I called Clyde Haley to ask him about Patsy’s genealogical information. Trying to prompt his memory, I asked, “Your grandfather’s father was named Benjamin Haley and his wife’s name was Nellie Muncy.” He said, “Muncy? Well I knew some Muncys when I was back up there, you know. They were in West Virginia. Down around Huntington and down in that area. Luce Muncy had a store and filling station, and that’s the most I can remember about them. Lucian Muncy.”

Clyde went from sketchy memories of the Muncys to asking me, “Did you ever know a guy named Clark Kessinger? He was a fiddler, too, you know.” I asked Clyde if he thought Kessinger tried to play like his dad and he said, “I don’t think so. I just come up with that name from somewhere. You know my dad used to take me out on those contests when he’d go and I remember some of those people — like Natchee the Indian. Sam Vie, he was a blind fiddler. He could play a guitar pretty good, too.”

What about Asa Neal? “Asa Neal? I think I went with my dad when we saw him one or two times. I’ll tell you somebody else that was close to our family — those Judds. They lived on the hollow where I lived, called 37th Street in Ashland, Kentucky. We didn’t know them back in those days.”

Clyde seemed to really enjoy my calls. He asked, “When are you coming this a way?” — as if I were just down the road. I told him it would be in the spring and he said, “Well, why don’t you check on me here if you come this a way and we could get us a day off and go somewhere and sit down and just talk all day? I don’t know what you’re doing with this information but I’d like to hear you say it’s going in the news some way. Maybe write a book about his history. That would make me happy. At least he would be remembered.”

Clyde paused, then said, “I’ve been all over the country in different forms and manners and ways. I’ve been a roamer all of my life, but I’ve got this damned arthritis and it’s pretty well got me pinned down.”