KELSEY L. MOORE

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

 

His stories were legendary in our home. My father regaled us kids with tales about his childhood shenanigans, and his adventures were told with such descriptive detail that we could almost feel those sticky, humid nights in western Kentucky. He kept us riveted, spinning yarns of his humorous escapades, and we clamored for him to tell just one more story. Dad would smile benevolently at our eagerness, and then he and Mom would send us off to bed. He never gave into our pleas. Instead, he wisely chose to share his experiences at the opportune moment.

          

As a young child growing up in the suburbs, I envied my dad’s colorful childhood, and I told him as much. My sentiment amused him. He was born and raised in Princeton, Kentucky, whose rural population tallies up to just over 6,000 residents. It was – and is – the epitome of a small town, where everyone knew nearly everything there was to know about their fellow neighbors. It was a place where words had wings.

          

My father, James Sheldon Lantrip, was born on July 28, 1963. After his mother was wheeled into the recovery room, Doctor Jackson was astonished to discover that Betty Jean was carrying yet a second baby in her womb. Dad’s fraternal twin brother, Dale Eldon, was born moments later. The twins were raised by their single mother, who was merely 17 years old when she gave birth to them. Betty Jean did not graduate from high-school, but chose to raise the boys on her own – with support from her mother, Cumilla Oliver. As a grown man, my father pondered the gravity of his mother’s circumstances, observing that he did not realize how desperate his mother’s position must have been until he was much older.

          

Dad’s collection of stories stem from his personal experiences, and though they have been slightly embellished over the years, the pith of his narratives is rooted in truth. He has his twin brother Dale to vouch for their validity. The two brothers share a special bond. They were forged together in their mother’s womb, and their lives have intertwined ever since. The nature of their close relationship, their twin-ness, and the interesting perspectives they present when relating their childhood adventures have long intrigued me. When narrating their stories, my father and my uncle tend to emphasize different details. The information they each choose to include in their tales is a reflection of both their personality and their values. When I began to sift through their personal interviews, I noted similar patterns emerging in their stories.

          

Their childhood stories are meaningful to me on many levels. They are pieces of my heritage, bits of my history. As I began to reframe their stories, approaching their adventures from a fictional perspective based on their life experiences, I decided to focus on the importance of language and place. I wanted the twin stories to be written in the vernacular language that my father and uncle spoke when they were children. They were both fluent in the bluegrass dialect spoken by the residents of Princeton, Kentucky. As they matured, they adopted a Midwestern accent, learning to speak in Standard English rather than the Princeton dialect. Their place and culture changed. Occasionally, when they revisit their hometown, and sometimes when they relate their childhood stories, James and Dale lapse into the familiar bluegrass tongue. There is a certain musicality to the language pattern of the dialect that is particularly striking when stories or anecdotes are being told, and I wanted to recreate that musical cadence in my collection of perspective pieces.

          

To accomplish the desired language structure, I traveled to Princeton, Kentucky, with the intent of researching the bluegrass dialect. I was also interested in seeing the places where my father grew up – I wanted to represent a strong sense of place in the accounts. My Dad drove down with my husband and me, giving us the grand tour of his hometown. We visited the various houses he had lived in throughout his childhood years, from the abandoned shanty house off of Old Fredonia Road on the east side to the sturdy little brick house in the Bootsville Projects, clear on the west side of Princeton. We visited my Aunt Valinda and her family, and we also attended a local Baptist church service where her husband, my Uncle Bobby Dean, preached on the book of Ephesians chapter two. I collected recordings of the rich vernacular language, noted patterns of speech that were peculiar to the region, and learned how to properly use the term “fixin’ to” in a sentence.

          

When we ventured through Princeton in mid-March, the rolling hills of Kentucky were lush and green. We visited the cemetery where my Great-Grandmother Cumilla Oliver – fondly called Mam-maw by her family members – is buried. I was three when she died, so I only know her through the stories my father and relatives tell. Located out in the country, the cemetery was a peaceful place. Cattle grazed in an adjacent field, and birds filled the air with their cheerful songs. A mourning dove cooed from her perch in a nearby tree. The earth smelled like rain, and the ground was still damp from the recent downpour. We stood respectfully by Mam-maw’s final resting place. I could not discern my father’s thoughts. His Mam-maw had practically raised him and his three siblings. He told me that she taught him the value of kindness. In his stories, he paints her as the perfect pessimist, a caring and compassionate woman.  

          

My journey to Princeton was fruitful, yielding a bounty of language patterns and visual points of reference. I began establishing a firmer sense of place in the narratives, filling in the hitherto empty spaces with descriptive word pictures, fleshing out the various features of the houses and the surrounding areas that the boys mention in their respective narratives. The trees, which were mostly brush when my father was a child, had grown a considerable amount in 40 years, and they obscured the silver water tower that used to be visible from the Projects. We could no longer see the tall landmark from the front porch of the house where my father grew up. The scrawny trees had matured into a dense forest, and we had to search to locate the water tower. Time changes many things.

          

After returning home, I began sorting out the language patterns I encountered in Princeton. I transcribed my Uncle Bobby Dean’s lengthy sermon, focusing on the way he and fellow church members told anecdotes and stories, how they narrated by using anaphora to emphasize the importance of a point, usually in sets of three. I deliberated about how to represent the vernacular language in my writing. Princeton residents tend to leave off the ‘g’ when they’re sayin somethin. They also tend to use a lot of contractions in their sentences. I sought to strike a balance, not wanting to overuse apostrophes to represent the missing letter – which I felt cluttered up the page like unnecessary chicken scratch – but seeking to use them sparingly to add appropriate emphasis on certain words.

          

To inform my research, I consulted the International Dialects of English Archive – IDEA – and listened to their collection of Kentucky dialects. I came across a subject whose language patterns closely resembled the Princeton dialect: a 69 year old man from Marion, Kentucky. Marion is merely 22 miles away from Princeton, a nearby town with similar patterns of vernacular speech. The male subject’s orthographic transcription closely matched the language patterns I was using in my piece: the ‘g’ was sometimes left off of the –ing verb ending, but it was occasionally spoken. The inclusion of the ‘g’ sound depended on what the storyteller wanted to emphasize. The cadence of the man’s words also matched the samples that I had collected in Princeton. The orthographic transcription on IDEA’s site helped confirm my decision to emphasize select verb endings with apostrophes.

          

I returned to my project with renewed vigor. I decided to read the prose aloud to get a better sense of the language and rhythm. I played with various wordings, coupling certain shortened words with other abbreviated terms, until I was satisfied. The twin stories have a poetic, lyrical quality. I sought to represent the musicality of the vernacular language, paying particular attention to rhythm, using anaphora when appropriate. When narrated in the tone of the bluegrass dialect, set in the clay hills of western Kentucky, the stories become significant. The words reflect the culture and values of the young boys from Princeton, transforming their personal narratives and beckoning to the audience, inviting them to experience the shenanigans alongside the towheaded twins.     

          

For my Dad, these childhood narratives have served as a link to his past, a reminder of where his roots were established. Prominent in his tales is the theme of overcoming. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of his narratives is the intrinsic nature of his twin-ness. The theme of twin-ness is prominent in Dale’s stories as well. The nature of their twin-ship is the unifying theme in their tales. Although their individual versions focus on different aspects, emphasizing different details, developing their personal character and personality and values, the nature of their twin-ness is what binds their stories together.

           

The following chapters represent the twins’ adventures, and are based on their actual childhood experiences in Princeton, Kentucky. Set in the mid-seventies, the narratives are a series of perspective pieces, told in the voice and style of the narrator. The boys relate their version of the story, because, as we have undoubtedly heard before, there are at least two sides to every story. These pieces are a tribute to memory, to adventure, to language, to family, and to the people who have shaped us.