Eddie Workman Audio Stories & Transcriptions

Eddie Workman Stories, Vol1
Eddie Workman

  • • Squatters on Dickinson company property

    00:00 [DEWJrv1: Squatters on the company property (00:00-06:54)]

    [I think the lady talking is Eddie’s friend Judy, the librarian.] Now, you can’t tell them about the woman on the crutches in the car, because that is too much cussing, but you could tell about the one fellow that was living up in the shack on the honeymoon.

    Eddie: Oh, yeah, that was a pretty good one, wasn’t it? I would call them squatters, but that would probably be giving them way more credit than they deserve. And the picture is sad and bleak, more so than you could ever imagine. But living in what I would call, not a shack, but literally a tar paper lean to.

    Mike: Where was this?

    Eddie: Off the turnpike [Chelyan exit] , at Charleston literally right there before you get to the river, and it was on property I manage. And so, we had gotten a report they were there, so we go, me and two other guys, to investigate. And sure enough, they are there. And two women come out the first day, the two men aren’t there. And the two women have on long t-shirts, that all they’ve got on. And I mean they have had them on at least two or three months. It is as bad as any picture you can imagine. So, we start asking questions, and it is obvious that they know they are living on property they know that they don’t own…you know after they figure out who we are. So, we go through the standard questions and find out where the men are, and the younger of the two ladies is spending (she doesn’t live there), she is just spending her honeymoon there. Honest to goodness. “I don’t live here, but we just got married, and we are just here staying with them.” About five or six dogs roaming around…so we started explaining to the lady that this is a no-no and that you just…we either need to get a lease, or something needs to be done. Liability da-da-da, and we need to get this situation straightened out. She tells us that her husband does some odd jobs and that he will be back. He comes back each evening, but he doesn’t get home until about 9:00. So, one the guys that is with me is an attorney in Charleston…he helps manage this property. And we’ve been here now about a half hour, and I mean it is…there is a plastic bag hanging in one of the trees (a large plastic bag that they got a hose up to it with a shower head on the end of it). So at least they did know what water was, you know. My buddy asks the lady, “How can we get back ahold of you, we got to be able to get ahold of you to get this straightened out.” And she says, “Well, I will give you my cell phone number.” And she said, “If I don’t answer, just leave a message, I have voice mail.” And, of course, the picture did not paint at all a cell phone with voice mail. A car battery, sitting outside of this lean to, with cables running inside with a light, you know a 12-volt light inside. And a grill set up like 55-gallon drum cut in half with a grate on top of it and a pile of wood. And some old material—just old sheets of plywood and junk cars. They had hauled tractor trailer loads of stuff in. And that was part of the problem…we were telling them we need to get ahold of the man of the house, and make sure he understands that this has to be cleaned up. “Well, you can just call my cell phone. I will make sure he gets word.” So, we ended up going back and we wrote them a lease and they cleaned the place up some. And they are still there today, as far as I know. I have not been back for a few months.

    Mike: So, is that what you do typically with squatters like that.

    Eddie: Yeah, usually. You’ve got several options. One is to tell them to leave, and a lot of times they won’t leave. And then you can go to the magistrate and go through all the process, a lot of time and a lot of money. And then if you ultimately get the sheriff and you go up there and you evict them, then they come back and they cut down your cherry trees or they set the woods on fire or they do a lot of things that cost you a lot of money. So, the basic solution is we write them up a little lease, that is a very rude form, you know a little bit of liability coverage (like it would do you a lot of good). But the big thing is that they recognize on paper that it is your property. And that is what we are after, so that they cannot make any kind of adverse possession claim or anything like that. And we will charge them five or ten bucks, or twenty-five bucks is a big deal for a year. And then just every year we send them a renewal and then you know if they are not there or at least it jogs your memory to go back to check on them, if you don’t get that renewal back, to see if they have left.

    Mike: Kind of sounds like this one would not have a mailbox.

    Eddie: Oh yeah, he had a box. He had a post office box. And when we went back (this is the little kicker about it), when we went back the second time to take the lease and to meet the guy. The lady came back out…now the newlyweds, the honeymooners, they are gone. So, it is just the residents. And honest to goodness, the lady comes back out (let’s say she is 50-ish and a little oversized) and she still has the same t-shirt on. That is a true story, and it is two months later. That long t-shirt…still got it on. And guy tells us, when we talk to him, after we go through the story and da-da-da and we got the lease and so forth. The guy that was with me asked him, “Why, I just go to know what makes you want to live up here.” Now you know Cabin Creek, Jerry West, and you know what Cabin Creek is…well this is up on the hills from Cabin Creek. And he said, “I used to live down there on the creek and people and the pressure of living in a crowd like that, I just couldn’t take it”.

    Mike: Oh, my goodness!

    Eddie: Now, I mean Cabin Creek is somewhat less than a crowded area, you know. “I just couldn’t take the pressure of living in amongst all those people. Had to get out of…that’s the only way I can take it is up here on my own like this.”

    Did I do good? [Eddie talking to Judy.]

    Judy: You did fine. You did good, hit all the high points.

    06:54

Eddie Workman Stories, Vol2
Eddie Workman

  • • Eddie driving home from work: altercation on the WV Turnpike

    00:00 [DEWJrv1: Altercation on the WV Turnpike (00:00-05:08)]

    Judy: …tell that cussing story…that was good.

    Eddie: That was on the turnpike. I was coming home one night. This is a year ago…and all the floods and of course we had the big flood here in ’01. Well, it’s been like that, it seems for three years. So, one night coming home on the turnpike (it has probably been a year ago) there was a huge mud slide. And I get there, and I mean the vehicles have slowed for 15 minutes. I get over in the left lane on the turnpike. The hillside has slid off and blocked the right-hand lane. I am two cars back from getting through and the state police stop us. Here come the end-loader, and it is raining, it is so bad. I mean it is literally like the day it was the day you were trapped. The water is that deep sitting on the turnpike. The mud has slid out. And this lady has pulled up beside me. I seen her, and she is blowing her horn, blinking her lights. I am over in the left lane, and there is nowhere for her to go. It is a mud slide. There is a thousand cubic yards of material piled up there. So, I cannot tell what is going on for a little bit, it is raining so hard. So, when I get things figured out, she is right up beside me. She is just irate and screaming. So finally, a state policeman comes. I thought: I got to get my window rolled down and hear part of this.

    What had happened…she was bucking the line trying to get by traffic, and this tractor trailer had bumped her. The guy wouldn’t let her back in, and he had bumped her car. And so, the state policeman comes and is standing there. I mean he has his gear on, and it really raining so hard that with the wipers on high, you cannot see five feet. The trooper is outside in all of this…not in a very good mood. This lady is just cussing him with every breathe that she would draw, every word that you can imagine. She is pointing to this truck driver who is now sitting right on my rear, and repeating the same words, you know. And they go something like “Beep, beep, beep, I want you down here, and I am going to kick your beep, beep.” And this goes on and on. So, the trooper is just trying to get her to settle down. Finally, I can’t hear it all, but evidently the idea is that he is going to get the truck driver together with the woman after she has cooled down a bit, to talk about it.

    So, the woman finally opens up her door and starts to climb out. She’s got a broken right leg. She comes out with a walker. Well, what happens is she starts out of the car with the broken leg, but the other side flies open. This is actually before the trooper gets there. This is when she is just irate at the trucker. And she is going to come and kick his beep, beep, beep before the trooper gets there. And the guy on the other side hops out of her car. And I am thinking this is really going to get serious. And that is when he runs around the car and opens the door for her. She turns to come out with a broken right leg, with a cast all the way up to here. He helps her out, pulls the front seat forward and reaches in the back and gets her walker out. And that is when she comes out and is pointing at that trucker. Then the state trooper comes. I got a little bit out of time there. And it was such a classic, it was all West Virginia…Cabin Creek style of a story.

    Nancy: Her first foot down in the roadway was full of water.

    Eddie: And right when they got there, Mike, right when the trooper and…after she got out with the walker and the trooper came. Here came the end loader down the road. He is coming in the opposite direction. They have let him on up at Chelyan, and he is coming back down the road. I can see his lights, and he has his bucket down. He hits into that slide and there is a wave of water…brown, muddy water that high, that comes and just everything but knocks her off her feet. She has her door open, so into the car goes the water. She is on that walker still cussing that truck driver, and he is not about to get out of that truck yet, you know. So that happened on the way home from work. I don’t know whether that deserved recording or not, Mike. That may not have deserved…you can erase that one if you like.

    Judy: Eddie said he could have sworn that truck driver was smiling.

    Eddie: It was a flowery story with all the language spared.

    05:08

Doyle Workman Stories, Vol3
Doyle Workman

  • • Short clip: Trespassing ticket in Clay County

    00:00 [DEWJrv3: Trespassing ticket in Clay County (00:34)]

    Mae: How about the one when Daddy was around Cressmont [Cressent?] Ridge a hunting and he parked his car. And you come along, working for Pittston and you put a big sign on his car and told him that there was no parking there and that he was to come in…or he had to call in or be fined. Eddie had written his license plate down or something. He didn’t sign his name, but he put Pittston…

    Eddie chimes in here and there.

    00:34

Eddie Workman Stories, Vol4
Eddie Workman

  • • Status report on Eddie’s work situation

    • Don’t judge a book by its cover

    00:00 [DEWJrv4: Status report on Eddie’s work situation (00:00-06:56)]

    Mike: Your work…anything new...the same thing?

    Eddie: Yeah, still about the same. I mean coal, it’s kind of a boom time for coal industry. So, in that respect, things are good. It is a cycle; it is up and down and some way unpredictable. A lot of people try to predict it, and I think the best ones are right some of the time. But it is a good time in coal. You go back two to three years ago when coal was $25 a ton—today it is $50. So, you know what it would be like a $30,000 car that you were producing and next year you could sell it for $60,000. Your profit changes a little.

    Mike: Has your salary gone up….

    Eddie: Not appropriately or proportionally. But it is a much easier time to be a little better off personally, you know. And then just in the things you ask them for whether it be company vehicles or place to go or expense, everything obviously is lot easier to receive on management’s end when coal prices are double. We (Dickinson family) are landowners, so all of our income is usually a royalty, and it is a percentage. So, while we don’t get the whole $30, if we were getting $2 a ton for royalty, when price doubles it would jump to $4 a ton. And the same thing happens on our end. The overhead from between two years ago to this year, you know, CPI 3%, so we probably had a 5 or 6% increase in cost and our income is double. So, they pat you on the back and tell you how smart you are, you know. And you brag about it!!!

    Mike: So, most of your work is related to coal?

    Eddie: Yeah, our is property owner, Dickinson Family in Charleston, one of the earliest settlers in this area. They were in the salt business, started the bank which later is sold to BBT, and they ended up with a bunch of property. You go back generations ago, they managed it. They mined the coal, cut the timber, drilled the gas, laid gas lines, did it all. Well today they are a bunch of bankers, or what would be the proper word, folks who have a lot of money who haven’t had to earn it the old-fashioned way. So, they kind of just moved into being property owners, land lords. So, we lease it now for coal, timber, and gas, mainly. Have some commercial property down in Charleston, a few hotels, Shoney’s and a few things like that. But they are kind of small items on the overall radar screen. That is the main line, leasing it out to operators.

    Mike: Do you have a routine that you go around and check on properties?

    Eddie: Yeah, I try to. It is not as regular as it used to be. I had a boss when I went there that handled much of the paperwork. I did all the field work. He has since retired and all of it now has fallen to me. So, what used to be a very regular routine out in the field, visiting all the mines, timber operations, sawmills, and so forth has now become a little more erratic. But it is still now all on my plate. Like the Clonch’s over at Dixie—they cut lumber for us. And, of course, every month they have to reconcile and send a report. They tell you what they have cut. We then get a certain cut of that, a percentage. All the coal operations are that way, too. They have to send me maps. My responsibility is to make sure they are following their lease, keeping up with all the provisions of their lease. Mining it like it is supposed to be mined. Reporting to us accurately what they did mine. Reporting the actual sale price that they are getting. So my job is monitoring, taking care of the property that the Dickinson Family owns. So that they don’t have to take care of it. And they live in Atlanta, New England, off in other places like the Bahamas and…

    Mike: One time you told me a story about flying a helicopter in for the lunch at some remote place.

    Eddie: That was when I was at Pittston. When I got to be one of the privileged ones that got to fly around in the helicopter—you learned at times that it was not all that it was cut out to be. Now the lunch one, I don’t remember that. I remember once in the fog—that was a real experience…hopping over the mountains.

    Mike: I seem to recall that it was a remote area and they wanted to see it, but maybe I have it a little…

    Eddie: Ahh, now once, maybe that was the one over at Widen; but it wasn’t a helicopter. I was charged with providing lunch to a couple of officials. We were taking them on a tour of the property. And we decided, well my boss told me, he said, “I want it done, and I want it done first class. Whatever it takes.” So, I loaded up Dad’s picnic table in the back of the truck, and I brought all of this food in coolers, you know. I had ice tea and the works. And we are out in the middle of the Widen property between Clay and Summersville. And I roll up in that pickup with the table and everything. You know how Mom would have fixed me up…tablecloth, napkins. It was kind of like one the of the advertisements on TV when the butler out somewhere. So, I sent up that picnic table and laid out that big spread of food. That was pretty impressive for it to be delivered out where it was, like that. That was back some time ago, that was my Pittston days. I probably didn’t tell you that one Judy, you get my new stories.

    Judy: But he did take me to Widen. He took me all over.

    Mike: That is an experience in itself…going over there. I remember when I played Babe Ruth League Baseball over there at Clay. We used to go over to Widen to play occasionally. Wasn’t anything but a big dirt field that you played on, but it is quite a place over there.

    Eddie: And I see a lot of those. Most of our property is in Boone County, Kanawha County, Raleigh County (obviously coal and timber). Man, it is some of the most remote areas in the state. I will tell you one more, then you can unclip me. It reminded me of one.

    06:56 [DEWJrv4: Don’t judge a book by its cover (06:56-10:01)]

    Eddie: ‘Cause you know the old story that you don’t judge the book by its cover. A lot of people I deal with are undereducated, on the very low end of the economic scale. And some very, very sad situations. But this was early in my southern land career; I was going around meeting various lessees that we have. Small lessees, where we just have property leased to them for yards, gardens, cattle, whatever. And we do that again; it is the same old situation as the first where they acknowledge it is our property. A lot of time they are using it, so we go and make a lease with them, so that they acknowledge it. So, I am told by my boss to go to this certain place in Boone County. It is up this hollow, fourteen creek crossings, and literally you are out in the middle of nowhere. I meet this guy—this name was Haywood Johnson (Haywood something). I roll up to this old farmhouse. Literally I am out in nowhere. And here is this guy about 75 years old, and he has on rubber boots. (I will tell the clean version, Judy.) And he has on rubber gloves and covered in cow crap from head to toe. He is the awfullest looking thing you have ever seen. And he had had a cow that had calved that night. I get there at like 8:00 in the morning. Well, I find out what all is going on. He has been down there in the barn…all raggedy old beard, you know. And he has been through that cow giving birth that night, all night long. So, he is horrible looking, living up in this area, and he is in the process of trying to get cleaned up. You know it is like 9:00 in the morning, or something. So, I don’t remember how the conversation got started, but we touched on Huntington. I said something about Marshall. And he said, “Oh, yeah, I used to teach there down.” And I thought is now obvious that he also senile, you know. Turns out the guy had a PhD in English—had been a professor, retired from Marshall and living up in there and taking care of those cows. Lived all by himself in a big farmhouse (old, old farmhouse). You could have guessed a thousand things that he had done in his life…but you never would have guessed a PhD, and a retired professor at Marshall. So, you get fooled sometimes. You never want to slight anyone or think that you have them figured by looking at them and seeing what the situation is and a trying to access what their background is. You can get fooled.

    10:01

Eddie Workman Stories, Vol5
Eddie Workman

  • • Interview with Randall Ballard [Drift-a-bit Whitewater Rafting Company]

    00:00 [DEWJrv5: A brief history of whitewater rafting on the New River (00:00-06:15)]

    Mike: Randall, what is your last name.

    Randall: Ballard.

    Mike: Randall Ballard.

    Randall: Drift-a-Bit Whitewater Rafting, Fayetteville, WV. 1-800- [Laughter] 663RAFT. [The company was dissolved in 2009 as a result of consolidation of several companies.]

    Mike: Tell me how you got started.

    Randall: Back in the early ‘70’s a couple of my old buddies and I decided that we wanted to try rafting. Wildwater came in here in like 1969. The first time I even saw a poster of it, I guess we were seniors in high school.

    Mike: Did you go to high school with Eddie?

    Eddie: He is older than I am!! A year older! Be sure and get that. He is already 50!

    Randall: Yeah, but Eddie is going to be FIFTY…real soon.

    So, anyway we decided we were going to try that rafting. Someone asked me to go early on, and I said, “Go down that river in an old rubber raft? That is the dumbest thing I ever heard of!” ‘Cause you know, we grew here fishing; you stayed away from that river. You never went swimming in it. Anyway, we bought us a little old Sears four-man raft, jumped out there and gave it a shot. Wasn’t pretty. We were so dumb! We didn’t know the river had levels. One day, the river would be this level and then next day it would be up. Well, we would say this river seems different today, what is it? And flip somewhere and nasty swims. Got rescued by Mountain River Tours. I knew this guy Paul Brewer, who owned it. He had just started a business. So, after we flipped about three times before lunch, he rescued…got us in the big boats. Because we had that little old tiny…and it was high water. We should never have been out there at that level in that little boat. And then started training with him. Went to work for him.

    Eddie: Tell him about Brewer at Mountain River, right? They had in those days, what early to mid ‘70’s. How many businesses (present day) came from that early guide group at Mountain River? That would be what you would call the leaders of the river business today.

    Randall: All the boys from Class VI; me, Keith Spangler from New-Gauley Expeditions, somebody from Rivers…about 5 of us. There were only about three companies when I started.

    Mike: I just read an article in the West Virginia Magazine on Jon Dragon. [He founded Wildwater Expedition Unlimited in Thurmond.]

    02:57

    Randall: Right! Great guy. He is a world known traveler, whitewater guy. He is the daddy of the rafting industry on the New River. He is the man who brought it in here. Nobody else did. Us locals, like I said, didn’t want to go around it.

    Mike: I left here in 1968, and I remember when it first started. I thought people were crazy to even get out on the river.

    Randall: And back then, it was. The customer base was really adventurous, Type-A personality people that wanted the adventure. Now, we are seeing family and kids, the clientele has changed.

    Mike: How many people do you have working for you?

    Randall: In the summer about 33 or so. In the winter anywhere from four to plus.

    Mike: Oh, you run in the winter, too?

    Randall: No, we just office, advertise. You gotta advertise in the winter. Do paperwork.

    Eddie: Tell about the group that rolls in tomorrow? That’s pretty good.

    Randall: Oh, it is a camp, Jewish kids. Camp Wise out of Cleveland, Ohio. Fifty-five of them, I think, roll in tomorrow and stay with us until Friday. This is the third or fourth year for them. Anyway, we will take them rock climbing one day (or two days), caving, we do all that stuff, too. Rafting, kosher food, breakfast, dinner, lunch. I feed them all week.

    Mike: How do you cater that? Do you make all the food yourself?

    Randall: No, I have a caterer. We used to…got smart. It is hard work, that catering. Plus trying the run the river and run everything else. You got to go back and do the lunches or cook somebody 40 steaks or something.

    Mike: How many people do you get going down in a season?

    Randall: I run under 10,000 people. That is little. I’m a little company. We run a lot less last year.

    Mike: How many do these other companies run?

    Randall: Oh, some of them have multiple licenses and they will run 30,000 a season. There’s 240,000 people raft the New and the Gauley in a season.

    Mike: Do you run the Gauley, as well as the New River.

    Randall: Oh yes. Oh yeah! It runs in September from the first Friday after Labor Day through like Columbus Day. We get 23 days of scheduled releases, so that we can advertise it. In the spring and summer there is no guarantee on what flow is coming out of the dam. So, you cannot book it.

    06:15 [DEWJrv5: Lost Paddle Rapids on the Gauley River (06:150-10:20)]

    Mike: Tell me a good story. About one of those trips.

    Eddie: Judy can you remember one?

    Judy: Something about backwards, but stayed in the boat, instead of popping you out.

    Eddie: I like the one where you dived off the boat, showing off that day.

    Randall: Don’t tell them that one. A good one.

    Well, a couple of years ago I had a… I have had over 2,000 trips on the New River, 400+ on the Gauley. Okay, so I have swam a lot. I have flipped a lot of boats. I have seen about everything that can happen. Anyway…Upper Gauley a couple years ago, high water and I had my brother-in-laws and people that have been with me…this group has gone with me like for 15 years in a row. And I gave them a good ride all the time. I know the Gauley real well, so I can get the good ride. Had great runs all down through there. And there is one big class V rapids, Lost Paddle, it’s called. You know Upper…the first drop is Lost Paddle. And then there is a second drop….big fast moving water between boulders. It is tricky getting in through there. So I looked down…way down the river…I could see the third drop coming. That it was you do—read the water. You look ahead of you, see what you gotta miss coming up, not just what is in front of you. Anyway, they had been with me through all kinds of stuff. I said, “You guys might look at that wave down river, you want to hit that?” Usually, this big third drop wave is real steep, and we all try to miss it. At all levels…you can run it sometime…it is real violent. Anyway, then there is the bottom drop of Lost Paddle: this is a long, long rapid called Tumble Home. It is nowhere to be swimming, at all. Period!! So, I looked down there and saw that big old wave and it looked beautiful, big and green, and standing up. And I said, “Let’s go hit that wave. It will be great.” And in the hundred whitewater rafts before me, we missed it. Me, I hit her, stood it straight up…Had eight people in the boat, 16-foot boat. Stood it straight up, and that is the fastest I have been sucked out of the rear end of a boat in my life! The wave was too steep. (And I sat on an oar rig with two big 10-foot oars in the back for steering and stuff.) That rear end got sucked under so fast and all of a sudden, I was like…I’M IN THE WATER! And this is a deep, fast current going to boulders. See, you only got like, I bet it is 40 yards at the most to do anything to get out of it. And I am upside down. It is real deep hole, so I went real deep. One shoe was gone and one was dangling and I thought about saving that shoe for a second…then I went pssstt… I busted the surface and swam like crazy. Looked like Mark Spitz. [Laughter] Grabbed back ahold of the boat and climbed in, and got it back under control, just with about two feet to spare. Made this last, tiniest eddy you even catch on the run and got it. But that was funny just because I was full of it.

    Mike: So, were you the only one out of the boat.

    Randall: Oh, yeah. I’m the only one that got sucked out the whole boat. Luckily, I did not flip. Because it was such a step wave, just straight up, and it went zzzuppp. I was gone!!! And got my feet in ropes and stuff!

    10:20 [DEWJrv5: Catfish story, Hawk’s Nest Dam (10:20-12:33)]

    Randall: Want me to tell about going catfishing up at the dam, real quick?

    Mike: Go ahead.

    Randall: This is kind of a river story, but it ain’t a river story. Me and a buddy was down at Hawk’s Nest Lake there above the dam, setting trot lines to catfish all night. We drank a little too much, the night before. Camped out and all that. Next morning, we were checking the trot line and picking and pulling them up. And got to one…we could not pull it up. I mean, we pulled, we tried the motor in the little boat, backing up…couldn’t pull it up…couldn’t pull it up. So, we know we ain’t stuck on nothing. So, anyway, they were skimming the mud off behind the dam that year, they had little tugboat looking deals that sucked the silt up. So, we went over there and they had these divers with them. Because they had hoses, they had to take down to start sucking that stuff. Anyway, we said, “Hey, man, will you work your way over that way? See what that trot line is stuck on? We got a bunch of money in this line and hooks and all of that. We don’t want to lose it.” So, they did a couple hours and finally came over. They come up saying, “Boys, that’s line not stuck it’s…you’ve got the biggest catfish I have ever seen.” Man, all right, let’s pull it up, let’s get it! “But you can’t pull it out.” “Yes, we can. Get that tugboat over here, by gosh, we pull this sucker out!” He said, “It’s huge!” And we kept arguing with him. “No, you aren’t getting it out, Buddy,” he said, “there is a bunch of junk cars down there on the bottom, and that catfish has gotten inside of one of them and rolled up the windows…”

    [Laughter!!]

    12:33

Eddie Workman Vol1 - Vol5 were recorded on July 4, 2004 at the Workman Family Reunion, Damon & Mae’s, Fayetteville, WV.