My Deddy Hollered

[donbosco]

My Deddy was generally a very quiet man but he also hollered. He hollered up our cows. The sound he made might be best spelled out as “Swuuu-Kaaa, swuuu-kaaa!” I always associated it with “Soo Cow.” When he belted that call across the pasture his cows would literally come running to the barn. I can do it too but not with the texture and tenor that he brought to bear.

Back in 2019 I reached back into that #DeepChatham memory and shouted out during a talk on such things held at @pack.memorial.library in #AVL. I hadn’t intended to do such a thing nor even imagined there would be an opportunity. I did so rather suddenly and with no practice but it proved to be akin to the proverbial ‘riding a bicycle’ and it was a release - a timeless one - that transported me back to Grandpa Willis Dunn’s farm at #SandyBranch and all those afternoons of counting and feeding and watering Deddy’s herd.

We, he and I, spent good time together ‘down there’ working, often with few words passed that weren’t essential. Nods, gestures, even yelps and grunts communicated a good deal. And there were the ‘hollers’ too. It brought us close in the way that laboring shoulder-to-shoulder does.

Common goals of coordinated effort but simple strategy shared can be quite beautiful and binding. Just moving 30 assorted head of cattle up the road from one field to another meant learning not to move too fast lest one skittish cow spook the rest but not too slow otherwise they scatter or one or two turn to wander. We were a team of two in those moments and never so close doing anything else. And that sweet sound of ‘Swuuu-Kaa’ was the yawp that always kicked it off. What I’d give to hear it one more time.

I bring this up because back in June of 1969 (28th) the 1st National Hollerin’ Contest was held in Spivey’s Corner (Sampson County). A traditional way of communication, often work-related that connected with farm culture before technology was prevalent. Many people around the country became familiar with the contest, often in a campy way unfortunately, by way of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” where the champ would often show and ‘Holler.’ People came to expect the yearly visit by a country Tar Heel and it surely added to a hayseed image that stood in stark contradiction but most often overrode that of RTP or our multiple universities. Such is, to paraphrase Rob Christiansen, The Paradox of the Tar Heel State.

The contest grew very popular but was suspended in 2016 - I gave no idea why. Perhaps the true hollerers had dwindled or maybe they didn’t want to show off or out anymore or maybe it was just too much trouble. There have been disparate efforts at holding the contest in the years since - to no avail as far as I know. A Hollerin’ Contest in Sampson County ‬



Photo is of H.H. Oliver of near Goldsboro, the 1970 champion. Thanks to The N.C. Office of Archives and History.

 

[HandsonFire]

I remember the local phone book growing up had a map of the state on the back with towns and a reason to visitor something like that. And I always remember seeing the hollerin contest at Spiveys Cornwr and my childhood imagination painting some interesting images of what that must be like.

 

[Centerpiece]

 

[nycfan]

My mom used a cowbell to summon us home instead of hollering. The deal was you better not be far enough away that you can't hear the cowbell. And everyone in the neighborhood knew the cowbell was for us. *sigh*


It took me years to warm up to this SNL skit as a result. When you spend your childhood answering to a cowbell, you don't really need more cowbell.

 

[TarSpiel]

Did not ever expect to read "mom called us in with a cowbell" in the same sentence as "everyone in our neighborhood"...

 

[nycfan]

Did not ever expect to read "mom called us in with a cowbell" in the same sentence as "everyone in our neighborhood"...

Yeah, we lived in a neighborhood plopped down in a rural stretch of NC-268. One acre lots and mostly modest homes, plus a few nicer ones and a larger spread with cattle at one end. But my mom grew up in the middle of nowhere mountains between Millers Creek and the Jumping Off Place (Jumpin Off Rock), hence the cowbell …

 

[mpaer]

My father always used a two finger whistle to "call for Supper "

 

[Ddseddse]

One of my sharpest childhood memories is dad waking me up at 2am with "Cows are out!". I'm maybe 6 or 7. We pile in the pickup and drive to a deserted stretch of road and Dad stops the truck in the road leaving the headlight on, hands me a pick handle, tells me he'a going to chase the cows down the road towards me and when they get to me I should use the pick handle make the cows go back through the hole in the fence., He heads off in to the blackness and I sit there shivering all alone for about 10 minutes and then I hear about 20 head of cattle heading coming down the road towards me. I remember whacking them with all my 7yo might with that pick handle to absolutely no effect whatsoever. I don't remember clearly how they all ended up back in the field, but between dad and I we ended up getting them all back in.

ETA: The farm i grew up on had a legit dinner bell mounted on a post off the the side of the house. My dad even wrote a poem about it, titled appropriately enough "The Old Dinner Bell". I remember my mom calling him in from the fields once or twice by using it, but it wasn't a common thing, but I think back when dad was growing up it was a daily kind of thing.

 

[donbosco]

One of my sharpest childhood memories is dad waking me up at 2am with "Cows are out!". I'm maybe 6 or 7. We pile in the pickup and drive to a deserted stretch of road and Dad stops the truck in the road leaving the headlight on, hands me a pick handle, tells me he'a going to chase the cows down the road towards me and when they get to me I should use the pick handle make the cows go back through the hole in the fence., He heads off in to the blackness and I sit there shivering all alone for about 10 minutes and then I hear about 20 head of cattle heading coming down the road towards me. I remember whacking them with all my 7yo might with that pick handle to absolutely no effect whatsoever. I don't remember clearly how they all ended up back in the field, but between dad and I we ended up getting them all back in.

Surely there were a few flakes of snow to go with that late night excursion...North Carolina Cows freak out over the white stuff just as much as North Carolina people do.

 

[Ddseddse]

Surely there were a few flakes of snow to go with that late night excursion...North Carolina Cows freak out over the white stuff just as much as North Carolina people do.

Kinda ashamed to admit it (in this forum at least), but it was in Southwestern PA, Washington County to be exact. I remember it being cold, but don't remember snow that night.

But I did log plenty of hours freezing my tail off flaking hay off the back of the pickup for hungry cows during snowstorms. It snowed a lot. The road in front of the house would drift over for a week or more and we'd be stuck there. Sometimes we had to take in idiots who thought they could drive through the drifts and had gotten stuck. They'd be with us like a week until the road got cleared. Never worried about food. We were Mormons at that time and we were prepping for the second coming or something. Prepping before prepping was a thing.

 

[donbosco]

Kinda ashamed to admit it (in this forum at least), but it was in Southwestern PA, Washington County to be exact. I remember it being cold, but don't remember snow that night.

But I did log plenty of hours freezing my tail off flaking hay off the back of the pickup for hungry cows during snowstorms. It snowed a lot. The road in front of the house would drift over for a week or more and we'd be stuck there. Sometimes we had to take in idiots who thought they could drive through the drifts and had gotten stuck. They'd be with us like a week until the road got cleared. Never worried about food. We were Mormons at that time and we were prepping for the second coming or something. Prepping before prepping was a thing.

Piedmont North Carolinian...never saw snow like that growing up. We did once miss a week of school...I think it was 1968 or 69. But a mere snowflake seemed to completely set off the cows...they'd jump or crash through a fence or bust a gate almost every time.

 

[farce©]

One of my sharpest childhood memories is dad waking me up at 2am with "Cows are out!". I'm maybe 6 or 7. We pile in the pickup and drive to a deserted stretch of road and Dad stops the truck in the road leaving the headlight on, hands me a pick handle, tells me he'a going to chase the cows down the road towards me and when they get to me I should use the pick handle make the cows go back through the hole in the fence., He heads off in to the blackness and I sit there shivering all alone for about 10 minutes and then I hear about 20 head of cattle heading coming down the road towards me. I remember whacking them with all my 7yo might with that pick handle to absolutely no effect whatsoever. I don't remember clearly how they all ended up back in the field, but between dad and I we ended up getting them all back in.

ETA: The farm i grew up on had a legit dinner bell mounted on a post off the the side of the house. My dad even wrote a poem about it, titled appropriately enough "The Old Dinner Bell". I remember my mom calling him in from the fields once or twice by using it, but it wasn't a common thing, but I think back when dad was growing up it was a daily kind of thing.

How did your father know the cows were out at 2 AM?

 

[Ddseddse]

How did your father know the cows were out at 2 AM?

Someone called the house. Neighbors, I guess.

That wasn't the only time. Just the most memorable.

 

[ChileG]

My mom used a cowbell to summon us home instead of hollering. The deal was you better not be far enough away that you can't hear the cowbell. And everyone in the neighborhood knew the cowbell was for us. *sigh*


It took me years to warm up to this SNL skit as a result. When you spend your childhood answering to a cowbell, you don't really need more cowbell.

Me (and my siblings), too!
I mean, being summoned by our mother this way. I liked the SNL skit from the beginning.

 

[05C40]

My mom used a cowbell to summon us home instead of hollering. The deal was you better not be far enough away that you can't hear the cowbell. . . ..

We have lived in several homes around the country. But every time we sold a home, we always took down the bell before we showed the home. And we put up the bell at every new house. It was in my wife's family for at least two generations before her and she has loved having it at all our homes, through the years.

 

[donbosco]

That's cool. My momma would just lay it on the car horn if I was out in the woods and she wanted me back at the house.

 

[SmilingJack]

As real estate appraiser that does a lot of LA and DC area (Lower Almance & Deep Chatham) work truth is these lives and experiences are alive and well. I can't count how many times I've herded cows back off the road. My son works with me which is unbelievable to me but he's happy with it. I tried to explain that when a neighbors livestock is loose it's like a mayday boat and you need to act. After we spent a few minutes helping folks we would never meet I'd like to think this is what we would all do.

 

[donbosco]

A friend sent this along to me: "I grew up in Sampson County and my dad was a friend and, at times, the attorney of E.H. Godwin, the founder of the contest. Spivey’s Corner was one intersection with a caution light. Its people were spread out over the flat land and the VFD was skeletal.
“During a late-1960s radio broadcast, Ermon H. Godwin and John Thomas, two of the founders of the event, ironically discussed plans to start a hollering event. After the broadcast, the Spivey's Corner community, then only forty-eight residents, followed suit.” From NorthCarolinahistory.org

E.H. was exceptionally imaginative, enterprising and had a great sense of humor. My dad was in on the real origin story. E.H. encouraged people to be enthusiastic about a culture that probably was never prevalent in Spivey’s Corner. None of the contestants were Spivey’s Corner residents. Each year, E.H. enriched the myth. The history of hollerin became more developed, spawning different kinds of hollers, not because they existed but because he suggested that they did. E.H. spoke of it all as fact. This good natured lie was assimilated into a community caper that was as harmless as Santa Claus and raised money for the fire department. E. H. was thrilled that it took off. He enthusiastically promoted the contest each year on the Tonight Show while he secretly had his tongue in cheek.

When I hear people refer to “their own truth” my mind wanders and wonders whether this was, without meaning to be, an early social experiment."

 

[hedge]

Just moving 30 assorted head of cattle up the road from one field to another meant learning not to move too fast lest one skittish cow spook the rest but not too slow otherwise they scatter or one or two turn to wander.

Their currents turn awry...