"The Mountain, the Miner, and the Lord and Other Tales from a Country Law Office by Harry M. Caudill" An easy fun read, recommended if you like anecdotally written Southern stories.

I recently found this book on ebay by accident while searching for something else entirely. It is basically a collection of tales about individuals and events the author met or heard during his career as a small town lawyer in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. I wouldn't call it a great read, but it is a good read which closely resembles the kind of stories I heard in E Texas when I was a kid. Just as in this book, the Civil War, which was over 90 years before I was listening to stories in E Texas, was still very much a current event to the tellers.

Much of these stories center near or around Whitesburg, Kentucky. Completely unrelated, I recently bought a boat on ebay and drove up there to pick it up and trailer it back home. I wish I had known of and read this book before I went. The whole area, is quite vertical and I was pretty occupied pulling a heavy boat, but the stories in this book would have made it a much more interesting trip.

I guess my favorite was of the boy named "Little Thuggie". I'm not going to re-tell it in detail but it is a story of tough times and how tough these people were and are. This area was a hot bed of the "coal wars" where the mine owners were fighting tooth and nail against unionization, principally by the United Mine Workers. There was assault, murder, and extremely hard feelings on both sides. The "Little Thuggie" story shows how everyone, men, women, and children were affected.

The story unfolds as an old couple, the husband with black lung and on his last legs, comes to the law office with their 35 year old son. Wife calls son, "Little Thuggie". Lawyer asks why, and after a long pause, her husband gives her permission to tell story. One of the Mine Companies guards, from Alabama, was particularly brutal and hated by all the miners, men and women. Wife tells husband he ain't getting any more sex while that thug is still alive. Husband thinks on it awhile, stalking Thug, learning his habits (note, if you've got enemies, don't get into patterns of behavior), goes out of county to buy 4 Winchester Super-X 00 buckshot shells. Soon thereafter, Thug parks in his usual evening spot, and meets his end with a load of OO to the head. 9 months later to the day, the son, now 35, was born. His name was Lewis Delano, but his mother called him, "Little Thuggie".

This book was published in 1980 but is still available on Amazon and Ebay. The cheapest I found was less than $5 on Amazon's used book sellers. A decent read which I feel will appeal to Texans and others who grew up in rural areas with their great oral traditions.

The second war of American independance is still relevant and a hot topic of conversation down here.