Quotes by John Grammer

“Ive been a member of the Kentucky Thumb Pickers Hall of Fame for some time now,”

“A bunch of us who are members get together every year at Eddie Penningtons Campground, in Crofton, Kentucky. We call it the Goat Ropin Festival. It began 10 years ago on my 70th birthday, and this year they plan to celebrate my turning eighty. Ive been blessed with good friends.”

“I had excellent daytime vision and was in great physical condition, having played varsity football at Valier High School, ... Things went along just fine until one day during my training. I accidentally bumped into a second lieutenant, which was not the thing to do.”

“All my friends were in the Army. Everyone wanted to do their part, and I had thought I could pull it off without anyone realizing I had a problem seeing in the dark, ... but it wasnt meant to be.”

“Ruth did an excellent job bringing up our kids. I say that because she did the lions share of raising them. They were all great kids, never sassed us, and theyve turned out real good. I sometimes joke that its a good thing we didnt have a fourth child or that one might have been a maverick,”

“He was this big kid, ... who didnt show up on time, which really frustrated Jimmy. He asked me if I would be willing to play on the show, because he was letting Clark go. Years earlier, I had helped Jimmy get into a USO tour I was doing with Connie B. Gay, a disc jockey friend of mine at WARL radio out of Arlington, Va.”

“Franklin County as a whole is really my home, ... I was born in Benton and attended grade schools in Benton, Rend City, and up at the old Mt. Pleasant school house. When I went to school in Rend City it was a bustling little mining town. My grandfather, Herman Bradford was a hoisting engineer at the mine there until the mine closed.”

“We never went hungry, and we never had bills. In fact, we always paid cash for everything except a car or two through the years. You have to understand that during those first years of our marriage, my radio appearances meant a week to week pay for us. We got by just fine, and then when I got on CBSs Jimmy Dean Show, the real money started coming in. That good fortune was followed by hit records and concerts, so we always had plenty, but the key was that we always lived within our means and Ruth was an excellent money manager,”

“I went to high school in Sesser, in Royalton, and then graduated from Valier. My dad was a miner, and we lived wherever he was working. That meant a lot of moving. Thats why I dont feel like I am from any one town; just call me a Franklin County native. In fact, I joke and say sometimes that both Benton and Sesser claim me -- Benton claims that Im from Sesser, and Sesser claims that Im from Benton,”

“Ruth and I knew we would come back to live here some day, ... When my eyes got too bad for me to drive in 1988, and my not being able to see made it harder to perform on a regular basis, we decided it was time to come home. I pulled in my horns and we moved up here because of my eye condition. I didnt exactly retire; Im still a member of the Opry and still do an occasional concert now and then.”