Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
See.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I have to admit this next interview is a bit
self serving. As I'm going on vacation, I wanted a
good book to be able to take to the beach
and just kind of have fun with and not dive
into a five thousand page novel. And this is the
perfect book. And the author is Alison Ketchem and she
is here at the studio with us. The book is
called You've Been Drinking Muddy Water and Other Southern Tales.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Alison. Good to see welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good to see you too, JT and McKinzie.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I appreciate it. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I want let's dive right into it because there's so
many questions I have about this. You're from Birmingham, your
family's from Birmingham, your parents here and everything, So start.
What have you been doing in your life and your
career that led you to this?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, thank you very much for asking. Most importantly, I'm
a mom. I've got two grown kids. One's a musician
in California and the other one lives here and is successful.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Cool guy.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But I was as far as career goes, I was
a newspaper reporter and editor, and I've done tons of
freelance writing for years, and have had stories in my
head that I felt like I wanted to tell for decades,
and the old expression there aren't that many shopping days
left till Christmas. I felt like it was time to
go ahead and put them down.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You know, it is odd that the conveyor belt of
life moves faster every day you get older.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh my gosh, and it goes faster.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes, the more time that passes, the faster it goes.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So you said, that's it. This is your first book,
and you said, I got to tell the story. So
what what's this book all about?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Okay, it is a collection of short stories. I probably
shouldn't say this. I call it a bathroom reader because,
as you said, you don't have to dive into five
thousand pages. You can sit down, you can read a
chapter at a time. You can put it down, and
the next time you come back you can read it.
I like it, or read it on the beach, read
(01:51):
it wherever you want to. But it's small, bite sized nuggets,
but they're they're nonfiction. They include everything from my father's
wonderful friendship with his best friend that started in the
sixties to a story about me shooting a duck in
the backwoods of Mississippi out of the front seat of
a Toyota to some friends of mine in the seventies,
(02:15):
stealing a goat from the Eternal Word Television Network. Oh, Mother,
Angelica's heard that was out in the yard at the time.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You didn't steal the goat.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
But I did not steal the goat.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
You know the story of who did.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
They brought the goat to my house because they knew
that I loved animals, so and I actually, oddly enough,
I went to a Memorial Day party and I ended
up sitting next to the CFO of the Mother or whatever,
the ewt N Internal Word Television Network, which is in Irondale.
(02:52):
And he was looking at my book and I said,
there's a chapter in there that involves your organization. And
he got to kick out of it. He said, I'm
going to buy some of these and give them to
the Fryars because they will think that's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
That is good stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, I'm looking at some of these chapters here and
killing snakes, riding shotgun and shooting ducks. He went to
the back of the bus anyway, he be and geb
and then there's one uncle Bill. I had an uncle Bill.
My mom is from Huntsville. She had relatives in Tennessee,
and I mean country relatives, like go down the lane
(03:29):
to uncle Bill's house. And this is why I first
learned how to you know, snipe hunt? And you've been snipehunt?
No of it?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I'm going to tell you about it when we're done.
But if you've never been snipehun you gotta go.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's not a real thing. Is that snipes aren't real things?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yes, they're birds. They're old, tiny birds.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Are they really?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah? And you catch them at night?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Because I'm lifting my feet, I'm believe this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Anyway, So tell me about and uncle Bill lived down
this lane. And I loved Uncle Billy. He was a
cousin of my mom's. But uncle Bill was He's just
one of those country guys you just loved. He knew
how to, you know, cure a ham in a barn.
He knew how to you know, roll tobacco from the
field that he's brought in and hung it.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Oh my god, my kind of people. That are the
people that the stories should be about.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Telling me about your uncle Bill, Thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I could tear up talking about my uncle Bill. He
was my mama's brother. He passed away several years ago.
My parents, my mom, and my uncle Bill grew up
in Albany, Georgia, which is way south and which is
a place that breeds people that talk like this, and
Uncle Bill both talk like this. Yeah, I'll never forget
(04:39):
one time Mama saying, Annie, hand me those silzles, and
I said those What I mean? She was my mom
and I didn't even know what she was saying. She
was saying scissors.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Anyway, Uncle Bill was saw to the earth. He served
in the Army. He heard the opening shots of the
Battle of the Bulch. He ended on Omaha Beach the
Normandy invasion on day two, even though it was day two,
though it was still very, very brutal. He fortunately was
(05:11):
not injured. He came home, He got married, he raised
a family. In his later years, he wrote country music
and was just saw to the earth, just a wonderful,
wonderful man. And so I just wrote about him, and
I wrote about actually his funeral and about how my
kids and then his grandkids held the caske get.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, your mom's accent sounds like my aunt May. She
used to talk like that all the time. And she
lived in Gurley, Alabama, up there in North Alabama. So
of all these stories, what was your funniest one or
the one that you really loved telling and talking about?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, thank you for asking. Actually, the one that I've
gotten the most feedback on is killing snakes. That was
an expression, I guess you'd call an expression that my
dad used when we would head to the beach when
I was a child back in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Daddy would usually be.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Drinking beer, Mama would usually be driving, and Daddy would
say to Mama over and over again, Nancy, I need
you to pull over. I need to kill a snake.
And he'd take off into the woods off the side
of the road and he'd come back and we would
all be like, wow, Daddy killed a snake. I mean,
this went on and on and on. He brought back
(06:27):
a prop one time, a long stick and said I
just killed one with this, and my parents let me
take that stick to show and till the next day
when we got back to Birmingham. As it turns out,
Daddy was actually going into the woods to peek, yeah,
draining a snake.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, I was about to ask, is that his therapeutic outlet.
That's good. Well, I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I've got something I can really look forward to at
the beach as we're going down tomorrow for the next
week or so.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And I'm jealous too. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Well, yeah, y'all heard you talking about it earlier.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I'm really excited about it. And Allison, I guess it's
a pleasure meeting you. And I know you listened to
the station and my show and everything, and when you
reached out and said, hey, listen, I've got a new book.
I hear you talking to authors sometimes. Would you be interested?
And I said, heck, yeah, anything named You've been drinking
Muddy Water and other Southern tales is I've got to know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
More about it. Hey, JT, can I ask one more thing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
One of my favorite stories in the book is about
my dad and his best friend. My dad was white,
his best friend was black. They met in the sixties.
They were fast friends. The rest of.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Their lives is that best friends.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That yes, best friends.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I would love to write another book. Even though we
had horrible racial problems in the sixties in Birmingham. Theirs
was a wonderful story. Yeah, I would love to write
another book that is a collection of wonderful things that
happened between the races in the sixties. Can I give
out my email address? One's got a story share?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yes, it is very easy.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's Allison with one L A L I s O
N Large l A R G E ketchum k E
T c h A M large is my maiden name,
Alison Large Ketchem at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And if you forget that email address, you can go
to our radio station w e r C FM dot
com the website there and send an email through that
and it'll come to me and I'll pass them along
to you. But stories of good things during the sixties awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yes, yes, and my book is available on Amazon. I
heard you talk about the Amazon Prime dayance next week.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's right.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Pick up a couple for your family and some gifts
to give away. This looks like fun. Well, pleasure to
meet you.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Thank you, j T. I've enjoyed it. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Thank you y'all too happy.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
For you've been drinking Muddy Water and other Southern tales.
Alison Ketcham very much.
See.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I have to admit this next interview is a bit
self serving. As I'm going on vacation, I wanted a
good book to be able to take to the beach
and just kind of have fun with and not dive
into a five thousand page novel. And this is the
perfect book. And the author is Alison Ketchem and she
is here at the studio with us. The book is
called You've Been Drinking Muddy Water and Other Southern Tales.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Alison. Good to see welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good to see you too, JT and McKinzie.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I appreciate it. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I want let's dive right into it because there's so
many questions I have about this. You're from Birmingham, your
family's from Birmingham, your parents here and everything, So start.
What have you been doing in your life and your
career that led you to this?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, thank you very much for asking. Most importantly, I'm
a mom. I've got two grown kids. One's a musician
in California and the other one lives here and is successful.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Cool guy.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But I was as far as career goes, I was
a newspaper reporter and editor, and I've done tons of
freelance writing for years, and have had stories in my
head that I felt like I wanted to tell for decades,
and the old expression there aren't that many shopping days
left till Christmas. I felt like it was time to
go ahead and put them down.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You know, it is odd that the conveyor belt of
life moves faster every day you get older.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh my gosh, and it goes faster.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes, the more time that passes, the faster it goes.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So you said, that's it. This is your first book,
and you said, I got to tell the story. So
what what's this book all about?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Okay, it is a collection of short stories. I probably
shouldn't say this. I call it a bathroom reader because,
as you said, you don't have to dive into five
thousand pages. You can sit down, you can read a
chapter at a time. You can put it down, and
the next time you come back you can read it.
I like it, or read it on the beach, read
(01:51):
it wherever you want to. But it's small, bite sized nuggets,
but they're they're nonfiction. They include everything from my father's
wonderful friendship with his best friend that started in the
sixties to a story about me shooting a duck in
the backwoods of Mississippi out of the front seat of
a Toyota to some friends of mine in the seventies,
(02:15):
stealing a goat from the Eternal Word Television Network. Oh, Mother,
Angelica's heard that was out in the yard at the time.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You didn't steal the goat.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
But I did not steal the goat.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
You know the story of who did.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
They brought the goat to my house because they knew
that I loved animals, so and I actually, oddly enough,
I went to a Memorial Day party and I ended
up sitting next to the CFO of the Mother or whatever,
the ewt N Internal Word Television Network, which is in Irondale.
(02:52):
And he was looking at my book and I said,
there's a chapter in there that involves your organization. And
he got to kick out of it. He said, I'm
going to buy some of these and give them to
the Fryars because they will think that's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
That is good stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, I'm looking at some of these chapters here and
killing snakes, riding shotgun and shooting ducks. He went to
the back of the bus anyway, he be and geb
and then there's one uncle Bill. I had an uncle Bill.
My mom is from Huntsville. She had relatives in Tennessee,
and I mean country relatives, like go down the lane
(03:29):
to uncle Bill's house. And this is why I first
learned how to you know, snipe hunt? And you've been snipehunt?
No of it?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I'm going to tell you about it when we're done.
But if you've never been snipehun you gotta go.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's not a real thing. Is that snipes aren't real things?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yes, they're birds. They're old, tiny birds.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Are they really?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah? And you catch them at night?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Because I'm lifting my feet, I'm believe this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Anyway, So tell me about and uncle Bill lived down
this lane. And I loved Uncle Billy. He was a
cousin of my mom's. But uncle Bill was He's just
one of those country guys you just loved. He knew
how to, you know, cure a ham in a barn.
He knew how to you know, roll tobacco from the
field that he's brought in and hung it.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Oh my god, my kind of people. That are the
people that the stories should be about.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Telling me about your uncle Bill, Thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I could tear up talking about my uncle Bill. He
was my mama's brother. He passed away several years ago.
My parents, my mom, and my uncle Bill grew up
in Albany, Georgia, which is way south and which is
a place that breeds people that talk like this, and
Uncle Bill both talk like this. Yeah, I'll never forget
(04:39):
one time Mama saying, Annie, hand me those silzles, and
I said those What I mean? She was my mom
and I didn't even know what she was saying. She
was saying scissors.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Anyway, Uncle Bill was saw to the earth. He served
in the Army. He heard the opening shots of the
Battle of the Bulch. He ended on Omaha Beach the
Normandy invasion on day two, even though it was day two,
though it was still very, very brutal. He fortunately was
(05:11):
not injured. He came home, He got married, he raised
a family. In his later years, he wrote country music
and was just saw to the earth, just a wonderful,
wonderful man. And so I just wrote about him, and
I wrote about actually his funeral and about how my
kids and then his grandkids held the caske get.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, your mom's accent sounds like my aunt May. She
used to talk like that all the time. And she
lived in Gurley, Alabama, up there in North Alabama. So
of all these stories, what was your funniest one or
the one that you really loved telling and talking about?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, thank you for asking. Actually, the one that I've
gotten the most feedback on is killing snakes. That was
an expression, I guess you'd call an expression that my
dad used when we would head to the beach when
I was a child back in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Daddy would usually be.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Drinking beer, Mama would usually be driving, and Daddy would
say to Mama over and over again, Nancy, I need
you to pull over. I need to kill a snake.
And he'd take off into the woods off the side
of the road and he'd come back and we would
all be like, wow, Daddy killed a snake. I mean,
this went on and on and on. He brought back
(06:27):
a prop one time, a long stick and said I
just killed one with this, and my parents let me
take that stick to show and till the next day
when we got back to Birmingham. As it turns out,
Daddy was actually going into the woods to peek, yeah,
draining a snake.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, I was about to ask, is that his therapeutic outlet.
That's good. Well, I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I've got something I can really look forward to at
the beach as we're going down tomorrow for the next
week or so.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And I'm jealous too. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Well, yeah, y'all heard you talking about it earlier.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I'm really excited about it. And Allison, I guess it's
a pleasure meeting you. And I know you listened to
the station and my show and everything, and when you
reached out and said, hey, listen, I've got a new book.
I hear you talking to authors sometimes. Would you be interested?
And I said, heck, yeah, anything named You've been drinking
Muddy Water and other Southern tales is I've got to know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
More about it. Hey, JT, can I ask one more thing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
One of my favorite stories in the book is about
my dad and his best friend. My dad was white,
his best friend was black. They met in the sixties.
They were fast friends. The rest of.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Their lives is that best friends.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That yes, best friends.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I would love to write another book. Even though we
had horrible racial problems in the sixties in Birmingham. Theirs
was a wonderful story. Yeah, I would love to write
another book that is a collection of wonderful things that
happened between the races in the sixties. Can I give
out my email address? One's got a story share?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yes, it is very easy.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's Allison with one L A L I s O
N Large l A R G E ketchum k E
T c h A M large is my maiden name,
Alison Large Ketchem at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And if you forget that email address, you can go
to our radio station w e r C FM dot
com the website there and send an email through that
and it'll come to me and I'll pass them along
to you. But stories of good things during the sixties awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yes, yes, and my book is available on Amazon. I
heard you talk about the Amazon Prime dayance next week.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's right.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Pick up a couple for your family and some gifts
to give away. This looks like fun. Well, pleasure to
meet you.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Thank you, j T. I've enjoyed it. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Thank you y'all too happy.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
For you've been drinking Muddy Water and other Southern tales.
Alison Ketcham very much.
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