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Leatherwood, Kentucky, 1964. "Cornett boys smoking by car." No after-school soccer for these lads. Print from a 35mm negative by William Gedney. Gedney Photographs and Writings Collection, Duke University. View full size.
How about a River Phoenix vibe ("Stand by Me") off the kid on the right?
I can see Kevin Bacon in him, but to me he looks more like Donald Sutherland.
Anybody else get a Kevin Bacon vibe off the kid on the left?
The kid on the left holds himself with an adult swagger. No doubt that the only kids that would have picked-on these two would have been older siblings.
from that era MUST be a pair of huaraches. Sure you remember them.
Whoever came up with the "smoking makes you look COOL" line HAS to have seen this shot
I can remember driving to the middle of Missouri back in 1970 or 1971 to visit some cousins of mine. Dirt roads and outhouses were just a part of life as they knew it.
I think I was 5 or 6 when my 11 year old cousin first offered me a drag off of a Winston. The setting was oh so similar to the one in this photo.
I really like these snapshots of the Cornetts. Every picture tells a story! I knew these were Cornett boys before I ever read the caption.
On a side note, when the country cousins came to KC for a visit, they were awestruck by the inner-city surroundings. They had never seen so many people in one place before.
Willie and Vivian Cornett eventually had 13 children, 11 of whom were still living when Willie died in Keavy, Kentucky on May 8 of this year at age 84. Vivian died at 66 on September 16, 1994. I can't find the date of Glenn's death, but it preceded that of his brother Billy in Buna, Texas, on October 11, 2005 at age 44.
This Cornett bloodline will go on for many years. In addition to 6 sons and 5 daughters, Willie left 42 grandchildren, 66 great-grandchildren and 9 great-great grandchildren.
Wow! That looks like me back in the late 1950s except my father worked for a local laundry, and I would have had on clean clothes. I did break the habit though.
Don't you know kids know smoking will "stunt your growth!!"
A wife beater with sandals? How gauche!
I would have thought these were the coolest kids ever when I was coming up.
This picture is so me and my buddy back about the same era. Hope the boys were able to quit the cigs before it killed them.
The boys of this hardened family were formerly identified as "Chevy Men" in a previous Shorpy post by Dave.
[True. But that photo was from eight years later, in 1972. -Dave]
... because I thought it was tterrace, in a little-known chapter of his teenage years.
Does this take me back?! That was my car at about that age (15); a '55 Ford Fairlane four door sedan, with a "three-on-the-tree" gearshift. It was a hand-me-down from my granddad. This one even has the rare factory radio with the round dial. I had to buy mine from a junkyard for an astronomical $25. That was a week's wages.
I can also identify with the boy with the healing thumbnail; I've been there! And his shirt collar is turned outside in. We did that too, to save it from "Ring Around the Collar". Well, actually, to save us from Mother's carping!
Good going Dave!
Two young boys emulating the adults of their day.
What would the future hold for them: rural poverty, coal mines, tobacco farming - or perhaps being drafted into the army and fighting in Vietnam?
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