please don't say goodbye
climb into your rusted blue
'46 Dodge pickup and yes
head west dropping beer cans
through the hole in the floor
right next to the gear shift
scatter Budweisers cross Kansas
please don't look back don't
wave don't cry hold onto
that damn vibrating pulling hard to the left
steering wheel and every time you stop
for gas or to take a beer piss
make sure and check the air
in that bald right front tire
here's 23 dollars it's all i've got
and no shut the hell up i don't
want to hear it i want you
to have it don't look back 
you'll always be with me no matter
where you go and i with you
please don't say goodbye
nothing is lost nothing forgotten
 
 
ron whitehead, vagabond poet
june 10, 2009
living in and on the wind
aha
 
copyright (c) 2009 ron whitehead

a new book of revelations
 

for my Father
 

 
from atop a rocky mountain, sunrise,
 
amethyst, asphodel, azure, bronze, copper,
diamond, dust, ebony, emerald, gold, indigo,
jade, jasper, lavender, opal, pearl, pine, resin,
sapphire, silver, turquoise, water, wine, woodsmoke,
 
from atop a rocky mountain, sunrise,
the Greek island of Patmos,
the Monastery of The Apocalypse in clear view,
writing a new book of revelations,
 
I've come in search of you,
and from atop this rocky mountain, at sunrise,
I see you, you, the strongest man I've ever known,
I see you, in the distance, standing now,
 
fatherhood duties done, standing, one last time,
before departing, into spirit, I see you, in the distance,
standing alone, at the top of the hill overlooking the farm,
woods behind, providing shade and comfort,
 
but all you see is the farm, pond churning with
blue and gray catfish, meadows grazed by red and white
herefords, cows and bull, chickens and roosters clucking
and crowing round and in the coup, tall tassled corn,
 
gleaming green soybeans, Mama and us kids,
Brad Paddy Edie Robin Velvet me, hoeing in the garden,
bird dogs in their pens, the old red barn, silver tin roof,
filled with hay and corn and the 1010 John Deere tractor,
 
and with broke down lawnmowers, harness, saddles,
tools tools tools, wasps, yellow jackets, mud dobbers,
black snakes, kittens, puppies, spiders, cow manure,
coal black black coal in the shed, and in the barnyard,
 
pigs, goats, horses, beehives, Kentucky wildflowers,
and trees, near and afar, trees, maple, elm, oak, cedar,
pine, dogwood, redbud, sassafrass, giant white barked sycamore,
and, resting in the midst of all this beauty, our farmhouse,
 
our farmhouse, over the everflowing seasons, spring summer
fall winter, our farmhouse grew, one room at a time, for years,
an outhouse, then indoor plumbing, for years a back porch,
became a kitchen, an unfinished attic, birthed a small unfinished
 
bedroom, wind whistling singing through holes in the walls, 
conjuring the spirits of our dead relatives, loving kinfolk, whispering
appearing to us, Brad and me, sleeping there, in the attic, each night,
our farmhouse, our home, and home to relatives friends strangers,
 
whoever knocked was welcome, you and Mama made it so,
our coal and wood furnaced farmhouse, always welcoming all,
filled to overflowing with amazing brilliant hued stories of birth,
the journey, and death, pain and beauty, tears heartache laughter
 
and angelic music singing Amazing Grace morning noon night
season into season embracing letting go you hold now, before finally letting go, 
you hold nestle all of it all of us close to your heart, you hold all of it all of us
deep in your heart, as you, in the distance, stand now, alone,
 
fatherhood duties done, standing, one last time, before departing,
into spirit, I see you, there you are, the strongest best man I've ever known,
there, clearly, I see you, in the distance, my dear Father, my dear
dear Father, and and it's the loneliest picture I've ever seen.
 
from atop a rocky mountain, sunrise
 
 
Farewell Daddy
we'll never be apart
I love you forever
your loving son
Ron
june 11, 2009
aha
 
Ron Whitehead
 
copyright (c) 2009 Ron Whitehead

Ron's Velocity Advice Column for 6/24/09 (sneak preview)

Thank You to the thousands of dearest family & friends
(who i/we consdier family) thank you for attending Daddy's
visitation & funeral & cards & calls & flowers & food & good
vibrations & & & all the gestures of love. 
Daddy & Mama are my two greatest teachers. i am so honored 
to be part of this amazing family.. 
your loving friend forever
Ron

i did this interview w/Daddy for WESTERN KENTUCKY book

(I did this interview with Daddy in 2004 for the book 
WESTERN KENTUCKY: Lost & Forgotten, Found & Remembered. 
Sarah Elizabeth and I wrote the book after we completed 
our 325 mile 19 day backroads and railroads hike from 
Louisville, Kentucky's Cherokee Park to the confluence
 of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. I'm so thankful 
we interviewed all four of our parents and included
 the interviews in the book.)
 
Ron: What’s your full name? 
Greta: Ed, don’t make an ass out of yerself! 
  
Ron: What is your full name? Hey look—-this interview—-people 
are gonna be reading this in the book and they don’t know 
anything about you—- 
Ron’s Daddy: They don’t need to know. 
  
Ron: What is your full name?  
Ron’s Daddy: Edwin Whitehead 
  
Ron: Why don’t you have a middle name? 
Ed: They had so many kids, they run out of names! 
  
Ron: When and where were you born? 
Ed: Born on a ridge out of Centertown bout a mile. 
  
Ron: When? 
Ed: July 31, 1928. 
  
Ron: What are your parents’ names? 
Ed: No electricity. No running water. 
Ron: What are your parents’ names? 
Ed: Jasper Whitehead and Nola Snodgrass Whitehead. 
  
Ron: What did they do for a livin? 
Ed: Dad had a small farm and he worked at the mines…when 
the mines were workin. A lot of times during the depression
 the mines wudn’t workin. He worked at one mine when I was
 a little boy—-we had no telephone-—nobody in the area that 
worked in the mines had a telephone. The mine had a steam 
whistle. One of the kids was designated to sit out on a 
ridge and listen to the whistle. If they blew the whistle 
two times it meant work. 
  
Ron: Did he work underground or strip mine? 
Ed: He worked some underground. He worked the railroad 
some when he was young. He worked outside. He worked on 
the first steam strip shovel that ever come in this country.     
  
Ron: How many brothers and sisters do you have and where 
are you in the pecking order? 
Ed: Where am I what? 
  
Ron: How many brothers and sisters do you have-—how many 
were in yer—-how many kids were in your family? 
Ed: 11—-and I’m number 4 from the bottom. 
  
Ron: So yer number 7? 
Ed: Yeah, I never thought about it that way. 
  
Ron: What was life like for you growing up in western Kentucky? 
Ed: Well, we lived on a dirt road. It was dusty in the 
summertime and mud in the winter. We walked through the woods
 to school. Only way to get to town was on horseback, or 
in a roadwagon or walk. No Electricity. No running water.
 We drew water out of a deep well in the front yard. 
I remember one time, we’s out of water at home, the pond 
went dry. So we loaded all the clothes and went to Ross’s
 Riffle on Rough Creek to wash. Stayed all day, built up
 the fire, put the kettle on, boiled the clothes there and
 washed at the creek. 
  
Ron: Did you have an outhouse? 
Ed: Yeah. When I was a little boy, the WPA came and built 
a brand new outhouse. A double-seater. They went through
 the country and built outhouses for people. The old outhouses
 were wood, but these had concrete. 
  
Greta: They were great! 
  
Ron: What two stories stand out the most for you from
 your childhood? 
Ed: Ya mean grocery stores in Centertown? 
  
Ron: No. What two stories stand out the most for you from 
your childhood? Events. Happenings. What happened to you
 in your childhood that was dramatic?…. Did anybody stick 
a hatchet in yer head? 
Ed: Yeah, but that wudn’t no big event. My sister hit me 
in the head with an ax. I was five-—real young. She was 
choppin on a bush and I wanted to chop and she wouldn’t
 let me. She turned around and hit me in the head with 
the ax. I still got the scar. 
One thing I remember. There was an airplane writing in
 the sky. He put something in his gasoline and his exhaust
 was comin out white. He wrote some kind of advertisement
 for some kind of gas and oil. And two or three families 
down the ridge all come up the road a runnin, “The world’s
 comin to an end!” Thought it was all over with! I remember
 that. 
My sister, Maybelle, attended—-what’s the name of that
 college she attended? 
  
Ron’s sister Edie, sitting at the kitchen table: Union. 
Ed: A Methodist college… 
Sarah, Ron, Greta, & Edie in unison: Union! 
Edie: In Barbourville. 
Ed: And when I was a kid, Aurora borealis, we called them 
northern lights, scared a lot of people. They thought it
 was all over with that night. They ran in churches screamin
 and hollerin, “Pray for me!” 
For some reason Maybelle and them—-they kept track of that 
stuff and they knew this was gonna happen. So we always 
knew what was gonna happen. But it scared a lot of people 
to death. 
  
Ron: Can you think of one other story from your childhood 
that stands out? 
Ed: Dad and me, we was goin down the road. I always had 
to go where he went. I went with him in the old roadwagon.
 He was goin somewhere far. He broke his wheat cradle.
 Mr. Bean lived out here. He knew Dad was a hard worker. 
And he said, “Jasper, what’er you doin out here on a 
day like this?” 
He said, “Well I broke my wheat cradle.” 
Dad had a field of wheat and he cradled it by hand.
 He’d make himself a pass. I’d follow him around. 
And he’d have a bundle. 
Mr. Bean said, “There’s one hangin in the barn out 
there. Go git it and cut yer wheat.” 
  
Another time I was with him in the old roadwagon,
 we was goin to go to Centertown. And Dad said, 
“Ed, I’m gonna have to go on toward Matanzas.” 
It was a hot day. I guess it was about one or two o’clock. 
He said, “You go back home. You stop at Robert’s store
 and git you something to eat. Here’s a nickel.
 Git you a baloney sandwich.” 
You could buy baloney and crackers for a nickel. 
Well I never had all the chewing gum I wanted, so when
 I got to the store I already knew what I’s gonna do.
 I bought a whole package of chewing gum. I didn’t get 
anything to drink. When I got home I had that whole package
 of gum in my mouth. Course they all laughed at me. 
Ron: When did you first start working? 
Ed: I started planting corn when I was twelve years old 
with horses. Dad had some ground rented on Rough Creek. 
One day it come up a storm. We unhooked the horses and 
was hurryin to the barn. My horse run under a tree limb
 and knocked me off. But it didn’t hurt me. From that 
time on, I worked teams of horses all my life. 
Three days before I’s eighteen, I started working 
public works. I worked cuttin right of way into Peabody
 and they put a mine in at Centertown. And I cut a right
 of way into Ken Mine. I stayed at Ken rest of my life. 
  
Ron: Where did you go to school? 
Ed: Centertown. 
  
Ron: How long did you go? 
Ed: Til the 9th grade. 
  
Ron: Why did you quit? 
Ed: I’d rather been workin. 
  
Ron: When did you get married? 
Ed: That’s too far back for me to remember. 1950? I was 20
 I guess. I had a car. And if you had a car, you could get 
a woman back then. 
 

Ron: How did you meet Greta? 
Ed: Her dad run a barbershop in a shed somewhere. Her and
 her sisters and brothers would be in there shinin shoes 
or somethin. They had that Blue Bus Café. She worked in
 there too. She was runnin after me more than I’s runnin 
after her. 
  
Ron: How many children do you have? 
Ed: six. 
  
Ron: How many grandchildren? 
Ed: Lord, sixteen I think. Three…Four…Five… (laughs) 
  
Ron: When did you start workin for Peabody Coal Company? 
Ed: 1946. 
  
Ron: How many years did you work for Peabody Coal Company? 
Ed: 43. 
  
Ron: All those years at Ken Mine? 
Ed: Yeah. Lord I did several jobs. I run a dragline.
 I run a dozer. Drove a truck. First I was a laborer.
 I went from 1st shift to 3rd shift operator. That was 
horrible. I’d throw water in my face and slap my jaws.
 I hated midnight shifts. Worst shifts I ever put up with. 
In 1963 they brought in a 60-yard dragline. I started runnin
 it. Then I put it on a barge and took it across the river.
 Then they brought a 100-yard dragline in and I run it til 
I retired. It was a monster. 
  
Ron: How high was it? 
Ed: The boom was 265 feet. 
It moved on two big shoes like duck feet. 
  
Ron: What was the most difficult part of operating that 
for you? 
Ed: We worked on a highwall. We would walk it right out
 to the edge of the highwall and the base of it would be
 hangin off the edge of the highwall. You would swing it 
around and you’d look straight down 65 or 70 feet sometimes.
 You had to be very careful and have it on dry ground. One
 guy almost pulled it in a pit. He threw his bucket out to 
fill it full of dirt. Instead of the bucket comin to him, 
the dragline had been moved on wet ground, it started toward
 the bucket. It scared all of em to death and they shut it 
down and went home. It was a stressful job. Peabody was 
always wantin more yardage, wantin more coal. 
  
Ron: What kind of role has religion played in your life? 
Ed: More than anything else, my children and their lives
 have been an inspiration to me, more than the other 
people I have known that were Christians. 
  
Ron: What is your opinion of western Kentucky? 
Ed: It needs rain. 
Ron: Good Answer. 
  
Ron: Name and describe two events that stand out in your 
life? 
Ed: My friend and neighbor down here, Gerald Wilkins, we
 called him Budgie, come by one morning. I was workin in
 my garden. He kicked his ol truck outta gear and rolled 
down the hill outta gear. He crawled over in the fescue 
and I had my back to the road. I wudn’t payin any attention.
 All of a sudden he squalled like a wildcat and I jumped
 and turned around. He raised up out of the grass and
 laughed and laughed. 
That afternoon I was out in the garden working. Greta 
come out there and said, “Budgie’s dead.” 
I’ll never forget that. We fished together and anytime 
he saw me outside, he stopped. He was a good friend. 
Close friend. 
Another event was when my brother Roy died. He worked on 
the dragline with me over there. He worked third shift. 
He had arthritis real bad. He climbed the boom every night 
regardless if it was rainin or what it was doin, he’d
 inspect the boom. His arthritis was getting worse and worse. 
I told the superintendent I didn’t want Roy to climb the 
boom anymore. Me and the superintendent was good friends, 
so Roy didn’t have to climb the boom anymore. 
When Roy left Centertown, that was a sad day. He didn’t
 live very long after that. Some doctor killed him in Owensboro. 
They gave him something for his arthritis that was wrong. 
  
Ron: What place more than any other do you consider home? 
Ed: Ohio County, Kentucky. 
  
Ron: Where do you want to be buried? 
Ed: In the ground. 

  
 


 
We are The Storm Generation
"...don't look back you'll always be with me no matter 
where you go and I with you
please don't say goodbye nothing is lost nothing forgotten" 
Ron Whitehead
 
Pulitzer and Nobel nominated Ron Whitehead, the author
 of 19 books, has presented over 6,000 performances of 
his creative work with some of the best singers,
 musicians, poets, writers, dancers, photographers, 
artists, filmmakers round the world. He has work
 on 25 cds. Recently returned from performances, 
and film work, in Nicaragua, California, and New York City, 
he will soon head to Iceland, The Netherlands, and Brazil, 
to name only a few, for performances, talks, recording and 
film sessions. He is presently working on a multitude of 
new solo and collaborative creative projects with folks 
round the world. When not traveling Ron lives in various Kentucky locations. 
www.tappingmyownphone.com, 
http://budurl.com/bonefan, 
www.lucentphotography.net