on Wednesday? Nothing. Oh, okay. Well, how about you meet me Wednesday at 10 o'clock, whatever it was. Uh okay, fine. Well I get a call back uh a little bit later from Kurt. Well, Charlie's got a he's got a little he forgot he has a little court appearance on Wednesday. So and nothing big. He has to straighten out something with his driver's license, and that's all worked out and everything. Anyway, so we um I said, Well, I'm leaving town. I'll call, I'll reach out when I get back, we'll make this happen. Well, we just made it happen. I think you're gonna enjoy this episode. Charlie talks about his book called Ray Wickians. Um he talks about uh some personal history, Ray Wick history. Uh we're gonna talk about um uh their history running taverns uh in that area. Um and I I really uh we filled up an hour very quickly and I feel like we barely got we didn't get very deep. We could have him back. So uh and perhaps we will. But I want to tell you something. Stick around to the very end. We're gonna come back after our conversation wraps up. Stick around. Um Charlie offered to sing us a song. It's a song called Home Out in Texas. Uh The Man Can Carry a Tune. I'll just say that. Stick around for that, you're gonna enjoy that. Um This is Mildly Amusing. I'm James Braggins. Thank you so much for joining us again. We'll be right back. Welcome back everyone. This is Mildly Amusing. I'm your host, James Braggins. Um and um as I um as you know already, our guest today is Mr. Charlie Bickett. Uh um I freely admit I come into this conversation with a lot of ignorance. I don't know a I really am the I'm the only one around here who I don't know anybody who knows less about cornbread mafia, all that stuff uh than me, than I. And uh so I'm here to get an education. But we're not just gonna talk about that stuff. We're gonna talk about your family history, we're gonna talk about uh your personal history, and um I'm really interested, you're very interested in the history of your home, Raywick.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Uh I want to talk about that. I want to talk about uh how it got its name and um um and um uh what its name used to be, which is Sheep's Defeat. Sheep's Defeat. That's the craziest name I ever heard. Um anyway, uh Mr. Vickett, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. So you have just come out with a book um and um this is which book is this? This is your book. This is number four, yes. This is number four. Okay. Let me ask a simple question. What what made you start to write these books? Why are you writing these books? Is this your you want to you feel like I gotta get this stuff on down on paper? Why are you writing these books? Obviously you like to sell some books.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But go ahead.
SPEAKER_06That's one of the reasons, not the main reason about selling books. Um I I I was born in a family of storytellers. My dad and mom. Dad would tell a story, he could pick up a piece of cheese and and and have everybody gazing at him, talking about this piece of cheese for a hour. And he's just a storyteller and he could repeat himself. Mom was the same way. Mom would tell the old stories, we sang old songs like Home Out in Texas and all that, which when I'm drinking, I usually sing. What's the name of it? Uh uh Texas, the Home Out in Texas. Okay. Anytime you want me to sing it, I will. Well, we can get to that. Absolutely. But anyway, uh that was we was gifted that all of our family sort of gabbers and researchers about our families, and my daddy, and here in the 70s, there was a set of bickets, four of them came in from Icon, Ohio, and they owned a big security system, and the family still does. We were just reaching the last couple of years, me and Robbie have been researching this, and uh that you know, 60 years ago, it was all word of mouth. So here come these four two bald-headed guys, two old gray-headed women, and another, and they started telling daddy about we were royalties. We was uh uh we we we were in the king's favor. We solicited 1,300 acres from the king of the government for fighting my William T. Bickett fighting in the American Revolutionary War. Well, we'll find out a lot, that's false. And just the computer is happening because there's more bickets right here in Mary. There's more bickets outside of Mary Kanye than there is there. But anyway, 50% of my friends are Bickets from all over the country.
SPEAKER_01Are you saying that your ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War was a loyalist, a loyalist to the King? Yes. Gotcha, gotcha.
SPEAKER_06So anyway, uh uh we came to uh Kentucky. Uh he fought in the American Revolutionary War, William T. Bickett. And on the way down from Scotland to Ireland, that's still up in there, that uh uh he was uh uh we had a son named Nathaniel, that's where I come in, my line, Nathaniel Bickett. And suspiciously he had another son uh when he got to Kentucky, and at birth that kid died. And uh all the other kids were gone, except for Nathaniel, and so there's always a little bit of talk about how'd he die, you know. And back then, uh uh Arnold came out of nowhere, and that sort of throat in a cog in the wheel with all the Bickett boys, William Bickett. You know, who's gonna get this land now, you know. But anyway, Nathaniel wound up with it, and he's my line of Bickettes.
SPEAKER_01And uh and you still you all still own some of that original track.
SPEAKER_06We own around 500 acres of the original 1,300 acres.
SPEAKER_01And one of the other things you talked about, you said your mother was also okay. First of all, your father's J.E. Bickett. Yes, sir. Who was a magistrate? 32 years. 32 years. What was your mother's name? Khalida's family. Khalida Kirkpatrick from New Haven, Kentucky.
SPEAKER_06Kirkpatrick from New Haven. Okay. All right. And mom was a storyteller. She's mom went around singing all the time, just these old songs there, and we'd laugh, and and uh we all we all sung with her, especially around the holidays. You know, mom would get going, she'd drag us kids up there in front of the church. We we live on the downside of Ravick, and she'd have about six kids behind her. We'd be walking up Ravick through snow, and there'd be people laying around drunk all on the street in Ravick. And she held our us kids tight as hell, you know, going to church there. I remember that so plain how. And they already always respected Mama. You know, everybody, you can see all the women in Ravick going to church on a Sunday morning or Saturday or whatever. But I remember that, and uh we partaked in all the singing and all this and that, and uh so I don't know where we went wrong, but uh uh but uh we uh there's a lot of good memories of my family missing. Well I I I don't know. We we we were talking about it.
SPEAKER_01Are you saying you strayed from the teachings? What are you saying?
SPEAKER_06No, no, no. I I I believe in Jesus, but I believe in him in my own way. I gotcha. But uh uh mine was instrumental. You know, their dad had one leg. Uh he had it uh had an accident on the way to Louisville, going to join the army in 42 or 3 or whatever. And he was on another uh he was with another guy was with him on Indian Harley motorcycle. And on the way on St. Mary's Curve by the church they wrecked, and uh Daddy had a bed cut, which led to Gang Green.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_06And then uh uh Dr. Bowdy, I don't think you remember him, he's the one that amputated his leg and had another gentleman on that bike with him, named Mike Horsty. And but he wound up joining the Army and he went to the war. In fact, all the harsies went to World War too. But he was junior hardesty, and he would live near Raywick, right? Junior, yeah, he was a mail carrier, poster cap uh all these years. He's but anyway, Daddy would have uh he he got home and uh uh uh uh he when he was married, he he uh he uh ran for magistrate and he won. And uh so anyway, he's the longest magistrate around, 1932 years. And uh, but I looked back, mom had polio on one leg, and dad had one leg gone, and we always made jokes of it. All the kids with daddy, and that's the way we were. But I wonder how they raised nine kids. Daddy never had a public job. He worked in oil fields, gas fields, he was a magistrate, he was uh all these things. And Dad said at the end of the last ten years, he said, Charlie, he said, you know, I could have, when I had this leg cut off, he said, I could have gone down to the Social Security office, walk in with crutches, fall down right in front of the floor there. He's I got the insurance, he said, Well I got social security just like that. I guess so. But Daddy wasn't like that. Daddy, you know, he was a man's man, you know, he he he he was a worker, everybody loved him to death. And uh uh he you know he helped and ravic in every way he could. Dad, when he was mad, he had judicial powers. And people would get drinking, get drunk, get in fights. And these women, the wives of these women would come down knocking on the door all parts of the night. I want a warrant for this, I want a warrant for her, I want a warrant. And Daddy would issue them the next day. He called Henry Smith up, which was his best friend. Henry's from Ray Wick.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_06And uh uh the Smith boy's all from Raywick. But anyway, he said, uh let this guy go where he just drunk JT, and then the daddy said, stick it to him right there. He said, He got a little smart. Oh my god. So, but anyway, I think in the 80s they changed all that. They went just strictly to uh uh taking care of the roads and all that. But uh uh Deb Deb was dad was well liked, and Mama was loved to death. You know, then she got her GED when she's 30, 40 years old. She worked at the county extension office for 30-something years. And I remember we would go out there, but they have an open house day. They would have a hundred kids. They would be pulling on mom, mama would be crying. It didn't matter if it was a fat kid, ugly kid, or whatever. Mama looked, doesn't it look like Trish? Talk about my sister, the one who got killed. Every little child, she said, doesn't she look like Trish? And of course we shoot her right back at her, you know, say something smart to her just and then shut up, shut up. Well anyway, mom never did a uh get over, and that's what killed daddy when Trisha got killed. Uh that was back in the 80s, I think. And uh uh we was there at the night of the uh bar, the night that the guy shot both of them twice in the head, burned them up.
SPEAKER_01Could have also done something to you're referring to to what exactly? Tell me it's right. Uh well let me stop you for one thing. Let me say one thing. Uh I meant to mention this. You're accompanied by your friend, confidant, uh, editor, literary agent Kurt Mattingley, who is the who called me a couple weeks ago and got this whole ball rolling. Yes. So welcome to Kurt and Kurt if you feel that you need to uh weigh in on any of this. And sure. Okay, all right. Now I'm sorry, now what do you what do you what is this shooting you're referring to?
SPEAKER_06Well, when my sister and brother-in-law got murdered back in the 80s, okay. They lived in Florida for years, they retired from public. Daddy, everybody wanted them to come out. Tricia's and the youngest sister. Yeah. Well, they come out, they've built the home on the farm that daddy gave them some land. And a year and a half later, this guy comes up, they sold a boat they bought from Florida to this dude. He's still locked up. And uh well he sold. Where did the shooting take place? At on our farm. Okay. My brother-in-law sold him a boat, and the check was no good. Well, my brother-in-law, being hot-tempered as he was, but he's a good guy, Rick Gaddy, uh, he told him, I want my money, I'm going to get a warrant. Well, he comes up there, this guy did, and uh walks right in the door, shoots my sister in the kitchen, shoots my brother-in-law. My sister gets up running with her two dogs, shoots her again, goes in, executes uh my brother-in-law, Rick, sets the place on fire, burns the place down, and we and she was so burnt they couldn't do an investigation except do a DNA. They didn't know whether she was assaulted or not. Because you know, she well anyway, that night there was probably a hundred people up there. And I'm sitting at the bar, they said there's a fire up on Bickett's. And of course, Joe Keith and Jimmy's still locked up. So uh we all went up there and uh the firefighter, which was Mike Troutman, all walking around the fire gagging. Here they are, just like that, when they said that mama just fell backwards, daddy hugged, and uh it was a pretty rough night for a bit.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, it's not the kind of night you'll ever forget. No. Right, right. Tell me a little bit more, let's back up and give me a little bit more about your father. I mean your your family. So you are one of how many? I'm the one of the things. Give me the names and give me the order.
SPEAKER_06Little thorough the oldest one, he died. Okay. Joe Keith wrote the cornbread mafia. Jimmy Bickett is the head of the cornbread uh uh uh hemp stock. Yeah. And then there's uh Kathleen and Marceline. Marceline died, uh, Kathleen died here a few years ago. And uh Kathleen's the one so good at France Keith. Yeah, you remember that. But anyway, uh uh then there's uh uh Jimmy, then there's Beverly, and she's sort of the mom of the bunch. She worries about all the boys and kids and all this and that. Then there's Robbie, and then Robbie works, he's a parole probation officer, gonna retire here pretty soon. He's been over 30 years over Etown.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_06And then, of course, Trish, the one that died in the fire. But there's nine of us, and uh uh uh we never did want nothing. I mean, and you know, there's you know dad every day worked his butt off. Of course, Dad liked to drink a little bit too. Well, and that's where the old saying about his leg comes in. Daddy was sitting at the bar, and and I know about half of them would be lying, but there's no way he could stab himself that many times. Every time you see somebody stranger, your dad, well, dad would have tennis seat, he'd come in there, he'd be sitting with Norris Brady and Junior Williams and Stilly, and they'd be drinking. Try to give us another beer here, and I'd give him a slice of cheese, and these strangers come in. And Daddy, just like me, had to show off. And Daddy would reach out, of course he's got a wooden leg now, you remember that. And his sockets made out of rubber. And Daddy would pretend he's fussing this guy here, cussing him this and that. And he would take a knife or what he stabbed that in his leg, and that I mean, it looked like a real piece of meat he stabbed in there. And they would back out of there. They would back out. But mama's mama would always say she she always called Daddy Bickett. She said, I can always know when Bickett was drinking. He said, next day, you know, she'd do his clothes, and she and I put them up on the line of those holes in his pants around his leg. But now that actually happened, but at how many times it happened, I don't know. But yeah, but that was one of Daddy's favorite legacies, I reckon. Right. Whatever.
SPEAKER_01Your books uh from but uh from my uh close inspection, um they're kind of a series of anecdotes and tales and memories, right? Yeah. And these are things that you you come from a storytelling family, as you said, so you just heard all these things and you just have the ability to just remember and hang on to these things.
SPEAKER_06Well, the most interesting story I wrote in there was about the robbery in 1957.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_06Me and Kirk Maddenly were sitting down, I was telling Kirk, I said, I want this put in there too. And so I'm doing per se what my daddy told me what happened in 1957. Okay. And here's what he told me. 1957, he he had a bar in Raywick, but behind the bar was a place called Harry's Place, Harry Malone. And he had a crap game going there.
SPEAKER_01The bar you're talking about, is this Squire's Tavern?
SPEAKER_06No, the building behind the Squire's Tavern. Yes, it was. But that's what I meant. Yes, yes. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, it called Squares, Bickets, Charlies, and all that. Well, anyway, they had a crap game. It was on a weekend night, and uh they had a lot of people come in from Nelson County, LaRue County, uh uh Adara County, and they would literally, this is the truth, and I remember as a young man, not this particular instant, they would walk in with sacks of money, bags of money, and they'd go to this crap game. Well, anyway, let's let's pretend this, and Harry's place didn't have a crap table, they had a pool table. Now Renee Harsh said, she's I thought they was playing poker. I said, no, you can't play over uh eight people in a poker game or nine. So when the paper said 15 people, they had been shooting crabs. So they were shooting crabs on this pool table, and they had boxes all around the pool table where the dice wouldn't go off. But here come these three guys in, and two of them had pistols, and one of them had a sawed off shotgun. And he told, they told everybody to get up against the wall, but leave your money there. So they left the money there, and so they had them all against the wall, and Junior Harsey being the tallest of all of them, he didn't want to lose that money. He had his BFO in his hand when he reached up like that to the ceiling where he shoved his hand with his BIFO against the ceiling where they couldn't see it, where they saw it. They got his money.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow.
SPEAKER_06Well, anyway, they the robberies were taking place and they went out and captured everything. Well, while we're talking about this, Kenny Browning came down. Did you see this clipping? I said, No, the same clipping that we was writing this book about. And it was in the clippings where Ravik, these masked robbers, came into this crap game.
SPEAKER_01Well, was this in the Enterprise or something?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, uh and uh uh and uh it they came in, pulled guns, and uh they took five thousand dollars cash, which equivalent, I think we said fifty thousand right now, maybe, I don't know. Yeah, but anyway, so they cut so anyway, they leave out. Everybody leaves out so in 1957.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_06Well, yeah, so there's a lot of beef people, uh, cattle people, there's a lot of people that bought money. Raywick was a place to go. It was like Little Vegas, like it was in the 80s and 90s. Everybody came to Ravick. Well, the robbery took place and they leave out. Well, right before the robbery, this guy walked out and said, You're gonna go take a pee, but he never did come back. And so he left the door unlocked. The robbers came in and robbed them all. Well, finally they decided well they had to be gone. Well, they go out and they walk outside, look all around, and uh and uh it was all dark. And uh this one guy named Leslie Greenwell, a real rich guy back in those days, it was an enterprise. Uh he called the state police. Then the state police called the sheriff's office, and you got a bunch of law down there coming to an illegal game where they're selling moonshine, where they're selling illegal drinks, shooting craps, everything, and they responded to them like they was uh beckoned to their command. Yeah. And and there's more stories behind it, but this is all speculation. But anyway, the people that robbed it, supposed to be some brothers, lived right across the street. And uh They were from Raywick? Yes, yeah. Supposedly. But that's what Daddy. Okay. And and Daddy said back in the day, you know, you always hear the word or murder, but daddy said what gave it away weeks later, people would whisper. He called just like a speakeasy. Uh they would whisper, you know, this so-and-so rob the place. And you didn't one thing led to another. Finally, it sort of came out. It was a it was a couple of brothers which seemed super guys, uh, both of them, the whole family was. But that was supposedly who done it. Of course, then there was other speculations about John Dillinger in that bus. Of course, Daddy always made a joke that John Dillinger was too scared to come to Ray Wick.
SPEAKER_01But anyway, John Dillinger was in the area. Yes.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, grabble switch, he's a hotel, yes, of course. But anyway, the the robbery was completed, and so they put a 25, this Leslie Green will put a $2,500 reward. I mean, here's a guy from Nelson County putting a $2,500 reward. And what we think it was the inside deal, while it was, something's going on, whatever.
SPEAKER_01Well, somebody who was in the game tipped him off, made sure that the door would be open, I guess. Yeah. And then eventually they obviously split it later on. Do you believe that theory? Do you believe that's the?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I that that's the theory I'm sticking with. There's other theory, but that's the one that my dad told me about, but he always stuck with that. Because Junior Harsey came down and knocked on the door that night. And he said, Bickett was being robbed, Bickett would be in robbed, because Daddy, I think, was Magister 57. I don't know, 1957. So anyway, they all went up there and there was Emma Macaulay there. The Hardesty boys were there. And the and this the news cliff thing it said the the robbers made this one guy get naked. And y it this is it this is not me. Daddy didn't. This is in the paper. So one thing we could figure out when these people came in, these gamblers and crapshooters from all over the town, they bought some muscle with them. You know, they wouldn't go and walk into a bar with that much capital on them, and not somebody gonna watch them. So I say somebody got sort of smart ass with those that, and they just pulled a guns on strip. And I don't know if they got anything off of them, but that was in the newspaper in the article there. And so that sort of added sugar to the story there. But anyway, years later, uh uh uh just a few years later, Harry, which owned the place. Who was Harry? Harry Malone once built built the fifth wheel. You know where the fifth wheel's at? Of course I do. Well, that that that's he built that in 1968 or nine, something like that.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_06And then he had another building right next to it where he kept whiskey. He had all wired up.
SPEAKER_01Is that the little building between Squire's Tavern and Okay, gotcha?
SPEAKER_06So anyway, uh uh uh kids would go around and throw a bottle on top of it, and he had all this electronic devices, which is just it was like IA today. That we do it on purpose just to get that siren going on. And uh Harry Malone lived that behind the church. He had to walk over, turn the siren all off, he looked around. So finally he built uh the fifth wheel. Now, uh he didn't own that block building you're talking about, it's just still standing. Okay. This is this was the lounge that during the Vicket dream. Uh uh during the 80s, it was two or three years when uh the CBM took the uh my place over, uh had members that contact me. CBM. Cornrad Mafia. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_05Now this story is legitimate because the newspaper clippings. Yeah. Um so you you were talking about his books. Uh Charlie and I met through I mean, I've known Charlie for about 30 years or so, just through family and his old his old place down in Ray Wick. But his first couple editions of his book were based off of his Facebook posts. So I used to do technology consulting and Charlie knew I was good with computers and stuff, and he's like, What's his Facebook I can hear about a few years back in his infancy or whatever? And I said, Oh, you would love Facebook. And so we got him started and he would post stories daily or every couple of days, and people were pretty responding to it because of his storytelling ability. And he's like, Well, you know, how do I get my posts where we can see a bunch of them at a time? Right. And we just took out the idea of self-publishing a book. Right.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So you've been from day one of this publishing. Okay. And you're talking about where you knew him. I first met you. I've only met you. This is the fourth time I think I've ever met you, but in person. But um you had a club just as you turned to go to Howardstown. Go through.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, old garage, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was an old garage. That's right. That's right. How long did you run that?
SPEAKER_06Uh about eleven years. Was that that long? Yeah, it was quite a bit there, but uh A B C busted me so many times I just had to sell it. And so I got rid of it. And then uh uh but uh uh that's the best deal I ever made. But but anyway, yes, I owned uh I I ran bars, or I either owned or ran a bar, either in St. Mary's and I worked at a couple bars in New Haven over 40 years. So I know all about the people in Ravig. I don't need no sociology uh uh uh somebody tell me what about that. I can sort of study people and uh make a real quick uh deal of it when I I interviewed for a unit director at the prison. All the state was eligible to interview. I'm talking about people. Yes, prison, but I didn't put two years in, and I I was a mayor for eight years, and so I had these little small credentials that I can put on the application. And they had people from all over Frankfurt and Louisville applying me this job. I got the job. And that was a big controversy. I remember it says some of the staff members of that asked, which maybe it was a little bit asking, I don't know. But anyway, uh I I got that job there, and and uh but uh and then all of a sudden, like some of the CBMs approached me while I was there. Johnny Boone's one told me to get out of the bar. He told me, Charlie, get out of this bar, there's gonna be some bad shit going on. And that's what he told me in in 85. And he was referring to the the big bust and uh, you know, the CBM. Well anyway, I sell it to these members, and they go in there and it looked like the Taj Mahog when they got done with it. Uh-huh. They when I had it, you walk in, old wooden floor, concrete could crack, uh, bathrooms you had a never did work. They went in, put an ivory bar in, stone uh support the wall, put put a uh ivory of uh uh marble uh uh bathroom, everything, three bathrooms in the wind and deal. Yeah. And just had everything perfect then one night uh this young kid came in with his wife, his girlfriend shooting pool, and then uh uh me and uh I'll just put this me and the ex-sherf was bartending. And uh these guys walked up to one was CVM and they smacked that boy around every way. And it got me really pissed off. Why? Because they walked right in, which I knew this one person was affiliated with this bar, my bar. So I was in sort of, do I do something? You know, still I'm not the owner, I'm just working for him now. So anyway, uh by that time I told this one guy, I said, You need you need to help me break it. So we broke it up. Well, that guy that night, that young boy, he's probably about 18 then, 19, he leaves out. And this is about 11 o'clock when the the fight started. And uh me and three or four more in there, and I told uh this one guy, I said, I'm going home. Well, at 2 o'clock that morning, that boy from New Haven comes back with the thing of dynamite. He busts the wind out, throws the dynamite in the bar. Boom. It didn't turn that much up, but it caused a lot of uh controversy. It had the ATF down there, had ABC, DEA, every organization around. And finally one of the CBM got smart with one of them, said, Do what you want. He said, we can have analysts down here and even take an uh environment inside, you know, if it was dynamite. Well, anyway, they dropped it all because nobody would say nothing. They didn't say, you know what happened. Well, the CBM went down seeing that boy's parents, and that boy's parents' father was in the bulldozing business, and that's why he got his. That's right.
SPEAKER_01I was wondering, uh road builder or something.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, way bigger than that. But anyway, uh uh he came and blowed it up, and anyway, his daddy paid for everything. Well, a few months later then, you know, of course, uh uh the DEA hit, and I think they all got locked up in the 90s, I'm not sure, but they closed her down, and they had big change all around it. Property of the DEA or federal government, and everybody went out and tore the change every day. They had to come down and put it back on. Well, it came up opportunity through Daddy and Bill Hagan, I think, to be able to buy that place back without any interference from any other body interested in it. So we buy the bar back, and uh we started operating and we were packed. I think that's back when Jimmy Thomas was packed, too. Balshawk, fifth wheel.
SPEAKER_01You're talking about this was in the mid-90s.
SPEAKER_06Yes, I mean everything.
SPEAKER_01I think Ray Wick was rolling.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it was booming but of course I had my rednecks and the CVM, but they changed it completely around. You know, their eye heads closed up at nine o'clock, they had top bands, they had top everything. And so you and they had women coming in Ray Wick that you never thought was even living. The women was invited to Ray Wick. And uh, you know, back in the old Balony and cheese days when I run it, we had steak and shrimp, frog legs, anything they wanted, it was there. Uh and then getting to the vendors. We had Uncle Charlie's, we had Friday Olay, we had uh uh two or three more vendors that sold steaks and food as that. I knew them all good friends, but by the time the CBM took it over, they was bringing rows of tendon, steaks, shrimp, bologna, cheese. I mean, just they had to buy new freezers. And uh they wasn't buying nothing, they was bartering. They uh, you know, you let's say, for instance, Fried O'Le guy, you know, he wanted two pounds of dope or whatever. Well, they wanted three crates of crabs or whatever, and that's the way they did business. And the people go by and they just look at what.
SPEAKER_01I'd love to have been your CPA.
SPEAKER_06Well, you guess who it was? Junior Harsty was. All right. All right. So, but anyway, uh uh they they did a rock and roll deal there. They they they uh they really did good, but they uh they went in there too strong. And then uh uh that sort of met when they met their Waterloo. Uh then about that time that's when Daddy ran for magistrate again, his last time. He ran against William Thomas. And we think maybe the boys all being busted, uh going to jail, which half of Marion County was like was going to jail, affiliate with families in Marion County. And people back then were still, you know, still considering marijuana sort of a bad drug. You know, it wasn't like busy day. And so anyway, they uh uh they uh I didn't lost my memory back going on.
SPEAKER_01What was I talking about? Let me go back to something. Okay, so you're okay, so yeah, you said that they met their Waterloo. Okay. Um so a couple of episodes ago, I went to Al Al Cross's house and Dennis George and I, and we interviewed him. And of course, he was around for all that stuff. He was the one that talked about he might have had his name on a bar stool at Squire's Tavern, and he knew everybody there. But one thing I didn't really get out of him is why did people talk to him? They knew he was a reporter. Well I mean, but they he and he had to go and write stories and he had to have their names in the story. It was simple. And then he'd go see them on Friday and see him again, and everything was all why would they talk to him?
SPEAKER_06Well, when they already got in the woods, uh Al, Steve, and uh they had the other people they affiliated with the news media, and uh they they weren't Steve Lowry. Steve Lowry at the interview. They wasn't very well taken, and but they started, they're just doing their job. They weren't doing no more than what these people and uh these big stations showing this and that. But Al and Steve was at the right place at the right time. You know, they right there in the midst of everything helicopters, law shootings, this and that. Well, anyway, uh uh they uh they got together and uh uh uh there goes my Alzheimer's again.
SPEAKER_01Where I'm at. Well, we were talking about how the the you know, Al Cross and and Steve. Oh, yeah. They were also just friendly guys and likable people. And okay, and like and as you said, it was a generally understood, well, they're just doing their job.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and and they was everybody most of the people, my crowd liked them. But then they came in a couple of times, somebody got out, a couple of them didn't like Al Cross. Well, Al came in one day, I think Steve did, and I'm running the bar. Daddy was in the bar. Of course, Daddy, you gotta see the guys Daddy hung out with. They some Pete Farmers and Joe Downs, they sort of ran Ray Wick. You know, they was a big Well anyway, but they came in the bar there and uh uh they gave him a little shit, Al. And finally Daddy jumped right up. Of course, I was right there with Daddy. He said, Al Al Cross is a friend of mine, Steve Laurie is too. Okay. He said, Y'all don't like it, go on down the road.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And they had to like it. That's the way Daddy done put his one leg down. I reckon put his foot down. But uh, but uh he sure did it. Yeah, I supported him, plus everybody around supported him. Everybody liked Steve, you know, he got roots in Ray Wick, uh, uh, built a house in Ray Wick. Right. Al came down, so uh I I was very well welcome. I would come in the bar at night, we'd be out in the woods, out in the fields, out in the bottoms, and uh he'd walk in and he'd bring his little machine in, and he'd he said, I'm gonna plug that up, he'd plugged it up, and all the news that he'd done would go to the journal or whatever newspaper he was working for at the time. While he's sitting out sitting in the uh bar with Was it a fax machine? Yeah, some kind of machine where he would talk, dictate. Wow. And so he'd come outside and daddy be sitting, they was crazy about daddy, and daddy give us a beer. And that's the two read bears and after three, four pounds. And she says, Daddy, somebody got to pay for this shit. I said, Yeah, yeah, everything be okay there, this and that. And I would volunteer reluctantly. Uh-huh. But they was a bunch of good people, and at the end, they was well liked by the CBM too, because you know, they really but they didn't put them in that spot. You know, right, right. And so uh and and to this day now, I've seen Al a couple times, and uh he'd been around them particular fellows there, and they'd be best of friends. Yeah, cut up and talk this and that. But uh I I was I I was a good guy.
SPEAKER_05After seeing Al's name in print all the times that we've published books and the stories I've read, I got to meet him finally when Charlie had this last book event and came down with his wife, and I think they bought a piece of art from Charlie too. Charlie's his artwork was uh one of the main focus that uh of this book.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's talk about that. You said that you that you haven't really expanded on that uh in conversations and in and it hadn't been written about or whatever. Tell me about your art. How did you get started? Would you call yourself a folk artist? Very much so. Okay.
SPEAKER_06Local folk artist. Yeah. And I I go back in the years what I think things look like, just like the old Macaulay schoolhouse with a structure there, the foundations, all the left there, just like my cabin, too. Uh I went and looked at it with a friend of mine named Joe Lampion. And we looked at that cabin, we walked around, stared at it, and I just went back a hundred years in my mind. You know, there's kids out there playing marbles of probably dogs out there, just and the kids in the school house. Chickens. And that's the and that schoolhouse was from eight to eighteen-year-old. Okay. Two-room schoolhouse. This these uh Lampion ladies, uh uh, I forgot their names, but taught school then. And and so I reconstructed the schoolhouse. I re in fact I painted about 15 houses that most of them was gone, but I went to the owners and just the history that I had and sort of redrawed it, and then of course I add my little uh things in it about the the dogs barking and all that, just like the St. Francis Xavier Church. Uh uh, I remember Father Swartz many a times out there be waving people down. Uh uh, I'm going gambling today. Of course, he he knows who it is, he's waving down. He knows when they pull it out of the bar, they got some money. And he'd get right out there, or he'd come down the bar. I'm going gambling today, I'm going to raise his boys. Come on, come on. And then Jimmy Big would say, well, save me two Hail Mary's. He said, I'm gonna say you I'm gonna say three of them before you give me. But anyway, but uh he did that, and and they had something at the church every year. I don't forgot what it was, uh, where all the priests would come down. I think it's 40 hours maybe. And Father Schwartz would invite all his priest friends from all over Kentucky, and they would come in just like you have in a seance. They would come and park the church lot up, and here he comes down, and he says, I need fifth of this, fifth of that. He hit me up. He'd hit Joe Downs up, he'd hit Coot Down up, he'd hit Jimmy Thomas up, and they'd give him money and they'd have a party. All the women would cook food for him. And as you would you drive through Ravik on the next day of a big party in Ravik, there's several cars in Ravik. Well, when that party's over, there's several cars up to church, too. So they they didn't go nowhere.
SPEAKER_05Did you paint that one?
SPEAKER_06No, no, no. I I just that's one of the stories. I painted the church.
SPEAKER_05But your paintings are in my mind, as I have uh a background in art as well, and they're they're valuable because of the historical element of them. And there's there's a a style and a perspective that you paint in that is it's a classic folk art style. That's the way I would put it. It's not meant to be realistic. Um it's it he uses burns.
SPEAKER_01But you also have like they're not thought bubbles, but you put what the the words above their heads. Yeah, some narrations. Almost like in a in classic cartoon.
SPEAKER_05And it reminded me of some some things you might see in a history book or something, you know. And he started, he paint he has a ton of uh artifacts like he he get would get an old saw blade and paint a winter scene across an old saw blade. Or you know, I don't want to use a cliche like a cracker barrel, but it's something that you might see hanging on a wall and like you know, that's that you don't see every day. And that's where it caught my eye. He kind of decorated his old cabin that way. Right. And I was like, You got something here.
SPEAKER_01How many pieces would you say you've you've done? Thousands.
SPEAKER_06Well, I'd say hundreds of them. I've got all kinds around in my cabin, outside my cabin. Do you paint every day? Yeah, I paint every day. Well, I I'm starting to paint every day. This book sort of consumed me about a year and a half. Yeah, right. And so I yes, I started painting. Again, I'm painting some. I got about eighty or ten old uh call all uh oil cans. I'm making uh uh bird houses out of it.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_06And what I do, they already rusty, and I use the rust in the cans for the hole, and I paint it all up, put my bird scene on it, and they just hang them up, you know, whatever. But just something preoccupying. I can't do nothing else anyway.
SPEAKER_01It's just uh simple as that. Huh. That's neat. Um have you ever had a show? Have you?
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01Did you do a show here at the library? I thought that that's right.
SPEAKER_06And then I did a show down uh my place when I I don't even remember the creek berries. Well, I painted a bunch of, I went and got thousands of these rocks around uh agate rocks.
SPEAKER_05And I painted I never heard of it. There's an Enterprise article about it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, Steve Laurie from the Steve Laurie really did that. And uh I sold a ton of them things. I went to Green County and I was picking up so many of these little round rocks out of the riverbeds, I started ordering them. I went, I said, bring me a truckload of them. And they dumped them, and and the the remains are still at my cabin.
SPEAKER_05Most of them look like strawberries.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but anyway, they dumped them out, and me and my daughter and off would go through them, get the roundest, most strawberry-lucking rock, and we spray them red, and we sat there with them popper magic marker, start putting white dots on them, and I take another little brush corner, make my leaves, this and that, and set them there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like an assembly like that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and flip the other side, do it again, and spray them. You got your creekberries. I had a contract with uh uh cracker barrel. I went down there and cracker barrel said, yes, we want them. So anyway, so we'll get back with you. And so they sent me a letter and and they described they wanted 200 pounds of those rocks. And I said, what the hell's going on here? They're gonna uh put them in containers themselves. Right. They're gonna display them. Right. I'm trying to figure how I'm gonna melt them, you know. And there I had mama was helping me, I had every woman, everybody in Ravage help me make me wheezed on those rocks up the strawberry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's what they were paying you for them because I'm trying to think how much they were gonna sell.
SPEAKER_06I gotcha. And but but anyway, about a year later, I went back and they sold all out, but they wrote me a letter they said that uh uh we talked it corporate and they were a liability issue now. Kids were grabbing them, gonna eat them. And they they quit buying from it. Just the dumb kids. Yeah, yeah, just I mean that'd be the most publicity wanted to joke, maybe. But I'm taking pressure.
SPEAKER_01No, but that the lawyers ruined all the fun.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. But that that actually happened. I was pretty impressed with the cracker barrel and that before we wrap up.
SPEAKER_01I want to get to a couple other things. Um I want to know your family's history in nightclubs and bars. When was the who was your father the first person to open up a place? Oh, my granddaddy and his granddaddy. Talk about that. When was that and what was it called, and where was it?
SPEAKER_06We were all on Main Street, the same bar that we've owned on the corner, kind of close to the church. Yes. Yeah. Uh my great-granddaddy, uh uh Louis Petit Bickett ran a store bar there. My granddaddy, Earl Bickett. It was like a like a just like a general store kind of place, but also at well we're getting to the bars, they were mostly stores, and finally, yeah, in the 60s and 70s, you know, uh Daddy had a key market there. Him and Joe Paul Darty and Albert. We didn't know that. There was a key market in front. Yes, sir. And uh we was competition with the Blafferts. You're right. Yes, sir, and that didn't go well with Daddy, all the farms, but what got dad, just that's dad, credit got him, and he had to close up. Well, from there, he started a bar, and here's where I come in about 71. Uh uh there's three or four generations of bar owners, so I took over about 72. I got fired at Lily Tulip, and so I had to get a job, so Daddy gave me that job. And so I went on and did my cleanup, put new pool tables, new jukeboxes. Uh Daddy couldn't believe that uh back then we didn't have any bands, we just had a jukebox, Merle Hager and Fest Domino and all that. Now what give me when when was this? This is probably from 72 to 80. Okay. And no music, no live music, it's just a redneck bar. And it was called Squires. Squares and Charlie's. We changed during. I see. And so uh, but we would have uh uh played that jukebox and and uh I was making more money out of that jukebox than it was anything else. Yeah. I mean and daddy couldn't believe it. I opened that up and pulled all the quarters out of that. Of course, Daddy old school, you know, he thought uh played one record all night long. But anyway, we went there, then like I'm saying, uh and then '86 I was enticed to get out of there, go to the prison where I work almost nine years, and that was in '86 to '94. And then, like I'm saying, uh the CBM took it, and then it it was closed down about a year and a half later. Then we took it over, then it was burnt down by uh uh of course they said it was ice and it. No, somebody burned it down. We know who burnt it down. But that's my theory. And then uh When was that? I remember the building. It's probably uh okay, I I get out now.
SPEAKER_01It was still there in the mid 90s, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. But uh now it was it was just uh and that's probably where you're gonna it's it was probably our competition what burned it because because in the back room where it started, there was a flute, uh uh uh stove hole in the side there where the flute went through. And right below that there was our breaker box. And somebody went up there, went into the flute. Blue and dropped some amount of explosive or whatever, and caught it a fire. Well, here comes the fire truck and everybody down, and so we found two beer cans over there, and it was in December, it was freezing, and the two beers cans, one was open, one wasn't. Only two or three people drank start them back in those days. But anyway, but during my investigation, I found out, but you know, that that's history. You know, we couldn't prove nothing.
SPEAKER_05But uh did the bar move out of downtown Raywick to that place at the bottom of the road. Well, when we I was gonna bring that up too.
SPEAKER_06When we got burned up.
SPEAKER_01Uh uh when they burnt up. And you ran that? Yes. I was in there a few times. Okay. That place was rocking too, man.
SPEAKER_05So I was too young to be in there, but I was. Oh well, I did. Well, we're not gonna be able to do that. Well, you couldn't spend that legality. Well, you talk about it.
SPEAKER_06Ain't no statue on that one. But anyway, no, it it it was uh uh, like I said, we was rock and roll. So once we got burned, we thought everything's all over, and Daddy wasn't gonna give it up. Daddy was still living. And Daddy said, Y'all got any money to buy this place down the road here? Charlie Downs owned it. And we didn't. He wanted $40,000 for it, which it wasn't no money, it was big money to us back then. Well, Daddy arranged Sug Brown. I don't give a he he he he bought it. And we we paid it off in two years. That's how booming we were. I'm sure. Yeah. And so I'll tell you how booming it was. I know we've got a few minutes left. Uh it was so booming, we had so big of a crowd down on the hill, Cherry Run. State police would come up for every week, citation, citation. Of course they want to look at the young girls too. A bunch of young troopers, a bunch of young girls. Yeah, I'm gonna rake that place every time. So speaking. But anyway, but they would come up first. Finally, we got so big, and Emmer George got us out of every bit of trouble we ever had. It seemed like every two weeks we went and seen Emma. We went and seen Emmer. Well, anyway, but the main night was we sitting out front, we had uh the great white. I don't know if you remember them or not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the 80s.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. That was who played at our bar. Trying to think what their big song was. But anyway, so here they was playing. We had it packed. Well, here comes all the blue lights in from one end, and we was all, you know, all the, then here comes all the red lights in one end. So the hell these red lights now. They were far marshals from Adara County. Well, they came in, told us to their attention that we were called. Well, the the main chief farm marshal was the best of friends of Daddy. And he'd been on our farm a dozen times fishing. His name is Hulk, H-O-L-K. Well, here he comes in. He walked in, all those troopers there just like gun ho. We're gonna close this place down right now. He started shaking hands with me, hugging my sister Kathleen, giving her a kiss. How's JE doing? How's Daddy doing it? He said, I'm gonna be back up fishing this week, and those troopers just looking at him. And finally, this one trooper said, Can we get this candle going? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, they put two troopers on both sides of the door, inside and out. And so Mr. Hulk, the far chief, he started clicking, one, two, three, and troopers running them all out. Well, somebody opened the back door up, and so as fast as they'd run them out, counting them, well, they were coming in the back door. And finally, one of the troopers said, No, we can't do this. They come in. So anyway, uh, Hulk said, well, hell with it, hell with it. And he said, We'll be back again. These main trooper said, What are you gonna do right now? You know, he thought they were gonna lock us up. And anyway, uh Hulk called me over, and I don't think Robbie was with us. He said, uh, Charlie, the only thing I'm gonna tell you to do is don't do this again. Look here, it burned. Yeah, it burned them up wide open, and that's Ben Franz somebody that that years before that that just paid off. But he said, I remember he said, Don't do this no more. And those troopers didn't like it at all. But uh yeah, they were counting them people and they was coming in.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So um you had that place for some years. Um after that, you had the place that was in the old gas station, right? Okay. And that so we're all we're still in the 90s, right? Okay. And how long did you run that place? Probably about 10 years. And then it kept going for another year. Yeah, that's years after that. Okay. Um what the main stay in Raywick, one of the main stays was, of course, um uh Fifth Wheel, which was which was always running, which later on became I I'm trying to get like some history down. So which later became Backyard Burger. Yeah. Is anything in there now?
SPEAKER_06No, we've bed at four o'clock. It uh they had a booming business there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And I don't know, I I think people wanted to increase their sales, and they went to Levin in here, I think, somewhere.
SPEAKER_01But they did. They moved in with good buddies and yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06But that it was it it had people everywhere just like Boss Hog. You know, me and Boss Hog never to get along. Yeah, but he was a businessman.
SPEAKER_01Boss Hog Jimmy Thomas as well. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_06And he was a businessman. I seen him early in the morning, late at night out in the road, sweeping the road, picking every piece of glass and bottled up. Right. No, that I mean, but that's how he was. He ran one hell of a place. Of course, they he was the little guy who carried the big stick, they call it. Right. And you know, he'd carry the old bed around. But but Jimmy, he made it known. He was the boss there. He didn't give a shit who came in there. Right, right. That's a CBM too. He didn't carry, he ran the place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And and Jimmy was getting it to him many a time there, this and that. You know, uh, and the Chiefs of May would be out there backing him up, all that. But Jimmy bought, I hate to say this, but he bought a lot of class to Ray Wick. You know, there's Jimmy had all these people from Louisville he knew, and uh uh they knew everybody and they'd come in. And of course, I had my old Radneck bar with the local uh my customers and all that. But he was there, had everything new. Now I was the first one that had mixed drinks in Ray Wick. And Jimmy, Jimmy came right in after that and had a mixed drink. And uh they said that was something that you're not gonna happen. Well, it did happen, of course. Back then it was politics, you know. Right now, I don't know what you do.
SPEAKER_01But in the 90s, when I was um uh known to be there a time or two, um, it was either Wednesday or Thursday night. It was like everyone, and there was always a good band playing. Sometimes it would just be jukebox, but at I'm talking about the at the fifth wheel. Yeah, but they would always have, and I think about that. So this leads me to a question I want to ask you about up until a certain point, maybe 2000, maybe I don't know what it was. Um this place, Marion County was jumping. Lebanon had stuff. You had O'Hickeys in Lebanon, you had all these other things.
SPEAKER_06James Bob was going on, cocaine hit the scene.
SPEAKER_01I mean, cocaine was already it was here for a while.
SPEAKER_06It was here, but that it made everything jump. It made everybody jump and made a lot of people stupid. For sure. And and and I can relate to that. I was on it too. But but they, you know, these people got on Coke and thought, you know, they was invincible, you know, they challenged the law, they challenged the judges, they challenge each other, then they get paranoid and all that. But that was and that came in, that came in in the 80s, you know, like saying it while back before that, but that wasn't a bar and raw not pulling with it. Let me put it this way.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm sure that's true. I'm sure that's true. But what I'm getting at is my question is sort of what is your theory? Why did it all come to a uh screeching halt? You had you could go to Braffits, you could go to Riverside, you could go to uh Pines, you could go to St. Mary's, had a great club for a while. Um what was that called?
SPEAKER_05The Raven Two Friends.
SPEAKER_01Two Friends, Two Friends. That's what I was thinking, and then JT's because Jimmy and Teresa moved their operations there. That place was jumping. Um Lebanon had stuff going on. You had uh the brick house. Remember the brick house?
SPEAKER_05I do remember that.
SPEAKER_01Um Cozy Corner in Loreto. Cozy Corner in Loreto. I mean, all these stuff. And now I mean you got Shelby's pub that's getting going, and they're doing a good job dropping seven days a week, and that's a nice, nice place. But is it a matter of all these other Marion County used to be the only weapon?
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And so you had people on a Friday night, whether they were going to the clubs or having dinner at Henning's restaurant, getting a drink at the Galaxy, whatever, um, they would be from Royal County, Green County, Adair County, Crazy County, uh Taylor County, ever and then I guess it is it as simple as that. We kind of lost our distinction as the center of all this activity.
SPEAKER_06Well, I think Rayvick was the hub of a lot of this activity. It was. It was back in the day when uh marijuana was the big thing. Uh there was little fat little groups of people uh on all the towns that you just mentioned. Right. They would come to Rayvick, they would come to my bar. I didn't know the external part of the CVM, but I sure as hell knew what the inside was because everybody met there. Uh one guy came in and uh uh uh one day and and a guy down the road to New Haven got assassinated, shot, killed. And his group came up there, about 15 of them, they were wild. And then we had to call in a few people too, just to make sure. But there's people in New Haven, Holy Cross, Low Red, St. Everywhere. They would come to Raywick and they would send uh I remember and but they would have these crops like Casey County and this and that, and they would have these crops. These hillbillies would grow this marijuana, these hillsides, and Pike County and everywhere. And they would come to Raywick, and all of a sudden you get to meet these characters from all over the country. Didn't have no teeth, wearing flip-flop, bell bottoms, uh just tattoos all of them. And you say, Well, whoo, these son would be well later on that winter, here they come in with gold teeth in, jewelry all on, uh pictures of their mother tattooed on them and all that. Well, they hit it, but they made a lick, but they didn't know how to act. They still that the those to say about the donkey, you pass the donkey, it's still a donkey. And they was the most troublemaking bunch of people I've seen in my life. They didn't know how to act.
SPEAKER_05I think it was you think it was families that their offspring didn't carry on the tradition, or that there was nobody to hand off the bars to, and then there was probably some sort of a an element of they were afraid of getting in trouble with the law because you operated in that kind of gray area.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well we did we all did. And right week the law was a big factor there, and you and we tried to stay in good there, but they was challenged several times and uh and they lost several times, they relocated several times.
SPEAKER_05But the bar says, Yeah, yeah, it's all over.
SPEAKER_06I don't think anybody can bring it back. Uh it it just uh it was like a dinosaur. It was fun when it was going on, but uh I think uh money, drugs, and the law had a whole lot to do with uh the demise of Ravick. Right. And but but uh Ravik's still capable of doing something. You know, you still people talk about Ray Wick.
SPEAKER_01Right. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_06And uh uh Ravik's my hometown, and I love it. And you know, the biggest bench right was when I went up there in the church steeple here a few months ago. And I said, people can fly over the world, and I said there I went up there right at the church steeple and looked down at Ravick. And I said, I probably only out of 30, 40 people ever saw Ravick at this bird's eye view. Yeah. And it's it's so neat. It was so neat. Did you paint it? Did you do it? No, but but I I stole something while I was in church.
SPEAKER_01Do tell. Do tell.
SPEAKER_05There's a picture of you.
SPEAKER_01You couldn't find your Bible. And you said, well, I better take this Bible.
SPEAKER_06I stole a broom, though, too. A broom. There was upstairs where the bell was, the picture in there, I was hugging the bell. And I looked over where my dad was in the broom business back in the 50s. And I looked, and there was this broom just like a you would see in a witch's broom. It was a metal handle and just setting up against a corner, and the whole floor, all three floors as we climbed those ladders, would have crickets and birds shit and everything on each floor there. So whoever took that broom up there probably swept it one or two times and at the end said F it.
SPEAKER_01And then said it. And I'm not going back up there no.
SPEAKER_06Because those ladders was made out of old beans and they would shake wide open. Right. But uh that was an interesting uh cheap advancer for me. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I hope we didn't just put you in legal peril by that this admission. Um Well, listen, I've thoroughly enjoyed this. This has been a lot of fun. Would you be willing to come back sometime? Because I feel like we haven't scratched the surface of the surface.
SPEAKER_06No, no, I don't think we have, but I'm saying I uh I've tried to be a little reserved right now, but listen, man.
SPEAKER_01But uh Well, maybe I can get you to come out of your shell the next time.
SPEAKER_06We'll be here all night. Let this fella give me a gummy. We might be here. Nah, but but you know, Ray Week's a good time, you know, uh had the former mayor of Ray Week, Phyllis Troutman, and me and her big on them. But she told me one day, and she she was very civic. Oh, yeah. And and and she took my job and and I've uh I took it back from her. But anyway, she told me, she said, Charlie, why do you write so many stories about bad things that happened in Ray Week? And I said, Well, uh, I can write a book when I made my first communion, I reckon that'd be a good thing. And I just given her two or three different analogies, what I thought. And I said, people ain't gonna buy that shit. And they wouldn't, you know, bigger pair of lashes that Marietta Cecil uh slipped and fell down up the road there or whatever. They wanted some juicy stuff. She said, Okay, okay, then. And uh, but uh yeah, but Phyllis was a good civic lady, I tell you, she I thought a lot of her. She was a nice lady. I like that. A lot of people think Ravick, since it was a small little town, you still had when we opened uh when we incorporated Ravick, we had to do the same meetings, the city of Lebanon did it. We've had the five grants the same, and the biggest thing that I can say who robbed for mayor of Crenshaw, uh, when we just got in there, uh Marion County received uh, I think about $40,000 to split up the little towns. Yeah. And we was up the courthouse, and though they were the Lincoln Trail, uh giving these checks out, and uh, I remember so plain, uh, Mayor Crenshaw looked at me and uh uh Thompson was uh mayor over at Loretta. He said, I want my check to go to them, Ravick and Loretta. Okay. Now, you know, I thought he was how neat is that now, you know, uh because you know they had plenty of money. There we were, starving to death for money. Uh we didn't have no money. Right. And then uh uh in the one place where they gave us $7,500 to tear down this old building, we ran out of built money. And I had every kid in Ravick hard turn the f floor down, city down. I told Dad, I said, we need more money. You need to go see Judge and go see and uh he said, Oh, it'll work out. Well, we was all drinking. Uh-huh. And a bunch of us that was working there, my customers, let's just set that sunwitch on fire. We went down and there was the second floor still standing. It's in the book.
SPEAKER_01Which building are we talking about next week? The store on the corner.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, where the Rabik Park is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06It covered half the park, that big store. It's a Wheelbomer's General store. So we had the roof off of it, most of the side, and we ran out of money. And so the devil got into us. We set that thing afar. Every fire department in two states, I exaggerate, came out. And Daddy, Daddy said, these roads are gonna block. Even daddy said, leave it alone. Let it burn on down. Let it burn on down. And it did burn on down. The next day, Daddy would doze it all in. But that's for little old stories like that. You know, it didn't happen in a minute, but it they just good stories. And uh yes, it's money about the books, but it's still I I I want to emphasize these kids in Ravik, where these old buildings were, stories about. Well, this is my family right here. You're looking at the front cover, yes, sir. Right. And and so so that that's why I'm trying to ignite in them. Uh uh you know, they go down there where Macaulay Road is instead of saying, This is where your Uncle Joe lives. Okay, Uncle Joe. That's Uncle Joe. I'm telling them who Uncle Joe was, what he done, how he lived, and all this and that. So I'm hoping I can do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'd like to have you back. We'll talk about some some history, we'll talk about the it's my understanding from an old podcast I did a long time ago that uh Raywick was the first settlement in Marion County. Um, which I did not know that until uh Gerald Thompson told me that. Um he had a lot of good information about Ray Wick. They're good on genealogy. Oh my gosh. Yeah, he really is. Well we were called sheep's defeat. I'm sure he told you all about that. Because it was a big center of I think it was for several things. People just grew sheep, raised sheep for the reasons you raise sheep, for the wool and for the meat. Yes. But also for the hides, too, right?
SPEAKER_06Okay, all right. Well, this one winter back in the 1700s before Ravik became Ravik, the settlers, in fact, before the settlers came, my people came, there was a bad winter. And it snowed and everything. Everybody back then, I got letters my grandmother written about who's going to share the sheep this year, just like they would say, who's gonna take the cattle off because my son's in the army. Well, anyway, everybody raised sheep. And uh Ravik, like Marion County, got rolling hills. Yeah and there wasn't no fancy. This bad winter came along and snowed everybody in. The foxes, the wolves, the cowdies, any other kind of went and killed the sheep. Let's say we had 50 sheep. They would kill them all, but my great-great-grandparents would go down there and they right in the winter, they would take that hide off that of the dead sheep. They would cut the meat off of it, and they get everything that could salvage because you know it's everything's freezing. And but that's why they call it sheep to feed. Those wild dogs, wild pack of whatever went around all over the county and killing these uh uh uh uh sheep and all that, and so but uh the whole circle turned now. My neighbor's raising sheep on our farm. I I told my brother Jimmy, I said, now that's that's the circle now. I hope you're not defeated. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I went down on the 4th of July this year and they had a mutton cooking right on Charlie's farm. Oh wow. It was it was neat to see. I love what's well be done.
SPEAKER_06A lot of people don't. Oh, you gotta develop a taste for it. You do, but I love it. Oh, and I can eat hot R Cold. A lot of people say eat it hot. I mean eat it cold, pepper, and all that. Right. But you know, you got 40 people hungry as hell. They they eat it raw if you let them.
SPEAKER_01Let me ask you one question and then we'll wrap up. Um, a couple three years ago in the paper, Raywick's city government decided we were gonna decertify as a as an incorporated city. And I never heard anymore about that. What's what's going on with that?
SPEAKER_06Well, it's incorporated 1738. And then uh uh I've got like I got a video uh the church celebrating the 150th anniversary of the city of Raywick. I just found it yesterday. I'm gonna let them reprint it. But anyway, uh when uh Ravick was uh incorporated back in those days there, it just uh uh uh it it it was uh a lot of people was interested in it.
SPEAKER_01You know, well it allowed the it as a city it allowed you to get grants. Yeah, grants, this and to and to tack levy taxes.
SPEAKER_06No, no, they never levy taxes. The city never levyed taxes. No, no, uh Judge Randall Donahue and the Senator Ed O Daniel and Emmer George took care of that. I don't know how they talked to, but we never was taxed. That was a big issue. Then the other issue was we're gonna have police down here. Well, we got the police down here anyway, it doesn't matter. You know, so I damn every weekend. Yeah, but but anyway, it it just uh uh it's just uh the way things were back then. It just uh uh But is it has it been decertified? But yeah, they they've been dropped it, but uh there's two characters running. I I got to really admire them. That's what I'm saying. Back when running, everybody was involved in it. You know, people instead of buying cakes for the cake wheel, the family have a hundred cakes, people would make this and that. But a guy named Lance Abel and uh uh uh Nick Thomas, they sort of took over under the table in a way. You know, they still maintain it. I think the city took over what? Took over the city government kind of took over the park. Okay. And that that that's the main thing. The city of Laban is take, American County took over the security lights, the lights all around Raven. Uh huh. But we have to take care of our own bills, and that's why they have these functions every year. Well, this what impressed me, this last uh homecoming, uh, it rained like hell that day. And I drove down, I was gonna sell a few books, and I said, Well, I won't do that. I just sat on the bank with uh Craig Bitch was there. And uh, there was those boys working their and their wives and family working their butts off, and they sold close to uh, I think a thousand dinners. And uh uh it just it was very impressive, and so maybe that's what we should have done a long time ago. But because we did, we we was threatened with taxation, with law and all that, but uh uh uh i i it it was fun during that during that deal. It was fun developing the park. We had a lot of fun doing that.
SPEAKER_01Well, listen, I've enjoyed it. I want to have you back, seriously. Thank you. Uh we'll do it soon. Um, and uh I just want to thank you for for coming and sharing some of this stuff, Kurt. Thank you, thank you to you, thank you to Kurt, and um this will wrap us up. Thank you all for listening. Uh this has been Mildly Amusing, and I'm James Spraggins.
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SPEAKER_01We're back briefly. Uh we have a very special treat. Um, Mr. Bickett uh has offered to sing us a song, and I believe the name of the song is Home Out in Texas. Yes. Hit it.
SPEAKER_06My mother sung that song to us when we were kids, and she always loved it. And it sort of goes like this. If I can do it tearing up, I had a home out in Texas, out where the blue bonnets grew. I had the kindest old mother, how happy we were just we two, till one night the angel called her a debt we all have to pay. She called me close to her bedside, these last few words she said Now Charlie don't start drinking and gambling. Promise you always go straight. Ten years have gone since that promise, the promise I broke by mistake, I started drinking and gambling till at last I was just like them all, betting my clothes and my money, not dreaming that I'd ever fall. Till one night the angels called her a debt we all had to pay. She called me close to her bedside, and Charlie, here's what she said Charlie don't start drinking and gambling. Promise you always go straight. Ten years have gone since the promise I promise I broke my mistake. I started betting my money, not dreaming that I'd ever fall. Betting my clothes till I then one day this is what I saw I saw my mother's picture and son she seemed to say son you have broken your promise, so toss your cards away. My winnings I gave to a news boy, for I knew I was wrong from the start, but I'll never forget the promise to the mother, the queen of my heart. That's great. That is great.
SPEAKER_01About that. How about that? Well uh thank you, Charlie. Now you're gonna hook me up eight in Hollywood, maybe. Let's let's call Wolf Smalling. Let's get let's get you in. I haven't seen Wolf in years. Okay. Thank you very much, Charlie. Thank you.