Born Joseph Clingman Robinson. A true son of the Confederacy, Southerner and Mountain Man through and through. He was a good ol' Joe and my grandpaw, or as I affectionately called him "Pappoo". Although he died when I was only 5 years old, I have very fond memories of him. After getting too old and tired to Sawmill he still worked in his little woodshop building all kinds of stuff. Mostly he would build toys for me and my older brother, or as the old folks called them "Play Purties fer them youngens". I was happier with those simple little wooden toys than any kid nowadays with their video games. There was a lesson and love built into each one.

After he hit 80 and his health started going the doc said he shouldn't be smoking any more, but in the refuge of his wood shop he'd still roll up some Prince Albert and puff away, telling any menfolk within earshot how "Doc's didn't know everything!". Always keeping one eye out the window to make sure his wife wasn't headed out there. Joe could roll a cigarette with one hand so tight you'd swear it come straight off R.J. Reynolds assembly line! I remember on one of my excursions with him to the woodshop I decided I'd ask him to roll me one, hey I was nearly 5 it was high time I started smoking. Anyway Joe took out a rolling paper, filled it up with sawdust and rolled the prettiest cigarette you'd ever laid eyes on. I took it in my little hand and proceeded to take a big drag off if it, unlit of course, next thing I knew I was coughing up sawdust like crazy. I concluded that smoking wasn't good for kids and didn't try another cigarette until I was 10 years old. I also remember helping Joe in the garden. He made me a baby hoe out of a chrome table leg from a kitchen dinette table that had been retired. There we'd be out in the field with beautiful mountains surrounding us, hoeing taters and beans, singing songs and just enjoying the day and all the wonders that God had made.

Even though I didn't know Joe for very long, after he died I learned of his life through Granny and my Momma and many others who knew him well. Anytime I'd be around someone who knew him I'd get them to tell me about him. I wanted to know the good and the bad. The more I learned the more I grew to understand, respect and admire this man and all that he had been through in his life.

I learned that as a young man Joe left the mountains for the city life for a while. He worked helping a photographer take and develop pictures. They say he had a real talent and affinity for this type of work. This was in and around Asheville N.C. 1900 era. At that time Asheville was a booming city with all that cities of that time had to offer. A lot his work would wind up on postcards or hanging on the walls of some fancy estate. However, the city didn't hold Joe's attention for very long and he could hear the mountains calling him back home. They were his real home and he loved nothing more than setting out on foot to see what was over the next ridge. The Sawmill work he learned growing up allowed him to do this very thing and basically be in the mountains he loved so much, all the time.

He did it all in the Sawmill business. From cruising boundaries of timber, to logging, to sawing it up, to figuring up board feet, to finally selling the lumber. However all his work was usually for hourly wages for someone rich enough to own the operation. In those days they didn't really rape the land with clearcutting the way it's done now. They did selective logging and brought the logs out of the mountains with a team of horses or mules. During the first part of the 20th century there was some kind of blight that hit the Chestnut trees and killed them to extinction practically. A lot of what they cut during Joe's heyday was Chestnut trees. Chestnut was a beautiful wood of light color and because of it's natural oils within the wood, it would not rot. So a lot of barns and houses got built out of this type of wood. Now people are recycling this very expensive wood to make furniture. I have a Dining room hutch made from Chestnut boards that Joe had saved aside to build his coffin. Before Joe died there was a law passed that you couldn't build your own coffin any more, you had to buy one that was certified and one that your poor relatives had to pay on till they were dead. So being the law abiding citizen that he was, the Chestnut boards were saved for furniture instead.

Joe also became a master at repairing Sawmills and Hammering Saw blades. Blades were very expensive and if they got too hot during operation they would get warped and out of balance and became impossible to run. Using nothing more than a couple of different sized hammers and his eyeballs as a gauge he could take a saw blade that was impossible to use and hammer it back into shape so that it ran as smooth as a Singer sewing machine. Word got around of this ability and soon people from all over were hauling in saw blades for Joe to hammer back to life. By the way, for those who don't know, these weren't small blades like goes in a hand skill saw, these were huge blades, some being as much as 6ft. plus in diameter.

Joe had a failed marriage by the time he was 40. I'm not sure why. That's one area of his life I never could find out much about. This was in a time when divorce was almost unheard of and was a big deal, so it was never discussed much by Granny or anyone else that I tried to talk to about it. So I never pushed the issue much. I do know that Joe battled several demons in his life, alcohol being one of them. Maybe this had something to do with the end of his first marriage, I'm not sure.

When Joe was in his 40's, on the heels of a failed marriage, he met and married Kodell Fox ( my Granny ), who was 20 some years his junior. Granny's family wasn't crazy about that, but she was determined she had her mind made up and that was that. They had two children, Kathleen, ( my momma ) and Howard. Joe's battle with alcohol followed him through this marriage. Although he never let it take food from their mouths or interfere with his work, it profoundly effected his family in other ways. Even though the bad memories have a tendency to take the foreground in such matters, there are still humorous things about a bad situation that can come through. I've been told when the weekend come Joe would go across the mountain home on his horse to do some drinking with his buddies. At the end of the night Joe as you might expect would be pretty lit from all the moonshine and his friends would put him up on his horse even though he could barely hang on, and the horse had made the trip so many times that it would just go straight home across the mountain without any help or guidance to bed. Joe knew this type of behavior wasn't right. When he wasn't drinking he was the perfect gentleman. He spent a lot of his life battling this demon and at odds with God. He was eventually able to prevail and spent the later part of his life sober, happy and at peace with God and his family.

Joe was an honest man. He never owed anyone money. He never took out a loan. He never had a bank account. He didn't trust banks. He paid for everything in cash. His word was gold. He never complained about circumstances that he knew were dire and beyond his control. If Joe took his gun and two shells with him hunting, he come back with two animals. When he drew a bead on them, they were going down cause he didn't miss. Although not very far in formal education, he was very smart. He could add a row of 30+ figures in his head. He had to in figuring lumber. Joe also loved reading and read everything he could get his hands on.

So who was this man called Sawmill Joe? He was just an ordinary man with a lot of difficult problems, that he was eventually able to live through or overcome. Born into extremely hard times, with an extraordinary will power, very talented, honorable, and ability to keep on keeping on. My daddy was with Joe in the hospital when he died. He told daddy that he was ready to go to the other side and meet God. Shortly there after he did just that. I like to think that when Joe got to the gates St. Peter opened that big Book Of Life and when he got to a certain spot he brushed some sawdust off the page and said "There you are, Sawmill Joe. Come on in Joe, you've had a hard row to hoe, but you're home now".

Sawmill Joe © 1999 Ricky Lee Ponder