Norma Lee

By Charles Hays

This contribution to the sum of total knowledge is mostly about my only sister, Norma Lee Hays. It addresses the incestuous relationship that we, as young siblings, had for each other. It also features these different protagonists and antagonists during the days that the L&N Railroad was first built and running through the native forests of Eastern Kentucky. These are my heroes and my villains:

Morris Slater, a notorious train robber.
His band of thieves who killed just for the thrill of it,
The women of Slaters secret hide-a-way,
The trials and tribulations of thievery.
Friar Simon Tuft who condoned the marriage of my sister.
The Sheriff of Perry County who feared Slater so much.
The endless chase to bring my sister home.
How she saved my life on numerous occasions.

This book is not the best book ever written but, I am certain of one fact. It isnt the worst book that I have ever read.
- Charles Hays 12APR2015

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490762234

Charles Hays

I am a Kentucky author who is living in Texas to avoid the snow. To the locals, I am a snowbird, but to my aging friends in Kentucky, I am the one who avoided Kentucky politics and taxes. But home is where the heart is, and my home will always be in Kentucky, not Texas. There is something about Kentucky that supports this old motto: Together we stink, but divided, we smell.

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© Copyright 2015 Charles Hays.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-6222-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-6224-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-6223-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911021

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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CONTENTS

Chapter One   Birth

Chapter Two   Skills

Chapter Three   Analyses

Chapter Four   Robbery

Chapter Five   Reborn

Chapter Six   Love

Chapter Seven   Rebellion

Chapter Eight   Sadness

Chapter Nine   Showdown

Chapter Ten   Life

Chapter Eleven   Epilogue

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to one of the best friends that any person could ever have; namely, Mr. Paul Townes (1932-2015). Since the early 1980’s, Paul has served as the Assistant City Manager of Hazard, Kentucky, my hometown. I shall miss him terribly. We played together as children. We competed against each other in sports. We were pen pals since 1950 and we stayed in touch by telephone. After high school, we went to college together. He was staying at SIGMA NU and I was living at I-FELT-A-THIGH in a rented apartment house, not 100-feet from where he resided. We had a lot of fun.

FOREWORD

This book is about my sister, Norma Lee Hays who led a tragic life and, as her only living brother, I feel obligated to tell her story. This novel will seem sad to some but, to others, it might be considered as uplifting. Therefore, I feel the pressure to warm up the keyboard and to attempt my best. When you are writing about love and loss, your best is never good enough. But, I promise you, this will be written about my only sister with the very best prose that I can muster. As a minimum, Norma Lee deserves my very best writing effort which I will hopefully somehow achieve.

CHAPTER ONE

Birth

Norma Lee Hays was introduced into this world at Jackson, Kentucky during 1929, the year of the Great Depression. I wasn’t born until 1932 but, together she and I, shared those terrible years together as any good brother and sister could. We were always hungry and malnourished but, so was the entire neighborhood, all of Eastern Kentucky and the entire world, as well. For example, my mother read us some newspaper accounts of how bad it was in Germany, her ancestral home. All across the world, the basic financial systems were either collapsing or already failed. And, Dad said that there wasn’t a damned thing that anyone could do about it, short of declaring war on some other nations in order to raise some money for supporting the different armies of the world. He claimed that the killing of our soldier boys would be a good way to generate cash and revenue even though that would be his last resort to get the USA back on its damaged feet. Sadly, both my dad and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt shared the same views of go to war for more profit and greater prosperity.

As a result, the winds of war were beginning to escalate. The decade which began in 1930 was the worst of times, yet, it was, occasionally, the best of times. Those were the years where I began to accrue my wisdom yet, it was also the span where I exposed my foolishness to others that were anywhere close to me. Norma Lee was my closest friend and she was quick to correct me on all of the mistakes that I made during that part of my life. She was like a second mother, only prettier and, sometimes, smarter than our own mom. And, I say that with some hesitancy because my mom, Sallie Anne Hays, was the smartest woman that I ever met.

This was the period of both belief and disbelief for each of us that searched for survival of the species through that terribly tough time of the Great Depression. It was the epoch of light and it was the den of darkness. It was the spring of hope and it was the winter of despair. It was the time when it was unwise to carry any coins amongst your person because people were being killed for a twenty-five cent piece. I wore my currency inside my shoe and I carried no wallet that any pickpocket types could feel or steal.

It was also the time when it was wise to forget what needed to be forgotten and to remember what little was left. It was a spell of ten years where every man, woman and child pleaded, ignore what you can but, enjoy the rest. ‘Sissy’ and I chose to enjoy what we could not change.

Our life of the 1929-1939 decade was a good time to overlook what we could not control but, to remember all that we might be able to change or improve during our lifetime together. This story is one that everyone should read and one that nobody should cast aside or ignore. Yet, sadly, this manuscript will probably go unnoticed and unread. Few people take the time to read books anymore in this our most intelligent span of time.

A lot of things have happened to the reading public since 1929 and not enough people still care about that awful depression which spawned so much hunger, sadness, loss and hatred. Volumes have been written by scholars and experts concerning the great depression years that began in October of 1929 and lasted until almost 1939.

That bad economic depression was the longest and most severe decline which had ever been experienced by any members of entire industrialized world. By late 1932, stock prices had dropped to only about 20-percent of their 1929 value. And, by late 1933, 11,000 of the 25,000 banks in the USA had already failed.

Norma Lee and I felt blessed by not being able to understand what was going on and why it was happening to everyone, both rich and poor. I just felt the need to ‘color the canvas’ as best as possible so that my readers might better understand what we two, a sister and brother, had to deal with each and every day; hunger, regret, desire, worry and hope.

However, I have written enough about the setting or the background. If you have read some of my other books then you already know how those terrible times had such a strong effect on me and my entire family. Now, I prefer to write about the perfect pair, my sister and me, during our development stages. Had it not been for Norma Lee, I don’t know what I might have done to myself because of the cage that we both were forced to live in. When I was sad, alone and away from her, I felt like killing myself as they did in the movies. But, when she was near and by my side, I felt loved, safe, secure and happy.

Mom described to me what Norma Lee was like when she was an infant of 1-to-12 months of age. And, that was very helpful because Norma was three years older than I, remember? But, oddly, we had the same birthdays on February the sixteenth. I suppose one could conclude that