Staff Report

Have you ever walked barefoot to a oneroom school or attended a school pie supper where coal oil lamps cast the shadows of young ladies onto a sheet—and eager young men went broke bidding for the chance to share her pie?

A new memoir by Coffee County resident Paul McCarty offers a firsthand account of these and many other true-life experiences from growing up on a small subsistence farm in central Kentucky during the 1940s and 1950s.

McCarty recounts daily life on the farm— tending tobacco, caring for livestock, making toys from whatever was available, beingrolleddownhillinside an old tire, and swimming in shallow, muddy creeks.

The arrival of the Sears & Roebuck catalog—often called the “Wish Book”— was sometimes more exciting than Christmas.

The memoir also highlights wartime rationing and how deeply it affected everyday life in rural communities, often in ways not widely remembered today.

The book takes readers back to a time before electricity and modern conveniences reached many farm homes. Children worked alongside their parents from an early age, Burley tobacco was the primary cash crop, and local stores extended credit on trust until the tobacco was sold. Doctors still made house calls, and home remedies included spoonfuls of kerosene mixedwithsugar,generous coatings of Vick’s salve, and doses of castor oil.

McCarty recounts daily life on the farm— tending tobacco, caring for livestock, making toys from whatever was available, beingrolleddownhillinside an old tire, and swimming in shallow, muddy creeks.

The arrival of the Sears & Roebuck catalog—often called the “Wish Book”— was sometimes more exciting than Christmas.

The memoir also highlights wartime rationing and how deeply it affected everyday life in rural communities, often in ways not widely remembered today.

After leaving farm life, McCarty earned an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky andspentmostofhiscareer at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) supporting the development of military and NASA air and space systems, beginning with themoonlandingprogram. He retired in 2002 as Jacob’s Deputy General Manager for the AEDC technical facilities. He later served as a consultant supporting operations and maintenance programs at many of the NASA Space Centers, including Kennedy, Houston, and Stennis.

In recognition of his contributions, McCarty was named a Fellow of AEDC and selected as an Outstanding Alumnus of Hardin County, Kentucky.

McCarty and his wife, Faye, live in Beechgrove. Their son, Glenn, lives in Murfreesboro, and their daughter, Sandra, resides in Louisville.

His memoir, Kentucky’s Last Barefoot Generation: Living off the Grid for Real, is available on Amazon.