Full Text of the Excerpt

BRENT GLASS:

Do you remember any things that you particularly enjoyed doing with your grandparents? Did they like to tell you stories?

JOHN W. SNIPES:

I fought the Civil War. My grandfather and old Mr. Isaac Morris—I. J. Morris lived just across Polkberry Creek about a mile…. And in the summertime when I was a little fellow my grandfather, about every week he'd go over there to old Mr. Isaac Morris's. And I'd sit down and play in the sand, and him and Mr. Morris would go over the Civil War. I knew every word of it by heart: what they done at Gettysburg. "Well, John Joe, you remember that day we went in there? There was about fifty of us went in there and captured so-and-so?" "Oh yes, Isaac, I remember it." Well, one day my grandmother said something to me about the Civil War. I said, "Oh yes, I was there. I know all about it." She said, "Hush your mouth. You weren't even born!" [Laughter] I said, "Well, I've heard it a thousand times from Grandpa and old Mr. Isaac Morris, a'fighting the Civil War." I said, "I've heard it; I know it by heart." [Laughter]

BRENT GLASS:

Did you enjoy hearing it over and over again, or did you get a little tired of it?

JOHN W. SNIPES:

Yes sir. Well, I just heard it so much I could tell it as good as they could, just about. But they enjoyed old buddies getting together.