Editor’s Note:  This is a tall tale that my Uncle Jack shared recently at his 81st birthday party, ostensibly in the form of a family confession; however, his sly grin betrayed a clear lack of any genuine contrition. . 

In 1945, his big brother, my dad, was involved in WWII. Jack, however, was still a restless 15 year old boy back home who managed to get into some fairly harmless mischief, as country boys that age are prone to do.

After these childhood shenanigans, Uncle Jack went on to serve as a distinguished state senator, and he was also quite successful in his law practice and many business ventures.

Probably the dumbest thing that we ever did had to do with watermelons. We liked watermelons, as most boys did, but we didn’t like hot watermelons – we liked cold watermelons.

There was a particular farmer who lived about three miles out of Carthage, Texas.  He was just next to the road there, and had what we believed to be the best watermelon patch in all of Panola County.  We found a place in the fence that was easy to get across, and we would just go get two watermelons.  We got two, not because we would eat them both, but because the man at the ice house had a deal that if we would bring him two hot ones he’d give us one cold one.

One night we went out there, and we had a flashlight so we could try to locate the two best watermelons. We were very careful – seriously – to not damage any of the vines or any of his crop.  We might have been thieves, but we were considerate thieves.

We’d try very carefully to pick out the two best melons.  The farmer, weary of being robbed by us, had placed a note on the fence where we’d typically go through that said, “One watermelon in this patch has been poisoned.”  We knew he was bluffing. So, we imagined his surprise when the next day he discovered the word “one” scratched out so that it now read, “Two watermelons have been poisoned.”  After that, we got watermelons from him on various occasions without any trouble.

Eventually, though, we got lazier.   Trucks filled with watermelons would come through Carthage, and there were two pretty good restaurants there.  The truck drivers would stop at those restaurants to get coffee and something to eat.  It was very simple for us to drive up behind one of these big bobtail trucks and pick a couple of watermelons off the top.

(Credit: Olathe Public Library & Johnson County Library)

They would be almost overflowing with watermelons.  Unfortunately, some of the other boys saw what we were doing, and they started doing it too, and that messed up our deal because the truckers realized they were losing watermelons there.  Two they wouldn’t miss.  Ten they would.  Our deal ran out when they quit stopping in Carthage.

1940 Dodge (Picture from autogallery.org.ru)

Well, we really wanted some watermelons one night.   It was Carl, Buddy Smith, and a girl named Earline Garner.  She and Carl dated some. We were in the 1940 model Dodge that daddy had.  The ’40 model Dodge had full running boards on either side. The bumpers were not integrated into the front and back of the car. They were just pieces of metal that were curved and stuck out on the front of the car.

We saw this truck starting toward Shreveport.  And we knew that it was heavily loaded, knew that when it got to the river hill – the steep hill immediately east of the Sabine River – that he’d have to slow down going up that hill.

So we struck upon this plan. I was driving. Carl got on the front bumper. Buddy got on the running board. Earline was in the back seat. Of course, all the windows were down. There was no air-conditioning at that point in time in cars. So at 15 years of age – I’d been driving five months, maybe – I drove up close enough behind the back of that big bobtail truck, that Carl, on the front bumper, could reach over the top of that fairly tall truck, and pick up a watermelon, and hand it back to Buddy on the running board, and he would hand it in to Earline on the back seat. We got two watermelons doing that.

If the engine of that truck had even coughed, the front of my car would have gone underneath the bed of the truck and Carl would have been cut half in two. But we got away with it.

Later on in the years, Carl and I talked about it, and we were both pretty frightened as to what we had done. Really probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I think Carl agreed with that.

Southern Fried Chicken

I never told Bayno when Mama was going to make fried chicken. If I didn’t say anything, then all the cracklings in the pan would be mine. When the chicken was brown and crisp, I would take the spatula and press it against the bottom of the skillet and scrape the cracklings out of the grease, and when they were cool enough, I’d pour them into my mouth.

That summer was different from other summers even though the garden was the same. All its blooming and growing meant a good harvest along with back breaking work. Sometimes I’d stand in the middle of a row with both hands pressed into my back, my hands making a V and I would bend backwards and listen to all the bones popping and feel the muscles stretch so much they hurt. But with the sun beating down, I’d set my jaw and finish the row no matter if I was weeding, hoeing, or picking.

One day I thought about how many times I’d gone over those rows. Probably I’d been at each row at least 7 or 8 times. I multiplied that in my head, and then doubled it for the extra rows outside the fence and added some for when I’d be picking off bugs, and figured I’d been up and down those rows near to a thousand times already that summer.

But that was the first summer I’d spent without father coming home after work. It was easy to remember how it started. We had got up for school, and a man in a tractor came and plowed back the snow as Mama peered out the window, and when the driveway was clear we put on our coats and went to wait for the bus. When we came home father was already there, waiting for us outside the house. He told us to get in the backseat of the car while he got in front, gripping tight to the wheel as though he had somewhere to go, and I watched his face in the mirror as he told us he loved us, but he couldn’t stay where we lived, in the new house he’d built. And then he told us to get out of the backseat and go in the house by our mother, and we did.

The way we’d lived life had been thrown off schedule what with nothing to mark time the way scheduled work did. Father had always come home from the factory at 4:30 and we’d eat supper at 5 o’clock. I liked how every Tuesday we’d had tuna fish casserole, and every Wednesday, Mama had served pizza along with a shot of Black Label beer for everyone. I longed for a family that sat down to eat meals at 5 o’clock, eat them off Mama’s pretty Melmac plates, when Mama was happy and father was happy and brother smiled all the time and there was enough good food to eat. Mama would scold Bayno for eating her mashed potatoes with her fingers. I had realized that summer it was only just pretend and if anything was real at all, it was the pretty Melmac plates.

But that was all done now because father had taken all the money. We ate whatever was in season, what we could grow in the garden, along with eggs from the chickens. Lots of eggs. Lord knows how many times Mama gave thanks for those chickens. Only the old ones went into the fry pan, the oldest in the stew pot. And we had popcorn. It had been awhile since we’d had any bread, but we had popcorn, which last fall we had shelled by hand until our fingers bled.

Sometimes Mr. Kirby would bring a snapping turtle. He would nail it to the light pole by the thick part of its tail and brother would wave a stick in front of it until the turtle tried to grab it with that pointy hook tooth at the top of its mouth. And then Mama would lop off its head with an old machete she had just for that purpose. The turtle would dangle headless with its legs all jerking and moving while the blood drained out and pooled on the ground, sometimes still jerking at the end of the day even if Mama had cut its head off in the morning. Once I looked in the pan after Mama had cut it all up into cook-size pieces and some of the pieces were still moving.

Snapping Turtle (Picture from SESC)

Summer was near to end when Mr. Kirby came with another turtle, unusual for the time of year, as most of them came in the Spring. I stood next to Mama, standing with her back to the pole. I could never watch Mama swing. I stared at the grass waiting for the sound that would let me know it was over, and

“Aren’t you going to…”

“That turtle’s a she, and she’s crying. A tear just rolled down her cheek.”

I looked at Mama shaking, and then I looked at the turtle, and those sad eyes connected with mine. Sure enough, there rolled another tear, plopping in the sand below. I felt like something had reached all the way in from some deep dark far-away place and took hold of my heart and squeezed it dry. Mama took a breath. She pulled the nail out of the pole and hanging on to the tail of the turtle she walked across the road with it swinging upside down, swinging far out from her body so it couldn’t snap at her. With her strong arms she set the turtle down, pointed it toward the water and walked away without looking back. Mama came past me. “Go on and get your pole.”

I knew what that meant. If a fish decided to bite your hook and take your bait, well that was a whole lot different than lopping something’s head off when it didn’t want its head lopped off. Sometimes there was only so much a good woman could do.

This post was submitted by Julie Eger.

RC: Lee and Elaine, what are some of the earliest memories you have of wanting to play music as kids?

LR (Lee Roy): For me, I was probably about five.

I remember my grandmother playing fiddle, and my grandfather doing the old time Acadian dances. Uncles and aunts would all play guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and sing.

I remember going to church, then going over to my grandmother’s for dinner afterward. It was a “gimme.” As sure as there was going to be food on the table there was going to be music that afternoon. I couldn’t wait to get there to hear them start playin’ the fiddle and start singin’.

"Elaine started singing before me."

Elaine started singing before me. She’d start singing a few things, and I would kind of back off to the side as much as I could and try to sing as best I could at that age. I just remember the draw of hearing music and what it did to me. There’s no doubt, looking back now, that, for me, that’s where the calling came from.

Lee Playing Drums With Uncle Alias

ER (Elaine Roy): And for me, too. You know, mom and dad always, always listened to country music, and from an early age we were always around that kind of music. Dad never played music. The music performance was all on mom’s side, but he sure loved country music. Any get together at the house we had, we would call our uncles or friends who could play the guitar and sing.

So, we were always around music. Like Lee mentioned, on my mom’s side, we were always getting together. When Grandma got out that fiddle, everyone had a smile on their face because they knew that we were going to get entertained that day. So, definitely, from an early age we were blessed to be around that family element. They loved music, and passed it on to us.

RC: What a wonderful, rich experience for some young kids to grow up in. Now, where was this geographically? Give me some more detail about the environment you were growing up in.

Siblings in Life and Music

LR: I see pictures that my mom has, and I see myself in the picture, but I don’t remember the earliest house parties where my sister used to get up and sing. So, for me the first real memory is in New Brunswick, Canada, in a little town named Coal Branch (Click to see a Google Earth visit). It was a real small town, probably 18 to 24 houses, one stop sign, a little general store, rail road tracks that went right down the center of the town, and just a great place to grow up. Even today, my kids could go outside, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. It’s a very family-friendly place. There’s nothing to do, but there’s the world to do. There are no arcades. There are no malls.

ER: They’re just all outside with nature.

"I was raised where I could fish and hunt ..."

LR: Yeah. All my cousins that still live there have kids. Their kids grow up appreciating the not-so-technical side of life. They like to actually go outside and play, and get some fresh air. I was raised where I could fish and hunt a lot.

RC: And it really hasn’t changed much even to this day, then?

LR: No, not at all. It hasn’t changed.

ER: It’s like taking a step back in time. I mean, some people have moved away, and our grandparents are gone, but my aunt and uncle still live in the house that my grandparents lived in. So, when we go to Canada to visit, it’s like going back to grandma’s and grandpa’s house. I can still see her sitting on the couch, taking out that fiddle, and my granddad step dancing, and uncles playing the guitar and singing, and us jumping in. So, every time I go there it takes my breath away some because it brings me back to those moments.

RC: That’s wonderful. What a treasure!

RC: Now, I want you to stop and think of the funniest thing you can remember from growing, including, possibly, any mischief you got into as a kid.

LR: Well, for me, I actually put it in a song. In “Grandpa’s Barn” it talks about our getting caught smoking among several other things.

Our granddad smoked. He’d fall asleep on his chair, and some of the cigarettes would fall out of his back pocket, and land on the chair. We’d crawl up behind him, and we’d open the pack, grab a couple of cigarettes, close it, and go outside.

I swear to this day that he probably knew that we were doing it, and just waited for the right day. We went around to the back of his barn to smoke the cigarettes.

I turned probably a John Deere shade of green. Then, we went back around the corner, and he was standing there with this big grin on his face. He said, “I don’t think I need to tell your moms. [Seeing how sick I was, he said …] I think you’ve learned your lessons. You are not going to smoke again, are ya?” Then, he walked away, laughing.

A few days later I went over with my cousin Raymond, and Grandpa was there, smoking a cigarette. He saw us and had a smile on his face, because I’m sure he was thinking about catching Raymond and me smoking.

RC: So, did you smoke again? ;o)

LR: No, I never did after that!

RC: What is one of the most heartwarming memories you have of your growing up time?

ER: For me, when I look back on our upbringing, just having that family foundation. Mom and dad are the best parents in the world. They’ve always supported our music or whatever we were into. They always picked us up when we would fall down or get heartbroken. They always encouraged us, and helped us in any way they could. Now, I look back on that, and it really chokes me up (voice cracks) … as you can tell, I can hardly talk about it without crying. It really is a big part of my life and of who I am. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Parents Attended Every Concert & Event

LR: Yeah, and for me, it’s the same. You know, it’s hard in any career, if you want to advance in life, nothing’s easy. The music career is really hard, because it’s really a crap shoot. You can go to school and invest yourself into it with all your heart and resources, but there’s no guarantee that anything’s going to happen.

So, for mom and dad to sacrifice everything they could so that we could have the instruments we needed, and to give so much of their time to us … Dad would always be there when we were performing, not just watching but helping in every way he could. He’d be lugging equipment, even when his back was out and killing him. He’d still help. And mom was always there. To this day, they support us as much as they can.

If for some reason, we would say something like, we can’t see you, we have to go to Europe, they’d just say, “Go do what you gotta do.” They wouldn’t be selfish about it. They’re 100% behind us, and we could not have done this without them.

RC: Let me just confirm that you are incredibly blessed. I know you’re saying that, but just hearing what I’ve heard, I will join in from out outsider’s perspective to emphasize how fortunate you both are for having such a great family and family experiences. Sure, most parents love their children, but you seem to be especially blessed.

RC: So, you are siblings. It’s touching that you are both so close and are able to have your life’s vocation together. So, I’m sure you’ve never had a fight, right? ;o)

ER + LR: Laughing

ER: That’s always the million dollar question.

LR: Especially when we do radio tours, they’ll say, “OK, Lee. Now, I have a sister, and I don’t know how you do it!” The thing is we’ve grown up, and we’ve grown up together. We’re adults. We’re on the same page. We know what we want. Neither one of us parties. Both of us are dedicated to our families. We both know this is hard work. We’re on the road.

I’ll give her credit. She’s the business savvy one. I’m the type that, when I go on the road, it’s like, “Hey. I’m on the road. I don’t want to have to deal with hotels, venue clubs, and getting paid, and … ”

RC: … like having to deal with interviews ;o)

LR: She takes care of all that. What makes us a complete act is that she knows when it comes to the production side, the music side, the making sure that we have what we need onsite; she knows I’m going to take care of that. So, if we were both the same, if we both tried to handle the business side, or both did the production side, we’d probably have bigger disagreements. With us being as we are, we complement each other. It completes the package. It’s great to be doing this, but it’s even better to be doing this and sharing it with a family member.

RC: That’s really wonderful. I love the stories behind sibling teams. It’s very rare, but when it works, it seems to be almost magic.

RC: You won the ICM Duo of the Year of 2009 – taking that back to how you were raised, please tell us how faith played a role in your upbringing and what role, if any, it plays in your lives today.

ER: For me, my faith gets me through every day of my life, more so now as I mature and grow older. You know, we were brought up in church. We went to church every Sunday. Mom and dad are very religious people, and they passed that faith on to us.

Many, many days I lean on my faith, and I’d never be able to get through those days without it. Really, again, another blessing that our parents have given to us is prayer. Every day I pray for direction, for signs, for guidance. If I feel lost or don’t know where I’m going, there it is. God gives me little signs that I’m on the right path, to continue. So, definitely. I lean on my faith every day. I also feel very, very blessed that we’ve been able to do all the things that we’ve done in our life. I hope I’m a better person for it.

RC: You were playing music with each other as children. When did it look like your career was going to be together rather than just a family fellowship activity?

LR: I don’t really remember, because, we just always played together. There was a brief period when I played in a bluegrass band and she played in a country band, maybe for only a year or a year and a half. But even during that time, if we ever played for something at church, or for the family, or even for some community “gong” shows, it was together. I guess it just became a thing where I said, like, “You know, I really want to do this.” And she said, “You know what. I really want to do this, too.” So, we just started, but I’m not exactly sure the moment we were “professional.”

Stars of Tomorrow Contest

I do remember being in something like a “Stars of Tomorrow” contest in New England, and we came in runner-up, and there was an executive from RCA, one of the judges, who told us, “You guys are really good. You should really consider this [as your profession].” And I remember that kind of opened that door in our minds that we should really go out and try to book a few shows and really do this as an act.

But for me, I kind of always knew that this is what I wanted to do, and I probably just assumed that it would always be us performing together.

RC: When’s the first time that you got paid for performing as a sister / brother act?

ER: Laughs

It was probably a place called The Country Lodge, it was around November, sometime in the late 80’s. They hired us, and we were paid. I was still in high school, actually.

ER: Like a professional gig.

RC: What did your parents do for a living?

Coggshall Park, Fitchburg, MA
(photo by Marc N. Belanger)

ER: Mom was a stay at home mom. When we moved from Fitchburg, MA to New Brunswick, Canada, my dad bought a little general store. He started working there, and then later on he went to work for a gas company, as an executive.

LR: Yeah, there was a gas company in Canada called “Metro Gasoline,”

and it was like a BP type chain. He was an exec. He’d go around and look at locations to open new stores or buy stores.

RC: Did you ever work for him at the general store?

ER + LR: No, but we sure ate all the candy! [Both laugh]

RC: [Laughs] Good answer!

LR: In the basement he had a cold storage room where he’d store all the sodas and the, the …

ER: Chocolate bars! Ha!

LR: … and the chocolate bars, and …

ER: Chips!

LR: Yeah, chips, and we’d go down there and …

RC: Was he aware that you were eating all the candy?

LR: We’d eat a lot of candy and drink the soft drinks, and he’d go, “I thought I had more Pepsi than that laying around.” But, he’d find all the empty cans.

RC: I guess you were probably too young then to get to work for your dad at the store, anyway.

LR: Yeah, I was about 7 or 8 at the time, maybe 9 before he left that.

RC: Did you get to work with an uncle or aunt? Are there any other family members that you want to highlight as being a part of your growing up experience?

LR: I did. I worked for my father’s brother, Uncle Ronnie, Ron Roy. I worked for him for a couple of different times, during high school, and again in the mid-nineties. I had gone back home for awhile. He’s in Massachusetts. He owned a construction company, and I did all kinds of work for him.

RC: Do you feel that time was “formative” for you, or that it had any special significance?

LR: It was. It was about the only moment in my life when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do music. We’d been trying for so long without much happening, and I began to have doubts. You start thinking, “What am I doing?! I’m married. I have a kid. I need to build a future for my family.” Going to work for him really made me miss the music, miss performing.

And, Uncle Ronnie even told us that. We’d still play sometime on the side, and he’d come to hear us. After coming to see us or hearing one of the songs I’d written, he said, a couple of times, “What are you doing?! Why are you banging nails all day? You need to be doing your music.” It made me realize, that I really did want to do this.

RC: So you really love that guy a lot.

LR: Oh, I do. He always has been very special to me. He’s one of the ones that still comes by every time we play at home. He’s a very gentle man, and just a really nice guy, who would give the shirt of his back for anybody.

RC: Who else can you guys remember who helped you become who you are, who you appreciate?

ER: For me, absolutely. My dad had a Gibson guitar that he’d bought from somebody, and always kept it at the house. He never learned how to play the guitar himself, but every time someone came over who knew how to play the guitar, he’d say, “Hold on! I have a guitar,” and they would play it. I remember looking at that guitar and thinking, I want to learn how to play that thing.

I had a teacher when we lived in Canada. Her name was Nancy Grant. A lot of the kids in our school were musical – there was a lot of music in the little town we came from in Canada. Everybody played something. Ms. Grant said, if I can get just 5 or 6 students, I really think that you guys are so talented, and I could teach you how to play guitar. She had a nylon string guitar, which was so cool. It’s so different from what I play today. She said, “If you have instruments, ya’ll bring them, and I’ll show you how to play guitar.” So, that’s how I learned to play guitar. She showed us the major chords, a few bar notes, and Lee will say he doesn’t remember this, but later, I taught him how to play guitar.

LR: Elaine taught me how to do like ‘D’, ‘G’, and ‘A’.

ER: The major things

LR: … and I kind of took off from there, and … For me, if I heard something on the radio that I really liked, if I got the CD, I would sit down and just learn those parts, learn how to play. I pretty much self-taught myself.

Uncle Alias, Uncle Joe, and Elaine

Of course, our grandmother was a big influence, but for me, there were at least two big influences in my life, musically, from our family. I credit both of them equally for giving me the drive to do this. My mom’s brothers, Joe Leblanc and Alias “Al” Leblanc … our Uncle Al is no longer with us, but Joe played the fiddle and Al played the guitar. Both of those guys really pushed me. Sometimes, they would literally tell me, “You have so much talent. You need to do this.” I’d go, ah nah, and I’d only half heartedly learn something, like one of the old Acadian tunes. They would really push me saying, “You’re missing notes. You’re takin’ the easy way.” They would really push me to make sure that I was as good as I could be, and they are a huge reason that I’m standing here today playing music.

RC: That’s wonderful. You keep mentioning grandma. Tell me a little bit more about her.

ER: Her name was Suzanne Leblanc.

Grandma Suzanne LeBlanc with her Fiddle

[ At this point, having noticed that Lee and Elaine had pronounced Leblanc as “Lablank,” I interrupted and mentioned that I was surprised that they didn’t pronounce it “Le-blaughn-kh,” since they have French Canadian heritage. ]

ER: Oh yes. We can say it in French as well. We do speak fluent French. Our parents are French. Both sides are French. When we went to school in Canada, it was in French. We had to learn everything in French.

RC: Again, another big blessing from your upbringing – being bilingual.

LR: One really cool thing that keeps the memory of our grandmother alive is that we both still have our grandmother’s fiddle. We still have the fiddle that we grew up listening to.

RC: Wow. Your family is such a force behind you, and is clearly still living in and through you as you do your art and work.

RC: I’ve had you now for thirty minutes. I’ll send you the transcript, and get some pictures and any additional thoughts back from you after you read our initial conversation. Then we’ll get something out that really honors you and your family. Thank you so much.

LR + ER: Thank you, Mike. We’ll talk to you very soon.

RC: God bless.

This post was submitted by Lee and Elaine Roy.