Transcripts: Southern Appalachian English

Rhoda McMillon

(McMillon Settlement, Cocke County, Tennessee) was age 92 when interviewed.  She had a fourth-grade education and was a farm housewife.

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I, I guess you people would like to know about the serenades and how young folks got along back seventy years ago and longer.  We had serenades.  They'd make old big rattletraps they'd call them, and they'd have bells and plows and every old noise, and they'd run around the house, and they'd have awful times, and [if] they'd, they couldn't get in, why they'd just keep right on and whenever they'd get in, they'd go through the house, and my, how, how they'd rattle and, and bang around.

[JSH: Go ahead]

And they would sometimes, some people would let them have a little dance after the serenade, and some wouldn't, but they was always peaceable.  They didn't dance in them times like they do now when they just two get up on the floor and dance together.
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I don't, I guess that's about all of the serenading that I used to ever know anything about.