Salt of the Earth...

Cromwell Sluder played an important role in my life. My dad's shop was next door to Sluder's recapping shop; I spent a lot of time in there and also worked for him. I could be found changing tires, patching innertubes, making rubber floor mats from old tires, and what ever else came up. Sluder was adventurous and we were always fooling around with stuff like electric trains and model airplanes. Any time I came in after school or running all day on Saturday the first thing he would say was, "Sonny, you hungry?" He already knew the answer. He would flip me 50 cents and say, "Go clean yourself up and get something to eat." He also got me a job setting pins in the bowling alley next door two nights a week. That was always good for a dollar. We even took a week vacation once and went to Akron and Cleveland and toured all the rubber plants up there. Years later in around 1952, I revisited Hazard and the first place I went was Sluder's place. The first thing he did was to look at my tires. My rubber was fairly new so he looked at the spare, took it out, and recapped it the same day. That's the last time I saw him. Cromwell Sluder was the salt of the earth...

Photo - Sonny Watts, 1945, sitting on one of Cromwell Sluder's tires across the street at the Methodist Church entrance on High Street in Hazard. Sluder likely took this picture.