Damon Mize is standing beside the grave marker of Herbert Mize, his father, located at the J. W. Mize Cemetery located on Eagle Creek in Rockcastle County, Kentucky.
Damon Mize at the burial site of his grandparents (Oaks) in the Nix Cemetery
This story was told by Damon Mize: “like the time, this Walker Doan, who lived on the Laurel County side of Rockcastle River. There had been a landslip on his side of the river and he couldn’t get his winter coal in up his side of the river. So dad came up the hill. They hauled it in a wagon with a team of horses. On top of the hill over there on (route) 1249. On top of the hill, up to Dad’s house. Walker would haul a load and Dad would haul a load. They had two different piles of coal. Walker would take it to the river, then they would take it to the other side of the river where Walker lived. They would float it across on a small boat in a big tote sack. He had make two or three trips a day doing this. Walker would come real early in the morning. He would fill his sack full of coal then he would come in and eat. Mom said for him to come back around lunch time. Mom asked him if I could get him a cup of coffee and I was supposed to keep him busy. I did not know what Mom was up to but I followed her instructions. Walker had put his coal in that big coffee sack. Mom went out there and poured his coal out and filled it with rocks. Just about the same amount of rocks as there was coal. Walk sat there and drank his coffee and said, “I’d better get my coal across the river…” Once he had the coal on the porch, we could see him across the river. There weren’t any trees then there, to his little house there on the other side. She knowed what I was going to be. Boy, we watched him wagged up the hill and all he could waggle. He climbed the steps to the porch and sat down next to the coal box. We sat and watched Walker pour the rocks in the coal box on the front porch. He jumped about this high. The man never put down his sack down before he left them at their home. Mom liked that and it tickled her to death. She laughed for two day about that.”
“Lots of time I was shot at while summoning the mail that was at the Billows. You have to get James to tell that. I did not even know he was along. At Mrs. Cooper’s house, I went to get the mail at Billows. I went down there go summoning. They were up there near the bridge somewhere in the bushes drinking. They started shooting around me with a 22 rifle in the water. So I went home and got a shotgun. I knew where they would be. I had a big old 12 guage shot gun. Sure enough, that a funny night and a sad night for all of them. I did not know that James was with them until I almost got back there. I walked all the way from Eagle Creek but the time I got there James was with me. I kicked the door open, it was only held by a button know. I slipped in there with the shotgun (this was after Walter shot me) and picked up his rifle. He had it sitting there on the bed. He put his hands on his face and started crying. He was a little guy. It was Walter who shot me. James was a little guy. James said please don’t kill him. That brought back a lot of memories. He finally got down on his knees. He knowed he had done the wrong thing by shooting at me. Some of them bullets barely missed me in the river. What are gonna do with them? We tied them up and turned them one at a time and beat the hell out of them. We did not bother Quail. He was not all there. He didn’t have no shoes on. I’ll never forget that. There was a fury hole at the end of the bridge that I took him to. He looked at me and said, “ what are you going to do with me.” I said, “well you are always falling and killing your self anyway. I am going to take you out there and make you jump in the quarry (fury hole).: He didn’t say anything. He looked down at his feet. “You’re gonna take me out there bare foot?” This is a true story. He didn’t think about it was to kill him when he jumped over the edge. He was slow. I knowed he didn’t have anything to do with the shooting in the first place because he never owned a gun that I knowed of. So I wasn’t going to hurt him. He was just a guy who’d get drunk everytime he got the whiskey. He didn’t do nothing to nobody. But I beat the hell out of Walker. I told my wife that you could them laughing when they were shooting. The next one would be a little closer. I just calmly got out of the water. I didn’t fun. They were shooting from the Laurel side of the riverl.. I came in from the Rockcastle side of the river. Boy it was hot. I hadn’t growed up there just below the bridge. I just went over the hill to go swimming. I didn’t know they were sitting up there until the rifle started popping. They thought stuff like that was funny.” ( personal interview with Damon Mize 1987)