When we lived on the farm we used wood for heat, my Dad and I cut oaks with a cross cut saw, this was a job as we cut it in sections and rolled it down the hollow above our house where it became my job to burst it with a go devil and wedges. We would usually find a straight grain tree so that I would just have to use the go devil.
I remember one day we received a terrible scare, when we cut the logs in rounds we would roll them down the hollow, they would usually hit another tree and stop, but one day we had cut a large red oak on the top of the mountain at the head of the hollow, we turned a large round loose and listened as it continued to roll, my Mom was at the kitchen stove cooking which was just beside the back door. The round kept gaining speed and we heard it hit the back door with an explosion and heard Mom scream, terrified we had hit her we rushed down the hollow to find the door jamb and door laying in the kitchen floor where it had landed right behind her. We were glad she was only scared and spent the rest of the day repairing the door jamb, luckily the door was a solid oak door which survived the collision. However we weren’t very popular with Mom for a while.
We were much more careful about rolling the rounds end over end so they were much more likely to stop before reaching the house.
My Dad and I also cut enough pine logs with a cross cut on a steep mountain slope to build two barns. We used a cross cut or bow saw until I was grown when I purchased my first chain saw, this was some of the best money I ever spent but I still remember how to use a bottle of kerosene with a rag wick to clean resin off a saw blade and sharpen and set cross cut saw teeth which I doubt many of my generation can do.
—Bill Burnett 2019
Bill was a true friend to the Blind Pig and The Acorn. He died back in 2020. I only got to meet him in person a few times, but I enjoyed his comments about mountain living for many years.
Pap and his buddies used to roll rocks down the mountain for fun. You can read about the big rock that ended that game for him here.
Last night’s video: Matt’s Old Pictures: Prom, Christmas, Dating Me & More!
Tipper
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
Hey Tipper and all. This “rolling” things reminds me of my friend. It came a great big snow. Him and his 6 brothers decided to see how big of a snowball they could make. They worked on this snowball above their old farm house for hours and it got so big they couldn’t handle the weight of it. It got loose and took off down the hill, tore through the yard fence at the gate and went through the kitchen door where their mommie was cooking lunch. The door did not survive and they didn’t think they would either before their daddy got done with them. To this day you can say “snowball” and they all change the subject. Ha! Their mommie was fine but lunch had to be delayed a while! Ya’ll have a blessed day!
I remember ‘go devils’ from my daddy’s logging days. Tipper, you had an article in BP&A back in October of 2020 with Matt and it being ‘go devil time.’ Loved the old photo’s memory lane time from Matt’s albums in last evening video. What you said was so true – for me anyway – that it doesn’t matter if you know the people or not it is special to go through old photo’s and think of what life and the styles was like back then. Have a great day y’all!!
Thank goodness mama was okay. It takes some strong men to work that hard and I have never heard of the term “go devil” that is used for a tool that splits logs.
Bill wrote a great memory to share when he was living. Tipper, I know you miss Bill posting and sharing his life stories with you and with the BPAA family/friends. I can just imagine his mom going about her daily chore of preparing a meal for the family and WHAM the back door bust right off its hinges to land flat behind her. No wonder they heard her screaming all the way up the mountain side. It was a blessing it was only the door frame that got damaged on the house. Now days homes aren’t built that strong. Now days if any part of a tree hits a house, well most the house gets taken out. Anyway, Bill sure sounded like a wonderful man and his mom a strong woman to live through that scare.
My uncle made his living in the logging business in eastern Kentucky before moving to Ohio, where he continued using a crosscut saw and rolling full-length logs to the bottom of the mountain. He tried to avoid working in the dangerous coal mines but found logging was just as dangerous. His grandson owns and operates a successful multi-state logging company with equipment and employees that cut hundreds of trees per day without rolling them down the hill like his papaw did. I might need to roll some logs down the hill if this Arctic blast continues much longer. I heard we could have another snowstorm next Wednesday and again next weekend.
Rollin’ things is a (usually) good country boy pastime. To some, anything that will roll located on or near a slope just can’t be resisted. Even things that won’t roll, such as snags, need pushed over at least. That can also be scary if the top breaks out and falls (as they usually do) backwards. Us boys that grew up half wild in the woods worked our angels overtime. I don’t know how but neither myself nor my brother have ever had a broken bone – yet. Grace of God I reckon. Dad never did either until the mine rockfall.
I can only imagine how frightened his mom must have been. Thankfully the door jamb was the only casualty. Enjoyed last night’s video. It’s always fun looking at old photos.
I disagree, chances are the boys underwear also didn’t survive!
It was Bill and his father not boys! I knew both men and Bill’s mother Dot. I’m sure their underwear was fine. Dot was a strong willed but I doubt she would have stood up against her husband and son for an accident in the woods. They were just trying to cut wood to keep her warm and for her to cook for the family.
such an interesting story! I can’t imagine the terror they had in their hearts as they raced to see if their momma had been hurt!
Off the subject, Tipper, did you mean to have the comments turned off for the Matt family pictures video last night? I too, love seeing pictures of people I may not know. Matt’s pictures were awesome! Just wondering. Have a great day to all the BPATA!
Linda-glad you enjoyed it! I don’t know what happened with the video. Maybe a YouTube glitch? Hopefully that won’t happen again 🙂
I’ll bet it was too many pictures with rifles and shotguns in them.
Ed-I didn’t even think about that 🙂
Rollin, rollin, rollin,
keep them logs a rollin
Rawhide ♫♫
Bill was a stellar son of the Smokies, a staunch friend and admirer of this blog, and a fellow I’m proud to have called a friend. I miss his comments and I miss this fine and insightful man.
Didn’t think of this in my earlier comment, how many have heard of a “widow maker” when cutting down trees. It is a tree hat lodges in another tree without falling to the ground after being cut. By cutting trees on our property, I always had a trailer and my tractor with me and would pull the tree down with a chain and my tractor whenever possible. Being a flat lander, I never rolled trees.
A 9 foot long limb weighing about 40 lbs came near making my wife a widow in 2023. It fell about 50 feet and split my head open and fractured my neck in three places. She won’t let me near the chain saw anymore.
I thought a “widow maker” was a loose limb in the tree being cut or a nearby one. It gets pulled loose when the tree starts to fall and comes down on the guy with the saw. He’s watching the tree he has just cut off and doesn’t see it coming.
I keep a chain saw in my house. It is loaded and ready to fire (up). With all the wild weather we are having I might have to cut my way out.
I’m reminded of the movie Black Sheep where a boulder rolled into the cabin from the hill above leaving a guy with “chocolate pudding” but no pudding had been made. It’s a good and funny and old movie. Since Helene hit here in WV and knocked down literally thousands of hickory trees and oak trees in its aftermath, I hear and see nonstop chain saws. I myself have piles of hickory and it’s just sitting all over the yard…I’m not the only one-believe that. Out of all this fallen, not one lumber company showed interest in any of the wood. I have neighbors burning fresh hickory and it sorta choked ya smelling its smoke, but to each his own and tree cutting is daggone dangerous! True story-a mean lumber man ran his crew off cursing them in TN. He was very mean and just brutal so know it all Sam went out cutting by himself. After he cut into his leg really bad, he literally had a stick to change gears and drive himself to the hospital after somehow hoisting his bloody almost severed limb into the truck…I don’t think anybody cared in the least about that guy. be careful out there and be kind…
Sadie, most loggers don’t want to use a chainsaw nowadays, they now have tractor type of equipment that will do everything from cutting the tree down to loading it on the back of a truck without them ever leaving their seat. A friend of mine has several acres of blown down prime quality white and red oak trees that the loggers will not touch because of having to cut it with chainsaws.
Here I go with another story, on May 5, 1933, a tornado came out of Georgia across Anderson, SC and touched down in Belton, SC and destroyed Blair Mill and the Belton square. It then came through southern Greenville County (Lebanon Community)and across my Granddaddy’s property before it destroyed my Mother’s Aunt, Uncle and cousins home killing 5 of them. Her uncle was not home and was not killed. ( Thompson’s) When I was cutting firewood 40 years latter in the path of the tornado across my Granddaddy’s property, I cut some oak trees that had the grain of wood in the trunks for 4-5 feet twisted and matted up just like with sweet gum. Along with my Daddy, we figured these trees were young saplings when the tornado came through and had twisted these trees causing the grain of the wood to be twisted. Anyone interested can read about it by googling Belton, SC tornado May 5, 1933.
For pure tee meaness but fun give a “greenhorn” a go devil and tell him to split a large block of green sweet gum wood.
I am proud to say that Bill was a cousin of mine and a true friend. One thing about Bill’s story I’d like to make clearer. In the rugged mountainous terrain where Bill and I grew up, “rolling” the chunks of wood down the mountain doesn’t seem to adequately describe to violence of the event. When these cuts of wood reached terminal velocity they were falling more than rolling. They weren’t “rolling” as much as they were bouncing. Their airtime was most often much greater than their ground time.
Bill’s use of the word “burst” seems odd. He knew that the word was “bust”. That must have been one of them instances where Spellcheck intervened and he failed to notice it. It happens to me all the time!
it was nice to hear the use of “go devil” in describing the tool used in splitting logs for firewood. I had not heard that term anywhere outside of the Whitetop, VA area, although as I still use firewood, I still use my go devil regularly.
I’m from Southwestern NC and “Go Devil” was common in my growing up years.
i well remember at age 10 being introduced to the cross cut saw,bow saw and a small rag stuffed coke bottle filled with kerosene when i was included in helping my dad and grandad clean up a six acre pine grove that had been felled to make wsy for what would become a watermelon field in n.w fla. i was 10 yo at the time.was hard st times but i loved it.
That’s an amazing story. I know it must’ve scared them to pieces thinking they’d hurt their mama. They must have been extremely strong to be able to work that hard.
I have cut a lot of firewood and some pine pulpwood in my lifetime. The pulpwood was cut into 5 ft lengths and then loaded, often by hand, crossways on the frame behind the cab of an old beat up truck. After cutting and then hand loading several cords of pulpwood, you don’t need to go to the gym to exercise! I cut all of this wood with two chainsaws, one was a smaller straight blade saw and the other was a larger bow blade saw. A bow blade was considered dangerous by many but was a back saver. If it is used like it was intended to be used, I don’t think it was any more dangerous than a straight blade. A flat blade screwdriver can be dangerous if not used for it’s intended purpose. In Bill’s story, I bet the door frame was not the only casualty, I bet at least two pairs of underwear were also casualties!
I want to thank everyone for yesterday’s birthday comments to me. Many of you had kind words for me… I think some of you had me confused with someone else! There were other members that also had birthdays at about the same time, I hope all of them also had happy birthdays.
Hi Randy, it’s me Donna in central Oklahoma!!
You survived your birthday!!! Yeah. I’m not sure why I never see my post for the day. And I never saw your reply on the candles incident. See you have great stories that you need to write down, so your grandson will have something to read to his children, when the time comes! The antics of my grandfather…or better..your great grandfather!!
I sent an email to Tipper yesterday at the gmail address. Asking her what I’m doing wrong on my end on why I can’t see my post or your reply!!
She did a post a couple of weeks ago about pen pals. So I’ve added my name to the list.
Do have a great day and weekend.
I will try again, it was really nothing. I said my friend’s wife baked me a cake she called an ugly cake. The icing is put in the pan first and then the batter, it reminded me of a cobbler pie without the fruit filling. The icing was very sweet, I think it was mostly melted sugar. About the candles, I said I would need a burn permit to light that many candles on my cake and then they would probably melt the icing.
My wife made Mississippi Mud cakes.