Coal Miner's Laughter

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day (April 12, 1932), that Lorettie Lynn was born a coal miner’s daughter in a cabin, on a hill, in Butcher Hollow. They were poor, but they had love, that’s one thing Daddy made sure of. He shoveled coal to make a poor man’s dollar. Daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines, all day long a-hoein’ corn. Mommy rocked the babies at night and read the Bible by the coal oil light. And everything would start all over, come break o’ mornin’. Yes, she was proud to be a coal miner’s daughter! Daddy loved and raised eight kids on a miner’s pay, and when Lorettie turned 15, he walked his virginal-but-not-without-adolescent-sinfulness daughter down the aisle — which is to say front hall and into the parlour — and gave her hand and hymen in marriage to Tommy Lee Jones, who they called "Doolittle" cause he done little and who was later known to come home a-drinkin’ with a-lovin’ on his mind. (You ought know better than that, Doo!) The couple was blessed with three babychilds by the time Lorettie was 19 — six in all — and she became a grandmammy at age 29. In between milkin' them babies, feedin' the pigs and darnin' Boo's undies, Lorettie took to strummin' a geetar and scratchin' out song lyrics on the back of recipe cards. Next you thing you know, Lorettie was onstage at the Grand Ole Opry and Boo was gettin' busy with that floozy in the parking lot. Somehow the two kept it together for nearly 50 years, though not without lockin' horns and launchin' fryin' pans 'cross the kitchen of their love nest. Doo was turned away at heaven's gate in 1996. Lorettie Lynn, coal miner's daughter, songstress and fetching former child bride, is 88 years bold today. Happy birthday, darlin'!