Them cotton-pickin' cliches

I'm reading a book called "Memories" by Lockie Victoria and L.V. Jones. It was compiled and edited by their great grandson/grandson and my friend, Jim Purvis,. It relates his stories from their lives growing up in rural Tennessee.

It's quite interesting to see how people lived and looked at things only one hundred years ago. Life was quite different. No cars, a first, no radio, no phones, and . . . no wireless broadband internet connection. The family once attempted drive (with mules and wagon) to Missouri to visit relatives. They had to turn back and go home because the mules wouldn't get on the ferry across the Mississippi. And this was an all day a fair on bumpy dirt roads.

Here is a humorous angle on it. L.V. Jones says "As time went by I got use to all of this cotton-picking stuff." and she is actually talking about picking cotton. I guess I've only been exposed to people using cotton-picking as a cliche, and then probably only on The Beverly Hillbillies.