The Long Summer Joke
My father, Basil, was a hardworking West Virginia coal miner, so as a form of relaxation, he would do anything to make people laugh. For example, when my mom, Rachel, my sister, Brenda, and I prepared dinner, we all wore aprons that tied in the back. As we worked, Dad would rush through the kitchen, grabbing the apron strings and untying each one. He would laugh as the aprons fell to the floor.
Before we had an electric kitchen stove, we still cooked on an old coal-heated cookstove. In the summertime With no fans or
