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By Root 406 0

sometimes, maybe a miner from one of the coal camps who had a calling to preach on Sundays. Sometimes a preacher would be waving his hands during the sermon and you’d see he had fingers missing, from some mining accident. Our regular preacher was named Elzie Banks, and I still see him when I go back home. We never had to pass the hat for Elzie—he preached ’cause he loved it. He could make that old building rock when he’d preach—holding one hand over his ear and shaking his other hand at the devil. I wrote about the old building in one of my hymns, “That’s Where I Learned to Pray.”

They don’t hold school in that building anymore—the kids go down to Van Lear. But whenever I get home, I sneak through an open window and find my old blackboard. Then I take a piece of chalk and write:

“LORETTA LYNN WAS HERE.”

6

The Pie Social

I like my loving done country style,

And this little girl would walk a country mile,

To find me a good old slow-talking country boy.…

—“You’re Looking at Country,” by Loretta Lynn

It was at that little school that I met my husband. I was just a little kid from Butcher Holler, didn’t know nothing, and he was a grown man who already fought in World War II and worked in coal mines and traveled across the country.

That’s why I get mad when people make remarks about my husband. If it wasn’t for Doolittle, there would be no career. I wouldn’t have started singing in the first place, and I wouldn’t have had the inspiration for some of my best songs, in the second place. And I never could have run my business. So in a real sense, Doolittle is responsible for everything we’ve got. Let’s get that straight right away.

Some people make jokes that he’s called “Doolittle” because they think he doesn’t do much. Actually, he got that nickname when he was just a baby around two years old. Nobody knows why—maybe because he was always a little feller. Today most people know him as “Mooney” because that’s the nickname he picked up in Washington, like I told you, when they found out he used to run moonshine. But back home in Johnson County, everybody calls him “Doolittle,” and I call him “Doo” for short.

Some people in Nashville like to make fun of Mooney Lynn. They see him wearing his old cowboy hat to town, even when we go out to dinner. Somebody once looked inside his hat and saw he wrote, “Like hell it’s yours.” But that’s Doolittle: he fights for what’s his, and he’s smart.

In most ways, Doo has been a good husband. He’s worked hard all his life to get things for me and the kids. I don’t want to say he’s never fooled around, or gotten drunk, or whipped me into line a little, because that ain’t the truth. There were plenty of bad moments in our marriage, but I’ve always respected my husband’s common sense. When he’s traveling with me, I know things are going to work more smoothly because Doo is there, supervising things. I feel safe when he’s around.

There was a time in Boston a few years ago when three kids threw whiskey bottles at our bus, which was brand new at the time. Jim Webb, who’s our driver, and some of the boys wanted to wipe them out. But Doolittle got up and said, “Boys, get back in the bus. We’ve got to stay overnight in this town tonight, and we don’t want a riot.” It was good he did that, or my boys might have really started something.

Of course, Doolittle ain’t afraid of a fight himself. One time we were in Holland, in Europe, doing a show, and he walked out to get something to eat. There was this restaurant way down at the end of a long pier. Doo got sandwiches in a sack and was carrying them back. He was wearing his cowboy hat, which he always wears—it wouldn’t be him without it—and there was this German guy walking right behind him saying “Hey, Cowboy.” Maybe they were the only words he knew in English. Now Doo didn’t bother with him for a long time, but the guy kept saying “Hey, Cowboy,” real irritating like, and brushing up against Doo. Well, Doo told him to stop but he didn’t. Doo had enough of talking, so he transferred that sack to his left hand and came up with one punch