WBIR’s The Heartland Series with Bill Landry: Volume 8

[Music] no bill have you seen bill he was just here a minute ago bill andrew check with the switchboard please bill [Music] well [Music] hey doc yeah boy hey where you been i had a little trouble getting away okay let's get going i'm riding the road doc baird's an old friend of ours from rogersville well we've only known him for two weeks but it feels like we've been friends a long time he's a surgeon so he knows the value of hard work he also knows the value of days like this of getting away heading for the open water of cherokee lake under a clear blue sky there's a fish in here with my name on it there's one ah i think you gotta have one i think so he's on there i'm sure he's pulling too what should i do stay out of your way yep making a little bit of racket in he bill he's good fish oh he's mean son [Laughter] me you took that white dog fly bill okay let's see now let's do a little biology while we're out of here okay you're the doctor it's a laid out female oh well they're going there oh we just now started so putting this garden out there yeah it looks like a woman working in the garden her husband's probably down here on the left on the lake casting days like this put our lives in proper focus is an eight-pound test line the right choice will they go after those doll flies you made this winter would that all our worries could be as simple on this day they are that's a living if the government ever finds out we're doing this they'll put a tax on it this this is a pretty dangerous profession it's kind of dangerous you're liable to have a heart attack oh you you know that's a funny thing i've heard of some fellas absolutely being thrilled to death having coronaries you ever treat one oh yeah right on picked him up right on the lake from fishing fishing caught a big bass at the german creek one morning and literally had a heart attack there he is ain't that a beauty i'm in here boy those things will scrap you there you go bill [Music] so [Music] the customs house and the downtown post office are knoxville landmarks they're made from some of the finest marble that's ever been produced the rulers of ancient greece admired marble for its purity and strength it has inspired all throughout the ages it's drawn from the soil of east tennessee and it can be seen nationwide many millions of years ago what is now east tennessee looked vastly different the area was covered by a warm shallow sea living here were primitive creatures some of the first to inhabit the earth as these ancient animals died their skeletons fell to the sea floor through time they formed a lime ooze violent forces of heat and pressure compressed the lime ooze in over several million years converted it into east tennessee marble this handsome stone lay untouched for about 400 million years only recently have we been able to enjoy its beauty well the mining history began up here on the holston river near rogersville in hawkins county a number of old quarries were opened here in the 1830s the industry migrated from rogersville area down into just northeast of knoxville then the industry migrated down into bunk county we're still acting today around friendship nowhere in the nation but east tennessee could marvel be found in so many colors and variations the leaders of our country chose it for the capitol building in washington and soon its reputation for elegance and strength spread across the land there was plenty of marble available to meet this demand and it wasn't hard to find if you knew what you were looking for what you actually do is to take some something that serve as a hammer and break off a little piece now that that piece will show the color if that when that is wet and there's your color now that happens to be a dark cedar marble there was a lot of hammering and spitting going on during the early days of the marvel industry it took a spirit as tough as the marble itself to extract these huge blocks from the ground the drilling was done with a piece of steel and men hitting the top of the steel with a sledge hammer with the combination of muscle steel and a sledgehammer a day's work would yield a hole about two feet deep a task done today in about a minute they rolled it they jacked it onto wagons and then hauled it with mule team many times faults in the marble weren't found until it was quarried and cut into slabs east tennesseans would settle for nothing less than the highest quality and the hard work was starting to pay off and a way of life was firmly established for many east tennesseans my father was in it i liked it it's a rough business in a way but it's an honorable honest hard job [Music] it's a respectable business but an expensive one many builders cannot afford what it costs to get the marble out of the ground this mysterious substance born after millions of years in the earth is giving way to the man-made materials of the 20th century to buildings of concrete and steel [Music] you see right here uh-huh see right there there you see the path going out younger now that's where the overhead fox race baby every year see how slick see your path going right up through here that's the fox path yeah the babies tom gean understands nature's ways for 78 years he's made his living on the family farm working with the land he loves right there and not because i own it but that's the best piece of ground in knox county right turn oh if you want to grab your rock you better take it with you [Laughter] because then tom tends to a thousand hills of watermelon still three and a half acres of corn into his blue tick hound together with reba his wife they share a quality of life that's rare here in a world running out of space now right there where the water used to go when it overflowed in here the big caves yeah you got a lot of caves in here oh and this ain't nothing but a honeycomb me and my boy just come back here and catch a massive bath and crappie every morning was this a special place to you oh here's what we're doing home we're swimming and fishing and everything tom calls it the rise riser creek once pristine and pure hear his grandson caught one of the largest hell benders in the world but now the signs reflect a changing time when did that happen i think it was last spring did you all have a lot of fun down here oh lord i'd take him a big old blue ticks and they'd take a swim with me and when we fishing in here and then night catches the old big blue texas leaders home up the patch how you feel about that sign now the water well we don't i don't eat no fish out of it did this used to be beautiful down here why red birds dogwood bear dogwoods and bloom and everything pretty place you ever seen back in here pretty pleasure once this land was all farm land countryside now new houses and condominiums are springing up like ant hills soon the new park whale run through down there all around the land is changing they just congregate in here i don't know they think there's gold here but i never found them what's going to happen to your land well i have they'll have houses all over it if they're going to build a house they'll strip it they'll take all the tops off and sell it four generations of geens have lived on this 19th century farm now time in the 20th century are on tom's trail but no matter what the future holds he says it's been a pleasure i had a lot of fun in my lifetime and put it like that and i've had a lot of hard work and heartache too come on come on headwaters around here somewhere it was the lifeblood of early knoxville maybe our most important historical landmark with the story in mark wetherington we will voyage down first creek from its meager beginnings on black oak ridge in fountain city all the way down to the tennessee river historical curiosity brings us here how has first creek changed since james white settled along its banks more than 200 years ago a canoe may not be the best way to find out i think we can move it i don't know get deeper we're moving now mark that's right we're making time before there ever was a broadway first creek was the main road to town but it's obviously been quite a while since canoe traffic was taken into consideration we're going under a bank driving window i can't see anything soon we can see all too well and the reason for the canoe becomes obvious it gives us a different view of history one we don't see from the street it's really hard to believe this is an historic creek looking at it today family settled in this neighborhood and planted crops and tended livestock in 1788 john adair built a fort on the banks of first creek where the hills shopping center is now there's a long john silvers here now here now it's hard to imagine that the fort was on the banks of this creek you can hardly see the creek from here and yet the creek was very important settlers depended on it for water behind northgate we find high water at the turn of the century whittle springs resort was located just off to our left on this lazy summer afternoon it seems little has changed since then on this stretch of the creek even a mile downstream it still has its moments standard knitting mills reminds us of an age when factories line the banks of the creek they use the water he's a water for power summit hill from this point on first creek is wrapped in concrete canyons it's odd because in many respects first creek was knoxville's first public park this was a this was a commons the grassland stretching from the banks was set aside for the use by citizens to graze livestock james white's fort in the state capitol once stood near its banks but from here on the business loop claims first finally we reach perhaps the most historic location and our journey's end the mouth of first creek this is where william blunt and 1200 cherokee gathered to sign the treaty of holston in 1791. it was an ideal location first creek running into the river here this uh place was a natural basin a natural amphitheater this enlarged the eastern united states yes it did it moved the frontier westward and it opened this area up for settlement permanent settlement [Music] we don't recommend you take this trip but we're glad we did if only to remind us what 200 years of neglect can do to a waterway that was once vital to us a thought we carry with us as we enter a much larger stream the tennessee this is the heartland series [Music] yeah put it down there with that one well my dad and mother passed away and and we just uh decided we we need to get some featherless stuff we just stored here and we need to get rid of it yeah i feel kind of sad about it a lot of old memories here because i grew up in this home and this old furniture yeah we i swing a lot in the old swang out there i remember a couple of girls here one time they were saying may the circle be unbroken and the chain broke with them and the swing fell and they went out in the yard i guess that old phonograph wouldn't play these wouldn't it well these are heavy aren't they mm-hmm yeah they like music but none of those musicians or anything they like music no matter what it is out it's just the ground looks like a drill press but it's great big boy like it's been a food chopper cream separator we wrote some of our ken folks but i don't don't guess we got one no but anyway we were we knew and was trying to you know get with it so glad you come well where's this thing throw the shuck out at it's good i don't know we'll just have to wait and see what it goes see how it goes hey let's get rolling folks if i can have your 47.5 numbers [Music] 40. i don't want them of it to be picked up and putting people's homes we wanted to buy this house and we're going to buy this house here and put it on our porch in this porch here or if we build a find another farmhouse we'll put it on that one we had i had a lot of good times in this old house my mother and dad they were a lot of fun and and had a lot of company on a lot of weekends every room would be full of company and we'd have a lot of fun they lived along banks like these on the telico river for years that overshadow our history here now there's barely a trace left of ancient civilizations we make the same motions they did who traveled in vessels carved from poplar trees on waters considered sacred a progression of cultures lived here that like the river was ever changing one has to realize that the indians lived in east tennessee for at least the last 12 thousand years and during that time their lifestyles changed their technologies improved [Music] the river was a very integral part of the life and the belief system of the indians long man was the river god one of the uh members of the spirit world of the cherokee a long man was construed as a man with his back against the mountains and his limbs the many rivers and streams coming down into the valley hunters would always bring their game to the river or the stream to wash it in the sense to offer a sacrifice to this god it was a long man an evil creature longman was the personification of the river but the river also had other elements to it for example it was the access to the underworld there were many creatures associated with the underworld and one particularly associated with the river was a giant fish called aqua [Music] why are there so many archaeological activities here basically because it's the first large flood plain as you come out of the mountains the indians did not employ fertilizers uh for their crops but instead could rely on the the great richness of these flood-deposited soils across the river bottoms bill you know the earliest corn in eastern north america came from the little tennessee river valley just below here corn as you know became the the real staple crop of the indians in later times the river offered many resources and one of them was rocks bill this is a cane break uh cane breaks are very common along these rivers the indians found them to be a very important source of material to make baskets cane matting and it was so important to them that even after they were removed from the valley the indians used to come back to the little tennessee river to collect cane [Music] so [Music] most artifacts have been unearthed now and only the river endures our link to a different time and place when the original settlers of this land live beside the gracious arms of longman [Music] this is a program about time staying constant changing everything and about people whose lives have been enveloped by the 20th century witnesses of change like no generation before earlier in our homecoming year we had the good fortune of meeting some very special men and women we were touched by their wit and humor which has been gained by over a hundred years of being tennesseans these centenarians have lived a history we can only read about two of them share more of that history with us today with all new stories from the journal of the unfinished century see i can't remember all those days i can't remember the firings of the firewood i can't remember that you go back a hundred years brother there's a lot of things to change oh could you imagine um a thing coming down with a big pipe up there and fire over her and beltering ringing for smoke with fire going out 20 feet above falling all over everything could you imagine that that's what they look like what were they huh what was it the fire engines going to put out a fire this is a story and i don't know whether the truth ends or not ice cream came over here road trips usually the patch says it's the greatest country in the world they're paying me two dollars and a half an hour and i don't have a thing to do as a man on the fourth floor does all the work and all i do is just cap the brick and marshall he says come over here this is the great country well he come here come pat and he'd never been to town and he's in new york back those days that he'd defile engines with wood and they'd come snorting down the road and that fire rolling out might look sharp but you'd never see one of them and burn the wood well it's a scare mule and he's looking out the window well the one that's been the kind of breaking martyr he's tired won't sleep he says come on to bed tomorrow you can look all you want to at that time here come to a snort and blowing there and pull in the fan he said get up quick you're moving hell and then go and buy two loads of it but it did look like moving hell if you ever celebrate them i graduated diabetic high school in 1903 have a picture of it over there with 12 girls i was older boy in the class those 12 girls they made life miserable for me they put red ink in my hair and called me red and did all sorts of tricks put pins in my seat where to sit down you know but they used to go out behind a music room and play leapfrog and during those days were skirted down to the ankles and imagine a girl playing leapfrog with a long skirt but they did they'd roll the stretch up on their arm and over there to go and one day they caught me peeping and they throw my shirt off right now from there when my father made me going to school i lived here i had to go to dietary school had a board while i was down there and he forced me to go to school i went on to graduate these 12 girls did you ever regret that no because i went over to vanderbilt how'd you do with vanderbilt i didn't do very good at vanderbilty in fact the trickling chance of kicking up there i was on probation and the time i got off probation why he told me he said invite me to drop out to go to a good prep school i did i dropped out and went up to harvard and made the honor roll 1908. they flower in the spring and bear fruit in the summer [Music] a harvest of blackberries that are converted into the jams and jellies that line the shelves of russell hillis basement but something else is concocted here with the berries of summer a procedure begun today that will take half a year to complete put the blackberries in here and now we're going to crush them smack them up smash them up with our feet well it's going to have a little difficulty getting into that container there but we just happen to have a handy tamp here these things are so ripe that it takes very little effort to to mash these or to crush these these are so much softer than the grapes are [Music] this much different from making jam it'll grow a great deal the jam and jelly is a heat process this is just a cold that's a cooking process and this is just a fermentation a potion of chemicals prepares this mixture of juices for the yeast living organisms that will digest the sugar and release gases that transform this liquid into wine that's all we have to do now we're going to add the yeast again later tonight and cover it and it'll be sitting here for about four days [Music] another batch of blackberries had already fermented was now ready for the next step what are we going to do we're going to take this these bags out of here these nylon bags out and squeeze them a little to get some of the juice out and then we'll transfer this liquid that's why we use those nylon bags get the seeds keep the seeds in these we've got to transfer this solution into that jug [Music] it looks like we've got a good even flow [Music] this will be dry because all the sugar has fermented out that'll be a dry one this will be a dry line at this stage now many people do not like a completed dry wine so we would add some bit of sugar back to it to our individual taste [Music] there will be gassing gas escaping here for perhaps as long as a month six months from now the cloudiness will disappear and the wine will be ready to drink a taste of summer gathered from the vine and stored in a bottle [Music] this is one of the heartland series shortest journeys a few steps into the shallow waters of little river it's a trip that reveals a showcase of nature that rivals any we've seen with a mask and snorkel we descend into a different element our guides are biologists from the university of tennessee who spend their days in streams like this documenting life that's a guilt darter something he did as it yielded most fish have a have a swim bladder that keeps them afloat but darters do not and they uh they sink which is what you want to do if you're in fast current you don't want to float and be carried downstream by by the current darters are members of the perch family so named for their sudden movements over 130 darters have been discovered and most live in the rivers and streams of tennessee but it's the tangerine darter these experts believe is worthy of a special title state fish it's almost completely confined to tennessee it's big it's orange it's one of our nicest daughters and it symbolizes clean clean water it's a queen snake and he's smelling with its tongue clean snake live underwater they spend a lot of time in the water it's one of our more common water snakes soon we came across the most curious of the daughters one who spends its days looking under rocks the so-called stone roller by flipping those rocks he's able to exploit a food source that most of these other darters were unable to get to is that a snapping turtle it's a striped neck musk turtle and he will bite bye bye little fella here he'll open up and his little foot will extend which is the fleshy part in there and that will burn down into the sand and he'll sort of pull himself in once he's buried in the sand he filters the water whatever's in the water microscopic plankton he eats that's why so many of the mussels are endangered they're there aren't clean waters their gills get easily clogged with silt cold dust and mining areas easily polluted out when the when the whole system is healthy there'll be a lot of inhabitants working up feeding of the food chain exactly we're inhabitants too in a system that includes us not only as observers but participants pure water is getting harder to find with the future of our water quality in danger and the journey to explore life underwater may soon take more than just a few steps of the morning you'll find him in a corn field but come saturday ott wilson will be doing what he's always done milling grinding and shelling preparing our daily bread over around 30 years i osu saturday for meal days they'd come on horses bring it damn it didn't they carry i don't see how they've done it had four five miles have you made a lot of meal that's been turned into liquor for some of these fellows up here oh yeah they he's done lots of that put in well you've been a lot of ott wilson's meal in the ice corn lick around here well they didn't know what my name is they had in jail they used to on the highway but the days of moonshine making are over now instead of drinking it we carry our corn it's mill day and we're off to the grinder with ott wilson oh well i've got to have a little grind in here hello mr wilson 10 of a turn or a half a gallon per bushel that's the miller's toll for grinding the meal here it's like a family hold it up great high and lay it forward [Music] will you make it good yeah pretty good [Music] well i've been hanging around ever since i could walk i reckon go down and stay with him a lot catching turtles he likes to eat turtles why you bring it here well there's uh very few meals it's like that then you can get up a conversation with him she'll come how long have you been doing it do you enjoy it yeah i did not didn't quit it get pretty hot in here yeah sometimes what do you think about when you're milling how many folks might be here on saturday waiting around uh not too many anymore but it used to be lined up a lot of folks come over here to get their gran uh their meal from you i try to make as good of one as i can but is it also because you the stories you tell the hell it might be so in tennessee a miller lives who takes a toll for the meal he gives more wise than us for all his days for he finds peace in simple ways [Music] in this age of specialization self-reliant folks are hard to come by that's why on a hot summer's day it's kind of refreshing to stop in and visit with an old-fashioned tennessean he's a jack-of-all-trades who even makes his own music levi collins of cherry bottom tennessee [Music] hello hello how we doing [Music] levi collins embodies an age not so far removed from our own when doing it yourself was the only way to get by you beat this out thin levi seems to have kept every tool he's ever used they are the odds and ends of a lifetime of working with his hands some are more odd than others that'll get us there won't it yeah but i don't know what is fur some kind of car ain't it he carries a genuine modesty or is it a quiet confidence from never having faced a job he couldn't tackle his labors filled basic needs like the need for water and the need for food i dug a whale down there 53 feet and eight inches deep where'd you dig it with a pick and a shovel and made a ladder to reach to the bottom of it and plastered it i put this thing in here uh about 46 and started grinding corn you make pretty good meal well everybody says it's all right i like it did you ever make any whiskey yes sir did that answer that quick not remember that good that whiskey deal that was fun of course they make them now with power steering and four-wheel drive and all modern stuff you know the big cab on them and air conditioners you burn up on this thing out there drinking that dust levi still works the land tending his ginseng patch he's there making berries yeah i used to dig it out of the woods i've dug all this and bringing your set the root out you reckon i could do do the same kind of work today you could no you waited too late to start so would you know how to dig cold not really well you could learn just lay right down here and start pecking on the pit and dig away back on there and drill your hole up here and then shoot it down and load it whatever the job levi has always been a quick study now you're walking right into the logo on camera right straight in it see what he done did you have to do everything the hard way that's all we knowed the hard way he slowed down just a bit doesn't seem to shave very often anymore [Music] where does a man like this fit in today wherever he wants to because men like levi collins will always be able to make their own place in this world [Music] ain't that something something's missing here the american chestnut it grew everywhere just about where they was wood there's chestnuts in it it provided food for all animals in the wood your squirrels your bear your hogs deer from southern canada to florida once the american chestnut was king of the eastern forests from its spraying america but in 1905 the great chestnut blight began and by the middle 30s suddenly it was gone when the black killed it these ridges in the park and everybody hadn't been cut looked like a boom sage feel in the winter time here in the great smoky mountains they were once thicker than oak trees are today and where after a long hike you might be lucky enough to find one standing tall but only a shadow of what it once was the chestnut blight is not native to the united united states and it when it came in our trees had very little natural resistance and and it went through them like a hot knife through butter scientists have been trying to bring back the american chestnut for over 50 years first by understanding the blight or fungus with its seed-like spores that infect the trees the spores are floating around in the air and much as the same as bread mold spores when they find an opening of a tree in a tree as the bark starts to furrow then they'll get in there and attack the tree early efforts to graft the american chestnut onto the disease-free chinese chestnut were tried but the resistance was not transferred to the overstock then came the idea of cross-breeding by cross-breeding they were they were trying to take the disease-resistant genes from the chinese chestnut and breed them into the american chestnut tree and what happened well they would end up with the hybrids that were somewhat resistant resistant to the blight but yet did not have that good form of the american chestnut tree to regain the form while keeping the resistance that's the challenge in a new cooperative effort underway at the university of tennessee which utilizes back crossing in this approach you would make a cross with the resistant chinese chestnut and then back cross continuously to american chestnut thereby transferring the disease resistance and then regaining the good form of the american chestnut tree so you take the offspring and breed it back to the parent american chest right with agricultural crops such as wheat and corn this method has been successful but the maturing of a tree might take a lifetime so we need a way to rapidly increase those of seedlings for field testing and the way to do that is through tissue culture clonal propagation through tissue culture what we would do we would essentially germinate the seed and then put it through a number of different uh medias to induce a shoot formation cut those shoots off root those shoots and essentially clone the tree we can make these trees now but the cloning itself doesn't improve the tree what we have to do is to develop a blight resistant chestnut through the breeding process and then we can go ahead and clone those trees modern science is giving the tree of our grandfathers new hope perhaps our children will once again pick up and taste the fruit under the spreading chestnut tree would you like to see the chestnut tree growing again yeah anyone that's ever known chestnut likes it growing again how old are you you've never seen one 72 it's the person i ever seen their nests are rarely seen because they're so small but you'll notice the birds that build them with just a little patience and some sugar water only the females and their young are left as fall approaches and soon they will begin their journey to south america to join the males clocking in at a wing speed of 20 miles per hour what they lack in speed they make up for in acrobatics hummingbirds can fly up down sideways and backwards tricks no other birds can copy by moving their wings forward and backward instead of up and down they stay poised in the air it's the wings that make the humming sound although they do chatter to themselves and to people they're accustomed to a lot of times you stand right here and they'll come maybe two or three be out of this feeder here that pretty tiny feet yeah tiny little feet not far from here some larger birds are helping ethel singleton get ready for fall ethel keeps ducks and they provide something in return you see ethel makes lots of feather pillows [Music] to have feather beds but i got tired those made pills let's let him go what do you say some of ethel's best friends are ducks so don't worry she never picks the feathers from the duck's wings and the feathers she does pull go back in about six weeks [Laughter] you just hold it and he'll pick it later no you'll let it get loose hello [Music] distance [Music] they're not get right over here set a mammal right around you now pull down this get these right there get down put them in there i hate doing that now let's see [Applause] that we did [Applause] the gate back up so they won't get up i used to have 22 ducks to pick and three big geese i'd say lord i'll never get them down i believe is our oldest uh known communication goes back to the earliest of civilization it was a way of life for us sitting around the front porch the ladies set the straight back chairs out under the shade tree or in the porch swing and grandpa told the story and we remembered that story and we tell our youngins about them stories too it's life as we have known it it is life as it is or its life that could be or it is life that we may imagine saying in some other fantasy land that's where life is real a lot of stories mean a lot to us and in these mountains there's some stories that's real real popular real real personal too because this is a story about my brother steamer old steemer was a young boy 12 14 years old and he said a mountain boy ever all he ever needs is a mule he said boy if a fella had a mule that's all he'd ever need the rest of his life he said i wish i had me a little baby mew right now that i could nurse and take care of and feed and when it got to be big i'd be big and i'd have a mule of my own went around antagonizing everybody asking mom and dad to put him a baby mule in his sock at christmas time went around asking people if he knew anybody that had a litter of muse he might be able to get one awful he said well he'd just take a little run of a mule if it wasn't no bigger than this just so long they had nice floppy ears and i saw fluffy fur and big long hind legs and said he'd raise it up when he got up about waist high then he'd put his little harness on it and hook it to his toy plow and why he'd plow every corn patch in this whole county you know that's all he talked about a baby mule worried everybody today one day he went down to john mark's country store and all them old fellows have been sitting around waiting for something to happen and old steamer walked in that day john malk had just got in a shipment of them big old round hairy coconuts that you see in the fruit market well steamer never seen a coconut before because we don't grow them in tucker's knob and old john looked at steamer and steamer was looking at that pile of coconuts there and he said hey john said what are them things that i've never seen no brown hairy things like that he said why steamer them things is mule eggs and she never seen a mule egg before oh steamer said hot doggy said you mean there's a little baby mule in every one of them he's just like a hand egg you take that hand egg and lay it under an old hand for about two weeks and keep it good and warm and said it hatches out a little baby chick well this is a mule egg and said you take his mule egg home with you now and sit on in about two weeks and keep it good and warm and said you'll hatch you out little baby mule oh steamer said hot doggy said i didn't want me a little baby mew he said i'm gonna take one home with me he got him one and carried it home and mother helped him fix a big old tobacco basket out there with some straw and hay in it and steamer put that mule leg right up in the middle of it climbed up on it and started following directions two weeks sitting on that thing he was and mama brought him an old quilt out there to put over his shoulder during that two weeks period old steamer started counting the days one two three four five one long until he was 12 days waiting for that new leg to hatch out finally 14 16 18 days past that mule leg still hadn't hatched out oh steamer got concerned and aggravated mad he said well i'll get that contrary mule out of that thing said i'll throw that thing down over the hill and bust it wide open i'll get that mule out of there so he got mad and threw that mule egg down over the hill into the briar patch well sitting in that briar patch was an old floppy or jackrabbit that mule egg hit that old jackrabbit turned him about two turns that jackrabbit run out across the cabbage field oh steamer saw that jack rabbit he thought it was a baby mule and he chased it the rest of the day you're hollering come back here come back here i'm your mammy and you're pappy too here boy here boy it went on over the hill oh steamer said i'll go on i wouldn't be able to plow that fast know-how that's steamer in his mule egg story with the first whiff of cool air we wonder what to expect from the coming winter hugh bowman thinks he knows there's something different about hugh besides the parrot on his shoulder hugh bowman can predict the weather he learned it in a time when knowing the weather wasn't just a hobby an oversight could mean a bare cupboard for the winner his accuracy depends on his senses he takes notice of the world outside watching for patterns in nature he has understood for years then overnight if we've got a full moon and we've got a thin skin of clouds [Music] overhead that this moonless barely shined through that indicates snow a rain worn inside of 24 hours [Music] can the birds tell you something yeah when they flock in here and go to eating like and even something other i can pretty well tell when there's going to come a snow and the squirrels will come in for their food i feed them then they hover up three four days and that works out pretty good yeah i learn a lot watching nature from a squirrel they're smart one of nature's laws hugh takes heed of is balance and that's why he sees some cold weather ahead we've had two months or two and a half months the hottest weather continual i've ever seen so if it's a hot summer it's going to be a cold winter right we'll have some zero weather about the middle of the winter and i look for a month nearly we're going to have a pretty late power but i'm gonna put a light frost around the eight and i'm gonna stay around them about uh i'm gonna put it the 14th of october killing ross i'm basing this on the new moon i pinned on the moonshot and i don't hear these weathermen they don't speak much of that but i run these records on the counters these room changes and it it tallies out pretty good how long have you been keeping records on the weather in the moon about something like 30 years 30 years that's been pretty accurate for you well yes i've heard it and i've missed it uh i believe it's four years i missed uh about six to seven days on the first roast hughes the first to admit this is not an exact science but sometimes he says it's not his fault it's the katy dids that lead him astray i count it from the first time i hear him holler then i mark that down on the collar and that can tell you that there will be a problem three months from there yeah three months from there and last year they missed it three days three years ago we missed it uh five days but well there's been several years they hit it right on the head this is the heartland series [Music] harvest time is full of familiar tastes and smells pumpkin pies and sorghum molasses but every now and then we're treated to a pleasant surprise take this fella for instance it's called a cashaw we've seen them before but we never knew what you did with them we figured you just set them out to look pretty like acorn squash or indian corn well some folks from tazewell set us straight about keshaws here's another nice one addie mcnew and her daughter-in-law judy know just what to do with keshaw they're making a two-year supply of cash butter they prefer it over apple butter any day trouble is it's twice as much work there ain't no fun how much do you need for one of those brass kettles to make a batch takes four large cachaws batch number one started cooking at daybreak did you look forward to that oh yeah we liked it you see we thought that was a big deal to get stir that butter but the older you got the less less big deal it was the cashaw slices go to the kitchen to be boiled till soft making keshaw butter takes all day and large families were needed to do the work today addie has different health a local homemakers club they'll lend a hand as the day wears on but they're also here to observe something that's rarely seen anymore making cushion butter is an event these days everybody was talking about it at the bear yesterday that's like work everybody's talking about it over there too after boiling the cashaw is ready for straining just squeeze that down you'll just turn it round well i can smell that now this butter is made with judy's award-winning cashaw first second and third of the tennessee valley fair this year that's a brass kettle black ones will ruin the color and flavor of keshaw butter from here on it's all stirring eight long hours worth batch number one is making progress look like the real stuff i believe i'd rather be fishing [Music] well the luck i've been having fishing lately i catch this many hairs to do down on the lake i would never want to undertake this for myself i wouldn't either i'd want to be sure i had plenty of friends [Laughter] when you ladies want to come start a while this is a hot job over here and stay with it why let's try here things are stirring away from the fire too look at that wrap here comes a wrap a mouse in the pumpkins will drive anyone to help with the stirring kasha is a squash and by itself needs flavor a gallon of sugar for every gallon of butter should do it it makes a sweet time-tested confection but not everyone's convinced i don't think i like it well he got fast judgment until you get a bite of it and that won't be long now didn't she getting over there come up there there's what we're looking for and my mother always called that smoking his pie we've done that and that means it's ready now we know why we've gone to so much trouble finding out what you do with kesha was worth all the work in the spring when you get the early things they have no color in them because they haven't matured august september october november are the best times of the year to die they've got the most color and the plants have the most color then mary frances davidson just has to step outdoors to find the hues of her artwork for hidden inside the trees grasses and flowers is a secret world of color the source of nature's dyes it's only natural yarn like wool that absorbs the dies of the forest blending together the plant and animal world but before the wool has died it must first come off the sheep it's then carted to straighten the fibers before it can be spun in the old days when did people do their spinning and dying as they sat around the fern and then the court and they make the uh the young men who came they had to keep their hands busy [Laughter] i suspect there's many a boy in the old days that learned a card because he could sit there and court his lady and things with the card mary frances winds the wool into a bundle she calls a hank now it's ready to take on a tint of nature [Music] and you have to build your color you'll dip it and sometimes they dip itself some of them dip it 70 times is that the most powerful blue you can get that yes it was indigo a syndical and that's what they dyed the blue jeans with indigo is from the leaf of a plant now i tried to raise him to go here and i can't do it i do that to get to get the air through it it should stay out a while till it turns then you can put this back in and build your color mother called these farewell summer what color do you get from that oh just a beautiful yellow [Music] marigolds give you color uh yellow beautiful yellow beautiful yellow if you put a little salt with the marigolds it'll make it brighten the color you could pick up anything around here and i'll be telling you the truth as i said it got yellow from it because i do walnuts are the best brown that you can get can you get a color like that just out of the wood yes i can get it with black oatmeal this is an oak tree here but this is the inner burnt this black gray outer bark has been peeled off and the black oak is that one of the best dye woods in the whole word for 40 years mary francis has searched out the shades of nature and she's learned not to let her eyes deceive her for the true color of a plant like so many things is not what it appears to be but what's inside he doesn't need much more than a piece of wood a knife and a lot of patience walter powell is a wood carver and his inspirations are simple he carves what he sees outside the window of his old home place in rockwood where the pace of life is gentle and most often what he sees are birds why is it that there's so many good carvers around this part of the country that was a way of life you know you had to work in wood to make a lot of tools and things his workshop is only a few steps away but his time here is brief compared to the hours spent carving in front of the window this is where an idea begins to take shape you just collect all that yeah that's pretty good pile of driftwood there that's chestnut what are you gonna put on this one uh probably a red tail hulk that would probably be in the size for robin or mockingbird something like that that would be uh i would say better for a large owl it's better i'd say to have a little bit of knowledge about what you're wanting to carve wildlife or whatever i know a bunch of carvers that wouldn't think about carving a bird you know it carves uh people you know do you carve people i only have two that's supposed to be little hillbillies picking banjos fiddles anybody i know hey probably what's the difference between whitling and carbon whitland and carbon basically the same thing we've got the old courthouse whittler i call them it sits on the bench out there you see them in all these little country towns he's not going to make anything but shavings what can you do with a pile of shavings burn them but a carver he's got to know pretty well what that piece of wood's going to look like when he gets through with it because it's something that he's making the whole saying just take off what doesn't look like a bird and it's the birds themselves that give walter powell reason to believe his work is good well i come to the window here and look at the car birds i've had a number of them to do that in the wintertime sitting in the same place day after day with a piece of wood and a knife would be enough to drive most people crazy and walter admits that sometimes even he takes comfort in picking up another form of wood a lot of times i'll work 15 hours a day and if you put that many hours in any any kind of a job it's going to get old to react wow [Music] i can get out there and saw my fiddle awhile but if you get real nervous that sharp knife you better quit or you probably come up one or two or three missions got to keep that wildwood thumb you know [Music] autumn east tennessee a season when dying leaves come alive with color it's a time of harvest and preparation in the natural world i'm bill landry at fall creek falls in cumberland county we're here to seek the signs of the season on the heartland series two times a year in east tennessee the length of the day equals the night it happens at the arrival of spring with the coming of fall seasons of change poets compare fall to loneliness and death but in the plant world it's fall when the seeds of spring are sown dr aaron sharp has been studying these cycles of the seasons for over 60 years [Music] these plants aren't dying at all you'll find that even on this dogwood here that we have buds which will be the give the flowers next year and followed by fruits within toast seeds which will then give new dogwood so they're merely hibernating why do you think people like the falls well entirely due to the fact that the harvest is in so to speak anybody with a relish of having a nice cool wind after the hot humid days of august and it's these winds along with other natural forces that plants depend upon for their existence have you ever seen the fruits on the on the uh touch me knot if wind bumped against another plant or the stem of the same plant they would naturally explode and throw these seeds around this is a so-called euronymous but the mountaineers and people in st east tennessee call it the hearts of boston with love i think this name was coined by willie oakley of gatlinburg who is nor widely known as the old man of the mountains the color of these entice some of the animals and birds particularly to feed on them and not scatter the seeds why do the leaves turn we are not quite sure what is more important whether it's day length or the temperature but we think it's a combination of the two what are the first trees to turn well among the first trees in our area to turn is this sour wood tree which uh right here above us as the days grow shorter the leaves are no longer able to turn sunlight into food the tree then seals off nutrients to the leaves by forming protective tissue sugars trapped inside the leaves turn into brilliant colors as the leaves slowly die fall to the ground the tree devotes its energies deep in the ground where the soil remains warm and moist most people don't know it but there is probably more growth of roots in the winter in these trees than there is in the summer as energies turn inward the outward beauty of the autumn emerges the season of color is coming the celebration of fall in east tennessee there wasn't even a road into this part of east tennessee until 1917. yet people lived here they were 20th century pioneers living on an 18th century timetable here thelma mathis was born the oldest of eight girls and three boys of george and ollie bingham now she's going back to the katusa wildlife management area 86 000 acres of ground on the cumberland plateau today it's a game preserve managed by the state but it wasn't always scattered throughout these hills where one-room school houses and churches small communities once it was home oh that's the chimney out there isn't it it's not tore down was it peace as peaceful as this when you lived here oh yes there wasn't old rackets of no kind only turkeys are goblin in the spring and birds are saying the crows are hollering my my my my lord how many fires have i set by good gracious in there were you born here yes yes i was or one of us yes sir neck of the woods wild wild no wonder sister called herself a wild woman in this wild place a family of 13 flourished the natural question is how and a natural question deserves a natural answer people said that bay horses had more sense than any other color horse and everybody said ollie bingham has made horse since bay horse sense tells you right off if you're going to live in a wilderness you take what it gives you and go from there thelma's mother taught her about the plants and herbs and what to do with them including a plant called vermifuge she made syrup out of it and made us take it and it'd kill your cure you won worms yes she said if we had worms he'd kill him so we don't know her she said take it anyhow oh boy she was a tough customer my mother was where you thought you could sneak something you couldn't possibly sneak nothing for all it's wild bingham home site remains a very human place the imprints left in george bingham's hand dug well run deep clear yeah i didn't mother put that in there ma bill's foot's over there somewhere and she yes there's one that's mine right there did you get her foot up there she we held her and this is my foot right on here i guess i was about to 12. [Music] in the 50s the family was removed from katusa two years later george bingham died like letters and concrete the legacy of george and ollie bingham remains in their descendants thelma's grandchildren include doctors lawyers artists and musicians all traced to this place it brings back such beautiful memories for all the memories this was not a sad homecoming call it mountain tough or bay horse sense the understanding is when you live in a wilderness you take what it gives you and go from there i guess that was about the happiest time i ever had when i was a kid i didn't have sense enough to know it but i know it now yes i do [Music] yes sir in this neck of the woods wild wild no wonder sister called herself a wild woman this sister georgia mae bingham seemed to have inherited more than her share of spunk nicknamed bill by a blind aunt she was the outspoken one of 11 children who grew up in what's now the katusa wildlife management area on the cumberland plateau she and big sister thelma are the oldest but there are six more sisters and when growing up admirers were thick around the bingham farm bill came up with her own way of dealing with the fellas as one young swain found out and he just got a little fresh with me and i thought him down on the bed beat the fire out of him on the bed but all that changed when she met pistol pete burge a man as tough as she was you might say she fell head over heels i was there getting water you know and when i stooped down to get it while he said hello darling it's like that when i raised up look and see it was him i just fell in head and ears he and he to ask but i could hear him but he said oh darling i come to ask you to marry me and he had to pull me out of the hole in the water not long after they married pistol pete was elected sheriff of morgan county and his wife earned a new nickname miss pete because when her husband was busy miss pete was the sheriff did you arrest people why shore plenty of them did you ever carry a gun no i told them i didn't have no gun i say ain't got nothing but my badge and bud you're going with me you just give them the evil eye look well i guess that must have been it i mean i can you give me that look well i just put it on now and when i met it would look worse this was the 1930s and it was hard for many people to believe a woman could act as sheriff that worked out fine for miss pete she came up with outlaws nobody else could touch and i tooted my horn and went on down to wrote a little piece and raised up the hood he said wait a minute lady let me throw my wood down said i'll be and see what i can do to help you out he was looking in there to see what was the matter i said well i'll tell you what let's just put that hood down i've got a one for you he said hell far well he said that's the first time i ever thought i'd ever be caught with by a damn woman that's what someone said i just knocked the hell out of he said if if he was a man or a tract but he said i'll not do it and you're a woman said almost got the guts that you've got i'll just not do nothing to her only once does miss pete recall being scared when there was a jail break he's a murderer all right that he killed a woman that turned up a steel to my husband and it jay bird and he tracked her all the way back to her home and he shot her i started taking care of the jail myself and when i opened the door he was sitting on the steps i said oh my god what are you doing up there if they said i'm not going to bother you because you're good to me and you take care of the jail and you're a hard-working woman he said i'll just tell you to go get your keys and come and lock me back up in that cell up there before he says i get really mad so i got my keys and he said and i went to the top of the steps and i said are you and he said yes ma'am i said over here i am on this cell was that a hard job well sure it's hard but i didn't care when too hard wasn't too tough for me just like when i looked in the glass you know it's pretty tough to look in the glass and you said that bling dug deep it suits me folks claim buford's trunk was a bit slow maybe so things just sorta happened to him picking hickory nuts was an adventure for buford he was just a simple uncomplicated man whose only dream was that one day his dog might be a real foxhound this is the story of an honest man and his dog in the night they fell into evil well done good evening mr strzok i'm from the government i'm here to help you good to meet you my name's buford str how'd you know my name it's my business to know your name mr strong say you heard anybody racing fox hounds around here no no but why don't you sit down and have a cup of coffee it'll warm you up i reckon it'd be all right that's a good fire i like it now mr strunk you have the appearance of a man who knows an opportunity when it's staring him dead in the eye uh-huh see that bottom land out there all that bottom land can be yours oh i can't have that land why not that's shorty long's land been in his family for generations i realized that but think of the house electricity running water oh i i can't have that land but suppose you could i can't but suppose you could i can't yes you can i can give it to you you have something i want you know about trading sure that's how i got doc's lead and these boots i traded three coons and a possum and a mink of course a mink let's get to the point you want an apple i got two no beaufort i don't want an apple i've had trouble with apples in the past beaufort i deal in souls the lord knows i can use some these boots are old i mean you're so beautiful well i could use two i want your soul i'd be afraid for you to have them they're the holiest things i've got i ain't worth two years just hush now do you know who i am do you have any idea yeah you're from a government and you're here to help me but i'm dang if i know how the world gold ivory apes peacocks the riches of the world at your feet you can have in exchange for your soul yeah do you understand simple man do you hear yeah yeah that's old blue out there isn't it though sure it is yeah it is we'll be out there in a minute buddy we'll be there that stupid mutt that mangy hound i can take and transform into the greatest foxhound in the world in exchange for your soul i appreciate the coffee mister and the fire beaufort guilford wait wait wait a minute your friend no sir where i come from that ain't no way to talk to a man about his dog i don't care how bad a man needs shoes this time the devil picked the wrong man but word is he's still out there looking and won't make the same mistake twice this parade in monterey tennessee is as american as they come american in the truest sense of the word the shawnee choctaw and apache have journeyed here so of the iroquois and oklahoma cherokee others are here too from less native stock but americans just the same on this day bloodlines are overshadowed with the object that has drawn these diverse people to this place they have gathered in reverence for the stone the lone surviving fragment of the once great still mysterious standing stone of the upper cumberlands [Music] it is a mystery shrouded in antiquity the cherokees said that it was here before their father's father set foot in this land pioneers wrote about it of a massive stone monologue located on the western rim of the cumberland plateau in the form of a large wolf in a sitting position facing west the stone was a place of peace where warring tribes gathered together in brotherhood later the great stone was a boundary marker for treaties early maps show the entire region around it was called simply standing stone it's easy to see how a monolith can be formed up here on the cumberland plateau when you consider this that natural bridge there is sandstone it's abundant up here of all the mighty rocks of the plateau the wolf's stone stood out fashioned by the hand of man or of god no one knows though the four legs were indeed carved the original sight of the monolith was on the old walton road the i-40 of its day local historian dr op walker is our guide if you can imagine it with the buffalo trail the the deer trail is coming this way and later on of course the indian trails you can sort of get a picture of what they must have seen primordial forest small trail huge like sphinx-like creatures standing approximately 12 feet high made out of sandstone to the indians the great stone wolf was sacred keep in mind that the wolf was they're all the protectors sort of like the angel is to you and me but did the stone hold still deeper meaning they believe as they take the transition through death into the upper world which you and i would term heaven the place of the great spirit that upon arrival there they're greeted by a great wolf protector or guide no one knows for sure or for how long it graced this land yet its demise was certain and quick chipped away by souvenir hunters until only a portion remained the railroad took care of the rest what was left was mounted atop this monument in 1895 a few miles from the original site but the power of the stone to bring people together has not diminished it is not just any rock it's not just any rock at all it has meaning to it it's a feeling when we come here for a feeling of peace and good will a mysterious force guides some here like the cherokee chief who was told the stone was in the state park 20 miles away his spirit told him and keep in mind he'd never been here before his spirit told him no it's not toward livingston's toward monterey so he came up there and he told me this with his own mouth that his spirit led him to the original site which is in itself kind of spooky for those brought together here today the stone still guides and protects the standing stone inspires peace and harmony and erases human boundaries that may be its greatest power [Applause] [Music] its origins are with the ancients in the long ago time [Music] [Applause] [Music] the great deed performed in battle the tracking and slaying of deer the bear the hunt the kill the dying warriors triumphs these are the tales told and retold through the dance this is the world he expresses through his rituals and it is through the ceremonial dances that these beliefs find their most visual form many are named for the animals the bear dance the tick dance the horned owl and snake dances which are not to be danced in summer for fear of offending the snake spirit there is the woman's cloth dance and many social dances all tied to the full range of life itself the arena would be like a big stage and the whole village would circle around and he would be telling the story to the entire village ira phillips has been dancing these dances since his youth one that is part of the busk or green corn ceremony is the stomp dance it's not really a stump it's more of a skit you uh you just kind of go just like that that's all that's all there is to it all right am i telling a story no you're not telling a story here this is just a religious dance it's kind of like going to the altar how do you tell a story well the stories are told by the by the war dancing and uh we can tell i can show you just a little bit how to do a story with uh with uh say a straight dancer it tells the story of someone tracking uh say you're tracking a an enemy and so you you're gonna go along and you're losing the you got the drum you're going like this and you're going along and you're looking for the tracks and you've kind of lost them so you get way down and you just pause a minute and maybe you take your fan and you wave just a little bit to glue the leaves and things away and then you sort of find it you say ah and you take it off here you go again before you found a guy in your aspect [Music] [Music] after the trail of tears the cherokees to the west adopted more of the ritual expressions of the civilized tribes and other dances from their plains indians brothers the pow wow is their communal celebration where dancers from many tribes share their stories today much of indian dancing is more a presentation of indian culture than a spiritual expression yet in this the gourd dance which honors fallen warriors the spirit of their fathers can be felt still [Music] [Music] it is their art one of the few things that remained from the long ago time before our grandfather's grandfathers when there was only anuiha the principal people [Music] [Music] the busiest thing around town was with was the barber shop on saturday night everybody go down to get a shave barber shops also had had a bath so that some of the some of the salesmen would come in from out of town right they'd they wouldn't stay over a hotel they'd go and get a bath there were still lots of teams with wagons and buggies but there were automobiles and the people would come out of town they'd come on the train this was the turn of the century knoxville tennessee was called the queen of the mountains the second largest wholesaling center south of the ohio river this was a boom period and to east congestion downtown work was begun in 1918 on a viaduct crossing the railroad tracks at the north end of gay street the original store fronts were buried and what used to be the second story was now the first k street had a slope much like this hill before the viaduct was built this is a burned out building what you have left is a good illustration of the different street levels on gay street is the concrete there is that the bottom level or was that added later i suspect that was the sidewalk and it was at the first floor level probably built before 1900 yeah i'd say before before 1880 changed the buildings because most of them put on new storefronts at that time so that what you see now is pretty much from the 20s instead of from the 1890s or 1900s this would not have been the original store entrance it should be down one story [Music] it's a history preserved in a most unlikely place down a flight of very dark stairs what was it was the original stork thought ever so this was the original storefront these were the entry doors above these doors and and store window would have been transoms to let more natural light into the storefront and then the original level of this of the sidewalk street would have been here these are concrete support beams for them for the viaduct and you can see the sidewalk grills up here with the light coming through one thing that you might want to notice is the difference between the brick on this side wall and what was the original front of the store later when the viaduct was built and it was decided that it was necessary to block this thoroughfare under the sidewalk these brick walls were built and no one took any particular pains either in brick selection or in mortar joints but everybody saw this when they walked down the street above the ground progress continues and some of the buildings that speak of knoxville's heritage are being restored sullivan's saloon was one of many taverns that served this former wholesaling center during its heyday soon it will attract a new crowd but down under the viaduct are shadows of knoxville's past for here below the noise and traffic of the city it will always be the turn of the century [Music] sometime when i when i feel burdened or something i can i can pour that out of me into the wood i might see a piece with my eyes closed and i have to do it see i have to get rid of it if i don't put it out it won't leave me all her life bessie harvey has watched the world and listened to her heart and her observations are given life and pieces of wood she collects in them she sees people animals glimpses of her ancestry today the artwork is everywhere around her alcoa tennessee home but many of the pieces seem to belong to a different age perhaps a different continent regardless of how many people are mixed or how many people live in america our ancestors were black and this comes this is black this is black and uh we we don't ever seem to thank god for what he give to us we always want woody give to somebody else some of her artwork is from all too recent times bessie harvey refuses to ignore history and to let it cause any more hurt what's that piece called well that piece there is either the thin line or the hanging tree and the thin lines there with all the eyes mean that all seeing eyes watching it all i think that's going to express a lot to the younger generation about what it used to be but that's gone and it won't be back a lot of times down through the years when we thought things were so hard it was just because he wanted to teach us love and no difference here right now where it used to be it would be a whole lot different [Music] oh that's first it was my first flight it was so beautiful up there and then i saw him like like standing over way out there all by himself in the cloud you know just a thunderhead it was the more whimsical pieces that first inspired bessie she found they had a purpose in her work at a nearby hospital a lot of old people be there and they're lonely and they're sick and they're hurting and you hurt with them and i began to take some of my work to cheer them up but bessie says her greatest inspiration is also the force behind her artwork i say all the time i am not the artist and i'm not because i couldn't shape those little sticks that much like people this is uh a church this is a black church of yesteryear the black churches now is a lot different to what i remember then because we had a stove which is i got in our church for heat and the old time old organ and the choir members and the lady with their fancy hats and now this bench over here with this guy is on his knees we used to sit on that bench it was called the moons bank and that was for people that wasn't saved you hear the music you could always hear black music if you ever hear it it stays in your head [Music] there's really only one [ __ ] hunter in this story he's the short four-legged fellow on the right the rest of us are only along for the ride this may seem like just another day at the office for jed but don't let him fool you this red bone hound is serious about his work you're ready to hit the trail it'll be jed's job to find the [ __ ] danny redmond and eldon burge will have to wait and hear from him before we even hit the woods jed's on to something but all the excitement's about we won't know do we get closer he's hugging that no such luck it's just a squirrel and that figures raccoons are clever and wily they can't be treated that easy anyway it's a good warm-up for jegs well we tried again jess danny redmond and jed are about as close as man and dog can get but when it comes to [ __ ] hunting they have to maintain a long distance relationship how far away might he be he's a little better than quarter's mouth sounds like by the sound of jed's barking danny knows jed's not found anything worthwhile so it's time to move on your deal yeah he'll yeah will he come in i believe he will he if he quits barking that means he's coming nightfall we've been on the hunt for three hours and the [ __ ] is still on the loose but jed's confident so where danny and eldon we're stepping in the right direction now you got your feet wet now bill you say your comes out you don't make a cookie so what is it that brings folks out on a night like this to slog through the cold and the muck gets in your blood you know unlike anything else you've got to do it or you think you have anyway jed has to that's for sure for him it's a challenge a [ __ ] dog in his prey are well-matched adversaries they both smart which everyone's the smartest or the [ __ ] losers you lose out on jazz they come in here he'll find it but the truth is we haven't heard from jed for well over an hour now for the first time we begin to consider his prey a raccoon can weigh up to 50 pounds once cornered there is no more ferocious fighter in these woods they work on a dog especially in the water get him in deep water and sit on top of that head and sound founding mother yeah i drowned that dog being careful another half hour has elapsed and still no sign of jed but fresh tracks tell us there was a [ __ ] here not long ago we can find old jed he's still working oh he was he's still hunting to come but he found it and he won't not on this particular night at least a disappointed jed reluctantly returns from the woods ged ready to go home now he's ready to give it give it up but the game is far from over there will be other nights jed will see to that you don't get enough of what you see just hey [Music] five thousand years ago a woman died she was buried near a river in the tennessee valley there were other members of her band buried here because it was easier to dig a grave with a stick and soft soil near water she had lived 35 years 10 years longer than the average of her race for nearly a year one of her teeth had abscessed and the resulting infection had spread she died of a fever the night before she was four feet nine inches tall and because she could not eat comfortably in her last days she weighed only 65 pounds the burial party was her husband her son and his wife her son the only child of five to live past four years carried her body it was wrapped in the dog hair blanket she had made during the first year of her marriage on which she bore her children and finally on which she had died the ceremony of her death was largely a personal one she had not been a woman of great stature in her band although she was respected as a healer they placed with her body the most cherished objects of her life a conch shell she used to administer medicine a wooden dipper she made as a child and her necklace the recognized symbol of her spirituality [Music] her body was sprinkled with ochre and iron oxide with it she had painted pottery decorated faces and now would go to the next world protected by it [Music] the woman's death was not a watershed event in history members of her tribe would come to the banks of this river for hundreds of years then they too would disappear but for the moment it is the grief of her small family that reaches through the millennium to us [Music] five thousand years after she dies a man will stick a steel probe into her grave strike her breast bone and break it dig up her remains and take her necklace to sell jill elmendorf is an archaeologist with the tennessee valley authority she sees the results of such grave robbing in her work i think a lot of people who do it do not think of themselves as grave robbers they're curious and they want to own things that are beautiful from the past they want to own a piece of the past and they don't stop to think that they're actually disturbing graves just as if someone were to go to a a cemetery mark cemetery and dig things up many people wouldn't do that but they would dig here what's the difference in an archaeologist digging something up and somebody else coming and robbing a grave for a treasure what's important to archaeologists is not the artifacts it's the context that they're found in there are so few sites left that archaeologists who who make a profession of course of digging things up try not to dig burials or dig sites unless they are endangered so many people are fascinated by pre-history and and that's one of the ways that people get involved in it by walking along and seeing something like an arrowhead and picking it up it and i don't think anybody can can just look at an arrowhead and not pick it up but to actually sit down to dig graves to look for things particularly if you're looking for things to sell them is is just a shame it's peaceful here on flat fork creek hear him that's lewis jones he lives near the foot of frozen head mountain on 120 acres his grandfather bought in 1868. where life's tasks are also its pleasures we need to go feed katie she's a hollering we've come to help lewis with his chores in the mighty scheme of things maybe not a particularly significant event but on this cold clear december morning at least it'll clear our heads how's that the old old time milking short horn or long derm durham look at that look at their ears red red ears and red heads yeah hi babies what's up what's up ladies stop babies suck babies suck suck come on buddies uh yeah come on now comes the little bull he's the one that slips out on me he slips out crawls through the fence that's what it fixing fence yesterday before this is indian ground this is where their big village was where are we going i go down here at the cornfield you see corn feed the cattle this is almost the lost ark that's getting going behind here most people get in the corner with a fisher picture but i never did look here you catch it like that just reach right up to the shank of it kick it like that right up here you see here there's been a mouse working on that one now we got that going finally at the creek of his youth we got a drink and lewis searched for the 200 year old trees his uncles carved on you never married dude no gosh no no what any reason well yes there's several reasons i'm the product of a broken home and i didn't want to pass that on to any children that's good reason that's darn good [Laughter] no it's always that always carries on for generations you have a lot of company up here for a solitary man don't you just about somebody here all the time you ever get lonely no i don't have time for that when i was a child i always played by myself and i didn't have anybody playing yet went somewhere look at that one look at that now them just the right size that i like i got enough turnips to sink a ship you always got something to do don't you oh yeah i've got something to do all the time i guess we weren't much help to lewis today but he sure was to us we're carrying home a basket full of accomplishments and a mind at rest life's tasks are its greatest pleasure lewis reminds us of that here on this ancient land endless tasks endless pleasures okay okay it's a beautiful day that's pretty easy to come time passes all too quickly during the year there never seems to be enough time to spend with the dear friends we've made over these past five years well today will make time after all it's christmas the kind forgiving charitable time wrote dickens so with that in mind we invite you to come along as we go visiting before we can even set out maude lindsey came by yes she had the same idea bless her heart she brought us another stack her husband carl's been busy putting up meat and putting in a pond since we saw them last the station isn't the best place to bring a snack cake though it'll be gone before we get back we visit lucinda ogle first and that only makes sense because she was the first person to share her life with us on the heartland series seems like a long time ago holly trees were used for christmas trees when she was growing up in the mountains that seems long ago too could you back up time and see that again because we didn't realize how happy we were because we didn't know any other life [Music] oh yeah we pick up a couple of christmas trees from a.d and walter bohannon if you ever wondered what happens to barefoot country boys when they grow up well here they are for them every day is christmas that's right if we get fish but if we have to stay honked up in the house it's just another day we thought we'd stop by and see ray schuler next he's not getting around so well these days and a lot of folks have been thinking about it the special thing about ray is that no matter how poorly he's feeling we're always welcome in his [Music] [Music] old house is still just as kind and gentle as the day we met him logging back in the mountains he developed a gift for handling horses he hasn't lost it odd's birthday was the day after we saw him he's 87. mr perky how you hear them though what do they want next old reagan maynard ledbetter is still just a kid like granny get old there it is at 83 he still goes hunting with his dogs every day it's pretty we told him we've been doing a little hunting ourselves lately yeah never got no [ __ ] well we we did it was just too dark you couldn't see it yeah yeah i think i've seen that on i've seen that on television and i seen you on you know the cooner that we got you got your feet wet in the yeah yeah maynard's just as hard to keep up with now as he ever was we're glad we could catch him today well come on in [Music] we regret we weren't able to see all of our old friends this holiday season but we keep you in our hearts just the same we hope that you're able to be with your loved ones this time of year from all of us here at the heartland series we wish you a merry christmas i'm bill landry in the great smoky mountains

Channel: WBIR Channel 10

Views: 38,713

Keywords: heartland series, heartland, Bill Landry, WBIR, entertainment, appalachian, appalachia, tennessee, east tennessee, The Heartland Series, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, great smoky mountains, mountain people, archive, Cades Cove, bill landry heartland series dvd, the heartland series with bill landry, Edye Ellis, Channel 10, Full episodes, Full Series, Full Volume, appalachian mountains, Great Smoky Mountains, Smokey Mountains, Smokies, the heartland series bill landry

Id: XUUM9tNPWXo

Length: 112min 39sec (6759 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021